Lord of Chaos

## Chapter 52

#### Weaves of the Power

The men sitting around the table in the common room of The Wandering Woman were mainly local. Those who wore the long vest sported it in bright silk, often brocaded, over pale shirts with wide sleeves. Garnets or pearls adorned finger rings, hoop earrings were gold not gilded, and moonstones and sapphires sparkled on the pommels of curved knives stuck through belts. Several men had silk coats slung about their shoulders, with a chain of silver or gold strung between the narrow lapels embroidered with flowers or animals. The coats looked odd, really—too small to put on; never meant for anything but a cape—but their wearers carried long narrow swords as well as the curved dagger, and seemed equally willing to use either, for a wrong word, a wrong look, or because they happened to feel like it.

It was a varied crowd, altogether. Two Murandian merchants with curled mustaches and those ridiculous little beards on the point of the chin, and a Domani with hair below his shoulders and thin mustaches who wore a gold bracelet, a close-fitting gold necklace, and a large pearl in his left ear. A dark Atha’an Miere in a bright green coat, with tattooed hands and two knives thrust into a red sash, and a Taraboner with a transparent veil covering thick mustaches that almost hid his mouth, and a number of outlanders who might have been from anywhere. But every man had a pile of coins in front of him, though the size did vary. So close to the Tarasin Palace, The Wandering Woman attracted patrons with gold to spare.

Rattling the five dice in the leather cup, Mat spun them out on the table. They stopped with two crowns, two stars and a cup showing. A fair toss; no better. His luck ran in waves, and at the moment the wave seemed low, meaning he won no more than half his tosses at most. So far he had managed to lose ten in a row, an unusual run for him at any time. The dice passed to a blue-eyed outlander, a hard, narrow-faced man who seemed to have plenty of coin to fling about despite his plain brown coat.

Vanin bent to whisper in Mat’s ear. “They’re out again. Thom says he still doesn’t know how.” Mat directed a grimace at the fat man that made him straighten more quickly that you would think someone his size could.

Swallowing half the dewmelon punch in his silver cup, Mat frowned down the table. Again! The blue-eyed man’s toss rolled across the table, and the dice stopped showing three crowns, a rose and a rod. Murmurs rounded the table at his win.

“Blood and ashes,” Mat muttered. “Next, the Daughter of the Nine Moons is going to walk in and claim me.” The blue-eyed fellow choked on his celebratory drink. “Do you know the name?” Mat asked.

“My punch went down the wrong way,” the man said in a soft, slurring accent Mat did not recognize. “What name was that?”

Mat made a pacifying gesture; he had seen fights start over less. Scraping his gold and silver back into his purse, he stuffed it into his coat pocket as he rose. “I am done. The Light’s blessing on all here.” Everyone at the table repeated the benison, even the outlanders. People were very polite in Ebou Dar.

Even short of midmorning, the common room was fairly full, and another dice game added its share of laughter and groans. Two of Mistress Anan’s younger sons were helping the serving girls hand out late breakfasts. The innkeeper herself was sitting at the back of the room near the railless white stone stairs, keeping an eye on everything, with a young, pretty woman whose big black eyes had a merry twinkle, as though she knew a joke no one else did. Her face was a perfect oval framed by glossy black hair, and the deep neckline of her red-belted gray dress showed a tantalizing view. The amusement in her eyes deepened as she smiled at Mat.

“With your luck, Lord Cauthon,” Mistress Anan said, “my husband should ask you where to send his fishing boats.” For some reason, her tone was very dry.

Mat accepted the title without a blink. In Ebou Dar, few would challenge a lord except other lords; it was a simple calculation of numbers to him. There were a lot fewer lords than commoners, which meant fewer chances somebody would try to stick a knife in him. Even so, he had had to crack three heads in the last ten days. “I’m afraid my luck doesn’t run to things like that, Mistress.”

Olver seemed to just pop up at his side. “Can we go horse-racing, Mat?” he demanded eagerly.

Frielle, Mistress Anan’s middle daughter, trotted up to catch the boy by the shoulders. “Your pardon, Lord Cauthon,” she said anxiously. “He just slipped away from me. Light’s truth, he did.” Soon to be married—the snug silver necklace for her marriage knife already encircled her slim throat—she had volunteered to look after Olver, laughing about how she wanted six sons of her own. Mat suspected she was beginning to hope for daughters.

