The Fires of Heaven

by Jordan, Robert

  Her face flamed. They probably thought her a complete fool. And in front of Melaine, at that. The Wise One was beautiful, with her long red-gold hair and clear green eyes. Not that she cared a whit how the woman looked. But Melaine had been at her last meeting here with Egwene, too, and taunted her about Lan. Nynaeve had lost her temper over it. Egwene claimed they were not taunts, not among Aielwomen, but Melaine had complimented Lan’s shoulders, and his hands, and his eyes. What right did that green-eyed cat have to look at Lan’s shoulders? Not that she had any doubts of his faithfulness. But he was a man, and far away from her, and Melaine was right there, and . . . Firmly, she put a stop to that line of reasoning.

  “Is Lan—?” She thought her face was going to burn off. Can’t you control your own tongue, woman? But she would not—could not—back away, not with Melaine there. Egwene’s bemused smile was bad enough, but Melaine dared to put on a look of understanding. “Is he well?” She tried for cool composure, but it came out strained.

  “He is well,” Egwene said. “He worries about whether you are safe.”

  Nynaeve let out a breath she had not realized she was holding. The Waste was a dangerous place even without the likes of Couladin and the Shaido, and the man did not know the meaning of caution. He was worried about her safety? Did the fool man think she could not take care of herself?

  “We’ve finally reached Amadica,” she said quickly, hoping to cover herself. A flapping tongue, and then sighs! The man has stolen my wits! There was no telling from the others’ faces whether she was succeeding. “A village called Sienda, east of Amador. Whitecloaks everywhere, but they don’t look at us twice. It is others we have to worry about.” In front of Melaine, she had to be careful—to bend the truth a little, in fact, here and there—but she told them of Ronde Macura and her odd message, and her trying to drug them. Trying, because she could not make herself admit in front of Melaine that the woman had succeeded. Light, what am I doing? I’ve never lied to Egwene before in my life!

  The supposed reason—the return of a runaway Accepted—certainly could not be mentioned, not in front of one of the Wise Ones. They thought that she and Elayne were full Aes Sedai. But she had to let Egwene know the truth of that somehow. “It might have to do with some plot concerning Andor, but Elayne and you and I have things in common, Egwene, and I think we should be just as careful as Elayne.” The girl nodded slowly; she looked stunned, as well she might, but she seemed to understand. “A good thing the taste of that tea made me suspicious. Imagine trying to feed forkroot to someone who knows herbs as well as I do.”

  “Schemes within schemes,” Melaine murmured. “The Great Serpent is a good sign for you Aes Sedai, I think. Someday you may swallow yourselves by accident.”

  “We have news ourselves,” Egwene said.

  Nynaeve could see no reason for the girl’s haste. I am certainly not going to let the woman bait me into losing my temper. And I certainly wouldn’t get angry over her insulting the Tower. She took her hand away from her braid. What Egwene had to say put temper right out of her head.

  Couladin crossing the Spine of the World was surely grave, and Rand following scarcely less so; he was pushing hard for the Jangai Pass, marching from first light until after dusk, and Melaine said they would soon reach it. Conditions in Cairhien were harsh enough without a war between Aiel on its territory. And a new Aiel War to come, surely, if he tried to carry out his mad plan. Mad. Not yet, surely. He had to hang on to sanity, somehow.

  How long since I was worrying how to protect him? she thought bitterly. And now I just want him to stay sane to fight the Last Battle. Not only for that reason, but for that one, too. He was what he was. The Light burn me, I’m as bad as Siuan Sanche or any of them!

  It was what Egwene had to say about Moiraine that shocked her. “She obeys him?” she said incredulously.

  Egwene gave a vigorous nod, in that ridiculous Aiel scarf. “Last night they had an argument—she’s still trying to convince him not to cross the Dragonwall—and finally he told her to stand outside until she cooled down; she looked about to swallow her tongue, but she did it. She stayed out in the night for an hour, anyway.”

  “It is not proper,” Melaine said, resettling her shawl firmly. “Men have no more business ordering Aes Sedai about than they do Wise Ones. Even the Car’a’carn.”

