Nicholas asked Richard as he sipped on a lovely Bordeaux, "You had this vision only once?"
"That's right. It was real. It was the truth. But I see you still have her with you. You are a fool, Nicholas, a right fool." Richard shrugged. "Why should I care? After she flings your heart into the bushes, I will be the Earl of Mountjoy."
Miranda hissed.
Richard turned to her. "What makes you dislike that image, Mother?"
Miranda waved her fork at her son. "A vision simply shouldn't happen to a fine, normal, wickedly handsome young man like yourself. It happens only to crazy old men like your grandfather, whose blasted ghost sang out a 'prithee' to me."
"I rather like his songs," Aubrey said as he chewed on Cook's ham. "I wonder if he will allow me to sing with him."
Miranda hissed again.
"All of you are bloody mad," Lancelot said and threw a slice of bread across the dining room. "I want to leave. There is no reason to stay in the same house with a murderess. And Nicholas amuses himself at our expense. He will doubtless try to kill us, or set his wife to do it."
Rosalind was beginning to think that dispatching the lot of them wasn't a bad idea.
"Not if his precious wife stabs him first," Aubrey said, and Rosalind saw him grinning behind a spoonful of vegetable marrow soup. "What with all that violent red hair, I imagine she has a formidable temper, is that true, Nicholas?"
"He wouldn't have the nerve to strike her," Lancelot said, his mouth full, "now that he knows she'll cut his heart out. As for that heathen servant of his, I swear the fellow is cursing me whenever I chance to see him. He looks foreign. I don't like him."
Nicholas said, "It's true, Lancelot, that Lee Po knows
many meaty curses, some of them designed to tangle up your innards so you choke on your own guts. I'd keep my distance from him." Nicholas paused a moment, looked around the table. "You know, perhaps Lancelot is right, all of you should return to London. Perhaps after dinner. Or after an early breakfast in the morning. Thank you, Richard, for delivering your vision message."
Richard came right out of his chair. "No!" Nicholas lounged back in his earl's chair, arched an eyebrow. "No? Why ever not?"
"I cannot," Richard said, his voice, his very posture intense. His hands were splayed on the table, his knuckles white. There was something desperate about him, Nicholas realized, but what was it?
45
Dinner dragged on with no explanation from Richard. Nicholas and Rosalind finally left his family to tea and whist. Lancelot was in a vile mood, throwing down his cards as if each one were a weapon. Aubrey baited him, said he was pretty as any girl he'd ever seen, which Nicholas thought wasn't far from the truth. Aubrey's smile never faded, his good humor seemed inexhaustible. On the other hand, Aubrey spent most of his time at Oxford. He didn't have to live with this bunch.
As for Richard, he brooded, one booted leg swinging over the arm of his chair. Nicholas didn't think he was brooding over his luck at cards. "Why, he wondered yet again, was Richard so anxious? If Rosalind did stab him, as Richard claimed he'd seen in the vision, then why wasn't he raising a brandy glass?
It was a relief to leave the four of them behind the closed drawing room door.
"I wonder where Captain Jared is this fine night?" Rosalind said as they walked into the earl's bedchamber.
"He kept quiet and I can't say I blame him," Nicholas said.
They drew on cloaks over their clothes. "It might be quite cold in the Pale," Rosalind said as she tied the black velvet tips together.
Rosalind made certain there was always a good three feet between them even though they held hands. She didn't want to fall into the Pale with the both of them naked.
Nicholas said, "I feel bloody ridiculous, lying in bed, waiting. Waiting for what? How the devil will we get to the Pale? I have no flying carpet."
She shook her head. "We must be patient, and wait, no choice. Would you like me to sing to you?"
He sat up. "No, what I want is to see if you can now read the final pages of the Rules of the Pale."
She sat up beside him. "I can't believe I forgot about it. You believe Sarimund has removed the veil from them as well as freed the pages from the shorter book?"
"We will shortly see, won't we?" He fetched the book from the top drawer in his dresser.
She sat in the large comfortable chair in front of the fireplace, and Nicholas stood beside her, his hands outstretched to the sluggish flame.
Her fingers trembled as she thumbed to the end of the book. She looked down at the writing, then up at Nicholas.
He said, "You can read it now. It would make no sense if you still couldn't."
She looked down again, cleared her throat, and read:
This is the end, I can offer no more help since I promised not to meddle.
You are a gift, Isabella, never doubt that, you are brave and true, your honor bone deep. Many times, I have found, a gift is a debt to another.
I have but to warn you not to trust anyone or anything, be it a god or a goddess, a wizard or a witch. Do not accept what you see for it may not be real at all. Those in the Pale fashion lavish illusions and violent phantasms to drive the unwary mad. Be disbelieving. Be cautious.
But know that evil cannot touch you. Good-bye, my sweet girl. You must sing, never forget to sing.
Sarimund
Rosalind stared down at the last page for a good long time before she raised her face to her husband's. "My name is Is-abella."
He looked at her thoughtfully, stroking his long fingers over his chin. "It is a beautiful name. I wonder how Sarimund knew your name was Isabella some three hundred years before you were born."
"If that is indeed my name in the present day. Why didn't he tell me my last name as well?"
