Lord of Chaos

Map: Cairhien

## Chapter 18

#### A Taste of Solitude

Are there any more problems you want me to deal with?” Rand’s tone made it clear he meant problems they should have already solved. Rhuarc shook his head slightly; Berelain’s face reddened as well. “Good. Set a date for Mangin’s hanging—” If it hurts too much, Lews Therin laughed in a hoarse whisper, make it hurt someone else instead. His responsibility. His duty. He stiffened his back to keep that mountain from crushing him. “Hang him tomorrow. Tell him I said so.” He paused, glaring, then realized he was waiting for Lews Therin’s comment, not theirs. Waiting for a dead man’s voice, a dead madman. “I’m going to the school.”

Rhuarc pointed out that the Wise Ones were probably on their way from the tents, and Berelain that Tairen and Cairhienin nobles alike would be clamoring to know where she was hiding Rand, but he told them to tell the truth. And tell the lot of them not to follow him; he would return when he returned. The pair looked as if they had swallowed sour plums, but he snatched up the Dragon Scepter and left.

In the hallway, Jalani and a yellow-haired Red Shield not much older than she came smoothly to their feet, glancing at one another hastily. Otherwise the corridor was empty except for a few scurrying servants. One of each; it figured, though Rand wondered whether Urien had had to wrestle Sulin to make it so.

Motioning them to follow, he went straight down to the nearest stable, where the stalls were the same green marble as the columns that held the high ceiling. The head groom, a gnarled fellow with big ears, the Rising Sun of Cairhien worked on his short leather vest, was so shocked by Rand appearing with only two Aiel for escort that he kept staring at the stable doors for more and bowed so often between stares that Rand wondered whether he would ever get a horse. But once the man shouted “A horse for the Lord Dragon!” six stablemen leaped to prepare a tall, fiery-eyed bay gelding with a gold-fringed bridle and a gold-worked saddle atop a sky-blue saddlecloth fringed and embroidered with rising suns in gold.

As quickly as they moved, the big-eared head groom was gone by the time Rand swung into the saddle. To hunt for the coterie of followers the Dragon Reborn must have, possibly. Or to tell someone Rand was leaving the palace practically alone. Cairhien was like that. The sleek bay wanted to frisk, but while still trying to settle his dancing, Rand trotted him out of the palace grounds, past startled Cairhienin guards. He was not worried about assassins laying an ambush from the big-eared man’s warning; anyone who ambushed him would find they had come to the shearing without clippers. Any delay, though, and likely he would have nobles crowding around so thickly he could not leave without them. It felt good to be alone for a change.

He glanced at Jalani and the young Aielman trotting beside the bay. Dedric, he thought; a Jaern Rift Codara. Almost alone. He could feel Alanna still, and Lews Therin moaned in the far distance over his dead Ilyena. He could never be entirely alone. Maybe never again. What he had of solitude felt good, though, after so long.

Cairhien was a large city, its major streets wide enough to dwarf the people crowding them. Each street slashed arrow-straight through hills carved and stone-terraced until they seemed man-made, meeting every other street at a right angle. Throughout the city rose huge towers wrapped in wooden scaffolding that nearly hid elaborate square-arched buttresses, towers that seemed to touch the sky and meant to go higher. Twenty years since the fabled topless towers of Cairhien, a wonder of the world, had burned like torches during the Aiel War, and their rebuilding was still not done.

Making a way was not easy; the trotting did not last. Rand had grown accustomed to crowds opening up before his usual escort, yet with hundreds of cadin’sor-clad Aiel just within his sight among the slow-flowing throng, it was not quite the same, not for only two. Some of those Aiel recognized him, he thought, but they ignored him, not about to cause embarrassment by calling attention when the Car’a’carn wore a sword and, not as bad but hardly to be applauded, rode a horse. To Aiel, shame and embarrassment were far worse than pain, though of course ji’e’toh had to complicate things with degrees Rand understood only in part. Aviendha could explain it certainly; she seemed to want him to become Aiel.

Plenty of others jammed the streets too, Cairhienin in their usual drab clothing and also in the shabby bright colors of those who had lived in the Foregate before it burned, Tairens a head taller in the crowd, if not as tall as the Aiel. Ox-carts and horse-drawn wagons threaded through the throng, yielding way to closed lacquer carriages and sedan chairs, sometimes with a House banner. Hawkers cried wares from trays, and peddlers from pushcarts; musicians, tumblers and jugglers performed on street corners. Both were changes. Once Cairhien had been quiet, subdued, except in the Foregate. Some of that sobriety still held. The shops still had small signs, displaying no goods outside. And if the former Foregaters seemed raucous as ever, laughing loudly and shouting at one another, arguing right there in the street, the other Cairhienin still eyed them with prim distaste.

