Almost as soon as it began, it was done. Moiraine took her hands away, and Rand slumped, catching the bedpost to hold himself on his feet. It was difficult to say whether he clutched the bedpost or
Callandor
more tenaciously. When Moiraine tried to take the sword to replace it on the ornate stand against the wall, he drew it away from her firmly, even roughly.
Her mouth tightened momentarily, but she contented herself with pulling the wad of cloth from his side, using it to scrub away some of the surrounding smears. The old wound was a tender scar again. The other injuries were simply gone. The mostly dried blood that still covered him could have come from someone else.
Moiraine frowned. “It still does not respond,” she murmured, half to herself. “It will not heal completely.”
“That is the one that will kill me, isn’t it?” he asked her softly, then quoted, “‘His blood on the rocks of Shayol Ghul, washing away the Shadow, sacrifice for man’s salvation.’”
“You read too much,” she said sharply, “and understand too little.”
“Do you understand more? If you do, then tell me.”
“He is only trying to find his way,” Lan said suddenly. “No man likes to run forward blindly when he knows there is a cliff somewhere ahead.”
Perrin gave a twitch of surprise. Lan almost never disagreed with Moiraine, or at least not where anyone could overhear. He and Rand had been spending a good deal of time together, though, practicing the sword.
Moiraine’s dark eyes flashed, but what she said was “He needs to be in bed. Will you ask that washwater be brought, and another bedchamber prepared? This one needs a thorough cleaning and a new mattress.” Lan nodded and put his head into the anteroom for a moment, speaking quietly.
“I will sleep here, Moiraine.” Letting go of the bedpost, Rand pushed himself erect, grounding
Callandor
’s point on the littered carpet and resting both hands on the hilt. If he leaned a little on the sword, it did not show much. “I won’t be chased any more. Not even out of a bed.”
“
Tai’ shar Manetheren
,” Lan murmured.
This time even Rhuarc looked startled, but if Moiraine heard the Warder compliment Rand, she gave no sign of it. She was staring at Rand, her face smooth but thunderheads in her eyes. Rand wore a quizzical little smile, as if wondering what she would try next.
Perrin edged toward the doors. If Rand and the Aes Sedai were going to match wills, he would just as soon be elsewhere. Lan did not appear to care; it was hard to tell with that stance of his, somehow standing with his back straight and slouching at the same time. He could have been bored enough to sleep where he stood or ready to draw his sword; his manner suggested either, or both. Rhuarc stood much the same, but he was eyeing the doors, too.
“Stay where you are!” Moiraine did not look away from Rand, and her outflung finger pointed halfway between Perrin and Rhuarc, but Perrin’s feet stopped just the same. Rhuarc shrugged and folded his arms.
“Stubborn,” Moiraine muttered. This time the word was for Rand. “Very well. If you mean to stand there until you drop, you can use the time before you fall on your face to tell me what occurred here. I cannot teach you,
but if you tell me perhaps I can see what you did wrong. A small chance, but perhaps I can.” Her voice sharpened. “You must learn to control it, and I do not mean just because of things like this. If you do not learn to control the Power, it will kill you. You know that. I have told you often enough. You must teach yourself. You must find it within yourself.”
“I did nothing except survive,” he said in a dry voice. She opened her mouth, but he went on. “Do you think I could channel and not know it? I didn’t do it in my sleep. This happened awake.” He wavered, and caught himself on the sword.
“Even you could not channel anything but Spirit asleep,” Moiraine said coolly, “and this was never done with Spirit. I was about to ask what
did
happen.”
Perrin felt his hackles rising as Rand told his story. The axe had been bad enough, but at least the axe was something solid, something real. To have your own reflection jump out of mirrors at you … . Unconsciously he shifted his feet, trying not to stand on any fragments of glass.
Soon after he began speaking, Rand glanced behind him at the chest, a quick look, as if he did not want it observed. After a moment the slivers of silvered glass that were scattered across the lid of the chest stirred and slid off onto the carpet as though pushed by an unseen broom. Rand exchanged looks with Moiraine, then sat down slowly and went on. Perrin was not sure which of them had cleared the chest top. There was no mention of Berelain in the tale.
