Taltos lotmw-3

by Anne Rice

  “I admit,” said Marklin, “it was a mistake. Only loyalty to the Order might have kept Aaron quiet about the various things he’d seen and come to suspect. If we made an error, Stuart, the three of us made it together. We shouldn’t have alienated him and Yuri Stefano. We should have tightened our hold, played our game better.”

  “The web was too intricate as it was,” said Stuart. “I warn you, both of you. Tommy, come here. I warn you both! Do not strike against the Mayfair family. You have done enough. You have destroyed a man who was finer than any other I ever knew, and you did it for so small a gain that heaven will take its vengeance on you. But do not, for whatever remains to us now, strike against the family!”

  “I think we already have,” said Tommy in his usual practical voice. “Aaron Lightner had recently married Beatrice Mayfair. Besides, he had become so close to Michael Curry-indeed, to all of the clan-that the marriage was hardly required to cement the relationship. But there was a marriage, and to the Mayfairs marriage is a sacred bond, as we know. He had become one of them.”

  “Pray you’re wrong,” said Stuart. “Pray to heaven you’re wrong. Risk the ire of the Mayfair witches, and God himself couldn’t help you.”

  “Stuart, let us look at what must be done now,” said Marklin. “Let’s leave the hill and go down to the hotel.”

  “Never. Where others can hear our words? Never.”

  “Stuart, take us to Tessa. Let us discuss it there,” pressed Marklin.

  It was the key moment. Marklin knew it. He wished now that he had not said Tessa’s name, not yet. He wished he had not played to this climax.

  Stuart was eyeing both of them with the same deliberate condemnation and disgust. Tommy stood solidly, gloved hands clasped in front of him. The stiff collar of his coat rose to hide his mouth, and thereby leave nothing to scrutiny but his level, untroubled gaze.

  Marklin himself was close to tears, or so he imagined. Marklin had actually never wept even once in his life that he could remember.

  “Perhaps this is not the time to see her,” Marklin said, hastening to repair the damage.

  “Perhaps you should never see her again,” said Stuart, voice small for the first time, eyes large and speculating.

  “You don’t mean what you say,” said Mark.

  “If I take you to Tessa, what’s to stop you from doing away with me?”

  “Oh, Stuart, you hurt us both; how can you ask this of us? We aren’t without principle. We’re simply dedicated to a common goal. Aaron had to die. So did Yuri. Yuri was never really one of the Order. Yuri left so easily and so quickly!”

  “Yes, and neither of you were ever members either, were you?” Stuart asked. His manner was changing, hardening.

  “We are dedicated to you and always have been,” said Marklin. “Stuart, we waste our valuable time. Keep Tessa to yourself if you will. You will not shake my faith in her, or Tommy’s. And we will move towards our goal. We cannot do otherwise.”

  “And what now is the goal?” Stuart demanded. “Lasher is gone now, as if he’d never existed! Or do you doubt the word of a man who would follow Yuri doggedly over land and sea only to finally shoot him?”

  “Lasher is beyond destiny now,” said Tommy. “I think we are all in agreement on that. What Lanzing saw couldn’t be interpreted any other way. But Tessa is in your hands, as real as she was the day you discovered her.”

  Stuart shook his head. “Tessa is real, and Tessa is alone as she has always been alone. And the union shall not take place, and my eyes will close without ever seeing the miracle.”

  “Stuart, it is still possible,” said Marklin. “The family, the Mayfair witches.”

  “Yes,” cried Stuart, his voice out of control, “and strike them and they will destroy you. You have forgotten the very first warning I ever gave you. The Mayfair witches win over those who would hurt them. They always have! If not as individuals, they win as a family!”

  They stood quiet for a moment.

  “Destroy you, Stuart?” Tommy asked. “Why not the three of us, Stuart?”

  Stuart was in despair. His white hair, blown back and forth by the wind, resembled the unkempt hair of a drunkard. He looked down at the earth beneath his feet, his hooked nose glistening as though it were nothing now but polished cartilage. An eagle of a man, yes, but not an elderly one, never that.

