The Eye of the World

by Jordan, Robert

  “Perhaps,” Moiraine said then, but she sounded doubtful.

  An inn still stood in the square, the common room divided in two by a shoulder-high wall. Moiraine paused as she stepped into the inn, feeling the air with her hand. She smiled at Whatever it was she felt, but she would say nothing of it, then.

  Their meal was consumed in silence, silence not only at their table, but throughout the common room. The handful of people eating there concentrated on their own plates and their own thoughts. The innkeeper, dusting tables with a corner of his apron, muttered to himself continually, but always too low to be heard. Nynaeve thought it would not be pleasant sleeping there; even the air was heavy with fear.

  About the time they pushed their plates away, wiped clean with the last scraps of bread, one of the red-uniformed soldiers appeared in the doorway. He seemed resplendent to Nynaeve, in his peaked helmet and burnished breastplate, until he took a pose just inside the door, with a hand resting on the hilt of his sword and a stern look on his face, and used a finger to ease his too-tight collar. It made her think of Cenn Buie trying to act the way a Village Councilor should.

  Lan spared him one glance and snorted. “Militia. Useless.”

  The soldier looked over the room, letting his eyes come to rest on them. He hesitated, then took a deep breath before stomping over to demand, all in a rush, who they were, what their business was in Whitebridge, and how long they intended to stay.

  “We are leaving as soon as I finish my ale,” Lan said. He took another slow swallow before looking up at the soldier. “The Light illumine good Queen Morgase.”

  The red-uniformed man opened his mouth, then took a good look at Lan’s eyes and stepped back. He caught himself immediately, with a glance at Moiraine and her. She thought for a moment that he was going to do something foolish to keep from looking the coward in front of two women. In her experience, men were often idiots that way. But too much had happened in Whitebridge; too much uncertainty had escaped from the cellars of men’s minds. The militiaman looked back at Lan and reconsidered once more. The Warder’s hard-planed face was expressionless, but there were those cold blue eyes. So cold.

  The militiaman settled on a brisk nod. “See that you do. Too many strangers around these days for the good of the Queen’s peace.” Turning on his heel he stomped out again, practicing his stern look on the way. None of the locals in the inn seemed to notice.

  “Where are we going?” Nynaeve demanded of the Warder. The mood in the room was such that she kept her voice low, but she made sure it was firm, too. “After the boat?”

  Lan looked at Moiraine, who shook her head slightly and said, “First I must find the one I can be sure of finding, and at present he is somewhere to the north of us. I do not think the other two went with the boat in any case.” A small, satisfied smile touched her lips. “They were in this room, perhaps a day ago, no more than two. Afraid, but they left alive. The trace would not have lasted without that strong emotion.”

  “Which two?” Nynaeve leaned over the table intently. “Do you know?” The Aes Sedai shook her head, the slightest of motions, and Nynaeve settled back. “If they’re only a day or two ahead, why don’t we go after them first?”

  “I know they were here,” Moiraine said in that insufferably calm voice, “but beyond that I cannot say if they went east or north or south. I trust they are smart enough to have gone east, toward Caemlyn, but I do not know, and lacking their tokens, I will not know where they are until I am perhaps within half a mile. In two days they could have gone twenty miles, or forty, in any direction, if fear urged them, and they were certainly afraid when they left here.”

  “But—”

  “Wisdom, however fearful they were, in Whatever direction they ran, eventually they will remember Caemlyn, and it is there I will find them. But I will help the one I can find now, first.”

  Nynaeve opened her mouth again, but Lan cut her off in a soft voice. “They had reason to be afraid.” He looked around, then lowered his voice. “There was a Halfman here.” He grimaced, the way he had in the square. “I can still smell him everywhere.”

  Moiraine sighed. “I will keep hope until I know it is gone. I refuse to believe the Dark One can win so easily. I will find all three of them alive and well. I must believe it.”

  “I want to find the boys, too,” Nynaeve said, “but what about Egwene? You never even mention her, and you ignore me when I ask. I thought you were going to take her off to”—she glanced at the other tables, and lowered her voice—“to Tar Valon.”

