woman's extraordinary by any standard, an incomparable physician and a beautiful young creature of rather amazing demeanor. I know. But what I ask that you understand is this: The File on the Mayfair Witches would never normally be entrusted to anyone but a member of our order or a member of the Mayfair family itself. Now I'm breaking the rules in showing you this material. And the reasons for my decision are obvious. Nevertheless, I want to use this precious time to explain to you about the Talamasca, how we operate, and what small loyalty, in exchange for our confidence, we should like to claim from you.'
'OK, don't get so fired up. Is there some coffee in this glorified taxi?'
'Yes, of course,' said Aaron. He lifted a thermos from a pocket in the side door, and a mug with it, and started to fill the mug.
'Black will do just fine,' Michael said. A lump rose in his throat suddenly as he saw the big proud houses of the avenue gliding past, with their deep porches and colonnettes and gaily painted shutters, and the pastel sky enmeshed in a tangle of groping branches and softly fluttering leaves. A sudden crazy thought came to him, that some day he would buy a seersucker suit like Lightner's suit, and he would walk on the avenue, like the gentlemen of years past, walk for hours, round curve after curve as the avenue followed the distant bends of the river, past all these graceful old houses that had survived for so long. He felt drugged and crazy drifting through this ragged and beautiful landscape, in this insulated car, behind dimming glass.
'Yes, it is beautiful,' Lightner said. 'Very beautiful indeed.'
'O K, tell me about this order. So you're driving around in limousines thanks to the Knights Templar. What else?'
Lightner shook his head reprovingly, a trace of a smile on his lips. But again he colored, surprising and amusing Michael.
'Just kidding you, Aaron,' said Michael. 'Come on, how did you come to know about the Mayfair family in the first place? And what the hell damn is a witch, in your book, do you mind telling me that?'
'A witch is a person who can attract and manipulate unseen forces,' said Aaron. 'That's our definition. It will suffice for sorcerer or seer, as well. We were created to observe such things as witches. It all started in what we now call the Dark Ages, long before the witchcraft persecutions, as I'm sure you know. And it started with a single magician, an alchemist as he called himself, who began his studies in a solitary spot, gathering together in a great book all the tales of the supernatural he had ever read or heard.
'His name and his life story are not important for the moment. But what characterized his account was that it was curiously secular for the times. He was perhaps the only historian ever to write about the occult, or the unseen, or the mysterious without making assumptions and assertions as to the demonic origin of apparitions, spirits, and the like. And of his small band of followers he demanded the same open-mindedness. 'Merely study the work of the so-called spell binder,' he would say. 'Do not assume you know whence his power comes.'
'We are very much the same now,' Aaron continued. 'We are dogmatic only when it comes to defending our lack of dogma. And though we are large and extremely secure, we are always on the lookout for new members, for people who will respect our passivity and our slow and thorough methods, people who find the investigation of the occult as fascinating as we do, people who have been gifted with an extraordinary talent such as the power you have in your hands...
'Now when I first read of you, I have to confess, I knew nothing about any connection between you and Rowan May-fair or the house on First Street. It was membership that entered my mind. Of course I hadn't planned to tell you this immediately. But everything is changed now, you'll agree.
'But whatever was to happen on that account, I came to San Francisco to make available our knowledge to you, to show you, if you wished, how to use your power, and then perhaps to broach the subject that you might find our way of life fulfilling or enjoyable, enough to consider it, at least for a while...
'You see, there was something about your life which intrigued me, that is, what