She found what Verin had told her to look for. A dark paneled door at the top of a rise, beside a dusty tapestry of a king on horseback receiving the surrender of another king. Verin had named the pair of them—men dead hundreds of years before Artur Hawkwing was born; Verin always seemed to know such things—but Egwene could not remember their names, or the long-vanished countries they had ruled. It was the only wall hanging she had seen that matched Verin’s description, though.
Minus the sound of her own footsteps, the hallway seemed even emptier than before, and more threatening. She rapped on the door, and entered hurriedly on the heels of an absentminded “Who is it? Come in.”
One step into the room, she stopped and stared. Shelves lined the walls, except for one door that must lead to inner rooms and except for where maps hung, often in layers, and what seemed to be charts of the night sky. She recognized the names of some constellations—the Plowman and the Haywain, the Archer and the Five Sisters—but others were unfamiliar. Books and papers and scrolls covered nearly every flat surface, with all sorts of odd things interspersed among the piles, and sometimes on top of them. Strange shapes of glass or metal, spheres and tubes interlinked, and circles held inside circles, stood among bones and skulls of every shape and description. What appeared to be a stuffed brown owl, not much bigger than Egwene’s hand, stood on what seemed to be a bleached white lizard’s skull, but could not be, for the skull was longer than her arm and had crooked teeth as big as her fingers. Candlesticks had been stuck about in a haphazard fashion, giving good light here and shadows there, although seeming in danger of setting fire to papers in some places. The owl blinked at her, and she jumped.
“Ah, yes,” Verin said. She was seated behind a table as cluttered as everything else in the room, a torn page held carefully in her hands. “It is you. Yes.” She noticed Egwene’s sideways glance at the owl, and said absently, “He keeps down mice. They chew paper.” Her gesture took in the entire room, and reminded her of the page she held. “Fascinating, this. Rosel of Essam claimed more than a hundred pages survived the Breaking, and she should have known, since she wrote barely two hundred years afterwards, but only this one piece still exists, so far as I know. Perhaps only this very copy. Rosel wrote that it held secrets the world could not face, and she would not speak of them plainly. I have read this page a thousand times, trying to decipher what she meant.”
The tiny owl blinked at Egwene again. She tried not to look at it. “What does it say, Verin Sedai?”
Verin blinked, very much as the owl had. “What does it say? It is a direct translation, mind, and reads almost like a bard reciting in High Chant. Listen. ‘Heart of the Dark. Ba’alzamon. Name hidden within name shrouded by name. Secret buried within secret cloaked by secret. Betrayer of Hope. Ishamael betrays all hope. Truth burns and sears. Hope fails before truth. A lie is our shield. Who can stand against the Heart of the Dark? Who can face the Betrayer of Hope? Soul of shadow, Soul of the Shadow, he is—’ ” She stopped with a sigh. “It ends there. What do you make of it?”
“I don’t know,” Egwene said. “I do not like it.”
“Well, why should you, child? Like it, or understand it? I have studied it nearly forty years, and I do neither.” Verin carefully placed the page inside a silk-lined folder of stiff leather, then casually stuffed the folder into a stack of papers. “But you did not come for that.” She rummaged across the table, muttering to herself, several times barely catching a pile of books or manuscripts before it toppled. Finally she came up with a handful of pages covered in a thin, spidery hand and tied with nubby string. “Here, child. Everything that is known about Liandrin and the women who went with her. Names, ages, Ajahs, where they were born. Everything I could find in the records. Even how they performed in their studies. What we know of the ter’angreal they took, too, which isn’t much. Only descriptions, for the most part. I do not know whether any of this will help. I saw nothing of any use in this.”
“Perhaps one of us will see something.” A sudden wave of suspicion took Egwene by surprise. If she didn’t leave something out. The Amyrlin seemed to trust Verin only because she had to. What if Verin was Black Ajah herself? She gave herself a shake. She had traveled all the way from Toman Head to Tar Valon with Verin, and she refused to believe this plump scholar could be a Darkfriend. “I trust you, Verin Sedai.” Can I, really?
