“He’s your friend, Perrin Aybara, not mine. If a man like that has friends.” She drew a deep breath and went on in a more moderate tone. “I have been thinking about leaving the Stone. Leaving Tear. I don’t think Moiraine would try to stop me. News of . . . of Rand has been leaving the city for two weeks, now. She can’t think to keep him secret any longer.”
He only just stopped another sigh. “I don’t think she will, either. If anything, I think she considers you a complication. She will probably give you money to see you on your way.”
Planting fists on hips, she moved to stare down at him. “Is that all you have to say?”
“What do you want me to say? That I want you to stay?” The anger in his own voice startled him. He was angry with himself, not her. Angry because he had not seen this coming, angry because he could not see how to deal with it. He liked being able to think things through. It was easy to hurt people without meaning to when you were hasty. He’d done that now. Her dark eyes were large with shock. He tried to smooth his words. “I do want you to stay, Faile, but maybe you should leave. I know you’re no coward, but the Dragon Reborn, the Forsaken . . . .” Not that anywhere was really safe—not for long, not now—yet there were safer places than the Stone. For a while, anyway. Not that he was stupid enough to put it to her that way.
But she did not appear to care how he put it. “Stay? The Light illumine me! Anything is better than sitting here like a boulder, but . . . .” She knelt gracefully in front of him, resting her hands on his knees. “Perrin. I do not like wondering when one of the Forsaken is going to walk around the corner in front of me, and I do not like wondering when the Dragon Reborn is going to kill us all. He did it back in the Breaking, after all. Killed everyone close to him.”
“Rand isn’t Lews Therin Kinslayer,” Perrin protested. “I mean, he is the Dragon Reborn, but he isn’t . . . he wouldn’t . . . .” He trailed off, not knowing how to finish. Rand was Lews Therin Telamon reborn; that was what being the Dragon Reborn meant. But did it mean Rand was doomed to Lews Therin’s fate? Not just going mad—any man who channeled had that fate in front of him, and then a rotting death—but killing everyone who cared for him?
“I have been talking to Bain and Chiad, Perrin.”
That was no surprise. She spent considerable time with the Aiel women. The friendship made some trouble for her, but she seemed to like the Aiel women as much as she despised the Stone’s Tairen noblewomen. But he saw no connection to what they were talking about, and he said so.
“They say Moiraine sometimes asks where you are. Or Mat. Don’t you see? She would not have to do that if she could watch you with the Power.”
“Watch me with the Power?” he said faintly. He had never even considered that.
“She cannot. Come with me, Perrin. We can be twenty miles across the river before she misses us.”
“I can’t,” he said miserably. He tried diverting her with a kiss, but she leaped to her feet and backed away so fast he nearly fell on his face. There was no point going after her. She had her arms crossed beneath her breasts like a barrier.
“Don’t tell me you are that afraid of her. I know she is Aes Sedai, and she has all of you dancing when she twitches the strings. Perhaps she has the . . . Rand . . . so tied he cannot get loose, and the Light knows Egwene and Elayne, and even Nynaeve, don’t want to, but you can break her cords if you try.”
“It has nothing to do with Moiraine. It’s what I have to do. I—”
She cut him short. “Don’t you dare hand me any of that hairy-chested drivel about a man having to do his duty. I know duty as well as you, and you have no duty here. You may be ta’veren, even if I don’t see it, but he is the Dragon Reborn, not you.”
“Will you listen?” he shouted, glaring, and she jumped. He had never shouted at her before, not like that. She raised her chin and shifted her shoulders, but she did not say anything. He went on. “I think I am part of Rand’s destiny, somehow. Mat, too. I think he can’t do what he has to unless we do our part, as well. That is the duty. How can I walk away if it might mean Rand will fail?”
“Might?” There was a hint of demand in her voice, but only a hint. He wondered if he could make himself shout at her more often. “Did Moiraine tell you this, Perrin? You should know by now to listen closely to what an Aes Sedai says.”
