The Wheel of Time

by Robert Jordan

  “It must come,” Bair said, not sounding happy. “The Pattern plants us where it will.”

  “You knew Rand’s parents?” Egwene asked cautiously. Whatever they said, she still thought of Tam and Kari al’Thor as Rand’s parents.

  “That is his story,” Amys said, “if he wants to hear it.” By the firmness of her mouth, she would not say another word on the subject.

  “Come,” Bair said. “There is no need for haste, now. Come. We offer you water and shade.”

  Egwene’s knees nearly buckled at the mention of shade. The once-sopping kerchief around her forehead was almost dry; the top of her head felt baked, and the rest of her scarcely less. Moiraine seemed just as grateful to follow the Wise Ones up to one of the small clusters of low, open-sided tents.

  A tall man in sandals and hooded white robes took their horses’ reins. His Aiel face looked odd in the deep soft cowl, with downcast eyes.

  “Give the animals water,” Bair said before ducking into the low, unwalled tent, and the man bowed to her back, touching his forehead.

  Egwene hesitated over letting the man lead Mist away. He seemed confident, but what would an Aiel know of horses? Still, she did not think he would harm them, and it did look wonderfully darker inside the tent. It was, and delightfully cool compared to outside.

  The roof of the tent rose to a peak around a hole, but even under that there was barely room to stand. As if to make up for the drab colors the Aiel wore, large gold-tasseled red cushions lay scattered over brightly colored carpets layered thickly enough to pad the hard ground beneath. Egwene and Moiraine imitated the Wise Ones, sinking to the carpet and leaning on one elbow on a cushion. They were all in a circle, nearly close enough to touch the next woman.

  Bair struck a small brass gong, and two young women entered with silver trays, bending gracefully, robed in white, with deep cowls and downturned eyes, like the man who had taken the horses. Kneeling in the middle of the tent, one filled a small silver cup with wine for each of the women reclining on a cushion, and the other poured larger cups of water. Without a word, they backed out bowing, leaving the gleaming trays and pitchers, beaded with condensation.

  “Here is water and shade,” Bair said, lifting her water, “freely given. Let there be no constraints between us. All here are welcome, as first-sisters are welcome.”

  “Let there be no constraints,” Amys and the other two murmured. After one sip of water, the Aiel women named themselves formally. Bair, of the Haido sept of the Shaarad Aiel. Amys, of the Nine Valleys sept of the Taardad Aiel. Melaine, of the Jhirad sept of the Goshien Aiel. Seana, of the Black Cliff sept of the Nakai Aiel.

  Egwene and Moiraine followed the ritual, though Moiraine’s mouth tightened when Egwene called herself an Aes Sedai of the Green Ajah.

  As if the sharing of water and names had broken down a wall, the mood in the tent changed palpably. Smiles from the Aiel women, a subtle relaxation, and said formalities were done.

  Egwene was more grateful for the water than for the wine. It might be cooler in the tent than outside, but just breathing still dried her throat. At Amys’s gesture she eagerly poured a second cup.

  The people in white had been a surprise. It was foolish, but she realized she had been thinking that except for the Wise Ones Aiel were all like Rhuarc and Aviendha, warriors. Of course they had blacksmiths and weavers and other craftsmen; they must. Why not servants? Only, Aviendha had been disdainful of the servants in the Stone, not letting them do anything for her that she could avoid. These people with their humble demeanor did not act like Aiel at all. She did not recall seeing any white in the two large camps. “Is it only Wise Ones who have servants?” she asked.

  Melaine choked on her wine. “Servants?” she gasped. “They are gai’shain, not servants.” She sounded as if that should explain everything.

  Moiraine frowned slightly over her winecup. “Gai’shain? How does that translate? ‘Those sworn to peace in battle’?”

  “They are simply gai’shain,” Amys said. She seemed to realize they did not understand. “Forgive me, but do you know of ji’e’toh?”

  “Honor and obligation,” Moiraine replied promptly. “Or perhaps honor and duty.”

  “Those are the words, yes. But the meaning. We live by ji’e’toh, Aes Sedai.”

  “Do not try to tell them all, Amys,” Bair cautioned. “I once spent a month trying to explain ji’e’toh to a wetlander, and at the end she had more questions than at the beginning.”

