“All of this because of the beacon we felt,” she muttered, half to herself, when Egwene finished. “Because they think the Shadow-souled have a weapon.” An odd way to put it.
“What else can it be?” Egwene asked, curious. “Did one of the Wise Ones say something?” It had been a long time since she believed that Aes Sedai possessed all knowledge, and sometimes the Wise Ones revealed pockets of information that could startle the most stolid sister.
Aviendha frowned, and her clothing changed back to the skirt and blouse and shawl, then after a moment to the blue silk and lace, this time with both the Kandori necklace and the ivory bracelet. The dream ring remained on its cord, of course. A shawl appeared around her shoulders. The room was winter cold, yet it hardly seemed that gauzy layer of pale blue lace could provide any warmth. “The Wise Ones are as uncertain as your Aes Sedai. Not as frightened, though, I think. Life is a dream, and everyone wakes eventually. We dance the spears with Leafblighter,” that name for the Dark One had always seemed strange to Egwene, coming as it did from the treeless Waste, “but no one enters the dance certain they will live, or win. I do not think the Wise Ones would consider any alliance with the Asha’man. Is this wise?” she added cautiously. “From what you said, I cannot be certain whether you wish it.”
“I don’t see any other choice,” Egwene said reluctantly. “That hole is three miles across. This is the only hope we have that I can see.”
Aviendha peered into her tea. “And if the Shadowsouled possessed no weapon?”
Suddenly, Egwene realized what the other woman was doing. Aviendha was in training to be a Wise One, and garments or no, she was being a Wise One. Likely that was the reason for the shawl. Part of Egwene wanted to smile. Her friend was changing from the often hotheaded Maiden of the Spear she had first come to know. Another part of her remembered that the Wise Ones did not always have the same goals as Aes Sedai. What sisters valued deeply sometimes meant nothing to the Wise Ones. It made her sad, that she must think of Aviendha as a Wise One instead of just a friend. A Wise One who would see what was good for the Aiel rather than what was good for the White Tower. Still, the question was a good one.
“We do have to deal with the Black Tower sooner or later, Aviendha, and Moria was right; there are already too many Asha’man for any thought of gentling them all. And that’s if we dared think of gentling them before the last Battle. Maybe a dream will show me another way, but none has so far.” None of her dreams had showed her anything useful, so far. Well, not really. “This does give us at least the beginning of a way to handle them. In any case, it’s going to happen. If the Sitters can agree on anything besides the fact they have to try for an agreement. So we must live with it. It might even be for the best, in the long run.”
Aviendha smiled into her teacup. Not an amused smile; she seemed relieved, for some reason. Her voice was serious, though. “You Aes Sedai always think men are fools. Quite often, they are not. More often than you think, at least. Take a care with these Asha’man. Mazrim Taim is far from a fool, and I think he is a very dangerous man.”
“The Hall is aware of that,” Egwene said dryly. That he was dangerous, certainly. The other might be worth pointing out. “I don’t know why we’re even discussing this. It’s out of my hands. The important thing is that eventually sisters will decide the Black Tower is no longer any reason to stay away from Caemlyn, if we’re going to talk with them anyway. Next week or tomorrow, you’ll find sisters popping in just to look in on Elayne and see how the siege is going. What we have to decide is how to keep what we want hidden, hidden. I have a few suggestions, and I hope you have more.”
The notion of strange Aes Sedai appearing in the Royal Palace agitated Aviendha to the point that she flashed from blue silk to cadin’sor to woolen skirt and algode blouse and back again as they talked, though she appeared not to notice. Her face remained smooth enough to suit any sister. She certainly had nothing to worry about if the visiting Aes Sedai uncovered the Kinswomen, or the captive sul’dam and damane, or the bargain with the Sea Folk, but likely she was concerned about the repercussions on Elayne.
The Sea Folk not only made the cadin’sor appear, but a round bull-hide buckler lying beside her chair with three short Aiel spears. Egwene considered asking whether there was any special problem with the Windfinders — any problem beyond the usual, that was — yet she held her tongue. If Aviendha did not mention it, then the matter was something she and Elayne wanted to handle themselves. Surely she would have said something if it was anything Egwene should know about. Or would she?