It was Nalesean, coming down the stairs, who got Mat’s glare, hard enough to stop the Tairen in his tracks. It was Nalesean who had entered Wind in two races, with Olver riding—boys did the riding here—and Mat not knowing a thing till it was done. That Wind had proven as fast as his name did not help matters. Two victories gave Olver a taste for more. “Not your fault, Mistress,” Mat told Frielle. “Put him in a barrel if you must, with my blessing.”

Olver gave him an accusatory look, but a moment later he whipped around to give Frielle an insolent grin he had picked up somewhere. It looked odd with his big ears and wide mouth; he was never going to be a handsome lad. “I will sit quietly if I can look at your eyes. You have beautiful eyes.”

Frielle had a lot of her mother in her, and not just her looks. She laughed sweetly and chucked him under the chin, making him blush. Her mother and the big-eyed young woman smiled at the tabletop.

Shaking his head, Mat started up the stairs. He had to speak to the boy. He could not just grin like that at every woman he saw. And telling a woman she had beautiful eyes! At his age! Mat did not know where Olver got it.

As he came abreast of Nalesean, the man said, “They have sneaked away again, haven’t they.” It was not a question, and when Mat nodded, he gave his pointed beard a yank and cursed. “I’ll assemble the men, Mat.”

Nerim was fussing about Mat’s room, wiping the table with a cloth as if the maids had not dusted this morning already. He shared a smaller room next door with Olver, and rarely left The Wandering Woman. Ebou Dar was dissolute and uncivilized, he claimed.

“My Lord is going out?” Nerim said lugubriously as Mat picked up his hat. “In that coat? I fear there is a wine stain from last night on the shoulder. I would have removed it if my Lord had not donned the garment in haste this morning, and a gash in the sleeve—from a knife, I believe—that I would have mended.”

Mat let him bring out a gray coat with silver scrolls embroidered on the cuffs and high collar and gave him the gold-embroidered green.

“I trust my Lord will at least try not to get blood on it today. Bloodstains are very difficult to remove.”

It was a compromise they had worked out. Mat put up with Nerim’s dismal face and gloomy observations, and let the man fetch, clean and hand him things he could just as easily pick up himself; in return Nerim agreed, reluctantly, not to try actually dressing him.

Checking the knives snugged up his sleeves, under his coat and in the turned-down tops of his boots, Mat left his spear leaning in the corner with his unstrung bow and went down to the front of the inn. That spear seemed to draw idiots who wanted to fight the way honey drew flies.

In spite of his hat, sweat beaded on Mat’s face the moment he stepped from the shade and relative coolness of the inn. The morning sun would have done for high noon in midsummer in ordinary times, but Mol Hara Square was thronged with people. At first he stood frowning at the Tarasin Palace. With Juilin and Thom watching inside and Vanin out, how were they managing to leave without being seen? They went out almost every single day. After it happened three times, Mat had set men watching every way out of that domed heap of white stone and plaster, taking their places before dawn. There were just enough of them, with him and Nalesean. No one had seen hide nor hair, but just before midday Thom came out to say the women had gone somehow. The old gleeman seemed at his wits’ end, ready to tear out his mustaches. Mat knew what was going on. They were doing it just to spite him.

Nalesean and the others were waiting in a glum sweating knot. Nalesean was fingering his sword hilt as though he would like an opportunity to use it today.

“We’ll look across the river today,” Mat said. Several of the Redarms exchanged uneasy glances; they had heard the stories.

Vanin shifted his feet, shook his head. “A waste of time,” he said flatly. “Lady Elayne would never go anywhere like that. The Aiel woman maybe, or Birgitte, but not Lady Elayne.”

Mat closed his eyes for a moment. How had Elayne managed to ruin a good man in so short a time? He kept hoping that enough time away from her influence would set Vanin right, but he was beginning to lose hope. Light, but he despised noblewomen. “Well, if we don’t see them today, we can forget the Rahad—they’ll stand out like painted larks in a flock of blackbirds over there—but I intend to find them if they’re hiding under a bed in the Pit of Doom. Search in pairs, as usual, and watch each other’s back. Now to find some boatmen to ferry us across. Burn me, I hope they’re not all out selling fruit to the Sea Folk ships.”

To Elayne the street looked as it had in Tel’aran’rhiod, brick buildings five and six stories high, covered patchily with flaking white plaster, crowded together and looming above uneven pavement. Only at this time of day, with the golden sun burning overhead, did shadows vanish completely from these narrow ways. Flies buzzed everywhere. The only differences from the World of Dreams were the laundry hanging from windows, the people—not many outdoors at the moment, of course—and the smell, a deep pungent miasma of decay that made her try not to breathe too deeply. Unfortunately, every street looked alike in the Rahad.

