As they reached the last tent and turned southward, Aviendha said, “Do you know why I study so hard?” Neither the cold nor running had made an impression on her voice.
Egwene was shivering so hard she could barely speak. “No. Why?”
“Because Bair and the others always point to you, and tell me how easily you learn, how you never have to have something explained twice. They say I ought to be more like you.” She gave Egwene a sidelong glance, and Egwene found herself sharing a giggle as they ran. “That is part of the reason. The things I am learning to do . . .” Aviendha shook her head, wonderment plain even by moonlight. “And the Power itself. I have never felt like that. So alive. I can smell the faintest scent, feel the slightest stir in the air.”
“It is dangerous to hold on too long or too much,” Egwene said. Running did seem to warm her a little, though now and again a shudder ran through her. “I’ve told you that, and I know the Wise Ones have, too.”
Aviendha merely sniffed. “Do you think I would stab my own foot with a spear?”
For a time they ran in silence.
“Did Rand really . . . ?” Egwene said finally. The cold had nothing to do with her difficulty getting the words out; in fact, she was beginning to sweat again. “I mean . . . Isendre?” She could not make herself say it clearer than that.
At last Aviendha said slowly, “I do not think that he did.” She sounded angry. “But why would she ignore switchings if he has shown no interest in her? She is a milk-hearted wetlander who waits for men to come to her. I saw how he looked at her, though he tried to hide it. He enjoyed looking at her.”
Egwene wondered if her friend ever thought of her as a milk-hearted wetlander. Probably not, or they would not be friends. But Aviendha had never learned to worry if what she said might hurt someone; she would probably be surprised to learn that Egwene could even think of being hurt.
“The way the Maidens make her dress,” Egwene admitted reluctantly, “any man would look.” Reminded that she herself was in the open without any clothes, she stumbled and almost fell as she looked around anxiously. The night was empty as far as she could make out. Even the Wise Ones were already back in their tents. Warm in their blankets. She was sweating, but the beads seemed to want to freeze as soon as they appeared.
“He belongs to Elayne,” Aviendha said fiercely.
“I admit I don’t know your customs fully, but ours are not the same as yours. He is not betrothed to Elayne.” Why am I defending him? He’s the one who ought to be switched! But honesty made her go on. “Even your Aielmen have the right to say no, if they’re asked.”
“You and she are near-sisters, as you and I are,” Aviendha protested, slowing a step before picking it up again. “Did you not ask me to look after him for her? Do you not want her to have him?”
“Of course I do. If he wants her.” That was not exactly true. She wanted Elayne to have what happiness she could, in love with the Dragon Reborn as she was, and she would do everything short of tying Rand hand and foot to see that Elayne got what she wanted. Maybe not far short, at that, if need be. Admitting it was another thing. Aielwomen were far more forward than she could ever make herself be. “It would not be right, otherwise.”
“He belongs to her,” Aviendha said determinedly.
Egwene sighed. Aviendha simply did not want to understand any customs but her own. The Aiel woman was still shocked that Elayne would not ask Rand to marry her, that a man could ask that question. “I’m sure the Wise Ones will listen to reason tomorrow. They can’t make you sleep in a man’s bedchamber.”
The other woman looked at her in clear surprise. For a moment her grace left her, and she stubbed a toe on the uneven ground; the mishap brought a few curses that would have made even Kadere’s wagon drivers listen with interest—and made Bair reach for the bluespine—but she did not stop running. “I do not understand why that upsets you so,” she said when the last curse died. “I have slept next to a man many times on raids, even sharing blankets for warmth if the night was very cold, but it disturbs you that I will sleep within ten feet of him. Is this part of your customs? I have noticed you will not bathe in the sweat tent with men. Do you not trust Rand al’Thor? Or is it me you do not trust?” Her voice had sunk to a concerned whisper by the end.
“Of course I trust you,” Egwene protested heatedly. “And him. It’s just that . . .” She trailed off, uncertain how to go on. Aiel notions of propriety were sometimes stricter than what she had grown up with, but in other ways they would have had the Women’s Circle back home trying to decide whether to faint or reach for a stou
t stick. “Aviendha, if your honor is involved somehow . . .” This was touchy ground. “Surely if you explain to the Wise Ones, they will not make you go against your honor.”
“There is nothing to explain,” the other woman said flatly.
“I know I don’t understand ji’e’toh . . .” Egwene began, and Aviendha laughed.
“You say you do not understand, Aes Sedai, yet you show that you live by it.” Egwene regretted maintaining that lie with her—it had been hard work to get Aviendha to call her simply Egwene, and sometimes she slipped back—but it had to be kept with everyone if it was to hold with anyone. “You are Aes Sedai, and strong enough in the Power to overcome Amys and Melaine together,” Aviendha continued, “but you said that you would obey, so you scrub pots when they say scrub pots, and you run when they say run. You may not know ji’e’toh, but you follow it.”
It was not the same thing at all, of course. She gritted her teeth and did as she was told because that was the only way to learn dreamwalking, and she wanted to learn, to learn everything, more than anything else she could imagine. To even think that she could live by this foolish ji’e’toh was simply silly. She did what she had to do, and only when and because she had to.
They were coming back to where they had begun. As her foot hit the spot, Egwene said, “That’s one,” and ran on through the darkness with no one to see but Aviendha, no one to say whether she went back to her tent right then. Aviendha would not have told, but it never occurred to Egwene to stop short of the fifty.
CHAPTER
6
Gateways
Rand woke in total darkness and lay there beneath his blankets trying to think of what had wakened him. It had been something. Not the dream; he had been teaching Aviendha how to swim, in a pond in the Waterwood back home in the Two Rivers. Something else. Then it came again, like a faint whiff of a foul miasma creeping under the door. Not a smell at all, really; a sense of otherness, but that was how it felt. Rank, like something dead a week in stagnant water. It faded again, but not all the way this time.
Tossing aside his blankets, he stood up, wrapping himself in saidin. Inside the Void, filled with the Power, he could feel his body shiver, but the cold seemed in another place from where he was. Cautiously he pulled open the door and stepped out. Arched windows at either end of the corridor let in falls of moonlight. After the pitch black of his room, it was nearly like day. Nothing moved, but he could feel . . . something . . . coming closer. Something evil. It felt like the taint that roared through him on the Power.
One hand went to his coat pocket, to the small carved figure of a round little man holding a sword across his knees. An angreal; with that he could channel more of the Power than even he could safely handle unaided. He thought it would not be necessary. Whoever had sent this attack against him did not know who they were dealing with, now. They should never have let him wake.