Gawyn twisted to the side, raising his blade for Boar Rushes Down the Mountain. But that gave the assassin an opening; he flung another knife at Gawyn, forcing him to the side.
The knife clanged against the wall, and the assassin fled down the hallway. Gawyn rushed after, but he couldn't keep up. Soon the assassin was far away, darting to the left. That direction led to a series of intersections.
Such speed, Gawyn thought, stopping, breathing in and out in gasps, hands on knees. It isn't natural.
Two of Chubain's guards arrived a moment later, swords at the ready. Gawyn pointed. "Assassin. Listening at Egwene's door. Went that way."
One ran where he pointed. The other went to raise the general alarm.
Light! Gawyn thought. What if I didn't interrupt him listening? What if I interrupted him on his way out?
Gawyn dashed to Egwene's door, fatigue evaporating. Sword out, he tested the door. It was unlocked!
"Egwene!" he cried, throwing the door open and leaping into the room.
There was a sudden explosion of light and a crashing sound. Gawyn found himself wrapped up in something strong: invisible cords, towing him into the air. His sword fell to the ground, and his mouth filled with an unseen force.
And so it was that he found himself hanging from the ceiling, disarmed, struggling, as the Amyrlin herself walked from her bedroom. She was alert and fully dressed in a crimson dress trimmed with gold.
She did not look pleased.
Mat sat beside the inn's hearth, wishing the fire were a little less warm. He could feel its heat through the layers of his ragged jacket and white shirt, matched by a pair of workman's thick trousers. The boots on his feet had good soles, but the sides were worn. He did not wear his hat, and his scarf was pulled up around the bottom half of his face as he leaned back in the mountain oak chair.
Elayne still had his medallion. He felt naked without it. He had a shortsword sitting by his chair, but that was mostly for show. A walking staff leaned innocently beside it; he would rather use that, or the knives hidden in his coat. But a sword was more visible, and would make the footpads who sauntered through the streets of Low Caemlyn think twice.
"I know why you're asking after him," Chet said. There was a man like Chet in nearly every tavern. Old enough to have seen men like Mat be born, grow up, and die, and willing to talk of all those years if you got enough drink in them. Or often if you didn't.
The stubble on Chet's long face was dappled silver, and he wore a lopsided cap. His patched coat had once been black, and the red-and-white insignia on his pocket was too faded to read. It was vaguely military, and one did not usually get scars like the thick, angry one on his cheek and neck from a bar fight.
"Aye," Chet continued, "many are askin' after the leader of that Band. Well, this mug of ale is appreciated, so let me give you some advice. You walk like you know which end of that sword means business, but you'd be a fool to challenge that one. Prince of Ravens, Lord of Luck. He faced old death himself and diced for his future, he did. Ain't never lost a fight."
Mat said nothing. He leaned back in his chair. This was his fourth tavern this night, and in three of them he had been able to find rumors about Matrim Cauthon. Barely a lick of truth to them. Blood and bloody ashes!
Oh, sure, there were tales of other people, too. Most about Rand, each one making the colors swirl when he heard them. Tear had fallen to the Seanchan, no Illian, no Rand had defeated them all and was fighting the Last Battle right now. No! He visited women in their sleep, getting them with child. No, that was the Dark One. No, Mat was the Dark One!
Bloody stories. They were supposed leave Mat alone. Some he could trace back to the Band like the story of a city full of the dead awakening. But many of the people claimed that the stories had come from their uncle, or cousin, or nephew.
Mat flicked Chet a copper. The man tipped his hat politely and went to get himself another drink. Mat did not feel like drinking. He had a suspicion that those pictures of him were part of why the stories were spreading so quickly. In the last tavern he had visited, someone had actually pulled out a copy of the sketch folded and wrinkled and shown it to him. Nobody had recognized him so far, though.
The hearthfire continued to crackle. Low Caemlyn was growing, and enterprising men had realized that providing rooms and drinks for the transients could make a healthy profit. So shanties had started to become taverns, and those had begun to grow into full inns.
