WINTER’S HEART 


The seals that hold back the night shall weaken, 
And in the heart of winter shall winter’s heart be born 
Amid the wailing of lamentation and the gnashing of teeth, 
For winter’s heart shall ride a black horse, 
And the name of it is Death. 
--from The Karaethon Cycle: 
The Prophecies of the Dragon 


Prologue: Snow 


Three lanterns cast a flickering light, more than enough to 
illuminate the small room with its stark white walls and 
ceiling, but Seaine kept her eyes fixed on the heavy wooden 
door. Illogical, she knew; foolish in a Sitter for the White. 
The weave of saidar she had pushed around the jamb brought her 
occasional whispers of distant footsteps in the warren of 
hallways outside, whispers that faded away almost as soon as 
heard. A simple thing learned from a friend in her long-ago 
novice days, but she would have warning long before anyone 
came near. Few people came down as deep as the second 
basement, anyway. 


Her weave picked up the far-off chittering of rats. Light! 
How long since there had been rats in Tar Valon, in the Tower 
itself? Were any of them spies for the Dark One? She wet her 
lips uneasily. Logic counted for nothing in this. True. If 
illogical. She wanted to laugh. With an effort she crept back 
from the brink of hysteria. Think of something besides rats. 
Something besides...A muffled squeal rose in the room behind 
her, faltered into muted whimpering. She tried to stop up her 
ears. Concentrate! 


In a way, she and her companions had been led to this room 
because the heads of the Ajahs seemed to be meeting in secret. 
She herself had glimpsed Ferane Neheran whispering in a 
secluded nook of the library with Jesse Bilal, who stood very 
high among the Browns if not at the very top. She thought she 
stood on firmer ground with Suana Dragand, of the Yellows. 
She thought so. But why had Ferane gone walking with Suana in 
a secluded part of the Tower grounds, both swathed in plain 
cloaks? Sitters of different Ajahs still talked to one 
another openly, if coldly. The others had seem similar 
things; they would not give names from their own Ajahs, of 
course, but two had mentioned Ferane. A troubling puzzle. 
The Tower was a seething swamp these days, every Ajah at every 
other Ajah's throat, yet the heads met in corners. NO one 
outside an Ajah knew for certain who within it led, but 
apparently the leaders knew each other. What could they be up 
to? What? It was unfortunate that she could not simply ask 
Ferane, but even had Ferane been tolerant of anyone's 
questions, she did not dare. Not now. 


Concentrate as she would, Seaine could not keep her mind on 
the question. She knew she was staring at the door and 



worrying at puzzles she could not solve just to avoid looking 
over her shoulder. Toward the source of those stifled 
whimpers and snuffling groans. 

As if thinking of the sounds compelled her, she looked back 
slowly to her companions, her breath growing more uneven as 
her head moved by inches. Snow was falling heavily on Tar 
Valon, far overhead, but the room seemed unaccountably hot. 
She made herself see! 


Brown-fringed shawl looped on her elbows, Saerin stood with 
her feet planted apart, fingering the hilt of the curved 
Altaran dagger thrust behind her belt. Cold anger darkened 
her olive complexion enough to make the scar along her jaw 
stand out in a pale line. Pevara appeared calmer, at first 
glance, yet one hand gripped her red-embroidered skirts 
tightly and the other held the smooth white cylinder of the 
Oath Rod like a foot-long club she was ready to use. She 
might be ready; Pevara was far tougher than her plumb exterior 
suggested, and determined enough to make Saerin seem a 
shirker. 


On the other side of the chair of remorse, tiny Yukiri had 
her arms rapped tightly around herself; the long silvery-grey 
fringe on her shawl trembled with her shivers. Licking her 
lips, Yukiri cast a worried glance at the woman standing 
beside her. Doesine, looking more like a pretty boy than a 
Yellow sister of considerable repute, displayed no reaction to 
what they were doing. She was the one actually manipulating 
the weaves that stretched into the Chair, and she stared at 
the ter'angreal, focusing so hard on her work that 
perspiration beaded on her pale forehead. They were all 
Sitters, including the tall woman writhing on the Chair. 


Sweat drenched Talene, matting her golden hair, soaking her 
linen shift till it clung to her. The rest of her clothes 
made a jumbled pile in the corner. Her closed eyelids 
fluttered, and she let out a constant stream of strangled 
moans and mewling, half-uttered pleas. Seaine felt ill, but 
could not drag her eyes away. Talene was a friend. Had been 
a friend. 


Despite its name, the ter’angreal looked nothing like a 
chair, just a large rectangular block of marbled gray. No one 
knew what it was made of, but the material was hard as steel 
everywhere except the slanted top. The statuesque Green sank 
a little into that, and somehow it molded itself to her no 
matter how she twisted. Doesine’s weavings flowed into the 
only break anywhere in the Chair, a palm-sized rectangular 
hole in one side with tiny notches spaced unevenly around it. 
Criminals caught in Tar Valon were brought down here to 
experience the Chair of Remorse, to experience carefully 
selected consequences of their crimes. On release, they 
invariably fled the island. There was very little crime in 
Tar Valon. Queasily, Seaine wondered whether this was 
anything like the use the Chair had been put to in the Age of 
Legends. 


"What is she...seeing?" Her question came out a whisper in 
spite of herself. Talene would be more than seeing; to her, 
it all would seem real. Thank the light she had no Warder, 
almost unheard of for a Green. She had claimed a Sitter had 
no need for one. Different reasons came to mind, now. 



 "She is bloody being flogged by bloody Trollocs," Doesine 
said hoarsely. Touches of her native Cairhien had appeared in 
her voice, something that seldom happened except under stress. 
"When they are done.... She can see the Trolloc’s cook kettle 
boiling over the fire, and a Myrddraal watching her. She must 


know it will be one or the other next. Burn me, if she 
doesn’t break this time...." 
Doesine brushed perspiration from her forehead irritably and 

drew a ragged breath. "Stop joggling my elbow. It has been a 
long while since I did this." 


"Three times under," Yukiri muttered. "The toughest 
strongarm is broken by his own guilt, if nothing else, after 
two! What if she’s innocent? Light, this is like stealing 
sheep with the shepherd watching!" Even shaking, she managed 
to appear regal, but she always sounded like what she had 
been, a village woman. She glared around at the rest of them 
in a sickly fashion. "The law forbids using the Chair on 
initiates. We’ll all be unchaired! And if being thrown out 
of the hall isn’t enough, we’ll probably be exiled. And 
birched before we go, just to drop salt in our tea! Burn me, 
if we’re wrong, we could all be stilled!" 


Seaine shuddered. They would escape that last, if their 
suspicions proved right. No, not suspicions, certainties. 
They had to be right! But even if they were, Yukiri was 
correct about the rest. Tower law seldom allowed for 
necessity, or any supposed higher good. If they were right, 
though, the price was worth paying. Please, the Light send 
they were right! 


"Are you blind and deaf?" Pevara snapped, shaking the Oath 
Rod at Yukiri. "She refused to reswear the Oath against 
speaking an untrue word, and it had to be more than stupid 
Green Ajah pride after we’d all done as much already. When I 
shielded her, she tried to stab me! Does that shout 
innocence? Does it? For all she knew, we just meant to talk 
at her until our tongues dried up! What reason would she have 
to expect more?" 


"Thank you both," Saerin put in dryly, "for stating the 
obvious. It’s too late to go back, Yukiri, so we might as 
well go forward. And if I were you, Pevara, I wouldn’t be 
shouting at one of the four women in the whole Tower I knew I 
could trust." 


Yukiri flushed and shifted her shawl, and Pevara looked a 
trifle abashed. A trifle. They might all be Sitters, but 
Saerin had most definitely taken charge. Seaine was unsure 
how she felt about that. A few hours ago, she and Pevara had 
been two old friends alone on a dangerous quest, equals 
reaching decisions together; now they had allies. She should 
be grateful for more companions. They were not in the Hall, 
though, and they could not claim Sitter’s rights on this. 
Tower hierarchies had taken over, all the subtle and not-so-
subtle distinctions as to who stood where with respect to 
whom. In truth, Saerin had been both novice and Accepted 
twice as long as most of them, but forty years as a Sitter, 
longer than anyone else in the Hall, counted for a great deal. 
Seaine would be lucky if Saerin asked her opinion, much less 
her advice, before deciding anything at all. Foolish, yet the 
knowledge pricked like a thorn in her foot. 



 "The Trollocs are dragging her toward the kettle," Doesine 
said suddenly, her voice grating. A thin keening escaped 
thorough Talene’s clenched teeth; she shook so hard she seemed 
to vibrate. "I-I do not know if I can...can flaming make 
myself...." 


"Bring her awake," Saerin commanded without so much as 
glancing at anyone else to see what they thought. "Stop 
sulking, Yukiri, and be ready." 


The Gray gave her a proud, furious stare, but when Doesine 
let her weaves fade and Talene’s blue eyes fluttered open, the 
glow of saidar surrounded Yukiri and she shielded the woman 
lying on the Chair without uttering a word. Saerin was in 
charge, and everyone knew it, and that was that. A very sharp 
thorn. 


A shield hardly seemed necessary. Her face a mask of 
terror, Talene trembled and panted as though she had run ten 
miles at top speed. She still sank into the soft surface, but 
without Doesine channeling, it no longer formed itself to her. 
Talene stared at the ceiling with bulging eyes, then squeezed 
them shut, but they popped right open again. Whatever 
memories lay behind her eyelids were nothing she wanted to 
face. 


Covering the two strides to the Chair, Pevara thrust the 
Oath Rod at the distraught woman. "Forswear all oaths that 
bind you and retake the Three Oaths, Talene," she said 
harshly. Talene recoiled from the Rod as from a poisonous 
serpent, then jerked the other way as Saerin bent over her. 


"Next time, Talene, it’s the cookpot for you. Or the 
Myrddraal’s tender attentions." Saerin’s face was implacable, 
but her tone made it seem soft by comparison. "No waking up 
before. And if that doesn’t do, there’ll be another time, and 
another, as many as it takes if we must stay down here until 
summer." Doesine opened her mouth in protest before giving 
over with a grimace. Only she among them knew how to operate 
the Chair, but in this group, she stood as low as Seaine. 


Talene continued to stare up at Saerin. Tears filled her 
big eyes, and she began to weep, great shuddering, hopeless 
sobs. Blindly, she reached out, groping until Pevara stuck 
the Oath Rod into her hand. Embracing the Source, Pevara 
channeled a thread of Spirit to the Rod. Talene gripped the 
wrist-thick rod so hard that her knuckles turned white, yet 
she just lay there sobbing. 


Saerin straightened. "I fear it’s time to put her back to 
sleep, Doesine." 


Talene’s tears redoubled, but she mumbled through them. 
"I-forswear-all oaths-that bind me." With the last word, she 
began to howl. 


Seaine jumped, then swallowed hard. She personally knew the 
pain of removing a single oath and had speculated on the agony 
of removing more than one at once, but now the reality was in 
front of her. Talene screamed till there was no breath left 
in her, then pulled in air only to scream again, until Seaine 
half expected people to come running down from the Tower 
itself. The tall Green convulsed, flinging her arms and legs 
about, then suddenly arched up till only her heels and head 
touched the gray surface, every muscle clenched, her whole 
body spasming wildly. 



 As abruptly as the seizure had begun Talene collapsed 
bonelessly and lay there weeping like a lost child. The Oath 
Rod rolled from her limp hand down the sloping gray surface. 
Yukiri murmured something with the sound of a fervent prayer. 
Doesine kept whispering "Light!" over and over in a shaken 
voice. "Light! Light!" 


Pevara scooped up the Rod and closed Talene’s fingers around 
it again. There was no mercy in Seaine’s friend, not in this 
matter. "Now swear the Three Oaths," she spat. 


For an instant, it seemed Talene might refuse, but slowly 
she repeated to oaths that made them all Aes Sedai and held 
them together. To speak no word that was not true. Never to 
make a weapon for one man to kill another. Never to use to 
One Power as a weapon, except in defense of her life, or that 
of her Warder or another sister. At the end, she began 
weeping in silence, shaking without a sound. Perhaps it was 


the oaths tightening down on her. They were uncomfortable 
when fresh. Perhaps. 
Then Pevara told the other oath required of her. Talene 

flinched, but muttered the words in tones of hopelessness. "I 
vow to obey all five of you absolutely." Otherwise, she only 
stared straight ahead dully, tears trailing down her cheeks. 


"Answer me truthfully," Saerin told her. "Are you of the 
Black Ajah?" 


"I am." The words creaked, as if Talene’s throat were 
rusty. 


The simple words froze Seaine in a way she had never 
expected. She had set out to hunt the Black Ajah, after all, 
and believed in her quarry as many sisters did not. She had 
laid hands on another sister, on a Sitter, had helped bundle 
Talene along deserted basement hallways wrapped in flows of 
Air, had broken a dozen Tower laws, committed serious crimes, 
all to hear an answer she had been nearly certain of before 
the question was asked. Now she had heard. The Black Ajah 
really did exist. She was staring at a Black sister, a 
Darkfriend who wore the shawl. And believing turned out to be 
a pale shadow of confronting. Only her jaw clenched near to 
cramping kept her teeth from chattering. She struggled to 
compose herself, to think rationally. But nightmares were 
awake and walking the Tower. 


Someone exhaled heavily, and Seaine realized she was not the 
only one who found her world turned upside down. Yukiri gave 
herself a shake, then fixed her eyes on Talene as though 
determined to hold the shield on her by willpower if need be. 
Doesine was licking her lips, and smoothing her dark golden 
skirts uncertainly. Only Saerin and Pevara appeared at ease. 


"So," Saerin said softly. Perhaps "faintly" was a better 
word. "So. Black Ajah." She drew a deep breath, and her 
tone became brisk. "There’s no more need for that, Yukiri. 
Talene, you won’t try to escape, or resist in any way. You 
won’t so much as touch the Source without permission from one 
of us. Though I suppose someone else will take this forward 
once we hand you over. Yukiri?" The shield on Talene 
dissipated, but the glow remained around Yukiri, as if she did 
not trust the effect of the Rod on a Black sister. 


Pevara frowned. "Before we give her to Elaida, Saerin, I 
want to dig out as much as we can. Names, places, anything. 



Everything she knows!" Darkfriends had killed Pevara’s entire 
family, and Seaine was sure she would go into exile ready to 
hunt down every last Black sister personally. 


Still huddled on the Chair, Talene made a sound, half bitter 
laugh, half weeping. "when you do that, we are all dead. 


Dead! Elaida is Black Ajah!" 
"That’s impossible!" Seaine burst out. "Elaida gave me the 
order herself." 
"She must be," Doesine half whispered. "Talene’s sworn the 

oaths again; she just named her!" Yukiri nodded vehemently. 


"Use your heads," Pevara growled, shaking her own in 
disgust. "You know as well as I do if you believe a lie, you 
can say it for truth." 


"And that is truth," Saerin said firmly. "What proof do you 
have, Talene? Have you seen Elaida at your....meetings?" She 
gripped her knife hilt so hard that her knuckles paled. 
Saerin had had to fight harder than most for the shawl, for 
the right to remain in the Tower at all. To her, the Tower 
was more than home, more important than her own life. If 
Talene gave the wrong answer, Elaida might not live to face 
trial. 


"They don’t have meetings," Talene muttered sullenly. 


"Except the Supreme Council, I suppose. But she must be. 
They know every report she receives, even the secret ones, 
every word spoken to her. They know every decision she makes 
before it’s announced. Days before; sometimes weeks. How 
else, unless she tells them?" Sitting up with an effort, she 
tried to fix them each in turn with an intent stare. It only 
made her eyes seem to dart anxiously. "We have to run’ we 
have to find a place to hide. I’ll help you-tell you 
everything I know!-but they’ll kill us unless we run." 


Strange, Seaine thought, how quickly Talene had made her 
former cronies "they" and tried to identify herself with the 
rest of them. No. She was avoiding the real problem, and 
avoidance was witless. Had Elaida really set her to dig out 
the Black Ajah? She had never once actually mentioned the 
name. Could she have meant something else? Elaida had always 
jumped down the throat of anyone who even mentioned the Black. 
Nearly any sister would do the same yet.... 


"Elaida’s proven herself a fool," Saerin said, "and more 
than once I’ve regretted standing for her, but I’ll not 
believe she’s Black, not without more than that." Tight-
lipped, Pevara jerked an agreeing nod. As a Red, she would 
want much more. 


"That’s as may be, Saerin," Yukiri said, "but we cannot hold 
Talene long before the Greens start asking where she is. Not 
to mention the ...the Black. We’d better decide what to do 
fast, or we’ll still be digging at the bottom of the well when 
the rains hit." Talene gave Saerin a feeble smile that was 
probably meant to be ingratiating. It faded under the Brown 
Sitter’s frown. 


"We don’t dare tell Elaida anything until we can cripple 
the Black at one blow," Saerin said finally. "Don’t argue, 
Pevara; it’s sense." Pevara threw up her hands and put on a 
stubborn expression, but she closed her mouth. "if Talene is 
right," Saerin went on, "the Black knows about Seaine or soon 
will, so we must ensure her safety, as much s we can. That 



won’t be easy, with only five of us. We can’t trust anyone 
until we are certain of them! At least w have Talene, and who 
knows what we’ll learn before she’s wrung out?" Talene 
attempted to look willing to be wrung out, but no one was 
paying her any mind. Seaine’s throat had gone dry. 


"We might not be entirely alone," Pevara said reluctantly. 
"Seaine, tell them your little scheme with Zerah and her 
friends." 


"Scheme?" Saerin said. "Who’s Zerah? Seaine? Seaine!" 


Seaine gave a start. "What? Oh. Pevara and I uncovered a 
small nest of rebels here in the Tower," she began breathily. 
"Then sisters sent to spread dissent." Saerin was going to 
make sure she was safe, was she? Without so much as asking. 
She was a Sitter herself; she had been Aes Sedai for almost a 
hundred and fifty years. What right had Saerin or anyone to 
....? "Pevara and I have begun putting an end to that. We’ve 
already made one of them, Zerah Dacan, take the same extra 
oath Talene did, and told her to bring Bernaile Gelbarn to my 
rooms this afternoon without rousing her suspicions." Light, 
any sister outside this room might be Black. Any sister. 
"Then we will use those two to bring another, until they have 
all been made to sear obedience. Of course, we’ll ask the 
same question we put to Zerah, the same we put to Talene." 
The Black Ajah might already have her name, already know she 
had been set hunting them. How could Saerin keep her safe? 
"Those who give the wrong answer can be questioned, and those 
who give the right can repay for a little of their treachery 
by hunting the Black under our direction." Light, how? 


When she was done, the others discussed the matter at some 
length, which could only mean that Saerin was unsure what 
decision she would make. Yukiri insisted on giving Zerah and 
her confederates over to the law immediately-if it could be 
done without exposing their own situation with Talene. Pevara 
argued for using the rebels, though halfheartedly; the dissent 
they had been spreading centered around vile tales concerning 
the Red Ajah and false Dragons. Doesine seemed to be 
suggesting that they kidnap every sister in the Tower and 
force them all to take the added oath, but the other three 
paid little attention to her. 


Seaine took no part in the discussion. Her reaction to 
their predicament was the only possible one, she thought. 
Tottering to the nearest corner, she vomited noisily. 


Elayne tried not to grind her teeth. Outside, another 
blizzard pelted Caemlyn, darkening the midday sky enough that 
the lamps along the sitting room’s paneled walls were all lit. 
Fierce gusts rattled the casements set into the tall arched 
windows. Flashes of lightning lit the clear glass panes, and 
thunder boomed hollowly overhead. Thunder snow, the worse 
kind of winter storm, the most violent. The room was not 
precisely cold, but....Spreading her fingers in front of the 
logs crackling in the broad marble fireplace, she could still 
feel a chill rising through the carpets layered over the floor 
tiles, and through her thickest velvet slippers, too. The 
wide black fox collar and cuffs on her red-and-white gown were 
pretty, but she was not sure they added any more to its warmth 



than the pearls on the sleeves. Refusing to let the cold 
touch her did not mean she was unaware. 
Where was Nynaeve? And Vandene? Her thoughts snarled like 

the weather. They should be here already! Light! I wish I 
could learn to go without sleep, and they take their sweet 
time! No, that was unfair. Her formal claim for the Lion 
Throne was only a few days old, and for her, everything else 
had to take second place for the time being. Nynaeve and 
Vandene had other priorities; other responsibilities, as they 
saw them. Nynaeve was up to her neck planning with Reanne and 
the rest of the Knitting Circle how to spirit Kinswomen out of 
Seanchan-controlled lands before they were discovered and 
collared. The Kin were very good at staying low, but the 
Seanchan would not just pass them by for wilders the way Aes 
Sedai always had. Supposedly, Vandene was still shaken by her 
sister’s murder, barely eating and hardly able to give advice 
of any sort. The barely eating part was true, but finding the 
killer consumed her. Supposedly walking the halls in grief at 
odd hours, she was secretly hunting the Darkfriend among them. 
Three days earlier, just the thought of that could make Elayne 
shiver; now, it was one danger among many. More intimate than 
most, true, but only most. 


They were doing important tasks, approved and encouraged by 
Egwene, but she still wished they would hurry, selfish though 
it might be. Vandene had a wealth of good advice, the 
advantage of long experience and study, and Nynaeve’s years of 
dealing with the Village Council and the Women’s Circle back 
in Emond’s Field gave her a keen eye for practical politics, 
however much she denied it. Burn me, I have a hundred 
problems, some right here in the Palace, and I need them! If 
she had her way, Nynaeve al’Meara was going to be the Aes 
Sedai advisor to the next Queen of Andor. She needed all the 
help she could find-help she could trust. 


Smoothing her face, she turned away from the blazing hearth. 
Thirteen tall armchairs, carved simply but with a fine hand, 
made a horseshoe arc in front of the fireplace. 
Paradoxically, the place of honor, where the Queen would sit 
if receiving here, stood farthest from the fire’s heat. Such 
was it was. Her back began to warm immediately, and her front 
to cool. Outside, snow fell, thunder crashed and lightning 
flared. Inside her head, too. Calm. A ruler had as much 
need of calm as any Aes Sedai. 


"It must be the mercenaries," she said, not quite managing 
to keep regret out of her voice. Armsmen from her estates 
surely would begin arriving inside a month-once they learned 
she was alive-but the men Birgitte was recruiting would 
require half a year or more before they were fit to ride and 
handle a sword at the same time. "And Hunters for the Horn, 
if any will sign and swear." There were plenty of both 
trapped in Caemlyn by the weather. Too many of both, most 
people said, carousing, brawling, troubling women who wanted 
no part of their attentions. At least she would be putting 
them to good use, to stop trouble instead of beginning it. 
She wished she did not think she was still trying to convince 
herself of that. "Expensive, but the coffers will cover it." 
For the time, they would. She had better start receiving 
revenues from her estates soon. 



 Wonder of wonders, the two women standing before her reacted 
in much the same fashion. 


Dyelin gave an irritated grunt. A large, round silver pin 
worked with Taravin’s Owl and Oak was fastened at the high 
neck of her dark green dress, her only jewelry. A show of 
pride in her House, perhaps too much pride; the High Seat of 
House Taravin was a proud woman altogether. Gray streaked her 
golden hair and fine lines webbed the corners of her eyes, yet 
her face was strong, her faze level and sharp. Her mind was a 
razor. Or maybe a sword. A plain spoken woman, or so it 
seemed, who did not hide her opinions. 


"Mercenaries know the work," she said dismissively, "but 
they are hard to control, Elayne. When you need a feather 
touch, they’re liable to be a hammer, and when you need a 
hammer, they’re liable to be elsewhere, and stealing to boot. 
They are loyal to gold, and only as long as the gold lasts. 


If they don’t betray for more gold first. I’m sure this once 
Lady Birgitte will agree with me." 
Arms folded tightly beneath her breasts and heeled boots 

planted wide, Birgitte grimaced, as always when anyone used 
her new title. Elayne had granted her an estate as soon as 
they reached Caemlyn, where it could be registered. In 
private, Birgitte grumbled incessantly over that, and the 
other change in her life. Her sky-blue trousers were cut the 
same as those she usually wore, billowing and gathered at the 
ankles, but her short red coat had a high white collar, and 
wide white cuffs banded with gold. She was the Lady Birgitte 
Trahelion and the Captain General of the Queen’s Guard, and 
she could mutter and whine all she wanted, so long as she kept 
it private. 


"I do," she growled unwillingly, and gave Dyelin a not-quite-
sidelong glare. The Warder bond carried what Elayne had been 
sensing all morning. Frustration, irritation, determination. 
Some of that might have been a reflection of herself, though. 
They mirrored one another in surprising ways since the 
bonding, emotionally and otherwise. Why, her courses had 
shifted by more than a week to match the other woman’s! 


Birgitte’s reluctance to take the second-best argument was 
clearly almost as great as her reluctance to agree. "Hunters 
aren’t much bloody better, Elayne," she muttered. "they took 
the Hunter’s Oath to find adventure, and a place in the 
histories if they can. Not to settle down keeping the law. 
Half are supercilious prigs, looking down their flaming noses 
at everyone else; the rest don’t just take necessary chances, 
they look for chances to take. And one whisper of a rumor of 
the Horn of Valere, and you’ll be lucky if only two in three 
vanish overnight." 


Dyelin smiled a thin smile, as though she had won a point. 
Oil and water were not in it compared to those two; each 
managed well enough with nearly anyone else, but for some 
reason they could argue over the color of charcoal. Could and 
would. "Besides, Hunters and mercenaries alike, nearly all 
are foreigners. That will sit poorly with high and low alike. 
Very poorly. The last thing you want is to start a 
rebellion." Lightning flared, briefly lighting the casements, 
and a particularly loud peal of thunder punctuated her words. 
In a thousand years, seven Queens of Andor had been toppled by 



open rebellion, and the two who survived probably wished they 
had not. 


Elayne stifled a sigh. One of the small inlaid tables along 
the walls held a heavy silver ropework try with cups and a 
tall pitcher of hot spiced wine. Lukewarm spiced wine, now. 
She channeled briefly, Fire, and a thin wisp of steam rose 
from the pitcher. Reheating gave the spices a slight 
bitterness, but the warmth of the worked silver cup in her 
hands was worth it. With an effort she resisted the desire 
to heat the air in the room with the Power and released the 
Source; the warmth would not have lasted unless she maintained 
the weaves, anyway. She had conquered her unwillingness to 
let go every time she took in saidar-well, to some extent-yet 
of late, the desire to draw more grew every time. Every 
sister had to face that dangerous desire. A gesture brought 
the others to pour their own wine. 


"You know the situation," she told them. "Only a fool could 
think it anything but dire, and you’re neither of you fools." 
The Guards were a shell, a handful of acceptable men and a 
double handful of strongarms and toughs better suited to 
throwing drunks out of taverns, or being thrown out 
themselves. And with the Saldaeans gone and the Aiel leaving, 
crime was blooming like weeds in spring. She would have 
thought the snow would damp it down, but every day brought 
robbery, arson, and worse. Every day, the situation grew 
worse. "At this rate, we’ll see riots in a few weeks. Maybe 
sooner. If I can’t keep order in Caemlyn itself, the people 
will turn against me." If she could not keep order in the 
capital, she might as well announce to the world she was unfit 
to rule. " I don’t like it but it has to be done, so it will 
be." Both opened their mouths, ready to argue further, but 
she gave them no chance. She made her voice firm. "It will 
be done." 


Birgitte’s waist-long golden braid swung as she shook her 
head, yet grudging acceptance filtered through the bond. She 
took a decidedly odd view of their relationship as Aes Sedai 
and Warder, but she had learned to recognize when Elayne would 
not be pressed. After a fashion she had learned. There was 
the estate and title. And commanding the Guards. And a few 
other small matters. 


Dyelin bent her neck a fraction, and perhaps her knees; it 
might have been a curtsy, yet her face was stone. It was well 
to remember that many who did not want Elayne Trakand on the 
Lion Throne wanted Dyelin Taravin instead. The woman had been 
nothing but helpful, but it was early days yet, and sometimes 
a niggling voice whispered in the back of Elayne’s head. Was 
Dyelin simply waiting for her to bungle badly before stepping 
in to "save" Andor? Someone sufficiently prudent, 
sufficiently devious, might try that route, and might even 
succeed. 


Elayne raised a hand to rub her temple but made it into 
adjusting her hair. So much suspicion, so little trust. The 
Game of Houses had infected Andor since she left for Tar 
Valon. She was grateful for her months among Aes Sedai for 
more than learning the power. Daes Dae’mar was breath and 
bread, to most sisters. Grateful for Thom’s teaching, too. 
Without both, she might not have survived her return as long 



as she had. The Light send Thom was safe, that he and Mat 
and the others had escaped the Seanchan and were on their way 
to Camelyn. Every day since leaving Ebou Dar she prayed for 
their safety, but that brief prayer was all she had time for, 
now. 


Taking the chair at the center of the arc, the Queen’s 
chair, she tried to look like a queen, back straight, her free 
hand resting lightly on the carved chair arm. Looking a queen 
is not enough, her mother had told her often, but a fine mind, 
a keen grasp of affairs, and a brave heart will go for nothing 
if people do not seen you as a queen. Birgitte was watching 


her closely, almost suspiciously. Sometimes the bond was 
decidedly inconvenient! Dyelin raised her winecup to her 
lips. 

Elayne took a deep breath. She had harried this question 
from every direction she knew, and she could see no other way. 
"Birgitte, by spring, I want the Guards to be an army equal to 
anything ten Houses can put in the field." Impossible to 
achieve, likely, but just trying meant keeping the mercenaries 
who signed now and finding more, signing every man who showed 
the least inclination. Light, what a foul tangle! 


Dyelin choked, her eyes bulging; dark wine sprayed from her 
mouth. Still sputtering, she plucked a lace-edged 
handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed at her chin. 


A wave of panic shot down the bond from Birgitte. "Oh, burn 
me, Elayne, you can’t mean....! I’m an archer, not a general! 
That’s all I’ve ever been, don’t you understand yet? I just 
did what I had to do, what circumstances forced on me! 
Anyway, I’m not her, anymore; I’m just me and....!" She trailed 
off, realizing she might have said too much. Not for the 
first time. Her face went crimson as Dyelin eyed her 
curiously. 


They had put it about that Birgitte was from Kandor, where 
country women wore something like her clothes, yet Dyelin 
clearly suspected the lie. And every time Birgitte let her 
tongue slip, she came closer to letting her secret slip, too. 
Elayne shot her a look that promised a talking-to, later. 


She would not have thought Birgitte’s cheeks could get any 
redder. Mortification drowned everything else in the bond, 
flooding through until Elayne felt her own face coloring. 
Quickly she put on a stern expression, hoping her crimson 
cheeks would pass for something other than an intense desire 
to squirm in her seat with Birgitte’s humiliation. That 
mirroring effect could be more than merely inconvenient! 


Dyelin wasted only a moment on Birgitte. Tucking her 
handkerchief back in its place, she carefully set her cup back 
on the tray then planted her hands on her hips. Her face was 
a thunderhead, now. "The Guards have always been the core of 
Andor’s army, Elayne, but this....Light’s mercy, this is 
madness! You could turn every hand against you from the River 
Erinin to the Mountains of Mist!" 


Elayne focused on calm. If she was wrong, Andor would 
become another Cairhien, another blood-soaked land filled with 
chaos. And she would die, of course, a price not high enough 
to meet the cost. Not trying was unthinkable, and in any case 
would have the same result for Andor as failure. Cool, 
Composed, steely calm. A queen could not show herself afraid, 



even when she was. Especially when she was. Her mother had 
always said to explain decisions as seldom as possible; the 
more often you explained, the more explanations were 
necessary, until they were all you had time for. Gareth Bryne 
said to explain if you could; your people did better if they 


knew the why as well as the what. Today, she would follow 
Gareth Bryne. A good many victories had been won following 
him. 

"I have three declared challengers." And maybe one not 
declared. She made herself meet Dyelin’s gaze. Not angrily; 
just eyes meeting eyes. Or maybe Dyelin did take it for 
anger, with her jaw tight and her face flushed. If so, so be 
it. "By herself, Arymilla is negligible, but Nasin has joined 
House Caeren To her, and whether or not he’s sane, his support 
means she must be considered. Naean and Elenia are 
imprisoned; their armsmen are not. Naean’s people may dither 
and argue until they find a leader, but Jarid is High Seat of 
Sarand, and he will take chances to feed his wife’s ambition. 
House Baryn and House Anshar flirt with both; the best I can 
hope for is that one goes with Sarand and one with Arawn. 
Nineteen Houses in Andor are strong enough that smaller Houses 
will follow where they lead. Six are arrayed against me, and 
I have two." Six so far, and the Light send she had two! She 
would not mention the three great Houses that had all but 
declared for Dyelin; at least Egwene had them tied down in 
Murandy for now. 


She motioned to a chair near her, and Dyelin sat, carefully 
arranging her skirts. The storm clouds had left the older 
woman’s face. She studied Elayne, giving no hint as to her 
questions or conclusions. "I know all that as well as you, 
Elayne, but Luan and Ellorien will bring their Houses to you, 
and Abelle will as well, I’m sure." A careful voice, too, but 
it gathered heat as she went on. "Other Houses will see 
reason, then. As long as you don’t frighten them out of 
reason. Light, Elayne, this is not a Succession. Trakand 
succeeds Trakand, not another House. Even a Succession has 
seldom come to open fighting! Make the Guards into an army, 
and you risk everything." 


Elayne threw her head back, but her laughter held no 
amusement. It fit right in with the peals of thunder. "I 
risked everything the day I came home, Dyelin. You say 
Norwelyn and Traemane will come to me, and Pendar? Fine; then 
I have five to face six. I don’t think the other Houses will 
‘see reason,’ as you put it. If any of them move before it’s 
clear as good glass the Rose Crown is mine, it will be against 
me, not for." With lucky, those lords and ladies would shy 
away from associating with cronies of Gaebril, but she did not 
like depending on luck. She was not mat Cauthon. Light, most 
people were sure Rand had killed her mother, and few believed 
that "Lord Gaebril" had been one of the Forsaken. Mending the 
damage Rahvin had done in Andor might take her entire lifetime 
even if she managed to live as long as the Kinswomen! Some 
Houses would stand aside from supporting her because of the 
outrages Gaebril had perpetrated in Morgase’s name, and others 
because Rand had said he intended to "give" her the throne. 
She loved the man to her toes, but burn him for giving voice 
to that! Even if it was what reined in Dyelin. The meanest 



crofter in Andor would shoulder his scythe to pull a puppet 
from the Lion Throne! 


"I want to avoid Andoran killing Andoran If I can, Dyelin, 
but Succession or no Succession, Jarid is ready to fight, even 
with Elenia locked away. Naean is ready to fight." Best to 
bring both women to Caemlyn as soon as possible; too much 
chance of them slipping messages, and orders, out of Aringill. 
"Arymilla is ready, with Nasin’s men behind her. To them, 


this is a Succession, and the only way to stop them from 
fighting is to be so strong they don’t dare. If Birgitte can 
build the Guards into an army by spring, well and good, 

because if I don’t have an army before then, I will have need 
of one. And if that isn’t enough, remember the Seanchan. 
They won’t be satisfied with Tanchico and Ebou Dar; they want 
everything. I won’t let them have Andor, Dyelin, any more 
than I’ll let Arymilla." Thunder roared overhead. 


Twisting a little to look back at Birgitte, Dyelin moistened 
her lips. Her fingers plucked unconsciously at her skirts. 
Very little frightened her, but the tales of the Seanchan had. 
What she murmured, though, as if to herself, was "I had hoped 
to avoid outright civil war." And that might mean nothing, or 
a great deal! Perhaps a little probing might show which. 


"Gawyn," Birgitte said suddenly. Her expression had 
lightened, and so had the emotions flowing through the bond. 
Relief stood out strong. "When he comes, he’ll take command. 
He’ll be your first prince of the sword." 


"Mother’s milk in a cup!" Elayne snapped, and lightning 
flared in the windows for emphasis. Why did the woman have to 
change the subject now? Dyelin gave a start, and heat flooded 
back into Elayne’s face. By the older woman’s gaping mouth, 
she knew exactly how coarse that curse was. Strangely 
embarrassing, that; it should not have counted for anything 
that Dyelin had been her mother’s friend. Unthinking, she 
took a deep swallow of wine-and nearly gagged at the 
bitterness. Quickly she suppressed images of Lini threatening 
to wash out her mouth and reminded herself that she was a 
grown woman with a throne to win. She doubted her mother had 
ever found herself feeling foolish so often. 


"Yes, he will, Birgitte," she went on, more calmly. "When 
he comes." Three couriers were on their way to Tar Valon. 
Even if none managed to get past Elaida, Gawyn would learn 
eventually that she had made her claim, and he would come. 
She needed him desperately. She had no illusions of herself 
as a general, and Birgitte was so fearful she could not live 
up to the legends about her that sometimes she seemed afraid 
to try. Face an army, yes; lead an army, never under the sun! 


Birgitte was well aware of the tangle in her own mind. 
Right that moment her face was frozen, but her emotions were 
full of self-anger and embarrassment, with the first growing 
stronger by the moment. With a stab of irritation, Elayne 
opened her mouth to pursue Dyelin’s mention of civil war 
before she began reflecting Birgitte’s anger. 


Before she could utter a word, though, the tall red doors 
opened. Her hopes for Nynaeve or Vandene were dashed by the 
entrance of two Sea Folk women, barefoot despite the weather. 
A cloud of musky perfume wafted ahead of them, and by 
themselves they made up a procession in brightly brocaded silk 



trousers and blouses, jeweled daggers and necklaces of gold 
and ivory. And other jewelry. Straight black hair with white 
at the temples nearly hid the ten small, fat golden rings in 
Renaile din Calon’s ears, but the arrogance in her dark eyes 
was as plain as the medallion-laden golden chain that 
connected one earring to her nose ring. Her face was set, and 
despite a graceful sway to her walk, she appeared ready to 
stride through a wall. Nearly a hand shorter than her 
companion and darker than charcoal, Zaida din Parede wore half 
again as many golden medallions dangling on her left cheek and 
carried an air of command rather than arrogance, a sure 
certainty that she would be obeyed. Gray flecked her cap of 
tight black curls, yet she was stunning, one of those women 
who grew more and more beautiful as they aged. 


Dyelin flinched at sight of them, and half raised a hand to 
her nose before she could stop herself. A common enough 
reaction in people unused to the Atha’an Miere. Elayne 
grimaced, and not for their nose rings. She even considered 
another curse, something more...pungent. Excepting the 
Forsaken, she could not have named two people she wanted less 
to see right then. Reene was supposed to see this did not 
happen! 


"Forgive me," she said, rising smoothly, "but I am very 
busy, now. Matters of state, you understand, or I would greet 
you as your stations deserve." The Sea Folk were sticklers 
for ceremony and propriety, at least on their own terms. Very 
likely they had gotten past the First Maid by simply not 
telling her they wanted to see Elayne, but they easily might 
take offense if she greeted them sitting before the crown was 
hers. And, the Light burn both of them, she could not afford 
to offend. Birgitte appeared at her side, bowing formally to 
take her cup; the Warder bond carried wariness. She was 
always ginger around the Sea Folk; she had let her tongue slip 
around them, too. "I will see you later in the day," Elayne 
finished, adding, "The Light willing." They also were great 
ones for ceremonial turns of phrase, and that one showed 
courtesy and gave a way out. 


Renaile did not stop until she stood right in front of 
Elayne, and much too close. One tattooed hand gestured curt 
permission for her to sit. Permission. "You have been 
avoiding me." Her voice was deep for a woman, and as chill as 
the snow falling on the roof. "Remember that I am Windfinder 
to Nesta din Reas Two Moons, Mistress of the Ships to the 
Atha’an Miere. You still must fulfill the rest of the bargain 
you made for your White Tower." The Sea Folk knew of the 
division in the Tower-by this time, everyone and her sister 
knew-but Elayne had not seen fit to add to her difficulties by 
making public which side she was on. Not yet. Renaile 
finished on an imperious, commanding note. "You will deal 
with me, and now!" So much for ceremony and propriety. 


"She has been avoiding me, I think, not you, Windfinder." 
In contrast to Renaile, Zaida sounded as though she were 
merely making conversation. Rather than rushing across the 
carpets, she moved idly about the room, pausing to touch a 
tall vase of thin green porcelain, then rising on her toes to 
peer through a four-barreled kaleidoscope atop a tall stand. 
When she glanced toward Elayne and Renaile, an amused glint 



twinkled in her black eyes. "After all, the bargain was with 
Nesta din Reas, speaking for the ships." In addition to 
Wavemistress of Clan Catelar, Zaida was an ambassador from the 
Mistress of the Ships. To Rand, not Andor, but her warrant 
gave the authority to speak and bind for Nesta herself. 
Changing one gold-chased barrel for another, she went on 


tiptoe to look through the eyepiece again. "You promised the 
Atha’an Miere twenty teachers, Elayne. So far you have 
delivered one." 

Their entrance had been so sudden, so dramatic, that Elayne 
was surprised to see Merilille turn from closing the doors. 
Shorter still than Zaida, the Gray sister was elegant in dark 
blue wool trimmed with silvery fur and sewn with small 
moonstones across the bodice, yet barely more than two weeks 
teaching the Windfinders had brought changes. Most were 
powerful women with a thirst for knowledge, more than ready to 
squeeze Merilille like a grape in the winepress, demanding the 
last drop of juice. Once, Elayne had thought her self-
possessed beyond the ability to surprise, but now Merilille 
was constantly wide-eyed, her lips always a little parted, as 
though she had just been startled half out of her wits and 
expected to be startled again any moment. Folding her hands 
at her waist, she waited by the doorway, and appeared relieved 
to be out of the center of attention. 


Harrumphing loudly, Dyelin got to her feet and scowled at 
Zaida and Renaile both. "Have a care how you speak," she 
growled. "You are in Andor, now, not on one of our ships, and 
Elayne Trakand will be Queen of Andor! Your bargain will be 
met in good time. For now, we have more important matters to 
contend with." 


"Under the Light, there are none more important," Renaile 
rumbled in turn, rounding on her. "You say the bargain will 
be met? So you stand surety. Know there will be room to 
dangle you by your ankles in the rigging as well if-" 


Zaida snapped her fingers. That was all, but a tremor 
passed through Renaile. Snatching the golden scent-box 
dangling from one of her necklaces, she pressed it to her nose 
and breathed deeply. Windfinder to the Mistress of the Ships 
she might be, a woman of great authority and power among the 
Atha’an Miere, but to Zaida, she was...a Windfinder. Which 
grated her pride excessively. Elayne was sure there must be a 
way to use that to keep them out of her hair, but she had not 
found it, yet. Oh, yes; for good or ill, Daes Dae’mar was in 
her bones, now. 


She glided around a silently furious Renaile as if around a 
column, a part of the room, though not toward Zaida. If 
anyone had a right be be casual here, she did. She could not 
afford to give Zaida a hair of advantage, or the Wavemistress 
would shave her scalp for wigmakers. At the fireplace, she 
spread her hands in front of the flames again. 


"Nesta din Reas trusted we would fulfill the bargain, or she 
never would have agreed to it," she said calmly. "You have 
regained the Bowl of the Winds, but assembling nineteen more 
sisters to join you requires time. I know you worry about the 
ships that were at Ebou Dar when the Seanchan came. Have 
Renaile make a gateway to Tear. There are hundreds of Atha’an 
Miere vessels there." Every report said so. "You can learn 



what they know, and rejoin your people. They will have need 
of you, against the Seanchan." And she would be rid of them. 
"The other sisters will be sent to you as soon as can be 
arranged." Merilille did not move from the doorway, but her 
face took on a green tinge of panic at the possibility of 
being alone among the Sea Folk. 


Zaida gave over looking through the kaleidoscope and eyed 
Elayne sideways. A smile quirked her very full lips. "I must 
remain here, at least until I speak to Rand al’Thor. If he 
ever comes." That smile tightened for an instant before 
blooming once more; Rand would have a hard time with her. 
"And I will keep Renaile and her companions, for the time. A 
handful of Windfinders more or less will make no great 
difference against these Seanchan, and here, the Light 
willing, they may learn what will be useful." Renaile 
snorted, just loudly enough to be heard. Zaida frowned 
briefly and began fiddling with the eyepiece that stood level 
with the top of her head. "There are five Aes Sedai here in 
your palace, counting yourself," she murmured thoughtfully. 
"Perhaps some of you might teach." As though the idea had 
just occurred to her. And if that were so, Elayne could lift 
both Sea folk women with one hand! 


"Oh, yes, that would be wonderful," Merilille burst out, 
taking a step forward. Then she glanced at Renaile and 
subsided, a blush suffusing her Cairhienin paleness. Folding 
her hands at her waist once more, she snatched meekness around 


herself like a second skin. Birgitte shook her head in 
amazement. Dyelin stared as if she had never seen the Aes 
Sedai before. 

"Something may be worked out, if the Light pleases," Elayne 
said cautiously. Not rubbing at her temples took effort. She 
wished she could blame the ache inside her skull on the 
incessant thunder. Nynaeve would erupt at the suggestion, and 
Vandene likely would ignore any such order, but Careane and 
Sareitha might be possible. "For no more than a few hours a 
day, you understand. When they have time." She avoided 
looking at Merilille. Even Careane and Sareitha might rebel 
at being tossed into that winepress. 


Zaida touched the fingers of her right hand to her lips. 
"It is agreed, under the light." 


Elayne blinked. That was ominous; in the Wavemistress’s 
eyes, apparently, they had just made another bargain. Her 
limited experience of dealing with the Atha’an Miere was that 
you were lucky to walk away with your shift. Well, this time 
things were going to be different. For instance, what were 
the sisters to gain in it? There had to be two sides to a 
bargain. Zaida smiled, as if she knew what Elayne was 
thinking and was amused. One of the doors opening again was 
almost a relief, giving her an excuse to turn away from the 
Sea Folk woman. 


Reene Harfor slipped into the room with deference but 
without servility, and her curtsy was restrained, suitable for 
the High Seat of a powerful House to her Queen. But then, any 
High Seat worth a pinch of salt knew enough to offer respect 
to the First Maid. Her graying hair was arranged in a bun, 
like a crown atop her head, and she wore a scarlet tabard over 
her red-and-white dress, with the White Lion of Andor’s head 



resting on her formidable bosom. Reene had no say in who 
would sit on the throne, but she had adopted full formal dress 
on the day of Elayne’s arrival, as if the Queen already were 
in residence. Her round face hardened momentarily at sight of 
the Atha’an Miere women who had bypassed her, but that was all 
the notice she gave them. For now. They would learn to their 
cost what incurring the animosity of the First Maid entailed. 


"Mazrim Taim has come at last, my Lady." Reene managed to 
make that sound very like "my Queen." "Shall I tell him to 
wait?" 


Not beforetime! Elayne muttered in her head. She had 
summoned the man two days ago! "Yes, Mistress Harfor. Give 
him wine. The third best, I think. Inform him that I will 
see him as soon as I-" 


Taim strode into the room as though he owned the Palace. 
She did not need him named. Blue-And-gold Dragons wove round 
the sleeves of his black coat from elbows to cuffs, in 
imitation of the Dragons on Rand’s arms. Though she suspected 
he would not appreciate the observation. He was tall, nearly 
as tall as Rand, with a hooked nose and dark eyes like augurs, 
a physically powerful man who moved with something of a 
Warder’s deadly grace, but shadows seemed to follow him, as if 
half the lamps in the room had gone out; not real shadows, but 
an air of imminent violence that seemed palpable enough to 
soak up light. 


Two more black-coated men followed at his heels, a bald 
fellow with a long grizzled beard and leering blue eyes, and a 
younger man, snake-slim and dark-haired, with the sneering 
arrogance young men often adopted before they learned better. 
Both wore the silver Sword and red-enameled Dragon on their 
tall collars. None of the three wore a sword on his hip, 
though; they did not need swords. Suddenly the sitting room 
felt smaller, and crowded. 


Instinctively, Elayne embraced saidar and reached out to 
link. Merilille slipped into the circle easily; astoundingly, 
so did Renaile. A quick glance at the Windfinder lessened her 
surprise. Her face gray, Renaile was gripping the dagger 
thrust behind her sash so hard that Elayne could feel the pain 
in her knuckles through the link. She had been in Caemlyn 
long enough to be aware of what an Asha’man was. 


The men knew someone had embraced saidar, of course, even if 
they could not see the glow surrounding the three women. The 
bald man stiffened; the slim young man clenched his fists. 
They stared with angry eyes. Surely they had seized saidin. 
Elayne began to regret giving in to reflex, but she was not 
going to let go of the Source, not now. Taim radiated danger 
the way a fire gave off heat. She drew deeply through the 
link, to the point where the overwhelming sense of life became 
sharp, warning prickles. Even those felt ....joyous. With that 
much of the Power in her, she could lay waste to the Palace, 
but she wondered whether it was enough to match Taim and the 
other two. She very much wished she had one of the three 
angreal they had found in Ebou Dar, now safely locked away 
with the rest of the things from the cache until she had time 
to study them again. 


Taim shook his head contemptuously, a half-smile flickering 
across his lips. "Use your eyes." His voice was quiet, but 



hard and sneering. "There are two Aes Sedai here. Are you 
afraid of two Aes Sedai? Besides, you don’t want to frighten 
the future Queen of Andor." His companions relaxed visibly, 
then began trying to emulate the unthinking dominance of his 
stance. 


Reene knew nothing of saidar or saidin; she had rounded on 
the men, scowling, as soon as they entered. Asha’man or no 
Asha’man, she expected people to behave as they should. She 
muttered something almost under her breath. Not quite far 
enough under, though. The words "sneaking rats" were just 
audible. 


The First Maid reddened when she realized everyone in the 
room had heard, and Elayne got a chance to see Reene Harfor 
flustered. Which was to say that the woman drew herself up 
and said, with a grace and dignity any ruler might envy, 
"Forgive me, my Lady Elayne, but I’ve been told there are rats 
infesting the storerooms. Most unusual this time of year, and 
so many of them. If you will excuse me, I must make sure my 
orders for ratcatchers and poison baits are being carried 
out." 


"Stay," Elayne told her coolly. Calmly. "Vermin can be 
dealt with in due time." Two Aes Sedai. He did not realize 
Renaile could channel and he had emphasized two. Would just 
three women give some advantage? Or did it take more? Plainly 
the Asha’man knew of some advantage to women in numbers less 
than a circle of thirteen. Walk in on her without so much as 
a by-your-leave, would they? "You can show these goodmen out 
when I’m done with them." Taim’s companions scowled at being 
called "goodmen," but the man himself merely flashed another 
of those almost-smiles. He was quick enough to know she had 
been thinking of him when she spoke of vermin. Light! Maybe 
Rand had needed this man once, but why would he keep him now, 
and in a position of such authority? Well, his authority 
counted for nothing here. 


Unhurriedly, she took her chair again, and gave a moment to 
adjusting her skirts. The men would have to come around in 
front of her like supplicants, or else talk to the side of her 
head while she refused to look at them. For an instant she 
considered passing control of the small circle. The Asha’man 
would surely focus their attention on her. Renaile was still 
gray, though, anger and fear tumbling over one another inside 
her; she might strike out as soon as the link was hers. 
Merilille had some fear, just under control, mixed with a very 
great deal of a...goosey...feeling that matched her wide eyes and 
parted lips; the Light alone knew what she might do with the 
link. 


Dyelin glided to the side of Elayne’s chair, as if to shield 
her from the Asha’man. Whatever lay inside the High Seat of 
Taravin, her face was stern, unfrightened. The other women 
had wasted no time in preparing as best they could. Zaida 
stood very still beside the kaleidoscope, doing her best to 
look diminutive and harmless, but her hands were behind her 
back and the dagger was missing from behind her sash. 
Birgitte lounged beside the fireplace, left hand propped on 
the jamb, seemingly at her ease, but the sheath of her belt 
knife was empty, and from the way her other hand rested by her 
side, she was ready for an underhand throw. The bond 



carried...focus. Arrow nocked, drawn to cheek, ready to loose. 


Elayne made no effort to look around Dyelin at the three 
men. "first you re too slow obeying my summons, Master Taim, 
and then too sudden." Light was he holding saidin? There 
were methods of interfering with a man channeling short of 
shielding him, but it was a difficult skill, chancy, and she 
knew little more than the theory. 


He did come in front of her, several paces off, but he did 
not look a supplicant. Mazrim Taim knew who he was and his 
own worth, though he plainly set it higher than the sky. 
Lightning flashed in the windows sent strange lights across 
his face. Many would feel overawed by him, even without his 
fancy coat or his infamous name. She did not. She would not! 


Taim rubbed his chin thoughtfully, "I understand you’ve 
taken down the Dragon banners all over Camelyn, Mistress 
Elayne." There was amusement in his deep voice if none in his 
eyes! Dyelin hissed in fury at the slight to Elayne, but he 
ignored her. "The Saldaeans have withdrawn to the Legion of 
the Dragon’s camp, I hear, and soon the last of the Aiel will 
be in camps outside the city, as well. What will he say when 
he learns?" There was no doubt who he meant. "And after 
he’s sent you a gift, too. From the south. I’ll have it 
delivered later. 


"I will ally Andor with the Dragon Reborn in due course," 
she told him coldly, "but Andor is not a conquered province, 
not for him or anyone else." She made her hands stay relaxed 
on the arms of the chair. Light, talking the Aiel and 
Saldaeans into leaving had been her biggest achievement yet, 
and even with the flareup in crime, it had been necessary! 
"In any case, Master Taim, it is not your place to call me to 
task. If Rand objects, I will deal with him!" Taim raised an 
eyebrow, and that odd quirk of his mouth lingered. 


Burn me, she thought indignantly, I shouldn’t have used 
Rand’s name! The man clearly thought he knew exactly how she 
would deal with the anger of the bloody Dragon Reborn! The 
worst of it was, if she could trip Rand into a bed, she would. 
Not for this, not to deal with him, but because she wanted to. 
What sort of gift had he sent her? 


Anger hardened her voice. Anger at Taim’s tone, at Rand for 
staying away so long. At herself, for blushing and thinking 
of gifts. Gifts! "You’ve walled in four miles of Andor." 
Light, that was more than half as large as the Inner City! 
How many of these fellows could it hold? The thought made her 
skin crawl. "With whose permission, Master Taim? Don’t tell 
me the Dragon Reborn. He has no right to give permission for 
anything in Andor." Dyelin shifted beside her. No right, but 
enough strength could make right. Elayne kept her attention 
on Taim. "You’ve refused the Queen’s Guards entry to 
your...compound." Not that they had tried before she came home. 
"The law in Andor runs over all of Andor, Master Taim. 
Justice will be the same for lord or farmer-or Asha’man. 
won’t claim I can force my way in." He began to smile again, 
or nearly so. " I wouldn’t demean myself. But unless the 
Queen’s Guards are allowed in, I promise you not so much as a 
potato will go through your gates, either. I know you can 
Travel. Let your Asha’man spend their days Traveling to buy 
food." The almost smile vanished in a faint grimace; his 



boots shifted slightly. 


Annoyance lasted only an instant, though. "Food is a small 
problem," he said smoothly, spreading his hands. "As you say, 
my men can Travel. To anywhere I command. I doubt you could 
stop me buying whatever I want even ten miles from Caemlyn, 
but it wouldn’t bother me if you could. Still, I am willing 
to allow visits whenever you ask. Controlled visits, with 
escorts at all times. The training is hard in the black 
tower. Men die almost every day. I would not want any 
accidents." 


He was irritatingly accurate on how far from Caemlyn her 
writ ran. But no more than irritating. Were his remarks 
about Traveling anywhere he commanded and "accidents" meant to 
be veiled threats? Surely not. A wave of fury ran through 
her as she realized that she was certain he would not threaten 
her because of Rand. She would not hide behind Rand al’Thor. 
Controlled visits? When she asked? She ought to burn the man 
to a cinder where he stood! 


Abruptly she became aware of what was coming through the 
bond from Birgitte, anger, a reflection of hers, joining with 
Birgitte’s, reflecting from Birgitte to her, bouncing from her 
to Birgitte, feeding on itself, building. Birgitte’s knife 
hand quivered with the desire to throw. And herself? Fury 
filled her! A whisker more, and she would lose saidar. Or 
lash out with it. 


With an effort she forced rage down, into a semblance of 
calm. A rough, seething, semblance. She swallowed, and 
struggled to keep her voice level. "The Guards will visit 
every day, Master Taim." And how she was to manage that in 
this weather, she did not know. "Perhaps I will come myself, 
with a few other sisters." If the thought of having Aes Sedai 
inside his Black Tower upset Taim, he did not show it. Light, 
she was trying to establish Andor’s authority, not goad the 
man. Hurriedly she did a novice exercise-the river contained 
by the bank-seeking calm. It worked, a little. Now she 
merely wanted to throw all the winecups at him. "I will 
accede to your request for escorts, but nothing is to be 
hidden. I won’t have crimes concealed by your secrets. Do we 
understand one another?" 


Taim’s bow was mocking---mocking!-but there was a tightness 
in his voice. "I understand you perfectly. Understand me, 
though. My men are not farmers knuckling their foreheads when 
you pass. Press an Asha’man too hard, and you may learn just 
how strong your law is." 


Elayne opened her mouth to tell him exactly how strong the 
law was in Andor. 


"It is time, Elayne Trakand," a woman’s voice said from the 
doorway. 


"Blood and ashes!" Dyelin muttered. Is the whole world 
just going to walk in here?" 


Elayne recognized the new voice. She had been expecting 
this summons, without knowing when it would come. Knowing 
that it must be obeyed, though, on the instant. She stood, 
wishing she could have a little longer to make matters clear 
to Taim. He frowned at the woman who had just entered, and at 
Elayne, clearly uncertain what to make of this. Good. Let 
him stew until she had time to set him straight on what 



special rights Asha’man had in Andor. 


Nadere stood as tall as either of the two men by the door, a 
wide woman, as close to stout as any Aiel Elayne had seen. 
Her green eyes examined the pair for a moment before 
dismissing them as unimportant. Asha’man did not impress Wise 
Ones. Very little did. Adjusting her dark shawl on her 
shoulders in a clatter of bracelets, she walked over in front 
of Elayne, her back to Taim. Despite the cold, she wore only 
that shawl over her thin white blouse, though oddly, she 
carried a heavy wool cloak draped across one arm. "You must 
come now," she told Elayne, "without delay." Taim’s eyebrows 
seemed to be climbing his forehead; no doubt he was 
unaccustomed to being so thoroughly ignored. 


"Light of heaven!" Dyelin breathed, massaging her forehead. 
"I don’t know what this is about, Nadere, but it will have to 
wait until-" 


Elayne laid a hand on her arm. "You don’t know, Dyelin, and 
it can’t wait. I will send everyone away and come with you, 
Nadere." 


The Wise One shook her head disapprovingly. "A child 
waiting to be born cannot take time to send people away." She 
shook out the thick cloak. "I brought this to shield your 
skin from the cold. Perhaps I should leave it, and tell 
Aviendha your modesty is greater than your desire for a 
sister." Dyelin gasped in sudden realization. The Warder 
bond quivered with Birgitte’s outrage. 


There was only one choice possible. NO choice, really. 
Letting the link to the other two women dissolve, she released 
saidar herself. The glow remained around Remaile and 
Merilille, though. "Will you help me with my buttons, 
Dyelin?" Elayne was proud of how steady her voice was. She 
had expected this. Just not with so many witnesses! she 
thought faintly. Turning her back on Taim-at least she would 
not have to see him watching her!-she gegan with the tiny 
buttons on her sleeves. "Dyelin, if you please? Dyelin?" 
After a moment Dyelin moved as if sleep walking and began 
fumbling with the buttons down Elayne’s back, muttering to 
herself in shocked tones. One of the Asha’man by the doors 
snickered. 


"About turn!" Taim snapped, and boots stamped by the doors. 


Elayne did not know whether he had turned away as well-she 
was certain she could feel his eyes on her-but suddenly 
Birgitte was there, and Merilille and Reene, and Zaida, and 
even Renaile, crowding shoulder-to-shoulder, scowling as they 
formed a wall between her and the men. Not a very adequate 
wall. None were as tall as she, and neither Zaida nor 
Merilille stood higher than her shoulder. 


Focus, she told herself. I am composed, I am tranquil. 
am....I’m stripping naked in a room full of people is what I am! 
She undressed as hurriedly as she could, letting her dress and 
shift fall to the floor, tossing her slippers and stockings on 
top of them. Her skin pebbled in the cool air; ignoring the 
chill just meant she was not shivering. And she rather 
thought the heat in her cheeks might have something to do with 
that. 


"Madness!" Dyelin muttered in a low voice, snatching up the 
clothes. "Utter madness!" "What is this about?" Birgitte 



whispered. "Should I come with you?" 


"I must go alone," Elayne whispered back. "Don’t argue!" 
Not that Birgitte gave any outward sign of it, but the bond 
carried volumes. Taking the golden hoops from her ears, she 
handed them to Birgitte, then hesitated before adding her 
Great Serpent ring. The Wise Ones had said she must come as a 
child came to birth. They had had a great many instructions, 
first among them to tell no one what was coming. For that 
matter, she wished she knew. A child came to birth without 
foreknowledge of what was to happen. Birgitte’s mutterings 
began to sound like Dyelin’s. 


Nadere came forward with the cloak, but simply held it out; 
Elayne had to take it and wrap it around herself hastily. She 
was still sure she could feel Taim’s gaze. Holding the heavy 
wool close, her instinct was to hurry from the room, but 
instead she drew herself up and turned around slowly. She 
would not scurry out cloaked in shame. 


The men who had come with Taim stood rigidly, facing the 
doors, and Taim himself was peering at the fireplace, arms 
folded across his chest. The feel of his eyes had been 
imagination, then. Excepting Nadere, the other women looked 
at her in variations of curiosity, consternation and shock. 
Nadere merely seemed impatient. 


Elayne tried for her most queenly voice. "Mistress Harfor, 
you will offer Master Taim and his men wine, before they go." 
Well, at least it did not tremble. "Dyelin, please entertain 
the Wavemistress and the Windfinder, and see if you can allay 


their fears. Birgitte, I expect to hear your plan for 
recruiting tonight." The women she named blinked in 
startlement, nodded wordlessly. 

Then she walked from the room, followed by Nadere, wishing 
she could have done better. The last thing she heard before 
the door closed behind her was Zaida’s voice. 


"Strange customs, you shorebound have." 


In the corridor she tried to move a little faster, though it 
was not easy while keeping the cloak from gaping. The red-and-
white floor tiles were much colder than the carpets in the 
sitting room. A few servants, warmly bundled in good woolen 
livery, stared when they saw her, then hurried on about their 
tasks. The flames of the stand-lamps flickered; there were 
always drafts in the hallways. Occasionally the air stirred 
enough to make a wall hanging ripple lazily. 


"That was on purpose, wasn’t it?" she said to Nadere, not 
really asking a question. "Whenever you called me, you’d have 
made sure there were plenty of people to watch. To make sure 
adopting Aviendha was important enough to me." It had to be 
more important than anything else, they had been told. "What 
did you do to her?" Aviendha seemed to have very little 
modesty sometimes, often walking around her apartments 
unclothed and unconcerned, not even noticing when servants 
entered. Making her undress in a crowd would have proved 
nothing. 


"That is for her to tell you if she wishes," Nadere said 
complacently. "You are sharp to see it; many do not." Her 
large bosom heaved in a grunt that might have been a laugh. 



"Those men, turning their backs, and those women, guarding 
you. I would have put a stop to it if the man in the 
embroidered coat had not kept looking over his shoulder to 
admire your hips. And if you blushes had not said you knew." 


Elayne missed a step and stumbled. The cloak flared, losing 
the little body warmth it had trapped before she could snatch 
it closed again. "That filthy pig-kisser!" she growled. 
"I’ll...I’ll...!" Burn her, what could she do? Tell Rand? Let 
him deal with Taim? Never in life! 


Nadere eyed her quizzically. "Most men enjoy looking at a 


woman’s bottom. Stop thinking about men, and start thinking 
about the woman you want for a sister." 
Flushing again, Elayne put her mind on Aviendha. It did 

nothing to settle her nerves. There were specific things she 
had been told to think on before the ceremony, and some made 
her uneasy. 


Nadere kept her pace to Elayne’s, and Elayne took great care 
not to let her legs flash through the cloak’s opening-there 
were servants everywhere-so it took them some little time to 
reach the room where the Wise Ones were gathered, more than a 
dozen of them in their bulky skirts and white blouses and dark 
shawls, decked with necklaces and bracelets of gold and 
silver, gems and ivory, their long hair held back with folded 
scarves. All the furnishings and carpets had been cleared 
out, leaving bare white floor tiles, and there was no fire on 
the hearth. Here, deep in the palace, with no windows, the 
crash of thunder was barely audible. 


Elayne’s eyes went straight to Aviendha, standing on the far 
side of the room. Naked. She smiled at Elayne nervously. 
Nervously! Aviendha! Hurriedly throwing off the cloak, 
Elayne smiled back. Nervously, she realized. Aviendha gave a 
soft laugh, and after a moment, Elayne did, too. Light, the 
air was cold! And the floor was colder! 


She did not know most of the Wise Ones in the room, but one 
face jumped at her. Amy’s prematurely white hair combined 
with features that appeared short of their middle years to 
give her something of the look of an Aes Sedai. She must have 
Traveled from Cairhien. Egwene had been teaching the 
dreamwalkers, to repay their teaching about Tel’aran’rhiod. 
And to meet a debt, she claimed, though she had never made 
clear what debt. 


"I hoped Melaine would be here," Elayne said. She liked 
Bael’s wife, a warm and generous woman. Not like two others 
in the room she recognized, bony Tamela with her angular face, 
and Viendre, a beautiful, blue-eyed eagle. Both were stronger 
in the Power than she, stronger than any sister she had met 
save Nynaeve. That was not supposed to matter among Aiel, but 
she could think of no other reason why they always sneered and 
looked down their noses when they saw her. 


She expected Amys to take charge-Amys always did, it 
seemed-but it was a short woman named Monaelle, her hair 
yellow with hints of red, who stepped forward. Not truly 
short, yet still the only woman in the room shorter than 
Elayne. And the weakest in the Power, too, barely strong 
enough, had she gone to Tar Valon, to have earned the shawl. 
Perhaps that really did not count with Aiel. 


"Were Melaine here," Monaelle said, her tone brisk but not 



unfriendly, "the babes she carries would be part of the bond 
between you and Aviendha, if the weaves brushed them. If they 
survived, that is; the unborn are not strong enough for this. 
The question is, are the two of you?" She gestured with both 
hands, pointing to spots on the floor not far from her. "Come 
here to the middle of the chamber, both of you." 


For the first time, Elayne realized that saidar was to be 
part of this. She had thought it would be just a ceremony, 
pledges exchanged, perhaps oaths given. What was going to 
happen? It did not matter, except....Her steps dragged as she 
moved toward Monaelle. "My warder....Our bond....Will she 
be....affected...by this?" Aviendha, coming to face her, had 
frowned when Elayne hesitated, but at the question, she swung 
startled eyes to Monaelle. Clearly, it was something she had 
not thought of. 


The short Wise One shook her head. "No one outside this 
chamber can be touched by the weaves. She may sense some part 
of what you share with each other, because of her bond with 
you, but only a very little." Aviendha heaved a sigh of 
relief that Elayne echoed. 


"Now," Monaelle went on. "There are forms to be followed. 
Come. We are not clan chiefs discussing water pledges over 
oosquai." Laughing, making what seemed to be jokes about clan 
chiefs and the strong Aiel liquor, the other women formed a 
circle around Aviendha and Elayne. Monaelle settled 
gracefully to the floor, sitting cross-legged two paces to one 
side of the bare women. Laughter ceased as her voice became 
formal. "We are gathered because two women wish to be first-
sisters. We will see whether they are strong enough, and if 
they are, help them. Are their mothers present?" 


Elayne gave a start, but the next moment Viendre was behind 
her. "I stand for Elayne Trakand’s mother, who cannot be 
here." Hands on Elayne’s shoulders, Viendre pushed her 
forward and pressed down until she was kneeling on the cold 
tiles in front of Aviendha, then knelt behind her. "I offer 
my daughter to her testing." 


Another time, Elayne might have giggled. Neither woman 
looked more than a half-dozen years older than Aviendha or 
her. Another time. Not now. The standing Wise Ones wore 
solemn faces. They were studying her and Aviendha as if 
weighing them, unsure they would measure up. 


"Who will suffer the pangs of birth for them?" Monaelle 
asked, and Amys stepped forward. 


Two others came with her, a fiery redhead named Shyanda, 
whom Elayne had seen with Melaine, and a graying woman she did 
not know. They helped Amys strip to her skin. Proud in her 
nakedness, Amys faced Monaelle and slapped her taut belly. "I 
have borne children. I have given suck," she said, cupping 
breasts that looked as if she had done nothing of the kind. 
"I offer myself." 


At Monaelle’s dignified nod of acceptance, Amys went to her 
knees two paces on the other side of Elayne and Aviendha and 
settled back on her heels. Shyanda and the graying Wise One 
knelt flanking her, and suddenly the glow of the Power 
surrounded every woman in the room except Elayne, Aviendha and 
Amys. 


Elayne took a deep breath, and saw Aviendha do the same. 



Occasionally a bracelet clicked against another among the Wise 
Ones, the only sound in the room beyond breathing, and faint, 
distant thunder. It was almost a shock when Monaelle spoke. 


"You will both do as you are instructed. If you waver or 
question, your dedication is not strong enough. I will send 
you away, and that will be the end of it, forever. I will ask 
questions, and you will answer truthfully. If you refuse to 
answer, you will be sent away. If any here think you lie, you 
will be sent away. You may leave at any time on your own, of 
course. Which also will end this for all time. There are no 
second chances here. Now. What is the best you know of the 
woman you want for a first-sister?" 


Elayne half-expected the question. This was one of the 
things she had been told to think about. Choosing one virtue 
among many had not been easy, yet she had her answer ready. 
When she spoke, flows of saidar suddenly wove together between 
her and Aviendha, and no sound came from her tongue, or 
Aviendha’s. Without thought, a part of her mind tucked away 
the weaves; even now, trying to learn was as much a part of 
her as the color of her eyes. The weaves vanished as her lips 
closed. 


"Aviendha is so confident, so proud. She doesn’t care what 
anyone thinks she should do, or be; she is who she wants to 
be," Elayne heard her own voice say, while Aviendha’s words 
suddenly were audible at the same time. "Even when Elayne is 
so afraid that her mouth dries, her spirit will not bend. She 
is braver than anyone I have ever known." 


Elayne stared at her friend. Aviendha thought she was 
brave? Light, she was no coward, but brave? Strangely, 
Aviendha was staring at her in disbelief. 


"Courage is a well," Viendre said at Elayne’s ear, "deep in 
some, shallow in others. Deep or shallow, wells go dry 
eventually, even if they fill again later. You will face what 
you cannot face. Your spine will turn to jelly, and your 
vaunted courage will leave you weeping in the dust. The day 
will come." She sounded as though she wanted to be there to 
see it come. Elayne gave a curt nod. She knew all about her 
spine turning to jelly; she fought it every day, it seemed. 


Tamela was speaking to Aviendha, in a voice almost as 
satisfied as Viendre’s. "Ji’e’toh binds you like bands of 
steel. For ji, you make yourself exactly what is expected of 
you, to the last hair. For toh, if necessary you will abase 
yourself and crawl on your belly. Because you care to your 
bones what everyone thinks of you." 


Elayne nearly gasped. That was harsh, and unfair. She knew 
something of ji’e’toh, but Aviendha was not like that. Yet 
Aviendha was nodding, much as she herself had. An impatient 
acceptance of what she already knew. 


"Fine traits to love in a first-sister," Monaelle said, 
lifting her shawl down to her elbows, "but what do you find 
worst in her?" 


Elayne shifted on her chilling knees, licked her lips before 
speaking. She had dreaded this. It was not just Monaelle’s 
warning. Aviendha had said they must speak the truth. Must, 
or what was sisterhood worth? Again the weaves held their 
words captive until they were done. 


"Aviendha...." Elayne’s voice said suddenly, hesitantly. 



"She...she thinks violence is always the answer. At times, she 
won’t think beyond her belt knife. At times, she’s like a boy 
who won’t grow up!" 


"Elayne knows that..." Aviendha’s voice began, then gulped and 
went on in a rush. "She knows she is beautiful, knows the 
power it gives her over men. She exposes half her bosom 
sometimes, in the open air, and she smiles to make men do what 
she wants." 


Elayne gaped. Aviendha thought that of her? It made her 
sound a lightskirt! Aviendha frowned back and half-opened her 
mouth, but Tamela pressed her shoulders again and began to 
speak. 


"You think men do not stare at your face in approval?" 
There was an edge in the Wise One’s voice; strong was the best 
anyone would ever say of her face. "Do they not look at your 
breasts in the sweat tent? Admire your hips? You are 
beautiful, and you now it. Deny it, and deny yourself! You 
have taken pleasure in men’s looks, and smiled at them. Will 
you never smile at a man to give your arguments more weight, 
or touch his arm to distract him from the weakness of your 
arguments? You will, and you will be no less for it." 


Red flooded Aviendha’s cheeks, but Elayne was having to 
listen to Viendre. And fight blushes of her own. "There is 
violence in you. Deny it, and deny yourself. Have you never 
raged and struck out? Have you never drawn blood? Have you 
never wished to? Without any thought at all? While you 
breathe, that will be part of you." Elayne though of Taim, 
and other times, and her face felt like a furnace. 


This time, there was more than one response. 


"Your arms will grow weak," Tamela was telling Aviendha. 
"Your legs will lose their swiftness. A youth will be able to 
take the knife from your hand. How will skill or ferocity 
avail you then? Heart and mind are the true weapons. But did 
you learn to use the spear in a day, when you were a Maiden? 
If you do not hone mind and heart now, you will grow old and 
children will befuddle your wits. Clan chiefs will sit you in 
a corner to play cat’s cradle, and when you speak, all will 
hear only the wind. Take heed while you can." 


"Beauty flees," Viendre went on, to Elayne. "Years will 
make your breasts sag, your flesh grow slack, your skin grow 
leathery. Men who smiled to see your face will speak to you 
as if you were just another man. Your husband may see you 
always as the first time his eyes caught you, but no other man 
will dream of you. Will you no longer be you? Your body is 
only clothing. Your flesh will wither, but you are your heart 
and mind, and they do not change except to grow stronger." 


Elayne shook her head. Not in denial. Not really. She had 
never thought on aging, though. Especially not since going to 
the Tower. The years lay lightly even on very old Aes Sedai. 
But what if she lived as long as the Kinswomen? That would 
mean giving up being Aes Sedai, of course, but what if she 
did? The Kin took a very long time to grow wrinkles, but grow 
them they did. What was Aviendha thinking? She knelt there 
looking...sullen. 


"What is the most childish thing you know of the woman you 
want for a first-sister?" Monaelle said. 


This was easier, not so fraught. Elayne even smiled as she 



spoke. Aviendha grinned back, sullenness gone. Again the 
weaves took their words and released them together, voices 
with laughter in them. 


"Aviendha won’t let me teacher her to swim. I’ve tried. 
She isn’t afraid of anything, except getting into more water 
than a bathtub." 


"Elayne gobbles sweets with both hands like a child who’s 
escaped her mother’s eye. If she keeps on, she will be fat as 
a pig before she grows old." 


Elayne jerked. Gobbles? Gobbles? A taste, now and then, 
was all she took. Just now and then. Fat? Why was Aviendha 
glaring at her? Refusing to step into water more than knee-
deep was childish. 


Monaelle covered a slight cough with one hand, but Elayne 
thought she was hiding a smile. Some of the standing Wise 
Ones laughed outright. At Aviendha’s silliness? Or 
her...gobbling? 


Monaelle resumed dignity, adjusting her skirts spread out of 
the floor, but there was still a touch of mirth in her voice. 
"What is your greatest jealousy of the woman you want for a 
first-sister?" 


Perhaps Elayne would have hedged her answer despite the 
requirement for truth. Truth had jumped up as soon as she was 
told to think on this, but she had found something smaller, 
less embarrassing for them both, that would have passed 
muster. Perhaps. But there was that about her smiling at me 
and exposing her bosom. Maybe she did smile, but Aviendha 
walked in front of red-faced serving men without a stitch on 
and seemed not even to see them! So she gobbled candy, did 
she? She was going to get fat? She spoke the bitter truth 
while the weaves took her words and Aviendha’s mouth moved in 
grim silence, until at last, what they had said was loosed. 


"Aviendha has lain in the arms of the man I love. I never 
have; I may never, and I could weep over it!" 


"Elayne has the love of Rand al’Th...of Rand. My heart is 
dust for wanting him to love me, but I do not know if he ever 
will." 


Elayne peered into Aviendha’s unreadable face. She was 
jealous of her over Rand? When the man avoided Elayne Trakand 
as if she had scabies? She had no time for more though. 


"Strike her as hard as you can with your open hand," Tamela 
told Aviendha, removing her own hands from Aviendha’s 
shoulders. 


Viendre squeezed Elayne’s lightly. "Do not defend 
yourself." They had not been told anything of this! Surely, 
Aviendha would not- 


Blinking, Elayne pushed herself up from the icy floor tiles. 
Gingerly she felt her cheek, and winced. She was going to 
wear a palm print the rest of the day. The woman did not have 


to hit her that hard. 
Everyone waited until she was kneeling again, and then 
Viendre leaned closer. "Strike her as hard as you can with 
your open hand." 
Well she was not going to knock Aviendha on her ear. She 

was not going to-Her full-armed slap sent Aviendha sprawling, 
sliding on her chest across the tiles almost to Monaelle. 
Elayne’s palm stung almost as much as her cheek. 



 Aviendha half pushed herself up, gave her head a shake, then 
scrambled back to her position. And Tamela said, "Strike her 
with the other hand." 


This time, Elayne slid all the way to Amys’s knees on the 
frozen tiles, her head ringing, both cheeks burning. And when 
she regained her own knees in front of Aviendha, when Viendre 
told her to strike, she put her whole body into the slap, so 
much that she nearly fell over atop Aviendha as the other 
woman went down. 


"You may go now," Monaelle said. 


Elayne’s eyes jerked toward the Wise One. Aviendha, halfway 
back to her knees, went stiff as a stone. 


"If you wish to," Monaelle continued. "Men usually do, at 
this point if not sooner. Many women do, too. But if you 
still love one another enough to go on, then embrace." 


Elayne flung herself at Aviendha, and was met wit ha rush 
that nearly knocked her over backwards. They clung together. 
Elayne felt tears trickling from her eyes, and realized 
Aviendha was crying as well. "I’m sorry," Elayne whispered 
fervently. "I’m sorry, Aviendha." 


"Forgive me," Aviendha whispered back. "Forgive me." 


Monaelle was standing over them, now. "You will know anger 
at one another again, you will speak harsh words, but you will 
always remember that you have already struck her. And for no 
better reason than you were told to. Let those blows pass for 
all you might wish to give. You have toh toward one another, 
toh you cannot repay and will not try to, for every woman is 
always in her first-sister’s debt. You will be born again." 


The feel of saidar in the room was changing, but Elayne had 
no chance to see how even had she thought of it. The light 
dwindled as if the lamps were being put out. The feel of 
Aviendha’s hug dwindled. Sound dwindled. The last thing she 
heard was Monaelle’s voice. "You will be born again." 
Everything faded. She faded. She ceased to exist. 


Awareness, of a sort. She did not think of herself as she, 
she did not think at all, but she was aware. Of sound. A 
liquid swishing around. Muted gurgles and rumbles. And a 
rhythmic thudding. That above all. Thu-thud. Thu-thud. She 
did not know contentment, but she was content. Thu-thud. 


Time. She did not know time, yet Ages passed. There was a 
sound within her, a sound that was her. Thu-thud. The same 
sound, the same rhythm as the other. Thu-thud. And from 
another place, nearer. Thu-thud. Another. Thu-thud. The 
same sound, the same beat, as her own. Not another. They 
were the same; they were one. Thu-thud. 


Forever went by to that pulse, all the time that had ever 
been. She touched the other that was herself. She could 
feel. Thu-thud. She moved, she and the other that was 
herself, writhing against one another, limbs entangling, 
rolling away but always coming back to each other. Thu-thud. 
There was light sometimes, in the darkness; dim beyond seeing, 
but bright to one who had never known anything but darkness. 
Thu-thud. She opened her eyes, stared into the eyes of the 
other that was herself, and closed hers again, content. Thu-
thud. 


Change, sudden, shocking to one who had never known any 
change. Pressure. Thu-thud-thu-thud. That comforting beat 



was faster. Convulsive pressure. Again. Again. Getting 
stronger. Thu-thud-thu-thud! Thu-thud-thu-thud! 


Suddenly, the other that was herself-was gone. She was 
alone. She did not know fear, but she was afraid, and alone. 
Thu-thud-thu-thud! Pressure! Greater than anything before! 
Squeezing her, crushing her. If she had known how to scream, 
if she had known what a scream was, she would have shrieked. 


And then light, blinding, full of swirling patterns. She 
had weight; she had never felt weight before. A cutting pain 
at her middle. Something tickled her foot. Something tickled 
her back. At first she did not realize that wailing sound was 
coming from her. She kicked feebly, waved limbs that did not 
know how to move. She was lifted, laid on something soft but 
firmer than anything she had felt before, except for 
recollections of the other that was herself, the other that 
was gone. Thu-thud. Thu-thud. The sound. The same sound, 
the same beat. Loneliness reigned, unrecognized, but there was 
contentment, too. 


Memory began to return, slowly. She lifted her head from a 
breast and looked up into Amys’ face. Yes, Amys. Sweat-slick 
and weary-eyed, but smiling. And she was Elayne; yes, Elayne 
Trakand. But there was something more to her, now. Now like 
the Warder bond, but like it in a way. Fainter, but more 
magnificent. Slowly, on a neck that wobbled uncertainly, she 
turned her head to look at the other that was herself, lying 
on Amys’ other breast. To look at Aviendha, her hair matted, 
her face and body shining with sweat. Smiling with joy. 
Laughing, weeping, they clutched each other and hung on as if 
they never intended to let go. 


"This is my daughter Aviendha," Amys said," and this is my 
daughter Elayne, born on the same day, within the same hour. 
May they always guard one another, support one another, love 
one another." She laughed softly, tiredly, fondly. "And now 
will someone bring us garments before my new daughters and I 
all freeze to death?" 


Elayne did not care at that moment if she did freeze to 
death. She clung to Aviendha in laughter and tears. She had 
found her sister. Light, she had found her sister! 


Toveine Gazal woke up to the sounds of quiet bustle, other 
women moving about, some talking softly. Lying on her hard 
narrow cot, she sighed with regret. Her hands around Elaida’s 
throat had been just a pleasant dream. This tiny canvas-
walled room was reality. She had slept poorly, and she felt 
thinned, drained. She had overslept, too; there would be no 
time for breakfast. Reluctantly she tossed off her blankets. 
The building had been a small warehouse of some sort, with 
thick walls and heavy rafters low overhead, but there was no 
heat. Her breath misted, and the crisp morning air pricked 
through her shift before her feet reached the rough 
floorboards. Even if she could have considered lying abed in 
this place, she had her orders. Logain’s filthy bond made 
disobedience impossible, no matter how often she wished it. 


She always tried to think of him as simply Ablar, or at 
worst master Ablar, but it was always just Logain that came 
into her mind. The name he had made infamous. Logain, the 



false Dragon who had shattered the armies of his native 
Ghealdan. Logain who had carved a path through the few 
Altarans and Murandians with nerve enough to try stopping him 
until he threatened Lugard itself. Logain, who had been 
gentled and somehow could channel again, who had dared to fix 
his cursed weave of saidin on Toveine Gazal. A pity for him 
he had not commanded her to stop thinking! She could feel the 
man, in the back of her head. He was always there. 


For a moment, she squeezed her eyes shut. Light! Mistress 
Doweel’s farm had seemed the Pit of Doom, years of exile and 
penance with no way out except the unthinkable, to become a 
hunted renegade. Barely half a week since her capture, she 
knew better. This was the Pit of Doom. And there was no 
escape. Angrily, she shook her head, and scrubbed glistening 
dampness from her cheeks with her fingers. No! She would 
escape, somehow, if only for long enough to put her real hands 
on Elaida’s throat. Somehow. 


Aside from the cot, there were only three pieces of 
furniture, yet they left little space for her to move. She 
cracked the ice in the yellow-striped pitcher on the washstand 
with her belt knife, filled the chipped basin, and channeled 
to heat water till tendrils of steam rose. It was allowed to 
channel for that. That and no more. By rote she washed and 
scrubbed her teeth with salt and soda, then took a fresh shift 
and stockings from the small wooden chest at the foot of the 
cot. Her ring she left in the chest, tucked under everything 
else in a small velvet pouch. Another order. All of her 
things were here, except for her lapdesk. Luckily, that had 
been lost when she was taken. Her dresses hung on a 
cloakstand, the last of the room’s furnishings. Choosing one 
without really looking, she put it on mechanically and used 
comb and brush on her hair. 


The ivory-backed brush slowed as she really saw herself in 
the washstand’s cheap, bubbled mirror. Breathing raggedly, 
she set the brush down beside the matching comb. The dress 
she had chosen was thick, finely woven wool of an unadorned 
red so dark it seemed nearly black. Black, like an Asha’man’s 
coat. Her distorted image stared back at her, lips writhing. 
Changing would be a sort of surrender. Determinedly she 
snatched her marten-lined gray cloak from the stand. 


When she pushed aside the canvas doorflap, twenty or so 
sisters already occupied the long central hallway lined with 
canvas rooms. Here and there a few were speaking in murmurs, 
but the rest avoided each other’s eyes, even when they 
belonged to the same Ajah. Fear had its presence, but it was 
shame that coated most faced. Akoure, a stout Gray, was 
staring at the hand where she normally wore her ring. 
Desandre, a willowy Yellow, was hiding her right hand in her 
armpit. 


The soft conversations trailed off when Toveine appeared. 
Several women glared at her openly. Including Jenare and 
Lemai, from her own Ajah! Desandre came to herself enough to 
turn her back stiffly. In the space of two days, fifty-one 
Aes Sedai had fallen captive to the black-coated monsters, and 
fifty of them blamed Toveine Gazal as though Elaida a’Roihan 
had no hand in the disaster at all. Except for Logain’s 
intervention, they would have had their revenge their first 



night here. She did not love him for putting a stop to it and 
making Carniele Heal the welts left by belts, the bruises left 
by fists and feet. She would rather they had beaten her to 
death than own him. 


Putting her cloak on her shoulders, she walked proudly down 
the corridor, out into pale morning sunshine that suited her 
wash-out mood. Behind her, someone shouted acid words before 
the closing door cut them off. Her hands trembled as she 
pulled up her hood, nestling the dark fur around her face. NO 
one got away with pushing down Toveine Gazal. Even Mistress 
Doweel, who had crushed her into a semblance of submission 
over the years, learned that when her exile ended. She would 
show them. She would show them all! 


The dormitory she shared with the others lay on the very 
edge of a large village, if a very strange one. A village of 
Asha’man. Elsewhere, so she had been told, ground was marked 
off for structures they claimed would dwarf the White Tower, 
but this was where most of them lived now. Five large, blocky 
stone barracks, spaced along streets as wide as anything in 
Tar Valon, could each hold a hundred Asha’man Soldiers. They 
were not full yet, the Light be thanked, but snow-covered 
scaffolding awaited the arrival of workmen around the thick 
walls of two more than were almost ready for roofing in 
thatch. Nearly a dozen smaller stone structures were made to 
hold ten Dedicated each, and another of those was under 
construction, too. Scattered around them stood nearly two 
hundred houses that might have been seen in any village, where 
some of the married men lived, and the families of others not 
far enough along in training. 


Men who could channel did not frighten her. Once she had 
given in to panic for a moment, true, but that was beside the 
point. Five hundred men who could channel, however, were a 
scrap of bone wedged between two of her teeth where she could 
not free it. Five hundred! And they could Travel, some of 
them. A sharp scrap of bone. More, she had tramped the mile 
or more through the woods to the wall. That frightened her, 
what it signified. 


Nowhere was the wall finished, nowhere more than twelve or 
fifteen feet high, none of the towers or bastions more than 
begun. In places, she could have clambered over the piles of 
black stone, except for her orders not to attempt escape. The 
thing ran for eight miles, though, and she believed Logain 
when he said it was begun less than three months ago. The 
man held her too tightly to bother with lying. He called the 
wall a waste of time and effort, and perhaps it was, but it 
made her teeth chatter. Just three months. Made using the 
Power. The male half of the Power. When she thought of that 
black wall, she saw an implacable force that could not be 
stopped, an avalanche of black stone sliding down to bury the 
White Tower. Impossible, of course. Impossible, but when she 
did not dream of strangling Elaida, she dreamed of that. 


There had been snowfall in the night, and a heavy blanket of 
white covered every roof, but she did not have to pick her way 
along the broad streets. The hard-packed dirt had been 
cleared, a chore of men in training before the sun came up. 
They used the Power for everything from filling woodboxes to 
cleaning their clothes! Black-clad men hurried here and there 



in the streets, and more were gathering in rows in front of 
their barracks with others calling roll in loud voices. Women 
bundled up against the cold walked past them, placidly 
carrying baskets to the quartermaster’s storehouse or watch 
buckets to the nearest fountain, though how any woman could 
remain, knowing what her husband was, was beyond Toveine’s 
comprehension. Even more bizarre, children ran up and down 
the street, around the squares of men who could channel, 
shouting and laughing, rolling hoops, tossing painted balls, 
playing with dolls or dogs. A drop of normality that 
heightened the evil stench of the rest. 


Ahead of her, a mounted party was approaching up the street 
at a walk. In the short time she had been here-the endless 
time-she had not seen anyone ride in the village except 
workmen on carts or wagons. Nor any visitors, which some of 
these plainly must be. Five men in black were escorting a 
dozen in the red coats and cloaks of the Queen’s Guard, with 
two yellow-haired women at the front, one in a red-and-white 
cloak lined with black fur and the other....Toveine’s eyebrows 
climbed. The other wore green Kandori trousers and a coat 
make up as if it belonged to the Captain-General of the Guard. 
Her red cloak even had golden knots of rank on the shoulder! 
Maybe she was mistaken about the man. That one would find 
short shift when she encountered real Guardsmen. In any case, 
it was strangely early for visitors. 


Each time the odd party reached one of the formations, the 
man in front shouted "Asha’man, attend front!" and boot heels 
stamped on the hardened earth as the others stiffened like 
pillars of stone. 


Pulling her hood forward better to hide her face, Toveine 
moved to the side of the wide street, close beside the corner 
of one of the smaller stone barracks. A fork-bearded old man 
coming out, a silver sword pin on his high collar, glanced at 
her curiously without slowing his stride. 


What she had done struck her like a bucket of cold water, 
and she nearly wept. None of those strangers would spot an 
Aes Sedai face, now, if they could recognize one. If either 
of those women could channel, unlikely though that was, she 
would not pass close enough to tell that Toveine could, too. 
She fretted and fumed over how to disobey Logain, and then did 
everything necessary to carry out his instructions without 
even thinking about it! 


As in act of defiance, she stopped where she was, turning to 
watch the visitors. Automatically, her hands checked her hood 
before she could snatch them to her sides. It was pitiful, 
and ridiculous. She knew the Asha’man guiding the party, by 
sight at least, a bulky man in his middle years with oily 
black hair, an oily smile, and eyes like augurs. None of the 
others, though. What could she hope to gain by this? How 
could she entrust a message to any of them? Even if the 
escort vanished, how could she get close enough to pass a 
message when she was forbidden to let any outsider discover 
the presence of Aes Sedai? 


The auger-eyed fellow looked bored with his duty this 
morning, hardly bothering to hide his yawns behind a gloved 
hand.."...when we do finish here," he was saying as he rode past 
Toveine, "I will show you the Craft Town. Quite a bit bigger 



than this. We do have every kind of craftsfolk, from masons 
and carpenters to metalsmiths and tailors. We can make 
everything we need, Lady Elayne." 


"Except turnips," one of the women said in a high voice, and 
the other laughed. 


Toveine’s head jerked. She watched the riders move on down 
the street accompanied by shouted orders and stamping boots. 
Lady Elayne? Elayne Trakand? The younger of the pair might 
match the description she had been given. Elaida did not 
reveal why she was so desperate to lay her hands on one 
runaway Accepted, even one who might become a queen, but she 
never let a sister leave the Tower without orders on what to 
do if she encountered the girl. Be very careful, Elayne 
Trakand, Toveine thought. I would not like Elaida to have the 
satisfaction of laying hands on you. 


She wanted to think on this, on whether there was some way 
to use the girl’s presence here, but abruptly she became aware 
of the sensations at the back of her head. A mild contentment 
and a growing purpose. Logain had finished his breakfast. He 
would be coming out, soon. He had told her to be there when 
he did. 


Her feet were running before she thought. With the result 
that her skirts tangled in her legs, and she fell hard, 
knocking her breath out. Anger welled up, fury, but she 
scrambled to her feet and, without pausing to brush off the 
dust, gathered her skirts about her knees and began to run 
again, cloak billowing behind. Men’s raucous shouts followed 
her down the street, and laughing children pointed as she ran 
past. 


Suddenly a pack of dogs was around her, snarling, nibbling 
at her heels. She leapt and spun and kicked, but they harried 
her. She wanted to shriek with frustration and fury. Dogs 
were always a bother, and she could not channel a feather to 
drive them off. A gray hound seized a mouthful of dangling 
skirt, pulling her sideways. Panic overwhelmed everything 
else. If she fell again, they would tear her to shreds. 


A shouting woman in a brown wool swung her heavy basket at 
the dog tugging Toveine’s skirt, making it dodge away. A 
round woman’s bucket caught a brindled cur in the ribs, and it 
ran yelping. Toveine gaped in astonishment, and for her 
inattention had to pull her left leg away from another dog at 
the cost of a piece of her stocking and a little skin. There 
were women all around her, flailing away at the animals with 
whatever they had to hand. 


"Go on with you, Aes Sedai," a skinny, graying woman told 
her, slicing at a spotted dog with a switch. "They won’t 
bother you more. I’d like a nice cat, myself, but cats won’t 
abide the husband now. Go on." 


Toveine did not wait to thank her rescuers. She ran, 
considering furiously. The women knew. If one did, they all 
did. But they would carry no messages, give no help to an 
escape, not when they were willing to remain themselves. Not 
if they understood what they were helping. There was that. 


Just short of Logain’s house, one of several down a narrower 
side street, she slowed and hastily let down her skirts. 
Eight or nine men in black coats were waiting outside, boys 
and oldsters and in between, but there was no sign of Logain 



yet. She could still sense him, full of purpose but 
concentrating. Reading, perhaps. She walked the rest of the 
way at a dignified pace. Composed and every inch an Aes 
Sedai, no matter the circumstances. She almost managed to 
forget her frantic flight from the dogs. 


The house surprised her every time she saw it. Others on 
the street were as large and two larger. An ordinary wooden 
house of two stores, though the red door, shutters and window 
frames looked odd. Plain curtains hid the interior, but the 
glass in the windows was so poor she doubted she could have 
seen anything clearly with the curtains drawn. A house 
suitable for a not overly successful shopkeeper; hardly the 
dwelling for one of the most notorious men alive. 


Briefly she wondered what was keeping Gabrelle. The other 
sister bonded to Logain had the same instruction she did, and 
until now, she had always been here first. Gabrelle was 
eager, studying the Asha’man as if she intended writing a book 
on the subject. Perhaps she did; Browns would write about 
anything. She put the other sister out of her mind. 
Although, if Gabrelle did turn up late, she would have to find 
out how the woman had managed it. For now, she had her own 
studying. 


The men outside the red door eyed her, but said nothing, 
even to each other. Still there was no animosity. They were 
simply waiting. None had a cloak, though their breath made 
pale feathers in front of their faces. All were Dedicated, 
with the silver sword pin on their collars. 


It had been the same every morning she had reported this 
way, though not always the same men. She knew some, knew 
their names at least, and sometimes a few other gleaned 
tidbits. Evin Vinchova, the pretty lad who had been there 
when Logain captured her, leaning against the corner of the 
house and toying with a bit of string. Donalo Sandomere, if 
that was his real name, with his creased farmer’s face and 
sharply trimmed oiled beard, attempting the languid stance he 
thought a nobleman would assume. The Taraboner Androl 
Genhald, a square fellow with is heavy eyebrows drawn in 
thought and his hands clasped behind his back; he wore a gold 
signet ring, but she thought his an apprentice who had shaved 
his mustaches and abandoned his veil. Mezar Kurin, a Domani 
with gray at his temples, fingering the garnet in his left 
ear; he very well might be a minor noble. She was collecting 
a neat file of names and faces in her head. Sooner or later 
they would be hunted down, and every piece of information that 
could help identify them would be useful. 


The red door opened, and the men straightened, but it was 
not Logain who came out. 


Toveine blinked in surprise, then met Gabrelle’s sooty green 
eyes with a flat stare, making no effort to hid her disgust. 
That accursed link with Logain had made clear what he was up 
to the night before-she had been afraid she would never fall 
asleep!-but not in her darkest imaginings had she suspected 
Gabrelle! Some of the men seemed as startled as she. Some 
attempted to hid smiles. Kurin grinned openly and strokes his 
thin mustache with a thumb. 


The dusky woman did not even have the grace to blush. She 
lifted her upturned nose a trifle, then boldly adjusted her 



dark blue dress over her hips as if to advertise that she had 
just donned the garment. Sweeping her cloak around her 
shoulders, she tied the ribbons as she glided toward Toveine, 
as serene as if she were back in the Tower. 


Toveine grabbed the taller woman’s arm, pulling her a little 
way from the men. "We may be captives, Gabrelle," she 
whispered harshly, "but that is no reason to surrender. 
Especially to Ablar’s vile lusts!" The other woman did not so 
much as look abashed! A thought came. Of course. "Did he...? 
Did he order you? 


With something close to a sneer, Gabrelle pulled free. 
"Toveine, it took me two days to decide I should ‘surrender’ 
to his lusts, as you put it. I feel lucky it only required 
four to convincehim to let me. You Reds might not be aware, 
but men love to talk and gossip. All you need do is listen, 
or even pretend to, and a man will tell you his whole life." 
A thoughtful frown creased her forehead, and the twist to her 
lips vanished. "I wonder whether it’s like that for ordinary 
women." 


"Whether what is like what?" Toveine demanded. Gabrelle 
was spying on him? Or just trying to get more material for 
her book? But this was unbelievable, even for a Brown! "What 
are you talking about?" 


That musing expression never left the other’s face. "I 
felt...helpless. Oh, he was gentle, but I never really thought 
before on how strong a man’s arms are, and me unable to 
channel a whisker. He was ...in charge, I suppose, though that 
isn’t quite right. Just...stronger, and I knew it. It 
felt...strangely exhilarating." 


Toveine shuddered. Gabrelle must be insane! She was about 
to tell her so when Logain himself appeared, closing the door 
behind him. He was tall, tall than any other man there, with 
dark hair that brushed wide shoulders and framed an arrogant 
face. His high collar carried both the silver sword and that 
ridiculous snake with legs. He flashed a smile at Gabrelle as 
the others gathered around him. The hussy smiled back, too. 
Toveine shuddered again. Exhilarating. The woman was insane! 


As on previous mornings, the men began making reports. Most 
of the time, Toveine had not been able to make up from down 
with them, but she listened. 


"I found two more who seem interested in that new kind of 
Healing this Nynaeve used on you, Logain," Genhald said, 
frowning, "but one can barely do the Healing we already know, 
and the other, he wants to know more than I could tell him." 


"What you can tell him is all I know," Logain replied. 
"Mistress al’Meara didn’t tell me much of what she was doing, 
and I could only learn bits and pieces listening to the other 
sisters talk. Just keep planting the seed and hope something 
grows. It’s all you can do." Several other men nodded along 
with Genhald. 


Toveine filed it away. Nynaeve al’Meara. She had heard 
that name often after returning to the Tower. Another runaway 
Accepted, another one Elaida wanted more than the normal 
desire to catch runaways seemed to account for. From the same 
village as al’Thor, too. And associated somehow with Logain. 
That might lead to something, eventually. But a new kind of 
Healing? Used by an Accepted? That was unlikely bordering 



close on impossible, but she had seen the impossible happen 
before, so she tucked it away. Gabrelle was listening 
closely, too, she noticed. But watching her as well, out of 
the corner of her eye. 


"There’s a problem with some of those Two Rivers men, 
Logain," Vinchova said. An angry flush rose on his smooth 
face. "Men, I say, but these two are boys, fourteen at most! 
They won’t say." He might have been a year or two older, with 
his beardless cheeks. "It was a crime, bringing them here." 


Logain shook his head; whether it was in anger or regret was 
hard to say. "I’ve heard the White Tower takes girls as young 
as twelve. Look after the Two Rivers men where you can. No 
coddling, or the others will turn on them, but try to see they 
don’t do anything stupid. The Lord Dragon might not like it 
if we kill too many from his district." 


"He doesn’t seem to be caring much at all as I can see," a 
sleek fellow muttered. The sound of Murandy was strong in his 
mouth, though his fiercely curled mustaches told where he was 
from plainly enough. He was rolling a silver coin across the 
backs of his fingers and seemed as intent on that as on 
Logain. "I was hearing it was the Lord Dragon himself told 
the M’Hael to pluck up anything male in this Two Rivers that 
could channel, down to the roosters. With the number he 
brought back, I’m just surprised he didn’t bring the chicks 
and lambs, as well." Chuckles met his sally, but Logain’s 
level tones cut them like a blade. 


"Whatever the Lord Dragon ordered, I trust I’ve made my 
orders clear." Every head nodded this time, and some men 
murmured "Yes, Logain" and "As you say, Logain." 


Toveine hastily smoothed the sneer from her lips. Ignorant 
louts. The Tower accepted girls under fifteen only if they 
had already begun channeling. The other was interesting, 
though. The Two Rivers again. Everyone said al’Thor had 
turned his back on his home, but she was not so certain. Why 
was Gabrelle watching her? 


"Last night," Sandomere said after a moment, "I learned that 
Mishraile is having private lessons from the M’Hael." He 
stroked his pointed beard with satisfaction, as if he had 
produced a gem of great price. 


Perhaps he had, but Toveine could not say what kind. Logain 
nodded slowly. The others exchanged silent looks with faces 
that might have been carved. She chewed frustration, 
watching. Too often it was like this, matters they saw no 
reason to comment on-or feared to?-and she did not understand. 
She always felt there were gems hidden there, beyond her 
reach. 


A wide Cairhienin fellow, barely as tall as Logain’s chest, 
opened his mouth, but whether he meant to speak of Mishraile, 
whoever he was, she never found out. 


"Logain!" Welyn Kajima pounded down the street at a dead 
run, the bells at the ends of his black braids jangling. 
Another Dedicated, a man in his middle years who smiled too 
much, he had been there when Logain captured her, too. Kajima 
had bonded Jenare. He was almost out of breath when he pushed 
through the other me, and he was not smiling now. 


"Logain," he panted, "the M’Hael’s back from Cairhien, and 
he’s posted new deserters on the board at the palace. You 



won’t believe the names!" He spilled out his list in a 
breathless rush amid exclamations from the other that kept 
Toveine from hearing more than fragments. 


"Dedicated have deserted before," the Cairhienin muttered 
when Kajima was done, "but never a full Asha’man. And now 
seven at once/" 


"If you don’t believe me," Kajima began, drawing himself up 
in a fussy manner. He had been a clerk, in Arafel. 


"We believe you," Genhald said soothingly. "But Gedwyn and 
Torval, they are the M’Hael’s men. Rochaid and Kisman, too. 
Why would they desert? He gave them anything a king could 
want." 


Kajima shook his head irritably, making his bells chime. 
"You know the list never gives reasons. Just names." 


"Good riddance," Kurin growled. "At least, it would be if 
we didn’t have to hunt them down, now." 


"It’s the others I cannot understand," Sandomere put in. "I 
was at Dumai’s Wells. I saw the Lord Dragon choose, after. 
Dashiva had his head in the clouds, like always. But Flinn, 
Hopwil, Narishma? You never saw men more pleased. They were 
like lambs let loose in the barley shed." 


A sturdy fellow with gray in his hair spat. "Well, I wasn’t 
at the Wells, but I went south against the Seanchan." His 
accents were Andoran. "Maybe the lambs didn’t like the 
butcher’s yard as much as they did the barley shed." 


Logain had been listening without taking part, arms folded 
across his chest. His face was unreadable, a mask. "Do you 
worry about the butcher’s yard, Canler?" he said now. 


The Andoran grimaced, then shrugged. "I reckon we’re all 
headed there, sooner or late, Logain. Don’t see we have much 
choice, but I don’t have to grin about it." 


"As long as you’re there on the day," Logain said quietly. 
He addressed the man called Canler, but several of the others 
nodded. 


Looking past the men, Logain considered Toveine and 
Gabrelle. Toveine tried to look as if she had not been 
eavesdropping, and remembering names fiercely. "Go inside out 
of the cold," he told them. "Have some tea to warm you. I’ll 
be back as soon as I can. Don’t touch my papers." Gathering 
up the other men with a gesture, he led them off in the 
direction Kajima had come from. 


Toveine gritted her teeth in frustration. At least she 
would not have to follow him to the training grounds, past the 
so-called Traitor’s Tree, where heads hung like diseased fruit 
from the bare branches, and watch men studying how to destroy 
with the Power, but she had hoped for another day to herself, 
free to wander about and see what she could learn. She had 
heard men speak of Taim’s "palace" before, and today she had 
hoped to find it and perhaps catch a glimpse of the man whose 
name was as black as Logain’s. Instead, she meekly followed 
the other woman through the red door. There was no use in 
fighting it. 


Inside, she looked around the front room while Gabrelle hung 
her cloak on a peg. Despite the exterior, she had expected 
something grander for Logain. A low fire burned in a rough 
stone fireplace. A long narrow table and ladder-backed chairs 
stood on bare floorboards. A desk, only slightly more 



elaborate than the other furnishings, caught her eye. Stacks 
of lidded letters littered the desktop, and leather folders 
full of long sheets of paper. Her fingers itches, but she 
knew that even if she sat at the desk, she would not be able 
to lay a finger on anything more than a pen or glass ink 
bottle. 


With a sigh, she followed Gabrelle into the kitchen, where 
an iron stove gave too much heat and dirty breakfast dishes 
sat on a low cabinet beneath the window. Gabrelle filled a 
teakettle and put it on the stove, then took a green-glazed 
teapot and a wooden canister from another cabinet. Toveine 
draped her cloak over a chair and sat down at the square 
table. She did not want tea unless it cam with the breakfast 
she mad missed, but she knew she was going to drink it. 


The silly Brown nattered on as she carried out her domestic 
tasks like a contented farmwife. "I’ve learned a good deal 
already. Logain is the only full Asha’man to live here in 
this village. The others all live in Taim’s ‘palace.’ They 
have servants, but Logain hired the wife of a man in training 
to cook and clean for him. She’ll be here soon, and she 
thinks he put the sun in the sky, so we best be done talking 
anything important by then. He found your lapdesk." 


Toveine felt as though an icy hand had seized her throat. 
She tried to hide it, but Gabrelle was looking straight at 
her. 


"He burned it, Toveine. After reading the contents. He 
seemed to think he had done us a favor." 


The hand eased, and Toveine could breathe again. "Elaida’s 
order was among my papers." She cleared her throat to rid 
herself of hoarseness. Elaida’s order to gentle every man 
found her and then hang them on the spot, without the trial in 
Tar Valon required by Tower law. "She imposed harsh 
conditions, and these men would have reacted harshly, if they 
knew." In spite of the heat from the stove, she shivered. 
That single paper could have gotten them all stilled and 
hanged. "Why would he do us favors?" 


"I don’t know why, Toveine. He isn’t a villain, no more 
than most men. It could be as simple as that." Gabrelle set 
a plate of crusted rolls and another with white cheese on the 
table. "Or it could be that this bond is like the Warder bond 
in more ways than we know. Maybe he just did not want to 
experience the two of us executed." Toveine’s stomach 
rumbled, but she picked up a roll as if she did not care for 
more than a nibble. 


"I suspect ‘harsh’ was a mild choice," Gabrelle went on, 
spooning tea into the teapot. "I saw you flinch. Of course, 
they went to a great deal of trouble to bring us here. Fifty-
one sisters in their midst, and even with the bond, they must 
fear we’ll find some way around their orders, some loophole 
they missed. The obvious answer is, if we were dead, the 
Tower would be roused to fury. With us alive and captive, 
even Elaida will move cautiously." She laughed, quietly 
amused. "Your face, Toveine. Did you think I’ve spent all my 
time thinking about tangling my fingers in Logain’s hair?" 


Toveine closed her mouth and put down the untouched roll. 
It was cold, anyway, and felt hard. Always a mistake to 
assume Browns were unworldly, absorbed in their books and 



studies to the exclusion of everything else. "What else have 
you seen?" 


Still gripping the spoon, Gabrelle sat across the table from 
her and leaned forward intently. "Their wall maybe strong 
when it’s done, but this place is full of fractures. There is 
Mazrim Taim’s faction, and Logain’s faction, though I am 


uncertain either thinks of them so. Perhaps other factions, 
too, and certainly men who don’t know there are factions. 
Fifty-one sisters should be able to make something of that, 

even with the bond. The second question is, what do we make 
of it?" 


"The second question?" Toveine demanded, but the other 
woman merely waited. "If we manage to break those fissures 
open," she said finally, "we scatter ten or fifty or a hundred 
bands across the world, each more dangerous than any army ever 
seen. Catching them all might take a lifetime and rip the 
world apart like a new Breaking, and that with Tarmon Gai’don 
on its way. That is, if this fellow al’Thor really is the 
Dragon Reborn." Gabrelle opened her mouth, but Toveine waved 
away whatever she was going to say. That he was, very likely. 
It hardly mattered, here and now. "But if we don’t....Put down 
the rebellion and gather those sisters back to the Tower, call 
back every retired sister, and I don’t know whether all of us 
together could destroy this place. I suspect half the tower 
would die in the attempt, either way. What was the first 
question?" 


Gabrelle leaned back in her chair, her face suddenly weary. 
"Yes, not an easy decision. And they bring in more men every 
day. Fifteen or twenty since we’ve been here, I believe." 


"I won’t be trifled with, Gabrelle! What is the first 
question?" The Brown’s gaze sharpened, stared at her for a 
long moment. 


"Soon, the shock will wear off," she said finally. "What 
comes then? The authority Elaida gave you is finished, the 
expedition is finished. The first question is, are we fifty-
one sisters united, or do we revert to being Browns and Reds, 
Yellows and Greens and Grays? And poor Ayako, who must be 
regretting that the Whites insisted on having a sister 
included. Lemai and Desandre stand highest among us." 
Gabrelle waved the spoon in admonishment. "The only chance we 
have of holding together is if you and I publicly submit to 
Desandre’s authority. We must! That will start it, at any 
rate. I hope. If we can only bring a few others, to begin 
with, it will be a start." 


Toveine drew a deep breath and pretended to stare at 
nothing, as if considering. Submitting to a sister who stood 
higher than she was no hardship, in itself. The Ajahs had 
always kept secrets, and sometimes schemed a little against 
one another, but the open dissension in the Tower now appalled 
her. Besides, she had learned how to be humble before 
Mistress Doweel. She wondered how the woman enjoyed poverty, 
and working on a farm for a taskmistress even harsher than 
herself. 


"I can bring myself to do it," she said finally. "We should 
have a plan of action to present to Desandre and Lemai, if we 
mean to convince them." She already had one partly formed, if 
not for presentation to anyone. "Oh, the water is boiling, 



Gabrelle." 


Suddenly smiling, the foolish woman rose and hurried to the 
stove. Browns always were better reading books than people, 
come to think of it. Before Logain and Taim and the rest were 
destroyed, they would help Toveine Gazal bring down Elaida. 


The great city of Cairhein was a hulking mass inside massive 
walls, crowding the River Alguenya. The sky was clear and 
cloudless, but a cold wind blew and the sun shone on roofs 
covered with snow, glinted on icicles that showed no sign of 
melting. The Alguenya was not frozen, but small, jagged ice 
floes from farther upriver spun in the currents, now and then 
banging against the hulls of ships waiting their turns at the 
docks. Trade slowed for winter and wars, and the Dragon 
Reborn, but it never really stopped, not until nations died. 
Despite the cold, wagons and carts and people flowed along 
streets that razored the terraced hills of the city. The 
City, it was called here. 


