He only thought for a moment. At one end of the wall Sandar might be waiting, might be intending to take him into the Stone as a pretend prisoner—or might be hurrying back with soldiers. At the other end of the wall, there might be a way inside without any chance of Sandar betraying him. He darted back the way he had just come, no longer worrying about the darkness or the drop to either side.
The arrowslit was larger, most of the thinner stone at the middle simply gone, leaving a rough hole as if someone had hammered at it with a sledge for hours. A hole just big enough for a man. How in the Light? There was no time for wondering.
He pushed through the jagged opening, coughing at the acrid smoke, jumped to the floor inside, and had run a dozen steps before Defenders of the Stone appeared, at least ten of them, all shouting in confusion. Most wore only their shirts, and none had helmet or breastplate. Some carried lanterns. Some held bared swords.
Fool! he shouted inside his head. This is why you set the bloody things off in the first place! Light-blinded fool!
He had no time to make it back out onto the wall. Quarterstaff spinning, he threw himself at the soldiers before they had a chance to do more than see he was there, hurled himself into them, smashing at heads, swords, knees, whatever he could reach, knowing they were too many for him to handle alone, knowing that his fool toss of the dice had cost Egwene and the others whatever chance he might have had.
Suddenly Sandar was there beside him, in the light of lanterns dropped by men clawing for their swords, his slender staff whirling even faster than Mat’s quarterstaff. Caught between two staffmen, taken by surprise, the soldiers went down like pins in a game of bowls.
Sandar stared at the fallen men, shaking his head. “Defenders of the Stone. I have attacked Defenders! They will have my head for—! What was it that you did, gambler? That flash of light, and thunder, breaking stone. Did you call lightning?” His voice fell to a whisper. “Have I joined myself to a man who can channel?”
“Fireworks,” Mat said curtly. His ears were still ringing, but he could hear more boots coming, running boots thudding on stone. “The cells, man! Show me the way to the cells before any more get here!”
Sandar shook himself. “This way!” He dashed down a side hall, away from the oncoming boots. “We must hurry! They will kill us if they find us!” Somewhere above, gongs began to sound an alarm, and more thundered echoes through the Stone.
I’m coming, Mat thought as he ran after the thief-taker. I’ll get you out or die! I promise it!
The alarm gongs sent echoes crashing through the Stone, but Rand paid no more attention to them than he had to the roar that had come before, like muffled thunder from somewhere below. His side ached; the old wound burned, strained almost to tearing by the climb up the side of the fortress. He gave the pain no heed, either. A crooked smile was fixed on his face, a smile of anticipation and dread he could not have wiped away if he had wanted to. It was close, now. What he had dreamed of. Callandor.
I will finish it at last. One way or another, it will be done with. The dreams, finished. The baiting, and the taunting, and the hunting. I’ll finish it all!
Laughing to himself, he hurried through the dark corridors of the Stone of Tear.
Egwene put a hand to her face, wincing. Her mouth had a bitter taste, and she was thirsty. Rand? What? Why was I dreaming about Mat again, all mixed with Rand, and shouting that he was coming? What?
She opened her eyes, stared at the gray stone walls, one smoky rush torch casting flickering shadows, and screamed as she remembered it all. “No! I will not be chained again! I won’t be collared! No!”
Nynaeve and Elayne were beside her in an instant, their bruised faces too worried and fearful for the soothing sounds they made to be believed. But just the fact that they were there was enough to still her screams. She was not alone. A prisoner, but not alone. And not collared.
She tried to sit up, and they helped her. They had to help her; she ached in every muscle. She could remember every unseen blow during the frenzy that had all but driven her mad when she realized. . . . I will not think about that. I have to think about how we are to escape. She slid backwards until she could lean against a wall. Her pains fought with weariness; that struggle when she had refused to give in had taken every last scrap of her strength, and the bruises seemed to sap even more.
The cell was absolutely empty except for the three of them and the torch. The floor was bare, and cold, and hard. The door of rough planks, splintered as if countless futile fingers had clawed at it, was the only break in the walls. Messages had been scratched in the stone, most by unsteady hands. The Light have mercy and let me die, one read. She blanked that out of her head.
