Towers of Midnight

  The sisters and Warders reluctantly parted for him. Egwene raised a hand to her head, feeling dizzy.

  "Light!" Silviana said. "How could you think during that, Mother?"

  "What?" Egwene looked about the Hall. Many of the Sitters were slumping visibly in their seats.

  "Something gripped my heart," Barasine said, raising a hand to her breast, "squeezing it tight. I didn't dare speak."

  "I tried to speak," Yukiri said. "My mouth wouldn't move."

  "Ta'veren" Saerin said. "But an effect as strong as that ... I felt that it would crush me from the inside."

  "How did you resist it, Mother?" Silviana asked.

  Egwene frowned. She hadn't felt that way. Perhaps because she thought of him as Rand. "We need to discuss his words. The Hall of the Tower will reconvene in one hour's time for discussion." That conversation would be Sealed to the Hall. "And someone follow to make sure he really leaves."

  "Gareth Bryne is doing so," Chubain said from outside.

  The Sitters pulled themselves to their feet, shaken. Silviana leaned down. "You're right, Mother. He can't be allowed to break the seals. But what are we to do? If you won't hold him captive . . ."

  "I doubt we could have held him," Egwene said. "There's something about him. I ... I had the sense he could have broken that shield without a struggle."

  "Then how? How do we stop him?"

  "We need allies," Egwene said. She took a deep breath. "He might be persuaded by people that he trusts." Or he might be forced to change his mind if confronted by a large enough group united to stop him.

  It was now more vital that she speak with Elayne and Nynaeve.

  CHAPTER 4

  The Pattern Groans

  What is it?" Perrin asked, trying to ignore the sharp scent of rotting meat. He couldn't see any corpses, but by his nose, the ground should be littered with them.

  He stood with an advance group at the side of the Jehannah Road, looking northward across a rolling plain with few trees. The grass was brown and yellow, as in other places, but it grew darker farther away from the road, as if infected with some disease.

  "I've seen this before," Seonid said. The diminutive, pale-skinned Aes Sedai stooped at the edge of the road, turning the leaf of a small weed over in her fingers. She wore green wool, fine but unornamented, her only jewelry her Great Serpent ring.

  Thunder rumbled softly above. Six Wise Ones stood behind Seonid, arms folded, faces unreadable. Perrin hadn't considered telling the Wise Ones or their two Aes Sedai apprentices to stay behind. He was probably lucky they let him accompany them.

  "Yes," Nevarin said, bracelets clattering as she knelt and took the leaf from Seonid. "I visited the Blight once as a girl; my father felt it important for me to see. This looks like what I saw there."

  Perrin had been to the Blight only once, but the look of those dark specks was indeed distinctive. A redjay fluttered down to one of the distant trees and began picking at branches and leaves, but found nothing of interest and took wing again.

  The disturbing thing was, the plants here seemed better than many they'd passed along the way. Covered with spots, but alive, even thriving.

  Light, Perrin thought, taking the leaf as Nevarin handed it to him. It smelled of decay. What kind of world is it where the Blight is the good alternative?

  "Mori circled the entire patch," Nevarin said, nodding to a Maiden standing nearby. "It grows darker near the center. She could not see what was there."

  Perrin nudged Stayer down off the road. Faile followed; she didn't smell the least bit afraid, though Perrin's Two Rivers armsmen hesitated.

  "Lord Perrin?" Wil called.

  "It's probably not dangerous," Perrin said. "Animals still move in and out of it." The Blight was dangerous because of what lived there. And if those beasts had somehow come southward, they needed to know. The Aiel strode after him without a comment. And since Faile had joined him, Berelain had to as well, Annoura and Gallenne trailing her. Blessedly, Alliandre had agreed to remain behind, in charge of the camp and refugees while Perrin was away.

  The horses were already skittish, and the surroundings didn't help their moods any. Perrin breathed through his mouth to dampen the stench of rot and death. The ground was wet here too if only those clouds would pass so they could get some good sunlight to dry the soil and the horses' footing was treacherous, so they took their time. Most of the meadow was covered in grass, clover and small weeds, and the farther they rode, the more pervasive the dark spots became. Within minutes, many of the plants were more brown than they were green or yellow.

