The Wheel of Time

by Robert Jordan

  It was the same. The same polished redstone, the same size, the same eye-wrenching corners. Along each upright ran three lines of triangles, points down. Had the one in Tear had those? He could not remember; he had not been trying to remember all the details last time. It was the same; it had to be. Maybe he could not step through the other again, but this one . . . ? Another chance to get at those snake people, make them answer a few more questions.

  Squinting against the glitters, he peered back toward the columns. An hour, he had given Rand. In an hour, he could be through this thing and back with time to spare. Maybe it would not even work for him, since he had used its twin. They are the same. Then again, maybe it would. It just meant rubbing up against the Power one more time.

  “Light,” he muttered. “Ter’angreal. Portal Stones. Rhuidean. What difference can one more time make?”

  He stepped through. Through a wall of blinding white light, through a roar so vast it annihilated sound.

  Blinking, he looked around and bit back the vilest oath he knew. Wherever this was, it was not where he had gone before.

  The twisted doorway stood in the middle of a huge chamber that appeared to be star-shaped, as near as he could make out through a forest of thick columns, each deeply fluted with eight ridges, the sharp edges yellow and glowing softly for light. Glossy black except for the glowing bits, they rose from a dull white floor into murky gloom far overhead where even the yellow stripes faded away. The columns and floor almost looked to be glass, but when he bent to rub a hand across the floor, it felt like stone. Dusty stone. He wiped his hand on his coat. The air had a musty smell, and his own footprints were the only marks in the dust. No one had been here in a very long time.

  Disappointed, he turned back to the ter’angreal.

  “A very long time.”

  Mat spun back, snatching at his coatsleeve for a knife that was lying back on the mountainside. The man standing among the columns looked nothing at all like the snaky folk. He made Mat regret giving up those last blades to the Wise Ones.

  The fellow was tall, taller than an Aiel, and sinewy, but with shoulders too wide for his narrow waist, and skin as white as the finest paper. Pale leather straps studded with silver crisscrossed his arms and bare chest, and a black kilt hung to his knees. His eyes were too big and almost colorless, set deep in a narrow-jawed face. His short-cut, palely reddish hair stood up like a brush, and his ears, lying flat against his head, had a hint of a point at the top. He leaned toward Mat, inhaling, opening his mouth to pull in more air, flashing sharp teeth. The impression he gave was of a fox about to leap on a cornered chicken.

  “A very long time,” he said, straightening. His voice was rough, almost a growl. “Do you abide by the treaties and agreements? Do you carry iron, or instruments of music, or devices for making light?”

  “I have none of those things,” Mat replied slowly. This was not the same place, but this fellow asked the same questions. And he behaved the same, with all that smelling. Rummaging through my bloody experiences, is he? Well, let him. Maybe he’ll jog some loose so I can remember them, too. He wondered if he was speaking the Old Tongue again. It was uncomfortable, not knowing, not being able to tell. “If you can take me to where I can get a few questions answered, lead the way. If not, I will be going, with apologies for bothering you.”

  “No!” Those big colorless eyes blinked in agitation. “You must not go. Come. I will take you where you may find what you need. Come.” He backed away, gesturing with both hands. “Come.”

  Glancing at the ter’angreal, Mat followed. He wished the man had not grinned at him just then. Maybe he meant to be reassuring, but those teeth . . . . Mat decided he would never give up all of his knives again, not for Wise Ones or the Amyrlin Seat herself.

  The large five-sided doorway looked more like a tunnel mouth, for the corridor beyond was exactly the same size and shape, with those softly glowing yellow strips running along the bends, edging floor and ceiling. It seemed to stretch ahead forever, fading into a murky distance, broken at intervals by more of the great five-sided doorways. The kilted man did not turn to lead until they were both in the hallway, and even then he kept glancing over a wide shoulder as if to make certain Mat was still there. The air was no longer musty; instead it held a faint hint of something unpleasant, something tickling familiarity but not strong enough to recognize.

