Mat muzzily considered the song he had been singing and grimaced. No one had heard “Dance with Jak o’ the Shadows” since Aldeshar fell; in his head, he could still hear the defiant song rising as the Golden Lions launched their last, futile charge at Artur Hawkwing’s encircling army. At least he had not been babbling it in the Old Tongue. He was not as juicy as he looked by half, but there had indeed been too many cups of oosquai. The stuff looked and tasted like brown water, but it hit your head like a mule’s kick. Moiraine will pack me off to the Tower yet, if I’m not careful. At least it would get me out of the Waste and away from Rand. Maybe he was drunker than he thought, if he considered that a fair trade. He shifted to “Tinker in the Kitchen.”
“Tinker in the kitchen, with a job of work to do.
Mistress up above, slipping on a robe of blue.
She dances down the staircase, her fancy all so free,
crying, Tinker, oh, dear Tinker, won’t you mend a pot for me?”
Some of Kadere’s men joined in the song as he danced back to where he had begun. The Aiel did not; among them, men did not sing except for battle chants or laments for the slain, and neither did Maidens, except among themselves.
Two Aielmen were squatting on the coping, showing none of the effects of the oosquai they had consumed, unless their eyes were the faintest bit glassy. He would be glad to get back where light-colored eyes were a rarity; growing up, he had not seen anything but brown or black except on Rand.
A few pieces of wood—wormholed arms and legs from chairs—lay on the broad paving stones, in the area left open by the watchers. An empty red pottery crock lay beside the coping, as did another that still held oosquai, and a silver cup. The game was to take a drink, then try to hit a target thrown into the air with a knife. None of Kadere’s men and few of the Aiel would dice with him, not when he won as often as he did, and they did not play at cards. Knife throwing was supposed to be different, especially with oosquai added in. He had not won as often as he did with dice, but half a dozen worked gold cups and two bowls lay inside the basin beneath him, along with bracelets and necklaces set with rubies or moonstones or sapphires, and a scattering of coins as well. His flat-crowned hat and an odd spear with a black haft rested beside his winnings. Some of it was even Aiel made. They were more likely to pay for something with a piece of loot than with a coin.
Corman, one of the Aiel on the coping, looked up at him as he cut off singing. A white scar slanted across his nose. “You are nearly as good with knives as you are with dice, Matrim Cauthon. Shall we call it an end? The light is failing.”
“There’s plenty of light.” Mat squinted at the sky; pale shadows covered everything here in the valley of Rhuidean, but the sky was still light enough to see against, at least. “My grandmother could make the throw in this. I could make it blindfolded.”
Jenric, the other squatting Aiel, peered around the onlookers. “Are there women here?” Built like a bear, he considered himself a wit. “The only time a man talks like that is when there are women to impress.” The Maidens scattered through the crowd laughed as hard as anyone else, and maybe harder.
“You think I can’t?” Mat muttered, ripping off the dark scarf he wore around his neck to hide the scar where he had once been hung. “Just you shout ‘now’ when you throw it up, Corman.” Hastily he tied the scarf around his eyes and drew one of his knives from his sleeve. The loudest sound was the watchers breathing. Not drunk? I’m juicier than a fiddler’s whelp. And yet, he suddenly felt his luck, felt that surge the way he did when he knew which spots would show before the dice stopped tumbling. It seemed to clear his head a little. “Throw it,” he murmured calmly.
“Now,” Corman called, and Mat’s arm whipped back, then forward.
In the stillness, the thunk of steel stabbing wood was as loud as the clatter of the target on the pavement.
No one said a word as he pulled the scarf back down around his neck. A piece of a chair arm no bigger than his hand lay in the open space, his blade stuck firmly in the middle. Corman had tried to shave the odds, it appeared. Well, he had never specified the target. He suddenly realized he had not even made a wager.
Finally one of Kadere’s men half-shouted, “The Dark One’s own luck, that!”
“Luck is a horse to ride like any other,” Mat said to himself. No matter where it came from. Not that he knew where his luck came from; he only tried to ride it as best he could.
