The Wheel of Time

by Robert Jordan

  They were doing a steady business, if not for ale. The Aiel did not mind the temperature, but they seemed to think it too weak. Most were Jindo, but there was a steady stream of Shaido from the other camp. Couladin and Kadere had their heads together for a long time, though they came to no agreement, since Couladin left empty-handed. Kadere must not have liked losing the trade; he stared after Couladin with those hawk’s eyes, and a Jindo who wanted his attention had to speak three times before he was heard.

  The Aiel did not show much in the way of coin, but the peddlers and their people were quick to accept silver bowls or gold figurines or fine wall hangings looted from Tear, and Aiel pouches produced raw nuggets of gold and silver that made Mat sit up. But an Aiel who lost at dice might well reach for his spears. He wondered where the mines were. Where one man could find gold, another could. It was probably a lot of work, though, mining gold. Taking a long drink of warm ale, he settled back against the wagon wheel.

  What sold and what did not, and at what price, was interesting. The Aiel were no simple fools to hand over a gold saltcellar, say, for a bolt of cloth. They knew the value of things and bargained hard, though they had their own wants. Books went immediately; not everyone wanted them, but those who did took every last one the wagons held. Laces and velvets vanished as soon as they were brought out, for astonishing quantities of silver and gold, and ribbons for not much less, but the finest silks just lay there. Silk was cheaper in trade to the east, he overheard a Shaido tell Kadere. A heavy-set, broken-nosed driver tried to talk a Jindo Maiden into a carved ivory bracelet. She pulled one wider, thicker and more ornate from her pouch and offered to wrestle him for the pair. He hesitated before refusing, which showed Mat he was even dumber than he looked. Needles and pins were snapped up, but the pots, and most of the knives, earned sneers; Aiel smiths did better work. Everything changed hands, from vials of perfumes and bath salts to kegs of brandy. Wine and brandy fetched good prices. He was startled to hear Heirn ask for Two Rivers tabac. The peddlers had none.

  One driver kept trying to interest the Aiel in a heavy, gold-worked crossbow with no success. The crossbow caught Mat’s eye, all those inlaid gold lions with what seemed to be rubies for eyes. Small, but still rubies. Of course, a good Two Rivers longbow could shoot six arrows while a crossbowman was still cranking back the bowstring for his second shot. A longer range for a crossbow that size, though, by a hundred paces. With two men doing nothing but keeping a crossbow with bolt in place in the hands of each crossbowman, and stout pikemen to hold the cavalry off . . . .

  Wincing, Mat let his head fall back against the spokes. It had happened again. He had to get out of the Waste away from Moiraine, away from any Aes Sedai. Maybe back home for a while. Maybe he could get there in time to help with this Whitecloak trouble. Small chance of that, unless I use the bloody Ways, or another bloody Portal Stone. That would not solve his problems anyway. For one thing, there were no answers in Emond’s Field to what those snaky folk had meant about marrying the Daughter of the Nine Moons, or dying and living again. Or Rhuidean.

  Through his coat he rubbed the silver foxhead medallion, hung around his neck again. The pupil of the fox’s eye was a tiny circle split by a sinuous line, one side polished bright, the other shaded in some way. The ancient symbol of Aes Sedai, before the Breaking. The black-hafted spear, sword-blade point marked with two ravens, he took from where it was leaning beside him and laid it across his knees. More Aes Sedai work. Rhuidean had provided no answers, only more questions, and . . . .

  Before Rhuidean his memory had been full of holes. Casting back in his mind then, he would be able to remember walking up to a door in the morning and leaving in the evening, but nothing between. Now there was something in between, filling all those holes. Waking dreams, or something very like. It was as if he could remember dances and battles and streets and cities, none of which he had ever really seen, none of which he was sure had ever existed, like a hundred pieces of memory from a hundred different men. Better to think of them as dreams, maybe—a little better—yet he was as sure in them as in any of his own remembrances. Battles numbered the most, and sometimes they crept up on him in a way, as with the crossbow. He would find himself looking at a piece of ground and planning how to set an ambush there, or defend against one, or how to set an army for battle. It was madness.

