A Crown of Swords twot-7

by Robert Jordan

  "Have they?" Cadsuane said dryly. Min's heart sank. Even if Rand had not spoken of her, it was clear from the way she looked at him that she knew him. Tiny golden birds and moons and stars swayed as she shook her head. "Most boys learn not to stick their fingers into the pretty fire the first time they are burned, Tomas. Others need to be spanked, to learn. Better a tender bottom than a seared hand."

  "You know I'm no child," Rand told her sharply.

  "Do I?" She eyed him from head to toe, and made it seem no very great distance. "Well, it seems I shall soon see whether or not you need spanking." Those cool eyes drifted to Min, to Caraline, and with a final hitch to her shawl, Cadsuane herself drifted away into the crowd.

  Min swallowed the lump in her throat, and was pleased to see Caraline do the same, self-possession or no. Rand — the blind fool! — stared after the Aes Sedai as though intending to go after her. This time it was Caraline who laid a hand on Rand's chest.

  "I take it you know Cadsuane," she said breathily. "Be careful of her; even the other, sisters stand in awe of her." Her throaty tones took on a note of gravity. "I have no idea what will come of today, but whatever it is, I think it is time you were gone, 'Cousin Tomas.' Past time. I will have horses —"

  "This is your cousin, Caraline?" said a deep, rich man's voice, and Min jumped in spite of herself.

  Toram Riatin was even better-looking close up than at a distance, with the sort of strong male beauty and air of worldly knowledge that would have attracted Min before she met Rand. Well, she still found them attractive, just not as much as she did Rand. His firm-lipped smile was quite appealing.

  Toram's gaze fell to Caraline's hand, still on Rand's chest. "The Lady Caraline is to be my wife," he said lazily. "Did you know that?"

  Caraline's cheeks reddened angrily. "Do not say that, Toram! I have told you I will not, and I will not!"

  Toram smiled at Rand. "I think women never know their minds until you show them. What do you think, Jeraal? Jeraal?" He looked around, scowling. Min stared at him in amazement. And he was so pretty, with just the right air of… She wished she could call up viewings at will. She very much wanted to know what the future held for this man.

  "I saw your friend scurry off that way, Toram." Mouth twisted with distaste, Caraline gave a vague wave of her hand. "You will find him near the drink, I think, or else bothering the serving girls."

  "Later, my precious." He tried to touch her cheek, and looked amused when she stepped back. Without a pause he transferred his amusement to Rand. And the sword at his side. "Would you care for a little sport, cousin? I call you that because we will be cousins, once Caraline is my wife. With practice swords, of course."

  "Certainly not," Caraline laughed. "He is a boy, Toram, and scarce knows one end of that thing from the other. His mother would never forgive me, if I allowed —"

  "Sport," Rand said abruptly. "I might as well see where this leads. I agree."

  Chapter 36

  (Ruby-Hilted Dagger)

  Blades

  Min did not know whether to groan or shout or sit down and cry. Caraline, staring wide-eyed at Rand, seemed in the same quandary.

  With a laugh, Toram began rubbing his hands together. "Listen, everyone," he shouted. "You are going to see some sport. Clear a space. Clear a space." He strode off, waving people away from the center of the tent.

  "Sheepherder," Min growled, "you're not wool-brained. You don't have any brains!"

  "I would not put it quite so," Caraline said in a very dry voice, "but I suggest you leave, now. Whatever… tricks… you think you might use, there are seven Aes Sedai in this tent, four of them Red Ajah lately arrived from the south on their way to Tar Valon. Should one of them so much as suspect, I very much fear that whatever might have come of today, never will. Leave."

  "I won't use any… tricks." Rand unbuckled his sword belt and handed it to Min. "If I've touched you and Darlin in one way, maybe I can touch Toram in another." The crowd was pushing back, opening up an area twenty paces across between two of the great centerpoles. Some looked to Rand, and there was a great deal of rib nudging and sly laughter. The Aes Sedai were offered pride of place, of course, Cadsuane and her two friends on one side, four ageless women in Red Ajah shawls on the other. Cadsuane and her companions were eyeing Rand with open disapproval and as close to irritation as any Aes Sedai ever let show, but the Red sisters looked more concerned with those three. At least, although they stood directly opposite, they managed to seem oblivious of the presence of any other sisters. No one could be that blind without trying.

