The Great Hunt twot-2

by Robert Jordan

  The groom mouthed Liandrin's name, but one look at Nynaeve's face and he saw to the horses with no more than a mutter or two, not loud enough for any but himself to hear. Min and Elayne came back with their own mounts just as he finished tightening the second girth. Min's was a tall dust-colored gelding, Elayne's a bay mare with an arched neck.

  When they were mounted, Nynaeve addressed herself to the stableman again. "No doubt you were told to keep this quiet, and that hasn't changed whether we are two or two hundred. If you think it has, think about what Liandrin will do if you talk what you were told to keep quiet."

  As they were riding out, Elayne tossed him a coin and murmured, "For your trouble, goodman. You have done well." Outside, she caught Egwene's eye and smiled. "Mother says a stick and honey always work better than a stick alone."

  "I hope we don't need either with the guards," Egwene said. "I hope Liandrin spoke to them, too."

  At Tarlomen's Gate, though, piercing the tall south wall of the Tower grounds, there was no telling if anyone had spoken to the guards or not. They waved the four women through with no more than a glance and a cursory bow. Guards were meant to keep out those who were dangerous; apparently these had no orders about keeping anyone in.

  A cool river breeze gave them an excuse to pull up the hoods of their cloaks as they rode slowly through the streets of the city. The ring of their horses' hooves on the paving stones was lost in the murmur of the crowds filling the streets and the music that came from some of the buildings they passed. People dressed in garments from every land, from the dark and somber mode of Cairhien to the bright, brilliant colors of the Traveling People, and every style in between, split around the horsewomen like a river around a rock, but they still could not move at more than a slow walk.

  Egwene gave no attention to the fabulous towers with their sky-borne bridges or the buildings that looked more like breaking waves, or windsculpted cliffs, or fanciful shells, than anything made from stone. Aes Sedai often went into the city, and in that crowd they could come face-to-face with one before they knew it. After a time she realized the other women were keeping as close a watch as she, but she still felt more than a glimmer of relief when the Ogier grove came into view.

  The Great Trees were now visible beyond the rooftops, their spreading tops a hundred spans and more in the air. Towering oaks and elms, leatherleafs and firs, were dwarfed beneath them. A wall of sorts encompassed the grove, which was a good two miles across, but it was only an endless series of spiraling stone arches, each five spans high and twice as wide. By the outer side of the wall, carriages, carts, and people bustled along a street, while inside lay a wilderness of sorts. The grove had neither the tame look of a park nor the complete haphazardness of the forest depths. Rather, it seemed to be the ideal of nature, as if this were the perfect woods, the most beautiful forest that could be. Some of the leaves had already begun to turn, and even the small swathes of orange and yellow and red among the green seemed to Egwene to be exactly the way autumn foliage should look.

  A few people strolled just inside the open arches, and no one looked twice when the four women rode in under the trees. The city was quickly lost to view, even the sounds of it softened, then blocked, by the grove. In the space of ten strides they seemed to be miles from the nearest town.

  "The north edge of the grove, she said," Nynaeve muttered, peering around. "There isn't any point of it further north than —" She cut off as two horses burst from a copse of black elder, a dark, glossy mare with a rider and a lightly laden packhorse.

  The dark mare reared, pawing the air, as Liandrin reined her harshly. The Aes Sedai's face wore fury like a mask. "I told you not to tell anyone of this! Not anyone!" Egwene noticed pole-lanterns on the packhorse, and thought it odd.

  "These are friends," Nynaeve began, her back stiffening, but Elayne broke in on her.

  "Forgive us, Liandrin Sedai. They did not tell us; we overheard. We did not mean to listen to anything we should not have, but we did overhear. And we want to help Rand al'Thor, too. And the other boys, of course," she added quickly.

  Liandrin peered at Elayne and Min. The late afternoon sunlight, slanting through the branches, shadowed their faces beneath the hoods of their cloaks. "So," she said finally, still watching those two. "I had made arrangements for you to be taken care of, but as you are here, you are here. Four can make this journey as well as two."

  "Taken care of, Liandrin Sedai?" Elayne said. "I do not understand."

