Rand al’Thor
The Dragon Reborn
At the end, his pen had pressed so hard that it nearly tore the paper; the last two lines almost seemed a different hand from the rest.
Merana sat very quietly. She was not alone. The rest of the embassy, if it could still be called that, sat in chairs around the walls, in various states. Irritatingly, only Berenicia sat as small as Merana, plump hands folded in her lap, head bowed slightly and grave eyes watchful; she did not say a word unless spoken to. Faeldrin sat quite proudly and spoke when she wished, and so did Masuri and Rafela. For that matter, Seonid appeared scarcely less eager, sitting on the edge of her chair and often smiling determinedly. The rest were more like Valinde, almost placid. Everyone was there except Verin and Alanna, and Gaidin had been sent to find them. Kiruna and Bera, standing in the middle of the floor, were most definitely there.
“That anyone could send such a letter to Aes Sedai disgusts me.” Kiruna did not thunder; her voice managed to be cool and calm and forceful all at once. But her dark eyes did provide lightning. “Demira, can your informant confirm that al’Thor has gone to Cairhien?”
“Traveling,” Bera murmured in disbelief. “To think that he would rediscover that.”
The bright beads in Faeldrin’s braids clicked as she nodded. “We can think of no other thing it can be. It will be well to remember that he is perhaps more powerful even than Logain, or Mazrim Taim, yes?”
“Can nothing be done about Taim?” Rafela’s round face, normally mild and pleasant, was quite stern, and her usually sweet voice flat. “There are at least one hundred men who can channel—one hundred!—not twenty miles from where we sit.” Kairen nodded resolutely but did not speak.
“They must wait,” Kiruna said firmly. “Light and honor, I do not know how many sisters will be required to handle so many. Al’Thor is the important matter, and one we can handle. Demira?”
Demira had waited for the others to finish, of course. With a slight bow of her head, she said, “I know only that he is gone, apparently with a large number of Aiel, and possibly with Perrin Aybara as well.”
Verin had slipped into the room as Demira began, and she added, “There can be no doubt of Perrin. I sent Tomas to look at the Two Rivers men’s camp. It seems they have sent two men to the Palace for Perrin’s horse, and his wife’s. The rest have left the wagons and servants and are already riding east as hard as they can go. Behind Perrin’s wolfhead, and the Red Eagle of Manetheren.” A faint smile curved her lips as though she found that amusing. Kairen plainly did not; she gasped, then clamped her mouth shut in a hard line.
Merana did not find it amusing either, but it was such a small thing compared to the rest. A faint whiff of something spoiled when you already sat on a midden heap; a dog snarling at you when wolves already had hold of your skirts. To think that she had worried so over Verin, struggled so hard. Verin had hardly touched her own plans really, except for guiding Demira into suggesting today’s unfortunate confrontation. It had been done quite skillfully; Merana did not believe anyone but a Gray would have noticed. Yet she herself had agreed even with that. Facing al’Thor down—trying to face him down—was the least they could have done. She had worried about Verin, and then Kiruna and Bera appeared, neither with any tie to her authority, both at least as strong as Masuri or Faeldrin or Rafela.
“Now, that’s a rotten turnip tossed in the stew,” Bera muttered grimly. Kairen and a number of others nodded agreement.
“A small turnip,” Kiruna told her in a dry tone. Nearly everyone nodded, except Merana and Verin. Merana just sighed softly; Verin watched Kiruna with that birdlike gaze, her head tilted. “What is keeping Alanna?” Kiruna demanded of no one in particular. “I do not want to go over everything twice.”
Merana supposed she herself had begun it, deferring to Verin. She had still been the head of the delegation, everyone still followed her orders, even Masuri and Rafela and Faeldrin. But they all knew. She was not certain yet whether Kiruna or Bera had taken charge—that one was born on a farm and the other in a palace mattered not at all; that had nothing to do with being Aes Sedai—but the one thing Merana was sure of was that the embassy was crumbling around her. It was the sort of thing that would never have happened when the White Tower was whole, when an ambassador had the full power of the Tower and the Amyrlin Seat behind her, and no matter if she had taken thirty years to reach the shawl and barely had enough strength to keep from being sent away. They were only a collection of Aes Sedai now, slipping into their relative places without thought.
