When Darlin saw Aviendha, he waved her forward urgently. The serving man heaved a sigh, lowering the coat.

“I’d given up on them attacking tonight,” Darlin said, then glanced at the sky. “Or, well, this morning. The scout reports are so confused, I feel like I’ve been thrown into a coop full of crazed chickens and told to catch the one with a single black feather.”

“Those reports,” Aviendha said, “do they mention Aiel men, fighting for the Shadow? Possibly channeling?”

Darlin turned sharply. “It’s true?”

“Yes.”

“And the Trollocs are pushing with everything they have to force their way into the valley,” Darlin said. “If those Aiel Dreadlords start attacking our troops, we won’t stand a chance without you lot being there to hold them off.”

“We’re moving,” Aviendha said. “Send for Amys and Cadsuane to make gateways. But I warn you. I caught a Dreadlord sneaking around near your tent…”

Darlin paled. “Like Ituralde… Light, they didn’t touch me. I swear it. I…” He raised a hand to his head. “Who do we trust if we cannot trust our own minds?”

“We must make the dance of spears as simple as possible,” Aviendha said. “Go to Rhuarc, gather your leaders. Plan how you will face the Shadow together, do not let one man control the battle—and set your plans in place; do not allow them to be changed.”

“That could lead to disaster,” Darlin said. “If we don’t have flexibility…”

“What needs be changed?” Aviendha asked grimly. “We hold. With everything we have, we hold. We don’t pull back. We don’t try anything clever. We just hold.”

Darlin nodded. “I’ll send for gateways to put Maidens atop those slopes. They can take out those Trollocs shooting arrows down at our lads. Can you deal with the enemy channelers?”

“Yes.”

Aviendha returned to her group, then started to draw on their power. The more of the One Power you held, the harder it was to cut you off from the True Source. She intended to hold so much that no man could separate her from it.

Helplessness. She hated feeling helpless. She let the anger at what had been done to her rage inside of her, and led her group toward the nearest source of male channeling that Flinn could identify.

CHAPTER

34

Drifting

Rand stood in a place that was not.

A place outside of time, outside of the Pattern itself.

All around him spread a vast nothingness. Voracious and hungry, it longed to consume. He could actually see the Pattern. It looked like thousands upon thousands of twisting ribbons of light; they spun around him, above him, undulating and shimmering, twisting together. At least, that was how his mind chose to interpret it.

Everything that had ever been, everything that could be, everything that could have been… it all lay right there, before him.

Rand could not comprehend it. The blackness around it sucked on him, pulled him toward it. He reached out to the Pattern and somehow anchored himself in it, lest he be consumed.

That changed his focus. It locked him, slightly, into a time. The pattern before him rippled, and Rand watched it being woven. It was not actually the Pattern, he knew, but his mind saw it that way. Familiar, as it had been described, the threads of lives weaving together.

Rand anchored himself in reality again and moved with it. Time had meaning again, and he could not see ahead or behind. He still could see all places, like a man standing above a globe as it turned.

Rand faced the emptiness. “So,” he said into it. “This is where it will really happen. Moridin would have had me believe that a simple sword fight would decide this all.”

HE IS OF ME. BUT HIS EYES ARE SMALL.

“Yes,” Rand said. “I have noticed the same.”

SMALL TOOLS CAN BE EFFECTIVE. THE THINNEST OF KNIVES CAN STOP A HEART. HE HAS BROUGHT YOU HERE, ADVERSARY.

None of this had happened the last time, when Rand had worn the name of Lews Therin. He could only interpret that as a good sign.

Now the battle truly began. He looked into the nothingness and felt it welling up. Then, like a sudden storm, the Dark One brought all of his force against Rand.

Perrin fell back against a tree, gasping at the pain. Slayer’s arrow had impaled his shoulder, the arrowhead coming out his back. He didn’t dare pull it free, not with…

He wavered. Thoughts came lethargically. Where was he? He’d shifted away from Slayer as far as he could go, but… he didn’t recognize this place. The trees were odd-shaped on top, too leafy, of a variety he’d never before seen. The storm blew here, but far more weakly.