  Without looking, he traced the flowing script carved into the black spear shaft. He could read it as easily as any book now, though it had taken him the whole trip back to Chaendaer to realize it. Rand had not said anything, but he suspected he had given himself away, there in Rhuidean. He knew the Old Tongue now, sifted whole out of those dreams. Light, what did they do to me?

  “Sa souvraya niende misain ye,” he said aloud. “I am lost in my own mind.”

  “A scholar, for this day and Age.”

  Mat looked up to find the gleeman looking at him with dark, deep-set eyes. The fellow was taller than most, somewhere in his middle years and likely attractive to women, but with an oddly apprehensive way of holding his head cocked as if trying to look at you sideways.

  “Just something I heard once,” Mat said. He had to be more careful. If Moiraine decided to pack him off to the White Tower for study, they would never let him out of there again. “You hear scraps of things and remember them. I know a few phrases.” That should cover any slips he was stupid enough to make.

  “I am Jasin Natael. A gleeman.” Natael did not flourish his cloak the way Thom would; he could have been saying he was a carpenter or a wheelwright. “Do you mind if I join you?” Mat nodded to the ground next to him, and the gleeman folded his legs, tucking his cloak under to sit on. He seemed fascinated by the Jindo and Shaido milling around the wagons, most still carrying their spears and bucklers. “Aiel,” he murmured. “Not what I would have expected. I can still hardly credit it.”

  “I’ve been with them for weeks now,” Mat said, “and I don’t know that I believe them myself. Odd people. If any of the Maidens ask you to play Maidens’ Kiss, my advice is to refuse. Politely.”

  Natael frowned at him questioningly. “You lead an intriguing life, it seems.”

  “What do you mean?” Mat asked cautiously.

  “Surely you do not think it is a secret? Not many men travel in company with . . . an Aes Sedai. The woman Moiraine Damodred. And then there is Rand al’Thor. The Dragon Reborn. He Who Comes With the Dawn. Who can say how many prophecies he is supposed to fulfill? An unusual traveling companion, certainly.”

  The Aiel had talked, of course. Anyone would. Still, it was a little unsettling to have a stranger calmly talk about Rand this way. “He suits well enough for now. If he interests you, talk to him. Myself, I’d just as soon not be reminded.”

  “Perhaps I will. Later, perhaps. Let us talk of you. I understand you went into Rhuidean, where none save Aiel have gone in three thousand years. You got that there?” He reached for the spear on Mat’s knees, but let his hand fall when Mat drew it away slightly. “Very well. Tell me what you saw.”

  “Why?”

  “I am a gleeman, Matrim.” Natael had his head cocked to one side in that uneasy manner, but his voice held irritation at having to explain. He lifted a corner of his cloak with its colorful patches as though for proof. “You have seen what none have, save a handful of Aiel. What stories can I make with the sights your eyes have seen? I will even make you the hero, if you wish.”

  Mat snorted. “I don’t want to be any bloody hero.”

  Yet there was no reason to keep silent. Amys and that lot could chatter about not speaking of Rhuidean, but he was no Aiel. Besides, it might pay to have somebody with the peddlers who had a little goodwill toward him, somebody who could put in a word when it was needed.

  He told the story from reaching the wall of fog to coming out, leaving out selected bits. He had no intention of telling anyone else about that twisted-doorway ter’angreal, and he would rather forget the dust gathering into creatures that tried to kill him. That strange
city of huge palaces was surely enough, and Avendesora.

  The Tree of Life Natael passed over quickly, but he took Mat through the rest again and again, asking more and more detail, from exactly what it felt like walking through that fog and how long it took to the color of the shadowless light inside, to descriptions of every last thing Mat could remember seeing in the great square in the heart of the city. Those Mat gave reluctantly; a slip, and he would find himself talking about ter’angreal, and who knew where that might lead? Even so he drained the last of the warm ale, and still talked until his throat was dry. It sounded rather dull the way he told it, as though he had just walked in and waited while Rand went off, then walked out again, but Natael seemed intent on digging out every last scrap. He did remind Mat of Thom then; sometimes Thom concentrated on you as though he meant to wring you dry.

