The Taltos was staring coldly at the little man.
Yuri resumed his story.
"Aaron Lightner went to help the Mayfair witches in their endless battles with the spirit Lasher. Aaron Lightner never knew whence this spirit came, or what it really was. That a witch had called it up in Donnelaith in the year 1665--that was known, but not much else about it.
"After the creature was made flesh, after it had caused the deaths of too many witches for me to count--only after all this did Aaron Lightner see the creature and learn from its own lips that it was the Taltos, and that it had lived in a body before, in the time of King Henry, meeting its death in Donnelaith, the glen which it haunted until the witch called it up.
"These things are not in any Talamasca file known to me. Scarcely three weeks have passed since the creature was slaughtered. But these things may be in secret files known to someone. Once the Talamasca learnt that Lasher had been reincarnated, or whatever in the name of God we should call it, they moved in on him and sought to remove him for their own purposes. They may have coldly and deliberately taken several lives in the process. I don't know. I know that Aaron had no part in their schemes, and felt betrayed by them. That is why I'm asking you: Do they know about you? Are you part of the Talamasca knowledge, because if you are, it is highly occult knowledge."
"Yes and no," said the tall one. "You don't tell lies at all, do you?"
"Ash, try not to say strange things," grumbled the dwarf. He too had sat back, letting his short, stumpy legs stretch out perfectly straight. He had knitted his fingers on his tweed vest, and his shirt was open at the neck. A bit of light flashed in his hooded eyes.
"I was merely remarking on it, Samuel. Have some patience." The tall man sighed. "Try not to say such strange things yourself." He looked a little annoyed and then his eyes returned to Yuri.
"Let me answer your question, Yuri," he said. The way he had spoken the name was warm and casual. "Men in the Talamasca today probably know nothing of me. It would take a genius to unearth what tales of us are told in Talamasca archives, if indeed such documents still exist. I never fully understood the status or the significance of this knowledge--the Order's files, as they call them now. I read some manuscript once, centuries ago, and laughed and laughed at the words in it. But in those times all written language seemed naive and touching to me. Some of it still does."
To Yuri, this was a fascinating point. The dwarf had been right, of course; he was falling under the sway of this being, he had lost his healthy reluctance to trust, but that was what this sort of love was about, wasn't it? Divesting oneself so totally of the customary feelings of alienation and distrust that the subsequent acceptance was intellectually orgasmic.
"What sort of language doesn't make you laugh?" asked Yuri.
"Modern slang," said the tall one. "Realism in fiction, and journalism which is filled with colloquialisms. It often lacks naivete completely. It has lost all formality, and instead abides by an intense compression. When people write now, it is sometimes like the screech of a whistle compared to the songs they used to sing."
Yuri laughed. "I think you're right," he said. "Not so the documents of the Talamasca, however."
"No. As I was explaining, they are melodic and amusing."
"But then there are documents and documents. So you don't think they know about you now."
"I'm fairly certain they don't know about me, and as you tell your tale, it becomes very clear that they cannot possibly know about me. But go on. What happened to this Taltos?"
"They tried to take him away, and they died in the process. The man who killed the Taltos killed these men from the Talamasca. Before they died, however, when these men were seeking to take the Taltos into their custody, you might say, they indicated that they had a female Taltos, that they had for centuries sought to bring the male and the female together. They indicated it was the avowed purpose of the Order. The clandestine and occult purpose, I should say. This was demoralizing to Aaron Lightner."
"I can see why."
Yuri went on.
"The Taltos, Lasher, he seemed unsurprised by all this; he seemed to have figured it out. Even in his earlier incarnation, the Talamasca had tried to take him out of Donnelaith, perhaps to mate him with the female. But he didn't trust them and he didn't go with them. He was a priest in those days. He was believed to be a saint."
"St. Ashlar," said the dwarf more soberly, the voice seeming to rumble not from the wrinkles of his face but from his heavy trunk. "St. Ashlar, who always comes again."
The tall one bowed his head slightly, his deep hazel eyes moving slowly back and forth across the carpet, almost as if he were reading the rich Oriental design. He looked up at Yuri, head bowed, so that his dark brows shadowed his eyes.
