The Fires of Heaven twot-5

by Robert Jordan

  Gaping holes peered down now where windows had. They looked like sockets in some monstrous skull, the ruined balconies like a dozen splintered mouths. If Rahvin had been at any of them, he was surely dead. Rand would not believe it until he saw the corpse. He wanted to see Rahvin dead.

  Wearing a snarl he did not know was there, he stalked back into the palace. He had wanted to see Rahvin die.

  Nynaeve hurled herself flat and scrambled along the hall floor as something slashed through the nearest wall. Moghedien slithered as fast as she, but if the woman had not, she would have hauled her by the a'dam. Had that been Rand, or Rahvin? She had seen bars of white fire, liquid light, like that in Tanchico, and she had no wish to be anywhere near one again. She did not know what it was, and she did not want to know. I want to Heal, burn both of these fool men, not learn a fancy way to kill!

  She levered herself up to a crouch, peered back the way they had come. Nothing. An empty palace hallway. With a ten-foot long gash through both walls, as neat as any stoneworker could have done, and bits of tapestry lying on the floor. No sign of either man. She had not had a glimpse of either so far. Only their handiwork. Sometimes that handiwork had almost been her. A good thing that she could draw on Moghedien's anger, filter it out of the terror clawing to escape and let it seep into her. Her own was a pitiful thing that would scarcely have allowed her to sense the True Source, much less channel the flow of Spirit that kept her in Tel'aran'rhiod.

  Moghedien was hunched over on her knees, dry retching. Nynaeve's mouth tightened. The woman had tried to remove the a'dam again. Her cooperation had faded quickly when they discovered Rand and Rahvin actually here in Tel'aran'rhiod. Well, trying to unfasten that collar when it was around your neck was its own punishment. At least Moghedien did not have anything left in her stomach this time.

  "Please." Moghedien caught at Nynaeve's skirt. "I tell you, we must get away." Stark panic made her voice painful. Moghedien's clawing terror mirrored itself on her face. "They are here in the flesh. The flesh!"

  "Be quiet," Nynaeve said absently. "Unless you've lied to me, that is an advantage. For me." The other woman claimed that being in the World of Dreams physically limited your control of the Dream. Or rather, she admitted it, after letting a bit of the knowledge slip. She had admitted, too, that Rahvin did not know Tel'aran'rhiod as well as she. Nynaeve hoped that meant he did not know it as well as she did. That he knew more than Rand, she did not doubt. That wool-headed man! Whatever his reason for coming after Rahvin, he should never have let the man lead him here, where he did not know the rules, where thoughts could kill.

  "Why will you not understand what I tell you? Even if they had only dreamed themselves here, either would be stronger than we. Here in the flesh, they could crush us without blinking. In the flesh they can draw saidin more deeply than we can draw saidar dreaming."

  "We are linked." Still not paying attention, Nynaeve gave her braid a sharp pull. No way to tell which direction they had gone. And no warning of anything until she saw them. Somehow it still seemed unfair that they could channel without her being able to see or feel the flows. A stand-lamp that had been sliced in two was suddenly whole again, then not, just as quickly. That white fire must be incredibly powerful. Tel'aran'rhiod usually healed itself rapidly whatever you did to it.

  "You brainless fool," Moghedien sobbed, shaking Nynaeve's skirt with both hands as if wanting to shake Nynaeve. "It does not matter how brave you are. We are linked, but you contribute nothing the way you are. Not a shred. It is my strength, and your madness. They are here in the flesh, not dreaming! They are using things you have never dreamed of! They will destroy us if we stay!"

  "Keep your voice down," Nynaeve snapped. "Do you want to bring one of them down on us?" She looked both ways hurriedly, but the hallway was still empty. Had that been footsteps, boots? Rand or Rahvin? One had to be approached as carefully as the other. A man in a fight for his life could strike out before he saw they were friends. Well, that she was, anyway.

  "We must go," Moghedien insisted, but she did lower her voice. She got to her feet, sullen defiance twisting her mouth. Fear and anger writhed inside her, first one stronger, then the other. "Why should I help you any further? This is madness!"

