The Wheel of Time

by Robert Jordan

  She had covered perhaps four miles when the wind brought her a whiff of woodsmoke. It came from further downriver, and not too far, she thought. She hesitated only a moment before tying her horse to a fir tree, well back from the river in a small, thick stand of evergreens that should keep the animal hidden. The smoke could mean Trollocs, but the only way to find out was to look. She tried not to think about the use Trollocs might be making of a fire.

  Crouching, she slipped from tree to tree, mentally cursing the skirts she had to hold up out of the way. Dresses were not made for stalking. The sound of a horse slowed her, and when she finally peered cautiously around the trunk of an ash, the Warder was dismounting from his black warhorse in a small clearing on the bank. The Aes Sedai sat on a log beside a small fire where a kettle of water was just coming to a boil. Her white mare browsed behind her among sparse weeds. Nynaeve remained where she was.

  “They are all gone,” Lan announced grimly. “Four Halfmen started south about two hours before dawn, as near as I can tell—they don’t leave much trace behind—but the Trollocs have vanished. Even the corpses, and Trollocs are not known for carrying off their dead. Unless they’re hungry.”

  Moiraine tossed a handful of something into the boiling water and moved the kettle from the fire. “One could always hope they had gone back into Shadar Logoth and been consumed by it, but that would be too much to wish for.”

  The delicious odor of tea drifted to Nynaeve. Light, don’t let my stomach grumble.

  “There was no clear sign of the boys, or any of the others. The tracks are too muddled to tell anything.” In her concealment, Nynaeve smiled; the Warder’s failure was a slight vindication of her own. “But this other is important, Moiraine,” Lan went on, frowning. He waved away the Aes Sedai’s offer of tea and began marching up and down in front of the fire, one hand on his sword hilt and his cloak changing colors as he turned. “I could accept Trollocs in the Two Rivers, even a hundred Trollocs. But this? There must have been almost a thousand in the hunt for us yesterday.”

  “We were very lucky that not all stayed to search Shadar Logoth. The Myrddraal must have doubted we would hide there, but they also feared to return to Shayol Ghul leaving even the slightest chance uncovered. The Dark One was never a lenient master.”

  “Don’t try to evade it. You know what I am saying. If those thousand were here to be sent into the Two Rivers, why were they not? There is only one answer. They were sent only after we crossed the Taren, when it was known that one Myrddraal and a hundred Trollocs were no longer enough. How? How were they sent? If a thousand Trollocs can be brought so far south from the Blight, so quickly, unseen—not to mention being taken off the same way—can ten thousand be sent into the heart of Saldaea, or Arafel, or Shienar? The Borderlands could be overrun in a year.”

  “The whole world will be overrun in five if we do not find those boys,” Moiraine said simply. “The question worries me, also, but I have no answers. The Ways are closed, and there has not been an Aes Sedai powerful enough to Travel since the Time of Madness. Unless one of the Forsaken is loose—the Light send it is not so, yet or ever—there is still no one who can. In any case, I do not think all the Forsaken together could move a thousand Trollocs. Let us deal with the problems that face us here and now; everything else must wait.”

  “The boys.” It was not a question.

  “I have not been idle while you were away. One is across the river, and alive. As for the others, there was a faint trace downriver, but it faded away as I found it. The bond had been broken for hours before I began my search.”

  Crouched behind her tree, Nynaeve frowned in puzzlement.

  Lan stopped his pacing. “You think the Halfmen heading south have them?”

  “Perhaps.” Moiraine poured herself a cup of tea before going on. “But I will not admit the possibility of them being dead. I cannot. I dare not. You know how much is at stake. I must have those young men. That Shayol Ghul will hunt them, I expect. Opposition from within the White Tower, even from the Amyrlin Seat, I accept. There are always Aes Sedai who will accept only one solution. But. . . .” Suddenly she put her cup down and sat up straight, grimacing. “If you watch the wolf too hard,” she muttered, “a mouse will bite you on the ankle.” And she looked right at the tree behind which Nynaeve was hiding. “Mistress al’Meara, you may come out now, if you wish.”

