“Not now,” Rhuarc agreed.
“If only you would … allow me to go in with you.” Except for that one slight hitch, Moiraine’s voice was as serene as ever; cool calm painted her ageless features, but her dark eyes looked at Rand as if her gaze alone could force him to relent.
Amys’s long pale hair, hanging below her shawl, swung as she shook her head firmly. “It is not his decision, Aes Sedai. This is the business of chiefs, men’s business. If we let you go into Alcair Dal now, the next time Wise Ones meet, or roofmistresses, some clan chief will want to put his nose in. They think we meddle in their affairs, and often try to meddle in ours.” She gave Rhuarc a quick smile meant to convey that she did not include him; her husband’s lack of expression told Rand he thought otherwise.
Melaine gripped her shawl under her chin, precisely staring at Rand. If she did not agree with Moraine, at least she mistrusted what he would do. He had hardly slept since leaving Cold Rocks; if they had peered into his dreams, they had seen only nightmares.
“Be careful, Rand al’Thor,” Bair said as if she had read his thoughts. “A tired man makes mistakes. You cannot afford mistakes today.” She pulled her shawl down around her thin shoulders, and her thin voice took on an almost angry note. “We cannot afford for you to make mistakes. The Aiel cannot afford it.”
The coming of more riders to the hilltop had drawn eyes back to them. Among the pavilions several hundred Aiel, men in cadin’sor and long-haired women in skirts and blouses and shawls, made a watchful crowd. Its attention shifted when Kadere’s dusty white wagon appeared behind its team of mules off to the right, with the heavy, cream-coated peddler on the driver’s seat, and Isendre all in white silk holding a matching parasol. Keille’s wagon followed, with Natael handling the reins at her side, and the canvas-topped wagons, and finally the three big waterwagons like huge barrels on wheels with their long mule teams. They looked at Rand as the wagons rumbled past in a squeal of ungreased axles, Kadere and Isendre, Natael in his gleeman’s patch-covered cloak, Keille’s great bulk encased in snowy white, a white lace shawl on her ivory combs. Rand patted Jeade’en’s arched neck. Men and women began spilling out of the fair below to meet the approaching wagons. The Shaido were waiting. Soon, now.
Egwene moved her gray close to Jeade’en; the dapple stallion tried to nuzzle Mist and got nipped for his trouble. “You’ve not given me any chance to speak to you since Cold Rocks, Rand.” He said nothing; she was Aes Sedai now, and not just because she called herself one. He wondered if she had spied on his dreams, too. Her face looked tight, her dark eyes tired. “Do not keep to yourself, Rand. You do not fight alone. Others do battle for you, too.”
Frowning, he tried not to look at her. His first thought was of Emond’s Field and Perrin, but he did not see how she could know where Perrin had gone. “What do you mean?” he said finally.
“I fight for you,” Moiraine said before Egwene could open her mouth, “as does Egwene.” A look flashed between the two women. “People fight for you who do not know it, any more than you know them. You do not realize what it means that you force the form of the Age Lace, do you? The ripples of your actions, the ripples of your very existence, spread across the Pattern to change the weave of life-threads of which you will never be aware. The battle is far from yours alone. Yet you stand in the heart of this web in the Pattern. Should you fail, and fall, all fails and falls. Since I cannot go with you into Alcair Dal, let Lan accompany you. One more pair of eyes to watch your back.” The Warder turned slightly in his saddle, frowning at her; with the Shaido veiled for killing, he would not be eager to leave her alone.
Rand did not think he was supposed to have seen that look pass from Moiraine to Egwene. So they had a secret to keep from him. Egwene did have Aes Sedai eyes, dark and unreadable. Aviendha and the Maidens had come back to him. “Let Lan stay with you, Moiraine. Far Dareis Mai carries my honor.”
Moiraine’s mouth tightened at the corners, but apparently that was exactly the right thing to say so far as the Maidens were concerned. Adelin and the others donned wide grins.
Below, Aiel were crowding around wagon drivers as they began unhitching the mules. Not everyone was paying attention to the Aiel. Keille and Isendre stared at one another from beside their wagons, Natael speaking urgently to one woman, Kadere to the other, until they finally stopped their duel of eyes. The two women had been like that for some time. Had they been men, Rand would have expected it to come to blows long since.
