“No,” Taim said, voice unsteady. Not with fear, precisely; more like a man who had felt a cliff unexpectedly crumbling under him and had somehow found himself back on solid ground. “That is the only one I . . . I’ve heard all sorts of rumors since I escaped the Aes Sedai. Monsters leaping out of thin air. Strange beasts. Men talking to animals, and the animals talking back. Aes Sedai going mad like we’re supposed to. Whole villages going mad, killing each other. Some could be true. Half what I know to be true is no less insane. I heard some of the seals have been broken. A hammer could break that one.”
Bashere frowned, stared at the seal in Rand’s hands, then gasped. He understood.
“Where did you find it?” Rand repeated. If he could find the last . . . Then what? Lews Therin stirred, but he refused to listen.
“In the last place you would expect,” Taim replied, “which I suppose is the first place to look for the others. A decaying little farm in Saldaea. I stopped for water, and the farmer gave it to me. He was old, with no children or grandchildren to pass it on to, and he thought I was the Dragon Reborn. He claimed his family had guarded it more than two thousand years. Claimed they were kings and queens during the Trolloc Wars, and nobles under Artur Hawkwing. His tale could have been true. No more unlikely than finding that in a hut only a few days ride from the Blightborder.”
Rand nodded, then stooped to gather up the rags. He was used to the unlikely happening around him; it had to happen elsewhere, sometimes. Hurriedly rewrapping the seal, he handed it to Bashere. “Guard this carefully.” Break it! He squashed the voice hard. “Nothing must happen to it.”
Bashere took the bundle reverently in both hands. Rand was unsure whether the man’s bow was for him or the seal. “For ten hours or ten years, it will be safe until you require it.”
For a moment Rand studied him. “Everybody’s waiting for me to go mad, afraid of it, but not you. You must have thought I finally was, just now, but you weren’t afraid of me even then.”
Bashere shrugged, grinning behind his gray-streaked mustaches. “When I first slept in a saddle, Muad Cheade was Marshal-General. The man was as mad as a hare in spring thaw. Twice every day he searched his bodyservant for poison, and he drank nothing but vinegar and water, which he claimed was sovereign against the poison the fellow fed him, but he ate everything the man prepared for as long as I knew him. Once he had a grove of oaks chopped down because they were looking at him. And then insisted they be given decent funerals; he gave the oration. Do you have any idea how long it takes to dig graves for twenty-three oak trees?”
“Why didn’t somebody do something? His family?”
“Those not mad as he was, or madder, were afraid to look at him sideways. Tenobia’s father wouldn’t have let anyone touch Cheade anyway. He might have been insane, but he could outgeneral anyone I ever saw. He never lost a battle. He never even came close to losing.”
Rand laughed. “So you follow me because you think I can out-general the Dark One?”
“I follow you because you are who you are,” Bashere said quietly. “The world must follow you, or those who survive will wish themselves dead.”
Slowly Rand nodded. The Prophecies said he would break nations and bind them together. Not that he wanted to, but the Prophecies were his only guide to how to fight the Last Battle, how to win it. Even without them, he thought the binding together was necessary. The Last Battle would not be just him against the Dark One. He could not believe that; if he was going mad, he was not yet mad enough to believe he was more than a man. It would be mankind against Trollocs and Myrddraal, too, and every sort of Shadowspawn the Blight could vomit out, and Darkfriends rising out of their hiding places. There would be other dangers on that road to Tarmon Gai’don, and if the world was not united . . . You do what must be done. He was not sure whether that was himself or Lews Therin, but it was the truth, as far as he could see.
Walking quickly to the nearest colonnade, he spoke over his shoulder to Bashere. “I am taking Taim to the farm. Do you want to come along?”
“The farm?” Taim said.
Bashere shook his head. “Thank you, no,” he said dryly. He might not allow any nerves to show, but Rand and Taim together were probably as much as he could take; he certainly avoided the farm. “My men are growing soft policing the streets for you. I mean to put some of them back into their saddles properly for a few hours. You were going to inspect them this afternoon. Has that changed?”