  Amys nodded. “I will stay to the core. If you wish it explained, Moiraine.”

  Egwene would as soon have begun talk of Dreaming, and training, but to her irritation, the Aes Sedai said, “Yes, if you will.”

  With a nod to Moiraine, Amys began. “I will follow the line of gai’shain simply. In the dance of spears, the most ji, honor, is earned by touching an armed enemy without killing, or harming in any way.”

  “The most honor because it is so difficult,” Seana said, bluish gray eyes crinkling wryly, “and thus so seldom done.”

  “The smallest honor comes from killing,” Amys continued. “A child or a fool can kill. In between is the taking of a captive. I pare it down, you see. There are many degrees. Gai’shain are captives taken so, though a warrior who has been touched may sometimes demand to be taken gai’shain to reduce his enemy’s honor and his own loss.”

  “Maidens of the Spear and Stone Dogs especially are known for this,” Seana put in, bringing a sharp look from Amys.

  “Do I tell this, or do you? To continue. Some may not be taken gai’shain, of course. A Wise One, a blacksmith, a child, a woman with child or one who has a child under the age of ten. A gai’shain has toh to his or her captor. For gai’shain, this is to serve one year and a day, obeying humbly, touching no weapon, doing no violence.”

  Egwene was interested in spite of herself. “Don’t they try to escape? I certainly would.” I’ll never let anyone make me a prisoner again!

  The Wise Ones looked shocked. “It has happened,” Seana said stiffly, “but there is no honor in it. A gai’shain who ran away would be returned by his or her sept to begin the year and a day anew. The loss of honor is so great that a first-brother or first-sister might go as gai’shain as well to discharge the sept’s toh. More than one, if they feel the loss of ji is great.”

  Moiraine seemed to be taking it all in calmly, sipping her water, but it was all Egwene could do not to shake her head. The Aiel were insane; that was all there was to it. It got worse.

  “Some gai’shain now make an arrogance of humbleness,” Melaine said disapprovingly. “They think they earn honor by it, taking obedience and meekness to the point of mockery. This is a new thing and foolish. It has no part in ji’e’toh.”

  Bair laughed, a startling rich sound compared to her reedy voice. “There have always been fools. When I was a girl, and the Shaarad and the Tomanelle were stealing each other’s cattle and goats every night, Chenda, the roofmistress of Mainde Cut, was pushed aside by a young Haido Water Seeker during a raid. She came to Bent Valley and demanded the boy make her gai’shain; she would not allow him to gain the honor of having touched her because she had a carving knife in her hands when he did. A carving knife! It was a weapon, she claimed, as if she were a Maiden. The boy had no choice but to do as she demanded, for all the laughter when he did. One does not send a roofmistress barefoot back to her hold. Before the year and a day was done, the Haido sept and the Jenda sept exchanged spears, and the boy soon found himself married to Chenda’s eldest daughter. With his second-mother still gai’shain to him. He tried to give her to his wife as part of his bride gift, and both women claimed he was trying to rob them of honor. He nearly had to take his own wife as gai’shain. It came close to raiding between Haido and Jenda again before the toh was discharged.” The Aiel women almost fell over laughing, Amys and Melaine wiping their eyes.

  Egwene understood little of the story—certainly not why it was funny—but she managed a polite laugh.

>   Moiraine set her water aside for the small silver cup of wine. “I have heard men speak of fighting the Aiel, but I have never heard of this before. Certainly not of an Aiel surrendering because he was touched.”

  “It is not surrender,” Amys said pointedly. “It is ji’e’toh.”

  “No one would ask to be made gai’shain to a wetlander,” Melaine said. “Outlanders do not know of ji’e’toh.”

  The Aiel women exchanged looks. They were uncomfortable. Why? Egwene wondered. Oh. To the Aiel, not to know ji’e’toh must be like not knowing manners, or not being honorable. “There are honorable men and women among us,” Egwene said. “Most of us. We know right from wrong.”

  “Of course you do,” Bair murmured in a tone that said that was not the same thing at all.

  “You sent a letter to me in Tear,” Moiraine said, “before I ever reached there. You said a great many things, some of which have proven true. Including that I would—must—meet you here today; you very nearly commanded me to be here. Yet earlier you said if I came. How much of what you wrote did you know to be true?”

