But Sheriam's voice was grim when she spoke. "Not a word, Verin Sedai said, and not a word shall it be. If one of you speaks — except to answer an Aes Sedai, of course — I'll make you wish you had nothing but a switching and a few hours scrubbing floors to worry about. Do you understand me?"
"Yes, Aes Sedai," Egwene said, and heard the other two say the same, although Nynaeve pronounced the words like a challenge.
Sheriam made a disgusted sound in her throat, almost a growl. "Fewer girls now come to the Tower to be trained than once did, but they still come. Most leave never having learned to sense the True Source, much less touch it. A few learn enough not to harm themselves before they go. A bare handful can aspire to be raised to the Accepted, and fewer still to wear the shawl. It is a hard life, a hard discipline, yet every novice fights to hold on, to attain the ring and the shawl. Even when they are so afraid they cry themselves to sleep every night, they struggle to hold on. And you three, who have more ability born in you than I ever hoped to see in my lifetime, left the Tower without permission, ran away not even half-trained, like irresponsible children, stayed away for months. And now you ride back in as if nothing has happened, as if you can take up your training again on the morrow." She let out a long breath as if she might explode otherwise. "Faolain!"
The three Accepted jumped as if they had been caught eavesdropping, and one, a dark, curly-haired woman, stepped forward. They were all young women, but still older than Nynaeve. Nynaeve's rapid Acceptance had been extraordinary. In the normal course of things, it took years as a novice to earn the Great Serpent rings they wore, and would take years more before they could hope to be raised to full Aes Sedai.
"Take them to their rooms," Sheriam commanded, "and keep them there. They may have bread, cold broth, and water until the Amyrlin Seat says otherwise. And if one of them speaks even a word, you may take her to the kitchens and set her to scrubbing pots." She whirled and stalked away, even her back expressing anger.
Faolain eyed Egwene and the others with almost a hopeful air, especially Nynaeve, who wore a glower like a mask. Faolain's round face held no love for those who broke the rules so extravagantly, and less for one like Nynaeve, a wilder who had earned her ring without ever being a novice, who had channeled power before she ever entered Tar Valon. When it became obvious that Nynaeve meant to keep her anger to herself, Faolain shrugged. "When the Amyrlin sends for you, you'll probably be stilled."
"Give over, Faolain," another of the Accepted said. The oldest of the three, she had a willowy neck and coppery skin, and a graceful way of moving. "I will take you," she told Nynaeve. "I am called Theodrin, and I, too, am a wilder. I will hold you to Sheriam Sedai's order, but I will not bait you. Come."
Nynaeve gave Egwene and Elayne a worried look, then sighed and let Theodrin lead her away.
"Wilders," Faolain muttered. On her tongue, it sounded like a curse. She turned her stare to Egwene.
The third Accepted, a pretty, apple-cheeked young woman, stationed herself beside Elayne. Her mouth was turned up at the corners as if she liked to smile, but the stern look she gave Elayne said she would brook no nonsense now.
Egwene returned Faolain's stare with as much calm as she could manage, and, she hoped, a measure of the haughty, silent contempt that Elayne had adopted. Red Ajah, she thought. This one will definitely choose the Reds. But it was hard not to think of her own troubles. Light, what are they going to do to us? She meant the Aes Sedai, the Tower, not these women.
"Well, come along," Faolain snapped. "It's bad enough I have to stand guard on your door without standing here all day. Come along."
Taking a deep breath, Egwene gripped Elayne's hand and followed. Light, let them be Healing Mat.
Chapter 12
(Flame of Tar Valon)
The Amyrlin Seat
Siuan Sanche paced the length of her study, pausing now and again to glance, with a blue-eyed gaze that had made rulers stammer, at a carved nightwood box on a long table centered in the room. She hoped she would not have to use any of the carefully drawn documents within it. They had been prepared and sealed in secret, by her own hand, to cover a dozen possible eventualities. She had laid a warding on the box so that if any hand but hers opened it, the contents would flash to ash in an instant; very likely the box itself would burst into flame.
