The Wheel of Time

by Robert Jordan

  Nynaeve exchanged confused glances with Elayne. Surely she had told them. They could not have imagined it, not with every word confirmed now. Even Amys, long white hair only emphasizing the not quite Aes Sedai agelessness of her face, looked amazed at the flood.

  “Mat killed Couladin?” Nynaeve exclaimed at one point. That had certainly not been in their dreams of her. It did not sound like Mat at all. Leading soldiers? Mat?

  When Egwene finally trailed off, shifting her shawl and breathing a little quickly—she had barely paused for breath along the way—Elayne said weakly, “Is he well?” She sounded as if she was almost beginning to doubt her own memories.

  “As well as can be expected,” Amys said. “He drives himself hard, and listens to no one. Except Moiraine.” Amys was not pleased.

  “Aviendha is with him almost all the time,” Egwene said. “She is taking good care of him for you.”

  Nynaeve doubted that. She did not know much about Aiel, but she suspected that if Amys said “hard,” anyone else would say “murderously.”

  Apparently, Elayne agreed. “Then why is she letting him push himself? What is he doing?”

  Quite a bit, it turned out, and clearly too much. Two hours each day practicing the sword with Lan or anyone else he could find. That made Amys’ mouth tighten sourly. Two more studying the Aiel way of fighting without weapons. Egwene might find that strange, but Nynaeve was all too aware of how helpless you could be when you could not channel. Still, Rand certainly should never find himself in that position. He had become a king, or something more, surrounded by Far Dareis Mai guards, ordering lords and ladies about. In fact, he spent so much time ordering them, and chasing after them to make sure they did what he said, that he would not spare time for meals if the Maidens did not bring him food wherever he was. For some reason, while that seemed to irk Egwene almost as much as it did Elayne, Amys looked distinctly amused, though her face went back to Aiel stoniness once she saw Nynaeve notice. Yet another hour each day was given to a strange school he had founded, inviting not only scholars but craftsmen, from some fellow who made looking glasses to a woman who had constructed some sort of huge crossbow with pulleys that could hurl a spear a mile. He had told no one his purpose there, except maybe Moiraine, but the only answer the Aes Sedai had given Egwene was that the urge to leave something behind was strong in everyone. Moiraine did not seem to care what Rand did.

  “What remains of the Shaido are retreating north,” Amys said grimly, “and more slip across the Dragonwall to them every day, but Rand al’Thor seems to have forgotten them. He is sending the spears south, toward Tear. Half are gone already. Rhuarc says he has not even told the chiefs why, and I do not think Rhuarc would lie to me. Moiraine stands closer to Rand al’Thor than any except Aviendha, yet she refuses to ask him.” Shaking her head, she muttered, “Though in her defense, I will say that even Aviendha has learned nothing.”

  “The best way to keep a secret is to tell no one,” Elayne told her, which earned her a hard stare. Amys was not far behind Bair when it came to stares that made you shift your feet.

  “We aren’t going to reason it out here,” Nynaeve said, fixing her gaze on Egwene. The other woman seemed uneasy. If there was any time to begin redressing the balance between them, it might as well be now. “What I want to know—”

  “You are quite right,” Egwene cut in. “We are not in Sheriam’s study, where we can lounge about and chatter. What have you to tell us? Are you still with Master Luca’s menagerie?”

  Nynaeve’s breath caught, questions flying right out of her head. There was so much to tell. And so much not to. She claimed she had followed Lanfear to the meeting between the Forsaken, and spoke only of seeing Moghedien spying. Not that she wanted to avoid telling how she had been handled by Moghedien—not really; not exactly—but Birgitte had not released them from their promise of secrecy. Of course, that meant not telling about Birgitte at all, that she was with them. It was awkward, knowing that Egwene knew Brigitte was helping them, and still having to keep pretending that Egwene knew nothing at all, but Nynaeve managed despite stammering when Egwene arched her eyebrows. The Light be thanked, Elayne helped her present Samara as Galad and Masema’s fault. Which it was, in truth. If either had simply sent to tell her about the ship, none of the rest would have followed.

  When she finished—with Salidar—Amys said quietly, “You are certain they will support the Car’a’carn?”

