The Dragon Reborn

## Chapter 22

#### The Price of The Ring

Egwene had only gone a short distance from Verin’s rooms when Sheriam met her. The Mistress of Novices wore a preoccupied frown.

“If someone hadn’t remembered Verin speaking to you, I might not have found you.” The Aes Sedai sounded mildly irritated. “Come along, child. You are holding everything up! What are those papers?”

Egwene clutched them a little tighter. She tried to make her voice both meek and respectful. “Verin Sedai thinks I should study them, Aes Sedai.” What would she do if Sheriam asked to see them? What excuse could she give for refusing, what explanation for pages telling all about thirteen women of the Black Ajah and the ter’angreal they had stolen?

But Sheriam seemed to have dismissed the papers from her mind as soon as she asked. “Never mind that. You are wanted, and everyone is waiting.” She took Egwene’s arm and forced her to walk faster.

“Wanted, Sheriam Sedai? Waiting for what?”

Sheriam shook her head with exasperation. “Did you forget that you are to be raised to the Accepted? When you come to my study tomorrow, you will be wearing the ring, though I doubt it will soothe you very much.”

Egwene tried to stop short, but the Aes Sedai hurried her on, taking a narrow set of stairs that curled down through the library walls. “Tonight? Already? But I am half-asleep, Aes Sedai, and dirty, and . . . I thought I would have days yet. To get ready. To prepare.”

“The hour waits on no woman,” Sheriam said. “The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills, when the Wheel wills. Besides, how would you prepare? You already know the things you must. More than your friend Nynaeve did.” She pushed Egwene through a tiny door at the foot of the stairs and hurried her across another hall to a ramp curving down and down.

“I listened to the lectures,” Egwene protested, “and I remember them, but . . . can’t I have a night’s sleep first?” The winding ramp seemed to have no end.

“The Amyrlin Seat decided there was no point in waiting.” Sheriam gave Egwene a sidelong smile. “Her exact words were, ‘Once you decide to gut a fish, there’s no use waiting till it rots.’ Elayne has already been through the arches by this time, and the Amyrlin means you to go through tonight as well. Not that I can see the point of such a hurry,” she added, half to herself, “but when the Amyrlin commands, we obey.”

Egwene let herself be pulled down the ramp in silence, a knot forming in her belly. Nynaeve had been far from forthcoming about what had happened when she was raised to the Accepted. She would not speak of it at all, except for a grimaced, ‘I hate Aes Sedai!’ Egwene was trembling by the time the ramp finally ended at a broad hallway, far below the Tower in the rock of the island.

The hall was plain and undecorated, the pale rock through which it had been hewn smoothed but left otherwise untouched, and there was only one set of dark wooden doors, as tall and wide as fortress gates and as plain, although of smoothly finished and finely fitted planks, at the very end. Those great doors were so well balanced, though, that Sheriam easily pushed one open, and pulled Egwene through after her, into a great, domed chamber.

“Not before time!” Elaida snapped. She stood to one side in her red-fringed shawl, beside a table on which sat three large silver chalices.

Lamps on tall stands illumined the chamber, and what sat centered under the dome. Three rounded, silver arches, just tall enough to walk under, sitting on a thick silver ring with their ends touching where they joined it. An Aes Sedai sat cross-legged on the bare rock before each of the spots where arches joined ring, all three wearing their shawls. Alanna was the sister of the Green Ajah, but she did not know the Yellow sister, or the White.

Surrounded by the glow of saidar embraced, the three Aes Sedai stared fixedly at the arches, and within the silver structure an answering glow flickered and grew. That structure was a ter’angreal, and whatever it had been made for in the Age of Legends, now novices passed through it to become Accepted. Inside it, Egwene would have to face her fears. Three times. The white light within the arches no longer flickered; it stayed within them as if confined, but it filled the space, made it opaque.

“Be easy, Elaida,” Sheriam said calmly. “We will be done soon.” She turned to Egwene. “Novices are given three chances at this. You may refuse twice to enter, but at the third refusal, you are sent away from the Tower forever. That is how it is done usually, and you certainly have the right to refuse, but I do not think the Amyrlin Seat will be pleased with you if you do.”

“She should not be given this chance.” There was iron in Elaida’s voice, and her face was scarcely softer. “I do not care what her potential is. She should be put out of the Tower. Or failing that, set to scrubbing floors for the next ten years.”

Sheriam gave the Red sister a sharp look. “You were not so adamant about Elayne. You demanded to be part of this, Elaida—perhaps because of Elayne—and you will do your part for this girl as well, as you are supposed to, or you will leave and I will find another.”

The two Aes Sedai stared at one another until Egwene would not have been surprised to see the glow of the One Power surround them. Finally Elaida gave a toss of her head and sniffed loudly.

“If it must be done, let us do it. Give the miserable girl her chance to refuse and be done with it. It is late.”

“I won’t refuse.” Egwene’s voice quavered, but she steadied it and held her head high. “I want to go on.”