In front of the square-towered Sun Palace, a crowd jammed 
together around the long entry ram and stared up, merchants 
wrapped in fine woolens and nobles in velvets rubbing 
shoulders with grimy-faced laborers and dirtier refugees. No 
one cared who stood next to him, and even the cutpurses forgot 
to follow their trade. Men and women departed, often shaking 
their heads, but others took their places, sometimes hoisting 
a child to get a better view of the Palace’s ruined wing, 
where workmen were clearing away the rubble of the third 
story. Throughout the rest of Cairhein, craftsmen’s hammers 
and creaking axles filled the air, together with the cries of 
shopkeepers, the complaints of buyers, the murmurs of 
merchants. The crowd before the Sun Palace was silent. 


A mile from the Palace, Rand stood at a window in the 
grandly named Academy of Cairhein, peering through the frosted 
panes at the stone-paved stableyard below. There had been 
schools called Academies in Artur Hawkwing’s time and before, 
centers of learning filled with scholars from every corner of 
the known world. The conceit made no difference, they could 
have called it the Barn, so long as it did what he wanted. 
More important concerns filled his thoughts. Had he made a 
mistake, returning to Cairhein so soon? But he had been 
forced to flee too quickly, so it would be known in the right 
quarters that he actually had fled. Too quickly to prepare 
everything. There were questions he needed to ask, and tasks 
that could not be put off. And Min wanted more of Master 
Fel’s books. He could hear her muttering to herself as she 
rummaged through the shelves where they had been stored after 
Fel’s death. With the bounty for books and manuscripts it did 
not yet possess, the Academy’s library was fast outgrowing the 
rooms that could be spared in Lord Barthanes’ former palace. 
Alanna sat in the back of his head, sulking it seemed; she 
would know he was in the City. This near, she would be able 
to walk straight to him, but he would know if she tried. 
Blessedly, Lews Therin was silent for the moment. Of late, 
the man seemed madder than ever. 


He rubbed a spot clear on a windowpane with his coat sleeve. 
Stout dark gray wool, good enough for a man with a little 



money and a few airs, it was not a garment anyone would expect 
to see on the Dragon Reborn. The golden-maned Dragon’s head 
on the back of his hand glittered metallically; it presented 
no danger here. His boot touched the leather scrip sitting 
below the window as he leaned forward to look out. 


In the stableyard, the paving stones had been swept clear of 
snow, and a large wagon stood surrounded by buckets like 
mushroom sin a clearing. Half a dozen men in heavy coats and 
scarves and caps seemed to be working on the wagon’s odd 
cargo, mechanical devices crowded around a fat metal cylinder 
that took up more than half the wagon bed. Even stranger, the 
wagon shafts were missing. One of the men was moving split 
firewood from a large wheelbarrow into the side of a metal box 
fastened below one end of the big cylinder. The open door in 
the box glowed with the red of fire inside, and smoke rose 
from a tall narrow chimney. Another fellow danced around the 
wagon, bearded, capless and bald-headed, gesturing and 
apparently shouting orders that did not seem to make the 
others move any faster. Their breath made faint white plumes. 
It was almost warm inside; the Academy had large furnaces in 
the cellars and an extensive system of vents. The half-
healed, never healing wounds in his side were hot. 


He could not make out Min’s curses-he was sure they were 
curses-but her tone was enough to say they would not be 
leaving yet unless he dragged her away. There were one or two 
items he might ask about still. "What are people saying? 
About the palace?" 


"What you might expect," Lord Dobraine answered behind him 
with level patience, as he had answered all the other 
questions. Even when he admitted a lack of knowledge, his 
tone had not changed. "Some say the Forsaken attacked you, or 
that Aes Sedai did. Those who think you swore fealty to the 
Amyrlin Seat favor the Forsaken. Either way, there is 
considerable debate on whether you are dead or kidnapped, or 
fled. Most believe you live, wherever you are, or say they 
do. Some, a good many I fear, think..." 


His voice faded to silence. 


"That I’ve gone mad," Rand finished for him in the same 
level tone. Not a matter for concern, or anger. "That I 
destroyed part of the Palace myself?" He would not speak of 
the dead. Fewer than other times, other places, but enough, 
and some of their names appeared whenever he closed his eyes. 
One of the men below climbed down from the wagon, but the bald 
fellow caught his arm and dragged him back up, making him show 
what he had done. A man on the other side jumped on the 
pavement carelessly, skidding, and the capless man abandoned 
the first to chase around the wagon and make that one climb 
back up with him. What in the Light could they be doing? 
Rand glanced over his shoulder. "They’re not far wrong." 


Dobraine Taborwin, a short man with the front of his head 
shaved and formally powdered and the rest of his hair nearly 
all gray, looked back with dark impassive eyes. Not a 
handsome man, but steady. Blue-and-white stripes marched down 
the front of his dark velvet coat from his neck almost to his 
knees. His signet ring was a carved ruby, and he wore another 
at his collar, not much larger yet flamboyant for a 
Cairheinin. He was High Seat of his House, with more battles 



behind him than most, and not much frightened him. He had 
proved that at Dumai’s Wells. 
But then, the stocky, graying woman patiently waiting her 

turn at his shoulder appeared just as unafraid. In sharp 
contrast to Dobraine’s noble elegance, Idrien Tarsin’s 
sensible brown woolens were plain enough for a shopkeeper, yet 
she had her own well of authority and dignity. Idrien was 
Headmistress of the Academy, the title she had been given 
herself since most of the scholars and mechanics called 
themselves master of this or mistress of that. She ran the 
school with a strong hand and believed in practical things, 
new methods of surfacing roads or making dyes, improvements to 
foundries and mills. She also believed in the Dragon Reborn. 
Whether or not that was practical, it was pragmatic, and he 
would settle for that. 


He turned to the window and cleared his patch on the glass 
again. Maybe it was for heating water-some of those buckets 
seemed to have water in them still; in Shienar, they used big 
boilers to heat water for the baths-but why on a wagon? "Has 
anyone left suddenly since I went? Or come unexpectedly?" 


He did not expect that anyone had, anyone of importance to 
him. Between merchant’s pigeons and White Tower eyes-and-
ears-and Mazrim Taim; he must not forget Taim-Lews Therin 
snarled wordlessly at the name-with all those pigeons and 
spies and babbling tongues, in a few more days the whole world 
would be aware that he had vanished from Cairhein. All the 
world that mattered, here and now. Cairhein was no longer the 
ground where the battle would be fought. Dobraine’s answer 
surprised him. 


"No one except...Ailil Riatin and some high Sea Folk official 
are both missing since the...attack." A bare pause, but a 
pause. Perhaps he was not so sure what had happened, either. 
Yet he would keep his word. He had proved that at Dumai’s 
Wells, too. "No bodies were found, but they may have been 
killed. The Sea Folk Wavemistress refuses to counterance the 
possibility, though. She is raising a storm with demands that 
her woman be produced. In truth, Ailil may have fled to the 
countryside. Or gone to join her brother, despite her pledges 
to you. Your three Asha’man are still in the Sun Palace. 
Flinn, Narishma and Hopwil. They make people nervous. More 
so now than before." The Headmistress made a sound in her 
throat, and her shoes shifted audibly on the floorboards. 
They certainly made her nervous. 


Rand dismissed the Asha’man. Unless much closer than the 
Palace, none was strong enough to have felt him open a gateway 
here. Those three had not been part of the attack on him, but 
a wise planner might have considered the chance of failure. 
Planned how to keep someone close to him if he survived. You 
won’t survive, Lews Therin whispered. None of us will 
survive. 


Go back to sleep, Rand thought irritably. He knew he was 
not going to survive. But he wanted to. A derisive laugh 
answered in his head, but the sound thinned and was gone. The 
bald man was letting the others climb down, now, and rubbing 
his hands together in a pleased fashion. Of all things, the 
fellow seemed to be giving a speech! 


"Ailil and Shalon are alive, and they didn’t flee," Rand 



said outloud. He had left them bound and gagged, stuffed 
under a bed, where they would have been found by servants in a 
few hours, though the shield he had woven on that Sea Folk 
Windfindder should have dissipated before that. The two women 
should have been able to free themselves then. "Look to 
Cadsuane. She’ll have them in Lady Arilyn’s palace." 


"Cadsuane Sedai is in and out of the Sun Palace as if it 
were her own," Dobraine said judiciously, "but how could she 
have taken them out unseen? And why? Ailil is Toram’s sister, 
ye this claim to the Sun Throne is dust now, if it was ever 
more. She is unimportant even as a counter, now. As for 
holding an Atha’an Miere of high rank...To what purpose?" 


Rand made his voice light, uncaring. "Why is she keeping 
Lady Caraline and High Lord Darlin as ‘guests,’ Dobraine? Why 
do Aes Sedai do anything? You’ll find them where I said. If 
she lets you in to look." Why was not a foolish question. He 
just did not have the answer. Of course, Caraline Damodred 
and Ailil Riatin did represent the last two Houses to hold the 
Sun Throne. And Darlin Sisnera led the nobles in Tear who 
wanted him thrown out of their precious Stone, out of Tear. 


Rand frowned. He had been sure Cadsuane was focused on him 
despite her pretense otherwise, but what if it was not 
pretense? A relief, if so. Of course it was. The last thing 
he needed was an Aes Sedai who though she could meddle in his 
affairs. The very last. Perhaps Cadsuane was directing her 
meddling elsewhere. Min had seen Sisnera wearing a strange 
crown; Rand had thought a great deal on that viewing of hers. 
He did not want to think of other things she had seen, 
concerning himself and the Green sister. Could it be as 
simple as Cadsuane thinking she could decide who would rule 
both Tear and Cairhein? 


Simple? He almost laughed. But that was how Aes Sedai 
behaved. And Shalon, the Windfinder? Possessing her might 
give Cadsuane leverage with Harine, the Wavemistress, but he 
suspected she had just been scooped up with Ailil, to try 
hiding who took the noblewoman. Cadsuane would have to be 
disabused. Who would rule in Tear and Cairhein had already 
been decided. He would point that out to her. Later. It 
stood far down his list of priorities. 


"Before I go, Dobraine, I need to give you-" Words froze on 
his tongue. 


In the stableyard, the capless man had pulled a lever on the 
wagon, and one end of a long horizontal beam suddenly rose, 
then sank, driving a shorter beam down through a hole cut in 
the wagon bed. And, vibrating till it seemed ready to shake 
apart, trailing smoke from the chimney, the wagon lurched 
ahead, the beam rising and falling, slowly at first, then 
faster. It moved, without horses! 


He did not realize he had spoken aloud until the 
Headmistress answered him. 


"Oh, that! That’s Mervin Poel’s steamwagon, as eh calls it, 
my Lord Dragon." Disapproval freighted her high, startling 
youthful voice." Claims he can pull a hundred wagons with the 
contraption. Not unless he can make it go further than fifty 
paces without bits breaking or freezing up. It has only done 
that far once, that I know." 


Indeed, the –steamwagon?-shuddered to a halt not twenty 



paces from where it first stood. Shuddered indeed; it seemed 
to be shaking harder by the heartbeat. Most of the men 
swarmed over it again, one of them frantically twisting at 
something with a cloth wrapped around his hand. Abruptly 
steam shot into the air from a pipe, and the shuddering 
slowed, stopped. 


Rand shook his head. He remembered seeing this fellow 
Mervin, with a device that quivered on a tabletop and did 
nothing. And this marvel had come from that? He had thought 
it was meant to make music. That must be Mervin leaping about 
and shaking his fists and the others. What other odd things, 
what marvels, were people building here at the Academy? 


When he asked, still watching the men in the courtyard work 
on the wagon, Idrien sniffed loudly. Respect for the Dragon 
Reborn held only a thin edge in her voice as she began, and 
quickly lost ground to disgust. "Bad enough I must give space 
to philosophers and historians and arithmatists and the like, 
but you said take in anyone who wanted to make anything new 
and let them stay if they showed progress. I suppose you 
hoped for weapons, but now I have dozens of dreamers and 
wastrels on my hands, every one with an old book or manuscript 
or six, all of which date back to the Compact of the Ten 
Nations, mind, if not the Age of Legends itself, or so they 
say, and they are all trying to make sense of drawings and 
sketches and descriptions of things they’ve never seen and 
maybe nobody ever did see. I have seen old manuscripts that 
talk about people with their eyes in their bellies, and 
animals ten feet tall with tusks longer than a man, and cities 
where-" 


"But what are they making, Headmistress Tarsin?" Rand 
demanded. The men working on the thing below moved with an 
air of purpose, not as if they saw failure. And it had moved. 


She sniffed louder this time. "Foolishness, my Lord Dragon, 
that is what they make. Kin Tovere constructed his big 
looking glass. You can see the moon through it plain as your 
hand, and what he claims are other worlds, but what is the 
good of that? He wants to build a bigger, now. Maryl Harke 
makes huge kites she calls gliders, and come spring, she will 
be throwing herself off hills again. Puts your heart in your 
mouth to see her sailing downhill on the things; she will 
break more than her arm next time one folds up on her, I 
warrant. Jander Parentakis believes he can move riverboats 
with waterwheels off a mill, or near enough, but when he put 
enough men into the boat to turn the cranks, there was no room 
for cargo, and any craft with sails could outrun it. Ryn 
Anhara traps lightning in big jars-I doubt even he knows 
why-Niko Tokama is just as silly with her-" 


Rand spun around so fast that she stepped back, and even 
Dobraine shifted on his feet, a swordman’s move. No, they 
were not sure of him at all. "He traps lightning?" he asked 
quietly. 


Comprehension flooded her blunt face, and she waved her 
hands in front of her. "No, no! Not like...like that!" Not 
like you, she had almost said. "It is a thing of wires and 
wheels and big clay jars and the Light knows what. He calls 
it lightning, and I saw a rat jump down on one of the jars 
once, on the metal rods sticking out of the top. It certainly 



looked struck by lightning." A hopeful tone entered her 
voice. "I can make him stop, if you wish." 


He tried to picture someone riding on a kit, but the image 
was ludicrous. Catching lightning in jars was beyond his 
ability to imagine. And yet..."Let them go on as before, 
Headmistress. Who knows? Maybe one of these inventions will 
turn out to be important. If any work as claimed, give the 
inventor a reward." 


Dobraine’s leathery, sun-darkened face looked dubious, 
though he almost managed to conceal it. Idrien bowed her head 
in sullen assent, and even curtsied, but plainly she thought 
he was asking to let pigs fly if they could. 


Rand was not certain he disagreed. Then again, maybe one of 
the pigs would grow wings. The wagon had moved. He wanted 
very badly to leave something behind, something to help the 
world survive the new Breaking the Prophecies said he would 
bring. The trouble was, he had no idea what that might be, 
save for the schools themselves. Who knew what a marvel could 
do? Light, he wanted to build something that could last. 


I thought I could build, Lews Therin murmured in his head. 
I was wrong. We are not builders, not you, or I, or the other 
one. We are destroyers. Destroyers. 


Rand shivered, and scrubbed his hands through his hair. The 
other one? At times, the voice sounded sanest when it was the 
most mad. They were watching him, Dobraine very nearly hiding 
uncertainty, Idrien making no effort to. Straightening as if 
nothing was wrong, he drew two slim packets from inside his 
coat. Both carried the Dragon in a long lump of red wax on 
the outside. The belt buckle he was not wearing at the moment 
served for an impressive signet. 


"The top one names you my steward in Cairhein," he said, 
handing the packets to Dobraine. A third still nestled next 
to his chest, for Gregorin den Lushenos, making him steward in 
Illian. "So there’ll be no trouble with anyone questioning 
your authority while I’m gone." Dobraine could handle that 
sort of trouble with his armsmen, but best to make sure no one 
could claim ignorance or doubt. Maybe there would be no 
trouble to handle if everyone believed the Dragon Reborn would 
descend on transgressors. "There are orders about things, I 
want done, but aside from those, use your own judgment. When 
the Lady Elayne lays claim to the Sun Throne, throw your full 
support behind her." Elayne. Oh, Light, Elayne, and 
Aviendha. At least they were safe. Min’s voice sounded 
happier, now; she must have found Master Fel’s books. He was 
going to let her follow him to her death because he was not 
strong enough to stop her. Ilyena, Lews Therin moaned. 
Forgive me, Ilyena! Rand’s voice came out as cold as winter’s 
heart. "You’ll know when to deliver the other. Whether to 
deliver it. Pry him out if need be, and decide by what he 
says. If you decide not, or he refuses, I’ll pick someone 
else. Not you." 


Perhaps that was brusque, but Dobraine’s expression hardly 
changed. His eyebrows rose slightly at the name written on 
the second packet; that was all. He made a smooth bow. 
Cairheinin usually were smooth. "It shall be as you say. 
Forgive me, but you sound as though you mean to be gone for a 
long while." 



 Rand shrugged. He trusted the High Lord as far as he 
trusted anyone. Almost as far. "Who can say? The times are 
uncertain. Make sure Headmistress Tarsin has whatever coin 
she needs, and the men starting the school in Camelyn. The 
school in Tear, as well, until matters change there." 


"As you say," Dobraine repeated, tucking the packets into 
his coat. His face betrayed no emotion, now. An experienced 
player in the Game of House, was Dobraine. 


For her part, the Headmistress managed to look pleased and 
disgruntled at the same time, and busied herself smoothing her 
dress unnecessarily the way women did when hard-pressed not to 
speak their minds. Complain how she would about dreamers and 
philosophers, she was jealous of the Academy’s well-being. 
She would shed no tears if those others schools vanished and 
their scholars were forced to come to the Academy. Even the 
philosophers. What would she think of one particular order in 
Dobraine’s packet? 


"I’ve found everything I nee," Min said, coming out from the 
shelves staggering slightly under the weight of the three 
bulging cloth scrips that hung from her. Her plain brown coat 
and breeches were very like what she had worn when he first 
saw her in Baerlon. For some reason, she had grumbled over 
them until anyone who knew her would have thought he was 
asking her to put on a dress. She smiled now, though, with 
delight and a hint of mischief. "I hope those packhorses are 
where we left them, or my Lord Dragon will have to be fitted 
for a packsaddle." 


Idrien, gasped, scandalized to hear him addressed so, but 
Dobraine merely smiled a little. He had seen Min around Rand 
before. 


Rand got rid of them as quickly as possible then, since they 
had heard and seen as much as he wanted them to-sent them off 
with a final admonition that he had never been there at all. 
Dobraine nodded as if he had expected no less. Idrien looked 
thoughtful as she left. If she let anything slip where a 
servant could hear, or a scholar, it would be all over the 
City in two days. There was not much time in any case. 
Perhaps no one who could tell had been close enough to feel 
him open a gateway here, but anyone looking for signs would be 
sure by now there was a ta’veren in the city. It was not his 
plan to be found yet. 


When the door closed behind them, he studied Min for a 
moment, then took one of the scrips and slung it from his 
shoulder. 


"Only one?" she said. Setting the others on the floor, she 
planted her fists on her hips and scowled. "Sometimes you 
really are a sheepherder. These bags must be a hundred weight 
each." But she sounded more amused than upset. 


"You should have picked smaller books, " he told her, 
pulling on riding gloves to hide the Dragons. "Or lighter." 
He turned toward the window, to fetch the leather scrip, and a 
wave of dizziness hit him. Knees turning to water, he 
stumbled. A shimmering face he could not make out flashed 
through his head. With an effort, he caught himself, forced 
his legs straight. And the whirling sensation vanished. Lews 
Therin panted hoarsely in the shadows. Could the face be his? 
"If you think you’ll make me carry them all that way, think 



again," Min grumbled. "I’ve seen better pretending from 
stablehands. You could try falling down." 


"Not this time." He was ready for what happened when he 
channeled; he could control it to some extent. Usually. Most 
of the time. This dizziness without saidin was new. Maybe he 
had just turned too fast. And maybe pigs did fly. He settled 
the leather scrip’s strap over his free shoulder. The men in 
the stableyard were still busy. Building. "Min--." 


Her brows lowered immediately. She paused for an instant in 
drawing on her red gloves and began tapping her foot. A 
dangerous sign with any woman, especially one who carried 
knives. "We had this out, Rand bloody Dragon al’Thor! You are 
not leaving me behind!" 


"The thought never crossed my mind," he lied. He was too 
weak; he could not make himself say the words, to make her 
stay. Too weak, he thought bitterly, and she might well die 
for it, the Light burn me forever! 
It will, Lews Therin promised softly. 
"I just thought you should know what we’ve been doing, and 

what we are going to do," Rand went on. "I haven’t been very 
forthcoming, I suppose." Gathering himself, he seized saidin. 
The room seemed to whirl, and he rode the avalanche of fire 
and ice and filth with nausea seething in his belly. He was 
able to stand erect without swaying, though. Barely. And 
just able to weave the flows of a gateway that opened into a 
snowy clearing where two saddled horses were tethered to a low 
branch of an oak. He was glad to see the animals still there. 
The clearing was well away from the nearest road, but there 
were still wanderers who had turned their backs on families 
and farms, trades and crafts, because the Dragon Reborn had 
broken all bonds. The Prophesies said so. On the other hand, 
a good many of those men and women, footsore and half-frozen 
now on top of it, were tired of searching without any notion 
what they were searching for. Even these nondescript mounts 
surely would have vanished with the first man to find them 
unattended. He had gold enough to buy others, but he did not 
think Min would have enjoyed the hour’s walk to the village 
where they had left the packhorses. 


Hurrying through into the clearing, pretending the change 
from floor to knee-deep snow caused his stumble, he only 
waited until she had snatched up her bags of books and 
staggered through after him before releasing the Power. They 
were five hundred miles from Cairhein, and nearer Tar Valon 
than anywhere else of note. Alanna had faded in his head when 
the gateway closed. 


"Forthcoming?" Min said, sounding suspicious. Of all his 
motives, he hoped, or anything but the truth. The dizziness 
and nausea faded slowly. "You have been as open as a mussel, 
Rand, but I am not blind. First we Traveled to Rhuidean, 
where you asked so many questions about this Shara place that 
anyone would think you meant to go there." Frowning faintly, 
she shook her head as she fastened one of her burdens to the 
saddle of her brown gelding. She grunted with the effort, but 
she was not about to set the other bag of books down in the 
snow. "I never thought the Aiel Waste was like that. That 
city is bigger than Tar Valon, even if it is half ruined. And 
all those fountains, and the lake. I couldn’t even see the 



far side. I thought there wasn’t any water in the Waste. And 
it was as cold as here; I thought the waste was hot!" 


"In summer, you fry during the day, but you still freeze at 
night." He felt recovered enough to begin shifting his own 
burdens to the gray’s saddle. Almost enough. He did it 
anyway. "If you already know everything, what was I doing 
besides asking questions?" 


"The same as in Tear last night. Making sure every cat and 
blackbird knew you were there. In Tear, it was Chachin you 
asked about. It’s obvious. You are trying to confuse anyone 
who tries to find out where you are and where you’re going 
next." The second bag of books balancing the first behind her 
saddle, she untied her reins and climbed into the saddle. 
"So, am I blind?" 


"Your eyes belong on an eagle." He hoped his pursuers saw 
as clearly. Or that whoever directed them did. It would not 
do to have them haring off the Light knew where. "I need to 
lay some more false trails, I think." 


"Why take the time? I know you have a plan, I know it 
concerns something in that leather scrip-a sa’angreal-and I 
know it’s important. Don’t look so surprised. You barely let 
that bag out of your sight. Why not go ahead and do whatever 
it is your plan, then lay your false trails? And the real 
one, of course. You’re going to turn on them when they least 
expect, you said. You can hardly do that unless they follow 
where you want." 


"I wish you’d never started reading Herid Fel’s books," he 
muttered sourly, pulling himself into the gray’s saddle. His 
head spun only a little. "You puzzle out too much. Can I 
keep any secrets at all from you, now?" 


"You never could, woolhead," she laughed, and then, 
contradicting herself, "What are you planning? Aside from 
killing Dashiva and the rest, I mean. I have a right to know 
if I’m traveling with you." As if she had not insisted on 
traveling with him. 


"I’m going to cleanse the male half of the source," he said 
in a flat voice. A momentous announcement. A grand scheme, 
more than grand. Grandiose, most would say. He might have 
said he intended to take an afternoon stroll, for all of Min’s 
reaction. She simply looked at him, hands folded on the 
pommel of her saddle, until he went on. 


"I don’t know how long it will take, and once I start, I 
think everyone within a thousand miles of me who can channel 
will know something is happening. I doubt I’ll be able to 
just stop if Dashiva and the rest, or the Forsaken, suddenly 
appear to see what it is. The Forsaken, I can’t do anything 
about, but with luck, I can finish the others." Maybe being 
ta’veren would give him the edge he needed so desperately. 


"Depend on luck, and Corlan Dashiva or the Forsaken, either 
one will have you for breakfast," she said, turning her horse 
out of the clearing. "Maybe I can think of a better way. 
Come on. There’s a warm fire at the inn. I hope you’re going 
to let us have a hot meal before we leave." 


Rand stared after her incredulously. You would have thought 
five reengage Asha’man, not to mention the Forsaken, were less 
bother than a sore tooth. Booting the gray ahead in a spray 
of snow, he caught up to her and rode in silence. He still 



had a few secrets from her, this sickness that had begun 
affecting him when he channeled, for one. That was the real 
reason he had to deal with Dashiva and the others first. It 
gave him time to get over the sickness. If that was possible. 
If not, he was not sure the two ter’angreal riding behind his 
saddle were going to be any use at all. 


Chapter 1: Leaving the Prophet 


The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving 
memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even 
myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes 
again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to 
come, an Age long past, a wind rose above the Aryth Ocean. The 
wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor 
endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a 
beginning. 


East the wind blew above the cold gray-green ocean swells, 
toward Tarabon, where ships already unloaded or waiting their 
turns to enter the harbor of Tanchico tossed at anchor for 
miles along the low coastline. More ships, great and small, 
filled the huge harbor, and barges ferrying people and cargo 
ashore, for there was no mooring empty at any of the city's 
docks. The inhabitants of Tanchico had been fearful when the 
city fell to its new masters, with their peculiar customs and 
strange creatures and women held on leashes who could channel, 
and fearful again when this fleet arrived, mind-numbing in its 
size, and began disgorging not only soldiers but sharp-eyed 
merchants, and craftsfolk with the tools of their trades, and 
even families with wagons full of farm implements and unknown 
plants. There was a new King and a new Panarch to order the 
laws, though, and if King and Panarch owed fealty to some far 
distant Empress, if Seanchan nobles occupied many of the 
palaces and demanded deeper obeisance than any Taraboner lord 
or lady, life was little changed for most people, except for 
the better. The Seanchan Blood had small contact with ordinary 
folk, and odd customs could be lived with. The anarchy that 
had ripped the country apart was just a memory, now, and 
hunger with it. The rebels and bandits and Dragon-sworn who 
had plagued the land were dead or captured or driven north 
onto Almoth Plain, those who had not yielded, and trade moved 
once more. The hordes of starving refugees that had clogged 
the city streets were back in their villages, back on their 
farms. And no more of the newest arrivals remained in Tanchico 
than the city could support easily. Despite the snows, 
soldiers and merchants, craftsfolk and farmers fanned out 
inland in their thousands and tens of thousands, but the icy 
wind lashed a Tanchico at peace and, after its harsh troubles, 
for the most part content with its lot. 


East the wind blew for leagues, gusting and fading, dividing 
but never dying, east and veering to the south, across forests 
and plains wrapped in winter, bare branched and brown-grassed, 
at last crossing what had once been the border between Tarabon 
and Amadicia. A border still, but only in name, the customs 



posts dismantled, the guards gone. East and south, around the 
southern reaches of the Mountains of Mist, swirling across 
high-walled Amador. Conquered Amador. The banner atop the 
massive Fortress of the Light snapped in the wind, the golden 
hawk it bore truly seeming to fly with lightning bolts 
clutched in its talons. Few natives left their homes except at 
need, and those few hurried along the frozen streets, cloaks 
clutched around them and eyes down. Eyes down not just to mind 
footing on slick paving stones but to avoid looking at the 
occasional Seanchan riding by on a beast like a bronze-scaled 
cat the size of a horse, or steel-veiled Taraboners guarding 
groups of onetime Children of the Light, now chained and 
laboring like animals to haul refuse wagons out of the city. A 
bare month and a half in the Seanchan fold, the people of 
Amadicia's capital city felt the bitter wind like a scourge, 
and those who did not curse their fate meditated on what sins 
had brought them to this. 


East the wind howled over a desolated land where as many 
villages lay burned and farms ruined as held people. Snow blan 
keted charred timbers and abandoned barns alike, softening the 
view even as it added freezing to starvation as a way of 
dying. Sword and axe and spear had been there already, and 
remained to kill again. East, until the wind moaned a dirge 
over unwalled Abila. No banners flew above the town's 
watchtowers, for the Prophet of the Lord Dragon was there, and 
the Prophet needed no banner save his name. In Abila, people 
shivered harder at the name of the Prophet than they did for 
the wind. People elsewhere shivered at that name, too. 


Striding out of the tall merchant's house where Masema 
lived, Perrin let the wind whip his fur-lined cloak as he 
pulled on his gloves. The midday sun gave no warmth, and the 
air bit deep. He kept his face smooth, but he was too angry to 
feel the cold. Keeping his hands from the axe at his belt was 
an effort. Masema-he would not call the man Prophet, not in 
his own head he would not! - Masema was very likely a fool, 
and very certainly insane. A powerful fool, more powerful than 
most kings, and mad with it. 


Masema's guards filled the street from side to side and 
stretched around the corners of the next streets, bony fellows 
in stolen silks, beardless apprentices in torn coats, once-
plump merchants in the remains of fine woolens. Their breath 
was white mist, and some shivered without a cloak, but every 
man clutched a spear, or a crossbow with the bolt in place. 
Still, none looked outwardly hostile. They knew he claimed 
acquaintance with the Prophet, and they gaped as if expecting 
him to leap into the air and fly. Or at least turn 
somersaults. He filtered out the smell of woodsmoke from the 
town's chimneys. The lot of them stank of old sweat and 
unwashed bodies, of eagerness and fear. And of a strange fever 
he had not recognized before, a reflection of the madness in 
Masema. Hostile or not, they would kill him, or anyone, at 
Masema's word. They would butcher nations at Masema's word. 
Smelling them, he felt a coldness deeper than any winter wind. 
He was gladder than ever that he had refused to let Faile come 
with him. 


The men he had left with the mounts were playing at dice 
alongside the animals, or going though the motions of it, on a 



space of paving stones scraped mostly clear of snowy slush. He 
did not trust Masema as far as he could throw his bay, and nor 
did they. They were paying more mind to the house, and the 
guards, than to their game. The three Warders sprang to their 
feet as soon as he appeared, their eyes going to his 
companions coming out behind him. They knew what their Aes 
Sedai had felt inside there. Neald was slower, pausing to 
scoop up the dice and coins. The Asha'man was a popinjay, 
always stroking his curled mustaches, strutting and smirking 
at women, but he stood on the balls of his feet now, wary as a 
cat. 


"I thought we'd have to fight our way out of there for a 
time," Elyas murmured at Perrin's shoulder. His golden eyes 
were calm, though. A lanky old man in a broad-brimmed hat, 
with graying hair that hung down his back to his waist and a 
long beard fanning across his chest. A long knife at his belt, 
not a sword. But he had been a Warder. He still was, in a way. 
"That's the only thing that went right," Perrin told him, 
taking Stayer's reins from Neald. The Asha'man quirked an 


eyebrow questioningly, but Perrin shook his head, not caring 
what the question was, and Neald, with a twist to his mouth, 
handed Elyas the reins of his mouse-colored gelding before 
climbing onto his own dapple. 

Perrin had no time for the Murandian's sulks. Rand had sent 
him to bring back Masema, and Masema was coming. As always of 
late when he thought of Rand, colors swirled in his head, and 
as always, he ignored them. Masema was too great a problem for 
Perrin to waste thought fretting over colors. The bloody man 
thought it blasphemy for anyone but Rand to touch the One 
Power. Rand, it seemed, was not really mortal; he was the 
Light made flesh! So there would be no Traveling, no quick 
leap to Cairhien through a gateway made by one of the 
Asha'man, no matter how Perrin had tried to bring Masema 
around. They would have to ride the whole four hundred leagues 
or more, through the Light alone knew what. And keep it secret 
who they were, and Masema as well. Those had been Rand's 
orders. 


"There's only one way I can see to do it, boy," Elyas said 
as if he had spoken aloud. "A slim chance. We might have had 
better odds knocking the fellow on the head and fighting clear 
anyway." 


"I know," Perrin growled. He had thought of it more than 
once during the hours of argument. With Asha'man and Aes Sedai 
and Wise Ones all channeling, it might have been possible. But 
he had seen a battle fought with the One Power, men ripped to 
blood-soaked shreds in the blink of an eye, the earth itself 
blooming in fire. Abila would have been a butcher's yard 
before they were done. He would never look on the like again, 
if he had his way. 


"What do you think this Prophet will make of it?" Elyas 
asked. 


Perrin had to clear his mind of Dumai's Wells, and Abila 
looking like the field at Dumai's Wells, before he could think 
of what Elyas was talking about. Oh. How he was going to do 
the impossible. "I don't care what he makes of it." The man 
would make trouble, that was for certain sure. 


Irritably, he rubbed at his beard. He needed to trim it. To 



have it trimmed, rather. If he picked up the scissors, Faile 
would take them away and give them to Lamgwin. It still seemed 
impossible that that hulking shoulderthumper with his scarred 
face and sunken knuckles should know the skills of a 
bodyservant. Light! A bodyservant. He was finding his footing 
with Faile and her strange Saldaean ways, but the better his 
footing, the more she managed to run things to suit herself. 
Women always did that anyway, of course, but sometimes he 
thought he had exchanged one sort of whirlwind for another. 
Maybe he could try some of this masterful shouting she seemed 
to like so much. A man ought to be able to put scissors to his 
own beard if he wanted. He doubted he would, though. Shouting 
at her was hard enough when she began shouting first. Fool 


thing to be thinking about now, anyway. 
He studied the others making their way to the horses as he 
would have studied tools he needed for a hard job of work. He 
was afraid Masema would make this journey as bad a job as he 
had ever taken on, and his tools were full of cracks. 

Seonid and Masuri paused beside him, the hoods of their 
cloaks pulled well forward, putting their faces in shadow. A 
razor-sharp quivering laced the faint scent of their perfumes, 
fear under control. Masema would have killed them on the spot 
if he had had his way. The guards still might, if any 
recognized an Aes Sedai face. Among this many, there had to be 
some who could. Masuri was the taller by almost a hand, but 
Perrin still looked down on the tops of their heads. Ignoring 
Elyas, the sisters exchanged glances sheltered within their 
cowls; then Masuri spoke quietly. 


"Do you see now why he must be killed? The man is ... 
rabid." Well, the Brown was seldom one to mince words. 
Luckily, none of the guards was close enough to overhear. 


"You could choose a better place to say that," he said. He 
did not want to hear the arguments again, now or later, but 
especially not now. And it seemed he did not have to. 


Edarra and Carelle loomed behind the Aes Sedai, dark shawls 
already wrapped around their heads. The bits that hung down 
across chest and back hardly seemed any protection from the 
cold, but then, snow bothered the Wise Ones more, just the 
existence of such a thing. Their sun-dark faces might have 
been carved for all they revealed, yet the scent of them was a 
steel spike. Edarra's blue eyes, usually so composed that they 
seemed odd set in her youthful features, were as hard as that 
spike. Of course, her composure masked steel. Sharp steel. 


"This is no place for talking," Carelle told the Aes Sedai 
mildly, tucking a strand of fiery red hair beneath her shawl. 
As tall as many men, she was always mild. For a Wise One. 
Which only meant she did not bite your nose off without giving 
warning first. "Get to your horses." 


And the shorter women curtsied to her briefly and hurried to 
their saddles as if they were not Aes Sedai at all. They were 
not, to the Wise Ones. Perrin thought he would never grow 
accustomed to that. Even if Masuri and Seonid seemed to have 
done so. 


With a sigh, he swung up onto Stayer as the Wise Ones fol 
lowed their Aes Sedai apprentices. The stallion frisked a few 
steps after his rest, but Perrin brought him under control 
with the pressure of his knees and steady hands on the reins. 



The Aiel women mounted awkwardly even after all the practice 
they had had these past weeks, their heavy skirts pushed up to 
bare wool-stockinged legs above the knee. They agreed with the 
two sisters about Masema, and so did the other Wise Ones back 
at his camp. A fine boiling stew for anyone to carry to 
Cairhien without being scalded. 


Grady and Aram were already mounted, and he could not make 
out their scents among all the others. There was little need. 
He had always thought Grady looked a farmer despite his black 
coat and the silver sword on his collar, but not now. Statue-
still in his saddle, the stocky Asha'man surveyed the guards 
with the grim eyes of a man deciding where to make the first 
cut. And the second, and third, and however many were needed. 
Aram, bilious green Tinker's cloak flailing the wind as he 
handled his reins, the hilt of his sword rising above his 
shoulder-Aram's face was a map of excitement that made 
Perrin's heart sink. In Masema, Aram had met a man who had 
given his life and heart and soul to the Dragon Reborn. In 
Aram's view, the Dragon Reborn ranked close behind Perrin and 
Faile. 


You did the boy no favor, Elyas had told Perrin. You helped 
him let go of what he believed, and now all he has to believe 
in is you and that sword. It's not enough, not for any man. 
Elyas had known Aram when Aram was still a Tinker, before he 
picked up the sword. 


A stew that might have poison in it, for some. 


The guards might gaze at Perrin in wonder, but they did not 
move to clear a passage until someone shouted from a window of 
the house. Then they edged aside enough for the riders to 
leave single file. Reaching the Prophet was not easy, without 
his permission. Without his permission, leaving him was 
impossible. 


Once away from Masema and his guards, Perrin set as fair a 
pace as he could through the crowded streets. Abila had been a 
large, prosperous town not so long ago, with its stone market 
places, and slate-roofed buildings as tall as four stories. It 
was still large, but mounds of rubble marked where houses and 
inns had been torn down. Not an inn remained standing in 
Abila, or a house where someone had been slow to proclaim the 
glory of the Lord Dragon Reborn. Masema's disapproval was 
never subtle. 


The throng held few who looked as if they lived in the town, 
drab folk in drab clothes for the most part scuttling 
fearfully along the sides of the street, and no children. No 
dogs, either; hunger was a likely problem in this place, now. 
Everywhere groups of armed men straggled through the ankle-
deep muck that had been snow last night, twenty here, fifty 
there, knocking down people too slow to get out of their path, 
even making the ox-carts wend around them. There were always 
hundreds in sight. There had to be thousands in the town. 
Masema's army was a rabble, but their numbers had made up for 
other lacks so far. Thank the Light the man had agreed to 
bring along only a hundred. It had taken an hour's argument, 
but he had agreed. In the end, Masema's desire to reach Rand 
quickly, even if he would not Travel, had won the point. Few 
of his followers had horses, and the more that came afoot, the 
slower they would go. At least he would arrive at Perrin's 



camp by nightfall. 


Perrin saw no one mounted except his own party, and they 
drew stares from the armed men, stony stares, fevered stares. 
Finely dressed folk came to the Prophet often enough, nobles 
and merchants hoping a submission in person would gain more 
blessings and fewer penalties, but they usually departed 
afoot. Their way was unimpeded, however, aside from the 
necessity of riding around the clumps of Masema's followers. 
If they left mounted, it must be by Masema's will. Even so, 
Perrin had no need to tell anyone to stay close. There was a 
feel of waiting in Abila, and no one with half a brain would 
want to be near when the waiting ended. 


It was a relief when Balwer kneed his hammer-nosed gelding 
out of a side street just short of the low wooden bridge that 
led out of town, almost as great as the relief he felt when 
they had crossed the bridge and passed the last guards. The 
pinch-faced little man, all knobby joints and with his plain 
brown coat more hanging on him than worn, could look after 
himself in spite of appearances, but Faile was setting up a 
proper household for a noblewoman, and she would be more than 
displeased if Perrin let any harm come to her secretary. Hers, 
and Perrin's. Perrin was not sure how he felt about having a 
secretary, yet the fellow possessed skills beyond writing a 
fine hand. Which he demonstrated as soon as they were clear of 
the town, with low, forested hills all around. Most of the 
branches were stark and bare, and those that retained leaf or 
needle splashed a vivid green against the white. They had the 
road to themselves, but snow frozen in ruts kept their riding 
slow. 


"Forgive me, my Lord Perrin," Balwer murmured, leaning in 
his saddle to peer past Elyas, "but I happened to overhear 
something back there you might find of interest." He coughed 
discreetly into his glove, then hurriedly recaptured his cloak 
and pulled it close. 


Elyas and Aram hardly needed Perrin's gesture to fall back 
with the others. Everyone was accustomed to the dry little 
man's desire for privacy. Why he wanted to pretend that no one 
else knew he ferreted out information at every town or village 
they passed, Perrin could not begin to guess. He had to know 
that Perrin discussed what he learned with Faile, and Elyas. 
In any case, he was very good at ferreting. 


Balwer tilted his head to one side to watch Perrin as they 
rode side by side. "I have two pieces of news, my Lord, one I 
believe important, and one urgent." Urgent or not, even the 
fellow's voice sounded dry, like dead leaves rustling. 


"How urgent?" Perrin made a wager with himself over who the 
first piece of news would be about. 


"Very, perhaps, my Lord. King Ailron has brought the 
Seanchan to battle near the town of Jeramel, approximately one 
hundred miles west of here. This was about ten days ago." 
Balwer's mouth pursed momentarily in irritation. He disliked 
imprecision; he disliked not knowing. "Reliable information is 
scarce, but without doubt, the Amadician army is dead, captive 
or scattered. I would be very surprised if more than a hundred 
remain together anywhere, and those will take to banditry soon 
enough. Ailron himself was taken, along with his entire court. 
Amadicia no longer has any nobility, not to amount to 



anything." 


Mentally, Perrin marked the wager lost. Usually, Balwer 
began with news of the Whitecloaks. "A pity for Amadicia, I 
suppose. For the people captured, anyway." According to 
Balwer, the Seanchan had a harsh way with those captured under 
arms opposing them. So Amadicia had no army left, and no 
nobles to raise or lead another. Nothing to stop the Seanchan 
spreading as fast as they wished, though they seemed to spread 
very quickly even when there was opposition. Best if he rode 
east as soon as Masema reached the camp, and then moved as 
fast as he could for as long as the men and horses could 
sustain it. 


He said as much, and Balwer nodded, with a thin smile of 
approval. The man appreciated it when Perrin saw the value of 
what he reported. 


"One other point, my Lord," he went on. "The Whitecloaks 
took part in the battle, but apparently Valda managed to get 
most of them off the field at the end. He has the Dark One's 
own luck. No one seems to know where they have gone. Or 
rather, every tongue gives a different direction. If I may say 
so, I favor east. Away from the Seanchan." And toward Abila, 
of course. 


The wager was not a loss, then. Though the man had not begun 
with it. A draw, maybe. Far ahead, a hawk soared high in the 
cloudless sky, heading north. It would reach the camp long 
before he would. Perrin could recall a time when he had had as 
few concerns as that hawk. Compared to now, at least. It had 
been a very long time ago. 


"I suspect the Whitecloaks are more interested in avoiding 
the Seanchan than in bothering us, Balwer. Anyway, I can't 
move any faster for them than for the Seanchan. Were they the 
second piece of news?" 


"No, my Lord. Simply a point of interest." Balwer seemed to 
hate the Children of the Light, most especially Valda-a matter 
of rough treatment somewhere in his past, Perrin suspected-but 
like everything else about the man, it was a dry, cold hate. 
Passionless. "The second news is that the Seanchan have fought 
another battle, this in southern Altara. Against Aes Sedai, 
possibly, though some mentioned men channeling." Half turning 
in his saddle, Balwer looked back at Grady and Neald in their 
black coats. Grady was in conversation with Elyas, and Neald 
with Aram, but both Asha'man appeared to be keeping as close 
an eye on the forests as did the Warders bringing up the rear. 
The Aes Sedai and the Wise Ones were talking in low voices, 
too. "Whoever they fought, my Lord, it is clear that the 
Seanchan lost and were sent reeling back into Ebou Dar." 


"Good news," Perrin said flatly. Dumai's Wells flashed into 
his head again, stronger than before. For a moment, he was 
back-to-back with Loial again, fighting desperately, sure that 
every breath would be his last. For the first time that day, 
he shivered. At least Rand knew about the Seanchan. At least 
he did not have to worry about that. 


He became aware of Balwer eyeing him. Considering him, like 
a bird considering a strange insect. He had seen him shiver. 
The little man liked to know everything, but there were some 
secrets no one would ever know. 


Perrin's eyes returned to the hawk, barely visible now even 



to him. It made him think of Faile, his fierce falcon of a 


wife. His beautiful falcon of a wife. He put Seanchan and 
Whitecloaks and battle and even Masema out of his mind. For 
the time, at least. 
"Let's pick up the pace a little," he called back to the 

others. The hawk might see Faile before he did, but unlike the 
bird, he would be seeing the love of his heart. And today, he 
would not shout at her no matter what she did. 


Chapter 2: Taken 


The hawk soon passed out of sight, and the road remained 
empty of other travelers, but press as Perrin would, frozen 
ruts ready to break a horse's leg and a rider's neck allowed 
no great speed. The wind carried ice, and a promise of snow 
again tomorrow. It was midafternoon by the time he turned off 
through the trees into white drifts that were knee-deep on the 
horses in places, and covered the last mile to the forest camp 
where he had left the Two Rivers men and the Aiel, the 
Mayeners and Ghealdanin. And Faile. Nothing there was as he 
expected. 


As always, there were four camps spaced out among the trees, 
in truth, but the Winged Guards' smoking campfires stood aban 
doned around Berelain's striped tents, amid overturned kettles 
and bits of gear dropped on the snow, and the same signs of 
haste dotted the trampled ground where Alliandre's soldiers 
had been set up when he left that morning. The only evidence 
of life in either place was the horse handlers and farriers 
and cart drivers, bundled in woolens and huddled in clumps 
around the horselines and high-wheeled supply carts. They were 
all staring toward what caught his eye and held it. 


Five hundred paces from the rocky, flat-topped hill where 
the Wise Ones had placed their low tents, the gray-coated 
Mayeners were drawn up, all nine hundred or so of them, horses 
stamping impatiently, red cloaks and the long red streamers on 
their lances rippling in the cold breeze. Nearer the hill and 
off to one side, just at the near bank of a frozen stream, the 
Ghealdanin made a block of lances just as large, these with 
green streamers. The mounted soldiers' green coats and armor 
appeared drab compared with the Mayeners' red helmets and 
breastplates, but their officers sparkled in silvered armor 
and scarlet coats and cloaks, with reins and saddlecloths 
fringed in crimson. A brave show, for men on parade, but they 
were not parading. The Winged Guards faced toward the 
Ghealdanin, the Ghealdanin toward the hill. And the crest of 
the hill was ringed by Two Rivers men, longbows in hand. No 
one had drawn, yet, but every man had a shaft nocked and 
ready. It was madness. 


Booting Stayer to as near a gallop as the bay could manage, 
Perrin plowed through the snow, followed by the others, until 
he reached the head of the Ghealdanin formation. Berelain was 
there, in a fur-trimmed red cloak, and Gallenne, the one-eyed 
Captain other Winged Guards, and Annoura, her Aes Sedai advi 
sor, all apparently arguing with Alliandre's First Captain, a 
short, hard-bitten fellow named Gerard Arganda, who was 
shaking his head so hard the fat white plumes quivered on his 
gleaming helmet. The First of Mayene looked ready to bite 



iron, vexation showed through Annoura's Aes Sedai calm, and 
Gallenne was fingering the red-plumed helmet hanging at his 
saddle as though deciding whether to don it. At the sight of 
Perrin, they broke off and turned their mounts toward him. 
Berelain sat her saddle erect, but her black hair was 
windblown, and her fine-ankled white mare was shivering, the 
lather of a hard run freezing on her flanks. 


With so many people about, it was all but impossible to make 
out individual scents, but Perrin did not need his nose to 
recognize trouble hanging by a hair. Before he could demand to 
know what in the Light they thought they were doing, Berelain 
spoke with a porcelain-faced formality that made him blink at 
first. 


"Lord Perrin, your Lady wife and I were hunting with Queen 
Alliandre when we were attacked by Aiel. I managed to escape. 


No one else in the party has returned, yet, though it may be 
the Aiel took prisoners. I have sent a squad of lancers to 
scout. We were about ten miles to the southeast, so they 
should return with news by nightfall." 


"Faile was captured?" Perrin said thickly. Even before 
crossing into Amadicia from Ghealdan they had heard of Aiel 
burning and looting, but it had always been somewhere else, 
the next village over or the one beyond that, if not farther. 
Never close enough to worry about, or to be sure they were 
more than rumor. Not when he had Rand bloody al'Thor's orders 
to carry out! And look what it had cost. 


"Why are you all still here?" he demanded aloud. "Why aren't 
you all searching for her?" He realized he was shouting. He 
wanted to howl, to savage them. "Burn you all, what are you 
waiting for?" The levelness other reply, as if reporting how 
much fodder was left for the horses, pushed needles of rage 
into his head. The more so because she was right. 


"We were ambushed by two or three hundred, Lord Perrin, but 
you know as well as I, from what we have heard there easily 
could be a dozen or more such bands roaming the countryside. 
If we pursue in force, we may find a battle that will cost us 
heavily, against Aiel, without even knowing whether they are 
the ones who hold your Lady wife. Or even if she still lives. 
We must know that first, Lord Perrin, or the rest is worse 
than useless." 


If she still lived. He shivered; the cold was inside him, 
suddenly. In his bones. His heart. She had to be alive. She 
had to be. Oh, Light, he should have let her come to Abila 
with him. Annoura's wide-mouthed face was a mask of sympathy 
framed by thin Taraboner braids. Suddenly he became aware of 
pain in his hands, cramping on the reins. He forced them to 
loosen their grip, flexed his fingers inside his gauntlets. 


"She's right," Elyas said quietly, moving his gelding 
closer. "Hold on to yourself. Blunder around with Aiel, and 
you're asking to die. Maybe take a lot of men with you to a 
bad end. Dying does no good if it leaves your wife a 
prisoner." He tried to make his voice lighter, but Perrin 
could smell the strain. "Anyway, we'll find her, boy. She 
could well have escaped them, a woman like that. Be trying to 
make her way back here afoot. Take time, that would, in a 
dress. The First's scouts will locate traces." Raking fingers 
through his long beard, Elyas gave a self-deprecating chuckle. 



"If I can't find more than the Mayeners, I'll eat bark. We'll 
get her back for you." 


Perrin was not fooled. "Yes," he said harshly. Nobody could 
escape Aiel afoot. "Go now. Hurry." Not fooled at all. The man 


expected to find Faile's body. She had to be alive, and that 
meant captive, but better a prisoner than . . . 
They could not talk between themselves as they did with 

wolves, but Elyas hesitated as if he understood Perrin's 
thoughts. He did not try to deny them, though. His gelding set 
off southeast at a walk, as quick as the snow would allow, and 
after a quick glance at Perrin, Aram followed, his face dark. 
The one-time Tinker did not like Elyas, but he near enough 
worshipped Faile, if only because she was Perrin's wife. 


It would do no good to founder the animals, Perrin told him 
self, frowning at their retreating backs. He wanted them to 
run. He wanted to run with them. Fine cracks seemed to be 
spidering through him. If they returned with the wrong news, 
he would shatter. To his surprise, the three Warders trotted 
their mounts through the trees after Elyas and Aram in 
splashes of snow, plain woolen cloaks streaming behind, then 
matched speed when they caught up. 


He managed to give Masuri and Seonid a grateful nod, and 
included Edarra and Carelle. Whoever had made the suggestion, 
there was no doubt who had granted permission. It was a 
measure of the control the Wise Ones had established that 
neither sister was trying to take charge. They very likely 
wanted to, but their gloved hands remained folded on the 
pommels of their saddles, and neither betrayed impatience by 
so much as the flicker of an eyelid. 


Not everyone was watching the departing men. Annoura al 
ternated between beaming sympathy at him and studying the Wise 
Ones out of the corner of her eye. Unlike the other two 
sisters, she had made no promises, but she was almost as 
circumspect with the Aielwomen as they. Gallenne's one eye was 
on Berelain, awaiting a sign he should draw the sword he was 
gripping, while she was intent on Perrin, her face still 
smooth and unreadable. Grady and Neald had their heads 
together, casting quick, grim glances in his direction. Balwer 
sat very still, like a sparrow perched on the saddle, trying 
to be invisible, listening intently. 


Arganda pushed his tall roan gelding past Gallenne's heavy-
chested black, ignoring the Mayener's one-eyed glare of 
outrage. The First Captain's mouth worked angrily behind the 
shining face-bars of his helmet, but Perrin heard nothing. 
Faile filled his head. Oh, Light, Faile! His chest felt bound 
with iron straps. He was near to panic, holding to the 
precipice with his fingernails. 


Desperately he reached out with his mind, frantically search 
ing for wolves. Elyas must have tried this already-Elyas would 
not have given way to panic at the news-but he had to try 
himself. 


Searching, he found them, Three Toes' pack and Cold Water's, 
Twilight's and Springhorn's and others. Pain flowed out with 
his plea for help, but grew greater inside him rather than 
less. They had heard of Young Bull, and they commiserated over 
the loss of his she, but they kept clear of the two-legs, who 
frightened away all the game and were death for any wolf 



caught alone. There were so many packs of two-legs about, 
afoot and riding the hard-footed four-legs, that they could 
not say whether any they knew of were the one he sought. Two-
legs were two-legs, to them, indistinguishable except for 
those who could channel, and the few who could speak with 
them. Mourn, they told him, and move on, and meet her again in 
the Wolf Dream. 


One by one, the images that his mind turned to words faded 
away, until only one lingered. Mourn, and meet her again in 
the Wolf Dream. Then that also was gone. 


"Are you listening?" Arganda demanded roughly. He was not a 
smooth-faced noble, and despite his silks and the gold-work 
atop the silver of his breastplate he looked like what he was, 
a graying soldier who had first hefted a lance as a boy and 
probably carried two dozen scars. His dark eyes were almost as 
fevered as those of Masema's men. He smelled of rage, and 
fear. "Those savages took Queen Alliandre, as well!" 


"We will find your Queen when we find my wife," Perrin said, 
his voice as cold and hard as the edge of his axe. She had to 
be alive. "Suppose you tell me what all this is about, you 
drawn up ready to charge, it looks like. And facing my people, 
at that." He had other responsibilities, too. Acknowledging 
that was bitter as gall. Nothing else counted alongside Faile. 
Nothing! But the Two Rivers men were his people. 


Arganda dashed his mount close and seized Perrin's sleeve in 
a gauntleted fist. "You listen to me! The First Lady Berelain 
says it was Aiel took Queen Alliandre, and there are Aiel 
sheltering behind those archers of yours. I have men who will 
be happy enough to put them to the question." His heated gaze 
swung back to Edarra and Carelle for a moment. Perhaps he was 
thinking that they were Aiel with no archers barring his path. 
"The First Captain is ... overwrought," Berelain murmured, 


laying a hand on Perrin's other arm. "I have explained to him 
that none of the Aiel here were involved. I'm sure that I can 
convince him-" 

He shook her off, ripped his arm away from the Ghealdanin., 
"Alliandre swore fealty to me, Arganda. You swore fealty to 
her, and that makes me your lord. I said I'll find Alliandre 
when I find Faile." The edge of an axe. She was alive. "You 
question no one, touch no one, unless I say. What you will do 
is take your men back to your camp, now, and be ready to ride 
when I give the order. If you're not ready when I call, you 
will be left behind." 


Arganda stared at him, breathing hard. His eyes strayed 
again, this time toward Grady and Neald, then jerked back to 
Perrin's face. "As you command, my Lord," he said stiffly. 
Wheeling his roan, he shouted orders to his officers and was 
already galloping away before they began issuing their own. 
The Ghealdanin began to peel away by columns, riding after 
their First Captain. Toward their camp, though whether Arganda 
intended to remain there was anyone's guess. And whether it 
might not be for the worse if he did. 


"You handled that very well, Perrin," Berelain said. "A 
difficult situation, and a painful time for you." Not formal 
at all, now. Just a woman full of pity, her smile 
compassionate. Oh, she had a thousand guises, Berelain did. 


She stretched out a red-gloved hand, and he backed Stayer 



away before she could touch him. "Give it over, burn you!" he 
snarled. "My wife has been taken! I've no patience for your 
childish games!" 


She jerked as if he had struck her. Color bloomed in her 
cheeks, and she changed again, becoming supple and willowy in 
her saddle. "Not childish, Perrin," she murmured, her voice 
rich and amused. "Two women contesting over you, and you the 
prize? I would think you'd be flattered. Attend me, Lord 
Captain Gallenne. I suppose we, too, should be ready to ride 
at command." 


The one-eyed man rode back toward the Winged Guards at her 
side, as close to a canter as the snow made possible. He was 
leaning toward her as if hearing instructions. Annoura paused 
where she was, gathering the reins other brown mare. Her mouth 
was a razored line beneath her beak of a nose. "Sometimes you 
are a very large fool, Perrin Aybara. Quite often, in fact." 


He did not know what she was talking about, and did not 
care. At times she seemed resigned to Berelain chasing after a 
married man, and other times amused by it, even helping out by 
arranging for Berelain to be alone with him. Right then, First 
and Aes Sedai both disgusted him. Heeling Stayer in the 
flanks, he trotted away from her without a word. 


The men on the hilltop opened enough to let him through, 
muttering to one another and watching the lancers below ride 
toward their respective camps, parted again to let the Wise 
Ones and Aes Sedai and Asha'man pass. They did not break up 
and crowd around him, as he had expected, for which he was 
grateful. The whole hilltop smelled of wariness. Most of it 
did. 


The snow atop the hill had been trampled until some patches 
were clear except for frozen clumps and others were sheets of 
ice. The four Wise Ones who had remained behind when he rode 
to Abila were standing in front of one of the low Aiel tents, 
tall unruffled women with dark woolen shawls around their 
shoulders, watching the two sisters dismount with Carelle and 
Edarra, and seemingly paying no mind to what was going on 
around them. The gai'shain who served them in place of 
servants were going about their normal tasks quietly, meekly, 
faces hidden in the deep cowls of their white robes. One 
fellow was even beating a carpet hung over a rope tied between 
two trees! The only sign among the Aiel that they might have 
been on the brink of a fight was Gaul and the Maidens. They 
had been squatting on their heels, shoufa around their heads 
and black veils hiding all but their eyes, short spears and 
bull-hide bucklers in hand. As Perrin jumped down from his 
saddle, they rose. 


Dannil Lewin trotted up, chewing worriedly at the thick mus 
tache that made his nose look even bigger than it was. He had 
his bow in one hand and was sliding an arrow back into the 
quiver at his belt. "I didn't know what else to do, Perrin," 
he said in a jerky voice. Dannil had been at Dumai's Wells, 
and faced Trollocs back home, but this was outside his view of 
the world. "By the time we found out what happened, those 
Ghealdanin fellows were already starting this way, so I sent 
off Jondyn Barran and a couple of others, Hu Marwin and Get 
Ayliah, told the Cairhienin and your servants to make a circle 
with the carts and stay inside it- had to just about tie up 



those folks who're always following the Lady Faile around; 
they wanted to go off after her, and not a one of them knows a 
footprint from an oak tree-then I brought everybody else here. 
I thought those Ghealdanin might charge us, until the First 
got there with her men. They must be crazy, thinking any of 
our Aiel would hurt the Lady Faile." Even when they Perrined 
him, Faile nearly always received the honorific from the Two 
Rivers men. 


"You did right, Dannil," Perrin said, tossing him Stayer's 
reins. Hu and Get were good woodsmen, and Jondyn Barran could 
follow yesterday's wind. Gaul and the Maidens were starting to 
leave, in single file. They were still veiled. "Tell off one 
man in three to stay here," Perrin told Dannil hurriedly; just 
because he had faced Arganda down was no reason to believe the 
man had changed his mind, "and send the rest back to pack up. 
I want to ride as soon as there's word." 


Without waiting on a reply, he hurried to put himself in 
front of Gaul and stopped the taller man with a hand to his 
chest. For some reason, Gaul's green eyes tightened above his 
veil. Sulin and the rest of the Maidens strung out behind him 
went up on the balls of their feet. 


"Find her for me, Gaul," Perrin said. "All of you, please 
find who took her. If anyone can track Aiel, it's you." 


The tightness in Gaul's eyes vanished as suddenly as it had 
come, and the Maidens relaxed, too. As much as Aiel ever could 
be said to relax. It was very strange. They could not think he 
blamed them in any way. 


"We all wake from the dream one day," Gaul said gently, "but 
if she still dreams, we will find her. But if Aiel took her, 
we must go. They will move quickly. Even in ... this." He put 
considerable disgust in the word, kicking at a clod of snow. 


Perrin nodded and hastily stepped aside, letting the Aiel 
set out at a trot. He doubted they could maintain that for 
very long, but he was sure they would keep the pace longer 
than anyone else could have. As the Maidens passed him, each 
quickly pressed fingers to the veil over her lips, then 
touched his shoulder. Sulin, right behind Gaul, gave him a 
nod, but none said a word. Faile would have known what they 
meant with their finger kissing. 


There was something else odd about their departure, he real 
ized as the last Maiden went by. They were letting Gaul lead. 
Normally, any of them would have stuck a spear in him before 
allowing that. Why . . . ? Maybe . . . Chiad and Bain would 
have been with Faile. Gaul did not care one way of the other 
about Bain, but Chiad was a different matter. The Maidens 
certainly had not been encouraging Gaul's hope that Chiad 
would give up the spear to marry him-anything but!-yet maybe 
that was it. 


Perrin grunted in disgust at himself. Chiad and Bain, and 
who else? Even blind with fear for Faile, he should have asked 
that much. If he was going to get her back, he needed to 
strangle fear and see. But it was like trying to strangle a 
tree. 


The flat hilltop swarmed now. Someone had already led Stayer 
away, and Two Rivers men were leaving the ring around the 
crest, hurrying toward their camp in a scattered stream, 
shouting to one another about what they would have done had 



the lancers charged. Occasionally a man raised his voice 
asking about Faile, did anyone know if the Lady was safe, were 
they going to look for her, but others always shushed him 
hurriedly with worried glances at Perrin. The gai'shain went 
about their tasks placidly in the middle of all the rush. 
Unless commanded to stop, they would have done the same if a 
battle had swirled around them, not raising a hand to help or 
hinder. The Wise Ones had all gone into one of the tents with 
Seonid and Masuri, and the flaps were not only down, but tied. 
They did not want to be disturbed. They would be discussing 
Masema, no doubt. Possibly discussing how to kill the man 
without him or Rand learning they had done it. 


He smacked a fist into his palm in irritation. He had 
actually forgotten Masema until now. The man was supposed to 
be following before nightfall, with that honor guard of a 
hundred men. With luck, the Mayener scouts would be back by 
then, and Elyas and the others soon after. 


"My Lord Perrin?" Grady said behind him, and he turned. The 
two Asha'man stood in front of their horses, fiddling uncer 
tainly with their reins. Grady drew breath and went on with 
Neald nodding agreement. "The pair of us could cover a lot of 
ground, Traveling. And if we find the lot who kidnapped her, 
well, I doubt even a few hundred Aiel could stop two Asha'man 
from taking her back." 


Perrin opened his mouth to tell them to start immediately, 
then closed it again. Grady had been a farmer, true, but never 
a hunter or woodsman. Neald thought any place without a stone 
wall was a village. They might know a footprint from an oak 
tree, yet if they did find tracks, very likely neither would 
be able to say which direction they were headed. Of course, he 
could go with them. He was not as good as Jondyn, but ... He 
could go, and leave Dannil to deal with Arganda. And with 
Masema. Not to mention the Wise Ones' schemes. 


"Go get yourselves packed," he said quietly. Where was 
Balwer? Nowhere in sight. Not very likely that he had gone 
haring off to find Faile. "You may be needed here." 


Grady blinked in surprise, and Neald's mouth dropped open. 


Perrin gave them no chance to argue. He strode over to the 
low tent with the tied flaps. There was no way to undo the 
ties from the outside. When Wise Ones wanted to remain undis 
turbed, they wanted to remain undisturbed, by clan chiefs or 
anyone else. Including a wetlander lumbered with the title of 
Lord of the Two Rivers. He drew his belt knife, and bent to 
slice the ties, but before he could slide the blade through 
the tight crack between the entry flaps, they jerked as if 
someone was unfastening them from inside. He straightened and 
waited. 


The tentflaps opened, and Nevarin slipped out. Her shawl was 
tied around her waist, but except for the mist of her breath, 
she gave no evidence of the icy air. Her green eyes took in 
the knife in his hand, and she planted her fists on her hips 
in a rattle of bracelets. She was near enough bone-thin, with 
long sandy yellow hair held back by a dark folded kerchief, 
and more than a hand taller than Nynaeve, but that was who she 
always made him think of. She stood blocking the entrance to 
the tent. 


"You are impetuous, Perrin Aybara." Her light voice was 



level, but he had the impression that she was considering 
boxing his ears. Very much like Nynaeve. "Though that might be 
understandable, in the circumstances. What do you want?" 


"How . . . ?" He had to stop to swallow. "How will they 
treat her?" 


"I cannot say, Perrin Aybara." There was no sympathy on her 
face, no expression at all. Aiel could give Aes Sedai lessons 
in that. "Taking wetlanders captive is against custom, except 
for Treekillers, though that has changed. So is killing 
without need. But many have refused to accept the truths the 
Car'a'carn revealed. Some were taken by the Bleakness and 
threw down their spears, yet they may have taken them up 
again. Others simply left, to live as they believe we are 
meant to. I cannot say what customs might be kept or abandoned 
by those who have abandoned clan and sept." The only emotion 
she displayed was a hint of disgust at the end, for those who 
abandoned clan and sept. 


"Light, woman, you must have some idea! Surely you can make 
a guess-" 


"Do not become irrational," she broke in sharply. "Men often 
do in such situations, but we have need of you. 1 think it 
will do your standing with the other wetlanders no good if we 
must bind you until you calm down. Go to your tent. If you 
cannot control your thoughts, drink until you cannot think. 
And do not bother us when we are in council." She ducked back 
into the tent, and the flaps jerked closed and began to twitch 
as they were tied again. 


Perrin considered the closed flaps, running his thumb over 
the blade of his knife, then shoved it into the sheath. They 
just might do as Nevarin had threatened if he barged in. And 
they could not tell him anything he wanted to know. He did not 
think she would keep secrets at a time like this. Not about 
Faile, anyway. 


The hilltop had grown quieter, with most of the Two Rivers 
men gone. The remainder, still watchful of the Ghealdanin camp 
below, stamped their feet against the cold, but no one talked. 
The scurrying gai'shain hardly made a sound. Trees obscured 
parts of the Ghealdanin and Mayener camps, but Perrin could 
see carts being loaded in both. He decided to leave men on 
guard anyway. Arganda could be trying to lull him. A man who 
smelled like that could be ... Irrational, he finished the 
thought dryly. 


There was nothing left for him to do on the hill, so he set 
out to walk the half mile to his tent. The tent he shared with 
Faile. He stumbled as much as walked, laboring when the snow 
rose around his legs. As much to stop it snapping in the wind 
as for warmth, he held his cloak tight around him. There was 
no warmth. 


The Two Rivers camp was a swarm with activity when he ar 
rived. The carts still made a big circle, with men and women 
from Dobraine's estates back in Cairhien loading them, and 
others readying horses for saddling. In this depth of snow, 
cartwheels might as well have tried to roll through mud, so 
they were all lashed to the sides of the carts, now, replaced 
by pairs of broad wooden sleds. Bundled against the weather 
till most seemed twice as wide as they really were, the 
Cairhienin hardly paused to glance at him, but every Two 



Rivers man who saw him stopped to stare until someone else 
prodded the fellow to get on with whatever he was about. 
Perrin was glad none gave words to the sympathy in those 
stares. He thought he might break down and cry if anyone did. 
There seemed to be nothing for him to do here, either. His 
big tent-his and Faile's-was already down and on a cart, along 
with its contents. Basel Gill was walking along the carts with 
a long list in his hands. The stout man had taken to the job 
of shambayan, running Faile's household, Perrin's, like a 
squirrel to a corn crib. More used to cities than traveling 
outside their walls, though, he suffered from the cold, and 
wore not only a cloak but a thick scarf around his neck, a 
floppy-brimmed felt hat and heavy woolen gloves. For some 


reason, Gill flinched at the sight of him, and mumbled 
something about seeing to the carts before hurrying off as 
fast as he could. Odd. 

Perrin did think of one thing then, and rinding Dannil, he 
gave orders to relieve the men on the hill every hour and make 
sure everyone had a hot meal. 


"Take care of the men and horses first," a thin but strong 
voice said. "But then you must take care of yourself. There's 
hot soup in the kettle, and bread of a sort, and I've put by 
some smoked ham. A full belly will make you look less like 
murder walking." 


"Thank you, Lini," he said. Murder walking? Light, he felt 
like one of the dead, not a murderer. "I'll eat in a little 
while." 


Faile's chief maid was a frail-appearing woman, with skin 
like parchment and white hair in a bun on top of her head, but 
her back was straight and her dark eyes were clear and sharp. 
Worry creased her forehead now, though, and her hands gripped 
her cloak too tightly, straining. She would be worried about 
Faile, certainly, but . . . 


"Maighdin was with her," he said, and did not need her nod. 
Maighdin was always with Faile, it seemed. A treasure, Faile 
called her. And Lini seemed to consider the woman her 
daughter, though sometimes Maighdin did not appear to enjoy 
that as much as Lini did. "I'll get them back," he promised. 
"All of them." His voice almost broke on that. "Get on with 
your work," he went on roughly, hurriedly. "I'll eat in a bit. 
I have to see to ... to..." He strode away without finishing. 


There was nothing he had to see to. Nothing he could think 
of, except Faile. He hardly knew where he was heading until 
his steps took him outside the circle of carts. 


A hundred paces beyond the horselines, a low, stony ridge 
thrust a black peak through the snow. From there, he would be 
able to see the tracks left by Ely as and the others. From 
there, he would see them returning. 


His nose told him he was not alone well before he reached 
the narrow crest of the ridge, told him who was up there. The 
other man was not listening, because Perrin crunched his way 
to the top before he sprang up from where he had been 
crouching on his heels. Tallanvor's gauntleted hands kneaded 
his long sword hilt, and he peered at Perrin uncertainly. A 
tall man who had taken hard knocks in his life, he usually was 
very sure of himself. Perhaps he expected a tirade for not 
having been there when Faile was taken, though she had 



rejected the armsman as a bodyguard, rejected any bodyguard. 
Beyond Bain and Chiad, at least, who apparently did not count. 
Or maybe he just thought he would be sent away, back to the 
carts, so Perrin could be alone. Perrin tried to make his face 
look less like-what had Lini called it? -murder walking? 
Tallanvor was in love with Maighdin, and would be wed to her 
soon if Faile's suspicions were correct. The man had a right 
to keep watch. 


They stood there on the ridge while twilight fell, and 
nothing moved in the snowy forest they watched. Darkness came 
without movement, and without Masema, but Perrin did not even 
think of Masema. The gibbous moon shone white on the snow, 
giving nearly as much light as a full moon, it seemed. Until 
scudding clouds began to hide it, and moonshadows raced across 
the snow, thicker and thicker. Snow began to fall with a dry 
rustling. Snow that would bury traces and tracks. Silent in 
the cold, the two men stood there, watching into the snowfall, 
waiting, hoping. 


Chapter 3: Customs 


From the first hour after being captured, laboring through 
the snowy woods, Faile worried about freezing. Breezes stirred 
and died, stirred and died. Few of the scattered trees still 
carried leaves, and most of those hung dead and brown. The 
breezes swirled through the forest unhindered, and small as 
the gusts were, they carried ice. Perrin hardly entered her 
thoughts, except for a hope that he somehow learned of 
Masema's secret dealings. And of the Shaido, of course. Even 
if that trull Berelain was the only one who could tell him, 
now. She hoped Berelain had escaped the ambush and told Perrin 
everything. And then fallen into a hole and broken her neck. 
But she had far more pressing concerns than her husband. 


She had called this weather autumnal, yet people froze to 
death in a Saldaean autumn, and of her clothes she retained 
only her dark woolen stockings. One lashed her elbows tight 

behind her back, while the second had been tied around her 
neck for a leash. Brave words made scant covering for bare 
skin. She was too cold for sweat, yet her legs soon ached with 
the struggle to keep up with her captors. The Shaido column, 
veiled men and Maidens, slowed when the snow rose toward 
their knees but immediately resumed a steady trot when it sank 
toward their ankles, and they did not seem to tire. Horses 
could not have moved faster over the distance. Shivering, she 
labored on at the end of her leash, doing her best to gulp air 
through teeth gritted to stop their chattering. 


The Shaido were fewer than she had estimated during the 
attack, no more than a hundred and fifty she thought, and 
nearly all carried spears or bows at the ready. Small chance 
anyone could surprise them. Always alert, they ghosted along 
in silence except for the faint crunch of the snow under their 
soft, knee-high boots. The greens and grays and browns of 
their clothing stood out against the white landscape, though. 
Green had been added to the cadin'sor since crossing the 
Dragonwall, so Bain and Chiad had told her, to aid concealment 
in a green land. Why had these people not added white, for the 
winter? As it was, they could be seen at some distance. She 



tried to notice everything, remember anything that might prove 
useful later, when it came time to escape. She hoped her 
fellow prisoners were doing as much. Perrin would be hunting 
for her, certainly, but the thought of rescue never entered 
her calculations. Wait for rescue, and you might wait forever. 
Besides, they needed to escape as quickly as possible, before 
their captors joined with the rest of the Shaido. She could 
not see how, yet, but there must be a way. The one bit of luck 
was that the main body of Shaido must be days distant. This 
part of Amadicia was chaos, but thousands of Shaido could not 
be too near without her having heard of them. 


Once, early on, she tried to look back at the women who had 
been captured with her, but the only result was a stumbling 
fall into a snowbank. Half-buried in the white powder, she 
gasped from the icy shock, and gasped again when the great 
hulking Shaido who held her leash set her back on her feet. As 
wide as Perrin and a full head taller, Rolan simply hauled her 
upright by a fistful of her hair, set her moving again with a 
brisk slap on her bare bottom, and once more took up the long 
strides that forced her to step quickly. The slap might have 
been given to make a pony move. Despite her nakedness, there 
was nothing of a man looking at a woman in Rolan's blue eyes. 
Part of her was very grateful. Part her was vaguely . . . 
taken aback. She certainly did not want him gazing at her with 
lust or even interest, but those bland glances were almost 
insulting! After that she made sure not to fall, though as the 
hours passed without a pause in the march, simply staying 
upright became more and more of an effort. 


In the beginning she worried over which bits of her would 
freeze first, but by the time morning had rolled into 
afternoon without a pause in the march, she was focused on her 
feet. Rolan and those ahead of him trampled a sort of path for 
her, yet enough snowcrust remained for sharp edges, and she 
began to leave red stains freezing in her footprints. Worse 
was the cold itself. She had seen frostbite. How long before 
her toes began to turn black? Staggering, she flexed each foot 
as she swung it forward, and worked her hands constantly. 
Fingers and toes were in the worst danger, but any exposed 
skin was at risk. About her face and the rest of her she could 
only hope. The flexing hurt, making the cuts on her feet burn, 
but any feeling was better than none. When sensation went, she 
would have very little time left. Flex and stride, flex and 
stride. That filled her thoughts. She kept moving on quivering 


legs, and kept her hands and feet from freezing. She kept 
moving. 
Abruptly, she stumbled into Rolan and rebounded from his 

wide chest, panting. Half dazed, or maybe more than half, she 
had not realized that he had stopped. So had the others ahead, 
a few looking back, the rest facing outward and warily on 
guard, weapons up as though expecting attack. That was all she 
had time to see before Rolan seized a handful of her hair 
again and bent to lift one other feet. Light, the man really 
was treating her like a pony! 


Releasing her hair and her foot, he snaked an arm around her 
legs, and the next moment her vision whirled as she was heaved 
up onto his shoulder, head-down beside the horn bow cased on 
his back. Indignation welled up as he casually shifted her 



about to find the easiest position for carrying, but she 
tamped it down as fast as it rose. This was no place or time. 
Her feet were out of the snow; that was what mattered. And she 
could catch her breath, like this. He could have warned her, 
though. 


With an effort, she arched her neck so she could see her com 
panions, and felt relief to find them all still there. Naked 
prisoners, true, but she was sure only a corpse would have 
been left behind. The others who walked were leashed with 
stockings or strips of cloth cut from their lost garments, and 
most also had their arms tied behind. Alliandre was no longer 
trying to bend double in an attempt to shield herself. Other 
concerns had replaced modesty for the Queen of Ghealdan. 
Panting and trembling, she might have fallen if the squat 
Shaido examining her feet had not supported her by her bound 
elbows. Squat for an Aiel meant he could have passed 
unremarked most places, except for shoulders nearly as wide as 
Rolan's. The dark hair spilling down Alliandre's back was 
windblown, her face haggard. Behind her, Maighdin appeared in 
almost as bad a state, gulping air, red-gold hair in disarray 
and blue eyes staring, yet she managed to stay erect on her 
own with a bone-lean Maiden lifting her foot. Somehow, Faile's 
maid looked more a queen than Alliandre did, if a very 
disheveled queen. 


In comparison, Bain and Chiad seemed in no worse state than 
did the Shaido, though Chiad's cheek was yellowing and swollen 
from a blow when they were first taken, and the black blood 
matting Bain's short fiery hair and spread across her face 
seemed to have frozen. That was bad; that could scar. The two 
Maidens were not breathing hard, though, and even raised their 
own feet for examination. Alone of the prisoners they were 
unbound- except by custom stronger than chains. They had 
calmly accepted their fate, to serve a year and a day as 
gai'shain. Bain and Chiad might be of some help in 
escaping-Faile was not sure how far custom constrained 
them-but they themselves would not try to get away. 


The last prisoners, Lacile and Arrela, attempted to pattern 
themselves after the Maidens, of course, with indifferent 
success. A tall Aielman had simply tucked tiny Lacile under 
his arm to look at her feet, and crimson mortification stained 
her pale cheeks. Arrela was tall, but the pair of Maidens who 
had charge of her were taller than Faile herself, and they 
handled the Tairen woman with impersonal ease. A scowl 
contorted her dark face at their prodding, and maybe at the 
rapid handtalk they were exchanging. Faile hoped she would not 
make trouble, not now. Everyone in Cha Faile tried to be like 
the Aiel, to live as they thought the Aiel did, but Arrela 
wanted to be a Maiden, and she resented the fact that Sulin 
and the others would not teach her handtalk. She would have 
been worse if she knew Bain and Chiad had taught Faile a 
little. Not enough to make out more than every other word the 
Maidens were saying now, but some. As well Arrela could not 
understand. They thought the wetlander had soft feet, that she 
was altogether too pampered and soft, and that surely would 
have set the woman off. 


As it turned out, Faile need not have worried about Arrela. 
The Tairen stiffened when one of the Maidens hefted her onto a 



shoulder-pretending to stagger, the burdened woman used her 
free hand to flicker a message that made the other Maiden bark 
a laugh behind her veil-but after a glance at Bain and Chiad, 
already meekly belly down on Aielmen's shoulders, Arrela 
sullenly let herself hang limp. Lacile squealed when the big 
man holding her abruptly spun her about to land in the same 
position, but she quieted after that, though her face was 
still bright scarlet. There were definite advantages to their 
emulation of Aiel. 


Alliandre and Maighdin, however, the last women Faile would 
have expected to cause problems, were another matter entirely. 
When they realized what was happening, the pair of them fought 
wildly. It was not much of a fight, two naked and exhausted 
women with their elbows bound tight behind their backs, but 
they twisted and shouted and kicked at anyone who came within 
reach, and Maighdin even sank her teeth into the hand of a 
careless Aielman, hanging on like a boarhound. 


"Stop it, you fools!" Faile called to them. "Alliandre! 
Maighdin! Let them carry you! Obey me!" Neither her maid nor 
her vassal paid the slightest heed. Maighdin growled like a 
lion around her mouthful of Aiel. Alliandre was wrestled down, 
still shouting and flailing with her feet. Faile opened her 
mouth for another command. 


"The gai'shain will be quiet," Rolan grunted, spanking her 
hard. 


She ground her teeth and muttered under her breath. Which 
earned another slap! The man had her knives tucked behind his 
belt. If she could lay hands on just one . . . ! No. What must 
be endured, could be endured. She intended to escape, not make 
useless gestures. 


Maighdin's fight lasted a little longer than Alliandre's, 
until a pair of burly men could pry her jaws from the Shaido's 
hand. It required a pair. To Faile's surprise, instead of 
cuffing Maighdin, the bitten fellow shook blood off his hand 
and laughed! That did not save her, though. In a trice, 
Faile's maid was facedown in the snow alongside the Queen. 
They were given only a few moments to gasp and writhe in the 
added cold. Two Shaido, one a Maiden, appeared out of the 
surrounding trees, shaving the stubs from long switches with 
their heavy belt knives. A foot planted between each woman's 
shoulder blades, a fist on bound elbows to raise fluttering 
hands out of the way, and red welts began to bloom on white 
hips. 


At first both women continued to fight, twisting about de 
spite the way they were held. Their struggle was even more use 
less than when they were upright. Little moved above their 
waists beyond tossing heads and wildly waving hands. Alliandre 
kept shrilling that they could not do this to her, 
understandable coming from a queen, if foolish in the 
circumstances. Plainly they could, and they were. 
Surprisingly, Maighdin raised her voice in the same piercing 
denials. Anyone would have thought her royalty instead of a 
lady's maid. Faile knew for a fact that Lini had taken a 
switch to Maighdin without all these histrionics. In any case, 
denials did no good for either woman. The methodical thrash 
ings continued until they both were kicking and howling word 
lessly, and a little longer for good measure. When they were 



finally hoisted like the other prisoners, they hung weeping, 
all fight gone out of them. 


Faile felt no sympathy. The fools had earned every stripe, 
in her opinion. Frostbite and cut feet aside, the longer they 
remained outside without clothes, the more chance that some of 
them might not survive to escape. The Shaido had to be taking 
them to some sort of shelter, and Alliandre and Maighdin had 
delayed reaching it. Maybe it was little more than a quarter 
hour's delay, but minutes could be the difference between the 
living and the dead. On top of which, even Aiel would surely 
let down their guard a little once they found shelter and made 
fires. And they could rest, being carried. They could be ready 
to take their chance when it came. 


Carrying their prisoners, the Shaido set out again at that 
ground-covering pace. If anything, they seemed to move through 
the forest more quickly than before. The hard leather bow case 
bumped Faile's side as she swayed, and she began to feel 
dizzy. Rolan's every long stride sent a jolt through her 
middle. Surreptitiously, she tried to find some position where 
she would not be poked and thudded quite so vigorously. 


"Be still, or you will fall," Rolan muttered, patting her 
hip as he might have patted a horse to soothe it. 


Raising her head, Faile peered back at Alliandre, scowling. 
There was not much to be seen of the Queen of Ghealdan, and 
that crisscrossed by scarlet welts from the tops of her hips 
almost to the backs of her knees. Come to think of it, a short 
delay and a few stripes might be a small price to pay for 
biting a chunk out of this oaf toting her like a sack of 
grain. Not his hand, though. His throat would be about right. 


Bold thoughts, and worse than useless. Foolish. Even being 
carried, she knew she must fight the cold. In some ways, she 
began to realize, being carried was worse. Walking, at least 
she had had the struggle to stay erect and on her feet to keep 
her awake, but as evening came on and deepened to darkness, 
the swaying motion on Rolan's shoulder seemed to have a 
lulling effect. No. It was the cold that was numbing her mind. 
Making her blood sluggish. She had to fight it, or she would 
die. 


Rhythmically she worked her hands and bound arms, tensed her 
legs and relaxed them, tensed and relaxed, forcing her muscles 
to work her blood. She thought of Perrin, solid planning 
thoughts of what he should do about Masema, and how she could 
convince him if he balked. She went over the argument they 
would have when he learned she been using Cha Faile as spies, 
planned how she would meet his anger and turn it. There was an 
art to guiding a husband's anger in the direction you wanted, 
and she had learned from an expert, her mother. It would be a 
splendid argument. And a splendid making-up, after. 


Thinking about making up with him made her forget to work 
her muscles, so she tried to concentrate on the argument, on 
the planning. Cold dulled her thoughts, though. She began 
losing the thread, having to shake her head and start over. 
Rolan's growls at her to be still helped, a voice to focus on, 
to keep her awake. Even the accompanying slaps on her upturned 
bottom helped, as much as she hated to admit the fact, each 
one a shock that jolted her to wakefulness. After a while, she 
began shifting more, then struggling almost to the point of 



falling, courting the rude smacks. Anything to stay awake. She 
could not have said how much time passed, but her twists and 
wriggles began to weaken, until Rolan no longer growled, much 
less gave her a slap. Light, she wanted the man to play her 
like a drum! 


Why in the Light would I want a thing like that? she thought 
dully, and a dim corner of her mind realized the battle was 
lost. The night seemed darker than it should be. She could not 
even make out the glow of moonlight on the snow. She could 
feel herself sliding, though, sliding faster and faster toward 
a deeper dark. Wailing silently, she sank into a stupor. 


Dreams came. She was sitting on Perrin's lap with his arms 
so tight around her she could barely move, before a great fire 
roaring in a broad stone fireplace. His curly beard scratched 
her cheeks as he nipped her ears almost painfully. Suddenly a 
huge wind howled through the room, snuffing the fire like a 
candle. And Perrin turned to smoke that vanished in the gale. 
Alone in bitter darkness, she fought the wind, but it tumbled 
her end over end until she was so dizzy she could not tell up 
from down. Alone and endlessly tumbling into icy dark, knowing 
she would never find him again. 


She ran across a frozen land, floundering from snowdrift to 
snowdrift, falling, scrambling up to run on in panic, gulping 
air so cold it sliced her throat like shards of glass. Icicles 
sparkled on stark branches around her, and a frigid wind 
keened through the leafless forest. Perrin was very angry, and 
she had to get away. 


Somehow, she could not recall the specifics of the argument, 
just that somehow she had pushed her beautiful wolf to real 
anger, to the point of throwing things. Only, Perrin did not 
throw things. He was going to turn her over his knee, as he 
had done once, long ago. Why was she running from that, 
though? There would still be the making-up. And she would make 
him pay for the humiliation, of course. Anyway, she had drawn 
a little blood from him a time or two with a well-aimed bowl 
or pitcher, not really meaning to, and she knew he would never 


really hurt her. But she also knew that she had to run, to 
keep moving, or she would die. 
If he catches me, she thought dryly, at least part of me 

will be warm. And she began to laugh at that, until the dead 
white land spun around her, and she knew that soon she would 
be dead, too. 


The monstrous bonfire loomed over her, a towering pile of 
thick logs roaring with flame. She was naked. And cold, so 
cold. No matter how near the fire she edged, her bones felt 
frozen, her flesh ready to shatter at a blow. She moved 
closer, closer. The heat of the blaze grew till she flinched 
at it, but the bitter cold remained trapped inside her skin. 
Closer. Oh, Light, it was hot, too hot! And still cold within. 
Closer. She began to scream at the burning, the searing pain, 
but she was still ice inside. Closer. Closer. She was going to 
die. She shrieked, but there was only silence, and the cold. 


It was daylight, but leaden clouds filled the sky. Snow fell 
in a steady shower, feathery flakes swirling in the wind 
through the trees. Not a fierce wind, but it licked with 
tongues of ice. Ridges of white built on branches until they 
were tall enough to collapse from their own weight and the 



wind, sending heavier showers to the ground below. Hunger 
gnawed her belly with dull teeth. A very tall, bony man with a 
white woolen cowl sheltering his face forced something into 
her mouth, the rim of a large clay mug. His eyes were a 
startling green, like emeralds, and surrounded by puckered 
scars. He was kneeling on a large brown woolen blanket with 
her, and another blanket, striped in gray, was draped around 
her nakedness. The taste of hot tea thick with honey exploded 
on her tongue, and she seized the man's sinewy wrist weakly 
with both hands in case he tried to take the mug away. Her 
teeth chattered against the mug, but she gulped the steaming 
syrupy liquid greedily. 


"Not too fast; you must not spill any," the green-eyed man 
said meekly. Meekness sounded odd from that fierce face, and 
in a gravelly voice. "They offended your honor. But you are a 
wetlander, so maybe it does not count with you." 


Slowly it dawned on her that this was no dream. Thought came 
in a trickle of shadows that melted if she tried to hold them 
too hard. The white-robed brute was gai'shain. Her leash and 
bonds were gone. He pulled his wrist away from her feeble 
grip, but only to pour a dark stream from a leather water bag 
hanging from his shoulder. Steam rose from the mug, and the 
aroma of tea. 


Shivering so hard she almost fell over, she clutched the 
thick striped blanket around her. Fiery pain was blossoming in 
her feet. She could not have stood had she tried. Not that she 
wanted to. The blanket managed to cover everything but her 
feet so long as she remained in a crouch; standing would have 
bared her legs and maybe more. It was warmth she thought of, 
not decency, though there was little of either to be had. 
Hunger's teeth grew sharp, and she could not stop shaking. She 
was frozen inside, the tea's heat already just a memory. Her 
muscles were week-old congealed pudding. She wanted to stare 
at the filling mug, coveting the contents, but she made 
herself look for her companions. 


They were all there in a line with her, Maighdin and 
Alliandre and everyone, slumped on their knees atop blankets, 
shivering inside blankets speckled with snow. In front of each 
a gai'shain knelt with a bulging water bag and a mug or cup, 
and even Bain and Chiad drank like women half-dead of thirst. 
Someone had cleaned the blood from Bain's face, but unlike the 
last time Faile had seen them, the two Maidens were as drawn 
and unsteady as anyone else. From Alliandre to Lacile, her 
companions looked- what was Perrin's phrase? -as if they had 
been dragged through a knothole backward. But everyone was 
still alive; that was the important thing. Only the living 
could escape. 


Rolan and the other algai’'d’'siswai who had had charge of 
them made a cluster at the far end of the kneeling line. Five 
men and three women, the snow on the ground nearly knee-deep 
on the Maidens. Black veils hanging down their chests, they 
watched their prisoners and the gai'shain impassively. For a 
moment, she frowned at them, trying to grasp a slippery 
thought. Yes; of course. Where were the others? Escape would 
be easier if the rest had gone for some reason. There was 
something more, another misty question she could not quite 
catch. 



 Suddenly what lay beyond the eight Aiel leaped out at her, 
and question and answer came at the same time. Where had the 
gai'shain come from? A hundred paces or so distant, veiled by 
the scattered trees and falling snow, a steady stream of 
people and pack animals, wagons and carts, was flowing by. Not 
a stream. A flood of Aiel on the move. Instead of a hundred 
and fifty Shaido, she had the whole clan to contend with. It 
seemed impossible that so many people could pass within a day 
or two of Abila without raising some alarm, even with the 
countryside in anarchy, but the proof was right in front other 


eyes. Inside, she felt leaden. Maybe escape would be no 
harder, but she did not believe it. 
"How did they offend me?" she asked jerkily, then clamped 

her mouth shut to stop chattering. And opened it again as the 
gai'shain raised the mug to her once more. She gulped the pre 
cious heat, choking, and forced herself to swallow more 
slowly. The honey, so thick it would have been cloying any 
other time, dulled her hunger a little. 


"You wetlanders know nothing," the scarred man said 
dismissively. "Gai'shain are not clothed in any way until they 
can be given proper robes. But they feared you would freeze to 
death, and all they had to wrap you was their coats. You were 
shamed, named as weak, if wetlanders have shame. Rolan and 
many of the others are Mera'din, yet Efalin and the rest 
should know better. Efalin should not have allowed it." 


Shamed? Infuriated was more like it. Unwilling to turn her 
head from the blessed mug, she rolled her eyes toward the hulk 
ing giant who had carried her like a sack of grain and smacked 
her unmercifully. Vaguely she seemed to recall welcoming those 
spanks, but that was impossible. Of course it was impossible! 
Rolan did not look like a man who had half-trotted through 
most of a day and a night besides, carrying someone. His white-
misted breath came easily. Mera'din? She thought that would 
mean Brotherless in the Old Tongue, which told her nothing, 
but there had been a note of scorn in the gai'shain s voice. 
She would have to ask Bain and Chiad, and hope it was not one 
of those things Aiel would not talk about to wetlanders, not 
even wetlanders who were close friends. Any piece of knowledge 
might aid escape. 


So they had wrapped their prisoners up against the cold, had 
they? Well, no one would have been in any danger of freezing 
except for Rolan and the others. Still, she might owe him a 
small favor. Very small, considering everything. Perhaps she 
would only slice off his ears. If she ever got the chance, 
surrounded by thousands of Shaido. Thousands? The Shaido 
numbered in the hundreds of thousands, and tens of thousands 
of those were algai'd'siswai. Furious with herself, she fought 
despair. She would escape; they would all escape, and she 
would take the man's ears with her! 


"I will see Rolan's repaid as he deserves," she muttered 
when the gai'shain took the mug away for refilling again. He 
gave her a narrow-eyed suspicious stare, and she hurried. "As 
you say, I am a wetlander. Most of us are. We don't follow 
ji'e'toh. By your customs, we shouldn't be made gai'shain at 
all, is that not right?" The man's scarred face did not 
change, not by so much as the twitch of an eyelid. A dim 
thought said it was too soon, she did not know the ground yet, 



but thoughts gelid with cold could not catch her tongue. "What 
if the Shaido decide to break other customs? They might decide 
not to let you go when your time is done." 


"The Shaido break many customs," he told her placidly, "but 
I do not. I have over half a year yet to wear white. Until 
then, I will serve as custom demands. If you can talk so much, 
maybe you have had enough tea?" 


Faile clumsily snatched the mug from him. His eyebrows 
lifted, and she rearranged her draperies one-handed as quickly 
as she could manage, her cheeks heating. He certainly knew he 
was looking at a woman. Light, she was blundering about like a 
blind ox! She had to think, to concentrate. Her brain was the 
only weapon she had. And at the moment, it might as well have 
been frozen cheese. Drinking deep of the hot sweet tea, she 
set herself to thinking of some way that being surrounded by 
thousands of Shaido could be turned to advantage. Nothing came 
to her, though. Nothing at all. 


Chapter 4: Offers 


What have we here?" a woman's hard voice said. Faile looked 
up, and stared, hot tea gone from her thoughts for the moment. 


Two Aiel women with a much shorter gai'shain woman between 
them came out of the swirling snow, sinking halfway up their 
calves in the white carpet that covered the ground but still 
managing powerful strides. The taller women did, anyway; the 
gai'shain stumbled and floundered trying to keep up, and one 
of the others had a hand on her shoulder to make sure she did. 
All three were worth a stare. The woman in white kept her head 
meekly down as much as she could and her hands folded in her 
wide sleeves as a gai'shain was supposed to, but her robes had 
the sheen of heavy silk, of all things. Gai'shain were 
forbidden jewelry, yet a wide, elaborate belt of gold and 
firedrops cinched her waist and a matching collar was just 
visible inside her cowl, nearly covering her neck. Very few 
besides royalty could afford the like. Strange as the 
gai'shain was, however, it was the others Faile studied. 
Something told her they were Wise Ones. There was too much 
authority about them for anything else; these were women used 
to giving orders and being obeyed. Beyond that, though, their 
simple presence caught the eye. The woman pushing the 
gai'shain along, a stern blue-eyed eagle with a dark gray 
shawl wrapped around her head, stood a good span in height, as 
much as most Aielmen, while the other was at least half a hand 
taller than Perrin! She was not bulky, though, except in one 
particular. Sandy yellow hair flowed to her waist, held back 
from her face by a wide dark kerchief, and her brown shawl lay 
across her shoulders, open enough to show an incredible amount 
of bosom thrusting half out of her pale blouse. How did she 
avoid freezing, exposing so much skin in this weather? All 
those heavy necklaces of ivory and gold must feel like bands 
of ice! 


As they stopped in front of the kneeling prisoners, the 
eagle-faced woman frowned disapprovingly at the Shaido who had 
captured them, and made a curt gesture of dismissal with her 
free hand. For some reason, she continued to hold on to the 
gai'shain's shoulder tightly. The three Maidens turned 



immediately, hurrying toward the passing throng of Shaido. One 
of the men did, as well, but Rolan and the rest exchanged flat-
eyed looks before they followed. Perhaps it meant something, 
perhaps nothing. Faile suddenly knew how someone in a 
whirlpool felt, grabbing desperately at straws. 


"What we have is more gai'shain for Sevanna," the incredibly 
tall woman said in amused tones. She had a strong face that 
some might call pretty, but alongside the other Wise One, she 
seemed soft. "Sevanna will not be satisfied until the entire 
world is gai'shain, Therava. Not that I would object to that 
myself," she finished with a laugh. 


The eagle-eyed Wise One did not laugh. Her face was stone. 
Her voice was stone. "Sevanna has too many gai'shain already, 


Someryn. We have too many gai'shain. They slow us to a crawl 
when we should race." Her iron stare ran along the kneeling 
line. 

Faile flinched when that gaze touched her, and hurriedly bur 
ied her face in the mug. She had never seen Therava before, 
but in that glance she knew the woman's sort, eager to crush 
any challenge utterly and capable of seeing challenge in a 
casual glance. Bad enough when it was only a fool noble at 
court, îr someone encountered on the road, but escape could 
become more than difficult if this eagle took a personal 
interest. Just the same, she watched the woman from the corner 
of her eye. It felt like watching a banded adder, scales 
glittering in the sun, coiled a foot from her face. 


Meek, she thought. I am kneeling here meekly, with no 
thought in my head but drinking my tea. No need to look at me 
twice, you cold-eyed witch. She hoped the others saw what she 
did. 


Alliandre did not. She tried to rise to her swollen feet, 
tottered, then sank back to her knees with a wince. Even so, 
she knelt upright in the falling snow, head high, a red-
striped blanket held around her as if it were a fine silk 
shawl over a splendid gown. Bared legs and windblown hair 
spoiled the effect somewhat, yet she was still arrogance on a 
pedestal. 


"I am Alliandre Maritha Kigarin, Queen of Ghealdan," she 
announced loudly, very much queen addressing ruffian 
vagabonds. "You would be wise to treat me and my companions 
well, and punish those who have handled us so crudely. You can 
gain a large ransom for us, larger than you can imagine, and 
pardon for your crimes. My liege lady and I will require 
suitable accommodation for ourselves until arrangements can be 
made, and for her maid. Lesser will do for the others, so long 
as they are not harmed. I will pay no ransom if you ill-treat 
the least of my liege lady's servants." 


Faile could have groaned-did the idiot woman think these 
people were simple bandits?-only she had no time to. 


"Is that true, Galina? Is she a wetlander queen?" Another 
woman rode out from behind the prisoners, her tall black 
gelding walking softly in the snow. Faile thought she must be 
Aiel, but she was unsure. It was difficult to say for certain 
with the other woman on horseback, but she seemed at least as 
tall as Faile herself, and few women were except among the 
Aiel, certainly not with those green eyes in a sun-dark face. 
And yet . . . That wide, dark skirt looked like the Aiel 



women's at a glance, but it was divided for riding and 
appeared to be silk, as was her creamy blouse, and the hem 
revealed red boots in her stirrups. The wide folded kerchief 
that held back her long golden hair was brocaded red silk, and 
a thumb-thick circlet of gold and firedrops nestled over it. 
In contrast to the Wise Ones' worked gold and carved ivory, 
her ropes of fat pearls and necklaces of emeralds and sap 
phires and rubies half hid nearly as much bosom as Someryn had 
on display. The bracelets climbing almost to her elbows 
differed from those worn by the two Wise Ones in the same way, 
and Aiel did not wear rings, but gems sparkled on every 
finger. Instead of a dark shawl, a bright crimson cloak, 
bordered with golden embroidery and lined with white fur, 
flared around her in the stiff breeze. She did sit her saddle 
with the awkwardness of Aiel on horseback, though. "And a 
queen's," her tongue tripped unfamiliarly, "liege lady? That 
means the Queen swore oath to her? A truly powerful woman, 
then. Answer me, Galina!" 


The silk-clad gai'shain hunched her shoulders and favored 
the mounted woman with a groveling smile. "A truly powerful 
woman, to have a queen swear fealty, Sevanna," she said 
eagerly. "I've never heard of the like. Yet I think she is who 
she claims. I saw Alliandre once, years ago, and the girl I 
recall could well have grown into this woman. And she was 
crowned Queen of Gheal-dan. What she is doing in Amadicia, I 
don't know. The White-cloaks or Roedran either one would snap 
her up in an instant if they-" 


"Enough, Una," Therava said firmly. The hand on Galina's 
shoulder tightened visibly. "You know I hate it when you 
natter." 


The gai'shain flinched as if struck, and her mouth snapped 
shut. Practically writhing, she smiled up at Therava, fawning 
even more wretchedly than she had for Sevanna. Gold flashed on 
one of her fingers as she wrung her hands. Fear flashed in her 
eyes, too. Dark eyes. Definitely not Aiel. Therava seemed 
oblivious to the woman's truckling; a dog had been called to 
heel and had obeyed. Her attention was all on Sevanna. Someryn 
eyed the gai'shain sideways, her lips twisting with contempt, 
but she folded her shawl across her bosom and looked to 
Sevanna as well. Aiel did not give away much on their faces, 
yet plainly she disliked Sevanna, and was wary of her at the 
same time. 


Faile's eyes followed the mounted woman, too, over the edge 
other mug. In a way, it was like seeing Logain, or Mazrim 
Taim. Sevanna also had painted her name across the sky in 
blood and fire. Cairhien would need years to recover from what 
she had wrought there, and the ripples had spread to Andor and 
Tear and beyond. Perrin laid the blame to a man called 
Couladin, but Faile had heard enough of this woman to have a 
shrewd idea whose hand had been behind it all. And no one 
disputed that the slaughter at Dumai's Wells was Sevanna's 
fault. Perrin had almost died there. She had a personal claim 
on Sevanna for that. She might be willing to let Rolan keep 
his ears if she could settle that claim. 


The flamboyantly garbed woman walked her mount slowly along 
the line of kneeling women, her steady green eyes almost as 
cold as Therava's. The sound of snow crunching beneath the 



black's hooves suddenly seemed loud. "Which of you is the 
maid?" An odd question. Maighdin hesitated, tight-jawed, 
before raising a hand from beneath her blanket. Sevanna nodded 
thoughtfully. "And the . . . liege lady?" 


Faile considered holding back, but one way or another, Sev 
anna would learn what she wanted to know. Reluctantly, she 
lifted her hand. And shivered from more than the cold. Therava 
was watching with those cruel eyes, paying close attention. To 
Sevanna, and to those she marked out. 


How anyone could be unaware of that angering gaze, Faile did 
not understand, yet Sevanna seemed so as she turned her 
gelding down the back of the line. "They cannot walk on those 
feet," she said after a moment. "I do not see why they should 
ride with the children. Heal them, Galina." 


Faile gave a start and almost dropped the clay mug. She 
pushed it toward the gai'shain, trying to make out that that 
was what she had been doing all along. It was empty anyway. 
The scarred fellow calmly began filling it up again from his 
water bag of tea. Heal? Surely she could not mean . . . 


"Very well," Therava said, giving the gai'shain woman a 
shove that staggered her. "Do it quickly, little Lina. I know 
you do not want to disappoint me." 


Galina caught herself from falling, but only to struggle on 
toward the prisoners. She sank above her knees in places, her 
robes dragging in the snow, but she was intent on reaching her 
goal. Wide-eyed fear and revulsion mingled on her round face 
with . . . could it be, eagerness? All in all, it was a 
sickening combination. 


Sevanna completed her circuit, coming back to where Faile 
could see her clearly, and reined in facing the Wise Ones. The 
woman's full mouth was tight. The icy breeze rippled her 
cloak, but she seemed unaware of it, or of the snow falling on 
her head. "I have just received word, Therava." Her voice was 
calm, though lightning bolts should have been Hashing from her 
eyes. "Tonight we camp with the Jonine." 


"A fifth sept," Therava replied flatly. For her, also, wind 
and snow might as well not have existed. "Five, while seventy-
eight remain scattered on the wind. Well that you remember 
your pledge to reunite the Shaido, Sevanna. We will not wait 
forever." 


Not lightning bolts, now. Sevanna's eyes were green 
volcanoes erupting. "I always do what I say, Therava. Well 
that you remember that. And remember that you advise me. / 
speak for the clan chief-Wheeling her gelding, she drummed her 
heels on the animal's ribs, trying to make him gallop back 
toward the river of people and wagons, though no horse could 
do so in that depth of snow. The black managed something 
faster than a walk, but not much. Their faces expressionless 
as masks, Therava and Someryn watched horse and rider fade 
into the falling white veil. 


An important exchange, at least to Faile. She knew tension 
tight as a harpstring when she saw it, and mutual hatred. A 
weakness that might be exploited, if she could puzzle out how. 
And it seemed the Shaido were not all here after all. Though 
more than enough seemed to be, judging by the unending river 
of them passing by. Galina reached her then, and anything else 
fled from her mind. 



 Smoothing her face to a ragged semblance of composure, Gal 
ina clutched Faile's head in both hands without speaking a 
word. Faile might have gasped; she could not be sure. The 
world seemed to fly by as she jerked halfway to her feet. 
Hours streaked by, or heartbeats crawled. The white-clad woman 
stepped back, and Faile collapsed on her face atop the brown 
blanket to lie panting against the rough wool. Her feet no 
longer hurt, but Healing always brought its own hunger, and 
she had eaten nothing since yesterday's breakfast. She could 
have wolfed down plates of anything that even looked like 
food. She no longer felt tired, but her muscles were water 
instead of pudding. Pushing herself up with arms that wanted 
to fold under her weight, she unsteadily gathered the gray-
striped blanket again. She felt stunned as much by what she 
had seen on Galina's hand just before Galina seized her as she 
did by the Healing. Gratefully she let the scarred man hold 
the steaming mug to her mouth. She was not sure her fingers 
could have held on to it. 


Galina was wasting no time. A dazed Alliandre was just at 
tempting to rise from flat on her face, her striped covering 
blanket sliding to the ground unnoticed. Her welts were gone, 
of course. Maighdin still lay sprawled between her two 
blankets, loose limbs poking out in every direction and 
twitching as she feebly tried to collect herself. Chiad, with 
Galina's hands on her head, lurched all the way to her feet, 
arms flung wide, breath leaving her in a loud rush. The 
yellowed swelling on her face faded away even as Faile 
watched. The Maiden dropped as if poleaxed when Galina moved 
on to Bain, though she began stirring almost at once. 


Faile attended to her tea, and furious thought. The gold on 
Galina's finger was a Great Serpent ring. She might have 
thought it a strange present from whoever gave the woman her 
other jewels if not for the Healing. Galina was Aes Sedai. She 
must be. But what was an Aes Sedai doing here, in gai'shain 
robes? Not to mention apparently ready to lick Sevanna's wrist 
and kiss Thera-va's feet! An Aes Sedai! 


Standing over a limp Arrela, the last in the line, Galina 
panted slightly from the effort of Healing so many so quickly, 
and gazed at Therava as though hopeful for a word of praise. 
Without so much as a look at her, the two Wise Ones started 
toward the river of Shaido, their heads together, talking. 
After a moment, the Aes Sedai scowled and lifted her robes, 
hurrying after them as quickly as she could. She glanced back 
more than once, though. Faile had the feeling that she did so 
even after the falling snow put a curtain between them. 


More gai'shain came the other way, a dozen men and women, 
and only one was Aiel, a lanky redhead with a thin white scar 
from hairline to jaw. Faile recognized short, pallid 
Cairhienin, and others she thought might be Amadician or 
Altaran, taller and darker, and even a bronze-skinned Domani. 
The Domani and one of the other women wore wide belts of shiny 
golden chain tight around their waists, and collars of the Hat 
links around their necks. So did one of the men! In any case, 
jewelry on gai'shain seemed unimportant except as an oddity, 
especially alongside the food and clothing they brought. 


Some of the newcomers carried baskets with loaves of bread 
and yellow cheese and dried beef, and the gai'shain already 



there with their water bags of tea provided drink to wash it 
down. Faile was not alone in stuffing her mouth with unseemly 
haste even while she dressed, clumsily and with more mind to 

speed than modesty. The hooded white robe and two thick under-
robes seemed wondrously warm, just to keep the air off, and so 
were heavy woolen stockings and soft Aiel boots that laced to 
her knees-even the boots had been bleached white!-but they did 
not fill up the hole in her middle. The meat was tough as boot 
leather, the cheese nearly rock hard and the bread not much 
softer, yet they tasted like a feast! Her mouth watered for 
every bite. 


Chewing a mouthful of cheese, she knotted the last bootlace 
and stood, smoothing down her robes. As she reached for some 
more bread, one of the women wearing gold, plump and plain and 
weary-eyed, took another belt of golden chain out of a cloth 
sack hanging from her shoulder. Hastily swallowing, Faile 
stepped back. "I would rather not have that, thank you." She 
had a sinking feeling she had been wrong to dismiss the 
adornments as unimportant. 


"What you want does not matter," the plump woman replied 
tiredly. Her accent was Amadician, and cultured. "You serve 
the Lady Sevanna, now. You will wear what you are given and do 
as you are told, or you will be punished until you see the 
error of your ways." 


A few paces away, Maighdin was fending off the Domani, 
resisting being fitted with a collar. Alliandre was backing 
away from the man who wore golden chains, her hands raised and 
a sickly expression on her face. He held out one of the belts 
toward her. Thankfully, they were both looking to Faile, 
though. Perhaps that switching in the forest had done some 
good. 


Exhaling heavily, Faile nodded to them, then allowed the 
plump gai'shain to fasten the wide belt around her. With her 
example, the other two let their hands fall. It seemed one 
blow too many for Alliandre, who stood staring at nothing as 
she was belted and collared. Maighdin did her best to glare a 
hole through the slim Domani. Faile tried smiling 
encouragement, but smiling was difficult. To her, the collar's 
catch snapping shut sounded like a prison door being locked. 
Belt and collar could be removed as easily as they had been 
put on, but gai'shain serving "the Lady Sevanna" surely would 
be watched very closely. Disaster was piling on disaster. 
Things had to get better from here on. They had to. 


Soon, Faile found herself tramping though the snow on wobbly 
legs with a stumbling, dull-eyed Alliandre and a scowling 
Maighdin, surrounded by gai'shain leading pack animals, 
carrying large covered baskets on their backs, dragging loaded 
barrows with the wheels lashed to wooden sleds. The carts and 
wagons had sleds or broad runners, too, with the wheels tied 
on top of the snow-shrouded cargo. Snow might be unfamiliar to 
the Shaido, but they had learned something of traveling in it. 
Neither Faile nor the other two bore any burdens, though the 
plump Amadician woman made clear that they would be expected 
to carry or haul tomorrow and from then on. However many 
Shaido were in the column, it seemed a great city on the move, 
if not a nation. Children up to twelve or thirteen rode on the 
carts and wagons, but everyone else walked. All of the men 



wore the cadin'sor, but most women wore skirts and blouses and 
shawls like the Wise Ones, and most of the men carried only a 
single spear or no weapon at all and looked softer than the 
others. Soft meaning that there were stones softer than 
granite. 


By the time the Amadician left, without giving her name or 
saying much more than obey or be punished, Faile realized that 
she had lost sight of Bain and the rest somewhere in the 
falling snow. No one tried to make her keep a particular 
place, so she tramped wearily back and forth across the 
column, accompanied by Alliandre and Maighdin. Keeping her 
hands folded together in her sleeves made walking difficult, 
especially wading through snow, but it did keep them warm. 
Warmer than the alternative, at least. The wind made sure they 
kept their hoods well up. Despite the identifying golden 
belts, neither gai'shain nor Shaido looked at them twice. 
Despite crossing the column a dozen times or more, however, 
the search proved fruitless. There were people in white robes 
everywhere, more than without, and any of those deep cowls 
could have hidden her other companions. 


"We will have to find them tonight," Maighdin said finally. 
She actually managed to stalk through the deep snow, if in an 
ungainly fashion. Her blue eyes were fierce inside the cavern 
of her hood, and she gripped the broad golden chain around her 
neck with one hand as if wanting to rip it off. "As it is, 
we're taking ten steps to one for everyone else. Twenty for 
one. It will do us little good to arrive at tonight's camp too 
exhausted to move." 


