Rhuarc climbed the slope with a smile. "I am come back, Amys, though not by the way you expected, I will wager."
"I knew you would be here today, shade of my heart." She reached up to touch his cheek, letting her brown shawl fall down onto her arms. "My sister-wife sends her heart to you."
"That's what you meant about Dreaming," Egwene said softly to Moiraine. Lan was the only other close enough to hear. "That's why you were willing to let Rand try to bring us here by Portal Stone. They knew about it, and told you in that letter. No, that doesn't make sense. If they had mentioned a Portal Stone, you wouldn't have tried talking him out of it. They knew we'd be here, though."
Moiraine nodded without taking her eyes from the Wise Ones. "They wrote that they would meet us here, on Chaendaer, today. I thought it… unlikely… until Rand mentioned the Stones. When he was sure — certain beyond my dissuading — that one existed here… Let us just say it suddenly seemed very likely we would reach Chaendaer today."
Egwene took a deep breath of hot air. So that was one of the things Dreamers could do. She could not wait to start learning. She wanted to go after Rhuarc and introduce herself to Amys — reintroduce herself — but Rhuarc and Amys were looking into one another's eyes in a way that excluded intruders.
A man had come out from each of the camps, one tall and broad-shouldered, flame-haired and still short of his middle years, the other older and darker, no less tall but more slender. They stopped a few paces to either side of Rhuarc and the Wise Ones. The older, leathery-faced man carried no visible weapon except his heavy bladed belt knife, but the other carried spears and hide buckler, and held his head high with a fiercely prideful scowl directed at Rhuarc.
Rhuarc ignored him, turning to the older man. "I see you, Heirn. Has one of the sept chiefs decided I am already dead? Who seeks to take my place?"
"I see you, Rhuarc. No one of the Taardad has entered Rhuidean or seeks to. Amys said she would come meet you here today, and these other Wise Ones traveled with her. I brought these men of the Jindo sept to see they arrived safely."
Rhuarc nodded solemnly. Egwene had the feeling something important had just been said, or hinted at. The Wise Ones did not look at the fiery-haired man, and neither did Rhuarc or Heirn, but from the color rising in the fellow's cheeks, they might as well have been staring at him. She glanced at Moiraine and got a tiny shake of the head; the Aes Sedai did not understand either.
Lan leaned down between them, speaking quietly. "A Wise One can go anywhere safely, into any hold regardless of clan. I think not even blood feud touches a Wise One. This Heirn came to protect Rhuarc from whoever the other camp is, but it would not be honorable to say it." Moiraine lifted one eyebrow a trifle, and he added, "I don't know much of them, but I fought them often before I met you. You have never asked me about them."
"I will remedy that," the Aes Sedai said dryly.
Turning back to the Wise Ones and the three men made Egwene's head swim. Lan pushed an unstoppered leather water bottle into her hands, and she tilted her head back to drink gratefully. The water was lukewarm and smelled of leather, but in the heat it tasted fresh from the spring. She offered the half empty bottle to Moiraine, who drank sparingly and handed it back. Egwene was glad to gulp down the rest, closing her eyes; water splashed over her head, and she opened them again quickly. Lan was emptying another water bottle over her, and Moiraine's hair already dripped.
"This heat can kill if you are not used to it," the Warder explained as he wet down a pair of plain white linen scarves pulled from his coat. At his instructions, she and Moiraine tied the soaked cloths around their foreheads. Rand and Mat were doing the same. Lan left his own head unprotected to the sun; nothing seemed to faze the man.
The silence between Rhuarc and the Aielmen with him had stretched out, but the clan chief finally turned to the flame-haired man. "Do the Shaido lack a clan chief, then, Couladin?"
"Suladric is dead," the man answered. "Muradin has entered Rhuidean. Should he fail, I will enter."
"You have not asked, Couladin," the grandmotherly Wise One said in that reedy yet strong voice. "Should Muradin fail, ask then. We are four, enough to say yes or no."
"It is my right, Bair," Couladin said angrily. He had the look of a man not used to being balked.
