The Dragon Reborn

## Chapter 39

#### Threads in the Pattern

Jolien put an unsteady hand to where the wound had been in Dailin’s middle; when she touched smooth skin, she gasped as if she had not believed her own eyes.

Nynaeve straightened, drying her hands on her cloak. Egwene had to admit that good wool did better for a towel than silk or velvet. “I said wash her and get some clothes on her,” Nynaeve snapped.

“Yes, Wise One,” Jolien said quickly, and she, Chiad, and Bain all leaped to obey.

A short laugh burst from Aviendha, a laugh almost at the edge of tears. “I have heard that a Wise One in the Jagged Spire sept is said to be able to do this, and one in the Four Holes sept, but I always thought it was boasting.” She drew a deep breath, regaining her composure. “Aes Sedai, I owe you a debt. My water is yours, and the shade of my septhold will welcome you. Dailin is my second-sister.” She saw Nynaeve’s uncomprehending look and added, “She is my mother’s sister’s daughter. Close blood, Aes Sedai. I owe a blood debt.”

“If I have any blood to spill,” Nynaeve said dryly, “I will spill it myself. If you wish to repay me, tell me if there is a ship at Jurene. The next village south of here?”

“The village where the soldiers fly the White Lion banner?” Aviendha said. “There was a ship there when I scouted yesterday. The old stories mention ships, but it was strange to see one.”

“The Light send it is still there.” Nynaeve began putting away her folded papers of powdered herbs. “I have done what I can for the girl, Aviendha, and we must go on. All that she needs now is food and rest. And try not to let people stick swords in her.”

“What comes, comes, Aes Sedai,” the Aiel woman replied.

“Aviendha,” Egwene said, “feeling as you do about rivers, how do you cross them? I am sure there is at least one river nearly as big as the Erinin between here and the Waste.”

“The Alguenya,” Elayne said. “Unless you went around it.”

“You have many rivers, but some have things called bridges where we had need to cross, and others we could wade. For the rest, Jolien remembered that wood floats.” She slapped the trunk of a tall whitewood. “These are big, but they float as well as a branch. We found dead ones and made ourselves a . . . ship . . . a little ship, of two or three lashed together to cross the big river.” She said it matter-of-factly.

Egwene stared in wonder. If she were as afraid of something as the Aiel obviously were of rivers, could she make herself face it the way they did? She did not think so. What about the Black Ajah, a small voice asked. Have you stopped being afraid of them? That is different, she told it. There’s no bravery in that. I either hunt them, or else I sit like a rabbit waiting for a hawk. She quoted the old saying to herself. “It is better to be the hammer than the nail.”

“We had best be on our way,” Nynaeve said.

“In a moment,” Elayne told her. “Aviendha, why have you come all this way and put up with such hardship?”

Aviendha shook her head disgustedly. “We have not come far at all; we were among the last to set out. The Wise Ones nipped at me like wild dogs circling a calf, saying I had other duties.” Suddenly she grinned, gesturing to the other Aiel. “These stayed back to taunt me in my misery, so they said, but I do not think the Wise Ones would have let me go if they had not been there to companion me.”

“We seek the one foretold,” Bain said. She was holding a sleeping Dailin so Chiad could slip a shirt of brown linen onto her. “He Who Comes With the Dawn.”

“He will lead us out of the Three-fold Land,” Chiad added. “The prophecies say he was born of Far Dareis Mai.”

Elayne looked startled. “I thought you said the Maidens of the Spear were not allowed to have children. I am sure I was taught that.” Bain and Chiad exchanged those looks again, as if Elayne had come near truth and yet missed it once more.

“If a Maiden bears a child,” Aviendha explained carefully, “she gives the child to the Wise Ones of her sept, and they pass the child to another woman in such a way that none knows whose child it is.” She, too, sounded as if she were explaining that stone is hard. “Every woman wants to foster such a child in the hope she may raise He Who Comes With the Dawn.”

“Or she may give up the spear and wed the man,” Chiad said, and Bain added, “There are sometimes reasons one must give up the spear.”

Aviendha gave them a level look, but continued as if they had not spoken. “Except that now the Wise Ones say he is to be found here, beyond the Dragonwall. ‘Blood of our blood mixed with the old blood, raised by an ancient blood not ours.’ I do not understand it, but the Wise Ones spoke in such a way as to leave no doubts.” She paused, obviously choosing her words. “You have asked many questions, Aes Sedai. I wish to ask one. You must understand that we look for omens and signs. Why do three Aes Sedai walk a land where the only hand without a knife in it is a hand too weak with hunger to grasp the hilt? Where do you go?”

