The Dragon Reborn twot-3

by Robert Jordan

  There had been no need to ask Moiraine if Rand's presence had caused it; her face, like cold iron, was answer enough. The Pattern shaped itself around Rand, and chance ran wild.

  Beyond Sidon they had ridden through four small towns where only Lan's tracking told them Rand was still ahead. Rand was afoot, now, and had been for some time. They had found his horse back beyond Jarra, dead, looking as if it had been mauled by wolves, or dogs run wild. It had been hard for Perrin not to reach out, then, especially when Moiraine looked up from the horse to frown at him. Luckily, Lan had found the tracks of Rand's boots, running from where the dead horse lay. One boot heel had a three-cornered gouge from a rock; it made his prints plain. But afoot or mounted, he seemed to be staying ahead of them.

  In the four villages after Sidon, the biggest excitement anyone could remember was seeing Loial ride in, and discovering that he was an Ogier, for real and for true. They were so caught up with that, that they barely even noticed Perrin's eyes, and when they did… Well, if Ogier were real, then men could very well have any color eyes at all.

  But after those came a little place named Willar, and it was celebrating. The spring on the village common was flowing again, after a year of hauling water a mile from a stream when all efforts at digging wells had failed and half the people had moved away. Willar would not die after all. Three more untouched villages had been followed in quick succession, all in one day, by Samaha, where every well in town had gone dry just the night before, and people were muttering about the Dark One; then Tallan, where all the old arguments the village had ever known had bubbled to the surface like overflowing cesspits a morning earlier, and it had taken three murders to shock everyone back to their senses; and finally Fyall, where the crops this spring looked to be the poorest anyone could remember, but the Mayor, digging a new privy behind his house, had found rotted leather sacks full of gold, so none would go hungry. No one in Fyall recognized the fat coins, with a woman's face on one side and an eagle on the other; Moiraine said they had been minted in Manetheren.

  Perrin had finally asked her about it, as they sat around their campfire one night. "After Jarra, I thought… They were all so happy, with their weddings. Even the Whitecloaks were only made to look like fools. Fyall was all right — Rand couldn't have had anything to do with their crops; they were failing before he ever came, and that gold was surely good, with their need — but all this other… That town burning, and the wells failing, and… That is evil, Moiraine. I can't believe Rand is evil. The Pattern may be shaping itself around him, but how can the Pattern be that evil? It makes no sense, and things have to make sense. If you make a tool with no sense to it, it's wasted metal. The Pattern wouldn't make waste."

  Lan gave him a wry look, and vanished into the darkness to make a circuit around their campsite. Loial, already stretched out in his blankets, lifted his head to listen, ears pricking forward.

  Moiraine was silent for a time, warming her hands. Finally she spoke while staring into the flames. "The Creator is good, Perrin. The Father of Lies is evil. The Pattern of Age, the Age Lace itself, is neither. The Pattern is what is. The Wheel of Time weaves all lives into the Pattern, all actions. A pattern that is all one color is no pattern. For the Pattern of an Age, good and ill are the warp and the woof."

  Even riding through late-afternoon sunshine three days later, Perrin felt the chill he had had on first hearing her say those words. He wanted to believe the Pattern was good. He wanted to believe that when men did evil things, they were going against the Pattern, distorting it. To him the Pattern was a fine and intricate creation made by a master smith. That it mixed pot metal and worse in with good steel with never a care was a cold thought.

  "I care," he muttered softly. "Light, I do care." Moiraine glanced back at him, and he fell silent. He was not sure what the Aes Sedai cared about, beyond Rand.

  A few minutes later Lan appeared from ahead and swung his black warhorse in beside Moiraine's mare. "Remen lies just over the next hill," he said. "They have had an eventful day or two, it seems."

  Loial's ears twitched once. "Rand?"

  The Warder shook his head. "I do not know. Perhaps Moiraine can say, when she sees." The Aes Sedai gave him a searching look, then heeled her white mare to a quicker step.

