'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 tire. 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 he 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 gar-merits, 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.

TWENTY EIGHT

Catalyst

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

Nevertheless, it was a challenge to tread his narrow cliffs ide 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 hy 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 unI'll 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.