The Wheel of Time

by Robert Jordan

  “But he said—”

  “I don’t care.” He was unsure which “he” Mat meant, but it changed nothing. “We’re not going to lie down and let them take us.”

  They got six rides, short ones, during the day. A farmer told them that a crazy old man at the inn in Market Sheran was claiming there were Darkfriends in the village. The farmer could hardly talk for laughing; he kept wiping tears off his cheeks. Darkfriends in Market Sheran! It was the best story he had heard since Ackley Farren got drunk and spent the night on the inn roof.

  Another man, a round-faced wagonwright with tools hanging from the sides of his cart and two wagon wheels in the back, told a different story. Twenty Darkfriends had held a gathering in Market Sheran. Men with twisted bodies, and the women worse, all dirty and in rags. They could make your knees grow weak and your stomach heave just by looking at you, and when they laughed, the filthy cackles rang in your ears for hours and your head felt as if it were splitting open. He had seen them himself, just at a distance, far enough off to be safe. If the Queen would not do something, then somebody ought to ask the Children of the Light for help. Somebody should do something.

  It was a relief when the wagonwright let them down.

  With the sun low behind them they walked into a small village, much like Market Sheran. The Caemlyn Road split the town neatly in two, but on both sides of the wide road stood rows of small brick houses with thatched roofs. Webs of vine covered the bricks, though only a few leaves hung on them. The village had one inn, a small place no bigger than the Winespring Inn, with a sign on a bracket out front, creaking back and forth in the wind. The Queen’s Man.

  Strange, to think of the Winespring Inn as small. Rand could remember when he thought it was about as big as a building could be. Anything bigger would be a palace. But he had seen a few things, now, and suddenly he realized that nothing would look the same to him when he got back home. If you ever do.

  He hesitated in front of the inn, but even if prices at The Queen’s Man were not as high as in Market Sheran, they could not afford a meal or a room, either one.

  Mat saw where he was looking and patted the pocket where he kept Thom’s colored balls. “I can see well enough, as long as I don’t try to get too fancy.” His eyes had been getting better, though he still wore the scarf around his forehead, and had squinted whenever he looked at the sky during the day. When Rand said nothing, Mat went on. “There can’t be Darkfriends at every inn between here and Caemlyn. Besides, I don’t want to sleep under a bush if I can sleep in a bed.” He made no move toward the inn, though, just stood waiting for Rand.

  After a moment Rand nodded. He felt as tired as he had at any time since leaving home. Just thinking of a night in the open made his bones ache. It’s all catching up. All the running, all the looking over your shoulder.

  “They can’t be everywhere,” he agreed.

  With the first step he took into the common room, he wondered if he had made a mistake. It was a clean place, but crowded. Every table was filled, and some men leaned against the walls because there was nowhere for them to sit. From the way the serving maids scurried between the tables with harried looks—and the landlord, too—it was a larger crowd than they were used to. Too many for this small village. It was easy to pick out the people who did not belong there. They were dressed no differently from the rest, but they kept their eyes on their food and drink. The locals watched the strangers as much as anything else.

  A drone of conversation hung in the air, enough that the innkeeper took them into the kitchen when Rand made him understand that they needed to talk to him. The noise was almost as bad there, with the cook and his helpers banging pots and darting about.

  The innkeeper mopped his face with a large handkerchief. “I suppose you’re on your way to Caemlyn to see the false Dragon like every other fool in the Realm. Well, it’s six to a room and two or three to a bed, and if that doesn’t suit, I’ve nothing for you.”

  Rand gave his spiel with a feeling of queasiness. With so many people on the road, every other one could be a Darkfriend, and there was no way to pick them out from the rest. Mat demonstrated his juggling—he kept it to three balls, and was careful even then—and Rand took out Thom’s flute. After only a dozen notes of “The Old Black Bear,” the innkeeper nodded impatiently.

  “You’ll do. I need something to take those idiots’ minds off this Logain. There’s been three fights already over whether or not he’s really the Dragon. Stow your things in the corner, and I’ll go clear a space for you. If there’s any room to. Fools. The world’s full of fools who don’t know enough to stay where they belong. That’s what’s causing all the trouble. People who won’t stay where they belong.” Mopping his face again, he hurried out of the kitchen, muttering under his breath.