“What farm?” Taim said.
Rand sighed, suddenly weary. “No, that hasn’t changed. I will be there if I can.” It was too important to change, though none but Bashere and Mat knew; he could not let anyone else think it more than a casual matter, a useless ceremony for a man growing taken with the pomp of his position, the Dragon Reborn going out to be cheered by his soldiers. He had another visit to make today, too, one that everyone would think he was trying to keep secret. It might even stay secret, from most, but he had no doubt that those he wanted to learn of it, would.
Taking up his sword from where it stood against one of the narrow columns, he buckled it on over his undone coat. The belt was unadorned dark boar-hide, just like the scabbard and the long hilt; the buckle was ornate, a finely worked dragon of etched steel inlaid with gold. He should get rid of that buckle, find something plain. He could not bring himself to do it, though. It had been a gift from Aviendha. Which was the reason he should rid himself of it. He could never think his way out of that circle.
Something else waited there for him, too, a two-foot length of spear with a green-and-white tassel below the sharp head. He hefted it as he turned back to the courtyard. One of the Maidens had carved the short shaft with Dragons. Some people were already calling it the Dragon Scepter, especially Elenia and that lot. Rand kept the thing close to remind himself that he might have more enemies than those he could see.
“What farm are you talking about?” Taim’s voice grew harder. “Where is it you mean to take me?”
For a long moment Rand studied the man. He did not like Taim. Something in the fellow’s manner would not allow it. Or maybe something in himself. For so long he had been the only man who could even think of channeling without looking over his shoulder in a sweat for Aes Sedai. Well, it seemed a long time, and at least the Aes Sedai would not try to gentle him, not now that they knew who he was. Could it be as simple as that? Jealousy that he was no longer unique? He did not think so. Apart from everything else, he would welcome more men who could channel walking the earth unmolested. Finally he would stop being a freak. No, it would not go that far, not this side of Tarmon Gai’don. He was unique; he was the Dragon Reborn. Whatever his reasons, he just did not like the man.
Kill him! Lews Therin shrieked. Kill them all! Rand pushed the voice back down. He did not have to like Taim, only to use him. And trust him. That was the hard part.
“I’m taking you where you can serve me,” he said coldly. Taim did not flinch or frown; he merely watched and waited, the corners of his mouth twitching for one moment in that almost smile.
Chapter 3
A Woman’s Eyes
* * *
Stilling his irritation — and Lews Therin’s mutters — Rand reached out for saidin, launched himself into the now familiar battle for control and survival in the midst of emptiness. The taint oozed through him as he channeled; even within the void he could feel it seeming to filter into his bones, perhaps into his soul. He had no way to describe what he did except as making a fold in the Pattern, a hole through it. This he had learned on his own, and his teacher had not been very good at explaining even what lay behind the things he taught. A bright vertical line appeared in the air, widening quickly into an opening the size of a large doorway. In truth, it seemed to turn, the view through it, a sunlit clearing among drought-draggled trees, rotating to a halt.
Enaila and two more Maidens lifted their veils and leaped through almost before it settled; half a dozen others followed, some with horn bows ready. Rand did no
t expect there to be anything for them to guard against. He had put the other end — if there was another end; he did not understand, but it seemed to him there was only one — in the clearing because a gateway opening up could be dangerous around people, but telling the Maidens, or any Aiel, that there was no need to be on guard was like telling a fish there was no need to swim.
“This is a gateway,” he told Taim. “I’ll show you how to make one if you didn’t catch it.” The man was staring at him. If he had been watching carefully, he should have seen Rand’s weaving of saidin; any man able to channel could do that.
Taim joined him as he stepped through into the clearing, Sulin and the rest of the Maidens following. Some gave the sword at Rand’s hip a disdainful glance as they streamed past him, and Maiden handtalk flashed silently among them. Disgustedly, no doubt. Enaila and the foreguard had already spread out warily among the bedraggled trees; their coats and breeches, the cadin’sor, made them seem part of the shadows whether or not they had added green to the gray and brown. With the Power in him, Rand could see each dead needle distinctly on each of the pines; more were dead than were alive. He could smell the sour sap of the leatherleafs. The air itself smelled hot, dry and dusty. There was no danger for him here.