As if speaking her name had been a summons, Alanna appeared just as Bera was opening her mouth. She and Kiruna rounded on Alanna together. “Al’Thor claims to have gone to Cairhien,” Bera said baldly. “Can you add anything?”
Alanna faced them proudly, a dangerous gleam in her dark eyes. They were speaking of her Warder, after all. “He is somewhere to the east. That is all I know. It could be Cairhien.”
“If you had to bond a man without asking him,” Kiruna demanded in that commanding voice, “why, by the Light most holy, have you not used the bond to bend him to your will? Compared to the other, that is only slapping his wrist.”
Alanna still had small control of her emotions. Color actually flooded her cheeks, partly in anger by the way her eyes flashed, and assuredly partly in shame. “Has no one told you?” she asked, too brightly. “I suppose no one wants to think of it. I certainly do not.” Faeldrin and Seonid looked at the floor, and they were not the only ones. “I tried to compel him moments after I bonded him,” Alanna continued as if noticing none of it. “Have you ever attempted to uproot an oak tree with your bare hands, Kiruna? It was much the same.”
Kiruna’s only reaction was a slow widening of her eyes, a slow deep breath. Bera actually muttered, “That’s impossible. Impossible.”
Alanna threw back her head and laughed. Her hands on her hips made the laughter seem contemptuous, which tightened Bera’s mouth and brought a cold gleam to Kiruna’s eyes. Verin peered at them, reminding Merana uncomfortably of a robin peering at worms. Somehow Verin seemed to defer without deferring, though Merana could not understand how.
“No one ever before has bonded a man who can channel,” Alanna said when her mirth subsided. “Perhaps that has something to do with it.”
“Be that as it may,” Bera said firmly. Her gaze was just as firm. “Be that as it may. You can still locate him.”
“Yes,” Kiruna said. “You will come with us, Alanna.” Alanna blinked as though coming to herself. Her head bowed slightly in acquiescence.
It was time, Merana decided. If she was to hold the delegation together, this was her last chance. She stood, folding al’Thor’s letter to give her hands something to do. “When I brought this embassy to Caemlyn,” she began, to remind them all that she was the head; thank the Light that her voice was steady, “I was given great leeway, yet it seemed obvious what should be done, and we,” to remind them they were a delegation, “set about it with a fair expectation of success. Al’Thor was to be enticed out of Caemlyn so that we could return Elayne and see her crowned, placing Andor firmly behind us. Slowly al’Thor was to be brought to trust us, that we would not harm him. And he would have been brought to show a proper respect as well. Two or three of us, carefully selected, would have taken Moiraine’s place advising and guiding him. Including Alanna, of course.”
“How do you know he did not kill Moiraine,” Bera interrupted, “as he is said to have killed Morgase?”
“We have heard every sort of rumor concerning her death,” Kiruna added. “Some even say she died fighting Lanfear. Most say she was alone with al’Thor when she died.”
With an effort, Merana stopped herself from answering. If she allowed those ingrained instincts a word, they would take them all in the end. “All that was in hand,” she went on, “when you two arrived. Only by chance, I know, and only following your instructions to find him, yet you brought our number to thirteen. What man of al�
��Thor’s sort would not flee as fast as he could hearing of thirteen Aes Sedai together? The simple fact is, whatever damage has been done to our plans must be laid at your feet, Kiruna, and yours, Bera.” She could only wait then. If she had managed to gain any moral ascendancy at all. . . .
“Are you quite finished?” Bera said coolly.
Kiruna was even more blunt. She turned to the others. “Faeldrin, you will come with us to Cairhien, if you will. And you also, Masuri, Rafela.”
Merana trembled, the folded letter crumpling in her fist. “Don’t you see?” she shouted. “You talk as if we can go on as before, as if nothing has changed. There is an embassy from Elaida in Cairhien, from the White Tower. That is how al’Thor must see it. We need him more than he needs us, and I fear he knows it!”