No one but Aiel recognized the bareheaded horseman in a silver-worked blue coat, though occasionally someone glanced twice at his saddlecloth. The Dragon Scepter was not well known here yet. Nobody gave way. Rand felt torn between impatience and the pleasure of not being the focus of every eye.

The school occupied a palace a mile from the Sun Palace, once the property of one Lord Barthanes, now dead and unlamented, a great heap of stone squares with sharply angular towers and severe balconies. The tall gates onto the main courtyard stood open, and when Rand rode in, he found a welcome.

Idrien Tarsin, who headed the school, stood on the broad steps at the far end of the courtyard, a stocky woman in a plain gray dress, straight-backed enough to seem a head taller than she was. She was not alone. Dozens and dozens of others crowded the stone steps, men and women in wool much more often than silk, frequently worn and seldom ornamented. Older folk, mainly. Idrien was not the only one with more gray than black in her hair, or no black at all, or no hair at all, though here and there a younger face peered eagerly at Rand. Younger meaning ten or fifteen years older than he.

They were the teachers, in a way, though this was not exactly a school. Pupils did come to learn—young men and women hung gaping out of every window around the courtyard, now—but for the most part Rand had wanted to gather knowledge in one place. Time and again he had heard how much had been lost in the War of the Hundred Years and the Trolloc Wars. How much more must have vanished in the Breaking of the World? If he was going to Break the World again, he meant to create repositories where knowledge could be preserved. Another school had already started in Tear, though just barely, and he had begun seeking a place in Caemlyn.

Nothing ever goes as you expect, Lews Therin murmured. Expect nothing, and you will not be surprised. Expect nothing. Hope for nothing. Nothing.

Suppressing the voice, Rand dismounted.

Idrien came to meet him with a curtsy. As usual, when she rose it was something of a shock to realize yet again that she was barely as tall as his chest. “Welcome to the School of Cairhien, my Lord Dragon.” Her voice was surprisingly sweet and youthful, a startling contrast to her blunt face. He had heard it harden, though, with students and teachers; Idrien held a tight rein on the school.

“How many spies do you have in the Sun Palace?” he asked mildly. She looked startled, perhaps that he would suggest such a thing, but more likely because the question was not proper manners in Cairhien.

“We have prepared a small display.” Well, he had not really expected an answer. She eyed the two Aiel like a woman eyeing two large and muddy dogs of uncertain temperament, but contented herself with a sniff. “If my Lord Dragon will follow me?”

He followed, frowning. A display of what?

The entry hall of the school was a vast chamber of polished dark gray columns and pale gray floor tiles, with a gray-veined marble balcony all the way around three spans up. Now it was largely filled with . . . contraptions. The teachers crowding in behind him went running to them. Rand stared, suddenly remembering what Berelain had said about the school making things. But what?

Idrien told him—after a fashion—leading him from one to the next, where men and women explained what they had created. He even understood some of it.

An array of screens and scrapers and crocks full of linen scraps produced finer paper than anyone made now, or so its inventor said. A great hulking shape of levers and huge flat plates was a printing press, much better than those already in use, according to its maker. Dedric showed considerable interest in that, until Jalani apparently decided he should be watching for somebody trying to attack the Car’a’carn: she trod hard on his foot, and he limped after Rand. There was a plow on wheels meant to turn six furrows at once—Rand could recognize that, at least; he thought it might work—and another thing with shafts for horses that was meant to harvest hay in place of men with scythes, and a new sort of loom that was easier to operate, so the fellow who made it said. There were painted wooden models of viaducts to carry water to places where the wells were going dry, of new drains and sewers for Cairhien, even a tabletop exhibit with tiny figures of men and carts, cranes and rollers, meant to show how roads could be built and paved as well as they had in years long gone.

Rand did not know whether any of it would work, but some looked worth trying. That plow, for instance, could be handy if Cairhien was ever to feed itself again. He would tell Idrien to build it. No, he would tell Berelain to tell her. Always follow lines of authority in public view, Moiraine had said, unless you mean to undercut someone and bring them down.

Among the teachers he knew was Kin Tovere, a stocky lensmaker who kept wiping his bald head with a striped handkerchief. Aside from looking glasses in various sizes—“Count the hairs in a man’s nose at a mile,” he said; that was how he talked—he had a lens as big across as his head, a sketch of the looking glass to hold it and more like it, a thing six paces long, and a scheme for looking at the stars, of all things. Well, Kin always wanted to look at things far off.

Idrien wore a look of quiet satisfaction while Rand studied Master Tovere’s sketch. She was not much for anything but the practical. During the siege of Cairhien, she herself had built a huge crossbow, all levers and pulleys, that hurled a small spear a full mile hard enough to drive through a man. Had she her way, there would be no time wasted on anything not real and solid.