  Eventually they came to a small dale nestled amid three hillsides. Perrin pulled Stayer to a halt; the others bunched up around him. There was a strange village here. The buildings were huts built from an odd type of wood, like large reeds, and the roofs were thatch but thatch built from enormous leaves, as wide as two man's palms.

  There were no plants here, only a very sandy soil. Perrin slid free of the saddle and stooped down to feel it, rubbing the gritty stuff between his fingers. He looked at the others. They smelled confused.

  He cautiously led Stayer forward into the center of the village. The Blight was radiating from this point, but the village itself showed no touch of it. Maidens scattered forward, veils in place, Sulin at their head. They did a quick inspection of the huts, signing to one another with quick gestures, then returned.

  "Nobody?" Faile asked.

  "No," Sulin said, cautiously lowering her veil. "This place is deserted."

  "Who would build a village like this," Perrin asked, "in Ghealdan of all places?"

  "It wasn't built here," Masuri said.

  Perrin turned toward the slender Aes Sedai.

  "This village is not native to this area," Masuri said. "The wood is unlike anything I've seen before."

  "The Pattern groans," Berelain said softly. "The dead walking, the odd deaths. In cities, rooms vanish and food spoils."

  Perrin scratched his chin, remembering a day when his axe had tried to kill him. If entire villages were vanishing and appearing in other places, if the Blight was growing out of rifts where the Pattern was fraying . . . Light! How bad were things becoming?

  "Burn the village," he said, turning. "Use the One Power. Scour as many of the tainted plants as you can. Maybe we can keep it from spreading. We'll move the army to that camp an hour away, and will stay there tomorrow if you need more time."

  For once, neither the Wise Ones nor the Aes Sedai voiced so much as a sniff of complaint at the direct order.

  Hunt with us, brother.

  Perrin found himself in the wolf dream. He vaguely remembered sitting drowsily by the dwindling light of an open lamp, a single flame shivering on its tip, waiting to hear a report from those dealing with the strange village. He had been reading a copy of The Travels of Jain Farstrider that Gaul had found among the salvage from Maiden.

  Now Perrin lay on his back in the middle of a large field with grass as tall as a man's waist. He gazed up, grass brushing his cheeks and arms as it shivered in the wind. In the sky, that same storm brewed, here as in the waking world. More violent here.

  Staring up at it his vision framed by the stalks of brown and green grass and stems of wild millet he could almost feel the storm growing closer. As if it was crawling down out of the sky to engulf him.

  Young Bull! Come! Come hunt!

  The voice was that of a wolf. Perrin by instinct knew that she was called Oak Dancer, named for the way she had scampered between saplings as a whelp. There were others, too. Whisperer. Morninglight. Sparks. Boundless. A good dozen wolves called to him, some living wolves who slept, others the spirits of wolves who had died.

  They called to him with a mixture of scents and images and sounds. The smell of a spring buck, pocking the earth with its leaps. Fallen leaves crumbling beneath running wolves. The growls of victory, the thrill of a pack running together.

  The invitations awakened something deep within him, the wolf he tried to keep loc
ked away. But a wolf could not be locked up for long. It either escaped or it died; it would not stand captivity. He longed to leap to his feet and send his joyous acceptance, losing himself in the pack. He was Young Bull, and he was welcome here.

  "No!" Perrin said, sitting up, holding his head. "I will not lose myself in you."

  Hopper sat in the grass to his right. The large gray wolf regarded Perrin, golden eyes unblinking, reflecting flashes of lighting from above. The grass came up to Hopper's neck.

  Perrin lowered a hand from his head. The air was heavy, full of humidity, and it smelled of rain. Above the scent of the weather and that of the dry field, he could smell Hopper's patience.

  You are invited, Young Bull, Hopper sent.

  "I can't hunt with you," Perrin explained. "Hopper, we spoke of this. I'm losing myself. When I go into battle, I become enraged. Like a wolf."

  Like a wolf? Hopper sent. Young Bull, you are a wolf. And a man. Come hunt.

