The Wheel of Time

by Robert Jordan

  The a’dam bracelet conveyed fear to Elayne, of course, but something that might have been amusement as well. Moghedien had spent the night hiding under her bed, untouched and, because she was well hidden, without picking up one single stick of rubbish. She had even gotten a good night’s sleep once the first commotion died down. It seemed that old saw about the Dark One’s luck held sometimes.

  Nynaeve began another yawn, and Elayne jerked her eyes away. Even so, she had to shove her fist against her mouth in a not very successful attempt to avoid imitation. The shuffling feet and coughs took on an impatient sound.

  The Sitters were still inside the Little Tower with Tarna, but the Red’s roan gelding already stood in the street before the former inn, and a dozen Warders were holding their horses’ bridles, their color-shifting cloaks making them uneasy to look at, an escort of honor for the first miles of Tarna’s journey back to Tar Valon. The crowd waited for more than the Tower envoy’s departure, though most looked as worn out as Elayne felt.

  “You’d think she was . . . was. . . .” Nynaeve gaped hard behind her hand.

  “Oh, blood and ashes,” Elayne muttered, or tried to. Everything after “oh” came out a strangled croak around the fist stuffed in her mouth. Lini said remarks like that were the sign of a slow mind and a dull wit—right before washing your mouth out—but sometimes nothing else could sum up your feelings in as few words. She would have said more, but had no chance.

  “Why don’t they give her a procession?” Nynaeve growled. “I do not see why they have to give the woman all this to-do.” And she yawned again. Again!

  “Because she is Aes Sedai, sleepyhead,” Siuan said, joining them. “Two sleepyheads,” she added with a glance at Elayne. “You’ll catch minnows if you keep doing that.” Elayne snapped her mouth shut and gave the woman her coldest stare. As usual, it slid off like rain from a glazed roof tile. “Tarna is Aes Sedai, my girls,” Siuan went on, peering toward the waiting horses. Or maybe it was the clean cart that had been pulled in front of the stone building that had her eye. “An Aes Sedai is Aes Sedai, and nothing changes that.” Nynaeve gave her a look she did not see.

  Elayne was glad Nynaeve held her tongue; the obvious reply would have been hurtful. “What was the toll last night?”

  Siuan answered without looking away from where Tarna would appear. “Seven dead, here in the village. Nearly a hundred in the soldiers’ camps. All those swords and axes and the like lying about, and no one to channel them down. There are sisters out there now, Healing.”

  “Lord Gareth?” Elayne asked, a touch anxiously. The man might be cold toward her now, but once he had had a warm smile for a child and a pocket that always held hard candies.

  Siuan snorted so hard that people turned around to look. “That one,” she muttered. “A lionfish would break its teeth on the man.”

  “You seem in a fine temper this morning,” Nynaeve said. “Have you finally learned what the Tower’s message is? Gareth Bryne asked you to marry him? Somebody died and left you—?”

  Elayne tried not to look at Nynaeve; even the sound of a yawn made her jaws creak.

  Siuan gave Nynaeve a level look, but for once Nynaeve met it just as flatly, if a bit watery-eyed.

  “If you’ve learned something,” Elayne broke in before they could stare one another senseless, “tell us.”

  “A woman who claims to be Aes Sedai when she isn’t,” Siuan murmured as though voicing an idle thought, “is neck-deep in a boiling kettle, true enough, but if she’s claimed a particular Ajah, that Ajah has first call on her. Has Myrelle ever told you about the woman she caught claiming to be a Green in Chachin? A former novice who failed her test for Accepted. Ask her, some time when she has an hour or two. It will take that long to tell. The fool girl probably wished she had been stilled before Myrelle was done, stilled and her head cut off as well.”

  For some reason the threat had no more effect than the glare had on Nynaeve, not even a quiver. Perhaps they were both just too tired. “You tell me what you know,” Elayne said in a low voice, “or the next time we’re alone, I will teach you to sit up straight, and you can run whining to Sheriam if you want.” Siuan’s eyes narrowed, and suddenly Elayne yelped, clapping a hand to her hip.

  Siuan drew back the hand that had delivered the pinch without any try at stealth. “I don’t take well to threats, girl. You know as well as I do what Elaida said; you saw it before anyone here.”

