Egwene slipped back down the pile of jumbled stones as silently as she could.
The way back will come but once. Be steadfast.
She stopped, afraid the whisper had come from Shadowspawn. In some way, though, she was sure it had not. Glancing back over her shoulder, half fearful of seeing the Myrddraal standing where she had just been, she hurried onward and into the ruined palace, climbing over fallen timbers, squeezing between heavy blocks of collapsed masonry as she made her way. Once she stepped on a woman's arm, sticking out from under a mound of plaster and bricks that had been an interior wall and perhaps part of the floor above. She noticed the arm as little as she noticed the Great Serpent ring on one finger. She had trained herself not to see the dead buried in the refuse heap Trollocs and Darkfriends had made of Caemlyn. She could do nothing for the dead.
Forcing her way through a narrow gap where part of the ceiling had fallen, she found herself in a room half buried under what had stood above it. Rand lay with a heavy beam pinning him across the waist, his legs hidden beneath the stone blocks that filled half the room. Dust and sweat coated his face. He opened his eyes when she came near him.
"You came back." He forced the words out in a hoarse rasp. "I was afraid — No matter. You have to help me."
She sank wearily to the floor. "I could lift that beam easily with Air, but as soon as it moves, everything else will come down on top of you. On top of both of us. I cannot manage all of it, Rand."
His laugh was bitter and painful, and cut off almost as soon as it began. Fresh sweat glistened on his face, and he spoke with an effort. "I could shift the beam myself. You know that. I could shift that and the stones above, all of them. But I have to let go of myself to do it, and I can't trust that. I cannot trust —" He stopped, wheezing for breath.
"I do not understand," she said slowly. "Let go of yourself? What can't you trust?" The way back will come but once. Be steadfast. She rubbed her hands roughly over her ears.
"The madness, Egwene. I am — actually — holding it — at bay." His gasping laugh made her skin prickle. "But it takes everything I have just to do that. If I let go, even a little, even for an instant, the madness will have me. I won't care what I do then. You have to help me."
"How, Rand! I've tried everything I know. Tell me how, and I will do it."
His hand flopped out, fell just short of a dagger lying in the dust bare-bladed. "The dagger," he whispered. His hand made a painful journey back to his chest. "Here. In the heart. Kill me."
She stared at him, at the dagger, as if they were both poisonous serpents. "No! Rand, I will not. I cannot! How could you ask such a thing?"
Slowly his hand crept back toward the dagger. His fingers came short again. He strained, moaning, brushed it with a fingertip. Before he could try again, she kicked it away from him. He collapsed with a sob.
"Tell me why," she demanded. "Why would you ask me to — to murder you? I will Heal you, I will do anything to get you out of there, but I cannot kill you. Why?"
"They can turn me, Egwene." His breathing was so tortured, she wished she could weep. "If they take me — the Myrddraal — the Dreadlords — they can turn me to the Shadow. If madness has me, I cannot fight them. I won't know what they are doing till it is too late. If there is even a spark of life left when they find me, they can still do it. Please, Egwene. For the love of the Light. Kill me."
"I–I can't, Rand. Light help me, I cannot!"
The way back will come but once. Be steadfast.
She looked over her shoulder, and a silver arch filled with white light took up most of the open space among the rubble.
"Egwene, help me."
Be steadfast.
She stood and took a step toward the arch. It was right there in front of her. One more step, and…
"Please, Egwene. Help me. I can't reach it. For the love of the Light, Egwene, help me!"
"I cannot kill you," she whispered. "I can't. Forgive me." She stepped forward.
"HELP ME, EGWENE!"
Light burned her to ash.
Staggering, she stepped out of the arch, neither noticing her nakedness nor caring. A shudder ran through her, and she covered her mouth with both hands. "I couldn't, Rand," she whispered. "I couldn't. Please forgive me." Light help him. Please, Light help Rand.
Cold water poured over her head.
"You are washed clean of false pride," Elaida intoned. "You are washed clean of false ambition. You come to us washed clean, in heart and soul."
As the Red sister turned away, Sheriam gently took Egwene's shoulders and guided her toward the last arch. "One more, child. One more, and it is done."