  Nynaeve scrambled to her feet, hastily dusting dead leaves from her dress. Lan had spun to face the tree as soon as Moiraine’s eyes moved; his sword was in his hand before she finished speaking Nynaeve’s name. Now he sheathed it again with more force than was strictly necessary. His face was almost as expressionless as ever, but Nynaeve thought there was a touch of chagrin about the set of his mouth. She felt a stab of satisfaction; the Warder had not known she was there, at least.

  Satisfaction lasted only a moment, though. She fastened her eyes on Moiraine and walked toward her purposefully. She wanted to remain cold and calm, but her voice quivered with anger. “What have you meshed Egwene and the boys in? What filthy Aes Sedai plots are you planning to use them in?”

  The Aes Sedai picked up her cup and calmly sipped her tea. When Nynaeve was close, though, Lan put out an arm to bar her way. She tried to brush the obstruction aside, and was surprised when the Warder’s arm moved no more than an oak branch would have. She was not frail, but his muscles were like iron.

  “Tea?” Moiraine offered.

  “No, I don’t want any tea. I would not drink your tea if I was dying of thirst. You won’t use any Emond’s Field folk in your dirty Aes Sedai schemes.”

  “You have very little room to talk, Wisdom.” Moiraine showed more interest in her hot tea than in anything she was saying. “You can wield the One Power yourself, after a fashion.”

  Nynaeve pushed at Lan’s arm again; it still did not move, and she decided to ignore it. “Why don’t you try claiming I am a Trolloc?”

  Moiraine’s smile was so knowing that Nynaeve wanted to hit her. “Do you think I can stand face-to-face with a woman who can touch the True Source and channel the One Power, even if only now and then, without knowing what she is? Just as you sensed the potential in Egwene. How do you think I knew you were behind that tree? If I had not been distracted, I would have known the moment you came close. You certainly are not a Trolloc, for me to feel the evil of the Dark One. So what did I sense, Nynaeve al’Meara, Wisdom of Emond’s Field and unknowing wielder of the One Power?”

  Lan was looking down at Nynaeve in a way she did not like; surprised and speculative, it seemed to her, though nothing had changed about his face but his eyes. Egwene was special; she had always known that. Egwene would make a fine Wisdom. They’re working together, she thought, trying to put me off balance. “I won’t listen to any more of this. You—”

  “You must listen,” Moiraine said firmly. “I had my suspicions in Emond’s Field even before I met you. People told me how upset the Wisdom was that she had not predicted the hard winter and the lateness of spring. They told me how good she was at foretelling weather, at telling the crops. They told me how wonderful her cures were, how she sometimes healed injuries, that should have been crippling, so well there was barely a scar, and not a limp or a twinge. The only ill word I heard about you was from a few who thought you too young for the responsibility, and that only strengthened my suspicions. So much skill so young.”

  “Mistress Barran taught me well.” She tried looking at Lan, but his eyes still made her uncomfortable, so she settled for staring over the Aes Sedai’s head at the river. How dare the village gossip in front of an outlander! “Who said I was too young?” she demanded.

  Moiraine smiled, refusing to be diverted. “Unlike most women who claim to listen to the wind, you actually can, sometimes. Oh, it has nothing to do with the wind, of course. It is of Air and Water. It is not something you needed to be taught; it was born into you, just as it was born into Egwene. But you have learned to handle it, which she still has to learn. Two minute
s after I came face-to-face with you, I knew. Do you remember how I suddenly asked you if you were the Wisdom? Why, do you think? There was nothing to distinguish you from any other pretty young woman getting ready for Festival. Even looking for a young Wisdom I expected someone half again your age.”

  Nynaeve remembered that meeting all too well; this woman, more self-possessed than anyone in the Women’s Circle, in a dress more beautiful than any she had ever seen, addressing her as a child. Then Moiraine had suddenly blinked as if surprised and out of a clear sky asked. . . .

  She licked lips gone abruptly dry. They were both looking at her, the Warder’s face as unreadable as a stone, the Aes Sedai’s sympathetic yet intent. Nynaeve shook her head. “No! No, it’s impossible. I would know. You are just trying to trick me, and it will not work.”

