Appearance

Jodah frowned and looked up, catching the full reflection of his face in the mirror. He almost recoiled with surprise with what he saw in the flaking, cracked glass .

He was old. Not decrepitly old, or venerably old, but old nonetheless. He remembered being a young man, leopard thin and wiry. Now his frame had the heft of maturity—not fat, at least not yet, but well muscled and thick. His hair was longer than he had remembered it, and his face was clean shaven—he remembered being so proud of a ratty thin mustache and beard that made him look like he had been gargling with ink .

But his eyes were the oldest of all. They did not fit his face. They were ancient eyes, venerable eyes, eyes that had seen too much for one lifetime. Jodah touched the fingers of his left hand to his face, and the thing with the ancient eyes duplicated the gesture in the glass.

“When,” said Jodah, his voice suddenly dry and raspy. He coughed and started again. “When did I get so old?”

***

The Eternal Ice, Chapter 1