“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 traveled 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 meager 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 colors 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.