Sighing, Egwene set her cup on the table, where it promptly disappeared, and rubbed her eyes with her fingers. Suspicion truly was part of her bones, now. And she was unlikely to survive long without it. At least she did not always have to act on her suspicions, not with a friend.
“You are tired,” Aviendha said, once again in the white blouse and dark skirt and shawl, a concerned Wise One with sharp green eyes. “You do not sleep well?”
“I sleep well,” Egwene lied, managing a smile. Aviendha and Elayne had their own worries without letting them know about her headaches. “I can’t think of anything more,” she said, rising. “Can you? Then we’re done,” she went on when the other woman shook her head. “Tell Elayne to take care of herself. You take care of her. And her babes.”
“I will,” Aviendha said, now in the blue silk. “But you must take care of yourself. I think you use yourself too hard. Sleep well and wake,” she said gently, the Aiel way of saying good night, and she was gone.
Egwene frowned at the spot where her friend had vanished. She was not using herself too hard. Only as hard as she needed to. She slipped back to her body and discovered that it was sound asleep.
That did not mean that she was asleep, or not exactly. Her body slumbered, breathing slow and deep, but she let herself slip only far enough under for dreams to come. She could just have waited until she woke and recalled the dreams then as she wrote them into the little leather-bound book that she kept at the bottom of one her clothing chests, tucked under thin linen shifts that would not be taken out till well into spring. But observing the dreams as they came saved time. She thought it might help her decipher what they meant. At least, those that were more than ordinary night fancies.
There were plenty of those, often featuring Gawyn, a tall beautiful man who took her in his arms and danced with her and made love with her. Once, even in her dreams, she had shied away from thoughts of making love with him. She had blushed to think about it awake. That seemed so foolish, now, so childish. She would bond him as her Warder one day, somehow, and she would marry him, and make love to him until he cried for mercy. Even in her sleep, she giggled at that. Other dreams were not so pleasant. Wading through waist-deep snow with trees thick all around her, knowing she had to reach the edge of the forest. But even when she glimpsed the end of the trees ahead, one blink and it receded into the distance, leaving her to flounder on. Or she was pushing a great millstone up a steep hill, but every time she was almost to the top, she slipped and fell and watched the huge stone roll back to the bottom, so she had to trudge back down and begin again, only every time, the hill was higher than before. She knew enough of dreams to know where those came from even if they had no special meaning. None beyond the fact that she was tired and had a seemingly endless task in front of her, anyway. There was no help for it, though. She felt her body jerking at the laborious dreams, and tried to soothe her muscles, make them relax. This sort of half-sleep was little better than none, and less if she spent the whole night thrashing around on her cot. Her efforts worked, a little. At least she only twitched through a dream of being forced to pull a cart jammed full of Aes Sedai down a muddy road.
Other dreams came, betwixt and between.
Mat stood on a village green, playing at bowls. The thatch-roofed houses were vague, in the manner of dreams — sometimes the roofs were slate; sometimes the houses seemed of stone, sometimes wood — but he was sharp
and clear, dressed in a fine green coat and that wide-brimmed black hat, just as he had been the day he rode into Salidar. There was not another human being in sight. Rubbing the ball between his hands, he took a short run and casually rolled it across the smooth grass. All nine pins fell, scattered as if they had been kicked. Mat turned and picked up another ball, and the pins were back upright. No, there was a fresh set of pins. The old still lay where they had fallen. He hurled the ball again, a lazy underhanded bowl. And Egwene wanted to scream. The pins were not turned pieces of wood. They were men, standing there watching the ball roll toward them. None moved until the ball sent them flying. Mat turned to pick up another ball, and there were more new pins, new men, standing in orderly formation among the men lying sprawled on the ground as if dead. No, they were dead. Unconcerned, Mat bowled.