  "Child, you and that other are known as friends of these two. Do you not think there are those who would question you when they are found to be gone? Do you believe the Black Ajah would be gentle with you just because you are heir to a throne? Had you remained in the White Tower, you might not have lived the night." That silenced them all for a moment, but Liandrin wheeled her horse and called, "Follow me!"

  The Aes Sedai led them deeper into the grove, until they came to a tall fence of stout ironwork topped with a hedge of razor-sharp spikes. Curving slightly, as if it enclosed a large area, the fence ran out of sight among the trees to left and right. There was a gate in the fence, secured with a big lock. Liandrin unfastened this with a large key she produced from her cloak, motioned them through, then relocked it behind them and rode on ahead immediately. A squirrel chittered at them from a branch overhead, and from somewhere came the sharp drumming of a woodpecker.

  "Where are we going?" Nynaeve demanded. Liandrin did not answer, and Nynaeve looked angrily at the others. "Why are we just riding deeper into these woods? We have to cross a bridge, or else take ship, if we're going to leave Tar Valon, and there isn't any bridge or ship in—"

  "There is this," Liandrin announced. "The fence, it keeps away those who might harm themselves, but we have a need this day." What she gestured to was a tall, thick slab of what seemed to be stone, standing on edge, one side carved intricately in vines and leaves.

  Egwene's throat tightened; suddenly she knew why Liandrin had brought lanterns, and she did not like what she knew. She heard Nynaeve whisper, "A Waygate." They both remembered the Ways all too well.

  "We did it once," she told herself as much as Nynaeve. "We can do it again." If Rand and the others need us, we have to help them. That's all there is to it.

  "Is that really …?" Min began in a choked voice and could not finish.

  "A Waygate," Elayne breathed. "I did not think the Ways could be used any longer. At least, I did not think their use was allowed."

  Liandrin had already dismounted and plucked the trefoil Avendesora leaf out of the carving; like two huge doors woven of living vines, the gates were swinging open, revealing what appeared to be a dull, silvery mirror that gave their reflections back dimly.

  "You do not have to come," Liandrin said. "You can wait here for me, safely enclosed by the fence until I come for you. Or perhaps the Black Ajah will find you before anyone else." Her smile was not pleasant. Behind her, the Waygate came open to its fullest and stopped.

  "I did not say I wouldn't come," Elayne said, but she gave the shadowed woods a lingering look.

  "If we are going to do this," Min said hoarsely, "then let's do it." She was staring at the Waygate, and Egwene thought she heard her mutter, "The Light burn you, Rand al'Thor."

  "I must go last," Liandrin said. "All of you, in. I will follow." She was eyeing the woods now, too, as if she thought someone might be following them. "Quickly! Quickly!"

  Egwene did not know what Liandrin expected to see, but if anyone at all came they would probably stop them from using the Waygate. Rand, you wool-headed idiot, she thought, why can't you just once get yourself into some kind of trouble that doesn't force me to act like the heroine in a story?

  She dug her heels into Bela's flanks, and the shaggy mare, restive from too much time in a stable, leaped forward.

  "Slowly!" Nynaeve shouted, but it was too late.

  Egwene and Bela surged toward their own dull reflections; two shaggy horses touched noses, appeared to flow into each
other. Then Egwene was merging into her own image with an icy shock. Time seemed to stretch out, as if the cold crept over her by the width of one hair at a time, and every hair took minutes.

  Suddenly Bela was stumbling in pitch-blackness, moving so fast the mare almost pitched over on her head. She caught herself and stood trembling as Egwene dismounted hurriedly, feeling the mare's legs in the dark to see if she had been hurt. She was almost glad of the dark, to hide her crimson face. She knew that time as well as distance were different the other side of a Waygate; she had moved before thinking.

  There was only the blackness around her in every direction, except for the rectangle of the open Waygate, like a window of smoked glass when seen from this side. It let no light in — the black seemed to press right up against it — but through it Egwene could see the others, moving by the slowest increments, like figures in a nightmare. Nynaeve was insisting on handing around the pole-lanterns and lighting them; Liandrin was acceding with a bad grace, apparently insisting on speed.