“Tear,” Nynaeve said briskly, “unless we stay here talking until the Heart of the Stone crumbles to dust.” Elayne began adjusting the cord of her bundle and the strap of her script for walking, and after a moment Egwene did the same.

The Aiel women were looking at one another, Jolien frozen in the act of closing Dailin’s gray-brown coat. “Tear?” Aviendha said in a cautious tone. “Three Aes Sedai walking through a troubled land on their way to Tear. This is a strange thing. Why do you go to Tear, Aes Sedai?”

Egwene glanced at Nynaeve. Light, a moment ago they were laughing, and now they’re as tense as they ever were.

“We hunt some evil women,” Nynaeve said carefully. “Darkfriends.”

“Shadowrunners.” Jolien twisted her mouth around the word as if she had bitten into a rotten apple.

“Shadowrunners in Tear,” Bain said, and as if part of the same sentence Chiad added, “And three Aes Sedai seeking the Heart of the Stone.”

“I did not say we were going to the Heart of the Stone,” Nynaeve said sharply. “I merely said I did not want to stay here till it falls to dust. Egwene, Elayne, are you ready?” She started out of the thicket without waiting for an answer, walking staff thumping the ground and long strides carrying her south.

Egwene and Elayne made hasty goodbyes before following after her. The four Aiel on their feet stood watching them go.

When the two of them were a little way beyond the trees, Egwene said, “My heart almost stopped when you named yourself. Weren’t you afraid they might try to kill you, or to take you prisoner? The Aiel War was not that long ago, and whatever they said about not harming women who don’t carry spears, they looked ready enough to use those spears on anything, to me.”

Elayne shook her head ruefully. “I have just learned how much I do not know about the Aiel, but I was taught that they do not think of the Aiel War as a war at all. From the way they behaved toward me, I think maybe that much of what I learned is truth. Or maybe it was because they think I am Aes Sedai.”

“I know they are strange, Elayne, but no one can call three years of battles anything but a war. I do not care how much they fight among themselves, a war is a war.”

“Not to them. Thousands of Aiel crossed the Spine of the World, but apparently they saw themselves more like thief-takers, or headsmen, come after King Laman of Cairhien for the crime of cutting down Avendoraldera. To the Aiel, it was not a war; it was an execution.”

Avendoraldera, according to one of Verin’s lectures, had been an offshoot of the Tree of Life itself, brought to Cairhien some four hundred years ago as an unprecedented offer of peace from the Aiel, given along with the right to cross the Waste, a right otherwise given to none but peddlers, gleemen, and the Tuatha’an. Much of Cairhien’s wealth had been built on the trade in ivory and perfumes and spices and, most of all, silk, from the lands beyond the Waste. Not even Verin had any idea of how the Aiel had come by a sapling of Avendesora—for one thing, the old books were clear that it made no seed; for another, no one knew where the Tree of Life was, except for a few stories that were clearly wrong, but surely the Tree of Life could have nothing to do with the Aiel—or of why the Aiel had called the Cairhienin the Watersharers, or insisted their trains of merchant wagons fly a banner bearing the trefoil leaf of Avendesora.

Egwene supposed, grudgingly, that she could understand why they had started a war—even if they did not think it was one—after King Laman cut down their gift to make a throne unlike any other in the world. Laman’s Sin, she had heard it called. According to Verin, not only had Cairhien’s trade across the Waste ended with the war, but those Cairhienin who ventured into the Waste now vanished. Verin claimed they were said to be “sold as animals” in the lands beyond the Waste, but not even she understood how a man or a woman could be sold.

“Egwene,” Elayne said, “you know who He Who Comes With the Dawn must be, don’t you?”

Staring at Nynaeve’s back still well ahead of them, Egwene shook her head—Does she mean to race us to Jurene?—then almost stopped walking. “You do not mean—?”

Elayne nodded. “I think so. I do not know much of the Prophecies of the Dragon, but I have heard a few lines. One I remember is, ‘On the slopes of Dragonmount shall he be born, born of a maiden wedded to no man.’ Egwene, Rand does look like an Aiel. Well, he looks like the pictures I have seen of Tigraine, too, but she vanished before he was born, and I hardly think she could have been his mother anyway. I think Rand’s mother was a Maiden of the Spear.”

Egwene frowned in thought as she hurried along, running everything she knew of Rand’s birth through her head. He had been raised by Tam al’Thor after Kari al’Thor died, but if what Moiraine said was true, they could not be his real mother and father. Nynaeve had sometimes seemed to know some secret about Rand’s birth. But I will bet I couldn’t pry it out of her with a fork!

