Taltos (Lives of the Mayfair Witches 3)

Silence answered him.

Even in this cold, he was sweating. He felt sweat on his back under his shirt, and around his waist, beneath the leather belt that tightened around his wool pants. He felt the wetness like something greasy and filthy on his forehead.

"Why have I come?" he asked, and this time his voice was small and distant. Then he raised it as loud as he could. "In the hope that you would take my hand again, here, as you did before, and give me solace!" The swollen words, dying away, left him shaken.

What collected in this place was no tender apparition, but the memories of the glen which would never leave him. The battle, the smoke. He heard the cries! He heard her voice again from the very flames:

"... cursed, Ashlar!" The heat and the anger struck his soul as it had struck his eardrums. He felt for a moment the old terror, and the old conviction.

"... may the world around you crumble before your suffering is ended."

Silence.

He had to go back, he had to find the closer passage now. He would fall if he remained here, unable to see, unable to do anything but remember. In a panic, he pivoted and rushed forward, until he did feel the stone walls, harsh and closing in on him.

When at last he saw the stars, he breathed a sigh so deep that the tears threatened to come. He stood still, his hand over his heart, and the sound of the drums rose, perhaps because the wind had again died away, and there was nothing to prevent it from coming closer. A cadence had begun, quick and playful and then slow again, like the drums that beat for an execution.

"No, get away from me!" he whispered. He had to escape from this place. Somehow his fame and fortune had to assist him now to escape. He couldn't be stranded on this high peak, faced with the horror of the drums, with the pipes that now played a distinct and menacing melody. How could he have been so foolish as to come? And the cave lived and breathed just over his shoulder.

Help me. Where were those who obeyed his every command? He had been a fool to separate himself from them and climb to this terrible place alone. His pain was so sharp that he made a soft sound, like a child crying.

Down he went. He didn't care if he stumbled, or if his coat was torn, or if his hair was here and there caught. He ripped it loose and went on, the rocks beneath his feet hurting him but not stopping him.

The drums were louder. He must pass close by. He must hear these pipes and their nasal pulsing song, both ugly and irresistible. No, don't listen. Stop your ears. On down he climbed, and even though he had clamped his hands to his head, he could hear the pipes, and the grim old cadence, slow and monotonous and pounding suddenly as if it came from inside his brain, as if it were emanating from his very bones, as if he were in the midst of it.

He broke into a run, falling once and ripping the fine cloth of his pants, and pitching forward another time to hurt his hands on the rocks and the torn bushes. But on he went, until quite suddenly the drums surrounded him. The pipes surrounded him. The piercing song ensnared him as if in loops of rope, and he turned round and round, unable to escape, and opening his eyes, saw through the thick forest the light of torches.

They did not know he was there. They had not caught his scent or heard him. Perhaps the wind had been on his side, and was with him now. He held to the trunks of two small pines as if they were the bars of a prison, and he looked down into the dark little space in which they played, dancing in their small and ludicrous circle. How clumsy they were. How horrid to him.

The drums and the pipes were a hideous din. He couldn't move. He could only watch as they jumped and pivoted and rocked back and forth, and one small creature, with long, shaggy gray hair, moved into the circle and threw up his small, misshapen arms, calling out above the howl of the music in the ancient tongue:

"O gods, have mercy. Have mercy upon your lost children."

Look, see, he told himself, though the music would not let him articulate these syllables even inside his imagination. Look, see, do not be lost in the song. See what rags they wear now, see the gunbelts over their shoulders. See the pistols in their hands, and now, now they draw their guns to shoot, and tiny flames burst from the barrels! The night cracks with guns! The torches nearly die in the wind, then bloom again like ghastly flowers.

He could smell burning flesh, but this was not real; it was only memory. He could hear screams.

"Curse you, Ashlar!"

And hymns, oh yes, hymns, and anthems in the new tongue, the Romans' tongue, and that stench, that stench of flesh consumed!

A loud sharp cry ripped through the din; the music came to a halt. Only one drum sounded perhaps two more dull notes.

He realized it had been his cry, and that they had heard him. Run, but why run? For what? Where? You don't need to run any longer. You are not of this place anymore! No one can make you be of it.