“Wait, Rand al’Thor,” came a woman’s urgent voice from the other side of the gateway. Aviendha’s voice.
Rand let go of the weave and saidin immediately, and the gateway winked out just as it had come. There were dangers and dangers. Taim looked at him curiously. Some of the Maidens, veiled and unveiled, spared him a moment for looks of their own. Disapproving ones. Fingers flashed in Maiden handtalk. They had the sense to keep their tongues still, though; he had made himself clear on that.
Ignoring curiosity and disapproval alike, Rand started off through the trees with Taim at his side, dead leaves and twigs crackling as they went. The Maidens, in a wide circle around them, made no sound in their soft boots, laced to the knee. Vigilance buried their moment of rebuke. Some had made this journey with Rand before, always without incident, but nothing would ever convince them these woods were not a good site for an ambush. Before Rand, life in the Waste had been nearly three thousand years of raids, skirmishes, feuds and wars, unbroken for any length of time.
There were surely things he could learn from Taim — if not nearly so much as Taim thought — but the teaching would go both ways, and it was time for him to start educating the older man. “Sooner or later you will come up against the Forsaken, following me. Maybe before the Last Battle. Probably before. You don’t seem surprised.”
“I have heard rumors. They had to break free eventually.”
So the word was spreading. Rand grinned in spite of himself. The Aes Sedai would not be pleased. Aside from anything else, there was a certain pleasure in tweaking their noses. “You can expect anything at any time. Trollocs, Myrddraal, Draghkar, Gray Men, gholam . . . “
He hesitated, heron-branded palm stroking his long sword hilt. He had no idea what a gholam was. Lews Therin had not stirred, but he knew that was the source of the name. Bits and pieces sometimes drifted across whatever thin barrier lay between him and that voice, and became part of Rand’s memories, usually without anything to explain them. It happened more often, lately. The fragments were not something he could fight, like the voice. The hesitation lasted only a moment.
“Not just in the north, near the Blight. Here, or anywhere. They are using the Ways.” That was something else he had to deal with. But how? First made with saidin, the Ways were dark now, as tainted as saidin. The Shadowspawn could not avoid all of the dangers in the Ways that killed men or worse, yet they still managed to use them, and if the Ways were not as quick as gateways and Traveling, or even Skimming, they still allowed hundreds of miles to be covered in a day. A problem for later. He had too many problems for later. He had too many problems for now. Irritably, he slashed at leatherleaf with the Dragon Scepter; pieces of wide, tough leaves fell, most brown. “If you’ve ever heard a legend about it, expect it. Even Darkhounds, though if they’re really the Wild Hunt, at least the Dark One isn’t free to ride behind them. They’re bad enough anyway. Some you can kill, the way the legends say, but some won’t die for anything short of balefire, that I’m sure of. Do you know balefire? If you don’t, that is one thing I’ll not teach you. If you do, don’t use it on anything but Shadowspawn. And do not teach it to anyone.
“The source of some of those rumors you heard might be . . . I don’t know what to call them except bubbles of evil. Think of them like the bubbles that sometimes rise up in a bog, only these are rising from the Dark One as the seals weaken, and instead of rotten smells, they are full of . . . well, evil. They drift along the Pattern until they burst, and when they do, anything can happen. Anything. Your own reflection can leap out of the mirror and try to kill you. Believe me.”
If the litany dismayed Taim, he did not show it. All he said was “I have been in the Blight; I’ve killed Trollocs before, and Myrddraal.” He pushed a low branch out of the way and held it for Rand. “I have never heard of this balefire, but if a Darkhound comes after me, I will find some way to kill it.”
“Good.” That was for Taim’s ignorance as much as his confidence. Balefire was one bit of knowledge Rand would not mind seeing vanish from the world completely. “With luck you won’t find anything like that out here, but you can never be sure.”
