“Tomorrow, I will be happy to talk with you.”
“But during the day, people surround you. Petitioners. High Lords. Aiel.” She gave a shiver; he told himself he really ought to look away, but he could as easily have stopped breathing. He had never before been so aware of his own reactions when wrapped in the Void. “The Aiel frighten me, and I do not like Tairen lords of any sort.”
About the Tairens he could believe her, but he did not think anything frightened this woman. Burn me, she’s in a strange man’s bedchamber in the middle of the night, only half-dressed, and I’m the one who’s jumpy as a cat in a dog run, Void or no. It was time to put an end to things before they went too far.
“It would be better if you return to your own bedchamber, my Lady.” Part of him wanted to tell her to put on a cloak, too. A thick cloak. Part of him did. “It … it is really too late for talking. Tomorrow. In daylight.”
She gave him a slanted, quizzical look. “Have you absorbed stuffy Tairen ways already, my Lord Dragon? Or is this reticence something from your Two Rivers? We are not so … formal … in Mayene.”
“My Lady … .” He tried to sound formal; if she did not like formality, that was what he wanted. “I am promised to Egwene al’Vere, my Lady.”
“You mean the Aes Sedai, my Lord Dragon? If she really is Aes Sedai. She is quite young—perhaps too young—to wear the ring and the shawl.” Berelain spoke as if Egwene were a child, though she herself could not be more than a year older than Rand, if that, and he had only a little over two years on Egwene. “My Lord Dragon, I do not mean to come between you. Marry her, if she is Green Ajah. I would never aspire to wed the Dragon Reborn himself. Forgive me if I overstep myself, but I told you we are not so … formal in Mayene. May I call you Rand?”
Rand surprised himself by sighing regretfully. There had been a glint in her eye, a slight shift of expression, gone quickly, when she mentioned marrying the Dragon Reborn. If she had not considered it before, she had now. The Dragon Reborn, not Rand al’Thor; the man of prophecy, not the shepherd from the Two Rivers. He was not shocked, exactly; some girls back home mooned over whoever proved himself fastest or strongest in the games at Bel Tine and Sunday, and now and again a woman set her eyes on the man with the richest fields or the largest flocks. It would have been good to think she wanted Rand al’Thor. “It is time for you to go, my Lady,” he said quietly.
She stepped closer. “I can feel your eyes on me, Rand.” Her voice was smoky heat. “I am no village girl tied to her mother’s apron, and I know you want—”
“Do you think I’m made of stone, woman?” She jumped at his roar, but the next instant she was crossing the carpet, reaching for him, her eyes dark pools that could pull a man into their depths.
“Your arms look as strong as stone. If you think you must be harsh with me, then be harsh, so long as you hold me.” Her hands touched his face; sparks seemed to leap from her fingers.
Without thinking he channeled the flows still linked to him, and suddenly she was staggering back, eyes wide with startlement, as if a wall of air pushed her. It was air, he realized; he did things without knowing what he was doing more often than he did know. At least, once done, he could usually remember how to do them again.
The unseen, moving wall scraped ripples along the carpet, sweeping along Berelain’s discarded robe, a boot he had tossed aside undressing, and a red leather footstool supporting an open volume of Eban Vandes’s The History of the Stone of Tear, pushing them along as it forced her almost to the wall, fenced her in. Safely away from him. He tied off the flow—that was all he could think to call what he did—and no longer needed to maintain the shield himself. For a moment he studied what he had done, until he was sure he could repeat it. It looked useful, especially the tying off.
Dark eyes still wide, Berelain felt along the confines of her invisible prison with trembling hands. Her face was almost as white as her skimpy silk shift. Footstool, boot and book lay at her feet, jumbled with the robe.
“Much as I regret it,” he told her, “we will not speak again, except in public, my Lady.” He really did regret it. Whatever her motives, she was beautiful. Burn me, I am a fool! He was not sure how he meant that—for thinking of her beauty, or for sending her away. “In fact, it is best you arrange your journey back to Mayene as soon as possible. I promise you that Tear will not trouble Mayene again. You have my word.” It was a promise good only for his lifetime, perhaps only as long as he stood in the Stone, but he had to offer her something. A bandage for wounded pride, a gift to take her mind off being afraid.
