Locus Award nominee 1995.
Meet Mr. Ash, quiet-spoken, tall, unfailingly kind – sole survivor of
an ancient species, the Taltos – thriving among humankind as he has
always done, now the head of a great corporate empire. As the novel
opens, he is stunned to learn from an old and mysterious friend that
another Taltos has been seen – in the very same Scottish glen where
centuries ago, long before the coming of the Romans, Ash ruled his
clan.
At once he is propelled into the world of Rowan Mayfair, and
into the mysteries of the Mayfair family – the New Orleans dynasty of
witches forever besieged by ghosts, spirits, and the dizzying powers of
his own species – a family intimately involved with the heritage of the
Taltos, a family of unique, brilliant, and troubled souls struggling as
they have for centuries to use both science and magic in their battle
for greatness, even survival.
At the heart of the novel is the
Talamasca, a secular order of psychic scholars, the only organization
in existence which may understand Ash, his Taltos past, and the dilemma
of the Mayfair witches.
The story of the Mayfair family
continues, moving from London to Donnelaith, Scotland, to New Orleans,
back and forth through time – from the origins of the Taltos and their
mythic Lost Land to the moral crises of the present day.
