Taltos

days for assistance.”

“How unfortunate for him,” said Yuri.

“Naturally it occurred to me, what if this Lasher were the soul of another species of being seeking to reincarnate? How well it fitted the whole mystery! And Aaron had only lately written from America that the Mayfair family faced its darkest hour when the ghost who would be made flesh was threatening to come through.

“Was this the soul of a giant wanting its second life? At last my discoveries had become too momentous. I had to share them. I had to bring into this those I trusted.”

“But not Stolov and Norgan.”

“No! My friends … my friends were of an entirely different ilk. But you’re confusing me. Stolov and Norgan weren’t involved then. No. Let me continue.”

“But they were in the Talamasca, these friends,” said Rowan.

“I will tell you nothing of them except that they were … they were young men in whom I believed.”

“You brought these friends here, to the tower?”

“Indeed not,” said Stuart. “I’m not that much of a fool. Tessa I revealed to them, but in a spot chosen by me for the purpose, in the ruin of Glastonbury Abbey, on the very spot where the skeleton of the seven-foot giant had been unearthed, only to be later reinterred.

“It was a sentimental thing, my taking her there, to stand over the grave of one of her own. And there I allowed her to be worshiped by those whom I trusted to help with my work. They had no idea that her permanent abode was less than a mile away. They were never to know.

“But they were dedicated and enterprising. They suggested the very first scientific tests. They helped me obtain with a syringe the first blood from Tessa, which was sent to various laboratories for anonymous analysis. And then we had the first firm proof that Tessa was not human! Enzymes, chromosomes, it was all quite beyond me. But they understood it.”

“They were doctors?” Rowan asked.

“No. Only very brilliant young men.” A shadow passed over his face, and he glanced viciously at Yuri.

Yes, your acolytes, Yuri thought. But he said nothing. If he interrupted again, it would be to kill Gordon.

“Everything was so different at that point! There were no plots to have people killed. But then, so much more was to happen.”

“Go on,” said Michael.

“My next step was obvious! To return to the cellars, to all the abandoned folklore, and research only those saints of exceedingly great size. And what should I come upon but a pile of hagiography-manuscripts saved from destruction at the time of Henry VIII’s ghastly suppression of the monasteries, and dumped in our archives along with thousands of other such texts.

“And … And among these treasures was a carton marked by some long-dead secretary or clerk: ‘Lives of the Scottish Saints.’ And the hastily scribbled subtitle: ‘Giants’!

“At once I happened upon a later copy of an early work by a monk at Lindisfarne, writing in the 700s, who told the tale of St. Ashlar, a saint of such magic and power that he had appeared among the Highlanders in two different and separate eras, having been returned by God to earth, as was the Prophet Isaiah, and who was destined, according to legend, to return again and again.”

Yuri looked at Ash, but Ash said nothing. Yuri couldn’t even remember whether Gordon had ever understood Ash’s name. But Gordon was already staring at Ash, and then said quickly:

“Could this be the very personage for whom you were named? Could it be that you know of this saint yourself, through your remembrances or those you heard from others, assuming you have known others like yourself?” Gordon’s eyes blazed.

Ash didn’t answer. The silence this time was stony. Something changed again in Ash’s face. Was it pure hatred that he felt for Gordon?

Gordon at once resumed his account, his shoulders hunched and his hands working now in his excitement.

“I was overcome with enthusiasm when I read that St. Ashlar had been a giant of a being, standing perhaps seven feet tall, that St. Ashlar had come from a pagan race whom he himself had helped to exterminate-”

“Get on with it,” said Ash softly. “How did you connect this with the Mayfair witches? How did men come to die as the result?”

“All right,” said Gordon patiently, “but you will perhaps grant this dying man one request.”

“Perhaps not,” said Ash. “But what is it?”

“You will tell me whether or not these tales are actually known to you, whether you yourself have remembrances of these early times?”

Ash made a gesture that Gordon should continue.

“Ah, you are cruel, my friend,” said Gordon.

Ash was becoming deeply angry. It was plain to see. His full black hair and smooth, almost innocent mouth rendered his expression all the more menacing. He was like an angel gathering its anger. He did not respond to Gordon’s words.

“You brought home these tales to Tessa?” asked Rowan.

“Yes,” said Gordon, ripping his eyes off Ash finally and looking to her. A little false smile came over his mouth as he continued-as if to say, Now we will answer the question of the pretty lady in the first row.

“I did bring the tale home to Tessa; over supper, as always, I told her of my reading. And the history of this very saint, she knew! Ashlar, one of her own people, and a great leader, a king among them, who had converted to Christianity, betraying his own kind. I was triumphant. Now I had this name to track through history.

“And the following morning I was back at the archives and hard at work. And then, and then … came my momentous discovery, that for which other scholars of the Talamasca would give their eyeteeth, if only they knew.”

He paused, glancing from one face to another, and even to Yuri finally, his smile full of pride.

“This was a book, a codex of vellum, such as I had never seen in my long life of scholarship! And never dreamed that I would see ‘St. Ashlar,’ that was the name carved on the cover of the wood box which contained it. ‘St. Ashlar.’ That was the name of the saint that leapt from the dust and the shadows as I went along the shelves with my electric torch.”

Another pause.

“And beneath that name,” said Gordon, again looking from one to the other to enlarge the drama. “Beneath, in runic script, were the words, ‘History of the Taltos of Britain!’ and in Latin: ‘Giants in the Earth!’ As Tessa was to confirm for me that very night with a simple nod of her head, I had hit upon the crucial word itself.

“Taltos. ‘That is what we are,’ she said.

“At once I left the tower. I drove back to the Motherhouse. I went down into the cellar. Other records I had always examined within the house, in the libraries or wherever I chose. When has such scholarship ever attracted anyone’s notice? But this I had to possess.”

He rose, resting his knuckles on the table. He looked at Ash, as if Ash would move to stop him. Ash’s face was dark, and some imperceptible change had rendered it utterly cold.

Gordon drew back, turned, and then went directly to a big carved cabinet against the wall, and took out of it a large rectangular box.

Ash had watched him calmly, not anticipating an attempt at escape, or confident that he could catch Gordon if Gordon had run for the stairway.

And now Ash stared at the box as Gordon set it down before them. It seemed something was building in Ash, something that might explode.

Good God, the document is genuine, thought Yuri.

“See,” Gordon said, his fingers resting on the oiled wood as if on the sacred. “St. Ashlar,” he said. And again he translated the rest.

“And what do you think is in this box, all of you? What would you guess?”

“Get on with it, please, Gordon,” said Michael, throwing a pointed glance at Ash.

“I shall!” Gordon declared in a whisper, and then, opening the box, he drew out a huge book with stiff leather covers, and laid it down in front of him, as he pushed the box aside.

At once he opened the cover and revealed the title page on the vellum, beautifully illustrated in crimson and