Gai'shain were erecting the Wise Ones' tents — those of Amys and Bair and Melaine — below the town, astride the faded track that led up out of the hills. Rand was sure they would say they had chosen the spot to be available to him as well as to the countless dozens of Wise Ones below, but he thought it no coincidence that anyone coming up from the hills to him would have to go through or around their camp to reach him. He was a little surprised to see Melaine directing the whiterobed figures. Only three nights before, she had married Bael, in a ceremony that made her his wife and firstsister to his other wife, Dorindha. That part had been just as important as the marriage, apparently; Aviendha had been shocked at his surprise, or maybe angry.
When Egwene arrived with Aviendha up behind her on the gray mare, those full skirts pushed above their knees, they looked a matched pair despite their different coloring and Aviendha being tall enough to look over Egwene's shoulder without stretching, each with just one ivory bracelet and one necklace. The work of removing the hanged corpses had barely begun. Most of the ravens lay dead, bundles of black feathers littering the ground, and the rest had flown, but vultures too gorged to flap aloft still waddled through the ashes inside the walls.
Rand wished that there was some way he could keep the two women from having to see, but to his surprise, neither went running to empty her stomach. Well, he had not really expected anything of the sort from Aviendha; she had seen death often enough, and dealt it out, too, and her face remained expressionless. But he had not expected the pure pity in Egwene's eyes as she gazed at the bloated dead coming down.
She drew Mist over to Jeade'en and leaned to put a hand on his arm. “I am so sorry, Rand. There was no way you could have stopped this.”
“I know,” he told her. He had not even known there was a town here until Rhuarc mentioned it casually five days ago — his councils with the chiefs had all been on whether they could cover more ground in a day, and what Couladin would do when he cleared the Jangai — and by that time the Shaido had finished here and gone. He had done with cursing himself for a fool then.
“Well, just you remember it. It was not your fault.” She heeled Mist on, and began talking to Aviendha before she was out of earshot. “I am glad he is taking it so well. He has the habit of feeling guilty over things he cannot control.”
“Men always believe they are in control of everything around them,” Aviendha replied. “When they find out they are not, they think they have failed, instead of learning a simple truth women already know.”
Egwene giggled. “That is the simple truth. Once I saw those poor people, I thought we would find him heaving somewhere.”
“Is his stomach so tender? I...”
Their voices faded away as the mare ambled on. Rand pulled himself back upright in the saddle, flushing. Trying to eavesdrop on them; he was behaving like an idiot. That did not stop him frowning at their departing backs. He only took responsibility for what he was accountable for, if only to himself. Just for things he could do something about. And what he should have done something about. He did not like them talking about him. Behind his back, or under his nose. The Light only knew what they were saying.
Dismounting, he led Jeade'en in search of Asmodean, who seemed to have wandered off. After so many days in the saddle, it was good to walk. Various clusters of tents were springing up along the pass; the mountain slopes and cliffs made formidable barriers, but the Aiel still arranged themselves as if they could expect attack from them. He had tried walking with the Aiel, but half a day was enough to put him back on the horse. It was hard enough to keep up with them mounted; they could wear out horses when they pressed.
Mat was down, too, squatting with his reins in one hand and that blackhafted spear across his knees, peering at the gaping gates, studying the town and muttering to himself while Pips tried to nibble at a thornbush. Mat was studying, not just staring. Where had that remark about sentries come from? Mat said odd things at times now, since their first visit to Rhuidean. Rand wished that he were willing to talk about what had happened, but he still denied that anything had, despite the foxhead medallion, the spear, and that scar around his neck. Melindhra, the Shaido Maiden that Mat had taken up with, was off to one side, watching Mat, until Sulin came and chased her away on some errand. Rand wondered if Mat knew the Maidens were laying bets on whether Melindhra would give up the spear for him. And on whether she would teach him to sing, too, though they only laughed when Rand asked what that meant.
The sound of music drew him to Asmodean, seated by himself on a granite outcrop with his harp on his knee. The crimson banner's staff had been twisted into the rocky soil, and the mule tethered to it. “You see, my Lord Dragon,” he said cheerfully, “your bannerman keeps loyally to his duties.” His voice and expression changed, and he said, “If you must have this thing, why not let Mat carry it, or Lan? Or Moiraine, for that matter? She would be glad to carry your banner, and clean your boots. Be careful of her. She is a devious woman. When a woman says she will obey you, of her own will, it is time to sleep lightly and watch your back.”
“You carry it because you were chosen, Master Jasin Natael.” Asmodean gave a start and looked around, though everyone else was too far away, and too busy, to be listening. None but they two would have understood, anyway. “What do you know about those ruins up near the snow line? They must come from the Age of Legends.”
Asmodean did not even glance up the mountain. “This world is very changed from the world I... went to sleep in.” He sounded weary, and he shivered slightly. “What I know of what lies where, I have learned since waking.” The mournful sounds of “The March of Death” rose from his harp. “That could be what is left of the city where I was born, for all I know. Shorelle was a port.”