“Build it,” Rand told Kin. Maybe it was of no real use, not like the plow, but he liked Tovere. Idrien sighed and shook her head. Tovere beamed. “And I’m giving you a prize of a hundred gold crowns. This looks interesting.” That produced a buzz, and it was close whether Idrien’s jaw or Tovere’s dropped farther.

Other things in the hall made Tovere seem as levelheaded as the would-be road-builder. The round-faced fellow who did something with cow dung that ended with a bluish flame burning at the end of a brass tube; even he did not seem to know what it was for. The lanky young woman whose display was mainly a shell of paper moored by strings and kept aloft by the heat rising from a small fire in a brazier. She mumbled something about flying—he was sure that was what she said—and birds’ wings being curved—she had sketches of birds, and of what seemed to be wooden birds—but she was so tongue-tied meeting the Dragon Reborn that he could not understand another word, and Idrien certainly could not explain what it was about.

And then there was the balding man with an assemblage of brass tubes and cylinders, rods and wheels, all covering a heavy wooden table freshly gouged and scraped, some gouges nearly deep enough to pierce the tabletop. For some reason half the man’s face and one of his hands were swathed in bandages. As soon as Rand appeared in the entry hall, he had begun anxiously building a fire under one of the cylinders. When Rand and Idrien stopped in front of him, he moved a lever and smiled proudly.

The contraption began to quiver, steam hissing out from two or three places. The hiss grew to a shriek, and the thing began trembling. It groaned ominously. The shriek became ear-piercing. It shook so hard the table moved. The balding man threw himself at the table, fumbling a plug loose on the largest cylinder. Steam rushed out in a cloud, and the thing went still. Sucking burned fingers, the man managed a weak grin.

“Very nice brasswork,” Rand said before letting Idrien lead him away. “What was that?” he asked quietly when they were out of earshot.

She shrugged. “Mervin will not tell anyone. Sometimes there are bangs in his rooms loud enough to make doors tremble, and he has scalded himself six times so far, but he claims it will bring a new Age when he makes it work.” She glanced at Rand uneasily.

“Mervin is welcome to bring it if he can,” he told her dryly. Maybe the thing was supposed to make music? All those shrieks? “I don’t see Herid. Did he forget to come down?”

Idrien sighed again. Herid Fel was an Andoran who somehow had ended up reading in the Royal Library here—a student of history and philosophy, he called himself—and hardly the sort to endear himself to her. “My Lord Dragon, he never comes out of his study except to go to the Library.”

Getting away required a small speech, delivered standing on a stool with the Dragon Scepter in the crook of his arm, telling them that their creations were wonderful. Some might be, for all he knew. Then he was able to slip off with Jalani and Dedric. And Lews Therin, and Alanna. They left behind a pleased babble. He wondered whether any besides Idrien had ever thought of making a weapon.

Herid Fel’s study lay on an upper floor, where the view was of nothing much but the dark tile roofs of the school and one square, stepped tower that blocked off anything else. Herid claimed he never looked out of the windows anyway.

“You can wait out here,” Rand said on reaching the narrow door—the room inside was narrow, too—and was surprised when Jalani and Dedric agreed right away.

A number of small things suddenly came together. Jalani had not given his sword one disapproving look, something she made a point of, since he came out of the meeting with Rhuarc and Berelain. Neither she nor Dedric had so much as glanced at the horse in the stable, or made a disparaging remark about how his own legs should be good enough for him, another thing she did regularly.

As if for confirmation, as Rand turned to the door, Jalani briefly eyed Dedric up and down. Briefly, but with decidedly open interest and a smile. Dedric ignored her so intently he might as well have stared. That was the Aiel way, pretending not to understand until she made herself clearer. She would have done the same had he begun the looking.

“Enjoy yourselves,” Rand said over his shoulder, producing two startled stares, and went inside.

The small room was all books and scrolls and sheafs of paper, or so it appeared. Crowded shelves walled the room to the ceiling except for the doorway and two open windows. Books and papers covered the table that took up most of the floor, lay in a jumble on the extra chair, even here and there on the little remaining of the floor. Herid Fel himself was a stout man who looked as if he had forgotten to brush his thin gray hair this morning. The pipe clenched in his teeth was unlit, and pipe ash sprinkled the front of his rumpled brown coat.

He blinked at Rand for a moment, then said, “Ah. Yes. Of course. I was about to . . . ” He frowned at the book in his hands, then sat down behind the table and fingered through some loose sheets of paper in front of him, muttering quietly. Turning to the title page of the book, he scratched his head. Finally he looked back at Rand, and blinked in surprise again. “Oh, yes. What was it you wanted to talk about?”

