Lasher

  Out of her body it slithered, growing taller and taller, its eyes brilliant, its mouth open, its flawless skin gleaming as perfect as that of any human babe. And it fell upon its mother as I had once done, and began to drink from her, first draining one breast and then the other. And then it stood up, and all around the people cheered and roared.

  "Taltos! Taltos! Make another. Make a woman, make Taltos until the sun rises!"

  "No, stop this!" I cried, but this newborn horror, this baffled child, this strange wavering giant, had covered the hag of a woman and was now raping her as surely as I had done. And another hag had been brought to me and placed before me, and I was being forced down upon her, and my organ knew her, and knew what it wanted, and knew the smell.

  Where were my saints?

  It seemed the people in the hall were stamping and singing, chanting now with the drums. All were one voice, monotonous and low and incessant. And when I was pulled back, my eyes rolled and I could not see. The wine was splashed in my face, a child was being born to this new woman who had been given me, and once again the people cried, "Taltos, Taltos, Taltos!" And finally, "It is a woman! We have them both!"

  The hall went wild with lusty cries. Once more the people were dancing but not in circles, but arm in arm and jumping up onto the boards and onto the chairs and rushing up the steps merely to jump in the air. I saw the Laird's face, full of wrath and horror, his head shaking as he cried out to me, but his words were lost.

  "Make them till Christmas morning!" cried the people. "Make them and burn them!" And as I struggled to my knees, I saw them take the firstborn, the boy who was now as tall as his father, and throw him into the Christmas fire.

  "Stop it, stop this in the name of God!" No one could hear me. I could not hear myself. I could not hear him scream though I knew that he did; I saw the anguish in his smooth face. I went down on my knees and bowed my head. "God help us. It is witchcraft. Stop it, oh, God, help us, they have bred us for sacrifice, we are the lambs, oh, God, please no more, no more to die!"

  The crowd was roaring, swaying, humming in the mighty and endless drone. Then suddenly screams broke the air, more loud and numerous than my own, impossible for them not to hear.

  Soldiers had forced the doors! Hundreds streamed into the hall. For every man in armor with a shield and sword, there came a shepherd or a plowman with a pitchfork or a crude plowshare in his hand.

  "Witches, witches, witches!" screamed the attackers.

  I rose to my feet and cried out for silence. Heads were being lopped from bodies. Those who were stabbed were screaming for mercy. Men fought to protect their women. And not even the little children were being spared.

  The assailants laid hold of me. I was carried out of the hall, and with me the other monsters, newborn, and the hags from which they had come. The cold night opened up and it seemed the screams and war cries echoed off the mountains.

  "Dear God, help us, help us," I cried. "Help us, this is evil, this is wrong, this is not your justice. No. Punish those who are guilty but not all! Dear God!"

  My body was flung on the stone floor of the Cathedral and I was dragged up the aisle. All around me I heard the great windows bursting. I saw flames. I began to choke on the black smoke, but my body was being scraped as I was dragged. I saw in the far distance the hay of the manger explode! The tethered animals were bellowing in the fire from which they could not escape.

  And finally at the foot of the tomb of St. Ashlar I was thrown.

  "Through the window, through the window!" they cried.

  I struggled to my knees. All the wooden benches and ornaments of the Cathedral were burning. The whole world was smoke and the cries of the massacred, and suddenly my body was lifted by hands that held each foot and each arm, and by these beings I was swung back and forth, back and forth and then flung towards the great window of the saint himself!

  I felt my chest and my face slam against the glass. I heard it break, and I thought, Surely now I will die. I will go up into the peace and into the night and into the stars, and God will explain why all this has come about.

  It seemed I saw the valley. I saw the town burning. I saw every window a fiery mouth. I saw hovels blazing. I saw the bodies strewn all around me and in a daze I realized that these were not the visions of a rising soul. I still lived.

  And then the mob came, and once again laid hands on me in their fury. "Drag him to the circle," they said. "Drag all of them, burn them in the circle, burn the witches and the Taltos."

  All was blackness and panic, a gasp for breath, a desperate attempt for purchase--nothing for one moment that was not wild animal struggle, no, dear God, help us, don't let it be the flames.

