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The bell began to ring faster, indeed madly, with the spirit of rejoicing. The pipes struck up a wild melody, and the drums began to beat.

"To the castle," cried the people. "It is time for the Laird's Feast."

And I found myself raised upon the shoulders of the stout men of the village.

"We will stand against the forces of hell," cried the people. "We will fight to the death if we must." It was a good thing they carried me, for the music had become so merry and so loud that I could not have walked. I was spellbound and crazed as they took me through the nave, and this time I did turn to my right and gaze up at the black glass figure of my saint.

Tomorrow when the sun rises, I thought, I will come to you. Francis, be with me. Tell me if I have done well. Then the music overcame me. It was all I could do to sit upright for those who carried me out of the church and into the darkness where the snow lay gleaming on the ground and the torches of the castle blazed.

The main hall of the castle was strewn with green as I had first seen it, with all its many tapers lighted, and as the villagers set me down before the banquet table, the great Yule tree was dragged into the enormous gaping mouth of the hearth and set alight.

"Burn, burn, burn the twelve nights of Christmas," sang the villagers. The pipes were shrilling and the drums beating. And in came the servers with platters of meat, and pitchers of wine.

"We will have the Christmas Feast after all," cried my father. "We will not live in fear any longer."

In came the boys with the roasted boar's head on its huge platter, and the roasted animals themselves on their blackened spits, and everywhere I saw about me the ladies in their splendid gowns and the children dancing in groups and in circles, and finally all stood up to make informal rings beneath the great roof and lift one foot and do the tribal dance.

"Ashlar," said my father. "You have given the Lord back to us. God bless you."

I sat at the table astonished, watching all of them, my brain throbbing with the beat of the drums. I saw the bagpipers now dancing as they played, which was no small feat. And I watched the circles break and form into other circles. And the smell of the food was rich and intoxicating. And the fire was a great blinding blaze.

I closed my eyes. I do not know how long I lay with my head against the back of the chair, listening to their laughter and to their songs, and to their music. Someone gave me some wine to drink and I took it. Someone gave me some meat and that I took as well. For it was Christmas and I could have meat if I wanted, and must not be the poor Franciscan on this day of all days.

I heard a change come over the room. I thought it merely a lull. And then I realized the drums had begun to beat more slowly. They had begun to sound more ominous and the pipes were playing an attenuated and dark song.

I opened my eyes. The assembly was wrapped in silence, or the spell of the music. I could not tell which. I felt if I moved I would become dizzy myself. I saw the drummers now; saw their fixed expressions, and the somber drunken faces of those who blew the pipes.

This was not Christmas music. This was something altogether darker and more lustrous and mad. I tried to stand up, but the music overcame me. And it seemed the melody had gone away from it, and it was only one theme repeated over and over, like a person reaching, making the same gesture, again and again, and again.

Then came the scent. Ah, it is only my sister, thought I, and I alone know it and I shall stifle whatever desire it creates.

But then a gasp went up from those scattered about the great room, those gathered on the stairs. Indeed, some turned and hid their faces, and others pushed back against the walls.

"What is it?" I cried out. My father stood staring as if no words could reach him. I saw my sister Emaleth the same, and all of my kin and the other chieftains. The drums beat on and on. The pipes whined and ground.

The scent grew stronger, and as I struggled to remain standing I saw a group of people, clothed only in black and white, come into the hall.

I knew these severe garments. I knew these stiff white collars. These were the Puritans. Had they come to make war?

They concealed something with their number, moving forward in concert, and now it seemed the pipers and the drummers were as wrapped in their music as was I.

I wanted to cry, "Look, the Protestants!" But my words were far away. The scent grew stronger and stronger.

And at last the gathering of people in black broke open and in the circle stood a small bent and dwarfish female, with a great smiling mouth, and a hump upon her back and burning eyes.

"Taltos, Taltos, Taltos!" she screamed, and came towards me, and I knew the scent was coming from her! I saw my sister plunge towards me but then my father caught her and forced her down to the ground. He held her struggling on her knees.

One of the little people, bitter, fiery of eye.

"Aye, but we shall make giants together, my tall brother, my spouse!" she cried. And opening her arms she opened as well the tatters of her ragged gown. I saw her breasts huge and inviting, hanging down upon her small belly.

The smell was in my nostrils, in my head, and as she stepped up onto the table before me, it seemed she grew tall and beautiful in my eyes, a woman of grace and slender limbs and long white fingers reaching out to caress my face. Pure female of your own ilk.

"No, Ashlar!" cried my sister, and I saw the downward movement of my father's fist, and heard her body fall to the stone floor.

The woman before me was beaming; and as I watched, her golden-red hair grew longer and longer, coming down her naked back and down between her breasts. She lifted this veil now and revealed herself to me, cupping her breasts in both hands; and then dropping her hands, she opened the secret lips of the pink wet mouth between her legs.

I knew no reason, only passion, only the music, only the spellbinding beauty. I had been lifted to the table. And she lay down ben

eath me, and I was lifted over her.

"Taltos, Taltos, Taltos! Make the Taltos!"

The drums beat louder and louder as if there were no limit to the volume. The pipes had become one long drone. And there beneath me, in the golden hair between her legs, was the mouth smiling at me, smiling as though it could speak! It was moist and tender and glowing with the fluid of a woman, and I wanted it, I could smell it, I needed it; I had to have it.

I drew out my organ and drove it into the nether crack and thrust again and again.

It was the ecstasy of nursing from my mother. It was my whores in Florence, the ring of their laughter, the soft squeeze of their plump breasts, it was the hairy secrets beneath their skirts, it was a blaze of flesh tightening on me and drawing out of me cries of ecstasy. But it would not be finished. On and on it went. And to have lived a lifetime with so little of it, I had been a fool, a fool, a fool!

The boards were rattling and booming with our lovemaking. Cups had fallen to the floor. It seemed the heat of the fire was consuming us; the sweat was pouring out of me.

And beneath me--on the hard slats of wood, in the spilt wine and the scraps of meat and the torn linen--lay not the beautiful woman of shimmering red hair, but the tiny dwarfed hag with her hideous grin.

"Oh, God, I do not care, I do not care! Give it to me!" I all but screamed in my passion. On and on it went until there was no memory anymore of reason or purpose or thought.

In a daze, I realized I had been dragged from the dwarfish woman, and that she was undulating on the boards before me, and that something was coming out of that secret wet place where I had put my seed.

"No, I don't want to see it! Stop it!" I screamed. "Oh, God, forgive me!" But the whole hall rang with laughter, wild laughter vying with the drums and with the pipes to make a din against which I had to cover my ears. I think I bellowed. Bellowed like a beast. But I could not hear myself.

Out of the loins of the hag came the new Taltos, came its long slithering arms, lengthening as they reached out, thin and groping, and fingers growing longer as they walked upon the boards, and at last its head, its narrow slippery head, as even the mother cried in her agony, and it was born knowing, it was born pushing itself free from the dripping egg within the womb, and looking with knowing eyes at me!