A Crown of Swords

by Jordan, Robert

  Tears leaked from Moghedien’s eyes, down cheeks that already glistened. She twitched on her hard pallet, arms and legs jerking as she fought desperately, futilely, to wake. She was no longer aware that she dreamed—all seemed real—but deep memories remained, and in those depths, instinct shrieked and clawed for escape.

  She was well familiar with the sloping tunnel ceilinged in stone daggers like fangs, the walls glowing with pale light. Many times she had made this downward journey since the day so long ago when she first came to make obeisance to the Great Lord and pledge her soul, but never as now, never with her failure known in all its magnitude. Always before she had managed to hide failures even from the Great Lord. Many times. Things could be done here that could be done nowhere else. Things could happen here that could happen nowhere else.

  She gave a start as one of the stone fangs brushed her hair, then gathered herself as best she could. Those spikes and blades still cleared the strange, too-tall Myrddraal easily, but though it overtopped her by head and shoulders and more, she was forced to move her head around their points now. Reality was clay to the Great Lord here, and he often made his displeasure known so. A stone tooth struck her shoulder, and she ducked to go under another. There was no longer enough height in the tunnel for her to straighten as she walked. She bent lower, scurrying crouched in the Myrddraal’s wake, trying to get closer. Its stride never changed, but no matter how quickly she scuttled, the interval between them did not lessen. The ceiling descended, the Great Lord’s fangs to rend traitors and fools, and Moghedien dropped to hands and knees, crawling, then flattened to elbows and knees. Light flared and flickered in the tunnel, cast from the entrance to the Pit itself, just ahead, and Moghedien slithered on her belly, pulled herself along with her hands, pushed with her feet. Stone points dug at her flesh, caught at her dress. Panting, she wriggled the last distance to the sound of ripping wool.

  Staring back over her shoulder, she shivered convulsively. Where the tunnel mouth should have been stood a smooth stone wall. Perhaps the Great Lord had timed it all exactly, and perhaps, had she been slower. . . .

  The ledge on which she lay projected above a black-mottled red lake of molten rock where flames the size of men danced and died and reappeared. Overhead, the cavern rose roofless through the mountain to a sky where wild clouds raced, striated red and yellow and black, as if on the winds of time themselves. It was not the dark-clouded sky seen outside on Shayol Ghul. None of that earned a second glance, and not just because she had seen it many times. The Bore into the Great Lord’s place of imprisonment was no closer here than anywhere else in the world, but here she could feel it, here she could bathe in the radiant glory of the Great Lord. The True Power washed around her, so strong here that attempting to channel it would fry her to a cinder. Not that she had any desire to pay the price elsewhere either.

  She started to push up to her knees, and something struck her between the shoulder blades, driving her down hard onto the stone ledge, crushing the air from her lungs. Stunned, she struggled for breath, then stared back up over her shoulder. The Myrddraal stood with one massive boot planted firmly on her back. Almost, she embraced saidar, though channeling here without express permission was a good way to die. The arrogance on the slopes above was one thing, but this!

  “Do you know who I am?” she demanded. “I am Moghedien!” That eyeless gaze watched her as it might an insect; she had often seen Myrddraal look at ordinary humans that way.

  MOGHEDIEN. That voice inside her head flushed away all thought of the Myrddraal; it nearly flushed away all thought. Beside this, any human lover’s deepest embrace was a drop of water beside the ocean. HOW DEEP IS YOUR FAILURE, MOGHEDIEN? THE CHOSEN ARE ALWAYS THE STRONGEST, BUT YOU LET YOURSELF BE CAPTURED. YOU TAUGHT THOSE WHO WOULD OPPOSE ME, MOGHEDIEN.