They caught up to Nynaeve, Egwene glowering as she thought, Nynaeve staring straight ahead toward Jurene and that ship, and Elayne frowning at the pair of them as if they were two children sulking over who should have the larger piece of cake.

After a time of silent strides, Elayne said, “You handled that very well, Nynaeve. The Healing, and the rest, too. I do not think they ever doubted you were Aes Sedai. Or that we all were, because of the way you bore yourself.”

“You did do a good job,” Egwene said after a minute. “That was the first time I have ever really watched what is done during a Healing. It makes making lightning look like mixing oatcake.”

A surprised smile appeared on Nynaeve’s face. “Thank you,” she murmured, and reached over to give Egwene’s hair a little tug the way she had when Egwene was a little girl.

I am not a little girl any longer. The moment passed as quickly as it had come, and they went on in silence once more. Elayne sighed loudly.

They covered another mile, or a little more, swiftly, despite swinging in from the river to go around the thickets along the bank. Nynaeve insisted on staying well clear of the trees. Egwene thought it was silly to think more Aiel would be hiding in the copses, but the swing inland did not add much distance to what they had to cover; none of the growths were very big.

Elayne watched the trees, though, and she was the one who suddenly screamed, “Look out!”

Egwene jerked her head around; men were stepping out from among the trees, slings whirling ’round their heads. She reached for saidar, and something struck her head, and darkness drank everything.

Egwene could feel herself swaying, feel something moving under her. Her head seemed to be nothing but pain. She tried to raise a hand to her temples, but something dug into her wrists, and her hands did not move.

“—better than lying there all day waiting for dark,” a man’s rough voice said. “Who knows if another ship would come by close in? And I don’t trust that boat. It leaks.”

“You do better hope Adden does believe you did see those rings before you did decide,” another man said. “He does want fat cargoes, not women, I think.” the first man muttered something coarse about what Adden could do with his leaky boat, and the cargoes, too.

Her eyes opened. Silver-flecked spots danced across her vision; she thought she might be going to throw up on the ground swaying past under her head. She was tied across the back of a horse, her wrists and ankles joined by a rope running under its belly, her hair hanging down.

It was still daylight. She craned her neck to look around. So many rough-dressed men on horses surrounded her that she could not see whether Nynaeve and Elayne had been captured, as well. Some of the men wore bits of armor—a battered helmet, or a dented breastplate, or a jerkin sewn all over with metal scales—but most wore only coats that had not been cleaned in months, if ever. From the smell, the men had not cleaned themselves in months, either. They all wore swords, at their waists or on their backs.

Rage hit her, and fear, but most of all white-hot anger. I won’t be a prisoner. I won’t be bound! I won’t! She reached for saidar and the pain nearly lifted the top of her head; she barely stifled a moan.

The horse paused for a moment of shouts and the creak of rusty hinges, then went ahead a little further, and the men began to dismount. As they moved apart, she could see something of where they were. A log palisade surrounded them, built atop a large, round earthen mound, and men with bows stood guard on a wooden walk built just high enough for them to see over the rough-hewn ends of the logs. One low, windowless log house seemed to be built into the mounded dirt under the wall. There was no other structure beyond a few lean-to sheds. Aside from the men and horses that had just entered, the rest of the open space was filled with cook fires, and tethered horses, and more unwashed men. There must have been at least a hundred. Caged goats and pigs and chickens filled the air with squeals and grunts and clucks that blended with coarse shouts and laughter to make a din that pierced her head.

Her eyes found Nynaeve and Elayne, bound head down across saddleless horses as she was. Neither seemed to be stirring; the very end of Nynaeve’s braid dragged across the dirt as her horse stirred. A small hope faded; that one of them might be free, to help whoever was held escape. Light, I cannot stand to be a prisoner again. Not again. Gingerly, she tried reaching for saidar again. The pain was not so bad this time—merely as if someone had dropped a rock on her head—but it shattered the emptiness before she could even think of a rose.

“One of them’s awake!” a man’s panicked voice shouted.

Egwene tried to hang limp and look unthreatening. How in the Light could I look threatening tied up like a sack of meal! Burn me, I have to buy time. I have to! “I will not harm you,” she told the sweaty-faced fellow who came running toward her. Or she tried to tell him. She was not sure how much she had actually said before something crashed into her head again and darkness rolled over her in a wave of nausea.

