The Fires of Heaven

## Chapter 49

#### To Boannda

There was little trouble getting the huddled crowd of men, women and children aboard. Not once Nynaeve made it clear to Captain Neres that he was going to find room for everyone and whatever he thought he was going to charge, she knew exactly how much she would give for their fares to Boannda. Of course, it might have helped a little that she’d taken the precaution of quietly telling Uno to have the Shienarans do something with their swords. Fifteen hard-faced, rough-dressed men, all with shaved heads and topknots not to mention bloodstains, oiling and sharpening blades, laughing as one recounted how another had almost been spitted like a lamb—well, they had a most salutary effect. She counted the money into his hand, and if it pained her, she only had to summon the memory of those docks at Tanchico to keep counting. Neres was right in one thing: these folk did not look to have much coin; they would need whatever coppers they had. Elayne had no call to ask in that sickly sweet tone if she was having a tooth pulled.

The crew ran at Neres’ shouted commands to cast off while the last of the people were still scrambling aboard carrying their wretched possessions in their arms, those who had anything at all beyond the rags on their backs. In truth, they crowded even the fat vessel so that Nynaeve began to wonder whether Neres had been right about that, too. Yet such hope dawned on their faces once their feet were firmly on the deck that she was embarrassed to have considered it. And when they learned she had paid their passage, they clustered around her, struggling to kiss her hands, the hem of her skirt, crying out thanks and blessings, some with tears streaming down dirty cheeks, men as well as women. She wished she could sink through the planks under her feet. The decks bustled as sweeps went out and sails rose, and Samara began to dwindle behind before she could put an end to the demonstration completely. If Elayne or Birgitte had said one word, she would have thumped them both twice around the ship for good measure.

Five days they were on Riverserpent, five days running down the slowly winding Eldar through baking days and nights not much cooler. Some things changed for the better in that time, but the voyage did not begin well.

The first real problem of the trip was Neres’ cabin in the stern, the only accommodation on the ship except the deck. Not that Neres was reluctant about moving out. His haste—breeches and coats and shirts flung over his shoulders and dangling from a great wad in his arms, shaving mug clutched in one hand and razor in the other—made Nynaeve look hard at Thom and Juilin and Uno. It was one thing for her to make use of them when she chose to, quite another for them to go looking after her behind her back. Their faces could not have been more open, or their eyes more innocent. Elayne brought up another of Lini’s sayings. “An open sack hides nothing, and an open door hides little, but an open man is surely hiding something.”

But whatever problem the men might prove to be, the problem now was the cabin itself. It smelled of must and mold even with the tiny windows swung out, and they let little light into its dank confines. “Confines” was the word. The cabin was small, smaller than the wagon, and most of the space was taken by a heavy table and high-backed chair fastened to the floor, and the ladder leading up to the deck. A washstand built into the wall, with a grimy pitcher and bowl and a narrow dusty mirror, crowded the room still more, and completed the furnishings except for a few empty shelves and pegs for hanging clothes. The ceiling beams crouched right overhead, even for them. And there was only one bed, wider than what they had been sleeping on, yet hardly wide enough for two. Tall as he was, Neres might as well have lived in a box. The man surely had not given up one inch that might be stuffed with cargo.

“He came to Samara in the night,” Elayne muttered, unburdening herself of her bundles and putting hands on hips as she looked around disparagingly, “and he wanted to leave in the night. I heard him tell one of his men that he meant to sail on through the night whatever the . . . the wenches . . . wanted. Apparently, he’s not much pleased to be moving in daylight.”

Thinking of the other woman’s elbows and cold feet, Nynaeve wondered whether she would not have done better to sleep up above with the refugees. “What are you going on about?”

“The man is a smuggler, Nynaeve.”

“In this vessel?” Dropping her own bundles, Nynaeve laid the scrip on the table and sat down on the edge of the bed. No, she would not sleep on deck. The cabin might smell, but it could be aired out, and if the bed was cramped, it had a thick feather mattress. The ship did roll disturbingly; she might as well have what comfort she could. Elayne could not chase her out of there. “It is a barrel. We will be lucky to reach Boannda in two weeks. The Light alone knows how long to Salidar.” Neither of them really knew how far Salidar was, and it was not yet time to broach the matter with Captain Neres.

“Everything fits. Even the name. Riverserpent. What honest trader would name his craft so?”

“Well, what if he is? It wouldn’t be the first time we’ve made use of a smuggler.”

Elayne threw up her hands in exasperation; she always did think obeying the law was important, however fool the law was. She shared more with Galad than she would be willing to admit. So Neres had called them wenches, had he?

The second difficulty was room for the others. Riverserpent was not a very large vessel, if wide, and counting everyone there were well over a hundred people aboard. A certain amount of space had to go to the crew working the sweeps and tending ropes and sails, and that did not leave much for the passengers. It did not help that the refugees kept as far from the Shienarans as possible; it seemed they had had their fill of armed men. There was scarcely room for everyone to sit, and none for lying down.

Nynaeve approached Neres straight away. “These folk need more room. Especially the women and children. Since you have no more cabins, your hold will have to do.”

Neres’ face darkened. Staring straight ahead, somewhere a pace to her left, he growled, “My hold is full of valuable cargo. Very valuable cargo.”

“I wonder if customs men are active along the Eldar here?” Elayne said idly, eyeing the tree-lined banks to either side. The river was only a few hundred paces wide here, bordered with dried black mud and bare yellow clay. “Ghealdan to one side and Amadicia to the other. It might seem odd, your hold full of goods from the south and you heading south. Of course, you probably have all the documents showing where you’ve paid duties. And you could explain that you didn’t unload because of the troubles in Samara. I have heard that excise men are quite understanding, really.”

The corners of his mouth turning down, he still did not look at either of them.

Which was why he had a very good view when Thom fanned empty hands, made a flourish, and was suddenly twirling a pair of knives through his fingers before making one of them disappear.

“Just keeping in practice,” Thom said, scratching one long mustache with the other blade. “I like to maintain certain . . . skills.” The gash in his white-haired scalp and the fresh blood on his face, added to a bloodstained rent in one shoulder of his coat and tears elsewhere besides, made him look villainous in any company but Uno’s. The Shienaran’s toothy smile held no mirth at all, and did unfortunate things to his long scar and the new slash down his face, red and raw. The glaring crimson eye on his patch almost paled in comparison.

Neres shut his eyes and drew a long, long breath.

The hatches came open, and crates and casks went splashing over the side, some heavy, most light and smelling of spices. Neres winced every time the river closed over something else. He brightened—if such a thing could be said of him—when Nynaeve directed that bolts of silk and carpets and bales of fine woolens be left below. Until he realized that she meant them for bedding. If his face had been sour before, now it could have curdled milk in the next room. Through the whole thing he never said a word. When women began drawing up buckets of water on ropes to wash their children right there on the deck, he strode to the stern, hands clenched behind his back, and stared at the few floating casks as they fell behind.