“Are we still shielded?” she mumbled. Even talking hurt. Even as Elayne nodded, she realized she had not had to ask. The swollen cheek on the golden-haired woman, her split lip and black eye, were answer enough, even if her own pains had not been. If Nynaeve had been able to reach the True Source, they surely would have been Healed.
“I have tried,” Nynaeve said despairingly. “I have tried, and tried, and tried.” She gave her braid a sharp tug, anger seeping through despite the hopeless fear in her voice. “One of them is sitting outside. Amico, that milk-faced chit, if they have not changed since we were thrown in here. I suppose one is enough to maintain the shielding once it has been woven.” She barked a bitter laugh. “For all the pains they took—and gave!—to take us, you would think we were of no importance at all. It has been hours since they slammed that door behind us, and no one has come to ask a question, or look, or even bring a drop of water. Perhaps they mean to leave us here until we die of thirst.”
“Bait.” Elayne’s voice quavered, though she was obviously trying to sound unafraid. And failing miserably. “Liandrin said we are bait.”
“Bait for what?” Nynaeve asked shakily. “Bait for who? If I am bait, I’d like to shove myself down their throats till they choke on me!”
“Rand.” Egwene stopped to swallow; even a drop of water would be welcome. “I dreamed about Rand, and Callandor. I think he is coming here.” But why did I dream of Mat? And Perrin? It was a wolf, but I am sure it was him. “Do not be so afraid,” she said, trying to sound confident. “We will escape them somehow. If we could better the Seanchan, we can best Liandrin.”
Nynaeve and Elayne exchanged looks over her. Nynaeve said, “Liandrin said thirteen Myrddraal are coming, Egwene.”
She found herself staring at that message scratched on the stone wall again: The Light have mercy and let me die. Her hands clenched into fists. Her jaws cramped with the effort of not screaming those words. Better to die. Better death than being turned to the Shadow, made to serve the Dark One!
She realized that one of her hands had tightened around the pouch at her belt. She could feel the two rings inside, the small circle of the Great Serpent and the larger, twisted stone ring.
“They did not take the ter’angreal,” she said wonderingly. She fumbled it out of her pouch. It lay heavily on her palm, all stripes and flecks of color, a ring with only one edge.
“We were not even important enough to search,” Elayne sighed. “Egwene, are you certain Rand is coming here? I would much rather free myself than wait for the chance of him, but if there is anyone who can defeat Liandrin and the rest of them, it must be him. The Dragon Reborn is meant to wield Callandor. He must be able to defeat them.”
“Not if we pull him into a cage after us,” Nynaeve muttered. “Not if they have a trap set he does not see. Why are you staring at that ring, Egwene? Tel’aran’rhiod will not help us now. Not unless you can dream a way out of here.”
“Perhaps I can,” she said slowly. “I could channel in Tel’aran’rhiod. Their shielding won’t stop me reaching it. All I need do is sleep, not channel. And I am surely weary enough to sleep.”
Elayne frowned, wincing as it pulled her bruises. “I will take any chance, but how can you channel even in a dream, cut off from the True Source? And
if you can, how can it help us here?”
“I do not know, Elayne. Just because I am shielded here does not mean I am shielded in the World of Dreams. It is at least worth a try.”
“Perhaps,” Nynaeve said worriedly. “I will take any chance, too, but you saw Liandrin and the others the last time you used that ring. And you said they saw you, too. What if they are there again?”
“I hope they are,” Egwene said grimly. “I hope they are.”
Clutching the ter’angreal in her hand, she closed her eyes. She could feel Elayne smoothing her hair, hear her murmuring softly. Nynaeve began to hum that wordless lullaby from her childhood; for once, she felt no anger at it at all. The soft sounds and touches soothed her, let her surrender to her weariness, let sleep come.
