Stilling his irritation—and Lews Therin’s mutters—Rand reached out for saidin, launched himself into the now familiar battle for control and survival in the midst of emptiness. The taint oozed through him as he channeled; even within the void he could feel it seeming to filter into his bones, perhaps into his soul. He had no way to describe what he did except as making a fold in the Pattern, a hole through it. This he had learned on his own, and his teacher had not been very good at explaining even what lay behind the things he taught. A bright vertical line appeared in the air, widening quickly into an opening the size of a large doorway. In truth, it seemed to turn, the view through it, a sunlit clearing among drought-draggled trees, rotating to a halt.
Enaila and two more Maidens lifted their veils and leaped through almost before it settled; half a dozen others followed, some with horn bows ready. Rand did not expect there to be anything for them to guard against. He had put the other end—if there was another end; he did not understand, but it seemed to him there was only one—in the clearing because a gateway opening up could be dangerous around people, but telling the Maidens, or any Aiel, that there was no need to be on guard was like telling a fish there was no need to swim.
“This is a gateway,” he told Taim. “I’ll show you how to make one if you didn’t catch it.” The man was staring at him. If he had been watching carefully, he should have seen Rand’s weaving of saidin; any man able to channel could do that.
Taim joined him as he stepped through into the clearing, Sulin and the rest of the Maidens following. Some gave the sword at Rand’s hip a disdainful glance as they streamed past him, and Maiden handtalk flashed silently among them. Disgustedly, no doubt. Enaila and the foreguard had already spread out warily among the bedraggled trees; their coats and breeches, the cadin’sor, made them seem part of the shadows whether or not they had added green to the gray and brown. With the Power in him, Rand could see each dead needle distinctly on each of the pines; more were dead than were alive. He could smell the sour sap of the leatherleafs. The air itself smelled hot, dry and dusty. There was no danger for him here.
“Wait, Rand al’Thor,” came a woman’s urgent voice from the other side of the gateway. Aviendha’s voice.
Rand let go of the weave and saidin immediately, and the gateway winked out just as it had come. There were dangers and dangers. Taim looked at him curiously. Some of the Maidens, veiled and unveiled, spared him a moment for looks of their own. Disapproving ones. Fingers flashed in Maiden handtalk. They had the sense to keep their tongues still, though; he had made himself clear on that.
Ignoring curiosity and disapproval alike, Rand started off through the trees with Taim at his side, dead leaves and twigs crackling as they went. The Maidens, in a wide circle around them, made no sound in their soft boots, laced to the knee. Vigilance buried their moment of rebuke. Some had made this journey with Rand before, always without incident, but nothing would ever convince them these woods were not a good site for an ambush. Before Rand, life in the Waste had been nearly three thousand years of raids, skirmishes, feuds and wars, unbroken for any length of time.
There were surely things he could learn from Taim—if not nearly so much as Taim thought—but the teaching would go both ways, and it was time for him to start educating the older man. “Sooner or later you will come up against the Forsaken, following me. Maybe before the Last Battle. Probably before. You don’t seem surprised.”
“I have heard rumors. They had to break free eventually.”
So the word was spreading. Rand grinned in spite of himself. The Aes Sedai would not be pleased. Aside from anything else, there was a certain pleasure in tweaking their noses. “You can expect anything at any time. Trollocs, Myrddraal, Draghkar, Gray Men, gholam . . . ”
He hesitated, heron-branded palm stroking his long sword hilt. He had no idea what a gholam was. Lews Therin had not stirred, but he knew that was the source of the name. Bits and pieces sometimes drifted across whatever thin barrier lay between him and that voice, and became part of Rand’s memories, usually without anything to explain them. It happened more often, lately. The fragments were not something he could fight, like the voice. The hesitation lasted only a moment.
“Not just in the north, near the Blight. Here, or anywhere. They are using the Ways.” That was something else he had to deal with. But how? First made with saidin, the Ways were dark now, as tainted as saidin. The Shadowspawn could not avoid all of the dangers in the Ways that killed men or worse, yet they still managed to use them, and if the Ways were not as quick as gateways and Traveling, or even Skimming, they still allowed hundreds of miles to be covered in a day. A problem for later. He had too many problems for later. He had too many problems for now. Irritably, he slashed at leatherleaf with the Dragon Scepter; pieces of wide, tough leaves fell, most brown. “If you’ve ever heard a legend about it, expect it. Even Darkhounds, though if they’re really the Wild Hunt, at least the Dark One isn’t free to ride behind them. They’re bad enough anyway. Some you can kill, the way the legends say, but some won’t die for anything short of balefire, that I’m sure of. Do you know balefire? If you don’t, that is one thing I’ll not teach you. If you do, don’t use it on anything but Shadowspawn. And do not teach it to anyone.
