It was not a proper question, and meekness vanished in pride enough for any Maiden. “To do otherwise mocks ji’e’toh,” Niella said stiffly. Abruptly a slight smile flickered on her lips. “Besides, my husband would come looking for me, and he would not be pleased.” The mild mask returned; her eyes turned down. “May I go now? If Aviendha is here, I would not meet her can I avoid it, and she will come to these chambers.”
Egwene let her go. She had had no right to ask anyway; speaking of a gai’shain’s life before the white, or after, was shaming. She felt a little ashamed herself, though of course she did not really try to follow ji’e’toh. Only enough to be polite.
Alone, she settled into a severely carved and gilded armchair, finding it strangely uncomfortable after so long sitting cross-legged on cushions or the ground. Tucking her legs beneath her, she wondered what Aviendha was discussing with Amys and the other two. Rand, almost certainly. He always concerned the Wise Ones. They did not care about the wetlander Prophecies of the Dragon, but they knew the Prophecy of Rhuidean back to front. When he destroyed the Aiel, as that prophecy said he would, “a remnant of a remnant” would be saved, and they intended to see that the remnant was as large as possible.
That was why they made Aviendha stay close to him. Too close for decency. If she went into the bedchamber, she was sure she would find a pallet made up on the floor for Aviendha. Still, Aiel saw such things differently. The Wise Ones meant Aviendha to teach him Aiel ways and customs, to remind him that his blood was Aiel if not his upbringing. Apparently the Wise Ones thought that needed every waking hour, and considering what they faced, she could not fault them entirely. Not entirely. Just the same, it was not decent, making a woman sleep in the same room with a man.
Still, she could do nothing about Aviendha’s problem, especially when Aviendha did not seem to see the problem. Leaning on her elbow, Egwene tried to think of how she was going to approach Rand. Her mind went round and round, but she had not settled on anything by the time he entered, murmuring something to two Aiel in the hallway before shutting the door.
Egwene bounded to her feet. “Rand, you have to help me with the Wise Ones; they’ll listen to you,” she burst out before she could stop herself. That was not what she had intended at all.
“It is good to see you again too,” he said, smiling. He was carrying that length of Seanchan spear, carved with Dragons since she saw it last. She wished she knew where he had gotten the thing; anything Seanchan made her skin crawl. “I am well, thank you, Egwene. And you? You look to be yourself again, full of ginger as ever.” He looked so tired. And hard, hard enough to make that smile appear odd. He seemed harder every time she saw him.
“You needn’t think you’re amusing,” she glowered. Best to go on as she had begun. Better than backing and filling, giving him more reason to grin. “Will you help me?”
“How?” Making himself at home — well, they were his rooms — he tossed the tasseled spearhead on a small table with leopard-carved legs and shed his sword belt and coat. Somehow he was not sweating any more than the Aiel did. “The Wise Ones listen to me, but they only hear what they want to. I’ve come to recognize that flat-eyed look they get when they decide I’m talking nonsense, and instead of embarrassing me by saying so, or arguing about it, they’ll just ignore it.” He pulled one of the gilded chairs around to face her and sprawled in it, booted feet stretched in front of him. He managed to do even that with an air of arrogance. He definitely had too many people bowing to him.
“You do talk nonsense sometimes,” she muttered. For some reason, having no more time to think concentrated her thoughts. Adjusting her shawl carefully, she placed herself in front of him. “I know that you would like to hear from Elayne again.” Why did his face go all sad like that, and at the same time winter cold? Likely because he had not heard from Elayne in so long. “I doubt Sheriam has been giving the Wise Ones very many messages from her for you.” None, so far as she knew, though he had seldom been in Cairhien to receive any. “I’m the one Elayne will trust with that sort of missive. I can bring them to you, if you convince Amys that I’m strong enough to . . . to return to my studies.”
She wished she had not faltered, but he already knew too much about dreamwalking, if not Tel’aran’rhiod. Almost everything about dreamwalking but the name was a close secret among the Wise Ones, particularly those who could dreamwalk. She had no right to give away their secrets.
“Will you tell me where Elayne is?” He might have been asking for a cup of tea.