For a moment, shock covered every face save Verin’s. Verin only nodded thoughtfully, smiling a small, secretive smile. For a moment, every other face was full of wide eyes, stunned. Those words seemed to ring in the air. We need him more than he needs us. They did not need the Three Oaths to know it for truth.
Then Bera said quite firmly, “Sit down, Merana, and calm yourself.” Merana was sitting before she realized it; still trembling, still wanting to shout, but sitting with her hands clutched together around al’Thor’s missive.
Kiruna turned her back deliberately. “Seonid, you will come, of course. Another pair of Gaidin are always useful. And Verin, I think.” Verin nodded as if it were a request. “Demira,” Kiruna went on, “I know you have grievance against him, but we do not want to panic the man again, and someone must shepherd that extraordinary collection of girls from the Two Rivers to Salidar. You, Valinde, Kairen and Berenicia must assist Merana in that.”
The other four named murmured acceptance without the slightest hesitation, but Merana felt cold. The delegation was not crumbling; it was gone to dust.
“I. . . .” She trailed off as Bera’s gaze turned to her, and Kiruna’s. And Masuri’s and Faeldrin’s and Rafela’s as well. Gone to dust, and all her authority with it. “You may find some need for a Gray,” she said faintly. “There will certainly be negotiations, and. . . .” Words failed her again. This would never have happened when the Tower was whole.
“Very well,” Bera said at last, in such a tone that all Merana’s control only just kept her cheeks from going crimson in shame.
“Demira, you will see the girls to Salidar,” Kiruna said.
Merana sat very still. She prayed that the Hall had chosen an Amyrlin by now. Someone very strong, in the Power and in her heart. It would take another Deane, another Rashima, to make them once more what they had been. She prayed Alanna led them to al’Thor before he decided to acknowledge Elaida. Even another Rashima would not save them then.
CHAPTER
50
Thorns
Rand spent the rest of that day in his apartments in the Sun Palace, a good part lying on his bed, a huge thing with four square blackwood posts thicker than his leg, polished till they shone between the inlaid ivory wedges. As if to contrast with all the gilding in the anteroom and sitting room, the bedchamber furnishings were all blackwood and ivory, if no less angular.
Sulin rushed in and out, fluffing his feather pillows and adjusting the linen sheet over him, grumbling that blankets on the floor were healthier, bringing him mint tea he did not ask for and punch he did not want, until he ordered her to stop. “As my Lord Dragon commands,” she growled through a sweet smile. She made her second perfect curtsy, but she still stalked out as though she might not bother to open the door.
Min also stayed with him, sitting on the mattress and holding his hand and frowning until he suspected she thought he was dying. Finally he chased her out too, long enough to put on a dark gray silk robe that he had always left in the wardrobe before. He found something else in there as well, way in the back. A narrow, plain wooden case holding a flute, a gift from Thom Merrilin in what seemed another lifetime. Sitting by one of the tall narrow windows, he tried playing. After so long, he produced more squeaks and silences than anything else at first. It was the odd sounds that drew Min back.
“Play for me,” she said, laughing in delight, or perhaps astonishment, and of course settled herself on his knee while he tried with small success to produce something near a recognizable tune. Which was how the Wise Ones walked in on him, Amys and Bair and Sorilea and a dozen or so more. Min scrambled up quickly enough blushing at that, tugging her coat straight to such an extent you would have thought they had been wrestling.
Bair and Sorilea were at his side before he could say a word.
“Look left,” Sorilea commanded, thumbing back his eyelid and thrusting her leathery face into his, “Look right.”
“Your pulse is too quick,” Bair muttered, holding bony fingers against the side of his throat.
It seemed that Nandera had sent a Maiden running as soon as his knees gave way. It seemed that Sorilea had winnowed the small army of Wise Ones who had intended to descend on the palace into this smaller horde. And it seemed that Sorilea or no Sorilea, everyone wanted her turn at the Car’a’carn. When she and Bair were done, her place was taken by Amys, and Bair’s by Colinda, a lean woman with penetrating gray eyes who looked short of her middle years yet had almost as strong a presence as Sorilea. But then, so did Amys, of course, and any number of them. He was poked, prodded, stared at, and called stubborn when he refused to jump up and down. They really seemed to think he would.