  The cook and his helpers ignored Rand and Mat. Mat kept adjusting the scarf around his head, pushing it up, then blinking at the light and tugging it back down again. Rand wondered if he could see well enough to do anything more complicated than juggle three balls. As for himself. . . .

  The queasiness in his stomach grew thicker. He dropped on a low stool, holding his head in his hands. The kitchen felt cold. He shivered. Steam filled the air; stoves and ovens crackled with heat. His shivers became stronger, his teeth chattering. He wrapped his arms around himself, but it did no good. His bones felt as if they were freezing.

  Dimly he was aware of Mat asking him something, shaking his shoulder, and of someone cursing and running out of the room. Then the innkeeper was there, with the cook frowning at his side, and Mat was arguing loudly with them both. He could not make out any of what they said; the words were a buzz in his ears, and he could not seem to think at all.

  Suddenly Mat took his arm, pulling him to his feet. All of their things—saddlebags, blanketrolls, Thom’s bundled cloak and instrument cases—hung from Mat’s shoulders with his bow. The innkeeper was watching them, wiping his face anxiously. Weaving, more than half supported by Mat, Rand let his friend steer him toward the back door.

  “S-s-sorry, M-m-mat,” he managed. He could not stop his teeth from chattering. “M-m-must have . . . b-been t-the . . . rain. O-one m-more . . . night out . . . w-won’t h-hurt . . . I guess.” Twilight darkened the sky, spotted by a handful of stars.

  “Not a bit of it,” Mat said. He was trying to sound cheerful, but Rand could hear the hidden worry. “He was scared the other folk would find out there was somebody sick in his inn. I told him if he kicked us out, I’d take you into the common room. That’d empty half his rooms in ten minutes. For all his talk about fools, he doesn’t want that.”

  “Then w-where?”

  “Here,” Mat said, pulling open the stable door with a loud creak of hinges.

  It was darker inside than out, and the air smelled of hay and grain and horses, with a strong undersmell of manure. When Mat lowered him to the straw-covered floor, he folded over with his chest on his knees, still hugging himself and shaking from head to toe. All of his strength seemed to go for the shaking. He heard Mat stumble and curse and stumble again, then a clatter of metal. Suddenly light blossomed. Mat held up a battered old lantern.

  If the inn was full, so was its stable. Every stall had a horse, some raising their heads and blinking at the light. Mat eyed the ladder to the hayloft, then looked at Rand, crouched on the floor, and shook his head.

  “Never get you up there,” Mat muttered. Hanging the lantern on a nail, he scrambled up the ladder and began tossing down armloads of hay. Hurriedly climbing back down, he made a bed at the back of the stable and got Rand onto it. Mat covered him with both their cloaks, but Rand pushed them off almost immediately.

  “Hot,” he murmured. Vaguely he knew that he had been cold only a moment before, but now he felt as if he were in an oven. He tugged at his collar, tossing his head. “Hot.” He felt Mat’s hand on his forehead.

  “I’ll be right back,” Mat said, and disappeared.

  He twisted fitfully on the hay, how long he w
as not sure, until Mat returned with a heaped plate in one hand, a pitcher in the other, and two white cups dangling from fingers by their handles.

  “There’s no Wisdom here,” he said, dropping to his knees beside Rand. He filled one of the cups and held it to Rand’s mouth. Rand gulped the water down as if he had had nothing to drink in days; that was how he felt. “They don’t even know what a Wisdom is. What they do have is somebody called Mother Brune, but she’s off somewhere birthing a baby, and nobody knows when she’ll be back. I did get some bread, and cheese, and sausage. Good Master Inlow will give us anything as long as we stay out of sight of his guests. Here, try some.”

  Rand turned his head away from the food. The sight of it, the thought of it, made his stomach heave. After a minute Mat sighed and settled down to eat himself. Rand kept his eyes averted, and tried not to listen.

  The chills came once more, and then the fever, to be replaced by the chills, and the fever again. Mat covered him when he shook, and fed him water when he complained of thirst. The night deepened, and the stable shifted in the flickering lantern light. Shadows took shape and moved on their own. Then he saw Ba’alzamon striding down the stable, eyes burning, a Myrddraal at either side with faces hidden in the depths of their black cowls.