"He said they could turn him to the Shadow," Egwene mumbled. "He said the Myrddraal and the Dreadlords could force him."
Sheriam missed a step, and looked around quickly. Elaida was almost back to the table. The Aes Sedai surrounding the ter'angreal stared at it, seeming lost to anything else. "An unpleasant thing to talk of, child," Sheriam said finally, and softly. "Come. One more."
"Can they?" Egwene insisted.
"Custom," Sheriam said, "is not to speak of what happens within the ter'angreal. A woman's fears are her own."
"Can they?"
Sheriam sighed, glanced at the other Aes Sedai again, then dropped her voice to a whisper and spoke swiftly. "This is something known only to a few, child, even in the Tower. You should not learn it now, if ever, but I will tell you. There is — a weakness in being able to channel. That we learn to open ourselves to the True Source means that we can be opened to other things." Egwene shuddered. "Calm yourself, child. It is not so easily done. It is a thing not done, so far as I know — Light send it has not been done! — since the Trolloc Wars. It took thirteen Dreadlords — Darkfriends who could channel — weaving the flows through thirteen Myrddraal. You see? Not easily done. There are no Dreadlords today. This is a secret of the Tower, child. If others knew, we could never convince them they were safe. Only one who can channel can be turned in this way. The weakness of our strength. Everyone else is as safe as a fortress; only their own deeds and will can turn them to the Shadow."
"Thirteen," Egwene said in a tiny voice. "The same number who left the Tower. Liandrin, and twelve more."
Sheriam's face hardened. "That is nothing for you to dwell on. You will forget it." Her voice climbed to a normal volume. "The third time is for what will be. The way back will come but once. Be steadfast."
Egwene stared at the glowing arch, stared at some far distance beyond it. Liandrin and twelve others. Thirteen Darkfriends who can channel. Light help us all. She stepped into the light. It filled her. It shone through her. It burned her to the bone, seared her to the soul. She flashed incandescent in the light. Light help me! There was nothing but the light. And the pain.
Egwene stared into the standing mirror, and was not sure whether she was more surprised by the ageless smoothness of her face or the striped stole that hung around her neck. The stole of the Amyrlin Seat.
The way back will come but once. Be steadfast.
Thirteen.
She swayed, caught at the mirror and almost toppled it and herself to the blue-tiled floor of her dressing chamber. Something is wrong, she thought. The wrongness had nothing to do with her sudden dizziness, or at least that was not what felt wrong. It was something else. But she had no idea what.
There was an Aes Sedai at her elbow, a woman with Sheriam's high cheekbones but dark hair and concerned brown eyes, and the hand-wide stole of the Keeper on her shoulders. Not Sheriam, though. Egwene had never seen her before; she was sure she knew her as well as she knew herself. Haltingly, she put a name to the woman. Beldeine.
"Are you ill, Mother?"
Her stole is green. That means she was raised from the Green Ajah. The Keeper always comes from the same Ajah as the Amyrlin she serves. Which means if I'm the Amyrlin — if? — then I was Green Ajah, too. That thought shook her. Not that she had been Green Ajah, but that she had to reason it out. Light, somethin
g is wrong with me.
The way back will come bu… The voice in her head trailed away to finish in a buzz.
Thirteen Darkfriends.
"I am well, Beldeine," Egwene said. The name felt strange on her tongue; it felt as if she had been saying it for years. "We mustn't keep them waiting." Keep who waiting? She did not know, except that she felt infinitely sad about ending that wait, endlessly reluctant.
"They will be growing impatient, Mother." There was a hesitation in Beldeine's voice, as if she felt the same reluctance as Egwene, but for a different reason. Unless Egwene missed her guess, behind that outer calm, Beldeine was terrified.
"In that case, we had best be about it."
Beldeine nodded, then took a deep breath before crossing the carpet to where her staff of office, topped with the snowdrop White Flame of Tar Valon, stood propped beside the door. "I suppose we must, Mother." She took up the staff and opened the door for Egwene, then hurried ahead so that they made a procession of two, Keeper of the Chronicles leading the Amyrlin Seat.