Min was not ignored while the Wise Ones were taking their turns with him; the others surrounded her, asking a hundred questions, all about her viewings. Which widened her eyes to say the least, and had her staring at them and Rand as if wondering whether her mind was being read. Amys and Bair explained—Melaine had not been able to keep the news of her daughters to herself—and instead of growing any wider, which they probably could not at that point, Min’s eyes looked ready to fall out of her face. Even Sorilea seemed to accept Melaine’s view that Min’s ability put her on an equal footing of sorts with them, but Wise Ones being Wise Ones—very much in the manner of Aes Sedai being Aes Sedai—she had to repeat everything nearly as many times as there were Wise Ones, because those fussing over him at any given time wanted to be sure they had not missed anything.
Once Sorilea and the rest reluctantly concluded that all he needed was rest, and departed ordering him to see that he got it, Min made herself comfortable on his lap again. “They talk in dreams?” she said, shaking her head. “It doesn’t seem possible, like something out of a story.” A frown creased her forehead. “How old do you think Sorilea is? And that Colinda. I saw—No. No, it doesn’t have anything to do with you. Maybe the heat is affecting me. When I know, I always know. It must be the heat.” A mischievous light appeared in her eyes, and she slowly leaned closer, pursing her lips as if for a kiss. “If you put them like this,” she murmured when they were almost touching his, “it might help. There were bits in that last piece that almost sounded like ‘Rooster in the Gumtree.’ ” It took him a moment to understand, with her eyes filling his vision, and when he did, his face must have been a sight, because she collapsed on his chest laughing.
A note arrived from Coiren a short time later, inquiring after his health, wishing he was not ill, and asking whether she might come to see him with two of her sisters; she offered Healing, should he desire. Lews Therin stirred as if rousing from sleep while Rand read, but his vague, discontented mumbling was hardly a patch on his rage in Caemlyn, and he seemed to go back to sleep when Rand put the short letter down.
It was a sharp contrast to how Merana had behaved. And a reminder that nothing happened in the Sun Palace at midday that Coiren did not know in full before sunset, if not sooner. He sent back polite thanks for her wishes, and a polite refusal. Out of bed or not, he still felt tired, and he wanted his wits about him when he faced any Aes Sedai. That was part of it.
In that same return note Rand also asked Gawyn to visit. He had only met Elayne’s brother once, but he li
ked the man. Gawyn never came, though, and he never replied. Sadly, Rand concluded that Gawyn believed the stories about his mother. That was hardly the sort of thing you could just ask a man to stop believing. It put him in a such a gray humor whenever he thought of it that even Min seemed to despair of cheering him; neither Perrin nor Loial would stay around him when he was like that.
Three days later another request came from Coiren, just as courteous, and a third three days after that, but he made excuses for those as well. In part that was because of Alanna. The feel of her was still distant and vague, but she was coming nearer by the hour. No surprise in that; he had been sure Merana would choose Alanna for one of the six. He had no intention of letting Alanna within a mile of him, or not within sight anyway, but he had said he would put them on an equal footing with Coiren, and he meant it. So Coiren would have to abide in patience for a little while. Besides, he was busy, one way and another.
A quick visit to the school in Barthanes’ onetime palace turned out not so quick. Idrien Tarsin was once again waiting at the door to show him all sorts of inventions and discoveries, often incomprehensible, and also the shops where various new plows and harrows and reapers were now being made for sale, but the difficulty was Herid Fel. Or maybe Min. Fel’s thoughts wandered as usual, his tongue Wandered after them, and he plainly forgot Min was there. He forgot her a good many times. But no sooner would Rand have the man aimed at a point, than Fel suddenly noticed her for the first time again and gave a great start. He was constantly apologizing to her for the half-smoked pipe he still never seemed to remember to light, constantly brushing ash from his stout belly, constantly smoothing his thin gray hair. Min seemed to enjoy it, though why she enjoyed a man forgetting her presence, Rand could not begin to say. She even kissed Fel on top of his head when she and Rand rose to go, which left the man looking poleaxed. It did not help a great deal with learning what Fel had puzzled out about the Seals on the Dark One’s prison or the Last Battle.
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