Knife of Dreams

by Jordan, Robert

  “That wound is no better,” she said with a frown. She had tried Healing it, succeeding no better than Flinn had. That did not sit well with her. Nynaeve took failure as a personal insult. “How can you even stand up? You must be in agony.”

  “He ignores it,” Min said flatly. Oh, yes, there would be words.

  “It hurts no worse standing than sitting,” he told Nynaeve, gently taking her hands from his head. Simple truth. So was what Min had said. He could not afford to let pain make him a prisoner.

  One of the twinned doors creaked open to admit a white-haired man in a worn yellow coat trimmed with red and blue that hung loosely on his bony frame. His bow was halting, a fault of his joints rather than disrespect. “My Lord Dragon,” he said in a voice nearly as creaky as the hinges, “Lord Logain has returned.”

  Logain did not wait on invitations, entering practically on the serving man’s heels. A tall man with dark hair curling to his shoulders, and dark for a Ghealdanin, women likely thought him handsome, yet there was a streak of darkness inside him as well. He wore his black coat with the Sword and the Dragon on the high collar, and a long-hilted sword on his hip, but he had made an addition, a round enameled pin on his shoulder showing three golden crowns in a field of blue. Had the man adopted a sigil? The old man’s hairy eyebrows shot up in surprise, and he looked to Rand as if inquiring whether he wanted Logain removed.

  “The news from Andor is fair enough, I suppose,” Logain said, tucking black gauntlets behind his sword belt. He offered Rand a minimal bow, the slightest bending of his back. “Elayne still holds Caemlyn, and Arymilla still holds her siege, but Elayne has the advantage since Arymilla can’t even stop food getting in, much less reinforcements. No need to scowl. I kept out of the city. Black coats aren’t exactly welcome there, in any case. The Borderlanders are still in the same place. You were wise to stay clear of them, it seems. Rumor says there are thirteen Aes Sedai with them. Rumor says they’re looking for you. Has Bashere gotten back yet?” Nynaeve gave him a scowl and moved away from Rand gripping her braid tightly. Aes Sedai bonding Asha’man was all very well in her book, but not the reverse.

  Thirteen and looking for him? He had stayed clear of the Borderlanders because Elayne did not welcome his help—interference, she called it, and he had begun to see that she had the right of it; the Lion Throne was hers to gain, not his to give—but perhaps it was as well that he had. The Borderland rulers all had ties to the White Tower, and no doubt Elaida was still eager to get her hands on him. Her and that mad proclamation about no one approaching him except through her. If she believed that would force him to come to her, she was a fool.

  “Thank you, that will be all, Ethin. Lord Logain?” he asked as the serving man bowed himself out with a last disgruntled glance at Logain. Rand thought the man would have tried had he told him to haul Logain out.

  “The title is his by birth,” Cadsuane said without looking up from her embroidery. She would know; she had helped capture him back when he was calling himself the Dragon Reborn, him and Taim both. Her hair ornaments bobbed as she nodded to herself. “Phaw! A minor lordling with a scrap of land in the mountains, most of it all but straight up and down. But King Johanin and the Crown High Council stripped him of his lands and title after he became a false Dragon.”

  Small spots of color appeared in Logain’s cheeks, yet his voice was cool and composed. “They could take my estate, but they could not take away who I am.”

  Still seemingly intent on her embroidery needle, Cadsuane laughed softly. Verin’s knitting needles had stopped. She was studying Logain, a plump sparrow studying an insect. Alivia had shifted her intense gaze to the man, too, and Harilin and Enaila seemed to be just going through the motions of their game. Min appeared to be reading still, but each hand rested near the opposite cuff of her coatsleeves. She kept some of her knives hidden there. None of them trusted him.

  Rand frowned. The man could call himself whatever he wanted so long as he did what he was supposed to, but Cadsuane prodded him and anyone else in a black coat nearly as much as she did Rand himself. He was unsure how far to trust Logain either, yet he had to work with the tools he had to hand. “Is it done?” With Logain here, Loial was uncapping his ink jar again.

