The Wheel of Time

by Robert Jordan

  CHAPTER

  25

  Questions

  Egwene lay across Nynaeve’s bed, chin in her hands, watching Nynaeve pace back and forth. Elayne sprawled in front of the fireplace, which was still full of the ashes of last night’s fire. Yet again Elayne was studying the list of names Verin had produced, patiently reading every word one more time. The other pages, the list of ter’angreal, sat on the table; after one shocked reading they had not discussed that one further, though they had talked of everything else. And argued, too.

  Egwene stifled a yawn. It was only the middle of the morning, but none of them had gotten much sleep. They had had to be up early. For the kitchens, and breakfast. For other things that she refused to think about. The little sleep she herself had managed had been filled with unpleasant dreams. Maybe Anaiya could help me understand them, those that need understanding, but. . . . But what if she is Black Ajah? After staring at every woman in that chamber last night, wondering which was Black Ajah, she was finding trust for anyone but her two companions hard to come by. But she did wish she had some way of interpreting those dreams.

  The nightmares about what had happened inside the ter’angreal last night were easy enough to understand, though they had made her wake up weeping. She had dreamed of the Seanchan, too, of women in dresses with lightning bolts woven on their breasts, collaring a long line of women who wore Great Serpent rings, forcing them to call lightning against the White Tower. That had started her awake in a cold sweat, but that had to be just a nightmare, too. And the dream about Whitecloaks binding her father’s hands. A nightmare brought on by homesickness, she supposed. But the others. . . .

  She glanced at the other two women again. Elayne was still reading. Nynaeve still paced with that steady tread.

  There had been a dream of Rand, reaching for a sword that seemed to be made of crystal, never seeing the fine net dropping over him. And one of him kneeling in a chamber where a parched wind blew dust across the floor, and creatures like the one on the Dragon banner, but much smaller, floated on that wind, and settled into his skin. There had been a dream of him walking down into a great hole in a black mountain, a hole filled with a reddish glare as from vast fires below, and even a dream of him confronting Seanchan.

  About that last, she was uncertain, but she knew the others had to mean something. Back when she had been sure she could trust Anaiya, back before she had left the Tower, before she learned the reality of the Black Ajah, a little cautious questioning of the Aes Sedai—done, oh, so carefully, so Anaiya would think it no more than the curiosity she showed about other things—had revealed that a Dreamer’s dreams about ta’veren were almost always significant, and the more strongly ta’veren, the more “almost always” became “certainly.”

  But Mat and Perrin were ta’veren, too, and she had also dreamed of them. Odd dreams, even more difficult to understand than the dreams of Rand. Perrin with a falcon on his shoulder, and Perrin with a hawk. Only the hawk held a leash in her talons—Egwene was somehow convinced both hawk and falcon were female—and the hawk was trying to fasten it around Perrin’s neck. That made her shiver even now; she did not like dreams about leashes. And that dream of Perrin—with a beard!—leading a huge pack of wolves that stretched as far as the eye could see. Those about Mat had been even nastier. Mat, placing his own left eye on a balance scale. Mat, hanging by his neck from a tree limb. There had been a dream of Mat and Seanchan, too, but she was willing to dismiss that as a nightmare. It had to have been just a nightmare. Just like the one about Mat speaking the Old Tongue. That had to come from what she had heard during his Healing.

  She sighed, and the sigh turned into another yawn. She and the others had gone to his room after breakfast to see how he was, but he had not been there.

  He is probably well enough to go dancing. Light, now I will probably dream about him dancing with Seanchan! No more dreams, she told herself firmly. Not now. I will think about them when I am not so tired. She thought of the kitchens, of the midday meal soon to come, and then supper, and breakfast again tomorrow, and pots and cleaning and scrubbing going on forever. If I am ever not tired again. Shifting her position on the bed, she looked at her friends again. Elayne still had her eyes on the list of names. Nynaeve’s steps had slowed. Any moment now, Nynaeve will say it again. Any moment.

  Nynaeve came to a halt, staring down at Elayne. “Put those away. We have been over them twenty times, and there isn’t a word that helps. Verin gave us rubbish. The question is, was it all she had, or did she give us rubbish on purpose?”

