The Dragon Reborn (The Wheel of Time #3)

Shielding his actions with his body, Thom slipped his knife under the rope and severed it in one stroke. The small boat began falling back into the darkness. “River brigands, Captain,” he said. “Young Mat and I have saved your vessel from river brigands. They might have cut everyone's throat if not for us. Perhaps you should reconsider your passage fee.”

“Brigands!” Mallia exclaimed. “There are plenty of those down around Cairhien, but I never heard of it this far north!” The huddled passengers began to mutter about brigands and having their throats cut.

Mat walked stiffly to the hatch. Behind him, he heard Mallia. “He's a cold one. I never heard that Andor employed assassins, but burn my soul, he is a cold one.”

Mat stumbled down the ladder, stepped over the two bodies in the passage, and slammed the door of the captain's cabin behind him. He made it halfway to the bed before the shaking hit him, and then all he could do was sink down on his knees. Light, what game am I playing in? I have to know the game if I'm going to win. Light, what game?

Playing “Rose of the Morning” softly on his flute, Rand peered into his campfire, where a rabbit was roasting on a stick slanting over the flames. A night wind made the flames flicker; he barely noticed the smell of the rabbit, though a vagrant thought did come that he needed to find more salt in the next village or town. “Rose of the Morning” was one of the tunes he had played at those weddings.

How many days ago was that? Were there really so many, or did I imagine it? Every woman in the village deciding to marry at once? What was its name? Am I going mad already?

Sweat beaded on his face, but he played on, barely loud enough to be heard, staring into the fire. Moiraine had told him he was ta'veren. Everyone said he was ta'veren. Maybe he really was. People like that — changed — things around them. A ta'veren might have caused all those weddings. But that was too close to something he did not want to think about.

They say I'm the Dragon Reborn, too. They all say it. The living say it, and the dead. That doesn't make it true. I had to let them proclaim me. Duty. I had no choice, but that does not make it true.

He could not seem to stop playing that one tune. It made him think of Egwene. He had thought once that he would marry Egwene. A long time ago, that seemed. That was gone, now. She had come in his dreams, though. It might have been her. Her face. It was her face.

Only, there had been so many faces, faces he knew. Tam, and his mother, and Mat, and Perrin. All trying to kill him. It had not really been them, of course. Only their faces, on Shadowspawn. He thought it had not really been them. Even in his dreams it seemed the Shadowspawn walked. Were they only dreams? Some dreams were real, he knew. And others were only dreams, nightmares, or hopes. But how to tell the difference? Min had walked his dreams one night — and tried to plant a knife in his back. He was still surprised at how much that had pained him. He had been careless, let her come close, let down his guard. Around Min, he had not felt any need to be on his guard in so long, despite the things she saw when she looked at him. Being with her had been like having balm soothed into his wounds.

And then she tried to kill me! The music rose to a discordant screech, but he pulled it back to softness. Not her. Shadowspawn with her face. Least of them all would Min hurt me. He could not understand why he thought that, but he was sure it was true.

So many faces in his dreams. Selene had come, cool and mysterious and so lovely his mouth went dry just thinking of her, offering him glory as she had — so long ago, it seemed — but now it was the sword she said he had to take. And with the sword would come her. Callandor. That was always in his dreams. Always. And taunting faces. Hands, pushing Egwene, and Nynaeve, and Elayne into cages, snaring them in nets, hurting them. Why should he weep more for Elayne than for the other two?

His head spun. His head hurt as much as his side, and sweat rolled down his face, and he softly played “Rose of the Morning” through the night, fearing to sleep. Fearing to dream.

Chapter 33

(Serpent and Wheel)

Within the Weave

From his saddle, Perrin frowned down at the flat stone half hidden in weeds by the roadside. This road of hardpacked dirt, already called the Lugard Road now that they were approaching the River Manetherendrelle and the border of Lugard, had been paved once, long in the past, so Moiraine had said two days earlier, and bits of paving stone still worked 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 hound's footprints in any of the bare ground he could see, where softer dirt on the verge might take one, and no smell of any dog's trail. Just a faint trace in the air of something burned, almost the sulphurous 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 Illuminators' 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 gallop after the others. Moiraine had been pushing them hard since leaving Jarra, 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. Loial 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 Moiraine'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 Warder had said they would reach a town called Remen, on the Manetherendrelle, before dark. Perrin was not sure he wanted to see what awaited them there. He did not know what it might be, but the days since Jarra had made him wary.

“I don't see why you can't sleep,” Loial 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 Loial 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 Aes Sedai. Verin will look after her, and after Mat, too. He did not think anyone needed to look after Nynaeve; around Nynaeve, to his mind, other people needed s