“No,” Egwene protested. “I’m not afraid. I do want to become an Aes Sedai.”
“Better for you if you were afraid, but I hope you hold to that conviction. Few women these days have the ability to become initiates, much less have the wish to.” Moiraine’s voice sounded as if she had begun musing to herself. “Surely never before two in one village. The old blood is indeed still strong in the Two Rivers.”
In the shadows, Rand shifted. A twig snapped under his foot. He froze instantly, sweating and holding his breath, but neither of the women looked around.
“Two?” Egwene exclaimed. “Who else? Is it Kari? Kari Thane? Lara Ayellan?”
Moiraine gave an exasperated click of her tongue, then said sternly, “You must forget I said that. Her road lies another way, I fear. Concern yourself with your own circumstances. It is not an easy road you have chosen.”
“I will not turn back,” Egwene said.
“Be that as it may. But you still want reassurance, and I cannot give it to you, not in the way you want.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You want to know that Aes Sedai are good and pure, that it was those wicked men of the legends who caused the Breaking of the World, not the women. Well, it was the men, but they were no more wicked than any men. They were insane, not evil. The Aes Sedai you will find in Tar Valon are human, no different from any other women except for the ability that sets us apart. They are brave and cowardly, strong and weak, kind and cruel, warm-hearted and cold. Becoming an Aes Sedai will not change you from what you are.”
Egwene drew a heavy breath. “I suppose I was afraid of that, that I’d be changed by the Power. That and the Trollocs. And the Fade. And. . . . Moiraine Sedai, in the name of the Light, why did the Trollocs come to Emond’s Field?”
The Aes Sedai’s head swung, and she looked straight at Rand’s hiding place. His breath seized in his throat; her eyes were as hard as when she had threatened them, and he had the feeling they could penetrate the leatherleaf’s thick branches. Light, what will she do if she finds me listening?
He tried to melt back into the deeper shadows. With his eyes on the women, a root snagged his foot, and he barely caught himself from tumbling into dead brush that would have pointed him out with a crackle of snapping branches like fireworks. Panting, he scrambled away on all fours, keeping silent as much by luck as by anything he did. His heart pounded so hard he thought that might give him away itself. Fool! Eavesdropping on an Aes Sedai!
Back where the others were sleeping, he managed to slip in among them silently. Lan moved as he dropped to the ground and jerked his blanket up, but the Warder settled back with a sigh. He had only been rolling over in his sleep. Rand let out a long, silent breath.
A moment later Moiraine appeared out of the night, stopping where she could study the slumbering shapes. Moonlight made a nimbus around her. Rand closed his eyes and breathed evenly, all the while listening hard for footsteps coming closer. None did. When he opened his eyes again, she was gone.
When finally sleep came, it was fitful and filled with sweaty dreams where all the men in Emond’s Field claimed to be the Dragon Reborn and all the women had blue stones in their hair like the one Moiraine wore. He did not try to overhear Moiraine and Egwene again.
On into the sixth day the slow journey stretched. The warmthless sun slid slowly toward the treetops, while a handful of thin clouds drifted high to the north. The wind gusted higher for a moment, and Rand pulled his cloak back up onto his shoulders, muttering to himself. He wondered if they would ever get to Baerlon. The distance they had traveled from the river already was more than enough to take him from Taren Ferry to the White River, but Lan always said it was just a short journey whenever he was asked, hardly worth calling a journey at all. It made him feel lost.
Lan appeared ahead of them in the woods, returning from one of his forays. He reined in and rode beside Moiraine, his head bent close to hers.
Rand grimaced, but he did not ask any questions. Lan simply refused to acknowledge all such questions aimed at him.
Only Egwene, among the others, even appeared to notice Lan’s return, so used to this arrangement had they become, and she kept back, too. The Aes Sedai might have begun acting as if Egwene were in charge of the Emond’s Fielders, but that gave her no say when the Warder made his reports. Perrin was carrying Mat’s bow, wrapped in the thoughtful silence that seemed to take them all more and more as they got further from the Two Rivers. The horses’ slow walk allowed Mat to practice juggling three small stones under Thom Merrilin’s watchful eye. The gleeman had given lessons each night, too, as well as Lan.
