The Wheel of Time

by Robert Jordan

  Perrin started. Like Dragonmount. He looked down at the ter’angreal in his fingers. The fear-dreams of people are strong. Hopper’s voice whispered in Perrin’s mind. So very strong….

  As Slayer advanced on him, Perrin gritted his teeth and hurled the ter’angreal into the river of lava.

  “No!” Slayer screamed, reality returning around him. The nightmare burst, its last vestiges vanishing. Perrin was left kneeling on the cold tiled floor of a small hallway.

  A short distance to his right, a melted lump of metal lay on the ground. Perrin smiled.

  Like Slayer, the ter’angreal was here from the real world. And like a person, it could be broken and destroyed here. Above them, the violet dome had vanished.

  Slayer growled, then stepped forward and kicked Perrin in the stomach. His chest wound flared. Another kick followed. Perrin was growing dizzy.

  Go, Young Bull, Hopper sent, his voice so weak. Flee.

  I can’t leave you!

  And yet…I must leave you.

  No!

  You have found your answer. Seek Boundless. He will…explain…that answer.

  Perrin blinked through tears as another kick landed. He screamed, raggedly, as Hopper’s sending—so comforting, so familiar—faded from his mind.

  Gone.

  Perrin screamed in anguish. Voice ragged, eyes stained with tears, Perrin willed himself out of the wolf dream and away. Fleeing like an utter coward.

  Egwene awoke with a sigh. Eyes still closed, she breathed in. The battle with Mesaana had left her mind feeling strained—indeed, she had a splitting headache. She had quite nearly been defeated there. Her plans had worked, but the weight of what had happened left her feeling contemplative, even a little overwhelmed.

  Still, it had been a great victory. She would have to do a search of the White Tower and find the woman who, when awakened, now had the mind of a child. She knew, somehow, that this was not something Mesaana would recover from. She’d known it even before Bair had spoken her words.

  Egwene opened her eyes to a comfortably dark room, making plans to gather the Hall and explain why Shevan and Carlinya would never awaken. She spared a moment to mourn for them as she sat up. She’d explained to them the dangers, but still she felt as if she’d failed them. And Nicola, always trying to go faster than she should. She shouldn’t have been there. It—

  Egwene hesitated. What was that smell? Hadn’t she left a lamp burning? It must have gone out. Egwene embraced the Source and wove a ball of light to hang above her hand. She was stunned by the scene it revealed.

  The translucent curtains of her bed had been sprayed red with blood, and five bodies littered the floor. Three were in black. One was an unfamiliar young man in the tabard of the Tower Guard. The last wore a fine white and red coat and trousers.

  Gawyn!

  Egwene threw herself from the bed and knelt beside him, ignoring the pain of her headache. He was breathing shallowly, and had a gaping wound in his side. She wove Water, Spirit and Air into a Healing, but she was far from talented in this area. She worked on, in a panic. Some of his color returned and the wounds began to close, but she couldn’t do nearly enough.

  “Help!” she yelled. “The Amyrlin needs help!”

  Gawyn stirred. “Egwene,” he whispered, his eyes fluttering open.

  “Hush, Gawyn. You’re going to be fine. Aid! To the Amyrlin!”

  “You…didn’t leave enough lights on,” he whispered.

  “What?”

  “The message I sent….”

  “We never got a message,” she said. “Be still. Help!”

  “Nobody is near. I yelled. The lamps…it is good…you didn’t…” He smiled dazedly. “I love you.”

  “Lie still,” she said. Light! She was crying.

  “The assassins weren’t your Forsaken, though,” he said, words slurring. “I was right.”

  And he had been; what were those unfamiliar black uniforms? Seanchan?

  I should be dead, she realized. If Gawyn hadn’t stopped these assassins, she’d have been murdered in her sleep and would have vanished from Tel’aran’rhiod. She’d never have defeated Mesaana.

  Suddenly, she felt a fool, any sense of victory completely evaporating.

  “I’m sorry,” Gawyn said closing his eyes, “for disobeying you.” He was slipping.

  “It’s all right, Gawyn,” she said, blinking away tears. “I’m going to bond you now. It’s the only way.”