  “Is this what you are meant to be doing?”

  Mat jumped in spite of himself at the sound of Keille’s voice, hard under its mellifluous tones. The woman put him on edge, and now she looked ready to rip his heart out, and the gleeman’s as well.

  Natael scrambled to his feet. “This young man has just been telling me the most fascinating things about Rhuidean. You will not believe it.”

  “We are not here for Rhuidean.” The words came out as sharp as her hatchet of a nose. At least she was only glaring at Natael now.

  “I tell you—”

  “You tell me nothing.”

  “Do not try to silence me!”

  Ignoring Mat, they moved off down the wagons, arguing in low voices, gesticulating fiercely. Keille seemed to have been browbeaten into a grim silence by the time they disappeared into her wagon.

  Mat shivered. He could not imagine sharing living quarters with that woman. It would be like sharing with a bear with a sore tooth. Isendre, now . . . . That face, those lips, that swaying walk. If he could get her away from Kadere, maybe she would find a young hero—the dust creatures could be ten feet tall, for her; he would give her every detail he could remember or invent—a handsome young hero more to her liking than a stuffy old peddler. It was worth thinking about.

  The sun slid below the horizon, and small fires of thorny branches made pools of yellow light among the tents. The smells of cooking filled the camp; goat, roasting with dried peppers. Cold filled the camp, too, the cold of night in the Waste. It was as if the sun had taken all the heat with it. Mat had never expected he would wish for a stout cloak when he packed to leave the Stone. Maybe the peddlers had one. Maybe Natael would dice for his.

  He ate at Rhuarc’s fire with Heirn and Rand. And Aviendha, of course. The peddlers were there, and Natael close by Keille, and Isendre all but wrapped around Kadere. It might be harder separating Isendre from the hook-nosed man than he had hoped—or easier. Twined around the fellow or not, she had smoky eyes for Rand and no one else. You would have thought she already had his ears clipped, a sheep marked for its owner’s flock. Neither Rand nor Kadere seemed to notice; the peddler hardly took his eyes off Rand. Aviendha noticed, and glared at Rand. At least the fire gave off some warmth.

  When the roast goat was finished—and some sort of flecked yellow mush that was spicier than it looked—Rhuarc and Heirn filled short-stemmed pipes, and the clan chief asked Natael for a song.

  The gleeman blinked. “Why, of course. Of course. Let me bring a harp.” His cloak billowed on the dry, cold breeze as he vanished toward Keille’s wagon.

  The fellow certainly was different from Thom Merrilin. Thom hardly got out of bed without flute or harp or both. Mat thumbed his silver-worked pipe full of tabac, and was puffing contentedly by the time Natael returned and struck a pose suitable for a king. That was like Thom. With a strummed cord, the gleeman began.

  “Soft, the winds, like springtime’s fingers.

  Soft, the rains, like heaven’s tears.

  Soft, the years roll by in gladness,

  never hinting storms to come,

  never hinting whirlwinds’ ravage,

  rain of steel and battle thunder,

  war to tear the heart asunder.”

  It was “Midean’s Ford.” An old song; of Manetheren, oddly enough, and war before the Trolloc Wars. Natael did a fair job of it; nothing like Thom’s sonorous recitals, of course, but the rolling words drew a crowd of Aiel thick around the edge of the fire’s light. Villainous Aedomon led the Saferi down on unsuspecting Manetheren, pillaging and burning, driving all before them until King Buiryn gathered Manetheren’s strength, and the men of Manetheren met the Saferi at Midean’s Ford, holding, though heavily outnumbered, through three days of unrelenting battle, while the river ran red and vultures blacked the sky. On the third day, numbers dwindling, hope fading, Buiryn and his men fought their way across the ford in a desperate sortie, driving deep into Aedomon’s horde, seeking to turn the enemy back by killing Aedomon himself. But forces too great to overpower swept in around them, trapping them, driving them ever in on themselves. Surrounding their king and the Red Eagle banner, they fought on, refusing surrender even when their doom became clear.

  Natael sang how their courage touched even Aedomon’s heart, and how at last he allowed the remnant to go free, turning his army back to Safer in honor of them.