  As expected. Maybe half an hour till she says it again. Egwene frowned down at her hands, glad she could not see them clearly. The Great Serpent ring looked—out of place—on hands all wrinkled from long immersion in hot, soapy water.

  “Knowing their names helps,” Elayne said, still reading. “Knowing what they look like helps.”

  “You know very well what I mean,” Nynaeve snapped.

  Egwene sighed and folded her arms in front of her, rested her chin on them. When she had come out of Sheriam’s study that morning, with the sun still not even a glint on the horizon, Nynaeve had been waiting with a candle in the cold, dark hall. She had not been seeing very clearly, but she was sure Nynaeve had looked ready to chew stone. And knowing chewing stones would not change anything in the next few minutes. That was why she was so irritable. She’s as touchy about her pride as any man I ever met. But she should not take it out on Elayne and me. Light, if Elayne can stand it, she should be able to. She isn’t the Wisdom anymore.

  Elayne hardly appeared to notice whether Nynaeve was irritable or not. She frowned into the distance thoughtfully. “Liandrin was the only Red. All the other Ajahs lost two each.”

  “Oh, do be quiet, child,” Nynaeve said.

  Elayne wiggled her left hand to display her Great Serpent ring, gave Nynaeve a meaningful look, and went right on. “No two were born in the same city, and no more than two in any one country. Amico Nagoyin was the youngest, some fifteen years older than Egwene and I. Joiya Byir could be our great-grandmother’s great-grandmother.”

  Egwene did not like it that one of the Black Ajah shared her daughter’s name. Fool girl! People sometimes have the same name, and you never had a daughter. It wasn’t real!

  “And what does that tell us?” Nynaeve’s voice was too calm; she was ready to explode like a wagon full of fireworks. “What secrets have you found in it that I missed? I am getting old and blind, after all!”

  “It tells us it is all too neat,” Elayne said calmly. “What chance that thirteen women chosen solely because they were Darkfriends would be so neatly arrayed across age, across nations, across Ajahs? Shouldn’t there be perhaps three Reds, or four born in Cairhien, or just two the same age, if it was all chance? They had women to choose from or they could not have chosen so random a pattern. There are still Black Ajah in the Tower, or elsewhere we don’t know about. It must mean that.”

  Nynaeve gave her braid one ferocious tug. “Light! I think you may be right. You did find secrets I couldn’t. Light, I was hoping they all went with Liandrin.”

  “We do not even know that she is their leader,” Elayne said. “She could have been ordered to . . . to dispose of us.” Her mouth twisted. “I am afraid I can only think of one reason for them to go to such lengths to spread everything out so, to avoid any pattern except a lack of pattern. I think it means there is a pattern of some kind to the Black Ajah.”

  “If there’s a pattern,” Nynaeve said firmly, “we will find it. Elayne, if watching your mother run her court taught you to think like this, I’m glad you watched closely.” Elayne’s answering smile made a dimple in her cheek.

  Egwene eyed the older woman carefully. It seemed Nynaeve was finally ready to stop being a bear with a sore tooth. She raised her head. “Unless they want us to think they’re hiding a pattern, so we will waste our time hunting for it when there isn’t one. I am not saying there isn’t; I am only saying we do not know yet. Let’
s look for it, but I think we ought to look at other things, too, don’t you?”

  “So you finally decided to rouse,” Nynaeve said. “I thought you had gone to sleep.” But she was still smiling.

  “She is right,” Elayne said disgustedly. “I have built a bridge out of straw. Worse than straw. Wishes. Maybe you are right, too, Nynaeve. What use is this—this rubbish?” She snatched one paper out of the stack in front of her. “Rianna has black hair with a white streak above her left ear. If I am close enough to see that, it’s closer than I want to be.” She grabbed another page. “Chesmal Emry is one of the most talented Healers anyone has seen in years. Light, could you imagine being Healed by one of the Black Ajah?” A third sheet. “Marillin Gemalphin is fond of cats and goes out of her way to help injured animals. Cats! Paah!” She scrabbled all the pages together, crumpling them in her fists. “It is useless rubbish.”

