Chapter 5

Winternight


The sun stood halfway down from its noonday high by the time the cart reached the farmhouse. It was
not a big house, not nearly so large as some of the sprawling farmhouses to the east, dwellings that had
grown over the years to hold entire families. In the Two Rivers, that often included three or four
generations under one roof, including aunts, uncles, cousins, and nephews. Tam and Rand were considered out
of the ordinary as much for being two men living alone as for farming in the Westwood.
Here most of the rooms were on one floor, a neat rectangle with no wings or additions. Two bedrooms
and an attic storeroom fitted up under the steeply sloped thatch. If the whitewash was all but gone from the stout
wooden walls after the winter storms, the house was still in a tidy state of repair, the thatch tightly mended and
the doors and shutters well-hung and snug fitting.
House, barn, and stone sheep pen formed the points of a triangle around the farmyard, where a few
chickens had ventured out to scratch at the cold ground. An open shearing shed and a stone-dipping trough
stood next to the sheep pen. Hard by the fields between the farmyard and the trees loomed the tall cone of a
tight-walled curing shed. Few farmers in the Two Rivers could make do without both wool and tabac to sell
when the merchants came. When Rand took a look in the stone pen, the heavy-homed herd ram looked back at
him, but most of the black-faced flock remained placidly where they lay, or stood with their heads in the feed
trough. Their coats were thick and curly, but it was still too cold for shearing.
"I don't think the black-cloaked man came here," Rand called to his father, who was walking slowly
around the farm- house, spear held at the ready, examining the ground intently.
"The sheep wouldn't be so settled if that one had been around." Tam nodded but did not stop. When he
had made a complete circuit of the house, he did the same around the barn and the sheep pen, still studying the
ground. He even checked the smokehouse and the curing shed. Drawing a bucket of water from the well, he
filled a cupped hand, sniffed the water, and gingerly touched it with the tip of his tongue. Abruptly he barked a
laugh, then drank it down in a quick gulp.
"I suppose he didn't," he told Rand, wiping his hand on his coat front. "All this about men and horses I
can't see or hear just makes me look crossways at everything."
He emptied the well water into another bucket and started for the house, the bucket in one hand and his
spear in the other.
"I'll start some stew for supper. And as long as were here, we might as well get caught up on a few
chores."
Rand grimaced, regretting Winternight in Emond's Field. But Tam was right. Around a farm the work
never really got done; as soon as one thing was finished two more always needed doing. He hesitated about it,
but kept his bow and quiver close at hand. If the dark rider did appear, he had no intention of facing him with
nothing but a hoe.
First was stabling Bela. Once he had unharnessed her and put her into a stall in the barn next to their
cow, he set his cloak aside and rubbed the mare down with handfuls of dry straw, then curried her with a. pair
of brushes. Climbing the narrow ladder to the loft, he pitched down hay for her feed. He fetched a scoopful of
oats for her as well, though there was little enough left and might be no more for a long while unless the
weather warmed soon. The cow had been milked that morning before first light, giving a quarter of her usual
yield; she seemed to be drying up as the winter hung on.
Enough feed had been left to see the sheep for two days-they should have been in the pasture by now,
but there was none worth calling it so-but he topped off their water. What- ever eggs had been laid needed to be
gathered, too. There were only three. The hens seemed to be getting cleverer at hiding them.
He was taking a hoe to the vegetable garden behind the house when Tam came out and settled on a
bench in front of the barn to mend harness, propping his spear beside him. It made Rand feel better about the
bow lying on his cloak a pace from where he stood.
Few weeds had pushed above ground, but more weeds than anything else. The cabbages were stunted;
barely a sprout of the beans or peas showed, and there was not a sign of a beet. Not everything had been
planted, of course; only part, in hopes the cold might break in time to make a crop of some kind before the
cellar was empty. It did not take long to finish hoeing, which would have suited him just fine in years past, but
now he wondered what they would do if nothing came up this year. Not a pleasant thought. And there was still
firewood to split.
It seemed to Rand like years since there had not been firewood to split. But complaining would not keep
the house warm, so he fetched the axe, propped up bow and quiver be- side the chopping block, and got to
work. Pine for a quick, hot flame, and oak for long burning. Before long he was warm enough to put his coat
aside. When the pile of split wood grew big enough, he stacked it against the side of the house, beside other
stacks already there. Most reached all the way to the eaves. Usually by this time of year the woodpiles were
small and few, but not this year. Chop and stack, chop and stack, he lost himself in the rhythm of the axe and
the motions of stacking wood. Tam's hand on his shoulder brought him back to where he was, and for a moment
he blinked in surprise.
Gray twilight had come on while he worked, and already it was fading quickly toward night. The full
moon stood well above the treetops, shimmering pale and bulging as if about to fall on their heads. The wind
had grown colder without his noticing, too, and tattered clouds scudded across the darkling sky.
"Let's wash up, lad, and see about some supper. I've already carried in water for hot baths before sleep."
"Anything hot sounds good to me," Rand said, snatching up his cloak and tossing it round his shoulders.
Sweat soaked his shirt, and the wind, forgotten in the heat of swinging the axe, seemed to be trying to freeze it
now that he had stopped work. He stifled a yawn, shivering as he gathered the rest I of his things. "And sleep,
too, for that. I might just sleep right through Festival."
"Would you care to make a small wager about that?" Tam smiled, and Rand had to grin back. He would
not miss Bel Tine if he had had no sleep in a week. No one would.
Tam had been extravagant with the candles, and a fire crackled in the big stone fireplace, so that the
main room had a warm, cheerful feel to it. A broad oaken table was the main feature of the room other than the
fireplace, a table long enough to seat a dozen or more, though there had seldom been so many around it since
Rand's mother died. A few cabinets and chests, most of them skillfully made by Tam himself, lined the walls,
and high-backed chairs stood around the table. The cushioned chair that Tam called his reading chair sat angled
before the flames. Rand preferred to do his reading stretched out on the rug in front of the fire. The shelf of
books by the door was not nearly as long as the one at the Winespring Inn, but books were hard to come by.
Few peddlers carried more than a handful, and those had to be stretched out among every- one who wanted
them.
If the room did not look quite so freshly scrubbed as most farm wives kept their homes - Tam's piperack
and The Travels of Jain Farstrider sat on the table, while another wood-bound book rested on the cushion
of his reading chair; a bit of harness to be mended lay on the bench by the fireplace, and some shirts to be
darned made a heap on a chair-if not quite so spotless, it was still clean and neat enough, with a lived-in look
that was almost as warming and comforting as the fire. Here, it was possible to forget the chill beyond the walls.
There was no false Dragon here. No wars or Aes Sedai. No men in black cloaks. The aroma from the stewpot
hanging over the fire permeated the room, and filled Rand with ravenous hunger.
His father stiffed the stewpot with a long-handled wooden spoon, then took a taste. "A little while
longer."
Rand hurried to wash his face and hands; there was a pitcher and basin on the washstand by the door. A
hot bath was what he wanted, to take away the sweat and soak the chill out, but that would come when there had
been time to heat the big kettle in the back room.
Tam rooted around in a cabinet and came up with a key as long as his hand. He twisted it in the big iron
lock on the door. At Rand's questioning look he said, "Best to be safe. Maybe I'm taking a fancy, or maybe the
weather is blacking my mood, but . . . ." He sighed and bounced the key on his palm. "I'll see to the back door,"
he said, and disappeared toward the back of the house.
Rand could not remember either door ever being locked. No one in the Two Rivers locked doors. There
was no need. Until now, at least.
From overhead, from Tam's bedroom, came a scraping, as of something being dragged across the floor.
Rand frowned. Unless Tam had suddenly decided to move the furniture around, he could only be pulling out the
old chest he kept under his bed. Another thing that had never been done in Rand's memory.
He filled a small kettle with water for tea and hung it from a hook over the fire, then set the table. He
had carved the bowls and spoons himself. The front shutters had not yet been closed, and from time to time he
peered out, but full night had come and all he could see were moon shadows. 'Me dark rider could be out there
easily enough, but he tried not to think about that.
When Tam came back, Rand stared in surprise. A thick belt slanted around Tam's waist, and from the
belt hung a sword, with a bronze heron on the black scabbard and another on the long hilt. The only men Rand
had ever seen wearing swords were the merchants' guards. And Lan, of course. That his father might own one
had never even occurred to him. Except for the herons, the sword looked a good deal like Lan's sword.
"Where did that come from?" he asked. "Did you get it from a peddler? How much did it cost?"
Slowly Tam drew the weapon; firelight played along the gleaming length. It was nothing at all like the
plain, rough blades Rand had seen in the hands of merchants' guards. No gems or gold adorned it, but it seemed
grand to him, nonetheless. The blade, very slightly curved and sharp on only one edge, bore another heron
etched into the steel. Short quillons, worked to look like braid, flanked the hilt. It seemed almost fragile
compared with the swords of the merchants' guards; most of those were double-edged, and thick enough to chop
down a tree. "I got it a long time ago," Tam said, "a long way from here. And I paid entirely too much; two
coppers is too much for one of these. Your mother didn't approve, but she was always wiser than I. I was young
then, and it seemed worth the price at the time. She always wanted me to get rid of it, and more than once I've
thought she was right, that I should just give it away.”
Reflected fire made the blade seem aflame. Rand started. He had often daydreamed about owning a
sword. "Give it away? How could you give a sword like that away?"
Tam snorted. "Not much use in herding sheep, now is it? Can't plow a field or harvest a crop with it."
For a long minute he stared at the sword as if wondering what he was doing with such a thing.. At last he let out
a heavy sigh. "But if I am not just taken by a black fancy, if our luck runs sour, maybe in the next few days we'll
be glad I tucked it in that old chest, in- stead." He slid the sword smoothly back into its sheath and wiped his
hand on his shirt with a grimace. "The stew should be ready. I'll dish it out while you fix the tea."
Rand nodded and got the tea canister, but he wanted to know everything. Why would Tam have bought
a sword? He could not imagine. And where had Tam come by it? How far' away? No one ever left the Two
Rivers; or very few, at least. He had always vaguely supposed his father must have gone outside - his mother
had been an outlander-but a sword ... ? He had a lot of questions to ask once they had settled at the table.
The tea water was boiling fiercely, and he had to wrap a cloth around the kettle's handle to lift it off the
hook. Heat soaked through immediately. As he straightened from the fire, a heavy thump at the door rattled the
lock. All thoughts of the sword, or the hot kettle in his hand, flew away. "One of the neighbors," he said
uncertainly. "Master Dautry wanting to borrow . . . ." But the Dautry farm, their nearest neighbor, was an hour
away even in the daylight, and Oren Dautry, shameless borrower that he was, was still not likely to leave his
house by dark.
Tam softly placed the stew-filled bowls on the table. Slowly he moved away from the table. Both of his
hands rested on his sword hilt. "I don't think - " he began, and the door burst open, pieces of the iron lock
spinning across the floor.
A figure filled the doorway, bigger than any man Rand had ever seen, a figure in black mail that hung to
his knees, with spikes at wrists and elbows and shoulders. One hand clutched a heavy, scythe-like sword; the
other hand was flung up before his eyes as if to shield them from the fight.
Rand felt the beginnings of an odd sort of relief. Whoever this was, it was not the blackcloaked rider.
Then he saw the curled ram's horns on the head that brushed the top of the doorway, and where mouth and nose
should have been was a hairy muzzle. He took in all of it in the space of one deep breath that he let out in a
terrified yell as, without thinking, he hurled the hot kettle at that half-human head.
The creature roared, part scream of pain, part animal snarl, as boiling water splashed over its face. Even
as the kettle struck, Tam's sword flashed. The roar abruptly became a gurgle, and the huge shape toppled back.
Before it finished falling, another was trying to claw its way past. Rand glimpsed a misshapen head topped by
spike-like horns before Tam struck again, and two huge bodies blocked the door. He realized his father was
shouting at him.
"Run, lad! Hide in the woods!" The bodies in the doorway jerked as others outside tried to pull them
clear. Tam thrust a shoulder under the massive table; with a grunt he heaved it over atop the tangle. "There are
too many to hold! Out the back! Go! Go! I'll follow!"
Even as Rand turned away, shame filled him that he obeyed so quickly. He wanted to stay and help his
father, though he could not imagine how, but fear had him by the throat, and his legs moved on their own. He
dashed from the room, toward the back of the house, as -fast as he had ever run in his life. Crashes and shouts
from the front door pursued him. He had his hands on the bar across the back door when his eye fell on the iron
lock that was never locked. Except that Tam had done just that tonight. Letting the bar stay where it was, he
darted to a side window, flung up the sash and threw back the shutters. Night had replaced twilight completely.
The full moon and drifting clouds made dappled shadows chase one another across the farmyard.
Shadows, he told himself. Only shadows. The back door creaked as someone outside, or something, tried
to push it open. His mouth went dry. A crash shook the door in its frame and lent him speed; he slipped through
the window like a hare going to ground, and cowered against the side of the house. Inside the room, wood
splintered like thunder.
He forced himself up to a crouch, made himself peer inside, just with one eye, just at the comer of the
window. In the dark he could not make out much, but more than he really wanted to see. The door hung askew,
and shadowed shapes moved cautiously into the room, talking in low, guttural voices. Rand understood none of
what was said; the language sounded harsh, unsuited to a human tongue. Axes and spears and spiked things
dully reflected stray glimmers of moonlight. Boots scraped on the floor, and there was a rhythmic click, as of
hooves, as well.
He tried to work moisture back into his mouth. Drawing a deep, ragged breath, he shouted as loudly as
he could. "They're coming in the back!" The words came out in a croak, but at least they came out. He had not
been sure they would. "I'm outside! Run, father!" With the last word he was sprinting away from the farmhouse.
Coarse-voiced shouts in the strange tongue raged from the back room. Glass shattered, loud and sharp,
and something thudded heavily to the ground behind him. He guessed one of them had broken through the
window rather than try to squeeze through the opening, but he did not look back to see if he was right. Like a
fox running from hounds he darted into the nearest mooncast shadows as if headed for the woods, then dropped
to his belly and slithered back to the barn and its larger, deeper shadows. Something fell across his shoulders,
and he thrashed about, not sure if he was trying to fight or escape, until he realized he was grappling with the
new hoe handle Tam had been shaping.
Idiot! For a moment he lay there, trying to stop panting. Coplin fool idiot! At last he crawled on along
the back of the bam, dragging the hoe handle with him. It was not much, but it was better than nothing.
Cautiously he looked around the corner at the farmyard and the house.
Of the creature that had jumped out after him there was no sign. It could be anywhere. Hunting him,
surely. Even creeping up on him at that very moment.
Frightened bleats filled the sheep pen to his left; the flock milled as if trying to find an escape.
Shadowed shapes flickered in the lighted front windows of the house, and the clash of steel on steel rang
through the darkness. Suddenly one of the windows burst outward in a showerof glass and wood as Tam leaped
through it, sword still in hand. He landed on his feet, but instead of running away from the, house he dashed
toward the back of it, ignoring the monstrous things scrambling after him through the broken window and the
doorway.
Rand stared in disbelief. Why was he not trying to get away? Then he understood. Tam had last heard
his voice from the rear of the house. "Father!" he shouted. "I'm over here!"
In mid-stride Tam whirled, not running toward Rand, but at an angle away from him. "Run, lad!" he
shouted, gesturing with the sword as if to someone ahead of him. "Hide!" A dozen huge forms streamed after
him, harsh shouts and shrill howls shivering the air.
Rand pulled back into the shadows behind the barn. There he could not be seen from the house, in case
any of the creatures were still inside. He was safe for the moment, at least. But not Tam. Tam, who was trying
to lead those things away from him. His hands tightened on the hoe handle, and he had to clench his teeth to
stop a sudden laugh. A hoe handle. Facing one of those creatures with a hoe handle would not be much like
playing at quarterstaffs with Perrin. But he could not let Tam face what was chasing him alone.
"If I move like I was stalking a rabbit," he whispered to himself, "they'll never hear me, or see me." The
eerie cries echoed in the darkness, and he tried to swallow. "More like a pack of starving wolves."
Soundlessly he slipped away from the barn, toward the forest, gripping the hoe handle so hard that his
hands hurt. At first, when the trees surrounded him, he took comfort from them. They helped hide him from
whatever the creatures were that had attacked the farm. As he crept through the woods, though, moon shadows
shifted, and it began to seem as if the darkness of the forest changed and moved, too. Trees loomed
malevolently; branches writhed toward him. But were they just trees and branches? He could almost hear the
growling chuckles stifled in their throats while they waited for him. The howls of Tam's pursuers no longer
filled the night; but in the silence that replaced them he flinched every time the wind scraped one limb against
another. Lower and lower he crouched, and moved more and more slowly. He hardly dared to breathe for
fear he might be heard.
Suddenly a hand closed over his mouth from behind, and an iron grip seized his wrist. Frantically he
clawed over his shoulder with his free hand for some hold on the attacker.
"Don't break my neck, lad," came Tam's hoarse whisper.
Relief flooded him, turning his muscles to water. When his father released him he fell to his hands and
knees, gasping as if he had run for miles. Tam dropped down beside him, leaning on one elbow.
"I wouldn't have tried that if I had thought how much you've grown in the last few years," Tam said
softly. His eyes shifted constantly as he spoke, keeping a sharp watch on the darkness.
"But I had to make sure you didn't speak out. Some Trollocs can hear like a dog. Maybe better." "But
Trollocs are just . . ." Rand let the words trail off. Not just a story, not after tonight. Those things could be
Trollocs or the Dark One himself for all he knew. "Are you sure?" he whispered. "I mean . . . Trollocs?"
"I'm sure. Though what brought them to the Two Rivers . . . I never saw one before tonight, but I've
talked with men who have, so I know a little. Maybe enough to keep us alive. Listen closely. A Trolloc can see
better than a man in the dark, but bright lights blind them, for a time at least. That may be the only reason we
got away from so many. Some can track by scent or sound, but they're said to be lazy. If we can keep out of
their hands long enough, they should give up."
That made Rand feel only a little better. "In the stories they hate men, and serve the Dark One."
"If anything belongs in the Shepherd of the Night's flocks, lad, it is Trollocs. They kill for the pleasure
of killing, so I've been told. But that's the end of my knowledge, except that they cannot be trusted unless
they're afraid of you, and then not far."
Rand shivered. He did not think he would want to meet anyone a Trolloc was afraid of. "Do you think
they're still hunting for us?"
"Maybe, maybe not. They don't seem very smart. Once we got into the forest, I sent the ones after me
off toward the mountains without much trouble." Tam fumbled at his right side, then put his hand close to his
face. "Best act as if they are, though."
"You're hurt."
"Keep your voice down. It's just a scratch, and there is nothing to be done about it now, anyway. At least
the weather seems to be warming." He lay back with a heavy sigh. "Perhaps it won't be too bad spending the
night out."
In the back of his mind Rand had just been thinking fond thoughts of his coat and cloak. The trees cut
the worst of the wind, but what gusted through still sliced like a frozen knife. Hesitantly he touched Tam's face,
and winced. "You're on fire. I have to get you to Nynaeve."
"In a bit, lad."
"We don't have any time to waste. It's a long way in the dark." He scrambled to his feet and tried to pull
his father up. A groan barely stifled by Tam's clenched teeth made Rand hastily ease him back down.
"Let me rest a while, boy. I'm tired."
Rand pounded his fist on his thigh. Snug in the farmhouse, with a fire and blankets, plenty of water and
willowbark, he might have been willing to wait for daybreak before hitching Bela and taking Tam into the
village. Here was no fire, no blankets, no cart, and no Bela. But those things were still back at the house. If he
could not carry Tam to them, perhaps he could bring some of them, at least, to Tam. If the Trollocs were gone.
They had to go sooner or later.
He looked at the hoe handle, then dropped it. Instead he drew Tam's sword. The blade gleamed dully in
the pale moonlight. The long hilt felt odd in his hand; the weight and heft were strange. He slashed at the air a
few times before stopping with a sigh. Slashing at air was easy. If he had to do it against a Trolloc he was surely
just as likely to run instead, or freeze stiff so he could not move at all until the Trolloc swung one of those odd
swords and .... Stop it! It's not helping anything!
As he started to rise, Tam caught his arm. "Where are you going?"
"We need the cart," he said gently. "And blankets." He was shocked at how easily he pulled his father's
hand from his sleeve. "Rest, and I'll be back."
"Careful," Tam breathed.
He could not see Tam's face in the moonlight, but he could feel his eyes on him. "I will be." As careful
as a mouse exploring a hawk's nest, he thought.
As silently as another shadow, he slid into the darkness. He thought of all the times he had played tag in
the woods with his friends as children, stalking one another, straining not to be heard until he put a hand on
someone's shoulder. Somehow he could not, make this seem the same.
Creeping from tree to tree, he tried to make a plan, but by the time he reached the edge of the woods he
had made and discarded ten. Everything depended on whether or not the Trollops were still there. If they were
gone, he could simply walk up to the house and take what he needed. If they were still there . . . In that case,
there was nothing for it but to go back to Tam. He did not like it, but he could do Tam no good by getting killed.
He peered toward the farm buildings. The barn and the sheep pen were only dark shapes inthe
moonlight. Light spilled from the front windows of the house, though, and through the open front door. Just the
candles father lit, or are there Trollocs waiting?
He jumped convulsively at a nighthawk's reedy cry, then sagged against a tree, shaking. This was getting
him nowhere. Dropping to his belly, he began to crawl, holding the sword awkwardly before him. He kept his
chin in the dirt all the way to the back of the sheep pen.
Crouched against the stone wall, he listened. Not a sound disturbed the night. Carefully he eased up
enough to look over the wall. Nothing moved in the farmyard. No shadows flickered against the lit windows of
the house, or in the doorway. Bela and the cart first, or the blankets and other things. It was the light that
decided him. The barn was dark. Anything could be waiting inside, and he would have no way of knowing until
it was too late. At least he would be able to see what was inside the house.
As he started to lower himself again, he stopped suddenly. There was no sound. Most of the sheep might
have settled down already and gone back to sleep, though it was not likely, but a few were always awake even
in the middle of the night, rustling about, bleating now and again. He could barely make out the shadowy
mounds of sheep on the ground. One lay almost beneath him.
Trying to make no noise, he hoisted himself onto the wall until he could stretch out a hand to the dim
shape. His fingers touched curly wool, then wetness; the sheep did not move. Breath left him in a rush as he
pushed back, almost dropping the sword as he fell to the ground outside the pen. They kill for fun. Shakily he
scrubbed the wetness from his hand in the dirt.
Fiercely he told himself that nothing had changed. The Trollocs had done their butchery and gone.
Repeating that in his mind, he crawled on across the farmyard, keeping as low as he could, but trying to watch
every direction, too. He had never thought he would envy an earthworm.
At the front of the house he lay close beside the wall, beneath the broken window, and listened. The dull
thudding of blood in his ears was the loudest sound he heard. Slowly he reared up and peered inside.
The stewpot lay upside down in the ashes on the hearth. Splintered, broken wood littered the room; not a
single piece of furniture remained whole. Even the table rested at an angle, two legs hacked to rough stubs.
Every drawer had been pulled out and smashed; every cupboard and cabinet stood open, many doors hanging by
one hinge. Their contents were strewn over the wreckage, and everything was dusted with white. Flour and salt,
to judge from the slashed sacks tossed down by the fireplace. Four twisted bodies made a tangle in the remnants
of the furnishings. Trollocs.
Rand recognized one by its ram's horns. The others were much the same, even in their differences, a
repulsive mélange of human faces distorted by muzzles, horns, feathers, and fur. Their hands, almost human,
only made it worse. Two wore boots; the others had hooves. He watched without blinking until his eyes burned.
None of the Trollocs moved. They had to be dead. And Tam was waiting.
He ran in through the front door and stopped, gagging at the stench. A stable that had not been mucked
out in months was the only thing he could think of that might come close to matching it. Vile smears defiled the
walls. Trying to breathe through his mouth, he hurriedly began poking through the mess on the floor. There had
been a waterbag in one of the cupboards.
A scraping sound behind him sent a chill to his marrow, and he spun, almost falling over the remains of
the table. He caught himself, and moaned behind teeth that would have chattered had he not had them clenched
until his jaw ached.
One of the Trollocs was getting to its feet. A wolf's muzzle jutted out below sunken eyes. Flat,
emotionless eyes, and all too human. Hairy, pointed ears twitched incessantly. It stepped over one of its dead
companions on sharp goat hooves. The same black mail the others wore rasped against leather trousers, and one
of the huge, scythe-curved swords swung at its side.
It muttered something, guttural and sharp, then said, "Others go away. Narg stay. Narg smart." The
words were distorted and hard to understand, coming from a mouth never meant for human speech. Its tone was
meant to be soothing, he thought, but he could not take his eyes off the stained teeth, long and sharp, that
flashed every time the creature spoke. "Narg know some come back sometime. Narg wait. You no need sword.
Put sword down."
Until the Trolloc spoke Rand had not realized that he held Tam's sword wavering before him in both
hands, its point aimed at the huge creature. It towered head and shoulders above him, with a chest and arms to
dwarf Master Luhhan.
"Narg no hurt." It took a step closer, gesturing. "You put sword down." The dark hair on the backs of its
hands was thick, like fur.
"Stay back," Rand said, wishing his voice were steadier. "Why did you do this? Why?"
"Vlja daeg roghda!" The snarl quickly became a toothy smile. "Put sword down. Narg no hurt.
Myrddraal want talk you." A flash of emotion crossed the distorted face. Fear.
"Others come back, you talk Myrddraal." It took another step, one big hand coming to rest on its own
sword hilt. "You put sword down."
Rand wet his lips. Myrddraal! The worst of the stories was walking tonight. If a Fade was coming, it
made a Trolloc pale by comparison. He had to get away. But if the Trolloc drew that massive blade he would
not have a chance. He forced his lips into a shaky smile. "All right." Grip tightening on the sword, he let both
hands drop to his sides. "I'll talk."
The wolf-smile became a snarl, and the Trolloc lunged for him. Rand had not thought anything that big
could move so fast. Desperately he brought his sword up. The monstrous body crashed into him, slamming him
against the wall. Breath left his lungs in one gasp. He fought for air as they fell to the floor together, the Trolloc
on top. Frantically he struggled beneath the crushing weight, trying to avoid thick hands groping for him, and
snapping jaws.
Abruptly the Trolloc spasmed and was still. Battered and bruised, half suffocated by the bulk on top of
him, for a moment Rand could only lie there in disbelief. Quickly he came to his senses, though, enough to
writhe out from under the body, at least. And body it was. The bloodied blade of Tam's sword stood out from
the center of the Trolloc's back. He had gotten it up in time after all. Blood covered Rand's hands, as well, and
made a blackish smear across the front of his shirt. His stomach churned, and he swallowed hard to keep from
being sick. He shook as hard as he had in the worst of his fear, but this time in relief at still being alive.
Others come back, the Trolloc had said. The other Trollocs would be returning to the farmhouse. And a
Myrddraal, a Fade. The stories said Fades were twenty feet tall, with eyes of fire, and they rode shadows like
horses. When a Fade turned sideways, it disappeared, and no wall could stop them. He had to do what he had
come for, and get away quickly.
Grunting with the effort he heaved the Trolloc's body over to get to the sword-and almost ran when open
eyes stared at him. It took him a minute to realize they were staring through the glaze of death.
He wiped his hands on a tattered rag - it had been one of Tam's shirts only that morning – and tugged the
blade free.
Cleaning the sword, he reluctantly dropped the rag on the floor. There was no time for neatness, he
thought with a laugh that he had to clamp his teeth shut to stop. He did not see how they could ever clean the
house well enough for it to be lived in again. The horrible stench had probably already soaked right into the
timbers. But there was no time to think of that. No time for neatness. No time for anything, maybe.
He was sure he was forgetting any number of things they would need, but Tam was waiting, and the
Trollocs were coming back. He gathered what he could think of on the run. Blankets from the bedrooms
upstairs, and clean cloths to bandage Tam's wound. Their cloaks and coats. A waterbag that he carried when he
took the sheep to pasture. A clean shirt. He did not know when he would have time to change, but he wanted to
get out of his blood-smeared shirt at the first opportunity. The small bags of willowbark and their other
medicines were part of a dark, muddy-looking pile he could not bring w himself to touch.
One bucket of the water Tam had brought in still stood by the fireplace, miraculously unspilled and
untouched. He filled the waterbag from it, gave his hands a hasty wash in the rest, and made one more quick
search for anything he might have forgotten. He found his bow among the wreckage, broken cleanly in two at
the thickest point. He shuddered as he let the pieces fall. What he had gathered already would have to do, he
decided. Quickly he piled everything outside the door.
The last thing before leaving the house, he dug a shuttered lantern from the mess on the floor. It still
held oil. Lighting it from one of the candles, he closed the shutters-partly against the wind, but mostly to keep
from drawing attention-and hurried outside with the lantern in one hand and the sword in the other. He was not
sure what he would find in the barn. The sheep pen kept him from hoping too much. But he needed the cart to
get Tam to Emond's Field, and for the cart he needed Bela. Necessity made him hope a little.
The barn doors stood open, one creaking on its hinges as it shifted in the wind. The interior looked as it
always had, at first. Then his eyes fell on empty stalls, the stall doors ripped from their hinges. Bela and the cow
were gone. Quickly he went to the back of the barn. The cart lay on its side, half the spokes broken out of its
wheels. One shaft was only a foot-long stump.
The despair he had been holding at bay filled him. He was not sure he could carry Tam as far as the
village even if his father could bear to be carried. The pain of it might kill Tam more quickly than the fever.
Still, it was the only chance left. He had done all he could do here. As he turned to go, his eyes fell on the
hacked-off cart shaft lying on the straw-strewn floor. Suddenly he smiled.
Hurriedly he set the lantern and the sword on the straw-covered floor, and in the next instant he was
wrestling with the cart, tipping it back over to fall upright with a snap of more breaking spokes, then throwing
his shoulder into it to heave it over on the other side. The undamaged shaft stood straight out. Snatching up the
sword he hacked at the well-seasoned ash. To his pleased surprise great chips flew with his strokes, and he cut
through as quickly as he could have with a good axe.
When the shaft fell free, he looked at the sword blade in wonder. Even the best-sharpened axe would
have dulled chopping through that hard, aged wood, but the sword looked as brightly sharp as ever. He touched
the edge with his thumb, then hastily stuck it in his mouth. The blade was still razor-sharp.
But he had no time for wonder. Blowing out the lantern there was no need to have the barn burn down
on top of everything else - he gathered up the shafts and ran back to get what he had left at the house.
Altogether it made an awkward burden. Not a heavy one, but hard to balance and manage, the cart shafts
shifting and twisting in his arms as he stumbled across the plowed field. Once back in the forest they were even
worse, catching on trees and knocking him half off his feet. They would have been easier to drag, but that
would leave a clear trail behind him, He intended to wait as long as possible before doing that.
Tam was right where he had left him, seemingly asleep. He hoped it was sleep. Suddenly fearful, he
dropped his burdens and put a hand to his father's face. Tam still breathed, but the fever was worse.
The touch roused Tam, but only into a hazy wakefulness. "Is that you, boy?" he breathed. "Worried
about you. Dreams of days gone. Nightmares." Murmuring softly, he drifted off again.
"Don't worry," Rand said. He lay Tam's coat and cloak over him to keep off the wind. "I'll get you to
Nynaeve just as quick as I can." As he went on, as much to reassure himself as for Tam's benefit, he peeled off
his bloodstained shirt, hardly even noticing the cold in his haste to be rid of it, and hurriedly pulled on the clean
one. Throwing his old shirt away made him feel as if he had just had a bath. "We'll be safe in the village in no
time, and the Wisdom will set everything right. You'll see. Everything's going to be all right."
That thought was like a beacon as he pulled on his coat and bent to tend Tam's wound. They would be
safe once they reached the village, and Nynaeve would cure Tam. He just had to get him there.