Lan finished whatever he had been telling Moiraine, and she twisted in her saddle to look back at the others. Rand tried not to stiffen when her eyes moved across him. Did they linger on him a moment longer than on anyone else? He had the queasy feeling that she knew who had been listening in the darkness that night.
“Hey, Rand,” Mat called, “I can juggle four!” Rand waved in reply without looking around. “I told you I’d get to four before you. I—Look!”
They had topped a low hill, and below them, a scant mile away through the stark trees and the stretching shadows of evening, lay Baerlon. Rand gasped, trying to smile and gape at the same time.
A log wall, nearly twenty feet tall, surrounded the town, with wooden watchtowers scattered along its length. Within, rooftops of slate and tile glinted with the sinking sun, and feathers of smoke drifted upward from chimneys. Hundreds of chimneys. There was not a thatched roof to be seen. A broad road ran east from the town, and another west, each with at least a dozen wagons and twice as many ox-carts trudging toward the palisade. Farms lay scattered about the town, thickest to the north while only a few broke the forest to the south, but they might as well not have existed so far as Rand was concerned. It’s bigger than Emond’s Field and Watch Hill and Deven Ride all put together! And maybe Taren Ferry, too.
“So that’s a city,” Mat breathed, leaning forward across his horse’s neck to stare.
Perrin could only shake his head. “How can so many people live in one place?”
Egwene simply stared.
Thom Merrilin glanced at Mat, then rolled his eyes and blew out his mustaches. “City!” he snorted.
“And you, Rand?” Moiraine said. “What do you think of your first sight of Baerlon?”
“I think it’s a long way from home,” he said slowly, bringing a sharp laugh from Mat.
“You have further to go yet,” Moiraine said. “Much further. But there is no other choice, except to run and hide and run again for the rest of your lives. And short lives they would be. You must remember that, when the journey becomes hard. You have no choice.”
Rand exchanged glances with Mat and Perrin. By their faces, they were thinking the same thing he was. How could she talk as if they had any choice after what she had said? The Aes Sedai’s made our choices.
Moiraine went on as if their thoughts were not plain. “The danger begins again here. Watch what you say within those walls. Above all, do not mention Trollocs, or Halfmen, or any such. You must not even think of the Dark One. Some in Baerlon have even less love for Aes Sedai than do the people of Emond’s Field, and there may even be Darkfriends.” Egwene gasped, and Perrin muttered under his breath. Mat’s face paled, but Moiraine went on calmly. “We must attract as little attention as possible.” Lan was exchanging his cloak of shifting grays and greens for one of dark brown, more ordinary, though of fine cut and weave. His color-changing cloak made a large bulge in one of his saddlebags. “We do not go by our own names here,” Moiraine continued. “Here I am known as Alys, and Lan is Andra. Remember that. Good. Let us be within the walls before night catches us. The gates of Baerlon are closed from sundown to sunrise.”
Lan led the way down the hill and through the woods toward the log wall. The road passed half a dozen farms—none lay close, and none of the people finishing their chores seemed to notice the travelers—ending at h
eavy wooden gates bound with wide straps of black iron. They were closed tight, even if the sun was not down yet.
Lan rode close to the wall and gave a tug to a frayed rope hanging down beside the gates. A bell clanged on the other side of the wall. Abruptly a wizened face under a battered cloth cap peered down suspiciously from atop the wall, glaring between the cut-off ends of two of the logs, a good three spans over their heads.
“What’s all this, eh? It’s too late in the day to be opening this gate. Too late, I say. Go around to the Whitebridge Gate if you want to—” Moiraine’s mare moved out to where the man atop the wall had a clear view of her. Suddenly his wrinkles deepened in a gap-toothed smile, and he seemed to quiver between speaking and doing his duty. “I didn’t know it was you, mistress. Wait. I’ll be right down. Just wait. I’m coming. I’m coming.”
The head dipped out of sight, but Rand could still hear muffled shouts for them to stay where they were, that he was coming. With great creaks of disuse, the right-hand gate slowly swung outward. It stopped when open just wide enough for one horse to pass through at a time, and the gatekeeper poked his head into the gap, flashed his half-toothless smile at them again and darted back out of the way. Moiraine followed Lan through, with Egwene right behind her.