In a way, it was Neres’ peculiar attitude toward women that began smoothing the edges from Elayne’s acid tongue, and Birgitte’s. That was the way Nynaeve saw it; she herself had maintained her usual even disposition, of course. Neres disliked women. The crew spoke quickly when they had to speak to one of the women, all the while darting glances at the captain until they could hurry back to their duties. A fellow who seemed to have nothing to do for a moment was more likely than not to be sent running to some task by a roar from Neres if he exchanged two words with anyone in skirts. Their hasty comments and muttered warnings made Neres’ opinions perfectly clear.

Women cost a man money, they fought like alley cats, and they caused trouble. Any and all trouble a man had could be laid to women, one way or another. Neres expected half of them to be rolling on the deck clawing one another before the first sunset. They would all flirt with his crew, and bring on dissension where they did not cause fights. Could he have sent all women off his ship, forever, he might have been happy. Could he have had them out of his life, he would have been ecstatic.

Nynaeve had never encountered the like. Oh, she had heard men mutter about women and money, as if men did not fling coin about like water—they just had no head for money, less than Elayne—and she had even heard them lay various troubles to women, usually when it was they themselves who had caused all the bother. But she could not recall ever meeting a man who truly disliked women. It was a surprise to learn that Neres had a wife and a horde of children in Ebou Dar, but no surprise that he stayed at home only long enough to load a new cargo. He did not even want to talk to a woman. It was simply amazing. Sometimes Nynaeve found herself looking at him sideways, the way she would have at some incredible animal. Far stranger than s’redit, or anything else in Luca’s menagerie.

Naturally, there was no way that Elayne or Birgitte could vent their bile where he might hear. Rolling eyes and meaningful looks among Thom and the others were bad enough; they at least made some effort to hide them. Neres’ open satisfaction at having his ridiculous expectations met—he surely would have seen it so—that would have been unbearable. He left them no choice but to swallow their acid and smile.

For herself, Nynaeve could have done with a little time with Thom and Uno and Juilin away from Neres’ eye. They were forgetting themselves again, forgetting they were supposed to do as they were told. The results did not matter; they should wait. And for some reason they had taken to tormenting Neres with darkly smiling comments about cracking heads and slitting throats. But the only place she could be sure of avoiding Neres was in the cabin. They were not particularly large men, though Thom was tall and Uno fairly wide, yet crowded in there, they would have filled the tiny space to where they were looming over her. Hardly conducive to the tongue-lashing she wanted to hand out; give a man the chance to loom, and he had the battle half won. So she put on a pleasant mask, ignored startled frowns from Thom and Juilin, incredulous stares from Uno and Ragan, and enjoyed the outward good temper the other women had been forced to adopt.

She managed to keep smiling when she learned why the sails were so full, the undulating riverbanks rushing by under the afternoon as fast as a trotting horse. Neres had had the sweeps pulled in and stored along the railings; he almost looked happy. Almost. A low clay bluff ran along the Amadicia bank: on the Ghealdan side lay a broad ribbon of reeds between river and trees, mainly brown where water had receded. Samara lay only a few hours upriver.

“You channeled,” she said to Elayne through her teeth. Wiping sweat from her brow with the back of her hand, she resisted the urge to dash it to the slowly heaving deck. The other passengers left a clear space for the two of them and Birgitte a few paces across, but she still kept her voice low, and as affable as she could manage. Her stomach seemed to move a heartbeat behind the ship’s roll; that hardly improved her temper. “This wind is your doing.” She hoped there was enough red fennel in her scrip.

From Elayne’s damply glowing countenance and wide eyes, milk and honey should have fountained from her mouth. “You are turning into a frightened rabbit. Pull yourself together. Samara is miles behind us. No one could sense anything useful from that far. She would have to be on the ship with us to know. I was very quick.”

Nynaeve thought her own face might crack if she held her smile any longer, but out of the corner of her eye she could see Neres, studying his passengers and shaking his head. Angry as she was at that moment, she could also see the almost faded residue of the other woman’s weaving. Working weather was like rolling a stone downhill; it tended to keep going the way you started it. When it bounced away from the path, as it would sooner or later, you just had to twitch it back. Moghedien might have felt a weave of that size from Samara—maybe—but certainly not well enough to say where it had been done. She herself was a match for Moghedien in raw strength, and if she was not strong enough to do something, it seemed safe to say the Forsaken was not either. And she did want to travel as quickly as possible; right then, one day more than necessary in close quarters with the other two held as much attraction for her as sharing the cabin with Neres. For that matter, an extra day on water was nothing to look forward to. How could a ship move in such a fashion when the river looked so flat?

Smiling was beginning to make her lips ache. “You should have asked, Elayne. You always go and do things without asking, without thinking. It’s time you realized if you fall into a hole running blindly, your old nurse isn’t going to come pick you up and wash your face.” By the last word, Elayne’s eyes were as round as teacups, and her bared teeth looked ready to bite.

Birgitte put a hand on each of them, leaning close and beaming as though joy had her by the throat. “If you two don’t stop this, I’m going to tip you both into the river to cool off. You are both acting like Shago barmaids with winteritch!”

Sweating faces frozen in amiability, the three women stalked in different directions, just as far apart as the ship would allow. Near sunset Nynaeve heard Ragan say that she and the others must really be relieved to be away from Samara, the way they were all but laughing on one another’s shoulder, and the other men seemed to be thinking much the same, but the rest of the women aboard watched them with faces much too smooth. They knew trouble when they saw it.

Yet bit by bit, that trouble oozed away. Nynaeve was not exactly sure how. Perhaps the pleasant exteriors Elayne and Birgitte put on just seeped inside in spite of them. Perhaps the ridiculousness of it all, trying to keep a friendly smile on your face while putting a proper bite into your words, struck them more and more. Whatever did it, she could not complain at the outcome. Slowly, day by day, words and tones began to match faces, and now and then one of them even looked embarrassed, plainly remembering how she had been behaving. Neither spoke one word of apology, of course, which Nynaeve quite understood. Had she been as foolish and vicious as they, she certainly would not want to remind anyone.

The children played a part in restoring Elayne and Birgitte to equilibrium, too, though it actually started with Nynaeve looking after the men’s wounds that first morning on the river. She brought out her scrip full of herbs, making poultices and ointments, bandaging cuts. Those gashes made her angry enough to Heal—sickness and injury always made her angry—and she did so, for some of the worst, though she had to be careful. Wounds vanishing would have set people talking, and the Light knew what Neres would do if he thought he had an Aes Sedai aboard; very likely sneak a man ashore in Amadicia by night and try to have them arrested. For that matter, the news might have sent some of the refugees over the side.

