The Wheel of Time

by Robert Jordan

  Straight as an arrow the white line led through the dark to a large stone slab covered with Ogier script inlaid in silver. The same pocking that marked the floor also broke the script in places.

  “A Guiding,” Elayne murmured, twisting in her saddle to look around uneasily. “Elaida taught me a little about the Ways. She would not say much. Not enough,” she added glumly. “Or maybe too much.”

  Calmly Liandrin compared the Guiding with a parchment, then stuffed it back into a pocket of her cloak before Egwene could get a look.

  Their lanterns’ light stopped abruptly rather than fading out at the edges, but it was enough for Egwene to see a thick stone balustrade, eaten away in places, as the Aes Sedai led them away from the Guiding. An Island, Elayne called it; the darkness made judging the Island’s size difficult, but Egwene thought it might be a hundred paces across.

  Stone bridges and ramps pierced the balustrade, each with a stone post beside it marked with a single line in Ogier script. The bridges seemed to arch out into nothing. The ramps led up or down. It was impossible to see more than the beginning of any of them, as they rode past.

  Pausing only to eye the stone posts, Liandrin took a ramp that led down, and quickly there was nothing but the ramp and the darkness. A dampening silence hung over everything; Egwene had the feeling that even the clatter of the horses’ hooves on the rough stone did not travel very far beyond the light.

  Down and down the ramp ran, curving back on itself, until it reached another Island, with its broken balustrade between bridges and ramps, its Guiding that Liandrin compared with her parchment. The Island seemed like solid stone, just as the first one had. Egwene wished she was not sure that the first Island was directly over their heads.

  Nynaeve spoke up suddenly, voicing Egwene’s thoughts. Her voice sounded steady, but she paused to swallow in the middle of it.

  “It—it might be,” Elayne said faintly. Her eyes rolled upwards, and quickly dropped again. “Elaida says the rules of nature do not hold in the Ways. At least, not the way they do outside.”

  “Light!” Min muttered, then raised her voice. “How long do you mean us to stay in here?”

  The Aes Sedai’s honey-colored braids swung as she turned to regard them. “Until I take you out,” she said flatly. “The more you bother me, the longer that will be.” She bent back to studying the parchment and the Guiding.

  Egwene and the others fell silent.

  Liandrin pushed on from Guiding to Guiding, by ramps and bridges that seemed to run unsupported through the endless dark. The Aes Sedai paid very little heed to the rest of them, and Egwene found herself wondering whether Liandrin would turn back to search if one of them fell behind. The others perhaps had the same thought, for they all rode bunched tightly on the dark mare’s heels.

  Egwene was surprised to realize that she still felt the attraction of saidar, both the presence of the female half of the True Source and the desire to touch it, to channel its flow. Somehow, she had thought the Shadow’s taint on the Ways would hide it from her. She could sense that taint, after a fashion. It was faint and had nothing to do with saidar, but she was sure that reaching for the True Source here would be like baring her arm to foul, greasy smoke in order to reach a clean cup. Whatever she did would be tainted. For the first time in weeks she had no trouble at all in resisting the attraction of saidar.

  It was well into what would have been night in the world outside the Ways when, on an Island, Liandrin abruptly dismounted and announced that they would halt for supper and sleep, and that there was food on the pack horse.

  “Parcel it out,” she said, not bothering to assign the task. “It will take us the better part of two days to reach Toman Head. I would not have you arrive hungry if you were too foolish not to bring food yourselves.” Briskly she unsaddled and hobbled her mare, but then she sat down on her saddle and waited for one of them to bring her something to eat.

  Elayne took Liandrin her flatbread and cheese. The Aes Sedai made it obvious that she did not want their company, so the rest of them ate their bread and cheese a little apart from her, sitting on their saddles drawn close together. The darkness beyond their lanterns made a poor sauce.

  After a time, Egwene said, “Liandrin Sedai, what if we encounter the Black Wind?” Min mouthed the word questioningly, but Elayne gave a squeak. “Moiraine Sedai said it could not be killed, or even hurt very much, and I can feel the taint on this place waiting to twist anything we do with the Power.”