“I worked it out for myself. I think ta’veren are pulled toward each other. Or maybe Rand pulls us, Mat and me both. He’s supposed to be the strongest ta’veren since Artur Hawkwing, maybe since the Breaking. Mat won’t even admit he’s ta’veren, but however he tries to get away, he always ends up drawn back to Rand. Loial says he has never heard of three ta’veren, all the same age and all from the same place.”
Faile sniffed loudly. “Loial does not know everything. He isn’t very old for an Ogier.”
“He’s past ninety,” Perrin said defensively, and she gave him a tight smile. For an Ogier, ninety years was not much older than Perrin. Or maybe younger. He did not know much about Ogier. In any case, Loial had read more books than Perrin had ever seen or even heard of; sometimes he thought Loial had read every book ever printed. “And he knows more than you or I do. He believes maybe I have the right of it. And so does Moiraine. No, I haven’t asked her, but why else does she keep a watch on me? Did you think she wanted me to make her a kitchen knife?”
She was silent for a moment, and when she spoke it was in sympathetic tones. “Poor Perrin. I left Saldaea to find adventure, and now that I’m in the heart of one, the greatest since the Breaking, all I want is to go somewhere else. You just want to be a blacksmith, and you’re going to end up in the stories whether you want it or not.”
He looked away, though the scent of her still filled his head. He did not think he was likely to have any stories told about him, not unless his secret spread a long way beyond the few who knew already. Faile thought she knew everything about him, but she was wrong.
An axe and a hammer leaned against the wall opposite him, each plain and functional, with a haft as long as his forearm. The axe was a wicked half-moon blade balanced by a thick spike, meant for violence. With the hammer he could make things, had made things, at a forge. The hammerhead weighed more than twice as much as the axe blade, but it was the axe that felt heavier by far every time he picked it up. With the axe, he had . . . . He scowled, not wanting to think about that. She was right. All he wanted was to be a blacksmith, to go home, and see his family again, and work at the smithy. But it was not to be; he knew that.
He got to his feet long enough to pick up the hammer, then sat back down. There was something comforting in holding it. “Master Luhhan always says you can’t walk away from what has to be done.” He hurried on, realizing that was a little too close to what she had called hairy-chested drivel. “He’s the blacksmith back home, the man I was apprenticed to. I’ve told you about him.”
To his surprise, she did not take the opportunity to point out his near echo. In fact, she said nothing, only looked at him, waiting for something. After a moment it came to him.
“Are you leaving, then?” he asked.
She stood up, brushing her skirt. For a long moment she kept silent, as if deciding on her answer. “I do not know,” she said finally. “This is a fine mess you’ve put me in.”
“Me? What did I do?”
“Well, if you don’t know, I am certainly not going to tell you.”
Scratching his beard again, he stared at the hammer in his other hand. Mat would probably know exactly what she meant. Or even old Thom Merrilin. The white-haired gleeman claimed no one understood women, but when he came out of his tiny room in the belly of the Stone he soon had half a dozen girls young enough to be his granddaughters sighing and listening to him play the harp and tell of grand adventure and romance. Faile was the only woman Perrin wanted, but sometimes he felt like a fish trying to understand a bird.
He knew she wanted him to ask. He knew that much. She might or might not tell him, but he was sup
posed to ask. Stubbornly he kept his mouth shut. This time he meant to wait her out.
Outside in the darkness, a cock crowed.
Faile shivered and hugged herself. “My nurse used to say that meant a death coming. Not that I believe it, of course.”
He opened his mouth to agree it was foolishness, though he shivered, too, but his head whipped around at a grating sound and a thump. The axe had toppled to the floor. He only had time to frown, wondering what could have made it fall, when it shifted again, untouched, then leaped straight for him.
He swung the hammer without thought. Metal ringing on metal drowned Faile’s scream; the axe flew across the room, bounced off the far wall, and darted back at him, blade first. He thought every hair on his body was trying to stand on end.
As the axe sped by her, Faile lunged forward and grabbed the haft with both hands. It twisted in her grip, slashing toward her wide-eyed face. Barely in time Perrin leaped up, dropping the hammer to seize the axe, just keeping the half-moon blade from her flesh. He thought he would die if the axe—his axe—harmed her. He jerked it away from her so hard that the heavy spike nearly stabbed him in the chest. It would have been a fair trade, to stop the axe from hurting her, but with a sinking feeling he began to think it might not be possible.
