Snuffing the lamps, he crawled onto his pallet in the dark, still booted and fully dressed, and fumbled around until he had pulled all of the blankets over him. Without the fire, he suspected he really would be grateful to Aviendha before morning. Setting the wards of Spirit that shielded his dreams from intrusion was almost automatic to him now, but even as he did it, he chuckled to himself. He could have gotten into bed and then put out the lamps, with the Power. It was the simple things that he never thought of doing with the Power.
For a time he lay waiting for his body’s heat to warm the inside of the blankets. How the same place could be so hot by day and so cold by night was beyond him. Sticking one hand under his coat, he fingered the half-healed scar on his side. That wound, the one that Moiraine could never completely Heal, was what would kill him, eventually. He was sure of it. His blood on the rocks of Shayol Ghul. That was what the Prophecies said.
Not tonight. I won’t think of that tonight. I have a little time yet. But if the seals can be shaved with a knife, now, do they still hold as strongly . . . ? No. Not tonight.
The inside of the blankets was becoming a little warmer, and he shifted around, trying and failing to find a comfortable way to lie. I should have washed, he thought drowsily. Egwene was probably in a warm sweat tent right that minute. Half the time he used one, a fistful of Maidens tried to come in with him—and nearly rolled on the ground laughing when he insisted on them staying outside. It was bad enough having to undress and dress in the steam.
Sleep finally came, and with it, safely protected dreams, safe from the Wise Ones or anyone else. Not protected from his own thoughts, though. Three women invaded them continually. Not Isendre, except in a brief nightmare that nearly woke him. By turns he dreamed of Elayne, and Min, and Aviendha, by turns and together. Only Elayne had ever looked at him as a man, but all three saw him as who he was, not what he was. Aside from the nightmare, they were all pleasant dreams.
CHAPTER
5
Among the Wise Ones
Standing as close as she could to the small fire in the middle of the tent, Egwene still shivered as she poured water from the generous teakettle into a wide, blue-striped bowl. She had lowered the sides of the tent, but cold seeped through the colorful layered rugs covering the ground, and all the fire’s heat seemed to rush up and out of the smoke hole in the middle of the tent roof, leaving only the smell of the burning cow dung. Her teeth wanted to chatter.
Already the steam from the water was beginning to fade; she embraced saidar for a moment and channeled Fire to heat it more. Amys or Bair would probably have washed in it cold, though in fact they always took sweat baths. So I’m not as tough as they are. I did not grow up in the Waste. I don’t have to freeze to death and wash in cold water if I don’t want to. She still felt guilty as she lathered a cloth with a piece of lavender-scented soap bought from Hadnan Kadere. The Wise Ones had never asked her to do differently, but it still felt like cheating.
Letting go of the True Source made her sigh with remorse. Even trembling with cold, she laughed softly at her own foolishness. The wonder of being filled with the Power, the wondrous rush of life and awareness, was its own danger. The more you drew on saidar, the more you wanted to draw, and without self-discipline you eventually drew more than you could handle and either died or stilled yourself. And that was nothing to laugh at.
That’s one of your biggest faults, she lectured herself firmly. You always want to do more than you’re supposed to. You ought to wash in cold water; that would teach you self-discipline. Only there was so much to learn, and it sometimes seemed a lifetime would be too short to learn it. Her teachers were always so cautious, whether Wise Ones or Aes Sedai in the Tower; it was hard to hold back when she knew that in so many ways she already outstripped them. I can do more than they realize.
A blast of freezing air hit her, swirling smoke from the fire about the tent, and a woman’s voice said, “If it pleases you—”
Egwene jumped, yelping shrilly before managing to get out, “Shut that!” She hugged herself to stop from capering. “Get in or get out, but shut it!” All that effort to be warm, and now she was icy goose bumps from head to toe!
The white-robed woman shuffled into the tent on her knees and let the tent flap drop. She kept her eyes downcast, her hands folded meekly; she would have done the same if Egwene had hit her instead of just shouting. “If it pleases you,” she said softly, “the Wise One Amys sent me to bring you to the sweat tent.”
