Taltos (Lives of the Mayfair Witches 3)

"But those witches, they are not your friends."

"So you keep saying."

"I know they are not. I know their curiosity and awe will soon change to fear. Ash, it's an old cliche, they're only human."

Ash bowed his head and looked away, out the window at the blowing snow, at shoulders hunkered against the wind.

"Ashlar, I know," Samuel said, "because I am an outcast. And you are an outcast. And look out there at the multitudes of humans passing on the street, and think how each one condemns so many others as outcast, as 'other,' as not human. We are monsters, my friend. That's what we'll always be. It's their day. That we're alive at all is enough to worry about." He downed the rest of the drink.

"And so you go home to your friends in the glen."

"I hate them, and you know it. But the glen we won't have for long. I go back for sentimental reasons. Oh, it's not just the Talamasca, and that sixteen genteel scholars will come with tape recorders, begging me to recite all I know over lunch at the Inn. It's all those archaeologists digging up St. Ashlar's Cathedral. The modern world has found the place. And why? Because of your damned witches."

"You can't lay that on me or on them, and you know it."

"Eventually we'll have to find some more remote place, some other curse or legend to protect us. But they're not my friends, don't think they are. They don't."

Ash only nodded.

Food had come, a large salad for the little man, the pasta for Ash. The wine was being poured in the glasses. It smelled like something gone utterly wrong.

"I'm too drunk to eat," Samuel said.

"I understand if you go," Ash said softly. "That is, if you're bound to go, then perhaps you should do it."

They sat in silence for a moment. Then the little man lifted his fork and began to devour the salad, shoveling it into his mouth, as bits and pieces fell to the plate despite his most diligent efforts. Loudly he scraped up every last bit of olive, cheese, and lettuce on the plate, and then drank a big gulp of the mineral water.

"Now I can drink some more," he said.

Ash made a sound that would have been a laugh if he had not been so sad.

Samuel slid off the chair and onto his feet. He picked up the leather portmanteau. He sauntered over to Ash, and crooked his arm around Ash's neck. Ash kissed his cheek quickly, faintly repelled by the leathery texture of the skin, but determined at all costs to hide it.

"Will you come back soon?" Ash asked.

"No. But we'll see each other," said Samuel. "Take care of my dog. His feelings are hurt very easily."

"I'll remember that."

"And pitch yourself into your work!"

"Anything else?"

"I love you."

And with that Samuel pushed and swaggered his way through the press of those being seated and those rising to go, and all the backs and elbows clumped against him. He went out the front door and along the front window. The snow was already catching in his hair and on his bushy eyebrows, and making dark wet spots on his shoulders.

He lifted his hand in farewell, and then he passed out of the frame, and the crowd became the crowd again.

Ash lifted the glass of milk and slowly drank all of it. Then he put some bills beneath his plate, stared at the food as if telling it goodbye, and went out himself, walking into the wind on Seventh Avenue.

When he reached his bedroom high above the streets, Remmick was waiting for him.

"You're cold, sir, much too cold."

"Am I?" Ash murmured. Patiently he let Remmick take away the silk blazer and the outrageous scarf. He put on the flannel smoking jacket of satin-lined wool, and taking the towel Remmick gave to him, he wiped the dampness from his hair and his face.

"Sit down, sir, let me take off your wet shoes."

"If you say so." The chair felt so soft, he could not imagine climbing out of it later on to go to bed. And all the rooms are empty. Rowan and Michael are gone. We will not be walking downtown tonight, talking eagerly together.

"Your friends arrived safely in New Orleans, sir," Remmick said, peeling off the wet socks, and then quickly putting on fresh dry socks so deftly that his fingers barely grazed Ash's flesh. "The call came right after you left for dinner. The plane is on its way back. It should be landing in about twenty minutes."

Ash nodded. The leather slippers were lined with fur. He did not know whether they were old or new. He couldn't remember. Suddenly all the little details seemed to have fled. His mind was horrifyingly empty and still; and he felt the loneliness and the stillness of the rooms completely.

Remmick moved at the closet doors like a ghost.

We hire those who are unobtrusive, Ash thought, and then they can't comfort us; what we tolerate cannot save us.

"Where's the young Leslie, Remmick? Is she about?"

"Yes, sir, with a million questions, it seems. But you look so very tired."

"Send her in. I need to work. I need to have my mind on something."

He walked down the corridor, and into the first of his offices, the private office, the one where papers were stacked here and there, and a file cabinet stood open, the one no one was allowed to clean, the one that was insufferably cluttered.

Leslie appeared within seconds, face brimming with excitement, dedication, devotion, and inexhaustible energy. "Mr. Ash, there's the International Doll Expo next week, and a woman from Japan just called, said you definitely wanted to see her work, you told her so yourself last time you were in Tokyo, and there were about twenty different appointments missed while you were gone, I've got the entire list...."

"Sit down, then, and we'll get to it."

He took his position behind the desk, making a small note that the clock said 6:45 p.m., and that he would not look at it, not even steal a glance, until he was certain that the time would be past midnight.

"Leslie, put all that aside. Here are some ideas. I want you to number them. The order is not important. What's important is that you give me the whole list every day, without fail, with notes on the progress we've made regarding each and every idea, and a large mark of 'no progress' on those I allow to remain inactive."

"Yes, sir."

"Singing dolls. Perfect first a quartet, four dolls that sing in harmony."

"Oh, that's a wonderful idea, Mr. Ash."

"Prototypes should reflect some aim at being cost-effective; however, that is not the most important point. The dolls must sound good and sing even after they are hurled to the floor."

"Yes, sir ... 'hurled to the floor.' "

"And a tower museum. I wa

nt a list of the top twenty-five available penthouses in midtown, purchase price, lease price, every pertinent detail. I want a museum in the sky so that people can go out and look at the view on a glass-enclosed gallery...."

"And what will the museum hold, sir, dolls?"

"Dolls on a certain theme. The exact same assignment is to be given to two thousand doll artists. Make your interpretation in three connected figures of the Family of Humankind. No, four figures. One can be a child. Yes, the description will be exact, I need to be reminded.... For now, get the best building."

"Yes, sir, got it, yes," she said, engraving her pad with the fine-point pen.

"And on the singing dolls, everyone should be advised that eventually there will be an entire choir. A child or a doll collector could conceivably over the years acquire the entire choir, or chorus, or whatever name is best, you know, you follow me?"

"Yes, sir ..."

"And I don't want to see any mechanical plans; this is electronic, computer chip, state of the art, and there should be ... there should be some way for the voice of one doll to work some responsive change in the voice of another. But those are details. Write it up...."

"Materials, sir? Porcelain?"

"No, not porcelain. Never. I don't want them to break. Remember, they should not break, ever."

"Sorry, sir."

"And I'll design the faces. I need pictures, pictures from all over, I want everyone's work. If there is an old woman in a village in the Pyrenees making dolls, I want to see pictures. And India, why do we have no dolls from India? Do you know how often I have asked this question? Why don't I get answers? Write this memo to the vice presidents, to the marketing people, post it! India. Who are the art-doll makers of India? I think I will go to India, yes, find a time for me to go. I'll find the people who are making dolls if no one else has the sense...."

The snow had begun to fall heavily outside, very white near the glass.

All the rest was once again blackness. Tiny random sounds came from the streets below, or was it from the pipes, or the snow falling on the roof above, or just the glass and steel of the building breathing as inevitably as wood breathes, the building, for all its dozens of stories, swaying ever so slightly in the wind, like a giant tree in the forest?