Written for readers who have finished Book 1.
Toll keeps the col-house — the highest, hardest, most necessary rest-house on the mountain road — and he keeps it almost entirely with his hands. He takes your pack before you've spoken, has the soup on before you knock, and asks nothing of you but that you sit down and be warm. He came to the col years ago with nothing left in him, and was fed and let be until he could stand again; now he does the same for whoever the road sends up out of the cold. He is not a man of many words. The kettle is always on, and that is most of what he has to say.