It was a true dream; she knew that long before it faded. A glimpse of a future that might come to pass, a warning of what should be watched for. True dreams were always possibilities, not certainties — she often had to remind herself of that; Dreaming was not Foretelling — but this was a dire possibility. Every one of those human pins had represented thousands of men. Of that, she was certain. And an Illuminator was part of it. Mat had met an Illuminator once, but that was long ago. This was something more recent. The Illuminators were scattered, their guildhouses gone. One was even working her craft with a traveling show that Elayne and Nynaeve had traveled with for a time. Mat might find an Illuminator anywhere. Still, it was only a possible future. Bleak and bloodstained, but only possible. Yet she had dreamed of it at least twice. Not the same dream, exactly, but always the same meaning. Did that make it more likely to come to pass? She would have to ask the Wise Ones to find out, and she was increasingly reluctant to do that. Every question she asked revealed something to them, and their goals were not hers. To save what they could of the Aiel, they would let the White Tower be ground to dust. She had more than any one people, any one nation, to think of.
More dreams.
She was struggling up a narrow, rocky path along the face of a towering cliff. Clouds surrounded her, hiding the ground below and the crest above, yet she knew that both were very far away. She had to place her feet very carefully. The path was a cracked ledge barely wide enough for her to stand on with one shoulder pressed against the cliff, a ledge littered with stones as large as her fist that could turn under a misplaced step and send her hurtling over the edge. It almost seemed this was like the dreams of pushing millstones and pulling carts, yet she knew it was a true dream.
Abruptly, the ledge dropped away from under her with the crack of crumbling stone, and she caught frantically at the cliff, fingers scrabbling to find a hold. Her fingertips slid into a tiny crevice, and her fall stopped with a jolt that wrenched her arms. Feet dangling into the clouds, she listened to the falling stone crash against the cliff until the sound faded to nothing without the stone ever hitting the ground. Dimly, she could see the broken ledge to her left. Ten feet away, it might as well have been a mile off for all the chance she had of reaching it. In the other direction, the mists hid whatever remained of the path, but she thought it had to be farther away still. There was no strength in her arms. She could not pull herself up, only hang there by her fingertips until she fell. The edge of the crevice seemed as sharp as a knife under her fingers.
Suddenly a woman appeared, clambering down the sheer side of the cliff out of the clouds, making her way as deftly as if she were walking down stairs. There was a sword strapped to her back. Her face wavered, never settling clearly, but the sword seemed as solid as the stone. The woman reached Egwene’s level and held out one hand. “We can reach the top together,” she said in a familiar drawling accent.
Egwene pushed the dream away as she would have a viper. She felt her body thrash, heard herself groan in her sleep, but for a moment she could do nothing. She had dreamed of the Seanchan before, of a Seanchan woman somehow tied to her, but this was a Seanchan who would save her. No! They had put a leash on her, made her damane. She would as soon die as be saved by a Seanchan! A very long time passed before she could address herself to calming her sleeping body. Or maybe it only seemed a long time. Not a Seanchan; never that!
Slowly, the dreams returned.
She was climbing another path along a cliff shrouded in clouds, but this was a broad ledge of smoothly paved white stone, and there were no rocks underfoot. The cliff itself was chalky white and as smooth as if polished. Despite the clouds, the pale stone almost gleamed. She climbed quickly and soon realized that the ledge was spiraling around. The cliff was actually a spire. No sooner did that thought occur than she was standing on the top of it, a flat polished disc walled by mist. Not quite flat, though. A small white plinth stood centered in that circle, supporting an oil-lamp made of clear glass. The flame on that lamp burned bright and steady, without flickering. It was white, too.
Suddenly a pair of birds flashed out of the mist, two ravens black as night. Streaking across the spire-top, they struck the lamp and flew on without so much as a pause. The lamp spun and wobbled, dancing around atop the plinth, flinging off droplets of oil. Some of those drops caught fire in midair and vanished. Others fell around the short column, each supporting a tiny, flickering white flame. And the lamp continued to wobble on the edge of falling.
Egwene woke in darkness with a jolt. She knew. For the first time, she knew exactly what a dream meant. But why would she dream of a Seanchan woman saving her, and then of the Seanchan attacking the White Tower? An attack that would shake the Aes Sedai to their core and threaten the Tower itself. Of course, it was only a possibility. But the events seen in true dreams were more likely than other possibilities.
