The Shadow Rising twot-4

by Robert Jordan

  "You must be tired after your journey," Lian said to Rand, her gray eyes motherly, "and hungry as well. Come." Her warm smile included Mat, who was hanging back and beginning to look to the peddlers' wagons. "Come beneath my roof."

  Fetching his saddlebags, Rand left Jeade'en to the care of a gai'shain woman, who took Pips as well. Mat gave the wagons a final stare before tossing his saddlebags over his shoulder and following.

  Lian's roof, her house, sat on the highest level on the west side, with the steep canyon wall rising a good hundred paces above. Dwelling of the clan chief and roofmistress or no, from the outside it appeared to be a modest rectangle of large yellow-clay bricks with narrow, glassless windows covered by plain white curtains, a vegetable garden on its flat roof and another in front on a small terrace separated from the house by a narrow path paved with flat gray stones. Big enough for two rooms, maybe. Except perhaps for the square bronze gong hanging beside the door, it looked much like the other structures Rand could see, and from that vantage point the entire length of the valley was laid out below him. A small, simple house. Inside, it was something else.

  The brick part was one large room, floored with reddish brown tiles, but it was only part. Carved into the stone behind were more rooms, high-ceilinged and surprisingly cool, with wide, arched doorways and silver lamps giving off a scent that hinted of green places. Rand saw only one chair, tall-backed and lacquered red and gold, with a look of not much use; the chief's chair, Aviendha called it. There was little more wood to be seen, beyond a few polished or lacquered boxes and chests, and low reading stands holding open books; the reader would need to lie on the floor. Intricately woven carpets covered the floors, and bright rugs in layers; he recognized some patterns from Tear and Cairhien and Andor, even Illian and Tarabon, while other designs were unfamiliar, broad jagged stripes and no two colors alike, or linked hollow squares in grays and browns and blacks. In sharp contrast to the harsh sameness outside this valley, there was vivid color everywhere, wall hangings he was sure had come from the other side of the Spine of the World — perhaps in the same way wall hangings had left the Stone of Tear — and cushions of all sizes and hues, often tasseled or fringed or both in silk of red or gold. Here and there, in niches carved into the walls, stood a thin porcelain vase or a silver bowl or an ivory carving, often of some strange animal or other. So these were the "caves" the Tairens spoke of. It could have had the garishness of Tear — or the Tinkers — but instead it seemed dignified, formal and informal at the same time.

  With a small grin for Aviendha to show her he had listened, Rand pulled a guest gift for Lian from his saddlebags, a finely worked golden lion. It had been looted from Tear and bought from a Jindo Water Seeker, but if he was ruler of Tear, maybe it was like stealing from himself. After a moment of hesitation, Mat produced a gift, too, a Tairen necklace of silver flowers, no doubt from the same source originally, and no doubt intended for Isendre.

  "Exquisite," Lian smiled, holding up the lion. "I have always had a taste for Tairen craftwork. Rhuarc brought me two pieces many years ago." In a voice suitable for a goodwife reminiscing over some particularly fine sugarberries, she said to her husband, "You took them from the tent of a High Lord just before Laman was beheaded, did you not? A pity you did not reach Andor. I have always wanted a piece of Andoran silver. This necklace is beautiful, too, Mat Cauthon."

  Listening to her heap praise on both gifts, Rand masked his shock. For all her skirts and motherly eyes, she was as Aiel as any Maiden of the Spear.

  By the time Lian finished, Moiraine and the other Wise Ones arrived with Lan and Egwene. The Warder's sword drew a single disapproving glance, but the roofmistress welcomed him warmly after Bair called him Aan'allein. Yet that was nothing to her greeting for Egwene and Moiraine.

  "You honor my roof, Aes Sedai." The roof mistress's tone made it sound an understatement; she came very close to bowing to them. "It is said that we served Aes Sedai before the Breaking of the World and failed them, and for that failure were sent here to the Three-fold Land. Your presence says that perhaps our sin was not beyond forgiving." Of course. She had not been to Rhuidean; apparently the prohibition against speaking of what happened in Rhuidean with anyone who had not been there applied even between husband and wife. And between sister-wives, or whatever the relationship was between Amys and Lian.