The Aes Sedai blinked at her again, then dismissed whatever thought had come to her with a shake of her head. “That list I gave you may be important, or it may be so much waste of paper, but it isn’t the only reason I summoned you.” She started moving things on the table, making some shaky stacks taller to clear a space. “I understand from Anaiya that you might become a Dreamer. The last was Corianin Nedeal, four hundred and seventy-three years ago, and from what I can make of the records, she barely deserved the name. It would be quite interesting, if you do.”
“She tested me, Verin Sedai, but she couldn’t be sure that any of my dreams foretold the future.”
“That is only part of what a Dreamer does, child. Perhaps the least part. Anaiya believes in bringing girls along too slowly, in my opinion. Look here.” With one finger, Verin drew a number of parallel lines across the area she had cleared, lines clear in dust atop the old beeswax. “Let these represent worlds that might exist if different choices had been made, if major turning points in the Pattern had gone another way.”
“The worlds reached by the Portal Stones,” Egwene said, to show she had listened to Verin’s lectures on the journey from Toman Head. What could this possibly have to do with whether or not she was a Dreamer?
“Very good. But the Pattern may be even more complex than that, child. The Wheel weaves our lives to make the Pattern of an Age, but the Ages themselves are woven into the Age Lace, the Great Pattern. Who can know if this is even the tenth part of the weaving, though? Some in the Age of Legends apparently believe that there were still other worlds—even harder to reach than the worlds of the Portal Stones, if that can be believed—lying like this.” She drew more lines, cross-hatching the first set. For a moment she stared at them. “The warp and the woof of the weave. Perhaps the Wheel of Time weaves a still greater Pattern from worlds.” Straightening, she dusted her hands. “Well, that is neither here nor there. In all of these worlds, whatever their other variations, a few things are constant. One is that the Dark One is imprisoned in all of them.”
In spite of herself, Egwene stepped closer to peer at the lines Verin had drawn. “In all of them? How can that be? Are you saying there is a Father of Lies for each world?” The thought of so many Dark Ones made her shiver.
“No, child. There is one Creator, who exists everywhere at once for all of these worlds. In the same way, there is only one Dark One, who also exists in all of these worlds at once. If he is freed from the prison the Creator made in one world, he is freed on all. So long as he is kept prisoner in one, he remains imprisoned on all.”
“That does not seem to make sense,” Egwene protested.
“Paradox, child. The Dark One is the embodiment of paradox and chaos, the destroyer of reason and logic, the breaker of balance, the unmaker of order.”
The owl suddenly took flight on silent wings, landing atop a large white skull on a shelf behind the Aes Sedai. It peered down at the two women, blinking. Egwene had noticed the skull when she came in, with its curled horns and snout, and vaguely wondered what sort of ram had so big a head. Now she took in the roundness of it, the high forehead. Not a ram’s skull. A Trolloc.
She drew a shuddering breath. “Verin Sedai, what does this have to do with being a Dreamer? The Dark One is bound in Shayol Ghul, and I do not want to even think of him escaping.” But the seals on his prison are weakening. Even novices know that, now.
“Do with being a Dreamer? Why, nothing, child. Except that we must all confront the Dark One in one way or another. He is prisoned now, but the Pattern did not bring Rand al’Thor into the world for no purpose. The Dragon Reborn will
face the Lord of the Grave; that much is sure. If Rand survives that long, of course. The Dark One will try to distort the Pattern, if he can. Well, we have gone rather far afield, haven’t we?”
“Forgive me, Verin Sedai, but if this”—Egwene indicated the lines drawn in the dust—“has nothing to do with being a Dreamer, why are you telling me about it?”
Verin stared at her as if she were deliberately being dense. “Nothing? Of course it has something to do with it, child. The point is that there is a third constant besides the Creator and the Dark One. There is a world that lies within each of these others, inside all of them at the same time. Or perhaps surrounding them. Writers in the Age of Legends called it Tel’aran’rhiod, “the Unseen World.” Perhaps “the World of Dreams” is a better translation. Many people—ordinary folk who could not think of channeling—sometimes glimpse Tel’aran’rhiod in their dreams, and even catch glimmers of these other worlds through it. Think of some of the peculiar things you have seen in your dreams. But a Dreamer, child—a true Dreamer—can enter Tel’aran’rhiod.”