  Amys sighed and set aside her cup of wine, but it was Bair who spoke. “Much is uncertain, even to a dreamwalker. Amys and Melaine are the best of us, and even they do not see all that is, or all that can be.”

  “The present is much clearer than the future even in Tel’aran’rhiod,” the sun-haired Wise One said. “What is happening or beginning is more easily seen than what will happen, or may. We did not see Egwene or Mat Cauthon at all. It was no more than an even chance that the young man who calls himself Rand al’Thor would come. If he did not, it was certain that he would die, and the Aiel too. Yet he has come, and if he survives Rhuidean, some of the Aiel at least will survive. This we know. If you had not come, he would have died. If Aan’allein had not come, you would have died. If you do not go through the rings—” She cut off as if she had bitten her tongue.

  Egwene leaned forward intently. Moiraine had to enter Rhuidean? But the Aes Sedai appeared to give no notice, and Seana spoke up quickly to cover Melaine’s slip.

  “There is no one set path to the future. The Pattern makes the finest lace look coarse woven sacking, or tangled string. In Tel’aran’rhiod it is possible to see some ways the future may be woven. No more than that.”

  Moiraine took a sip of wine. “The Old Tongue is often difficult to translate.” Egwene stared at her. The Old Tongue? What about the rings, the ter’angreal? But Moiraine went blithely on. “Tel’aran’rhiod means the World of Dreams, or perhaps the Unseen World. Neither is really exact; it is more complex than that. Aan’allein. One Man, but also The Man Who Is an Entire People, and two or three other ways to translate it as well. And the words we have taken for common use, and never think of their meanings in the Old Tongue. Warders are called ‘Gaidin,’ which was ‘brothers to battle.’ Aes Sedai meant ‘servant of all.’ And ‘Aiel.’ ‘Dedicated,’ in the Old Tongue. Stronger than that; it implies an oath written into your bones. I have often wondered what the Aiel are dedicated to.” The Wise Ones’ faces had gone to iron, but Moiraine continued. “And ‘Jenn Aiel.’ ‘The true dedicated,’ but again stronger. Perhaps ‘the only true dedicated.’ The only true Aiel?” She looked at them questioningly, just as if they did not suddenly have eyes of stone. None of them spoke.

  What was Moiraine doing? Egwene did not intend to allow the Aes Sedai to ruin her chances of learning whatever the Wise Ones could teach her. “Amys, could we talk of Dreaming now?”

  “Tonight will be time enough,” Amys said.

  “But—”

  “Tonight, Egwene. You may be Aes Sedai, but you must become a pupil again. You cannot even go to sleep when you wish yet, or sleep lightly enough to tell what you see before you wake. When the sun begins to set, I will begin to teach you.”

  Ducking her head, Egwene peered under the edge of the tent roof. From that deep shade, the light outside glared piercingly through heat shimmers in the air; the sun stood no more than halfway to the mountaintops.

  Abruptly Moiraine rose to her knees; reaching behind her, she began undoing her dress. “I presume that I must go as Aviendha did,” she said, not as a question.

  Bair gave Melaine a hard stare that the younger woman met only for a moment before dropping her eyes. Seana said in a resigned voice, “You should not have been told. It is done, now. Change. One not of the blood has gone to Rhuidean, and now another.”

  Moiraine paused. “Does that make a difference, that I have been told?”

  “Perhaps a great difference,” Bair said reluctantly, “perhaps none. We often guide, but we do not tell. When we saw you go to the rings, each time it was you who brought up going, who demanded the right though you have none of the blood. Now one of us has mentioned it first. Already there are changes from anything we saw. Who can say what they are?”

  “And what did you see if I do not go?”

  Bair’s wrinkled face was expressionless, but sympathy touched her pale blue eyes. “We have told too much already, Moiraine. What a dreamwalker sees is what is likely to happen, not what surely will. Those who move with too much knowledge of the future inevitably find disaster, whether from complacency at what they think must come or in their efforts to change it.”

  “It is the mercy of the rings that the memories fade,” Amys said. “A woman knows some things—a few—that will happen; others she will not recognize until the decision is upon her, if then. Life is uncertainty and struggle, choice and change; one who knew how her life was woven into the Pattern as well as she knew how a thread was laid into a carpet would have the life of an animal. If she did not go mad. Humankind is made for uncertainty, struggle, choice and change.”

