"It's too late," he said. "I'm already a monster. Didn't you see what I did back there?"

"All this self pity is very tedious, Belgarion, " her voice told him. "I don't think we're getting anywhere. " She stood up. "Do try to grow up a little, dear," she said aloud. "It's very hard to instruct someone who's so self absorbed that he won't listen."

"I'll never do it again," he told her defiantly.

"Oh yes, you will, Belgarion. You'll learn and you'll practice and you'll develop the discipline this requires. If you don't want to do it willingly, then we'll have to do it the other way. Think about it, dear, and make up your mind - but don't take too long. It's too important to be put off. "She reached out and gently touched his cheek; then she turned and walked away.

"She's right, you know, " the voice in his mind told him.

"You stay out of this, " Garion said.

In the days that followed, he avoided Aunt Pol as much as possible, but he could not avoid her eyes. Wherever he went on the narrow ship, he knew that she was watching him, her eyes calm, speculative.

Then, at breakfast on the third day out, she looked at his face rather closely as if noticing something for the first time. "Garion," she said, "you're starting to look shaggy. Why don't you shave?"

Garion blushed furiously and put his fingers to his chin. There were definitely whiskers there - downy, soft, more like fuzz than bristles, but whiskers all the same.

"Thou art truly approaching manhood, young Garion," Mandorallen assured him rather approvingly.

"The decision doesn't have to be made immediately, Polgara," Barak said, stroking his own luxuriant red beard. "Let the whiskers grow for a while. If they don't turn out well, he can always shave them off later."

"I think your neutrality in the matter is suspect, Barak," Hettar remarked. "Don't most Chereks wear beards?"

"No razor's ever touched my face," Barak admitted. "But I just don't think it's the sort of thing to rush into. It's very hard to stick whiskers back on if you decide later that you wanted to keep them after all."

"I think they're kind of funny," Ce'Nedra said. Before Garion could stop her, she reached out two tiny fingers and tugged the soft down on his chin. He winced and blushed again.

"They come off," Aunt Pol ordered firmly.

Wordlessly, Durnik went below decks. When he came back, he carried a basin, a chunk of brown-colored soap, a towel, and a fragment of mirror. "It isn't really hard, Garion," he said, putting the things on the table in front of the young man. Then he took a neatly folded razor out of a case at his belt. "You just have to be careful not to cut yourself, that's all. The whole secret is not to rush."