The Dragon Reborn

## Chapter 32

#### The First Ship

Southharbor itself, the great Ogier-made basin, was huge and round, surrounded by high walls of the same silver-streaked white stone as the rest of Tar Valon. One long wharf, most of it roofed, ran all the way around, except where the wide water gates stood open to give access to the river. Vessels of every size lined the wharf, most moored by the stern, and despite the hour dockmen in coarse, sleeveless shirts hurried about loading and unloading bales and chests, crates and barrels, with ropes and booms, or on their backs. Lamps hanging from the roof beams lit the wharfs and made a band of light around the black water in the middle of the harbor. Small open boats scuttled through the darkness, the square lanterns atop their tall sternposts making it seem as if fireflies skittered across the harbor. They were small only compared to the ships, though; some had as many as six pairs of long oars.

When Mat led a still-muttering Thom under an arch of polished redstone and down broad steps to the wharf, crewmen on one three-masted ship were unfastening the mooring lines not twenty paces away. The vessel was larger than most Mat could see, between fifteen and twenty spans from sharp bow to squared stern, with a flat, railed deck almost level with the wharf. The important thing was that it was casting off. The first ship that sails.

A gray-haired man came up the wharf. Three lines of hemp rope sewn down the sleeves of his dark coat marked him as a dockmaster. His wide shoulders suggested that he might have begun as a dockman hauling rope instead of wearing it. He glanced casually in Mat’s direction, and stopped, surprise on his leathery face. “Your bundles say what you’re planning, lad, but you might as well forget it. The sister showed me a drawing of you. You’ll board no ship in Southharbor, lad. Go back up those stairs so I don’t have to tell a man off to watch you.”

“What under the Light . . . ?” Thom murmured.

“That’s all changed,” Mat said firmly. The ship was casting off the last mooring line; the furled triangular sails still made thick, pale bundles on the long, slanted booms, but men were readying the sweeps. He pulled the Amyrlin’s paper out of his pouch and thrust it in the dockmaster’s face. “As you can see, I’m on the business of the Tower, at the order of the Amyrlin Seat herself. And I have to leave on that very vessel there.”

The dockmaster read the words, then read them again. “I never saw such a thing in my life. Why would the Tower say you couldn’t go, then give you . . . that?”

“Ask the Amyrlin, if you want,” Mat told him in a weary voice that said he did not think anyone could possibly be stupid enough to do that, “but she’ll have my hide, and yours, if I do not sail on that ship.”

“You’ll never make it,” the dockmaster said, but he was already cupping his hands to his mouth. “Aboard the Gray Gull there! Stop! The Light burn you, stop!”

The shirtless fellow at the tiller looked back, then spoke to a tall companion in a dark coat with puffy sleeves. The tall man never took his eyes off the crewmen just dipping the sweeps into the water. “Give way together,” he called, and sweepblades curled up froth.

“I’ll make it,” Mat snapped. The first ship I said, and the first ship I meant! “Come on, Thom!”

Without waiting to see if the gleeman followed, he ran down the wharf, dodging around men and barrows stacked with cargo. The gap between the Gray Gull’s stern and the wharf widened as the sweeps bit deeper. Hefting his quarterstaff, he hurled it ahead of him toward the ship like a spear, took one more step, and jumped as hard as he could.

The dark water passing beneath his feet looked icy, but in a heartbeat he had cleared the ship’s rail and was rolling across the deck. As he scrambled to his feet, he heard a grunt and a curse behind him.

Thom Merrilin hoisted himself up on the railing with another curse, and climbed over onto the deck. “I lost my stick,” he muttered. “I’ll want another.” Rubbing his right leg, he peered down at the still widening strip of water behind the vessel and shivered. “I had a bath today already.” The shirtless steersman stared wide-eyed from him to Mat and back again, clutching the tiller as if wondering whether he could use it to defend himself from madmen.