  Moiraine tried to give Lian a guest gift, too, tiny crystal-and-silver flasks of scent all the way from Arad Doman, but Lian spread her hands. "Your very presence is guest gift beyond value, Aes Sedai. To accept more would dishonor my roof, and me. I could not bear the shame." She sounded entirely serious, and troubled that Moiraine might press the scent on her. It was an indication of the relative importance of the Car'a'carn and an Aes Sedai.

  "As you wish," Moiraine said, returning the flasks to her belt pouch. She was icily serene in blue silk, her pale cloak thrown back. "Your Three-fold Land will surely see more Aes Sedai. We have never had reason to come, before."

  Amys did not look best pleased over that at all, and flame-haired Melaine stared at Moiraine like a green-eyed cat wondering if she should do something about a large dog that had wandered into her barnyard. Bair and Seana exchanged troubled glances, but nothing like the two who could channel.

  A flurry of gai'shain — men and women alike graceful in cowled white robes, their downcast eyes seeming so strangely submissive in Aiel faces — took Moiraine and Egwene's cloaks, brought damp towels for hands and faces, and tiny silver cups of water to be drunk formally, and finally a meal, served with silver bowls and trays fit for a palace yet eaten from pottery with a blue-striped glaze. Everyone ate lying on the floor, where white tiles had been set into the stone for a table, heads together, cushions under their chests, radiating out like spokes in a wheel while gai'shain slipped between to place dishes.

  Mat struggled, shifting this way and that on his cushions, but Lan lounged as if he had always eaten that way, and Moiraine and Egwene looked almost as comfortable. No doubt they had had practice in the Wise Ones' tents. Rand found it awkward, yet the food itself was peculiar enough to take most of his attention.

  A dark, spicy stew of goat with chopped peppers was unfamiliar but hardly strange, and peas were peas anywhere, or squash. The same could not be said of the crumbly, coarse yellow bread, or long, bright red beans mixed in with the green, or a dish of bright yellow kernels and bits of pulpy red that Aviendha called zemai and t'mat, or a sweet, bulbous fruit with a tough greenish skin she said came from one of those leafless, spiny plants called kardon. It was all tasty, though.

  He might have enjoyed the meal more if she had not lectured him on everything. Not sister-wives. That was left to Amys and Lian, lying on either side of Rhuarc and smiling at each other almost as much as at their husband. If they had both married him so as not to break up their friendship, it was plain they both loved him. Rand could not see Elayne and Min agreeing to such an agreement; he wondered why he had even thought of it. The sun must have cooked his brains.

  But if Aviendha left that one explanation to others, she explained everything else in tooth-grinding detail. Maybe she thought him an idiot for not knowing about sister-wives. Turned on her right side to face him, she smiled almost sweetly as she told him the spoon could be used for eating the stew or the zemai and t'mat, but her eyes shone with a light that said it was the Wise Ones being there that kept her from hurling a bowl of something at his head.

  "I do not know what I've done to you," he said quietly. He was very conscious of Melaine on his other side, seeming engrossed in her own low conversation with Seana. Bair put in a word now and then, but he thought she was bending an ear his way, too. "But if you hate being my teacher so much, you do not have to be. It just popped out. I'm sure Rhuarc or the Wise Ones will find someone else." The Wise Ones certainly would, if he rid himself of this spy.

  "You have done nothing to me…" She bared teeth at him; if it was meant to be a smile, it fell considerably short. "…and you never will.
You may lie however is most comfortable for eating, and talk to those around you. Except for those of us who must instruct instead of sharing the meal, of course. It is considered polite to talk with those on both sides." From behind her, Mat looked at Rand and rolled his eyes, clearly relieved to be spared that. "Unless you are forced to face one in particular, as to teach him. Take food with your right hand — unless you must lean on that elbow — and…"

  It was torture, and she seemed to enjoy it. The Aiel seemed to set great store by the giving of gifts. Maybe if he gave her a gift…

  "…all talk for a time when the meal is done, unless one of us must teach instead, and…"

  A bribe. It did not seem fair to have to bribe someone who was spying on him, but if she meant to go on even half like this, it would be worth it for a little peace.

