The Path of Daggers

by Jordan, Robert

  “The Aiel seem to think I should come and go as I please,” she said absently, eyeing the hoop in her hand as if thinking of taking up her needle again. “A matter of some trifling help I gave some boy or other. Though why anyone but his mother should think him worth it, I can hardly say.”

  Rand made another effort not to grind his teeth. The woman had saved his life. Her and Damer Flinn between them, and plenty of others in the bargain, Min among them. But he still owed Cadsuane something for that. Burn her. “I want you to be my advisor. I’m King of Illian now, and kings have Aes Sedai advisors.”

  She gave his crown a dismissive glance. “Certainly not. An advisor has to stand and watch her charge make a muddle much too often to suit me. She also has to take orders, something I am particularly bad at. Won’t someone else do? Alanna, perhaps?”

  Despite himself, Rand sat up straight. Did she know about the bond? Merana had said it was hard to keep anything from her. No; he could worry later about how much his “faithful” Aes Sedai were telling Cadsuane. Light, he wished Min could be wrong for once. But he would believe himself breathing water, first. “I …” He could not make himself tell her that he needed her. No halter! “What if you didn’t have to swear any oaths?”

  “I suppose that might work,” she said doubtfully, peering at her cursed stitchery. Her eyes rose to his. Considering. “You sound … uneasy. I don’t like to tell a man he’s afraid even when he has reason to be. Uneasy over a sister you haven’t turned into a tame lapdog snaring you in some fashion? Let me see. I can make you a few promises; perhaps they will set your mind at rest. I expect you to listen, of course—make me waste my breath, and you’ll yelp for it—but I won’t make you do what I want. I won’t tolerate anyone lying to me, certainly—that’s another thing you’ll find decidedly uncomfortable—but I don’t expect you to tell me the deepest yearnings of your heart, either. Oh, yes. Whatever I do, it will be for your own good; not mine, not the good of the White Tower, yours. Now, does that ease your fears? Pardon me. Your unease.”

  Wondering whether he was supposed to laugh, Rand stared at her. “Do they teach you how to do that?” he demanded. “Make a promise sound a threat, I mean.”

  “Oh, I see. You want rules. Most boys do, whatever they say. Very well. Let me see. I cannot abide incivility. So you will be properly civil to me, to my friends, and my guests. That includes not channeling at them, in case you haven’t guessed, and holding your temper, which I understand is memorable. It also takes in your … companions in those black coats. A pity if I had to spank you for something one of them did. Does that suffice? I can make more, if you need them.”

  Rand set his cup down beside the chair. The tea had gone cold as well as bitter. Snow was beginning to pile up in drifts beneath the windows. “I’m the one who’s supposed to go mad, Aes Sedai, but you already are.” Rising, he strode for the door.

  “I do hope you haven’t tried to use Callandor,” she said complacently behind him. “I have heard it’s vanished from the Stone. You managed to escape once, but you might not twice.”

  He stopped short, looking over his shoulder. The woman was pushing that bloody needle through the cloth stretched on her hoop! The wind gusted, swirling snow around her, and she did not even lift her head. “What do you mean, escape?”

  “What?” She did not look up. “Oh. Very few even in the Tower knew what Callandor is before you drew it, but there are surprising things hidden in musty corners of the Tower Library. I went rummaging some years ago, when I first had the suspicion you might be suckling at your mother’s breast. Just before I decided to go back into retirement. Babes are messy things, and I could not see how to find you before you stopped dripping at one end or the other.”

  “What do you mean?” he demanded roughly.

  Cadsuane looked up then, and with her hair flung about and snow settling on her dress, she looked a queen. “I told you I cannot abide incivility. If you ask for my help again, I expect you to ask politely. And I will expect an apology for your behavior today!”

  “What do you mean about Callandor?”

  “It is flawed,” she replied curtly, “lacking the buffer that makes other sa’angreal safe to use. And it apparently magnifies the taint, inducing wildness of the mind. So long as a man is using it, anyway. The only safe way for you to use The Sword That Is Not a Sword, the only way to use it without the risk of killing yourself, or trying to do the Light alone knows what insanity, is linked with two women, and one of them guiding the flows.”

  Trying not to hunch his shoulders, he strode away from her. So it had been not just the wildness of saidin around Ebou Dar that had killed Adley. He had murdered the man the moment he sent Narishma for the thing.

