Egwene decides to visit Tanchico in the World of Dreams to search for anything that could endanger Rand. She meets Amys, and Aiel Dreamwalker, who insists she come to the Waste for training.
I went into this chapter already feeling like The Shadow Rising was turning into a slog. Ten fucking chapters so far — twenty percent of a very long book — and what has happened so far that is really worth mentioning? Lanfear came out of hiding, a Trolloc army attacked the Stone, and the Dark One’s flatulence nearly killed some people. That’s it!
When I realized this chapter is bloated with page after page of Egwene wandering through dream nonsense, I really wanted to throw the book across the room. If I had been reading my thirty-year-old paperback copy, I probably would have done it. Unfortunately, everything is digital nowadays, and I just bought a new phone.
Egwene’s plan for doing recon on Tanchico is to look at a picture from a book and dream herself there. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised to see an idea like this from the woman who just recently told Mat about the redstone doorframe, but listen to how the pitch must have sounded.
EGWENE: You guys, I’ve got an idea.
NYNAEVE/ELAYNE: Awesome!
EGWENE: I’ll just travel to Tanchico in my dreams! I’ll gather valuable intel that may or may not be an utter fabrication of my subconscious mind, and then we’ll use that information to make life or death decisions.
NYNAEVE/ELAYNE: [shrugging] Sounds good to me.
Most of what follows isn’t worth describing, so let’s do it with a haiku:
Tanchico in dreams
A bunch of weird shit happens
Egwene finds answers
Basically, Egwene meets an Aiel woman named Amys, who urges her to come to the Waste to learn the art of Dreamwalking. Boom, done. Did we really need 8,000 words to describe all that?
