“That is no concern of yours.” Sheriam’s level gaze included them all. “I will ask whatever questions must be asked about this man. You will forget you know anything at all about a dead man. If I discover you are doing anything else. . . . Well, there are worse things than scrubbing pots to occupy your attention. And I will not accept any excuses. Do I hear any more questions?”
“No, Sheriam Sedai.” This time, Nynaeve joined in, to Egwene’s relief. Not that she felt very much relief. Sheriam’s watchful eye would make it doubly hard to carry out a search for the Black Ajah. For a moment she felt like laughing hysterically. If the Black Ajah doesn’t catch us, Sheriam will. The urge to laugh vanished. If Sheriam isn’t Black Ajah herself. She wished she could make that thought go away.
Sheriam nodded. “Very well, then. You will come with me.”
“To where?” Nynaeve asked, and added, “Sheriam Sedai,” only an instant before the Aes Sedai’s eyes narrowed.
“Have you forgotten,” Sheriam said in a tight voice, “that in the Tower, Healing is always done in the presence of those who bring their sick to us?”
Egwene thought that the Mistress of Novices’s stock of patience with them was about used up, but before she could stop herself, she burst out, “Then she is going to Heal him!”
“The Amyrlin Seat herself, among others, will see to him.” Sheriam’s face held no more expression than her voice. “Did you have reason to doubt it?” Egwene could only shake her head. “Then you waste your friend’s life standing here. The Amyrlin Seat is not to be kept waiting.” Yet despite her words, Egwene had the feeling the Aes Sedai was in no hurry at all.
CHAPTER
18
Healing
Lamps on iron wall brackets lit the passages deep beneath the Tower, where Sheriam took them. The few doors they passed were shut tight, some locked, some so cunningly worked that they remained unseen until Egwene was right on top of them. Dark openings marked most of the crossing hallways, while down others she could only see the dim glow of distant lights spaced far apart. She saw no other people. These were not places even Aes Sedai often came. The air was neither cool nor warm, but she shivered anyway, and at the same time felt sweat trickling down her back.
It was down here, in the depths of the White Tower, that novices went through their last test before being raised to Accepted. Or put out of the Tower, if they failed. Down here, Accepted took the Three Oaths after passing their final test. No one, she realized, had ever told her what happened to an Accepted who failed. Down here, somewhere, was the room where the Tower’s few angreal and sa’angreal were kept, and the places where the ter’angreal were stored. The Black Ajah had struck at those storerooms. And if some of the Black Ajah were lying in wait in one of those dark side corridors, if Sheriam were leading them not to Mat, but to. . . .
She gave a squeak when the Aes Sedai stopped suddenly, then colored when the others looked at her curiously. “I was thinking about the Black Ajah,” she said weakly.
“Do not think of it,” Sheriam said, and for once she sounded like the Sheriam of old, kindly if firm. “The Black Ajah will not be your worry for years to come. You have what the rest of us do not: time before you must deal with it. Much time, yet. When we enter, stay against the wall and keep silent. You are allowed here as a benevolence, to attend, not to distract or interfere.” She opened a door covered in gray metal worked to look like stone.
The square room within was spacious, its pale stone walls bare. The only furnishing was a long stone table draped with a white cloth, in the middle of the room. Mat lay on that table, fully clothed save for coat and boots, eyes closed and face so gaunt that Egwene wanted to cry. His labored breathing made a hoarse whistle. The Shadar Logoth dagger hung sheathed at his belt, the ruby capping its hilt seeming to gather light, so it glowed like some fierce red eye despite the illumination of a dozen lamps, magnified by the pale walls and white-tiled floor.
The Amyrlin Seat stood at Mat’s head, and Leane at his feet. Four Aes Sedai stood down one side of the table, and three down the other. Sheriam joined the three. One of them was Verin. Egwene recognized Serafelle, another Brown sister, and Alanna Mosvani, of the Green Ajah, and Anaiya, of the Blue, which was Moiraine’s Ajah.
Alanna and Anaiya had each taught her some of her lessons in opening herself to the True Source, in how to surrender to saidar in order to control it. And between her first arrival in the White Tower and her departure, Anaiya must have tested her fifty times to see if she was a Dreamer. The tests had shown nothing one way or the other, but plain-faced, kindly Anaiya, with that warm smile that was her only beauty, had kept calling her back for more tests, as implacable as a boulder rolling downhill.