On Faile's other side, Alliandre roused from her numbness 
enough to raise an eyebrow at the decisiveness in Maighdin's 
voice. Faile merely looked at her maid, but that was enough to 
set Maighdin blushing and stammering. What had gotten into the 
woman? Still, it might not be what she expected from a serving 
woman, but she could not fault Maighdin's spirit in a com 
panion for escape. A pity the woman could not channel more. 
Faile had had great hopes of that once, until she learned that 
Maighdin possessed so little ability it was useless. 


"Tonight it must be, Maighdin," she agreed. Or however many 
nights it took. She did not mention that. Hurriedly she 
surveyed the people nearest them to make sure no one was close 
enough to overhear. The Shaido, whether in cadin'sor or not, 
moved through the falling snow purposefully, pressing forward 
toward an unseen goal. The gai'shain-the other gai'shain- 
moved with a different purpose. Obey or be punished. "The way 
they ignore us," she went on, "it should be possible to just 
fall by the wayside, so long as you don't try under a Shaido's 
nose. If either of you finds a chance, take it. These robes 
will help you hide in the snow, and once you find a village, 
the gold they've so graciously given us will see you back to 
my husband. He will be following." Not too quickly, she hoped. 
Not too closely, at least. The Shaido had an army here. A 
small army, perhaps, compared to some, but larger than 
Perrin's. 


Alliandre's face hardened in determination. "I will not 
leave without you," she said softly. Softly, yet in firm 
tones. "I will not take my oath of fealty lightly, my Lady. I 
will escape with you, or not at all!" 



 "She speaks for both of us," Maighdin said. "I may be only a 
simple maid," she wrung the word with scorn, "but I won't 
leave anyone behind to these . . . these bandits!" Her voice 
was not simply firm; it brooked no opposition. Really, after 
this, Lini would have to have a very long talk with her before 
she was fit to hold her position! 


Faile opened her mouth to argue-no, to command; Alliandre 
was her sworn woman, and Maighdin her maid, however fire-
brained captivity had made her! They would follow her orders!- 
but she let the words die on her tongue. 


Dark shapes approaching through the tide of Shaido and the 
falling snow resolved into a cluster of Aielwomen with their 
shawls framing their faces. Therava led them. A murmured word 
from her, and the others slowed to keep pace behind while Ther 
ava joined Faile and her companions. That was to say, she 
walked alongside them. Her fierce eyes seemed to chill even 
Maighdin's enthusiasm, not that she gave them more than a 
glance. To her, they were not worth looking at. 


"You are thinking of escape," she began. No one else opened 
her mouth, but the Wise One added, "Do not try denying it!" in 
a scornful voice. 


"We will try to serve as we should, Wise One," Faile said 
carefully. She kept her head down in her cowl and made sure 
not to meet the taller woman's eyes. 


"You know something of our ways." Therava sounded surprised, 
but it vanished quickly. "Good. But you take me for a fool if 
you think I believe you will serve meekly. I see spirit in the 
three of you, for wetlanders. Some never try to escape, but 
only the dead succeed. The living are always brought back. 
Always." 


"I will heed your words, Wise One," Faile said humbly. Al 
ways? Well, there had to be a first time. "We all will." 


"Oh, very good," Therava murmured. "You might even convince 
someone as blind as Sevanna. Know this, however, gai'shain. 
Wetlanders are not as others who wear white. Rather than being 
released at the end of a year and a day, you will serve until 
you are too bent and withered to work. I am your only hope of 
avoiding that fate." 


Faile stumbled in the snow, and if Alliandre and Maighdin 
had not caught her windmilling arms, she would have fallen. 
Therava gestured impatiently for them to keep moving. Faile 
felt sick. Therava would help them escape? Chiad and Bain 
claimed the Aiel knew nothing of the Game of Houses and 
scorned wetlanders for playing it, but Faile recognized the 
currents swirling around her now. Currents that would pull all 
of them under if she misstepped. 


"I do not understand, Wise One." She wished her voice did 
not sound so hoarse, suddenly. 


Perhaps that very hoarseness convinced Therava, though. 
People like her believed in fear as a motivation before any 
other. At any rate, she smiled. It was not a warm smile, just 
a curving of thin lips, and the only emotion it conveyed was 
satisfaction. "All three of you will watch and listen while 
you serve Sevanna. Each day a Wise One will question you, and 
you will repeat every word Sevanna said, and who she spoke to. 
If she talks in her sleep, you will repeat what she mumbles. 
Please me, and I will see that you are left behind." 



 Faile wanted no part of this, but refusal was out of the 
question. If she refused, none of them would survive the 
night. She was certain of that. Therava would take no chances. 
They might not even survive until nightfall; this snow would 
hide three white-clad corpses quickly, and she very much 
doubted that anyone within sight would so much as protest if 
Therava decided to slit a few throats then and there. Everyone 
was focused on moving forward through the snow in any case. 
They might not even see. 


"If she learns of it. . . ." Faile swallowed. The woman was 
asking them to walk out on a crumbling cliff. No, she was 
ordering them to. Did the Aiel kill spies? She had never 
thought to ask Chiad or Bain that. "Will you protect us, Wise 
One?" 


The hard-faced woman caught Faile's chin with steely 
fingers, pulling her to a halt, pulling her up on her toes. 
Therava's eyes caught hers just as tightly. Faile's mouth went 
dry. That stare promised pain. "If she learns of it, 
gai'shain, I will trice you up for cooking myself. So make 
sure she does not. Tonight you will serve in her tents. You 
and a hundred others, so you will not have many labors to 
distract you from what is important." 


A moment's careful study of the three of them, and Therava 
gave a satisfied nod. She saw three soft wetlanders, too weak 
to do anything but obey. Without another word she released 
Faile and turned away, and in moments she and the other Wise 
Ones were swallowed by the snow. 


For a time, the three women struggled on in silence. Faile 
did not bring up anyone escaping alone, much less give orders. 
She was certain that if she did, the others would balk again. 
Aside from anything else, complying now would make it seem 
Therava had changed their minds, that fear other had. Faile 
knew enough of the other two women to be sure they would die 
before admitting that the woman frightened them. Therava 
certainly frightened her. And I'd swallow my tongue before 
admitting it aloud, she thought wryly. 


"I wonder what she meant by ... cooking," Alliandre said 
finally. "Whitecloak Questioners sometimes turn prisoners over 
a fire on a spit, I've heard." Maighdin wrapped her arms 
around herself, shuddering, and Alliandre freed a hand from 
her sleeves long enough to pat the other woman's shoulder. "Do 
not worry. IfSevanna has a hundred servants, we may never get 
close enough to hear anything. And we can choose what we 
report, so it cannot be traced back to us." 


Maighdin laughed bitterly inside her white hood. "You think 
we still have small choices. We have none. You need to learn 
about having no choices. That woman didn't pick us out because 
we have spirit." She almost spat the word. "I'll wager every 
one of Sevanna's other servants has had that lecture from 
Therava, too. If we miss a word we should have heard, you can 
be sure she'll know of it." 


"You may be right," Alliandre allowed after a moment. "But 
you will not speak to me again in that fashion, Maighdin. Our 
circumstances are trying, to say the least, but you will 
remember who I am." 


"Until we escape," Maighdin replied, "you are Sevanna's ser 
vant. If you don't think of yourself as a servant every 



minute, then you might as well climb onto that spit. And leave 
room for the rest of us, because you will put us on it, as 
well." 


Alliandre's cowl hid her face, but her back grew stiffer 
with every word. She was intelligent, and knew how to do what 
she must, but she had a queen's temper when she did not 
control it. 


Faile spoke before she could erupt. "Until we manage to get 
away, we are all servants," she said firmly. Light, the last 
thing she needed was the pair of them squabbling. "But you 
will apologize, Maighdin. Now!" Head averted, her serving 
woman mumbled something that might have been an apology. She 
let it pass for one, in any case. "As for you, Alliandre, I 
expect you to be a good servant." Alliandre made a noise, a 
half-protest, that Faile ignored. "If we are to have any 
chance of escape, we must do as we are told, work hard, and 
attract as little attention as possible." As if they had not 
already attracted what seemed all the attention in the world. 
"And we will tell Therava every time Sevanna sneezes. I don't 
know what Sevanna will do if she finds out, but I think we all 
have a good idea of what Therava will do if we displease her." 


That was enough to settle them all back into muteness. They 
did all have a good idea of what Therava would do, and killing 
might not be the worst of it. 


The snow faded away to a few scattered flakes by midday. 
Dark roiling clouds still hid the sun, but Faile decided it 
must be near enough midday, because they were fed. No one 
stopped moving, but hundreds of gai'shain made their way 
through the column with baskets and scrips full of bread and 
dried beef, and water bags that contained water this time, 
cold enough to make her teeth ache. Strangely, she felt no 
more hungry than hours of walking through snow would account 
for. Perrin had been Healed once, she knew, and he had been 
ravenous for two days. Perhaps it was because her injuries had 
been so much less than his. She noticed that Alliandre and 
Maighdin ate no more than she. 


Healing made her think of Galina, all the same questions 
that boiled down to an incredulous why? Why would an Aes 
Sedai- she must be Aes Sedai-why would she toady for Sevanna 
and Therava? For anyone? An Aes Sedai might help them escape. 
Or she might not. She might betray them, if it suited her 
purposes. Aes Sedai did what they did, and you had no 
alternative but to accept that unless you were Rand al'Thor. 
But he was ta'veren, and the Dragon Reborn on top of it; she 
was a woman with very few resources at the moment, and a 
considerable danger hanging over her head. Not to mention the 
heads of those she was responsible for. Any help would be 
welcome, from anyone. The brisk breeze failed while she 
prodded at Galina from every angle she could think of, and the 
snow came again, growing heavier, until she could not see ten 
paces. She could not decide whether to trust the woman. 


Abruptly she became aware of another white-robed woman 
watching her, almost hidden by the snow. Not enough snow to 
mask that wide, jeweled belt, though. Faile touched her compan 
ions on the arm and nodded toward Galina. 


When Galina saw she had been seen, she came to trudge along 
between Faile and Alliandre. She still did not move with any 



grace in the snow, but she seemed more used to walking in it 
than they. There was nothing of fawning about her, now. Her 
round face was hard within her hood, her eyes sharp. But she 
did keep turning her head, darting wary glances to see who 
else was nearby. She looked like a housecat pretending to be a 
leopard. "You know who I am?" she demanded, but in a voice 
that would have been inaudible ten feet off. "What I am?" 


"You seem to be Aes Sedai," Faile said carefully. "On the 
other hand, you have a very peculiar place here for an Aes 
Sedai." Neither Alliandre nor Maighdin gave the slightest 
start of surprise. Plainly they had already seen the Great 
Serpent ring that Galina was thumbing nervously. 


Color bloomed in Galina's cheeks, and she tried to make it 
out as anger. "What I do here is of great importance to the 
Tower, child," she said coldly. Her expression said she had 
reasons they could not begin to comprehend. Her eyes darted, 
trying to pierce the falling snow. "I must not fail. That is 
all you need to know." 


"We need to know whether we can trust you," Alliandre said 
calmly. "You must have trained in the Tower or you would not 
know Healing, but women earn the ring without earning the 
shawl, and I cannot believe you are Aes Sedai." It seemed 
Faile had not been the only one puzzling over the woman. 


Galina's plump mouth hardened, and she clenched a fist at 
Alliandre, to threaten or show her ring, or both. "You think 
they will treat you differently because you wear a crown? 
Because you used to wear one?" There was no doubt of her 
anger, now. She forgot to keep lockout for listeners, and her 
voice was acid. Spittle flew with the force of her tirade. 
"You will bring Sevanna wine and wash her back just like the 
rest. Her servants are all nobles, or rich merchants, or men 
and women who know how to serve nobles. Every day she has five 
of them scrapped, to encourage the rest, so they all carry 
tales to her hoping to curry favor. The first time you try to 
escape, they will switch the soles of your feet until you 
cannot walk, and tie you twisted up like a blacksmith's puzzle 
to carry on a cart until you can. The second time will be 
worse, and the third worse again. There is a fellow here who 
used to be a Whitecloak. He tried to escape nine times. A hard 
man, but the last time they brought him back, he was begging 


and crying before they even began stripping him for 
punishment." 
Alliandre did not take the harangue well. She puffed up 

indignantly, and Maighdin growled, "Was that what happened to 
you? Whether Aes Sedai or Accepted, you are a disgrace to the 
Tower!" 


"Be silent when your betters speak, wilder!" Galina snapped. 


Light, if this went any further, they would be screaming at 
one another next. "If you mean to help us escape, then say 
so," Faile told the silk-clad Aes Sedai. She did not really 
doubt that about the woman. Just everything else. "If not, 
what do you want with us?" 


Ahead of them a wagon loomed out of the snow, leaning where 
one of the sleds had come loose. Directed by a Shaido with the 
arms and shoulders of a blacksmith, gai'shain were rigging a 
lever to hoist the wagon enough for the sled to be lashed back 
in place. Faile and the others kept silent as they passed. 



 "Is this really your liege lady, Alliandre?" Galina demanded 
once they were out of earshot of the men around the wagon. Her 
face was still flushed with anger, her tone slicing. "Who is 
she that you would swear to her?" 


"You can ask me," Faile said coldly. Burn Aes Sedai and 
their bloody secrecy! Sometimes she thought an Aes Sedai would 
not tell you the sky was blue unless she saw advantage in it. 
"I am the Lady Faile t'Aybara, and that's as much as you need 
to know. Do you mean to help us?" 


Galina stumbled to one knee, peering at Faile so hard that 
she began to wonder whether she had made a mistake. A moment 
later, she knew she had. 


Regaining her feet, the Aes Sedai smiled unpleasantly. She 
no longer seemed angry. In fact, she looked as pleased as 
Therava had, and worse, in much the same way. "t'Aybara," she 
mused. "You are Saldaean. There is a young man, Perrin Aybara. 
Your husband? Yes, I see I've hit the target. That would 
explain Allian-dre's oath, certainly. Sevanna has grandiose 
plans for a man whose name is linked to your husband. Rand 
al'Thor. If she knew she had you in her hands . . . Oh, never 
fear she will learn from me." Her gaze hardened, and suddenly 
she seemed a leopard in truth. A starving leopard. "Not if you 
all do as I tell you. I will even help you get away." 


"What do you want of us?" Faile said, more insistently than 
she felt. Light, she had been angry at Alliandre for drawing 
attention to them by naming herself, and now she had done the 
same. Or worse. And I thought I was concealing myself by 
hiding my father's name, she thought bitterly. 


"Nothing too trying," Galina replied. "You marked Therava, 
uf course? Of course, you did. Everyone notices Therava. She 
keeps something in her tent, a smooth white rod about a foot 
long. It is in a red chest with brass banding that is never 
locked. Bring it to me, and I will take you with me when I 
go." 


"A small thing to do, it seems," Alliandre said doubtfully. 
"But if so, why do you not take it yourself?" 


"Because I have you to fetch it for me!" Realizing she had 
shouted, Galina huddled in on herself, and her cowl swung as 
she searched for eavesdroppers among the snow-veiled throng. 
No one seemed to be so much as glancing their way, but her 
voice dropped to a feral hiss. "If you do not, I will leave 
you here until you are gray and wrinkled. And Sevanna will 
hear of Perrin Aybara." 


"It may take time," Faile said desperately. "We won't be 
free to just sneak into Therava's tent whenever we want." 
Light, the last thing in the world she wanted was to go 
anywhere near Therava's tent. But Galina had said she would 
help them. Vile she might be, but Aes Sedai could not lie. 


"You have all the time you need," Galina replied. "The rest 
of your life, Lady Faile t'Aybara, if you are not careful. Do 
not fail me." She gave Faile a last hard stare, then turned to 
labor away into the snow, holding her arms as if trying to 
hide her jeweled belt behind her wide sleeves. 


Faile struggled onward in silence. Neither of her companions 
had anything to say, either. There did not seem to be anything 
to say. Alliandre appeared sunk in thought, hands in her 
sleeves, peering straight ahead as if seeing something beyond 



the blizzard. Maighdin had gone back to gripping her golden 
collar in a tight fist. They were caught in three snares, not 
one, and any of the three might kill. Rescue suddenly seemed 


very attractive. Somehow, though, Faile intended to find her 
way out of this trap. Pulling her hand away from her own 
collar, she fought through the snowstorm, planning. 

Chapter 5: Flags 


Hå ran across the snow-covered plain, nose into the wind, 
hunting for a scent, for that one precious scent. The falling 
snow no longer melted on his chilled fur, but cold could not 
deter him. The pads of his paws were numb, yet his burning 
legs worked furiously, carrying him on, faster and faster, 
till the land blurred in his eyes. He had to find her. 


Suddenly a great grizzled gray wolf, ragged-eared and 
scarred from many fights, settled down out of the sky to race 
the sun beside him. Another great gray wolf, but not so large 
as himself. His teeth would tear the throats of those who had 
taken her. His jaws would crush their bones! 


Your she is not here, Hopper sent to him, but you are here 
too strongly, and too long from your body. You must go back, 
Young Bull, or you will die. 


I must find her. Even his thoughts seemed to pant. He did 
not think of himself as Perrin Aybara. He was Young Bull. 
Once, he had found the falcon here, and he could again. He had 
to find her. Beside that need, death was nothing. 


In a flash of gray the other wolf lunged against his side, 
and though Young Bull was the larger, he was tired, and he 
fell heavily. Scrambling to his feet in the mow, he snarled 
and launched himself at Hopper's throat. Nothing mattered more 
than the falcon, 


The scarred wolf flew into the air like a bird, and Young 
Bull went sprawling. Hopper lighted on the snow behind him. 


Hear me, cub! Hopper thought at him fiercely. "Your mind is 
twisted with fear! She is not here, and you will die if you 
remain longer, find her in the waking world. You can only find 
her there. Go back, and find her! 


Perrin's eyes snapped open. He was bone tired and his middle 
felt hollow, but hunger was a shadow beside the hollowness in 
his chest. He was all hollow, and distanced even from himself, 
as if he were another person watching Perrin Aybara suffer. 
Above him, a blue-and-gold-striped tent roof rippled in the 
wind. The interior of the tent was dim and shadowed, but 
sunlight made the bright canvas glow softly. And yesterday had 
not been a nightmare any more than Hopper was. Light, he had 
tried to kill Hopper. In the Wolf Dream, death was . . . 
final. The air was warm, but he shivered. He was lying on a 
feather mattress, in a large bed with heavy cornerposts 
thickly carved and gilded. Through the scent of charcoal 
burning in the braziers he smelled musky perfume, and the 
woman wearing it. No one else was present. 


Without raising his head from the pillow, he said, "Have 
they found her yet, Berelain?" His head felt too heavy to 
lift. 


One of her camp chairs squeaked faintly as she shifted. He 
had been here before often, with Faile, to discuss plans. The 



tent was big enough to house a family, and Berelain's 
elaborate furnishings would not have looked out of place in a 
palace, all intricate carving and gilt, though everything, 
tables and chairs and the bed itself, was held together with 
pegs. They could be disassembled for storage on a cart, but 
the pegs did not make for true sturdiness. 


Under the perfume, Berelain smelled of surprise that he knew 
she was there, yet her voice was composed. "No. Your scouts 
haven't returned yet, and mine. . . . When they didn't return 
by nightfall, I sent a full company. They found my men dead in 
an ambush, killed before they had gone more than five or six 
miles. 


I ordered Lord Gallenne to keep a tight watch around the 
camps. Arganda has a strong guard mounted, too, but he sent 
patrols out. Against my advice. The man's a fool. He thinks no 
one can find Alliandre but him. I am not sure he believes 
anyone else is really trying. Certainly not the Aiel." 


Perrin's hands tightened on the soft wool blankets covering 
him. Gaul would not be caught by surprise, or Jondyn, not even 
by Aiel. They were still hunting, and that meant Faile was 
alive. They would have been back long since if they had found 
her body. He had to believe that. He lifted one of the blue 
blankets a trifle. Beneath them, he was bare. "Is there an 
explanation for this?" 


Her voice did not change, but caution shimmered in her 
scent. "You and your armsman might have frozen to death if I 
hadn't gone looking for you when Nurelle returned with news of 
my scouts. No one else had the nerve to disturb you; 
apparently you snarled like a wolf at everyone who did. When I 
found you, you were so numb you couldn't hear anyone speak to 
you, and the other man was ready to fall on his face. Your 
woman Lini kept him-all he needed was hot soup and 
blankets-but I had you carried here. You might have lost some 
toes at best without An-noura. She. . . . She seemed afraid 
you might die even after she Healed you. You slept like a man 
already dead. She said you almost felt like someone who had 
lost his soul, cold no matter how many blankets were piled on 
you. I felt it, as well, when I touched you." 


Too much explanation, and not enough. Anger flared, a dis 
tant anger, but he hammered it down. Faile was always jealous 
when he raised his voice to Berelain. The woman would get no 
shouts from him. "Grady or Neald could have done whatever was 
necessary," he said in a flat voice. "Even Seonid and Masuri 
were closer." 


"My own advisor came to mind first. I never thought of the 
others till I was almost back here. Anyway, does it matter who 
did the Healing?" 


So plausible. And if he asked why the First of Mayene 
herself was watching over him in a half-dark tent instead of 
her serving women, or some of her soldiers, or even Annoura, 
she would have another plausible answer. He did not want to 
hear it. 


"Where are my clothes?" he asked, propping himself up on his 
elbows. His voice still had no expression. 


A single candle on a small table beside Berelain's chair 
gave the only real light in the tent, but it was more than 
enough for his eyes, even grainy with tiredness as they were. 



She was garbed demurely enough, in a dark green riding dress 
with a high neck that nestled her chin in a thick ruff of 
lace. Putting demure on Berelain was like putting a sheepskin 
on a ridgecat. Her face was faintly shadowed, beautiful and 
untrustworthy. She would do what she promised, but like an Aes 
Sedai, for her own reasons, and the things she had made no 
promises about could stab you in the back. 


"On the chest over there," she said, gesturing with a 
graceful hand nearly hidden in pale lace. "I had Rosene and 
Nana clean them, but you need rest and food more than 
clothing. And before we get to food, and business, I want you 
to know that no one hopes Faile is alive more than I." Her 
expression was so open and honest, he could have believed her 
had she been anyone else. She even managed to smell honest! 


"I need my clothes now." He twisted around to sit up on the 
side of the bed with the blankets pulled across his legs. The 
clothes he had been wearing lay neatly folded on a banded 
travel chest that was carved and gilded within an inch of its 
life. His fur-lined cloak was draped across one end of the 
chest, and his axe leaned next to his boots on the brightly 
flowered carpets layered for a floor. Light, he was tired. He 
did not know how long he had been in the Wolf Dream, but awake 
there was awake, as far as your body was concerned. His 
stomach rumbled loudly. "And food." 


Berelain made an exasperated sound in her throat and rose, 
smoothing her skirts, her chin lifted high with disapproval. 
"Annoura will not be pleased with you when she comes back from 
talking with the Wise Ones," she said firmly. "You can't just 
ignore Aes Sedai. You are not Rand al'Thor, as they will prove 
to you sooner or later." 


But she left the tent, letting in a swirl of cold air. In 
her displeasure, she did not even bother to take a cloak. 
Through the momentary gap in the entry flaps, he saw that it 
was still snowing. Not as hard as last night, but white flakes 
drizzled down steadily. Even Jondyn would have difficulty 
finding sign after last night. He tried not to think about 
that. 


Four braziers warmed the air in the tent, but ice seeped 
into his feet as soon as they hit the carpets, and he hurried 
to his clothes. Tottered to them, really, though not dallying 
about it. He was so tired he could have lain down on the 
carpets and gone to sleep again. On top of that, he felt weak 
as a newborn lamb. Perhaps the Wolf Dream had something to do 
with that, too- going there as strongly as he had, abandoning 
his body-but Healing likely had exacerbated matters. With 
nothing to eat since yesterday's breakfast and a night spent 
standing in the snow, he had had no reserve to draw on. Now 
his hands fumbled with the simple task of putting on his 
smallclothes. Jondyn would find her. Or Gaul would. Find her 
alive. Nothing else in the world mattered. He felt numb. 


He had not expected Berelain to return herself, but a gust 
of cold entered carrying her perfume while he was still 
drawing on his breeches. Her gaze on his back was like 
stroking fingers, but he made himself go on as if alone. She 
would not have the satisfaction of seeing him hurry because 
she was watching. He did not look at her. 


"Rosene is bringing hot food," she said. "There is only 



mutton stew, I'm afraid, but I told her enough for three men." 
She hesitated, and he heard her slippers shift on the carpets. 
She sighed softly. "Perrin, I know you are hurting. There are 
things you might want to say that you can't to another man. I 
can't see you crying on Lini's shoulder, so I offer mine. We 
can call a truce until Faile is found." 


"A truce?" he said, carefully bending to tug on a boot. Care 
fully so he did not fall over. Stout wool stockings and thick 
leather soles would have his feet warm soon enough. "Why do we 
need a truce?" She was silent while he donned the other boot 
and folded the turndowns below his knees, not speaking until 
he had done up the laces of his shirt and was stuffing it into 
his breeches. 


"Very well, Perrin. If that is how you want it." Whatever 
that was supposed to mean, she sounded very determined. 
Suddenly he wondered whether his nose had failed him. Her 
scent was affronted, of all things! When he looked at her, 
though, she wore a faint smile. On the other hand, those big 
eyes held a glint of anger. "The Prophet's men began arriving 
before daylight," she said in a brisk voice, "but as I far as 
I know, he hasn't come himself, yet. Before you see him 
again-" 


"Began arriving?" he broke in. "Masema agreed to bring only 
an honor guard, a hundred men." 


"Whatever he agreed, there were three or four thousand the 
last I looked-an army of ruffians, every man within miles who 
could carry a spear, it seemed-and more coming from every di 
rection." 


Hurriedly, he shrugged into his coat and buckled his belt 
over it, settling the weight of the axe at his hip. It always 
felt heavier than it should. "We will see about that! Burn me, 
I won't be lumbered with his murderous vermin!" 


"His vermin are an annoyance compared to the man himself. 
The danger lies with Masema." Her voice was cool, but tightly 
leashed fear quivered in her scent. It always did when she 
spoke, of Masema. "The sisters and the Wise Ones are right 
about that. If you need more proof of it than your own eyes, 
he has been meeting with the Seanchan." 


That hit him like a hammer, especially after Balwer's news 
of the fighting in Altara. "How do you know?" he demanded. 
"Your thief-catchers?" She had a pair, brought from Mayene, 
and she sent them off to learn what they could at every town 
or village. Between them they never discovered half of what 
Balwer did. Not that she told him, anyway. 


Berelain shook her head slightly, regretfully. "Paile's ... 
retainers. Three of them found us just before the Aiel 
attacked. They had talked with men who saw a huge flying 
creature land." She shivered a little too ostentatiously, but 
by her smell, it was a true reaction. No surprise; he had seen 
some of the beasts once, and a Trolloc did not look more like 
Shadowspawn. "A creature carrying a passenger. They traced her 
to Abila, to Masema. I don't believe it was a first meeting. 
It had the sound of practice, to me." 


Suddenly her lips curved in a smile, slightly mocking, 
flirtatious. This time, her scent matched her face. "It was 
not very nice of you to make me think that dried-up little 
secretary of yours was finding out more than my thief-catchers 



when you have two dozen eyes-and-ears masquerading as Faile's 
retainers. I must admit, you had me fooled. There are always 
new surprises to find in you. Why do you look so startled? Did 
you really think you could trust Masema after all we've seen 
and heard?" 


Perrin's stare had little to do with Masema. That news could 
mean a great deal or nothing at all. Perhaps the man thought 
he could bring the Seanchan to the Lord Dragon, too. He was 
mad enough for it. But. . . . Faile had those fools spying? 
Sneaking into Abila? And the Light knew where else. Of course, 
she always said spying was a wife's work, but listening to 
gossip around a palace was one thing; this was altogether 
different. She could have told him, at least. Or had she kept 
quiet because her retainers were not the only ones poking 
their noses where they should not? It would be just like her. 
Faile truly did possess a falcon's spirit. She might think it 
fun to spy herself. No, he was not going to get angry with 
her, certainly not now. Light, she would think it was fun. 


"I am glad to know you can be discreet," Berelain murmured. 
"I would not have thought it in your nature, but discretion 
can be a fine thing. Especially now. My men were not killed by 
Aiel, unless Aiel have taken to using crossbows and axes." 


His head jerked up, and despite his best intentions, he 
glared at her. "You just slip that in? Is there anything else 
you've forgotten to tell me, anything that escaped your mind?" 


"How can you ask?" she almost laughed. "I would have to 
strip myself naked to reveal more than I already have." 
Spreading her arms wide, she twisted slightly like a snake as 
if to demonstrate. 


Perrin growled in disgust. Faile was missing, the Light only 
knew whether she was alive-Light, let her be alive!-and Bere-
lain chose now to flaunt herself worse than she ever had 
before? But she was who she was. He should be grateful she had 
clung to decency long enough for him to dress. 


Eyeing him thoughtfully, she ran a fingertip along her lower 
lip. "Despite what you may have heard, you will be only the 
third man to share my bed." Her eyes were . . . smoky . . . 
yet she might have been saying he was the third man she had 
spoken to that day. Her scent. . . . The only thing that came 
to mind was a wolf eyeing a deer caught in brambles. "The 
other two were politics. You will be pleasure. In more ways 
than one," she finished with a surprising touch of bite. 


Just then Rosene bustled into the tent in a billow of icy 
air, her blue cloak thrown back and carrying an oval silver 
tray covered with a white linen cloth. Perrin snapped his 
mouth shut, praying she had not overheard. Smiling, Berelain 
seemed not to care. Setting the tray on the largest table, the 
stout serving woman spread her blue-and-gold-striped skirts in 
a deep curtsy for Berelain and another, shorter, for him. Her 
dark eyes lingered on him a moment, and she smiled, as pleased 
as her mistress, before gathering her cloak together and 
hurrying out again at a quick gesture from Berelain. She had 
overheard, all right. The tray gave off the smells of mutton 
stew and spiced wine that made Perrin's belly rumble again, 
but he would not have stayed to eat if his legs had been 
broken. 


Flinging his cloak around his shoulders, he stalked out into 



the soft snowfall, tugging on his gauntlets. Heavy clouds 
shrouded the sun, but dawn was a few hours past, by the light. 
Paths had been beaten through the snow on the ground, yet the 
white drifting out of the sky was piling up on bare branches 
and giving the evergreens new coats. This storm was far from 
finished. Light, how could the woman talk to him that way? Why 
would she talk that way, and now? 


"Remember," Berelain called after him, making no effort to 
mute her voice. "Discretion." With a wince, he quickened his 
step. 


A dozen paces from the great striped tent he realized he had 
forgotten to ask the location of Masema's men. All around him 
the Winged Guards were warming themselves at campfires, ar 
mored and cloaked and near to their saddled mounts on the 
horselines. Their lances stood close at hand in steel-tipped 
cones that trailed red streamers in the wind. Despite the 
trees, a straight line could have been drawn through any row 
of those fires, and they were even as near the same size as 
humanly possible. The supply carts they had acquired coming 
south were all loaded, the horses harnessed, and they were 
arrayed in rigid lines, too. 


The trees did not hide the crest of the hill completely. Two 
Rivers men still stood guard up there, but the tents were 
down, and he could make out loaded packhorses. He thought he 
saw a black coat, too; one of the Asha'man, though he could 
not see which. Among the Ghealdanin, knots of men stood 
staring up the hill, yet all in all, they appeared as ready as 
the Mayeners. The two camps were even laid out alike. But 
nowhere was there any sign that thousands of men were 
gathering, no broad trampled paths in the snow to follow. For 
that matter, there were no footprints between the three camps 
at all. If Annoura was with the Wise Ones, she had been on the 
hill for some time. What were they talking about? Probably how 
to kill Masema without him finding out they were responsible. 
He glanced at Berelain's tent, but the thought of going back 
in there with her made his hackles rise. 


One other tent remained up, not far away, the smaller 
striped tent belonging to Berelain's two serving women. 
Despite the drizzling snow, Rosene and Nana sat on camp stools 
in front of the smaller tent, cloaked and hooded and warming 
their hands over a small fire. Alike as two peas in the pod, 
neither was pretty, but they had company, likely the reason 
they were not huddled around a brazier inside. Doubtless 
Berelain insisted on more propriety in her serving women than 
she managed for herself. Normally Berelain's thief-catchers 
seldom seemed to speak more than three words together, at 
least in Perrin's hearing, but they were animated and laughing 
with Rosene and Nana. Plainly dressed, the pair was so 
nondescript you would not notice one bumping into him on the 
street. Perrin was still not sure which was Santes and which 
Gendar. A small kettle set off to one side of the fire smelled 
of mutton stew; he tried to ignore it, but his stomach growled 
anyway. 


Talk stopped as he approached, and before he reached the 
fire, Santes and Gendar glanced from him to Berelain's tent, 
faces absolutely blank, then pulled their cloaks around them 

and hurried away, avoiding his eyes. Rosene and Nana looked 



from Perrin to the tent, and tittered behind cupped hands. 
Perrin did not know whether to blush or howl. 


"Would you by any chance know where the Prophet's men are 
gathering?" he asked. Keeping his voice level was hard with 
all their arched eyebrows and smirks. "Your mistress forgot to 
tell me exactly." The pair exchanged looks hidden by their 
hoods and giggled behind their hands again. He wondered 
whether they were brainless, but he doubted Berelain would 
tolerate fluff-brains around her for long. 


After a great deal of tittering interspersed with quick 
glances at him, at each other, at Berelain's tent, Nana 
allowed as how she was not really sure but thought it was that 
way, waving a hand vaguely toward the southwest. Rosene was 
certain she had heard her mistress say it was no more than two 
miles. Or maybe three.' They were still giggling when he 
strode away. Maybe they really were goose-brained. 


Wearily he tramped around the hill thinking about what he 
had to do. The depth of snow he had to wade through once he 
left the Mayener camp made his foul mood no better. Nor did 
the decisions he reached. It only got fouler after he arrived 
where his own people were camped. 


Everything was as he had ordered. Cloaked Cairhienin sat on 
loaded carts with the reins looped around a wrist or tucked 
under a haunch, and other short figures moved along the lead 
lines of remounts, soothing the haltered horses. The Two 
Rivers men not on the hilltop squatted around dozens of small 
fires scattered through the trees, dressed to ride and holding 
their horses' reins. There was no order to them, not like the 
soldiers in the other camps, but they had faced Trollocs, and 
Aiel. Every man had his bow slung across his back and a full 
quiver on his hip, sometimes balanced by a sword or short-
sword as well. For a wonder, Grady was at one of the fires. 
The two Asha'man usually kept a little apart from the other 
men, and the other way around as well. No one was talking, 
just concentrating on staying warm. The glum faces told Perrin 
that Jondyn had not returned yet, nor Gaul, nor Elyas or 
anybody else. There was still a chance they would bring her 
back. Or at least find where she was held. For a time, it 
seemed those were the last good thoughts he would have for the 
day. The Red Eagle of Manetheren and his own Wolfshead banner 
hung limp in the falling snow, on two staffs leaning against a 
cart. 


He had planned to use those flags with Masema in the same 
way he had to come south, hiding in the open. If a man was mad 
enough to try reclaiming Manetheren's ancient glories, no one 
looked further, to any other reason for him marching with a 
small army, and so long as he did not linger, they were far 
too pleased to see the madman ride on to try stopping him. 
There were enough troubles in the land without calling more 
down on your head. Let someone else fight and bleed and lose 
men who would be needed come spring planting. Manetheren's 
borders had run almost to where Murandy now stood, and with 
luck, he could have been into Andor, where Rand had a firm 
grip, before having to give up the deception. That was 
changed, now, and he knew the price of changing. A very large 
price. He was prepared to pay, only it would not be he who 
paid. He would have nightmares about it, though. 



 Chapter 6: The Scent of Madness 


Seeking through the falling snow for Dannil, Perrin found 
him at one of the fires and pushed between the horses. The 
other men straightened and backed away enough to give him 
room. Not knowing whether to offer sympathy, they barely 
looked at him, and jerked their eyes away when they did, 
hiding their faces in their cowls. "Do you know where Masema's 
people are?" he asked, then had to conceal a yawn behind his 
hand. His body wanted sleep, but there was no time. 


"About three miles south and west," Dannil replied in a sour 
voice, and tugged irritably at his mustache. So the goose-
brains had been right after all. "Flocking in like ducks into 
the Water-wood in autumn, and the lot of them look like they'd 
skin their own mothers." Horse-faced Lem al'Dai spat in 
disgust through the gap in his teeth he had gotten tussling 
with a wool merchant's guard long ago. Lem liked to fight with 
his fists; he looked eager to pick a scrap with some of 
Masema's followers. 


"They would, if Masema said to," Perrin said quietly. "Best 
you make sure everybody remembers that. You've heard how 
Berelain's men died?" Dannil gave a sharp nod, and some of the 
others shifted their boots and muttered angrily under their 
breath. "Just so you know. There's no proof of anything, yet." 
Lem snorted, and the rest looked about as bleak as Dannil. 
They had seen the corpses Masema's followers left behind. 


The snow was picking up, fat flakes that dotted the men's 
cloaks. The horses kept their tails tucked in against the 
cold. It would be a full blizzard again in a few hours, if not 
sooner. No weather to be leaving the fires' warmth. No weather 
to be on the move. 


"Bring everybody off the hill and start toward where the am 
bush was," he ordered. That was one of the decisions he had 
made, walking back. He had delayed too long already, no matter 
who or what was out there. The renegade Aiel had too much lead 
as it was, and if they were headed in any direction but south 
or east, someone would have brought word by this time. By this 
time, they would expect him to be following. "We'll ride until 
I have a better idea where we're heading, then Grady or Neald 
will take us there through a gateway. Send men to Berelain and 
Ar-ganda. I want the Mayeners and Ghealdanin moving, too. Put 
scouts out, and flankers, and tell them not to look for Aiel 
so hard they forget there are others who might want to kill 
us. I don't want to stumble into anything before I know it's 
there. And ask the Wise Ones to stay close to us." He would 
not put it past Arganda to try putting them to the question in 
spite of his orders. If the Wise Ones killed some of the 
Ghealdanin defending themselves, the fellow might strike out 
entirely on his own, fealty or no. He had the feeling he was 
going to need every fighting man he could find. "Be as firm as 
you dare." 


Dannil took in the flood of orders calmly, but at the last 
his mouth twisted in a sickly grimace. Likely, he would as 
soon try to be firm with the Women's Circle back home. "As you 
say, Lord Perrin," he said stiffly, touching a knuckle to his 



forehead before he swung into his high-cantled saddle and 
began calling out orders. 


Surrounded by men scrambling to mount, Perrin caught Kenly 
Maerin's sleeve while the young man still had one foot in his 
stirrup and asked him to have Stepper saddled and brought. 


With a wide grin, Kenly knuckled his forehead. "As you say, 
Lord Perrin. Right away." 


Perrin growled inside his head as Kenly tramped toward the 
horselines pulling his brown gelding behind. The young whelp 
should not grow a beard if he was going to scratch at it all 
the time. The thing was straggly, anyway. 


Waiting for his horse, he moved close to the blaze. Faile 
said he had to live with all the Lord Perrining and bowing and 
scraping, and most of the time he managed to ignore it, but 
today it was another drop of bile. He could feel a chasm 
growing wider between him and the other men from home, and he 
seemed to be the only one who wanted to bridge it. Gill found 
him muttering to himself as he held his hands out to the 
flames. 


"Forgive me for bothering you, my Lord," Gill said, bowing 
and briefly snatching off his floppy hat to reveal a thinly 
thatched scalp. The hat went right back on his head again to 
keep off the snow. City bred, he felt the cold badly. The 
stout man was not obsequious-few Caemlyn innkeepers were-but 
he seemed to enjoy a certain amount of formality. He had 
certainly fitted into his new job well enough to please Faile. 
"It's young Tallanvor. At first light, he saddled his horse 
and went off. He said you gave him permission, if... if the 
search parties hadn't gotten back by then, but I wondered, 
since you wouldn't let anyone else go." 


The fool. Everything about Tallanvor marked him an experi 
enced soldier, though he had never been very clear about his 
background, but alone against Aiel, he was a hare chasing 
weasels. Light, I want to be riding with him! I shouldn't have 
listened to Berelain about ambushes. But there had been 
another ambush. Arganda's scouts might end the same way. But 
he had to move. He had to. 


"Yes," he said aloud. "I told him he could." If he said 
otherwise, he might have to take notice later. Lords had to do 
that sort of thing. If he ever saw the man alive again. "You 
sound as though you want to go hunting yourself." 


"I am . . . very fond of Maighdin, my Lord," Gill replied. 
Quiet dignity marked his voice, and a degree of sriffness, as 
though Perrin had said he was too old and fat for the task. He 
certainly smelled of vexation, all prickly and ginger, though 
his cold-reddened face was smooth. "Not like Tallanvor-nothing 
like that, of course-but very fond all the same. And of the 
Lady Faile, of course," he added hastily. "It's just that it 
seems I've known Maighdin my whole life. She deserves better." 


Perrin's sigh misted in front of his mouth. "I understand, 
Master Gill." He did. He himself wanted to rescue everyone, 
but he knew if he had to choose, he would take Faile and let 
the others go. Everything could go, to save her. Horse-scent 
was heavy in the air, but he smelled someone else who was 
irritated, and looked over his shoulder. 


Lini was glaring at him from the middle of the turmoil, 
shifting her ground just enough to keep from being ridden down 



accidentally by men jostling to form ragged files. One bony 
hand gripped the edge of her cloak, and the other held a brass-
studded cudgel, nearly as long as her arm. It was a wonder she 
had not gone with Tallanvor. 


"You'll hear as soon as I do," he promised her. A rumbling 
in his middle reminded him suddenly and forcefully of that 
stew he had scorned. He could almost taste the mutton and 
lentils. Another yawn cracked his jaws. "Forgive me, Lini," he 
said when he could talk. "I didn't get much sleep last night. 


Or a bite to eat. Is there anything? Some bread, and 
whatever's to hand?" 
"Everyone's eaten long since," she snapped. "The scraps are 
gone, and the kettles cleaned and stored away. Sup from too 
many dishes, and you deserve a bellyache that'll split you 
open. Especially when they're not your dishes." Trailing off 

into dissatisfied mutters, she scowled at him a moment longer 


before stalking away, glaring at the world. 


"Too many dishes?" Perrin muttered. "I haven't had a one; 


that's my trouble, not a bellyache." Lini was making her way 
across the campground, threading her way between horses and 
carts. Three or four men spoke to her in passing, and she 
barked at every one, even shaking her cudgel if they failed to 
take the hint. The woman must be out of her mind over 
Maighdin. "Or was that one of her sayings? They usually make 
more sense than that." 


"Ah . . . well, as to that, now. . . ." Gill snatched his 
hat off again and peered inside, then stuffed it back on. "I 
... ah ... 1 have to see to the carts, my Lord. Need to make 
sure all's ready." 


"A blind man could see the carts are ready," Perrin told 
him. "What is it?" 


Gill's head swung wildly in search of another excuse. 
Finding none, he wilted. "I. ... I suppose you'll hear sooner 
or later," he mumbled. "You see, my Lord, Lini. . . ." He drew 
a deep breath. "She walked over to the Mayener camp this 
morning, before sunrise, to see how you were and ... ah ... 
why you hadn't come back. The First's tent was dark, but one 
of her maids was awake, and she told Lini. . . . She implied. 
... I mean to say. . . . Don't look at me that way, my Lord." 


Perrin smoothed the snarl from his face. Tried to, at any 
rate. It stayed in his voice. "Burn me, I slept in that tent, 
man. That is all I did! You tell her that!" 


A violent coughing fit wracked the stout man. "Me?" Gill 
wheezed once he could talk. "You want me to tell her? She'll 
crack my pate if I mention a thing like that! I think the 
woman was born in Far Madding in a thunderstorm. She probably 
told the thunder to be quiet. It probably did." 


"You're shambayan," Perrin told him. "It can't all be 
loading carts in the snow." He wanted to bite someone! 


Gill seemed to sense it. Mumbling his courtesies, he made a 
jerky bow and scurried away clutching his cloak close. Not to 
find Lini, Perrin was sure. Gill ordered the household, such 
as it was, but never her. No one ordered Lini except Faile. 


Glumly Perrin watched the scouts ride out through the 
falling snow, ten men already watching the trees around them 
before they were beyond sight of the carts. Light, women would 
believe anything about a man so long as it was bad. And the 



worse it was, the more they had to talk about it. He had 
thought Rosene and Nana were all he had to worry about. Likely 
Lini had told Breane, Faile's other maid, first thing on 
getting back, and by this time, Breane surely had told every 
woman in the camp. There were plenty among the horse handlers 
and cart drivers, and Cairhienin being Cairhienin, they 
probably had been eager to pass everything on to the men, too. 
That sort of thing was not seen with charity in the Two 
Rivers. Once you gained the reputation, losing it was not 
easy. Suddenly the men backing away to give him room took on a 
new light, and the uncertain way they had looked at him, and 
even Lem spitting. In memory, Kenly's grin became a smirk. The 
one bright spot was that Faile would not believe it. Of course 
she would not. Certainly not. 


Kenly returned at a stumbling trot through the snow, drawing 
Stepper and his own rangy gelding behind. Both horses were 
miserable with the cold, their ears folded back and tails 
tight, and the dun stallion made no effort to bite at Kenly's 
mount, as he usually would have. 


"Don't show your teeth all the time," Perrin snapped, snatch 
ing Stepper's reins. The boy eyed him doubtfully, then slunk 
away glancing back over his shoulder. 


Growling under his breath, Perrin checked the stallion's sad 
dle girth. It was time to find Masema, but he did not mount. 
He told himself it was because he was tired and hungry, that 
he wanted just a bit of rest and something in his belly, if he 
could find anything. He told himself that, but he kept seeing 
burned farms and bodies hanging by the side of the road, men 
and women and even children. Even if Rand was still in Altara, 
it was a long way. A long way, and he had no choice. None he 
could make himself take. 


He was standing with his forehead sunk against Stepper's sad 
dle when a delegation of the young fools who had attached them 
selves to Faile sought him out, near a dozen of them. He 
straightened wearily, wishing the snow would bury them all. 


Selande planted herself alongside Stepper's hindquarters, a 
short slender woman with green-gloved fists on her hips and an 
angry scowl creasing her forehead. She managed to swagger 
standing still. Despite the falling snow, one side of her 
cloak was thrown back to give easy access to her sword, 
exposing six bright slashes across the front other dark blue 
coat. All the women wore men's clothing and swords, and 
usually they were twice as ready to use them as the men, which 
was saying quite a bit. Men and women alike, they were touchy 
with everyone, and would have been fighting duels every day 
had not Faile put a stop to it. Men and women alike, the lot 
with Selande smelled angry, sullen, sulky and petulant, all 
jumbled together, a scent that twitched uncomfortably in his 
nose. 


"I see you, my Lord Perrin," Selande said formally in the 
crisp accents of Cairhien. "Preparations are being made to 
move out, but still we are refused our horses. Will you have 
this made right?" She made it sound a demand. 


She saw him, did she? He wished he did not see her. "Aiel 
walk," he growled, and stifled a yawn, not caring a whit for 
the furious glares that earned him. He tried to put sleep out 
his mind. "If you won't walk, ride on the carts." 



 "You cannot do that!" one of the Tairen women announced 
haughtily, one hand tight on the edge of her cloak, the other 
on her sword hilt. Medore was tall, with bright blue eyes in a 
dark face, and if she missed beautiful, it was not by much. 
The fat, red-striped sleeves of her coat looked decidedly odd 
with her full bosom. "Redwing is my favorite mount! I won't be 
denied her!" 


"Third time," Selande said cryptically. "When we stop to 
night, we will discuss your toh, Medore Damara." 


Supposedly, Medore's father was an aging man who had retired 
to his country estates years ago, but Astoril was still a High 
Lord for all that. As those things were reckoned, that put his 


daughter well above Selande, only a minor noble in Cairhien. 
Yet Medore swallowed hard, and her eyes widened till she 
looked as though she expected to be skinned alive. 

Abruptly Perrin had had all he could take of these idiots 
and their dog's dinner of Aiel bits and pieces and pure 
highborn jac-foolery. "When did you start spying for my wife?" 
he demanded. They could not have gone stiffer had their 
backbones frozen. 


"We carry out such small tasks and errands as the Lady Faile 
might require of us from time to time," Selande said after a 
long moment, in very careful tones. Wariness was thick in her 
scent. The whole gaggle of them smelled like foxes wondering 
whether a badger had taken over their den. 


"Did my wife really go hunting, Selande?" he growled heat 
edly. "She's never wanted to before." Anger roared in him, 
flames fanned by all the events of the day. He pushed Stepper 
away with one hand and stepped closer to the woman, looming 
over her. The stallion tossed his head, sensing Perrin's 
humor. His fist ached in his gauntlet from its grip on the 
reins. "Or did she ride out to meet some of you, fresh from 
Abila? Was she kidnapped because of your bloody spying?" 


That made no sense, and he knew it as the words left his 
mouth. Faile could have talked with them anywhere. And she 
would never have arranged to meet her eyes-and-ears-Light, her 
spies!-in company with Berelain. It was always a mistake to 
speak without thinking. He knew about Masema and the Seanchan 
because of their spying. But he wanted to lash out, he needed 
to lash out, and the men he wanted to hammer into nothingness 
were miles away. With Faile. 


Selande did not back away from his anger. Her eyes narrowed 
to slits. Her fingers opened and closed on the hilt of her 
sword, and she was not alone. "We would die for the Lady 
Faile!" she spat. "Nothing we have done has put her in danger! 
We are sworn to her by water oath!" To Faile and not to him, 
her tone added. 


He should apologize. He knew he should. Instead, he said, 
"You can have your horses if you give me your word you'll do 
as I say and not try anything rash." "Rash" was not the word 
for this lot. They were capable of rushing off alone as soon 
as they learned where Faile was. They were capable of getting 
Faile killed. "When we find her, I will decide how to rescue 
her. If your water oath says different, tie a knot in it, or 
I'll tie you in knots." 


Her jaw tightened and her scowl deepened, but finally she 
said, "I agree!" as though the words were being pried out of 



her. One of the Tairens, a long-nosed fellow named Carlon, 
grunted in protest, but Selande raised one finger, and he shut 
his mouth. With that narrow chin, he probably regretted 
shaving off his beard. The little woman had the rest of these 
fools in the palm of her hand, which did not make her any less 
a fool herself. Water oath, indeed! She did not take her eyes 
from Perrin's. "We will obey you until the Lady Faile is 
returned. Then, we are hers again. And she can decide our 
toh." That last seemed more for the others than him. 


"Good enough," he told her. He attempted to moderate his 
tone, but his voice was still rough. "I know you are loyal to 
her, all of you. I respect that." That was about all he did 
respect in them. As an apology it was not very much, and that 
was just how they took it. A grunt from Selande was the only 
reply he got, that and glowers from the rest as they stalked 
off. So be it. As long as they kept their word. The whole 
bunch had never done an honest day's work between them. 


The camp was emptying out. The carts had begun moving south, 
sliding on their sleds behind the carthorses. The horses left 
deep tracks, but the sleds made only shallow ruts that the 
falling snow began to bury immediately. The last of the men 
from the hill were scrambling into their saddles and joining 
the others already riding with the carts. Just off to one 
side, the Wise Ones' party began to pass, even the gai'shain 
leading the pack animals themselves mounted. However firm 
Dannil had dared to be, or not as was more likely, apparently 
it had been enough. The Wise Ones looked particularly awkward 
on horseback compared to the grace of Seonid and Masuri, 
though not so bad as the gai'shain. The white-robed men and 
women had all been riding since the third day in snow, yet 
they crouched low over the tall pommels of their saddles and 
clung to neck or mane as if expecting to fall off at the next 
step. Getting them mounted in the first place had required 
direct commands from the Wise Ones, and some would still slide 
down and walk if they were not watched. 


Perrin pulled himself up onto Stepper. He was not sure he 
might not fall off himself. It was time to make this ride he 
did not want to make, though. He would have killed for a piece 
of bread. Or some cheese. Or a nice rabbit. 


"Aiel coming!" someone shouted from the head of the column, 
and everything came to a halt. More shouts rang out, passing 
the word as if everyone had not already heard, and men 
unlimbered bows from their backs. Cart drivers stood up on 
their seats, peering ahead, or leaped down to crouch beside 
the cart. Growling under his breath, Perrin heeled Stepper in 
the flanks. 


At the front of the column, Dannil was still in his saddle, 
and the two men carrying those bloody banners, but a good 
thirty were on the ground, coverings stripped from their 
bowstrings and arrows nocked. The men holding the horses for 
the dismounted men jostled about, pointing and trying to get a 
clear view. Grady and Neald were there, as well, peering ahead 
with intent faces but sitting on their horses calmly. Everyone 
else reeked of agitation. The Asha'man only smelled . . . 
ready. 


Perrin could make out what they were staring at through the 
trees a good deal more clearly than they. Ten veiled Aiel 



trotting toward them through the falling snow, one leading a 
tall white horse. A little behind them rode three men, cloaked 
and hooded. There seemed to be something odd in the way the 
Aiel moved. And there was a bundle tied to the white's saddle. 
A fist gripped Perrin's heart until he realized it was not 
nearly large enough to be a body. 


"Put up your bows," he said. "That's Alliandre's gelding. It 
must be our people. Can't you see the Aiel are all Maidens?" 
Not a one was tall enough to be an Aielman. 


"I can barely make out they're Aiel," Dannil muttered, 
giving him a sidelong look. They all cook it for granted that 
his eyes were good, even took pride in it-or used to-but he 
tried to keep them from knowing how good. Right then, he did 
not care, though. 


"They are ours," he told Dannil. "Everybody stay here." 


Slowly he rode out to meet the returning party. The Maidens 
began unveiling as he approached. In one of the deep cowls on 
the mounted men, he made out Furen Alharra's black face. The 
three Warders, then; they would have come back together. Their 
horses looked as tired as he felt, near exhaustion. He wanted 
to force Stepper to run, to hear what they had to report. He 
dreaded hearing. Ravens would have been at the bodies, and 
foxes, badgers maybe, and the Light alone knew what besides. 
Maybe they thought they were sparing him by not bringing back 
what they had found. No! Faile had to be alive. He tried to 
fix that thought in his head, but it hurt like gripping a 
sharp blade bare-handed. 


Dismounting in front of them, he stumbled and had to hold on 
to the saddle to keep from falling. He felt numb around the 
bright pain of holding on to that one thought. She had to be 
alive. Little details loomed large, for some reason. Not one 
bundle fastened to the elaborately tooled saddle, but a number 
of small bundles that looked like gathered rags. The Maidens 
wore snow-shoes, rough-made of vines and supple pine branches 
with the needles still on. That was why they seemed to be 
moving oddly. Jondyn must have shown them how to make them. He 
tried to focus. He thought his heart was going to pound 
through his ribs. 


Gripping spears and buckler in her left hand, Sulin took one 
of the small bundles of cloth from the saddle before she came 
to him. The pink scar running down her leathery cheek twisted 
as she smiled. "Good news, Perrin Aybara," she said softly, 
handing him the dark blue cloth. "Your wife lives." Alharra 
exchanged glances with Seonid's other Warder, Teryl Wynter, 
who frowned. Masuri's man, Rovair Kirklin, stared straight 
ahead stonily. It was as plain as Wynter's curled mustaches 
that they were not sure it was good news. "The others press on 
to see what more they can find," she went on. "Though we 
already have found oddities enough." 


Perrin let the bundle fall open in his hands. It was Faile's 
dress, sliced down the front and along the arms. He inhaled 
deeply, pulling Faile's scent into him, a faint trace of her 
flowery soap, a touch other sweet perfume, but most of all, 
the smell that was her. And no hint of blood. The rest of the 
Maidens gathered around him, mostly older women with hard 
faces, though not as hard as Sulin's. The Warders climbed 
down, showing no sign that they had been all night in the 



saddle, but they held back behind the Maidens. 


"All of the men were killed," the wiry woman said, "but by 
the garments we found, Alliandre Kigarin, Maighdin Dorlain, 
Lacile Aldorwin, Arrela Shiego, and two more also were made 
gai'shain." The other two must have been Bain and Chiad; men 
tioning them by name, that they had been taken, would have 
shamed them. He had learned a little about Aiel. "This goes 
against custom, but it protects them." Wynter frowned in 
doubt, then tried to hide it by adjusting his hood. 


The neat cuts were like those made skinning an animal. It 
hit Perrin suddenly. Someone had cut Faile's clothes off! His 
voice shook. "They only took women?" 


A round-faced young Maiden named Briain shook her head. 
"Three men would have been made gai'shain, I think, but they 
fought too hard and were killed with knife or spear. All the 
rest died by arrow." 


"It is not like that, Perrin Aybara," Elienda said 
hurriedly, sounding shocked. A tall woman with wide shoulders, 
she managed to look almost motherly, though he had seen her 
knock a man down with her fist. "Harming a gai'shain is like 
harming a child, or a blacksmith. It was wrong to take 
wetlanders, but I cannot believe they will break custom that 
far. I am sure they will not even be punished, if they can be 
meek until they are recovered. There are others who will show 
them." Others; Bain and Chiad again. 


"What direction did they go?" he asked. Could Faile be meek? 
He could not picture her that way. At least let her try, till 
he could find her. 


"Almost south," Sulin replied. "Much nearer south than east. 
After the snow hid their tracks, Jondyn Barran saw other 
traces. What the others are following. I believe him. He sees 
as much as Elyas Machera. There is much to see." Thrusting her 
spears behind the bow case on her back, she hung her buckler 
from the hilt of her heavy belt knife. Her fingers flashed 
handtalk, and Elienda unfastened a second, larger bundle and 
handed it to her. "Many people are moving out there, Perrin 
Aybara, and strange things. This you must see first, I think." 
Sulin unfolded another cut dress, this one green. He thought 
he remembered it on Allian-dre. "These, we recovered where 
your wife was taken." Inside, forty or fifty Aiel arrows 
shifted in a heap. There were dark stains on the shafts, and 
he caught the scent of dried blood. 


"Taardad," Sulin said, picking out an arrow and immediately 
throwing it to the ground. "Miagoma." She tossed two more 
aside. "Goshien." Those brought a grimace to her face; she was 
Goshien. Clan by clan, she named them all except the Shaido, 
dropping arrows until just over half lay scattered around her. 
She held up the cut dress holding the remainder in both hands, 
then spilled them. "Shaido," she said significantly. 


Clutching Faile's dress to his chest-her scent eased the 
pain in his heart, and made it worse at the same time-Perrin 
frowned at the arrows jumbled on the snow. Already, some were 
half buried in the fresh fall. "Too many Shaido," he said at 
last. They should all be bottled up in Kinslayer's Dagger, 
five hundred leagues distant. But if some of their Wise Ones 
had learned to Travel. . . . Maybe even one of the Forsaken. . 
. . Light, he was rambling like a fool-what would the Forsaken 



have to do with this?-rambling when he had to think. His brain 
felt as weary as the rest of him. "The others are men who 
wouldn't accept Rand as the car'a'carn." Those cursed colors 
flashed in his head. He had no time for anything but Faile. 
"They joined the Shaido." Some of the Maidens averted their 
eyes. Elienda glared at him. They knew that some had done what 
he said, but it was one of those things they did not like to 
hear said aloud. "How many altogether, do you reckon? Not the 
whole clan, surely?" If the Shaido were here in a body, there 
would be more than rumors of distant raids. Even among all the 
other troubles, all of Amadicia would know. 


"Near enough to be going on with, I'm thinking," Wynter 
muttered under his breath. Perrin was not meant to hear. 


Reaching in among the bundles tied to the ornate saddle, 
Sulin drew out a rag doll dressed in cadin'sor. "Elyas Machera 
found this just before we turned back, about forty miles from 
here." She shook her head, and for a moment her voice and 
scent became . . . startled. "He said he smelled it beneath 
the snow. He and Jondyn Barran found scrapes on the trees they 
said were caused by carts. Very many carts. If there are 
children ... I think it may be a whole sept, Perrin Aybara. 
Perhaps more than one. Even a single sept will have at least a 
thousand spears, and more at need. Every man but the 
blacksmiths will pick up a spear at need. They are days south 


of us. Perhaps more days than I think, in this snow. But I 
believe those who took your wife are going to meet them." 
"This blacksmith has picked up a spear," Perrin murmured. A 

thousand, maybe more. He had over two thousand, counting the 
Winged Guards and Arganda's men. Against Aiel, though, the 
numbers would favor the Shaido. He fingered the doll in 
Sulin's sinewy hand. Was a Shaido child weeping over the loss 
of her doll? "We go south." 


He was turning to mount Stepper when Sulin touched his arm 
to stop him. "I told you we saw other things. Twice, Elyas 
Machera found horse droppings and campfires under the snow. 
Many horses, and many campfires." 


"Thousands," Alharra put in. His black eyes met Perrin's lev-
elly, and his voice was matter-of-fact. He was simply 
reporting what was. "Five, maybe ten or more; it's hard to 
tell. But soldiers' camps. The same men both places, I think. 
Machera and Barran agree. Whoever it is, they're heading near 
enough south, too. Maybe they have nothing to do with the 
Aiel, but they could be following." 


Sulin gave the Warder an impatient frown and continued with 
barely a pause for his interruption. "Three times we saw 
flying creatures like those you say the Seanchan use, huge 
things with ribbed wings and people riding their backs. And 
twice we saw tracks like this." Bending, she picked up one of 
the arrows and drew a rounded shape a little like a large 
bear's paw in the snow, but with six toes longer than a man's 
fingers. "Sometimes it shows claws," she said, marking them, 
longer even than one of the big bears in the Mountains of 
Mist. "It has a long stride. I think it runs very fast. Do you 
know what it is?" 


He did not-he had never heard of anything with six toes 
except the cats in the Two Rivers; he had been surprised to 
find cats elsewhere only had five-but he could make a safe 



guess. "Another Seanchan animal." So there were Seanchan to 
the south as well as Shaido, and-what?-Whitecloaks, or a 
Seanchan army. It could not be anyone else. He trusted 
Balwer's information. "We still go south." The Maidens stared 
at him as if he had told them it was snowing. 


Pulling himself up into Stepper's saddle, he turned back 
toward the column. The Warders walked, leading their weary 
horses. The Maidens took Alliandre's gelding with them as they 
trotted to where the Wise Ones were standing. Masuri and 
Seonid were riding to meet their Warders. He wondered why they 
all had not come to stick their noses in. Perhaps it was as 
simple as letting him be alone with his grief if the news 
turned out bad. Perhaps. In his head, he tried to fit 
everything together. The Shaido, however many they were. The 
Seanchan. The mounted army, whether Whitecloak or Seanchan. It 
was like the puzzles Master Luhhan had taught him to make, 
intricate twists of metal that slid apart and slipped back 
togther like a dream, if you knew the trick. Only, his head 
felt muddled, groping at pieces that would not slide anywhere. 


The Two Rivers men were all mounted again when he reached 
them. Those who had been on the ground with their bows ready 
looked a little abashed. They all eyed him uneasily, 
tentatively. 


"She's alive," he said, and it was as if every man of them 
started breathing again. They took the rest of his news with a 
strange impassiveness, some even nodding as though they had 
expected no less. 


"Won't be the first time we've faced long odds," Dannil 
said. "What do we do, my Lord?" 


Perrin grimaced. The man was still stiff as an oak. "For 
starters, we're Traveling forty miles due south. After that, I 
will see. Neald, you go ahead and find Elyas and the others. 
Tell them what I'm doing. They will be a good deal further on, 
by this time. And have a care. You can't fight ten or a dozen 
Wise Ones." A whole sept should have at least that many who 
could channel. And if it was more than one? A bog he had to 
cross when he came to it. 


Neald nodded before turning his gelding back toward the 
camp, where he had already memorized the ground. There were 
only a few more orders to give. Riders had to be sent to find 
the Mayeners and Ghealdanin, who would be moving apart as they 
camped apart. Grady thought he could memorize the ground right 
there before they could join up, so there was no need to turn 
everything around and follow Neald back. And that left only 
one thing. 


"I need to find Masema, Dannil," Perrin said. "Somebody who 
can give him a message, anyway. With luck, I won't be long." 


"You go among that filth alone, my Lord, and you'll need 
luck," Dannil replied. "I heard some of them talking about 
you. Said you're Shadowspawn, because of your eyes." His gaze 
met Pen-in's golden eyes and slid sideways. "Said you'd been 
tamed by the Dragon Reborn, but still Shadowspawn. You ought 
to take a few dozen men to watch your back." 


Perrin hesitated, patting Stepper's neck. A few dozen men 
would not be enough if Masema's people really thought he was 
Shadowspawn and decided to take matters into their own hands. 
All the Two Rivers men together might not be enough. Maybe he 



did not need to tell Masema, just let him learn for himself. 


His ears caught a bluetit's trill from the trees to the 
west, followed a moment later by a second that everyone could 
hear, and the decision was taken away from him. He was sure of 
it, and wondered whether this was part of being ta'veren. He 
reined Stepper around and waited. 


The Two Rivers men knew what it meant, hearing that partic 
ular bird from back home. Men coming, more than a handful, and 
not necessarily peaceful. It would have been a crookbill 
trilling if they were friends, and a mocker's cry of alarm had 
they been clearly unfriendly. This time, they behaved better. 
Along the west side of the column, every second man as far as 
Perrin could see in the snow dismounted and handed his reins 
to the man next to him, then readied his bow. 


The strangers appeared through the scattered trees spread 
out in a line as if to increase the impression of their 
numbers. They were perhaps a hundred, with two in advance, but 
their slow advance did seem ominous. Half carried lances, not 
couched but held as though ready be tucked under an arm. At a 
steady walk they came on. Some wore armor, a breastplate or a 
helmet but rarely both. Still, they were better armed than the 
general run of Masema's followers. One of the pair out front 
was Masema himself, his zealot's face staring out of his 
cloak's cowl like a rabid mountain cat staring out of a cave. 
How many of those lances had borne a red streamer yesterday 
morning? 


Masema stopped his men with a raised hand only when he was 
just a few paces from Perrin. Pushing back his hood, he ran 
his gaze along the dismounted men with their bows. He seemed 
unaware of the snow hitting his bare scalp. His companion, a 
bigger man with a sword on his back and another at his saddle 
bow, kept his cowl up, but Perrin thought his head was shaved, 
too. That one managed to study the column and watch Masema 
with equal intensity. His dark eyes burned almost as much as 
Masema's. Perrin thought about telling them that at this 
range, a Two Rivers longbow would put a pile shaft right 
through a breastplate, and out the wearer's back besides. He 
considered mentioning Seanchan. Discretion, Berelain had 
counseled. Perhaps it was a fine thing, in the circumstances. 


"You were coming to meet me?" Masema said abruptly. Even the 
man's voice seethed with intensity. Nothing was ever casual on 
his tongue. Anything he had to say was important. The pale 
triangular scar on his cheek pulled his sudden smile crooked. 
There was no warmth in it anyway. "No matter. I am here, now. 
As you no doubt know by now, those who follow the Lord Dragon 
Reborn-the Light illumine his name!-refuse to be left behind. 
I cannot demand it of them. They serve him as I do." 


Perrin saw a tide of flame rolling across Amadicia into 
Altara and perhaps beyond, leaving death and devastation 
behind. He took a deep breath, sucking cold into his lungs. 
Faile was more important than anything. Anything! If he burned 
for it, then he burned. "Take your men east." He was shocked 
at how steady his voice was. "I will catch up when I can. My 
wife has been kidnapped by Aiel, and I'm heading south to get 
her back." For once, he saw Masema surprised. 


"Aiel? So they are more than rumor?" He frowned at the Wise 
Ones on the far side of the column. "South, you say?" Folding 



his gloved hands on the pommel of his saddle, he turned his 
study to Perrin. Insanity rilled the man's scent; Perrin could 
not find anything but madness in it. "I will come with you," 
Masema said at last, as if reaching a decision. Odd, he had 
been impatient to reach Rand without delay. So long as he did 
not have to be touched by the Power to do so, at least. "All 
those who follow the Lord Dragon Reborn-the Light illumine his 
name!-will come. Killing Aiel savages is doing the Light's 
work." His eyes flickered toward the Wise Ones, and his smile 
was even colder than before. 


"I would appreciate the help," Perrin lied. That rabble 
would be useless against Aiel. Still, they numbered in the 
thousands. And they had held off armies, if not armies of 
Aiel. A piece of that puzzle in his head shifted. Ready to 
drop with fatigue, he could not make out exactly how, just 
that it had. In any case, it was not going to happen. "They 
have a long lead on me, though. I intend to Travel, to use the 
One Power, to catch up. I know how you feel about that." 


Uneasy murmurs ran through the men behind Masema, and they 
eyed one another and shifted weapons. Perrin caught muttered 
curses and also "yellow eyes" and "Shadowspawn." The second 
shaven-headed man glared at Perrin as though he had 
blasphemed, but Masema just stared, trying to bore a hole into 
Perrin's head and see what lay inside. 


"He would be grieved if harm came to your wife," the madman 
said at last. The emphasis named Rand as clearly as the name 
Masema did not allow to be spoken. "There will be a ... 
dispensation, in this one instance. Only to find your wife, 
because you are his friend. Only this." He spoke calmly-calmly 
for him-but his deep-set eyes were dark fire, his face 
contorted with unknowing rage. 


Perrin opened his mouth, then closed it without speaking. 
The sun might as well rise in the west as Masema say what he 
just had. Suddenly Perrin thought that Faile might be safer 
with the Shaido than he was here and now. 


Chapter 7: The Streets of Caemlyn 


Elayne's entourage attracted plenty of attention as it rode 
through Caemlyn, along streets that rose and fell with the 
hills of the city. The Golden Lily on the breast of her fur-
lined crimson cloak was sufficient to identify her for 
citizens of the capital, but she kept her hood back, framing 
her face so the single golden rose on the coronet of the 
Daughter-Heir was clearly visible. Not just Elayne, High Seat 
of House Trakand, but Elayne the Daughter-Heir. Let everyone 
see, and know. 


The domes of the New City glinted white and gold in the pale 
morning light, and icicles sparkled on the bare branches of 
the trees down the center of the main streets. Even nearing 
its zenith the sun lacked warmth, despite a blessedly 
cloudless sky. Luckily, there was no wind today. The air was 
cold enough to frost her breath, yet with the paving stones 
cleared of snow even on the narrower, twisting ways, the city 
was alive again, the streets full and bustling. Carters and 
wagon drivers, harnessed by their work as surely as the horses 



between the shafts, clutched their cloaks in resignation as 
they made slow passage through the throng. A huge water wagon 
rumbled by, empty by the sound, on its way to be refilled for 
fighting the too-frequent arsons. A few hawkers and street 
peddlers braved the chill to cry their wares, but most folk 
hurried about their tasks, eager to be indoors as soon as 
possible. Not that hurrying meant moving very fast. The city 
bulged, its population swollen beyond that of Tar Valon. In 
such a swarm, even the few who were mounted moved no faster 
than a man could walk. In the whole morning she had seen only 
two or three carriages inching along the streets. If their 
passengers were not invalids or facing miles ahead, they were 
fools. 


Everyone who saw her and her party paused at the very least, 
some pointing her out to others, or hoisting a child for a 
better view so one day they could tell their own children they 
had seen her. Whether they said they had seen the future Queen 
or simply a woman who held the city for a time was the 
question. Most people simply stared, but now and then a 
handful of voices cried out "Trakand! Trakand!" or even 
"Elayne and Andor!" as she passed. Better if there had been 
more cheering, yet silence was to preferable to jeers. 
Andorans were outspoken folk, none more so than Caemlyners. 
Rebellions had begun and queens lost their thrones because 
Caemlyners voiced their displeasure in the streets. 


An icy thought made Elayne shiver. Who holds Caemlyn holds 
Andor, the ancient saying went; it was not exactly true, as 
Rand had demonstrated, yet Caemlyn was Andor's heart. She had 
laid claim to the city-the Lion Banner and Trakand's Silver 
Keystone shared pride of place on the towers of the outer 
wall-but she did not yet hold the heart of Caemlyn, and that 
was far more important than holding stone and mortar. 


They will all cheer me, one day, she promised herself. / 
will earn their acclaim. Today, though, the crowded ways felt 
lonely between those few upraised voices. She wished Aviendha 
were there, just for her company, but Aviendha saw no reason 
to climb onto a horse simply to move about the city. Anyway, 
Elayne could feel her. It was different from the bond with 
Birgitte, yet she could feel her sister's presence in the 
city, like sensing an unseen person in the same room, and it 
was comforting. 


Her companions drew their own share of attention. After 
barely three years as Aes Sedai, Sareitha's dark square face 
had not yet achieved agelessness, and she looked a prosperous 
merchant in her fine bronze-colored woolens with a large 
silver-and-sapphires brooch holding her cloak. Her Warder, Ned 
Yarman, rode at her heels, and he certainly caught eyes. A 
tall, broad-shouldered young man with bright blue eyes and 
corn-yellow hair curling to his shoulders, he wore a 
shimmering Warder's cloak that made him appear a disembodied 
head floating above a tall gray gelding that was not entirely 
there either, where the cloak draped its haunches. There was 
no mistaking what he was, or that his presence announced an 
Aes Sedai. The others, maintaining a circle around Elayne as 
they made a way through the crowd, attracted just as many 
eyes, though. Eight women in the red coats and burnished 
helmets and breastplates of the Queen's Guard were not 



something seen every day. Or ever before, come to that. She 
had chosen them out from the new recruits herself for that 
very reason. 


Their under-lieutenant, Caseille Raskovni, lean and hard as 
any Aiel Maiden, was that rarity of rarities, a woman 
merchant's guard, nearly twenty years in the trade, as she put 
it. Silver bells in her stocky roan gelding's mane named her 
Arafellin, though she was vague about her past. The only 
Andoran among the eight was a graying, placid-faced woman with 
wide shoulders, Deni Colford, who had kept order in a wagon 
drivers' tavern in Low Caemlyn, outside the walls, another 
rough and singular job for a woman. Deni did not yet know how 
to use the sword at her hip, but Birgitte said she had very 
quick hands and quicker eyes, and she was quite adept with the 
pace-long cudgel that hung opposite her sword. The remainder 
were Hunters for the Horn, disparate women, tall and short, 
slender and wide, dewy-eyed and gray-haired, with backgrounds 
as varied, though some were as discreet as Caseille and others 
clearly inflated their former station in life. Neither 
attitude was uncommon among Hunters. They had leaped at the 
chance to be listed on the Guards' roll, though. More 
important, they had passed Birgitte's close inspection. 


"These streets are not safe for you," Sareitha said 
suddenly, heeling her chestnut up beside Elayne's black 
gelding. Fireheart almost managed to nip the sleek mare before 
Elayne reined his head away. The street was narrow here, 
compressing the crowd and forcing the Guardswomen in closer 
around them. The Brown sister's face pictured Aes Sedai 
composure, but apparent concern sharpened her tone. "Anything 
might happen in a crush like this. Remember who is staying at 
the Silver Swan, less than two miles from this spot. Ten 
sisters at one inn are not simply seeking their own for 
company. Elaida might well have sent them." 


"She might not have, too," Elayne replied calmly. More 
calmly than she felt. A great many sisters seemed to be 
waiting on the side until the struggle between Elaida and 
Egwene was over. Two had departed the Silver Swan and three 
more come just since her arrival in Caemlyn. That did not 
sound like a party sent on a mission. And none were Red Ajah; 
surely Elaida would include Reds. Still, they were being 
watched as well as she could arrange, though she did not tell 
Sareitha that. Elaida very much wanted her, much more than she 
would want a runaway Accepted, or one connected to Egwene and 
those Elaida called rebels. Why, she could not quite 
understand. A queen who was Aes Sedai would be a great prize 
for the White Tower, but she would not become queen if she was 
snatched back to Tar Valon. For that matter, Elaida had issued 
the order to bring her back by any means necessary long before 
there seemed any possibility she would assume the throne for 
many years to come. It was a puzzle she had fretted over more 
than once since Ronde Macura slipped her that foul brew that 
dulled a woman's ability to channel. A very worrying puzzle, 
especially now she was announcing her location to the world. 


Her eyes lingered a moment on a black-haired woman in a blue 
cloak with her hood thrown back. The woman barely glanced at 
her before turning into a candlemaker's shop. A weighted cloth 
bag hung from her shoulder. Not an Aes Sedai, Elayne decided. 



Merely another woman who aged well, like Zaida. "In any case," 
she went on firmly, "I won't be penned up by fear of Elaida." 
What were those sisters at the Silver Swan up to? 


Sareitha snorted, and not very softly; she seemed about to 
roll her eyes, then thought better of it. Occasionally Elayne 
caught an odd look from one of the other sisters in the 
Palace, doubtless thinking of how she had been raised, yet on 
the surface, at least, they accepted her as Aes Sedai, 
acknowledged that she stood higher among them than any except 
Nynaeve. That was not enough to stop them speaking their 
minds, often more bluntly that they would have with a sister 
who stood where she did and had achieved the shawl in more 
usual fashion. "Forget Elaida, then," Sareitha said, "and 
remember who else would like to have you in hand. One well-
aimed rock, and you are an unconscious bundle, easily carried 
away in the confusion." 


Did Sareitha really have to tell her water was wet? Kidnap 
ping other claimants to the throne was almost customary, after 
all. Every House that stood against her had supporters in 
Caemlyn watching for an opportunity, or she would have her 
slippers for her midday meal. Not that they could succeed, not 
so long as she could channel, but they would make the attempt 
given a chance. She had never thought that simply reaching 
Caemlyn provided safety. 


"If I don't dare leave the Palace, Sareitha, I will never 
get the people behind me," she said quietly. "I must be seen, 
out and about and unafraid." That was why she had eight Guards 
instead of the fifty Birgitte had wanted. The woman refused to 
grasp the realities of politics. "Besides, they would need two 
well-aimed rocks with you here." 


Sareitha snorted again, but Elayne did her best to ignore 
the other's obstinacy. She wished she could ignore the woman's 
presence, but that was impossible. She had more reason for 
this ride than being seen. Halwin Norry gave her facts and 
figures by the ream, though the First Clerk's droning voice 
almost put her to sleep, yet she wanted to see for herself. 


Norry could make a riot sound as lifeless as a report on the 
state of the city's cisterns or the expense of cleaning the 
sewers. 

The crowds were thick with foreigners, Kandori with forked 
beards and Illianers with beards that left their upper lips 
bare and Arafellin with silver bells in their braids, copper-
skinned Domani, olive-skinned Altarans and dark Tairens, 
Cairhienin who stood out for their short stature and pale 
skins. Some were merchants, caught by the sudden onset of 
winter or hoping to steal a jump on their competition, smooth-
faced puffed-up folk who knew that trade was the life's blood 
of nations, and every one of them claiming to be a major 
artery even when betrayed by a poorly dyed coat or a brooch of 
brass and glass. Many of the people afoot had worn and ragged 
coats, breeches out at the knee, dresses with tattered hems, 
and threadbare cloaks or none at all. Those were refugees, 
either harried from their homes by war or sent wandering by 
the belief that the Dragon Reborn had broken every bond that 
held them. They hunched against the cold, faces haggard and 
defeated, and let themselves be buffeted by the flow of others 
around them. 



 Watching a dull-eyed woman stagger through the crowd 
clutching a small child on her shoulder, Elayne fumbled a coin 
from her purse and handed it to one of the Guards, an apple-
cheeked woman with cold eyes. Tzigan claimed to be from 


Ghealdan, the daughter of a minor noble; well, she might be 
Ghealdanin, at least. When the Guardswoman leaned down to 
proffer the coin, the woman with her child staggered on by 

unheeding, unseeing. There were too many in the city like 
that. The Palace fed thousands every day, at kitchens set up 
throughout the city, but too many could not even summon the 
energy to collect their bread and soup. Elayne offered a 
prayer for mother and child as she dropped the coin back into 
her purse. 


"You cannot feed everyone," Sareitha offered quietly. 


"Children are not allowed to starve in Andor," Elayne said, 
as if issuing a decree. But she did not know how to stop it. 
Food was still plentiful in the city, but no command could 
force people to eat. 


Some of the other foreigners had come to Caemlyn that way, 
too, men and women who no longer wore rags and haunted faces. 
Whatever had sent them flying from their homes, they had begun 
thinking that they had traveled far enough, thinking about the 
trades they had abandoned, often along with everything they 
possessed. In Caemlyn, though, anyone with skill in a craft 
and a little drive could always find a banker with ready coin. 
There were new trades being followed in the city these days. 
She had seen three clockmakers shops already this morning! 
Within her sight were two shops selling blown glass, and 
nearly thirty manufactories had been built north of the city. 
From now on, Caemlyn would export glass, not import it, and 
crystal as well. The city had lacemakers, now, producing as 
fine as Lugard ever had, and no wonder since nearly all of 
them had come from there. 


That brightened her mood a little-the taxes those new crafts 
paid would help, though it would take time before they paid 
much-yet it was still others in the crowds she noticed most. 
Foreign or Andoran, the mercenaries were easily picked out, 
hard-faced men wearing swords, swaggering even when slowed to 
a crawl by the press. Merchants' guards also went armed, rough 
fellows shouldering aside most men who got in their way, but 
they seemed subdued and sober compared to the sell-swords. And 
on the whole, they displayed fewer scars. Mercenaries dotted 
the crowd like raisins in a cake. With such a large pool to 
draw on, and with winter employment for their skills always in 
short supply, she did not think they would come too dear. 
Unless, as Dyelin feared, they cost her Andor. Somehow, she 
had to find enough men that foreigners were not a majority in 
the Guards. And the money to pay them. 


Abruptly, she became aware of Birgitte. The other woman was 
angry-she often was, of late-and coming closer. Very angry, 
and coming very quickly. An ominous combination that set alarm 
gongs ringing in Elayne's head. 


Immediately she ordered a return to the Palace by the most 
direct route-that would be how Birgitte was coming; the bond 
would lead her straight to Elayne-and they took the next turn 
south, onto Needle Street. It was actually a rather wide 
street, though it meandered like a river, down one hill and up 



the next, but generations ago it had been full of 
needlemakers. Now a few small inns and taverns were jammed 
among cutlers and tailors and every short of shop except 
needlemakers. 


Before they had even reached the Inner City, Birgitte found 
them climbing Pearman's Lane, where a handful of fruit-sellers 
still clung to shops handed down since the days of Ishara, 
though there was precious little to be seen in their windows 
this time of year. Despite the crowd Birgitte cantered into 
sight, red cloak flaring behind, scattering people before her 
left and right, and only slowed her rangy gray when she saw 
them ahead. 


As if to make up for her hurry, she took a moment to study 
the Guardswomen and return Caseille's salute before turning 
her mount to walk beside Elayne's. Unlike them, she wore 
neither sword nor armor. The memories of her past lives were 
fading- she said she could remember nothing at all clearly 
before the founding of the White Tower, now, though fragments 
still floated up-but one thing she claimed to recall 
absolutely. Every time she had tried to use a sword, she had 
nearly gotten herself killed, and had even done so more than 
once. Her strung bow was in a leather saddle-case, though, 
with a bristling quiver of arrows on the other side. Anger 
boiled in her, and she wore a frown that only deepened as she 
spoke. 


"A half-frozen pigeon flew into the Palace cote a little 
while ago with word from Aringill. The men escorting Naean and 
Elenia were ambushed and killed not five miles out of the 
town. Luckily, one of their horses came back with blood on the 
saddle, or we'd have known nothing for weeks yet. I doubt our 
luck extends to that pair being held for ransom by brigands." 


Fireheart pranced a few steps, and Elayne reined him in 
sharply. Someone in the crowd shouted what might have been a 
cry for Trakand. Or not. Shopkeepers trying to attract custom 
raised enough din to muffle the words. "So we have a spy in 
the Palace," she said, then compressed her lips, wishing she 
had held her tongue in front of Sareitha. 


Birgitte did not seem to care. "Unless there's a ta'veren 
trotting around we don't know about," she replied dryly. 
"Maybe now you'll let me assign a bodyguard. Just a few 
Guards, well chosen and-" 


"No!" The Palace was her home. She would not be guarded 
there. Glancing at the Brown, she sighed. Sareitha was 
listening very attentively. There was no point in trying to 
hide things now. Not this. "You let the First Maid know?" 


Birgitte gave her a sidelong look that, combined with a 
burst of mild outrage through their shared bond, told her to 
go teach her grandmother to knit. "She intends to question 
every servant who didn't serve your mother at least five 
years. I'm not sure she doesn't mean to put them to the 
question. The look on her face when I told her, I was glad to 
get out of her study with a whole skin. I'm looking at others, 
myself." She meant the Guards, but she would not say so in 
hearing of Caseille and the others. Elayne did not think it 
likely. All the recruiting gave anyone a perfect opportunity 
to slip in eyes-and-ears, yet without any assurance they would 
ever be where they could learn anything useful. 



 "If there are spies in the Palace," Sareitha said quietly, 
"there may be worse. Perhaps you should accept the Lady 
Birgitte's suggestion of a bodyguard. There is precedent." 
Birgitte showed the Brown sister her teeth; as a smile, it was 
a miserable failure. However much she disliked being addressed 
by her title, however, she turned hopeful eyes on Elayne. 


"I said no, and I mean no!" Elayne snapped. A beggar, ap 
proaching the slow-moving circle of horses with a wide, gap-
toothed grin and his cap in his hand, flinched and scurried 
away into the throng before she could even think of reaching 
for her purse. She was not sure how much of her anger was her 
own and how much Birgitte's, but it was appropriate. 


"I should have gone to get them myself," she growled 
bitterly. Instead, she had woven a gateway for the messenger 
and spent the rest of the day meeting with merchants and 
bankers. "At the least, I should have stripped the garrison at 
Aringill for escort. Ten men dead because I blundered! 
Worse-the Light help me, it is worse!-I've lost Elenia and 
Naean because of it!" 


Birgitte's thick golden braid, hanging outside her cloak, 
swung as she shook her head emphatically. "In the first place, 
queens don't go running off to do everything themselves. 
They're bloody queens!" Her anger was dying down, a little, 
but irritation flared on top of it, and her tone reflected 
both. She really wanted Elayne to have a bodyguard, very 
likely even in her bath. "Your adventuring days are done. The 
next thing, you'd be sneaking out of the Palace in disguise, 
maybe even wandering around after nightfall, when you might 
get your skull cracked open by some tough you never even saw." 


Elayne sat up straight in her saddle. Birgitte knew, of 
course-she did not know any way to get around the bond, though 
she was sure there must be one-but the woman had no right to 
bring it up now. If Birgitte offered enough hints, she would 
have other sisters trying to follow her with their Warders and 
likely squads of Guardsmen as well. Everyone was so ridiculous 
about keeping her safe. You would think she had never been in 
Ebou Dar, much less Tanchico, or Falme. Besides, she had only 
done it once. So far. And Aviendha went with her. 


"Cold dark streets don't compare to a warm fire and an inter 
esting book," Sareitha put in idly, as if talking to herself. 
Studying the shops they were passing, she seemed intent on 
them. "I very much dislike walking on icy pavement, myself, 
especially in the dark, without so much as a candle. Young, 
pretty women often think plain clothes and a dirty face make 
them invisible." The shift was so sudden, with no change in 
tone, that at first Elayne did not realize what she was 
hearing. "Being knocked down and dragged into an alley by 
drunken rowdies is a hard way to learn differently. Of course, 
if you are lucky enough to have a friend with you who also can 
channel, if she's lucky enough that the tough fails to hit her 
as hard as he should. . . . Well, you cannot be lucky every 
time. Wouldn't you agree, Lady Birgitte?" 


Elayne closed her eyes for a moment. Aviendha had said some 
one was following them, but she had been sure it was only a 
footpad. Anyway, it had not been like that. Not exactly. 
Birgitte's glare promised a talking to, later. She refused to 
understand that a Warder just did not dress down her Aes 



Sedai. 


"In the second place," Birgitte went on grimly, "ten men or 
nearly three hundred, the bloody outcome would have been the 
bloody same. Burn me, it was a good plan. A few men could have 
brought Naean and Elenia to Caemlyn unnoticed. Emptying out 
the garrison would have pulled every flaming eye in the east 
of Andor, and whoever took them would have brought enough 
armsmen to be sure. Very likely, they'd hold Aringill now on 
top of it. Small as the garrison is, Aringill keeps anybody 
who wants to move against you in the east off balance, and the 
more Guards who come out of Cairhien, the better that gets, 
since they're nearly all loyal to you." For someone who 
claimed to be a simple archer, she had a good grasp of the 
situation. The only thing she had left out was the loss of the 
customs duties from the river trade. 


"Who did take them, Lady Birgitte?" Sareitha asked, leaning 
to look past Elayne. "Surely that is a very important 
question." Birgitte sighed loudly, almost a whimper. 


"We will know soon enough, I fear," Elayne said. The Brown 
quirked a doubting eyebrow at her, and she tried not grind her 
teeth. She seemed to be doing that quite a lot since coming 
home. 


A Taraboner woman in a green silk cloak stepped out of the 
way of the horses and made a deep curtsy, her thin, beaded 
braids swinging out of her cowl. Her maid, a diminutive woman 
with her arms full of small packages, imitated her mistress 
awkwardly. The two wide men close behind, guards carrying 
brass-ferruled quarterstaffs, remained upright and alert. 
Their long heavy leather coats would turn all but the most 
determined thrust of a knife. 


Elayne inclined her head as they rode by to acknowledge the 
Taraboner's courtesy. She had not received as much from any 
Andoran in the streets, so far. The handsome face behind the 
woman's sheer veil showed too much age to be Aes Sedai. Light, 
she had too much on her plate to be worrying about Elaida now! 


"It is very simple, Sareitha," she said in a carefully 
controlled voice. "If Jarid Sarand took them, Elenia will give 
Naean a choice. Declare Arawn for Elenia, with some sweetening 
of estates for Naean in return, or else have her throat slit 
in a quiet cell somewhere and her corpse buried behind a barn. 
Naean won't give in easily, but her House is arguing over who 
is in charge until she returns, so they'll dither, Elenia will 
threaten torture and maybe use it, and eventually Arawn will 
stand behind Sarand for Elenia. Soon to be joined by Anshar 
and Baryn; they will go where they see strength. If Naean's 
people have them, she will offer the same choices to Elenia, 
but Jarid will go on a rampage against Arawn unless Elenia 
tells him not to, and she won't if she thinks he has any hope 
of rescuing her. So we must hope to hear in the next few weeks 
that Arawn estates are being burned." If not, she thought, / 
have four houses united to face, and I still don't know 
whether I really have even two! 


"That is ... very nicely reasoned out," Sareitha said, 
sounding faintly surprised. 


"I'm sure you could have, too, with time," Elayne said, too 
sweetly, and felt a stab of pleasure when the other sister 
blinked. Light, her mother would have expected her to see that 



much when she was ten! 


The rest of the ride back to the Palace passed in silence, 
and she barely noticed the bright mosaic towers and grand 
vistas of the Inner City. Instead, she thought about Aes Sedai 
in Caemlyn and spies in the Royal Palace, about who had Elenia 
and Naean and how much Birgitte could step up recruiting, 
about whether it was time to sell the Palace's plate and the 
rest of her gems. A gloomy list to consider, but she kept her 
face smooth and serenely acknowledged the scant cheers that 
followed her. A queen could not show herself afraid, 
especially when she was. 


The Royal Palace was a pure white confection of intricately 
worked balconies and columned walks atop the highest hill of 
the Inner City, the highest in Caemlyn. Its slender spires and 
gilded domes loomed against the midday sky, visible for miles, 
proclaiming the power of Andor. Grand entrances and departures 
were made at the front, at the Queen's Plaza, where in the 
past great crowds had gathered to hear the proclamations of 
queens and shout their acclaim for Andor's rulers. Elayne 
entered at the rear of the Palace, Fireheart's steel-shod 
hooves ringing on the paving stones as she trotted into the 
main stableyard. It was a broad space fronted on two sides by 
the rows of tall arched doors of the stables, overlooked by a 
single long white stone balcony, plain and sturdy. Several of 
the high, columned walks offered partial views from above, but 
this was a working place. In front of the simple colonnade 
that gave entry to the Palace itself a dozen Guardsmen 
preparing to replace those on duty in the Plaza stood rigidly 
beside their horses, being inspected by their under-lieuten 
ant, a grizzled fellow with a limp who had been a bannerman 
under Gareth Bryne. Along the outer wall, thirty more were 
mounting, ready to begin patrols of the Inner City in pairs. 
In normal days, there would have been Guardsmen whose main 
duty was policing the streets, but with numbers so reduced, 
those who protected the Palace had to do that as well. Careane 
Fransi was there, as well, a stocky woman in an elegant green-
striped riding dress and blue-green cloak, sitting her gray 
gelding while one of her Warders, Venr Kosaan, climbed onto 
his bay. Dark, with touches of gray in his tight-curled hair 
and beard, the blade-slim man wore a plain brown cloak. 
Apparently they did not mean to advertise who they were. 


Elayne's arrival bought a flash of surprise to the 
stableyard. Not to Careane or Kosaan, of course. The Green 
sister merely looked thoughtful in the sheltering cowl of her 
cloak, and Kosaan not even that. He simply nodded to Birgitte 
and Yarman, Warder to Warder. Without another glance they rode 
out as soon as the last of Elayne's escort cleared the iron-
strapped gates. But some of those mounting along the wall 
paused with one foot in a stirrup, staring, and heads whipped 
toward the new arrivals among the men standing inspection. She 
had not been expected back for another hour at least, and 
excepting a few who never thought beyond what their hands were 
doing, everyone in the Palace knew the situation was volatile. 
Rumors spread among soldiers even faster than among other men, 
and the Light knew, that was saying something, the way men 
gossiped. These had to know that Birgitte had departed in a 
hurry, and now she returned with Elayne, ahead of time. Was 



one of the other Houses marching on Caemlyn? Ready to attack? 
Were they to be ordered to the walls that they could not man 
completely, even with what Dyelin had in the city? Moments of 
surprise and worry, then the leathery under-lieutenant barked 
a command, and eyes snapped straight ahead, arms swept across 
chests in salute. Only three besides the former bannerman had 
been on the rolls a few days gone, but there were no raw 
recruits here. 


Grooms in red coats with the White Lion embroidered on one 
shoulder came rushing out from the stable, though in fact 
there was little for them to do. The Guardswomen quietly 
dismounted at Birgitte's order and began leading their horses 
through the tall doors. She herself leaped from her saddle and 
tossed her reins to one of the grooms, and she was no quicker 
than Yarman, who hurried to hold Sareitha's bridle while she 
climbed down. He was what some sisters called "fresh caught," 
bonded less than a year- the term dated from a time when 
Warders had not always been asked whether they wanted the 
bond-and he was very assiduous in his duties. Birgitte just 
stood scowling, fists on her hips, apparently watching the men 
who would patrol the Inner City for the next four hours ride 
out in a column of twos. Elayne would have been surprised if 
those men more than crossed Birgitte's mind, though. 


In any event, she had her own worries. Trying not to be obvi 
ous about it, she studied the wiry woman who held Fireheart's 
bridle, and the stocky fellow who put down a leather-covered 
mounting stool and held her stirrup as she dismounted. He was 
unsmilingly stolid and deliberate, while she was wrapped up in 
stroking the gelding's nose and whispering to him. Neither 
really looked at Elayne beyond a respectful bow of the head; 
courtesies came second to making sure she was not tossed from 
the saddle by a horse made skittish by bobbing people. No 
matter that she had no need of their help. She was not in the 
country any longer, and there were forms to be followed. Even 
so, she tried not to frown. Leaving them as they led Fireheart 
away, she did not look back. But she wanted to. 


The windowless entry hall beyond the colonnade seemed dim, 
though a few of the mirrored stand-lamps were lit. Plain lamps 
here, the iron worked into simple scrolls. Everything was 
utilitarian, the plastered cornices unadorned, the white stone 
walls bare and smooth. Word of their arrival had spread, and 
before they were well inside, half a dozen men and women 
appeared, bowing and curtsying, to take cloaks and gloves. 
Their livery differed from the stablefolk's in having white 
collars and cuffs, and the Lion of Andor on the left breast 
rather than shoulder. Elayne did not recognize anyone on duty 
today. Most servants in the Palace were new, and others had 
come out of retirement to take the places of those frightened 
off when Rand captured the city. A bald, bluff-faced fellow 
did not quite meet her eyes, but he might have feared it would 
be too forward. A slender young woman with a squint put too 
much enthusiasm into her curtsy, and her smile, but perhaps 
she simply wanted to show eagerness. Elayne walked away, 
followed by Birgitte, before she began glaring at them. 
Suspicion had a bitter taste. 


Sareitha and her Warder left them after a few paces, the 
Brown murmuring an excuse about books she wanted to see in the 



library. The collection was not small, though nothing in com 
parison to the great libraries, and she spent hours there 
every day, frequently pulling up age-worn volumes she said 
were unknown elsewhere. Yarman heeled her as she glided off 
down a crossing hallway, a dark stocky swan drawing a 
strangely graceful stork in her wake. He still carried his 
disturbing cloak, carefully folded over one arm. Warders 
rarely let those out of their own hands for long. Kosaan's 
likely was in his saddlebags. 


"Would you like a Warder's cloak, Birgitte?" Elayne asked, 
walking on. Not for the first time, she envied Birgitte her 
voluminous trousers. Even divided skirts made an effort of 
anything beyond a sedate pace. At least she had on riding 
boots instead of slippers. The bare red-and-white floor tiles 


would have been freezing in slippers. There were not enough 
carpets to layer in the halls as well as in the rooms; they 
would have been worn out in no time, anyway, just from the 

constant traffic of servants keeping up the Palace. "As soon 
as Egwene has the Tower, I will have one made for you. You 
should have one." 


"I don't care about flaming cloaks," Birgitte replied 
grimly. A foreboding scowl set her mouth in a hard line. "It 
was over so fast, I thought you'd just bloody stumbled and hit 
your bloody head. Blood and ashes! Knocked down by street 
toughs! The Light only knows what might have happened!" 


"There is no need to apologize, Birgitte." Outrage and indig 
nation began flooding through the bond, but she meant to seize 
the advantage. Birgitte's chiding was bad enough in private; 
she was not about to put up with it in the halls, with 
servants all around, scurrying by on errands, polishing the 
carved wall panels, tending stand-lamps that were gilded here. 
They barely paused to otter silent courtesies to Birgitte and 
her, but doubtless every one was wondering why the Captain-
General looked like a thunderhead and had their ears wide to 
catch whatever they could. "You were not there because I 
didn't want you there. I'll wager Sareitha didn't have Ned 
with her." It hardly seemed possible that Birgitte's face 
could darken more. Perhaps mentioning Sareitha was a mistake. 
Elayne changed the subject. "You really must do something 
about your language. You are beginning to sound like the worst 
sort of layabout." 


"My . . . language," Birgitte murmured dangerously. Even her 
strides changed, to something like a pacing leopard. "You talk 
about my language? At least I always know what the words I use 
mean. At least I know what fits where, and what doesn't." 
Elayne colored, and her neck stiffened. She did know! Most of 
the time. Often enough, at least. "As for Yarman," Birgitte 
went on, her voice still soft, and still dangerous, "he's a 
good man, but he isn't over being goggle-eyed that he's a 
Warder yet. He probably jumps when Sareitha snaps her fingers. 
I was never goggle-eyed, and I don't jump. Is that why you 
saddled me with a title? Did you think it would rein me in? 
Wouldn't have been the first silly thought in that head of 
yours. For someone who thinks so clearly most of the time. . . 
. Well. I have a writing desk buried in flaming reports I have 
to shovel through if you're going to get even half the Guards 
you want, but we'll have a good long talk tonight. My Lady," 



she added, much too firmly. Her bow was almost mockingly 
formal. She stalked away, and her long golden braid should 
have been bristling like an angry cat's tail. 


Elayne stamped her foot in frustration. Birgitte's title was 
a well-earned reward, earned ten times over just since she 
bonded the woman! And ten thousand times over before that. 
Well, she had thought of the other, but not until afterwards. 
Much good it had done, anyway. Whether from liege lady or Aes 
Sedai, Birgitte chose which commands she obeyed. Not when it 
was important- not when she thought it was important, 
anyway-but over anything else, especially what she called 
unnecessary risks, or improper behavior. As if Birgitte 
Silverbow could talk to anyone about taking risks! And as for 
proper behavior, Birgitte caroused in taverns! She drank and 
gambled, and ogled pretty men to boot! She enjoyed looking at 
the pretty ones even if she did prefer those who looked as if 
they had been beaten about the head often. Elayne did not want 
to change her-she admired the woman, liked her, counted her a 
friend-but she wished there were a little more of Warder to 
Aes Sedai in their relationship. And much less of knowing 
older sister to scampish younger. 


Abruptly she realized that she was standing there scowling 
at nothing. Servants hesitated as they went by, and tucked 
their heads down as if afraid she might be glaring at them. 
Smoothing her face, she gestured to a gangling, pimply-faced 
boy coming down the hall. He bowed so awkwardly and so deeply 
that he staggered and almost fell over. 


"Find Mistress Harfor and ask her to see me immediately in 
my apartments," she told him, then added in a not unkindly 
voice, "And you might remember, your superiors won't be 
pleased if they find you gawking at the Palace when you should 
be working." His mouth dropped open as though she had read his 
mind. Perhaps he thought she had. His wide eyes flashed to her 
Great Serpent ring, and he squeaked and made an even deeper 
bow before darting away at a dead run. 


She smiled in spite of herself. It had been a wild stab, but 
he was too young to be anyone's spy, and too nervous not to be 
up to something he should not. On the other hand. . . . Her 
smile faded. On the other hand, he was not that much younger 
than she. 


Chapter 8: The Sea Folk and Kin 


It was no surprise to Elayne when she encountered the First 
Maid before reaching her apartments. After all, they were both 
heading for the same place. Mistress Harfor made her curtsy 
and fell in with her, carrying an embossed leather folder 
beneath one arm. She had certainly been up as early as Elayne 
if not earlier, but her scarlet tabard appeared freshly 
ironed, the White Lion on her front as clean and pale as new-
fallen snow. The servants scurried faster and polished harder 
when they saw her. Reene Harfor was not harsh, but she kept as 
tight a discipline over the Palace as Gareth Bryne ever had 
over the Guards. 


"I fear I haven't caught any spies yet, my Lady," she said 



in response to Elayne's question, her voice pitched to reach 
Elayne's ears alone, "but I believe I uncovered a pair. A 
woman and a man, both taken in service during the last months 
of the late Queen your mother's reign. They left the Palace as 
soon as word spread that I was questioning everyone. Without 
waiting to gather a scrap of their belongings, not so much as 
a cloak. That's as good as an admission, I'd say. Unless they 
were afraid of being caught out in some other mischief," she 
added reluctantly. "There have been cases of pilfering, I'm 
afraid." 


Elayne nodded thoughtfully. Naean and Elenia had been much 
in the Palace during the last months of her mother's reign. 
More than enough opportunity to settle eyes-and-ears in place. 
Those two had been in the Palace, and more who had opposed 
Morgase Trakand's claim to the throne, accepted her amnesty 
once she had it, then betrayed her. She would not make her 
mother's mistake. Oh, there must be amnesty wherever possible- 
anything else was planting the seeds for a civil war-but she 
planned to watch those who took her pardon very closely. Like 
a cat watching a rat that claimed to have given up interest in 
the grain barns. "They were spies," she said. "And there may 
well be others. Not just for Houses. The sisters at the Silver 
Swan may have bought eyes-and-ears in the Palace, too." 


"I will continue to look, my Lady," Reene replied, inclining 
her head slightly. Her tone was perfectly respectful; she did 
not so much as raise an eyebrow, but once again Elayne found 
herself thinking of teaching her grandmother to knit. If only 
Birgitte could handle matters the way Mistress Harfor did. 


"As well you returned early," the plump woman went on. "You 
have a busy afternoon, I fear. To begin, Master Norry wishes 
to speak with you. On an urgent matter, he says." Her mouth 
hardened for an instant. She always required to know why 
people wanted to approach Elayne, so she could winnow out the 
chaff rather than let Elayne be buried under it, but the First 
Clerk never saw fit to give her even a hint of his business. 
Any more than she told him hers. Both were jealous of their 
fiefs. With a shake of her head, she dismissed Halwin Norry. 
"After him, a delegation of tabac merchants has petitioned to 
see you, and another of weavers, both asking remission of 
taxes because times are hard. My Lady does not need my advice 
to tell them times are hard for everyone. A group of foreign 
merchants is waiting as well; rather a large group. Merely to 
wish you well in a way that doesn't encumber them, of 
course-they wish to be on your good side without antagonizing 
anyone else-but I suggest meeting them briefly." She laid 
plump fingers on the folder under her arm. "Also, the Palace 
accounts require your signature before they can go to Master 
Norry. They'll make him sigh, I fear. I hardly expected it in 
winter, but much of the flour is full of weevils and moths, 
and half the cured hams have turned, as well as most of the 
smoked fish." Quite respectful. And quite firm. 


/ rule Andor, Elayne's mother had told her once, in private, 
but at times I think Reene Harfor rules me. Her mother had 
been laughing, but she sounded as if she meant it, too. Come 
to think on it, Mistress Harfor as a Warder would be ten times 
worse than Birgitte. 


Elayne did not want to meet with Halwin Norry or with mer 



chants. She wanted to sit quietly and think about spies, and 
who had Naean and Elenia, and how she could counter them. Ex 
cept .... Master Norry had kept Caemlyn alive since her mother 
died. In truth, by what she could see in the old accounts, he 
had done so almost from the day she had fallen into Rahvin's 
clutches, though Norry was vague about that. He seemed 
offended by the events of those days, in a rather dusty way. 
She could not simply shuffle him off. Besides, he never 
expressed urgency over anything. And the goodwill of merchants 
was not to be sneered at, even foreign merchants. And the 
accounts did need to be signed. Weevils and moths? And hams 
spoiling? In winter? That was decidedly odd. 


They had reached the tall, lion-carved doors of her apart 
ments. Smaller lions than on the doors to those her mother had 
used, and smaller apartments, but she never considered using 
the Queen's chambers. That would have been as presumptuous as 
sitting on the Lion Throne before her right to the Rose Crown 
was acknowledged. 


With a sigh, she reached for the folder. 


Down the hallway she caught sight of Solain Morgeillin and 
Keraille Surtovni, hurrying along as quickly as they could 
without appearing to run. Flashes of silver showed at the neck 
of the sullen woman squeezed between them, though the 
Kinswomen had draped a long green scarf around her to hide the 
a'dam's leash. That would cause talk, and it would be seen 
sooner or later. Better if she and the others did not have to 
be moved, but there was no way to avoid it. Between Kinswomen 
and Sea Folk Windfinders, rooms in the servants' quarters had 
been needed to hold the overflow even with two and three to a 
bed, and the Palace had basements for storage, not dungeons. 
How did Rand always manage to do the wrong thing? Being male 
just was not excuse enough. Solain and Keraille vanished 
around a corner with their prisoner. 


"Mistress Corly asked to see you this morning, my Lady." 
Reene's voice was carefully neutral. She had been watching the 
Kinswomen, too, and a trace of frown remained on her broad 
face. The Sea Folk were odd, yet she could fit a clan 
Wavemistress and her entourage into her view of the world even 
if she did not know precisely what a clan Wavemistress was. A 
high-ranking foreigner was a high-ranking foreigner, and 
foreigners were expected to be odd. But she could not 
understand why Elayne had given shelter to nearly a hundred 
and fifty merchants and crafts-women. Neither "the Kin" nor 
"the Knitting Circle" would have meant anything to her had she 
heard them, and she did not understand the peculiar tensions 
between those women and the Aes Sedai. Nor did she understand 
the women the Asha'man had brought, prisoners in truth if not 
confined in cells, kept secluded and never allowed to speak to 
anyone but the women who escorted them through the halls. The 
First Maid knew when not to ask questions, yet she disliked 
not understanding what was going on in the Palace. Her voice 
did not change by a hair. "She said she had good news for you. 
Of a sort, she said. She did not petition for an audience, 
though." 


Good news of any sort was better than going over the ac 
counts, and she had hopes of what this news might be. Relin 
quishing the folder in the First Maid's hands, she said, 



"Leave that on my writing table, please. And tell Master Norry 
that I will see him shortly." 


Setting out in the direction the Kin had come from with 
their prisoner, she walked quickly in spite of her skirts. 
Good news or no good news, Norry and the merchants did have to 
be seen, and the merchants, not to mention the accounts gone 
over and signed. Ruling meant endless weeks of drudgery and 
rare hours of doing what you wanted. Very rare hours. Birgitte 
lay in the back of her head, a tight ball of the purest 
irritation and frustration. No doubt, she was digging through 
that table piled with papers. Well, her own relaxation this 
day would be whatever time was required to change out of 
riding clothes and snatch a hasty meal. So she walked very 
quickly, lost in thought and hardly seeing what was in front 
other. What did Norry find urgent? Surely not street repairs. 
How many spies? Small chance Mistress Harfor would catch them 
all. 


As she rounded a corner, only the sudden awareness of other 
women who could channel kept her from running headlong into 
Vandene coming the other way. They recoiled from one another 
in startlement. Apparently the Green had been deep in thought, 
too. Her two companions raised Elayne's eyebrows. 


Kirstian and Zarya wore plain white and stayed a careful 
pace behind Vandene, hands folded meekly at their waists. 
Their hair was bound back simply, and they wore no jewelry. 
Jewelry was strongly discouraged among novices. They had been 
Kinswomen-Kirstian had actually been in the Knitting Circle it 
self-but they were runaways from the Tower, and there were 
prescribed ways of dealing with those, set in Tower law, no 
matter how long they had been gone. Returned runaways were 
required to be absolutely perfect in everything they did, the 
very model of an initiate striving for the shawl, and small 
slips that might be overlooked in others were punished swiftly 
and strongly. They faced a much stronger punishment when they 
reached the Tower, in addition, a public birching, and even 
then they would be held to their straight and painful path for 
at least a year. A returned runaway was made to know in her 
heart that she never, ever wanted to run away again. Not ever! 
Half-trained women were just too dangerous to be left loose. 


Elayne had tried to be lenient, the few times she was with 
them-the Kinswomen were not really half-trained; they had as 
much experience with the One Power as any Aes Sedai, if not 
the training-she had tried, only to discover that even most of 
the other Kinswomen disapproved. Given another chance to 
become Aes Sedai-those who could, at least-they embraced all 
of the Tower's laws and customs with shocking fervor. She was 
not surprised at the subdued eagerness in the two women's eyes 
or the way they seemed to radiate a promise of good 
behavior-they wanted that chance as badly as anyone-just that 
they were with Vandene at all. Until now, she had ignored the 
pair entirely. 


"I was looking for you, Elayne," Vandene said without pream 
ble. Her white hair, gathered at the nape of neck with a dark 
green ribbon, had always given her an air of age despite her 
smooth cheeks. Her sister's murder had added grimness, soaked 
it into the bone, so she seemed like an implacable judge. She 
had been slender; now she was bony, her cheeks hollow. "These 



children-" She cut off, a faint grimace thinning her mouth. 


It was the proper way to refer to novices-the worst moment 
for a woman who went to the Tower was not when she discovered 
she would not be considered fully adult until she earned the 

shawl, but when she realized that so long as she wore novice 
white, she really was a child, one who might injure herself or 
others through ignorance and blundering-the proper way, yet 
even to Vandene it must have seemed strange here. Most novices 
came to the Tower at fifteen or sixteen, and until recently, 
none over eighteen, except for a handful who had managed to 
carry off a lie. Unlike Aes Sedai, the Kin used age to set 
their hierarchy, and Zarya-she had been calling herself 
Garenia Rosoinde, but Zarya Alkaese was the name in the novice 
books, and Zarya Alkaese she would answer to-Zarya, with her 
strong nose and wide mouth, was more than ninety years old, 
though she appeared well short of her middle years. Neither 
woman had the agelessness despite their years of using the 
Power, and pretty, black-eyed Kirstian looked a little older, 
perhaps thirty or so. She was over three hundred, older than 
Vandene herself, Elayne was sure. Kirstian had been gone from 
the Tower so long that she had felt safe using her true name 
again, or part of it. Not at all the usual run of novices. 


