I had stood again by then and dusted my cloak and made myself as presentable as I could, yet I was only poorly prepared for him I saw when the door swung back. He carried a candle as thick as my wrist, and by its light I beheld a face that was like the faces of the Hierodules I had met in Baldanders’s castle, save that it was a human face—indeed, I felt that as the faces of the statues in the gardens of the House Absolute had imitated the faces of such beings as Famulimus, Barbatus, and Ossipago, so their faces were only imitations, in some alien medium, of such faces as the one I saw now; I have said often in this account that I remember everything, and so I do; but when I try to sketch that face beside these words of mine I find I cannot do so. No drawing that I make resembles it in the least. I can only say that the brows were heavy and straight, the eyes deep-set and deep blue, as Thecla’s were. This man’s skin was fine as a woman’s too, but there was nothing womanish about him, and the beard that flowed to his waist was of darkest black. His robe seemed white, but there was a rainbow shimmering where it caught the candlelight.

I bowed as I had been taught in the Matachin Tower and told him my name and who had sent me.

Then I said, “And are you, sieur, the anchorite of the Last House?”

He nodded. “I am the last man here. You may call me Ash.”

He stood to one side, indicating that I should enter, then led me to a room at the rear of the house, where a wide window overlooked the valley from which I had climbed the night before. There were wooden chairs there and a wooden table. Metal chests, dully gleaming in the candlelight, rested in the comers and in the angles between floor and walls.

“You must pardon the poor appearance of this place,” he said. “It is here that I receive company, but I have so little company that I have begun to use it as a storeroom.”

“When one lives alone in such a lonely spot, it is well to seem poor. Master Ash. This room, however, does not.”

I had not thought that face capable of smiling, yet he smiled. “You wish to see my treasures? Look.”

He rose and opened a chest, holding the candle so that it lit the interior. There were square loaves of hard bread and packages of Impressed figs. Seeing my expression he asked, “Are you hungry? There is no spell upon this food, if you are fearful of such things.

I was ashamed, because I had carried food for the journey and still had some left for the return; but I said, “I would like some of that bread, if you can spare it.”

He gave me half a loaf already cut (and with a very sharp knife), cheese wrapped in silver paper, and dry yellow wine.

“Mannea is a good woman,” he told me. “And you, I think, are a good man of the kind who does not know himself to be one—some say that is the only kind. Does she think I can help you?”

“Rather she believes that I can help you. Master Ash. The armies of the Commonwealth are in retreat, and soon the battle will overwhelm all this part of the country, and after die battle, the Ascians.”

He smiled again. “The men without shadows. It is one of those names, of which there are many, that are in error and yet perfectly correct. What would you think if an Ascian told you he really cast no shadow?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I never heard of such a thing.”

“It is an old story. Do you like old stories? Ah, I see a light in your eyes, and I wish I could tell it better. You call your enemies Ascians, which of course is not what they call themselves, because your fathers believed they came from the waist of Urth, where the sun is precisely overhead at noon. The truth is that their home is much farther north. Yet Ascians they are. In a fable made in the earliest morning of our race, a man sold his shadow and found himself driven out everywhere he went. No one would believe that he was human.”

Sipping wine, I thought of the Ascian prisoner whose cot had stood beside my own. “Did this man ever regain his shadow. Master Ash?”

“No. But for a time he travelled with a man who had no reflection.”

Master Ash fell silent. Then he said, “Mannea is a good woman; I wish that I could oblige you. But I cannot go, and the war will never reach me here, no matter how its columns march.”

I said, “Perhaps it would be possible for you to come with me and reassure the Chatelaine.”

“That I cannot do either.” I saw then that I would have to force him to accompany me, but there seemed to be no reason to resort to duress now; there would be plenty of opportunity in the morning. I shrugged my shoulders as though in resignation and asked, “May I then at least sleep here tonight? I will have to return and report your decision, but the distance is fifteen leagues or more, and I could not walk much farther now.”

Again I saw his faint smile, just such a smile as a carving of ivory might make when the motion of a torch altered the shadow of its lips. “I had hoped to have some news of the world from you,” he said.

“But I see that you are weary. Come with me when you have finished eating. I will show you to your bed.”

“I have no courtly manners. Master, but I am not so illbred to sleep when my host still desires my conversationthough I’m afraid I have little enough news to give. From what I’ve learned from my fellow sufferers in the lazaret, the war proceeds and waxes hotter each day. We are reinforced with legions and half legions, they by whole armies sent down from the north. They have much artillery too, and therefore we must rely more upon our mounted lances, who can charge swiftly and engage the enemy closely before his heavy pieces can be pointed. They have more fliers also than they boasted last year, although we have destroyed many. The Autarch himself has come to command, bringing many of his housetroops from the House Absolute. But ...” Shrugging again, I paused to take a bite of bread and cheese.