Rand trotted Cloud after Bela and found himself in a narrow street fronted by high wooden fences and warehouses, tall and windowless, broad doors closed up tight. Moiraine and Lan were already on foot, speaking to the wrinkle-faced gatekeeper, so Rand dismounted, too.
The little man, in a much-mended cloak and coat, held his cloth cap crumpled in one hand and ducked his head whenever he spoke. He peered at those dismounting behind Lan and Moiraine, and shook his head. “Downcountry folk.” He grinned. “Why, Mistress Alys, you taken up collecting downcountry folk with hay in their hair?” His look took in Thom Merrilin, then. “You ain’t a sheepfarmer. I remember letting you go through some days back, I do. Didn’t like your tricks downcountry, eh, gleeman?”
“I hope you remembered to forget letting us through, Master Avin,” Lan said, pressing a coin into the man’s free hand. “And letting us back in, too.”
“No need for that, Master Andra. No need for that. You give me plenty when you went out. Plenty.” Just the same, Avin made the coin disappear as deftly as if he were a gleeman, too. “I ain’t told nobody, and I won’t, neither. Especially not them Whitecloaks,” he finished with a scowl. He pursed up his lips to spit, then glanced at Moiraine and swallowed, instead.
Rand blinked, but kept his mouth shut. The others did, too, though it appeared to be an effort for Mat. Children of the Light, Rand thought wonderingly. Stories told about the Children by peddlers and merchants and merchants’ guards varied from admiration to hatred, but all agreed the Children hated Aes Sedai as much as they did Darkfriends. He wondered if this was more trouble already.
“The Children are in Baerlon?” Lan demanded.
“They surely are.” The gatekeeper bobbed his head. “Came the same day you left, as I recall. Ain’t nobody here likes them at all. Most don’t let on, of course.”
“Have they said why they are here?” Moiraine asked intently.
“Why they’re here, mistress?” Avin was so astonished he forgot to duck his head. “Of course, they said why—Oh, I forgot. You been downcountry. Likely you ain’t heard nothing but sheep bleating. They say they’re here because of what’s going on down in Ghealdan. The Dragon, you know—well, him as calls himself Dragon. They say the fellow’s stirring up evil—which I expect he is—and they’re here to stamp it out, only he’s down there in Ghealdan, not here. Just an excuse to meddle in other people’s business, is what I figure. There’s already been the Dragon’s Fang on some people’s doors.” This time he did spit.
“Have they caused much trouble, then?” Lan said, and Avin shook his head vigorously.
“Not that they don’t want to, I expect, only the Governor don’t trust them no more than I do. He won’t let but maybe ten or so inside the walls at one time, and ain’t they mad about that. The rest have a camp a little ways north, I hear. Bet they got the farmers looking over their shoulders. The ones that do come in, they just stalk around in those white cloaks, looking down their noses at honest folk. Walk in the Light, they say, and it’s an order. Near come to blows more than once with the wagoneers and miners and smelters and all, and even the Watch, but the Governor wants it all peaceful, and that’s how it’s been so far. If they’re hunting evil, I say why aren’t they up in Saldaea? There’s some kind of trouble up there, I hear. Or down in Ghealdan? There’s been a big battle down there, they say. Real big.”
Moiraine drew a soft breath. “I had heard that Aes Sedai were going to Ghealdan.”
“Yes, they did, mistress.” Avin’s head started bobbing again. “They went to Ghealdan, all right, and that’s what started this battle, or so I hear. They say some of those Aes Sedai are dead. Maybe all of them. I know some folks don’t hold with Aes Sedai, but I say, who else is going to stop a false Dragon? Eh? And those damned fools who think they can be men Aes Sedai or some such. What about them? Course, some say—not the Whitecloaks, mind, and not me, but some folks—that maybe this fellow really is the Dragon Reborn. He can do things, I hear. Use the One Power. There’s thousands following him.”
“Don’t be a fool,” Lan snapped, and Avin’s face folded into a hurt look.
“I’m only saying what I heard, ain’t I? Just what I heard, Master Andra. They say, some do, that he’s moving his army east and south, toward Tear.” His voice became heavy with meaning. “They say he’s named them the People of the Dragon.”