  “More than half the Black Tower is in Arad Doman and Illian. I sent all the men with bonded Aes Sedai except those here, as you ordered.” Logain walked to the table while he talked, found a blue-glazed pitcher that still held wine among the plates and scraps, and filled a green-glazed cup. There was very little silver in the house. “You should have let me bring more men here. The numbers tilt too much to Aes Sedai for my liking.”

  Rand grunted. “Since part of that is your doing, you can live with it. Others will have to, as well. Go on.”

  “Dobraine and Rhuarc will send a Soldier with a message as soon as they find anyone in charge of more than a village. The Council of Merchants claim King Alsalam still reigns, but they wouldn’t or couldn’t produce him or say where he is, they seem to be at one another’s throats themselves, and Bandar Eban is more than half deserted and given over to the mob.” Logain grimaced into his winecup. “Gangs of strongarms provide what little order there is, and they extort food and coin from the people they claim to protect and take whatever else they want, including women.” The bond suddenly held white-hot rage, and Nynaeve growled in her throat. “Rhuarc has set about putting an end to that, but it was already turning into a battle when I left,” Logain finished.

  “Strongarms won’t hold out long against Aiel. If Dobraine can’t find anyone in charge, then he will have to be, for the time being.” If Alsalam was dead, as seemed likely, he would have to appoint a Steward for the Lord Dragon in Arad Doman. But who? It would have to be someone the Domani would accept.

  The other man took a long swallow of wine. “Taim wasn’t pleased at me taking so many men out of the Tower and not telling him where they were going. I thought he was going to rip up your order. He tried every trick to learn where you are. Oh, he burns to know that. His eyes were practically on fire. I wouldn’t put it past him to have had me put to the question if I’d been fool enough to meet him without company. One thing pleased him, though: that I didn’t take any of his cronies. That was plain on his face.” He smiled, a dark smile, not amused. “There are forty-one of those now, by the way. He’s given over a dozen men the Dragon pin in the past few days, and he has above fifty more in his ‘special’ classes, most of them men recruited just lately. He’s planning something, and I doubt you’ll like it.”

  I told you to kill him when you had the chance, Lews Therin cackled in mad mirth. I told you. And now it’s too late. Too late.

  Rand angrily expelled a stream of blue-gray smoke. “Give over,” he said, meaning it for both Logain and Lews Therin. “Taim built the Black Tower till it nearly matches the White Tower for numbers, and it grows every day. If he’s a Darkfriend the way you claim, why would he do that?”

  Logain met his stare levelly. “Because he couldn’t stop it. From what I’ve heard, even in the beginning there were men who could Travel who weren’t his toad-eaters, and he had no excuse to do all the recruiting himself. But he’s made a Tower of his own hidden inside the Black Tower, and the men in it are loyal to him, not you. He amended the deserters’ list and sends his apologies for an ‘honest mistake,’ but you can wager all you own it was no mistake.”

  And how loyal was Logain? If one false Dragon chafed at following the Dragon Reborn, why not another? He might think he had cause. He had been far more famous as a false Dragon than Taim, more successful, gathering an army that swept out of Ghealdan and nearly reached Lugard on its way to Tear. Half the known world had trembled at the name Logain. Yet Mazrim Taim commanded the Black Tower while Logain Ablar was only another Asha’man. Min still saw an aura of glory around him. Just how that glory was to be achieved was beyond her viewing, however.

  He took the pipe from his mouth, and the bowl was hot against the heron branded into his palm. H
e must have been puffing away furiously without being aware of it. The trouble was, Taim and Logain were lesser problems. They had to wait. The tools at hand. He made an effort to keep his voice even. “Taim took their names off the list. That’s the important thing. If he’s showing favoritism, I’ll put an end to it when I have time. But the Seanchan have to come first. And maybe Tarmon Gai’don, too.”

  “If?” Logain growled, slamming his cup down on the table so hard that it broke. Wine spread across the tabletop and dripped over the edge. Scowling, he wiped his damp hand on his coat. “Do you think I’m imagining things?” His tone grew more heated by the word. “Or making them up? Do you think this is jealousy, al’Thor? Is that what you think?”

  “You listen to me,” Rand began, raising his voice against a peal of thunder.