“It must have been one of the Forsaken,” Rand finished at last. “Maybe Sammael. You said he’s in Illian. Unless one of them is here in Tear. Could Sammael reach the Stone from Illian?”
“Not even if
he
held
Callandor
,” Moiraine told him. “There are limits. Sammael is only a man, not the Dark One.”
Only a man? Not a very good description, Perrin thought. A man who could channel, but who somehow had not gone mad; at least, not yet, not that anyone knew. A man perhaps as strong as Rand, but where Rand was trying to learn, Sammael knew every trick of his talents already. A man who had spent three thousand years trapped in the Dark One’s prison, a man who had gone over to the Shadow of his own choice. No. “Only a man” did not begin to describe Sammael, or any of the Forsaken, male or female.
“Then one of them is here. In the city.” Rand put his head down on his wrists, but jerked himself erect immediately, glaring at those in the room.
“I’ll not be chased again. I’ll be the hound, first. I will find him—or her—and I will—”
“Not one of the Forsaken,” Moiraine cut in. “I think not. This was too simple. And too complex.”
Rand spoke calmly. “No riddles, Moiraine. If not the Forsaken, who? Or what?”
The Aes Sedai’s face could have done for an anvil, yet she hesitated, feeling her way. There was no telling whether she was unsure of the answer or deciding how much to reveal.
“As the seals holding the Dark One’s prison weaken,” she said after a time, “it may be inevitable that a … miasma … will escape even while he is still held. Like bubbles rising from the things rotting on the bottom of a pond. But these bubbles will drift through the Pattern until they attach to a thread and burst.”
“Light!” It slipped out before Perrin could stop it. Moiraine’s eyes turned to him. “You mean what happened to … to Rand is going to start happening to everybody?”
“Not to everyone. Not yet, at least. In the beginning I think there will only be a few bubbles, slipping through cracks the Dark One can reach through. Later, who can say? And just as
ta’veren
bend the other threads in the Pattern around them, I think perhaps
ta’veren
will tend to attract these bubbles more powerfully than others do.” Her eyes said she knew Rand was not the only one to have had a waking nightmare. A brief touch of a smile, there and gone almost before he saw it, said he could keep silent if he wished to hold it secret from others. But she knew. “Yet in the months to come—the years, should we be lucky enough to have that long—I fear a good many people will see things to give them white hairs, if they survive.”
“Mat,” Rand said. “Do you know if he … ? Is he … ?”
“I will know soon enough,” Moiraine replied calmly. “What is done cannot be undone, but we can hope.” Whatever her tone, though, she smelled ill at ease until Rhuarc spoke.
“He is well. Or was. I saw him on my way here.”
“Going where?” Moiraine said with an edge in her voice.
“He looked to be heading for the servants’ quarters,” the Aielman told her. He knew that the three were
ta’veren
, if not as much else as he thought he did, and he knew Mat well enough to add, “Not the stables, Aes Sedai. The other way, toward the river. And there are no boats at the Stone’s docks.” He did not stumble over words like “boat” and “dock” the way
most of the Aiel did, although in the Waste such things existed only in stories.
She nodded as if she had expected nothing else. Perrin shook his head; she was so used to hiding her real thoughts, she seemed to veil them out of habit.
Suddenly one of the doors opened and Bain and Chiad slipped in, without their spears. Bain was carrying a large white bowl and a fat pitcher with steam rising from the top. Chiad had towels folded under her arm.
“Why are
you
bringing this?” Moiraine demanded.
Chiad shrugged. “She would not come in.”
Rand barked a laugh. “Even the servants know enough to stay clear of me. Put it anywhere.”
“Your time is running out, Rand,” Moiraine said. “The Tairens are becoming used to you, after a fashion, and no one fears what is familiar as much as what is strange. How many weeks, or days, before someone tries to put an arrow in your back or poison in your food? How long before one of the Forsaken strikes, or another bubble comes sliding along the Pattern?”