“Names mean little,” Moiraine said calmly. If anything she had heard disturbed her, she gave no outward sign of it now. “You could call your mule People of the Dragon, if you wanted.”
“Not likely, mistress.” Avin chuckled. “Not with the Whitecloaks around, for sure. I don’t expect anybody else would look kindly on a name like that, neither. I see what you mean, but . . . oh, no, mistress. Not my mule.”
“No doubt a wise decision,” Moiraine said. “Now we must be off.”
“And don’t you worry, mistress,” Avin said, with a deep bob of his head, “I ain’t seen nobody.” He darted to the gate and began tugging it closed with quick jerks. “Ain’t seen nobody, and ain’t seen nothing.” The gate thudded shut, and he pulled down the locking bar with a rope. “In fact, mistress, this gate ain’t been open in days.”
“The Light illumine you, Avin,” Moiraine said.
She led them away from the gate, then. Rand looked back, once, and Avin was still standing in front of the gate. He seemed to be polishing a coin with an edge of his cloak and chuckling.
The way led through dirt streets barely the width of two wagons, empty of people, all lined with warehouses and occasional high, wooden fences. Rand walked a time beside the gleeman. “Thom, what was all that about Tear, and the People of the Dragon? Tear is a city all the way down on the Sea of Storms, isn’t it?”
“The Karaethon Cycle,” Thom said curtly.
Rand blinked. The Prophecies of the Dragon. “Nobody tells the . . . those stories in the Two Rivers. Not in Emond’s Field, anyway. The Wisdom would skin them alive, if they did.”
“I suppose she would, at that,” Thom said dryly. He glanced at Moiraine up ahead with Lan, saw she could not overhear, and went on. “Tear is the greatest port on the Sea of Storms, and the Stone of Tear is the fortress that guards it. The Stone is said to be the first fortress built after the Breaking of the World, and in all this time it has never fallen, though more than one army has tried. One of the Prophecies says that the Stone of Tear will never fall until the People of the Dragon come to the Stone. Another says the Stone will never fall till the Sword That Cannot Be Touched is wielded by the Dragon’s hand.” Thom grimaced. “The fall of the Stone will be one of the major proofs that the Dragon has been reborn. May the Stone stand till I am dust.”
“The sword that cannot be touched
?”
“That’s what it says. I don’t know whether it is a sword. Whatever it is, it lies in the Heart of the Stone, the central citadel of the fortress. None but the High Lords of Tear can enter there, and they never speak of what lies inside. Certainly not to gleemen, anyway.”
Rand frowned. “The Stone cannot fall until the Dragon wields the sword, but how can he, unless the Stone has already fallen? Is the Dragon supposed to be a High Lord of Tear?”
“Not much chance of that,” the gleeman said dryly. “Tear hates anything to do with the Power even more than Amador, and Amador is the stronghold of the Children of the Light.”
“Then how can the Prophecy be fulfilled?” Rand asked. “I’d like it well enough if the Dragon was never reborn, but a prophecy that cannot be fulfilled doesn’t make much sense. It sounds like a story meant to make people think the Dragon never will be reborn. Is that it?”
“You ask an awful lot of questions, boy,” Thom said. “A prophecy that was easily fulfilled would not be worth much, now would it?” Suddenly his voice brightened. “Well, we’re here. Wherever here is.”
Lan had stopped by a section of head-high wooden fence that looked no different from any other they had passed. He was working the blade of his dagger between two of the boards. Abruptly he gave a grunt of satisfaction, pulled, and a length of the fence swung out like a gate. In fact it was a gate, Rand saw, though one meant to be opened only from the other side. The metal latch that Lan had lifted with his dagger showed that.
Moiraine went through immediately, drawing Aldieb behind her. Lan motioned the others to follow, and brought up the rear, closing the gate behind him.
On the other side of the fence Rand found himself in the stableyard of an inn. A loud bustle and clatter came from the building’s kitchen, but what struck him was its size: it covered more than twice as much ground as the Winespring Inn, and was four stories high besides. Well over half the windows were aglow in the deepening twilight. He wondered at this city, that could have so many strangers in it.
The Wheel of Time Page 59