But her fear was already under control, on the outside, at least. Honesty and openness filled her face, all efforts at allure gone. “Forgive me. I have handled this badly. I did not mean to offend. In my country, a woman may speak her mind to a man freely, or he to her. Rand, you must know that you are a handsome man, tall and strong. I would be the one made of stone, if I did not see it, and admire. Please do not send me away from you. I will beg it, if you wish.” She knelt smoothly, like a dance. Her expression still said she was being open, confessing everything, but on the other hand, in kneeling she had managed to tug her already precarious gown down until it looked in real danger of falling off. “Please, Rand?”
Even sheltered in emptiness as he was, he gaped at her, and it had nothing to do with her beauty or her near undress. Well, only partly. If the Defenders of the Stone had been half as determined as this woman, half as steadfast in purpose, ten thousand Aiel could never have taken the Stone.
“I am flattered, my Lady,” he said diplomatically. “Believe me, I am. But it would not be fair to you. I cannot give you what you deserve.” And let her make of that what she will.
Outside in the darkness, a cock crowed.
To Rand’s surprise, Berelain suddenly stared past him, eyes as big as teacups. Her mouth dropped open, and her slim throat corded with a scream that would not come. He spun, the yellow-red sword flashing back into his hands.
Across the room, one of the stand-mirrors threw his reflection back at him, a tall young man with reddish hair and gray eyes, wearing only white linen smallclothes and holding a sword carved from fire. The reflection stepped out onto the carpet, raising its sword.
I have gone mad. Thought drifted on the borders of the Void. No! She saw it. It’s real!
Movement to his left caught the corner of his eye. He twisted before he could think, sword sweeping up in The Moon Rises Over Water. The blade slashed through the shape—his shape—climbing out of a mirror on the wall. The form wavered, broke up like dust motes floating on air, vanished. Rand’s reflection appeared in the mirror again, but even as it did, it put hands on the mirror frame. He was aware of movement in mirrors all around the room.
Desperately, he stabbed at the mirror. Silvered glass shattered, yet it seemed that the image shattered first. He thought he heard a distant scream inside his head, his own voice screaming, fading. Even as shards of mirror fell, he lashed out with the One Power. Every mirror in the room exploded silently, fountaining glass across the carpet. The dying scream in his head echoed again and again, sending shivers down his back. It was his voice; he could hardly believe it was not himself who made the sounds.
He spun back to face the one that had gotten out, just in time to meet its attack, Unfolding the Fan to counter Stones Falling Down the Mountain. The figure leaped back, and suddenly Rand realized it was not alone. As quickly as he had smashed the mirrors, two more reflections had escaped. Now they stood facing him, three duplicates of himself down to the puckered round scar on his side, all staring at him, faces twisted with hatred and contempt, with a strange hunger. Only their eyes seemed empty, lifeless. Before he could take a breath, they rushed at him.
Rand stepped sideways, pieces of broken mirror slicing his feet, ever sideways, from stance to stance and form to form, trying to face only one at a time. He used everything Lan, Moiraine’s Warder, had taught him of the sword in their daily practice.
Ha
d the three fought together, had they supported one another, he would have died in the first minute, but each fought him alone, as if the others did not exist. Even so, he could not stop their blades entirely; in minutes blood ran down the side of his face, his chest, his arms. The old wound tore open, adding its flow to stain his smallclothes with red. They had his skill as well as his face, and they were three to his one. Chairs and tables toppled; priceless Sea Folk porcelain shattered on the carpet.
He felt his strength ebbing. None of his cuts was major by itself, except the old wound, but all together … . He never thought of calling for help from the Aiel outside his door. The thick walls would stifle even a death scream. Whatever was done, he must do alone. He fought wrapped in the cold emotionlessness of the Void, but fear scraped at its boundaries like wind-lashed branches scratching a window in the night.
