Suddenly she was staring at colored floor tiles under her nose. Clapping hands to her throat, marveling that they were free to move, she felt wetness and brought her fingers up to stare at them. Blood, but only a tiny smear. A shudder rippled through her. If that Trolloc had succeeded in cutting her throat . . . No Healing could have cured that. Shuddering again, she pushed slowly to her feet. It was the Tower hallway outside the Amyrlin’s study, with no sign of Trollocs or caverns.
Siuan was there, looking a mass of bruises in a torn dress, and the Aes Sedai, misty forms of near ruin. Carlinya was in the best shape, and she stood wide-eyed and shaking, fingering dark hair that now ended frizzily a hand from her scalp. Sheriam and Anaiya seemed to be weeping heaps of bloody rags. Myrelle huddled in on herself, white-faced, naked and covered with long red scratches and welts. Morvrin moaned every time she moved, and she moved unnaturally, as though her joints did not work properly anymore. Beonin’s dress appeared to have been clawed to shreds, and she was panting on her knees, more wide-eyed than ever, holding on to the wall to keep from falling over.
Abruptly Elayne realized that her own dress and shift were hanging from her shoulders, neatly sliced open down the front. A hunter skinning a deer carcass. She shivered so hard she almost fell. Repairing the garments was a simple matter of thought, but she was not sure how long it would take to repair her memories.
“We must go back,” Morvrin said, kneeling awkwardly between Sheriam and Anaiya. Despite her stiffness and groans, she sounded as stolid as ever. “There is Healing to be done, and none here can manage it as we are.”
“Yes.” Carlinya touched her short hair again. “Yes, it might be best if we returned to Salidar.” Her voice was a decidedly unsteady version of its normal iciness.
“I will stay a little while, if no one objects,” Siuan told them. Or rather suggested, in that ill-fitting humble voice. Her dress was whole again, but the bruises remained. “I might learn a little more that’s useful. All that’s wrong with me are a few lumps, and I’ve had worse falling in a boat.”
“You look more as if someone had dropped a boat on you,” Morvrin told her, “but the choice is yours.”
“I will stay, too,” Elayne said. “I can help Siuan, and I wasn’t hurt at all.” She was aware of the nick on her throat every time she swallowed.
“I don’t need any help,” Siuan said, at the same time that Morvrin said in an even firmer voice, “You kept your head very well tonight, child. Don’t spoil it now. You are coming with us.”
Elayne nodded grumpily. Arguing would get her nowhere except into hot water. You would have thought the Brown sister was the teacher here, and Elayne the pupil. They probably thought she had stumbled into the nightmare the same way they did. “Remember, you can step out of the dream straight into your own body. You do not have to go back to Salidar first.” There was no way of telling whether they heard her. Morvrin had turned away as soon as she nodded.
“Be easy, Sheriam,” the stout woman said soothingly. “We will be back in Salidar in a few moments. Be easy, Anaiya.” Sheriam at least had stopped crying, though she still moaned in pain. “Carlinya, will you help Myrelle? Are you ready, Beonin? Beonin?” The Gray raised her head and stared at Morvrin a moment before nodding.
The six Aes Sedai vanished.
With a last glance at Siuan, Elayne was only a moment behind, but she did not go to Salidar. Someone would very likely be coming to Heal the scrape on her neck, if they had noticed it, but for a little while they would be concerned with six Aes Sedai who would wake looking as if they had been pushed through some monstrous clockworks. Elayne had those few minutes, and another destination in mind.
The Grand Hall in her mother’s palace in Caemlyn did not appear around her with any ease. There was a feel of resistance before she stood on a red-and-white tiled floor beneath the great arched roof, between rows of massive white columns. Once more light seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. The huge windows overhead, depicting the White Lion of Andor alternating with the earliest queens of the realm and scenes of great Andoran victories, were indistinct with the night outside.