Perrin slipped and hit the ground with a grunt. His shoulder flared with pain. He rolled over, staring up at the sky. He’d broken the arrow when falling.

It’s… it’s the wolf dream. I can just make the arrow vanish.

He tried to gather the strength to do so, but was too weak. He found himself floating, and he sent outward, seeking for wolves. He found the minds of some, and they started, sending back surprise.

A two-legs who can talk? What is this? What are you?

His nature seemed to frighten them, and they pushed him out of their minds. How could they not know what he was? Wolves had long, long memories. Surely… surely…

Faile, he thought. So beautiful, so clever. I should go to her. I just need to… need to close this Waygate… and I can get back to the Two Rivers to her…

Perrin rolled over and crawled to his knees. Was that his blood on the ground? So much red. He blinked at it.

“Here you are,” a voice said.

Lanfear. He looked up at her, his vision blurry.

“So he defeated you,” she said, folding her arms. “Disappointing. I didn’t want to have to choose that one. I find you much more appealing, wolf.”

“Please,” he croaked.

“I’m tempted, though I shouldn’t be,” she said. “You’ve proven yourself weak.”

“I… I can beat him.” Suddenly, the shame of having failed in front of her crushed Perrin. When had he started worrying about what Lanfear thought of him? He couldn’t quite point to it.

She tapped one finger on her arm.

“Please…” Perrin said, raising a hand. “Please.”

“No,” she said, turning away. “I’ve learned the mistake of setting my heart on one who does not deserve it. Goodbye, wolf pup.”

She vanished, leaving Perrin on hands and knees in this strange place.

Faile, a piece of his mind said. Don’t worry about Lanfear. You have to go to Faile.

Yes… Yes, he could go to her, couldn’t he? Where was she? The Field of Merrilor. That was where he’d left her. It was where she would be. He shifted there, somehow gathering himself just enough to manage it. But of course she wasn’t there. He was in the wolf dream.

The portal Rand would send. It would be here. He just had to get to it. He needed… He needed…

He collapsed to the ground and rolled to his back. He felt himself drifting into the nothingness. His vision blackened as he stared up at the churning sky. At least… at least I was there for Rand, Perrin thought.

The wolves could hold Shayol Ghul on this side now, couldn’t they? They could keep Rand safe… They’d have to.

Faile poked a stick at their meager cook fire. Darkness had fallen, and the fire glowed with a faint red light. They hadn’t dared make it larger. Deadly things prowled the Blight. Trollocs were the least of the dangers here.

The air here smelled pungent, and Faile expected to find a rotting corpse behind every black-speckled shrub. The ground cracked when she stepped, dry earth crushing beneath her boots, as if rain had not been seen in centuries. As she sat in the camp, she saw a group of sickly green lights—like glowing insects in a swarm—passing in the distance, over a stand of silhouetted trees. She knew enough of the Blight to hold her breath until they passed. She did not know what they were, and did not want to know.

She h

ad led her group on a short hike to find this place for a camp. Along the way, one caravan worker had been killed by a twig, another by stepping in what looked like mud—but it had dissolved his leg. He’d gotten some of it on his face. He had thrashed and screamed as he died.

They’d had to forcibly gag him to keep the sounds from bringing other horrors.

The Blight. They couldn’t survive up here. A simple walk had killed two of their members, and Faile had some hundred people to try to protect. Guards from the Band, some members of Cha Faile and the wagon drivers and workers from her supply caravan. Eight of the wagons still worked, and they’d brought those to this camp, for now. They would probably be too conspicuous to take farther.

She wasn’t even certain they would survive this night. Light! Their only chance of rescue seemed to lie with the Aes Sedai. Would they notice what had happened and send help? It seemed a very faint hope, but she did not know about the One Power.

“All right,” Faile said softly to those who sat with her—Mandevwin, Aravine, Harnan, Setalle and Arrela of Cha Faile. “Let’s talk.”