He watched in cold silence, his heart racing, as the little circle of men grew together, torches blazing very close to one another, and the small mob moved slowly towards him.

"Taltos!" They had caught his scent! The group scattered with wild cries, and then drew close to make one small body again.

"Taltos!" cried a rough voice. The torches moved closer and closer.

Now he could see their faces distinctly as they ranged about him, peering up, holding the torches high, the flames making ugly shadows on their eyes and their cheeks and their little mouths. And the smell, the smell of the burning flesh, it came from their torches!

"God, what have you done!" he hissed, making his two hands into fists. "Have you dipped them in the fat of an unbaptized child?"

There came a shriek of wild laughter, and then another, and finally a whole crackling wall of noise going up around him to enclose him.

He turned round and round.

"Despicable!" he hissed again, so angry that he cared nothing for his own dignity, or the inevitable distortions of his face.

"Taltos," said one who drew near. "Taltos."

Look at them, see what they are. He held his fists even tighter, prepared to fend them off, to beat them, and lift them and hurl them to right and left, if needs be.

"Aye, Aiken Drumm!" he cried, recognizing the old man, the gray beard dripping to the earth like soiled moss. "And Robin and Rogart, I see you."

"Aye, Ashlar!"

"Yes, and Fyne and Urgart; I see you, Rannoch!" And only now did he realize it. There were no women at all left among them! All the faces staring back at him were those of men, and men he'd known always, and there were no hags, no hags screaming with their arms outstretched. There were no more women among them!

He began to laugh. Was this absolutely true? Yes, it was! He walked forward, reaching out, and forcing them backwards. Urgart swung the torch near him, to hurt him or better illuminate him.

"Aaaahhh, Urgart!" he cried, and reached out, ignoring the flame, as if to grab the little man's throat and lift him.

With guttural cries they scattered, wild, in the darkness. Men, only men. Men, and no more than fourteen now at most. Only men. Oh, why in hell hadn't Samuel told him?

He sank down, slowly, to his knees. He laughed. And he let himself keel over and land upon the forest floor, so that he could see straight up through the lacy branches of the pines, the stars spread out gloriously above the fleece of the clouds, and the moon sailing gently northward.

But he should have known. He should have calculated. He should have known when last he'd come, and the women had been old and diseased, and thrown stones at him and rushed up to scream in his ears. He had smelled death all around him. He smelled it now, but it was not the blood smell of women. It was the dry, acid smell of men.

He turned over and let his face rest right against the earth. His eyes closed again. He could hear them scurrying around him.

"Where is Samuel?" one of them asked.

"Tell Samuel to come back."

"Why are you here? Are you free of the curse?"

"Don't speak to me of the curse!" he cried out. He sat up, the spell broke

n. "Don't speak to me, you filth." And this time he did catch hold, not of a little man, but of his torch, and holding the flaming brand close, he did catch the unmistakable smell of human fat burning. He threw it away in disgust.

"Damn you to hell, you cursed plague!" he cried. One of them pinched his leg. A stone cut his cheek, but not deeply. Sticks were hurled at him.

"Where is Samuel?"

"Did Samuel send you here?"

And then the loud cackle of Aiken Drumm, riding over all. "We had a tasty gypsy for our supper, we did, till Samuel took him to Ashlar!"

"Where's our gypsy?" screamed Urgart.

Laughter. Shouts and cries of derision; guffaws and curses now. "May the devil take you home piece by piece!" cried Urgart. The drums had begun again. They were beating them with their fists, and a wild series of notes burst from the pipes.

"And you, all of you into hell," cried Ash. "Why don't I send you now?"

He turned and ran again, not sure at first of his direction. But the ascent had been steady and that was his best guide, and in the crunching of his feet, and in the crackling of the brush, and in the air rushing past him, he was safe from their drums, their pipes, their jeers.

Very soon he could no longer hear their music or their voices. Finally he knew he was alone.

Panting, chest hurting him, legs aching and feet sore, he walked slowly until, after a very long time, he came to the road, and stepped out upon the asphalt as if from a dream, and stood again in the world he knew, empty and cold and silent as it was. Stars filled every quadrant of the heavens. The moon drew her veil and then lowered it again, and the soft breeze made the pines shiver ever so slightly, and the wind swept down as if urging him onward.