  "Would you rather feel the nettles again?"

  Moghedien flinched, yet her dark eyes remained stubborn. "You think I will let them kill me rather than be hurt by you? You are mad. I will not stir from this spot until you are ready to take us away from here."

  Nynaeve jerked her braid again. If Moghedien refused to walk, she would have to drag her. Not a very quick way to search, with what seemed miles of palace corridors yet to go. She should have been harsher when the woman first tried balking. In Nynaeve's place, Moghedien would have killed without hesitation, or, if she thought the other useful, woven the trick of taking someone's will, making them worship her… Nynaeve had tasted that once, in Tanchico, and even had she known how it was done, she did not think she could do it to somebody else. She despised this woman, hated her with all her being. But even if she had not needed her, she could not have killed her just standing there. The trouble was, she was afraid that Moghedien knew that too, now.

  Still, a Wisdom headed the Women's Circle — even if the Circle did not always agree — and the Women's Circle dealt out punishments to women who broke the law or offended custom too deeply, and to men, too, for some transgressions. She might not have Moghedien's stomach for killing, for crushing people's minds, but…

  Moghedien opened her mouth, and Nynaeve filled it with a gag of Air. Or rather she made Moghedien do it; with the a'dam linking them, it was like channeling herself, but Moghedien knew it was her own abilities being used like a tool in Nynaeve's hand. Dark eyes glittered indignantly as Moghedien's own flows snared her arms to her sides and pulled her skirts tight around her ankles. For the rest, Nynaeve used the a'dam, just as with the nettles, creating the sensations she wanted the other woman to feel. Not the reality; the feel of reality.

  Moghedien stiffened in her bonds as a leather strap seemed to strike her bottom. That was what it would feel like to her. Outrage and humiliation rolled through the leash. And contempt. Compared to her elaborate ways of hurting people, this seemed suitable for a child.

  "When you are ready to cooperate again," Nynaeve said, "just nod." This could not take long. She could not just stand there while Rand and Rahvin tried to kill one another. If the wrong one died because she avoided danger by letting Moghedien keep her there…

  Nynaeve remembered a day when she was sixteen, just after she had been judged old enough to put her hair in a braid. She had stolen a plum pudding from Corin Ayellin on a dare from Nela Thane and walked out the kitchen door right into Mistress Ayellin. Adding the aftermath, sending it along the leash in a lump, made Moghedien's eyes pop.

  Grimly, Nynaeve did it again. She won't stop me short! Again. I will help Rand whatever she thinks! Again. Even if it kills us! Again. Oh, Light, she could be right; Rand could kill us both before he knows it's me. Again. Light, I hate being afraid! Again. I hate her! Again. I hate her! Again.

  Abruptly she realized Moghedien was jerking frantically in her bonds, nodding her head so violently it seemed about to come off. For a moment, Nynaeve gaped at the other woman's tear-streaked face, then stopped what she was doing and hurriedly unraveled the flows of Air. Light, what had she done? She was not Moghedien. "I take it you won't give me any more trouble?"

  "They will kill us," the other woman mumbled faintly, and nearly unintelligibly through her sobs, but at the same time she nodded a hurried acquiescence.

  Deliberately, Nynaeve hardened herself. Moghedien deserved everything she had gotten and much, much more. In the Tower, one of the Forsaken would have been stilled and executed as soon as the trial could be concluded, and little evidence needed beside who she was. "Good. Now we —"

  Thunder shook the entire palace, or something very much like thunder, except that the walls rattled and dust rose off the floor.
Nynaeve half fell into Moghedien, and they danced trying to keep their feet. Before the upheaval had faded completely, it was replaced by a roar like some monstrous fire racing up a chimney the size of a mountain. That lasted only a moment. The silence after seemed deeper than before. No. There were boots. A man running. The sound echoed down the hallway. From the north.

  Nynaeve pushed the other woman away. "Come on."

  Moghedien whimpered, but did not resist being pulled down the hall. Her eyes were huge, though, and her breath came too fast. Nynaeve thought it was a good thing she had Moghedien along, and not just for access to the One Power. After all her years hiding in shadows, the Spider was such a coward she almost made Nynaeve feel brave by comparison. Almost. It was only anger at her own fear that made her able to hold on to that one flow of Spirit that kept her in Tel'aran'rhiod, now. Moghedien was stark terror to her bones.

