"I must go," she said at last, standing. Her body lay asleep in her tent, but there was never quite enough rest in sleep while you were in Tel’aran’rhiod. The others rose with her. "I hope you will all be very careful. Moghedien hates me, and she would certainly try to hurt anyone who’s my friend. She knows a great deal about the World of Dreams. At least as much as Lanfear did." That was as close as she could come to warning them without saying right out that Moghedien might know more than they. Aiel pride could be prickly. They took her meaning, though, and without offense.

"If the Shadowsouled meant to threaten us" Melaine said, "I think they would have by now. Perhaps they believe we are no threat to them."

"We have glimpsed those who must be dreamwalkers, including men." Bair shook her head incredulously; no matter what she knew about the Forsaken, she considered male dreamwalkers about as common as legs on snakes. "They avoid us. All of them."

"I think we are as strong as they," Amys added. In the One Power, she and Melaine were no stronger than Theodrin and Faolain — far from weak, indeed stronger than most Aes Sedai, but far from a Forsaken’s strength, too — yet in the World of Dreams, knowledge of Tel’aran’rhiodwas often as powerful as saidar, more at times. Here, Bair was the equal of any sister. "But we will take care. It is the enemy you underestimate who kills you."

Egwene took Amys’ hand and Melaine’s, and would have Bair’s had there been a way. Instead, she included her with a smile. "I’ll never be able to tell you what your friendship means to me, what you mean to me." Despite everything, that was simple truth. "The whole world seems to be changing every time I blink. You three are one of the few firm spots in it."

"The world does change," Amys said, sadly. "Even mountains are worn away by the wind, and no one can climb the same hill twice. I hope we will always be friends in your eyes, Egwene al’Vere. May you always find water and shade." And with that, they were gone, back to their own bodies.

For a time she stood frowning at Callandorbut not seeing it, until suddenly she gave herself an exasperated shake. She had been thinking about that endless field of stars. If she waited there long, Gawyn’s dream would find her again, swallow her the way his arms would shortly thereafter. A pleasant way to spend the rest of the night. And a childish waste of time.

Firmly she made herself step back to her sleeping body, but not to ordinary sleep. She never did that anymore. That one corner of her brain remained fully aware, cataloging her dreams, filing away those that foretold the future, or at any rate gave glimpses of the possible course it might take. At least she could tell that much now, though the only one she had been able to interpret so far was the dream that told of Gawyn becoming her Warder. Aes Sedai called this Dreaming, and the women who could do it Dreamers, all long dead but her, yet it had no more to do with the One Power than dreamwalking did.

Perhaps it was inevitable she should dream first of Gawyn, because she had been thinking of him.

She stood in a vast, dim chamber where everything was indistinct. Everything except Gawyn, slowly coming toward her. A tall, beautiful man — had she ever thought his half-brother Galad was more beautiful? — with golden hair and eyes of the most wonderful deep blue. He had some distance to cover yet, but he could see her; his gaze was fixed on her like an archer’s on the target. A faint sound of crunching and grating hung in the air. She looked down. And felt a scream building in her. On bare feet, Gawyn walked across a floor of broken glass, shards breaking at every slow step. Even in that faint light she could see the trail of blood left by his slashed feet. She flung out a hand, tried to shout for him to stop, tried to run to him, but just that quickly she was elsewhere.

In the way of dreams she floated above a long, straight road across a grassy plain, looking down upon a man riding a black stallion. Gawyn. Then she was standing in the road in front of him, and he reined in. Not because he saw her, this time, but the road that had been straight now forked right where she stood, running over tall hills so no one could see what lay beyond. She knew, though. Down one fork was his violent death, down the other, a long life and a death in bed. On one path, he would marry her, on the other, not. She knew what lay ahead, but not which way led to which. Suddenly he did see her, or seemed to, and smiled, and turned his horse along one of the forks... And she was in another dream. And another. Another. And again.

Not all had any bearing on the future. Dreams of kissing Gawyn, of running in a cool spring meadow with her sisters the way they had as children, slid by along with nightmares where Aes Sedai with switches chased her through endless corridors, where misshapen things lurched through shadows all around, where a grinning Nicola denounced her to the Hall and Thom Merrilin came forward to give evidence. Those she discarded; the others she tucked away, to be prodded and poked later in the hope she might understand what they meant.

She stood before an immense wall, clawing at it, trying to tear it down with her bare hands. It was not made of brick or stone, but countless thousands of discs, each half white and half black, the ancient symbol of the Aes Sedai, like the seven seals that had once held the Dark One’s prison shut. Some of those seals were broken now, though not even the One Power could break cuendillar, and the rest had weakened somehow, but the wall stood strong however she beat at it. She could not tear it down. Maybe it was the symbol that was important. Maybe it was the Aes Sedai she was trying to tear down, the White Tower. Maybe...

Mat sat on a night-shrouded hilltop, watching a grand Illuminator’s display of fireworks, and suddenly his hand shot up, seized one of those bursting lights in the sky. Arrows of fire flashed from his clenched fist, and a sense of dread filled her. Men would die because of this. The world would change. But the world waschanging; it always changed.

Straps at waist and shoulder held her tightly to the block, and the headsman’s axe descended, but she knew that somewhere someone was running, and if they ran fast enough, the axe would stop. If not... In that corner of her mind, she felt a chill.

Logain, laughing, stepped across something on the ground and mounted a black stone; when she looked down, she thought it was Rand’s body he had stepped over, laid out on a funeral bier with his hands crossed at his breast, but when she touched his face, it broke apart like a paper puppet.

A golden hawk stretched out its wing and touched her, and she and the hawk were tied together somehow; all she knew was that the hawk was female. A man lay dying in a narrow bed, and it was important he not die, yet outside a funeral pyre was being built, and voices raised songs of joy and sadness. A dark young man held an object in his hand that shone so brightly she could not see what it was.

On and on they came, and she sorted feverishly, desperately tried to understand. There was no rest in it, but it must be done. She would do what must be done.