The Wheel of Time

by Robert Jordan

  In the second cabin stood six of her sul’dam, three to either side, with their charges kneeling in front of them on the wide, polished planks of the deck. The sul’dam straightened when they saw her, proud as the silver lightning in the red panels on their skirts. The gray-clad damane knelt erect, full of their own pride. Except for poor Lidya, who crouched over her knees and tried to press her tearstained face against the deck. Ianelle, holding the red-haired damane’s leash, scowled down at her.

  Tuon sighed. Lidya had been responsible for her anger last night. No, she had caused it, but Tuon herself was responsible for her own emotions. She had commanded the damane to read her fortune, and she should not have ordered her caned because she disliked what she heard.

  Bending, she cupped Lidya’s chin, laying long red-enameled fingernails against the damane’s freckled cheek, and drew her up to sit on her heels. Which produced a wince and a fresh set of tears that Tuon carefully wiped away with her fingers as she pulled the damane upright on her knees. “Lidya is a good damane, Ianelle,” she said. “Paint her welts with tincture of sorfa and give her lionheart for the pain until the welts are gone. And until they are gone, she is to have a sweet custard with every meal.”

  “As the High Lady commands,” Ianelle replied formally, but she smiled slightly. All the sul’dam were fond of Lidya, and she had not liked punishing the damane. “If she gets fat, I will take her for runs, High Lady.”

  Lidya twisted her head around to kiss Tuon’s palm and murmured, “Lidya’s mistress is kind. Lidya will not get fat.”

  Making her way along the two lines, Tuon spoke a few words to each sul’dam and petted each of the damane. The six she had brought with her were her best, and they beamed at her with a fondness equal to hers for them. They had competed eagerly to be chosen. Plump, yellow-haired Dali and Dani, sisters who hardly needed a sul’dam’s direction. Charral, her hair as gray as her eyes, but still the most agile in her spinning. Sera, with red ribbons in her tightly curled black hair, the strongest, and proud as a sul’dam. Tiny Mylen, shorter even than Tuon herself. Mylen was Tuon’s special pride among the six.

  Many had thought it odd when Tuon tested for sul’dam on reaching adulthood, though none could gainsay her, then. Except her mother, who had allowed it by remaining silent. Actually becoming a sul’dam was unthinkable, of course, but she found as much enjoyment in training damane as in training horses, and she was as good at one as the other. Mylen was the proof of that. The pale little damane had been half-dead with shock and fear, refusing to eat or drink, when Tuon bought her on the docks at Shon Kifar. The der’sul’dam all had despaired, saying she would not live long, but now Mylen smiled up at Tuon and leaned forward to kiss her hand before she even reached to stroke the damane’s dark hair. Once skin and bones, she was becoming a trifle plump. Instead of rebuking her, Catrona, who held her leash, let a smile crease her usually stern black face and murmured that Mylen was a perfect damane. It was true, no one would believe now that once she had called herself Aes Sedai.

  Before leaving, Tuon gave a few orders concerning the damane’s diet and exercise. The sul’dam knew what to do, just like the other twelve in Tuon’s entourage, or they would not have been in her service, but she believed no one should be allowed to own damane unless they took an active interest. She knew the quirks of every one of hers as well as she knew her own face.

  In the outer cabin, the Deathwatch Guards, lining the walls in armor lacquered blood red and nearly black green, stiffened at her entrance. That is, they stiffened if statues could be said to stiffen. Hard-faced men, they and five hundred more like them had been charged personally with Tuon’s safety. Any or all would die to protect her. They would die if she did. Every man had volunteered, asked to be in her guard. Seeing the veil, grizzled Captain Musenge ordered only two to accompany her on deck, where two dozen Ogier Gardeners in the red-and-green made a line to either side of the doorway, great black-tasseled axes upright in front of them and grim eyes watching for any danger even here. They would not die if she did, but they also had asked to be in her guard, and she would rest her life in any of those huge hands without a qualm.

