The Wheel of Time

by Robert Jordan

It was the second evening when for the first time Perrin saw women dance to some of the slow songs. The fires burned low, and the night hung close around the wagons, and fingers tapped a slow rhythm on the drums. First one drum, then another, until every drum in the camp kept the same low, insistent beat. There was silence except for the drums. A girl in a red dress swayed into the light, loosening her shawl. Strings of beads hung in her hair, and she had kicked off her shoes. A flute began the melody, wailing softly, and the girl danced. Outstretched arms spread her shawl behind her; her hips undulated as her bare feet shuffled to the beat of the drums. The girl’s dark eyes fastened on Perrin, and her smile was as slow as her dance. She turned in small circles, smiling over her shoulder at him.

  He swallowed hard. The heat in his face was not from the fire. A second girl joined the first, the fringe on their shawls shaking in time to the drums and the slow rotation of their hips. They smiled at him, and he cleared his throat hoarsely. He was afraid to look around; his face was as red as a beet, and anyone who was not watching the dancers was probably laughing at him. He was sure of it.

  As casually as he could manage, he slid off the log as if he were just getting comfortable, but he carefully ended up looking away from the fire, away from the dancers. There was nothing like that in Emond’s Field. Dancing with the girls on the Green on a feastday did not even come close. For once he wished that the wind would pick up, to cool him off.

  The girls danced into his field of view again, only now they were three. One gave him a sly wink. His eyes darted frantically. Light, he thought. What do I do now? What would Rand do? He knows about girls.

  The dancing girls laughed softly; beads clicked as they tossed their long hair on their shoulders, and he thought his face would burn up. Then a slightly older woman joined the girls, to show them how it was done. With a groan, he gave up altogether and shut his eyes. Even behind his eyelids their laughter taunted and tickled. Even behind his eyelids he could still see them. Sweat beaded on his forehead, and he wished for the wind.

  According to Raen the girls did not dance that dance often, and the women rarely did, and according to Elyas it was thanks to Perrin’s blushes that they did so every night thereafter.

  “I have to thank you,” Elyas told him, his tone sober and solemn. “It’s different with you young fellows, but at my age it takes more than a fire to warm my bones.” Perrin scowled. There was something about Elyas’s back as he walked away that said even if nothing showed, he was laughing inside.

  Perrin soon learned better than to look away from the dancing women and girls, though the winks and smiles still made him wish he could. One would have been all right, maybe—but five or six, with everyone watching. . . . He never did entirely conquer his blushes.

  Then Egwene began learning the dance. Two of the girls who had danced that first night taught her, clapping the rhythm while she repeated the shuffling steps with a borrowed shawl swaying behind her. Perrin started to say something, then decided it was wiser not to crack his teeth. When the girls added the hip movements Egwene started laughing, and the three girls fell giggling into one another’s arms. But Egwene persevered, with her eyes glistening and bright spots of color in her cheeks.

  Aram watched her dancing with a hot, hungry gaze. The handsome young Tuatha’an had given her a string of blue beads that she wore all the time. Worried frowns now replaced the smiles Ila had worn when she first noticed her grandson’s interest in Egwene. Perrin resolved to keep a close eye on young Master Aram.

  Once he managed to get Egwene alone, beside a wagon painted in green and yellow. “Enjoying yourself, aren’t you?” he said.

  “Why shouldn’t I?” She fingered the blue beads around her neck, smiling at them. “We don’t all have to work at being miserable, the way you do. Don’t we deserve a little chance to enjoy ourselves?”

  Aram stood not far off—he never got far from Egwene—with his arms folded across his chest, a little smile on his face, half smugness and half challenge. Perrin lowered his voice. “I thought you wanted to get to Tar Valon. You won’t learn to be an Aes Sedai here.”

  Egwene tossed her head. “And I thought you didn’t like me wanting to become an Aes Sedai,” she said, too sweetly.

  “Blood and ashes, do you believe we’re safe here? Are these people safe with us here? A Fade could find us anytime.”

  Her hand trembled on the beads. She lowered it and took a deep breath. “Whatever is going to happen will happen whether we leave today or next week. That’s what I believe now. Enjoy yourself, Perrin. It might be the last chance we have.”

