The Complete Tawny Man Trilogy Omnibus (237 page)

‘Please, enter do,’ someone replied in a low and pleasant voice. The accent on the words was odd, and the voice seemed husky as if from disuse, but the welcome was plain in the tone. Thick didn’t hesitate as he stepped inside. I followed him more slowly.

After the dimness of the night, the fire in the stone hearth seemed to glare with light. At first, I could make out no more than a silhouette seated before the fire in a wooden chair. Then the Black Man slowly stood and faced us. Thick drew in his breath audibly. Then, with a show of recovery and manners that astounded me in the little man, he said carefully, ‘Good evening, Grandfather.’

The Black Man smiled. His worn teeth were as yellow as bone in his black, black face. Lines wreathed his mouth and his eyes nestled deep in their sockets, like shining ebony disks. He spoke, and after a time my mind sorted out his badly accented Outislander. ‘I know not how long I’ve been here. Yet this I know. This is the first time that anyone has entered and called me Grandfather.’

When he stood, it was without apparent effort, and his spine was straight. Yet age was written all over his countenance, and he moved with the slow grace of a man who protects his body from shocks. He gestured to a small table. ‘Guests I seldom have, but my hospitality I would offer despite what is lacked. Please. Food I have made. Come.’

Thick didn’t hesitate. He shrugged out of his pack, letting it slide to the floor without regret. ‘We thank you,’ I said slowly as I carefully removed my own and set both of them to one side. My eyes had adjusted to the light. I do not know if I would have called his residence a cave or a large crevice. I could not see a ceiling, and I suspected that smoke travelled up but not out. The furnishings were simple but very well made, with both the craft and attention of a man who had much time to learn his skills and apply them. There was a bedstead in a corner, and a larder shelf, a water bucket and a barrel, and a woven rug. Some of the items appeared to have been salvaged, windfalls from the beach, and others were obviously made from the scanty resources of the island. It bespoke a long habitation.

The man himself was as tall as I was, and as solidly black as the Fool once had been white. He did not ask our names or offer his,
but served soup into three stone bowls that he had warmed by the fire. He spoke little at first. Outislander was the language we used; yet it was not native to any of us. The Black Man and I worked at communicating. Thick spoke duchy-tongue but managed to make himself understood. The table was low, and our chairs were cushions with woven reed covers stuffed with dry grass. It was good to sit down. His spoons were made of polished bone. There was fish in the soup, but it was fresh, as were the boiled roots and meagre greens. It tasted very good after our long days of dried or preserved food. The flat bread that he set out with it startled me and he grinned when he saw me looking at it.

‘From her pantry to mine,’ he said, with no apology. ‘What I needed I took. And sometimes more.’ He sighed. ‘And now it is done. Simpler, my life will be. Yours, lonelier, I think.’

It suddenly seemed to me that we were in the middle of a conversation, with both of us already knowing, without words, why we had come together. So I simply said, ‘I have to go back for him. He hated the cold. I cannot leave his body there. And I must be sure that this is finished. That she is dead.’

He nodded gravely to the inevitable. ‘That would be your path, and you that path must tread.’

‘So. You will help me then?’

He shook his head, not regretfully but inevitably. ‘Your path,’ he repeated. ‘The path of the Changer belongs to you only.’

A shiver ran down my back that he called me that. Nevertheless, I pressed him. ‘But I do not know the way into her palace. You must know a way, for I saw you there. Cannot you at least show me that?’

‘The path will find you,’ he assured me, and smiled. ‘In darkness it cannot hide itself.’

Thick held up his empty bowl. ‘That was good!’

‘More, then?’

‘Please!’ Thick exclaimed, and then heaved a great sigh of pleasure as the man refilled his bowl. He ate his second serving more slowly. There was no talk as the Black Man rose and set a battered old kettle full of water over the fire. He fed the fire larger, and I watched the driftwood catch and burn with occasional licks of odd colours in the flames. He went to a shelf and carefully
considered three little wooden boxes there. I arose hastily and went to my pack.

‘Please, allow us to contribute something to the meal. I have tea herbs here.’

When he turned to me, I saw that I had guessed correctly. It was as if I had offered another man jewels and gold. Without hesitation, I opened one of the Fool’s little packets and offered it to him. He leaned over it to smell it, and then closed his eyes as a smile of purest pleasure came over his face.

