The Wheel of Time

by Robert Jordan

  Pursing her lips, Lelaine directed a look like twin awls at Siuan. “Did she, now? You really should be wearing your stole, Sheriam. You are the Keeper. Will you walk with me, Siuan? It’s been far too long since we had a conversation alone.” With one hand, she drew back the doorflap, shifting that penetrating gaze to the other sisters. Sheriam blushed as only a redhead could, brilliantly, and fumbled the narrow blue stole from her belt pouch to lay it across her shoulders, but Myrelle and Carlinya met Lelaine’s study with level eyes. Morvrin had begun tapping her round chin with a fingertip as though unaware of anyone else. She might well have been. Morvrin was like that.

  Had Egwene’s orders sunk in? Siuan had no chance even for a firm look while putting the pitcher down. A suggestion from a sister of Lelaine’s standing, Sitter or not, was a command to one of Siuan’s standing. Gathering her cloak and skirts, she went out, murmuring thanks to Lelaine for holding the flap for her. Light, she hoped those fools had listened to what she said.

  Four Warders stood outside now, but one of them was Lelaine’s Burin, a copper-skinned stump of a Domani wrapped in a Warder cloak that made most of him seem not there, and Avar had been replaced by another of Myrelle’s, Nuhel Dromand, a tall, burly man with an Illianer beard that left his upper lip bare. The man was so still you might have thought him a statue if not for the wisps of mist in front of his nostrils. Arinvar bowed to Lelaine, a quick courtesy, though formal. Nuhel and Jori did not let their vigilance slacken. Nor did Burin, for that matter.

  The knot that secured Nightlily took as long to undo as it had to tie, but Lelaine waited patiently until Siuan straightened with the reins in her hands, then set off at a slow pace along the wooden walkway past dark tents. Moonshadows masked her face. She did not embrace the Power, so Siuan could not either. Trailed by Burin, Siuan walked beside Lelaine leading the mare, holding her silence. It was the Sitter’s place to begin, and not only because she was a Sitter. Siuan fought the urge to bend her neck and so lose the extra inch she had on the other woman. She seldom thought any longer of the time when she had been Amyrlin. She had been embraced as Aes Sedai once more, and part of being Aes Sedai meant fitting into your niche among the sisters instinctively. The bloody horse nuzzled at her hand as though it thought itself a pet, and she shifted the reins to her other hand long enough to wipe her fingers on her cloak. Filthy slobbering beast. Lelaine eyed her sideways, and she felt her cheeks heating. Instinct.

  “Strange friends you have, Siuan. I believe some of them were in favor of sending you away when you first appeared in Salidar. Sheriam, I might comprehend, though I’d think the fact that she stands so much higher than you now would make for awkwardness. That was the major reason I avoided you myself, to avoid awkwardness.”

  Siuan nearly gaped in astonishment. That came very near to talking about what was never to be talked about, very near, a transgression she would never had expected from this woman. From herself, perhaps—she had fitted herself into her niche, yet she was who she was—but never from Lelaine!

  “I hope you and I can become friends again, Siuan, though I can understand if that proves impossible. This meeting tonight confirms what Faolain told me.” Lelaine gave a small laugh and folded her hands at her waist. “Oh, don’t grimace so, Siuan. She didn’t betray you, at least not intentionally. She made one slip too many, and I decided to press her, rather hard. Not the way to treat another sister, but then, she’s really just an Accepted until she can be tested and passes. Faolain will make a fine Aes Sedai. She was very reluctant to surrender everything she gave. Just bits and pieces, really, and a few names, but put together with you in that gathering, it gives me a complete picture, I think. I suppose I can let her free of confinement now. She certainly won’t think of spying on me again. You and your friends have been very faithful to Egwene, Siuan. Can you be as faithful to me?”

  So that was why Faolain had seemed to go into hiding. How many “bits and pieces” had she revealed while being “pressed hard”? Faolain did not know everything, yet it would be best to assume that Lelaine did. But assume while revealing nothing unless she herself was pressed hard.

  Siuan stopped dead, drawing herself up. Lelaine halted, too, clearly waiting for her to speak. Even with her face half in shadow that was clear. Siuan had to steel herself to confront this woman. Some instincts were buried in the bone for Aes Sedai. “I’m faithful to you as a Sitter for my Ajah, but Egwene al’Vere is the Amyrlin Seat.”