"Since we are speaking of magic, then we are naturally speaking of obfuscation. I now believe that to make a proper magical pronouncement, you must be infuriatingly murky; you must litter ambiguous metaphors over the landscape; and you must spice your pronouncements with otherworldly words that don't fit into any comprehensible framework. You must unveil only half clues, a lame bit of garbled nonsense here and bit of misdirection there. And withal, we simply must accept it.
"And as for Captain Jared's dreadful rhymes—if his ghost would show himself but once, I would wring his bloody neck. Hmm, I wonder if my hands would go right through his neck. I wonder if there are more rules—vital rules—that Sarimund is still hiding from us."
Rosalind cocked her head to one side. "Being a wizard, you would know, now wouldn't you?"
"If I am a wizard, then you, madam, are a witch." And he began pacing the bedchamber, his cloak billowing about his ankles. He said, "I am a simple man. I am, I really am. And I like the name Isabella."
"That must mean I am Italian. Oh, curse Sarimund, why didn't the moron write down my full name? Ah, yes, that would mean breaking a magic rule. You know, Nicholas, I'm thinking one must study obscure texts to think magically."
"Leave me out of it. All I want to do is to stride over my acres, watch my lands flourish, give Clyde free rein to jump over that fence at the back of my northern border, watch the barley and rye grow tail, and make love to my wife until I am unable to move. Ah, if we are blessed, to fill the Wyverly Chase nursery." He heaved a sigh. "Don't look alarmed and tense upon me. I have no intention of attacking your fair person." He brushed his fingers through his hair, making it stand straight up. "Well, I most certainly will think about how you feel when I'm deep inside you, but not now. Now I want this over with. Behold, madam, a patient man. Come lie with me."
And so they lay next to each other, again holding hands, a blanket pulled over their cloaks and their booted feet. Their talk dwindled. Rosalind was on the edge of sleep when she heard Nicholas say, his voice low and deep, "If we do not survive this, Rosalind , know that I love you. Like the Dragon of the Sallas Pond, you are my mate for life. I pray we will survive this journey, that we will enjoy a nice long
life."
"I love you too, Nicholas. It would seem I've loved you all my life—no matter which life. It is amazing how you make me feel, how you make me want to skip and jump and sing and perhaps play a rousing waltz on the pianoforte."
He basked. This incredible woman he'd dreamed of for so many years actually loved him, despite—despite what? He wondered, and frowned. But he didn't ask because suddenly, all words, all thoughts faded from his brain and he fell asleep instead.
Suddenly both of them jerked straight up in bed.
"What the devil?"
"I don't know," Rosalind said, and clutched his hand.
They watched as the smoldering ashes in the fireplace suddenly ignited, as if fanned by an invisible hand. The flames roared upward, making a loud whooshing sound, as if all the air in the room were being sucked into it. The flames whipped up and out, and the sound of a high wind filled the room.
Nicholas cursed and grabbed her against him. He yelled, "Don't let go of me, whatever you do, don't let go of me. Do you hear me?"
She nodded, unable to speak, only stare at the roaring flames. The sucking sound became even louder. The flames turned bright blue, then the blue deepened into a rich royal blue. They watched the big chair whip round and round until it disappeared into the whirling vortex. The gigantic flame seemed to swallow the chair. But how could that be? They'd watched the vortex actually suck the chair into the fireplace, but it was too large to fit, surely it was. Yet it didn't matter, the chair was gone. The blue flames roared, leapt upward as if trying to reach the sky, and the sound of it was like the cackle of a hundred mad witches.
Then the huge funnel turned itself on them. They felt the incredible pull, and despite themselves, it jerked them to their feet and pulled them toward the roaring flames that now had leapt out of the fireplace and formed a huge funnel that was twisting wildly, reaching to the ceiling, filling the bedchamber, twisting and circling fast, the noise unbelievable. But there was no smoke, no particular heat.
It was madness.
Nicholas instinctively grabbed the bedpost against the incredible pull of the vortex.
Rosalind said in a calm voice, "No, Nicholas, it is all right. Let go."
He released the bedpost and the vortex swooped them up, slapped them together, whirled them about so fast they couldn't see or hear anything except the deafening roar. She felt his hand squeeze hers as they were both spun into the huge column of blue flame that roared and shrieked around them. Her hair whipped into their faces, blinding them. And Rosalind thought to herself, It is the Cretan light. There was a tremendous crashing sound.
Then they heard nothing at all.
46
Rosalind slowly raised her head. Her brain was clear, her mouth dry, her hair tangled in her face, and she wasn't afraid. She was lying on top of Nicholas, who was now blinking his eyes, and he felt very good indeed.
His hand was on her cheek. "What happened?"
"I think that vortex of flame somehow deposited us in the Pale. It was the Cretan light written of by Captain Jared. Remember?"
He said nothing, merely lifted her off him and set her next to him. "It appears we're in some sort of cave. Look at the sandy floor, and the opening, just over there. I can't see the back of the cave—it's black as a pit back there. I wonder how big it is."
Rosalind didn't care how big the cave was; she'd have to be forced at knifepoint to go exploring.
They rose slowly and walked to the opening and looked out. Three bloodred moons shone bright overhead.
"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 d
idn'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!"