The Shadow Rising (The Wheel of Time 4)

A stir ran through the men around Mandein. Most of them liked the Jenn claiming to be Aiel no better than he did. “Why have you called us here?” he demanded, though it burned his tongue to admit being summoned.

Instead of answering, Dermon said, “Why do you not carry a sword?” That brought angry mutters.

“It is forbidden,” Mandein growled. “Even Jenn should know that.” He lifted his spears, touched the knife at his waist, the bow on his back. “These are weapons enough for a warrior.” The mutters became approving, including some from men who had sworn to kill him. They still would, given the chance, but they approved of what he had said. And they seemed content to let him talk, with those Aes Sedai watching.

“You do not know why,” Mordaine said, and Narisse added, “There is too much you do not know. Yet you must know.”

“What do you want?” Mandein demanded.

“You.” Dermon ran his eyes across the Aiel, making that one word fit them all. “Whoever would lead among you must come to Rhuidean and learn where we came from, and why you do not carry swords. Who cannot learn, will not live.”

“Your Wise Ones have spoken to you,” Mordaine said, “or you would not be here. You know the cost to those who refuse.”

Charendin pushed his way to the front, alternately glaring at Mandein and the Jenn. Mandein had put that long puckered scar down his face; they had nearly killed each other three times. “Just come to you?” Charendin said. “Whichever of us comes to you will lead the Aiel?”

“No.” The word came thin as a whisper, but strong enough to fill every ear. It came from the dark-eyed Aes Sedai sitting in her carved chair with a blanket across her legs as if she felt cold under the broiling sun. “That one will come later,” she said. “The stone that never falls will fall to announce his coming. Of the blood, but not raised by the blood, he will come from Rhuidean at dawn, and tie you together with bonds you cannot break. He will take you back, and he will destroy you.”

Some of the sept chiefs moved as if to leave, but none took more than a few steps. Each had listened to the Wise One of his sept. Agree, or we will be destroyed as if we never were. Agree, or we will destroy ourselves.

“This is some trick,” Charendin shouted. Under Aes Sedai stares he lowered his voice, but it held anger yet. “You mean to gain control of the septs. Aiel bend knee to no man or woman.” He jerked his head, avoiding the Aes Sedai’s eyes. “To no one,” he muttered.

“We seek no control,” Narisse told them.

“Our days dwindle,” Mordaine said. “A day will come when the Jenn are no more, and only you will remain to remember the Aiel. You must remain, or all is for nothing, and lost.”

The flatness of her voice, the calm sureness, silenced Charendin, but Mandein had one more question. “Why? If you know your doom, why do this?” He gestured toward the structures rising in the distance.

“It is our purpose,” Dermon replied calmly. “For long years we searched for this place, and now we prepare it, if not for the purpose we once thought. We do what we must, and keep faith.”

Mandein studied the man’s face. There was no fear in it. “You are Aiel,” he said, and when some of the other chiefs gasped, he raised his voice. “I will go to the Jenn Aiel.”

“You may not come to Rhuidean armed,” Dermon said.

Mandein laughed aloud at the temerity of the man. Asking an Aiel to go unarmed. Shedding his weapons, he stepped forward. “Take me to Rhuidean, Aiel. I will match your courage.”

Rand blinked in the flickering lights. He had been Mandein; he could still feel contempt for the Jenn fading into admiration. Were the Jenn Aiel, or were they not? They had looked the same, tall, with light-colored eyes in sun-darkened faces, dressed in the same clothes except for lacking veils. But there had not been a weapon among them save for simple belt knives, suitable for work. There was no such thing as an Aiel without weapons.

He was farther into the columns than a single step could account for, and closer to Muradin than he had been. The Aiel’s fixed stare had become a dire frown.

Gritty dust crunched under Rand’s boots as he stepped forward.

His name was Rhodric, and he was nearly twenty. The sun was a golden blister in the sky, but he kept his veil up and his eyes alert. His spears were ready—one in his right hand, three held with his small bullhide buckler—and he was ready. Jeordam was down on the brown grass flat to the south of the hills, where most of the bushes were puny and withered. The old man’s hair was white, like that thing called snow the old ones talked of, but his eyes were sharp, and watching the welldiggers haul up filled water-bags would not occupy all of his attention.

Mountains rose to the north and east, the northern range tall and sharp and white-tipped but dwarfed by the eastern monsters. Those looked as if the world was trying to touch the heavens, and perhaps did. Maybe that white was snow? He would not find out. Faced with this, the Jenn must decide to turn east. They had trailed north along that mountainous wall for long months, painfully dragging their wagons behind them, trying to deny the Aiel that followed them. At least there had been water when they crossed a river, even if not much. It had been years since Rhodric had seen a river he could not wade across; most were only cracked dry clay away from the mountains. He hoped the rains would come again, and make things green once more. He remembered when the world was green.

He heard the horses before he saw them, three men riding across the brown hills in long leather shirts sewn all over with metal discs, two with lances. He knew the one on the lead, Garam, son of the chief of the town just out of sight back the way they came and not much older than himself. They were blind, these townsmen. They did not see the Aiel who stirred after they passed, then settled back to near invisibility in the sere land. Rhodric lowered his veil; there would be no killing unless the riders began it. He did not regret it—not exactly—but he could not make himself trust men who lived in houses and towns. There had been too many battles with that kind. The stories said it had always been so.

Garam drew rein, raising his right hand in salute. He was a slight dark-eyed man, like his two followers, but all three looked tough and competent. “Ho, Rhodric. Have your people finished filling their waterskins, yet?”

“I see you, Garam.” He kept his voice level and expressionless. It made him uneasy, seeing men on horses, even more so than their carrying swords. The Aiel had pack animals, but there was something unnatural about sitting atop a horse. A man’s legs were good enough. “We are close. Does your father withdraw his permission for us to take water on his lands?” No other town had ever given permission before. Water had to be fought for if men were near, just like everything else, and if there was water, then men were near. It would not be easy to take these three by himself. He shifted his feet in readiness to dance, and likely die.

“He does not,” Garam said. He had not even noticed Rhodric’s shift. “We have a strong spring in the town, and my father says that when you go, we will have the new wells you have dug until we go ourselves. But your grandfather seemed to want to know if the others started to move, and they have.” He leaned an elbow on the front of his saddle. “Tell me, Rhodric, are they truly the same people as yourselves?”

“They are the Jenn Aiel; we, the Aiel. We are the same, yet not. I cannot explain it further, Garam.” He did not really understand it himself.

“Which way do they move?” Jeordam asked.

Rhodric bowed to hi