The Fires of Heaven (The Wheel of Time #5)

The knock sounded again before he could make himself push away saidin and haul open the door.

Enaila peered past him suspiciously, muttering, “I thought perhaps Isendre...” She gave him an accusing look. “Spearsisters are searching everywhere for you. No one saw you return.” With a shake of her head, she straightened; she always tried to stand as tall as possible. “The chiefs have come to speak with the Car'a'carn,” she said formally. “They wait below.”

They waited on the columned portico, as it turned out, being men. The sky was still dark, but the first glimmers of dawn lined the mountains to the east. If they felt any impatience with the two Maidens who stood between them and the tall doors, it did not show on their shadowed faces.

“The Shaido are moving,” Han barked as soon as Rand appeared. “And the Reyn, the Miagoma, the Shiande... Every clan!”

“Joining Couladin, or me?” Rand demanded.

“The Shaido are moving toward the Jangai Pass,” Rhuarc said. “For the others, it is too early to tell. But they are on the march with every spear not needed to defend the holds, herds and flocks.”

Rand only nodded. All of his determination not to let anyone else dictate what he would do, and now this. Whatever the other clans intended, Couladin had to plan a crossing into Cairhien. So much for his grand schemes of imposing peace, if the Shaido ravaged Cairhien even further while he sat in Rhuidean waiting for the other clans.

“Then we move for the Jangai, too,” he said finally.

“We cannot catch him if he means to cross,” Erim cautioned, and Han added sourly, “If any of the others are joining him, we will be caught strung out like blindworms in the sun.”

“I won't sit here until I find out,” Rand said. “If I can't catch Couladin, I mean to be right behind him into Cairhien. Rouse the spears. We leave as soon after first light as you can manage.”

Giving him that odd Aiel bow used only on the most formal occasions, one foot forward and one hand extended, the chiefs departed. Only Han said anything. “To Shayol Ghul itself.”

Chapter 7

(Dragon)

A Departure

Yawning in the earlymorning grayness, Egwene pulled herself up onto her fogcolored mare, then had to handle her reins smartly as Mist frisked about. The animal had not been ridden in weeks. Aiel not only preferred their own legs, they avoided riding almost completely, though they did use packhorses and pack mules. Even if there had been enough wood to build wagons, the terrain in the Waste was not hospitable to wheels, as more than one peddler had learned to his or her sorrow.

She was not looking forward to the long journey west. The mountains hid the sun now, but the heat would grow by the hour once it climbed clear, and there would be no convenient tent to duck into at nightfall. She was not certain that Aiel garb was suitable for riding, either. The shawl, worn over her head, always did a surprisingly good job of keeping the sun off, but those bulky skirts would bare her legs to the thigh if she was not careful. Blisters worried her as much as modesty. The sun on one side, and... A month out of the saddle should not have softened her that much. She hoped it had not, or this would be a very long journey.

Once she had settled Mist down, Egwene found Amys looking at her, and shared a smile with the Wise One. All of that running the night before was not the reason she was still sleepy; if anything, it had helped her sleep even more soundly. She had found the other woman's dreams last night, and in celebration they had sipped tea in the dream, in Cold Rocks Hold, early on an evening when children were playing among the cropplanted terraces and a pleasant breeze blew down the valley as the sun sank.

Of course, that would not have been enough to steal her rest, but she had been so exultant that when she left Amys' dreams, she did not stop; she could not, not then, no matter what Amys would have said. There had been dreams all around, though with most she had no idea whose they were. With most, not all. Melaine had been dreaming of suckling a babe at her breast, and Bair of one of her dead husbands, both of them young and yellowhaired. She had been especially careful not to enter those; the Wise Ones would have known an intruder in an instant, and she shuddered to think of what they would have done before letting her go.

Rand's dreams had been a challenge, of course, one she could not fail to face. Now that she could flit from dream to dream, how could she not try where the Wise Ones failed? Only, attempting to enter his dreams had been like running headlong into an invisible stone wall. She knew that his dreams lay on the other side, and she was sure she could find a way through, but there had been nothing to work on, nothing to pry at. A wall of nothing. It was a problem she meant to worry at until she solved it. Once she put her mind on something, she could be as persistent as a badger.

All around her gai'shain were bustling about, loading the Wise Ones' camp onto mules. Before long, only an Aiel or someone just as skilled at tracking would be able to tell there had ever been tents on that patch of hard clay. The same activity covered the surrounding mountain slopes, and the hubbub extended into the city, as well. Not everyone would be going, but thousands would. Aiel thronged the streets, and Master Kadere's train of wagons stood strung out across the great plaza, laden with Moiraine's selections, the three whitepainted water wagons at the end of the line like huge barrels on wheels behind twentymule teams. Kadere's own wagon, at the head of the column, was a little white house on wheels, with steps at the back and a metal stovepipe sticking out of the flat roof. The thick, hawknosed merchant, all in ivorycolored silk today, swept off his incongruously battered hat as she rode past, his dark, tilted eyes not sharing in the wide smile he flashed at her.

She ignored him frostily. His dreams had been decidedly dark and unpleasant, where they were not lewd as well. He ought to have his head dunked in a cask of bluespine tea, she thought grimly.

Approaching the Roof of the Maidens, she threaded her way through scurrying gai'shain and patiently standing mules. To her surprise, one of those loading the Maidens' things wore a black robe, not white. A woman, by the size of her, and staggering under the weight of a cordtied bundle on her back. Bending as she guided Mist past, to get a look inside the woman's cowl, Egwene saw Isendre's haggard face, sweat already rolling down her cheeks. She was glad the Maidens had stopped letting the woman go outside — or sending her out — more naked than not, but it did seem needlessly cruel to robe her in black. If she was sweating so hard already, she would nearly die once the