Waking was easier the next time. Her head still hurt, but not as much as it had, though her thoughts did seem to spin dizzily. At least my stomach isn’t . . . Light, I’d better not think of that. There was a taste of sour wine and something bitter in her mouth. Strips of lamplight showed through horizontal cracks in a crudely made wall, but she lay in darkness, on her back. On dirt, she thought. The door did not seem to fit well either, but it looked all too sturdy.

She pushed herself to her hands and knees, and was surprised to find she was not tied in any way. Except for that one wall of unpeeled logs, the others all seemed to be of rough stone. The light through the cracks was enough to show her Nynaeve and Elayne lying sprawled on the dirt. There was blood on the Daughter-Heir’s face. Neither of them moved except for the rise and fall of their chests as they breathed. Egwene hesitated between trying to wake them immediately and seeing what lay on the other side of that wall. Just a peek, she told herself. I might as well see what we have guarding us before I wake them.

She told herself it was not because she was afraid she might be unable to waken them. As she put her eye to one of the cracks near the door, she thought of the blood on Elayne’s face and tried to remember exactly what it was Nynaeve had done for Dailin.

The next room was large—it had to be all the rest of the log building she had seen—and windowless, but brightly lit with gold and silver lamps hanging from spikes driven into the walls and the logs that made the high ceiling. There was no fireplace. On the packed dirt floor farm-house tables and chairs mingled with chests covered in gilt-work and inlaid with ivory. A carpet woven in peacocks lay beside a huge canopied bed, piled deep with filthy blankets and comforters, with elaborately carved and gilded posts.

A dozen men stood or sat around the room, but all eyes were on one large, fair-haired man who might have been handsome if his face were cleaner. He stood staring down at the top of a table with fluted legs and gilded scrollwork, one hand on his sword hilt, a finger of the other pushing something she could not make out in small circles on the tabletop.

The outer door opened, revealing night outside, and a lanky man with his left ear gone came in. “He has no come, yet,” he said roughly. He was missing two fingers on his left hand, too. “I do no like dealing with that kind.”

The big, fair-haired man paid him no mind, only kept moving whatever it was on the table. “Three Aes Sedai,” he murmured, then laughed. “Good prices for Aes Sedai, if you have the belly to deal with the right buyer. If you’re ready to risk having your belly ripped out through your mouth should you try selling him a pig in a sack. Not so safe as slitting the crew’s throats on a trader’s ship, eh, Coke? Not so easy, wouldn’t you say?”

There was a nervous stir among the other men, and the one addressed, a stocky fellow with shifty eyes, leaned forward anxiously. “They are Aes Sedai, Adden.” She recognized that voice; the man who had made the coarse suggestions. “They must be, Adden. The rings prove it, I tell you!” Adden picked up something from the table, a small circle that glinted gold in the lamplight.

Egwene gasped and felt at her fingers. They took my ring!

“I do no like it,” muttered the lanky man with the missing ear. “Aes Sedai. Any one of them could kill us all. Fortune prick me! You do be a stone-carved fool, Coke, and I ought to carve your throat. What if one of them do wake before he does come?”

“They’ll not wake for hours.” That was a fat man with hoarse voice and a gap-toothed sneer. “My granny taught me of that stuff we fed them. They’ll sleep till sunrise, and he’ll come long afore then.”

Egwene worked her mouth around the sour wine taste and the bitterness. Whatever it was, your granny lied to you. She should have strangled you in your cradle! Before this “he” came, this man who thought he could buy Aes Sedai—like a bloody Seanchan!—she would have Nynaeve and Elayne on their feet. She crawled to Nynaeve.

As near as she could tell, Nynaeve seemed to be sleeping, so she began with the simple expedient of shaking her. To her surprise, Nynaeve’s eyes shot open.

“Wha—?”

She got a hand over Nynaeve’s mouth in time to stop the word. “We are being held prisoner,” she whispered. “There are a dozen men on the other side of that wall, and more outside. A great many more. They gave us something to make us sleep, but it wasn’t very successful. Do you remember, yet?”

Nynaeve pulled Egwene’s hand aside. “I remember.” Her voice was soft and grim. She grimaced and twisted her mouth, then suddenly barked a nearly silent laugh. “Sleepwell root. The fools gave us sleepwell root mixed in wine. Wine near gone to vinegar, it tastes like. Quick, do you remember anything of what I taught you? What does sleepwell root do?”

“It clears headaches so you can sleep,” Egwene said just as softly. And nearly as grimly, until she heard what she was saying. “It makes you a little drowsy, but that is all.” The fat man had not listened well to what his granny told him. “All they did was help clear the pain of being hit in the head.”

“Exactly,” Nynaeve said. “And once we wake Elayne, we’ll give them a thanking they won’t forget.” She rose, only to crouch beside the golden-haired woman.