Halting Birgitte with a hand on her arm, she eyed a scabrous pile of brick with dingy washing dangling from half the windows. The thin wail of a baby crying came from somewhere inside. It had the right number of floors, six. She was certain it had been six. Nynaeve insisted on five.

“I don’t think we should stand staring,” Birgitte said softly. “People are looking.”

That was not quite true, just Birgitte worrying about her. Shirtless men in often ragged vests strutted down the street with sunlight glinting on their brass hoop earrings, and brass finger rings set with colored glass, or slunk along like the sort of cur dog that might snarl and might bite. For that matter, so did the women, in their usually worn dresses and their jewelry of brass and glass. Everyone had a curved knife stuck through a belt, and frequently a plain work knife as well.

In truth, no one gave her and Birgitte a second glance, though Birgitte’s aged face was often challenging and she herself was tall for an Ebou Dari woman. That was what they saw, by way of not so simple weaves of Air and Fire that Elayne had inverted and tied off herself. When Elayne looked at Birgitte, she saw a woman with fine wrinkles at the corners of black eyes and black hair touched with gray. The disguises were easier the closer you stayed to how a person really was, so the hair flowing down Birgitte’s back, tied in four places with tattered green ribbon, was considerably longer than Ebou Dari women wore it, but then Elayne had not cut her hair either, and no one seemed to pay it any mind. It was a perfect disguise; she just wished she did not have to sweat as well. With the addition of the even more complex weave of Spirit that masked a woman’s ability to channel, Elayne had walked right by Merilille on her way out of the palace that morning. She wore it still; they had seen Vandene and Adeleas on this side of the river more than once.

Their clothes were not part of the weaves, of course, but threadbare woolen dresses with frayed embroidery on the sleeves and around the deep narrow necklines. Their shifts and stockings were wool too, and Elayne’s, at least, itched. Tylin had provided the garments, along with various pieces of advice, and the white-sheathed marriage knives. It seemed that married women were less likely to be challenged than unmarried, and widows who rejected another marriage least of all. Age helped, too. No one challenged a gray-haired grandmother, though she might you.

“I think we should go in,” Elayne said, and Birgitte moved ahead of her, one hand on the knife in her coarse brown woolen belt, to push open the unpainted door. Inside was a dim hallway lined with rough doors, and a steep narrow stairway of chipped brick at the back. Elayne did not quite sigh in relief.

White sheaths or no white sheaths, walking into a building where you did not belong was one good way to end up in a knife fight here. So was asking questions, or being curious. Tylin had counseled against that, but on the first day they had visited inns, marked only by blue doors, planning to say they were buying things out of old storerooms to refurbish and sell. She had paired with Birgitte and set Nynaeve with Aviendha so they could cover more ground. The common rooms were dark, grimy places, and twice in as many stops, Birgitte had hustled her out, both of them with daggers in hand, just before serious trouble started. The second time, Elayne had to channel briefly, tripping a pair of women who came after them into the street, and even so Birgitte had been certain that someone had followed them the rest of the day. Nynaeve and Aviendha had the same sort of difficulty, except for being followed; Nynaeve had actually hit another woman with a stool. So even innocuous questions were abandoned, and they hoped they did not walk through a doorway into a knife.

Birgitte climbed the steep stairs ahead, though she often glanced behind, too. The smells of cooking blended with the general stench of the Rahad in a quite sickening fashion. The baby stopped crying, but somewhere in the building a woman began shouting. On the third floor a thick-shouldered man without shirt or vest opened a door just as they came up. Birgitte frowned at him, and he raised both hands, palms toward them, and backed out of the hallway again, kicking the door shut as he did. On the top floor, where the storeroom should have been if this was the right building, a gaunt woman in a coarse linen shift was sitting on a stool in the doorway, catching what little breeze was stirring while she sharpened her dagger. Her head swiveled toward them, and the blade stopped moving across the honing stone. She did not look away from them as they backed slowly down the stairway, and the soft rasp of metal on stone did not begin again until they reached the bottom of the flight. Elayne did let out a relieved breath then.

She was more than glad Nynaeve had not taken her wager. Ten days. She had been an optimistic fool. This was the eleventh day since her boast, eleven days when sometimes she thought she was on the same street in the evening as the morning, eleven days without a clue to the bowl. Sometimes they had remained in the palace just to clear their heads. It was all so frustrating. At least Vandene and Adeleas were having no luck either. As far as Elayne could see, no one in the Rahad would speak two willing words to Aes Sedai. People melted away as soon as they realized what they were; she had seen two women try to stab Adeleas, no doubt to rob the fool walking the Rahad in a silk dress, and by the time the Brown sister lifted the pair on flows of Air and stuffed them through a window two floors up, there was not another person in sight. Well, she was not going to allow those two to find her bowl and snatch it from under her nose.