  Marklin feared for him in the wind. Stuart’s eyes were red and tearing. Marklin could see the map of blue veins spreading up from his temples. Stuart was trembling in every limb.

  “Yes, you’re right, Tommy,” said Stuart. “The Mayfairs will destroy all of us. Why would they not?” He looked up and straight at Marklin. “And what is the greatest loss to me? Is it Aaron? Is it the marriage itself, of male and female Taltos? Is it the chain of memory we hoped to discover link by link to its earliest source? Or is it that you are damned now, both of you, for what you’ve done? And I have lost you. Let the Mayfairs come to destroy the three of us, yes, it will be justice.”

  “No, I don’t want this justice,” said Tommy. “Stuart, you can’t turn on us.”

  “No, that you can’t do,” said Marklin. “You cannot call a defeat for us. The witches can bear the Taltos again.”

  “Three hundred years hence?” asked Stuart. “Or tomorrow?”

  “Listen to me, sir, I beg you,” said Marklin. “The spirit of Lasher possessed knowledge of what he had been, and what he could be, and what happened to the genes of Rowan Mayfair and Michael Curry happened under the spirit’s knowing vigilance and to fulfill his purpose.

  “But we have that knowledge now-of what a Taltos is, and perhaps was, and what can make it. And Stuart, so do the witches! For the first time, the witches know the destiny of the giant helix. And their knowing is as powerful as Lasher’s knowing.”

  Stuart had no answer for this. Clearly he had not thought of it. He looked at Marklin a long time. Then he asked, “You believe this?”

  “Their awareness is even more powerful, perhaps,” said Tommy. “The telekinetic assistance that can be rendered by the witches themselves in the event of a birth can’t be underestimated.”

  “Ever the scientist,” said Marklin with a triumphant smile. The tide was changing. He could feel it, see it in Stuart’s eyes.

  “And one must remember,” said Tommy, “that the spirit was addled and blundering. The witches are leagues from that, even at their most naive and ineffectual.”

  “That is a guess, Tommy.”

  “Stuart,” Marklin pleaded. “We have come too far!”

  “To put it another way,” said Tommy, “our accomplishments here are by no means negligible. We verified the incarnation of the Taltos, and if we could get our hands on any notes written by Aaron before his death, we might verify what all suspect, that it was not incarnation but reincarnation.”

  “I know what we’ve done,” said Stuart. “The good, the bad. You needn’t make your summation for me, Tommy.”

  “Only to clarify,” said Tommy. “And we have witches who know not only the old secrets now in abstract, but who believe in the physical miracle itself. We could not possibly have more interesting opportunities.”

  “Stuart, trust us again,” said Marklin.

  Stuart looked at Tommy and then back at Marklin. Marklin saw the old spark, the love.

  “Stuart,” he went on, “the killing is done. It’s finished. Our other unwitting assistants can be phased out without their ever knowing the grand design.”

  “And Lanzing? He must know everything.”

  “He was a hireling, Stuart,” said Marklin. “He never understood what he saw. Besides, he too is dead.”

  “We didn’t kill him, Stuart,” said Tommy, in an almost casual manner. “They found part of his remains at the foot of Donnelaith Crag. His gun had been fired twice.”

  “Part of his remains?” asked Stuart.

  Tommy shrugged. “They said he’d been a meal for wild animals.”

  “But you can’t be sure, t
hen, that he killed Yuri.”

  “Yuri has never returned to the hotel,” said Tommy. “His belongings are still unclaimed. Yuri is dead, Stuart. The two bullets were for Yuri. How Lanzing fell, or why, or if some animal attacked, those things we can’t know. But Yuri Stefano is, for our purposes, gone.”

  “Don’t you see, Stuart?” said Marklin. “Except for the escape of the Taltos, everything has worked perfectly. And we can withdraw now, and focus upon the Mayfair witches. We don’t need anything further from the Order. If the interception is ever uncovered, no one will ever be able to trace it to us.”

  “You don’t fear the Elders, do you?”

  “There is no reason to fear the Elders,” said Tommy. “The intercept continues to work perfectly. It always has.”