"These children," Vandene went on more firmly, a deep frown 
creasing her forehead, "have been thinking over events in 
Harlon Bridge." That was where her sister had been murdered. 
And Ispan Shefar, but as far as Vandene was concerned, the 
death of a Black sister counted with the death of a rabid dog. 
"Unfortunately, rather than keeping silent about their 
conclusions, they came to me. At least they haven't blathered 
where anyone could hear." 


Elayne frowned slightly. Everyone in the Palace knew of the 
murders by this time. "I don't understand," she said slowly. 
And carefully. She did not want to give the pair hints if they 
had not really dug up| painstakingly hidden secrets. "Have 
they worked out that it was Darkfriends instead of robbery?" 
That was the tale they had put about, two women in an isolated 
house, killed for their jewelry. Only she, Vandene, Nynaeve 
and Lan knew any real measure of the truth. Until now anyway, 
it seemed. They must have gotten that far, or Vandene would 
have sent them away with a flea in their collective ear. 


"Worse." Vandene looked around, then moved a few paces to 
the center of where the hallways crossed, forcing Elayne to 
follow. From that vantage, they could see anyone coming along 
either corridor. The novices attentively maintained their 
positions relative to the Green. Maybe they had already gotten 
that flea, for all their eagerness. There were plenty of 
servants in sight, but no one approaching, no one close enough 
to overhear. Vandene lowered her voice anyway. Quietness did 
nothing to mask her displeasure. "They reasoned out that the 
killer must be Merilille, Sareitha or Careane. Good thinking 
on their part, I suppose, but they shouldn't have been 
thinking about it in the first place. They should have been 
kept at their lessons so hard they had no time to think of 
anything else." Despite the scowl she directed at Kirstian and 
Zarya, the two overaged novices beamed with delight. There had 
been a compliment buried in the scolding, and Vandene was 
sparing of compliments. 



 Elayne did not point out that the pair might have been kept 
a little busier if Vandene had been willing to take part of 
their lessons. Elayne herself and Nynaeve had too many other 
duties, and since they had added daily lessons for the 
Windfinders- everyone but Nynaeve had, anyway-no one at all 
had the energy for much time with the two novices. Teaching 
the Atha'an Miere women was like being fed through a 
laundress's mangle! They had little respect for Aes Sedai. And 
even less for rank among "the shorebound." 


"At least they didn't speak to anyone else," she murmured. A 
blessing, if small. 


It had been obvious when they found Adeleas and Ispan that 
their killer must be an Aes Sedai. They had been paralyzed 
with crimsonthorn before they were killed, and it was all but 
impossible that the Windfinders knew of an herb only found far 
from the sea. And even Vandene was sure the Kin numbered no 
Dark-friends among them. Ispan had run away herself as a 
novice, and even gotten as far as Ebou Dar, but she had been 
retaken before the Kin revealed themselves to her, that they 
were more than a few women put out of the Tower who had 
decided on a whim to help her. Under questioning by Vandene 
and Adeleas, she had revealed a great deal. Somehow she had 
managed to resist saying anything about the Black Ajah itself 
except for exposing old schemes long carried out, but she had 
been eager to tell anything else once Vandene and her sister 
were done with her. They had not been gentle, and they had 
plumbed her depths, yet she knew no more of the Kin than any 
other Aes Sedai. If there were any Darkfriends among the Kin, 
the Black Ajah would have known everything. So as much as they 
could wish otherwise, the killer was one of three women they 
had all grown to like. A Black sister in their midst. Or more 
than one. They had all been frantic to keep that knowledge 
secret, at least until the murderer was uncovered. The news 
would throw the entire Palace into a panic, maybe the entire 
city. Light, who else had been thinking over events in Harlon 
Bridge? Would they have the sense to hold silence? 


"Someone had to take them in hand," Vandene said firmly, "to 
keep them out of further mischief. They need regular lessons 
and hard work." The pair's beaming faces had taken on a hint 
of smugness, but it faded a little at that. Their lessons had 
been few, but very hard, the discipline very strict. "That 
means you, Elayne, or Nynaeve." 


Elayne clicked her tongue in exasperation. "Vandene, I 
hardly have a moment for myself to think. I'm already 
straining to give them an hour now and then. It will have to 
be Nynaeve." 


"What will have to be Nynaeve?" the woman herself demanded 
cheerfully, joining them. Somehow she had acquired a long, 
yellow-fringed shawl embroidered with leaves and bright 
flowers, but it lay looped over her elbows. Despite the 
temperatures she wore a blue gown with quite a low neckline 
for Andor, though the thick, dark braid pulled over her 
shoulder and nestled in her cleavage kept the exposure from 
being too great. The small red dot, the ki'sain, in the middle 
of her forehead did look quite strange. According to Malkieri 
custom, a red ki'sain marked a married woman, and she had 
insisted on wearing it as soon as she learned. Toying idly 



with the end of her braid, she looked . . . content . . . not 
an emotion anyone usually associated with Nynaeve al'Meara. 


Elayne gave a start when she noticed Lan, a few paces off, 
strolling a circle around them and keeping watch down both 
hallways. As tall as an Aielman in his dark green coat, with 
shoulders belonging on a blacksmith, the hard-faced man still 
managed to move like a ghost. His sword was buckled at his 
waist even here in the Palace. He always made Elayne shiver. 
Death gazed from his cold blue eyes. Except when he looked at 
Nynaeve, anyway. 


Contentment vanished from Nynaeve's face as soon as she 
learned what would have to be her task. She stopped fingering 
her braid, and seized it in a tight fist. "Now you listen to 
me. Elayne might be able to loll around playing politics, but 
I have my hands full. More than half the Kin would have 
vanished by now if Alise wasn't holding them by the scruff of 
the neck, and since she hasn't a hope of reaching the shawl 
herself, I'm not sure how much longer she'll hold anybody. The 
rest think they can argue with me! Yesterday, Sumeko called me 
. . . girl!" 


She bared her teeth, but it was all her own fault, one way 
and another. After all, she was the one who had hammered at 
the Kin that they ought to show some backbone instead of 
groveling to Aes Sedai. Well, they certainly had stopped 
groveling. Instead, they were all too likely to hold sisters 
up to the standard of their Rule. And find the sister wanting! 
It might not be Nynaeve's fault, exactly, that she appeared to 
be little more than twenty- she had slowed early-but age was 
important to the Kin, and she had chosen to spend most of her 
time with them. She was not jerking her braid, just pulling at 
it so steadily it must be ready to pull free of her scalp. 


"And those cursed Sea Folk! Wretched women! Wretched; 


wretched; wretched! If it wasn't for that bloody bargain . . 
. ! The last thing I need on my hands is a couple of whining, 
bleating novices!" Kirstian's lips thinned for an instant, and 
Zarya's dark eyes flashed indignation before she managed to 
assume meekness again. A semblance of it. They had sense 
enough to know that novices did not open their mouths to Aes 
Sedai, though. 


Elayne shoved down the desire to smooth everything over. She 
wanted to slap Kirstian and Zarya both. They had complicated 
everything by not keeping their mouths shut in the first 
place. She wanted to slap Nynaeve. So she finally had been 
cornered by the Windfinders, had she? That earned no sympathy. 
"I'm not playing at anything, Nynaeve, and you well know it! I 
have asked your advice often enough!" Drawing a deep breath, 
she tried to calm herself. The servants she could see beyond 
Vandene and the two novices had paused in their work to goggle 
at the cluster of women. She doubted they more than noticed 
Lan, impressive as he was. Arguing Aes Sedai were something to 
watch, and stay clear of. "Someone has to take charge of 
them," she said more quietly. "Or do you think you can just 
tell them to forget all this? Look at them, Nynaeve. Left to 
themselves, they will be trying to find out who it is in a 
heartbeat. They wouldn't have gone to Vandene unless they 
thought she would let them help." The pair became pictures of 
wide-eyed novice innocence, with just a hint of offense at an 



unjust accusation. Elayne did not believe it. They had had a 
lifetime to work on disguising themselves. 


"And why not?" Nynaeve said after a moment, shifting her 
shawl. "Light, Elayne, you have to remember they aren't what 
we normally expect in novices." Elayne opened her mouth in pro 
test-what we normally expect, indeed!-Nynaeve might never have 
been a novice, but she had been Accepted not all that long 
ago; a whining, bleating Accepted, often enough, too!-she 
opened her mouth, and Nynaeve went right on. "Vandene can make 
good use of them, I'm sure," she said. "And when she isn't, 
she can give them regular lessons. I remember someone telling 
me you've taught novices before, Vandene. There. It's 
settled." 


The two novices smiled broad, eager smiles of anticipation- 
they all but rubbed their hands together in satisfaction-but 
Vandene scowled. "I do not need novices getting under my feet 
while I-" 


"You're just as blind as Elayne," Nynaeve broke in. "They 
have experience making Aes Sedai take them for something other 
than what they are. They can work at your direction, and that 
will give you time to sleep and eat. I don't believe you're 
doing either." She drew herself up, draping her shawl across 
her shoulders and along her arms. It was quite a performance. 
Short as she was, no taller than Zarya and markedly shorter 
than Vandene or Kirstian, she managed to seem the tallest one 
there by inches. It was a skill Elayne wished she could 
master. Although she would not try in a dress cut that way. 
Nynaeve was in danger of coming right out. Still, that did not 
diminish her presence. She was the essence of command. "You 
will do it, Vandene," she said firmly. 


Vandene's scowl faded slowly, but fade it did. Nynaeve stood 
higher in the Power than she, and even if she never 
consciously thought of the fact, deeply ingrained custom made 
her yield, however unwillingly. By the time she turned to the 
two women in white, her face was as near composed as it had 
been since Adeleas' murder. Which just meant that the judge 
might not order an execution right now. Later, perhaps. Her 
gaunt face was calm, and starkly grim. 


"I did teach novices for a time," she said. "A short time. 
The Mistress of Novices thought I was too hard on my 
students." The pair's eagerness cooled a bit. "Her name was 
Sereille Bagand." Zarya's face went as pale as Kirstian's, and 
Kirstian swayed as if suddenly dizzy. As Mistress of Novices 
and later Amyrlin Seat, Sereille was a legend. The sort of 
legend that made you wake in the middle of the night sweating. 
"I do eat," Vandene said to Nynaeve. "But everything tastes 
like ashes." With a curt gesture at the two novices, she led 


them away past Lan. They were staggering slightly as they 
followed. 
"Stubborn woman," Nynaeve grumbled, frowning at the re 

treating backs, but there was more than a hint of sympathy in 
her voice. "I know a dozen herbs that would help her sleep, 
but she won't touch them. I've half a mind to slip something 
into her evening wine." 


A wise ruler, Elayne thought, knows when to speak and when 
not. Well, that was wisdom in anyone. She did not say that 
Nynaeve calling anyone stubborn was the rooster calling the 



pheasant proud. "Do you know what Reanne's news is?" she said 
instead. "Good news-'of a sort'-so I understand." 


"I haven't seen her this morning," the other woman muttered, 
still peering after Vandene. "I haven't been out of my rooms." 
Abruptly she gave herself a shake, and for some reason frowned 
suspiciously at Elayne. And then at Lan, of all things. 
Unperturbed, he continued to stand guard. 


Nynaeve claimed her marriage was glorious-she could be 
shockingly frank about it with other women-but Elayne thought 
she must be lying to cover up disappointment. Very likely Lan 
was ready for an attack, ready to fight, even when asleep. It 
would be like lying down beside a hungry lion. Besides, that 
stone face was enough to chill any marriage bed. Luckily, 
Nynaeve had no idea what she thought. The woman actually 
smiled. An amused smile, oddly. Amused, and . . . could it be 
condescending? Of course not. Imagination. 


"I know where Reanne is," Nynaeve said, settling her shawl 
back down to her elbows. "Come with me. I'll take you to her." 


Elayne knew exactly where Reanne would be, since she was not 
closeted with Nynaeve, but once again she schooled her tongue, 
and let Nynaeve lead her. A sort of penance for arguing 
earlier, when she should have tried to make peace. Lan 
followed, those cold eyes scanning the halls. The servants 
they passed flinched when Lan's gaze fell on them. A youngish, 
pale-haired woman actually gathered her skirts and ran, 
bumping into a stand-lamp and setting it rocking in her 
flight. 


That reminded Elayne to tell Nynaeve about Elenia and Naean, 
and about the spies. Nynaeve took it quite calmly. She agreed 
with Elayne that they would know soon enough who had rescued 
the two women, with a dismissive sniff for Sareitha's doubts. 
For that matter, she expressed surprise that they had not been 
taken right from Aringill long since. "I couldn't believe they 
were still there when we arrived in Caemlyn. Any fool could 
see they would be brought here sooner or later. Much easier to 
get them out of a small town." A small town. Aringill would 
have seemed a great city to her, once. "As for spies. ..." She 
frowned at a lanky, gray-haired man filling a gold-worked 
stand-lamp with oil, and shook her head. "Of course there are 
spies. I knew there must be, right from the start. You just 
have to watch what you say, Elayne. Don't say anything to 
anyone you don't know well unless you don't mind everyone 
knowing." 


When to speak and when not, Elayne thought, pursing her 
lips. Sometimes that could be a true penance, with Nynaeve. 


Nynaeve had her own information to impart. Eighteen of the 
Kin who had accompanied them to Caemlyn were no longer in the 
Palace. They had not run away, though. Since none was strong 
enough to Travel, Nynaeve had woven the gateways herself, 
sending them deep into Altara and Amadicia and Tarabon, into 


the Seanchan-held lands where they would try to find any of 
the Kin who had not already fled and bring them back to 
Caemlyn. 

It would have been nice if Nynaeve had thought to inform her 
yesterday, when they left, or better yet, when she and Reanne 
reached the decision to send them, but Elayne did not mention 
that. Instead, she said, "That's very brave of them. Avoiding 



capture won't be easy." 


"Brave, yes," Nynaeve said, sounding irritated. Her hand 
crept up to her braid again. "But that isn't why we chose 
them. Alise thought they were the most likely to run if we 
didn't give them something to do." Glancing over her shoulder 
at Lan, she snatched her hand back down. "I don't see how 
Egwene means to do it," she sighed. "All very well to say 
every one of the Kin will be 'associated' with the Tower 
somehow, but how? Most aren't strong enough to earn the shawl. 
Many can't even reach Accepted. And they certainly won't stand 
for being novices or Accepted the rest of their lives." 


This time Elayne said nothing because she did not know what 
to say. The promise had to be kept; she had made it herself. 
In Egwene's name, true, and at Egwene's order, but she had 
spoken the words herself, and she would not break her word. 
Only, she did not see how to keep it unless Egwene came up 
with something truly wonderful. 


Reanne Corly was just where Elayne had known she would be, 
in a small room with two narrow windows looking down on a 
small, fountained courtyard deep in the Palace, though the 
fountain was dry, this time of year, and the glass casements 
made the room a little stuffy. The floor was plain dark tile 
with no carpet, and for furnishings there were only a narrow 
table and two chairs. There were two people with Reanne when 
Elayne entered. Alise Tenjile, in simple high-necked gray, 
looked up from where she stood at the end of the table. 
Seemingly in her middle years, she was a woman of pleasant, 
unremarkable appearance who was quite remarkable indeed once 
you came to know her and could be very unpleasant indeed when 
it was called for. A single glance, and she returned to her 
study of what was going on at the table. Aes Sedai, Warders 
and Daughter-Heirs did not impress Alise, not any longer. 
Reanne herself was sitting on one side of the table, her face 
creased and her hair more gray than not, in a green dress more 
elaborate than Alise's; she had been put out of the Tower 
after failing her test for Accepted, and offered a second 
chance, she had already adopted the colors of her preferred 
Ajah. Across from her sat a plump woman in plain brown wool, 
her face set in stubborn defiance and her dark eyes locked on 
Reanne, avoiding the silvery segmented a'dam lying like a 
snake between them on the table. Her hands stroked the edge of 
the tabletop, though, and Reanne wore a confident smile that 
deepened the fine lines at the corners of her eyes. 


"Don't tell me you have made one of them see reason," 
Nynaeve said before Lan had even shut the door behind them. 
She scowled at the woman in brown as though she wanted to box 
her ears if not worse, then glanced at Alise. Elayne thought 
Nynaeve was a little in awe of Alise. The woman was far from 
strong in the Power-she would never attain the shawl-but she 
had a way of taking charge when she wanted to and making 
everyone around her accept it. Including Aes Sedai. Elayne 
thought she might be just a little in awe of Alise herself. 


"They still deny they can channel," Alise muttered, folding 
her arms beneath her breasts, and frowned at the woman facing 
Reanne. "They can't, really, I suppose, but I can feel . . . 
something. Not quite the spark of a woman born to it, but 
almost. It's as if she were right at the brink of being able 



to channel, one foot poised to step over. I have never sensed 
anything like it before. Well. At least they don't try to 
attack us with their fists anymore. I think I put them 
straight on that, at least!" The woman in brown flashed a 
sullen, angry glare at her, but jerked her eyes away from 
Alise's firm gaze, her mouth twisting in a sickly grimace. 
When Alise set somebody straight, they were set very straight 
indeed. Her hands continued to shift along the tabletop; 


Elayne did not think she was aware of it. 


"They still deny seeing the flows, too, but they're trying 
to convince themselves," Reanne said in her high, musical 
voice. She continued to meet the other's obstinate stare with 
a smile. Any sister might have envied Reanne's serenity and 
presence. She had been Eldest of the Knitting Circle, the 
highest authority among the Kin. According to their Rule, the 
Knitting Circle existed only in Ebou Dar, but she was still 
the oldest among those in Caemlyn, a hundred years older than 
any Aes Sedai in living memory, and she could match any sister 
with her air of calm command. "They claim we trick them with 
the Power, use it to make them believe the a'dam can hold 
them. Sooner or later, they will run out of lies." Drawing the 
a'dam to her, she opened the collar's catch with a deft 
motion. "Shall we try again, Marii?" The woman in 
brown-Marii-still avoided looking at the length of silver 
metal in Reanne's hands, but she stiffened and her hands 
fluttered on the table's edge. 


Elayne sighed. What a gift Rand had sent her. A gift! Twenty-
nine Seanchan sui'dam neatly held by a'dam, and five 
damane-she hated that word; it meant Leashed One, or simply 
Leashed; but that was what they were-five damane who could not 
be uncollared for the simple reason that they would try to 
free the Seanchan women who had held them prisoner. Leopards 
tied with string would have been a better gift. At least 
leopards could not channel. They had been given into the Kin's 
keeping because no one else had the time. 


Still, she had seen right away what to do with the sui'dam. 
Convince them that they could learn to channel, then send them 
back to the Seanchan. Apart from Nynaeve, only Egwene, 
Aviendha and a few of the Kin knew her plan. Nynaeve and 
Egwene were doubtful, but however hard the sui'dam tried to 
hide what they were once they were returned, eventually one 
would slip. If they did not just report everything right away. 
Seanchan were peculiar; even the Seanchan among the damane 
truly believed that any woman who could channel had to be 
collared for the safety of everyone else. Sui'dam, with their 
ability to control women wearing the a'dam, were highly 
respected among the Seanchan. The knowledge that sui'dam 
themselves were able to channel would shake the Seanchan to 
their core, maybe even break them apart. It had seemed so 
simple, in the beginning. 


"Reanne, I understood that you had good news," she said. "If 
the sui'dam haven't started breaking down, what is it?" Alise 
frowned at Lan, who stood silent guard in front of the 
door-she disapproved of him knowing their plans-but she said 
nothing. 


"A moment, if you please," Reanne murmured. It was not 
really a request. Nynaeve truly had done her job too well. 



"There is no need for her to listen." The glow of saidar 
suddenly shone around her. She moved her fingers as she 
channeled, as though guiding the flows of air that bound Marii 
to her chair, then tied them off and cupped her hands as 
though shaping in her sight the ward against sound that she 
wove around the woman. The gestures were no part of 
channeling, of course, but necessary to her, since she had 
learned the weaves that way. The sui'dam's lips twisted 
slightly in contempt. The One Power did not frighten her at 
all. 


"Take your time," Nynaeve put in acidly, planting her hands 
on her hips. "There's no hurry." Reanne did not intimidate her 
the way Alise did. 


Then again, Nynaeve no longer intimidated Reanne, either. 
Reanne did take her time, studying her handiwork, then nodded 
with satisfaction before rising. The Kin had always tried to 
channel as little as was necessary, and she took great 
pleasure in the freedom to use saidar as often as she wished, 
as well as pride in weaving well. 


"The good news," she said, standing and smoothing her 
skirts, "is that three of the damane seem ready to be let out 
of their collars. Perhaps." 


Elayne's eyebrows rose, and she exchanged surprised looks 
with Nynaeve. Of the five damane Taim had handed over to them, 
one had been taken by the Seanchan on Toman Head and another 
in Tanchico. The others had come from Seanchan. 


"Two of the Seanchan women, Marille and Jillari, still say 
they deserve to be collared, need to be collared." Reanne's 
mouth tightened with distaste, but she paused for only a 
moment. "They truly seem horrified at the prospect of freedom. 
Alivia has stopped that. Now she says it was only because she 
was afraid she would be retaken. She says she hates all the 
sui'dam, and she certainly makes a good show of it, snarling 
at them and cursing them, but. . . ." She shook her head 
slowly in doubt. "She was collared at thirteen or fourteen, 
Elayne, she's not certain which, and she's been damane for 
four hundred years! And aside from that, she is ... she's . . 
. Alivia is considerably stronger than Nynaeve," she finished 
in a rush. Age, the Kin might discuss openly, but they had all 
the Aes Sedai reticence about speaking of strength in the 
Power. "Do we dare let her free? A Seanchan wilder who could 
tear the entire Palace apart?" The Kin shared the Aes Sedai 
view of wilders, too. Most did. 


Sisters who knew Nynaeve had learned to take care with that 
word around her. She could become quite snappish when it was 
used in a disparaging tone. Now, she just stared at Reanne. 
Perhaps she was trying to find the answer. Elayne knew what 
her own answer would be, but this had nothing to do with 
claiming the throne, or Andor. It was a decision for Aes 
Sedai, and here, that meant it was Nynaeve's to make. 


"If you don't," Lan said quietly from the door, "then you 
might as well give her back to the Seanchan." He was not at 
all abashed by the dark looks given him by the four women who 
heard his deep voice toll those words like a funeral gong. 
"You will have to watch her closely, but keep her collared 
when she wants to be free, and you are no better than they 
are." 



 "That isn't for you to say, Warder," Alise said firmly. He 
met her stern stare with cool equanimity, and she gave a small 
disgusted grunt and threw up her hands. "You should give him a 
good talking-to when you get him alone, Nynaeve." 


Nynaeve must have been feeling her awe of the women partic 
ularly strongly, because her cheeks colored. "Don't think that 
I will not," she said lightly. She did not look at Lan at all. 
Finally condescending to notice the chill, she pulled her 
shawl up onto her shoulders, and cleared her throat. "He is 
right, though. At least we don't have to worry about the other 
two. I'm just surprised it took them this long to stop 
imitating those fool Seanchan." 


"I am not so sure," Reanne sighed. "Kara was a sort of wise 
woman on Toman Head, you know. Very influential in her 
village. A wilder, of course. You would think she'd hate the 
Seanchan, but she doesn't, not all of them. She is very fond 
of the sui'dam captured with her, and very anxious that we 
shouldn't hurt any of the sui'dam. Lemore is just nineteen, a 
pampered noblewoman with the extreme bad luck to have the 
spark manifest itself in her on the very day Tanchico fell. 
She says she hates the Seanchan and wants to make them pay for 
what they did to Tanchico, but she answers to Larie, her 
damane name, as readily as to Lemore, and she smiles at the 
sui'dam and lets them pet her. I don't mistrust them, not the 
way I do Alivia, but I doubt either one could stand up to a 
sui'dam. I think if a sui'dam ordered either to help her 
escape, she would, and I fear she might not fight too hard if 
the sui'dam tried to collar her again." 


After she stopped speaking, the silence stretched. 


Nynaeve seemed to look inward, struggling with herself. She 
gripped her braid, then let go and folded her arms tight 
across her chest, the fringe of her shawl swaying as she 
hugged herself. She glared at everyone except Lan. Him, she 
did not so much as glance at. 


Finally she took a deep breath, and squared herself to face 
Reanne and Alise. "We must remove the a'dam. We will hold on 
to them until we can be sure-and Lemore after; she needs to be 
put in white!-and we will make sure they are never left alone, 
especially with the sui'dam, but the a'dam come off!" She 
spoke fiercely, as if expecting opposition, but a broad smile 
of approval spread across Elayne's face. The addition of three 
more women they could not be sure of hardly counted as good 
news, but there had been no other choice. 


Reanne merely nodded acceptance-after a moment-but a smiling 
Alise came around the table to pat Nynaeve's shoulder, and 
Nynaeve actually blushed. She tried to hide it behind clearing 
her throat roughly and grimacing at the Seanchan woman in her 
cage of saidar, but her efforts were not very effectual, and 
Lan spoiled them in any case. 


"Tai'shar Manetheren," he said softly. 


Nynaeve's mouth fell open, then curled into a tremulous 
smile. Sudden tears glistened in her eyes as she spun to face 
him, her face joyous. He smiled back at her, and there was 
nothing cold in his eyes. 


Elayne struggled not to gape. Light! Maybe he did not chill 
their marriage bed after all. The thought made her cheeks 
warm. Trying not to look at them, her eyes fell on Marii, 



still fastened in her chair. The Seanchan woman was staring 
straight ahead, tears flowing down her plump cheeks. Straight 
ahead. At the weaves holding sound away from her. She could 
not deny seeing the weaves now. But when she said as much, 
Reanne shook her head. 


"They all weep if they are made to look at waves very long, 
Elayne," she said wearily. And a touch sadly. "But once the 
weaves are gone, they convince themselves we tricked them. 
They have to, you understand. Else they'd be damane, not 
sui'dam. No, it will take time to convince the Mistress of the 
Hounds that she is really a hound herself. I am afraid I 
really haven't given you any good news at all, have I?" 


"Not very much," Elayne told her. None, really. Just another 
problem to stack up on all the rest. How much bad news could 
be stacked before the pile buried you? She had to get some 
good, soon. 


Chapter 9: A Cup of Tea 


Once in her dressing room, Elayne hurriedly changed out of 
her riding clothes with the help of Essande, the white-haired 
pensioner she had chosen for her maid. The slender, dignified 
woman was a trifle slow-moving, but she knew her job and did 
not waste time chattering. In fact, she seldom said a word 
beyond suggestions on clothing, and the comment given every 
day, that Elayne looked like her mother. Flames danced atop 
thick logs on a wide marble hearth at one end of the room, but 
the fire did little to take the chill off the air. Quickly she 
put on a fine blue wool with patterns of seed pearls on the 
high neck and down the sleeves, her silver-worked belt with a 
small silver-sheathed dagger, and the silver-embroidered blue 
velvet slippers. There might be no time to change again before 
seeing the merchants, and they must be impressed at the sight 
of her. She would have to be sure Birgitte was there; Birgitte 
was most impressive in her uniform. And Birgitte would take 
even listening to merchants as a break. By the heated knot of 
irritation resting in the back of Elayne's head, the Captain-
General of the Queen's Guard was finding those reports heavy 
going. Hastening dusters of pearls in her ears, she dismissed 
Essande to her own fire, in the pensioners' quarters. The 
woman had denied it when offered Healing, but Elayne suspected 
her joints ached. In any case, she herself was ready. She 
would not wear the coronet of the Daughter-Heir; it could stay 
atop the small ivory jewelry chest on her dressing table. She 
did not have many gems; 


most had already been put in pawn, and the rest might have 
to go when the plate did. No point worrying about it now. A 
few moments to herself, and she would have to leap back to 
duty. 


Her dark-paneled sitting room with its wide cornices of 
carved birds contained two tall fireplaces with elaborate 
mantels, one at either end, which did a better job of warming 
than the one in the dressing room, though here, too, the 
carpets layered on the white-tiled floor were necessary. To 
her surprise, the room also contained Halwin Norry. Duty had 



leaped at her, it seemed. 


The First Clerk stretched up out of a low-backed chair as 
she entered, clutching a leather folder to his narrow chest, 
and lurched around the scroll-edged table in the middle of the 
room to make an awkward leg. Norry was tall and lean, with a 
long nose, his sparse fringe of hair rising behind his ears 
like sprays of white feathers. He often minded her of a heron. 
Any number of clerks under him actually wielded the pens, yet 
a small inkstain marred one edge of his scarlet tabard. The 
stain looked old, though, and she wondered whether the folder 
hid others. He had only taken to holding it against his chest 
when he donned formal dress, two days after Mistress Harfor. 
Whether he had done so as an expression of loyalty, or simply 
because the First Maid had, was still in question. 


"Forgive me for being precipitate, my Lady," he said, "but I 
do believe I have matters of some importance, if not actual 
haste, to lay before you." Important or not, his voice still 
droned. 


"Of course, Master Norry. I would not want to press you to 
haste." He blinked at her, and she tried not to sigh. She 
thought he might be more than a little deaf, from the way he 
tilted his head this way and that as if to catch sound better. 
Maybe that was why his voice almost never changed pitch. She 
raised hers a little. He might just be a bore, after all. 
"Sit, and tell me these matters of importance." 


She took one of the carved chairs away from the table and 
motioned him to another, but he remained standing. He always 
did. She settled back to listen, crossing her knees and 
adjusting her skirts. 


He did not refer to his folder. Everything on the papers in 
it would be inside his head, the papers there only in case she 
required to see with her own eyes. "Most immediate, my Lady, 
and perhaps most important, large deposits of alum have been 
discovered on your estates at Danabar. The first quality of 
alum. I believe the bankers will be ... umm . . . less 
hesitant regarding my inquiries on your behalf once they learn 
of this." He smiled briefly, a momentary curving of thin lips. 
For him, that was near to capering. 


Elayne sat up straight as soon as he mentioned alum, and she 
smiled much more broadly. She felt a little like capering 
herself. Had her companion been anyone but Norry, she might 
have. Her elation was so strong that for a moment she felt 
Birgitte's irritability wane. Dyers and weavers devoured alum, 
and so did glass-makers and papermakers among others. The only 
source for first quality alum was Ghealdan-or had been till 
now-and just the taxes on the trade had been sufficient to 
support the throne of Ghealdan for generations. What came from 
Tear and Arafel was not nearly so fine, yet it put as much 
coin in those countries' coffers as olive oil or gems. 


"That is important news, Master Norry. The best I've had 
today." The best since reaching Caemlyn, very likely, but 
certainly the best today. "How quickly can you overcome the 
bankers' 'hesitation'?" It had been more like slamming the 
door in her face, only not so rude. The bankers knew to a man 
how many swords stood behind her at the moment, and how many 
behind her opponents. Even so, she had no doubts the riches of 
alum would bring them around. Neither did Norry. 



 "Quite quickly, my Lady, and on very good terms, I believe. 
I shall tell them if their best offers are insufficient, I 
will approach Tear or Cairhien. They will not risk losing the 
custom, my Lady." All in that dry, flat voice, without a hint 


of the satisfaction any other man would have. "It will be 
loans against future income, of course, and there will be 
expenses. The mining itself. Transportation. Danabar is in 

mountainous country, and some distance from the Lugard Road. 
Still, there should be sufficient to meet your ambitions for 
the Guards, my Lady. And for your Academy." 


"Sufficient is hardly the word, if you've given over trying 
to talk me out of my plans for the Academy, Master Norry," she 
said, nearly laughing. He was as jealous of Andor's treasury 
as a hen with one chick, and he had been adamantly opposed to 
her taking over the school Rand had ordered founded in 
Caemlyn, returning to his arguments time and again until his 
voice seemed a drill boring into her skull. So far the school 
consisted of only a few dozen scholars with their students, 
scattered about the New City in various inns, but even in 
winter more arrived every day, and they had begun to clamor 
for more space. She did not propose giving them a palace, 
certainly, yet they needed something. Norry was trying to 
husband Andor's gold, but she was looking to Andor's future. 
Tarmon Gai'don was coming, yet she had to believe there would 
be a future afterward, whether or not Rand broke the world 
again. Otherwise, there was no point in going on with 
anything, and she could not see just sitting down to wait. 
Even if she knew for a fact that the Last Battle would end 
everything, she did not think she could sit on her hands. Rand 
started schools in case he did end breaking the world, in the 
hope of saving something, but this school would be Andor's, 
not Rand al'Thor's. The Academy of the Rose, dedicated to the 
memory of Morgase Trakand. There would be a future, and the 
future would remember her mother. "Or have you decided the 
Cairhienin gold can be traced to the Dragon Reborn after all?" 


"I still believe the risk to be very small, my Lady, but no 
longer worth taking in view of what I have just learned from 
Tar Valon." His tone did not alter, but clearly he was 
agitated. His fingers drummed the leather folder against his 
chest, spiders dancing, then still. "The . . . umm . . . White 
Tower has issued a proclamation acknowledging . . . umm . . . 
Lord Rand as the Dragon Reborn and offering him . . . umm . . 
. protection and guidance. It also pronounces anathema on 
anyone approaching him save through the Tower. It is wise to 
be wary of Tar Valon's anger, my Lady, as you yourself are 
aware." He looked significantly at the Great Serpent ring on 
her hand resting on the carved arm of the chair. He knew of 
the split in the Tower, of course- maybe a crofter in Seleisin 
did not; no one else could fail to, by now-but he had been too 
discreet to ask her allegiance. Though plainly he had been 
about to say "the Amyrlin Seat" instead of "the White Tower." 
And the Light alone knew what in place of "Lord Rand." She did 
not hold that against him. He was a cautious man, a quality 
needed in his post. 


Elaida's proclamation stunned her, though. Frowning, she 
thumbed her ring thoughtfully. Elaida had worn that ring 
longer than she herself had lived. The woman was arrogant, 



wrong-headed, blind to any view except her own, but she was 
not stupid. Far from it. "Can she possibly think he will 
accept such an offer?" she mused, half to herself. "Protection 
and guidance? I can't imagine a better way to put his back 
up!" Guidance? No one could guide Rand with a barge pole! 


"He may possibly have accepted already, my Lady, according 
to my correspondent in Cairhien." Norry would have shuddered 
at the suggestion he was in any way a spymaster. Well, he 
would have twisted his mouth in distaste, anyway. The First 
Clerk administered the treasury, controlled the clerks who ran 
the capital, and advised the throne on matters of state. He 
certainly had no network of eyes-and-ears, like the Ajahs and 
even some individual sisters did. But he did exchange regular 
letters with knowledgeable and often well-connected people in 
other capitals, so his advice could be current with events. 
"She sends a pigeon only once a week, and it seems that right 
after her last, someone attacked the Sun Palace using the One 
Power." 


"The Power?" she exclaimed, jerking forward in shock. 


Norry nodded once. He might have been reporting the current 
state of street repairs. "So my correspondent reports, my 
Lady. Aes Sedai, perhaps, or Asha'man, or even the Forsaken. 
She repeats gossip here, I fear. The wing housing the 
apartments of the Dragon Reborn was largely destroyed, and he 
himself has vanished. It is widely believed that he has gone 
to Tar Valon to kneel before the Amyrlin Seat. Some do believe 
him dead in the attack, but not a great many. I advise doing 
nothing until you have a clearer picture." He paused, head 
tilted in thought. "From what I saw of him, my Lady," he said 
slowly, "I myself would not believe him dead unless I sat 
three days with the corpse." 


She almost stared. That was very nearly a joke. A rough 
witticism, at least. From Halwin Norry! She did not believe 
Rand was dead, either. She would not believe he was dead. As 
for kneeling to Elaida, the man was too stubborn to submit to 
anyone. A great many difficulties could be surmounted if only 
he could bring himself to kneel to Egwene, but he would not do 
it, and she was his childhood friend. Elaida stood as much 
chance as a goat at a court ball, particularly once he learned 
other proclamation. Who had attacked him, though? Surely the 
Seanchan could not have reached out to Cairhien. If the 
Forsaken had decided to move openly, that could mean worse 
chaos and destruction than already faced the world, but the 
worst would be Asha'man. If his own creations turned on him. . 
. . No! She could not protect him, however much he needed it. 
He would just have to fend for himself. 


Fool man! she muttered in her head. He's probably marching 
around with banners, just as if no one tried to kill him at 
all! You had better fend for yourself, Rand al'Thor, or I'll 
slap you silly when I get my hands on you! 


"What else do your correspondents have to say, Master 
Norry?" she asked aloud, putting Rand aside. She did not have 
her hands on him yet, and she needed to concentrate on trying 
to hold on to Andor. 


His correspondents had a great deal to say, though some of 
it was quite old. Not all the writers used pigeons, and 
letters given to the most trustworthy merchant could take 



months to come across land in the best of times. Untrustworthy 
merchants accepted the post fee and never bothered to deliver 
the letter. Few people could afford to hire couriers. Elayne 
had a mind to start a Royal Post, if the situation ever 
allowed. Norry lamented the fact that his latest from Ebou Dar 
and Amador were already overtaken by events that had been the 
talk of the streets for weeks. 


Not all the news was important, either. His letter writers 
really were not eyes-and-ears; they just wrote the news of 
their city, the talk of the court. The talk of Tear was of 
increasing numbers of Sea Folk ships that made their way 
through the Fingers of the Dragon without pilots and now 
crowded the river at the city, of rumors that Sea Folk vessels 
had fought the Seanchan at sea, though that was purely rumor. 
Illian was quiet, and full of Rand's soldiers, recovering from 
a battle against the Seanchan; no more was known; even whether 
Rand had been in the city was in question. The Queen of 
Saldaea was still on her long retreat in the country, which 
Elayne already knew about, but it seemed the Queen of Kandor 
had not been seen in Chachin for months, either, and the King 
of Shienar was supposedly still on an extended inspection of 
the Blightborder, though the Blight was reported quieter than 
any time in memory. In Lugard, King Roedran was gathering 
every noble who would bring armsmen, and a city already 
worried about two great armies camped near the border with 
Andor, one full of Aes Sedai and the other full of Andorans, 
now also worried about what a dissolute wastrel like Roedran 
intended. 


"And your counsel here?" she asked when he was done, though 
she did not need it. In truth, she had not needed it in the 
others. The events were too far away to affect Andor, or else 
unimportant, just a view of what was occurring in other lands. 
Still, she was expected to ask even when they both knew she 
already had the answer-"do nothing"-and he had been prompt 
with his replies. Murandy was neither far away nor 
unimportant, yet this time he hesitated, pursing his lips. 
Norry was slow and methodical, but seldom hesitant. 


"None, in this regard, my Lady," he said at last. "Normally, 
I would advise an emissary to Roedran to attempt sounding out 
his goals and reasons. He may be fearful of events north of 
him, or of the Aiel raids we hear so much about. Then again, 
though he has always been unambitious, he may have some 
enterprise in northern Altara. Or in Andor, under the 
circumstances. Unfortunately. . . ." Still pressing the folder 
to his chest, he spread his hands slightly and sighed, perhaps 
in apology, perhaps distress. 


Unfortunately, she was not queen yet, and no emissary from 
her would get near Roedran. If her claim failed, and he had re 
ceived her envoy, the successful claimant might seize a swath 
of Murandy to teach him a lesson, and Lord Luan and the others 
had already seized territory. She had better information than 
the First Clerk, though, from Egwene. She had no intention of 
revealing her source, but she decided to ease his distress. 
That must be what had his mouth wrinkled: knowing what should 
be done and not being able to see how to do it. 


"I know Roedran's aims, Master Norry, and he aims at Murandy 
itself. The Andorans in Murandy have accepted oaths from 



Murandian nobles in the north, which make the rest nervous. 
And there is a large band of mercenaries-Dragonsworn, really, 
but Roedran thinks they are mercenaries-who he has hired in 
secret, to sit and provide a menace after the other armies are 
gone. He plans to use those threats to bind nobles to him 
tightly enough that each is afraid to be the first to break 
away when the threats are all gone. He may be a problem in the 
future, if his plan succeeds-for one thing, he will want those 


northern lands back-but he presents no immediate problems for 
Andor." 
Norry's eyes widened, and he tilted his head first to one 

side then other, studying her. He wet his lips before 
speaking. "That would explain much, my Lady. Yes. Yes, it 
would." His tongue touched his lips again. "There was one 
other point mentioned by my correspondent in Cairhien which I 
... umm . . . forgot to mention. As you may be aware, your 
intention to claim the Sun Throne is well known there, and has 
large support. It seems that many Cairhienin speak openly of 
coming to Andor, to aide you in gaining the Lion Throne so you 
can take the Sun Throne sooner. I think perhaps you do not 
need my advice concerning any such offers?" 


She nodded, quite graciously in the circumstances, she 
thought. Aid from Cairhien would be worse than the 
mercenaries, for there had been too many wars between Andor 
and Cairhien. He had not forgotten. Halwin Norry never forgot 
anything. So why had he decided to tell her, rather than let 
her be caught by surprise, perhaps by the arrival of her 
Cairhien supporters? Had her display of knowledge impressed 
him? Or made him fearful she might learn he had held back? He 
waited on her patiently, a dried-up heron waiting ... on a 
fish? 


"Have a letter prepared for my signature and seal, Master 
Norry, to be sent to every major House in Cairhien. Begin with 
setting out my right to the Sun Throne as the daughter of 
Taringail Damodred, and say that I will come to put forward my 
claim when events in Andor are more settled. Say that I will 
bring no soldiers with me, as I know that Andoran soldiers on 
Cairhienin soil would incite all of Cairhien against me, and 
rightly so. Finish with my appreciation of the support offered 
to my cause by many Cairhienin, and my hope that any divisions 
within Cairhien can be healed peacefully." The intelligent 
would see the message behind the words, and with luck, explain 
it to any who were not bright enough. 


"A deft response, my Lady," Norry said, hunching his shoul 
ders in a semblance of a bow. "I shall make it so. If I may 
ask, my Lady, have you had time to sign the accounts? Ah. No 
matter. I will send someone for them later." Bowing properly, 
if no less awkwardly than before, he prepared to go, then 
paused. "Forgive me for being so bold, my Lady, but you remind 
me very much of the late Queen your mother." 


Watching the door close behind him, she wondered whether she 
could count him in her camp. Administering Caemlyn without 
clerks, much less Andor, was impossible, and the First Clerk 
had the power to bring a queen to her knees if unchecked. A 
compliment was not the same as a declaration of fealty. 


She did not have long to mull the question, for only moments 
after he departed, three liveried maids entered, bearing 



silver-domed trays that they placed in a row on the long side 
table standing against one wall. 


"The First Maid said my Lady forgot to send for her midday 
meal," a round, gray-haired woman said, curtsying as she 
gestured for her younger companion to remove the tall domes, 
"so she sent a choice for my Lady." 


A choice. Shaking her head at the display, Elayne was re 
minded how long it had been since breakfast, eaten with the 
rising sun. There was sliced saddle of mutton with mustard 
sauce, and capon roasted with dried figs, sweetbreads with 
pinenuts, and creamy leek and potato soup, cabbage rolls with 
raisins and peppers, and a squash pie, not to mention a small 
plate of apple tarts and another of tipsy cake topped with 
clotted cream. Mists of steam rose from two squat silver 
pitchers of wine, in case she preferred one sort of spicing 
over another. A third held hot tea. And pushed scornfully into 
a corner of one tray was the meal she always ordered in the 
middle of the day, clear broth and bread. Reene Harfor 
disapproved of that; she claimed Elayne was "thin as a rail." 


The First Maid had spread her opinions. The gray-haired 
woman put on a reproachful face as she set the bread and broth 
and tea on the table in the middle of the room with a white 
linen napkin, a thin blue porcelein cup and saucer, and a 
silver pot of honey. And a few of the figs on a dish. A full 
stomach at midday made for a dull head in the afternoon, as 
Lini used to say. Her opinions were not shared, however. The 
maids were all comfortably padded women, and even the younger 
pair looked disappointed as they departed with the remainder 
of the food. 


It was very good broth, hot and lightly spiced, and the tea 
was pleasantly minty, but she was not left alone with her 
meal, and her thoughts that perhaps she could have taken a 
little of the tipsy cake, for long. Before she had swallowed 
two mouthfuls, Dyelin stormed into the room like a whirlwind 
in a green riding dress, breathing hard. Setting down her 
spoon, Elayne offered tea before realizing there was only the 
one cup she was already using, but Dyelin waved the offer 
aside, her face set in a dire frown. 


"There is an army in Braem Wood," she announced, "like 
nothing seen since the Aiel War. A merchant down from New 
Braem brought the news this morning. A solid, reliable man, 
Tormon; an Illianer; not given to flights of fancy or jumping 
at shadows. He said he saw Arafellin, Kandori, and Shienarans, 
in different places. Thousands of them, altogether. Tens of 
thousands." Collapsing into a chair, she fanned herself with 
one hand. Her face was touched with red, as if she had run 
with the news. "What in the Light are Borderlanders doing 
nearly on the border of Andor?" 


"It's Rand, I'll wager," Elayne said. Stifling a yawn, she 
drank the rest of her tea and refilled the cup. Her morning 
had been tiring, but enough tea would perk her up. 


Dyelin stopped fanning and sat up straight. "You don't think 
he sent them, do you? To ... help you?" 


That possibility had not occurred to Elayne. At times she re 
gretted letting the older woman know her feelings for Rand. "I 
cannot think he was ... I mean, would be ... that foolish." 


Light, she was tired! Sometimes Rand behaved as if he were 



the King of the World, but surely he would not. . . . Would 
not. . . . What it was he would not do seemed to slide away 
from her. 


She covered another yawn, and suddenly her eyes widened 
above her hand, staring at her teacup. A cool, minty taste. 
Carefully, she put the cup down, or tried to. She nearly 
missed the saucer altogether, and the cup toppled over, 
spilling tea onto the tabletop. Tea laced with forkroot. Even 
knowing there was no use, she reached out to the Source, tried 
to fill herself with the life and joy of saidar, but she might 
as well have tried to catch the wind in a net. Birgitte's 
irritation, less hot than before, was still lodged in a corner 
of her mind. Frantically she tried to pull up fear, or panic. 
Her head seemed stuffed with wool, everything in it dulled. 
Help me, Birgitte! she thought. Help me! 


"What is it?" Dyelin demanded, leaning forward sharply. 
"You've thought of something, and by your face, it is 
horrific." 


Elayne blinked at her. She had forgotten the other woman was 
there. "Go!" she said thickly, then swallowed heavily to try 
clearing her throat. Her tongue still felt twice its size. 
"Get help! I've . . . been poisoned!" Explaining would take 
too much time. "Go!" 


Dyelin gaped at her, frozen, then lurched to her feet 
gripping the hilt other belt knife. 


The door opened, and a servant hesitantly put his head in. 
Elayne felt a flood of relief. Dyelin would not stab her 
before a witness. The man wet his lips, eye darting between 
the two women. Then he came in. Drawing a long-bladed knife 
from his belt. Two more men in red-and-white livery followed, 
each unsheathing a long knife. 


/ will not die like a kitten in a sack, Elayne thought 
bitterly. With an effort, she pushed herself to her feet. Her 
knees wobbled, and she had to support herself on the table 
with one hand, but she used the other to draw her own dagger. 
The pattern-etched blade was barely as long as her hand, but 
it would suffice. It would have, had her fingers not felt 
wooden gripping the hilt. A child could take it away. Not 
without fighting back, she thought. It was like pushing 
through syrup, but determined even so. No/ without fighting! 


Strangely little time seemed to have passed. Dyelin was just 
turning to her henchmen, the last of them just closing the 
door behind him. 


"Murder!" Dyelin howled. Picking up her chair, she hurled it 
at the men. "Guards'. Murder! Guards'." 


The three tried to dodge the chair, but one was too slow, 
and it caught him on the legs. With a yell, he fell into the 
man next to him, and they both went down. The other, a 
slender, tow-headed young man with bright blue eyes, skipped 
by with his knife advanced. 


Dyelin met him with her own, slashing, stabbing, but he 
moved like a ferret, avoiding her attack with ease. His own 
long blade slashed, and Dyelin stumbled back with a shriek, 
one hand clutching at her middle. He danced forward nimbly, 


stabbing, and she screamed and fell like a rag doll. He 
stepped over her, walking toward Elayne. 
Nothing else existed for her except him, and the knife in 


his hand. He did not rush at her. Those big blue eyes studied 
her cautiously as he advanced at a steady pace. Of course. He 
knew she was Aes Sedai. He had to be wondering whether the 
potion had done its work. She tried to stand straight, to 
glare at him, to win a few moments by bluff, but he nodded to 
himself, hefting his knife. If she could have done anything, 
it would have happened by now. There was no pleasure on his 
face. He was just a man with a job to do. 


Abruptly, he stopped, staring down at himself in astonish 
ment. Elayne stared, too. At the foot of steel sticking out 
from his chest. Blood bubbled in his mouth as he toppled into 
the table, shoving it hard. 


Staggering, Elayne fell to her knees, and barely caught the 
edge of the table again to stop herself falling further. 
Amazed, she stared at the man bleeding onto the carpets. There 
was a sword hilt sticking out of his back. Her leaden thoughts 
were wandering. Those carpets might never come clean, with all 
that blood. Slowly she raised her eyes, past the motionless 
form of Dyelin. She did not appear to be breathing. To the 
door. The open door. One of the remaining two assassins lay in 
front of it, his head at an odd angle, only half attached to 
his neck. The other was struggling with another red-coated 
man, the pair of them grunting and rolling on the floor, both 
striving for the same dagger. The would-be killer was trying 
to pry the other's fist from his throat with his free hand. 
The other. A man with a face like an axe. In the white-
collared coat of a Guardsman. 


Hurry, Birgitte, she thought dully. Please hurry. 


Darkness consumed her. 


Chapter 10: A Plan Succeeds 


Elayne's eyes opened in darkness, staring at dim shadows 
dancing on misty paleness. Her face was cold, the rest of her 
hot and sweaty, and something confined her arms and legs. For 
an instant panic flared. Then she sensed Aviendha's presence 
in the room, a simple, comforting awareness, and Birgitte's, a 
fist of calm, controlled anger in her head. They soothed her 
by being there. She was in her own bedchamber, lying beneath 
blankets in her own bed and staring up at the taut linen 
canopy with hot-water bottles packed along her sides. The 
heavy winter bed-curtains were tied back against the carved 


posts, and the only light in the room came from tiny 
flickering flames in the fireplace, just enough to make 
shadows shift, not dispel them. 

Without thought she reached out for the Source and found it. 
Touched saidar, wondrously, without drawing on it. The desire 
to draw deeply welled up strong in her, but reluctantly she re 
treated. Oh, so reluctantly, and not just because her wanting 
to be filled with the deeper life of saidar was often a 
bottomless need that must be controlled. Her greatest fear 
during those endless minutes of terror had not been death, but 
that she would never touch the Source again. Once, she would 
have thought that strange. 


Abruptly, memory returned, and she sat up unsteadily, the 



blankets sliding to her waist. Immediately, she pulled them 
back up. The air was cold against her bare skin slick with 
sweat. They had not even left her a shift, and try as she 
would to copy Aviendha's ease about being unclothed in front 
of others, she could not manage it. "Dyelin," she said 
anxiously, twisting to drape the blankets around herself 
better. It was an awkward operation; she felt wrung out and 
more than a little wobbly. "And the Guardsman. Are they . . . 
?" 


"The man didn't suffer a scratch," Nynaeve said, stepping 
out of the shifting shadows, a shadow herself. She rested her 
hand on Elayne's forehead and grunted in satisfaction at 
finding it cool. "I Healed Dyelin. She will need time to 
recover her strength fully, though. She lost a great deal of 
blood. You are doing well, too. For a time, I thought you were 
taking a fever. That can come on suddenly when you're 
weakened." 


"She gave you herbs instead of Healing," Birgitte said 
sourly from a chair at the foot of the bed. In the near 
darkness, she was just a squat, ominous shape. 


"Nynaeve aI'Meara is wise enough to know what she cannot 
do," Aviendha said in level tones. Only her white blouse and a 
flash of polished silver were really visible, low against the 
wall. As usual, she had chosen the floor over a chair. "She 
recognized the taste of this forkroot in the tea and did not 
know how to work her weaves against it, so she did not take 
foolish chances." 


Nynaeve sniffed sharply. No doubt as much at Aviendha's 
defense of her as Birgitte's acidity. Perhaps more so. Nynaeve 
being Nynaeve, she probably would have preferred to let slide 
what she did not know and could not do. And she was more 
prickly than usual about Healing, of late. Ever since it 
became clear that several of the Kin were already outstripping 
her skill. "You should have recognized it yourself, Elayne," 
she said in a brusque voice. "At any rate, greenwort and 
goatstongue might make you sleep, but they're sovereign for 
stomach cramps. I thought you would prefer the sleep." 


Fishing leather hot-water bottles from under the covers and 
dropping them onto the carpets so she did not start roasting 
again, Elayne shuddered. The days right after Ronde Macura 
dosed her and Nynaeve with forkroot had been a misery she had 
tried to forget. Whatever the herbs were that Nynaeve had 
given her, she felt no weaker than the forkroot would have 
made her. She thought she could walk, so long as she did not 
have to walk far or stand long. And she could think clearly. 
The casements showed only thin moonlight. How deeply into the 
night was it? 


Embracing the Source again, she channeled four threads of 
Fire to light first one stand-lamp, then a second. The small, 
mirrored flames brightened the room greatly after the 
darkness, and Birgitte put a hand up to shield her eyes, at 
first. The Captain-General's coat truly did suit her; she 
would have impressed the merchants no end. 


"You should not be channeling yet," Nynaeve fussed, squint 
ing at the sudden light. She still wore the same low-cut blue 
dress Elayne had seen her in earlier, with her yellow-fringed 
shawl caught in her elbows. "A few days to regain strength 



would be best, with plenty of sleep." She frowned at the hot-
water bottles tumbled on the floor. "And you need to be kept 
warm. Better to avoid a fever than need to Heal it." 


"I think Dyelin proved her loyalty today," Elayne said, 
shifting her pillows so she could lean back against the 
headboard, and Nynaeve threw up her hands in disgust. A small 
silver tray on one of the side tables flanking the bed held a 
single silver cup filled with dark wine that Elayne gave a 
brief, mistrusting look. "A hard way to prove it. I think I 
have toh toward her, Aviendha." 


Aviendha shrugged. On their arrival in Caemlyn she had re 
turned to Aiel garments with almost laughable haste, forsaking 
silks for algode blouses and bulky woolen skirts as though sud 
denly afraid of wetlander luxury. With a dark shawl tied 
around her waist and a dark folded kerchief holding her long 
hair back, she was the image of a Wise One's apprentice, 
though her only jewelry was a complicated silver necklace of 
intricately worked discs, a gift from Egwene. Elayne still did 
not understand her hurry. Melaine and the others had seemed 
willing to let her go her own way so long as she wore wetander 
clothes, but now they had her back in their grip as tightly as 
any novice in the hands of Aes Sedai. The only reason they 
allowed her to stay any time at all in the Palace-in the city, 
for that matter-was that she and Elayne were first-sisters. 


"If you think you do, then you do." Her tones of pointing 
out the obvious slid into an affectionate chiding. "But a 
small toh, Elayne. You had reason to doubt. You cannot assume 
obligation for every thought, sister." She laughed as if 
suddenly seeing a wonderful joke. "That way lies too much 
pride, and I will have to be overproud with you, only the Wise 
Ones will not call to you to account for it." 


Nynaeve rolled her eyes ostentatiously, but Aviendha simply 
shook her head, wearily patient with the other woman's igno 
rance. She had been studying more than the Power with the Wise 
Ones. 


"Well, we wouldn't want the pair of you being too proud," 
Birgitte said with what sounded suspiciously like suppressed 
mirth. Her face was much too smooth, almost rigid with the ef 
fort of not laughing. 


Aviendha eyed Birgitte with a wooden-faced wariness. Since 
she and Elayne had adopted one another, Birgitte had adopted 
her, too, in way. Not as a Warder, of course, but with the 
same elder-sister attitude she often displayed toward Elayne. 
Aviendha was not quite sure what to make of it, or how to 
respond. Joining the tiny circle who knew who Birgitte really 
was certainly had not helped. She bounced between fierce 
determination to show that Birgitte Silverbow did not overawe 
her and a startling meekness, with odd stops in between. 


Birgitte smiled at her, an amused smile, but it faded as she 
picked up a narrow bundle from her lap and began unfolding the 
cloth with great care. By the time she revealed a dagger with 
a leather-wrapped hilt and a long blade, her expression was 
severe, and tight anger flowed through the bond. Elayne 
recognized the knife instantly; she had last seen its twin in 
the hand of a tow-headed assassin. 


"They were not trying to kidnap you, sister," Aviendha said 
softly. 



 Birgitte's tone was grim. "After Mellar killed the first 
two- the second by spearing him with his sword across the 
width of the room like somebody in a bloody gleeman's tale," 
she held the dagger upright by the end of the hilt, "he took 
this from the last fellow and killed him with it. They had 
four near identical daggers between them. This one is 
poisoned." 


"Those brown stains on the blade are gray fennel mixed with 
powdered peach pit," Nynaeve said, sitting down on the edge of 
the bed, and grimaced in disgust. "One look at his eyes and 
tongue, and I knew that was what killed the fellow, not the 
knife." 


"Well," Elayne said quietly after a moment. Well, indeed. 
"Forkroot so I couldn't channel, or stand up, for that matter, 
and two men to hold me on my feet while the third put a 
poisoned dagger in me. A complicated plan." 


"Wetlanders like complicated plans," Aviendha said. Glancing 
at Birgitte uneasily, she shifted against the wall and added, 
"Some do." 


"Simple, in its way," Birgitte said, rewrapping the knife 
with as great a care as she had shown unwrapping. "You were 
easy to reach. Everyone knows you eat your midday meal alone." 
Her long braid swung as she shook her head. "A lucky thing the 
first man to reach you didn't have this; one stab, and you'd 
be dead. A lucky thing Mellar happened to be walking by and 
heard a man cursing in your rooms. Enough luck for a 
ta'veren." 


Nynaeve snorted. "You might be dead from a deep enough cut 
on your arm. The pit is the most poisonous part of a peach. 
Dyelin wouldn't have had a chance if the other blades had been 
poisoned as well." 


Elayne looked around at her friends' flat, expressionless 
faces and sighed. A very complicated plan. As if spies in the 
Palace were not bad enough. "A small bodyguard, Birgitte," she 
said finally. "Something . . . discreet." She should have 
known the woman would be prepared. Birgitte's face did not 
change in the slightest, but the tiniest burst of satisfaction 
flared through their shared bond. 


"The women who guarded you today, for a start," she said, 
without so much as pretending to pause for thought, "and a few 
more that I'll pick. Maybe twenty or so, altogether. Too few 
can't protect you day and night, and you bloody well must be," 
she put in firmly, though Elayne had not offered any protest. 
"Women can guard you where men can't, and they'll be discreet 
just by being who they are. Most people will think they're 
ceremonial-your very own Maidens of the Spear-and we'll give 
them something, a sash maybe, to make them look more so." That 
earned her a very sharp look from Aviendha, which she affected 
not to notice. "The problem is who to command," she said, 
frowning in thought. "Two or three nobles, Hunters, are 
already arguing for rank 'sufficient to their station.' The 
bloody women know how to give orders, but I'm not sure they 
know the right bloody orders to give. I could promote Caseille 
to lieutenant, but she's more a bannerman at heart, I think." 
Birgitte shrugged. "Maybe one of the others will show promise, 
but I think they are better followers than leaders." 


Oh, yes; all thought out. Twenty or so? She would have to 



keep a close eye on Birgitte to make sure the number did not 
climb to fifty. Or more. Able to guard her where men could 
not. Elayne winced. That probably meant guards watching her 
bathe at the very least. "Caseille will do, surely. A 
bannerman can handle twenty." She was certain she could talk 
Caseille into keeping it all unobtrusive. And keeping the 
guards outside while she took a bath. "The man who arrived 
just in the nick of time. Mellar? What do you know of him, 
Birgitte?" 


"Doilin Mellar," Birgitte said slowly, her brows drawing 
down as a sharp angle. "A coldhearted fellow, though he smiles 


a lot. Mainly at women. He pinches serving girls, and he's 
tumbled three in four days that I know of-he likes to talk 
about his 'conquests'-but he hasn't pressed anyone who said 

no. He claims to have been a merchant's guard and then a 
mercenary, and now a Hunter for the Horn, and he certainly has 
the skills. Enough that I made him a lieutenant. He's Andoran, 
from somewhere out west, near Baerlon, and he says he fought 
for your mother during the Succession, though he couldn't have 
been much more than a boy at the time. Anyway, he knows the 
right answers-I checked-so maybe he was involved in it. 
Mercenaries lie about their pasts without thinking twice." 


Folding her hands on her middle, Elayne considered Doilin 
Mellar. She remembered only the impression of a wiry man with 
a sharp face, choking one of her assailants while they 
struggled over the poisoned dagger. A man with enough of a 
soldier's skills that Birgitte had made him an officer. She 
was trying to make sure that as many as possible of the 
officers, at least, were Andoran. A rescue just in time, one 
man against three, and a sword hurled across the room like a 
spear; very much like a glee-man's tale. "He deserves a 
suitable reward. A promotion to captain and command of my 
bodyguard, Birgitte. Caseille can be his second." 


"Are you mad?" Nynaeve burst out, but Elayne shushed her. 


"I'll feel much safer knowing he's there, Nynaeve. He won't 
try pinching me, not with Caseille and twenty more like her 
around him. With his reputation, they'll watch him like hawks. 
You did say twenty, Birgitte? I will hold you to that." 


"Twenty," Birgitte said absently. "Or so." There was nothing 
absent about the gaze she fixed on Elayne, though. She leaned 
forward intently, hands on her knees. "I suppose you know what 
you're doing." Good; she was going to behave like a Warder for 
once instead of arguing. "Guardsman-Lieutenant Mellar becomes 
Guardsman-Captain Mellar, for saving the life of the Daughter-
Heir. That will add to his swagger. Unless you think it's 
better to keep the whole thing secret." 


Elayne shook her head. "Oh, no; not at all. Let the whole 
city know. Someone tried to murder me, and Lieutenant-Captain- 
Mellar saved my life. We will keep the poison to ourselves, 
though. Just in case someone makes a slip of the tongue." 


Nynaeve harrumphed and gave her a sidelong glare. "One day 
you will be too clever, Elayne. So sharp you cut yourself." 


"She is clever, Nynaeve al'Meara." Rising smoothly to her 
feet, Aviendha settled her heavy skirts, then patted her horn-
hiked belt knife. It was not so large as the blade she had 
worn as a Maiden, yet still a credible weapon. "And she has me 
to watch her back. I have permission to stay with her, now." 



 Nynaeve opened her mouth angrily. And for a wonder, closed 
it again, composing herself visibly, smoothing her skirts and 
her features. "What are you all staring at?" she muttered. "If 
Elayne wants this fellow close enough to pinch her whenever he 
feels like, who am I to argue?" Birgitte's mouth dropped open, 
and Elayne wondered whether Aviendha was going to choke. Her 
eyes were certainly popping. 


The faint sound of the gong atop the Palace's tallest tower, 
tolling the hour, made her jerk. It was later than she had 
thought. "Nynaeve, Egwene might already be waiting for us." 
None other clothes were anywhere to be seen. "Where's my 
purse? My ring is in it." Her Great Serpent ring was on her 
finger, but that was not the one she meant. 


"I will see Egwene alone," Nynaeve said firmly. "You are in 
no condition to enter Tel'aran'rhiod. In any case, you just 
slept the afternoon away. You won't go to sleep again soon, 
I'll wager. And I know you've had no luck putting yourself 
into a waking trance, so that is that." She smiled smugly, 
certain other victory. She had gone cross-eyed and dizzy 
attempting to enter the waking trance Egwene had tried to 
teach them. 


"You'll wager that, will you?" Elayne murmured. "What will 
you bet? Because I intend to drink that," she glanced at the 
silver cup on the sidetable, "and / wager I'll go right to 
sleep. Of course, if you didn't put something in it, if you 
didn't intend trying to trick me into drinking it. ... Well, 
of course, you wouldn't do that. So what shall we wager?" 


That insufferable smile slid greasily off Nynaeve's face, re 
placed by bright spots of color in her cheeks. 


"A fine thing," Birgitte said, standing. Fists on hips, she 
squared herself at the foot of the bed, her face and tone 
alike censuring. "The woman saves you a roiling belly, and you 
snip at her like Mistress Priss. Maybe if you drink that cup 
and go to sleep and forget about adventuring in the World of 
Dreams tonight, I'll decide you've grown up enough that I can 
trust fewer than a hundred guards to keep you alive. Or do I 
need to hold your nose to make you drink?" Well, Elayne had 
not expected her to keep holding back for long. Fewer than a 
hundred? 


Aviendha spun to face Birgitte before she finished, and 
barely waited for the last word to leave the other woman's 
mouth. "You should not speak to her so, Birgitte Trahelion," 
she said, drawing herself to gain the full advantage other 
greater height. Given the raised heels on Birgitte's boots, it 
was not that much, yet with her shawl drawn tightly over her 
breasts, she looked very much a Wise One rather than an 
apprentice. Some had faces not much older than hers. "You are 
her Warder. Ask Aan'allein how to behave. He is a great man, 
yet he obeys as Nynaeve tells him." Aan'allein was Lan, The 
Man Alone, his story well known and much admired among the 
Aiel. 


Birgitte eyed her up and down as if measuring her, and 
adopted a lounging posture that all but lost the extra inches 
of her boot heels. With a mocking grin, she opened her mouth, 
plainly ready to prick Aviendha's bubble if she could. She 
usually could. Before she said a word, Nynaeve spoke quietly 
and quite firmly. 



 "Oh, for the love of the Light, give over, Birgitte. If 
Elayne says she's going, then she is going. Now, not another 
word out of you." She stabbed a finger at the other woman. "Or 
you and I will have words, later." 


Birgitte stared at Nynaeve, her mouth working soundlessly, 
the Warder bond carrying an intense blend of irritation and 
frustration. At last, she flung herself back into her chair, 
legs sprawled and boots balanced on her lion-head spurs, and 
began a sullen muttering under her breath. If Elayne had not 
known her better, she would have sworn the woman was sulking. 
She wished she knew how Nynaeve did it. Once, Nynaeve had been 
as much in awe of Birgitte as Aviendha ever was, but that had 
changed. Completely. Now Nynaeve bullied Birgitte as readily 
as anyone else. And more successfully than with most. She's a 
woman just like any other, Nynaeve had said. She told me so 
herself, and I realized she was right. As if that explained 
anything. Birgitte was still Birgitte. 


"My purse?" Elayne said, and of all people, Birgitte went to 
fetch the gold-embroidered red purse from the dressing room. 
Well, a Warder did do that sort of thing, but Birgitte always 
made some comment when she did. Though perhaps her return was 
meant for one. She presented the purse to Elayne with a 
flourishing bow. And a twist of her lips for Nynaeve and 
Aviendha. Elayne sighed. It was not that the other women 
disliked one another; they really got on very well, if you 
ignored their little foibles. They just rubbed against each 
other sometimes. 


The oddly twisted stone ring, strung on a plain loop of 
leather, lay in the bottom of the purse underneath a mix of 
coins, next to the carefully folded silk handkerchief full of 
feathers she considered her greatest treasure. The ter'angreal 
appeared to be stone, anyway, all flecks and stripes of blue 
and red and brown, but it felt as hard and slick as steel, and 
too heavy even for that. Settling the leather cord around her 
neck, and the ring between her breasts, she pulled the 
drawstrings tight and set the purse on the side table, taking 
up the silver cup instead. The fragrance was simply that of 
good wine, but she raised an eyebrow anyway and smiled at 
Nynaeve. 


"I will go to my own room," Nynaeve said stiffly. Rising 
from the mattress, she shared out a stern look between 
Birgitte and Aviendha. Somehow, the ki'sain on her forehead 
made it seem even more uncompromising. "The pair of you stay 
awake and keep your eyes open! Until you have those women 
around her, she is still in danger. And after, I hope I don't 
have to remind you." 


"You think I do not know that?" Aviendha protested at the 
same time that Birgitte growled, "I'm not a fool, Nynaeve!" 


"So you say," Nynaeve answered them both. "I hope so, for 
Elayne's sake. And for your own." Gathering her shawl, she 
glided from the room, as stately as any Aes Sedai could wish 
to be. She was getting very good at that. 


"You'd think she was the bloody queen here," Birgitte mut 
tered. 


"She is the one who is overproud, Birgitte Trahelion," Avien 
dha grumbled. "As proud as a Shaido with one goat." They nod 
ded at one another in perfect agreement. 



 But Elayne noticed that they had waited to speak until the 
door had shut behind Nynaeve. The woman who had denied S( hard 
wanting to be Aes Sedai was becoming very much Aes Sedai 
Perhaps Lan had something to with that. Coaching her, from hi& 
experience. She still had to work at staying composed, 
sometimes, but it seemed to come more and more easily since 
her peculiar wedding. 


The first sip of the wine had no taste other than wine, a 
very good wine, but Elayne frowned at the cup and hesitated. 
Until she realized what she was doing, and why. The memory of 
fork-root hidden in her tea was still strong. What had Nynaeve 
put in here? Not forkroot, of course, but what? Raising the 
cup to take a full swallow seemed very difficult. Defiantly, 
she drained the wine. / was thirsty, that's all, she thought, 
stretching to set the cup back on the silver tray. / certainly 
wasn't trying to prove anything. 


The other two women had been watching her, but as she began 
settling herself in a more comfortable position for sleep. 
they turned to one another. 


"I'll keep watch in the sitting room," Birgitte said. "I 
have my bow and quiver in there. You stay here in case she 
needs you for anything." 


Rather than arguing, Aviendha drew her belt knife and knelt. 
ready to spring up again, off to one side, where she would sec-
anyone coming through the door before they saw her. "Knock 
twice, then once, and name yourself before you enter," she 
said. "Otherwise, I will assume it is an enemy." And Birgitte 
nodded as if that were the most reasonable thing in the world. 


"This is sil-" Elayne smothered a yawn behind her hand. 
"Silly," she finished when she could speak again. "No one is 
going to try to-" Another yawn, and she could have put her 
fist into her mouth! Light, what had Nynaeve put in that wine? 
"To kill me-tonight," she said drowsily, "and you-both know-" 
Her eyelids were leaden, sliding down despite every effort to 
keep them open. Unconsciously snuggling her face into her 
pillow, she tried to finish what she had been about to say, 
but. . . . 


She was in the Grand Hall, the throne room of the Palace. In 
the Grand Hall's reflection in Tel'aran'rhiod. Here, the 
twisted stone ring that felt too heavy for its size in the 
waking world seemed light enough to float up from between her 
breasts. There was light, of course, seeming to come from 
everywhere and nowhere. It was not like sunlight, or lamps, 
but even if it was night here, too, there was always enough of 
that odd light to see. As in a dream. The ever-present 
sensation of unseen eyes watching was not dreamlike-more like 
a nightmare-but she had grown accustomed to that. 


Great audiences were held in the Grand Hall, foreign ambas 
sadors formally received, important treaties and declarations 
of war announced to gathered dignitaries, and the long chamber 
suited its name and function. Empty of people save for her, it 
seemed cavernous. Two rows of thick gleaming white columns, 
ten spans high, marched the length of the room, and at one 
end, the Lion Throne stood atop a marble dais, with red 
carpeting climbing the white steps from the red-and-white 
floor tiles. The throne was sized for a woman, but still 
massive on its heavy lion-pawed legs, carved and gilded, with 



the White Lion picked out in moonstones on a field of rubies 
at the top of its high back, announcing that whoever sat there 
ruled a great nation. From large, colored windows set in the 
arched ceiling high overhead, the queens who had founded Andor 
stared down, their images alternating with the White Lion and 
scenes of the battles they had fought to build Andor from a 
single city in Artur Hawk-wing's shattering empire into that 
nation. Many lands that had come out of the War of the Hundred 
Years no longer existed, yet Andor had survived the thousand 
years since and prospered. Sometimes Elayne felt those images 
judging her, weighing her worth to follow in their footsteps. 
No sooner did she find herself in the Grand Hall than 
another woman appeared, sitting on the Lion Throne, a dark-
haired young woman in flowing red silk embroidered in silver 
lions on the sleeves and hem, with a strand of firedrops as 


large as pigeon's eggs around her neck and the Rose Crown 
sitting on her head. One hand resting lightly on the lion-
headed arm of the throne, she gazed regally about the Hall. 
Then her eyes fell on Elayne, and recognition dawned, along 
with confusion. Crown and firestone ring that felt too heavy 

for its size in the waking world seemed light enough to float 
up from between her breasts. There was light, of course, 
seeming to come from everywhere and nowhere. It was not like 
sunlight, or lamps, but even if it was night here, too, there 
was always enough of that odd light to see. As in a dream. The 
ever-present sensation of unseen eyes watching was not 
dreamlike-more like a nightmare-but she had grown accustomed 
to that. 


Great audiences were held in the Grand Hall, foreign ambas 
sadors formally received, important treaties and declarations 
of war announced to gathered dignitaries, and the long chamber 
suited its name and function. Empty of people save for her, it 
seemed cavernous. Two rows of thick gleaming white columns, 
ten spans high, marched the length of the room, and at one 
end, the Lion Throne stood atop a marble dais, with red 
carpeting climbing the white steps from the red-and-white 
floor tiles. The throne was sized for a woman, but still 
massive on its heavy lion-pawed legs, carved and gilded, with 
the White Lion picked out in moonstones on a field of rubies 
at the top of its high back, announcing that whoever sat there 
ruled a great nation. From large, colored windows set in the 
arched ceiling high overhead, the queens who had founded Andor 
stared down, their images alternating with the White Lion and 
scenes of the battles they had fought to build Andor from a 
single city in Artur Hawkwing's shattering empire into that 
nation. Many lands that had come out of the War of the Hundred 
Years no longer existed, yet Andor had survived the thousand 
years since and prospered. Sometimes Elayne felt those images 
judging her, weighing her worth to follow in their footsteps. 
No sooner did she find herself in the Grand Hall than 
another woman appeared, sitting on the Lion Throne, a dark-
haired young woman in flowing red silk embroidered in silver 
lions on the sleeves and hem, with a strand of firedrops as 
large as pigeon's eggs around her neck and the Rose Crown 
sitting on her head. One hand resting lightly on the lion-
headed arm of the throne, she gazed regally about the Hall. 
Then her eyes fell on Elayne, and recognition dawned, along 



with confusion. Crown and firedrops and silks vanished, 
replaced by plain woolens and a long apron. An instant later, 
the young woman vanished, too. 


Elayne smiled in amusement. Even scullions dreamed of sit 
ting on the Lion Throne. She hoped the young woman had not 
been wakened in fright by the start she received, or at least 
that she had gone on to another pleasant dream. A safer dream 
than Tel'aran'rhiod. 


Other things shifted in the throne room. The elaborately 
worked stand-lamps standing in rows down the chamber seemed to 
vibrate against the tall columns. The great arched doors stood 
now open, now closed, in the blink of an eye. Only things that 
had stood in one place for a goodly time had a truly permanent 
reflection in the World of Dreams. 


Elayne imagined a stand-mirror, and it was before her, re 
flecting her image in high-necked green silk worked in silver 
across the bodice, with emeralds in her ears and smaller ones 
strung in her red-gold curls. She made the emeralds disappear 
from her hair, and nodded. Fit for the Daughter-Heir, but not 
too ostentatious. You had to be careful of how you imagined 
yourself, here, or else. . . . Her modest green silk gown 
became the snug, form-hugging folds of a Taraboner gown, then 
flashed to dark, wide Sea Folk trousers and bare feet, 
complete with golden earrings and nose ring and chain full of 
medallions, and even dark tattoos on her hands. But without a 
blouse, the way the Atha'an Miere went at sea. Cheeks 
coloring, she hastily returned everything to how it had been, 
then changed the emerald earrings for plain silver hoops. The 
simpler you imagined your garb, the easier it was to maintain. 


Letting the stand-mirror disappear-she just had to stop con 
centrating on it-she looked up at those stern faces overhead. 
"Women have taken the throne as young as I," she told them. 
Not very many, though; only seven who had managed to wear the 
Rose Crown for very long. "Women younger than I." Three. And 
one of those lasted barely a year. "I don't claim I will be as 
great as you, but I will not make you ashamed, either. I will 
be a good queen." 


"Talking to windows?" Nynaeve said, making Elayne start in 
surprise. Using a copy of the ring Elayne wore next to her 
skin, she appeared misty, almost transparent. Frowning, she 
tried to stride toward Elayne and staggered, nearly tripped by 
the hobbling skirt of a deep blue Taraboner dress that was 
much tighter than the one Elayne had imagined on herself. 
Nynaeve gaped down at the thing, and abruptly it was an 
Andoran gown in the same colored silk, embroidered in gold on 
the sleeves and atop the bodice. She still went on about 
"good, stout Two Rivers wool" being good enough for her, but 
even here where she could appear in it if she wished, she 
almost never did. 


"What did you put in that wine, Nynaeve?" Elayne asked. "I 
went out like a snuffed candle." 


"Don't try to change the subject. If you are talking to win 
dows, you should really be asleep instead of here. I've half a 
mind to order you-" 


"Please don't. I'm not Vandene, Nynaeve. Light, I don't even 
know half the customs Vandene and the others take for granted. 
But I would rather not disobey you, so don't, please." 



 Nynaeve glowered at her, giving her braid one firm tug. De 
tails of her dress changed, the skirts growing a trifle 
fuller, the embroidery's pattern altering, the high neck 
sinking, then rising again, sprouting lace. She was just not 
very good at the necessary concentration. The red dot on her 
forehead never wavered, though. 


"Very well," she said calmly, the scowl vanishing. Her 
yellow-fringed shawl appeared on her shoulders, and her face 
took on something of the Aes Sedai agelessness. There were 
wings of white at her temples. Her words contrasted with her 
appearance and composed tone, though. "Let me do the talking 
when Egwene gets here. I mean about what happened today. You 
always end up chattering as if you're brushing each other's 
hair for bed. Light! I don't want her coming to the Amyrlin 
with me, and you know she will be all over both of us if she 
finds out." 


"If I find out what?" Egwene said. Nynaeve's head whipped 
around, eyes panic-stricken, and for a moment her fringed 
shawl and silk gown were replaced by an Accepted's banded 
white. Even the ki'sain went. Just a moment, and she was back 
as she had been except for the white in her hair, yet that was 
enough to put a rueful expression on Egwene's face. She knew 
Nynaeve very well. "If I find out what, Nynaeve?" she asked 
firmly. 


Elayne drew a deep breath. She had not intended to hold 
anything back, exactly. Not anything important to Egwene, any 
way. But in her present mood, Nynaeve was likely to babble ev 
erything, or else grow stubborn and try insisting there was 
nothing to find out. Which would only make Egwene dig harder. 


"Someone put forkroot in my midday tea," she said, and went 
on succinctly about the men with their daggers and Doilin 
Mellar's fortuitous appearance, and how Dyelin had proved 
herself. For good measure she added the news of Elenia and 
Naean, and the First Maid's search for spies in the Palace, 
and even Zarya and Kirstian being assigned to Vandene, and the 
attack on Rand and his disappearance. Egwene appeared to be 
unruffled by the recital-she even cut Elayne short about Rand, 
saying she already knew-but she gave a dismissive shake of her 
head at hearing that Vandene had made no progress in learning 
who the Black sister was, and that was of the gravest concern 
to her. "Oh, and I'm to have a bodyguard," Elayne finished. 
"Twenty women, commanded by Captain Mellar. I don't think 
Birgitte will find me any Maidens, but she will come close." 


A backless armchair appeared behind Egwene, and she sat 
without looking for it. She was much more skilled here than 
Elayne or Nynaeve. She wore a dark green woolen riding dress, 
fine and well-cut but unadorned, likely what she had worn 
awake that day. And it remained a green woolen riding dress. 
"I would tell you to join me in Murandy tomorrow-tonight," she 
said, "if the arrival of the Kinswomen would not light a 
wildfire among the Sitters." 


Nynaeve had recovered herself, though she gave her skirts an 
unneeded adjusting shake. The embroidery on her dress was sil 
ver, now. "I thought you had the Hall of the Tower under your 
thumb, now." 


"That's very much like having a ferret under your thumb," 
Egwene said dryly. "It twists and writhes and wriggles around 



to nip at your wrist. Oh, they do just as I say when it 
concerns the war with Elaida-they can't get around that, 
however much they grumble over the expense of more 
soldiers!-but the agreement with the Kin is no part of the 
war, or letting the Kin learn the Tower had known about them 
all along. Or thought it did. The entire Hall would have 
apoplexy, just at finding out how much they didn't know. They 
are trying very hard to find a way to stop accepting new 
novices." 


"They can't, can they?" Nynaeve demanded. She made a chair 
for herself, but it was a copy of Egwene's when she looked to 
make sure it was there, a three-legged stool as she began to 
sit, and a ladder-backed farm chair by the time she settled on 
it. Her dress had divided skirts, now. "You made a 
proclamation. Any woman of any age, if she tested true. All 
you have to do is make another, about the Kin." Elayne made 
her own seat a copy of one of the chairs in her sitting room. 
Much easier to hold onto. 


"Oh, an Amyrlin's proclamation is as good as law," Egwene 
said. "Until the Hall sees a way around it. The newest 
complaint is that we only have sixteen Accepted. Though most 
sisters do treat Faolain and Theodrin as if they were still 
Accepted. But even eighteen isn't near sufficient to give the 
novice lessons that Accepted are supposed to handle. Sisters 
have to take them, instead. I think some were hoping the 
weather would hold the numbers down, but it hasn't." She 
smiled suddenly, a light of mischief in her dark eyes. 
"There's one new novice I'd like you to meet, Nynaeve. Sharina 
Melloy. A grandmother. I think you'll agree she's a remarkable 
woman." 


Nynaeve's chair disappeared completely, and she hit the 
floor with an audible smack. She hardly seemed to notice, 
sitting there and staring at Egwene in astonishment. "Sharina 
Melloy?" she said in a shaky voice. "She's a novice?" Her 
dress was a style Elayne had never seen before, with flowing 
sleeves and a deeply scooped neck worked with flowers in 
embroidery and seed pearls. Her hair flowed to her waist, held 
by a cap of moonstones and sapphires on golden wires no 
thicker than threads. And there was a plain golden band on her 
left forefinger. Only the ki'sain and her Great Serpent ring 
remained the same. 


Egwene blinked. "You know the name?" 


Getting to her feet, Nynaeve stared at her dress. She held 
up her left hand and touched the plain gold ring almost 
hesitantly. Strangely, she left everything as it was. "It 
might not be the same woman," she muttered. "It couldn't be!" 
Making another chair like Egwene's, she frowned at it as if 
commanding it to stay, but it still had a high back and 
carving by the time she sat. "There was a Sharina Melloy. ... 
It was during my test for Accepted," she said in a rush, "I 
don't have to talk about that; it's the rule!" 


"Of course you don't," Egwene said, though the look she gave 
Nynaeve was certainly as strange as Elayne knew her own must 
be. Still, there was nothing to be done; when Nynaeve wanted 
to be stubborn, she could teach mules. 


"Since you brought up the Kin, Egwene," Elayne said, "have 
you thought further on the Oath Rod?" 



 Egwene raised one hand as if to stop her, but her reply was 
calm and level. "There's no need to think further, Elayne. The 
Three Oaths, sworn on the Oath Rod, are what make us Aes 
Sedai. I didn't see that, at first, but I do, now. The very 
first day we have the Tower, I will swear the Three Oaths, on 
the Oath Rod." 


"That's madness!" Nynaeve burst out, leaning forward in her 
chair. Surprisingly, still the same chair. And still the same 
dress. Very surprising. Her hands were fists resting on her 
lap. "You know what it does; the Kin are proof! How many Aes 
Sedai live past three hundred? Or reach it? And don't tell me 
I shouldn't talk about age. That's a ridiculous custom, and 
you know it. Egwene, Reanne was called Eldest because she was 
the oldest Kinswoman in Ebou Dar. The oldest anywhere is a 
woman called Aloisia Nemosni, an oil merchant in Tear. Egwene, 


she's nearly six ... hundred . . . years . . . old! When the 
Hall hears that, I wager they'll be ready to put the Oath Rod 
on a shelf." 

"The Light knows three hundred years is a long time," Elayne 
put in, "but I can't say I'm happy myself at the prospect of 
perhaps cutting my life in half, Egwene. And what of the Oath 
Rod and your promise to the Kin? Reanne wants to be Aes Sedai, 
but what happens when she swears? What about Aloisia? Will she 
fall over dead? You can't ask them to swear, not knowing." 


"I don't ask anything." Egwene's face was still smooth, but 
her back had straightened, her voice cooled. And hardened. Her 
eyes augered deep. "Any woman who wants to be a sister will 
swear. And anyone who refuses and still calls herself Aes 
Sedai will feel the full weight of Tower justice." 


Elayne swallowed hard under that steady gaze. Nynaeve's face 
paled. There was no mistaking Egwene's meaning. They were not 
hearing a friend now, but the Amyrlin Seat, and the Amyrlin 
Seat had no friends when it came time to pronounce judgment. 


Apparently satisfied with what she saw in them, Egwene re 
laxed. "I do know the problem," she said in a more normal 
tone. More normal, but still not inviting argument. "I expect 
any woman whose name is in the novice books to go as far as 
she can, to earn the shawl if she can, and serve as Aes Sedai, 
but I don't want anyone to die for it when they could live. 
Once the Hall learns about the Kin-once they're over pitching 
fits-I think I can get them to agree that a sister who wants 
to retire should be able to. With the Oaths removed." They had 
decided long ago that the Rod could be used to unbind as well 
as bind, else how could Black sisters lie? 


"I suppose that would be all right," Nynaeve allowed judi 
ciously. Elayne simply nodded; she was certain there was more. 


"Retire into the Kin, Nynaeve," Egwene said gently. "That 
way, the Kin are bound to the Tower, too. The Kin will keep 
their own ways, of course, their Rule, but they will have to 
agree that their Knitting Circle is beneath the Amyrlin, if 
not the Hall, and that Kinswomen stand below sisters. I do 
mean them to be part of the Tower, not go their own way. But I 
think they will accept." 


Nynaeve nodded again, happily, but her smile faded as the 
full import reached her. She spluttered indignantly. "But . . 
. ! Standing among the Kin is by age! You'll have sisters 
taking orders from women who couldn't even reach Accepted!" 



 "Former sisters, Nynaeve." Egwene fingered the Great Serpent 
ring on her right hand and sighed faintly. "Even Kinswomen who 
earned the ring don't wear it. So we will have to give it up, 
too. We will be Kinswomen, Nynaeve, not Aes Sedai any longer." 
She sounded as if she could already feel that distant day, 
that distant loss, but she took her hand from the ring and 
took a deep breath. "Now. Is there anything else? I have a 
long night ahead of me, and I would like to get a little real 
sleep before I have to face the Sitters again." 


Frowning, Nynaeve had clenched her fist tight and laid her 
other hand over it to cover her rings, but she appeared ready 
to give up arguing over the Kin. For the time being. "Do your 
headaches still trouble you? I'd think if that woman's 
massages did any good, you'd stop having them." 


"Halima's massages work wonders, Nynaeve. I couldn't sleep 
at all without her. Now, is there . . . ?" She trailed off, 
staring toward the doors at the entrance of the throne room, 
and Elayne turned to look. 


A man was standing there watching, a man as tall as an Aiel-
man, with dark red hair faintly streaked with white, but his 
high-collared blue coat would never be worn by an Aiel. He 
appeared muscular, and his hard face seemed somehow familiar. 
When he saw them looking, he turned and ran down the corridor 
out of sight. 


For an instant, Elayne gaped. He had not just accidentally 
dreamed himself into Tel'aran'rhiod, or he would have vanished 
by now, but she could still hear his boots, loud on the floor 
tiles. Either he was a dreamwalker-rare among men, so the Wise 
Ones said-or he had a ter'angreal of his own. 


Leaping to her feet, she ran after him, but as fast as she 
was, Egwene was faster. One instant Egwene was behind, the 
next she was standing in the doorway, peering the way the man 
had gone. Elayne tried thinking of herself standing beside 
Egwene, and she was. The corridor was silent, now, and empty 
except for stand-lamps and chests and tapestries, all 
flickering and shifting. 


"How did you do that?" Nynaeve demanded, running up with her 
skirts hoisted above her knees. Her stockings were silk, and 
red! Hastily letting her skirts fall when she realized Elayne 
had noticed her stockings, she peered down the hallway. "Where 
did he go? He could have heard everything! Did you recognize 
him? He reminded me of someone; I don't know who." 


"Rand," Egwene said. "He could have been Rand's uncle." 


Of course, Elayne thought. If Rand had a mean uncle. 


A metallic click echoed from the far end of the throne room. 
The door into the dressing rooms behind the dais, closing. 
Doors were open or closed or sometimes in between in 
Tel'aran'rhiod; 


they did not swing shut. 


"Light!" Nynaeve muttered. "How many people have been 
eavesdropping on us? Not to mention who, and why?" 


"Whoever they are," Egwene replied calmly, "they apparently 
don't know Tel'aran'rhiod as well as we do. Not friends, safe 
to say, or they wouldn't be eavesdropping. And I think they 
may not be friends to one another, otherwise, why listen from 
opposite ends of the room? That man was wearing a Shienaran 
coat. There are Shienarans in my army, but you both know them 



all. None resemble Rand." 


Nynaeve sniffed. "Well, whoever he is, there are too many 
people listening at corners. That's what I think. I want to be 
back in my own body, where all I have to worry about are spies 
and poisoned daggers." 


Shienarans, Elayne thought. Borderlanders. How could that 
have slipped her mind? Well, there had been the little matter 
of forkroot. "There is one more thing," she said aloud, though 
in a careful voice she hoped would not carry, and related 
Dyelin's news of Borderlanders in Braem Wood. She added Master 
Norry's correspondence, too, all the while trying to watch 
both ways along the corridor and the throne room as well. She 
did not want to be caught napping by another spy. "I think 
those rulers are in Braem Wood," she finished, "all four of 
them." 


"Rand," Egwene breathed, sounding irritated. "Even when he 
can't be found he complicates things. Do you have any idea 
whether they came to offer him allegiance or try to hand him 
over to Elaida? I can't think of any other reasons for them to 
march a thousand leagues. They must be boiling shoes for soup 
by now! Do you have any idea how hard it is to keep an army 
supplied on the march?" 


"I think I can find out," Elayne said. "Why, I mean. And at 
the same time. . . . You gave me the idea, Egwene." She could 
not help smiling. Something good had come of today. "I think I 
might just be able to use them to secure the Lion Throne." 


Asne examined the tall embroidery frame in front of her and 
gave a sigh that turned into a yawn. The nickering lamps gave 
a poor light for this, but that was not the reason her birds 
all seemed lopsided. She wanted to be in her bed, and she 
despised embroidery. But she had to be awake, and this was the 
only way to avoid conversation with Chesmal. What Chesmal 
called conversation. The smugly arrogant Yellow was intent on 
her own embroidery, on the other side of the room, and she 
assumed that anyone who took up a needle had her own keen 
interest in the work. On the other hand, Asne knew, if she 
rose from her chair, Chesmal would soon start regaling her 
with tales of her own importance. In the months since 
Moghedien vanished, she had heard Chesmal's part in putting 
Tamra Ospenya to the question at least twenty times, and how 
Chesmal had induced the Reds to murder Sierin Vayu before 
Sierin could order her arrest perhaps fifty! To hear Chesmal 
tell it, she had saved the Black Ajah single-handed, and she 
would tell it, given half a chance. That sort of talk was not 
only boring, it was dangerous. Even deadly, if the Supreme 
Council learned of it. So Asne stifled another yawn, squinted 
at her work, and pushed the needle through the tightly 
stretched linen. Perhaps if she made the redbird larger, she 
could even up the wings. 


The click of the doorlatch brought both women's heads up. 
The two servants knew not to bother them, and in any case, the 
woman and her husband should be fast asleep. Asne embraced 
saidar, readying a weave that would sear an intruder to the 
bone, and the glow surrounded Chesmal, too. If the wrong 
person stepped through that door, they would regret it until 
they died. 


It was Eldrith, gloves in hand, with her dark cloak still 



hanging down her back. The plump Brown's dress was dark, too, 
and unadorned. Asne hated wearing plain woolens, but they did 
need to avoid notice. The drab clothes suited Eldrith. 


She stopped at the sight of them, blinking, a momentary look 
of confusion on her round face. "Oh, my," she said. "Who did 
you think I was?" Throwing her gloves onto the small table by 
the door, she suddenly became aware of her cloak and frowned 
as if just realizing she had worn it upstairs. Carefully 
unpinning the silver brooch at her neck, she tossed the cloak 
onto a chair in a tumbled heap. 


The light of saidar winked out around Chesmal as she twisted 
her embroidery frame aside so she could stand. Her stern face 
made her seem taller than she was, and she was a tall woman. 
The brightly colored flowers she had embroidered might have 
been in a garden. "Where have you been?" she demanded. Eldrith 
stood highest among them, and Moghedien had left her in charge 
besides, but Chesmal had begun taking only cursory notice if 
that. "You were supposed to be back by afternoon, and the 
night is half gone!" 


"I lost track of the hour, Chesmal," Eldrith replied 
absently, appearing lost in thought. "It has been a long time 
since I was last in Caemlyn. The Inner City is fascinating, 
and I had a delightful meal at an inn I remembered. Though I 
must say, there were fewer sisters about then. No one 
recognized me, however." She peered at her brooch as though 
wondering where it had come from, then tucked it into her belt 
pouch. 


"You lost track," Chesmal said flatly, lacing her fingers to 
gether at her waist. Perhaps to keep them from Eldrith's 
throat. Her eyes glittered with anger. "You lost track." 


Once more Eldrith blinked, as if startled to be addressed. 
"Oh. Were you afraid Kennit had found me again? I assure you, 
since Samara I have been quite careful at keeping the bond 
masked." 


At times, Asne wondered how much of Eldrith's apparent 
vagueness was real. No one so unaware of the world around her 
could have survived this long. On the other hand, she had been 
unfocused enough to let the masking slip more than once before 
they reached Samara, enough for her Warder to track her. Obedi 
ent to Moghedien's orders to await her return, they had hidden 
through the riots after her departure, waited while the so-
called Prophet's mobs swept south into Amadicia, stayed in 
that wretched, ruined town even after Asne became convinced 
that Moghedien had abandoned them. Her lip curled at the 
memory. What had sparked the decision to leave was the arrival 
of Eldrith's Kennit in the town, sure that she was a murderer, 


half convinced she was Black Ajah, and determined to kill her 
no matter the consequences to himself. Not surprisingly, she 
had been unwilling to face those consequences herself, and 
refused to let anyone kill the man. The only alternative was 
to flee. Then again, Eldrith was the one who had pointed out 
Caemlyn as their only hope. 

"Did you learn anything, Eldrith?" Asne asked politely. 
Chesmal was a fool. However tattered the world seemed at the 
moment, affairs would right themselves. One way or another. 


"What? Oh. Only that the pepper sauce wasn't as good as I 
remembered. Of course, that was fifty years ago." 



 Asne suppressed a sigh. Perhaps after all it was time for El 
drith to have an accident. 


The door opened and Temaile slipped into the room so 
silently they were all caught by surprise. The diminutive fox-
faced Gray had tossed a robe embroidered with lions over her 
shoulders, but it gaped down the front, exposing a cream-
colored silk nightdress that molded itself to her indecently. 
Draped over one hand she carried a bracelet made of twisted 
glass rings. They looked and felt like glass, at least, but a 
hammer could not have chipped one. 


"You've been to Tel'aran'rhiod," Eldrith said, frowning at 
the ter'angreal. She did not speak forcefully, though. They 
were all a little afraid of Temaile since Moghedien had made 
them observe the last of Liandrin being broken. Asne had lost 
track of how often she had killed or tortured in the hundred 
and thirty-odd years since she gained the shawl, but she had 
seldom seen anyone so ... enthusiastic ... as Temaile. 
Watching Temaile and trying to pretend not to, Chesmal seemed 
unaware that she was licking her lips nervously. Asne 
hurriedly put her own tongue back behind her teeth and hoped 
no one had noticed. Eldrith certainly had not. "We agreed not 
to use those," she said, not very far short of pleading. "I'm 
certain it was Nynaeve who wounded Moghedien, and if she can 
best one of the Chosen in Tel'aran'rhiod, what chance do we 
have?" Rounding on the others, she attempted a scolding tone. 
"Did you two know about this?" She had managed to sound 
peevish. 


Chesmal met Eldrith's stare indignantly, while Asne gave her 
surprised innocence. They had known, but who was going to 
stand in Temaile's way? She doubted very much that Eldrith 
would have made more than a token protest had she been there. 


Temaile knew exactly her effect on them. She should have 
hung her head at Eldrith's lecture, fainthearted as it was, 
and apologized for going against her wishes. Instead, she 
smiled. That smile never reached her eyes, though, large and 
dark and much too bright. "You were right, Eldrith. Right that 
Elayne would come here, and right that Nynaeve would come with 
her, it seems. They were together, and it is clear they are 
both in the Palace." 


"Yes," Eldrith said, squirming slightly under Temaile's 
gaze. "Well." And she licked her lips, and shifted her feet, 
too. "Even so, until we can see how to get at them past all 
those wilders-" 


"They are wilders, Eldrith." Temaile threw herself down in a 
chair, limbs sprawling carelessly, and her tone hardened. Not 
enough to seem commanding, but still more than merely firm. 
"There are only three sisters to trouble us, and we can 
dispose of them. We can take Nynaeve, and perhaps Elayne in 
the bargain." Abruptly she leaned forward, hands on the arms 
of the chair. Disarrayed clothing or not, there was no shred 
of indolence about her now. Eldrith stepped back as though 
pushed by Temaile's eyes. "Else why are we here, Eldrith? It 
is what we came for." 


No one had anything to say to that. Behind them lay a string 
of failures-in Tear, in Tanchico-that might well cost them 
their lives when the Supreme Council laid hands on them. But 
not if they had one of the Chosen for a patron, and if 



Moghedien had wanted Nynaeve so badly, perhaps another of them 
would, too. The real difficulty would be finding one of the 
Chosen to present with their gift. No one but Asne seemed to 
have considered that part of it. 


"There were others, there," Temaile went on, leaning back 
once more. She sounded almost bored. "Spying on our two Ac 
cepted. A man who let them see him, and someone else I could 
not see." She pouted irritably. At least, it would have been a 
pout except for her eyes. "I had to stay behind a column so 
the girls would not see me. That should please you, Eldrith. 
That they did not see me. Are you pleased?" 


Eldrith almost stammered getting out how pleased she was. 
Asne let herself feel her four Warders, coming ever closer. 
She had stopped masking herself when they left Samara. Only 
Powl was a Friend of the Dark, of course, yet the others would 
do whatever she said, believe whatever she told them. It would 
be necessary to keep them concealed from the others unless 
absolutely necessary, but she wanted armed men close at hand. 
Muscles and steel were very useful. And if worse came to 
worst, she could always reveal the long, fluted rod that 
Moghedien had not hidden so well as she thought she had. 


The early-morning light in the sitting room's windows was 
gray, an earlier hour than the Lady Shiaine usually rose, but 
this morning she had been dressed while it was still full 
dark. The Lady Shiaine was how she thought of herself, now. 
Mili Skane, the saddler's daughter, was almost completely 
forgotten. In every way that mattered, she really was the Lady 
Shiaine Avarhin, and had been for years. Lord Willim Avarhin 
had been impoverished, reduced to living in a ramshackle 
farmhouse and unable to keep even that in good repair. He and 
his only daughter, the last of a declining line, had stayed in 
the country, far from anywhere their penury might be exposed, 
and now they were only bones buried in the forest near that 
farmhouse, and she was the Lady Shiaine, and if this tall, 
well-appointed stone house was not a manor, it still had been 
the property of a well-to-do merchant. She was long dead, too, 
after signing over her gold to her "heir." The furnishings 
were well made, the carpets costly, the tapestries and even 
the seat cushions embroidered with thread-of-gold, and the 
fire roared in a wide blue-veined marble fireplace. She had 
had the once-plain lintel carved with Avarhin's Heart and Hand 
row on row. 


"More wine, girl," she said curtly, and Falion scurried with 
the tall-necked silver pitcher to refill her goblet with 
steaming spiced wine. The livery of a maid, with the Red Heart 
and Golden Hand on her breast, suited Falion. Her long face 
was a stiff mask as she hurried to replace the pitcher on the 
drawered highchest and take up her place beside the door. 


"You play a dangerous game," Marillin Gemalphin said, roll 
ing her own goblet between her palms. A skinny woman with 
lifeless pale brown hair, the Brown sister did not look an Aes 
Sedai. Her narrow face and wide nose would have fitted better 
above Falion's livery than it did above her fine blue wool, 
and that was suitable only for a middling merchant. "She is 
shielded somehow, I know, but when she can channel again, she 
will make you howl for this." Her thin lips quirked in a 
humorless smile. "You may find yourself wishing you could 



howl." 


"Moridin chose this for her," Shiaine replied. "She failed 
in Ebou Dar, and he ordered her punished. I don't know the 
details and don't want to, but if Moridin wants her nose 
ground in the mud, I'll push it so deep she is breathing mud a 
year from now. Or do you suggest I disobey one of the Chosen?" 
She barely suppressed a shudder at the very thought. Marillin 
tried to hide her expression in drinking, but her eyes 
tightened. "What about you, Falion?" Shiaine asked. "Would you 
like me to ask Moridin to take you away? He might find you 
something less onerous." Mules might sing like nightingales, 
too. 


Falion did not even hesitate. She bobbed a maid's straight-
backed curtsy, her face going even paler than it already was. 
"No, mistress," she said hastily. "I am content with my 
situation, mistress." 


"You see?" Shiaine said to the other Aes Sedai. She doubted 
very much that Falion was anything approaching content, but 
the woman would accept whatever was handed out rather than 
face Moridin's displeasure directly. For the same reason, 
Shiaine would rule her with a very heavy hand. You never knew 
what one of the Chosen might learn of, and take amiss. She 
herself thought her own failure was buried deep, but she would 
take no chances. "When she can channel again, she won't have 
to be a maid all the time, Marillin." Anyway, Moridin had said 
Shiaine could kill her if she wished. There was always that, 
if her position began to chafe too much. He had said she could 
kill both sisters, if she wished. 


"That's as may be," Marillin said darkly. She cast a 
sidelong glance at Falion and grimaced. "Now, Moghedien 
instructed me to offer you what assistance I thought I could 
give, but I'll tell you right now, I won't enter the Royal 
Palace. The whole city has too many sisters in it for my 
taste, but the Palace is stuffed with wilders on top. I 
wouldn't get ten feet without someone knowing I was there." 


Sighing, Shiaine leaned back and crossed her legs, idly 
kicking a slippered foot. Why did people always think you did 
not know as much as they? The world was full of fools! 
"Moghedien ordered you to obey me, Marillin. I know, because 
Moridin told me. He did not say so right out, but I think when 
he snaps his fingers, Moghedien jumps." Talking about the 
Chosen this way was dangerous, but she had to make matters 
clear. "Do you want to tell me again what you won't do?" 


The narrow-faced Aes Sedai licked her lips, darting another 
glance at Falion. Did the woman fear she would end up that 
way? Truth to tell, Shiaine would have traded Falion for a 
proper lady's maid in a heartbeat. Well, as long as she could 
retain her other services. Very likely, they both would have 
to die when this was finished. Shiaine did not like leaving 
loose ends. 


"I wasn't lying about that," Marillin said slowly. "I really 
wouldn't get ten feet. But there's a woman already in the 
Palace. She can do what you need. It may take time to make 
contact, though." 


"Just make sure it's not too long a time, Marillin." So. One 
of the sisters in the Palace was Black Ajah, was she? She 
would have to be Aes Sedai, not just a Darkfriend, to do what 



Shiaine needed. 


The door opened, and Murellin looked in questioningly, his 
heavily muscled bulk almost filling the doorway. Beyond him, 
she could make out another man. At her nod, Murellin stepped 
aside and motioned Daved Hanlon to enter, closing the door 
behind him. Hanlon was swathed in a dark cloak, but he snaked 
out one hand to cup Falion's bottom through her dress. She 
glared at him bitterly, but did not move away. Hanlon was part 
of her punishment. Still, Shiaine had no wish to watch him 
fondle the woman. 


"Do that later," she ordered. "Did it go well?" A broad 
smile split his axe-like face. "It went exactly as I planned 
it, of course." He threw one side of the dark cloak over his 
shoulder, revealing golden knots of rank on his red coat. "You 
are speaking to the Captain of the Queen's Bodyguard." 


Chapter 11: Ideas of Importance 


Without even taking a look, Rand stepped through the gateway 
into a large dark room. The strain of holding the weave, of 
fighting saidin, made him sway; he wanted to gag, to double 
over and spew up everything in him. Holding himself upright 
was an effort. A little light crept through cracks between the 
shutters on a few small windows set high in one wall, just 
enough to see by with the Power in him. Furniture and large 
cloth-covered shapes nearly filled the room, interspersed with 
wide barrels of the sort used to store crockery, chests of all 
shapes and sizes, boxes and crates and knickknacks. Little 
more than walkways a pace or two wide remained clear. He had 
been sure he would not find servants hunting for something, or 
cleaning up. The highest floor of the Royal Palace had several 
such storerooms, looking like the attics of huge farmhouses 
and just about forgotten. Besides, he was ta'veren, after all. 
A good thing no one had been there when the gateway opened. 
One edge of it had sliced the corner off an empty chest bound 
in cracked, rotting leather, and the other had taken a glass-
smooth shaving down the length of a long, inlaid table stacked 
with vases and wooden boxes. Maybe some Queen of Andor had 
eaten at that table, a century or two gone. 


A century or two, Lews Therin laughed thickly in his head. A 
very long time. For the love of the Light, let go! This is the 
Pit of Doom! The voice dwindled as the man fled into the 
recesses of Rand's mind. 


For once, he had his own reasons to listen to Lews Therin's 
complaints. Hastily he motioned Min to follow him from the for 
est clearing on the other side of the gateway, and as soon as 
she did, he let it close behind her in a quick vertical slash 
of light by releasing saidin. Blessedly, the nausea went with 
it. His head still spun a little, but he did not feel as if he 
were going to vomit or fall over or both. The feel of filth 
remained, though, the Dark One's taint oozing into him from 
the weaves he had tied off around himself. Shifting the strap 
of his leather scrip from one shoulder to the other, he tried 
to use the motion to hide wiping sweat from his face with his 



sleeve. He did not have to worry about Min noticing after all, 
however. 


Her blue, heeled boots stirred the dust on the floor at her 
first step, and her second made it rise. She pulled a lace-
edged handkerchief from her coatsleeve just in time to catch a 
violent sneeze, followed by a second and third, each worse 
than the last. He wished she had been willing to stay in a 
dress. Embroidered white flowers decorated the sleeves and 
lapels of her blue coat, and paler blue breeches molded her 
legs snugly. With yellow-embroidered bright blue riding gloves 
tucked behind her belt, and a cloak edged with yellow 
scrollwork and held by a golden pin in the shape of a rose, 
she did look as if she had arrived by more normal means, but 
she would draw every eye. He was in coarse brown woolens any 
laborer might wear. Most places in the last few days, he had 
been blatant with his presence; this time he did not want just 
to be gone before anyone knew he had been here, he did not 
want anyone but a special few to ever know he had been. 


"Why are you grinning at me and thumbing your ear like a 
loobie?" she demanded, stuffing the handkerchief back into her 
sleeve. Suspicion filled her big, dark eyes. 


"I was just thinking how beautiful you are," he said 
quietly. She was. He could not look at her without thinking 
so. Or without regretting that he was too weak to send her 
away to safety. 


She drew a deep breath, and sneezed before she could even 
clap a hand over her mouth, then glared at him as if it were 
somehow his fault. "I abandoned my horse for you, Rand 
al'Thor. I curled my hair for you. I gave up my life for you! 
I will not give up my coat and breeches! Besides, no one here 
has ever seen me in a dress for more time than it took me to 
change out of it. You know this won't work unless I'm 
recognized. You certainly can't pretend you wandered in off 
the street with that face." 


Unthinking, he ran a hand across his jaw, feeling his own 
face, but that was not what Min saw. Anyone looking at him 
would see a man inches shorter and years older than Rand 
al'Thor, with lank black hair, dull brown eyes and a wart on 
his bulbous nose. Only someone who touched him could pierce 
the Mask of Mirrors. Even an Asha'man would not see it, with 
the weaves inverted. Though if there were Asha'man in the 
Palace, it might mean his plans had gone further awry than he 
believed. This visit could not, must not, come to killing. In 
any case, she was right; 


it was not a face that would have been allowed into the 
Royal Palace of Andor unescorted. 


"As long as we can finish this and be gone quickly," he 
said. "Before anyone has time to think that if you're here, 
maybe I am, too." 


"Rand," she said, her voice soft, and he eyed her warily. 
Resting a hand on his chest, she looked up at him with a 
serious expression. "Rand, you really need to see Elayne. And 
Aviendha, I suppose; you know she's probably here, too. If 
you-" 


He shook his head, and wished he had not. The dizziness had 
still not gone completely. "No!" he said curtly. Light! No 
matter what Min said, he just could not believe that Elayne 



and Aviendha both loved him. Or that the fact they did, if it 
was a fact, did not upset her. Women were not that strange! 
Elayne and Aviendha had reason to hate him, not love him, and 
Elayne, at least, had made herself clear. Worse, he was in 
love with both of them, as well as with Min! He had to be as 
hard as steel, but he thought he might shatter if he had to 
face all three at once. "We find Nynaeve and Mat, and go, as 
fast as we can." She opened her mouth, but he gave her no 
chance to speak. "Don't argue with me, Min. This is no time 
for it!" 


Tilting her head to one side, Min put on a small, amused 
smile. "When do I ever argue with you? Don't I always do 
exactly as you tell me?" If that lie were not bad enough, she 
added, "I was going to say, if you want to hurry, why are we 
standing in this dusty storeroom all day?" For punctuation, 
she sneezed again. 


She was the least likely to cause comment, even dressed as 
she was, so she put her head out of the room first. Apparently 
the storeroom was not entirely forgotten; the heavy door's 
hinges barely creaked. A quick look both ways, and she hurried 
out, gesturing him to follow. Ta'veren or no, he was relieved 
to find the long corridor empty. The most timid servant might 
have wondered at seeing them emerge from a storeroom in the 
upper reaches of the Palace. Still, they would encounter 
people soon enough. The Royal Palace did not run as heavily to 
servants as the Sun Palace or the Stone of Tear, but there 
were still hundreds of them in a place this size. Walking 
along beside Min, he tried to shamble and gawk at bright 
tapestries and carved wall panels and polished highchests. 
None were so fine this high as they would be lower down, but a 
common workman would gawk. 


"We need to get down to a lower floor as fast as we can," he 
murmured. There was still no one in sight, but there might be 
ten people around the next corner. "Remember, just ask the 
first servant we see where to find Nynaeve and Mat. Don't 
elaborate unless you have to." 


"Why, thank you for reminding me, Rand. I knew something had 
slipped my mind, and I just couldn't imagine what." Her brief 
smile was much too tight, and she muttered something under her 
breath. 


Rand sighed. This was too important for her to play games, 
but she was going to, if he let her. Not that she saw it that 
way. Sometimes, though, her ideas of important differed widely 
from his. Very widely. He would have to keep a close eye on 
her. 


"Why, Mistress Farshaw," a woman's voice said behind them. 
"It is Mistress Farshaw, isn't it?" 


The scrip swung and thumped Rand's back heavily as he spun 
around. The plump graying woman staring at Min in astonishment 
was perhaps the last person he wanted to meet, besides Elayne 
or Aviendha. Wondering why she was wearing a red tabard with 
the White Lion large on the front, he slouched and avoided 
looking at her directly. Just a workman doing his job. No 
reason to glance at him twice. 


"Mistress Harfbr?" Min exclaimed, beaming delightedly. "Yes, 
it's me. And you are just the woman I was looking for. I'm 
afraid I am lost. Can you tell me where to find Nynaeve 



aI'Meara? And Mat Cauthon? This fellow has something Nynaeve 
asked him to deliver." 


The First Maid frowned slightly at Rand before returning her 
attention to Min. She raised an eyebrow at Min's garments, or 
maybe at the dust on them, but she mentioned neither. "Mat 
Cauthon? I don't believe I know him. Unless he's one of the 
new servants or Guardsmen?" she added doubtfully. "As for 
Nynaeve Sedai, she's very busy. I suppose it will be all right 
with her if I accept whatever it is and put it in her room." 


