Danger. The sending was even fainter than before. And more urgent, if that were possible.
Axe in hand, Perrin started warily down the hall, muttering to himself. “Wake up. Wake up, Perrin. If you know it’s a dream, it changes or you wake up. Wake up, burn you!” The hallway stayed as solid as any he had ever walked.
He came abreast of the first of the pointed white archways. It let into a huge room, apparently windowless, but furnished as ornately as any palace, the furniture all carved and gilded and inlaid with ivory. A woman stood in the middle of the room, frowning at a tattered manuscript lying open on a table. A black-haired, black-eyed, beautiful woman clothed in white and silver.
Even as he recognized her, she lifted her head and looked straight at him. Her eyes widened, in shock, in anger. “You! What are you doing here? How did you—? You’ll ruin things you could not begin to imagine!”
Abruptly the space seemed to flatten, as if he were suddenly staring at a picture of a room. The flat image appeared to turn sideways, become only a bright vertical line down the middle of blackness. The line flashed white, and was gone, leaving only the dark, blacker than black.
Just in front of Perrin’s boots, the floor tiles came to an abrupt end. As he watched, the white edges dissolved into the black like sand washed away by water. He stepped back hastily.
Run.
Perrin turned, and Hopper was there, a big gray wolf, grizzled and scarred. “You are dead. I saw you die. I felt you die!” A sending flooded Perrin’s mind.
Run now! You must not be here now. Danger. Great danger. Worse than all the Neverborn. You must go. Go now! Now!
“How?” Perrin shouted. “I want to go, but how?”
Go! Teeth bared, Hopper leaped for Perrin’s throat.
With a strangled cry, Perrin sat up on the bed, hands going to his throat to hold in lifeblood. They met unbroken skin. He swallowed with relief, but the next moment his fingers touched a damp spot.
Almost falling in his haste, he scrambled off the bed, stumbled to the washstand and seized the pitcher, splashed water everywhere as he filled the basin. The water turned pink as he washed his face. Pink with the blood of that strangely dressed man.
More dark spots dotted his coat and breeches. He tore them off and tossed them into the furthest corner. He meant to leave them there. Simion could burn them.
A gust of wind whipped in the open window. Shivering in shirt and smallclothes, he sat on the floor and leaned back against the bed. This should be uncomfortable enough. Sourness tinged his thoughts, and worry, and fear. And determination. I won’t give in to this. I won’t!
He was still shivering when sleep finally came, a shallow half sleep filled with vague awareness of the room around him and thoughts of the cold. But the bad dreams that came were better than some others.
Rand huddled under the trees in the night, watching the heavy-shouldered black dog come nearer his hiding place. His side ached, the wound Moiraine could not quite Heal, but he ignored it. The moon gave barely enough light for him to make out the dog, waist-high, with its thick neck and massive head, and its teeth that seemed to shine like wet silver in the night. It sniffed the air and trotted toward him.
Closer, he thought. Come closer. No warning for your master this time. Closer. That’s it. The dog was only ten paces away, now, a deep growl rumbling in its chest as it suddenly bounded forward. Straight at Rand.
The Power filled him. Something leaped from his outstretched hands; he was not sure what it was. A bar of white light, solid as steel. Liquid fire. For an instant, in the middle of that something, the dog seemed to become transparent, and then it was gone.
The white light faded except for the afterimage burned across Rand’s vision. He sagged against the nearest tree trunk, the bark rough on his face. Relief and silent laughter shook him. It worked. Light save me, it worked this time. It had not always. There had been other dogs this night.
The One Power pulsed in him, and his stomach twisted with the Dark One’s taint on saidin, wanted to empty itself. Sweat beaded on his face despite the cold night wind, and his mouth tasted full of sickness. He wanted to lie down and die. He wanted Nynaeve to give him some of her medicines, or Moiraine to Heal him, or. . . . Something, anything, to stop the sick feeling that was suffocating him.
But saidin flooded him with life, too, life and energy and awareness larded through the illness. Life without saidin was a pale copy. Anything else was a wan imitation.