As quietly as he had spoken, Jenric frowned up at him. “What was that you said, Matrim Cauthon?”
Mat opened his mouth to repeat himself, then closed it again as the words came clear in his mind. Sene sovya caba’donde ain dovienya. The Old Tongue. “Nothing,” he muttered. “Just talking to myself.” The onlookers were beginning to drift away. “I guess the light really is fading too much to go on.”
Corman put a foot on the piece of wood to wrench Mat’s knife free and brought it back to him. “Some time again maybe, Matrim Cauthon, some day.” That was the Aiel way of saying “never” when they did not want to say it right out.
Mat nodded as he slipped the blade back into one of the sheaths inside his sleeve; it was the same as the time he had rolled six sixes twenty-three times in a row. He could hardly blame them. Being lucky was not all it was made out. He noted with a bit of envy that neither Aiel staggered in the slightest as they joined the departing crowd.
Scrubbing a hand through his hair, Mat sat down heavily on the coping. The memories that had once cluttered his head like raisins in a cake now blended with his own. In one part of his mind he knew he had been born in the Two Rivers twenty years before, but he could remember clearly leading the flanking attack that turned the Trollocs at Maighande, and dancing in the court of Tarmandewin, and a hundred other things, a thousand. Mostly battles. He remembered dying more times than he wanted to think of. No seams between lives anymore; he could not tell his memories from the others unless he concentrated.
Reaching behind him, he set his wide-brimmed hat on his head and fished the odd spear across his knees. Instead of an ordinary spearhead, it had what looked like a two-foot sword blade, marked with a pair of ravens. Lan said that that blade had been made with the One Power during the War of the Shadow, the War of the Power; the Warder claimed it would never need sharpening and never break. Mat thought he would not trust that unless he had to. It might have lasted three thousand years, but he had little trust of the Power. Cursive script ran along the black haft, punctuated at either end with another raven, inlaid in some metal even darker than the wood. In the Old Tongue, but he could read it now, of course.
Thus is our treaty written; thus is agreement made.
Thought is the arrow of time; memory never fades.
What was asked is given. The price is paid.
One way down the wide street, half a mile off, was a square that would have been called large in most cities. The Aiel traders were gone for the night, but their pavilions still stood, made of the same grayish brown wool used for Aiel tents. Hundreds of traders had come to Rhuidean from every part of the Waste, for the biggest fair the Aiel had ever seen, and more arrived every day. The traders had been among the first to actually start living in the city.
Mat did not really want to look the other way, toward the great plaza. He could make out the shapes of Kadere’s wagons, awaiting more loading tomorrow. What appeared to be a twisted redstone doorframe had been heaved into one that afternoon; Moiraine had taken particular care to see it lashed firmly in place just as she wanted.
He did not know what she knew of it—and he was not about to ask; better if she forgot he was alive, though small chance of that—but whatever she knew, he was sure he knew more. He had stepped through it, a fool looking for answers. What he had gotten instead was a head full of other men’s memories. That, and dead. He tucked the scarf closer around his neck. And two other things. A silver foxhead medallion that he wore under his shirt, and the weapon across his knees. Small recompense. He ran his fingers li
ghtly down the script. Memory never fades. They had a sense of humor fit for Aiel, those folk on the other side of that doorway.
“Can you do that every time?”
He jerked his head around to stare at the Maiden who had just sat down beside him. Tall even for an Aiel, maybe taller than he was, she had hair like spun gold and eyes the color of a clear morning sky. She was older than he, maybe by ten years, but that had never put him off. Then again, she was Far Dareis Mai.
“I am Melindhra,” she went on, “of the Jumai sept. Can you do that every time?”
She meant the knife throwing, he realized. She gave her sept, but no clan. Aiel never did that. Unless . . . She had to be one of the Shaido Maidens who had come to join Rand. He did not really understand all this about societies, but as for Shaido, he remembered them trying to stick spears in him too well. Couladin did not like anyone associated with Rand, and what Couladin hated, the Shaido hated. On the other hand, Melindhra had come here to Rhuidean. A Maiden. But she wore a small smile; her gaze held an inviting light.