  “I told you I expected you and your friends in black coats to be civil to me, my friends and my guests,” Cadsuane said sternly, “but I’ve decided that must be expanded to include each other.” Her head was still bent over her embroidery hoop, but she spoke as if she were shaking a finger under their noses. “At least when I am present. That means if you continue squabbling, I may have to spank both of you.” Harilin and Enaila began laughing so hard they got the string of their game in a snarl. Nynaeve laughed, too, though she tried to hide it behind her hand. Light, even Min smiled!

  Logain bristled, jaw tightening until Rand thought he should hear the man’s teeth grating. He was trying hard not to bristle himself. Cadsuane and her bloody rules. Her conditions for becoming his advisor. She pretended that he had asked for them, and every so often she added another to her list. The rules were not precisely onerous, though their existence was, but her way of presenting them was always like a poke with a sharp stick. He opened his mouth to tell her he was finished with her rules, and with her, too, if need be.

  “Taim very likely will have to wait on the Last Battle, whatever he’s about,” Verin said suddenly. Her knitting, a shapeless lump that might have been anything, sat in her lap. “It will come soon. According to everything I’ve read on the subject, the signs are quite clear. Half the servants have recognized dead people in the halls, people they knew alive. It’s happened often enough that they aren’t frightened by it any longer. And a dozen men moving the cattle to spring pasture watched a considerable town melt into mist just a few miles to the north.”

  Cadsuane had raised her head and was staring at the stout Brown sister. “Thank you for repeating what you told us yesterday, Verin,” she said dryly. Verin blinked, then took up her knitting again, frowning at it as though she, too, were unsure what it was going to be.

  Min caught Rand’s eyes, shaking her head slowly, and he sighed. The bond held irritation and wariness, the last a deliberate warning to him, he suspected. At times, she seemed able to read his mind. Well, if he needed Cadsuane, and Min said he did, then he needed her. He just wished he knew what she was supposed to teach him aside from how to grind his teeth.

  “Advise me, Cadsuane. What do you think of my plan?”

  “At last the boy asks,” she murmured, setting her embroidery down beside her sewing basket. “All his schemes in motion, some I’ve not been made privy to, and now he asks. Very well. Your peace with the Seanchan will be unpopular.”

  “A truce,” he broke in. “And a truce with the Dragon Reborn will last only as long as the Dragon Reborn. When I die, everyone will be free to go to war with the Seanchan again if they wish.”

  Min slammed her book shut and folded her arms beneath her breasts. “Don’t you talk that way!” she said, red-faced with anger. The bond also carried fear.

  “The Prophecies, Min,” he said sadly. Not sad for himself, but for her. He wanted to protect her, her and Elayne and Aviendha, but he would hurt them in the end.

  “I said don’t you talk that way! The Prophecies don’t say you have to die! I’m not going to let you die, Rand al’Thor! Elayne and Aviendha and I won’t let you!” She glared at Alivia, who her viewing had said would help Rand die, and her hands slid down her arms toward her cuffs.

  “Behave, Min,” he said. Her hands shot away from her cuffs, but she set her jaw, and the bond suddenly was flooded with stubbornness. Light, was he going to have to worry about Min trying to kill Alivia? Not that she was likely to succeed—as well try throwing a knife at an Aes Sedai as at the Seanchan woman—but she might get herself injured. He was not sure Alivia knew any weaves but those for weapons.

  “Unpopular, as I say,” Cadsuane said firmly, raising her voice. She favored Min with a brief frown before turning her attention back to Rand. Her face was smooth, composed, an Aes Sedai’s face. Her dark eyes were hard, like polished black stones. “Especially in Tarabon, Amadicia and Altara, but also elsewhere. If you agree to allow the Seanchan to keep what they’ve already taken, what lands will you give away next? That is how most rulers will see matters.”

  Rand dropped back into his chair, stretching his legs in front of him and crossing his ankles. “It doesn’t matter how unpopular it is. I went through that doorframe ter’angreal in Tear, Cadsuane. You know about that?” Golden ornaments bobbled as she nodded impatiently. “One of my questions for the Aelfinn was ‘How can I win the Last Battle?’ ”

  “A dangerous question to pose,” she said quietly, “touching on the Shadow as it does. Supposedly, the results can be quite unpleasant. What was the answer?”