  As they raised me to my feet I saw the dim ancient circle of stones surrounding us, their crude outlines looming against the sky and against the flames of the town burning behind us, the flames engulfing the great Cathedral, all of its beautiful glass broken and gone.

  A stone struck me, and then another, and another. And a third brought the blood pouring from my eye. I heard the flames. I felt the heat. But I was dying beneath the stones. One after another they struck my head, pitching me this way and that way so that I scarce felt the fire when it touched me...

  "Dear God, into Thy hands, Thy servant Ashlar can do no more. Dear God. Infant Jesus, take me. Blessed Mother, take me. Francis, come to help me up. Holy Mary, Mother of God, now and at the hour...into Thy hands!"

  And then...

  And then.

  There was no God.

  There was no Baby Jesus in my arms.

  There was no Blessed Mother, "now and at the hour of our death."

  There was no Light.

  There was no judgment.

  There was no heaven.

  There was no hell.

  ...

  There was darkness.

  ...

  And then came Suzanne.

  Suzanne calling in the night.

  Ashlar, St. Ashlar.

  A bright fleshly being, scarcely visible in the circle! And look at it, the ring of stones, how round! Hear her voice!

  And down the long long years the call came, feeble and tiny, like the faintest spark, and then louder and clearer, and I came together to hear it:

  "Come now, my Lasher, hear my voice."

  "Who am I, child?" Was this my voice speaking? Was this my own true voice speaking at last?

  No time, no past, no future, no memory...

  Only a dim vision of warm flesh through the mist, a blurred entity reaching upwards from the circle.

  And her childlike answer, her laughter, her love:

  "My Lasher, that's who you are, you are my avenger, my Lasher, come!"

  Thirty-seven

  LASHER SAT SILENT with his hands flat on the table, his head bowed.

  Michael said nothing, but cautiously looked up at Clement Norgan, and then at Aaron, and at Erich Stolov. He could see the compassion in Aaron's face. Erich Stolov was amazed.

  Lasher's face was very calm, almost serene. The tears were there again, these tears he wears like jewels, Michael thought, and Michael shuddered all over as if trying to break the spell of the being's beauty, of its soft even voice.

  "I am yours, gentlemen," said Lasher in the same gentle manner, gazing at Erich Stolov. "I have come to you after all these centuries to ask for your help. You offered it to me once; you told me your purpose; I didn't believe you. And now, I find myself hunted and threatened again."

  Stolov glanced uneasily at Aaron and at Michael. Norgan watched Stolov as if for some cue.

  "You've done right," said Stolov. "You've done wisely. And we're prepared to take you to Amsterdam. That is why we're here!"

  "Oh no. You won't do this," said Michael softly.

  "Michael, what do you want of us?" demanded Stolov. "You think we can stand by and let you destroy this creature?"

  "Michael, you have heard my story," said Lasher sadly, wiping at his tears again so like a child.

  "B
e assured no harm will come to you," said Stolov. He turned to Michael. "We're taking him with us. We're taking him out of your hands and out of any place where he can hurt you or any of your women. It will be as if he was never here..."

  "No, wait," said Lasher. "Michael, you've listened to me," he said, his voice heartbroken as before. He leant forward; his eyes were glazed and imploring. He looked for all the world like the Christ of Durer.

  "Michael, you cannot hurt me," he said, his voice unsteady and filled with soft emotion. "You cannot kill me! Am I to blame for what I am? Look into my eyes, you cannot do it. You know it."

  "You never learn, do you?" Michael whispered.

  Aaron quickly tightened his grip on Michael's shoulder.

  "There will be no killing," Aaron said. "We will take him with us. We'll go to Amsterdam. I shall go with Erich and with Norgan. And with him. I shall make absolutely certain that he is taken directly to the Motherhouse and there placed..."

  "No, you won't," said Michael.

  "Michael," said Stolov, "this is too big a mystery to be destroyed in an instant by one man."

  "No, it isn't," said Michael.

  "We have only begun to understand," said Aaron. "Dear God. Don't you realize what this means? Michael, come to your senses--"

  "Yes, I do realize," said Michael. "And so did Rowan. Mystery be damned." Michael glared at Stolov. "This was always your goal, wasn't it? Not to watch and wait and collect knowledge, but just what the Dutchman told Lasher, to bring the Taltos together, to unite a male and a female and begin the breed again."