  Nynaeve knelt beside her and gently pried her hands from around the papers. “Perhaps, and perhaps not.” She smoothed the pages carefully on her breast. “You found in them something for us to look for. Perhaps we will find more, if we are persistent. And there is the other list.” Both her eyes and Elayne’s darted to Egwene, brown and blue alike frowning worriedly.

  Egwene avoided looking at the table where the other sheets lay. She did not want to think about them, but she could not avoid it. The list of ter’angreal had etched itself into her mind.

  Item. A rod of clear crystal, smooth and perfectly clear, one foot long and one inch in diameter. Use unknown. Last study made by Corianin Nedeal. Item. A figurine of an unclothed woman in alabaster, one hand tall. Use unknown. Last study made by Corianin Nedeal. Item. A disc, apparently of simple iron yet untouched by rust, three inches in diameter, finely engraved on both sides with a tight spiral. Use unknown. Last study made by Corianin Nedeal. Item. Too many items, and more than half the “use unknowns” last studied by Corianin Nedeal. Thirteen of them, to be exact.

  Egwene shivered. It’s getting so I do not even like to think of that number.

  The knowns on the list were fewer, not all of any apparent real use, but hardly more comforting, as she saw it. A wooden carving of a hedgehog, no bigger than the last joint of a man’s thumb. Such a simple thing, and surely harmless. Any woman who tried to channel through it went to sleep. Half a day of peaceful, dreamless sleep, but it was too close not to make her skin crawl. Three more had to do with sleep in some way. It was almost a relief to read of a fluted rod of black stone, a full pace in length, that produced balefire, with the notation DANGEROUS AND ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TO CONTROL writ so strong in Verin’s hand that it tore the paper in two places. Egwene still had no idea what balefire was, but though it surely sounded dangerous if anything ever did, it just as surely had nothing to do Corianin Nedeal or dreams.

  Nynaeve carried the smoothed-out pages to the table and set them down. She hesitated before spreading the others out and running her finger down one page, then the next. “Here’s one Mat would enjoy,” she said in a voice much too light and airy. “Item. A carved cluster of six spotted dice, joined at the corners, less than two inches across. Use unknown, save that channeling through it seems to suspend chance in some way, or twist it.” She began to read aloud. “ ‘Tossed coins presented the same face every time, and in one test landed balanced on edge one hundred times in a row. One thousand tosses of the dice produced five crowns one thousand times.’ ” She gave a forced laugh. “Mat would love that.”

  Egwene sighed and got to her feet, walked stiffly to the fireplace. Elayne scrambled up, watching as silently as Nynaeve. Pushing her sleeve as far up her arm as it would go, Egwene reached carefully up the chimney. Her fingers touched wool on the smoke shelf, and she pulled out a wadded, singed stocking with a hard lump in the toe. She brushed a smear of soot from her arm, then took the stocking to the table and shook it out. The twisted ring of striped, flecked stone spun across the tabletop and fell flat atop a page of the ter’angreal list. For a few moments they just stared at it.

  “Perhaps,” Nynaeve said finally, “Verin simply missed the fact that so many of them were last studied by Corianin.” She did not sound as if she really believed it.

  Elayne nodded, but doubtfully. “I saw her walking in the rain once, soaking wet, and took a cloak to her. She was so wrapped up in whatever she was thinking, I do not believe she knew it was raining until I put the cloak around her shoulders. She could have missed it.”

  “Maybe,” Egwene said. “If she did not, she had to know I’d notice as soon as I read the list. I do not know. Sometimes I think Verin notices more than she lets on. I just do not know.”

  “So there’s Verin to suspect,” Elayne sighed. “If she is Black Ajah, then they know exactly what we are doing. And Alanna.” She gave Egwene an uncertain, sidelong look.

  Egwene had told them everything. Except what happened inside the ter’angreal during her testing; she could not bring herself to talk about that, any more than Nynaeve or Elayne could tell of their testings. Everything that happened in the testing chamber, what Sheriam had said about the terrible weakness conferred by the ability to channel, every word Verin had said, whether it seemed important or not. The one part they had had trouble accepting was Alanna; Aes Sedai just did not do things like that. No one in her right mind did anything like that, but Aes Sedai least of all.

