"Oh, my, it is beautiful."
Alien and unnatural was what it was, Nicholas thought, but the utter strangeness of it didn't concern him at the moment. He cursed, smacked his palm against his forehead. "Blast me, I'm a fool. Here we are in cloaks and boots, ready for cold weather and a hike into the mountains, yet I forgot to bring a weapon."
"Sarimund didn't say anything about needing one," she said, and moved closer to his side, and wondered if somehow Nicholas had been blocked from thinking of a weapon.
"He didn't say anything about wearing cloaks either," he said, and cursed again. "Well, no hope for it. All right, I know we aren't to build a fire because that will bring the fire creatures in to devour it. Is that right?"
"Yes."
"Then I'm wondering how anyone ever cooked anything if these fire creatures always flew by to kill the flame."
"We will ask the red Lasis when we find it. We've got to make friends with it, so it will protect us from the Tiber. I hope Sarimund comes to us soon. Remember, he said he was waiting for me."
He said, "I cannot imagine meeting someone three hundred years dead. Well, yes, I can-Captain Jared. Do you think Sarimund will be only spirit and song?"
"I saw him across from the huge kettle he was stirring. He looked very real."
Nicholas said, as he looked out over the land, "Hopefully we are in the Vale of Augur and that is Mount Olyvan at the end of the plain beyond that skinny snake of river. If Sarimund doesn't come, if we can't find a Dragon of the Sallas Pond to fly us over it, then we will have to cross it. If I remember aright, we can't cross the river until the three bloodred moons are full, and rise together over Mount Olyvan. I wonder why that restriction? The river doesn't look deep at all, its surface appears calm, and over there, it doesn't appear to be more than fifteen feet wide."
Rosalind said, "If you stick even your toe in that river before the three bloodred moons are full, I shall kick you."
He didn't know where it came from, but he grinned down at her. "The moons aren't quite full, are they?" "No. Tomorrow night."
A black eyebrow shot up. "You seem very sure about that."
She looked momentarily surprised. "Yes, I do, don't I?"
He eyed her a moment, then said, "Perhaps there is another way to get to Blood Rock, besides crossing the river or finding a Dragon of the Sallas Pond to fly us there."
She turned away from him suddenly and began to walk toward a single tree that stood on a small mound some twenty feet away. Nicholas called out, "Rosalind, no, we must remain together. Come back here."
She kept walking straight toward that tree, at least he thought it was a tree. Of all things, it was a bright yellow and had very long bare branches sticking out from the trunk, moving lazily about like thin waving arms. The only thing was, there wasn't any wind, not even a slight breeze to make those branches move and sway the way they did.
He yelled her name again, but still she didn't turn. Then he called out, "Isabella! Come back here."
She turned then and smiled at him, a mysterious smile.
He said, "I want you to sing to me."
He saw that her hair shined as violent a red as the three bloodred moons above her head, and her face was washed of color, not as white as the whiteness that had shrouded them and their bedchambers the previous night, but her pallor was marked. Had it only been last night? It seemed like eons ago. He stared at her as she walked toward him. The thing was, she was Rosalind, yet, somehow, she wasn't. He would swear red sparks flew outward from her head, forming a crimson halo-or a blood halo. Her cloak and gown were gone and in their place, a long white robe, a narrow golden rope at her waist. He felt a spurt of fear and quashed it. "Please, Isabella, sing to me."
She took another couple of steps toward him, the hem of her gown brushing against some spindly bushes that didn't appear to have any color to them at all. She sang:
I dream of beauty and sightless night
I dream of strength and fevered might
I dream I'm not alone again
But I know of his death and her grievous sin.
She lowered her head and he heard her sigh, deep and broken, as if wrenched from her very soul. "She wants to kill him, badly. He's only a little boy, no bad in him, none at all, yet she is afraid of him, afraid that when he reaches manhood he will smite her down and exile all the other wizards and witches to a place beyond death."
He walked slowly to her. She didn't move. He reached her, but didn't touch her. "What little boy?" His heart began to pound in hard, slow strokes.
"His name is Prince Egan. He is Epona's son, hers and Sarimund's. I must protect him. I must save him."
"How do you know his name?"
In the turn of a second she looked at him out of Rosalind's clear blue eyes, not Isabella's. "The final page of Sarimund's book-neither you nor I saw anything save a stark white page, but you see, there was something written there. I can see his name very clearly now. I must hurry. Epona will know I'm here, and she will kill him."
"What do you mean?"
"Sarimund's spell, it's stayed her hand. She cannot kill him until I am here." ' "But how?"
"I don't know. He must come soon to tell me what I must do to save Egan."
It had to be asked. "If you do not save Prince Egan, will I die as well? Or will I never exist?"
There, it was said.
Suddenly her red hair bristled as if lightning had whipped through it. "If I don't stop her then she will kill Egan. Then it won't matter, will it?"
A terrifying roar rent the silence from directly behind Nicholas. He whirled about to face a monster that looked a cross between a lion and one of those strange beasts that roamed the western plains in America. The beast roared again, its huge mouth open wide, showing knife-sharp fangs. This creature had to be the Tiber. He barely had time to thrust up his arm before the Tiber leapt on him, going for his throat, its fangs glistening beneath the red moonlight.
He yelled, "Run, Isabella, run!"
She picked up her skirts and ran to the lone yellow tree. She jerked off one of the long naked yellow branches, and ran toward the man and the beast atop him, raising the branch high over her head. Suddenly, Nicholas was on top of the beast, his hands around its throat. She would hit Nicholas if she struck the branch down now. The Tiber grunted with rage, globs of white liquid flew out of its great mouth, its hooves and legs flailed wildly. The Tiber shrieked and Rosalind saw its fangs were as yellow as the tree, and those sharp fangs strained upward, toward Nicholas's throat.
"Nicholas, pull him over on top of you!"
He arched his back, gained leverage with his legs, and kicked his feet with all his strength into the Tiber's belly. It howled and he rolled over and whipped his legs up and closed them around the beast's neck and hauled it down over him. She swung with all her might at the Tiber's head, a blow so powerful the branch shuddered in her hands and her arms trembled with the force of it. The Tiber twisted its head about to look up at her and she hit its head again, even harder this time. The branch split apart in her hands and yellow sand gushed out.
The Tiber said, "Nay, mistress, do not kill me. I saw the man reach out to you and believed he would hurt you. Do not kill me, mistress. A branch from the yellow Sillow tree is a mighty weapon, no human before has known to use it."
Now this was a shock, Nicholas thought, and released his legs from about the Tiber's neck. The Tiber slowly rolled off him and came to its four feet, shaking its shaggy brown coat. No, not entirely brown, there were dark blue stripes across his back. Then it stood there, head down, panting.