The Shadow Rising twot-4

by Robert Jordan

  The tall, bronze-studded Alindrelle Gates stood open, but guarded heavily. Some guards wore the Flame of Tar Valon on their chests; others had workmen's coats, and mismatched breastplates and helmets. Guardsmen and fellows who had come disguised as masons. Both sorts looked hard and resourceful, used to their weapons, but they kept apart, eyeing each other distrustfully. A grizzled officer stood out from the Tower guardsmen with his arms folded and watched Gawyn and the others approach.

  "Writing materials!" Gawyn snapped. "Quickly!"

  "Well, you must be these Younglings I've heard of," the grizzled man said. "A fine bunch of bloody young cockerels, but I've had orders to let no one leave the Tower grounds. Signed by the Amyrlin Seat herself. Who do you think you are to countermand that?"

  Gawyn raised his head slowly. "I am Gawyn Trakand of Andor," he said softly. "And I mean to see these women leave, or you dead." The other Younglings moved up behind him, spreading out to face the guards with hands on swords, unblinking, perhaps not caring that they were outnumbered.

  The grizzled man shifted uneasily, and one of the others muttered, "He's the one they say killed Hammar and Coulin."

  After a moment, the officer jerked his head toward the guardhouse, and one of the guardsmen ran inside, returning with a lapdesk, a small red stick of sealing wax burning in a brass holder at one corner. Gawyn let the man hold the desk while he scribbled furiously.

  "This will let you past the bridge guards," he said, letting a pool of red wax drip beneath his signature. He pressed his signet ring into it firmly.

  "You killed Coulin?" Siuan said in a cold tone fitting her former office. "And Hammar?"

  Min's heart sank. Be quiet, Siuan! Remember who you are now, and be quiet!

  Gawyn spun to face the three women, his eyes like blue fire. "Yes," he grated. "They were my friends, and I respected them, but they sided with… with Siuan Sanche, and I had to—" Abruptly he shoved the paper he had sealed into Min's hand. "Go! Go, before I change my mind!" He slapped her mare, then darted to slap the other two as Min's horse leaped through the open gates. "Go!"

  Min let her horse cross the great plaza surrounding the Tower grounds at a quick trot, Siuan and Leane right behind her. The plaza was empty, and so were the streets beyond. The ring of their horses' hooves on the paving stones echoed hollowly. Whoever had not already fled the city was hiding.

  She studied Gawyn's paper as they rode. The blob of red wax bore the imprint of a charging boar. "This just says we have permission to leave. We could use it to board a ship as well as at the bridges." It seemed smart to be going a way no one knew, not even Gawyn. She did not really think he would change his mind, but he was brittle, ready to shatter at the wrong blow.

  "That might be a good idea," Leane said. "I always thought Galad was the more dangerous of those two, but I am no longer sure. Hammar, and Coulin…" She shivered. "A ship would take us farther, faster than these horses can."

  Siuan shook her head. "Most of the Aes Sedai who fled will have crossed the bridges, for sure. That is the quickest way out of the city if someone might be chasing you, quicker than waiting while a ship's crew casts off. I must stay close to Tar Valon if I'm to gather them in."

  "They won't follow you," Leane said in a monotone freighted with meaning. "You have no right to the stole any longer. Not even to the shawl or the ring."

  "I may no longer wear the stole," Siuan replied just as flatly, "but I still know how to ready a crew for a storm. And since I cannot wear the stole, I must see they choose the right woman in my place. I'll not let Elaida get away with calling herself the Amyrlin. It has to be someone strong in the Power, someone who sees things the right way."

  "Then you mean to go on aiding this… this Dragon!" Leane snapped.

  "What else would you have me do? Curl up and die?"

  Leane shuddered as if she had been struck in the face, and they rode in silence for a time. All of those fabulous buildings around them, like wind-sculpted cliffs and waves and great flights of birds, loomed frighteningly with no people in the streets save themselves, and one lone fellow who came darting around a corner up ahead, scuttling from doorway to doorway as if scouting their way for them. He did not lessen the emptiness, only emphasized it.

  "What else can we do?" Leane said eventually. She rode slumped in her saddle now like a sack of grain. "I feel so — empty. Empty."