"And burn the thieving fisher-bird, whoever she might be, so she never forgets it, I hope," she muttered. For the hundredth time since being told that Verin had returned, she readjusted her stole on her shoulders without realizing what she was doing. It hung below her waist, broad and striped with the colors of the seven Ajahs. The Amyrlin Seat was of all Ajahs and of none, no matter from which she had been raised.
The room was ornate, for it had belonged to generations of women who had worn the stole. The tall fireplace and broad, cold hearth were all carved golden marble from Kandor, and the diamond-shaped floor tiles, polished redstone from the Mountains of Mist. The walls were panels of some pale striped wood, hard as iron and carved in fantastic beasts and birds of unbelievable plumage, panels brought from the lands beyond the Aiel Waste by the Sea Folk before Artur Hawkwing was born. Tall, arched windows, open now to let in the new, green smells, let onto a balcony overlooking her small private garden, where she seldom had time to walk.
All that grandeur was in stark contrast to the furnishings Siuan Sanche had brought to the room. The one table and the stout chair behind it were plain, if well polished with age and beeswax, as was the only other chair in the room. That stood off to one side, close enough to be drawn up if she wished a visitor to sit. A small Tairen rug lay in front of the table, woven in simple patterns of blue and brown and gold. A single drawing, tiny fishing boats among reeds, hung above the fireplace. Half a dozen stands held open books about the floor. That was all. Even the lamps would not have been out of place in a farmer's house.
Siuan Sanche had been born poor in Tear, and had worked on her father's fishing boat, one just like the boats in the drawing, in the delta called the Fingers of the Dragon, before ever she dreamed of coming to Tar Valon. Even the nearly ten years since she had been raised to the Seat had not made her comfortable with too much luxury. Her bedchamber was more simple still.
Ten years with the stole, she thought. Nearly twenty since I decided to sail these dangerous waters. And if I slip now, I'll wish I were back hauling nets.
She spun at a sound. Another Aes Sedai had slipped into the room, a copper-skinned woman with dark hair cut short. She caught herself in time to keep her voice steady and say only what was expected. "Yes, Leane?"
The Keeper of the Chronicles bowed, just as deeply as she would had others been present. The tall Aes Sedai, as tall as most men, was second only to the Amyrlin in the White Tower, and though Siuan had known her since they were novices together, sometimes Leane's insistence on upholding the dignity of the Amyrlin Seat was enough to make Siuan want to scream.
"Verin is here, Mother, asking leave to speak with you. I have told her you are busy, but she asks —"
"Not too busy to speak to her," Siuan said. Too quickly, she knew, but she did not care. "Send her in. There's no need for you to remain, Leane. I will speak to her alone."
A twitch of her eyebrows was the Keeper's only sign of surprise. The Amyrlin seldom saw anyone, even a queen, without the Keeper present. But the Amyrlin was the Amyrlin. Leane bowed her way out, and in moments Verin took her place, kneeling to kiss the Great Serpent ring on Siuan's finger. The Brown sister had a good-sized leather sack under her arm.
"Thank you for seeing me, Mother," Verin said as she straightened. "I have urgent news from Falme. And more. I scarcely know where to begin."
"Begin where you will," Siuan said. "These rooms are warded, in case anyone thinks to use childhood tricks of eavesdropping." Verin's eyebrows lifted in surprise, and the Amyrlin added, "Much has changed since you left. Speak."
"Most importantly, then, Rand al'Thor has proclaimed himself the Dragon Reborn."
> Siuan felt a tightness loosen in her chest. "I hoped it was he," she said softly. "I have had reports from women who could only tell what they had heard, and rumors by the score come with every trader's boat and merchant's wagon, but I could not be sure." She took a deep breath. "Yet I think I can name the day it happened. Did you know the two false Dragons no longer trouble the world?"
"I had not heard, Mother. That is good news."
"Yes. Mazrim Taim is in the hands of our sisters in Saldaea, and the poor fellow in Haddon Mirk, the Light have pity on his soul, was taken by the Tairens and executed on the spot. No one even seems to know what his name was. Both were taken on the same day and, according to rumor, under the same circumstances. They were in battle, and winning, when suddenly a great light flashed in the sky, and a vision appeared, just for an instant. There are a dozen different versions of what it was, but in both cases the result was exactly the same. The false Dragon's horse reared up and threw him. He was knocked unconscious, and his followers cried out that he was dead, and fled the field, and he was taken. Some of my reports speak of visions in the sky at Falme. I'll wager a gold mark to a week-old delta perch that was the instant Rand al'Thor proclaimed himself."
