“Thank you, Aes Sedai,” Siuan said quickly. “We see what we must do, now.” Myrelle’s hands were clutching her skirts in fists; her face was ashen, her eyes wide with horror.
“Again,” Elaida said. It took everything Moiraine had in her to make herself turn her back once more.
The only difference was that she finished just nine weaves this time.
“Again,” Elaida said.
On the third try, she completed six weaves, and only three on the fourth. Sweat rolled down her face. After a while, the flashing lights and ear-piercing whistles hardly seemed more than annoyances. Only the incessant beating mattered. Only the endless beating, and the endless pain. On the fifth attempt, she fell to her knees weeping beneath the first shower of blows. The pummeling ceased instantly, but huddling in on herself, she sobbed as though she would never stop. Oh, Light, she had never hurt like this before. Never.
She was not even aware of Siuan kneeling beside her until the other woman said gently, “Can you stand, Moiraine?” Raising her head from the rug, she stared up at Siuan’s face, full of concern. With an effort she had not thought in her, she managed to master her weeping, barely, then nodded and began to push herself up laboriously. Bruised muscles did not want to lift her. Every movement scrubbed her shift against the sweat-stung welts, clothing her in burning agony.
“She will live,” Elaida said dryly. “A little pain tonight will drive the lesson home. You must be fast! I will come back in the morning to Heal her. And you, too, Siuan. Help her to the bed and begin.”
Siuan’s face paled, but when an Aes Sedai commanded….
Moiraine did not want to watch, yet Siuan had been forced to, so she held her eyes open by force of will. It made her want to begin weeping all over again. Often when they practiced, Siuan managed to complete every last weave despite anything Moiraine could do. She never failed less than two-thirds of the way through. Tonight, under Elaida’s strict tutelage, she managed twenty the first time. The second, it was seventeen, and fourteen on the third. Her face was drained of color and slick with sweat. Her breath came raggedly. But she had not shed a tear. And when a weave failed, she started from the beginning again without so much as a moment’s pause. On the fourth try, she finished twelve. And twelve on the fifth, the sixth. Doggedly, she began to weave once more.
“That’s enough for tonight,” Elaida said. Not one drop of pity touched her voice. Slowly, painfully, Siuan turned, the light of saidar vanishing. Her face was absolutely devoid of expression. Elaida went on calmly, adjusting the shawl on her shoulders. “Even if you managed to finish, as you are, you would still fail. There isn’t a shred of serenity in you.” She fixed first Siuan and then Moiraine with a stern eye. “Remember, you must be serene whatever is done to you. And you must be fast. If you are slow, you will fail as surely as if you fall to panic or fear. Tomorrow night, we will see if you can do better.”
Siuan waited until the door closed behind the Aes Sedai, then threw back her head. “Oh, Light!” she wailed, falling to her knees with a thud, and the tears she had held back came in torrents.
Moiraine bounded from the bed. Well, she tried to bound. It was actually more of a pained hobble, and Myrelle reached Siuan first. The three of them knelt there, holding one another and weeping, Myrelle as hard as she or Siuan.
Finally, Myrelle pushed back, sniffing and wiping tears from her cheeks with her fingers. “Wait here,” she said, as if they were in condition to go anywhere, and darted from the room. Soon she returned with a red-glazed jar the size of her two fists, and also Sheriam and Ellid to help get Siuan and Moiraine undressed and apply the ointment in the jar.
“This is wrong!” Ellid said fiercely once the pair of them were naked and she was opening the jar, all the gasping over their welts and bruises finished. Sheriam and Myrelle nodded quick agreement. “The law forbids using the Power to discipline an initiate!”
“Oh?” Siuan growled. “And how often have you had your ear flicked with the Power by a sister, or gotten a stripe across your bottom?” A gasp broke from her mouth. “There’s no need to rub that clear to the bone, is there?”
“I’m sorry,” Ellid said in contrite tones. “I’ll try to be easier.” Vanity was a powerful fault, but that was her only real fault. Her only one. It was very hard to like Ellid. “You two should report this. We could all go to Merean.”