"St. Ashlar," he said in a sad voice. "Are you this man?"
"I'm no saint, Yuri. Do you mind that I call you by name? Let's not speak of saints, if you please...."
"Oh, please do call me Yuri. And I will call you Ash? But the point is, are you this same individual? This one they called the saint? You speak of centuries! And we sit here in this parlor, and the fire crackles, and the waiter taps at the door now with our refreshments. You must tell me. I can't protect myself from my own brothers in the Talamasca if you don't tell me and help me to understand what's going on."
Samuel slipped off the chair and proceeded towards the alcove. "Go into the bedroom, please, Yuri. Out of sight now." He swaggered as he went past Yuri.
Yuri rose, the shoulder hurting him acutely for a moment, and he walked into the bedroom, closing the door behind him. He found himself in a shadowy stillness, with soft, loose curtains filtering the subdued morning light. He picked up the telephone; quickly he punched the direct-dial number, followed by the country code for the United States.
Then he hesitated, feeling wholly unable to tell the protective lies that he would have to tell to Mona, eager to speak to Aaron and tell him what he knew, and half afraid he would be momentarily stopped from calling anyone.
Several times on the drive down from Scotland, he had found himself at public phones, experiencing the same dilemma, when the dwarf had commanded him to get in the car now.
What to tell his little love? How much to tell Aaron in the few moments he might have to speak with him?
In haste, he punched in the area code for New Orleans, and the number of the Mayfair house on St. Charles and Amelia, and he waited, a little worried suddenly that it might be the very middle of the night in America, and then realizing suddenly that indeed it was.
Rude and terrible mistake, whatever the circumstances. Someone had answered. It was a voice he knew but could not place.
"I'm calling from England. I'm so sorry. I'm trying to reach Mona Mayfair," he said. "I hope I haven't waked the house."
"Yuri?" asked the woman.
"Yes!" he confessed without obvious surprise that this woman had recognized his voice.
"Yuri, Aaron Lightner's dead," said the woman. "This is Celia, Beatrice's cousin. Mona's cousin. Everybody's cousin. Aaron's been killed."
There was a long pause in which Yuri did nothing. He didn't think or visualize anything or rush to any conclusion. His body was caught in a cold, terrible fear--fear of the implications of these words, that he would never, never see Aaron again, that they would never speak to each other, that he and Aaron--that Aaron was forever gone.
When he tried to move his lips, he found trouble. He did some senseless and stupid little thing with his hand, pinching the telephone cord.
"I'm sorry, Yuri. We've been worried about you. Mona's been very worried. Where are you? Can you call Michael Curry? I can give you the number."
"I'm all right," Yuri answered softly. "I have that number."
"That's where Mona is now, Yuri. Up at the other house. They will want to know where you are and how you are, and how to reach you immediately."
"But Aaron ..." he said, pleadingly, unable to say more. His voice sounded puny to him
, barely escaping the burden of the tremendous emotions that even clouded his vision and his equilibrium, his entire sense of who he was. "Aaron ..."
"He was run over, deliberately, by a man in a car. He was walking down from the Pontchartrain Hotel, where he'd just left Beatrice with Mary Jane Mayfair. They were putting Mary Jane Mayfair up at the hotel. Beatrice was just about to go into the lobby of the hotel when she heard the noise. She and Mary Jane witnessed what happened. Aaron was run over by the car several times."
"Then it was murder," said Yuri.
"Absolutely. They caught the man who did it. A drifter. He was hired, but he doesn't know the identity of the man who hired him. He got five thousand dollars in cash for killing Aaron. He'd been trying to do it for a week. He'd spent half the money."
Yuri wanted to put down the phone. It seemed utterly impossible to continue. He ran his tongue along his upper lip and then firmly forced himself to speak. "Celia, please tell Mona Mayfair this for me, and Michael Curry too--that I am in England, I am safe. I will soon be in touch. I am being very careful. I send my sympathy to Beatrice Mayfair. I send to all ... my love."
"I'll tell them."