  “So she is.” Lelaine’s expression remained unruffled, as much as Siuan could make out. “She spoke in your dreams? Tell me what you know of her situation, Siuan.” Siuan glanced over her shoulder at the stocky Warder. “Don’t mind him,” the Sitter said. “I haven’t kept a secret from Burin in twenty years.”

  “In my dreams,” Siuan agreed. She certainly did not intend to admit that had been only to summon her to Salidar in Tel’aran’rhiod. She was not supposed to have that ring in her possession. The Hall would take it away if they learned of it. Calmly—outwardly calm, at least—she related what she had told Myrelle and the others, and more. But not everything. Not the certainty of betrayal. That had to have come from the Hall itself—no one else had known of the plan to block the harbor, except the women involved—though whoever was accountable could not have known they were betraying Egwene. Only helping Elaida, which was mystery enough. Why would any among them want to help Elaida? There had been talk of Elaida’s secret adherents from the start, yet she herself had long since dismissed the notion. Most assuredly every Blue fervently wanted Elaida pulled down, but until she knew who was responsible, no Sitter, not even a Blue, would learn everything. “She’s called a sitting of the Hall for tomorrow . . . no, it would be tonight, now, when Last sounds,” she finished. “Inside the Tower, in the Hall of the Tower.”

  Lelaine laughed so hard that she had to brush a tear from her eye. “Oh, that is priceless. The Hall to sit right under Elaida’s nose, as it were. I almost wish I could let her know just to see her face.” Just as abruptly, she turned serious again. Lelaine had always had a ready laugh, when she chose to let it out, but the core of her was always serious. “So Egwene thinks the Ajahs may be turning on one another. That hardly seems possible. She’s only seen a handful of sisters, you say. Still, it bears looking into the next time in Tel’aran’rhiod. Perhaps someone can see what they can find in the Ajah quarters instead of concentrating on Elaida’s study.”

  Siuan barely suppressed a wince. She planned to do a little searching in Tel’aran’rhiod herself. Whenever she went to the Tower in the World of Dreams, she was a different woman in a different dress every time she turned a corner, but she would have to be even more cautious than usual.

  “Refusing rescue is understandable, I suppose, even laudable—no one wants any more dead sisters—but very risky,” Lelaine went on. “No trial, and not even a birching? What can Elaida be playing at? Can she think to make her take up as Accepted again? That hardly seems likely.” But she gave a small nod, as though considering it.

  This was heading in a dangerous direction. If sisters convinced themselves they knew where Egwene might be, the chance increased that someone would try to bring her out, Aes Sedai guards or no. Trying at the wrong place could be as risky as at the right one, if not more so. Worse, Lelaine was ignoring something.

  “Egwene has called the Hall to sit,” Siuan asked acidly. “Will you go?” Reproving silence answered her, and her cheeks grew hot again. Some things were buried in the bone.

  “Of course, I will go,” Lelaine said at last. A direct statement, yet there had been a pause. “The entire Hall will go. Egwene al’Vere is the Amyrlin Seat, and we have more than sufficient dream ter’angreal. Perhaps she will explain how she believes she can hold out if Elaida orders her broken. I would very much like to hear that.”

  “Then what are you asking me to be faithful to you about?”

  Instead of answering, Lelaine resumed her slow walk through the moonlight, carefully adjusting her shawl. Burin fo
llowed her, a half-invisible lion in the night. Siuan hurried to catch up, tugging Nightlily after her, fending off the fool mare’s attempts to nuzzle her hand again.

  “Egwene al’Vere is the lawful Amyrlin Seat,” Lelaine said finally. “Until she dies. Or is stilled. Should either happen, we would be back to Romanda trying for the staff and the stole and me forestalling her.” She snorted. “That woman would be a disaster as bad as Elaida. Unfortunately, she had enough support to forestall me, as well. We’d be back to that, except that if Egwene dies or is stilled, you and your friends will be as faithful to me as you’ve been to Egwene. And you will help me gain the Amyrlin Seat in spite of Romanda.”

  Siuan felt as though her stomach had turned to ice. No Blue would have been behind the first betrayal, but one Blue, at least, had reason to betray Egwene now.

