The Wheel of Time

by Robert Jordan

  “How did you ever break through that?” Nynaeve asked curiously. Elayne had the novices all paired off now, fumbling their way through passing small flames back and forth.

  Theodrin’s smile deepened, but a blush stained her cheeks, too. “A young man named Charel, a groom in the Tower stables, began making eyes at me. I was fifteen, and he had the most gorgeous smile. The Aes Sedai let him sit in on my lessons, quietly in a corner, so I could channel at all. What I didn’t know was that Sheriam had arranged for him to meet me in the first place.” Her cheeks darkened more. “I also didn’t know he had a twin sister, or that after a few days, the Charel sitting in the corner was really Marel. When she took off her coat and shirt one day in the middle of my lesson, I was so shocked I fainted. But after that, I could channel whenever I wanted.”

  Nynaeve burst out laughing—she could not help it—and despite her blushes Theodrin joined in without restraint. “I wish it could be that easy for me, Theodrin.”

  “Whether it is or not,” Theodrin said, her laughter fading, “we will break down your block. This afternoon—”

  “I’m studying Siuan this afternoon,” Nynaeve cut in hastily, and Theodrin’s mouth tightened.

  “You have been avoiding me, Nynaeve. In the past month you’ve managed to wriggle out of all but three appointments. I can accept your trying and failing, but I will not accept you being afraid to try.”

  “I am not,” Nynaeve began indignantly, as a small voice asked whether she was trying to hide the truth from herself. It was so disheartening to try and try and try—and fail.

  Theodrin let her have no more than those few words. “Allowing that you have commitments today,” she said calmly, “I will see you tomorrow, and every day thereafter, or I will be forced to take other steps. I don’t want to do that, and you do not want me to, but I mean to break your block down. Myrelle has asked me to make special efforts, and I vow that I will.”

  The near echo of what she had told Siuan made Nynaeve’s jaw drop. This was the first time the other woman had used the increased authority of her position. It would be just the way Nynaeve’s luck was running today for her and Siuan to end up waiting to see Tiana side by side.

  Theodrin did not wait for a reply. She merely nodded as if she had received agreement, then glided off up the street. Nynaeve could almost see a fringed shawl around her shoulders. This morning was not going well at all. And Myrelle again! She wanted to scream.

  Over among the novices, Elayne gave her a proud smile, but Nynaeve only shook her head and turned away. She was going back to her room. It was a measure of how the day was progressing that before she was halfway there Dagdara Finchey crashed into her running and knocked her flat on her back. Running! An Aes Sedai! The big woman did not stop, either, or as much as shout an apology over her shoulder as she plowed through the crowd.

  Nynaeve picked herself up, dusted herself off, stumped the rest of the way to her room and slammed the door behind her. It was hot and close, the beds were unmade until Moghedien could get around to them, and worst of all, Nynaeve’s weather sense told her there should have been a hailstorm breaking over Salidar right that minute. But she would not be surprised there, or trampled.

  Flinging herself down atop her rumpled sheets, she lay fingering the silver bracelet, thoughts skittering from what she might manage to dig out of Moghedien today to whether Siuan would appear that afternoon, from Lan to her block to whether she was going to stay in Salidar. It would not be running away, really. She would probably go to Caemlyn, to Rand; he did need somebody to keep his head from swelling too big, and Elayne would like that. She just wished leaving—not running away!—had not begun to seem even more attractive after Theodrin announced her intentions.

  She expected to have some sign in the emotions oozing through the a’dam that Moghedien was finished with her work, and to have to go find her—she often hid when she was sulking—but the shame and outrage never decreased, and the door banging open came as a complete surprise.

  “So there you are,” Moghedien grated. “Look!” She held up her hands. “Ruined!” To Nynaeve they looked no different from any hands that been doing laundry; white and wrinkled, true, but that would fade. “It is not enough that I must live in squalor, fetching and carrying like a servant, now I’m expected to labor like some primitive—!”

  Nynaeve cut her off by a simple expedient. She thought of one quick stroke of a switch, what it felt like, then shifted the thought into the part of her mind that held Moghedien’s received emotions. The other woman’s dark eyes widened, and her mouth clamped shut, lips compressing. Not a hard blow, but a reminder.

  “Close the door and sit down,” Nynaeve said. “You can make the beds later. We are going to have a lesson.”