  Cadsuane’s voice pursued him. “Remember, boy. You must ask very nicely, and apologize. I might even agree, if your apology sounds truly sincere.”

  Rand barely heard her. He had hoped to use Callandor again, hoped it would be strong enough. Now only one chance remained, and it terrified him. He seemed to hear another woman’s voice, a dead woman’s voice. You could challenge the Creator.

  CHAPTER

  28

  Crimsonthorn

  It hardly seemed the setting for the explosion Elayne feared. Harlon Bridge was a village of moderate size, with three inns and enough houses that no one had to sleep in a hayloft. When Elayne and Birgitte went downstairs to the common room that morning, Mistress Dill, the round innkeeper, smiled warmly and offered as much of a curtsy as her size allowed. It was not just that Elayne was Aes Sedai. Mistress Dill was so pleased that her inn was full, what with the roads snow-packed, that she bobbed at nearly everyone. At their entrance, Aviendha hastily gulped the last of her breakfast bread and cheese, brushed a few crumbs from her green dress, and snatched up her dark cloak to join them.

  Outside, the sun was just peeking over the horizon, a low dome of pale yellow. Only a few clouds marred a beautiful blue sky, and they were white and fluffy, not the sort to carry snow. It seemed a wonderful day for traveling.

  Except that Adeleas was trampling a path up the snowy street, and the white-haired sister was dragging one of the Kin, Garenia Rosoinde, by her arm. Garenia was a slim-hipped Saldaean who had spent the last twenty years as a merchant although she looked only a few years older than Nynaeve did. Normally, her strongly hooked nose gave her a forceful appearance, a woman who would make hard trading and not back away. Now her dark tilted eyes were large in her face and her wide mouth hung open, emitting a wordless wail. A growing knot of Kinswomen followed behind, skirts held high out of the snow, whispering among themselves, with more running from every direction to join. Reanne and the rest of the Knitting Circle were in the front, all grim-faced except for Kirstian, who seemed even paler than usual. Alise was there, too, wearing an utterly blank expression.

  Adeleas stopped in front of Elayne and shoved Garenia so hard the woman fell to hands and knees in the snow. Where she stayed, still wailing. The Kinswomen gathered behind her, more of their number flocking in.

  “I’m bringing this to you because Nynaeve is busy,” the Brown sister told Elayne. She meant that Nynaeve was enjoying a little time alone with Lan somewhere, but for once, not so much as a hint of a smile crossed her lips. “Be quiet, child!” she snapped at Garenia. Who promptly went silent. Adeleas gave a satisfied nod. “This is not Garenia Rosoinde,” she said. “I finally recognized her. Zarya Alkaese, a novice who ran away just before Vandene and I decided to retire and write our history of the world. She admitted it, when I confronted her. I’m surprised Careane didn’t recognize her before this; they were novices together for two years. The law is clear, Elayne. A runaway must be put back in white as soon as possible and kept under strict discipline until she can be returned to the Tower for proper punishment. She won’t think of running again after that!”

  Elayne nodded slowly, trying to think of what to say. Whether or not Garenia—Zarya—thought of running again, she would not be allowed the opportunity. She wa
s very strong in the Power; the Tower would not let her go if it took the rest of her life to earn the shawl. But Elayne was recalling something she had heard this woman say the first time she met her. The meaning had not registered then, but now it did. How would Zarya face novice white again after living as her own woman for seventy years? Worse, those whispers among the Kinswomen had begun to sound like rumbles.

  She did not have long to think. Suddenly Kirstian fell to her knees, clutching at Adeleas’ skirts with one hand. “I submit myself,” she said calmly, her tone a wonder coming from that bloodless face. “I was enrolled in the novice book almost three hundred years ago, and ran away less than a year later. I submit myself, and … and beg mercy.”

  It was white-haired Adeleas’ turn to go wide-eyed. Kirstian was claiming to have run away from the White Tower when she herself was an infant, if not before she was born! Most of the sisters still did not really believe the ages claimed by the Kin. Indeed, Kirstian appeared just into her middle years.

  Even so, Adeleas recovered herself quickly. However old the other woman was, Adeleas had been Aes Sedai about as long as anyone living. She carried an aura of age, and authority. “If that is so, child,” her voice did falter just a bit at that, “I fear we must put you in white, too. You will still be punished, but surrendering as you have will gain you some mitigation.”