“The source of some of those rumors you heard might be . . . I don’t know what to call them except bubbles of evil. Think of them like the bubbles that sometimes rise up in a bog, only these are rising from the Dark One as the seals weaken, and instead of rotten smells, they are full of . . . well, evil. They drift along the Pattern until they burst, and when they do, anything can happen. Anything. Your own reflection can leap out of the mirror and try to kill you. Believe me.”
If the litany dismayed Taim, he did not show it. All he said was “I have been in the Blight; I’ve killed Trollocs before, and Myrddraal.” He pushed a low branch out of the way and held it for Rand. “I have never heard of this balefire, but if a Darkhound comes after me, I will find some way to kill it.”
“Good.” That was for Taim’s ignorance as much as his confidence. Balefire was one bit of knowledge Rand would not mind seeing vanish from the world completely. “With luck you won’t find anything like that out here, but you can never be sure.”
The woods gave way abruptly to a farmyard, with a sprawling thatch-roofed house of two weathered stories, smoke rising from one of its chimneys, and a large barn that had a distinct lean. The day was no cooler here than in the city a few miles away, the sun no less blistering. Chickens scratched the dust, two dun cows chewed their cud in a rail-fenced enclosure, a flock of tethered black goats busily stripped leaves from bushes within their reach, and a high-wheeled cart stood in the barn’s shadow, but the place did not look like a farm. There were no fields in sight; forest stretched all around the yard, broken only by the dirt track meandering northward, used for rare excursions to the city. And there were too many people.
Four women, all but one in her middle years, were hanging wash on a pair of lines, and nearly a dozen children, none older than nine or ten, played among the chickens. There were men about, too, most doing chores. Twenty-seven of them, though in some cases it was a stretch to call them men. Eben Hopwil, the skinny fellow pulling up a bucket of water from the well, claimed to be twenty and was certainly four or five years younger. His nose and ears seemed the biggest parts of him. Fedwin Morr, one of three men sweating on the roof replacing old thatch, was a good deal huskier, with a good deal fewer blotches, but certainly no older. More than half of the men had only three or four years on those two. Rand had almost sent some of them home, Eben and Fedwin at least, save that the White Tower took novices as young and sometimes younger. Gray showed among darker hair on a few heads, and crease-faced Damer Flinn, in front of the barn using peeled branches to show two of the younger men how to handle a sword, had a limp and retained only a thin fringe of white hair. Damer had been in the Queen’s Guards until he took a Murandian lance in his thigh. He was no swordsman, but he seemed competent to show the others how not to stab themselves in the foot. Most of the men were Andoran, a few Cairhienin. None had come from Tear yet, though the amnesty had been proclaimed there, too; it would take time for men to come that far.
Damer was the first to notice the Maidens, tossing down his branch and directing his pupils’ attention toward Rand. Then Eben dropped his bucket with a yell, splashing water all over himself, and everyone was scrambling, shouting at the house, to cluster anxiously behind Damer. Two more women appeared from inside, aproned and red-faced from cookfires, and helped the others gather the children behind the men.
“There they are,” Rand told Taim. “You have nearly half a day left. How many can you test? I want to know who can be taught as soon as possible.”
“This lot was dredged from the bottom of . . . ” Taim began contemptuously, then stopped in the middle of the farmyard, staring at Rand. Chickens scratched in the dust around his feet. “You haven’t tested any of them? Why, in the name of . . . ? You cannot, can you? You can Travel, but you do not know how to test for the talent.”
“Some don’t really want to channel.” Rand eased his grip on his sword hilt. He disliked admitting gaps in his knowledge to this man. “Some haven’t thought beyond a chance at glory or wealth or power. But I want to keep any man who can learn, whatever his reasons.”
The students—the men who would be students—were watching him and Taim from in front of the barn with a fair approximation of calm. They had all come to Caemlyn hoping to learn from the Dragon Reborn, after all, or thinking they did. It was the Maidens, making a ring about the farmyard and prowling into the house and barn, that caught their eyes with a wary fascination, even apprehension. The women clutched the children to their skirts, gazes fixed on Rand and Taim, expressions ranging from flat-eyed stares to anxious lip-chewing.
