Verin touched her arm. "We must talk." Alanna looked at her, eyes unreadable, then without a word glided toward the private dining room.
Behind her Verin heard Master Dilham say in a shaken voice, "Do you suppose I could claim the Dragon Reborn patronized my inn? He did come in, after all." For a brief moment she smiled; he would be all right, at least. Her smile vanished as she closed the door, sealing her and Alanna in.
Alanna was already stalking back and forth in the small room, the silk of her divided skirts whispering like swords sliding from scabbards. There was no face of serenity now. "The gall of the man. The utter gall! Detaining us! Restricting us!"
Verin watched her for a few moments before speaking. It had taken her ten years to get over Balinor’s death and bond Tomas. Alanna’s emotions had been raw since Owein’s death, and she had held them in far too long. The occasional bouts of weeping she had allowed herself since departing the Two Rivers were not enough of a release. "I suppose he can keep us out of the Inner City with guards at the gate, but he cannot really hold us in Caemlyn."
That got the withering glance it deserved. They could leave with little difficulty — however much Rand had taught himself, there was little chance he had managed to discover wards — but it would mean relinquishing the Two Rivers girls. No Aes Sedai had found a trove like the Two Rivers in… Verin could not imagine how long. Perhaps not since the Trolloc Wars. Even young women of eighteen — the limit they had set for themselves — often found it hard to accept the strictures of the novitiate, yet had they extended the limit only five years, she and Alanna could have brought out twice as many, if not more. Five of these girls — five! — had the spark inborn, including Mat’s sister and Wile and young Jancy; they would channel eventually whether anyone taught them or not and be very strong. She and Alanna had left two more behind to be gathered up in a year or so, when they were old enough to leave home. That was safe enough; a girl with the ability born in her very rarely manifested it before fifteen without training. The rest showed exceptional promise; all of them. The Two Rivers was a lode of pure gold.
Now that she had the other woman’s attention, Verin changed the subject. She certainly had no intention of abandoning those young women. Or of moving any further from Rand than she had to. "Do you think he is right about rebels?"
Alanna’s fists tightened for a moment on her skirts. "The possibility repels me! Could we really have come to…?" She trailed off, sounding lost. Her shoulders slumped. Tears bubbled just beneath the surface, barely held in check.
Now that the other woman’s anger was dulled, Verin had questions to ask before sharpening it again. "Is there any prospect your butcher can tell you more of what has happened in Tar Valon, if you dig?" The woman was not really Alanna’s; she was a Green Ajah agent, discovered because Alanna had noticed an emergency signal of some sort outside her shop. Not that Alanna had told Verin what it was, of course. Verin certainly would not have revealed any Brown signal.
"No. She knows no more than the message she gave me, and that dried her mouth so, she was hardly able to form words. All loyal Aes Sedai to return to the Tower. All is forgiven." That was the essence of it, anyway. A flash of anger lit Alanna’s eyes, but only for a moment and not as strong as before. "If not for all those rumors, I’d never have let you know who she is." That, and her emotions being unbalanced. At least she had stopped pacing.
"I know," Verin said, sitting down at the table, "and I will respect the confidence. Now. You must agree that message makes the rumors true. The Tower is broken. In all probability, there are rebels somewhere. The question is, what do we do about it?"
Alanna looked at her as if she were mad. Small wonder. Siuan had to have been deposed by the Hall of the Tower, according to Tower law. Even a suggestion of going against Tower law was unthinkable. But then, the Tower broken was unthinkable.
"If you have no answer now, think on it. And think on this. Siuan Sanche was part of finding young al’Thor in the first place." Alanna opened her mouth — doubtless to ask how Verin knew, and whether she had been part of it, too — but Verin gave her no chance. "Only a simpleton would believe that role played no part in bringing her down. Coincidences that large do not exist. So think what Elaida’s view of Rand must be. She was Red, remember. While you are thinking, answer me this. What were you at, bonding him like that?"