  "Listen to me, cousin." Caraline's low voice almost crackled with urgency. She stood very close, her neck craned to look up at him. Barely reaching his chest, she seemed ready to box his ears. "If you use none of your special tricks," Caraline went on, "he can hurt you badly, even with practice swords, and he will. He has never liked another touching what he thinks is his, and he suspects every pretty young man who speaks to me of being my lover. When we were children, he pushed a friend — a friend! — down the stairs and broke his back because Derowin rode his pony without asking. Go, cousin. No one will think less; no one expects a boy to face a blademaster. Jaisi… whatever your real name is… help me convince him!"

  Min opened her mouth — and Rand laid a finger across her lips. "I am who I am," he smiled. "And I don't think I could run from him if I wasn't. So, he's a blademaster." Unbuttoning his coat, he strode out into the cleared area.

  "Why must they be so stubborn when you least wish it?" Caraline whispered in tones of frustration. Min could only nod in agreement.

  Toram had stripped to shirt and breeches, and carried two practice swords, their "blades" bundles of thin lathes tied together. He raised an eyebrow at the sight of Rand with his coat simply hanging open. "You will be confined in that, cousin." Rand shrugged.

  Without warning, Toram tossed one of the swords; Rand caught it out of the air by the long hilt.

  "Those gloves will slip, cousin. You want a firm grip."

  Rand took the hilt in both hands and turned slightly sideways, blade down and left foot forward.

  Toram spread his hands as if to say he had done all he could. "Well, at least he knows how to stand," he laughed, and on the last word darted forward, practice sword streaking for Rand's head with all his might behind it.

  With a loud clack, bundled lathes met bundled lathes. Rand had moved nothing except his sword. For a moment, Toram stared at him, and Rand looked back calmly. Then they began to dance.

  That was all Min could call it, that gliding, flowing movement, wooden blades flickering and spinning. She had watched Rand practice the sword against the best he could find, often against two or three or four at once, but that had been nothing to this. So beautiful, and so easy to forget that had those lathes been steel, blood could have flowed. Except that no blade, steel or lathes, touched flesh. Back and forth they danced, circling one another, swords now probing, now slashing, Rand attacking, now defending, and every movement punctuated by those loud clacks.

  Caraline gripped Min's arm hard without taking her eyes from the contest. "He is also a blademaster," she breathed. "He must be. Look at him!"

  Min was looking, and hugging Rand's sword belt and scabbarded blade as if they were him. Back and forth in beauty, and whatever Rand thought, Toram clearly wished his blade was steel. Cold rage burned on his face, and he pressed harder, harder. Still no blade touched anything but another, yet now Rand backed away constantly, sword darting to defend, and Toram moved forward, attacking, eyes glittering with icy fury.

  Outside, someone screamed, a wail of utter horror, and suddenly the huge tent snapped up into the air, vanishing into a thick grayness that hid the sky. Fog billowed on every side, filled with distant shrieks and bellows. Thin tendrils wafted into the clear inverted bowl left by the tent. Everyone stared in amazement. Almost everyone.

  Toram's lathe blade smashed into Rand's side with a bone-crack sound, doubling him over. "You are dead, cousin
," Toram sneered, lifting his sword high to strike again — and froze, staring, as part of the heavy gray mist overhead… solidified. A tentacle of fog, it might have been a thick three-toed arm, reaching down, closed around the stout Red sister, snatching her into the air before anyone had a chance to move.

  Cadsuane was the first to overcome shock. Her arms rose, shaking back her shawl, her hands made a twist, and a ball of fire seemed to shoot upward from each palm, streaking into the mist. Above, something suddenly burst into flame, one violent gout that vanished immediately, and the Red sister fell back into sight, dropping with a thud facedown on the carpets near where Rand knelt on one knee clutching his side. At least, she would have been facedown had her head not been twisted around so her dead eyes stared up into the fog.

  Whatever scraps of composure remained in the tent fled with that. The Shadow had been given flesh. Screaming people fled in every direction, knocking over tables, nobles clawing past servants and servants past nobles. Buffeted, Min fought her way to Rand with fists and elbows and his sword as a club.

