Wheel of Time-11] Knife of Dreams

by Robert Jordan

  Sevanna looked anything except amused. Eyes glittering, she leaned forward, her robe gaping to expose her bosom completely. "Who says this? Who?" Therava picked up her goblet and took another swallow of water. Realizing she would get no answer. Sevanna leaned back, and rearranged her robe. Her eyes still glittered like polished emeralds, though, and there was nothing casual in her words. They came out as hard as her eyes. "I will marry Rand al'Thor, Therava. I almost had him, until you and the other Wise Ones failed me. I will marry him, unite the clans, and conquer all of the wetlands!"

  Therava sneered over her goblet. "Couladin was the Car'a'carn, Sevanna. I have not found the Wise Ones who gave him permission to go to Rhuidean, but I will. Rand al'Thor is a creature of the Aes Sedai. They told him what to say at Alcair Dal. and a black day it was when he revealed secrets few are strong enough to know. Be grateful that most believe he lied. But I forget. You have never gone to Rhuidean. You believed his secrets lies yourself."

  Gai'shain began entering past the tentflap, their white robes rain-damp. holding their hems knee-high until they were inside. Each wore the golden collar and belt. Their soft white laced boots left muddy-marks on the carpets. Later, when those had dried, they would have to clean them away, but getting visible mud on your robes was a sure path to the switch. Sevanna wanted her gai'shain spotless when they were around her. Neither Aiel woman paid the slightest attention to the arrivals.

  Sevanna seemed taken aback by what Therava had said. "Why do you care who gave Couladin permission? No matter," she said, waving a hand as though brushing away a fly, when she got no reply. "Couladin is dead. Rand al'Thor has the markings, however he got them. I will marry him, and I will make use of him. If the Aes Sedai could control him, and I saw them handling him like a babe, then I can. With a little help from you. And you will help. You agree that uniting the clans is worth doing no matter how it is done? You did once." Somehow, there was more than a hint of threat in that. "We Shaido will become the most powerful of the clans in one leap."

  Lowering their cowls, the new gai'shain filed wordlessly along the tent walls, nine men and three women, one of them Maighdin. The sun-haired woman wore a grim expression that had been on her face since the day Therava had discovered her in the Wise One's tent. Whatever Therava had done, all Maighdin would say of it was that she wanted to kill the other woman. Sometimes she whimpered in her sleep, though.

  Therava kept whatever she thought about uniting the clans to herself. "There is much feeling against staying here. Many of the sept chiefs press the red disc on their nar'baha every morning. I advise you to heed the Wise Ones."

  Nar'baha, That would mean 'box of fools.' or something very near. But what could this be? Bain and Chiad were still teaching her about Aiel ways, when they could find time, and chey had never mentioned any such thing. Maighdin stopped beside Lusara. A slender Cairhienin nobleman named Doirmanes stopped beside Faile. He was young and very pretty, but he bit his lip nervously. If he learned about the oaths of fealty, he would have to be killed. She was certain he would run to Se-vanna in a heartbeat.

  "We remain here," Sevanna said angrily, flinging her goblet to the carpets in a spray of wine. "I speak for the clan chief, and I have spoken!"

  "You have spoken," Therava agreed calmly. "Bendhuin, sept chief of the Green Salts, has received permission to go to Rhuidean. He left five days ago with twenty of his algai'd'siswai and four Wise Ones to stand witness."

  Not until one of the new gaishain stood beside each of those already there did Faile and the others raise their cowls and begin filing along the walls toward the doorflap. already gathering their robes to the knee. She had become quite sanguine about exposing her legs so.

  "He seeks to replace me, and I was not even informed?"

  "Not you, Sevanna. Couladin. As his widow, you speak for the clan chief until a new chief returns from Rhuidean, but you are not the clan chief."

  Faile stepped out into the cold, gray morning drizzle, and the tent-flap cut off whatever Sevanna said to that. What was going on between the two women? Sometimes, as this morning, they seemed antagonists, but at others they seemed reluctant conspirators bound together by something that gave neither any comfort. Or perhaps it was the being bound together itself that made them uncomfortable. Well, she could not see how knowing would help her escape, so it did not really matter. But the puzzle nagged at her.

