Chapter 33, Within the Weave.

From his saddle Perrin frowned down at the flat stone half hidden in weeds by the roadside.

This road of hard-packed dirt, already called the Lugard Road, now they were near the Menetherindrel and the border of Murundi, had been paved once long in the past, so Moraine had said two days earlier.

And bits of paving stone still work their way to the surface from time to time.

This one had an odd marking on it.

If dogs had been able to make footprints on stone, he would have said it was the print of a large hound.

There were no hounds’ footprints in any of the bare ground he could see, where softer dirt on the verge might take one, and no smell of any dogs’ trail.

Just a faint trace in the air of something burned, almost the sulfurous smell left by setting off fireworks.

There was a town ahead where the road struck the river.

Maybe some children had sneaked out here with some of the illuminator’s handiwork.

A long way yet for children to sneak.

But he had seen farms, it could have been farm children.

Whatever it is, it has nothing to do with that marking.

Horses don’t fly and dogs don’t make footprints on stone.

I’m getting too tired to think straight.

Yawning, he dug his heels into Stepper’s ribs and the dun broke into a gallop after the others.

Moraine had been pushing them hard since leaving Jarrah, and there was no waiting for anyone who stopped for even a moment.

When the Aes Sedai put her mind on something, she was as hard as cold hammered iron.

Loyal had given up reading as he rode six days earlier, after looking up to find himself left a mile behind and everyone else almost out of sight over the next hill.

Perrin slowed Stepper alongside the Ogier’s big horse, behind Moraine’s white mare, and yawned again.

Lan was up ahead somewhere scouting.

The sun behind them stood no more than an hour above the treetops, but the water had said they would reach a town called Remen, on the Menetheran Drell, before dark.

Perrin was not sure he wanted to see what awaited them there.

He did not know what it might be, but the day since Jarrah had made him wary.

I don’t see why you can’t sleep, Loyal had told him.

I am so tired by the time she lets us halt for the night, I fall asleep before I can lie down.

Perrin only shook his head.

There was no way to explain to Loyal that he did not dare sleep soundly, that even his lightest sleep was full of troubled dreams, like that odd one with Egwene and Hopper in it.

Well, no wonder I dream about her.

Light, I wonder how she is.

Safe in the tower by now, and learning how to be eye to eye.

Perrin will look after her, and after Matt, too.

He did not think anyone needed to look after Nynaeve.

Around Nynaeve, to his mind, other people needed someone to look after them.

He did not want to think about Hopper.

He was succeeding in keeping live wolves out of his head, although at the price of feeling as if he had been hammered and drawn by a hasty hand.

He did not want to think a dead wolf might be creeping in.

He shook himself and forced his eyes wide open.

Not even Hopper.

There had been more reasons than bad dreams not to sleep well.

They had found other signs left by Rand’s passage.

Between Jarrah and the River Byrne, there had been none Perrin could see.

But when they crossed the Byrne, by a stone bridge arching from one 50-foot river cliff to another, they had left behind a town called Sidon, all in ashes.

Every building.

Only a few stone walls and chimneys still stood among the ruins.

Bedraggled townspeople said a lantern dropped in a barn had started it, and then the fire seemed to run wild.

And everything went wrong.

Half the buckets that could be found had holes in them.

Every last burning wall had fallen outward instead of in, setting houses to either side alight.

Flaming timbers from the inn had somehow tumbled as far as the main well in the square, so no one could draw more water from it to fight the fires.

And houses had fallen right on top of three other wells.

Even the wind had seemed to shift, fanning the flames in every direction.

There had been no need to ask Moraine if Rand’s presence had caused it.

Her face, like cold iron, was answer enough.

The pattern shaped itself around Rand, and chants ran wild.

Beyond Sidon, they had ridden through four small towns, where only Lan’s tracking told them Rand was still ahead.

Rand was a foot now, and had been for some time.

They had found his horse back beyond Jarrah, dead, looking as if it had been mauled by wolves or dogs run wild.

It had been hard for Perrin not to reach out then, especially when Moraine looked up from the horse to frown at him.

Luckily, Lan had found the tracks of Rand’s boots running from where the dead horse lay.

One boot hill had a three-cornered gouge from a rock.