  His grip on her arm became slightly more firm. “No. Not unless…you want…”

  “Fool,” she said, preparing the weaves. “Of course I want you as my Warder. I always have.”

  “Swear it.”

  “I swear it. I swear that I want you as my Warder, and as my husband.” She rested her hand on his forehead and laid the weave on him. “I love you.”

  He gasped. Suddenly, she could feel his emotions, and his pain, as if they were her own. And, in return, she knew that he could feel the truth of her words.

  Perrin opened his eyes and took a deep breath. He was crying. Did people cry in their sleep when they dreamed normal dreams?

  “Light be praised,” Faile said. He opened his eyes and found that she knelt next to him, as did someone else. Masuri?

  The Aes Sedai grabbed Perrin’s head in her hands, and Perrin felt the icy cold of a Healing wash across him. The wounds in his leg and across his chest closed.

  “We tried to Heal you while you slept,” Faile said, cradling Perrin’s head in her lap. “But Edarra stopped us.”

  “It is not to be done. Wouldn’t work anyway.” That was the Wise One’s voice. Perrin could hear her in the tent somewhere. He blinked his eyes. He lay on his pallet. It was dim outside.

  “It’s been longer than an hour,” he said. “You should have left by now.”

  “Hush,” Faile said. “Gateways are working again, and almost everyone is through. Only a few thousand soldiers remain—Aiel and Two Rivers men, mostly. You think they’d leave, you think I’d leave, without you?”

  He sat up, wiping his brow. It was damp with sweat. He tried to make it vanish, as he had in the wolf dream. He failed, of course. Edarra stood by the far wall, behind him. She watched him with a measuring gaze.

  He turned to Faile. “We have to get away,” he said, voice ragged. “Slayer will not be working alone. There will be a trap, probably an army. Someone with an army. They might try to strike at any moment.”

  “Can you stand?” Faile asked.

  “Yes.” He felt weak, but he managed, with Faile’s help. The flap rustled and Chiad entered with a waterskin. Perrin took it gratefully, drinking. It slaked his thirst, but pain still burned inside of him.

  Hopper… He lowered the waterskin. In the wolf dream, death was final. Where would Hopper’s soul go?

  I must keep going, Perrin thought. See my people to safety. He walked to the tent flaps. His legs were already more steady.

  “I see your sorrow, my husband,” Faile said, walking beside him, hand on his arm. “What happened?”

  “I lost a friend,” Perrin said softly. “For the second time.”

  “Hopper?” She smelled fearful.

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, Perrin, I’m sorry.” Her voice was tender as they stepped out of the tent. It stood, alone, on the meadow that had once held his forces. The brown and yellow grass still bore the impressions of tents, paths worn down to the mud in a large crisscross pattern. It looked like a layout for a town, sections stamped down for buildings, lines cut to become roadways. But it was nearly empty of people now.

  The rumbling sky was dark. Chiad held a lantern up to illuminate the grass in front of them. Several groups of soldiers waited. Maidens raised their spears high when they saw him, then banged them on their shields. A sign of approval.

  The Two Rivers men were there as well, gathering around as word spread. How much could they guess of what he’d done tonight? Two Rivers men cheered, and Perrin nodded to them, though he felt on edge. The
wrongness was still there, in the air. He’d assumed that the dreamspike was causing it, but he had apparently been wrong. The air smelled like the Blight.

  The Asha’man stood where the center of the camp had once stood. They turned when Perrin approached, saluting, hands to chests. They looked to be in good shape, despite just having moved almost the entire camp.

  “Get us out of here, men,” Perrin said to them. “I don’t want to spend another minute in this place.”

  “Yes, my Lord,” Grady said, sounding eager. He got a look of concentration on his face, and a small gateway opened beside him.

  “Through,” Perrin said, waving to the Two Rivers men. They crossed with a quick step. The Maidens and Gaul waited with Perrin, as did Elyas.

  Light, Perrin thought, scanning the field where they’d camped. I feel like a mouse being eyed by a hawk.