“No,” Moiraine breathed hoarsely. Going on, the salve stung worse than the welts. It was better after. A little better. “I think Elaida really is trying to help us. She said she wants us to pass.”
Siuan stared at her as though she had sprouted feathers. “I don’t recall hearing her say that. Myself, I think she’s trying to make us fail!”
“Besides,” Moiraine added, “who ever heard—? Oh! Oh!” Sheriam muttered an apology, but the ointment still stung. “Who ever heard of an Accepted complaining without paying for it?”
That brought three nods. Grudgingly given, yet they nodded. Novices who complained received a gentle if firm explanation of why matters were how they were. Accepted were expected to know better. They were required to learn endurance every bit as much as history or the One Power.
“Maybe she’ll decide to leave you alone,” Sheriam said, but she did not sound as if she believed it would happen.
When they finally departed, Myrelle left the jar of ointment behind. Only Verin’s vile-tasting concoction let them sleep, huddled beneath the blankets in Moiraine’s narrow bed, and it was the grim reminder of that jar sitting on the mantel that warred with sleep as much as their welts and bruises.
Elaida was as good as her word, appearing before daybreak to use Healing on them. And it was used, not offered. She merely cupped their heads between her hands and wove without asking. When the intricate weave of Spirit, Air and Water touched her, Moiraine gasped and convulsed. For a moment it felt as though she were totally immersed in icy water, but when the weave vanished, her yellowing bruises were gone. Unfortunately, Elaida supplied a new crop that night, and another on the following. Moiraine lasted through seven attempts and then ten before pain and tears overwhelmed her. Siuan made ten on the second night and twelve on the third. And Siuan never wept until Elaida was gone. Not one tear.
Sheriam, Myrelle and Ellid must have kept watch, for each night, after Elaida left, they appeared to offer commiseration while undressing Siuan and her and spreading the salve on their injuries. Ellid even tried telling jokes, but no one felt like laughing. Moiraine began to wonder whether the jar held enough ointment to last. Had she misheard? Could Siuan be right, that Elaida wanted them to fail? A cold terror settled in her belly, a leaden lump of ice. She was afraid that the next time, she would beg Elaida to stop. But Elaida would not; she was certain of that, and it made her want to cry.
On the morning after Elaida’s third visit, though, it was Merean who woke them in Siuan’s bed and offered Healing.
“She will not trouble you in this manner again,” the motherly Aes Sedai told them once their bruises were gone.
“How did you find out?” Moraine asked, hurriedly pulling her shift over her head. With them sleeping like the dead under the influence of Verin’s mixture, the fire had burned down to ashes in the night, and the air in the room was cold, if not quite so cold as it had been only days earlier, but the floor was little warmer. She snatched up her stockings from where they had been left draped over a chairback.
“I have my ways, as you should know,” Merean replied mysteriously. Moraine suspected Myrelle or Sheriam or Ellid, if not all three, but Merean was Aes Sedai. Never a straight answer when mystery would do, and perhaps do better. “In any case, she very nearly earned herself an imposed penance, and I informed her that I’d ask the Amyrlin for Mortification of the Flesh. And I reminded her that what I must deal to sisters is harsher than what I give novices or Accepted. She was convinced.”
“Why shouldn’t she get a penance for what she did to us?” Siuan asked, reaching behind herself to do up the buttons on her
dress.
The Mistress of Novices raised an eyebrow at her tone, which came very close to demanding. But perhaps she believed they deserved a little leeway after Elaida. “Had she used saidar to punish or coerce you, I’d have seen her strapped to the triangle for birching, yet what she did broke no law.” Merean’s eyes twinkled suddenly, and her lips curved in a small smile. “Perhaps I shouldn’t tell you, but I will. Her penance would have been for helping you cheat in the test for the shawl. All that saved her was the question of whether it actually was cheating. I trust you will accept her gift in the spirit it was given. After all, she paid a price in humiliation for giving it when I confronted her.”
