Stephen Donaldson - The Illearth War

He tried to smile in return, but the uncertain muscles of his face treated the attempt like a grimace. Muttering at his failure, he went with her back toward the Bloodguard and Amok. As they walked, he watched her sidelong, assessed her covertly. The strain of the past three days had been pushed into the background; her forthright stride and resolute features expressed new purpose, strength. The resurgence of hope enabled her to discount mere exhaustion. But her knuckles were tense as she gripped the Staff, and her head was thrust forward at a hungry angle. She made Covenant's bargain lie unquiet in him, as if he were an inadequate and unbinding grave.

In his mind, he could still feel Rivenrock heaving. He needed steadier footing; nothing would save him if he could not keep his balance.

Vaguely, he observed that the First Mark and Bannor were indeed ready to travel. They had bound all the supplies into bundles, and had tied these to their backs with clingor thongs. And Amok sparkled with eagerness; visions seemed to caper in his gay hair. The three of them gave Covenant an acute pang of unpreparedness. He did not feel equal to whatever lay ahead of the High Lord's party. A pulse of anxiety began to run through his weary mood. There was something that he needed to do; he needed to try to recover his integrity in some way. But he did not know how.

He watched as the High Lord bade farewell to the Ranyhyn. They greeted her gladly, stamping their feet and nickering in pleasure at the prospect of activity after three days of patient waiting. She embraced each of the great horses, then stepped back, gripping the Staff, and saluted them in the Ramen fashion.

The Ranyhyn responded by tossing their manes. They regarded her with proud, laughing eyes as she addressed them.

"Brave Ranyhyn-first love of my life-I thank you for your service. We have been honoured. But now we must go on foot for a time. If we survive our path, we will call upon you to carry us back to Revelstone in victory or defeat, we will need the broad backs of your strength.

"For the present, be free. Roam the lands your hearts and hooves desire. And if it should come to pass that we do not call-if you return unsummoned to the Plains of Ra-then, brave Ranyhyn, tell all your kindred of Myrha. She saved my life in the landslide, and gave her own for a lesser horse. Tell all the Ranyhyn that Elena daughter of Lena, High Lord by the choice of the Council, and holder of the Staff of Law, is proud of your friendship. You are the Tail of the Sky, Mane of the World."

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.