The rest were unknown to her, except for one cool-eyed woman she thought was a White. The Amyrlin and the Keeper wore their stoles, of course, but none of the others had anything to mark them out except Great Serpent rings and ageless Aes Sedai faces. None of them acknowledged the presence of Egwene and the other two by so much as a glance.
Despite the outward calm of the women around the table, Egwene thought she saw signs of uncertainty. A tightness to Anaiya’s mouth. A slight frown on Alanna’s darkly beautiful face. The cool-eyed woman kept smoothing her pale blue dress over her thighs without seeming to realize what she was doing.
An Aes Sedai Egwene did not know set a plain, polished wooden box, long and narrow, on the table and opened it. From its nest in the red silk lining, the Amyrlin took out a white, fluted wand the length of her forearm. It could have been bone, or ivory, but was neither. No one alive knew what it was made of.
Egwene had never seen the wand before, but she recognized it from a lecture Anaiya had given the novices. One of the few sa’angreal, and perhaps the most powerful, that the Tower possessed. Sa’angreal had no power of their own, of course—they were merely devices for focusing and magnifying what an Aes Sedai could channel—but with that wand, a strong Aes Sedai might be able to crumple the walls of Tar Valon.
Egwene clutched Nynaeve’s hand on one side and Elayne’s on the other. Light! They’re not sure they can Heal him, even with a sa’angreal—with that sa’angreal! What chance would we have had? We’d probably have killed him, and ourselves, too. Light!
“I will meld the flows,” the Amyrlin said. “Be careful. The Power needed to break the bond with the dagger and Heal its damage is very close to what could kill him. I will focus. Attend.” She held the wand straight out in front of her in both hands, above Mat’s face. Still unconscious, he shook his head and tightened a fist on the dagger’s hilt, muttering something that sounded like a denial.
A glow appeared around each Aes Sedai, that soft, white light that only a woman who could channel could see. Slowly the lights spread, until that which seemed to emanate from one woman touched that which came from the woman beside her, merged with it, till there was only one light, a light that, to Egwene’s eyes, diminished the lamps to nothing. And in that brightness was a stronger light still. A bar of bone-white fire. The sa’angreal.
Egwene fought the urge to open herself to saidar and add her flow to the tide. It was a pull so strong she was about to be jerked off her feet. Elayne tightened her hold on her hand. Nynaeve took a step toward the table, then stopped with an angry shake of her head. Light, Egwene thought, I could do it. But she did not know what it was she could do. Light, it’s so strong. It’s so—wonderful. Elayne’s hand was trembling.
On the table, Mat thrashed in the middle of the glow, jerking this way, then that, muttering incomprehensibly. But he did not loosen his hold on the dagger, and his eyes remained closed. Slowly, ever so slowly, he began to arch his back, muscles straining till he shook. Still he fought and bucked, until finally only his heels and his shoulders touched the table. His hand on the dagger sprang open and, quivering, crept back from the hilt; was forced, fighting, from the hilt. His lips skinned away from his teeth in a snarl, a grimace of pain, and his breath came in forced grunts.
“They are killing him,” Egwene whispered. “The Amyrlin is killing him! We have to do something.”
Just as softly, Nynaeve said, “If we stop them—if we could stop them—he’ll die. I do not think I could handle half that much of the Power.” She paused as if she had just heard her own words—that she could channel half of what ten full Aes Sedai did with a sa’angreal—and her voice grew even fainter. “Light help me, I want to.”
She fell silent abruptly. Did she mean that she wanted to help Mat, or that she wanted to channel that flow of Power? Egwene could feel that urge in herself, like a song that compelled her to dance.
“We must trust them,” Nynaeve said in an intense whisper, finally. “He has no other chance.”
Suddenly Mat shouted, loud and strong. “Muad’drin tia dar allende caba’drin rhadiem!” Arched and struggling, eyes squeezed shut, he bellowed the words clearly. “Los Valdar Cuebiyari! Los! Carai an Caldazar! Al Caldazar!”
