Elayne hardly appeared to notice whether Nynaeve was irritable or not. She frowned into the distance thoughtfully. “Liandrin was the only Red. All the other Ajahs lost two each.”
“Oh, do be quiet, child,” Nynaeve said.
Elayne wiggled her left hand to display her Great Serpent ring, gave Nynaeve a meaningful look, and went right on. “No two were born in the same city, and no more than two in any one country. Amico Nagoyin was the youngest, some fifteen years older than Egwene and I. Joiya Byir could be our great-grandmother’s great-grandmother.”
Egwene did not like it that one of the Black Ajah shared her daughter’s name. Fool girl! People sometimes have the same name, and you never had a daughter. It wasn’t real!
“And what does that tell us?” Nynaeve’s voice was too calm; she was ready to explode like a wagon full of fireworks. “What secrets have you found in it that I missed? I am getting old and blind, after all!”
“It tells us it is all too neat,” Elayne said calmly. “What chance that thirteen women chosen solely because they were Darkfriends would be so neatly arrayed across age, across nations, across Ajahs? Shouldn’t there be perhaps three Reds, or four born in Cairhien, or just two the same age, if it was all chance? They had women to choose from or they could not have chosen so random a pattern. There are still Black Ajah in the Tower, or elsewhere we don’t know about. It must mean that.”
Nynaeve gave her braid one ferocious tug. “Light! I think you may be right. You did find secrets I couldn’t. Light, I was hoping they all went with Liandrin.”
“We do not even know that she is their leader,” Elayne said. “She could have been ordered to . . . to dispose of us.” Her mouth twisted. “I am afraid I can only think of one reason for them to go to such lengths to spread everything out so, to avoid any pattern except a lack of pattern. I think it means there is a pattern of some kind to the Black Ajah.”
“If there’s a pattern,” Nynaeve said firmly, “we will find it. Elayne, if watching your mother run her court taught you to think like this, I’m glad you watched closely.” Elayne’s answering smile made a dimple in her cheek.
Egwene eyed the older woman carefully. It seemed Nynaeve was finally ready to stop being a bear with a sore tooth. She raised her head. “Unless they want us to think they’re hiding a pattern, so we will waste our time hunting for it when there isn’t one. I am not saying there isn’t; I am only saying we do not know yet. Let’s look for it, but I think we ought to look at other things, too, don’t you?”
“So you finally decided to rouse,” Nynaeve said. “I thought you had gone to sleep.” But she was still smiling.
“She is right,” Elayne said disgustedly. “I have built a bridge out of straw. Worse than straw. Wishes. Maybe you are right, too, Nynaeve. What use is this—this rubbish?” She snatched one paper out of the stack in front of her. “Rianna has black hair with a white streak above her left ear. If I am close enough to see that, it’s closer than I want to be.” She grabbed another page. “Chesmal Emry is one of the most talented Healers anyone has seen in years. Light, could you imagine being Healed by one of the Black Ajah?” A third sheet. “Marillin Gemalphin is fond of cats and goes out of her way to help injured animals. Cats! Paah!” She scrabbled all the pages together, crumpling them in her fists. “It is useless rubbish.”
Nynaeve knelt beside her and gently pried her hands from around the papers. “Perhaps, and perhaps not.” She smoothed the pages carefully on her breast. “You found in them something for us to look for. Perhaps we will find more, if we are persistent. And there is the other list.” Both her eyes and Elayne’s darted to Egwene, brown and blue alike frowning worriedly.
Egwene avoided looking at the table where the other sheets lay. She did not want to think about them, but she could not avoid it. The list of ter’angreal had etched itself into her mind.
Item. A rod of clear crystal, smooth and perfectly clear, one foot long and one inch in diameter. Use unknown. Last study made by Corianin Nedeal. Item. A figurine of an unclothed woman in alabaster, one hand tall. Use unknown. Last study made by Corianin Nedeal. Item. A disc, apparently of simple iron yet untouched by rust, three inches in diameter, finely engraved on both sides with a tight spiral. Use unknown. Last study made by Corianin Nedeal. Item. Too many items, and more than half the “use unknowns” last studied by Corianin Nedeal. Thirteen of them, to be exact.
