Amys seemed to have dismissed him already. “There is one who came with you, Rhuarc,” she said. Egwene expected the woman to speak to her, but Amys’s eyes swept straight to Rand. Moiraine was obviously not surprised. Egwene wondered what had been in that letter from these four Wise Ones that the Aes Sedai had not revealed.

Rand looked taken aback for a moment, hesitating, but then he strode up the slope to stand near Rhuarc at eye level to the women. Sweat plastered his white shirt to his body and made darker patches on his breeches. With a twisted white cloth tied around his head, he certainly did not look so grand as he had in the Heart of the Stone. He made an odd bow, left foot advanced, left hand on knee, right hand outstretched palm upward.

“By the right of blood,” he said, “I ask leave to enter Rhuidean, for the honor of our ancestors and the memory of what was.”

Amys blinked in evident surprise, and Bair murmured, “An ancient form, but the question has been asked. I answer yes.”

“I also answer yes, Bair,” Amys said. “Seana?”

“This man is no Aiel,” Couladin broke in angrily. Egwene suspected he was very nearly always angry. “It is death for him to be on this ground! Why has Rhuarc brought him? Why—?”

“Do you wish to be a Wise One, Couladin?” Bair asked, a frown deepening the creases on her face. “Put on a dress and come to me, and I will see if you can be trained. Until then, be silent when Wise Ones speak!”

“My mother was Aiel,” Rand said in a strained voice.

Egwene stared at him. Kari al’Thor had died while Egwene was barely out of her cradle, but if Tam’s wife had been Aiel, Egwene would certainly have heard of it. She glanced at Moiraine; the Aes Sedai was watching, smooth-faced, calm. Rand did look a great deal like the Aielmen, with his height and gray-blue eyes and reddish hair, but this was ridiculous.

“Not your mother,” Amys said slowly. “Your father.” Egwene shook her head. This approached madness. Rand opened his mouth, but Amys did not let him speak. “Seana, how do you say?”

“Yes,” the woman with gray-streaked hair said. “Melaine?”

The last of the four, a handsome woman with golden-red hair, no more than ten or fifteen years older than Egwene, hesitated. “It must be done,” she said finally, and unwillingly. “I answer yes.”

“You have been answered,” Amys told Rand. “You may go into Rhuidean, and—” She cut off as Mat scrambled up to copy Rand’s bow awkwardly.

“I also ask to enter Rhuidean,” he said shakily.

The four Wise Ones stared at him. Rand’s head whipped around in surprise. Egwene thought no one could be more shocked than she was, but Couladin proved her wrong. Lifting one of his spears with a snarl, he stabbed at Mat’s chest.

The glow of saidar surrounded Amys and Melaine, and flows of Air lifted the fiery-haired man and flung him back a dozen paces.

Egwene stared, wide-eyed. They could channel. At least, two of them could. Suddenly Amys’s youthfully smooth features beneath that white hair leaped out at her for what they were, something very close to Aes Sedai agelessness. Moiraine was absolutely still. Egwene could almost hear her thoughts buzzing, though. This was plainly as much of a surprise to the Aes Sedai as to herself.

Couladin scrambled to his feet in a crouch. “You accept this outlander as one of us,” he rasped, pointing at Rand with the spear he had attempted to use on Mat. “If you say it, then so be it. He is still a soft wetlander, and Rhuidean will kill him.” The spear swung to Mat, who was trying to slip a knife back up his sleeve without being noticed. “But he—it is death for him to be here, and sacrilege for him to even ask to enter Rhuidean. None but those of the blood may enter. None!”

“Go back to your tents, Couladin,” Melaine said coldly. “And you, Heirn. And you, as well, Rhuarc. This is business of Wise Ones, and none of men save those who have asked. Go!” Rhuarc and Heirn nodded and walked away toward the smaller set of tents, talking together. Couladin glared at Rand and Mat, and at the Wise Ones, before jerking around and stalking off toward the larger camp.

The Wise Ones exchanged glances. Troubled glances, Egwene would have said, though they were almost as good as Aes Sedai at keeping their faces blank when they wanted to.

