The Spray reaches Whitebridge. Thom, Rand and Mat search for their lost companions, and learn that their enemies have already been here asking about them. When they attempt to leave the city, a Fade appears and Thom bravely charges it to give Rand and Mat the chance to escape.
The Spray pulls into Whitebridge. The city’s eponymous structure is so impossibly perfect it could only be a relic from the Age of Legends. Captain Domon hands payment to Thom as thanks for boosting crew morale during the trip and tries to convince him to stay on until Illian. It’s a tempting offer, but Thom declines, explaining that they must seek out the people they came to Whitebridge to meet.
Thom leads Rand and Mat to a square in the middle of town where the bridge came down onto the land. At an inn called the Wayfarer’s Rest, they find a secluded part of the common room and chat with the innkeeper. They learn that Logain has been captured and is being paraded back to Tar Valon. They also learn that another hunt for the Horn of Valere is being arranged in Illian.
Thom tries to be circumspect, but the moment he describes their missing companions, the innkeeper’s cordiality turns icy, and he asks them to leave. Both a “weaselly fellow” and a man in a black hooded cloak had already come through asking after the same people, plus a gleeman with white hair. If these were Padan Fain and a Fade, then it’s no wonder that the innkeeper wants nothing more to do with them.
To make matters worse, they hear Gelb in another part of the common room loudly insisting that Thom, Rand, and Mat are Darkfriends. They crawl through a window in to an alley to escape the inn without Gelb noticing them, and Thom takes a brief detour to buy a plain brown cloak. If the Fade is looking for a gleeman, bundling up his colorful cloak and instruments seems to be the most prudent course of action. Unfortunately, this turns out to be too little too late. Scarcely have the three stepped into the square when a Fade appears. People scatter, realizing that something is about to happen. Thom hands Rand and Mat his gleeman cloak bundle and prepares for his very own Gandalf-the-Gray moment — no bridge to stand on, just a grim square and a big bad guy in broad daylight. He tells Rand and Mat to run, then charges the Fade, tumbling to the ground with it in a heap.