The question should not have caught Alanna by surprise, yet it did. She hesitated, then drew out a chair and sat, arranging her skirts before she answered. "It was the logical thing to do, with him right there in front of us. It should have been done long ago. You could not — or would not." Like most Greens, she was somewhat amused by other Ajahs’ insistence that each sister have only one Warder. What Greens thought of the Reds having none was better left unsaid. "They all should have been bonded at the first chance. They are too important to run loose, him most of all." Color blossomed suddenly in her cheeks; it would be a good while yet before she had full control of her emotions again.
Verin knew what caused the blushes; Alanna had let her tongue run away with her. They had had Perrin under their eyes for long weeks while testing young women in the Two Rivers, but Alanna had quickly gone silent on the subject of bonding him. The reason was as simple as a heated promise from Faile — delivered well out of Perrin’s hearing — that if Alanna did any such thing, she would not leave the Two Rivers alive. Had Faile known more of the bond between Aes Sedai and Gaidin, that threat would not have worked, yet her ignorance if nothing else had stayed Alanna’s hand. Very likely it had been frustration over that, plus the frayed state of her nerves, that had led to what she did with Rand. Not only bonding him, but doing so without his permission. That had not been done in hundreds of years.
Well, Verin thought dryly, I have broken a few customs in my time. "Logical?" she said, smiling to take the sting from her words. "You sound like a White. Well. Now that you have him, what are you going to do with him? Considering the lessons he taught us. I am minded of a fireside tale when I was a girl, about a woman who put saddle and bridle on a lion. She found it a fine and wonderful ride, but then discovered she could never dismount and never sleep."
Shivering, Alanna rubbed her arms. "I still cannot believe he is so strong. If only we had linked sooner. And I tried… I failed… He is so strong!"
Verin barely kept from shivering herself. They could not have linked sooner, not unless Alanna was suggesting they should have linked before she bonded him. Verin was not sure what the result of that would have been. In any case, it had been a series of extremely bad moments, from discovering that they could not cut him off from the True Source to the contemptuous ease with which he had shielded them, snapping their connections to saidar like thread. Both of them at once. Remarkable. How many would it take to shield and hold him? The full thirteen? That was only tradition, but it might be necessary with him. At any rate, that was speculation for another day. "And then there is the matter of his amnesty."
Alanna’s eyes widened. "Surely you don’t believe that! With every false Dragon there have been tales that he was gathering men who could channel, all as false as the men. They wanted power for themselves, not to share it with other men."
"He is not a false Dragon," Verin said quietly, "and that may change everything. If one rumor is true, so can another be, and the amnesty has been on every tongue since Whitebridge."
"Even if it is, perhaps no one has come. No decent man wants to channel. If more than a handful wanted it, we would have had false Dragons every week."
"He is ta’veren, Alanna. He draws what he needs to him."
Alanna’s mouth worked, her hands now white-knuckled fists on the table. Every shred of Aes Sedai tranquility gone, she trembled visibly. "We can’t allow… Men channeling, loosed on the world? If it is true, we must stop it. We must!" She was on the point of springing up again, eyes flashing.
"Before we can decide what to do about them," Verin said calmly, "we need to know where he is keeping them. The
Royal Palace seems likely, but finding out may be difficult with the Inner City denied to us. This is what I propose…" Alanna leaned forward intently.
There was a good deal to be worked out, though most would come later. A good many questions to be answered, later. Was Moiraine dead, and if so, how had she died? Were there rebels, and what should her and Alanna’s stance be concerning them? Should they try to deliver Rand to Elaida, or to these rebels? Where were they? That knowledge would be valuable whichever way the other questions were answered. How were they to make use of the so very fragile leash Alanna had placed on Rand? Should one or both try to take Moiraine’s place? For the first time since Alanna had begun to let her emotions over Owein creep to the surface, Verin was glad she had held them in long enough to become so volatile. In her raveled condition, Alanna was bound to be more amenable to guidance, and Verin knew exactly how some of those questions had to be answered. She did not think Alanna would like some of those answers. Best not to let her learn them until it was too late to change them.