  The ribbed sails on the Kidron’s three tall masts were taut with the cold wind that drove the vessel toward the land that lay ahead, a dark shore near enough that she could make out hills and headlands. Men and women filled the deck, all of the Blood on the vessel in their finest silks, ignoring the wind that whipped their cloaks as they ignored the barefoot men and women of the ship’s crew who darted between them. Some of the nobles were much too ostentatious about ignoring the crew, as though they could run the ship while kneeling or bowing every two paces. Prepared for prostration, the Blood made slight bows instead, one equal to another, when they saw her veil. Yuril, the sharp-nosed man everyone thought was her secretary, went to one knee. He was her secretary, of course, but also her Hand, commanding her Seekers. The Macura woman flung herself down prostrate and kissed the deck before a few quiet words from Yuril made her get back to her feet blushing and smoothing her pleated red skirts. Tuon had been uncertain about taking her into service, back in Tanchico, but the woman had pleaded like a da’covale. She hated Aes Sedai in her bones, for some reason, and despite the rewards already given for her extremely valuable information, she hoped to do them more injury.

  Bowing her head to the Blood, Tuon climbed to the quarterdeck followed by the two Deathwatch Guards. The wind made handling her cape difficult, and pressed her veil against her face one moment, then flailed it over her head the next. It did not matter; that she wore it was sufficient. Her personal banner, two golden lions harnessed to an ancient war-cart, flew at the stern above the six helmsmen struggling to control the long tiller. The Raven-and-Roses would have been packed away as soon as the first crewman to see her veil could pass the word. Kidron’s captain, a wide, weathered woman with white hair and the most incredible green eyes, bowed as Tuon’s slipper touched the quarterdeck then immediately returned her attention to her ship.

  Anath was standing by the railing, in unrelieved black silk, outwardly undisturbed by the chill wind in spite of her lack of a cloak or cape. A slender woman, she would have been tall even for a man. Her charcoal-dark face was beautiful, but her large black eyes seemed to pierce like awls. Tuon’s Soe’feia, her Truthspeaker, named by the Empress, might she live forever, when Neferi died. A surprise, with Neferi’s Left Hand trained and ready to replace her, but when the Empress spoke from the Crystal Throne, her word was law. You certainly were not supposed to be afraid of your Soe’feia, yet Tuon was, a little. Joining the woman, she gripped the railing, and had to loosen her hands before she broke a lacquered nail. That would have meant very bad luck.

  “So,” Anath said, the word like a nail driven into Tuon’s skull. The tall woman frowned down at her, and contempt lay thick in her voice. “You hide your face—in a way—and now you are just the High Lady Tuon. Except that everyone still knows who you really are, even if they won’t mention it. How long do you intend carrying on this farce?” Anath’s full lips sneered, and she made a curt, dismissive gesture with one slim hand. “I suppose this idiocy is over having the damane caned. You are a fool to think your eyes are downcast by a little thing like that. What did she say to make you angry? No one seems to know, except that you threw a tantrum I am sorry to have missed.”

  Tuon made her hands be still on the railing. They wanted to tremble. She forced her face to maintain a stern appearance. “I will wear the veil until an omen tells me the time has come to remove it, Anath,” she said, schooling her voice to calm. Only luck had kept anyone from overhearing Lidya’s cryptic words. Everyone knew that damane could foretell the future, and if any of the Blood had heard, they would all have been chattering behind their hands about her fate.

  Anath laughed rudely and began telling her again what a fool she was, in greater detail this time. Much greater detail. She did not bother to lower her voice. Captain Tehan was staring straight ahead, but her eyes were almost fall
ing out of her lined face. Tuon listened attentively, though her cheeks grew hotter and hotter, until she thought her veil might burst into flame.

  Many of the Blood called their Voices Soe’feia, but Voices of the Blood were so’jhin, and knew they could be punished if their owners were displeased by what they said even if they were called Soe’feia. A Speaker of Truth could not be commanded or coerced or punished in any way. A Truthspeaker was required to tell the stark truth whether or not you wanted to hear it, and to make sure that you heard. Those Blood who called their Voices Soe’feia thought that Algwyn, the last man to sit on the Crystal Throne, almost a thousand years ago, had been insane because he let his Soe’feia live and continue in her post after she slapped his face before the entire court. They did not understand the traditions of her family any more than the goggle-eyed captain did. The Deathwatch Guards’ expressions never altered behind the half-concealing cheek-pieces of their helmets. They understood.

