Perrin started toward the hut. As he splashed across the shallow stream, he met Masema. The Shienaran’s face was haggard, the scar on his cheek prominent, and his eyes even more sunken than usual. In the middle of the stream, he raised his head suddenly and caught Perrin’s coat sleeve.
“You’re from his village,” Masema said hoarsely. “You must know. Why did the Lord Dragon abandon us? What sin did we commit?”
“Sin? What are you talking about? Whyever Rand went, it was nothing you did or didn’t do.” Masema did not appear satisfied; he kept his grip on Perrin’s sleeve, peering into his face as if there were answers there. Icy water began to seep into Perrin’s left boot. “Masema,” he said carefully, “whatever the Lord Dragon did, it was according to his plan. The Lord Dragon would not abandon us.” Or would he? If I were in his place, would I?
Masema nodded slowly. “Yes. Yes, I see that, now. He has gone out alone to spread the word of his coming. We must spread the word, too. Yes.” He limped on across the stream, muttering to himself.
Squelching at every other step, Perrin climbed to Moiraine’s hut and knocked. There was no answer. He hesitated a moment, then went in.
The outer room, where Lan slept, was as stark and simple as Perrin’s own hut, with a rough
bed built against one wall, a few pegs for hanging possessions, and a single shelf. Not much light entered through the open door, and the only other illumination came from crude lamps on the shelf, slivers of oily fat-wood wedged into cracks in pieces of rock. They gave off thin streamers of smoke that made a layer of haze under the roof. Perrin’s nose wrinkled at the smell.
The low roof was only a little higher than his head. Loial’s head actually brushed it, even seated as he was on one end of Lan’s bed, with his knees drawn up to make himself small. The Ogier’s tufted ears twitched uneasily. Min sat cross-legged on the dirt floor beside the door that led to Moiraine’s room, while the Aes Sedai paced back and forth in thought. Dark thoughts, they must have been. Three paces each way was all she had, but she made vigorous use of the space, the calm on her face belied by the quickness of her step.
“I think Masema is going crazy,” Perrin said.
Min sniffed. “With him, how can you tell?”
Moiraine rounded on him, a tightness to her mouth. Her voice was soft. Too soft. “Is Masema the most important thing in your mind this morning, Perrin Aybara?”
“No. I’d like to know when Rand left, and why. Did anyone see him go? Does anyone know where he went?” He made himself meet her look with one just as level and firm. It was not easy. He loomed over her, but she was Aes Sedai. “Is this of your making, Moiraine? Did you rein him in until he was so impatient he’d go anywhere, do anything, just to stop sitting still?” Loial’s ears went stiff, and he motioned a surreptitious warning with one thick-fingered hand.
Moiraine studied Perrin with her head tilted to one side, and it was all he could do not to drop his eyes. “This is none of my doing,” she said. “He left sometime during the night. When and how and why, I yet hope to learn.”
Loial’s shoulders heaved in a quiet sigh of relief. Quiet for an Ogier, it sounded like steam rushing out from quenching red-hot iron. “Never anger an Aes Sedai,” he said in a whisper obviously meant just for himself, but audible to everyone. “ ‘Better to embrace the sun than to anger an Aes Sedai.’ ”
Min reached up enough to hand Perrin a folded piece of paper. “Loial went to see him after we got him to bed last night, and Rand asked to borrow pen and paper and ink.”
The Ogier’s ears jerked, and he frowned worriedly until his long eyebrows hung down on his cheeks. “I did not know what he was planning. I didn’t.”
“We know that,” Min said. “No one is accusing you of anything, Loial.”
Moiraine frowned at the paper, but she did not try to stop Perrin from reading. It was in Rand’s hand.
What I do, I do because there is no other way. He is hunting me again, and this time one of us has to die, I think. There is no need for those around me to die, also. Too many have died for me already. I do not want to die either, and will not, if I can manage it. There are lies in dreams, and death, but dreams hold truth, too.
That was all, with no signature. There was no need for Perrin to wonder who Rand meant by “he.” For Rand, for all of them, there could be only one. Ba’alzamon.
“He left that tucked under the door there,” Min said in a tight voice. “He took some old clothes the Shienarans had hanging out to dry, and his flute, and a horse. Nothing else but a little food, as far as we can tell. None of the guards saw him go, and last night they would have seen a mouse creeping.”
“And would it have done any good if they had?” Moiraine said calmly. “Would any of them have stopped the Lord Dragon, or even challenged him? Some of them—Masema for one—would slit their own throats if the Lord Dragon told them to.”
It was Perrin’s turn to study her. “Did you expect anything else? They swore to follow him. Light, Moiraine, he’d never have named himself Dragon if not for you. What did you expect of them?” She did not speak, and he went on more quietly. “Do you believe, Moiraine? That he’s really the Dragon Reborn? Or do you just think he’s someone you can use before the One Power kills him or drives him mad?”
“Go easy, Perrin,” Loial said. “Not so angry.”
“I’ll go easy when she answers me. Well, Moiraine?”
“He is what he is,” she said sharply.
“You said the Pattern would force him to the right path eventually. Is that what this is, or is he just trying to get away from you?” For a moment he thought he had gone too far—her dark eyes sparkled with anger—but he refused to back down. “Well?”
Moiraine took a deep breath. “This may well be what the Pattern has chosen, yet I did not mean for him to go off alone. For all his power, he is as defenseless as a babe in many ways, and as ignorant of the world. He channels, but he has no control over whether or not the One Power comes when he reaches for it and almost as little over what he does with it if it does come. The power itself will kill him before he has a chance to go mad if he does not learn that control. There is so much he must learn, yet. He wants to run before he has learned to walk.”
“You split hairs and lay false trails, Moiraine.” Perrin snorted. “If he is what you say he is, did it never occur to you that he might know what he has to do better than you?”
“He is what he is,” she repeated firmly, “but I must keep him alive if he is to do anything. He will fulfill no prophecies dead, and even if he manages to avoid Darkfriends and Shadowspawn, there are a thousand other hands ready to slay him. All it will take is a hint of the hundredth part of what he is. Yet if that were all he might face, I would not worry half so much as I do. There are the Forsaken to be accounted for.”