  Pulling Moghedien behind her by the gleaming leash, Nynaeve quickened her step. Chasing the fading sound of those other steps.

  Rand stepped into the round courtyard warily. Half of the white-paved circle cut into the structure rising three stories behind him; the other half was bounded by a stone semicircle atop pale columns five paces high, sticking out into yet another garden, shaded gravel walks beneath low spreading trees. Marble benches surrounded a pool with lily-pads. And fish, gold and white and red.

  Suddenly the benches shifted, flowed, changed into faceless man-shapes, still as white and hard-looking as the stone. He had already learned the difficulty of changing something that Rahvin had altered. Lightning danced from his fingertips, shattering stone men to shards.

  The air became water. Choking, Rand struggled to swim toward the columns; he could see the garden beyond. There must be some kind of barrier to stop all the water pouring out. Before he could channel, gold and red and white shapes were darting around him, larger than the fish in the pool had been. And with teeth. They ripped at him; blood curled up in red mist. Instinctively he flailed at the fish with his hands, but the cold part of him, deep in the Void, channeled. Balefire flared, at the barrier if there was one, at any place Rahvin might be to see this courtyard. The water roiled, throwing him around violently, as it rushed in to fill the empty tunnels carved by balefire. Flickers of gold and white and red darted at him, adding new threads of crimson to the water. Tossed about, he could not see to aim his wild bolts; they flashed in every direction. No breath left. He tried to think of air, or the water being air.

  Suddenly it was. He dropped hard to the paving stones among small fish flopping about, rolled over and pushed himself up. It was all air again; even his clothes were dry. The stone ring flickered between standing untouched and lying in ruins with half the columns down. Some of the trees lay tangled atop their own stumps, then stood whole, then were fallen again. The palace behind him had holes punched in white walls, even one through a high gilded dome above, and gashes slashed across windows, some with pierce-work stone screens. The damage all flickered, vanishing and reappearing. Not the slow, sometime shifts of before, but constant. Damage, then none, then some, then none, then all again.

  Wincing, he pressed his hand to his side, to the old, half-healed wound. It stung as if his exertions had nearly torn it open. He stung all over, from a dozen or more bleeding bites. That had not changed. The bloody rips in his coat and breeches were still there! Had he managed to change the water back to air? Or had one of his frenzied bolts of balefire driven Rahvin off, or even killed him? It did not matter, unless it was the last.

  Wiping blood out of his eyes, he studied the windows and balconies around the garden, the colonnade high on the far side. Or rather, he started to, but something else caught his eye. Below the colonnade, he could just make out the fading remnants of a weave. From there he could tell it was a gateway, but to see what kind and where it led, he had to be closer. Leaping over a jumble of worked stone that vanished while he was above it, he darted across the garden, dodging around trees fallen on the walkway. That residue was almost gone; he had to get close enough before it vanished completely.

  Abruptly he fell, gravel scraping his palms as he caught himself. He could not see anything that might have tripped him. He felt woozy, almost as if he had been hit on the head. He tried to scramble to his feet, to reach that residue. And realized his body was writhing. Long hair covered his hands; his fingers seemed to be shrinking, drawing back into his hands. They were almost paws. A trap. Rahvin had not fled. The gateway had been a trap, and he had walked into it.

  Desperation clung to the Void as he struggled to cling to himself. His hands. They were hands. Almost hands. He forced himself up. His legs seemed to bend wrong. The True Source receded; the Void shrank. Streaks of panic flared beyond the emotionless emptiness. Whatever Rahvin was trying to change him to, it could not channel. Saidin slipping away, thinning, thin even pulled through the angreal. The surrounding balconies stared down at him, empty, and the colonnade. Rahvin had to be at one of those stone-screened windows, but which? He had no strength for a hundred lightning bolts this time. One burst. He could manage that. If he did it quickly. Which window? He fought to be himself, fought to draw saidin into him, welcomed every stain of the taint as evidence that he still held the Power. Staggering in a crooked circle, searching vainly, he roared Rahvin's name. It sounded like a beast's roar.