“Come on,” Rand said. “It’s time to meet your students.”
Taim hung back. “Is this truly all you want me for? To try to teach these pathetic dregs? If any of them can be taught. How many do you really think to find in a handful that just straggled to you?”
“This is important, Taim; I’d do it myself, if I could, if I had time.” Time was always key, always lacking. And he had made the admission, as much as it curdled his tongue. He realized he did not much like Taim, but he did not have to like him. Rand did not wait, and after a moment the other man caught up with long strides. “You mentioned trust. I’m trusting you with this.” Don’t trust! Lews Therin panted in the dim recesses. Never trust! Trust is death! “Test them and start teaching as soon you know who can learn.”
“As the Lord Dragon wishes,” Taim murmured wryly as they reached the waiting group. Bows and curtsies, none very polished, greeted them.
“This is Mazrim Taim,” Rand announced. Jaws dropped and eyes widened, of course. Some of the younger men stared as though they thought he and Taim had come there to fight; a few seemed to be looking forward to watching. “Introduce yourselves to him. From today, he will be teaching you.” Taim gave Rand a tight-mouthed look as the students slowly gathered before him and began giving their names.
In truth, the men’s reactions varied. Fedwin pushed eagerly to the front, right alongside Damer, while Eben hung to the rear, face white. The others were somewhere in between, hesitant, uncertain, but speaking up finally. Rand’s declaration meant an end to weeks of waiting for some of them, to years of dreaming, perhaps. Reality began today, and reality might mean channeling, with all that entailed for a man.
A stocky dark-eyed man, six or seven years older than Rand, ignored Taim and slipped away from the others. In a farmer’s rough coat, Jur Grady shifted from foot to foot in front of Rand and twisted a cloth cap in blunt hands. He peered at the cap or the ground under his worn boots, only occasionally glancing up at Rand. “Uh . . . my Lord Dragon, I’ve been thinking . . . uh . . . my pa is looking after my croft, a good piece of land if the stream don’t dry up there might be a crop yet, if it rains, and . . . and . . . ” He crushed the cap, then straightened it again carefully. “I’ve been thinking about going home.”
The women were not gathering around Taim. In a silent line of worried eyes, they held hard to the children and watched. The youngest, a plump pale-haired woman, a boy of four playing with her fingers, was Sora Grady. Those women had followed their husbands here, but Rand suspected that half the talk between husband and wife eventually turned to leaving. Five men had left already, and if none gave marriage as a reason, all had been married. What woman could be comfortable watching her husband wait to learn to channel? It must be like watching him wait to commit suicide.
Some would say this was no place for families, yet most likely those same people would also say the men should not be here, either. In Rand’s opinion, the Aes Sedai had made a mistake sealing themselves off from the world. Few entered the White Tower beyond Aes Sedai, women who wanted to be Aes Sedai, and those who served them; only a relative handful seeking help, and then under what they saw as great pressure. When Aes Sedai left the Tower, most held themselves aloof, and some never did leave. To Aes Sedai, people were pieces in a game and the world was the board, not a place to live in. To them, only the White Tower was real. No man could forget the world and ordinary people when he had his family in front of him.
This only had to last until Tarmon Gai’don—how long? A year? Two?—but the question was whether it could even do that. Somehow, it would. He would make it last. Families reminded men what they were going to fight for.
Sora’s eyes were fastened on Rand.
“Go, if you want to,” he told Jur. “You can leave any time before you actually start learning to channel. Once you take that step, you’re the same as a soldier. You know we’ll need every soldier we can find before the Last Battle, Jur. The Shadow will have new Dreadlords ready to channel; you can count on it. But it’s your choice. Maybe you’ll be able to sit it out on your farm. There must be a few places in the world that will escape what’s coming. I hope so. Anyway, the rest of us will do our best to make sure as much escapes as possible. At least you can give your name to Taim, though. It would be a shame to leave before you even know whether you could learn.” Turning away from Jur’s confused face, Rand avoided Sora’s eyes. And you condemn Aes Sedai for manipulating people, he thought bitterly. He did what he had to do.