“Most of the time,” he said truthfully. Even when he did not feel it, his luck was good; when he did, it was perfect. She chuckled, her smile widening, as if she thought he was boasting. Women seemed to make up their minds whether you were lying without looking at the evidence. On the other hand, if they liked you, they either did not care or else decided even the most outrageous lie was true.
Maidens could be dangerous, whatever their clan—any woman could; he had learned that on his own—but Melindhra’s eyes were definitely not just looking at him.
Dipping into his winnings, he pulled up a necklace of gold spirals, each centered on a deep blue sapphire, the largest as big as the joint of his thumb. He could remember a time—his own memory—when the smallest of those stones would have made him sweat.
“They’ll look pretty with your eyes,” he said, laying the heavy strand in her hands. He had never seen a Maiden wear baubles of any sort, but in his experience, every woman liked jewelry. Strangely, they liked flowers nearly as well. He did not understand it, but then, he was willing to admit that he understood women less than he did his luck, or what had happened on the other side of that twisted doorway.
“Very fine work,” she said, holding it up. “I accept your offer.” The necklace disappeared into her belt pouch, and she leaned over to push his hat back on his head. “Your eyes are pretty. Like dark polished catseye.” She twisted around to pull her feet up onto the coping and sat with her arms wrapped around her knees, studying him intently. “My spear sisters have told me about you.”
Mat pulled his hat back into place and watched her warily from under the brim. What had they told her? And what “offer”? It was only a necklace. The invitation was gone from her eyes; she looked like a cat studying a mouse. That was the trouble with Maidens of the Spear. Sometimes it was hard to tell whether they wanted to dance with you, kiss you, or kill you.
The street was emptying, the shadows deepening, but he recognized Rand slanting across down the way, pipe clenched between his teeth. He was the only man in Rhuidean likely to be walking with a fistful of Far Dareis Mai. They’re always around him, Mat thought. Guarding him like a pack of she-wolves, leaping to do whatever he says. Some men might have envied him that much, at least. Not Mat. Not most of the time. If it had been a pack of girls like Isendre, now . . .
“Excuse me for a moment,” he told Melindhra hurriedly. Leaning his spear against the low wall around the fountain, he leaped up already running. His head still buzzed, but not so loudly as before, and he did not stagger. He had no worries about his winnings. The Aiel had very definite views of what was allowed: taking in a raid was one thing, theft another. Kadere’s men had learned to keep their hands in their pockets after one of them had been caught stealing. After a beating that left him striped from shoulders to heels, he had been sent away. The one water bag he had been allowed would not have been nearly enough for him to reach the Dragonwall, even if he had had any clothes on. Now Kadere’s men would not pick up a copper they found lying in the street.
“Rand?” The other man walked on with his encircling escort. “Rand?” Rand was not even ten paces away, but he did not waver. Some of the Maidens looked back, but not Rand. Mat felt cold suddenly, and it had nothing to do with the onset of night. He wet his lips and spoke again, not a shout. “Lews Therin.” And Rand turned around. Mat almost wished he had not.
For a time they only looked at one another in the twilight. Mat hesitated about going closer. He tried telling himself it was because of the Maidens. Adelin had been one of those who taught him a so-called game, Maidens’ Kiss, that he was never likely to forget; or play again, if he had any say in it. And he could feel Enaila’s gaze like an auger boring into his skull. Who would have expected a woman to go up like oil thrown on a fire just because you told her she was the prettiest little flower you had ever seen?
Rand, now. He and Rand had grown up together. They and Perrin, the blacksmith’s apprentice back in Emond’s Field, had hunted together, fished together, tramped through the Sand Hills to the edge of the Mountains of Mist, camped under the stars. Rand was his friend. Only now he was the kind of friend who might bash your head in without meaning to. Perrin could be dead, because of Rand.
He made himself walk to arm’s reach of the other man. Rand was nearly a head taller, and in the early-evening gloom he seemed taller yet. Colder than he had been. “I’ve been thinking, Rand.” Mat wished he did not sound hoarse. He hoped Rand would answer to his right name this time. “I’ve been away from home a long time.”