  “Thank you, but I do not need a penance,” she said politely when Anath finally ceased her harangue.

  Once, after she cursed Neferi for dying by something as stupid as a fall down stairs, she had asked her new Soe’feia to perform that service for her. Cursing the dead was enough to make you sei’mosiev for months. The woman had been almost tender about it, in an odd fashion, though she left her weeping for days, unable to don even a shift. That was not why she refused the offer, though; a penance must be severe or it was useless in redressing balance. No, she would not take the easier way because she had made her decision. And, she had to admit, because she wanted to resist her Soe’feia’s advice. Wanted not to listen to her at all. As Selucia said, she always had been headstrong. Refusing to listen to your Truthspeaker was abominable. Perhaps she should accept after all, to redress that balance. Three long gray porpoises rose beside the ship and sounded. Three, and they did not rise again. Hold to your chosen course.

  “When we are ashore,” she said, “the High Lady Suroth must be commended.” Hold to your chosen course. “And her ambition must be looked into. She has done more with the Forerunners than the Empress, may she live forever, dreamed of, but success on such a scale often breeds ambitions to match.”

  Peeved at the change of subject, Anath drew herself up, lips compressing. Her eyes glittered. “I am sure Suroth has only the best interests of the Empire for ambition,” she said curtly.

  Tuon nodded. She herself was not sure at all. That sort of sureness could lead to the Tower of the Ravens even for her. Perhaps especially for her. “I must find a way to make contact with the Dragon Reborn as soon as possible. He must kneel before the Crystal Throne before Tarmon Gai’don, or all is lost.” The Prophecies of the Dragon said so, clearly.

  Anath’s mood changed in a flash. Smiling, she laid a hand on Tuon’s shoulder almost possessively. That was going too far, but she was Soe’feia, and the feel of ownership might have been only in Tuon’s mind. “You must be careful,” Anath purred. “You must not let him learn how dangerous you are to him until it is too late for him to escape.”

  She had more advice, but Tuon let it wash over her. She listened enough to hear, yet it was nothing she had not heard a hundred times before. Ahead of the ship she could make out the mouth of a great harbor. Ebou Dar, from where the Corenne would spread, as it was spreading from Tanchico. The thought gave her a thrill of pleasure, of accomplishment. Behind her veil, she was merely the High Lady Tuon, of higher rank than many others of the Blood, but in her heart, always, she was Tuon Athaem Kore Paendrag, Daughter of the Nine Moons, and she had come to reclaim what had been stolen from her ancestor.

  CHAPTER

  15

  In Need of a Bellfounder

  The boxlike wagon reminded Mat of Tinker wagons he had seen, a little house on wheels, though this one, filled with cabinets and workbenches built into the walls, was not made for a dwelling. Wrinkling his nose at the odd, acrid smells that filled the interior, he shifted uncomfortably on his three-legged stool, the only place for anyone to sit. His broken leg and ribs were near enough healed, and the cuts that he had suffered when that whole bloody building fell on his head, but the injuries still pained him now and then. Besides, he was hoping for sympathy. Women loved to show sympathy, if you played it out right. He made himself stop twisting his long signet ring on his finger. Let a woman know you were nervous, and she put her own construction on it, and sympathy went right out the window.

  “Listen, Aludra,” he said, assuming his most winning smile, “by this time you must know the Seanchan won’t look twice at fireworks. Those damane do something called Sky Lights that makes your best fireworks look like a few sparks flying up the chimney, so I hear. No offense meant.”

  “Me, I have not seen these so-called Sky Lights myself,” she replied dismissively in her strong Taraboner accent. Her head was bent over a wooden mortar the size of a large keg on one of the workbenches, and despite a wide blue ribbon gathering her dark waist-length hair loosely at the nape of her neck, it fell forward to hide her face. The long white apron with its dark smudges did nothing to conceal how well her dark green dress fit over her hips, but he was more interested in what she was doing. Well, as interested. She was grinding at a coarse black powder with a wooden pestle nearly as long as her arm. The powder looked a little like what he had seen inside fireworks he had cut open, but he still did not know what went into it. “In any event,” she went on, unaware of his scrutiny, “I will not give you the Guild secrets. You must understand this, yes?”