"It is your right to ask," the thin voiced woman replied. "It is ours to answer. I do not think you will be allowed to enter, whatever happens to Muradin. You are flawed within, Couladin." She shifted her gray shawl, rewrapping it around her angular shoulders in a way that suggested she had said more than she considered necessary.
The flame-haired man's face grew red. "My first-brother will return marked as clan chief, and we will lead the Shaido to great honor! We mean to —!" He snapped his mouth shut, almost quivering.
Egwene thought she would keep an eye on him if he remained anywhere close to her. He reminded her of the Congars and the Coplins back home, full of boasts and trouble. She had certainly never before seen any Aiel display so much raw emotion.
Amys seemed to have dismissed him already. "There is one who came with you, Rhuarc," she said. Egwene expected the woman to speak to her, but Amys's eyes swept straight to Rand. Moiraine was obviously not surprised. Egwene wondered what had been in that letter from these four Wise Ones that the Aes Sedai had not revealed.
Rand looked taken aback for a moment, hesitating, but then he strode up the slope to stand near Rhuarc at eye level to the women. Sweat plastered his white shirt to his body and made darker patches on his breeches. With a twisted white cloth tied around his head, he certainly did not look so grand as he had in the Heart of the Stone. He made an odd bow; left foot advanced, left hand on knee, right hand outstretched palm upward.
"By the right of blood," he said, "I ask leave to enter Rhuidean, for the honor of our ancestors and the memory of what was."
Amys blinked in evident surprise, arid Bair murmured, "An ancient form, but the question has been asked. I answer yes."
"I also answer yes, Bair," Amys said. "Seana?"
"This man is no Aiel," Couladin broke in angrily. Egwene suspected he was very nearly always angry. "It is death for him to be on this ground! Why has Rhuarc brought him? Why —?"
"Do you wish to be a Wise One, Couladin?" Bair asked, a frown deepening the creases on her face. "Put on a dress and come to me, and I will see if you can be trained. Until then, be silent when Wise Ones speak!"
"My mother was Aiel," Rand said in a strained voice.
Egwene stared at him. Kari al'Thor had died while Egwene was barely out of her cradle, but if Tam's wife had been Aiel, Egwene would certainly have heard of it. She glanced at Moiraine; the Aes Sedai was watching, smooth faced, calm. Rand did look a great deal like the Aielmen, with his height and gray blue eyes and reddish hair, but this was ridiculous.
"Not your mother," Amys said slowly. "Your father." Egwene shook her head. This approached madness. Rand opened his mouth, but Amys did not let him speak. "Seana, how do you say?"
"Yes," the woman with gray streaked hair said. "Melaine?"
The last of the four, a handsome woman with golden-red hair, no more than ten or fifteen years older than Egwene, hesitated. "It must be done," she said finally, and unwillingly. "I answer yes."
"You have been answered," Amys told Rand. "You may go into Rhuidean, and—" She cut off as Mat scrambled up to copy Rand's bow awkwardly.
"I also ask to enter Rhuidean," he said shakily.
The four Wise Ones stared at him. Rand's head whipped around in surprise. Egwene thought no one could be more shocked than she was, but Couladin proved her wrong. Lifting one of his spears with a snarl, he stabbed at Mat's chest.
The glow of saidar surrounded Amys and Melaine, and flows of Air lifted the fiery haired man and flung him back a dozen paces.
Egwene stared, wide eyed. They could channel. At least, two of them could. Suddenly Amys's youthfully smooth features beneath that white hair leaped out at her for what they were, something very c
lose to Aes Sedai agelessness. Moiraine was absolutely still. Egwene could almost hear her thoughts buzzing, though. This was plainly as much of a surprise to the Aes Sedai as to herself.
Couladin scrambled to his feet in a crouch. "You accept this outlander as one of us," he rasped, pointing at Rand with the spear he had attempted to use on Mat. "If you say it, then so be it. He is still a soft wetlander, and Rhuidean will kill him." The spear swung to Mat, who was trying to slip a knife back up his sleeve without being noticed. "But he — it is death for him to be here, and sacrilege for him to even ask to enter Rhuidean. None but those of the blood may enter. None!"