‘A generous heart you have!’ he exclaimed. ‘A memory of flowers grows here. Nothing brings to mind the memories so much as fragrance.’

‘Please. Keep it all, to enjoy,’ I offered him, and he beamed with delight, his black eyes shining.

He made tea with a rare caution, crumbling the herbs to powder and then steeping them in a tightly-covered container. When he removed the lid and the fragrance of the tea steamed up, he laughed aloud in delight, and, just as people do when a small child laughs, Thick and I joined in for sheer pleasure in his enjoyment. There was an immediacy about him that was very charming, so that it was almost impossible for me to find the focus to worry and fret. He shared out the tea, and we drank it in tiny sips, savouring both the fragrance and the flavour. By the time we were finished, Thick was yawning prodigiously, which somehow increased my own weariness.

‘A place to sleep,’ our host announced, and gestured Thick toward his own bedstead.

‘Please, we have our own bedding. You need not give up your bed to us,’ I assured him, but he patted Thick on the shoulder and again gesticulated at the bed.

‘You will be comfortable. Safe and sweet the dreaming. Rest well.’

Thick needed no other invitation than that. He had already taken off his boots. He sat down on the bed and I heard the creak of a rope framework. He lifted the coverlet and crawled in and closed his eyes. I believe he went to sleep in almost that instant.

I had already begun to spread out our bedding near the fire. Some of it was the Fool’s Elderling-made stuff, and the old man examined it carefully, rubbing the thin coverlet between his finger and thumb wistfully. Then, ‘So kind you are, so kind. Thank you.’ Then he looked at me almost sadly and said, ‘Your path awaits. May fortune be kind, and the night gentle.’ Then he bowed to me in what was obviously a farewell.

In some confusion, I glanced at his door. When I looked back at him, he nodded slowly. ‘I will keep the watch,’ he assured me, gesturing toward Thick.

Still I stood staring at him, confused. He took a breath and then paused. I could almost see him pushing his thoughts into words I could understand. He touched both hands to his cheeks and then held his black palms out to me. ‘Once, I was The White. The Prophet.’ He smiled to see my eyes widen, but then sadness came into his dark gaze. ‘I failed. With the old ones, I came here. We were the last ones and we knew it. The other cities had gone empty and still. But I had seen there was still a chance, a slight chance, that all might go back to what had been. When the dragon came, at first he gave me hope. But he was full of despair, sick with it like a disease. Into the ice he crawled. I tried. I visited him, I pleaded, I … encouraged. But he turned from me to seek death. And that left nothing for me. No hopes. There was only the waiting. For so long, I had nothing. I saw nothing. The future darkened, the chances narrowed.’ He put his hands together and looked through their cupped palms as if peering through a crack, to show me how limited his visions had become. He lifted his gaze back to me. I think my confusion disappointed him. He shook his head, and then with an obvious effort, pushed on. ‘One vision is left to me. A tiny peep … no! A tiny glimpse of what could be. It was not certain, ever, but it was a chance. Another might come. With another catalyst.’ He held a hand out to me, formed a tiny aperture with his fist. ‘The smallest chance, maybe there is. So small, so unlikely. But there is that chance.’ He looked at me intently.

I forced myself to nod, though I was still not certain I understood all he told me. He had been a White Prophet who failed? Yet
he had foreseen that eventually the Fool and I would come here?

He took encouragement from my nod. ‘She came. At first, “She is the one!” I think. Her Catalyst she brings. Hope comes to me. She says, she seeks the dragon. And I am a fool. I show her the way. Then, the betrayal. She seeks to kill Icefyre. I am angry, but she is stronger. She drove me out, and I had to flee, by a way she cannot follow. She thinks me dead and makes all here her own. But I return, and here I make a place for myself. To this side of the island, her people do not come. But I live and I know she is false. I want to throw her down. But to be the change-maker is not my role. And my Catalyst …’ His voice suddenly went hoarser. He spoke with difficulty. ‘She is dead. Dead so many years. Who could imagine that death lasts so much longer than life? So, only I remained. And I could not make the change that was needed. All I could do was wait. Again, I waited. I hoped. Then I saw him, not white, but gold. I wondered. Then you came after him. Him I knew, at first glance. I recognized you when you left the gift for me. My heart …’ He touched his chest and then lifted his hands high. He smiled beatifically. ‘I longed to help. But I cannot be the Changer. So limited what I may do, or down it all falls. You understand this?’