With Uno, for example, she rubbed a touch of stinging mardroot-oil liniment into his heavily bruised shoulder, dabbed a bit of healall ointment on the fresh slash down his face—no point wasting either—and wrapped his head in bandages until he could hardly move his jaw before Healing him. When he gasped and flailed, she said briskly, “Don’t be such a baby. I wouldn’t have thought a little pain would bother a big strong man. Now, you leave those alone; if you even touch them in the next three days, I’ll dose you with something you won’t soon forget.”

He nodded slowly, staring at her so uncertainly that it was plain he did not know what she had done. If he realized when he finally took the bandages off, with luck no one else would remember exactly how bad the gash had been, and he should have sense enough to keep his mouth shut.

Once she began, it was only natural to go on to the rest of the passengers. Few of the refugees lacked bruises and scrapes, and some of the children were showing signs of fevers or worms. Those she could Heal without worry; children always made a fuss when they were dosed with anything that did not taste of honey. If they told their mothers it had felt odd, children always had fancies.

She had never really been comfortable around children. True, she wanted to have Lan’s babies. Part of her did. Children could make a mess from nothing. They seemed to have the habit of doing the opposite of what you told them as soon as your back was turned, just to see how you would react. Yet she found herself smoothing back the dark hair of a boy no higher than her waist who stared up at her owlishly with bright blue eyes. They looked very like Lan’s eyes.

Elayne and Birgitte joined her, just to help keep order at first, but one way or another they gravitated to the children too. Strangely, Birgitte did not look at all silly with a boy of three or four cradled on either hip and a ring of children about her, singing them a nonsense song about dancing animals. And Elayne handed round a sack of sweet red candies. The Light knew where she had gotten them, or why. She did not look guilty at all when Nynaeve caught her sneaking one into her own mouth; she only grinned, gently pulled a little girl’s thumb from her mouth and replaced it with another candy. The children laughed as if just remembering how, and snuggled themselves into Nynaeve’s skirts, or Elayne’s or Birgitte’s, as easily as into their mothers’. It was very difficult to maintain any sort of temper in those circumstances. She could not even bring herself to do more than sniff, and that faintly, when Elayne resumed her study of the a’dam in the privacy of the cabin on the second day. The woman seemed more convinced than ever that the bracelet, necklace and leash created a strange form of linking. Nynaeve even sat with her once or twice; the sight of the vile thing itself was enough to enable her to embrace saidar and follow along.

The refugees’ stories came out, of course. Families separated, lost or dead. Farms and shops and crafts ruined as ripples of the world’s troubles spread out, disrupting trade. People could not buy when they could not sell. The Prophet had only been the last brick on the cart that broke the axle. Nynaeve said nothing when she saw Elayne slipping a gold mark to a fellow with thin gray hair who knuckled a wrinkled forehead and tried to kiss her hand. She would learn how fast gold vanished. Besides, Nynaeve had handed out a few coins herself. Well, perhaps more than a few.

All but two of the men were grizzled or balding, with leathery faces and work-callused hands. Younger men had been snatched into the army if they were not caught up by the Prophet; those who refused one or the other had been hanged. The young pair—little more than boys, really; Nynaeve doubted if either had to shave regularly—wore hunted stares, and flinched if one of the Shienarans looked at them. Sometimes the older men talked of starting over, finding a bit of land to farm or taking up their trade again, but the tone of their voices said it was more bluff and bravado than real hope. Mostly they talked quietly of their families; a wife lost, sons and daughters lost, grandchildren lost. They sounded lost. The second night, a jug-eared fellow who had seemed the most enthusiastic in a sad lot had just vanished; he was simply gone when the sun came up. He might have swum ashore. Nynaeve hoped he had.

Still, it was the women who caught her heart. They had no more prospects than the men, no more certainties, but most had more burdens. None had a husband with her, or even knew if she had a husband alive, yet the responsibilities that weighed them down also kept them moving. No woman with grit could give up when she had children. Even the others meant to find some future, though. They all had at least a scrap of the hope the men only pretended to. Three especially tugged at her.

Nicola was about her age and height, a slender dark-haired weaver with big eyes who had been intending to marry. Until her Hyran took it into his head that duty called him to follow the Prophet, to follow the Dragon Reborn; he would marry her when his duty was seen to. Duty had been very important to Hyran. He would have made a good and conscientious husband and father, so Nicola said. Only, whatever was in his head had not done him much good when someone split it with an axe. Nicola did not know who, or why, just that she had to get as far from the Prophet as she could. Somewhere there had to be a place where there was no killing, where she would not always be in fear of what might be around the next corner.

Marigan, a few years older, had been plump once, but her frayed brown dress hung on her loosely now, and her blunt face looked beyond weary. Her two sons, six and seven, stared silently at the world with too-big eyes; clinging to each other, they seemed frightened of everything and everyone else, even their own mother. Marigan had dealt in cures and herbs in Samara, though she had some odd ideas about both. That was no wonder, really; a woman who offered healing with Amadicia and Whitecloaks right across the river had to keep low, and even from the first she had had to teach herself. All she had ever wanted to do was cure sickness, and she claimed to have done it well, though she had not been able to save her husband. The five years since his death had been hard, and the coming of the Prophet had certainly not helped her any. Mobs searching for Aes Sedai chased her into hiding after she had cured a man of fever and rumor had turned it into bringing him back from the dead. That was how little most people knew of Aes Sedai; death was beyond the power to Heal. Even Marigan seemed to think it was not. She did not know where she was going any more than Nicola. A village somewhere, she hoped, where she could dispense herbs again in peace.

Areina was the youngest of the three, with steady blue eyes in a face bruised purple and yellow, and not from Ghealdan at all. Her clothes would have said that if nothing else did, a short dark coat and voluminous trousers not much different from Birgitte’s. They were the sum of her possessions. She would not say where she was from exactly, but she was forthcoming about the road that had led her to Riverserpent. About some of it; Nynaeve had to infer in places. Areina had gone to Illian meaning to bring her younger brother home before he could take the oath as a Hunter for the Horn. With thousands in the city, however, she had never found him, but somehow she had found herself taking the oath, setting out to see the world while not quite believing the Horn of Valere existed, half hoping that somewhere she would find young Gwil and take him home. Things had been . . . difficult . . . since. Areina was not precisely reluctant to talk, but she made such an effort to put a good face on things. She had been chased out of several villages, robbed once, and beaten several times. Even so, she had no intention of giving up or seeking sanctuary, or a peaceful village. The world was still out there, and Areina meant to wrestle it to the ground. Not that she put it that way, but Nynaeve knew it was what the woman meant.

