Emperor of Ansalon

Chapter 8

Ariakas opened his eyes, but immediately closed them again as the full brightness of the sun seared his vision. He didn't know where he was, though his body felt as though it floated upon a mattress of air, or drifted in bathwater of perfect warmth. He tried to see again, this time cau shy;tiously parting his eyelids a bare slit, recoiling slightly from the intense glow that washed over him. Only slowly did he realize that the light did not come from the sun after all.

Instead, it was the lady herself who glowed. She ex shy;tended a bright hand to his leg, and he felt her fingers probe the edges of the near mortal sword wound. Mirac shy;ulously, there was no pain in her touch. Then, even more astonishingly, the pain from his wound ceased entirely.

With wonder, he reached a hand downward, touching his skin through the long tear in his leggings. Every shy;where he touched, his flesh was firm. There was no hint of the cut, no lingering sensation of the wound-it was as if the ogre had never struck him. Beside him he felt the edges of a cushion, and guessed that he lay upon the mattress in the lady's room. How had he gotten here? Surely she hadn't carried him.

Yet, when he turned his head, Ariakas saw a trail of blood leading to this place. The wound had not been a fantasy, a trick of his fevered imagination. It had been real, and nearly fatal-yet now it was gone.

He raised his hands to touch her, and only then noticed that the bones in his left arm were whole and strong, as if they had never been broken.

Her hands rested on his, and he opened his mouth to speak, feeling the dry skin of his scarred lip crack from the effort.

She silenced him with a kiss, and he allowed himself to collapse against the mattress, warm and secure in her embrace. When finally she raised her lips from his, he touched his hand to his mouth.

With a profound sense of wonder, he found that his split lip, his brutally scarred chin, had become whole.

Finally, as if he were watching the scene from some shy;where very far away, he began to recall their dangerous circumstance. The ogres might be gone for now, chasing after the diversion of Ferros Windchisel, but whether they caught him or not they would be back before long! But wait… his mind struggled with a vague recollection. there was the thing the ogre had told him. Did she mock him, now, with this kindness and caring?

He could not believe that she did.

Ariakas struggled to sit, and though his muscles were fit and his body free of pain, he fought against a languorous ease that threatened to hold him as firmly as any paralysis. It took him a full minute to muster the words to speak.

"The ogres, Lady … we must flee before they return!" The warning seemed to take all of the energy he pos shy;sessed, yet he felt profound satisfaction in having spoken the words. Again he relaxed, bathing in the warmth of her smile.

"We're safe," she whispered to him. "There's no need for you to worry."

"Did you … did you order them away from here?" he asked, his voice sounding very far away.

She pulled her head back from his and regarded him with a shrewd narrowing of her eyes. "Yes," she said after a pause. "I did."

"Oberon…?"

"There is no Oberon," she replied quietly. "Or, if you prefer, I am he."

He was able to digest this answer with a minimum of surprise. "Why, Lady-why did you have me fight the ogres?"

"It was a necessary thing … a test," she said quietly. He detected a trace of sadness in her voice, but he sensed that the glow he saw in her eyes came from desire.

"A test for what?"

"To see if you were the one.. the one whom I have been placed here to welcome."

"The 'one'? What one is that?"

"Hush, now," she whispered, as if he were a small child. Oddly, he didn't feel like arguing. "You have to stop asking questions…. Some things you must accept as they are."

She leaned over and kissed him again, and all trace of suspicion left him.

"I accept!" Ariakas pledged solemnly, unaware of any irony in her smile.

"Now, warrior, you must tell me your name."

It seemed to him that she had become suddenly grave, and he responded with equal seriousness. "I am Duulket Ariakas, scion of Kortel." The thought continued to its logical conclusion. "And how, Lady, are you called?" he asked.

Again he thought he detected a hint of sadness in her deep eyes. "My name is … unimportant," she explained after a pause. "It would please me if you should still call me 'Lady'." He did not view her request as strange, but her next words brought him a sense of discomfort. "Come, Lord Ariakas," she said. "Allow me to bathe you."

For the first time, he noticed that the air in the room was moist, filled with steam that billowed from a grand, tile-lined tub on the other side of the chamber. How she had heated the water, he couldn't imagine, but the thought of easing his muscles in the bath overcame his initial modesty.

Somehow, she had removed his leather overshirt while he pondered the question. His breeches and blouse followed, and then he blissfully immersed himself in the nearly scalding water.

For a time he floated at the edge of dreaming, his body suffused with health and vitality, his mind wondering at the splendor of … splendor of what? The feelings were somehow greater than he had ever known before, yet at the same time distant, remote. It was as though he had left his weary flesh behind.

Then, when finally he emerged from the bath and the lady took him to her bed, the dream transcended rapture and carried him to an ethereal height. Still there seemed a gap between his body and his surroundings, as if he looked down upon himself from a lofty perch. Yet when the mysterious lady welcomed him with her arms, all thought of that distance vanished, and the immediacy, the ecstasy, of the moment seized him full in its impla shy;cable grasp.

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.

During all this time, though he asked her often, she never told him her name. Her background and future plans remained as vague and enigmatic as her smile, and yet she had a way of making these things seem like tri shy;fling details, barely worth the attentions of a man like Ariakas.

He had deduced that the food she gave him was a product of the same clerical powers that had allowed her to heal his wounds. But what god gave her such powers? The woman welcomed his new understanding, but when he pressed her for further details, she always coun shy;seled his patience.

"One day you will know all that you seek," she chided. "But for now, can you not wait a little more?"

"I'll wait as long as you command, Lady," he pledged. "I only hope that the bond we form here, now, will grow even stronger with the telling."

"It will. … It will become as steel," she promised softly. "But before you can be prepared to receive it, I must ask your word on something."

"Anything!" he declared in a loud voice and with a flourish. "You have but to name it, and it shall be my command!"

"This is not a command," she replied. "But a pledge that you give freely, and now."

He nodded, and waited for her to continue.

"You must promise me, Lord Ariakas, that at a time in the future, when I shall give you a single command, you must perform it immediately and without question. Will you make this promise?"

"With all my heart, Lady-when you name the task, I shall perform it straightaway, asking no questions. It is my solemn pledge to you and to the gods!"

"I thank you," she said softly, and he saw that her eyes were wet with tears. Then she nestled at his side, and for once she just wanted him to hold her, which he did for the remainder of that unusually dark night.

It seemed to Ariakas that his strength must atrophy during the long hibernation, but here she was adamant: he must perform the rigorous hauling of wood and peat every day, working until his body ached and his brow slicked with sweat. Never mind that sometimes they built the fires to raging blazes, throwing open all the doors and windows of the tower to gain the cooling ben shy;efit of the icy breeze.

All the time he kept the two-handed sword honed to a razor's edge, caressing the fine piece of steel with all the care in his veteran swordsman's hands. And always, after the food and the drink and the baths and the work, there was that great, soft bed. When he looked back on the tower in his later years, it would seem to Ariakas that he had spent most of that winter underneath the warm bearskin of the lady's quilts.