  “That is why I did it.” Kirstian’s steady tone was spoiled somewhat by a hard swallow. She was almost as strong as Zarya—none of the Knitting Circle were weak—and she would be held very closely. “I knew you would find me out sooner or later.”

  Adeleas nodded as though that were clearly obvious, though how the woman would have been found out, Elayne could not guess. She very much doubted that Kirstian Chalwin was the name the woman had been born with. Most of the Kin believed in Aes Sedai omniscience, though. They had, at least.

  “Rubbish!” Sarainya Vostovan’s husky voice cut through the murmured babble of the Kin. Neither strong enough to become Aes Sedai nor nearly old enough to stand very high among the Kin, she still stepped from the pack defiantly. “Why should we give them up to the White Tower? We have helped women run away, and rightly so! It is not part of the rules to give them back!”

  “Control yourself!” Reanne said sharply. “Alise, take Sarainya in hand, please. It seems she forgets too many of the rules she claims to know.”

  Alise looked at Reanne, her face still unreadable. Alise, who enforced the Kin’s rules with a firm hand. “It is not part of our rules to hand runaways back, Reanne,” she said.

  Reanne jerked as though struck. “And how do you suggest keeping them?” she demanded finally. “We have always held runaways apart until we were sure they were no longer hunted, and if they were found before, we let the sisters take them. That is the rule, Alise. What other rule do you propose violating? Do you suggest that we actually set ourselves against Aes Sedai?” Ridicule of such a notion larded her voice, yet Alise stood looking at her, silent.

  “Yes!” a voice shouted from the crowd of Kinswomen. “We are many, and they are few!” Adeleas stared at the crowd in disbelief. Elayne embraced saidar, though she knew the voice was right—the Kin were too many. She felt Aviendha embracing the Power, and Birgitte setting herself.

  Giving herself a shake as if coming to, Alise did something far more practical, certainly far more effective. “Sarainya,” she said loudly, “you will report to me when we stop tonight, with a switch you cut yourself before we leave this morning. You, too, Asra; I recognize your voice!” And then, just as loudly, she said to Reanne, “I will report myself for your judgment when we stop tonight. I don’t see anyone getting ready!”

  The Kinswomen broke up quickly then, heading off to gather their things, yet Elayne saw some of them talking quietly as they went. When they rode over the bridge across the frozen stream that wound down beside the village, with Nynaeve incredulous over what she had missed and glaring about for someone to call down, Sarainya and Asra carried switches—as did Alise—and Zarya and Kirstian wore hastily found white dresses beneath their dark cloaks. The Windfinders pointed at them and laughed uproariously. But many of the Kinswomen still talked in clusters, falling silent whenever a sister or one of the Knitting Circle looked at them. And there was a darkness to their eyes when they looked at Aes Sedai.

  Eight more days of floundering through the snow when it was not falling, and grinding her teeth in an inn when it was. Eight more days of brooding by the Kin, of staring bleakly at the sisters, days of strutting by the Windfinders around Kin and Aes Sedai alike. On the morning of the ninth day, Elayne began to wish everyone had simply gone for everyone else’s throat.

  She was just wondering whether they could cover the last ten miles to Caemlyn without a murder, when Kirstian rapped at her door and darted in without waiting for an answer. The woman’s plain woolen dress was not the shade of white proper for a novice, and she had regained much of her dignity somehow, as if knowing her future had smoothed her present, but now she made a hasty curtsy, almost tripping over her cloak, and her nearly black eyes were anxious. “Nynaeve Sedai, Elayne Sedai, Lord Lan says you are to come at once,” she said breathlessly. “He told me to speak to no one, and you aren’t to, either.”

  Elayne and Nynaeve exchanged looks with Aviendha and Birgitte. Nynaeve growled something under her breath about the man not knowing private from public, but it was clear before she blushed that she did not believe it. Elayne felt Birgitte focus, the drawn arrow hunting a target.

  Kirstian did not know what Lan wanted, only where she was to lead them. The small hut outside of Cullen’s Crossing where Adeleas had taken Ispan the night before. Lan stood outside, his eyes as cold as the air, and would not let Kirstian enter. When Elayne went inside, she saw why.