It made his prints plain, but afoot or mounted, he seemed to be staying ahead of them.

In the four villages after Sidon, the biggest excitement anyone could remember was seeing Loyal ride in, and discovering that he was an Ogier, for real and for true.

They were so caught up with that, that they barely even noticed Perrin’s eyes.

And when they did, well, if Ogier were real, then men could very well have any color eyes at all.

But after those came a little place named Willar, and it was celebrating.

The spring on the village common was flowing again, after a year of hauling water a mile from a stream, when all efforts at digging wells had failed, and half the people had moved away.

Willar would not die after all.

Three more untouched villages had been followed in quick succession, all in one day, by Samaha, where every well in town had gone dry just the night before, and people were muttering about the dark one.

Then Tollin, where all the old arguments the village had ever known had bubbled to the surface like overflowing cesspits a morning earlier.

And it had taken three murders to shock everyone back to his senses.

And finally Feel, where the crops this spring looked to be the poorest anyone could remember.

But the mayor, digging a new privy behind his house, had found rotted leather sacks full of gold, so no one would go hungry.

No one in Feel recognized the fat coins, with a woman’s face on one side and an eagle on the other.

Lorraine said they had been minted in Manetheran.

Perrin had finally asked her about it as they sat around their campfire one night.

After Jarrah, I thought, they were all so happy with their weddings.

Even the white cloaks were only made to look like fools.

Feel was all right.

Rant couldn’t have had anything to do with their crops.

They were failing before he ever came, and that gold was surely good with their need.

But all this other, that town burning and the wells failing, and that is evil, Moraine.

I can’t believe Rand is evil.

The pattern may be shaping itself around him, but how can the pattern be that evil?

It makes no sense, and things have to make sense.

If you make a tool with no sense to it, it’s wasted metal.

The pattern wouldn’t make waste.

Land gave him a wry look and vanished into the darkness to make a circuit around their campsite.

Loyal, already stretched out in his blankets, lifted his head to listen, ears pricking forward.

Moraine was silent for a time, warming her hands.

Finally, she spoke while staring into the flames.

The creator is good, Perrin.

The father of lies is evil.

The pattern of age, the age lace itself, is neither.

The pattern is what is.

The wheel of time weaves all lives into the pattern, all actions.

A pattern that is all one color is no pattern.

For the pattern of an age, good and ill are the warp and the woof.

Even riding through late afternoon sunshine three days later, Perrin felt the chill he had had on first hearing her say those words.

He wanted to believe the pattern was good.

He wanted to believe that when men did evil things, they were going against the pattern, distorting it.

To him, the pattern was a fine and intricate creation made by a master smith.

That it mixed pot metal and worse in with good steel, with never a care, was a cold thought.

I care, he muttered softly.

Light, I do care.

Moraine glanced back at him and he fell silent.

He was not sure what the I said I cared about beyond Rand.

A few minutes later, Lan appeared from ahead and swung his black war horse in beside Moraine’s mare.

Remen lies just over the next hill, he said.

They have had an eventful day or two, it seems.

Loyal’s ears twitched once.

Rand?

The water shook his head.

I do not know.

Perhaps Moraine can say when she sees.

The I said I gave him a searching look, then healed her white mare to a quicker step.

They topped the hill and Remen lay spread out below them, hard against the river.

The Matheran Drill stretched more than half a mile wide here, and there was no bridge, though two crowded barge-like ferries crept across, propelled by long oars, and one nearly empty was returning.

Three more shared long stone docks with nearly a dozen river traders’ vessels, some with one mast, some with two.

A few bulky gray stone warehouses separated the docks from the town itself, where the buildings seemed mostly of stone as well, though roofed in tiles of every color from yellow to red to purple.

And the streets ran every which way around a central square.

Moraine pulled up the deep hood of her cloak to hide her face before they rode down.

As usual, the people in the streets stared at Loyal, but this time Perrin heard odd murmurs of, oh dear.

Loyal sat straighter in his saddle than he had in some time, and his ears stood straight, and a smile just curled the ends of his wide mouth.

He was obviously trying not to let on that he was pleased, but he looked like a cat having its ears scratched.

Remen looked like any of a dozen towns to Perrin.