  "Are you all right?" she asked, pulling him to his feet. She was surprised to see Caraline on the other side, helping him, too. For that matter, Caraline looked surprised.

  He took his hand from beneath his coat, fingers thankfully free of blood. That half-healed scar, so tender, had not broken open. "I think we best move," he said, taking his sword belt. "We have to get out of this." The inverted bowl of clear air was noticeably smaller. Almost everyone else had fled. Out in the fog, screams rose, most cutting off abruptly but always replaced by new.

  "I agree, Tomas," Darlin said. Sword in hand, he planted himself with his back to Caraline, between her and the fog. "The question is, in which direction? And also, how far do we have to go?"

  "This is his work," Toram spat. "Al'Thor's." Hurling down his practice sword, he stalked to his discarded coat and calmly donned it. Whatever else he was, he was no coward. "Jeraal?" he shouted at the fog as he fastened his sword belt. "Jeraal, the Light burn you, man, where are you? Jeraal!" Mordeth — Fain — did not answer, and he went on shouting.

  The only others still there were Cadsuane and her two companions, faces calm but hands running nervously over their shawls. Cadsuane herself might have been setting out for a stroll. "I should think north," she said. "The slope lies closer that way, and climbing may take us above this. Stop that caterwauling, Toram! Either your man's dead, or he can't hear." Toram glared at her, but he did stop shouting. Cadsuane did not appear to notice or care, so long as he was silent. "North, then. We three will take care of anything your steel can't handle." She looked straight at Rand when she said that, and he gave a whisker of a nod before buckling his sword belt and drawing his blade. Trying not to goggle, Min exchanged glances with Caraline; the other woman's eyes looked as large as teacups. The Aes Sedai knew who he was, and she was going to keep anyone else from knowing.

  "I wish we had not left our Warders back in the city," the slim Yellow sister said. Tiny silver bells in her dark hair chimed as she tossed her head. She had almost as commanding an air as Cadsuane, enough that you did not realize how pretty she was at first, except that that toss of her head seemed… well… a touch petulant. "I wish I had Roshan here."

  "A circle, Cadsuane?" the Gray asked. Head turning this way and that to peer at the fog, she looked like a plump, pale-haired sparrow with her sharp nose and inquisitive eyes. Not a frightened sparrow, but one definitely ready to take wing. "Should we link?"

  "No, Niande," Cadsuane sighed. "If you see something, you must be able to strike at it without waiting to point it out for me. Samitsu, stop worrying about Roshan. We have three fine swords here, two of them heron-mark, I see. They will do."

  Toram showed his teeth on seeing the heron engraved on the blade Rand had unsheathed. If it was a smile, it held no mirth. His own bared blade bore a heron, too. Darlin's did not, but he gave Rand and his sword a weighing look, then a respectful nod that was considerably deeper than he had offered plain Tomas Trakand, of a minor branch of the House.

  The gray-haired Green had taken charge, clearly, and she kept it despite attempted protests from Darlin, who like many Tairens seemed not to relish Aes Sedai a great deal, and Toram, who just seemed to dislike anyone giving orders but himself. For that matter, so did Caraline, but Cadsuane ignored her frowns as completely as she did the men's voiced complaints. Unlike them, Caraline appeared to realize complaints would do no good. Wonder of wonders, Rand meekly let himself be placed to Cadsuane's right as she quickly arranged everyone. Well, not exactly meekly — he stared down his nose at her in a way that would have made Min slap him if he did it to her; Cadsuane just shook her head and muttered something that reddened his face — but at least he kept his mouth shut. Right then, Min almost thought he would announce who he was. And maybe expect the fog to vanish in fear of the Dragon Reborn. He smiled at her as though fog in this weather was nothing, even a fog that snatched tents and people.

  They moved into the thick mist in a formation like a six-pointed star, Cadsuane herself in the lead, an Aes Sedai at each of two other points, a man with a sword at three. Toram, of course, protested loudly at bringing up the rear until Cadsuane mentioned the honor of the rear guard or some such. That quieted him down. Min had no objection whatsoever to her own position with Caraline in the center of the star. She carried a knife in either hand, and wondered whether they would be any use. It was something of a relief to see the dagger in Caraline's fist tremble. At least her own hands were steady. Then again, she thought she might be too frightened to shake.