The others looked hollow. Probably, like Faile, they had been frightened with stories of the Blight since childhood. The quick deaths in their party soon after entering this land had reinforced that. They knew how dangerous this place was. They kept jumping at every sound in the night.

“I will explain what I can,” Faile said, trying to divert them from the death all around. “During the bubble of evil, one of those crystals speared Berisha Sedai’s foot right as she made the gateway.”

“A wound?” Mandevwin asked from his place beside the fire. “Would that have been enough to make the gateway go awry? Truly, I know little of Aes Sedai business, nor have I wanted to. If one is distracted, is it possible to create an accidental opening to the wrong place?”

Setalle frowned, and the expression drew Faile’s attention. Setalle was neither nobility nor an officer. There was something about the woman, however… she projected authority and wisdom.

“You know something?” Faile asked her.

Setalle cleared her throat. “I know… some little about channeling. It was once an area of curiosity to me. Sometimes, if a weave is done incorrectly, it simply does nothing. Other times, the result is disastrous. I have not heard of a weave doing something like this, working but in the wrong way.”

“Well,” Harnan said, watching that darkness and shivering visibly, “the alternative is to think that she wanted to send us to the Blight.”

“Perhaps she was disoriented,” Faile said. “The pressure of the moment made her send us to the wrong place. I’ve been turned about before in a moment of tension and found myself running in the wrong direction. It could be like that.”

The others nodded, but again, Setalle looked concerned.

“What is it?” Faile prodded.

“Aes Sedai training is very extensive in relation to this type of situation,” Setalle said. “No woman reaches the level of Aes Sedai without learning how to channel under extreme pressure. There are specific… barriers a woman must clear in order to wear the ring.”

So, Faile thought, Setalle must have a relative who is Aes Sedai. Someone close, if they shared information so private. A sister, perhaps?

“Then do we assume that this is some kind of trap?” Aravine sounded confused. “That Berisha was some kind of Darkfriend? Surely the Shadow has greater things to misdirect than a simple supply train.”

Faile said nothing. The Horn was safe; the chest it was in now sat in her small tent nearby. They had circled the wagons, and had allowed only this one fire. The rest of the caravan slept, or tried to.

The still, too-silent air made Faile feel as if they were being watched by a thousand eyes. If the Shadow had planned a trap for her caravan, it meant the Shadow knew about the Horn. In that case, they were in very serious danger. More serious, even, than being in the Blight itself.

“No,” Setalle said. “No, Aravine is right. This could not have been an intentional trap. If the bubble of evil hadn’t come, we would never have burst through the opening without looking where it led. So far as we know, these bubbles are completely random.”

Unless Berisha was simply taking advantage of the circumstances, Faile thought. Also, there was the woman’s death. That wound in her stomach had not looked like one caused by the spikes. It had looked like a knife wound. As if someone had attacked Berisha once the Horn was through the gateway. To keep her from telling what she’d done?

Light, Faile thought. I am growing suspicious.

“So,” Harnan said, “what do we do?”

“That depends,” Faile said, looking toward Setalle. “Is there any way an Aes Sedai could tell where we’d been sent?”

Setalle hesitated, as if reluctant to reveal how much she knew. When she continued, however, she spoke with confidence. “Weaves leave behind a residue. So yes, an Aes Sedai could discover where we’d gone. The residue does not last long, however: a few days at most, for a powerful weave. And not all channelers can read residues—this is a rare talent.”

The way she spoke, so commanding and authoritative… the way she projected an immediate sense of being trustworthy. It wasn’t a relative, then,

Faile thought. This woman trained in the White Tower. Was she, perhaps, like Queen Morgase? Too weak in the One Power to become Aes Sedai?

“We will wait one day,” Faile said. “If nobody has come for us by then, we will head south and try to escape the Blight as quickly as possible.”

“I wonder how far north we are,” Harnan said, rubbing his chin. “I don’t fancy going over mountains to get back home.”