  “I am used to better than this,” Moghedien grumbled as she complied. “A night laborer in Tojar was used to better!”

  “Unless I miss my guess,” Nynaeve told her sharply, “a night laborer in wherever didn’t have a death sentence hanging over his head. Any time you want it, we can tell Sheriam exactly who you are.” It was pure bluff—Nynaeve’s stomach clenched up in a burning ball at the mere thought—but a sickening flood of fear roared out of Moghedien. Nynaeve almost admired how steady the woman’s face remained; had she felt like that, she would have been shrieking and gnashing her teeth on the floor.

  “What do you want me to show you?” Moghedien said in a level tone. They always had to tell her what they wanted out of her. She practically never volunteered anything unless they pressed her to a point Nynaeve considered the brink of torture.

  “We’ll try something you haven’t been very successful with teaching. Detecting a man’s channeling.” So far, that was the only thing she and Elayne had not been able to pick up quickly. It could be useful if she did decide to go to Caemlyn.

  “Not easy, especially with no man to practice on. A pity you haven’t been able to Heal Logain.” There was no mockery in Moghedien’s voice or on her face, but she glanced at Nynaeve and hurried on. “Still, we can try the forms again.”

  The lesson truly was not easy. It never was, even with something Nynaeve could learn right away once the weaves became clear. Moghedien could not channel without Nynaeve allowing her to, without Nynaeve guiding her, in fact, but in a new lesson Moghedien had to give the lead for how the flows were to go. It made a pretty tangle, the main reason they were not able to learn a dozen new things from her every day. In this case Nynaeve already had some idea of how the flows were woven, but it was an intricate lacework of all of the Five Powers that made Healing seem simple, and the pattern shifted at blinding speed. Its difficulty was the reason it had never been used very often, Moghedien claimed. It also gave you a grinding headache if kept up very long.

  Nynaeve lay back on her bed and worked at it as hard as she could, though. If she did go to Rand, she might need this, and there was no telling how soon. She channeled the flows all by herself, too; an occasional thought of Lan or Theodrin kept her anger twisted up tight enough. Sooner or later Moghedien was going to be called to account for her crimes, and where would Nynaeve be then, used to drawing on the other woman’s power whenever she wanted? She had to live and work with her own limits. Could Theodrin find a way to break her block? Lan had to be alive, so she could find him. The ache became a pain that bored at her temples. A tightness appeared around Moghedien’s eyes, and she rubbed at her head sometimes, but underneath the fear the bracelet carried a current of what almost seemed contentment. Nynaeve supposed that even when you did not want to teach, it must bring a certain satisfaction. She was not sure she liked Moghedien displaying such a normal human response.

  She was not sure how long the lesson went on, with Moghedien murmuring, “Almost” and “Not quite,” but when the door banged open again, she nearly lifted straight up off the mattress. The sudden bolt of fear from Moghedien would have accompanied howling in another woman.

  “Have you heard, Nynaeve?” Elayne asked, pushing the door to. “The
re’s an emissary from the Tower, from Elaida.”

  Nynaeve forgot the words she would have shouted if her heart had not been clogging her throat. She even forgot her headache. “An emissary? You’re sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure, Nynaeve. Do you think I’d come running for gossip? The whole village is aflutter.”

  “I don’t know why,” Nynaeve said sourly. The grating inside her skull was back. And all the goosemint in her scrip of herbs under the bed would not have quieted the burning in her stomach. Would the girl never learn to knock? Moghedien had both hands pressed to her belly as though she could use some goosemint as well. “We did tell them Elaida knew about Salidar.”

  “Maybe they believed us,” Elayne said, dropping onto the foot of Nynaeve’s bed, “and maybe they didn’t, but this drove it home. Elaida knows where we are, and likely what we are up to. Any of the servants could be her eyes-and-ears. Maybe even some of the sisters. I caught a glimpse of the emissary, Nynaeve. Pale yellow hair and blue eyes that could freeze the sun. A Red named Tarna Feir, Faolain said. One of the Warders who was keeping guard escorted her in. When she looks at you, she could be looking at a stone.”

  Nynaeve looked at Moghedien. “We’re done with the lesson for now. Come back in an hour and you can make the beds.” She waited until Moghedien had gone, tight-lipped and gripping her skirts in fists, then turned to Elayne. “What . . . message did she bring?”