Egwene shivered. It’s getting so I do not even like to think of that number.
The knowns on the list were fewer, not all of any apparent real use, but hardly more comforting, as she saw it. A wooden carving of a hedgehog, no bigger than the last joint of a man’s thumb. Such a simple thing, and surely harmless. Any woman who tried to channel through it went to sleep. Half a day of peaceful, dreamless sleep, but it was too close not to make her skin crawl. Three more had to do with sleep in some way. It was almost a relief to read of a fluted rod of black stone, a full pace in length, that produced balefire, with the notation DANGEROUS AND ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TO CONTROL writ so strong in Verin’s hand that it tore the paper in two places. Egwene still had no idea what balefire was, but though it surely sounded dangerous if anything ever did, it just as surely had nothing to do Corianin Nedeal or dreams.
Nynaeve carried the smoothed-out pages to the table and set them down. She hesitated before spreading the others out and running her finger down one page, then the next. “Here’s one Mat would enjoy,” she said in a voice much too light and airy. “Item. A carved cluster of six spotted dice, joined at the corners, less than two inches across. Use unknown, save that channeling through it seems to suspend chance in some way, or twist it.” She began to read aloud. “ ‘Tossed coins presented the same face every time, and in one test landed balanced on edge one hundred times in a row. One thousand tosses of the dice produced five crowns one thousand times.’ ” She gave a forced laugh. “Mat would love that.”
Egwene sighed and got to her feet, walked stiffly to the fireplace. Elayne scrambled up, watching as silently as Nynaeve. Pushing her sleeve as far up her arm as it would go, Egwene reached carefully up the chimney. Her fingers touched wool on the smoke shelf, and she pulled out a wadded, singed stocking with a hard lump in the toe. She brushed a smear of soot from her arm, then took the stocking to the table and shook it out. The twisted ring of striped, flecked stone spun across the tabletop and fell flat atop a page of the ter’angreal list. For a few moments they just stared at it.
“Perhaps,” Nynaeve said finally, “Verin simply missed the fact that so many of them were last studied by Corianin.” She did not sound as if she really believed it.
Elayne nodded, but doubtfully. “I saw her walking in the rain once, soaking wet, and took a cloak to her. She was so wrapped up in whatever she was thinking, I do not believe she knew it was raining until I put the cloak around her shoulders. She could have missed it.”
“Maybe,” Egwene said. “If she did not, she had to know I’d notice as soon as I read the list. I do not know. Sometimes I think Verin notices more than she lets on. I just do not know.”
“So there’s Verin to suspect,” Elayne sighed. “If she is Black Ajah, then they know exactly what we are doing. And Alanna.” She gave Egwene an uncertain, sidelong look.
Egwene had told them everything. Except what happened inside the ter’angreal during her testing; she could not bring herself to talk about that, any more than Nynaeve or Elayne could tell of their testings. Everything that happened in the testing chamber, what Sheriam had said about the terrible weakness conferred by the ability to channel, every word Verin had said, whether it seemed important or not. The one part they had had trouble accepting was Alanna; Aes Sedai just did not do things like that. No one in her right mind did anything like that, but Aes Sedai least of all.
Egwene glowered at them, almost hearing them say it. “Aes Sedai are not supposed to lie, either, but Verin and the Mother seem awfully close with what they tell us. There are not supposed to be Black Ajah.�
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“I like Alanna.” Nynaeve tugged her braid, then shrugged. “Oh, very well. Perha—That is, she did behave oddly.”
“Thank you,” Egwene said, and Nynaeve gave her an acknowledging nod as if she had heard no sarcasm.
“In any case, the Amyrlin knows of it, and she can keep an eye on Alanna far more easily than we can.”
“What about Elaida and Sheriam?” Egwene asked.
“I have never been able to like Elaida,” Elayne said, “but I cannot truly believe she is Black Ajah. And Sheriam? It’s impossible.”