Rand raced back to the Palace at a gallop, slowly outdistancing even the running Aiel, ignoring their shouts as he ignored the shaken fists of people forced to leap out of Jeade’en’s way, and the jumble of overturned sedan chairs and coaches locked wheel-to-wheel with market carts in his wake. Bashere and the Saldaeans barely kept up on their smaller horses. He was not sure why he was in such a hurry — the news he carried was not that urgent — but as the shakiness faded from his arms and legs, he realized more and more that he was aware of Alanna still. He could feel her. It was as if she had crawled inside his head and taken up residence. If he could feel her, could she feel him the same way? What else could she do? What else? He had to get away from her.
Pride, Lews Therin cackled, and for once Rand did not try to silence the voice.
He had a different destination than the palace in mind, but Traveling required you to know the place you left from even better than the place you were going. At the South Stable he tossed the stallion’s reins to a leather-vested groom and ran, his long legs carrying him ahead of the Saldaeans down corridors where servants gaped at him, arresting bows and curtsies as he sped past. In the Great Hall he grasped saidin, opened the hole in air and darted through into the clearing near the farm, letting the Source go.
Releasing a long breath, he sank to his knees in the dead leaves. The heat beneath the bare branches hammered him; he had lost the necessary concentration a long while back. He could still feel her, but it was fainter here — if a certainty that she was in that direction could be said to be faint. He could have pointed it out with his eyes closed.
For a moment he took hold of saidin again, that rage of fire and ice and sour slime. He held a sword in his hands, a sword made of fire, of Fire, a heron dark on the slightly curved red blade, though he did not recall thinking of it. Fire, but the long hilt felt cool and firm against his palms. The Void made no difference, the Power made no difference. Alanna was still there, curled up in a corner of his brain, watching him.
With a bitter laugh he released the Power again and knelt there. He had been so sure. Only two Aes Sedai. Of course he could handle them; he had handled Egwene and Elayne together. What could they possibly do to him? He realized he was still laughing. He did not seem able to stop. Well, it was funny. His fool pride. Overconfidence. It had gotten him in trouble before, and more than him. He had been so sure that he and the Hundred Companions could seal the Bore safely…
Leaves crackled as he forced himself to his feet. "That was not me!" he said hoarsely. "That was not me! Get out of my head! All of you get out of my head!" Lews Therin’s voice murmured indistinctly, distantly. Alanna waited silently, patiently, in the back of his head. The voice seemed afraid of her.
Deliberately Rand brushed off the knees of his breeches. He would not surrender to this. Trust no Aes Sedai; he would remember that from now on. A man without trust might as well be dead, Lews Therin giggled. He would not surrender.
Nothing had changed about the farm. Nothing and everything. The farmhouse and the barn were the same, the chickens and goats and cows. Sora Grady watched his arrival from a window, blank-faced and cold. She was the only woman now; all the other wives and sweethearts had gone with the men who failed Taim’s testing. Taim had the students in a clear area of hard red clay and fitful weeds beyond the barn. All seven of them. Aside from Sora’s husband, Jur, only Damer Flinn, Eben Hopwil and Fedwin Morr remained from that first testing. The others were new, all looking almost as young as Fedwin and Eben.
Except for white-haired Damer, the students sat in a line facing away from Rand. Damer stood in front of them, frowning as he stared at a head-sized stone thirty paces away.
"Now," Taim said, and Rand felt Damer seize saidin, saw him inexpertly weave Fire and Earth.
The stone exploded, and Damer and the other students threw themselves flat to escape flying shards. Not Taim; stone splinters bounced off the shield of Air that he had thrown up at the last instant. Lifting his head warily, Damer wiped blood from a shallow gouge below his left eye. Rand’s mouth tightened; it was only luck that none of those flying pieces had struck him. He glanced back at the farmhouse; Sora was still there, unhurt apparently. And still staring at him. The chickens had hardly paused in their scratching; they seemed to be used to this.
"Perhaps you will remember what I say next time," Taim said calmly, letting his weave vanish. "Shield as you strike, or you may kill yourself." He glanced at Rand as if he had been aware he was there all the time. "Continue," he told the students, and walked toward Rand. His hawk-nosed face seemed to have a cruel cast today.