Wishing she could stand on top of the fire, Egwene groaned. The Light burn Bair and her stubbornness! If not for the white-haired old Wise One, they could be in rooms in the city instead of tents on the edge of it. I could have a room with a proper fireplace. And a door. She was willing to bet that Rand did not have to put up with people wandering in on him whenever they wanted. Rand bloody Dragon al’Thor snaps his fingers, and the Maidens jump like serving girls. I’ll wager they’ve found him a real bed, instead of a pallet on the ground. She was sure that he got a hot bath every night. The Maidens probably haul buckets of hot water up to his rooms. I’ll bet they even found him a proper copper bathtub.
Amys, and even Melaine, had been amenable to Egwene’s suggestion, but Bair had put her foot down, and they acquiesced like gai’shain. Egwene supposed that with Rand bringing so much change, Bair wanted to hold on to as much of the old ways as she could, but she wished the woman could have chosen something else to be intractable over.
There was no thought of refusing. She had promised the Wise Ones to forget that she was Aes Sedai—the easy part, since she was not—and do exactly as she was told. That was the hard part; she had been away from the Tower long enough to become her own mistress again. But Amys had told her flatly that dreamwalking was dangerous even after you knew what you were about and far more so until then. If she would not obey in the waking world, they could not trust her to obey in the dream, and they would not take the responsibility. So she did chores right along with Aviendha, accepted chastisement with as good a grace as she could muster, and hopped whenever Amys or Melaine or Bair said frog. In a manner of speaking. None of them had ever seen a frog. Not that they’ll want anything but for me to hand them their tea. No, it would be Aviendha’s turn to do that tonight.
For a moment she considered donning stockings, but finally just bent to slip on her shoes. Sturdy shoes, suitable for the Waste; she rather regretted the silk slippers she had worn in Tear. “What is your name?” she asked, trying to be companionable.
“Cowinde” was the docile reply.
Egwene sighed. She kept trying to be friends with the gai’shain, but they never responded. Servants were one thing she had not had a chance to get used to, though of course gai’shain were not precisely servants. “You were a Maiden?”
A quick, fierce flash of deep blue eyes told her that her guess was correct, but just as quickly they lowered again. “I am gai’shain. Before and after are not now, and only now exists.”
“What is your sept and clan?” Usually there was no need to ask, not even with gai’shain.
“I serve the Wise One Melaine of the Jhirad sept, of the Goshien Aiel.”
Trying to choose between two cloaks, a stout brown woolen and a blue quilted silk she had purchased from Kadere—the merchant had sold everything in his wagons to make room for Moiraine’s freight, and at very good prices—Egwene paused to frown at the woman. That was no proper response. She had heard that a form of the bleakness had taken some gai’shain; when their year and a day was done, they simply refused to put off the robe. “When is your time up?” she asked.
Cowinde crouched lower, almost huddling over her knees. “I am gai’shain.”
“But when will you be able to return to your sept, to your own hold?”
“I am gai’shain,” the woman hoarsely told the rugs in front of her face. “If the answer displeases, punish me, but I can give no other.”
“Don’t be silly,” Egwene said sharply. “And straighten u
p. You aren’t a toad.”
The white-robed woman obeyed immediately and sat there on her heels, submissively awaiting another command. That brief flare of spirit might as well never have been.
Egwene took a deep breath. The woman had made her own accommodation with the bleakness. A foolish one, but nothing she could say would change it. Anyway, she was supposed to be on her way to the sweat tent, not talking with Cowinde.
Remembering that cold draft, she hesitated. The icy gust had made two large white blossoms, resting in a shallow bowl, curl partway closed. They came from a plant called a segade, a fat, leafless, leathery thing that bristled with spines. She had come on Aviendha looking at them in her hands that morning; the Aiel woman had given a start when she saw her, then pushed them into Egwene’s hands, saying she had picked them for her. She supposed there was enough of the Maiden left in Aviendha that she did not want to admit liking flowers. Though come to think of it, she had seen the occasional Maiden wearing a blossom in her hair or on her coat.
