They thought, in the warm intimacy of unreserved understanding: "It would work: I-you would make the sacrifice of shame and mockery—yet these can be borne—that I-you might be saved from death—which is alone irreparable.... But to become I and you again—that cannot be borne."
They said in unison, "No. Not that."
The Watcher's face did not change. He said gravely, "Very well. I will give you what knowledge I have that may help you when you enter the Ryzga mountain."
Quickly, he impressed on them what he had learned of the structure of the mountain and of its guardian machines. Var closed his eyes, a little dizzied by the rapid flood of detail.
"You are ready to go," said the Watcher. He spoke aloud, and his voice was cracked and harsh. Var opened his eyes in surprise, and saw that the Watcher had become again the hoary ancient of last night.
Var felt a twinge of unfamiliar emotion; only by its echo in Neena's mind did he recognize it as a sense of guilt. He said stiffly, "You don't blame us?"
"You have taken life in your own hands," rasped the Watcher. "Who does that needs no blessing and feels no curse. Go!"
They groped through the fog above blank abysses that hid the snarling river, crept hand in hand, sharing their strength, across unstable dream bridges from crag to crag. Groz and his pack, in their numbers, would cross the gorge more surely and swiftly. When Var and Neena set foot at last on the cindery slope of the great volcanic cone, they sensed that the pursuit already halved their lead.
They stood high on the side of the Ryzga mountain, and gazed at the doorway. It was an opaque yet penetrable well of darkness, opening into the face of a lava cliff, closed only by an intangible curtain—so little had the Ryzgas feared those who might assail them in their sleep.