“This far from the Waste?” Ingtar said incredulously. Uno somehow managed to look offended without changing his expression, and Ingtar added, “No, I don’t doubt you. I am just surprised.”
“He flaming wanted me to see him, or I likely wouldn’t have.” Uno sounded disgusted at admitting it. “And his bloody face wasn’t veiled, so he’s not out for killing. But when you see one bloody Aiel, there’s always more you don’t.” Suddenly his eye widened. “Burn me if it doesn’t look like he bloody wants more than to be seen.” He pointed: a man had stepped into the way ahead of them.
Instantly Masema’s lance dropped to a couch, and he dug his heels into his horse, leaping to a dead gallop in three strides. He was not the only one; four steel points hurtled toward the man on the ground.
“Hold!” Ingtar shouted. “Hold,
I said! I’ll have the ears of any man who doesn’t stop where he stands!”
Masema pulled in his horse viciously, sawing the reins. The others also stopped, in a cloud of dust not ten paces from the man, their lances still held steady on the man’s chest. He raised a hand to wave away the dust as it drifted toward him; it was the first move he had made.
He was a tall man, with skin dark from the sun and red hair cut short except for a tail in the back that hung to his shoulders. From his soft, laced knee-high boots to the cloth wrapped loosely around his neck, his clothes were all in shades of brown and gray that would blend into rock or earth. The end of a short horn bow peeked over his shoulder, and a quiver bristled with arrows at his belt at one side. A long knife hung at the other. In his left hand he gripped a round hide buckler and three short spears, no more than half as long as he was tall, with points fully as long as those of the Shienaran lances.
“I have no pipers to play the tune,” the man announced with a smile, “but if you wish the dance. . . .” He did not change his stance, but Perrin caught a sudden air of readiness. “My name is Urien, of the Two Spires sept of the Reyn Aiel. I am a Red Shield. Remember me.”
Ingtar dismounted and walked forward, removing his helmet. Perrin hesitated only a moment before climbing down to join him. He could not miss the chance to see an Aiel close up. Acting like a black-veiled Aiel. In story after story Aiel were as deadly and dangerous as Trollocs—some even said they were all Darkfriends—but Urien’s smile somehow did not look dangerous despite the fact that he seemed poised to leap. His eyes were blue.
“He looks like Rand.” Perrin looked around to see that Mat had joined them, too. “Maybe Ingtar’s right,” Mat added quietly. “Maybe Rand is an Aiel.”
Perrin nodded. “But it doesn’t change anything.”
“No, it doesn’t.” Mat sounded as if he were talking about something beside what Perrin meant.
“We are both far from our homes,” Ingtar said to the Aiel, “and we, at least, have come for other things than fighting.” Perrin revised his opinion of Urien’s smile; the man actually looked disappointed.
“As you wish it, Shienaran.” Urien turned to Verin, just getting down off her horse, and made an odd bow, digging the points of his spears into the ground and extending his right hand, palm up. His voice became respectful. “Wise One, my water is yours.”
Verin handed her reins to one of the soldiers. She studied the Aiel as she came closer. “Why do you call me that? Do you take me for an Aiel?”
“No, Wise One. But you have the look of those who have made the journey to Rhuidean and survived. The years do not touch the Wise Ones in the same way as other women, or as they touch men.”
An excited look appeared on the Aes Sedai’s face, but Ingtar spoke impatiently. “We are following Darkfriends and Trollocs, Urien. Have you seen any sign of them?”
“Trollocs? Here?” Urien’s eyes brightened. “It is one of the signs the prophecies speak of. When the Trollocs come out of the Blight again, we will leave the Three-fold Land and take back our places of old.” There was muttering from the mounted Shienarans. Urien eyed them with a pride that made him seem to be looking down from a height.
“The Three-fold Land?” Mat said.
Perrin thought he looked still paler; not sick, exactly, but as if he had been out of the sun too long.
“You call it the Waste,” Urien said. “To us it is the Three-fold Land. A shaping stone, to make us; a testing ground, to prove our worth; and a punishment for the sin.”
“What sin?” Mat asked. Perrin caught his breath, waiting for the spears in Urien’s hand to flash.
The Aiel shrugged. “So long ago it was, that none remember. Except the Wise Ones and the clan chiefs, and they will not speak of it. It must have been a very great sin if they cannot bring themselves to tell us, but the Creator punishes us well.”
“Trollocs,” Ingtar persisted. “Have you seen Trollocs?”
Urien shook his head. “I would have killed them if I had, but I have seen nothing but the rocks and the sky.”
Ingtar shook his head, losing interest, but Verin spoke, sharp concentration in her voice. “This Rhuidean. What is it? Where is it? How are the girls chosen to go?”
Urien’s face went flat, his eyes hooded. “I cannot speak of it, Wise One.”
In spite of himself Perrin’s hand gripped his axe. There was that in Urien’s voice. Ingtar had also set himself, ready to reach for his sword, and there was a stir among the mounted men. But Verin stepped up to the Aiel, until she was almost touching his chest, and looked up into his face.
“I am not a Wise One as you know them, Urien,” she said insistently. “I am Aes Sedai. Tell me what you can say of Rhuidean.”
The man who had been ready to face twenty men now looked as if he wished for an escape from this one plump woman with graying hair. “I . . . can tell you only what is known to all. Rhuidean lies in the lands of the Jenn Aiel, the thirteenth clan. I cannot speak of them except to name them. None may go there save women who wish to become Wise Ones, or men who wish to be clan chiefs. Perhaps the Jenn Aiel choose among them; I do not know. Many go; few return, and those are marked as what they are—Wise Ones, or clan chiefs. No more can I say, Aes Sedai. No more.”