But they can find me if I hold on. Track me, find me. I have to reach Tear. I’ll find out there. If I am the Dragon, there’ll be an end to it. And if I am not. . . . If it’s all a lie, there will be an end to that, too. An end.
Reluctantly, with infinite slowness, he severed contact with saidin, gave up its embrace as if giving up life’s breath. The night seemed drab. The shadows lost their infinite sharp shadings and washed together.
In the distance, to the west, a dog howled, a shivering cry in the silent night.
Rand’s head came up. He peered in that direction as though he could see the dog if he tried hard enough.
A second dog answered the first, then another, and two more together, all spread out somewhere west of him.
“Hunt me,” Rand snarled. “Hunt me if you will. I’m no easy meat. No more!”
Pushing himself away from the tree, he waded a shallow, icy stream, then settled into a steady trot eastward. Cold water filled his boots, and his side hurt, but he ignored both. The night was quiet again behind him, but he ignored that, too. Hunt me. I can hunt, too. I am no easy meat.
CHAPTER
10
Secrets
Ignoring her companions for a moment, Egwene al’Vere stood in her stirrups hoping for a glimpse of Tar Valon in the distance, but all she could see was something indistinct, gleaming white in the morning sunlight. It had to be the city on the island, though. The lone, broken-topped mountain called Dragonmount, rising out of the rolling plain, had first appeared on the horizon late the afternoon before, and that lay just this side of the River Erinin from Tar Valon. It was a landmark, that mountain—one jagged fang sticking up out of rolling flatlands—easily seen for many miles, easy to avoid, as all did, even those who went to Tar Valon.
Dragonmount was where Lews Therin Kinslayer had died, so it was said; and other words had been spoken of the mountain, prophecy and warning. Rich reasons to stay away from its black slopes.
She had reason not to stay away, and more than one. Only in Tar Valon could she find the training she needed, the training she had to have. I will never be collared again! She pushed the thought away, but it came back turned end about. I will never lose my freedom again! In Tar Valon, Anaiya would resume testing her dreams; the Aes Sedai would have to, though she had found no real evidence that Egwene was a Dreamer, as Anaiya suspected. Egwene’s dreams had been troubling since leaving Almoth Plain. Aside from dreams of the Seanchan—and those still made her wake sweating—she dreamed more and more of Rand. Rand running. Running toward something, but running away from something, too.
She peered harder toward Tar Valon. Anaiya would be there. And Galad, too, perhaps. She blushed in spite of herself, and banished him from her mind entirely. Think about the weather. Think about anything else. Light, but it feels warm.
This early in the year, with winter only yesterday’s memory, white still capped Dragonmount, but here below, the snows were melted. Early shoots poked through the matted brown of last year’s grasses, and where trees topped a low hill here and there, the first red of new growth was showing. After a winter spent traveling, sometimes trapped in village or camp for days by storms, sometimes covering less ground between sunrise and sunset, with snowdrifts belly-deep on the horses, than she could have walked by noon in better weather, it was good to see signs of spring.
Sweeping her thick wool cloak back out of her way, Egwene let herself drop down in the high-cantled saddle, and smoothed her skirts in a gesture of impatience. Her dark eyes filled w
ith distaste. She had worn the dress, divided for riding by her own skill with a needle, for far too long, but the only other she had was even more grubby. And the same color, the dark gray of the Leashed Ones. The choice all those weeks ago, on beginning their ride to Tar Valon, had been dark gray or nothing.
“I swear I will never wear gray again, Bela,” she told her shaggy mount, patting the mare’s neck. Not that I’ll have much choice once we’re back in the White Tower, she thought. In the Tower, all novices wore white.
“Are you talking to yourself again?” Nynaeve asked, pulling her bay gelding closer. The two women were of a height as well as dressed alike, but the difference in their horses put the former Wisdom of Emond’s Field a head taller. Nynaeve frowned now, and tugged at the thick braid of dark hair hanging over her shoulder, the way she did when worried or troubled, or sometimes when she was preparing to be particularly stubborn even for her. A Great Serpent ring on her finger marked her as one of the Accepted, not yet Aes Sedai, but a long step closer than Egwene. “Better you should be keeping watch.”