You are just trying to put it off, Egwene al’Vere. Now stop being a silly woolhead! You are being as foolish as Cowinde. “Lead the way,” she said, and just had time to swing the woolen cloak around her nakedness before the woman swept open the tent flap for her, and for the bone-chilling night.
Overhead, the stars were crisp points in the darkness, and the three-quarter moon was bright. The Wise Ones’ camp was a cluster of two dozen low mounds, not a hundred paces from where one of Rhuidean’s paved streets ended in hard, cracked clay and stones. Moonshadows turned the city into strange cliffs and crags. Every tent had its flaps down, and the smells of fires and cooking blended to fill the air.
The other Wise Ones came here for almost daily gatherings, but they spent nights with their own septs. Several even slept in Rhuidean now. But not Bair. This was as close to the city as Bair had been willing to come; if Rand had not been there, doubtless she would have insisted on making camp in the mountains.
Egwene held the cloak tight with both hands and walked as fast as she could. Icy tendrils curled under the cloak’s bottom, swept in every time her bare legs kicked a gap open. Cowinde had to pull her white robes to her knees in order to keep ahead. Egwene did not need the gai’shain’s guidance, but since the woman had been sent to bring her, she would be shamed and maybe offended if not allowed to. Clenching her teeth to keep them from chattering, Egwene wished the woman would run.
The sweat tent looked like any other, low and wide, with the flaps lowered all around, except that the smoke hole had been covered. Nearby a fire had burned down to glowing embers scattered over a few rocks the size of a man’s head. There was not enough light to define the much smaller shadowed mound beside the tent entrance, but she knew it was neatly folded women’s clothes.
Taking one deep, chilling breath, she hurriedly scuffed off her shoes, let her cloak drop, and all but dove into the tent. An instant of shuddering cold before the flap fell shut behind her, then steamy heat clamped down, squeezing out sweat that covered her in an instant sheen while she was still gasping and shaking.
The three Wise Ones who were teaching her about dreamwalking sat sweating unconcernedly, their waist-length hair hanging damply. Bair was talking to Melaine, whose green-eyed beauty and red-gold hair made a sharp contrast to the older woman’s leathery face and long white tresses. Amys was white-haired, too—or perhaps it was just so pale a yellow that it seemed white—but she did not look old. She and Melaine could both channel—not many Wise Ones could—and she had something of the Aes Sedai look of agelessness about her. Moiraine, seeming slight and small beside the others, also looked unruffled, although sweat rolled down her pale nudity and slicked her dark hair to her scalp, with a regal refusal to acknowledge that she had no clothes on. The Wise Ones were using slim, curved pieces of bronze, called staera, to scrape off sweat and the day’s dirt.
Aviendha was squatting sweatily beside the big black kettle of hot, sooty rocks in the middle of the tent, carefully using a pair of tongs to move a last stone from a smaller kettle to the larger. That done, she sprinkled water onto the rocks from a gourd, adding to the steam. If she let the steam fall too far, she would be spoken to sharply at the very least. The next time the Wise Ones met in the sweat tent, it would be Egwene’s turn to tend the rocks.
Egwene cautiously sat down cross-legged next to Bair—instead of layered rugs, there was only rocky ground, unpleasantly hot, lumpy and damp—and realized with a shock that Aviendha had been switched, and recently. When the Aiel woman gingerly took her own place, beside Egwene, she did so with a face as stony as the ground, but a face that could not hide her flinch.
This was something Egwene did not expect. The Wise Ones exacted a hard discipline—harder even than the Tower, which took some doing—but Aviendha worked at learning to channel with a grim determination. She could not dreamwalk, but she surely put as much effort into absorbing every art of a Wise One as she could ever have put into learning her weapons as a Maiden. Of course, after she confessed to letting Rand know about the Wise Ones watching his dreams, they had made her spend three days digging shoulder-deep holes and filling them in again, but that was one of the few times Aviendha had ever seemed to put a foot wrong. Amys and the other two had held her up to Egwene so often as a model of meek obedience and proper fortitude that sometimes Egwene wanted to shriek, even if Aviendha was a friend.
“You took long enough in coming,” Bair said grumpily, while Egwene was still gingerly searching for a comfortable seat. Her voice was thin and reedy, but a reed of iron. She continued to scrape her arms with a staera.