Nynaeve knew very well why they touched her most, too. Each story could have been the reflection of a thread in her own life. What she did not quite understand was why she liked Areina best. It was her opinion, putting this and that together, that nearly all of Areina’s troubles came from having too free a tongue, telling people exactly what she thought. It could hardly be coincidence that she was harried out of one village so quickly she had to leave her horse behind after calling the mayor a pie-faced loon and telling some village women that dry-bones kitchen sweepers had no right to question why she was on the road alone. That was what she admitted to saying. Nynaeve thought a few days of herself for example would do Areina worlds of good. And there had to be something she could do for the other two, as well. She could understand a desire for safety and peace very well.

There was an odd exchange the morning of the second day, while tempers were still tender and tongues— some people’s tongues!—still rough. Nynaeve said something quite mildly, about Elayne not being in her mother’s palace, so she need not think Nynaeve was going to sleep shoved against the wall every night. Elayne tilted up her chin, but before she could open her mouth, Birgitte blurted, “You are the Daughter-Heir of Andor?” She hardly looked around to make sure no one was close enough to hear.

“I am.” Elayne sounded more dignified than Nynaeve remembered in some time, but there was a hint of—could it be satisfaction?

Face completely blank, Birgitte simply turned away, walking up into the bow where she sat on a coil of rope, staring at the river ahead. Elayne frowned after her, then finally went to sit beside her. They sat talking softly for some time. Nynaeve would not have joined them even had she been asked! Whatever they discussed, Elayne seemed slightly disgruntled, as if she had expected some other result, but after that there was hardly a cross word between them.

Birgitte resumed her own name later that same day, though it was a last flare of temper that did it. With Moghedien safely behind them, she and Elayne washed the black out of their hair with pokeleaf, and Neres seeing one with red-gold curls about her shoulders and the other yellow-gold in an intricate braid, and that one with bow and quiver, muttered acridly about “Birgitte stepping out of the bloody stories.” It was his misfortune that she overheard. That was her name, she told him sharply, and if he did not like it, she would pin his ears to either mast he chose. Blindfolded. He stalked off red-faced and shouting for lines to be tightened that could not have been made any tighter without popping.

At that point Nynaeve would not have cared whether Birgitte actually carried out the threat. Pokeleaf might have left a slight reddish cast to her own hair, yet it was close enough to its natural color almost to make her cry for joy. Unless everyone aboard came down with sore gums and toothaches, she had more than enough pokeleaf remaining. And sufficient red fennel to keep her stomach in its place. She could not help sighing in satisfaction once her hair was dry and in a proper braid again.

Of course, with Elayne channeling good winds and Neres running light or dark, thatch-roofed villages and farms sped past on either bank, marked by people waving in the day and lit windows in the night, showing no sign of the turmoil farther upriver. Broad as the misnamed craft was, it made good time, rolling along downriver.

Neres seemed torn between pleasure at his good luck at such winds and worry at moving in daylight. More than once he gazed longingly at a backwater, a tree-shrouded stream or a pool cut deep into the bank where Riverserpent might have been moored and hidden. Occasionally Nynaeve remarked where he could hear about how glad he must be that the people from Samara would soon be off his ship, with a comment thrown in about how well this woman was looking now that she was rested or how energetic that woman’s children were. That was enough to put ideas of stopping right out of his head. It might have been easier to threaten him with the Shienarans, or Thom and Juilin, but those fellows were getting entirely too big-headed as it was. And she certainly had no intention of arguing with a man who still would neither look at her nor talk to her.

Gray dawning of the third day saw the crew manning the sweeps again to draw them in to a dock at Boannda. It was a considerable town, larger than Samara, on a point of land where the swift River Boern, coming down from Jehannah, ran into the slower Eldar. There were even three towers inside the tall gray walls, and a building shining white beneath a red tile roof that could certainly pass for a palace, if a small one. As Riverserpent was lashed fast to the heavy pilings at the end of one dock—half their length across dried mud—Nynaeve wondered aloud why Neres had gone all the way to Samara when he could have unloaded his goods here.

Elayne nodded toward a stout man on the dock who wore a chain with some sort of seal hanging across his chest. There were several others like him, all with the chain and a blue coat, intently watching two other broad vessels unload at other docks. “Queen Alliandre’s excisemen, I should say.” Drumming his fingers on the rail, Neres was not looking at the men just as intently as they were at the other vessels. “Perhaps he had an arrangement with those in Samara. I don’t think he wants to talk to these.”

The men and women from Samara marched reluctantly up the gangplank, ignored by the excisemen. There was no customs duty on people. For the Samarans, it was the beginning of uncertainty. They had their lives ahead of them, and to begin anew, what they stood up in and what Nynaeve and Elayne had given them. Before they were halfway down the dock, still huddling together, some of the women were beginning to look as disheartened as the men. Some even began to cry. Vexation painted Elayne’s face. She always wanted to take care of everyone. Nynaeve hoped Elayne did not discover that she had slipped a few more silvers to some of the women.

Not all left the ship. Areina remained, and Nicola, and Marigan, tightly clutching her sons, who gazed in anxious silence after the other children vanishing toward the town. The two lads had not said a word since Samara that Nynaeve had heard.

“I want to go with you,” Nicola told Nynaeve, unconsciously wringing her hands. “I feel safe near you.” Marigan nodded emphatically. Areina said nothing, but she stepped closer to the other two women, making herself part of the group even as she looked levelly at Nynaeve, defying her to send her away.

Thom shook his head slightly, and Juilin grimaced, but it was to Elayne and Birgitte that Nynaeve looked. Elayne did not hesitate in nodding, and the other woman was only a second behind. Gathering her skirts, Nynaeve marched to Neres, standing in the stern.

“I suppose I will have my ship back now,” he told the air somewhere between the ship and the dock. “Not before time. This voyage has been the worst I ever undertook.”

Nynaeve smiled broadly. For once, he did look at her before she was done. Well, he almost did.

It was not as if Neres had much choice. He could hardly appeal to the authorities in Boannda. And if he did not like the fares she offered, well, he had to sail downriver anyway. So Riverserpent cast off again, heading for Ebou Dar, with one stop to be made that he was not informed of until Boannda began falling astern.

“Salidar!” he growled, staring over Nynaeve’s head. “Salidar’s been abandoned since the Whitecloak War. It would take a fool woman to want to be ashore at Salidar.”

Even smiling, Nynaeve was angry enough to embrace the Source. Neres roared, slapping at his neck and his hip at the same time. “The horseflies are very bad this time of year,” she said sympathetically. Birgitte roared with laughter before they were halfway down the deck.