Egwene frowned. She had learned enough to recognize the Old Tongue, if not to understand more than a few words. Carai an Caldazar! Al Caldazar! “For the honor of the Red Eagle! For the Red Eagle!” Ancient battle cries of Manetheren, a nation that had vanished during the Trolloc Wars. A nation that had stood where the Two Rivers was now. That much, she knew; but in some way it seemed for a moment that she should understand the rest, too, as if the meaning were just out of sight, and all she had to do was turn her head to know.
With a loud pop of tearing leather, the golden-sheathed dagger rose from Mat’s belt, hung a foot above his straining body. The ruby glittered, seemed to send off crimson sparks, as if it, too, fought the Healing.
Mat’s eyes opened, and he glared at the women standing around him. “Mia ayende, Aes Sedai! Caballein misain ye! Inde muagdhe Aes Sedai misain ye! Mia ayende!” And he began to scream, a roar of rage that went on and on, till Egwene wondered that he had breath left in him.
Hurriedly Anaiya bent to lift a dark metal box from under the table, moving as if it were heavy. When she set it beside Mat and opened the lid, only a small space was revealed within sides at least two inches thick. Anaiya bent again for a set of tongs such as a goodwife might use in her kitchen, and grasped the floating dagger in them as carefully as if it were a poisonous snake.
Mat’s scream grew frantic. The ruby shone furiously, flashing blood-red.
The Aes Sedai thrust the dagger into the box and snapped the lid down, letting out a loud sigh as it clicked shut. “A filthy thing,” she said.
As soon as the dagger was hidden, Mat’s shriek cut off, and he collapsed as if muscle and bone had turned to water. An instant later the glow surrounding Aes Sedai and table winked out.
“Done,” the Amyrlin said hoarsely, as if she had been the one screaming. “It is done.”
Some of the Aes Sedai sagged visibly, and sweat beaded on more than one brow. Anaiya pulled a plain linen handkerchief from her sleeve and wiped her face openly. The cool-eyed White dabbed almost surreptitiously at her cheeks with a bit of Lugard lace.
“Fascinating,” Verin said. “That the Old Blood could flow so strongly in anyone today.” She and Serafelle put their heads together, talking softly, but with many gestures.
“Is he Healed?” Nynaeve said. “Will he . . . live?”
Mat lay as if sleeping, but his face still had that hollow-cheeked gauntness. Egwene had never heard of a Healing that did not cure everything. Unless just separating him from the dagger took all of the Power they used. Light!
“Brendas,” the Amyrlin said, “will you see that he is taken back to his room?”
“As you command, Mother,” the cool-eyed woman said, her curtsy as emotionless as she herself seemed. When she left to summon bearers, several of the other Aes Sedai left, too, including Anaiya. Verin and Serafelle followed, still talking to one another too quietly for Egwene to make out what they said.
“Is Mat all right?” Nynaeve demanded. Sheriam raised her eyebrows.
The Amyrlin Seat turned toward them. “He is as well as he can be,” she said coldly. “Only time will tell. Carrying something with Shadar Logoth’s taint for so long . . . who knows what effect it will have on him? Perhaps none, perhaps much. We will see. But the bond with the dagger is broken. Now he needs rest, and as much food as can be gotten into him. He should live.”
“What was that he was shouting, Mother?” Elayne asked, then hastily added, “If I may ask.”
“He was ordering soldiers.” The Amyrlin gave the young man lying on the table a quizzical look. He had not moved since collapsing, but Egwene thought his breathing seemed easier, the rise and fall of his chest more rhythmic. “In a battle two thousand years gone, I would say. The Old Blood comes again.”
“It was not all about a battle,” Nynaeve said. “I heard him say Aes Sedai. That was no battle. Mother,” she added belatedly.
For a moment the Amyrlin seemed to consider, perhaps what to say, perhaps whether to say anything. “For a time,” she said finally, “I believe the past and the present were one. He was there, and he was here, and he knew who we were. He commanded us to release him.” She paused again. “ ‘I am a free man, Aes Sedai. I am no Aes Sedai meat.’ That is what he said.”
Leane sniffed loudly, and some of the other Aes Sedai muttered angrily under their breath.