Rand cleared the second chair, putting the books and papers on the floor, propped the Dragon Scepter on the pile and sat down. He had tried talking with others here, philosophers and historians, learned women and scholars, and it was like trying to pin down an Aes Sedai. They were very certain of what they were certain of, and about the rest they drowned you in words that could mean anything. They either grew angry when pressed—they seemed to think he was doubting their knowledge, apparently a deep sin—or they increased the torrent of words till he did not know what half of them meant, or they became obsequious, trying to find out what he wanted to hear so they could tell it to him. Herid was different. One of the things that always seemed to slip his mind was that Rand was the Dragon Reborn, which suited Rand very well. “What do you know about Aes Sedai and Warders, Herid? About the bond?”

“Warders? Bond? As much as anybody not Aes Sedai, I suppose. Which isn’t saying much, mind.” Herid sucked at his pipe, not seeming to realize it had gone out. “What did you want to know?”

“Can it be broken?”

“Broken? Oh, no. I don’t think so. Unless you mean when the Warder or the Aes Sedai dies. That breaks it. I think. I remember hearing something about the bond once, but I can’t remember . . . ” Catching sight of a sheaf of notes on his table, Herid drew it to him with his fingertips and began reading, frowning and shaking his head. The notes looked to be in his own hand, but he did not seem to agree with them anymore.

Rand sighed; he almost thought if he turned his head quickly enough, he would see Alanna’s hand poised over him. “What about the question I posed you last time? Herid? Herid?”

The stout man’s head jerked up. “Oh. Yes. Ah, question. Last time. Tarmon Gai’don. Well, I don’t know what it will be like. Trollocs, I suppose? Dreadlords? Yes. Dreadlords. But I have been thinking. It can’t be the Last Battle. I don’t think it can. Maybe every Age has a Last Battle. Or most of them.” Suddenly he frowned down his nose at the pipe in his teeth, and began rummaging across the table. “I have a tinderbox here somewhere.”

“What do you mean it can’t be the Last Battle?” Rand tried to keep his voice smooth. Herid always came to the point; you just had to prod him toward it.

“What? Yes, exactly the point. It can’t be the Last Battle. Even if the Dragon Reborn seals the Dark One’s prison again as well as the Creator made it. Which I don’t think he can do.” He leaned forward and lowered his voice conspiratorially. “He isn’t the Creator, you know, whatever they say in the streets. Still, it has to be sealed up again by somebody. The Wheel, you see.”

“I don’t see . . . ” Rand trailed off.

“Yes, you do. You’d make a good student.” Snatching his pipe out, Herid drew a circle in the air with the stem. “The Wheel of Time. Ages come and go and come again as the Wheel turns. All the catechism.” Suddenly he stabbed a point on that imaginary wheel. “Here the Dark One’s prison is whole. Here, they drilled a hole in it, and sealed it up again.” He moved the bit of the pipe along the arc he had drawn. “Here we are. The seal’s weakening. But that doesn’t matter, of course.” The pipestem completed the circle. “When the Wheel turns back to here, back to where they drilled the hole in the first place, the Dark One’s prison has to be whole again.”

“Why? Maybe the next time they’ll drill through the patch. Maybe that’s how they could do it the last time—drill into what the Creator made, I mean—maybe they drilled the Bore through a patch and we just don’t know.”

Herid shook his head. For a moment he stared at his pipe, once more realizing it was unlit, and Rand thought he might have to recall him again, but instead Herid blinked and went on. “Someone had to make it sometime. For the first time, that is. Unless you think the Creator made the Dark One’s prison with a hole and patch to begin.” His eyebrows waggled at the suggestion. “No, it was whole in the beginning, and I think it will be whole again when the Third Age comes once more. Hmmm. I wonder if they called it the Third Age?” He hastily dipped a pen and scribbled a note in the margins of an open book. “Umph. No matter now. I’m not saying the Dragon Reborn will be the one to make it whole, not in this Age necessarily anyway, but it must be so before the Third Age comes again, and enough time passed since it was made whole—an Age, at least—that no one remembers the Dark One or his prison. No one remembers. Um. I wonder . . . ” He peered at his notes and scratched his head, then seemed startled to find he used the hand holding the pen. There was a smudge of ink in his hair. “Any Age where seals weaken must remember the Dark One eventually, because they will have to face him and wall him up again.” Sticking his pipe back between his teeth, he tried to make another note without dipping the pen.

“Unless the Dark One breaks free,” Rand said quietly. “To break the Wheel of Time, and remake Time and the world in his own image.”