  “ ‘The north and the east must be as one. The west and the south must be as one. The two must be as one.’ ” He blew a smoke ring, put another in the middle of it as it expanded. That was not the whole of it. He had asked how to win and survive. The last part of his answer had been ‘To live, you must die.’ Not something he was going to bring up in front of Min anytime soon. In front of anyone except Alivia, for that matter. Now he just had to figure out how to live by dying. “At first, I thought it meant I had to conquer everywhere, but that wasn’t what they said. What if it means the Seanchan hold the west and south, as you could say they already do, and there’s an alliance to fight the Last Battle, the Seanchan with everybody else?”

  “It’s possible,” she allowed. “But if you’re going to make this . . . truce . . . why are you moving what seems to be a considerable army to Arad Doman and reinforcing what is already in Illian?”

  “Because Tarmon Gai’don is coming, Cadsuane, and I can’t fight the Shadow and the Seanchan at the same time. I’ll have a truce, or I’ll crush them whatever the cost. The Prophecies say I have to bind the nine moons to me. I only understood what that meant a few days ago. As soon as Bashere returns, I’ll know when and where I’m to meet the Daughter of the Nine Moons. The only question now is how do I bind her, and she’ll have to answer that.”

  He spoke matter-of-factly, now and then blowing a smoke ring for punctuation. Reactions varied. Loial just wrote very fast, trying to capture every word, while Harilin and Enaila went on with their game. If the spears had to be danced, they were ready. Alivia nodded fiercely, doubtless hoping it would come to crushing those who had kept her wearing an a’dam for five hundred years. Logain had found another winecup and filled it with the last of what was in the pitcher, but he merely held the cup rather than drinking, his expression unreadable. Now it was Rand whom Verin studied intently. But then, she had always been curious about him. But why in the Light would Min feel bone-deep sadness? And Cadsuane. . . .

  “Stone cracks from a hard enough blow,” she said, her face an Aes Sedai mask of calm. “Steel shatters. The oak fights the wind and breaks. The willow bends where it must and survives.”

  “A willow won’t win Tarmon Gai’don,” he told her.

  The door creaked open again, and Ethin tottered in. “My Lord Dragon, three Ogier have arrived. They were most pleased to learn that Master Loial is here. One of them is his mother.”

  “My mother?” Loial squeaked, and even that sounded like a hollow wind gusting in caverns. He leaped up so fast that his chair fell over backward, wringing his hands, ears wilting. His head s
wung from side to side as if he were hunting for a way out besides the door. “What am I going to do, Rand? The other two must be Elder Haman and Erith. What am I going to do?”

  “Mistress Covril said she was most anxious to speak with you, Master Loial,” Ethin said in that creaky voice. “Most anxious. They are all damp from the rain, but she said they will wait for you in the Ogier sitting room upstairs.”

  “What am I going to do, Rand?”

  “You said you want to marry Erith,” Rand said as gently as he could. Gentleness was difficult except with Min.

  “But my book! My notes aren’t complete, and I’ll never find out what happens next. Erith will take me back to Stedding Tsofu with her.”

  “Phaw!” Cadsuane picked up her embroidery again and began working the needle delicately. She was making the ancient symbol of Aes Sedai, the Dragon’s Fang and the Flame of Tar Valon melded into a disc, black and white separated by a sinuous line. “Go to your mother, Loial. If she’s Covril, daughter of Ella daughter of Soong, you don’t want to keep her waiting. As I expect you know.”

  Loial seemed to take Cadsuane’s words as a command. He began wiping his pen nib again, capping his ink jar. But he did everything very slowly, with his ears drooping. Every so often he moaned sadly, half under his breath, “My book!”

  “Well,” Verin said, holding up her knitting for inspection, “I believe I have done all that I can here. I think I’ll go find Tomas. The rain makes his knee ache, though he denies it even to me.” She glanced at the window. “It does seem to be slowing.”

  “And I think I’ll go find Lan,” Nynaeve said, gathering her skirts. “The company is better where he is.” That with a sharp tug on her braid and a glare divided between Alivia and Logain. “The wind tells me a storm is coming, Rand. And you know I don’t mean rain.”