"Go back to your tents, Couladin," Melaine said coldly. "And you, Heirn. And you, as well, Rhuarc. This is business of Wise Ones, and none of men save those who have asked. Go!" Rhuarc and Heirn nodded and walked away toward the smaller set of tents, talking together. Couladin glared at Rand and Mat, and at the Wise Ones, before jerking around and stalking off toward the larger camp.
The Wise Ones exchanged glances. Troubled glances, Egwene would have said, though they were almost as good as Aes Sedai at keeping their faces blank when they wanted to.
"It is not permitted," Amys said finally. "Young man, you do not know what you have done. Go back with the others." Her eyes brushed across Egwene and Moiraine and Lan, standing alone now with the horses near the wind-scoured Portal Stone. Egwene could not find any recognition for her in that glance.
"I can't." Mat sounded desperate. "I've come this far, but this doesn't count, does it? I have to go to Rhuidean."
"It is not permitted," Melaine said sharply, her long red-gold hair swinging as she shook her head. "You have no Aiel blood in your veins."
Rand had been studying Mat all this time. "He comes with me," he said suddenly. "You gave me permission, and he can come with me whether you say he can or not." He stared back at the Wise Ones, not defiantly, merely determined, set in his mind. Egwene knew him like this; he would not back down whatever they said.
"It is not permitted," Melaine said firmly, addressing her sisters. She pulled her shawl up to cover her head. "The law is clear. No woman may go to Rhuidean more than twice, no man more than once, and none at all save they have the blood of Aiel."
Seana shook her head. "Much is changing, Melaine. The old ways…"
"If he is the one," Bair said, "the Time of Change is upon us. Aes Sedai stand on Chaendaer, and Aan'allein with his shifting cloak. Can we hold to the old ways still? Knowing how much is to change?"
"We cannot hold," Amys said. "All stands on the edge of change, now. Melaine?" The golden haired woman looked at the mountains around them, and the fog shrouded city below, then sighed and nodded. "It is done," Amys said, turning to Rand and Mat. "You," she began, then paused. "By what name do you call yourself?"
"Rand al'Thor."
"Mat. Mat Cauthon."
Amys nodded. "You, Rand al'Thor, must go into the heart of Rhuidean, to the very center. If you wish to go with him, Mat Cauthon, so be it, but know that most men who enter Rhuidean's heart do not come back, and some return mad. You may carry neither food nor water, in remembrance of our wanderings after the Breaking. You must go to Rhuidean unarmed, save with your hands and your own heart, to honor the Jenn. If you have weapons, place them on the ground before us. They will be here for you when you return. If you return."
Rand unsheathed his belt knife and laid it at Amys's feet, then after a moment added the green stone carving of the round little man. "That is the best I can do," he said.
Mat began with his belt knife and kept right on, pulling knives from his sleeves and under his coat, even one from down the back of his neck, fashioning a pile that seemed to impress even the Aiel women. He made as if to stop, looked at the women, then took two more from each boot top. "I forgot them," he said with a grin and shrug. The Wise Ones' unblinking looks wiped his grin away.
"They are pledged to Rhuidean," Amys said formally, looking over the men's heads, and the other three responded together, "Rhuidean belongs to the dead."
"They may not speak to the living until they return," she intoned, and again the others answered. "The dead do not speak to the living."
"We do not see them, until they stand among the living once more." Amys drew her shawl across her eyes, and one by one the other three did the same. Faces hidden, they spoke in unison. "Begone from among the living, and do not haunt us with memories of what is lost. Speak not of what the dead see." Silent then, they stood there, holding their shawls up, waiting.
Rand and Mat looked at one another. Egwene wanted to go to them, to speak to them — they wore the fixed too-steady faces of men who did not want anyone to know they were uneasy or afraid — but that might break the ceremony.
Finally Mat barked a laugh. "Well, I suppose the dead can talk to each other, at least. I wonder if this counts for… No matter. Do you suppose it's all right if we ride?"
"I don't think so," Rand said. "I think we have to walk."
"Oh, burn my aching feet. We might as well get on with it then. It'll take half the afternoon just to get there. If we're lucky."