Once back in the street, she had yet another reminder that there were worse things in the Rahad than frustration. Right in front of her, a slender man with blood all over his chest and a knife in his hand came leaping out of a doorway, spinning immediately to face another man who followed; the second was taller and heavier and bleeding down the side of his face. They circled each other, eyes locked, extended blades flickering and probing. A small crowd gathered to watch as though springing from the rough pavement; none came running, but no one passed by.

Elayne and Birgitte moved to the side of the street, but they did not leave. In the Rahad, leaving would attract attention, the last thing they wanted. Blending in meant watching, but Elayne managed to focus beyond the two men, seeing only vague blurs of quick motion until suddenly the motion slowed. She blinked and made herself look. The man with blood on his chest was parading about, grinning and gesturing with a blade that dripped red. The bigger man lay facedown in the street, giving harsh feeble coughs, not twenty paces from her.

Elayne moved instinctively—her minuscule ability in Healing was better than none when a man was bleeding to death, and to the Pit of Doom with what anyone here thought of Aes Sedai—yet before she took a second step, another woman was kneeling at the man’s side. A little older than Nynaeve perhaps, she wore a red-belted blue dress in somewhat better repair than most in the Rahad. Elayne took her for the dying man’s sweetheart at first, especially when the victor in the duel grew sober. No one moved to go; everyone watched silently as the woman turned the man onto his back.

Elayne gave a start as, far from tenderly wiping the blood from his lips, the woman pulled what seemed to be a handful of herbs from her pouch and hurriedly thrust some of them into the man’s mouth. Before her hand left his face, the glow of saidar surrounded her, and she began to weave the flows of Healing more deftly than Elayne could have done. The man gasped hard enough to expel most of the leaves, shuddered—and lay still, half-open eyes staring at the sun.

“Too late, it seems.” Standing, the woman faced the lean fellow. “You must tell Masic’s wife you’ve killed her husband, Baris.”

“Yes, Asra,” Baris replied meekly.

Asra turned away without another glance at either man, and the thin crowd opened up before her. As she passed within a few paces of Elayne and Birgitte, Elayne noticed two things about her. One was her strength; Elayne felt for that on purpose. She expected to feel a fair amount, but Asra likely would never have been allowed to take the test for Accepted. Healing must have been her strongest Talent—perhaps her only one, since she must be a wilder—and very well honed from use. Maybe she even believed those herbs were necessary. The second thing Elayne noticed was the woman’s face. It was not sun-dark, as she had supposed at first. Asra was most certainly Domani. What under the Light was a Domani wilder doing in the Rahad?

Elayne might have followed the woman, except that Birgitte drew her the other way. “I recognize that look in your eyes, Elayne.” Birgitte’s eyes scanned the street as if she expected some of the passersby to be eavesdroppers. “I don’t know why you want to chase after that woman, but she seems to be respected. Accost her, and you might have more blades drawn than you and I can handle together.”

That was simple truth, and so was the fact that Domani wilders were not what she had come to Ebou Dar to find.

Touching Birgitte’s arm, she nodded toward two men just rounding the corner ahead. In his satin-striped blue coat, Nalesean looked every inch the Tairen lord; the padded coat was done up to his neck, and his sweaty face glistened almost as much as his oiled beard. He glared at anyone who so much as glanced at him, to such an extent that he surely would have been in a fight by now except that he was caressing his sword hilt as if he would welcome one. Mat, on the other hand, did not grimace at all. He swaggered along, and except for an air of disgruntlement, he could have been enjoying himself. With his coat hanging open and his hat pulled low and that scarf tied around his neck, he looked as if he had spent the night crawling through taverns, which he might very well have. To her surprise, she realized she had not thought of him in days. She itched to lay hands on his ter’angreal, but the bowl was infinitely more important.

“It never struck me before,” Birgitte murmured, “but I think Mat is the more dangerous of those two. A N’Shar in Mameris. I wonder what they’re doing this side of the Eldar.”

Elayne stared at her. A what where? “They have probably drunk all the wine on the other side. Really, Birgitte, I do wish you’d keep your mind on what we are about.” This time she was not going to ask.