Immediately she saw the difference from what she knew that had made coming here difficult. On the dais at the end of the hall where the Lion Throne should have stood was instead a grandiose monstrosity made of Dragons sparkling gold and red in gilt and enamel, with sunstones for their eyes. Her mother’s throne had not been removed from the chamber. It stood on a kind of pedestal, behind and above the monstrous thing.
Elayne walked slowly down the hall and climbed the white marble stairs to stare up at the gilded throne of Andoran Queens. The White Lion of Andor, picked out in moonstones against a field of rubies on the back, would have stood above her mother’s head.
“What are you doing, Rand al’Thor?” she whispered harshly. “What do you think you are doing?”
She was terribly afraid that he was bungling matters without her there to guide him between the pitfalls. True, he had handled the Tairens well enough, and apparently the Cairhienin, but her people were different, bluff and straightforward, with a dislike of being maneuvered or bullied. What had worked in Tear or Cairhien could blow up in his face like an Illuminator’s display of fireworks.
If only she could be with him. If only she could warn him about the Tower’s embassy. Elaida had to have some trick hidden, to spring when he least expected it. Would he be sensible enough to see it? For that matter, she had no idea what the Salidar embassy’s orders were. Despite Siuan’s efforts, most Aes Sedai in Salidar still seemed of two minds about Rand al’Thor; he was the Dragon Reborn, prophesied savior of humanity, but then again, he was a man who could channel, doomed to madness, death and destruction.
Take care of him, Min, she thought. Reach him quickly and take care of him.
A stab of jealousy hit her that Min would be there to do what she wanted to. She might have to share him, but she would have part of him all to herself. She would bond him as her Warder, whatever it took.
“It will be done.” She stretched a hand up toward the Lion Throne, to swear as queens had sworn since there was an Andor. The pedestal was too high for her to reach, but the intent should count. “It will be done.”
Time was running out. An Aes Sedai would be coming, back in Salidar, to wake her and Heal the pitiful scratch on her neck. With a sigh, she stepped out of the dream.
Demandred moved out from behind the columns of the Grand Hall and looked from the two thrones to where the girl had vanished. Elayne Trakand, unless he missed his guess wildly, and using a minor ter’angreal by the faint look of her, one made for training beginning students. He would have given much to know what was in her head, but her words and expression had been plain enough. She did not like what al’Thor was doing here, not in the least, and meant to do something about it. A determined young woman, he suspected. In any case, another thread in the tangle yanked, however feeble the pull turned out to be.
“Let the Lord of Chaos rule,” he told the thrones — though he still wished he knew why it had to be so — and opened a gateway to leave Tel’aran’rhiod.
Chapter 8
The Storm Gathers
* * *
Nynaeve woke the next morning at first light feeling grumpy. She had a sense of bad weather coming, yet a glance out of the window revealed not a single cloud marring the still gray sky. Already the day promised to be another oven. Her shift was sweat-damp and twisted from tossing and turning. Once she had been able to rely on her ability to Listen to the Wind, but it seemed to have gone all askew since leaving the Two Rivers, when it did not desert her completely.
Waiting her turn to use the washstand did not help, either, nor listening to Elayne’s recital of what had happened after she left them in Elaida’s study. Her own night had been one long futile search through the streets of Tar Valon, empty save for herself, pigeons, rats and heaps of garbage. That had been a shock. Tar Valon was always kept spotless; Elaida must be neglecting the city te
rribly for garbage to show in Tel’aran’rhiod. Once she had glimpsed Leane through the window of a tavern near Southharbor, of all places, but when she hurried inside, the common room was empty except for the freshly painted blue tables and benches. She should just have given up, but Myrelle had been badgering her lately, and she wanted a clear conscience when she told the woman that she had tried. Myrelle could pounce on an evasion as quickly as anyone Nynaeve had ever seen or heard of. To finish it off, she had stepped out of Tel’aran’rhiod last night to find Elayne’s ring already back on the table and Elayne fast asleep. If there had been a prize for useless effort, she would have won it walking away. And now to learn that Sheriam and the rest had nearly gotten themselves killed . . . Even the song sparrow’s chirping in its wicker cage earned a sour look.