  Six Maidens stood clustered in front of the tent, veils hanging down onto their chests, spears thrust up through the harness of the bow cases on their backs. Bain and Chiad were contemptuous of Se-vanna for using Maidens of the Spear for her guard of honor though she herself had never been a Maiden, and for having her tent always guarded, but there were never fewer than six, night or day. Those two were contemptuous of the Shaido Maidens for allowing it, too. Neither being a clan chief nor speaking for one gave you as much power as most nobles possessed. These Maidens' hands were flashing in a rapid conversation. She caught the sign for Car'a'carn several times, but not sufficient else to make out what they were saying, or whether about al'Thor or Couladin.

  Standing there long enough to find out, if she could find out, was beyond the question. With the others already hurrying away down the muddy street, the Maidens would become suspicious, for one thing, and then they might switch her themselves, or worse, use her own bootlaces. She had had a hard dose of that from some Maidens, for having "insolent eyes," and she did not want another. Especially when it meant baring herself in public. Being Sevanna's gai'shain gave no protection. Any Shaido could discipline any gai'shain they thought was behaving improperly. Even a child could, if the child was set to watch you carry out a chore. For another thing, the cold rain, light as it was, was going to soak through her woolen robes soon enough. She had only a short walk back to her tent, no more than a quarter of a mile, but she would not complete it without being stopped for a time.

  A yawn cracked her jaw as she turned from the large red tent. She very much wanted her blankets and a few more hours sleep. There would be more chores come afternoon. What they might be, she did not know. Matters would be much simpler if Sevanna settled on who she wanted to do what when, but she seemed to choose names at random, and always at the last minute. It made planning anything, much less the escape, very difficult.

  All sorts of tents surrounded Sevanna's, low, dark Aiel tents, peaked tents, walled tents, tents of every sort and size in every color imaginable, separated by a tangle of dirt streets that were now rivers of mud. Lacking enough of their own, the Shaido snatched up every tent they could find. Fourteen septs were camped in a sprawl around Maiden now, a hundred thousand Shaido and as many gai'shain, and rumor said two more septs, the Morai and the White Cliff, would arrive within days. Aside from small children splashing through the mud with romping dogs, most of the people she could see as she walked wore mud-stained white and were carrying baskets or bulging sacks.

  Most of the women did not hurry; they ran. Except for the blacksmiths, the Shaido seldom did any work themselves, and generally only out of boredom, she suspected. With so many gai'sbain, finding chores for them all was itself a chore. Sevanna was no longer the only Shaido to actually sit in a bathtub with a gai'sbain scrubbing her back. None of the Wise Ones had gone that far yet. but some of the others would not stir themselves two paces to pick something up when they could tell a gai'sbain to fetch it.

  She was almost to the gai'sbain portion of the camp, hard against the gray stone walls of Maiden, when she saw a Wise One striding toward her with her dark shawl wrapped around her head against the rain. Faile did not stop, but she bent her knees a little. Meira was not so frightening as Therava, but the grim-faced woman was hard enough, and shorter than Faile. Her narrow mouth always grew even tighter when she was confronted with a woman taller than she. Faile would have thought that learning her own sept, the White Cliff, would be there soon, would brighten the woman's mood, but the news had had no dis-cernable effect at all.

  "So you were just lagging," Meira s
aid as she came close. Her eyes were as hard as the sapphires they resembled. "I left Rhiale listening to the others because I feared some drunken fool had pulled you into a tent." She glared around her as though looking for a drunken fool about to do just that.

  "No one accosted me, Wise One," Faile said quickly. Several had in the last few weeks, some drunk and some not, but Rolan always appeared in the nick of time. Twice the big Mera'din had had to fight to save her. and once he had killed the other man. She had expected nine kinds of uproar and trouble, but the Wise Ones judged it a fair fight, and Rolan said her name had never been mentioned. For all that Bain and Chiad insisted it went against all custom, assault was a constant danger for gai'sbain women here. She was sure that Alliandre had been assaulted once, before she and Maighdin also acquired Mera'din shadows. Rolan denied having asked them to help her people. He said they were just bored and looking for something to do. "I'm very sorry I was slow."