Chapter 6

The Westwood


In the moonlight Rand could not really see what he was doing, but Tam's wound seemed to be only a
shallow gash along the ribs, no longer than the palm of his hand. He shook his head in disbelief. He had
seen his father take more of an injury than that and not even stop work except to wash it off. Hastily he
searched Tam from head to foot for something bad enough to account for the fever, but the one cut was all he
could find.
Small as it was, that lone cut was still grave enough; the flesh around it burned to the touch. It was even
hotter than the rest of Tam's body, and the rest of him was hot enough to make Rand's jaws clench. A scalding
fever like that could kill, or leave a man a husk of what he had once been. He soaked a cloth with water from
the skin and laid it across Tam's forehead.
He tried to be gentle about washing and bandaging the gash on his father's ribs, but soft groans still
interrupted Tam's low muttering. Stark branches loomed around them, threatening as they shifted as in the wind.
Surely the Trollocs would go on their way when they failed to find Tam and him, when they came back to the
farmhouse and found it still empty. He tried to make himself believe it, but the wanton destruction at the house,
the senselessness of it, left little room for belief of that sort. Believing they would give up short of killing
everyone and everything they could find was dangerous, a foolish chance he could not afford to take.
Trollocs. Light above, Trollocs! Creatures out of a gleeman's tale coming out of the night to bash in the
door. And a Fade. Light shine on me, a Fade!
Abruptly he realized he was holding the untied ends of the bandage in motionless hands. Frozen like a
rabbit that's seen a hawk's shadow, he thought scornfully. With an angry shake of his head he finished tying the
bandage around Tam's chest.
Knowing what he had to do, even getting on with it, did not stop him being afraid. When the Trollocs
came back they would surely begin searching the forest around the farm for some trace of the people who had
escaped them. The body of the one he had killed would tell them those people were not far off. Who knew what
a Fade would do, or could do? On top of that, his father's comment about Trollocs' hearing was as loud in his
mind as if Tam had just said it. He found himself resisting the urge to put a hand over Tam's mouth, to still his
groans and murmurs. Some track by scent. What can 1 do about that? Nothing. He could not waste time
worrying over problems he could do nothing about.
"You have to keep quiet," he whispered in his father's ear. "The Trollocs will be back." Tam spoke in hushed, hoarse tones. "You're still lovely, Kari. Still lovely as a girl."
Rand grimaced. His mother had been dead fifteen years. If Tam believed she was still alive, then the
fever was even worse than Rand had thought. How could he be kept from speaking, now that silence might
mean life?
"Mother wants you to be quiet," Rand whispered. He paused to clear his throat of a sudden tightness.
She had had gentle hands; he remembered that much. "Kari wants you to be quiet. Here. Drink."
Tam gulped thirstily from the waterskin, but after a few swallows he turned his head aside and began
murmuring softly again, too low for Rand to understand. He hoped it was too low to be heard by hunting
Trollocs, too.
Hastily he got on with what was needed. Three of the blankets he wove around and between the shafts
cut from the cart, contriving a makeshift litter. He would only be able to carry one end, letting the other drag on
the ground, but it would have to do. From the last blanket he cut a long strip with his belt knife, then tied one
end of the strip to each of the shafts.
As gently as he could, he lifted Tam onto the litter, wincing with every moan. His father had always
seemed indestructible. Nothing could harm him; nothing could stop him, or even slow him down. For him to be
in this condition almost robbed Rand of what courage he had managed to gather. But he had to keep on. That
was all that kept him moving. He had to.
When Tam finally lay on the litter, Rand hesitated, then took the sword belt from his father's waist.
When he fastened it around himself, it felt odd there; it made him feel odd. Belt and sheath and sword together
only weighed a few pounds, but when he sheathed the blade it seemed to drag at him like a great weight.
Angrily he berated himself. This was no time or place for foolish fancies. It was only a big knife. How
many times had he daydreamed about wearing a sword and having adventures? If he could kill one Trolloc with
it, he could surely fight off any others as well. Only, he knew all too well that what had happened in the
farmhouse had been the purest luck. And his daydream adventures had never included his teeth chattering, or
running for his life through the night, or his father at the point of death.
Hastily he tucked the last blanket around Tam, and laid the waterskin and the rest of the cloths beside his
father on the litter. With a deep breath he knelt between the shafts and lifted the strip of blanket over his head. It
settled across his shoulders and under his arms. When he gripped the shafts and straightened, most of the weight
was on his shoulders. It did not seem like very much. Trying to keep a smooth pace, he set out for Emond's
Field, the litter scraping along behind him.
He had already decided to make his way to the Quarry Road and follow that to the village. The danger
would almost certainly be greater along the road, but Tam would receive no help at all if he got them lost trying
to find his way through the woods and the dark.
In the darkness he was almost out onto the Quarry Road before he knew it. When he realizedwhere he
was, his throat tightened like a fist. Hurriedly he turned the litter around and dragged it back into the trees a
way, then stopped to catch his breath and let his heart stop pounding. Still panting, he turned east, toward
Emond's Field.
Traveling through the trees was more difficult than taking Taro down the road, and the night surely did
not help, but going out onto the road itself would be madness. The idea was to reach the village without meeting
any Trollocs; without even seeing any, if he had his wish. He had to assume the Trollocs were still hunting
them, and sooner or later they would realize the two had set off for the village. That was the most likely place to
go, and the Quarry Road the most likely route. In truth, he found himself closer to the road than he liked. The
night and the shadows under the trees seemed awfully- bare cover in which to hide from the eyes of anyone
traveling along it.
Moonlight filtering through bare branches gave only enough illumination to fool his eyes into thinking
they saw what was underfoot. Roots threatened to trip him at every step, old brambles snagged his legs, and
sudden dips or rises in the ground had him half falling as his foot met nothing but air where he expected firm
earth, or stumbling when his toe struck dirt while still moving forward. Tam's mutterings broke into a sharp
groan whenever one of the shafts bumped too quickly over root or rock.
Uncertainty made him peer into the darkness until his eyes burned, listen as he had never listened
before. Every scrape of branch against branch, every rustle of pine needles, brought him to a halt, ears straining,
hardly daring to breathe for fear he might not hear some warning sound, for fear he might hear that sound. Only
when he was sure it was just the wind would he go on.
Slowly weariness crept into his arms and legs, driven home by a night wind that mocked his cloak and
coat. The weight of the litter, so little at the start, now tried to pull him to the ground. His stumbles were no
longer all from tripping. The almost constant struggle not to fall took as much out of him as did the actual work
of pulling the litter. He had been up before dawn to begin his chores, and even with the trip to Emond's
Field he had done almost a full day's work. On any normal night he would be resting before the
fireplace, reading one of Tam's small collection of books before going to bed. The sharp chill soaked into his
bones, and his stomach reminded him that he had had nothing to eat since Mistress al'Vere's honeycakes.
He muttered to himself, angry at not taking some food at the farm. A few minutes more could not have
made any difference: A few minutes to find some bread and cheese. The Trollocs would not have come back in
just a few minutes more. Or just the bread. Of course, Mistress al'Vere would insist on putting a hot meal in
front of him once they reached the inn. A steaming plate of her thick lamb stew, probably. And some of that
bread she had been baking. And lots of hot tea.
"They came over the Dragonwall like a flood," Tam said suddenly, in a strong, angry voice, "and
washed the land with blood. How many died for Laman's sin?"
Rand almost fell from surprise. Wearily he lowered the litter to the ground and untangled himself. The
strip of blanket left a burning groove in his shoulders. Shrugging to work the knots out, he knelt beside Tam.
Fumbling for the waterbag, he peered through the trees, trying vainly in the dim moonlight to see up and down
the road, not twenty paces away. Nothing moved there but shadows. Nothing but shadows.
"There isn't any flood of Trollocs, father. Not now, anyway. We'll be safe in Emond's Field soon. Drink
a little water."
Tam brushed aside the waterbag with an arm that seemed to have regained all of its strength. He seized
Rand's collar, pulling him close enough to feel the heat of his father's fever in his own cheek. "They called them
savages," Tam said urgently. "The fools said they could be swept aside like rubbish. How many battles lost,
how many cities burned, before they faced the truth? Before the nations stood together against them?" He
loosed his hold on Rand, and sadness filled his voice. "The field at Marath carpeted with the dead, and no sound
but the cries of ravens and the buzzing of files. The topless towers of Cairhien burning in the night like torches.
All the way to the Shining Walls they burned and slew before they were turned back. All the way to - ".
Rand clamped a hand over his father's mouth. The sound came again, a rhythmic thudding, directionless
in the trees, fading then growing stronger again as the wind shifted. Frowning, he turned his head slowly, trying
to decide from where it came. A flicker of motion caught the comer of his eye, and in an instant he was
crouched over Tam. He was startled to feel the hilt of the sword clutched tight in his hand, but most of him
concentrated on the Quarry Road as if the road were the only real thing in the entire world.
Wavering shadows to the east slowly resolved themselves into a horse and rider followed up the road by
tall, bulky shapes trotting to keep up with, the animal. The pale light of the moon glittered from spearheads and
axe blades. Rand never even considered that they might be villagers coming to help. He knew what they were.
He could feel it, like grit scraping his bones, even before they drew close enough for moonlight to reveal the
hooded cloak swathing the horseman, a cloak that hung undisturbed by the wind. All of the shapes appeared
black in the night, and the horse's hooves made the same sounds that any other's would, but Rand knew this
horse from any other.
Behind the dark rider came nightmare forms with horns and muzzles and beaks, Trollocs in a double
file, all in steps, boots and hooves striking the ground at the same instant as if obeying a single mind. Rand
counted twenty as they ran past. He wondered what kind of man would dare turn his back on so many Trollocs.
Or on one, for that matter.
The trotting column disappeared westward, thumping footfalls fading into the darkness, but Rand
remained where he was, not moving a muscle except to breathe. Something told him to be certain, absolutely
certain, they were gone before he moved. At long last he drew a deep breath and began to straighten.
This time the horse made no sound at all. In eerie silence the dark rider returned, his shadowy mount
stopping every few steps as it walked slowly back down the road The wind gusted higher, moaning through the
trees; the horseman's cloak lay still as death. Whenever the horse halted, that hooded head swung from side to
side as the rider peered into the forest, searching. Exactly opposite Rand the horse stopped again, the shadowed
opening of the hood turning toward where he crouched above his father.
Rand's hand tightened convulsively on the sword hilt. He felt the gaze, just as he had thatmorning, and
shivered again from the hatred even if he could not see it. That shrouded man hated everyone and everything,
everything that lived. Despite the cold wind, sweat beaded on Rand's face.
Then the horse was moving on, a few soundless steps and stop, until all Rand could see was a barely
distinguishable blur in the night far down the road. It could have been anything, but he had not taken his eyes
off it for a second. If he lost it, he was afraid the next time he saw the black-cloaked rider might be when that
silent horse was on top of him.
Abruptly the shadow was rushing back, passing him in a silent gallop. The rider looked only ahead of
him as he sped westward into the night, toward the Mountains of Mist. Toward the farm.
Rand sagged, gulping air and scrubbing cold sweat off his face with his sleeve. He did not care any more
about why the Trollocs had come. If he never found out why, that would be fine, just as long as it was all ended.
With a shake he gathered himself, hastily checking his father. Tam was still murmuring, but so softly Rand
could not make out the words. He tried to give him a drink, but the water spilled over his father's chin. Tam
coughed and choked on the trickle that made it into his mouth, then began muttering again as if there had not
been any interruption.
Rand splashed a little more water on the cloth on Tam's forehead, pushed the waterbag back on the litter,
and scrambled between the shafts again.
He started out as if he had had a good night's sleep, but the new strength did not last long. Fear masked
his tiredness in the beginning, but though the fear remained, the mask melted away quickly. Soon he was back
to stumbling forward, trying to ignore hunger and aching muscles. He concentrated on putting one foot in front
of the other without tripping.
In his mind he pictured Emond's Field, shutters thrown back and the houses lit for Winternight, people
shouting greetings as they passed back and forth on their visits, fiddles filling the streets with "Jaem's Folly"
and "Heron on the Wing." Haral Luhhan would have one too many brandies and start singing "The Wind in the
Barley" in a voice like a bullfrog – he always did - until his wife managed to shush him, and Cenn Buie would
decide to prove he could still dance as well as ever, and Mat would have something planned that would not
quite happenthe way he intended, and everybody would know he was responsible even if no one could prove it.
He could almost smile thinking about now it would be.
After a time Tam spoke up again.
"Avendesora. It's said it makes no seed, but they brought a cutting to Cairhien, a sapling. A royal gift of
wonder for the King." Though he sounded angry, he was barely loud enough for Rand to understand. Anyone
who could hear him would be able to hear the Utter scraping across the ground, too. Rand kept on, only half
listening. "They never make peace. Never. But theybrought a sapling, as a sign of peace. A hundred years it
grew. A hundred years of peace with those who make no peace with strangers. Why did he cut it down? Why?
Blood was the price for Avendoraldera. Blood the price for Laman's pride." He faded off into muttering once
more.
Tiredly Rand wondered what fever-dream Tam could be having now. Avendesora. The Tree of Life was
supposed to have all sorts of miraculous qualities, but none of the stories mentioned any sapling, or any "they."
There was only the one, and that belonged to the Green Man.
Only that morning he might have felt foolish at musing over the Green Man and the Tree of Life. They
were only stories. Are they? Trollocs were just stories this morning. Maybe all the stories were as real as the
news the peddlers and merchants brought, all the gleeman's tales and all the stories told at night in front of the
fireplace. Next he might actually meet the Green Man, or an Ogier giant, or a wild, black-veiled Aielman.
Tam was talking again, he realized, sometimes only murmuring, sometimes loud enough to understand.
From time to time he stopped to pant for breath, then went on as if he thought he had been speaking the whole
time. ". . . battles are always hot, even in the snow. Sweat heat. Blood heat. Only death is cool. Slope of the
mountain . . . only place didn't stink of death. Had to get away from smell of it . . . sight of it . . . heard a baby
cry. Their women fight alongside the men, sometimes, but why they had let her come, I don't . . . gave birth
there alone, before she died of her wounds . . . covered the child with her cloak, but the wind . . . blown the
cloak away . . .child, blue with the cold. Should have been dead, too . . . crying there. Crying in the snow. I
couldn't just leave a child . . . no children of our own . . . always knew you wanted children. I knew you'd take it
to your heart, Kari. Yes, lass. Rand is a good name. A good name."
Suddenly Rand's legs lost the little strength they had. Stumbling, he fell to his knees. Tam moaned with
the jolt, and the strip of blanket cut into Rand's shoulders, but he was not aware of either. If a Trolloc had leaped
up in front of him right then, lie would just have stared at it. He looked over his shoulder at Tam, who had sunk
back into wordless murmur. Fever-dreams, he thought dully. Fevers always brought bad dreams, and this was a
night for nightmares even without a fever.
"You are my father," he said aloud, stretching back a hand to touch Tam, "and I am - " The fever was
worse. Much worse.
Grimly he struggled to his feet. Tam murmured something, but Rand refused to listen to any more.
Throwing his weight against the improvised harness he tried to put all of his mind into taking one leaden step
after another, into reaching the safety of Emond's Field. But he could not stop the echo in the back of his mind.
He's my father. It was just a fever-dream. He's my father. It was just a fever-dream. Light, who am I?

Chapter 7

Out of the Woods


Gray first light came while Rand still trudged through the forest. At first he did not really see. When he
finally did, he stared at the fading darkness in surprise. No matter what his eyes told him, he could
hardly believe he had spent all night trying to travel the distance from the farm to Emond's Field. Of
course, the Quarry Road by day, rocks and all, was a far cry from the woods by night. On the other hand, it
seemed days since he had seen the black-cloaked rider on the road, weeks since he and Tam had gone in for
their supper. He no longer felt the strip of cloth digging into his shoulders, but then he felt nothing in his
shoulders except numbness, nor in his feet, for that matter. In between, it was another matter. His breath came
in labored pants that had long since set his throat and lungs to burning, and hunger twisted his stomach into
queasy sickness.
Tam had fallen silent some time before. Rand was not sure how long it had been since the murmurs
ceased, but he did not dare halt now to check on Tam. If he stopped he would never be able to force himself to
start out again. Anyway, whatever Tam's condition, he could do nothing beyond what he was doing. The only
hope lay ahead, in the village. He tried wearily to increase his pace, but his wooden legs continued their slow
plod. He barely even noticed the cold, or the wind. Vaguely he caught the smell of woodsmoke. At least he was
almost there if he could smell the village chimneys. A tired smile had only begun on his face, though, when it
turned to a frown. Smoke lay heavy in the air - too heavy. With the weather, a fire might well be blazing on
every hearth in the village, but the smoke was still too strong. In his mind he saw again the Trollocs on the road.
Trollocs coming from the east, from the direction of Emond's Field. He peered ahead, trying to make out the
first houses, and ready to shout for help at the first sight of anyone, even Cenn Buie or one of the Coplins. A
small voice in the back of his head told him to hope someone there could still give help.
Suddenly a house became visible through the last bare-branched trees, and it was all he, could do to keep
his feet moving. Hope turning to sharp despair, he staggered into the village.
Charred piles of rubble stood in the places of halt the houses of Emond's Field. Soot-coated brick
chimneys thrust like dirty fingers from heaps of blackened timbers. Thin wisps of smoke still rose from the
ruins. Grimy-faced villagers, some yet in their night clothes, poked through the ashes, here pulling free a
cookpot, there simply prodding forlornly at the wreckage with a stick.What little had been rescued from the
flames dotted the streets; tall mirrors and polished sideboards and highchests stood in the dust among chairs and
tables buried under bedding, cooking utensils, and meagre piles of clothing and personal belongings.
The destruction seemed scattered at random through the village. Five houses marched untouched in one
row, while in another place a lone survivor stood surrounded by desolation.
On the far side of the Winespring Water, the three huge Bel Tine bonfires roared, tended by a cluster of
men. Thick columns of black smoke bent northward with the wind, flecked by careless sparks. One of Master
al'Vere's Dhurran stallions was dragging something Rand could not make out over the ground toward the
Wagon Bridge, and the flames.
Before he was well out of the trees, a sooty-faced Haral Luhhan hurried to him, clutching a woodsman's
axe in one thick-fingered hand. The burly blacksmith's ash-smeared nightshirt hung to his boots, the angry red
welt of a burn across his chest showing through a ragged tear. He dropped to one knee beside the litter. Tam's
eyes were closed, and his breathing came low and hard.
"Trollocs, boy?" Master Luhhan asked in a smoke-hoarse voice. "Here, too. Here, too. Well, we may
have been luckier than anyone has a right to be, if you can credit it. He needs the Wisdom. Now where in the
Light is she? Egwene!"
Egwene, running by with her arms full of bed sheets torn into bandages, looked around at them without
slowing. Her eyes stared at something in the far distance; dark circles made them appear even larger than they
actually were. Then she saw Rand and stopped, drawing a shuddering breath. "Oh, no, Rand, not your father? Is
he...? Come, I'll take you to Nynaeve."
Rand was too tired, too stunned, to speak. All through the night Emond's Field had been a haven, where
he Tam would be safe. Now all he could seem to do was stare in dismay at her smoke-stained dress. He noticed
odd details as if they were very important. The buttons down the back of her dress were done up crookedly. And
her hands were clean. He wondered why herhands were clean when smudges of soot marked her cheeks.
Master Luhhan seemed to understand what had come over him. Laying his axe across the shafts, the
blacksmith picked up the rear of the litter and gave it a gentle push, prodding him to follow Egwene. He
stumbled after her as if walking in his sleep. Briefly he wondered how Master Luhhan knew the creatures were
Trollocs, but it was a fleeting thought. If Tam could recognize them, there was no reason why Haral Luhhan
could not.
"All the stories are real," he muttered.
"So it seems, lad," the blacksmith said. "So it seems."
Rand only half heard. He was concentrating on following Egwene's slender shape. He had pulled
himself together just enough to wish she would hurry, though in truth she was keeping her pace to what the two
men could manage with their bur- den. She led them halfway down the Green, to the Calder house. Char
blackened the edges of its thatch, and smut stained the whitewashed walls. Of the houses on either side only the
foundation stones were left, and two piles of ash and burned timbers. One had been the house of Berin Thane,
one of the miller's brothers. The other had been Abell Cauthon's. Mat's father. Even the chimneys had toppled.
"Wait here," Egwene said, and gave them a look as if expecting an answer. When they only stood there,
she muttered something under her breath, then dashed inside.
"Mat," Rand said. "Is he ...?"
"He's alive," the blacksmith said. He set down his end of the litter and straightened slowly. "I saw him a
little while ago. It's a wonder any of us are alive. The way they came after my house, and the forge, you'd have
thought I had gold and jewels in there. Alsbet cracked one's skull with a frying pan. She took one look at the
ashes of our house this morning and set out hunting around the village with the biggest hammer she -could. dig
out of what's left of the forge, just in case any of them hid instead of running away. I could almost pity the thing
if she finds one." He nodded to the Calder house. "Mistress Calder and a few others took in some of those who
were hurt, the ones with no home of their own still standing. When the Wisdom's seen Tam, we'll find him a
bed. The inn, maybe. The Mayor offered it already, but Nynaeve said the hurt folk would heal better if there
weren't so many of them together."
Rand sank to his knees. Shrugging out of his blanket harness, he wearily busied himself with checking
Tam's covers. Tam never moved or made a sound, even when Rand's wooden hands jostled him. But he was
still breathing, at least. My father. The other was just the fever talking. "What if they come back?" he said dully.
"The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills," Master Luhhan said uneasily. "If they come back. . . .Well,
they're gone, now. So we pick up the pieces, build up what's been torn down."
He sighed, his face going slack as he knuckled the small of his back. For the first time Rand realized that
the heavyset man was as tired as he was himself, if not more so. The blacksmith looked at the village, shaking
his head. "I don't suppose today will be much of a Bel Tine. But we'll make it through. We always have."
Abruptly he took up his axe, and his face firmed. "There's work waiting for me. Don't you worry, lad. The
Wisdom will take good care of him, and the Light will take care of us all. And if the Light doesn't, well, we'll
just take care of ourselves. Remember, we're Two Rivers folk."
Still on his knees, Rand looked at the village as the black- smith walked away, really looked for the first
time. Master Luhhan was right, he thought, and was surprised that he was not surprised by what he saw. People
still dug in the ruins of their homes, but even in the short time he had been there more of them had begun to
move with a sense of purpose. He could almost feel the growing determination. But he wondered. They had
seen Trollocs; had they seen the blackcloaked rider? Had they felt his hatred?
Nynaeve and Egwene appeared from the Calder house, and he sprang to his feet. Or rather, he tried to
spring to his feet; it was more of a stumbling lurch that almost put him on his face in the dust.
The Wisdom dropped to her knees beside the litter without giving him so much as a glance. Her face and
dress were even dirtier than Egwene's, and the same dark circles fined her eyes, though her hands, too, were
clean. She felt Tam's face and thumbed open his eyelids. With a frown she pulled down the coverings and eased
the bandage aside to look at the wound. Before Rand could see what lay underneath she had replaced the
wadded cloth. Sighing, she smoothed the blanket and cloak back up to Tam's neck with a gentle touch, as if
tucking a child in for the night.”
“There's nothing I can do," she said. She had to put her hands on her knees to straighten up. "I'm sorry,
Rand." For a moment he stood, not understanding, as she started back to the house, then he scrambled after her
and pulled her around to face him. "He's dying," he cried.
"I know," she said simply, and he sagged with the matter-of-factness of it.
"You have to do something. You have to. You're the Wisdom."
Pain twisted her face, but only for an instant, then she was all hollow-eyed resolve again, her voice
emotionless and firm. "Yes, I am. I know what I can do with my medicines, and I know when it's too late. Don't
you think I would do something if I could? But I can't. I can't, Rand. And there are others who need me. People
I can help."
"I brought him to you as quickly as I could," he mumbled.
Even with the village in ruins, there had been the Wisdom for hope. With that gone, he was empty.
"I know you did," she said gently. She touched his cheek with her hand. "It isn't your fault. You did the
best anyone could. I am sorry, Rand, but I have others to tend to. Our troubles are just beginning, I'm afraid."
Vacantly he stared after her until the door of the house closed behind her. He could not make any
thought come except that she would not help.
Suddenly he was knocked back a step as Egwene cannoned into him, throwing her arms around him.
Her hug was hard enough to bring a grunt from him any other time; now he only looked silently at the door
behind which his hopes had vanished.
"I'm so sorry, Rand," she said against his chest. "Light, I wish there was something I could do."
Numbly he put his arms around her. "I know. I…. I have to do something, Egwene. I don't know what,
but I can't just let him... His voice broke, and she hugged him harder.
"Egwene!" At Nynaeve's shout from the house, Egwene jumped. "Egwene, I need you! And wash your
hands again!"
She pushed herself free from Rand's arms. "She needs my help, Rand.
"Egwene!"
He thought he heard a sob as she spun away from him. Then she was gone, and he was left alone beside
the litter. For a moment he looked down at Tam, feeling nothing but hollow helplessness. Suddenly his face
hardened. "The Mayor will know what to do," he said, lifting the shafts once more. "The Mayor will know."
Bran al'Vere always knew what to do. With weary obstinacy he set out for the Winespring Inn.
Another of the Dhurran stallions passed him, its harness straps tied around the ankles of a big shape
draped with a dirty blanket. Arms covered with coarse hair dragged in the dirt be- hind the blanket, and one
corner was pushed up to reveal a goat's horn. The Two Rivers was no place for stories to become horribly real.
If Trollocs belonged anywhere it was in the world outside, forplaces where they had Aes Sedai and false
Dragons and the Light alone knew what else come to life out of the tales of gleemen. Not the Two Rivers. Not
Emond's Field.
As he made his way down the Green, people called to him, some from the ruins of their homes, asking if
they could help. He heard them only as murmurs in the background, even when they walked alongside him for a
distance as they spoke. Without really thinking about it he managed words that said he needed no help, that
everything was being taken care of. When they left him, with worried looks, and sometimes a comment about
sending Nynaeve to him, he noticed that just as little. All he let himself be aware of was the purpose he had
fixed in his head. Bran al'Vere could do something to help Tam. What that could be he tried not to dwell on. But
the Mayor would be able to do something, to think of something.
The inn had almost completely escaped the destruction that had taken half the village. A few scorch
marks marred its walls, but the red roof tiles glittered in the sunlight as brightly as ever. All that was left of the
peddler's wagon, though, were blackened iron wheel-rims leaning against the charred wagon box, now on the
ground. The big round hoops that had held up the canvas cover slanted crazily, each at a different angle.
Thom Merrilin sat cross-legged on the old foundation stones, carefully snipping singed edges from the
patches on his cloak with a pair of small scissors. He set down cloak and scissors when Rand drew near.
Without asking if Rand needed or wanted help, he hopped down and picked up the back of the litter.
"Inside? Of course, of course. Don't you worry, boy. Your Wisdom will take care of him. I've watched
her work, since last night, and she has a deft touch and a sure skill. It could be a lot worse. Some died last night.
Not many, perhaps, but any at all are too many for me. Old Fain justdisappeared, and that's the worst of all.
Trollocs will eat anything. You should thank the Light your father's still here, and alive for the Wisdom to
heal."
Rand blotted out the words - He is my father! - reducing the voice to meaningless sound that he noticed
no more than a fly's buzzing. He could not bear any more sympathy, any more attempts to boost his spirits. Not
now. Not until Bran al'Vere told him how to help Tam.
Suddenly he found himself facing something scrawled on the inn door, a curving line scratched with a
charred stick, a charcoal teardrop balanced on its point. So much had happened that it hardly surprised him to
find the Dragon's Fang marked on the door of the Winespring Inn. Why anyone would want to accuse the
innkeeper or his family of evil, or bring the inn bad luck, was beyond him, but the night had convinced him of
one thing. Anything was possible. Anything at all.
At a push from the gleeman he lifted the latch, and went in.
The common room was empty except for Bran al'Vere, and cold, too, for no one had found time to lay a
fire. The Mayor sat at one of the tables, dipping his pen in an inkwell with a frown of concentration on his face
and his gray-fringed head bent over a sheet of parchment. Nightshirt tucked hastily into his trousers and bagging
around his considerable waist, he absently scratched at one bare foot with the toes of the other. His feet were
dirty, as if he had been outside more than once without bothering about boots, despite the cold. "What's your
trouble?" he demanded without looking up. "Be quick with it. I have two dozen things to do right this minute,
and more that should have been done an hour ago. So I have little time or patience. Well? Out with it!"
"Master al'Vere?" Rand said. "It's my father."
The Mayor's head jerked up. "Rand? Tam!" He threw down the pen and knocked over his chair as he
leaped up. "Perhaps the Light hasn't abandoned us altogether. I was afraid you were both dead. Bela galloped
into the village an hour after the Trollocs left, lathered and blowing as if she'd run all the way from the farm,
and I thought.... No time for that, now. We'll take him upstairs." He seized the rear of the litter, shouldering the
gleeman out of the way. "You go get the Wisdom, Master Merrilin. And tell her I said hurry, or I'll know the
reason why! Rest easy, Tam. We'll soon have you in a good, soft bed. Go, gleeman, go!"
Thom Merrilin vanished through the doorway before Rand could speak. "Nynaeve wouldn't do anything.
She said she couldn't help him. I knew ... I hoped you'd think of some- thing." Master al'Vere looked at Tam
more sharply, then shook his head. "We will see, boy. We will see. But he no longer sounded confident. "Let's
get him into a bed. He can rest easy, at least.
Rand let himself be prodded toward the stairs at the back of the common room. He tried hard to keep his
certainty that somehow Tam would be all right, but it had been thin to begin with, he realized, and the sudden
doubt in the Mayor's voice shook him.
On the second floor of the inn, at the front, were half a dozen snug, well-appointed rooms with windows
overlooking the Green. Mostly they were used by the peddlers, or people down from Watch Hill or up from
Deven Ride, but the merchants who came each year were often surprised to find such comfortable rooms. Three
of them were taken now, and the Mayor hurried Rand to one of the unused ones.
Quickly the down comforter and blankets were stripped back on the wide bed, and Tam was transferred
to the thick feather mattress, with goose-down pillows tucked under his head. He made no sound beyond hoarse
breathing as he was moved, not even a groan, but the Mayor brushed away Rand's concern, telling him to set a
fire to take the chill off the room. While Rand dug wood and kindling from the woodbox next to the fireplace,
Bran threw back the curtains on the window, letting in the morning light, then began to gently wash Tam's face.
By the time the gleeman returned, the blaze on the hearth was warming the room.
"She will not come," Thom Merrilin announced as he stalked into the room. He glared at Rand, his
bushy white brows drawing down sharply. "You didn't tell me she had seen him already. She almost took my
head off."
"I thought . . . I don't know . . . maybe the Mayor could do something, could make her see…" Hands
clenched in anxious fists, Rand turned from the fireplace to Bran. "Master al’Vere, what can I do?" The rotund
man shook his head helplessly. He laid a freshly dampened cloth on Tam's forehead and avoided meeting
Rand's eye. "I can't just watch him die, Master al'Vere. I have to do something." The gleeman shifted as if to
speak. Rand rounded on him eagerly. ."Do you have an idea? I'll try anything."
"I was just wondering,” Thom said, tamping his long-stemmed pipe with his thumb, "if the Mayor knew
who scrawled the Dragon's Fang on his door." He peered into the bowl, then looked at Tam and replaced the
unlit pipe between his teeth with a sigh. "Someone seems not to like him anymore. Or maybe it's his guests they
don't like."
and gave him a disgusted look and turned away to stare into the fire. His thoughts danced like the
flames, and like the flames they concentrated fixedly on one thing. He would not give up. He could not just
stand there and watch Tam die. My father, he thought fiercely. My father. Once the fever was gone, that could
be cleared up as well. But the fever first. Only, how?
Bran al'Vere's mouth tightened as he looked at Rand's back, and the glare he directed at the gleeman
would have given a bear pause, but Thom just waited expectantly as if he had notnoticed it.
"It's probably the work of one of the Congars, or a Coplin," the Mayor said finally, "though the Light
alone knows which. They're a large brood, and if there's ill to be said of someone, or even if there isn't, they'll
say it. They make Cenn Buie sound honey-tongued."
"That wagonload who came in just before dawn?" the gleeman asked. "They hadn't so much as smelled
a Trolloc, and all they wanted to know was when Festival was going to start, as if they couldn't see half the
village in ashes."
Master al'Vere nodded grimly. "One branch of the family. But none of them are very different. That fool
Darl Coplin spent half the night demanding I put Mistress Moiraine and Master Lan out of the inn, out of the
village, as if there would be any village at all left without them." Rand had only half listened to the
conversation, but this last tugged him to speak.
"What did they do?"
"Why, she called ball lightning out of a clear night sky," Master al'Vere replied. "Sent it darting straight
at the Trollocs. You've seen trees shattered by it. The Trollocs stood it no better.
"Moiraine?" Rand said incredulously, and the Mayor nodded.
"Mistress Moiraine. And Master Lan was a whirlwind with that sword of his. His sword? The man
himself is a weapon, and in ten places at once, or so it seemed. Burn me, but I still wouldn't believe it if I
couldn't step outside and see. . . ." He rubbed a hand over his bald head. "Winternight visits just be- ginning, our
hands full of presents and honeycakes and our heads fall of wine, then the dogs snarling, and suddenly the two
of them burst out of the inn, running through the village, shouting about Trollocs. I thought they'd had too much
wine. After all ...Trollocs? Then, before anyone knew what was happening, those ... those things were right in
the streets with us, slashing at people with their swords, torching houses, howling to freeze a man's blood." He
made a sound of disgust in his throat. "We just ran like chickens with a fox in the henyard till Master Lan put
some backbone into us."
"No need to be so hard," Thom said. "You did as well as anyone could. Not every Trolloc lying out there
fell to the two of them."
"Umm . . . yes, well." Master al'Vere gave himself a shake. "It's still almost too much to believe. An Aes
Sedai in Emond's Field. And Master Lan is a Warder."
"An Aes Sedai?" Rand whispered. "She can't be. I talked to her. She isn't . . . She doesn't . . .”
"Did you think they wore signs?" the Mayor said wryly.
“‘Aes Sedai’ painted across their backs, and maybe, ‘Danger, stay away’?” Suddenly he slapped his
forehead. "Aes Sedai. I'm an old fool, and losing my wits. There's a chance, Rand, if you're willing to take it. I
can't tell you to do it, and I don't know if I'd have the nerve, if it were me."
"A chance?" Rand said. "I'll take any chance, if it'll help - ”
“Aes Sedai can heal, Rand. Burn me, lad, you've heard the stories. They can cure where edicines fail.
Gleeman, you should have remembered that better than I. Gleemen's tales are full of Aes Sedai. Why didn't you
speak up, instead of letting me flail around?"
"I'm a stranger here," Thom said, looking longingly at his unlit pipe, "and Goodman Coplin isn't the only
one who wants nothing to do with Aes Sedai. Best the idea came from you."
"An Aes Sedai," Rand muttered, trying to make the woman who had smiled at him fit the stories. Help
from an Aes Sedai was sometimes worse than no help at all, so the stories said, like poison in a pie, and their
gifts always had a hook in them, like fishbait. Suddenly the coin in his pocket, the coin Moiraine had given him,
seemed like a burning coal. It was all he could do not to rip it out of his coat and throw it out the window.
"Nobody wants to get involved with Aes Sedai, lad," the Mayor said slowly. "It is the only chance I can
see, but it's still no small decision. I cannot make it for you, but I have seen nothing but good from Mistress
Moiraine . . . Moiraine Sedai, I should call her, I suppose. Sometimes” - he gave a meaningful took at Tam -
“you have to take a chance, even if it's a poor one."
"Some of the stories are exaggerated, in a way," Thom added, as if the words were being dragged from
him. "Some of them. Besides, boy, what choice do you have?"
"None," Rand sighed. Tam still had not moved a muscle; his eyes were sunken as if he had been sick a
week. "I'll . . . I'll go find her. "
"The other side of the bridges," the gleeman said, "where they are . . . disposing of the dead Trollocs.
But be careful, boy. Aes Sedai do what they do for reasons of their own, and they aren't always the reasons
others think."
The last was a shout that followed Rand through the door. He had to hold onto the sword hilt to keep the
scabbard from tangling in his legs as he ran, but he would not take the time to remove it. He clattered down the
stairs and dashed out of the inn, tiredness forgotten for the moment. A chance for Tam, however small, was
enough to overcome a night without sleep, for a time at least. That the chance came from an Aes Sedai, or what
the price of it might be, he did not want to consider. And as for actually facing an Aes Sedai . . . He took a deep
breath and tried to move faster. The bonfires stood well beyond the last houses to the north, on the Westwood
side of the road to Watch Hill. The wind still carried the oily black columns of smoke away from the village,
but even so a sickly sweet stink filled the air, like a roast left hours too long on the spit. Rand gagged at the
smell, then swallowed hard when he realized its source. A fine thing to do with Bel Tine fires. The men tending
the fires had cloths tied over their noses and mouths, but their grimaces made it plain the vinegar dampening the
cloths was not enough. Even if it did kill the stench, they still knew the stench was there, and they still knew
what they were doing. Two of the men were untying the harness straps of one of the big Dhurrans from a
Trolloc's ankles. Lan, squatting beside the body, had tossed back the blanket enough to reveal the Trolloc's
shoulders and goat-snouted head. As Rand trotted up, the Warder unfastened a metal badge, a blood-red
enamelled trident, from one spiked shoulder of the Trolloc's shirt of black mail.
"Ko'bal," he announced. He bounced the badge on his palm and snatched it out of the air with a growl.
"That makes seven bands so far."
Moiraine, seated cross-legged on the ground a short distance off, shook her head tiredly. A walking
staff, covered from end to end in carved vines and flowers, lay across her knees, and her dress had the rumpled
look of having been worn too long. "Seven bands. Seven! That many have not acted together since the Trolloc
Wars. Bad news piles on bad news. I am afraid, Lan. I thought we had gained a march, but we may be further
behind than ever."
Rand stared at her, unable to speak. An Aes Sedai. He had been trying to convince himself that she
would not look any different now that he knew whom . . . what he was looking at, and to his surprise she did
not. She was no longer quite so pristine, not with wisps of her hair sticking out in all directions and a faint
streak of soot across her nose, yet not really different, either. Surely there must be something about an Aes
Sedai to mark her for what she was. On the other hand, if outward appearance reflected what was inside, and if
the stories were true, then she should look closer to a Trolloc than to a more than handsome woman whose
dignity was not dented by sitting in the dirt. And she could help Tam. Whatever the cost, there was that before
anything else. He took a deep breath.
"Mistress Moiraine . . . I mean, Moiraine Sedai." Both turned to look at him, and he froze under her
gaze. Not the calm, smiling gaze he remembered from the Green. Her face was tired, but her dark eyes were a
hawk's eyes. Aes Sedai. Breakers of the world. Puppeteers who pulled strings and made thrones and nations
dance in designs only the women from Tar Valon knew.
"A little more light in the darkness," the Aes Sedai murmured. She raised her voice. "How are your
dreams, Rand al'Thor?"
He stared at her. "My dreams?"
"A night like that can give a man bad dreams, Rand. If you have nightmares, you must tell me of it. I can
help with bad dreams, sometimes."
"There's nothing wrong with my.... It's my father. He's hurt. It's not much more than a scratch, but the
fever is burning him up. The Wisdom won't help. She says she can't. But the stories - " She raised an eyebrow,
and he stopped and swallowed hard. Light, is there a story with an Aes Sedai where she isn't a villain? He
looked at the Warder, but Lan appeared more interested in the dead Trolloc than in anything Rand might say.
Fumbling his way under hereyes, he went on. "I . . .ah . . . it's said Aes Sedai can heal. If you can help him . . .
anything you can do for him . . . whatever the cost . . . I mean . . ." He took a deep breath and finished up in a
rush. "I'll pay any price in my power if you help him. Anything."
"Any price," Moiraine mused, half to herself. "We will speak of prices later, Rand, if at all. I can make
no promises. Your Wisdom knows what she is about. I will do what I can, but it is beyond my power to stop the
Wheel from turning."
"Death comes sooner or later to everyone," the Warder said grimly, "unless they serve the Dark One,
and only fools are willing to pay that price."
Moiraine made a clucking sound. "Do not be so gloomy, Lan. We have some reason to celebrate. A
small one, but a reason." She used the staff to pull herself to her feet. "Take me to your father, Rand. I will help
him as much as I am able. Too many here have refused to let me help at all. They have heard the stories, too,"
she added dryly.
"He's at the inn," Rand said. "This way. And thank you. Thank you!" They followed, but his pace took
him quickly ahead. He slowed impatiently for them to catch up, then darted ahead again and had to wait again.
"Please hurry," he urged, so caught up in actually getting help for Tam that he never considered the
temerity of prodding an Aes Sedai. "The fever is burning him up."
Lan glared at him. "Can't you see she's tired? Even with an angreal, what she did last night was like
running around the village with a sack of stones on her back. I don't know that you are worth it, sheepherder, no
matter what she says." Rand blinked and held his tongue.
"Gently, my friend," Moiraine said. Without slowing her pace, she reached up to pat the Warder's
shoulder. He towered over her protectively, as if he could give her strength just by being close. "You think only
of taking care of me. Why should he not think the same of his father?" Lan scowled, but fell silent. "I am
coming as quickly as I can, Rand, I promise you."
The fierceness of her eyes, or the calm of her voice - not gentle, exactly; more firmly in command -
Rand did not know which to believe. Or perhaps they did go together. Aes Sedai. He was committed, now. He
matched his stride to theirs, and tried not to think of what the price might be that they would talk about later.