Taim was still collecting names out of the shifting pack, and still tossing barely subdued glares at Rand. Abruptly Taim’s patience seemed to give out. “Enough of this; names can come later, for those of you who will still be here tomorrow. Who is the first to be tested?” Just that quickly their tongues froze. Some did not even blink as they stared at him. Taim pointed a finger at Damer. “I might as well get you out of the way. Come here.” Damer did not move until Taim grabbed his arm and hauled him a few paces apart from the rest.
Watching, Rand moved nearer, too.
“The more Power that’s used,” Taim told Damer, “the easier it is to detect the resonance. On the other hand, too big a resonance could do unpleasant things to your mind, maybe kill you, so I’ll start small.” Damer blinked; plainly he barely understood a word, except maybe the part about unpleasant things and dying. Rand knew the explanation was meant for him, though; Taim was covering his ignorance.
Abruptly a tiny flame appeared, an inch tall, dancing in midair equidistant between the three men. Rand could feel the Power in Taim, though only a small amount, and see the thin flow of Fire the man wove. The flame brought a startling relief to Rand, startling because it was proof Taim really could channel. Bashere’s first doubts must have stuck in the back of his mind.
“Concentrate on the flame,” Taim said. “You are the flame; the world is the flame; there is nothing but the flame.”
“Don’t feel nothing but an ache starting in my eyes,” Damer muttered, wiping sweat from his forehead with the back of a rough, callused hand.
“Concentrate!” Taim snapped. “Do not talk, do not think, do not move. Concentrate.” Damer nodded, then blinked at Taim’s frown and froze, staring silently at the small flame.
Taim seemed intent, but on what Rand was not sure; he seemed to be listening. A resonance, he had said. Rand focused, listening, feeling for—something.
Minutes stretched out with none of them moving a muscle. Five, six, seven slow minutes, with Damer hardly even blinking. The old man breathed hard, and he sweated so much he looked as though someone had upended a bucket over his head. Ten minutes.
Suddenly Rand felt it. The resonance. A small thing, a tiny echo of the minuscule flow of Power pulsing in Taim, but this seemed to come from Damer. It had to be what Taim meant, but Taim did not move. Perhaps there was more, or maybe this was not what Rand thought.
Another minute or two went by, and finally Taim nodded and let the flame and saidin go. “You can learn . . . Damer, was it?” He seemed surprised; no doubt he had not believed the very first man tested would pass, and a nearly bald old man at that. Damer grinned weakly; he looked like he might vomit. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised if every one of these simpletons passes,” the hawk-nosed man muttered with a glance at Rand. “You seem to have luck enough for ten men.”
Boots shuffled uneasily among the rest of the “simpletons.” Undoubtedly some were already hoping they would fail. They could not back out now, but if they failed, they could go home knowing they had tried without having to face what came with passing.
Rand felt a little surprise himself. There had not been anything more than that echo after all, and he had felt it before Taim, the man who knew what he was looking for.
“In time we’ll find out how strong you can be,” Taim said as Damer slipped back among the others. They opened a little distance around him and did not meet his eyes. “Perhaps you will turn out strong enough to match me, or even the Lord Dragon here.” The space around Damer widened a fraction. “Only time will tell. Pay attention while I test the others. If you are sharp, you should catch on to it by the time I find four or five more.” A quick look at Rand said that was meant for him. “Now, who tests next?” No one moved. The Saldaean stroked his chin. “You.” He pointed to a lumpy fellow somewhere well beyond thirty, a dark-haired weaver named Kely Huldin. In the line of women, Kely’s wife moaned.
Twenty-six more tests were going to take the rest of the daylight, maybe more. Heat or no heat, the days still grew shorter as if winter really was coming on, and a failed test would take a few minutes longer than one passed, just to make certain. Bashere was waiting, and there was Weiramon to visit yet, and . . .
“Carry on with this,” Rand told Taim. “I will come back tomorrow to see how you’ve done. Remember the trust I’m putting in you.” Don’t trust him, Lews Therin groaned. The voice seemed to come from some capering figure in the shadows of Rand’s head. Don’t trust. Trust is death. Kill him. Kill them all. Oh, to die and be done, done with it all, sleep without dreams, dreams of Ilyena, forgive me, Ilyena, no forgiveness, only death, deserve to die . . . Rand turned away before the struggle inside could show on his face. “Tomorrow. If I can.”