  When Nynaeve came though the Waygate — leading her gray mare slowly, ever so slowly — Egwene almost ran to hug her, and at least half of her feeling was for the lantern Nynaeve carried. The lantern made a smaller pool of light than it should have — the darkness pressed against the light, trying to force it back into the lantern — but Egwene had begun to feel that darkness pressing against her, as if it had weight. Instead, she contented herself with saying, "Bela's all right, and I did not break my neck the way I deserved to."

  Once there had been light along the Ways, before the taint on the Power with which they had first been made, the taint of the Dark One on saidin, had begun to corrupt them.

  Nynaeve thrust the pole of the lantern into her hands and turned to pull another from under her saddle girth. "As long as you know you deserved to," she murmured, "then you didn't deserve to." Suddenly she chuckled. "Sometimes I think it was sayings like that more than anything else that created the title of Wisdom. Well, here's another. You break your neck, and I'll see it mended just so I can break it again."

  It was said lightly, and Egwene found herself laughing, too — until she recalled where she was. Nynaeve's amusement did not last long either.

  Min and Elayne came though the Waygate hesitantly, leading their horses and carrying lanterns, obviously expecting to find monsters waiting at the least. They looked relieved, at first, to find nothing but darkness, but the oppressiveness of it soon had them shifting nervously from foot to foot. Liandrin replaced the Avendesora leaf and rode through the closing Waygate leading the packhorse.

  Liandrin did not wait for the gate to finish closing, but tossed the lead line of the packhorse to Min without a word and started along a white line, dimly made out by the light of her lantern, leading into the Ways. The floor seemed to be stone, eaten and pitted by acid. Egwene scrambled hurriedly onto Bela's back, but she was no quicker to follow the Aes Sedai than anyone else. There seemed to be nothing in the world except the rough floor under the horses' hooves.

  Straight as an arrow the white line led through the dark to a large stone slab covered with Ogier script inlaid in silver. The same pocking that marked the floor also broke the script in places.

  "A Guiding," Elayne murmured, twisting in her saddle to look around uneasily. "Elaida taught me a little about the Ways. She would not say much. Not enough," she added glumly. "Or maybe too much."

  Calmly Liandrin compared the Guiding with a parchment, then stuffed it back into a pocket of her cloak before Egwene could get a look.

  Their lanterns' light stopped abruptly rather than fading out at the edges, but it was enough for Egwene to see a thick stone balustrade, eaten away in places, as the Aes Sedai led them away from the Guiding. An Island, Elayne called it; the darkness made judging the Island's size difficult, but Egwene thought it might be a hundred paces across.

  Stone bridges and ramps pierced the balustrade, each with a stone post beside it marked with a single line in Ogier script. The bridges seemed to arch out into nothing. The ramps led up or down. It was impossible to see more than the beginning of any of them, as they rode past.

  Pausing only to eye the stone posts, Liandrin took a ramp that led down, and quickly there was nothing but the ramp and the darkness. A dampening silence hung over everything; Egwene had the feeling that even the clatter of the horses' hooves on the rough stone did not travel very far beyond the light.

  Down and down the ramp ran, curving back on itself, until it reached another Island, with its broken balustrade between bridges and ramps, its Guiding that Liandrin compared with her parchment. The Island seemed like solid stone, just as the first one had. Egwene wished she was not sure that the first Island was directly over their heads.

  Nynaeve spoke up suddenly, voicing Egwene's thoughts. Her voice sounded steady, but she paused to swallow in the middle of it.

  "It — it might be," Elayne said faintly. Her eyes rolled upwards, and quickly dropped again. "Elaida says the rules of nature do not hold in the Ways. At least, not the way they do outside."

  "Light!" Min muttered, then raised her voice. "How long do you mean us to stay in here?"

  The Aes Sedai's honey-colored braids swung as she turned to regard them. "Until I take you out," she said flatly. "The more you bother me, the longer that will be." She bent back to studying the parchment and the Guiding.

  Egwene and the others fell silent.

  Liandrin pushed on from Guiding to Guiding, by ramps and bridges that seemed to run unsupported through the endless dark. The Aes Sedai paid very little heed to the rest of them, and Egwene found herself wondering whether Liandrin would turn back to search if one of them fell behind. The others perhaps had the same thought, for they all rode bunched tightly on the dark mare's heels.