Standing in the bows, Nynaeve inhaled deeply as Elayne channeled to bring the wind up again and Riverserpent lumbered into the strong current flowing out of the Boern. She was all but eating red fennel for meals, but even if she ran out before Salidar, she would not care. Their journey was almost over. Everything she had been through was worth it, for that. Of course, she had not always thought so, and Elayne and Birgitte’s rasping tongues had not been the only cause.

That first night, lying on the captain’s bed in her shift while a yawning Elayne occupied the chair and Birgitte leaned against the door with her head brushing the beams, Nynaeve had used the twisted stone ring. A single rusty gimbal-mounted lamp gave light, and surprisingly, a scent of spice from the oil; maybe Neres had not liked the stench of must and mold, either. If she was ostentatious about nestling the ring between her breasts—and making sure the others knew it touched skin—well, she had cause. A few hours of superficially reasonable behavior on their parts had not made her less wary.

The Heart of the Stone was exactly as it had been every time before, pale light coming from everywhere and nowhere, the glittering crystal sword Callandor thrust into the floorstones beneath the great dome, rows of huge polished redstone columns running off into shadow. And that sensation of being watched that was so common in Tel’aran’rhiod. It was all Nynaeve could do not to flee, or set off on a frantic search through the columns. She forced herself to stand in one place beside Callandor, counting slowly to one thousand and pausing every hundred to call Egwene’s name.

Truly, it was all she could do. The control she was so proud of vanished. Her clothes flickered with her worries about herself and Moghedien, Egwene and Rand and Lan. Between one minute and the next stout Two Rivers woolens became a muffling cloak and deep hood which became a suit of Whitecloak mail which became the red silk dress—only transparent!—which became an ever thicker cloak which became . . . She thought her face changed, too. Once she saw her hands, with skin darker than Juilin’s. Perhaps if Moghedien could not recognize her . . .

“Egwene!” The last hoarse call echoed among the columns, and Nynaeve made herself stand there shivering for one more count of one hundred. The great chamber remained empty except for her. Wishing she could feel more regret than haste, she stepped out of the dream . . .

. . . and lay fingering the stone ring on its thong, staring at the thick beams above the bed and listening to the thousand creaks of the ship rushing downriver through the darkness.

“Was she there?” Elayne demanded. “You were not gone very long, but—”

“I am tired of being afraid,” Nynaeve said without taking her gaze from the beams. “I am s-so tired of being a c-coward.” The last words dissolved into tears she could neither stop nor hide, no matter how she scrubbed at her eyes.

Elayne was there in an instant, holding her and smoothing her hair, and an instant later, Birgitte pressed a cloth dampened in cool water against the back of her neck. She cried herself out to the sound of them telling her she was not a coward.

“If I thought Moghedien was hunting me,” Birgitte said finally, “I would run. If there was no other place to hide than a badger’s hole, I would wriggle in and curl into a ball and sweat until she was gone. I would not stand in front of one of Cerandin’s s’redit if it charged, either; and neither is cowardice. You must choose your own time and your own ground, and come at her in the way she least expects. I will take my revenge on her if ever I can, but that is the only way I will. Anything else would be foolish.”

That was hardly what Nynaeve wanted to hear, but her tears and their comfort made another gap in the thorny hedges that had grown up between them.

“I will prove to you that you are no coward.” Taking the dark wooden box from the shelf where she had put it, Elayne removed the spiral-scribed iron disc. “We will go back together.”

That, Nynaeve wanted to hear even less. But there was no way to avoid it, not after they had told her she was not a coward. So back they went.

To the Stone of Tear, where they stared at Callandor—better than looking over your shoulder and wondering whether Moghedien was going to appear—then to the Royal Palace in Caemlyn with Elayne leading, and Emond’s Field under Nynaeve’s guidance. Nynaeve had seen palaces before, with their huge halls and great painted ceilings and marble floors, their gilding and fine carpets and elaborate hangings, but this was where Elayne had grown up. Seeing it, and knowing that, made her understand a little of Elayne. Of course the woman expected the world to bend itself to her; she had grown up being taught that it would, in a place where it did.

Elayne, a pale image of herself because of the ter’angreal she was using, was strangely quiet while they were there. But then, Nynaeve was quiet in Emond’s Field. For one thing, the village was larger than she remembered, with more thatch-roofed houses and other wooden frameworks going up. Someone was building a very big house just outside the village, three sprawling stories, and a stone plinth five paces high had been erected on the Green, carved all over with names. A good many she recognized; they were mostly Two Rivers names. A flagpole stood to either side of the plinth, one topped by a banner with a red wolf’s head, the other one with a red eagle. Everything looked prosperous and happy—as much as she could say, with no people there—but it made no sense. What on earth were those banners? And who would be building such a house?

They flashed to the White Tower, to Elaida’s study. Nothing had changed there, except that only half a dozen stools remained in the semicircle in front of Elaida’s table. And the triptych of Bonwhin was gone. The painting of Rand remained, with a poorly mended tear in the canvas across Rand’s face, as if someone had thrown something at it.

They rifled the papers in the lacquered box with its golden hawks, and those on the Keeper’s table in the anteroom. Documents and letters changed while they looked at them, yet they did learn a little. Elaida knew that Rand had crossed the Dragonwall into Cairhien, but of what she intended to do about it, there was no clue. An angry demand that all Aes Sedai return to the Tower immediately unless they had specific orders otherwise from her. Elaida seemed to be angry about a good deal, that so few sisters had returned after her offer of amnesty, that most of the eyes-and-ears in Tarabon were still silent, that Pedron Niall was still calling Whitecloaks back to Amadicia when she did not know why, that Davram Bashere still could not be found despite having an army with him. Fury filled every document over her seal. None of it seemed of real use or interest, except maybe about the Whitecloaks. Not that they should have any difficulty there as long as they were on Riverserpent.

When they returned to their bodies on the ship, Elayne was silent as she rose from the chair and replaced the disc in the box. Without thinking, Nynaeve got up to help her out of her dress. Birgitte scrambled up the ladder as they climbed into the bed together in their shifts; she intended to sleep right at the top of the ladder, she said.

Elayne channeled to extinguish the lamp. After a time lying in the dark, she said, “The palace seemed so . . . empty, Nynaeve. It felt so empty.”

Nynaeve did not know what else a place was supposed to be in Tel’aran’rhiod. “It was the ter’angreal you used. You looked almost foggy to me.”

“Well, I looked just fine to me.” There was only a touch of asperity in Elayne’s voice, though, and they settled down to sleep.

Nynaeve had remembered the other woman’s elbows accurately, but they could not diminish her good mood, and neither could Elayne’s complaining murmur that she had cold feet. She had done it. Perhaps forgetting to be afraid was not the same as not being afraid, but at least she had gone back to the World of Dreams. Perhaps one day she could find the nerve again not to be afraid.