The weapon thrashed like a thing alive, a thing with a malevolent will. It wanted Perrin—he knew that as if it had shouted at him—but it fought with cunning. When he pulled the axe away from Faile, it used his own movement to hack at him; when he forced it from himself, it tried to reach her, as if it knew that would make him stop pushing. No matter how hard he held the haft, it spun in his hands, threatening with spike or curved blade. Already his hands ached from the effort, and his thick arms strained, muscles tight. Sweat rolled down his face. He was not sure how much longer it would be before the axe fought free of his grip. This was all madness, pure madness, with no time to think.
“Get out,” he muttered through gritted teeth. “Get out of the room, Faile!”
Her face was bloodless pale, but she shook her head and wrestled with the axe. “No! I will not leave you!”
“It will kill both of us!”
She shook her head again.
Growling in his throat, he let go of the axe with one hand—his arm quivered with holding the thing one-handed; the twisting haft burned his palm—and thrust Faile away. She yelped as he wrestled her to the door. Ignoring her shouts and her fists pounding at him, he held her against the wall with a shoulder until he could pull the door open and shove her into the hallway.
Slamming the door behind her, he put his back against it, sliding the latch home with his hip as he seized the axe with both hands again. The heavy blade, gleaming and sharp, trembled within inches of his face. Laboriously, he pushed it out to arm’s length. Faile’s muted shouts penetrated the thick door, and he could feel her beating on it, but he was barely conscious of her. His yellow eyes seemed to shine, as if they reflected every scrap of light in the room.
“Just you and me, now,” he snarled at the axe. “Blood and ashes, how I hate you!” Inside, a part of him came close to hysterical laughter. Rand is the one who’s supposed to go mad, and here I am, talking to an axe! Rand! Burn him!
Teeth bared with effort, he forced the axe back a full step from the door. The weapon vibrated, fighting to reach flesh; he could almost taste its thirst for his blood. With a roar he suddenly pulled the curved blade toward him, threw himself back. Had the axe truly been alive, he was sure he would have heard a cry of triumph as it flashed toward his head. At the last instant, he twisted, driving the axe past himself. With a heavy thunk the blade buried itself in the door.
He felt the life—he could not think what else to call it—go out of the imprisoned weapon. Slowly, he took his hands away. The axe stayed where it was, only steel and wood again. The door seemed a good place to leave it for now, though. He wiped sweat from his face with a shaking hand. Madness. Madness walks wherever Rand is.
Abruptly he realized he could no longer hear Faile’s shouts, or her pounding. Throwing back the latch, he hastily pulled the door open. A gleaming arc of steel stuck through the thick wood on the outside, shining in the light of wide-spaced lamps along the tapestry-hung hallway.
Faile stood there, hands raised, frozen in the act of beating on the door. Eyes wide and wondering, she touched the tip of her nose. “Another inch,” she said faintly, “and . . . .”
With a sudden start, she flung herself on him, hugging him fiercely, raining kisses on his neck and beard between incoherent murmurs. Just as quickly, she pushed back, running anxious hands over his chest and arms. “Are you hurt? Are you injured? Did it . . . ?”
“I’m all right,” he told her. “But are you? I did not mean to frighten you.”
She peered up at him. “Truly? You are not hurt in any way?”
“Completely unhurt. I—” Her full-armed slap made his head ring like hammer on anvil.
“You great hairy lummox! I thought you were dead! I was afraid it had killed you! I thought—!” She cut off as he caught her second slap in mid-swing.
“Please don’t do that again,” he said quietly. The smarting imprint of her hand burned on his cheek, and he thought his jaw would ache the rest of the night.
