The Wheel of Time

by Robert Jordan

Min hesitated a fraction before saying, “She’s as well as can be expected.” Min could see it all too well, if she told them what was happening to Egwene right that moment. Nynaeve was as likely as not to go storming back in an attempt to stop it. Light, let it be over by now. Light, make her bend her stubborn neck just once before they almost break it first. “I don’t know how to get her out, though. I found a ship captain who I think will take us if we can reach his ship with her—he won’t help unless we make it that far, and I cannot say I blame him—but I have no idea how to do even that much.”

  “A ship,” Nynaeve said thoughtfully. “I had meant to simply ride east, but I must say I’ve worried about it. As nearly as I can make out, we would have to be almost off Toman Head before we were clear of Seanchan patrols completely, and then there’s supposed to be fighting of some sort on Almoth Plain. I never thought of a ship. We have horses, and we do not have money for passage. How much does this man want?”

  Min shrugged. “I never got that far. We don’t have any money, either. I thought I could put off paying until after we sail. Afterwards . . . well, I don’t think he’ll put into any port where there are Seanchan. Wherever he threw us off, it would have to be better than here. The problem is convincing him to sail at all. He wants to, but they patrol off the harbor, too, and there is no way of telling if there’s a damane on one of their ships until it’s too late. ‘Give me a damane of my own on my deck,’ he says, ‘and I will sail this instant.’ Then he starts talking about drafts and shoals and lee shores. I don’t understand any of that, but as long as I smile and nod every now and then, he keeps talking, and I think if I can keep him talking long enough, he’ll talk himself into sailing.” She drew a shuddering breath; her eyes started stinging again. “Only, I don’t think there’s time to let him talk himself into it anymore. Nynaeve, they’re going to send Egwene back to Seanchan, and soon.”

  Elayne gasped. “But, why?”

  “She is able to find ore,” Min said miserably. “A few days, she says, and I don’t know if a few days is enough for this man to convince himself to sail. Even if it is, how do we take that Shadow-spawned collar off her? How do we get her out of the house?”

  “I wish Rand were here.” Elayne sighed, and when they both looked at her, she blushed and quickly added, “Well, he does have a sword. I wish we had somebody with a sword. Ten of them. A hundred.”

  “It isn’t swords or brawn we need now,” Nynaeve said, “but brains. Men usually think with the hair on their chests.” She touched her chest absently, as if feeling something through her coat. “Most of them do.”

  “We would need an army,” Min said. “A large army. The Seanchan were outnumbered when they faced the Taraboners, and the Domani, and they won every battle easily, from what I hear.” She hurriedly pulled Nynaeve and Elayne to the opposite side of the street as a damane and sul’dam climbed past them on the other side. She was relieved there was no need for urging; the other two watched the linked women go as warily as she. “Since we don’t have an army, the three of us will have to do it. I hope one of you can think of something I haven’t; I’ve wracked my brains, and I always stumble when it comes to the a’dam, the leash and collar. Sul’dam don’t like anyone watching too closely when they open them. I think I can get you inside, if that will help. One of you, anyway. They think of me as a servant, but servants may have visitors, as long as they keep to the servants’ quarters.”

  Nynaeve wore a thoughtful frown, but her face cleared almost immediately, taking on a purposeful look. “Don’t you worry, Min. I have a few ideas. I have not spent my time here idly. You take me to this man. If he is any harder to handle than the Village Council with their backs up, I will eat this coat.”

  Elayne nodded, grinning, and Min felt the first real hope she had had since arriving in Falme. For an instant Min found herself reading the auras of the other two women. There was danger, but that was to be expected—and new things, too, among the images she had seen before; it was like that, sometimes. A man’s ring of heavy gold floated above Nynaeve’s head, and above Elayne’s, a red-hot iron and an axe. They meant trouble, she was sure, but it seemed distant, somewhere in the future. Only for a moment did the reading last, and then all she saw was Elayne and Nynaeve, watching her expectantly.

  “It’s down near the harbor,” she said.