She hesitated, but the agreement between her, Nynaeve and Elayne — Light, how long ago had they made it? — that agreement held. He was no longer the boy she had grown up with. He was a man full of himself, and whatever his tone, those steady eyes on her face demanded an answer. If Aes Sedai and Wise Ones struck sparks, Aes Sedai and he would strike a conflagration. There had to be a buffer between the two, and the only buffers available were the three of them. It had to be done, but she hoped they did not get burned up doing it. “I can’t tell you that, Rand. I have no right. It isn’t mine to tell.” And that was the truth, too. For that matter, it was not as if she could tell him where this Salidar was, beyond Altara, somewhere along the River Eldar.
He leaned forward intently. “I know she’s with Aes Sedai. You told me those Aes Sedai support me, or might. Are they afraid of me? I will take oath to stay away from them, if they are. Egwene, I mean to give Elayne the Lion Throne and the Sun Throne. She has claim to both; Cairhien will accept her as quickly as Andor does. I need her, Egwene.”
Egwene opened her mouth — and realized that she was about to tell him all she knew about Salidar. Barely in time she clamped her teeth shut so hard her jaws ached, and opened herself to saidar. The sweet feel of life, so strong it overwhelmed everything else, seemed to help; slowly the urge to talk began to ebb.
He sat back with a sigh, and she stared at him wide-eyed. It was one thing to know he was the strongest ta’veren since Artur Hawkwing, but quite something else to become caught up in it herself. It was all she could do not to hug herself and shiver.
“You won’t tell me,” he said. Not a question. Briskly he rubbed his forearms through his shirtsleeves, reminding her that she held saidar; close like this, he would be feeling it as a faint tingle. “Do you think I meant to force it out of you?” he snapped, suddenly angry. “Am I such a monster now that you need the Power to protect yourself from me?”
“I don’t need anything to protect me from you,” she said as calmly as she could. Her stomach was still turning over slowly. He was Rand, and he was a man who could channel. A part of her wanted to gibber and wail. She was ashamed of it, but that did not make it go away. Putting away saidar, she regretted a tinge of reluctance. Yet it did not matter; if it came to that sort of struggle, unless she managed to shield him he would handle her as easily as if they arm-wrestled. “Rand, I am sorry I can’t help you, but I cannot. Even so, I ask you again to help me. You know it would be helping yourself.”
His anger was swallowed by a maddening grin; it was frightening how quickly that could happen with him. “’A cat for a hat, or a hat for a cat,’” he quoted.
But nothing for nothing, she finished mentally. She had heard Taren Ferry folk say that when she was a girl. “You put your cat in your hat and stuff it down your breeches, Rand al’Thor,” she told him coldly. She managed not to slam the door on her way out, but it was a near thing.
Striding away, she wondered what she was going to do. Somehow she had to convince the Wise Ones to let her back into Tel’aran’rhiod — legally, so to speak. Sooner or later he was going to encounter the Aes Sedai of Salidar, and it would help so much if she could talk to Elayne or Nynaeve again first. She was a little surprised that Salidar had not approached him already; what was holding Sheriam and the rest back? Nothing she could do about it, and they probably knew better than she.
One thing she was eager to tell Elayne. Rand needed her. He sounded as if he meant that more than any
thing he had ever said in his life. That should set to rest all her worries about whether he still loved her. No man could say he needed you that way unless he loved you.
For a few moments Rand sat staring at the door after it closed behind Egwene. She had changed so much from the girl he grew up with. In those Aiel clothes she managed a good imitation of a Wise One — except for the height, anyway; a short Wise One, with big dark eyes — but then, Egwene always did everything with her whole heart. She had stayed as cool as any Aes Sedai, seizing saidar when she thought he was threatening her. That was what he had to remember. Whatever clothes she wore, she wanted to be Aes Sedai, and she would keep Aes Sedai secrets even after he made it clear that he needed Elayne to insure peace in two nations. He had to think of her as Aes Sedai. It was saddening.