Rand jerked upright. Nynaeve Sedai? Why would the others-the 
real Aes Sedai-let her play at that still? And Mat was not 
here? Had never been here, apparently. Colors whirled in his 
head, almost an image he could make out. In a heartbeat it van 
ished, but he staggered. Mistress Harfor frowned at him again, 
and sniffed. Likely she thought him drunk. 


Min frowned, too, but in thought, tapping a finger on her 
chin, and that only lasted a moment. "I think Nynaeve . . . 
Sedai wants to see him." The hesitation was barely noticeable. 
"Could you have him shown to her rooms, Mistress Harfor? I 
have another errand before I go. You mind your manners, now, 
Nuli, and do as you're told. There's a good fellow." 


Rand opened his mouth, but before he could get out a word 
she darted away down the corridor, almost running. Her cloak 
flared behind her, she was moving so quickly. Burn her, she 
was going to try finding Elayne! She could ruin everything! 


"Your plans fail because you want to live, madman. Lews 
Therin's voice was a rough, sweaty whisper. Accept that you 
are dead. Accept it, and stop tormenting me, madman, Rand 
suppressed the voice to a muted buzz, a biteme buzzing in the 
darkness of his head. Nuli? What kind of name was Nuli? 


Mistress Harfor gaped after Min until she vanished around a 
corner, then gave her tabard an adjusting tug it did not need. 
She turned her disapproval on Rand. Even with the Mask of 
Mirrors she saw a man who towered over her, but Reene Harfor 
was not a woman to let a small thing like that put her off 
stride for an instant. "I mistrust the looks of you, Nuli," 
she said, her eyebrows drawn down sharply, "so you watch your 
step. You'll watch it very carefully, if you have any brain at 
all." 


Holding the scrip's shoulder strap with one hand, he tugged 
his forelock with the other. "Yes, Mistress," he muttered 
gruffly. The First Maid might recognize his real voice. Min 
had been supposed to do all the talking until they found 
Nynaeve and Mat. What in the Light was he going to do if she 
did bring Elayne? And maybe Aviendha. She probably was here, 
too. Light! "Pardon, Mistress, but we ought to hurry. It's 
urgent I see Nynaeve as soon as possible." He hefted the scrip 
slightly. "She wanted this real important like." If he was 
done when Min returned, he might be able to get away with her 
before he had to face the other two. 


"If Nynaeve Sedai thought it was urgent," the plump woman 
told him tartly, placing heavy emphasis on the honorific he 
had omitted, "she would have left word you were expected. Now, 
follow me, and keep your comments and opinions to yourself." 


She started off without waiting for a reply, without looking 
back, gliding along with a stately grace. After all, what 
could he do except as he had been told? As he recalled, the 



First Maid was accustomed to everyone doing as they were told. 
Striding to catch up, he took only one step at her side before 
her startled look made him drop back, tugging his forelock and 
mumbling apologies. He was not used to having to walk behind 
anyone. It was not calculated to moderate his mood. The tag 
end of dizziness hung on, too, and the filth of the taint. He 
seemed to be in a foul mood more often than not of late, 
unless Min was with him. 


Before they had gone very far, liveried servants began to ap 
pear in the hallway, polishing and dusting and carrying, 
scurrying every which way. Plainly the absence of people when 
he and Min left the storeroom was a rare occurrence. Ta'veren 
again. Down a flight of narrow service stairs built into the 
wall, and there were even more. And something else, a great 
many women who were not in livery. Copper-skinned Domani 
women, short pale Cairhienin, women with olive skins and dark 
eyes who were certainly not Andoran. They made him smile, a 
tight satisfied smile. None had what he could call an ageless 
face, and a number even bore lines and wrinkles that never 
decorated any Aes Sedai's face, but sometimes goose bumps 
danced on his skin when he came near one of them. They were 
channeling, or least holding saidar. Mistress Harfor led him 
past closed doors where that prickling raced, too. Behind 
those doors, still other women had to be channeling. 


"Pardon, Mistress," he said in the coarse voice he had 
adopted for Nuli. "How many Aes Sedai are there in the 
Palace?" 


"That is no concern of yours," she snapped. Glancing over 
one shoulder at him, though, she sighed and relented. "I don't 
suppose there is any harm in you knowing. Five, counting the 
Lady Elayne and Nynaeve Sedai." A touch of pride entered her 
voice. "It has been a long time since that many Aes Sedai 
claimed guestright here at one time." 


Rand could have laughed, though without amusement. Five? No, 
that included Nynaeve and Elayne. Three real Aes Sedai. Three! 
Whoever the rest were did not really matter. He had begun to 
believe that the rumors of hundreds of Aes Sedai moving toward 
Caemlyn with an army meant there really might be that many 
ready to follow the Dragon Reborn. Instead, even his original 
hope for a double handful of them had been wildly optimistic. 
The rumors were only rumors. Or else some scheme of Elaida's 
making. Light, where was Mat? Color flashed in his head-for an 
instant he thought it was Mat's face-and he stumbled. 


"If you came here drunk, Nuli," Mistress Harfor said firmly, 
"you will leave regretting it bitterly. I will see to it 
myself!" 


"Yes, Mistress," Rand muttered, jerking at his forelock. 
Inside his head, Lews Therin cackled in mad, weeping laughter. 
He had had to come here-it was necessary-but he was already 
beginning to regret it. 


Surrounded by the light of saidar, Nynaeve and Talaan faced 
one another at four paces in front of the fireplace, where a 
brisk blaze had managed to take all chill out of the air. Or 
maybe it was effort that had warmed her, Nynaeve thought 
sourly. This lesson had lasted an hour already, by the ornate 
clock on the carved mantel. An hour of channeling without rest 
would warm anyone. Sareitha was supposed to be here, not her, 



but the Brown had slipped out of the Palace leaving a note 
about an urgent errand in the city. Careane had refused to 
take two days in a row, and Vandene still refused to take any, 
on the ridiculous grounds that teaching Kirstian and Zarya 
left her no time. 


"Like this," she said, whipping her flow of Spirit around 
the boy-slim Sea Folk apprentice's attempt at fending her off. 
Adding the force of her own flow, she pushed the girl's 
further away and at the same time channeled Air in three 
separate weaves. One tickled Talaan's ribs through her blue 
linen blouse. A simple ploy, but the girl gasped in surprise, 
and for an instant her embrace of the Source lessened just a 
hair, the faintest flicker in the Power filling her. In that 
heartbeat Nynaeve stopped the pushing she had just begun on 
the other's flow and snapped her own back to its original 
target. Forcing the shield onto Talaan still felt much like 
slapping a wall-except the sting was spread evenly across her 
skin rather than just in her palm, hardly an improvement- but 
the glow of saidar vanished just as the last two flows of Air 
trapped Talaan's arms at her sides and pulled her knees 
together in their wide, dark trousers. 


Very neatly done, if Nynaeve did think so herself. The girl 
was very agile, very deft with her weaves. Besides, trying to 
shield someone who held the Power was chancy at best and 
futile at worst, unless you were very much stronger than 
they-sometimes if you were-and Talaan matched her as closely 
as made no difference. That helped keep a satisfied smile from 
her face. It seemed a very short time ago that sisters had 
been startled at her strength and believed that only some of 
the Forsaken possessed greater. Talaan had not slowed, yet; 
she was little more than a child. Fifteen? Maybe younger! The 
Light alone knew what her potential was. At least, none of the 
Windfinders had mentioned it, and Nynaeve was not about to 
ask. She had no interest in knowing how much stronger than she 
a Sea Folk girl was going to be. None at all. 


Bare feet shuffling on the patterned green carpet, Talaan 
made one futile attempt to break the shield that Nynaeve held 
easily, then sighed in defeat and lowered her eyes. Even when 
she had succeeded in following Nynaeve's instruction, she 
behaved as if she had failed, and now she slumped so 
dejectedly you might have thought the weaves of Air were all 
that held her upright. 


Letting her flows dissipate, Nynaeve adjusted her shawl and 
opened her mouth to tell Talaan what she had done wrong. And 
to point out-once again-that it was useless to try breaking 
free unless you were much stronger than whoever had shielded 
you. The Sea Folk hardly seemed to believe anything she told 
them until she told them ten times and showed them twenty. 


"She used your own force against you," Senine din Ryal said 
bluntly before Nynaeve could speak. "And distraction, again. 
It is like wrestling, girl. You know how to wrestle." 


"Try again," Zaida commanded with a brisk gesture of one 
dark, tattooed hand. 


All of the chairs in the room had been moved against the 
wall, though there was no real need for a clear space, and 
Zaida sat watching the lesson flanked by six Windfinders, a 
riot of reds and yellows and blues in brocaded silks and 



brightly dyed linens, a flinch-inducing display of earrings 
and nose rings and medallion-laden chains. That was always the 


way; one of the two apprentices was used for the actual 
lesson-or Merilille, Nynaeve had heard, actually forced to 
take the part of an apprentice unless she herself was 

teaching-while Zaida and one group or another of Windfinders 
watched. The Wavemistress could not channel, of course, though 
she was always present, and none of the Windfinders would 
actually stoop to participating personally. Oh, never that. 


In Nynaeve's estimation, today's grouping was very odd, con 
sidering the Sea Folks' obsession with rank. Zaida's own Wind-
finder, Shielyn, sat on her right, a slender, coolly reserved 
woman almost as tall as Aviendha and towering over Zaida. That 
was proper, as far as Nynaeve understood, but at Zaida's left 
was Senine, and she served on a soarer, one of the Sea Folk's 
smaller vessels, and hers among the smallest of those. Of 
course, the weathered woman, with her creased face and hair 
thick with gray, had worn more than her present six earrings 
in the past, and more golden medallions on the chain across 
her dark left cheek. She had been Windfinder to the Mistress 
of the Ships before Nesta din Reas was elected to the post, 
but by their law, when the Mistress of the Ships or a 
Wavemistress died, her Windfinder had to begin again at the 
lowest level. There was more to it than respect for Senine's 
former position, though, Nynaeve was certain. Rainyn, an apple-
cheeked young woman who also served on a soarer, occupied the 
chair next to Senine, and stone-faced, flat-eyed Kurin sat 
beside Shielyn like a black carving. This relegated Caire and 
Tebreille to the outermost chairs, and they were both 
Windfinders to Wavemistresses themselves, with four fat 
earrings in each ear and nearly as many medallions as Zaida 
herself. Perhaps it was just to keep the haughty-eyed sisters 
apart, though. They hated one another with a passion only 
blood kin could achieve. Perhaps that was it. Understanding 
the Atha'an Miere was worse than trying to understand men. A 
woman could go mad trying. 


Muttering to herself, Nynaeve gave her shawl a jerk and pre 
pared herself, readying her flows. The pure joy of holding 
saidar could hardly compete with her vexation. Try again, 
Nynaeve. One more time, Nynaeve. Do it now, Nynaeve. At least 
Renaile was not there. Often they wanted her to teach things 
she did not know as well as others-too often, things she 
barely knew at all, she admitted reluctantly; she had not 
really had much training in the Tower-and whenever she fumbled 
in the slightest, Renaile positively delighted in making her 
sweat. The others made her sweat, too, but they did not seem 
to take so much pleasure in it. Anyway, after a solid hour, 
she was tired. Drat Sareitha and her errand! 


She struck out again, but this time Talaan's flow of Spirit 
met hers much more lightly than she expected, and her own flow 
swept the other further aside than she had meant. Abruptly six 
weaves of Air shot out from the girl, darting toward Nynaeve, 
and Nynaeve quickly sliced them with Fire. The severed flows 
snapped back into Talaan, jolting her visibly, but before they 
had vanished properly, six more appeared, faster than before. 
Nynaeve slashed. And gaped as Talaan's weave of Spirit 
flickered around hers and wrapped around her, cutting off 



saidar. She was shielded! Talaan had shielded her! For the 
final indignity, flows of Air pinioned her arms and legs 
tightly, crushing her skirts. If she had not been so upset at 
Sareitha, it never would have happened. 


"The girl has her," Caire said, sounding surprised. No one 
would think she was Talaan's mother by the cold look she gave 
her. Indeed, Talaan seemed embarrassed by her own success, re 
leasing the flows immediately and dropping her eyes to the 
floor. 


"Very good, Talaan," Nynaeve said, since no one else was 
offering a word of praise or encouragement. Irritably she 
shook out her shawl behind her and settled it into the crooks 
of her elbows. No need to tell the girl she had been lucky. 
She was quick, true, but Nynaeve was not sure she herself 
could keep channeling much longer. She certainly was not at 
her best now. "I'm afraid that is all the time I have today, 
so-" 


"Try again," Zaida commanded, leaning forward intently. "I 
want to see something." That was not an explanation, or any 
thing near apology, simply a statement of fact. Zaida never ex 
plained or apologized. She just expected obedience. 


Nynaeve considered telling the woman she could not see any 
thing they were doing anyway, but she rejected the thought im 
mediately. Not with six Windfinders in the room. Two days 
earlier she had voiced her opinions freely, and she certainly 
did not want a repeat of that. She had tried thinking of it as 
a penance, for speaking without thinking, but that did not 
help very much. She wished she had never taught them to link. 


"One more time," she said tightly, turning back to Talaan, 
"and then I must go." 


She was ready for the girl's trick this time. Channeling, 
she met Talaan's weave more dexterously, and without so much 
force. The girl smiled at her uncertainly. Thinking Nynaeve 
would not be distracted by extraneous flows of Air this time, 
was she? Talaan's weave began to curl around hers, and she 
nimbly spun her own to catch it. She would be ready when the 
woman produced her flows of Air. Or maybe not Air, this time. 
Nothing dangerous surely. This was practice. Only, Talaan's 
flow of Spirit did not complete that curl, and Nynaeve's swung 
wide while Talaan's struck straight at her and latched on. 
Once again, saidar winked out of her, and bonds of Air snapped 
her arms to her sides, fastened her knees. 


Carefully, she drew breath. She would have to congratulate 
the young woman. There was no getting out of it. If she had 
had a hand free, she would have yanked her braid right out of 
her scalp. 


"Hold!" Zaida commanded, rising to stride gracefully toward 
Nynaeve, her red silk trousers whisking softly above her bare 
feet, intricately knotted red sash swaying against her thigh. 
The Wind-finders stood with her and followed, in order of 
rank. Caire and Tebreille icily ignored one another as they 
hurried to take places nearest the Wavemistress while Senine 
and Rainyn fell a pace to the rear. 


Obediently, Talaan held the shield on Nynaeve, and the 
bonds, leaving her standing like a statue. And fuming like a 
kettle too long on the boil. She refused to shuffle about, a 
broken puppet, and that was all that was left to her except 



standing still. Caire and Tebreille studied her with icy 
disdain, Kurin with the hard contempt she had for all land 
dwellers. The stone-eyed woman did not sneer or grimace or 
wear any real expression at all, but you could not be with her 


long without becoming aware of her opinion. Only Rainyn 
displayed the smallest touch of sympathy, a slight rueful 
smile. 

Zaida's eyes met Nynaeve's levelly. They were much the same 
height. "She is held as tightly as you can, apprentice?" 


Talaan bowed deeply, parallel to the floor, touching her 
forehead, lips and heart. "As you commanded, Wavemistress," 
she all but whispered. 


"What is the meaning of this?" Nynaeve demanded. "Let me go. 
You may get away with treating Merilille this way, but if you 
think for one minute-!" 


"You say there is no way to break this shield unless you are 
much stronger," Zaida cut her off. Her tone was not harsh, but 
she meant to be heard, not to listen. "The Light willing, we 
will learn whether you told us correctly. It is well known how 
Aes Sedai make truth spin like a whirlpool. Windfinders, you 
will form a circle. Kurin, you will lead. If she does break 
free, see that she causes no harm. For incentive. . . . 
Apprentice, prepare to turn her upside down at my count of 
five. One." 


The light of saidar enveloped the Windfinders, all of them 
together, as they linked. Kurin stood with her feet apart and 
her hands on her hips, as if balancing on the deck of a ship. 
Her very lack of expression seemed to convey that she was 
already convinced they would uncover prevarication if not an 
outright lie. Talaan drew a deep breath, and for once stood 
very straight, not even blinking as she kept her anxious eyes 
on Zaida. 


Nynaeve blinked. No! They could not do this to her! Not 
again! "I am telling you," she said, much more calmly than she 
felt, "there is no way for me to break the shield. Talaan is 
too strong." 


"Two," Zaida said, folding her arms beneath her breasts and 
staring at Nynaeve as though she really could see the weaves. 


Nynaeve pushed tentatively at the shield. She might as well 
push at a stone wall for all the give in it. "Listen to me, Za 
. . . uh . . . Wavemistress." There was certainly no need to 
antagonize the woman further. They were sticklers for proper 
forms of address. Sticklers for all too many things. "I'm sure 
Merilille has told you something about shielding, at least. 
She swore the Three Oaths. She can't lie." Maybe Egwene was 
right about the Oath Rod. 


Zaida's gaze never wavered, her expression never changed. 
"Three." 


"Listen to me," Nynaeve said, not caring at all if she 
sounded a bit desperate. Maybe more than just a bit. She 
pushed against the shield harder, then as hard as she could. 
She might as well have beat her head against a boulder for all 
the effect it had. Instinctively, uselessly, she struggled in 
the bonds of Air holding her, the fringe and loose folds of 
her shawl dancing around her. She had as much chance of 
breaking free of those bonds as she did of breaking through 
the shield, but she could not stop herself. Not again! She 



could not face that! "You have to listen!" 


"Four." 


No! No! Not again! Frantically she scrabbled at the shield. 
It might be as hard as stone, but it felt more like glass, 
sleek and slippery. She could feel the Source beyond it, 
almost see the Source, like light and warmth just beyond the 
corner of vision. In desperation, panting, she felt her way 
across the smooth surface. It had an edge, like a circle at 
once small enough to hold in her hands and large enough to 
cover the world, but when she attempted to slip around that 
edge, she found herself right back in the center of the slick 
hard circle again. This was useless. She had learned all this 
long ago, tried it all long ago. Her heart pounded fit to 
burst out of her ribs. Struggling vainly for calm, she hur 
riedly felt her way back to the edge, felt along it without 
trying to go around. There was one place where it felt . . . 
softer. She had never noticed that before. The soft point-a 
slight lump?- seemed no different in any other way from the 
rest, and it was not much softer, but she hurled herself at 
it. And found herself back in the center. In a frenzy, she 
flung all of her strength at the soft spot, again and again, 
being hurled back to the center, not even pausing before 
launching herself at it again. Again. Oh, Light! Please! She 
had to, before . . . ! 


Abruptly she realized that Zaida still had not said five. 
Gulping air as if she had run ten miles, she stared. Sweat 
rolled down her face, her back. It trickled between her 
breasts, slid down her belly. Her legs wobbled. The 
Wavemistress looked straight into her eyes, thoughtfully 
tapping full lips with a slim finger. The glow still enveloped 
the circle of six, Kurin still could have been a scornfully 
stony statue, but Zaida had not said five. 


"Did she truly try as hard as it seemed, Kurin," the 
Wavemistress asked finally, "or was all that thrashing about 
and whimpering just a show?" Nynaeve tried to summon an 
indignant glare. She had not whimpered! Had she? Her scowl, 
such as it was, made no more impression on Zaida than rain on 
a rock. 


"With that much effort, Wavemistress," Kurin said reluc 
tantly, "she could have carried a raker on her back." The flat 
black pebbles of her eyes still held contempt, though. Only 
those who lived at sea got any respect from her. 


"Release her, Talaan," Zaida commanded, and shield and bonds 
vanished as she turned away, starting back toward the chairs 
without another glance at Nynaeve. "Windfinders, I will have 
words with you after she goes. I will see you at the same hour 
tomorrow, Nynaeve Sedai." 


Smoothing her rumpled skirts and irritably shaking out her 
shawl again, Nynaeve attempted to regather a little dignity. 
It was not easy, sweat-slicked and trembling. She certainly 
had not whimpered! She tried not to look at the woman who had 
shielded her. Twice! Standing there meek as butter, with her 
eyes fixed on the carpet. Ha! Nynaeve jerked her shawl around 
her shoulders. "Sareitha Sedai will take her turn tomorrow, 
Wavemistress." At least her voice was steady. "I will be busy 
until-" 


"Your instruction is more edifying than that of the others," 



Zaida said, still not bothering to look at her. "At the same 
hour, or I will send your pupils to bring you. You may leave 
now." And that had the sound of you will leave now. 


With an effort, Nynaeve swallowed her arguments. They had a 


bitter taste. More edifying? What did that mean? She did not 
think she really wanted to know. 
Until she actually left the room, she was still the 

teacher-the Sea Folk were rigid in their rules; Nynaeve 
supposed that lax rules on ships could lead to trouble, but 
she wished they would realize they were not on a ship-she was 
still the teacher, and that meant she could not simply stalk 
out, however much she wanted to. Worse, their rules were quite 
specific about teachers from among the shorebound. She could 
simply have refused to cooperate, she supposed, but if she 
violated their bargain by a hair, these women would spread it 
from Tear to the Light knew where! The whole world would know 
that Aes Sedai had broken their word. What that would do to 
Aes Sedai standing did not bear thinking about. Blood and 
bloody ashes! Egwene was right, and burn her for it! 


"Thank you, Wavemistress, for allowing me to instruct you," 
she said, bowing and touching fingers to forehead, lips and 
heart. Not a very deep bow, but a quick bob was all they were 
getting today. Well, two. The Windfinders had to have one. 
"Thank you, Windfinders, for allowing me to instruct you." The 
sisters who finally went to the Atha'an Miere would explode 
when they learned that their pupils could tell them what to 
teach and when, and even order what they did when not 
teaching. On a Sea Folk vessel, a land-dwelling teacher 
outranked the common deck-hands, but only just. And the 
sisters would not even get the fat purses of gold used to lure 
other teachers on board. 


Zaida and the Windfinders reacted very much as if the lowest 
deckhand had announced her departure. That is, they stood in a 
silent cluster, plainly waiting for her to go, and not very 
patient about it. Only Rainyn favored her with as much as a 
glance. An impatient glance. She was a Windfinder, after all 
was said and done. Talaan still stood where she had been left, 
a meek figure gazing at the carpet in front other bare feet. 


Head high and back straight, Nynaeve left the room with 
every shred of dignity she could wrap around herself. Sweaty, 
rumpled shreds. In the hall, she seized the door in both hands 
and slammed it as hard as she could. The great, echoing crash 
was very satisfying. She could always say it had slipped out 
of her hands, if anyone complained. It really had, once she 
got a good swing going. 


Turning from the door, she dusted her hands with 
satisfaction. And gave a start at who was waiting in the 
corridor for her. 


In a simple dark blue dress provided by one of the Kins 
women, Alivia did not look at all unusual at first glance, a 
woman a little taller than Nynaeve, with fine lines at the 
corners of her blue eyes and threads of white in her golden 
yellow hair. Those blue eyes crackled with intensity, though, 
like the eyes of a hawk focused on prey. 


"Mistress Corly sent me to tell you she'd like to see you at 
dinner tonight," the blue-eyed hawk said in a slow Seanchan 
drawl. "Mistress Karistovan, Mistress Arman, and Mistress 



Juarde will be there." 


"What are you doing here alone?" Nynaeve demanded. She 
wished she could be like most other sisters, aware of another 
woman's strength without ever really thinking about it, but 
that was something else she had not had time to learn. Maybe 
some of the Forsaken topped Alivia, but surely no one else. 
And she was Seanchan. Nynaeve wished there was someone else 
there besides the two of them. Even Lan, and she had ordered 
him to stay away from her lessons with the Sea Folk. She was 
not certain he believed her story about slipping on the stairs 
the other day. "You aren't supposed to go anywhere without an 
escort!" 


Alivia shrugged, a slight movement of one shoulder. A few 
days ago, she had been a bundle of simpers that made Talaan 
look bold. She did not simper for anybody, now. "There wasn't 
anyone free, so I slipped out by myself. Anyway, if you always 
guard me, you'll never come to trust me, and I'll never get to 
kill sui'dam." Somehow that sounded even more chilling, 
delivered in such a casual tone. "You ought to be learning 
from me. Those Asha'man say they're weapons, and they aren't 
bad, I know for a fact, but I'm better." 


"That's as may be," Nynaeve replied sharply, shifting her 
shawl. "And maybe we know more than you think we do." She 
would not mind demonstrating a few of the weaves she had 
learned from Moghedien for this woman. Including a few they 
had all agreed were too nasty to do to anyone. Except. . . . 
She was fairly certain the other woman could overpower her 
easily, whatever she did. Keeping her feet from shifting under 
that intense stare was not easy. "Until-unless!-we decide 
differently, you won't let me see you without two or three 
Kinswomen again, if you know what's good for you." 


"If you say so," Alivia said, not at all abashed. "What 
message do you want me to take back to Mistress Corly?" 


"Tell Mistress Corly I have to decline her kind invitation. 
And remember what I told you!" 


"I'll tell her," the Seanchan woman drawled, completely ig 
noring the admonition. "But I don't think it was exactly an 
invitation. An hour after first dark, she said. You might want 
to remember that." With a slight, knowing smile, she walked 
away, not hurrying at all to return where she belonged. 


Nynaeve glared at the retreating woman's back, and not be 
cause of her lack of a curtsy. Well, not only that. A pity she 
had not hung on to a few of her simpers, for sisters, anyway. 
With a glance at the door that hid the Atha'an Miere, Nynaeve 
considered following Alivia to make sure she did as she had 
been told. Instead, she went in the opposite direction. She 
did not hurry. It would be unpleasant if the Sea Folk came out 
and decided she had been eavesdropping, but she definitely did 
not hurry. She merely wanted to walk briskly. That was all. 


The Atha'an Miere were hardly the only ones in the Palace 
she wanted to avoid. Not exactly an invitation, was it? Sumeko 
Karistovan, Chilares Arman and Famelle Juarde had been in the 
Knitting Circle with Reanne Corly. Dinner was only an excuse. 
They would want to talk to her about the Windfinders. More 
specifically, about the relationship between the Aes Sedai in 
the Palace and the Sea Folk "wilders." They would not quite 
upbraid her for failing to maintain the dignity of the White 



Tower. They had not gone that far; not yet, though they seemed 
to be coming closer. But the whole dinner would be full of 
pointed questions and sharper comments. Nothing she could 
simply order them to stop. She doubted they would for less 
than a command. And they were quite capable of coming to find 
her if she did not go to them. Trying to teach them to show 
backbone had been a terrible mistake. At least she was not the 
only one who had to put up with it, though she thought Elayne 
had managed to avoid the worst. Oh, how she looked forward to 
seeing them back in novice white or Accepted's dresses. How 
she looked forward to seeing the last of the Atha'an Miere! 


"Nynaeve!" came a strangely muted cry behind her. In Sea 
Folk accents. "Nynaeve!" 
Forcing her hand away from her braid, Nynaeve spun on her 

heel, ready to deliver a tongue-lashing. She was not teaching 
now, they were not on a ship, and they could bloody well leave 
her alone! 


Talaan skidded to a halt in front of her, bare feet sliding 
on the dark red floor tiles. Panting, the young woman swiveled 
her head as if afraid someone would sneak up on her. She 
flinched every time a liveried servant moved just on the edge 
of her sight, and only breathed again when she saw it was just 
a servant. "Can I go to the White Tower?" she asked 
breathlessly, wringing her hands and dancing from foot to 
foot. "I will never be chosen. A sacrifice, they call it, 
leaving the sea forever, but I dream of becoming a novice. I 
will miss my mother terribly, but. . . . Please. You must take 
me to the Tower. You must!" 


Nynaeve blinked at the onslaught. Many women dreamed of 
becoming Aes Sedai, but she had never before heard one say she 
dreamed of becoming a novice. Besides. . . . The Atha'an Miere 
refused passage to Aes Sedai on any ship whose Windfinder 
could channel, but to keep sisters from trying to look deeper, 
every so often an apprentice was chosen to go to the White 
Tower. Egwene said there were only three sisters from among 
the Sea Folk at present, all weak in the Power. For three 
thousand years that had been enough to convince the Tower that 
the ability was rare and small with Atha'an Miere women, not 
worth investigating. Talaan was right; no one as strong as she 
would ever be allowed to go to the Tower, even now that their 
subterfuge was coming to an end. In fact, it was part of the 
bargain with them that Atha'an Miere sisters be allowed to 
give up being Aes Sedai and return to the ships. The Hall of 
the Tower would not half howl about that! 


"Well, the training is very hard, Talaan," she said gently, 
"and you must be at least fifteen. Besides. . . ." Something 
else the young woman had said struck her suddenly. "You will 
miss your mother?" she said incredulously, not caring how it 
sounded. 


"I am nineteen!" Talaan replied indignantly. Looking at that 
boyish face and form, Nynaeve was not sure she believed. "And 
of course I will miss my mother. Do I look unnatural? Oh; I 
see. You do not understand. We are very affectionate in 
private, but she must avoid any sign of favor in public. That 
is a serious crime, with us. It could have mother stripped of 
her rank, and both of us hung upside down in the rigging to be 
flogged." 



 Nynaeve grimaced at the mention of upside down. "I certainly 
can see where you would want to avoid that," she said. "Even 
so-" 


"Everyone tries to avoid even a hint of favor, but it is 
worse for me, Nynaeve!" Really, the girl-woman-young 
woman-would have to learn not to step on what a sister was 
saying if she did become a novice. Not that she could, of 
course. Nynaeve tried to regain the initiative, but words 
poured out of Talaan in a torrent. "My grandmother is 
Windfinder to the Wavemistress of Clan Rossaine, my great-
grandmother is Windfinder to Clan Dacan, and her sister to 
Clan Takana. My family is honored that five of us have risen 
so high. And everyone watches for signs that Gelyn abuses its 
influence. Rightly so, I know-favor cannot be allowed-but my 
sister was kept an apprentice five years longer than normal, 
and my cousin six! Just so no one can claim they were favored. 
When I cast the stars and give our position correctly, I am 
punished for being slow even when I have the answer as fast as 
Windfinder Ehvon! When I taste the sea and name the coast we 
are approaching, I am punished because the taste I name is not 
quite what Windfinder Ehvon tastes! I shielded you twice, but 
tonight I will hang by my ankles for not doing so sooner! I am 
punished for flaws ignored in others, for flaws I never make, 
because I might! Was your novice training any harder than 
that, Nynaeve?" 


"My novice training," Nynaeve said faintly. She wished the 
woman would not keep bringing up being hung by the ankles. 
"Yes. Well. You really don't want to hear about that." Four 
generations of women with the ability? Light! Even daughter 
following mother was rare enough. The Tower really would want 
Talaan. That was not going to happen, though. "I suppose Caire 
and Tebreille really love one another, too?" she said, trying 
to change the subject. 


Talaan sneered. "My aunt is sly and deceitful. She 
celebrates any humiliation she can cause my mother. But my 
mother will bring her low, as she deserves. One day, Tebreille 
will find herself serving on a soarer, beneath a Sailmistress 
with an iron hand and sore teeth!" She gave a grim, satisfied 
nod at the thought. And then jumped, wide-eyed as a fawn, when 
a serving man hurried by behind her. That recalled her to her 
purpose. She went back to trying to look every way at once as 
she spoke hastily. "You cannot speak out during the lessons, 
of course, but any other time will do. Announce that I am to 
go the Tower, and they will not be able to deny you. You are 
Aes Sedai!" 


Nynaeve goggled at the girl. And they would have forgotten 
all about it by the next time she gave a lesson? The fool had 
seen what they did to her! "I can see how much you want to go, 
Talaan," she said, "but-" 


"Thank you," Talaan broke in, making a quick bow. "Thank 
you!" And she darted back the way she had come at a dead run. 


"Wait!" Nynaeve shouted, taking a few steps after her. "Come 
back! I didn't promise anything!" 


Servants turned to stare at her, and continued to shoot won 
dering glances in her direction even after returning to their 
tasks. She would have run after the idiot except that she was 
afraid she would have to follow her straight to Zaida and the 



others. And the fool would probably gush out that she was 
going to the Tower, that Nynaeve had promised. Light, she 
would probably tell them anyway! 

"You look as if you just swallowed a rotten plum," Lan said, 
appearing at her side, tall and starkly handsome in his well-
fitting green coat. She wondered how long he had been there. 
It did not seem possible that a man so large, so commanding in 
his presence, could stand still enough that you failed to 
notice him, even without a Warder's cloak. 


"A basketful of them," she murmured, pressing her face 
against her husband's broad chest. It felt very good to lean 
against his strength, just for a moment, while he stroked her 
hair softly. Even if she did have to shift his sword hilt out 
of her ribs. And anyone who wanted to stare at such a public 
display of affection could go hang themselves. She could see 
disaster piling up on disaster. Even if she told Zaida and the 
others she had no intention of taking Talaan anywhere, they 
were going to skin her. There would be no hiding it from Lan 
this time. If she had managed to the first. Reanne and the 
others would learn of it. And Alise! They would start treating 
her the way they did Merilille, ignoring her orders, giving 
her about as much respect as the Windfinders did Talaan. 
Somehow she would be saddled with guarding Alivia, and some 
catastrophe would come of it, some utter humiliation. That was 
all she seemed fit to do, lately; find another way to be 
humiliated. And every fourth day, she would still have to face 
Zaida and the Windfinders. 


"Do you remember how you kept me in our rooms yesterday 
morning?" she murmured, looking up in time to catch a grin 
replacing concern on his face. Of course he remembered. Her 
face grew hot. Talking to friends was one thing, but being 
forward with her own husband still seemed quite another. 
"Well, I want you to take me back there right now and keep me 
from putting on any clothes for about a year!" She had been 
quite furious about that, at first. But he had ways to make 
her forget to be furious. 


He threw back his head and laughed, a great booming sound, 
and after a moment, she echoed him. She wanted to weep, 
though. She had not really been joking. 


Having a husband meant that she did not have to share a bed 
with another woman, or two, and it gained her a sitting room. 
It was not large, but it always seemed snug, with a good 
fireplace and a small table with four chairs. Certainly as 
much as she and Lan needed. Her hopes for privacy were dashed 
as soon as they entered the sitting room, though. The First 
Maid was waiting in the middle of the flowered carpet, as 
stately as a queen, as neatly turned out as if she had just 
finished dressing, and not at all pleased. And in one corner 
of the room was a roughly dressed, lumpy fellow with a 
horrible wart on his nose and a scrip dangling heavily from 
his shoulder. 


"This man claims he has something you want urgently," Mis 
tress Harfor said once she had made brief courtesies. Very 
brief, if proper; she did not waste them on anyone except 
Elayne. She sounded equally disapproving of Nynaeve and the 
fellow with the wart. "I don't mind telling you, I do not like 
the looks of him." 



 Tired as Nynaeve was, embracing the Source was almost beyond 
her, but she managed it in a flash, spurred by thoughts of 
assassins and the Light knew what. Lan must have caught some 
change in her face, because he took a step toward the warty 
fellow; he did not touch his sword, but suddenly his whole 
stance seemed as if the blade were already drawn. How he 
sometimes managed to read her mind when another held his bond, 
she could not say, but she was pleased. She had managed to 
match Talaan-in strength, at least!-but she was not sure she 


could channel enough right then to knock over a chair. "I 
never," she began. 
"Pardon, Mistress," the lumpy fellow muttered hurriedly, 

tugging his greasy forelock. "Mistress Thane said you wanted 
to see me right away. Women's Circle business, she said. 
Something about Cenn Buie." 


Nynaeve gave herself a shake, and after a moment remembered 
to close her mouth. "Yes," she said slowly, staring at the 
fellow. Seeing anything but that awful wart was difficult, but 
she was certain she had never laid eyes on him before. Women's 
Circle business. No man would be allowed a sniff of that. It 
was secret. She held on to saidar, though. "I ... remember, 
now. Thank you, Mistress Harfor. I'm sure you have all sorts 
of things to see to." 


Rather than take the hint, the First Maid hesitated, 
frowning at her suspiciously. That frown slid around to the 
lumpy man, then settled on Lan and vanished. She nodded to 
herself, as if his presence somehow made the difference! "I 
will leave you, then. I'm sure Lord Lan can handle this 
fellow." 


Stifling her indignation, Nynaeve barely waited for the door 
to close before rounding on the lumpy fellow and his wart. 
"Who are you?" she demanded. "How do you know those names? 
You're no Two Riv-" 


The man . . . rippled. There was no other word for it. He 
rippled and stretched taller, and suddenly it was Rand, 
grimacing and swallowing, in rumpled woolens with those awful 
heads glittering red-and-gold on the backs of his hands and a 
leather scrip on his shoulder. Where had he learned that? Who 
had taught him? She resisted the idea of disguising herself, 
just for a moment, to show him she could do as much. 


"I see you didn't take your own advice," Rand said to Lan, 
just as if she were not there. "But why do you let her pretend 
to be Aes Sedai? Even if the real Aes Sedai let her, she can 
get hurt." 


"Because she is Aes Sedai, sheepherder," Lan replied 
quietly. He did not look at her either! And he still seemed 
ready to draw his sword in a heartbeat. "As for the other. . . 
. Sometimes, she is stronger than you. Did you take it?" 


Rand looked at her then. To frown disbelievingly. Even when 
she pointedly adjusted her shawl so the yellow fringe swayed. 
What he said though, shaking his head slowly, was "No. You're 
right. Sometimes you're just too weak to do what you should." 


"What are you two blathering about?" she said sharply. 
"Just things that men talk about," Lan replied. 
"You wouldn't understand," Rand said. 
She sniffed at that. Gossip and idle chatter, that was what 


men's talk was, nine times in ten. At best. Wearily, she let 



go of saidar. Reluctantly. She did not need to protect herself 
against Rand, certainly, but she would have liked to hold on a 
little longer, just to touch it, tired or not. 


"We know about Cairhien, Rand," she said, sinking gratefully 
into a chair. Those cursed Sea Folk had worn her out! "Is that 
why you're here, dressed that way? If you're trying to hide 
from whoever it was. . . ." He looked tired. Harder than she 
remembered, but very tired. He remained standing, though. 
Strangely, he seemed much like Lan, ready to draw a sword he 
was not wearing. Maybe that attempt to kill him would be 
enough to make him see sense. "Rand, Egwene can help you." 


"I'm not hiding exactly," he said. "At least, just until I 
kill some men who need killing." Light, he was as matter of 
fact about it as Alivia! Why did he and Lan keep eyeing one 
another and pretending they were not? "Anyway, how could 
Egwene help?" he went on, setting the scrip on the table. It 
made a soft but solid sound of weight inside. "I suppose she's 
Aes Sedai, too?" He sounded amused! "Is she here, as well? You 
three, and two real Aes Sedai. Only two! No. I don't have time 
for that. I need you to keep something until-" 


"Egwene is the Amyrlin Seat, you fool woolhead," she 
growled. It was nice to be able to interrupt someone else for 
a change. "Elaida is a usurper. I hope you've had sense enough 
not to go near her! You wouldn't leave that meeting on your 
own two legs, I can tell you! There are five real Aes Sedai 
here, including me, and three hundred more with Egwene and an 
army, ready to pull Elaida down. Look at yourself! Whatever 
your brave talk, somebody almost killed you, and you're 
sneaking around dressed like a stableman! What safer place for 
you than with Egwene? Even those Asha'man of yours wouldn't 
dare go against three hundred sisters!" Oh, yes; very nice 
indeed. He tried to mask his surprise, but he made a poor job 
of it, staring at her. 


"You'd be surprised what my Asha'man would dare," he said 
dryly after a minute. "I suppose Mat is with Egwene's army?" 
Putting a hand to his head, he staggered. 


Only half a step, but she was out of her chair before he 
could right himself. Embracing saidar with an effort, she 
reached up to clasp his head between her hands, and 
laboriously wove a Delving around him. She had tried finding a 
better way to find what ailed someone, so far without success. 
It was enough. No sooner had the weave settled on him than her 
breath caught. She had known about the wound in his side from 
Faime, never healing completely, resisting all the Healing she 
knew, like a pustule of evil in his flesh. Now there was 
another half-healed wound atop the old, and that pulsed with 
evil, too. A different sort of evil, somehow, like a mirror of 
the other, yet just as virulent. And she could not touch 
either with the Power. She did not really want to-just 
thinking of it made her skin crawl!-but she tried. And some 
thing unseen held her away. Like a ward. A ward she could not 
see. A ward of saidin? 


That made her stop channeling and step back. She clung to 
the Source; no matter how tired she was, she would have had to 
force herself to let go. No sister could think of the male 
half of the Power without at least a touch of fear. He looked 
down at her calmly, and that made her shiver. He seemed 



another man entirely from the Rand al'Thor she had watched 
grow up. She was very glad that Lan was there, hard as that 
was to admit. Suddenly she realized that he had not relaxed by 
a whisker. He might chatter with Rand like two men over pipes 
and ale, but he thought Rand was dangerous. And Rand looked at 
Lan as if he knew it, and accepted it. 


"None of that is important now," Rand said, turning to the 
scrip on the table. She did not know whether he meant his 
wounds or where Mat was. From the scrip he produced two statu 
ettes a foot high, a wise-looking, bearded man and an equally 
wise and serene woman, each in flowing robes and holding aloft 
a clear crystal sphere. From the way he handled them, they 
were heavier than they appeared. "I want you to keep these 
hidden for me until I send for them, Nynaeve." One hand on the 
figure of the woman, he hesitated. "And for you. I'll need you 
when I use them. When we use them. After I take care of those 
men. That has to come first." 


"Use them?" she said suspiciously. Why did killing anyone 
have to come first? That was hardly the important question, 
though. "For what? Are they ter'angreal?" 


He nodded. "With this, you can touch the greatest sa'angreal 
ever made for a woman. It's buried on Tremalking, I 
understand, but that doesn't matter." His hand moved to the 
figure of the man. "With this one, I can touch its male twin. 
I was told by ... someone . . . once, that a man and woman 
using those sa'angreal could challenge the Dark One. They 
might have to be used for that, one day, but in the meantime, 
I hope they're enough to cleanse the male half of the Source." 


"If it could be done, wouldn't they have done it in the Age 
of Legends?" Lan said quietly. Quiet the way steel sliding 
from a scabbard was quiet. "You said once that I could get her 
hurt." It seemed impossible his voice could grow any harder, 
but it did. "You could kill her, sheepherder." And his tone 
made clear that he would not allow that. 


Rand met Lan's cold blue stare with one just as cold. "I 
don't know why they didn't. I don't care why. It has to be 
tried." 


Nynaeve bit her lower lip. She supposed Rand made this a 
public occasion-shifting from public to private, deciding 
which was which, made her dizzy sometimes-but she did not care 
that Lan had spoken out of turn. He was bad that way, in any 
case, but she liked an outspoken man. She needed to think. Not 
about her decision. She had made that. About how to implement 
it. Rand might not like it. Lan certainly would not. Well, men 
always wanted their own way. Sometimes you just had to teach 
them they could not always have it. 


"I think it is a wonderful idea," she said. That was not 
exactly a lie. It was wonderful, compared to the alternatives. 
"But I don't see why I should sit here waiting for your 
summons like a serving maid. I'll do it, but we all go 
together." 


She had been right. They did not like it one bit. 


Chapter 12: A Lily in Winter 



 Another serving man nearly fell on his nose bowing, and 
Elayne sighed as she glided past along the Palace corridor. At 
least, she tried to glide. The Daughter-Heir of Andor, stately 
and serene. She wanted to run, though her dark blue skirts 
probably would have tripped her had she tried. She could 
almost feel the stout man's goggling eyes following her and 
her companions. A minor irritant, and one that would pass; a 
grain of sand in her slipper. Rand bloody thinks-he-knows-best-
for-everybody al'Thor is itchoak down my back! she thought. If 
he managed to get away from her this time . . . ! 


"Just remember," she said firmly. "He hears nothing about 
spies, or forkroot, or any of that!" The very last thing she 
needed was him deciding to "rescue" her. Men did that sort of 
nonsense; 


Nynaeve called it "thinking with the hair on their chests." 
Light, he would probably try to move the Aiel and the 
Saldaeans back into the city! Into the Palace itself! Bitter 
as it was to admit, she could not stop him if he did, not 
short of open war, and even that might not be enough. 


"I don't tell him things he doesn't need to know," Min said, 
frowning at a lanky, wide-eyed serving woman whose curtsy 
nearly collapsed into a sprawl on the red-brown floor tiles. 
Eyeing Min sideways, Elayne remembered her own time wearing 
breeches, and wondered whether she might not try again. They 
were certainly freer than skirts. Not the heeled boots, 
though, she decided judiciously. They made Min almost as tall 
as Aviendha, but even Birgitte swayed in those, and with Min's 
snug breeches and a coat that barely covered her hips, it 
looked positively scandalous. 


"You lie to him?" Suspicion larded Aviendha's tone. Even the 
way she adjusted her dark shawl on her shoulders carried disap 
proval, and she glared past Elayne at Min. 


"Of course not," Min replied sharply, glaring right back. 
"Not unless it's necessary." Aviendha chuckled, then looked 
startled that she had, and put on a stony face. 


What was she to do about them? They had to like one another. 
They just had to. But the two women had been staring at each 
other like strange cats in a small room every since they met. 
Oh, they had agreed to everything-there really had been no 
choice, not when none of them could guess when they would all 
have the man at hand again-but she hoped they did not show one 
another again how skillfully they handled their knives. Very 
casually, not actually implying any threat, but very open 
about it, too. On the other hand, Aviendha had been quite 
impressed with the number of knives Min carried about her 
person. 


A gangly young serving man carrying a tray of tall mantles 
for the stand lamps bowed as she swept by. Unfortunately, he 
was staring so hard that he forgot to pay attention to his 
burden. The crash of glass shattering on the floor tiles 
filled the corridor. 


Elayne sighed again. She did hope everyone became used to 
the new order of things soon. She was not the object of all 
that gaping, of course, or Aviendha, or even Min, though she 
probably drew some. No, it was Caseille and Deni, following 
close behind, who were making eyes pop and servants stumble. 



She had eight bodyguards, now, and those two had been standing 
guard at her door when she woke. 


Very likely some of the gaping was just that Elayne had 
Guardswomen trailing behind her at all, and almost certainly 
that they were women. No one was used to that, yet. But 
Birgitte had said she would make them appear ceremonial, and 
she had. She must have set every seamstress and milliner in 
the Palace working as soon as she left Elayne's rooms the 
night before. Each woman wore a bright red hat with a long 
white plume lying flat along the wide brim, and a wide red 
sash edged in snowy lace across her chest with rampant White 
Lions marching up it. Their white-collared crimson coats were 
silk, and the cut had been altered a little, so they fit 
better and hung almost to the knee above scarlet breeches with 
a white stripe up the outsides of the legs. Pale lace hung 
thickly at their wrists and necks, and their black boots had 
been waxed till they shone. They looked quite dashing, and 
even placid-eyed Deni swaggered just a little. Elayne 
suspected they would be even prouder once the sword belts and 
scabbards with gold tooling were ready, and the lacquered 
helmets and breastplates. Birgitte was having breastplates 
made to fit women, which Elayne suspected had certainly made 
the Palace armorer's eyes pop! 


At the moment, Birgitte was busy interviewing women to round 
out the twenty for the bodyguard. Elayne could feel her 
concentrating, with no sign of physical activity, so it must 
be that, unless she was reading, or playing stones, and she 
seldom took a moment away from her duties for herself. Elayne 
hoped she would keep it to just twenty. She hoped Birgitte was 
busy enough that she did not notice until too late when she 
masked the bond. To think that she had been so worried about 
Birgitte sensing what she did not want her to when the 
solution lay in a simple question to Vandene. The answer had 
been a rueful reminder how little she actually knew about 
being Aes Sedai, especially the parts other sisters took for 
granted. Apparently, every sister who had a Warder knew how, 
even those who remained celibate. 


It was odd how things came about, sometimes. If not for the 
bodyguards, if not for wondering how she could manage to elude 
them and Birgitte, she would never have thought to ask, would 
never have learned the masking in time for this. Not that she 
planned to elude her guards any time soon, but it was best to 
be prepared in advance of need. Birgitte certainly was not 
going to allow her and Aviendha to wander the city alone, day 
or night, not any longer. 


Their arrival at Nynaeve's door put thoughts of Birgitte com 
pletely out of her head. Except that she must not mask the 
bond until the very last instant. Rand was on the other side 
of that door. Rand who sometimes crowded her thoughts until 
she wondered whether she was like some fool woman in a story 
who threw her head over the wall because of a man. She had 
always thought those stories must have been written by men. 
Only, Rand sometimes did make her feel witless. At least he 
did not realize it, thank the Light. 


"Wait out here, and admit no one," she commanded the 
Guardswomen. She could not afford interruptions or attention 
now. With luck, her bodyguard was new enough that no one would 



even recognize what their fine uniforms meant. "I will only be 
a few minutes." 


They saluted briskly, an arm across the chest, and took posi 
tions on either side of the door, Caseille stone-faced with a 
hand on her sword hilt, Deni taking her long cudgel in both 
hands and smiling faintly. Elayne was sure the stocky woman 
thought Min had brought her here to meet a secret lover. She 
suspected Caseille might, as well. They had hardly been as 
discreet in front of the two women as they might have; no one 
had mentioned his name, but there had more than enough of "he 
this" and "he that." At least neither had tried making an 
excuse to leave so she could report to Birgitte. If they were 
her bodyguard, then they were her bodyguard, not Birgitte's. 
Except that they would not keep Birgitte out if she masked the 
bond too soon. 


And she was dithering, she realized. The man she dreamed of 
every night was on the other side of that door, and she was 
standing there like a witling. She had waited so long, wanted 
so much, and now she was almost afraid. She would not let this 
go wrong. With an effort, she gathered herself. 


"Are you ready?" Her voice was not as strong as she could 
have hoped, but at least it did not tremble. Butterflies the 
size of foxes fluttered in her stomach. That had not happened 
in a long time. 


"Of course," Aviendha said, but she had to swallow first. 


"I'm ready," Min said faintly. 


They went in without knocking, hurriedly closing the door 
behind them. 


Nynaeve jumped to her feet, wide-eyed, before they were well 
into the sitting room, but Elayne barely noticed her or Lan, 
though the sweet smell of the Warder's pipe filled the room. 
Rand really was there; it had been hard to believe he would 
be. That dreadful disguise Min had described was gone, except 
for the shabby clothing and rough gloves, and he was . . . 
beautiful. 


He leaped from his chair at the sight of her, too, but 
before he was completely upright, he staggered and grabbed the 
table with both hands, gagging and heaving with dry retches. 
Elayne embraced the Source and took a step toward him, then 
stopped and made herself let go of the Power. Her ability with 
Healing was tiny, and anyway, Nynaeve had moved as quickly as 
she, the shine of saidar suddenly around her, hands raised 
toward Rand. 


He recoiled, waving her away. "It's nothing you can Heal, 
Nynaeve," he said roughly. "In any case, it seems you win the 
argument." His face was a rigid mask hiding emotion, but his 
eyes seemed to Elayne to be drinking her in. And Aviendha as 
well. She was surprised to feel gladdened by that. She had 
hoped it would be that way, hoped she could manage for her 
sister's sake, and now it took no managing at all. 
Straightening up was a visible effort for him, and pulling his 
gaze away from her and Aviendha, though he tried to hide both. 
"It is past time to be gone, Min," he said. 


Elayne's jaw dropped. "You think you can just go without 
even speaking to me, to us?" she managed. 


"Men!" Min and Aviendha breathed at almost the same instant, 
and gave one another startled looks. Hastily they unfolded 



their arms. For an instant, despite the disparity in just 
about everything about them, they had been almost mirror 
images of womanly disgust. 


"The men who tried to kill me in Cairhien would turn this 
palace into a slag heap if they knew I was here," Rand said 
quietly. "Maybe if they just suspected. I suppose Min told you 
it was Asha'man. Don't trust any of them. Except for three, 
maybe. Darner Flinn, Jahar Narishma and Eben Hopwil. You may 
be able to trust them. For the rest. ..." He clenched 
gauntleted fists at his sides, seemingly unaware. "Sometimes a 
sword turns in your hand, but I still need a sword. Just stay 
away from any man in a black coat. Look, there's no time for 
talking. It's best I go quickly." She had been wrong. He was 
not exactly as she had dreamed of him. There had been a 
boyishness about him sometimes, but it was gone as if burned 
away. She mourned that for him. She did not think he did, or 
could. 


"He is right in one thing," Lan said around his pipestem 
with the same sort of quiet. Another man who seemed never to 
have been a boy. His eyes were blue ice beneath the braided 

leather cord that encircled his brows. "Anyone near him is in 
great danger. Anyone." For some reason, Nynaeve snorted. Then 
put her hand on a leather scrip with hard bulges lying on the 
table and smiled. Though after a moment her smile faltered. 


"Do my first-sister and I fear danger?" Aviendha demanded, 
planting her fists on her hips. Her shawl slipped from her 
shoulders and fell to the floor, but she was so intent that 
she seemed unaware of the loss. "This man has toh to us, 
Aan'allein, and we to him. It must be worked out." 


Min spread her hands. "I don't know what anybody's toes have 
to do with anything, or feet either, but I'm not going any 
where until you talk to them, Rand!" She affected not to 
notice Aviendha's outraged glare. 


Sighing, Rand leaned against a corner of the table and raked 
gloved fingers through the dark, reddish curls that hung to 
his neck. He seemed to be arguing with himself under his 
breath. 


"I'm sorry you ended up with the sui'dam and damane," he 
said finally. He did sound sorry, but not very; he might have 
been regretting the cold. "Taim was supposed to deliver them 
to the sisters I thought were with you. But I suppose anyone 
can make a mistake like that. Maybe he thought all those 
Wisdoms and Wise Women Nynaeve has gathered were Aes Sedai." 
His smile was quiet. It did not touch his eyes. 


"Rand," Min said in a low, warning tone. 


He had the nerve to look at her questioningly, as if he did 
not understand. And he went right on. "Anyway, you seem to 
have enough of them to hold on to a handful of women until you 
can turn them over to the . . . the other sisters, the ones 
with Egwene. Things never turn out quite the way you expect, 
do they? Who would have thought a few sisters running away 
from Elaida would grow into a rebellion against the White 
Tower? With Egwene as Amyrlin! And the Band of the Red Hand 
for her army. I suppose Mat can stay there awhile." For some 
reason he blinked and touched his forehead, then went on in 
that irritatingly casual tone. "Well. A strange turn of events 
all around. At this rate, I won't be surprised if my friends 



in the Tower work up enough courage to come out in the open." 


Arching an eyebrow, Elayne glanced at Nynaeve. Wisdoms and 
Wise Women? The Band was Egwene's army, and Mat was with it? 
Nynaeve's attempt at wide-eyed innocence made her look like 
guilt nailed to a door. Elayne supposed it did not matter. He 
would learn the truth soon enough, if he could be talked into 
going to Egwene. In any case, she had more important matters 
to take up with him. The man was babbling, however offhand he 
managed to sound, tossing out anything they might snap at in 
hopes of diverting them. 


"It won't do, Rand." Elayne tightened her hands on her 
skirts to keep herself from shaking a finger at him. Or a 
fist; she was not sure which it would be. The other sisters? 
The real Aes Sedai, he had been about to say. How dare he? And 
his friends in the Tower! Could he still believe Alviarin's 
strange letter? Her voice was cool and firm and steady, 
brooking no nonsense. "None of that matters a hair, not now. 
You and Aviendha and Min and I are what we need to talk about. 
And we will. We all will, Rand al'Thor, and you are not 
leaving the Palace until we do!" 


For the longest time, he simply looked at her, his 
expression never changing. Then he inhaled audibly, and his 
face turned to granite. "I love you, Elayne." Without a pause, 
he went on, words rushing out of him, water from a burst dam. 
And his face a stone wall. "I love you, Aviendha. I love you, 
Min. And not one a whisker more or less than the other two. I 
don't just want one of you, I want all three. So there you 
have it. I'm a lecher. Now you can walk away and not look 
back. It's madness, anyway. I can't afford to love anybody!" 


"Rand al'Thor," Nynaeve shrieked, "that is the most outra 
geous thing I ever heard out of your mouth! The very idea of 
telling three women you love them! You're worse than a lecher! 
You apologize right now!" Lan had snatched his pipe from his 
mouth and was staring at Rand. 


"I love you, Rand," Elayne said simply, "and although you 
haven't asked, I want to marry you." She blushed faintly, but 
she intended to be much more forward before very long, so she 
supposed this hardly counted. Nynaeve's mouth worked, but no 
sound came out. 


"My heart is in your hands, Rand," Aviendha said, treating 
his name like something rare and precious. "If you make a 
bridal wreath for my first-sister and me, I will pick it up." 
And she blushed, too, trying to cover it in bending to take 
her shawl from the floor and arranging it on her arms. By Aiel 
customs, she should never had said any of that. Nynaeve 
finally got a sound out. A squeak. 


"If you don't know by this time that I love you," Min said, 


"then you're blind, deaf and dead!" She certainly did not 
blush; 
there was a mischievous light in her dark eyes, and she 

seemed ready to laugh. "And as for marriage, well, we'll work 
that out between the three of us, so there!" Nynaeve took a 
grip on her braid with both hands and gave it a steady pull, 
breathing heavily through her nose. Lan had begun an intense 
study of the contents of his pipe's bowl. 


Rand examined the three of them as if he had never seen a 
woman before and wondered what they were. "You're all mad," he 



said finally. "I'd marry any of you-all of you, the Light help 
me!-but it can't be, and you know it." Nynaeve collapsed into 
a chair, shaking her head. She muttered to herself, though all 
Elayne could understand was something about the Women's Circle 
swallowing their tongues. 


"There is something else we need to discuss," Elayne said. 
Light, Min and Aviendha could have been looking at a pastry! 
With an effort she managed to make her own smile a little less 
. . . eager. "In my rooms, I think. There's no need to bother 
Nynaeve and Lan." Or rather, she was afraid that Nynaeve would 
try to stop them, if she heard. The woman was very quick to 
use her authority when it came to Aes Sedai matters. 


"Yes," Rand said slowly. And then, strangely, added, "I said 
you'd won, Nynaeve. I won't leave without seeing you again." 


"Oh!" Nynaeve gave a start. "Yes. Of course not. I watched 
him grow up," she blathered, turning a sickly smile on Elayne. 
"Almost from the start. Watched his first steps. He can't go 
without a good long talk with me." 


Elayne eyed her suspiciously. Light, she sounded for all the 
world like an aged nurse. Though Lini had never babbled. She 
hoped Lini was alive and well, but she was very much afraid 
that neither was true. Why was Nynaeve carrying on in this 
fashion? The woman was up to something, and if she was not 
going to use her standing to carry it off, it was something 
even she knew was wrong. 


Suddenly, Rand seemed to waver, as though the air around him 
were shimmering with heat, and everything else flew out of 
Elayne's head. In an instant, he was . . . someone else, 
shorter and thicker, coarse and brutish. And so repulsive to 
look at that she did not even consider the fact that he was 
using the male half of the Power. Greasy black hair hung down 
onto an unhealthily pale face dominated by hairy warts, 
including one on a bulbous nose above thick slack lips that 
appeared on the edge of drooling. He squeezed his eyes shut 
and swallowed, hands gripping the arms of his chair, as if he 
could not stand to see them look at him. 


"You are still beautiful, Rand," she said gently. 


"Ha!" Min said. "That face would make a goat faint!" Well, 
it would, but she should not have said so. 


Aviendha laughed. "You have a sense of humor, Min Farshaw. 
That face would make a herd of goats faint." Oh, Light, it 
would! Elayne swallowed a giggle just in time. 


"I am who I am," Rand said, pushing himself up out of the 
chair. "You just won't see it." 


At Deni's first sight of Rand in his disguise, the smile 
slid crookedly off the stocky woman's face. Caseille's mouth 
dropped open. So much for thoughts of secret lovers, Elayne 
thought, laughing to herself in amusement. She was sure he 
drew as many stares as the Guardswomen, shambling along 
between them with a sullen scowl. Certainly no one could 
suspect who he was. The servants in the corridors probably 
thought he had been apprehended in some crime. He certainly 
had the look. Caseille and Deni kept a hard eye on him as if 
they thought so, too. 


The Guardswomen came near to arguing when they realized she 
intended them to wait outside her apartments while the three 
of them took him inside. Suddenly, Rand's disguise did not 



seem amusing at all any longer. Caseille's mouth thinned, and 
Deni's wide face set in stubborn displeasure. Elayne almost 
had to wave her Great Serpent ring beneath their noses before 
they took positions beside her door, scowling. She shut the 
door softly, cutting off the sight of their frowns, but she 
wanted to slam it. Light, the man could have chosen something 
a little less unsavory for his disguise. 


And as for him, he went straight to the inlaid table, 
leaning against it while the air around him shimmered and he 
became himself once more. The Dragon's heads on the backs of 
his hands glittered metallically, scarlet and gold. "I need a 
drink," he muttered thickly, catching sight of the tall-necked 
silver pitcher on the long side-table against the wall. 


Still not looking at her or Min or Aviendha, he walked over 
unsteadily and filled a silver winecup that he half-drained in 
one long swallow. That sweet spicy wine had been left when her 
breakfast was taken away. It must be cold as ice by now. She 
had not been expected to return to her rooms so soon, and the 
fire on the hearth had been banked down beneath ashes. But he 
made no move she could see to warm the wine by channeling. She 
would have seen steam, at least. And why had he walked to the 
wine, instead of channeling to bring it to him? That was the 
sort of thing he always did, floating winecups and lamps about 
on flows of Air. 


"Are you well, Rand?" Elayne asked. "I mean, are you sick?" 
Her stomach tightened at the thought of what sickness it might 
be, with him. "Nynaeve can-" 


"I am as fine as I can be," he said flatly. Still with his 
back to them. Emptying the cup, he began to fill it again. 
"Now what is it you don't want Nynaeve to hear?" 


Elayne's eyebrows shot up, and she exchanged looks with 
Aviendha and Min. If he had seen through her subterfuge, Ny 
naeve certainly had. Why had she let them go? And how had he 
seen through it? Aviendha shook her head slightly in wonder. 
Min shook hers, too, but with a grin that said you just had to 
expect this sort of thing now and then. Elayne felt the 
smallest stab of-not quite jealousy; jealousy was out of the 
question, for them-just irritation that Min had had so much 
time with him and she had not. Well, if he wanted to play 
surprises. . . . 


"We want to bond you our Warder," she said, smoothing her 
dress under her as she took a chair. Min sat on the edge of 
the table, legs dangling, and Aviendha settled onto the carpet 
cross-legged, carefully spreading out her heavy woolen skirts. 
"All three of us. It is customary to ask, first." 


He spun around, wine sloshing out of his cup, more pouring 
from the pitcher before he could bring it upright. With a mut 
tered oath, he hastily stepped out of the spreading wetness on 
the carpet and put the pitcher back on the tray. A large damp 
spot decorated the front of his rough coat, and droplets of 
dark wine that he tried to brush away with his free hand. Very 
satisfactory. 


"You really are mad," he growled. "You know what's ahead of 
me. You know what it means for anyone I'm bonded to. Even if I 
don't go insane, she has to live through me dying! And what do 
you mean, all three of you? Min can't channel. Anyway, Alanna 
Mosvani got there ahead of you, and she didn't bother asking. 



She and Verin were taking some Two Rivers girls to the White 
Tower. I've been bonded to her for months, now." 


"And you kept it from me, you woolheaded sheepherder?" Min 


demanded. "If I'd known-!" She deftly produced a slim knife 
from her sleeve, then glared at it and glumly put it back. 
That cure would have been as hard on Rand as on Alanna. 

"This was against custom," Aviendha said, half questioning. 
She shifted on the carpet and fingered her belt knife. 


"Very much so," Elayne replied grimly. That a sister would 
do that to any man was disgusting. That Alanna had done it to 
Rand. . . ! She remembered the dark, fiery Green with her 
quicksilver humor and her quicksilver temper. "Alanna has more 
toh to him than she could repay in a lifetime! And to us. Even 
if she doesn't, she will wish I had just killed her after I 
lay hands on her!" 


"After we lay hands on her," Aviendha said, nodding for em 
phasis. 


"So." Rand peered into his wine. "You can see there's no 
point in this. I ... I think I'd better go back to Nynaeve, 
now. Are you coming, Min?" Despite what they had told him, he 
sounded as though he did not really believe, as if Min might 
abandon him now. He did not sound afraid of it, only resigned. 


"There is a point," Elayne said insistently. She leaned 
toward him, trying by the force of her will to make him accept 
what she was saying. "One bond doesn't ward you against 
another. Sisters don't bond the same man because of custom, 
Rand, because they don't want to share him, not because it 
can't be done. And it isn't against Tower law, either." Of 
course, some customs were strong as law, at least in the eyes 
of the sisters. Nynaeve seemed to go on more every day about 
upholding Aes Sedai customs and dignity. When she learned of 
this, she would probably explode right through the roof. 
"Well, we do want to share you! We will share you, if you 
agree." 


How easy it was to say that! She had been sure she could 
not, once. Until she came to realize that she loved Aviendha 
as much as she did him, just in a different way. And Min, too; 
another sister, even if they had not adopted one another. She 
would stripe Alanna from top to bottom for touching him, given 
the chance, but Aviendha and Min were different. They were 
part of her. In a way, they were her, and she them. 


She softened her tone. "I am asking, Rand. We are asking. 
Please let us bond you." 


"Min," he murmured, almost accusingly. His eyes on Min's 
face were rilled with despair. "You knew, didn't you? You knew 
if I laid eyes on them. . . ." He shook his head, unable or 
unwilling to go on. 


"I didn't know about the bonding until they told me less 
than an hour ago," she said, meeting his gaze with the most 
gentle look Elayne had ever seen. "But I knew, I hoped, what 
would happen if you saw them again. Some things have to be, 
Rand. They have to be." 


Rand stared into the winecup, moments seeming to stretch 
like hours, and at last set it back on the tray. "All right," 
he said quietly. "I can't say I do not want this, because I 
do. The Light burn me for it! But think of the cost. Think of 
the price you'll pay." 



 Elayne did not need to think of the price. She had known it 


from the beginning, had discussed it with Aviendha to make 
sure she understand, too. She had explained it to Min. Take 
what you want, and pay for it, the old saying went. None of 
them had to think about the price; they knew, and they were 

willing to pay. There was no time to waste, though. Even now, 
she did not put it past him to decide that price was too high. 
As if that were his decision to make! 


Opening herself to saidar, she linked with Aviendha, sharing 
a smile with her. The increased awareness of one another, the 
more intimate sharing of emotions and physical feelings, was 
always a pleasure with her sister. It was very much like what 
they would soon share with Rand. She had worked this out 
carefully, studied it from every angle. What she had been able 
to learn of the Aiel adoption weaves had been a great help. 
That ceremony had been when the idea first came to her. 


Carefully she wove Spirit, a flow of over a hundred threads, 
every thread placed just so, and laid the weave on Aviendha 
sitting on the floor, then did the same to Min on the table's 
edge. In a way, they were not two separate weaves at all. They 
glowed with a precise similarity, and it seemed that looking 
at one, she saw the other as well. These were not the weaves 
used in the adoption ceremony, but they used the same 
principles. They included; what happened to one meshed in that 
weave, happened to all in it. As soon as the weaves were in 
place, she passed the lead of the circle of two to Aviendha. 
The weaves already made remained, and Aviendha immediately 
wove identical weaves around Elayne, and around Min again, 
blending that one until it was indistinguishable from Elayne's 
before passing control back. They did that very easily now, 
after a great deal of practice. Four weaves, or rather, three 
now, yet they all seemed the same weave. 


Everything was ready. Aviendha was a rock of confidence as 
strong as anything Elayne had ever felt from Birgitte. Min sat 
gripping the edge of the table, her ankles locked together; 
she could not see the flows, but she gave an assured grin that 
was only spoiled a little when she licked her lips. Elayne 
breathed deeply. To her eyes, they three were surrounded and 
connected by a tracery of Spirit that made the finest lace 
seem drab. Now if only it worked as she believed it would. 


From each of them, she extended the weave in narrow lines 
toward Rand, twisting the three lines into one, changing it 
into the Warder bond. That, she laid on Rand as softly as if 
she were laying a blanket on a baby. The spiderweb of Spirit 
settled around him, settled into him. He did not even blink, 
but it was done. She let go of saidar. Done. 


He stared at them, expressionless, and slowly put his 
fingers to his temples. 


"Oh, Light, Rand, the pain," Min murmured in a hurt voice. 
"I never knew; I never imagined. How can you stand it? There 
are pains you don't even seem to know, as if you've lived with 
them so long they're part of you. Those herons on your hands; 


you can still feel the branding. Those things on your arms 
hurt! And your side. Oh, Light, your side! Why aren't you 
crying, Rand? Why aren't you crying?" 


"He is the Car'a'carn," Aviendha said, laughing, "as strong 
as the Three-fold Land itself!" Her face was proud-oh, so 



proud- but even as she laughed, tears streamed down her sun-
dark cheeks. "The veins of gold. Oh, the veins of gold. You do 
love me, Rand." 


Elayne simply stared at him, felt him in her head. The pain 
of wounds and hurts he really had forgotten. The tension and 
disbelief; the wonder. His emotions were too rigid, though, 
like a knot of hardened pine sap, almost stone. Yet laced 
through them, golden veins pulsed and glowed whenever he 
looked at Min, or Aviendha. Or her. He did love her. He loved 
all three of them. And that made her want to laugh with joy. 
Other women might find doubts, but she would always know the 
truth of his love. 


"The Light send you know what you've done," he said in a low 
voice. "The Light send you aren't. . . ." The pine sap grew a 
trifle harder. He was sure they would be hurt, and was already 
steeling himself. "I ... I have to go, now. At least I'll know 
you are all well now; I won't have to worry about you." 
Suddenly he grinned; he might have looked almost boyish if it 
had reached his eyes. "Nynaeve will be frantic thinking I've 
slipped away without seeing her. Not that she doesn't deserve 
a little flustering." 


"There is one more thing, Rand," Elayne said, and stopped to 
swallow. Light, she had thought this would be the easy part. 


"I suppose Aviendha and I have to talk while we can," Min 
said hurriedly, springing off the table. "Somewhere we can be 
alone. If you'll excuse us?" 


Aviendha rose from the carpet gracefully, smoothing her 
skirts. "Yes. Min Farshaw and I must learn about one another." 
She eyed Min doubtfully, adjusting her shawl, but they left 
arm in arm. 


Rand watched them warily, as if he knew their leaving had 
been planned. A cornered wolf. But those veins of gold gleamed 
in her head. 


"There is something they have had from you that I haven't," 
Elayne began, and choked, a flush scalding her face. Blood and 
ashes! How did other women go about this? Carefully she consid 
ered the bundle of sensations in her head that was him, and 
the bundle that was Birgitte. There was still no change in the 
second. She imagined wrapping it in a kerchief, knotting the 
kerchief snugly, and Birgitte was gone. There was only Rand. 
And those shining golden veins. Butterflies the size of 
wolfhounds drummed their wings in her middle. Swallowing hard, 
she took a long breath. "You will have to help me with my 
buttons," she said unsteadily. "I cannot take this dress off 
by myself." 


The two Guardswomen stirred when Min came into the corridor 
with the Aiel woman, and jerked erect when they realized, as 
Min closed the door, that no one else was coming out. 


"Her taste can't be that bad," the blocky, sleepy-eyed one 
muttered under her breath, hands tightening on her long 
cudgel. Min did not think anyone had been meant to hear. 


"Too much courage, and too much innocence," the lean, man 
nish one growled. "The Captain-General warned us about that." 
She put a gauntleted hand on the lion-headed doorlatch. 


"You go in there now, and she might skin you, too," Min said 
blithely. "Have you ever seen her in a temper? She could make 
a bear weep!" 



 Aviendha disengaged her arm from Min's and put a little dis 
tance between them. It was the Guardswomen who received her 
scowl, though. "You doubt my sister can handle a single man? 
She is Aes Sedai, and has the heart of a lion. And you are 
oath-sworn to follow her! You follow where she leads, not put 
your noses up her sleeve." 


The Guardswomen exchanged a long look. The heavier woman 
shrugged. The wiry one grimaced, but she took her hand from 
the doorlatch. "I'm oath-sworn to keep that girl alive," she 
said in a hard voice, "and I mean to. Now you children go play 
with your dolls and let me do my job." 


Min considered producing a knife and performing one of the 
flashy finger-rolls Thom Merrilin had taught her. Just to show 
them who was a child. The lean woman was not young, but there 
was no gray in her hair, and she looked quite strong. And 
quick. Min wanted to believe some of the other woman's bulk 
was fat, but she did not. She could not see any images or 
auras around either, but neither looked in the least afraid to 
do whatever she thought needed doing. Well, at least they were 
leaving Elayne and Rand alone. Maybe the knife was 
unnecessary. 


From the corner of her eye she caught sight of the Aiel 
reluctantly letting a hand fall from her belt knife. If the 
woman did not stop mirroring her this way, she was going to 
start thinking there was more to this jiggery-pokery with the 
Power than she had been told. Then again, it had begun before 
the jiggery-pokery. Maybe they just thought alike. A 
disturbing idea. Light, all this talk about him marrying all 
three of them was very well for talk, but which one was he 
really going to marry? 


"Elayne is brave," she told the Guards, "as brave as anybody 
I've ever met. And she isn't stupid. If you start off thinking 
she is, you'll soon go wrong with her." They stared down at 
her from the vantage of an added fifteen or twenty years, 
solid, unperturbed and determined. In a moment they would tell 
her to run along, again. "Well, we can't stand around here if 
we're going to talk, can we, Aviendha?" 


"No," the Aiel woman breathed in a tight voice, glaring at 
the Guardswomen. "We cannot stand here." 


The Guardswomen took no notice of their going at all. They 
had a job to do, and it had nothing to with watching Elayne's 
friends. Min hoped they did their job well. She isn't at all 
stupid, she thought. She just lets her courage lead the way, 
sometimes. She hoped they would not let Elayne scramble into 
brambles she could not get out of. 


Walking along the hallway, she eyed the Aiel woman sideways. 
Aviendha strode along as far from her as she could be and 
still remain in the same corridor. Not even glancing in Min's 
direction, she pulled a thickly carved ivory bracelet from her 
belt pouch and slipped it over her left wrist with a small, 
satisfied smile. She had had a fly on her nose from the first, 
and Min did not understand why. Aiel were supposed to be used 
to women sharing a man. A far cry more than she could say for 
herself. She just loved him so badly she was willing to share, 
and if she must, then there was no one in the world she would 
rather share with than Elayne. With her, it almost wasn't like 
sharing at all. This Aiel woman was a stranger, though. Elayne 



had said it was important they get to know one another, but 
how could they it the woman would not talk to her? 


She did not spend much time worrying about Elayne, though, 
or Aviendha. What lay in her head was too wondrous. Rand. A 
little ball that told her everything about him. She had been 
sure the whole thing would fail, for her at least. What would 
making love with him be like after this, when she knew 
everything! Light! Of course, he would know everything about 
her, too. She was definitely uncertain how she felt about 
that! 


Abruptly she realized that the bundle of emotions and sensa 
tions was no longer the same as at first. There was a ... red 
roaring ... to it, now, like wildfire raging through a tinder 
dry forest. What could . . . ? Light! She stumbled, and just 
caught her footing short of tumbling. If she had known this 
furnace, this fierce hunger, was inside him, she would have 
been afraid to let him touch her! On the other hand. ... It 
might be nice, knowing she had sparked such an inferno. She 
could not wait to see whether she produced the same effect as. 
... She stumbled again, and this time had to catch herself on 
an ornately carved highchest. Oh, Light! Elayne! tier face 
felt like a furnace. This was like peeking through the 
bedcurtains! 


Hurriedly she tried the trick Elayne had told her about, im 
aging that ball of emotions tied up in a kerchief. Nothing hap 
pened. Frantically she tried again, but the raging fire was 
still there! She had to stop looking at it, stop feeling it. 
Anything to get her attention anywhere but there! Anything! 
Maybe if she started talking. 


"She should have drunk that heartleaf tea," she babbled. She 
never told what she saw except to those involved, and only 
then if they wanted to hear, but she had to say something. 
"She'll get with child from this. Two of them; a boy and a 
girl; both healthy and strong." 


"She wants his babies," the Aiel woman mumbled. Her green 
eyes stared straight ahead; her jaw was tight, and sweat 
beaded on her forehead. "I will not drink the tea myself if 
I-" Giving herself a shake, she frowned across the width of 
the hall at Min. "My sister and the Wise Ones told me about 
you. You really see things about people that come true?" 


"Sometimes I see things, and if I know what they mean, they 
happen," Min said. Their voices, raised to reach each other, 
carried along the corridor. Red-and-white-liveried servants 
turned to stare at them. Min moved to the center of the 
hallway. She would meet the other woman halfway, no more. 
After a moment, Aviendha joined her. 


Min wondered whether to tell her what she had seen while 
they were all together. Aviendha would have Rand's babies, 
too. Four of them at once! Something was odd about that, 
though. The babies would be healthy, but still something odd. 
And people often did not like hearing about their futures, 
even when they said they wanted to. She wished someone could 
tell her whether she herself would. . . . 


Walking along in silence, Aviendha wiped sweat from her face 
with her fingers and swallowed hard. Min had to swallow, too. 
Everything Rand was feeling was in that ball. Everything! 


"The kerchief trick didn't work for you, either?" she said 



hoarsely. ^ 


Aviendha blinked, and crimson darkened her face. A moment 
later, she said, "That is better. Thank you. I. ... With him 
in my head, I forgot." She frowned. "It did not work for you?" 


Min shook her head miserably. This was indecent! "It helps 
if I talk, though." She had to make friends with this woman, 
somehow, if this whole peculiar business was to have a hope of 
working. "I'm sorry for what I said. About toes, I mean. I 
know a little of your customs. There's something about that 
man that just makes me cheeky. I can't control my tongue. But 
don't think I'm going let you start hitting me or carving on 
me. Maybe I have toh, but we'll have to find some other way. I 
could always groom your horse, when we have time." 


"You are as proud as my sister," Aviendha muttered, frown 
ing. What did she mean by that? "You have a good sense of 
humor, too." She seemed to be talking to herself. "You did not 
make a fool of yourself about Rand and Elayne the way most 
wetlander women would. And you did remind me. . . ." With a 
sigh, she flipped her shawl up onto her shoulders. "I know 
where there is some oosquai. If you are too drunk to think, 


then-" Staring down the hallway, she stopped dead. "No!" she 
growled. "Not yet!" 
Coming toward them was an apparition that made Min's jaw 
drop. Consternation pushed Rand beyond awareness. From com 

ments she had known that the Captain-General of Elayne's 
Guards was a woman, and Elayne's Warder to boot, but nothing 
else. This woman had a thick, intricate golden braid pulled 
over one shoulder other short, white-collared red coat, and 
her voluminous blue trousers were tucked into boots with heels 
as high as Min's. Auras danced around her and images 
flickered, more than Min had ever seen around anyone, 
thousands it seemed, cascading over one another. Elayne's 
Warder and Captain-General of the Queen's Guards . . . wobbled 
... a little, as though she had already been into the oosquai. 
Servants who caught sight of her decided they had work in 
another part of the Palace, leaving the three of them alone in 
the corridor. She did not seem to see Min and Aviendha until 
she almost walked into them. 


"You bloody helped her in this, didn't you?" she growled, 
focusing glassy-looking blue eyes on Aviendha. "First, she 
flaming vanishes out of my head, and then . . . !" She 
trembled, and visibly controlled herself, but even then she 
was breathing hard. Her legs did not seem to want to hold her 
upright. Licking her lips, she swallowed and went on angrily. 
"Burn her, I can't concentrate enough to shake it off! You let 
me tell you, if she's doing what I think she's doing, I'll 
kick her tickle-heart around the bloody Palace, and then I'll 
flaming welt her till she can't sit for a month-and you 
alongside her!-if I have to find forkroot to do it!" 


"My first-sister is a grown woman, Birgitte Trahelion," 
Aviendha said truculently. Despite her tone, her shoulders 
were hunched, and she did not quite meet the other woman's 
stare. "You must stop trying to treat us as children!" 


"When she bloody well behaves like an adult, I bloody well 
treat her as one, but she has no right to do this, not in my 
flaming head, she doesn't! Not in my-!" Abruptly, Birgitte's 
glazed blue eyes bulged. The golden haired woman's mouth 



dropped open, and she would have fallen if Min and Aviendha 
had not each seized an arm. 


Squeezing her eyes shut, she sobbed, just once, and whim 
pered, "Two months!" Shaking free of them, she straightened 
and fixed Aviendha with blue eyes clear as water and hard as 
ice. "Shield her for me, and I'll let you off your share." 
Aviendha's sullen, indignant glare just slid off her. 


"You're Birgitte Silverbow!" Min breathed. She had been sure 
even before Aviendha said the name. No wonder the Aiel woman 


was behaving as if she feared those threats would be carried 
out right then and there. Birgitte Silverbow! "I saw you at 
Faime!" 

Birgitte gave a start as if goosed, then looked around hur 
riedly. Once she realized they were alone, she relaxed. A 
little. She eyed Min up and down. "Whatever you saw, Silverbow 
is dead," she said bluntly. "I'm Birgitte Trahelion, now, and 
that's all." Her lips twisted wryly for a moment. "The flaming 
Lady ^Birgitte Trahelion, if you flaming please. Kiss a sheep 
on Mother's Day if I can do anything about that, I suppose. 
And who might you be when you're to home? Do you always show 
off your legs like a bloody feather dancer?" 


"I am Min Farshaw," she replied curtly. This was Birgitte 
Silverbow, hero of a hundred legends? The woman was foul-
mouthed! And what did she mean, Silverbow was dead? The woman 
was standing right in front of her! Besides, those multitudes 
of images and auras flashed by too quickly for her to make out 
any clearly, but she was certain they indicated more adven 
tures than a woman could have in one lifetime. Strangely, some 
were connected to an ugly man who was older than she, and 
others to an ugly man who was much younger, yet somehow Min 
knew they were the same man. Legend or no legend, that 
superior air irritated her no end. "Elayne, Aviendha and I 
just bonded a Warder," she said without thinking. "And if 
Elayne is celebrating a little, well, you better think twice 
about storming in, or you'll be the one sitting tender." 


That was enough to make her aware of Rand again. That raging 
furnace was still there, hardly lessened at all, but thank the 
Light, he was no longer. . . . Blood rushed into her cheeks. 
He had lain often enough in her arms, catching his breath in 
the tangle of their bedding, but this really did seem like 
peeping! 


"Him?" Birgitte said softly. "Mothers' milk in a cup! She 
could have fallen in love with a cutpurse or a horse thief, 
but she had to choose him, more fool her. By what I saw of him 
at that place you mentioned, the man's too pretty to be good 
for any woman. In any case, she has to stop." 


"You have no right!" Aviendha insisted in a sulky voice, and 
Birgitte took on a look of patience. Stretched patience, but 
still patience. 


"She might be proper as a Talmouri maiden except when it 
comes to putting her head on the chopping block, but I think 
she'll wind up her courage to put him through his paces again, 
and even if she does whatever it was she did, she'll forget 
and be back in my head. I won't bloody go through that again!" 
She squared herself, plainly ready to march off and confront 
Elayne. 


"Think of it as a good joke," Aviendha said pleadingly. 



Pleadingly! "She has played a good joke on you, that is all." 
A curl of Birgitte's lip expressed what she thought of that. 


"There's a trick Elayne told me," Min said hurriedly, 
catching hold of Birgitte's sleeve. "It didn't work for me, 
but maybe. . . ." Unfortunately, once she had explained. . . . 


"She's still there," Birgitte said grimly after a moment. 
"Step out of my way, Min Farshaw," she said, pulling her arm 
free, "or-" 


"Oosquai!" Aviendha voice rose desperately, and she was actu 
ally wringing her hands! "I know where there is oosquai! If 
you are drunk . . . '. Please, Birgitte! I ... I will pledge 
myself to obey you, as apprentice to mistress, but please do 
not interrupt her! Do not shame her so!" 


"Oosquai?" Birgitte mused, rubbing her jaw. "Is that 
anything like brandy? Hmm. I think the girl is blushing! She 
really is prim most of the time, you know. A joke, you said?" 
Suddenly she grinned, and spread her arms expansively. "Lead 
me to this oosquai of yours, Aviendha. I don't know about you 
two, but I intend to get drunk enough to ... well ... to take 
off my clothes and dance on the table. And not a hair 
drunker." 


Min did not understand that at all, or why Aviendha stared 
at Birgitte and suddenly began laughing about it being "a won 
derful joke," but she was sure she knew why Elayne was 
blushing, if she actually was. That hard ball of sensations in 
her head was a raging wildfire again. 


"Could we go find that oosquai, now?" she said. "I want to 
get drunk as a drowned mouse, and fast!" 


When Elayne woke the next morning, the bedchamber was icy, a 
light snow was falling on Caemlyn, and Rand was gone. Except 
inside her head. That would do. She smiled, a slow smile. For 
now, it would. Stretching languorously beneath the blankets, 
she remembered her abandon the night before-and most of the 
day as well! She could hardly believe it had been her!-and 
thought that she should be blushing like the sun! But she 
wanted to be abandoned with Rand, and she did not think she 
would ever blush again, not for anything connected to him. 


Best of all, he had left her a present. On the pillow beside 
her when she woke lay a golden lily in full bloom, the dew 
fresh on the lush petals. Where he could have gotten such a 
thing in the middle of winter she could not begin to imagine. 
But she wove a Keeping around it, and set it on a side table 
where she would see it every morning when she woke. The weave 
was Moghedien's teaching, but it would hold the blossom fresh 
forever, the dew-drops never evaporating, a constant reminder 
of the man who had given her his heart. 


Her morning was taken up with the news that Alivia had 
vanished during the night, a serious matter that put the Kin 
in a tumult. It was not until Zaida appeared in a taking 
because Nynaeve had not come for a lesson with the Atha'an 
Miere that Elayne learned that Nynaeve and Lan were both gone 
from the Palace, too, and no one knew when or how. Not until 
much later did she learn that the collection of angreal and 
ter'angreal they had carried out of Ebou Dar was missing the 
most powerful of the three angreal, and several other items 
besides. Some of those, she was sure, were intended for a 
woman who expected to be attacked at any moment with the One 



Power. Which made the hastily scribbled note Nynaeve had left 
hidden among the remainder all the more disturbing. 


Chapter 13: Wonderful News 


The Sun Palace's sunroom was cold despite fires roaring on 
hearths at either end of the room, thickly layered carpets, 
and a slanted glass roof that let in bright morning light 
where snow caught on the thin mountains did not shield it, but 
it was suitable for holding audiences. Cadsuane had thought it 
best not to appropriate the throne room. So far, Lord Dobraine 
had remained quiet about her holding Caraline Damodred and 
Darlin Sisnera-she saw no better way to keep them from going 
on with their mischief than keeping them in a firm grip-but 
Dobraine might begin to fuss over that if she pushed beyond 
what he considered proper. He was too close to the boy for her 
to want to force him, and faithful to his oaths. She could 
look back on her life and recall failures, some bitterly 
regretted, and mistakes that had cost lives, but she could not 
afford mistakes or failure here. Most definitely not failure. 
Light, she wanted to bite someone! 


"I demand the return of my Windfinder, Aes Sedai!" Harine 
din Togara, all in green brocaded silk, sat rigidly in front 
of Cadsuane, her full mouth tight. Despite an unlined face, 
white streaked her straight black hair. Wavemistress of her 
clan for ten years, she had commanded a large vessel long 
before that. Her Sailmistress, Derah din Selaan, a younger 
woman all in blue, sat on a chair placed a careful foot 
farther back in accordance with their notions of propriety. 
The pair might have been dark carvings of outrage, and their 
outlandish jewelry somehow added to the effect. Neither so 
much as flickered an eye toward Eben when he bowed and offered 
silver goblets of hot spiced wine on a tray. 


The boy did not seem to know what to do next when they took 
nothing. Frowning uncertainly, he remained bent until Daigian 
plucked at his red coat and led him away smiling, an amused 
pouter pigeon in dark blue slashed with white. A slender lad 
with a big nose and large ears, never to be called handsome 
much less pretty, but she was very possessive of him. They 
took seats close together on a padded bench in front of one of 
the fireplaces and began playing cat's cradle. 


"Your sister is assisting us in learning what happened on 
the unfortunate day," Cadsuane said smoothly, and somewhat ab 
sently. Taking a swallow of her own spiced wine, she waited, 
uncaring whether they saw her impatience. No matter how 
Dobraine grumbled about how impossible it was to meet the 
terms of that incredible bargain Rafela and Merana had made on 
behalf of the al'Thor boy, he still might have handled the Sea 
Folk himself. She could hardly give them half of her mind. 
Probably that was just as well for them. If she focused on the 
Atha'an Miere, she would be hard-pressed not to swat them like 
bitemes, though they were not the real source of her 
exasperation. 


Five sisters were arrayed around the fireplace at the other 
end of the sunroom from Daigian and Eben. Nesune had a large 



wood bound volume from the Palace library spread on a reading 
stand in front other chair. Like the others, she wore a plain 
woolen dress more suited to a merchant than an Aes Sedai. If 
any regretted the lack of silks, or money for silks, they did 
not show it. Sarene, with her thin, beaded braids, stood 
working at a large embroidery frame, her needle making the 
tiny stitches of yet another flower in a field of blossoms. 
Brian and Beldeine were playing stones, watched by Elza, who 
waited her turn to take on the winner. By all appearances they 
were enjoying an idle morning, without a care in the world. 
Perhaps they knew they were here because she wanted to study 
them. Why had they sworn fealty to the al'Thor boy? At least 
Kiruna and the others had been in his presence when they 
decided to swear. She was willing to admit that no one could 
resist the influence of a ta'veren when it caught you. But 
these five had taken a harsh penance for kidnapping him and 
reached their decision to offer oath before they were brought 
near him. In the beginning she had been inclined to accept 
their various explanations, but over the last few days that 
inclination had taken hard knocks. Disturbingly hard knocks. 


"My Windfrnder is not subject to your authority, Aes Sedai," 
Harine said sharply, as if denying the blood connection. 
"Shalon must and will be returned to me at once." Derah nodded 
curt agreement. Cadsuane thought the Sailmistress might do the 
same if Harine ordered her to jump from a cliff. In the 


Atha'an Miere's hierarchy, Derah stood a long distance below 
Harine. And that was almost as much as Cadsuane knew of them. 
The Sea Folk might prove useful or might not, but she could 
find a way to get a grip on them in any case. 

"This is an Aes Sedai inquiry," she replied blandly. "We 
must follow Tower law." Loosely interpreted, to be sure. She 
had always believed the spirit of the law was far more 
important than the letter. 


Harine puffed up like an adder and began yet another ha 
rangue listing her rights and demands, but Cadsuane listened 
with half an ear. 


She could almost understand Erian, a pale, black-haired 
Illianer, fiercely insisting that she must be at the boy's 
side when he fought the Last Battle. And Beldeine, so new to 
the shawl that she had not yet achieved agelessness, so 
determined to be everything that a Green should be. And Elza, 
a pleasant-faced Andoran whose eyes almost glowed when she 
spoke of making certain that he lived to face the Dark One. 
Another Green, and even more intense than most. Nesune, 
hunched forward to peer at her book, looked like a black-eyed 
bird examining a worm. A Brown, she would climb into a box 
with a scorpion if she wanted to study it. Sarene might be 
fool enough to be startled that anyone thought her pretty, 
much less stunning, but the White insisted on the cool 
precision of her logic; al'Thor was the Dragon Reborn, and 
logically, she must follow him. Tempestuous reasons, idiotic 
reasons, yet she could have accepted them, if not for the 
others. 


The door to the hall opened to admit Verin and Sorilea. The 
leathery, white-haired Aiel woman handed something small to 
Verin that the Brown tucked into her belt pouch. Verin was 
wearing a flowered brooch on her simple bronze-colored dress, 



the first jewelry Cadsuane had ever seen on her aside from her 
Great Serpent ring. 


"That will help you sleep," Sorilea said, "but remember, 
just three drops in water or one in wine. A little more, and 
you might sleep a day or longer. Much more, and you will not 
wake. There is no taste to warn you, so you must be careful." 


So Verin was having trouble sleeping, too. Cadsuane had not 
had a good night's rest since the boy fled the Sun Palace. If 
she did not find one soon, she thought she might bite someone. 
Nesune and the others were eyeing Sorilea uneasily. The boy 
had made them apprentice themselves to the Wise Ones, and they 
had learned that the Aiel women took that very seriously. One 
snap of Sorilea's bony fingers could end their idle morning. 


Harine leaned forward out of her chair and gave Cadsuane's 
cheek a sharp tap with her fingers! "You are not listening to 
me," she said harshly. Her face was a thunderhead, and that of 
her Sailmistress scarcely less stormy. "You will listen!" 


Cadsuane put her hands together and regarded the woman over 


her fingertips. No. She would not stand the Wavemistress on 
her head here and now. She would not send the woman back to 
her apartments weeping. She would be as diplomatic as Coiren 

could wish. Hastily she scanned through what she had heard. 
"You speak for the Mistress of the Ships to the Atha'an Miere, 
with all of her authority, which is more than I can imagine," 
she said mildly. "If your Windfinder is not returned to you 
within the hour, you will see that the Coramoor punishes me 
severely. You require an apology for your Windfinder's 
imprisonment. And you require me to make Lord Dobraine set 
aside the land promised by the Coramoor immediately. I believe 
that covers the essential points." Except for the one about 
having her flogged! 


"Good," Harine said, leaning back comfortably, in command 
now. Her smile was sickeningly self-satisfied. "You will learn 
that-" 


"I do not care a fig for your Coramoor," Cadsuane continued, 
her voice still mild. All the figs in the world for the Dragon 
Reborn, but not one for the Coramoor. She did not alter her 
tone by a hair. "If you ever touch me again without 
permission, I will have you stripped, striped, bound and 
carried back to your rooms in a sack." Well, diplomacy had 
never been her strongest point. "If you do not cease pestering 
me about your sister. . . . Well, I might actually grow 
angry." Standing, she ignored the Sea Folk woman's indignant 
puffing and gaping and raised her voice to be heard at the end 
of the room. "Sarene!" 


The slender Taraboner whirled from her embroidery, beaded 
braids clicking, and hurried to Cadsuane's side, barely 
hesitating before spreading her dark gray skirts in a curtsy. 
The Wise Ones had had to teach them to leap when a Wise One 
spoke, but more than custom made them leap for her. There 
truly were advantages to being a legend, especially an 
unpredictable legend. 


"Escort these two to their rooms," Cadsuane commanded. "They 
wish to fast and meditate on civility. See that they do. And 
if they offer one uncivil word, spank them both. But be diplo 
matic about it." 


Sarene gave a start, half opening her mouth as if to protest 



the illogic of that, but one glance at Cadsuane's face and she 
quickly turned to the Atha'an Miere women, gesturing for them 
to rise. Harine sprang to her feet, her dark face hard and 
scowling. Before she could utter a word of her no doubt 
furious tirade, though, Derah touched her arm and leaned close 
to whisper into her ring-heavy ear behind a cupped hand 
covered with dark tattoos. Whatever the Sailmistress had to 
say, Harine closed her mouth. Her expression certainly did not 
soften, yet she eyed the sisters at the far end of the room 
and after a moment curtly motioned Sarene to lead the way. 
Harine might pretend that it was her decision to leave, but 
Derah followed so close on her heels she appeared to be 
herding her and shot an uneasy glance back over her shoulder 
before the door shut her from sight. 


Cadsuane almost regretted giving that frivolous order. 
Sarene would do exactly as she had been told. The Sea Folk 
women were an irritant, and useless thus far, besides. The 
irritation must be removed so she could concentrate on what 
was important, and if she found a use for them, tools needed 
to be shaped one way or another. She was too angry with them 
to care how that was done, and it might as well begin now as 
later. No, she was angry with the boy, but she could not lay 
hands on him yet. 


With a loud harrumph, Sorilea turned from watching Sarene 
and the Atha'an Miere go and directed her scowl at the sisters 
gathered at the end of the solar. Bracelets clattered on her 
wrists as she adjusted her shawl. Another woman not in her 
best temper. The Sea Folk had peculiar notions of "Aiel 
savages"-though in truth not that much stranger than some 
Cadsuane herself had believed before meeting Sorilea-and the 
Wise One did not like them a hair. 


Cadsuane went to meet her with a smile. Sorilea was not a 
woman you made come to you. Everyone thought they were be 
coming friends-which they might yet, she realized in surprise- 
but no one knew of their alliance. Eben appeared with his 
tray, and appeared relieved when she set her half-empty goblet 
on it. 


"Late last night," Sorilea said as the red-coated boy 
hurried back to Daigian, "Chisaine Nurbaya asked to serve the 
Car'a'carn." Disapproval lay heavy in her voice. "Before first 
light, Janine Pavlara asked, then Innina Darenhold, then 
Vayelle Kamsa. They had not been allowed to speak to one 
another. There could be no collusion. I accepted their pleas." 
Cadsuane made a vexed sound. "I suppose you already have 
them serving penance," she murmured, thinking hard. Nineteen 
sisters had been prisoners in the Aiel camp, nineteen sisters 
sent by that fool Elaida to kidnap the boy, and now they all 
had sworn to follow him! These last were the worst. "What 
could make Red sisters swear fealty to a man who can channel?" 


Verin began to make an observation, but fell silent for the 
Aiel woman. Strangely, Venn had taken to her own enforced ap 
prenticeship like a heron to the marsh. She spent more time in 
the Aiel camp than out of it. 


"Not penance, Cadsuane Melaidhrin." Sorilea made a dismiss 
ive gesture with one sinewy hand in another rattle of gold and 
ivory bracelets. "They are attempting to meet toh that cannot 
be met. As foolish in its way as our naming them da'tsang in 



the first place, but perhaps they are not beyond redemption if 
they are willing to try," she allowed grudgingly. Sorilea more 
than merely disliked those nineteen sisters. She gave a thin 


smile. "In any event, we will teach them much they need to 
learn." The woman seemed to believe all Aes Sedai could do 
with time apprenticing under the Wise Ones. 

"I hope you will continue to watch them all closely," Cadsu 
ane said. "Especially these last four." She was sure they 
would keep that ridiculous oath, if not always in ways the boy 
would like, but there was always the possibility that one or 
two might be Black Ajah. Once she had thought herself on the 
point of rooting out the Black only to watch her quarry slip 
through her fingers like smoke, her bitterest failure except 
possibly for failing to learn what Caraline Damodred's cousin 
had been up to in the Borderlands until the knowledge was 
years too late to do any good. Now, even the Black Ajah seemed 
a diversion from what was truly important. 


"Apprentices are always watched closely," the weathered 
woman replied. "I think I must remind these others to be 
grateful for being allowed to loll about like clan chiefs." 


The remaining four sisters in front of the fireplace rose 
with alacrity at her approach, made deep curtsies, and 
listened carefully to what she told them in a low voice with 
much finger shaking. Sorilea might think she had much to teach 
them, but they had already learned that an Aes Sedai shawl 
offered no protection to a Wise One's apprentice. Toh seemed a 
great deal like penance to Cadsuane. 


"She is ... formidable," Verin murmured. "I am very glad she 
is on our side. If she is." 


Cadsuane gave her a sharp look. "You have the appearance of 
a woman with something to say that you don't want to. About 
Sorilea?" That alliance was very vaguely denned. Friendship or 
no friendship, she and the Wise One still might turn out to be 
aiming at different goals. 


"Not that," the stout little woman sighed. Despite a square 
face, tilting her head to one side made her look like a very 
plump sparrow. "I know it was not my business, Cadsuane, but 
Bera and Kiruna were getting nowhere with our guests, so I had 
a little talk alone with Shalon. After a little gentle 
questioning, she spilled out the whole story, and Ailil 
confirmed everything once she realized I already knew. Soon 
after the Sea Folk first arrived here, Ailii approached Shalon 
hoping to learn what they wanted with young al'Thor. For her 
part, Shalon wanted to learn whatever she could about him, and 
about the situation here. That led to meetings, which led to 
friendship, which led to them becoming pillow friends. As much 
from loneliness as anything else, I suspect. In any case, that 
was what they were hiding more than their mutual snooping." 


"They put up with days under the question to hide that?" 
Cadsuane said incredulously. Bera and Kiruna had had the pair 
howling! 


Verin's eyes twinkled with suppressed mirth. "Cairhienin are 
prim and prudish, Cadsuane, in public at least. They might 
carry on like rabbits when the curtains are drawn, but they 
wouldn't admit to touching their own husbands if anyone might 
overhear! And the Sea Folk are almost as straitlaced. At 
least, Shalon is married to a man with duties elsewhere, and 



breaking marriage vows is a very serious crime. A breach of 
proper discipline, it seems. If her sister found out, Shalon 
would be-'Windfinder on a rowboat,' I think her exact words 
were." 


Cadsuane was aware of her hair ornaments swaying as she 
shook her head. When the two women had been discovered right 
after the attack on the Palace, bound and gagged and stuffed 
under Ailil's bed, she had suspected they knew more of the 
attack than they were admitting. Once they refused to say why 
they had been meeting in secret, she was sure. Perhaps even 
that they were involved in some way, though the attack 
apparently was the work of renegade Asha'man. Supposedly 
renegade, at least. All that time and effort wasted on 
nothing. Or perhaps not quite nothing, if they were so 
desperate to keep things hidden. 


"Return the Lady Ailii to her apartments with apologies for 
her treatment, Verin. Give her very . . . tenuous . . . 
assurances that her confidences will be kept. Be sure she is 
aware just how tenuous. And suggest strongly that she might 
wish to keep me abreast of anything she hears concerning her 
brother." Blackmail was a tool she disliked using, but she had 
already used it on the three Asha'man, and Toram Riatin might 
still cause trouble even if his rebellion did seem to have 
evaporated. In truth, she cared little who sat on the Sun 
Throne, yet the plots and schemes of those who considered 
thrones important often had a way of interfering with more 
significant matters. 


Verin smiled, her bun bobbing as she nodded. "Oh, yes, I 
think that will work very nicely. Especially since she 
dislikes her brother intensely. The same for Shalon, I 
suppose? Except that you will want to hear of events among the 
Atha'an Miere? I'm not certain how far she will betray Marine, 
no matter the consequences to herself." 


"She will betray what I require her to betray," Cadsuane 
said grimly. "Keep her until tomorrow, late." Harine must not 
be allowed to think for a moment that her demands were being 
met. The Sea Folk were another tool to be used on the boy, no 
more. Everyone and everything had to be viewed in that light. 


Beyond Verin, Corele slipped into the sunroom and shut the 
door carefully behind her as if hoping not to disturb anyone. 
That was not her way. Boyishly slim, with thick black eyebrows 
and a mass of glossy black hair flowing down her back that 
gave her a wild appearance no matter how neat her clothes 
were, the Yellow was much more likely to sweep into a room 
laughing. Rubbing the end of her upturned nose, she looked at 
Cadsuane hesitantly, with none of the usual sparkle in her 
blue eyes. 


Cadsuane made a peremptory gesture at her, and Corele drew a 
breath and glided across the carpets gripping her yellow-
slashed blue skirts with both hands. Eyeing the sisters 
clustered around Sorilea at the far end of the room, and 
Daigian playing cat's cradle with Eben at the other end, she 
spoke in a soft voice that carried the lilting accents of 
Murandy. 


"I have the most wonderful news, Cadsuane." By the sound 
other, she was not all certain how wonderful it was. "I know 
you said I should keep Darner busy here in the Palace, but he 



insisted on looking at the sisters still in the Aiel camp. 
Mild-tempered as he is, he's very insistent when he wants to 
be, and sure as the sun there's nothing can't be Healed. And, 
well, the fact of it is, he's gone and Healed Irgain. 
Cadsuane, it's as if she'd never been . . ." She trailed off, 
unable to say the word. It hung in the air even so. Stilled. 


"Wonderful news," Cadsuane said flatly. It was. Every sister 
carried the fear somewhere deep inside that she might be cut 
off from the Power. And now a way to Heal what could not be 
Healed had been discovered. By a man. There would be tears and 
recriminations before this was done with. In any case, while 
every sister who heard would consider it a world-shaking 
discovery-in more ways than one; a man!-it was a storm in a 
teacup compared to Rand al'Thor. "I suppose she is offering 
herself up to be beaten like the others?" 


"She won't need to," Verin said absently. She was frowning 
at an inkstain on her finger, but she seemed to be studying 
something beyond. "The Wise Ones apparently decided that Rand 
had punished Irgain and the other two sufficiently when he ... 
did what he did. At the same time they were treating the 
others like worthless animals, they have been working to keep 
those three alive. I heard talk about finding Ronaille a 
husband." 


"Irgain knows all about the oaths the others swore." 
Corele's voice took on tones of amazement. "She started 
weeping for the loss of her Warders almost as soon as Darner 
finished with her, but she's ready to swear, too. The thing of 
it is, Darner wants to try with Sashalle and Ronaille, too." 
Surprisingly, she drew herself up almost defiantly. She had 
always been as arrogant as any other Yellow, but she had 
always known where she stood with Cadsuane. "I can't see 
letting a sister remain in that condition if there's a way 
out, Cadsuane. I want to let Damer try his hand with them." 


"Of course, Corele." It seemed some of Darner's insistence 
was rubbing off on her. Cadsuane was willing to let that go, 
so long as it did not go too far. She had begun gathering 
sisters she trusted, those here with her and others, the day 
she first heard of strange events in Shienar-her eyes and ears 
had kept watch on Siuan Sanche and Moiraine Damodred for years 
without learning anything useful until then-yet just because 
she trusted them did not mean she intended to let them start 
going their own way. Too much lay at stake. But in any case, 
she could not leave a sister like that, either. 


The door banged open to admit Jahar at a run, the silver 
bells on the ends of his dark braids jangling. Heads turned to 
look at the youth in the well-fitted blue coat Merise had 
chosen for him-even Sorilea and Sarene stared-but the words 


that came out of him in a rush drove away thoughts of how 
pretty his sun-dark face was. 
"Alanna's unconscious, Cadsuane. She just collapsed in the 
hallway. Merise had her taken to a bedchamber and sent me for 
you." 

Riding over exclamations of shock, Cadsuane gathered Corele 
and Sorilea-who could not be left behind in this-and ordered 
Jahar to lead the way. Venn came as well, and Cadsuane did not 
stop her. Verin had a way of noticing what others missed. 


The black-liveried servants had no idea who or what Jahar 



was, but they stepped lively to get out of Cadsuane's way as 
she walked quickly along behind him. She would have told him 
to be quicker about it, but any faster, and she would have had 
to run. Before she had gone very far, a short man with the 
front of his head shaved, in a dark coat with horizontal 
stripes of color down the front, stepped into her path and 
bowed. She had to stop for him. 


"Grace favor you, Cadsuane Sedai," he said smoothly, "For 
give me for bothering you when you are in such a hurry, but I 
thought I should tell you that the Lady Caraline and the High 
Lord Darlin are no longer in the Lady Arilyn's palace. They 
are on a rivership bound for Tear. Beyond your reach by this 
time, I fear." 


"You might be surprised what is within my reach, Lord 
Dobraine," she said in a cold voice. She should have left at 
least ore sister at Arilyn's palace, but she had been certain 
the pair was secure. "Was this wise?" She had no doubt it was 
his work, though she doubted he had the nerve to admit it. No 
wonder he had not pressed her over them. 


Her tone made no impression on the fellow. And he surprised 
her. "The High Lord Darlin is to be the Lord Dragon's Steward 
of Tear, and it did seem wise to send the Lady Caraline out of 
the country. She has foresworn her rebellion and her claims to 
the Sun Throne, but others still might try to use her. 
Perhaps, Cadsuane Sedai, it was unwise to leave them in the 
charge of servants. Under the Light, you must not hold them at 
fault. They were able to hold two . . . guests . . . but not 
to stand up to my armsmen." 


Jahar was all but dancing with anxiety to go on. Merise had 
a firm hand. Cadsuane herself was anxious to reach Alanna. 


"I hope you have the same opinion in a year," she said. 
Dobraine merely bowed. 


The bedchamber where Alanna had been taken was the nearest 
that had been available, and it was not large, appearing 
smaller for the dark paneling that Cairhienin liked so much. 
It seemed quite crowded once everyone was inside. Merise 
snapped her fingers and pointed, and Jahar retreated to a 
corner, but that helped little. 


Alanna was lying on the bed, her eyes closed, with her 
Warder, Ihvon, kneeling beside it chafing her wrist. "She 
seems afraid to wake," the tall, slender man said. "There's 
nothing wrong with her that I can tell, but she seems afraid." 


Corele brushed him aside so she could cup Alanna's face in 
her hands. The glow of saidar surrounded the Yellow, and the 
weave of Healing settled on Alanna, but the slim Green did not 
even twitch. Corele drew back, shaking her head. 


"My skill with Healing, it may not equal yours, Corele," Mer 
ise said dryly, "but I did try." The accents of Tarabon were 
still strong in her voice after all these years, but she wore 
her dark hair drawn back severely from her stern face. 
Cadsuane trusted her perhaps more than any of the others. 
"What do we do now, Cadsuane?" 


Sorilea stared at the woman stretched out on the bed with no 
expression beyond a thinning of her lips. Cadsuane wondered 
whether she was reevaluating their alliance. Verin was staring 
at Alanna, too, and she looked absolutely terrified. Cadsuane 
had not thought anything could frighten Verin that far. But 



she felt a thrill of terror herself. If she lost this 
connection to the boy now. . . . 
"We sit down and wait for her to wake," she said in a calm 
voice. There was nothing else to do. Nothing. 

"Where is he?" Demandred growled, clenching his fists behind 
his back. Standing with his feet apart, he was aware that he 
dominated the room. He always did. Even so, he wished 
Semirhage or Mesaana were present. Their alliance was 
delicate-a simple agreement that they would not turn on one 
another until the others had been eliminated-yet it had held 
all this time. Working together, they had unbalanced opponent 
after opponent, toppling many to their deaths or worse. But it 
was difficult for Semirhage to attend these meetings, and 
Mesaana had been shy, of late. If she was thinking of ending 
the alliance. . . . "Al'Thor has been seen in five cities, 
including that cursed place in the Waste, and a dozen towns 
since those blind fools-those idiots!- failed in Cairhien. And 
that only includes the reports we have! The Great Lord only 
knows what else is crawling toward us by horse, or sheep, or 
whatever else these savages can find to carry a message." 


Graendal had chosen the setting, since she had been first to 
arrive, and it irritated him. View-walls made the striped 
wooden floor appear to be surrounded by a forest full of 
brightly flowered vines and fluttering birds that were even 
more colorful. Sweet scents and soft birdcalls filled the air. 
Only the arch of the doorway spoiled the illusion. Why did she 
want a reminder of what was lost? They could as soon make 
shocklances or sho-wings as a view-wall outside of this place, 
close to Shayol Ghul. In any case, she despised anything to do 
with nature, as he recalled. 


Osan'gar frowned at "idiots" and "blind fools," as well he 
might, but he quickly smoothed that plain, creased face, so 
unlike the one he had been born with. By whatever name he was 
called, he had always known who he dared challenge and who 
not. "A matter of chance," he said calmly, though he did begin 
dry-washing his hands. An old habit. He was garbed like some 
ruler of this Age, in a coat so heavy with golden embroidery 
that it almost hid the red of the cloth, and boots fringed 
with golden tassels. There was enough white lace at his neck 
and wrists to clothe a child. The man had never known the 
meaning of excess. If not for his particular skills, he never 
would have been Chosen. Realizing what his hands were doing, 
Osan'gar snatched the tall cuendillar wineglass from the round 
table beside his chair and inhaled the dark wine's aroma 
deeply. "Simply probabilities," he murmured, trying to sound 
offhand. "Next time, he will be killed or taken. Chance can't 
protect him forever." 


"You are going to depend on chance?" Aran'gar was stretched 
out in a long, flowing chair as though it were a bedchair. 
Directing a smoky smile at Osan'gar, she arched one leg on 
bare toes so the slit in her bright red skirts exposed her to 
the hip. Every breath threatened to free her from the red 
satin that just contained her full breasts. All of her 
mannerisms had changed since she became a woman, but not the 
core of what had been placed into that female body. Demandred 
hardly scorned fleshly pleasures, but one day her cravings 
would be the death of her. As they already had been once. Not 



that he would mourn, of course, if the next time was final. 
"You were responsible for watching him, Osan'gar," she went 
on, her voice caressing every syllable. "You, and Demandred." 
Osan'gar flinched, flicking his tongue against his lips, and 
she laughed throatily. "My own charge is . . ." She pressed a 
thumb down on the edge of the chair as if pinning something 
and laughed again. 