Egwene noticed little of the corridors they took. All her attention was directed inward. What is the matter with me? Why can't I remember? Why is so much of what I… almost remember wrong? She touched the seven-striped stole on her shoulders. Why am I half sure I'm still a novice?
The way back will come but on—
This time it ended abruptly.
Thirteen of the Black Ajah.
She stumbled at that. It was a frightening thought, but it chilled her to the marrow beyond fear. It felt — personal. She wanted to scream, to run and hide. She felt as if they were after her. Nonsense. The Black Ajah has been destroyed. That seemed an odd thought, too. Part of her remembered something called the Great Purge. Part of her was sure no such thing had happened.
Eyes fixed ahead, Beldeine had not noticed her stumble. Egwene had to lengthen her stride to catch up. This woman is scared to her toenails. What in the Light is she taking me to?
Beldeine stopped before tall, paired doors, their dark wood each inlaid with a large silver Flame of Tar Valon. She wiped her hands on her dress, as if they were suddenly sweaty, before opening one door and leading Egwene up a straight ramp of the same silver-streaked white stone that made Tar Valon's walls. Even here it seemed to shine.
The ramp let into a large, circular room under a domed ceiling at least thirty paces high. A raised platform ran around the outer edge of the room, fronted by steps except where this ramp and two others came out, spaced equally around the circle. The Flame of Tar Valon lay centered in the floor, surrounded by widening spirals of color, the colors of the seven Ajahs. At the opposite side of the room from where the ramp entered, a high-backed chair stood, heavy and ornately carved in vines and leaves, painted in the colors of all the Ajahs.
Beldeine rapped her staff sharply on the floor. There was a tremor in her voice. "She comes. The Keeper of the Seals. The Flame of Tar Valon. The Amyrlin Seat. She comes."
With a rustle of skirts, shawled women on the platform got up from their chairs. Twenty-one chairs in groupings of three, each triad painted and cushioned in the same color as the fringe on the shawls of the women who stood before them.
The Hall of the Tower, Egwene thought as she crossed the floor to her chair. The Amyrlin Seat's chair. That's all it is. The Hall of the Tower, and the Sitters for the Ajahs. I've been here thousands of times. But she could not remember one of them. What am I doing in the Hall of the Tower? Light, they'll skin me alive when they see… She was not sure what it was they would see, only that she prayed they did not.
The way back will come but —
The way back will —
The way —
The Black Ajah waits. That, at least, was whole. It came from everywhere. Why did no one else seem to hear it?
Settling in the chair of the Amyrlin Seat — the chair that was also the Amyrlin Seat — she realized she had no idea what to do next. The other Aes Sedai had seated themselves when she did, all but Beldeine, who stood beside her with the staff, swallowing nervously. They all seemed to be waiting on her.
"Begin," she said finally.
It seemed to be enough. One of the Red Sitters stood. Egwene was shocked to recognize Elaida. At the same time she knew that Elaida was foremost of the Sitters for the Red, and her own bitterest enemy. The look on Elaida's face as she stared across the chamber made Egwene shiver inside. It was stern and cold — and triumphant. It promised things best not thought of.
"Bring him in," Elaida said loudly.
From one of the ramps — not the one Egwene had entered by — came the crunch of boots on stone. People appeared. A dozen Aes Sedai surrounding three men, two of them burly guards with the white teardrops of the Flame of Tar Valon on their chests, tugging the chains in which the third stumbled as if dazed.
Egwene jerked forward in her chair. The chained man was Rand. Eyes half-closed, head sagging, he seemed nearly asleep, moving only as the chains directed.
"This man," Elaida proclaimed, "has named himself the Dragon Reborn." There was a buzz of distaste, not as if the listeners were surprised, but as though it were not something they wanted to hear. "This man has channeled the One Power." The buzz was louder now, disgusted and tinged with fear. "There is only one penalty for this, known and recognized in every nation, but pronounced only here, in Tar Valon, in the Hall of the Tower. I call on the Amyrlin Seat to pronounce the sentence of gentling on this man."
Elaida's eyes glittered at Egwene. Rand. What do I do? Light, what do I do?
