Wherein an Aes Sedai and her Warder encounter an unusual situation…
Raindrops pattered onto one symbolic furrow, slowly filling it. Egraine stopped her scribbling and watched. It was as if logic itself had been dampened out. The dry ground hungrily devoured the wetness. More spots appeared on the parched earth, circles that rapidly sunk in and vanished. She finally noticed the rain drumming down all around her, muddying her work. Egraine blinked as she absorbed it. She had not realized that a spot of land twenty paces wide stood entirely cluttered with her scratchings. She had not noticed the tree of her inspiration grow so distant as she backed away on her knees. Rain would soon obliterate all she wrought.
“So the drought has finally broken,” Bedevir said, his baritone voice a reverent whisper.
Egraine looked upward.
As always, Bedevir had been there for her. Even as the rain began to fall, he had retrieved an oiled skin from a saddlebag and now held it over her, keeping water away from where she crouched. How long he had been like that, she did not know. She blinked several times.
“How long has it been since rainfall?” she sat back on the ground, pulling in her tan riding skirts. She stared into the cloudy sky wondering where the rain had come from. Her question had not been asked properly, but she did not know how to retract it.
“It would be winter now,” he answered. “It would be snow on the plains, but the heat has been unseasonable. Maybe it has finally broken.” He had both horses patiently reined in, in addition to keeping Egraine dry. “If you are finished here, we should find some better shelter. It looks as if this will be a downpour soon.”
She leaned forward, poking her face from under the edge of his protection and squinted.
“Come on, Aes Sedai,” Bedevir chuckled. He pulled the hood of her fringed cloak up to cover her head and gently lifted her to her feet with one burly arm. “A woman can drown staring upward into the rain with her mouth hanging open like that. Light knows I would be shirking my duty if I allowed such a thing.” He draped the skin over her shoulders as added protection against the rain, then pushed Darkmane’s reins back into her hands.
Fingers of lightning struck the ground not too distantly with great crashes as they began to walk again. Egraine followed the squishing sound of her feet, from one puddle to the next. Dirt had already begun to form mud while the steady downpour deepened. Darkmane clopped ploddingly along behind her. Bedevir did not protest their meandering course and only once complained about how soaked they were rapidly becoming. Otherwise, they continued in silence but for the rain.
“That channeling,” she said, stopping abruptly.
“What?” Bedevir had been looking at her. He mopped off his square chin with a thick hand and pushed trailing gray hair out of his eyes. “Do you mean the channeling to the south you felt a week ago?”
“No,” she pointed into the rain. “Over there.”
The expression on Bedevir’s face darkened. “It might be wise if we head in another direction.” He caught hold of her arm and drew her off.
Egraine looked over her shoulder as her feet blindly followed the burly Warder, gazing off toward the distant patterns. The weaves had an abbreviated, succinct style that lacked some of the polish of others she had seen. And she had seen so many. She once saw Veiled Ones in the Wastes channeling when they did not know that she watched. She happened upon some Aire who came to consider her no threat and stood in amazement at the massive bundles of air they called down. Those in the Palace of Enlightenment in Pelham wove some of the most exquisite pieces in a blink, and become petrified to find an ageless face in their midst. Egraine had seen so many types of channeling that any of her sisters would have been amazed. All her years away from the White Tower had never been entirely aimless.
“It is different,” Egraine pulled her hand from Bedevir and stopped in her tracks. She squinted through the rain.
“Oh, Light, I guess we go again, huh?” Bedevir took the reins of both horses and doffed them into the saddles for easy access, though he did not tie the beasts up to prevent them from moving. Farstrider and Darkmane looked on in that long suffering way, catching the Warder’s mood and knowing they might soon have to run like the wind. Each whickered softly, as if in protest.
(to be continued)
