Wizard's Daughter (Sherbrooke Brides 10)

The beast raised its ugly head. "The Tiber is the enemy to everything, man included, but not your enemy, my lord."

My lord?

"I do not understand this," Nicholas said. "Sarimund wrote we were to make friends with the red Lasis so we would be protected from you. Why do you call her mistress? Why do you call me lord? Why aren't you our enemy? We are human. I am a man."

"You will find that all things are possible here in the Pale, my lord," said the Tiber, and Nicholas was certain he heard a snicker in the beast's voice. Before their eyes, the Tiber be­gan to shimmer. Slowly, it turned into a dragon, and they both knew to their boots that this was a Dragon of the Sallas Pond that Sarimund had described. His snout was gold, his eyes bright emeralds, and on his back were huge triangular scales, studded with diamonds. The dragon rolled its emerald eyes at them. "Behold, I am not a Tiber. This is the first time I have taken its shape. A nasty creature, the Tiber, all rage inside, only eating and killing on its tiny mind. I had no idea. I won't do that again, no matter the possible sport of it."

The dragon slewed its mighty head toward Rosalind and its tail thumped, making the earth shudder. "You have great strength in your arm, mistress. Forgive me, my lord, I hon­estly thought you were an attacker. Now I see clearly that you are not. And the mistress, she knew to strike me with a branch from the yellow Sillow tree. It is an amazing thing." The dragon bowed to her, folding its huge wings briefly over its head. Then it looked up and stared upward at the three bloodred moons.

"You are no god," Nicholas said, and stared at the dragon in its whirling emerald eyes.

The dragon slewed its head back toward Nicholas. "Of course I am."

"No, you cannot be, otherwise you would have realized exactly who I was immediately. You would have known I wasn't going to hurt her. You would not have attacked me." He shrugged, "Or, if you are a god, then you must be very new at it."

Rosalind said, "Taranis only sings, at least that is what I have read. You are speaking to us."

"No, I am thinking to you. I don't sing well."

The dragon stretched out his formidable wings and rose straight up, a dozen feet into the air, and hovered there, wings barely moving, dramatically silhouetted against the three bloodred moons, a fearsome sight, but Nicholas wasn't impressed; he was angry. He waved his fist upward. "Stop your games, dragon, I am not afraid of you. Is your name Taranis? Stop your posing and your pathetic efforts at intim­idation. If you wish lessons in that fine art, ask me to teach you. Now, I command you to come here and tell us what is going on."

"I know who you are," the dragon said as his mighty wings flapped and he rose higher, whipping up the yellow sand that had fallen from the Sillow branch. A lick of flame snaked out of his mouth, and he quickly swallowed it, his massive neck rippling with the effort. "Yes, I know well who you are, my lord. I had flecks of desert sand in my eyes and did not see you properly." Then he winged higher and higher, until he was as large as the middle bloodred moon. He paused a moment, on purpose, of course, posing again, and they saw his black silhouette against the bloodred moon and he looked like a mad painting in a storybook. They heard a voice so close it sounded right behind them, "Be­ware the Tiber. He is more vicious than one of those Blood Rock wizards. Seek out the red Lasis. As for Sarimund, who knows what that human wizard will do?"

Both Nicholas and Rosalind whirled about but there was nothing there.

Nicholas shook his head. "Imagine, that damnable dragon only thought that advice to us, curse him." He paused, lightly touched his fingers to Rosalind's hair.

Rosalind said, "The dragon, he called you lord and me mistress. I wonder why. If he is a Dragon of the Sallas Pond, then why all the games? Oh, yes, I forgot—a rule of magic."

"The next time he flies near us, I wish to know if being 'my lord' grants me special favors in the Pale."

He brought her close against him, felt the pounding of her heart against his. He said against her cheek, "How did you know to break off a branch from the yellow Sillow tree and strike the Tiber's head with it?"

She said. "I didn't think, I simply did it. Oh, dear, I be­lieve the tree groaned."

Nicholas began to rub his hands up and down her back. She hadn't seemed to notice she was wearing a gown that a medieval lady might wear, or a lady from further back than that, a lady who tended altars at Stonehenge. "It's all right. You saved me and I thank you. I hope you gave that bloody dragon a powerful headache, it would serve him right." He stared down at her a moment, streaked his hand through her hair, twisted a red curl around his finger. "Rosalind , before the Tiber attacked, you became someone else, or rather, per­haps you shifted toward someone else. You realize that, don't you?"

Slowly, she nodded against his shoulder. "I know only that I am different here in the Pale, hath how I look and my clothes. Where is Sarimund?"

She drew back in his arms. She looked away from him, out over the vast barren plain between the Vale of Augur and Mount Olyvan.

"Rosalind ?" He tightened his hold on her and whispered against her ear, "Isabella?"

"I must stop her, Nicholas. I told you, now that I'm here, her hand is no longer stayed. She is evil, she will kill him."

He asked, "Is Epona also a seer? Did she look into the fu­ture and foresee her own death if she allowed her son, this Prince Egan, to grow to manhood?"

Rosalind spoke, but her voice was deeper, with an odd lilt to it. "I believe it was Latobius, the god of the mountains and the sky, who saw the devastation of Blood Rock come to pass. He is both a god and a magician, you know. He feels so very much. He is oftentimes in pain because of others' ac­tions. Were Egan to die, it would distress him unutterably." She looked down. "My belt is gold, all thin threads twisted together. And my hair is longer."

"You look like a princess, or perhaps a priestess."

He sounded calm and accepting, but he didn't know what was happening to Rosalind , he knew only that he couldn't let it matter now. He heard a soft blowing noise and looked down. He took her hand and together, they watched the yel­low sand blow over the two halves of the Sillow branch, though there was not the slightest wind to whip the sand up. He watched as the two branch halves came back together, their fit perfect. They watched the blowing yellow sand move over the branch, slowly disappear into it. Sealing it?

Without thinking, Nicholas picked up the branch. He walked back to the yellow Sillow tree and set the branch carefully against the jagged hole in the tree. It settled in in­stantly. He stepped back, heard a sigh of pleasure, and knew he should be surprised, but he wasn't. "I am a powerful mender of trees," he called back to Rosalind. "I d

id not even require a needle or thread."

"It is because you are a wizard," she said matter-of-factly, and came up beside him. She touched the branch, bent it a bit, and nodded. It was again firmly attached.