  “Stuart, we’ve learned from our errors,” said Marklin. “But perhaps things have happened for a purpose. I don’t mean in the sentimental sense. But look at the overall picture. All the right people are dead.”

  “Don’t talk so crudely to me of your methods, either of you. What about our Superior General?”

  Tommy shrugged. “Marcus knows nothing. Except that he will very soon be able to retire with a small fortune. He’ll never put all the pieces together afterwards. No one will be able to. That’s the beauty of the entire plan.”

  “We need a few more weeks at most,” said Marklin. “Just to protect ourselves.”

  “I’m not so sure,” said Tommy. “The smart thing may be to remove the intercepts now. We know everything the Talamasca knows about the Mayfair family.”

  “Don’t be so hasty, so confident!” said Stuart. “What happens when your phony communications are finally discovered?”

  “You mean our phony communications?” asked Tommy. “At the very worst, there’ll be a little confusion, perhaps even an investigation. But no one could trace the letters or the interception itself to us. That’s why it’s very important that we remain loyal novices, that we do nothing now to arouse suspicion.”

  Tommy glanced at Marklin. It was working. Stuart’s manner had changed. Stuart was giving the orders again … almost.

  “This is all electronic,” said Tommy. “There is no hard evidence of anything anywhere, except a few piles of paper in my flat in Regent’s Park. Only you and Mark and I know where those papers are.”

  “Stuart, we need your guidance now!” said Marklin. “We go into the most exciting phase yet.”

  “Silence,” said Stuart. “Let me look at you both, let me take your measure.”

  “Please do it, Stuart,” said Marklin, “and find us brave and young, yes, young and stupid, perhaps, but brave and committed.”

  “What Mark means,” said Tommy, “is that our position now is better than we could possibly have expected. Lanzing shot Yuri, then fell, fatally injuring himself. Stolov and Norgan are gone. They were never anything but a nuisance, and they knew too much. The men hired to kill the others don’t know us. And we are here, where we began, at Glastonbury.”

  “And Tessa is in your hands, unknown to anyone but the three of us.”

  “Eloquence,” said Stuart almost in a whisper. “That’s what you give me now, eloquence.”

  “Poetry is truth, Stuart,” said Marklin. “It is the highest truth, and eloquence is its attribute.”

  There was a pause. Marklin had to get Stuart down from this hill. Protectively, he put his arm around Stuart, and to his great relief, Stuart allowed this.

  “Let’s go down, Stuart,” said Marklin. “Let’s have our supper now. We’re cold, we’re hungry.”

  “If we had it to do over again,” said Tommy, “we’d do it better. We didn’t have to take those lives. It might have been more of a challenge, you know, to accomplish our purpose without really hurting anyone.”

  Stuart seemed lost in thought, only glancing at Tommy absently. The wind rose again, cuttingly, and Marklin shivered. If he was this cold, what must Stuart be feeling? They must go down to the hotel. They must break bread together.

  “We are not ourselves, you know, Stuart,” Marklin said. He was looking down at the town, and conscious that both of the others were staring at him. “When gathered together, we make a person whom none of us knows well enough, perhaps, a fourth entity which we should give a name, because he is more than our collective selves. Perhaps we must better learn to control him. But destroy him now? No, that we cannot do, Stuart. If we do, we all betray each other. It’s a hard truth to face, but the death of Aaron means nothing.”

  He had played his final card. He had said the finest and the worst things that he’d had to say, here in the chill wind, and without real forethought, with only his instinct to guide him. Finally he looked at his teacher and at his friend, and saw that both had been impressed by these words, perhaps even more than he could have hoped.

  “Yes, it was this fourth entity, as you call him, who killed my friend,” said Stuart quietly. “You are right about that. And we know that the power, the future of this fourth entity, is unimaginable.”

  “Yes, exactly,” said Tommy in a flat murmur.

  “But the death of Aaron is a terrible, terrible thing! You will never, either of you, ever speak to me of it again, and never, never will you speak of it lightly to anyone.”

  “Agreed,” said Tommy.

  “My innocent friend,” said Stuart, “who sought only to help the Mayfair family.”

  “No one in the Talamasca is really innocent,” Tommy said.