“You’d rather remain in the Blight?” Mandevwin asked. “Well, no,” Harnan said. “But it could take months to walk back to safety. Months traveling through the Blight itself…”

Light, Faile thought. Traveling months in a place where we’re lucky to have lost only two in one day. They’d never make it. Even without the wagons, the caravan would stand out in this landscape like a fresh wound on diseased skin. They’d be lucky to last another day or two.

She resisted the urge to glance back at the tent. What would happen if she didn’t bring it to Mat in time?

“There is another option,” Setalle said hesitantly.

Faile looked to her.

“That peak you see to the east of us,” Setalle said, speaking with obvious reluctance. “That is Shayol Ghul.”

Mandevwin whispered something quietly that Faile didn’t catch, squeezing his eyes shut. The others looked sick. Faile, however, caught Setalle’s implication.

“That is where the Dragon Reborn is making war against the Shadow,” Faile said. “One of our armies will be there. With channelers who could get us out.”

“Indeed,” Setalle said. “And the area just around Shayol Ghul is known as the Blasted Lands, lands that the horrors of the Blight are said to avoid.”

“Because it’s so terrible!” Arrela said. “If they don’t go there, it’s because they fear the Dark One himself!”

“The Dark One and his armies might have their attention on the fighting,” Faile said slowly, nodding her head. “We can’t survive long in the Blight—we’ll be dead before the week is out. But if the Blasted Lands are free of those horrors, and if we can reach our armies there…”

It seemed a far better hope—slim though it was—than trying to march for months in the most dangerous place in the world. She told the others she’d consider what to do and dismissed them.

Her advisors moved off to make their bedrolls, Mandevwin going to check the men on watch. Faile remained staring at the embers of the fire, feeling sick.

Someone did kill Berisha, she thought. I’m certain of it. The gateway’s location really could have been an accident. Accidents happened, even to Aes Sedai, no matter what Setalle thought. But if there was a Darkfriend in the caravan, one who had ducked through the opening and seen that it went to the Blight, they could have easily decided to kill B

erisha in order to leave the Horn and the caravan stranded.

“Setalle,” Faile said as the woman passed, “a word.”

Setalle sat down beside Faile, wearing a composed expression. “I know what you’re going to ask.”

“How long has it been,” Faile asked, “since you were in the White Tower?”

“It has been decades now.”

“Are you capable of making a gateway?”

Setalle laughed. “Child, I couldn’t light a candle. I was burned out in an accident. I haven’t held the One Power in over twenty-five years.”

“I see,” Faile said. “Thank you.”

Setalle moved off, and Faile found herself wondering. How truthful was her story? Setalle had been very helpful in their days together, and Faile couldn’t blame the woman for keeping secret her ties to the White Tower. In any other situation, Faile wouldn’t have given the woman’s story a moment of doubt.

However, there was no way out here to confirm what she said. If Setalle was Black Ajah in hiding, her story about being burned out could simply be that—a story. Perhaps she could still channel. Or perhaps she couldn’t, but had been stilled as a punishment. Could this woman be an escaped prisoner of the most dangerous type, an agent who had waited decades for the right moment to strike?

Setalle had been the one to suggest they go to Shayol Ghul. Was she seeking to bring the Horn to her master?

Feeling cold, Faile entered her tent as several members of Cha Faile set up watch around it. Faile wrapped herself in her bedroll. She knew that she was being overly suspicious. But how else was she to be, considering the circumstances?

Light, she thought. The Horn of Valere, lost in the Blight. A nightmare.

Aviendha knelt on one knee beside the smoldering corpse, holding her angreal—the turtle brooch that Elayne had given her. She breathed through her mouth as she gazed down on the man’s face.

There were a surprising number of these red-veils. Whatever their origins, they were not Aiel. They did not follow ji’e’toh. During the night’s fighting, she had seen two Maidens take a man captive. He had acted like gai’shain, but had then killed one from behind with a hidden knife.