  They topped the hill, and Remen lay spread out below them, hard against the river. The Manetherendrelle stretched more than half a mile wide here, and there was no bridge, though two crowded, barge-like ferries crept across, propelled by long oars, and one nearly empty was returning. Three more shared long stone docks with nearly a dozen river traders' vessels, some with one mast, some with two. A few bulky gray stone warehouses separated the docks from the town itself, where the buildings seemed mostly of stone, as well, though roofed in tiles of every color from yellow to red to purple, and the streets ran every which way around a central square.

  Moiraine pulled up the deep hood of her cloak to hide her face before they rode down.

  As usual, the people in the streets stared at Loial, but this time Perrin heard awed murmurs of "Ogier." Loial sat straighter in his saddle than he had in some time, and his ears stood straight, and a smile just curled the ends of his wide mouth. He was obviously trying not to let on that he was pleased, but he looked like a cat having its ears scratched.

  Remen looked like any of a dozen towns to Perrin — it was full of manmade aromas and man smell; with a strong smell of the river, of course — and he was wondering what Lan could have meant when the hair on the back of his neck stirred as he scented something wrong. As soon as his nose took it in, it was gone like a horsehair dropped onto hot coals, but he remembered it. He had smelled the same smell at Jarra, and it had vanished the same way, then. It was not a Twisted One or a Neverborn — Trolloc, burn me, not a Twisted One! Not a Neverborn! A Myrddraal, a Fade, a Halfman, anything but a Neverborn! — not a Trolloc or a Fade, yet the stench had been every bit as sharp, every bit as vile. But whatever gave off that scent left no lasting trail, it seemed.

  They rode into the town square. One of the big paving blocks had been pried up, right in the middle of the square, so a gibbet could be erected. A single thick timber rose out of the dirt, supporting a braced crosspiece from which hung an iron cage, the bottom of it four paces high. A tall man dressed all in grays and browns sat in the cage, holding his knees under his chin. He had no room to do otherwise. Three small boys were pitching stones at him. The man looked straight ahead, not flinching when a stone made it between the bars. More than one trickle of blood stained his face. The townspeople walking by paid no more mind to what the boys were doing than the man did, though every last one of them looked at the cage, most of them with approval, and some with fear.

  Moiraine made a sound in her throat that might have been disgust.

  "There is more," Lan said. "Come. I've already arranged rooms at an inn. I think you will find it interesting."

  Perrin looked back over his shoulder at the caged man as he rode after them. There was something familiar about the man, but he could not place it.

  "They shouldn't do that." Loial's rumble sounded halfway to a snarl. "The children, I mean. The grown-ups should stop them."

  "They should," Perrin agreed, barely paying attention. Why is he familiar?

  The sign over the door of the inn Lan led them to, nearer the river, read Wayland's Forge, which Perrin took for a good omen, though there seemed to be nothing of the smithy about the place except the leather-aproned man with a hammer painted on the sign. It was a large, purple-roofed, three-story building of squared and polished gray stones, with large windows and scroll-carved doors, and it had a prosperous look. Stablemen came running to take the horses, bowing even more deeply after Lan tossed them coins.

  Inside, Perrin stared at the people. The men and women at the tables were all dressed in their feastday clothes, it seemed to him, with more embroidered coats, more lace on dresses, more colored ribbons and fringed scarves, than he had seen in a long time. Only four men sitt
ing at one table wore plain coats, and they were the only ones who did not look up expectantly when Perrin and the others walked in. The four men kept on talking softly. He could make out a little of what they were saying, about the virtues of ice peppers over furs as cargo and what the troubles in Saldaea might have done to prices. Captains of trading ships, he decided. The others seemed to be local folk. Even the serving women appeared to be wearing their best, their long aprons covering embroidered dresses with bits of lace at the neck.

  The kitchen was working heavily; he could smell mutton, lamb, chicken, and beef, as well as some sort of vegetables. And a spicy cake that made him forget meat for a moment.

  The innkeeper himself met them just inside, a plump, bald-headed man with shining brown eyes in a smooth pink face, bowing and dry-washing his hands. If he had not come to them, Perrin would never have taken him for the landlord, for instead of the expected white apron, he wore a coat like everyone else, all white-and-green embroidery on stout blue wool that had the man sweating with its weight.