  Mat winced. He had been working on her for days to bring her to this point, ever since a chance visit to Valan Luca’s traveling show revealed that she was here in Ebou Dar, and all the while he had dreaded that she would mention the Illuminators’ Guild. “But you aren’t an Illuminator anymore, remember? They kicked . . . ah . . . you said you left the Guild.” Not for the first time he considered a small reminder that he had once saved her from four Guild members who wanted to cut her throat. That sort of thing was enough to make most women fall on your neck with kisses and offers of whatever you wanted. But there had been a notable lack of kisses when he actually saved her, so it was unlikely she would begin now. “Anyway,” he went on airily, “you don’t have to worry about the Guild. You’ve been making nightflowers for how long? And nobody has come around trying to stop you. Why, I’ll wager you never see another Illuminator.”

  “What have you heard?” she asked quietly, her head still down. The pestle’s rotation slowed almost to a stop. “Tell me.”

  The hair on his scalp nearly stood on end. How did women do that? Hide every clue, and they still went straight to what you wanted to conceal. “What do you mean? I hear the same gossip you do, I suppose. Mostly about the Seanchan.”

  She spun around so fast that her hair swung like a flail, and snatched the heavy pestle up in both hands, brandishing it overhead. Perhaps ten years or so older than he, she had large dark eyes and a small plump mouth that usually seemed ready to be kissed. He had thought about kissing her a time or two. Most women were more amenable after a few kisses. Now, her teeth were bared, and she looked ready to bite off his nose. “Tell me!” she commanded.

  “I was playing at dice with some Seanchan down near the docks,” he said reluctantly, keeping a careful eye on the upraised pestle. A man might bluff and bluster and walk away if the matter was not serious, but a woman could crack your skull on a whim. And his hip was aching and stiff from sitting too long. He was not sure how quickly he could move from the stool. “I didn’t want to be the one to tell you, but . . . The Guild doesn’t exist anymore, Aludra. The chapter house in Tanchico is gone.” That had been the only real chapter house in the Guild. The one in Cairhien was long abandoned now, and for the rest, Illuminators only traveled to put on displays for rulers and nobles. “They refused to let Seanchan soldiers inside the compound, and fought, tried to, when they broke in anyway. I don’t know what happened—maybe a soldier took a lantern where he shouldn’t have—but half the compound exploded,
as I understand it. Probably exaggeration. But the Seanchan believed one of the Illuminators used the One Power, and they . . .” He sighed, and tried to make his voice gentle. Blood and ashes, he did not want to tell her this! But she was glaring at him, that bloody club poised to split his scalp. “Aludra, the Seanchan gathered up everyone left alive at the chapter house, and some Illuminators that had gone to Amador, and everybody in between who even looked like an Illuminator, and they made them all da’covale. That means—”

  “I know what it means!” she said fiercely. Swinging back to the big mortar, she began pounding away with the pestle so hard that he was afraid the thing might explode, if that powder really was what went inside fireworks. “Fools!” she muttered angrily, thumping the pestle loudly in the mortar. “Great blind fools! With the mighty, you must bend your neck a little and walk on, but they would not see it!” Sniffing, she scrubbed at her cheeks with the back of her hand. “You are wrong, my young friend. So long as one Illuminator lives, the Guild, it lives too, and me, I still live!” Still not looking at him, she wiped her cheeks with her hand again. “And what would you do if I gave you the fireworks? Hurl them at the Seanchan from the catapult, I suppose?” Her snort told what she thought of that.

  “And what’s wrong with the idea?” he asked defensively. A good field catapult, a scorpion, could throw a ten-pound stone five hundred paces, and ten pounds of fireworks would do more damage than any stone. “Anyway, I have a better idea. I saw those tubes you use to toss nightflowers into the sky. Three hundred paces or more, you said. Tip one on its side more or less, and I’ll bet it could toss a nightflower a thousand paces.”

  Peering into the mortar, she muttered almost under her breath. “Me, I talk too much,” he thought it was, and something about pretty eyes that made no sense. He hurried on to stop her from starting up about Guild secrets again. “Those tubes are a lot smaller than a catapult, Aludra. If they were well hidden, the Seanchan would never know where they came from. You could think of it as paying them back for the chapter house.”