Taltos (Lives of the Mayfair Witches 3)

She saw her tall girl struck, the body crumple, her own hands out to shield her, taking the head to her breast. Don't you dare hurt her.

It was all so different now.

"All right, all right," Mary Jane interjected. "Lemme drive, this is really getting crowded."

"You are out of your mind, Mary Jane," cried Morrigan, shifting forward in the seat and pressing on the accelerator to pass the car threatening on the left. She lifted her chin, and took a swat at her tears with the back of her hand. "I am steering this car home. I wouldn't miss this for anything!"

Thirty

WHAT WAS IT like in the cave, I wondered. The voices of hell I had no desire to hear, but what about the singing of heaven?

I thought it over, and then decided to pass by. I had a long journey ahead of me. It was too early for rest. I wanted to be away from here.

I was about to set off and go around this part of the slope, when a voice called to me.

It was a woman's voice, very soft and seemingly without a source, and I heard it say:

"Ashlar, I've been waiting for you." I turned, looking this way and that. The darkness was unnerving. The Little People, I thought, one of their women, determined to seduce me. Again I determined to be on my way, but the call came again, soft as a kiss:

"Ashlar, King of Donnelaith, I am waiting for you."

I looked at the little hovel, with its lights flickering in the dimness, and there I saw a woman standing. Her hair was red, and her skin very pale. She was human, and a witch, and she carried the very faint scent of a witch, which could mean, but might not, that she had the blood of the Taltos in her.

I should have gone on. I knew it. Witches were always trouble. But this woman was very beautiful and in the shadows my eyes played tricks on me, so that she looked somewhat like our lost Janet.

As she came towards me, I saw that she had Janet's severe green eyes and straight nose, and a mouth that might have been carved from marble. She had the same small and very round breasts, and a long graceful neck. Add to this her beautiful red hair, which has ever been a lure and a delight to the Taltos.

"What do you want of me?" I said.

"Come lie with me," she said. "Come into my house. I invite you."

"You're a fool," I said. "You know what I am. I lie with you and you'll die."

"No," she said. "Not I." And she laughed, as so many witches had before her. "I shall bear the giant by you."

I shook my head. "Go your way, and be thankful I'm not easily tempted. You're beautiful. Another Taltos might help himself. Who is there to protect you?"

"Come," she said. "Come into my house." She drew closer, and in the few feeble rays of light that broke through the branches, the long, very golden light of the last of the day, I saw her beautiful white teeth, and how her breasts looked beneath her fine lace blouse, and above her painfully tight leather girdle.

Well, it wouldn't hurt just to lie with her, just to put my lips on her breasts, I thought. But then. She is a witch. Why do I allow myself to even think of this?

"Ashlar," she said, "we all know your tale. We know you are the king who betrayed your kind. Don't you want to ask the spirits of the cave how you might be forgiven?"

"Forgiven? Only Christ can forgive me my sins, child," I said. "I'm going."

"What power has Christ to change the curse that Janet has laid upon you?"

"Don't taunt me anymore," I said. I wanted her. And the angrier I became, the Jess I cared about her.

"Come with me," she said. "Drink the brew that I have by the fire, and then go into the cave, and you will see the spirits who know all things, King Ashlar."

She came up to the horse, and laid her hand on mine, and I felt the desire rising in me. She had a witch's penetrating eyes; and the soul of Janet seemed to look out of them.

I had not even made up my mind when she'd helped me from my horse, and we were walking together through the thick bracken and elderberry.

The little hut was a rank and frightening place! It had no windows. Above the fire, a kettle hung on a long skewer. But the bed was clean, and laid with skillfully embroidered linen.

"Fit for a king," she said.

I looked about, and I saw a dark open doorway opposite that by which we'd come in.

"That is the secret way to the cave," she said. She kissed my hand suddenly, and pulling me down onto the bed, she went to the kettle and filled a crude earthen cup with the broth inside it.

"Drink it, Your Majesty," she said. "And the spirits of the cave will see you and hear you."

Or I will see them and hear them, I thought, for God only knows what she had put in it--the herbs and oils which made witches mad, and likely to dance like Taltos under the moon. I knew their tricks.

"Drink, it's sweet," she said.

"Yes," I replied. "I can smell the honey."

And while I was looking into the cup and resolving not to take a drop, I saw her smile, and as I smiled back, I realized I was lifting the cup, and suddenly I drank a deep swallow of it. I closed my eyes.

"What if?" I whispered. "What if there is magic in it?" I was faintly

amused and already dreaming.

"Now lie with me," she said.

"For your sake, no," I replied, but she was taking off my sword and I let her do it. Getting up long enough only to bolt her door, I fell back on the bed and pushed her down beneath me. I dragged her blouse loose from her breasts, and thought I would weep at the mere sight of them. Ah, the Taltos milk, how I wanted it. She was not a mother, this witch, she would have no milk, Taltos or human. But the breasts, the sweet breasts, how I wanted to suckle them, to bite the nipples and pull at them, and lick at them with my tongue.

Well, that won't do her any harm, I thought, and when she is moist and hot with desire, I'll place my fingers between her hidden hairy lips and make her shiver.

At once I began to suckle her. I began to kiss her and nuzzle against her. Her skin was firm and young and smelled young. And I loved the sound of her soft sighs, and the way her white belly felt to my cheek, and the way her nether hair looked, when I pulled down her skirt, and found it red, like the hair of her head, flaming and softly curly.

"Beautiful, beautiful witch," I whispered.

"Take me, King Ashlar," she said.

I sucked hard on her breast, letting my cock suffer, thinking, no, I will not kill her. She is a fool, but she does not deserve to die for it. But she pulled my cock between her legs, she pressed its tip against her hair, and quite suddenly, as many a male has done, I decided that if she really wanted it so, I would do as she asked of me.

I came in her hard, with as little care as I would have had for a Taltos, riding her, and loving it. She flushed and wept and cried out to spirits whose names I didn't know.

Immediately it was over. Sleepily she looked at me from the pillow, a triumphant smile on her lips. "Drink," she said, "and go into the cave." And she closed her eyes to sleep.

I downed the rest of the cup. Why not? I had gone this far. What if there was something in that remote darkness, one last secret my own land of Donnelaith had to give me? God knew the future held trials, pain, and probably disillusionment.