  “Of course you do not know,” Moiraine said soothingly. “Why should you even suspect? All of your life you have heard about listening to the wind. In any case, you would as soon announce to all of Emond’s Field that you were a Darkfriend as admit to yourself, even in the deepest recesses of your mind, that you have anything to do with the One Power, or the dreaded Aes Sedai.” Amusement flitted across Moiraine’s face. “But I can tell you how it began.”

  “I don’t want to hear any more of your lies,” she said, but the Aes Sedai went right on.

  “Perhaps as much as eight or ten years ago—the age varies, but always comes young—there was something you wanted more than anything else in the world, something you needed. And you got it. A branch suddenly falling where you could pull yourself out of a pond instead of drowning. A friend, or a pet, getting well when everyone thought they would die.

  “You felt nothing special at the time, but a week or ten days later you had your first reaction to touching the True Source. Perhaps fever and chills that came on suddenly and put you to bed, then disappeared after only a few hours. None of the reactions, and they vary, lasts more than a few hours. Headaches and numbness and exhilaration all mixed together, and you taking foolish chances or acting giddy. A spell of dizziness, when you tripped and stumbled whenever you tried to move, when you could not say a sentence without your tongue mangling half the words. There are others. Do you remember?”

  Nynaeve sat down hard on the ground; her legs would not hold her up. She remembered, but she shook her head anyway. It had to be coincidence. Or else Moiraine had asked more questions in Emond’s Field than she had thought. The Aes Sedai had asked a great many questions. It had to be that. Lan offered a hand, but she did not even see it.

  “I will go further,” Moiraine said when Nynaeve kept silent. “You used the Power to Heal either Perrin or Egwene at some time. An affinity develops. You can sense the presence of someone you have Healed. In Baerlon you came straight to the Stag and Lion, though it was not the nearest inn to any gate by which you could have entered. Of the people from Emond’s Field, only Perrin and Egwene were at the inn when you arrived. Was it Perrin, or Egwene? Or both?”

  “Egwene,” Nynaeve mumbled. She had always taken it for granted that she could sometimes tell who was approaching her even when she could not see them; not until now had she realized that it was always someone on whom her cures had worked almost miraculously well. And she had always known when the medicine would work beyond expectations, always felt the certainty when she said the crops would be especially good, or that the rains would come early or late. That was the way she thought it was supposed to be. Not all Wisdoms could listen to the wind, but the best could. That was what Mistress Barran always said, just as she said Nynaeve would be one of the best.

  “She had breakbone fever.” She kept her head down and spoke to the ground. “I was still apprentice to Mistress Barran, and she set me to watch Egwene. I was young, and I didn’t know the Wisdom had everything well in hand. It’s terrible to watch, breakbone fever. The child was soaked with sweat, groaning and twisting until I could not understand why I didn’t hear her bones snapping. Mistress Barran had told me the fever would break in another day, two at the most, but I thought she was doing me a kindness. I thought Egwene was dying. I used to look after her sometimes when she was a toddler—when her mother was busy—and I started crying because I was going to have to watch her die. When Mistress Barran came back an hour later, the fever had broken. She was surprised, but she made over me more than Egwene. I always thought she believed I had given the child something and was too frightened to admit it. I always thought she was trying to comfort me, to make sure I knew I hadn’t hurt Egwene. A week later I fell on the floor in her sitting room, shaking and burning up by turns. She bundled me into bed, but by suppertime it was gone.”

  She dropped her head in her hands as she finished speaking. The Aes Sedai chose a good example, she thought, Light burn her! Using the Power like an Aes Sedai. A filthy, Darkfriend Aes Sedai!

  “You were very lucky,” Moiraine said, and Nynaeve sat erect. Lan stepped back as if what they talked about was none of his business, and busied himself with Mandarb’s saddle, not even glancing at them.

  “Lucky!”

  “You have managed a crude control over the Power, even if touching the True Source still comes at random. If you had not, it would have killed you eventually. As it will, in all probability, kill Egwene if you manage to stop her from going to Tar Valon.”

