"I will find the Horn," Ingtar said angrily. "I must. If you will not permit us to use the Waygate …" He fell silent as Verin looked at him, but the scowl remained on his face.
Alar smiled. "Be not so hasty, Shienaran. You humans never take time for thought. Only decisions reached in calm can be sure." Her smile faded to seriousness, but her voice kept its own measured calm. "The dangers of the Ways are not to be faced with a sword in your hand, not charging Aiel or ravening Trollocs. I must tell you that to enter the Ways is to risk not only death and madness, but perhaps your very souls."
"We have seen Machin Shin," Rand said, and Mat and Perrin agreed. They could not manage to sound eager to do it again.
"I will follow the Horn to Shayol Ghul itself, if need be," Ingtar said firmly. Hurin only nodded as if including himself in Ingtar's words.
"Bring Trayal," Alar commanded, and Juin, who had remained by the door, bowed and left. "It is not enough," she told Verin, "to hear what can happen. You must see it, know it in your heart."
There was an uncomfortable silence until Juin returned, and it became more uncomfortable still as two Ogier women followed him, guiding a dark-bearded Ogier of middle years, who shambled between them as if he did not quite know how his legs worked. His face sagged, without any expression at all, and his big eyes were vacant and unblinking, not staring, not looking, not even seeming to see. One of the women gently wiped drool from the corner of his mouth. They took his arms to stop him; his foot went forward, hesitated, then fell back with a thump. He seemed as content to stand as to walk, or at least as uncaring.
"Trayal was one of the last among us to go along the 'Ways," Alar said softly. "He came out as you see him. Will you touch him, Verin?"
Verin gave her a long look, then rose and strode to Trayal. He did not move as she laid her hands on his wide chest, not even a flicker of an eye to acknowledge her touch. With a sharp hiss, she jerked back, staring up at him, then whirled to face the Elders. "He is … empty. This body lives, but there is nothing inside it. Nothing." Every Elder wore a look of unbearable sadness.
"Nothing," one of the Elders to Alar's right said softly. Her eyes seemed to hold all the pain Trayal's no longer could. "No mind. No soul. Nothing of Trayal remains but his body."
"He was a fine Treesinger," one of the men sighed.
Alar motioned, and the two women turned Trayal to lead him out; they had to move him before he began to walk.
"We know the risks," Verin said. "But whatever the risks, we must follow the Horn of Valere."
The Eldest nodded. "The Horn of Valere. I do not know whether it is worse news that it is in Darkfriend hands, or that it has been found at all." She looked down the row of Elders; each nodded in turn, one of the men tugging his beard doubtfully first. "Very well. Verin tells me time is urgent. I will show you to the Waygate myself." Rand was feeling half relieved and half afraid, when she added, "You have with you a young Ogier. Loial, son of Arent son of Halan, from Stedding Shangtai. He is far from his home."
"We need him," Rand said quickly. His words slowed under surprised stares from the Elders and Verin, but he went on stubbornly. "We need him to go with us, and he wants to."
"Loial's a friend," Perrin said, at the same time that Mat said, "He doesn't get in the way, and he carries his own weight." Neither of them appeared comfortable at having the Elders' focus shift to them, but they did not back down.
"Is there some reason he cannot come with us?" Ingtar asked. "As Mat says, he has held his own. I don't know that we need him, but if he wants to come, why —?"
"We do need him," Verin broke in smoothly. "Few any longer know the Ways, but Loial has studied them. He can decipher the Guidings."
Alar eyed them each in turn, then settled to a study of Rand. She looked as if she knew things; all the Elders did, but she most of all. "Verin says you are ta'veren," she said at last, "and I can feel it in you. That I can do so means that you must be very strongly ta'veren indeed, for such Talents ever run weakly in us, if at all. Have you drawn Loial, son of Arent son of Halan, into ta'maral'ailen, the Web the Pattern weaves around you?"
"I … I just want to find the Horn and …" Rand let the rest of it die. Alar had not mentioned Mat's dagger. He did not know whether Verin had told the Elders, or held it back for some reason. "He is my friend, Eldest."
"Your friend," Alar said. "He is young by our way of thinking. You are young, too, but ta'veren. You will look after him, and when the weaving is done, you will see that he comes safely home to Stedding Shangtai."