As Mat and Nalesean sauntered on past, Elayne put them out of her mind again and began to study the street. It would be wonderful to find the bowl today. Not least because the next time they came, she would be paired with Aviendha. She was beginning to like the woman—despite her extremely peculiar notions about Rand and them; extremely!—but she did have a tendency to encourage women who seemed ready to draw a knife. Aviendha even seemed disappointed that men dropped their eyes if she stared, instead of pulling out a blade the way the women would!

“That one,” Elayne said, pointing. Nynaeve could not be right about five stories. Could she? Elayne did hope Egwene had found a solution.

Egwene waited patiently while Logain drank some more water. His tent was not so spacious as his quarters had been in Salidar, but it was still larger than most in the camp. There had to be room for the six sisters sitting on stools, maintaining the shield on him. Egwene’s suggestion that it be tied off had been met with close to shock and not far from scorn; no one was willing to countenance it, particularly now, so soon after she had raised four women Aes Sedai without testing or Oath Rod, and perhaps not ever. Siuan had said they would not. Custom said six, though if he was as much reduced as Siuan and Leane, any three sisters in the camp could surely have held him, and custom said the shield on a man must be maintained, not tied. A single lamp gave a fitful illumination. She and Logain sat on blankets laid for rugs.

“Let me understand,” Logain said when he lowered the pewter cup. “You want to know what I think of al’Thor’s amnesty?” Some of the sisters shifted on their stools, maybe because he had omitted calling her “Mother,” but more likely because they despised the subject.

“I want your thoughts, yes. Surely you must have some. In Caemlyn with him, you would very likely be given a place of honor. Here, you may be gentled any day. Now. You’ve held off the madness six years, you say. How much chance is there, do you think, that any men who come to him might do as well?”

“Do they truly mean to gentle me again?” His voice was quiet, his tone injured and angry. “I’ve thrown my lot in with you. I’ve done all that was asked. I’ve offered to swear any oath you name.”

“The Hall will decide soon. Some would as soon you died conveniently. If Aes Sedai tell your tale, all know Aes Sedai cannot lie. But I don’t believe you need fear that. You have served us too well for me to allow you to be harmed. And whatever happens, you can still serve, and see the Red Ajah punished, as you wish.”

Logain jerked up onto his knees, snarling, and she embraced saidar and had him wrapped securely in flows of Air in the space of a heartbeat. The sisters shielding him had all their strength directed into that—another custom; you must use every bit of your strength to shield a man—but several could split their weaves, and one might have diverted part to him if they thought he might harm her. She did not want to risk him being injured.

The flows held him there kneeling, but he seemed to ignore them. “You want to know what I think of al’Thor’s amnesty? I wish I were with him now! Burn you all! I have done everything you asked! The Light burn you all!”

“Be calm, Master Logain.” Egwene was surprised her voice came out so steady. Her heart was racing, though certainly not for fear of him. “I swear this to you. I will never harm you, nor allow you to be harmed by any who follow me if I can help it, unless you turn against us.” The rage had gone from his face, replaced by woodenness. Was he listening? “But the Hall will do as it decides. Are you calm, now?” He nodded wearily, and she released the flows. He sank back to the ground, not looking at her. “I will speak with you about the amnesty when you are more composed. Perhaps in a day or two.” He nodded again, curtly, still not looking.

As she ducked out into the dusk, the two Warders standing guard outside bowed to her. At least the Gaidin did not care that she was eighteen, an Accepted raised Aes Sedai only because she was raised Amyrlin. To the Warders, an Aes Sedai was an Aes Sedai, and the Amyrlin was the Amyrlin. Still, she did not let herself exhale until she was far enough away for the two not to hear.

The camp was quite large, tents for hundreds of Aes Sedai spreading through the forest, for Accepted and novices and servants, carts and wagons and horses everywhere. The cooking smell of the evening meal hung thick in the air. Around it stretched the cookfires of Gareth Bryne’s army; most men there would be sleeping on the ground, not in tents. The so-called Band of the Red Hand lay camped no more than ten miles south; Talmanes never let that distance vary more than a mile or so either way, day or night for over two hundred miles. Already they had served part of her plan for them, as suggested by Siuan and Leane.

