“If a Maiden bears a child,” Aviendha explained carefully, “she gives the child to the Wise Ones of her sept, and they pass the child to another woman in such a way that none knows whose child it is.” She, too, sounded as if she were explaining that stone is hard. “Every woman wants to foster such a child in the hope she may raise He Who Comes With the Dawn.”
“Or she may give up the spear and wed the man,” Chiad said, and Bain added, “There are sometimes reasons one must give up the spear.”
Aviendha gave them a level look, but continued as if they had not spoken. “Except that now the Wise Ones say he is to be found here, beyond the Dragonwall. 'Blood of our blood mixed with the old blood, raised by an ancient blood not ours.' I do not understand it, but the Wise Ones spoke in such a way as to leave no doubts.” She paused, obviously choosing her words. “You have asked many questions, Aes Sedai. I wish to ask one. You must understand that we look for omens and signs. Why do three Aes Sedai walk a land where the only hand without a knife in it is a hand too weak with hunger to grasp the hilt? Where do you go?”
“Tear,” Nynaeve said briskly, “unless we stay here talking until the Heart of the Stone crumbles to dust.” Elayne began adjusting the cord of her bundle and the strap of her script for walking, and after a moment Egwene did the same.
The Aiel women were looking at one another, Jolien frozen in the act of closing Dailin's graybrown coat. “Tear?” Aviendha said in a cautious tone. “Three Aes Sedai walking through a troubled land on their way to Tear. This is a strange thing. Why do you go to Tear, Aes Sedai?”
Egwene glanced at Nynaeve. Light, a moment ago they were laughing, and now they're as tense as they ever were.
“We hunt some evil women,” Nynaeve said carefully. “Darkfriends.”
“Shadowrunners.” Jolien twisted her mouth around the word as if she had bitten into a rotten apple.
“Shadowrunners in Tear,” Bain said, and as if part of the same sentence Chiad added, “And three Aes Sedai seeking the Heart of the Stone.”
“I did not say we were going to the Heart of the Stone,” Nynaeve said sharply. “I merely said I did not want to stay here till it falls to dust. Egwene, Elayne, are you ready?” She started out of the thicket without waiting for an answer, walking staff thumping the ground and long strides carrying her south.
Egwene and Elayne made hasty goodbyes before following after her. The four Aiel on their feet stood watching them go.
When the two of them were a little way beyond the trees, Egwene said, “My heart almost stopped when you named yourself. Weren't you afraid they might try to kill you, or to take you prisoner? The Aiel War was not that long ago, and whatever they said about not harming women who don't carry spears, they looked ready enough to use those spears on anything, to me.”
Elayne shook her head ruefully. “I have just learned how much I do not know about the Aiel, but I was taught that they do not think of the Aiel War as a war at all. From the way they behaved toward me, I think maybe that much of what I learned is truth. Or maybe it was because they think I am Aes Sedai.”
“I know they are strange, Elayne, but no one can call three years of battles anything but a war. I do not care how much they fight among themselves, a war is a war.”
“Not to them. Thousands of Aiel crossed the Spine of the World, but apparently they saw themselves more like thieftakers, or headsmen, come after King Laman of Cairhien for the crime of cutting down Avendoraldera. To the Aiel, it was not a war; it was an execution.”
Avendoraldera, according to one of Verin's lectures, had been an offshoot of the Tree of Life itself, brought to Cairhien some four hundred years ago as an unprecedented offer of peace from the Aiel, given along with the right to cross the Waste, a right otherwise given to none but peddlers, gleemen, and the Tuatha'an. Much of Cairhien's wealth had been built on the trade in ivory and perfumes and spices and, most of all, silk, from the lands beyond the Waste. Not even Verin had any idea of how the Aiel had come by a sapling of Avendesora — for one thing, the old books were clear that it made no seed; for another, no one knew where the Tree of Life was, except for a few stories that were clearly wrong, but surely the Tree of Life could have nothing to do with the Aiel — or of why the Aiel had called the Cairhienin the Watersharers, or insisted their trains of merchant wagons fly a banner bearing the trefoil leaf of Avendesora.
Egwene supposed, grudgingly, that she could understand why they had started a war — even if they did not think it was one — after King Laman cut down their gift to make a throne unlike any other in the world. Laman's Sin, she had heard it called. According to Verin, not only had Cairhien's trade across the Waste ended with the war, but those Cairhienin who ventured into the Waste now vanished. Verin claimed they were said to be “sold as animals” in the lands beyond the Waste, but not even she understood how a man or a woman could be sold.
“Egwene,” Elayne said, “you know who He Who Comes With the Dawn must be, don't you?”
Staring at Nynaeve's back still well ahead of them, Egwene shook her head — Does she mean to race us to Jurene? — then almost stopped walking. “You do not mean —?”
Elayne nodded. “I think so. I do not know much of the Prophecies of the Dragon, but I have heard a few lines. One I remember is, 'On the slopes of Dragonmount shall he be born, born of a maiden wedded to no man.' Egwene, Rand does look like an Aiel. Well, he looks like the pictures I have seen of Tigraine, too, but she vanished before he was born, and I hardly think she could have been his mother anyway. I think Rand's mother was a Maiden of the Spear.”
Egwene frowned in thought as she hurried along, running everything she knew of Rand's birth through her head. He had been raised by Tam al'Thor after Kari al'Thor died, but if what Moiraine said was true, they could not be his real mother and father. Nynaeve had sometimes seemed to know some secret about Rand's birth. But I will bet I couldn't pry it out of her with a fork!
They caught up to Nynaeve, Egwene glowering as she thought, Nynaeve staring straight ahead toward Jurene and that ship, and Elayne frowning at the pair of them as if they were two children sulking over who should have the larger piece of cake.
After a time of silent strides, Elayne said, “You handled that very well, Nynaeve. The Healing, and the rest, too. I do not think they ever doubted you were Aes Sedai. Or that we all were, because of the way you bore yourself.”
“You did do a good job,” Egwene said after a minute. “That was the first time I have ever really watched what is done during a Healing. It makes making lightning look like mixing oatcake.”
A surprised smile appeared on Nynaeve's face. “Thank you,” she murmured, and reached over to give Egwene's hair a little tug the way she had when Egwene was a little girl.
I am not a little girl any longer. The moment passed as quickly as it had come, and they went on in silence once more. Elayne sighed loudly.
They covered another mile, or a little more, swiftly, despite swinging in from the river to go around the thickets along the bank. Nynaeve insisted on staying well clear of the trees. Egwene thought it was silly to think more Aiel would be hiding in the copses, but the swing inland did not add much distance to what they had to cover; none of the growths were very big.
Elayne watched the trees, though, and she was the one who suddenly screamed, “Look out!”
Egwene jerked her head around; men were stepping out from among the trees, slings whirling 'round their heads. She reached for saidar, and something struck her head, and darkness drank everything.
Egwene could feel herself swaying, feel something moving under her. Her head seemed to be nothing but pain. She tried to raise a hand to her temples, but something dug into her wrists, and her hands did not move.