  CHAPTER 2

  The Dark One’s Touch

  Beonin woke at first light, as was her habit, though little of the dawn trickled into her tent past the closed doorflap. Habits were good when they were the right habits. She had taught herself a number over the years. The air inside the tent held a touch of the night’s chill, but she left the brazier unlit. She did not intend to remain long. Channeling briefly, she lit a brass lamp, then heated the water in the white-glazed pitcher and washed her face at the rickety washstand with its bubbled mirror. Nearly everything in the small round tent was unsteady, from the tiny table to her narrow camp cot, and the only sturdy piece, a low-backed chair, was rude enough to have come from the poorest farm kitchen. She was accustomed to making do, though. Not all of the judgments she had been called on to make had been given in palaces. The meanest hamlet also deserved justice. She had slept in barns and even hovels to make it so.

  Moving deliberately, she put on the best riding dress she had with her, a plain gray silk that was very well cut, and snug boots that came to her knees, then began brushing her dark golden hair with an ivory-backed hairbrush that had belonged to her mother. Her reflection in the mirror was slightly distorted. For some reason, that irritated her this morning.

  Someone scratched at the tentflap, and a man called cheerily in a Murandian accent, “Breakfast, Aes Sedai, if it pleases you.” She lowered the brush and opened herself to the Source.

  She had not acquired a personal serving woman, and it often seemed a new face brought every meal, yet she remembered the stout, graying man with a permanent smile who entered at her command carrying a tray covered with a white cloth.

  “Leave it on the table, please, Ehvin,” she said, releasing saidar, and was rewarded with a widening of his smile, a deep bow over the tray, and another before he left. Too many sisters forgot the small courtesies to those beneath them. Small courtesies were the lubricant of daily life.

  Eyeing the tray without enthusiasm, she resumed her brushing, a twice-a-day ritual that she always found soothing. Rather than finding comfort in the brush sliding through her hair this morning, however, she had to make herself complete the full one hundred strokes before laying the brush on the washstand beside the matching comb and hand mirror. Once, she could have taught the hills patience, yet that had become harder and harder since Salidar. And nearly impossible since Murandy. So she schooled herself to it, as she had schooled herself to go to the White Tower against her mother’s stern wishes, schooled herself to accept the Tower’s discipline along with its teaching. As a girl, she had been headstrong, always aspiring to more. The Tower had taught her that you could achieve much if you could control yourself. She prided herself on that ability.

  Self-control or no self-control, lingering over her breakfast of stewed prunes and bread proved as difficult as completing her ritual with the hairbrush. The prunes had been dried, and perhaps too old to begin with; they had been stewed to mush, and she was sure she had missed a few of the black flecks that decorated the crusty bread. She tried to convince herself that anything that crunched between her teeth was a barley grain or a rye seed. This was not the first time she had eaten bread containing weevils, yet it was hardly a thing to enjoy. The tea had a strange aftertaste, too, as though that also was beginning to spoil.

  When she finally replaced the linen cloth over the carved wooden tray, she very nearly sighed. How long before nothing edible remained in the camp? Was the same happening inside Tar Valon? It must be so. The Dark One was touching the world, a thought as bleak as a field of jagged stones. But victory would come. She refused to entertain any other possibility. Young al’Thor had a great deal to answer for, a very great deal, yet he would—must!—achieve that somehow. Somehow. But the Dragon Reborn lay beyond her purview; all she could do was watch events unfold from afar. She had never liked sitting to one side and watching.

  All this bitter musing was useless. It was time to be moving. She stood up so quickly that her chair toppled over backward, but she left it lying there on the canvas ground-cloth.

  Putting her head out at the doorflap, she found Tervail on a stool on the walkway, his dark cloak thrown back, leaning on the scabbarded sword propped between his boots. The sun stood on the horizon, two-thirds of a bright golden ball, yet dark clouds in the other direction, massing around Dragonmount, suggested more snow before long. Or perhaps rain. The sun felt close to warm after the previous night. Either way, with luck she could be snug indoors soon.

  Tervail gave a small nod to acknowledge her without stopping what appeared to be an idle study of everyone who moved in his sight. There were none but laborers at the moment, men in rough woolens carrying baskets on their backs, men and women just as roughly clad driving high-wheeled carts, laden with bound firewood and sacks of charcoal and water barrels, that clattered along the rutted street. At least, his scrutiny would have seemed idle to someone lacking the Warder bond with him. Her Tervail, he was focused as a drawn arrow. It was only the men he studied, and his gaze lingered on those he did not know personally. With two sisters and a Warder dead at the hands of a man who could channel—it seemed beyond possibility there could be two murderers of that sort—everyone was leery of strange men. Everyone who knew, at least. The news had hardly been shouted abroad.