  “They certainly do not,” Nynaeve agreed, then had to clamp her mouth shut to keep from gaping at herself. What do I care if he makes her dance to his tune? She has made all of us dance to hers often enough. But it was not proper. I do not want to be Aes Sedai, just to learn more about Healing. I want to stay who I am. Let him order her about! Still, it was not proper.

  “At least he talks with her, now,” Egwene said. “Before, he turned to acid if she came within ten feet of him. Nynaeve, his head swells bigger every day.”

  “Back when I thought you’d follow me as Wisdom,” Nynaeve told her wryly, “I taught you how to take swelling down. Best for him if you do it, even if he has turned into the king bull in the pasture. Maybe most because he is. It seems to me that kings—and queens—can be fools when they forget what they are and act like who they are, but they’re worse when they only remember what they are and forget who. Most could do with someone whose only job is to remind them that they eat and sweat and cry the same as any farmer.”

  Melaine folded her shawl around her, seeming unsure whether to agree or not, but Egwene said, “I try, but sometimes he doesn’t seem like himself at all, and even when he is, his arrogance is usually too thick a bubble to prick.”

  “Do the best you can. Helping him hold on to himself may be the best thing that anyone could do. For him, and the rest of the world.”

  That produced a silence. She and Egwene certainly did not like to talk about the eventuality of Rand going mad, and Melaine could not like it any better.

  “I have something else important to tell you,” she went on after a moment. “I think the Forsaken are planning something.” It was not the same as telling them about Birgitte. She made it seem that she herself had seen Lanfear and the others. In truth, Moghedien was the only one she could recognize at sight, and maybe Asmodean, though she had only seen him once, and at a distance. She hoped neither of them thought to ask how she knew who was who, or why she thought Moghedien might be skulking about. In actuality, the problem did not arise from that at all.

  “Have you been wandering the World of Dreams?” Melaine’s eyes were green ice.

  Nynaeve met her level stare for level stare, despite Egwene’s rueful head-shaking. “I could hardly see Rahvin and the rest without it, now could I?”

  “Aes Sedai, you know little, and you try too much. You should not have been taught the few pieces that you have. For myself, I sometimes regret that we agreed even to these meetings. Unschooled women should not be allowed in Tel’aran’rhiod.”

  “I have schooled myself in more than you ever taught me.” Nynaeve kept her voice cool with an effort. “I learned to channel on my own, and I do not see why Tel’aran’rhiod should be any different.” It was only stubborn anger that made her say that. She had taught herself to channel, true, but without knowing what it was that she was doing and only after a fashion. Before the White Tower, she had Healed sometimes, but unaware, until Moiraine proved it to her. Her teachers in the Tower had said that was why she needed to be angry in order to channel; she had hidden her ability from herself, afraid of it, and only fury could break through that long-buried fear.

  “So you are one of those the Aes Sedai call wilders.” There was a hint of something in the last word, but whether scorn or pity, Nynaeve did not like it. The term was seldom complimentary, in the Tower. Of course, there were no wilders among the Aiel. The Wise Ones who could channel found every last girl with the spark born in her, those who would develop the ability to channel sooner or later even if they did not try to learn. They claimed also to find every girl without the spark who could learn if instructed. No Aiel girl died trying to learn
by herself. “You know the dangers of learning the Power without guidance, Aes Sedai. Do not think the dangers of the dream are less. They are just as great, perhaps more for those who venture without knowledge.”

  “I am careful,” Nynaeve said in a tight voice. She had not come to be lectured by this sun-haired vixen of an Aiel. “I know what I am doing, Melaine.”

  “You know nothing. You are as headstrong as this one was when she came to us.” The Wise One gave Egwene a smile that actually seemed affectionate. “We tamed her excessive exuberance, and now she learns swiftly. Though she does have many faults, still.” Egwene’s pleased grin faded; Nynaeve suspected that grin was why Melaine had added the last. “If you wish to wander the dream,” the Aiel woman went on, “come to us. We will tame your zeal, as well, and teach you.”

  “I do not need taming, thank you very much,” Nynaeve said with a polite smile.

  “Aan’allein will die on the day he learns that you are dead.”