  When the meal was cleared away by gai'shain, and silver cups of dark wine brought, Bair fixed Aviendha with a grim eye across the white tiles, and she subsided sulkily. Egwene knelt up to reach over Mat and pat her, but it did not appear to help. At least she was quiet. Egwene gave him a tight look; either she knew what he was thinking or she considered Aviendha's sulks his fault.

  Rhuarc dug out his short-stemmed pipe and tabac pouch, thumbing the bowl full then passing the leather pouch to Mat, who had produced his own silver-mounted pipe. "Some have taken news of you to heart, Rand al'Thor, and quickly it seems. Lian tells me word has come that Jheran, who is clan chief of the Shaarad Aiel, and Bael, of the Goshien, have already reached Alcair Dal. Erim, of the Chareen, is on his way." He allowed a slender young gai'shain woman to light his pipe with a burning twig. From the way she moved, with a different sort of grace than the other white-robed men and women, Rand suspected she had been a Maiden of the Spear not too long ago. He wondered how long she had to continue in her year and a day of service, meek and humble.

  Mat grinned at the woman as she knelt to light his pipe; the green-eyed stare she gave him from the depths of her cowl was not meek at all, and wiped the grin right off his face. Irritably, he rolled onto his belly, a thin blue streamer rising from his pipe. It was too bad he did not see the satisfaction on her face, or see it wiped away in a blush by one glance from Amys; the green-eyed young woman scurried away looking shamed beyond belief. And Aviendha, who so hated having had to give up the spear, who still saw herself as spear-sister to a Maiden of whatever clan…? She frowned at the departing gai'shain as Mistress al'Vere would have glared at someone who had spit on the floor. A strange people. Egwene was the only one Rand saw with any sympathy in her eyes at all.

  "The Goshien and the Shaarad," he muttered at his wine. Rhuarc had told him each clan chief would bring a few warriors to the Golden Bowl, for honor, and each sept chief, as well. Added together, it meant perhaps a thousand from each clan. Twelve clans. Twelve thousand men and Maidens, eventually, all tied up in their strange honor and ready to dance the spears if a cat sneezed. Maybe more, because of the fair. He looked up. "They have a feud, don't they?" Rhuarc and Lan both nodded. "I know you said that something like the Peace of Rhuidean holds at Alcair Dal, Rhuarc, but I saw how far that Peace held Couladin and the Shaido. Maybe I had better go right away. If the Goshien and the Shaarad start fighting… A thing like that could spread. I want all the Aiel behind me, Rhuarc."

  "The Goshien are not Shaido," Melaine said sharply, shaking her red-gold mane like a lioness.

  "Nor are the Shaarad." Bair's reedy voice was thinner than that of the younger woman, but no less definite. "Jheran and Bael may try to kill one another, before they return to their holds, but not at Alcair Dal."

  "None of which answers Rand al'Thor's question," Rhuarc said. "If you go to Alcair Dal before all of the chiefs arrive, those who have not come yet will lose honor. It is not a good way to announce that you are Car'a'carn, dishonoring men you will call to follow you. The Nakai have furthest to come. A month, and all will be at Alcair Dal."

  "Less," Seana said with a brisk shake of her head. "I have walked Alsera's dreams twice, and she says Bruan means to run all the way from Shiagi Hold. Less than a month."

  "A month before you leave, to be sure," Rhuarc told Rand. "Then three days to Alcair Dal. Perhaps four. All will be there then."

  A month. He rubbed his chin. Too long. Too long, and no choice. In stories, things always happened as the hero planned, seemingly when he wanted them to happen. In real life it rarely occurred that way, even for a ta'veren with prophecy supposedly working for him. In real life it was scratch and hope, and luck if you found more than half a loaf where you needed a whole. Yet a part of his plan was following the path he had hoped for. The most dangerous part.

  Moiraine, stretched out between Lan and Amys, sipped her wine lazily, eyes lidded as if sleepy. He did not believe it. She saw everything, heard everything. But he had nothing to say now that she should not hear. "How many will resist, Rhuarc? Or oppose me? You have hinted, but you've never said for sure."

