Loial joined them, and they went back toward the manor, to be met at the small door by Mat, who opened it just as Rand reached for the handle. "Verin says you're not to do anything. If Hurin's found where the Horn is kept, then she says that's all we can do, now. She says we'll leave as soon as you come back, and make a plan. And I say this is the last time I go running back and forth with messages. If you want to say something to somebody, you can talk to them yourself from now on." Mat peered past them into the darkness. "Is the Horn out there somewhere? In an outbuilding? Did you see the dagger?"
Rand turned him around and got him back inside. "It isn't in an outbuilding, Mat. I hope Verin has a good idea of what to do now; I don't have any."
Mat looked as if he wanted to ask questions, but he let himself be pushed along the dimly lit corridor. He even remembered to limp as they started upstairs.
When Rand and the others reentered the rooms filled with nobles, they received a number of looks. Rand wondered if they somehow knew something of what had happened outside, or if he should have sent Hurin and Mat to the front hall to wait, but then he realized the looks were no different from what they had been before, curious and calculating, wondering what the lord and the Ogier had been up to. Servants were invisible to these people. No one tried to approach them, since they were together. It seemed there were protocols to conspiracy in the Great Game; anyone might try to listen to a private conversation, but they would not intrude on it.
Verin and Ingtar were standing together, and thus also alone. Ingtar looked a little dazed. Verin gave Rand and the other three a brief glance, frowned at their expressions, then resettled her shawl and started for the entry hall.
As they reached it, Barthanes appeared as if someone had told him they were leaving. "You go so soon? Verin Sedai, can I not entreat you to stay longer?"
Verin shook her head. "We must go, Lord Barthanes. I've not been in Cairhien in some years. I was glad of your invitation to young Rand. It has been … interesting."
"Then Grace see you safely to your inn. The Great Tree, is it not? Perhaps you will favor me with your presence again? You would honor me, Verin Sedai, and you, Lord Rand, and you, Lord Ingtar, not to mention you, Loial, son of Arent son of Halan." His bow was a little deeper for the Aes Sedai than for the others, but still no more than a slight inclination.
Verin nodded in acknowledgment. "Perhaps. The Light illumine you, Lord Barthanes." She turned for the doors.
As Rand moved to follow the others, Barthanes caught his sleeve with two fingers, holding him back. Mat looked as if he might stay, too, until Hurin pulled him to join Verin and the rest.
"You wade even deeper in the Game than I thought," Barthanes said softly. "When I heard your name, I could not believe it, yet you came, and you fit the description, and … I was given a message for you. I think I will deliver it after all."
Rand had felt a prickling along his backbone as Barthanes spoke, but at the last, he stared. "A message? From whom? Lady Selene?"
"A man. Not the sort for whom I would usually carry messages, but he has … certain … claims on me that I cannot ignore. He gave no name, but he was a Lugarder. Aaah! You know him."
"I know him." Fain left a message? Rand looked around the wide hall. Mat and Verin and the others were waiting by the doors. Liveried servants stood stiffly along the walls, ready to leap at a command yet appearing neither to hear nor see. The sounds of the gathering floated from deeper in the manor. It did not look like a place where Darkfriends might attack. "What message?"
"He says he will wait for you on Toman Head. He has what you seek, and if you want it, you must follow. If you refuse to follow him, he says he will hound your blood, and your people, and those you love until you will face him. It sounds mad, of course, a man like that saying he will hound a lord, and yet, there was something about him. I think he is mad — he even denied you are a lord, as any eye can plainly see — but there is still something. What is it he carries with him, with Trollocs to guard it? What is it you seek?" Barthanes seemed shocked at the directness of his own questions.
"The Light illumine you, Lord Barthanes." Rand managed a bow, but his legs wobbled as he joined Verin and the others. He wants me to follow? And he'll hurt Emond's Field, Tam, if I don't. He had no doubt Fain could do it, would do it. At least Egwene is safe, in the White Tower. He had sickening images of Trollocs descending in hordes on Emond's Field, of eyeless Fades stalking Egwene. But how can I follow him? How?