  At the first of the doorways, Mat glanced through in passing, and sighed. Beyond star-shaped black columns, a twisted redstone doorway stood on a dull glassy white floor where dust showed the marks of one set of boots coming from the ter’angreal, led toward the corridor by the prints of narrow bare feet. He looked over his shoulder. Instead of ending fifty paces back in another chamber like this, the hallway ran back as far as he could see, a mirror image of what lay ahead. His guide gave him a sharp-toothed smile; the fellow looked hungry.

  He knew he should have expected something of the sort after what he had seen on the other side of the doorway in the Stone. Those spires moving from where they should be to where they could not, logically. If spires, why not rooms? I should have stayed out there waiting for Rand, is what I should have done. I should have done a lot of things. At least he would have no trouble finding the ter’angreal again, if all of the doorways ahead were the same.

  He peered into the next and saw black columns, the redstone ter’angreal, his footprints and his guide’s in the dust. When the narrow-jawed man looked over his shoulder again, Mat gave him a toothy grin. “Never think you have caught a babe in your snare. If you try to cheat me, I will have your hide for a saddlecloth.”

  The fellow started, pale eyes widening, then shrugged and adjusted the silver-studded straps across his chest; his mocking smile seemed tailored to draw attention to what he was doing. Suddenly Mat found himself wondering where that pale leather came from. Surely not . . . . Oh, Light, I think it is. He managed to stop himself from swallowing, but only just. “Lead, you son of a goat. Your hide is not worth silver studding. Take me where I want to go.”

  With a snarl, the man hurried on, stiff-backed. Mat did not care if the fellow was offended. He did wish he had just one knife, though. I’ll be burned if I’ll let some fox-faced goat-brain make a harness out of my hide.

  There was no way of telling how long they walked. The corridor never changed, with its bent walls and its glowing yellow strips. Every doorway showed the identical chamber, ter’angreal, footprints and all. The sameness made time slip into formlessness. Mat worried about how long he had been there. Surely longer than the hour he had given himself. His clothes were only damp now; his boots no longer made squishing noises. But he walked, staring at his guide’s back, and walked.

  Suddenly the corridor ended ahead in another doorway. Mat blinked. He could have sworn that a moment before the hall had stretched on as far as he could see. But he had been watching the sharp-toothed fellow more than what lay ahead. He looked back, and nearly swore. The corridor ran back until the glowing yellow strips seemed to come together in a point. And there was not an opening to be seen anywhere along it.

  When he turned, he was alone in front of the big five-sided doorway. Burn me, I wish they wouldn’t do that. Taking a deep breath, he walked through.

  It was another white-floored star-shaped chamber, not so large as the one—or ones—with columns. An eight-pointed star with a glassy black pedestal standing in each point, like a two-span slice out of one of those columns. Glowing yellow strips ran up the sharp edges of room and pedestals. The unpleasant smell was stronger here; he recognized it now. The smell of a wild animal’s lair. He hardly noticed it, though, because the chamber was empty except for him.

  Turning slowly, he frowned at the pedestals. Surely someone should be up on them, whoever was supposed to answer his questions. He was being cheated. If he could come here, he should be able to get answers.

  Suddenly he spun in a circle, searching not the pedestals but the smooth gray walls. The doorway was gone; there was no w
ay out.

  Yet before he completed a second turn there was someone standing on each pedestal, people like his guide, but dressed differently. Four were men, the others women, their stiff hair rising in a crest before spilling down their backs. All wore long white skirts that hid their feet. The women had on white blouses that fell below their hips, with high lace necks and pale ruffles at their wrists. The men wore even more straps than the guide, wider and studded with gold. Each harness supported a pair of bare-bladed knives on the wearer’s chest. Bronze blades, Mat judged from the color, but he would have given all the gold in his possession for just one of them.

  “Speak,” one of the women said in that growling voice. “By the ancient treaty, here is agreement made. What is your need? Speak.”

  Mat hesitated. That was not what the snaky people had said. They were all staring at him like foxes staring at dinner. “Who is the Daughter of the Nine Moons and why do I have to marry her?” He hoped they would count that as one question.

  No one answered. None of them spoke. They just continued to stare at him with those big pale eyes.