Rand gave Egwene a reassuring smile as they started down the mountain, as if to convince her there was no danger, nothing untoward. Mat's grin was the sort he wore when doing something particularly foolish, like trying to dance on the peak of a roof.
"You aren't going to do anything… crazy… are you?" Mat said. "I mean to come back alive."
"So do I," Rand replied. "So do I."
They passed from hearing, growing smaller and smaller as they descended. When they had dwindled to tiny shapes, barely distinguishable as people, the Wise Ones lowered their shawls.
Straightening her dress, and wishing she were not so sweaty, Egwene climbed the short distance to them leading Mist. "Amys? I am Egwene al'Vere. You said I should—"
Amys cut her off with a raised hand, and looked to where Lan was leading Mandarb and Pips and Jeade'en, behind Moiraine and Aldieb. "This is women's business, now, Aan'allein. You must stand aside. Go to the tents. Rhuarc will offer you water and shade."
Lan waited for Moiraine's slight nod before bowing and walking off in the direction Rhuarc had gone. The shifting cloak hanging down his back sometimes gave him the appearance of a disembodied head and arms floating across the ground ahead of the three horses.
"Why do you call him that?" Moiraine asked when he was out of earshot. "One Man. Do you know him?"
"We know of him, Aes Sedai." Amys made the title sound an address between equals. "The last of the Malkieri. The man who will not give up his war against the Shadow though his nation is long destroyed by it. There is much honor in him. I knew from the dream that if you came, it was almost certain Aan'allein would as well, but I did not know he obeyed you."
"He is my Warder," Moiraine said simply.
Egwene thought the Aes Sedai was troubled despite her tone, and she knew why. Almost certain Lan would come with Moiraine? Lan always followed Moiraine; he would follow her into the Pit of Doom without blinking. Nearly as interesting to Egwene was "if you came." Had the Wise Ones know they were coming or not? Perhaps interpreting the Dream was not as straightforward as she hoped. She was about to ask, when Bair spoke.
"Aviendha? Come here."
Aviendha had been squatting disconsolately off to one side, arms wrapped around her knees, staring at the ground. She stood slowly. If Egwene had not known better, she would have thought the other woman was afraid. Aviendha's feet dragged as she climbed to where the Wise Ones stood and set her bag and rolled wall hangings at her feet.
"It is time," Bair said, not ungently. Still, there was no compromise in her pale blue eyes. "You have run with the spears as long as you can. Longer than you should have."
Aviendha flung up her head defiantly. "I am a Maiden of the Spear. I do not want to be a Wise One. I will not be!"
The Wise Ones' faces hardened. Egwene was reminded of the Women's Circle back home confronting a woman who was heading off into some fo
olishness.
"You have already been treated more gently than it was in my day," Amys said in a voice like stone. "I, too, refused when called. My spear-sisters broke my spears before my eyes. They took me to Bair and Coedelin bound hand and foot and wearing only my skin."
"And a pretty little doll tucked under your arm," Bair said dryly, "to remind you how childish you were. As I remember, you ran away nine times in the first month."
Amys nodded grimly. "And was made to blubber like a child for each of them. I only ran away five times the second month. I thought I was as strong and hard as a woman could be. I was not smart, though; it took me half a year to learn you were stronger and harder than I could ever be, Bair. Eventually I learned my duty, my obligation to the people. As you will, Aviendha. Such as you and I, we have that obligation. You are not a child. It is time to put away dolls — and spears — and become the woman you are meant to be."
Abruptly, Egwene knew why she had felt such a kinship with Aviendha from the first, knew why Amys and the others meant her to be a Wise One. Aviendha could channel. Like herself, like Elayne and Nynaeve — and Moiraine, for that matter — she was one of those rare women who not only could be taught to channel, but who had the ability born in her, so she would touch the True Source eventually whether she knew what she was doing or not. Moiraine's face was still, calm, but Egwene saw confirmation in her eyes. The Aes Sedai had surely known from the first time she came within arm's reach of the Aiel woman, Egwene realized she could feel that same kinship with Amys and Melaine. Not with Bair or Seana, though. Only the first two could channel; she was sure of it. And now she could sense the same in Moiraine. It was the first time she had ever felt that. The Aes Sedai was a distant woman.
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