Chapter 8

A Place of Safety


While he was still coming through the door Rand's eyes went to his father - his father no matter what
anyone said. Tam had not moved an inch; his eyes were still shut, and his breath came in labored
gasps, low and rasping. The white-haired gleeman cut off a conversation with the Mayor - who was
bent over the bed again, tending Tam - and gave Moiraine an uneasy look. The Aes Sedai ignored him. Indeed,
she ignored everyone except for Tam, but at him she stared with an intent frown.
Thom stuck his unlit pipe between his teeth, then snatched it out again and glowered at it."Man cannot
even smoke in peace," he muttered. "I had better make sure some farmer doesn't steal my cloak to keep his cow
warm. At least I can have my pipe out there." He hurried out of the room.
Lan stared after him, his angular face as expressionless as a rock. "I do not like that man. There is
something about him I don't trust. I did not see a hair of him last night."
"He was there," Bran said, watching Moiraine uncertainly. "He must have been. His cloak did not get
singed in front of the fireplace."
Rand did not care if the gleeman had spent the night hiding in the stable. "My father?" he said to
Moiraine pleadingly.
Bran opened his mouth, but before he could speak Moiraine said, "Leave me with him, Master al'Vere.
There is nothing you can do here now except get in my way."
For a minute Bran hesitated, torn between dislike of being ordered about in his own inn and reluctance
to disobey an Aes Sedai. Finally, he straightened to clap Rand on the shoulder.
"Come along, boy. Let us leave Moiraine Sedai" to her . . . ah . . . her.... There's plenty you can give me
a hand with downstairs. Before you know it Tam will be shouting for his pipe and a mug of ale." "Can I stay?"
Rand spoke to Moiraine, though she did not really seem to be aware of anyone besides Tam. Bran's hand
tightened, but Rand ignored him. "Please? I'll keep out of your way. You won't even know I am here. He's my
father," he added with a fierceness that startled him and widened the Mayor's eyes in surprise. Rand hoped the
others put it down to tiredness, or the strain of dealing with an Aes Sedai.
"Yes, yes," Moiraine said impatiently. She had tossed her cloak and staff carelessly across the only chair
in the room, and now she pushed up the sleeves of her gown, baring her arms to her elbows. Her attention never
really left Tam, even while she spoke. "Sit over there. And you, too, Lan." She gestured vaguely in the direction
of a long bench against the wall. Her eyestraveled slowly from Tam's feet to his head, but Rand had the prickly
feeling that she was looking beyond him in some fashion. "You may talk if you wish," she went on absently,
"but do it quietly. Now, you go, Master al'Vere. This is a sickroom, not a gathering hall. See that I am not
disturbed."
The Mayor grumbled under his breath, though not loudly enough to catch her attention, of course,
squeezed Rand's shoulder again, then obediently, if reluctantly, closed the door behind him.
Muttering to herself, the Aes Sedai knelt beside the bed and rested her hands lightly on Tam's chest. She
closed her eyes, and for a long time she neither moved nor made a sound.
In the stories Aes Sedai wonders were always accompanied by flashes and thunderclaps, or other signs
to indicate mighty works and great powers. The Power. The One Power, drawn from the True Source that drove
the Wheel of Time. That was not something Rand wanted to think about, the Power involved with Tam, himself
in the same room where the Power might be used. In the same village was bad enough. For all he could tell,
though, Moiraine might lust as well have gone to sleep. But he thought Tam's breathing sounded easier. She
must be doing something. So intent was he that he jumped when Lan spoke softly.
"That is a fine weapon you wear. Is there by chance a heron on the blade, as well?"
For a moment Rand stared at the Warder, not grasping what it was he was talking about. He had
completely forgotten Tam's sword in the lather of dealing with an Aes Sedai. It did not seem so heavy anymore.
"Yes, there is. What is she doing?"
"I'd not have thought to find a heron-mark sword in a place like this," Lan said.
"It belongs to my father." He glanced at Lan's sword, the hilt just visible at the edge of his cloak; the two
swords did look a good deal alike, except that no herons showed on the Warder's. He swung his eyes back to the
bed. Tam's breathing did sound easier; the rasp was gone. He was sure of it. "He bought it a long time ago."
"Strange thing for a sheepherder to buy."
Rand spared a sidelong look for Lan. For a stranger to wonder about the sword was prying. For a
Warder to do it . . . Still, he felt he had to say something. "He never had any use for it, that I know of. He said it
had no use. Until last night, anyway. I didn't even know he had it till then."
"He called it useless, did he? He must not always have thought so." Lan touched the scabbard at Rand's
waist briefly with one forger. "There are places where the heron is a symbol of the master swordsman. That
blade must have traveled a strange road to end up with a sheepherder in the Two Rivers."
Rand ignored the unspoken question. Moiraine still had not moved. Was the Aes Sedai doing anything?
He shivered and rubbed his arms, not sure he really wanted to know what she was doing. An Aes Sedai.
A question of his own popped into his head then, one he did not want to ask, one he needed an answer
to. "The Mayor - " He cleared his throat, and took a deep breath. "The Mayor said the only reason there's
anything left of the village is because of you and her." He made himself look at the Warder. "If you had been
told about a man in the woods . . . a man who made people afraid just by looking at them . . . would that have
warned you? A man whose horse doesn't make any noise?
“And the wind doesn't touch his cloak? Would you have known what was going to happen? Could you
and Moiraine Sedai have stopped it if you'd known about him?”
"Not without half a dozen of my sisters," Moiraine said, and Rand started. She still knelt by the bed, but
she had taken her hands from Tam and half turned to face the two of them on the bench. Her voice never raised,
but her eyes pinned Rand to the wall. "Had I known when I left Tar Valon that I would find Trollocs and
Myrddraal here, I would have brought half a dozen of them, a dozen, if I had to drag them by the scruffs of their
necks. By myself, a month's warning would have made little difference. Perhaps none. There is only so much
one person can do, even calling on the One Power, and there were, probably well over a hundred Trollocs
scattered around this district last night. An entire fist."
"It would still have been good to know," Lan said sharply, the sharpness directed at Rand. "When did
you see him, exactly, and where?"
"That's of no consequence now," Moiraine said. "I will not have the boy thinking he is to blame for
something when he is not. I am as much to blame. That accursed raven yesterday, the way it behaved, should
have warned me. And you, too, my old friend." Her tongue clicked angrily. "I was overconfident to the point of
arrogance, sure that the Dark One's touch could not have spread so far. Nor so heavily, not yet. So sure."
Rand blinked. "The raven? I don't understand."
"Carrion eaters." Lan's mouth twisted in distaste. "The Dark One's minions often find spies among
creatures that feed on death. Ravens and crows, mainly. Rats, in the cities, sometimes."
A quick shiver ran through Rand. Ravens and crows as spies of the Dark One? There were ravens and
crows- everywhere now. The Dark One's touch, Moiraine had said. The Dark One was always there - he knew
that - but if you tried to walk in the Light, tried to live a good life, and did not name him, he could not harm
you. That was what everybody believed, what everybody learned with his mother's milk. But Moiraine seemed
to be saying . . .
His glance fell on Tam, and everything else was pushed right out of his head. His father's face was
noticeably less flushed than it had been, and his breathing sounded almost normal. Rand would have leaped up
if Lan had not caught his arm. "You've done it."
Moiraine shook her head and sighed. "Not yet. I hope it is only not yet. Trolloc weapons are made at
forges in the valley called Thakan'dar, on the very slopes of Shayol Ghul itself. Some of them take a taint from
that place, a stain of evil in the metal. Those tainted blades make wounds that will not heal unaided, or cause
deadly fevers, strange sicknesses that medicines cannot touch. I have soothed your father's pain, but the mark,
the taint, is still in him. Left alone, it will grow again, and consume him."
"But you won't leave it alone." Rand's words were half plea, half command. He was shocked to realize
he had spoken to an Aes Sedai like that, but she seemed not to notice his tone.
"I will not," she agreed simply. "I am very tired, Rand, and I have had no chance to rest since last night.
Ordinarily it would not matter, but for this kind of hurt . . . This" - she took a small bundle of white silk from
her pouch - "is an angreal" She saw his expression. "You know of angreal, then. Good."
Unconsciously he leaned back, further away from her and what she held. A few stories mentioned
angreal, those relics of the Age of Legends that Aes Sedai used to perform their greatest wonders. He was
startled to see her unwrap a smooth ivory figurine, age-darkened to deep brown. No longer than her hand, it was
a woman in flowing robes, with long hair falling about her shoulders.
"We have lost the making of these," she said. "So much is lost, perhaps never to be found again. So few
remain, the Amyrlin Seat almost did not allow me to take this one. It is well for Emond's Field, and for your
father, that she did give her permission. But you must not hope too much. Now, even with it, I can do little more
than I could have without it yesterday, and the taint is strong. It has had time to fester."
"You can help him," Rand said fervently. "I know you can."
Moiraine smiled, a bare curving of her lips. "We shall see." Then she turned back to Tam. One hand she
laid on his forehead; the other cupped the ivory figure. Eyes closed, her face took on a look of concentration.
She scarcely seemed to breathe.
"That rider you spoke of," Lan said quietly, "the one who made you afraid - that was surely a
Myrddraal."
"A Myrddraal!" Rand exclaimed. "But Fades are twenty feet tall and . . ." The words faded away under
the Warder's mirthless grin.
"Sometimes, sheepherder, stories make things larger than truth. Believe me, the truth is big enough with
a Halfman. Halfman, Lurk, Fade, Shadowman; the name depends on the land you're in, but they all mean
Myrddraal. Fades are Trolloc spawn, throwbacks almost to the human stock the Dreadlords used to make the
Trollocs. Almost. But if the human strain is made stronger, so is the taint that twists the Trollocs. Halfmen have
powers of a kind, the sort that stem from the Dark One. Only the weakest Aes Sedai would fail to be a match for
a Fade, one against one, but many a good man and true has fallen to them. Since the wars that ended the Age of
Legends, since the Forsaken were bound, they have been the brain that tells the Trolloc fists where to strike. In
the days of the Trolloc Wars, Halfmen led the Trollocs in battle, under the Dreadlords."
"He scared me," Rand said faintly. "He just looked at me, and . . ." He shivered.
"No need for shame, sheepherder. They scare me, too. I've seen men who have been soldiers all their
lives freeze like a bird facing a snake when they confronted a Halfman. In the north, in the Borderlands along
the Great Blight, there is a saying. The look of the Eyeless is fear."
"The Eyeless?" Rand said, and Lan nodded.
"Myrddraal see like eagles, in darkness or in light, but they have no eyes. I can think of few things more
dangerous than facing a Myrddraal. Moiraine Sedai and I both tried to kill, the one that was here last night, and
we failed every time. Halfmen have the Dark One's own luck."
Rand swallowed. "A Trolloc said the Myrddraal wanted to talk to me: I didn't know what it meant."
Lan's head jerked up; his eyes were blue stones. "You talked to a Trolloc?"
"Not exactly," Rand stammered. The Warder's gaze held him like a trap. "It talked to me. It said it
wouldn't hurt me, that the Myrddraal wanted to talk to me. Then it tried to kill me." He licked his lips and
rubbed his hand along the knobby leather of the sword hilt. In short, choppy sentences he explained about
returning to the farmhouse. "I killed it, instead," he finished. "By accident, really. It jumped at me, and I had the
sword in my hand."
Lan's face softened slightly, if rock could be said to soften. "Even so, that is something to speak of,
sheepherder. Until last night there were few men south of the Borderlands who could say they had seen a
Trolloc, much less killed one."
"And fewer still who have slain a Trolloc alone and unaided," Moiraine said wearily. "It is done, Rand.
Lan, help me up.
The Warder sprang to her side, but he was no quicker than Rand darting to the bed. Tam's skin was cool
to the touch, though his face had a pale, washed-out look, as if he had spent far too long out of the sun. His eyes
were still closed, but he drew the deep breaths of normal sleep.
"He will be all right now?" Rand asked anxiously.
"With rest, yes," Moiraine said. "A few weeks in bed, and he will be as good as ever." She walked
unsteadily, despite holding Lan's arm. He swept her cloak and staff from the chair cushion for her to sit, and she
eased herself down with a sigh. With a slow care she rewrapped the angreal and returned it to her pouch.
Rand's shoulders shook; he bit his lip to keep from laughing. At the same time he had to scrub a hand
across his eyes to clear away tears. "Thank you."
"In the Age of Legends," Moiraine went on, "some Aes Sedai could fan life and health to flame if only
the smallest spark remained. Those days are gone, though-perhaps forever. So much was lost; not just the
making of angreal. So much that could be done which we dare not even dream of, if we remember it at all.
There are far fewer of us now. Some talents are all but gone, and many that remain seem weaker. Now there
must be both will and strength for the body to draw on, or even the strongest of us can do nothing in the way of
Healing. It is fortunate, that your father is a strong man, both in body and spirit. As it is, he used up much of his
strength in the fight for life, but all that is left now is for him to recuperate. That will take time, but the taint is
gone."
"I can never repay you," he told her without taking his eyes from Tam, "but anything I can do for you, I
will. Anything at all." He remembered the talk of prices, then, and his promise. Kneeling beside Tam he meant
it even more than before, but it still was not easy to look at her. "Anything. As long as it does not hurt the
village, or my friends."
Moiraine raised a hand dismissively. "If you think it is necessary. I would like to talk with you, anyway.
You will no doubt leave at the same time we do, and we can speak at length then."
"Leave!" he exclaimed, scrambling to his feet. "Is it really that bad? Everyone looked to me as if they
were ready to start rebuilding. We are pretty settled folk in the Two Rivers. Nobody ever leaves."
Rand - "
"And where would we go? Padan Fain said the weather is just as bad everywhere else. He's . . . he was . .
the peddler. The Trollocs . . ." Rand swallowed; wishing Thom Merrilin had not told him what Trollocs ate.
"The best I can see to do is stay right here where we belong, in the Two Rivers, and put things back together.
We have crops in the ground, and it has to warm enough for- the shearing, soon. I don't know who started this
talk about leaving-one of the Coplins, I'll bet-but whoever it was -"
"Sheepherder," Lan broke in, "you talk when you should be listening."
He blinked at both of them. He had been half babbling, he realized, and he had rambled on while she
tried to talk. While an Aes Sedai tried to talk. He wondered what to say, how to apologize, but Moiraine smiled
while he was still thinking.
"I understand how you feel, Rand," she said, and he had the uncomfortable feeling that she really did.
"Think no more of it." Her mouth tightened, and she shook her head. "I have handled this badly, I see. I should
have rested, first, I suppose. It is you who will be leaving, Rand. You who must leave, for the sake of your
village."
"Me?" He cleared his throat and tried again. "Me?" It sounded a little better this time. "Why do I have to
go? I don't understand any of this. I don't want to go anywhere."
Moiraine looked at Lan, and the Warder unfolded his arms.
He looked at Rand from under his leather headband, and Rand had the feeling of being weighed on
invisible scales again.
“Did you know," Lan said suddenly, "that some homes were not attacked?”
"Half the village is in ashes," he protested, but the Warder waved it away.
"Some houses were only torched to create confusion. The Trollocs ignored them afterwards, and the
people who fled from them as well, unless they actually got in the way of the true attack. Most of the people
who've come in from the outlying farms never saw a hair of a Trolloc, and that only at a distance. Most never
knew there was any trouble until they saw the village."
"I did hear about Darl Coplin," Rand said slowly. "I suppose it just didn't sink in."
"Two farms were attacked," Lan went on. "Yours and one other. Because of Bel Tine everyone who
lived at the second farm was already in the village. Many people were saved because the Myrddraal was
ignorant of Two Rivers customs. Festival and Winternight made its task all but impossible, but it did not know
that."
Rand looked at Moiraine, leaning back in the chair, but she said nothing, only watched him, a finger laid
across her lips. "Our farm, and who else's?" he asked finally.
"The Aybara farm," Lan replied. "Here in Emond's Field, they struck first at the forge, and the
blacksmith's house, and Master Cauthon's house.”
Rand's mouth was suddenly dry. "That's crazy," he managed to get out, then jumped as Moiraine straightened.
"Not crazy, Rand," she said. "Purposeful. The Trollocs did not come to Emond's Field by happenstance,
and they did not do what they did for the pleasure of killing and burning, however much that delighted them.
They knew what, or rather who, they were after. The Trollocs came to kill or capture young men of a certain
age who live near Emond's Field."
"My age?" Rand's voice shook, and he did not care. "Light! Mat. What about Perrin?"
"Alive and well," Moiraine assured him, "if a trifle sooty." "Ban Crawe and Lem Thane?"
"Were never in any danger," Lan said. "At least, no more than anyone else."
"But they saw the rider, the Fade, too, and they're the same age as I am."
"Master Crawe's house was not even damaged," Moiraine said, "and the miller and his family slept
through half the attack before the noise woke them. Ban is ten months older than you, and Lem eight months
younger." She smiled dryly at his surprise. "I told you I asked questions. And I also said young men of a certain
age. You and your two friends are within weeks of one another. It was you three the Myrddraal sought, and
none others."
Rand shifted uneasily, wishing she would not look at him like that, as if her eyes could pierce his brain
and read what lay in every corner of it. "What would they want with us? We're justfarmers, shepherds."
"That is a question that has no answer in the Two Rivers," Moiraine said quietly, "but the answer is
important. Trollocs where they have not been seen in almost two thousand years tells us that much."
"Lots of stories tell about Trolloc raids," Rand said stubbornly. "We just never had one here before.
Warders fight Trollocs all the time."
Lan snorted. "Boy, I expect to fight Trollocs along the Great Blight, but not here, nearly six hundred
leagues to the south. That was as hot a raid last night as I'd expect to see in Shienar, or any of the Borderlands."
"In one of you," Moiraine said, "or all three, there is something the Dark One fears."
"That . . . that's impossible." Rand stumbled to the window and stared out at the village, at the people
working among the ruins. "I don't care what's happened, that is just impossible." Something on the Green
caught his eye. He stared, then realized it was the blackened stump of the Spring Pole. A fine Bel Tine, with a
peddler, and a gleeman, and strangers. He shivered, and shook his head violently. "No. No, I'm a shepherd. The
Dark One can't be interested in me."
"It took a great deal of effort," Lan said grimly, "to bring so many Trollocs so far without raising a hue
and cry from the Borderlands to Caemlyn and beyond. I wish I knew how they did it. Do you really believe they
went to all that bother just to burn a few houses?"
"They will be back," Moiraine added.
Rand had his mouth open to argue with Lan, but that brought him up short. He spun to face her. "Back?
Can't you stop them? You did last night, and you were surprised, then. Now you know they are here."
"Perhaps," Moiraine replied. "I could send to Tar Valon for some of my sisters; they might have time to
make the journey before we need them. The Myrddraal knows I am here, too, and it probably will not attack -
not openly, at least - lacking reinforcements, more. Myrddraal and more Trollocs. With enough Aes Sedai and
enough Warders, the Trollocs can be beaten off, though I cannot say how many battles it will take."
A vision danced in his head, of Emond's Field all in ashes. All the farms burned. And Watch Hill, and
Deven Ride, and Taren Ferry. All ashes and blood. "No," he said, and felt a wrenching inside as if he had lost
his grip on something. "That's why I have to leave, isn't it? The Trollocs won't come back if I am not here." A
last trace of obstinacy made him add, "If they really are after me."
Moiraine’s eyebrows raised as if she were surprised that he was not convinced, but Lan said, "Are you
willing to bet your village on it, sheepherder? Your whole Two Rivers?"
Rand's stubbornness faded. "No," he said again, and felt that emptiness inside again, too. "Perrin and
Mat have to go, too, don't they?" Leaving the Two Rivers. Leaving his home and his father. At least Tam would
get better. At least he would be able. to hear him say all that on the Quarry Road had been nonsense. "We could
go to Baerlon, I suppose, or even Caemlyn. I've heard there are more people in Caemlyn than in the whole Two
Rivers. We'd be safe there." He tried out a laugh that sounded hollow. "I used to daydream about seeing
Caemlyn. I never thought it would come about like this."
There was a long silence, then Lan said, "I would not count on Caemlyn for safety. If the Myrddraal
want you badly enough, they will find a way. Walls are a poor bar to a Halfman. And you would be a fool not to
believe they want you very badly indeed."
Rand thought his spirits had sunk as low as they possibly could, but at that they slid deeper.
"There is a place of safety," Moiraine said softly, and Rand's ears pricked up to listen. "In Tar Valon you
would be among Aes Sedai and Warders. Even during the Trolloc Wars the forces of the Dark One feared to
attack the Shining Walls. The one attempt was their greatest defeat until the very end. And Tar Valon holds all
the knowledge we Aes Sedai have gathered since the Time of Madness. Some fragments even date from the
Age of Legends. In Tar Valon, if anywhere, you will be able to learn why the Myrddraal want you. Why the
Father of Lies wants you. That I can promise."
A journey all the way to Tar Valon was almost beyond thinking. A journey to a place where he would be
surrounded by Aes Sedai. Of course, Moiraine had healed Tam-or it looked as if she had; at least-but there were
all those stories. It was uncomfortable enough to be in a room with one Aes Sedai, but to be in a city full of
them.... And she still had not demanded her price. There was always a price, so the stories said.
"How long will my father sleep?" he asked at last. "I . . . I have to tell him. He shouldn't just wake and
find me gone." He thought he heard Lan give a sigh of relief. He looked at the Warder curiously, but Lan's face
was as expressionless as ever.
"It is unlikely he will wake before we depart," Moiraine said. "I mean to go soon after full dark. Even a
single day of delay could be fatal. It will be best if you leave him a note."
"In the night?" Rand said doubtfully, and Lan nodded.
"The Halfman will discover we are gone soon enough. There is no need to make things any easier for it
than we must."
Rand fussed with his father's blankets. It was a very long way to Tar Valon. "In that case...In that case, I
had better go find Mat and Perrin."
"I will attend to that." Moiraine got to her feet briskly and donned her cloak with suddenly restored
vigor. She put a hand on his shoulder, and he tried very hard not to flinch. She did not press hard, but it was an
iron grip that held him as surely as a forked stick held a snake. "It will be best if we keep all of this just among
us. Do you understand? The same ones who put the Dragon's Fang on the inn door might make trouble if they
knew."
"I understand." He drew a relieved breath when she took her hand away.
"I will have Mistress al'Vere bring you something to eat," she went on just as if she had not noticed his
reaction. "Then you need to sleep. It will be a hard journey tonight even if you are rested."
The door closed behind them, and Rand stood looking down at Tam - looking at Tam; but seeing
nothing. Not until that very minute had he realized that Emond's Field was a part of him as much as he was a
part of it. He realized it now because he knew that was what he had felt tearing loose. He was apart from the
village, now. The Shepherd of the Night wanted him. It wasimpossible-he was only a farmer-but the Trollocs
had come, and Lan was right about one thing.He could not risk the village on the chance Moiraine was wrong.
He could not even tell anyone;the Coplins really would make trouble about something like that. He had to trust
an Aes Sedai.
"Don't wake him, now," Mistress al'Vere said, as the Mayor shut the door behind his wife and himself.
The cloth-covered tray she carried gave off delicious, warm smells. She set it on the chest against the wall, then
firmly moved Rand away from the bed.
"Mistress Moiraine told me what he needs," she said softly, "and it does not include you falling on top of
him from exhaustion. I've brought you a bite to eat. Don't let it get cold, now."
"I wish you wouldn't call her that," Bran said peevishly. "Moiraine Sedai is proper. She might get mad."
Mistress al'Vere gave him a pat on the cheek. "You just leave me to worry about that. She and I had a
long talk. And keep your voice down. If you wake Tam, you'll have to answer to me and Moiraine Sedai." She
put an emphasis on Moiraine's title that made Bran's insistence seem foolish. "The two of you keep out of my
way." With a fond smile for her husband, she turned to the bed and Tam.
Master al'Vere gave Rand a frustrated look. "She's an Aes Sedai. Half the women in the village act as if
she sits in the Women's Circle, and the rest as if she were a Trolloc. Not a one of them seems to realize you
have to be careful around Aes Sedai. The men may keep looking at her sideways, but at least they aren't doing
anything that might provoke her."
Careful, Rand thought. It was not too late to start being careful. "Master al'Vere," he said slowly, "do
you know how many farms were attacked?"
"Only two that I've heard of so far, including your place." The Mayor paused, frowning, then shrugged.
"It doesn't seem enough, with what happened here. I should be glad of it, but.... Well, we'll probably hear of
more before the day is out."
Rand sighed. No need to ask which farms. "Here in the village, did they.... I mean, was there anything to
show what they were after?"
"After, boy? I don't know that "they were after anything, except maybe killing us all. It was just the way
I said. The dogs barking, and Moiraine Sedai and Lan running through the streets, then somebody shouted that
Master Luhhan's house and the forge were on fire. Abell Cauthon's house flared up - odd that; it's nearly in the
middle of the village. Anyway, the next thing the Trollocs were all among us. No, I don't think they were after
anything.” He gave an abrupt barkof a laugh, and cut it short with a wary look at his wife. She did not look
around from Tam. "To tell the truth," he went on more quietly, "they seemed almost as confused as we were. I
doubt they expected to find an Aes Sedai here, or a Warder."
"I suppose not," Rand said, grimacing.
If Moiraine had told the truth about that, she probably had told the truth about the rest, too. For a
moment he thought about asking the Mayor's advice, but Master al'Vere obviously knew little more about Aes
Sedai than anyone else in the village. Besides, he was reluctant to tell even the Mayor what was going on-what
Moiraine said was going on. He was not sure if he was more afraid of being laughed at or being believed. He
rubbed a thumb against the hilt of Tam's sword. His father had been out into the world; he must know more
about Aes Sedai than the Mayor did. But if Tam really had been out of the Two Rivers, then maybe what he had
said in the Westwood. . . He scrubbed both hands through his hair, scattering that line of thought.
"You need sleep, lad," the Mayor said.
"Yes, you do," Mistress al'Vere added. "You're almost falling down where you stand."
Rand blinked at her in surprise. He had not even realized she had left his father. He did need sleep; just
the thought set off a yawn.
"You can take the bed in the next room," the Mayor said. "There's already a fire laid."
Rand looked at his father; Tam was still deep in sleep, and that made him yawn again. "I'd rather stay in
here, if you don't mind. For when he wakes up."
Sickroom matters were in Mistress al'Vere's province, and the Mayor left it to her. She hesitated only a
moment before nodding. "But you let him wake on his own. If you bother his sleep . . ." He tried to say he
would do as she ordered, but the words got tangled in yet another yawn. She shook her head with a smile. "You
will be asleep yourself in no time at all. If you must stay, curl up next to the fire. And drink a little of that beef
broth before you doze off."
"I will," Rand said. He would have agreed to anything that kept him in that room. "And I won't wake
him."
"See that you do not," Mistress al'Vere told him firmly, but not in an unkindly way. "I'll bring you up a
pillow and some blankets."
When the door finally closed behind them, Rand dragged the lone chair in the room over beside the bed
and sat down where he could watch Tam. It was all very well for Mistress al'Vere to talk about sleep-his jaws
cracked as he stifled a yawn-but he could not sleep yet. Tam might wake at any time, and maybe only stay
awake a short while. Rand had to be waiting when he did.
He grimaced and twisted in the chair, absently shifting the sword hilt out of his ribs. He still felt
backward about telling anyone what Moiraine had said, but this was Tam, after all. This was . . . Without
realizing it he set his jaw determinedly. My father. I can tell my father anything.
He twisted a little more in the chair and put his head against the chair back. Tam was his father, and
nobody could tell him what to say or not say to his father. He just had to stay awake until Tam woke up. He just
had to . . .