  She brushed his cheek sadly with her fingers. Then Aram held out his hand to her, and she darted to him, already laughing again. As they ran away to where fiddles sang, Aram flashed a triumphant grin over his shoulder at Perrin as if to say, she is not yours, but she will be mine.

  They were all falling too much under the spell of the People, Perrin thought. Elyas is right. They don’t have to try to convert you to the Way of the Leaf. It seeps into you.

  Ila had taken one look at him huddling out of the wind, then produced a thick wool cloak out of her wagon; a dark green cloak, he was pleased to see, after all the reds and yellows. As he swung it round his shoulders, thinking what a wonder it was that the cloak was big enough for him, Ila said primly, “It could fit better.” She glanced at the axe at his belt, and when she looked up at him her eyes were sad above her smile. “It could fit much better.”

  All the Tinkers did that. Their smiles never slipped, there was never any hesitation in their invitations to join them for a drink or to listen to the music, but their eyes always touched the axe, and he could feel what they thought. A tool of violence. There is never any excuse for violence to another human being. The Way of the Leaf.

  Sometimes he wanted to shout at them. There were Trollocs in the world, and Fades. There were those who would cut down every leaf. The Dark One was out there, and the Way of the Leaf would burn in Ba’alzamon’s eyes. Stubbornly he continued to wear the axe. He took to keeping his cloak thrown back, even when it was windy, so the half-moon blade was never hidden. Now and again Elyas looked quizzically at the weapon hanging heavy at his side and grinned at him, those yellow eyes seeming to read his mind. That almost made him cover the axe. Almost.

  If the Tuatha’an camp was a source of constant irritation, at least his dreams were normal there. Sometimes he woke up sweating from a dream of Trollocs and Fades storming into the camp, rainbow-colored wagons turning to bonfires from hurled torches, people falling in pools of blood, men and women and children who ran and screamed and died but made no effort to defend themselves against slashing scythe-like swords. Night after night he bolted upright in the dark, panting and reaching for his axe before he realized the wagons were not in flames, that no bloody-muzzled shapes snarled over torn and twisted bodies littering the ground. But those were ordinary nightmares, and oddly comforting in their way. If there was ever a place for the Dark One to be in his dreams, it was in those, but he was not. No Ba’alzamon. Just ordinary nightmares.

  He was aware of the wolves, though, when he was awake. They kept their distance from the camps, and from the caravan on the move, but he always knew where they were. He could feel their contempt for the dogs guarding the Tuatha’an. Noisy beasts who had forgotten what their jaws were for, had forgotten the taste of warm blood; they might frighten humans, but they would slink away on their bellies if the pack ever came. Each day his awareness was sharper, more clear.

  Dapple grew more impatient with every sunset. That Elyas wanted to do this thing of taking the humans south made it worth doing, but if it must be done, then let it be done. Let this slow travel end. Wolves were meant to roam, and she did not like being away from the pack so long. Impatience burned in Wind, too. Hunting was worse than poor here, and he despised living on field mice, something for cubs to stalk while learning to hunt, fit food for the old, no longer able to pull down a deer or hamstring a wild ox. Sometimes Wind thought
that Burn had been right; leave human troubles to humans. But he was wary of such thoughts when Dapple was around, and even more so around Hopper. Hopper was a scarred and grizzled fighter, impassive with the knowledge of years, with guile that more than made up for anything of which age might have robbed him. For humans he cared nothing, but Dapple wished this thing done, and Hopper would wait as she waited and run as she ran. Wolf or man, bull or bear, Whatever challenged Dapple would find Hopper’s jaws waiting to send him to the long sleep. That was the whole of life for Hopper, and that kept Wind cautious, and Dapple seemed to ignore the thoughts of both.

  All of it was clear in Perrin’s mind. Fervently he wished for Caemlyn, for Moiraine and Tar Valon. Even if there were no answers, there could be an end to it. Elyas looked at him, and he was sure the yellow-eyed man knew. Please, let there be an end.

  The dream began more pleasantly than most he had of late. He was at Alsbet Luhhan’s kitchen table, sharpening his axe with a stone. Mistress Luhhan never allowed forge work, or anything that smacked of it, to be brought into the house. Master Luhhan even had to take her knives outside to sharpen them. But she tended her cooking and never said a word about the axe. She did not even say anything when a wolf entered from deeper in the house and curled up between Perrin and the door to the yard. Perrin went on sharpening; it would be time to use it, soon.

