Perrin POV#

Perrin and Gaul make camp away from Faile and the others. They talk about all the changes taking place. Gaul says that Rhuarc, his clan chief, Jheran, and the Wise Ones were uneasy when they sent Aiel in search of He Who Comes With the Dawn. Colinda, the Wise One of Hot Springs Hold, tells him he thinks too much. Bair, the eldest Wise One of the Shaarad, threatens to send him to Rhuidean. Perrin goes to sleep expecting to dream.

As Perrin walks the wolf dream, patches open in the sky and he sees:

• Rand stood amid swirling stormwinds, laughing wildly, even madly, arms upraised, and on the winds rode small shapes, gold-and-scarlet, like the strange figure on the Dragon Banner; hidden eyes watched Rand, and there was no telling whether he knew it.[1]
• Nynaeve and Elayne stalked cautiously through a demented landscape of twisted, shadowed buildings, hunting some dangerous beast.[2]
• Mat, standing where a road forked ahead of him. He flipped a coin, started down one branch, and suddenly was wearing a wide-brimmed hat and walking with a staff bearing a short sword blade.[3]
• Egwene and a woman with long white hair were staring at him in surprise while behind them the White Tower crumbled stone by stone.[4]

Perrin wishes he could talk to Elyas Machera about his dreams. He calls for Hopper, but the wolf does not come. Perrin discovers that in the wolf dream he can take huge steps covering miles. As Perrin reaches the foothills he sees another man. His scent is cold and not really human. The man sees him and flees. Perrin follows and finds a dead wolf where the man was standing. Perrin pursues him for many miles. Finally, the man vanishes in a two hundred foot tall metal tower. Suddenly Hopper is there. He tells Perrin that the man is called Slayer and that he is in the wolf dream in the flesh. He warns Perrin that the tower is evil as well. A woman speaks from behind him. Perrin turns and notes that she looks familiar.[5] She is surprised that he can talk to Hopper but remembers it from legend. She tells him the Tower of Ghenjei is a doorway to the realms of the Aelfinn and Eelfinn.[6] The game of Snakes and Foxes is a remembrance of dealings with them and the only way to win is to break the rules. "Courage to strengthen, fire to blind, music to daze, iron to bind." She tells him that Slayer is not old, but his evil is ancient. She then says she is not supposed to be talking to him at all; it is against the prescripts. She asks if he is ta'veren. He sees another shadow of a man with two swords across his back,[7] but when he turns the man is gone. The woman is gone, too. Perrin asks Hopper about her, but Hopper did not see her. Perrin tells Hopper that he was looking for wolves in the Two Rivers. Hopper tells him they are all dead or gone because of Slayer. They bid each other farewell.

Perrin wakes and tells Gaul that things might be worse than he thought in the Two Rivers.

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