  Why are they all wearing clothes for festival? Perrin wondered. "Ah, Master Andra," the innkeeper said, addressing Lan. "And an Ogier, just as you said. Not that I doubted, of course. Not with all that's happened, and never your word, master. Why not an Ogier? Ah, friend Ogier, to be having you in the house gives me more pleasure than you can be knowing. 'Tis a fine thing, and a fitting cap to it all. Ah, and mistress…" His eyes took in the deep blue silk of her dress and the rich wool of her cloak, dusty from travel but still fine. "Forgive me, Lady, please." His bow bent him like a horseshoe. "Master Andra did not make your station clear, Lady. I meant no disrespect. You are even more welcome than friend Ogier here, of course, Lady. Please, take no offense at Gainor Furlan's poor tongue."

  "I take none." Moiraine's voice calmly accepted the title Furlan gave her. It was far from the first time the Aes Sedai had gone under another name, or pretended to be something she was not. It was not the first Perrin had heard Lan name himself Andra, either. The deep hood still hid Moiraine's smooth Aes Sedai features, and she held her cloak around her with one hand as if taken with a chill. Not the hand on which she wore her Great Serpent ring. "You have had strange occurrences in the town, innkeeper, so I understand. Nothing to trouble travelers, I trust."

  "Ah, Lady, you might be calling them strange indeed. Your own radiant presence is more than enough to honor this humble house, Lady, and bringing an Ogier with you, but we have Hunters in Remen, too. Right here in Wayland's Forge, they are. Hunters for the Horn of Valere, set out from Illian for adventure. And adventure they found, Lady, here in Remen, or just a mile or two upriver, fighting wild Aielmen, of all things. Can you imagine black-veiled Aiel savages in Altara, Lady?"

  Aiel. Now Perrin knew what was familiar about the man in the cage. He had seen an Aiel, once, one of those fierce, nearly legendary denizens of the harsh land called the Waste. The man had looked a good deal like Rand, taller than most, with gray eyes and reddish hair, and he had been dressed like the man in the cage, all in browns and grays that would fade into rock or brush, with soft boots laced to his knees. Perrin could almost hear Min's voice again. An Aielman in a cage. A turning point in your life, or something important that will happen.

  "Why do you have…?" He stopped to clear his throat so he would not sound so hoarse. "How did an Aiel come to be caged in your town square?"

  "Ah, young master, that is a story to…" Furlan trailed off, eyeing him up and down, taking in his plain country clothes and the longbow in his hands, pausing over the axe at his belt opposite his quiver. The plump man gave a start when his study reached Perrin's face, as if, with a Lady and an Ogier present, he had just now noticed Perrin's yellow eyes. "He would be your servant, Master Andra?" he asked cautiously.

  "Answer him," was all Lan said.

  "Ah. Ah, of course, Master Andra. But here's who can tell it better than myself. 'Tis Lord Orban, himself. 'Tis he we have gathered to hear."

  A dark-haired, youngish man in a red coat, with a bandage wound around his temples, was making his way down the stairs at the side of the common room using padded crutches, the left leg of his breeches cut away so more bandages could strap his calf from ankle to knee. The townspeople murmured as if seeing something wondrous. The ship captains went on with their quiet talking; they had come 'round to furs.

  Furlan might have thought the man in the red coat could tell the story better, but he went ahead himself. "Lord Orban and Lord Gann faced twenty wild Aielmen with only ten retainers. Ah, fierce was the fighting and hard, with many wounds given and received. Six good retainers died, and every man took hurts, Lord Orban and Lord Gann worst of all, but every Aiel they slew, save those who fled, and one they took prisoner. 'Tis that one you see out there in the square, where he'll not be troubling the countryside anymore with his savage ways, no more than the dead ones will."

  "You have had trouble from Aiel in this district?" Moiraine asked.

  Perrin was wondering the same thing, with no little consternation. If some people still occasionally used "black-veiled Aiel" as a term for someone violent, it was testimony to the impression the Aiel War had left, but that was twenty years in the past, now, and the Aiel had never come out of the Waste before or since. But I saw one this side of the Spine of the World, and now I've seen two.