  “Come back; all is forgiven?” Nynaeve said incredulously.

  “More or less. With a load of fish guts about the Tower needing to be whole more now than ever, and a bit of slippery eeling about no one needing to fear except those who ‘have placed themselves in true rebellion.’ The Light knows what that means. I don’t.”

  “Why are they keeping it secret?” Elayne demanded. “They can’t possibly think anyone will go back to Elaida. All they need do is trot out Logain.” Siuan said nothing, only frowned at the waiting Warders.

  “I still don’t see why they’re asking for more time,” Nynaeve muttered. “They know what they have to do.” Siuan kept silent, but Nynaeve’s eyebrows rose slowly. “You didn’t know their answer.”

  “I do now,” Siuan clipped the words, and said something under her breath about “weak-kneed fools.” Elayne agreed silently.

  Suddenly the front door of the onetime inn opened. Half a dozen Sitters came out in their fringed shawls, one from each Ajah, then Tarna, followed by the rest. If the waiting folk had expected some sort of ceremony, they were sorely disappointed. Climbing into her saddle, Tarna ran her eyes slowly over the Sitters, glanced at the crowd with an unreadable face, then heeled the gelding to a walk. Her encircling escort of Warders moved with her. A concerned buzz, like the sound of disturbed bees, rose from the onlookers as they gave way.

  The murmuring lasted until Tarna passed from sight, out of the village, and Romanda climbed up onto the cart, smoothly hitching her yellow-fringed shawl into place. Dead silence fell. By tradition the eldest Sitter made pronouncements from the Hall. Romanda did not move like an old woman, of course, and her face was as ageless as any, yet even streaks of gray hair marked considerable age on an Aes Sedai, and the bun gathered at the nape of her neck was pale gray without a trace of anything darker. Elayne wondered how old she was, but asking an Aes Sedai’s age was about the rudest thing possible.

  Romanda wove simple flows of Air to make her high soprano voice carry; it came to Elayne as if she had been face-to-face with the woman. “Many of you have been worried these last few days, but needlessly. Had Tarna Sedai not come to us, we would have sent missives to the White Tower ourselves. After all, we can hardly be said to be hiding here.” She paused as if to give the crowd time to laugh, but they merely stared at her, and she adjusted her shawl. “Our purpose here has not changed. We seek truth and justice, to do what is right . . .”

  “Right for who?” Nynaeve murmured.

  “. . . and we shall neither flag nor fail. Go about your tasks as you have, assured that you remain sheltered beneath our hands, now and after our assured return to our proper places in the White Tower. The Light shine upon you all. The Light shine upon all of us.”

  The murmuring rose again, and the crowd began milling slowly, as Romanda climbed down. Siuan’s face might have been carved from stone; her lips were pinched bloodless. Elayne wanted to ask questions, but Nynaeve hopped off the stoop and began pushing toward the three-story stone building. Elayne followed quickly. Last night Nynaeve had been ready to toss out what they had learned with never a care; it had to be presented carefully if it was to be any use in swaying the Hall. And it certainly seemed they did need swaying. Romanda’s announcement had been a wagonload of nothing. It had certainly upset Siuan.

  Wriggling between two hefty fellows who were glaring at Nynaeve’s back—she had stepped on toes to get by—Elayne glanced over her shoulder and caught Siuan watching her and Nynaeve. For just a moment; as soon as the woman realized she had been seen, she pretende
d to spot someone in the crowd and jumped down as if going to them. Frowning, Elayne hurried on. Was Siuan upset, or was she not? How much of her irritation and ignorance were really pretense? Nynaeve’s notion of running off to Caemlyn—Elayne was not sure she had given it up yet—was worse than silly, but she herself was looking forward to Ebou Dar, to doing something of real use. All these secrets and suspicions were an itch she could not reach. If only Nynaeve did not put her foot in it.

  She caught up to Nynaeve just as the other woman caught Sheriam, near the cart Romanda had spoken from. Morvrin was there too, and Carlinya, all three in their shawls. All the Aes Sedai wore shawls this morning. Carlinya’s short hair, worked into a cap of dark curls, was the only sign of their near disaster in Tel’aran’rhiod.

  “We need to speak to you alone,” Nynaeve told Sheriam. “In private.”