The tall man seemed nearly as stunned. His pale blue eyes bulged, and his mouth worked soundlessly for a moment. His dark beard, cut to a point, seemed to quiver with rage, and his narrow face grew purple. “By the Stone!” he bellowed finally. “What is the meaning of this? I’ve no room on this vessel for as much as a ship’s cat, and I’d not take vagabonds who leap onto my decks if I did. Sanor! Vasa! Heave this rubbish over the side!” Two extremely large men, barefoot and stripped to the waist, straightened from coiling lines and started toward the stern. The men at the sweeps continued their work, bending to lift the blades, taking three long steps along the deck, then straightening and walking backwards, hauling the ship ahead on their blades.

Mat waved the Amyrlin’s paper toward the bearded man—the captain, he supposed—with one hand, and fished a gold crown out of his pouch with the other, taking care even in his haste that the fellow saw there were more where that came from. Tossing the heavy coin to the man, he spoke quickly, still waving the paper. “For the inconvenience of our boarding as we did, Captain. More to come for passage. On business of the White Tower. Personal command of the Amyrlin Seat. Imperative we sail immediately. To Aringill, in Andor. Utmost urgency. The blessings of the White Tower on all who aid us; the Tower’s wrath on any who impede us.”

Certain the man had seen the Flame of Tar Valon seal by that time—and little more, Mat hoped—he folded the paper again and thrust it back out of sight. Eyeing the two big men uneasily as they came up on either side of the captain— Burn me, they both have arms like Perrin’s!—he wished he had his quarterstaff in hand. He could see it lying where it had landed, further down the deck. He tried to look sure and confident, the sort of man others had better not trifle with, a man with the power of the White Tower behind him. A long way behind me, I hope.

The captain looked at Mat doubtfully, and even more so at Thom in his gleeman’s cloak and none too steady afoot, but he motioned Sanor and Vasa to stop where they were. “I would not anger the Tower. Burn my soul, for the time being the river trade takes me from Tear to this den of . . . I come too often to anger . . . anyone.” A tight smile appeared on his face. “But I spoke the truth. By the Stone, I did! Six cabins I have for passengers, and all full. You can sleep on deck and eat with the crew for another gold crown. Each.”

“That is ridiculous!” Thom snapped. “I don’t care what the war has done downriver, that is ridiculous!” The two large sailors shifted their bare feet.

“It is the price,” the captain said firmly. “I do not want to anger anyone, but I’d as soon not have any business you can be on aboard my vessel. Like letting a man pay you so he can coat you with hot tar, mixing in that business. You pay the price, or you go over the side, and the Amyrlin Seat herself can dry you off. And I’ll keep this for the trouble you’ve given me, thank you.” He stuffed the gold crown Mat has tossed him into a pocket of his puffy-sleeved coat.

“How much for one of the cabins?” Mat asked. “To ourselves. You can put whoever is in it now with someone else.” He did not want to sleep out in the cold night. And if you don’t overwhelm a fellow like this, he’ll steal your breeches and say he is doing you a favor. His stomach rumbled loudly. “And we eat what you eat, not with the crew. And plenty of it!”

“Mat,” Thom said, “I’m the one who is supposed to be drunk here.” He turned to the captain, flourishing his patch-covered cloak as well as he could with blanketroll and instrument cases hung about him. “As you may have noticed, Captain, I am a gleeman.” Even in the open air, his voice suddenly seemed to echo. “For the price of our passages, I would be more than glad to entertain your passengers and your crew—”

“My crew is aboard to work, gleeman, not be entertained.” The captain stroked his pointed beard; his pale eyes priced Mat’s plain coat to the copper. “So you want a cabin, do you?” He barked a laugh. “And my meals? Well, you can have my cabin and my meals. For five gold crowns from each of you! Andoran weight!” Those were the heaviest. He began to laugh so hard his words came out in wheezes. Flanking him, Sanor and Vasa grinned wide grins. “For ten crowns, you can take my cabin, and my meals, and I’ll move in with the passengers and eat with the crew. Burn my soul, I will! By the Stone, I swear it! For ten gold crowns . . . ” Laughter choked off anything else.

He was still laughing and gasping for breath and wiping tears from his eyes when Mat pulled out one of his two purses, but laughter stopped by the time Mat had counted five crowns into his hands. The captain blinked in disbelief; the two big crewmen looked poleaxed.