"I should think you would be more worried, Aran'gar," 
Graendal murmured over her wine. She concealed her contempt 
about as well as the almost transparent silvery mist of her 
streith gown concealed her ripe curves. "You, and Osan'gar, 
and Demandred. And Moridin, wherever he is. Perhaps you should 
fear al'Thor's success as much as his failure." 


Laughing, Aran'gar caught the standing woman's hand in one 
others. Her green eyes sparkled. "And perhaps you could 
explain what you mean better if we were alone?" 


Graendal's gown turned to stark black concealing smoke. 
Jerking her hand free with a coarse oath, she stalked away 
from the chair. Aran'gar . . . giggled. 


"What do you mean?" Osan'gar said sharply, struggling out of 
his chair. Once on his feet, he struck a lecturer's pose, 
gripping his lapels, and his tone became pedantic. "In the 
first place, my dear Graendal, I doubt that even I could 
devise a method to remove the Great Lord's shadow from saidin. 
Al'Thor is a primitive. Anything he tries inevitably will 
prove insufficient, and I, for one, cannot believe he can even 
imagine how to begin. In any event, we will stop him trying 
because the Great Lord commands it. I can understand fear of 
the Great Lord's displeasure if we somehow failed, unlikely as 
that might be, but why should those of us you named have any 
special fear?" 


"Blind as ever, and dry as ever," Graendal murmured. With 
the return of composure, her gown was clear mist again, though 
red. Perhaps she was not so calm as she pretended. Or perhaps 
she wanted them to believe she was controlling some agitation. 
Except for the streith, her adornments all came from this age, 
firedrops in her golden hair, a large ruby dangling between 
her breasts, ornate golden bracelets on both wrists. And 
something quite strange, that Demandred wondered whether 
anyone else had noticed. A simple ring of gold on the little 
finger of her left hand. Simple was never associated with 
Graendal. "If the young man does somehow remove the shadow, 
well. . . . You who channel saidin will no longer need the 
Great Lord's special protection. Will he trust your . . . 
loyalty . . . then?" Smiling, she sipped her wine. 


Osan'gar did not smile. His face paled, and he scrubbed a 
hand across his mouth. Aran'gar sat up on the edge of her long 
chair, no longer trying to be sensuous. Her hands formed claws 


on her lap, and she glared at Graendal as if ready to go to 
her throat. 
Demandred's fists unclenched. It was out in the open at 

last. He had hoped to have al'Thor dead-or failing that, 
captive- before this suspicion reared its head. During the War 
of Power, more than a dozen of the Chosen had died of the 
Great Lord's suspicion. 


"The Great Lord is sure you are all faithful," Moridin an 
nounced, striding in as though he were the Great Lord of the 



Dark himself. He had often seemed to believe he was, and the 
boy's face he wore now had not changed that. In spite of his 
words, that face was grim, and his unrelieved black made his 

name, Death, fit. "You need not worry until he stops being 
sure." The girl, Cyndane, trotted at his heels like a bosomy 
little silver-haired pet in red-and-black. For some reason, 
Moridin had a rat riding his shoulder, pale nose sniffing the 
air, black eyes studying the room warily. Or for no reason, 
perhaps. A youthful face had not made him any saner, either. 


"Why have you called us here?" Demandred demanded. "I have 
much to do, and no time for idle talk." Unconsciously he tried 
to stand taller, to match the other man. 


"Mesaana is absent again?" Moridin said instead of 
answering. "A pity. She should hear what I have to say." 
Plucking the rat from his shoulder by its tail, he watched the 
animal wave its legs futilely. Nothing except the rat seemed 
to exist for him. "Small, apparently unimportant matters can 
become very important," he murmured. "This rat. Whether Isam 
succeeds in finding and killing that other vermin, Fain. A 
word whispered in the wrong ear, or not spoken to the right. A 
butterfly stirs its wings on a branch, and on the other side 
of the world a mountain collapses." Suddenly the rat twisted, 
trying to sink its teeth into his wrist. Casually, he flung 
the creature away. In midair, there was a burst of flame, 
something hotter than flame, and the rat was gone. Moridin 
smiled. 


Demandred flinched in spite of himself. That had been the 
True Power; he had felt nothing. A black speck floated across 
Moridin's blue eyes, then another, in a steady stream. The man 
must have been using the True Power exclusively since he last 
saw him to gain so many saa so quickly. He himself had never 
touched the True Power except at need. Great need. Of course, 
only Moridin had that privilege now, since his ... anointing. 
The man truly was insane to use it so freely. It was a drug 
more addictive than saidin, more deadly than poison. 


Crossing the striped floor, Moridin laid a hand on 
Osan'gar's shoulder, his smile made more ominous by the saa. 
The shorter man swallowed, and gave a wavering smile in 
return. "It is well you've never considered how to remove the 
Great Lord's shadow," Moridin said quietly. How long had he 
been outside? Osan'gar's smile grew even more sickly. "Al'Thor 
is not as wise as you. Tell them, Cyndane." 


The little woman drew herself up. By face and form she was a 
luscious plum, ready for plucking, but her big blue eyes were 
glacial. A peach, perhaps. Peaches were poisonous, here and 
now. "You recall the Choedan Kal, I suppose." No amount of 
effort could make that low, breathy voice anything except 
sultry, but she managed to inject sarcasm. "Lews Therin has 
two of the access keys, one for each. And he knows a woman 
strong enough to use the female of the pair. He plans to use 
the Choedan Kal for his deed." 


Nearly everyone began to talk at once. 


"I thought the keys were all destroyed!" Aran'gar exclaimed, 
surging to her feet. Her eyes were wide with fear. "He could 
shatter the world just trying to use the Choedan Kal!" 


"If you had ever read anything besides a history book, you 
would know they're almost impossible to destroy!" Osan'gar 



snarled at her. But he was tugging at his collar as if it were 
too tight, and his eyes seemed ready to fall out of his face. 
"How can this girl know he has them? How?" 


Graendal's wineglass had dropped from her hand as soon the 
words were out of Cyndane's mouth, bouncing end over end 
across the floor. Her gown turned as crimson as fresh blood, 
and her mouth twisted as if she were going to vomit. "And 
you've just been hoping to blunder into him!" she screamed at 
Demandred. "Hoping someone will find him for you! Fool! Fool!" 


Demandred thought Graendal had been a touch flamboyant even 
for her. He would wager the announcement had been no surprise 
to her. It seemed she bore watching. He said nothing. 


Putting a hand over his heart, for all the world like a 
lover, Moridin tilted up Cyndane's chin on his fingertips. 
Resentment burned in her eyes, but her face might have been a 
doll's unchanging face. She certainly accepted his attentions 
like a pliable doll. "Cyndane knows many things," Moridin said 
softly, "and she tells me everything she knows. Everything." 
The tiny woman's expression never altered, but she trembled 
visibly. 


She was a puzzle to Demandred. At first he had thought she 
was Lanfear reincarnated. Bodies for transmigration supposedly 
were chosen by what was available, yet Osan'gar and Aran'gar 
were proof of the Great Lord's cruel sense of humor. He had 
been sure, until Mesaana told him the girl was weaker than 
Lanfear. Mesaana and the rest thought she was of this Age. Yet 
she spoke of al'Thor as Lews Therin, just as Lanfear had, and 
spoke of the Choedan Kal as one familiar with the terror they 
had inspired during the War of Power. Only balefire had been 
more feared, and only just. Or had Moridin taught her for 
purposes of his own? If he had any real purposes. There had 
always been times when the man's actions had been sheer 
madness. 


"So it seems he must be killed after all," Demandred said. 
Hiding his satisfaction was not easy. Rand al'Thor or Lews 
Therin Telamon, he would rest easier when the fellow was dead. 
"Before he can destroy the world, and us. Which makes finding 
him all the more urgent." 


"Killed?" Moridin moved his hands as though weighing 
something. "If it comes to that, yes," he said finally. "But 
finding him is no problem. When he touches the Choedan Kal, 
you will know where he is. And you will go there and take him. 
Or kill him, if necessary. The Nae'blis has spoken." 


"As the Nae'blis commands," Cyndane said eagerly, bowing her 
head, and echos of her ran around the room, though Aran'gar 
sounded sullen, Osan'gar desperate, and Graendal oddly 
thoughtful. 


Bending his neck hurt Demandred as much as speaking those 
words. So they would take al'Thor-while he was trying to use 
the Choedan Kal, no less, he and some woman drinking enough of 
the One Power to melt continents!-but there had been no 
indication that Moridin would be with them. Or his twin pets, 
Moghedien and Cyndane. The man was Nae'blis for now, but 
perhaps matters could be arranged so he did not get another 
body the next time he died. Perhaps it could be arranged soon. 



 Chapter 14: What the Veil Hides 


The Victory of Kidron rolled on long sea swells, making the 
gilded lamps in the stern cabin swing on their gimbals, but 
Tuon sat calmly as the razor in Selucia's sure hand slid 
across her scalp. Through the tall stern windows she could see 
other greatships crashing through the gray-green swells in 
sprays of white, hundreds of them row on row, stretching to 
the horizon. Four times as many had been left at Tanchico. The 
Rhyagelle, Those Who Come Home. The Corenne, the Return, had 
begun. 


A soaring albatross seemed to be following the Kidron, an 
omen of victory indeed, though the bird's long wings were 
black instead of white. It must still mean the same thing. 
Omens did not change according to location. An owl calling at 
dawn meant a death and rain without clouds an unexpected 
visitor whether in Imfaral or Noren M'Shar. 


The morning ritual with her dresser's razor was soothing, 
and she needed that today. Last night, she had given a command 
in anger. No command should be issued in anger. She felt 
almost sei'mosiev, as if she had lost honor. Her balance was 
disturbed, and that boded as ill for the Return as a loss of 
sei'taer, albatross or no albatross. 


Selucia wiped away the last of the lather with a warm damp 
cloth, then used a dry cloth, and finally powdered her smooth 
scalp lightly with a brush. When her dresser stepped back, 
Tuon rose and let her elaborately embroidered blue silk 
dressing gown slide to the gold-and-blue patterned carpet. 
Instantly the cool air pebbled her dark bare skin. Four of her 
ten maids rose gracefully from where they had been kneeling 
against the walls, cleanlimbed and comely in their filmy white 
robes. All had been purchased for their appearance as much as 
their skills, and they were very skilled. They had become used 
to the motions of the ship during the long voyage from 
Seanchan, and they scurried to fetch the garments that had 
already been laid out atop the carved chests and bring them to 
Selucia. Selucia never allowed the da'covale to actually dress 
her, not so much as stockings or slippers. 


When she settled a pleated gown the color of well-aged ivory 
over Tuon's head, the younger woman could not help comparing 
the two of them in the tall mirror fastened to the inner wall. 
Golden-haired Selucia possessed a stately, cream-skinned 
beauty and cool blue eyes. Anyone might have taken her for one 
of the Blood, and of high rank, rather than so'jhin, if the 
left side of her head had not been shaved. A notion that would 
have shocked the woman to the quick, expressed aloud. The very 
idea of any stepping above her appointed station horrified 
Selucia. Tuon knew she herself would never have such a 
commanding presence. Her eyes were too large, and a liquid 
brown. When she forgot to keep a stern mask, her heart-shaped 
face belonged on a mischievous child. The top of her head 
barely came to Selucia's eyes, and her dresser was not a tall 
woman. Tuon could ride with the best, she excelled at 
wrestling and the use of suitable weapons, but she had always 
had to exercise her mind to impress. She had trained that tool 
as hard as she had trained at every other talent combined. At 



least the wide, woven belt of gold emphasized her waist enough 
that she would not be taken for a boy in a dress. Men watched 
when Selucia passed by, and Tuon had overheard some murmur 


about her full breasts. Perhaps that had nothing to do with a 
commanding presence, but it would have been nice to possess a 
little more bosom. 

"The Light be upon me," Selucia murmured, sounding amused, 
as the da'covale hurried back to kneel upright against the 
walls. "You've done that every morning since the first day 
your head was shaved. Do you still think after three years 
that I'll leave a patch of stubble?" 


Tuon realized that she had rubbed a hand across her bare 
scalp. Searching for stubble, she admitted to herself 
ruefully. "If you did," she said with mock severity, "I would 
have you beaten. A repayment for all the times you used a 
switch on me." 


Placing a rope of rubies around Tuon's neck, Selucia 
laughed. "If you pay me back for all that, I'll never be able 
to sit down again." 


Tuon smiled. Selucia's mother had given her to Tuon for a 
cradle-gift, to be her nursemaid, and more important, her 
shadow, a bodyguard no one knew about. The first twenty-five 
years of Selucia's life had been training for those jobs, 
training in secret for the second. On Tuon's sixteenth naming 
day, when her head was first shaved, she had made the 
traditional gifts of her House to Selucia, a small estate for 
the care she had shown, a pardon for the chastisements she had 
given, a sack of one hundred golden thrones for each time she 
had needed to punish her charge. The Blood assembled to watch 
her presented as an adult for the first time had been 
impressed by all those sacks of coin, more than many of them 
could have laid hand on themselves. She had been . . . unruly 
... as a child, not to mention headstrong. And the last 
traditional gift: the offer for Selucia to choose where she 
would be appointed next. Tuon was not sure whether she or the 
watching crowd had been more astonished when the dignified 
woman turned her back on power and authority, and asked 
instead to be Tuon's dresser, her chief maid. And her shadow 
still, of course, though that was not made public. She herself 
had been delighted. 


"Perhaps in small doses, spread over sixteen years," she 
said. Catching sight of herself in the mirror, she held her 
smile long enough to make sure there was no sting in her 
words, then replaced it with sternness. She certainly felt 
more affection for the woman who had raised her than for the 
mother she had seen only twice a year before becoming an 
adult, or the brothers and sisters she had been taught from 
her first steps to battle for their mother's favor. Two of 
them had died in those struggles, so far, and three had tried 
to kill her. A sister and a brother had been made da'covale 
and had their names stricken from the records as firmly as if 
it had been discovered they could channel. Her place was far 
from secure even now. A single misstep could see her dead, or 
worse, stripped and sold on the public block. Blessings of the 
Light, when she smiled, she still looked sixteen! At best! 


Chuckling, Selucia turned to take the close-fitting cap of 
golden lace from its red-lacquered stand on the dressing 



table. The sparse lace would expose most of her shaven scalp, 
and mark her with the Raven-and-Roses. Perhaps she was not 
sei'mosiev, but for the sake of the Corenne, she had to 
restore her balance. She could ask Anath, her Soe'feia, to 
administer a penance, but it was less than two years since 
Neferi's unexpected death, and she still was not entirely 
comfortable with her replacement. Something told her she must 
do this on her own. Perhaps she had seen an omen she had not 
recogni2ed consciously. Ants were not likely on a ship, but 
several sorts of beetle might be. 


"No, Selucia," she said quietly. "A veil." 


Selucia's mouth tightened in disapproval, but she replaced 
the cap on its stand silently. In private, as now, she had 
license to free her tongue, yet she knew what could be spoken 
and what not. Tuon had only ever had to have her punished 
twice, and Light's truth, she had regretted it as much as 
Selucia. Wordlessly, her dresser produced a long sheer veil, 
draping it over Tuon's head and securing it with a narrow band 
of golden braid set with rubies. Even more transparent than 
the da'covale's robes, the veil did not hide her face at all. 
But it hid what was most important. 


Laying a long, gold-embroidered blue cape on Tuon's shoul 
ders, Selucia stepped back and bowed deeply, the end of her 
golden braid touching the carpet. The kneeling da'covale bowed 
their faces to the deck. Privacy was about to end. Tuon left 
the cabin alone. 


In the second cabin stood six of her sui'dam, three to 
either side, with their charges kneeling in front of them on 
the wide, polished planks of the deck. The sui'dam 
straightened when they saw her, proud as the silver lightning 
in the red panels on their skirts. The gray-clad damane knelt 
erect, full of their own pride. Except for poor Lidya, who 
crouched over her knees and tried to press her tearstained 
face against the deck. Lanelle, holding the red-haired 
damane'5, leash, scowled down at her. 


Tuon sighed. Lidya had been responsible for her anger last 
night. No, she had caused it, but Tuon herself was responsible 
for her own emotions. She had commanded the damane to read her 
fortune, and she should not have ordered her caned because she 
disliked what she heard. 


Bending, she cupped Lidya's chin, laying long red-enameled 
fingernails against the damane’s, freckled cheek, and drew her 
up to sit on her heels. Which produced a wince and a fresh set 
of tears that Tuon carefully wiped away with her fingers as 
she pulled the damane upright on her knees. "Lidya is a good 
damane, Lanelle," she said. "Paint her welts with tincture of 
sorfa and give her lionheart for the pain until the welts are 
gone. And until they are gone, she is to have a sweet custard 
with every meal." 


"As the High Lady commands," Lanelle replied formally, but 
she smiled slightly. All the sui'dam were fond of Lidya, and 
she had not liked punishing the damane. "If she gets fat, I 
will take her for runs, High Lady." 


Lidya twisted her head around to kiss Tuon's palm and mur 
mured, "Lidya's mistress is kind. Lidya will not get fat." 


Making her way along the two lines, Tuon spoke a few words 
to each sui'dam and petted each of the damane. The six she had 



brought with her were her best, and they beamed at her with a 
fondness equal to hers for them. They had competed eagerly to 
be chosen. Plump, yellow-haired Dali and Dani, sisters who 
hardly needed a sul'dam's direction. Charral, her hair as gray 
as her eyes, but still the most agile in her spinning. Sera, 
with red ribbons in her tightly curled black hair, the 
strongest, and proud as a sui'dam. Tiny Mylen, shorter even 
than Tuon herself. Mylen was Tuon's special pride among the 
six. 


Many had thought it odd when Tuon tested for sui'dam on 
reaching adulthood, though none could gainsay her, then. 
Except her mother, who had allowed it by remaining silent. 
Actually becoming a sui'dam was unthinkable, of course, but 
she found as much enjoyment in training damane as in training 
horses, and she was as good at one as the other. Mylen was the 
proof of that. The pale little damane had been half-dead with 
shock and fear, refusing to eat or drink, when Tuon bought her 
on the docks at Shon Kifar. The der'sul'dam all had despaired, 
saying she would not live long, but now Mylen smiled up at 
Tuon and leaned forward to kiss her hand before she even 
reached to stroke the damane's dark hair. Once skin and bones, 
she was becoming a trifle plump. Instead of rebuking her, 
Catrona, who held her leash, let a smile crease her usually 
stern black face and murmured that Mylen was a perfect damane. 
It was true, no one would believe now that once she had called 
herself Aes Sedai. 


Before leaving, Tuon gave a few orders concerning the da 
mane's diet and exercise. The sui'dam knew what to do, just 
like the other twelve in Tuon's entourage, or they would not 
have been in her service, but she believed no one should be 
allowed to own damane unless they took an active interest. She 
knew the quirks of every one of hers as well as she knew her 
own face. 


In the outer cabin, the Deathwatch Guards, lining the walls 
in armor lacquered blood red and nearly black green, stiffened 
at her entrance. That is, they stiffened if statues could be 
said to stiffen. Hard-faced men, they and five hundred more 
like them had been charged personally with Tuon's safety. Any 
or all would die to protect her. They would die if she did. 
Every man had volunteered, asked to be in her guard. Seeing 
the veil, grizzled Captain Musenge ordered only two to 
accompany her on deck, where two dozen Ogier Gardeners in the 
red-and-green made a line to either side of the doorway, great 
black-tasseled axes upright in front of them and grim eyes 
watching for any danger even here. They would not die if she 
did, but they also had asked to be in her guard, and she would 
rest her life in any of those huge hands without a qualm. 


The ribbed sails on the Kiaron's three tall masts were taut 
with the cold wind that drove the vessel toward the land that 
lay ahead, a dark shore near enough that she could make out 
hills and headlands. Men and women filled the deck, all of the 
Blood on the vessel in their finest silks, ignoring the wind 
that whipped their cloaks as they ignored the barefoot men and 
women of the ship's crew who darted between them. Some of the 
nobles were much too ostentatious about ignoring the crew, as 
though they could run the ship while kneeling or bowing every 
two paces. Prepared for prostration, the Blood made slight 



bows instead, one equal to another, when they saw her veil. 
Yuril, the sharp-nosed man everyone thought was her secretary, 
went to one knee. He was her secretary, of course, but also 
her Hand, commanding her Seekers. The Macura woman flung 
herself down prostrate and kissed the deck before a few quiet 
words from Yuril made her get back to her feet blushing and 
smoothing her pleated red skirts. Tuon had been uncertain 
about taking her into service, back in Tanchico, but the woman 
had pleaded like a da'covale. She hated Aes Sedai in her 
bones, for some reason, and despite the rewards already given 
for her extremely valuable information, she hoped to do them 
more injury. 


Bowing her head to the Blood, Tuon climbed to the quarter 
deck followed by the two Deathwatch Guards. The wind made 
handling her cape difficult, and pressed her veil against her 
face one moment, then flailed it over her head the next. It 
did not matter; that she wore it was sufficient. Her personal 
banner, two golden lions harnessed to an ancient war-cart, 
flew at the stern above the six helmsmen struggling to control 
the long tiller. The Raven-and-Roses would have been packed 
away as soon as the first crewman to see her veil could pass 
the word. Kidron's captain, a wide, weathered woman with white 
hair and the most incredible green eyes, bowed as Tuon's 
slipper touched the quarterdeck then immediately returned her 
attention to her ship. 


Anath was standing by the railing, in unrelieved black silk, 
outwardly undisturbed by the chill wind in spite of her lack 
of a cloak or cape. A slender woman, she would have been tall 
even for a man. Her charcoal-dark face was beautiful, but her 
large black eyes seemed to pierce like awls. Tuon's Soe'feia, 
her Truth-speaker, named by the Empress, might she live 
forever, when Neferi died. A surprise, with Neferi's Left Hand 
trained and ready to replace her, but when the Empress spoke 
from the Crystal Throne, her word was law. You certainly were 
not supposed to be afraid of your Soe'feia, yet Tuon was, a 
little. Joining the woman, she gripped the railing, and had to 
loosen her hands before she broke a lacquered nail. That would 
have meant very bad luck. 


"So," Anath said, the word like a nail driven into Tuon's 
skull. The tall woman frowned down at her, and contempt lay 
thick in her voice. "You hide your face-in a way-and now you 
are just the High Lady Tuon. Except that everyone still knows 
who you really are, even if they won't mention it. How long do 
you intend carrying on this farce?" Anath's full lips sneered, 
and she made a curt, dismissive gesture with one slim hand. "I 
suppose this idiocy is over having the damane caned. You are a 
fool to think your eyes are downcast by a little thing like 
that. What did she say to make you angry? No one seems to 
know, except that you threw a tantrum I am sorry to have 
missed." 


Tuon made her hands be still on the railing. They wanted to 
tremble. She forced her face to maintain a stern appearance. 
"I will wear the veil until an omen tells me the time has come 
to remove it, Anath," she said, schooling her voice to calm. 
Only luck had kept anyone from overhearing Lidya's cryptic 
words. Everyone knew that damane could foretell the future, 
and if any of the Blood had heard, they would all have been 



chattering behind their hands about her fate. 


Anath laughed rudely and began telling her again what a fool 
she was, in greater detail this time. Much greater detail. She 
did not bother to lower her voice. Captain Tehan was staring 
straight ahead, but her eyes were almost falling out other 
lined face. Tuon listened attentively, though her cheeks grew 
hotter and hotter, until she thought her veil might burst into 
flame. 


Many of the Blood called their Voices Soe'feia, but Voices 
of the Blood were so'jhin, and knew they could be punished if 
their owners were displeased by what they said even if they 
were called Soe'feia. A Speaker of Truth could not be 
commanded or coerced or punished in any way. A Truthspeaker 
was required to tell the stark truth whether or not you wanted 
to hear it, and to make sure that you heard. Those Blood who 
called their Voices Soe'feia thought that Algwyn, the last man 
to sit on the Crystal Throne, almost a thousand years ago, had 
been insane because he let his Soe'feia live and continue in 
her post after she slapped his face before the entire court. 
They did not understand the traditions of her family any more 
than the goggle-eyed captain did. The Deathwatch Guards' 
expressions never altered behind the half-concealing cheek-
pieces of their helmets. They understood. 


"Thank you, but I do not need a penance," she said politely 
when Anath finally ceased her harangue. 


Once, after she cursed Neferi for dying by something as stu 
pid as a fall down stairs, she had asked her new Soe'feia to 
perform that service for her. Cursing the dead was enough to 
make you sei'mosiev for months. The woman had been almost 
tender about it, in an odd fashion, though she left her 
weeping for days, unable to don even a shift. That was not why 
she refused the offer, though; a penance must be severe or it 
was useless in redressing balance. No, she would not take the 
easier way because she had made her decision. And, she had to 
admit, because she wanted to resist her Soe'feia's advice. 
Wanted not to listen to her at all. As Selucia said, she 
always had been headstrong. Refusing to listen to your 
Truthspeaker was abominable. Perhaps she should accept after 
all, to redress that balance. Three long gray porpoises rose 
beside the ship and sounded. Three, and they did not rise 
again. Hold to your chosen course. 


"When we are ashore," she said, "the High Lady Suroth must 
be commended." Hold to your chosen course. "And her ambition 
must be looked into. She has done more with the Forerunners 
than the Empress, may she live forever, dreamed of, but 
success on such a scale often breeds ambitions to match." 


Peeved at the change of subject, Anath drew herself up, lips 
compressing. Her eyes glittered. "I am sure Suroth has only 
the best interests of the Empire for ambition," she said 
curtly. 


Tuon nodded. She herself was not sure at all. That sort of 
sureness could lead to the Tower of the Ravens even for her. 
Perhaps especially for her. "I must find a way to make contact 
with the Dragon Reborn as soon as possible. He must kneel 
before the Crystal Throne before Tarmon Gai'don, or all is 
lost." The Prophecies of the Dragon said so, clearly. 


Anath's mood changed in a flash. Smiling, she laid a hand on 



Tuon's shoulder almost possessively. That was going too far, 
but she was Soe'feia, and the feel of ownership might have 
been only in Tuon's mind. "You must be careful," Anath purred. 
"You must not let him learn how dangerous you are to him until 
it is too late for him to escape." 


She had more advice, but Tuon let it wash over her. She lis 
tened enough to hear, yet it was nothing she had not heard a 
hundred times before. Ahead of the ship she could make out the 
mouth of a great harbor. Ebou Dar, from where the Corenne 
would spread, as it was spreading from Tanchico. The thought 
gave her a thrill of pleasure, of accomplishment. Behind her 
veil, she was merely the High Lady Tuon, of no higher rank 
than many others of the Blood, but in her heart, always, she 
was Tuon Athaem Kore Paendrag, Daughter of the Nine Moons, and 
she had come to reclaim what had been stolen from her 
ancestor. 


Chapter 15: In Need of a Bellfounder 


The boxlike wagon reminded Mat of Tinker wagons he had seen, 
a little house on wheels, though this one, filled with 
cabinets and workbenches built into the walls, was not made 
for a dwelling. Wrinkling his nose at the odd, acrid smells 
that filled the interior, he shifted uncomfortably on his 
three-legged stool, the only place for anyone to sit. His 
broken leg and ribs were near enough healed, and the cuts that 
he had suffered when that whole bloody building fell on his 
head, but the injuries still pained him now and then. Besides, 
he was hoping for sympathy. Women loved to show sympathy, if 
you played it out right. He made himself stop twisting his 
long signet ring on his finger. Let a woman know you were 
nervous, and she put her own construction on it, and sympathy 
went right out the window. 


"Listen, Aludra," he said, assuming his most winning smile, 
"by this time you must know the Seanchan won't look twice at 
fireworks. Those damane do something called Sky Lights that 
makes your best fireworks look like a few sparks flying up the 
chimney, so I hear. No offense meant." 


"Me, I have not seen these so-called Sky Lights myself," she 
replied dismissively in her strong Taraboner accent. Her head 
was bent over a wooden mortar the size of a large keg on one 
of the workbenches, and despite a wide blue ribbon gathering 
her dark waist-length hair loosely at the nape of her neck, it 
fell forward to hide her face. The long white apron with its 
dark smudges did nothing to conceal how well her dark green 
dress fit over her hips, but he was more interested in what 
she was doing. Well, as interested. She was grinding at a 
coarse black powder with a wooden pestle nearly as long as her 
arm. The powder looked a little like what he had seen inside 
fireworks he had cut open, but he still did not know what went 
into it. "In any event," she went on, unaware of his scrutiny, 
"I will not give you the Guild secrets. You must understand 
this, yes?" 


Mat winced. He had been working on her for days to bring her 



to this point, ever since a chance visit to Valan Luca's 
traveling show revealed that she was here in Ebou Dar, and all 
the while he had dreaded that she would mention the 
Illuminators' Guild. "But you aren't an Illuminator anymore, 
remember? They kicked ... ah ... you said you left the Guild." 
Not for the first time he considered a small reminder that he 
had once saved her from four Guild members who wanted to cut 
her throat. That sort of thing was enough to make most women 
fall on your neck with kisses and offers of whatever you 
wanted. But there had been a notable lack of kisses when he 
actually saved her, so it was unlikely she would begin now. 
"Anyway," he went on airily, "you don't have to worry about 
the Guild. You've been making nightflowers for how long? And 
nobody has come around trying to stop you. Why, I'll wager you 


never see another Illuminator." 
"What have you heard?" she asked quietly, her head still 
down. The pestle's rotation slowed almost to a stop. "Tell 
me." 

The hair on his scalp nearly stood on end. How did women do 
that? Hide every clue, and they still went straight to what 
you wanted to conceal. "What do you mean? I hear the same 
gossip you do, I suppose. Mostly about the Seanchan." 


She spun around so fast that her hair swung like a flail, 
and snatched the heavy pestle up in both hands, brandishing it 
overhead. Perhaps ten years or so older than he, she had large 
dark eyes and a small plump mouth that usually seemed ready to 
be kissed. He had thought about kissing her a time or two. 
Most women were more amenable after a few kisses. Now, her 
teeth were bared, and she looked ready to bite off his nose. 
"Tell me!" she commanded. 


"I was playing at dice with some Seanchan down near the 
docks," he said reluctantly, keeping a careful eye on the 
upraised pestle. A man might bluff and bluster and walk away 
if the matter was not serious, but a woman could crack your 
skull on a whim. And his hip was aching and stiff from sitting 
too long. He was not sure how quickly he could move from the 
stool. "I didn't want to be the one to tell you, but. . . . 
The Guild doesn't exist anymore, Aludra. The chapter house in 
Tanchico is gone." That had been the only real chapter house 
in the Guild. The one in Cairhien was long abandoned now, and 
for the rest, Illuminators only traveled to put on displays 
for rulers and nobles. "They refused to let Seanchan soldiers 
inside the compound, and fought, tried to, when they broke in 
anyway. I don't know what happened-maybe a soldier took a 
lantern where he shouldn't have-but half the compound 
exploded, as I understand it. Probably exaggeration. But the 
Seanchan believed one of the Illuminators used the One Power, 
and they. ..." He sighed, and tried to make his voice gentle. 
Blood and ashes, he did not want to tell her this! But she was 
glaring at him, that bloody club poised to split his scalp. 
"Aludra, the Seanchan gathered up everyone left alive at the 
chapter house, and some Illuminators that had gone to Amador, 
and everybody in between who even looked like an Illuminator, 
and they made them all da'covale. That means-" 


"I know what it means!" she said fiercely. Swinging back to 
the big mortar, she began pounding away with the pestle so 
hard that he was afraid the thing might explode, if that 



powder really was what went inside fireworks. "Fools!" she 
muttered angrily, thumping the pestle loudly in the mortar. 
"Great blind fools! With the mighty, you must bend your neck a 


little and walk on, but they would not see it!" Sniffing, she 
scrubbed at her cheeks with the back of her hand. "You are 
wrong, my young friend. So long as one Illuminator lives, the 

Guild, it lives too, and me, I still live!" Still not looking 
at him, she wiped her cheeks with her hand again. "And what 
would you do if I gave you the fireworks? Hurl them at the 
Seanchan from the catapult, I suppose?" Her snort told what 
she thought of that. 


"And what's wrong with the idea?" he asked defensively. A 
good field catapult, a scorpion, could throw a ten-pound stone 
five hundred paces, and ten pounds of fireworks would do more 
damage than any stone. "Anyway, I have a better idea. I saw 
those tubes you use to toss nightflowers into the sky. Three 
hundred paces or more, you said. Tip one on its side more or 
less, and I'll bet it could toss a nightflower a thousand 
paces." 


Peering into the mortar, she muttered almost under her 
breath. "Me, I talk too much," he thought it was, and 
something about pretty eyes that made no sense. He hurried on 
to stop her from starting up about Guild secrets again. "Those 
tubes are a lot smaller than a catapult, Aludra. If they were 
well hidden, the Seanchan would never know where they came 
from. You could think of it as paying them back for the 
chapter house." 


Turning her head, she gave him a look of respect. Mingled 
with surprise, but he managed to ignore that. Her eyes were 
red-rimmed, and there were tearstains on her cheeks. Maybe if 
he put an arm around her. . . . Women usually appreciated a 
little comforting when they cried. 


Before he could even shift his weight, she swung the pestle 
between them, pointing it at him like a sword with one hand. 
Those slender arms must be stronger than they looked; the 
wooden club never wavered. Light, he thought, she couldn't 
have known what I was going to do! 


"This is not bad, for one who only saw the lofting tubes a 
few days ago," she said, "but me, I have thought about this 
long before you. I had reason." For a moment, her voice was 
bitter, but it smoothed out again, and became a little amused. 
"I will set you the puzzle, since you are so clever, no?" she 
said, arching an eyebrow. Oh, she definitely was amused by 
something! "You tell me what use I might have for a 
bellfounder, and I will tell you all of my secrets. Even the 
ones that will make you blush, yes?" 


Now, that did sound interesting. But the fireworks were more 
important than an hour snuggling with her. What secrets did 
she have that could make him blush? He might surprise her, 
there. Not all of those other men's memories that had been 
stuffed into his head had to do with battles. "A bellmaker," 
he mused, without a notion of where to go from there. None of 
those old memories gave even a hint. "Well, I suppose. ... A 
bellmaker could. . . . Maybe. . . ." 


"No," she said, suddenly brisk. "You will go, and return in 
two or three days. I have the work to do, and you are too 
distracting with all of your questions and wheedling. No; no 



arguments! You will go now." 


Glowering, he rose and clapped his wide-brimmed black hat 
onto his head. Wheedling? Wheedling! Blood and bloody ashes! 
He had dropped his cloak in a heap by the door on entering, 
and he grunted softly, bending to pick it up. He had been 
sitting on that stool most of the day. But maybe he had made a 
little headway with her. If he could solve her puzzle, anyway. 
Alarm bells. Gongs to sound the hour. It made no sense. 


"I might think of kissing such a smart young man as you if 
you did not belong to another," she murmured in decidedly warm 
tones. "You have such a pretty bottom." 


He jerked erect, keeping his back to her. The heat in his 
face was pure outrage, but she was sure to say he was 
blushing. He could usually manage to forget what he was 
wearing unless someone brought it up. There had been an 
incident or three in taverns. While he was flat on his back 
with his leg in splints and his ribs strapped and bandages 
just about everywhere else, Tylin had hidden all of his 
clothes. He had not found where, yet, but surely they were 
hidden, not burned. After all, she could not mean to hold on 
to him forever. All that remained of his own were his hat and 
the black silk scarf tied around his neck. And the silvery 
foxhead medallion, of course, hanging on a leather cord under 
his shirt. And his knives; he really would have felt lost 
without those. When he finally managed to crawl out of that 
bloody bed, the bloody woman had had new clothes made for him, 
with her sitting there watching the bloody seamstresses 
measure and fit him! Snowy lace at his wrists almost hid his 
bloody hands unless he was careful, and more spilled from his 
neck almost to his flaming waist. Tylin liked lace on a man. 
His cloak was a brilliant scarlet, as red as his too-tight 
breeches, and edged with golden scrollwork and white roses, of 
all bloody things. Not to mention a white oval on his left 
shoulder with House Mitsobar's green Sword and Anchor. His 
coat was blue enough for a Tinker, worked in red and gold 
Tairen mazes across the chest and down the sleeves for good 
measure. He did not like recalling what he had been forced to 
go through to convince Tylin to leave off the pearls and sap 
phires and the Light alone knew what else she had wanted. And 
it was short, to boot. Indecently short! Tylin liked his 
bloody bottom, too, and she did not seem to mind who saw it! 


Settling the cloak around his shoulders-it was some cover 
ing, at least-he grabbed his shoulder-high walking staff from 
where it was leaning beside the door. His hip and leg were 
going to ache until he could walk the pain away. "In two or 
three days, then," he said with as much dignity as he could 
muster. 


Aludra laughed softly. Not softly enough that he could not 
hear, though. Light, but a woman could do more with a laugh 
than a dockside bullyboy with a string of curses! And just as 
deliberately. 


Limping out of the wagon, he slammed the door behind him as 
soon as he was far enough down the wooden steps that were 
fastened to the wagon bed. The afternoon sky was just like the 
morning sky had been, gray and blustery, thatched with sullen 
clouds. A sharp wind gusted fitfully. Altara had no true 
winter, but what it did have was enough to be going on with. 



Rather than snow, there were icy rains and thunderstorms 
racing in off the sea, and in between it was damp enough to 
make the cold seem harder. The ground had a sodden feel under 
your boots even when it was dry. Scowling, he hobbled away 
from the wagon. 


Women! Aludra was pretty, though. And she did know how to 
make fireworks. A bellfounder? Maybe he could make it a short 
two days. So long as Aludra did not start chasing him. A good 
many women seemed to be doing that, of late. Had Tylin changed 
something about him, to make women pursue him the way she 
herself did? No. That was ridiculous. The wind caught his 
cloak, flaring it behind him, but he was too absorbed to 
master it. A pair of slender women-acrobats, he thought-gave 
him sly smiles as they passed, and he smiled and made his best 
leg. Tylin had not changed him. He was still the same man he 
had always been. 


Luca's show was fifty times as large as what Thorn had told 
him about, maybe more, a sprawling hodgepodge of tents and 
wagons the size of a large village. Despite the weather, a 
number of performers were practicing where he could see them. 
A woman in a flowing white blouse and breeches as tight as his 
swung back and forth on a sagging rope slung between two tall 
poles, then threw herself off and somehow caught her feet in 
the rope just before she hurtled to the ground below. Then she 
twisted to catch the rope with her hands, pulled herself back 
to her seat and began the same thing again. Not far off, a 
fellow was running on top of an egg-shaped wheel that must 
have been a good twenty feet long, mounted on a platform that 
put him higher above the ground when he dashed across the 
narrow end than the woman who was going to break her fool neck 
soon. Mat eyed a bare-chested man who was rolling three shiny 
balls along his arms and across his shoulders without ever 
touching them with his hands. That was interesting. He might 
be able to manage that himself. At least those balls would not 
leave you bleeding and broken. He had had enough of that to 
suit him a lifetime. 


What really caught his eyes, however, were the horselines. 
Long horselines, where two dozen men bundled against the cold 
were shoveling dung into barrows. Hundreds of horses. Suppos 
edly, Luca had given shelter to some Seanchan animal trainer, 
and his reward had been a warrant, signed by the High Lady 
Suroth herself, allowing him to keep all of his animals. Mat's 
own Pips was secure, saved from the lottery ordered by Suroth 
because he was in the Tarasin Palace stables, but getting the 
gelding out of those stables was beyond him. Tylin as good as 
had a leash around his neck, and she did not intend to let him 
go any time soon. 


Turning away, he considered having Vanin steal some of the 
show's horses if the talks with Luca went badly. From what Mat 
knew of Vanin, it would be an evening stroll for the unlikely 
man. Fat as he was, Vanin could steal, and ride, any horse 
ever foaled. Unfortunately, Mat doubted he himself could sit a 
saddle for more than a mile. Still, it was something to 
consider. He was growing desperate. 


Limping along, idly eyeing tumblers and jugglers and acro 
bats at their practice, he wondered how matters had come to 
this pass. Blood and ashes! He was ta'veren! He was supposed 



to shape the world around him! But here he was, stuck in Ebou 
Dar, Tylin's pet and toy-the woman had not even let him heal 
completely before leaping on him again like a duck on a 
beetle!- while everyone else was having a fine time of it. 
With those Kinswomen fawning at her heels, likely Nynaeve was 
lording it over everyone in sight. Once Egwene realized those 
stark raving mad Aes Sedai who had named her Amyrlin did not 
really mean it, Talmanes and the Band of the Red Hand were 
ready to spirit her away. Light, Elayne might be wearing the 
Rose Crown by now, if he knew her! Rand and Perrin probably 
were lolling in front of a fire in some palace, swilling wine 
and telling jokes. 


He grimaced and rubbed at his forehead as a faint rush of 
colors seemed to swirl inside his head. That happened lately 
whenever he thought about either man. He did not know why, and 
he did not want to know. He just wanted it to stop. If only he 
could get away from Ebou Dar. And take the secret of fireworks 
with him, of course, but he would take escape over the secret 
any day. 


Thorn and Beslan were still where he had left them, drinking 


with Luca in front of Luca's elaborately decorated wagon, but 
he did not join them immediately. For some reason, Luca had 
taken an instant dislike to Mat Cauthon. Mat returned the 

favor, but with reason. Luca had a smug, self-satisfied face, 
and a way of smirking at any woman in sight. And he seemed to 
think every woman in the world enjoyed looking at him. Light, 
the man was married! 


Sprawled in a gilded chair he must have stolen from a 
palace, Luca was laughing and making expansive, lordly 
gestures to Thorn and Beslan, seated on benches to either side 
of him. Golden stars and comets covered Luca's brilliant red 
coat and cloak. A Tinker would have blushed! His wagon would 
have made a Tinker weep! Much larger than Aludra's work-wagon, 
the thing appeared to have been lacquered! The phases of the 
moon repeated themselves in silver all the way around the 
wagon, and golden stars and comets in every size covered the 
rest of the red-and-blue surface. In that setting, Beslan 
looked almost ordinary in a coat and cloak worked in swooping 
birds. Thom, knuckling wine from his long white mustaches, 
seemed positively drab in plain bronze-colored wool and a dark 
cloak. 


One person who should have been there was not, but a quick 
glance around found a cluster of women at a nearby wagon. They 
were every age from his own up to graying hair, but every one 
of them was giggling at what they surrounded. Sighing, Mat 
made his way there. 


"Oh, I just cannot decide," came a boy's piping voice from 
the center of the women. "When I look at you, Merici, your 
eyes are the prettiest I have ever seen. But when I look at 
you, Neilyn, yours are. Your lips are ripe cherries, Gillin, 
and yours make me want to kiss them, Adria. And your neck, 
Jameine, graceful as a swan's. ..." 


Swallowing an oath, Mat quickened his pace as much as he 
could and pushed through the women muttering apologies left 
and right. Olver was in the middle of them, a short, pale boy 
posturing and grinning at one woman then another. That toothy 
grin alone was enough that any of them might decide to slap 



his ears off in a moment. 


"Please forgive him," Mat murmured, taking the boy's hand. 
"Come on, Olver; we have to get back to the city. Stop waving 
your cloak about. He doesn't know what he's saying, really. I 
don't know where he picks up that sort of thing." 


Luckily, the women laughed and ruffled Olver's hair as Mat 
led him away. Some murmured that he was a sweet boy, of all 
things! One slipped her hand under Mat's cloak and pinched his 
bottom. Women! 


Once clear, he scowled at the boy tripping along happily at 
his side. Olver had grown since Mat first met him, but he was 
still short for his years. And with that wide mouth and ears 
to match, he would never be handsome. "You could get yourself 
in deep trouble talking to women that way," Mat told him. 
"Women like a man to be quiet, and well-mannered. And re 
served. Reserved, and maybe a little shy. Cultivate those 
qualities, and you'll do well." 


Olver gave him a gaping, incredulous stare, and Mat sighed. 
The lad had a fistful of uncles looking after him, and every 
one except Mat himself was a bad influence. 


Thom and Beslan were enough to restore Olver's grin. Pulling 
his hand free, he ran ahead to them laughing. Thom was 
teaching him how to juggle and play the harp and the flute, 
and Beslan was teaching him how to use a sword. His other 
"uncles" gave him other lessons, in a remarkably varied set of 
skills. Mat intended to start teaching him to use a 
quarterstaff, and the Two Rivers bow, once he had his strength 
back. What the boy was learning from Chel Vanin, or the 
Redarms, Mat did not want to know. 


Luca rose from his fancy chair at Mat's approach, his 
fatuous smile fading to a sour grimace. Eyeing Mat up and 
down, he swept that ridiculous cloak around himself with a 
wide flourish and announced in a booming voice, "I am a busy 
man. I have much to do. It may be that I soon will have the 
honor of guesting the High Lady Suroth for a private showing." 
Without another word he strode away holding the ornate cloak 
with just one hand, so gusts rippled it behind him like a 
banner. 


Mat gathered his own with both hands. A cloak was for 
warmth. He had seen Suroth in the Palace, though never 
closely. As closely as he wanted, though. He could not imagine 
her giving a moment to Valan Luca's Grand Traveling Show and 
Magnificent Display of Marvels and Wonders, as the streamer 
strung between two tall poles at the entrance to the show 
announced in red letters a pace high. If she did, likely she 
would eat the lions. Or frighten them to death. 


"Has he agreed yet, Thom?" he asked quietly, frowning after 
Luca. 


"We can travel with him when he leaves Ebou Dar," the 
weathered man replied. "For a price." He snorted, blowing out 
his mustaches, and irritably raked a hand through his white 
hair. "We should eat and sleep like kings for what he wants, 
but knowing him, I doubt we will. He doesn't think we are 
criminals, since we're still walking free, but he knows we're 
running from something, or we would travel some other way. 
Unfortunately, he does not intend to leave until spring at the 
earliest." 



 Mat considered several choice curses. Not until spring. The 
Light knew what Tylin would have done to him, would have him 
doing, by spring. Maybe Vanin stealing horses was not such a 
bad notion. "Gives me more time for dice," he said, as if it 
did not matter. "If he wants as much as you say, I need to 
fatten my purse. One thing you can say for the Seanchan, they 
don't seem to mind losing." He tried to be careful how long he 
let his luck run, and he had not faced any threats of having 
his throat slit for cheating, at least since he had been able 
to leave the Palace on his own feet. At first, he had believed 
it was his luck spreading, or perhaps being ta'veren finally 
coming in for something useful. 


Beslan regarded him gravely. A dark slender man a little 
younger than Mat, he had been blithely rakish when Mat first 
met him, always ready for a round of the taverns, especially 
if it ended with women or a fight. Since the Seanchan came, he 
had grown more serious, though. To him, they were very serious 
business. "My mother won't be pleased if she learns I am 
helping her pretty leave Ebou Dar, Mat. She will marry me to 
someone with a squint and a mustache like a Taraboner foot 
soldier." 


After all this time, Mat still winced. He could never get 
used to Tylin's son thinking what his mother was doing with 
Mat was all right. Well, Beslan did believe she had become a 
little too possessive-just a little, mind!-but that was the 
only reason he was willing to help. Beslan claimed Mat was 
what his mother needed to take her mind off the agreements she 
had been forced into by the Seanchan! Sometimes, Mat wished he 
was back in the Two Rivers, where at least you knew how other 
people thought. Sometimes he did. 


"Can we return to the Palace now?" Olver said, more a demand 
than a question. "I have a reading lesson with the Lady 
Riselle. She lets me rest my head on her bosom while she reads 
to me." 


"A notable achievement, Olver," Thom said, stroking his 
mustaches to hide a smile. Leaning closer to the other two 
men, he pitched his voice to escape the boy's ears. "The woman 
makes me play the harp for her before she lets me rest my head 
on that magnificent pillow." 


"Riselle makes everyone entertain her first," Beslan 
chuckled in a knowing way, and Thom stared at him in 
astonishment. 


Mat groaned. It was not his leg, this time, or the fact that 
every man in Ebou Dar seemed to be choosing the bosom they 
rested their heads on except for Mat Cauthon. Those bloody 
dice had just started tumbling in his head again. Something 
bad was coming his way. Something very bad. 


Chapter 16: An Unexpected Encounter 


The walk back to the city was better than two miles, across 
low hills that worked the ache out of Mat's leg and put it 
back again before they topped a rise and saw Ebou Dar ahead, 
behind its extravagantly thick, white-plastered wall that no 
siege catapult had ever been able to break down. The city 



within was white, too, though here and there pointed domes 
bore thin stripes of color. The white-plastered buildings, 
white spires and towers, white palaces, gleamed even on a gray 
winter day. Here and there a tower ended in a jagged top or a 
gap showed where a building had been destroyed, but in truth, 
the Seanchan conquest had occasioned little damage. They had 
been too fast, too strong, and in control of the city before 
more than scattered resistance could form. 


Surprisingly, such trade as there was this time of year had 
hardly faltered with the city's fall. The Seanchan encouraged 
it, though merchants and ship captains and crews were required 
to take an oath to obey the Forerunners, await the Return, and 
serve Those Who Come Home. In practice, that meant largely 
going about your life as usual, so few objected. The broad 
harbor was more crowded with ships every time Mat looked at 
it. This afternoon, it seemed he could have walked from Ebou 
Dar proper across to the Rahad, a rough quarter he would just 
as soon never revisit. Often in the days after he first 
managed to walk again, he had gone down to the docks to stare. 
Not at the vessels with ribbed sails or the Sea Folk ships 
that the Seanchan were re-rigging and manning with their own 
crews, but at craft flying the Golden Bees of Illian, or the 
Sword and Hand of Arad Doman, or the Crescents of Tear. He no 
longer did. Today, he barely glanced toward the harbor. Those 
dice spinning in his head seemed to roar like thunder. 
Whatever was going to happen, he very much doubted he would 
like it. He seldom did, when the dice gave warning. 


Though a steady stream of traffic flowed out of the great 
arched gateway, and people afoot seemed to be squeezing 
through to get in, a thick column of wagons and ox-carts, 
stretching all the way back to the rise, was waiting to enter 
and hardly moving. Everyone departing on a horse was Seanchan, 
whether with skin as dark as one of the Sea Folk or pale as a 
Cairhienin, and they stood out for more than being mounted. 
Some of the men wore voluminous trousers and odd, tight coats 
with high collars that fit their necks snugly right to the 
chin and rows of shiny metal buttons down the front, or 
flowing, elaborately embroidered coats almost as long as a 
woman's dress. They were of the Blood, as were the women in 
strangely cut riding dresses that seemed made of narrow 
pleats, with divided skirts cut to expose colorfully booted 
ankles and wide sleeves that hung to their feet in the 
stirrups. A few wore lace veils that hid all but their eyes, 
so their faces were not exposed to the lowborn. Most of the 
riders by far, however, wore brightly painted armor of 
overlapping plates. Some of the soldiers were women, too, 
though there was no way to tell which with those painted 
helmets like the heads of monstrous insects. At least none 
wore the black-and-red of the Death-watch Guard. Even other 
Seanchan seemed nervous around them, and that was enough to 
warn Mat to walk wide around them. 


In any case, none of the Seanchan spared so much as a glance 
for three men and a boy slowly walking toward the city along 
the column of waiting carts and wagons. Well, the men walked 
slowly. Olver skipped. Mat's leg was setting their pace, but 
he tried not to let the others see how much he was leaning on 
his staff. The dice usually announced incidents he managed to 



survive by the skin of his teeth, battles, a building dropping 
on his head. Tylin. He dreaded what would happen when they 
stopped this time. 


Nearly all of the wagons and carts leaving the city had 
Seanchan driving or walking alongside, more plainly dressed 
than those on horses, hardly peculiar looking at all, but 
those in the waiting line were more likely to belong to Ebou 
Dari or folk from the surrounding area, men in long vests, 
women with their skirts sewn up on one side to expose a 
stockinged leg or colorful petticoats, their wagons as well as 
their carts pulled by oxen. Outlanders dotted the column, 
merchants with small trains of horse-drawn wagons. There was 
more trade in winter here in the south than farther north, 
where merchants had to contend with snow-covered roads, and 
they came from far, some of them. A stout Domani woman with a 
dark beauty patch on her copper cheek, riding the lead of four 
wagons, clutched her flowered cloak around her and scowled at 
a man five wagons ahead of her in the line, a greasy-looking 
fellow, hiding long thick mustaches behind a Taraboner veil, 
beside the wagon driver. A competitor, no doubt. A lean 
Kandori with a large pearl in her left ear and silver chains 
across her chest sat her saddle calmly, gloved hand folded on 
the pommel, maybe still unaware that her gray gelding and her 
wagon teams alike would be put into the lottery once she was 
into the city. One horse in five had been taken from locals, 
and so as not to discourage trade, one in ten from outlanders. 
Paid for, true, and a fair price in other days, but not nearly 
what the market would bear, given the demand. Mat always 
noticed horses, even if with only half his mind or less. A fat 
Cairhienin in a coat as drab as those of his wagon drivers was 
shouting angrily about the delay and letting his fine bay mare 
dance nervously. A very good conformation on that mare. She 
would go to an officer, most likely. What was going to happen 
when the dice stopped? 


The wide arched gates into the city had their guards, though 
it was likely only the Seanchan recognized them as such. 
Sui'dam in their lightning-paneled blue dresses threaded back 
and forth through the streams of traffic with gray-clad damane 
on silvery a'dam. Just one of those pairs would have been 
sufficient to quell any disturbance short of a full-scale 
assault, and maybe even that, but that was not the real reason 
for their presence. In the first days after Ebou Dar's fall, 
while he was still confined to bed, they had harrowed the city 
searching for the women they called Marath'damane, and now 
they made sure none could enter. The sul'dam each carried an 
extra leash coiled on her shoulder just in case. Pairs 
patrolled the docks, too, meeting every arriving ship and 
boat. 


Beside the wide arched gate into the city, a long platform 
displayed, on spikes twenty feet above the ground, the tarred 
but still recognizable heads of over a dozen men and two women 
who had fallen afoul of Seanchan justice. Above them hung the 
symbol for that justice, a headsman's slant-edged axe with the 
haft wrapped in an intricately knotted white cord. A placard 
below each head announced the crime that had placed it there, 
murder or rape, robbery with violence, assault on one of the 
Blood. Lesser offenses brought fines or flogging, or being 



made da'covale. The Seanchan were evenhanded about it. None of 
the Blood themselves were on display-one of those who earned 
execution would be sent back to Seanchan, or strangled with 
the white cord-but three of those heads had been attached to 
Seanchan, and the weight of their justice fell on high as well 
as low. Two placards marked rebellion hung below the heads of 
the woman who had been Mistress of the Ships to the Atha'an 
Miere and her Master of the Blades. 


Mat had been through that gate often enough that he barely 
noticed the display, now. Olver skipped along singing a 
rhyming song. Beslan and Thom walked with their heads 
together, and once Mat caught a soft "risky business" from 
Thom, but he did not care what they were talking about. Then 
they were into the long, dim tunnel that carried the road 
through the wall, and the rumble of wagons passing through 
would have made listening impossible even had he wanted to. 
Keeping close to the side, well away from the wagon wheels, 
Thorn and Beslan forged ahead talking in low murmurs, Olver 
darting after them, but when Mat emerged into daylight again, 
he walked into Thorn's back before he realized that all of 
them had stopped, hard beside the tunnel's mouth. On the point 
of making a caustic comment, he suddenly saw what they were 
staring at. People afoot pushing out of the tunnel behind him 
shoved them aside, but he just stared, too. 


The streets of Ebou Dar were always full of people, but not 
like this, as though a dam had burst and sent a flood of 
humanity into the city. The throng packed the street in front 
of him from one side to the other, surrounding pools of 
livestock the like of which he had never seen before, spotted 
white cattle with long upswept horns, pale brown goats covered 
in fine hair that hung to the paving stones, sheep with four 
horns. Every street he could see looked as jammed. Wagons and 
carts inched through the mass where they moved at all, the 
shouts and curses of the wagon drivers and carters all but 
drowned in the babble of voices and the noise of the animals. 
He could not make out words, but he could distinguish accents. 
Slow, drawling Seanchan accents. Some of them nudged a 
neighbor and pointed at him in his bright clothing. They were 
gaping and pointing at everything, as if they had never seen 
an inn or a cutler's shop before, but he still growled under 
his breath and jerked his hat brim low over his eyes. 


"The Return," Thom muttered, and if Mat had not been right 
at his shoulder he would not have heard. "While we were taking 
our ease with Luca, the Corenne has arrived." 


Mat had been thinking of this Return that the Seanchan kept 
going on about as an invasion, an army. One of the wagon 
drivers shouted and waved her long-handled whip at some boys 
who had crawled up on the side of the wagon box to poke at 
what appeared to be grapevines in wooden tubs of earth. 
Another wagon held a long printing press, and still another, 
just managing to turn into the tunnel, carried what looked 
like brewers' vats and a faint smell of hops. Crates of 
strangely colored chickens and ducks and geese decorated some 
of those wagons, not birds for sale, but a farmer's stock. It 
was an army all right, only not the sort he had imagined. This 
kind of army would be harder to fight than soldiers. 


"Stab my eyes, we'll have to wade to get though this!" 



Beslan grumbled in disgust, rising on his toes to try peering 
farther ahead over the crowd. "How far before we find a clear 
street?" 


Mat found himself remembering what he had not really seen 
when it was in front of his eyes, the harbor full of ships. 
Full of ships. Maybe two or three times the vessels that had 
been there when they left for Luca's camp at first light, 
quite a few of them still maneuvering under sail. Which meant 
there might be more still waiting to enter the harbor. Light! 
How many could have disgorged their cargo since morning? How 
many remained to be unloaded? Light, how many people could be 
carried on that number of ships? And why had they all come 
here instead of Tanchico? A shiver ran down his spine. Maybe 
this was not all of them. 


"You had best try to find your way by back streets and 
alleys," he said, raising his voice so they could hear over 
the cacophony. "You won't reach the Palace before night, 
otherwise." 


Beslan turned a frown on him. "You aren't returning with us? 
Mat, if you try to buy passage on a ship again. . . . You know 
she won't go easy on you this time." 


Mat matched the Queen's son scowl for scowl. "I just want to 
walk around a little," he lied. As soon as he returned to the 
Palace, Tylin would start cosseting and petting him. It would 
not have been that bad, really-not really-except that she did 
not care who saw her caress his cheeks and whisper endearments 
in his ear, even her son. Besides, what if the dice in his 
head stopped when he reached her? Possessive was hardly the 
word for Tylin these days. Blood and ashes, the woman might 
have decided to marry him! He did not want to marry, not yet, 
but he knew who he was going to marry, and it was not Tylin 
Quintara Mitsobar. Only, what could he do if she decided 
differently? 


Suddenly he remembered Thorn's murmur of "risky business." 
He knew Thorn, and he knew Beslan. Olver was gaping at the 
Seanchan as hard as they themselves were at everything around 
them. He started to dart away for a closer look, and Mat 
seized his shoulder just in time and pushed him, protesting, 
into Thorn's hands. "Take the boy back to the Palace and give 
him his lessons when Riselle is done with him. And forget 
whatever madness you have in mind. You could put your heads on 
display outside the gate, and Tylin’s, too." And his own. 
Never let that be forgotten! 


The two men stared back at him without any expression, as 
good as confirming his suspicions. 


"Perhaps I should walk with you," Thorn said at last. "We 
could talk. You're remarkably lucky, Mat, and you have a 
certain flair for, shall we say, the adventurous?" Beslan 
nodded. Olver squirmed in Thom's grip, trying to stare at all 
the strange people at once and unconcerned with what his 
elders were talking about. 


Mat grunted sourly. Why did people always want him to be a 
hero? Sooner or later that sort of thing was going to get him 
killed. "I don't need to talk about anything. They are here, 
Beslan. If you couldn't stop them getting in, sure as morning, 
you won't be able to push them out. Rand will deal with them, 
if the rumors are anything to go by." Again, those whirling 



colors spun through his head, almost obliterating the sound of 
the dice for an instant. "You took that bloody oath to wait on 
the Return; we all did." Refusal had meant being put in chains 
and set to work on the docks, or clearing the canals in the 
Rahad. Which made it no oath at all, in his book. "Wait on 
Rand." The colors came once more and vanished. Blood and 
ashes! He just had to stop thinking about. . . . About certain 
people. Again they swirled. "It might come out right yet, if 
you give it time." 


"You don't understand, Mat," Beslan said fiercely. "Mother 
still sits on the throne, and Suroth says she will rule all of 
Altara, not just what we hold around Ebou Dar, and maybe more 
besides, but mother had to lie down on her face and swear 
fealty to some woman on the other side of the Aryth Ocean. 
Suroth says I should marry one of their Blood and shave the 
sides of my head, and mother is listening to her. Suroth might 
pretend they are equals, but she has to listen when Suroth 
speaks. No matter what Suroth says, Ebou Dar isn't really ours 
anymore, and the rest won't be either. Maybe we can't push 
them out by force of arms, but we can make the country too hot 
to hold them. The Whitecloaks found out. Ask them what they 
mean by 'the Altaran Noon.' " 


Mat could guess without asking anyone. He bit his tongue to 
keep from pointing out that there were more Seanchan soldiers 
in Ebou Dar than there had been Whitecloaks in all of Altara 
during the Whitecloak War. A street full of Seanchan was no 
place for a flapping tongue, even if most did appear to be 
farmers and crafts-folk. "I understand you're hot to put your 
head on a spike," he said quietly. As quietly as he could and 
still be heard in that din of voices and cattle lowing and 
geese honking. "You know about their Listeners. That fellow 


over there who looks like a stableman could be one, or that 
skinny woman with the bundle on her back." 
Beslan glowered so hard at the pair Mat had pointed out that 

if they really were Listeners, they might report him for that 
alone. "Maybe you'll sing a different song when they reach 
Andor," he growled, and pushed his way into the throng, 
shoving anyone who got in his way. Mat would have been 
unsurprised to see a fight break out. He suspected that was 
what the man was looking for. 


Thorn turned to follow with Olver, but Mat caught his 
sleeve. "Cool his temper if you can, Thom. And cool your own 
while you're about it. I would think by this time you'd have 
had enough of shaving blind." 


"My head is cool and I'm trying to cool his," Thom said 
dryly. "He can't just sit, though; it is his country." A faint 
smile crossed his leathery face. "You say you won't take 
risks, but you will. And when you do, you'll make anything 
Beslan and I might try look like an evening stroll in the 
garden. With you around, even the barber is blind. Come along, 
boy," he said, swinging Olver up onto his shoulders. "Riselle 
might not let you rest your head if you're late for your 
lesson." 


Mat frowned after him as he strode away, making much better 
progress with Olver straddling his neck than Beslan had. What 
did Thom mean? He never took risks unless they were forced on 
him. Never. He glanced casually toward the skinny woman, and 



the fellow with dung on his boots. Light, they could be 
Listeners. Anybody could be. It was enough to set a prickle 
between his shoulders, as if he were being watched. 


He inched a goodly distance along streets that actually grew 
thicker with people and animals and wagons the nearer he came 
to the docks. The stalls on the bridges over the canals had 
their shutters down, the street peddlers had picked up their 
blankets, and the tumblers and jugglers that usually 
entertained at every street crossing would have had no room to 
perform if they had not gone away, too. There were too many 
Seanchan, that was how many there were, and maybe one in five 
a soldier, plain enough by their hard eyes and the set of 
their shoulders, so different from farmer or craftsman, even 
when they were not wearing armor. Now and then a group sui'dam 
and damane moved along the street in a little eddy of clear 
space, more even than soldiers got. It was not given out of 
fear, at least not by the Seanchan. They bowed respectfully to 
the women with lightning-marked red panels on the blue 
dresses, and smiled with approval as the pairs passed by. 
Beslan was out of his mind. The Seanchan were not going to be 
driven off by anyone except an army with Asha'man, like the 
one rumor said had fought them to the east a week ago. Or one 
armed with the Illuminator's secrets. What in the Light could 
Aludra want with a bellfounder? 


He took pains not to come in sight of the docks. He had 
learned his lesson on that. What he really wanted was a game 
of dice, one that would last well into the night. Preferably 
late enough that Tylin would be asleep when he returned to the 
Palace. She had taken away his dice, claiming she did not like 
him gambling, though she did it after he talked her into 
wagering forfeits, while he was still confined to bed. 
Fortunately, dice could always be found, and with his luck, it 
was always better to use the other men's dice anyway. 
Unfortunately, once he discovered she was not about to pay a 
forfeit of letting him go-the woman pretended not to know what 
he was talking about!-he had used them to give her back a bit 
other own medicine. A grave mistake, however much fun it had 
been at the time. Since the forfeits ran out, she had been 
twice as bad as before. 


The taverns and common rooms he entered were as packed as 
the streets, though, with barely room to lift a mug, much less 
toss dice, full of Seanchan laughing and singing, and glum-
faced Ebou Dari who eyed the Seanchan in sullen silence. He 
still queried the innkeepers and tapsters on the chance they 
might have a cubby hole he could rent, but one and all they 
shook their heads. He had not really expected anything else. 
There had been nothing available even before all the new 
arrivals. Still, he began to feel as gloomy as the foreign 
merchants he saw peering into their wine and wondering how 
they were to get their goods out of the city with no horses. 
He had gold to pay whatever Luca wanted, and more, but it was 
all in a chest in the Tarasin Palace, and he was not about to 
try taking enough out in one go, not after Palace servants had 
carried him back from the docks like a stag taken in hunt. All 
he had been doing then was talking to ship captains; if Tylin 
learned, and she would, that he was trying to leave the Palace 
with more gold than he needed for an evening of gambling. . . 



. Oh, no! He had to have a room, a garret in some inn's attic 
the size of a wardrobe, anything, where he could hide away 
gold a little at a time, or he had to have a chance with the 
dice, one or the other. Luck or no luck, though, he eventually 
realized that he was going to find neither today. And those 
bloody dice were still tumbling in his head, tumbling. 


He did not stay in any one place long, and not just for the 
lack of a game or a room. His colorful clothes, his shame-a-
Tinker-for-brightness clothes, drew eyes. Some of the Seanchan 
thought he was there for entertainment, and tried to pay him 
to sing! He almost let them, once or twice, but once they 
heard him, they would have demanded the money back. Some of 
the Ebou Dari men, with long curved knives tucked behind their 
belts and a bellyful of anger they could not take out on the 
Seanchan, thought to take it out on the buffoon who lacked 
only a painted face to look like a noble's fool. Mat ducked 
back into the crowded street whenever he saw such fellows 


eyeing him. He had learned the hard way that he was in no 
condition for a fight yet, and his killer's head going up 
beside the city gate would do him no good at all. 

Mat took rest where he could find it, on an empty barrel 
abandoned beside the mouth of an alleyway, on the rare bit of 
bench in front of a tavern that had room for one more, on a 
stone step until the building's owner came out and knocked his 
hat off with a swipe of her broom. His belly was kissing his 
backbone, he was beginning to feel that everyone was gaping at 
his garish clothes, the dank cold was seeping into his bones, 
and the only dice he was going to find were those still 
thundering away in his head like horse's hooves. He did not 
think they had ever been this loud before. 


"Nothing for it but to go back and be the Queen's bloody 
pet!" he growled, using his staff to lever himself up off a 
cracked wooden crate lying at the side of the street. Several 
passersby looked at him as if his face were already painted. 
He ignored them. Beneath his notice, they were. He was not 
beating them over the head with his staff as they deserved, 
goggling at a man that way. 


The streets really were as full as earlier, he realized, and 
it would be well after nightfall before he got back to the 
Palace if he tried to make his way through the crowds. Of 
course, Tyiin might be asleep by then. Maybe. His stomach 
growled, almost loudly enough to drown out the dice. She might 
order the kitchens not to feed him, if he was too late. 


Ten hard-won paces through the press, and he turned down an 
alley, narrow and dark. There were no paving stones. The white 
plaster on the windowless walls was cracked and falling to 
expose the brick beneath, often as not. The air was rank with 
the fetid stench of decay, and he hoped that what squished 
under his boots was mud even when it gave off a loathsome 
odor. There were no people, either. He could step out with a 
good stride. Or what passed for one, today. He could hardly 
wait for the day he could walk a few miles again without 
panting and aching and needing to lean on a stick. Twisting 
alleys, most so narrow his shoulders brushed both sides, 
crisscrossed the city in a maze that was easy to get lost in 
if you did not know your way. He never took a wrong turn, even 
when a narrow, crooked passage suddenly forked into three or 



even four that all seemed to meander in roughly the same 
direction. There had been a good many times in Ebou Dar when 
he needed to avoid eyes, and he knew these alleys like he knew 
his own hand. Though, oddly enough, he still had the feeling 
he was being watched. He expected to feel that as long as he 
had to wear those bloody clothes. 


If he had to struggle through a mass of people and animals 
from one alley to another, and occasionally shove his way 
across a bridge that seemed a solid wall of humanity, he was 
still almost back to the Palace in the time it would have 
taken him to go three streets otherwise. Hurrying into the 
shadowed passage between a well-lit tavern and a shuttered 
lacquerware shop, he wondered what the kitchens would have 
ready. More capacious than most, wide enough for three if they 
were friendly, this alley let out onto the Mol Hara Square 
almost in front of the Tarasin Palace. Suroth was living 
there, and the cooks had been outdoing themselves since she 
had had the lot of them flogged after her first meal. There 
might be oysters with cream, and perhaps gilded fish, and 
squid with peppers. Ten strides into the shadows, his foot 
came down on something that did not squish, and he went down 
in the freezing mud with a grunt, twisting at the last instant 
so he did not land on his bad leg. Icy liquid immediately 
soaked through his coat. He hoped it was water. 


He grunted again when boots landed on his shoulder. The 
fellow toppled off of him, cursing and skidding deeper into 
the alley on the mud, and went to one knee, just managing to 
catch himself against the side of the tavern short of falling 
flat himself. Mat's eyes were accustomed to the dim light, 
enough for him to make out a slender, nondescript man. A man 
with what appeared to be a large scar on his cheek. Not a man, 
though. A creature he had seen rip out his friend's throat 
with one bare hand and take a knife out of its own chest and 
throw it back at him. And the thing would have landed right in 
front of him, in easy reach, if he had not tripped. Maybe a 
little twist of ta'veren shaping had worked in his favor, 
thank the Light! All that flashed through his head in the time 
it took the gholam to catch itself against the wall and turn 
its head to glare at him. 


With an oath, Mat snatched his fallen walking staff and 
awkwardly hurled it at the creature like a spear. At its legs, 
hoping to tangle them, gain a moment. The thing flowed aside 
like water, avoiding the staff, boots sliding a little in the 
mud, then threw itself toward Mat. The delay had been enough, 
though. As soon as the staff left his hand, Mat fumbled inside 
his shirt for the foxhead medallion, breaking the leather cord 
as he snatched the medallion out. The gholam threw itself at 
him, and he swung the medallion desperately. Silver that had 
lain cool on his chest brushed across an outstretched hand 
with a hiss like bacon frying and a smell of burning flesh. 
Fluid as quicksilver, snarling, the thing tried to dodge by 
the whirling medallion, to seize some part of Mat. Once it 
laid hands on him, he was as good as dead. It would not try to 
toy with him this time, as it had in the Rahad. Flailing 
continuously, he caught it with the foxhead on the other hand, 
across the face, each time with a hiss and stench of burning 
as if he had struck with a hot iron. Teeth bared, the gholam 



backed away, but in a crouch on the balls of its feet, hands 
clawed, ready to jump at the slightest weakness. 


Not letting the spinning medallion slow, Mat pushed un 
steadily to his feet, watching the thing that looked a like a 
man. He wants you dead as much as he wants her, it had told 
him in the Rahad, smiling. It was not talking or smiling now. 
He did not know who the "her" was, or the "he," but the rest 
was clear as good glass. And here he was, barely able to stay 
on his feet. His leg and hip ached like fire, and his ribs. 
Not to mention the shoulder the gholam had landed on. He had 
to get back to the street, back among people. Maybe enough 
people would deter the thing. A small hope, but the only hope 
he could see. The street was not far. He could hear the babble 
of voices, hardly softened by distance at all. 


He took a careful step backward. His boot slid in something 
that gave off a foul smell and threw him against the tavern's 
wall. Only frantic swings of the silver foxhead kept the 
gholam back. Those voices in the street were so tantalizingly 
close. They might as well have been in Barsine. Barsine was 


long dead, and he would be too soon. 
"He's down this alley!" a man shouted. "Follow me! Hurry! 
He'll get away!" 
Mat kept his eyes on the gholam. Its gaze flickered beyond 

him, toward the street, and it hesitated. "I am ordered to 
avoid notice, save by those I harvest," it spat at him, "so 
you will live a little longer. A little longer." 


Spinning, it ran down the alley, slipping a little in the 
mud, yet still seeming to flow as it dodged around behind the 
tavern. 


Mat ran after it. He could not have said why, except that it 
had tried to kill him, would try again, and his hackles were 
stiff. So it was going to kill him at leisure, was it? If the 
medallion could hurt it, maybe the medallion could kill it. 


Reaching the corner of the tavern, he saw the gholam at the 
same time that it glanced back and saw him. Again, the thing 
hesitated for an instant. The tavern's back door stood ajar, 
letting out the sounds of revelry. The creature stuck its 
hands into a hole left by a missing brick in the back wall of 
the building opposite the tavern, and Mat stiffened. It hardly 
seemed to need weapons, but if it had hidden one in there. . . 
. He did not think he would survive facing that thing with any 
sort of weapon. Hands followed arms, and then the gholam's 
head went into the hole. Mat's jaw dropped. The gholam's chest 
slithered through, its legs, and it was gone. Through an 
opening maybe the size of Mat's two hands. 


"I don't think I have ever seen the like," someone said 
quietly beside him, and Mat gave a start at realizing he was 
no longer alone. The speaker was a stoop-shouldered, white-
haired old man with a large hooked nose planted in the middle 
of a sad face and a bundle slung on his back. He was sliding a 
very long dagger into a sheath beneath his coat. 


"I have," Mat said hollowly. "In Shadar Logoth." Sometimes 
bits of his own memory he thought lost floated up out of no 
where, and that one had just surfaced, watching the gholam. It 
was one memory he wished had remained lost. 


"Not many survive a visit there," the old man said, peering 
at him. His weathered face looked familiar, somehow, but Mat 



could not place him. "Whatever took you to Shadar Logoth?" 


"Where are your friends?" Mat said. "The people you were 
shouting to?" The alleyway held only the two of them. The 
sounds from the street continued unabated, and undisturbed by 
any cries about anyone getting away if they did not hurry. 


The old man shrugged. "I'm not certain anyone out there 
understood what I was shouting. It's hard enough understanding 
them. Anyway, I thought it might scare off the fellow. Seeing 
that, though ..." Gesturing toward the hole in the wall, he 
laughed mirthlessly, showing gaps in his teeth. "I think maybe 
you and I both have the Dark One's own luck." 


Mat grimaced. He had heard that too often about himself, and 
he did not like it. Mainly because he was not sure it was not 
true. "Maybe we do," he muttered. "Forgive me; I should intro 
duce myself to the man who saved my neck. I'm Mat Cauthon. Are 
you new-come to Ebou Dar?" That bundle strapped to the 
fellow's back gave him the look of a man on the move. "You 
will have a hard time finding a place to sleep." He took care 
with the gnarled hand the other man put in his. It was all 
knobs, as if every bone had been broken at the same time and 
had healed badly. It had a strong grip, though. 


"I am Noal Charin, Mat Cauthon. No, I have been here some 
time. But my pallet in the attic of The Golden Ducks is now 
occupied by a fat Illianer oil merchant who was rousted from 
his room this morning in favor of a Seanchan officer. I 
thought I'd find somewhere back in this alley for tonight." 
Rubbing the side of his big nose with a crooked, knobby 
finger, he chuckled as if sleeping in an alley were of no 
moment. "It will not be the first time I've slept rough, even 
in a city." 


"I think I can do better for you than that," Mat told him, 
but the rest of what he had been going to say died on his 
tongue. The dice were still spinning in his head, he realized. 
He had managed to forget them with the gholam trying to kill 
him, but they were still bouncing, still waiting to land. If 
they were warning of something worse than the gholam, he did 
not want to know. Only, he would. There was no doubt of that. 
He would, when it was too late. 


Chapter 17: Pink Ribbons 


Cold winds gusted through the Mol Hara, lifting Mat's cloak 
and threatening to freeze the mud caking his clothing as he 
and Noal hurried out of the alley. The sun sat on the 
rooftops, half-hidden, and the shadows stretched long. With 
one hand for his staff and the other gripping the broken cord 
of the foxhead, stuffed into a coat pocket where he could 
snatch it out if need be, he had to let his cloak go where it 
would. He ached from head to foot, the dice rattled warning 
inside his skull, and he hardly noticed either thing. He was 
too busy trying to watch every direction at once, and 
wondering just how small a hole that thing could get through. 
He found himself uneasily eyeing cracks between the square's 
paving stones. Though it hardly seemed likely the thing would 
come at him in the open. 



 A hum carried from surrounding streets, but here only a slat-
ribbed dog moved, running past the fountained statue of long-
dead Queen Nariene. Some said her uplifted hand pointed to the 
ocean's bounty that had enriched Ebou Dar, and some that it 
pointed in warning of dangers. Others said her successor had 
wanted to draw attention to the fact that only one of the 
statue's breasts was uncovered, proclaiming that Nariene had 
only been of middling honesty. 


In other days the Mol Hara would have been full of strolling 
lovers and lingering street vendors and hopeful beggars at 
this hour even in winter, but beggars found themselves 
snatched off the streets and put to work, since the Seanchan 
came, and the rest stayed away even in daylight. The reason 
was the Tarasin Palace, that great mound of white domes and 
marble spires and wrought-iron balconies, the residence of 
Tylin Quintara Mitsobar, by the Grace of the Light, Queen of 
Altara-or as much of Altara as lay within a few days' ride of 
Ebou Dar-Mistress of the Four Winds and Guardian of the Sea of 
Storms. And, perhaps more important, the residence of the High 
Lady Suroth Sabelle Meldarath, commanding the Forerunners for 
the Empress of the Seanchan, might she live forever. A 
position of much greater eminence in Ebou Dar, at the moment. 
Tylin’s green-booted guards stood at every entrance in their 
baggy white trousers and gilded breastplates worn over green 
coats, and so did men and women in those insectile helmets 
with armor striped in blue-and-yellow or green-and-white or 
any other combination you might happen to think of. The Queen 
of Altara required security and silence for her rest. Or 
rather, Suroth said she did, and what Suroth said Tylin 
wanted, Tyiin soon decided that she did indeed want. 


After a moment's consideration, Mat led Noal to one of the 
stableyard gates. There was more chance of getting a stranger 
in there than if he used the grand marble stairs that led down 
into the square. Not to mention a much better chance of 
getting all the mud off him before he had to face Tyiin. She 
had made her displeasure markedly known the last time he came 
back disheveled, after a tavern brawl. 


A handful of Ebou Dari guards stood to one side of the open 
gates with halberds, and the same number of Seanchan on the 
other with tasseled spears, all as stiff as Nariene's statue. 


"The Light's blessing on all here," Mat murmured politely to 
the Ebou Dari guards. It was always best to be polite to Ebou 
Dari until you were sure of them. Afterwards, too, for that 
matter. Even so, they were more . . . flexible . . . than the 
Seanchan. 


"And on you, my Lord," their stocky officer replied, ambling 
forward, and Mat recognized him, Surlivan Sarat, a good 
fellow, always ready with a quip and possessing a fine eye for 
horses. Shaking his head, Surlivan tapped the side of his 
pointed helmet with the thin, gilded rod of his office. "Have 
you been in another fight, my Lord? She will go up like a 
waterspout, when she sees you." 


Squaring his shoulders, and trying not to lean so obviously 
on his staff, Mat bristled. Ready with a quip? Come to think 
on it, the sun-dark man had a tongue like a rasp. And his eye 
for horses was not all that fine, either. "Will there be any 
questions if my friend here beds down with my men?" Mat asked 



roughly. "There shouldn't be. There's room for one more with 
my fellows." Room for more than one, truth be told. Eight men 
had died so far, for following him to Ebou Dar. 


"None from me, my Lord," Surlivan said, though he eyed the 
scrawny man at Mat's side and pursed his lips judiciously. 
Noal's coat appeared of good quality, though, at least in the 
dim light, and he did have his lace, and in a better state 
than Mat's. Perhaps that tipped the balance. "And she doesn't 
need to know everything, so none from her, either." 


Mat scowled, but before intemperate words could put himself 
and Noal in the soup kettle, three armored Seanchan galloped 
up to the gate, and Surlivan turned to face them. 


"You and your lady wife live in the Queen's Palace?" Noal 
enquired, starting toward the gate. 


Mat pulled him back. "Wait on them," he said, nodding toward 
the Seanchan. His lady wife? Bloody women! Bloody dice in his 
bloody head! 


"I have dispatches for the High Lady Suroth," one of the 
Seanchan announced, slapping a leather satchel hanging from 
one armored shoulder. Her helmet bore a single thin plume, 
marking her a low-ranking officer, yet her horse was a tall 
dun gelding with a look of speed. The other two animals were 
sturdy enough, but there was nothing to be said for them 
beyond that. 


"Enter with the blessings of the Light," Surlivan said, 
bowing slightly. 


The Seanchan woman's bow from her saddle was a mirror of 
his. "The blessings of the Light be on you also," she drawled, 
and the three of them clattered into the stableyard. 


"It is very strange," Surlivan mused, peering after the 
three. "They always ask permission of us, not them." He 
flicked his rod toward the Seanchan guards on the other side 
of the gates. They had not stirred an inch from their rigid 
stance, or even glanced at the arrivals that Mat had noticed. 


"And what would they do if you said they couldn't go in?" 
Noal asked quietly, easing the bundle on his back. 


Surlivan spun on his heel. "It is enough that I have given 
oath to my Queen," he said in an expressionless voice, "and 
she has given hers . . . where she has given it. Give your 
friend a bed, my Lord. And warn him, there are things better 
left unsaid in Ebou Dar, questions better left unasked." 


Noal looked befuddled and began protesting that he was sim 
ply curious, but Mat exchanged further benisons and courtesies 
with the Altaran officer-as quickly as he could, to be 
sure-and hustled his newfound acquaintance through the gates, 
explaining about Listeners in a low voice. The man might have 
saved his hide from the gholam, but that did not mean he would 
let the fellow hand it over to the Seanchan. They had people 
called Seekers, too, and from the little he had heard-even 
people who spoke freely about the Deathwatch Guard locked 
their teeth when it came to the Seekers-from the little he had 
heard, Seekers made Whitecloak Questioners look like boys 
tormenting flies, nasty but hardly anything to worry a man. 


"I see," the old man said slowly. "I hadn't known that." He 
sounded irritated with himself. "You must spend a good deal of 
time with the Seanchan. Do you know the High Lady Suroth as 
well, then? I must say, I had no idea you had such high connec 



tions." 


"I spend time with soldiers in taverns, when I can," Mat re 
plied sourly. When Tyiin let him. Light, he might as well be 
married! "Suroth doesn't know I'm alive." And he devoutly 
hoped it remained that way. 


The three Seanchan were already out of sight, their horses 
being led into the stables, but several dozen sui'dam were 
giving damane their evening exercise, walking them in a big 
circle around the stone-paved yard. Nearly half the gray-clad 
damane were dark-skinned women, lacking the jewelry they had 
worn as Wind-finders. There were more like them in the Palace 
and elsewhere; 


the Seanchan had had a rich harvest from Sea Folk vessels 
that had failed to escape. Most wore sullen resignation or 
stony faces, but seven or eight stared ahead of them, lost and 
confused, disbelieving still. Each of those had a Seanchan-
born damane at her side, holding her hand or with an arm 
around her, smiling and whispering to her under the approving 
eyes of the women who wore the bracelets attached to their 
silvery collars. A few of those dazed women clutched the 
damane walking with them as if holding to lifelines. It would 
have been enough to make Mat shiver, if his damp clothes had 
not already been doing the job. 


He tried to hurry Noal across the yard, but the circle 
brought a damane who was neither Seanchan nor Atha'an Miere 
near him, linked to a plump, graying sui'dam, an olive-skinned 
woman who might have passed for Altaran and someone's mother. 
A stern mother with a possibly fractious child, from the way 
she regarded her charge. Teslyn Baradon had fleshed out after 
a month and a half in Seanchan captivity, yet her ageless face 
still looked as if she ate briars three meals a day. On the 
other hand, she walked placidly on her leash and obeyed the 
sui'dam's murmured directions without hesitation, pausing to 
bow very deeply to him and Noal. For an instant, though, her 
dark eyes flashed hatred at him before she and the sui'dam 
continued their circuit of the stable-yard. Placidly, 
obediently. He had seen damane upended and switched till they 
howled in this same stableyard for making any sort of fuss, 
Teslyn among them. She had done him no good turns, and maybe a 
few bad, but he would not have wished this on her. 


"Better than being dead, I suppose," he muttered, moving on. 
Teslyn was a hard woman, likely plotting every moment how to 
escape, yet hardness only took you so far. The Mistress of the 
Ships and her Master of the Blades had died on the stake 
without ever screaming, but it had not saved them. 


"Do you believe that?" Noal asked absently, fumbling 
awkwardly with his bundle again. His broken hands had handled 
that knife well enough, but they seemed clumsy at everything 
else. 


Mat frowned at him. No; he was not sure he believed it. 
Those silver a'dam seemed too much like the invisible collar 
Tylin had on him. Then again, Tylin could tickle him under the 
chin the rest of his life if it kept him off the stake. Light, 
he wished those bloody dice in his head would just stop and 
get it over with! No, that was a lie. Since he had finally 
realized what they meant, he had never wanted the dice to 
stop. 



 The room Chel Vanin and the surviving Redarms shared lay not 
far from the stables, a long white-plastered chamber with a 
low ceiling and too many beds for those who remained alive. 
Vanin, a balding suety heap, was lying on one in his 
shirtsleeves, an open book propped on his chest. Mat was 
surprised the man could read. Spitting through a gap in his 
teeth, Vanin eyed Mat's mud-smeared clothes. "You been 
fighting again?" he asked. "She won't like that, I reckon." He 
did not rise. With a few startling exceptions, Vanin 
considered himself as good as any lord or lady. 


"Trouble, Lord Mat?" Harnan growled, leaping to his feet. He 
was a solid man, physically and by temperament, but his heavy 
jaw clenched, twisting the hawk crudely tattooed on his cheek. 
"Begging your pardon, but you're in no condition for it. Tell 
us what he looks like, and we'll sort him out for you." 


The last three gathered behind him with eager expressions, 
two grabbing for their coats while still tucking in 
shirttails. Metwyn, a boyish-appearing Cairhienin who was ten 
years older than Mat, instead picked up his sword from where 
it was propped at the foot of his bed and eased a little of 
the blade out of the scabbard to check the edge. He was the 
best of them with a sword, very good indeed, though Gorderan 
came close for all he looked a blacksmith. Gorderan was not 
nearly as slow as his thick shoulders made him appear. A dozen 
Redarms had followed Mat Cauthon to Ebou Dar, eight of those 
were dead, and the rest were stuck here in the Palace where 
they could not pinch the maids, get into a fight over dice, 
and drink till they fell on their faces, as they could have 
staying at an inn and knowing the innkeeper would see them 
carried up to their beds, though maybe with their purses a 
little lighter than they had been. 


"Noal here can tell you what happened better than I can," 
Mat replied, pushing his hat back on his head. "He'll be 
bedding in here with you. He saved my life tonight." 


That brought exclamations of shock, and cries of approbation 
for Noal, not to mention slaps on the back that almost toppled 
the old fellow. Vanin went so far as to mark his place in the 
book with a fat finger and sit up on the side of his thin 
mattress. 


Setting his bundle down on a vacant bed, Noal told the tale 
with elaborate gestures, playing down his own role and even 
making himself a bit of a buffoon, slipping in the mud and 
gaping at the gholam while Mat fought like a champion. The man 
was a natural storyteller, as good as a gleeman for making you 
see what he described. Harnan and the Redarms laughed 
genially, knowing what he was about, not stealing their 
captain's thunder, and approving of it, but laughter died when 
he came to Mat's attacker slipping away through a tiny hole in 
a wall. He made you see that, too. Vanin put down his book and 
spat through his teeth again. The gholam had left Vanin and 
Harnan half-dead in the Rahad. Half-dead because it was after 
other prey. 


"The thing wants me for some reason, it seems," Mat said 
lightly when the old man finished and sank onto the bed with 
his belongings, seemingly exhausted. "It probably played at 
dice with me some time I don't recall. None of you has to 
worry, as long as you don't get between it and me." He 



grinned, trying to make it all a joke, but no one so much as 
smiled. "In any case, I'll parcel out gold to you in the 
morning. You'll book passage on the first ship leaving for 
Illian, and take Olver with you. Thom and Juilin, too, if 
they'll go." He imagined the thief-catcher would, anyway. "And 
Nerim and Lopin, of course." He had gotten used to having a 
pair of serving men look after him, but he hardly needed them 
here. "Talmanes must be somewhere close to Caemlyn by this 
time. You shouldn't have much trouble finding him." When they 
were gone, he would be alone with Tylin. Light, he would 
rather face the gholam again! 


Harnan and the other three Redarms exchanged looks, Fergin 
scratching his head as it he did not quite understand. He 
might not. The bony man was a good soldier-not the best, mind, 
but good enough-yet he was not very bright when it came to 
other things. 


"That wouldn't be right," Harnan allowed finally. "One 
thing, Lord Talmanes'd have our hides if we came back without 
you." The other three nodded. Fergin could understand that. 


"And you, Vanin?" Mat asked. 


The fat man shrugged. "I take that boy away from Riselle, 
and he'll gut me like a trout the first time I go to sleep. I 
would myself, in his boots. Anyway, I got time to read, here. 
Don't get much chance for that working as a farrier." That was 
one of the itinerant trades he claimed to follow. The other 
was stableman. In truth, he was a horsethief and poacher, the 
best in two countries and maybe more. 


"You're all mad," Mat said with a frown. "Just because it 
wants me, doesn't mean it won't kill you if you get in the 
way. The offer stays open. Anyone who comes to his senses can 
go." 


"I have seen your like before," Noal said suddenly. The 
stooped old man was the image of hard age and exhaustion, but 
his eyes were bright and sharp studying Mat. "Some men have an 
air about them that makes other men follow where they lead. 
Some lead to devastation, others to glory. I think your name 
may go into the history books." 


Harnan looked as confused as Fergin. Vanin spat and lay back 
down, opening his book. 


"If all my luck goes away, maybe," Mat muttered. He knew 
what it took to get into the histories. A man could get 
killed, doing that sort of thing. 


"Better clean up before she sees you," Fergin piped up sud 
denly. "All that mud will put a burr under her saddle for 
sure." 


Snatching his hat off angrily, Mat stalked out without a 
word. Well, he stalked as well as he could, hobbling on a 
walking staff. Before the door closed behind him, he heard 
Noal starting a story about one time he sailed on a Sea Folk 
ship and learned to bathe in cold salt water. At least, that 
was how it began. 


He intended to get himself clean before Tylin saw him-he 
did-but as he limped through hallways hung with the flowered 
tapestries Ebou Dari called summer-hangings, for the season 
they evoked, four serving men in the Palace's green-and-white 
livery and no fewer than seven maids suggested he might want 
to bathe and change his clothes before the Queen saw him, 



offering to draw him a bath and fetch clean garments without 
her learning of it. They did not know everything about him and 
Tylin, thank the Light-no one but Tylin and himself knew the 
worst bits- but they knew too bloody much. Worse, they 
approved, every last flaming servant in the whole flaming 
Tarasin Palace. For one thing, Tylin was Queen and could do as 
she pleased, so far as they were concerned. For another, her 
temper had been on a razor's edge since the Seanchan captured 
the city, and if Mat Cauthon scrubbed and bright in lace kept 
her from snapping their noses off for trifles, then they would 
scrub behind his ears and wrap him in lace like a Sunday gift! 


"Mud?" he said to a pretty, smiling maid spreading her 
skirts in a curtsy. There was a twinkle in her dark eyes, and 
the plunging neckline of her bodice displayed a fair amount of 
bosom to almost rival Riselle's. On another day he might have 
taken a little time to enjoy looking. "What mud? I don't see 
any mud!" Her mouth dropped open, and she forgot to 
straighten, staring at him with her knees bent as he hobbled 
away. 


Juilin Sandar, rounding a corner quickly, nearly walked into 
him. The Tairen thief-catcher leaped back with a muffled oath, 
his swarthy face turning gray until he realized who had almost 
run him over. Then he muttered an apology and started to hurry 
on by. 


"Has Thorn got you mixed into his foolishness, Juilin?" Mat 
said. Juilin and Thorn shared a room deep in the servants' 
quarters, and there was no excuse for him to be up here. In 
that dark Tairen coat, flaring over his boot tops, Juilin 
would stand out among the servants like a duck in a chicken 
coop. Suroth was strict about things like that, stricter than 
Tylin. The only reason for it Mat could see was whatever Thorn 
and Beslan were meddling with. "No; don't bother telling me. 
I've made an offer to Harnan and the others, and it's open to 
you, too. If you want to leave, I'll give you the money for 
it." 


Actually, Juilin did not look ready to tell him anything. 
The thief-catcher tucked his thumbs behind his belt and met 
Mat's gaze levelly. "What did Harnan and the others say? And 
what is Thorn doing that you call foolish? This is one set of 
rooftops he knows his way around better than you or I." 


"The gholam is still in Ebou Dar, Juilin." Thorn knew that 
the Game of Houses was what he knew, and he loved sticking his 
nose into politics. "The thing tried to kill me, earlier this 
evening." 


Juilin grunted as if he had been hit in the pit of his 
belly, and scrubbed a hand through his short black hair. "I 
have a reason to stay a while longer," he said, "even so." His 
air changed slightly, to something stubborn and defensive and 
tinged with guilt. He had never shown a roving eye that Mat 
had seen, but when a man looked like that, it could only mean 
one thing. 


"Take her with you," Mat said. "And if she won't go, well, 
you'll not be in Tear an hour before you have a woman on each 
knee. That's the thing about women, Juilin. If one says no, 
there's always another will say yes." 


A serving man hurrying by with an armload of linen towels 
stared at Mat's muddiness in amazement, but Juilin thought it 



was at him, and snatched his thumbs free of his belt and at 
tempted to adopt a more humble stance. Without much success. 
Thorn might sleep with the servants, yet from the beginning he 
had somehow made it seem to be his own choice, an 
eccentricity, and no one thought it odd to see him up here, 
perhaps slipping into Riselle's rooms that had once been 
Mat's. Juilin had gone on at length about being a thief-
catcher-never a thief-taker-and stared so many prickly 
lordlings and complacent merchants in the eye to show he was 
as good as they that everyone in the Palace knew who and what 
he was. And where he was supposed to be, which was 
belowstairs. 


"My Lord is wise," he said, too loudly, and making a stiff, 
jerky bow. "My Lord knows all about women. If my Lord will 
forgive a humble man, I must return to my place." Turning to 
go, he spoke over his shoulder, still in a carrying voice. "I 
heard today that if my Lord comes back one more time looking 
like he's been dragged in the street, the Queen intends taking 
a switch to my Lord's person." 


And that was the stone that broke the wagon clean in two. 


Flinging open the doors of Tylin’s apartments, Mat strode 
in, sailed his hat across the width of the room. . . . And 
stopped dead, his mouth hanging open and everything he had 
planned to say frozen on his tongue. His hat hit the carpets 
and rolled, he did not see where. A gust of wind rattled the 
tall triple-arched windows that let out onto a long, screened 
balcony overlooking the Mol Hara. 


Tyiin turned in a chair carved to look like gilded bamboo 
and stared at him over her golden winecup. Waves of glossy 
black hair touched with gray at the temples framed a beautiful 
face with the eyes of a bird of prey, and not one best pleased 
at the moment. Inconsequential things seemed to leap at him. 
She kicked her crossed leg slightly, rippling layered green 
and white petticoats. Pale green lace trimmed the oval opening 
in her gown that half exposed her full breasts, where the 
jeweled hilt of her marriage knife dangled. She was not alone. 
Suroth sat facing her, frowning into her winecup and tapping 
long fingernails on the arm of her chair, a pretty enough 
woman despite her hair being shaved to that long crest, except 
that she made Tylin seem a rabbit by comparison. Two of those 
fingernails on each hand were lacquered blue. Seated at her 
side was a little girl, of all things, also in an elaborately 
flowered robe over pleated white skirts, but with a sheer veil 
covering her entire head-it seemed to be shaved 
completely!-and wearing a fortune in rubies. Even in a state 
of shock, he noticed rubies and gold. A slender woman, nearly 
as dark as her stark black gown and tall even had she been 
Aiel, stood behind the girl's chair with her arms folded and 
ill-concealed impatience. Her wavy black hair was short, but 
not shaved at all, so she was neither of the Blood nor 
so'jhin. Imperiously beautiful, she put Tylin and Suroth both 
in the shade. He noticed beautiful women, too, even when he 
did feel hit in the head with a hammer. 


It was not the presence of Suroth or the strangers that 
jerked him to a halt, though. The dice had stopped, landing 
with a thunder that made his skull ring. That had never 
happened before. He stood there waiting for one of the 



Forsaken to leap out of the flames in the marble fireplace, or 
the earth to swallow the Palace beneath him. 


"You aren't listening to me, pigeon," Tylin cooed in danger 
ous tones. "I said, take yourself down to the kitchens and 
have a pastry until I have time for you. Have a bath while 
you're about it." Her dark eyes glittered. "We will discuss 
your mud later." 


In a daze, he ran it through again in his head. He had 
walked into the room, the dice had stopped, and. . . . Nothing 
had happened. Nothing! 


"This man has been set upon," the tiny, veiled figure said, 
rising. Her tone turned cold as the wind outside. "You told me 
the streets were safe, Suroth! I am displeased." 


Something had to happen! It already should have! Something 
always happened when the dice stopped. 


"I assure you, Tuon, the streets of Ebou Dar are as safe as 
the streets of Seandar itself," Suroth replied, and that 
pulled Mat out of his stupor. She sounded . . . anxious. 
Suroth made other people anxious. 


A slender, graceful young man in the almost transparent robe 
of a da'covale appeared at her side with a tall blue porcelain 
pitcher, bowing his head and silently offering to replenish 
her wine. And giving Mat another start. He had not realized 
anyone else was present in the room. The yellow-haired man in 
his indecent garment was not the only one, either. A slim but 
nicely rounded red-haired woman wearing the same sheer robe 
was kneeling beside a table that held spice bottles and more 
fine Sea Folk porcelain wine pitchers and a small gilded brass 
brazier with the pokers needed for heating the wine, while a 
graying nervous-eyed serving woman wearing green-and-white 
House Mitsobar livery stood at the other end. And in one 
corner, so motionless that he still almost missed her, yet 
another Seanchan, a short woman with half her golden head 
shaved and a bosom that might outmatch Riselle's if her dress 
of red-and-yellow panels had not covered her neck to the chin. 
Not that he had any real desire to find out. Seanchan were 
very touchy about their so'jhin. Tylin was touchy about any 
woman. There had not been a serving woman younger than his 
grandmother in her apartments since he was able to get out of 
bed. 


Suroth looked at the graceful man as though wondering what 
he was, then shook her head wordlessly and turned her 
attention back to the child, Tuon, who waved the fellow away. 
The liveried serving maid scurried forward to take the pitcher 
from him and try to refill Tylin’s cup, but the Queen made a 
very small gesture that sent her back to the wall. Tylin was 
sitting very, very still. Little wonder that she wanted to 
avoid notice if this Tuon frightened Suroth, as she plainly 
did. 


"I am displeased, Suroth," the girl said again, sternly 
frowning down at the other woman. Even standing, she did not 
have all that far down to stare at the seated High Lady. Mat 
supposed she must be a High Lady, too, only Higher than 
Suroth. "You have recovered much, and that will please the 
Empress, may she live forever, but your ill-considered attack 
eastward was a disaster that must not be repeated. And if the 
streets of this city are safe, how can he have been set upon?" 



 Suroth's knuckles were white from gripping the chair arm, 
and her winecup. She glared at Tylin as though the lecture 


were her fault, and Tylin gave her an apologetic smile and 
bowed her head. Oh, blood and ashes, he was going to pay for 
that! 

"I fell down, that's all." His voice might as well have been 
fireworks for the way heads whipped around. Suroth and Tuon 
looked shocked that he had spoken. Tylin looked like an eagle 
who wanted her rabbit fried. "My Ladies," he added, but that 
did not seem to improve anything. 


The tall woman suddenly reached out and snatched the wine-
cup from Tuon's hand, throwing it into the fireplace. Sparks 
showered up the chimney. The serving woman stirred as if to 
retrieve the cup before it could be damaged further, then 
subsided at a touch from the so'jhin. 


"You are being foolish, Tuon," the tall woman said, and her 
voice made the girl's sternness seem laughter. The too-
familiar Seanchan drawl seemed almost absent entirely. "Suroth 
has the situation here well in her control. What happened to 
the east can happen in any battle. You must stop wasting time 
on ridiculous trifles." 


Suroth gaped at her in astonishment for an instant before 
she could assume a frozen mask. Mat did a little gaping on his 
own part. Use that tone of voice to one of the Blood, and you 
were lucky to escape with a trip to the flogging post! 


Shockingly, Tuon inclined her head slightly. "You may be 
right, Anath," she said calmly, and even with a touch of defer 
ence. "Time and the omens will tell. But the young man plainly 
is lying. Perhaps he fears Tylin's anger. But his injuries 
clearly are more than he could sustain falling down unless 
there are cliffs in the city I have not seen." 


So he feared Tylin’s anger, did he? Well, come to that, he 
did, a little. Only a little, mind. But he did not like being 
reminded of it. Leaning on his shoulder-high staff, he tried 
to make himself comfortable. They could ask a man to sit, 
after all. "I was hurt the day your lads took the city," he 
said with his cheekiest grin. "Your lot were flinging around 
lightning and balls of fire something fierce. I'm just about 
healed, though, thank you for asking." Tylin buried her face 
in her winecup, and still managed to shoot him a look over the 
rim that promised retribution later. 


Tuon's skirts rustled as she crossed the carpets to him. The 
dark face behind that sheer veil might have been pretty, 
without the expression of a judge passing sentence of death. 
And with a decent head of hair instead of a bald pate. Her 
eyes were large and liquid, but utterly impersonal. All other 
long fingernails were lacquered, he noticed, a bright red. He 
wondered whether that signified anything. Light, a man could 
live in luxury for years on the price of those rubies. 


She reached up with one hand, putting her fingertips under 
his chin, and he started to jerk back. Until Tylin glared at 
him over Tuon's head, promising retribution here and now, if 
he did any such thing. Glowering, he let the girl shift his 
head for her study. 


"You fought us?" she demanded. "You have sworn the oaths?" 
"I swore," he muttered. "For the other, I had no chance." 
"So you would have," she murmured. Circling him slowly, she 



continued her study, fingering the lace at his wrist, touching 
the black silk scarf tied around his neck, lifting the edge of 
his cloak to examine the embroidery. He endured it, refusing 
to shift his stance, glowering fit to match Tylin. Light, he 
had bought horses without so thorough an examination! Next, 
she would want to look at his teeth! 


"The boy told you how he was injured," Anath said in frosty 
tones of command. "If you want him, then buy him and be done. 
The day has been long, and you should be in your bed." 


Tuon paused, examining the long signet ring on his finger. 
It had been carved as a try-piece, to show the carver's 
skills, a running fox and two ravens in flight, all surrounded 
by crescent moons, and he had bought it by chance, though he 
had come to like it. He wondered whether she wanted it. 
Straightening, she stared up at his face. "Good advice, 
Anath," she said. "How much for him, Tylin? If he is a 
favorite, name your price, and I will double it." 


Tylin choked on her wine and began coughing. Mat almost fell 
off his staff. The girl wanted to buy him? Well, she might as 
well have been looking at a horse for all the expression on 
her face. 


"He is a free man, High Lady," Tylin said unsteadily when 
she could speak. "I ... I cannot sell him." Mat could have 
laughed, if Tylin did not sound as though she were trying to 
keep her teeth from chattering, if bloody Tuon had not just 
asked his price. A free man! Ha! 


The girl turned away from him as though dismissing him from 
her mind. "You are afraid, Tylin, and under the Light, you 
should not be." Gliding to Tylin’s chair, she lifted her veil 
with both hands, baring the lower half of her face, and bent 
to kiss Tylin lightly, once on each eye and once on the lips. 
Tylin looked astounded. "You are a sister to me, and to 
Suroth," Tuon said in a surprisingly gentle voice. "I myself 
will write your name as one of the Blood. You will be the High 
Lady Tylin as well as Queen of Altara, and more, as was 
promised you." 


Anath snorted, loudly. 


"Yes, Anath, I know," the girl sighed, straightening and low 
ering her veil. "The day has been long and arduous, and I am 
weary. But I will show Tylin what lands are in mind for her, 
so she will know and be easy in her mind. There are maps in my 
chambers, Tylin. You will honor me by accompanying me, there? 
I have excellent masseuses." 


"The honor is mine," Tylin said, sounding not all that much 
steadier than before. 


At a gesture from the so'jhin, the yellow-haired man went 
running to open the door and kneel holding it open, but there 
was still all the smoothing and adjusting of clothes that 
women had to do before they would go anywhere, Seanchan or 
Altaran or from anywhere else. Though, the red-haired 
da'covale performed the function for Tuon and Suroth. Mat took 
the opportunity to draw Tylin a little aside, far enough that 
he would not be overheard. The so'jhin's blue eyes kept coming 
back to him, he realized, but at least Tuon, accepting the 
attentions of the slender da'covale woman, seemed to have 
forgotten he existed. 


"I didn't just fall down," he told Tylin softly. "The gholam 



tried to kill me not much more than an hour ago. It might be 
best if I left. That thing wants me, and it'll kill anybody 
near me, too." The plan had just occurred to him, but he 
thought it had a good chance of success. 


Tylin sniffed. "He-it-it cannot have you, piglet." She di 
rected a look at Tuon that might have made the girl forget 
about Tylin being a sister had she seen. "And neither can 
she." At least she had sense enough to whisper. 


"Who is she?" he asked. Well, it had never been more than a 
chance. 


"The High Lady Tuon, and you know as much as I," Tylin 
replied, just as quietly. "Suroth jumps when she speaks, and 
she jumps when Anath speaks, though I would almost swear that 
Anath is some sort of servant. They are a very peculiar 
people, sweetling." Suddenly she flaked some mud from his 
cheek with one finger. He had not realized he had mud on his 
face, too. Suddenly, the eagle was strong in her eyes. "Do you 
recall the pink ribbons, sweetling? When I come back, we'll 
see how you look in pink." 


She swanned out of the room with Tuon and Suroth, trailed by 
Anath and the so'jhin and the da'covale, leaving Mat with the 
grandmotherly serving woman who began to clean up the wine 
table. He sank into one of the bamboo carved chairs and rested 
his head in his hands. 


Any other time, those pink ribbons would have had him gib 
bering. He never should have tried to get his own back with 
her. Even the gholam did not occupy much of his thoughts. The 
dice had stopped and. . . . What? He had come face-to-face, or 
near enough, with three people he had not met before, but that 
could not be it. Maybe it was something to do with Tylin 
becoming one of the Blood. But always before, when the dice 
stopped, something had happened to him, personally. 


He sat there worrying over it while the serving woman called 
in others to carry everything away, sat there until Tylin 
returned. She had not forgotten about the pink ribbons, and 
that made him forget about anything else for quite a long 
time. 


Chapter 18: An Offer 


The days after the gholam tried to kill him settled into 
rhythms that irritated Mat no end. The gray sky never altered, 
except to give rain or not. 


There was talk in the streets of a man being killed by a 
wolf not far outside the city, his throat ripped. No one was 
worried, just curious; wolves had not been seen close to Ebou 
Dar in years. Mat worried. City people might believe a wolf 
would come that close to city walls, but he knew better. The 
gholam had not gone away. Harnan and the other Redarms 
stubbornly refused to leave, claiming they could watch his 
back, and Vanin refused without reasons, unless a muttered 
comment that Mat had a good eye for fast horses was supposed 
to be one. He spat after he said it, though. Riselle, her 
olive face pretty enough to make a man swallow, her big dark 



eyes knowing enough to dry his tongue, inquired about Olver's 
age, and when he said close on ten, she looked surprised and 
tapped her full lips thoughtfully, but if she changed anything 
in the boy's lessons, he still came away from them bubbling 
equally over her bosom and the books she read him. Mat thought 
Olver would almost have given up his nightly games of Snakes 
and Foxes for Riselle and the books. And when the lad ran out 
of the rooms that once had been Mat's, Thorn often slipped in 
with his harp under his arm. By itself that was enough to make 
Mat grind his teeth, only that was not the half. 


Thorn and Beslan frequently went out together, not inviting 
him, and were gone for half the day, or half the night. 
Neither would say a word more about their schemes, though 
Thorn had the grace to look embarrassed. Mat hoped they were 
not going to get people killed for nothing, but they showed 
little interest in his opinions. Beslan glared at the very 
sight of him. Juilin continued to slip abovestairs and was 
seen by Suroth, which earned him a strapping hung up by his 
wrists from a stallpost in the stables. Mat saw his welts 
tended by Vanin-the man claimed doctoring men was the same as 
doctoring horses-and warned him it could be worse next time, 
but the fool was back on the upper floors that very night, 
still wincing from the weight of his shirt on his back. It had 
to be a woman, though the thief-catcher refused to say. Mat 
suspected one of the Seanchan noblewomen. One of the Palace 
servants could have met him in his own room, with Thorn out of 
it so much. 


Not Suroth or Tuon, to be sure, but they were not the only 
Seanchan High Blood in the Palace. Most of the Seanchan nobles 
rented rooms, or more often whole houses, in the city, but 
several had come with Suroth and a handful with the girl, too. 
More than one of the women looked a pleasant armful in spite 
of their crested heads and their way of staring down their 
noses at everybody without shaved temples. If they noticed 
them more than they did the furniture, that was. If it seemed 
unlikely that one of those haughty women would look twice at a 
man who slept in the servant's quarters, well, the Light knew 
women had peculiar tastes in men. He had no choice but to 
leave Juilin alone. Whoever the woman was, she might get the 
thief-catcher beheaded yet, but that sort of fever had to burn 


itself out before a man could think straight. Women did 
strange things to a man's head. 
The newly arrived ships disgorged people and animals and 

cargo for days on end, enough that the city's massive walls 
would have burst from the inside had they all stayed, but they 
flowed through the city and out into the countryside with 
their families and their crafts and their livestock, prepared 
to put down roots. Soldiers passed through in thousands, too, 
well-ordered infantry and cavalry with the flair of veterans, 
moving north in bright-colored armor, and east across the 
river. Mat gave up trying to count them. Sometimes he saw 
strange creatures, though most of those were unloaded above 
the city to avoid the streets. Torm like three-eyed bronze-
scaled cats the size of horses, sending most real horses 
around them into a frenzy just by their presence, and corim, 
like hairy wingless birds as tall as a man, tall ears 
twitching constantly and long beaks seeming to yearn for flesh 



to rend, and huge s'redit with their long noses and longer 
tusks. Raken and the larger to'raken flew from their landing 
site below the Rahad, huge lizards spreading wings like bats 
and carrying men on their backs. The names were easy enough to 


pick up; any Seanchan soldier was eager to discuss the 
necessity of scouts on raken and the abilities of corim at 
tracking, whether s'redit were useful for more than moving 

heavy loads and torm too intelligent to trust. He learned a 
great deal of interest from men who wanted what most soldiers 
did, a drink and a woman and a bit of a gamble, not 
necessarily in any given order. Those soldiers were indeed 
veterans. Seanchan was an Empire larger than all the nations 
between the Aryth Ocean and the Spine of the World, all under 
one Empress, but with a history of almost constant rebellions 
and revolts that kept its soldiers' skills keen. The farmers 
would be harder to dig out. 


