Taltos lotmw-3

by Anne Rice

  “Settle down, honey,” said Mary Jane. “There’s a lot of time to find out.”

  “We are your family,” said Mona. “Remember that. Whatever else you are, you are Morrigan Mayfair, designated by me to be heir to the legacy, and we have a birth certificate, a baptismal certificate, and fifteen Polaroid photographs with my solemn word on a sticker label pasted to the back of each of them.”

  “Somehow or other that sounds insufficient,” said Morrigan, crying now, making a pout like a baby, the tears making her blink. “Hopelessly contrived, possibly legally irrelevant.” The car moved on, in its own lane, but they had come into Metairie, the traffic was getting heavy. “Perhaps a videotape is required, what do you think, Mother? But nothing in the end will suffice, will it, but love? Why do we speak of legal things at all?”

  “Because they’re important.”

  “But, Mother, if they don’t love-”

  “Morrigan, we’ll do a videotape at First Street, soon as we get there. And you will have your love, mark my words. I’ll get it for you. I won’t let anything go wrong this time.”

  “What makes you think that, given all your reservations and fears, and desires to hide from prying eyes?”

  “I love you. That’s why I think it.”

  The tears were springing from Morrigan’s eyes as if from a rainspout. Mona could hardly bear it.

  “They will not have to use a gun, if they don’t love me,” Morrigan said.

  Unspeakable pain, my child, this.

  “Like hell,” said Mona, trying to sound very calm, very controlled, very much the woman. “Our love is enough, and you know it! If you have to forget them, you do it. We are enough, don’t you dare say we’re not, not enough for now, you hear me?” She stared at this graceful gazelle, who was driving and crying at the same time, passing every laggard in her path. This is my daughter. Mine has always been monstrous ambition, monstrous intelligence, monstrous courage, and now a monstrous daughter. But what is her nature, besides brilliant, impulsive, loving, enthusiastic, super-sensitive to hurts and slights, and given to torrents of fancy and ecstasy? What will she do? What does it mean to remember ancient things? Does it mean you possess them and know from them? What can come of this? You know, I don’t really care, she thought. I mean not now, not when it’s beginning, not when it’s so exciting.

  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.

  I climbed off the bed, put my sword back on, buckling everything properly so that I was ready should I meet with trouble, and then, taking a crude lump of wax with a wick, which she kept at hand, I lighted the wick, and I entered the cave by this secret doorway.

  I went up and up in the darkness, feeling my way along the earthen wall, and finally I came to a cool and open place, and from there, very far off, I could see a bit of light stealing in from the outside world. I was above the cave’s main entrance.

  I went on up. The light went before me. With a start, I came to a halt. I saw skulls gazing back at me. Rows and rows of skulls! Some of them so old they were no more than powder.

  This had been a burial place, I reasoned, of those people that save only the heads of the dead, and believe that the spirits will talk through those heads, if properly addressed.

  I told myself not to be foolishly frightened. At the same time I felt curiously weakened.

  “It is the broth you drank,” I whispered. “Sit down and rest.”

  And I did, leaning against the wall to my left, and looking into the big chamber, with its many masks of death grinning back at me.

  The crude candle rolled out of my hand, but did not go out. It came to rest in the mud, and when I tried to reach for it, I couldn’t.

  Then slowly I looked up and I saw my lost Janet.

  She was coming towards me through the chamber of the skulls, moving slowly, as if she were not real, but a figure in a dream.

  “But I am awake,” I said aloud.

  I saw her nod, and smile. She stepped before the feeble little candle.

  She wore the same rose-colored robe that she had the day they had burnt her, and then I saw to my horror that the silk had been eaten away by fire, and that her white skin showed through the jagged tears in it. And her long blond hair, it was burnt off and blackened on the ends, and ashes smudged her cheeks and her bare feet and her hands. Yet she was there, alive, and near to me.

  “What is it, Janet?” I said. “What would you say to me now?”

  “Ah, but what do you say to me, my beloved King? I followed you from the great circle in the southland up to Donnelaith and you destroyed me.”

  “Don’t curse me, fair spirit,” I said. I climbed to my knees. “Give me that which will help all of us! I sought the path of love. It was the path to ruin.”

  A change came over her face, a look of puzzlement and then awareness.

  She lost her simple smile, and taking my hand, she spoke these words as if they were our secret.

  “Would you find another paradise, my lord?” she asked. “Would you build another monument such as you left on the plain for all time? Or would you rather find a dance so simple and full of grace that all the peoples of the world could do it?”

  “The dance, Janet, I would. And ours would be one great living circle.”

  “And would you make a song so sweet that no man or woman of any breed could ever resist it?”

