The open gateway beside her invited Aviendha, a means of escape—but it might as well have been a mile away. Mind clouding, legs afire with pain, Aviendha slipped her knife from its sheath.
It fell from her trembling fingers. She was too weak to hold it.
CHAPTER 44
Two Craftsmen
Perrin awoke to something rustling. He cracked his eyes open, wary, and found himself in a dark room.
Berelain's palace, he remembered. The sound of the waves had grown softer outside, the calls of gulls silent. Thunder rumbled, distant.
What time was it? It smelled like morning, but it was dark outside still. He had trouble picking out the dark silhouette moving through the room toward him. He tensed until he picked out the scent.
“Chiad?” he asked, sitting up.
The Aiel did not jump, though he was certain from the way she stopped that he’d surprised her. “I should not be here,” she whispered. “I push my honor to the very edge of what should be allowed.”
“It’s the Last Battle, Chiad,” Perrin said. “You are allowed to push some boundaries . . . assuming we haven’t won yet.”
“The battle at Merrilor is won, but the greater battle—that at Thakan’dar—still rages.”
“I need to return to work,” Perrin said. He was in his smallclothes only. He didn’t let that bother him. An Aiel like Chiad wouldn’t blush. He pushed off his blanket.
Unfortunately, the bone-eating weariness inside him had subsided only a little. “Not going to tell me to stay in bed?” he asked, tiredly searching out his shirt and trousers. They were folded with his hammer at the foot of the bed. He had to lean against the mattress as he walked there. “You’re not going to tell me I have no business fighting while tired? Every woman I know seems to think that is one of her primary jobs.”
“I have found,” Chiad said dryly, “that pointing out stupidity serves only to make men stupider. Besides, I’m gai’shain. It’s not my place.”
He looked at her, and though he couldn’t see her blush in the darkness, he could smell her embarrassment. She wasn’t acting much like gai’shain. “Rand should have just released you all from your vows.”
“He does not have that power,” she said hotly.
“What good is honor if the Dark One wins the Last Battle?” Perrin snapped, pulling up his trousers.
“It is everything,” Chiad said softly. “It is worth death, it is worth risking the world itself. If we have no honor, better that we lose.”
Well, he supposed there were things he’d say the same thing about. Not wearing silly white robes, of course—but he wouldn’t do some of the things the Whitecloaks had done, even if the world was at stake. He didn’t press her further.
“Why are you here?” he asked, putting on his shirt.
“Gaul,” Chiad said. “Is he . . .”
“Oh, Light!” Perrin said. “I should have told you earlier. I’ve scrap iron for a brain lately, Chiad. He was fine when I left him. He’s still in the dream, and time passes more slowly where he is. It has probably only been an hour or so in his time, but I need to return to him.”
“In your condition?” she asked, ignoring the fact that she’d said she wouldn’t chivvy him for that.
“No,” Perrin said, sitting on the bed. “Last time, I nearly broke my neck. I need one of the Aes Sedai to cure me of my fatigue.”
“This thing is dangerous,” Chiad said.
“More dangerous than letting Rand die?” Perrin said. “More dangerous than leaving Gaul without an ally in the World of Dreams, protecting the Car’a’carn alone?”
“That one is likely to stab himself with his own spear if left to fight alone,” Chiad said.
“I didn’t mean—”
“Hush, Perrin Aybara. I will try.” She left in a rustle of cloth.
Perrin lay back on the bed, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his palms. He’d been far more certain of himself when he’d fought Slayer this last time, yet still he’d failed. He gritted his teeth, hoping Chiad would return soon.
Something moved outside his room. He revived, hauling himself up to a sitting position again.
A large shape darkened the doorway, then removed the shield from a lamp. Master Luhhan was built like an anvil, with a compact—yet powerful—torso and arms that bulged. In Perrin's mind’s eye, the man didn’t have so much gray in his hair. Master Luhhan had grown older, but he was not frail. Perrin doubted he ever would be.
“Lord Goldeneyes?” he asked.
“Light, please,” Perrin said. “Master Luhhan, you of all people should feel free to call me Perrin. If not ‘that worthless apprentice of mine.’ ”
“Here, now,” Master Luhhan said, walking into the room. “I don’t believe I called you that except once.”
“When I broke the new blade for Master al’Moor’s scythe,” Perrin said, smiling. “I was sure I could get it right.”
Master Luhhan chuckled. He paused beside Perrin’s hammer, which still lay on the table at the foot of the bed, and rested his fingers on it. “You have become a master of the craft.” Master Luhhan seated himself on a stool beside the bed. “One craftsman to another, I’m impressed. I don’t think I could have ever made something so fine as that hammer.”
“You made the axe.”
“I guess I did that,” he said. “It was not a thing of beauty. It was a thing of killing.”
“Killing sometimes needs to be done.”
“Yes, but it’s never beautiful. Never.”
Perrin nodded. “Thank you. For finding me, bringing me here. For saving me.”
“It was self-interest, son!” Master Luhhan said. “If we escape this, it will be because of you boys, mark my words on it as true.” He shook his head, as if he couldn’t believe it. One man, at least, remembered the three of them as youths—youths who, in Mat’s case at least, had been in trouble more often than not.
Actually, Perrin thought, I'm pretty sure Mat’s still in trouble more often than not. At least, at the moment, he wasn’t fighting but instead talking with some Seanchan, according to the spinning colors that resolved into an image.
“Chiad said that the fighting at Merrilor was finished?” Perrin asked.
“It is,” Master Luhhan said. “I came through, carrying some of our wounded. I should be getting back to Tam and Abell soon, but I wanted to check on you.”
Perrin nodded. That tugging inside of him . . . if anything, it was stronger now than it ever would be. Rand needed him. The war wasn’t finished yet. Not by far.
“Master Luhhan,” Perrin said with a sigh. “I’ve made a mistake.”
“Mistake?”
“I ran myself ragged,” Perrin said. “I pushed myself too hard.” He made a fist, slamming it into the corner post of the bed. “I should know better, Master Luhhan. I always do this. I work myself so hard, I make myself useless the next day.”
“Perrin, lad?” Master Luhhan said, leaning forward. “Today, I’m more worried that there’s not going to be a next day.”
Perrin looked up at him, frowning.
“If there was ever a time to push yourself, this is it,” Master Luhhan said. “We’ve won one fight, but if the Dragon Reborn doesn’t win his . . . Light, I don’t think you’ve made a mistake at all. This is our last chance at the forge. This is the morning that the big piece is due. Today, you just keep working until it’s done.”
“But if I collapse . . .”
“Then you gave it your all.”
“I could fail because I’ve run myself out of strength.”
“Then at least you didn’t fail because you held back. I know it sounds bad, and maybe I’m wrong. But . . . well, everything you’re talking about is good advice for an average day. This isn’t an average day. No, by the Light it’s not.”