Gareth Bryne’s force had grown in the sixteen days since leaving Salidar. Two armies marching slowly northward through Altara, plainly not friendly toward each other, drew attention. Nobles flocked in with their levies to ally themselves with the stronger of the two. True, none of those lords and ladies would have sworn the oaths they had if they had known there would be no great battle in their own lands. True, given free choice, every last one would have ridden the moment they realized Egwene’s target was Tar Valon, not an army of Dragonsworn. But they had made those oaths, to an Amyrlin at least, before Aes Sedai who called themselves the Hall of the Tower, with hundreds more watching. Breaking that kind of vow came back to haunt you. Besides, even if Egwene’s head ended on a pike in the White Tower, not a one of them believed Elaida would forget they had sworn. Trapped into alliance they might have been, and into fealty of a sort, but they would be among the most fervent of her supporters. Their only way out of that trap with their necks intact was to see Egwene wearing the stole in Tar Valon.

Siuan and Leane were quite set up over it. Egwene was not certain how she felt. If there had been some way to remove Elaida without a drop of blood being shed, she would have leaped at it. She did not think there was, though.

After a small dinner of goat, turnip and something she did not inquire after too closely, Egwene retired to her tent. Not the largest in the camp, but certainly the largest occupied by one person. Chesa was there, waiting to help Egwene undress, bubbling over the news that she had acquired some of the finest linen imaginable from an Altaran lady’s maid, filmy material that would make the coolest shifts imaginable. Often Egwene let Chesa sleep in the tent with her for the company, though a pallet of blankets hardly equaled Chesa’s own cot. Tonight she sent the woman away once she was ready for bed. Being Amyrlin entailed a few privileges. Such as a tent of her own for your maid. Such as sleeping alone on nights when it was necessary.

Egwene was not tired enough to go to sleep yet, but that was no trouble. Putting herself to sleep was a simple matter; she had been trained by Aiel dreamwalkers. She stepped into Tel’aran’rhiod . . .

. . . and was standing in the room that had been her study in the Little Tower for such a brief time. The table and chairs remained, of course. Furniture was not something you took away when you set out with an army. Any place felt empty in the World of Dreams, but those that really were more than most. Already the Little Tower felt . . . hollow.

Abruptly, she realized the Amyrlin’s stole was draped around her neck. She made it vanish just in time. An instant later Nynaeve and Elayne were there, Nynaeve as solid as she, Elayne misty. Siuan had been reluctant to let go of the original ring ter’angreal; a firm order had been necessary. Elayne wore a green dress with lace spilling over her hands and outlining a narrow yet startlingly deep neckline that revealed a small knife dangling from a snug gold necklace, the hilt nestled between her breasts a mass of pearls and firedrops. Elayne always did seem to embrace the local fashions immediately wherever she went. Nynaeve, as expected, wore stout Two Rivers woolens, dark and plain.

“Success?” Egwene said hopefully.

“Not yet, but we will.” Elayne sounded so optimistic that Egwene almost stared; she had to really try to sound that way.

“I’m sure it will not be much longer,” Nynaeve said, sounding even more positive. They must be beating their heads against a wall.

Egwene sighed. “Maybe you should join me again. I’m sure you could find the bowl in a few more days, but I keep thinking about all these stories.” They could take care of themselves. She knew that, and it would be a fine thought to have over their graves. Siuan said that none of the stories they had told were exaggerations.

“Oh, no, Egwene,” Nynaeve protested. “The bowl is too important. You know it is. Everything is going to cook in its own juice if we don’t find it.”

“Besides,” Elayne added, “what kind of trouble can we fall into? We sleep every night in the Tarasin Palace, in case you’ve forgotten, and if Tylin doesn’t tuck us in, she is still there to talk.” Her dress was different, the cut unaltered, but the material was coarse and worn. Nynaeve wore a near copy of it, except that her knife had no more than nine or ten glass beads on the hilt. Hardly clothes for any palace. Worse, she was trying to look innocent. Nynaeve had no practice at that.

Egwene let it pass. The bowl was important, they could take care of themselves, and she knew very well they were not looking in the Tarasin Palace. She almost let it pass, anyway. “You are making use of Mat, aren’t you?”

“We—” Abruptly Elayne became aware of her dress and gave a start. For some reason, though, it seemed to be the small knife that truly startled her. Eyes popping, she clutched the hilt, a mass of large red and white glass beads, and her face went absolutely crimson. An instant later she was in a high-necked Andoran gown of green silk.

The funny thing was, Nynaeve realized what she was wearing only a heartbeat behind Elayne, and reacted exactly the same. Exactly. Except maybe that if Elayne blushed like a sunset, Nynaeve blushed for two. She was back into Two Rivers woolens even before Elayne changed.