  The sloping street became more crowded the further down they went. Street peddlers rubbed elbows with merchants who had brought wagons in from the inland villages and would not go out again until winter had come and gone, hawkers with their trays called to the passersby, Falmen in embroidered cloaks brushed past farm families in heavy fleece coats. Many people had fled here from villages further from the coast. Min saw no point to it—they had leaped from the possibility of a visit from the Seanchan to the certainty of Seanchan all around them—but she had heard what the Seanchan did when they first came to a village, and she could not blame the villagers too much for fearing another appearance. Everyone bowed when Seanchan walked past or a curtained palanquin was carried by up the steep street.

  Min was glad to see Nynaeve and Elayne knew about the bowing. Bare-chested bearers paid no more mind to the people who bent themselves than did arrogant, armored soldiers, but failure to bow would surely catch their eyes.

  They talked a little as they moved down the street, and she was surprised at first to learn they had been in the town only a few days less than Egwene and herself. After a moment, though, she decided it was no wonder they had not met earlier, not with the crowds in the streets. She had been reluctant to spend time further from Egwene than was necessary; there was always the fear that she would go for her allowed visit and find Egwene gone. And now she will be. Unless Nynaeve can think of something.

  The smell of salt and pitch grew heavy in the air, and gulls cried, wheeling overhead. Sailors appeared in the throng, many still barefoot despite the cold.

  The inn had been hastily renamed The Three Plum Blossoms, but part of the word “Watcher” still showed through the slapdash paint work on the sign. Despite the crowds outside, the common room was little more than half full; prices were too high for many people to afford time sitting over ale. Roaring fires on hearths at either end of the room warmed it, and the fat innkeeper was in his shirtsleeves. He eyed the three women, frowning, and Min thought it was her Seanchan dress that stopped him from telling them to leave. Nynaeve and Elayne, in their farm women’s coats, certainly did not look as if they had money to spend.

  The man she was looking for was alone at a table in a corner, in his accustomed place, muttering into his wine. “Do you have time to talk, Captain Domon?” she said.

  He looked up, brushing a hand across his beard when he saw she was not alone. She still thought his bare upper lip looked odd with the beard. “So you do bring friends to drink up my coin, do you? Well, that Seanchan lord bought my cargo, so coin I have. Sit.” Elayne jumped as he suddenly bellowed, “Innkeeper! Mulled wine here!”

  “It’s all right,” Min told her, taking a place on the end of one of the benches at the table. “He only looks and sounds like a bear.” Elayne sat down on the other end, looking doubtful.

  “A bear, do I be?” Domon laughed. “Maybe I do. But what of you, girl? Have you given over thought of leaving? That dress do look Seanchan to me.”

  “Never!” Min said fiercely, but the appearance of a serving girl with the steaming, spiced wine made her fall silent.

  Domon was just as wary. He waited until the girl had gone with his coins before saying, “Fortune prick me, girl, I mean no offense. Most people only want to go on with their lives, whether their lords be Seanchan or any other.”

  Nynaeve leaned her forearms on the table. “We also want to go on with our lives, Captain, but without any Seanchan. I understand you intend to sail soon.”

  “I would sail today, if I could,” Domon said glumly. “Every two or three days that Turak do send for me to tell him tales of the old things I have seen. Do I look a gleeman
to you? I did think I could spin a tale or two and be on my way, but now I think when I no entertain him any longer, it be an even wager whether he do let me go or have my head cut off. The man do look soft, but he be as hard as iron, and as coldhearted.”

  “Can your ship avoid the Seanchan?” Nynaeve asked.

  “Fortune prick me, could I make it out of the harbor without a damane rips Spray to splinters, I can. If I do no let a Seanchan ship with a damane come too close once I do make the sea. There be shoal waters all along this coast, and Spray do have a shallow draft. I can take her into waters those lumbering Seanchan hulks can no risk. They must be wary of the winds close inshore this time of year, and once I do have Spray—”

  Nynaeve cut him off. “Then we will take passage with you, Captain. There will be four of us, and I will expect you to be ready to sail as soon as we are aboard.”