  “They must know the Prophecies of the Dragon as well as Elaida,” Elayne said. “The best way to oppose her is to attach themselves to Rand, and make it clear to the world that they intend to support him all the way to Tarmon Gai’don.” Not the slightest quaver in her voice betrayed that she was not speaking of an absolute stranger. “Otherwise, they are just rebels, with no claim to legitimacy. They need him at least as much as he needs them.”

  Amys nodded, but not as if she was ready to agree yet.

  “I think I remember Masema,” Egwene said. “Hollow eyes and a sour mouth?” Nynaeve nodded. “I can hardly imagine him as any sort of prophet, but I can see him starting a riot or a war. I’m sure Galad only did what he thought was best.” Egwene’s cheeks colored slightly; even the memory of Galad’s face could do that. “Rand will want to know about Masema. And Salidar. If I can make him stand still long enough to listen.”

  “I want to know how it happens that you are both here,” Amys said. She listened to their explanation, and turned the plaque over in her hand once Nynaeve fished it out. Having the ter’angreal touched by someone else while she was using it made Nynaeve’s skin crawl. “I believe you are less here than Elayne,” the Wise One said finally. “When a Dreamwalker enters the World of Dreams in her sleep, only a tiny bit of her remains with her body, just enough to keep her body alive. If she puts herself into a shallow sleep, where she can be here and also speak to those around her in the waking world, she looks as you do to one who is here fully. Perhaps it is the same. I do not know that I like it, any woman who can channel being able to enter Tel’aran’rhiod, even in this state.” She returned the ter’angreal to Nynaeve.

  Heaving a sigh of relief, Nynaeve hastily tucked the plaque away again. Her stomach was still fluttering.

  “If you have told everything . . .” Amys paused while Nynaeve and Elayne hurriedly said that they had. The woman’s blue eyes were incredibly penetrating. “Then we must go. I will admit there is more to be gained from these meetings than I first supposed, but I have much to do yet tonight.” She glanced at Egwene, and they vanished as one.

  Nynaeve and Elayne did not hesitate. Around them the great redstone columns changed in a blink to a small, dark-paneled room, its furnishings few, plain and sturdy. Nynaeve’s anger had been wavering, and with it her hold on saidar, but the Mistress of Novices’ study firmed both. Stubbornly defiant indeed! She hoped that Sheriam was in Salidar; it would be a pleasure to face her on an equal footing. Still, she could have wished to be somewhere else. Elayne was peering into the mirror with its flaking gilt frame, nonchalantly adjusting her hair with her hands. Only she had no need to use her hands here. She did not like being in this room either. Why had Egwene suggested meeting here? Elaida’s study might not be the most comfortable place to be, but it was better than this.

  A moment later, Egwene was there, on the other side of the broad table, eyes icy and hands on her hips as if she was the room’s rightful occupant.

  Before Nynaeve could open her mouth, Egwene said, “Have you two brainless flaptongues become witless ninnies? If I ask you to keep something to yourselves, do you immediately tell the first person you meet? Did it never occur to you that you don’t have to tell everyone everything? I thought you two were good at keeping secrets.” Nynaeve’s cheeks grew warmer; at least she could not possibly be as scarlet as Elayne. Egwene was not quite finished. “As for how I did it, I can’t teach you. You have to be a Dreamwalker. If you can touch somebody’s dreams with the ring, I don’t know how. And I doubt you can with that other th
ing. Try to keep your mind on what you’re doing. Salidar may be nothing like you expect. Now, I also have things to do tonight. At least try to keep your wits about you!” And she was gone so suddenly the last word almost seemed to come from empty air.

  Embarrassment ate at Nynaeve’s anger. She had nearly burst out with it after Egwene asked her not to. And Birgitte: How could you keep a secret when the other woman knew? Embarrassment won, and saidar slipped away like sand through her fingers.

  Nynaeve wakened with a jerk, the deep yellow ter’angreal firmly clutched in one hand. The gimbal-mounted lamp was turned down to a dim light. Elayne lay crowded in next to her, still asleep; the ring on its thong had slid down into the hollow of her throat.