It was full of man-made aromas and man-smell, with a strong smell of the river, of course.

And he was wondering what land could have meant, when the hair on the back of his neck stirred as he scented something wrong.

As soon as his nose took it in, it was gone like a horsehair dropped onto hot coals, but he remembered it.

He had smelled the same smell at Jarrah, and it had vanished the same way then.

It was not a twisted one or an Everborn.

A trollic burned me, not a twisted one, not a Neverborn, a murdrel, a fade, a half-man, anything but a Neverborn.

Not a trollic or a fade, yet the stench had been every bit as sharp, every bit as vile.

But whatever gave off that scent left no lasting trail, it seemed.

They rode into the town square.

One of the big paving blocks had been pried up right in the middle of the square, so a gibbet could be erected.

A single thick timber rose out of the dirt supporting a braced cross piece from which hung an iron cage, the bottom of it four paces high.

A tall man dressed all in grays and browns sat in the cage, holding his knees under his chin.

He had no room to do otherwise.

Three small boys were pitching stones at him.

The man looked straight ahead, not flinching when a stone made it between the bars.

More than one trickle of blood stained his face.

The townspeople walking by paid no more mind to what the boys were doing than the man did.

Though every last one of them looked at the cage, most of them with approval and some with fear.

Moraine made a sound in her throat that might have been disgust.

There is more, Lance said.

Come, I’ve already arranged rooms at an inn.

I think you will find it interesting.

Perrin looked back over his shoulder at the caged man as he rode after them.

There was something familiar about the man, but he could not place it.

They shouldn’t do that, Loyal’s rumble sounded halfway to a snarl.

The children, I mean.

The grown-ups should stop them.

They should, Perrin agreed, barely paying attention.

Why is he familiar?

The sign over the door of the inn Lan led them to, nearer the river, the red Wayman’s Forge, which Perrin took for a good omen.

Though there seemed to be nothing of the smithy about the place, except the leather-aproned man with a hammer painted on the sign.

It was a large, purple-roofed, three-story building of squared and polished gray stones with large windows and scroll-carved doors.

And it had a prosperous look.

Stablemen came running to take the horses, bowing even more deeply after Lan tossed them coins.

Inside, Perrin stared at the people.

The men and women at the tables were all dressed in their feast day clothes, it seemed to him, with more embroidered coats, more lace on dresses, more colored ribbons and fringed scarves than he had seen in a long time.

Only four men sitting at one table wore plain coats, and they were the only ones who did not look up expectantly when Perrin and the others walked in.

The four men kept on talking softly.

He could make out a little of what they were saying about the virtues of ice peppers over furs as cargo, and what the troubles in Saldeia might have done to prices.

Captains of trading ships, he decided.

The others seemed to be local folk.

Even the serving women appeared to be wearing their best, their long aprons covering embroidered dresses with bits of lace at the neck.

The kitchen was working heavily.

He could smell mutton, lamb, chicken, and beef, as well as some sort of vegetables.

And a spicy cake that made him forget meat for a moment.

The innkeeper himself met them just inside, a plump, bald-headed man with shining brown eyes and a smooth pink face, bowing and dry washing his hands.

If he had not come to them, Perrin would never have taken him for the landlord, for instead of the expected white apron, he wore a coat like everyone else, all white and green embroidery on stout blue wool that had the man sweating with its weight.

Why are they all wearing clothes for festival, Perrin wondered.

Master Andra, the innkeeper said, addressing Lan.

And an ogier, just as you said.

Not that I doubted, of course, not with all that’s happened, and never your word, master.

Why not an ogier?

Friend ogier, to be having you in the house gives me more pleasure than you can be knowing.

Tis a fine thing, and a fitting cap to it all.

Ah, and mistress.

His eyes took in the deep blue silk of her dress and the rich wool of her cloak.

Dusty from travel, but still fine.

Forgive me, lady, please.

His bow bent him like a horseshoe.

Master Andra did not make your station clear, lady.

I meant no disrespect.

You are even more welcome than friend ogier here, of course, lady.

Please take no offense at Gynor Furlan’s poor tongue.

I take none.

Moraine’s voice calmly accepted the title Furlan gave her.

It was far from the first time the Aes Sedai had gone under another name, or pretended to be something she was not.