“Be on your guard, Egwene,” Rand said. “All of you, be on your guard.”
“Even the Shaido will not bother Aes Sedai,” Amys told him, “any more than they will bother Bair or Melaine or myself. Some things are beyond even Shaido.”
“Just be on your guard!” He had not meant to be that sharp. Even Rhuarc stared at him. They did not understand, and he dared not tell them. Not yet. Who would spring their trap first? He had to risk them as well as himself.
“What about me, Rand?” Mat said suddenly, rolling a gold coin across the fingers of one hand as though unaware of it. “You have any objections to my going with you?”
“Do you want to? I thought you’d stay with the peddlers.”
Mat frowned at the wagons below, looked to the Shaido lined before the mountain gap. “I don’t think it will be so easy to get out of here if you get yourself killed. Burn me if you don’t stick me in the rendering kettle one way or … . Dovienya,” he muttered—Rand had heard him say that before; Lan said it meant “luck” in the Old Tongue—and flipped the gold coin into the air. When he tried to snatch it back, it bounced off his fingertips and fell to the ground. Somehow, improbably, the coin landed on edge, rolling downhill, bounding across cracks in the baked clay, glittering in the sunlight, all the way down to the wagons, where it finally fell over. “Burn me, Rand,” he growled, “I wish you wouldn’t do that!”
Isendre picked up the coin and stood fingering it, peering up at the hilltop. The others stared, too; Kadere, and Keille, and Natael.
“You can come,” Rand said. “Rhuarc, isn’t it about time?”
The clan chief glanced over his shoulder. “Yes. Just about …” Behind him, pipes began playing a slow dancing tune. “ … now.”
Singing rose to the pipes. Aiel boys stopped singing when they reached manhood, except for certain occasions. Only in battle songs and laments for the dead did an Aielman sing once he had taken up the spear. There were surely Maidens’ voices in that chanted harmony of parts, but deep male voices swallowed them.
“Wash the spears—while the sun climbs high.
Wash the spears—while the sun falls low.”
Half a mile to right and left Taardad appeared, running in time to their song in two wide columns, spears ready, faces veiled, seemingly endless columns rolling toward the mountains.
“Wash the spears—Who fears to die?
Wash the spears—No one I know!”
In the clan camps and in the fair, Aiel stared in amazement; something in the way they held themselves told Rand they were silent. Some of the wagon drivers stood as if stunned; others let their mules run loose and dove under their wagons. And Keille and Isendre, Kadere and Natael, watched Rand.
“Wash the spears—while life holds true.
Wash the spears—until life ends.
Wash the spears … .”
“Shall we go?” He did not wait for Rhuarc’s nod to heel Jeade’en to a walk down the hill, Adelin and the other Maidens falling in around him. Mat hesitated a moment before booting Pips to follow, but Rhuarc and the Taardad sept chiefs, each with his ten, stepped off with the dapple. Once, halfway to the fair tents, Rand looked back to the hilltop. Moiraine and Egwene sitting their horses with Lan. Aviendha standing with the three Wise Ones. All watching him. He had almost forgotten what it was like not to have people watching him.
As he rode abreast of the fair, a delegation came out, ten or a dozen women in skirts and blouses and much gold and silver and ivory, as many men in th
e grays and browns of the cadin’sor but unarmed save for a belt knife, and that usually smaller than the heavy-bladed weapon Rhuarc wore. Still, they took a position that forced Rand and the others to halt, and appeared to ignore the veiled Taardad streaming by to east and west.
“Wash the spears—Life is a dream.
Wash the spears—All dreams must end.”
“I did not expect this of you, Rhuarc,” a heavyset, gray-haired man said. He was not fat—Rand had not seen a fat Aiel—his heaviness was muscle. “Even from the Shaido it was a surprise, but you!”
“Times change, Mandhuin,” the clan chief replied. “How long have the Shaido been here?”
“They arrived just at sunrise. Why they traveled in the night, who can say?” Mandhuin frowned slightly at Rand, tilted his head toward Mat. “Strange times indeed, Rhuarc.”
“Who is here besides the Shaido?” Rhuarc asked.