  "Find something to fill it up," Siuan told her firmly. "Anything. Cook for the hungry, tend the sick, find a husband and raise a houseful of children. Me, I mean to see Elaida does not get away with this. I could almost forgive her, if she truly believed I had endangered the Tower. Almost, I could. Almost. But she has been filled with envy since the day I was raised Amyrlin instead of her. That drives her as much as anything else, and for that I mean to pull her down. That is what fills me, Leane. That, and the fact that Rand al'Thor must not fall into her hands."

  "Perhaps that will be enough." The coppery-skinned woman sounded doubtful, but she straightened. The contrast between her obvious experience and Siuan's precarious seat on the shorter mare made her look as if she must be the leader. "But how can we even begin? We have three horses, the clothes on our backs, and whatever Min has in her purse. Hardly enough to challenge the Tower."

  "I am glad you did not decide on a husband and home. We will find other—" Siuan grimaced. "We will find Aes Sedai who fled, find what we need. We may have more than you think, Leane. Min, what does that pass Gawyn gave us say? Does it mention three women? What? Quickly, girl."

  Min glared at her back. Siuan had been peering at the darting man ahead, a large, dark-haired fellow, dressed well but plainly in somber browns. The woman sounded as if she were still Amyrlin. Well, I wanted her to find her backbone, didn't I?

  Siuan turned to stare at her with those sharp blue eyes; somehow they seemed no less intimidating than before. "'The bearers are authorized to depart Tar Valon on my authority,'" Min quoted hastily from memory. "'Who impedes them will answer to me.' Signed—"

  "I know his name," Siuan snapped. "Follow me." She heeled Bela's flanks, nearly losing her seat when the shaggy mare lumbered to a slow gallop. She hung on, though, bouncing awkwardly and drumming her heels for more speed.

  Min exchanged one startled look with Leane, and they were both galloping after her. The man looked back at the sound of running hooves and began to run himself, but Siuan cut Bela in front of him; he bounced off the mare with a grunt. Min reached them just in time to hear Siuan say, "I did not think to meet you here, Logain."

  Min gaped. It was him. Those despairing eyes and that once handsome face framed by dark hair curling to his broad shoulders were unmistakable. Just who they needed to find. A man the Tower wanted very likely as much as Siuan.

  Logain slumped to his knees as though his fatigued legs would not hold him any longer. "I cannot harm anyone now," he said tiredly, staring at the paving stones beneath Bela's hooves. "I just wanted to get away, to die somewhere in peace. If you only knew what it was like to have lost…" Leane sawed her reins angrily as he trailed off; he began again without noticing. "The bridges are all guarded. They will let no one across. They did not know me, but they would not let me cross. I have tried them all." Abruptly he laughed, wearily, but as if it were very funny indeed. "I have tried them all."

  "I think," Min said carefully, "we should be going. He probably wants to avoid those who must be looking for him." Siuan shot her a look that almost made her rein her horse back, all icy eyes and hard chin. It would not have been dreadful if the woman had retained a little of the uncertainty she displayed previously.

  Raising his head, the big man looked from one of them to the next, a slow frown forming. "You are not Aes Sedai. Who are you? What do you want of me?"

  "I am the woman who can take you out of Tar Valon," Siuan told him. "And perhaps give you a chance to strike back at the Red Ajah. You would like a chance to get back at those who captured you, wouldn't you?"

  A shudder passed through him. "Wh
at must I do?" he said slowly.

  "Follow me," she replied. "Follow me, and remember that I am the only one in the entire world who will give you your chance of revenge."

  From his knees he studied them with his head tilted, examining each face, then pushed himself to his feet, his eyes fixed on Siuan. "I am your man," he said simply.

  Leane's face looked as incredulous as Min felt. What use under the Light could Siuan possibly have for a man of doubtful sanity who had once falsely proclaimed himself the Dragon Reborn? At the least he might turn on them to steal one of their horses! Eyeing the height of him, the breadth of his shoulders, Min thought they had better keep their belt knives handy. Suddenly, for a moment, that flaring halo of gold and blue shone about his head, speaking of glory to come as surely as it had the first time she had seen it. She shivered. Viewings. Images.

  She glanced over her shoulder toward the Tower, the thick white shaft dominating the city, whole and straight, yet broken as surely as if it lay in ruins. For a moment she let herself think of the images she had glimpsed, just for a moment, flickering around Gawyn's head. Gawyn kneeling at Egwene's feet with his head bowed, and Gawyn breaking Egwene's neck, first one then the other, as if either could be the future.