Egwene held her tongue on the retort that she had been watching for Tar Valon. Did she think I was standing in my stirrups because I do not like my saddle? Nynaeve seemed to forget too often that she was not the Wisdom of Emond’s Field any longer, and Egwene was no longer a child. But she wears the ring and I do not—yet!—and for her, that means nothing has changed!
“Do you wonder how Moiraine is treating Lan?” she asked sweetly, and had a moment of pleasure at the sharp jerk Nynaeve gave her braid. The pleasure faded quickly, though. Wounding remarks did not come naturally to her, and she knew Nynaeve’s emotions concerning the Warder were like skeins of yarn after a kitten had gotten into the knitting basket. But Lan was no kitten, and Nynaeve would have to do something about the man before his stubborn-stupid nobility made her mad enough to kill him.
They were six altogether, all plainly dressed enough not to stand out in the villages and small towns they had encountered, yet perhaps as odd a party as had crossed the Caralain Grass anytime recently, four of them women, and one of the men in a litter slung between two horses. The litter horses carried light packs, as well, with supplies for the long stretches between villages the way they had come.
Six people, Egwene thought, and how many secrets? They all shared more than one, secrets that would have to be kept, perhaps, even in the White Tower. Life was simpler back home.
“Nynaeve, do you think Rand is all right? And Perrin?” she added hastily. She could not afford to pretend any longer that one day she would marry Rand; pretending would be all it was, now. She did not like that—she was not entirely reconciled to it—but she knew it.
“Your dreams? Have they been troubling you again?” Nynaeve sounded concerned, but Egwene was in no mood to accept sympathy.
She made her voice sound as everyday as she could manage. “From the rumors we heard, I can’t tell what might be going on. They have everything I know about so twisted, so wrong.”
“Everything has been wrong since Moiraine came into our lives,” Nynaeve said brusquely. “Perrin and Rand. . . .” She hesitated, grimacing. Egwene thought Nynaeve believed everything that Rand had become was Moiraine’s doing. “They will have to take care of themselves for now. I’m afraid we have something to worry about ourselves. Something is not right. I can . . . feel it.”
“Do you know what?” Egwene asked.
“It feels almost like a storm.” Nynaeve’s dark eyes studied the morning sky, clear and blue, with only a few scattered white clouds, and she shook her head again. “Like a storm coming.” Nynaeve had always been able to foretell the weather. Listening to the wind, it was called, and the Wisdom of every village was expected to do it, though many really could not. Yet since leaving Emond’s Field, Nynaeve’s ability had grown, or changed. The storms she felt sometimes had to do with men rather than wind, now.
Egwene bit her underlip, thinking. They could not afford to be stopped or slowed, not after coming so far, not so close to Tar Valon. For Mat’s sake, and for reasons that her mind might tell her were more important than the life of one village youth, one childhood friend, but that her heart could not rate so high. She looked at the others, wondering if any of them had noticed something.
Verin Sedai, short and plump and all in shades of brown, rode apparently lost in thought, the hood of her cloak pulled forward till it all but hid her face, in the lead but letting her horse amble at its own pace. She was of the Brown Ajah, and the Brown sisters usually cared more for seeking out knowledge than for anything in the world around them. Egwene was not so sure of Verin’s detachment, though. Verin had put herself hip-deep in the affairs of the world by being with them.
Elayne, of an age with Egwene and also a novice, but golden-haired and blue-eyed where Egwene was dark, rode back beside the litter where Mat lay unconscious. In the same gray as Egwene and Nynaeve, she was watching him with the worry they all felt. Mat had not roused in three days, now. The lean, long-haired man riding on the other side of the litter seemed to be trying to look everywhere without anyone noticing, and the lines of his face had deepened in concentration.
“Hurin,” Egwene said, and Nynaeve nodded. They slowed to let the litter catch up to them. Verin ambled on ahead.
“Do you sense something, Hurin?” Nynaeve asked. Elayne lifted her eyes, suddenly intent, from Mat’s litter.