  “I don’t suppose you could give us some light,” Perrin said to Neald, standing beside the gateway.

  The Asha’man cocked his head, and a group of glowing globes appeared around him. They zipped up into the air around the meadow.

  They illuminated nothing. Just the abandoned campsite. The last of the troops finally filed through. Perrin and Faile crossed, Gaul, Elyas and the Maidens going after him. Finally, the channelers passed through, walking in a cluster.

  The air on the other side of the gateway was cool, and smelled refreshingly clean. Perrin hadn’t realized how much the evil smell had been bothering him. He inhaled deeply. They were on a rise, some distance from a splash of lights beside the river that was probably Whitebridge.

  His troops cheered as he stepped through. The great camp was already mostly set up, guard posts in place. The gateway had been opened into a large area, marked off with posts, near the back.

  They’d escaped. The cost had been great, but they’d escaped.

  Graendal sat back in her chair. The leather cushions were stuffed with the down of the fledgling kallir, which during this Age lived only in Shara. She barely noticed the luxury.

  The servant—one Moridin had loaned her—was on one knee before her. His eyes were tempestuous, and only half-lowered. This one was under control, but barely. He knew he was unique.

  He also seemed to know that his failure would fall upon her shoulders. Graendal did not sweat. She was too controlled for that. The shutters on the window in the wide, red-tiled room burst open suddenly, a cold sea wind blowing through the chamber and putting out several of the lamps. Tendrils of smoke wove up from their wicks.

  She would not fail.

  “Prepare to spring the trap anyway,” she commanded.

  “But—” the servant said.

  “Do it, and do not speak back to one of the Chosen, dog.”

  The servant lowered his eyes, though there was still a rebellious spark to them.

  Never mind. She still had one tool left to her, one she had positioned so very carefully. One she had prepared for a moment such as this.

  It had to be done carefully. Aybara was ta’veren, and so strongly one as to be frightening. Arrows fired from afar would miss, and in a time of peaceful contemplation, he would be alerted and escape.

  She needed a tempest with him at the center of it. And then, the blade would fall. This is not done yet, Fallen Blacksmith. Not by an inch or by a league.

  Chapter 39

  In the Three-fold Land

  Aviendha felt right again.

  There was a calming perfection to the Three-fold Land. Wetlanders thought the landscape’s uniform colors drab, but Aviendha found them beautiful. Simple browns and tans. They were familiar and dependable, not like the wetlands, where both the landscape and the weather were different every time you turned around.

  Aviendha ran forward in the darkening night, each foot falling on dusty ground. For the first time in many months, she felt alone. In the wetlands, she always felt as if she was being watched by some enemy she could not see or attack.

  Not that the Three-fold Land was safer. Far from it. That shadowed patch beneath the nadra-scrub was the den of a lethal snake. If one brushed the spindly branches, the snake would strike; she had seen five men die from those bites. The den was merely one of the many hazards she passed during her run to Rhuidean. But those dangers were understandable. She could see them, measure them and avoid them. If she died from the snake’s bite or fell to the land’s heat, the fault would be her own.

  It was always preferable to face the enemy or the danger you could see than to fear the one that hid behind the faces of lying wetlanders.

  She continued running, despite the dimming light. It was good to sweat again. People didn’t sweat enough in the wetlands; perhaps that was what made them so unusual. Instead of letting the sun warm them, they sought refreshment. Instead of going to a proper sweat tent to get clean, they submersed themselves in water. That couldn’t be healthy.

  She would not lie to herself. Aviendha herself had partaken of those luxuries, and she had come to enjoy those baths and the fine dresses Elayne forced upon her. One had to acknowledge one’s weaknesses before one could defeat them. Now, as she ran across the gently sloping earth of the Three-fold Land, Aviendha’s perspective was restored.

  Finally, she slowed. As tempting as it was to travel in the dark and sleep through the day’s heat, it was not wise. A misstep in the dark could end your life. She quickly collected some dead tak-brush and some ina’ta bark, then made herself a camp at the side of a tremendous stone.

