Anne Rice - Taltos

“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?”