  The fog was cold as winter. Grayness closed around them in swirls, so heavy it was difficult to see the others clearly. Hearing was all too easy, though. Shrieks drifted through the murk, men and women crying out, horses screaming. The fog seemed to deaden sound, make it hollow, so that thankfully, those awful sounds seemed distant. The mist ahead began to thicken, but fireballs immediately shot from Cadsuane's hands, sizzling through the icy gray, and the thickening erupted in one roaring flare of flame. Roars behind, light flashing against the fog like lightning against clouds, spoke of the other two sisters at work. Min had no desire to look back. What she could see was more than enough.

  Past trampled tents half obscured by gray haze they moved, past bodies and sometimes parts of bodies not nearly obscured enough. A leg. An arm. A man who was not there from the waist down. Once a woman's head that seemed to grin from where it sat on the corner of an overturned wagon. The land began to slope upward, steeper. Min saw her first living soul besides them, and wished she had not. A man wearing one of the red coats staggered toward them, waving his left arm feebly. The other was gone, and wet white bone showed where half his face had been. Something that might have been words bubbled though his teeth; and he collapsed. Samitsu knelt briefly beside him, putting her fingers against the bloody ruin of his forehead. Rising, she shook her head, and they moved on. Upslope, and up, until Min began wondering whether they were climbing a mountain instead of a hill.

  Right in front of Darlin, the fog suddenly began to take on form, a man-high shape, but all tentacles and gaping mouths full of sharp teeth. The High Lord might have been no blademaster, but he was not slow either. His blade sliced through the middle of the still-coalescing shape, looped and slashed it top to bottom. Four clouds of fog, thicker than the surrounding mist, settled to the ground. "Well," he said, "at least we know steel can cut these… creatures."

  The thicker chunks of fog oozed together, began to rise once more.

  Cadsuane stretched out a hand, droplets of fire falling from her fingertips; one bright flash of flame seared the solidifying fog from existence. "But no more than cut, so it seems," she murmured.

  Ahead to their right, a woman suddenly appeared in the swirling gray, silk skirts held high as she half ran, half fell down the slope toward them. "Thank the Light!" she screamed. "Thank the Light! I thought I was alone!" Right behind her the fog drew together, a nightmare all teeth and claws, looming above
her. Had it been a man, Min was sure Rand would have waited.

  His hand rose before Cadsuane could move, and a bar of… something… liquid white fire brighter than the sun… shot out over the running woman's head. The creature simply vanished. For a moment there was clear air where it had been, and along the line that the bar had burned, until the fog began closing in. A moment while the woman froze where she stood. Then, shrieking at the top of her lungs, she turned and ran from them, still downslope, fleeing what she feared more than nightmares in these mists.

  "You!" Toram roared, so loudly that Min spun to face him with her knives raised. He stood pointing his sword at Rand. "You are him! I was right! This is your work! You will not trap me, al'Thor!" Suddenly he broke away at an angle, scrambling wildly up the slope. "You will not trap me!"

  "Come back!" Darlin shouted after him. "We must stick together! We must…" He trailed off, staring at Rand. "You are him. The Light burn me, you are!" He half-moved as if to place himself between Rand and Caraline, but at least he did not run.

  Calmly, Cadsuane picked her way across the slope to Rand. And slapped his face so hard his head jerked. Min's breath caught in shock. "You will not do that again," Cadsuane said. There was no heat in her voice, just iron. "Do you hear me? Not balefire. Not ever."

  Surprisingly, Rand only rubbed his cheek. "You were wrong, Cadsuane. He's real. I'm certain of it. I know he is." Even more surprisingly, he sounded as if he very much wanted her to believe.

  Min's heart went out to him. He had mentioned hearing voices; he must mean that. She raised her right hand toward him, forgetting for the moment that it held a knife, and opened her mouth to say something comforting. Though she was not entirely sure she would ever be able to use that particular word innocuously again. She opened her mouth — and Padan Fain seemed to leap out of the mists behind Rand, steel gleaming in his fist.