It was not the first Perrin had heard Lan name himself Andra, either.

The deep hood still hid Moraine’s smooth Aes Sedai features, and she held her cloak around her with one hand as if taken with a chill.

Not the hand in which she wore her great serpent ring.

You have had strange occurrences in the town, innkeeper, so I understand.

Nothing to trouble travelers, I trust.

Ah, lady, you might be calling them strange indeed.

Your own radiant presence is more than enough to honor this humble house, lady, and bringing an ogier with you.

But we have hunters in Remmen, too.

Right here in Wayland’s forge they are.

Hunters for the Horn of Verlier, set out from Ilion for adventure.

And adventure they found, lady, here in Remmen, or just a mile or two upriver, fighting wild Aeolian men of all things.

Can you imagine black-veiled Aeolian savages in Altara, lady?

Aeolian, now Perrin knew what was familiar about the man in the cage.

He had seen an Aeolian once, one of those fierce, nearly legendary denizens of the harsh land called the Waste.

The man had looked a good deal like Rand, taller than most, with gray eyes and reddish hair.

And he had been dressed like the man in the cage, all in browns and grays that would fade into rock or brush, with soft boots laced to his knees.

Perrin could almost hear Min’s voice again, an Aeolian in a cage, a turning point in your life, or something important that will happen.

Why do you have, he stopped to clear his throat so he would not sound so hoarse.

How did an Aeolian come to be caged in your town square?

Young master, that is a story to, Furlan trailed off, eyeing him up and down, taking in his plain country clothes and the longbow in his hands, pausing over the axe at his belt opposite his quiver.

The plump man gave a start when his study reached Perrin’s face, as if with a lady and an ogier present.

He had just now noticed Perrin’s yellow eyes.

He would be your servant, Master Andra, he asked cautiously.

Answer him, was all Lan said.

Of course, Master Andra, but here’s who can tell it better than myself.

Tis Lord Auburn himself, tis he we have gathered to hear.

A dark haired youngish man in a red coat with a bandage wound around his temples making his way down the stairs at the side of the common room using padded crutches.

The left leg of his britches cut away so more bandages could strap his calf from ankle to knee.

The townspeople murmured as if seeing something wondrous.

The ship captains went on with their quiet talking.

They had come round to Fur’s.

Furlan might have thought the man in the red coat could tell the story better.

But he went ahead himself.

Lord Auburn and Lord Gahan faced 20 wild Aeolmen with only ten retainers.

Ah, fierce was the fighting and hard, with many wounds given and received.

Six good retainers died, and every man took hurts, Lord Auburn and Lord Gahan worst of all.

But every Aeol they slew save those who fled, and one they took prisoner.

Tis that one you see out there in the square, where he’ll not be troubling the countryside anymore with his savage ways, no more than the dead ones will.

You have had trouble from Aeol in this district?

Moraine asked.

Perrin was wondering the same thing with no little consternation.

If some people still occasionally used black veiled Aeol as a term for someone violent, it was testimony to the impression the Aeol war had left.

But that was 20 years in the past now, and the Aeol had never come out of the waste before or since.

But I saw one this side of the spine of the world, and now I’ve seen two.

The innkeeper rubbed at his bald head.

No, lady, not exactly.

But we would have had, you can be sure, with 20 savages loose.

Why, everyone remembers how they killed and looted and burned their way across Kyrian.

Men from this very village marched to the Battle of the Shining Walls when the nations gathered to throw them back.

I myself suffered from a twisted back at the time, and so could not go.

But I remember well, as we all do, how they came here so far from their own land, or why, I do not know.

But Lord Orban and Lord Gahan saved us from them.

There was a murmur of agreement from the folk in feast day clothes.

Orban himself came stumping across the common room, not seeming to see anyone but the innkeeper.

Perrin could smell stale wine before he was even close.

Where’s that old woman taking herself off to with her herbs, Ferlin?

Orban demanded roughly.

Gahan’s wounds are paining him, and my head feels about to split open.

Ferlin almost bent his head to the floor.

Mother Lyche will be back in the morning, Lord Orban, a birthing lord.

But she said she’d stitched and poulticed your wounds and Lord Gahan’s, so there’d be no worrying.