  Eyelids fluttering, she fought for coherence. “Great Lord, I taught them only small things, and I fought them as I could. I taught them a supposed way to detect a man channeling.” She managed to laugh. “Practicing it gives them such headaches they cannot channel for hours.” Silence. Perhaps as well. They had given up trying to learn that long before her rescue, but the Great Lord did not need to know that. “Great Lord, you know how I have served you. I serve in the shadows, and your enemies never feel my bite until my venom is working.” She did not quite dare say she had deliberately let herself be captured, to work from within, but she could suggest. “Great Lord, you know how many of your enemies I brought down in the War of Power. From the shadows, unseen, or if seen, ignored because I could not possibly be a threat.” Silence. And then. . . .

  MY CHOSEN ARE ALWAYS THE STRONGEST. MY HAND MOVES.

  That voice reverberating in her skull turned her bones to boiling honey and her brain to fire. The Myrddraal had her chin in its hand, forcing her head up before her vision cleared enough to see the knife in its other hand. All her dreams were to end here in a slit throat, her body going to feed the Trollocs. Perhaps Shaidar Haran would save a choice cut for itself. Perhaps. . . .

  No. She knew she was going to die, but this Myrddraal would not eat one shred of her! She reached to embrace saidar, and her eyes bulged. There was nothing there. Nothing! It was as if she had been severed! She knew she had not—it was said that tearing was the deepest pain anyone could know, beyond any power to deaden—but—!

  In those stunned moments, the Myrddraal forced her mouth open, scraped the blade along her tongue, then nicked her ear. And as it straightened with her blood and saliva, she knew, even before it produced what appeared to be a tiny, fragile cage of gold wire and crystal. Some things could only be done here, some only to those who could channel, and she had brought a number of men and women for this very purpose.

  “No,” she breathed. Her eyes could not leave the cour’souvra. “No, not me! NOT ME!”

  Ignoring her, Shaidar Haran scraped the fluids from the knife onto the cour’souvra. The crystal turned a milky pink, the first setting. With a flick of its wrist, it tossed the mindtrap out over the lake of molten stone for the second. The gold-and-crystal cage arched through the air and suddenly stopped, floating at the very spot where it seemed the Bore was, the place where the Pattern lay thinnest of all.

  Moghedien forgot the Myrddraal. She flung out her hands toward the Bore. “Mercy, Great Lord!” She had never noticed that the Great Lord of the Dark possessed any mercy, but had she been bound in a cell with rabid wolves or with a darath in moult, she would have begged the same. In the right circumstances, you begged even for the impossible. The cour’souvra hung in midair, turning slowly, glittering in the light of leaping fires below. “I have served you with all my heart, Great Lord. I beg mercy. I beg! MERCYYYYYYY!”

  YOU MAY SERVE ME STILL.

  The voice flung her into ecstasy beyond knowing, but at the same instant the sparkling mindtrap suddenly glowed like the sun, and in the midst of rapture, she knew pain as if she had been immersed in the fiery lake. They blended, and she howled, thrashing like a mad thing, thrashing in endless pain, endless, until after Ages, after nothing remained but agony and the memory of agony, the tiny mercy of darkness overwhelmed her.

  Moghedien stirred on the pallet. Not again. Please.

  She barely recognized the woman who entered the tent where she was held prisoner.

  Please, she shrieked in the depths of her mind.

  The woman channeled to make a light, and Moghedien saw only the light.

  Deep in sleep, she quivered, vibrating from head to toe. Please!

  The woman named herself Aran’gar and called Moghedien by name, she gave summons to the Pit of Doom and—

  “Wake, woman,” said a voice like rotted bone crumbling, and Moghedien’s eyes popped open. She almost wished for the dream back.

  No door or window broke the featureless stone walls of her small prison, and there were no glowbulbs or even lamps, but light came from somewhere. She did not know how many days she had been there, only that tasteless food appeared at irregular intervals, that the single
bucket serving for sanitation was emptied at even more irregular times, and soap and a bucket of perfumed water were somehow left for her to clean herself. She was not sure whether that was a mercy or not; the glad thrill at seeing a bucket of water reminded her how far she had fallen. Shaidar Haran was in the cell with her now.

