by Unknown
Mat favored the gleeman with a scowl. "Burn you, Thom. This is one of my favorite coats!"
"Be glad I did not aim for the hand," Thom noted, wiping down the flute, nodding to the cheering and applause of the inn's patrons. They called for him to continue, but he shook a regretful head and replaced his flute in its case.
"I almost wish you would have," Mat said, raising his cuff and sticking a finger through the holes. "Blood would not have shown that much on the black, but the stitching will be obvious. Just because you wear more patches than cloak doesn't mean I want to imitate you."
"And you complain that you're not a lord," Thom said, leaning down to collect his earnings.
"I'm not!" Mat said. "And never mind what Tuon said, burn you. I'm no bloody nobleman."
"Ever heard of a farmer complaining that his coat stitches would show?"
"You don't have to be a lord to want to dress with some sense," Mat grumbled.
Thom laughed, slapping him on the back and hopping down. "I'm sorry, Mat. I moved by instinct, didn't realize it was you until I saw the face attached to the arm. By then, the knife was already out of my fingers."
Mat sighed. "Thom," he said grimly, "an old friend is in town. One who leaves folks dead with their throats ripped clean out."
Thom nodded, looking troubled. "I heard about it from some Guardsmen during my break. And we're stuck here in the city unless you decide . . ."
"I'm not opening the letter," Mat said. "Verin could have left instructions for me to crawl all the way to Falme on my hands, and I'd bloody have to do it! I know you hate the delay, but that letter could make a much worse delay."
Thom nodded reluctantly.
"Let's get back to camp," Mat said.
The Band's camp was a league outside of Caemlyn. Thom and Mat had not ridden in walkers were less conspicuous, and Mat would not bring horses into the city until he found a stable that he trusted. The price of good horses was getting ridiculous. He had hoped to leave that behind once he left Seanchan lands, but Elayne's armies were buying up every good horse they could find, and most of the not-so-good ones, too. Beyond that, he had heard that horses had a way of disappearing these days. Meat was meat, and people were close to starving, even in Caemlyn. It made Mat's skin crawl, but it was the truth.
He and Thom spent the walk back talking about the gholam, deciding very little other than to make everyone alert and have Mat start sleeping in a different tent every night.
Mat glanced over his shoulder as the two of them crested a hilltop. Caemlyn was ablaze with the light of torches and lamps. Illumination hung over the city like a fog, grand spires and towers lit by the glow. The old memories inside him remembered this city remembered assaulting it before Andor was even a nation. Caemlyn had never made for an easy fight. He did not envy the Houses that had tried to seize it from Elayne.
Thom stepped up beside him. "It seems like forever since we left here last, doesn't it, Mat?"
"Burn me, but it does," Mat said. "What ever convinced us to go hunting those fool gir's? Next time, they can save themselves."
Thom eyed him. "Aren't we about to do the same thing? When we go to the Tower of Ghenjei?"
"It's different. We can't leave her with them. Those snakes and foxes "
"I'm not complaining, Mat," Thom said. "I'm just thoughtful."
Thom seemed thoughtful a lot, lately. Moping around, caressing that
worn letter from Moiraine. It was only a letter. "Come on," Mat said, turning back along the road. "You were telling me about getting in to see the Queen?"
Thom joined him on the dark roadway. "I'm not surprised she hasn't replied to you, Mat. She's probably got her hands full. Word is that Trollocs have invaded the Borderlands in force, and Andor is still fractured from the Succession. Elayne "
"Do you have any good news, Thom?" Mat said. "Tell me some, if you do. I've a mind for it."
"I wish that The Queen's Blessing were still open. Gill always had tidbits to share."
"Good news," Mat prodded again.
"All right. Well, the Tower of Ghenjei is right where Domon said. I have word from three other ship's captains. It's past an open plain several hundred miles northwest of Whitebridge."
Mat nodded, rubbing his chin. He felt like he could remember something of the tower. A silvery structure, unnatural, in the distance. A trip on a boat, water lapping at the sides. Bayle Domon's thick Illianer accent. . .