“We Goshien arrived first. Then the Shaarad.” The heavy man grimaced over his blood enemies’ name, without stopping his study of the two wetlanders. “The Chareen and the Tomanelle came later. And last the Shaido, as I said. Sevanna convinced the chiefs to go in only a short time ago. Bael saw no reason to meet today, nor did some of the others.”
A broad-faced woman in her middle years, with hair yellower than Adelin’s, put fists on her hips in a rattle of ivory and gold bracelets. She wore as many, and as many necklaces, as Amys and her sister-wife combined. “We hear He Who Comes With the Dawn has come out of Rhuidean, Rhuarc.” She was frowning at Rand and Mat. The entire delegation was. “We hear that the Car’a’carn will be announced today. Before all of the clans arrive.”
“Then someone spoke you a prophecy,” Rand said. He touched the dapple’s flanks with his heels; the delegation moved out of his way.
“Dovienya,” Mat murmured. “Mia dovienya nesodhin soende.” Whatever it meant, it sounded a fervent wish.
The Taardad columns had come up on either side of the Shaido and turned to face them across a few hundred paces, still veiled, still singing. They made no move that could be considered threatening, really, only stood there, fifteen or twenty times the Shaido numbers, and sang, voices thundering in chanting harmony.
“Wash the spears—till shade is gone.
Wash the spears—till water turns dry.
Wash the spears—How long from home?
Wash the spears—Until I die!”
Riding closer to the black-veiled Shaido, Rand saw Rhuarc lift a hand to his own veil. “No, Rhuarc. We are not here to fight them.” He meant that he hoped it would not come to that, but the Aielman took it differently.
“You are right, Rand al’Thor. No honor to the Shaido.” Leaving his veil hanging, Rhuarc raised his voice. “No honor to the Shaido!”
Rand did not turn his head to look, but he had the feeling black veils were being lowered behind him.
“Oh, blood and ashes!” Mat muttered. “Blood and bloody ashes!”
“Wash the spears—till the sun grows cold.
Wash the spears—till water runs free.
Wash the spears … .”
The lines of Shaido shifted uneasily. Whatever Couladin or Sevanna had told them, they could count. To dance the spears with Rhuarc and those with him was one thing, even if it went against all custom; to face enough Taardad to sweep them away like an avalanche was something else. Slowly they parted, moving back to let Rand ride through, stepping back to make a wide path.
Rand heaved a sigh of relief. Adelin and the other Maidens, at least, walked looking straight ahead, as though the Shaido did not exist.
“Wash the spears—while I breathe.
Wash the spears—my steel is bright.
Wash the spears … .”
The chant faded to a murmur behind them as they passed into the wide, steep-walled gorge, deep and shadowed as it wound into the mountains. For minutes the loudest sounds were the clatter of hooves on stone, the whisper of soft Aiel boots. Abruptly the passage gave way to Alcair Dal.
Rand could see why the canyon had been called a bowl, though there was nothing golden about it. Almost perfectly round, its gray wall sloped all the way around except at the far end, where it curled inward like a breaking wave. Clusters of Aiel dotted the slopes, heads and faces bare, many more clusters than there were clans. The Taardad who had come with the sept chiefs peeled away toward one or another of those. According to Rhuarc, grouping by society rather than clan was an aid to keeping peace. Only his Red Shields and the Maidens continued on with Rand and the Taardad chiefs.
The sept chiefs of the other clans all sat by clan, cross-legged before a deep ledge beneath the curling overhang. Six small knots, one of Maidens, stood between the sept chiefs and the ledge. Supposedly these were the Aiel who had come for the honor of clan chiefs. Six, although only five clans were represented. Sevanna would have the Maidens—though Aviendha had been quick to point out that Sevanna had never been Far Dareis Mai—but the extra … . Eleven men in that, not ten. Even seeing only the back of a flame-haired head, Rand was sure it was Couladin.
On the ledge itself stood a golden-haired woman in as much jewelry as the woman back at the fair tents, gray shawl draped over her arms—Sevanna, of course—and four clan chiefs, none armed save for his long belt knife, and one the tallest man Rand had ever seen. Bael of the Goshien Aiel, by the descriptions Rhuarc had given; the fellow had to be at least a hand taller than Rhuarc or himself. Sevanna was speaking, and some trick of the canyon’s shape carried her words clearly throughout.