“Andoran weight, you said?” Mat asked. It was hard to judge without scales, but he laid seven more on the pile. Two actually were Andoran, and he thought the others made up the weight. Close enough, for this fellow. After a moment, he added another two gold Tairen crowns. “For whoever you’ll be pushing out of the cabin they paid for.” He did not think the passengers would see a copper of it, but it sometimes paid to appear generous. “Unless you mean to share with them? No, of course not. They ought to have something for having to crowd in with others. There’s no need for you to eat with your crew, Captain. You are welcome to share Thom’s meals and mine in your cabin.” Thom stared at him as hard as the others did.

“Are you . . . ?” The bearded man’s voice was a hoarse whisper. “Are you . . . by any chance . . . a young lord in disguise?”

“I am no lord.” Mat laughed. He had reason to laugh. The Gray Gull was well out into the darkness of the harbor, now, with the wharf a band of light pointing up the black gap, not far ahead now, where the water gates let out onto the river. The sweeps drove the vessel toward that gap quickly. Men were already swinging the long, slanting booms around preparatory to unlashing the sails. And with gold in his hands, the captain no longer seemed ready to throw anyone overboard. “If you don’t mind, Captain, could we see our cabin? Your cabin, I mean. It’s late, and I for one want a few hours sleep.” His stomach spoke to him. “And supper!”

As the vessel put its bow into the blackness, the bearded man himself led the way down a ladder to a short, narrow passage lined with doors set close together. While the captain cleared his things from his cabin—it ran the width of the stern, with its bed and all of its furnishings built into the walls except two chairs and a few chests—and saw that Mat and Thom were settled, Mat learned a great deal, beginning with the fact that the man would not be pushing any passengers out of their quarters. He had too much respect for the coin they had paid, if not for them, to allow that. The captain would take his first’s cabin, and that officer would take the second’s bed, pushing each lower man down till the deckmaster would end sleeping up in the bow with the crew.

Mat did not think that information could be very useful, but he listened to everything the man said. It was always best to know not only where you were going, but who you were dealing with, or they might just take your coat and boots and leave you to walk home through the rain in bare feet.

The captain was a Tairen named Huan Mallia, and he spoke with great volubility once he had worked out Mat and Thom to his own satisfaction. He was not nobly born, he said, not him, but he would not have anyone think he was a fool. A young man with more gold than any young man should have by right might be a thief, if everyone did not know thieves never escaped Tar Valon with their haul. A young man dressed like a farmboy but with the air and confidence of the lord he denied being—“By the Stone, I’ll not say you are, if you say you are not.” Mallia winked and chuckled and tugged the point of his beard. A young man carrying a paper bearing the Amyrlin Seat’s seal and bound for Andor. There was no secret that Queen Morgase had visited Tar Valon, though her reason certainly was. It was obvious to Mallia something was afoot between Caemlyn and Tar Valon. And Mat and Thom were messengers—for Morgase, he thought, by Mat’s accent. Anything he could do to help in so great an enterprise would be his pleasure, not that he meant to poke where he was not wanted.

Mat exchanged startled looks with Thom, who was stowing his instrument cases under a table built out from one wall. The room had two small windows on either side, and a pair of lamps in jointed brackets for light. “That’s nonsense,” Mat said.

“Of course,” Mallia replied. He straightened from pulling clothes out of a chest at the foot of the bed and smiled. “Of course.” A cupboard in the wall seemed to hold charts of the river he would need. “I’ll say no more.”

But he did mean to poke, though he attempted to disguise it, and he rambled while he tried to pry. Mat listened, and answered the questions with grunts or shrugs or a word or two, while Thom said less than that. The gleeman kept shaking his head while unburdening himself of his possessions.

Mallia had been a river man all his life, though he dreamed of sailing on the sea. He hardly spoke of a country beside Tear without contempt; Andor was the only one to escape, and the praise he finally managed was grudging despite his obvious efforts. “Good horses in Andor, I’ve heard. Not bad. Not as good as Tairen stock, but good enough. You make good steel, and iron goods, bronze and copper—I’ve traded for them often enough, though you charge a weighty price—but then you have those mines in the Mountains of Mist. Gold mines, too. We have to earn our gold, in Tear.”