Those images were vague to Mat; his memories of the time were full of more holes than one of Jori Congar's alibis. Bayle Domon had been able to tell them where to find the tower, but Mat wanted confirmation. The way Domon bowed and scraped for Leilwin made Mat itch. Neither showed Mat much affection, for all the fact that he had saved them. Not that he had wanted any affection from Leilwin. Kissing her would be about as fun as kissing a stoneoak's bark.
"You think Domon's description will be enough for someone to make us one of those gateways there?" Mat asked.
"I don't know," Thom said. "Though that's a secondary problem, I should think. Where are we going to find someone to make a gateway? Verin has vanished."
"I'll find a way."
"If you don't, we'll end up spending weeks traveling to the place," Thom said. "I don't like "
"I'll find us a gateway," Mat said firmly. "Maybe Verin will come back and release me from this bloody oath."
"Best that one stays away," Thom said. "I don't trust her. There's something off about that one."
"She's Aes Sedai," Mat said. "There's something off about them all like dice where the pips don't add up but for an Aes Sedai, I kind of like Verin. And I'm a good judge of character, you know that."
Thom raised an eyebrow. Mat scowled back.
"Either way," Thom said, "we should probably start sending guards with you when you visit the city."
"Guards won't help against the gholam."
"No, but what of the thugs who jumped you on your way back to camp three nights back?"
Mat shivered. "At least those were just good, honest thieves. They only wanted my purse, nice and natural. Not a one had a picture of me in their pockets. And it's not like they were twisted by the Dark One's power to go crazy at sunset or anything."
"Still," Thom said.
Mat made no argument. Burn him, but he probably should be bringing soldiers with him. A few Redarms, anyway.
The camp was just ahead. One of Elayne's clerks, a man named Norry, had granted the Band permission to camp in Caemlyn's proximity. They had to agree to allow no more than a hundred men to go into the city on a given day, and had to camp at least a league from the walls, out of the way of any villages and not on anyone's farmland.
Talking to that clerk meant Elayne knew Mat was here. She had to. But she had sent no greetings, no acknowledgment that she owed Mat her skin.
At a bend in the road, Thorn's lantern showed a group of Redarms lounging by the side. Gufrin, sergeant of a squad, stood and saluted. He was a sturdy, broad-shouldered man. Not terribly bright, but keen eyed.
"Lord Mat!" he said.
"Any news, Gufrin?" Mat asked.
The sergeant frowned to himself. "Well," he said. "I think there's something you might want to know." Light! The man spoke more slowly than a drunk Seanchan. "The Aes Sedai came back to camp today. While you was away, my Lord."
"All three of them?" Mat asked.
"Yes, my Lord."
Mat sighed. If there had been any hope of this day turning out to be anything other than sour, that washed it away. He had hoped they would stay inside the city for a few more days.
He and Thom continued, leaving the road and heading down a path through a field of blackwasp nettles and knifegrass. The weeds crunched as they walked, Thorn's lantern lighting the brown stalks. On one hand, it was good to be back in Andor again; it almost felt like home, with those stands of leatherleaf trees and sourgum. However, coming back to find it looking so dead was disheartening.
What to do about Elayne? Women were tr
oublesome. Aes Sedai were worse. Queens were the worst of the lot. And she was all bloody three. How was he going to get her to give him her foundries? He had taken Verin's offer in part because he thought it would get him to Andor quicker, and therefore to start work on Aludra's dragons!
Ahead, the Band's camp sat on a small series of hills, entrenched around the largest of them at the center. Mat's force had met up with Es-tean and the others that had gone ahead to Andor, and the Band was well and truly whole again. Fires burned; there was no trouble finding dead wood for fires these days. Smoke lingered in the air, and Mat heard men chatting and calling. It was not too late yet, and Mat did not enforce a curfew. If he could not relax, at least his men could. It might be the last chance they got before the Last Battle.
Trollocs in the Borderlands, Mat thought. We need those dragons. Soon.