“Good,” Sheriam said. “Good. Now I will tell you two things no woman hears until she stands where you do. Once you begin, you must go on to the end. Refuse at any point, and you will be put out of the Tower just as if you had refused to begin for the third time. Second. To seek, to strive, is to know danger.” She sounded as if she had said this many times. There was a light of sympathy in her eyes, but her face was almost as stern as Elaida’s. The sympathy frightened Egwene more than the sternness. “Some women have entered, and never come out. When the ter’angreal was allowed to grow quiet, they—were—not—there. And they were never seen again. If you will survive, you must be steadfast. Falter, fail, and . . . ” Sheriam’s face drove the unspoken words home; Egwene shivered. “This is your last chance. Refuse now, and it counts only as the first. You may still try twice more. If you accept now, there is no turning back. It is no shame to refuse. I could not do it, my first time. Choose.”

They never came out? Egwene swallowed hard. I want to be Aes Sedai. And first I have to become Accepted. “I accept.”

Sheriam nodded. “Then ready yourself.”

Egwene blinked, then remembered. She had to enter unclothed. She bent to set down the tied bundle of papers Verin had given her—and hesitated. If she left them there, Sheriam or Elaida either one could go through them while she was inside the ter’angreal. They could find that smaller ter’angreal in her pouch. If she refused to go on, she could hide them away, perhaps leave them with Nynaeve. Her breath caught. I cannot refuse now. I’ve already begun.

“Have you already chosen to refuse, child?” Sheriam asked, frowning. “Knowing what that will mean, now?”

“No, Aes Sedai,” Egwene said quickly. Hastily she undressed and folded her clothes, then set them on top of the pouch and the papers. It would have to do.

Beside the ter’angreal, Alanna suddenly spoke. “There is some sort of—resonance.” She never took her eyes from the arches. “An echo, almost. I do not know from where.”

“Is there a problem?” Sheriam asked sharply. She sounded surprised, too. “I will not send a woman in there if there is any problem.”

Egwene looked yearningly at her piled clothes. Please, yes, Light, a problem. Something that will let me hide those papers without refusing to enter.

“No,” Alanna said. “It is like having a biteme buzz ’round your head when you’re trying to think, but it does not interfere. I would not have mentioned it, only it has never happened before that I ever heard.” She shook her head. “It is gone now.”

“Perhaps,” Elaida said dryly, “others thought such a small thing was not worth mentioning.”

“Let us go on.” Sheriam’s tone would not put up with any more distractions. “Come.”

With a last glance at her clothes and the hidden papers, Egwene followed her toward the arches. The stone felt like ice under her bare feet.

“Whom do you bring with you, Sister?” Elaida intoned.

Continuing her measured pace, Sheriam replied, “One who comes as a candidate for Acceptance, Sister.” The three Aes Sedai around the ter’angreal did not move.

“Is she ready?”

“She is ready to leave behind what she was, and, passing through her fears, gain Acceptance.”

“Does she know her fears?”

“She has never faced them, but now is willing.”

“Then let her face what she fears.” Even in its formality, there was a note of satisfaction in Elaida’s voice.

“The first time,” Sheriam said, “is for what was. The way back will come but once. Be steadfast.”

Egwene took a deep breath and stepped forward, through the arch and into the glow. Light swallowed her whole.

“Jaim Dawtry dropped by. There’s odd news down from Baerlon with the peddler.”

Egwene raised her head from the cradle she was rocking. Rand was standing in the doorway. For an instant her head spun. She looked from Rand—my husband—to the child in the cradle—my daughter—and back again, in wonder.

The way back will come but once. Be steadfast.

It was not her own thought, but a disembodied voice that could have been inside her head or out, male or female, yet emotionless and unknowable. Somehow, it did not seem strange to her.

The moment of wonder passed, and the only thing to wonder about was why she had thought anything seemed out of round. Of course Rand was her husband—her handsome, loving husband—and Joiya was her daughter—the most beautiful, sweetest little girl in the Two Rivers. Tam, Rand’s father, was out with the sheep, supposedly so Rand could work on the barn but really so he could have more time to play with Joiya. This afternoon Egwene’s mother and father would come out from the village. And probably Nynaeve, to see if motherhood was interfering with Egwene’s studies to replace Nynaeve as Wisdom one day.

“What kind of news?” she asked. She took up rocking the cradle again, and Rand came over to grin down at the tiny child wrapped in swaddling cloches. Egwene laughed softly to herself. He was so taken with his daughter that he did not hear what people said to him half the time. “Rand? What kind of news? Rand?”

“What?” His grin faded. “Strange news. War. There’s some big war, taking up most of the world, so Jaim claims.” That was strange news; word of wars seldom reached the Two Rivers till the wars were long done. “He says everybody is fighting some folk called the Shawkin, or the Sanchan, or something like that. I never heard of them.”

Egwene knew—she thought she knew—Whatever it was, was gone.

“Are you all right?” he asked. “It’s nothing to upset us here, my heart. Wars never touch the Two Rivers. We are too far from everywhere for anyone to care.”

“I’m not upset. Did Jaim say anything else?”

“Nothing you can believe. He sounded like a Coplin. He said the peddler told him these people use Aes Sedai in battle, but then he claimed they offer a thousand gold marks to anyone who turns an Aes Sedai over to them. And they kill anybody who hides one. It makes no sense. Well, it’s nothing to trouble us. It is all a long way from here.”