Taim caught up to him before he and the Maidens were halfway back to the trees. “If you stay a little longer, you can learn the test.” Exasperation touched his voice. “If I really do find four or five more, anyway, which truly won’t surprise me. You do seem to have the Dark One’s own luck. I assume you want to learn. Unless you mean to dump it all on my shoulders. I warn you, it will be slow. However hard I press, this Damer has days yet, weeks, before he can even sense saidin, much less seize it. Just seize it, not channel even a spark.”
“I already picked up the test,” Rand replied. “It wasn’t difficult. And I do mean to put it all on your shoulders, until you can find more and teach them enough so they can help you look. Remember what I said, Taim. Teach them fast.” There were dangers in that. Learning to channel the female half of the True Source was learning an embrace, so Rand had been told, learning to submit to something that would obey once you surrendered to it. It was guiding a huge force that would not harm you unless you misused it. Elayne and Egwene thought that natural; to Rand it was almost beyond belief. Channeling the male half was a constant war for control and survival. Leap into it too far, too fast, and you were a boy tossed naked into a pitched battle against armored foes. Even once you learned, saidin could destroy you, kill you or obliterate your mind, if it did not simply burn the ability to channel from you. The same price that Aes Sedai exacted from the men they caught who could channel, you could exact from yourself in one careless moment, one instant of letting your guard down. Not that some of the men in front of the barn would not be willing to pay that price right that minute. Kely Huldin’s round-faced wife held him by the front of his shirt, talking urgently. Kely was swinging his head uncertainly, and the other married men were looking uneasily toward their wives. But this was a war, and wars had casualties, even among married men. Light, but he was growing callused enough to sicken a goat. He turned a little, so he did not have to see Sora Grady’s eyes. “Walk the edge with them,” he told Taim. “Teach them as much as they can learn as fast as they can learn it.”
Taim’s mouth tightened slightly at Rand’s first words. “As much as they can learn,” he said flatly. “But what? Things that can be used as weapons, I suppose.”
“Weapons,” Rand agreed: they had to be weapons, all of them, himself included. Could weapons allow themselves families? Could a weapon allow itself to love? Now, where had that come from? “Anything they can learn, but that most of all.” They were so few. Twenty-seven, and if there was even one more than Damer who could learn, Rand would thank his being ta’veren for drawing the man to him. Aes Sedai only caught and gentled men who actually channeled, but they had become very good at it over the last three thousand years. Some Aes Sedai apparently believed they were succeeding in something they had never intended, culling the ability to channel out of humanity. The White Tower had been built to house three thousand Aes Sedai all the time, and far more if all their numbers had to be called in, with rooms for hundreds of girls in training, but before the split there had only been forty or so novices in the Tower and fewer than fifty Accepted. “I need more numbers, Taim. One way or another, find more. Teach them the test before anything else.”
“You mean to try matching the Aes Sedai, then?” Taim seemed unperturbed even if that was Rand’s plan. His dark tilted eyes were steady.
“How many Aes Sedai are there altogether? A thousand?”
“Not so many, I think,” Taim said cautiously.
Culling the human race. Burn them for it, even if they had cause. “Well, there will be enemies enough anyway.” One thing he did not lack was enemies. The Dark One and the Forsaken, Shadowspawn and Darkfriends. The Whitecloaks certainly and very likely Aes Sedai, or some of them, those who were Black Ajah and those who wanted to control him. Those last he counted enemies even if they did not think themselves so. There surely would be Dreadlords, just as he had said. And more beyond that. Enemies enough to crush all his plans, crush everything. His grip tightened on the carved haft of the Dragon Scepter. Time was the greatest enemy of all, the one he had the least chance of defeating. “I am going to defeat them, Taim. All of them. They think they can tear everything down. It’s always tearing down, never building up! I’m going to build something, leave something behind. Whatever happens, I will do that! I’ll defeat the Dark One. And cleanse saidin, so men don’t have to fear going mad, and the world doesn’t have to fear men channeling. I’ll . . . ”
The green-and-white tassel swung as he angrily jerked the length of spear. It was impossible. The heat and dust mocked him. Some of it had to be done, but it was all impossible. The best any of them could hope for was to win and die before they went mad, and he did not see how to manage even that much. All he could do was keep trying. There should be a way, though. If there was such a thing as justice, there should be a way.
“Cleanse saidin,” Taim said softly. “I think that would take more power than you can imagine.” His eyes lidded thoughtfully. “I have heard of things called sa’angreal. Do you have one you think could actually—”
“Never mind what I have or don’t have,” Rand snapped. “You teach whoever can learn, Taim. Then find more and teach them. The Dark One won’t wait on us. Light! We don’t have enough time, Taim, but we have to make do. We have to!”