  Domon scrubbed a finger across his upper lip and peered into his wine. “Well, as to that, there still do be the matter of getting out of the harbor, you see. These damane—”

  “What if I tell you you will sail with something better than damane?” Nynaeve said softly. Min’s eyes widened as she realized what Nynaeve intended.

  Almost under her breath, Elayne murmured, “And you tell me to be careful.”

  Domon had eyes only for Nynaeve, and they were wary eyes. “What do you mean?” he whispered.

  Nynaeve opened her coat to fumble at the back of her neck, finally pulling out a leather cord that had been tucked inside her dress. Two gold rings hung on the cord. Min gasped when she saw one—it was the heavy man’s ring she had seen when she read Nynaeve in the street—but she knew it was the other, slighter and made for a woman’s slender finger, that made Domon’s eyes bulge. A serpent biting its own tail.

  “You know what this means,” Nynaeve said, starting to slip the Serpent ring from the cord, but Domon closed his hand over it.

  “Put it away.” His eyes darted uneasily; no one was looking at them that Min could see, but he looked as if he thought everyone was staring. “That ring do be dangerous. If it be seen. . . .”

  “As long as you know what it means,” Nynaeve said with a calm that made Min envious. She pulled the cord from Domon’s hand and retied it around her neck.

  “I know,” he said hoarsely. “I do know what it means. Maybe there do be a chance if you. . . . Four, you say? This girl who do like to listen to my tongue wag, she do be one of the four, I take it. And you, and. . . .” He frowned at Elayne. “Surely this child is no—no one like you.”

  Elayne straightened angrily, but Nynaeve put a hand on her arm and smiled soothingly at Domon. “She travels with me, Captain. You might be surprised by what we can do even before we earn the right to a ring. When we sail, you will have three on your ship who can fight damane if need be.”

  “Three,” he breathed. “There do be a chance. Maybe. . . .” His face brightened for a moment, but as he looked at them, it grew serious again. “I should take you to Spray right now and cast off, but Fortune prick me if I can no tell you what you face here if you stay, and maybe even if you go with me. Listen to me, and mark what I do say.” He took another cautious look around, and still lowered his voice and chose his words carefully. “I did see a—a woman who wore a ring like that taken by the Seanchan. A pretty, slender little woman she was, with a big War—a big man with her who did look as if he did know how to use his sword. One of them must have been careless, for the Seanchan did have an ambush laid for them. The big man put six, seven soldiers on the ground before he did die himself. The—the woman. . . . Six damane they did put around her, stepping out of the alleys of a sudden. I did think she would . . . do something—you know what I mean—but. . . . I know nothing of these things. One moment she did look as if she would destroy them all, then a look of horror did come on her face, and she did scream.”

  “They cut her off from the True Source.” Elayne’s face was white.

  “No matter,” Nynaeve said calmly. “We will not allow the same to be done to us.”

  “Aye, mayhap it will be as you say. But I will remember it until I die. Ryma, help me. That is what she did scream. And one of the damane did fall down crying, and they did put one of those collars on the neck of the . . . woman, and I . . . I did run.” He shrugged, and rubbed his nose, and peered into his wine. “I have seen three women taken, and I have no stomach for it. I would leave my aged grandmother standing on the dock to sail from here, but I did have to tell you.”

  “Egwene said they have two prisoners,” Min said slowly. “Ryma, a Yellow, and she didn’t know who the other is.” Nynaeve gave her a sharp look, and she fell silent, blushing. From the look on Domon’s face, it had not furthered their cause any to tell him the Seanchan held two Aes Sedai, not just one.

  Yet abruptly he stared at Nynaeve and took a long gulp of wine. “Do that be why you are here? To free . . . those two? You did say there would be three of you.”

  “You know what you need to know,” Nynaeve told him briskly. “You must be ready to sail on the instant anytime in the next two or three days. Will you do it, or will you remain here to see if they will cut off your head after all? There are other ships, Captain, and I mean to have passage assured on one of them today.”

  Min held her breath; under the table, her fingers were knotted.

  Finally, Domon nodded. “I will be ready.”