"The true Dragon has been Reborn," Verin said almost to herself, "and so the Pattern has no room for false Dragons anymore. We have loosed the Dragon Reborn on the world. The Light have mercy on us."
The Amyrlin shook her head irritably. "We have done what must be done." And if even the newest novice learns of it, I will be stilled before the next sunrise, if I'm not torn to pieces flat. Me, and Moiraine, and Verin, and likely anyone thought to be a friend of ours, as well. It was not easy to carry on so great a conspiracy when only three women knew of it, when even a close friend would betray them and consider it a duty well done. Light, but I wish I could be sure they would not be right to do it. "At least he is safely in Moiraine's hands. She will guide him, and do what must be done. What else have you to tell me, Daughter?"
For answer, Verin placed the leather sack on the table and took out a curled, gold horn, with silver script inlaid around its flaring bell mouth. She laid the horn on the table, then looked to the Amyrlin with quiet expectation.
Siuan did not have to be close enough to read the script to know what it said. Tia mi aven Moridin isainde vadin. "The grave is no bar to my call." "The Horn of Valere?" she gasped. "You brought that all the way here, across hundreds of leagues, with the Hunters looking everywhere for it? Light, woman, it was to be left with Rand al'Thor."
"I know, Mother," Verin said calmly, "but the Hunters all expect to find the Horn in some great adventure, not in a sack with four women escorting a sick youth. And it would do Rand no good."
"What do you mean? He is to fight Tarmon Gai'don. The Horn is to summon dead heroes from the grave to fight in the Last Battle. Has Moiraine once again made some new plan without consulting me?"
"This is none of Moiraine's doing, Mother. We plan, but the Wheel weaves the Pattern as it wills. Rand was not first to sound the Horn. Matrim Cauthon did that. And Mat now lies below, dying of his ties to the Shadar Logoth dagger. Unless he can be Healed here."
Siuan shivered. Shadar Logoth, that dead city so tainted that even Trollocs feared to enter, and with reason. By chance, a dagger from that place had come into young Mat's hands, twisting and tainting him with the evil that had killed the city long ago. Killing him. By chance? Or by the Pattern? He is ta'veren, too, after all. But… Mat sounded the Horn. Then—
"So long as Mat lives," Verin went on, "the Horn of Valere is no more than a horn to anyone else. If he dies, of course, another can sound it and forge a new link between man and Horn." Her gaze was steady and untroubled by what she seemed to be suggesting.
"Many will die before we are done, Daughter." And who else could I use to sound it again? I'll not take the risk of trying to return it to Moiraine, now. One of the Gaidin, perhaps. Perhaps. "The Pattern has yet to make his fate clear."
"Yes, Mother. And the Horn?"
"For the moment," the Amyrlin said finally, "we will find some place to hide this where no one but we two know. I will consider what to do after that."
Verin nodded. "As you say, Mother. Of course, a few hours will make one decision for you."
"Is that all you have for me?" Siuan snapped. "If it is, I have those three runaways to deal with."
"There is the matter of the Seanchan, Mother."
"What of them? All my reports say they have fled back across the ocean, or to wherever they came from."
"It seems so, Mother. But I fear we may have to deal with them again." Verin pulled a small leather notebook from behind her belt and began leafing through it. "They spoke of themselves as the Forerunners, or Those Who Come Before, and talked of the Return, and of reclaiming this land as theirs. I've taken notes on everything I heard of them. Only from those who actually saw them, of course, or had dealings with them."
"Verin, you are worrying about a lionfish out in the Sea of Storms, while here and now the silverpike are chewing our nets to shreds."
The Brown sister continued turning pages. "An apt metaphor, Mother, the lionfish. Once I saw a large shark that a lionfish had chased into the shallows, where it died." She tapped one page with a finger. "Yes. This is the worst. Mother, the Seanchan use the One Power in battle. They use it as a weapon."