"I will," he told her. It had the feeling of a commitment, the swearing of an oath.
"Then we will go to the Waygate."
Outside, Loial scrambled to his feet when they appeared, Alar and Verin leading. Ingtar sent Hurin off at a run to fetch Uno and the other soldiers. Loial eyed the Eldest warily, then fell in with Rand at the rear of the procession. The Ogier women who had been watching him were all gone. "Did the Elders say anything about me? Did she …?" He peered at Alar's broad back as she ordered Juin to have their horses brought. She started off with Verin while Juin was still bowing himself away, bending her head to talk quietly.
"She told Rand to take care of you," Mat told Loial solemnly as they followed, "and see you got home safely as a babe. I don't see why you can't stay here and get married."
"She said you could come with us." Rand glared at Mat, which made Mat chortle under his breath. It sounded odd, coming from that drawn face. Loial was twirling the stem of a trueheart blossom between his fingers. "Did you go picking flowers?" Rand asked.
"Erith gave it to me." Loial watched the yellow petals spin. "She really is very pretty, even if Mat does not see it."
"Does that mean you don't want to go with us after all?"
Loial gave a start. "What? Oh, no. I mean, yes. I do want to go. She only gave me a flower. Just a flower." He took a book out of his pocket, though, and pressed the blossom under the front cover. As he returned the book, he murmured to himself, barely loud enough for Rand to hear, "And she said I was handsome, too." Mat let out a wheeze and doubled over, staggering along clutching his sides, and Loial's cheeks colored. "Well … she said it. I didn't."
Perrin rapped Mat smartly on the top of his head with his knuckles. "Nobody ever said Mat was handsome. He's just jealous."
"That's not true," Mat said, straightening abruptly. "Neysa Ayellin thinks I'm handsome. She's told me so more than once."
"Is Neysa pretty?" Loial asked.
"She has a face like a goat," Perrin said blandly. Mat choked, trying to get his protests out.
Rand grinned in spite of himself. Neysa Ayellin was almost as pretty as Egwene. And this was almost like old times, almost like being back home, bantering back and forth, and nothing more important in the world than a laugh and twitting the other fellow.
As they made their way through the town, Ogier greeted the Eldest, bowing or curtsying, eyeing the human visitors with interest. Alar's set face kept anyone from stopping to speak, though. The only thing that indicated when they left the town was the absence of the mounds; there were still Ogier about, examining trees, or sometimes working with pitch and saw or axe where there were dead limbs or where a tree needed more sunlight. They handled the tasks tenderly.
Juin joined them, leading their horses, and Hurin came riding with Uno and the other soldiers, and the packhorses, just before Alar pointed and said, "It is over there." The banter died.
Rand felt a momentary surprise. The Waygate had to be Outside the stedding — the Ways had been begun with the One Power; they could not have been made inside — but there was nothing to indicate they had crossed the boundary. Then he realized there was a difference; the sense of something lost that he had felt since entering the stedding was gone. That gave him another sort of chill. Saidin was there again. Waiting.
Alar led them past a tall oak, and there in a small clearing stood the big slab of the Waygate, the front of it delicately worked in tightly woven vines a
nd leaves from a hundred different plants. Around the edge of the clearing the Ogier had built a low stone coping that seemed as if it had grown there, suggesting a circle of roots. The look of it made Rand uncomfortable. It took him a moment to realize that the roots suggested were those of bramble and briar, burningleaf and itch oak. Not the sort of plants into which anyone would want to stumble.
The Eldest stopped short of the coping. "The wall is meant to warn away any who comes here. Not that many of us do. I myself will not cross it. But you may." Juin did not go as close as she did; he kept rubbing his hands on the front of his coat, and would not look at the Waygate.
"Thank you," Verin told her. "The need is great, or I would not have asked it."
Rand tensed as the Aes Sedai stepped over the coping and approached the Waygate. Loial took a deep breath and muttered to himself. Uno and the rest of the soldiers shifted in their saddles and loosened swords in their scabbards. There was nothing along the Ways against which a sword would be any use, but it was something to convince themselves they were ready. Only Ingtar and the Aes Sedai seemed calm; even Alar gripped her skirt with both hands.
