THE MYSTERIOUS MAN

He's fairly old and eccentric and lives in the woods on a lake. The guy collects weird things--and not just knickknacks, but weird animals too. Weaver soon finds that he is not the only odd creature imprisoned in the Mysterious Man's house, but he is certainly the only one of any considerable intelligence, and the only one from a truly otherworldly place. The Mysterious Man knows that Weaver has to be intelligent even before he starts trying to teach him things, because no mere animal walks around toting a perfect miniature sword. This guy observes Weaver's obvious complex emotions and unusual dexterity and thinks of him as a truly astounding alien pet worthy of an education, but what he doesn't understand is that creatures of Weaver's self-awareness also possess free will--and the desire to express it.

The Mysterious Man does not reveal much of his own character in this storyline, but he is very important in the forming of Weaver's new life in this dimension. Without the information the Mysterious Man gives him, Weaver probably would have spent the rest of his life unaware of the complexities of the larger world, though whether that would have been for the better we'll never know.