  Adeleas lay on her side beside an overturned stool, a cup on the rough wooden floor not far from one outstretched hand. Her eyes stared, and a pool of congealed blood spread out from the deep slash across her throat. Ispan lay on a small cot, staring at the ceiling. Lips drawn back in a rictus bared her teeth, and her bulging eyes seemed full of horror. As well they might have, since a wrist-thick wooden stake stood out from between her breasts. The hammer that had plainly been used to drive it in lay beside the cot, on the edge of a dark stain that ran back under the cot.

  Elayne forced herself to stop thinking about emptying her stomach on the spot. “Light,” she breathed. “Light! Who could do this? How could anyone do this?” Aviendha shook her head wonderingly, and Lan did not even bother with that. He just watched nine directions at once, as though he expected whoever, or whatever, had committed this murder to come through one of the two tiny windows if not through the walls. Birgitte drew her belt knife, and by her face, she dearly wished she had her bow. That drawn arrow was stronger than ever in Elayne’s head.

  At first, Nynaeve simply stood in one spot, studying the hut’s interior. There was little to see, aside from the obvious. A second three-legged stool, a rough table holding a flickering lamp, a green teapot and a second cup, a rude stone fireplace with cold ash on the hearthstone. That was all. The hut was so small it only took Nynaeve a step to reach the table. Dipping her finger into the teapot, she touched it to the tip of her tongue, then spat vigorously and emptied the whole teapot into the table in a wash of tea and tea leaves. Elayne blinked wonderingly.

  “What happened?” Vandene asked coolly from the door. Lan moved to bar her way, but she stopped him with a small gesture. Elayne started to put an arm around her, and received another raised hand to keep her back. Vandene’s eyes remained on her sister, calm in a face of Aes Sedai serenity. The dead woman on the cot might as well not have existed. “When I saw all of you heading this way, I thought … We knew we didn’t have many years remaining, but …” Her voice sounded serenity itself, but small wonder if that was a mask. “What have you found, Nynaeve?”

  Sympathy looked odd on Nynaeve’s face. Clearing her throat, she pointed to the tea leaves without touching them. To white
shavings among the matted black leaves. “This is crimsonthorn root,” she said, trying to sound matter-of-fact and failing. “It’s sweet, so you might miss it in tea unless you know what it is, especially if you take a lot of honey.”

  Vandene nodded, never taking her eyes from her sister. “Adeleas developed a taste for sweet tea in Ebou Dar.”

  “A little kills pain,” Nynaeve said. “This much … This much kills, but slowly. Even a few sips would be enough.” Taking a deep breath, she added, “They might have remained conscious for hours. Not able to move, but aware. Either whoever did this didn’t want to risk someone coming too soon with an antidote—not that I know one, for a brew this strong—or else they wanted one or the other to know who was killing them.” Elayne gasped at the brutality, but Vandene simply nodded.

  “Ispan, I think, since they appear to have taken the most time with her.” The white-haired Green almost seemed to be thinking aloud, working out a puzzle. Cutting a throat took less time than driving a stake through someone’s heart. The calm of her made Elayne’s skin crawl. “Adeleas would never have accepted anything to drink from someone she didn’t know, not out here with Ispan. Those two facts name her killer, in a way. A Darkfriend, and one of our party. One of us.” Elayne felt two chills, her own, and Birgitte’s.

  “One of us,” Nynaeve agreed sadly. Aviendha began testing the edge of her belt knife on her thumb, and for once, Elayne felt no objection.

  Vandene asked to be left alone with her sister for a few moments, and sat on the floor to cradle Adeleas in her arms before they were out of the door. Jaem, Vandene’s gnarled old Warder, was waiting outside with a shivering Kirstian.

  Suddenly a wail burst out inside the hut, the full-throated cry of a woman mourning the loss of everything. Nynaeve, of all people, turned to go back, but Lan laid a hand on her arm, and Jaem planted himself before the door with eyes not much warmer than Lan’s. There was nothing to do but leave them, Vandene to shriek her pain, and Jaem to guard her in it. And share it, Elayne realized, feeling that knot of emotions in her head that was Birgitte. She shivered, and Birgitte put an arm around her shoulders. Aviendha did the same from the other side, and motioned for Nynaeve to join them, which she did, after a moment. The murder Elayne had thought of so lightly had come, one of their companions was a Darkfriend, and the day suddenly felt cold enough to shatter bones, but there was a warmth in the closeness of her friends.