Verin plucked the Avendesora leaf, and Rand leaned forward intently. He knew an urge to assume the void, to be where he could reach saidin if he needed to.
The greenery carved across the Waygate stirred in an unfelt breeze, leaves fluttering as a gap opened down the center of the mass and the two halves began to swing open.
Rand stared at the first crack. There was no dull, silvery reflection behind it, only blackness blacker than pitch. "Close it!" he shouted. "The Black Wind! Close it!"
Verin took one startled look and thrust the three-pointed leaf back in among all the varied leaves already there; it stayed when she took her hand away and backed toward the coping. As soon as the Avendesora leaf was back in its place, the Waygate immediately began to close. The crack disappeared, vines and leaves merging, hiding the blackness of Machin Shin, and the Waygate was only stone again, if stone carved in a nearer semblance of life than seemed possible.
Alar let out a shuddering breath. "Machin Shin. So close."
"It didn't try to come out," Rand said. Juin made a strangled sound.
"I have told you," Verin said, "the Black Wind is a creature of the Ways. It cannot leave them." She sounded calm, but she still wiped her hands on her skirt. Rand opened his mouth, then gave it up. "And yet," she went on, "I wonder at it being here. First in Cairhien, now here. I wonder." She gave Rand a sidelong glance that made him jump. The look was so quick that he did not think anyone else noticed it, but to Rand it seemed to connect him with the Black Wind.
"I have never heard of this," Alar said slowly, "Machin Shin waiting when a Waygate was opened. It always roamed the Ways. But it has been long, and perhaps the Black Wind hungers, and hopes to catch some unwary one entering a gate. Verin, assuredly you cannot use this Waygate. And however great your need, I cannot say I am sorry. The Ways belong to the Shadow, now."
Rand frowned at the Waygate. Could it be following me? There were too many questions. Had Fain somehow ordered the Black Wind? Verin said it could not be done. And why would Fain demand that he follow, then try to stop him? He only knew that he believed the message. He had to go to Toman Head. If they found the Horn of Valere and Mat's dagger under a bush tomorrow, he still had to go.
Verin stood with eyes unfocused in thought. Mat was sitting on the coping with his head in his hands, and Perrin watched him worriedly. Loial seemed relieved that they could not use the Waygate, and ashamed at being relieved.
"We are done for here," Ingtar announced. "Verin Sedai, I followed you here against my better judgment, but I can no longer follow. I mean to return to Cairhien. Barthanes can tell me where the Darkfriends went, and somehow I will make him do it."
"Fain went to Toman Head," Rand said wearily. "And where he went, that's where the Horn is, and the dagger."
"I suppose …" Perrin shrugged reluctantly. "I suppose we could try another Waygate. At another stedding?"
Loial stroked his chin and spoke quickly, as if to make up for his relief at the failure here. "Stedding Cantoine lies just above the River Iralell, and Stedding Taijing is east of it in the Spine of the World. But the Waygate in Caemlyn, where the grove was, is closer, and the gate in the grove at Tar Valon is closest of all."
"Whichever Waygate we try to use," Verin said absently, "I fear we will find Machin Shin waiting." Alar looked at her questioningly, but the Aes Sedai said no more that anyone could hear. She muttered to herself instead, shaking her head as if arguing with herself.
"What we need," Hurin said diffidently, "is one of those Portal Stones." He looked to Alar, then Verin, and when neither told him to stop, he went on, sounding increasingly confident. "The Lady Selene said those old Aes Sedai had studied those worlds, and that was how they knew how to make the Ways. And that place we were … well, it only took us two days less to travel a hundred leagues. If we could use a Portal Stone to go to that world, or one like it, why, it'd take no more than a week or two to reach the Aryth Ocean, and we could come back right on Toman Head. Maybe it isn't so quick as the Ways, but it's a long sight quicker than riding off west. What do you say, Lord Ingtar? Lord Rand?"
Verin answered him. "What you suggest might be possible, sniffer, but as well hope to open this Waygate again and find Machin Shin gone as hope to find a Portal Stone. I know none closer than the Aiel Waste. Though we could go back into Kinslayer's Dagger, if you, or Rand, or Loial think you could find that Stone again."