With the three of them looking at him, the lean man shifted in his saddle and rubbed the side of his long nose. “Trouble,” he said, curt and reluctant at the same time. “I think maybe . . . trouble.”
A thief-taker for the King of Shienar, he did not wear a Shienaran warrior’s topknot, yet the short sword and notched sword-breaker at his belt were worn with use. Years of experience seemed to have given him some talent at sniffing out wrongdoers, especially those who had done violence.
Twice on the journey he had advised them to leave a village after being there less than an hour. The first time, they had all refused, saying they were too tired, but before the night was done the innkeeper and two other men of the village had tried to murder them in their beds. They were only simple thieves, not Darkfriends, just greedy for the horses and whatever they had in their saddlebags and bundles. But the rest of the village knew of it, and apparently considered strangers fair gleanings. They had been forced to flee a mob waving axe handles and pitchforks. The second time, Verin ordered them to ride on as soon as Hurin spoke.
But the thief-taker was always wary when talking to any of his companions. Except Mat, back when Mat could talk; the two of them had joked and played at dice, when the women were not too close at hand. Egwene thought he might be uneasy at being alone, for all practical purposes, with an Aes Sedai and three women in training for sisterhood. Some men found facing a fight easier than facing Aes Sedai.
“What kind of trouble?” Elayne said.
She spoke easily, but with such a clear note of expecting to be answered, immediately and in detail, that Hurin opened his mouth. “I smell—” He cut himself short and blinked as if surprised, eyes darting from one woman to another. “Just a feeling,” he said finally. “A . . . a hunch. I’ve seen some tracks, yesterday, and today. A lot of horses. Twenty or thirty going this way, twenty or thirty that. It makes me wonder. That’s all. A feeling. But I say it’s trouble.”
Tracks? Egwene had not noticed them. Nynaeve said sharply, “I did not see anything worrisome in them.” Nynaeve prided herself on being as good a tracker as any man. “They were days old. What makes you think they are trouble?”
“I just think they are,” Hurin said slowly, as if he wanted to say more. He dropped his eyes, rubbing at his nose and inhaling deeply. “It’s been a long time since we saw a village,” he muttered. “Who knows what news from Falme has come before us? We might not find so good a welcome as we expect. I’m thinking these men could be brigands, killers. We should be wary, I’m thinking. If Mat was on his feet, I’d scout ahead, but maybe it’s best I don’t leav
e you alone.”
Nynaeve’s eyebrows lifted. “Do you believe we cannot look after ourselves?”
“The One Power won’t do you much good if somebody kills you before you can use it,” Hurin said, addressing the tall pommel of his saddle. “Begging your pardon, but I think I. . . . I’ll just ride up with Verin Sedai for a time.” He dug in his heels and galloped forward before any of them could speak again.
“Now that is a surprise,” Elayne said as Hurin slowed a little distance from the Brown sister. Verin did not seem to notice him any more than she noticed anything else, and he appeared content to leave it so. “He has been staying as far from Verin as he could ever since we left Toman Head. He always looks at her as if he’s afraid of what she might say.”
“Respecting Aes Sedai doesn’t mean he is not afraid of them,” Nynaeve said, then added, reluctantly, “Of us.”
“If he thinks there might be trouble, we ought to send him out scouting.” Egwene took a deep breath and gave the other two women as level a look as she could manage. “If there is trouble, we can defend ourselves better than he could with a hundred soldiers to help him.”
“He doesn’t know that,” Nynaeve said flatly, “and I am not about to tell him. Or anyone else.”
“I can imagine what Verin would have to say about it.” Elayne sounded anxious. “I wish I had some idea how much she does know. Egwene, I don’t know if my mother could help me if the Amyrlin found out, much less help the pair of you. Or even whether she would try.” Elayne’s mother was Queen of Andor. “She was only able to learn a little of the Power before she left the White Tower, for all she has lived as if she had been raised to full sister.”
“We cannot hope to rely on Morgase,” Nynaeve said. “She is in Caemlyn, and we will be in Tar Valon. No, we may be in enough trouble already for going off as we did, no matter what we’ve brought back. It will be best if we stay low, behave humbly, and do nothing to attract more attention than we already have.”
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