Taltos by Anne Rice Page A

not go now.
    “You’re wounded, my friend told me,” said the tall man, approaching him and looking down at him in such a kindly way that the man’s height aroused no instinctive fear. The spidery hands were raised and extended as if, in order to see Yuri’s face, the man had to frame it.
    “I’m all right. It was a bullet, but your friend removed it. I would be dead if it wasn’t for your friend.”
    “So he’s told me. Do you know who I am?”
    “No, I don’t.”
    “Do you know what a Taltos is? That is what I am.”
    Yuri said nothing. He had no more suspected this than he had suspected that the Little People really existed. Taltos has meant Lasher—killer, monster, menace. He was too shocked to speak. He merely stared at the man’s face, thinking that the man looked to be no more and no less, except for the hands, than a giant human.
    “For the love of God, Ash,” said the dwarf, “have some guile for once.” He brushed off his pants. The fire was vigorous and splendid. He seated himself in a soft, rather shapeless chair that looked extremely comfortable. His feet didn’t touch the ground.
    It was impossible to read his deeply wrinkled face. Was he really so cross? The folds of flesh destroyed all expression.Indeed, the voice alone carried everything with the little man, who only occasionally made bright wide eyes as he spoke. His red hair was the appropriate cliché for his impatience and his temper. He drummed his short fingers on the cloth arms of the chair.
    Yuri walked to the couch and took a stiff place at the very end of it, conscious that the tall one had gone to the mantel and was looking down at the fire. Yuri did not mean to stare rudely at this creature.
    “A Taltos,” said Yuri. His voice sounded acceptably calm. “A Taltos. Why do you want to talk to me? Why do you want to help me? Who are you, and why have you come here?”
    “You saw the other one?” the tall man asked, turning and looking at Yuri with eyes that were almost shy in their openness, but not quite. This man might have been knock-dead beautiful if it hadn’t been for the hands. The knuckles looked like knots.
    “No, I never saw him,” said Yuri.
    “But you know for certain he is dead?”
    “Yes, I know that for certain,” said Yuri. The giant and the dwarf. He was not going to laugh at this, but it was horribly amusing. This creature’s abnormalities made him pleasing to look at. And the little man’s abnormalities made him seem dangerous and wicked. And it was all an act of nature, was it? It was somewhat beyond the scope of the range of accidents in which Yuri believed.
    “Did this Taltos have a mate?” asked the tall one. “I mean another Taltos, a female?”
    “No, his mate was a woman named Rowan Mayfair. I told your friend about her. She was his mother, and his lover. She is what we call a witch in the Talamasca.”
    “Aye,” said the little man, “and what we would call a witch as well. There are many powerful witches in this tale, Ashlar. There is a brood of witches. You have to let the man tell his story.”
    “Ashlar, that’s your full name?” asked Yuri. It had been a jolt.
    For hours before he’d left New Orleans, he had listened to Aaron summarize the tale of Lasher, the demon from theglen. St. Ashlar—that name had been spoken over and over again. St. Ashlar.
    “Yes,” said the tall one. “But Ash is the single-syllable version, which I heartily prefer. I don’t mean to be impolite, but I so prefer the simple name Ash that often I don’t answer to the other.” This was said firmly but with courtesy.
    The dwarf laughed. “I call him by his full name to make him strong and attentive,” he said.
    The tall one ignored this. He warmed his hands over the fire; with fingers splayed apart, they looked diseased.
    “You’re in pain, aren’t you?” the man said, turning away from the fire.
    “Yes. Excuse me, please, that I show it. The wound’s in my shoulder, in such a place that