Rand looked at Mat. His friend had lifted his head hopefully at this talk of the Stones. A few weeks, Verin had said. If they simply rode west, Mat would never live to see Toman Head.
"I can find it," Rand said reluctantly. He felt ashamed. Mat's going to die, Darkfriends have the Horn of Valere, Fain will hurt Emond's Field if you don't follow him, and you're afraid to channel the Power. Once to go and once to come back. Twice more won't drive you mad. What really made him afraid, though, was the eagerness that leaped inside him at the thought of channeling again, of feeling the Power fill him, of feeling truly alive.
"I do not understand this," Alar said slowly. "The Portal Stones have not been used since the Age of Legends. I did not think there was anyone who still knew how to use them."
"The Brown Ajah knows many things," Verin said dryly, "and I know how the Stones may be used."
The Eldest nodded. "Truly there are wonders in the White Tower of which we do not dream. But if you can use a Portal Stone, there is no need for you to ride to Kinslayer's Dagger. There is a Stone not far from where we stand."
"The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills, and the Pattern provides what is needful." The absent look dropped from Verin's face altogether. "Take us to it," she said briskly. "We have lost more than enough time already."
Chapter 37
(Portal Stone)
What Might Be
Alar led them away from the Waygate at a dignified pace, though Juin seemed more than anxious to leave the Waygate behind. Mat, at least, looked ahead eagerly, and Hurin seemed confident, while Loial appeared concerned more that Alar might change her mind about his going than about anything else. Rand did not hurry as he pulled Red along by the reins. He did not think Verin meant to use the Stone herself.
The gray stone column stood upright near a beech almost a hundred feet tall and four paces thick; Rand would have thought it a big tree before he saw the Great Trees. There was no warning coping here, only a few wildflowers pushing through the leafy mulch of the forest floor. The Portal Stone itself was weathered, but the symbols covering it were still clear enough to make out.
The mounted Shienaran soldiers spread out in a loose circle around the Stone and those afoot.
"We stood it upright," Alar said, "when we found it many years ago, but we did not move it. It … seemed to … resist being moved." She went right up to it, and laid a big hand on the Stone. "I have always thought of it as a symbol of what has been lost, what
has been forgotten. In the Age of Legends, it could be studied and somewhat understood. To us, it is only stone."
"More than that, I hope." Verin's voice grew brisker. "Eldest, I thank you for your help. Forgive us for our lack of ceremony in leaving you, but the Wheel waits for no woman. At least we will no longer disturb the peace of your stedding."
"We called the stonemasons back from Cairhien," Alar said, "but we still hear what happens in the world Outside. False Dragons. The Great Hunt of the Horn. We hear, and it passes us by. I do not think Tarmon Gai'don will pass us by, or leave us in peace. Fare you well, Verin Sedai. All of you, fare well, and may you shelter in the palm of the Creator's hand. Juin." She paused only for a glance at Loial and a last admonitory look at Rand, and then the Ogier were gone among the trees.
There was a creaking of saddles as the soldiers shifted. Ingtar looked around the circle they made. "Is this necessary, Verin Sedai? Even if it can be done… We do not even know if the Darkfriends really have taken the Horn to Toman Head. I still believe I can make Barthanes —"
"If we cannot be sure," Verin said mildly, cutting him off, "then Toman Head is as good a place to look as any other. More than once I've heard you say you would ride to Shayol Ghul if need be to recover the Horn. Do you hold back now, at this?" She gestured to the Stone under the smoothbarked tree.
Ingtar's back stiffened. "I hold back at nothing. Take us to Toman Head or take us to Shayol Ghul. If the Horn of Valere lies at the end, I will follow you."
"That is well, Ingtar. Now, Rand, you have been transported by a Portal Stone more recently than I. Come." She motioned to him, and he led Red over to her at the Stone.
"You've used a Portal Stone?" He glanced over his shoulder to make sure no one else was close enough to hear. "Then you don't mean for me to." He gave a relieved shrug.
Verin looked at him blandly. "I have never used a Stone; that is why your use is more recent than mine. I am well aware of my limits. I would be destroyed before I came close to channeling enough Power to work a Portal Stone. But I know a little of them. Enough to help you, a bit."
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