Having begun, it was easier to go on than to stop. Every night after that they entered Tel’aran’rhiod together, always with a visit to the Tower to see what they could learn. There was not very much, besides an order sending an emissary to Salidar to invite the Aes Sedai there to return to the Tower. Except, the invitation—as much as Nynaeve could read before it changed to a report on screening potential novices for proper attitudes, whatever that was supposed to mean—was more a demand that those Aes Sedai submit to Elaida immediately and be thankful they were allowed to. Still, it was confirmation that they were not chasing a wild hare. The trouble with the rest of what they saw in fragments was they did not know enough to fit them together. Who was this Davram Bashere, and why was Elaida so frantic to find him? Why had Elaida forbidden anyone to mention the name of Mazrim Taim, the false Dragon, with a threat of stiff penalties? Why had Queen Tenobia of Saldaea and King Easar of Shienar both written letters politely but stiffly resenting White Tower meddling in their affairs? It all made Elayne murmur one of Lini’s sayings: “To know two, you must first know one.” Nynaeve could only agree that it certainly seemed so.

Aside from the trips to Elaida’s study, they worked at learning control, of themselves and their surroundings in the World of Dreams. Nynaeve did not mean to let herself be caught again as she had been by Egwene, and by the Wise Ones. Moghedien she tried not to think about. Much better to concentrate on the Wise Ones.

Of Egwene’s trick of appearing in their dreams, as she had in Samara, they could puzzle out nothing; calling her did nothing except increase that uneasy feeling of being watched, and she did not make another such appearance. Trying to hold somebody else in Tel’aran’rhiod was incredibly frustrating, even after Elayne hit on the trick, which was to see the other as just another part of the dream. Elayne did it finally—and Nynaeve congratulated her with as good grace as she could muster—but for days Nynaeve could not. Elayne might as well have been the near mist she seemed, vanishing with a smile whenever she chose. When Nynaeve finally managed to fasten Elayne there, she felt the strain as if she were picking up a boulder.

Creating fantastical flowers or shapes by thinking of them was much more fun. The effort involved seemed related to both how large the thing was and whether it might really exist. Trees covered with wildly shaped blossoms in red and gold and purple were harder to make than a stand-mirror to examine what you had done to your dress, or what the other woman had done to it. A gleaming crystal palace rising out of the ground was harder still, and even if felt solid to the touch, it changed whenever the image in your mind wavered and vanished as soon as the image did. They quietly decided to leave animals alone after a peculiar thing—much like a horse with a horn on its nose!—chased them both up a hill before they could make it vanish. That very nearly sparked a new argument, with each of them claiming the other had made it, but by that time Elayne had recovered enough of her old self to start giggling over how they must have looked, racing up the hill with their skirts hauled up, shouting at the thing to go away. Even Elayne’s stubborn refusal to admit it had been her fault could not stop Nynaeve’s giggles from bubbling up, too.

Elayne alternated between the iron disc and the apparently amber plaque with its carving of a sleeping woman, but she did not really like using either ter’angreal. As hard as she worked with them, she did not feel as fully in Tel’aran’rhiod as with the ring. And each did have to be worked; it was not possible to tie the flow of Spirit, or you bounced right back out of the World of Dreams immediately. Channeling anything else at the same time seemed all but impossible, yet Elayne could not understand why. She seemed more interested in how they had been made, and not at all pleased that they did not yield their secrets as easily as the a’dam. Not knowing the “why” was a burr in her stocking.

Once, Nynaeve tried one of the pair, coincidentally on the night they were to meet Egwene, the night after leaving Boannda. She would not have been angry enough if not for the thing that rubbed her wrong so often. Men.

Neres began it, stumping around the deck as the sun began to sink, muttering to himself about having his cargo stolen. She ignored him, of course. Then Thom, making up his bed at the foot of the after mast, said quietly, “He has a point.”

It was plain he did not see her in the fading lurid light, and neither did Juilin, squatting beside him. “He’s a smuggler, but he did pay for those goods. Nynaeve had no right to seize them.”

“A woman’s flaming rights are whatever she flaming says they are.” Uno laughed. “That’s what women in Shienar say, anyway.”

That was when they saw her and fell silent, as usual finding wisdom too late. Uno rubbed at his cheek, the one without a scar. He had removed his bandages that day, and he knew now what had been done. She thought he looked embarrassed. It was hard to tell in the fast-shifting shadows, but the other two seemed to have no expression at all.

She did nothing to them, of course, only stalked away with a firm grip on her braid. She even managed to stalk down the ladder. Elayne already had the iron disc in her hand; the dark wooden box sat open on the table. Nynaeve picked up the yellowish plaque carved inside with a sleeping woman; it felt slick and soft, not at all something that would scratch metal. With that edge of anger smoldering inside her, saidar was a warm glow just out of sight over her shoulder. “Maybe I can come up with some idea why this thing won’t let you channel anything but dribbles.”

Which was how she found herself in the Heart of the Stone, channeling a flow of Spirit into the plaque, which in Tel’aran’rhiod was tucked into her belt pouch. As she often did in the World of Dreams, Elayne wore a gown suitable for her mother’s court, green silk embroidered in gold around the neck, with a necklace and bracelets of gold links and moonstones, but Nynaeve was surprised to discover that she herself had on something not very different, though her hair was in a braid—and its own color—instead of loose about her shoulders. Her gown was pale blue and silver, and if not so low as Luca’s dresses, still lower than she thought she would have chosen. Still, she liked the way the single firedrop on its silver chain looked gleaming between her breasts. Egwene would not find it easy to bully a woman dressed so. Certainly not that that could have had anything to do with why she had donned it, even unconsciously.

Right away she saw what Elayne had meant about looking just fine; to herself, she appeared no different than the other woman, who had the twisted stone ring somehow threaded onto her necklace. Elayne, however, said she looked . . . misty. Misty was how saidar felt, too, except for the flow of Spirit she had begun to weave while awake. The rest was thin, and even the never-seen warmth of the True Source seemed muted. Her anger remained just strong enough for her to channel. If irritation at the men faded before the puzzle, that puzzle was its own irritant; steeling herself to confront Egwene had no part in it; she was not steeling herself at all, and there was no reason for the faint taste of boiled catfern and powdered mavinsleaf on her tongue! Yet producing a single flame, dancing in midair, one of the first things a novice was taught, seemed as difficult as throwing Lan over her shoulder. The flame looked attenuated even to her, and as soon as she tied the weave, it began to fade away. In seconds it was gone.

“Both of you?” Amys said. She and Egwene were just there, on the other side of Callandor, both in Aiel skirts and blouses and shawls. At least Egwene had not donned so many necklaces and bracelets. “Why do you appear so strange, Nynaeve? Have you learned to come waking?”

