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Authors: Robert Jordan

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Egwene laid a hand on his arm, but Moiraine would not allow him to sidestep. “You know that is not what I mean.”
He nodded; this time his smile had a frightening, rictus quality. “
Callandor.
With that in my hands, I can do anything. Anything. I know I can do anything. But now, it’s a weight off my shoulders. You don’t understand, do you?” She did not, though it nettled her that he saw it. She kept silent, and he went on. “Perhaps it will help if you know it comes from the Prophecies.
“Into the heart he thrusts his sword,
into the heart, to hold their hearts.
Who draws it out shall follow after,
What hand can grasp that fearful blade?
“You see? Straight from the Prophecies.”
“You forget one thing,” she told him tightly. “You drew
Callandor
in fulfillment of prophecy. The safeguards that held it awaiting you for three thousand years and more are gone. It is the Sword That Cannot Be Touched no longer. I could channel it free myself. Worse, any of the Forsaken could. What if Lanfear returns? She could use
Callandor
no more than I, but she could take it.” He did not react to the name. Because he did not fear her—in which case he was a fool—or for another reason? “If Sammael or Rahvin or any male Forsaken puts his hand on
Callandor
, he can wield it as
well as you. Think of facing the power you give up so casually. Think of that power in the hands of the Shadow.”
“I almost hope they’ll try.” A threatening light shone in his eyes; they seemed gray storm clouds. “There is a surprise awaiting anyone who tries to channel
Callandor
out of the Stone, Moiraine. Do not think of taking it to the Tower for safekeeping; I could not make the trap pick and choose. The Power is all it needs to spring and reset, ready to trap again. I am not giving
Callandor
up forever. Just until I … .” He took a deep breath. “
Callandor
will stay there until I come back for it. By being there, reminding them of who I am and what I am, it makes sure I can come back without an army. A haven of sorts, with the likes of Alteima and Sunamon to welcome me home. If Alteima survives the justice her husband and Estanda will mete out, and Sunamon survives mine. Light, what a wretched tangle.”
He could not make it selective, or would not? She was determined not to underrate what he might be capable of.
Callandor
belonged in the Tower, if he would not wield it as he should, in the Tower till he would wield it. “Just until” what? He had been intending to say something other than “until I come back.” But what?
“And where are you going? Or do you mean to keep it a mystery?” She was quietly vowing not to let him escape again, to turn him somehow if he meant to go running off to the Two Rivers, when he surprised her.
“Not a mystery, Moiraine. Not from you and Egwene, anyway.” He looked at Egwene and said one word. “Rhuidean.”
Wide-eyed, the girl appeared as astounded as if she had never heard the name before. For that matter, Moiraine felt scarcely less. There was a murmur among the Aiel, but when she glanced back they were striding along with no expression whatsoever. She wished she could make them leave, but they would not go at her command, and she would not ask Rand to send them away. It would not help her with him to ask favors, especially when he might well refuse.
“You are not an Aiel clan chief, Rand,” she said firmly, “and have no need to be one. Your struggle is on this side of the Dragonwall. Unless … . Does this come from your answers in the
ter’angreal
? Cairhien, and
Callandor
, and Rhuidean? I told you those answers can be cryptic. You could be misunderstanding them, and that could prove fatal. To more than you.”
“You must trust me, Moiraine. As I have so often had to trust you.”
His face might as well have belonged to an Aiel for all she could read in it.
“I will trust you for now. Just do not wait to seek my guidance until it is too late.”
I will not let you go to the Shadow. I have worked too long to allow that. Whatever it takes.
Out of the Stone
I
t was a strange procession Rand led out of the Stone and eastward, with white clouds shading the midday sun and a breath of air stirring across the city. By his order there had been no announcement, no proclamation, but slowly word spread of
something
: citizens stopped whatever they were doing and ran for vantage points. The Aiel were marching through the city, marching out of the city. People who had not seen them come in the night, who had only half-believed they were in the Stone at all, increasingly lined the streets along the route, filled the windows, even climbed onto slate rooftops, straddling roof peaks and upturned corners. Murmurs ran as they counted the Aiel. These few hundred could never have taken the Stone. The Dragon banner still flew above the fortress. There must yet be thousands of Aiel in there. And the Lord Dragon.
Rand rode easily in his shirtsleeves, sure none of the onlookers could take him for anyone out of the ordinary. An outlander, rich enough to ride—and on a superb dappled stallion, best of the Tairen bloodstock—a rich man traveling in the oddest of odd company, but surely just another man for that. Not even the leader of this strange company; that title was surely assigned to Lan or Moiraine despite the fact that they rode some little distance behind him, directly ahead of the Aiel. The soft awed susurration that accompanied his passing certainly rose for the Aiel, not him. These Tairen folk might even take him for a groom, riding his master’s
horse. Well, no, not that; not out in front as he was. It was a fine day, anyway. Not sweltering, merely warm. No one expected him to mete out justice, or rule a nation. He could simply enjoy riding in anonymity, enjoy the rare breeze. For a time he could forget the feel of his heron-branded palms on the reins.