  Pulling Moghedien behind her, Nynaeve rounded the corner. Ahead of her, a man vanished around the next turning, the sound of his boots echoing behind. She did not know how long she had been following those boots. Sometimes they had gone silent, and she had had to wait for them to start again to gain a direction. Sometimes when they stopped things happened; she had not seen any of it, but once the palace had rung like a struck bell, and another time the hair on her head had tried to stand up as the air seemed to crackle, and another… It did not matter. This was the first time she had caught a glimpse of the man who wore those boots. She did not think it was Rand in that black coat. The height was right, but he was too large, too heavy in the chest.

  She was running before she knew it. Her stout shoes had long since become velvet slippers for silence. If she could hear him, he could hear her. Moghedien's frenzied panting was louder than their footfalls.

  Nynaeve reached the turn and stopped, peeking cautiously around the corner. She held saidar— through Moghedien, but it was hers — ready to channel. There was no need. The hallway was empty. A door stood far down a wall with windows filled with arabesque-pierced stone, but she did not think he could have reached that. Nearer, another corridor ran off to the right. She hurried to that, looked warily again. Empty. But a staircase spiraled upward just beyond where the hallways met.

  For a moment she hesitated. He had been hurrying somewhere. This corridor led back the way they had come. Would he have been running to go back? Up then.

  Drawing Moghedien behind her, she climbed the steps slowly, straining to hear anything except the Forsaken's nearly hysterical breath and the blood pounding in her own ears. If she found herself face to face with him… She knew he was there already, somewhere ahead. Surprise had to be on her side.

  At the first landing, she paused. The hallways here mirrored those below. They were just as empty, too, just as silent. Had he gone on up?

  The stair quivered faintly beneath her feet as if the palace had been struck by a huge battering ram, then another. Again, as a bar of white fire punched through the top of one of the stone-screened windows, skewed wildly upward at an angle, then winked out as it started to slice into the ceiling.

  Nynaeve swallowed, blinking in a vain effort to rid herself of the pale violet fan that hung across her vision in memory of the thing. That had to be Rand, trying to strike at Rahvin. If she was too close to him, Rand might catch her by accident. If he was flailing like that — it had had the look of flailing to her — he could catch her anywhere without knowing it.

  The quivers had ceased. Moghedien's eyes shone with terror. By what Nynaeve felt through the a'dam, it was a wonder t
he woman was not writhing on the floor, shrieking and frothing at the mouth. Nynaeve felt a little like shrieking herself. She made herself put her foot on the next step. Up was as good a way as any. The second step was almost as hard. Slowly, though. No need to come on him too suddenly. Surprise had to be on his part. Moghedien followed like a whipped dog, shivering.

  As Nynaeve climbed, she embraced saidar as fully as she could, as much as Moghedien could handle, to the point where the sweetness of it became almost a pain. That was the warning. More, and she would approach the point where it was more than she could take in, the point where she would still herself, burn the ability to channel right out of herself. Or perhaps out of Moghedien, under the circumstances. Or both of them. Any way at all, it would be disaster now. She held that point though, the… life… filling her a needle's light pressure just short of breaking skin. It was as much as she could have embraced had she been channeling on her own. She and Moghedien were much the same strength in the Power; Tanchico had proved that. Was it enough? Moghedien insisted the men were stronger. Rahvin, at least — Moghedien knew him — and it did not seem likely Rand could have survived this long unless he was just as strong. It was not fair that men should have the muscles and greater strength in the Power too. The Aes Sedai in the Tower had always said they had been equal. It just was not—

  She was babbling. Taking a deep breath, she drew Moghedien behind her off the staircase. This was as high as it went.

  This hall was empty. She went to where it met the crossing corridor, peeked. And there he was. A tall black-clad man, large, with wings of white in his dark hair, peering through the curving slots of one of the stone window-screens at something below. There was sweat and effort on his face, but he seemed to be smiling. A handsome face, as handsome as Galad's, but she felt no quickening of her breath for this one.