  Erich shook his head. "We will let no harm come to anyone," said Stolov, "and above all, not to him. We want only to study, to learn."

  "Oh, you lie," said Michael. "All of you, and now you too, Aaron, are swept up in it. He has at last seduced even you."

  "Michael, look at me," said Lasher in a half whisper. "To take a human life requires the greatest will, the greatest vanity. But to take mine? Are you mad, that you would commit me again to the unknown, without examination, that you would undo the miracle! Oh no, you wouldn't do this. You are not so heedless. So cruel."

  "Why must you win me over?" asked Michael. "Don't you rely on these other men to protect you?"

  "Michael, you are my father. Help me. Come with us to Amsterdam." He turned to Stolov. "You have the woman, don't you? The female Taltos. In all my attempts, I failed. But you have it."

  Stolov said nothing, but held his gaze evenly.

  "No, all that is fancy," said Aaron. "We have no female Taltos. We have no such secrets. But we will give you shelter, don't you see? We will provide a sanctuary in which you can be questioned, and write out the tale you've told us, and in which we will aid you in any way that we can."

  Lasher gave a small smile to Aaron, and again he glanced at Stolov. He took another careless swipe at his tears with his long graceful hand. Michael did not take his eyes off the creature.

  "Aaron, they killed Dr. Larkin," said Michael. "They killed Dr. Flanagan in San Francisco. They would destroy any obstacle. They want the Taltos, and it is as the Dutchman told Ashlar five hundred years ago! You've been their dupe and so have I. You knew it when we came into this room."

  "I can't believe it. I can't. Stolov, talk to me," said Aaron. "Norgan, go, call Yuri. Yuri is with Mona at the other house. Call there. He must come."

  Norgan didn't move. Slowly Stolov rose to his feet.

  "Michael," said Stolov, "this will be difficult for you. You want vengeance, you want to destroy."

  "You're not taking him, friend," Michael answered. "Don't try it."

  "Be still. Wait for Yuri," said Aaron.

  "Why, so that I'll be further outnumbered? Have you forgotten the poem I gave you?"

  "What poem?" asked Lasher, wide-eyed in his curiosity. "You know a poem? Will you say the poem for me? I love poems. I love to hear them. Rowan said them so well."

  "I know a thousand poems," said Michael. "But you listen to this stanza and understand:

  Let the devil speak his story

  Let him rouse the angel's might

  Make the dead come back to witness

  Put the alchemist to flight!"

  "I don't know the meaning," said Lasher innocently. "What is the meaning? I cannot see it. There are not enough rhymes."

  Suddenly Lasher looked to the ceiling. So did Stolov, or rather he cocked his ear and stared off as if putting his sight on hold as he sought to track a sound.

  It was that thin music, that old grinding thin music. Julien's gramophone.

  Michael laughed. "As if I needed it, as if I'd forgotten." He shot out of the chair, towards Lasher, who slipped back, just escaping his grasp. Lasher backed up behind Stolov and Norgan, who both scrambled to their feet.

  "You can't let him kill me!" Lasher whispered. "Father, you can't do it! No, it will hot end for me again like this!"

  "The hell it won't," said Michael.

  "Father, you are like the Protestants who would destroy forever the beautiful stained glass."

  "Tough luck!"

  The creature bolted to the left and stopped dead, staring at the door to the pantry.

  In the blink of an eye Michael had seen it too. The figure of Julien standing in the doorway, vivid, musing, gray-haired and blue-eyed, arms folded, barring the way.

  But Lasher was already darting down the hallway as the other men struggled clumsily to follow his fleet and noiseless steps. Michael knocked Aaron backwards, out of his way, and went after them, shoving Stolov hard to one side and dealing a vicious blow to Norgan so that the man buckled and went down.

  Lasher had come to a halt. The thing stood frozen, staring towards the front of the house. Again Michael saw it. The very same figure of Julien, framed within the giant keyhole front door. Still, smiling, arms folded as before.

  As Michael lunged at Lasher, he danced to the side, and pivoted and ran up the stairs.