  Soon she had a fire burning, the orange light reflecting off the rock that towered over her. She’d slain a small shellback earlier, and she unwrapped it, skinned it, then set it up on a spit. Not the most delicate of meals, but satisfactory.

  Aviendha settled down, watching the fire crackle, smelling the meat. Yes, she was glad she hadn’t Traveled directly to Rhuidean, instead taking the time—precious though that time was—to run in the Three-fold Land. It helped her see what she had been, and what she had become. Aviendha the Maiden was gone. She had embraced her path as a Wise One, and that brought her honor back. She had purpose again. As a Wise One, she could help lead her people through their most trying time.

  Once this was through, her people would need to return to the Three-fold Land. Each day in the wetlands made them weaker; she herself was an excellent example. She had grown soft there. How could one not grow soft in that place? It would have to be abandoned. Soon.

  She smiled, settling back and closing her eyes for a moment, letting the day’s fatigue melt away. Her future seemed so much more clear. She was to visit Rhuidean, pass through the crystal columns, then return and claim her share of Rand’s heart. She would fight at the Last Battle. She would help preserve the remnant of the Aiel who survived, then bring them home where they belonged.

  A sound came from outside her camp.

  Aviendha opened her eyes and jumped up, embracing the Source. A piece of her was pleased that she now instinctively looked to the One Power, rather than spears that were not there. She wove a globe of light.

  A woman stood in the darkness nearby, wearing Aiel garb. Not cadin’sor, but normal clothing: a dark skirt and a tan blouse and shawl, a kerchief on her graying hair. She was middle-aged, and she carried no weapons. She was still.

  Aviendha glanced to the sides. Was this an ambush? Or was this woman a specter? One of the dead walking? Why hadn’t Aviendha heard her approach?

  “Greetings, Wise One,” the woman said, bowing her head. “Might I share water with you? I am traveling far, and saw your fire.” The woman had furrowed skin, and she could not channel—Aviendha could sense that easily.

  “I am not yet a Wise One,” Aviendha said, wary. “I currently take my second path into Rhuidean.”

  “Then you will soon find much honor,” the woman said. “I am Nakomi. I promise that I mean you no harm, child.”

  Suddenly, Aviendha felt foolish. The woman had approached without weapons drawn. Aviendha had been distracted by her thoughts; that was why she hadn’t heard Nakomi
approach. “Of course, please.”

  “Thank you,” Nakomi said, stepping into the light and setting down her pack beside the small fire. She clicked her tongue, then drew some small branches out of her pack to build up the flames. She removed a pot for tea. “Might I have some of that water?”

  Aviendha got out a waterskin. She could hardly spare a drop—she was still several days from Rhuidean—but it would give offense not to respond to the request after offering to share shade.

  Nakomi took the waterskin and filled her teapot, which she then set beside the fire to warm. “It is an unexpected pleasure,” Nakomi said, rifling through her pack, “to cross the path of one on her way to Rhuidean. Tell me, was your apprenticeship long?”

  “Too long,” Aviendha said. “Though primarily because of my own stubbornness.”

  “Ah,” Nakomi said. “You have the air of a warrior about you, child. Tell me, are you from among those who went west? The ones who joined the one named the Car’a’carn?”

  “He is the Car’a’carn,” Aviendha said.

  “I did not say that he was not,” Nakomi said, sounding amused. She got out some tea leaves and herbs.

  No. She hadn’t said so. Aviendha turned her shellback, and her stomach rumbled. She’d need to share her meal with Nakomi as well.

  “May I ask,” Nakomi said. “What do you think of the Car’a’carn?”

  I love him, Aviendha thought immediately. But she couldn’t say that. “I think he has much honor. And though he is ignorant of the proper ways, he is learning.”

  “You have spent time with him, then?”

  “Some,” Aviendha said. Then, to be more honest, she added, “More than most.”

  “He is a wetlander,” Nakomi said, thoughtful. “And Car’a’carn. Tell me, are the wetlands as glorious as so many say? Rivers so wide you cannot see the other side, plants so full of water they burst when squeezed?”

  “The wetlands are not glorious,” Aviendha said. “They are dangerous. They make us weak.”

  Nakomi frowned.