  The things she saw were very rarely as clear in meaning as those two, and she had never before seen that fluttering back and forth, as though not even the viewing could tell which would be the true future. Worse, she had a feeling near to certainty that it was what she had done this day that had turned Gawyn toward those two possibilities.

  Despite the sun, she shivered again. What's done is done. She glanced at the two Aes Sedai — former Aes Sedai — both now studying Logain as though he were a trained hound, ferocious, possibly dangerous, but useful. Siuan and Leane turned their horses toward the river, Logain striding between. Min followed more slowly. Light, I hope it was worth it.

  Chapter 48

  (Spears and Shield)

  An Offer Refused

  "Is that the kind of woman you like?" Aviendha said contemptuously.

  Rand looked down at her, striding along at Jeade'en's stirrup in her heavy skirts, brown shawl doubled over her head. Big blue-green eyes flashed up at him from beneath her wide headscarf as if she wished she still had the spear the Wise Ones had scolded her for taking up during the Trolloc attack.

  Sometimes it made him uncomfortable, her walking while he rode, but he had tried walking with her, and his feet were grateful for a horse. Occasionally — very occasionally — he had managed to get her to ride behind his saddle, by complaining that he was getting a crick in his neck talking to her. Riding a horse did not exactly violate custom, it turned out, yet contempt for not using your own legs to carry you kept her afoot most of the time. One laugh from any of the Aiel, especially a Maiden, even one looking the other way, was enough to have her off Jeade'en in a flash.

  "She is soft, Rand al'Thor. Weak."

  He glanced back over at the boxlike white wagon leading the peddlers' train in a crooked, lurching snake across the dusty, broken landscape, escorted by Jindo Maidens again today. Isendre was up with Kadere and the driver, seated on the heavyset peddler's lap, her chin on his shoulder while he held a small, blue silk parasol to shade her — and himself, too — from the harsh sun. Even in a white coat, Kadere continually mopped his dark face with a large handkerchief, more affected by the heat than she, in her sleek, clinging gown that matched the parasol. Rand was not close enough to be sure, but he thought her dark eyes were on him above the misty scarf wrapped about her face and head. She usually seemed to be watching him. Kadere did not appear to mind.

  "I do not think Isendre is soft," he said quietly, adjusting the shoufa around his head; it did keep the broiling sun off after a fashion. He had resisted donning any more Aiel garb, no matter how much more suited to the climate than his red wool coat. Whatever his blood, whatever the marks on his forearms, he was not Aiel, and he would not pretend. Whatever he had to do, he could hang on to that scrap of decency. "No, I would not say that."

  On the driver's seat of the second wagon, fat Keille and the gleeman, Natael, were arguing again. Natael had the reins, though he did not drive as well as the man who usually did the job. Sometimes they looked at Rand, too, quick glances before diving back into their quarrel. But then, everyone did. The long column of Jindo on the other side of him, the Wise Ones beyond them, with Moiraine and Egwene and Lan. Among the more distant, thicker line of Shaido he thought heads turned toward him, too. It did not surprise him now any more than it ever had. He was He Who Comes With the Dawn. Everyone wanted to know what he would do. They would find out soon enough.

  "Soft," Aviendha grunted. "Elayne is not soft. You belong to Elayne; you should not be caressing eyes with this milk-skinned wench." She shook her head fiercely, muttering half to herself, "Our ways shock her. She could not accept them. Why should I care if she can? I want no part of this! It cannot be! If I could, I would take you gai'shain and give you to Elayne!"

  "Why should Isendre accept Aiel ways?"

  The wide-eyed look she gave him was so startled he almost laughed. Immediately she scowled as if he had done something infuriating. Aiel women were surely no easier to understand than any others.

  "You are certainly not soft, Aviendha." She should take it for a compliment; the woman was as rough as a honing stone sometimes. "Explain to me about the roofmistress again. If Rhuarc is clan chief of the Taardad and chief of Cold Rocks Hold, how is it that the hold belongs to his wife and not him?"

  She glowered at him a moment longer, lips working as she muttered under her breath, before answering. "Because she is roofmistress, you stone-headed wetlander. A man cannot own a roof any more than he can own land! Sometimes you wetlanders sound like savages."