He gripped her wrist as gently as he would have a bird, but though she struggled to pull free, his hand did not budge an inch. Compared to swinging a hammer all day at the forge, holding her was no effort at all, even after his fight against the axe. Abruptly she seemed to decide to ignore his grip and stared him in the eye; neither dark nor golden eyes blinked. “I could have helped you. You had no right—”
“I had every right,” he said firmly. “You could not have helped. If you had stayed, we’d both be dead. I couldn’t have fought—not the way I had to—and kept you safe, too.” She opened her mouth, but he raised his voice and went on. “I know you hate the word. I’ll try my best not to treat you like porcelain, but if you ask me to watch you die, I will tie you like a lamb for market and send you off to Mistress Luhhan. She won’t stand for any such nonsense.”
Tonguing a tooth and wondering if it was loose, he almost wished he could see Faile trying to ride roughshod over Alsbet Luhhan. The blacksmith’s wife kept her husband in line with scarcely more effort than she needed for her house. Even Nynaeve had been careful of her sharp tongue around Mistress Luhhan. The tooth still held tight, he decided.
Faile laughed suddenly, a low, throaty laugh. “You would, too, wouldn’t you? Don’t think you would not dance with the Dark One if you tried, though.”
Perrin was so startled he let go of her. He could not see any real difference between what he had just said and what he had said before, but the one had made her blaze up, while this she took . . . fondly. Not that he was certain the threat to kill him was entirely a joke. Faile carried knives hidden about her person, and she knew how to use them.
She rubbed her wrist ostentatiously and muttered something under her breath. He caught the words “hairy ox,” and promised himself he would shave every last whisker of that fool beard. He would.
Aloud, she said, “The axe. That was him, wasn’t it? The Dragon Reborn, trying to kill us.”
“It must have been Rand.” He emphasized the name. He did not like thinking of Rand the other way. He preferred remembering the Rand he had grown up with in Emond’s Field. “Not trying to kill us, though. Not him.”
She gave him a wry smile, more a grimace. “If he was not trying, I hope he never does.”
“I don’t know what he was doing. But I mean to tell him to stop it, and right now.”
“I don’t know why I care for a man who worries so about his own safety,” she murmured.
He frowned at her quizzically, wondering what she meant, but she only tucked her arm through his. He was still wondering as they started off through the Stone. The axe he left where it was; stuck in the door, it would not harm anyone.
Teeth clamped on a long-stemmed pipe, Mat op
ened his coat a bit more and tried to concentrate on the cards lying facedown in front of him, and on the coins spilled in the middle of the table. He had had the bright red coat made to an Andoran pattern, of the best wool, with golden embroidery scrolling around the cuffs and long collar, but day by day he was reminded how much farther south Tear lay than Andor. Sweat ran down his face, and plastered the shirt to his back.
None of his companions around the table appeared to notice the heat at all, despite coats that looked even heavier than his, with fat, swollen sleeves, all padded silks and brocades and satin stripes. Two men in red-and-gold livery kept the gamblers’ silver cups full of wine and proffered shining silver trays of olives and cheeses and nuts. The heat did not seem to affect the servants, either, though now and again one of them yawned behind his hand when he thought no one was looking. The night was not young.
Mat refrained from lifting his cards to check them again. They would not have changed. Three rulers, the highest cards in three of the five suits, were already good enough to win most hands.
He would have been more comfortable dicing; there was seldom a deck of cards to be found in the places he usually gambled, where silver changed hands in fifty different dice games, but these young Tairen lordlings would rather wear rags than play at dice. Peasants tossed dice, though they were careful not to say so in his hearing. It was not his temper they feared, but who they thought his friends were. This game called chop was what they played, hour after hour, night after night, using cards hand-painted and lacquered by a man in the city who had been made well-to-do by these fellows and others like them. Only women or horses could draw them away, but neither for long.
Still, he had picked up the game quickly enough, and if his luck was not as good as it was with dice, it would do. A fat purse lay beside his cards, and another even fatter rested in his pocket. A fortune, he would have thought once, back in Emond’s Field, enough to live the rest of his life in luxury. His ideas of luxury had changed since leaving the Two Rivers. The young lords kept their coin in careless, shining piles, but some old habits he had no intention of changing. In the taverns and inns it was sometimes necessary to depart quickly. Especially if his luck was really with him.
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