  Fingers scrabbling for his sword hilt, he tried to get to his feet, yelling, “Mat! Mat, they’re here! Light, they’re here!”

  Mat jerked awake where he sat cross-legged against the wall. “What? Darkfriends? Where?”

  Wavering on his knees, Rand pointed frantically down the stable . . . and gaped. Shadows stirred, and a horse stamped in its sleep. Nothing more. He fell back on the straw.

  “There’s nobody but us,” Mat said. “Here, let me take that.” He reached for Rand’s sword belt, but Rand tightened his grip on the hilt.

  “No. No. I have to keep it. He’s my father. You understand? He’s m-my f-father!” The shivering swept over him once more, but he clung to the sword as if to a lifeline. “M-my f-father!” Mat gave up trying to take it and pulled the cloaks back over him.

  There were other visitations in the night, while Mat dozed. Rand was never sure if they were really there or not. Sometimes he looked at Mat, with his head on his chest, wondering if he would see them, too, if he woke.

  Egwene stepped out of the shadows, her hair in a long, dark braid as it had been in Emond’s Field, her face pained and mournful. “Why did you leave us?” she asked. “We’re dead because you left us.”

  Rand shook his head weakly on the hay. “No, Egwene. I didn’t want to leave you. Please.”

  “We’re all dead,” she said sadly, “and death is the kingdom of the Dark One. The Dark One has us, because you abandoned us.”

  “No. I had no choice, Egwene. Please. Egwene, don’t go. Come back, Egwene!”

  But she turned into the shadows, and was shadow.

  Moiraine’s expression was serene, but her face was bloodless and pale. Her cloak might as well have been a shroud, and her voice was a lash. “That is right, Rand al’Thor. You have no choice. You must go to Tar Valon, or the Dark One will take you for his own. Eternity chained in the Shadow. Only Aes Sedai can save you, now. Only Aes Sedai.”

  Thom grinned at him sardonically. The gleeman’s clothes hung in charred rags that made him see the flashes of light as Thom wrestled with the Fade to give them time to run. The flesh under the rags was blackened and burned. “Trust Aes Sedai, boy, and you’ll wish you were dead. Remember, the price of Aes Sedai help is always smaller than you can believe, always greater than you can imagine. And what Ajah will find you first, eh? Red? Maybe Black. Best to run, boy. Run.”

  Lan’s stare was as hard as granite, and blood covered his face. “Strange to see a heron-mark blade in the hands of a sheepherder. Are you worthy of it? You had better be. You’re alone, now. Nothing to hold to behind you, and nothing before, and anyone can be a Darkfriend.” He smiled a wolf’s smile, and blood poured out of his mouth. “Anyone.”

  Perrin came, accusing, pleading for help. Mistress al’Vere, weeping for her daughter, and Bayle Domon, cursing him for bringing Fades down on his vessel, and Master Fitch, wringing his hands over the ashes of his inn, and Min, screaming in a Trolloc’s clutches, people he knew, people he had only met. But the worst was Tam. Tam stood over him, frowning and shaking his head, and said not a word.

  “You have to tell me,” Rand begged him. “Who am I? Tell me, please. Who am I? Who am I?” he shouted.

  “Easy, Rand.”

  For a moment he thought it was Tam answering, but then he saw that Tam was gone. Mat bent over him, holding a cup of water to his lips.

  “Just rest easy. You’re Rand al’Thor, that’s who you are, with the ugliest face and the thickest head in the Two Rivers. Hey, you’re sweating! The fever’s broken.”

  “Rand al’Thor?” Rand whispered. Mat nodded, and there was something so comforting in it that Rand drifted off to sleep without even touching the water.

  It was a sleep untroubled by dreams—at least by any he remembered—but light enough that his eyes drifted open whenever Mat checked on him. Once he wondered if Mat was getting any sleep at all, but he fell back asleep himself before the thought got very far.

  The squeal of the door hinges roused him fully, but for a moment he only lay there in the hay wishing he was still asleep. Asleep he would not be aware of his body. His muscles ached like wrung-out rags, and had about as much strength. Weakly he tried to raise his head; he made it on the second try.