“I will do what I can. Just do not expect Damer to topple a city’s walls tomorrow.”
Rand hesitated. “Taim? Keep a watch out for any student who learns too fast. Let me know immediately. One of the Forsaken might try to slip in among the students.”
“One of the Forsaken!” It was almost a whisper. For the second time, Taim looked shaken, this time well and truly taken aback. “Why would—?”
“How strong are you?” Rand broke in. “Seize saidin. Do it. As much as you can hold.”
For a moment Taim only looked at him, expressionless; then the Power flooded into him. There was no glow such as women could see around one another, only a sense of force and menace, but Rand could feel it clearly, and judge it. Taim held enough of saidin to devastate the farm and everyone there in seconds, enough to lay waste as far as he could see. It was not much short of what Rand himself could manage, unaided. But then, the man could be holding back. There was no sense of strain and he might not want to show his full strength to Rand; how could he know how Rand might react?
Saidin, the sense of it, faded from Taim, and for the first time Rand realized that he himself was filled with the male half of the Source, a raging flood, every thread he could pull through the angreal in his pocket. Kill him, Lews Therin muttered. Kill him now! For a moment shock gripped Rand; the emptiness surrounding him wavered, saidin raged and swelled, and he barely released the Power before it could crush the Void and him both. Had he seized the Source or had Lews Therin? Kill him! Kill him!
In a fury, Rand screamed inside his head, Shut up! To his surprise, the other voice vanished.
Sweat rolled down his face, and he wiped it away with a hand that wanted to shake. He had grasped the Source himself; it had to have been so. A dead man’s voice could not have done it. Unconsciously, he had not been willing to trust Taim holding so much of saidin while he stood helpless. That was it.
“Just you keep an eye out for anyone who learns too fast,” he muttered. Maybe he was telling Taim too much, but people had a right to know what they might face. As much as they needed to know. He dared not allow Taim or anyone else to find out where he had learned much of what he knew. If they discovered that he had held one of the Forsaken prisoner and allowed him to escape . . . rumor would strip away mention of prisoners if that leaked out. The Whitecloaks claimed he was a false Dragon, and very likely a Darkfriend besides; they said as much of anyone who touched the One Power. If the world learned about Asmodean, many more might believe. Never mind that Rand had needed a man to teach him of saidin. No woman could have, any more than they could see his weavings, or he theirs. Men believe the worst easily, and women believe it hides something still darker; that was an old Two Rivers saying. He would deal with Asmodean himself if the man ever turned up again. “Just you keep an eye out. Quietly.”
“As my Lord Dragon commands.” The man actually bowed slightly before starting back across the farmyard.
Rand realized the Maidens were looking at him. Enaila and Somara, Sulin and Jalani and all the rest, concern filling their eyes. They accepted almost everything he did, all the things that made him flinch when he did them, all the things everyone but the Aiel flinched at; what put their hackles up were usually matters he did not understand at all. They accepted, and worried about him.
“You must not tire yourself,” Somara said quietly. Rand looked at her, and the flaxen-haired woman’s cheeks reddened. This might not count as a public place—Taim was already too distant to overhear—but the remark was still going too far.
Enaila, though, pulled a spare shoufa from her belt and handed it to him. “Too much sun is not good for you,” she murmured.
One of the others muttered, “He needs a wife to look after him.” He could not tell which; even Somara and Enaila confined that sort of talk behind his back. He knew who was meant, though. Aviendha. Who better to marry the son of a Maiden than a Maiden who had given up the spear to become a Wise One?
Suppressing a flash of anger, he wound the shoufa around his head, and was grateful for it. The sun truly was hot, and the gray-brown cloth deflected a surprising amount of the heat. His sweat dampened it immediately. Did Taim know something like the Aes Sedai trick of not letting heat or cold touch them? Saldaea was in the far north, yet the man hardly seemed to perspire as much as the Aiel. Despite his gratitude, what Rand said was “What I must not do is stand around here wasting time.”
“Wasting time?” young Jalani said in a too innocent voice, rewinding her shoufa and momentarily exposing short hair nearly as red as Enaila’s. “How can the Car’a’carn be wasting time? The last time I sweated as much as he is, I had run from sunup to sundown.”