Siuan clasped her hands tightly at her waist. The reports the pigeons had brought spoke of that, too. Most had only secondhand knowledge, but a few women wrote of seeing for themselves. The Power used as a weapon. Even dry ink on paper carried an edge of hysteria when they wrote of that. "That is already causing us trouble, Verin, and will cause more as the stories spread, and grow with the spreading. But I can do nothing about that. I am told these people are gone, Daughter. Do you have any evidence otherwise?"
"Well, no, Mother, but —"
"Until you do, let us deal with getting the silverpike out of our nets before they start chewing holes in the boat, too."
With reluctance, Verin closed the notebook and tucked it back behind her belt. "As you say, Mother. If I might ask, what do you intend to do to Nynaeve and the other two girls?"
The Amyrlin hesitated, considering. "Before I am done with them, they will wish they could go down to the river and sell themselves for fishbait." It was the simple truth, but it could be taken in more than one way. "Now. Seat yourself, and tell me everything those three have said and done in the time they were with you. Everything."
Chapter 13
(Flame of Tar Valon)
Punishments
Lying on her narrow bed, Egwene frowned up at the flickering shadows cast on the ceiling by her single lamp. She wished she could form some plan of action, or reason out what to expect next. Nothing came. The shadows had more pattern than her thoughts. She could hardly even make herself worry about Mat, yet the shame she felt at that was small, crushed by the walls around her.
It was a stark, windowless room, like all those in the novices' quarters, small and square and painted white, with pegs on one wall for hanging her belongings, the bed built against a second, and a tiny shelf on a third, where in other days she had kept a few books borrowed from the Tower library. A washstand and a three-legged stool completed the furnishings. The floorboards were almost white from scrubbing. She had done that task, on hands and knees, every day she had lived there, in addition to her other chores and lessons. Novices lived simply, whether they were innkeepers' daughters or the Daughter-Heir of Andor.
She wore the plain white dress of a novice again — even her belt and pouch were white — but she felt no joy at having rid herself of the hated gray. Her room had become too much of a prison cell. What if they mean to keep me here. In this room. Like a cell. Like a collar and…
She glanced at the door — the dark Accepted would still be standing guard on the other side, she knew — and rolled close to the white plastered wall. Just above the mattress was a small hole, almost invisible unless you knew where to l
ook, drilled through into the next room by novices long ago. Egwene kept her voice to a whisper.
"Elayne?" There was no answer. "Elayne? Are you asleep?"
"How could I sleep?" came Elayne's reply, a reedy whisper through the hole. "I thought we might be in some trouble, but I did not expect this. Egwene, what are they going to do to us?"
Egwene had no answer, and her guesses were not of the sort she wanted to voice aloud. She did not even want to think of them. "I actually thought we might be heroes, Elayne. We brought back the Horn of Valere safely. We discovered Liandrin is Black Ajah." Her voice skipped on that. Aes Sedai had always denied the existence of a Black Ajah, an Ajah that served the Dark One, and were known to become angry with anyone who even suggested it was real. But we know it's real. "We should be heroes, Elayne."
" 'Should and would build no bridges,' " Elayne said. "Light, I used to hate it when Mother said that to me, but it's true. Verin said we mustn't speak of the Horn, or Liandrin, to anyone but her or the Amyrlin Seat. I do not think any of this will work out the way we thought. It is not fair. We've been through so much; you've been through so much. It just is not fair."
"Verin says. Moiraine says. I know why people think Aes Sedai are puppetmasters. I can almost feel the strings on my arms and legs. Whatever they do, it will be what they decide is good for the White Tower, not what is good or fair for us."
"But you still want to be Aes Sedai. Don't you?"
Egwene hesitated, but there was never any real question as to her answer. "Yes," she said. "I still do. It is the only way we will ever be safe. But I will tell you this. I'll not let myself be stilled." That was a new thought, voiced as soon as it came to her, but she realized she did not want to take it back. Give up touching the True Source? She could sense it there, even now, the glow just over her shoulder, the shining just out of sight. She resisted the desire to reach out to it. Give up being filled with the One Power, feeling more alive than I ever have before? I won't! "Not without a fight."
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