  How he thought he might recognize the killer was beyond her unless the man carried a banner, but she would not upbraid or belittle him for trying to perform his duty. Whipcord lean, with a strong nose and a thick scar along his jaw earned in her service, he had been little more than a boy when she found him, cat-quick and already one of the finest swordsmen in her native Tarabon, and for all the years since there had never been a moment when he did less. At least twenty times he had saved her life. Quite aside from brigands and footpads too ignorant to recognize an Aes Sedai, the law could be dangerous when one side or the other became desperate not to have the judgment go against them, and often he had spotted the peril before she herself.

  “Saddle Winterfinch for me and bring your own horse,” she told him. “We are going for the little ride.”

  Tervail raised one eyebrow slightly, half-glancing in her direction, then attached the scabbard to the right side of his belt and set off down the wooden walkway toward the horselines, walking very quickly. He never asked unnecessary questions. Perhaps she was more agitated within than she believed.

  Ducking back inside, she carefully wrapped the hand mirror in a silk scarf woven in a black-and-white Tairen maze and tucked it into one of the two large pockets sewn inside her good gray cloak, along with the hairbrush and comb. Her neatly folded shawl and a small box of intricately carved blackwood went into the other. The box contained a few pieces of jewelry, some that had come down from her mother and the rest from her maternal grandmother. She herself seldom wore jewelry aside from her Great Serpent ring, yet she always took the box and the brush, comb and mirror with her when she journeyed, reminders of the women whose memories she loved and honored, and of what they had taught her. Her grandmother, a noted advocate in Tanchico, had infused her with a love for the intricacies of the law, while her mother had demonstrated that it was always possible to better yourself. A
dvocates rarely became wealthy, though Collaris certainly had been more than comfortable, yet despite her disapproval, her daughter Aeldrine had become a merchant and amassed a tidy fortune buying and selling dyes. Yes, it was always possible to better yourself, if you seized the moment when it appeared, as she had when Elaida a’Roihan deposed Siuan Sanche. Matters since had not gone anywhere near as she had foreseen, of course. Matters seldom did. That was why a wise woman always planned alternative paths.

  She considered waiting inside for Tervail to return—he could not fetch two horses in mere minutes—but now that the time had actually arrived, her last stores of patience seemed to flee. Settling the cloak around her shoulders, she snuffed the lamp with an air of finality. Outside, however, she forced herself to stand in one place rather than pacing along the walkway’s rough planks. Pacing would attract eyes, and perhaps some sister who thought she was fearful of being alone. In all truth, she was afraid, a little. When a man could kill you, unseen, undetected, it was most reasonable to be afraid. She did not want company, though. She pulled up her cowl, signaling a desire for privacy, and drew the cloak around her.

  A gray cat, notch-eared and lean, began stropping himself against her ankles. There were cats all over the camp; they appeared anywhere that Aes Sedai gathered, tame as house pets however feral they had been before. After a few moments without having his ears scratched, the cat strolled away, as proud as a king, in search of someone who would see to them. He had plenty of candidates.

  Just moments earlier there had been only roughly garbed laborers and cart drivers in view, but now the camp began to bustle. Clusters of white-clad novices, the so-called “families,” scurried along the walkways to reach their classes, held in any tent large enough to accommodate them, or even in the open. Those who hurried by her ceased their childish prattle to offer perfect curtsies in passing. The sight never ceased to amaze her. Or to produce anger. A fair number of those “children” were well into their middle years or older—no few had at least some gray in their hair, and some were grandmothers!—yet they were bending to the ancient routines as well as any girl she had ever seen come to the Tower. And so many. A seemingly endless flood poured down the streets. How much had the Tower lost through its focus on bringing in girls born with the spark and those already on the brink of channeling through their own fumbling while leaving the rest to find their way to Tar Valon as they would or could? How much lost through insisting no girl above eighteen could submit to the discipline? Change was nothing she had ever sought—law and custom ruled an Aes Sedai’s life, a bedrock of stability—and some changes, such as these novice families, seemed too radical to go on, but how much had the Tower lost?