“There is that.” Herid shrugged, frowning at the pen. Finally he thought of the inkpot. “I don’t suppose there’s much you or I can do about it. Why don’t you come study here with me? I don’t suppose Tarmon Gai’don will happen tomorrow, and it would be as good a use of your time as—”

“Is there any reason you can think of to break the seals?”

Herid’s eyebrows shot up. “Break the seals? Break the seals? Why would anyone but a madman want to do that? Can they even be broken? I seem to remember reading somewhere they can’t, but I don’t recall now that it said why. What made you think of a thing like that?”

“I don’t know,” Rand sighed. In the back of his head Lews Therin was chanting. Break the seals. Break the seals, and end it. Let me die forever.

Fanning herself idly with a corner of her shawl, Egwene peered both ways down the crossing hallway, hoping she had not gotten lost again. She was very much afraid she had, and not pleased if it was so. The Sun Palace had miles of corridor, none much cooler than outside, and she had spent little time in them to learn her way.

There were Maidens everywhere in twos and threes—far more than Rand normally brought with him; certainly far more than usual when he was not there. They simply appeared to be strolling, but to her something about them seemed . . . furtive. A number knew her by sight, and she might have expected a friendly word—the Maidens especially seemed to have decided that being a pupil of the Wise Ones outweighed being Aes Sedai, as they thought she was, to the point that she was not Aes Sedai any longer—but when they saw her, they looked as startled as an Aiel was likely to look. Acknowledging nods came a beat late, and they hurried on without speaking. It was not behavior conducive to asking directions.

Instead she frowned at a sweaty-faced servant with thin blue and gold stripes on his cuffs, wondering whether he knew how to get where she wanted to go from here. The difficulty was, she was not exactly sure where it was she did want to go. Unfortunately, the fellow was plainly on edge with so many Aiel about. Seeing an Aiel woman frowning at him—they never seemed to notice her dark eyes, which certainly no Aiel had—and his head probably full of tales about the Maidens, he turned and ran as hard as he could.

She sniffed irritably. She did not really need directions anyway. Sooner or later she had to come on something she recognized. Certainly no point in going back the way she had come, but which of the other three? Choosing one, she strode off firmly, and even some of the Maidens stepped out of her way.

In truth, she was feeling a bit grumpy. Seeing Aviendha again after all this time would have been wonderful, if the woman had not simply nodded to her coolly and ducked into a private conference in Amys’ tent. Private indeed, Egwene learned when she tried to follow.

You were not summoned. Amys had said sharply, while Aviendha sat cross-legged on a cushion, staring dejectedly at the layered carpets in front of her. Go and take a walk. And eat something. A woman is not meant to look like a reed.

Bair and Melaine had come hurrying, summoned by gai’shain, but Egwene was excluded. It had helped a little seeing a string of Wise Ones turned away too, though only a little. After all, she was Aviendha’s friend, and if she was in some sort of trouble, Egwene wanted to help.

“Why are you here?” Sorilea’s voice demanded behind her.

Egwene was proud of herself. She turned calmly to face the Wise One of Shende Hold. A Jarra Chareen, Sorilea had thin white hair and a face that was leathery skin pulled tight over her skull. She was all sinew and bone, and though she could channel, she had less strength in the Power than most novices Egwene had met. In fact, in the Tower, she certainly would never have gone beyond novice before being sent away. Of course, channeling did not really count for much among Wise Ones. Whatever the mysterious rules governing Wise Ones, when Sorilea was about, leadership always settled on her. Egwene thought it was pure strength of will.

A good head taller than Egwene, as most Aiel women were, Sorilea stared at her with a green-eyed gaze that could knock a bull off its feet. That was a relief; it was Sorilea’s normal way of looking at everyone. Had she a bone to pick, the walls would have been crumbling wherever she looked and tapestries catching fire. Well, that was how it seemed, anyway.

“I’ve come to see Rand,” Egwene said. “Walking in from the tents seemed as good exercise as any.” Certainly better than walking five or six times briskly around the city walls, the usual Aiel notion of light exercise. She hoped Sorilea did not ask why. She truly did not like lying to any of the Wise Ones.

Sorilea stared at her a moment as if she had sniffed something hidden, then hitched her shawl up on narrow shoulders and said, “He is not here. He has gone to his school. Berelain Paeron suggests it would not be wise to follow him, and I agree.”

Keeping her face smooth was an effort for Egwene. That the Wise Ones would take to Berelain had been the last thing she expected. They treated her as a woman of sense and respect, which made no sense at all to Egwene, and not because Rand had given her authority. They cared not a twig for any wetlander authority. It seemed ridiculous. The Mayener woman flaunted herself in scandalous clothes and flirted outrageously—when she did not do more than flirt, as Egwene darkly believed she did. Not at all the sort of woman for Amys to smile on like a favorite daughter. Or Sorilea.

