Towers of Midnight

by Robert Jordan

  “Rand,” Elayne said, blushing, “though it’s not widely known, and I’d rather it stay that way.”

  “Rand al’Thor…” Morgase said, her mood darkening. “That—”

  “Mother,” Elayne said, raising a hand to grasp hers. “He’s a good man, and I love him. What you have heard is exaggeration or bitter rumor.”

  “But he’s…Elayne, a man who can channel, the Dragon Reborn!”

  “And still a man,” Elayne said, feeling his knot of emotions in the back of her mind, so warm. “Just a man, for all that is demanded of him.”

  Morgase drew her lips into a thin line. “I shall withhold judgment. Though in a way I still feel that I should have thrown that boy in the Palace dungeons the moment we found him skulking in the gardens. I didn’t like how he looked at you even then, mind you.”

  Elayne smiled, then gestured back to the seats. Morgase sat, and this time Elayne took the seat directly beside her, still clutching her mother’s hands. She sensed amusement from Birgitte, who stood with her back against the far wall, one knee bent so that the sole of her boot rested against the wood paneling.

  “What?” Elayne asked.

  “Nothing,” Birgitte said. “It’s good to see you two acting like mother and child, or at least woman and woman, rather than staring at each other like two posts.”

  “Elayne is Queen,” Morgase said stiffly. “Her life belongs to her people, and my arrival threatened to upset her Succession.”

  “It still might muddy things, Mother,” Elayne said. “Your appearance could open old wounds.”

  “I will have to apologize,” Morgase said. “Perhaps offer reparations.” She hesitated. “I had intended to stay away, daughter. It would be best if those who hated me still thought me dead. But—”

  “No,” Elayne said quickly, squeezing her hands. “This is for the best. We simply will have to approach it with skill and care.”

  Morgase smiled. “You make me proud. You will be a wonderful queen.”

  Elayne had to force herself to stop beaming. Her mother had never been free with compliments.

  “But tell me, before we go further,” Morgase said, voice growing more hesitant. “I have heard reports that Gaebril was…”

  “Rahvin,” Elayne said, nodding. “It’s true, Mother.”

  “I hate him for what he did. I can see him, using me, driving spikes through the hearts and loyalty of my dearest friends. And yet there is a part of me that longs to see him, irrationally.”

  “He used Compulsion on you,” Elayne said softly. “There is no other explanation. We will have to see if any from the White Tower can Heal it.”

  Morgase shook her head. “Whatever it was, it is faint now, and manageable. I have found another to give my affection.”

  Elayne frowned.

  “I will explain that at another point,” Morgase said. “I’m not certain I understand it yet. First we must decide what to do about my return.”

  “That is easy,” Elayne said. “We celebrate!”

  “Yes, but—”

  “But nothing, Mother,” Elayne said. “You have returned to us! The city, the entire nation, will celebrate.” She hesitated. “And after that, we will find an important function for you.”

  “Something that takes me away from the capital, so I cast no unfortunate shadows.”

  “But a duty that is important, so that you are not thought of as having been put out to pasture.” Elayne grimaced. “Perhaps we can give you charge of the western quarter of the realm. I have little pleasure in the reports of what is happening there.”

  “The Two Rivers?” Morgase asked. “And Lord Perrin Aybara?”

  Elayne nodded.

  “He is an interesting one, Perrin is,” Morgase said thoughtfully. “Yes, perhaps I could be of some use there. We have something of an understanding already.”

  Elayne raised an eyebrow.

  “He was behind my safe return to you,” Morgase said. “He is an honest man, and honorable as well. But also a rebel, despite his good intentions. You will not have an easy time of it if you come to blows with that one.”

  “I’d rather avoid it.” She grimaced. The easiest way to deal with it would be to find him and execute him, but of course she wasn’t going to do that. Even if reports had her fuming enough to almost wish that she could.

  “Well, we shall begin working on a way.” Morgase smiled. “It will help you to hear of what happened to me. Oh, and Lini is safe. I don’t know if you’ve worried over her or not.”

