Egwene closed her mouth. If I haul them up by their ankles and dunk their heads, they’ll. . . . What was she thinking? They had to scream because she had? She was no wetter than they. I must look like a drowned rat! She channeled carefully—working about yourself always took care; you could not see the flows clearly—and water rolled off her, oozed out of her garments. It made quite a puddle.

It was the boatman staring at her, mouth hanging open and eyes wide, that made her realize what she had done. Channeled, in the middle of the river, with nothing to hide her from any Aes Sedai who happened to be where she could see. Sun or no sun, she suddenly felt cold to the bone.

“You may take me back to shore now.” No telling who was on the docks; at this distance she could not tell a man from a woman. “Not to the city. The riverbank.” The fellow flung himself against his oars so hard she almost fell over backward.

He took her to a spot where the shore was all smooth rocks the size of her head. There was no one in sight, but she leaped out as soon as the boat grated onto the rocks, hoisted her skirts and darted up the sloping bank at a dead run she maintained all the way back to her tent where she collapsed in a panting pile of sweat. She did not go near the city again. Except to meet Gawyn, of course.

The days passed, and the now almost ceaseless wind carried waves of dust and grit day and night. On the fifth night, Bair accompanied Egwene into the World of Dreams, just a quick jaunt in the nature of a test, a walk in the part of Tel’aran’rhiod that Bair knew best, the Aiel Waste, a parched jagged land that made even drought-torn Cairhien seem lush and fair. A quick trip, and then Bair and Amys came to wake her and see whether it had had any ill effect. It had not. No matter how they made her run and jump, no matter how often they peered into her eyes and listened to her heart, they agreed, but agreement or not, the next night Amys took her for another short trip to the Waste, followed by another examination that made her glad to crawl onto her pallet and fall into a deep sleep.