Unbidden thoughts of Gawyn floated up in her head. It had only been a dream, and his dream at that. Certainly nothing like what Berelain did.

“When a young woman’s cheeks redden for no apparent reason,” Sorilea said, “there is usually a man involved. What man has attracted your interest? Can we expect to see you lay a bridal wreath at his feet soon?”

“Aes Sedai seldom marry,” Egwene told her coolly.

The leather-faced woman’s snort sounded like cloth ripping. The Maidens and the Wise Ones, indeed all the Aiel, might have decided she was not Aes Sedai so long as she studied with Amys and the others, but Sorilea took it further. She seemed to think Egwene had become Aiel. Added to which, there was nowhere Sorilea did not think she had a right to stick a finger. “You will, girl. You are not one to become Far Dareis Mai and think men are a sport like hunting, if that. Those hips were made for babies, and you will have them.”

“Will you tell me where I can wait for Rand?” Egwene asked, more faintly than she would have liked. Sorilea was not a dreamwalker, able to interpret dreams, and she certainly had none of the Foretelling, but she could be so definite that what she said seemed inevitable. Gawyn’s babies. Light, how could she have Gawyn’s babies? In truth, Aes Sedai almost never married. Rare was the man who wanted to marry a woman who, with the Power, could handle him like a child if she chose.

“This way,” Sorilea said. “Is it Sanduin, that strapping True Blood I saw around Amys’ tent yesterday? That scar makes the rest of his face more handsome . . . ”

Sorilea continued to come up with names as she led Egwene through the palace, always watching from the corner of a shrewd eye for any reaction. She also did her best to list each man’s charms, and since this included describing what he looked like without clothes—Aiel men and women shared the same sweat tents—she certainly got enough blushes.

By the time they reached the rooms where Rand would be spending the night, Egwene was more than glad to offer hasty thanks and firmly shut the sitting room door on her. Luckily, the Wise One must have had business of her own to see to, or she might well have pushed her way in.

Drawing a deep breath, Egwene began smoothing her skirts and adjusting her shawl. They did not need it, but she felt as if she had been tumbled downhill. The woman more than liked to play matchmaker. She was capable of fashioning the bridal wreath for a woman, dragging her to lay it at the feet of the man Sorilea had chosen, and twisting his arm until he picked it up. Well, not exactly dragging and arm-twisting, but it came to the same thing. Of course, Sorilea would not take it that far with her. The thought made her giggle. After all, Sorilea did not really think she had become Aiel; she knew Egwene was Aes Sedai, or thought she was anyway. No, of course there was no reason to worry over that!

With her hands on the folded gray scarf that held her hair back, she froze at the sound of soft footsteps in the bedchamber. If Rand could leap about from Caemlyn to Cairhien, perhaps he had leaped straight to his bedchamber. And perhaps someone—or something—was waiting for him. She embraced saidar and wove several nasty things, ready to use. A gai’shain woman came out, arms full of bundled sheets, and gave a start at the sight of her. Egwene released saidar and hoped she was not blushing again.

Niella looked enough like Aviendha to startle at first glance in that deep-cowled white robe. Until you realized you had to add six or seven years to a face that was perhaps not quite so tanned, perhaps a little plumper. Aviendha’s sister had never been a Maiden of the Spear; a weaver instead, she had completed well over half her year and a day.

Egwene offered no greeting; it would only embarrass Niella. “Do you expect Rand soon?” she asked.

“The Car’a’carn will come when he comes,” Niella replied, eyes meekly downcast. That truly appeared odd; Aviendha’s face, even plumper, did not go well with meekness. “It is for us to be ready when he comes.”

“Niella, do you have any idea why Aviendha would need to closet herself with Amys and Bair and Melaine?” It certainly had nothing to do with dreamwalking; Sorilea had as much ability there as Aviendha.

“She is here? No, I know no reason.” But Niella’s blue-green eyes narrowed slightly as soon as she spoke.

“You do know something,” Egwene insisted. She might as well take advantage of gai’shain obedience. “Tell me what it is, Niella.”

“I know that Aviendha will stripe me till I cannot sit if the Car’a’carn finds me standing here with dirty bedding,” Niella said ruefully. Egwene did not know whether ji’e’toh was involved somehow, yet when they were together, Aviendha held her sister twice as strictly to account as any other gai’shain.

Niella’s robe trailed across the patterned carpet as she glided hurriedly toward the door, but Egwene caught her sleeve. “When your time is up, will you put off the white?”

It was not a proper question, and meekness vanished in pride enough for any Maiden. “To do otherwise mocks ji’e’toh,” Niella said stiffly. Abruptly a slight smile flickered on her lips. “Besides, my husband would come looking for me, and he would not be pleased.” The mild mask returned; her eyes turned down. “May I go now? If Aviendha is here, I would not meet her can I avoid it, and she will come to these chambers.”