Chapter 9

Tellings of the Wheel


Rand's heart pounded as he ran, and he stared in dismay at the barren hills surrounding him. This was
not just a place where spring was late in coming; spring had never come here, and never would come.
Nothing grew in the cold soil that crunched under his boots, not so much as a bit of lichen. He
scrambled past boulders, twice as tall as he was; dust coated the stone as if never a drop of rain had touched it.
The sun was a swollen, blood red ball, more fiery than on the hot- test day of summer and bright enough to sear
his eyes, but it stood stark against a leaden cauldron of a sky where clouds of sharp black and silver roiled and
boiled on every horizon. For all the swirling clouds, though, no breath of breeze stirred across the land, and
despite the sullen sun the air burned cold like the depths of winter.
Rand looked over his shoulder often as he ran, but he could not see his pursuers. Only desolate hills and
jagged black mountains, many topped by tall plumes of dark smoke rising to join the milling clouds. If he could
not see his hunters, though, he could hear them, howling behind him, guttural voices shouting with the glee of
the chase, howling with the joy of blood tocome. Trollocs. Coming closer, and his strength was almost gone.
With desperate haste he scrambled to the top of a knife edged ridge, then dropped to his knees with a
groan. Below him a sheer rock wall fell away, a thousand-foot cliff plummeting into a vast canyon. Steamy
mists covered the Canyon floor, their thick gray surface rolling in grim waves, rolling and breaking against the
cliff beneath him, but more slowly than any ocean wave had ever moved. Patches of fog glowed red for an
instant as if great fires had suddenly flared beneath, then died. Thunder rumbled in the depths of the valley, and
lightning crackled throughthe gray, sometimes striking up at the sky.
It was not the valley itself that sapped his strength and filled the empty spaces left with helplessness.
From the center of the furious vapors a mountain thrust upward, a mountain taller than any he had ever seen in
the Mountains of Mist, a mountain as black as the loss of all hope. That bleak stone spire, a dagger stabbing at
the heavens, was the source of his desolation. He hadnever seen it before, but he knew it. The memory of it
flashed away like quicksilver when he tried to touch it, but the memory was there. He knew it was there.
Unseen fingers touched him, pulled at his arms and legs, trying to draw him to the mountain. His body
twitched, ready to obey. His arms and legs stiffened, as if he thought he could dig his fingers and toes into the
stone. Ghostly strings entwined around his heart, pulling him, calling him to the spire mountain. Tears ran down
his face, and he sagged to the ground. He felt his will draining away like water out of a holed bucket. Just a little
longer, and he would go where he was called. He would obey, do as he was told. Abruptly he discovered
another emotion: anger. Push him, pull him, he was not a sheep to be prodded into a pen. The anger squeezed
itself into one hard knot, and he clung to it as he would have clung to a raft in a flood.
Serve me, a voice whispered in the stillness of his mind. A familiar voice. If he listened hard enough he
was sure he would know it. Serve me. He shook his head to try to get it out of his head. Serve me! He shook his
fist at the black mountain.
"The Light consume you, Shai'tan!"
Abruptly the smell of death lay thick around him. A figure loomed over him, in a cloak the color of
dried blood, a figure with a face . . . He did not want to see the face that looked down at him. He did not want to
think of that face. It hurt to think of it, turned his mind to embers. A hand reached toward him. Not caring if he
fell over the edge, he threw himself away.
He had to get away. Far away. He fell, flailing at the air, wanting to scream, finding no breath for
screaming, no breath at all.
Abruptly he was no longer in the barren land, no longer falling. Winter-brown grass flattened under his
boots; it seemed like flowers. He almost laughed to see scattered trees and bushes, leafless as they were, dotting
the gently rolling plain that now surrounded him. In the distance reared a single mountain, its peak broken and
split, but this mountain brought no fear or despair. It was just a mountain, though oddly out of place there, with
no other in sight.
A broad river flowed by the mountain, and on an island in the middle of that river was a city such as
might live in a gleeman's tale, a city surrounded by high walls gleaming white and silver beneath the warm sun.
With mingled relief and joy he started for the walls, for the safety and serenity he somehow knew he would find
behind them.
As he came closer he made out soaring towers, many joined by wondrous walkways that spanned the
open air. High bridges arched from both banks of the river to the island city. Even at a distance he could see
lacy stonework on those spans, seemingly too delicate to withstand the swift waters that rushed beneath them.
Beyond those bridges lay safety. Sanctuary.
Of a sudden a chill ran along his bones; an icy clamminess settled on his skin, and the air around him
turned fetid and, dank. Without looking back he ran, ran from the pursuer whose freezing fingers brushed his
back and tugged at his cloak, ran from the light-eating figure with the face that…He could not remember the
face, except as terror. He did not want to remember the face. He ran, and the ground passed beneath his feet,
rolling hills and flat plain…and he wanted to howl like a dog gone mad. The city was receding before him. The
harder he ran, the further away drifted the white shining walls and haven. They grew smaller, and smaller, until
only a pale speck remained on the horizon. The cold hand of his pursuer clutched at his collar. If those fingers
touched him he knew he would go mad. Or worse. Much worse. Even as that surety came to him he tripped and
fell…
"Noooo!" he screamed . . . and grunted as paving stones smacked the breath out of him. Wonderingly he
got to his feet. He stood on the approaches to one of the marvellous bridges he had seen rearing over the river.
Smiling people walked by on either side of him, people dressed in so many colors they made him think of a
field of wildflowers. Some of them spoke to him, but he could not understand, though the words sounded as if
he should. But the faces were friendly, and the people gestured him onward, over the bridge with its intricate
stonework, onward toward the shining, silver-streaked walls and the towers beyond. Toward the safety he knew
waited there.
He joined the throng streaming across the bridge and into the city through massive gates set in tall,
pristine walls. Within was a wonderland where the meanest structure seemed a pal- ace. It was as though the
builders had been told to take stone and brick and tile and create beauty to take the breath of mortal men. There
was no building, no monument that did not make him stare with goggling eyes. Music drifted down the streets,
a hundred different songs, but all blending with the clamor of the crowds to make one grand, joyous harmony.
The scents of sweet perfumes and sharp spices, of wondrous foods and myriad flowers, all floated in the air, as
if every good smell in the world were gathered there.
The street by which he entered the city, broad and paved with smooth, gray stone, stretched straight
before him toward the center of the city .At its end loomed a tower larger and taller than any other in the city, a
tower as white as fresh-fallen snow. That tower was where safety lay, and the knowledge he sought. But the city
was such as he had never dreamed of seeing. Surely it would not matter if he delayed just a short time in going
to the tower? He turned aside onto a narrower street, where jugglers strolled among hawkers of strange fruits.
Ahead of him down the street was a snow-white tower. The same tower. In just a little while, he thought,
and rounded an- other corner. At the far end of this street, too, lay the white tower. Stubbornly he turned another
corner, and another, and each time the alabaster tower met his eyes. He spun to run away from it…and skidded
to a halt. Before him, the white tower. He was afraid to look over his shoulder, afraid it would be there, too. The
faces around him were still friendly, but shattered hope filled them now, hope he had broken. Still the people
gestured him forward, pleading gestures. Toward the tower. Their eyes shone with desperate need, and only he
could fulfill it, only he could save them. Very well, he thought. The tower was, after all, where he wanted to go.
Even as he took his first step forward disappointment faded from those about him, and smiles wreathed
every face. They moved with him, and small children strewed his path with flower petals. He looked over his
shoulder in confusion, wondering who the flowers were meant for, but behind him were only more smiling
people gesturing him on. They must be for me, he thought, and wondered why that suddenly did not seem
strange at all. But wonderment lasted only a moment before melting away; all was as it should be.
First one, then another of the people began to sing, until every voice was lifted in a glorious anthem. He
still could not understand the words, but a dozen interweaving harmonies, shouted joy and salvation. Musicians
capered through the on-flowing crowd, adding flutes and harps and drums in a dozen sizes to the hymn, and all
the songs he had heard before blended in without seam. Girls danced around him, laying garlands of sweetsmelling
blossoms across his shoulders, twining them about his neck. They smiled at him, their delight growing
with every step he took. He could not help but smile back. His feet itched to join in their dance, and even as he
thought of it he was dancing, his steps fitting as if he had known it all from birth. He threw back his head and
laughed; his feet were lighter. than they had ever been, dancing with. …He could not remember the name, but it
did not seem important.
It is your destiny, a voice whispered in his head, and the whisper was a thread in the pattern.
Carrying him like a twig on the crest of a wave, the crowd flowed into a huge square in the middle of the
city, and for the first time he saw that the white tower rose from a great palace of pale marble, sculpted rather
than built, curving walls and swelling domes and delicate spires fingering the sky. The whole of it made him
gasp in awe. Broad stairs of pristine stone led up from the square, and at the foot of those stairs the, people
halted, but their song rose ever higher. The swelling voices buoyed his feet.
Your destiny, the voice whispered, insistent now, eager.
He no longer danced, but neither did he stop. He mounted the stairs without hesitation. This was where
he belonged.
Scrollwork covered the massive doors at the top of the stairs, carvings so intricate and delicate that he
could not imagine a knife blade fine enough to fit. The portals swung open, and he went in. They closed behind
him with an echoing crash like thunder.
"We have been waiting for you," the Myrddraal hissed.
Rand sat bolt upright, gasping for breath and shivering, staring. Tam was still asleep on the bed. Slowly
his breathing slowed. Half-consumed logs blazed in the fireplace with a good bed of coals built up around the
fire irons; someone had been there to tend it while he slept. A blanket lay at his feet, where it had fallen when
he woke. The makeshift litter was gone, too, and his and Tam's cloaks had been hung by the door.
He wiped cold sweat from his face with a hand that was none too steady and wondered if naming the
Dark One in a dream brought his attention the same way that naming him aloud did. Twilight darkened the
window; the moon was well up, round and fat, and evening stars sparkled above the Mountains of Mist. He had
slept the day away. He rubbed a sore spot on his side. Apparently he had slept with the sword hilt jabbing him
in the ribs. Between that and an empty stomach and the night before, it was no wonder he had had nightmares.
His belly rumbled, and he got up stiffly and made his way to the table where Mistress al'Vere had left
the tray, He twitched aside the white napkin. Despite the time he had slept, the beef broth was still warm, and so
was the crusty bread. Mistress al'Vere's hand was plain; the tray had been replaced. Once she decided you
needed a hot meal, she did not give up till it was inside you.
He gulped down some broth, and it was all he could do to put some meat and cheese between two pieces
of bread before stuffing it in his mouth. Taking big bites, he went back to the bed.
Mistress al'Vere had apparently seen to Tam, as well. Tam had been undressed, his clothes now clean
and neatly folded on the bedside table, and a blanket was drawn up under his chin. When Rand touched his
father's forehead, Tam opened his eyes.
"There you are, boy. Marin said you were here, but I couldn't even sit up to see. She said you were too
tired for her to wake just so I could look at you. Even Bran can't get around to find her when she has her mind
set."
Tam's voice was weak, but his gaze was clear and steady. The Aes Sedai was right, Rand thought. With
rest he would be as good as ever.
"Can I get you something to eat? Mistress al'Vere left a tray."
"She fed me already…if you can call it that. Wouldn't let me have anything but broth. How can a man
avoid bad dreams with nothing but broth in his…" Tam fumbled a hand from under the cover and touched the
sword at Rand's waist.
"Then it wasn't a dream. When Marin told me I was sick, I thought I had been. ...But you're all right.
That is all that matters. What of the farm?"
Rand took a deep breath. "The Trollocs killed the sheep. I think they took the cow, too, and the house
needs a good cleaning." He managed a weak smile. "We were luckier than some. They burned half the village."
He told Tam everything that had happened, or at least most of it. Tam listened closely, and asked sharp
questions, so he found himself having to tell about returning to the farmhouse from the woods, and that brought
in the Trolloc he had killed. He had to tell how Nynaeve had said Tam was dying to explain why the Aes Sedai
had tended him instead of the Wisdom. Tam's eyes widened at that, an Aes Sedai in Emond's Field. But Rand
could see no need to go over every step of the journey from the farm, or his fears, or the Myrddraal on the road.
Certainly not his nightmares as he slept by the bed. Especially he saw no reason to mention Tam's ramblings
under the fever. Not yet. Moraine’s story, though: there was no avoiding that.
"Now that's a tale to make a gleeman proud," Tam muttered when he was done. "What would Trollocs
want with you boys? Or the Dark One, Light help us?"
"You think she was lying? Master al'Vere said she was telling the truth about only two farms being
attacked. And about Master Luhhan's house, and Master Cauthon's."
For a moment Tam lay silent before saying, "Tell me what she said. Her exact words, mind, just as she
said them."
Rand struggled. Who ever remembered the exact words they heard? He chewed at his lip and scratched
his head, and bit by bit he brought it out, as nearly as he could remember. "I can't think of anything else," he
finished. "Some of it I'm not too sure she didn't say a little differently, but it's close, anyway."
' "It's good enough. It has to be, doesn't it? You see, lad, Aes Sedai are tricksome. They don't lie, not
right out, but the truth an Aes Sedai tells you is not always the truth you think it is. You take care around her."
"I've heard the stories," Rand retorted. "I'm not a child."
"So you're not, so you're not." Tam sighed heavily, then shrugged in annoyance. "I should be going
along with you, just the same. The world outside the Two Rivers is nothing like Emond's Field."
That was an opening to ask about Tam going outside and all the rest of it, but Rand did not take it. His
mouth fell open, instead. "Just like that? I thought you would try to talk me out of it. I thought you'd have a
hundred reasons I should not go." He realized he had been hoping Tam would have a hundred reasons, and good
ones.
"Maybe not a hundred," Tam said with a snort, "but a few did come to mind. Only they don't count for
much. If Trollocs are after you, you will be safer in Tar Valon than you could ever be here. Just remember to be
wary. Aes Sedai do things for their own reasons, and those are not always the reasons you think."
"The gleeman said something like that," Rand said slowly.
Then he knows what he's talking about. You listen sharp, think deep, and guard your tongue. That's good
advice for any dealings beyond the Two Rivers, but most especially with Aes Sedai. And with Warders. Tell
Lan something, and you've as good as told Moiraine. If he's a Warder, then he's bonded to her as sure as the sun
rose this morning, and he won't keep many secrets from her, if any."
Rand knew little about the bonding between Aes Sedai and Warders, though it played a big part in every
story about Warders he had ever heard. It was something to do with the power, a gift to the warder, or maybe
some sort of exchange.
The Warders go all sorts of benefits according to the stories. They healed more quickly than other men,
and could go longer without food or water or sleep. Supposedly they could sense Trollocs, if they were close
enough, and other creatures of the Dark One, too, which explained how Lan and Moiraine had tried to warn the
village before the attack. As to what the Aes Sedai got out of it, the stories were silent, but he was not about to
believe they did not get something.
"I'll be careful," Rand said. "I just wish I knew why. It doesn't make any sense. Why me? Why us?"
"I wish I knew, too, boy. Blood and ashes, I wish I knew." Tam sighed heavily. "Well, no use trying to
put a broken egg back in the shell, I suppose. How soon do you have to go? I'll be back on my feet in a day or
two, and we can see about starting a new flock. Oren Dautry has some good stock he might be willing to part
with, with the pastures all gone, and so does Jon Thane."
"Moiraine . . . the Aes Sedai said you had to stay in bed. She said weeks." Tam opened his mouth, but
Rand went on. " And she talked to Mistress al'Vere."
"Oh. Well, maybe I can talk Marin around." Tam did not sound hopeful of it, though. He gave Rand a
sharp look. "The way you avoided answering means you have to leave soon. Tomorrow? Or tonight?"
"Tonight," Rand said quietly, and Tam nodded sadly.
"Yes. Well, if it must be done, best not to delay. But we will see about this 'weeks' business." He
plucked at his blankets with more irritation than strength. "Perhaps I'll follow in a few days anyway. Catch you
up on the road. We will see if Marin can keep me in bed when I want to get up."
There was a tap at the door, and Lan stuck his head into the room. "Say your goodbyes quickly,
sheepherder, and come. There may be trouble."
"Trouble?" Rand said, and the Warder growled at him impatiently.
"Just hurry!" Hastily Rand snatched up his cloak. He started to undo the sword belt, but Tam spoke up.
"Keep it. You will probably have more need of it than I, though, the Light willing, neither of us will.
Take care, lad. You hear?"
Ignoring Lan's continued growls, Rand bent to grab Tam in a hug. "I will come back. I promise you
that."
"Of course you will." Tam laughed. He returned the hug weakly, and ended by patting Rand on the back.
"I know that. And I'll have twice as many sheep for you to tend when you return. Now go, before that fellow
does himself an injury."
Rand tried to hang back, tried to find the words for the question he did not want to ask, but Lan entered
the room to catch him by the arm and pull him into the hall. The Warder had donned a dull gray-green tunic of
overlapping metal scales. His voice rasped with irritation.
"We have to hurry. Don't you understand the word trouble?"
Outside the room Mat waited, cloaked and coated and carrying his bow. A quiver hung at his waist. He
was rocking anxiously on his heels, and he kept glancing off toward the stairs with what seemed to be equal
parts impatience and fear.
This isn't much like the stories, Rand, is it?" he said hoarsely.
"What kind of trouble?" Rand demanded, but the Warder ran ahead of him instead of answering, taking
the steps down .two at a time. Mat dashed after him with quick gestures for Rand to follow.
Shrugging into his cloak, he caught up to them downstairs. Only a feeble light filled the common room;
half the candles had burned out and most of the rest were guttering. It was empty except for the three of them.
Mat stood next to one of the front windows, peeping out as if trying not to be seen. Lao held the door open a
crack and peered into the inn yard.
Wondering what they could be watching, Rand went to join him. The Warder muttered at him to take a
care, but he did open the door a trifle wider to make room for Rand to look, too.
At first he was not sure exactly what he was seeing. A crowd of village men, some three dozen or so,
clustered near the burned-out husk of the peddler's wagon, night pushed back by the torches some of them
carried. Moiraine faced them, her back to the inn, leaning with seeming casualness on her walking staff. Hari
Coplin stood in the front of the crowd with his brother, Darl, and Bili Congar. Cenn Buie was there, as well,
looking uncomfortable. Rand was startled to see Hari shake his fist at Moiraine.
"Leave Emond's Field!" the sour-faced farmer shouted. A few voices in the crowd echoed him, but
hesitantly, and no one pushed forward. They might be willing to confront an Aes Sedai from within a crowd,
but none of them wanted to be singled out. Not by an Aes Sedai who had every reason to take offense.
"You brought those monsters!" Darl roared. He waved a torch over his head, and there were shouts of,
"You brought them!" and "It's your fault!" led by his cousin Bill.
Hari elbowed Cenn Buie, and the old thatcher pursed his lips and gave him a sidelong glare. "Those
things…those Trollocs didn't appear until after you came," Cenn muttered, barely loud enough to be heard. He
swung his head from side to side dourly as if wishing he were somewhere else and looking for a way to get
there. "You're an Aes Sedai. We want none of your sort in the Two Rivers. Aes Sedai bring trouble on their
backs. If you stay, you will only bring more."
His speech brought no response from the gathered villagers, and Hari scowled in frustration. Abruptly
he snatched Darl's torch and shook it in her direction. "Get out!" he shouted. "Or we'll burn you out!"
Dead silence fell, except for the shuffling of a few feet as men drew back. Two Rivers folk could fight
back if they were attacked, but violence was far from common, and threatening people was foreign to them,
beyond the occasional shaking of a fist. Cenn Buie, Bili Congar, and the Coplins were left out front alone. Bili
looked as if he wanted to back away, too.
Hari gave an uneasy start at the lack of support, but he re- covered quickly. "Get out!" he shouted again,
echoed by Darl and, more weakly, by Bili. Hari glared at the others. Most of the crowd failed to meet his eye.
Suddenly Bran al'Vere and Haral Luhhan moved out of the shadows, stopping apart from both the Aes
Sedai and the crowd. In one hand the Mayor casually carried the big wooden maul he used to drive spigots into
casks. "Did someone suggest burning my inn?" he asked softly.
The two Coplins took a step back, and Cenn Buie edged away from them. Bili Congar dived into the
crowd. "Not that," Darl said quickly. "We never said that, Bran…ah, Mayor. "
Bran nodded. "Then perhaps I heard you threatening to harm guests in my inn?"
"She's an Aes Sedai," Hari began angrily, but his words cut off as Haral Luhhan moved.
The blacksmith simply stretched, thrusting thick arms over his head, tightening massive fists until his
knuckles cracked, but Hari looked at the burly man as if one of those fists had been shaken under his nose.
Haral folded his arms across his chest. "Your pardon, Hari. I did not mean to cut you off. You were saying?"
But Hari, shoulders hunched as though he were trying to draw into himself and disappear, seemed to
have nothing more to say.
"I'm surprised at you people," Bran rumbled. "Paet al'Caar, your boy's leg was broken last night, but I
saw him walking on it today - because of her. Eward Candwin, you were lying on your belly with a gash down
your back like a fish for cleaning, till she laid hands on you. Now it looks as if it happened a month ago, and
unless I misdoubt there'll barely be a scar. And you, Cenn. " The thatcher started to fade back into the crowd,
but stopped, held uncomfortably by Bran's gaze. "I'd be shocked to see any man on the Village Council here,
Cenn, but you most of all. Your arm would still be hanging useless at your side, a mass of burns and bruises, if
not for her. If you have no gratitude, have you no shame?"
Cenn half lifted his right hand, then looked away from it angrily. "I cannot deny what she did," he
muttered, and he did sound ashamed. "She helped me, and others," he went on in apleading tone, "but she's an
Aes Sedai, Bran. If those Trollocs didn't come because of her, why did they come? We want no part of Aes
Sedai in the Two Rivers. Let them keep their troubles away from us."
A few men, safely back in the crowd, shouted then. "We want no Aes Sedai troubles!" "Sendher away!"
"Drive her out!" "Why did they come if not because of her?"
A scowl grew on Bran's face, but before he could speak Moiraine suddenly whirled her vinecarved staff
above her head, spinning it with both hands. Rand's gasp echoed that of the villagers, for a hissing white flame
flared from each end of the staff, standing straight out like spearpoints despite the rod's whirling. Even Bran and
Haral edged away from her. She snapped her arms down straight out before her, the staff parallel to the ground,
but the pale fire still jetted out, brighter than the torches. Men shied away, held up hands to shield their eyes
from the pain of that brilliance.
"Is this what Aemon's blood has come to?" The Aes Sedai's voice was not loud, but it overwhelmed
every other sound.
"Little people squabbling for the right to hide like rabbits? You have forgotten who you were, forgotten
what you were, but I had hoped some small part was left, some memory in blood and bone. Some shred to steel
you for the long night coming."
No one spoke. The two Coplins looked as if they never wanted to open their mouths again.
Bran said, "Forgotten who we were? We are who we always have been. Honest farmers and shepherds
and craftsmen. Two Rivers folk. "
"To the south," Moiraine said, "lies the river you call the White River, but far to the east of here men call
it still by its rightful name. Manetherendrelle. In the Old Tongue, Waters of the Mountain Home. Sparkling
waters that once coursed through a land of bravery and beauty .Two thousand years ago Manetherendrelle
flowed by the walls of a mountain city so lovely to behold that Ogier stonemasons came to stare in wonder.
Farms and villages covered this region, and that you call the Forest of Shadows, as well, and beyond. But all of
those folk thought of themselves as the people of the Mountain Home, the people of Manetheren.
"Their King was Aemon al Caar al Thorin, Aemon son of Caar son of Thorin, and Eldrene ay Ellan ay
Carlan was his Queen. Aemon, a man so fearless that the greatest compliment for courage any could give, even
among his enemies, was to say a man had Aemon's heart. Eldrene, so beautiful that it was said the flowers
bloomed to make her smile. Bravery and beauty and wisdom and a love that death couIS not sunder. Weep, if
you have a heart, for the loss of them, for the loss of even their memory. Weep, for the loss of their blood."
She fell silent then, but no one spoke. Rand was as bound as the others in the spell she had created. Then
she spoke again, he drank it in, and so did the rest.
"For nearly two centuries the Trolloc Wars had ravaged the length and breadth of the world, and
wherever battles raged, the Red Eagle banner of Manetheren was in the forefront. The men of Manetheren were
a thorn to the Dark One's foot and a bramble to his hand. Sing of Manetheren, that would never bend knee to the
Shadow. Sing of Manetheren, the sword that could not be broken.
"They were far away, the men of Manetheren, on the Field of Bekkar, called the Field of Blood, when
news came that a Trolloc army was moving against their home. Too far to do else but wait to hear of their land's
death, for the forces of the Dark One meant to make an end of them. Kill the mighty oak by hacking away its
roots. Too far to do else but mourn. But they were the men of the Mountain Home.
"Without hesitation, without thought for the distance they must travel, they marched from the very field
of victory, still covered in dust and sweat and blood. Day and night they marched, for they had seen the horror a
Trolloc army left behind it, and no man of them could sleep while such a danger threatened Manetheren. They
moved as if their feet had wings, marching further and faster than friends hoped or enemies feared they could.
At any other day that march alone would have inspired songs. When the Dark One's. armies swooped down
upon the lands of Manetheren, the men of the Mountain Home stood before it, with their backs to the
Tarendrelle."
Some villager raised a small cheer then, but Moiraine kept on as if she had not heard. "The host that
faced the men of Manetheren was enough to daunt the bravest heart. Ravens blackened the sky; Trollocs
blackened the land. Trollocs and their human allies. Trollocs and Darkfriends in tens of tens of thousands, and
Dreadlords to command. At night their cook- fires outnumbered the stars, and dawn revealed the banner of
Ba'alzamon at their head. Ba'alzamon, Heart of the Dark. An ancient name for the Father of Lies. The Dark One
could not have been free of his prison at Shayol Ghul, for if he had been, not all the forces of humankind
together could have stood against him, but there was power there. Dreadlords, and some evil that made that
lightdestroying banner seem no more than right and sent a chill into the souls of the men who faced it.
"Yet, they knew what they must do. Their homeland lay just across the river. They must keep that host,
and the power with it, from the Mountain Home. Aemon had sent out messengers. Aid was promised if they
could hold for but three days at the Tarendrelle. Hold for three days against odds that should overwhelm them in
the first hour. Yet somehow, through bloody assault and desperate defense, they held through an hour, and the
second hour, and the third. For three days they fought, and though the land became a butcher's yard, no crossing
of the Tarendrelle did they yield. By the third night no help had come, and no messengers, and they fought on
alone. For six days. For nine. And on the tenth day Aemon knew the bitter taste of betrayal. No help was
coming, and they could hold the river crossings no more."
"What did they do?" Hari demanded. Torchfires flickered in the chill night breeze, but no one made a
move to draw a cloak tighter.
“Aemon crossed the Tarendrelle," Moiraine told them, "destroying the bridges behind him. And he sent
word throughout his land for the people to flee, for he knew the powers with the Trolloc horde would find a way
to bring it across the river. Even as the word went out, the Trolloc crossing began, and the soldiers of
Manetheren took up the fight again, to buy with their lives what hours they could for their people to escape.
From the city of Manetheren, Eldrene organized the flight of her people into the deepest forests and the fastness
of the mountains.
"But some did not flee. First in a trickle, then a river, then a flood, men went, not to safety, but to join
the army fighting for their land. Shepherds with bows, and farmers with pitchforks, and woodsmen with axes.
Women went, too, shouldering what weapons they could find and marching side by side with their men. No one
made that journey who did not know they would never return. But it was their land. It had been their fathers',
and it would be their children's, and they went to pay the price of it. Not a step of ground was given up until it
was soaked in blood, but at the last the army of Manetheren was driven back, back to here, to this place you
now call Emond's Field. And here the Trolloc hordes surrounded them." Her voice held the sound of cold tears.
"Trolloc dead and the corpses of human renegades piled up in mounds, but always more scrambled over those
charnel heaps in waves of death that had no end. There could be but one finish. No man or woman who had
stood beneath the banner of the Red Eagle at that day's dawning still lived when night fell. The sword that could
not be broken was shattered.
"In the Mountains of Mist, alone in the emptied city of Manetheren, Eldrene felt Aemon die, and her
heart died with him. And where her heart had been was left only a thirst for vengeance, vengeance for her love,
vengeance for her people and her land. Driven by grief she reached out to the True Source, and hurled the One
Power at the Trolloc army. And there the Dreadlords died wherever they stood, whether in their secret councils
or exhorting their soldiers. In the passing of a breath the Dreadlords and the generals of the Dark One's host
burst into flame. Fire consumed their bodies, and terror consumed their just-victorious army.
"Now they ran like beasts before a wildfire in the forest, with no thought for anything but escape. North
and south they fled. Thousands drowned attempting to cross the Tarendrelle without the aid of the Dreadlords,
and at the Manetherendrelle they tore down the bridges in their fright at what might be following them. Where
they found people, they slew and burned, but to flee was the need that gripped them. Until, at last, no one of
them remained in the lands of Manetheren. They were dispersed like dust before the whirlwind. The final
vengeance came more slowly, but it came, when they were hunted down by other peoples, by other armies in
other lands. None was left alive of those who did murder at Aemon's Field.
"But the price was high for Manetheren. Eldrene had drawn to herself more of the One Power than any
human could ever hope to wield unaided. As the enemy generals died, so did she die, and the fires that
consumed her consumed the empty city of Manetheren, even the stones of it, down to the living rock of the
mountains. Yet the people had been saved."
“Nothing was left of their farms, their villages, or their great city. Some would say there was nothing left
for them, nothing but to flee to other lands, where they could begin anew. They did not say so. They had paid
such a price in blood and hope for their land as had never been paid before, and now they were bound to that
soil by ties stronger than steel. Other wars would wrack them in years to come, until at last their corner of the
world was forgotten and at last they had forgotten wars and the ways of war. Never again did Manetheren rise.
Its soaring spires and splashing fountains became as a dream that slowly faded from the minds of its people. But
they, and their children, and their children's children, held the land that was theirs. They held it when the long
centuries had washed the why of it from their memories. They held it until, today, there is you. Weep for
Manetheren. Weep for what is lost forever."
The fires on Moiraine's staff winked out, and she lowered it to her side as if it weighed a hundred
pounds. For a long moment the moan of the wind was the only sound. Then Paet al'Caar shouldered past the
Coplins.
"I don't know about your story," the long-jawed farmer said. "I'm no thorn to the Dark One's foot, nor
ever likely to be, neither. But my Wil is walking because of you, and for that I am ashamed to be here. I don't
know if you can forgive me, but whether you will or no, I'll be going. And for me, you can stay in Emond's
Field as long as you like."
With a quick duck of his head, almost a bow, he pushed back through the crowd. Others began to mutter
then, offering shamefaced penirence before they, too, slipped away one by one. The Coplins, sour-mouthed and
scowling once more, looked at the faces around them and vanished into the night without a word. Bill Congar
had disappeared even before his cousins.
Lan pulled Rand back and shut the door. "Let's go, boy." The Warder started for the back of the inn.
"Come along, both of you. Quickly!" Rand hesitated, exchanging a wondering glance with Mat. While Moiraine
had been telling the story, Master al'Vere's Dhurrans could not have dragged him away, but now something else
held his feet. This was the real beginning, leaving the inn and following the Warder into the night. He shook
himself, and tried to firm his resolve. He had no choice but to go, but he would come back to Emond's Field,
however far or long this journey was.
“What are you waiting for?" Lan asked from the door that led out of the back of the common room.
With a start Mat hurried to him.
Trying to convince himself that he was beginning a grand adventure, Rand followed them through the
darkened kitchen out into the stableyard.