His blade slipped past its opponent to slash across a face just below the eyes—he could not help wincing; it was his face—its owner sliding back just far enough to avoid a killing cut. Blood welled from the gash, veiling mouth and chin in dark crimson, but the ruined face did not change expression, and its empty eyes never flickered. It wanted him dead the way a starving man wanted food.
Can anything kill them? All three bled from the wounds he had managed to inflict, but bleeding did not seem to slow them as he knew it was slowing him. They tried to avoid his sword, but did not appear to realize they had been hurt. If they have been, he thought grimly. Light, if they bleed, they can be hurt! They must!
He needed a respite, a moment to catch his breath, to gather himself. Suddenly he leaped away from them, onto the bed, rolling across its width. He sensed rather than saw blades slashing the sheets, barely missing his flesh. Staggering, he landed on his feet, caught at a small table to steady himself. The shining, gold-worked silver bowl on the table wobbled. One of his doubles had climbed onto the torn bed, kicking goose feathers as it padded across warily, sword at the ready. The other two came slowly around, still ignoring each other, intent only on him. Their eyes glistened like glass.
Rand shuddered as pain stabbed his hand on the table. An image of himself, no more than six inches tall, drew back its small sword. Instinctively, he grabbed the figure before it could stab again. It writhed in his grip, baring teeth at him. He became aware of small movements all around the room, of small reflections by the score stepping out of polished silver. His hand began to numb, to grow cold, as if the thing were sucking the warmth out of his flesh. The heat of saidin swelled inside him; a rushing filled his head, and the heat flowed into his icy hand.
Suddenly the small figure burst like a bubble, and he felt something flow into him—from the bursting—some little portion of his lost strength. He jerked as tiny jolts of vitality seemed to pelt him.
When he raised his head—wondering why he was not dead—the small reflections he had half-glimpsed were gone. The three larger stood wavering, as if his gain in strength had been their loss. Yet as he looked up, they steadied on their feet and came on, if more cautiously.
He backed away, thinking furiously, sword threatening first one and then another. If he continued to fight them as he had been, they would kill him sooner or later. He knew that as surely as he knew he was bleeding. But something linked the reflections. Absorbing the small one—the far-off thought made him queasy, but that was what it had been—had not only brought the others with it, it had also affected the bigger, for a moment at least. If he could do the same to one of them, it might destroy all three.
Even thinking of absorbing them made him vaguely aware of wanting to empty his stomach, but he did not know another way. I don’t know this way. How did I do it? Light, what did I do? He had to grapple with one of them, to touch it at least; he was somehow sure of that. But if he tried to get that close, he would have three blades through him in as many heartbeats. Reflections. How much are they still reflections?
Hoping he was not being a fool—if he was, he might well be a dead one—he let his sword vanish. He was ready to bring it back on the instant, but when his carved-fire blade winked out of existence, the others’ did, too. For a moment, confusion painted three copies of his face, one a bloody ruin. But before he could seize one of them, they leaped for him, all four crashing to the floor in a tangle of grappling limbs, rolling across the glass-littered carpet.
Cold soaked into Rand. Numbness crept along his limbs, through his bones, until he barely felt the shards of mirror, the slivers of porcelain grinding into his flesh. Something close to panic flickered across the emptiness surrounding him. He might have made a fatal mistake. They were larger than the one he had absorbed, and they were drawing more heat from him. And not only heat. As he grew colder, the glassy gray eyes staring into his took on life. With chill certainty he knew that if he died, that would not end the struggle. The three would turn on one another until only one remained, and that one would have his life, his memories, would be him.
Stubbornly he fought, struggling harder the weaker he became. He pulled on saidin, trying to fill himself with its heat. Even the stomach-turning taint was welcome, for the more of it he felt, the more saidin suffused him. If his stomach could rebel, then he was still alive, and if he lived, he could fight. But how? How? What did I do before? Saidin raged through him till it seemed that if he survived his attackers, he would only be consumed by the Power. How did I do it? All he could do was pull at saidin, and try … reach … strain … .
