"This is an awful time to tell you this, I know", Bornhald said. "But I couldn’t keep it in. I just . . . We may fall. Light, it might all fall. I had to speak, say it".
He pulled away, moving back toward the other Whitecloaks with eyes downcast. Perrin stood alone, his entire world shaking.
Then he pulled it back together. He had dealt with this; he had mourned his family. It was over, through.
He could and would go on. Light, the old hurts returned, but he shoved them down and turned his eyes toward the gateway. Toward Rand, and his duty.
He had work to do. But Ordeith . . . Padan Fain . . . This only added to that man’s terrible crimes. Perrin would see that he paid, one way or another.
He approached the gateway to Travel to find Rand, where he was joined by Gaul.
"I’m going to a place you cannot, my friend", Perrin said softly, his pain subsiding. "I’m sorry".
"You’ll go to the dream within a dream", Gaul said, then yawned. "Turns out I’m tired".
"But—"
"I’m coming, Perrin Aybara. Kill me if you wish me to remain behind". Perrin didn’t dare push him on it. He nodded.
Perrin glanced behind him, raising his hammer once more. As he did so, he caught a glimpse through the other gateway, the one to Mayene that Grady still held open. Inside, two white-robed forms watched Gaul. He raised a spear to them. How must it feel, for a pair of warriors to wait out this, the Last Battle? Perhaps Rand should have tried to have the gai’shain released from their vows for a few weeks.
Well, that would probably have turned every single Aiel against him. Light protect the wetlander who dared tamper with ji’e’toh.
Perrin ducked through the gateway, stepping onto the ground of Merrilor. From there, he and Gaul packed as if for a long trip—foodstuffs and water aplenty, as much as they dared carry.
It took Perrin the better part of a half hour to convince Rand’s Asha’man to tell him where their leader had gone. Finally, a grudging Naeff opened a gateway for Perrin. He left Merrilor, and stepped out into what seemed to be the Blight. Only the rocks were cold.
The air smelled of death, of desolation. The fetor took Perrin aback, and it was minutes before he could sort out normal scents from the stench. Rand stood just ahead, at the edge of a ridge, arms folded behind his back. A group of his advisors, commanders and guards stood behind, including Moiraine, Aviendha and Cadsuane. At this moment, though, Rand stood alone at the end of the ridge.
Distant, in front of them, rose the peak of Shayol Ghul. Perrin felt a shiver. It was distant, but Perrin could not mistake the intense determination in Rand's expression as he regarded the peak.
"Light", Perrin said. "Is it time?"
"No", Rand said softly. "This is a test, to see if he senses me".
"Perrin?" Nynaeve asked from the hillside behind. She had been speaking with Moiraine and for once, she didn’t smell a twinge hateful. Something had happened between those two women.
"I only need him for a moment", Perrin said, walking up to join Rand at the end of the outcropping of rock. There were some Aiel back there, and Perrin didn’t want them—particularly any Wise Ones—to hear what he was going to ask Rand.
"You have this moment and many, Perrin", Rand said. "I owe you dearly. What is it you want?"
"Well . . ". Perrin looked over his shoulder. Would Moiraine or Nynaeve know enough to try to stop him? Probably. Women were always trying to keep a man from doing what he must, as if worried he’d break his neck. Never mind that it was the Last Battle.
"Perrin?" Rand asked.
"Rand, I need to enter the wolf dream".
"Tel’aran’rhiod?" Rand said. "Perrin, I don’t know what you do there; you’ve told me little. I figured that you would know how to—"
"I know how to enter it one way", Perrin said, whispering so that the Wise Ones and the others behind couldn’t hear. "The easy way. I need something else. You know things, you remember things. Is there anything in that ancient brain of yours that remembers how to enter into the World of Dreams in the flesh?"
Rand grew solemn. "Its a dangerous thing you ask".
"As dangerous as going to do what you’re about to do?"
"Perhaps". Rand frowned. "If I’d known back when I . . . Well, let’s just say that some would call your request very, very evil".
"It’s not evil, Rand", Perrin said. "I know something evil when I smell it. This isn’t evil, it’s just incredibly stupid".
Rand smiled. "And still you ask?"
"The good options are gone, Rand. Better to do something desperate than to do nothing at all".
Rand didn’t reply.
"Look", Perrin said. "We’ve spoken of the Black Tower. I know you’re worried about it".
"I will need to go there", Rand said, expression darkening. "And yet, it’s obviously a trap".
"I think I know part of what is to blame", Perrin said. "There’s someone I need to face, and I can’t beat him without being able to face him on equal terms. There, in the dream".
Rand nodded slowly. "The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills. We will have to leave the Blasted Lands; you cannot enter the dream from . . ".
He trailed off, then did something, crafting a weave. A gateway opened beside him. Something about it was different from ordinary ones.
"I see", Rand said. "The worlds are drawing together, compressing. What was once separate is no longer so. This gateway will take you into the dream. Take care, Perrin. If you die in that place while in the flesh, it can have . . . ramifications. What you face could be worse than death itself, particularly now. At this time".