Wearily he got to his feet and donned his coat again. There were still the Cairhienin nobles to see, Colavaere and Maringil, Dobraine and the rest. And the Tairens; Meilan and Aracome and that lot would twitch if he gave the Cairhienin a moment more than they got. And the Wise Ones would want their turn at him, and Timolan and the rest of the clan chiefs here he had not met with yet today. Why had he ever wanted to leave Caemlyn? Well, talking with Herid had been pleasant; the questions he brought up were not, but it was nice to talk to someone who never remembered he was the Dragon Reborn. And he had found a little time without a coterie of Aiel surrounding him; he was going to find more of that.
He caught sight of himself in a gilt-framed mirror. “At least you didn’t let her see you were tired,” he told his reflection. That had been one of Moiraine’s more succinct bits of advice. Never let them see you weaken. He just had to become used to thinking of Egwene as one of them.
Apparently squatting at her ease in the garden below Rand al’Thor’s rooms, Sulin tossed a small knife into the dirt, seemingly amusing herself with a game of flip. A rock owl’s cry from one of the windows brought her to her feet with an oath, slipping the knife behind her belt. Rand al’Thor had left his rooms again. Keeping watch over him this way was not going to work. If she had Enaila or Somara here, she would set them on him. Normally she tried to protect him from that sort of nonsense as she would a first-brother.
Trotting to the nearest doorway, she joined three more Maidens — none had come with her — and began to search the warren of corridors while trying to appear just to be walking. Whatever the Car’a’carn wanted, nothing must happen to the only son of a Maiden ever to come back to them.
Chapter 19
Matters of Toh
* * *
Rand thought that he would sleep well that night. He was nearly tired enough to forget Alanna’s touch, and more important, Aviendha was out in the tents with the Wise Ones, not undressing for bed with no regard for his presence, not disturbing his rest with the sound of her breathing. Something else made him toss, though. Dreams. He always warded his dreams, to keep the Forsaken out — and the Wise Ones — but warding could not keep out what was already inside. Dreams came of huge white things like giant birdwings without the bird, sailing across the sky; of great cities of impossibly tall buildings, shining in the sun, with shapes like beetles and flattened water-drops speeding along the streets. He had seen all that before, inside the huge ter’angreal in Rhuidean where he had gained the Dragons on his arms, and knew them for images of the Age of Legends, but this time it was all different. Everything seemed twisted, the colors . . . wrong, as though something had gone askew in his eyes. The sho-wings faltered and fell, each carrying hundreds to death. Buildings shattered like glass, cities burned, the land heaved like storm-tossed seas. And time after time he faced a beautiful golden-haired woman, watched love turn to terror on her face. Part of him knew her. Part of him wanted to save her, from the Dark One, from any harm, from what he himself was about to do. So many parts of him, mind splintered in glittering shards, all screaming.
He woke in darkness, sweating, shaking. Lews Therin’s dreams. That had never happened before, not dreaming the man’s dreams. He lay there the hours remaining until sunrise, staring at nothing, afraid to close his eyes. He held on to saidin as if he could use it to fight the dead man, but Lews Therin remained silent.
When pale light finally appeared at the windows, a gai’shain slipped silently into the room with a cloth-covered silver tray. Seeing Rand awake, he did not speak, only bowed and left just as quietly. With the Power in him, Rand smelled cool sweetberry tea and warm bread, butter and honey, the hot porridge Aiel ate mornings, all as if his nose were in the tray. Releasing the Source, he dressed and buckled on his sword. He did not touch the cloth covering the food; he did not much feel like eating. Holding the Dragon Scepter in the crook of his elbow, he left his apartments.
The Maidens were back in the wide corridor with Sulin, and Urien and his Red Shields, but not alone. People crowded the hallway shoulder to shoulder beyond the guards. And some inside the ring. Aviendha stood among a delegation of Wise Ones, Amys and Bair and Melaine, Sorilea of course, Chaelin, a Smoke Water Miagoma with touches of gray in her dark red hair, and Edarra, a Neder Shiande who looked not much older than himself, though she already had an apparently unshakable calm in her blue eyes and a straight-backed presence to match the others. Berelain was with them, too, but not Rhuarc or any of the other clan chiefs. What he had had to say to them had been said, and Aiel did not draw things out. But then, why were the Wise Ones there? Or Berelain? The green-and-white dress she wore this morning showed a pleasant expanse of pale bosom.