  Hurriedly rolling from her pallet, she knelt and put her face to the bare stone floor. She had always done whatever was necessary for survival, and the Myrddraal had been all too glad to teach her what was necessary. “I greet you eagerly, Mia’cova.” The lashed-together title burned on her tongue. “One Who Owns Me,” it meant, or simply, “My Owner.” The strange shield Shaidar Haran had used on her—Myrddraal could not, but it did—the shield was not in evidence, yet she did not consider channeling. The True Power was denied her, of course—that could be drawn only with the Great Lord’s blessing—but the Source tantalized, though the glow just beyond sight seemed somehow odd. She still did not consider it. Every time the Myrddraal visited, it displayed her mindtrap. Channeling too near your own cour’souvra was extremely painful, the nearer, the more the pain; this close, she did not think she would survive a simple touch on the Source. And that was the least of the mindtrap’s dangers.

  Shaidar Haran chuckled, a rasp of dried, cracked leather. That was another difference about this Myrddraal. Far more cruel than Trollocs, who were merely bloodthirsty, Myrddraal were cold and dispassionate in it. Shaidar Haran often showed amusement, though. So far she felt lucky to have only bruises. Most women would have been on the brink of madness by now, if not beyond.

  “And are you eager to obey?” that rustling, grating voice asked.

  “Yes, I am eager to obey, Mia’cova.” Whatever was necessary to survive. But she still gasped when cold fingers suddenly tangled in her hair. She scrambled to her feet on her own as much as possible, but still was hauled up. At least this time her feet remained on the floor. The Myrddraal studied her, expressionless. Remembering past visits, it required an effort not to flinch, or scream, or simply reach for saidar and make an end.

  “Close your eyes,” it told her, “and keep them closed until you are commanded to open them.”

  Moghedien’s eyes snapped shut. One of Shaidar Haran’s lessons had been instant obedience. Besides, with her eyes closed, she could try to pretend that she was somewhere else. Whatever was necessary.

  Abruptly the hand in her hair rushed her forward, and she screamed in spite of herself. The Myrddraal meant to run her into the wall. Her hands went up for protection, and Shaidar Haran released her. She staggered at least ten steps—but her cell was not ten paces corner to corner. Wood smoke; she smelled a faint touch of wood smoke. She kept her eyelids firmly closed, though. She meant to continue with no more than bruises, and as few bruises as possible, for as long as she could manage.

  “You can look now,” a deep voice said.

  She did, cautiously. The speaker was a tall, broad-shouldered young man in black boots and breeches and a flowing white shirt unlaced at the top, who watched her with startlingly blue eyes from a deep, cushioned armchair in front of a marble fireplace where flames danced along long logs. She stood in a wood-paneled room that might have belonged to a wealthy merchant or noble of moderate rank in this time, the furniture lightly carved and touched with gilt, the rugs woven in red-and-gold arabesques. She did not doubt it was somewhere close by Shayol Ghul, though; it did not have the feel of Tel’aran’rhiod, the only other possibility. Swiveling her head hastily, she drew a deep breath. The Myrddraal was nowhere to be seen. Tight bands of cuande seemed to vanish from around her chest.

  “Did you enjoy your time in the vacuole?”

  Moghedien felt icy fingers dig into her scalp. She was no researcher or maker, but she knew that word. She did not even think to ask how a young man of this time did, too. Sometimes there were bubbles in the Pattern, though someone like Mesaana would say that was too simple an explanation. Vacuoles could be entered, if you knew how, and manipulated much like the rest of the world—researchers had often done great experiments in vacuoles, so she vaguely remembered hearing—but they were outside the Pattern really, and sometimes they closed up, or perhaps broke off and drifted away. Even Mesaana could not say what happened—except that anything in them at the time was gone forever.

  “How long?” She was surprised her voice was so steady. She rounded on the young man, who sat there showing her white teeth. “I said, how long? Or don’t you know?”

  “I saw you arrive. . . .” He paused, lifting a silver goblet from the table beside his chair, eyes smiling at her over the rim as he drank. “. . . the night before last.”