Then he was out in the night, mounting Red. Verin and Ingtar and the others were all already on their horses, and the escort of Shienarans was closing round them.
"What did you find?" Verin demanded. "Where does he keep it?" Hurin cleared his throat loudly, and Loial shifted in his high saddle. The Aes Sedai peered at them.
"Fain has taken the Horn to Toman Head through a Waygate," Rand said dully. "By this time, he's probably already waiting there for me."
"We will speak of this later," Verin said, so firmly that no one spoke at all on the ride back to the city, to The Great Tree.
Uno left them there, after a quiet word from Ingtar, taking the soldiers back to their inn in the Foregate. Hurin took one look at Verin's set face by the light of the common room, muttered something about ale, and scurried to a table in a corner, alone. The Aes Sedai brushed aside the innkeeper's solicitous hopes that she had enjoyed herself, and silently led Rand and the rest to the private dining room.
Perrin looked up from The Travels of Jain Farstrider when they walked in, and frowned when he saw their faces. "It didn't go well, did it?" he said, closing the leatherbound book. Lamps and beeswax candles around the room gave a good light; Mistress Tiedra charged heavily, but she did not stint.
Verin carefully folded her shawl and laid it across the back of a chair. "Tell me again. The Darkfriends took the Horn through a Waygate? At Barthanes's manor?"
"The ground under the manor used to be an Ogier grove," Loial explained. "When we built …" His voice trailed off and his ears wilted under her look.
"Hurin followed them right to it." Rand wearily threw himself into a chair. I have to follow more than ever, now. But how? "I opened it to show him he could still follow the trail wherever they went, and the Black Wind was there. It tried to reach us, but Loial managed to close the gates before it could come all the way out." He colored a little at that, but Loial had closed the gates, and for all he knew Machin Shin might have made it out without that. "It was standing guard."
"The Black Wind," Mat breathed, frozen halfway into a chair. Perrin was staring at Rand, too. So were Verin and Ingtar. Mat dropped into the chair with a thump.
"You must be mistaken," Verin said at last. "Machin Shin could not be used as a guard. No one can constrain the Black Wind to do anything."
"It's a creature of the Dark One," Mat said numbly. "They're Darkfriends. Maybe they knew how to ask it for help, or make it help."
"No one knows exactly what Machin Shin is," Verin said, "unless, perhaps, it is the essence of madness and cruelty. It cannot be reasoned with, Mat, or bargained with, or talked to. It cannot even be forced, not by any Aes Sedai living today, and perhaps not by any who ever lived. Do you really think Padan Fain could do what ten Aes Sedai could not?" Mat shook his head.
There was an air of despair in the room, of hope and purpose lost. The goal they had sought had vanished, and even Verin's face wore a floundering expression.
"I'd never have thought Fain had the courage for the Ways." Ingtar sounded almost mild, but suddenly he banged his fist against the wall. "I do not care how, or even if, Machin Shin works on Fain's behalf. They have taken the Horn of Valere into the Ways, Aes Sedai. By now they could be in the Blight, or halfway to Tear or Tanchico, or the other side of the Aiel Waste. The Horn is lost. I am lost." His hands dropped to his sides, and his shoulders slumped. "I am lost."
"Fain is taking it to Toman Head," Rand said, and was immediately the object of all eyes again.
Verin studied him
narrowly. "You said that before. How do you know?"
"He left a message with Barthanes," Rand said.
"A trick," Ingtar sneered. "He'd not tell us where to follow."
"I don't know what the rest of you are going to do," Rand said, "but I am going to Toman Head. I have to. I leave at first light."
"But, Rand," Loial said, "it will take us months to reach Toman Head. What makes you think Fain will wait there for us?"
"He will wait." But how long before he decides I'm not coming? Why did he set that guard if he wants me to follow? "Loial, I mean to ride as hard as I can, and if I ride Red to death, I'll buy another horse, or steal another, if I have to. Are you sure you want to come?"
"I've stayed with you this long, Rand. Why would I stop now?" Loial pulled out his pipe and pouch and began thumbing tabac into the big bowl. "You see, I like you. I would like you even if you weren't ta'veren. Maybe I like you despite it. You do seem to get me neck-deep in hot water. In any case, I am going with you." He sucked on the pipestem to test the draw, then took a splinter from the stone jar on the mantel and thrust it into a candle flame for a light. "And I don't think you can really stop me."