I replied slowly. ‘I think I do. You are not allowed to be the one who makes the changes. You were the White Prophet of your time, not the Changer.’

‘Yes. Yes, that it is!’ He smiled at me. ‘And this time is not mine. But it is yours, to be the Changer and his to see the way and guide you. You did. And the new path found is. He pays the cost.’ His voice sank, not in sorrow, but in acknowledgement. I bowed my head to his words.

He patted my shoulder and I looked up at him. He smiled the smile of age. ‘And on we go,’ he assured me. ‘Into new times! New paths, beyond all visions. This is a time I never saw, nor she, she who me deceived. This, she never seen has. Only your Prophet has seen this way! The new path, beyond the dragons rising.’ He gave a sudden deep sigh. ‘High the price was for you, but it has been paid. Go. Find what is left of him. To leave him there …’ The
ancient man shook his head. ‘That is not to be.’ He gestured again. ‘Changer, go. Even now, I dare not the change maker be. While you live, it is only for you. Now, go.’ He gestured at my pack and at his door. He smiled.

Then, without any further talk, he eased himself down onto the Fool’s bedding and stretched out before the fire.

I felt oddly torn. I was weary and the Black Man created just such an isle of rest as the Fool would have. And yet, in that comparison, I once more felt the urgency to put it all to a final end. I wished I had known I was leaving him; I would have warned Thick what to expect. Yet somehow, I did not think he would be alarmed to awaken here and find me gone.

Leaving him felt inevitable. I put on my still-chilly outer garments, and shouldered my pack again. I looked once more around the Black Man’s tiny home and could not help but contrast it to the splendour of the Pale Woman’s glacial domain. Then, my heart smote me that my friend’s body was still discarded in that icy place. I went out quietly into the deep grey of the night, shutting the door firmly behind me.

In a backwater of the river there, not far from the Rainwilders’ city, lie huge logs of what is known as Wizardwood. The sailor told me that it is a sort of husk that the serpents make in the process of becoming dragons. Much magical power is ascribed to this so-called wood. Artefacts made from it may eventually acquire a life of their own; it is said that the Liveships of the Bingtown Traders were originally made from such wood. Ground to a dust and exchanged by lovers, it is said to allow them to share dreams. Ingested in a larger quantity, it is said to be poisonous. When I asked why such valuable stuff would be left lying in a riverbed, the sailor told me that the dragon Tintaglia and her litter guard it as if it were gold. It would be worth a man’s life, he told me, to steal so much as a sliver of the stuff. My effort to bribe him to get me some met with resounding failure.

Spy’s report to Chade Fallstar, unsigned

The Black Man was right. No night could hide my path from me.

Nevertheless, it was a challenge to tread his narrow cliffside trail in the darkness. While I had lingered inside, slow rills of water had crept across it to become serpents of ice under my feet. Twice I nearly fell, and when I was at the bottom, I looked back up, marvelling that I had descended without a mishap.

And I saw my way. Or, at least, the start of it. Higher in the cliff face and past the Black Man’s door, a very pale blush of light emanated from the ice-draped stone. I shuddered at its dreadful familiarity. Then with a sigh, I turned back to the steep footpath.

Even by day, it would have been a nasty climb. My brief rest in
the Black Man’s cavern seemed to have more sapped my energy than restored it. I thought, more than once, of going back into the warmth and comfort of his home, to sleep until morning. I did not think of it as something I could do but rather as something that I wished I could do. Now that I was so close to my goal, I was oddly reluctant to confront it. I had put a little wall of time between my grief and me. I knew that tonight, I would look my loss in the face and embrace the full impact of it. In strange anticipation, I wanted it to be over.

When I finally reached the softly glimmering crack in the wall, I found that the opening was barely large enough for me to enter. The slow slide of water down the rock-face was icing it gradually closed. I suspected that it must be a near daily task for the Black Man to keep this entrance clear enough to use.