said the dwarf. “Your friend’s dead. I wasn’t there to save him.”
“The man who tried to kill you,” Ash said, “did you kill him?”
Samuel gave the answer. “No, I killed him. Not on purpose, really. It was either knock him off the cliff or let him fire another shot at the gypsy. I must confess I did it rather for the hell of it, as Yuri and I hadn’t yet exchanged a single word. Here was this man aiming a gun at another man. The dead man’s body is in the glen. You want to find it? It’s a good chance the Little People left it right where it fell.”
“Ah, it was like that,” said Ash.
Yuri said nothing. Vaguely he knew that he should have found this body. He should have examined it, taken its identifying papers. But that really had not been feasible, given his wound and the awesome terrain. There seemed something just about the body being lost forever in the wilderness of Donnelaith, and about the Little People letting the body rot.
The Little People.
Even as he had fallen, his eyes had been on the spectacle of the tiny men, down in the little pocket of grass far below him, dancing like many twisted modern Rumplestiltskins. The light of the torches had been the last thing he saw before he lost consciousness.
When he’d opened his eyes to see Samuel, his savior, with the gunbelt and pistol, and a face so haggard and old that it seemed a tangle of tree roots, he had thought, They’ve come to kill me. But I’ve seen them. I wish I could tell Aaron. The Little People. I’ve seen them….
“It’s a group from outside the Talamasca,” said Ash, waking him abruptly from the unwelcome spell, pulling him back into this little circle. “Not from within.”
Taltos, thought Yuri, and now I have seen the Taltos. I am in a room with this creature who is the Taltos.
Had the honor of the Order been unblemished, had the pain in his shoulder not been reminding him every moment of the shabby violence and treachery which had engulfed his life, how momentous it would have been to see the Taltos. But then this was the price of such visions, was it not? They always carried a price, Aaron had told him once. And now he could never, never discuss this with Aaron.
Samuel spoke next, a little caustic. “How do you know it’s not a group from within the Talamasca?”
He looked nothing now like he had that night, in his ragged jerkin and breeches. Sitting by the fire, he had looked like a ghastly toad as he counted his bullets and filled the empty spaces in his belt and drank his whiskey and offered it over and over to Yuri. That was the drunkest Yuri had ever been. But it was medicinal, wasn’t it?
“Rumplestiltskin,” Yuri had said. And the little man had said, “You can call me that if you like. I’ve been called worse. But my name is Samuel.”
“What language are they singing in?” When will they stop with the singing, with the drums!
“Our language. Be quiet now. It’s hard for me to count.”
Now the little man was cradled comfortably by the civilized chair, and swaddled in civilized garments, staring eagerly at the miraculous willowy giant, Ash, who took his time to answer.
“Yes,” said Yuri, more to snap himself out of it than anything else. “What makes you think it’s a group from outside?” Forget the chill and the darkness and the drums—the infuriating pain of the bullet.
“It’s too clumsy,” said Ash. “The bullet from a gun. The car jumping the curb and striking Aaron Lightner. There are many easy ways to kill people so that others hardly notice at all. Scholars always know this; they have learnt from studying witches and wizards and other princes of maleficia. No. They would not go into the glen stalking a man as if he were game. It is not possible.”
“Ash, the gun is now the weapon of the glen,” said Samuel derisively. “Why shouldn’t wizards use guns if Little People use them?”
“It’s the toy of the glen, Samuel,” said Ash calmly. “And you know it. The men of the Talamasca are not monsters who are hunted and spied upon and must retreat from the world into a wilderness and, when sighted, strike fear in men’s hearts.” He went on with his reasoning. “It is not from within the Elders of the Talamasca that this menace has arisen. It is