"Well, I'm going," Mat said. "Fain still has that dagger, so I'm going. But all that servant business ended tonight."
Perrin sighed, an introspective look in his yellow eyes. "I suppose I'll come along, too." After a moment, he grinned. "Somebody has to keep Mat out of trouble."
"Not even a clever trick," Ingtar muttered. "Somehow, I'll get Barthanes alone, and I will learn the truth. I mean to have the Horn of Valere, not chase Jak o' the Wisps."
"It may not be a trick," Verin said carefully, seeming to study the floor under her toes. "There were certain things left in the dungeons at Fal Dara, writings that indicated a connection between what happened that night and" — she gave Rand a quick glance under lowered brows—"Toman Head. I still do not understand them completely, but I believe we must go to Toman Head. And I believe we will find the Horn there."
"Even if they are going to Toman Head," Ingtar said, "by the time we reach it, Fain or one of the other Darkfriends could have blown the Horn a hundred times, and the heroes returned from the grave will ride for the Shadow."
"Fain could have blown the Horn a hundred times since leaving Fal Dara," Verin told him. "And I think he would have, if he could open the chest. What we must worry about is that he might find someone who does know how to open it. We must follow him along the Ways."
Perrin's head came up sharply, and Mat shifted in his chair. Loial gave a low moan.
"Even if we could somehow sneak past Barthanes's guards," Rand said, "I think we'll find Machin Shin still there. We cannot use the Ways."
"How many of us could sneak onto Barthanes's grounds?" Verin said dismissively. "There are other Waygates. Stedding Tsofu lies not far from the city, south and east. It is a young stedding, rediscovered only perhaps six hundred years ago, but the Ogier Elders were still growing the Ways, then. Stedding Tsofu will have a Waygate. It is there and we will ride at first light."
Loial made a slightly louder sound, and Rand was not sure whether it referred to the Waygate or the stedding.
Ingtar still did not seem convinced, but Verin was as smooth and as implacable as snow sliding down a mountainside. "You will have your soldiers ready to ride, Ingtar. Send Hurin to tell Uno before he goes to bed. I think we should all go to bed as soon as possible. These Darkfriends have gained at least a day on us already, and I mean to make up as much of it as I can tomorrow." So firm was the plump Aes Sedai's manner that she was already herding Ingtar to the door before she finished speaking.
Rand followed the others out, but at the door he stopped beside the Aes Sedai and watched Mat heading down the candle-lit hall. "Why does he look like that?" he asked her. "I thought you Healed him, enough to give him some time, anyway."
She waited until Mat and the others had turned up the stairs before speaking. "Apparently, it did not work so well as we believed. The sickness takes an interesting course in him. His strength remains; he will keep that to the end, I think. But his body wastes away. Another few weeks, at most, I would say. You see, there is reason for haste."
"I do not need another spur, Aes Sedai," Rand said, making the title sound hard. Mat. The Horn. Fain's threat. Light, Egwene! Burn me, I don't need another spur.
"And what of you, Rand al'Thor? Do you feel well? Do you fight it still, or have you yet surrendered to the Wheel?"
"I ride with you to find the Horn," he told her. "Beyond that, there is nothing between me and any Aes Sedai. Do you understand me? Nothing!"
She did not speak, and he walked away from her, but when he turned to take the stairs she was still watching him, dark eyes sharp and considering.
Chapter 34
(Serpent and Wheel)
The Wheel Weaves
The first light of morning already pearled the sky by the time Thom Merrilin found himself trudging back to The Bunch of Grapes. Even where the halls and taverns lay thickest, there was a brief time when the Foregate lay quiet, gathering its breath. In his present mood, Thom would not have noticed if the empty street had been on fire.