Chapter 10

Leavetaking


A single lantern, its shutters half closed, hung from a nail on a stall post, casting a dim light. Deep
shadows swallowed most of the stalls. As Rand came through the doors from the stableyard, hard on
the heels of Mat and the Warder, Perrin leaped up in a rustle of straw from where he had been sitting
with his back against a stall door. A heavy cloak swathed him.
Lan barely paused to demand, "Did you look the way I told you, blacksmith?"
"I looked," Perrin replied. "There's nobody here but us. Why would anybody hide - "
"Care and a long life go together, blacksmith." The Warder ran a quick eye around the shadowed stable
and the deeper shadows of the hayloft above, then shook his head. "No time," he muttered, half to himself.
"Hurry, she says."
As if to suit his words, he strode quickly to where the five horses stood tethered, bridled and saddled at
the back of the pool of light. Two were the black stallion and white mare that Rand had seen before. The others,
if not quite so tall or so sleek, certainly appeared to be among the best the Two Rivers had to offer. With hasty
care Lan began examining cinches and girth straps, and the leather ties that held saddlebags, water-skins, and
blanket-rolls behind the saddles.
Rand exchanged shaky smiles with his friends, trying hard to look as if he really was eager to be off.
For the first time Mat noticed the sword at Rand's waist, and pointed to it. "You becoming a Warder?"
He laughed, then swallowed it with a quick glance at Lan. The Warder apparently took no notice. "Or at least a
merchant's guard," Mat went on with a grin that seemed only a little forced. He hefted his bow. "An honest
man's weapon isn't good enough for him.
Rand thought about flourishing the sword; but Lan being there stopped him. The Warder was not even
looking in his direction, but he was sure the man was aware of everything that went on around him. Instead he
said with exaggerated casualness, "It might be useful," as if wearing a sword were nothing out of the ordinary.
Perrin moved, trying to hide something under his cloak. Rand glimpsed a wide leather belt encircling the
apprentice blacksmith's waist, with the handle of an axe thrust through a loop on the belt.
"What do you have there?" he asked.
"Merchant's guard, indeed," Mat hooted.
The shaggy-haired youth gave Mat a frown that suggested he had already had more than his fair share of
joking, then sighed heavily and tossed back his cloak to uncover the axe. It was no comrnon woodsman's tool.
A broad half-moon blade on one side of the head and a curved spike on the other made it every bit as strange for
the Two Rivers as Rand's sword. Perrin's land rested on it with a sense of familiarity, though.
"Master Luhhan made it about two years ago, for a wool-buyer's guard. But when it was done the fellow
wouldn't pay what he had agreed, and Master Luhhan would not take less. He gave it to me when" - he cleared
his throat, then shot Rand the same warning frown he'd given Mat - "when he found me practicing with it. He
said I might as well have it since he couldn't make anything useful from it."
"Practicing," Mat snickered, but held up his hands soothingly when Perrin raised his head."
“As you say. It's just as well one of us knows how to use a real weapon"
"That bow is a real weapon," Lan said suddenly. He dropped an arm across the saddle of his tall black
and regarded hem gravely. "So are the slings I've seen you village boys with. Just because you never used them
for anything but hunting rabbits or chasing a wolf away from the sheep makes no difference. Anything can be a
weapon, if the man or woman who holds it has the nerve and will to make it so. Trollocs aside, you had better
have that clear in your minds before we leave the Two Rivers, before we leave Emond's Field, if you want to
reach Tar Valon alive."
His face and voice, cold as death and hard as a rough-hewn gravestone, stifled their smiles and their
tongues. Perrin grimaced and pulled his cloak back over the axe. Mat stared at his feet and stirred the straw on
the stable floor with his toe. The Warder grunted and went back to his checking, and the silence lengthened.
"It isn't much like the stories," Mat said, finally. "I don't know," Perrin said sourly. "Trollocs, a Warder,
an Aes Sedai. What more could you ask?"
"Aes Sedai," Mat whispered, sounding as if he were suddenly cold.
"Do you believe her, Rand?" Perrin asked. "I mean, what would Trollocs want with us?"
As one, they glanced at the Warder. Lan appeared absorbed in the white mare's saddle girth, but the
three of them moved back toward the stable door, away from Lan. Even so, they huddled together and spoke
softly.
Rand shook his head. "I don't know, but she had it right about our farms being the only ones attacked.
And they attacked Master Luhhan's house and the forge first, here in the village. I asked the Mayor. It's as easy
to believe they are after us as anything else I can think of. " Suddenly he realized they were both staring at him.
"You asked the Mayor?" Mat said incredulously. "She said not to tell anybody. "
"I didn't tell him why I was asking," Rand protested. "Do you mean you didn't talk to anybody at all?
You didn't let anybody know you're going?"
Perrin shrugged defensively. "Moiraine Sedai said not anybody."
"We left notes," Mat said. "For our families. They'll find them in the morning. Rand, my mother thinks
Tar Valon is the next thing to Shayol Ghul." He gave a little laugh to show he did not share her opinion. It was
not very convincing. "She'd try to lock me in the cellar if she believed I was even thinking of going there."
"Master Luhhan is stubborn as stone," Perrin added, "and Mistress Luhhan is worse. If you'd seen her
digging through what's left of the house, saying she hoped the Trollocs did come back so she could get her
hands on them. ..."
"Burn me, Rand," Mat said, "I know she's an Aes Sedai and all, but the Trollocs were really here. She
said not to tell anybody. If an Aes Sedai doesn't know what to do about some thing like this, who does?"
"I don't know." Rand rubbed at his forehead. His head hurt; He could not get that dream out of his mind.
"My father believes her. At least, he agreed that we had to go."
Suddenly Moiraine was in the doorway. "You talked to your rather about this journey?" She was clothed
in dark gray from lead to foot, with a skirt divided for riding astride, and the serpent ring was the only gold she
wore now. Rand eyed her walking staff; despite the flames he had seen, here was no sign of charring, or even
soot.
"I couldn't go off without letting him know. " She eyed him for a moment with pursed lips before
turning to the others. " And did you also decide that a note was not enough?" Mat and Perrin talked on top of
each other, assuring her they had only left notes, the way she had said. Nodding, she waved them to silence, and
gave Rand a sharp look. "What s done is already woven in the Pattern. Lan?"
"The horses are ready ," the Warder said, "and we have enough provisions to reach Baerlon with some to
spare. We can leave at any time. I suggest now. "
"Not without me. " Egwene slipped into the stable, a shawl wrapped bundle in her arms. Rand nearly fell
over his own feet.
Lan's sword had come half out of its sheath; when he saw who it was he shoved the blade back, his eyes
suddenly flat. Perrin and Mat began babbling to convince Moiraine they had not told Egwene about leaving.
The Aes Sedai ignored them; she simply looked at Egwene, tapping her lips thoughtfully with her finger.
The hood of Egwene's dark brown cloak was pulled up, but not enough to hide the defiant way she faced
Moiraine. "I have everything I need here. Including food. And I will not be left behind. I'll probably never get
another chance to see the world outside the Two Rivers."
"This isn't a picnic trip into the Waterwood, Egwene," Mat growled. He stepped back when she looked
at him from under lowered brows.
"Thank you, Mat. I wouldn't have known. If you think you three are the only ones who want to see
what's outside? I've dreamed about it as long as you have, and I don’t intend to miss this chance."
"How did you find out we were leaving?" Rand demanded. "Anyway, you can't go with us. We aren't
leaving for the fun of it. The Trollocs are after us." She gave him a tolerant look, and he flushed and stiffened
indignantly.
"First," she told him patiently, "I saw Mat creeping about, trying hard not to be noticed. Then I saw
Perrin attempting to hide that absurd great axe under his cloak. I knew Lan had bought a horse, and it suddenly
occurred to me to wonder why he needed another. And if he could buy one, he could buy others. Putting that
with Mat and Perrin sneaking about like bull calves pretending to be foxes… well, I could see only one answer.
I don't know if I'm surprised or not to find you here, Rand, after an your talk about daydreams. With Mat and
Perrin involved, I suppose I should have known you would be in it, too."
"I have to go, Egwene," Rand said. " All of us do, or the Trollocs will come back."
"The Trollocs!" Egwene laughed incredulously. "Rand, if you've decided to see some of the world, well
and good, but please spare me any of your nonsensical tales."
"It's true," Perrin said as Mat began, "The Trollocs-"
"Enough," Moiraine said quietly, but it cut their talk as sharply as a knife. "Did anyone else notice all of
this?" Her voice was soft, but Egwene swallowed and drew herself up be- fore answering.
"After last night, all they can think about is rebuilding, that and what to do if it happens again. They
couldn't see anything else unless it was pushed under their noses. And I told no onewhat I suspected. No one. "
"Very well," Moiraine said after a moment. "You may come with us."
A startled expression darted across Lan's face. It was gone in an instant, leaving him outwardly calm,
but furious words erupted from him.
"No, Moiraine!"
"It is part of the Pattern, now, Lan."
"It is ridiculous!" he retorted. "There's no reason for her to come along, and every reason for her not to."
"There is a reason for it," Moiraine said calmly. "A part of the Pattern, Lan." The Warder's stony face
showed nothing but he nodded slowly.
"But, Egwene," Rand said, "the Trollocs will be chasing us. We won't be safe until we get to Tar Valon."
"Don't try to frighten me off," she said. "I am going."
Rand knew that tone of voice. He had not heard it since she decided that climbing the tallest trees was
for children, but he remembered it well. "If you think being chased by Trollocs will be fun," he began, but
Moiraine interrupted.
“We have no time for this. We must be as far away as possible by daybreak. If she is left behind, Rand,
she could rouse the village before we have gone a mile, and that would surely warn the Myrddraal."
"I would not do that," Egwene protested.
"She can ride the gleeman's horse," the Warder said. "I'll eave him enough to buy another."
"That will not be possible," came Thom Merrilin's resonant voice from the hayloft. Lan's sword left its
sheath this time, and he did not put it back as he stared up at the gleeman.
Thom tossed down a blanket-roll, then slung his cased flute and harp across his back and shouldered
bulging saddlebags.
“This village has no use for me, now, while on the other hand, have never performed in Tar Valon. And
though I usually journey alone, after last night I have no objections at all to traveling in company. "
The Warder gave Perrin a hard look, and Perrin shifted uncornfortably. "I didn't think of looking in the
loft," he muttered.
As the long-limbed gleeman scrambled down the ladder from the loft, Lan spoke, stiffly formal. "Is this
part of the Pattern, to, Moiraine Sedai?"
"Everything is a part of the Pattern, my old friend," Moiraine replied softly. "We cannot pick and
choose. But we shall see."
Thom put his feet on the stable floor and turned from the ladder, brushing straw from his patch-covered
cloak. "In fact," he said in more normal tones, "you might say that I insist on traveling in company. I have given
many hours over many mugs of ale to thinking of how I might end my days. A Trolloc's cookpot was not one of
the thoughts. " He looked askance at the Warder's sword. "There's no need for that. I am not a cheese for
slicing."
"Master Merrilin," Moiraine said, "we must go quickly, and almost certainly in great danger. The
Trollocs are still out there, and we go by night. Are you sure that you want to travel with us?"
Thom eyed the lot of them with a quizzical smile. "If it is not too dangerous for the girl, it can't be too
dangerous for me. Besides, what gleeman would not face a little danger to perform in Tar Valon?"
Moiraine nodded, and Lan scabbarded his sword. Rand suddenly wondered what would have happened
if Thom had changed his mind, or if Moiraine had not nodded. The gleeman began saddling his horse as if
similar thoughts had never crossed his mind, but Rand noticed that he eyed Lan's sword more than once.
"Now," Moiraine said. "What horse for Egwene?" "The peddler's horses are as bad as the Dhurrans," the
Warder replied sourly. "Strong, but slow plodders."
"Bela," Rand said, getting a look from Lan that made him wish he had kept silent. But he knew he could
not dissuade Egwene; the only thing left was to help. "Bela may not be as fast as the others, but she's strong. I
ride her sometimes. She can keep up."
Lan looked into Bela's stall, muttering under his breath. "She might be a little better than the others," he
said finally. "I don't suppose there is any other choice."
"Then she will have to do," Moiraine said. "Rand, find a saddle for Bela. Quickly, now! We have tarried
too long already."
Rand hurriedly chose a saddle and blanket in the tack room, then fetched Bela from her stall. The mare
looked back at him in sleepy surprise when he put the saddle on her back. When he rode her, it was barebacked;
she was not used to a saddle. He made soothing noises while he tightened the girth strap, and she accepted the
oddity with no more than a shake of her mane. Taking Egwene's bundle from her, he tied it on behind the saddle
while she mounted and adjusted her skirts. They were not divided for riding astride, so her wool stockings were
bared to the knee. She wore the same soft leather shoes as all the other village girls. They were not at all suited
for journeying to Watch Hill, much less Tar Valon.
"I still think you shouldn't come," he said. "I wasn't making it up about the Trollocs. But I promise I will
take care of you."
"Perhaps I'll take care of you," she replied lightly. At his exasperated look she smiled and bent down to
smooth his hair. I know you'll look after me, Rand. We will look after each other. But now you had better look
after getting on your horse."
All of the others were already mounted and waiting for him, he realized. The only horse left riderless
was Cloud, a tall gray with a black mane and tail that belonged to Jon Thane, or had. He scrambled into the
saddle, though not without difficulty as the gray tossed his head and pranced sideways as Rand put his foot in
the stirrup, and his scabbard caught in his legs. It was not chance, that his friends had not chosen Cloud. Master
Thane often raced the spirited gray against merchants' horses, and Rand had never known him to lose, but he
had never known Cloud to give anyone an easy ride, either. Lan must have given a huge price to make the
miller sell. As he settled in the saddle Cloud's dancing increased, as if the gray were eager to run. Rand gripped
the reins firmly and tried to think that he would have no trouble. Perhaps if he convinced himself, he could
convince the horse, too.
An owl hooted in the night outside, and the village people jumped before they realized what it was. They
laughed nervously and exchanged shamefaced looks."
Next thing, field mice will chase us up a tree," Egwene said with an unsteady chuckle.
Lan shook his head. "Better if it had been wolves. "
"Wolves!" Perrin exclaimed, and the Warder favored him with a flat stare.
"Wolves don't like Trollocs, blacksmith, and Trollocs don't like wolves, or dogs, either. If I heard
wolves I would be sure there were no Trollocs waiting out there for us." He moved into the moonlit night,
walking his tall black slowly.
Moiraine rode after him without a moment's hesitation, and Egwene kept hard to the Aes Sedai's side.
Rand and the gleeman brought up the rear, following Mat and Perrin.
The back of the inn was dark and silent, and dappled moon shadows filled the stableyard. The soft thuds
of the hooves faded quickly, swallowed by the night. In the darkness the Warder's cloak made him a shadow,
too. Only the need to let him lead the way kept the others from clustering around him. Getting out of the village
without being seen was going to be no easy task, Rand decided as he neared the gate. At least, without being
seen by villagers. Many windows in the village emitted pale yellow light, and although those glows seemed
very small in the night now, shapes moved frequently within them, the shapes of villagers watching to see what
this night brought. No one wanted to be caught by surprise again.
In the deep shadows beside the inn, just on the point of leaving the stableyard, Lan abruptly halted,
motioning sharply for silence. Boots rattled on the Wagon Bridge, and here and there on the bridge moonlight
glinted off metal. The boots clattered across the bridge, grated on gravel, and approached the inn. No sound at
all came from those in the shadow. Rand suspected his friends, at least, were too frightened to make a noise.
Like him.
The footsteps halted before the inn in the grayness just beyond the dim light from the common-room
windows. It was not until Jon Thane stepped forward, a spear propped on his stout shoulder, an old jerkin sewn
all over with steel disks straining across his chest, that Rand saw them for what they were. A dozen men from
the village and the surrounding farms, some in helmets or pieces of armor that had lain dust-covered in attics for
generations, all with a spear or a woodaxe or a rusty bill.
The miller peered into a common-room window, then turned with a curt, "It looks right here." The
others formed in two ragged ranks behind him, and the patrol marched into the night as if stepping to three
different drums.
"Two Dha'vol Trollocs would have them all for breakfast," Lan muttered when the sound of their boots
had faded, "but they have eyes and ears." He turned his stallion back. "Come."
Slowly, quietly, the Warder took them back across the stableyard, down the bank through the willows
and into the Winespring Water. So close to the Winespring itself the cold, swift water, gleaming as it swirled
around the horses' legs, was deep enough to lap against the soles of the riders' boots.
Climbing out on the far bank, the line of horses wound its way under the Warder's deft direction,
keeping away from any the village houses. From time to time Lan stopped, signing them all to be quiet, though
no one else heard or saw anything. Each time he did, however, another patrol of villagers and farmers soon
passed. Slowly they moved toward the north edge of the village.
Rand peered at the high-peaked houses in the dark, trying to impress them on his memory. A fine
adventurer I am, he thought. He was not even out of the village yet, and already he was homesick. But he did
not stop looking.
They passed beyond the last farmhouses on the outskirts of the village and into the countryside,
paralleling the North Road that led to Taren Ferry. Rand thought that surely no night sky elsewhere could be as
beautiful as the Two Rivers sky. The near black seemed to reach to forever, and myriad stars gleamed like
points of light scattered through crystal. The moon, only a thin slice less than full, appeared almost close
enough to touch, if he stretched, and…
A black shape flew slowly across the silvery ball of the moon. Rand's involuntary jerk on the reins
halted the gray. A bat, he thought weakly, but he knew it was not. Bats were a common sight of an evening,
darting after flies and bitemes in the twilight. The wings that carried this creature might have the same shape,
but they moved with the slow, powerful sweep of a bird prey. And it was hunting. The way it cast back and
forth in long arcs left no doubt of that. Worst of all was the size. For a bat to seem so large against the moon it
would have had to be almost within arm's reach. He tried to judge in his mind how far away it must be, and how
big. The body of it had to be as large as a man, and the wings . . . It crossed the face of the moon again,
wheeling suddenly downward to be engulfed by the night.
He did not realize that Lan had ridden back to him until the Warder caught his arm. "What are you
sitting here and staring at, boy? We have to keep moving." The others waited behind Lan.
Half expecting to be told he was letting fear of the Trollocs overcome his sense, Rand told what he had
seen. He hoped that Lan would dismiss it as a bat, or a trick of his eyes.
Lan growled a word, sounding as if it left a bad taste in his, mouth. "Draghkar." Egwene and the other
Two Rivers folk stared at the sky nervously in all directions, but the gleeman groaned softly.
"Yes," Moiraine said. "It is too much to hope otherwise.
And if the Myrddraal has a Draghkar at his command, then he will soon know where we are, if he does
not already. We must move more quickly than we can cross-country .We may still reach Taren Ferry ahead of
the Myrddraal, and he and his Trollocs will not cross as easily as we."
"A Draghkar?" Egwene said. "What is it?"
It was Thom Merrilin who answered her hoarsely. "In the war that ended the Age of Legends, worse
than Trollocs and Halfmen were created."
Moiraine's head jerked toward him as he spoke. Not even the dark could hide the sharpness of her look.
Before anyone could ask the gleeman for more, Lan began giving directions. "We take to the North
Road, now. For your lives, follow my lead, keep up and keep together."
He wheeled his horse about, and the others galloped wordlessly after him.