“They think they know everything,” Nynaeve muttered disparagingly. “I told them about nightmares. I warned them, and last night was not the first time.” It made no difference that all six sisters had been Healed before she so much as got back from Tel’aran’rhiod. Much too easily it could have ended much worse — because they thought they knew it all. The irritated tugs she gave her braid delayed redoing it for the day. The a’dam bracelet sometimes caught on her hair, too, but she was not about to take it off. It was Elayne’s turn to wear it today, but she was just as likely to leave it on a peg on the wall. Worry tickled through the bracelet, and the inevitable fear, but more than anything else, frustration. Doubtless “Marigan” was already helping with breakfast; having to do chores seemed to grate at her more than being a prisoner did. “That was good thinking on your part, Elayne. You didn’t say how you ended up in it yourself after trying to warn everybody else.”
Still scrubbing with her facecloth, Elayne shuddered. “It wasn’t so hard to think of it. A nightmare that size needed all of us to handle. Maybe they learned a little humility. Maybe their meeting with the Wise Ones tonight won’t be so bad.”
Nynaeve nodded to herself. As she had thought. Not about Sheriam and the others; Aes Sedai would find humility when goats flew on wings, and a day before the Wise Ones at that. About Elayne. She had probably let herself be caught in the nightmare, though the girl would never admit it. Nynaeve was not sure whether Elayne thought taking credit for bravery was boasting or whether she simply did not realize how brave she was. Either way, Nynaeve was torn between admiration for the other woman’s courage and a wish that just once Elayne would acknowledge it. “I thought I saw Rand.” That brought the facecloth down.
“Was he there in the flesh?” That was dangerous, according to the Wise Ones; it risked losing some part of what made you human. “You warned him about that.”
“When did he start listening to sense? I only glimpsed him. Maybe he just touched Tel’aran’rhiod in a dream.” Unlikely, that. He apparently hedged his dreams with wards so strong she did not think he could reach the World of Dreams any other way than in the flesh, not even if he had been a Dreamwalker and had one of the rings. “Maybe it was somebody who looked a little like him. As I said, I only saw him for a moment, in the square in front of the Tower.”
“I should be there with him,” Elayne muttered. Emptying the basin into the night jar, she moved aside to let Nynaeve reach the washstand. “He needs me.”
“What he needs is what he has always needed.” Nynaeve glowered as she refilled the basin from the pitcher. She did hate washing in water that had stood all night. At least it was not cold; there was no such thing as cold water anymore. “Somebody to box his ears once a week on general principles and keep him on the straight and narrow.”
“It isn’t fair.” A clean shift going over Elayne’s head muffled the words. “I worry about him all the time.” Her face popped out the top, looking more worried than indignant whatever her tone, and she pulled a banded white dress from one of the pegs. “I even worry about him in my dreams! Do you think he spends all his time fretting about me? I don’t.”
Nynaeve nodded, though a part of her considered that it was not exactly the same. Rand had been told Elayne was safe with Aes Sedai, if not where. How could Rand ever be safe? She bent over the basin, and Lan’s ring fell out of her shift, dangling on its leather cord. No, Elayne was right. Whatever Lan was doing, wherever he was, she doubted he thought of her half as often as she did of him. Light, let him be alive even if he doesn’t think of me at all. That possibility made her angry enough to pull her braid out by the roots, if she had not had her hands full of soap and facecloth. “You can’t concern yourself over a man all the time,” she said sourly, “even if you do want to be a Green. What did they find out last night?”