  Muttering to herself, Nynaeve clambered over the other woman to put away the plaque, then poured a little water into the washbasin to bathe her face and neck. The water was lukewarm, but it felt cool. In the shadowy light, she thought the mirror said she was still blushing. So much for redressing the balance. If only they had met anywhere else. If only she had not flapped her tongue like a brainless girl. It would have gone better if she had been using the ring, instead of being a wraith as far as the other woman was concerned. It was all Thom and Juilin’s fault. And Uno’s. If they had not made her angry . . . No, it was Neres’ fault. He . . . She took the pitcher in both hands and washed her mouth. It was only the taste of sleep she was trying to get rid of. Nothing like boiled catfern and powdered mavinsleaf. Nothing at all.

  When she turned from the washstand, Elayne was just sitting up, untying the leather cord that held the ring. “I saw you losing saidar, so I went by Elaida’s study, but I didn’t think I should stay long in case you worried. I didn’t learn anything, except that Shemerin is to be arrested and reduced to Accepted.” She got up and tucked the ring into the box.

  “They can do that? Demote an Aes Sedai?”

  “I don’t know. I think Elaida is doing anything she wants. Egwene shouldn’t wear those Aiel clothes. They are not very becoming.”

  Nynaeve let out the breath she had been holding. Obviously Elayne wanted to ignore what Egwene had said. Nynaeve was willing to let her. “No, they certainly aren’t.” Climbing onto the bed, she scrunched over against the wall; they took turns sleeping on the outside.

  “I did not even have a chance to send a message to Rand.” Elayne got in after, and the lamp winked out. The small windows let in only dribbles of moonlight. “And one to Aviendha. If she is taking care of him for me, then she ought to take care of him.”

  “He isn’t a horse, Elayne. You don’t own him.”

  “I never said I did. How will you feel if Lan takes up with some Cairhienin woman?”

  “Don’t be silly. Go to sleep.” Nynaeve burrowed fiercely into her small pillow. Perhaps she should have sent word to Lan. All those noblewomen, Tairen as well as Cairhienin. Feeding a man honey instead of telling him the truth. He had better not forget who he belonged to.

  Below Boannda, woods closed in tightly on both sides of the river, unbroken tangles of trees and vines. Villages and farms vanished. The Eldar might as well have run through wilderness a thousand miles from human habitation. Five days out of Samara, early afternoon found Riverserpent anchored in the middle of a bend in the river, while the ship’s one boat ferried the remaining passengers to a beach of cracked dry mud bordered by low, forested hills. Even the tall willows and deep-rooted oaks showed some brown leaves.

  “There was no need to give the man that necklace,” Nynaeve said on the shore, watching the rowboat approach, crowded with four oarsmen, Juilin and the last five Shienarans. She hoped she had not been gullible; Neres had showed her his map of this stretch of the river, pointing out the mark for Salidar two miles from the water, but nothing else indicated there had ever been a village anywhere near here. The forest wall was quite unbroken. “What I paid him was quite enough.”

  “Not to cover his cargo,” Elayne replied. “Just because he’s a smuggler doesn’t mean we have a right to take it from him.” Nynaeve wondered whether she had been talking to Juilin. Probably not. It was just the law again. “Besides, yellow opals are gaudy, especially in that setting. Anyway, it was worth it, just to see his face.” Elayne giggled abruptly. “He looked at me this time.” Nynaeve tried not to, but she could not help giggling, too.

  Thom was up near the trees, trying to amuse Marigan’s two boys by juggling colored balls produced from his sleeves. Jaril and Seve stared at him silently, hardly blinking, and held on to each other. Nynaeve had not really been surprised when Marigan and Nicola asked to accompany her. Nicola might be watching Thom and laughing delightedly now, but she would have spent every moment at Nynaeve’s side had the latter allowed it. Areina wanting to come had been something of a shock, though. She was sitting off by herself on a fallen log, watching Birgitte, who was stringing her bow. All three women might be in for a shock when they discovered what was in Salidar. At least Nicola would find her sanctuary, and Marigan might even have a chance to dispense herbs if there were not too many Yellows about.

  “Nynaeve, have you thought about . . . how we’re going to be received?”