  “To be honest, I didn’t,” Elayne said, grimacing, feeling a spike of shame. “It seems that the collapse of Dragonmount itself couldn’t harm Lini.”

  Morgase smiled, then began her story. Elayne listened with awe, and not a little excitement. Her mother lived. Light be blessed, so many things had gone wrong recently, but at least one had gone right.

  The Three-fold Land at night was peaceful and quiet. Most animals were active near dusk and dawn, when it was neither sweltering nor freezing.

  Aviendha sat on a small rock outcropping, legs folded beneath her, looking down upon Rhuidean, in the lands of the Jenn Aiel, the clan that was not. Once Rhuidean had been shrouded in protective mists. That was before Rand had come. He’d broken the city in three very important, very discomforting ways.

  The first was the simplest. Rand had taken away the mist. The city had shed its dome like an algai’d’siswai unveiling his face. She didn’t know how Rand had caused the transformation; she doubted that he knew himself. But in exposing the city, he had changed it forever.

  The second way Rand had broken Rhuidean was by bringing it water. A grand lake lay beside the city, and phantom moonlight, filtered through clouds above, made the waters shine. The people were calling the lake Tsodrelle’Aman. Tears of the Dragon, though the lake should be called Tears of the Aiel. Rand al’Thor had not known how much pain he would cause in what he revealed. Such was the way with him. His actions were often so innocent.

  The third way Rand had broken the city was the most profound. Aviendha was slowly coming to understand this one. Nakomi’s words worried her, unnerved her. They had awakened in her shadows of memories, things from potential futures that Aviendha had seen in the rings during her first visit to Rhuidean, but that her mind could not quite recall, at least not directly.

  She worried that Rhuidean would stop mattering very soon. Once, the city’s ultimate purpose had been to show Wise Ones and clan chiefs their people’s secret past. To prepare them for the day when they’d serve the Dragon. That day had come. So who should come to Rhuidean now? Sending the Aiel leaders through the glass columns would be reminding them of toh they had begun to meet.

  This bothered Aviendha in ways that itched beneath her skin. She didn’t want to acknowledge these questions. She wanted to continue with tradition. But she could not get them out of her head.

  Rand caused so many problems. Still, she loved him. She loved him for his ignorance, in a way. It allowed him to learn. And she loved him for the foolish way he tried to protect those who did not want to be protected.

  Most of all, she loved him for his desire to be strong. Aviendha had always wanted to be strong. Learn the spear. Fight and earn ji. Be the best. She could feel him now, distant from her. They were so alike in this way.

  Her feet ached from running. She’d rubbed them with the sap of a segade plant, but she could still feel them throbbing. Her boots sat on the stone beside her, along with the fine woolen stockings that Elayne had given her.

  She was tired and thirsty—she would fast this night, contemplating, then refill her waterskin at the lake before going into Rhuidean tomorrow. Tonight, she sat and thought, preparing.

  The lives of the Aiel were changing. It was strength to accept change when it could not be avoided. If a hold was damaged during a raid and you rebuilt it, you never made it exactly the same way. You took the chance to fix the problems—the door that creaked in the wind, the uneven section of floor. To make it exactl
y as it had been would be foolishness.

  Perhaps traditions—such as coming to Rhuidean, and even living in the Three-fold Land itself—would need to be reexamined eventually. But for now, the Aiel couldn’t leave the wetlands. There was the Last Battle. And then the Seanchan had captured many Aiel and made Wise Ones into damane; that could not be allowed. And the White Tower still assumed that all Aiel Wise Ones who could channel were wilders. Something would have to be done about that.

  And herself? The more she thought of it, she realized that she couldn’t go back to her old life. She had to be with Rand. If he survived the Last Battle—and she intended to fight hard to make certain he did—he would still be a wetlander king. And then there was Elayne. Aviendha and she were going to be sister-wives, but Elayne would never leave Andor. Would she expect Rand to stay with her? Would that mean Aviendha would need to as well?