It was a long tale, though with little meat to it, and after a bit Nynaeve sat down on Elayne’s bed to listen and ask questions. Not that the answers told her much either. It was just not the same when you did not see the documents yourself. All very well to learn Elaida finally knew about Rand’s amnesty, but what did she mean to do about it? Proof the Tower was approaching rulers might actually be good news; it might light a fire under the Hall. Something had to. Elaida sending an embassy to Rand was certainly a worry, but he could not be fool enough to listen to anyone who came from Elaida. Could he? There just was not enough in what Elayne had overheard. And what was Rand doing putting the Lion Throne on a pedestal? What was he doing with a throne at all? He might be the Dragon Reborn and this Aiel car-whatever, but she could not get past the fact that she had tended him when he was a child and paddled his bottom when he needed it.
Elayne went right ahead dressing, and was done before her story was. “I’ll tell you the rest later,” she said hastily, and flew out the door.
Nynaeve grunted and went back to clothing herself unhurriedly. Elayne was teaching her first class of novices today, something Nynaeve had not been allowed to do yet. But if she was not trusted to teach novices, there was still Moghedien. She would be done with her breakfast chores shortly.
The only trouble was, when Nynaeve found the woman, Moghedien was up to her elbows in soapy water, the silver necklace of the a’dam looking especially out of place. She was not alone; a dozen other women were industriously scrubbing clothes on washboards in a wooden-fenced yard, amid steaming kettles of boiling water. More were hanging the first wash on long lines strung between poles, but heaps of bed linens and smallclothes and every sort of thing waited their turn on the washboards. The look Moghedien gave Nynaeve should have been enough to fry her hide. Hatred, shame and outrage rolled through the a’dam, nearly enough to swamp the ever-present fear.
The woman in charge, a sticklike gray-haired woman named Nildra, came bustling up, a stirring paddle held like a scepter and her dark woolen skirts tied up to the knee to keep them off ground muddy from spilled water. “Good morning, Accepted. I suppose you want Marigan, eh?” Her tone was a dry blend of respect with knowledge that tomorrow she might find any one of the Accepted added to her laundresses for a day or a month, to be worked and chivvied as hard as the rest if not harder. “Well, I can’t let her go, yet. I’m shorthanded as it is. One of my girls is getting married today, another ran off, and two are on light work because they’re pregnant. Myrelle Sedai told me I could have her. Maybe I can do without her in a few hours. I’ll see.”
Moghedien straightened, opening her mouth, but Nynaeve silenced her with a firm look — and a conspicuous touch to the a’dam bracelet on her wrist — and she resumed work. All it would take would be a few wrong words from Moghedien, a complaint that would never come from the farm woman she appeared to be, to start her on a path to stilling and the headsman, and Nynaeve and Elayne on one not much better. Nynaeve could not help swallowing in relief when Moghedien bent back to her washboard, mouth working as she muttered under her breath. Immense shame and outright fury surged through the a’dam.
Nynaeve managed a smile for Nildra and murmured something, she was not sure what, then stalked off to one of the communal kitchens to find breakfast. Myrelle, again. She wondered if the Green had taken against her personally for some reason
. She wondered if she was going to harvest a permanently sour stomach from keeping Moghedien. She was practically eating goosemint like candy since putting the a’dam on the woman.
It was easy enough to get a clay mug full of tea with honey and a bun hot from the oven, but once she had them, she walked while she ate. Sweat beaded on her face. Even at that early hour heat was building and the air dry. The rising sun formed a dome of molten gold above the forest.
The dirt streets were full, as usual when there was light to see. Aes Sedai glided past serenely, ignoring dust and heat, mysterious-faced on mysterious errands, often with Warders heeling them, cold-eyed wolves vainly pretending to be tame. There were soldiers everywhere, usually marching or riding in blocks, though Nynaeve did not understand why they were allowed to crowd the streets so when they had camps in the woods. Children darted about, often aping the soldiers with sticks for swords and pikes. White-clad novices trotted through the throng about their chores. Servants moved somewhat more slowly, women with armloads of sheets for Aes Sedais’ beds or baskets of bread from the kitchens, men leading ox-carts piled with firewood, hauling chests or shouldering whole sheep carcasses for the kitchens. Salidar had not been made to hold so many people; the village was ready to pop at the seams.