“Aemon's warcry, she said — right? Maybe you're Aemon come back again. The way you go on about how dull Emond's Field is, I'd think you would like that — being a king and hero reborn.”
“Don't say that!” Thom drew a deep breath; everybody stared at him now. “That is dangerous talk, stupid talk. The dead can be reborn, or take a living body, and it is not something to speak of lightly.” He took another breath to calm himself before going on. “The old blood, she said. The blood, not a dead man. I've heard that it can happen, sometimes. Heard, though I never really thought ... It was your roots, boy. A line running from you to your father to your grandfather, right on back to Manetheren, and maybe beyond. Well, now you know your family is old. You ought to let it go at that and be glad. Most people don't know much more than that they had a father.”
Some of us can't even be sure of that, Rand thought bitterly. Maybe the Wisdom was right. Light, I hope she was.
Mat nodded at what the gleeman said. “I suppose I should. Only... do you think it has anything to do with what's happened to us? The Trollocs and all? I mean ... oh, I don't know what I mean.”
“I think you ought to forget about it, and concentrate on getting out of here safely.” Thom produced his longstemmed pipe from inside his cloak. “And I think I am going to have a smoke.” With a waggle of the pipe in their direction, he disappeared into the front room.
“We are all in this together, not just one of us,” Rand told Mat.
Mat gave himself a shake, and laughed, a short bark. “Right. Well, speaking of being in things together, now that we're done with the horses, why don't we go see a little more of this city. A real city, and no crowds to jostle your elbow and poke you in the ribs. Nobody looking down their long noses at us. There's still an hour, maybe two, of daylight left.”
“Aren't you forgetting the Trollocs?” Perrin said.
Mat shook his head scornfully. “Lan said they wouldn't come in here, remember? You need to listen to what people say.”
“I remember,” Perrin said. “And I do listen. This city — Aridhol? — was an ally of Manetheren. See? I listen.”
“Aridhol must have been the greatest city in the Trolloc Wars,” Rand aid, “for the Trollocs to still be afraid of it. They weren't afraid to come into the Two Rivers, and Moiraine said Manetheren was — how did she put it? — a thorn to the Dark One's foot.”
Perrin raised his hands. “Don't mention the Shepherd of the Night. Please?”
“What do you say?” Mat laughed. “Let's go.”
“We should ask Moiraine,” Perrin said, and Mat threw up his hands.
“Ask Moiraine? You think she'll let us out of her sight? And what about Nynaeve? Blood and ashes, Perrin, why not ask Mistress Luhhan while you're about it?”
Perrin nodded reluctant agreement, and Mat turned to Rand with a grin. “What about you? A real city? With palaces!” He gave a sly laugh. “And no Whitecloaks to stare at us.”
Rand gave him a dirty look, but he hesitated only a minute. Those palaces were like a gleeman's tale. “All right.”
Stepping softly so as not to be heard in the front room, they left by the alley, following it away from the front of the building to a street on the other side. They walked quickly, and when they were a block away from the white stone building Mat suddenly broke into a capering dance.
“Free.” He laughed. “Free!” He slowed until he was turning a circle, staring at everything and still laughing. The afternoon shadows stretched long and jagged, and the sinking sun made the ruined city golden. “Did you ever even dream of a place like this? Did you?”
Perrin laughed, too, but Rand shrugged uncomfortably. This was nothing like the city in his first dream, but just the same ...“If we're going to see anything,” he said, “we had better get on with it. There isn't much daylight left.”
Mat wanted to see everything, it seemed, and he pulled the others along with his enthusiasm. They climbed over dusty fountains with basins wide enough to hold everybody in Emond's Field and wandered in and out of structures chosen at random, but always the biggest they could find. Some they understood, and some not. A palace was plainly a palace, but what was a huge building that was one round, white dome as big as a hill outside and one monstrous room inside? And a walled place, open to the sky and big enough to have held all of Emond's Field, surrounded by row on row on row of stone benches?
Mat grew impatient when they found nothing but dust, or rubble, or colorless rags of wall hangings that crumbled at a touch. Once some wooden chairs stood stacked against a wall; they all fell to bits when Perrin tried to pick one up.
The palaces, with their huge, empty chambers, some of which could have held the Winespring Inn with room to spare on every side and above as well, made Rand think too much of the people who had once filled them. He thought everybody in the Two Rivers could have stood under that round dome, and as for the place with the stone benches ... He could almost imagine he could see the people in the shadows, staring in disapproval at the three intruders disturbing their rest.
Finally even Mat tired, grand as the buildings were, and remembered that he had had only an hour's sleep the night before. Everyone began to remember that. Yawning, they sat on the steps of a tall building fronted by row on row of tall stone columns and argued about what to do next.
“Go back,” Rand said, “and get some sleep.” He put the back of his hand against his mouth. When he could talk again, he said, “Sleep. That's all I want.”
“You can sleep anytime,” Mat said determinedly. “Look at where we are. A ruined city. Treasure.”
“Treasure?” Perrin's jaws cracked. “There isn't any treasure here. There isn't anything but dust.”
Rand shaded his eyes against the sun, a red ball sitting close to the rooftops. “It's getting late, Mat. It'll be dark soon.”
“There could be treasure,” Mat maintained stoutly. “Anyway, I want to climb one of the towers. Look at that one over there. It's whole. I'll bet you could see for miles from up there. What do you say?”
“The towers are not safe,” said a man's voice behind them.