Perrin launched himself at Slayer in a blurring leap, like those he used to bound from hilltop to hilltop. He crashed into the man, throwing them both off of the ledge in front of the opening to the Pit of Doom, sending them tumbling dozens of feet toward the ground.
Perrin’s hammer was at his belt—he didn’t remember putting it there—but he didn’t want to hit this man with the hammer. He wanted to feel Slayer as he slammed a fist into the man’s face. The punch connected as they fell, but Slayer’s face was suddenly hard as stone.
In that moment, the fight became not one of flesh against flesh, but will against will. As they fell together, Perrin imagined Slayer’s skin becoming soft, giving beneath his punch, the bones brittle and cracking. Slayer, in response, imagined his skin as stone.
The result was that Slayer’s cheek became hard as rock, but Perrin cracked it anyway. They hit the ground, and rolled apart. When Slayer stood, his right cheek looked like that of a statue hit with a hammer, small cracks moving out over the skin.
Blood began to trickle through those cracks, and Slayer opened his eyes in shock. He raised a hand to his cheek, feeling the blood. The skin became flesh again, and stitches appeared, as if sewn by a master surgeon. One could not heal oneself in the wolf dream.
Slayer sneered at Perrin, then lunged. The two of them danced back and forth, surrounded by churning dust that formed the faces and bodies of people struggling for their lives in another place, another world. Perrin crashed through a pair of them, dust streaming from Mah’alleinir as he swung. Slayer skidded back, creating a wind to blow him out of the way, then struck forward too quickly.
Perrin became a wolf without a thought, Slayer’s sword passing over his head. Young Bull leaped into Slayer, slamming him backward through an impression of two Aiel fighting one another. Those exploded into sand and dust. Others formed to the sides, then blew away.
The howling tempest was a roar in Young Bull’s ears, and the dust ground into his skin and eyes. He rolled across Slayer, then lunged for his throat. How sweet it will be to taste this two-legs’ blood in my mouth. Slayer shifted away.
Young Bull became Perrin, with hammer at the ready, crouching on the plain of fragmentary fighting, changing people. Careful, he thought to himself. You are a wolf, but more a man. With a start, he realized that some of those impressions weren’t completely human. He saw a couple that were distinctly snakelike in appearance, though they faded quickly.
Does this place reflect other worlds? he wondered, not certain what else to make of the phantoms.
Slayer came at him again, teeth clenched. Perrin’s hammer grew hot in his fingers, and his leg throbbed where he’d been hit and then Healed during his last fight with Slayer. He roared, letting Slayer’s sword close—letting it graze him on the cheek—as he crashed his own weapon into the man’s side.
Slayer vanished.
Perrin followed through with the swing, and, for a moment, assumed he’d beaten the man. But no, his hammer had barely connected before Slayer disappeared. The man had been ready, waiting to shift. Perrin felt blood moving through the hair of his beard toward his chin; that graze had cut a gash on his cheek much in the same place as he’d landed that blow on Slayer’s face.
He sniffed at the air, turning about, trying to catch the scent of Slayer’s location. Where had he gone? There was nothing.
Slayer hadn’t shifted to another place in the wolf dream. He knew that Perrin could follow him. Instead, he must have jumped back into the waking world. Perrin howled, realizing he’d lost his prey. The wolf railed against this, a failed hunt, and it was a struggle for Perrin to bring himself back under control.
It was a scent that brought him back to it. Burning fur. It was accompanied by howls of pain.
Perrin shifted himself back to the top of the pathway. Wolves lay burned and dying amid the corpses of red-veils. Two of the men were still up, back to back, and incongruously, they’d lowered their veils. They had teeth filed to points, and were smiling, almost with madness, as they channeled. Burning wolf after wolf to char. Gaul had been forced to take shelter beside a rock, his clothing smoldering. He smelled of pain.
The two smiling channelers didn’t seem to care that their companions were bleeding to death on the ground around them. Perrin walked toward them. One raised a hand and released a jet of fire. Perrin turned it to smoke, then parted that by walking directly into it, the gray-black smoke eddying against him, then streaming off.
The other Aiel man also channeled, trying to rip the earth up beneath Perrin. Perrin knew that earth would not break, that it would resist the weaves. So it did. Perrin could not see the weaves, but he knew that the earth—suddenly far more solid—refused to budge as ordered.
The first Aiel reached for his spear with a growl, but Perrin grabbed him by the neck.
He wanted so badly to crush this man’s throat. He had lost Slayer again, and wolves were dead because of these two. He held himself back. Slayer . . . Slayer deserved worse than death for what he had done. He didn’t know about these men, and he wasn’t certain if killing them here would kill them forever, without rebirth.
It seemed to him that everyone, including creatures like these, should have another chance. The red-veil in his hand struggled, trying with weaves of Air to envelop Perrin.
"You are an idiot", Perrin said softly. Then he looked to the other one. "You too".