Mayene received his greatest contempt. “Even less a country than Murandy is. One city and a few leagues of land. They underprice the oil from our good Tairen olives just because their ships know how to find the oilfish shoals. They’ve no right to be a country at all.”

He hated Illian. “One day we’ll loot Illian bare, tear down every town and village, and sow their filthy ground with salt.” Mallia’s beard almost bristled with outrage at how filthy the Illian land was. “Even their olives are putrid! One day we’ll carry every last Illianer pig off in chains! That is what the High Lord Samon says.”

Mat wondered what the man thought Tear would do with all those people if they actually fulfilled this scheme. The Illianers would have to be fed, and they would surely do no work in chains. It made no sense to him, but Mallia’s eyes shone when he spoke of it.

Only fools let themselves be ruled by a king or a queen, by one man or woman. “Except Queen Morgase, of course,” he put in hastily. “She is a fine woman, so I’ve heard. Beautiful, I’m told.” All those fools bowing to one fool. The High Lords ruled Tear together, reaching decisions in concert, and that was how things should be. The High Lords knew what was right and good and true. Especially the High Lord Samon. No man could go wrong obeying the High Lords. Especially the High Lord Samon.

Beyond kings and queens, beyond even Illian, lay a bigger hatred Mallia attempted to keep hidden, but he talked so much in trying to find out what they were up to, and grew so carried away by the sound of his own voice, that he let more slip than he intended.

They must travel a great deal, serving a great Queen like Morgase. They must have seen many lands. He dreamed of the sea because then he could see lands he had only heard of, because then he could find the Mayener oilfish shoals, could out-trade the Sea Folk and the filthy Illianers. And the sea was far from Tar Valon. They must understand that, forced as they were to travel among odd places and people, places and people they could not have stomached if they were not serving Queen Morgase.

“I never liked docking there, never knowing who might be using the Power.” He almost spat the last word. Since he had heard the High Lord Samon speak, though . . . “Burn my soul, it makes me feel like hullworms are burrowing into my belly just looking at their White Tower, now, knowing what they plan.”

The High Lord Samon said the Aes Sedai meant to rule the world. Samon said they meant to crush every nation, put their foot on every man’s throat. Samon said Tear could no longer hold the Power out of its own lands and believe that was enough. Samon said Tear had its rightful day of glory coming, but Tar Valon stood between Tear and glory.

“There’s no hope for it. Sooner or later they will have to be hunted down and killed, every last Aes Sedai. The High Lord Samon says the others might be saved—the young ones, the novices, the Accepted—if they’re brought to the Stone, but the rest must be eradicated. That’s what the High Lord Samon says. The White Tower must be destroyed.”

For a moment Mallia stood in the middle of his cabin, arms full of clothes and books and rolled charts, hair almost brushing the deck beams overhead, staring at nothing with pale blue eyes while the White Tower tumbled into ruin. Then he gave a start as if realizing what he had just said. His pointed beard waggled uncertainly.

“That is . . . that’s what he says. I . . . I think that may be going too far, myself. The High Lord Samon . . . He speaks so that he carries a man beyond his own beliefs. If Caemlyn can make covenants with the Tower, why, so can Tear.” He shivered and did not seem to know it. “That is what I say.”

“As you say,” Mat told him, and felt mischief bubble inside. “I think your suggestion is the right one, Captain. But don’t stop with a few Accepted, though. Ask a dozen Aes Sedai to come, or two. Think what the Stone of Tear would be like with two dozen Aes Sedai in it.”

Mallia shuddered. “I will send a man for my money chest,” he said stiffly, and stalked out.

Mat frowned at the closed door. “I think I shouldn’t have said that.”

“I don’t know why you might think that,” Thom said dryly. “Next you could try telling the Lord Captain Commander of the Whitecloaks he should marry the Amyrlin Seat.” His brows drew down, like white caterpillars. “High Lord Samon. I never heard of any High Lord Samon.”