One of the three vanished—Rand felt it slide into him; it was as if he had fallen from a height, flat onto stony ground—and then the other two together. The impact flung him onto his back, where he lay staring up at the worked plaster ceiling with its gilded bosses, lay luxuriating in the fact that he was still breathing.
The Power still swelled in every crevice of his being. He wanted to spew up every meal he had ever eaten. He felt so alive that, by comparison, life not soaked in saidin was living a shadow. He could smell the beeswax of the candles, and the oil in the lamps. He could feel every fiber of the carpet against his back. He could feel every gash in his flesh, every cut, every nick, every bruise. But he held on to saidin.
One of the Forsaken had tried to kill him. Or all of them had. It must have been that, unless the Dark One was free already, in which case he did not think he would have faced anything as easy or as simple as this. So he held his link to the True Source. Unless I did it myself. Can I hate what I am enough to try to kill myself? Without even knowing it? Light, I have to learn to control it. I have to!
Painfully, he pushed himself up. Leaving bloody footprints on the carpet, he limped to the stand where Callandor rested. Blood from hundreds of cuts covered him. He lifted the sword, and its glassy length glowed with the Power flowing into it. The Sword That Is Not a Sword. That blade, apparently glass, would cut as well as the finest steel, yet Callandor truly was not a sword, but instead a remnant of the Age of Legends, a sa’angreal. With the aid of one of the relatively few angreal known to have survived the War of the Shadow and Breaking of the World, it was possible to channel flows of the One Power that would have burned the channeler to ash without it. With one of the even rarer sa’angreal, the flows could be increased as much over those possible with an angreal as an angreal increased them over channeling naked. And Callandor, usable only by a man, linked to the Dragon Reborn through three thousand years of legend and prophecy, was one of the most powerful sa’angreal ever made. Holding Callandor in his hands, he could level a city’s walls at a blow. Holding Callandor in his hands, he could face even one of the Forsaken. It was them. It must have been.
Abruptly he realized he had not heard a sound from Berelain. Half fearing to see her dead, he turned.
Still kneeling, she flinched. She had donned her robe again, and hugged it around her like steel armor, or stone walls. Face as white as snow, she licked her lips. “Which one are … ?” She swallowed and began again. “Which one … ?” She could not finish it.
“I am the only one there is,” he
said gently. “The one you were treating as if we were betrothed.” He meant it to soothe her, perhaps make her smile—surely a woman as strong as she had shown herself to be could smile, even facing a blood-drenched man—but she bent forward, pressing her face to the floor.
“I apologize humbly for having most grievously offended you, Lord Dragon.” Her breathy voice did sound humble, and frightened. Completely unlike herself. “I beg you to forget my offense, and forgive. I will not bother you again. I swear it, my Lord Dragon. On my mother’s name and under the Light, I swear it.”
He loosed the knotted flow; the invisible wall confining her became a momentary stir that ruffled her robe. “There is nothing to forgive,” he said wearily. He felt very tired. “Go as you wish.”
She straightened hesitantly, stretched out a hand, and gave a relieved gasp when it encountered nothing. Gathering the skirts of her robe, she began to pick her way across the glass-littered carpet, shards grating under her velvet slippers. Short of the door, she stopped, facing him with an obvious effort. Her eyes could not quite meet his. “I will send the Aiel in to you, if you wish. I could send for one of the Aes Sedai to tend your wounds.”
She would as soon be in a room with a Myrddraal, now, or the Dark One himself, but she’s no milksop. “Thank you,” he said quietly, “but no. I would appreciate it if you told no one what happened here. Not yet. I will do what needs to be done.” It had to be the Forsaken.
“As my Lord Dragon commands.” She gave him a tight curtsy and hurried out, perhaps afraid he might change his mind about letting her go.
“As soon the Dark One himself,” he murmured as the door closed behind her.