“I think I saw more than a hundred of them outside when they brought us in,” Egwene whispered to Nynaeve’s back. “I am sure you won’t mind if I use the Power as a weapon this time. And someone is apparently coming to buy us. I mean to do something to that fellow that will make him walk in the Light till the day he dies!” Nynaeve was still crouched over Elayne, but neither of them was moving. “What is the matter?”

“She is hurt badly, Egwene. I think her skull is broken, and she is barely breathing. Egwene, she is dying as surely as Dailin was.”

“Can’t you do something?” Egwene tried to remember all the flows Nynaeve had woven to Heal the Aiel woman, but she could recall no more than every third thread. “You have to!”

“They took my herbs,” Nynaeve muttered fiercely, her voice trembling. “I can’t! Not without the herbs!” Egwene was shocked to realize Nynaeve was on the point of tears. “Burn them all, I can’t do it without—!” Suddenly she seized Elayne’s shoulders as if she meant to lift the unconscious woman and shake her. “Burn you, girl,” she rasped, “I did not bring you all this way to die! I should have left you scrubbing pots! I should have tied you up in a sack for Mat to carry to your mother! I will not let you die on me! Do you hear me? I won’t allow it!” Saidar suddenly shone around her, and Elayne’s eyes and mouth opened wide together.

Egwene got her hands over Elayne’s mouth just in time to muffle any sound, she thought, but as she touched her, the eddies of Nynaeve’s Healing caught her like a straw on the edge of a whirlpool. Cold froze her to the bone, meeting heat that seared outward as if it meant to crisp her flesh; the world vanished in a sensation of rushing, falling, flying, spinning.

When it finally ended, she was breathing hard and staring down at Elayne, who stared back over the hands she still had pressed over her woman’s mouth. The last of Egwene’s headache was gone. Even the backwash of what Nynaeve had done had apparently been enough for that. The murmur of voices from the other room was no louder; if Elayne had made any noise—or if she had—Adden and the others had not noticed.

Nynaeve was on her hands and knees, head down and shaking. “Light!” she muttered. “Doing it that way . . . was like peeling off . . . my own skin. Oh, Light!” She peered at Elayne. “How do you feel, girl?” Egwene pulled her hands away.

“Tired,” Elayne murmured. “And hungry. Where are we? There were some men with slings . . . ”

Hastily Egwene told her what had happened. Elayne’s face began to darken a long way before she was done.

“And now,” Nynaeve added in a voice like iron, “we are going to show these louts what it means to meddle with us.” Saidar shone around her once more.

Elayne was unsteady getting to her feet, but the glow surrounded her, as well. Egwene reached out to the True Source almost gleefully.

When they looked through the cracks again, to see exactly what they had to deal with, there were three Myrddraal in the room.

Dead-black garb hanging unnaturally still, they stood by the table, and every man but Adden had moved as far from them as he could, till they all had their backs against the walls and their eyes on the dirt floor. Across the table from the Myrddraal, Adden faced those eyeless stares, but sweat made runnels in the dirt on his face.

The Fade picked up a ring from the table. Egwene saw now that it was a much heavier circle of gold than the Great Serpent rings.

Face pressed against the crack between two logs, Nynaeve gasped softly and fumbled at the neck of her dress.

“Three Aes Sedai,” the Halfman hissed, its amusement sounding like dead things powdering to dust, “and one carried this.” The ring made a heavy thud as the Myrddraal tossed it back on the table.

“They are the ones I seek,” another of them rasped. “You will be well rewarded, human.”

“We must take them by surprise,” Nynaeve said softly. “What kind of lock holds this door?”

Egwene could just see the lock on the outside of the door, an iron thing on a chain heavy enough to hold an enraged bull. “Be ready,” she said.

She thinned one flow of Earth to finer than a hair, hoping the Halfmen could not sense so small a channeling, and wove it into the iron chain, into the tiniest bits of it.

One of the Myrddraal lifted its head. Another leaned across the table toward Adden. “I itch, human. Are you sure they sleep?” Adden swallowed hard and nodded his head.

The third Myrddraal turned to stare at the door to the room where Egwene and the others crouched.

The chain fell to the floor, the Myrddraal staring at it snarled, and the outer door swung open, black-veiled death flowing in from the night.

The room erupted in screams and shouts as men clawed for their swords to fight stabbing Aiel spears. The Myrddraal drew blades blacker than their garb and fought for their lives, too. Egwene had once seen six cats all fighting each other; this was that a hundredfold. And yet in seconds, silence reigned. Or almost silence.

