Raising the Staff, she cried, “Ranyhyn! Hail!”
The great horses answered with a whinny that echoed off the face of Melenkurion Skyweir. Then they wheeled and galloped away, taking with them Covenant's mustang. Their hooves clattered like a roll of fire on the stone as they swept northward and out of sight around the curve of the mountain.
When Elena turned back toward her companions, her sense of loss showed clearly in her face. In a sad voice, she said, “Come. If we must travel without the Ranyhyn, then let us at least travel swiftly.”
At once, she turned expectantly to Amok. The ancient youth responded with an ornate bow, and started walking jauntily toward the place where the Skyweir's cliff joined the cleft of the plateau.
Covenant tugged at his beard, and watched hopelessly as Elena and Morin followed Amok.
Then, as abruptly as gasping, he exclaimed, “Wait!” The fingers of his right hand tingled in his beard. “Hang on.” The High Lord looked questioningly at him. He said, “I need a knife. And some water. And a mirror, if you've got one--I don't want to cut my throat.”
Elena said evenly, “Ur-Lord, we must go. We have lost so much time-and the Land is in need.”
“It's important,” he snapped. “Have you got a knife? The blade of my penknife isn't long enough.”
For a moment, she studied him as if his conduct were a mystery. Then, slowly, she nodded to Morin. The First Mark unslung his bundle, opened it, and took out a stone knife, a leather waterskin, and a shallow bowl. These be handed to the Unbeliever. At once, Covenant sat down on the stone, filled the bowl, and began to wet his beard.
He could feel the High Lord's presence as she stood directly before him-he could almost taste the tension with which she held the Staff-but he concentrated on scrubbing water into his whiskers. His heart raced as if he were engaged in something dangerous. He had a vivid sense of what he was giving up. But he was impelled by the sudden conviction that his bargain was false because it had not cost him enough. When he picked up the knife, he did so to seal his compromise with his fate.
Elena stopped him. In a low, harsh voice, she said, “Thomas Covenant.”
The way she said his name forced him to raise his head.
“Where is the urgency in this?” She controlled her harshness by speaking quietly, but her indignation was tangible in her voice. “We have spent three days in delay and ignorance. Do you now mock the Land's need? Is it your deliberate wish to prevent this quest from success?”
An angry rejoinder leaped to his lips. But the terms of his bargain required him to repress it. He bent his head again, splashed more water into his beard. “Sit down. I'll try to explain.”
The High Lord seated herself cross-legged before him.
He could not comfortably meet her gaze. And he did not want to look at Melenkurion Skyweir; it stood too austerely, coldly, behind her. Instead, he watched his hands as they toyed with the stone knife.
“All right,” he said awkwardly. “I'm not the kind of person who grows beards. They itch. And they make me look like a fanatic. They-So I've been letting this one grow for a reason. It's a way of proving-a way to demonstrate so that even somebody as thickheaded and generally incoherent as I am can see it when I wake up in the real world and find that I don't have this beard I've been growing, then I'll know for sure that all this is a delusion. It's proof. Forty or fifty days' worth of beard doesn't just vanish. Unless it was never really there.”
She continued to stare at him. But her tone changed.
She recognized the importance of his self-revelation. “Then why do you now wish to cut it away?”
He trembled to think of the risks he was taking. But he needed freedom, and his bargain promised to provide it. Striving to keep the fear of discovery out of his voice, he told her as much of the truth as he could afford.
“I've made another deal-like the one I made with the Ranyhyn. I'm not trying to prove that the' Land isn't real anymore.” In the back of his mind, he pleaded, Please don't ask me anything else. I don't want to lie to you.
She probed him with her eyes. “Do you believe, then-do you accept the Land?”
In his relief, he almost sighed aloud. He could look at her squarely to answer this. “No. But I'm willing to stop fighting about it. You've done so much for me”
“Ah, beloved!” she breathed with sudden intensity. “I have done nothing-I have only followed my heart. Within my Lord's duty, I would do anything for you.”
He seemed to see her affection for him in the very hue of her skin. He wanted to lean forward, touch her, kiss her, but the presence of the Bloodguard restrained him. Instead, he handed her the knife.
He was abdicating himself to her, and she knew it. A glow of pleasure filled her face as she took the knife. “Do not fear, beloved,” she whispered. “I will preserve you.”
Carefully, as if she were performing a rite, she drew close to him and began to cut his beard.
He winced instinctively when the blade first touched him. But he gritted himself into stillness, locked his jaw, told himself that he was safer in her hands than in his own. He could feel the deadliness of the keen edge as it passed over his flesh-it conjured up images of festering wounds and gangrene-but he closed his eyes, and remained motionless.
The knife tugged at his beard, but the sharpness of the blade kept the pull from becoming painful. And soon her fingers found his knotted jaw muscles. She stroked his clenching to reassure him. With an effort, he opened his eyes. She met his gaze as if she were smiling through a mist of love. Gently, she tilted back his head, and cleaned the beard away from.his neck with smooth, confident strokes.
Then she was done. His bared flesh felt vivid in the air, and he rubbed his face with his hands, relishing the fresh texture of his cheeks and neck. Again, he wanted to kiss Elena. To answer her smile, he stood up and said, “Now I'm ready. Let's go.”
She grasped the Staff of Law, sprang lightly to her feet. In a tone of high gaiety, she said to Amok, “Will you now lead us to the Seventh Ward?”
Amok beckoned brightly, as if he were inviting her to a game, and started once more toward the place where the cleft of Rivenrock vanished under Melenkurion Skyweir. Morin quickly repacked his bundle, and placed himself behind Amok; Elena and Covenant followed the First Mark; and Bannor brought up the rear.
In this formation, they began the last phase of their quest for the Power of Command.
They crossed the plateau briskly: Amok soon reached the juncture of cliff and cleft. There he waved to his companions, grinned happily, and jumped into the crevice.
Covenant gasped in spite of himself, and hurried with Elena to the edge. When they peered into the narrow blackness of the chasm, they saw Amok standing on a ledge in the opposite wall. The ledge began fifteen or twenty feet below and a few feet under the overhang of the mountain. It was not clearly visible. The blank stone and shadowed dimness of the cleft formed a featureless abyss. Amok seemed to be standing on darkness which led to darkness.
“Hellfire!” Covenant groaned as he looked down. He felt dizzy already. “Forget it. Just forget I ever mentioned it.”
“Come!” said Amok cheerfully. “Follow!” His voice sounded over the distant, subterranean gush of the river. With an insouciant stride, he moved away into the mountain. At once, the gloom swallowed him completely.
Morin glanced at the High Lord. When she nodded, he leaped into the cleft, landed where Amok had been standing a moment before. He took one step to the side, and waited.