“I am sorry,” Egwene said. There; that should be meek enough.
Bair sniffed. “You are Aes Sedai beyond the Dragonwall, but here you are yet a pupil, and a pupil does not dally. When I send for Aviendha, or send her for something, she runs, even if all I want is a pin. You could do much worse than to pattern yourself after her.”
Flushing, Egwene tried to make her voice humble. “I will try, Bair.” This was the first time a Wise One had made the comparison in front of others. She sneaked a glance at Aviendha and was surprised to find her looking thoughtful. Sometimes she wished her “near-sister” were not always such a good example.
“The girl will learn, Bair, or she will not,” Melaine said irritably. “Instruct her in promptness later, if she still needs it.” No more than ten or twelve years older than Aviendha, she usually sounded as if she had a burr under her skirts. Maybe she was sitting on a sharp rock. She would not move if she was; she would expect the rock to move. “I tell you again, Moiraine Sedai, the Aiel follow He Who Comes With the Dawn, not the White Tower.”
Obviously, Egwene was meant to pick up what they were talking about as they went on.
“It may be,” Amys said in a level voice, “that the Aiel will serve the Aes Sedai again, but that time has not come yet, Moiraine Sedai.” Her scraping barely paused as she eyed the Aes Sedai calmly.
It would come, Egwene knew, now that Moiraine was aware that some of the Wise Ones could channel. Aes Sedai would be journeying into the Waste to find girls who could be taught, and would almost certainly be trying to take any Wise One with the ability back to the Tower, too. Once she had worried about the Wise Ones being browbeaten and dominated, hauled away whenever they wanted; Aes Sedai never let any woman who could channel run free of the Tower for long. She did not worry anymore, though the Wise Ones themselves seemed to. Amys and Melaine could match any Aes Sedai will for will, as they showed every day with Moiraine. Bair could very likely make even Siuan Sanche jump through hoops, and Bair could not even channel.
For that matter, Bair was not the strongest-willed Wise One. That honor went to an even older woman, Sorilea, of the Jarra sept of the Chareen Aiel. The Wise One of Shende Hold could channel less than most novices, but she was as likely to send another Wise One on an errand as a gai’shain. And they went. No, there was no reason to distress herself over Wise Ones being bullied.
“It is und
erstandable that you wish to spare your lands,” Bair put in, “but Rand al’Thor obviously does not mean to lead us to punish. No one who submits to He Who Comes With the Dawn, and the Aiel, will be harmed.” So that was it. Of course.
“It is not only sparing lives or lands that concerns me.” Moiraine made wiping sweat from her brow with one finger into a queenly gesture, but her voice sounded nearly as tight as Melaine’s. “If you allow this, it will be disastrous. Years of planning are coming to fruition, and he means to ruin it all.”
“Plans of the White Tower,” Amys said, so smoothly she might have been agreeing. “Those plans have nothing to do with us. We, and the other Wise Ones, must consider what is right for the Aiel. We will see that the Aiel do what is best for the Aiel.”
Egwene wondered what the clan chiefs would say about that. Of course, they frequently complained that the Wise Ones meddled in matters that were not theirs, so perhaps it would not come as a surprise. The chiefs all seemed to be hard-willed, intelligent men, but she believed they had as much chance against the combined Wise Ones as the Village Council back home did against the Women’s Circle.
This time, though, Moiraine was right.
“If Rand—” she began, but Bair stepped on her firmly.
“We will hear what you have to say later, girl. Your knowledge of Rand al’Thor is valuable, but you will hold your peace and listen until you are bidden to speak. And stop looking sullen, or I will dose you with bluespine tea.”
Egwene grimaced. Respect for the Aes Sedai, though a respect between equals, included but little for the pupil, even one they believed was Aes Sedai. She kept her tongue still, in any case. Bair was capable of sending her to fetch her herb pouches and telling her to brew the incredibly bitter tea herself; it had no purpose at all except to cure sullenness or sulkiness or whatever else a Wise One might find disfavor with, which it did by taste alone. Aviendha gave her a comforting pat on the arm.