  “Yes,” I said. “And sing we would, forever.”

  Her face brightened and her lips parted. And with a look of faint amazement, she spoke again.

  “Then take the curse I give you.”

  I began to cry.

  She gestured for me to be still, but with patience. Then she spoke this poem or song in the soft, rapid voice of the Taltos:

  Your quest is doomed, your path is long,

  Your winter just beginning.

  These bitter times shall fade to myth

  And memory lose its meaning

  But when at last her arms you see,

  Outstretched in bold forgiveness,

  Shrink not from what the earth would do

  When rain and winds do till it.

  The seed shall sprout, the leaves unfurl,

  The boughs shall give forth blossoms,

  That once the nettles tried to kill, and

  Strong men sought to trample.

  The dance, the circle, and the song,

  Shall be the key to heaven,

  As ways that once the mighty scorned

  Shall be their final blessing.

  The cave grew dim, the little candle was dying, and with a subtle farewell gesture of her hand, she smiled again, and disappeared completely.

  It seemed the words she’d spoken were carved in my mind as if engraved on the flat stones of the circle. And I saw them, and fixed them for all time, even as the last reverberation of her voice left me.

  The cave was dark. I cried out, and groped in vain for the candle. But quickly climbing to my feet, I saw that my beacon was the fire burning in the little hut far back down the tunnel by which I’d entered.

  Wiping at my eyes, overcome with love for Janet and a terrible confusion of sweetness and pain, I hurried into the small warm room and saw the red-haired witch there, on her pillow.

  For one moment it was Janet! And not this gentle spirit who had just looked at me with loving eyes, and spoken verses that promised some remission.

  It was the burnt one, the suffering and dying woman, her hair full of small flames, her bones smoldering. In agony she arched her back and tried to reach for me. And as I cried out and reached to snatch her from her own flames, it was the witch again, the red-haired one who had brought me into her bed and given me the potion.

  Dead, white, quiet forever in death, the blood staining her gathered skirts, her little hut a tomb, her fire a vigil light.

  I made the Sign of the Cross. I ran out of the place.

  But nowhere in the dark wood could I find my horse, and within moments I heard the laughter of the Little People.

  I was at my wits’ end, frightened by the vision, uttering prayers and curses. Fiercely I turned on them, challenging them to come out, to fight, and was in a moment surrounded. With my sword I struck down two and put the others to flight, but not before they had torn and dragged from me my green tunic, ripped away my leather girdle, and stolen my few belongings. My horse, too, they had taken.

  A vagabond with nothing left to me but a sword, I did not go after them.

  I made for the high road by instinct, and by the stars, which a Taltos can always do, and as the moon rose, I was walking south away from my homeland.

  I didn’t look back on Donnelaith.

  I did go on to the summerland, as it was called,
to Glastonbury, and I did stand on the sacred hill where Joseph had planted the hawthorn. I washed my hands in Chalice Well. I drank from it. I crossed Europe to find Pope Gregory in the ruins of Rome, I did go on to Byzantium, and finally to the Holy Land.

  But long before my journey took me even to Pope Gregory’s palace amid the squalid ruins of Rome’s great pagan monuments, my quest had changed, really. I was not a priest anymore. I was a wanderer, a seeker, a scholar.

  I could tell you a thousand stories of those times, including the tale of how I finally came to know the Fathers of the Talamasca. But I cannot claim to know their history. I know of them what you know, and what has been confirmed now that Gordon and his cohorts have been discovered.

  In Europe I saw Taltos now and then, both women and men. I thought that I always would. That it would always be a simple thing, sooner or later, to find one of my own kind and to talk for the night by a friendly fire of the lost land, of the plain, of the things we all remembered.

  There is one last bit of intelligence I wish to communicate to you.

  In the year 1228, I finally returned to Donnelaith. It had been too long since I had laid eyes on a single Taltos. I was beginning to feel a fear on this account, and Janet’s curse and her poetry were ever in my mind.

  I came as a lone Scotsman wandering through the land, eager to talk to the bards of the Highlands about their old stories and legends.

  My heart broke when I saw that the old Saxon church was gone and a great cathedral now stood upon the very spot, at the entrance of a great market town.

  I had hoped to see the old church. But who could not be impressed by this mighty structure, and the great glowering castle of the Earls of Donnelaith that guarded the whole valley?

  Bending my back, and pulling my hood up high to disguise my height, I leaned on my cane as I went down to give thanks that my tower still stood in the glen, along with many of the stone towers built by my people.

  I cried tears of gratitude again when I discovered the circle of stones, far from the ramparts, standing as it always had in the high grass, imperishable emblems of the dancers who had once gathered there.