The Fires of Heaven

by Jordan, Robert

  Moghedien sank to her knees, panting, clutching the protruding arrow shaft with both hands as the glow around her faded and died. Then she vanished, and the silver arrow fell where she had been, stained dark with blood.

  After what seemed an eternity, Nynaeve managed to push up to hands and knees. Weeping, she crawled to Birgitte’s bow. This time it was not pain that made tears come. Kneeling, naked and not caring, she clutched the bow. “I’m sorry,” she sobbed. “Oh, Birgitte, forgive me. Birgitte!”

  There was no answer except the mournful cry of a night-bird.

  Liandrin leaped to her feet as the door to Moghedien’s bedchamber crashed open and the Chosen staggered into the sitting room, blood soaking her silk shift. Chesmal and Temaile rushed to her side, each taking an arm to keep the woman on her feet, but Liandrin remained by her chair. The others were out; perhaps out of Amador, for all Liandrin knew. Moghedien told only what she wanted the hearer to know, and punished questions she did not like.

  “What happened?” Temaile gasped.

  Moghedien’s brief look should have fried her where she stood. “You have some small ability with Healing,” the Chosen told Chesmal thickly. Blood stained her lips, trickled from the corner of her mouth in an increasing stream. “Do it. Now, fool!”

  The dark-haired Ghealdanin woman did not hesitate in laying hands to Moghedien’s head. Liandrin sneered to herself as the glow surrounded Chesmal; concern painted Chesmal’s handsome face, and Temaile’s delicate, foxlike features were contorted with pure fright and worry. So faithful, they were. Such obedient lapdogs. Moghedien lifted up onto her toes, head flung back; eyes wide, she shook, breath rushing from her gaping mouth as if she had been plunged into ice.

  In moments it was done. The glow around Chesmal disappeared, and Moghedien’s heels settled to the blue-and-green-patterned carpet. Without Temaile’s support, she might have fallen. Only a part of the strength for Healing came from the Power; the rest came from the person being Healed. Whatever wound had caused all that bleeding would be gone, but Moghedien was surely as weak as if she had lain in bed an invalid for weeks. She pulled the fine gold-and-ivory silk scarf from Temaile’s belt to wipe her mouth as the woman helped her turn toward the bedchamber door. Weak, and her back turned.

  Liandrin struck as hard as she ever had, with everything she had puzzled out of what the woman had done to her.

  Even as she did, saidar seemed to fill Moghedien like a flood. Liandrin’s probe died as the Source was shielded from her. Flows of Air picked her up and slammed her against the paneled wall hard enough to make her teeth rattle. Spread-eagled, helpless, she hung there.

  Chesmal and Temaile exchanged confused glances, as if they did not understand what had occurred. They continued to support Moghedien as she came to stand in front of Liandrin, still calmly wiping her mouth on Temaile’s scarf. Moghedien channeled, and the blood on her shift turned black and flaked away, falling to the carpet.

  “Y-you do not understand, Great M-mistress,” Liandrin said frantically. “I only wished to help you to have the good sleep.” For once in her life, slipping back into the accents of a commoner did not concern her in the least. “I only—” She cut off with a strangled gagging as a flow of Air seized her tongue, stretching it out between her teeth. Her brown eyes bulged. A hair more pressure, and . . .

  “Shall I pull it out?” Moghedien studied her face, but spoke as if to herself. “I think not. A pity for you that the al’Meara woman makes me think like Semirhage. Otherwise, I might only kill you.” Suddenly she was tying off the shield, the knot growing ever more intricate, until Liandrin lost the twists and turns completely. And still it went on. “There,” Moghedien said finally in tones of satisfaction. “You will search a very long time to find anyone who can unravel that. But you will have no opportunity to search.”

  Liandrin searched Chesmal’s face, and Temaile’s, for some sign of sympathy, pity, anything. Chesmal’s eyes were cold and stern; Temaile’s shone, and she touched her lips with the tip of her tongue and smiled. Not a friendly smile.