  Egwene was surprised to realize that she still felt the attraction of saidar, both the presence of the female half of the True Source and the desire to touch it, to channel its flow. Somehow, she had thought the Shadow's taint on the Ways would hide it from her. She could sense that taint, after a fashion. It was faint and had nothing to do with saidar, but she was sure that reaching for the True Source here would be like baring her arm to foul, greasy smoke in order to reach a clean cup. Whatever she did would be tainted. For the first time in weeks she had no trouble at all in resisting the attraction of saidar.

  It was well into what would have been night in the world outside the Ways when, on an Island, Liandrin abruptly dismounted and announced that they would halt for supper and sleep, and that there was food on the packhorse.

  "Parcel it out," she said, not bothering to assign the task. "It will take us the better part of two days to reach Toman Head. I would not have you arrive hungry if you were too foolish to bring food yourselves." Briskly she unsaddled and hobbled her mare, but then she sat down on her saddle and waited for one of them to bring her something to eat.

  Elayne took Liandrin her flatbread and cheese. The Aes Sedai made it obvious that she did not want their company, so the rest of them ate their bread and cheese a little apart from her, sitting on their saddles drawn close together. The darkness beyond their lanterns made a poor sauce.

  After a time, Egwene said, "Liandrin Sedai, what if we encounter the Black Wind?" Min mouthed the word questioningly, but Elayne gave a squeak. "Moiraine Sedai said it could not be killed, or even hurt very much, and I can feel the taint on this place waiting to twist anything we do with the Power."

  "You will not so much as think of the Source unless I tell you to," Liandrin said sharply. "Why, if one such as you tried to channel here, in the Ways, you might well go as mad as a man. You have not the training to deal with the taint of those men who made this. If the Black Wind appears, I will deal with it." She pursed her lips, studying a lump of white cheese. "Moiraine does not know so much as she thinks." She popped the cheese into her mouth with a smile.

  "I do not like her," Egwene muttered, low enough to make sure the Aes Sedai could not hear.

  "If Moiraine can wor
k with her," Nynaeve said quietly, "so can we. Not that I like Moiraine any better than I do Liandrin, but if they're meddling with Rand and the others again …" She fell silent, hitching her cloak up. The darkness was not cold, but it seemed as if it should be.

  "What is this Black Wind?" Min asked. When Elayne had explained, with a great deal of what Elaida had said and what her mother had said, Min sighed. "The Pattern has a great deal to answer for. I don't know that any man is worth this."

  "You did not have to come," Egwene reminded her. "You could have gone at any time. No one would have tried to stop you leaving the Tower."

  "Oh, I could have wandered off," Min said wryly. "As easily as you, or Elayne. The Pattern doesn't much care what we want, Egwene, what if, after all you are going through for him, Rand doesn't marry you? What if he marries some woman you've never seen before, or Elayne, or me? What then?"

  Elayne chortled. "Mother would never approve."

  Egwene was silent for a time. Rand might not live to marry anyone. And if he did … She could not imagine Rand hurting anyone. Not even after he's gone mad? There had to be some way to stop that, some way to change it; Aes Sedai knew so much, could do so much. If they could stop it, why don't they? The only answer was because they could not, and that was not the one she wanted.

  She tried to put lightness in her voice. "I don't suppose I will marry him. Aes Sedai seldom do marry, you know. But I would not set my heart on him if I were you. Or you, Elayne. I do not think …" Her voice caught, and she coughed to cover it. "I do not think he will ever marry. But if he does, I wish well to whoever ends up with him, even one of you." She thought she sounded as if she meant it. "He is stubborn as a mule, and wrongheaded to a fault, but he is gentle." Her voice shook, but she managed to turn the quaver into a laugh.

  "However much you say you do not care," Elayne said, "I think you'd approve less than Mother would. He is interesting, Egwene. More interesting than any man I've ever met, even if he is a shepherd. If you are silly enough to throw him away, you will have only yourself to blame if I decide to face down you and Mother both. It would not be the first time the Prince of Andor had no title before he wed. But you won't be that silly, so don't try to pretend you will. No doubt you will choose the Green Ajah, and make him one of your Warders. The only Greens I know with only one Warder are married to them."