The Wheel of Time

by Robert Jordan

  Quickly she knelt in front of the small brick stove with its tin chimney and opened the iron door on their valuables.

  The twisted stone ring was fast nestled into her belt pouch beside Lan’s heavy signet ring and her gold Great Serpent. The small gilded coffer containing the gems Amathera had given her went into the leather scrip with the pouches of herbs taken from Ronde Macura in Mardecin and the small mortar and pestle for preparing them; she fingered through the latter just to remind herself what each contained, from healall to that dreadful forkroot. The letters-of-rights went in as well, and three of the six purses, none quite as fat as it had been after paying the menagerie’s way to Ghealdan. Luca might not be interested in his hundred marks, but he had had no qualms about collecting his expenses. One of the letters authorizing the bearer to do whatever she wished in the name of the Amyrlin Seat joined the rings. No more than vague rumors of some sort of trouble in Tar Valon had reached Samara; she might find a use for it, even with Siuan Sanche’s signature. The dark wooden box she left where it sat, next to three of the purses, as well as the rough jute bag containing the a’dam—that, she certainly had no wish to touch—and the silver arrow Elayne had found the night of the calamitous encounter with Moghedien.

  For a moment she frowned at the arrow, contemplating Moghedien. It was best to do whatever was necessary to avoid her. It was. I bested her once! And had been hung up like a sausage in the kitchen the second time. If not for Birgitte . . . She made her own choice. The woman had said so, and it was true. I could defeat her again. I could. But if I failed . . . If she failed . . .

  She was only trying to avoid the washleather purse stuffed right to the back, and she knew it, yet there was not a hair’s difference for ugliness between the purse and the thought of losing to Moghedien again. Drawing a deep breath, she gingerly reached in and took it up by the drawstrings, and knew she had been wrong. Evil seemed to bathe her hand, stronger than ever, as if the Dark One really was trying to break through the cuendillar seal inside. Better to dwell all day on defeat by Moghedien; there was a world of difference between thought and reality. It had to be imagination—there had been no such feeling in Tanchico—but she wished she could let Elayne carry that, too. Or leave it there.

  Stop being foolish, she told herself firmly. It holds the Dark One’s prison shut. You are just letting your fancies run wild. But she still dropped it like a week-dead rat onto the red dress Luca had had made, then wrapped and tied the thing securely with more than a little haste. The silken parcel went into the middle of a bundle of clothes she was taking with her, inside her good gray traveling cloak. A few inches’ distance was enough to take away the sensation of dark bleakness, but she still wanted to wash her hand. If only she did not know it was there. She was being foolish. Elayne would laugh at her, and Birgitte, as well. And rightly.

  Actually, the clothes she wanted to keep made two packages, and she regretted every stitch she had to leave behind. Even the low-cut blue silk. Not that she ever wanted to wear anything like it again—she did not intend to touch the red dress, certainly, until she handed the intact packet to an Aes Sedai in Salidar—but she could not help totting up the cost of clothes, horses and wagons abandoned since leaving Tanchico. And the coach, and the barrels of dye. Even Elayne would have winced if she had ever thought of it. That young woman believed there would always be coin when she reached into her purse.

  She was still making the second bundle when Elayne returned and silently changed into a blue silk dress. Silently, except for mutters when she had to double her arms behind her to fasten the buttons. Nynaeve would have helped, had she been asked, but since she was not, she examined the other woman for bruises while she changed. She thought she had heard a scream only minutes before Elayne arrived, and if she and Birgitte had actually come to blows . . . She was not certain she was glad to find none. A riverboat would be just as confining as this wagon in its own way, and less than pleasant if the two women were at one another’s throats. But then again, it might have helped had they worked off some of their beastly tempers.

  Elayne said not a word while she gathered her own belongings, not even when Nynaeve asked, quite amiably, where she had gone haring off to as if she had sat on a cockleburr. That got only a raised chin and a chilly stare, as though the girl thought she was already on her mother’s throne.