Aes Sedai. Egwene touched her head. The way back comes but once. Be steadfast.

She noticed Rand had a hand to his own head. “The headaches?” she asked.

He nodded, his eyes suddenly tight. “That powder Nynaeve gave me doesn’t seem to be working the last few days.”

She hesitated. These headaches of his worried her. They grew worse every time they came, now. And worst of all was something she had not noticed at first, something she almost wished she never had noticed. When Rand’s head hurt, strange things happened soon after. Lightning out of a clear sky, smashing to bits that huge oak stump he had been working two days to root out where he and Tam were clearing new field. Storms that Nynaeve did not hear coming when she listened to the wind. Wildfires in the forest. And the deeper his pain grew, the worse what followed. No one else had connected these things to Rand, not even Nynaeve, and Egwene was grateful for that. She did not want to think about what it might mean.

That is plain stupid foolish, she told herself. I must know if I am going to help him. Because she had a secret of her own, one that frightened her even as she tried to puzzle out what it meant. Nynaeve was teaching her the herbs, teaching Egwene to follow her as Wisdom, one day. Nynaeve’s cures often worked in near miraculous fashion, wounds healed with barely a scar, sick folk brought back from the edge of the grave. But three times now, Egwene had cured someone Nynaeve had given up for dead. Three times she had sat to hold a hand through the last hour, and seen the person get up from a deathbed. Nynaeve had questioned her closely on what she had done, what herbs she had used, in what blending. Thus far, she had not found the courage to admit that she had done nothing. I must have done something. Once might be chance, but three times . . . I have to figure it out. I have to learn. That set off a buzz in her head, as though the words were echoing inside her skull. If I could do something for them, I can help my husband.

“Let me try, Rand,” she said. And as she stood, through the open door, she saw a silver arch standing in front of the house, an arch filled with white light. The way back will come but once. Be steadfast. She took two steps toward the door before she could stop herself.

She halted, looked back at Joiya gurgling in her cradle, at Rand still pressing hand to his head and looking at her as if wondering where she was going. “No,” she said. “No, this is what I want. This is what I want! Why can’t I have this, too?” She did not understand her own words. Of course, this was what she wanted, and she had it.

“What is it you want, Egwene?” Rand asked. “If it’s anything I can get, you know I will. If I can’t get it, I’ll make it.”

The way back will come but once. Be steadfast.

She took another step, into the doorway. The silver arch beckoned her. Something waited on the other side. Something she wanted more than anything else in the world. Something she had to do.

“Egwene, I—”

There was a thump behind her. She looked over her shoulder to see Rand on his knees, bowed and head cradled in his hands. The pain had never hit him so hard. What will come after this?

“Ah, Light!” he panted. “Light! Hurts! Light, it hurts worse than ever! Egwene?”

Be steadfast.

It was waiting. Something she had to do. Had to. She took a step. It was hard, harder than anything she had ever done in her life. Outside, toward the arch. Behind her, Joiya was laughing.

“Egwene? Egwene, I can’t—” He cut off with a loud groan.

Steadfast.

She stiffened her back and kept walking, but she could not keep the tears from rolling down her cheeks. Rand’s groans built to a scream, drowning Joiya’s laughter. From the corner of her eye, Egwene saw Tam coming, running as hard as he could.

He can’t help, she thought, and tears became wracking sobs. There is nothing he can do. But I could. I could.

She stepped into the light, and was consumed.

Trembling and sobbing, Egwene stepped out of the arch, the same by which she had entered, memory cascading back with Sheriam’s face confronting her. Cold clear water washed away her tears as Elaida slowly emptied a silver chalice over her head. Her weeping went on; she did not think it would ever end.

“You are washed clean,” Elaida pronounced, “of what sin you may have done, and of those done against you. You are washed clean of what crime you may have committed, and of those committed against you. You come to us washed clean and pure, in heart and soul.”

Light, Egwene thought as the water ran down her body, let it be so. Can water wash away what I did? “Her name was Joiya,” she told Sheriam between sobs. “Joiya. Nothing can be worth what I just . . . what I . . . ”

“There is a price to become Aes Sedai,” Sheriam replied, but the sympathy was back in her eyes, stronger than before. “There is always a price.”

“Was it real? Did I dream it?” Weeping swallowed what she wanted to say. Did I leave him to die? Did I leave my baby?

Sheriam put an arm around her shoulders, began guiding her around the circle of arches. “Every woman I have ever watched come out of there has asked that question. The answer is, no one knows. It has been speculated that perhaps some of those who do not come back chose to stay because they found a happier place, and lived out their lives there.” Her voice hardened. “If it is real, and they stayed from choice, then I hope the lives they live are far from happy. I have no sympathy for any who run from their responsibilities.” The edge on her tone softened slightly. “Myself, I believe it is not real. But the danger is. Remember that.” She stopped in front of the next glow-filled arch. “Are you ready?”

Shifting her feet, Egwene nodded, and Sheriam took her arm away.

