'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?'
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.