  Sometimes Elayne was even more silent, in a way that said far more than words could. Finding three purses remaining, she paused before taking them, and the temperature in the wagon lowered considerably, though the purses were only her share. Nynaeve was tired of the carping over how she doled out coins; let the woman watch them dribble away and realize there might be no more for some time. When Elayne realized the ring was gone, though, and the dark box still sitting there . . .

  Elayne hefted the box and opened the lid, pursing her lips as she studied the contents, the other two ter’angreal they had carried all the way from Tear. A small iron disc worked on both sides with a tight spiral, and a narrow plaque five inches long, seemingly amber yet harder than steel, and with a sleeping woman somehow carved inside it. Either could be used to enter Tel’aran’rhiod, though not so easily or so well as could the ring; to use either it was necessary to channel Spirit, the sole one of the Five Powers that could be channeled in sleep. It had seemed only right to Nynaeve, leaving them for Elayne, since she was taking charge of the ring. Closing the box with a sharp click, Elayne stared at her, absolutely expressionless, then stuffed it into one of her bundles alongside the silver arrow. Her silence was thunderous.

  Elayne also made two bundles, but hers were larger; she left nothing out except the spangled coats and breeches. Nynaeve refrained from suggesting that she had overlooked them; she should have, with the sulking that was going on, but she knew how to promote harmony. She limited herself to one sniff when Elayne ostentatiously added the a’dam to her things, though from the look she got in return, you would have thought she had made her objections known at length. By the time they left the wagon, the quiet could have been chipped and used to chill wine.

  Outside, the men were ready. And muttering to themselves, and throwing impatient looks at her and Elayne. It was hardly fair. Galad and Uno had nothing to prepare. Thom’s flute and harp hung on his back in leather cases, along with a small bundle, and Juilin, notched sword-breaker at his belt and leaning on his head-high staff, wore an even smaller bundle, neatly tied. Men were willing to wear the same clothes until they rotted off.

  Of course, Birgitte was ready, too, bow in hand, quiver at her hip, and a cloak-wrapped bundle at her feet not much smaller than one of Elayne’s. Nynaeve would not have put it past Birgitte to have Luca’s dresses in there, but it was what she wore that gave a moment’s pause. Her divided skirts could have been the voluminous trousers she had worn in Tel’aran’rhiod, except for being more gold than yellow and not being gathered at the ankles. The short blue coat was identical in cut.

  The mystery of where the garments had come from was solved when Clarine scurried up, chattering that she had taken too long, with two more of the skirts and another coat to fold into Birgitte’s bundle. She stayed to say how sorry she was that they were leaving the show, and she was not the only one to take a few moments from the bustle of hitching horses and packing up. Aludra came with wishes for a safe journey, wherever they were going, in her Taraboner accents. And with two more boxes of her firesticks. Nynaeve tucked them into her scrip with a sigh. She had made a point of leaving the others behind, and Elayne had pushed them to the back of the shelf, behind a sack of beans, when she thought Nynaeve was not looking. Petra offered to help escort them to the river, pretending not to see his wife’s eyes tighten with concern, and so did the Chavanas, and Kin and Bari, the jugglers, though when Nynaeve told them there was no need, and Petra frowned, they could barely hide their relief. She had to speak quickly, for Galad and the other men looked on the point of accepting. Surprisingly, even Latelle appeared briefly, with words of regret, smiles, and eye
s that said she would carry their bundles if it saw them gone any sooner. Nynaeve was surprised Cerandin did not come, though in a way she was just as glad. Elayne might get on famously with the woman, but since the incident where she had been assaulted, Nynaeve had felt a tension whenever she was around her, perhaps the more because Cerandin gave no outward sign of the same.

  Luca himself was the last, thrusting a handful of pitiful, drought-dwarfed wildflowers at Nynaeve—the Light alone knew where he had found them—with protestations of undying love, extravagant praises for her beauty, and dramatic vows to find her again if he had to travel to the corners of the world. She was not sure which made her cheeks grow hotter, but her frosty stare wiped the grin from Juilin’s face and astonishment from Uno’s. Whatever Thom and Galad thought, they had enough sense to keep their features smooth. She could not make herself look at Birgitte or Elayne.