Nynaeve snorted. “It should be impossible for any of them. When we do find them, there is nothing says they’ll all be women we do not like. But I don’t mean to put suspicion—not this kind of suspicion!—on any woman. We need more to go on than that they might have seen something they shouldn’t.” Egwene nodded agreement as quickly as Elayne, and Nynaeve went on: “We will tell the Amyrlin that much, and put no more weight to it than it deserves. If she ever looks in on us as she said she would. If you are with us when she comes, Elayne, remember she does not know about you.”
“I am not likely to forget it,” Elayne said fervently. “But we should have some other way to get word to her. My mother would have planned it better.”
“Not if she could not trust her messengers,” Nynaeve said. “We will wait. Unless you two think one of us should have a talk with Verin? No one would think that remarkable.”
Elayne hesitated, then gave her head a small shake. Egwene was quicker and more vigorous with hers; slip of the mind or not, Verin had left out too much to be trusted.
“Good.” Nynaeve sounded more than satisfied. “I am just as pleased we cannot talk to the Amyrlin when we choose. This way we make our own decisions, act when and as we decide, without her directing our every step.” Her hand ran down the pages listing stolen ter’angreal as if she were reading it again, then closed on the striped stone ring. “And the first decision concerns this. It’s the first thing we have seen that has any real connection to Liandrin and the others.” She frowned at the ring, then took a deep breath. “I am going to sleep with it tonight.”
Egwene did not hesitate before taking the ring out of Nynaeve’s hand. She wanted to hesitate—she wanted to keep her hands by her sides—but she did not, and she was pleased. “I am the one they say might be a Dreamer. I do not know whether that gives me any advantage, but Verin said it’s dangerous using this. Whichever of us uses it, she needs any advantage she can find.”
Nynaeve gripped her braid and opened her mouth as if to protest. When she finally spoke, though, it was to say, “Are you sure, Egwene? We do not even know if you are a Dreamer, and I can channel more strongly than you. I still think I—” Egwene cut her off.
“You can channel more strongly if you are angry. Can you be sure you’ll be angry in a dream? Will you have time to become angry before you need to channel? Light, we don’t even know that anyone can channel in a dream. If one of us has to do it—and you are right; it is the only connection we have—it should be me. Maybe I really am a Dreamer. Besides, Verin did give it to me.”
Nynaeve looked as if she wanted to argue, but at last she gave a grudging nod. “Very well. But Elayne and I will be there. I do not know what we can do, but if anything goes wrong, perhaps we can wake you up, or. . . . We will be there.” Elayne nodded, too.
Now that she had their agreement, Egwene felt a queasiness in the pit of her stomach. I talked them into it. I wish I did not want them to talk me out of it. She became aware of a woman standing in the doorway, a woman in novice white, with her hair in long braids.
“Did no one ever teach you to knock, Else?” Nynaeve said.
Egwene hid the stone ring inside her fist. She had the strangest feeling that Else had been staring at it.
“I have a message for you,” Else said calmly. Her eyes studied the table, with all the papers scattered on it, then the three women around it. “From the Amyrlin.”
Egwene exchanged wondering looks with Nynaeve and Elayne.
“Well, what is it?” Nynaeve demanded.
Else arched an eyebrow in amusement. “The belongings left behind by Liandrin and the others were put in the third storeroom on the right from the main stairs in the second basement under the library.” She glanced at the papers on the table again and left, neither hurrying nor moving slowly.
Egwene felt as if she could not breathe. We’re afraid to trust anybody, and the Amyrlin decides to trust Else Grinwell of all women?
“That fool girl cannot be trusted not to blab to anyone who’ll listen!” Nynaeve started for the door.
Egwene grabbed up her skirts and darted past her at a run. Her shoes skidded on the tiles of the gallery, but she caught a glimpse of white vanishing down the nearest ramp and dashed after it. She must be running, too, to be so far ahead already. Why is she running? The flash of white was already disappearing down another ramp. Egwene followed.
