Wizards Daughter

33

Nicholas handed her the ancient leather book. "Here is my grandfather's copy of the Rules of the Pale. As you can see from the meager number of pages, it appears only to be an extract."

"Perhaps this is something of an introduction that will have explanations." But her voice didn't hold out much hope.

Rosalind sat in his grandfather's chair by the fireplace. The seat was warm even through her petticoats and her gown, and that made her wonder, but since there came no moans or groans when she'd sat down, she would deal with the possibility of sitting on a spirit. Hopefully the old earl was prowling elsewhere this morning, perhaps still hovering about in his former gloomy bedchamber, or standing on the other side of the room, watching her in his chair.

She let the ski

The wizards and witches who reside on Mount Olyvan are an unscrupulous lot, endlessly contentious and vain. They hurl spells and curses at each other, so vicious the heavens hiss.

I realized at last that they could not leave Mount Olyvan, perhaps they could not even step off of Blood Rock, this cold and grim fortress that seems older than the Pale itself. Not one of the residents seemed to know where the fortress name came from, or the fortress itself, for that matter. I asked Be-lenus and he said vaguely, "Ah, we are from before time decided to travel forward." What a typical wizard answer, I thought, and wanted to kick him.

Another time I asked Belenus how old he was and he ran large fingers through his thick red beard, showed me his white teeth, and said finally, "Years are a meaningless measure created by men who have to count them to ensure they get their fair share, which men never do because to kill each other fulfills them more than continued life." On this, I fancied he had a point.

I asked Latobius, the Celtic god of mountains and sky, if he was really a god, if he was immortal, and he raised his hand and a flame speared out from the tip of his finger and exploded an exquisite glass sculpture across the vast chamber. From King Agamemnon's palace in Mycenae, someone had told me. I remember the shards flew outward, cascades of vibrant color.

And I thought, You are a wizard, not a god, and I pointed my finger and hurled a spear of flame at a sconce on the stone wall. To tell the truth, it relieved me to see it burst apart. We both stood there watching the heavy shards hit the marble floor and scatter. He said nothing. It was difficult, but I didn't either.

And Epona? My son's mother? I never saw her again after the sixth night I spent in her white bed. What are these beings?

I knew there were servants, but they were only flashes of shadow and light, as if they moved about in a slightly different time and place, out of phase, like a moon hovering just outside your vision. They certainly kept the fortress clean, its inhabitants well garbed, but they were separate from the witches and wizards, separate from me as well. Did they take their direction from something outside the fortress? Perhaps they were guards, or bodyguards. There were cooks too because the meals were splendid.

"Where are the servants?" I once asked Epona. She wore only white, her gowns always spotless. Her bedchamber was also completely white, it seemed to me the air was white around her. "We call them only when we need them," she told me, but that didn't sound right at all. "So they are not really here then? Where do they go? Where do they come from?" But she only shook her head, smoothing one white hand through my hair, and began kissing down my belly. And I wondered, before my brain became nothing more than empty space between my ears. Do you have any idea who or what these creatures are who serve you?

Rosalind raised her face. "Nicholas, this book isn't an extract from the other, it's completely different."

His heart was beating hard, strong strokes. "Yes, so it seems. Keep reading, Rosalind, there aren't many more pages."

There came a night when Blood Rock heaved and groaned and spewed rock and dirt high into the sky. Flames speared into the moonless black sky, the three bloodred moons inexplicably gone from the heavens. I heard screaming and shrieks, like demons from the deepest pits of Hell. The wizards and witches? Or the other creatures I didn't know about? Rocks tumbled down the steep sides of Mount Oly-van. I could not hear them crash at the bottom, and I feared for a moment that there was no longer a bottom, no longer a valley below. I ran to the ramparts and prepared to face my death. But I didn't die, Blood Rock did not tumble down Mount Olyvan. As suddenly as the cataclysm had begun, it ended. It was still, utterly still, as if the air itself were afraid to stir.

I didn't want to remain here and so I sent a silent plea to Taranis, the Dragon of the Sallas Pond who'd carried me to

Blood Rock, and soon he came, swooping down gracefully onto the ramparts. No wizards or witches came to bid me farewell, indeed I hadn't seen a single one after the upheaval that had shaken the bowels of the fortress. My bowels as well. Had they all died?

Taranis lifted his mighty body gracefully from the ground and winged away from Mount Olyvan. When I looked back, everything seemed as it had been. I wondered yet again at all their Celtic god and goddess names, for none of them ever seemed to worship anything at all-and at Taranis the Dragon of the Sallas Pond, who was named after the Celtic god of thunder, the god who demanded human sacrifices. Had Taranis caused the mayhem on Mount Olyvan? He was immortal, he'd told me, unlike those bedeviling wizards and malignant witches in Blood Rock. I asked him if the wizards and witches had survived. Taranis told me the creatures of Blood Rock were cowering within their individual enchantments, a cowardly lot. I wanted to ask him about my son, if he had indeed been born of Epona's body, if indeed he had ever existed, but Taranis chose that moment to dive straight toward the earth and I lost what few wits were in my head, and my bowels were again in question.

She looked up again. "Sarimund is occasionally amusing in this account. It's completely different from the other. I wonder what really happened? Or if any of it happened at all."

"Perhaps the Blood Rock wizards and witches unleashed all their powers."

"Unleashed their powers on what? The fortress? The mountain itself? On each other?"

"I don't know."

"I wonder if Sarimund "ever found out what happened. Perhaps there is a third thin volume somewhere. Oh, dear, do you think his son survived? Epona's son? Was he even born yet? This is very frustrating, Nicholas."

"Read the final pages, Rosalind."

She tried to turn the page, but it was stuck. It wouldn't part. She looked at her husband, saw he was frowning at that page. "Drat, Nicholas, I ca

Was that a rustling sound she suddenly heard?

There was a knock on the library door.

Nicholas looked ready to curse. Rosalind quickly got to her feet. "Let's see what's happening now."

It was Peter Pritchard, his young face haggard, his pale eyes ringed with shadows, his dark hair standing on end. His clothes, however, looked freshly pressed and his boots were polished. Behind him stood six women and four men in the vast entrance hall, all waiting, Peter told them, to be convinced by Nicholas to come to work at Wyverly, which was surely an opportunity only a dolt would deny-just imagine, a lifetime of tales to whisper about in front of winter fires.