The woods gave way abruptly to a farmyard, with a sprawling thatch-roofed house of two weathered stories, smoke rising from one of its chimneys, and a large barn that had a distinct lean. The day was no cooler here than in the city a few miles away, the sun no less blistering. Chickens scratched the dust, two dun cows chewed their cud in a rail-fenced enclosure, a flock of tethered black goats busily stripped leaves from bushes within their reach, and a high-wheeled cart stood in the barn’s shadow, but the place did not look like a farm. There were no fields in sight; forest stretched all around the yard, broken only by the dirt track meandering northward, used for rare excursions to the city. And there were too many people.
Four women, all but one in her middle years, were hanging wash on a pair of lines, and nearly a dozen children, none older than nine or ten, played among the chickens. There were men about, too, most doing chores. Twenty-seven of them, though in some cases it was a stretch to call them men. Eben Hopwil, the skinny fellow pulling up a bucket of water from the well, claimed to be twenty and was certainly four or five years younger. His nose and ears seemed the biggest parts of him. Fedwin Morr, one of three men sweating on the roof replacing old thatch, was a good deal huskier, with a good deal fewer blotches, but certainly no older. More than half of the men had only three or four years on those two. Rand had almost sent some of them home, Eben and Fedwin at least, save that the White Tower took novices as young and sometimes younger. Gray showed among darker hair on a few heads, and crease-faced Damer Flinn, in front of the barn using peeled branches to show two of the younger men how to handle a sword, had a limp and retained only a thin fringe of white hair. Damer had been in the Queen’s Guards until he took a Murandian lance in his thigh. He was no swordsman, but he seemed competent to show the others how not to stab themselves in the foot. Most of the men were Andoran, a few Cairhienin. None had come from Tear yet, though the amnesty had been proclaimed there, too; it would take time for men to come that far.
Damer was the first to notice the Maidens, tossing down his branch and directing his pupils’ attention toward Rand. Then Eben dropped his bucket with a yell, splashing water all over himself, and everyone was scrambling, shouting at the house, to cluster anxiously behind Damer. Two more women appeared from inside, aproned and red-faced from cookfires, and helped the others gather the children behind the men.
“There they are,” Rand told Taim. “You have nearly half a day left. How many can you test? I want to know who can be taught as soon as possible.”
“This lot was dredged from the bottom of . . . ” Taim began contemptuously, then stopped
in the middle of the farmyard, staring at Rand. Chickens scratched in the dust around his feet. “You haven’t tested any of them? Why, in the name of . . . ? You cannot, can you? You can Travel, but you do not know how to test for the talent.”
“Some don’t really want to channel.” Rand eased his grip on his sword hilt. He disliked admitting gaps in his knowledge to this man. “Some haven’t thought beyond a chance at glory or wealth or power. But I want to keep any man who can learn, whatever his reasons.”
The students — the men who would be students — were watching him and Taim from in front of the barn with a fair approximation of calm. They had all come to Caemlyn hoping to learn from the Dragon Reborn, after all, or thinking they did. It was the Maidens, making a ring about the farmyard and prowling into the house and barn, that caught their eyes with a wary fascination, even apprehension. The women clutched the children to their skirts, gazes fixed on Rand and Taim, expressions ranging from flat-eyed stares to anxious lip-chewing.
“Come on,” Rand said. “It’s time to meet your students.”
Taim hung back. “Is this truly all you want me for? To try to teach these pathetic dregs? If any of them can be taught. How many do you really think to find in a handful that just straggled to you?”
“This is important, Taim; I’d do it myself, if I could, if I had time.” Time was always key, always lacking. And he had made the admission, as much as it curdled his tongue. He realized he did not much like Taim, but he did not have to like him. Rand did not wait, and after a moment the other man caught up with long strides. “You mentioned trust. I’m trusting you with this.” Don’t trust! Lews Therin panted in the dim recesses. Never trust! Trust is death! “Test them and start teaching as soon you know who can learn.”
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