  “You are supposed to answer,” he said. Silence. “Burn your bones to ash, answer me! Who is the Daughter of the Nine Moons and why do I have to marry her? How will I die and live again? What does it mean that I have to give up half the light of the world? Those are my three questions. Say something!”

  Dead silence. He could hear himself breathing, hear the blood throbbing in his ears.

  “I have no intention of marrying. And I have no intention of dying, either, whether I am supposed to live again or not. I walk around with holes in my memory, holes in my life, and you stare at me like idiots. If I had my way, I would want those holes filled, but at least answers to my questions might fill some in my future. You have to answer—!”

  “Done,” one of the men growled, and Mat blinked.

  Done? What was done? What did he mean? “Burn your eyes,” he muttered. “Burn your souls! You are as bad as Aes Sedai. Well, I want a way to be free of Aes Sedai and the Power, and I want to be away from you and back to Rhuidean, if you will not answer me. Open up a door, and let me—”

  “Done,” another man said, and one of the women echoed, “Done.”

  Mat scanned the walls, then glared, turning to take them all in, standing up there on their pedestals staring down at him. “Done? What is done? I see no door. You lying goat-fathered—”

  “Fool,” a woman said in a whispered growl, and others repeated it. Fool. Fool. Fool.

  “Wise to ask leavetaking, when you set no price, no terms.”

  “Yet fool not to first agree on price.”

  “We will set the price.”

  They spoke so quickly he could not tell which said what.

  “What was asked will be given.”

  “The price will be paid.”

  “Burn you,” he shouted, “what are you talking—”

  Utter darkness closed around him. There was something around his throat. He could not breathe. Air. He could not . . . .

  CHAPTER 25

  The Road to the Spear

  Not hesitating at the first row of columns, Rand made himself walk in among them. There could be no turning back now, no looking back. Light, what is supposed to happen in here? What does it really do?

  Clear as the finest glass, perhaps a foot thick and standing three paces or more apart, the columns were a forest of dazzling light filled with cascading ripples and glares and odd rainbows. The air was cooler here, enough to make him wish he had a coat, but the same gritty dust covered the smooth white stone under his boots. Not a breeze stirred, yet something made each hair on his body shift, even under his shirt.

  Ahead and to the right he could just see another man, in the grays and browns of Aiel, stiff and statue-still in the changing lights. That must be Muradin, Couladin’s brother. Stiff and still; something was happening. Strangely, considering the brilliance, Rand could make out the Aiel’s face clearly. Eyes wide and staring, face tight, mouth quivering on the brink of a snarl. Whatever he was seeing, he did not like it. But Muradin had survived that far, at least. If he could do it, Rand could. The man was six or seven paces ahead of him at best. Wondering why he and Mat had not seen Muradin go in, he took another step.

  He rode behind a set of eyes, feeling but not controlling a body. The owner of those eyes crouched easily among boulders on a barren mountainside, beneath a sun-blasted sky, peering down at strange half-made stone structures—No! Less than half-made. That’s Rhuidean, but without any fog, and only just begun—peering down contemptuously. He was Mandein, young for a sept chief at forty. Separateness faded; acceptance came. He was Mandein.

  “You must agree,” Sealdre said, but for the moment he ignored her.

  The Jenn had made things to draw up water and spill it into great stone basins. He had fought battles over less water than one of those tanks held, with people walking by as though water was of no consequence. A strange forest of glass rose in the center of all their activity, glittering in the sun, and near it the tallest tree he had ever seen, at least three spans high. Their stone structures looked as if each was meant to contain an entire hold, an entire sept, when done. Madness. This Rhuidean could not be defended. Not that anyone would attack the Jenn, of course. Most avoided the Jenn as they avoided the accursed Lost Ones, who wandered searching for the songs they claimed would bring back lost days.

  A procession snaked out of Rhuidean toward the mountain, a few dozen Jenn and two palanquins, each carried by eight men. There was enough wood in each of those palanquins for a dozen chief’s chairs. He had heard there were still Aes Sedai among the Jenn.

