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!"
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.
Rosalind dropped the stick, watched more yellow sand spill out of it. "I'm sorry," she said to the branch. "I'm sorry."
Nicholas came up to his feet. He stared from her to the Tiber, now rubbing its head against some outcropping rocks. "Look at me, Tiber. Sarimund did not write that you could speak. He wrote only that you were our enemy. How can you speak? How can we understand you?"