  Abruptly the wolf rose, rumbling deep in its throat, the thick ruff of fur on its neck rising. Ba’alzamon stepped into the kitchen from the yard. Mistress Luhhan went on with her cooking.

  Perrin scrambled to his feet, raising the axe, but Ba’alzamon ignored the weapon, concentrating on the wolf, instead. Flames danced where his eyes should be. “Is this what you have to protect you? Well, I have faced this before. Many times before.”

  He crooked a finger, and the wolf howled as fire burst out of its eyes and ears and mouth, out of its skin. The stench of burning meat and hair filled the kitchen. Alsbet Luhhan lifted the lid on a pot and stirred with a wooden spoon.

  Perrin dropped the axe and jumped forward, trying to beat out the flames with his hands. The wolf crumpled to black ash between his palms. Staring at the shapeless pile of char on Mistress Luhhan’s clean-swept floor, he backed away. He wished he could wipe the greasy soot from his hands, but the thought of scrubbing it off on his clothes turned his stomach. He snatched up the axe, gripping the haft until his knuckles cracked.

  “Leave me alone!” he shouted. Mistress Luhhan tapped the spoon on the rim of the pot and replaced the lid, humming to herself.

  “You cannot run from me,” Ba’alzamon said. “You cannot hide from me. If you are the one, you are mine.” The heat from the fires of his face forced Perrin across the kitchen until his back came up against the wall. Mistress Luhhan opened the oven to check her bread. “The Eye of the World will consume you,” Ba’alzamon said. “I mark you mine!” He flung out his clenched hand as if throwing something; when his fingers opened, a raven streaked at Perrin’s face.

  Perrin screamed as the black beak pierced his left eye . . .

  . . . and sat up, clutching his face, surrounded by the sleeping wagons of the Traveling People. Slowly he lowered his hands. There was no pain, no blood. But he could remember it, remember the stabbing agony.

  He shuddered, and suddenly Elyas was squatting beside him in the predawn, one hand outstretched as if to shake him awake. Beyond the trees where the wagons lay, the wolves howled, one sharp cry from three throats. He shared their sensations. Fire. Pain. Fire. Hate. Hate! Kill!

  “Yes,” Elyas said softly. “It is time. Get up, boy. It’s time for us to go.”

  Perrin scrambled out of his blankets. While he was still bundling his blanketroll, Raen came out of his wagon, rubbing sleep from his eyes. The Seeker glanced at the sky and froze halfway down the steps, his hands still raised to his face. Only his eyes moved as he studied the sky intently, though Perrin could not understand what he was looking at. A few clouds hung in the east, undersides streaked with pink from the sun yet to rise, but there was nothing else to see. Raen seemed to listen, as well, and smell the air, but there was no sound except the wind in the trees and no smell but the faint smoky remnant of last night’s campfires.

  Elyas returned with his own scanty belongings, and Raen came the rest of the way down. “We must change the direction we travel, my old friend.” The Seeker looked uneasily at the sky again. “We go another way this day. Will you be coming with us?” Elyas shook his head, and Raen nodded as if he had known all along. “Well, take care, my old friend. There is something about today. . . .” He started to look up once more, but pulled his eyes back down before they rose above the wagon tops. “I think the wagons will go east. Perhaps all the way to the Spine of the World. Perhaps we’ll find a stedding, and stay there awhile.”

  “Trouble never enters the stedding,” Elyas agreed. “But the Ogier are none too open to strangers.”

  “Everyone is open to the Traveling People,” Raen said, and grinned. “Besides, even Ogier have pots and things to mend. Come, let us have some breakfast, and we’ll talk about it.”

  “No time,” Elyas said. “We move on today, too. As soon as possible. It’s a day for moving, it seems.”

  Raen tried to convince him to at least stay long enough for food, and when Ila appeared from the wagon with Egwene, she added her arguments, though not as strenuously as her husband. She said all of the right words, but her politeness was stiff, and it was plain she would be glad to see Elyas’s back, if not Egwene’s.

