carefully preserved and carried out, of the memories treasured, and of our values, our belief in love and birth above all things held sacred—that life was in mortal danger from those who would hunt for monsters for any reason, from those who only wanted to “see with their own eyes.”
Another development took place. As I said earlier, there were always those born in the glen who wanted to leave. It was deeply impressed upon them that they must remember the way home. They must look at the stars and never forget the various patterns that could guide them home. And this became a part of innate knowledge very rapidly because we deliberately cultivated it, and this cultivation worked. In fact, it worked amazingly well, opening up to us all kinds of new possibilities. We could program into the innate knowledge all manner of practical things. We put it to the test by questioning the offspring. It was quite astonishing. They knew the map of Britain as we knew it and preserved it (highly inaccurate), they knew how to make weapons, they knew the importance of secrecy, they knew the fear and hatred of human beings and how best to avoid them or triumph over them. They knew the Art of the Tongue.
Now, the Art of the Tongue, as we called it, was something we never thought of until the humans came. But it was essentially talking and reasoning with people, which we did with each other all the time. Now, basically we speak among ourselves much, much faster than humans, sometimes. Not always. Just sometimes. It sounds to humans like a whistling or a humming, or even a buzzing. But we can talk more in human rhythm, and we had learned how to speak to humans on their level, that is, to confuse them and entangle them in logic, to fascinate them and to influence them somewhat.
Obviously this Art of the Tongue wasn’t saving us from extinction.
But it could save a lone Taltos discovered by a pair of humans in the forest, or a Taltos man taken prisoner by a small human clan with no ties to the warrior people who had invaded the land.
Anyone venturing out must know the Art of the Tongue, of speaking slowly to humans, on their level, and doing it in a convincing way. And inevitably some of those who left decided to settle outside.
They built their brochs, that is, our style of tower, of dry stone without mortar, and lived in wild and isolated places, passing for humans to those new peoples who happened to pass their home.
It was a sort of clan existence that developed defensively, and in scattered locales.
But inevitably these Taltos would reveal their nature to humans, or humans would war on them, or someone would learn of the magical Taltos birth, and again talk of us, talk of the glen, would circulate among hostile men.
I myself, having ever been inventive and forward-looking and refusing to give up, ever—even when the whole lost land was exploding, I did not give up—more or less thought ours was a lost cause. We could, for the present, defend the glen, that was true, when outsiders did occasionally break in on us, but we were essentially trapped!
But the question of those who passed for human, those who lived among human beings, pretending to be an old tribe or clan—that fascinated me. That got me to thinking…. What if we were to do this? What if, instead of shutting human beings out, we slowly let them in, leading them to believe that we were a human tribe too, and we lived in their midst, keeping our birth rituals secret from them?
Meantime great changes in the outside world held a great fascination for us. We wanted to speak to travelers, to learn. And so, finally, we devised a dangerous subterfuge….
Twenty-six
“YURI STEFANO HERE. Can I help you?”
“Can you help me! God, it’s good to hear your voice,” said Michael. “We’ve been separated less than forty-eight hours, but the Atlantic Ocean is between us!”
“Michael. Thank God you called me. I didn’t know where to reach you. You’re still with Ash, aren’t you?”
“Yes, and we will be for another two days, I think. I’ll tell you all about it, but how are things with you?”
“It’s over, Michael. It’s over. All the evil is gone, and the Talamasca is itself again. This morning I received my first communication from the Elders. We’re taking serious measures to see that this sort of