  “You will not so much as think of the Source unless I tell you to,” Liandrin said sharply. “Why, if one such as you tried to channel here, in the Ways, you might well go as mad as a man. You have not the training to deal with the taint of those men who made this. If the Black Wind appears, I will deal with it.” She pursed her lips, studying a lump of white cheese. “Moiraine does not know so much as she thinks.” She popped the cheese into her mouth with a smile.

  “I do not like her,” Egwene muttered, low enough to make sure the Aes Sedai could not hear.

  “If Moiraine can work with her,” Nynaeve said quietly, “so can we. Not that I like Moiraine any better than I do Liandrin, but if they’re meddling with Rand and the others again. . . .” She fell silent, hitching her cloak up. The darkness was not cold, but it seemed as if it should be.

  “What is this Black Wind?” Min asked. When Elayne had explained, with a great deal of what Elaida had said and what her mother had said, Min sighed. “The Pattern has a great deal to answer for. I don’t know that any man is worth this.”

  “You did not have to come,” Egwene reminded her. “You could have gone at any time. No one would have tried to stop you leaving the Tower.”

  “Oh, I could have wandered off,” Min said wryly. “As easily as you, or Elayne. The Pattern doesn’t much care what we want. Egwene, what if, after all you are going through for him, Rand doesn’t marry you? What if he marries some woman you’ve never seen before, or Elayne, or me? What then?”

  Elayne chortled. “Mother would never approve.”

  Egwene was silent for a time. Rand might not live to marry anyone. And if he did. . . . She could not imagine Rand hurting anyone. Not even after he’s gone mad? There had to be some way to stop that, some way to change it; Aes Sedai knew so much, could do so much. If they could stop it, why don’t they? The only answer was because they could not, and that was not the one she wanted.

  She tried to put lightness in her voice. “I don’t suppose I will marry him. Aes Sedai seldom do marry, you know. But I would not set my heart on him if were you. Or you, Elayne. I do not think. . . .” Her voice caught, and she coughed to cover it. “I do not think he will ever marry. But if he does, I wish well to whoever ends up with him, even one of you.” She thought she sounded as if she meant it. “He is stubborn as a mule, and wrongheaded to a fault, but he is gentle.” Her voice shook, but she managed to turn the quaver into a laugh.

  “However much you say you do not care,” Elayne said, “I think you’d approve less than Mother would. He is interesting, Egwene. More interesting than any man I’ve ever met, even if he is a shepherd. If you are silly enough to throw him away, you will have only yourself to blame if I decide to face down you and Mother both. It would not be the first time the Prince of Andor had no title before he wed. But you won’t be that silly, so don’t try to pretend you will. No doubt you will choose the Green Ajah, and make him one of your Warders. The only Greens I know with only one Warder are married to them.”

  Egwene made herself go along with it, saying if she did become a Green she would have ten Warders.

  Min watched her, frowning, and Nynaeve watched Min thoughtfully. They all fell silent by the time they changed into more suitable clothes for traveling, from their saddlebags. It was not easy, keeping spirits up in that place.

  Sleep came slowly to Egwene, fitfully, and it was filled with bad dreams. She did not dream of Rand, but of the man whose eyes were fire. His face was not masked this time, and it was horrible
with almost healed burns. He only looked at her and laughed, but that was worse than the dreams that followed, the dreams of being lost in the Ways forever, the ones where the Black Wind was chasing her. She was grateful when the toe of Liandrin’s riding boot dug into her ribs to waken her; she felt as if she had not slept at all.

  Liandrin pushed them hard through the next day, or what passed for day, with only their lanterns for a sun, not letting them stop for sleep until they were swaying in their saddles. Stone made a hard bed, but Liandrin roused them ruthlessly after a few hours, hardly waiting for them to mount before riding on. Ramps and bridges, Islands and Guidings. Egwene saw so many of them in that pitch-dark that she lost count. She had long since lost any count of hours or of days. Liandrin allowed only brief halts to eat and rest the horses, and the darkness weighed down on their shoulders. They slumped in their saddles like sacks of grain, except for Liandrin. The Aes Sedai seemed unaffected by tiredness, or the dark. She was as fresh as she had been back in the White Tower, and as cold. She would not let anyone glimpse the parchment she compared to the Guidings, stuffing it away with a curt, “It is nothing you would understand,” when Nynaeve asked.

