The Dragon Reborn (The Wheel of Time #3)

The Dragon Reborn (The Wheel of Time #3) Page 182

“What do you mean she is not in her body? Light! You don't mean they... took her soul. Like the Gray Men!” Moiraine shook her head, and he drew a relieved breath. His chest hurt as if he had not breathed since she last spoke. “Then where is she, Moiraine?”

“I do not know,” she said. “I have a suspicion, but I do not know.”

“A suspicion, a hint, anything! Burn me, where?” Lan shifted at the roughness in his voice, but he knew he would try to break the Warder like iron over a hardy if the man tried to stop him. “Where?”

“I know very little, Perrin.” Moiraine's voice was like cold, unfeeling music. “I have remembered the little I know of what connects a carved hedgehog with Spirit. The carving is a ter'angreal last studied by Corianin Nedeal, the last Dreamer the Tower had. The Talent called Dreaming is a thing of Spirit, Perrin. It is not a thing I have ever studied; my Talents lie in other ways. I believe that Zarine has been trapped inside a dream, perhaps even the World of Dreams, Tel'aran'rhiod. All that is her is inside that dream. All. A Dreamer sends only a part of herself. If Zarine does not return soon, her body will die. Perhaps she will live on in the dream. I do not know.”

“There is too much you don't know,” Perrin muttered. He peered into the room and wanted to cry. Zarine looked so small, lying there, so helpless. Faile. I swear I will only call you Faile, ever again. “Why don't you do something!”

“The trap has been sprung, Perrin, but it is a trap that will still catch anyone who steps into that room. I would not reach her side before it took me. And I have work I must do tonight.”

“Burn you, Aes Sedai! Burn your work! This World of Dreams? Is it like the wolf dreams? You said these Dreamers sometimes saw wolves.”

“I have told you what I can,” she said sharply. “It is time for you to go. Lan and I must be on our way to the Stone. There can be no waiting, now.”

“No.” He said it quietly, but when Moiraine opened her mouth, he raised his voice. “No! I will not leave her!”

The Aes Sedai took a deep breath. “Very well, Perrin.” Her voice was ice; calm, smooth, cold. “Remain if you wish. Perhaps you will survive this night. Lan!”

She and the Warder strode down the hall to their rooms. In moments they returned, Lan wearing his colorchanging cloak, and vanished down the stairs without another word to him.

He stared through the open door at Faile. I have to do something. If it is like the wolf dreams...

“Perrin,” came Loial's deep rumble, “what is this about Faile?” The Ogier came striding down the hall in his shirtsleeves, ink on his fingers and a pen in his hand. “Lan told me I had to go, and then he said something about Faile, in a trap. What did he mean?”

Distractedly, Perrin told him what Moiraine had said. It might work. It might. It has to! He was surprised when Loial growled.

“No! Perrin, it is not right! Faile was so free. It is not right to trap her!”

Perrin peered up at Loial's face, and suddenly remembered the old stories that claimed Ogier were implacable enemies. Loial's ears had laid back along the sides of his head, and his broad face was as hard as an anvil.

“Loial, I am going to try to help Faile. But I will be helpless myself while I do. Will you guard my back?”

Loial raised those huge hands that held books so carefully, and his thick fingers curled as if to crush stone. “None will pass me while I live, Perrin. Not Myrddraal or the Dark One himself.” He said it like a simple statement of fact.

Perrin nodded, and looked through the door again. It has to work. I don't care if Min warned me against her or not! With a snarl he leaped toward Faile, stretching out his hand. He thought he touched her ankle before he was gone.

Whether this dream of the trap was Tel'aran'rhiod or not, Perrin did not know, but he knew it for the wolf dream. Rolling, grassy hills surrounded him, and scattered thickets. He saw deer browsing at the edges of the trees, and a herd of some sort of running animal bounding across the grass, like brownstriped deer, but with long, straight horns. The smells on the wind told him they were good to eat, and other scents spoke of more good hunting all around him. This was the wolf dream.

He was wearing the blacksmith's long leather vest, he realized, with his arms bare. And there was a weight at his side. He touched the axe belt, but it was not the axe hanging from its loop. He ran his fingers over the head of the heavy smith's hammer. It felt right.

Hopper alighted in front of him.

Again you come, like a fool. The sending was of a cub sticking its nose into a hollow tree trunk to lap honey despite the bees stinging its muzzle and eyes. The danger is greater than ever, Young Bull. Evil things walk the dream. The brothers and sisters avoid the mountains of stone the twolegs pile up, and almost fear to dream to one another. You must go!

“No,” Perrin said. “Faile is here, somewhere, trapped. I have to find her, Hopper. I have to!” He felt a shifting inside him, something changing. He looked down at his curlyhaired legs, his wide paws. He was an even larger wolf than Hopper.

You are here too strongly! Every sending carried shock. You will die, Young Bull!

If I do not free the falcon, I do not care, brother.

Then we hunt, brother.

Noses to the wind, the two wolves ran across the plain, seeking the falcon.

Chapter 54

(Dice)

Into the Stone

The rooftops of Tear were no place for a sensible man to be in the night, Mat decided as he peered into the moon shadows. A little more than fifty paces of broad street, or perhaps narrow plaza, separated the Stone from his tiled roof, itself three stories above the paving stones. But when was I ever sensible? The only people I ever met who were sensible all the time were so boring that watching them could put you to sleep. Whether the thing was a street or a plaza, he had followed it all the way around the Stone since nightfall; the only place it did not go was on the river side, where the Erinin ran right along the foot of the fortress, and nothing interrupted it except the city wall. That wall was only two houses to his right. So far, the top of the wall seemed the best path to the Stone, but not one he would be overjoyed to take.

Picking up his quarterstaff and a small, wirehandled tin box, he moved carefully to a brick chimney a little nearer the wall. The roll of fireworks — what had been the roll of fireworks before he worked on it back in his room — shifted on his back. It was more of a bundle, now, all jammed together as tight as he could make it, but still too big for carrying around rooftops in the dark. Earlier, a slip of his foot because of the thing had sent a roof tile skittering over the edge, and roused the man sleeping in a room below to bellow “thief!” and send him running. He hitched the bundle back into position without thinking about it, and crouched in the shadows of the chimney. After a moment he set the tin box down; the wire handle was beginning t