  "I told you I can't! I will not let this consume me." He thought of a young man with golden eyes, locked in a cage, all humanity gone from him. His name had been Noam Perrin had seen him in a village called Jarra.

  Light, Perrin thought. That's not far from here. Or at least not far from where his body slumbered in the real world. Jarra was in Ghealdan. An odd coincidence.

  With a ta'veren nearby, there are no coincidences.

  He frowned, rising and scanning the landscape. Moiraine had told Perrin there was nothing human left inside of Noam. That was what awaited a wolfbrother if he let himself be completely consumed by the wolf.

  "I must learn to control this, or I must banish the wolf from me," Perrin said. "There is no time left for compromise, Hopper."

  Hopper smelled dissatisfied. He didn't like what he'd called a human tendency to wish to control things.

  Come, Hopper sent, standing up in the grass. Hunt.

  Come learn, Hopper sent, frustrated. The Last Hunt comes.

  Hopper's sendings included the image of a young pup making his first

  kill. That and a worry for the future a normally unwolflike attribute. The Last Hunt brought change.

  Perrin hesitated. In a previous visit to the wolf dream, Perrin had demanded that Hopper train him to master the place. Very inappropriate for a young wolf a kind of challenge to the elder's seniority but this was a response. Hopper had come to teach, but he would do it as a wolf taught.

  "I'm sorry," Perrin said. "I will hunt with you but I must not lose myself."

  These things you think, Hopper sent, displeased. How can you think such images of nothing? The response was accompanied by images of blankness an empty sky, a den with nobody in it, a barren field. You are Young Bull. You will always be Young Bull. How can you lose Young Bull? Look down, and you will see his paws beneath. Bite, and his teeth will kill. There is no losing this.

  "It is a thing of humans."

  The same empty words over and over, Hopper sent.

  Perrin took a deep breath, sucking in and releasing the too-wet air. "Very well," he said, hammer and knife appearing in his hands. "Let's go."

  You hunt game with your hooves? An image of a bull ignoring its horns and trying to leap onto the back of a deer and stomp it to the ground.

  "You're right." Perrin was suddenly holding a good Two Rivers longbow. He wasn't as good a shot as Jondyn Barran or Rand, but he could hold his own.

  Hopper sent a bull spitting at a deer. Perrin growled, sending back a wolf's claws shooting from its paws and striking a deer at a distance, but this only seemed to amuse Hopper further. Despite his annoyance, Perrin had to admit that it was a rather ridiculous image.

  The wolf sent the image to the others, causing them to howl in amusement, though most of them seemed to prefer the bull jumping up and down on the deer. Perrin growled, chasing after Hopper toward the distant woods, where the other wolves waited.

  As he ran, the grasses seemed to grow more dense. They held him back, like snarled forest undergrowth. Hopper soon outpaced him.

  Run, Young Bull!

  I'm trying, Perrin sent back.

  Not as you have before!

  Perrin continued to push his way through the grass. This strange place, this wonderful world where wolves ran, could be intoxicating. And dangerous. Hopper had warned Perrin of that more than once.

  Dangers for tomorrow. Ignore them for now, Hopper sent, growing more distant. Worry is for two-legs.

  I can't ignore my problems! Perrin thought back. Yet you often do, Hopper sent.

  It struck true more true, perhaps, than the wolf knew. Perrin burst into a clearing and pulled to a halt. There, lying on the ground, were the three chunks of metal he'd forged in his earlier dream. The large lump the size of two fists, the flattened rod, the thin rectangle. The rectangle glowed faintly yellow-red, singeing the short grass around it.

  The lumps vanished immediately, though the simmering rectangle left a burned spot. Perrin looked up, searching for the wolves. Ahead of him, in the sky above the trees ahead, a large hole of blackness opened up. He could not tell how far it was away, and it seemed to dominate all he could see while being distant at the same time.

  Mat stood there. He was fighting against himself, a dozen different men wearing his face, all dressed in different types of fine clothing. Mat spun his spear, and never saw the shadowy figure creeping behind him, bearing a bloody knife.

  "Mat!" Perrin cried, but he knew it was meaningless. This thing he was seeing, it was some kind of dream or vision of the future. It had been some time since he'd seen one of these. He'd almost begun to think they would stop coming.