She thought she was considering calmly, but at a rough rustle of canvas from the entry flaps, she very nearly embraced the True Source. Hastily she ran through novice exercises to compose herself, water flowing over smooth stones, wind blowing through high grass. Light, she had been frightened. It took two to achieve any sort of calm. She opened her mouth to ask who was there.
“Asleep?” Halima’s voice muttered softly. She sounded wound up tight, almost excited. “Well, I wouldn’t mind a good night’s sleep myself.”
Listening to the woman undress for bed in the dark, Egwene lay very still. If she let her know she was awake, she would have to talk with her, and at the moment, that would be embarrassing. She was fairly certain that Halima had found herself company, if not for the whole night. Halima could do as she wished, of course, but Egwene was still disappointed. Wishing that she had remained asleep, she found herself slipping under once more, and this time, she did not try to stop halfway. She would remember any dreams that came, and she did need some actual sleep.
Chesa came bright and early to bring her breakfast on a tray and help her dress. Actually, it was early and not bright at all. There was only the merest hint of sunlight, and the lamps’ light was necessary to see anything. The embers in the brazier had died down during the night, of course, and the cold that hung in the air felt gray. There might be a chance of more snow today. Halima wriggled into her silk shift and dress, making laughing jokes about how she would like to have a maid while Chesa was doing up the rows of buttons that ran down Egwene’s back. The plump woman wore a set face, ignoring Halima altogether. Egwene said nothing. She said nothing very determinedly. Halima was not her servant. She had no right to set standards for the woman.
Just as Chesa finished the last of the tiny buttons and gave Egwene’s arm a pat, Nisao ducked into the tent, letting in a fresh wave of cold air. The brief glimpse afforded before the flaps fell behind her showed that it was still gray outside. Definitely a chance of snow.
“I must speak to the Mother alone,” she said, holding her cloak around her as if she already felt the snow. Such a firm tone was unusual from the small woman.
Egwene nodded to Chesa, who curtsied, but still cautioned, “Now don’t let your breakfast get cold,” on her way out of the tent.
Halima paused,
eyeing Nisao and Egwene both, before scooping up her cloak from where it lay in an untidy heap at the foot of her cot. “I suppose Delana has work for me,” she said, sounding irritated.
Nisao frowned at the woman’s back as she left, but without saying anything she embraced saidar and wove a ward against eavesdropping around her and Egwene. Without asking permission. “Anaiya and her Warder are dead,” she said. “Some of the workmen bringing in sacks of coals last night heard a noise, like someone thrashing around, and for a wonder, they all went running to see what it was. They found Anaiya and Setagana lying in the snow, dead.”
Egwene sat down slowly on her chair, which did not feel particularly comfortable at the moment. Anaiya, dead. She had had no beauty except her smile, but when she smiled, it warmed everything around her. A plain-faced woman who loved lace on her robes. Egwene knew she should feel sadness for Setagana, too, but he had been a Warder. If he had survived Anaiya, it was unlikely he would have lived long. “How?” she said. Nisao would not have woven that ward just to tell her Anaiya was dead.
Nisao’s face tightened, and despite the ward, she looked over her shoulder as if she feared someone might be listening at the entry flaps. “The workmen thought they had eaten badly preserved mushrooms. Some farmers are careless in gathering what they intend to sell, and the wrong sort can paralyze your lungs or make your throat swell up, so you die struggling for air.” Egwene nodded impatiently. She had grown up in a country village, after all. “Everyone seemed willing to accept that,” Nisao went on, but she did not hurry. Hands twisting and flexing on the edges of her cloak, she appeared reluctant to reach her conclusion. “There were no wounds, no injuries of any sort. No reason to think it was anything but a greedy farmer selling bad mushrooms. But…” She sighed, glancing over her shoulder again, and lowered her voice. “I suppose it was all the talk of the Black Tower in the Hall today. I tested for resonance. They were killed with saidin.” A grimace of disgust crossed her face. “I think someone just wove solid flows of Air around their heads and let them smother.” Shuddering, she drew her cloak closer.
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