Chapter 11

The Road to Taren Ferry


On the hard-packed dirt of the North Road the horses stretched out, manes and tails streaming back in
the moonlight as they raced northward, hooves pounding a steady rhythm. Lan led the way, black
horse and shadow-clad rider all but invisible in the cold night. Moiraine's white mare, matching the
stallion stride for stride, was a pale dart speeding through the dark. The rest followed in a tight line, as if they
were all tied to a rope with one end in the Warder's hands.
Rand galloped last in line, with Thom Merrilin just ahead and the others less distinct beyond. The
gleeman never turned his head, reserving his eyes for where they ran, not what they ran from. If Trollocs
appeared behind, or the Fade on its silent horse, or that flying creature, the Draghkar, it would be up to Rand to
sound an alarm.
Every few minutes he craned his neck to peer behind while he clung to Cloud's mane and reins. The
Draghkar… Worse than Trollocs and Fades, Thom had said. But the sky was empty, and only darkness and
shadows met his eyes on the ground. Shadows that could hide an army."
Now that the gray had been let loose to run, the animal sped through the night like a ghost, easily
keeping pace with Lan's stallion. And Cloud wanted to go faster. He wanted to catch the black, strained to catch
the black. Rand had to keep a firm hand on the reins to hold him back. Cloud lunged against his restraint as if
the gray thought this were a race, fighting him for mastery with every stride. Rand clung to saddle and reins
with every muscle taut. Fervently he hoped his mount did not detect how uneasy he was. If Cloud did, he would
lose the one real edge he held, however precariously.
Lying low on Cloud's neck, Rand kept a worried eye on Bela and on her rider. When he had said the
shaggy mare could stay with the others, he had not meant on the run. She kept up now only by running as he
had not thought she could. Lan had not wanted Egwene in their number. Would he slow for her if Bela began to
flag? Or would he try to leave her behind? The Aes Sedai and the Warder thought Rand and his friends were
important in some way, but for all of Moiraine's talk of the Pattern, he did not think they included Egwene in
that importance.
If Bela fell back, he would fall back, too, whatever Moiraine and Lan had to say about it. Back where
the Fade and the Trollocs were. Back where the Draghkar was. With all his heart and desperation he silently
shouted at Bela to run like the wind, silently tried to will strength into her. Run! His skin prickled, and his bones
felt as if they were freezing, ready to split open. The Light help her, run! And Bela ran.
On and on they sped, northward into the night, time fading into an indistinct blur. Now and again the
lights of farmhouses flashed into sight, then disappeared as quickly as imagination. Dogs' sharp challenges
faded swiftly behind, or cut off abruptly as the dogs decided they had been chased away. They raced through
darkness relieved only by watery pale moonlight, a darkness where trees along the road loomed up without
warning, then were gone. For the rest, murk surrounded them, and only a solitary night-bird's cry, lonely and
mournful, disturbed the steady pounding of hooves.
Abruptly Lan slowed, then brought the file of horses to a stop. Rand was not sure how long they had
been moving, but a soft ache filled his legs from gripping the saddle. Ahead of them in the night, lights
sparkled, as if a tall swarm of fireflies held one place among the trees.
Rand frowned at the lights in puzzlement, then suddenly gasped with surprise. The fireflies were
windows, the windows of houses covering the sides and top of a hill. It was Watch Hill. He could hardly believe
they had come so far. They had probably made the journey as fast as it had ever been traveled. Following Lan's
example, Rand and Thom Merrilin dismounted. Cloud stood head down, sides heaving.
Lather, almost indistinguishable from the horse's smoky sides, flecked the gray's neck and shoulders.
Rand thought that Cloud would not be carrying anyone further that night. "Much as I would like to put all these
villages behind me," Thom announced, "a few hours rest would not go amiss right now. Surely we have enough
of a lead to allow that?"
Rand stretched, knuckling the small of his back. "If we're stopping the rest of the night in Watch Hill,
we may as well go on up."
A vagrant gust of wind brought a fragment of song from the village, and smells of cooking that made his
mouth water. They were still celebrating in Watch Hill. There had been no Trollocs to disturb their Bel Tine. He
looked for Egwene. She was leaning against Bela, slumped with weariness. The others were climbing down as
well, with many a sigh and much stretching of aching muscles. Only the Warder and the Aes Sedai showed no
visible sign of fatigue.
"I could do with some singing," Mat put in tiredly. "And maybe a hot mutton pie at the White Boar."
Pausing, he added, "I've never been further than Watch Hill. The White Boar's not nearly as good as the
Winespring Inn."
"The White Boar isn't so bad," Perrin said. " A mutton pie for me, too. And lots of hot tea to take the
chill off my bones."
"We cannot stop until we are across the Taren," Lan said sharply. "Not for more than a few minutes."
"But the horses," Rand protested. "We'll run them to death, we try to go any further tonight. Moiraine
Sedai, surely…”
He had vaguely noticed her moving among the horses, but he had not paid any real attention to what she
did. Now she pushed past him to lay her hands on Cloud's neck. Rand fell silent. Suddenly the horse tossed his
head with a soft wicker, nearly pulling the reins from Rand's hands. The gray danced a step sideways, as restive
as if he had spent a week in a stable. Without a word Moiraine went to Bela.
“I did not know she could do that," Rand said softly to Lan, his cheeks hot.
“You, of all people, should have suspected it," the Warder replied. "You watched her with your father.
She will wash all the fatigue away. First from the horses, then from the rest of you."
"The rest of us. Not you?"
"Not me, sheepherder. I don't need it, not yet. And not her. What she can do for others, she cannot do for
herself. Only one of us will ride tired. You had better hope she does not grow too tired before we reach Tar
Valon."
"Too tired for what?" Rand asked the Warder.
"You were right about your Bela, Rand," Moiraine said from where she stood by the mare. "She has a
good heart, and as much stubbornness as the rest of you Two Rivers folk. Strange as it seems, she may be the
least weary of all."
A scream ripped the darkness, a sound like a man dying under sharp knives, and wings swooped low
above the party. The night deepened in the shadow that swept over them. With panicked cries the horses reared
wildly.
The wind of the Draghkar's wings beat at Rand with a feel like the touch of slime, like chittering in the
dank dimness of a nightmare. He had no time even to feel the fear of it, for Cloud exploded into the air with a
scream of his own, twisting desperately as if attempting to shake off some clinging thing. Rand, hanging onto
the reins, was jerked off his feet and dragged across the ground, Cloud screaming as though the big gray felt
wolves tearing at his hocks.
Somehow he maintained his grip on the reins; using the other hand as much as his legs he scrambled
onto his feet, taking leaping, staggering steps to keep from being pulled down again. His breath came in ragged
pants of desperation. He could not let Cloud get away. He threw out a frantic hand, barely catching the bridle.
Cloud reared, lifting him into the air; Rand clung helplessly, hoping against hope that the horse would quieten.
The shock of landing jarred Rand to his teeth, but suddenly the gray was still, nostrils flaring and eyes
rolling, stiff-legged and trembling. Rand was trembling as well, and all but hanging from the bridle. That jolt
must have shaken the fool animal, too, he thought. He took three or four deep, shaky breaths. Only then could
he look around and see what had happened to the others.
Chaos reigned among the party. They clutched reins against jerking heads, trying with little success to
calm the rearing horses that dragged them about in a milling mass. Only two seemingly had no trouble at all
with their mounts. Moiraine sat straight in her saddle, the white mare stepping delicately away from the
confusion as if nothing at all out of the ordinary had happened. On foot, Lan scanned the sky, sword in one hand
and reins in the other; the sleek black stallion stood quietly beside him.
Sounds of merrymaking no longer came from Watch Hill. Those in the village must have heard the cry,
too. Rand knew they would listen awhile, and perhaps watch for what had caused it, then return to their jollity.
They would soon forget the incident, its memory submerged by song and food and dance and fun. Perhaps when
they heard the news of what had happened in Emond's Field some would remember, and wonder. A fiddle
began to play, and after a moment a flute joined in. The village was resuming its celebration.
“Mount!" Lan commanded curtly. Sheathing his sword, he leaped onto the stallion. .'The Draghkar
would not have showed itself unless it had already reported our whereabouts to the Myrddraal." Another
strident shriek drifted down from far above, fainter but no less harsh. The music from Watch Hill silenced
raggedly once more. “It tracks us now, marking us for the Halfman. He won't be far."
The horses, fresh now as well as fear-struck, pranced and backed away from those trying to mount. A
cursing Thom Merrilin was the first into his saddle, but the others were up soon after. All but one.
“Hurry, Rand!" Egwene shouted. The Draghkar gave shrill voice once more, and Bela ran a few steps
before she could rein the mare in. "Hurry!"
With a start Rand realized that instead of trying to mount Cloud he had been standing there staring at the
sky in a vain attempt to locate the source of those vile shrieks. More, all unaware, he had drawn Tam's sword as
if to fight the flying thing.
His face reddened, making him glad for the night to hide him. Awkwardly, with one hand occupied by
the reins, he resheathed the blade, glancing hastily at the others. Moiraine, Lan, and Egwene all were looking at
him, though he could not be sure how much they could see in the moonlight. The rest seemed too absorbed with
keeping their horses under control to pay him any mind. He put a hand on the pommel and reached the saddle in
one leap, as if he had been doing the like all his life. If any of his friends had noticed the sword, he would surely
hear about it later. There would be time enough to worry about it then.
As soon as he was in the saddle they were all off at a gallop again, up the road and by the dome-like hill.
Dogs barked in the village; their passage was not entirely unnoticed. Or maybe the dogs smelled Trollocs, Rand
thought. The barking and the village lights alike vanished quickly behind them.
They galloped in a knot, horses all but jostling together as they ran. Lan ordered them to spread out
again, but no one wanted to be even a little alone in the night. A scream came from high overhead. The Warder
gave up and let them run clustered.
Rand was close behind Moiraine and Lan, the gray straining in an effort to force himself between the
Warder's black and the Aes Sedai's trim mare. Egwene and the gleeman raced on either flank of him, while
Rand's friends crowded in behind. Cloud, spurred by the Draghkar's cries, ran beyond anything Rand could do
to slow him even had he wished to, yet the gray could not gain so much as a step on the other two horses.
The Draghkar's shriek challenged the night. Stout Bela ran with neck outstretched and tail and mane
streaming in the wind of her running, matching the larger horses' every stride. The Aes Sedai must have done
something more than simply ridding her of fatigue."
Egwene's face in the moonlight was smiling in excited delight. Her braid streamed behind like the
horses' manes, and the gleam in her eyes was not all from the moon, Rand was sure. His mouth dropped open in
surprise, until a swallowed biteme set him off into a fit of coughing.
Lan must have asked a question, for Moiraine suddenly shouted, over the wind and the pounding of
hooves. "I cannot! Most especially not from the back of a galloping horse. They are not easily killed, even when
they can be seen. We must run, and hope."
They galloped through a tatter of fog, thin and no higher than the horses' knees. Cloud sped through it in
two strides, and Rand blinked, wondering if he had imagined it. Surely the night was too cold for fog. Another
patch of ragged gray whisked by them to one side, larger than the first. It had been growing, as if the mist oozed
from the ground. Above them, the Draghkar screamed in rage. Fog enveloped the riders for a brief moment and
was gone, came again and vanished behind.
The icy mist left a chill dampness on Rand's face and hands. Then a wall of pale gray loomed before
them, and they were suddenly enshrouded. The thickness of it muffled the sound of their hooves to dullness,
and the cries from overhead seemed to come through a wall. Rand could only just make out the shapes of
Egwene and Thom Merrilin on either side of him.
Lan did not slow their pace. "There is still only one place we can be going," he called, his voice
sounding hollow and directionless.
"Myrddraal are sly," Moiraine replied. "I will use its own slyness against it." They galloped on silently.
Slaty mist obscured both sky and ground, so that the riders, themselves turned to shadow, appeared to
float through night clouds. Even the legs of their own horses seemed to have vanished.
Rand shifted in his saddle, shrinking away from the icy fog. Knowing that Moiraine could do things,
even seeing her do them, was one thing; having those things leave his skin damp was something else again. He
realized he was holding his breath, too, and called himself nine kinds of idiot. He could not ride all the way to
Taren Ferry without breathing. She had used the One Power on Tam, and he seemed all right. Still, he had to
make himself let that breath go and inhale. The air was heavy, but if colder it was otherwise no different than
that on any other foggy night. He told himself that, but he was not sure e believed it.
Lan encouraged them to keep close now, to stay where each could see the outlines of others in that
damp, frosty grayness. Yet the Warder still did not slacken his stallion's dead run. Side by side, Lan and
Moiraine led the way through the fog as if they could see clearly what lay ahead. The rest could only trust and
follow. And hope.
The shrill cries that had hounded them faded as they galloped, and then were gone, but that gave small
comfort. Forest and farmhouses, moon and road were shrouded and hidden. Dogs still barked, hollow and
distant in the gray haze, when they passed farms, but there was no other sound save the dull drumming of their
horses' hooves. Nothing in that featureless ashen fog changed. Nothing gave any hint of the passage of time
except the growing ache in thigh and back.
It had to have been hours, Rand was sure. His hands had clutched his reins until he was not sure he
could release them, and he wondered if he would ever walk properly again. He glanced back only once.
Shadows in the fog raced behind him, but he could not even be certain of their number. Or even that they really
were his friends. The chill and damp soaked through I his cloak and coat and shirt, soaked into his bones, so it
seemed. Only the rush of air past his face and the gather and stretch of the horse beneath him told him he was
moving at all. It must have been hours.
"Slow," Lan called suddenly. "Draw rein." Rand was so startled that Cloud forced between Lan and
Moiraine, forging ahead for half a dozen strides before he could pull the big gray to a halt and stare. Houses
loomed in the fog on all sides, houses strangely tall to Rand's eye. He had never seen this place before, but he
had often heard descriptions. That tallness came from high redstone foundations, necessary when the spring
melt in the Mountains of Mist made the Taren overflow its banks. They had reached Taren Ferry.
Lan trotted the black warhorse past him. "Don't be so eager, sheepherder."
Discomfited, Rand fell into place without explaining as the party moved deeper into the village. His face
was hot, and for the moment the fog was welcome. A lone dog, unseen in the cold mist, barked at them
furiously, then ran away. Here and there a light appeared in a window as some early-riser stirred. Other than the
dog, no sound save the muted clops of their horses' hooves disturbed the last hour of the night.
Rand had met few people from Taren Ferry. He tried to recall what little he knew about them. They
seldom ventured down into what they called "the lower villages," with their noses up as if they smelled
something bad. The few he had met bore strange names, like Hilltop and Stoneboat. One and all, Taren Ferry
folk had a reputation for slyness and trickery .If you shook hands with a Taren Ferry man, people said, you
counted your fingers afterwards.
Lan and Moiraine stopped before a tall, dark house that looked exactly like any other in the village. Fog
swirled around the Warder like smoke as he leaped from his saddle and mounted the stairs that rose to the front
door, as high above the street as their heads. At the top of the stairs Lan hammered with his fist on the door.
"I thought he wanted quiet," Mat muttered. Lan's pounding went on. A light appeared in the window of
the next house, and someone shouted angrily, but the Warder kept on with his drumming.
Abruptly the door was flung back by a man in a nightshirt that flapped about his bare ankles. An oil
lamp in one hand illumined a narrow face with pointed features. He opened his mouth angrily, then let it stay
open as his head swiveled to take in the fog, eyes bulging. "What's this?" he said. "What's this?" Chill gray
tendrils curled into the doorway, and he hurriedly stepped back away from them.
Master Hightower," Lan said. "Just the man I need. We want to cross over on your ferry."
"He never even saw a high tower," Mat snickered. Rand made shushing motions at his friend. The sharpfaced
fellow raised his lamp higher and peered down at them suspiciously.
After a minute Master Hightower said crossly, "The ferry goes over in daylight. Not in the night. Not
ever. And not in this fog, neither. Come back when the sun's up and the fog's gone."
He started to turn away; but Lan caught his wrist. The ferryman opened his mouth angrily. Gold glinted
in the lamplight as the Warder counted out coins one by one into the other's palm. Hightower licked his lips as
the coins clinked, and by inches his head moved closer to his hand, as if he could not believe what he was
seeing.
"And as much again," Lan said, "when we are safely on the other side. But we leave now."
"Now?" Chewing his lower lip, the ferrety man shifted his feet and peered out at the mistladen night,
then nodded abruptly. "Now it is. Well, let loose my wrist. I have to rouse my haulers. You don't think I pull the
ferry across myself, do you?"
"I will wait at the ferry," Lan said flatly. "For a little while." He released his hold on the ferryman.
Master Hightower jerked the handful of coins to his chest and, nodding agreement, hastily shoved the
door closed with his hip.

Chapter 12

Across the Taren


Lan came down the stairs, telling the company to dismount and lead their horses after him through the
fog. Again they had to trust that the Warder knew where he was going. The fog swirled around Rand's
knees, hiding his feet, obscuring everything more than a yard away. The fog was not as heavy as it had
been outside the town, but he could barely make out his companions.
Still no human stirred in the night except for them. A few more windows than before showed a light, but
the thick mist turned most of them to dim patches, and as often as not that hazy glow, hanging in the gray, was
all that was visible. Other houses, revealing a little more, seemed to float on a sea of cloud or to thrust abruptly
out of the mist while their neighbors remained hidden, so that they could have stood alone for miles around.
Rand moved stiffly from the ache of the long ride, wondering if there was any way he could walk the
rest of the way to Tar Valon. Not that walking was much better than riding at that moment, of course, but even
so his feet were almost the only part of him that was not sore. At least he was used to walking.
Only once did anyone speak loudly enough for Rand to hear clearly. "You must handle it," Moiraine
said in answer to something unheard from Lan. "He will remember too much as it is, and no help for it. If I
stand out in his thoughts . . ."
Rand grumpily shifted his now-sodden cloak on his shoulders keeping close with the others. Mat and
Perrin grumbled to themselves, muttering under their breaths, with bitten-off exclamations whenever one
stubbed a toe on something unseen. Thom Merrilin grumbled, too, words like "hot meal" or "fire" and "mulled
wine" reaching Rand, but neither the Warder nor the Aes Sedai took notice. Egwene marched along without a
word -, her back straight and her head high. It was somewhat painfully hesitant march, to be sure, for she was
unused to riding as the rest.
She was getting her adventure, he thought glumly, and long as it lasted he doubted if she would notice
little things like fog or damp or cold. There must be a difference in what you saw, it seemed to him, depending
on whether you sought a venture or had it forced on you. The stories could no doubt make galloping through a
cold fog, with a Draghkar and the Light alone knew what else chasing you, sound thrilling. Egwene might be
feeling a thrill; he only felt cold and damp and glad to have a village around him again, even if it was Taren
Ferry.
Abruptly he walked into something large and warm in the murk: Lan's stallion. The Warder and
Moiraine had stopped and the rest of the party did the same, patting their mounts much to comfort themselves as
the animals. The fog was a little thinner here, enough for them to see one another more clearly than they had in
a long while, but not enough to make out much more. Their feet were still hidden by low billows like gray
floodwater. The houses seemed to have all been swallowed. Cautiously Rand led Cloud forward a little way and
was surprised to hear his boots scrape on wooden planks. The ferry landing. He backed up carefully, making the
gray back as well. He had heard what the Taren Ferry landing was like a bridge that led nowhere except to the
ferryboat. The Taren was supposed to be wide and deep, with treacherous currents that could pull under the
strongest swimmer. Much wider than Winespring Water, he supposed. With the fog added in. It was a relief
when he felt dirt under his feet again.
A fierce "Hsst!" from Lan, as sharp as the fog. The Warder gestured at them as he dashed to Perrin's side
and threw back the stocky youth's cloak, exposing the great axe. Obediently, but still not understanding, Rand
tossed his own cloak over his shoulder to show his sword. As Lan moved swiftly back to his horse, bobbing
lights appeared in the mist, and muffled footsteps approached.
Six stolid-faced men in rough clothes followed Master Hightower. The torches they carried burned away
a patch of fog around them. When they stopped, all of the party from Emond's Field could be plainly seen, the
lot of them surrounded by a gray wall that seemed thicker for the torchlight reflected from it. The ferryman
examined them, his narrow head tilted, nose twitching like a weasel sniffing the breeze for a trap.
Lan leaned against his saddle with apparent casualness, but one hand rested ostentatiously on the long
hilt of his sword. There was an air about him of a metal spring, compressed, waiting.
Rand hurriedly copied the Warder's pose - at least insofar as putting his hand on his sword. He did not
think he could achieve that deadly-seeming slouch. They'd probably laugh if I tried.
Perrin eased his axe in its leather loop and planted his feet deliberately. Mat put a hand to his quiver;
though Rand was not sure what condition his bowstring was in after being out in all this damp. Thom Merrilin
stepped forward grandly and held up one empty hand, turning it slowly. Suddenly he gestured with a flourish,
and a dagger twirled between his fingers. The hilt slapped into his palm, and, abruptly nonchalant, he began
trimming his fingernails.
A low, delighted laugh floated from Moiraine. Egwene clapped as if watching a performance at Festival,
then stopped and looked abashed, though her mouth twitched with a smile just the same.
Hightower seemed far from amused. He stared at Thom, then cleared his throat loudly. "There was
mention made of more gold for the crossing." He looked around at them again, a sullen, sly look. "What you
gave me before is in a safe place now, hear? It's none of it where you can get at it."
"The rest of the gold," Lan told him, "goes into your hand when we are on the other side." The leather
purse hanging at his waist clinked as he gave it a little shake.
For a moment the ferryman's eyes darted, but at last he nodded. "Let's be about it, then," he muttered,
and stalked out onto the landing followed by his six helpers. The fog burned away around them as they moved;
gray tendrils closed in behind, quickly filling where they had been. Rand hurried to keep up.
The ferry itself was a wooden barge with high sides, boarded by a ramp that could be raisedto block off
the end. Ropes as thick as a man's wrist ran along each side of it, ropes fastened to massive posts at the end of
the landing and disappearing into the night over the river. The ferryman's helpers stuck their torches in iron
brackets on the ferry's sides, waited while everyone led their horses aboard, then pulled up the ramp. The deck
creaked beneath hooves and shuffling feet, and the ferry shifted with the weight.
Hightower muttered half under his breath, growling for them to keep the horses still and stay to the
center, out of the haulers' way. He shouted at his helpers, chivvying them as they readied the ferry to cross, but
the men moved at the same reluctant speed whatever he said, and he was half-hearted about it, often cutting off
in mid-shout to hold his torch high and peel into the fog. Finally he stopped shouting altogether and went to the
bow, where he stood staring into the mist that covered the river. He did not move until one of the haulers
touched his arm; then he jumped, glaring.
"What? Oh. You, is it? Ready? About time. Well, man, what are you waiting for?" He waved his arms
heedless of the torch and the way the horses whickered and tried to move back. "Cast off! Give way! Move!"
The man slouched off to comply, and Hightower peered once more into the fog ahead, rubbing his free hand
uneasily on his coat front.
The ferry lurched as its moorings were loosed and the strong current caught it, then lurched again as the
guide-ropes held it. The haulers, three to a side, grabbed hold of the ropes at the front of the ferry and
laboriously began walking toward the back, muttering uneasily as they edged out onto the gray- cloaked river.
The landing disappeared as mist surrounded them, tenuous streamers drifting across the ferry between
the flickering torches. The barge rocked slowly in the current. Nothing except the steady tread of the haulers,
forward to take hold of the ropes and back down again pulling, gave a hint of any other movement. No one
spoke. The villagers kept as close to the center of the ferry as they could. They had heard the Taren was far
wider than the streams they were used to; the fog made it infinitely vaster in their minds.
After a time Rand moved closer to Lan. Rivers a man could not wade or swim or even see across were
nervous-making to someone who had never seen anything broader or deeper than a Waterwood pond. "Would
they really have tried to rob us?" he asked quietly. "He acted more as if he were afraid we would rob him."
The Warder eyed the ferryman and his helpers - none appeared to be listening – before answering just as
softly. "With the fog to hide them…well, when what they do is hidden, men sometimes deal with strangers in
ways they wouldn't if there were other eyes to see. And the quickest to harm a stranger are the soonest to think a
stranger will harm them. This fellow…I believe he might sell his mother to Trollocs for stew meat if the price
was right. I'm a little surprised you ask. I heard the way people in Emond's Field speak of those from Taren
Ferry."
"Yes, but . . . Well, everyone says they . . . But I never thought they would. Actually . . ." Rand decided
he had better stop thinking that he knew anything at all of what people were like beyond his own village. "He
might tell the Fade we crossed on the ferry," he said at last. "Maybe he'll bring the Trollocs over after us."
Lan chuckled dryly. "Robbing a stranger is one thing, dealing with a Halfman something else again. Can
you really see him ferrying Trollocs over, especially in this fog, no matter how much gold was offered? Or even
talking to a Myrddraal, if he had any choice? Just the thought of it would keep him running for a month. I don't
think we have to worry very much about Darkfriends in Taren Ferry .Not here. We are safe for a time, at least.
From this lot, anyway. Watch yourself."
Hightower had turned from peering into the fog ahead. Pointed face pushed forward and torch held high,
he stared at Lan and Rand as if seeing them clearly for the first time. Deckplanks creaked under the haulers' feet
and the occasional stamp of a hoof. Abruptly the ferryman twitched as he realized they were watching him
watching them. With a leap he spun back to looking for the far bank, or whatever it was he sought in the fog.
"Say no more," Lan said, so softly Rand almost could not understand. "These are bad days to speak of
Trollocs, or Darkfriends, or the Father of Lies, with strange ears to hear. Such talk can bring worse than the
Dragon's Fang scrawled on your door."
Rand felt no desire to go on with his questions. Gloom settled on him even more than it hadbefore.
Darkfriends! As if Fades and Trollocs and Draghkar were not enough to worry about. At least you could tell a
Trolloc at sight.
Abruptly pilings loomed shadowy in the mist before them. The ferry thudded against the far bank, and
then the haulers were hurrying to lash the craft fast and let down the ramp at that end with a thump, while Mat
and Perrin announced loudly that the Taren was not half as wide as they had heard. Lan led his stallion down
the ramp, followed by Moiraine and the others. As Rand, the last, took Cloud down behind Bela, Master
Hightower called out angrily.
"Here, now! Here! Where's my gold?"
"It shall be paid. " Moiraine's voice came from somewhere in the mist. Rand's boots clumped from the
ramp to a wooden landing. "And a silver mark for each of your men," the Aes Sedai added, "for the quick
crossing. "
The ferryman hesitated, face pushed forward as if he smelled danger, but at the mention of silver the
haulers roused themselves. Some paused to seize a torch, but they all thumped down the ramp before Hightower
could open his mouth. With a sullen grimace, the ferryman followed his crew.
Cloud's hooves clumped hollowly in the fog as Rand made his way carefully along the landing. The gray
mist was as thick here as over the river. At the foot of the landing, the Warder was handing out coins,
surrounded by the torches of Hightower and his fellows. Everyone else except Moiraine waited just beyond in
an anxious cluster. The Aes Sedai stood looking at the river, though what she could see was beyond Rand. With
a shiver he hitched up his cloak, sodden as it was. He was really out of the Two Rivers, now, and it seemed
much farther away than the width of a river.
"There," Lan said, handing a last coin to Hightower. "As agreed. " He did not put up his purse, and the
ferrety-faced man eyed it greedily. With a loud creak, the landing shivered. Hightower jerked upright, head
swivelling back toward the mist-cloaked ferry.
The torches remaining on board were a pair of dim, fuzzy points of light. The landing groaned, and with
a thunderous crack of snapping wood, the twin glows lurched, then began to revolve. Egwene cried out
wordlessly, and Thom cursed.
"It's loose!" Hightower screamed. Grabbing his haulers, he pushed them toward the end of th6 landing.
"The ferry's loose, you fools! Get it! Get it"
The haulers stumbled a few steps under Hightower's shoves, then stopped. The faint lights on the ferry
spun faster, then, faster still. The fog above them swirled, sucked into a spiral. The landing trembled. The
cracking and splintering of wood filled the air as the ferry began breaking apart.
"Whirlpool," one of the haulers said, his voice filled with awe.
"No whirlpools on the Taren." Hightower sounded empty. "Never been a whirlpool. ..."
"An unfortunate occurrence. " Moiraine's voice was hollow in the fog that made her a shadow as she
turned from the river.
"Unfortunate," Lan agreed in a flat tone. "It seems you'll be carrying no one else across the river for a
time. An ill thing that you lost your craft in our service." He delved again into his purse, ready in his hand.
"This should repay you."
For a moment Hightower stared at the gold, glinting in Lan's hand in the torchlight, then his shoulders
hunched and his eyes darted to the others he had carried across. Made indistinct by the fog, the Emond's
Fielders stood silently. With a frightened, inarticulate cry, the ferryman snatched the coins from Lan, whirled,
and ran into the mist. His haulers were only half a step behind him, their torches quickly swallowed as they
vanished upriver.
"There is nothing further to hold us here," the Aes Sedai said as if nothing out of the ordinary had
happened. Leading her white mare, she started away from the landing, up the bank.
Rand stood staring at the hidden river. It could have been happenstance. No whirlpools, he said, but it . .
. Abruptly he realized everyone else had gone. Hurriedly he scrambled up the gently sloping bank.
In the space of three paces the heavy mist faded away to nothing. He stopped dead and stared back.
Along a line running down the shore thick gray hung on one side, on the other shone a clear night sky, still dark
though the sharpness of the moon hinted at dawn not far off.
The Warder and the Aes Sedai stood conferring beside their horses a short distance beyond the border of
the fog. The others huddled a little apart; even in the moonlit darkness their nervousness was palpable. All eyes
were on Lan and Moiraine; and all but Egwene were leaning back as if tom between losing the pair and getting
too close. Rand trotted the last few spans to Egwene's side, leading Cloud, and she grinned at him. He did not
think the shine in her eyes was all from moonlight.
"It follows the river as if drawn with a pen," Moiraine was saying in satisfied tones. "There are not ten
women in Tar Valon who could do that unaided. Not to mention from the back of a galloping horse."
"I don't mean to complain, Moiraine Sedai," Thom said, sounding oddly diffident for him, "but would it
not have been better to cover us a little further? Say to Baerlon? If that Draghkar looks on this side of the river,
we'll lose everything we have gained."
"Draghkar are not very smart, Master Merrilin," the Aes Sedai said dryly. "Fearsome and deadly
dangerous, and with sharp eyes, but little intelligence. It will tell the Myrddraal that this side of the river is
clear, but the river itself is cloaked for miles in both directions. The Myrddraal will know the extra effort that
cost me. He will have to consider that we may be escaping down the river, and that will slow him. He will have
to divide his efforts. The fog should hold long enough that he will never be sure that we did not travel at least
partway by boat. It could have extended the fog a little way toward Baerlon, instead, but then the Draghkar
could search the river in a matter of hours, and the Myrddraal would know exactly where we were headed."
Thom made a puffing sound and shook his head. "I apologize, Aes Sedai. I hope I did not offend."
"Ah, Moi . . . ah, Aes Sedai." Mat stopped to swallow audibly. "The ferry . . . ah . . . did you. . . I mean. .
. I don't understand why . . ." He trailed off weakly, and there was a silence so deep that the loudest sound Rand
heard was his own breathing.
Finally Moiraine spoke, and her voice filled the empty silence with sharpness. "You all want
explanations, but if I explained my every action to you, I would have no time for anything else." In the
moonlight, the Aes Sedai seemed taller, somehow, almost looming over them. "Know this. I intend to see you
safely in Tar Valon. That is the one thing you need to know."
"If we keep standing here," Lan put in, "the Draghkar will not need to search the river. If I remember
correctly. . ." He led his horse on up the riverbank.
As if the Warder's movement had loosened something in his chest, Rand drew a deep breath. He heard
others doing the same, even Thom, and remembered an old saying. Better to spit in a wolf's eye than to cross an
Aes Sedai. Yet the tension had lessened. Moiraine was not looming over anyone; she barely reached his chest.
"I don't suppose we could rest a bit," Perrin said hopefully, ending with a yawn. Egwene, slumped
against Bela, sighed tiredly.
It was the first sound even approaching a complaint that Rand had heard from her. Maybe now she
realizes this isn't some grand adventure after all. Then he guiltily remembered that, unlike him, she had not
slept the day away. "We do need to rest, Moiraine Sedai," he said. "After all, we have ridden all night."
"Then I suggest we see what Lan has for us," Moiraine said, “Come."
She led them on up the bank, into the woods beyond the river. Bare branches thickened the shadows. A
good hundred spans from the Taren they came to a dark mound beside a clearing. Here a long-ago flood had
undermined and toppled an entire stand of leatherleafs, washing them together into a great, thick tangle, an
apparently solid mass of trunks and branches and roots. Moiraine stopped, and suddenly a light appeared low to
the ground, coming from under the heap of trees.
Thrusting a stub of a torch ahead of him, Lan crawled out from under the mound and straightened. "No
unwelcome visitors," he told Moiraine. " And the wood I left is still dry, so I started a small fire. We will rest
warm."
"You expected us to stop here?" Egwene said in surprise.
"It seemed a likely place," Lan replied. "I like to be prepared, just in case."
Moiraine took the torch from him: "Will you see to the horses? When you are done I will do what I can
about everyone's tiredness. Right now I want to talk to Egwene. Egwene?"
Rand watched the two women crouch down and disappear under the great pile of tree trunks. There was
a low opening, barely big enough to crawl into. The light of the torch vanished.
Lan had included feedbags and a small quantity of oats in the supplies, but he stopped the others from
unsaddling their horses. Instead he produced the hobbles he had also packed. "They would rest easier without
the saddles, but if we must leave quickly, there may be no time to replace them."
"They don't look to me like they need any rest," Perrin said as he attempted to slip a feedbag over his
mount's muzzle. The horse tossed its head before allowing him to put the straps in place. Rand was having
difficulties with Cloud, too, taking three tries before he could get the canvas bag over the gray's nose.
"They do," Lan told them. He straightened from hobbling his stallion. "Oh, they can still run. They will
run at their fastest, if we let them, right up to the second they drop dead from exhaustion they never even felt. I
would rather Moiraine Sedai had not had to do what she did, but it was necessary." He patted the stallion's neck,
and the horse bobbed his head as if acknowledging the Warder's touch. "We must go slowly with them for the
next few days, until they recover. More slowly than I would like. But with luck it will be enough."
"Is that...?" Mat swallowed audibly. "Is that what she meant? About our tiredness?"
Rand patted Cloud's neck and stared at nothing. Despite what she had done for Tam, he had no desire for
the Aes Sedai to use the Power on him. Light, she as much as admitted sinking the ferry.
"Something like it. " Lan chuckled wryly. "But you will not have to worry about running yourself to
death. Not unless things get a lot worse than they are. Just think of it as an extra night's sleep."
The shrill scream of the Draghkar suddenly echoed from above the fog-covered river. Even the horses
froze. Again it came, closer now, and again, piercing Rand's skull like needles: Then the cries were fading, until
they had faded away entirely.
"Luck," Lan breathed. "It searches the river for us." He gave a quick shrug and abruptly sounded matterof-
fact. "Let's get inside. I could do with some hot tea and something to fill my belly."
Rand was the first to crawl on hands and knees through the opening in the tangle of trees and down a
short-tunnel. At the end of it, he stopped, still crouching. Ahead was an irregularly shaped space, a woody cave
easily large enough to hold them all. The roof of tree trunks and branches came too low to allow any but the
women to stand. Smoke from a small fire on a bed of river stones drifted up and through; the draft was enough
to keep the space free of smoke, but the interweaving was too thick to let out even a glimmer of the flames.
Moiraine and Egwene, their cloaks thrown aside, sat cross-legged, facing one another beside the fire.
"The One Power," Moiraine was saying, "comes from the True Source, the driving force of Creation, the
force the Creator made to turn the Wheel of Time." She put her hands together in front of her and pushed them
against each other. "Saidin, the male half of the True Source, and saidar, the female half, work against each
other and at the same time together to provide that force. Saidin” - she lifted one hand, then let it drop -"is
fouled by the touch of the Dark One, like water with a thin slick of rancid oil floating on top. The water is still
pure, but it cannot be touched without touching the foulness. Only saidar is still safe to be used." Egwene's back
was to Rand. He could not see her face, but she was leaning forward eagerly.
Mat poked Rand from behind and muttered something, and he moved on into the tree cavern. Moiraine
and Egwene ignored his entry .The other men crowded in behind him, tossing off damp cloaks, settling around
the fire, and holding hands out o the warmth. Lan, the last to enter, pulled water bags and leather sacks from a
nook in the wall, took out a kettle, and began to prepare tea. He paid no attention to what the women were
saying, but Rand's friends began to stop toasting their hands and stare openly. Thom pretended that all of his
interest was engaged in loading his thickly carved pipe, but the way he leaned toward the women gave him
away. Moiraine and Egwene acted as if they were alone.
"No," Moiraine said in answer to a question Rand had missed, "the True Source cannot be used up, any
more than the river can be used up by the wheel of a mill. The Source is the river; the Aes Sedai, the
waterwheel."
"And you really think I can learn?" Egwene asked. Her face shone with eagerness. Rand had never seen
her look so beautiful, or so far away from him. "I can become an Aes Sedai?" Rand jumped up, cracking his
head against the low roof of logs. Thom Merrilin grabbed his arm, yanking him back down.
"Don't be a fool," the gleeman murmured. He eyed the women-neither seemed to have noticed and the
look he gave Rand was sympathetic. "It's beyond you now, boy."
"Child," Moiraine said gently, "only a very few can learn to touch the True Source and use the One
Power. Some of those can learn to a greater degree, some to a lesser. You are one of the bare handful for whom
there is no need to learn. At least, touching the Source will come to you whether you want it or not. Without the
teaching you can receive in Tar Valon, though, you will never learn to channel it fully, and you may not
survive. Men who have the ability to touch saidin born in them die, of course, if the Red Ajah does not find
them and gentle them. ..."
Thom growled deep in his throat, and Rand shifted uncomfortably. Men like those of whom the Aes
Sedai spoke were rare - he had only heard of three in his whole life, and thank the Light never in the Two
Rivers-but the damage they did before the Aes Sedai found them was always bad enough for the news to carry,
like the news of wars, or earthquakes that destroyed cities. He had never really understood what the Ajahs did.
According to the stories they were societies among the Aes Sedai that seemed to plot and squabble among
themselves more than anything else, but the stories were clear on one point. The Red Ajah held its prime duty to
be the prevention of another Breaking of the World, and they did it by hunting down every man who even
dreamed of wielding the One Power. Mat and Perrin looked as if they suddenly wished they were back home in
their beds.
". . . but some of the women die, too. It is hard to learn without a guide. The women we do not find,
those who live, often become . . . well, in this part of the world they might become Wisdoms of their villages."
The Aes Sedai paused thoughtfully. "The old blood is strong in Emond's Field, and the old blood sings. I knew
you for what you were the moment I saw you. No Aes Sedai can stand in the presence of a woman who can
channel or who is close to her change, and not feel it. " She rummaged in the pouch at her belt and produced the
small blue gem on a gold chain that she had earlier worn in her hair. "You are very close to your change, your
first touching. It will be better if I guide you through it. That way you will avoid the . . . unpleasant effects that
come to those who must find their own way."
Egwene's eyes widened as she looked at the stone, and she wet her lips repeatedly. "Is ... does that have
the Power?"
"Of course not," Moiraine snapped. "Things do not have the Power, child. Even an angreal is only a
tool. This is just a pretty blue stone. But it can give off light. Here."
Egwene's hands trembled as Moiraine laid the stone on her fingertips. She started to pull back, but the
Aes Sedai held both her hands in one of hers and gently touched the other to the side of Egwene's head.
"Look at the stone," the Aes Sedai said softly. "It is better this way than fumbling alone. Clear your
mind of everything but the stone. Clear your mind, and let yourself drift. There is only the stone and emptiness.
I will begin it. Drift, and let me guide you. No thoughts. Drift."
Rand's fingers dug into his knees; his jaws clenched until they hurt. She has to fail. She has to.
Light bloomed in the stone, just one flash of blue and then gone, no brighter than a firefly, but he
flinched as if it had been blinding. Egwene and Moiraine stared into the stone, faces empty. Another flash came,
and another, until the azure light pulsed like the beating of a heart. It's the Aes Sedai, he thought desperately.
Moiraine's doing it. Not Egwene.
One last, feeble flicker, and the stone was merely a bauble again. Rand held his breath. For a moment
Egwene continued to stare at the small stone, then she looked up at Moiraine. "I . . . I thought I felt . . .
something, but . . . Perhaps you're mistaken about me. I am sorry I wasted your time."
"I have wasted nothing, child." A small smile of satisfaction flitted across Moiraine's lips. "That last
light was yours alone."
"It was?" Egwene exclaimed, then slid immediately back into glumness. "But it was barely there at all. "
"Now you are behaving like a foolish village girl. Most who come to Tar Valon must study for many
months before they can do what you just did. You may go far. Perhaps even the Amyrlin Seat, one day, if you
study hard and work hard."
"You mean...?" With a cry of delight Egwene threw her arms around the Aes Sedai. "Oh, thank you.
Rand, did you hear? I'm going to be an Aes Sedai!"