Clearing her throat, Elayne said breathily, “Mat is quite useful, I’m sure, but we cannot allow him to get in our way, Egwene. You know how he is. You can be sure, though, if we do anything dangerous, we will have him and all his soldiers cheek to cheek around us.” Nynaeve was silent, and looking sour. Perhaps remembering Mat’s threat.

“Nynaeve, you won’t push at Mat too hard, will you?”

Elayne laughed. “Egwene, she is not pushing at him at all.”

“That’s the simple truth,” Nynaeve put in quickly. “I’ve not said a cross word to him since we arrived in Ebou Dar.”

Egwene nodded doubtfully. She could reach the bottom of this, but it would take . . . she glanced down to make sure the stole had not reappeared, and saw only a flicker that even she could not recognize.

“Egwene,” Elayne said, “have you been able to speak with the dreamwalkers yet?”

“Yes,” Nynaeve said. “Do they know what the problem is?”

“I have.” Egwene sighed. “They don’t, not really.”

It had been an odd meeting, only a few days ago, begun by finding Bair’s dreams. Bair and Melaine had met her in the Stone of Tear; Amys had said she would not teach Egwene more, and she did not come. At first, Egwene felt awkward. She could not bring herself to tell them she was Aes Sedai, much less Amyrlin, afraid they might believe it another lie. There had certainly been no difficulty with the stole appearing then. And then there was her toh to Melaine. She brought it up, thinking all the while about how many miles she had to spend in a saddle the next day, but Melaine was so full of pleasure that she was going to have daughters—she rhapsodized over Min’s viewing—that she not only announced straight away that Egwene had no toh toward her, but said she was going to name one of the girls Egwene. That had been a small pleasure in a night full of futility and irritation.

“What they said,” she went on, “was that they had never heard of anyone trying to find something with need again after they had already found it. Bair thought maybe it was like trying to eat the same . . . apple twice.” The same motai was what Bair had said; a motai was a kind of grub found in the Waste. Quite sweet and crunchy—until Egwene found out what she was eating.

“You mean we just can’t go back to the storeroom?” Elayne sighed. “I was hoping we were doing something wrong. Oh, well. We’ll find it anyway.” She hesitated, and her dress changed again, though she did not seem to notice. It was still Andoran, but red, with the White Lions of Andor climbing the sleeves and marching across the bodice. A queen’s dress, even without the Rose Crown resting on her red-gold curls. But a queen’s dress with a close-fitting bodice that showed perhaps more cleavage than an Andoran queen would. “Egwene, did they say anything about Rand?”

“He’s in Cairhien, lolling about in the Sun Palace, it seems.” Egwene managed to not wince. Neither Bair nor Melaine had been very forthcoming, but Melaine muttered darkly about Aes Sedai while Bair said that they should all be beaten at regular intervals; whatever Sorilea said, a simple beating should be enough. Egwene was very much afraid that somehow Merana had managed to put a foot very wrong. At least he was putting Elaida’s emissaries off; she did not think he knew how to handle them nearly as well as he thought he did. “Perrin is with him. And Perrin’s wife! He married Faile!” That brought exclamations; Nynaeve said Faile was much too good for him, but said it smiling broadly; Elayne said she hoped they would be happy, but she sounded doubtful for some reason. “Loial is there, too. And Min. All it needs is Mat and the three of us.”

Elayne bit her underlip. “Egwene, would you pass a . . . a message to the Wise Ones for Min? Tell her . . . ” She hesitated, chewing her lip in thought. “Tell her I hope she can come to like Aviendha as much as she likes me. I know that sounds odd,” she laughed. “It’s a private matter between us.” Nynaeve looked at Elayne as oddly as Egwene knew she herself was.

“I will, of course. I don’t mean to talk with them again for some time, though.” There was not much point when they were as uncommunicative concerning Rand as they were. And as hostile toward Aes Sedai.

“Oh, that is fine,” Elayne said quickly. “It really isn’t important. Well, if we can’t use need, then we must use feet, and in Ebou Dar, mine are aching right now. If you don’t mind, I will go back to my body and get some real sleep.”

“You go ahead,” Nynaeve said. “I will be just a little while.” When Elayne vanished, she turned to Egwene. Her dress had changed too, and Egwene thought she knew very well why. It was a soft blue, cut low. There were flowers in her hair, and ribbons through her braid, as there would be for her wedding back home. Egwene’s heart went out to her. “Have you heard anything of Lan?” Nynaeve asked quietly.

“No, Nynaeve, I haven’t. I am so sorry; I wish I could tell you better. I know he’s still alive, Nynaeve. And I know he loves you as much as you love him.”