Egwene let her go. She had had no right to ask anyway; speaking of a gai’shain’s life before the white, or after, was shaming. She felt a little ashamed herself, though of course she did not really try to follow ji’e’toh. Only enough to be polite.

Alone, she settled into a severely carved and gilded armchair, finding it strangely uncomfortable after so long sitting cross-legged on cushions or the ground. Tucking her legs beneath her, she wondered what Aviendha was discussing with Amys and the other two. Rand, almost certainly. He always concerned the Wise Ones. They did not care about the wetlander Prophecies of the Dragon, but they knew the Prophecy of Rhuidean back to front. When he destroyed the Aiel, as that prophecy said he would, “a remnant of a remnant” would be saved, and they intended to see that the remnant was as large as possible.

That was why they made Aviendha stay close to him. Too close for decency. If she went into the bedchamber, she was sure she would find a pallet made up on the floor for Aviendha. Still, Aiel saw such things differently. The Wise Ones meant Aviendha to teach him Aiel ways and customs, to remind him that his blood was Aiel if not his upbringing. Apparently the Wise Ones thought that needed every waking hour, and considering what they faced, she could not fault them entirely. Not entirely. Just the same, it was not decent, making a woman sleep in the same room with a man.

Still, she could do nothing about Aviendha’s problem, especially when Aviendha did not seem to see the problem. Leaning on her elbow, Egwene tried to think of how she was going to approach Rand. Her mind went round and round, but she had not settled on anything by the time he entered, murmuring something to two Aiel in the hallway before shutting the door.

Egwene bounded to her feet. “Rand, you have to help me with the Wise Ones; they’ll listen to you,” she burst out before she could stop herself. That was not what she had intended at all.

“It is good to see you again too,” he said, smiling. He was carrying that length of Seanchan spear, carved with Dragons since she saw it last. She wished she knew where he had gotten the thing; anything Seanchan made her skin crawl. “I am well, thank you, Egwene. And you? You look to be yourself again, full of ginger as ever.” He looked so tired. And hard, hard enough to make that smile appear odd. He seemed harder every time she saw him.

“You needn’t think you’re amusing,” she glowered. Best to go on as she had begun. Better than backing and filling, giving him more reason to grin. “Will you help me?”

“How?” Making himself at home—well, they were his rooms—he tossed the tasseled spearhead on a small table with leopard-carved legs and shed his sword belt and coat. Somehow he was not sweating any more than the Aiel did. “The Wise Ones listen to me, but they only hear what they want to. I’ve come to recognize that flat-eyed look they get when they decide I’m talking nonsense, and instead of embarrassing me by saying so, or arguing about it, they’ll just ignore it.” He pulled one of the gilded chairs around to face her and sprawled in it, booted feet stretched in front of him. He managed to do even that with an air of arrogance. He definitely had too many people bowing to him.

“You do talk nonsense sometimes,” she muttered. For some reason, having no more time to think concentrated her thoughts. Adjusting her shawl carefully, she placed herself in front of him. “I know that you would like to hear from Elayne again.” Why did his face go all sad like that, and at the same time winter cold? Likely because he had not heard from Elayne in so long. “I doubt Sheriam has been giving the Wise Ones very many messages from her for you.” None, so far as she knew, though he had seldom been in Cairhien to receive any. “I’m the one Elayne will trust with that sort of missive. I can bring them to you, if you convince Amys that I’m strong enough to . . . to return to my studies.”

She wished she had not faltered, but he already knew too much about dreamwalking, if not Tel’aran’rhiod. Almost everything about dreamwalking but the name was a close secret among the Wise Ones, particularly those who could dreamwalk. She had no right to give away their secrets.

“Will you tell me where Elayne is?” He might have been asking for a cup of tea.

She hesitated, but the agreement between her, Nynaeve and Elayne—Light, how long ago had they made it?—that agreement held. He was no longer the boy she had grown up with. He was a man full of himself, and whatever his tone, those steady eyes on her face demanded an answer. If Aes Sedai and Wise Ones struck sparks, Aes Sedai and he would strike a conflagration. There had to be a buffer between the two, and the only buffers available were the three of them. It had to be done, but she hoped they did not get burned up doing it. “I can’t tell you that, Rand. I have no right. It isn’t mine to tell.” And that was the truth, too. For that matter, it was not as if she could tell him where this Salidar was, beyond Altara, somewhere along the River Eldar.