  Ice stabbed into Nynaeve’s heart. Aan’allein was what the Aiel called Lan. One Man, it meant in the Old Tongue, or Man Alone, or the Man Who Is an Entire People; exact translations from the Old Tongue were often difficult. The Aiel had a great deal of respect for Lan, the man who would not give up his war with the Shadow, the enemy that had destroyed his nation. “You are a dirty fighter,” she muttered.

  Melaine quirked an eyebrow. “Do we fight? If we do, then know that in battle there is only winning and losing. Rules against hurting are for games. I want your promise that you will do nothing in the dream without first asking one of us. I know Aes Sedai cannot lie, so I would hear you say it.”

  Nynaeve gritted her teeth. The words would be easy to say. She did not have to hold to them; she was not bound by the Three Oaths. But it would be admitting that Melaine was right. She did not believe it, and she would not say it.

  “She’ll not promise, Melaine,” Egwene said finally. “When she gets that muley look, she wouldn’t come out of the house if you showed her the roof on fire.”

  Nynaeve spared a piece of glare for her. Muley, indeed! When all she did was refuse to be pushed about like a rag doll.

  After a long moment, Melaine sighed. “Very well. But it would be well to remember, Aes Sedai, that you are but a child in Tel’aran’rhiod. Come, Egwene. We must go.” An amused wince crossed Egwene’s face as the two faded away.

  Abruptly Nynaeve realized that her clothes had changed. Had been changed; the Wise Ones knew enough of Tel’aran’rhiod to alter things about others as well as themselves. She wore a white blouse and a dark skirt, but unlike those of the women who had just gone, this stopped well short of her knees. Her shoes and stockings were gone, and her hair was divided into two braids, one over each ear, woven with yellow ribbons. A rag doll with a carved and painted face sat beside her bare feet. She could hear her teeth grinding. This had happened once before, and she had pried out of Egwene that this was how the Aiel dressed little girls.

  In a fury she switched back to the yellow Taraboner silk—this time it adhered even more closely—and kicked the doll. It sailed away, vanishing in midair. That Melaine probably had her eye on Lan; the Aiel all seemed to think he was some sort of hero. The high neck became a tall lace collar, and the deep narrow neckline showed her cleavage. If that woman so much as smiled at him . . . ! If he . . . ! Suddenly she became aware of her fast-sinking, rapidly widening neckline and hastily brought it back up; not all the way, but enough that she did not have to blush. The dress had grown so tight that she could not move; she took care of that, too.

  So she was supposed to ask permission, was she? Go begging the Wise Ones before doing anything? Had she not defeated Moghedien? They had been properly impressed at the time, but they seemed to have forgotten.

  If she could not use Birgitte to find out what was going on in the Tower, perhaps there was a way she could do it herself.

  CHAPTER

  15

  What Can Be Learned in Dreams

  Carefully Nynaeve formed an image in her mind of the Amyrlin’s study, just as she had envisioned the Heart of the Stone on going to sleep. Nothing happened, and she frowned. She should have been taken to the White Tower, to the room she had visualized. Trying again, she imagined a room there that she had visited much more often, if more unhappily.

  The Heart of the Stone became the study of the Mistress of Novices, a compact, dark-paneled room full of plain, sturdy furnishings that had been used by generations of women who had held that office. When a novice’s transgressions were such that extra hours of scrubbing floors or raking paths would not atone, it was here that she was sent. For an Accepted to receive that summons took a greater transgression, but still she went, on leaden feet, knowing the outcome would be just as painful, perhaps more so.

  Nynaeve did not want to look at the room—Sheriam had called her willfully stubborn on her numerous visits—but found herself staring into the mirror on the wall, where novices and Accepted had to look at their own weeping faces while listening to Sheriam lecture about obeying the rules or showing proper respect or whatever. Obeying others’ rules and showing required respect had always tripped up Nynaeve. The faint remnants of gilt on the carved frame said it had been there since the War of the Hundred Years, if not the Breaking.