Some of Barthanes's guests had insisted on keeping him long after most had gone, long after Barthanes had taken himself to bed. It had been his own fault for leaving The Great Hunt of the Horn, changing to the sort of tales he told and songs he sang in the villages, 'Mara and the Three Foolish Kings' and How Susa Tamed Jain Farstrider and stories of Anla the Wise Councilor. He had meant the choices to be a private comment on their stupidity, never dreaming any of them might listen, much less be intrigued. Intrigued in a way. They had demanded more of the same, but they had laughed in the wrong places, at the wrong things. They had laughed at him, too, apparently thinking he would not notice, or else that a full purse stuffed in his pocket would heal any wounds. He had almost thrown it away twice already.
The heavy purse burning his pocket and pride was not the only reason for his mood, nor even the nobles' contempt. They had asked questions about Rand, not even bothering to be subtle with a mere gleeman. Why was Rand in Cairhien? Why had an Andoran lord taken him, a gleeman, aside? Too many questions. He was not sure his answers had been clever enough. His reflexes for the Great Game were rusty.
Before turning toward The Bunch of Grapes, he had gone to The Great Tree; it was not difficult to find where someone was staying in Cairhien, if you pressed a palm or two with silver. He was still not sure what he had intended to say. Rand was gone with his friends, and the Aes Sedai. It left a feeling of something not done. The boy's on his own, now. Burn me, I'm out of it!
He strode through the common room, empty as it seldom was, and took the steps two at a time. At least, he tried to; his right leg did not bend well, and he nearly fell. Muttering to himself, he climbed the rest of the way at a slower pace, and opened the door to his room softly, so as not to wake Dena.
Despite himself, he smiled when he saw her lying on the bed with her face turned to the wall, still in her dress. Fell asleep waiting for me. Fool girl. But it was a kindly thought; he was not sure there was anything she would do that he would not forgive or excuse. Deciding on the spur of the moment that tonight was the night he'd let her perform for the first time, he lowered his harp case to the floor and put a hand on her shoulder, to wake her and tell her.
She rolled limply onto her back, staring up at him, glazed eyes open wide above the gash across her throat. The side of the bed that had been hidden by her body was dark and sodden.
Thom's stomach heaved; if his throat had not been so tight he could not breathe, he would have vomited, or screamed, or both.
He had only the creaking of wardrobe doors for warning. He spun, knives coming out of his sleeves and leaving his hands in the same motion. The first blade took the throat of a fat, balding man with a dagger in his hand; the man stumbled back, blood bubbling around his clutching fingers as he tried to cry out.
Spinning on his bad leg thr
ew Thom's other blade off, though; the knife stuck in the right shoulder of a heavily muscled man with scars on his face, who was climbing out of the other wardrobe. The big man's knife dropped from a hand that suddenly would not do what he wanted, and he lumbered for the door.
Before he could take a second step, Thom produced another knife and slashed him across the back of his leg. The big man yelled and stumbled, and Thom seized a handful of greasy hair, slamming his face against the wall beside the door; the man screamed again as the knife hilt sticking out of his shoulder hit the door.
Thom thrust the blade in his hand to within an inch of the man's dark eye. The scars on the big man's face gave him a hard look, but he stared at the point without blinking and did not move a muscle. The fat man, lying half in the wardrobe, kicked a last kick and was still.
"Before I kill you," Thom said, "tell me. Why?" His voice was quiet, numb; he felt numb inside.
"The Great Game," the man said quickly. His accent was of the streets, and his clothes as well, but they were a shade too fine, too unworn; he had more coin to spend than any Foregater should. "Nothing against you personal, you see? It is just the Game."
"The Game? I'm not mixed up in Daes Dae'mar! Who would want to kill me for the Great Game?" The man hesitated. Thom moved his blade closer. If the fellow blinked, his eyelashes would brush the point. "Who?"
"Barthanes," came the hoarse answer. "Lord Barthanes. We would not have killed you. Barthanes wants information. We just wanted to find out what you know. There can be gold in it for you. A nice, fat golden crown for what you know. Maybe two."
"Liar! I was in Barthanes's manor last night, as close to him as I am to you. If he wanted anything of me, I'd never have left alive."
"I tell you, we have been looking for you, or anyone who knows about this Andoran lord, for days. I never heard your name until last night, downstairs. Lord Barthanes is generous. It could be five crowns."
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