For a little longer anyway
, he thought.
A little longer.
“Rand,” Egwene said, “do you really think it was right to let the Aiel take all those things?” He looked around as she heeled her gray mare, Mist, up beside him. From somewhere she had gotten a dark green dress with narrow divided skirts, and a green velvet band held her hair at the nape of her neck.
Moiraine and Lan still hung back half a dozen strides, she on her white mare in a full-skirted blue silk riding dress slashed with green, her dark hair caught in a golden net, he astride his great black warhorse, in a color-shifting Warder’s cloak that probably brought as many
oohs
and
aahs
as the Aiel. When the breeze stirred the cloak, shades of green and brown and gray rippled across it; when it hung still it somehow seemed to fade into whatever was beyond it, so the eye appeared to be seeing
through
parts of Lan and his mount. It was not comfortable to look at.
Mat was there, too, slumped in his saddle and looking resigned, trying to keep apart from the Warder and Aes Sedai. He had chosen a nondescript brown gelding, an animal he called Pips; it took a good eye to notice the deep chest and strong withers that promised blunt-nosed Pips could likely match Rand’s stallion or Lan’s for speed and endurance. Mat’s decision to come had been a surprise; Rand still did not know why. Friendship, maybe, and then again, maybe not. Mat could be odd in what he did and why.
“Didn’t your friend Aviendha explain to you about ‘the fifth’?” he asked.
“She mentioned something, but … . Rand, you don’t think she …
took
… things, too?”
Behind Moiraine and Lan, behind Mat, behind Rhuarc at their head, the Aiel walked in long lines to either side of loaded pack mules, rank on rank four abreast. When Aiel took one of the holds of an enemy clan in the Waste, by custom—or maybe law; Rand did not understand it exactly—they carried away one-fifth of all it contained, excepting only food. They had seen no reason not to treat the Stone the same. Not that the mules held more than the barest fraction of a fraction of a fifth of the Stone’s treasures. Rhuarc said greed had killed more men than steel. The wickerwork pack hampers, topped with rolled carpets and wall hangings, were lightly laden.
Ahead lay an eventual hard crossing of the Spine of the World, and then a far harder trek across the Waste.
When do I tell them?
he wondered.
Soon, now; it has to be soon.
Moiraine would doubtless think it daring, a bold stroke; she might even approve. Maybe. She thought she knew his whole plan, now, and made no bones of disapproving that; no doubt she wanted it over and done as soon as possible. But the Aiel … .
What if they refuse? Well, if they refuse, they refuse. I have to do it.
As for the fifth … . He did not think it would have been possible to stop the Aiel from taking it even had he wanted to, and he had not; they had earned their rewards, and he had no care to help Tairen lords keep what they had wrung from their people over generations.
“I saw her showing Rhuarc a silver bowl,” he said aloud. “From the way her sack clinked when she stuffed the bowl in, there was more silver in there. Or maybe gold. Do you disapprove?”
“No.” She drew the word out slowly, with a touch of doubt, but then her voice firmed. “I just hadn’t thought of her … . The Tairens would not have stopped at a fifth if the positions had been reversed. They’d have carted away whatever wasn’t part of the stonework, and stolen all the carts to haul it. Just because a people’s ways are different doesn’t mean they are wrong, Rand. You should know that.”
He laughed softly. This was almost like old times, he ready to explain why and how she was wrong, and she snatching his position and tossing his own unvoiced explanation at him. His stallion danced a few steps, catching his mood. He patted the dapple’s arched neck. A good day.
“That’s a fine horse,” she said. “What have you named him?”
“Jeade’en,” he said cautiously, losing some of his good spirits. He was a little ashamed of the name, of his reasons for choosing it. One of his favorite books had always been
The Travels of Jain Farstrider
, and that great traveler had named his horse Jeade’en—True Finder, in the Old Tongue—because the animal had always been able to find the way home. It would have been nice to think Jeade’en might carry him home one day. Nice, but not likely, and he did not want anyone suspecting the cause for the name. Boyish fancies had no place in his life now. There was not much room for anything but what he had to do.
“A fine name,” she said absently. He knew she had read the book, too, and half-expected her to recognize the name, but she seemed to be mulling over something else, chewing her lower lip pensively.
He was content with silence. The last dregs of the city gave way to
country and pitiful scattered farms. Not even a Congar or a Coplin, Two River folk notorious for laziness among other things, would keep a place as run-down and ramshackle as these rough stone houses, walls slanting as if about to topple over on the chickens scratching in the dirt. Sagging barns leaned against laurels or spicewoods. Roofs of cracked and broken slates all looked as if they leaked. Goats bleated disconsolately in stone pens that might have been thrown together hastily that morning. Barefoot men and women hoed stoop-shouldered in unfenced fields, not looking up even when the large party was passing. Redbeaks and thrushes warbling in the small thickets were not enough to lighten the feel of oppressive gloom.