Mat returned salutes from a few guard posts and parted with Thom, meaning to go find a bed and sleep on his problems for the night. As he did, he noted a few changes he could make to the camp. The way the hillsides were arranged, a light cavalry charge could come galloping through the corridor between them. Only someone very bold would try such a tactic, but he had done just that during the Battle of Marisin Valley back in old Coremanda. Well, not Mat himself, but someone in those old memories.
More and more, he simply accepted those memories as his own. He had not asked for them no matter what those bloody foxes claimed but he had paid for them with the scar around his neck. They had been useful on more than one occasion.
He finally reached his tent, intending to get fresh smallclothes before finding a different tent for the night, when he heard a woman's voice calling to him. "Matrim Cauthon!"
Bloody ashes. He had almost made it. He turned reluctantly.
Teslyn Baradon was not a pretty woman, though she might have made a passable paperbark tree, with those bony fingers, those narrow shoulders and that gaunt face. She wore a red dress, and over the weeks her eyes had lost most of the nervous skittishness she had shown since spending time as a damane. She had a glare so practiced she could have won a staring contest with a post.
"Matrim Cauthon," she said, stepping up to him. "I do be needing to speak with you."
"Well, seems that you're doing so already," Mat said, dropping his hand from his tent flap. He had a slight fondness for Teslyn, against his better judgment, but he was not about to invite her in. No more than he
would invite a fox into his henhouse, regardless of how kindly he thought of the fox in question.
"So I do be," she replied. "You've heard the news of the White Tower?"
"News?" Mat said. "No, I've heard no news. Rumors, though . . . I've a brainful of those. Some say the White Tower has been reunified, which is what you're probably talking about. But I've also heard just as many claiming that it is still at war. And that the Amyrlin fought the Last Battle in Rand's place, and that the Aes Sedai have decided to raise an army of soldiers by giving birth to them, and that flying monsters attacked the White Tower. That last one is probably just stories of raken drifting up from the south. But I think the one about Aes Sedai raising an army of babies holds some water."
Teslyn regarded him with a flat stare. He did not look away. Good thing Mat's father had always said he was more stubborn than a flaming tree stump.
Remarkably, Teslyn sighed, her face softening. "You be, of course, rightly skeptical. But we cannot ignore the news. Even Edesina, who foolishly sided with the rebels, does wish to return. We do plan to go in the morning. As it is your habit to sleep late, I wanted to come to you tonight in order to give you my thanks."
"Your what?"
"My thanks, Master Cauthon," Teslyn said dryly "This trip did not be easy upon any of us. There have been moments of. . . tension. I do not say that I agree with each decision you made. That do not remove the fact that without you, I would still be in Seanchan hands." She shivered. "I pretend, during my more confident moments, that I would have resisted them and eventually escaped on my own. It do be important to maintain some illusions with yourself, would you not say?"
Mat rubbed his chin. "Maybe, Teslyn. Maybe indeed."
Remarkably, she held out her hand to him. "Remember, should you ever come to the White Tower, you do have women there who are in your debt, Matrim Cauthon. I do not forget."
He took the hand. It felt as bony as it looked, but it was warmer than he had expected. Some Aes Sedai had ice running in their veins, that was for certain. But others were not so bad.
She nodded to him. A respectful nod. Almost a bow. Mat released her hand, feeling as unsettled as if someone had kicked his legs out from underneath him. She turned to walk back toward her own tent.
"You'll be needing horses," he said. "If you wait to leave until I get up in the morning, I'll give you some. And some provisions. Wouldn't do for you to starve before you get to Tar Valon, and from what we've seen lately, the villages you'll pass won't have anything to spare." "You told Joline "
"I counted my horses again," Mat said. Those dice were still rattling in his head, burn them. "I did another count of the Band's horses. Turns out, we have some to spare. You may take them."
"I did not come to you tonight to manipulate you into giving me horses," Teslyn said. "I do be sincere."
"So I figured," Mat said, turning lifting up the flap to his tent. "That's why I made the offer." He stepped into the tent.
There, he froze. That scent . . .
Blood.