  "Do not cringe. I am not Therava. I will not beat you for the pleasure of it." Words said in tones hard enough for a headsman. Meira might not beat people for pleasure, but Faile knew for a fact that she had a strong arm swinging a switch. "Now tell me what Sevanna said and did. This water falling from the sky may be a wondrous thing, but it is miserable to walk around in."

  Obeying the command was easy. Sevanna had not wakened during the night, and once she did rise, all her talk had been of what clothes and jewels she would wear, especially the jewels. Her jewelry chest had been made to hold clothing, and it was filled to the top with more gems than most queens possessed. Before putting on any garment at all, Sevanna had spent time trying on different combinations of necklaces and rings and studying herself in the gilt-framed stand-mirror. It had been very embarrassing. For Faile.

  She had just reached Therava's arrival with Galina when everything in front of her eyes rippled. She rippled! It was not imagination. Meira's blue eyes widened as far as they could go; she had felt it, too. Again everything rippled, including herself, harder than before. In shock, Faile stood up straight and let go of her robe. A third time the world rippled, harder still, and as it passed through her. she felt as if she might blow away in a breeze, or simply dissipate in a mist.

  Breathing hard, she waited for the fourth ripple, the one she knew would destroy her and everything else. When it did not come, she expelled every bit of air in her lungs from relief. "What just happened, Wise One? What was that?"

  Meira touched her own arm and looked faintly surprised that her hand did not pass through flesh and bone. "I . . . do not know," she said slowly. Giving herself a shake, she added, "Go on about your business, girl." She gathered her skirts and strode past Faile at little short of a trot, splashing mud as she went.

  The children had vanished from the street, but Faile could hear them wailing inside the tents. Abandoned dogs shivered and whined, tails tucked between their legs. People in the street were touching themselves, touching each other, Shaido and gai'shain alike. Faile clasped her hands together. Of course she was solid. She had only felt as though she were turning to mist. Of course. Hoisting her robes to avoid any more washing than she absolutely had to do. she began to walk. And then to run, careless of how much mud she splashed onto herself or anyone else. She knew there could be no running from another of those ripples. But she ran anyway, as fast as her legs could carry her.

  The gai'shain tents made a broad ring around Maiden's high granite walls, and they were as varied as the tents in the outer part of the encampment, though most were small. Her own peaked tent could have slept two uncomfortably; it housed herself and three others, Alliandre. Maighdin and a former Cairhienin noblewoman named Dairaine. one of those who curried favor with Sevanna by carrying tales about the other garshain. That complicated matters, but there was no mending it short of killing the woman, and Faile would not countenance that. Not unless Dairaine became a real threat. They slept huddled together like puppies of necessity, glad of the shared body warmth on cold nights.

  The interior of the low tent was dim when she ducked inside. Lamp oil and candles were in short supply, and not wasted on gai'shain. Only Alliandre was there, lying facedown on her blankets in her collar with a damp cloth, dipped in an herbal infusion, over her bruised bottom. At least the Wise Ones were as willing to give their healing herbs to gai'shain as to Shaido. Alliandre had done nothing wrong, but had been named as one of the five who had pleased Sevanna least yesterday. Unlike some, she had done quite well while being punished— Doirmanes had begun weeping even before he was bent over the chest—but she seemed to be among those chosen out every three or four days. Being a queen did not teach you how to serve a queen. But then, Maighdin was picked nearly as often, and she was a lady's maid, if not a very skilled one. Faile herself had only been chosen once.

  It was a measure of how Alliandre's spirits had fallen that she made no move to cover herself, only raised up on her elbows. Still, she had combed her long hair. If she failed to do that, Faile would know the woman had reached bottom. "Did anything . . . strange . . . happen to you just now. my Lady?" she asked, fear strong in her unsteady voice.

  "It did." Faile said, standing crouched under the ridgepole. "I don't know what it was. Meira doesn't know what it was. I doubt any of the Wise Ones do. But it didn't harm us." Of course it had not harmed them. Of course not. "And it changes nothing in our plans.-' Yawning, she unfastened the wide golden belt and dropped it on her blankets, then grasped her outer robe to pull it over her head.