Wood was in high demand, and many of the mercenary bands had taken to woodcutting. Some worked honestly, paying the Queen's levy for claims. Others worked less legally. There had already been hangings for it. Who would have thought? Men hanging for poaching trees? What next? Men hanging for stealing dirt?
Low Caemlyn had changed drastically, roads springing up, buildings being enlarged. A few years, and Low Caemlyn would be a city itself! They'd have to build another wall to close it in.
The room smelled of dirt and sweat, but no more so than other taverns. Spills were quickly cleaned up and the serving girls looked eager to have work. One in particular gave him a quiet smile, refilling his mug and showing some ankle. Mat made sure to remember her; she would be good for Talmanes.
Mat lifted up his scarf enough to drink. He felt like a fool wearing the scarf this way. But it was too hot for a hooded cloak, and the beard had been torture. Even with the scarf on his face, he did not stand out too much in
Low Caemlyn; he was not the only tough walking around with his face obscured. He explained that he had a bad scar he wanted to cover; others assumed he had a bounty on his head. Both were actually true, unfortunately.
He sat for a time, staring into the dancing flames of the hearth. Chet's warning caused an uncomfortable pit to open in Mat's stomach. The greater his reputation grew, the more likely he would be challenged. There would be great notoriety in killing the Prince of the Ravens. Where had they gotten that name? Blood and bloody ashes!
A figure joined him at the fire. Lanky and bony, Noal looked like a scarecrow who had dusted himself off and decided to go to town. Despite his white hair and leathery face, Noal was as spry as men half his age. When he was handling a weapon, anyway. Other times he seemed as clumsy as a mule in a dining parlor.
"You're quite the notable man," Noal said to Mat, holding out his palms to the fire. "When you stumbled across me in Ebou Dar, I had no idea what illustrious company I'd find myself in. Give this a few more months and you'll be more famous than Jain Farstrider."
Mat hunkered down farther into his chair.
"Men always think it would be a grand to be known in every tavern and every city," Noal said softly. "But burn me if it isn't just a headache." "What do you know of it?" "Jain complained about it," Noal said softly.
Mat grunted. Thom arrived next. He was dressed as a merchant's servant, wearing a blue outfit that was not too fine, but also not in disrepair. He was claiming to have come to Low Caemlyn to determine whether his master would be well advised to put a shopfront here.
Thom pulled off the disguise with aplomb, waxing his mustaches to points and speaking with a faint Murandian accent. Mat had offered to come up with a backstory for his act, but Thom had coughed and said that he already had one worked out. Flaming liar of a gleeman.
Thom pulled up a chair, seating himself delicately, as if he were a servant who thought highly of himself. "Ah, what a waste of my time this was! My master insists that I associate with such rabble as this! And here I find the worst of the lot."
Noal chuckled softly.
"If only," Thom said dramatically, "I had been instead sent to the camp of the majestic, amazing, indestructible, famous Matrim Cauthon! Then I would certainly have "
"Burn me, Thom," Mat said. "Let a man suffer in peace."
Thom laughed, waving over the serving girl and buying drinks for the
three of them. He gave her an extra coin and quietly asked her to keep casual ears from getting too close to the hearth.
"Are you sure you
want to meet here?" Noal asked.
"It'll do," Mat said. He did not want to be seen back in camp, lest the gholam look there for him.
"All right, then," Noal said. "We know where the tower is, and can get there, assuming Mat procures us a gateway."
"I will," Mat said.
"I haven't been able to find anyone who has gone inside," Noal continued.
"Some say it's haunted," Thom said, taking a slurp from his mug. "Others say it's a relic from the Age of Legends. The sides are said to be of smooth steel, without an opening. I did find a captain's widow's younger son who once heard a story of someone who found great treasures in the tower. He didn't say how the lad had gotten in, though."
"We know how to get in," Mat said.
"Olver's story?" Noal asked skeptically.
"It's the best we have," Mat said. "Look, the game and the rhyme are about the Aelfinn and Eelfinn. People knew about them once. Those bloody archways are proof of that. So they left the game and the rhyme as warning."