  "I cannot be sure in it," the clan chief replied around his pipestem. "When you show the Dragons, they will know you. There is no way to imitate the Dragons of Rhuidean." Had Moiraine's eyes flickered? "You are the one prophesied. I will support you, and Bruan certainly, and Dhearic, of the Reyn Aiel. The others…? Sevanna, Suladric's wife, will bring the Shaido since the clan has no chief. She is young to be roofmistress of a hold, doubtless displeased she will have only one roof and not an entire hold when someone is chosen to replace Suladric. And Sevanna is as wily and untrustworthy as any Shaido ever born. But even if she makes no trouble, you know that Couladin will; he acts the clan chief, and some Shaido may follow him without his entering Rhuidean. Shaido are fools enough for that. Han, of the Tomanelle, may move in any direction. He is a prickly man, hard to know and difficult to deal with, and—"

  He cut off as Lian murmured softly, "Is there any other kind?" Rand did not think the clan chief had been meant to hear. Amys hid a smile behind her hand; her sister-wife buried her face innocently in her winecup.

  "As I was saying," Rhuarc said, frowning resignedly from one of his wives to the other, "it is not a thing I can be sure of. Most will follow you. Perhaps all. Perhaps even the Shaido. We have waited three thousand years for the man who bears two Dragons. When you show your arms, none will doubt you are the one sent to unite us." And break them; but he did not mention that. "The question is how they will decide to react." He tapped his teeth with his pipestem for a moment. "You will not change your mind and don the cadin'sor?"

  "And show them what, Rhuarc? A pretend Aiel? As well dress Mat for Aiel." Mat choked on his pipe. "I will not pretend. I am what I am; they must take me as I am." Rand raised his fists, coatsleeves falling enough to uncover the golden-maned heads on the backs of his wrists. "These prove me. If they aren't enough, then nothing is."

  "Where do you mean to 'lead the spears to war once more'?" Moiraine asked suddenly, and Mat choked again, snatching the pipe out of his mouth and staring at her. Her dark eyes were not lidded any longer.

  Rand's fists tightened convulsively, till his knuckles cracked. Trying to be clever with her was dangerous; he should have learned that long since. She remembered every word that she heard, filed it away, sorted and examined until she knew just what it meant.

  He got to his feet slowly. They were all watching him. Egwene frowned even more worriedly than Mat, but the Aiel just watched. Talk of war did not upset them. Rhuarc looked — ready. And Moiraine's face was all frozen calm.

  "If you will excuse me," he said, "I am going to walk around awhile."

  Aviendha rose to her knees, and Egwene stood, but neither followed him.

  Chapter 50

  (Crescent Moon and Stars)

  Traps

  Outside, on the stone-paved path between the yellow-brick house and the terraced vegetable garden, Rand stood staring down the canyon, not seeing much beyond afternoon shadows creeping across the canyon floor. If only he could trust Moiraine not to hand him to the Tower on a leash; he had no doubt she could do it, without
using the Power once, if he gave her an inch. The woman could manipulate a bull through a mouse hole without ever letting it know. He could use her. Light, I'm as bad as she is. Use the Aiel. Use Moiraine. If only I could trust her.

  He headed toward the mouth of the canyon, slanting down whenever he found a footpath leading that way. They were all narrow, paved with small stones, some of the steeper carved in steps. Hammers ringing in several smithies echoed faintly. Not all of the buildings were houses. Through one open door he saw several women working looms, arid another showed a silversmith putting up her small hammers and gouges, a third a man at a potter's wheel, his hands in the clay and the brick kilns hot behind him. Men and boys, except the youngest, all wore the cadin'sor, the coat and breeches in grays and browns, but there were often subtle differences between warriors and craftsmen, a smaller belt knife or none at all, perhaps a shoufa with no black veil attached. Yet watching a blacksmith heft a spear he had just given a foot-long point, Rand had no doubt the man could use the weapon as readily as make it.

  The paths were not crowded, but there were plenty of people about. Children laughed, running and playing, the smaller girls almost as likely to be carrying pretend spears as dolls. Gai'shain carried tall clay jars of water on their heads, or weeded in the gardens, often under the direction of a child of ten or twelve. Men and women going about the tasks of their lives, not really that different from the things they might have done in Emond's Field, whether sweeping in front of a door or mending a wall. The children hardly gave him a glance, for all his red coat and thick-soled boots, and the gai'shain were so self-effacing it was difficult to say whether they noticed him or not. But craftsmen or fighters, men or women, the adults looked at him with an air of speculation, an edge of uncertain anticipation.