  Alliandre put her head down on her hands and began weeping quietly. "We'll never escape. I'm going to be beaten again tonight. I know it. I'm going to be beaten every day for the rest of my life."

  With a sigh. Faile left her outer robe where it was and knelt to stroke her liege woman's hair. There were as many responsibilities down as up. "I have those same fears now and then," she admitted softly. "But I refuse to let them take control. I will escape. We will escape. You have to keep your courage, Alliandre. I know you're brave. I know you've dealt with Masema and kept your nerve. You can keep it now, if you try."

  Aravine put her head in at the tentflap. She was a plain, plump woman, a noble Faile was sure, though she never claimed it, and despite the dimness Faile could see that she was beaming. She wore Sevanna's belt and collar, too. "My Lady, Alvon and his son have something for you."

  "It will have to wait a few minutes," Faile said. Alliandre had stopped crying, but she was just lying there, silent and still.

  "My Lady, you won't want to wait for this."

  Faile's breath caught. Could it be possible? It seemed too much to hope for.

  "I can keep my nerve," Alliandre said, raising her head to gaze at Aravine. "If what Alvon has is what I hope it is, I'll keep my nerve if Sevanna has me put to the question."

  Snatching up her belt—being seen outside without belt and collar both meant punishment almost as severe as for trying to run away— Faile hurried out of the tent. The drizzle had slackened to a misting rain, but she pulled up her cowl anyway. The rain was still cold.

  Alvon was a stocky man, overtopped by his son Theril, a lanky boy. Both wore mud-stained, almost-white robes made of tentcloth. Theril, Alvon's eldest, was only fourteen, but the Shaido had not believed it because of his height, as much as most men in Amadicia. Faile had been ready to trust Alvon from the start. He and his son were something of legends among the gai'sbain. Three times they had run away, and each time it had taken the Shaido longer to bring them back. And despite increasingly fierce punishment, on the day they swore fealty they had been planning a fourth attempt to return to the rest of their family. Neither ever smiled that Faile had seen, but today, smiles wreathed Alvon's weathered face and Theril's skinny one alike.

  "What do you have for me?" Faile asked, hastily fastening her belt around her waist. She thought her heart was going to pound its way out of her chest.

  "It was my Theril, my Lady," Alvon said. A woodcutter, he spoke with a coarse accent that made him barely intelligible. "He was ju
st walking by, see, and there was nobody around, nobody at all, so he ducked in quick like, and . . . Show the Lady, Theril."

  Shyly. Theril reached into his wide sleeve—the robes usually had pockets sewn in there—and drew out a smooth white rod that looked like ivory, about a foot long and as slim as her wrist.

  Looking around to see if anyone was watching—the street was empty save for them, for the moment at least—Faile took it quickly and pushed it up her own sleeve to tuck into the pocket there. The pocket was just deep enough to keep it from falling out, but now that she had the thing in hand, she did not want to let go of it. It felt like glass, and was distinctly cool to the touch, cooler than the morning air. Perhaps it was an angreal or a ter'angreal. That would explain why Galina wanted it. if not why she had not taken it herself. Hand buried in her sleeve, Faile gripped the rod hard. Galina was no longer a threat. Now she was salvation.

  "You understand, Alvon, that Galina may be unable to take you and your son with her when she leaves," she said. "She has only promised that to me and those captured with me. But I promise you that I will find a way to free you and everyone who has sworn to me. All the rest, too, if I can, but those above all. Under the Light and by my hope of salvation and rebirth. I swear it." How. she had no idea short of calling on her father for an army, but she would do it.

  The woodcutter made as if to spit then glanced at her. and his face colored. He swallowed, instead. "That Galina ain't going to help nobody, my Lady. Says she's Aes Sedai and all, but she's that Therava's plaything if you ask me, and that Therava ain't never going to let her go. Anyways, I know if we can get you free, you'll come back for the rest of us. No need for you to swear and all that. You said you wanted the rod if anybody could lay hands on it without getting caught, and Theril got it for you. that's all."

  "I want to be free," Theril said suddenly, "but if we get anybody free, then we've beaten them." He looked surprised that he had spoken, and blushed deep red. His father frowned at him. then nodded thoughtfully.