Chapter 13

Choices


Before they went to sleep Moiraine knelt by each in turn and laid her hands on their heads. Lan
grumbled that he had no need and she should not waste her strength, but he did not try to stop her.
Egwene was eager for the experience; Mat and Perrin clearly frightened of it, and frightened to say no.
Thom jerked away from the Aes Sedai's hands, but she seized his gray head with a look that allowed no
nonsense. The gleeman scowled through the entire thing. She smiled mockingly once she took her hands away.
His frown deepened, but he' did look refreshed. They all did.
Rand had drawn back into a niche in the uneven wall where he hoped he would be overlooked. His eyes
wanted to slide closed once he leaned back against the timber jumble, but he forced himself to watch. He
pushed a fist against his mouth to stifle a yawn. A little sleep, an hour or two, and he would be just fine.
Moiraine did not forget him, though.
He flinched at the coolness of her fingers on his face, and said, "I don't-" His eyes widened in wonder.
Tiredness drained out of him like water running downhill; aches and soreness ebbed to dim memories and
vanished. He stared at her with his mouth hanging open. She only smiled and withdrew her hands.
"It is done," she said, and as she stood with a weary sigh he was reminded that she could not do the same
for herself. Indeed, she only drank a little tea, refusing the bread and cheese Lan tried to press on her, before
curling up beside the fire. She seemed to fall asleep the instant she wrapped her cloak around her.
The others, all save Lan, were dropping asleep wherever they could find a space to stretch out, but Rand
could not imagine why. He felt as if he had already had a full night in a good bed. No sooner did he lean back
against the log wall, though, than sleep rolled him under. When Lan poked him awake an hour later he felt as
though he had had three days rest.
The Warder awakened them all, except Moiraine, and he sternly hushed any sound that might disturb
her. Even so, he allowed them only a short stay in the snug cave of trees. Before the sun was twice its own
height above the horizon, all traces that anyone had ever stopped there had been cleared away and they were all
mounted and moving north toward Baerlon, riding slowly to conserve the horses. The Aes Sedai's eyes were
shadowed, but she sat her saddle upright and steady.
Fog still hung thick over the river behind them, a gray wall resisting the efforts of the feeble sun to burn
it away and hiding the Two Rivers from view. Rand watched over his shoulder as he rode, hoping for one last
glimpse, even of Taren Ferry until the fogbank was lost to sight.
"I never thought I'd ever be this far from home," he said when the trees at last hid both the fog and the
river. "Remember when Watch Hill seemed a long way?" Two days ago, that was. It seems like forever.
"In a month or two, we'll be back," Perrin said in a strained voice. "Think what we'll have to tell."
"Even Trollocs can't chase us forever," Mat said. "Burn me, they can't." He straightened around with a
heavy sigh, slumping in his saddle as if he did not believe a word that had been said.
"Men!" Egwene snorted. "You get the adventure you're always prating about, and already you're talking
about home." She held her head high, yet Rand noticed a tremor to her voice, now that nothing more was to be
seen of the Two Rivers.
Neither Moiraine nor Lan made any attempt to reassure them, not a word to say that of course they
would come back. He tried not to think on what that might mean. Even rested, he was full enough of doubts
without searching out more. Hunching in his saddle he began a waking dream of tending the sheep alongside
Tam in a pasture with deep, lush grass and larks singing of a spring morning. And a trip into Emond's Field, and
Bel Tine the way it had been, dancing on the Green with never a care beyond whether he might stumble in the
steps. He man- aged to lose himself in it for a long time.
The journey to Baerlon took almost a week. Lan muttered about the laggardness of their travel, but it
was he who set the pace and forced the rest to keep it. With himself and his stallion, Mandarb - he said it meant
"Blade" in the Old Tongue - he was not so sparing. The Warder covered twice as much ground as they did,
galloping ahead, his color-shifting cloak swirling in the wind, to scout what lay before them, or dropping behind
to examine their backtrail. Any others who tried to move at more than a walk, though, got cutting words on
taking care of their animals, biting words on how well they would do afoot if the Trollocs did appear. Not even
Moiraine was proof against his tongue if she let the white mare pick up her step. Aldieb, the mare was called; in
the Old Tongue, "Westwind," the wind that brought the spring rains.
The Warder's scouting never turned up any sign of pursuit, or ambush. He spoke only to Moiraine of
what he saw, and that quietly, so it could not be overheard, and the Aes Sedai informed the rest of them of what
she thought they needed to know. In the beginning, Rand looked over his shoulder as much as he did ahead. He
was not the only one. Perrin fingered his axe often, and Mat rode with an arrow nocked to his bow, in the
beginning. But the land behind remained empty of Trollocs or figures in black cloaks, the sky remained empty
of Draghkar. Slowly, Rand began to think perhaps they really had escaped.
No very great cover was to be had, even in the thickest parts of the woods. Winter clung as hard north of
the Taren as it did in the Two Rivers. Stands of pine or fir or leatherleaf, and here and there a few spicewoods
or laurels, dotted a forest of otherwise bare, gray branches. Not even the elders showed a leaf. Only scattered
green sprigs of new growth stood out against brown meadows beaten flat by the winter's snows. Here, too,
much of what did grow was stinging nettles and coarse thistle and stinkweed. On the bare dirt of the forest floor
some of the last snow still hung on, in shady patches and in drifts beneath the low branches of evergreens.
Everyone kept their cloaks drawn well about them, for the thin sunlight had no warmth to it and the night cold
pierced deep. No more birds flew here than in the Two Rivers, not even ravens.
There was nothing leisurely about the slowness of their movement. The North Road- Rand continued to
think of it that way, though he suspected it might have a different name here, north of the Taren-still ran almost
due north, but at Lan's insistence their path snaked this way and that through the forest as often as it ran along
the hard-packed dirt road. A village, or a farm, of any sign of men or civilization sent them circling for miles to
avoid it, though there were few enough of any of those. The whole first day Rand saw no evidence aside from
the road that men had ever been in that woods. It came to him that even when he had gone to the foot of the
Mountains of Mist he might not have been as far from a human habitation as he was that day.
The first farm he saw-a large frame house and tan barn with high-peaked, thatched roofs, acurl of smoke
rising from a stone chimney-was a shock.
"It's no different from back home," Perrin said, frowning at the distant buildings, barely visible through
the trees. People moved around the farmyard, as yet unaware of the travelers.
"Of course it is," Mat said. "We're just not close enough to see."
"I tell you, it's no different," Perrin insisted.
"It must be. We're north of the Taren, after an."
"Quiet, you two," Lan growled. "We don't want to be seen, remember? This way." He turned west, to
circle the farm through the trees.
Looking back, Rand thought Perrin was right. The farm looked much the same as any around Emond's
Field. There was a small boy toting water from the well, and older boys tending sheep behind a rail fence. It
even had a curing shed, for tabac. But Mat was right, too. We're north of the Taren. It must be different.
Always they halted while light still clung to the sky, to choose a spot sloped for drainage and sheltered
from the wind that seldom died completely, only changed direction. Their fire was always small and hidden
from only a few yards off, and once tea was brewed, the flames were doused and the coals buried.
At their first stop, before the sun sank, Lao began teaching the boys what to do with the weapons they
carried. He started with the bow. After watching Mat put three arrows into a knot the size of a man's head, on
the fissured trunk of a dead leatherleaf, at a hundred paces, he told the others to take their turns. Perrin
duplicated Mat's feat, and Rand, summoning the flame and the void, the empty calm that let the bow become a
part of him, or him of it, clustered his three where the points almost touched one another. Mat gave him a
congratulatory clap on the shoulder.
"Now if you all had bows," the Warder said dryly when they started grinning, "and if the Trollocs agreed
not to come so close you couldn't use them. ..." The grins faded abruptly. "Let me see what I can teach you in
case they do come that close."
He showed Perrin a bit of how to use that great-bladed axe; raising an axe to someone, or something,
that had a weapon was not at all like chopping wood or flailing around in pretend. Setting the big apprentice
blacksmith to a series of exercises, block, parry, and strike, he did the same for Rand and his sword. Not the
wild leaping about and slashing that Rand had in mind whenever he thought about using it, but smooth motions,
one flowing into another, almost a dance.
"Moving the blade is not enough," Lan said, "though some think it is. The mind is part of it, most of it.
Blank your mind, sheepherder. Empty it of hate or fear, of everything. Burn them away. You others listen to
this, too. You can use it with the axe or the bow, with a spear, or a quarterstaff, or even your, bare hands."
Rand stared at him. "The flame and the void," he said wonderingly. "That's what you mean, isn't it? My
father taught me about that."
The Warder gave him an unreadable look in return. "Hold the sword as I showed you, sheepherder. I
cannot make a mud-footed villager into a blademaster in an hour, but perhaps I can keep you from slicing off
your own foot."
Rand sighed and held the sword upright before him in both hands. Moiraine watched without
expression, but the next evening she told Lan to continue the lessons.
The meal at evening was always the same as at midday and breakfast, flatbread and cheese and dried
meat, except that evenings they had hot tea to wash it down instead of water. Thom entertained them, evenings.
Lan would not let the gleeman play harp or flute - no need to rouse the countryside, the Warder said - but Thom
juggled and told stories. "Mara and the Three Foolish Kings," or one of the hundreds about Anla the Wise
Counselor, or something filled with glory and adventure, like The Great Hunt of the Horn, but always with a
happy ending and a joyous homecoming.
Yet if the land was peaceful around them, if no Trollocs appeared among the trees, no Draghkar among
the clouds, it seemed to Rand that they managed to raise their tension themselves, whenever it was in danger of
vanishing.
There was the morning that Egwene awoke and began unbraiding her hair. Rand watched her from the
comer of his eye as he made up his blanketroll. Every night when the fire was doused, everyone took to their
blankets except for Egwene and the Aes Sedai. The two women always went aside from the others and talked
for an hour or two, returning when the others were asleep. Egwene combed her hair out-one hundred strokes; he
counted-while he was saddling Cloud, tying his saddlebags and blanket behind the saddle. Then she tucked the
comb away, swept her loose hair over her shoulder, and pulled up the hood of her cloak.
Startled, he asked, "What are you doing?" She gave him a sidelong look without answering. It was the
first time he had spoken to her in two days, he realized, since the night in the log shelter on the bank of the
Taren, but he did not let that stop him. " All your life you've waited to wear your hair in a braid, and now you're
giving it up? Why? Because she doesn't braid hers?"
"Aes Sedai don't braid their hair," she said simply. " At least, not unless they want to."
"You aren't an Aes Sedai. You're Egwene al'Vere from Emond's Field, and the Women's Circle would
have a fit if they could see you now."
"Women's Circle business is none of yours, Rand al'Thor. And I will be an Aes Sedai, Just as soon as I
reach Tar Valon."
He snorted. " As soon as you reach Tar Valon. Why? Light, tell me that. You're no Darkfriend."
"Do you think Moiraine Sedai is a Darkfriend? Do you?" She squared around to face him with her fists
clenched, and he almost thought she was going to hit him. " After she saved the village? After she saved your
father?"
"I don't know what she is, but whatever she is, it doesn't say anything about the rest of them.The stories"
"Grow up, Rand! Forget the stories and use your eyes."
"My eyes saw her sink the ferry! Deny that! Once you get an idea in your head, you won't budge even if
somebody points out you're trying to stand on water. If you weren't such a Light- blinded fool, you'd see - !"
"Fool, am I? Let me tell you a thing or two, Rand al'Thor! You are the muliest, most woolheaded - !"
"You two trying to wake everybody inside ten miles?" the Warder asked.
Standing there with his mouth open, trying to get a word in edgewise, Rand suddenly realized he had
been shouting. They both had.
Egwene's face went scarlet to her eyebrows, and she spun away with a muttered, "Men!" that seemed as
much for the Warder as for him.
Warily, Rand looked around the camp. Everybody was looking at him, not just the Warder. Mat and
Perrin, with their faces white. Thom, tensed as if ready to run or fight. Moiraine. The Aes Sedai's face was
expressionless, but her eyes seemed to bore into his head. Desperately, he tried to recall exactly what he had
said, about Aes Sedai and Darkfriends.
"It is time to be going," Moiraine said. She turned to Aldieb, and Rand shivered as if he had been let out
of a trap. He wondered if he had been.
Two nights later, with the fire burning low, Mat licked the last crumbs of cheese from his fingers and
said, "You know, I think we've lost them for good." Lan was off in the night, taking a last look around,
Moiraine and Egwene had gone aside for one of their conversations. Thom was half dozing over his pipe, and
the young men had the fire to themselves.
Perrin, idly poking the embers with a stick, answered. "If we've lost them, why does Lan keep
scouting?" Nearly asleep, Rand rolled over, his back to the fire.
"We lost them back at Taren Ferry." Mat lay back with his fingers laced behind his head, staring at the
moon-filled sky. "If they were even really after us. "
"You think that Draghkar was chasing us because it liked us?" Perrin asked.
"I say, stop worrying about Trollocs and such," Mat went on as if Perrin had not spoken, "and start
thinking about seeing the world. We're out where the stories come from. What do you think a real city is like?"
"We're going to Baerlon," Rand said sleepily, but Mat snorted.
"Baerlon's all very well, but I've seen that old map Master al'Vere has. If we turn south once we reach
Caemlyn, the road leads all the way to Illian, and beyond."
"What's so special about Illian?" Perrin said, yawning. "For one thing," Mat replied, "Illian isn't full of
Aes Se-" A silence fell, and Rand was suddenly wide awake. Moiraine had come back early. Egwene was with
her, but it was the Aes Sedai, standing at the edge of the firelight, who held their attention. Mat lay there on his
back, his mouth still open, staring at her. Moiraine's eyes caught the light like dark, polished stones. Abruptly
Rand wondered how long she had been standing there.
"The lads were just - " Thom began, but Moiraine spoke right over the top of him.
"A few days respite, and you are ready to give up." Her calm, level voice contrasted sharply with her
eyes. "A day or two of quiet, and already you have forgotten Winternight."
"We haven't forgotten," Perrin said. "It's just - " Still not raising her voice, the Aes Sedai treated him as
she had the gleeman.
"Is that the way you all feel? You are all eager to run off to Illian and forget about Trollocs, and
Halfmen, and Draghkar?" She ran her eyes over them - that stony glint playing against the everyday tone of
voice made Rand uneasy - but she gave no one a chance to speak. "The Dark One is after you three, one or all,
and if I let you go running off wherever you want to so, he will take you. Whatever the Dark One wants, I
oppose, so hear this and know it true. Before I let the Dark One have you, I will destroy you myself."
It was her voice, so matter-of-fact, that convinced Rand. The Aes Sedai would do exactly what she said,
if she thought it was necessary. He had a hard time sleeping that night, and he was not the only one. Even the
gleeman did not begin snoring till long after the last coals died. For once, Moiraine offered no help.
Those nightly talks between Egwene and the Aes Sedai were a sore point for Rand. Whenever they
disappeared into the darkness, aside from the rest for privacy, he wondered what they were saying, what they
were doing. What was the Aes Sedai doing to Egwene?
One night, he waited until the other men had all settled down, Thom snoring like a saw cutting an oak
knot. Then he slipped away, clutching his blanket around him. Using every bit of skill he had gained stalking
rabbits, he moved with the moon shadows until he was crouched at the base of a tall leatherleaf tree, thick with
tough, broad leaves, close enough to hear Moiraine and Egwene, where they sat on a fallen log with a small
lantern for light.
"Ask," Moiraine was saying, "and if I can tell you now I will. Understand, there is much for which you
are not yet ready, things you cannot learn until you have learned other things which require still others to be
learned before them. But ask what you will."
"The Five Powers," Egwene said slowly. "Earth, Wind, Fire, Water, and Spirit. It doesn't seem fair that
men should have been strongest in wielding Earth and Fire. Why should they have had the strongest Powers?"
Moiraine laughed. "Is that what you think, child? Is there a rock so hard that wind and water cannot
wear it away, a fire so strong that water cannot quench it or wind snuff it out?"
Egwene was silent for a time, digging her toe into the forest floor. "They . . . they were the ones who . . .
who tried to free the Dark One and the Forsaken, weren't they? The male Aes Sedai?" She took a deep breath
and picked up speed. "The women were not part of it. It was the men who went mad and broke the world."
"You are afraid," Moiraine said grimly. "If you had remained in Emond's Field, you would have become
Wisdom, in time. That was Nynaeve's plan, was it not? Or, you would have sat in the Women's Circle and
managed the affairs of Emond's Field while the Village Council thought it was doing so. But you did the
unthinkable. You left Emond's Field, left the Two Rivers, seeking adventure. You wanted to do it, and at the
same time you are afraid of it. And you are stubbornly refusing to let your fear best you. You would not have
asked me how a woman becomes an Aes Sedai, otherwise. You would not have thrown custom and convention
over the fence, otherwise."
"No," Egwene protested. "I'm not afraid. I do want to become an Aes Sedai. "
"Better for you if you were afraid, but I hope you hold to that conviction. Few women these days have
the ability to become initiates, much less have the wish to." Moiraine's voice sounded as if she had begun
musing to herself. "Surely never before two in one village. The old blood is indeed still strong in the Two
Rivers. "
In the shadows, Rand shifted. A twig snapped under his foot. He froze instantly, sweating and holding
his breath, but neither of the women looked around.
"Two?" Egwene exclaimed. "Who else? Is it Kari? Kari Thane? Lara Ayellan?"
Moiraine gave an exasperated click of her tongue, then said sternly, "You must forget I said that. Her
road lies another way, I fear. Concern yourself with your own circumstances. It is not an easy road you have
chosen."
"I will not turn back," Egwene said. "Be that as it may. But you still want reassurance, and I cannot give
it to you, not in the way you want."
"I don't understand. You want to know that Aes Sedai are good and pure, that it was those wicked men
of the legends who caused the Breaking of the World, not the women. Well, it was the men, but they were no
more wicked than any men. They were insane, not evil. The Aes Sedai you will find in Tar Valon are human, no
different from any other women except for the ability that sets us apart. They are 'brave and cowardly, strong
and weak, kind and cruel, warm-hearted and cold. Becoming an Aes Sedai will not change you from what you
are."
Egwene drew a heavy breath. "I suppose I was afraid of that, that I'd be changed by the Power. That and
the Trollocs. And the Fade. And . . . Moiraine Sedai, in the name of the Light, why did the Trollocs come to
Emond's Field?"
The Aes Sedai's head swung and she looked straight at Rand's hiding place. His breath seized in his
throat; her eyes were as hard as when she had threatened them, and he had the feeling they could penetrate the
leatherleaf's thick branches. Light, what will she do if she finds me listening?
He tried to melt back into the deeper shadows. With his eyes on the women, a root snagged his foot, and
he barely caught himself from tumbling into dead brush that would have pointed him out with a crackle of
snapping branches like fireworks. Panting, he scrambled away on all fours, keeping silent as much by luck as by
anything he did. His heart pounded so hard he thought that might give him away itself. Fool! Eavesdropping on
an Aes Sedai!
Back where the others were sleeping, he managed to slip in among them silently. Lan moved as he
dropped to the ground and jerked his blanket up, but the Warder settled back with a sigh. He had only been
rolling over in his sleep. Rand let out a long, silent breath.
A moment later Moiraine appeared out of the night, stopping where she could study the slumbering
shapes. Moonlight made a nimbus around her. Rand closed his eyes and breathed evenly, all the while listening
hard for footsteps coming closer. None did. When he opened his eyes again, she was gone.
When finally sleep came, it was fitful and filled with sweaty dreams where all the men in Emond's Field
claimed to be the Dragon Reborn and all women had blue stones in their hair like the one Moiraine wore. He
did not try to overhear Moiraine and Egwene again.
On into the sixth day the slow journey stretched. The warmthless sun slid slowly toward the treetops,
while a handful of thin clouds drifted high to the north. The wind gusted higher for a moment, and Rand pulled
his cloak back up onto his shoulders, muttering to himself. He wondered if they would ever get to Baerlon. The
distance they had traveled from the river already was more than enough to take him from Taren Ferry to the
White River, but Lan always said it was just a short journey whenever he was asked, hardly worth calling a
journey at all. It made him feel lost.
Lan appeared ahead of them in the woods, returning from one of his forays. He reined in and rode beside
Moiraine, his head bent close to hers.
Rand grimaced, but he did not ask any questions. Lan simply refused to acknowledge all such questions
aimed at him.
Only Egwene, among the others, even appeared to notice Lan's return, so used to this arrangement had
they become, and she kept back, too. The Aes Sedai might have begun acting as if Egwene were in charge of
the Emond's Fielders, but that gave her no say when the Warder made his reports. Perrin was carrying Mat's
bow, wrapped in the thoughtful silence that seemed to take them all more and more as they got further from the
Two Rivers. The horses' slow walk allowed Mat to practice juggling three small stones under Thom Merrilin's
watchful eye. The gleeman had given lessons each night, too, as well as Lan.
Lan finished whatever he had been telling Moiraine, and she twisted in her saddle to look back at the
others. Rand tried not to stiffen when her eyes moved across him. Did they linger on him a moment longer than
on anyone else? He had the queasy feeling that she knew who had been listening in the darkness that night.
"Hey, Rand," Mat called, "I can juggle four!" Rand waved in reply without looking around. "I told you
I'd get to four before you. I - Look!"
They had topped a low hill, and below them, a scant mile away through the stark trees and the stretching
shadows of evening, lay Baerlon. Rand gasped, trying to smile and gape at the same time.
A log wall, nearly twenty feet tall, surrounded the town, with wooden watchtowers scattered along its
length. Within, roof- tops of slate and tile glinted with the sinking sun, and feathers of smoke drifted upward
from chimneys. Hundreds of chimneys. There was not a thatched roof to be seen. A broad road ran east from
the town, and another west, each with at least a dozen wagons and twice as many ox-carts trudging toward the
palisade. Farms lay scattered about the town, thickest to the north while 6nly a few broke the forest to the south,
but they might as well not have existed so far as Rand was concerned. It's bigger than Emond's Field and Watch
Hill and Deven Ride all put together! And maybe Taren Ferry, too.
"So that's a city," Mat breathed, leaning forward across his horse's neck to stare.
Perrin could only shake his head. "How can so many people live in one place?"
Egwene simply stared. Thom Merrilin glanced at Mat, then rolled his eyes and blew out his moustaches.
"City!" he snorted.
"And you, Rand?" Moiraine said. "What do you think of your first sight of Baerlon?"
"I think it's a long way from home,” he said slowly, bringing a sharp laugh from Mat.
"You have further to go yet," Moiraine said. "Much further. But there is no other choice, except to run
and hide and run again for the rest of your lives. And short lives they would be. You must remember that, when
the journey becomes hard. You have no choice."
Rand exchanged glances with Mat and Perrin. By their faces, they were thinking the same thing he was.
How could she talk as if they had any choice after what she had said? The Aes Sedai's made our choices.
Moiraine went on as if their thoughts were not plain. "The danger begins again here. Watch what you
say within those walls. Above all, do not mention Trollocs, or Halfmen, or any such. You must not even think
of the Dark One. Some in Baerlon have even less love for Aes Sedai than do the people of Emond's Field, and
there may even be Darkfriends." Egwene gasped, and Perrin muttered under his breath. Mat's face paled, but
Moiraine went on calmly. "We must attract as little attention as possible." Lan was exchanging his cloak of
shifting grays and greens for one of dark brown, more ordinary, though of fine cut and weave. His colorchanging
cloak made a large bulge in one of his saddlebags. "We do not go by our own names here," Moiraine
continued. "Here I am known as Alys, and Lan is Andra. Remember that. Good. Let us be within the walls
before night catches us. The gates of Baerlon are closed from sundown to sunrise." Lan led the way down the
hill and through the woods toward the log wall. The road passed half a dozen farms-none lay close, and none of
the people finishing their chores seemed to notice the travelers ending at heavy wooden gates bound with wide
straps of black iron. They were closed tight, even if the sun was not down yet.
Lan rode close to the wall and gave a tug to a frayed rope hanging down beside the gates. A bell clanged
on the other side of the wall. Abruptly a wizened face under a battered cloth cap peered down suspiciously from
atop the wall, glaring between the cut-off ends of two of the logs, a good three spans over their heads.
"What's all this, eh? It's too late in the day to be opening this gate. Too late, I say. Go around to the
Whitebridge Gate if you want to - " Moiraine's mare moved out to where the man atop the wall had a clear view
of her. Suddenly his wrinkles deepened in a gap-toothed smile, and he seemed to quiver between speaking and
doing his duty. "I didn't know it was you, mistress. Wait. I'll be right down. Just wait. I'm coming. I'm coming."
The head dipped out of sight, but Rand could still hear muffled shouts for them to stay where they were,
that he was coming. With great creaks of disuse, the right-hand gate slowly swung outward. It stopped when
open just wide enough for one horse to pass through at a time, and the gatekeeper poked his head into the gap,
flashed his half-toothless smile at them again and darted back out of the way. Moiraine followed Lan through,
with Egwene right behind her.
Rand trotted Cloud after Bela and found himself in a narrow street fronted by high wooden fences and
warehouses, tall and windowless, broad doors closed up tight. Moiraine and Lan were already on foot, speaking
to the wrinkle-faced gatekeeper, so Rand dismounted, too.
The little man, in a much-mended cloak and coat, held his cloth cap crumpled in one hand and ducked
his head whenever he spoke. He peered at those dismounting behind Lan and Moiraine, and shook his head.
"Downcountry folk.” He grinned. "Why, Mistress Alys, you taken up collecting downcountry folk with hay in
their hair?" His look took in Thom Merrilin, then. “You ain't a sheepfarmer. I remember letting you go through
some days back, I do. Didn't like your tricks downcountry, eh, gleeman?"
“I hope you remembered to forget letting us through, Master Avin," Lan said, pressing a coin into the
man's free hand. “And letting us back in, too."
"No need for that, Master Andra. No need for that. You give me plenty when you went out. Plenty." Just
the same, Avin made the coin disappear as deftly as if he were a gleeman, too. “I ain't told nobody, and I won't,
neither. Especially not them Whitecloaks," he finished with a scowl. He pursed up his lips to spit, then glanced
at Moiraine and swallowed, instead.
Rand blinked, but kept his mouth shut. The others did, too, though it appeared to be an effort for Mat.
Children of the Light, Rand thought wonderingly. Stories told about the Children by peddlers and merchants
and merchants' guards varied from admiration to hatred, but all agreed the Children hated Aes Sedai as much as
they did Darkfriends. He wondered if this was more trouble already.
"The Children are in Baerlon?" Lan demanded.
"They surely are." The gatekeeper bobbed his head. "Came the same day you left, as I recall. Ain't
nobody here likes them at all. Most don't let on, of course."
“Have they said why they are here?" Moiraine asked intently.
"Why they're here, mistress?" Avin was so astonished he forgot to duck his head. .'Of course, they said
why - Oh, I forgot. You been downcountry. Likely you ain't heard nothing but sheep bleating. They say they're
here because of what's going on down in Ghealdan. The Dragon, you know - well, him as calls himself Dragon.
They say the fellow's stirring up evil - which I expect he is - and they're here to stamp it out, only he's down
there in Ghealdan, not here. Just an excuse to med- die in other people's business, is what I figure. There's
already been the Dragon's Fang on some people's doors." This time he did spit.
“Have they caused much trouble, then?" Lan said, and Avin shook his head vigorously.
“Not that they don't want to, I expect, only the Governor don't trust them no more than I do. He won't let
but maybe ten or so inside the walls at one time, and ain't they mad about that. The rest have a camp a little
ways north, I hear. Bet they got the farmers looking over their shoulders. The ones that do come in, they just
stalk around in those white cloaks, looking down their noses at honest folk. Walk in the Light, they say, and it's
an order. Near come to blows more than once with the wagoneers and miners and smelters and all, and even the
Watch, but the Governor wants it all peaceful, and that's how it's been so far. If they're hunting evil, I say why
aren't they up in Saldaea? There's some kind of trouble up there, I hear. Or down in Ghealdan? There's been a
big battle down there, they say. Real big."
Moiraine drew a soft breath. "I had heard that Aes Sedai were going to Ghealdan. "
"Yes, they did, mistress." Avin's head started bobbing again. "They went to Ghealdan, all right, and
that's what started this battle, or so I hear. They say some of those Aes Sedai are dead. Maybe all of them. I
know some folks don't hold with Aes Sedai, but I say, who else is going to stop a false Dragon? Eh? And those
damned fools who think they can be men Aes Sedai or some such. What about them? Course, some say - not the
Whitecloaks, mind, and not me, but some folks - that maybe this fellow really is the Dragon Reborn. He can do
things, I hear. Use the One Power. There's thousands following him."
"Don't be a fool," Lan snapped, and Avin's face folded into a hurt look.
"I'm only saying what I heard, ain't I? Just what I heard, Master Andra. They say, some do, that he's
moving his army east and south, toward Tear." His voice became heavy with meaning. "They say he's named
them the People of the Dragon. "
"Names mean little," Moiraine said calmly. If anything she had heard disturbed her, she gave no outward
sign of it now. "You could call your mule People of the Dragon, if you wanted."
"Not likely, mistress." Avin chuckled. "Not with the Whitecloaks around, for sure. I don't expect
anybody else would look kindly on a name like that, neither. I see what you mean, but ...oh, no, mistress. Not
my mule."
"No doubt a wise decision," Moiraine said. "Now we must be off."
"And don't you worry, mistress," Avin said, with a deep bob of his head, "I ain't seen nobody." He
darted to the gate and began tugging it closed with quick jerks. "Ain't seen nobody, and ain't seen nothing." The
gate thudded shut, and he pulled down the locking bar with a rope. "In fact, mistress, this gate ain't been open in
days."
"The Light illumine you, Avin," Moiraine said.
She led them away from the gate, then. Rand looked back, once, and Avin was still standing in front of
the gate. He seemed to be polishing a coin with an edge of his cloak and chuckling.
The way led through dirt streets barely the width of two wagons, empty of people, all lined with
warehouses and occasional high, wooden fences. Rand walked a time beside the gleeman. "Thom, what was all
that about Tear , and the People of the Dragon? Tear is a city all the way down on the Sea of Storms, isn't it?"
"The Karaethon Cycle," Thom said curtly.
Rand blinked. The Prophecies of the Dragon. "Nobody tells the ...those stories in the Two Rivers. Not in
Emond's Field, anyway. The Wisdom would skin them alive, if they did."
"I suppose she would, at that," Thom said dryly. He glanced at Moiraine up ahead with Lan, saw she
could not overhear, and went on. "Tear is the greatest port on the Sea of Storms, and the Stone of Tear is the
fortress that guards it. The Stone is said to be the first fortress built after the Breaking of the World, and in all
this time it has never fallen, though more than one army has tried. One of the Prophecies says that the Stone of
Tear will never fall until the People of the Dragon come to the Stone. Another says the Stone will never fall till
the Sword That Cannot Be Touched is wielded by the Dragon's hand." Thom grimaced. "The fall of the Stone
will be one of the major proofs that the Dragon has been reborn. May the Stone stand till I am dust.”
"The sword that cannot be touched?"
"That's what it says. I don't know whether it really is a sword. Whatever it is, it lies in the Heart of the
Stone, the central citadel of the fortress. None but the Great Lords of Tear can enter there, and they never speak
of what lies inside. Certainly not to gleemen, anyway."
Rand frowned. "The Stone cannot fall until the Dragon wields the sword, but how can he, unless the
Stone has already fallen? Is the Dragon supposed to be a Great Lord of Tear?"
"Not much chance of that," the gleeman said dryly. "Tear hates anything to do with the Power even
more than Amador, and Amador is the stronghold of the Children of the Light."
"Then how can the Prophecy be fulfilled?" Rand asked. "I'd like it well enough if the Dragon was never
reborn, but a prophecy that cannot be fulfilled doesn't make much sense. It sounds like a story meant to make
people think the Dragon never will be reborn. Is that it?"
"You ask an awful lot of questions, boy," Thom said. "A prophecy that was easily fulfilled would not be
worth much, now would it?" Suddenly his voice brightened. "Well, we're here. Wherever here is. "
Lan had stopped by a section of head-high wooden fence that looked no different from any other they
had passed. He was working the blade of his dagger between two of the boards. Abruptly he gave a grunt of
satisfaction, pulled, and a length of the fence swung out like a gate. In fact it was a gate, Rand saw, though one
meant to be opened only from the other side. The metal latch that Lan had lifted with his dagger showed that.
Moiraine went through immediately, drawing Aldieb behind her. Lan motioned the others to follow, and
brought up the rear, closing the gate behind him.
On the other side of the fence Rand found himself in the stableyard of an inn. A loud bustle and clatter
came from the building's kitchen, but what struck him was its size; it covered more than twice as much ground
as the Winespring Inn, and was four stories high besides. Well over half the windows were aglow in the
deepening twilight. He wondered at this city that could have so many strangers in it.
No sooner had they come well into the stableyard than three men in dirty canvas aprons appeared at the
huge stable's broad, arched doors. One, a wiry fellow and the only one without a manure fork in his hands, came
forward waving his arms.
"Here! Here! You can't come in that way! You'll have to go round the front!"
Lan's hand went to his purse again, but even as it did another man, as big around as Master al'Vere,
came hurrying out of the inn. Puffs of hair stuck out above his ears, and his sparkling white apron was as good
as a sign proclaiming him the innkeeper.
"It's all right, Mutch," the newcomer said. "It's all right. These folk are expected guests. Take care of
their horses, now. Good care."
Mutch sullenly knuckled his forehead, then motioned his two companions to come help. Rand and the
others hurriedly got their saddlebags and blanketrolls down while the innkeeper turned to Moiraine. He gave her
a deep bow, and spoke with a genuine smile.
"Welcome, Mistress Alys. Welcome. It's good to be seeing you, you and Master Andra, both. Very
good. Your fine conversation has been missed. Yes, it has. I must say I worried, you going downcountry and all.
Well, I mean, at a time like this, with the weather all crazy and wolves howling right up to the walls in the
night." Abruptly he slapped both hands against his round belly and shook his head. "Here I go on like this,
chattering away, instead of taking you inside. Come. Come. Hot meals and warm beds, that's what you'll be
wanting. And the best in Baerlon are right here. The very best. "
"And hot baths, too, I trust, Master Pitch?" Moiraine said, and Egwene echoed her fervently. "Oh, yes."
"Baths?" the innkeeper said. "Why, just the best and the hottest in Baerlon. Come. Welcome to the Stag
and Lion. Welcome to Baerlon."

