The Shadow Rising (The Wheel of Time 4)

“It is the mercy of the rings that the memories fade,” Amys said. “A woman knows some things—a few—that will happen; others she will not recognize until the decision is upon her, if then. Life is uncertainty and struggle, choice and change; one who knew how her life was woven into the Pattern as well as she knew how a thread was laid into a carpet would have the life of an animal. If she did not go mad. Humankind is made for uncertainty, struggle, choice and change.”

Moiraine listened with no outward show of impatience, though Egwene suspected it was there; the Aes Sedai was used to lecturing, not being lectured. She was silent while Egwene helped her out of her dress, not speaking until she crouched naked at the edge of the carpets, peering down the mountainside toward the fog-shrouded city in the valley. Then she said, “Do not let Lan follow me. He will try, if he sees me.”

“It will be as it will be,” Bair replied. Her thin voice sounded cold and final.

After a moment, Moiraine gave a grudging nod and slipped out of the tent into the blazing sunlight. She began to run immediately, barefoot down the scorching slope.

Egwene grimaced. Rand and Mat, Aviendha, now Moiraine, all going into Rhuidean. “Will she … survive? If you dreamed of this, you must know.”

“There are some places one cannot enter in Tel’aran’rhiod,” Seana said. “Rhuidean. Ogier stedding. A few others. What happens there is shielded from a dreamwalker’s eyes.”

That was not an answer—they could have seen whether she came out of Rhuidean—but it was obviously all she was going to get. “Very we

ll. Should I go, too?” She did not relish the thought of experiencing the rings; it would be like being raised to Accepted again. But if everyone else was going … .

“Do not be foolish,” Amys said vigorously.

“We saw nothing of this for you,” Bair added in a milder tone. “We did not see you at all.”

“And I would not say yes if you asked,” Amys went on. “Four are required for permission, and I would say no. You are here to learn to dreamwalk.”

“In that case,” Egwene said, settling back on her cushion, “teach me. There must be something you can begin with before tonight.”

Melaine frowned at her, but Bair chuckled dryly. “She is as eager and impatient as you were once you decided to learn, Amys.”

Amys nodded. “I hope she can keep her eagerness and lose the impatience, for her sake. Hear me, Egwene. Though it will be hard, you must forget that you are Aes Sedai if you are to learn. You must listen, remember, and do as you are told. Above all, you must not enter Tel’aran’rhiod again until one of us says you may. Can you accept this?”

It would not be hard to forget she was Aes Sedai when she was not. For the rest, it sounded ominously like becoming a novice again. “I can accept it.” She hoped she did not sound doubtful.

“Good,” Bair said. “I will now tell you about dreamwalking and Tel’aran’rhiod, in a very general way. When I am done, you will repeat back to me what I have said. If you fail to touch all points, you will scrub the pots in place of the gai’shain tonight. If your memory is so poor that you cannot repeat what I say after a second hearing … . Well, we will discuss that when it happens. Attend.

“Almost anyone can touch Tel’aran’rhiod, but few can truly enter it. Of all the Wise Ones, we four alone can dreamwalk, and your Tower has not produced a dreamwalker in nearly five hundred years. It is not a thing of the One Power, though Aes Sedai believe it is. I cannot channel, nor can Seana, yet we dreamwalk as well as Amys or Melaine. Many people brush the World of Dreams in their sleep. Because they only brush against it, they wake with aches or pains where they should have broken bones or mortal hurts. A dreamwalker enters the dream fully, therefore her injuries are real on waking. For one who is fully in the dream, dreamwalker or not, death there is death here. To enter the dream too completely, though, is to lose touch with the flesh; there is no way back, and the flesh dies. It is said that once there were those who could enter the dream in the flesh, and no longer be in this world at all. This was an evil thing, for they did evil; it must never be attempted, even if you believe it possible for you, for each time you will lose some part of what makes you human. You must learn to enter Tel’aran’rhiod when you wish, to the degree you wish. You must learn to find what you need to find and read what you see, to enter the dreams of another close by in order to aid healing, to recognize those who are in the dream fully enough to harm you, to … .”

Egwene listened intently. It fascinated her, hinting at things she had never suspected were possible, but beyond that she had no intention of ending up scrubbing pots. It did not seem fair, somehow. Whatever Rand and Mat and the others faced in Rhuidean, they were not going to be sent off to scrub pots. And I agreed to it! It just was not fair. But then, she doubted they could get any more out of Rhuidean than she would from these women.

CHAPTER 24

Rhuidean

The smooth pebble in Mat’s mouth was not making moisture anymore, and had not been for some time. Spitting it out, he squatted beside Rand and stared at the billowing gray wall maybe thirty paces in front of them. Fog. He hoped at least it was cooler in there than out here. And some water would be appreciated. His lips were cracking. He pulled the scarf from around his head and wiped his face, but there was not much sweat to dampen the cloth. Not much sweat remained in him to come out. A place to sit down. His feet felt like cooked sausages inside his boots; he felt pretty well cooked all over, for that matter. The fog stretched left and right better than a mile and bulked over his head like a towering cliff. A cliff of thick mist in the middle of a barren blistered valley. There had to be water in there.

Why doesn’t it burn off? He did not like that part of it. Fooling with the Power had brought him here, and now it seemed he had to fool with it again. Light, I want free of the Power and Aes Sedai. Burn me, I do! Anything not to think of stepping into that fog, for just a minute more. “That was Egwene’s Aiel friend I saw running,” he croaked. Running! In this heat. Just thinking of it made his feet hurt worse. “Aviendha. Whatever her name is.”

“If you say so,” Rand said, studying the fog. He sounded as if he had a mouthful of dust, his face was sunburned, and he wavered unsteadily in his crouch. “But what would she be doing down here? And naked?”

Mat let it go. Rand had not seen her—he had hardly taken his eyes off the roiling mist since starting down the mountain—and he did not believe Mat had seen her either. Running like a madwoman and keeping wide of the two of them. Heading for this strange fog, it had seemed to him. Rand appeared no more eager to step into that than he was. He wondered whether he looked as bad as Rand did. Touching his cheek, he winced. He expected he did.

“Are we going to stay out here all night? This valley is pretty deep. It’ll be dark down here in another couple of hours. Might be cooler then, but I don’t think I would like to meet whatever runs around this place in the night. Lions, probably. I’ve heard there are lions in the Waste.”

“Are you sure you want to do this, Mat? You heard what the Wise Ones said. You can die in there, or go mad. You can make it back to the tents. You left waterbottles and a waterbag on Pips’s saddle.”

He wished Rand had not reminded him. Best not to think about water. “Burn me, no, I don’t want to. I have to. What about you? Isn’t being the bloody Dragon Reborn enough for you? Do you have to be a flaming Aiel clan chief, too? Why are you here?”

“I have to be, Mat. I have to be.” Resignation came through the parch in his voice, but something else, too. A hint of eagerness. The man really was mad; he wanted to do this.

“Rand, maybe that’s the answer they give everybody. Those snake people, I mean. Go to Rhuidean. Maybe we don’t have to be here at all.” He did not believe it, but with that fog staring him in the face … .

Rand turned his head to look at him, not speaking. Finally he said, “They never mentioned Rhuidean to me, Mat.”