“The second time is for what is. The way back will come but once. Be steadfast.”

Egwene trembled. Whatever happens, it cannot be worse than the last. It cannot be. She stepped into the glow.

She stared down at her dress, blue silk sewn with pearls, all dusty and torn. Her head came up, and she took in the ruins of a great palace around her. The Royal Palace of Andor, in Caemlyn. She knew that, and wanted to scream.

The way back will come but once. Be steadfast.

The world was not the way she wanted it, no way that she could think of without wanting to cry, but all her tears had been cried away long ago, and the world was as it was. Ruin was what she expected to see.

Careless of making more rips in her dress but as careful of sound as a mouse, she climbed one of the piles of rubble and peered into the curving streets of the Inner City. As far as she could see in every direction lay ruin and desolation, buildings that looked as if they had been torn apart by madmen, thick plumes of smoke rising from the fires still burning. There were people in the streets, bands of armed men prowling, searching. And Trollocs. The men shied away from the Trollocs, and the Trollocs snarled at them and laughed, harsh guttural laughter. But they knew each other, worked together.

A Myrddraal came striding down the street, its black cloak swaying gently with its steps even when the wind gusted to drive dust and rubbish past it. Men and Trollocs alike cowered under its eyeless stare. “Hunt!” Its voice sounded like something long dead crumbling. “Do not stand there shivering! Find him!”

Egwene slipped back down the pile of jumbled stones as silently as she could.

The way back will come but once. Be steadfast.

She stopped, afraid the whisper had come from Shadowspawn. In some way, though, she was sure it had not. Glancing back over her shoulder, half fearful of seeing the Myrddraal standing where she had just been, she hurried onward and into the ruined palace, climbing over fallen timbers, squeezing between heavy blocks of collapsed masonry as she made her way. Once she stepped on a woman’s arm, sticking out from under a mound of plaster and bricks that had been an interior wall and perhaps part of the floor above. She noticed the arm as little as she noticed the Great Serpent ring on one finger. She had trained herself not to see the dead buried in the refuse heap Trollocs and Darkfriends had made of Caemlyn. She could do nothing for the dead.

Forcing her way through a narrow gap where part of the ceiling had fallen, she found herself in a room half buried under what had stood above it. Rand lay with a heavy beam pinning him across the waist, his legs hidden beneath the stone blocks that filled half the room. Dust and sweat coated his face. He opened his eyes when she came near him.

“You came back.” He forced the words out in a hoarse rasp. “I was afraid—No matter. You have to help me.”

She sank wearily to the floor. “I could lift that beam easily with Air, but as soon as it moves, everything else will come down on top of you. On top of both of us. I cannot manage all of it, Rand.”

His laugh was bitter and painful, and cut off almost as soon as it began. Fresh sweat glistened on his face, and he spoke with an effort. “I could shift the beam myself. You know that. I could shift that and the stones above, all of them. But I have to let go of myself to do it, and I can’t trust that. I cannot trust—” He stopped, wheezing for breath.

“I do not understand,” she said slowly. “Let go of yourself? What can’t you trust?” The way back will come but once. Be steadfast. She rubbed her hands roughly over her ears.

“The madness, Egwene. I am—actually—holding it—at bay.” His gasping laugh made her skin prickle. “But it takes everything I have just to do that. If I let go, even a little, even for an instant, the madness will have me. I won’t care what I do then. You have to help me.”

“How, Rand! I’ve tried everything I know. Tell me how, and I will do it.”

His hand flopped out, fell just short of a dagger lying in the dust bare-bladed. “The dagger,” he whispered. His hand made a painful journey back to his chest. “Here. In the heart. Kill me.”

She stared at him, at the dagger, as if they were both poisonous serpents. “No! Rand, I will not. I cannot! How could you ask such a thing?”

Slowly his hand crept back toward the dagger. His fingers came short again. He strained, moaning, brushed it with a fingertip. Before he could try again, she kicked it away from him. He collapsed with a sob.

“Tell me why,” she demanded. “Why would you ask me to—to murder you? I will Heal you, I will do anything to get you out of there, but I cannot kill you. Why?”

“They can turn me, Egwene.” His breathing was so tortured, she wished she could weep. “If they take me—the Myrddraal—the Dreadlords—they can turn me to the Shadow. If madness has me, I cannot fight them. I won’t know what they are doing till it is too late. If there is even a spark of life left when they find me, they can still do it. Please, Egwene. For the love of the Light. Kill me.”

“I—I can’t, Rand. Light help me, I cannot!”

The way back will come but once. Be steadfast.

She looked over her shoulder, and a silver arch filled with white light took up most of the open space among the rubble.

“Egwene, help me.”

Be steadfast.

She stood and took a step toward the arch. It was right there in front of her. One more step, and . . .

“Please, Egwene. Help me. I can’t reach it. For the love of the Light, Egwene, help me!”

“I cannot kill you,” she whispered. “I can’t. Forgive me.” She stepped forward.

“HELP ME, EGWENE!”

Light burned her to ash.