  The Taraboner dress was beautiful, but anyone who saw her in it would be suspicious. Even Domani women usually dressed circumspectly when they visited the Tower, and she could not imagine anybody dreaming of herself in the Tower except on her best behavior. Not that she was likely to meet anyone, except perhaps someone who had dreamed herself into Tel’aran’rhiod for a few moments; before Egwene, there had not been a woman in the Tower who could enter the World of Dreams unaided since Corianin Nedeal, over four hundred years ago. On the other hand, among the ter’angreal stolen from the Tower that were still in the hands of Liandrin and her confederates, eleven had last been studied by Corianin. The two others of Corianin’s study, the two that she and Elayne had in hand, both gave access to Tel’aran’rhiod; it was best to assume that the rest did, too. There was small chance that Liandrin or any of the others would dream themselves back to the Tower they had fled, but even that chance was too big to risk when it might mean being waylaid. For that matter, she could not really be sure that the stolen ter’angreal were all that Corianin had investigated. The records were often murky about ter’angreal no one understood, and others could very well be in the hands of Black sisters still in the Tower.

  The dress changed completely, became white wool, soft but not of a particularly fine quality, and banded at the hem with seven colored stripes, one for each Ajah. If she saw anyone who did not vanish after a few moments, she would take herself back to Sienda, and they would think she was only one of the Accepted, touching Tel’aran’rhiod in her dreams. No. Not the inn, but Sheriam’s study. Anyone like that would have to be Black Ajah, and after all, she was supposed to be hunting them.

  Completing her disguise, she gripped her suddenly red-gold braid and grimaced at Melaine’s face in the mirror. Now, there was a woman she would like to hand over to Sheriam.

  The study of the Mistress of Novices was near the novices’ quarters, and the wide, tiled hallways flickered with occasional motion past elaborate wall hangings and unlit stand-lamps; flashes of frightened girls all in novice white. A good many novice nightmares would contain Sheriam. She ignored them as she hurried by; they were not in the World of Dreams long enough to see her, or if they did they would simply think her part of their own dream.

  It was only a short climb up broad stairs to the Amyrlin’s study. As she approached, suddenly Elaida was in front of her, sweaty-faced in a blood-red gown, the stole of the Amyrlin Seat around her shoulders. Or almost the Amyrlin’s stole; it had no blue stripe.

  Those stern dark eyes focused on Nynaeve. “I am the Amyrlin Seat, girl! Do you not know how to show respect? I will have yo—” In midword, she was gone.

  Nynaeve exhaled raggedly. Elaida as Amyrlin; that was a ni
ghtmare for certain. Probably her fondest dream, she thought wryly. It will snow in Tear before she ever rises that high.

  The anteroom was much as she remembered it, with one wide table and a chair behind it for the Keeper of the Chronicles. A few chairs sat against the wall for Aes Sedai waiting to speak with the Amyrlin; novices and Accepted stood. The neat array of papers on the table, bound scrolls and large parchments with seals and letters, seemed unlike Leane, though. Not that she was untidy, quite the reverse, yet Nynaeve had always thought she would put everything away at night.

  She pushed open the door to the inner room, but her step slowed as she entered. No wonder she had not been able to dream herself here; the room was nothing like what she remembered. That heavily carved table and tall, thronelike chair. The vine-carved stools arranged in a perfect curve in front of the table, not one so much as an inch out of place. Siuan Sanche affected simple furnishings, as if pretending she was still only a fisherman’s daughter, and she kept only one extra chair, which she did not always let visitors use. And that white vase full of red roses, rigidly arranged on a pedestal like a monument. Siuan enjoyed flowers, but she preferred a bouquet of colors, like a field of wildflowers in miniature. Above the fireplace had hung a simple drawing of fishing boats in tall reeds. Now there were two paintings, one of which Nynaeve recognized. Rand, battling the Forsaken who had called himself Ba’alzamon, in the clouds above Falme. The other, on three wooden panels, portrayed scenes that linked to nothing she could pull out of her memory.

  The door opened, and Nynaeve’s heart leaped into her throat. A red-haired Accepted she had never seen before stepped into the room and stared at her. She did not wink out of existence. Just as Nynaeve was preparing to leap back to Sheriam’s study, the red-haired woman said, “Nynaeve, if Melaine knew you were using her face, she’d do more than put you in a child’s dress.” And just that suddenly she was Egwene, in her Aiel garb.