Nynaeve gave a little jump. She did so hate people sneaking up on her. “Egwene, how did you—” she began, smoothing her skirts, at the same time that Elayne said, “Egwene, we can’t understand how you—”

Egwene broke in. “Rand and the Aiel have won a great victory at Cairhien.” Out it all came in a torrent, everything she had told them in their dreams, from Sammael to the Seanchan spearhead. Each word almost tripped over the next, and she drove every one home with an intent stare.

Nynaeve exchanged confused glances with Elayne. Surely she had told them. They could not have imagined it, not with every word confirmed now. Even Amys, long white hair only emphasizing the not quite Aes Sedai agelessness of her face, looked amazed at the flood.

“Mat killed Couladin?” Nynaeve exclaimed at one point. That had certainly not been in their dreams of her. It did not sound like Mat at all. Leading soldiers? Mat?

When Egwene finally trailed off, shifting her shawl and breathing a little quickly—she had barely paused for breath along the way—Elayne said weakly, “Is he well?” She sounded as if she was almost beginning to doubt her own memories.

“As well as can be expected,” Amys said. “He drives himself hard, and listens to no one. Except Moiraine.” Amys was not pleased.

“Aviendha is with him almost all the time,” Egwene said. “She is taking good care of him for you.”

Nynaeve doubted that. She did not know much about Aiel, but she suspected that if Amys said “hard,” anyone else would say “murderously.”

Apparently, Elayne agreed. “Then why is she letting him push himself? What is he doing?”

Quite a bit, it turned out, and clearly too much. Two hours each day practicing the sword with Lan or anyone else he could find. That made Amys’ mouth tighten sourly. Two more studying the Aiel way of fighting without weapons. Egwene might find that strange, but Nynaeve was all too aware of how helpless you could be when you could not channel. Still, Rand certainly should never find himself in that position. He had become a king, or something more, surrounded by Far Dareis Mai guards, ordering lords and ladies about. In fact, he spent so much time ordering them, and chasing after them to make sure they did what he said, that he would not spare time for meals if the Maidens did not bring him food wherever he was. For some reason, while that seemed to irk Egwene almost as much as it did Elayne, Amys looked distinctly amused, though her face went back to Aiel stoniness once she saw Nynaeve notice. Yet another hour each day was given to a strange school he had founded, inviting not only scholars but craftsmen, from some fellow who made looking glasses to a woman who had constructed some sort of huge crossbow with pulleys that could hurl a spear a mile. He had told no one his purpose there, except maybe Moiraine, but the only answer the Aes Sedai had given Egwene was that the urge to leave something behind was strong in everyone. Moiraine did not seem to care what Rand did.

“What remains of the Shaido are retreating north,” Amys said grimly, “and more slip across the Dragonwall to them every day, but Rand al’Thor seems to have forgotten them. He is sending the spears south, toward Tear. Half are gone already. Rhuarc says he has not even told the chiefs why, and I do not think Rhuarc would lie to me. Moiraine stands closer to Rand al’Thor than any except Aviendha, yet she refuses to ask him.” Shaking her head, she muttered, “Though in her defense, I will say that even Aviendha has learned nothing.”

“The best way to keep a secret is to tell no one,” Elayne told her, which earned her a hard stare. Amys was not far behind Bair when it came to stares that made you shift your feet.

“We aren’t going to reason it out here,” Nynaeve said, fixing her gaze on Egwene. The other woman seemed uneasy. If there was any time to begin redressing the balance between them, it might as well be now. “What I want to know—”

“You are quite right,” Egwene cut in. “We are not in Sheriam’s study, where we can lounge about and chatter. What have you to tell us? Are you still with Master Luca’s menagerie?”

Nynaeve’s breath caught, questions flying right out of her head. There was so much to tell. And so much not to. She claimed she had followed Lanfear to the meeting between the Forsaken, and spoke only of seeing Moghedien spying. Not that she wanted to avoid telling how she had been handled by Moghedien—not really; not exactly—but Birgitte had not released them from their promise of secrecy. Of course, that meant not telling about Birgitte at all, that she was with them. It was awkward, knowing that Egwene knew Brigitte was helping them, and still having to keep pretending that Egwene knew nothing at all, but Nynaeve managed despite stammering when Egwene arched her eyebrows. The Light be thanked, Elayne helped her present Samara as Galad and Masema’s fault. Which it was, in truth. If either had simply sent to tell her about the ship, none of the rest would have followed.

When she finished—with Salidar—Amys said quietly, “You are certain they will support the Car’a’carn?”

“They must know the Prophecies of the Dragon as well as Elaida,” Elayne said. “The best way to oppose her is to attach themselves to Rand, and make it clear to the world that they intend to support him all the way to Tarmon Gai’don.” Not the slightest quaver in her voice betrayed that she was not speaking of an absolute stranger. “Otherwise, they are just rebels, with no claim to legitimacy. They need him at least as much as he needs them.”

Amys nodded, but not as if she was ready to agree yet.

“I think I remember Masema,” Egwene said. “Hollow eyes and a sour mouth?” Nynaeve nodded. “I can hardly imagine him as any sort of prophet, but I can see him starting a riot or a war. I’m sure Galad only did what he thought was best.” Egwene’s cheeks colored slightly; even the memory of Galad’s face could do that. “Rand will want to know about Masema. And Salidar. If I can make him stand still long enough to listen.”

“I want to know how it happens that you are both here,” Amys said. She listened to their explanation, and turned the plaque over in her hand once Nynaeve fished it out. Having the ter’angreal touched by someone else while she was using it made Nynaeve’s skin crawl. “I believe you are less here than Elayne,” the Wise One said finally. “When a Dreamwalker enters the World of Dreams in her sleep, only a tiny bit of her remains with her body, just enough to keep her body alive. If she puts herself into a shallow sleep, where she can be here and also speak to those around her in the waking world, she looks as you do to one who is here fully. Perhaps it is the same. I do not know that I like it, any woman who can channel being able to enter Tel’aran’rhiod, even in this state.” She returned the ter’angreal to Nynaeve.

Heaving a sigh of relief, Nynaeve hastily tucked the plaque away again. Her stomach was still fluttering.

“If you have told everything . . . ” Amys paused while Nynaeve and Elayne hurriedly said that they had. The woman’s blue eyes were incredibly penetrating. “Then we must go. I will admit there is more to be gained from these meetings than I first supposed, but I have much to do yet tonight.” She glanced at Egwene, and they vanished as one.