  So troubling, both for herself and her people. Traditions should not be maintained just because they were traditions. Strength was not strength if it had no purpose or direction.

  She studied Rhuidean, such a grand place of stone and majesty. Most cities disgusted her with their corrupt filth, but Rhuidean was different. Domed roofs, half-finished monoliths and towers, carefully planned sections with dwellings. The fountains flowed now, though a large section still bore the scars of when Rand had fought there. Much of that had been cleaned up by the families who lived here, Aiel who had not gone to war.

  There would be no shops. No arguments in streets, no murderers in alleys. Rhuidean might have been deprived of meaning, but it would remain a place of peace.

  I will go on, she decided. Pass through the glass columns. Perhaps her worries were true, and the passage was now far less meaningful, but she was genuinely curious to see what the others had seen. Besides, knowing one’s past was important in order to understand the future.

  Wise Ones and clan chiefs had been visiting this location for centuries. They returned with knowledge. Maybe the city would show her what to do about her people, and about her own heart.

  Chapter 46

  Working Leather

  Androl carefully took the oval piece of leather from the steaming water; it had darkened and curled. He moved quickly, picking it up in his callused fingers. The leather was springy and flexible now.

  He quickly sat down at his bench, a square of sunlight coming in through the window on his right side. He wrapped the leather around a thick wooden rod about two inches across, then poked holes around the edges.

  From there, he began stitching the leather to another piece he’d prepared earlier. A good stitching around the outside would keep it from fraying. A lot of leatherworkers were casual about stitching. Not Androl. The stitching was what people saw first; it stood out, like paint on a wall.

  As he worked, the leather dried and lost some of its springiness, but it was still flexible enough. He made the stitches neat and even. He pulled the last few tight and used them to tie the leather around the wooden rod; he’d cut those last once the leather dried.

  Stitching done, he added some ornaments. A name across the top, pounded into place using his small mallet and letter-topped pins. The symbols of the Sword and Dragon came next; he’d made those plates himself, based on the pins the Asha’man wore.

  At the bottom, using his smaller letter pins, he stamped the words, “Defend. Guard. Protect.” As the leather continued to dry, he got out his stain and gauze to carefully color the letters and the designs for contrast.

  There was a tranquility to this kind of work; so much of his life was about destruction these days. He knew that had to be. He’d come to the Black Tower in the first place because he understood what was to come. Still, it was nice to create something.

  He left his current piece, letting it dry while working on some saddle straps. He measured the straps with the marks on the side of his table, then reached for his shears in the tool pouch that hung from the side of his table—he’d made that himself. He was annoyed to discover that they weren’t in their place.

  Burn the day word got out that I had good shears in here, he thought. Despite Taim’s supposedly strict rules for the Black Tower, there was a distressing amount of chaos. Large infractions were punished with harsh measures, but the little things—like wandering into a man’s workshop and “borrowing” his shears—were ignored. Particularly if the borrower was one of the M’Hael’s favorites.

  Androl sighed. His belt knife was waiting at Cuellar’s place for sharpening. Well, he thought, Taim does keep telling us to look for excuses to channel… Androl emptied himself of emotion, then seized the Source. It had been months since he’d had trouble doing that—at first, he’d been able to channel only when he was holding a strap of leather. The M’Hael had beaten that out of him. It had not been a pleasant process.

  Saidin flooded into him, sweet, powerful, beautiful. He sat for a long moment, enjoying it. The taint was gone. What a wonder that was. He closed his eyes and breathed in deeply.

  What would it be like to draw in as much of the One Power as the others could? At times, he thirsted for that. He knew he was weak—weakest of the Dedicated in the Black Tower. Perhaps so weak he should never have been promoted from soldier. Logain had gone to the Lord Dragon about it, and made the promotion happen, against Taim’s express wishes.