Chapter 14

The Stag and Lion


Inside, the inn was every bit as busy as the sounds coming from it had indicated and more. The party from
Emond's Field followed Master Pitch through the back door, soon weaving around and between a constant
stream of men and women in long aprons, platters of food and trays of drink held high. The bearers
murmured quick apologies when they got in anyone's way, but they never slowed by a step. One of the men
took hurried orders from Master Pitch and disappeared at a run.
"The inn is near full, I'm afraid," the innkeeper told Moiraine. "Almost to the rafters. Every inn in the
town is the same. With the winter we just had...well, as soon as it cleared enough for them to get down out of
the mountains we were inundated - yes, that's the word - inundated by men from the mines and smelters, all
telling the most horrible tales. Wolves, and worse. The kind of tales men tell when they've been cooped up all
winter. I can't think there's anyone left up there at all, we have that many here. But never fear. Things may be a
little crowded, but I'll do my best by you and Master Andra. And your friends, too, of course." He glanced
curiously once or twice at Rand and the others; except for Thom their clothes named them country folk, and
Thom's gleeman's cloak made him a strange traveling companion as well for "Mistress Alys" and "Master
Andra. "I will do my best, you may rest assured."
Rand stared at the bustle around them and tried to avoid being stepped on, though none of the help really
seemed to be in any danger of that. He kept thinking of how Master al'Vere and his wife tended the Winespring
Inn with sometimes a little assistance from their daughters.
Mat and Perrin craned their necks in interest toward the common room, from which rolled a wave of
laughter and singing and jovial shouting whenever the wide door at the end of the hall swung open. Muttering
about finding out the news, the Warder grimly disappeared through that swinging door, swallowed by a wave of
merriment.
Rand wanted to follow him, but he wanted a bath even more. He could have done with people and
laughing right then, but the common room would appreciate his presence more when he was clean. Mat and
Perrin apparently felt the same; Mat was scratching surreptitiously.
"Master Fitch," Moiraine said, "I understand there are Children of the Light in Baerlon. Is there likely to
be trouble?”
"Oh, never you worry about them, Mistress Alys. They're up to their usual tricks. Claim there's an Aes
Sedai in the town." Moiraine lifted an eyebrow, and the innkeeper spread his plump hands. "Don't you worry.
They've tried it before. There's no Aes Sedai in Baerlon, and the Governor knows it. The Whitecloaks think if
they show an Aes Sedai, some woman they claim is an Aes Sedai, people will let all of them inside the walls.
Well, I suppose some would. Some would. But most people know what the Whitecloaks are up to, and they
support the Governor. No one wants to see some harmless old woman hurt just so the Children can have an
excuse for whipping up a frenzy.
"I am glad to hear it," Moiraine said dryly. She put a hand on the innkeeper's arm. "Is Min still here? I
wish to talk with her, if she is."
Master Fitch's answer was lost to Rand in the arrival of attendants to lead them to the baths. Moiraine
and Egwene vanished behind a plump woman with a ready smile and an armload of towels. The gleeman and
Rand and his friends found themselves following a slight, dark-haired fellow, Ara by name.
Rand tried asking Ara about Baerlon, but the man barely said two words together except to say Rand
had a funny accent, and then the first sight of the bath chamber drove all thoughts of talk right out of Rand's
head. A dozen tall, copper bathtubs sat in a circle on the tiled floor, which sloped down slightly to a drain in the
center of the big stonewalled room. A thick towel, neatly folded, and a large cake of yellow soap sat on a stool
behind each tub, and big black iron cauldrons of water stood heating over fires along one wall. On the opposite
wall logs blazing in a deep fireplace added to the general warmth. "Almost as good as the Winespring Inn back
home," Perrin said loyally, if not exactly with a great attention to truth. Thom barked a laugh, and Mat
sniggered, "Sounds like we brought a Coplin with us and didn't know it." Rand shrugged out of his cloak and
stripped off his clothes while Ara filled four of the copper tubs. None of the others was far behind Rand in
choosing a bathtub. Once their clothes were all in piles on the stools, Ara brought them each a large bucket of
hot water and a dipper. That done, he sat on a stool by the door, leaning back against the wall with his arms
crossed, apparently lost in his own thoughts. There was little in the way of conversation while they lathered and
sluiced away a week of grime with dippers of steaming water. Then it was into the tubs for a long soak; Ara had
made the water hot enough that settling in was a slow process of luxuriant sighs. The air in the room went from
warm to misty and hot. For a long time there was no sound except the occasional long, relaxing exhalation as
tight muscles loosened and a chill that they had come to think permanent was drawn out of their bones. "Need
anything else?" Ara asked suddenly. He did not have much room to talk about people's accents; he and Master
Fitch both sounded as if they had a mouth full of mush. "More towels? More hot water?" "Nothing," Thom said
in his reverberant voice. Eyes closed, he gave an indolent wave of his hand. "Go and enjoy the evening. At a
later time I will see that you receive more than adequate recompense for your services." He settled lower in the
tub, until the water covered everything but his eyes and nose. Ara's eyes went to the stools behind the tubs,
where their clothes and belongings were stacked. He glanced at the bow, but lingered longest over Rand's sword
and Perrin's axe. "Is there trouble downcountry, too?" he said abruptly. "In the Rivers, or whatever you call it?"
"The Two Rivers," Mat said, pronouncing each separate word distinctly. "It's the Two Rivers. As for
trouble, why - "
"What do you mean, too?" Rand asked. "Is there some kind of trouble here?"
Perrin, enjoying his soak, murmured, "Good! Good!" Thom raised himself back up a little, and opened
his eyes.
"Here?" Ara snorted. "Trouble? Miners having fistfights in the streets in the dark of the morning aren't
trouble. Or . . . " He stopped and eyed them a moment. "I meant the Ghealdan kind of trouble," he said finally.
"No, I suppose not. Nothing but sheep downcountry, is there? No offense. I just meant it's quiet down there.
Still, it's been a strange winter. Strange things in the mountains. I heard the other day there were Trollocs up in
Saldaea. But that's the Borderlands then, isn't it?" He finished with his mouth still open, then snapped it shut,
appearing surprised that he had said so much.
Rand had tensed at the word Trollocs, and tried to hide it by wringing his washcloth out over his head.
As the fellow went on he relaxed, but not everyone kept his mouth shut.
"Trollocs?" Mat chortled. Rand splashed water at him, but Mat just wiped it off of his face with a grin.
"You just let me tell you about Trollocs."
For the first time since climbing into his tub, Thom spoke. "Why don't you not? I am a little tired of
hearing my own stories back from you."
"He's a gleeman," Perrin said, and Ara gave him a scornful look.
"I saw the cloak. You going to perform?"
"Just a minute," Mat protested. "What's this about me telling Thom's stories? Are you all - ?"
"You just don't tell them as well as Thom," Rand cut him off hastily, and Perrin hopped in. "You keep
adding in things, trying to make it better, and they never do. "
" And you get it all mixed up, too," Rand added. "Best leave it to Thom."
They were all talking so fast that Ara stared at them with his mouth hanging open. Mat stared, too, as if
everyone else had suddenly gone crazy. Rand wondered how to shut him up short of jumping on him.
The door banged open to admit Lan, brown cloak slung over one shoulder, along with a gust of cooler
air that momentarily thinned the mist.
"Well," the Warder said, rubbing his hands, "this is what I have been waiting for." Ara picked up a
bucket, but Lan waved it away. "No, I will see to myself." Dropping his cloak on one of the stools, he bundled
the bath attendant out of the room, despite the fellow's protests, and shut the door firmly after him. He waited
there a moment, his head cocked to listen, and when he turned back to the rest of them his voice was stony and
his eyes stabbed at Mat. "It's a good thing I got back when I did, farmboy. Don't you listen to what you are
told?"
"I didn't do anything," Mat protested. "I was just going to tell him about the Trollocs, not about . . . " He
stopped, and leaned back from the Warder's eyes, flat against the back of the tub.
"Don't talk about Trollocs," Lan said grimly. “Don't even think about Trollocs." With an angry snort he
began filling himself a bathtub. "Blood and ashes, you had better remember, the Dark One has eyes and ears
where you least expect. And if the Children of the Light heard Trollocs were after you, they'd be burning to get
their hands on you. To them, it would be as much as naming you Darkfriend. It may not be what you are used
to, but until we get where we are going, keep your trust small unless Mistress Alys or I tell you differently." At
his emphasis on the name Moiraine was using, Mat flinched.
"There was something that fellow wouldn't tell us," Rand said. "Something he thought was trouble, but
he wouldn't say what it was."
"Probably the Children," Lan said, pouring more hot water into his tub. "Most people consider them
trouble. Some don't, though, and he did not know you well enough to risk it. You might have gone running to
the Whitecloaks, for all he knew."
Rand shook his head; this place already sounded worse than Taren Ferry could possibly be.
"He said there were Trollocs in . . . in Saldaea, wasn't it?" Perrin said.
Lan hurled his empty bucket to the floor with a crash. "You will talk about it, won't you? There are
always Trollocs in the Borderlands, blacksmith. Just you put it in the front of your mind that we want no more
attention than mice in a field. Concentrate on that. Moiraine wants to get you all to Tar Valon alive, and I will
do it if it can be done, but if you bring any harm to her . . . "
The rest of their bathing was done in silence, and dressing afterwards, too.
When they left the bath chamber, Moiraine was standing at the end of the hall with a slender girl not
much taller than herself. At least, Rand thought it was a girl, though her dark hair was cut short and she wore a
man's shirt and trousers. Moiraine said something, and the girl looked at the men sharply, then nodded to
Moiraine and hurried away.
"Well, now," Moiraine said as they drew closer, "I am sure a bath has given you all an appetite. Master
Pitch has given us a private dining room." She talked on inconsequentially as she turned to lead the way, about
their rooms and the crowding in the town, and how the innkeeper hoped Thom would favor the common room
with some music and a story or two. She never mentioned the girl, if girl it had been.
The private dining room had a polished oak table with a dozen chairs around it, and a thick rug on the
floor. As they entered, Egwene, freshly gleaming hair combed out around her shoulders, turned from warming
her hands at the fire crackling on the hearth. Rand had had plenty of time for thought during the long silence in
the bath chamber. Lan's constant admonitions not to trust anyone, and especially Ara being afraid to trust them,
had made him think of just how alone they really were. It seemed they could not trust anyone but themselves,
and he was still not too sure how far they could trust Moiraine, or Lan. Just themselves. And Egwene was still
Egwene. Moiraine said it would have happened to her anyway, this touching the True Source. She had no
control over it, and that meant it was not her fault. And she was still Egwene.
He opened his mouth to apologize, but Egwene stiffened and turned her back before he could get a word
out. Staring sullenly at her back, he swallowed what he had been going to say.
All right, then. If she wants to be like that, there's nothing I can do.
Master Fitch bustled in then, followed by four women in white aprons as long as his, with a platter
holding three roast chickens and others bearing silver, and pottery dishes, and covered bowls. The women
began setting the table immediately, while the innkeeper bowed to Moiraine.
"My apologies, Mistress Alys, for making you wait like this, but with so many people in the inn, it's a
wonder anybody gets served at all. I am afraid the food isn't what it should be, either. Just the chickens, and
some turnips and henpeas, with a little cheese for after. No, it just isn't what it should be. I truly do apologize."
"A feast." Moiraine smiled. "For these troubled times, a feast indeed, Master Fitch."
The innkeeper bowed again. His wispy hair, sticking out in all directions as if he constantly ran his
hands through it, made the bow comical, but his grin was so pleasant that anyone who laughed would be
laughing with him, not at him. "My thanks, Mistress Alys. My thanks." As he straightened he frowned and
wiped an imagined bit of dust from the table with a corner of his apron. "It isn't what I would have laid before
you a year ago, of course. Not nearly. The winter. Yes. The winter. My cellars are emptying out, and the market
is all but bare. And who can blame the farm folk? Who? There's certainly no telling when they'll harvest another
crop. No telling at all. It's the wolves get the mutton and beef that should go on people's tables, and…"
Abruptly he seemed to realize that this was hardly the conversation to settle his guests to a comfortable
meal. "How I do run on. Full of old wind, that's me. Old wind. Mari, Cinda, let these good people eat in peace."
He made shooing gestures at the women and, as they scurried from the room, swung back to bow to Moiraine
yet again. "I hope you enjoy your meal, Mistress Alys. If there's anything else you need, just speak it, and I will
fetch it. Just you speak it. It is a pleasure serving you and Master Andra. A pleasure." He gave one more deep
bow and was gone, closing the door softly behind him.
Lan had slouched against the wall through all of this as if half asleep. Now he leaped up and was at the
door in two long strides. Pressing an ear to a door panel, he listened intently for a slow count of thirty, then
snatched open the door and stuck his head into the hall. "They're gone," he said at last, closing the door. "We
can talk safely."
"I know you say not to trust anyone," Egwene said, "but if you suspect the innkeeper, why stay here?"
"I suspect him no more than anyone else," Lan replied. "But then, until we reach Tar Valon, I suspect
everyone. There, I'll suspect only half. "
Rand started to smile, thinking the Warder was making a joke. Then he realized there was not a trace of
humor on Lan's face. He really would suspect people in Tar Valon. Was anywhere safe?
"He exaggerates," Moiraine told them soothingly. "Master Fitch is a good man, honest and trustworthy.
But he does like to talk, and with the best will in the world he might let something slip to the wrong ear. And I
have never yet stopped at an inn where half the maids did not listen at doors and spend more time gossiping
than making beds. Come, let us be seated before our meal gets cold."
They took places around the table, with Moiraine at the head and Lan at the foot, and for a while
everyone was too busy filling their plates for talk. It might not have been a feast, but after close to a week of
flatbread and dried meat, it tasted like one.
After a time, Moiraine asked, "What did you learn in the common room?" Knives and forks stilled,
suspended in mid- air, and all eyes turned to the Warder.
"Little that's good," Lan replied. "Avin was right, at least as far as talk has it. There was a battle in
Ghealdan, and Logain was the victor. A dozen different stories are floating about, but they all agree on that."
Logain? That must be the false Dragon. It was the first time Rand had heard a name put to the man. Lan
sounded almost as if he knew him.
"The Aes Sedai?" Moiraine asked quietly, and Lan shook his head.
“I don't know. Some say they were all killed, some say none." He snorted. "Some even say they went
over to Logain. There's nothing reliable, and I did not care to show too much interest. "
"Yes," Moiraine said. "Little that is good." With a deep breath she brought her attention back to the
table. "And what of our own circumstances?"
"There, the news is better. No odd happenings, no strangers around who might be Myrddraal, certainly
no Trollocs. And the Whitecloaks are busy trying to make trouble for Governor Adan because he won't
cooperate with them. They will not even notice us unless we advertise ourselves."
"Good," Moiraine said. "That agrees with what the bath maid said. Gossip does have its points. Now,"
she addressed the entire company, "we have a long journey still ahead of us, but the last week has not been
easy, either, so I propose to remain here tonight and tomorrow night, and leave early the following morning."
All the younger folk grinned; a city for the first time. Moiraine smiled, but she still said, "What does Master
Andra say to that?"
Lan eyed the grinning faces flatly. "Well enough, if they remember what I've told them for a change: "
Thom snorted through his mustaches. "These country folk loose in a…a city." He snorted again and
shook his head.
With the crowding at the inn there were only three rooms to be had, one for Moiraine and Egwene, and
two to take the men. Rand found himself sharing with Lan and Thom, on the fourth floor at the back, close up
under the overhanging eaves, with a single small window that overlooked the stableyard. Full night had fallen,
and light from the inn made a pool outside. It was a small room to begin, and an extra bed set up for Thom
made it smaller, though all three were narrow. And hard, Rand found when he threw himself down on his.
Definitely not the best room.
Thom stayed only long enough to uncase his flute and harp, then left already practicing grand poses. Lan
went with him.
It was strange, Rand thought as he shifted uncomfortably on the bed. A week ago he would have been
downstairs like a falling rock for just the chance he might see a gleeman perform, for just the rumor of it. But he
had heard Thom tell his stories every night for a week, and Thom would be there tomorrow night, and the next,
and the hot bath had loosened kinks in muscles that he had thought would be there forever , and his first hot
meal in a week oozed lethargy into him. Sleepily he wondered if Lan really did know the false Dragon, Logain.
A muffled shout came from belowstairs, the common room greeting Thom's arrival, but Rand was already
asleep.
The stone hallway was dim and shadowy, and empty except for Rand. He could not tell where the light
came from, what little there was of it; the gray walls were bare of candles or lamps, nothing at all to account for
the faint glow that seemed to just be there. The air was still and dank, and somewhere in the distance water
dripped with a steady, hollow plonk. Wherever this was, it was not the inn. Frowning, he rubbed at his forehead.
Inn? His head hurt, and thoughts were hard to hold on to. There had been something about…an inn? It was
gone, whatever it was.
He licked his lips and wished he had something to drink. He was awfully thirsty, dry-as-dust thirsty .It
was the dripping sound that decided him. With nothing to choose by except his thirst, he started toward that
steady plonk-plonk-plonk.
The hallway stretched on, without any crossing corridor and without the slightest change in appearance.
The only features at all were the rough doors set at regular intervals in pairs, one on either side of the hall, the
wood splintered and dry despite the damp in the air. The shadows receded ahead of him, staying the same, and
the dripping never came any closer. After a long time he decided to try one of those doors. It opened easily, and
he stepped through into a grim, stone-walled chamber.
One wall opened in a series of arches onto a gray stone balcony, and beyond that was a sky such as he
had never seen. Striated clouds in blacks and grays, reds and oranges, streamed by as if storm winds drove
them, weaving and interweaving endlessly. No one could ever have seen a sky like that; it could not exist.
He pulled his eyes away from the balcony, but the rest of the room was no better. Odd curves and
peculiar angles, as if the chamber had been melted almost haphazardly out of the stone, and columns that
seemed to grow out of the gray floor. Flames roared on the hearth like a forge-fire with the bellows pumping,
but gave no heat. Strange oval stones made the fireplace; they just looked like stones, wet-slick despite the fire,
when he looked straight at them, but when he glimpsed them from the corner of his eye they seemed to be faces
instead, the faces of men and women writhing in anguish, screaming silently. The high-backed chairs and the
polished table in the middle of the room were perfectly ordinary, but that in itself emphasized the rest. A single
mirror hung on the wall, but that was not ordinary at all. When he looked at it he saw only a blur where his
reflection should have been. Everything else in the room was shown true, but not him.
A man stood in front of the fireplace. He had not noticed the man when he first came in. If he had not
known it was impossible, he would have said no one had been there until he actually looked at the man. Dressed
in dark clothes of a fine cut, he seemed in the prime of his maturity, and Rand supposed women would have
found him good-looking. "Once more we meet face-toface," the man said and, just for an instant, his mouth and
eyes became openings into end- less caverns of flame.
With a yell Rand hurled himself backwards out of the room, so hard that he stumbled across the hall and
banged into the door there, knocking it open. He twisted and grabbed at the doorhandle to keep from falling to
the floor and found himself staring wide-eyed into a stone room with an impossible sky through the arches
leading to a balcony, and a fireplace.
"You cannot get away from me that easily," the man said. Rand twisted, scrambling back out of the
room, trying to regain his feet without slowing down. This time there was no corridor. He froze half crouched
not far from the polished table, and looked at the man by the fireplace. It was better than looking at the fireplace
stones, or at the sky.
"This is a dream," he said as he straightened. Behind him he heard the click of the door closing. "It's
some kind of nightmare." He shut his eyes, thinking about waking up. When he was a child the Wisdom had
said if you could do that in a nightmare, it would go away. The . . . Wisdom? What? If only his thoughts would
stop sliding away. If only his head would stop hurting, then he could think straight.
He opened his eyes again. The room was still as it had been, the balcony, the sky. The man by the
fireplace.
"Is it a dream?" the man said. "Does it matter?" Once again, for a moment, his mouth and eyes became
peepholes into a furnace that Seemed to stretch forever. His voice did not change; he did not seem to notice it
happening at all.
Rand jumped a little this time, but he managed to keep from yelling. This is a dream. It has to be. All the
same, he stepped backwards all the way to the door, never taking his eyes off the fellow by the fire, and tried
the handle. It did not move; the door was locked.
"You seem thirsty," the man by the fire said. "Drink." On the table was a goblet, shining gold and
ornamented with rubies and amethysts. It had not been there before. He wished he could stop jumping. It was
only a dream. His mouth felt like dust.
"I am, a little," he said, picking up the goblet. The man leaned forward intently, one hand on the back of
a chair, watching him. The smell of spiced wine drove home to Rand just how thirsty he was, as if he had had
nothing to drink in days. Have I?
With the wine halfway to his mouth, he stopped. Whispers of smoke were rising from the chairback
between the man's fingers. And those eyes watched him so sharply, flickering rapidly in and out of flames.
Rand licked his lips and put the wine back on the table, untasted. "I'm not as thirsty as I thought." The
man straightened abruptly, his face without expression. His disappointment could not have been more plain if
he had cursed. Rand wondered what was in the wine. But that was a stupid question, of course. This was all a
dream. Then why won't it stop? "What do you - want?" he demanded. "Who are you?"
Flames rose in the man's eyes and mouth; Rand thought he could hear them roar. "Some call me
Ba'alzamon."
Rand found himself facing the door, jerking frantically at the handle. All thought of dreams had
vanished. The Dark One. The doorhandle would not budge, but he kept twisting.
"Are you the one?" Ba'alzamon said suddenly. "You cannot hide it from me forever. You cannot even
hide yourself from me, not on the highest mountain or in the deepest cave. I know you down to the smallest
hair. "
Rand turned to face the man-to face Ba'alzamon. He swallowed hard. A nightmare. He reached back to
give the door-handle one last pull, then stood up straighter.
“Are you expecting glory?" Ba'alzamon said. "Power? Did they tell you the Eye of the World would
serve you? What glory or power is there for a puppet? The strings that move you have been Centuries weaving.
Your father was chosen by the White Tower, like a stallion roped and led to his business. Your mother was no
more than a brood mare to their plans. And those plans lead to your death."
Rand's hands knotted in fists. "My father is a good man, and my mother was a good woman. Don't you
talk about them!”
The flames laughed. "So there is some spirit in you after all. Perhaps you are the one. Little good it will
do you. The Amyrlin Seat will use you until you are consumed, just as Davian was used, and Yurian Stonebow,
and Guaire Amalasan, and Raolin Darksbane. Just as Logain is being used. Used until there is nothing left of
you."
"I don't know…" Rand swung his head from side to side. That one moment of clear thinking, born in
anger, was gone. Even as he groped for it again he could not remember how he had reached it the first time. His
thoughts spun around and around. He seized one like a raft in the whirlpool. He forced the words out, his voice
strengthening the further he went. "You…are bound…in Shayol Ghul. You and all the Forsaken…bound by the
Creator until the end of time."
"The end of time?" Ba'alzamon mocked. "You live like a beetle under a rock, and you think your slime
is the universe. The death of time will bring me power such as you could not dream of, worm."
"You are bound! -"
"Fool, I have never been bound!" The fires of his face roared so hot that Rand stepped back, sheltering
behind his hands. The sweat on his palms dried from the heat. "I stood at Lews Therin Kinslayer's shoulder
when he did the deed that named him. It was I who told him to kill his wife, and his children, and all his blood,
and every living person who loved him or whom he loved. It was I who gave him the moment of sanity to know
what he had done. Have you ever heard a man scream his soul away, worm? He could have struck at me, then.
He could not have won, but he could have tried. Instead he called down his precious One Power upon himself,
so much that the earth split open and reared up Dragonmount to mark his tomb.
"A thousand years later I sent the Trollocs ravening south, and for three centuries they savaged the
world. Those blind fools in Tar Valon said I was beaten in the end, but the Second Covenant, the Covenant of
the Ten Nations, was shattered beyond remaking, and who was left to oppose me then? I whispered in Artur
Hawkwing's ear, and the length and breadth of the land Aes Sedai died. I whispered again, and the High King
sent his armies across the Aryth Ocean, across the World Sea, and sealed two dooms. The doom of his dream of
one land and one people, and a doom yet to come. At his deathbed I was there when his councilors told him
only Aes Sedai could save his life. I spoke, and he ordered his councilors to the stake. I spoke, and the High
King's last words were to cry that Tar Valon must be destroyed.
"When men such as these could not stand against me, what chance do you have, a toad crouching beside
a forest puddle. You will serve me, or you will dance on Aes Sedai strings until you die. And then you will be
mine. The dead belong to me!"
"No," Rand muttered, "this is a dream. It is a dream!" "Do you think you are safe from me in your
dreams? Look!" Ba'alzamon pointed commandingly, and Rand's head turned to follow, although he did not turn
it; he did not want to turn.
The goblet was gone from the table. Where it had been, crouched a large rat, blinking at the light,
sniffing the air warily. Ba'alzamon crooked his finger, and with a squeak the rat arched its back, forepaws lifting
into the air while it balanced awkwardly on its hind feet. The finger curved more, and the rat toppled over,
scrabbling frantically, pawing at nothing, squealing shrilly, its back bending, bending, bending. With a sharp
snap like the breaking of a twig, the rat trembled violently and was still, lying bent almost double.
Rand swallowed. " Anything can happen in a dream," he mumbled. Without looking he swung his fist
back against the door again. His hand hurt, but he still did not wake up.
"Then go to the Aes Sedai. Go to the White Tower and tell them. Tell the Amyrlin Seat of this…dream.
The man laughed; Rand felt the heat of the flames on his face. "That is one way to escape them. They will not
use you, then. No, not when they know that I know. But will they let you live, to spread the tale of what they
do? Are you a big enough fool to believe they will? The ashes of many like you are scattered on the slopes of
Dragonmount. "
"This is a dream," Rand said, panting. "It's a dream, and I am going to wake up."
"Will you?" Out of the corner of his eye he saw the man's finger move to point at him. "Will you,
indeed?" The finger crooked, and Rand screamed as he arched backwards, every muscle in his body forcing him
further. "Will you ever wake again?"
Convulsively Rand jerked up in the darkness, his hands tightening on cloth. A blanket. Pale moonlight
shone through the single window. The shadowed shapes of the other two beds. A snore from one of them, like
canvas ripping: Thom Merrilin. A few coals gleamed among the ashes on the hearth.
It had been a dream, then, like that nightmare in the Winespring Inn the day of Bel Tine, everything that
he had heard and done all jumbled in together with old tales and nonsense from nowhere. He pulled the blanket
up around his shoulders, but it was not cold that made him shake. His head hurt, too. Perhaps Moiraine could do
something to stop these dreams. She said she could help with nightmares.
With a snort he lay back. Were the dreams really bad enough for him to ask the help of an Aes Sedai?
On the other hand, could anything he did now get him in any deeper? He had left the Two Rivers, come away
with an Aes Sedai. But there had not been any choice, of course. So did he have any choice but to trust her? An
Aes Sedai? It was as bad as the dreams, thinking about it. He huddled under his blanket, trying to find the
calmness of the void the way Tam had taught him, but sleep was a long time returning.