The Dragon Reborn - By Robert Jordan Page 0,41

to be done, doesn’t it?” he said finally. “I will come.”

“Good.” Moiraine rubbed her hands together again, with the air of someone settling to work. “You must all ready yourselves at once. Rand has hours on us. I mean to be well along his trail before midday.”

Slender as she was, the force of her presence herded all of them but Lan toward the door, Loial walking stooped over until he was through the doorway. Perrin thought of a goodwife herding geese.

Once outside, Min hung back for a moment to address Lan with a too-sweet smile. “And is there any message you want carried? To Nynaeve, perhaps?”

The Warder blinked as if caught off guard, like a horse on three legs. “Does everyone know—?” He regained his balance almost immediately. “If there is anything else she needs to hear from me, I will tell her myself.” He closed the door nearly in her face.

“Men!” Min muttered at the door. “Too blind to see what a stone could see, and too stubborn to be trusted to think for themselves.”

Perrin inhaled deeply. Faint smells of death still hung in the valley air, but it was better than the closeness inside. Some better.

“Clean air,” Loial sighed. “The smoke was beginning to bother me a little.”

They started down the slope together. Beside the stream below, the Shienarans who could stand were gathered around Uno. From his gestures the one-eyed man was making up for lost time with his cursing.

“How did you two become privileged?” Min demanded abruptly. “She asked you. She didn’t do me the courtesy of asking.”

Loial shook his head. “I think she asked because she knew what we would answer, Min. Moiraine seems able to read Perrin and me; she knows what we’ll do. But you are a closed book to her.”

Min appeared only a little mollified. She looked up at them, Perrin head and shoulders taller on one side and Loial towering even higher on the other. “Much good it does me. I am still going where she wants as easily as you two little lambs. You were doing well for a while, Perrin. Standing up to her like she’d sold you a coat and the seams were popping open.”

“I did stand up to her, didn’t I,” Perrin said wonderingly. He had not really realized he had done that. “It was not so bad as I’d have thought it would be.”

“You were lucky,” Loial rumbled. “ ‘To anger an Aes Sedai is to put your head in a hornet’s nest.’ ”

“Loial,” Min said, “I need to speak to Perrin. Alone. Would you mind?”

“Oh. Of course not.” He lengthened his stride to its normal span and quickly moved ahead of them, pulling his pipe and tabac pouch from a coat pocket.

Perrin eyed her warily. She was biting her lip, as if considering what to say. “Do you ever see things about him?” he asked, nodding after the Ogier.

She shook her head. “I think it only works with humans. But I’ve seen things around you that you ought to know about.”

“I’ve told you—”

“Don’t be more thickheaded than you have to be, Perrin. Back there, right after you said you’d go. They were not there before. They must have to do with this journey. Or at least with you deciding to go.”

After a moment he said reluctantly, “What did you see?”

“An Aielman in a cage,” she said promptly. “A Tuatha’an with a sword. A falcon and a hawk, perching on your shoulders. Both female, I think. And all the rest, of course. What is always there. Darkness swirling ’round you, and—”

“None of that!” he said quickly. When he was sure she had stopped, he scratched his head, thinking. None of it made any sense to him. “Do you have any idea what it all means? The new things, I mean.”

“No, but they’re important. The things I see always are. Turning points in people’s lives, or what’s fated. It’s always important.” She hesitated for a moment, glancing at him. “One more thing,” she said slowly. “If you meet a woman—the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen—run!”

Perrin blinked. “You saw a beautiful woman? Why should I run from a beautiful woman?”

“Can’t you just take advice?” she said irritably. She kicked at a stone and watched it roll down the slope.

Perrin did not like jumping to conclusions—it was one of the reasons some people thought him slow-witted—but he totaled up a number of things Min had said in the last few days and came to a startling conclusion. He