Not all the soldiers left, of course. A strong garrison 
remained, not only Seanchan, but steel-veiled Taraboner 
lancers and Amadician pikemen with their breastplates painted 
to resemble Seanchan armor. And Altarans, too, besides Tylin’s 
House armsmen. According to the Seanchan, the Altarans from 
inland, with red slashes crisscrossing their breastplates, 
were Tylin’s as much as the fellows guarding the Tarasin 
Palace, which, strangely, did not seem to best please her. It 
did not please the fellows from inland very much, either. They 
and the men in Mitsobar's green-and-white eyed each other like 
strange tomcats in a small room. There was plenty of glaring 
going on, Taraboners at Amadicians, Amadicians at Altarans, 
and the other way round, well-aged, longstanding animosities 
bubbling to the surface, but no one went further than shaken 
fists and a few curses. Five hundred men of the Deathwatch 
Guards had come off the ships and remained in Ebou Dar for 
some reason. The ordinary sort of crime expected in any large 
city had fallen off dramatically under the Seanchan, but the 
Guards took to patrolling the streets as if they expected 
cutpurses, bullyboys and maybe fully armed bands of brigands 
to spring out of the pavement. The Altarans and the Amadicians 
and the Taraboners kept their tempers reined in. No one but a 
fool argued with the Deathwatch Guards, not more than once. 
And another contingent of the Guards had taken up residence in 
the city, too, a hundred Ogier, of all things, in the red-and-
black. Sometimes they patrolled with the others, and sometimes 
they wandered about with their long-handled axes on their 
shoulders. They were not at all like Mat's friend Loial. Oh, 
they had the same wide noses and tufted ears and long eyebrows 
that drooped to their cheeks beside eyes the size of teacups, 
but the Gardeners looked at a man as though wondering whether 
he needed pruning of a few limbs. Nobody at all was fool 
enough to argue even once with the Gardeners. 


Seanchan flowed out from Ebou Dar, and news flowed in. Even 
when they had to sleep in the attic, merchants preened in the 
common rooms of inns, smoking their pipes and telling what 
they knew that no one else did. So long as the telling did not 
affect their profits. The merchants' guards cared little for 
profits they would not share and told everything, some of it 
true. Seamen spread tales for anyone who would buy a mug of 
ale, or better, hot spiced wine, and when they had drunk 



enough, they talked even more, of ports they had visited, and 
events they had witnessed, and likely dreams they had had 
after the last time their heads were full of fumes. Still, it 
was clear the world outside Ebou Dar was seething like the Sea 
of Storms. Tales of Aiel looting and burning came from 
everywhere, and armies were on the move other than the 
Seanchan, armies in Tear and Murandy, in Arad Doman and Andor, 
in Amadicia, which was not yet entirely under Seanchan 
control, and dozens of armed gatherings too small to be called 
armies in the heartland of Altara itself. Except for the men 
in Altara and Amadicia, no one really seemed sure who intended 
to fight whom, and there was some doubt about Altara. Altarans 


had a way of taking advantage of troubles to try paying off 
grievances against their neighbors. 
The news that shook the city most, though, was of Rand. Mat 

tried his best not to think of him, or Perrin, but avoiding 
those odd swirls of color in his head was difficult when the 
Dragon Reborn was on everyone's lips. The Dragon Reborn was 
dead, some claimed, murdered by Aes Sedai, by the whole White 
Tower descending on him at once in Cairhien, or maybe it was 
in Illian, or Tear. No, they had kidnapped him, and he was 
held prisoner in the White Tower. No, he had gone to the White 
Tower on his own and sworn fealty to the Amyrlin Seat. The 
last gained great credence because a number of men claimed to 
have seen a proclamation, signed by Elaida herself, that 
announced as much. Mat had his doubts, about Rand being dead 
or swearing fealty, at least. For some odd reason, he felt 
sure he would know if Rand died, and as for the other, he did 
not believe the man would put himself within a hundred miles 
of the White Tower voluntarily. Dragon Reborn or no Dragon 
Reborn, he had to have more sense than that. 


That news-all the versions of it-stirred the Seanchan the 
way a stick stirs an antheap. High-ranking officers strode the 
halls of the Tarasin Palace at every hour of the day and 
night, their odd, plumed helmets beneath their arms, their 
boots ringing on the floor tiles, their faces set. Couriers 
raced away from Ebou Dar, on horses and on to'raken. Sui'dam 
and damane began patrolling the streets instead of just 
standing guard at the gates, once more hunting for women who 
could channel. Mat kept out of the officers' way and nodded 
politely to the sui'dam when he passed one in the streets. 
Whatever Rand's situation was, he could do nothing about it in 
Ebou Dar. First, he had to get out of the city. 


The morning after the gholam tried to kill him, Mat burned 
every last one of the long pink ribbons, the whole great wad 
of them, in the fireplace as soon as Tylin left her 
apartments. He also burned a pink coat she had had made for 
him, two pairs of pink breeches and a pink cloak. A stench of 
burning wool and silk filled the rooms, and he opened some 
windows to let it out, but he did not really care. He felt a 
great relief dressing himself in bright blue breeches and 
embroidered green coat, and a blue cloak with painfully ornate 
working. Even all the lace did not bother him. At least none 
of it was pink. He never wanted to see anything that 
particular color ever again! 


Clapping his hat on his head, he stumped out of the Tarasin 
Palace with a renewed determination to find that cubbyhole to 



store what he needed for his escape, if he had to visit every 
tavern, inn and sailors' dive in the city ten times over. Even 
those in the Rahad. A hundred times! Gray gulls and black-
winged skimmers swirled in leaden sky that promised more rain, 
and an icy wind carrying the tang of salt whipped across the 
Mol Hara, flailing cloaks about. He thumped the paving stones 
as though intending to crack every one. Light, if need be, he 
would go with Luca in what he wore. Maybe Luca would let him 
work his way as a buffoon! The man would probably insist on 


it. At least that would keep him close to Aludra and her 
secrets. 
He stalked the whole width of the square before he realized 

that he was in front of a wide white building he knew well. 
The sign over the arched door proclaimed The Wandering Woman. 
A tall fellow in red-and-black armor strode out, three thin 
black plumes on the front of the helmet under his arm, and 
stood waiting for his horse to be brought around. A bluff-
faced man with gray at his temples, he did not look at Mat, 
and Mat avoided looking at him. No matter how pleasant the man 
might appear on the surface, he was a Deathwatch Guard, after 
all, and a banner-general to boot. The Wandering Woman, so 
near the Palace, had every room rented by high Seanchan 
officers, and for that reason he had not been back since he 
was able to walk again. Ordinary Seanchan soldiers were not 
such bad fellows, ready to gamble half the night and buy a 
round when it came their turn, but high-ranking officers might 
as well be nobles. Still, he had to start somewhere. 


The common room was almost as he remembered, high-ceilinged 
and well-lighted by lamps burning on all the walls despite the 
early hour. Solid shutters covered the tall arched windows 
now, for warmth, and fires crackled in both long fireplaces. A 
faint haze of pipesmoke filled the air, and the smell of good 
cooking from the kitchens. Two women with flutes and a fellow 
with a drum between his knees were playing a quick, shrill 
Ebou Dari tune that he nodded in time to. Not so different 
from when he had stayed there, so far as it went. But all of 
the chairs held Seanchan, now, some in armor, others in long, 
embroidered coats, drinking, talking, studying maps spread out 
on the tables. A graying woman with the flame of a der'sul'dam 
embroidered on her shoulder seemed to be making a report at 
one table, and at another a skinny sui'dam with a round-faced 
damane at her heels appeared to be getting orders. A number of 
the Seanchan had the sides and backs of their heads shaved so 
they seemed to be wearing bowls, with the hair remaining at 
the back left long in a sort of wide tail that hung to the 
shoulders on men and often to the waist on women. Those were 
simple lords and ladies, not High anything, but that hardly 
mattered. A lord was a lord, and besides, the men and women 
going to fetch a serving maid for more drinks had the smooth-
cheeked disdainful look of officers themselves, which meant 
the folk they were fetching for had rank to cause a man 
trouble. Several noticed him and frowned, and he almost left. 
Then he saw the innkeeper coming down the railless stairs at 
the back of the room, a stately hazel-eyed woman with large 
golden hoops in her ears and a little gray in her hair. 
Setalle Anan was not Ebou Dari, or even Altaran he suspected, 
but she wore the marriage-knife, hanging hilt-down from a 



silver collar into a deep narrow neckline, and a long curved 
blade at her waist. She knew he was supposed to be a lord, but 
he was not sure how far she believed any longer or what good 
it would do if she still swallowed the whole taradiddle. In 
any case, she saw him at the same instant and smiled, a 
friendly, welcoming smile that made her face even prettier. 
There was nothing for it but to go and greet her and ask after 
her health, not too elaborately. Her muscular husband was a 
fishing-boat captain with more dueling scars than Mat wanted 
to think about. Straight off she wanted to know about Nynaeve 
and Elayne, and to his surprise, whether he knew anything 
about the Kin. He had had no idea she had even heard of them. 


"They went with Nynaeve and Elayne," he whispered, cau 
tiously keeping watch to make sure no Seanchan was paying them 
any mind. He did not intend to say too much, but talking about 
the Kin where Seanchan might hear made the back of his neck 
prickle. "So far as I know, they're all safe." 


"Good. I would be pained had any of them been collared." The 
fool woman did not even lower her voice! 


"Yes; that's good," he muttered, and hurriedly explained his 
needs before she could start shouting how happy she was that 
women who could channel had escaped the Seanchan. He was 
happy, too, just not happy enough to put himself in chains for 
joy. 


Shaking her head, she seated herself on the steps and put 
her hands on her knees. Her dark green skirts, sewn up on the 
left side, showed red petticoats. Ebou Dari really did seem to 
knock Tinkers on their heels when it came to choosing colors. 
The buzz of Seanchan voices fought with the high-pitched music 
all around them, and she sat there looking at him sternly. 
"You don't know our ways, that is the trouble," she said. 
"Pretties are an old and honored custom in Altara. Many a 
young man or woman has a final fling as a pretty, pampered and 
showered with presents, before settling down. But you see, a 
pretty leaves when she chooses. Tylin shouldn't be treating 
you as I hear she is. Still," she added judiciously, "I must 
say she dresses you well." She made a circling motion with one 
hand. "Hold out your cloak and turn around so I can get a 
better look." 


Mat drew a deep, calming breath. And then three more. The 
color flooding his face was sheer fury. He was not blushing. 
Certainly not! Light, did the whole city know? "Do you have a 
space I can use or don't you?" he demanded in a strangled 
voice. 


It turned out that she did. He could use a shelf in her 
cellar, which she said stayed dry year round, and there was 
the small hollow under the kitchen's stone floor where he once 
had kept his chest of gold. It turned out the rental price was 
for him to hold out his cloak and turn around so she could get 
a better look. She grinned like a cat! One of the Seanchan, a 
buzzard-faced woman in red-and-blue armor, enjoyed the show so 
much that she tossed him a fat silver coin with strange 
markings, a forbidding woman's face on one side and some sort 
of heavy chair on the other. 


Still, he had his place to store clothes and money, and once 
he returned to the Palace, to Tylin’s apartments, he found out 
he had clothes to store in it. 



 "I fear my Lord's garments are in a terrible state," Nerim 
said lugubriously. The skinny, gray-haired Cairhienin would 
have been as dolorous announcing the gift of a sack of 
firedrops, though. His long face was perpetually in mourning. 
He did keep an eye on the door against Tyiin's return, 
however. "Everything is quite filthy, and I am afraid mildew 
has ruined several of my Lord's best coats." 


"They were all in a cupboard with Prince Beslan's childhood 
toys, my Lord," Lopin laughed, tugging at the lapels of a dark 
coat like Juilin’s. The balding man was the reverse of Nerim, 
stout instead of bony, dark instead of pale, his round belly 
always shaking with laughter. For a time after Nalesean's 
death it had seemed he intended to compete with Nerim at 
sighing, the way they did over everything else, but the 
intervening weeks had recovered him to his normal self. As 
long as no one mentioned his former master, anyway. "They are 
dusty, though, my Lord. I doubt anyone has been in that 
cupboard since the Prince put his toy soldiers away." 


Feeling that his luck was running strong at last, Mat told 
them to start taking his clothes across to The Wandering Woman 
a few pieces at a time, and a pocket full of gold each trip. 
His black-hafted spear, propped in a corner of Tyiin's 
bedchamber with his unstrung Two Rivers bow, would have to 
wait for last. Getting that out might be as difficult as 
getting himself out. He could always make a new bow for 
himself, but he was not going to abandon the ashandarei. 


I paid too high a price for the bloody thing to leave it, he 
thought, fingering the scar hidden beneath the scarf around 
his neck. One of the first, among too many. Light, it would be 
nice to think that he had more to look forward to than scars 
and battles he did not want. And a wife he did not want or 
even know. There had to be more than that. First came getting 
out of Ebou Dar with a whole hide, though. That above all 
else, first. 


Lopin and Nerim bowed themselves out of his presence with 
the equivalent of two fat purses spread about their clothing, 
so as not to create any bulges, but no sooner had they gone 
than Tylin appeared, wanting to know why his bodyservants were 
running in the halls as though racing each other. If he had 
been feeling suicidal he could have told her they were racing 
to see who would be first to reach the inn with his gold, or 
maybe just the first to start cleaning his clothes. Instead he 
busied himself diverting her, and soon enough that chased any 
other thoughts out of his head, except for a glimmer that his 
luck had finally begun to pay off at something besides 
gambling. All it needed to put the cap on would be for Aludra 
to give him what he wanted before he left. Tylin put her mind 
to what she was doing, and for a time he forgot fireworks and 
Aludra and escaping. For a time. 


After a little searching through the city, he finally 
located a bellfounder. There were a number of gongmakers in 
Ebou Dar, but only one bellmaker, with a foundry outside the 
western wall. The bellmaker, a cadaverous, impatient fellow, 
sweated in the heat of his huge iron furnace. The sweltering 
foundry's one long room might have been some sort of torture 
chamber. Hoisting chains dangled from the rafters, and sudden 
flames gouted from the furnace, throwing flickering shadows 



and leaving Mat half-blind. And no sooner would he blink away 
the afterimage of raging fire than another eruption would 
leave him squinting again. Workmen dripping with sweat poured 
molten bronze from the furnace's melting pot into a square 
mold, half again as tall as a man, that had been levered into 
position on rollers. Other great molds like it stood around 


the stone floor, amid a litter of smaller molds in various 
sizes. 
"My Lord is pleased to jest." Master Sutoma forced a 

chuckle, but he did not look amused, with his damp black hair 
hanging down and clinging to his face. His chuckle sounded as 
hollow as his cheeks, and he kept shooting frowns at his 
workmen as though suspecting they would lie down and go to 
sleep if he did not maintain a dose watch on them. A dead man 
could not have slept in that heat. Mat's shirt stuck to him 
damply, and he was beginning to sweat his coat through in 
patches. "I know nothing of Illuminators, my Lord, and I wish 
to know nothing. Useless fripperies, fireworks. Not like 
bells. If my Lord will excuse me? I am very busy. The High 
Lady Suroth has commissioned thirteen bells for a victory set, 
the largest bells ever cast anywhere. And Calwyn Sutoma will 
cast them!" That it was a victory over his own city did not 
seem to bother Sutoma in the least. The last was enough to 
make him grin and rub his bony hands together. 


Mat attempted to make Aludra relent, but the woman might as 
well have been cast bronze herself. Well, she was considerably 
softer than bronze once she finally let him put an arm around 
her, yet kisses that left her trembling did nothing to slacken 
her resolve. 


"Me, I do not believe in telling a man more than he needs to 
know," she said breathlessly, sitting beside him on a padded 
bench in her wagon. She allowed no more than kisses, but she 
was very enthusiastic about those. The thin beaded braids she 
had taken to wearing again were a tangle. "Men gossip, yes? 
Chatter, chatter, chatter, and you yourselves don't know what 
you will say next. Besides, maybe I have made you the puzzle 
just to make you return, yes?" And she set about further 
disarraying her hair, and his as well. 


She put up no more nightflowers, though, not after he told 
her about the chapter house in Tanchico. He tried two more 
visits to Master Sutoma, but on the second, the bellmaker had 
the doors barred against him. He was casting the largest bells 
ever made, and no foolish foreigner with foolish questions 
would be allowed to interfere with that. 


Tylin began lacquering the first two fingernails on each 
hand green, though she did not shave the sides of her head. 
She would, eventually, she told him, pulling her flowing hair 
back with her hands to study herself in the gilt-framed mirror 
on the bedchamber wall, but she wanted to become used to the 
idea first. She was making her accommodations with the 
Seanchan, and he could not fault her for it, no matter how 
many dark scowls Beslan gave his mother. 


There was no way she could suspect anything about Aludra, 
but the day after he first kissed the Illuminator, the 
grandmotherly maids disappeared from her chambers, replaced by 
women white-haired and wizened. Tylin began sticking her 
curved belt knife into one of the bedposts at night, close to 



hand, and musing aloud in his hearing about how he would look 
in a da'covale's sheer robes. In fact, night was not the only 
time she stuck her knife in the bedpost. Grinning serving 
women started delivering summonses to Tyiin's rooms by simply 
telling him that she had stabbed the bedpost, and he started 
trying to avoid any woman in livery he saw with a smile on her 
face. It was not that he disliked being bedded by Tylin, aside 
from the fact she was a queen, as snooty as any other 
noblewoman. And the fact that she made him feel like a mouse 
that had been made a pet by a cat. But there were only so many 


hours of daylight, if more than he was used to back home in 
winter, and for a bit he had to wonder whether she meant to 
consume all of them. 

Luckily, Tylin began spending more and more time with Suroth 
and Tuon. Her accommodations seemed to have embraced 
friendship, with Tuon at least. No one could be friends with 
Suroth. Tylin seemed to have adopted the girl, or the girl had 
adopted her. Tylin told him little of what they talked about 
except in the sketchiest outlines, and often not even that, 
but they closeted themselves alone for hours, and swept along 
the Palace corridors conversing quietly, or sometimes 
laughing. Frequently Anath or Selucia, Tuon's golden-haired 
so'jhin, trailed along behind, and now and then a pair of hard-
eyed Deathwatch Guards. 


He still could not figure out the relationship between 
Suroth, Tuon and Anath. On the surface, Suroth and Tuon 
behaved as equals, calling each other by name, laughing at one 
another's jests. Tuon certainly never gave Suroth any order, 
at least not in his hearing, but Suroth seemed to take Tuon's 
suggestions as orders. Anath, on the other hand, badgered the 
girl unmercifully with razor-sharp criticisms, calling her a 
fool and worse. 


"This is the worst sort of stupidity, girl," he heard her 
say coldly one midday in the halls. Tylin had not sent her 
crude summons-yet-and he was trying to sneak out before she 
could, slipping along the walls and peeking around corners. He 
had a visit to Sutoma planned, and another to Aludra. The 
three Seanchan women-four, counting Selucia, but he did not 
think they saw it that way-were clustered just around the next 
turning. Trying to keep an eye out for serving women wearing a 
smile, he waited impatiently for them to move. Whatever they 
were talking about, they would not appreciate him blundering 
by in the middle of it. "A taste of the strap will set you 
right, and clear your head of nonsense," the tall woman went 
on in a voice like ice. "Ask for it and be done." 


Mat worked a finger in his ear, and shook his head. He must 
have misheard. Selucia, standing placidly with her hands 
folded at her waist, certainly never turned a hair. 


Suroth gasped, though. "Surely you will punish her for 
this!" she drawled angrily, glaring holes through Anath. Or 
trying to. Suroth might as well have been a chair for all the 
notice the tall woman gave her. 


"You do not understand, Suroth." Tuon's sigh stirred the 
veil covering her face. Covering but not concealing. She 
looked . . . resigned. He had been shocked to learn she was 
only a few years younger than he. He would have said more like 
ten. Well, six or seven. "The omens say otherwise, Anath," the 



girl said calmly, and not at all in anger. She was simply 
stating facts. "Be assured, I will tell you if they change." 


Someone tapped him on the shoulder, and he looked back into 
the face of a serving woman wearing a broad grin. Well, he had 
not really been that anxious to go out right away. 


Tuon troubled him. Oh, when they passed in the hallways, he 
made his best leg politely, and in return she ignored him as 
completely as Suroth or Anath did, but it began to seem to him 
that they passed in the hallways a little too often. 


One afternoon, he walked into Tyiin's apartments, having 
checked and found out that Tylin was shut up with Suroth on 
some business or other, and in the bedchamber, he found Tuon 
examining his ashandarei. He froze at the sight of her 
fingering the words in the Old Tongue carved into the black 
shaft. A raven in some still darker metal was inlaid at each 
end of the line of script, and a pair of them engraved on the 


slightly curved blade. Ravens were an Imperial sigil, to the 
Seanchan. Not breathing, he tried to move backwards without 
making a sound. 

That veiled face swivelled toward him. A pretty face, 
really, it might even have been beautiful if she ever stopped 
looking as though she was about to bite off a mouthful of 
wood. He no longer thought she looked like a boy-those tight 
wide belts she always wore made sure you noticed what curves 
there were-but she was the next thing to it. He seldom saw a 
grown woman younger than his grandmother that he did not at 
least think idly of what it would be like dancing with her, 
maybe kissing her, even those snooty Seanchan Blood, but never 
a glimmer of that crossed his mind with Tuon. A woman had to 
have something to put an arm around, or what was the point? 


"I don't see Tylin owning a thing like this," she drawled 
coolly, setting the long-bladed spear back next to his bow, 
"so it must be yours. What is it? How did you come to possess 
it?" Those cold demands for information set his jaw. The 
bloody woman could have been ordering a servant. Light, as far 
as he was aware, she did not even know his name! Tylin said 
she had never asked about him or mentioned him since the offer 
of purchase. 


"It's called a spear, my Lady," he said, resisting the urge 
to lean against the doorframe and tuck his thumbs behind his 
belt. She was Seanchan Blood, after all. "I bought it." 


"I will give you ten times the price you paid," she said. 
"Name it." 


He almost laughed. He wanted to, and not for pleasure, that 
was certain sure. No would you think of selling, just / will 
buy it and here is what I will pay. "The price wasn't gold, my 
Lady." Involuntarily, his hand went to the black scarf to make 
sure it still hid the ridged scar that encircled his neck. 
"Only a fool would pay it one time, let alone ten." 


She studied him for a moment, her expression unreadable no 
matter how sheer her veil. And then, he might as well have 
vanished. She glided past him as though he were no longer 
there and swept out of the apartments. 


That was not the only time he encountered her alone. Of 
course, she was not always followed by Anath or Selucia, or 
guards, yet it seemed to him that rather too often he would 
decide to go back for something and turn to find her by 



herself, looking at him, or he might leave a room suddenly and 
find her outside the door. More than once he looked over his 
shoulder leaving the Palace and saw her veiled face peering 
out of a window. True, there was nothing of staring about it. 
She looked at him and glided away as though he had ceased to 
exist, peered from a window and turned back into the room as 
soon as he saw her. He was a stand lamp in the corridor, a 
paving stone in the Mol Hara. It began to make him nervous, 
though. After all, the woman had offered to buy him. A thing 
like that had a tendency to make a man nervous by its own 
self. 


Even Tuon could not truly upset his welling sense that 
things were finally coming right, though. The gholam did not 
return, and he began to think maybe it had gone on an easier 
"harvest." In any event, he was staying away from dark and 
lonely places where it might have a chance at him. His 
medallion was all very well for what it did, but a good crowd 
was better. On his latest visit to Aludra she had almost let 
something slip-he was certain of it-before coming to herself 
and hastily bundling him out of her wagon. There was nothing a 
woman would not tell you if you kissed her enough. He stayed 
away from The Wandering Woman, to avoid rousing Tyiin's 
suspicions, but Nerim and Lopin stealthily transferred his 
real clothing to the inn's cellar. Bit by bit, half the 
contents of the iron-bound chest under Tyiin's bed traveled 
across the Mol Hara to the hidden hollow beneath the inn's 
kitchen. 


That hollow under the kitchen floor began to trouble him, 
though. It had been good enough for hiding the chest. A man 
could break chisels getting into that. He had been living 
upstairs at the inn then, too. Now the gold would be just 
spilled into the hole after Setalle cleared the kitchen. What 
if someone began to wonder why she chased everybody out when 
Lopin and Nerim came? Anybody at all could lift up that 
floorstone, if they knew where to look. He had to make sure 
for himself. Afterwards, long afterwards, he would wonder why 
the bloody dice had not warned him. 


Chapter 19: Three Women 


The wind was out of the north with the sun not yet fully 
above the horizon, which the locals said always meant rain, 
and a sky full of clouds certainly threatened as he made his 
way across the Mol Hara. The particular men and women in the 
common room of The Wandering Woman had changed, there were no 
sui'dam or damane this time, but the place was still full of 
Seanchan and pipesmoke, though the musicians had not yet 
appeared. Most of the people in the room were breakfasting, 
sometimes eyeing the bowls uncertainly as if unsure what they 
were being asked to eat-he felt that way himself about the 
strange white porridge Ebou Dari liked for breakfast-but not 
everyone was intent on food. Three men and a woman in those 
long embroidered robes were playing cards and smoking pipes at 
one table, all with their heads shaved in the fashion of 



lesser nobles. The gold coins on their table caught Mat's 
attention for a moment; they were playing for high stakes. The 
largest stacks of coins sat in front of a tiny black-haired 
man, as dark as Anath, who grinned wolfishly at his opponents 
around the very long stem of a silver-mounted pipe. Mat had 
his own gold, though, and his luck at cards had never been as 
good as at dice. 


Mistress Anan, however, had gone out on some errand or other 
while it was still dark, so her daughter Marah said, leaving 
Marah herself in charge. A pleasingly plump young woman with 
big pretty eyes the same hazel shade as her mother's, she wore 
her skirts sewn up to mid-thigh on the left side, something 
Mistress Anan would not have allowed when he was staying 
there. Marah was not best pleased to see him, frowning as soon 
as he approached her. Two men had died by his hand in the inn 
when he was staying there; thieves who were trying to split 
his skull, to be sure, but that sort of thing did not happen 
at The Wandering Woman. She had made it clear she was happy to 
see the back of him when he moved out. 


Marah was hardly interested in what he wanted now, either, 
and he could not really explain. Only Mistress Anan knew what 
was hidden in the kitchen, so he devoutly hoped, and he 
certainly was not about to bleat out the information in the 
common room. So he made up a tale about missing the dishes the 
cook turned out, and eyeing that blatantly sewn skirt, he 
slipped in the implication that he had missed looking at her 
even more. He could not understand why exposing a little more 
petticoat was scandalous when every woman in Ebou Dar walked 
around showing half her bosom, but if Marah was feeling 
rakish, maybe a few blandishments might ease his path. He gave 
her his very best smile. 


Giving him half an ear in return, Marah seized a passing 
serving maid, a smoky-eyed cat of a woman he knew well. "Air 
Captain Yulan's cup is almost empty, Caira," Marah said 
angrily. "You are supposed to keep it full! If you can't do 
your job, girl, there are plenty in Ebou Dar who will!" Caira, 
several years older than Marah, made her a mocking curtsy. And 
scowled at Mat. Before Caira could straighten her knees again, 
Marah turned to grab a boy who was walking by carefully 
balancing a tray piled with dirty dishes. "Stop lollygagging, 
Ross!" she snapped. "There is work to be done. Do it, or I'll 
take you out to the stables, and you will not like that, I 
tell you!" 


Marah's youngest brother glared at her. "I can't wait till 
spring, when I can work on the boats again," he muttered 
sullenly. "You've been in a bad skin ever since Frielle got 
married, just because she's younger than you and you haven't 
been asked yet." 


She directed a cuff at his head that he easily eluded, 
though the stacked cups and plates rattled and nearly fell. 
"Why not just pin up your petticoats at the fishing docks?" he 
shouted, darting off before she could slap at him again. 


Mat sighed as she finally turned her full attention to him. 
Pinning up petticoats was a new one on him, but from Marah's 
face, he could guess. Steam should have been jetting from her 
ears. "If you want to eat, you must come back later. Or you 
can wait, if you like. I don't know how long before you can be 



served." 


Her smile was malicious. No one would choose to wait in that 
common room. Every seat was taken by a Seanchan, and there 
were more Seanchan standing, enough that the aproned maids 
were forced to weave their way carefully, holding trays of 
food and drink aloft. Caira was filling the dark little man's 
cup and offering him the sort of sultry smiles she had once 
offered Mat. He did not know why she had soured on him, but he 
had as many women in his life as he could handle at the 
moment. What was an Air Captain, anyway? He would have to find 
out. Later. 


"I will wait in the kitchen," he told Marah. "I want to tell 
Enid how much I enjoyed her cooking." 


She started to protest, but a Seanchan woman raised her 
voice demanding wine. Grim-eyed in blue-and-green armor, with 
a helmet carrying two plumes under her arm, she wanted her 
stirrup cup right then. All of the maids seemed occupied, so 
Marah grimaced at him one last time and went scurrying, trying 
to set her face in a pleasant smile. And not getting far with 
it. Holding his walking staff wide, Mat flourished a bow to 
her retreating back. 


The good smells that had mingled with sweet pipesmoke in the 
common room permeated the kitchen, roasting fish, baking 
bread, meats sizzling on the spits. The room was hot from the 
iron stoves and the ovens and the fire in the long brick 
fireplace, and six sweating women and three potboys were 
dashing about under the orders of the chief cook. Wearing a 
snowy white apron as if it were a tabard of office and 
wielding a long-handled wooden spoon to reign over her domain, 
Enid was the roundest woman Mat had even seen. He did not 
think he could have gotten his arms around her had he wanted 
to. She recognized him right away, and a sly grin split her 
wide olive face. 


"So, you found out I was right," she said, pointing the 
spoon at him. "You squeezed the wrong melon, and it turned out 
the melon was a lionfish in disguise and you were just a plump 
grunter." Throwing back her head, she cackled with laughter. 


Mat forced a grin. Blood and bloody ashes! Everybody really 
did know! / have to get out of this bloody city, he thought 
grimly, or I'll hear them bloody laughing at me the rest of my 
life! 


Suddenly his fears about the gold began to seem foolish. The 
gray floorstone in front of the stoves appeared firmly in 
place, no different from any other in the kitchen. You had to 
know the trick in order to lift it. Lopin and Nerim would have 
told him if so much as a single coin had vanished between 
their visits. Mistress Anan likely would have tracked down and 
skinned the culprit if anyone tried thieving in her inn. He 
might as well be on his way. Maybe Aludra's willpower would be 
weaker at this hour. Maybe she would give him breakfast. He 
had slipped out of the Palace without waiting to eat. 


So as not rouse curiosity about his visit, he did tell Enid 
how much he had enjoyed her gilded fish, how it was better 
than that served in the Tarasin Palace, without having to 
exaggerate even a whisker. Enid was a marvel. The woman 
positively beamed, and to his surprise, lifted one out of the 
oven onto a platter just for him. Somebody in the common room 



could just wait, she told him, setting the platter at the end 
of the kitchen's long worktable. A wave of her spoon brought a 
stout potboy with a stool. 


Looking at the golden-crusted flatfish, he felt his mouth wa 
tering. Aludra likely would be no weaker now than any other 
time. And if she was upset over being disturbed so early, she 
might not give him breakfast. His stomach rumbled loudly. 
Hanging his cloak on a peg beside the door to the stableyard 
and propping his walking staff beneath, he tucked his hat 
under the stool and turned back his lace to keep it out of the 


platter. 
By the time Mistress Anan came in through the door to the 
stableyard, swinging her cloak off and shaking rain onto the 
floor, little remained beyond a tangy taste on his tongue and 

fine white bones on the platter. He had learned to enjoy a 
number of odd things since coming to Ebou Dar, but he left the 
eyes staring up at him. The things were on the same side of 
the fish's head! 


Another woman slipped in behind Mistress Anan as he dabbed 
his mouth with a linen napkin. She closed the door behind her 
quickly, and kept her damp cloak on with the hood pulled well 
up. Rising, he caught a glimpse of the face inside that hood 
and nearly knocked his stool over. He thought he covered well, 
though, making a leg to the women, but his head was spinning. 


"It is well you are here, my Lord," Mistress Anan said 
briskly, handing her cloak to a potboy. "I would have sent for 
you, otherwise. Enid, clear the kitchen, please, and watch the 
door. I need to speak with the young lord alone." 


The cook briskly herded the under-cooks and potboys out into 
the stableyard, and despite their muttered complaints about 
the rain and wails about the food burning, it was clear they 
were as accustomed to this as Enid. She herself did not even 
glance at Mistress Anan and her companion again before 
hurrying through the door into the common room with her long 
spoon held up like a sword. 


"What a surprise," Joline Maza said, tossing her hood back. 
Her dark woolen dress, with a deep neckline in the local 
style, fit loosely and looked worn and frayed. You would never 
have thought it from her carefree attitude, though. "When 
Mistress Anan told me she knew a man who might take me with 
him when he left Ebou Dar, I never guessed it was you." Pretty 
and brown-eyed, she had a smile almost as warm as Caira's. And 
an ageless face that screamed Aes Sedai. With dozens of 
Seanchan just the other side of a door guarded by a cook with 
a spoon. 


Removing her cloak, Joline turned to hang it on one of the 
pegs, and Mistress Anan made an irritated sound in her throat. 
"That isn't safe yet, Joline," she said, sounding more as if 
talking to one of her daughters than to an Aes Sedai. "Until I 
have you safely-" 


Suddenly a commotion rose at the door to the common room, 
Enid protesting in a shout that no one could enter, and a 
voice almost as loud, in Seanchan accents, demanding that she 
move aside. 


Ignoring the protests of his leg, Mat moved faster than he 
thought he ever had in his life, grabbing Joline by the waist 
and plunking himself down on the bench by the door to the 



stableyard with the Aes Sedai on his lap. Hugging her close, 
he pretended to be kissing her. It was a fool way to try 
hiding her face, but all he could think of short of throwing 
her cloak over her head. She gasped indignantly, but fear 
widened her eyes when she finally heard the Seanchan voice, 
and she snaked her arms around him in a flash. Praying for his 
luck to hold, he watched the door open. 


Still protesting loudly, Enid backed into the kitchen thump 
ing away with her spoon at the so'jhin with a wet cloak 
hanging down his back who was pushing her ahead of him. A 
heavy set scowling man with a stub of a braid that did not 
even come close to reaching his shoulder, he fended off most 
of her blows with his free hand and seemed to ignore the few 
he could not. He was the first so'jhin Mat had seen with a 
beard, and it gave him a lopsided look, running down the right 
side of his chin and up the left to stop dead at the middle of 
his ear. A tall woman with sharp blue eyes in a pale stern 
face followed him, flinging back an elaborately embroidered 
blue cloak, held at her throat by a large silver pin shaped 
like a sword, to reveal a pleated dress of a paler blue. Her 
short dark hair was cut in the bowl, the rest shaved off all 
the way around above her ears. Still, she was better than a 
sui'dam with a damane. A little better. Realizing the battle 
was lost, Enid backed away from the man, but by the way she 
gripped her spoon and glared, she was ready to leap on him 
again in a heartbeat if Mistress Anan gave the word. 


"A fellow out front did say he did see the innkeeper going 
round the back," the so'jhin announced. He was looking at 
Setalle, but eyeing Enid warily. "If you be Setalle Anan, then 
know this do be Captain of the Green Lady Egeanin Tamarath, 
and she do have an order for rooms signed by the High Lady 
Suroth Sabelle Meldarath herself." His tone altered, becoming 
less a pronouncement and more the voice of a man wanting 
accommodations. "Your best rooms, mind, with a good bed, a 
view of the square out there, and a fireplace that no does 
smoke." 


Mat gave a start when the man spoke, and Joline, perhaps 
thinking someone was coming toward them, moaned against his 
mouth in fear. Her eyes shone with unshed tears, and she trem 
bled in his arms. The Lady Egeanin Tamarath glanced at the 
bench when Joline moaned, then grimaced in disgust and turned 
so she could avoid seeing the pair. It was the man who 
intrigued Mat, though. How in the Light did an Illianer come 
to be so'jhin? And the fellow looked familiar, somehow. Likely 
another of those thousands of long-dead faces he could not 
help recalling. 


"I am Setalle Anan, and my best rooms are occupied by Cap 
tain of the Air Lord Abaldar Yulan," Mistress Anan said 
calmly, unintimidated by so'jhin or Blood. She folded her arms 
beneath her breasts. "My second-best rooms are occupied by 
Banner-General Furyk Karede. Of the Deathwatch Guards. I don't 
know whether a Captain of the Green outranks them, but either 
way, you will have to sort out for yourselves who stays and 
who has to go elsewhere. I have a firm policy of not expelling 
any Seanchan guest. So long as he pays his rent." 


Mat tensed, waiting for the explosion-Suroth would have her 
flogged for half that!-but Egeanin smiled. "It's a pleasure to 



deal with someone who has a little nerve," she drawled. "I 
think we'll get on just fine, Mistress Anan. So long as you 
don't take nerve too far. Captain gives the orders, and crew 
obeys, but I never made anyone crawl on my deck." Mat frowned. 
Deck. A ship's deck. Why did that tug at something in his 
head? Those old memories were a nuisance, sometimes. 


Mistress Anan nodded, never taking her dark eyes from the 
Seanchan's blue. "As you say, my Lady. But I hope you will re 
member that The Wandering Woman is my ship." Luckily for her, 
the Seanchan woman had a sense of humor. She laughed. 


"Then you be captain of your ship," she chuckled, "and I 
will be Captain of the Gold." Whatever that meant. With a 
sigh, Egeanin shook her head. "Light's truth, I don't outrank 
many here, I suspect, but Suroth wants me close at hand, so 
some move down, and somebody moves out unless they want to 
double up." Suddenly she frowned, half glancing toward Mat and 
Joline, and her lip curled in distaste. "I trust you don't let 
that sort of thing go on everywhere, Mistress Anan?" 


"I assure you, you will never see the like again under my 
roof," the innkeeper replied smoothly. 


The so'jhin was frowning at Mat and the woman on his lap, 
too, and Egeanin had to tug at his coatsleeve before he gave a 
start and followed her back into the common room. Mat grunted 
contemptuously. The fellow could pretend to be outraged like 
his mistress all he wanted; Mat had heard about festivals in 
Illian, though, and they were almost as bad as festivals in 
Ebou Dar when it came to people running around half-clothed or 
less. No better than da'covale, or those shea dancers the 
soldiers went on about. 


He tried to ease Joline from his lap when the door swung 
shut behind the pair, but she clung to him and buried her face 
on his shoulder, weeping softly. Enid heaved a great sigh and 
sagged against the worktable as though her bones had softened. 
Even Mistress Anan appeared shaken. She dropped onto the stool 
Mat had vacated and put her head in her hands. Only for a 
moment, though, and then she was back on her feet. 


"Count to fifty and then get everyone in out of the rain, 
Enid," she said briskly. No one would have known that she had 
been trembling a moment earlier. Gathering Joline's cloak from 
its peg, she took a long splinter from a box on the 
mantelpiece and bent to light it in the fire beneath the 
spits. "I will be in the cellar if you need me, but if anyone 
asks, you don't know where I am. Until I say otherwise, no one 
but you or I goes down there." Enid nodded as though this was 
nothing out of the ordinary. "Bring her," the innkeeper told 
Mat, "and don't dawdle. Carry her if you must." 


He did have to carry her. Still weeping almost soundlessly, 
Joline would not loosen her hold on him or even lift her head 
from his shoulder. She was not heavy, thank the Light, yet 
even so, a dull ache began in his leg as he followed Mistress 
Anan to the cellar door with his burden. He might have enjoyed 
it in spite of the throbbing, if Mistress Anan had not taken 
her time about everything. 


As though there were no Seanchan within a hundred miles she 
lit a lamp on a shelf beside the heavy door and carefully blew 
out the splinter before replacing the tall glass mantle, then 
laid the smoking splinter on a small tin tray. Unhurriedly 



producing a long key from her belt pouch, she undid the iron 
lock and, finally, motioned him to go through. The stairs 
beyond were wide enough to bring up a barrel, yet steep, 
vanishing into darkness. He obeyed, but waited on the second 
step while she drew the door shut and re-locked it, waited for 
her to take the lead with the lamp held high. The last thing 
he needed was a tumble. 


"Do you do this often?" he asked, shifting Joline. She had 
stopped her crying, but she still held tight to him, 
trembling. "I mean, hiding Aes Sedai?" 


"I heard whispers there was a sister still in the city," 
Mistress Anan replied, "and I managed to find her before the 
Seanchan did. I couldn't leave a sister to them." She glared 
back over her shoulder, daring him to say different. He wanted 
to, but he could not make the words come. He supposed he would 
have helped anyone get away from the Seanchan, if he could, 
and he owed a debt to Joline Maza. 


The Wandering Woman was a well-stocked inn, and the dark 
cellar was large. Aisles stretched between barrels of wine and 
ale stacked on their sides, high, slatted bins of potatoes and 
turnips that stood up off the stone floor, rows of tall 
shelves holding sacks of dried beans and peas and peppers, 
mounds of wooden crates holding the Light alone knew what. 
There appeared to be little dust, but the air had the dry 
smell common to sound storerooms. 


He spotted his clothes, neatly folded on a cleared shelf- 
unless someone else was storing garments down there-but he had 
no chance to look at them. Mistress Anan led the way to the 
far end of the cellar, where he set Joline down on an upturned 
keg. He had to pry her arms free in order to leave her huddled 
there. Sniveling, she pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve 
and dabbed at red-rimmed eyes. With her face blotchy, she was 
hardly the image of an Aes Sedai, never mind her worn dress. 


"Her nerve is broken," Mistress Anan said, putting the lamp 
on a barrel that also stood on end, the bung in its end gone. 
Several other empty barrels stood about the floor where others 
had been removed, awaiting return to the brewer. It was as 
close to a clear space as he had seen in the cellar. "She's 
been hiding ever since the Seanchan came. The last few days, 
her Warders have had to move her several times when Seanchan 
decided to search a building instead of just the streets. 
Enough to break anyone's nerve, I suppose. I doubt they will 
try to search here, though." 


Thinking of all those officers upstairs, Mat had to concede 
she was probably right. Still, he was glad it was not him 
taking the risk. Squatting in front of Joline, he grunted at a 
stab of pain up his leg. "I will help you if I can," he said. 
How, he could not have said, but there was that debt. "Just be 
glad you were lucky enough to dodge them all this time. Teslyn 
wasn't so lucky." 


Snatching the handkerchief from her eyes, Joline glared at 
him. "Luck?" she spat angrily. It she had been other than Aes 
Sedai, he would have said she was sullen, sticking her lower 
lip out that way. "I could have escaped! It was all confusion 
the first day, as I understand. But I was unconscious. Fen and 
Blaeric barely managed to carry me out of the Palace before 
the Seanchan swarmed over it, and two men carrying a limp 



woman attracted too much attention for them to get anywhere 
near the city gates before they were secured. I am glad Teslyn 
was caught! Glad! She gave me something; I am sure she did! 
That is why Fen and Blaeric couldn't wake me, why I have been 
sleeping in stables and hiding in alleys, afraid those 
monsters would find me. It serves her right!" 


Mat blinked at the tirade. He doubted he had ever heard so 
much pure venom in a voice before, even in those old memories. 
Mistress Anan frowned at Joline, and her hand twitched. 


"Anyway, I'll help you as much as I can," he said hurriedly, 
rising so he could move between the two women. He would not 
put it past Mistress Anan to slap Joline, Aes Sedai or no Aes 
Sedai, and Joline looked in no mood to consider the 
possibility of a damans being upstairs to feel whatever she 
did in retaliation. It was a simple truth; the Creator made 
women so men would not find life too easy. How in the Light 
was he to get an Aes Sedai out of Ebou Dar? "I'm in debt to 
you." 


A tiny frown wrinkled Joline's brow. "In debt?" 


"The note asking me to warn Nynaeve and Elayne," he said 
slowly. He licked his lips and added, "The one you left on my 
pillow." 


She flicked a hand dismissively, but her eyes, focused on 
his face, never blinked. "All debts between us are settled the 
day you help me get outside the city walls, Master Cauthon," 
she said, in tones as regal as a queen on her throne. 


Mat swallowed hard. The note had been stuck into his coat 
pocket somehow, not left on his pillow. And that meant he was 
mistaken about who he owed the debt to. 


He made his leave without calling Joline on her lie-a lie 
even if only by letting his mistake pass-and he left without 
telling Mistress Anan, either. It was his problem. It made him 
feel sick. He wished he had never found out. 


Back in the Tarasin Palace, he went straight to Tyiin's 
apartments and spread his cloak over a chair to dry. A 
pounding rain beat against the windows. Putting his hat atop 
one of the carved and gilded wardrobes, he toweled his face 
and hands dry and considered changing his coat. The rain had 
soaked through his cloak in a few places. His coat was damp 
here and there. Damp. Light! 


Growling in disgust, he wadded up the striped towel and 
threw it on the bed. He was delaying, even hoping-a little- 
that Tyiin might walk in and stab the bedpost, so he could put 
off what he had to do. What he had to do. Joline had left him 
with no choice. 


The Palace was laid out simply, if you cared to look at it 
that way. Servants lived on the lowest level, where the 
kitchens were, and some in the cellars. The next floor up 
contained the spacious public rooms and the cramped studies of 
the clerks, and the third apartments for less favored guests, 
most occupied now by Seanchan Blood. The highest floor held 
Tyiin's apartments, and rooms for more favored guests, like 
Suroth and Tuon and a few others. Except, even palaces had 
attics, of a sort. 


Pausing at the foot of a flight of stairs hidden around an 
innocuous corner where they would not be noticed, Mat drew a 
deep breath before going up slowly. The huge windowless room 



at the top of the stairs, low-ceiling and floored with rough 
planks, had been cleared of whatever it held before the 
Seanchan, and the space filled with a grid of tiny wooden 
rooms, each with its own closed door. Plain iron stand-lamps 
lit the narrow halls between. The rain beating down on the 
roof tiles was loud here, just overhead. He paused again on 
the top step, and only breathed again when he realized that he 
could hear no footsteps. A woman was crying in one of the tiny 
rooms, but no sui'dam was going to appear and demand to know 
what he was doing there. Likely they would learn he had been, 


but not until after he found out what he needed, if he was 
quick. 
He did not know which room was hers, was the trouble. He 

walked to the first and opened the door long enough to peek 
in. An Atha'an Miere woman in a gray dress was sitting on the 
side of a narrow bed, hands folded in her lap. The bed and a 
washstand with bowl and pitcher and a tiny mirror took up most 
of the room. Several gray dresses hung from pegs on the wall. 
The segmented silver leash of an a'dam ran in an arc from the 
silver collar around her neck to a silver bracelet looped over 
a hook set in the wall. She could reach any part of the tiny 
room. The small holes where her earrings and nose ring had 
been had not yet had time to heal. They looked like wounds. 
When the door opened, her head came up with a fearful 
expression that faded into speculation. And maybe hope. 


He closed the door without saying a word. / can't save all 
of them, he thought harshly. / can't! Light, but he hated 
this. 


The next doors revealed identical rooms and three more Sea 
Folk women, one of them weeping loudly on her bed, and then a 
sleeping yellow-haired woman, all with their a'dam loosely 
stretched to hooks. He eased that door shut as though he were 
trying to filch one of Mistress al'Vere's pies right under her 
nose. Maybe the yellow-haired woman was not Seanchan, but he 
was not about to take the chance. A dozen doors later, he 
exhaled heavily in relief and slipped inside, pulling the door 
shut behind him. 


Teslyn Baradon lay on the bed, her face pillowed on her 
hands. Only her dark eyes moved, stabbing at him. She said 
nothing, just looked at him as though trying to bore holes in 
his skull. 


"You put a note in my coat pocket," he said softly. The 
walls were thin; he could still hear the weeping woman. "Why?" 


"Elaida does want those girls as much as she ever wanted the 
staff and stole," Teslyn said simply, without moving. Her 
voice still had a harshness to it, but less than he recalled. 
"Especially Elayne. I did wish to ... inconvenience . . . 
Elaida, if I could. Let her whistle for them." She gave a soft 
laugh tinged with bitterness. "I did even dose Joline with 
forkroot, so she could no interfere with those girls. And look 
what it did get me. Joline did escape, and I. . . ." Her eyes 
moved again, to the silver bracelet hanging on the hook. 


Sighing, Mat leaned against the wall beside the dresses hang 
ing on pegs. She knew what had been in the note, a warning for 
Elayne and Nynaeve. Light, but he had hoped she would not, 
that someone else had put the bloody thing in his pocket. It 
had not done any good, anyway. They both knew Elaida was after 



them. The note had changed nothing! The woman had not really 
been trying to help them, anyway, just to ... inconvenience . 
. . Elaida. He could walk away with a clean conscience. Blood 
and ashes! He should never actually have spoken to her. Now 
that he had actually exchanged words with her. . . . 


"I'll try to help you escape, if I can," he said 
reluctantly. 


She remained still on the bed. Neither her expression nor 
her tone of voice changed. She might have been explaining 
something simple and unimportant. "Even if you can remove the 
collar, I will no get very far, perhaps no even out of the 
Palace. And if I do, no woman who can channel can walk through 
the city gates unless she does wear an a'dam. I have stood 
guard there myself, and I do know." 


"I'll figure out something," he muttered, raking his fingers 
through his hair. Figure out something? What? "Light, you 
don't even sound as if you want to escape." 


"You do be serious," she whispered, so low he nearly did not 
hear. "I did think you only did come to taunt me." Slowly she 
sat, swinging her feet down to the floor. Her eyes latched on 
to his intently, and her voice took on a low urgency. "Do I 
want to escape? When I do something that does please them, the 
sui'dam do give me sweets. I do find myself looking forward to 
those rewards." Breathy horror crept into her voice. "Not for 
liking of sweets, but because I have pleased the sui'dam." A 
single tear trickled from her eye. She inhaled deeply. "If you 
do help me escape, I will do anything you ask of me that does 
not encompass treason to the White-" Her teeth snapped shut, 
and she sat up straight, staring right through him. Abruptly, 
she nodded to herself. "Help me escape, and I will do anything 
you ask of me," she said. 


"I will do what I can," he told her. "I must think of a 
way." 


She nodded as though he had promised an escape by nightfall. 
"There do be another sister held prisoner here in the Palace. 
Edesina Azzedin. She must come with us." 


"One other?" Mat said. "I thought I'd seen three or four, 
counting you. Anyway, I'm not sure I can get you out, much 
less-" 


"The others do be ... changed." Teslyn's mouth tightened. 
"Guisin and Mylen-I did know her as Sheraine Caminelle, but 
she do answer only to Mylen, now-those two would betray us. 
Edesina do still be herself. I will no leave her behind, even 
if she do be a rebel." 


"Now, look," Mat said with a smile, soothingly, "I said I 
will try to get you out, but I can't see any way to get two of 
you-" 


"It do be best if you go now," she broke in again. "Men are 
no allowed up here, and in any case, you will rouse suspicions 
if you do be found." Frowning at him, she sniffed. "It would 
help if you did not dress so flamboyantly. Ten drunken Tinkers 
could no attract as much attention as you do. Go, now. 
Quickly. Go!" 


He went, muttering to himself. Just like an Aes Sedai. Offer 
to help her, and the next thing you knew, she had you scaling 
a sheer cliff in the middle of the night to break fifty people 
out of a dungeon by yourself. That had been another man, a 



long time dead, but he remembered it, and it fit. Blood and 
bloody ashes! He did not know to rescue one Aes Sedai, and she 
had him trying to rescue two! 


He stalked around the innocuous corner at the foot of the 
stairs and almost walked into Tuon. 


"Damane kennels are forbidden to men," she said, peering up 
at him coldly through her veil. "You could be punished just 
for entering." 


"I was looking for a Windfinder, High Lady," he said 
hastily, making a leg and thinking as fast as he ever had in 
his life. "She did me a favor once, and I thought she might 
like something from the kitchens. Some pastries, or the like. 
I didn't see her, though. I suppose she wasn't caught when. . 
. ." He trailed off, staring. The stern judicial mask the girl 
always wore for a face had melted into a smile. She really was 
beautiful. 


"That is very kind of you," she said. "It's good to know you 
are kind to damans. But you must be careful. There are men who 
actually take damane to their beds." Her full mouth twisted in 
disgust. "You would not want anyone to think you are per 
verted." That severe expression settled on her face again. All 
prisoners would be executed immediately. 


"Thank you for the warning, High Lady," he said, a little 
unsteadily. What kind of man wanted to bed a woman who was on 
a leash? 


He disappeared then, as far as she was concerned. She just 
glided away down the hall as if she saw no one. For once, 
though, the High Lady Tuon did not concern him at all. He had 
an Aes Sedai hiding in the cellar of The Wandering Woman and 
two wearing damane leashes who all expected Mat bloody Cauthon 
to save their necks. He was sure Teslyn would inform this 
Edesina all about it as soon as she was able. Three women who 
might start getting impatient if he failed to waft them to 
safety soon enough. Women liked to talk, and when they talked 
enough, they let slip things better left unspoken. Impatient 
women talked even more than the rest. He could not feel the 
dice in his head, but he could almost hear a clock ticking. 
And the hour might be struck by a headsman's axe. Battles he 
could plan in his sleep, but those old memories did not seem 
much help here. He needed a schemer, someone used to plotting 
and crooked ways of thinking. It was time to make Thorn sit 
down and talk. And Juilin. 


Setting out in search of either, he unconsciously began hum 
ming "I'm Down at the Bottom of the Well." Well, he was, and 
night was falling and the rain well and truly coming down. As 
often happened, another name drifted up out of those old memo 
ries, a song of the Court of Takedo, in Farashelle, crushed a 
thousand years ago and more by Artur Hawkwing. The intervening 
years had made remarkably little change in the tune itself, 
though. Then, it had been called "The Last Stand at 
Mandenhar." Either way, it fit too bloody well. 


Chapter 20: Questions of Treason 


Climbing to the cramped kennels at the very top of the 



Tarasin Palace, Bethamin held her writing board carefully. 
Sometimes the ink jar's cork came loose, and ink spots were 
difficult to remove from clothing. She kept herself as 
presentable at all times as if she had been called to appear 
before one of the High Blood. She did not talk to Renna, who 
had the inspection duty with her today, as they walked up the 
stairs. They were supposed to be doing an assigned task, not 
chattering idly. That was part of her reason. Where others 
jockeyed to be complete with their favorite damane, and 
goggled at the strange sights of this land, and speculated on 
the rewards to be gained here, she focused on her duties, 
asking for the most difficult marath'damane to tame to the 
a'dam, working twice as hard and twice as long as anyone else. 


The rain had stopped, finally, leaving the kennels in 
silence. The damane would get some exercise at least, 
today-most grew sulky if confined to the kennels too long, and 
these makeshift kennels were decidedly confining-but 
regrettably, she was not assigned to walking today. Renna 
never was, though once she had been Suroth's best trainer, and 
well respected. A little harsh, sometimes, but highly skilled. 
Once, everyone had said she would soon be made der’sul’dam in 
spite of her youth. Matters had changed. There were always 
more sui'dam than damane, yet no one could recall Renna being 
complete since Faime, her or Seta, whom Suroth had taken into 
personal service after Faime. Bethamin enjoyed gossiping over 
wine about the Blood and those who served them as much as 
anyone else, yet she never ventured any opinion when the talk 
turned to Renna and Seta. She thought of them often, though. 


"You start on the other side, Renna," she ordered. "Well? Do 
you want to be reported to Essonde for laziness yet again?" 


Before Faime, the shorter woman had been nearly overpowering 
in her self-assurance, but a muscle twitched in her pale 
cheek, and she gave Bethamin a sickly, obsequious smile before 
hurrying into the kennel's warren of narrow passages patting 
at her long hair as though afraid it might be disordered. 
Everyone except Renna's closest friends bullied her at least a 
little, repaying her former lofty pride. To do otherwise was 
to mark yourself out, something Bethamin avoided except in 
carefully chosen ways. Her own secrets were buried as deeply 
as she could bury them, and she held silent about the secrets 
no one knew she was aware of, but she wanted to fix in 
everyone's mind that Bethamin Zeami was the image of the 
perfect sui'dam. Absolute perfection was what she strove for, 
in herself and in the damane she trained. 


She set about her inspection briskly and efficiently, 
checking that the damane had kept themselves and their 
individual kennels neat, making a short notation in her neat 
hand on the top page pinned to the writing board when one had 
failed to, and she did not dawdle, except to give out hard 
candies to a few who were doing particularly well in the 
training. Most of those she had been complete with greeted her 
entrance with smiles even as they knelt. Whether from the 
Empire or from this side of the ocean, they knew she was firm 
yet fair. Others did not smile. For the most part, the Atha'an 
Miere damane met her with stony faces as dark as her own, or 
sullen anger they seemed to believe they were concealing. 


She did not mark their anger down for punishment, as some 



would have. They still thought they were resisting, but 
unseemly demands for the return of their garish jewelry 
already were a thing of the past, and they knelt and spoke 
properly. A new name was a useful tool with the most difficult 
cases, creating a break with what was done and gone, and they 
answered to theirs, however reluctantly. Reluctance would 
fade, along with scowls, and eventually they would hardly 
remember they ever had other names. It was a familiar pattern, 
and unfailing as sunrise. Some accepted immediately, and some 
went into shock at learning what they were. Always there were 
a handful who gave ground grudgingly over months, while with 
others, one day it was shrieked protests that a terrible 
mistake had been made, that they could never have failed the 
tests, and the next day came acceptance and calm. The details 
differed on this side of the ocean, but here or in the Empire, 
the end result remained the same. 


For two of the damane she made notes that had nothing to do 
with neatness. Zushi, an Atha'an Miere damane even taller than 
she herself, was certainly marked for a switching. Her dress 
was rumpled, her hair uncombed, her bed unmade. But her face 
was swollen from crying, and no sooner had she knelt than a 
new set of sobs racked her, tears streaming down her cheeks. 
The gray dress that had been fitted on her so carefully now 
hung loosely, and she had not been plump to begin with. 
Bethamin had named Zushi herself, and she felt a special 
concern. Unclipping the steelnibbed pen, she dipped it and 
wrote a suggestion that Zushi be moved from the Palace to 
somewhere she could be kept in a double kennel with a damane 
from the Empire, preferably one experienced in becoming heart-
friends with newly collared damane. Sooner or later, that 
always put an end to tears. 


She was not sure Suroth would allow it, though. Suroth had 
claimed these damane for the Empress, of course-anyone who 
owned a tenth so many personally would be suspected of 
plotting rebellion, or even accused outright-yet she behaved 
as though they were her own property. If Suroth disallowed, 
some other way would have to be found. Bethamin refused to 
lose a damane to despondency. She refused to lose a damane for 
any reason! The second to receive a special comment was Tessi, 
and she expected no objections there. 


The Illianer damane knelt gracefully, hands folded at her 
waist, as soon as Bethamin opened the door. Her bed was made, 
her extra gray dresses hung neatly on their pegs, her brush 
and comb were laid out precisely on her washstand, and the 
floor had been swept. Bethamin expected no less. Tessi had 
been neat from the start. She was fleshing out nicely now that 
she had learned to clean her plate. Other than treats, 
damane's diets were regulated strictly; an unhealthy damane 
was a waste. Tessi would never be decked in ribbons and 
entered in the competitions for the prettiest damane, though. 
Her face seemed perpetually angry even in repose. But today 
she wore a slight smile that Bethamin was sure had been in 
place before she entered. Tessi was not one she expected 
smiles from, not yet. 


"How is my little Tessi feeling today?" she asked. 


"Tessi do feel very well," the damane replied smoothly. 
Always before she had had to struggle to speak properly, and 



had earned her latest switching for outright refusal only 
yesterday. 


Fingering her chin thoughtfully, Bethamin studied the kneel 
ing damane. She was suspicious of any damane who had called 
herself Aes Sedai. History fascinated her, and she had even 
read translations from the myriad of languages that had 
existed before the Consolidation began. Those ancient rulers 
reveled in their murderous, capricious rule, and delighted in 
setting down how they came to power and how they crushed 
neighboring states and undermined other rulers. Most had died 


by assassination, often at the hands of their own heirs or 
followers. She knew very well what Aes Sedai were like. 
"Tessi is a good damane," she murmured warmly, taking one of 

the hard candies from the twist of paper in her belt pouch. 
Tessi leaned forward to receive it and kiss her hand in 
thanks, but the smile slipped a little, though it was back by 
the time she stuffed the red candy into her mouth. So. It was 
like that, was it? Pretending to accept in order to lull the 
sui'dam was not unknown, but given what Tessi had been, very 
likely she was plotting escape as well. 


Back out in the narrow hallway, Bethamin wrote a strong 
suggestion that Tessi's training be redoubled, along with her 
punishments, and her rewards be made sporadic, so she could 
never be sure that even perfection would earn so much as a pat 
on the head. It was a harsh method, one she normally avoided, 
but for some reason it turned even the most recalcitrant 
marath'damane into a supple damane in a remarkably short time. 
It also produced the meekest of damane. She disliked breaking 
a damane's spirit, yet Tessi needed to be broken to the a'dam 
so she could forget the past. She would be happier for it, in 
the end. 


Finishing ahead of Renna, Bethamin waited at the foot of the 
stairs until the other sui'dam came down. "Take this to 
Essonde when you take yours," she said, thrusting her writing 
board at Renna before she cleared the final step. 
Unsurprisingly, Renna accepted the task as meekly as she had 
accepted the earlier order, and hurried away eyeing the extra 
writing board as though wondering whether the pages held a 
report on her. She was a very different woman than she had 
been before Falme. 


Fetching her cloak and leaving the Palace, Bethamin intended 
to return to the inn where she was forced to share a bed with 
two other sui'dam, but only long enough to take some coin from 
her lockbox. The inspection had been her only duty today, and 
the rest of the hours were her own. For a change, instead of 
seeking extra assignments, she would spend them buying 
souvenirs. Perhaps one of those knives the local women wore at 
their necks, if she could find one without the gems they 
seemed to like on the hilt. And lacquerware, of course; that 
was as good here as any in the Empire, and the designs were so 
... foreign. It would be soothing to shop. She needed 
soothing. 


The paving stones of the Mol Hara still glistened damply 
from the morning's rain, and a pleasant tang of salt filled 
the air, reminding her of the village on the Sea of L'Heye 
where she had been born, though the freezing cold made her 
clutch her cloak around herself. It had never been cold in 



Abunai, and she had never become accustomed to it no matter 
how far she had traveled. Thoughts of home were no comfort, 
now, though. As she made her way through the crowded streets, 
Renna and Seta filled her head to the extent that she bumped 
into people and once almost walked right in front of a 
merchant's train of wagons leaving the city. A shout from a 
wagon driver caught her attention, and she leaped back just in 


time. The wagon rumbled across the paving stones where she 
would have been standing, and the woman wielding the whip did 
not even glance at her. These foreigners had no idea of the 
respect due a sui'dam. 

Renna and Seta. Everyone who had been at Faime had memories 
they wanted to forget, memories they would not talk about 
except when they drank too much. She did, too, only hers were 
not about the shock of battling half-recognized ghosts out of 
legend, or the horror of defeat, or mad visions in the sky. 
How often had she wished she had not gone upstairs that day? 
If only she had not wondered how Tuli was doing, the damane 
who had the marvelous skill with metals. But she had looked 
into Tuli's kennel. And she had seen Renna and Seta 
frantically trying to remove a'dam from each other's necks, 
shrieking with the pain, wavering on their knees from the 
nausea, and still fumbling at the collars. Vomit stained the 
fronts of their dresses. In their frenzy they had not noticed 
her backing away, horror-stricken. 


Not simply horror at seeing two sui'dam revealed as 
marath'damane, but her own sudden personal terror. Often she 
thought she could almost see damane's weaves, and she could 
always sense a damane's presence and know how strong she was. 
Many sui'dam could; everyone knew it came from long experience 
at handling the a'dam. Yet the sight of that desperate pair 
roused unwanted thoughts, putting a different and frightening 
complexion on what she had always accepted. Did she almost see 
the weaves, or did she really see? Sometimes she thought she 
felt the channeling, too. Even sui'dam had to undergo the 
yearly testing, until their twenty-fifth naming day, and she 
had passed by failing every time. Only. . . . There would be a 
new testing after Renna and Seta were discovered, a new 
testing to find the marath'damane who somehow had evaded the 
first. The Empire itself might tremble before such a blow. And 
with the image of Renna and Seta burned into her brain, she 
had known with total certainty that after those tests, 
Bethamin Zeami would no longer be a respected citizen. 
Instead, a damane called Bethamin would serve the Empire. 


The shame curdled in her still. She had placed personal 
fears ahead of the needs of the Empire, ahead of everything 
she knew to be right and true and good. Battle came to Faime, 
and nightmare, but she had not rushed to complete herself with 
a damane and join the battle line. Instead, she had used the 
confusion to secure a horse and flee, to run as hard and as 
far as she could. 


She realized she had stopped, staring into a seamstress's 
shop window without really seeing what was on display inside. 
Not that she wanted to see. The blue dress with its lightning-
marked red panels was the only one she had thought of wearing 
in years. And she certainly would not wear something that 
exposed her so indecently. Skirts swirling about her ankles, 



she walked on, but she could not shake Renna and Seta from her 
thoughts, or Suroth. 


Obviously Alwhin had found the collared pair of sui'dam and 
reported them to Suroth. And Suroth had sheltered the Empire 
by protecting Renna and Seta, dangerous as that was. What if 
they suddenly began channeling? Better perhaps for the Empire 
if she had arranged their deaths, though killing a sui'dam was 
murder even for the High Blood. Two suspicious deaths among 
the sui'dam would certainly have brought in Seekers. So Renna 
and Seta were free, if it could be called that when they were 
never allowed to be complete. Alwhin had done her duty, and 
been honored by becoming Suroth's Voice. Suroth had done her 
duty as well, however distasteful. There was no new testing. 
Her own flight had been for nothing. And if she had remained, 
she would not have ended up in Tanchico, a nightmare she 
wanted to forget even more than she did Falme. 


A squad of the Deathwatch Guards marched by, resplendent in 
their armor, and Bethamin paused to watch them pass. They left 
a wake through the crowd like a greatship under full sail. 
There would be joy in the city, in the land, when Tuon finally 
revealed herself, and celebrations as though she had just 
arrived. She felt a guilty pleasure at thinking of the 
Daughter of the Nine Moons so, as when she had done something 
forbidden as a child, though of course, until Tuon removed her 
veil, she was merely the High Lady Tuon, no higher than 
Suroth. The Deathwatch Guards tramped on, dedicated heart and 
soul to Empress and Empire, and Bethamin went in the opposite 
direction. Appropriately, since she was dedicated heart and 
soul to preserving her own freedom. 


The Golden Swans of Heaven was a grand name for a tiny inn 
squeezed between a public stable and a lacquerware shop. The 
lacquerware shop was full of military officers buying 
everything the shop contained, the stable was full of horses 
purchased in the lottery and not yet assigned, and The Golden 
Swans was full of sui'dam. Packed with them, in fact, at least 
once night came. Bethamin was lucky to have only two bedmates. 
Ordered to accommodate as many as she could, the innkeeper 
pushed four and five into a bed when she thought they would 
fit. Still, the bedding was clean and the food quite good, if 
peculiar. And given that the alternative was likely a hayloft, 
she was glad to share. 


At this hour, the round tables in the common room were 
empty. Some of the sui'dam living there surely had duties, and 
the rest simply wanted to avoid the innkeeper. Arms folded, 
frowning, Darnella Shoran was watching several serving women 
sweep the green-tiled floor industriously. A skinny woman with 
gray hair worn rolled on the nape of her neck and a long jaw 
that gave her a belligerent appearance, she might have been a 
der’sul’dam in spite of the ridiculous knife she wore, its 
hilt studded with cheap red and white gems. Supposedly the 
serving women were free, but they jumped like property 
whenever the innkeeper spoke. 


Bethamin jumped slightly herself when the woman rounded on 
her. "You are aware of my rules concerning men, Mistress 
Zeami?" she demanded. After all this time, the slow way these 
people talked still sounded odd. "I've heard about your 
foreign ways, and if that is how you are, it is your business, 



but not under my roof. If you want to meet with men, you will 


do it elsewhere!" 
"I assure you, I have not been meeting men here or anywhere 
else, Mistress Shoran." 
The innkeeper frowned at her in suspicion. "Well, he came 

around asking for you by name. A pretty, yellow-haired man. 
Not a boy, but not very old, either. One of your lot, dragging 
his words out so you could hardly understand him." 


Making her tone placating, Bethamin did her best to convince 
the woman that she did not know anyone who met that descrip 
tion, and that she had no time for men with her duties. Both 
were true, yet she would have lied if necessary. The Golden 
Swans had not been commandeered, and three in a bed was much 
preferable to a hayloft. She tried to find out whether the 
woman might like some small gift when she went shopping, but 
the woman actually seemed offended when she suggested a knife 
with more colorful gems. She had not meant anything expensive, 
nothing in way of a bribe-not really-yet Mistress Shoran 
seemed to take it so, huffing and frowning indignantly. In any 
case, she was not sure she succeeded in changing the woman's 
mind by a hair. For some reason, the innkeeper seemed to 
believe they spent all their free hours engaged in debauchery. 
She was still frowning when Bethamin started up the railless 
stairs at the side of the common room pretending that she had 
not a thought in her mind beyond shopping. 


The man's identity did concern her, though. She certainly 
did not recognize the description. In all likelihood, he had 
come about her inquiries, but if that was the case, if he had 
been able to trace her here, then she had been insufficiently 
discreet. Perhaps dangerously so. Still, she hoped he came 
back. She needed to know. She needed to! 


Opening the door to her room, she froze. Impossibly, her 
iron lockbox sat on the bed with its lid thrown open. That was 
a very good lock, and the only key lay at the bottom of her 
belt pouch. The thief was still there, and oddly, he was 
thumbing through her diary! How in the Light had the man 
gotten past Mistress Shoran's surveillance? 


Paralysis lasted only an instant. Snatching her belt knife 
from its sheath, she opened her mouth to scream for help. 


The fellow's expression never changed, and he neither tried 
to run nor to attack her. He just took something small from 
his pouch and held it up where she could see it, and her 
breath turned to lead in her throat. Numbly she fumbled her 
knife back into its scabbard and held out her hands to show 
him she held no weapon and was not attempting to reach one. 
Between his fingers was a gold-edged ivory plaque, engraved 
with a raven and a tower. Suddenly she really saw the man, 
yellow-haired and in his middle years. Perhaps he was pretty, 
as Mistress Shoran had said, but only a madwoman would think 
of a Seeker for Truth in that fashion. Thank the Light she had 
not recorded anything dangerous in her diary. But he must 
know. He had asked for her by name. Oh, Light, he must know! 


"Close the door," he said quietly, returning the plaque to 
his pouch, and she obeyed. She wanted to run. She wanted to 
plead for mercy. But he was a Seeker, so she stood there, 
trembling. To her surprise, he dropped her diary back into the 
lockbox and gestured to the room's single chair. "Sit. There 



is no need for you to be uncomfortable." 


Slowly, she hung up her cloak and settled onto the chair, 
for once not caring how uncomfortable the strange ladderlike 
back was. She did not try to hide her shivers. Even one of the 
Blood, even one of the High Blood, might quake at being 
questioned by a Seeker. She had a small hope. He had not 
simply ordered her to accompany him. Perhaps he did not know 
after all. 


"You have been asking questions about a ship captain named 
Egeanin Sarna," he said. "Why?" 


Hope faltered with a thud she could feel in her chest. "I 
was looking for an old friend," she quavered. The best lies 
always contained as much truth as possible. "We were at Faime 
together. I don't know whether she survived." Lying to a 
Seeker was treason, but she had committed her first treason in 
deserting during the battle at Falme. 


"She lives," he said curtly. He sat down on the end of the 
bed without taking his eyes from her. They were blue, and made 
her want her cloak back. "She is a hero, a Captain of the 
Green, and the Lady Egeanin Tamarath, now. Her reward from the 
High Lady Suroth. She is also here in Ebou Dar. You will renew 
your friendship with her. And report to me who she sees, where 
she goes, what she says. Everything." 


Bethamin clamped her jaws to keep from laughing 
hysterically. He was after Egeanin, not her. The Light be 
praised! The Light be praised in all its infinite mercy! She 
had only wanted to know if the woman still lived, if she had 
to take precautions. Egeanin had freed her once, yet in the 
ten years Bethamin had known her before that, she had been a 
model of duty. It had always seemed possible she would repent 
that one aberration no matter the cost to herself, but, wonder 
of wonders, she had not. And the Seeker was after her, not . . 
. ! Possibilities reared up in front of her, certainties, and 
she no longer wanted to laugh. Instead, she licked her lips. 


"How . . . ? How can I renew our friendship?" It had never 
been friendship anyway, merely acquaintance, but it was too 
late to say that now. "You tell me she's been raised to the 
Blood. Any overture must come from her." Fear emboldened her. 
And panicked her as it had at Falme. "Why do you need me to be 
your Listener? You can take her for questioning any time you 
decide to." She bit the inside of her cheek to still her 
tongue. Light, she wanted nothing less than she wanted him to 
do that. Seekers were the secret hand of the Empress, might 
she live forever; in the Empress's name, he could put even 
Suroth to the question, or Tuon herself. True, he would die 
horribly if it turned out he had been in error, but the risk 
was small with Egeanin. She was only of the low Blood. If he 
put Egeanin to the question. . . . 


To her shock, rather than simply telling her to obey, he sat 
studying her. "I will explain certain things," he said, and 
that was a greater shock. Seekers never explained, so she had 
heard. "You are no use to me, or the Empire, unless you 
survive, and you will not survive if you fail to understand 
what you face. If you reveal a word of what I tell you to 
anyone, you will dream of the Tower of the Ravens as a respite 
from where you will find yourself. Listen, and learn. Egeanin 
was sent to Tanchico before the city fell to us, among other 



things as part of the effort to find sui'dam who had been left 
behind at Falme. Strangely, she found none, though others did, 
like those who aided your own return. Instead, Egeanin 
murdered the sui'dam she found. I put the charge to her my 
self, and she did not bother denying it. She did not even show 
outrage, or even indignation. As bad, she consorted in secret 
with Aes Sedai." He said the name flatly, not with the normal 
disgust but rather like an accusation. "When she departed 
Tanchico, she was traveling on a ship commanded by a man named 
Bayle Domon. He made some disturbance at having his ship 
boarded and was made property. She bought him and immediately 
made him so'jhin, so plainly he is of some importance to her. 
Interestingly, she had brought the same man to the High Lord 
Turak in Falme. Domon engaged the High Lord's regard to the 
extent that the fellow was often invited to converse with 
him." He grimaced. "Do you have wine? Or brandy?" 


Bethamin gave a start. "Lona has a flask of the local 
brandy, I think. It's a rough drink. ..." 


He ordered her to pour him a cup anyway, and she obeyed 
hurriedly. She wanted to keep him talking, anything to delay 
the inevitable. She knew for a fact that Egeanin had not been 
killing sui'dam, yet her proof would condemn her to share 
Renna and Seta's sour fate. If she was lucky. If this Seeker 


saw his duty to the Empire as Suroth had. He peered into the 
pewter cup, swirling the dark apple brandy while she took her 
seat again. 

"The High Lord Turak was a great man," he murmured. "Perhaps 
one of the greatest the Empire has ever seen. A pity his 
so'jhin decided to follow him into death. Honorable of them, 
but it makes it impossible to be sure Domon was in the band 
that murdered the High Lord." Bethamin flinched. Sometimes the 
Blood died at one another's hands, of course, but the word 
murder was never mentioned. The Seeker continued, still 
peering into his cup without drinking. "The High Lord had 
ordered me to watch Suroth. He suspected she was a danger to 
the Empire itself. His own words. And with his death, she 
managed to gain command of the Forerunners. I have no evidence 
that she ordered his death, but there is much that is 
suggestive. Suroth brought a damane to Falme, a young woman 
who was Aes Sedai," again, the name was flat and hard, "and 
who somehow escaped the very day that Turak died. Suroth also 
has a damane in her entourage who was once Aes Sedai. She has 
never been seen uncollared, but. . . ." He shrugged, as though 
that were a thing of no moment. Bethamin's eyes popped. Who 
would uncollar a damane? A well-trained damane was a treat and 
a joy, but as well unleash a drunken grolm! "It seems very 
likely she has a marath'damane hidden among her property, 
too," he went on, just as if he were not listing crimes little 
lower than treason. "I believe Suroth gave the order for 
sui'dam who managed to reach Tanchico to be killed, perhaps in 
order to hide Egeanin's meetings with Aes Sedai. You sui'dam 
always say you can tell a marath'damane at sight, correct?" 


He looked up suddenly, and somehow she managed to meet those 
frozen eyes with a smile. His face could have belonged to any 
man, but those eyes. . . . She was glad to be seated. Her 
knees were shaking so hard she was surprised it did not show 
through her skins. "It is not quite that easy, I'm afraid." 



She almost succeeded in keeping her voice steady. "You. . . . 
Surely you know enough to charge Suroth with the High Lord 
Turak's m-m-murder." If he took Suroth, there would be no need 
to involve her, or Egeanin. 


"Turak was a great man, but my duty is to the Empress, may 
she live forever, and through her, to the Empire." He drank 
the brandy down in one long swallow, and his face became as 
hard as his voice. "Turak's death is dust beside the danger 
facing the Empire. The Aes Sedai of these lands seek power in 
the Empire, a return to the days of chaos and murder when no 
man could close his eyes at night knowing he would wake, and 
they are aided by a venomous worm of treachery boring from 
within. Suroth may not even be that worm's head. For the 
Empire's sake, I dare not take her until I can kill the whole 
worm. Egeanin is a thread I can follow to the worm, and you 
are a thread to Egeanin. So you will renew your friendship 
with her, whatever it takes. Do you understand me?" 


"I understand, and I will obey." Her voice shook, but what 
else could she say? The Light save her, what else could she 
say? 


Chapter 21: A Matter of Property 


Egeanin lay on her back on the bed with her hands raised, 
palms toward the ceiling and fingers spread. Her pale blue 
skirts made a fan across her legs, and she tried to lie very 
still so as not to wrinkle the narrow pleats too much. The way 
dresses confined movement, they must be an invention of the 
Dark Lord. Lying there, she studied fingernails too long for 
her to lay hands on a line without breaking at least half. Not 
that she had personally handled lines in quite a few years, 
but she had always been ready and able to, at need. 


". . . plain foolheadedness!" Bayle growled, poking at the 
blazing logs in the brick fireplace. "Fortune prick me, 
Seahawk could sail nearer the wind, and faster, than any 
Seanchan ship ever made. There did be squalls ahead, too, and. 
. . ." She listened only enough to know he had stopped 
grumbling about the room and taken up the same old argument. 
The dark-paneled chamber was not the best at The Wandering 
Woman, or even close, yet it met his requirements excepting 
the view. The two windows looked out on the stableyard. A 
Captain of the Green ranked with a banner-general, but in this 
place, most of those she outranked were aides or secretaries 
to senior officers of the Ever Victorious Army. Among the army 
as at sea, being of the Blood added little unless it was the 
High Blood. 


The sea-green lacquer on the nails of her little fingers 
sparkled. She had always hoped to rise, eventually perhaps to 
Captain of the Gold, commanding fleets, as her mother had. As 
a girl, she had even dreamed of being named the Hand of the 
Empress at Sea just like her mother, to stand at the left hand 
of the Crystal Throne, so'jhin to the Empress herself, might 
she live forever, allowed to speak directly to her. Young 
women had foolish dreams. And she had to admit that once 
chosen for the Forerunners, she considered the possibility of 



a new name. Not hoping for it, certainly-that would have been 
getting above herself-yet everyone had known the recovery of 
the stolen lands would mean new additions to the Blood. Now 
she was Captain of the Green, ten years before she should have 
had any hope of it, and stood on the slopes of that steep 
mountain that rose through the clouds to the sublime pinnacle 
of the Empress, might she live forever. 


She doubted she would be given command of one greatship, 
however, much less a squadron. Suroth claimed to accept her 
story, but if so, why had she been left sitting at Cantorin? 
Why, when orders finally came, were they to report here and 
not to a ship? Of course, there were only so many commands 
available, even for a Captain of the Green. It might be that. 
She might have been chosen for a position near Suroth, though 
her orders said only that she was to travel to Ebou Dar by the 
first available means and await further instructions. Maybe. 
The High Blood might speak to the low without the intervention 
of a Voice, but it seemed to her that Suroth had forgotten her 
as soon as she was dismissed after receiving her rewards. 
Which also might mean Suroth was suspicious. Arguments that 
ran in circles. In any case, she could live on seawater if 
that Seeker had given over his suspicions. He had no more, or 
she would already be in a dungeon shrieking, yet if he was in 
the city, too, he would be watching her, waiting for one 
misstep. He could not shed so much as a single drop of her 
blood, now, but the Seekers were experienced at dealing with 
that minor difficulty. So long as he left it to watching, 
though, he could stare at her until his eyes shriveled. She 
had a stable deck under her feet, now, and from here on she 
would take great care how she stepped. Captain of the Gold 
might no longer be possible, yet retiring as Captain of the 
Green was honorable. 


"Well?" Bayle demanded. "What about that?" 


Wide and solid and strong, just the sort of man she had al 
ways favored, he was standing beside the bed in his 
shirtsleeves, a frown on his face and his fists on his hips. 
Not a pose a so'jhin should take with his mistress. With a 
sigh, she let her hands drop onto her stomach. Bayle just 
would not learn how a so'jhin was supposed to behave. He took 
it all as a joke, or play, as though none of it were real. 
Sometimes he even said he wanted to be her Voice, no matter 
how often she explained she was not of the High Blood. Once, 
she had had him beaten, and afterwards he had refused to sleep 
in the same bed with her until she apologized. Apologized! 


Hastily, she ran through what she had half-heard of his 
growling. Yes; still the same arguments after all this time. 
Nothing new. Swinging her legs over the side of the bed, she 
sat up and ticked points off on her fingers. She had done it 
so often, she could deliver them by rote. "Had you tried to 
run, the damane on the other ship would have snapped your 
masts like twigs. It was not a chance stop, Bayle, and you 
know it; their first hail was a demand to know whether you 
were Seahawk. By bringing you into the wind and announcing we 
were on our way to Cantorin with a gift for the Empress, may 
she live forever, I allayed their suspicions. Anything 
else-anything!-and we would all have been chained in the hold 
and sold as soon as we reached Cantorin. I doubt we'd have 



been lucky enough to face the headsman instead." She held up 
her thumb. "And last, if you had kept calm as I told you to, 
you would not have gone to the block, either. You cost me a 
great deal!" Several other women in Cantorin apparently had 
her same taste in men. They had pushed the bidding up 
extravagantly. 


Stubborn man that he was, he scowled and scrubbed at his 
short beard irritably. "I do still say we could have dropped 
it all over the side," he muttered. "That Seeker had no proof 
I did have it aboard." 


"Seekers do no need proof," she said, mocking his accent. 
"Seekers do find proof, and the finding do be painful." If he 
was reduced to bringing up what even he had conceded long 
since, maybe she was finally nearing the end of the whole 
thing. "In any case, Bayle, you have already admitted there is 
no harm in Suroth having that collar and bracelets. They can't 
be put on him unless someone gets close enough, and I've heard 
nothing that suggests anyone has or will." She refrained from 
adding that it would not matter if someone did. Bayle was not 
really familiar with even the versions of the Prophecies they 
had on this side of the World Sea, but he was adamant that 
none mentioned the necessity of the Dragon Reborn kneeling to 
the Crystal Throne. It might prove necessary for him to be 
fitted with this male a'dam, but Bayle would never see it. 
"What is done is done, Bayle. If the Light shines on us, we 
will live long in the service of the Empire. Now, you know 
this city, so you say. What is there interesting to see or 
do?" 


"There always do be festivals of some sort," he said slowly, 
grudgingly. He never liked giving up his argument, no matter 
how futile. "Some may be to your taste. Some not, I do think. 
You do be ... picky." What did he mean by that? Suddenly he 
grinned. "We could find a Wise Woman. They do hear marriage 
vows, here." He ran his fingers across the shaven side of his 
scalp, rolling his eyes upward as though trying to see it. "Of 
course, if I do recall the lecture you did give me on the 
'rights and privileges' of my position, so'jhin can only marry 
other so'jhin, so you do need to free me, first. Fortune prick 
me, you do no have a foot of those promised estates, yet. I 
can take up my old trade and give you an estate soon enough." 


Her mouth fell open. This was not something old. This was 
very, very new. She had always prided herself on being level 
headed. She had risen to command by skill and daring, a 
veteran of sea battles and storms and shipwreck. And right 
that moment she felt like a first-voyage fingerling looking 
down from the main peak, panicked and dizzy, with the whole 
world spinning around her and a seemingly inevitable fall to 
the sea filling her eyes. 


"It is not so simple," she said, surging to her feet so he 
was forced to step back. Light's truth, she hated sounding 
breathless! "Manumission requires me to provide for your 
livelihood as a free man, to see you can support yourself." 
Light! Words flooding out in a rush were as bad as being 
breathless. She imagined herself on a deck. It helped, a 
little. "In your case, that means buying a ship, I suppose," 
she said, sounding unruffled, at least, "and as you reminded 
me, I have no estates yet. Besides, I could not allow you to 



return to smuggling, and you know it." That much was simple 
truth, and the rest not really a lie. Her years at sea had 
been profitable, and if the gold she could call on was small 


gleanings to one of the Blood, she could buy a ship, so long 
as he did not want a greatship, but she had not actually 
denied being able to afford one. 

He spread his arms, another thing he was not supposed to do, 
and after a moment she laid her cheek against his broad 
shoulder and let him enfold her. "It will be well, lass," he 
murmured gently. "Somehow, it will be well." 


"You must not call me 'lass,' Bayle," she chided, staring be 
yond his shoulder toward the fireplace. It would not seem to 
come into focus. Before leaving Tanchico she had decided to 
marry him, one of those lightning decisions that had made her 
reputation. Smuggler he might be, but she could have put a 
stop to that, and he was steadfast, strong and intelligent, a 
seafarer. That last had always been a necessity, to her. Only, 
she had not known his customs. Some places in the Empire, men 
did the asking, and were actually offended if a woman even 
suggested. She knew nothing of enticing a man, either. Her few 
lovers had all been men of equal rank, men she could approach 
openly and bid farewell when one or the other of them was 
ordered to another ship or promoted. And now he was so'jhin. 
There was nothing wrong with bedding your own so'jhin, of 
course, so long as you did not flaunt the fact. He would make 
up a pallet at the foot of the bed as usual, even if he never 
slept on it. But freeing a so'jhin, casting him off from the 
rights and privileges Bayle sneered at, was the height of 
cruelty. No, she was lying by avoidance again, and worse, 
lying to herself. She wanted wholeheartedly to marry the man 
Bayle Domon. She was bitterly unsure she could bring herself 
to marry manumitted property. 


"As my Lady do command, so shall it be," he said in a blithe 
mockery of formality. 


She punched him under the ribs. Not hard. Just enough to 
make him grunt. He had to learn! She did not want to see the 
sights of Ebou Dar any longer. She just wanted to stay where 
she was, wrapped in Bayle's arms, not needing to make 
decisions, stay right where they stood forever. 


A sharp knock sounded at the door, and she pushed him away. 
At least he knew enough not to protest that. While he tugged 
on his coat, she shook out the pleats of her dress and 
attempted to smooth away the wrinkles from lying on the bed. 
There seemed to be a good many, despite how still she had 
been. This knock might be a summons from Suroth or a maid 
seeing whether she needed anything, but whoever it was, she 
was not going to let anyone see her looking as if she had been 
rolling about on the deck. 


Giving up the useless attempt, she waited until Bayle had 
buttoned himself up and adopted the attitude he thought proper 
for a so'jhin-Like a captain on his quarterdeck ready to shout 
orders, she thought, sighing to herself-then barked, "Come!" 
The woman who opened the door was the last she expected to 
see. 


Bethamin eyed her hesitantly before darting in and closing 
the door softly behind her. The sui'dam took a deep breath, 
then knelt, holding herself stiffly upright. Her dark blue 



dress with its lightning-worked red panels looked freshly 
cleaned and ironed. The sharp contrast to her own dishevelment 
irritated Egeanin. "My Lady," Bethamin began uncertainly, then 
swallowed. "My Lady, I beg a word with you." Glancing at 
Bayle, she licked her lips. "In private, if it pleases you, my 
Lady?" 


The last time Egeanin had seen this woman was in a basement 
in Tanchico, when she removed an a'dam from Bethamin and told 
her to go. That would have been enough for blackmail if she 
were of the High Blood! Without doubt the charge would be the 
same as for freeing a damane. Treason. Except that Bethamin 
could not reveal it without condemning herself, too. 


"He can hear anything you have to say, Bethamin," she said 
calmly. She was in shoal waters, and that was no place for any 
thing except calm. "What do you want?" 


Bethamin shifted on her knees and wasted more time with lip 
licking. Then, suddenly, words came out in a rush. "A Seeker 
came to me and ordered me to resume our . . . our acquaintance 
and report on you to him." As if to stop herself babbling, she 
caught her underlip in her teeth and stared at Egeanin. Her 
dark eyes were desperate and pleading, just as they had been 
in that Tanchico basement. 


Egeanin met her gaze coolly. Shoal waters, and an unexpected 
gale. Her strange orders to Ebou Dar suddenly were explained. 
She did not need a description to know it must be the same 
man. Nor did she need to ask why Bethamin was committing 
treason by betraying the Seeker. If he decided his suspicions 
were strong enough to take her for questioning, eventually 
Egeanin would tell him everything she knew, including about a 
certain basement, and Bethamin would soon find herself once 
more wearing an a'dam. The woman's only hope was to help 
Egeanin evade him. 


"Rise," she said. "Have a seat." Luckily, there were two 
chairs, though neither appeared comfortable. "Bayle, I think 
there is brandy in that flask on the drawered chest." 


Bethamin was so shaky that Egeanin had to help her up and 
guide her to a chair. Bayle brought worked silver cups holding 
a little brandy and remembered to bow and present Egeanin's 
first, but when he returned to the chest, she saw he had 
poured for himself, as well. He stood there, cup in hand, 
watching them as if it were the most natural thing in the 
world. Bethamin stared at him pop-eyed. 


"You think you are poised over the impaling stake," Egeanin 
said, and the sui'dam flinched, her frightened gaze jerking 
back to Egeanin's face. "You are wrong, Bethamin. The only 
real crime I have committed was freeing you." Not precisely 
true, but in the end, after all, she had placed the male a'dam 
in Suroth's hands herself. And talking with Aes Sedai was not 
a crime. The Seeker might suspect-he had tried to listen at a 
door in Tanchico-but she was not a sui'dam, charged with 
catching marath'damane. At worst that meant a reprimand. "So 
long as he doesn't learn about that, he has no reason to 
arrest me. If he wants to know what I say, or anything else 
about me, tell him. Just remember that if he does decide to 
arrest me, I will give him your name." A reminder could only 
guard against Bethamin suddenly thinking she saw a safe way 
out, leaving her behind. "He won't have to make me scream 



once." 


To her surprise, the sui'dam began to laugh hysterically. 
Until Egeanin leaned forward and slapped her, anyway. 


Rubbing her cheek sullenly, Bethamin said, "He knows near 
enough everything except the basement, my Lady." And she began 
to describe a fantastical web of treason connecting Egeanin 
and Bayle and Suroth and maybe even Tuon herself with Aes 
Sedai, and marath'damane, and damane who had been Aes Sedai. 


Bethamin's voice began to grow panicky as she darted from 
one incredible charge to another, and before long, Egeanin 
began sipping brandy. Just sips. She was calm. She was in 
command of herself. She was. . . . This was beyond shoal 
waters. She was riding close on a lee shore, and Soulblinder 
himself rode that gale, coming to steal her eyes. After 
listening for a time with his own eyes growing wider and 
wider, Bayle drank down a brimful cup of the dark raw liquor 
in one go. She was relieved to see his shock, and guilty at 
feeling relieved. She would not believe him a murderer. 
Besides, he was very good using his hands but only fair at a 
sword; with weapons or bare-handed, the High Lord Turak would 
have gutted Bayle like a carp. Her only excuse for even 
considering it was that he had been with two Aes Sedai in 
Tanchico. The whole thing was nonsense. It had to be! Those 
two Aes Sedai had not been part of any plot, just a chance 
meeting. Light's truth, they had been little more than girls, 
and near innocents at that, too softhearted to accept her 
suggestion they cut the Seeker's throat when they had the 
chance. A pity, that. They had handed her the male a'dam. Ice 
crept down her spine. If the Seeker ever learned she had 
intended disposing of the a'dam the way those Aes Sedai 
suggested, if anyone learned, she would be judged as guilty of 
treason as if she had succeeded in dropping it into the 
ocean's depths. Are you not? she demanded of herself. The Dark 
One was coming to steal her eyes. 


Tears streaming down her face, Bethamin clutched her cup to 
her breasts as though hugging herself. If she was trying to 
keep from shaking, she failed miserably. Trembling, she stared 
at Egeanin, or perhaps at something beyond her. Something 
horrifying. The fire had not warmed the room very far yet, but 
sweat was beaded on Bethamin's face. ". . . and if he learns 
about Renna and Seta," she babbled, "he will know for sure! 
He'll come after me, and the other sui'dam! You have to stop 
him! If he takes me, I'll give him your name! I will!" 
Abruptly she tilted lifted the cup to her mouth unsteadily and 
gulped the contents, choking and coughing, then thrust it out 
toward Bayle for more. He did not move. He looked poleaxed. 


"Who are Renna and Seta?" Egeanin asked. She was as fright 
ened as the sui'dam, but as always, she kept her fear hard-
reefed. "What can the Seeker learn about them?" Bethamin's 
eyes slid away, refusing to meet hers, and abruptly she knew. 
"They are sui'dam, aren't they, Bethamin? And they were 
collared, too, just like you." 


"They are in Suroth's service," the woman whimpered. "They 
are never allowed to be complete, though. Suroth knows." 


Egeanin rubbed at her eyes wearily. Perhaps there was a con 
spiracy, after all. Or Suroth might be hiding what the pair 
were to protect the Empire. The Empire depended on sui'dam; 



its strength was built on them. The news that sui'dam were 
women who could learn to channel might shatter the Empire to 
its core. It had surely shaken her. Maybe shattered her. She 
herself had not freed Bethamin out of duty. So many things had 
changed in Tanchico. She no longer believed that any woman who 
could channel deserved to be collared. Criminals, certainly, 
and maybe those who refused oaths to the Crystal Throne, and. 
. . . She did not know. Once, her life had been made up of 
rock-solid certainties, like guiding stars that never failed. 
She wanted her old life back. She wanted a few certainties. 


"I thought," Bethamin began. She would have no lips left if 
she did not stop licking them. "My Lady, if the Seeker . . . 
suffers an accident . . . perhaps the danger would pass with 
him." Light, the woman believed in this intrigue against the 
Crystal Throne, and she was ready to let it pass to save her 
own skin! 


Egeanin rose, and the sui'dam had no choice but to follow. 
"I will think on it, Bethamin. You will come to see me every 
day you are free. The Seeker will expect it. Until I make my 
decision, you will do nothing. Do you understand me? Nothing 
except your duties and what I tell you." Bethamin understood. 
She was so relieved that someone else was dealing with the 
danger that she knelt again and kissed Egeanin's hand. 


All but bundling the woman out of the room, Egeanin closed 
the door, then hurled her cup at the fireplace. It hit the 
bricks and bounced off, rolling across the small rug on the 
floor. It was dented. Her father had given her that set of 
cups when she gained her first command. All the strength 
seemed to have leached out other. The Seeker had knitted 
moonbeams and happenstance into a strangling cord for her 
neck. If she was not named property instead. She shuddered at 
the possibility. Whatever she did, the Seeker had her trapped. 


"I can kill him." Bayle flexed his hands, broad like the 
rest of him. "He be a skinny man, as I recall. Used to 
everyone obeying his word. He will no be expecting anyone to 
snap his neck." 


"You'll never find him to kill, Bayle. He won't meet her in 
the same place twice, and even if you followed her day and 
night, he might well be in disguise. You cannot kill every man 
she speaks to." 


Stiffening her spine, she marched to the table where her 
writing desk sat and flipped open the lid. The wave-carved 
writing desk, with its silver-mounted glass inkpot and silver 
sand jar, had been her mother's gift at that first command. 
The neatly stacked sheets of fine paper bore her newly granted 
sigil, a sword and a fouled anchor. "I will write out your 
manumission," she said, dipping the silver pen, "and give you 
enough coin to buy passage." The pen glided across the page. 
She had always had a good hand. Log entries had to be legible. 
"Not enough to buy a ship, I fear, but it must do. You will 
depart on the first available ship. Shave the rest of your 
head, and you should have no trouble. It's still a shock, 
seeing bald men not wearing wigs, but so far no one seems to-" 
She gasped as Bayle slid the page right out from under her 
pen. 


"If you do free me, you can no give me orders," he said. 
"Besides, you must ensure I can support myself if you do free 



me." He stuck the page into the fire and watched while it 
blackened and curled. "A ship, you did say, and I will hold 
you to it." 


"Listen well and hear," she said in her best quarterdeck 
voice, but it made no impression on him. It had to be the 
cursed dress. 


"You do need a crew," he said right over her, "and I can 
find you one, even here." 


"What good will a crew do me? I don't have a ship. If I did, 
where could I sail that the Seeker couldn't find me?" 


Bayle shrugged as though that was not important. "A crew, 
first. I did recognize that young fellow in the kitchens, the 
one with the lass on his knee. Stop grimacing. There be no 
harm to a little kissing." 


She drew herself up, prepared to set him firmly to rights. 
She was frowning, not grimacing, that pair had been groping at 
one another in public like animals, and he was her property! 
He could not speak to her this way! 


"His name be Mat Cauthon," Bayle went on even as she opened 
her mouth. "By his clothes, he has come up in the world, and 
far. The first time I did see him, he did be in a farmer's 
coat, escaping Trollocs in a place even Trollocs be afraid of. 
The last time, half the town of Whitebridge did be burning, 
close enough to, and a Myrddraal did be trying to kill him and 
his friends. I did no see for myself, but anything else be 
more than I can believe. Any man who can survive Trollocs and 
Myrddraal do be useful, I think. Especially now." 


"Someday," she growled, "I am going to have to see some of 
these Trollocs and Myrddraal you go on about." The things 
could not be half as fearsome as he described. 


He grinned and shook his head. He knew what she thought 
about these so-called Shadowspawn. "Better still, young Master 
Cauthon did have companions on my ship. Good men for this 
situation, too. One, you do know. Thom Merrilin." 


Egeanin's breath caught. Merrilin was a clever old man. A 
dangerous old man. And he had been with those two Aes Sedai 
when she met Bayle. "Bayle, is there a conspiracy? Tell me. 
Please?" No one said please to property, not even to so'jhin. 
Not unless they wanted something badly, anyway. 


Shaking his head again, he leaned a hand on the stone mantel 
piece and frowned into the flames. "Aes Sedai do plot the way 
fish swim. They could scheme with Suroth, but the question do 
be, could she scheme with them? I did see her look at damane, 
like they did be mangy dogs with fleas and catching diseases. 
Could she even talk to an Aes Sedai?" He looked up, and his 
eyes were clear and open, hiding nothing. "I do tell this for 
true. On my grandmother's grave, I do know of no plot. But did 
I know of ten, I still will no let that Seeker or anyone else 
harm you, whatever it do take." It was the sort of thing any 
loyal so'jhin might say. Well, no so'jhin she had ever heard 
of would have been so straightforward, but the sentiments were 
the same. Only, she knew he did not mean it that way, could 
never mean it that way. 


"Thank you, Bayle." A steady voice was a necessity for com 
mand, but she was proud that hers was steady now. "Find this 
Master Cauthon, and Thom Merrilin, if you can. Perhaps some 
thing can be done." 



 He failed to bow before leaving her presence, but she did 
not even consider upbraiding him., She did not intend to let 
the Seeker take her, either. Whatever it took to stop him. 
That was a decision she had reached before she freed Bethamin. 
She filled the dented cup to the brim with brandy, meaning to 
get so drunk she could not think, but instead she sat peering 
into the dark liquid without touching a drop. Whatever it 
took. Light, she was no better than Bethamin! But knowing it 
changed nothing. Whatever it took. 


Chapter 22: Out of Thin Air 


The Amhara Market was one of three in Far Madding where 
foreigners were allowed to trade, but despite the name, the 
huge square had nothing of the look of a market, no market 
stalls or displays of merchandise. A few mounted riders, a 
handful of closed sedan chairs carried by brightly liveried 
bearers and the occasional coach with its window curtains 
drawn made their way though a sparse yet bustling crowd that 
might have been seen in any large city. Most were well wrapped 
in their cloaks against the morning winds blowing in off the 
lake that surrounded the city, and it was the cold that made 
them hurry more than any urgent business. Around the square, 
as at the city's other two Strangers' Markets, the tall stone 
houses of bankers rubbed shoulders with slate-roofed stone 
inns where the foreign merchants stayed and blocky windowless 
stone warehouses where their goods were stored, all jumbled in 
among stone stables and stone-walled wagon yards. Far Madding 
was a city of stone walls and slate roofs. This time of year, 
the inns were a quarter full at best, and the warehouses and 
wagon yards emptier than that. 


Come spring and the full revival of trade, though, merchants 
would pay triple for whatever space they could find. 


A round marble pedestal in the center of the square held a 
statue of Savion Amhara, two spans tall and proud in fur-
trimmed robes of marble, with elaborate marble chains of 
office around her neck. Her marble face was stern beneath the 
First Counsel's jeweled marble diadem, and her right hand 
firmly gripped the hilt of a marble sword, its point resting 
between her slippered feet, while her raised left hand aimed a 
warning marble finger toward the Tear Gate, some three-
quarters of a mile away. Far Madding depended on merchants 
from Tear and Illian and Caemlyn, but the High Council was 
ever wary of foreigners and their corrupting outland ways. One 
of the steel-capped Street Guards, in a leather coat sewn with 
overlapping square metal plates and a Golden Hand on the left 
shoulder, stood below the statue using a long limber pole to 
frighten away black-winged gray pigeons. Savion Amhara was one 
of the three most revered women in Far Mad-ding's history, 
though none was known very far beyond the lake's shores. Two 
men from the city were mentioned in every history of the 
world, though it had been called Aren Mador when one was born 
and Fel Moreina for the other, but Far Madding did its fervent 
best to forget Raolin Darksbane and Yurian Stonebow. In a real 
way, those two men were why Rand was in Far Madding. 



 A few people in the Amhara glanced at him as he passed, yet 
nobody glanced twice. That he was from off was plain enough, 
with his blue eyes and his hair cut at the shoulder. Men here 
wore it sometimes hanging all the way to the waist, either 
tied at the nape of the neck or held with a clip. His plain 
brown woolens were nondescript, though, no better than a 
moderately successful merchant might wear, and he was not the 
only one cloakless in spite of the lake winds. Most of the 
others were fork-bearded Kandori or Arafellin with belled 
braids, or hawk-nosed Saldaeans, men and women who found this 
weather mild compared to Borderland winter, but nothing about 
him said he was not a Borderlander, too. For his part, he 
simply refused to let the cold touch him, ignored it as he 
might have a fly buzzing. A cloak might get in his way, if he 
found his chance to act. 


For once, even his height did not attract notice. There were 
a good many very tall men in Far Madding, few of them natives. 
Manel Rochaid himself was only a hand shorter than Rand, if 
that. Rand stayed well behind the man, letting people and 
sedan chairs sift between them and sometimes even hide his 
quarry. With his hair dyed black by herbs Nynaeve had 
provided, he doubted that the renegade Asha'man would notice 
him even if the man turned around. For his part, he was not 
worried about losing Rochaid. Most of the local men wore dull 
colors, with brighter embroidery about the chest and shoulders 
and perhaps a jeweled hair clip for the more prosperous, while 
the outland merchants favored sober unpretentious clothes, so 
as not to seem overly wealthy, and their guards and drivers 
bundled themselves in rough woolens. Rochaid's bright red silk 
coat stood out. He strode across the square like a king, one 
hand resting lightly on the hilt of his sword, a fur-edged 
cloak billowing behind him in the wind. He was a fool. That 
flapping cloak and the sword alike drew eyes. His waxed and 
curled mustaches named him a Murandian, who should be 
shivering like any normal human being, and that sword. ... A 
pure bull goose fool. 


You are the fool, coming to this place, Lews Therin panted 
wildly inside his head. Madness! Madness! We have to get out! 
We have to! 


Ignoring the voice, Rand pulled his snug gloves tighter and 
kept a steady pace after Rochaid. A number of the Street 
Guards in the square were watching the man. Foreigners were 
considered troublemakers and hotheads, and Murandians had a 
prickly reputation. A foreigner carrying a sword always 
attracted the Guards' attention. Rand was glad he had decided 
to leave his at the inn with Min. She nestled in the back of 
his head more strongly than Elayne or Aviendha, or Alanna. He 
was only vaguely aware of the others. Min seemed alive inside 
him. 


As Rochaid left the Amhara, heading deeper into the city, 
flights of pigeons sprang up from the rooftops, but instead of 
making the unerring swoops that normally would have taken them 
into the sky, birds crashed into one another and some tumbled 
fluttering to the pavement. People gaped, including the Street 
Guards who had been watching Rochaid so intently a moment 
before. The man did not look back, but it would not have 
mattered had he seen. He knew Rand was in the city without 



seeing the effects of a ta'veren, or he would not have been 
there. 


Following Rochaid onto the Street of Joy, really two broad 
straight streets separated by a measured row of leafless gray-
barked trees, Rand smiled. Rochaid and his friends probably 
thought themselves very clever. Perhaps they had found the map 
of the northern Plains of Maredo replaced upside down in the 
racks in the Stone of Tear, or the book on cities of the south 
misshelved in the library of the Aesdaishar Palace in Chachin, 
or one of the other hints he had left behind. Small mistakes a 
man in a hurry might make, but any two or three together 
painted an arrow pointing to Far Madding. Rochaid and the 
others had been quick to see it, quicker than he had expected, 
or else they had had help to point it out. Either way, it did 
not matter. 


He was not sure why the Murandian had come ahead of the 
others, but he knew they would come, Torval and Dashiva, 
Gedwyn and Kisman, to try finishing what they had bungled in 
Cairhien. A pity none of the Forsaken would be fool enough 
come after him here. They would just send the others. He 
wanted to kill Rochaid before the rest arrived, if he could. 
Even here, where they were all on an equal footing, it would 
be best to cut down the odds. Two days Rochaid had been in Far 
Madding, openly asking questions about a tall red-haired man, 
swaggering about as if he had not a worry in the world. The 
man had seen any number who more or less met his description, 
but he still thought he was the hunter, not the hunted. 


You've brought us here to die! Lews Therin moaned. Being 
here is as bad as death! 


Rand shrugged uncomfortably. He agreed with the voice about 
that last. He would be as glad as Lews Therin to leave. But 
sometimes the only choice was between bad and worse. Rochaid 
was ahead of him, almost within reach. That was all that 
mattered now. 


The gray stone shops and inns along the Street of Joy 
changed the farther Rand went from the Amhara Market. 
Silversmiths replaced cutlers, and then goldsmiths replaced 
silversmiths. Seamstresses and tailors displayed embroidered 
silks and brocades instead of woolens. The coaches that 
rumbled over the paving stones now had sigils lacquered on the 
doors and teams of four or six matched for size and color, and 
more riders were mounted on prime Tairen bloodstock or animals 
as good. Sedan chairs borne by trotting bearers became almost 
as common as people afoot, and, afoot, shopkeepers in coats or 
dresses heavily embroidered around the chest and shoulders 
were outnumbered by folk in livery as bright as that of the 
chair-bearers. Often as not, bits of colored glass now 
decorated men's hair clips, or occasionally pearls or richer 
gems, though few men walked whose wives could afford gems. 
Only the cold wind was the same, that and the Street Guards 
patrolling in threes, eyes alert for trouble. There were not 
so many as in the Strangers' Markets, yet as soon as one 
patrol strode out of sight another appeared, and wherever a 
street wider than an alleyway met the Street of Joy, a stone 
watchstand stood with two Guardsmen waiting at the foot in 
case the man atop spotted trouble. The peace was kept 
rigorously in Far Madding. 



 Rand frowned as Rochaid kept on along the street. Could he 
be headed for the Counsels' Plaza, in the middle of the 
island? There was nothing there but the Hall of the Counsels, 
monuments from more than five hundred years earlier, when Far 
Mad-ding had been the capital of Maredo, and the counting 
houses of the city's wealthiest women. In Far Madding, a 
wealthy man was one whose wife gave him a generous allowance 
or a widower who had been provided for. Maybe Rochaid was 
meeting Darkfriends. But if so, why had the man waited? 


Suddenly a wave of dizziness hit him, a murky face filling 
his vision for an instant, and he staggered against a 
passerby. Taller than Rand himself, in bright green livery, 
the yellow-haired man shifted the large basket he was carrying 
and fended Rand off gently. A long, puckered scar ran down the 
side of his sun-dark face. Bowing his head, he murmured an 
apology and hurried on. 


Righting himself, Rand growled a curse under his breath. 


You destroyed them already, Lews Therin whispered in his 
head. 


Now you have someone else to destroy, and not beforetime. 
How many will we three kill before the end, I wonder. 


Shut up! Rand thought fiercely, but cackling, derisive 
laughter answered him. It was not the encounter with an 
Aielman that upset him. He had seen many since coming to Far 
Madding. For some reason, hundreds of the Aiel who fled after 
learning the truth of their history had ended up there, 
attempting to follow the Way of the Leaf when they had no more 
idea of what that entailed except that they were supposed to 
be lifelong gai'shain. He was not even worried about the 
dizziness, or whose face it was that he half saw when it 
struck. Ahead of him, a coach drawn by six grays clattered 
through the stream of sedan chairs and hurrying folk in 
livery, and men and women darting in and out of the shops, but 
there was no sign of a red coat. He smacked a gloved fist into 
his palm in irritation. 


Going ahead blindly was idiotic. He might run right into the 
man, or at least be seen. So far, Rochaid thought Rand did not 
know he was in the city, an advantage too important to 
squander. He knew where Rochaid had his rooms, one of the inns 
that catered to foreign men. He could loiter outside tomorrow 
and wait for another chance. The others might arrive in the 
night, too. He thought he could kill any two together, or 
maybe even all five, but it could not be done quietly. He 
would take injuries against five, and at best, he would have 
to abandon his sword, which he was reluctant to do. It was a 
gift from Aviendha. At worst. . . . 


A nicker of fur-trimmed cloak caught his eye, fluttering in 
the wind as it vanished around a corner ahead, and he ran 
toward it. The Guardsmen at the watchstand there straightened, 
the man at the top taking his rattle from his belt. One of 
those at the bottom of the stand hefted his long cudgel, while 
the other lifted a catchpole from where it had leaned against 
the watchstand's steps. The forked end was fashioned to catch 
and hold an arm or a leg or a neck, and the pole itself was 
belted with iron, proof against any sword or axe. They watched 
him closely, with hard eyes. 


He nodded to them and smiled, then ostentatiously peered 



down the side street, searching the crowd there. Not a running 
thief, just a man trying to catch up to someone. The cudgel 
went back onto its belt hook, the catchpole returned to the 
steps. He did not look at the Guardsmen again. Ahead, he got a 
glimpse of the cloak, and maybe a red coat, as the wearer 
turned onto another street. 


Raising his hand as if to hail somebody, Rand sped after the 
man, dodging between people and street peddlers' barrows. 
Hawkers displaying pins or needles or combs on their trays 
tried to catch his attention, or anyone's, with their cries. 
Few people here wore embroidery, and a simple cord tying a 
man's hair was much more common than even the plainest clip. 
These streets were cramped at best, and crooked, a haphazard 
maze where cheap inns and narrow stone apartment buildings of 
three and four stories towered over the shops of butchers and 
candlemakers and barbers, tinsmiths and potters and coopers. 
Coaches would not have fit along these streets, and there were 
no sedan chairs, either, no riders, and only a handful of 
liveried servants, carrying baskets on errands but strolling 
and looking down their noses at everyone around them except 
the Street Guards. Their patrols and watchstands were present 
even here. 


At last he got near enough for a clear view of the man he 
was following. Rochaid had finally shown enough sense to pull 
his cloak about him, hiding his red coat and his useless 

sword, but there was no doubt of who he was. In truth, he 
seemed to be trying to avoid notice altogether now, slinking 
along the side of the street with his shoulder brushing the 
shopfronts. Abruptly he looked around furtively, then darted 
into an alley between a tiny basketweaver's shop and an inn 
with a sign so dirty the name was completely obscured. Rand 
almost grinned, and wasted no time hurrying after him. There 
were no Street Guards or watchstands in Far Madding's 
alleyways. 