“It is not permitted,” Amys said finally. “Young man, you do not know what you have done. Go back with the others.” Her eyes brushed across Egwene and Moiraine and Lan, standing alone now with the horses near the wind-scoured Portal Stone. Egwene could not find any recognition for her in that glance.

“I can’t.” Mat sounded desperate. “I’ve come this far, but this doesn’t count, does it? I have to go to Rhuidean.”

“It is not permitted,” Melaine said sharply, her long red-gold hair swinging as she shook her head. “You have no Aiel blood in your veins.”

Rand had been studying Mat all this time. “He comes with me,” he said suddenly. “You gave me permission, and he can come with me whether you say he can or not.” He stared back at the Wise Ones, not defiantly, merely determined, set in his mind. Egwene knew him like this; he would not back down whatever they said.

“It is not permitted,” Melaine said firmly, addressing her sisters. She pulled her shawl up to cover her head. “The law is clear. No woman may go to Rhuidean more than twice, no man more than once, and none at all save they have the blood of Aiel.”

Seana shook her head. “Much is changing, Melaine. The old ways … .”

“If he is the one,” Bair said, “the Time of Change is upon us. Aes Sedai stand on Chaendaer, and Aan’allein with his shifting cloak. Can we hold to the old ways still? Knowing how much is to change?”

“We cannot hold,” Amys said. “All stands on the edge of change, now. Melaine?” The golden-haired woman looked at the mountains around them, and the fog-shrouded city below, then sighed and nodded. “It is done,” Amys said, turning to Rand and Mat. “You,” she began, then paused. “By what name do you call yourself?”

“Rand al’Thor.”

“Mat. Mat Cauthon.”

Amys nodded. “You, Rand al’Thor, must go into the heart of Rhuidean, to the very center. If you wish to go with him, Mat Cauthon, so be it, but know that most men who enter Rhuidean’s heart do not come back, and some return mad. You may carry neither food nor water, in remembrance of our wanderings after the Breaking. You must go to Rhuidean unarmed, save with your hands and your own heart, to honor the Jenn. If you have weapons, place them on the ground before us. They will be here for you when you return. If you return.”

Rand unsheathed his belt knife and laid it at Amys’s feet, then after a moment added the green stone carving of the round little man. “That is the best I can do,” he said.

Mat began with his belt knife and kept right on, pulling knives from his sleeves and under his coat, even one from down the back of his neck, fashioning a pile that seemed to impress even the Aiel women. He made as if to stop, looked at the women, then took two more from each boot top. “I forgot them,” he said with a grin and shrug. The Wise Ones’ unblinking looks wiped his grin away.

“They are pledged to Rhuidean,” Amys said formally, looking over the men’s heads, and the other three responded together, “Rhuidean belongs to the dead.”

“They may not speak to the living until they return,” she intoned, and again the others answered. “The dead do not speak to the living.”

“We do not see them, until they stand among the living once more.” Amys drew her shawl across her eyes, and one by one the other three did the same. Faces hidden, they spoke in unison. “Begone from among the living, and do not haunt us with memories of what is lost. Speak not of what the dead see.” Silent then, they stood there, holding their shawls up, waiting.

Rand and Mat looked at one another. Egwene wanted to go to them, to speak to them—they wore the fixed too-steady faces of men who did not want anyone to know they were uneasy or afraid—but that might break the ceremony.

Finally Mat barked a laugh. “Well, I suppose the dea

d can talk to each other, at least. I wonder if this counts for … . No matter. Do you suppose it’s all right if we ride?”

“I don’t think so,” Rand said. “I think we have to walk.”

“Oh, burn my aching feet. We might as well get on with it then. It’ll take half the afternoon just to get there. If we’re lucky.”

Rand gave Egwene a reassuring smile as they started down the mountain, as if to convince her there was no danger, nothing untoward. Mat’s grin was the sort he wore when doing something particularly foolish, like trying to dance on the peak of a roof.

“You aren’t going to do anything … crazy … are you?” Mat said. “I mean to come back alive.”

“So do I,” Rand replied. “So do I.”

They passed from hearing, growing smaller and smaller as they descended. When they had dwindled to tiny shapes, barely distinguishable as people, the Wise Ones lowered their shawls.