Egwene tried to swallow, but a lump in her throat stopped her. Enter it? “I . . . I don’t think I am a Dreamer, Verin Sedai. Anaiya Sedai’s tests—”
Verin cut her off. “—prove nothing one way or the other. And Anaiya still believes that you may very well be one.”
“I suppose I will learn whether I am or not eventually,” Egwene mumbled. Light, I want to be, don’t I? I want to learn! I want it all.
“You have no time to wait, child. The Amyrlin has entrusted a great task to you and Nynaeve. You must reach out for any tool you might be able to use.” Verin dug a red wooden box from under the welter on her table. The box was large enough to hold sheets of paper, but when the Aes Sedai opened the lid a crack, all she pulled out was a ring carved from stone, all flecks and stripes of blue and brown and red, and too large to be a finger ring. “Here, child.”
Egwene shifted the papers to take it, and her eyes widened in surprise. The ring certainly looked like stone, but it felt harder than steel and heavier than lead. And the circle of it was twisted. If she ran a finger along one edge, it would go around twice, inside as well as out; it only had one edge. She moved her finger along that edge twice, just to convince herself.
“Corianin Nedeal,” Verin said, “had that ter’angreal in her possession for most of her life. You will keep it, now.”
Egwene almost dropped the ring. A ter’angreal? I am to keep a ter’angreal?
Verin seemed not to notice her shock. “According to her, it eases the passage to Tel’aran’rhiod. She claimed it would work for those without Talent as well as for Aes Sedai, so long as you are touching it when you sleep. There are dangers, of course. Tel’aran’rhiod is not like other dreams. What happens there is real; you are actually there instead of just glimpsing it.” She pushed back the sleeve of her dress, revealing a faded scar the length of her forearm. “I tried it myself, once, some years ago. Anaiya’s Healing did not work as well as it should have. Remember that.” The Aes Sedai let her sleeve cover the scar again.
“I will be careful, Verin Sedai.” Real? My dreams are bad enough as they are. I want no dreams that leave scars! I’ll put it in a sack and stick it in a dark corner and leave it there. I’ll—But she wanted to learn. She wanted to be Aes Sedai, and no Aes Sedai had been a Dreamer in nearly five hundred years. “I’ll be very careful.” She slipped the ring into her pouch and tugged the drawstrings tight, then picked up the papers Verin had given her.
“Remember to keep it hidden, child. No novice, or even an Accepted, should have a thing like that in her possession. But it may prove useful to you. Keep it hidden.”
“Yes, Verin Sedai.” Remembering Verin’s scar, she almost wished another Aes Sedai would come along and take it from her right then.
“Good, child. Now, off with you. It grows late, and you must be up early to help with breakfast. Sleep well.”
Verin sat looking at the door for a time after it closed behind Egwene. The owl hooted softly behind her. Pulling the red box to her, she opened the lid all the way and frowned at what nearly filled the space.
Page upon page, covered with a precise hand, the black ink barely faded after nearly five hundred years. Corianin Nedeal’s notes, everything she had learned in fifty years of studying that peculiar ter’angreal. A secretive woman, Corianin. She had kept by far the greater part of her knowledge from everyone, trusting it only to these pages. Only chance and a habit of rummaging through old papers in the library had led Verin to them. As far as she could discover, no Aes Sedai besides herself knew of the ter’angreal; Corianin had managed to erase its existence from the records.
Once again she considered burning the manuscript, just as she had considered giving it to Egwene. But destroying knowledge, any knowledge, was anathema to her. And for the other. . . . No. It is best by far to leave things as they are. What will happen, will happen. She let the lid drop shut. Now where did I put that page?
Frowning, she began to search the stacks of books and papers for the leather folder. Egwene was already out of her mind.
CHAPTER
22
The Price of the Ring
Egwene had only gone a short distance from Verin’s rooms when Sheriam met her. The Mistress of Novices wore a preoccupied frown.