He leaned forward intently. “I know she’s with Aes Sedai. You told me those Aes Sedai support me, or might. Are they afraid of me? I will take oath to stay away from them, if they are. Egwene, I mean to give Elayne the Lion Throne and the Sun Throne. She has claim to both; Cairhien will accept her as quickly as Andor does. I need her, Egwene.”

Egwene opened her mouth—and realized that she was about to tell him all she knew about Salidar. Barely in time she clamped her teeth shut so hard her jaws ached, and opened herself to saidar. The sweet feel of life, so strong it overwhelmed everything else, seemed to help; slowly the urge to talk began to ebb.

He sat back with a sigh, and she stared at him wide-eyed. It was one thing to know he was the strongest ta’veren since Artur Hawkwing, but quite something else to become caught up in it herself. It was all she could do not to hug herself and shiver.

“You won’t tell me,” he said. Not a question. Briskly he rubbed his forearms through his shirtsleeves, reminding her that she held saidar; close like this, he would be feeling it as a faint tingle. “Do you think I meant to force it out of you?” he snapped, suddenly angry. “Am I such a monster now that you need the Power to protect yourself from me?”

“I don’t need anything to protect me from you,” she said as calmly as she could. Her stomach was still turning over slowly. He was Rand, and he was a man who could channel. A part of her wanted to gibber and wail. She was ashamed of it, but that did not make it go away. Putting away saidar, she regretted a tinge of reluctance. Yet it did not matter; if it came to that sort of struggle, unless she managed to shield him he would handle her as easily as if they arm-wrestled. “Rand, I am sorry I can’t help you, but I cannot. Even so, I ask you again to help me. You know it would be helping yourself.”

His anger was swallowed by a maddening grin; it was frightening how quickly that could happen with him. “ ‘A cat for a hat, or a hat for a cat,’ ” he quoted.

But nothing for nothing, she finished mentally. She had heard Taren Ferry folk say that when she was a girl. “You put your cat in your hat and stuff it down your breeches, Rand al’Thor,” she told him coldly. She managed not to slam the door on her way out, but it was a near thing.

Striding away, she wondered what she was going to do. Somehow she had to convince the Wise Ones to let her back into Tel’aran’rhiod—legally, so to speak. Sooner or later he was going to encounter the Aes Sedai of Salidar, and it would help so much if she could talk to Elayne or Nynaeve again first. She was a little surprised that Salidar had not approached him already; what was holding Sheriam and the rest back? Nothing she could do about it, and they probably knew better than she.

One thing she was eager to tell Elayne. Rand needed her. He sounded as if he meant that more than anything he had ever said in his life. That should set to rest all her worries about whether he still loved her. No man could say he needed you that way unless he loved you.

For a few moments Rand sat staring at the door after it closed behind Egwene. She had changed so much from the girl he grew up with. In those Aiel clothes she managed a good imitation of a Wise One—except for the height, anyway; a short Wise One, with big dark eyes—but then, Egwene always did everything with her whole heart. She had stayed as cool as any Aes Sedai, seizing saidar when she thought he was threatening her. That was what he had to remember. Whatever clothes she wore, she wanted to be Aes Sedai, and she would keep Aes Sedai secrets even after he made it clear that he needed Elayne to insure peace in two nations. He had to think of her as Aes Sedai. It was saddening.

Wearily he got to his feet and donned his coat again. There were still the Cairhienin nobles to see, Colavaere and Maringil, Dobraine and the rest. And the Tairens; Meilan and Aracome and that lot would twitch if he gave the Cairhienin a moment more than they got. And the Wise Ones would want their turn at him, and Timolan and the rest of the clan chiefs here he had not met with yet today. Why had he ever wanted to leave Caemlyn? Well, talking with Herid had been pleasant; the questions he brought up were not, but it was nice to talk to someone who never remembered he was the Dragon Reborn. And he had found a little time without a coterie of Aiel surrounding him; he was going to find more of that.

He caught sight of himself in a gilt-framed mirror. “At least you didn’t let her see you were tired,” he told his reflection. That had been one of Moiraine’s more succinct bits of advice. Never let them see you weaken. He just had to become used to thinking of Egwene as one of them.

Apparently squatting at her ease in the garden below Rand al’Thor’s rooms, Sulin tossed a small knife into the dirt, seemingly amusing herself with a game of flip. A rock owl’s cry from one of the windows brought her to her feet with an oath, slipping the knife behind her belt. Rand al’Thor had left his rooms again. Keeping watch over him this way was not going to work. If she had Enaila or Somara here, she would set them on him. Normally she tried to protect him from that sort of nonsense as she would a first-brother.

Trotting to the nearest doorway, she joined three more Maidens—none had come with her—and began to search the warren of corridors while trying to appear just to be walking. Whatever the Car’a’carn wanted, nothing must happen to the only son of a Maiden ever to come back to them.