  The Aes Sedai studied the tabletop for a moment before raising her eyes to Nynaeve’s, and when she did, Nynaeve started back from a flash of anger that almost seemed to make Moiraine’s eyes glow. Then her back stiffened, her own anger rising, but before she could say a word, the Aes Sedai spoke coldly.

  “I hope to find Egwene alive and well, too. I do not easily give up young women with that much ability once I have found them. But it will be as the Wheel weaves.”

  Nynaeve felt a cold ball in the pit of her stomach. Am I one of those young women you won’t give up? We’ll see about that, Aes Sedai. The Light burn you, we’ll see about that!

  The meal was finished in silence, and it was a silent three who rode through the gates and down the Caemlyn Road. Moiraine’s eyes searched the horizon to the northeast. Behind them, the smoke-stained town of Whitebridge cowered.

  CHAPTER

  29

  Eyes Without Pity

  Elyas pushed for speed across the brown grass flatland as if trying to make up for the time spent with the Traveling People, setting a pace southward that had even Bela grateful to stop when twilight deepened. Despite his desire for haste, though, he took precautions he had not taken before. At night they had a fire only if there was dead wood already on the ground. He would not let them break so much as a twig off of a standing tree. The fires he made were small, and always hidden in a pit carefully dug where he had cut away a plug of sod. As soon as their meal was prepared, he buried the coals and replaced the plug. Before they set out again in the gray false dawn, he went over the campsite inch by inch to make sure there was no sign that anyone had ever been there. He even righted overturned rocks and straightened bent-down weeds. He did it quickly, never taking more than a few minutes, but they did not leave until he was satisfied.

  Perrin did not think the precautions were much good against dreams, but when he began to think of what they might be good against, he wished it were only the dreams. The first time, Egwene asked anxiously if the Trollocs were back, but Elyas only shook his head and urged them on. Perrin said nothing. He knew there were no Trollocs close; the wolves scented only grass and trees and small animals. It was not fear of Trollocs that drove Elyas, but that something else of which even Elyas was not sure. The wolves knew nothing of what it was, but they sensed Elyas’s urgent wariness, and they began to scout as if danger ran at their heels or waited in ambush over the next rise.

  The land became long, rolling crests, too low to be called hills, rising across their path. A carpet of tough grass, still winter sere and dotted with rank weeds, spread before them, rippled by an east wind that had nothing to cut it for a hundred miles. The groves of trees grew more scattered. The sun rose reluctantly, without warmth.

  Among the squat ridges Elyas followed the contours of the land as much as possible, and he avoided topping the rises whenever possible. He seldom talked, and when he did. . . .

  “You know how long this is taking, going around every bloody little hill like this? Blood and ashes! I’ll be till summer getting you off my hands. No, we can’t just go in a straight line! How many times do I have to tell you? You have any idea, even the faintest, how a man stands out on a ridgeline in country like this? Burn me, but we’re going back and forth as much as forward. Wiggling like a snake. I could move faster with my feet tied. Well, you going to stare at me, or you going to walk?”

  Perrin exchanged glances with Egwene. She stuck her tongue out at El
yas’s back. Neither of them said anything. The one time Egwene had protested that Elyas was the one who wanted to go around the hills and he should not blame them, it got her a lecture on how sound carried, delivered in a growl that could have been heard a mile off. He gave the lecture over his shoulder, and he never even slowed to give it.

  Whether he was talking or not, Elyas’s eyes searched all around them, sometimes staring as if there were something to see except the same coarse grass that was under their feet. If he did see anything, Perrin could not, and neither could the wolves. Elyas’s forehead grew extra furrows, but he would not explain, not why they had to hurry, not what he was afraid was hunting them.

  Sometimes a longer ridge than usual lay across their path, stretching miles and miles to east and west. Even Elyas had to agree that going around those would take them too far out of their way. He did not let them simply cross over, though. Leaving them at the base of the slope, he would creep up to the crest on his belly, peering over as cautiously as though the wolves had not scouted there ten minutes before. Waiting at the bottom of the ridge, minutes passed like hours, and the not knowing pressed on them. Egwene chewed her lip and unconsciously clicked the beads Aram had given her through her fingers. Perrin waited doggedly. His stomach twisted up in a sick knot, but he managed to keep his face calm, managed to keep the turmoil hidden inside.