  When they returned to the street, Min was surprised to see Nynaeve sag against the front of the inn as soon as the door closed. “Are you ill, Nynaeve?” she asked anxiously.

  Nynaeve drew a long breath and stood up straight, tugging at her coat. “With some people,” she said, “you have to be certain. If you show them one glimmer of doubt, they’ll sweep you off in some direction you don’t want to go. Light, but I was afraid he was going to say no. Come, we have plans yet to make. There are still one or two small problems to work out.”

  “I hope you don’t mind fish, Min,” Elayne said.

  One or two small problems? Min thought as she followed them. She hoped very much that Nynaeve was not just being certain again.

  CHAPTER 44

  Five Will Ride Forth

  Perrin eyed the villagers warily, self-consciously hitching at a too-short cloak, embroidered on the chest and with some holes in it not even patched, but none of them gave him a second glance despite his strange mix of clothes and the axe on his hip. Hurin had a coat with blue spirals across the chest under his cloak, and Mat wore a pair of baggy trousers that made bunches where they were stuffed into his boots. That had been all they had been able to find that would fit back in the abandoned village. Perrin wondered if this one would be abandoned soon. Half the stone houses were empty, and in front of the inn, up the dirt street from them, three ox carts, loaded too heavily in great mounds and everything covered with roped canvas, stood with families gathered around them.

  As he watched them, huddling together and saying their goodbyes to those who were staying, at least for the time being, Perrin decided it was not lack of interest in strangers on the villagers’ part; they were carefully avoiding looking at him and the others. These people had learned not to show curiosity about strangers, even strangers who were obviously not Seanchan. Strangers might be dangerous these days on Toman Head. They had encountered the same studious indifference in other villages. There were more towns here within a few leagues of the coast, every one holding itself independent. At any rate, they had until the Seanchan came.

  “I say it’s time to go get the horses,” Mat said, “before they decide to start asking questions. There has to be a first time for it.”

  Hurin was staring at a big, blackened circle of ground that marred the brown grass of the village green. It had a weathered look, but no one had done anything to erase it. “Maybe six or eight months ago,” he muttered, “and it still stinks. The whole Village Council and their families. Why would they do a thing like that?”

  “Who knows why they do anything?” Mat muttered. “Seanc
han don’t seem to need a reason for killing people. None I can figure out, anyway.”

  Perrin tried not to look at the charred patch. “Hurin, are you sure about Fain? Hurin?” It had been hard to make the sniffer look at anything else since they entered the village. “Hurin!”

  “What? Oh. Fain. Yes.” Hurin’s nostrils flared, and right away he wrinkled his nose. “There’s no mistaking that, even old as it is. Makes a Myrddraal smell like roses. He passed through here all right, but I think he was alone. No Trollocs, anyway, and if he had any Darkfriends with him, they hadn’t been up to much lately.”

  There was some sort of agitation up by the inn, people shouting and pointing. Not at Perrin and the other two, but at something Perrin could not see in the low hills east of the village.

  “Can we get the horses now?” Mat said. “That could be Seanchan.”

  Perrin nodded, and they broke into a run for where they had tied their horses behind an abandoned house. As Mat and Hurin disappeared around the corner of the house, Perrin looked back toward the inn and stopped in astonishment. The Children of the Light were riding into town, a long column of them.

  He leaped after the others. “Whitecloaks!”

  They wasted only an instant staring at him in disbelief before they were scrambling into their saddles. Keeping houses between them and the main street of the village, the three galloped out of the village westward, watching over their shoulders for pursuit. Ingtar had told them to avoid anything that might slow them down, and Whitecloaks asking questions would certainly do that, even if they could manage answers that satisfied. Perrin kept an even closer watch than the other two; he had his own reasons for not wanting to meet Whitecloaks. The axe in my hands. Light, what I wouldn’t give to change that.

  The lightly wooded hills soon hid the village, and Perrin began to think maybe there was nothing chasing them after all. He reined in and motioned the other two to stop. When they did, eyeing him questioningly, he listened. His ears were sharper than they once had been, but he heard no sounds of hoofbeats.