Those alleys were even more crooked than the streets Rand 
had just left, making a warren of their own through the 
interior of every block of the city, and Rochaid was already 
out of sight, but Rand could hear his boots pounding on the 
damp stony dirt. The sound bounced and multiplied between the 
windowless stone walls until he could hardly tell where it was 
coming from, but he followed, running along passages barely 
wide enough for two men abreast. If they were friendly. Why 
had Rochaid come into this maze? Wherever he was going, he 
wanted to be there quickly. But he could not know how to use 
the alleys to get from one place to another. 


Abruptly Rand realized the only boots he was hearing were 
his own and stopped dead. Silence. From where he stood, he 
could see three more narrow alleys splitting off from the one 
he stood in. Barely breathing, he strained his ears. Silence. 
Almost, he decided to turn back. And then he heard a distant 
clatter from the nearest alley mouth, as though someone had 
accidentally kicked a rock against a stone wall in passing. 
Best to kill the man and be done. 


Rand turned the corner in to the alley, and found Rochaid 
waiting for him. 


The Murandian had his cloak thrown back again, and both 
hands on his sword hilt. The Far Madding peace-bond wove hilt 



and scabbard inside a net of fine wire. He wore a small, 
knowing smile. "You were as easy to bait as a pigeon," he 
said, beginning to draw his sword. The wires had been cut, 

then fixed so they still appeared solid to a casual glance. 
"Run, if you want." 


Rand did not run. Instead, he stepped forward, slamming his 
left hand down on the end of Rochaid's sword hilt, trapping 
the blade still half in its scabbard. Surprise widened the 
man's eyes, yet he still did not realize that pausing to gloat 
had already killed him. He moved back, trying to get room to 
complete his draw, but Rand followed smoothly, keeping the 
sword trapped, and pivoted from the hips, driving folded 
knuckles hard into Rochaid's throat. Cartilage cracked loudly, 
and the renegade forgot about trying to kill anyone. 
Staggering backwards, wide-eyed and staring, he clapped both 
hands to his throat and desperately tried to pull air through 
his ruined windpipe. 


Rand was already beginning the killing stroke, beneath the 
breastbone, when a whisper of sound came to him from behind, 
and suddenly Rochaid's taunting took on new meaning. Back-
heeling Rochaid, Rand let himself fall to the ground atop the 
man. Hard-swung metal clanged against a stone wall, and a man 
cursed. Grabbing Rochaid's sword, Rand let the motion of 
falling turn into a roll, pulling the blade clear as he 
tumbled over his own shoulder. Rochaid gave a shrill, gurgling 
scream as Rand came up in a crouch facing back the way he had 
come. 


Raefar Kisman stood gaping down at Rochaid, the blade he had 
meant to stab through Rand instead driven into Rochaid's 
chest. Blood bubbled on the Murandian's lips, and he dug his 
heels into the ground and bloodied his hands on the sharp 
steel as though he could push it out of him. Of only average 
height, and pale for a Tairen, Kisman wore clothes as plain as 
Rand's except for the sword belt. Hiding that beneath his 
cloak, he could have gone anywhere in Far Madding without 
being noticed. 


His dismay lasted only an instant. As Rand rose, sword ready 
in both hands, Kisman jerked his own blade free and did not 
look at his thrashing accomplice again. He watched Rand, and 
his hands shifted nervously on the long hilt of his sword. No 
doubt he was one of those so proud of being able to use the 
Power as a weapon that he had disdained really learning the 
sword. Rand had not disdained. Rochaid gave a last twitch and 
was still, staring up at the sky. 


"Time to die," Rand said quietly, but as he started forward, 
a rattle sounded somewhere behind the Tairen, an incessant 
chattering, and then another. The Street Guards. 


"They'll take us both," Kisman breathed, sounding frantic. 
"If they find us standing over a corpse, they'll hang us both! 
You know they will!" 


He was right, at least in part. If the Guards found them 
there, they would both be hauled off to the cells beneath the 
Hall of the Counsels. More rattles chattered, coming closer. 
The Guards must have noticed three men ducking one by one into 
the same alley. Perhaps they had even seen Kisman's sword. 
Reluctantly, Rand nodded. 


The Tairen backed away cautiously, and when he saw Rand 



making no move to follow, he sheathed his blade and ran 
wildly, dark cloak flaring behind him. 


Rand threw his borrowed sword down atop Rochaid's body and 
ran the other way. There were no rattles in that direction 
yet. With luck, he could be out into the streets, blending 
into the crowds, before he was seen. He had other fears than 
the noose. Stripping off his gloves, showing the Dragons that 
marked his arms, would be enough to prevent his hanging, he 
was sure. But the Counsels had proclaimed their acceptance of 
that odd decree Elaida had issued. Once he was in a cell, he 
would remain there until the White Tower sent for him. So he 
ran as hard as he could. 


Melting into the crowd in the street, Kisman heaved a sigh 
of relief as three Street Guards ran into the alley he had 
just emerged from. Holding his cloak close to hide his 
scabbarded sword, he moved with the flow of traffic, no faster 
than anyone else and slower than some. Nothing to draw a 
Guardsman's eye. A pair of them passed with a trussed prisoner 
stuffed into a large sack slung from a quarterstaff carried on 
their shoulders. Only the man's head stuck out, his eyes wild 
and darting. Kisman shuddered. Burn his eyes, that could have 
been him! Him! 


He had been a fool to let Rochaid talk him into this in the 
first place. They were supposed to wait until everyone had ar 
rived, slipping into the city one by one to avoid notice. 
Rochaid had wanted the glory of being the one to kill al'Thor; 
the Murandian had burned with the desire to prove himself a 
better man than al'Thor. Now he was dead of it, and very 
nearly Raefar Kisman with him, and that made Kisman furious. 
He wanted power more than glory, perhaps to rule Tear from the 
Stone. Perhaps more. He wanted to live forever. Those things 
had been promised; 


they were his due. Part of his anger was because he was 
unsure they actually were supposed to kill al'Thor. The Great 
Lord knew he wanted to-he would not sleep soundly until the 
man was dead and buried!-and yet. . . . 


"Kill him," the M'Hael had ordered before sending them to 
Cairhien, but he had been as displeased that they were found 
out as that they had failed. Far Madding was to be their last 
chance; 


he had made that as plain as polished brass. Dashiva had 
simply vanished. Kisman did not know whether he had run or the 
M'Hael had killed him, and he did not care. 


"Kill him," Demandred had commanded later, but he had added 
that it would be better they died than let themselves be 
discovered again. By anyone, even the M'Hael, as if he did not 
know of Taim's order. 


And later still, Moridin had said, "Kill him if you must, 
but above all, bring everything in his possession to me. That 
will redeem your previous transgressions." The man said he was 
one of the Chosen, and no one was mad enough to make that 
claim unless it was true, yet he seemed to think al'Thor's 
belongings more important than his death, the killing 
incidental and not really necessary. 


Those two were the only Chosen Kisman had met, but they made 
his head hurt. They were worse than Cairhienin. He suspected 
that what they left unsaid could kill a man quicker than a 



signed order from a High Lord. Well, once Torval and Gedwyn 
arrived, they could work out- 


Abruptly something stung his right arm, and he stared down 
in consternation at the bloodstain spreading on his cloak. It 
did not feel like a deep cut, and no cutpurse would have 
slashed his forearm. 


"He belongs to me," a man whispered behind him, but when he 
turned, there was only the crowd in the street, all going 
about their business. The few who noticed the dark stain on 
his cloak looked away quickly. In this place, no one wanted to 
be associated with even the smallest violence. They were good 
at ignoring what they did not want to see. 


The wound throbbed, burning more than it had at first. Re 
leasing his cloak to the wind, Kisman pressed his left hand 
over the bloody slash in his sleeve. His arm felt swollen to 
his touch, and hot. Suddenly he stared in horror at his right 
hand, stared as it turned as black and bloated as a week-old 
corpse. 


Frantically he began to run, pushing people out of his way, 
knocking them down. He did not know what was happening to him, 
how it had been done, but he was sure of the result. Unless he 
could get out of the city, beyond the lake, up into the hills. 
He had a chance, then. A horse. He needed a horse! He had to 
have a chance. He had been promised he would live forever! All 
he could see were people afoot, and they were scattering 
before his charge. He thought he heard Guardsmen's rattles, 
but it might have been the blood pounding in his ears. 
Everything was going dark. His face hit something hard, and he 


knew he had fallen. His last thought was that one of the 
Chosen had decided to punish him, but for what, he could not 
have said. 
Only a few men were sitting at the round tables in the 
common room of The Crown of Maredo when Rand walked in. 

Despite the grand name, it was a modest inn, with two dozen 
rooms on two floors above. The plastered walls of the common 
room were painted yellow, and the men serving table here wore 
long yellow aprons. A stone fireplace at either end of the 
room gave it a marked warmth after outside. The shutters were 
bolted, but lamps hung on the walls took the edge off the 
dimness. The smells drifting from the kitchens promised a 
tasty midday meal of fish from the lake. Rand would be sorry 
to miss that. The cooks at The Crown of Maredo were very good. 


He saw Lan at a table by himself against the wall. The 
braided leather cord that held Lan's hair back drew sidelong 
glances from some of the other men, but he refused to give up 
wearing the hadori even for a little while. He met Rand's 
gaze, and when Rand nodded toward the stairs at the back of 
the room, he did not waste time with questioning looks; he 
just set down his winecup and rose, starting for the stairs. 
Even with just a small knife at his belt, he looked dangerous, 
but there was nothing to be done about that, either. Several 
men at the tables glanced Rand's way, but for some reason, 
they looked away hurriedly when he met their eyes. 


Near the kitchen, at the door to the Women's Room, Rand 
stopped. Men were not allowed in there. Aside from a few 
flowers painted on the yellow walls, the Women's Room was not 
much fancier than the common room, though the stand-lamps were 



painted yellow, too, and the facings of the fireplace. The 
yellow aprons worn by the women who served table here were no 
different than those worn by the men in the common room. 
Mistress Nalhera, the slim, gray-haired innkeeper, was sitting 
at the same table as Min, Nynaeve and Alivia, all of them 
chatting and laughing over tea. 


Rand's jaw tightened at the sight of the former damane. Ny 
naeve claimed the woman had insisted on coming along, but he 
did not believe anyone could "insist" on anything with 
Nynaeve. She wanted Alivia along for some secret reason. She 
had been behaving mysteriously, as though working as hard as 
she could at being Aes Sedai, ever since he went back for her 
after leaving Elayne. All three women had adopted high-necked 
Far Madding dresses, heavily embroidered with flowers and 
birds on the bodice and shoulders and right up to their chins, 
though sometimes Nynaeve grumbled over them. No doubt she 
would have preferred stout Two Rivers woolens to the finer 
material she found here. On the other hand, if the red dot of 
the ki'sain on her forehead were not enough to draw every eye, 
she had decked herself out in jewelry as though attending a 
royal audience, a slim golden belt and a long necklace and any 
number of bracelets, all but one set with bright blue 
sapphires and polished green stones he did not know, and every 
finger on her right hand had a ring to match. Her Great 
Serpent ring was tucked away somewhere, so as not to attract 
attention, but the rest drew ten times as much. Many people 
would not have known an Aes Sedai's ring at sight, but anyone 
could see money in those gems. 


Rand cleared his throat and bent his head. "Wife, I need to 
speak with you upstairs," he said, remembering at the last mo 
ment to add, "if it pleases you." He could not make it more 
urgent than that, not and maintain the proprieties, but he 
hoped they did not linger. They might, if only to demonstrate 
for the innkeeper that they were not at his beck and call. For 
some reason, people in Far Madding actually seemed to believe 
that women from off jumped when men told them to! 


Min twisted around in her chair to grin at him, the way she 
did every time he called her wife. The feel of her in his head 
was warmth and delight, suddenly sparkling with amusement. She 
found their situation in Far Madding very amusing. Leaning 
toward Mistress Nalhera without taking her eyes from him, she 
said something in a low voice that made the older woman cackle 
with laughter and gave Nynaeve a pained expression. 


Alivia stood up, looking nothing like the subdued woman he 
vaguely remembered handing over to Taim. All those captured 
sui'dam and damane had been a burden he was glad to be free 
of, no more. There were threads of white in her golden hair 
and fine lines at the corners of her eyes, but those eyes were 
fierce now. "Well?" she drawled, staring down at Nynaeve, but 
somehow she made the word both a criticism and a command. 


Nynaeve glared up at the woman and took her sweet time in 
standing and smoothing her skirts, but at least she stood. 


Rand waited no longer before rushing upstairs. Lan was wait 
ing at the head of the stairs, just out of sight of the common 
room below. Quietly, Rand gave a bare-bones account of what 
had happened. Lan's stony face never changed expression. 


"At least one of them is done," he said, turning toward the 



room he shared with Nynaeve. "I'll get our things ready." 


Rand was already in the room he and Min shared, hurriedly 
pulling their clothes out of the tall wardrobe and stuffing 
them any way they would go into one of the wicker pack 
hampers, when she finally entered the room. Followed by 
Nynaeve and Alivia. 


"Light, you'll ruin our things that way," Min exclaimed, 
shouldering him away from the hamper. She began removing gar 
ments and folding them neatly on the bed beside his peace-
bonded sword. "Why are we packing?" she asked, but gave him no 
chance to answer. "Mistress Nalhera says you wouldn't be so 
sulky if I switched you every morning," she laughed, shaking 
out one of the coats she did not wear here. He had told her he 
would buy her new, but she refused to leave the embroidered 
coats and breeches behind. "I told her I'd consider it. She 
likes Lan very much." Suddenly she pitched her voice high in 
imitation of the innkeeper. "A neat, mild-mannered man is much 
to be preferred over a pretty face, I always say." 


Nynaeve snorted. "Who wants a man she can make jump through 
hoops whenever she likes?" Rand stared at her, and Min's mouth 
fell open. That was exactly what Nynaeve did to Lan, and how 
the man put up with it was more than Rand could understand. 


"You think about men too much, Nynaeve," Alivia drawled. 
Nynaeve frowned but instead of saying anything, she just stood 
there fingering one of her bracelets, a peculiar piece with 
flat golden chains stretching down the back of her left hand 
to rings on all four fingers. The older woman shook her head 
as though disappointed at not getting a rise. 


"I'm packing because we have to go, and be quick about it," 
Rand said hastily. Nynaeve might be quiet for the moment, odd 
as that was, but if her face got any darker she would be 
yanking her braid and shouting till no one could get a word in 
edgewise for hours. 


Before he finished the same account he had given Lan, Min 
stopped folding things and started replacing her books in the 
second hamper, hurriedly enough that she did not pad them with 
cloaks the way she usually did. The other two women stood star 
ing at him as though they had never seen him before. In case 
they were not being as quick to see as Min, he impatiently 
added, "Rochaid and Kisman ambushed me. They knew I was 
following. Kisman got away. If he knows this inn, he and 
Dashiva and Gedwyn and Torval might all turn up here, maybe in 
two or three days, or maybe in an hour or so." 


"I am not blind," Nynaeve said, still staring at him. There 
was no heat in her voice; was she protesting just for the form 
of it? "If you want to hurry, help Min instead of standing 
around like a woolhead." She stared at him a moment longer, 
and shook her head before leaving. 


Alivia paused in the act of following, and glared at Rand. 
No, there was nothing subdued about her any longer. "You could 
get yourself killed like that," she said disapprovingly. "You 
have too much to do to get killed yet. You must let us help." 


He frowned at the door closing behind her. "Have you had any 
viewings about her, Min?" 


"All the time, but not the kind you mean, nothing I under 
stand." She wrinkled her nose at one of the books and set it 
aside. Small chance she would abandon a single volume of her 



not-so-small library. Undoubtedly she meant to carry that one, 
and read it at the first opportunity. She spent hours with her 
nose in those books. "Rand," she said slowly, "you did all 
that, killed one man and faced another, and. . . . Rand, I 
didn't feel anything. In the bond, I mean. No fear, no anger. 
Not even concern! Nothing." 


"I wasn't angry with him." Shaking his head, he began shov 


ing clothes into the hamper again. "He just needed killing, 
that's all. And why would I be afraid?" 
"Oh," she said in a small voice. "I see." She bent back to 

the books. The bond had gone very still, as if she were deep 
in thought, but there was a troubled thread worming though the 
stillness. 


"Min, I promise I won't let anything happen to you." He did 
not know whether he could keep that promise, but he intended 
to try. 


She smiled at him, almost laughing. Light, she was 
beautiful. "I know that, Rand. And I won't let anything happen 
to you." Love flowed along the bond like the bla2e of a 
noonday sun. "Alivia's right, though. You do have to let us 
help somehow. If you describe these fellows well enough, maybe 
we can ask questions. You certainly can't search the whole 
city alone." 


We are dead men, Lews Therin murmured. Dead men should be 
quiet in their graves, but they never are. 


Rand barely heard the voice in his head. Suddenly he knew he 
did not have to describe Kisman and the others. He could draw 
them so well that anyone would recognize the faces. Except, he 
had never been able to draw in his life. Lews Therin could, 
though. That should have frightened him. It should have. 


Isam paced the room, studying by the ever-present light of 
Tel'aran'rhiod. The bed linens shifted from rumpled to neatly 
made between one glance and the next. The coverlet changed 
from flowered to plain dark red to quilted. The ephemeral 
always changed here, and he barely noticed anymore. He could 
not use Tel'aran'rhiod the way the Chosen could, but here was 
where he felt most free. Here, he could be who he wanted to 
be. He chuckled at the thought. 


Stopping beside the bed, he carefully unsheathed the two poi 
soned daggers and stepped out of the Unseen World into the 
waking. As he did, he became Luc. It seemed appropriate. 


The room was dark in the waking world, but the single window 
let in sufficient moonlight for Luc to make out the mounded 
shapes of two people lying asleep beneath their blankets. 
Without hesitation he drove a blade into each. They woke with 
small cries, but he pulled the blades free and drove them in 
again and again. With the poison, it was unlikely either would 
have had the strength to shout loudly enough to be heard 
outside the room, but he wanted to make this kill his own in a 
way that poison could not grant. Soon they stopped twitching 
when he thrust a blade between ribs. 


Wiping the daggers clean on the coverlet, he resheathed them 
with as much care as he had drawn them. He had been given many 
gifts, but immunity to poison, or any other weapon, was not 
among them. Then he took a short candle from his pocket and 
blew away enough ash from the banked coals in the fireplace to 
light the wick. He always liked to see the people he killed, 



after if he could not during. He had especially enjoyed those 
two Aes Sedai in the Stone of Tear. The incredulity on their 
faces when he appeared out of thin air, the horror when they 
realized he had not come to save them, were treasured 
memories. That had been Isam, not him, but the memories were 
none the less prized for that. Neither of them got to kill an 
Aes Sedai very often. 


For a moment he studied the faces of the man and woman on 
the bed, then pinched out the candle's flame and returned the 
candle to his pocket before stepping back into Tel'aran'rhiod. 
His patron of the moment was waiting for him. A man, he was 
sure of that much, but Luc could not look at him. It was not 
as it was with those slimy Gray Men, whom you just did not 
notice. He had killed one of them, once, in the White Tower 
itself. They felt cold and empty to the touch. It had been 
like killing a corpse. No, this man had done something with 
the Power so Luc's eyes slid away from him like water sliding 
down glass. Even seen at the corner of the eye, he was a blur. 


"The pair sleeping in this room will sleep forever," Luc 
said, "but the man was bald, the woman gray." 


"A pity," the man said, and the voice seemed to melt in 
Luc's ears. He would not be able to recognize it if he heard 
it without the disguise. The man had to be one of the Chosen. 
Pew save the Chosen knew how to reach him, and none of the men 
among those few could channel, or would have dared trying to 
command him. His services were always begged, except by the 
Great Lord himself, and more recently by the Chosen, but none 
of the Chosen Luc had met had ever taken such precautions as 
this. 


"Do you want me to try again?" Luc asked. 


"Perhaps. When I tell you. Not before. Remember, not a word 
of this to anyone." 


"As you command," Luc replied, bowing, but the man was 
already making a gateway, a hole that opened into a snowy 
forest glade. He was gone before Luc straightened. 


It really was a pity. He had rather looked forward to 
killing his nephew and the wench. But if there was time to 
pass, hunting was always a pleasure. He became Isam. Isam 
liked killing wolves even more than Luc did. 


Chapter 23: To Loose the Sun 


Trying to hold the unfamiliar woolen cloak tightly around 
her with one hand, trying not to fall out of the even more 
unfamiliar saddle, Shalon awkwardly heeled her horse forward 
and followed Harine and her Swordmaster Moad through the hole 
in the air that led from a stableyard in the Sun Palace to. 
... She was not sure where, except that it was a long open 
area-a clearing, was it called? she thought that was right-a 
clearing larger than a raker's deck, among stunted trees 
spaced out on hills. The pines, the only trees among them she 
recognized, were too small and twisted for any use but tar and 
turpentine. Most of the rest showed bare gray branches that 
made her think of bones. The morning sun sat just above the 



treetops, and if anything, the cold seemed more bitter here 
than it had in the city she had left behind. She hoped the 
horse did not misstep and tumble her down onto the rocks that 
stuck up wherever patches of snow did not cover the rotting 
leaves on the ground. She distrusted horses. Unlike ships, 
animals had minds of their own. They were treacherous things 
to climb on top of. And horses had teeth. Whenever her mount 
showed his, so near to her legs, she flinched and patted his 
neck and made soothing sounds. At least, she hoped the beast 
found them soothing. 


Cadsuane herself, garbed in unrelieved dark green, sat 
easily on a tall horse with a black mane and tail, maintaining 
the weave that made the gateway. Horses did not bother her. 
Nothing bothered her. A sudden breeze stirred the dark gray 
cloak spread over the back end of her mount, but she gave no 
sign of feeling the cold at all. The golden hair ornaments 
dangling around her dark gray bun swung as she turned her head 
to watch Shalon and her companions. She was a handsome woman, 
but not one you would notice twice in a crowd except that her 
smooth face did not match her hair. Once you came to know her, 
it was too late. 


Shalon would have given much to see how that weave was done, 
even if it had meant being near Cadsuane, but she had not been 
allowed into the stableyard until the gateway was complete, 
and seeing a sail spread on the yardarm did not teach you how 
to set a sail much less make one. All she knew was the name. 
Riding past, she avoided meeting the Aes Sedai's gaze, but she 
felt it. The woman's eyes made her toes curl, seeking a 
footing the stirrups could not give. She could see no way to 
escape, yet she hoped to find one through studying the Aes 
Sedai. That she knew very little about Aes Sedai, she was 
readily willing to admit-she had never met one before sailing 
to Cairhien, and thought about them only to praise the Light 
that she had not been chosen to become one-but there were 
currents among Cadsuane's companions, deep beneath the 
surface. Deep, strong currents could alter everything that 
seemed apparent on the surface. 


The four Aes Sedai who had come through right after Cadsuane 
were waiting on their horses at one side of the . . . clearing 
. . . with three Warders. At least, Shalon was sure that Ihvon 
was the fiery Alanna's Warder, and Tomas was stout little 
Venn's, but she also was sure she had seen the very young man 
who stayed so close to plump Daigian's side wearing an 
Asha'man's black coat. Surely he could not be a Warder. Could 
he? Eben was just a boy. Yet when the woman gazed at him, her 
usual puffed-up pride seemed to swell further. Kumira, a 
pleasant-looking woman with blue eyes that could turn into 
knives when something interested her, sat her saddle a little 
to one side, studying young Eben so sharply it was a wonder he 
was not lying on the ground flensed. 


"I will not put up with this much longer," Marine grumbled, 
thumping her mare with her bare heels to keep it moving. Her 
brocaded yellow silks did not help her keep a good seat in the 
saddle any more than did Shalon's blue. She swayed and slid 
with the animal's movements, on the point of toppling to the 
ground at every step. The breeze gusted again, flipping the 
dangling ends of her sash about, making her cloak billow, but 



she disdained to control the garment. Cloaks were not much 
used in the ships; 


they got in the way, and could tangle your arms and legs 
when you needed them for survival. Moad had refused one, 
trusting to the quilted blue coat he wore in the coldest seas. 
Nesune Bihara, all in bronze wool, rode through the gateway 
looking around as if trying to see everything at once, and 
then Elza Penfel, who wore a sullen expression for some reason 
and clutched her fur-lined green cloak tight. None of the 
other Aes Sedai seemed to bother much with sheltering 
themselves from the cold. 


"I may be able to see the Coramoor, she says," Harine mut 
tered, pulling at her reins until the mare turned toward the 
side of the clearing away from where the Aes Sedai were 
gathering. "May! And she offers this chance as though granting 
a privilege." Harine did not need to give a name; when Harine 
said "she" that way, like a jellyfish's sting, there could 
only be one woman she meant. "I have the right, bargained for 
and agreed! She denies me the agreed entourage! I must leave 
my Sailmistress behind, and my attendants!" Erian Boroleos 
appeared through the opening, as intent as if she expected to 
find a battle, followed by Beldeine Nyram, who did not even 
look like an Aes Sedai. Both wore green, Erian completely, 
Beldeine in slashes in her sleeves and skirts. Did that mean 
something? Likely not. "Am I to approach the Coramoor like a 
deckgirl touching my heart to a Sail-mistress?" When several 
Aes Sedai were together, you could see the smooth-faced 
agelessness clearly, so you could not say whether any one was 
twenty or twice that even if her hair was white, and Beldeine 
simply looked a girl of twenty. And that told no more than did 
her skirts. "Am I to air my own bedding and wash my own 
linens? She turns protocol straight into the wind! I will not 
allow it! No more!" These were old complaints, voiced a dozen 
times since last night, when Cadsuane laid down her conditions 
if they were to accompany her. Those conditions had been 
strict, but Harine had had no choice save to accede, which 
only added to the bitterness. 


Shalon listened with half an ear, nodding and murmuring the 
appropriate responses. Agreement, of course. Her sister 
expected agreement. Most other attention was on the Aes Sedai. 
Surreptitiously. Moad did not pretend to listen, but then, he 
was Marine's Swordmaster. Harine might be tight as a wet knot 
with everyone else, yet she gave Moad so much leeway anyone 
might have thought the hard-eyed, gray-haired man was her 
lover, especially since both were widowed. At least, they 
might think it if they did not know Harine. Harine would never 
take a lover who stood lower than she, and now, of course, 
that meant she could take none. In any case, once they stopped 
their horses near the trees, Moad leaned an elbow on the tall 
pommel of his saddle, rested a hand on the long, carved ivory 
hilt of the sword thrust behind his green sash, and openly 
studied the Aes Sedai and the men with them. Where had he 
learned to ride a horse? He actually looked . . . comfortable. 
Anyone could tell his rank at a glance, from his eight 
earrings of the heaviest weight and the knotting of his sash, 
even if he was not wearing his sword and matching dagger. Did 
Aes Sedai have no way to do the same? Could they truly be so 



disorganized? Supposedly the White Tower was like some me 
chanical contrivance that ground up thrones and reshaped them 
to its will. Of course, the machinery did seem to be broken, 
now. 


"I said, where has she brought us, Shalon?" 


Harine's voice, like an icy razor, drained the blood from 
Shalon’s face. Serving under a younger sibling was always 
difficult, but Harine made it more so. In private she was 
beyond cool, and in public she was capable of having a 
Sailmistress hung up by the ankles, not to mention a 
Windfinder. And since that young shorebound woman, Min, had 
told her she would be Mistress of the Ships one day, she had 
grown ever sharper. Staring hard-eyed at Shalon, she raised 
her golden scent-box as if to cover an unpleasant odor, though 
the cold killed all the perfume. 


Hurriedly Shalon looked into the sky, trying to judge the 
sun. She wished her sextant were not locked away on White 
Spray-the shorebound were never allowed to see a sextant, much 
less see one being used-but she was uncertain it would have 
done her any good. These trees might be short, but she still 
could not make out a horizon. Close on to the north, the hills 
rose into mountains that slanted northeast to southwest. She 
could not say how high she was. There was far too much up and 
down about landside to suit her. Even so, any Windfinder knew 
how to make rough approximations. And when Harine demanded 
information, she expected to receive it. 


"I can only guess, Wavemistress," she said. Harine's jaw 
tightened, but no Windfinder would present a guess as a firm 
position. "I believe we are three or four hundred leagues 
south of Cairhien. More, I cannot say." Any first-day 
apprentice using a string-stick who gave a fix that loose 
would have been bent over for the deckmaster's starter, but 
the words chilled Shalon's tongue as she heard what she was 
saying. A hundred leagues over the full turn of a day was good 
sailing for a raker. Moad pursed his lips thoughtfully. 


Harine nodded slowly, looking right through Shalon as though 
she could see rakers under full sail gliding through holes 
woven in the air with the Power. The seas truly would be 
theirs, then. Giving herself a shake, she leaned toward 
Shalon, her eyes catching Shalon's like hooks. "You must learn 
this, whatever the cost. Tell her you will spy on me if she 
teaches you. If you convince her, she might, the Light 


willing. Or at least you may get close enough to one of the 
others to learn it." 
Shalon licked her lips. She hoped Harine had not seen her 

jerk. "I refused her before, Wavemistress." She had needed 
some explanation of why the Aes Sedai had held her for a week, 
and a version of the truth had seemed safest. Harine knew 
everything. Except the secret Verin had winkled out. Except 
that Shalon had agreed to Cadsuane's demands in order to hide 
that secret. The Grace of the Light be upon her, she regretted 
Ailil, but she had been so lonely that she sailed too far 
before she knew it. With Harine, there were no evening talks 
over honeyed wine to soften the long months parted from her 
husband Mishael. At best, many more months would pass before 
she could lie in his arms. "With respect, why should she 
believe me now?" 



 "Because you want the learning." Harine chopped the air with 
one hand. "The shorebound always believe greed. You will have 
to tell some things, of course, to prove yourself. I will 
decide what each day. Perhaps I can steer her where I wish." 


Hard fingers seemed to dig into Shalon's scalp. She had in 
tended to tell Cadsuane as little as she could get by with, 
and as seldom, until she found a way free of her. If she had 
to talk with the Aes Sedai every day, and worse, lie to her 
outright, the woman would pry out more than Shalon wanted. 
More than Harine wanted. Much more. It was as certain as 
sunrise. "Forgive me, Wavemistress," she said with every ounce 
of deference she could find, "but if I may be allowed to say 
so-" 


She cut off as Sarene Nemdahl rode up and reined to a halt 
before them. The last of the Aes Sedai and Warders had come 
through, and Cadsuane had let the gateway vanish. Corele, a 
thin woman if pretty, was laughing and tossing her mane of 
black hair as she spoke to Kumira. Merise, a tall woman with 
eyes bluer than Kumira's and a more than handsome face that 
was stern enough to give even Harine pause, was using sharp 
gestures to direct the four men leading packhorses. Everyone 
else was gathering reins. It seemed they were all getting 
ready to leave the clearing. 


Sarene was lovely, though the absence of jewelry lessened 


her looks, of course, as did the plain white dress she wore. 
The shore-bound seemed to have no joy of color at all. Even 
her dark cloak was lined with white fur. "Cadsuane, she has 

asked . . . instructed . . . me to be your attendant, 
Wavemistress," she said, inclining her head respectfully. "I 
will answer your questions, to the extent that I can, and help 
you with the customs, as well as I know them. I realize you 
might feel discomfort at being with me, but when Cadsuane 
commands, we must obey." 


Shalon smiled. She doubted the Aes Sedai knew that in the 
ships, an attendant was what the shorebound would call a 
servant. Harine would probably laugh and demand to know 
whether the Aes Sedai could clean linens properly. It would be 
good to have her in a good mood. 


Rather than laughing, though, Harine stiffened in her saddle 
as though her backbone had become a mainmast, and her eyes 
popped. "I feel no discomfort!" she snapped. "I simply prefer 
to ... to put any questions to someone else ... to Cadsuane. 
Yes. To Cadsuane. And / certainly do not have to obey her or 
anyone! Not anyone! Except the Mistress of the Ships!" Shalon 
frowned; 


it was unlike her sister to sound scatter-witted. Drawing a 
deep breath, Harine continued in a firmer tone, though in a 
way, just as oddly as before. "I speak for the Mistress of the 
Ships to the Atha'an Miere, and I demand due respect! I demand 
it, do you hear me? Do you?" 


"I can ask her to name someone else," Sarene said 
doubtfully, as if she did not expect her asking would change 
anything. "You must understand that she gave me quite specific 
instructions that day. But I should not have lost my temper. 
That is a failing of mine. Temper destroys logic." 


"I understand obeying orders," Harine growled, crouching in 
the saddle. She looked ready to launch herself at Sarene's 



throat. "I approve of obeying orders!" she very nearly 
snarled. "However, orders that have been carried out can be 
forgotten. They no longer need be spoken of. Do you understand 
me?" Shalon stared sideways at her. What was she talking 
about? What orders had Sarene carried out, and why did Harine 
want them forgotten? Moad made no pretence of hiding his 
raised eyebrows. Harine was aware of his scrutiny, at least, 
and her face became a thunderhead. 


Sarene seemed not to notice. "I do not see how one can delib 
erately forget," she said slowly, a small frown creasing her 
forehead, "but I suppose you mean that we should pretend to. 
Is that it?" The beaded braids dangling from her cowl clicked 
together as she shook her head at this foolishness. "Very 
well. I will answer your questions as well as I can. What do 
you wish to know?" Harine sighed loudly. Shalon might have 
taken it for impatience, but she thought it was relief. 
Relief! 


Relieved or not, Harine became her normal self again, self-
possessed and commanding, meeting the Aes Sedai's gaze as 
though trying to make her drop her eyes. "You can tell me 
where we are and where we are going," she demanded. 


"We are in the Hills of Kintara," Cadsuane said, appearing 
before them suddenly, her mount rearing and pawing the air, 
flinging snow, "and we are going to Far Madding." Not only did 
she stay in the saddle, she did not even seem to notice the 
animal's heaving! 


"Is the Coramoor in this Far Madding?" 


"Patience is a virtue, I am told, Wavemistress." Despite 
Cadsuane's use of Harine's proper title, there was no respect 
in her manner. Far from it. "You will ride with me. Keep up 
and try not to fall off. It would be unpleasant, if I had to 
have you carried like sacks of grain. Once we reach the city, 
keep silent unless I tell you to speak. I won't have you 
creating problems through ignorance. You will let Sarene guide 
you. She has her instructions." 


Shalon expected an outburst of rage, but Harine held her 
tongue, though with obvious effort. Once Cadsuane turned away, 
Harine did mutter angrily under her breath, but she clamped 
her teeth tight when Sarene's horse moved. Plainly, her 
mutters were not to be overheard by Aes Sedai. 


Riding with Cadsuane, it turned out, meant riding behind 
her, southward through the trees. Alanna and Verin actually 
rode beside the woman, but one look from her when Harine 
attempted to join them made clear that no one else was 
welcome. Once again the expected explosion did not come. 
Instead, Harine frowned at Sarene for some reason, then jerked 
her mount around to take position between Shalon and Moad. She 
did not bother asking any further questions of Sarene, on 
Shalon's other side, only glowered at the backs of the women 
ahead. If Shalon had not known Harine better, she would have 
said there was more sulk than anger in that glare. 


For her part, Shalon was glad to ride in silence. Riding a 
horse was difficult enough without having to talk at the same 
time. Besides, she suddenly knew why Harine was behaving in 
such a peculiar fashion. Harine must be trying to smooth the 
waters with the Aes Sedai. It had to be that. Harine never 
controlled her temper without great need. The strain of 



controlling it now must have her boiling inside. And if her 
efforts did not end as she wanted, she would boil Shalon. 
Thinking about that made Shalon’s head ache. The Light help 
and guide her, there had to be a way to avoid spying on her 
sister without finding her cheek-chain stripped of honors and 
herself assigned to a scow under a Sailmistress brooding over 
why she had never risen higher and ready to take out her 
grievances on everyone around her. Equally as bad, Mishael 
might declare their marriage vows broken. There just had to be 
a way. 


Sometimes she twisted around in her saddle to look at the 
Aes Sedai riding behind her. There was nothing to learn from 
the women in front, certainly. Every so often Cadsuane and 
Verin exchanged words, but leaning close to one another and 
speaking too softly to be overheard. Alanna appeared intent on 
whatever lay ahead, her eyes always looking south. Two or 
three times she quickened her horse's pace for a few steps 
before Cadsuane brought her back with a quiet word that Alanna 
obeyed reluctantly, with hot-eyed stare or sullen grimace. 
Cadsuane and Verin appeared solicitous of the woman, Cadsuane 
patting her arm in almost the way Shalon patted her mount's 
neck and Verin beaming at her, as though Alanna were 
recovering from an illness. Which told Shalon nothing. So she 
thought about the others. 


You did not rise in the ships just through your ability to 
Weave the Winds or predict the weather or fix a position. You 
needed to read the intent that lay between the words of your 
orders, to interpret small gestures and facial expressions; 
you had to notice who deferred to whom, even subtly, for 
courage and ability alone took you only so high. 


Four of them, Nesune and Erian, Beldeine and Elza, rode in a 
cluster not far behind her, though they were not really 
together, only occupying the same space. They did not talk 
among themselves, or look at one another. They did not seem to 
like one another very much. In her mind, Shalon had them in 
the same boat with Sarene. The Aes Sedai pretended that they 
were all one under Cadsuane, yet that was plainly untrue. 
Merise, Corele, Kumira and Daigian crewed another boat, 
commanded by Cadsuane. Sometimes Alanna seemed in one boat, 
sometimes the other, while Verin appeared to be in some way of 
Cadsuane's boat but not in it. Swimming alongside, perhaps, 
with Cadsuane holding her hand. If that was not strange 
enough, there was the matter of deference. 


Oddly, it seemed that Aes Sedai valued strength in the Power 
above experience or skill. They ranked themselves by strength, 
like deckmen squabbling in shoreside taverns. All deferred to 
Cadsuane, of course, yet there were oddities among the rest. 
By their own hierarchy, some in Nesune's boat were in a 
position to expect deference from some in Cadsuane's, but 
although those in Cadsuane's boat who should defer did so, 
they did so as though to a superior who had committed a 
grievous crime known to all. By that hierarchy, Nesune stood 
higher than any save Cadsuane and Merise, yet she faced 
Daigian, who stood at the very bottom, as if willfully defiant 
over committing that crime, and so did the others in her boat. 
It was all very discreet, a slightly lifted chin, a small arch 
of the eyebrow, a twist of the lips, but obvious to an eye 



trained climbing in the ships. Perhaps there was nothing in it 
that would help her, but if she had to pick oakum, the only 
way was to find a thread and pull. 


The wind began to pick up; gusts flattened her cloak against 
her back and made it flap on either side ahead of her. She was 
hardly aware of it. 


The Warders might be another thread. They were all at the 
very rear, hidden by the Aes Sedai riding behind Nesune and 
the other three. In truth, Shalon had expected that among 
twelve Aes Sedai, there would be more than seven Warders. 


Every Aes Sedai was supposed to have one, if not more. She 
shook her head irritably. Except the Red Ajah, of course. She 
was not entirely ignorant of Aes Sedai. 

Anyway, the question was not how many Warders, but whether 
they all were Warders. She was certain she had seen grizzled 
old Damer and the so-pretty Jahar in black coats, too, before 
they suddenly took up with the Aes Sedai. At the time, she had 
been unwilling to look too closely at the blackcoats, and in 
truth, she had been half-blind with the dainty Ailil as well, 
but she was sure. And whatever the case with Eben, she was 
almost certain the other two were Warders, now. Almost. Jahar 
jumped as fast as Nethan or Bassane when Merise pointed, and 
from the way Corele smiled at Darner, he was either her Warder 
or her bed-warmer, and Shalon could not imagine a woman like 
Corele taking a nearly bald old man with a limp into her bed. 
She might know little about Aes Sedai, but she was sure 
bonding men who could channel was not an accepted practice. If 
she could prove they had done so, perhaps that was a knife 
sharp enough to cut herself free from Cadsuane. 


"The men, they can no longer channel now," Sarene murmured. 


Shalon straightened herself around in the saddle so quickly 
that she had to grab her horse's mane with both hands to keep 
from falling off. The wind blew her cloak over her head, and 
she had to fight that down before she could sit up. They were 
coming out of the trees above a wide road that curved 
southward out of the hills to a lake perhaps a mile off, on 
the edge of flat land covered with brown grass, a sea of brown 
stretching to the horizon. The lake, bordered along the west 
with a narrow wash of reeds, was a pitiful excuse for a body 
of water, no more than ten miles long at most and less than 
that wide. A fair-sized island crouched in the middle, 
surrounded by high, tower-studded walls as far as she could 
see, and covered by a city. She took all that in at a glance, 
her eyes fastening on Sarene. It was almost as if the woman 
had been reading her mind. "Why can they not channel?" she 
asked. "Did you . . . ? Have you . . . gentled . . . them?" 
She thought that was the right word, but that was supposed to 
kill the man. She had always supposed it was just an odd way 
to soften execution for some unknown reason. 


Sarene blinked, and Shalon realized the Aes Sedai had been 
speaking to herself. For a moment she studied Shalon as they 
followed Cadsuane down the slope, then turned her gaze back to 
the city on the island. "You notice things, Shalon. It would 
be best if you keep what you have noticed about the men to 
yourself." 


"Such as them being Warders?" Shalon said quietly. "Is that 
why you could bond them? Because you gentled them?" She hoped 



to jar some admission loose, but the Aes Sedai merely glanced 
at her. She did not speak again until they had reached the 
bottom of the hill and turned onto the road behind Cadsuane. 
The road was wide, the dirt packed hard by much traffic, but 
they had it to themselves. 


"It is not exactly a secret," Sarene said at last, and not 
very willingly for something that was not a secret, "but 
neither is it well known. We do not speak of Far Madding 
often, except for sisters born there, and even they seldom 
visit. Still, you should know before you enter. The city 
possesses a ter'angreal. Or perhaps it is three ter'angreal. 
No one knows. They-or it-cannot be studied any more than they 
can be removed. They must have been made during the Breaking, 
when fear of madmen channeling the Power was the matter of 
every day. But to pay such a price for the safety." The beaded 
braids dangling onto her chest rattled together as she shook 
her head in disbelief. "These ter'angreal, they duplicate a 
stedding. In the important ways at least, I fear, though I 
suppose an Ogier would not think so." She gave a doleful sigh. 


Shalon gaped at her, and exchanged confused looks with 
Harine and Moad. Why would fables frighten an Aes Sedai? 
Harine opened her mouth, then motioned for Shalon to ask the 
obvious question. Perhaps she was to make friends with Sarene 
to help smooth her course, too? Shalon's head really did ache. 
But she was curious, too. 


"What ways are those?" she asked carefully. Did the woman 
really believe in people five spans tall who sang to trees? 
There was something about axes, too. Here come the Aelfinn to 
steal all your bread; here come the Ogier to chop off your 
head. Light, she had not heard that since Harine was still in 
leading strings. With their mother rising in the ships, she 
had been charged with raising Harine along with her own first 
child. 


Sarene's eyes widened in surprise. "You truly do not know?" 


Her gaze went back to the island city ahead. By her 
expression, she was about to enter the bilges. "Inside the 
stedding, you cannot channel. You cannot even feel the True 
Source. No weave made outside can affect what is inside, not 
that that matters. In truth, here there are two stedding, one 
within the other. The larger affects men, but we will enter 
the smaller before we reach the bridge." 


"You will not be able to channel in there?" Harine said. 
When the Aes Sedai nodded without looking away from the city, 
a thin frosty smile touched Marine's lips. "Perhaps after we 
find quarters, you and I can discuss instructions." 


"You read the philosophy?" Sarene looked startled. "The The 
ory of Instructions, it is not well thought of these days, yet 
I have always believed there was much to learn there. A 
discussion will be pleasant, to take my mind from other 
matters. If Cadsuane allows us time." 


Harine's mouth fell open. Gaping at the Aes Sedai, she 
forgot to cling to her saddle, and only Moad seizing her arm 
saved her from a fall. 


Shalon had never heard Harine mention philosophy, but she 
did not care what her sister was talking about. Staring toward 
Far Madding, she swallowed hard. She had learned to sheathe 
someone against using the Power, of course, and been sheathed 



herself as part of her training, yet when you were sheathed, 
you could still feel the Source. What would it be like not to 
feel it, like the sun just out of sight beyond the corner of 
your eye? What would it be like to lose the sun? 


As they rode nearer the lake, she felt more aware of the 
Source than she had since her first joy at touching it. It was 
all she could do not to drink of it, but the Aes Sedai would 
see the light and know, and likely know why. She would not 
shame herself or Harine in that manner. Small, beamy craft 
dotted the water, none more than six or seven spans in length, 
some hauling in nets, others creeping along on long sweeps. 
Judging by the windswept swells that rolled across the 
surface, sometimes crashing into one another in fountains of 
foam like surf, sails might have been as much hindrance as 
help. Still, the boats seemed almost a familiar thing, though 
nothing like the sleek fours or eights or twelves carried on 
the ships. A tiny comfort amid strangeness. 


The road turned onto a spit of land jutting half a mile or 
more into the lake, and abruptly the Source vanished. Sarene 
sighed, but gave no other sign she had noticed. Shalon wet her 
lips. It was not so bad as she had feared. It made her feel . 
. . empty . . . but she could bear that. As long as she did 
not have to bear it too long. The wind, gusting and curling 
and trying to steal cloaks, suddenly felt much colder. 


At the end of the spit, a village of gray stone houses with 
darker slate roofs stood between road and water on one side. 
Village women hurrying along with large baskets stopped at the 
sight of the mounted party. More than one felt at her own nose 
as she stared. Shalon had grown almost accustomed to those 
stares, in Cairhien. In any case, the fortification opposite 
the village drew her eyes, a mound of tight-fitted stone five 
spans high with soldiers watching through the barred 
faceguards of their helmets from atop towers at the corners. 
Some held drawn crossbows where she could see them. From a 
large iron-plated door at the end nearest the bridge, more 
helmeted soldiers spilled out into the road, men in square-
scaled armor with a golden sword worked on the left shoulder. 
Some wore swords at their waists and others carried long 
spears or crossbows. Shalon wondered whether they expected the 
Aes Sedai to try fighting past. An officer with a yellow plume 
on his helmet motioned Cadsuane to a halt, then approached her 
and removed his helmet, freeing gray-streaked hair that 
spilled down his back to his waist. He had a hard, disgruntled 
face. 


Cadsuane leaned low in her saddle to exchange a few quiet 
words with the man, then produced a fat purse from beneath her 
saddlebags. He took it and stepped back, motioning one of the 
soldiers forward, a tall bony man who was not wearing a 
helmet. He carried a writing board, and his hair, gathered at 
the back of his head like the officer's, also hung to his 
waist. He bent his neck respectfully before inquiring Alanna's 
name, and wrote it very carefully, with his tongue caught 
between his teeth, dipping his pen often. Helmet on his hip, 
the discontented officer stood studying the others behind 
Cadsuane with no expression. The purse hung from his hand as 
though forgotten. He seemed unaware he had been speaking with 
an Aes Sedai. Or maybe, he did not care. Here, an Aes Sedai 



was no different from any other woman. Shalon shuddered. Here, 
she was no different from any other woman, bereft of her gifts 
for the duration of her stay. Bereft. 


"They take the names of all foreigners," Sarene said. "The 
Counsels, they like to know who is in the city." 


"Perhaps they would admit a Wavemistress without bribes," 
Harine said drily. The bony soldier, turning away from Alanna, 
gave the usual shorebound start at Shalon and Harine's jewelry 
before coming toward them. 


"Your name, Mistress, if it pleases you?" he said politely 
to Sarene, ducking his head again. She gave it without 
mentioning that she was Aes Sedai. Shalon gave hers as simply, 
but Harine offered the titles as well, Harine din Togara Two 
Winds, Wave-mistress of Clan Shodein, Ambassador Extraordinary 
of the Mistress of the Ships to the Atha'an Miere. The fellow 
blinked, then bit his tongue and bent his neck over the 
writing board. Harine scowled. When she wanted to impress 
someone, she expected them to be impressed. 


As the bony man was writing, a stocky, helmeted soldier with 
a leather scrip hanging from his shoulder pushed between Har 
ine's horse and Moad's. Behind the bars of his faceguard, a 
puckered scar down his face pulled up one side of his mouth in 
a sneer, but he bowed his head to Harine respectfully enough. 
And then he tried to take Moad's sword. 


"You must allow it or leave your blades here until you de 
part," Sarene said quickly when the Swordmaster twitched the 
scabbard out of the stocky man's hands. "This service, it is 
what Cadsuane was paying for, Wavemistress. In Far Madding, no 
man is allowed to carry more than the belt knife unless it is 
peace-bonded so it cannot be drawn. Even the Wall Guards like 
these men cannot take a sword away from their place of duty. 
Is that not so?" she asked the skinny soldier, and he replied 
that it was, and a good thing, too. 


With a shrug, Moad lifted the sword room his sash, and when 
the fellow with the perpetual sneer demanded his ivory-hiked 
dagger as well, he handed that over. Tucking the long dagger 
behind his belt, the man produced a spool of fine wire from 
his scrip and deftly began wrapping the sword in a fine net. 
Every so often he paused to pluck a seal-press from his belt 
and fold a small lead disc around the wires, but he had quick, 
practiced hands. 


"The list of names, it will be distributed to the other two 
bridges," Sarene went on, "and the men will have to show the 
wires unbroken or they will be held until a magistrate 
determines that no other crime has been committed. Even if 
none has, the penalty is both a very heavy fine and flogging. 
Most foreigners, they deposit their weapons before entering to 
save the coin, but that would mean we must leave by this 
bridge. The Light alone knows which direction we will want to 
go when we leave here." Looking toward Cadsuane, who appeared 
to be restraining Alanna from riding across the long bridge 
alone, Sarene added almost under her breath, "At least, I hope 
that is her reasoning." 


Harine snorted. "This is ridiculous. How is he to defend him 
self?" 


"No need for any man to defend himself in Far Madding, 
Mistress." The stocky man's voice was coarse, but he did not 



sound mocking. He was stating the obvious. "The Street Guards 
take care of that. Let any man as wants start carrying a 
sword, and soon we'd be as bad as everyplace else. I heard 
what they're like, Mistress, and we don't want that here." 
Bowing to Harine, he strode on down the column followed by the 
man with the writing board. 


Moad briefly examined his sword and dagger, both neatly 
wrapped hilt and scabbard, then eased them back in place, 
taking care not to snag his sash on the seals. "Swords only 
become useful when wits fail," he said. Harine snorted again. 
Shalon wondered how that fellow had gained his scar if Far 
Madding was so safe. 


Sounds of protest rose from the rear, where the other men 
were, but they were quickly silenced. By Merise, Shalon would 
have wagered. At times, the woman made Cadsuane seem lax. 


Her Warders were like the trained guard dogs the Amayar 
used, ready to leap at a whistle, and she was not at all 
hesitant about calling down the other Aes Sedai's Warders. 
Soon enough all of the swords had been peace-bonded, and the 
packhorses searched for hidden weapons, and they rode out onto 
the bridge, hooves ringing on stone. Shalon tried to take in 
everything, not so much from interest as to take her mind off 
what was missing. 


The bridge was flat and as wide as the road behind, with low 
stone copings on the side that would stop a wagon from 
plunging over but give no shelter to attackers, and it was 
long, too, perhaps as much as three-quarters of a mile, and 
straight as an arrow. Now and then one of the boats passed 
beneath, which they could not have done had they had masts. 
Tall towers flanked the city's iron-strapped gates-the Caemlyn 
Gate was the name Sarene gave-where guards with the golden 
sword on their shoulders bowed their heads to the women and 
cast suspicious eyes on the men. The street beyond. . . . 


Trying to be observant was no use. The street was wide and 
straight, full of people and carts, lined with stone buildings 
two or three stories high, and it all seemed a blur. The 
Source was gone! She knew it would come back when she left 
this place, and Light, she wanted to leave now. But how long 
before she could? The Coramoor might be in this city, and 
Harine meant to make herself fast to the Coramoor, perhaps 
because of who he was, perhaps because she thought he would 
help her rise to Mistress of the Ships. Until Harine left, 
until Cadsuane freed them from the agreement, Shalon was 
anchored here. Here, where there was no True Source. 


Sarene talked incessantly, yet Shalon barely heard her. They 
crossed a large square with a huge statue of a woman in the 
center, but Shalon caught only her name, Einion Avharin, 
though she knew Sarene was telling her why the woman was 
famous in Far Madding and why her statue was pointing toward 
the Caemlyn Gate. A row of leafless trees divided the street 
beyond the square. Sedan chairs and coaches and men in square-
scaled armor threaded though the crowds, but they registered 
only on her eyes. Trembling, she huddled in on herself. The 
city vanished. Time vanished. Everything vanished except her 
fear that she would never feel the Source again. She had never 
before realized what comfort she had taken in its unseen 
presence. It had always been there, promising joy beyond 



knowing, life so rich that colors paled when the Power was 
gone from her. And now the Source itself was gone. Gone. That 
was all she was aware of, all she could be aware of. It was 
gone. 


Chapter 24: Among the Counsels 


Someone shook Shalon's arm. It was Sarene, and the Aes Sedai 
was talking to her. "It is in there," Sarene said, "in the 
Hall of the Counsels. Beneath the dome." Withdrawing her hand, 
she took a deep breath and gathered her reins. "It is 
ridiculous to think that the effect is any worse just because 
we are close," she muttered, "but it does feel so." 


Shalon roused herself with an effort. The emptiness would 
not go away, but she forced herself to ignore it. Yet in truth 
she felt cored like a piece of fruit. 


They were in a huge-she supposed it was still called a 
square, though this one was round-a huge square paved with 
white stone. At the center stood a great palace, a round 
structure all of white except for the tall blue dome on top, 
like half of a ball. Massive fluted columns surrounded the 
upper two levels below the dome, and a steady stream of people 
flowed up and down the broad white stone stairs leading up to 
the second level on either side. Except for a pair of tall 
arched bronze gates standing open directly ahead of them, the 
lowest level was all white stone carved with diademed women 
more than twice life-size, and between them, white stone 
sheaves of grain and bolts of cloth that seemed to have their 
free ends rippling in a wind, and stacks of ingots that might 
have been meant for gold or silver or iron or perhaps all 
three, and sacks spilling out what looked coins and gemstones. 
Beneath the women's feet, much smaller white stone figures 
drove wagons and worked forges and looms in a continuous band. 
These people had made a monument proclaiming their success at 
trade. That was foolish. When people decided you were better 
at trade than they, they not only grew jealous, they became 
stubborn and tried to demand ridiculous bargains. And 
sometimes you had no alternative save to accept. 


She realized that Harine was frowning at her, and straight 
ened herself in the saddle. "Forgive me, Wavemistress," she 
said. The Source was gone, but it would return-of course it 
would!- and she had her duty. She was ashamed that she had let 
herself give in to fear, yet the emptiness remained. Oh, 
Light, the emptiness! "I am better, now. I will do better from 
here on." Harine merely nodded, still frowning, and Shalon's 
scalp prickled. When Harine failed to deliver an expected 
tongue-lashing, it was because she intended to deliver worse. 
Cadsuane rode straight across the square and through the 
Hall of the Counsels' open gates into a large, high-ceilinged 
room that appeared to be an indoor stableyard. A dozen men in 
blue coats, squatting beside sedan chairs with both a golden 
sword and a golden hand painted on the doors, looked up in 
surprise when they rode in. So did the men in blue vests who 
were unharnessing the team from a coach with the sword-and-
hand sigil, and those sweeping the stone floor with large 



pushbrooms. Two more grooms were leading horses down a wide 
corridor that gave off the smell of hay and dung. 
A plump, smooth-cheeked man in his middle years came scur 

rying across the paving stones, bobbing his head in small bows 
and dry-washing his hands. Where the other men had their long 
hair tied at the nape of the neck, his was caught with a small 
silver clip, and his blue coat appeared of good quality wool, 
with the golden Sword-and-Hand embroidered large on his left 
breast. "Forgive me," he said with an unctuous smile, "I mean 
no offense, but 1 tear you must have mistaken your direction. 
This is the Hall of the Counsels, and-" 


"Tell First Counsel Barsalla that Cadsuane Melaidhrin is 
here to see her," Cadsuane broke in on him as she dismounted. 


The man's smile slid off to one side, and his eyes widened. 
"Cadsuane Melaidhrin? I thought you were-!" He cut himself 
short at her suddenly hard stare, then coughed into his hand 
and reassumed his fulsome smile. "Forgive me, Cadsuane Sedai. 
Will you allow me to show you and your companions to a waiting 
room where you can receive welcome while I send word to the 
First Counsel?" His eyes widened slightly as he took in those 
companions. Plainly he, too, could recognize Aes Sedai, at 
least in a group. Shalon and Harine made him blink, but he had 
self-control, for one of the shorebound. He did not gape. 


"I'll allow you to run tell Aleis I'm here as fast as your 
legs can carry you, boy," Cadsuane replied, unfastening her 
cloak and tossing it across her saddle. "Tell her I'll be in 
the dome, and tell her I don't have all day. Well? Hop!" This 
time the man's smile did not slide, it turned sickly, but he 
only hesitated a moment before setting off at a dead run while 
shouting for grooms to come take the horses. 


Cadsuane had dismissed him from her attention as soon as she 
finished giving him his orders, however. "Verin, Kumira, you 
two will come with me," she announced briskly. "Merise, keep 
everyone together and ready until I- Alanna, come back and dis 
mount. Alanna!" Reluctantly Alanna turned her mount away from 
the gates and climbed down with a sulky glower. Her slim 
Warder, Ihvon, watched her anxiously. Cadsuane sighed as 
though her patience was almost at an end. "Sit on her if you 
must to keep her here, Merise," she said, handing her reins to 
a small, wiry groom. "I want everyone ready to leave when I'm 
done with Aleis." Merise nodded, and Cadsuane turned to the 
groom. "A little water is all he needs," she said, giving her 
horse an affectionate pat. "I haven't exercised him much 
today." 


Shalon was more than happy to turn her own horse over to a 
groom without instructions. She would not mind if he killed 
the creature. She did not know how far she had ridden in a 
daze, but she felt as though she had been in that saddle every 
mile of the however many hundred leagues to Cairhien. She felt 
rumpled in her flesh as well as her clothes. Abruptly, she 
realized that Jahar's pretty face was not with the other men. 
Verin's Tomas, a stocky gray-head as hard as any of the 
others, was leading the spotted gray pack animal that had been 
Jahar's. Where had the young man gotten to? Merise certainly 
did not appear concerned by his absence. 


"This First Counsel," Marine growled, letting Moad help her 
down. She moved as stiffly as Shalon. He had simply leapt from 



his horse. "She is an important woman here, Sarene?" 


"You might say she is the ruler of Far Madding, though the 
other Counsels, they call her first among equals, whatever 
that is supposed to mean." Handing over her own mount to a 
groom, Sarene looked quite unrumpled. Perhaps she had been 
upset before over this ter'angreal that stole the Source, but 
now she was all cool detachment, like carved ice. The groom 
stumbled over his own feet looking at her face. "Once, the 
First Counsel, she advised the queens of Maredo, but since 
Maredo's . . . dissolution . . . most First Counsels have 
considered themselves the natural heirs of Maredo's rulers." 


Shalon knew that her knowledge of the shorebound's history 
was as uncertain as her knowledge of geography away from the 
shore, but she had never heard of any nation called Maredo. It 
was enough for Harine, though. If this First Counsel ruled 
here, the Wavemistress of Clan Shodein must meet her. Harine's 
dignity demanded no less. She hobbled determinedly across the 
stableyard to Cadsuane. 


"Oh, yes," the insufferable Aes Sedai said before Harine 
could more than open her mouth. "You will come with me, as 
well. And your sister. I think not your Swordmaster, though. A 
man in the dome would be bad enough, but a man with a sword 
might make the Counsels fall over in fits. You have a 
question, Wave-mistress?" Harine snapped her mouth shut with 
an audible click of teeth. "Good," Cadsuane murmured. Shalon 
groaned. This was not improving her sister's temper by a 
feather. 


Cadsuane led them along broad, blue-tiled corridors hung 
with bright tapestries and lit by gilded stand lamps with 
glittering mirrors, where servants in blue first stared at 
them in surprise, then made hasty shorebound courtesies as 
they passed. She led them up long, swooping flights of white 
stone stairs that hung unsupported except where they touched a 
pale wall, which they did not always. Cadsuane glided like a 
swan, but at a speed that made the ache in Shalon's legs begin 
to burn. Harine's face set in a wooden mask, hiding the effort 
of trotting up stairs. Even Kumira seemed a trifle surprised, 
though Cadsuane's pace caused her no apparent exertion. Round 
little Verin churned away at Cadsuane's side, now and then 
smiling over her shoulder at Harine and Shalon. Sometimes 
Shalon thought she hated Verin, but there was no spite or 
amusement in those smiles, only encouragement. 


Cadsuane took them up a final curling flight of stairs, en 
closed by walls, and suddenly they were on a balcony with an 
intricate, gilded metal railing that ran all the way around. . 
. . For a moment, Shalon gaped. Above her rose an overarching 
blue dome a hundred feet or more high at its peak. Nothing 
held it up but itself. Her ignorance of the shorebound 
extended to architecture as well as geography and history-and 
Aes Sedai-in fact, her ignorance of the shorebound was almost 
complete, excepting only Cairhien. She knew how to draw the 
plans for a raker and see it built, but she could not begin to 
imagine how to construct this. 


Arched doorways edged with white stone, like the one they 
had come through, marked stairs at three other places around 
the long balcony, but they were alone, and that seemed to 
please Cadsuane, though all she did was nod to herself. 



"Kumira, show the Wavemistress and her sister Far Madding's 
guardian." Her voice echoed faintly inside the vast dome. She 
drew Verin a little distance away, and the pair of them put 


their heads together. There was no echo of what they 
whispered. 
"You must forgive them," Kumira told Harine and Shalon 

quietly. Even that produced a slight sound, if not quite an 
echo. "Peace, but this must be awkward, even for Cadsuane." 
She ran her fingers through her short brown hair and shook her 
head to settle it back in place. "The Counsels are seldom 
happy to see Aes Sedai, especially sisters born here. I think 
they would like to pretend the Power doesn't exist. Well, 
their history gives them reason, and for the last two thousand 
years they have had the means to support the pretense. In any 
event, Cadsuane is Cadsuane. She seldom sees a swelled head 
without deciding to deflate it, even when it happens to be 
wearing a crown. Or a Counsel's diadem. Her last visit was 
over twenty years ago, during the Aiel War, but I suspect some 
who remember it will want to hide under their beds when they 
learn she is back." Kumira gave a small, amused laugh. Shalon 
saw nothing to laugh at. Harine twisted her lips, but it made 
her look as though she suffered from a bad belly. 


"You wish to see the . . . guardian?" Kumira went on. "As 
good a name as any, I suppose. There isn't much to see." She 
stepped cautiously closer to the gilded railing and peered 
over as if fearing she might fall, but those blue eyes had 
sharpened again. "I would give anything to study it, but that 
is impossible, of course. Who knows what else it might be able 
to do beside what we already know?" Her tone held as much awe 
as regret. 


Shalon had no fear of heights, and she pressed herself 
against the elaborately worked metal beside the Aes Sedai, 
wanting to see this thing that had taken the Source away. 
After a moment, Harine joined them. To Shalon's surprise, the 
drop that made Kumira uneasy was less than twenty feet, below, 
a smooth floor tiled in blue and white to make a convoluted 
maze centered on a double-pointed red oval rimmed with yellow. 
Beneath the balcony, three women in white sat on stools spaced 
equally around the edge of the floor, right against the dome's 
wall, and beside each woman, a disc a full span across that 
looked like clouded crystal had been set into the floor and 
inlaid with a long thin wedge of clear crystal that pointed 
toward the chamber's center. Metal collars surrounded the 
murky discs, marked off like a compass but with ever-smaller 
markings between the larger. Shalon could not be sure, but the 
collar nearest her appeared to be inscribed with numerals. 
That was all. No monstrous shapes. She had imagined something 
huge and black that sucked in the light. Her hands tightened 
on the rail to keep from trembling, and she locked her knees 
to hold herself still. Whatever was down there, it had stolen 
the Light. 


A whisper of slippers announced new arrivals on the balcony 
by the same doorway they had used, about a dozen smiling women 
with their hair on top of their heads, in flowing blue silk 
robes worn over their dresses like sleeveless coats, richly 
embroidered in gold and trailing behind them on the floor. 
These people knew how to mark out rank. Each woman wore a 



large pendant in the shape of that gold-rimmed red oval 
suspended from a necklace of heavy golden links, and the same 
shape was repeated at the front of each narrow golden diadem. 
On one woman, the red ovals were made of rubies, not enamel, 
and sapphires and moonstones almost hid the golden circlet on 
her brows, and she wore a heavy golden signet ring on her 
right forefinger. She was tall and stately, her black hair 
drawn up in a large ball, heavily winged with white, though 
her face was unlined. The others were tall, short, stout, 
thin, pretty and plain, none young, and every one of them had 
an air of authority about her, but she stood out for more than 
her gems. Compassion and wisdom filled her large dark eyes, 
and it was command that she radiated, not simple authority. 
Shalon did not need to be told that this was the First 
Counsel, but the woman announced it anyway. 


"I am Aleis Barsalla, First Counsel of Far Madding." Her mel 
lifluous voice, deep for a woman, seemed to be making a procla 
mation, and expecting cheers. The sound of her voice bouncing 
inside the dome gave something like acclamation. "Far Madding 
gives welcome to Harine din Togara Two Winds, Wavemistress of 
Clan Shodein and Ambassador Extraordinary for the Mistress of 
the Ships to the Atha'an Miere. May the Light illumine you and 
see you prosper. Your coming gladdens every heart in Far 
Madding. I embrace the chance to learn more of the Atha'an 
Miere, but you must be weary from the rigors of your journey. 
I have arranged pleasant quarters for you in my palace. When 
you have rested and eaten, we can talk; to our mutual 
advantage, if it pleases the Light." The others spread the 
skirts of their robes and made half bows. 


Harine inclined her head slightly, a hint of satisfaction in 
her smile. Here, at last, were those who showed her proper 
respect. And very likely it helped that they did not gape at 
her and Shalon’s jewelry. 


"The messengers from the gates are as quick as ever, it 
seems, Aleis," Cadsuane said. "Is there no welcome for me?" 
Aleis' smile thinned for a moment, and some of the other 
smiles faded altogether as Cadsuane moved to stand beside 
Marine. Those that remained were forced. A pretty woman with a 
serious cast to her face went so far as to scowl. 


"We are grateful to you for bringing the Wavemistress here, 
Cadsuane Sedai." The First Counsel did not sound particularly 
grateful. She drew herself up to her full height and looked 
straight ahead, over Cadsuane's head rather than at her. "I am 
sure we can find some way to make the depth of our gratitude 
known before you leave." 


She could not have made her dismissal plainer short of a com 
mand, but the Aes Sedai smiled up at the taller woman. It was 
not an unpleasant smile, exactly, but neither was it in the 
least amused. "I may not be leaving for a while, Aleis. I 
thank you for the offer of accommodations, and accept. A 
palace on the Heights is always preferable to even the best 
inn." The First Counsel's eyes widened with startlement, then 
narrowed in determination. 


"Cadsuane must stay with me," Harine said, managing to sound 
no more than half strangled, before Aleis could speak. "Where 
she is unwelcome, so am I." This had been part of the bargain 
forced on her, if they were to accompany Cadsuane. Among other 



things they must go when and where she said until they joined 
the Coramoor, and include her in any invitations they 
received. That last had seemed very small at the time, 
especially weighed against the rest, but plainly the woman had 
known exactly the reception she would receive. 


"No need to be disheartened, Aleis." Cadsuane leaned toward 
the First Counsel confidingly, but she did not lower her 
voice. The reverberations in the dome magnified her words. 
"I'm sure you no longer have any bad habits for me to 
correct." 


The First Counsel's face flooded with crimson, and behind 
her back, speculative frowns passed between the other 
Counsels. Some contemplated her as if with fresh eyes. How did 
they attain rank, and how lose it? Besides Aleis, they were 
twelve, surely a coincidence, but the First Twelve among a 
clan's Sailmistresses chose the Wavemistress, usually one of 
their own number, just as the First Twelve among the 
Wavemistresses chose the Mistress of the Ships. That was why 
Harine had accepted that strange girl's words, because she was 
of the First Twelve. That, and the fact that two Aes Sedai 
said the girl saw true visions. A Wavemistress or even the 
Mistress of the Ships could be deposed, though only for 
specified causes, such as gross incompetence or losing her 
wits, and the First Twelve had to speak with a unanimous 
voice. Things seemed to be done differently among the 
shorebound, and often sloppily. Aleis' eyes, fixed now on 
Cadsuane, were both hate-filled and hunted. Perhaps she could 
feel twelve sets of eyes on her back. The other Counsels had 
her on the scales. But if Cadsuane had chosen to meddle in the 
politics of this place, why? And why so bluntly? 


"A man just channeled," Verin said suddenly. She had not 
joined the rest and was peering over the rail, ten paces away. 
The dome made her voice carry. "Do you have many men 
channeling lately, First Counsel?" 


Shalon looked down, and blinked. The formerly clear wedges 
were now black, and rather than pointing toward the chamber's 
heart, somehow they had turned in roughly the same direction. 
One of the women below was on her feet, bending over to study 
where along the marked collar the thin black wedge was 
pointing, and the other two women were already racing toward a 
round-topped doorway. Suddenly, Shalon knew. Triangulation was 
a simple matter to any Windfinder. Somewhere beyond that door 
way was a chart, and soon the position where the man had chan 
neled would be marked on it. 


"It would be red for a woman, not black," Kumira said in 
almost a whisper. She still stood a little back from the rail, 
but she was gripping it with both hands and leaning forward to 
peer at the scene below. "It warns and locates and defends. 
And what else? The women who made it would have wanted more, 
perhaps needed more. Not knowing what else could be incredibly 
dangerous." She did not sound frightened, though. She sounded 
excited. 


"An Asha'man, I expect," Aleis said calmly, pulling her gaze 
from Cadsuane. "They cannot trouble us. They are free to enter 
the city, so long as they obey the law." However calm she was, 
some of the women behind her tittered like new deckgirls their 
first time among the shorebound. "Forgive me, Aes Sedai. Far 



Madding gives you welcome. I am afraid I don't know your name, 
though." 


Verin was still gazing down at the dome's floor. Shalon 
glanced over the rail again, and blinked as the thin black 
wedges . . . changed. One moment they were black and pointing 
north, the next clear and once again pointing to the center of 
the maze. They did not turn; they just were one thing, then 
the other. 


"All of you may call me Eadwina," Verin said. Shalon barely 
suppressed a start. Kumira did not so much as blink. "Do you 
consider history, First Counsel?" Verin continued without 
looking up. "Guaire Amalasan's siege of Far Madding lasted 
just three weeks. A savage business, at the end." 


"I doubt they want to hear about him," Cadsuane said 
sharply, and indeed, for some reason more than one of the 
Counsels looked uncomfortable. Who in the Light was this 
Guaire Amalasan? The name sounded vaguely familiar, but Shalon 
could not place it. Some shorebound conqueror, obviously. 


Aleis glanced at Cadsuane, and her mouth tightened. "History 
records Guaire Amalasan as a remarkable general, Eadwina 


Sedai, perhaps second only to Artur Hawkwing himself. What 
brings him to mind?" 
Shalon had never seen one of the Aes Sedai traveling with 

Cadsuane fail to heed her most casual warning as quickly as 
they obeyed her commands, but Verin paid no heed this time. 
She did not look up. "I was just thinking that he couldn't use 
the Power, yet he crushed Far Madding like an overripe plum." 
The stout little Aes Sedai paused as though something had just 
occurred to her. "You know, the Dragon Reborn has armies in 
Illian and Tear, in Andor and Cairhien. Not to mention many 
tens of thousands of Aiel. Very fierce, the Aiel. I wonder you 
can be so complacent about his Asha'man scouting you." 


"I think you have frightened them quite enough," Cadsuane 
said firmly. 


Verin finally turned from the gilded rail, her eyes open 
very wide, a round, startled shorebird. Her plump hands even 
fluttered like wings. "Oh. I didn't mean. . . . Oh, no. I 
would think the Dragon Reborn would have moved against you 
already if he intended to. No, I suspect the Seanchan. . . . 
You've heard of them? What we hear from Altara and farther 
west is really quite horrible. They seem to sweep everything 
before them. No, I suspect they're somewhat more important to 
his plans than capturing Far Madding. Unless you do something 
to anger him, of course, or upset his followers. But I am sure 
you are too intelligent to do that." She looked very innocent. 
There was a stir among the Counsels, the ripple that small 
fish made on the surface when a lionfish swam below. 


Cadsuane sighed, her patience clearly at an end. "If you 
want to discuss the Dragon Reborn, Eadwina, you must do so 
without me. I want to wash my face and have some hot tea." 


The First Counsel jerked as though she had forgotten 
Cadsuane's existence, incredible as that seemed. "Yes. Yes, of 
course. Cumere, Narvais, would you please escort the 
Wavemistress and Cadsuane Sedai to ... to my palace and make 
them welcome?" That slight hitch was the only sign she gave of 
discomfort at having Cadsuane in her dwelling "I wish to have 
some further talk with Eadwina Sedai, if it pleases her." 



Followed by most of the Counsels, Aleis glided away along the 
balcony. Verin looked suddenly alarmed and uncertain as they 
gathered her up and swept her along. Shalon did not believe 
the surprise or unease any more than she had the earlier 
innocence. She thought she knew now where Jahar was. She just 
did not know why. 


The women Aleis had named, the pretty one who had scowled at 
Cadsuane, and a slim gray-haired woman, took the First Coun 
sel's request as a command, which perhaps it was. They spread 
their robes and made those half bows, asking Harine whether 
she would be pleased to accompany them and announcing in 
flowery terms their pleasure at escorting her. Harine listened 
with a sour face. They could strew baskets of rose petals in 
her path if they wished, but the First Counsel had left her to 
underlings. Shalon wondered whether there was any way to avoid 
her sister until her temper cooled. 


Cadsuane did not watch Verin leave with Aleis, not openly, 
but her mouth curved in a faint smile when they vanished 
through the next arched doorway along the balcony. "Cumere and 
Narvais," she said abruptly. "That would be Cumere Powys and 
Narvais Maslin? I have heard things about you." That jerked 
their attention away from Harine. "There are standards any 
Counsel should meet," Cadsuane went on in a firm tone, taking 
them each by a sleeve and turning them toward the stairs on 
either side of her. Exchanging worried glances, they let her, 
Harine apparently quite forgotten. At the doorway, Cadsuane 
paused to look back, but not at Harine or Shalon. "Kumira? 
Kumira!" 


The other Aes Sedai gave a start, and with a last lingering 
look over the railing, pulled herself away to follow Cadsuane. 
Which left Harine and Shalon no option except to follow, too, 
or be left to try finding their own way out. Shalon darted 
after the others, and Harine was no less quick. Still gripping 
the Counsels to her sides, Cadsuane led the way down the 
curling stairs, talking in a low voice. With Kumira between 
her and the three, Shalon could hear nothing. Cumere and 
Narvais tried to speak, but Cadsuane allowed neither more than 
a few words before she began again. She seemed calm, matter-of-


fact. The pair with her began to look anxious. What in the 
Light was Cadsuane up to? 
"This place troubles you?" Harine said suddenly. 
"It is as if I have lost my eyes." Shalon shivered at the 

truth of that. "I am afraid, Wavemistress, but the Light 
willing, I can control my fear." Light, she hoped she could. 
She desperately needed to. 


Harine nodded, frowning at the women ahead of them down the 
stairs. "I do not know whether Aleis' palace has a tub big 
enough for us to bathe together, and I doubt they know honeyed 
wine, but we will find something." Glancing away from Cadsuane 
and the others, she touched Shalon's arm awkwardly. "I was 
afraid of the dark when I was a child, and you never left me 
alone till the fear passed. I will not leave you alone, 
either, Shalon." 


Shalon missed a step and barely caught herself short of tum 
bling down head over heels. Harine had not used her name 
except in private since she was first made Sailmistress. She 
had not been this friendly in private since before that. 



"Thank you," she said, and with an effort, added, "Harine." 
Her sister patted her arm again, and smiled. Harine was 
unpracticed at smiling, but the awkward effort held warmth. 


There was no warmth in the look she directed toward the 
women ahead, though. "Perhaps I truly can make a bargain here. 
Cadsuane has already shifted their ballast so they ride with a 
list. You must try to find out why, Shalon, when you get close 
to her. I would like to put Aleis' eyeteeth on a 
string-walking away from me without so much as a word!-but not 
at the expense of letting Cadsuane mesh the Coramoor in some 
trouble here. You must find out, Shalon." 


"I think perhaps Cadsuane meddles the way anyone else 
breathes," Shalon replied with a sigh, "but I will try, 
Harine. I will do my best." 


"You always have, sister. You always will. I know that." 


Shalon sighed again. It was much too soon to test the depth 
of her sister's newfound warmth. Confession might bring absolu 
tion or not, and she could not live with the loss of her 
marriage and her rank at one blow. But for the first time 
since Venn had bluntly laid out Cadsuane's terms for keeping 
her secret, Shalon began to consider confession. 


Chapter 25: Bonds 


In his room at The Counsel's Head, Rand sat on the bed with 
his legs folded and his back against the wall, playing the 
silver-mounted flute Thorn Merrilin had given him so long ago. 
An Age ago. This room, with carved wall panels and windows 
overlooking the Nethvin Market, was better than that they had 
abandoned at The Crown of Maredo. The pillows stacked beside 
him were goose down, the bed had an embroidered canopy and 
curtains, and the mirror above the washstand had not a single 
bubble. The lintel above the stone fireplace even had a bit of 
simple carving. It was a room for a well-to-do foreign 
merchant. He was glad he had thought to bring enough gold when 
he left Cairhien. He had lost the habit of carrying much. 
Everything had been provided for the Dragon Reborn. Still, he 
could have earned a bed of some sort with the flute. The tune 
was called "Lament for the Long Night," and he had never heard 
it before in his life. Lews Therin had, though. It was like 
the skill at drawing. Rand thought that should frighten him, 
or make him angry, but he simply sat and played while Lews 
Therin wept. 


"Light, Rand," Min muttered, "are you just going to sit 
there puffing on that thing?" Her skirts swirled as she paced 
up and down the flowered carpet. The bond with her and Elayne 
and Aviendha felt as though he had never known anything else 
or wanted to. He breathed, and he was bonded to them; one was 
as natural as the other. "If she says one wrong word where it 
can be overheard, if she's already said it. ... I am not 
letting anyone haul you off to a cell for Elaida!" Alanna's 
bond had never felt that way. It had not changed, not in 
itself, yet increasingly since that day in Caemlyn, Alanna's 
bond seemed an intrusion, a stranger looking over his 
shoulder, a sandspur in his boot. "Do you have to play that? 



It makes me want to cry, and it makes my skin crawl at the 
same time. If she puts you in danger . . . !" Snatching one of 
her knives from its hiding place up a loose-fitting sleeve, 
she flourished it in her fist. 


He took the flute away from his mouth and silently looked at 
her over it. Her face reddened, and with a sudden snarl, she 
hurled the blade to stick quivering in the door. 


"She's there," he said, using the flute to point. 
Unconsciously, he shifted the instrument, following Alanna 
exactly. "She'll be here soon." She had been in Far Madding 
since the day before, and he did not understand why she had 
waited till now. Alanna was a tangle of emotions inside his 
skull, nervous and wary, worried and determined and above all, 
angry. In a barely restrained fury. "If you'd rather not be 
here, you can wait. . . ." Min shook her head fiercely. Right 
beside Alanna in his head lay the bundle that was her. She 
bubbled with worry and anger, too, but love shone through like 
a beacon whenever she looked at him and often when she did 
not. Fear shone through, as well, though she was trying to 
hide that. 


He put the flute back to his lips and began "The Drunken 
Peddler." That was jolly enough to cheer the dead. Lews Therin 
snarled at him. 


Min stood studying him, her arms folded, then abruptly gave 
her dress a twitch, settling it on her hips. With a sigh, he 
lowered the flute and waited. When a woman adjusted her 
clothes for no reason, it was like a man tightening the straps 
of his armor and checking his saddle girth; she meant to drive 


home a charge, and you would be cut down like a dog if you 
ran. Determination was as strong in Min now as it was in 
Alanna, twin suns flaring in the back of his brain. 

"We will not talk about Alanna any more until she gets 
here," she said firmly, as though he had been the one 
insisting. Determination, and still the fear, stronger now 
than before, continually trampled down and continually 
springing back up. 


"Why, of course, wife, if it pleases you," he replied, 
bending his neck in the approved Far Madding fashion. She 
sniffed loudly. 


"Rand, I like Alivia. I do, even if she does make Nynaeve 
have kittens left and right." One fist planted on her hip, Min 
leaned forward and pointed a finger at his nose. "But she is 
going to kill you." She bit off every word. 


"You said she was going to help me die," he said quietly. 
"Those were your words." How would he feel at dying? Sadness 
at leaving her, at leaving Elayne and Aviendha. Sadness for 
the pain he had brought them. He would like to see his father 
again before the end. Aside from those things, he almost 
thought death would be a relief. 


Death is a relief, Lews Therin said fervently. I want death. 
We deserve death! 


"Helping me die isn't the same as killing me," Rand went on. 
He was very good at ignoring the voice, now. "Unless you've 
changed your mind about what you saw." 


Min flung up her hands in exasperation. "I saw what I saw 
and it's what I told you, but the Pit of Doom swallow me if I 
can see any difference. And I can't see why you think there 



is!" 


"Sooner or later, I have to die, Min," he said patiently. He 
had been told by those he had to believe. To live, you must 
die. That still made no sense to him, but it left one cold 
hard fact. Just as the Prophecies of the Dragon seemed to say, 
he had to die. "Not soon, I hope. I plan not soon. I'm sorry, 
Min. I never should have let you bond me." But he had not been 
strong enough to refuse, any more than he had been strong 
enough to push her away. He was too weak for what had to be 
done. He needed to drink in winter, till he made winter's 
heart seem Sunday noon. 


"If you hadn't, we'd have tied you up and done it anyway." 
Best not to ask how that would have differed from what Alanna 
had done, he decided. Certainly, she saw a difference. 
Climbing onto the bed on her knees, she cupped his face in her 
hands, "You listen to me, Rand al'Thor. I won't let you die. 
And if you manage it just to spite me, I'll follow you and 
bring you back." Suddenly a thick vein of amusement rippled 
through the seriousness he felt in his head. Her voice took on 
a mock sternness: "And then I'll bring you back here to live. 
I'll make you grow your hair below your waist and wear hair 
clips with moonstones." 


He smiled at her. She could still make him smile. "I never 
heard of a fate worse than death, but I think that fits." 


Someone knocked at the door, and Min froze. In a silent ques 
tion, she mouthed Alanna's name. Rand nodded, and to his 
amazement, Min pushed him over onto the pillows and flung 
herself on his chest. Squirming around, she raised her head, 
and he realized she was trying to see herself in the washstand 
mirror. Finally she found a position she liked, lying half on 
top of him with one hand behind his neck and the other beside 
her face on his chest. "Come in," she called. 


Cadsuane stepped into the room and stopped, frowning at the 
knife stuck in the door. In a dress of fine dark green wool 
and a fur-lined cloak held by a silver brooch at the neck, she 
might have passed for a successful merchant or a banker, 
though the golden birds and fish, stars and moons dangling 
from the iron-gray bun atop her head would have been 
ostentatious for either. She was not wearing her Great Serpent 
ring, so it seemed she was making some effort to avoid too 
much notice. "Have you children been arguing?" she asked 
mildly. 


Rand could almost feel Lews Therin go still, like a ridge 
cat crouching in the shadows. Lews Therin was almost as wary 
of this woman as he was himself. 


Red-faced, Min scrambled to her feet smoothing furiously at 
her dress. "You said it was her!" she said accusingly, just as 
Alanna entered. Cadsuane closed the door. 


Alanna glanced once at Min and dismissed her, focusing on 
Rand. Without taking her dark eyes from him, she swept her 


cloak off and flung it over one of the room's two chairs. 
Her hands settled on her dark gray skirts, gripping them hard. 
She was not wearing her golden Aes Sedai ring, either. From 
the moment her eyes fell on him, joy bloomed along the bond. 
All the rest was still there, the nervousness, the fury, but 
he had never expected her to feel joy! 


Not changing how he lay, he picked up the flute and toyed 



with it. "Should I be surprised to see you, Cadsuane? You pop 
up when I don't want to see you too often to suit. Who taught 
you to Travel?" It had to have been that. One moment Alanna 
had been a vague awareness on the edge of thought, and the 
next she sprang to life full strength in his head. At first, 
he had thought she herself had learned Traveling somehow, but 
seeing Cadsuane, he knew better. 


Alanna's mouth tightened, and even Min looked disapproving. 
The emotions flowing along the Warder bond from one jumped and 
skittered; from the other, there was just anger mingled with 
delight, now. Why did Alanna feel joy? 


"Still no more manners than a goat, I see," Cadsuane said 
dryly. "Boy, I hardly think I need your permission to visit my 
birthplace. As for Traveling, it is none of your business 
where or when I learned anything." Unpinning her cloak, she 
stuck the brooch on her belt, ready to hand, and folded the 
cloak over one arm as though making it neat were much more 
important than he was. Her voice took on an edge of 
irritation. "You've lumbered me with a lot of traveling 
companions, one way and another. Alanna was so frantic to see 
you again, only a heart of stone could have refused to bring 
her, and Sorilea said some of the others who pledged 
themselves to you would be good for nothing until they were 
allowed to go with Alanna, so I've ended up bringing Nesune, 
Sarene, Erian, Beldeine and Elza, too. Not to mention Harine, 
plus her sister and that Swordmaster others. She didn't know 
whether to faint, scream or bite someone when she found out 
Alanna was going off to find you. And then there are those 
three black-coated friends of yours. I don't know how eager 
they are to see you, but they're here, as well. Well, now that 
we've located you, I can send the Sea Folk and the sisters to 
you and let you deal with them." 


Rand sprang to his feet with a muttered oath. "No! Keep them 
away from me!" 


Cadsuane's dark eyes narrowed. "I've warned you before about 
your language; I will not warn you again." She frowned at him 
a moment longer, then nodded as though she thought he had 
taken the lesson to heart. "Now, what makes you think you can 
tell me what to do, boy?" 


Rand struggled with himself. He could not issue orders here. 
He had never been able to order Cadsuane anywhere. Min said he 
needed the woman, that she would teach him something he needed 
to learn, but if anything, that only made him more uneasy 
about her. "I want to finish my business here and leave 
quietly," he said at last. "If you tell them, at least make 
sure they see I can't afford to have them come anywhere near 
me, not until I'm ready to leave." The woman raised an eyebrow 
at him, waiting, and he took a deep breath. Why did she always 
need to make everything difficult? "I would appreciate it very 
much if you didn't tell any of them where I am." Reluctantly, 
very reluctantly, he added, "Please." Min exhaled as though 
she had been holding her breath. 


"Good," Cadsuane said after a moment. "You can show manners 
when you try, even if it does make you look as though your 
teeth ached. I suppose I can keep your secret for you, for the 
time being. Not all of them even know you are in the city. Oh, 
yes. I should tell you, Merise has bonded Narishma, Corele has 



Darner, and young Hopwil is Daigian's." She said that as 
though it were just a casual bit of information that might 
easily have slipped her mind. 


He did not bother to mutter his oath this time, and Cad 
suane's full-armed slap almost unhinged his jaw. Black spots 
shimmered in front of his eyes. One of the other women gasped. 


"I did tell you," Cadsuane said placidly. "No more 
warnings." 


Min took a step toward him, and he shook his head slightly. 
It helped to clear the spots. He wanted to rub his jaw, but he 
kept his hands at his sides. He had to make himself loosen his 
grip on the flute. For Cadsuane's part, the slap might never 
had occurred. 


"Why would Flinn and the others accept being bonded?" he 
demanded. 


"Ask them when you see them," she replied. "Min, I suspect 
Alanna wants to be alone with him awhile." Turning toward the 
door without waiting for Min's reply, she added, "Alanna, I 
will be waiting below, in the Women's Room. Don't be too long. 
I want to get back to the Heights. Min?" 


Min glared at Alanna. She glared at Rand. Then she flung up 
her hands and stalked out after Cadsuane, muttering under her 
breath. She slammed the door behind her. 


"I liked you better with your own hair." Alanna folded her 
arms beneath her breasts and studied him. Anger and joy warred 
with one another in the bond. "I had hoped that being close to 
you would be better, but you are still like a stone in my 
head. Even standing here, I can hardly tell whether you're 
upset or not. Even so, being here is better. I dislike being 
parted from a Warder so long." 


Rand ignored her and the rippling joy that flowed along the 
bond. "She didn't ask why I came to Far Madding," Rand said 
quietly, staring at the door as if he could see Cadsuane 
through the wood. Surely, she had to wonder. "You told her I 
was here, Alanna. It had to be you. What happened to your 
oath?" 


Alanna drew a deep breath, and a moment passed before she 
replied. "I am not sure Cadsuane cares two pins about you," 
she snapped. "I keep that oath as well as I can, but you do 
make keeping it hard." Her voice began to harden, and anger 
welled more strongly through the bond. "I owe fealty to a man 
who walks off and leaves me behind. Just how am I supposed to 
serve you? More importantly, what did you do?" Crossing the 
carpet, she stood staring up at him, fury burning in her eyes. 
He topped her by more than a foot, and she seemed not to 
notice. "You did something, I know. I was unconscious for 
three days! What did you do?" 


"I decided if I was going to be bonded, it might as well be 
by someone I said could." He barely caught her hand before it 
landed on his face. "I've been slapped enough for one day." 


She glared up at him, teeth bared as if ready to bite out 
his throat. The bond carried only fury and outrage, now, 
distilled to daggers. "You let someone else bone/you?" she 
snarled. "How dare you! Whoever she is, I'll see her before a 
court! I'll see her birched\ You are mine!" 


"Because you took me, Alanna," he said coldly. "If more 
sisters knew, you would be the one birched." Min had told him 



once that he could trust Alanna, that she had seen the Green 
and four other sisters "in his hand." He did trust her, in an 
odd fashion, yet he was in Alanna's hand, too, and he did not 
want to be. "Release me, and I'll deny it ever happened." He 
had not even known that was possible until Lan told him about 
himself and Myrelle. "Release me, and I'll set you free of 
your oath." 


The roiling anger flowing through the bond lessened without 
disappearing, but her face grew calm, and her voice was com 
posed. "You are hurting my wrist." 


He knew he was. He could feel the pain through the bond. He 
let go, and she massaged her wrist far more ostentatiously 


than required by the hurt he felt. Still rubbing her wrist, 
she sat on the second chair and crossed her legs. She seemed 
to be thinking. 

"I've thought of being free of you," she said finally. "I 
have dreamed of it." She gave a small, rueful laugh. "I even 
asked Cadsuane to let me pass the bond to her. A sign of how 
desperate I was, to ask such a thing. But if anyone can handle 
you, Cadsuane can. Only, she refused. She was furious that I 
suggested it without asking you, outraged, but even if you 
agreed, she won't." She spread her hands. "So you are mine." 
Her face did not change, but as she said that, the joy flared 
anew. "However I acquired you, you are my Warder, and I have a 
responsibility. That is as strong in me as the oath I swore to 
obey you. Every bit as strong. So I will not release you to 
anyone unless I know she can handle you properly. Who bonded 
you? If she is capable, I will let her have you." 


Just the possibility that Cadsuane might have received his 
bond sent icicles down Rand's spine. Alanna had never been 
able to control him with the bond, and he did not think any 
sister could, but he would never risk it with that one. Light! 


"What makes you think she doesn't care about me?" he de 
manded instead of answering Alanna's question. Trust or no 
trust, no one would learn that answer if he could help it. 
What Elayne and Min and Aviendha had done might be allowed by 
Tower law, yet they had worse to fear than punishment from 
other Aes Sedai if it came out they were linked to him in this 
way. Sitting down on the edge of the bed, he turned the flute 
over in his hands. "Just because she refused my bond? Maybe 
she isn't as nonchalant about the consequences as you. She 
came to me in Cairhien, and stayed long after there could be 
any reason but me. Am I really supposed to believe she just 
decided to visit friends while I happen to be here? She 
brought you to Far Madding so she could find me." 


"Rand, she wanted to know where you were every day," Alanna 
said dismissively, "but I doubt there's a shepherd in Seleisin 
who doesn't wonder where you are. The whole world wants to 
know that. I knew you were far to the south, that you hadn't 
moved for days. No more. When I found out she and Verin were 
coming here, I had to beg her-beg on my knees!-before she 
would let me come along. But I didn't know myself that you 
were here until I came out of the gateway in the hills above 
the city. Before that, I thought I might have to Travel 
halfway to Tear to find you. Cadsuane taught me that, when we 
came here, so don't think you can evade me so easily in the 
future." 



 Cadsuane had taught Alanna to Travel? That still did not say 
who had taught Cadsuane, though. Not that it mattered, he sup 
posed. "And Darner and the other two allowed themselves to be 
bonded? Or did those sisters just take them the way you took 
me?" 


A faint flush stained her cheeks, but her voice was steady. 
"I heard Merise ask Jahar. It took him two days to accept, and 
she never pressured him that I saw. I cannot speak for the 
others, but as Cadsuane said, you can always ask them. Rand, 
you must understand, those men were afraid to go back to this 
'Black Tower' of yours." Her mouth twisted sourly around the 
name. "They were afraid they would be blamed in the attack on 
you. If they simply ran, they would be hunted down as 
deserters. I understand that is your standing order? Where 
else could they go, except to Aes Sedai? And a good thing they 
did, too." She smiled as though she had just seen something 
wonderful, and her voice became excited. "Rand, Darner has 
discovered a way to Heal being stilled! Light, I can say that 
word without freezing my tongue. He Healed Irgain and Ronaille 
and Sashalle. They've sworn fealty to you, too, just like all 
the others." 


"What do you mean, all the others?" 


"I mean all the sisters the Aiel were holding. Even the 
Reds." She sounded half disbelieving about that, as well she 
should, but disbelief melted into intensity as she put both 
feet on the floor and leaned toward him, her eyes fixed on 
his. "Every one of them has sworn and accepted the penance you 
put on Nesune and the others, the first five of them who 
swore. Cadsuane doesn't trust them. She wouldn't let them 
bring any of their Warders. I admit I was uncertain at first, 
but I believe you can trust them. They swore oath to you. You 
know what that means for a sister. We can't break an oath, 
Rand. It isn't possible." 


Even the Reds. He had been surprised when those first five 
captives offered fealty. Elaida had sent them to kidnap him, 
and they had. He had been sure it was him being ta'veren that 
had done it, but that only altered chance, made what might 
happen one time in a million become a certainty. It was hard 
to believe that a Red would swear under any circumstances to a 
man who could channel. 


"You need us, Rand." Rising, she shifted as if she wanted to 
pace, but instead she stood watching him, unblinking. Her 
hands smoothed her skirts as if she was unaware of what they 
were doing. "You need the support of Aes Sedai. Without it, 
you will have to conquer every nation, and you haven't done 
very well at that thus far. The rebellion in Cairhien might 
seem finished to you, but not everyone likes Dobraine being 
named your Steward. A good many might go to Toram Riatin, if 
he reappears. The High Lord Darlin is snug in the Stone, so we 
hear, announced as your Steward in Tear, but the rebels there 
haven't come streaming out of Haddon Mirk to support him. As 
for Andor, Elayne Trakand might say she will support you once 
she has the throne, but she has maneuvered your soldiers out 
of Caemlyn, and I'll wear bells in the Blight if she lets them 
remain in Andor when she does succeed. Sisters can help you. 
Elayne will listen to us. The rebels in Cairhien and Tear will 
listen. The White Tower has stopped wars and ended rebellions 



for three thousand years. You may not like the treaty Rafela 
and Merana negotiated with Harine, but they got everything you 
asked for. Light, man, let us help you!" 


Rand nodded slowly. It had seemed just a way to impress 
people with his power, that Aes Sedai gave him fealty. Fear 
that they might manipulate him to their own ends had blinded 
him to anything else. He did not like admitting that. He had 
been a fool. 


A man who trusts everyone is a fool, Lews Therin said, and a 
man who trusts no one is a fool. We are all fools, if we live 
long enough. He almost sounded sane. 


"Go back to Cairhien," he said. "Tell Rafela and Merana I 
want them to approach the rebels in Haddon Mirk. Tell them to 
take Bera and Kiruna, too." Those were the four besides Alanna 
whom Min said he could trust. What had she said about the five 
others Cadsuane had brought with her? That each would serve 
him in her fashion. That was not strong enough, not yet. "I 
want Darlin Sisnera as my Steward and the laws I made left in 
place. They can negotiate away anything else as long as they 
end the rebellion. After that. . . . What's the matter?" 


Alanna's face had fallen, and she had sagged back in her 
chair. "It's just that I've come all this way, and you are 
sending me right off again. I suppose it is for the best, with 
that girl here," she sighed. "You have no idea what I went 
through in Cairhien, masking the bond just enough to keep what 
the two of you were doing from keeping me awake all night. 
That is much harder than simply masking it completely, but I 
dislike losing touch with my Warders completely. Only, going 
back to Cairhien will be almost as bad." 


Rand cleared his throat. "That's what I want you to do." 
Women, he had learned, talked about some things much more 
openly than men, but it was still a shock when they did. He 
hoped Elayne and Aviendha masked the bond when he was making 
love with Min. When the two of them were together in bed, no 
one else existed except her, the same as it had been with 
Elayne. He certainly did not want to talk about it with 
Alanna. "I may be done here by the time you finish in 
Cairhien. If I haven't. ... If I haven't, you can return here. 
But you'll have to stay away from me until I say otherwise." 
Even with that restriction, the joy billowed up in her afresh. 


"You aren't going to tell me who bonded you, are you?" He 
shook his head, and she sighed. "I had better go." Rising, she 
took up her cloak and draped it over her arm. "Cadsuane is 
impatient at best. Sorilea admonished her to look after us 
like a mother hen, and she does. After her fashion." At the 
door, she paused for one last question. "Why are you here, 
Rand? Cadsuane may not care, but I do. I'll keep it secret, if 
you wish. I have never been able to stay more than a few days 
in a stedding. Why would you be willing to stay here, where 
you can't even feel the Source?" 


"Maybe it isn't that bad for me," he lied. He could tell 
her, he realized. He did trust her to keep it secret. But she 
did see him as her Warder, and she was a Green. No explanation 
could make her let him face it alone, but in Far Madding, she 
was no better able to defend herself than Min, maybe less. "Go 
on, Alanna. I've wasted enough time." 


Once she was gone, he shifted himself to put his back 



against the wall again and sat fingering the flute. He thought 
instead of playing, though. Min said he needed Cadsuane, but 
Cadsuane was not interested in him except as a curiosity. A 
bad-mannered curiosity. Somehow, he had to make her 
interested. How in the Light was he going to do that? 


With some difficulty Verin squeezed herself out of the sedan 
chair in the courtyard of Aleis' palace. She was simply not 
constructed to fit the things, but they were the fastest way 
to get about in Far Madding. Coaches always bogged down in the 
crowds sooner or later, and they could not go some places she 
wanted to. The damp winds off the lake were turning colder as 
evening deepened into twilight, but she let the wind whip her 
cloak about while she dug two silver pennies from her purse 
and gave them to the bearers. She was not supposed to, of 
course, since they were Aleis' boys, but Eadwina would not 
know that. They should not have accepted, but the silver 
vanished into their coats in a twinkling, and the younger of 
the pair, a handsome fellow in his middle years, even made her 
a nourishing bow before they picked up the chair and trotted 
off toward the stable, a low structure set in a corner against 
the front wall. Verin sighed. A boy in his middle years. It 
had not taken her long back in Far Madding to begin thinking 
as if she had never left. She had to be careful about that. It 
could be dangerous, not least if Aleis or the others 
discovered her deception. She suspected the warrants for Verin 
Mathwin's exile had never been suspended. Far Madding kept 
quiet when an Aes Sedai fell afoul of the law, but the 
Counsels had no reason to fear Aes Sedai, and for its own 
reasons, the Tower in turn kept quiet on those rare occasions 
when a sister found herself strung up for a judicial flogging. 
She had no intention of being the latest reason for the Tower 
to keep silence. 


Aleis' palace was not a patch on the Sun Palace, of course, 
or the Royal Palace in Andor, or any of the palaces kings and 
queens ruled from. It was her own property, not attached to 
her position as First Counsel. Others, larger and smaller, 
marched away on either side, each surrounded by a high wall 
except on the end where the Heights, the only point 
approaching a hill on the entire island, fell away to the 
water in a sheer bluff. Still, it was not small, either. The 


Barsalla women had been dealing in trade and politics since 
the city was still called Fel Moreina. Tall-columned walks 
surrounded the Barsalla palace on both levels, and the white 
marble cube covered most of the walled grounds. 

She found Cadsuane in a sitting room that would have offered 
a good view of the lake if the curtains had not been drawn to 
keep in the warmth of the blaze in the wide marble fireplace. 
Cadsuane sat, with her sewing basket on a small inlaid table 
beside her chair, calmly working with needle and embroidery 
hoop. She was not alone. Verin folded her cloak over the back 
of a padded chair and took another to wait. 


Elza barely glanced at her. The usually pleasant-faced Green 
stood on the carpet in front of Cadsuane looking quite fierce, 
her face red and her eyes glaring. Elza was always very 
conscious of where she stood with respect to other sisters, 
perhaps too much so. For her to ignore Verin, much less 
confront Cadsuane, she must have been in a fine swivet. "How 



could you let her go?" she demanded of Cadsuane. "How are we 
to find him without her?" Ah, so that was it. 


Cadsuane's head remained bent over her embroidery hoop, and 
her needle continued to make tiny stitches. "You can wait 
until she returns," she said calmly. 


Elza's hands doubled into fists at her side. "How can you be 
so detached?" she demanded. "He is the Dragon Reborn! This 
place could be a death trap for him! You have to-!" Her teeth 


snapped shut as Cadsuane held up a finger. That was all 
Cadsuane did, but from her it was enough. 
"I've put up with your tirade long enough, Elza. You may go. 
Now!" 
Elza hesitated, but she really had no choice. Her face was 

still red as she bobbed a curtsy with her dark green skirts 
clutched in her fists, but if she stalked from the sitting 
room, she still left without further delay. 


Cadsuane set the embroidery hoop on her lap and leaned back. 
"Will you make me some tea, Verin?" 


In spite of herself, Verin gave a small start. The other 
sister had not looked in her direction once. "Of course, 
Cadsuane." A heavily worked silver teapot sat on a four-legged 
stand on one of the side tables, and was still hot, luckily. 
"Was it wise to let Alanna go?" she asked. 


"I could hardly stop her without letting the boy know more 
than he should, now could I?" Cadsuane replied dryly. 


Taking her time, Verin tipped the teapot to pour into a thin 
blue porcelain cup. Not Sea Folk porcelain, but very fine. "Do 
you have any idea why he came to Far Madding, of all places? I 
nearly swallowed my tongue when it came to me that the reason 
he had stopped leaping about might be because he was here. If 
it's something dangerous, perhaps we should try to stop him." 


"Verin, he can do whatever his heart desires, anything at 
all, as long as he lives to reach Tarmon Gai'don. And as long 
as I can be at his side long enough to make him learn how to 
laugh again, and cry." Closing her eyes, she rubbed her 
temples with her fingertips and sighed. "He is turning into a 
stone, Verin, and if he doesn't relearn that he's human, 
winning the Last Battle may not be much better than losing. 
Young Min told him he needs me; I got that much out of her 
without rousing her suspicions. But I must wait for him to 
come to me. You see the way he runs roughshod over Alanna and 
the others. It will be hard enough teaching him, if he does 
ask. He fights guidance, he thinks he must do everything, 
learn everything, on his own, and if I do not make him work 
for it, he won't learn at all." Her hands dropped onto the 
embroidery hoop on her lap. "I seem to be in a confiding mood 
tonight. Unusual, for me. If you ever finish pouring that tea, 
I may confide some more." 


"Oh, yes; of course." Hastily filling a second cup, Verin 
slipped the small vial back into her pouch unopened. It was 
good to be sure of Cadsuane at last. "Do you take honey?" she 
asked in her most muddled voice. "I never can remember." 


Chapter 26: Expectation 



 Walking across the brown-grassed village green of Emond's 
Field with Egwene, Elayne felt saddened by the changes. Egwene 
seemed stunned by them. When she first appeared in 
Tel'aran'rhiod, a long braid had dangled down Egwene's back 
and she was in a plain woolen dress, of all things, with stout 
shoes peeking out beneath her skirts as she walked. Elayne 
supposed it was the sort of clothing she had worn when she 
lived in the Two Rivers. Now her dark hair hung about her 
shoulders, secured by a small cap of fine lace, and her gar 
ments were as fine as Elayne's, a rich blue embroidered with 
silver on the bodice and high neck as well as along the hem of 
her skirt and her cuffs. Silver-worked velvet slippers 
replaced the thick leather shoes. Elayne needed to maintain 
her focus to keep her own green silk riding dress from 
altering, perhaps in embarrassing fashion, but for her friend, 
without any doubt, the changes were deliberate. 


She hoped Rand could still love Emond's Field, but it was no 
longer the village where he and Egwene had grown up. There 
were no people, here in the World of Dreams, yet clearly 
Emond's Field was a considerable town now, a prosperous town, 
with nearly one house in three made of well-dressed stone, 
some of three stories, and more roofed with tiles in every hue 
of the rainbow than with thatch. Some streets were paved with 
smooth well-fitted stone, new and unworn as yet, and there was 
even a thick stone wall going up around the town, with towers 
and iron-plated gates that would have suited a Borderland 
town. Outside the walls there were gristmills and sawmills, an 
iron foundry and large workshops for weavers of both woolens 
and carpets, and within were shops run by furniture makers, 
potters, seamstresses, cutlers, and gold-and silversmiths, 
many as fine as could be seen in Caemlyn, though some of the 
styles seemed to be from Arad Doman or Tarabon. 


The air was cool but not cold, and there was not a sign of 
snow on the ground, at least for the moment. The sun stood 
straight overhead here, though Elayne hoped it was still night 
in the waking world. She wanted some real sleep before she had 
to face the morning. She was always tired, the last few days; 
there was just so much to be done, and so few hours. They had 
come here because it seemed unlikely any spy could find them 
here, but Egwene had lingered to stare at the changes in the 
place she was born. And Elayne had her own reasons, beyond 
Rand, for wanting to look over Emond's Field. The problem, one 
of the problems, was that one hour might pass in the waking 
world while you spent five or ten in the World of Dreams, but 
it could just as easily be the other way around. It might be 
morning already in Caemlyn. 


Stopping at the edge of the green, Egwene gazed back at the 
wide stone bridge that arched over the rapidly widening stream 
running from a spring that gushed out of a stone outcrop 
strongly enough to knock a man down. A massive marble shaft 
carved all over with names stood in the middle of the green, 
and two tall flagpoles on stone bases. "A battle monument," 
she murmured. "Who could imagine such a thing in Emond's 
Field? Though Moiraine said that once a great battle was 
fought on this spot, in the Trolloc Wars, when Manetheren 
died." 



 "It was in the history I studied," Elayne said quietly, 
glancing at the bare flagpoles. Bare for the moment. She could 
not feel Rand, here. Oh, he was still in her head as much as 
Birgitte, a rocklike knot of emotions and physical sensations 
that was even more difficult to interpret now that he was far 
away, yet here in Tel'aran'rhiod, she could not know which 
direction he was. She missed that knowledge, small as it was. 
She missed him. 


Banners appeared atop the flagpoles, remaining just long 
enough to ripple once lazily. Long enough to make out on one a 
red eagle flying across a field of blue. Not a red eagle; the 
Red Eagle. Once, visiting this place with Nynaeve in 
Tel’aran’rhiod, she had thought she glimpsed it, had decided 
she must be mistaken. Master Norry had begun setting her 
straight. She loved Rand, but if someone in the place he grew 
up was trying to raise Manetheren from its ancient grave, she 
would have to take cognizance, however much it pained him. 
That banner and that name still carried enough power to 
threaten Andor. 


"I heard about changes from Bode Cauthon and the other nov 
ices from home," Egwene went on, frowning at the houses around 
the green, "but nothing like this." Most of those houses were 
stone. A tiny inn still stood beside the sprawling stone 
foundation of some much larger building, with a huge oak 
growing up through the middle of it, but what looked to be an 
inn many times bigger was almost finished on the other side of 
the foundation, with a large sign reading the archers already 
hung above the door. "I wonder whether my father is still 
Mayor. Is my mother well? My sisters?" 


"I know you are moving the army tomorrow," Elayne said, "if 
it isn't tomorrow already, but surely you could find a few 
hours to visit here once you reach Tar Valon." Traveling made 
such things easy. Perhaps she herself should send someone to 
Emond's Field. If she knew whom to trust for the mission. If 
she could spare anyone she did trust. 


Egwene shook her head. "Elayne, I've had to order women I 
grew up with switched because they don't believe I am the 
Amyrlin Seat, or if they do, that they can break the rules 
because they knew me." Suddenly the seven-striped stole hung 
from her shoulders. Until she noticed it with a grimace, and 
it vanished again. "I don't think I can face confronting 
Emond's Field as Amyrlin," she said sadly. "Not yet." She gave 
herself a shake, and her voice firmed. "The Wheel turns, 
Elayne, and everything changes. I must get used to it. I will 
get used to it." She sounded a great deal like Siuan Sanche, 
as Siuan had sounded in Tar Valon before everything had 
changed. Stole or no stole, Egwene sounded like the Amyrlin 
Seat. "Are you certain I can't send you some of Gareth Bryne's 
soldiers? Enough to help secure Caemlyn, at least." 


Abruptly, they were surrounded by glistening snow, standing 
knee-deep in it. Snow made gleaming white mounds on the roof 
tops as if from a heavy fall. This was not the first time such 
a thing had happened, and they simply refused to let the 
sudden cold touch them, rather than imagining cloaks and 
warmer clothes. 


"No one is going to move against me before spring," Elayne 
said. Armies did not move in winter, at least, not unless they 



had the benefit of Traveling, like Egwene's army. Snow bogged 
everything down, and mud whenever the snow melted. Those 
Borderlanders probably had begun their march south thinking 
winter was never coming this year. "Besides, you will need 
every man when you reach Tar Valon." 


Unsurprisingly, Egwene nodded acceptance without making the 
offer again. Even with this past month of hard recruiting 
behind her, Gareth Bryne still had no more than half the 
soldiers he had told her would be needed to take Tar Valon. 
According to Egwene, he was ready to begin with what he had, 
but clearly it troubled her. "I have hard decisions to make, 
Elayne. The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills, but it is still 
me who has to decide." 


Impulsively, Elayne waded through the snow and threw her 
arms around Egwene to hug her. At least, she started out 
wading. As she clasped the other woman to her, the snow 
vanished, leaving not so much as a damp spot on their dresses. 
The two of them staggered as if dancing with one another and 
almost fell. 


"I know you will make the right decision," Elayne said, 
laughing in spite of herself. Egwene did not join her 
laughter. 


"I hope so," she said gravely, "because whatever I decide, 
people are going to die for it." She patted Elayne's arm. 
"Well, you understand that sort of decision, don't you. We 
both need to be back in our beds." She hesitated before going 
on. "Elayne, if Rand comes to you again, you must let me know 
what he says, whether he gives you any clue what he means to 
do or where he means to go." 


"I will tell you whatever I can, Egwene." Elayne felt a stab 
of guilt. She had told Egwene everything-almost everything-but 
not that she had bonded Rand with Min and Aviendha. Tower law 
did not prohibit what they had done. Very careful questioning 
of Vandene had made that much clear. But whether it would be 
permitted was not clear at all. Still, as she had heard an 
Arafellin mercenary recruited by Birgitte say, "what was not 
forbidden was allowed." That sounded almost like one of Lini's 
old sayings, though she doubted her nurse would ever have been 
so permissive. "You're troubled by him, Egwene. More than 
usual, I mean. I can tell. Why?" 


"I have reason to be, Elayne. The eyes-and-ears report very 
troubling rumors. Only rumors, I hope, but if they aren't. 
..." She was very much the Amyrlin Seat now, a short slender 
young woman who seemed strong as steel and tall as a mountain. 
Determination filled her dark eyes and set her jaw. "I know 
you love him. I love him, too. But I am not trying to Heal the 
White Tower just so he can chain Aes Sedai like damane. Sleep 
well and have pleasant dreams, Elayne. P