  “Back across the blood-red water,

  marching back with heads held high.

  No surrender, arm or sword,

  no surrender, heart or soul.

  Honor be theirs, ever after,

  honor all the Age shall know.”

  He plucked the final chord, and the Aiel whistled their approval, drumming spears on their hide bucklers, some raising ululating cries.

  It had not been that way, of course. Mat could remember—Light, I don’t want to! But it came anyway—he remembered counseling Buiryn not to accept the offer, being told in return that the smallest chance was better than none. Aedomon, glossy black beard hanging below the steel mesh that veiled his face, drew his spearmen back, waited until they were strung out and nearly to the ford before the hidden archers rose and the cavalry charged in. As for turning back to Safer . . . . Mat did not think so. His last memory at the ford was trying to keep his feet, waist-deep in the river with three arrows in him, but there was something later, a fragment. Seeing Aedomon, gray-bearded now, go down in a sharp fight in a forest, toppling from his rearing horse, the spear in his back put there by an unarmored, beardless boy. This was worse than the holes had been.

  “You did not like the song?” Natael said.

  It took Mat a moment to realize the man was speaking to Rand, not him. Rand rubbed his hands together, peering into the small fire, before answering. “I’m not certain how wise it is, depending on an enemy’s generosity. What do you think, Kadere?”

  The peddler hesitated, glancing at the woman clinging to his arm. “I do not think of such things,” he said at last. “I think of profits, not battles.” Keille laughed coarsely. At least, until she saw Isendre’s smile, condescending to a woman who could make three of her; then her dark eyes glittered dangerously behind those rolls of fat.

  Suddenly warning cries rose in the dark beyond the tents. Aiel snatched veils across their faces, and a moment later Trollocs poured in out of the night, snouted faces and horned heads, towering over the humans, howling and swinging scythe-curved swords, stabbing with hooked spears and barbed tridents, hacking with spiked axes. Myrddraal flowed with them, like deadly eyeless snakes. A heartbeat it took, but the Aiel fought as if they had had an hour’s warning, meeting the charge with their own flickering spears.

  Mat was vaguely aware of Rand with that fiery sword suddenly in hand, but then he was sucked into the maelstrom himself, wielding his spear as spear and quarterstaff both, slash and thrust, haft whirling. For once he was glad of those dream memories; the way of this weapon seemed familiar, and he needed every scrap of skill he could find. It was all chaotic madness.

  Trollocs rose up in front of him and went down to his spear, or an Aiel spear, or spun away into the confusion of shouts and
howls and clanging steel. Myrddraal faced him, black blades meeting his raven-marked steel with flashes of blue light like sheet lightning, faced him and were gone in the tumult. Twice a short spear streaking by his head took Trollocs about to run him through the back. He thrust the short-sword blade into a Myrddraal’s chest and knew he was going to die when it did not fall, but grinned with those bloodless lips, eyeless stare shivering fear into his bones, and drew back its black sword. An instant later the Halfman jerked as Aiel arrows pincushioned it, jerked for the moment Mat needed to leap back from the thing as it fell still trying to stab at him, stab at anything.

  A dozen times the spear’s iron-hard black haft barely deflected a Trolloc thrust. It was Aes Sedai work, and he was glad of it. The silver foxhead on his chest seemed to pulse with cold as if to remind him that it, too, bore the mark of Aes Sedai. Right then, he did not care; if it took Aes Sedai work to keep him alive, he was ready to follow Moiraine like a puppy.

  He could not have said if it went on for minutes or hours, but suddenly there was not a Myrddraal or Trolloc still standing in sight, though cries and howls from the darkness spoke of pursuit. Dead and dying littered the ground, Aiel and Shadowspawn, the Halfmen still thrashing. Groans filled the air with pain. Suddenly he realized his muscles felt like water, and his lungs were afire. Panting, he slid down to his knees, leaning on his spear. Flames made bonfires of three of the peddlers’ canvas-topped wagons, one with a driver pinned to the side by a Trolloc spear, and some of the tents were burning. Shouts from the direction of the Shaido camp, and glows too large for campfires, said they had been attacked, too.