  Stuart appeared startled, at first enraged and then caught by this simple statement.

  “What do you mean by this?”

  “I mean that one cannot expect to possess knowledge which does not change one. Once one knows, then one is acting upon that knowledge, whether it is to withhold the knowledge from those who would also be changed, or to give it to them. Aaron knew this. The Talamasca is evil by nature; that’s the price it pays for its libraries and inventories and computer records. Rather like God, wouldn’t you say, who knows that some of his creatures will suffer and some will triumph, but does not tell his creatures what he knows? The Talamasca is more evil even than the Supreme Being, but the Talamasca creates nothing.”

  So very right, thought Marklin, though he could not have said such a thing aloud to Stuart, for fear of what Stuart would say in return.

  “Perhaps you’re right,” said Stuart under his breath. He sounded defeated, or desperate for some tolerable point of view.

  “It’s a sterile priesthood,” said Tommy, the voice once again devoid of all feeling. He gave his heavy glasses a shove with one finger. “The altars are barren; the statues are stored away. The scholars study for study’s sake.”

  “Don’t say any more.”

  “Let me talk of us, then,” said Tommy, “that we are not sterile, and we will see the sacred union come about, and we will hear the voices of memory.”

  “Yes,” said Marklin, unable to assume such a cold voice. “Yes, we are the real priests now! True mediators between the earth and the forces of the unknown. We possess the words and the power.”

  Another silence had fallen.

  Could Marklin ever get them off this hill? He had won. They were together again, and he longed for the warmth of the George and Pilgrims. He longed for the taste of hot soup and ale, and the light of the fire. He longed to celebrate. He was wildly excited again.

  “And Tessa?” asked Tommy. “How is it with Tessa?”

  “The same,” said Stuart.

  “Does she know that the male Taltos is dead?”

  “She never knew he was alive,” said Stuart.

  “Ah.”

  “Come on, teacher,” said Marklin. “Let’s go down now, to the hotel. Let’s dine together.”

  “Yes,” said Tommy, “we’re all too cold now to speak anymore.”

  They began the descent, both Tommy and Marklin steadying Stuart in the slippery mud. When they had reached Stuart’s car, they opted for the drive rather than the long walk.

  “This is all v
ery good,” said Stuart, giving over the car keys to Marklin. “But I will visit Chalice Well as always before we go.”

  “What for?” asked Marklin, making his words quiet, and respectful, and seemingly expressive of the love he felt for Stuart. “Will you wash your hands in Chalice Well to cleanse the blood off them? The water is already bloody itself, teacher.”

  Stuart gave a little bitter laugh.

  “Ah, but that is the blood of Christ, isn’t it?” Stuart said.

  “It’s the blood of conviction,” said Marklin. “We’ll go to the well after dinner, and just before dark. I promise you that.”

  They drove down the hill together.

  Eight

  MICHAEL TOLD CLEM he wanted to leave by the front gate. He’d bring the suitcases out. There were only two of them-Rowan’s and his. This was no vacation that required trunks and garment bags.

  He looked at his diary before he closed it. There was a long statement there of his philosophy, written on Mardi Gras night, before he had ever dreamed that he would be awakened later by a plaintive gramophone song or by the vision of Mona dancing like a nymph in her white nightgown. Bow in hair, fresh and fragrant as warm bread, fresh milk, strawberries.

  No, can’t think any more about Mona just now. Wait for the phone call in London.

  Besides, it was the passage he wanted to read:

  And I suppose I do believe, in the final analysis, that a peace of mind can be obtained in the face of the worst horrors and the worst losses. It can be obtained by faith in change and in will and in accident; and by faith in ourselves, that we will do the right thing, more often than not, in the face of adversity.

  Six weeks had passed since that night, when, in illness and in grief, he’d written those sentiments. He’d been a prisoner of this house then, and up until this very moment.

  He closed the diary. He slipped it into his leather bag, tucked the bag under his arm, and picked up the suitcases. He went down the stairs, a bit nervous since neither hand was free to reach for the rail, reminding himself that he would suffer no dizzy spell now, or any other form of weakness.