“But, Mother,” Egwene said, “he could not have meant it as it sounds. Manetheren was allied with Tar Valon.”
“Manetheren was an ally, child,” the Amyrlin told her, “but who can know the heart of a man? Not even he himself, I suspect. A man is the easiest animal to put on a leash, and the hardest to keep leashed. Even when he chooses it himself.”
“Mother,” Sheriam said, “it is late. The cooks will be waiting for these helpers.”
“Mother,” Egwene asked anxiously, “could we not stay with Mat? If he may still die. . . .”
The Amyrlin’s look was level, her face without expression. “You have chores to do, child.”
It was not scrubbing pots she meant. Egwene was sure of that. “Yes, Mother.” She curtsied, her skirts brushing Nynaeve’s and Elayne’s as they made theirs. One last time she looked at Mat, then followed Sheriam out. Mat had still not moved.
CHAPTER
19
Awakening
Mat opened his eyes slowly and stared up at the white plaster ceiling, wondering where he was and how he had come there. An intricate fringe of gilded leaves bordered the ceiling, and the mattress under his back felt plumped full of feathers. Somewhere rich, then. Somewhere with money. But his head was empty of the where and the how, and a lot more besides.
He had been dreaming, and bits of those dreams still tumbled together with memories in his head. He could not separate one from the other. Wild flights and fights, strange people from across the ocean, Ways and Portal Stones and pieces of other lives, things right out of a gleeman’s tales, these had to be dreams. At least, he thought they must be. But Loial was no dream, and he was an Ogier. Chunks of conversations drifted around in his thoughts, talks with his father, with friends, with Moiraine, and a beautiful woman, and a ship captain, and a well-dressed man who spoke to him like a father giving sage advice. Those were probably real. But it was all bits and fragments. Drifting.
“Muad’drin tia dar allende caba’drin rhadiem,” he murmured. The words were only sounds, yet they sparked—something.
The packed lines of spearmen stretched a mile or more to either side below him, dotted with the pennants and banners of towns and cities and minor Houses. The river secured his flank on the left, the bogs and mires on the right. From the hillside he watched the spearmen struggle against the mass of Trollocs trying to break through, ten times the humans’ number. Spears pierced black Trolloc mail, and spiked axes carved bloody gaps in the human ranks. Screams and bellows harried the air. The sun burned hot overhead in a cloudless sky, and shimmers of heat rose above the battle line. Arrows still rained down from the enemy, slaying Trolloc and human alike. He had called his archers b
ack, but the Dreadlords did not care so long as they broke his line. On the ridge behind him, the Heart Guard awaited his command, horses stamping impatiently. Armor on men and horses alike shone silver in the sunlight; neither men nor animals could stand the heat much longer.
They must win here or die. He was known as a gambler; it was time to toss the dice. In a voice that carried over the tumult below, he gave the order as he swung up into his saddle. “Footmen prepare to pass cavalry forward!” His bannerman rode close beside him, the Red Eagle banner flapping over his head, as the command was repeated up and down the line.
Below, the spearmen suddenly moved, sidestepping with good discipline, narrowing their formations, opening wide gaps between. Gaps into which the Trollocs poured, roaring bestial cries, like a black, oozing tide of death.
He drew his sword, raised it high. “Forward the Heart Guard!” He dug his heels in, and his mount leaped down the slope. Behind him, hooves thundered in the charge. “Forward!” He was first to strike into the Trollocs, his sword rising and falling, his bannerman close behind. “For the honor of the Red Eagle!” The Heart Guard pounded into the gaps between the spearmen, smashing the tide, hurling it back. “The Red Eagle!” Half-human faces snarled at him, oddly curved swords sought him, but he cut his way ever deeper. Win or die. “Manetheren!”
Mat’s hand trembled as he raised it to his forehead. “Los Valdar Cuebiyari,” he muttered. He was almost sure he knew what it meant—“Forward the Heart Guard,” or maybe “The Heart Guard will advance”—but that could not be. Moiraine had told him a few words of the Old Tongue, and those were all he knew of it. The rest might as well be magpie chatter.
“Crazy,” he said roughly. “It probably isn’t even the Old Tongue at all. Just gibberish. That Aes Sedai is crazy. It was only a dream.”