She wore blue silk this time, but she barely noticed more than that. Soft breezes caressed her unbruised face, and sent the butterflies swirling above the wildflowers. Her thirst was gone, her aches. She reached out to embrace saidar and was filled with the One Power. Even the triumph she felt at succeeding was small beside the surging of the Power through her.
Reluctantly she made herself release it, closed her eyes, and filled the emptiness with a perfect image of the Heart of the Stone. That was the one place in the Stone she could picture aside from her cell, and how to distinguish one featureless cubicle from another? When she opened her eyes, she was there. But she was not alone.
The form of Joiya Byir stood before Callandor, her shape so insubstantial that the surging light of the sword shone through her. The crystal sword no longer merely glittered with refracted light. In pulses it glowed, as if some light inside it were being uncovered, then covered and uncovered again. The Black sister started with surprise and spun to face Egwene. “How? You are shielded! Your Dreaming is at an end!”
Before the first words were out of the woman’s mouth, Egwene reached for saidar again, wove the complicated flow of Spirit as she remembered it being used against her, and cut Joiya Byir off from the Source. The Darkfriend’s eyes widened, those cruel eyes so incongruous in that beautiful, kindly face, but Egwene was already weaving Air. The other woman’s form might seem like mist, but the bonds held it. It seemed to Egwene that there was no effort involved in holding both flows in their weaving. There was sweat on Joiya Byir’s forehead as she walked closer.
“You have a ter’angreal!” Fear was plain on the woman’s face, but her voice fought to hide it. “That must be it. A ter’angreal that escaped us, and one that does not require channeling. Do you think it will do you any good, girl? Whatever you do here, it cannot affect what happens in the real world. Tel’aran’rhiod is a dream! When I wake, I will take your ter’angreal from you myself. Be careful what you do, lest I have reason to be angry when I come to your cell.”
Egwene smiled at her. “Are you certain you will wake, Darkfriend? If your ter’angreal requires channeling, why did you not wake as soon as I shielded you? Perhaps you cannot wake so long as you are shielded here.” Her smile faded away; the effort of smiling at this woman was more than she could bear. “A woman once showed me a scar she received in Tel’aran’rhiod, Darkfriend. What happens here is still real when you wake.”
The sweat rolled down the Black sister’s smooth, ageless face, now. Egwene wondered if she thought she was about to die. She almost wished she were cruel enough to do that. Most of the unseen blows she had received had come from this woman, like a pounding of fists, for no reason more than that she had kept trying to crawl away, no reason more than that she had refused to give up.
“A woman who can give such beatings,” she said, “should have no objections to a milder one.” She wove another flow of Air quickly; Joiya Byir’s dark eyes bulged in disbelief as the first blow landed across her hips. Egwene saw how to adjust the weaving so she did not have to maintain it. “You will remember this, and feel it, when you waken. When I allow you to waken. Remember this, too. If you ever even try to beat me again, I will return you here and leave you for the rest of your life!” The Black sister’s eyes stared hate at her, but there was a suggestion of tears in them, too.
Egwene felt a moment of shame. Not at what she was doing to Joiya—the woman deserved every blow, if not for her own beating, then for the deaths in the Tower—not that, not really, but because she had spent time on her own revenge while Nynaeve and Elayne were sitting in a cell hoping against hope that she might be able to rescue them.
She tied off and set the flows of her weavings before she knew she had done it, then paused to study what she had done. Three separate weavings, and not only had it been no trouble to hold them all at once, but now she had done something so they would maintain themselves. She thought she could remember how, too. And it might be useful.
After a moment, she unraveled one of the weavings, and the Darkfriend sobbed as much from relief as from pain. “I am not like you,” Egwene said. “This is the second time I have done something like this, and I do not like it. I am going to have to learn to cut throats instead.” From the Black sister’s face, she thought Egwene meant to start learning with her.
Making a disgusted sound, Egwene left her standing there, trapped and shielded, and hurried into the forest of polished redstone columns. There had to be a way down to the cells somewhere.
The stone corridor fell silent as the final dying scream was cut off by Young Bull’s jaws closing on the two-legs’s throat, crushing it. The blood was bitter on his tongue.