  “You thought you had learned something of compulsion,” Moghedien went on. “I will teach you a bit more.” For an instant Liandrin shivered, Moghedien’s eyes filling her vision as the woman’s voice filled her ears, her entire head. “Live.” The instant passed, and sweat beaded on Liandrin’s face as the Chosen smiled at her. “Compulsion has many limits, but a command to do what someone wants to do in their inmost depths will hold for a lifetime. You will live, however much you think you want to take your life. And you will think of it. You will lie weeping many nights, wishing for it.”

  The flow holding Liandrin’s tongue vanished, and she barely paused to swallow. “Please, Great Mistress, I swear I did not mean—” Her head rang and silvery black spots danced before her eyes from Moghedien’s slap.

  “There are . . . attractions . . . to doing a thing physically,” the woman breathed. “Do you wish to beg more?”

  “Please, Great Mistress—” The second slap sent her hair flying.

  “More?”

  “Please—” A third nearly unhinged her jaw. Her cheek burned.

  “If you cannot be more inventive than that, I will not listen. You will listen instead. I think what I have planned for you would delight Semirhage herself.” Moghedien’s smile was almost as dark as Temaile’s. “You will live, not stilled, but knowing that you could channel again, if only you found someone to untie your shield. Yet that is only the beginning. Evon will be glad of a new scullery girl, and I am sure the Arene woman will want to have long talks with you about her husband. Why, they will enjoy your company so much that I doubt you will see the outside of this house during the years to come. Long years in which to wish that you had served me faithfully.”

  Liandrin shook her head, mouthing “no” and “please”; she was crying too hard to force the words out.

  Turning her head to Temaile, Moghedien said, “Prepare her for them. And tell them they are not to kill or maim her. I want her always to believe she might escape. Even futile hope will keep her alive to suffer.” She turned away on Chesmal’s arm, and the flows holding Liandrin to the wall vanished.

  Her legs gave way like straw, crumpling her to the carpet. Only the shield remained; she hammered at it futilely as she crawled after Moghedien, trying to catch the hem of her shift, sobbing brokenly. “Please, Great Mistress.”

  “They are with a menagerie,” Moghedien told Chesmal. “All of your searching, and I had to find them myself. A menagerie should not be too difficult to locate.”

  “I will serve faithfully,” Liandrin wept. Fear turned her limbs to water; she could not crawl fast enough to catch up. They did not even look back at her, scrabbling across the carpet after them. “Bind me, Great Mistress. Anything. I will be the faithful dog!”

  “There are many menageries traveling north,” Chesmal said, eagerness to negate her failure filling her voice. “To Ghealdan, Great Mistress.”

  “Then I must to Ghealdan,” Moghedien said. “You will procure fast horses and follow—” The bedchamber door closed on her words.

  “I will be the faithful dog,” Liandrin sobbed in a heap on the carpet. Lifting her head, she blinked tears away to see Temaile watching her, rubbing her arms and smiling. “We could overwhelm her, Temaile. We three together could—”

  “We three?” Temaile laughed. “You could not overwhelm fat Evon.” Her eyes narrowed as she studied the shield fastened to Liandrin. “You might as well be stilled.”

  “Listen. Please.” Liandrin swallowed hard, trying to clear her voice, but it was still thick, if burning with urgency, when she went on at frantic speed. “We have spoken of the dissension that must rule among the Chosen. If Moghedien hides herself so, she must hide from the other Chosen. If we take her and give her to them, think of the places we could have. We could be exalted above kings and queens. We could be Chosen ourselves!”

  For a moment—one blessed, wonderful moment—the child-faced woman hesitate
d. Then she shook her head. “You have never known how high to lift your eyes. ‘Who reaches for the sun will be burned.’ No, I think that I will not be burned for reaching too high. I think that I will do as I am told, and soften you for Evon.” Suddenly she smiled, showing teeth that made her even more vulpine. “How surprised he will be when you crawl to kiss his feet.”

  Liandrin started screaming before Temaile even began.