  The wolves will warn if there’s danger. It would be wonderful if they went away, if they just vanished, but right now . . . right now, they’ll give warning. What is he looking for? What?

  After a long search with only his eyes above the rise, Elyas always motioned them to come ahead. Every time the way ahead was clear—until the next time they found a ridge they could not go around. At the third such ridge, Perrin’s stomach lurched. Sour fumes rose in his throat, and he knew if he had to wait even five minutes he would vomit. “I. . . .” He swallowed. “I’m coming, too.”

  “Keep low,” was all Elyas said.

  As soon as he spoke Egwene jumped down from Bela.

  The fur-clad man pushed his round hat forward and peered at her from under the edge. “You expecting to make that mare crawl?” he said dryly.

  Her mouth worked, but no sound came out. Finally she shrugged, and Elyas turned away without another word and began climbing the easy slope. Perrin hurried after him.

  Well short of the crest Elyas made a downward motion and a moment later flattened himself on the ground, wriggling forward the last few yards. Perrin flopped on his belly.

  At the top, Elyas took off his hat before raising his head ever so slowly. Peering through a clump of thorny weeds, Perrin saw only the same rolling plain that lay behind them. The down-slope was bare, though a clump of trees a hundred paces across grew in the hollow, perhaps half a mile south from the ridge. The wolves had already been through it, smelling no trace of Trollocs or Myrddraal.

  East and west the land was the same as far as Perrin could see, rolling grassland and wide-scattered thickets. Nothing moved. The wolves were more than a mile ahead, out of sight; at that distance he could barely feel them. They had seen nothing when they covered this ground. What is he looking for? There’s nothing there.

  “We’re wasting time,” he said, starting to stand, and a flock of ravens burst out of the trees below, fifty, a hundred black birds, spiraling into the sky. He froze in a crouch as they milled over the trees. The Dark One’s Eyes. Did they see me? Sweat trickled down his face.

  As if one thought had suddenly sparked in a hundred tiny minds, every raven broke sharply in the same direction. South. The flock disappeared over the next rise, already descending. To the east another thicket disgorged more ravens. The black mass wheeled twice and headed south.

  Shaking, he lowered himself to the ground slowly. He tried to speak, but his mouth was too dry. After a minute he managed to work up some spit. “Was that what you were afraid of? Why didn’t you say something? Why didn’t the wolves see them?”

  “Wolves don’t look up in trees much,” Elyas growled. “And no, I wasn’t looking for this. I told you, I didn’t know what. . . .” Far to the west a black cloud rose over yet another grove and winged southward. They were too far off to make out individual birds. “It isn’t a big hunt, thank the Light. They don’t know. Even after. . . .” He turned to stare back the way they had come.

  Perrin swallowed. Even after the dream, Elyas had meant. “Not big?” he said. “Back home you won’t see that many ravens in a whole year.”

  Elyas shook his head. “In the Borderlands I’ve seen sweeps with a thousand ravens to the flock. Not too often—there’s a bounty on ravens there—but it has happened.” He was still looking north. “Hush, now.”

  Perrin felt it, then; the effort of reaching out to the distant wolves. Elyas wanted Dapple and her companions to quit scouting ahead, to hurry back and check their backtrail. His already gaunt face tightened and thinned under the strain. The wolves were so far away Perrin could not even feel them. Hurry. Watch the sky. Hurry.

  Faintly Perrin caught the reply from far to the south. We come. An image flashed in his mind—wolves running, muzzles pointing into the wind of their haste, running as if wildfire raced behind, running—flashed and was gone in an instant.

  Elyas slumped and drew a deep breath. Frowning, he peered over the ridge, then back to the north, and muttered under his breath.

  “You think there are more ravens behind us?” Perrin asked.