“Believe me, Aes Sedai, I will,” Siuan said flatly. What she meant was plain. Merean sighed and shook her head, but said nothing more.
The icy lump that had melted from Moiraine’s middle when she learned there would be no further lessons from Elaida returned twice as large. She had almost helped them cheat? Could she have given them a foretaste of the actual test for the shawl? Light, if the test meant being beaten the whole way…! Oh, Light, how could she possibly pass? But whatever comprised the test, every woman who wore the shawl had undergone it and succeeded. She would, as well. Somehow, she would! She pushed Myrelle and Siuan to be harder on her, but though they sometimes made her weep, they refused to do what Elaida had done. Even so, again and again she failed to complete all one hundred weaves. That lump of ice grew a little larger every day.
They did not see Elaida again for two days, and then it was on their way to dinner at midday. The Red sister stopped beside a tall stand-lamp at the sight of them, speaking not a word as they curtsied. Still silent, she turned to watch as they passed her. Her face was a severe mask of serenity, but her eyes burned. Her gaze should have scorched the wool of their dresses.
Moiraine’s heart sank. Clearly, Elaida thought they had gone to the Mistress of Novices themselves. And she had “paid a price in humiliation,” according to Merean. Moiraine could think of several ways that the threat of a penance could be used to make Elaida give way, and every one of them would have wrung the sister with humiliation. The only question was, how hard had Merean wrung? Very hard, likely; she did speak of the novices and Accepted as being hers. Oh, this was no small enmity that might fester over time. What was in Elaida’s eyes was full-blown animosity. They had acquired an enemy for life.
When she told Siuan as much, and her reasoning, the taller woman grunted sourly. “Well, I never wanted to be her friend, did I? I tell you, once I gain the shawl, if she ever tries to harm me again, I’ll make her pay.”
“Oh, Siuan,” Moiraine laughed, “Aes Sedai do not go about harming one another.” But her friend would not be assuaged.
One week to the day after Gitara made her Foretelling, the weather warmed suddenly. The sun rose in a cloudless sky on what seemed like a cool spring day, and before sunset most of the snow had melted. All of it was gone around Dragonmount, except on the very peak. The ground around the mountain had its own warmth, and snow always melted there first. The limit had been set. It was a boy born within those ten days that they sought. Two days later, the number who met the criteria began to dwindle sharply, and near a week on, five days had passed without another name being added to their small books. They could only hope that no more were found, though.
Nine days after the thaw, in the dim light before dawn. Merean appeared on the gallery as Siuan and Moiraine were leaving for breakfast. She was wearing her shawl. “Moiraine Damodred,” she said formally, “you are summoned to be tested for the shawl of an Aes Sedai. The Light keep you whole and see you safe.”
Chapter
9
It Begins
Merean barely allowed time for a quick hug from Siuan before leading Moiraine away, and with every step, the lump of ice in Moiraine’s middle grew. She was not ready! In all of her practices, she had managed to complete all of the weaves only twice, and never under anything approaching the pressure Elaida had put on her. She was going to fail and be put out of the Tower. She was going to fail. Those words throbbed in her head, a drumbeat marking the walk to the headsman’s axe. She was going to fail.
As she followed Merean down a narrow staircase that spiraled deep into the bedrock beneath the Tower, a thought occurred to her. If she failed, she would still be able to channel, at least so long as she remained circumspect. The Tower frowned on ostentation in the women who were sent away, and when the Tower frowned on something, only fools failed to take heed. The sisters said those sent away all but gave up touching saidar for fear of overstepping the Tower’s strictures inadvertently, but giving up that rapture was beyond her comprehension. She knew she never would, whatever happened. Another thought, seemingly unconnected. If she failed, she would still be Moiraine Damodred, scion of a powerful if disreputable House. Her estates would no doubt need years to recover from the ravages of the Aiel, but surely could still supply an adequate income.