  Egwene glowered at them, almost hearing them say it. “Aes Sedai are not supposed to lie, either, but Verin and the Mother seem awfully close with what they tell us. There are not supposed to be Black Ajah.”

  “I like Alanna.” Nynaeve tugged her braid, then shrugged. “Oh, very well. Perha—That is, she did behave oddly.”

  “Thank you,” Egwene said, and Nynaeve gave her an acknowledging nod as if she had heard no sarcasm.

  “In any case, the Amyrlin knows of it, and she can keep an eye on Alanna far more easily than we can.”

  “What about Elaida and Sheriam?” Egwene asked.

  “I have never been able to like Elaida,” Elayne said, “but I cannot truly believe she is Black Ajah. And Sheriam? It’s impossible.”

  Nynaeve snorted. “It should be impossible for any of them. When we do find them, there is nothing says they’ll all be women we do not like. But I don’t mean to put suspicion—not this kind of suspicion!—on any woman. We need more to go on than that they might have seen something they shouldn’t.” Egwene nodded agreement as quickly as Elayne, and Nynaeve went on: “We will tell the Amyrlin that much, and put no more weight to it than it deserves. If she ever looks in on us as she said she would. If you are with us when she comes, Elayne, remember she does not know about you.”

  “I am not likely to forget it,” Elayne said fervently. “But we should have some other way to get word to her. My mother would have planned it better.”

  “Not if she could not trust her messengers,” Nynaeve said. “We will wait. Unless you two think one of us should have a talk with Verin? No one would think that remarkable.”

  Elayne hesitated, then gave her head a small shake. Egwene was quicker and more vigorous with hers; slip of the mind or not, Verin had left out too much to be trusted.

  “Good.” Nynaeve sounded more than satisfied. “I am just as pleased we cannot talk to the Amyrlin when we choose. This way we make our own decisions, act when and as we decide, without her directing our every step.” Her hand ran down the pages listing stolen ter’angreal as if she were reading it again, then closed on the striped stone ring. “And the first decision concerns this. It’s the first thing we have seen that has any real connection to Liandrin and the others.” She frowned at the ring, then took a deep breath. “I am going to sleep with it tonight.”

  Egwene did not hesitate before taking the ring out of Nynaeve’s hand. She wanted to hesitate—she wanted to keep her hands by her sides—but she did not, and she was pleased. “I am the one they say might be a Dreamer. I do not know whether that gives me any advantage, but Verin said it’s dangerous using this. Whichever of u
s uses it, she needs any advantage she can find.”

  Nynaeve gripped her braid and opened her mouth as if to protest. When she finally spoke, though, it was to say, “Are you sure, Egwene? We do not even know if you are a Dreamer, and I can channel more strongly than you. I still think I—” Egwene cut her off.

  “You can channel more strongly if you are angry. Can you be sure you’ll be angry in a dream? Will you have time to become angry before you need to channel? Light, we don’t even know that anyone can channel in a dream. If one of us has to do it—and you are right; it is the only connection we have—it should be me. Maybe I really am a Dreamer. Besides, Verin did give it to me.”

  Nynaeve looked as if she wanted to argue, but at last she gave a grudging nod. “Very well. But Elayne and I will be there. I do not know what we can do, but if anything goes wrong, perhaps we can wake you up, or. . . . We will be there.” Elayne nodded, too.

  Now that she had their agreement, Egwene felt a queasiness in the pit of her stomach. I talked them into it. I wish I did not want them to talk me out of it. She became aware of a woman standing in the doorway, a woman in novice white, with her hair in long braids.

  “Did no one ever teach you to knock, Else?” Nynaeve said.

  Egwene hid the stone ring inside her fist. She had the strangest feeling that Else had been staring at it.

  “I have a message for you,” Else said calmly. Her eyes studied the table, with all the papers scattered on it, then the three women around it. “From the Amyrlin.”

  Egwene exchanged wondering looks with Nynaeve and Elayne.