  Elayne sighed. Not the best beginning, but not the worst, either.

  Sheriam studied the two of them for a moment, then glanced at Morvrin and Carlinya and said, “Very well. Inside.”

  When they turned, Romanda was between them and the door, a solidly handsome, dark-eyed woman with her yellow-fringed shawl, all flowers and vines except for the Flame of Tar Valon, high between her shoulders. Ignoring Nynaeve, she smiled warmly at Elayne, one of those smiles Elayne had come to expect, and dread, from Aes Sedai. For Sheriam and Carlinya and Morvrin, though, her face was very different. She stared at them, expressionless, head erect, until they dipped slight curtsies and murmured, “By your leave, Sitter.” Only then did she move aside, and even then she sniffed loudly.

  The common run of folk never noticed, of course, but Elayne had caught snippets among the Aes Sedai about Sheriam and her little council. Some thought they only saw to the day-to-day running of Salidar, freeing the Hall for more important matters. Some knew they had influence with the Hall, but how much varied according to who spoke. Romanda was one who believed they had entirely too much; worse, they had two Blues and no Yellow in their number. Elayne felt her eyes as she followed the others through the doorway.

  Sheriam led them to one of the private chambers just off the former common room, with beetle-chewed paneling and a paper-strewn table against one wall. Her eyebrows lifted when Nynaeve asked them to ward against eavesdropping, but she wove the ward around the inside of the room without comment. Remembering Nynaeve’s excursion, Elayne checked to be sure both windows were tightly shut.

  “I expect no less than news Rand al’Thor is on his way here,” Morvrin said dryly. A quick glance passed between the other two Aes Sedai. Elayne stifled indignation; they really did think she and Nynaeve were holding back secrets about Rand. Them and their secrets!

  “Not that,” Nynaeve said, “but something as important, in a different way.” And out tumbled the story of their trip to Ebou Dar and finding the bowl ter’angreal. Not in proper order, and not mentioning the Tower, but all the essential points were there.

  “Are you certain this bowl is a ter’angreal?” Sheriam asked when Nynaeve ran down. “It can affect the weather?”

  “Yes, Aes Sedai,” Elayne answered simply. Simple was best, to begin. Morvrin grunted; the woman doubted everything.

  Sheriam nodded, shifting her shawl. “Then you have done well. We will send a letter to Merilille.” Merilille Ceandevin was the Gray sister sent to convince the queen in Ebou Dar to support Salidar. “We will need all the details from you.”

  “She’ll never find it,” Nynaeve burst out before Elayne could open her mouth. “Elayne and I can.” Aes Sedai eyes chilled.

  “It probably would be impossible for her,” Elayne put in hastily. “We saw where the bowl is, and it will be difficult for us. But at least we know what we saw. Describing it in a letter just won’t be the same.”

  “Ebou Dar is no place for Accepted,” Carlinya said coldly.

  Morvrin’s tone was a little more kindly, if still gruff. “We must all do what we can do best, child. Do you think Edesina or Afara or Guisin wanted to go to Tarabon? What can they do to bring order to that unquiet land? But we must try, so they went. Kiruna and Bera are probably in the Spine of the World right this minute, on their way to search for Rand al’Thor in the Aiel Waste because we thought—only thought—when we sent them that he might be there. That we were right makes their journey no less futile now, with him out of the Waste. We all do what we can, what we must. You two are Accepted. Accepted do not go running off to Ebou Dar or anywhere else. What you two can and must do is remain here and study. Were you full sisters, I would still say keep you here. No one has made the sort of discoveries you have, the sheer number in so short a time, in a hundred years.”

  Nynaeve being Nynaeve, she ignored what she did not want to hear and focused on Carlinya. “We have done very well on our own, thank you. I doubt Ebou Dar can be as bad as Tanchico.”

  Elayne did not think the woman knew she had a death grip on her braid. Would Nynaeve never learn that simple civility sometimes won what honesty would surely lose? “I understand your concerns, Aes Sedai,” Elayne said, “but however immodest it might be, the truth is that I am better qualified to locate a ter’angreal than anyone else in Salidar. And Nynaeve and I know better where to look than we could ever put on paper. If you send us to Merilille Sedai, under her guidance I am sure we could locate it in short order. A few days to Ebou Dar by riverboat and a few days back, with a few days under Merilille Sedai’s eye in Ebou Dar.” It was an effort not to draw a deep breath. “In the meantime, you could send a message to one of Siuan’s eyes-and-ears in Caemlyn, so it will be there when Merana Sedai and the embassy arrive.”