A third thought, and it all came together, so obvious that clearly she had been thinking of it all along on some deeper level. She still had her book with its hundreds of names in her belt pouch. Even if she failed, she could take up the search for the boy. That carried dangers, of course. The Tower more than merely disliked outsiders meddling in its affairs, and she would be an outsider, then. Rulers had learned bitter regret for interfering where the Tower planned. How much worse for a young exile, however powerful her House? No matter. What would be, would be.
“The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills,” she murmured, earning a sharp look from Merean. The ritual was far from complex, but it must be adhered to. That she had forgotten that once below ground she must be silent until addressed said little for her chances in the actual test.
It was very odd. She wanted to be Aes Sedai more than she wanted life, yet the knowledge that she could take up the search, whatever happened here, the knowledge that she would, quieted that drumbeat in her head. It even made the frozen lump dwindle. A little. One way or another, in a few days she would begin her own search. Light let it be as Aes Sedai.
The lofty passages Merean led her along, carved through the rock of the island, as wide as any in the Tower, were lit by lamps in iron brackets high on the pale walls, though many crossing corridors lay shrouded in darkness, or with only widely spaced lamps making small lonely pools of light. The smooth stone floor was free of any speck of dust. The way had been prepared for them. The air was cool and dry, and, beyond the faint scuff of their slippers, silent. Except for storerooms on the highest levels, these basements were seldom used, and everything was plain and unadorned. Dark wooden doors lined the corridors, all shut, and, as they went deeper, securely locked. Many things were kept down here safe from prying eyes. What was done down here was never for outside eyes, either.
On the very lowest level, Merean stopped before paired doors larger than any they had passed, as tall and wide as fortress gates, but polished to glistening and lacking iron straps. The Aes Sedai channeled, and flows of Air swung the doors open silently on well-oiled hinges. Taking a deep breath, Moiraine followed her into a large, round, domed chamber ringed by stand-lamps. Their light, reflected from the polished white stone walls, dazzled after the comparative dimness of the passages.
Blinking, her eyes went immediately to the object centered beneath the dome, a great oval ring, narrow at top and bottom, its rounded rim little thicker than her arm. Well above a span in height and perhaps a pace across at its widest, it glittered in the lamplight, now silver, now gold or green or blue or swirls of all, never the same for more than a moment, and—a seeming impossibility—it stood unsupported. That was a ter’angreal, a device made to use the One Power in the long-ago Age of Legends. Within it, she would be tested. She would not fail. She would not!
“Attend,” Merean said formally. The other Aes Sedai already in the chamber, one from each Ajah, came to stand in a ring around them, fringed shawls draped on their shoulders. One was Elaida, and Moiraine’s heart fluttered
uneasily. “You come in ignorance, Moiraine Damodred. How would you depart?”
Light, why had Elaida been allowed to be part of this? She wanted desperately to ask, but the words were prescribed. She was surprised to hear her voice come out steady. “In knowledge of myself.”
“For what reason have you been summoned here?” Merean intoned.
“To be tried.” Calm was all-important, but though her voice sounded it, within was another matter. She could not shake Elaida from her thoughts.
“For what reason should you be tried?”
“So that I may learn whether I am worthy.” All of the sisters would try to make her fail—that was the test, after all—but Elaida might try the hardest. Oh, Light, what could she do?
“For what would you be found worthy?”
“To wear the shawl.” And with that, she began to disrobe. According to ancient custom, she must test clad in the Light, symbolizing that she trusted to the Light’s protection alone.
As she undid her belt, she suddenly remembered the small book in her pouch. If that were discovered…! Butto falter now was to fail. She laid belt and pouch on the floor beside her feet and reached behind her back to work at her buttons.
“Therefore I will instruct you,” Merean went on. “You will see this sign upon the ground.” She channeled, and her finger drew a six-pointed star in the air, two overlapping triangles written for an instant in fire.
Moiraine felt one of the sisters behind her embrace saidar, and a weave touched the back of her head. “Remember what must be remembered,” the sister murmured. It was Anaiya, the Blue. But this was not part of what she had been taught. What did it mean? She made her fingers march steadily along the buttons down her back. It had begun, and she must proceed in utter calm.
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