"I know", Perrin said. "I will need a way out. Can you have one of your Asha’man make one of these gateways once a day, at dawn? Say, at the Traveling grounds of Merrilor?"
"Dangerous", Rand whispered. "But I will do it".
Perrin nodded in thanks.
"The Light willing, we will see one another again", Rand said. He held out his hand to Perrin. "Watch out for Mat. I’m honestly not sure what he’s going to do, but I have a feeling it will be highly dangerous for all involved".
"Not like us", Perrin said, clasping Rand’s forearm. "You and I, we’re much better at keeping to the safe paths".
Rand smiled. "May the Light shelter you, Perrin Aybara".
"And you, Rand al’Thor". Perrin hesitated, and realized what was happening. They were saying goodbye. He took Rand in an embrace.
"You take care of him, you two", Perrin said, looking toward Nynaeve and Moiraine as he pulled back from the embrace. "You hear me?"
"Oh, now you want me to watch after Rand?" Nynaeve said, hands on hips. "I don’t believe I ever stopped, Perrin Aybara. Don’t think I didn’t hear you two whispering over there. You’re doing something foolish, aren’t you?"
"Always", Perrin said, raising a hand in farewell to Thom. "Gaul, you certain you want to do this?"
"I am", the Aielman said, loosening his spears and looking through Rand’s gateway.
Without another word, the two hefted their heavy packs and stepped into the World of Dreams.
CHAPTER 14
Doses of Forkroot
"Light . . . " Perrin whispered to Gaul, looking across the landscape.
"It’s dying".
The boiling, thrashing, churning black sky of the wolf dream was nothing new, but the storm that the sky had been foreshadowing for months had finally arrived. Wind blew in enormous gusts, moving this way, then that, in unnatural patterns. Perrin closed his cloak, then strengthened it with a thought, imagining the ties holding it to be fixed strongly in place.
A little bubble of calmness extended out from him, deflecting the worst of the winds. It was easier than he anticipated, as if he’d reached for a heavy piece of oak and found it as light as pine.
The landscape seemed less real than it usually did. The raging winds actually smoothed out hills, like erosion at high speed. In other places, the land swelled up, forming ripples of rock and new hillsides. Chunks of earth sprayed into the air, shattering. The land itself was coming apart.
He grabbed Gaul’s shoulder and shifted the two of them away from the place. It was too close to Rand, Perrin suspected. Indeed, as they appeared on the familiar plain to the south—the place where he’d hunted with Hopper—they found the storm less powerful.
They stowed their heavy packs, laden with food and water, in a thicket of bushes. Perrin didn’t know if they could survive on food or water found in the dream, but he didn’t want to have to find out. They should have enough here for a week or so, and as long as they had a gateway waiting for them, he felt comfortable—or, at least, satisfied—with the risks he was taking here.
The landscape here wasn’t coming apart in the same way as it had been near Shayol Ghul. However, if he watched a section long enough, he could catch bits of . . . well, everything being pulled up in the winds. Stalks of dead grain, fragments of tree trunks, gobs of mud and slivers of rock—all were slowly being pulled toward those gluttonous black clouds. After the way of the wolf dream, when he looked back, things that had been broken apart would often be whole again. He understood. This place was being consumed, slowly, as was the waking world. Here, it was simply easier to see.
The winds whipped at them, but weren’t so strong that he had to keep them at bay. They felt like the winds at the beginning of a storm, right before the rain and lightning. The heralds of oncoming destruction.
Gaul had pulled the shoufa over his face, and looked about suspiciously. His clothing had changed in shade to match the grasses.
"You have to be very careful here, Gaul", Perrin said. "Your idle thoughts can become reality".
Gaul nodded, then hesitantly unveiled his face. "I will listen and do as instructed".
It was encouraging that Gaul’s clothing didn’t change too much as they walked through the field. "Just try to keep your mind clear", Perrin said. "Free of thought. Act by instinct and follow my lead".
"I will hunt like the gara", Gaul said, nodding. "My spear is yours, Perrin Aybara".
Perrin walked through the field, worried that Gaul would accidentally send himself somewhere by thinking of it. The man barely suffered any effects of the wolf dream, however. His clothing would change a little if he was startled, his veil snapping into place without him reaching for it, but that seemed to be the extent of it.
"All right", Perrin said. "I’m going to take us to the Black Tower. We hunt a dangerous prey, a man named Slayer. You remember Lord Luc?"
"The lopinginny?" Gaul said.
Perrin frowned.
"It is a type of bird", Gaul said. "From the Three-fold Land. I did not see this man often, but he seemed to be the type who talked big, but was inwardly a coward".
"Well, that was a front", Perrin said. "And either way, he is a very different person in the dream—here, he is a predator named Slayer who hunts wolves and men. He’s powerful. If he decides to kill you, he can appear behind you in an eyeblink and imagine you captured by vines and unable to move. You’ll be trapped as he slits your throat".