Then there were the Cairhienin, outside the ring of Aiel. Colavaere, strikingly handsome in her middle years, dark hair an elaborate tower of curls and horizontal slashes coloring her gown from high gold-embroidered collar to below her knees, more slashes than anyone else present. Solid, square-faced Dobraine, the front of his mostly gray hair shaved soldier-fashion and his coat worn from the straps of a breastplate. Maringil, straight as a blade, white hair touching his shoulders; he had not shaved his forehead, and his dark silk coat, striped like Dobraine’s nearly to his knees, was fit for a ball. Two dozen or more clustered behind, mostly younger men and women, few wearing horizontal stripes even as low as the waist. “Grace favor the Lord Dragon,” they murmured, bowing hand to heart or curtsying, and, “Grace honors us with the Lord Dragon’s presence.”
The Tairens had their contingent as well, High Lords and Ladies without lesser nobles, in peaked velvet hats and silk coats with puffy, satin-striped sleeves, in bright gowns with broad lace ruffs and close-fitting caps of pearls or gems, making their respects with “The Light illumine the Light Dragon.” Meilan stood foremost, of course, lean and hard and expressionless, with his gray pointed beard. Close beside him, Fionnda’s stern expression and iron eyes somehow did not diminish her beauty, while willowy Anaiyella’s simpers lessened hers. There were certainly no smiles of any sort on the faces of Maraconn, a blue-eyed rarity among Tairens, or bald Gueyam, or Aracome, who looked twice as slender alongside Gueyam’s solid width if just as steely. They — and Meilan — had been thick with Hearne and Simaan. Rand had not mentioned those two yesterday, or their treason, but he was sure it was known here, and equally sure his silence was given meaning according to each man’s own mind. They had grown used to such since coming to Cairhien, and this morning they watched Rand as if he might suddenly produce orders for their arrest.
In truth, nearly everyone was watching someone. A good many eyed the Aiel nervously, often hiding anger with varying success. Others watched Berelain almost as closely; he was surprised to see that even the men, even the Tairens, had more thought than lechery on their faces. Most watched him, of course; he was who he was, and what he was. Colavaere’s cool gaze shifted between him and Aviendha, where it heated; there was bad blood there, though Aviendha seemed to have forgotten. Colavaere would certainly never forget the beating she had received from Aviendha after being discovered in Rand’s rooms, or forgive the fact that it was common knowledge now. Meilan and Maringil each made his awareness of the other plain by avoidin
g the other’s eyes. Both wanted the throne of Cairhien, and both thought the other his chief rival. Dobraine watched Meilan and Maringil, though why was anyone’s guess. Melaine studied Rand, while Sorilea studied her, and Aviendha frowned at the floor. One big-eyed young woman among the Cairhienin wore her hair loose and cut off at the shoulder instead of piled in ornate curls, and a sword belted over a dark riding dress with only six slashes of color. Many of the others did not bother to hide disparaging smiles when they glanced at her; she hardly seemed to notice, alternating between staring at the Maidens with stark admiration or at Rand with stark fear. He remembered her. Selande, one of the stream of beautiful women Colavaere had thought would tie the Dragon Reborn to her schemes, until Rand convinced her it would not work. With Aviendha’s unasked help, unfortunately. He hoped Colavaere feared him enough to forget revenge on Aviendha, but he wished he could make Selande believe she had nothing to fear. You cannot please everyone, Moiraine had said. You cannot soothe everyone. A hard woman.
To cap it all, the Aiel watched everyone except the Wise Ones, of course. And except Berelain, for some reason. They always eyed wetlanders suspiciously, yet she might as well have been another Wise One.
“You all honor me.” Rand hoped he did not sound too dry. Back to a parade. He wondered where Egwene was. Probably lolling in bed. Briefly he considered finding her and making one last effort to . . . No, if she would not tell, he did not know how to make her. Too bad being ta’veren did not work when he most wanted it to. “Unfortunately, I will not be able to talk with you more this morning. I am returning to Caemlyn.” Andor was the problem he had to deal with now. Andor, and Sammael.