"That game can't be won, Mat," Noal said, rubbing his leathery chin.
"And that's the point of it. You need to cheat."
"But maybe we should try a deal," Thom said, playing with the waxed tip of a mustache. "They did give you answers to your questions."
"Bloody frustrating ones," Mat said. He had not wanted to tell Thom and Noal about his questions he still had not told them what he had asked.
"But they did answer," Thom said. "It sounds like they had some kind of deal with the Aes Sedai. If we knew what it was the Aes Sedai had that the snakes and foxes wanted the reason they were willing to bargain then maybe we could trade it to them for Moiraine."
"If she's still alive," Noal said grimly.
"She is," Thom said, staring straight ahead. "Light send it. She has to be alive."
"We know what they want." Mat glanced at those flames. "What?" Noal asked.
"Us," Mat replied. "Look, they can see what's going to happen. They did it to me, they did it to Moiraine, if that letter is any clue. They knew she would leave a letter for you, Thom. They knew it. And they still answered her questions."
"Maybe they had to," Thom said.
"Yes, but they don't have to answer straightforwardly," Mat said. "They didn't with me. They answered knowing she would come back to them. And they gave me what they did knowing I'd get pulled back, too. They want me. They want us."
"You don't know that for certain, Mat." Thom set his mug of ale on the floor between his feet and got out his pipe. To Mat's right, men cheered a dice game. "They can answer questions, but that doesn't mean they know everything. Could be like Aes Sedai foretellings."
Mat shook his head. The creatures put memories into his head. He figured they were the memories of people who had touched the tower or been into it. The Aelfinn and the Eelfinn had those memories, and burn him, they probably had his, too. Could they watch him, see through his eyes?
He wished again for his medallion, though it would do no good against them. They were not Aes Sedai; they would not use channeling. "They do know things, Thom," Mat said. "They're watching. We won't surprise them."
"Makes them hard to defeat, then," Thom said, lighting a tinder twig with the fire, then using it to light his pipe. "We can't win." "Unless we break the rules," Mat repeated.
"But they'll know what we're doing," Thom said, "if what you say is true. So we should trade with them."
"And what did Moiraine say, Thom?" Mat said. "In that letter you read every night."
Thom puffed on his pipe, raising an absent hand to his breast pocket, where he kept the letter. "She said to remember what we knew of the game."
"She knows there's no way to win when dealing with them," Mat said. "No trades, Thom, no bargains. We go in fighting and we don't leave until we have her."
Thom hesitated for a moment, then nodded, his pipe beginning to puff.
"Courage to strengthen," Noal said. "Well, we have enough of that, with Mat's luck."
"You don't have to be part of this, you know, Noal," Mat said. "You have no reason to risk yourself on this."
"I'm going," Noal said. "I've seen a lot of places. Most places, actually. But never this one." He hesitated. "It's something I need to do. And that's the end of it."
"Very well," Mat said.
"Fire to blind," Noal said. "What do we have?"
"Lanterns and torches," Mat said, knocking his foot against the sack beside his chair. "And some of those firesticks from Aludra, so we can light them. A few surprises from her, too."
"Fireworks?" Noal asked.
"And a few of those exploding cylinders we used against the Seanchan. She calls them roarsticks."
Thom whistled. "She let you have some?"
"Two. When I presented her with Elayne's agreement, she was ready to let me have almost anything I asked for." Mat grimaced. "She wanted to come along to light them. Herself! Burn me, but that was a tough argument to end. But we've got a whole lot of nightflowers." He tapped the sack beside his chair with the edge of his foot.
"You brought them?" Thom asked.
"I wanted to keep them close," Mat said. "And she only gave them to me today. They're not going to explode by accident, Thom. That doesn't happen very often."
"Well at least move them back from the hearth!" Thom said. He glanced at his pipe and cutsed, then scooted his chair a few inches from Mat.
"Next," Noal said, "music to dazzle."
