I went inside what appeared to be some kind of vestibule with nothing in it but a stone staircase winding upward. Oddly, it wasn’t dark, though I couldn’t see exactly where the light came from.
‘Close the door, boy.’
‘How?’
‘How didst thou open it?’
I turned to face that gaping opening, and, quite proud of myself, I commanded, ‘Close!’ And, at the sound of my voice, the rock slid shut with a grinding sound that chilled my blood even more than the fierce storm outside. I was trapped! My momentary panic passed as I suddenly realized that I was dry for the first time in days. There wasn’t even a puddle around my feet! Something strange was going on here.
‘Come up, boy,’ the voice commanded.
What choice did I have? I mounted the stone steps worn with countless centuries of footfalls and spiraled my way up and up, only a little bit afraid. The tower was very high, and the climbing took me a long time.
At the top was a chamber filled with wonders. I looked at things such as I’d never seen before. I was still young and not, at the time, above thoughts of theft. Larceny seethed in my grubby little soul. I’m sure that Polgara will find that particular admission entertaining.
Near a fire – which burned, I observed, without fuel of any kind – sat a man, who seemed most incredibly ancient, but somehow familiar, though I couldn’t seem to place him. His beard was long and full and as white as the snow which had so nearly killed me – but his eyes were eternally young. I think it might have been the eyes that seemed so familiar to me. ‘Well, boy,’ he said, ‘hast thou decided not to die?’
‘Not if it isn’t necessary,’ I said bravely, still cataloguing the wonders of the chamber.
‘Dost thou require anything?’ he asked. ‘I am unfamiliar with thy kind.’
‘A little food, perhaps,’ I replied. ‘I haven’t eaten in two days. And a warm place to sleep, if you wouldn’t mind.’ I thought it might not be a bad idea to stay on the good side of this strange old man, so I hurried on. ‘I won’t be much trouble, Master, and I can make myself useful in payment.’ It was an artful little speech. I’d learned during my months with the Tolnedrans how to make myself agreeable to people in a position to do me favors.
‘Master?’ he said, and laughed, a sound so cheerful that it made me almost want to dance. Where had I heard that laugh before? ‘I am not thy Master, boy,’ he said. Then he laughed again, and my heart sang with the splendor of his mirth. ‘Let us see to this thing of food. What dost thou require?’
‘A little bread perhaps – not too stale, if it’s all right.’
‘Bread? Only bread? Surely, boy, thy stomach is fit for more than bread. If thou wouldst make thyself useful – as thou hast promised – we must nourish thee properly. Consider, boy. Think of all the things thou hast eaten in thy life. What in all the world would most surely satisfy this vast hunger of thine?’
I couldn’t even say it. Before my eyes swam the visions of smoking roasts, of fat geese swimming in their own gravy, of heaps of fresh-baked bread and rich, golden butter, of pastries in thick cream, of cheese, and dark brown ale, of fruits and nuts and salt to savor it all. The vision was so real that it even seemed that I could smell it.
And he who sat by the glowing fire that burned, it seemed, air alone, laughed again, and again my heart sang. ‘Turn, boy,’ he said, ‘and eat thy fill.’
And I turned, and there on a table, which I had not even seen before, lay everything I had imagined. No wonder I could smell it! A hungry boy doesn’t ask where the food comes from – he eats. And so I ate. I ate until my stomach groaned. And through the sound of my eating I could hear the laughter of the aged one beside his fire, and my heart leapt within me at each strangely familiar chuckle.
And when I’d finished and sat drowsing over my plate, he spoke again. ‘Wilt thou sleep now, boy?’
‘A corner, Master,’ I said. ‘A little out-of-the-way place by the fire, if it isn’t too much trouble.’
He pointed. ‘Sleep there, boy,’ he said, and all at once I saw a bed which I had no more seen than I had the table – a great bed with huge pillows and comforters of softest down. And I smiled my thanks and crept into the bed, and, because I was young and very tired, I fell asleep almost at once without even stopping to think about how very strange all of this had been.
But in my sleep I knew that he who had brought me in out of the storm and fed me and cared for me was watching through the long, snowy night, and I slept even more securely in the comforting warmth of his care.
And that began my servitude. At first the tasks my Master set me to were simple ones – ‘sweep the floor,’ ‘fetch some firewood,’ ‘wash the windows’ – that sort of thing. I suppose I should have been suspicious about many of them. I could have sworn that there hadn’t been a speck of dust anywhere when I first mounted to his tower room, and, as I think I mentioned earlier, the fire burning in his fireplace didn’t seem to need fuel. It was almost as if he were somehow making work for me to do.
He was a good master, though. For one thing, he didn’t command in the way I’d heard the Tolnedrans command their servants, but rather made suggestions. ‘Thinkest thou not that the floor hath become dirty again, boy?’ Or, ‘Might it not be prudent to lay in some store of firewood?’ My chores were in no way beyond my strength or abilities, and the weather outside was sufficiently unpleasant to persuade me that what little was expected of me was a small price to pay in exchange for food and shelter. I did resolve, however, that when spring came and he began to look farther afield for things for me to do, I might want to reconsider our arrangement. There isn’t really very much to do when winter keeps one housebound, but warmer weather brings with it the opportunity for heavier and more tedious tasks. If things turned too unpleasant, I could always pick up and leave.
There was something peculiar about that notion, though. The compulsion which had come over me at Gara seemed gone now. I don’t know that I really thought about it in any specific way. I just seemed to notice that it was gone and shrugged it off. Maybe I just thought I’d outgrown it. It seems to me that I shrugged off a great deal that first winter.
I paid very little attention, for example, to the fact that my Master seemed to have no visible means of support. He didn’t keep cattle or sheep or even chickens, and there were no sheds or outbuildings in the vicinity of his tower. I couldn’t even find his storeroom. I knew there had to be one somewhere, because the meals he prepared were always on the table when I grew hungry. Oddly, the fact that I never once saw him cooking didn’t seem particularly strange to me. Not even the fact that I never once saw him eat anything seemed strange. It was almost as if my natural curiosity – and believe me, I can be very curious – had been somehow put to sleep.
I had absolutely no idea of what he did during that long winter. It seemed to me that he spent a great deal of time just looking at a plain round rock. He didn’t speak very often, but I talked enough for both of us. I’ve always been fond of the sound of my own voice – or had you noticed that?
My continual chatter must have driven him to distraction, because one evening he rather pointedly asked me why I didn’t go read something.
I knew about reading, of course. Nobody in Gara had known how, but I’d seen Tolnedrans doing it – or pretending to. It seemed a little silly to me at the time. Why take the trouble to write a letter to somebody who lives two houses over? If it’s important, just step over and tell him about it. ‘I don’t know how to read, Master,’ I confessed.
He