“If someone hadn’t remembered Verin speaking to you, I might not have found you.” The Aes Sedai sounded mildly irritated. “Come along, child. You are holding everything up! What are those papers?”
Egwene clutched them a little tighter. She tried to make her voice both meek and respectful. “Verin Sedai thinks I should study them, Aes Sedai.” What would she do if Sheriam asked to see them? What excuse could she give for refusing, what explanation for pages telling all about thirteen women of the Black Ajah and the ter’angreal they had stolen?
But Sheriam seemed to have dismissed the papers from her mind as soon as she asked. “Never mind that. You are wanted, and everyone is waiting.” She took Egwene’s arm and forced her to walk faster.
“Wanted, Sheriam Sedai? Waiting for what?”
Sheriam shook her head with exasperation. “Did you forget that you are to be raised to the Accepted? When you come to my study tomorrow, you will be wearing the ring, though I doubt it will soothe you very much.”
Egwene tried to stop short, but the Aes Sedai hurried her on, taking a narrow set of stairs that curled down through the library walls. “Tonight? Already? But I am half-asleep, Aes Sedai, and dirty, and. . . . I thought I would have days yet. To get ready. To prepare.”
“The hour waits on no woman,” Sheriam said. “The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills, when the Wheel wills. Besides, how would you prepare? You already know the things you must. More than your friend Nynaeve did.” She pushed Egwene through a tiny door at the foot of the stairs and hurried her across another hall to a ramp curving down and down.
“I listened to the lectures,” Egwene protested, “and I remember them, but . . . can’t I have a night’s sleep first?” The winding ramp seemed to have no end.
“The Amyrlin Seat decided there was no point in waiting.” Sheriam gave Egwene a sidelong smile. “Her exact words were, ‘Once you decide to gut a fish, there’s no use waiting till it rots.’ Elayne has already been through the arches by this time, and the Amyrlin means you to go through tonight as well. Not that I can see the point of such a hurry,” she added, half to herself, “but when the Amyrlin commands, we obey.”
Egwene let herself be pulled down the ramp in silence, a knot forming in her belly. Nynaeve had been far from forthcoming about what had happened when she was raised to the Accepted. She would not speak of it at all, except for a grimaced ‘I hate Aes Sedai!’ Egwene was trembling by the time the ramp finally ended at a broad hallway, far below the Tower in the rock of the island.
The hall was plain and undecorated, the pale rock through which it had been hewn smoothed but left otherwise untouched, and there was only one set of dark w
ooden doors, as tall and wide as fortress gates and as plain, although of smoothly finished and finely fitted planks, at the very end. Those great doors were so well balanced, though, that Sheriam easily pushed one open, and pulled Egwene through after her, into a great, domed chamber.
“Not before time!” Elaida snapped. She stood to one side in her red-fringed shawl, beside a table on which sat three large silver chalices.
Lamps on tall stands illumined the chamber, and what sat centered under the dome. Three rounded, silver arches, just tall enough to walk under, sitting on a thick silver ring with their ends touching where they joined it. An Aes Sedai sat cross-legged on the bare rock before each of the spots where arches joined ring, all three wearing their shawls. Alanna was the sister of the Green Ajah, but she did not know the Yellow sister, or the White.
Surrounded by the glow of saidar embraced, the three Aes Sedai stared fixedly at the arches, and within the silver structure an answering glow flickered and grew. That structure was a ter’angreal, and whatever it had been made for in the Age of Legends, now novices passed through it to become Accepted. Inside it, Egwene would have to face her fears. Three times. The white light within the arches no longer flickered; it stayed within them as if confined, but it filled the space, made it opaque.
“Be easy, Elaida,” Sheriam said calmly. “We will be done soon.” She turned to Egwene. “Novices are given three chances at this. You may refuse twice to enter, but at the third refusal, you are sent away from the Tower forever. That is how it is done usually, and you certainly have the right to refuse, but I do not think the Amyrlin Seat will be pleased with you if you do.”
“She should not be given this chance.” There was iron in Elaida’s voice, and her face was scarcely softer. “I do not care what her potential is. She should be put out of the Tower. Or failing that, set to scrubbing floors for the next ten years.”
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