  “You must agree to whatever they ask, husband,” Sealdre said.

  He looked at her then, wanting for a moment to run his hands through her long golden hair, seeing the laughing girl who had laid the bridal wreath at his feet and asked him to marry her. She was serious now, though, intent and worried. “Will the others come?” he asked.

  “Some. Most. I have talked to my sisters in the dream, and we have all dreamed the same dream. The chiefs who do not come, and those who do not agree . . . . Their septs will die, Mandein. Within three generations they will be dust, and their holds and cattle belong to other septs. Their names will be lost.”

  He did not like her talking to the Wise Ones of other septs, even in dreams. But the Wise Ones dreamed true. When they knew, it was true. “Stay here,” he told her. “If I do not return, help our sons and daughters to hold the sept together.”

  She touched his cheek. “I will, shade of my life. But remember. You must agree.”

  Mandein motioned, and a hundred veiled shapes followed him down the slope, ghosting from boulder to boulder, bows and spears ready, grays and browns blending with the barren land, vanishing even to his eyes. They were all men; he had left all the women of the sept who carried the spear with the men around Sealdre. If anything went wrong and she decided on something senseless to save him, the men would probably follow her in it; the women would see her back to the hold whatever she wanted, to protect the hold and the sept. He hoped they would. Sometimes they could be fiercer than any man, and more foolish.

  The procession from Rhuidean had stopped on the cracked clay flat by the time he reached the lower slope. He motioned his men to ground and went on alone, lowering his veil. He was aware of other men moving out from the mountain to his right and left, coming across the baked ground from other directions. How many? Fifty? Maybe a hundred? Some faces he had expected to see were missing. Sealdre was right as usual; some had not listened to their Wise Ones’ dream. There were faces he had never seen before, and faces of men he had tried to kill, men who had tried to kill him. At least none were veiled. Killing in front of a Jenn was almost as bad as killing a Jenn. He hoped the others remembered that. Treachery from one, and the veils would be donned; the warriors each chief had brought would come down from the mountains, and this dry clay would be muddied with blood. He half-expected to fee
l a spear through his ribs any moment.

  Even trying to watch a hundred possible sources of death, it was hard not to stare at the Aes Sedai as the bearers lowered their ornately carved chairs to the ground. Women with hair so white it almost seemed transparent. Ageless faces with skin that looked as if the wind might tear it. He had heard the years did not touch Aes Sedai. How old must these two be? What had they seen? Could they remember when his greatfather Comran first found Ogier stedding in the Dragonwall and began to trade with them? Or maybe even when Comran’s greatfather Rhodric led the Aiel to kill the men in iron shirts who had crossed the Dragonwall? The Aes Sedai turned their eyes on him—sharp blue and dark dark brown, the first dark eyes he had ever seen—and seemed to see inside his skull, inside his thoughts. He knew himself chosen out, and did not know why. With an effort he pulled away from those twin gazes, which knew him better than he knew himself.

  A gaunt white-haired man, tall if stooped, came forward from the Jenn flanked by two graying women who might have been sisters, with the same deep-set green eyes and the same way of tilting their heads when they looked at anything. The rest of the Jenn stared uneasily at the earth rather than at the Aiel, but not these three.

  “I am Dermon,” the man said in a deep strong voice, his blue-eyed scrutiny as steady as any Aiel’s. “These are Mordaine and Narisse.” He gestured to the women beside him in turn. “We speak for Rhuidean, and the Jenn Aiel.”

  A stir ran through the men around Mandein. Most of them liked the Jenn claiming to be Aiel no better than he did. “Why have you called us here?” he demanded, though it burned his tongue to admit being summoned.

  Instead of answering, Dermon said, “Why do you not carry a sword?” That brought angry mutters.

  “It is forbidden,” Mandein growled. “Even Jenn should know that.” He lifted his spears, touched the knife at his waist, the bow on his back. “These are weapons enough for a warrior.” The mutters became approving, including some from men who had sworn to kill him. They still would, given the chance, but they approved of what he had said. And they seemed content to let him talk, with those Aes Sedai watching.