It was Mat’s turn to be dry. “Well, even you cannot know everything about all the kings and queens and nobles there are, Thom. One or two might just have escaped your notice.”

“I know the names of the kings and queens, boy, and the names of all the High Lords of Tear, too. I suppose they could have raised a Lord of the Land, but I’d think I would have heard of the old High Lord dying. If you had settled for booting some poor fellows out of their cabin instead of taking the captain’s, we’d each have a bed to ourselves, narrow and hard as it might be. Now we have to share Mallia’s. I hope you don’t snore, boy. I cannot abide snoring.”

Mat ground his teeth. As he recalled, Thom had a snore like a woodrasp working on an oak knot. He had forgotten that.

It was one of the two large men—Sanor or Vasa; he did not give his name—who came to pull the captain’s iron-bound money chest from under the bed. He never said a word, only made sketchy bows, and frowned at them when he thought they were not looking, and left.

Mat was beginning to wonder if the luck that had been with him all night had deserted him at last. He was going to have to put up with Thom’s snoring, and truth to tell, it might not have been the best luck in the world to jump onto this particular ship waving a paper signed by the Amyrlin Seat and sealed with the Flame of Tar Valon. On impulse he pulled out one of his cylindrical leather dice cups, popped off the tight-fitting lid, and upended the dice onto the table.

They were spotted dice, and five single pips stared up at him. The Dark One’s Eyes, that was called in some games. It was a losing toss in those, a winning in other games. But what game am I playing? He scooped the dice up, tossed them again. Five pips. Another toss, and again the Dark One’s Eyes winked at him.

“If you used those dice to win all that gold,” Thom said quietly, “no wonder you had to leave by the first ship sailing.” He had stripped down to his shirt, and had that half over his head when he spoke. His knees were knobby and his legs seemed all sinew and stringy muscle, the right a little shrunken. “Boy, a twelve-year-old girl would cut your heart out if she knew you were using dice like that against her.”

“It isn’t the dice,” Mat muttered. “It’s the luck.” Aes Sedai luck? Or the Dark One’s luck? He pushed the dice back into the cup and capped it.

“I suppose,” Thom said, climbing into the bed, “you aren’t going to tell me where all that gold came from, then.”

“I won it. Tonight. With their dice.”

“Uh-huh. And I suppose you’re not going to explain that paper you were waving around—I saw the seal, boy!—or all that talk about White Tower business, or why the dockmaster had your description from an Aes Sedai, either.”

“I am carrying a letter to Morgase for Elayne, Thom,” Mat said a good deal more patiently than he felt. “Nynaeve gave me the paper. I don’t know where she got it.”

“Well, if you are not going to tell me, I am going to sleep. Blow out the lamps, will you?” Thom rolled on his side and pulled a pillow over his head.

Even after Mat had stripped off down to his smallclothes and crawled under the blankets—after blowing out the lamps—he could not sleep, though Mallia had done well by himself with a good feather mattress. He had been right about Thom’s snoring, and that pillow muffled nothing. It sounded as if Thom were cutting wood cross-grain with a rusty saw. And he could not stop thinking. How had Nynaeve and Egwene, and Elayne, gotten that paper from the Amyrlin? They had to be involved with the Amyrlin Seat herself—in some plot, one of those White Tower machinations—but now that he thought about it, they had to be holding something back from the Amyrlin, too.

“ ‘Please carry a letter to my mother, Mat,’ ” he said softly, in a highpitched, mocking voice. “Fool! The Amyrlin would have sent a Warder with any letter from the Daughter-Heir to the Queen. Blind fool, wanting to get out of the Tower so bad I couldn’t see it.” Thom’s snore seemed to trumpet agreement.

Most of all, though, he thought about luck, and footpads.

The first bump of something against the stern barely registered on him. He paid no attention to a thump and scuffle from the deck overhead, or the tread of boots. The vessel itself made enough noises, and there had to be someone on deck for the ship to make its way downriver. But stealthy footsteps in the passageway leading to his door merged with thoughts of footpads and made his ears prick up.