Every human not wearing a black veil lay dead with a spear through him; one pinned Adden to the wall. Two Aiel lay still, as well, amid the jumble of overturned furniture and dead. The three Myrddraal stood back-to-back in the center of the room, black swords in their hands. One was clutching his side as if wounded, though he gave no other sign of it. Another had a long gash down its pale face; it did not bleed. Around them circled the five veiled Aiel still alive, crouching. From outside came screams and clashes of metal that said more Aiel still fought in the night, but in the room was a softer sound.

As they circled, the Aiel drummed their spears against their small hide bucklers. Thrum-thrum-THRUM-thrum . . . thrum-thrum-THRUM-thrum . . . thrum-thrum-THRUM-thrum. The Myrddraal turned with them, and their eyeless faces seemed uncertain, uneasy that the fear their gaze struck into every human heart did not seem to touch these.

“Dance with me, Shadowman,” one of the Aiel called suddenly, tauntingly. He sounded like a young man.

“Dance with me, Eyeless.” That was a woman.

“Dance with me.”

“Dance with me.”

“I think,” Nynaeve said, straightening, “that it is time.” She threw open the door, and the three women wrapped in the glow of saidar stepped out.

It seemed as though, for the Myrddraal, the Aiel had ceased to exist, and for the Aiel, the Myrddraal. The Aiel stared at Egwene and the others above their veils as if not quite sure what they were seeing; she heard one of the women gasp loudly. The Myrddraal’s eyeless stare was different. Egwene could almost feel the Halfmen’s knowledge of their own deaths in it; Halfmen knew women embracing the True Source when they saw them. She was sure she could feel a desire for her death, too, if theirs could buy hers, and an even stronger desire to strip the soul out of her flesh and make both playthings for the Shadow, a desire to . . .

She had just stepped into the room, yet it seemed she had been meeting that stare for hours. “I’ll take no more of this,” she growled, and unleashed a flow of Fire.

Flames burst out of all three Myrddraal, sprouting in every direction, and they shrieked like splintered bones jamming a meatgrinder. Yet she had forgotten she was not alone, that Elayne and Nynaeve were with her. Even as the flames consumed the Halfmen, the very air seemed suddenly to push them together in midair, crushing them into a ball of fire and blackness that grew smaller and smaller. Their screams dug at Egwene’s spine, and something shot out from Nynaeve’s hands—a thin bar of white light that made noonday sun seem dark, a bar of fire that made molten metal seem cold, connecting her hands to the Myrddraal. And they ceased to exist as if they had never been. Nynaeve gave a startled jump, and the glow around her vanished.

“What . . . what was that?” Elayne asked.

Nynaeve shook her head; she looked as stunned as Elayne sounded. “I don’t know. I . . . I was so angry, so afraid, at what they wanted to . . . I do not know what it was.”

Balefire, Egwene thought. She did not know how she knew, but she was certain of it. Reluctantly, she made herself release saidar; made it release her. She did not know which was harder. And I did not see a thing of what she did!

The Aiel unveiled themselves, then. A trifle hastily, Egwene thought, as if to tell her and the other two they were no longer ready to fight. Three of the Aiel were male, one an older man with more than touches of gray in his dark red hair. They were tall, these Aielmen, and young or old, they had that calm sureness in their eyes, that dangerous grace of motion Egwene associated with Warders; death rode on their shoulders, and they knew it was there and were not afraid. One of the women was Aviendha. The screams and shouts outside were dying away.

Nynaeve started toward the fallen Aiel.

“There is no need, Aes Sedai,” the older man said. “They took Shadowman steel.”

Nynaeve still bent to check each, pulling their veils away so she could peel back eyelids and feel throats for a pulse. When she straightened from the second, her face was white. It was Dailin. “Burn you! Burn you!” It was not clear whether she meant Dailin, or the man with gray in his hair, or Aviendha, or all Aiel. “I did not Heal her so she could die like this!”

“Death comes to us all,” Aviendha began, but when Nynaeve rounded on her, she fell silent. The Aiel exchanged glances, as if not certain whether Nynaeve might do to them what had been done to the Myrddraal. It was not fear in their eyes, only awareness.

“Shadowman steel kills,” Aviendha said, “it does not wound.” The older man looked at her, a slight surprise in his eyes—Egwene decided that, like Lan, for this man that flicker of the eyelids was the equivalent of another man’s open astonishment—and Aviendha said, “They know little of some things, Rhuarc.”

“I am sorry,” Elayne said in a clear voice, “that we interrupted your . . . dance. Perhaps we should not have interfered.”