As Damer sat down in the line, blotchy-faced Eben stood up, nervously tugging a big ear as he used Air to lift another stone from a pile off to one side. His flows wobbled, and he dropped it once before setting it in place.
"Is it safe to leave them alone like that?" Rand asked as Taim reached him.
The second stone exploded like the first, but this time all of the students had woven shields. So had Taim, surrounding himself and Rand. Without a word Rand took hold of saidin again and made his own shield, forcing Taim’s away from him. Taim’s mouth quirked in that near smile.
"You said to push them, my Lord Dragon, so I push. I make them do everything with the Power, the chores, everything. The newest got his first hot meal last night. If they can’t heat it themselves, they eat cold. For most things it still takes twice as long as doing it by hand, but they’re learning the Power as fast as they can, believe me. Of course, there still aren’t very many."
Ignoring the implied question, Rand looked around. "Where’s Haslin? Not drunk again? I told you, he’s only to have wine at night." Henre Haslin had been Master of the Sword for the Queen’s Guards, in charge of training recruits, until Rahvin began remaking the Guards, discarding everyone faithful to Morgase or sending them off to fight in Cairhien. Too old for campaigning, Haslin had been handed his pension and shown the gate, and when news of Morgase’s death spread through Caemlyn, he crawled into a winejar. But he thought Rahvin — Gaebril, to him — had killed Morgase, not Rand, and he could teach. When he was sober.
"I sent him away," Taim said. "What good are swords?" Another rock exploded. "I can barely avoid stabbing myself, and I’ve never felt the lack. They have the Power, now."
Kill him! Kill him now! Lews Therin’s voice echoed hollowly through the Void. Rand stamped the echo out, but he could not stamp out the anger that suddenly seemed a shell around the emptiness containing him. The Void kept his voice drained of emotion, though. "Find him, Taim, and bring him back. Tell him you have changed your mind. Tell the students that. Tell them whatever you choose, but I want him here, giving lessons every day. They need to be part of the world, not apart from it. What are they supposed to do if they can’t channel? When you were shielded by the Aes Sedai, you might still have escaped if you knew how to use a sword, how to fight with your hands."
"I did escape. Here I am."
"Some of
your followers broke you free, so I heard, else you’d have ended up in Tar Valon like Logain, gentled. These men won’t have followers. Find Haslin."
The other man bowed smoothly. "As my Lord Dragon commands. Was that what brought my Lord Dragon here? Haslin and swords?" The merest hint of contempt tinged his voice, but Rand ignored it.
"There are Aes Sedai in Caemlyn. Trips to the city have to stop, yours and the students’ too. The Light only knows what will happen if one of them runs into an Aes Sedai and she recognizes what he is." Or for that matter, when he recognized her, as he assuredly would. He would probably run or strike out in a panic, and either would mark him. Either would doom him. From what Rand saw, Verin or Alanna could wrap up any of the students like a child.
Taim shrugged. "Doing an Aes Sedai’s head like one of those rocks isn’t beyond them even now. The weave is only a little different." Glancing over his shoulder, he raised his voice. "Concentrate, Adley. Concentrate." The lanky fellow standing in front of the other students, all arms and legs, gave a start and lost saidin, then fumbled it back again. Another rock exploded as Taim turned back to Rand. "For that matter, I can… remove… them myself, if you are not up to it."
"If I wanted them dead, I’d have killed them." He thought he could do it, if they tried to kill him, or gentle him. He hoped he could. But would they try either after bonding him? That was one thing he did not intend to let Taim know; even without Lews Therin’s mutters he did not trust the man enough to expose any weakness he could hide. Light, what sort of hold did I let Alanna get on me? "If the time comes to kill Aes Sedai, I’ll let you know. Until then, no one is to so much as shout at one unless she’s trying to take his head off. In fact, you’re all to stay as far from Aes Sedai as you can. I want no incidents, nothing to put them against me."
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