He nudged Thom in the ribs with an elbow. “Wake up,” he said softly. “There’s somebody outside in the hall.” He was already easing himself off the bed, hoping the cabin floor—Deck, floor, whatever it bloody is!—not creak under his feet. Thom grunted, smacked his lips, and resumed snoring.

There was no time to worry about Thom. The footsteps were right outside. Taking up his quarterstaff, Mat placed himself in front of the door and waited.

The door swung open slowly, and two cloaked men, one behind the other, were faintly outlined by dim moonlight through the hatch at the top of the ladder they had crept down. The moonlight was enough to glint off bare knife blades. Both men gasped; they obviously had not expected to find anyone waiting for them.

Mat thrust with the quarterstaff, catching the first man hard right under where his ribs joined together. He heard his father’s voice as he struck. It’s a killing blow, Mat. Don’t ever use it unless it’s your life. But those knives made it for his life; there was no room in the cabin for swinging a staff.

Even as the man made a choking sound and folded toward the deck, fighting vainly for breath, Mat stepped forward and drove the end of the quarterstaff over him into the second man’s throat with a loud crunch. That fellow dropped his knife to clutch at his throat, and fell on top of his companion, both of them scraping their boots across the deck, death rattles already sounding in their throats.

Mat stood there, staring down at them. Two men. No, burn me, three! I don’t think I ever hurt another human being before, and now I’ve killed three men in one night. Light!

Silence filled the dark passageway, and he heard the thump of boots on the deck overhead. The crewmen all went barefoot.

Trying not to think about what he was doing, Mat ripped the cloak from one of the dead men and settled it around his shoulders, hiding the pale linen of his smallclothes. On bare feet he padded down the passage and climbed the ladder, barely sticking his eyes above the hatch coping.

Pale moonlight reflected off the taut sails, but night still covered the deck with shadows, and there was no sound except the rush of water along the vessel’s sides. Only one man at the tiller, the hood of his cloak pulled up against the chill, seemed to be on deck. The man shifted, and boot leather scuffed on the deck planks.

Holding the quarterstaff low and hoping it would not be noticed, Mat climbed on up. “He’s dead,” he muttered in a low, rough whisper.

“I hope he squealed when you cut his throat.” The heavily accented voice was one Mat remembered calling from the mouth of a twisting street in Tar Valon. “This boy, he causes us too much of the trouble. Wait! Who are you?”

Mat swung the staff with all his strength. The thick wood smashed into the man’s head, the hood of his cloak only partly muffling a sound like a melon hitting the floor.

The man fell across the tiller, shoving it over, and the vessel lurched, staggering Mat. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a shape rising out of the shadows by the railing, and the gleam of a blade, and he knew he would never get his staff around before it struck home. Something else that shone streaked through the night and merged with the dim shape with a dull thunk. The rising motion became a fall, and a man sprawled almost at Mat’s feet.

A babble of voices rose belowdecks as the ship swung again, the tiller shifting with the first man’s weight.

Thom limped from the hatch in cloak and smallclothes, raising the shutter on a bull’s-eye lantern. “You were lucky, boy. One of those below had this lantern. Could have set the ship on fire, lying there.” The light showed a knife hilt sticking up from the chest of a man with dead, staring eyes. Mat had never seen him before; he was sure he would have remembered someone with that many scars on his face. Thom kicked a dagger away from the dead man’s outflung hand, then bent to retrieve his own knife, wiping the blade on the corpse’s cloak. “Very lucky, boy. Very lucky indeed.”

There was a rope tied to the stern rail. Thom stepped over to it, shining the light down astern, and Mat joined him. At the other end of the rope was one of the small boats from Southharbor, its square lantern extinguished. Two more men stood among the pulled-in oars.

“The Great Lord take me, it’s him!” one of them gasped. The other darted forward to work frantically at the knot holding the rope.

“You want to kill these two as well?” Thom asked, his voice booming as it did when he performed.

“No, Thom,” Mat said quietly. “No.”

The men in the boat must have heard the question and not the answer, for they abandoned the attempt to free their boat and leaped over the side with great splashes. The sound of them thrashing away across the river was loud.