  CHAPTER

  35

  Ripped Away

  Yawning, Elayne watched Nynaeve from her bed, her head propped up on one elbow and black hair spilling down her arm. It was really quite ridiculous, this insistence that whoever did not go to Tel’aran’rhiod remain awake. She did not know how long an interval Nynaeve had experienced in the World of Dreams, but Elayne had been lying here for a good two hours, with no book to read, no needlework to do, nothing at all to occupy her except staring at the other woman stretched out on her own narrow bed. Studying the a’dam was no good; she thought she had wrung everything out of it that she could. She had even tried a slight touch of Healing on the sleeping woman, perhaps all the Healing she knew. Nynaeve would never have consented to it awake—she did not think much of Elayne’s abilities in that direction—or maybe she would have, in this case—but her black eye was gone. In truth, that was the most complicated Healing Elayne had ever done, and it really had exhausted her skill. Nothing to do. If she had some silver, she might have tried making an a’dam; silver was not the only metal, but she would have to melt coins to get enough. The other woman would be less pleased at that than at finding a second a’dam. If Nynaeve had been willing to tell Thom and Juilin about this, at least she could have invited Thom in for conversation.

  They really did have the most delightful talks. Like a father passing on his knowledge to his daughter. She had never realized that the Game of Houses was so deeply embedded in Andor, if thankfully not so deeply as it was in some other lands. Only the Borderlands escaped it entirely, according to Thom. With the Blight right to the north, and Trolloc raids a daily fact, they had no time for maneuvering and scheming. She and Thom had wonderful talks, now that he was sure she was not going to try snuggling into his lap. Her face burned at the memory; she had actually thought of that once or twice, and mercifully had not quite brought herself to it.

  “ ‘Even a queen stubs her toe, but a wise woman watches the path,’ ” she quoted softly. Lini was a wise woman. Elayne did not think she would make that particular mistake again. She knew she made many, but seldom the same twice. One day, perhaps, she would make few enough to be worthy to follow her mother on the throne.

  Suddenly she sat up. Tears were leaking from Nynaeve’s closed eyes, trickling down the sides of her face; what Elayne had taken for a faint snore—Nynaeve did snore, whatever she said—was a tiny, whimpering sob deep in her throat. That should not be. If she had been injured, the hurt would have appeared, although she would not feel it here until she woke.

  Perhaps I should wake her. But she hesitated, even as her hand stretched toward the other woman. Waking someone out of Tel’aran’rhiod was far from easy—shaking, even icy water in the face would not always do—and Nynaeve would not appreciate being pummeled awake after the bruising Cerandin had given her. I wonder what really happened. I will have to ask Cerandin. Whatever was going on, Nynaeve should be able to step out of the dream whenever she wished. Unless . . . Egwene said that the Wise Ones could hold someone in Tel’aran’rhiod against their will, though if they had taught her the trick, she had not passed it on to Elayne or Nynaeve. If someone was holding Nynaeve now, hurting her, it could not be Birgitte, or the Wise Ones. Well, the Wise Ones might, if they caught her wandering where they thought she should not. But if not them, that left only . . .

  She took hold of Nynaeve’s shoulders to shake her—if that did not work, she would freeze the pitcher of water on the table, or slap her face silly—and Nynaeve’s eyes popped open.

  Immediately Nynaeve began to weep aloud, the most despairing sound Elayne had ever heard. “I killed her. Oh, Elayne, I killed her with my foolish pride, thinking I could . . .” The words trailed off in openmouthed sobs.

  “You killed who?” It could not be Moghedien; that woman’s death would surely not bring this grief. She was about to take Nynaeve in her arms to comfort her, when a pounding came at the door.

  “Send them away,” Nynaeve mumbled, curling herself into a trembling ball in the middle of the bed.

  Sighing, Elayne made her way to the door and pulled it open, but before she could say a word, Thom pushed past her out of the night, rumpled shirt bagging out of his breeches, carrying someone shrouded in his cloak in his arms. Only a woman’s bare feet showed.

  “She was just there,” Juilin said behind him, as if he did not believe the words coming out of his own mouth. Both men were barefoot, and Juilin was stripped to the waist, lean and hairless-chested. “I woke for a moment, and suddenly she was standing there, naked as the day she was born, collapsing like a cut net.”

  “She’s alive,” Thom said, laying the cloak-wrapped figure on Elayne’s bed, “but only barely. I could hardly hear her heart.”

  Frowning, Elayne pulled aside the cloak’s hood—and found herself staring at Birgitte’s face, pale and wan.