Egwene gave her a startled look, then saw what she was doing. Put them at ease, and give Nynaeve a chance to cool down. “You were handling things quite well,” she said. “Perhaps we offended by putting our noses in.”

The graying man—Rhuarc—gave a deep chuckle. “Aes Sedai, I for one am glad of . . . whatever it was you did.” For a moment he looked not entirely sure of that, but in the next he had his good temper back. He had a good smile, and a strong, square face; he was handsome, if a little old. “We could have killed them, but three Shadowmen . . . They would have killed two or three of us, certainly, perhaps all, and I cannot say we would have finished them all. For the young, death is an enemy they wish to try their strength against. For those of us a little older, she is an old friend, an old lover, but one we are not eager to meet again soon.”

Nynaeve seemed to relax with his speech, as if meeting an Aiel who did not seem anxious to die had leached the tension out of her. “I should thank you,” she said, “and I do. I will admit I am surprised to see you, though. Aviendha, did you expect to find us here? How?”

“I followed you.” The Aiel woman seemed unembarrassed. “To see what you would do. I saw the men take you, but I was too far back to help. I was sure you must see me if I came too close, so I stayed a hundred paces behind. By the time I saw you could not help yourselves, it was too late to try alone.”

“I am sure you did what you could,” Egwene said faintly. She was just a hundred paces behind us? Light, the brigands never saw anything.

Aviendha took her words as urging to tell more. “I knew where Corarn must be, and he knew where Dhael and Luaine were, and they knew . . . ” She paused, frowning at the older man. “I did not expect to find any clan chief, much less my own, among those who came. Who leads the Taardad Aiel, Rhuarc, with you here?”

Rhuarc shrugged as if it were of no account. “The sept chiefs will take their turns, and try to decide if they truly wish to go Rhuidean when I die. I would not have come, except that Amys and Bair and Melaine and Seana stalked me like ridgecats after a wild goat. The dreams said I must go. They asked if I truly wanted to die old and fat in a bed.”

Aviendha laughed as if at a great joke. “I have heard it said that a man caught between his wife and a Wise One often wishes for a dozen old enemies to fight instead. A man caught between a wife and three Wise Ones, and the wife a Wise One herself, must consider trying to slay Sightblinder.”

“The thought came to me.” He frowned down at something on the floor; three Great Serpent rings, Egwene saw, and a much heavier golden ring made for a man’s large finger. “It still does. All things must change, but I would not be a part of that change if I could set myself aside from it. Three Aes Sedai, traveling to Tear.” The other Aiel glanced at one another as if they did not want Egwene and her companions to notice.

“You spoke of dreams,” Egwene said. “Do your Wise Ones know what their dreams mean?”

“Some do. If you would know more than that, you must speak to them. Perhaps they will tell an Aes Sedai. They do not tell men, except what the dreams say we must do.” He sounded tired, suddenly. “And that is usually what we would avoid, if we could.”

He stooped to pick up the man’s ring. On it, a crane flew above a lance and crown; Egwene knew it now. She had seen it often before, dangling about Nynaeve’s neck on a leather cord. Nynaeve stepped on the other rings to snatch it out of his hand; her face was flushed, with anger and too many other emotions for Egwene to read. Rhuarc made no move to take it back, but went on in the same weary tone.

“And one of them carries a ring I have heard of as a boy. The ring of Malkieri kings. They rode with the Shienarans against the Aiel in my father’s time. They were good in the dance of the spears. But Malkier fell to the Blight. It is said only a child king survived, and he courts the death that took his land as other men court beautiful women. Truly, this is a strange thing, Aes Sedai. Of all the strange sights I thought I might see when Melaine harried me out of my own hold and over the Dragonwall, none has been so strange as this. The path you set me is one I never thought my feet would follow.”

“I set no paths for you,” Nynaeve said sharply. “All I want is to continue my journey. These men had horses. We will take three of them and be on our way.”

“In the night, Aes Sedai?” Rhuarc said. “Is your journey so urgent that you would travel these dangerous lands in the dark?”

Nynaeve struggled visibly before saying, “No.” In a firmer tone she added, “But I mean to leave with the sunrise.”

The Aiel carried the dead outside the palisade, but neither Egwene nor her companions wanted to use the filthy bed Adden had slept in. They picked up their rings and slept under the sky in their cloaks and the blankets the Aiel gave them.