  “They certainly didn’t tell me, Nynaeve. Every Aes Sedai I passed was wondering the same thing. I heard when Tarna was told she’d be received by the Hall of the Tower, she laughed. And not as if she was amused. You do not think. . . .” Elayne chewed at her underlip for a moment. “You don’t think they could really decide to. . . .”

  “Go back?” Nynaeve said incredulously. “Elaida will want them to come the last ten miles on their knees, and the final mile on their bellies! Even if she didn’t, even if this Red says, ‘Come home. All is forgiven and dinner’s waiting,’ do you think they could brush aside Logain so easily?”

  “Nynaeve, Aes Sedai could brush aside anything to make the White Tower whole again. Anything. You don’t understand them the way I do; there were Aes Sedai in the palace from the day I was born. The question now is, what is Tarna saying to the Hall? And what are they saying to her?”

  Nynaeve rubbed her arms irritably. She had no answers, only hopes, and her weather sense told her that that hailstorm that was not there was beating the roofs of Salidar like drums. The feeling went on for days.

  CHAPTER

  9

  Plans

  “You had these Illuminators brought to Amador?” Many would have flinched to hear such a cold tone from Pedron Niall, but not the man standing on the inlaid golden sunburst before Niall’s plain high-backed chair. He exuded confidence and competence. Niall continued, “There is a reason I have two thousand of the Children guarding the border with Tarabon, Omerna. Tarabon is quarantined. No one is allowed across the border. Not a sparrow would cross if I had my way.”

  Omerna was the picture of what an officer of the Children of the Light was supposed to be, tall and commanding, with a bold, fearless face, a strong chin and waves of white at his temples. His dark eyes seemed more than capable of surveying the harshest battlefield undismayed, as indeed they had. At the moment they seemed to indicate deeply considered thought. The white-and-gold tabard of a Lord Captain, Anointed of the Light, suited him. “My Lord Captain Commander, they wish to establish a chapter house here.” Even his voice, deep and mellifluous, fit the image. “Illuminators travel everywhere. It should be possible to slip agents among them easily. Agents welcomed into every town, every noble’s manor, every ruler’s palace.” Supposedly Abdel Omerna was a relatively minor member of the Council of Anointed. In truth, he was the Children of the Light’s spymaster. After a manner of speaking. “Think of it!”

  What Niall thought was that the Guild of Illuminators was Taraboner to the last man and woman, and Tarabon was infected with chaos and madness that he would not let loose in Amadicia. If cauterizing that infection had to wait, he could at least isolate it. “They will be treated like anyone else who slips through, Omerna. Kept under guard, allowed to talk to no one, and escorted out of Amadicia without delay.”

  “If I may insist, my Lord Captain Commander, their usefulness is worth the little gossip they might spread. They keep to themselves. And aside from their use for my agents, the prestige of having an Illuminators’ chapter house in Amador would be considerable. The only chapter house, now. The one in Cairhien has been abandoned, and the one in Tanchico surely has been, too.”

  Prestige! Niall rubbed his left eye to soothe an involuntary flutter. Little point in getting angry with Omerna, but restraint took an effort. The morning heat cooked his temper over a slow fire. “They do indeed keep to themselves, Omerna. They live with their own, travel with their own, and barely speak to anyone else. Do you mean to have these agents marry Illuminators? They rarely marry outside their guild, and there is no way to become an Illuminator except by birth.”

  “Ah. Well. I am sure a way can be found.” Nothing could dent that façade of confidence and competence.

  “It shall be done as I say, Omerna.” The man actually opened his mouth again, but Niall forestalled him irritably. “As I say, Omerna! I’ll hear no more on it! Now what information do you have today? What useful information? That is your function. Not providing fireworks for Ailron.”

  Omerna hesitated, plainly wanting to make another plea for his precious Illuminators, but in the end he said portentously, “The reports of Dragonsworn in Altara are more than rumor, it seems. And perhaps in Murandy as well. The infestation is small, but it will grow. A strong move now could settle for them and the Aes Sedai in Salidar in one—”

  “Do you dictate strategy for the Children now? Gather information, and leave its use to me. What else do you have for me?”