Staggering, she stepped out of the arch, neither noticing her nakedness nor caring. A shudder ran through her, and she covered her mouth with both hands. “I couldn’t, Rand,” she whispered. “I couldn’t. Please forgive me.” Light help him. Please, Light help Rand.

Cold water poured over her head.

“You are washed clean of false pride,” Elaida intoned. “You are washed clean of false ambition. You come to us washed clean, in heart and soul.”

As the Red sister turned away, Sheriam gently took Egwene’s shoulders and guided her toward the last arch. “One more, child. One more, and it is done.”

“He said they could turn him to the Shadow,” Egwene mumbled. “He said the Myrddraal and the Dreadlords could force him.”

Sheriam missed a step, and looked around quickly. Elaida was almost back to the table. The Aes Sedai surrounding the ter’angreal stared at it, seeming lost to anything else. “An unpleasant thing to talk of, child,” Sheriam said finally, and softly. “Come. One more.”

“Can they?” Egwene insisted.

“Custom,” Sheriam said, “is not to speak of what happens within the ter’angreal. A woman’s fears are her own.”

“Can they?”

Sheriam sighed, glanced at the other Aes Sedai again, then dropped her voice to a whisper and spoke swiftly. “This is something known only to a few, child, even in the Tower. You should not learn it now, if ever, but I will tell you. There is—a weakness in being able to channel. That we learn to open ourselves to the True Source means that we can be opened to other things.” Egwene shuddered. “Calm yourself, child. It is not so easily done. It is a thing not done, so far as I know—Light send it has not been done!—since the Trolloc Wars. It took thirteen Dreadlords—Darkfriends who could channel—weaving the flows through thirteen Myrddraal. You see? Not easily done. There are no Dreadlords today. This is a secret of the Tower, child. If others knew, we could never convince them they were safe. Only one who can channel can be turned in this way. The weakness of our strength. Everyone else is as safe as a fortress; only their own deeds and will can turn them to the Shadow.”

“Thirteen,” Egwene said in a tiny voice. “The same number who left the Tower. Liandrin, and twelve more.”

Sheriam’s face hardened. “That is nothing for you to dwell on. You will forget it.” Her voice climbed to a normal volume. “The third time is for what will be. The way back will come but once. Be steadfast.”

Egwene stared at the glowing arch, stared at some far distance beyond it. Liandrin and twelve others. Thirteen Darkfriends who can channel. Light help us all. She stepped into the light. It filled her. It shone through her. It burned her to the bone, seared her to the soul. She flashed incandescent in the light. Light help me! There was nothing but the light. And the pain.

Egwene stared into the standing mirror, and was not sure whether she was more surprised by the ageless smoothness of her face or the striped stole that hung around her neck. The stole of the Amyrlin Seat.

The way back will come but once. Be steadfast.

Thirteen.

She swayed, caught at the mirror and almost toppled it and herself to the blue-tiled floor of her dressing chamber. Something is wrong, she thought. The wrongness had nothing to do with her sudden dizziness, or at least that was not what felt wrong. It was something else. But she had no idea what.

There was an Aes Sedai at her elbow, a woman with Sheriam’s high cheekbones but dark hair and concerned brown eyes, and the hand-wide stole of the Keeper on her shoulders. Not Sheriam, though. Egwene had never seen her before; she was sure she knew her as well as she knew herself. Haltingly, she put a name to the woman. Beldeine.

“Are you ill, Mother?”

Her stole is green. That means she was raised from the Green Ajah. The Keeper always comes from the same Ajah as the Amyrlin she serves. Which means if I’m the Amyrlin—if?—then I was Green Ajah, too. That thought shook her. Not that she had been Green Ajah, but that she had to reason it out. Light, something is wrong with me.

The way back will come bu . . . The voice in her head trailed away to finish in a buzz.

Thirteen Darkfriends.

“I am well, Beldeine,” Egwene said. The name felt strange on her tongue; it felt as if she had been saying it for years. “We mustn’t keep them waiting.” Keep who waiting? She did not know, except that she felt infinitely sad about ending that wait, endlessly reluctant.

“They will be growing impatient, Mother.” There was a hesitation in Beldeine’s voice, as if she felt the same reluctance as Egwene, but for a different reason. Unless Egwene missed her guess, behind that outer calm, Beldeine was terrified.

“In that case, we had best be about it.”

Beldeine nodded, then took a deep breath before crossing the carpet to where her staff of office, topped with the snowdrop White Flame of Tar Valon, stood propped beside the door. “I suppose we must, Mother.” She took up the staff and opened the door for Egwene, then hurried ahead so that they made a procession of two, Keeper of the Chronicles leading the Amyrlin Seat.

Egwene noticed little of the corridors they took. All her attention was directed inward. What is the matter with me? Why can’t I remember? Why is so much of what I . . . almost remember wrong? She touched the seven-striped stole on her shoulders. Why am I half sure I’m still a novice?

The way back will come but on—This time it ended abruptly.

Thirteen of the Black Ajah.

She stumbled at that. It was a frightening thought, but it chilled her to the marrow beyond fear. It felt—personal. She wanted to scream, to run and hide. She felt as if they were after her. Nonsense. The Black Ajah has been destroyed. That seemed an odd thought, too. Part of her remembered something called the Great Purge. Part of her was sure no such thing had happened.

