Chapter 25: The Traveling People

Perrin, Egwene, and Elyas travel south for three days with three wolves scouting around them. Perrin can sense where the wolves are at any moment, and even what they intend, though he keeps trying to convince himself it is imagination.

Late on the third day they reach a camp of the Tuatha'an, the Traveling People. Their leader, the Mahdi or Seeker, is a gray-haired man named Raen, who greets Elyas with a ritual asking if they know the song the People have been searching for since the Breaking. Elyas answers that he does not.

Over supper, Raen explains the Way of the Leaf, the Tuatha'an creed of total nonviolence. Perrin argues against it. His grandson Aram pulls Egwene away to dance.

Raen then tells Elyas a story. Two years ago, a band of the People crossing the Aiel Waste found a dying Aiel woman, a Maiden of the Spear returning from the Blight. With her last breath she gave them a message: the Dark One means to blind the Eye of the World and slay the Great Serpent, and the People should stand ready for He Who Comes With the Dawn. Neither Elyas nor Raen can make sense of it.

When Egwene returns from dancing, she asks Perrin to tell her that Rand and Mat are alive. He says they are.