“Fools,” Thom muttered. “The river narrows somewhat after Tar Valon, but it must still be half a mile or more wide here. They’ll never make it in the dark.”

“By the Stone!” came a shout from the hatch. “What happens here? There are dead men in the passageway! What’s Vasa doing lying on the tiller? He’ll run us onto a mudbank!” Naked save for linen underbreeches, Mallia dashed to the tiller, hauling the dead man off, roughly as he pulled the long lever to put the course straight again. “That isn’t Vasa! Burn my soul, who are all these dead men?” Others were clambering on deck now, barefoot crewmen and frightened passengers wrapped in cloaks and blankets.

Shielding his actions with his body, Thom slipped his knife under the rope and severed it in one stroke. The small boat began falling back into the darkness. “River brigands, Captain,” he said. “Young Mat and I have saved your vessel from river brigands. They might have cut everyone’s throat if not for us. Perhaps you should reconsider your passage fee.”

“Brigands!” Mallia exclaimed. “There are plenty of those down around Cairhien, but I never heard of it this far north!” The huddled passengers began to mutter about brigands and having their throats cut.

Mat walked stiffly to the hatch. Behind him, he heard Mallia. “He’s a cold one. I never heard that Andor employed assassins, but burn my soul, he is a cold one.”

Mat stumbled down the ladder, stepped over the two bodies in the passage, and slammed the door of the captain’s cabin behind him. He made it halfway to the bed before the shaking hit him, and then all he could do was sink down on his knees. Light, what game am I playing in? I have to know the game if I’m going to win. Light, what game?

Playing “Rose of the Morning” softly on his flute, Rand peered into his campfire, where a rabbit was roasting on a stick slanting over the flames. A night wind made the flames flicker; he barely noticed the smell of the rabbit, though a vagrant thought did come that he needed to find more salt in the next village or town. “Rose of the Morning” was one of the tunes he had played at those weddings.

How many days ago was that? Were there really so many, or did I imagine it? Every woman in the village deciding to marry at once? What was its name? Am I going mad already?

Sweat beaded on his face, but he played on, barely loud enough to be heard, staring into the fire. Moiraine had told him he was ta’veren. Everyone said he was ta’veren. Maybe he really was. People like that—changed—things around them. A ta’veren might have caused all those weddings. But that was too close to something he did not want to think about.

They say I’m the Dragon Reborn, too. They all say it. The living say it, and the dead. That doesn’t make it true. I had to let them proclaim me. Duty. I had no choice, but that does not make it true.

He could not seem to stop playing that one tune. It made him think of Egwene. He had thought once that he would marry Egwene. A long time ago, that seemed. That was gone, now. She had come in his dreams, though. It might have been her. Her face. It was her face.

Only, there had been so many faces, faces he knew. Tam, and his mother, and Mat, and Perrin. All trying to kill him. It had not really been them, of course. Only their faces, on Shadowspawn. He thought it had not really been them. Even in his dreams it seemed the Shadowspawn walked. Were they only dreams? Some dreams were real, he knew. And others were only dreams, nightmares, or hopes. But how to tell the difference? Min had walked his dreams one night—and tried to plant a knife in his back. He was still surprised at how much that had pained him. He had been careless, let her come close, let down his guard. Around Min, he had not felt any need to be on his guard in so long, despite the things she saw when she looked at him. Being with her had been like having balm soothed into his wounds.

And then she tried to kill me! The music rose to a discordant screech, but he pulled it back to softness. Not her. Shadowspawn with her face. Least of them all would Min hurt me. He could not understand why he thought that, but he was sure it was true.

So many faces in his dreams. Selene had come, cool and mysterious and so lovely his mouth went dry just thinking of her, offering him glory as she had—so long ago, it seemed—but now it was the sword she said he had to take. And with the sword would come her. Callandor. That was always in his dreams. Always. And taunting faces. Hands, pushing Egwene, and Nynaeve, and Elayne into cages, snaring them in nets, hurting them. Why should he weep more for Elayne than for the other two?

His head spun. His head hurt as much as his side, and sweat rolled down his face, and he softly played “Rose of the Morning” through the night, fearing to sleep. Fearing to dream.