I have to do something about this. I … . No, not now. First things first. I’ve done what I could for them in a few weeks. I can’t do anything more now.
He tried not to look at the tumbledown farms. Were the olive groves in the south as bad? The people who worked those did not even own the land; it all belonged to High Lords.
No. The breeze. Nice, the way it cuts the heat. I can enjoy it a bit longer. I have to tell them, soon now.
“Rand,” Egwene said abruptly, “I want to talk to you.” Something serious by her expression; those big dark eyes, fixed on him, held a light reminiscent of Nynaeve’s when she was about to lecture. “I want to talk about Elayne.”
“What about her?” he asked warily. He touched his pouch, where two letters crinkled against a small hard object. If they had not both been in the same elegantly flowing hand, he would not have believed they came from the same woman. And after all that kissing and snuggling. The High Lords were easier to understand than women.
“Why did you let her go in that way?”
Puzzled, he stared at her. “She wanted to go. I’d have had to tie her up to stop her. Besides, she’ll be safer in Tanchico than near me—or Mat—if we are going to attract bubbles of evil the way Moiraine says. You would be, too.”
“That isn’t what I mean at all. Of course she wanted to go. And you had no right to stop her. But why didn’t you tell her you wished she would stay?”
“She wanted to go,” he repeated, and grew more confused when she rolled her eyes as if he were speaking gibberish. If he had no right to stop Elayne, and she wanted to go, why was he supposed to try to talk her out of it? Especially when she was safer gone.
Moiraine spoke, right behind him. “Are you ready to tell me the next
secret? It has been clear you were keeping something from me. At the least I might be able to tell you if you are leading us over a cliff.”
Rand sighed. He had not heard her and Lan closing up on him. And Mat as well, although still holding a distance between himself and the Aes Sedai. Mat’s face was a study, doubt and reluctance and grim determination all running across it by turns, especially when he glanced at Moiraine. He never looked at her directly, only from the edge of his eye.
“Are you sure you want to come, Mat?” Rand asked.
Mat shrugged and affected a grin, not a very confident one. “Who could pass up a chance to see bloody Rhuidean?” Egwene raised her eyebrows at him. “Oh, pardon my language,
Aes Sedai.
I’ve heard you say as bad, and for less cause, I’ll wager.” Egwene stared at him indignantly, but spots of color in her cheeks said he had scored a hit.
“Be glad Mat
is
here,” Moiraine said to Rand, her voice cool, and not pleased. “You made a grave error letting Perrin run off, hiding his going from me. The world rests on your shoulders, but they must both support you or you will fall, and the world with you.” Mat flinched, and Rand thought he very nearly turned his gelding and rode away on the spot.
“I know my duty,” he told her.
And I know my fate
, he thought, but he did not say that aloud; he was not asking sympathy. “One of us had to go back, Moiraine, and Perrin wanted to. You’re willing to let anything go to save the world. I … I do what I have to.” The Warder nodded, though he said nothing; Lan would not disagree with Moiraine in front of others.
“And the next secret?” she said insistently. She would not give up until she had ferreted it out, and he had no reason to keep it secret any longer. Not this part of it.
“Portal Stones,” he said simply. “If we are lucky.”
“Oh, Light!” Mat groaned. “Bloody flaming Light! Don’t grimace at me, Egwene! Lucky? Isn’t once enough, Rand? You almost killed us, remember? No, worse than killed. I would rather ride back to one of those farms and ask for a job slopping pigs the rest of my life.”
“You can go your own way if you want, Mat,” Rand told him. Moiraine’s calm face was a mask over fury, but he ignored the icy stare that tried to still his tongue. Even Lan looked disapproving, for all his hard face did not change very much; the Warder believed in duty before anything else. Rand would do his duty, but his friends … . He did not like making people do things; he would not do it to his friends. That much he could avoid, surely. “You’ve no reason to come to the Waste.”
“Oh, yes I do. At least … . Oh, burn me! I’ve one life to give away,
don’t I? Why not like this?” Mat laughed nervously, and a bit wildly. “Bloody Portal Stones! Light!”
Rand frowned; he was the one they all said was supposed to go mad, but Mat was the one who seemed on the edge of it now.
Egwene blinked at Mat worriedly, but it was Rand she leaned toward. “Rand, Verin Sedai told me a little about Portal Stones. She told me about the … journey you took. Do you really mean to do this?”
“It’s what I have to do, Egwene.” He had to move quickly, and there was no quicker way than Portal Stones. Remnants of an Age older than the Age of Legends; even Aes Sedai of the Age of Legends had not understood them, it seemed. But there was no quicker way. If it worked the way he hoped.

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