  Androl opened his eyes, then held up the strap and wove a tiny gateway, only an inch across. It burst alive in front of him, slicing the strap in two. He smiled, then let it vanish and repeated the process.

  Some said that Logain had forced Androl’s promotion only as a dig against Taim’s authority. But Logain had said that it was Androl’s incredible Talent with gateways that had earned him the title of Dedicated. Logain was a hard man, broken around the edges, like an old scabbard that hadn’t been properly lacquered. But that scabbard still held a deadly sword. Logain was honest. A good man, beneath the scuff marks.

  Androl eventually finished with the straps. He walked over and snipped the string holding the oval piece of leather in place. It retained its shape, and he held it up to the sunlight, inspecting the stitching. The leather was stiff without being brittle. He fit it onto his forearm. Yes, the molding was good.

  He nodded to himself. One of the tricks to life was paying attention to the small details. Focus, make the small things right. If each stitch was secure on an armguard, then it wouldn’t fray or snap. That could mean the difference between an archer lasting through a barrage or having to put away his bow.

  One archer wouldn’t make a battle. But the small things piled up, one atop another, until they became large things. He finished the armguard by affixing a few permanent ties to its back, so one could bind it in place on the arm.

  He took his black coat off the back of his chair. The silver sword pin on the high collar glimmered in the window’s sunlight as he did up the buttons. He glanced at himself in the glass’s reflection, making certain the coat was straight. Small things were important. Seconds were small things, and if you heaped enough of those on top of one another, they became a man’s life.

  He put the armguard on his arm, then pushed open the door to his small workshop and entered the outskirts of the Black Tower’s village. Here, clusters of two-storied buildings were arranged much like any small town in Andor. Peaked roofs, thatched, with straight wooden walls, some stone and brick as well. A double line of them ran down the center of the village. Looking only at those, one might have thought he was strolling through New Braem or Grafendale.

  Of course, that required ignoring the men in black coats. They were everywhere, running errands for the M’Hael, going to practice, working on the foundations of the Black Tower structure itself. This place was still a work in progress. A group of soldiers—bearing neither the sword pin nor the red-and-gold Dragon—used the Power to blast a long trough in the ground beside the road. It had been decided that the village needed a canal.

  Androl could see the weaves—mostly Earth—spinning around the soldiers. In t
he Black Tower, you did as much with the Power as you could. Always training, like men lifting stones to build their strength. Light, how Logain and Taim pushed those lads.

  Androl moved out onto the newly graveled roadway. Much of that gravel bore melted edges from where it had been blasted. They had brought in boulders—through gateways, on weaves of Air—then shattered them with explosive weaves. It had been like a war zone, rocks shattering, spraying chips. With Power—and training—like that, the Asha’man would be able to reduce city walls to rubble.

  Androl continued on his way. The Black Tower was a place of strange sights, and melted gravel wasn’t nearly the strangest of them. Neither were the soldiers tearing up ground, following Androl’s own careful surveying. Lately, the strangest sight to him was the children. They ran and played, jumping into the trough left behind by the working soldiers, sliding down its earthen sides, then scrambling back up.

  Children. Playing in the holes created by saidin blasts. The world was changing. Androl’s own gramma—so ancient she’d lost every tooth in her mouth—had used stories of men channeling to frighten him into bed on nights when he tried to slip outside and count the stars. The darkness outside hadn’t frightened him, nor had stories of Trollocs and Fades. But men who could channel…that had terrified him.

  Now he found himself here, grown into his middle years, suddenly afraid of the dark but completely at peace with men who could channel. He walked down the road, gravel crunching beneath his boots. The children came scrambling up out of the ditch and flocked around him. He idly brought out a handful of candies, purchased on the last scouting mission.

  “Two each,” he said sternly as dirty hands reached for the candies. “And no shoving, mind you.” Hands went to mouths, and the children gave him bobbed heads in thanks, calling him “Master Genhald,” before racing away. They didn’t go back to the trench, but invented a new game, running off toward the fields to the east.