They slept for many hours, and for Ariakas it was a slumber of utmost insentience. If his mind ventured on further journeys, it went to places that he could not recall in the morning. As daylight poured through the eastern window, he awakened, fully invigorated.
Leaping from the bed, he crossed to the window, where the shutter stood open to admit a chill breeze. He saw flakes of snow wafting past, and though he could see the neighboring mountain, the more distant peaks of the range had vanished in the flurry. Already snow had gathered along the narrow trail leading from the draw shy;bridge.
"Snow's covered the trail-we're trapped," he said without preamble, but also without bitterness.
"No matter," she said, astonishing him with the cheer shy;fulness of her tone. "We've food enough for a long time — a very long time-and we're quite safe in here."
"Hot baths … food?" observed Ariakas. "How do you do all this?"
"Stop asking so many questions," she demurred, cast shy;ing the coverlet of bearskin aside. At the sight of her body, further interrogations vanished from his mind….
Afterward she rose and disappeared into a small alcove of the room. Shortly she emerged with a full plate of boiled eggs, a loaf of bread apparently fresh from an oven, small roasted sausages, and fresh cow's milk. Again, when he asked her about the source of this won shy;drous meal, she turned his questions away, and he did not protest at her change of topics. He was too hungry to.
By afternoon the room began to grow chill, and she told him where-on the second level of the tower-a great supply of peat and firewood had been stashed. Ari shy;akas spent several hours hauling bundles of the fuel to the upper chambers that were his lady's apartments.
Already he had forgotten that he had ever viewed it as a cell, so commodious were the arrangements she made there for both of them. Indeed, after his labors with the fuels, while the fire crackled at the hearth, she drew him another bath and when he emersed from the water she presented him with a roast hen, packed with spices and an assortment of potatoes and peppers. Again she offered bread, and cheese with the sharp tang that spoke of expert aging.
"Tell me, Lady, about this 'test' that brings me here," he ventured as they sat beside the fire and enjoyed a clear wine.
"It is too soon," she replied. "You have barely begun to enjoy the rewards of your success."
"My 'rewards'? Do you mean this splendid repast?" he inquired, half in jest-though out of curiosity he watched her eyes to see if she took offense.
Instead, her eyes twinkled with amusement. "The food. and other things," she said coquettishly. She showed not the slightest hint of embarrassment at the notion that she, herself, was somehow his reward.
"My wounds," he said, trying a different tack. "How did you heal them so quickly-so well? It seems like a secret of the gods themselves!"
"Perhaps it is," she noted, surprisingly coy.
"But everyone knows the gods deserted Krynn at the time of the Cataclysm!" Ariakas protested. "How can you claim differently?"
Perhaps the gods are there, for those who will listen. If not all of them, perhaps one-perhaps a very signifi shy;cant goddess survives and rewards her faithful followers with powers."
She had become very serious, and Ariakas listened with a kind of awe. This test, these rewards-surely they were not some scheme of an immortal!
"Those who would serve her, who would obey her," continued the lady, her eyes glowing with a fervent light, "those shall know power the like of which the world hasn't seen for centuries."
"Power," he inquired with an ironic cock of his eye shy;brow, "and 'rewards'?"
Her robe slid to the floor.
"Yes," she said as she came to him. "And. 'rewards'."
For several days they rested, feasted, and reveled in physical pleasure. The lady would do anything to enhance the luxury, the ease of Ariakas's life. The food she prepared from the secret alcove was always splen shy;did, always hot and fresh-and never did she duplicate a dish that she had already served. To his questions about the source of the food she simply smiled and place a fin shy;ger to her lips, or to his.
The second day he removed the ogre bodies from the tower, winching them through windows and watching them tumble into the deep chasm. Though he lacked the strength to raise the drawbridge, he closed and barred the gates. Yet he failed to see any sign of the ogres beyond the tower. Those pursuing Ferros seemed to have lost themselves in the wintry Khalkists.
On his third day in the keep the lady sent him to the dungeon to retrieve a heavy, foot-powered whetstone. She instructed him to sharpen the great, two-handed sword he had removed from the last ogre he'd slain. He spent many hours honing the weapon to a deadly sheen, and at the same time was very impressed by the blade's quality and obvious durability.
More snow squalls spread through the heights, but Ariakas ceased to worry. He spent long hours by the opened window, watching avalanches tumble from the surrounding peaks, hearing the thundering power of the destructive slides from the safety of the lofty tower. One day it occurred to him that the passes would be closed, now, for the duration of the winter, and he greeted the realization with nothing more than a simple shrug of his shoulders.
Indeed, he began to wonder why he would ever want to leave this tower.
He remained strong, every day spending hours cart shy;ing fuel up the stairs for the several fireplaces through shy;out their chambers. The tower made a perfectly comfortable home, and he gradually familiarized him shy;self with every aspect of its passages and chambers. He found secret corridors and concealed doors, and when he showed them to the lady she clapped her hands in delight and praised his ingenuity.
Eventually he found the doors that led upward to the six spires surrounding the great central keep, and hesi shy;tantly he ventured into those perches. The bases of these slender towers were cantilevered into the keep, so that they stood freely outside the walls, nothing but a yawn shy;ing chasm underneath.
At first Ariakas's vertigo threatened to produce panic, even hysteria, when he ventured into these places, but he forced himself to explore, unable to bear the thought of shame in her eyes. Soon he stood unconcerned on the outer parapets of these towers, and even allowed his mind to float free. He imagined that the tower was fly shy;ing, and for a time his mind drifted in idle fancy, pictur shy;ing the potent, unstoppable military machine such a soaring citadel would create.
Further explorations revealed a concealed door on the level with the drawbridge mechanism. For several days he worried at the lock, using every key he could find, and even bits of wire, broken daggers, and eating utensils. When he finally sprang the catch, he stepped into a tiny room and gasped in shock. He was surrounded by piles of gemstones and coins in all conceivable sizes, shapes, and denominations. The stones included diamonds, emeralds, garnets, bloodstones, and rubies, among small mountains of lesser pieces such as jade and turquoise.
When he raced up the stairs to report his find to the lady, she smiled and told him that the treasure was theirs-though she also reminded him that such baubles had no value to a pair of humans with every imaginable luxury at their fingertips.
Once in a while for their dinner, the lady presented him with a bottle of fine wine-even an occasional decanter of potent lavarum-and it seemed to Ariakas that never had wine tasted so sweet, or rum so satisfacto shy;rily biting.
The nights grew longer, the cold more intense, but by diligent chopping and hauling, Ariakas kept the rooms of their apartments warm. As always, the lady continued to delight his palate with an array of exquisite foods, apparently produced out of thin air.
Plush furs kept their bed snug against the bitter cold, and a seemingly limitless supply of candles provided as much light as they needed or desired. If anything, the cold weather heightened the intensity of their love-making. Ariakas estimated that they spent days at a time huddled under the mountain of thick furs, sharing delights too intense, too serene to be the province of mortal man.