  Moiraine listened with no outward show of impatience, though Egwene suspected it was there; the Aes Sedai was used to lecturing, not being lectured. She was silent while Egwene helped her out of her dress, not speaking until she crouched naked at the edge of the carpets, peering down the mountainside toward the fog-shrouded city in the valley. Then she said, “Do not let Lan follow me. He will try, if he sees me.”

  “It will be as it will be,” Bair replied. Her thin voice sounded cold and final.

  After a moment, Moiraine gave a grudging nod and slipped out of the tent into the blazing sunlight. She began to run immediately, barefoot down the scorching slope.

  Egwene grimaced. Rand and Mat, Aviendha, now Moiraine, all going into Rhuidean. “Will she . . . survive? If you dreamed of this, you must know.”

  “There are some places one cannot enter in Tel’aran’rhiod,” Seana said. “Rhuidean. Ogier stedding. A few others. What happens there is shielded from a dreamwalker’s eyes.”

  That was not an answer—they could have seen whether she came out of Rhuidean—but it was obviously all she was going to get. “Very well. Should I go, too?” She did not relish the thought of experiencing the rings; it would be like being raised to Accepted again. But if everyone else was going . . . .

  “Do not be foolish,” Amys said vigorously.

  “We saw nothing of this for you,” Bair added in a milder tone. “We did not see you at all.”

  “And I would not say yes if you asked,” Amys went on. “Four are required for permission, and I would say no. You are here to learn to dreamwalk.”

  “In that case,” Egwene said, settling back on her cushion, “teach me. There must be something you can begin with before tonight.”

  Melaine frowned at her, but Bair chuckled dryly. “She is as eager and impatient as you were once you decided to learn, Amys.”

  Amys nodded. “I hope she can keep her eagerness and lose the impatience, for her sake. Hear me, Egwene. Though it will be hard, you must forget that you are Aes Sedai if you are to learn. You must listen, remember, and do as you are told. Above all, you must not enter Tel’aran’rhiod again until one of us says you may. Can you accept this?”

  It would not be hard to forget she was Aes Sedai when she was not. For the rest, it sounded ominously like b
ecoming a novice again. “I can accept it.” She hoped she did not sound doubtful.

  “Good,” Bair said. “I will now tell you about dreamwalking and Tel’aran’rhiod, in a very general way. When I am done, you will repeat back to me what I have said. If you fail to touch all points, you will scrub the pots in place of the gai’shain tonight. If your memory is so poor that you cannot repeat what I say after a second hearing . . . . Well, we will discuss that when it happens. Attend.

  “Almost anyone can touch Tel’aran’rhiod, but few can truly enter it. Of all the Wise Ones, we four alone can dreamwalk, and your Tower has not produced a dreamwalker in nearly five hundred years. It is not a thing of the One Power, though Aes Sedai believe it is. I cannot channel, nor can Seana, yet we dreamwalk as well as Amys or Melaine. Many people brush the World of Dreams in their sleep. Because they only brush against it, they wake with aches or pains where they should have broken bones or mortal hurts. A dreamwalker enters the dream fully, therefore her injuries are real on waking. For one who is fully in the dream, dreamwalker or not, death there is death here. To enter the dream too completely, though, is to lose touch with the flesh; there is no way back, and the flesh dies. It is said that once there were those who could enter the dream in the flesh, and no longer be in this world at all. This was an evil thing, for they did evil; it must never be attempted, even if you believe it possible for you, for each time you will lose some part of what makes you human. You must learn to enter Tel’aran’rhiod when you wish, to the degree you wish. You must learn to find what you need to find and read what you see, to enter the dreams of another close by in order to aid healing, to recognize those who are in the dream fully enough to harm you, to . . . .”

  Egwene listened intently. It fascinated her, hinting at things she had never suspected were possible, but beyond that she had no intention of ending up scrubbing pots. It did not seem fair, somehow. Whatever Rand and Mat and the others faced in Rhuidean, they were not going to be sent off to scrub pots. And I agreed to it! It just was not fair. But then, she doubted they could get any more out of Rhuidean than she would from these women.