  Mat sat in his accustomed place against the wall, within arm’s reach of Rand. His chin rested on his chest, which rose and fell in the easy rhythm of deep sleep. The scarf had slipped down over his eyes.

  Rand looked toward the door.

  A woman stood there holding it open with one hand. For a moment she was only a dark shape in a dress, outlined by the faint light of early morning, then she stepped inside, letting the door swing shut behind her. In the lantern light he could see her more clearly. She was about the same age as Nynaeve, he thought, but she was no village woman. The pale green silk of her dress shimmered as she moved. Her cloak was a rich, soft gray, and a frothy net of lace caught up her hair. She fingered a heavy gold necklace as she looked thoughtfully at Mat and him.

  “Mat,” Rand said, then louder, “Mat!”

  Mat snorted and almost fell over as he came awake. Scrubbing sleep from his eyes, he stared at the woman.

  “I came to look at my horse,” she said, gesturing vaguely at the stalls. She never took her eyes away from the two of them, though. “Are you ill?”

  “He’s all right,” Mat said stiffly. “He just caught a chill in the rain, that’s all.”

  “Perhaps I should look at him,” she said. “I have some knowledge. . . .”

  Rand wondered if she were Aes Sedai. Even more than her clothes, her self-assured manner, the way she held her head as if on the point of giving a command, did not belong here. And if she is Aes Sedai, of what Ajah?

  “I’m fine, now,” he told her. “Really, there’s no need.”

  But she came down the length of the stable, holding her skirt up and placing her gray slippers gingerly. With a grimace for the straw, she knelt beside him and felt his forehead.

  “No fever,” she said, studying him with a frown. She was pretty, in a sharp-featured fashion, but there was no warmth in her face. It was not cold, either; it just seemed to lack any feeling whatsoever. “You were sick, though. Yes. Yes. And still weak as a day-old kitten. I think. . . .” She reached under her cloak, and suddenly things were happening too fast for Rand to do more than give a strangled shout.

  Her hand flashed from under her cloak; something glittered as she lunged across Rand toward Mat. Mat toppled sideways in a flurry of motion, and there was a solid tchunk of metal driven into wood. It all took just an instant, and then everything was still.

  Mat lay half on his back, one hand gripping her wrist just above the dagger she had driven into the wall where his chest had
been, his other hand holding the blade from Shadar Logoth to her throat.

  Moving nothing but her eyes, she tried to look down at the dagger Mat held. Eyes widening, she drew a ragged breath and tried to pull back from it, but he kept the edge against her skin. After that, she was as still as a stone.

  Licking his lips, Rand stared at the tableau above him. Even if he had not been so weak, he did not believe he could have moved. Then his eyes fell on her dagger, and his mouth went dry. The wood around the blade was blackening; thin tendrils of smoke rose from the char.

  “Mat! Mat, her dagger!”

  Mat flicked a glance at the dagger, then back to the woman, but she had not moved. She was licking her lips nervously. Roughly Mat pried her hand off the hilt and gave her a push; she toppled back, sprawling away from them and catching herself with her hands behind her, still watching the blade in his hand. “Don’t move,” he said. “I’ll use this if you move. Believe me, I will.” She nodded slowly; her eyes never left Mat’s dagger. “Watch her, Rand.”

  Rand was not sure what he was supposed to do if she tried anything—shout, maybe; he certainly could not run after her if she tried to flee—but she sat there without twitching while Mat yanked her dagger free of the wall. The black spot stopped growing, though a faint wisp of smoke still trailed up from it.

  Mat looked around for somewhere to put the dagger, then thrust it toward Rand. He took it gingerly, as if it were a live adder. It looked ordinary, if ornate, with a pale ivory hilt and a narrow, gleaming blade no longer than the palm of his hand. Just a dagger. Only he had seen what it could do. The hilt was not even warm, but his hand began to sweat. He hoped he did not drop it in the hay.

  The woman did not move from her sprawl as she watched Mat slowly turn toward her. She watched him as if wondering what he would do next, but Rand saw the sudden tightening of Mat’s eyes, the tightening of his hand on the dagger. “Mat, no!”

  “She tried to kill me, Rand. She’d have killed you, too. She’s a Darkfriend.” Mat spat the word.