  "But if Lian is roofmistress of Cold Rocks because she is Rhuarc's wife—"

  "That is different! Will you never understand? A child understands!" Taking a deep breath, she adjusted the shawl around her face. She was a pretty woman, except for looking at him most of the time as if he had committed some crime against her. What it might be, he did not know. White-haired Bair, leathery-faced and as reluctant to speak of Rhuidean as ever, had finally, unwillingly told him that Aviendha had not visited the glass columns: she would not do that until she was ready to become a Wise One. So why did she hate him? It was a mystery he would have liked an answer to.

  "I will attack it from another direction," she grumbled at him. "When a woman is to marry, if she does not already own a roof, her family builds one for her. On her wedding day her new husband carries her away from her family across his shoulder, with his brothers holding off her sisters, but at the door he puts her down and asks her permission to enter. The roof is hers. She can…"

  These lectures had been the most pleasant thing in the eleven days and nights since the Trolloc attack. Not that she had been willing to talk at first, beyond one more tirade on his supposed ill-treatment of Elayne and later another embarrassing lecture meant to convince him Elayne was the perfect woman. Not until he mentioned to Egwene in passing that if Aviendha would not even speak to him, he wished she would at least stop staring at him. Within the hour a white-robed gai'shain man came for Aviendha.

  Whatever the Wise Ones had to say to her, she returned in a quivering fury to demand — demand! — that he let her teach him about Aiel ways and customs. No doubt in hope he would reveal something of his plans by the questions he asked. After the viperish subtleties of Tear, the openness of the Wise Ones' spying was refreshing. Still, it was doubtless wise to learn what he could, and talking with Aviendha could actually be enjoyable, especially on those occasions when she seemed to forget she despised him for whatever reason. Of course, whenever she realized they had begun to talk like two people instead of captor and captive, she did have a tendency to throw one of her white-hot outbursts, as though he had lured her into a trap.

  Yet even with that their conversations were pleasurable, certainly by comparison with the rest of the
journey. He was even beginning to find her tantrums amusing, though he was wise enough not to let her know. If she saw a man she hated, at least she was too wrapped up in that to see He Who Comes With the Dawn, or the Dragon Reborn. Just Rand al'Thor. At any rate, she knew what she thought of him. Not like Elayne, with one letter that made his ears grow hot and another written the same day that made him wonder if he had grown fangs and horns like a Trolloc.

  Min was just about the only woman he had ever met who had not tangled his wits into a ball. But she was off in the Tower — safe there, at least — and that was one place he meant to avoid. Sometimes he thought life would be simpler if he could just forget women altogether. Now Aviendha had started creeping into his dreams, as if Min and Elayne were not bad enough. Women tied his emotions in knots, and he had to be clearheaded now. Clearheaded and cold.

  He realized he was looking at Isendre again. She wriggled slender fingers at him past Kadere's ear; he was sure those full lips curved into a smile. Oh, yes. Dangerous. I have to be cold and hard as steel. Sharp steel.

  Eleven days and nights into the twelfth, and nothing else had changed. Days and nights of odd rock formations and flat-topped stone spires and buttes thrusting up from a broken, blistered land crisscrossed by mountains seemingly stuck in at random. Days of baking sun and searing winds, nights of bone-shaking cold. Whatever grew seemed to have thorns or spines, or else a touch itched like fury. Some Aviendha said were poisonous; that list seemed longer than the one of those edible. The only water was in hidden springs and tanks, though she pointed out plants that meant a deep hole would fill with slow seepage, enough to keep one or two men alive, and others that could be chewed for a sour, watery pulp.

  One night lions killed two of the Shaido packhorses, roaring in the darkness as they were driven from their prey to vanish into the gullies. A wagon driver disturbed a small brown snake as they were making camp the fourth evening. A two-step, Aviendha called it later, and it proved its name. The fellow screamed and tried to run for the wagons despite seeing Moiraine hurrying toward him; he fell on his face at his second stride, dead before the Aes Sedai could dismount from her white mare. Aviendha listed venomous snakes, spiders and lizards. Poisonous lizards! Once she found one for him, two feet long and thick, with yellow stripes running down its bronze scales. Casually pinning it under a soft-booted foot, she drove hey knife into the thing's wide head, then held it up where he could see the clear, oily fluid oozing over sharp bony ridges in its mouth. A gara, she explained, could bite through a boot; it could also kill a bull. Others were worse, of course. The gara was slow, and not really dangerous unless you were stupid enough to step on it. When she flung the huge lizard off of her blade, the yellow and bronze faded right into the cracked clay. Oh, yes. Just do not be stupid enough to step on it.