Wizards Daughter

later when the reality of it sank into me. I told Bifrost that I was ready to leave but I didn't know how I'd arrived in the first place, only that I'd awakened and I was here, but I had no idea of where the door-or whatever it was that got me here-was located so I could get back. He sang a laugh, which was very pleasing to the ear. He then sang that the Dragons of the Sallas Pond had brought me to the Pale, that this was how they judged possible new brethren for that vipers' nest of wizards and witches upon Mount Olyvan. He sang they didn't want me, however, that I was too set in my ways, but my son would do, a son I would never know. Bifrost sang to me that he would ensure my son knew about me. Then Bifrost sang that he would show me how to leave. But he did nothing at all. I saw him trap a Tiber in a pit and kill it with a fire spear through its big neck, and set to his meal ferociously. Then he left me. I felt abandoned. I did not understand Bifrost or anything else in this outlandish place. And I was leaving my son here.

When I finally fell asleep beneath a sharp-toothed angle tree I dreamed I was in a mighty desert storm, sand whipping around me, choking me, blinding me. There was no escape and I knew I would die. Then the storm stopped and I saw I was back in the Bulgar. I felt wonderful. I had no idea what Bifrost had done, but I knew it was magic, ancient magic from a strange otherworld. And Rennat, the Titled Wizard of the East, was there standing over me, and he kindly asked me if I had slept well the previous night, and I nodded. The previous night? He said even a single night spent away from all the other gray beard wizards was good for the spirit. Only a single night?

Is the Pale naught but a dream? Did this mean I also had no son? That none of it really happened, that my stay in the Pale was spun from my fevered brain? I told no one about this. What would I say?

It was on the following day when I was bathing that I saw the healed scars from a Tiber's claws on my leg and knew the Pale was real and yet, and yet-how could I believe in a place that seemed to be someplace else, perhaps sometime else as well?

Rosalind turned the page. She suddenly stopped talking. She stared at the book, turned another page, studied it closely, then turned another and yet another. She finally closed the book and held it close to her chest for a moment. She felt her heart thudding against the book, fast strokes because she was afraid.

Nicholas said, 'Rosalind, what is wrong?'

'There is more,' she said, drawing a steadying breath. 'About six more pages. However, I am unable to read any of them.'

Nicholas stared at her. 'No, that is not possible, you must be able to.'

'I am sorry, my lord, but it makes no sense to me either. It appears to be in the very same code, but the meaning of it is gone to me.'

Grayson struck his fist on his thigh. 'What is the game Sarimund is playing?' He took the book from Rosalind and opened it to the final six pages. Then he turned back to the beginning and compared the pages. He raised his head, frowning deeply. 'She is right, they look exactly alike, but- you really can't make any sense of them, Rosalind?'

She shook her head. 'It's rather scary,' she said finally. 'It's scary being able to read most of it so easily, but then to have it stop-that scares me more, I think. It's as if there had been magic at work in me but now it's gone. Nicholas, why don't you look at the final pages, see if you can read them.'

He took the book and gently turned each of the final pages and studied them a long time. His lips moved but he didn't say anything. Finally, he looked up. 'Sorry, it's like the beginning, nothing but a series of jumbled letters to me.'

Grayson had to study the book again himself, comparing the final pages to all the others. 'Nothing,' he said at last. He cursed, which surprised Rosalind, for, as with his father, it was a rare thing, except for 'blessed hell,' of course, the Sherbrooke curse of many generations. 'Forgive me,' he said, 'but I cannot bear it to end like this.'

Rosalind said, 'But would it not be something to travel to the Bulgar and see if the Dragons of the Sallas Pond would whisk us away to this magical place? I wonder who named this place the Pale and why? A pale is only a blockade, after all, to protect those within it? So why that name?' She sighed. 'I surely would like to meet Sarimund's son in Blood Rock.'

'I wonder if the son is still alive,' Grayson said. 'After all, Sarimund wrote this in the sixteenth century.'

Nicholas said slowly, 'Epona, his mother, if she is indeed the Celtic goddess, then she is very old indeed. Immortal, I should say.'

They all looked at each other.

'I wouldn't want to tangle with the Tiber,' Rosalind said. 'You do realize that there aren't all that many rules, yet that is the wretched title. So what is the purpose of leading you to buy this thin little book, Grayson? And who did the leading?'

'It wasn't meant for me, but you, Rosalind,' Grayson said. 'After all, you're the only one who can read it, and read it easily, I might add. Except for the final pages. Ah, that teases the brain.'

'Then why wasn't I directed to the bookseller's stall rather than you, Grayson?'

Grayson looked over at Nicholas, who was writing something in a small dark blue notebook Rosalind hadn't seen before. 'Perhaps Grayson is the catalyst,' Nicholas said.

There was a perplexed moment of silence.

'What is that book, Nicholas?' she asked.

He smiled over at her, closed it, and slipped it back into his pocket, the small pencil with it. 'Merely a list of appointments I was in danger of forgetting.'

'What do you mean I am the catalyst?' Grayson asked.

Nicholas shrugged. 'You must be the spark to set this all off. Ah, who knows? At least Rosalind could read most of it. Like you, though, I do wonder why she can't read the final pages. Perhaps you are right, Grayson, perhaps this is meant only as a fine tale to amuse and tease. But enough for today. Rosalind, are you ready to go to Madame Fouquet's to meet your Uncle Douglas?'

'For your bloody test in good taste?'

He grinned at her.

'Will you toady up to him, Nicholas?'

'We will have to see, won't we?'

'I,' Grayson said as he rose, 'have decided that you have no need of Lorelei at your fitting. I am taking her for a walk in the park.'

19

After Grayson left, Nicholas slowly rose and walked to her, gave her his hand, and pulled her to her feet. He realized in that moment he wanted to kiss every inch of her. He said, 'Perhaps you will find me quite useful in the future, if, that is, I pass his lordship's test.'

The future, she thought as she walked beside him out of Grillon's Hotel. She looked up at his profile. He looked stem and preoccupied. She hated it. She thought, He is my future. I will not let him go away from me once he is mine.

Once she was seated in the carriage, her full green skirts spread around her, she thought again: He is my future. But what was the future going to be about? To be honest with herself, Rosalind hadn't given a thought to the future, save that it would be perfect, a fairy-tale ending. What a dolt she was. Nothing was ever perfect. So many bad things could happen, did happen, all too often. Look at what had happened to her. What had her parents thought? Had they loved her? She had disappeared-simply there, then gone. Had they searched for her? Had they grieved?

She sighed. She'd asked herself these questions dozens of times, perhaps even more times than she could count. She wished she had more of a past than a measly ten years. Only the ghosts knew about her first eight years. Ghosts, she thought, those vague memories that crowded around her in quiet moments, memories and faces she could never grasp.

And now a future spread out before her with this man beside her, a future all blank, ready to be filled in. She