  The worst was that she had to stand there and listen, wilted flowers drooping over her hand, her face growing redder. Trying to send him away with a flea in his ear would likely only have sparked him to greater efforts, and given the others more fodder than they already had. She very nearly heaved a sigh of relief when the idiot man finally bowed himself away in elaborate flourishes of his cape.

  She held on to the flowers, striding ahead of the others so she did not have to see their faces and angrily shoving bundles back into place when they shifted, until she was out of sight of the wagons around the canvas wall. Then she threw the bedraggled blossoms down so violently that Ragan and the rest of the rough-clad Shienarans, squatting halfway across the meadow to the road, exchanged glances. Each had a blanket-wrapped bundle on his back—small, of course!—alongside his sword, but they were hung about with enough water bottles to last for days, and every third man had a pot or kettle dangling somewhere. Fine. If there was cooking to be done, let them do it! Not waiting for them to decide whether she was safe to approach, she stalked out to the dirt road alone.

  Valan Luca was the source of her fury—humiliating her that way! She should have thumped his head and the Dark One take what anyone thought!—but its target was Lan Mandragoran. Lan had never given her flowers. Not that that was of any account. He had expressed his feelings in words deeper and more heartfelt than Valan Luca could ever manage. She had meant every word to Luca, but if Lan said he was going to carry you off, threats would never stop him; channeling would not stop him unless you managed it before he turned your brain and your knees to jelly with kisses. Still, flowers would have been nice. Nicer than another explanation of why their love could never be, certainly. Men and their word! Men and their honor! Wedded to death, was he? Him and his personal war with the Shadow! He was going to live, he was going to wed her, and if he thought differently on either point, she intended to set him straight. There was only the small matter of his bond to Moiraine to deal with. She could have screamed in frustration.

  She was a hundred paces down the road before the others caught up, glancing at her sideways. Elayne only sniffed loudly while struggling to readjust the two large bundles on her back—she would have to take everything—but Birgitte strode along pretending to speak under her breath yet quite audibly muttering about women who rushed off like Carpan girls leaping from a river cliff. Nynaeve ignored them equally.

  The men spread out, Galad in the lead flanked by Thom and Juilin, the Shienarans in a long file to either side, wary eyes searching every withered bush and fold in the ground. Walking in the middle of them, Nynaeve felt foolish—you would have thought they expected an army to rise up out of the ground; you would have thought she and the other two women were helpless—especially when the Shienarans silently followed Uno’s lead and unlimbered their swords. Why, there was not a human being in sight; even the shanty villages appeared abandoned. Galad’s blade remained in its scabbard, but Juilin began hefting his thumb-thick staff instead of using it for a walking stick, and knives appeared in Thom’s hands and vanished as if he was unconscious of what he was doing. Even Birgitte fitted an arrow to her bow. Nynaeve shook her head. It would take a brave mob to come in eyeshot of this lot.

  Then they reached Samara, and she began to wish she had accepted Petra’s offer, and the Chavanas’, and anyone else’s she could have found.

  The gates stood open and unguarded, and six black columns of smoke rose above the gray town walls. The streets beyond were still. Shattered glass from broken windows crunched underfoot; that was the only sound except for a distant buzz, like monstrous swarms of wasps scattered through the city. Furniture and bits of clothing littered the paving stones, pots and pottery, things dragged from shops and homes, whether by looters or by people fleeing there was no way to tell.

  Not only property had been destroyed. In one place a corpse in a fine green silk coat hung half out of a window, limp and unmoving; in another a fellow garbed in rags dangled by his neck from the eaves of a tinsmith’s shop. Sometimes, down a side street or alley, she caught a glimpse of what might have been discarded bundles of old clothes; she knew they were not.

  In one doorway, where the splintered door hung crazily by a single hinge, small flames licked up around a wooden staircase, smoke just beginning to trickle out. The street might be empty now, but whoever had done that was not long gone. Head swiveling, trying to watch every way at once, Nynaeve took a firm hold on her belt knife.