Eyes fixed ahead, Beldeine had not noticed her stumble. Egwene had to lengthen her stride to catch up. This woman is scared to her toenails. What in the Light is she taking me to?

Beldeine stopped before tall, paired doors, their dark wood each inlaid with a large silver Flame of Tar Valon. She wiped her hands on her dress, as if they were suddenly sweaty, before opening one door and leading Egwene up a straight ramp of the same silver-streaked white stone that made Tar Valon’s walls. Even here it seemed to shine.

The ramp let into a large, circular room under a domed ceiling at least thirty paces high. A raised platform ran around the outer edge of the room, fronted by steps except where this ramp and two others came out, spaced equally around the circle. The Flame of Tar Valon lay centered in the floor, surrounded by widening spirals of color, the colors of the seven Ajahs. At the opposite side of the room from where the ramp entered, a high-backed chair stood, heavy and ornately carved in vines and leaves, painted in the colors of all the Ajahs.

Beldeine rapped her staff sharply on the floor. There was a tremor in her voice. “She comes. The Keeper of the Seals. The Flame of Tar Valon. The Amyrlin Seat. She comes.”

With a rustle of skirts, shawled women on the platform got up from their chairs. Twenty-one chairs in groupings of three, each triad painted and cushioned in the same color as the fringe on the shawls of the women who stood before them.

The Hall of the Tower, Egwene thought as she crossed the floor to her chair. The Amyrlin Seat’s chair. That’s all it is. The Hall of the Tower, and the Sitters for the Ajahs. I’ve been here thousands of times. But she could not remember one of them. What am I doing in the Hall of the Tower? Light, they’ll skin me alive when they see . . . She was not sure what it was they would see, only that she prayed they did not.

The way back will come but—

The way back will—

The way—

The Black Ajah waits. That, at least, was whole. It came from everywhere. Why did no one else seem to hear it?

Settling in the chair of the Amyrlin Seat—the chair that was also the Amyrlin Seat—she realized she had no idea what to do next. The other Aes Sedai had seated themselves when she did, all but Beldeine, who stood beside her with the staff, swallowing nervously. They all seemed to be waiting on her.

“Begin,” she said finally.

It seemed to be enough. One of the Red Sitters stood. Egwene was shocked to recognize Elaida. At the same time she knew that Elaida was foremost of the Sitters for the Red, and her own bitterest enemy. The look on Elaida’s face as she stared across the chamber made Egwene shiver inside. It was stern and cold—and triumphant. It promised things best not thought of.

“Bring him in,” Elaida said loudly.

From one of the ramps—not the one Egwene had entered by—came the crunch of boots on stone. People appeared. A dozen Aes Sedai surrounding three men, two of them burly guards with the white teardrops of the Flame of Tar Valon on their chests, tugging the chains in which the third stumbled as if dazed.

Egwene jerked forward in her chair. The chained man was Rand. Eyes half-closed, head sagging, he seemed nearly asleep, moving only as the chains directed.

“This man,” Elaida proclaimed, “has named himself the Dragon Reborn.” There was a buzz of distaste, not as if the listeners were surprised, but as though it were not something they wanted to hear. “This man has channeled the One Power.” The buzz was louder now, disgusted and tinged with fear. “There is only one penalty for this, known and recognized in every nation, but pronounced only here, in Tar Valon, in the Hall of the Tower. I call on the Amyrlin Seat to pronounce the sentence of gentling on this man.”

Elaida’s eyes glittered at Egwene. Rand. What do I do? Light, what do I do?

“Why do you hesitate?” Elaida demanded. “The sentence has been set down for three thousand years. Why do you hesitate, Egwene al’Vere?”

One of the Green Sitters was on her feet, anger bright through her calm. “Shame, Elaida! Show respect for the Amyrlin Seat! Show respect for the Mother!”

“Respect,” Elaida answered coldly, “can be lost as well as won. Well, Egwene? Can it be you show your weakness, your unfitness for your office, at last? Can it be you will not pronounce sentence on this man?”

Rand tried to lift his head and failed.

Egwene struggled to her feet, head spinning, trying to remember she was the Amyrlin Seat with the power to command all these women, screaming that she was a novice, that she did not belong here, that something was dreadfully wrong. “No,” she said shakily. “No, I cannot! I will not—”

“She betrays herself?” Elaida’s shout drowned out Egwene’s attempt to speak. “She condemns herself out of her own mouth! Take her!”

As Egwene opened her mouth, Beldeine moved beside her. Then the Keeper’s staff struck her head.

Blackness.

First there was pain in her head. There was something hard under her back, and cold. Next came the voices. Murmurs.

“Is she still unconscious?” It was a rasp, a file on bone.

“Do not worry,” a woman said from far, far away. She sounded uneasy, afraid, and trying not to show either. “She will be dealt with before she knows what is happening to her. Then she is ours, to do with as we will. Perhaps we will give her to you for sport.”

“After you make your own use of her.”

“Of course.”

The distant voices moved further away.