  He turned away and another darkness opened in the sky. He saw sheep, suddenly, running in a flock toward the woods. Wolves chased them, and a terrible beast waited in the woods, unseen. He was there, in that dream, he sensed. But who was he chasing, and why? Something looked wrong with those wolves.

  A third darkness, to the side. Faile, Grady, Elyas, Gaul ... all walked toward a cliff, followed by thousands of others.

  The vision closed. Hopper suddenly shot back through the air, landing beside Perrin, skidding to a stop. The wolf wouldn't have seen the holes; they had never appeared to his eyes. Instead, he regarded the burned patch with disdain and sent the image of Perrin, unkempt and bleary-eyed, his beard and hair untrimmed and his clothing disheveled. Perrin remembered the time; it had been during the early days of Faile's captivity.

  Had he really looked that bad? Light, but he seemed ragged. Almost like a beggar. Or . . . like Noam.

  "Stop trying to confuse me!" Perrin said. "I became that way because I was dedicated to finding Faile, not because I was giving in to the wolves!"

  The newest pups always blame the elders of the pack. Hopper bounded through the grasses again.

  What did that mean? The scents and images confused him. Growling,

  Perrin charged forward, leaving the clearing and reentering the grasses. Once again the stalks resisted him. It was like fighting against a current. Hopper shot on ahead.

  "Burn you, wait for me!" Perrin yelled.

  If we wait, we lose the prey. Run, Young Bull!

  Perrin gritted his teeth. Hopper was a speck in the distance now, almost to the trees. Perrin wanted to think on those visions, but there wasn't time. If he lost Hopper, he knew that he would not see him again this night. Fine, he thought with resignation.

  The land lurched around him, grasses speeding by in a flash. It was as if Perrin had leaped a hundred paces in one step. He stepped again, shooting forward. He left a faint blur behind him.

  The grasses parted for him. The wind blew in his face with a comfortable roar. That primal wolf inside of him sparked to wakefulness. Perrin reached the woods and slowed. Each step now took him a jump of only about ten feet. The other wolves were there, and they formed up and ran with him, excited.

  Two feet, Young Bull? Oak Dancer asked. She was a youthful female, her pelt so light as to be almost white, with a streak of black running along her right
side.

  He didn't answer, though he did allow himself to run with them through the trees. What had seemed like a small stand had become an expansive forest. Perrin moved past trunks and ferns, barely feeling the ground beneath his feet.

  This was the way to run. Powerful. Energetic. He loped over fallen logs, his jumps taking him so high that his hair brushed the bottoms of the branches. He landed smoothly. The forest was his. It belonged to him, and he understood it.

  His worries began to melt away. He allowed himself to accept things as they were, not as what he feared they might become. These wolves were his brothers and sisters. A running wolf in the real world was a masterwork of balance and control. Here where the rules of nature bent to their will they were far more. Wolves bounded to the sides and leaped off trees, nothing holding them to the ground. Some actually took to the branches, soaring from limb to limb.

  It was exhilarating. Had he ever felt so alive? So much a part of the world around him, yet master of it at the same time? The rough, regal leatherleafs were interspersed with yew and the occasional ornamented spicewood in full bloom. He threw himself into the air as he passed one of these, the wind of his passing pulling a storm of crimson blossoms from

  the branches. They surged around him in a swirling blur, caught in the currents, cradling him in their sweet scent.

  The wolves began to howl. To men, one howl was like another. To Perrin, each was distinct. These were the howls of pleasure, the initiation of a hunt.

  Wait. This is what I feared! I cannot let myself be trapped. I am a man, not a wolf.

  At that moment, however, he caught scent of a stag. A mighty animal, worthy prey. It had passed this way recently.

  Perrin tried to restrain himself, but anticipation proved too strong. He tore off down the game trail after the scent. The wolves, including Hopper, did not race ahead of him. They ran with him, their scents pleased as they let him take the lead.

  He was the herald, the point, the tip of the attack. The hunt roared behind him. It was as if he led the crashing waves of the ocean itself. But he was also holding them back.