CHAPTER 9
Blood in the Air
Mat ducked immediately. That instinct saved his life as something swung through the air above his head. Mat rolled to the side, his hand hitting something wet as it touched the floor. "Murder!" he bellowed. "Murder in the camp! Bloody murder!"
Something moved toward him. The tent was completely black, but he could hear it. Mat stumbled, but luck was with him as again something swished near him.
Mat hit the ground and rolled, flinging his hand to the side. He had left . . .
There! He came up beside his sleeping pallet, his hand grasping at the long wooden haft there. He threw himself backward to his feet, hauling the ashandarei up, then spun and slashed not at the form moving through the tent toward him, but at the wall.
The fabric cut easily and Mat leaped out, clutching his long-bladed spear in one hand. With his other hand, he reached for the leather strap at his neck, his fingernails ripping at his skin in his haste. He pulled the fox-head medallion off and turned in the brush outside the tent.
A weak light came from a nearby lantern on a post at an intersection of camp pathways. By it, Mat made out the figure sliding out the rip in the tent. A figure he had feared to see. The gholam looked like a man, slender with sandy hair and unremarkable features. The only thing distinct about the thing was the scar on its cheek.
It was supposed to look harmless, supposed to be forgettable. If most people saw this thing in a crowd, they would ignore it. Right up to the point where it ripped their throat out.
Mat backed away. His tent was near a hillside, and he backed up to it, pulling the foxhead medallion up and wrapping it tightly by its leather strap to the side of his ashandarei'?, blade. It was far from a perfect fit, but he had practiced this. The medallion was the only thing he knew that could hurt the gholam. He worked swiftly, still yelling for help. Soldiers would be no use against this thing, but the gholam had said before that it had been ordered to avoid too much notice. Attention might frighten it away.
It did hesitate, glancing toward the camp. Then it turned back to Mat, stepping forward. Its movements were as fluid as silk rippling in the wind. "You should be proud," it whispered. "The one who now controls me wants you more than anyone else. I am to ignore all others until I have tasted your blood."
In its left hand, the creature carried a long dagger. Its right hand dripped blood. Mat felt a freezing chill. Who had it killed? Who else had been murdered in Matrim Cauthon's stead? The image of Tylin flashed in his mind again. He had not seen
her corpse; the scene was left to his imagination. Unfortunately, Mat had a pretty good imagination.
That image in his head, smelling the blood on the air, he did the most foolish thing he could have. He attacked.
Screaming in the open darkness, Mat spun forward, swinging the ashandarei. The creature was so fast. It seemed to flow out of the way of his weapon.
It rounded him, like a circling wolf, footsteps barely making a sound in the dried weeds. It struck, its form a blur, and only a backward jump by reflex saved Mat. He scrambled through the weeds, swinging the ashandarei. It seemed wary of the medallion. Light, without that, Mat would be dead and bleeding on the ground!
It came at him again, like liquid darkness. Mat swung wildly and clipped the gholam more by luck than anything else. The medallion made a searing hiss as it touched the beast's hand. The scent of burned flesh rose in the air, and the gholam scrambled back.
"You didn't have to kill her, burn you," Mat yelled at it. "You could have left her! You didn't want her; you wanted me!"
The thing merely grinned, its mouth an awful black, teeth twisted. "A bird must fly. A man must breathe. I must kill." It stalked forward, and
Mat knew he was in trouble. The cries of alarm were loud now. It had only been a few moments, but a few more, and help would arrive. Only a few more moments . . .
"I've been told to kill them all," the gholam said softly. "To bring you out. The man with the mustache, the aged one who interfered last time, the little dark-skinned woman who holds your affection. All of them, unless I take you now."
Burn that gholam; how did the thing know about Tuon? How? It was impossible!
He was so startled that he barely had time to raise the ashandarei as the gholam leaped for him. Mat cursed, twisting to the side, but too late. The creature's knife flashed in the air. Then the weapon jerked and ripped sideways from its fingers. Mat started, then felt something wrap around him and jerk him backward, out of the reach of the gholam's swipe.
Weaves of Air. Teslyn! She stood in front of his tent, her face a mask of concentration.