When dawn pearled the sky to the east, the Aiel produced a breakfast of tough, dried meat—Egwene hesitated over that until Aviendha told her it was goat—flatbread that was almost as difficult to chew as the stringy meat, and a blue-veined white cheese that had a tart taste and was hard enough to make Elayne murmur that the Aiel must practice by chewing rocks. But the Daughter-Heir ate as much as Egwene and Nynaeve together. The Aiel turned the horses loose—they did not ride unless they had to, Aviendha explained, sounding as if she herself would as soon run on blistered feet—after choosing out the three best for Egwene and the others. They were all tall and nearly as big as warhorses, with proud necks and fierce eyes. A black stallion for Nynaeve, a roan mare for Elayne, and a gray mare for Egwene.

She chose to call the gray Mist, in the hope that a gentle name might soothe her, and indeed, Mist did seem to step lightly as they rode south, just as the sun lifted a red rim above the horizon.

The Aiel accompanied them afoot, all those who had survived the fight. Three more had died aside from the two the Myrddraal killed. They were nineteen, altogether, now. They loped along easily alongside the horses. At first, Egwene tried holding Mist to a slow walk, but the Aiel thought this very funny.

“I will race you ten miles,” Aviendha said, “and we shall see who wins, your horse or I.”

“I will race you twenty!” Rhuarc called, laughing.

Egwene thought they might actually be serious, and when she and the others let their horses walk at a quicker pace, the Aiel certainly showed no sign of falling back.

When the thatched rooftops of Jurene came in sight, Rhuarc said, “Fare you well, Aes Sedai. May you always find water and shade. Perhaps we will meet again before the change comes.” He sounded grim. As the Aiel curved away to the south, Aviendha and Chiad and Bain each raised a hand in farewell. They did not seem to be slowing down now that they no longer ran with the horses; if anything, they ran a little faster. Egwene had a suspicion they meant to maintain that pace until they reached wherever it was they were going.

“What did he mean by that?” she asked. “ ‘Perhaps we will meet again before the change’?” Elayne shook her head.

“It does not matter what he meant,” Nynaeve said. “I am just as glad they came last night, but I am glad to have them gone, too. I hope there is a ship here.”

Jurene itself was a small place, all wooden houses and none more than a single story, but the White Lion banner of Andor flew over it on a tall staff, and fifty of the Queen’s Guards held it, in red coats with long white collars beneath shining breastplates. They had been placed there, their captain said, to make a safe haven for refugees who wished to flee to Andor, but fewer such came every day. Most went to villages further downriver, now, nearer Aringill. It was a good thing the three women had come when they did, as he expected to receive orders returning his company to Andor any day. The few inhabitants of Jurene would likely go with them, leaving what remained for brigands and the Cairhienin soldiers of warring Houses.

Elayne kept her face hidden in the hood of her sturdy wool cloak, but none of the soldiers seemed to associate the girl with red-gold hair with their Daughter-Heir. Some asked her to stay; Egwene was not sure whether Elayne was pleased or shocked. She herself told the men who asked her that she had no time for them. It was nice, in an odd way, to be asked; she certainly had no wish to kiss any of these fellows, but it was pleasant to be reminded that some men, at least, thought she was as pretty as Elayne. Nynaeve slapped one man’s face. That almost made Egwene laugh, and Elayne smiled openly; Egwene thought Nynaeve had been pinched, and despite the glare on her face, she did not look entirely displeased, either.

They were not wearing their rings. It had not taken much effort on Nynaeve’s part to convince them that one place they did not want to be taken for Aes Sedai was Tear, especially if the Black Ajah was there. Egwene had hers in her pouch with the stone ter’angreal; she touched it often to remind herself they were still there. Nynaeve wore hers on the cord that held Lan’s heavy ring between her breasts.

There was a ship in Jurene, tied to the single stone dock sticking into the Erinin. Not the ship Aviendha had seen, it seemed, but still a ship. Egwene was dismayed when she saw it. Twice as wide as the Blue Crane, the Darter belied its name with a bluff bow as round as its captain.

That worthy fellow blinked at Nynaeve and scratched his ear when she asked if his vessel was fast. “Fast? I am full of fancy wood from Shienar and rugs from Kandor. What need to be fast with a cargo like that? Prices only go up. Yes, I suppose there are faster ships behind me, but they’ll not put in here. I would not have stopped myself if I hadn’t found worms in the meat. Fool notion that they’d have meat to sell in Cairhien. The Blue Crane? Aye, I saw Ellisor hung up on something upriver this morning. He’ll not get off soon, I’m thinking. That’s what a fast ship brings you.”

Nynave paid their fares—and twice as much again for the horses—with such a look on her face that neither Egwene nor Elayne spoke to her until long after the Darter had wallowed away from Jurene.