  Nynaeve scrambled stiffly from the other bed to kneel beside the unconscious woman. Her face glistened with tears, but her weeping had stopped. “She is alive,” she breathed. “She is alive.” Abruptly she seemed to realize that she was in her shift in front of the men, but she barely spared them a glance, and all she said was “Get them out of here, Elayne. I can do nothing with them gawking like sheep.”

  Thom and Juilin rolled their eyes toward each other when Elayne made a herding motion at them, and shook their heads slightly, but they backed toward the door without complaint. “She is . . . a friend,” Elayne told them. She felt as if she were moving in a dream, floating, without feeling. How could this be? “We will take care of her.” How could it possibly have happened? “Now, don’t say a word to anyone.” The looks they gave her as she closed the door nearly made her blush. Of course they knew better than to talk. But men did have to be reminded of the simplest things sometimes, even Thom. “Nynaeve, how under the Light,” she began, turning, and cut off as the glow of saidar surrounded the kneeling woman.

  “Burn her!” Nynaeve growled, channeling fiercely. “Burn her forever for doing this!” Elayne recognized the flows being woven for Healing, but recognition was as far as she could go. “I will find her, Birgitte,” Nynaeve muttered. Strands of Spirit predominated, but Water and Air were in there, and even Earth and Fire. It looked as complicated as embroidering one dress with either hand, and two more with your feet. Blindfolded. “I will make her pay.” The glow shining about Nynaeve grew and grew, until it overwhelmed the lamps, until it hurt to look at her except through slitted eyes. “I swear it! By the Light and my hope of salvation and rebirth, I will!” The anger in her voice changed, becoming deeper if anything. “It isn’t working. There is nothing wrong with her to Heal. She is as perfect as anyone can be. But she is dying. Oh, Light, I can feel her slipping away. Burn Moghedien! Burn her! And burn me along with her!” She was not giving up, though. The weaving continued, complex flows weaving into Birgitte. And the woman lay there, golden braid flung over the side of the bed, the rise and fall of her chest slowing.

  “I can do something that might help,” Elayne said slowly. You were supposed to have permission, but it had not always been so. Once it had been done almost as often without as with. There was no reason it should not work on a woman. Except that she had never heard of it being done to any but men.

  “Linking?” Nynaeve did not look away from the woman on the bed, or stop her efforts with the Power. “Yes. You will have to do it—I don’t know how—but let me guide. I do not know half what I am doing right this minute, but I know that I can do it. You could not Heal a bruise.”

  Elayne’s mouth tightened, but she let the remark lie. “Not l
inking.” The amount of saidar that Nynaeve had drawn into herself was amazing. If she could not Heal Birgitte with that, what Elayne could add would not make a difference. Together, they would be stronger than either apart, but not as strong as if their two strengths were simply added. Besides, she was not certain that she could link. She had only been linked once, and an Aes Sedai had done it, to show her what it was like more than how. “Stop, Nynaeve. You said yourself it is not working. Stop and let me try. If it doesn’t work, you can . . .” She could what? If Healing worked, it worked; if it did not . . . There was no point in trying again if it failed.

  “Try what?” Nynaeve snapped, yet she moved away awkwardly, letting Elayne come close. The weave of Healing faded, but not the shining nimbus.

  Instead of answering, Elayne put one hand on Birgitte’s forehead. Physical contact was as necessary for this as for Healing, and the two times she had watched it done in the Tower, the Aes Sedai had touched the man’s forehead. The flows of Spirit she wove were complex, if not so intricate as Nynaeve’s of a moment before. She barely understood some of what she was doing, and none at all of other parts, yet she had paid close attention, from her hiding place, to how the weave was shaped. Watched closely because she had built up a stock of stories in her head, made silly romances where there so seldom were any. After a moment, she sat down on the other bed and let saidar go.

  Nynaeve frowned at her, then bent to examine Birgitte. The unconscious woman’s color was perhaps a little better, her breathing a little stronger. “What did you do, Elayne?” Nynaeve did not take her eyes from Birgitte, but the glow around her faded away slowly. “It wasn’t Healing. I think I could do it myself, now, but it was not Healing.”