Grins and outright laughter spread through the other Maidens, red-haired Maira, at least ten years older than Rand, slapping her thigh, golden-haired Desora hiding her smiles behind a hand as she always did. Scar-faced Liah bounced up and down on her toes, while Sulin almost doubled over. Aiel humor was strange at best. Heroes in stories never had jokes made at their expense, not even odd ones, and he doubted kings did either. Part of the problem was that an Aiel chief, even the Car’a’carn, was not a king; he might have the authority of one in many ways, but any Aiel could and would walk up to a chief and say exactly what he thought. The bigger part, however, was something else.
Despite his having been raised in the Two Rivers by Tam al’Thor and, until her death when he was five, Tam’s wife, Kari, Rand’s true mother had been a Maiden of Spear who died giving birth to him on the slopes of Dragonmount. Not an Aiel, though his father had been, but still a Maiden. Now Aiel customs stronger than law had touched him. No, not touched; enveloped. No Maiden could marry and still carry the spear, and unless she gave up the spear any child she bore was given to another woman by the Wise Ones, in such a way that the Maiden never knew who that woman was. Any child born of a Maiden was believed to be lucky, both in itself and to raise, though none but the woman who raised the child and her husband ever knew it was not her own. Yet beyond that, the Aiel Prophecy of Rhuidean said that the Car’a’carn would be such a one, raised by wetlanders. To the Maidens, Rand was all those children come back, the first child of a Maiden ever to be known to everyone.
Most, whether older than Sulin or as young as Jalani, welcomed him like a long-lost brother. In public they gave him as much respect as they did any chief, marginal as that might be sometimes, but alone with them he might as well have been that brother, though whether he was a younger brother or an older did not seem to have anything to do with the woman’s own age. He was just glad that only a handful took Enaila and Somara’s path; alone or not, it was plain irritating to have a woman no older than himself behaving as though he were her son.
“Then we ought to go somewhere I won’t sweat,” he said, managing a grin. He owed it to them. Some had already died for him, and more would before it was done. The Maidens quickly subdued their mirth, ready to go where the Car’a’carn said, ready to defend him.
The question was, where to go? Bashere was waiting for his carefully casual visit, but if Aviendha had heard about that, she might well be with Bashere. Rand had been avoiding her as much as possible, especially being alone with her. Because he wanted to be alone with her. He had managed to keep that from the Maidens so far; if they ever so much as suspected, they would make his life miserable. The fact was, he had to stay away from her. He carried death with him like a contagious disease; he was a target, and people died near him. He had to harden his heart and let Maidens die—the Light burn him forever for that promise!—but Aviendha had given up the spear to study with the Wise Ones. He was not sure what he felt for her, only that if she died because of him, something in him would die, too. It was lucky that she had no emotional tangles where he was concerned. She tried to stay close to him only because the Wise Ones wanted her to watch him for them, and because she wanted to watch him for Elayne. Neither reason made the situation any easier for Rand; exactly the opposite.
The decision was easy, really. Bashere would have to wait, so he could avoid Aviendha; and the visit to Weiramon, intended to begin in the Palace with attempts at stealth meant to be pierced, would come now. A foolish reason to make a decision, but what was a man to do when a woman refused to see sense? It might work out for the best this way. Those who were supposed to learn of that visit still would, and perhaps believe what they were supposed to all the more because it was made in true concealment. Perhaps the call on Bashere and the Saldaeans would even seem more casual because he left it until late in the day. Yes. Twists within twists worthy of a Cairhienin playing the Game of Houses.
Seizing saidin, he opened a gateway, the slash of light widening to show the interior of a large green-striped tent, empty save for a carpeting of colorful rugs woven in Tairen maze patterns. There was no chance of an ambush in that tent, less even than around the farm, but Enaila and Maira and others still veiled themselves and darted through. Rand paused to look back.
Kely Huldin was making his way toward the farmhouse, head down and his wife herding their two children at his side. She kept reaching over to pat him consolingly, but even across the farmyard Rand could make out her beaming face. Plainly Kely had failed. Taim was facing Jur Grady, both staring at a tiny flame wavering between them. Sora Grady, her son clasped to her breast, was not watching her husband. Her eyes were still locked on Rand. A woman’s eyes cut deeper than a knife; another Two Rivers saying.
Stepping through the gateway, he waited for the rest of the Maidens to follow, then released the Source. He did what he had to do.