"God help me," I said. "I have never in my life really prayed to you, except when I felt I was in the memory of that creature in the old Cathedral, standing in his flesh before the window of St. Ashlar. I have learnt how to pray from that one single moment of possession, when I was in him, and he prayed. Now I am trying. I am praying now. What do I do? If I destroy this thing, do I destroy my family?"
I was deep in this prayer when someone tapped me on the shoulder. I looked up to see a young man standing there, dressed neatly in black, with a black silk tie, and looking a little too well-dressed and well-bred to be ordinary. He had beautifully groomed dark hair, and startling eyes, small but very gray and bright.
"Come with me," he said.
"Why, are you the answer to my prayer?"
"No, but I would know what you know. I am from the Talamasca. Do you know who we are?"
Of course I knew these were the Amsterdam scholars. These were the men the old professor had described to me. My ancestor Petyr van Abel had more than likely been one of these.
"Ah, that is true, Julien, you know more than I thought," said the man. "Now come, I would talk with you."
"I'm not so certain," said I. "Why should I?"
At once I felt the air around me stir, grow warm, and suddenly a gust of wind swept through the church, banging the doors, and startling this man so that he looked about him frightened.
"I thought you wanted to know what I know," said I. "You seem afraid now."
"Julien Mayfair, you don't know what you do," he said.
"But you know, I am to suppose?"
The wind grew stronger and banged the doors open, letting in a flood of ugly daylight among the dusty statues and carved wood, the sanctified shadows of the place.
The man backed away. He stared at the faraway altar. I felt the air collecting itself, I felt the wind growing strong, and rolling towards this man. I knew it would strike him one fine blow and then it did. He went sprawling on the marble floor, scrambling quickly to his feet and backing away from me. Blood ran from his nose, down his lips and his chin, and with a fancy handkerchief, he went to blot it.
But the wind wasn't finished. The church was now giving off a low rumble as if the earth beneath it were moving.
The man rushed from the church. He was gone. The wind died down. The air was still, as if nothing had ever happened here. The shadows closed upon the nave. The dusty sun came only through the windows.
I sat down again, and peered once more at the altar.
"Well, spirit?" I said.
Lasher's secret voice spoke to me out of the emptiness and the silence.
"I would not have those scholars near you. I would not have them near my witches."
"But they know you, do they not? They have been to the glen. They know you. My ancestor Petyr van Abel..."
"Yes, yes and yes. I have told you the past is nothing."
"There is no power in knowing it? Then why did you drive the scholar away? Spirit, I must tell you, all this is most suspicious to me."
"For the future, Julien. For the future."
"Ah, and this means that what I have learnt may stop what you see in the future."
"You are old, Julien, you have served me well. You will serve me again. I love you. But I would not have you speak to the men of the Talamasca ever, at any time, nor would I have them trouble Mary Beth or any of my witches."
"But what do they want? What is their interest? The old professor in Edinburgh told me they were antiquarians."
"They are liars. They tell you they are scholars and scholars only. But they harbor a horrid secret, and I know what it is. I would not have them come close to you."
"You know them then as they know you?"
"Yes. They feel an irresistible attraction to mysteries. But they lie. They would use their knowledge for their own ends. Tell them nothing. Remember what I say. They lie. Protect the clan from them."
I nodded. I went out. I went up to my rooms and opened my big book, the book of the clan and of Lasher.
"Spirit, I know not whether you can read these words, whether you are here or not, or whether you have gone to protect your witch. I know none of these things. But this I wonder. If you really feared those scholars, as you say, if you would really shut them out, why in the name of God did you make such a show of power for them?
"Why did you show your undeniable presence and force to that man, as you have seldom ever shown it to others? And he, a scholar who has gone to the Glen of Donnelaith, who knows something of you? Oh, vain childish spirit, I would be rid of you."
I closed the book.
Later in the week, as Mary Beth came back to our rooms in triumphant motherhood, and commenced to buy out every baby shop in London for its lace and trinkets and trash, I went to make my own historical study of this mysterious order.
The Talamasca.
Indeed, this was no easy task. Mentions were fewer than of St. Ashlar, and inquiries among the professors at Cambridge gave me only vague suggestions: antiquarians, collectors, historians.
I knew this could not be the entire picture. I remembered too vividly that gray-eyed young man, and his manner. I remembered too vividly his fear when the wind knocked him down.
At last I discovered the Motherhouse of the place, but it was impossible for me to draw close to it. I came to the entrance to the park. I saw the high windows and chimneys. But the daemon stood between me and it, and said: "Julien, go back, these men are evil. These men will destroy your family. Julien, go back. Julien, you must make a witch with Mary Beth. You have your purpose. I see far and I see ever more clearly."
The battle was simply too much for me. I realized Lasher had let me acquire what little knowledge of the Talamasca I had acquired because it was meaningless. Anything further he would prevent.
All this I wrote in my book. But I was highly suspicious now of this order.
And now let me conclude my tale, let me tell you briefly of those last years, and of one last small bit of knowledge I acquired with which you must be armed now. It is nothing much, only what I think you have come to suspect, that you must trust in n
o one, no one but your own self, to destroy this being, and destroy Lasher you must. Now it is in the flesh. It can be killed; it can be driven out; and where it shall then go, and whence return, who knows but God? But you can put an end to its tyranny here; an end to its horror.
After I returned home, I urged Mary Beth into marriage with Daniel McIntyre, one of my own lovers and a man of great charm, of whom she was fond, yet Lasher egged me on to couple with her. Her first child by Daniel became a willful and grim young girl, Carlotta by name, who was of a strict Catholic mind from the beginning. It was as if the angels claimed Carlotta at birth. I wish they'd taken her straight to heaven. Lasher was ever at me to father a new daughter.
But we were in a new age. The modern age. You cannot imagine the impact of the changes around us. And Mary Beth had been so powerful in her resolve, and so successful, that the great concrete reality of the family seemed everything.
The knowledge of Lasher she kept to herself, and ordered me not to show my books to anyone. Lasher she would make a ghost and legend, and thereby insignificant even among our own, who were shut out now, far and wide, from all secrets.
At last--when she had given birth by Daniel to two children, neither of whom could serve her purposes, for the second, Lionel, was a boy and more unsuitable even than Carlotta--I did what she wanted me to do and what Lasher wanted me to do, and from that union--of an old man and his daughter--was born my beautiful Stella.
Stella was the witch; she saw Lasher. Her gifts were great, yes, but from early girlhood she had a love of fun which outstripped any other passion. She was carefree, wanton, gay, loving to sing and dance. And there were times in my old age when I wondered how in the world she would ever bear the burden of the secrets at all, and whether or not she had been created merely to give me happiness.
Stella, my beautiful Stella. She wore the secrets as if they were light veils she could tear off at will. But she showed no signs of madness, and that was enough for Mary Beth. This was her heiress, this was Lasher's link to the witch who would someday bring him into the world again.
I was so old by the turn of the century!
I still rode my horse up the neutral ground of St. Charles Avenue. At Audubon Park, I would dismount and I would walk with my horse along the lagoon there, and I would look back at the great facades of the universities. All changed, all changed. The whole world changed. No more the pastoral paradise of Riverbend, no more those who would work sorcery with evil spells and candles and chants, no more.