“We both have,” Rand said softly. “A long time.” Suddenly he gave a laugh, not loud, but almost like the old Rand. “Are you beginning to miss milking your father’s cows?”
Mat scratched his ear, grinning a bit. “Not that, exactly.” If he never saw the inside of another barn it would be too soon. “But I was thinking that when Kadere’s wagons go, I might go with them.”
Rand was silent. When he spoke again, the brief flash of mirth was gone. “All the way to Tar Valon?”
It was Mat’s turn to hesitate. He wouldn’t give me away to Moiraine. Would he? “Maybe,” he said casually. “I don’t know. That’s where Moiraine will want me. Maybe I’ll find a chance to get back to the Two Rivers. See if everything’s all right at home.” See if Perrin’s alive. See if my sisters are, and Mother and Da.
“We all have to do what we must, Mat. Not what we want to, very often. What we must.”
It sounded like an excuse, to Mat, as if Rand was asking him to understand. Only, he had done what he had to himself a few times. I can’t blame Perrin on him, not by himself. Nobody bloody forced me to follow after Rand like some bloody heelhound! Only that was not true, either. He had been forced. Just not by Rand. “You won’t—stop me leaving?”
“I don’t try to tell you to come or go, Mat,” Rand said wearily. “The Wheel weaves the Pattern, not me, and the Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills.” For all the world like a bloody Aes Sedai! Half turning to go, Rand added, “Don’t trust Kadere, Mat. In some ways he’s about as dangerous a man as you ever met. Don’t trust him an inch, or you might get your throat slit, and you and I wouldn’t be the only ones to regret that.” Then he was gone, down the street in the deepening dusk, with the Maidens around him like slinking wolves.
Mat stared after him. Trust the merchant? I wouldn’t trust Kadere if he was tied in a sack. So Rand did not weave the Pattern? He came close! Before ever any of them learned that the Prophecies had anything to do with them, they had learned that Rand was ta’veren, one of those rare individuals who, instead of being woven willy-nilly into the Pattern, instead forced the Pattern to shape itself around them. Mat knew about being ta’veren; he was one himself, though not as strong as Rand. Sometimes Rand could affect people’s lives, change the course of them, just by being in the same town. Perrin was ta’veren as well—or maybe had been. Moiraine had thought it was significant, finding three young men who grew u
p in the same village, all destined to be ta’veren. She meant to fit them all into her plans, whatever they were.
It was supposed to be a grand thing; all the ta’veren Mat had been able to learn about had been men like Artur Hawkwing, or women like Mabriam en Shereed, who stories said had founded the Compact of the Ten Nations after the Breaking. But none of the stories told what happened when one ta’veren was close to another as strong as Rand. It was like being a leaf in a whirlpool.
Melindhra stopped beside him and handed him his spear and a heavy, coarse-woven sack that clinked. “I put your winnings in this for you.” She was taller than he was, by a good two inches. She glanced after Rand. “I had heard you were near-brother to Rand al’Thor.”
“In a manner of speaking,” he said dryly.
“It does not matter,” she said dismissively, and concentrated her gaze on him, fists on her hips. “You attracted my interest, Mat Cauthon, before you gave me a regard-gift. Not that I will give up the spear for you, of course, but I have had my eye on you for days. You have a smile like a boy about to do mischief. I like that. And those eyes.” In the failing light her grin was slow and wide. And warm. “I do like your eyes.”
Mat tugged his hat straight, though it had not been crooked. From pursuer to pursued, in the blink of an eye. It could happen like that, with Aiel women. Especially Maidens. “Does ‘Daughter of the Nine Moons’ mean anything to you?” It was a question he asked women sometimes. The wrong answer would send him out of Rhuidean tonight if he had to try walking out of the Waste.
“Nothing,” she said. “But there are things I like to do by moonlight.” Putting an arm around his shoulder, she took off his hat and began to whisper in his ear. In no time at all he was grinning even more widely than she.
The Wheel of Time Page 406