“Don’t try to harry me, Moiraine.” He was blood filthy, half naked, more than half leaning on
Callandor
to stay sitting up, but he managed to fill those words with quiet command. “I will not run for you, either.”
“Choose your way soon,” she said. “And this time, inform me what you mean to do. My knowledge cannot aid you if you refuse to accept my help.”
“Your help?” Rand said wearily. “I’ll take your help. But I will decide, not you.” He looked at Perrin as if trying to tell him something without words, something he did not want the others to hear. Perrin had not a clue what it was. After a moment Rand sighed; his head sank a little. “I want to sleep. All of you, go away. Please. We will talk tomorrow.” His eyes flickered to Perrin again, underscoring the words for him.
Moiraine crossed the room to Bain and Chiad, and the two Aiel women leaned close so she could speak for their ears alone. Perrin heard only a buzz, and wondered if she was using the Power to stop him eavesdropping. She knew the keenness of his hearing. He was sure of it when Bain whispered back and he still could not make out anything. The Aes Sedai had done nothing about his sense of smell, though. The Aiel women looked at Rand as they listened, and they smelled wary. Not afraid, but as if Rand were a large animal that would be dangerous if they misstepped.
The Aes Sedai turned back to Rand. “We
will
talk tomorrow. You cannot sit like a partridge waiting for a hunter’s net.” She was moving for the
door before Rand could reply. Lan looked at Rand as if about to say something, but followed her without speaking.
“Rand?” Perrin said.
“We do what we have to.” Rand did not look up from the clear hilt between his hands. “We all do what we have to.” He smelled afraid.
Perrin nodded and followed Rhuarc out of the room. Moiraine and Lan were nowhere in sight. The Tairen officer was staring at the doors from ten paces off, trying to pretend the distance was his choice and had nothing to do with the four Aiel women watching him. The other two Maidens were still in the bedchamber, Perrin realized. He heard voices from the room.
“Go away,” Rand said tiredly. “Just put that down and go away.”
“If you can stand up,” Chiad said cheerfully, “we will. Only stand.”
There was the sound of water splashing into a bowl. “We have tended to wounded before,” Bain said in soothing tones. “And I used to wash my brothers when they were little.”
Rhuarc pushed the door shut, cutting off the rest.
“You do not treat him the way the Tairens do,” Perrin said quietly. “No bowing and scraping. I don’t think I have heard one of you call him Lord Dragon.”
“The Dragon Reborn is a wetlander prophecy,” Rhuarc said. “Ours is He Who Comes With the Dawn.”
“I thought they were the same. Else why did you come to the Stone? Burn me, Rhuarc, you Aiel are the People of the Dragon, just as the Prophecies say. You’ve as good as admitted it, even if you won’t say it out loud.”
Rhuarc ignored the last part. “In your Prophecies of the Dragon, the fall of the Stone and the taking of
Callandor
proclaim that the Dragon has been Reborn. Our prophecy says only that the Stone must fall before He Who Comes With the Dawn appears to take us back to what was ours. They may be one man, but I doubt even the Wise Ones could say for sure. If Rand is the one, there are things he must do yet to prove it.”
“What?” Perrin demanded.
“If he is the one, he will know, and do them. If he does not, then our search still goes on.”
Something unreadable in the Aielman’s voice pricked Perrin’s ears. “And if he isn’t the one you search for? What then, Rhuarc?”
“Sleep well and safely, Perrin.” Rhuarc’s soft boots made no sound on the black marble as he walked away.
The Tairen officer was still staring past the Maidens, smelling of fear,
failing to mask the anger and hatred on his face. If the Aiel decided Rand was not He Who Comes With the Dawn … . Perrin studied the Tairen officer’s face and thought of the Maidens not being there, of the Stone empty of Aiel, and he shivered. He had to make sure Faile decided to leave. That was all there was for it. She had to decide to go, and without him.