girl, Aviendha, and we must go on. All that she needs now is food and rest. And try not to let people stick swords in her.”
“What comes, comes, Aes Sedai,” the Aiel woman replied.
“Aviendha,” Egwene said, “feeling as you do about rivers, how do you cross them? I am sure there is at least one river nearly as big as the Erinin between here and the Waste.”
“The Alguenya,” Elayne said. “Unless you went around it.”
“You have many rivers, but some have things called bridges where we had need to cross, and others we could wade. For the rest, Jolien remembered that wood floats.” She slapped the trunk of a tall whitewood. “These are big, but they float as well as a branch. We found dead ones and made ourselves a . . . ship . . . a little ship, of two or three lashed together to cross the big river.” She said it matter-of-factly.
Egwene stared in wonder. If she were as afraid of something as the Aiel obviously were of rivers, could she make herself face it the way they did? She did not think so. What about the Black Ajah, a small voice asked. Have you stopped being afraid of them? That is different, she told it. There’s no bravery in that. I either hunt them, or else I sit like a rabbit waiting for a hawk. She quoted the old saying to herself. “It is better to be the hammer than the nail.”
“We had best be on our way,” Nynaeve said.
“In a moment,” Elayne told her. “Aviendha, why have you come all this way and put up with such hardship?”
Aviendha shook her head disgustedly. “We have not come far at all; we were among the last to set out. The Wise Ones nipped at me like wild dogs circling a calf, saying I had other duties.” Suddenly she grinned, gesturing to the other Aiel. “These stayed back to taunt me in my misery, so they said, but I do not think the Wise Ones would have let me go if they had not been there to companion me.”
“We seek the one foretold,” Bain said. She was holding a sleeping Dailin so Chiad could slip a shirt of brown linen onto her. “He Who Comes With the Dawn.”
“He will lead us out of the Three-fold Land,” Chiad added. “The prophecies say he was born of Far Dareis Mai.”
Elayne looked startled. “I thought you said the Maidens of the Spear were not allowed to have children. I am sure I was taught that.” Bain and Chiad exchanged those looks again, as if Elayne had come near truth and yet missed it once more.
“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 scrip 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 gray-brown 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