  And then, while Egwene blinked wearily, Liandrin was riding away from a Guiding, not toward another bridge or ramp, but down a pitted white line that led off into the darkness. Egwene stared at her friends, and then they all hurried to follow. Ahead, by the light of her lantern, the Aes Sedai was already removing the Avendesora leaf from the carvings on a Waygate.

  “We are here,” Liandrin said, smiling. “I have brought you at last to where you must go.”

  CHAPTER 40

  Damane

  Egwene dismounted as the Waygate opened, and when Liandrin motioned them through, she led the shaggy mare carefully out. Even so, she and Bela both stumbled in brush flattened by the opening Waygate as they suddenly seemed to be moving even more slowly. A screen of dense shrubs had surrounded and hidden the Waygate. There were only a few trees close by, and a morning breeze ruffled foliage with a little more color than the leaves had had in Tar Valon.

  Watching her friends emerge after her, she had been standing there a good minute before she became aware that others were already there, just out of sight on the other side of the gates. When she did notice them she stared uncertainly; they were as odd a group as she had ever seen, and she had heard too many rumors of the war on Toman Head.

  Armored men, at least fifty of them, with overlapping steel plates down their chests and dull black helmets shaped like insects’ heads, sat their saddles or stood beside their horses, staring at her and the emerging women, staring at the Waygate, muttering among themselves. The only bareheaded man among them, a tall, dark-faced, hook-nosed fellow standing with a gilded-and-painted helmet on his hip, looked astonished at what he was seeing. There were women with the soldiers, too. Two wore plain, dark gray dresses and wide silver collars, and stood staring intently at those coming out of the Waygate, each with another woman close behind her as if ready to speak into her ear. Two other women, standing a little apart, wore wide, divided skirts that came well short of their ankles, and panels embroidered with forked lightning bolts on their bosoms and skirts. Oddest of all was the last woman, reclining on a palanquin borne by eight muscular, bare-chested men in baggy black trousers. The sides of her scalp were shaved so that only a wide crest of black hair remained to fall down her back. A long, cream-colored robe worked in flowers and birds on blue ovals was carefully arranged to show her skirts of pleated white, and her fingernails were a good inch long, the first two on each hand lacquered blue.

  “Liandrin Sedai,” Egwene asked uneasily, “do you know who these people are?” Her friends fingered their reins as if wondering whether to mount and run, but Liandrin replaced the Avendesora leaf and stepped forward confidently as the Waygate began to close.

  “The High Lady Suroth?” Liandrin said, making it halfway between a question and statement.

  The women on the palanquin nodded fractionally. “You are Liandrin.” Her speech was slurred, and it took Egwene a moment to understand. “Aes Sedai,” Suroth added with a twist to her lips, and a murmur rose among the soldiers. “We must be done here quickly, Liandrin. There are patrols, and it would not do to be found. You would enjoy the attentions of the Seekers for Truth no more than I. I mean to be back in Falme before Turak knows I am gone.”

  “What are you talking about?” Nynaeve demanded. “What is she talking about, Liandrin?”

  Liandrin laid a hand on Nynaeve’s shoulder and one on Egwene’s. “These are the two of whom you were told. And there is another.” She nodded toward Elayne. “She is the Daughter-Heir of Andor.”

  The two women with the lightning on their dresses were approaching the party in front of the Waygate—they carried coils of some silvery metal in their hands, Egwene noticed—and the bareheaded soldier came with them. He did not put a hand near the sword hilt sticking up above his shoulder, and he wore a casual smile, but Egwene still watched him narrowly. Liandrin gave no sign of agitation; otherwise Egwene would have jumped onto Bela right then.

  “Liandrin Sedai,” she said urgently, “who are these people? Are they here to help Rand and the others, too?”