The sun had maybe an hour before the Spine of the World hid it; this close to high mountains, night came early. “I am too tired for one of our discussions tonight.” That was what they called Asmodean's lessons in public, even when no one was around. Added to practice sessions with Lan or Rhuarc, those lessons had left him little time for sleep since leaving Rhuidean. “You take to your tent when you're ready, and I will see you in the morning. With the banner.” There was no one else to carry the bloody thing. Maybe he could find somebody in Cairhien.
As he was turning away, Asmodean plucked something discordant and said, “No burning nets woven around my tent tonight? Do you finally begin to trust me?”
Rand looked back over his shoulder. “I trust you like a brother. Until the day you betray me. You have a parole for what you've done, in return for your teaching, and a better bargain than you deserve, but the day you turn against me, I will tear it up and bury it with you.” Asmodean opened his mouth, but Rand forestalled him. “That is me talking, Natael. Rand al'Thor. Two Rivers folk don't like people who try to stab them in the back.”
Irritably, he pulled at the dapple's reins and went on before the other man could say anything. He was not sure whether Asmodean had any inkling that a dead man was trying to take him over, but he should not let himself give the man hints. Asmodean was sure enough already that his was a helpless cause; if he began to think that Rand was not in full control of his own mind, perhaps that he was going mad, the Forsaken would abandon him in a heartbeat, and there was too much Rand had to learn yet.
Whiterobed gai'shain were erecting his tent under Aviendha's direction, well into the pass mouth, with that huge carved snake rearing above. The gai'shain had their own tents, but those would be the last erected, of course. Adelin and a dozen or so Maidens squatted nearby, watching, waiting to guard his sleep. Even with over a thousand Maidens encamped around him every night, they still put a guard on his tent.
Before approaching, he reached out through the angreal in his coat pocket to seize saidin. There was no need to actually touch the carving of the fat little man with a sword, of course. Mingled filth and sweetness filled him, that raging river of fire, that crushing avalanche of ice. Channeling as he had done every night since leaving Rhuidean, he set wards around the entire encampment, not only what was in the pass but every tent in the hills below as well, and on the slopes of the mountains. He needed the angreal to set wardings so large, but only just. He had thought that he was strong before, but Asmodean's teachings were making him stronger. No human or animal crossing the line of that ward would notice anything, but Shadowspawn that touched it would sound a warning that everyone in the tents would hear. Had he done this in Rhuidean, the Darkhounds could never have entered without him knowing.
The Aiel themselves would have to keep watch for human enemies. Wardings were complex weaves, if tenuous, and trying to make them do more than one thing could render them useless, in practicality. He could have made this one to kill Shadowspawn instead of merely giving warning, but that would have been like a beacon to any male Forsaken who might be searching, and to Myrddraal, too. No need to bring his enemies down on him when they might not know where he was. This, even one of the Forsaken would not know until he was close, and a Myrddraal not until it was too late.
Letting go of saidin was an exercise in selfcontrol, despite the foulness of the taint, despite the way the Power tried to scour him away like sand on a riverbed, to burn him, obliterate him. He floated in the vast emptiness of the Void, yet he could feel the air stirring against each hair on his head, see the weave of the gai'shain's robes, smell Aviendha's warm scent. He wanted more. But he could smell the ashes of Taien, too, smell the who had been burned, the corruption of those who not, even the ones already buried, mingled with the soil of their graves. That helped. For a while after it was gone, all he did was take deep breaths of hot, arid air; compared to before, the whiff of death seemed absent, and the air itself pure and wonderful.
“Look what was here before us,” Aviendha said as he let a meekfaced whiterobed woman take Jeade'en. She held up a brown snake, dead, but as thick as his forearm and nearly three paces long. The bloodsnake took its name from the effect of its bite, turning the blood to jelly in minutes. Unless he missed his guess, the neat wound behind its head had come from her belt knife. Adelin and the other Maidens looked approving.
“Did you ever for one minute think that it could have bitten you?” he said. “Did you ever think of using the Power instead of a bloody belt knife? Why didn't you kiss it first? You had to be close enough.”
She drew herself up, and her big green eyes should have brought on the night's chill early. “The Wise Ones say it is not good to use the Power too often.” The clipped words were as cold as her eyes. “They say it is possible to draw too much and harm yourself.” Frowning slightly, she added, more to herself than him, “Though I have not come near what I can hold yet. I am sure of it.”
Shaking his head, he ducked into the tent. The woman would not listen to reason.
No sooner had he settled himself against a silk cushion near the still unlit fire than she followed him. Without the bloodsnake, thankfully, but gingerly carrying something long wrapped in thick layers of graystriped blanket. “You were worried for me,” she said in a flat voice. There was no expression at all on her face.
“Of course not,” he lied. Fool woman. She'll get herself killed yet because she doesn't have the sense to be careful when it's needed. “I'd have been as worried for anyone. I would not want anyone bitten by a bloodsnake.”
For a moment she eyed him doubtfully, then gave a quick nod. “Good. So long as you do not presume toward me.” Tossing the bundled blanket at his feet, she sat on her heels across the firepit from him. “You would not accept the buckle as canceling debt between us...”