Straightening her dress, and wishing she were not so sweaty, Egwene climbed the short distance to them leading Mist. “Amys? I am Egwene al’Vere. You said I should—”

Amys cut her off with a raised hand, and looked to where Lan was leading Mandarb and Pips and Jeade’en, behind Moiraine and Aldieb. “This is women’s business, now, Aan’allein. You must stand aside. Go to the tents. Rhuarc will offer you water and shade.”

Lan waited for Moiraine’s slight nod before bowing and walking off in the direction Rhuarc had gone. The shifting cloak hanging down his back sometimes gave him the appearance of a disembodied head and arms floating across the ground ahead of the three horses.

“Why do you call him that?” Moiraine asked when he was out of earshot. “One Man. Do you know him?”

“We know of him, Aes Sedai.” Amys made the title sound an address between equals. “The last of the Malkieri. The man who will not give up his war against the Shadow though his nation is long destroyed by it. There is much honor in him. I knew from the dream that if you came, it was almost certain Aan’allein would as well, but I did not know he obeyed you.”

“He is my Warder,” Moiraine said simply.

Egwene thought the Aes Sedai was troubled despite her tone, and she knew why. Almost certain Lan would come with Moiraine? Lan always followed Moiraine; he would follow her into the Pit of Doom without blinking. Nearly as interesting to Egwene was “if you came.” Had the Wise Ones known they were coming or not? Perhaps interpreting the Dream was not as straightforward as she hoped. She was about to ask, when Bair spoke.

“Aviendha? Come here.”

Aviendha had been squatting disconsolately off to one side, arms wrapped around her knees, staring at the ground. She stood slowly. If Egwene had not known better, she would have thought the other woman was afraid. Aviendha’s feet dragged as she climbed to where the Wise Ones stood and set her bag and rolled wall hangings at her feet.

“It is time,” Bair said, not ungently. Still, there was no compromise in her pale blue eyes. “You have run with the spears as long as you can. Longer than you should have.”

Aviendha flung up her head defiantly. “I am a Maiden of the Spear. I do not want to be a Wise One. I will not be!”

The Wise Ones’ faces hardened. Egwene was reminded of the Women’s Circle back home confronting a woman who was heading off into some foolishness.

“You have already been treated more gently than it was in my day,” Amys said in a voice like stone. “I, too, refused when called. My spear sisters broke my spears before my eyes. They took me to Bair and Coedelin bound hand and foot and wearing only my skin.”

“And a pretty little doll tucked under your arm,” Bair said dryly, “to remind you how childish you were. As I remember, you ran away nine times in the first month.”

Amys nodded grimly. “And was made to blubber like a child for each of them. I only ran away five times the second month. I thought I was as strong and hard as a woman could be. I was not smart, though; it took me half a year to learn you were stronger and harder than I could ever be, Bair. Eventually I learned my duty, my obligation to the people. As you will, Aviendha. Such as you and I, we have that obligation. You are not a child. It is time to put away dolls—and spears—and become the woman you are meant to be.”

Abruptly, Egwene knew why she had felt such a kinship with Aviendha from the first, knew why Amys and the others meant her to be a Wise One. Aviendha could channel. Like herself, like Elayne and Nynaeve—and Moiraine, for that matter—she was one of those rare women who not only could be taught to channel, but who had the ability born in her, so she would touch the True Source eventually whether she knew what she was doing or not. Moiraine’s face was still, calm, but Egwene saw confirmation in her eyes. The Aes Sedai had surely known from the first time she came within arm’s reach of the Aiel woman. Egwene realized she could feel that same kinship with Amys and Melaine. Not with Bair or Seana, though. Only the first two could channel; she was sure of it. And now she could sense the same in Moiraine. It was the first time she had ever felt that. The Aes Sedai was a distant woman.

Some of the Wise Ones, at least, apparently saw more in Moiraine’s face. “You meant to take her to your White Tower,” Bair said, “to make her one of you. She is Aiel, Aes Sedai.”

“She can be very strong if she is trained properly,” Moiraine replied. “As strong as Egwene will be. In the Tower, she can reach that strength.”