  Egwene did not notice the regretful, sidelong looks Ila gave her. She asked what was going on, and Perrin prepared himself for her to say she wanted to stay with the Tuatha’an, but when Elyas explained she only nodded thoughtfully and hurried back into the wagon to gather her things.

  Finally Raen threw up his hands. “All right. I don’t know that I have ever let a visitor leave this camp without a farewell feast, but. . . .” Uncertainly, his eyes raised toward the sky again. “Well, we need an early start ourselves, I think. Perhaps we will eat as we journey. But at least let everyone say goodbye.”

  Elyas started to protest, but Raen was already hurrying from wagon to wagon, pounding on the doors where there was no one awake. By the time a Tinker came, leading Bela, the whole camp had turned out in their finest and brightest, a mass of color that made Raen and Ila’s red-and-yellow wagon seem almost plain. The big dogs strolled through the crowd with their tongues lolling out of their mouths, looking for someone to scratch their ears, while Perrin and the others endured handshake after handshake and hug after hug. The girls who had danced every night would not be content with shaking hands, and their hugs made Perrin suddenly wish he was not leaving after all—until he remembered how many others were watching, and then his face almost matched the Seeker’s wagon.

  Aram drew Egwene a little aside. Perrin could not hear what he had to say to her over the noise of goodbyes, but she kept shaking her head, slowly at first, then more firmly as he began to gesture pleadingly. His face shifted from pleading to arguing, but she continued to shake her head stubbornly until Ila rescued her with a few sharp words to her grandson. Scowling, Aram pushed away through the crowd, abandoning the rest of the farewell. Ila watched him go, hesitating on the point of calling him back. She’s relieved, too, Perrin thought. Relieved he doesn’t want to go with us—with Egwene.

  When he had shaken every hand in the camp at least once and hugged every girl at least twice, the crowd moved back, opening a little space around Raen and Ila, and the three visitors.

  “You came in peace,” Raen intoned, bowing formally, hands on his chest. “Depart now in peace. Always will our fires welcome you, in peace. The Way of the Leaf is peace.”

  “Peace be on you always,” Elyas replied, “and on all the People.” He hesitated, then added, “I will find the song, or another will find the song, but the song will be sung, this year or in a year to come. As it once was, so shall it be again, world without end.”

  Ra
en blinked in surprise, and Ila looked completely flabbergasted, but all the other Tuatha’an murmured in reply, “World without end. World and time without end.” Raen and his wife hurriedly said the same after everyone else.

  Then it really was time to go. A few last farewells, a few last admonitions to take care, a few last smiles and winks, and they were making their way out of the camp. Raen accompanied them as far as the edge of the trees, a pair of the dogs cavorting by his side.

  “Truly, my old friend, you must take great care. This day. . . . There is wickedness loose in the world, I fear, and Whatever you pretend, you are not so wicked that it will not gobble you up.”

  “Peace be on you,” Elyas said.

  “And on you,” Raen said sadly.

  When Raen was gone, Elyas scowled at finding the other two looking at him. “So I don’t believe in their fool song,” he growled. “No need to make them feel bad by messing up their ceremony, was there? I told you they set a store by ceremony sometimes.”

  “Of course,” Egwene said gently. “No need at all.” Elyas turned away muttering to himself.

  Dapple, Wind, and Hopper came to greet Elyas, not frolicking as the dogs had done, but a dignified meeting of equals. Perrin caught what passed between them. Fire eyes. Pain. Heartfang. Death. Heartfang. Perrin knew what they meant. The Dark One. They were telling about his dream. Their dream.

  He shivered as the wolves ranged out ahead, scouting the way. It was Egwene’s turn to ride Bela, and he walked beside her. Elyas led, as usual, a steady, ground-eating pace.

  Perrin did not want to think about his dream. He had thought that the wolves made them safe. Not complete. Accept. Full heart. Full mind. You still struggle. Only complete when you accept.

  He forced the wolves out of his head, and blinked in surprise. He had not known he could do that. He determined not to let them back in again. Even in dreams? He was not sure if the thought was his or theirs.

  Egwene still wore the string of blue beads Aram had given her, and a little sprig of something with tiny, bright red leaves in her hair, another gift from the young Tuatha’an. That Aram had tried to talk her into staying with the Traveling People, Perrin was sure. He was glad she had not given in, but he wished she did not finger the beads so fondly.