“ … allow him to speak!” Her voice was tight and angry. Head high and back straight she tried to dominate the ledge by force of will. “I demand it as my right! Until a new chief is chosen, I stand for Suladric and the Shaido. I demand my right!”
“You stand for Suladric until a new chief is chosen, roofmistress.” The white-haired man who spoke in irascible tones was Han, clan chief of the Tomanelle. With a face like dark, wrinkled leather, he would have been taller than average in the Two Rivers; for an Aiel, he was short, if stocky. “I have no doubt you know the rights of a roofmistress well, but perhaps not so well those of a clan chief. Only one who has entered Rhuidean may speak here—and you, who stand in Suladric’s place”—Han did not sound happy about that, but then he sounded as if he was seldom happy—“but the dreamwalkers have told our Wise Ones Couladin was refused the right to enter Rhuidean.”
Couladin shouted something, plainly furious yet indistinct—apparently the canyon’s trick only worked from the ledge—but Erim, of the Chareen, his own bright red hair nearly half-white, cut him off sharply. “Have you no respect for custom and law, Shaido? Have you no honor? Stand silent here.”
A few eyes on the slopes turned to see who the newcomers were. A ripple of nudges brought more around at the sight of two outlanders on horseback at the head of the sept chiefs, and one of the riders followed close by Maidens. How many Aiel peered down at him, Rand wondered. Three thousand? Four? More? None made a sound.
“We have gathered here to hear a great announcement,” Bael said, “when all the clans have come.” His dark reddish hair was graying, too; there were no young men among clan chiefs. His great height and deep voice drew eyes to him. “When all the clans have come. If all Sevanna wishes to speak of now is letting Couladin speak, I will go back to my tents and wait.”
Jheran, of the Shaarad, blood enemy of Bael’s Goshien, was a slender man, gray streaked heavily through his light brown hair. Slender, as a steel blade is slender, he spoke to no one of the chiefs in particular. “I say we do not return to our tents. Since Sevanna has brought us in, let us discuss what is only somewhat less important than the announcement we await. Water. I wish to discuss the water at Chain Ridge Stand.” Bael turned toward him threateningly.
“Fools!” Sevanna snapped. “I will have done with waiting! I—”
It was then that those on the ledge became aware of the new arrivals. In utter silence they watched them approach, the clan chiefs frowning, Seva
nna scowling. She was a pretty woman, well short of her middle years—and younger-looking for standing among men well the other side of theirs—but with a greedy mouth. The clan chiefs were dignified, even Han in a sour-mouthed fashion; her pale green eyes had a calculating look. Unlike any Aielwoman Rand had ever seen, she wore her loose white blouse undone low enough to show considerable tanned cleavage, framed by her many necklaces. He could have known the men for clan chiefs by their manner; if Sevanna was a roofmistress, she was surely nothing like Lian.
Rhuarc strode straight to the ledge, gave his spears and buckler, his bow and quiver, to his Red Shields, and climbed up. Rand handed his reins to Mat—who muttered, “Luck with us!” as he eyed the surrounding Aiel; Adelin nodded encouragingly to Rand—and stepped straight from his saddle to the ledge. A startled murmur rolled around the canyon.
“What do you do, Rhuarc,” Han demanded, scowling, “bringing this wetlander here? If you will not kill him, at least send him down from standing like a chief.”
“This man, Rand al’Thor, has come to speak to the chiefs of the clans. Did not the dreamwalkers tell you that he would come with me?” Rhuarc’s words brought a louder murmur from the listeners.
“Melaine told me many things, Rhuarc,” Bael said slowly, frowning at Rand. “That He Who Comes With the Dawn had come out of Rhuidean. You cannot mean that this man … .” He trailed off in disbelief.
“If this wetlander can speak,” Sevanna said quickly, “so may Couladin.” She lifted a smooth hand, and Couladin scrambled onto the ledge, face an angry red.
Han rounded on him. “Stand down, Couladin! It is bad enough that Rhuarc violates custom without you doing it as well!”