“We can teach her as well, Aes Sedai.” Melaine’s voice was smooth enough, but contempt tinged her unwavering green-eyed stare. “Better. I have spoken with Aes Sedai. You coddle women in the Tower. The Three-fold Land is no place for coddling. Aviendha will learn what she can do while you would still have her playing games.”

Egwene gave Aviendha a concerned look; the other woman was staring at her feet, defiance gone. If they thought training in the Tower was coddling. … She had been worked harder and disciplined more strictly as a novice than ever before in her life. She felt a true pang of sympathy for the Aiel woman.

Amys held out her hands, and Aviendha reluctantly laid her spears and buckler in them, flinching when the Wise One threw them aside to clatter on the ground. Slowly Aviendha slid her cased bow from her back and surrendered it, unbuckled the belt holding her quiver and sheathed knife. Amys took each offering and tossed it away like rubbish; Aviendha gave a little jerk each time. A tear trembled at the corner of one blue-green eye.

“Do you have to treat her this way?” Egwene demanded angrily. Amys and the others turned flat stares on her, but she was not about to be intimidated. “You are treating things she cares about as trash.”

“She must see them as trash,” Seana said. “When she returns—if she returns—she will burn them and scatter the ashes. The metal she will give to a smith to make simple things. Not weapons. Not even a carving knife. Buckles, or pots, or puzzles for children. Things she will give away with her own hands when they are made.”

“The Three-fold Land is not soft, Aes Sedai,” Bair said. “Soft things die, here.”

“The cadin’sor, Aviendha.” Amys gestured to the discarded weapons. “Your new clothes will await your return.”

Mechanically, Aviendha stripped, tossing coat and breeches, soft boots, everything onto the pile. Naked, she stood without wriggling a toe, though Egwene thought her own feet would blister through her shoes. She remembered watching as the clothes she had worn to the White Tower were burned, a severing of ties to an earlier life, but it had not been like this. Not this stark.

When Aviendha started to add the sack and the wall hangings to the pile, Seana took them from her. “These you can have back. If you return. If not, they will go to your family, for remembrance.”

Aviendha nodded. She did not seem afraid. Reluctant, angry, even sullen, but not afraid.

“In Rhuidean,” Amys said, “you will find three rings, arranged so.” She drew three lines in the air, joining together in the middle. “Step through any one. You will see your future laid before you, again and again, in variation. They wil

l not guide you wholly, as is best, for they will fade together as do stories heard long ago, yet you will remember enough to know some things that must be, for you, despised as they may be, and some that must not, cherished hopes that they are. This is the beginning of being called wise. Some women never return from the rings; perhaps they could not face the future. Some who survive the rings do not survive their second trip to Rhuidean, to the heart. You are not giving up a hard and dangerous life for a softer, but for a harder and more dangerous.”

A ter’angreal. Amys was describing a ter’angreal. What kind of place was this Rhuidean? Egwene found herself wanting to go down there herself, to find out. That was foolish. She was not here to take unnecessary risks with ter’angreal she knew nothing about.

Melaine cupped Aviendha’s chin and turned the younger woman’s face to her. “You have the strength,” she said with quiet conviction. “A strong mind and a strong heart are your weapons now, but you hold them as surely as you ever held a spear. Remember them, use them, and they will see you through anything.”

Egwene was surprised. Of the four, she would have picked the sun-haired woman last to show compassion.

Aviendha nodded, and even managed a smile. “I will beat those men to Rhuidean. They cannot run.”

Each Wise One in turn kissed her lightly on each cheek, murmuring, “Come back to us.”

Catching Aviendha’s hand, Egwene squeezed it and got a squeeze in return. Then the Aiel woman was running down the mountainside in leaps. It seemed she might well catch up to Rand and Mat. Egwene watched her go worriedly. This was something like being raised to Accepted, it seemed, but without any novice training first, without anyone to give small comfort afterward. What would it have been like to be raised Accepted on her first day in the Tower? She thought she might have gone mad. Nynaeve had been raised so, because of her strength; she thought at least some of Nynaeve’s distaste for Aes Sedai came from what she had experienced then. Come back to us, she thought. Be steadfast.