  Sometimes the angry buzz grew louder, a wordless guttural roar of rage that seemed no more than one street over, and sometimes it faded to a dull murmur; yet when trouble came, it came suddenly and silently. The mass of men stalked around the next corner but one, like a pack of hunting wolves, jamming the street from side to side, soundless but for the thud of boots. The sight of Nynaeve and the others was a torch tossed into a haystack. There was no hesitation; as one they surged forward, howling and rabid, waving pitchforks and swords, axes and clubs, anything that could be taken to hand for a weapon.

  Enough anger still clung in Nynaeve for her to embrace saidar, and she did it without thinking, even before she saw the glow spring up around Elayne. There were a dozen ways she could halt this mob by herself, a dozen more she could destroy it if she chose. If not for the possibility of Moghedien. She was not sure whether the same thought held Elayne. She only knew that she hung on to her anger and the True Source with equal fervor, and it was Moghedien more than the onrushing rabble that made it hard. She hung on to them, and knew she dared do nothing. Not if there was any other chance. Almost, she wished she could cut the flows being woven by Elayne. There had to be some other chance.

  One man, a tall fellow in a ragged red coat that had belonged to someone else once by its green-and-gold embroidery, ran out in front of the others on long legs, shaking a wood-axe overhead. Birgitte’s arrow took him through one eye. He went down in a sprawling heap and was trampled by the others, all contorted faces and wordless screams. Nothing was going to stop them. With a wail, half outrage, half pure fear, Nynaeve jerked her belt knife free and at the same time prepared to channel.

  Like a wave striking boulders, the charge splintered on Shienaran steel. The top-knotted men, not much less ragged than those they fought, worked their two-handed swords methodically, craftsmen at their craft, and the onslaught went no farther than their thin line. Men fell screaming for the Prophet, but more scrambled over them. Juilin, the fool, was in that row, flat-topped conical cap perched on his dark head, thin staff a blur that deflected stabs, broke arms and cracked skulls. Thom worked behind the line, his limp strong as he darted from place to place to confront the few who managed to wriggle through; only a dagger in either hand, yet even swordsmen died on those blades. The gleeman’s leathery face was grim, but when one bulky fellow in a blacksmith’s leather vest nearly reached Elayne with his pitchfork, Thom snarled as viciously as any in the mob and very nearly cut the man’s head off while slitting his throat. Through it all Birgitte calmly shifted from spot to spot, every arrow finding an eye.

  Yet if they held the mob, it was Galad who broke them. He faced the
ir charge as though awaiting the next dance at a ball, arms folded and unconcerned, not even bothering to bare his blade until they were almost on top of him. Then he did dance, all his grace turned in an instant to fluid death. He did not stand against them; he carved a path into their heart, a clear swath as wide as his sword’s reach. Sometimes five or six men closed in around him with swords and axes and table legs for clubs, but only for the brief time it took them to die. In the end, all their rage, all their thirst for blood, could not face him. It was from him that the first ran, flinging away weapons, and when the rest fled, they divided around him. As they vanished back the way they had come, he stood twenty paces from anyone else, alone among the dead and the groans of the dying.

  Nynaeve shivered as he bent to clean his blade on a corpse’s coat. He was graceful, even doing that. He was beautiful, even doing that. She thought she might sick up.

  She had no idea how long it had taken. Some of the Shienarans were leaning on their swords, panting. And eyeing Galad with a good deal of respect. Thom was bent over with one hand on his knee, trying to fend Elayne off with the other while telling her he just had to catch his breath. Minutes, an hour; it could have been either.

  For once, looking at the injured men lying on the pavement here and there, the one crawling away, she felt no desire to Heal, no pity at all. Not far off was a pitchfork, where someone had flung it; a man’s severed head was impaled on one tine, a woman’s on another. All she felt was queasy, and grateful that it was not her head. That, and cold.

  “Thank you,” she said aloud, to no one in particular and to everyone. “Thank you very much.” The words grated a little—she did not like confessing something she had not been able to do for herself—but they were fervent. Then Birgitte nodded in acknowledgment, and Nynaeve had to struggle with herself. But the woman had done as much as anyone. Considerably more than she herself. She thrust her belt knife back into its sheath. “You . . . shot very well.”