  She could not hide a relieved gasp. The only reason anyone would want to enter a vacuole was that time flowed differently there, sometimes slower, sometimes faster. Sometimes much faster. She would not have been entirely surprised to learn that the Great Lord had really imprisoned her for a hundred years, or a thousand, to emerge into a world already his, to make her way feeding among carrion while the other Chosen stood at the pinnacle. She was still one of the Chosen, in her own mind, at least. Until the Great Lord himself said she was not. She had never heard of anyone being released once a mindtrap was set, but she would find a way. There was always a way for those who were cautious, while those fell who called caution cowardice. She herself had carried a few of that so-called brave sort to Shayol Ghul to be fitted with cour’souvra.

  Suddenly, it occurred to her that this fellow knew a great deal for a Friend of the Dark, especially one not many years past twenty. He swung one leg over an arm of the chair, lounging insolently under her scrutiny. Graendal might have snatched him, if he had any position or power; only too strong a chin kept him from being pretty enough. She did not think she had ever seen eyes so blue. With his insolence in her very face and what she had had to endure at Shaidar Haran’s hands so fresh, with the Source calling her and the Myrddraal gone, she considered teaching this young Friend of the Dark a sharp lesson. The fact that her clothes were grimy added their part; she herself smelled faintly of the perfume in the wash water, but she had had no way to clean the rough woolen dress in which she fled Egwene al’Vere, with its rips from her journey down to the Pit. Prudence prevailed—this room must be close to Shayol Ghul—but barely.

  “What is your name?” she demanded. “Do you have any idea who you are speaking to?”

  “Yes, I do, Moghedien. You may call me Moridin.”

  Moghedien gasped. Not for the name; any fool could call himself Death. But a tiny black fleck, just large enough to see, floated straight across one of those blue eyes and then across the other in the same line. This Moridin had tapped into the True Power, and more than once. Much more. She knew that some men who could channel survived in this time aside from al’Thor—this fellow was much of a size with al’Thor—but she had not expected the Great Lord to allow one that particular honor. An honor with a bite, as any of the Chosen knew. In the long run, the True Power was far more addictive than the One Power; a strong will could hold down the desire to draw more saidar or saidin, but she herself did not believe the will existed strong enough to resist the True Power, not once the saa appeared in your eyes. The final price was different, but no less terrible.

  “You have been given distinction greater than you know,” she told him. As though her filthy dress was the finest streith, she took the armchair opposite him. “Bring me some of that wine, and I will tell you. Only twenty-nine others have ever been granted—”

  To her shock, he laughed. “You misapprehend, Moghedien. You still serve the Great Lord, but not quite as you once did. The time for playing your own games has passed. If you had not managed to do some good by accident, you would be dead now.”

  “I am one of the Chosen, boy,” she said, fury burning through caution. She sat up straight, facing him with all the knowledge of an Age that made his little different from times of mud huts. As much of that knowledge as she had, anyway, and in some areas, concerning the One Power, no one outstri
pped her. She almost embraced the Source no matter how close Shayol Ghul lay. “Your mother probably used my name to frighten you not so many years gone, but know that grown men who could crumple you like a rag sweated when they heard it. You will watch your tongue with me!”

  He reached into the open neck of his shirt, and her own tongue clove to the roof of her mouth. Her eyes fixed on the small cage of gold wire and blood-red crystal that he drew out dangling on a cord. She thought vaguely that he tucked another just like it back in, but she had eyes only for her own. It definitely was hers. His thumb stroked, and she felt that caress across her mind, her soul. Breaking a mindtrap did not require much more pressure than he was using. She could be on the other side of the world or farther, and it would not matter a hair. The part of her that was her would be separated; she would still see with her eyes and hear with her ears, taste what crossed her tongue and feel what touched her, but helpless within an automaton that was utterly obedient to whoever held the cour’souvra. Whether or not there was any way to get free of it, a mindtrap was just what its name implied. She could feel the blood draining from her face.