  Michael was right behind him, chest heaving, his hands out, just missing the hem of Lasher's black cassock, the edge of his black leather shoe. He heard Stolov's shout close behind him; he felt Stolov's hand on his shoulder.

  There at the top of the stairs, across the landing blocking the door to the rear of the house, stood Julien once more, and Lasher, seeing him, backed up, almost falling, then ran down the second-floor hall and thundered up the next flight of stairs to the third floor.

  "Let me go!" Michael roared, shoving at Stolov.

  "No, you are not going to kill him. You will not."

  Michael spun round, left arm rising in the proverbial hook, knuckles connecting with the man's chin and sending him out and over backwards down the entire length of the steep stairs.

  For one second, he stared in horrible regret at the figure of Stolov, twisted, smashing to the floor.

  But Lasher had reached a haven, the third-floor bedroom, and Michael could hear him sliding the bolt.

  Rushing up after him, Michael slammed his fists against the door. He barged into it with his shoulder, once, twice, and then stood back and kicked hard against the wood, splintering it from the lock.

  The music was playing thinly from the little gramophone. The window to the porch roof was open.

  "No, Michael, for the love of God. No. Don't do this to me," whispered Lasher. "What have I done, but try to live?"

  "You killed my child, that's what you did," said Michael. "You left my wife on the brink of death. You took the living flesh of my child and subjugated it to your will, your dark will, that's what you did. And you killed my wife, you destroyed her, like you destroyed her mother and her mother's mother and all those women, all the way back! Kill you! I will kill you with pleasure! For St. Francis I will kill you. For St. Michael. For the Blessed Virgin and for the Christ Child you so love!"

  Michael's right fist drove into Lasher's face. Lasher caught the blow, staggering to the side and dancing around in a great circle suddenly, the blood pouring from his nose.

  "God, no, don't do it. Don't do it."


  "You wanted to be flesh? Well, you are flesh and now you'll know what happens when flesh dies."

  "But I do know, God help me!" Lasher shouted.

  As Michael came at him again, Lasher kicked Michael hard in the leg and with his own fist drove Michael back against the wall. The blow astonished Michael, coming as it had from the long slender limb which seemed so powerless, and which was obviously not.

  Michael climbed to his feet. Dizzy. Pain again. No. Not yet. "Damn you," he said, "damn you that you have the strength you do, but this time it will not be enough."

  He swung at the creature, but the creature dodged the blow, with another broad graceful bowing step. Again the white fist was clenched and smashing against Michael's jaw before he could duck or raise his right arm in defense.

  "Michael, the hammer!" said Julien.

  The hammer. On the sill of the open window. The hammer, with which he had searched the house that night, looking for the prowler, and finding only Julien in the dark! He dashed for it, grabbed it by the handle, turned it round, and, holding it with both hands, rushed at the creature and brought the claw end down into the thing's skull.

  Through the hair, through the tender skin, through the fontanel, through the opening that had not closed, the iron claw sank. The creature's mouth formed a perfect oval of amazement. The blood exploded upwards as if from a fount. Lasher's hands flew up as if to stop the flood, then drew back as the blood gushed down into his eyes.

  Michael wrenched the claw from the wound and brought it down hard again, deeper this time into the creature's brain. A man would have been finished, gone, no reason, but the thing only listed, drifted, staggered, the blood pouring from its head as if from a spout.

  "Oh, God, help me!" Lasher cried, the blood flowing down in rivulets past his nostrils into his mouth. "Oh, God in heaven, why? Why?" he wailed. The blood ran down his chin. Like Christ with the Crown of Thorns he bled.

  Michael raised the hammer again.

  Norgan appeared suddenly, flustered, red-faced, and then rushed at Michael, coming between him and Lasher. Michael brought the hammer down. The man died instantly as the hammer caved in his forehead and sank three inches through the bone.

  Norgan fell forward, hanging from the hammer as Michael jerked it free.

  Lasher seemed about to fall. He danced, listed, cried softly, the blood still flowing, mingled now with his sleek black hair. He gazed at the window. The window to the porch roof was open! A frail young woman stood there in the darkness, on the porch roof, the emerald glinting on a golden chain around her neck. She wore a flowered dress, short at her knees, her dark hair close to her face. She beckoned.