  “Could be,” Elyas said vaguely. “They do it that way, sometimes. I know a place, if we can reach it by dark. We have to keep moving until full dark anyway, even if we don’t get there, but we can’t go as fast as I would like. Can’t afford to get too close to the ravens ahead of us. But if they’re behind us, too. . . .”

  “Why dark?” Perrin said. “What place? Somewhere safe from the ravens?”

  “Safe from ravens,” Elyas said, “but too many people know. . . . Ravens roost for the night. We don’t have to worry about them finding us in the dark. The Light send ravens are all we have to worry about then.” With one more look over the crest, he rose and waved to Egwene to bring Bela up. “But dark is a long way off. We have to get moving.” He started down the far slope in a shambling run, each stride barely catching him on the edge of falling. “Move, burn you!”

  Perrin moved, half running, half sliding, after him.

  Egwene topped the rise behind them, kicking Bela to a trot. A grin of relief bloomed on her face when she saw them. “What’s going on?” she called, urging the shaggy mare to catch up. “When you disappeared like that, I thought. . . . What happened?”

  Perrin saved his breath for running until she reached them. He explained about the ravens and Elyas’s safe place, but it was a disjointed story. After a strangled, “Ravens!” she kept interrupting with questions for which, as often as not, he had no answers. Between them, he did not finish until they reached the next ridge.

  Ordinarily—if anything about the journey could be called ordinary—they would have gone around this one rather than over, but Elyas insisted on scouting anyway.

  “You want to just saunter right into the middle of them, boy?” was his sour comment.

  Egwene stared at the crest of the ridge, licking her lips, as if she wanted to go with Elyas this time and wanted to stay where she was, too. Elyas was the only one who showed no hesitation.

  Perrin wondered if the ravens ever doubled back. It would be a fine thing to reach the crest at the same time as a flock of ravens.

  At the top he inched his head up until he could just see, and heaved a sigh of relief when all he saw was a copse of trees a little to the west. There were no ravens to be seen. Abruptly a fox burst out of the trees, running hard. Ravens poured from the branches after it. The beat of their wings almost drowned out a desperate whining from the fox. A black whirlwind dove and swirled around it. The fox’s jaws snapped at them, but they darted in, and darted away untouched, black beaks glistening wetly. The fox turned back toward the trees, seeking
the safety of its den. It ran awkwardly now, head low, fur dark and bloody, and the ravens flapped around it, more and more of them at once, the fluttering mass thickening until it hid the fox completely. As suddenly as they had descended the ravens rose, wheeled, and vanished over the next rise to the south. A misshapen lump of torn fur marked what had been the fox.

  Perrin swallowed hard. Light! They could do that to us. A hundred ravens. They could—

  “Move,” Elyas growled, jumping up. He waved to Egwene to come on, and without waiting set off at a trot toward the trees. “Move, burn you!” he called over his shoulder. “Move!”

  Egwene galloped Bela over the rise and caught them before they reached the bottom of the slope. There was no time for explanations, but her eyes picked out the fox right away. Her face went as white as snow.

  Elyas reached the trees and turned there, at the edge of the copse, waving vigorously for them to hurry. Perrin tried to run faster and stumbled. Arms windmilling, he barely caught himself short of going flat on his face. Blood and ashes! I’m running as fast as I can!

  A lone raven winged out of the copse. It tilted toward them, screamed, and spun toward the south. Knowing he was already too late, Perrin fumbled his sling from around his waist. He was still trying to get a stone from his pocket to the sling when the raven abruptly folded up in mid-air and plummeted to the ground. His mouth dropped open, and then he saw the sling hanging from Egwene’s hand. She grinned at him unsteadily.

  “Don’t stand there counting your toes!” Elyas called.

  With a start Perrin hurried into the trees, then jumped out of the way to avoid being trampled by Egwene and Bela.

  Far to the west, almost out of sight, what seemed like a dark mist rose into the air. Perrin felt the wolves passing in that direction, heading north. He felt them notice ravens, to the left and right of them, without slowing. The dark mist swirled northward as if pursuing the wolves, then abruptly broke off and flashed to the south.