  The hook-nosed man suddenly seized Min and Elayne by the scruffs of their necks, and in the next instant everything seemed to happen at once. The man yelled a curse, and a woman screamed, or perhaps more than one woman; Egwene could not be sure. Abruptly the breeze was a gale that whipped away Liandrin’s angry shout in clouds of dirt and leaves and made the trees bend and groan. Horses reared and whinnied shrilly. And one of the women reached out and fastened something around Egwene’s neck.

  Cloak flapping like a sail, Egwene braced against the wind and tugged at what felt like a collar of smooth metal. It would not budge; under her frantic fingers, it felt all of one piece, though she knew it had to have some kind of clasp. The silvery coils the woman had carried now trailed over Egwene’s shoulder, their other end joining a bright bracelet on the woman’s left wrist. Balling her fist tightly, Egwene hit the woman as hard as she could, right in her eye—and staggered and fell to her knees herself, head ringing. It felt as if a large man had struck her in the face.

  When she could see straight once more, the wind had died. A number of horses wandered loose, Bela and Elayne’s mare among them, and some of the soldiers were cursing and picking themselves up off the ground. Liandrin was calmly brushing dust and leaves from her dress. Min knelt, supporting herself with her hands, groggily trying to rise further. The hook-nosed man stood over her, his hand dripping blood. Min’s knife lay just out of her reach, the blade stained red along one side. Nynaeve and Elayne were nowhere to be seen, and Nynaeve’s mare was gone, too. So were some of the soldiers, and one of the pairs of women. The other two were still there, and Egwene could see now that they were linked by a silver cord just like the one that still joined her to the woman standing over her.

  That woman was rubbing her cheek as she squatted beside Egwene; there was a bruise already coming up around her left eye. With long, dark hair and big brown eyes, she was pretty, and perhaps as much as ten years older than Nynaeve. “Your first lesson,” she said emphatically. There was no animosity in her voice, but what almost sounded like friendliness. “I will not punish you further this time, since I should have been on guard with a newly caught damane. Know this. You are a damane, a Leashed One, and I am a sul’dam, a Holder of the Leash. When damane and sul’dam are joined, whatever hurt the sul’dam feels, the damane feels twice over. Even to death. So you must remember that you may never strike at a sul’dam in any way, and you must protect your sul’dam even more than yourself. I am Renna. How are you called?”

  “I am not . . . what you said,” Egwene muttered. She pulled at the collar again; it gave no more than before. She thought of knocking the woman down and trying to pry the bracelet from her wrist, but rejected it. Even if the soldiers did not try to stop her—and so far they seemed to be ignoring her and
Renna altogether—she had the sinking feeling the woman was telling the truth. Touching her left eye brought a wince; it did not feel puffy, so perhaps she was not actually growing a bruise to match Renna’s, but it still hurt. Her left eye, and Renna’s left eye. She raised her voice. “Liandrin Sedai? Why are you letting them do this?” Liandrin dusted her hands together, never looking in her direction.

  “The very first thing you must learn,” Renna said, “is to do exactly as you are told, and without delay.”

  Egwene gasped. Suddenly her skin burned and prickled as if she had rolled in stinging nettles, from the soles of her feet to her scalp. She tossed her head as the burning sensation increased.

  “Many sul’dam,” Renna went on in that almost friendly tone, “do not believe damane should be allowed names, or at least only names they are given. But I am the one who took you, so I will be in charge of your training, and I will allow you to keep your own name. If you do not displease me too far. I am mildly upset with you now. Do you really wish to keep on until I am angry?”

  Quivering, Egwene gritted her teeth. Her nails dug into her palms with the effort of not scratching wildly. Idiot! It’s only your name. “Egwene,” she managed to get out. “I am Egwene al’Vere.” Instantly the burning itch was gone. She let out a long, unsteady breath.

  “Egwene,” Renna said. “That is a good name.” And to Egwene’s horror, Renna patted her on the head as she would a dog.

  That, she realized, was what she had detected in the woman’s voice—a certain good will for a dog in training, not quite the friendliness one might have toward another human being.