Her hand brushed against her leg, touched bare, pebbly flesh. She opened her eyes a crack. She was naked, bruised, lying on a rough wooden table, in what seemed to be a disused storeroom. Splinters stuck her back. There was a metallic taste of blood in her mouth.

A cluster of Aes Sedai stood to one side of the room, talking among themselves, voices low yet urgent. The pain in her head made thinking difficult, but it seemed important to count them. Thirteen.

Another group, black-cloaked and hooded men, joined the Aes Sedai, who seemed caught between cowering and trying to dominate with their presence. One of the men turned his head to look toward the table. The dead white face within the hood had no eyes.

Egwene had no need to count the Myrddraal. She knew. Thirteen Myrddraal, and thirteen Aes Sedai. Without another thought, she screamed in pure terror. Yet even in the midst of fear that tried to split her bones, she reached out for the True Source, clawed desperately for saidar.

“She’s awake!”

“She cannot be! Not yet!”

“Shield her! Quickly! Quickly! Cut her off from the Source!”

“It’s too late! She is too strong!”

“Seize her! Hurry!”

Hands reached for her arms and legs. Pasty pale hands like slugs under rocks, ordered by minds behind pale, eyeless faces. If those hands touched her flesh, she knew she would go mad. The Power filled her.

Flames burst from Myrddraal skin, ripping through black cloth as if they were solid daggers of fire. Shrieking Halfmen crisped and burned like oiled paper. Fist-sized chunks of stone tore themselves free of the walls and whizzed across the room, producing shrieks and grunts as they thudded into flesh. The air stirred, shifted, howled into a whirlwind.

Slowly, painfully, Egwene pushed herself off the table. The wind whipped her hair and made her stagger, but she continued to drive it as she stumbled toward the door. An Aes Sedai loomed in front of her, a woman bruised and bleeding, surrounded by the glow of the Power. A woman with death in her dark eyes.

Egwene’s mind put a name to the face. Gyldan. Elaida’s closest confidante, always whispering together in corners, closeting themselves in the night. Egwene’s mouth tightened. Disdaining stones and wind, she balled up her fist and punched Gyldan between the eyes as hard as she could. The Red sister—the Black sister—crumpled as if her bones had melted.

Rubbing her knuckles, Egwene staggered out into the hall. Thank you, Perrin, she thought, for showing me how to do that. But you didn’t tell me how much it hurts when you do.

Shoving the door shut against the wind, she channeled. Stones around the doorway shivered, cracked, settled against the wood. It would not hold them for long, but anything that slowed pursuit for even a minute was worth doing. Minutes might mean life. Gathering her strength, she forced herself to break into a run. It wobbled, but at least it was a run.

She must find some clothes, she decided. A woman clothed had more authority than the same woman naked, and she was going to need every bit of authority. They would look for her first in her rooms, but she had a spare dress and shoes in her study—and another stole—and that lay not far off.

It was unnerving, trotting through empty hallways. The White Tower no longer held the numbers it once had, but there was usually someone about. The loudest sound was the slap of her bare soles on the tiles.

She hurried through the antechamber of her study to the inner room, and at last she found someone. Beldeine was sitting on the floor, head in her hands weeping.

Egwene stopped warily, as Beldeine raised reddened eyes to meet hers. No glow of saidar surrounded the Keeper, but Egwene was still cautious. And confident. She could not see her own glow, of course, but the power—the Power—surging through her was enough. Especially when added to her secret.

Beldeine scrubbed a hand across tearstained cheeks. “I had to. You must understand. I had to. They . . . They . . . ” She took a deep, shuddering breath; it all came out in a rush. “Three nights ago they took me while I slept and stilled me.” Her voice rose to a near shriek. “They stilled me! I cannot channel any longer!”

“Light,” Egwene breathed. The rush of saidar cushioned her against the shock. “The Light help and comfort you, my daughter. Why didn’t you tell me? I would have . . . ” She let it trail away, knowing there was nothing she could do.

“What would you have done?—What? Nothing! There’s nothing you can do. But they said they could give it back to me, with the power of . . . the power of the Dark One.” Her eyes squeezed shut, leaking tears. “They hurt me, Mother, and they made me . . . Oh, Light, they hurt me! Elaida told me they would make me whole again, make me able to channel again, if I obeyed. That’s why I . . . I had to!”

“So Elaida is Black Ajah,” Egwene said grimly. A narrow wardrobe stood against the wall, and in it hung a green silk dress, kept for when she had no time to return to her rooms. A striped stole hung beside the dress. She began to dress herself, quickly. “What have they done with Rand? Where have they taken him? Answer me, Beldeine! Where is Rand al’Thor?”

Beldeine huddled, lips trembling, eyes turned bleakly inward, but finally she roused herself enough to say, “The Traitor’s Court, Mother. They took him to the Traitor’s Court.”

Shivers assaulted Egwene. Shivers of fear. Shivers of rage. Elaida had not waited, not even an hour. The Traitor’s Court was used for only three purposes: executions, the stilling of an Aes Sedai, or the gentling of a man who could channel. But all of the three took an order from the Amyrlin Seat. So who wears the stole out there? Elaida, she was sure. But how could she make them accept her so quickly, with me not tried, not sentenced? There cannot be another Amyrlin until I’ve been stripped of stole and staff. And they’ll not find that easy to do. Light! Rand! She started for the door.