“Of course he is alive,” Nynaeve said firmly. “I won’t allow anything else. I mean to make him mine. He is mine, and I won’t let him be dead.”

When Egwene woke herself, Siuan was sitting beside her cot, dimly seen in the darkness. “Is it done?” Egwene asked.

The glow surrounded Siuan as she wove a small ward against eavesdropping around the pair of them. “Of the six sisters on duty beginning at midnight, only three have Warders, and those Gaidin will be on guard outside. They will have mint tea brought to them, with a small addition they shouldn’t taste.”

Egwene closed her eyes for a moment. “Am I doing the right thing?”

“You ask me?” Siuan choked out. “I did as I was commanded, Mother. I’d as soon jump into a school of feeding silverpike as help that man escape if it were up to me.”

“They will gentle him, Siuan.” Egwene had been over this with her, but she needed to go over it again for herself, to convince herself she was not making a mistake. “Even Sheriam doesn’t listen to Carlinya anymore, and Lelaine and Romanda are pressing for it. That or someone really will do what Delana has been hinting at. I won’t allow murder! If we cannot try a man and execute him, we have no right to arrange for him to die. I will not let him be murdered, and I cannot allow him to be gentled. If Merana really has put Rand’s back up somehow, that will be tossing fat-wood in the fire. I just wish I could be sure he will go to Rand and join him instead of running off the Light knows where, doing the Light knows what. At least that way there might be some way to control what he does.” She heard Siuan shift in the darkness.

“I always thought the stole weighed about as much as three good men,” Siuan said quietly. “The Amyrlin has few easy decisions to make, and fewer where she can be sure. Do what you must, and pay the price if you’re wrong. Sometimes if you are right, too.”

Egwene laughed softly. “It does seem to me I have heard that before.” After a while her mirth died. “Make sure he doesn’t hurt anyone leaving, Siuan.”

“As you command, Mother.”

“This is terrible,” Nisao muttered. “If it becomes known, the condemnation will be enough to drive you into exile, Myrelle. And me with you. Four hundred years ago, it might have been commonplace, but no one will think it so today. Some will call it crime.”

Myrelle was glad the moon was down already. It hid her grimace. She could handle the Healing herself, but Nisao had been studying how to deal with sicknesses of the mind, things the Power could not touch. Myrelle was not sure this counted as a sickness, but she would try whatever tool might work. Nisao could say what she would; Myrelle knew she would cut off her own hand rather than pass up this chance to further her studies.

She could feel him out there in the night, coming closer. They were well away from the tents, well beyond the soldiers, with only scattered trees round them. She had felt him from the moment his bond passed to her, the crime Nisao fretted over. A Warder’s bond passed from one Aes Sedai to another without his consent. Nisao was right in one point; they would have to keep this secret as long as they could. Myrelle could feel his wounds, some almost healed, some almost fresh. Some badly infected. He would not have gone aside to seek battle. He had to come to her, as surely as a boulder tipped down a mountain had to roll on to the bottom. He would not have moved one foot to stand aside from battle either. She had felt his journey in distance and blood; his blood. Across Cairhien and Andor, Murandy and now Altara, through lands infested with rebels and rogues, bandits and Dragonsworn, focused on her like an arrow speeding to the target, carving his way through any armed man who stood in his path. Even he could not do that unharmed. She toted up his injuries in her mind, and wondered that he was still alive.

The sound of a horse’s hooves came to her first, a steady walk, and only then did she make out the tall black warhorse in the night. Night seemed to be the rider, too. He would be wearing his cloak. The horse stopped a good fifty paces from her.

“You shouldn’t have sent Nuhel and Croi out to find me,” the unseen rider called in a rough voice. “I almost killed them before I saw who they were. Avar, you might as well come out from behind that tree.” Off to the right, the night seemed to move; Avar wore his cloak too, and he would not have expected to be seen.

“This is madness,” Nisao muttered.

“Be quiet,” Myrelle hissed. In a louder voice, she called, “Come to me.” The horse did not move. A wolfhound mourning his dead mistress did not come to a new mistress willingly. Delicately she wove Spirit and touched the part of him that contained her bond; it had to be delicate, or he would be aware of it, and only the Creator knew what sort of explosion might result. “Come to me.”

This time the horse came forward, and the man swung down to stride the last paces, a tall man, moonshadows making his angular face seemed carved of stone. Then he was standing in front of her, standing over her, and as she stared up into Lan Mandragoran’s cold blue eyes, she saw death. The Light help her. How was she ever to keep him alive long enough?