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.<BR>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.<BR>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.<BR>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.