Nynaeve and Elayne did not hesitate. Around them the great redstone columns changed in a blink to a small, dark-paneled room, its furnishings few, plain and sturdy. Nynaeve’s anger had been wavering, and with it her hold on saidar, but the Mistress of Novices’ study firmed both. Stubbornly defiant indeed! She hoped that Sheriam was in Salidar; it would be a pleasure to face her on an equal footing. Still, she could have wished to be somewhere else. Elayne was peering into the mirror with its flaking gilt frame, nonchalantly adjusting her hair with her hands. Only she had no need to use her hands here. She did not like being in this room either. Why had Egwene suggested meeting here? Elaida’s study might not be the most comfortable place to be, but it was better than this.

A moment later, Egwene was there, on the other side of the broad table, eyes icy and hands on her hips as if she was the room’s rightful occupant.

Before Nynaeve could open her mouth, Egwene said, “Have you two brainless flap-tongues become witless ninnies? If I ask you to keep something to yourselves, do you immediately tell the first person you meet? Did it never occur to you that you don’t have to tell everyone everything? I thought you two were good at keeping secrets.” Nynaeve’s cheeks grew warmer; at least she could not possibly be as scarlet as Elayne. Egwene was not quite finished. “As for how I did it, I can’t teach you. You have to be a Dreamwalker. If you can touch somebody’s dreams with the ring, I don’t know how. And I doubt you can with that other thing. Try to keep your mind on what you’re doing. Salidar may be nothing like you expect. Now, I also have things to do tonight. At least try to keep your wits about you!” And she was gone so suddenly the last word almost seemed to come from empty air.

Embarrassment ate at Nynaeve’s anger. She had nearly burst out with it after Egwene asked her not to. And Birgitte: how could you keep a secret when the other woman knew? Embarrassment won, and saidar slipped away like sand through her fingers.

Nynaeve wakened with a jerk, the deep yellow ter’angreal firmly clutched in one hand. The gimbal-mounted lamp was turned down to a dim light. Elayne lay crowded in next to her, still asleep; the ring on its thong had slid down into the hollow of her throat.

Muttering to herself, Nynaeve clambered over the other woman to put away the plaque, then poured a little water into the washbasin to bathe her face and neck. The water was lukewarm, but it felt cool. In the shadowy light, she thought the mirror said she was still blushing. So much for redressing the balance. If only they had met anywhere else. If only she had not flapped her tongue like a brainless girl. It would have gone better if she had been using the ring, instead of being a wraith as far as the other woman was concerned. It was all Thom and Juilin’s fault. And Uno’s. If they had not made her angry . . . No, it was Neres’ fault. He . . . She took the pitcher in both hands and washed her mouth. It was only the taste of sleep she was trying to get rid of. Nothing like boiled catfern and powdered mavinsleaf. Nothing at all.

When she turned from the washstand, Elayne was just sitting up, untying the leather cord that held the ring. “I saw you losing saidar, so I went by Elaida’s study, but I didn’t think I should stay long in case you worried. I didn’t learn anything, except that Shemerin is to be arrested and reduced to Accepted.” She got up and tucked the ring into the box.

“They can do that? Demote an Aes Sedai?”

“I don’t know. I think Elaida is doing anything she wants. Egwene shouldn’t wear those Aiel clothes. They are not very becoming.”

Nynaeve let out the breath she had been holding. Obviously Elayne wanted to ignore what Egwene had said. Nynaeve was willing to let her. “No, they certainly aren’t.” Climbing onto the bed, she scrunched over against the wall; they took turns sleeping on the outside.

“I did not even have a chance to send a message to Rand.” Elayne got in after, and the lamp winked out. The small windows let in only dribbles of moonlight. “And one to Aviendha. If she is taking care of him for me, then she ought to take care of him.”

“He isn’t a horse, Elayne. You don’t own him.”

“I never said I did. How will you feel if Lan takes up with some Cairhienin woman?”

“Don’t be silly. Go to sleep.” Nynaeve burrowed fiercely into her small pillow. Perhaps she should have sent word to Lan. All those noblewomen, Tairen as well as Cairhienin. Feeding a man honey instead of telling him the truth. He had better not forget who he belonged to.

Below Boannda, woods closed in tightly on both sides of the river, unbroken tangles of trees and vines. Villages and farms vanished. The Eldar might as well have run through wilderness a thousand miles from human habitation. Five days out of Samara, early afternoon found Riverserpent anchored in the middle of a bend in the river, while the ship’s one boat ferried the remaining passengers to a beach of cracked dry mud bordered by low, forested hills. Even the tall willows and deep-rooted oaks showed some brown leaves.

“There was no need to give the man that necklace,” Nynaeve said on the shore, watching the rowboat approach, crowded with four oarsmen, Juilin and the last five Shienarans. She hoped she had not been gullible; Neres had showed her his map of this stretch of the river, pointing out the mark for Salidar two miles from the water, but nothing else indicated there had ever been a village anywhere near here. The forest wall was quite unbroken. “What I paid him was quite enough.”

“Not to cover his cargo,” Elayne replied. “Just because he’s a smuggler doesn’t mean we have a right to take it from him.” Nynaeve wondered whether she had been talking to Juilin. Probably not. It was just the law again. “Besides, yellow opals are gaudy, especially in that setting Anyway, it was worth it, just to see his face.” Elayne giggled abruptly. “He looked at me this time.” Nynaeve tried not to, but she could not help giggling too.

Thom was up near the trees, trying to amuse Marigan’s two boys by juggling colored balls produced from his sleeves. Jaril and Seve stared at him silently, hardly blinking, and held on to each other. Nynaeve had not really been surprised when Marigan and Nicola asked to accompany her. Nicola might be watching Thom and laughing delightedly now, but she would have spent every moment at Nynaeve’s side had the latter allowed it. Areina wanting to come had been something of a shock, though. She was sitting off by herself on a fallen log, watching Birgitte, who was stringing her bow. All three women might be in for a shock when they discovered what was in Salidar. At least Nicola would find her sanctuary, and Marigan might even have a chance to dispense herbs if there were not too many Yellows about.

“Nynaeve, have you thought about . . . how we’re going to be received?”

Nynaeve looked at Elayne in astonishment. They had crossed half the world, or near enough, and defeated the Black Ajah twice. Well, they had had help in Tear, but Tanchico had been all their doing. They brought news of Elaida and the Tower she was willing to bet no one in Salidar had. And most importantly, they could help these sisters make contact with Rand. “Elayne, I won’t say they will greet us as heroes, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they kissed us before today is done.” Rand alone would be worth that.

Two of the barefoot sailors leaped out to hold the rowboat against the current, and Juilin and the Shienarans splashed ashore as the sailors scrambled back aboard. On Riverserpent men were already hauling in the anchor.

“Clear us a path, Uno,” Nynaeve said. “I mean to be there before dark.” From the look of the forest, all vines and dusty undergrowth, two miles might take that long. If Neres had not managed to gull her. That worried her more than anything else.