Raw instinct took hold of the warrior's arm, bringing his blade through a desperate arc as he toppled back shy;ward, striving to avoid the blade that snicked past his throat. Somehow he raised his sword.

Thrusting, he drove the weapon through the kender's body, cursing as her dagger sliced his chin and lip. Kep-pli spoke no words-she simply collapsed and died. Ari-akas let his blade fall with its victim, clasping both hands to the blood that jetted from the long wound across his face.

Chapter 3

Fortress Oberon

It took nearly a week to find the tower, but when he did, no doubt lingered: before him loomed the dour keep where the lady pictured in the locket was held prisoner.

The lofty structure rose into the sky like a massive, weather-beaten tree trunk. Upthrust from a craggy sum shy;mit of dark stone, the high, cylindrical tower seemed to defy gravity, to defy all worldly constraint as it soared above the peaks of the Khalkists. Clouds whipped past the parapets of its upper ramparts while mist shrouded the valleys-gorges actually-that lay a long plummet to all sides.

The fortress itself was taller than it was wide, and it seemed to perch like some serene vulture on its lofty pinnacle. Its black stone walls rose flush with the cliffs, soaring to narrow parapets. Near the top, six flanking spires jutted outward from the central tower and en shy;circled the upper ramparts. A cone-shaped roof capped the main structure, though the surrounding spires were topped with the notched rims of stone parapets.

For the most part, the keep and its unassailable sum shy;mit stood apart from other mountains, separated from them by wide chasms and gorges. Yet one mountain, equally lofty, rose close beside the fortress. A steep, treacherous pathway led to the summit of this adjoining peak. A drawbridge raised almost flush with the tower's wall could be lowered to span the gap between the pin shy;nacles, giving the winding trail access to the keep's only door. Still, with the drawbridge raised, it seemed to the warrior that the fortress was as well protected as a castle floating on a cloud.

Groaning in weariness, Ariakas slumped against a boulder. The stone was hard, angular in shape, and so cold that it sapped the heat from his body despite the fur cloak he had made from the kender bedroll. Yet even now, in the shadow of an obstacle that loomed as impreg shy;nable as anything he had ever faced, he hadn't consid shy;ered turning away. The temperature continued to drop, and an icy wind drove bits of snow like stinging needles against the exposed skin of his face. But no notion to seek a lower elevation entered his mind.

Instead, he looked about for a place to make his camp. The primary attribute of this camp, he knew, would not be shelter, though of course that was desirable. More importantly, however, he looked for a place from which he could observe the tower while remaining concealed. In time, he found a narrow niche in a steep slope, a dozen feet above the winding trail that approached the drawbridge. Here he was protected from the wind, and two large boulders screened his tiny camp from the tower's observation. He could lie prone, exposing just the top of his head between those two stones, and gain a good view of the lofty fortress-from its low gate to the soaring pinnacles of its six spires.

Making himself as comfortable as possible, Ariakas settled onto the ground to study his objective. In the hours since he had discovered the tower, he had seen no sign of movement nor any life within or atop the structure.

He stared for a time at the high gates, visible behind the drawbridge. They seemed to be a pair of narrow doors, rising together to a point. Before those doors stood the tall, plank roadway of the drawbridge, now raised almost to a vertical elevation by chains that emerged from slits in the tower's wall, forty feet above the entrance.

As Ariakas studied the place, his hand came to rest against his chin, and he explored the deep scar that remained from the slice of the kender's knife. No mirror allowed him to inspect the cut, yet his fingers had told him many times in the past week that the wound was wide, gaping from the ridge of his chin into his lower lip. He could press his tongue between the two halves of that cut, and though the injury had healed without infection, it created difficulties in eating and drinking. His imagi shy;nation told him that the raw flesh in the cut glared angry and red.

Since his encounter with the kender, Ariakas had spent many hours reflecting on his carelessness. He felt bitter shame for his loss of control, knowing that-if he'd kept his wits about him-he could have avoided that slashing blade. Why had the bitch been so foolishly self-destructive? He wrestled with the question for the thou shy;sandth time. Surely she knew she had no chance against his sword. Or had she really felt that he'd lose complete control, enabling her to strike a killing blow?

An unusual sense of disquiet permeated the warrior's thoughts. His confidence sorely waned with the memory of his last challenge-a simple retrieval of his locket, an operation that left him maimed. Was that failing the fac shy;tor that brought him now to this formidable tower, con shy;templating this mad task? Or was it, perhaps, the ogres? He bore no love for the beasts, and the murder of his father, plus a thousand other outrages, had given him ample desire for vengeance. Did rank hatred propel him into this suicidal course?

He knew that he was driven by more than this. Uncon shy;sciously, he reached his hand into the pouch at his side and curled it around the solid box of the locket. Then, as always, his imagination completed for him the image of a woman-the woman, she had become.

As always, he was amazed at the clarity, the consis shy;tency of his mental image. Of course, he had the likeness of the tiny picture to begin with, but a full array of addi shy;tional details had been added by his mind. Only the woman's clothing ever changed-now in his thoughts she wore a flowing dress of powdery blue, whereas this morning his imagination had pictured her in a filmy gown of silky white. Her shoulders were bare, for the dress was cut low, and her long, ink-black hair was coiled upon her scalp with queenly majesty.

Her face was long, sculpted in a beauty too serene for words. Her dark eyes alternately flashed and wept, and her sweeping neck was adorned with glittering jewels. Graceful fingers rose to her face, as if she felt his intru shy;sive presence. But, too, it was an intrusion that he sensed she wanted, for her breasts rose and fell with the increased tempo of her breathing, her lips parted, moist, in silence that he took as invitation.

Why did he feel compelled to reach her? The "lady" in the tower, she had been to the kender…. She was rich, a princess, perhaps. Ariakas liked money, had felt the draw of wealth throughout his life-had even known the pleasures of extravagance, when coins had flowed from his fingers like water over a dam. It was a grand feel shy;ing-wealth-and a powerful summons.

But it was not the thing that drew him now.

Night pulled in its shutters, and the tower disap shy;peared from view-except for one high window, where a yellow light broke the stygian darkness like a solitary star. Clouds lowered, and flurries of snow eddied around Ariakas, but still that light gleamed like a bea shy;con, calling him onward and upward.

He rested through the night, sleeping little. When he did close his eyes, the image of the lady grew and burned in his mind. After a few moments of this, he would awaken and stare at the tower, at the lone light that still flamed in the sky, even as dawn began to color the eastern horizon.

Despite his restless night, he crawled from his bedroll with a sense of vigor and purpose. The mist had burned away, and the tower stood out in stark black outline against the clear sky. The sun sent its first probing rays from beyond the horizon, and these illuminated the highest peaks-and, soon, the tower. Yet when sunlight struck the dark walls, it seemed that the brightness van shy;ished into the black stone surfaces.