Lord Orban, I’m sure she’ll be seeing to you first thing on the morrow.

The bandaged man muttered something under his breath, under his breath to any ears but Perrin’s, about waiting on a farm wife, throwing her litter, and something else about being sewn up like a sack of meal.

He shifted sullen, angry eyes, and for the first time appeared to see the newcomers.

Perrin he dismissed immediately, which did not surprise Perrin at all.

His eyes widened a little at Loyal.

He’s seen Ogier, Perrin thought, but he never thought to see one here.

Narrowed a bit at Lan, he knows a fighting man when he sees one.

And he does not like seeing one.

And brightened as he stooped to peer inside Moraine’s hood, though he was not close enough to see her face.

Perrin decided not to think anything at all about that, not concerning an eye to die, and he hoped neither Moraine nor Lan thought anything of it either.

A light in the warder’s eyes told him he had missed on that hope at least.

12 of you have fought 20, I yield, Lan asked in a flat voice.

Orbin straightened, wincing.

In an elaborately casual tone he said, aye, you must expect things such as that when you seek the horn of Valyr.

It was not the first such encounter for Gon and me.

Nor will it be the last before we find the horn, if the light shines on us.

He sounded as if the light could not possibly do anything else.

Not all our fights have been with Aiel, of course, but there are always those who would stop hunters if they could.

Gon and I, we do not stop easily.

Another approving murmur came from the townspeople.

Orbin stood a little straighter.

You lost six and took one prisoner.

From Lan’s voice, it was not clear if that was a good exchange or a poor one.

Aye, Orbin said, we slew the rest, save those who ran.

No doubt they’re hiding their dead now, I’ve heard they do that.

The White Cloaks are out searching for them, but they’ll never find them.

There are White Cloaks here, Perrin asked sharply.

Orbin glanced at him and dismissed him once more.

The man addressed Lan again.

White Cloaks always put their noses in where they are not wanted or needed.

Incompetent louts, all of them.

Aye, they’ll ride all over the countryside for days, but I doubt they’ll find as much as their own shadows.

I suppose they won’t, Lan said.

The bandaged man frowned as if unsure exactly what Lan meant, but rounded on the innkeeper again.

You find that old woman here, my head is splitting.

With a last glance at Lan, he hobbled away, climbing back up the stairs one at a time, followed by murmurs of admiration for a hunter of the horn who had slain Eilman.

This is an eventful town.

Loyal’s deep voice drew every eye to him.

Except for the ship captains who seem to be discussing rope as near as Perrin could make out.

Everywhere I go, you humans are doing things.

Hurrying and scurrying, having things happen to you.

How can you stand so much excitement?

Friend Ogier, Ferlin said, tis the way of us humans to want excitement.

How much I regret not being able to march to the Shining Walls.

Why, let me tell you, our rooms.

Moraine did not raise her voice, but her words cut the innkeeper short like a sharp knife.

Andra did arrange rooms, did he not?

Lady, forgive me.

Yes, Master Andra did indeed hire rooms.

Forgive me, please.

Tis all the excitement, makes my head empty itself.

Please forgive me, lady.

This way, if you please, if you please to follow me.

Bowing and scraping, apologizing and babbling without pause, Ferlin led them up the stairs.

At the top, Perrin paused to look back.

He heard the murmurs of Lady and Ogier down there, could feel all those eyes.

But it seemed to him that he felt one pair of eyes in particular.

Someone staring not at Moraine and Loyal, but at him.

He picked her out immediately.

For one thing, she stood apart from the others.

And for another, she was the only woman in the room not wearing at least a little lace.

Her dark gray, almost black dress was as plain as the ship captain’s clothes, with wide sleeves and narrow skirts, and never a frill or a stitch of fancy work.

The dress was divided for riding, he saw when she moved, and she wore soft boots that peeked out under the hem.

She was young, no older than he was perhaps, and tall for a woman, with thick black hair to her shoulders.

A nose that just missed being too large and too bold, a generous mouth, high cheekbones, and dark, slightly tilted eyes.

He could not quite decide whether she was beautiful or not.

As soon as he looked down, she turned to address one of the serving women and did not glance at the stairs again.

But he was sure he’d been right.

She had been staring at him.