Egwene POV#

Egwene, Nynaeve and Elayne are sailing down the Erinin River on the Blue Crane. The captain is Chin Ellisor. The crew thinks they are Aes Sedai. There is a great deal of destruction on the Cairhienin side of the river from the civil war. Egwene has tried the twisted ring nearly every night but learned nothing useful. Nynaeve and Elayne each tried it for one night. They also experienced Tel'aran'rhiod but, again, did not learn anything. Egwene has also had numerous dreams:

• Rand holding a sword that blazed like the sun, till she could hardly see that it was a sword, could hardly make out that it was him at all.[1]
• Rand threatened in a dozen ways, none of them the least bit real.
• Rand on a huge stones board, the black and white stones as big as boulders, and him dodging the monstrous hands that moved them and seemed to try to crush him under them.
• Perrin with a wolf, and with a falcon, and a hawk - and the falcon and the hawk fighting.[2]
• Perrin running from someone deadly.[3]
• Perrin stepping willingly over the edge of a towering cliff while saying, "It must be done. I must learn to fly before I reach the bottom."[4]
• An Aiel, and she thought that had to do with Perrin, too.[5]
• Min, springing a steel trap but somehow walking through it without so much as seeing it.
• Mat with dice spinning 'round him.[6]
• Mat being followed by a man who was not there.[7]
• Mat riding desperately toward something unseen in the distance that he had to reach.
• Mat with a woman who seemed to be tossing fireworks about. An Illuminator she assumed.[8]
• Men and women breaking out of a cage, then putting on crowns.[9]
• A woman playing with puppets, and another dream where the strings on puppets led to the hands of larger puppets, and their strings led to still greater puppets, on and on until the last strings vanished into unimaginable heights.
• Kings dying, queens weeping, battles raging.
• Whitecloaks ravaging the Two Rivers.[10]
• Several dreams about the Seanchan.

Elayne is upset about all the destruction and wants to do something about it. This surprises Egwene who recalls a lesson from Bennae Sedai stating that Cairhien and Andor have had frequent wars. Egwene realizes that one of her dreams means that a Gray Man is after Mat. Suddenly, the Blue Crane runs aground on a mud flat. They debate staying on the ship or walking. The next village on the Andor side is fifteen miles but the next village on the Cairhien side, Jurene, is only six. It is held by Andoran soldiers so it is also safe. They are put ashore on the Cairhien side and begin walking. After walking a short while, an Aiel woman steps out of the bushes in front of them.[11]

More Egwene POV