He knew this was the Stone of Tear, though he could not say how he knew. The two-legs lying around him, one kicking his last with Hopper’s teeth buried in his throat, had smelled rank with fear as they fought. They had smelled confused. He did not think they had known where they were—they certainly did not belong in the wolf dream—but they had been set to keep him from that tall door ahead, with its iron lock. To guard it, at least. They had seemed startled to see wolves. He thought they had been startled at being there themselves.
He wiped his mouth, then stared at his hand with a momentary lack of comprehension. He was a man again. He was Perrin. Back in his own body, in the blacksmith’s vest, with the heavy hammer at his side.
We must hurry, Young Bull. There is something evil near.
Perrin pulled the hammer from his belt as he strode to the door. “Faile must be here.” One sharp blow shattered the lock. He kicked open the door.
The room was empty except for a long stone block in the middle of the floor. Faile lay on that block as if sleeping, her black hair spread out like a fan, her body so wrapped in chains that it took him a moment to realize she was unclothed. Every chain was held to the stone by a thick bolt.
He was hardly aware of crossing the space until his hand touched her face, tracing her cheekbone with a finger.
She opened her eyes and smiled up at him. “I kept dreaming you would come, blacksmith.”
“I will have you free in a moment, Faile.” He raised his hammer, smashed one of the bolts as if it were wood.
“I was sure of it. Perrin.”
As his name faded from her tongue, she faded, too. With a clatter, the chains dropped to the stone where she had been.
“No!” he cried. “I found her!”
The dream is not like the world of flesh, Young Bull. Here, the same hunt can have many endings.
He did not turn to look at Hopper. He knew his teeth were bared in a snarl. Again he raised the hammer, brought it down with all his strength against the chains that had held Faile. The stone block cracked in two under his blow; the Stone itself rang like a stuck bell.
“Then I will hunt again,” he growled.
Hammer in hand, Perrin strode out of the room with Hopper beside him. The Stone was a place of men. And men, he knew, were crueler hunters than ever wolves were.
Alarm gongs somewhere above sent sonorous clangs down the corridor, not quite drowning out the ring of metal on metal and the shouts of fighting men rather closer. The Aiel and the Defenders, Mat suspected. Tall, golden lamp stands, each with
four golden lamps, lined the hall where Mat was, and silk tapestries of battle scenes hung on the polished stone walls. There were even silk carpets on the floor, dark red on dark blue, woven in the Tairen maze. For once, Mat was too busy to put a price on anything.
This bloody fellow is good, he thought as he managed to sweep a sword thrust away from him, but the blow he aimed at the man’s head with the other end of the staff had to turn into another block of that darting blade. I wonder if he is one of these bloody High Lords? He almost managed a solid blow at a knee, but his opponent sprang back, his straight blade raised on guard.
The blue-eyed man certainly wore the puffy-sleeved coat, yellow with thread-of-gold stripes, but it was all undone, his shirt only half tucked into his breeches, and his feet bare. His short-cropped, dark hair was tousled, like that of a man roused hastily from sleep, but he did not fight like it. Five minutes ago he had come darting out from one of the tall, carved doors that lined this hall, a scabbardless sword in his hands, and Mat was only grateful the fellow had appeared in front of them and not behind. He was not the first man dressed so that Mat had faced already, but he was surely the best.
“Can you make it past me, thief-catcher?” Mat called, careful not to take his eyes off the man waiting for him with blade poised to strike. Sandar had insisted irritably on “thief-catcher,” not “thief-taker,” though Mat could not see any difference.
“I cannot,” Sandar called from behind him. “If you move to let me by, you will lose room to swing that oar you call a staff, and he will spit you like a grunt.”
Like a what? “Well, think of something, Tairen. This ragamuffin is grating my nerves.”
The man in the gold-striped coat sneered. “You will be honored to die on the blade of the High Lord Darlin, peasant, if I allow it so.” It was the first time he had deigned to speak. “Instead, I think I will have the pair of you hung by the heels, and watch while the skin is stripped from your bodies—”