  “If I learned to control it. . . .” Nynaeve swallowed hard. It was like admitting all over again that she could do what the Aes Sedai said. “If I learned to control it, so can she. There is no need for her to go to Tar Valon, and get mixed up in your intrigues.”

  Moiraine shook her head slowly. “Aes Sedai search for girls who can touch the True Source unguided just as assiduously as we search for men who can do so. It is not a desire to increase our numbers—or at least, not only that—nor is it a fear that those women will misuse the Power. The rough control of the Power they may gain, if the Light shines on them, is rarely enough to do any great damage, especially since the actual touching of the Source is beyond their control without a teacher, and comes only randomly. And, of course, they do not suffer the madness that drives men to evil or twisted things. We want to save their lives. The lives of those who never do manage any control at all.”

  “The fever and chills I had couldn’t kill anyone,” Nynaeve insisted. “Not in three or four hours. I had the other things, too, and they couldn’t kill anybody, either. And they stopped after a few months. What about that?”

  “Those were only reactions,” Moiraine said patiently. “Each time, the reaction comes closer to the actual touching of the Source, until the two happen almost together. After that there are no more reactions that can be seen, but it is as if a clock has begun ticking. A year. Two years. I know one woman who lasted five years. Of four who have the inborn ability that you and Egwene have, three die if we do not find them and train them. It is not as horrible a death as the men die, but neither is it pretty, if any death can be called so. Convulsions. Screaming. It takes days, and once it begins there is nothing that can be done to stop it, not by all the Aes Sedai in Tar Valon together.”

  “You’re lying. All those questions you asked in Emond’s Field. You found out about Egwene’s fever breaking, about my fever and chills, all of it. You made all of this up.”

  “You know I did not,” Moiraine said gently.

  Reluctantly, more reluctantly than she had ever done anything in her life, Nynaeve nodded. It had been a last stubborn effort to deny what was plain, and there was never any good in that, however unpleasant it might be. Mistress Barran’s first apprentice had died the way the Aes Sedai said when Nynaeve was still playing with dolls, and there had been a young woman in Deven Ride only a few years ago. She had been a Wisdom’s apprentice, too, one who could listen to the wind.

  “You have great potential, I think,” Moiraine continued. “With training you might become even more powerful than Egwene, and I believe she can become one of the most powerful Aes Sedai we have seen in centuries.”

  N
ynaeve pushed herself back from the Aes Sedai as she would have from a viper. “No! I’ll have nothing to do with—” With what? Myself? She slumped, and her voice became hesitant. “I would ask you not to tell anyone about this. Please?” The word nearly stuck in her throat. She would rather Trollocs had appeared than she had been forced to say please to this woman. But Moiraine only nodded assent, and some of her spirit returned. “None of this explains what you want with Rand, and Mat, and Perrin.”

  “The Dark One wants them,” Moiraine replied. “If the Dark One wants a thing, I oppose it. Can there be a simpler reason, or a better?” She finished her tea, watching Nynaeve over the rim of her cup. “Lan, we must be going. South, I think. I fear the Wisdom will not be accompanying us.”

  Nynaeve’s mouth tightened at the way the Aes Sedai said “Wisdom”; it seemed to suggest she was turning her back on great things in favor of something petty. She doesn’t want me along. She’s trying to put my back up so I’ll go back home and leave them alone with her. “Oh, yes, I will be going with you. You cannot keep me from it.”

  “No one will try to keep you from it,” Lan said as he rejoined them. He emptied the tea kettle over the fire and stirred the ashes with a stick. “A part of the Pattern?” he said to Moiraine.

  “Perhaps so,” she replied thoughtfully. “I should have spoken to Min again.”

  “You see, Nynaeve, you are welcome to come.” There was a hesitation in the way Lan said her name, a hint of an unspoken “Sedai” after it.

  Nynaeve bristled, taking it for mockery, and bristled, too, at the way they spoke of things in front of her—things she knew nothing about—without the courtesy of an explanation, but she would not give them the satisfaction of asking.

  The Warder went on preparing for departure, his economical motions so sure and swift that he was quickly done, saddlebags, blankets, and all fastened behind the saddles of Mandarb and Aldieb.