  “Why under the Light should we do that?” Morvrin rumbled.

  “I thought Nynaeve told you, Aes Sedai. I’m not sure, but I think the bowl needs a man channeling too, to make it work.”

  That caused a small commotion, of course. Carlinya gasped, and Morvrin muttered to herself, and Sheriam’s mouth actually fell open. Nynaeve gaped as well, but just for an instant; Elayne was sure she covered before the others noticed. They were too stunned to see very much. The thing was, it was a lie, pure and simple. Simple was the key. Supposedly the greatest achievements in the Age of Legends had been done by men and women channeling together, probably linked. Very likely there were ter’angreal that needed a man to work. In any case, if she could not work the bowl alone, certainly no one in Salidar could. Except Nynaeve, maybe. If it required Rand, they could not pass up the chance to do something about the weather, and by the time she “discovered” that a circle of women could manage the bowl, the Aes Sedai in Salidar would have tied themselves to Rand too tightly to break loose.

  “That is all very well,” Sheriam said at last, “but it does not change the fact that you are Accepted. We will send a letter to Merilille. There has been some talk about the two of you—”

  “Talk,” Nynaeve snapped. “That is all you do, you and the Hall! Talk! Elayne and I can find this ter’angreal, but you would rather prattle like laying hens.” Words tumbled over each other coming out of her. She kept such a steady strain on her braid, Elayne half-expected to see it come loose in her hand. “You sit here, hoping Thom and Juilin and the others will come back and tell you the Whitecloaks aren’t going to fall on us like a house, when they might come back with Whitecloaks on their heels. You sit, poking at the problem of Elaida instead of doing what you said you would, fumbling over Rand. Do you know how you stand toward him yet? Do you, with your embassy on its way to Caemlyn? Do you know why you sit and talk? I do! You’re afraid. Afraid of the Tower divided, afraid of Rand, the Forsaken, the Black Ajah. Last night Anaiya let slip that you had a plan ready in case one of the Forsaken attacked. All those circles linking, right on top of the bubble of evil—do you finally believe in that?—but all mismatched and most with more novices than Aes Sedai. Because only a few Aes Sedai knew beforehand. You think the Black Ajah’s right here in Salidar. You were afraid your plan might get back to Sammael, or one of the others. You don’t trust each other. You don�
�t trust anybody! Is that why you won’t send us to Ebou Dar? Do you think we’re Black Ajah, or we’ll run off to Rand, or . . . or . . . !” She trailed off in furious splutters and panting. She had hardly drawn breath through the entire tirade.

  Elayne’s first wincing instinct was to smooth it over somehow, though how was a question she could not begin to answer. As easy to smooth over a mountain range. It was the Aes Sedai who made her forget to worry whether Nynaeve had managed to shatter everything. Those expressionless faces, those eyes that seemed able to see through stone, should have conveyed nothing at all. To her, they did convey something. There was none of the cold anger that should have flowed toward anyone foolish enough to rant at Aes Sedai. This was a covering up, and the only thing to hide was truth, a truth they did not want to admit themselves. They were afraid.

  “Are you quite done?” Carlinya asked in a voice that should have frozen the sun in its flight.

  Elayne sneezed, banging her head on the side of the overturned cauldron. The smell of burned soup filled her nose. The midmorning sun had heated the dark interior of the big cookpot until it felt as if it still sat on a fire; sweat dripped off her. No, it poured off. Dropping the coarse pumice stone, she backed out on her knees and glared at the woman next to her. Or rather, at the half of a woman sticking out of a slightly smaller kettle lying on its side. She poked Nynaeve in the hip, and smiled grimly when the poke produced the bang of a head against iron and a yelp. Nynaeve backed out with a baleful stare, not hindered at all by a yawn she stifled behind a grimy hand. Elayne gave her no chance to speak.

  “You just had to blow up, didn’t you? You couldn’t hold on to your temper for five minutes. We had everything in our hands, and you had to kick us in the ankles.”