“What can you do, Mother?” Beldeine cried. “What can you do?” It was not clear whether she meant for Rand or for herself.

“More than anyone suspects,” Egwene said. “I never held the Oath Rod, Beldeine.” Beldeine’s gasp followed her from the room.

Egwene’s memory still played hide-and-seek with her. She knew no woman could achieve the shawl and the ring without pledging the Three Oaths with the Oath Rod firmly in hand, the ter’angreal sealing her to keep those oaths as if they had been engraved on her bones at birth. No woman became Aes Sedai without being bound to them. Yet she knew that somehow, in some fashion she could not begin to dredge up, she had done just that.

Her shoes clicked swiftly as she ran. At least she knew now why the halls were empty. Every Aes Sedai, except perhaps those she had left in the storeroom, every Accepted, every novice, even all the servants, would be gathered in the Traitor’s Court, according to custom, to watch the will of Tar Valon made fact.

And the Warders would be ringing the courtyard against the possibility that someone might try to free the man to be gentled. The remnants of Guaire Amalasan’s armies had attempted it, at the end of what some called the War of the Second Dragon, just before Artur Hawkwing’s rise had given Tar Valon other things to worry it, and so had Raolin Darksbane’s followers, long years earlier. Whether Rand had any followers or not, she could not remember, but Warders remembered such things, and guarded against them.

If Elaida, or another, truly did wear the stole of the Amyrlin, the Warders might well not admit her to the Traitor’s Court. She knew she could force a way in. It would need to be done quickly; there was no point if Rand was gentled while she was still wrapping Warders in Air. Even Warders would break if she loosed the lightnings on them, and balefire, and broke the ground under their feet. Balefire? she wondered. But it would also do no good if she broke Tar Valon’s power to save Rand. She had to save both.

Well short of the ways that led to the Traitor’s Court, she turned aside and climbed, up stairs and ramps that grew narrower and tighter the higher she went, until she thrust open a trapdoor and climbed out onto a sloping tower top, a roof of nearly white tiles. From there, she could see across other roofs, past other towers, into the broad open well of the Traitor’s Court.

The court was crowded except for a cleared space in the middle. People filled the windows overlooking it, crowded the balconies and even the rooftops, but she could make out the lone man, small at that distance, swaying in his chains in the center of the cleared space. Rand. Twelve Aes Sedai surrounded him, and another—who Egwene knew had to be wearing a seven-striped stole, even though she could not distinguish it—stood before Rand. Elaida. The words she must be saying crept into Egwene’s head.

This man, abandoned of the Light, has touched saidin, the male half of the True Source. Thus do we hold him. Most abominably has this man channeled the One Power, knowing that saidin is tainted by the Dark One, tainted for men’s pride, tainted for men’s sin. Thus do we chain him.

Forcefully, Egwene pushed the rest of it out of her thoughts. Thirteen Aes Sedai. Twelve sisters and the Amyrlin, the traditional number for gentling. The same number as for . . . She rid herself of that, too. She had no time for anything but what she was there to do. If she could only manage to reason out how.

At that distance, she thought she could manage to lift him with Air. Pick him right out of the circle of Aes Sedai and float him straight to her. Maybe. Even if she could find the strength, even if she did not drop him to his death halfway, it would be a slow process, with him a helpless target for archers, and the glow of saidar pointing out her own position for any Aes Sedai who looked. Any Myrddraal, for that matter.

“Light,” she muttered, “there’s no other way short of starting a war inside the White Tower. And I may do that anyway.” She gathered the Power, separated skeins, directed flows.

The way back will come but once. Be steadfast.

It had been so long since she last heard those words that she gave a start, slipped on the smooth tiles, barely caught herself short of the edge. The ground lay a hundred paces down. She looked over her shoulder.

There on the tower top, tilted to sit flat against the sloping tiles, was a silver arch filled with a glowing light. The arch flickered and wavered; streaks of angry red and yellow darted through the white light.

The way back will come but once. Be steadfast.

The archway thinned to transparency, grew solid again.

Frantic, Egwene gazed toward the Traitor’s Court. There had to be time. There had to be. All she needed was a few minutes, perhaps ten, and luck.

Voices bored into her head, not the disembodied, unknowable voice that warned her to be steadfast, but women’s voices she almost believed she knew.

—can’t hold much longer. If she does not come out now—

Hold! Hold, burn you, or I’ll gut you all like sturgeons!

—going wild, Mother! We can’t—

The voices faded to a drone, the drone to silence, but the unknowable spoke again.

The way back will come but once. Be steadfast.

There is a price to be Aes Sedai.

The Black Ajah waits.

With a scream of rage, of loss, Egwene threw herself at the arch as it shimmered like a heat haze. She almost wished she would miss and plunge to her death.

Light plucked her apart fiber by fiber, sliced the fibers to hairs, split the hairs to wisps of nothing. All drifted apart on the light. Forever.