Both blinked, then looked at him with eyes that grew slack. One started drooling. Perrin shook his head. Slayer hadn’t trained them at all. Even Gaul, after only a . . . how long had it been? Anyway, even Gaul knew not to be caught like that, in the grip of someone who could change the very capacity of one’s mind.
Perrin had to keep thinking of them as idiots to maintain the transformation. He knelt, seeking among the wolves for the wounded he could help. He imagined bindings on the wounds of those who were hurt. They would heal quickly in this place. Wolves seemed to be able to do that. They had lost eight of their members, for whom Perrin howled. The others joined him, but there was no regret to their sendings. They had fought. That was what they had come to do.
After that, Perrin saw to the fallen red-veils. All were dead. Gaul limped up beside him, holding a burned arm. The wound was bad, but not immediately life-threatening.
"We need to take you out of here", Perrin said to him, "and get you some Healing. I’m not certain what time it is, but I think we should go to Merrilor and wait for the gateway out".
Gaul gave him a toothy grin. "I killed two of those myself, Perrin Aybara. One could channel. I think myself great with honor, then you slide in and take two captive". He shook his head. "Bain would laugh herself all the way back to the Three-fold Land if she saw this".
Perrin turned to his two captives. Killing them here seemed heartlessly cruel, but to release them meant fighting them again—perhaps losing more wolves, more friends.
"I do not suspect these keep to ji’e’toh", Gaul said. "Would you take a man who could channel as gai’shain anyway?" He shuddered visibly.
"Just kill them and be done with it", Lanfear said.
Perrin eyed her. He didn’t jump as she spoke—he had grown somewhat accustomed to the way she popped in and out. He did find it annoying, however.
"If I kill them here, will that kill them forever?"
"No", she said. "It doesn’t work that way for men".
Did he trust her? On this point, for some reason, he found that he did. Why would she lie? Still, killing unarmed men . . . they were barely more than babies here to him.
No, he thought, considering the dead wolves, not babies. Far more dangerous than that.
"Those two have been Turned", she said, folding her arms, nodding to the two channelers. "Many are born to their life these days, but those two have the filed teeth. They were taken and Turned".
Gaul muttered something. It sounded like an oath, but it also sounded reverent. It was in the Old Tongue, and Perrin didn’t catch its meaning. After that, however, Gaul raised a spear. He smelled regretful. "You spat in his eye, and so he uses you, my brothers. Horrible . . ".
Turned, Perrin thought. Like those men at the Black Tower. He frowned, walking up and taking the head of one of the men in his hands. Could he will the man back to the Light? If he could be forced to be evil, could he be restored?
Perrin hit something vast as he pushed against the minds of these men. His will bounced free, like a twig used to try beating down an iron gate. Perrin stumbled back.
He looked at Gaul, and shook his head. "I can do nothing for them".
"I will do it", Gaul said. "They are brothers".
Perrin nodded, reluctant, as Gaul slit the throats of the two men. It was better this way. Still, it ripped Perrin up inside to see it. He hated what fighting did to people, what it did to him. The Perrin of months ago could never have stood and watched this. Light . . . if Gaul hadn’t done it, he would have himself. He knew it.
"You can be such a child", Lanfear said, arms still folded beneath her br**sts as she watched him. She sighed, then took him by the arm. A wave of icy Healing washed through him. The wound on his cheek closed.
Perrin took a deep breath, then nodded toward Gaul.
"I am not your errand woman, wolf pup", she said.
"You want to convince me that you’re not a foe?" he asked. "That’s a good place to start".
She sighed, then waved impatiently for Gaul to approach. He did so, limping, and she Healed him.
A distant rumbling shook the cavern behind them. She looked at it, and narrowed her eyes. "I cannot stay here", she said. Then she was gone.
"I do not know what to make of that one", Gaul said, rubbing his arm where the clothing was burned, but the skin healed. "I believe she is gaming with us, Perrin Aybara. I do not know which game".
Perrin grunted in agreement.
"This Slayer . . . he will return".
"I'm thinking of a way to do something about that", Perrin said, reaching to his waist where he’d tied the dreamspike to his belt with straps. He freed it. "Watch here", he told Gaul, then entered the cavern.
Perrin walked past those stones like teeth. It was hard to escape the feeling that he was crawling into the mouth of a Darkhound. The light at the bottom of the descent was blinding, but Perrin created a bubble around himself that was shaded, like glass that was only translucent. He could make out Rand and someone else striking at one another with swords at the lip of a deep pit.
No. It wasn’t a pit. Perrin gaped. The entire world seemed to end here, the cavern opening into a vast nothingness. An eternal expanse, like the blackness of the Ways, only this one seemed to be pulling him into it. Him, and everything else. He’d grown accustomed to the storm raging outside, so he hadn’t noticed the wind in the tunnel. Now that he paid attention, he could feel it streaming through the cavern into that hole.
Looking into that gap, he knew that he’d never understood blackness before, not really. This was blackness. This was nothingness. The absolute end of all. Other darkness was frightening because of what it might hide. This darkness was different; if this engulfed you, you would cease completely.