  The man’s response to being cut off was a calm bow of acquiescence. Omerna was very good at remaining calm; it was perhaps what he did best. “I have good news. Mattin Stepaneos is ready to join you. He hesitates to make a public announcement, but my people in Illian report that he soon will. He is reported eager.”

  “That would be remarkably good,” Niall said dryly. Remarkable, certainly. Among the banners and pennants lining the cornices of the chamber, Mattin Stepaneos’ Three Leopards, silver on black, hung next to a gold-fringed Illianer Royal Standard, nine bees worked in thread-of-gold on green silk. The Illianer king came out on top in the Troubles finally, at least to the point of forcing a treaty that affirmed the border between Amadicia and Altara where it was at the beginning, but Niall doubted the man would ever forget that he had had the advantage of terrain and numbers at Soremaine and still been defeated and captured. If the Illianer Companions had not covered the field for the rest of the army to escape Niall’s trap, Altara would be a fief of the Children today, and very likely Murandy and even Illian. Worse, Mattin Stepaneos had a Tar Valon witch for an advisor, though he hid the fact, and her. Niall sent emissaries because he dared not leave a path untried, but yes, Mattin Stepaneos joining him willingly would be remarkable indeed. “Continue. And be brief. I have a busy day today, and I can read your written reports later.”

  Despite those instructions Omerna’s rendition was long, delivered in a sonorous voice full of certainty. Al’Thor had barely extended his control in Andor beyond Caemlyn. His lightning onslaught was clearly stalled at last—as Omerna carefully pointed out that he had predicted. There was little chance the Borderlands would join the Children against the false Dragon any time soon; lords in Shienar, Arafel and Kandor were taking advantage of the Blight’s quiet to rebel, and the Queen of Saldaea had gone into seclusion in the country, in fear of the same according to Omerna. His agents were at work, however, and the Borderland rulers would be brought to heel as soon as these small rebellions were quashed. On the other hand, the rulers of Murandy, Altara and Ghealdan were ready to fall into line, though ma
king ambivalent noises at present to soothe the Tar Valon witches. Alliandre of Ghealdan knew her throne was shaky, knew she needed the Children to avoid plummeting as abruptly as her predecessors, while both Tylin of Altara and Roedran of Murandy hoped that the Children’s weight would make them more than figureheads at last. Plainly the man considered those lands already as good as in Niall’s coat pocket.

  Within Amadicia, the picture was even better, by Omerna’s reckoning. Recruits flocked to the Children’s banners in greater numbers than for years. Strictly speaking, that was none of Omerna’s concern, but he always larded his reports with any good news he could find. The Prophet would not trouble the land much longer; at present his rabble squabbled over looting villages and manors in the north, and might well scatter back into Ghealdan at the next push by Ailron’s soldiers. Little room remained in the jails, because Darkfriends and Tar Valon spies were being arrested faster than they could be hanged. The search for Tar Valon witches had found only two so far, but over a hundred women had been put to the question, an indication of how vigilant the patrols were. And fewer refugees from Tarabon were being apprehended, proof the quarantine was becoming more effective; those caught were being thrown back into Tarabon as fast as they could be taken back to the border. He hurried past that last, unsurprising given his stupidity with the Illuminators.

  Niall listened just enough to know where to nod. Omerna had been an adequate commander in the field, so long as someone told him what to do, but in his present position, his credulous stupidity was trying. He had reported Morgase dead, her corpse seen and identified beyond doubt, up to the very day Niall brought him face-to-face with her. He had ridiculed “rumors” that the Stone of Tear had fallen, and still denied that the mightiest fortress in the world could have been taken by any outside force; there had been treason, he insisted, a High Lord who had betrayed the Stone to al’Thor and Tar Valon. He maintained that the disaster at Falme and the troubles in Tarabon and Arad Doman were the work of Artur Hawkwing’s armies come back across the Aryth Ocean. He was convinced that Siuan Sanche had not been deposed at all, that al’Thor was insane and dying, that Tar Valon had murdered King Galldrian to deliberately set off the civil war in Cairhien, and that these three “facts” were somehow tied into those ridiculous rumors, always from somewhere conveniently far away, of people bursting into flame or nightmares leaping out of thin air and slaughtering whole villages. He was not sure how exactly, but he was working on a grand theory he promised to deliver any day, a theory that supposedly would unravel all the witches’ schemes and deliver Tar Valon into Niall’s hands.