"I got us a variety," Thom said. "I'll bring my harp and flute, but I found us some hand drums and hand cymbals. They can be strapped to the side of your leg and hit with one hand. I also bought an extra flute." He eyed Mat. "A simple one, designed for those with thick, slow fingers."
Mat snorted.
"And finally, iron to bind," Noal said, sliding forward a pack of his own. It clinked faintly as he untied the top, the contents reflecting the deep orange hearthlight. "A set of throwing knives for each of us and two shortswords. Each of pure iron, no steel. I got us some chains, too, and a band of iron to clip around the butt of Mat's spear. It might throw the weight off, though."
"I'll take it," Mat said.
Noal did up his pack again, and the three of them sat before the hearth for a time. In a way, these things they'd gathered were an illusion. A way to reassure themselves that they were doing something to prepare.
But Mat remembered those twisted places beyond the gateways, the angles that were not right, the unnatural landscape. The creatures called snakes and foxes because they defied standard description.
That place was another world. The preparations he did with Thom and Noal might help, but they might also be useless. There was no telling until they stepped into that tower. It felt like not knowing if you had the right antidote until after the snake's teeth were already clamped down on your arm.
Eventually, he bade the other two a good night. Noal wanted to head back to the Band's camp, which was now only a ten-minute ride from the city. Thom agreed to go with him, and they took Mat's pack full of nightflowers though both men looked as if they would rather be carrying a sack full of spiders.
Mat belted his sword on over his coat, took up his staff, then headed back toward his inn. He did not go directly there, though, and instead found himself trailing through the alleys and streets. Shanties and tents had sprung up beside solid buildings as the city-outside-the-city spread along the walls, like mold growing on a loaf of bread.
The sky was dark, but the night was still busy, touts calling from within the lit doorways of inns. Mat made sure the shortsword was visible. There were many who would rhink to exploit a lone wanderer at night, particularly outside the city walls, where the arm of the law was a little on the flabby side.
The air smelled of impending rain, but it often did these days. He wished it would go on and storm or bloody clear up. It felt as if the air were holding its breath, waiting for something. A blow that never fell, a bell that never rang, a set of dice that never stopped spinning. Just like the ones th
at thundered in his head.
He felt at the letter from Verin in his pocket. Would the dice stop if he opened it? Maybe it was about the gholam. If he did not retrieve his medallion from Elayne soon, the thing was likely to find him and rip his insides out.
Bloody ashes. He felt like going drinking, forgetting who he was and who people thought he was for a while. But if he got drunk, he was likely to let his face show by accident. Perhaps begin to talk about who he really was. You never could tell what a man would do when he was drunk, even if that man was your own self.
He made his way through the city gates and into the New City. The air began to mist with something that was not quite rain, as if the sky had listened to his rant and had decided to allow a little sneeze to spray down on him.
Wonderful, he thought, bloody wonderful.
The paving stones soon grew wet from the not-rain, and the streetlamps glowed with balls of vaporous haze. Mat hunkered down, scarf still covering his face as if he were a bloody Aielman. Had he not been too hot only a little bit ago?
He was as eager as Thom to move on and find Moiraine. She had made a mess of his life, but Mat supposed he owed her for that. Better to live in this mess than to be trapped back in the Two Rivers, living a boring life without realizing how boring it was. Mat was not like Perrin, who had mooned over leaving the Two Rivers before they had even gotten to Baer-lon. An image of Perrin flashed in his head, and Mat banished it.
And what of Rand? Mat saw him sitting on a fine chair, staring down at the floor in front of himself in a dark room, a single lamp flickering. He looked worn and exhausted, his eyes wide, his expression grim. Mat shook his head to dispel that image as well. Poor Rand. The man probably thought he was a bloody blackferret or something by now, gnawing on pinecones. But it was likely a blackferret that wanted to live back in the Two Rivers.
No, Mat did not want to go back. There was no Tuon back in the Two Rivers. Light, well, he would have to figure out what to do with Tuon. But he did not want to be rid of her. If she were still with him, he would let her call him Toy without complaining. Well, not much anyway.
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