Wizard's Daughter (Sherbrooke Brides 10)

They heard a scuffle, panting, grunts. Suddenly standing before them was Sarimund, and he seemed to shimmer, his golden hair brilliant beneath the bloodred moons. He mut­tered, "Ah, you are hare," and he gave them a beautiful smile.

Rosalind stepped up to the beautiful man who looked like an angel. "I first saw you in a vision. You were stirring a pot. You told me I would be with you soon."

"And here you are, my beauty. Here you are. Ah, to see you as a woman grown."

"Are you my father?"

"I? Certainly not, but I will say that I have held you close for a very long time, the spirit of you, the promise of you. Now I am here and let me tell you it was difficult. Although Bifrost believed you would come, Taranis did not. He be­lieved I had failed, that too much earth time had passed, but you are here and that proves that I did not." He cupped graceful hands beside his mouth and shouted, "Do you hear me, Taranis? I have succeeded. I am the bringer of peace—"

"—and destruction," Nicholas said. "That is what you told her."

"Yes, both she and I are the bringers of peace and destruc­tion."

"Are you speaking to us, in English, or are you thinking all of this to us?"

"I speak beautiful English."

"But it is modern English you are speaking," Rosalind said.

"Even a dumb beast like the Tiber keeps abreast of things. His English is halting, but the grammar is well nigh perfect, which surprises me since he has the brain of a fig.

"You have met Bifrost, known as the Scholar. He was hollowed out when his mate was killed in a moon storm so long ago. Everything lasts for a very long time in the Pale, affections included."

"Where is the Pale?" Nicholas asked.

Sarimund studied Nicholas's face. "The Pale is as close as those three bloodred moons above our heads, yet it is apart, a study in contrasts. But it is as real as an eternal dream. Am I not real? Am I not standing here before you? Do you not see me? Am I not speaking to you?"

"You could be another specter like Captain Jared," Nicholas said.

"His is not idle curiosity, Sarimund," Rosalind said, lightly touching his arm, a very real arm, the muscles rippling beneath her fingers. Whatever he was, he was no specter. "Listen, we are here because you brought us here. You set this all into mo­tion almost three hundred years ago when you convinced Cap­tain Jared that he owed the little girl the debt, didn't you?"

"Yes."

"Did you really bring a storm to destroy Captain Jared's ship, or was it all an elaborate illusion?"

He made a choked noise in his throat and his golden hair lifted, very nearly standing on end. "The little girl had no bite to her, no impertinent questions for a wizard, but you, the woman, do," he said, now visibly calming himself. "I am more powerful than you can begin to imagine, I can whip the skies into a froth of madness, I can—"

"Yes, yes," she said. "Then you wrote the Rules of the Pale and prayed I would find it, somehow, so everything would be in motion."

"No, I did not pray; a wizard casts his spells, and waits to see them unfold. And waits. And watches. And guides. Of course you found it."

"Well, yes, I suppose you did that right, though you were a bit on the late side. And you finally released the final pages for me to read, but still that last page was stark white and perfectly blank. I only realized a little while ago that you had written Prince Egan's name on that page."

Nicholas said, "You planned for the little girl to come to the Pale, but she didn't come because it wasn't yet her time. Nearly three hundred years passed before she came, not a lit­tle girl, but a woman."

Sarimund said, "I know. It has driven me quite mad to know I was so very wrong in my calculations."

Nicholas said, "How could this be? Why did you want her in the first place?"

"After I left the Pale, wondering if Epona had indeed birthed my son, Taranis visited me in my dreams one night. He dreamed to me that Epona would kill our son—Prince Egan—because she'd somehow divined what he, the man, would become. Taranis said I had to stop her or the Pale would be thrown into incredible chaos, and he didn't know if he would be able to fix it. He said there was no wizard, no witch, no creature here in the Pale to help me so I must rely on humans. What could a human do, I asked in my dream back to him. He puffed out a whiff of flame and I swear to you I felt a sting of heat. He told me I was a wizard and a hu­man, wasn't I, and I awoke. He was right, and so I settled into my wizard's brain and cast about for other witches and wizards on earth as strong as I. I found two separate, very powerful wizard lines that stretched back into time, meeting at one point back in the times of the Crusades. One was the Vail line. In my time your powerful line was represented by Jared Vail, a ship captain then, but not simple. He was brave, many times too brave. Ah, he was filled with strength, but being human, living in your constricted civilized world, he did not realize what he really was. I knew then that Jared Vail was the one. And you were there in my mind, Isabella, in the same time, representing your powerful line, and you were so clear, so strong, so very magic. I knew that both of you would be successful."

She said, "You saw the little girl. Why would you believe a little girl would have a better chance of saving Prince Egan than a grown woman, namely me?"

"The little girl was a light so bright no evil could touch her. She saw everything clearly, she could not be deceived by either magic or evil. But now? Is your light still as bright, your eyes as clear? Is the little girl still burning bright inside you? We will see."

"What does that mean— we will see!" Nicholas asked. "You're telling us you do not know?"

"Now is now, even though in the Pale, the present can bleed into the future or shrink into the past, though time it­self is not really a factor, and thus I cannot know what will happen."