A woman turned to face her at the foot of the ramp, and Egwene stopped in confusion. Whoever she was, this was certainly not Else. All in silver and white silk, she sparked feelings Egwene had never had before. She was taller, more beautiful by far, and the look in her black eyes made Egwene feel small, scrawny, and none too clean. She can probably channel more of the Power than I can, too. Light, she is probably smarter than all three of us put together on top of it. It isn’t fair for one woman to—Abruptly she realized the way her thoughts were going. Her cheeks reddened, and she gave herself a shake. She had never felt—less—than any other woman before, and she was not about to start now.
“Bold,” the woman said. “You are bold to go running about so, alone, where so many murders have been done.” She sounded almost pleased.
Egwene drew herself up and straightened her dress hurriedly, hoping the other woman would not notice, knowing she did, wishing the woman had not seen her running like a child. Stop that! “Pardon, but I am looking for a novice who came this way, I think. She has large, dark eyes and dark hair in braids. She’s plump, and pretty in a way. Did you see which way she went?”
The tall woman looked her up and down in an amused way. Egwene could not be sure, but she thought the woman might have glanced a moment at the clenched fist by her side, where she still held the stone ring. “I do not think you will catch up to her. I saw her, and she was running quite fast. I suspect she is far away from here by now.”
“Aes Sedai,” Egwene began, but she was given no chance to ask which way Else had gone. Something that might have been anger, or annoyance, flashed through those black eyes.
“I have taken up enough time with you for now. I have more important matters to see to. Leave me.” She gestured back the way Egwene had come.
So strong was the command in her voice that Egwene turned and was three steps up the ramp before she realized what she was doing. Bristling, she spun back. Aes Sedai or no, I—
The gallery was empty.
Frowning, she dismissed the nearest doors—no one lived in those rooms, except possibly mice—and ran down the ramp, peered both ways, followed the curve of the gallery with her eyes all the way around. She even peered over the rail, down into the small Garden of the Accepted, and studied the other galleries, higher as well as lower. She saw two Accepted in their banded dresses, one Faolain and the other a woman she knew by sight if not name. But there was no woman in silver and white anywhere.
CHAPTER
26
Behind a Lock
Shaking her head, Egwene walked back to the doors she had dismissed. She had to go somewhere. Inside the first, the few furnishings were shapeless mounds under dusty cloths, and the air seemed stale, as if the door had not been opened in some time. She grimaced; there were mouse tracks in the dust on the floor. But no others. Two more doors, opened hastily, showed the same thing. It was no surprise. There were many more empty rooms than occupied in the Accepted’s galleries.
When she pulled her head out of the third room, Nynaeve and Elayne wer
e coming down the ramp behind her with no particular haste.
“Is she hiding?” Nynaeve asked in surprise. “In there?”
“I lost her.” Egwene peered both ways along the curving gallery again. Where did she go? She did not mean Else.
“If I had thought Else could outrun you,” Elayne said with a smile, “I’d have chased her, too, but she has always looked too plump for running to me.” Her smile was worried, though.
“We will have to find her later,” Nynaeve said, “and make sure she knows to keep her mouth shut. How could the Amyrlin trust that girl?”
“I thought I was right on top of her,” Egwene said slowly, “but it was someone else. Nynaeve, I turned my back for a moment, and she was gone. Not Else—I never even saw her!—the woman I thought was Else at first. She was just—gone, and I don’t know where.”
Elayne’s breath caught. “One of the Soulless?” She looked around hastily, but the gallery was still empty except for the three of them.
“Not her,” Egwene said firmly. “She—” I am not going to tell them she made me feel six years old, with a torn dress, a dirty face, and a runny nose. “She was no Gray Man. She was tall and striking, with black eyes and black hair. You’d notice her in a crowd of a thousand. I have never seen her before, but I think she is Aes Sedai. She must be.”
Nynaeve waited, as though for more, then said impatiently, “If you see her again, point her out to me. If you think there’s cause. We’ve no time to stand here talking. I mean to see what is in that storeroom before Else has a chance to tell the wrong person about it. Maybe they were careless. Let’s not give them a chance to correct it, if they were.”
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