A Memory of Light

“Yet in the first dream, wherever I go, I am surrounded by women and men who could tie me in air with a thought and kill me at any time. I am accustomed to being powerless around some, Perrin Aybara. It is the way of the world in all things.” 
    “Still,” Perrin said sternly, “if we find Slayer—he’s a square-faced fellow, with eyes that don’t seem totally alive, and he dresses in dark leather—I want you to stay away from him. Let me fight him.”
    “But—”
    “You said you’d obey, Gaul,” Perrin said. “This is important . He took Hopper; I won’t have him taking you as well. You don’t fight Slayer.”
    “Very well,” Gaul said. “I give my oath on it. I will not dance the spears with this man unless you order it.”
    Perrin sighed, imagining Gaul standing with his spears put away, letting Slayer kill him because of this oath. Light, but Aiel could be prickly. “You can fight him if he attacks you,” Perrin said, “but only as a means of escape. Don’t hunt him, and if I’m fighting him, stay out of the way. Understand?” Gaul nodded. Perrin put a hand on the Aiel’s shoulder, then shifted them in the direction of the Black Tower. Perrin had never been there before, so he had to guess and try to find it. The first shift was off, taking them to a section of Andor where grass-covered hills seemed to dance in the churning winds. Perrin would have preferred to just leap from hilltop to hilltop, but he didn’t think Gaul was ready for that. He used shifting instead.
    After four or five tries, Perrin took them to a place where he spotted a translucent, faintly purple dome rising in the distance.
    “What is it?” Gaul asked.
    “Our goal,” Perrin said. “That is the thing keeping Grady and Neald from creating gateways to the Black Tower.”
    “Just as we were afflicted in Ghealdan.”
    “Yes.” Seeing that dome brought back memories, vivid ones, of wolves dying. Perrin suppressed them. Memories like that could lead to idle thoughts, here. He allowed himself a burning anger deep within, like the warmth of his hammer, but that was all.
    “Let’s go,” Perrin said, shifting them down in front of the dome. It looked like glass. “Pull me free if I collapse,” he said to Gaul, then stepped into the barrier.
    It felt as if he’d hit something incredibly cold. It sucked away his strength.
    He stumbled, but kept his mind on his goal. Slayer. Killer of wolves. Hopper’s murderer.
    Perrin straightened as his strength returned. This was easier than it had been last time; being in the wolf dream in the flesh did make him stronger. He didn’t have to worry about pulling himself into the dream too strongly, and leaving his body to die in the real world.
    He moved slowly through the barrier, as if through water, and stepped out onto the other side. Behind, Gaul reached out with a curious expression on his face, then tapped the dome wall with his index finger.
    Gaul immediately dropped to the ground, going limp like a doll. His spears and arrows tumbled away from his body, and he lay perfectly still, his chest not rising. Perrin reached through—his arm slow—and seized Gaul by the leg to pull him through.
    Once on the other side, Gaul gasped, then rolled over, groaning. He sat up, holding his head. Perrin quietly fetched the man’s arrows and spears for him.
    “This is going to be a good experience for building our Gaul said. He stood up and rubbed his arm where he’d hit the ground. “The Wise Ones call coming to this place as we do evil? It seems to me they would enjoy bringing men here to teach them.”
    Perrin eyed Gaul. He hadn’t realized that the man had heard him speaking to Edarra of the wolf dream. “What did I do to deserve your loyalty, Gaul?” Perrin said, mostly to himself.
    Gaul laughed. “It is not anything you did.”
    “What do you mean? I cut you down from that cage. That’s why you follow me.”
    “That’s why I began following you,” Gaul said. “It is not why I remained. Come, is there not a danger that we hunt?”
    Perrin nodded, and Gaul veiled his face. Together, they walked beneath the dome, approaching the structure within. It was a goodly distance from the edge of one of these domes to the center, but Perrin didn’t want to jump and be surprised, so they continued on foot, crossing a landscape of open grasslands patched with groves of trees.
    They walked for about an hour before they spotted the walls. Tall and imposing, they looked like