  Nynaeve looked at Elayne in astonishment. They had crossed half the world, or near enough, and defeated the Black Ajah twice. Well, they had had help in Tear, but Tanchico had been all their doing. They brought news of Elaida and the Tower she was willing to bet no one in Salidar had. And most importantly, they could help these sisters make contact with Rand. “Elayne, I won’t say they will greet us as heroes, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they kissed us before today is done.” Rand alone would be worth that.

  Two of the barefoot sailors leaped out to hold the rowboat against the current, and Juilin and the Shienarans splashed ashore as the sailors scrambled back aboard. On Riverserpent men were already hauling in the anchor.

  “Clear us a path, Uno,” Nynaeve said. “I mean to be there before dark.” From the look of the forest, all vines and dusty undergrowth, two miles might take that long. If Neres had not managed to gull her. That worried her more than anything else.

  CHAPTER

  50

  To Teach, and Learn

  Some four hours later, the sweat running down Nynaeve’s face had very little to do with unseasonable heat, and she was wondering whether it might not have been better if Neres had gulled them. Or refused to carry them beyond Boannda. Late-afternoon sunlight slanted sharply through windows with mostly cracked panes. Clutching her skirts in blended irritation and unease, she tried to avoid looking at the six Aes Sedai grouped around one of the sturdy tables near the wall. Their mouths moved silently as they conferred behind a screen of saidar. Elayne had her chin high, her hands folded calmly at her waist, but a tightness about her eyes and the corners of her mouth spoiled her regal air. Nynaeve was not sure she wanted to know what the Aes Sedai were saying; one stunning blow after another had knocked all her high expectations into a daze. One more shock and she thought she might scream, and she did not know whether from fury or pure hysteria.

  Very nearly everything except their clothes was laid out on that table, from Birgitte’s silver arrow in front of stout Morvrin to the three ter’angreal before Sheriam, to the gilded coffers in front of dark-eyed Myrelle. Not one of the women looked pleased. Carlinya’s face might have been carved from snow, even motherly Anaiya wore a stern mask, and Beonin’s look of constant wide-eyed startlement had a distinctly annoyed cast. Annoyed and something more. Sometimes Beonin made as if to touch the white cloth spread neatly over the cuendillar seal, but her hand always stopped and retreated.

  Nynaeve’s eyes jerked away from the cloth. She knew exactly when things had begun to go wrong. The Warders who surrounded them in the woods had been proper, if cool—once she made Uno and the Shienarans put up their swords, anyway. And Min’s warm greetings had been all laughter and hugs. But the Aes Sedai and others in the streets, caught up in their own errands, had scurried along with hardly a glance for the party being escorted in. Salidar was qui
te crowded, with armed men drilling in nearly every open space. The first person aside from the Warders and Min to pay any attention to them at all had been the lean Brown sister they were taken to, in what had once been the common room of this inn. She and Elayne had told the story they had agreed on to Phaedrine Sedai, or tried to. Five minutes into it, they were left standing, with strict orders not to move a foot or speak a word, even to each other. Ten more minutes, staring at one another in confusion, while all around them Accepted and white-clad novices, Warders and servants and soldiers bustled between tables where Aes Sedai pored over papers and briskly handed out orders, and then they had been hustled before Sheriam and the others so quickly Nynaeve did not think her shoes had touched the floor twice. That was when the grilling had begun, more suitable for captured prisoners than returning heroes. Nynaeve dabbed at the perspiration on her face, but as soon as she tucked the handkerchief back up her sleeve, her hands returned to their grip on her skirts.

  She and Elayne were not alone standing on the colorful silk carpet. Siuan, in a plain dress of fine blue wool, might have been there by choice if Nynaeve had not known better, her face cool, utterly composed. She seemed lost in untroubled thought. Leane at least watched the Aes Sedai, yet she appeared equally confident. In fact, somehow more self-confident than Nynaeve remembered. The copper-skinned woman looked even more willowy, too, more supple in some fashion. Perhaps it was her scandalous dress. That pale green silk was every bit as high-necked as Siuan’s, but it clung to every curve of her, and the material only managed to be opaque by a thin hair. It was their faces that truly stunned Nynaeve, though. She had never expected to find either alive, and certainly never looking so very young—no more than a few years older than she if that. They did not so much as glance at one another. In truth, she thought she detected a distinct chill between them.