"Why do you hesitate?" Elaida demanded. "The sentence has been set down for three thousand years. Why do you hesitate, Egwene al'Vere?"
One of the Green Sitters was on her feet, anger bright through her calm. "Shame, Elaida! Show respect for the Amyrlin Seat! Show respect for the Mother!"
"Respect," Elaida answered coldly, "can be lost as well as won. Well, Egwene? Can it be you show your weakness, your unfitness for your office, at last? Can it be you will not pronounce sentence on this man?"
Rand tried to lift his head and failed.
Egwene struggled to her feet, head spinning, trying to remember she was the Amyrlin Seat with the power to command all these women, screaming that she was a novice, that she did not belong here, that something was dreadfully wrong. "No," she said shakily. "No, I cannot! I will not —"
"She betrays herself?" Elaida's shout drowned out Egwene's attempt to speak. "She condemns herself out of her own mouth! Take her!"
As Egwene opened her mouth, Beldeine moved beside her. Then the Keeper's staff struck her head.
Blackness.
First there was pain in her head. There was something hard under her back, and cold. Next came the voices. Murmurs.
"Is she still unconscious?" It was a rasp, a file on bone.
"Do not worry," a woman said from far, far away. She sounded uneasy, afraid, and trying not to show either. "She will be dealt with before she knows what is happening to her. Then she is ours, to do with as we will. Perhaps we will give her to you for sport."
"After you make your own use of her."
"Of course."
The distant voices moved further away.
Her hand brushed against her leg, touched bare, pebbly flesh. She opened her eyes a crack. She was naked, bruised, lying on a rough wooden table, in what seemed to be a disused storeroom. Splinters stuck her back. There was a metallic taste of blood in her mouth.
A cluster of Aes Sedai stood to one side of the room, talking among themselves, voices low yet urgent. The pain in her head made thinking difficult, but it seemed important to count them. Thirteen.
Another group, black-cloaked and hooded men, joined the Aes Sedai, who seemed caught between cowering and trying to dominate with their presence. One of the men turned his head to look toward the table. The dead white face within the hood had no eyes.
Egwene had no need to count the Myrddraal. She knew. Thirteen Myrddraal, and thirteen Aes Sedai. Without another thought, she screamed in
pure terror. Yet even in the midst of fear that tried to split her bones, she reached out for the True Source, clawed desperately for saidar.
"She's awake!"
"She cannot be! Not yet!"
"Shield her! Quickly! Quickly! Cut her off from the Source!"
"It's too late! She is too strong!"
"Seize her! Hurry!"
Hands reached for her arms and legs. Pasty pale hands like slugs under rocks, ordered by minds behind pale, eyeless faces. If those hands touched her flesh, she knew she would go mad. The Power filled her.
Flames burst from Myrddraal skin, ripping through black cloth as if they were solid daggers of fire. Shrieking Halfmen crisped and burned like oiled paper. Fist-sized chunks of stone tore themselves free of the walls and whizzed across the room, producing shrieks and grunts as they thudded into flesh. The air stirred, shifted, howled into a whirlwind.
Slowly, painfully, Egwene pushed herself off the table. The wind whipped her hair and made her stagger, but she continued to drive it as she stumbled toward the door. An Aes Sedai loomed in front of her, a woman bruised and bleeding, surrounded by the glow of the Power. A woman with death in her dark eyes.
Egwene's mind put a name to the face. Gyldan. Elaida's closest confidante, always whispering together in corners, closeting themselves in the night. Egwene's mouth tightened. Disdaining stones and wind, she balled up her fist and punched Gyldan between the eyes as hard as she could. The Red sister — the Black sister — crumpled as if her bones had melted.
Rubbing her knuckles, Egwene staggered out into the hall. Thank you, Perrin, she thought, for showing me how to do that. But you didn't tell me how much it hurts when you do.
Shoving the door shut against the wind, she channeled. Stones around the doorway shivered, cracked, settled against the wood. It would not hold them for long, but anything that slowed pursuit for even a minute was worth doing. Minutes might mean life. Gathering her strength, she forced herself to break into a run. It wobbled, but at least it was a run.
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