  The innkeeper rubbed at his bald head. "Ah. Ah, no, Lady, not exactly. But we would have had, you can be sure, with twenty savages loose. Why, everyone remembers how they killed and looted and burned their way across Cairhien. Men from this very village marched to the Battle of the Shining Walls, when the nations gathered to throw them back. I myself suffered from a twisted back at the time and so could not go, but I remember well, as we all do. How they came here, so far from their own land, or why, I do not know, but Lord Orban and Lord Gann saved us from them." There was a murmur of agreement from the folk in feastday clothes.

  Orban himself came stumping across the common room, not seeming to see anyone but the innkeeper. Perrin could smell stale wine before he was even close. "Where's that old woman taken herself off to with her herbs, Furlan?" Orban demanded roughly. "Gann's wounds are paining him, and my head feels about to split open."

  Furlan almost bent his head to the floor. "Ah, Mother Leich will be back in the morning, Lord Orban. A birthing, Lord. But she said she'd stitched and poulticed your wounds, and Lord Gann's, so there'd be no worrying. Ah, Lord Orban, I'm sure she'll be seeing to you first thing on the morrow."

  The bandaged man muttered something under his breath — under his breath to any ears but Perrin's — about waiting on a farmwife "throwing her litter" and something else about being "sewn up like a sack of meal." He shifted sullen, angry eyes, and for the first time appeared to see the newcomers. Perrin, he dismissed immediately, which did not surprise Perrin at all. His eyes widened a little at Loial — He's seen Ogier, Perrin thought, but he never thought to see one here — narrowed a bit at Lan — He knows a fighting man when he sees one, and he does not like seeing one — and brightened as he stooped to peer inside Moiraine's hood, though he was not close enough to see her face.

  Perrin decided not to think anything at all about that, not concerning an Aes Sedai, and he hoped neither Moiraine nor Lan thought anything of it, either. A light in the Warder's eyes told him he had missed on that hope, at least.

  "Twelve of you fought twenty Aiel?" Lan asked in a flat voice.

  Orban straightened, wincing. In an elaborately casual tone, he said, "Aye, you must expect things such as that when you seek the Horn of Valere. It was not the first such encounter for Gann and me, nor will it be the last before we find the Horn. If the Light shines on us." He sounded as if the Light could not possibly do anything else. "Not all our fights have been with Aiel, of course, but there are always those who would stop Hunters, if they could. Gann and I, we do not stop easily." Another approving murmur came from the townspeople. Orban stood a little straighter.

  "You lost six, and took one prisoner." From La
n's voice, it was not clear if that was a good exchange or a poor one.

  "Aye," Orban said, "we slew the rest, save those who ran. No doubt they're hiding their dead now; I've heard they do that. The Whitecloaks are out searching for them, but they'll never find them."

  "There are Whitecloaks here?" Perrin asked sharply.

  Orban glanced at him, and dismissed him once more. The man addressed Lan again. "Whitecloaks always put their noses in where they are not wanted or needed. Incompetent louts, all of them. Aye, they'll ride all over the countryside for days, but I doubt they'll find as much as their own shadows."

  "I suppose they won't," Lan said.

  The bandaged man frowned as if unsure exactly what Lan meant, then rounded on the innkeeper again. "You find that old woman, hear! My head is splitting." With a last glance at Lan, he hobbled away, climbing back up the stairs one at a time, followed by murmurs of admiration for a Hunter of the Horn who had slain Aielmen.

  "This is an eventful town." Loial's deep voice drew every eye to him. Except for the ship captains, who seemed to be discussing rope, as near as Perrin could make out. "Everywhere I go, you humans are doing things, hurrying and scurrying, having things happen to you. How can you stand so much excitement?"

  "Ah, friend Ogier," Furlan said, " 'tis the way of us humans to want excitement. How much I regret not being able to march to the Shining Walls. Why, let me tell you — "

  "Our rooms." Moiraine did not raise her voice, but her words cut the innkeeper short like a sharp knife. "Andra did arrange rooms, did he not?"

  "Ah, Lady, forgive me. Yes, Master Andra did indeed hire rooms. Forgive me, please. 'Tis all the excitement, makes my head empty itself. Please forgive me, Lady. This way, if you please. If you'll please to follow me." Bowing and scraping, apologizing and babbling without pause, Furlan led them up the stairs.