The Path of Daggers
“The tea will do nicely,” she said. “If you will, tell Alanna Mosvani that I want to see her. Tell her, without delay.”
Corgaide’s keys jingled as she curtsied, murmuring respectfully that she would find “Alanna Aes Sedai” herself. Her grave expression never altered as she left. Very likely she was examining the request for subtleties. Cadsuane preferred to be direct, when possible. She had tripped up any number of clever people who had not believed she meant exactly what she said.
Opening the lid of her sewing basket, she took out her embroidery hoop with a less than half-done piece of work wrapped around it. The basket had pockets woven inside to hold items that had nothing to do with sewing. Her ivory hand mirror and hairbrush and comb, a pen case and tightly stoppered ink bottle, a number of things that she had found useful to have at hand over the years, including some that would have surprised anyone with nerve enough to search the basket. Not that she often left it out of her sight. Setting the polished silver thread box carefully on the table, she selected the skeins she needed and sat with her back to the door. The major image on her piece of embroidery was finished, a man’s hand clutching the ancient symbol of the Aes Sedai. Cracks ran across the black-and-white disc, and there was no telling whether the hand was trying to hold it together or crush it. She knew what she intended, but time would tell what was truth.
Threading a needle, she set to work on one of the surrounding images, a bright red rose. Roses and starblaze and sunburst alternated with daisies and heartsblush and snowcap, all separated by bands of stark nettles and long-thorned briars. It would be a disturbing piece, when completed.
Before she had finished half a petal on the rose, a flash of motion reflected on the flat lid of the thread box caught her eye. It had been carefully placed to reflect the doorway. She did not raise her head from the hoop. Alanna stood there glaring at her back. Cadsuane continued the slow work of her needle, but she watched that reflection from the corner of her eye. Twice Alanna half turned as if to go, then finally drew herself up, visibly steeling herself.
“Come in, Alanna.” Still not raising her head, Cadsuane pointed to a spot in front of her. “Stand there.” She smiled wryly as Alanna jumped. There were advantages to being a legend; people seldom noticed the obvious when dealing with a legend.
Alanna stalked into the room in a swish of silk skirts and took the place Cadsuane had indicated, but there was a sulky twist to her mouth. “Why do you persist in badgering me?” she demanded. “I cannot tell you any more than I have. And if I could, I don’t know that I would! He belongs to —!” She cut off abruptly, biting her lower lip, but she might as well have finished. The al’Thor boy belonged to her; her Warder. She had the gall to think that!
“I have kept your crime to myself,” Cadsuane said quietly, “but only because I saw no reason to complicate matters.” Lifting her eyes to the other woman, she kept her voice soft. “If you think that means I won’t core you like a cabbage, think again.”
Alanna stiffened. The light of saidar suddenly shone around her.
“If you wish to be truly foolish.” Cadsuane smiled, a cold smile. She made no move to embrace the Source herself. One of her dangling hair ornaments, intertwined golden crescents, was cool on her temple. “You keep a whole hide at present, but my sufferance is not infinite. In fact, it dangles by a thread.”
Alanna struggled with herself, unconsciously smoothing blue silk. Abruptly the glow of the Power winked out, and she turned her head away from Cadsuane so swiftly that her long black hair swung. “I don’t know any more to tell.” The sullen words rushed out of her breathily. “He was injured, and then not, but I don’t think a sister Healed him. The wounds no one could Heal are still there. He leaps about, Traveling, but he’s still in the south. Somewhere in Illian, I think, but at this distance, he could be in Tear for all I know. He’s full of rage, and pain, and suspicion. There isn’t any more, Cadsuane. There isn’t!”
Careful of the silver pitcher’s heat, Cadsuane poured a cup of tea, testing the thin green porcelain cup for warmth. As might have been expected in silver, the tea had cooled quickly. Channeling briefly, she heated it again. The dark tea tasted too much of mint; Cairhienin used mint entirely too freely in her opinion. She did not offer a cup to Alanna. Traveling. How could the boy have rediscovered what had been lost to the White Tower since the Breaking? “You will keep me fully informed, however, won’t you, Alanna.” That was not a question. “Look at me, woman! If you dream of him, I want every detail!”
Unshed tears glistened in Alanna’s eyes. “In my place, you would have done the same!”
Cadsuane scowled over the cup at her. She might have. There was no difference between what Alanna had done and a man forcing himself on a woman, but, the Light help her, she might have, had she believed it would help her reach her goal. Now, she no longer considered even making Alanna pass the bond to her. Alanna had proved how useless that was in controlling him.
“Do not keep me waiting, Alanna,” she said in an icy tone. She had no sympathy for the other woman. Alanna was another in a line of sisters, from Moiraine to Elaida, who had bungled and worsened what they should have been mending. While she herself had been off chasing first Logain Ablar and then Mazrim Taim. Which did not soothe her mood.
“I will keep you fully informed,” Alanna sighed, pouting like a girl. Cadsuane itched to slap her. Alanna had worn the shawl almost forty years; she should have grown up more than this. Of course, she was Arafellin. In Far Madding, few girls of twenty sulked and pouted as much as an Arafellin could on her aged deathbed.
Abruptly, Alanna’s eyes widened in alarm, and Cadsuane saw another face reflected in the lid of her thread box. Setting the cup back on the tray and her embroidery hoop on the table, Cadsuane stood and turned to the door. She did not hurry, but she did not dally or play games as she had with Alanna, either.
“Are you done with her, Aes Sedai?” Sorilea asked, stepping into the room. The leathery, white-haired Wise One spoke to Cadsuane, but her eyes remained on Alanna. Ivory and gold clicked softly at her wrists as she planted hands on her hips, and her dark shawl slid to her elbows.
When Cadsuane said that she was indeed done, Sorilea gestured curtly to Alanna, who stalked from the room. Flounced might have been a better word, with sullen irritation on her face. Sorilea frowned after her. Cadsuane had encountered the woman before, and interesting encounters they had been, if brief. She had not met many people she considered formidable, but Sorilea was one. Perhaps even a match for herself, in some ways. She also suspected the woman was as old as she was, maybe older, and that, she had never expected to find.
No sooner had Alanna vanished than Kiruna appeared in the doorway, kicking gray silk skirts in her hurry and peering down the hall in the direction Alanna had gone. And carrying an intricately worked golden tray that held an even more elaborate golden pitcher with a high neck, and, incongruously, two small, white-glazed pottery cups. “Why is Alanna running?” she said. “I would have been faster, Sorilea, but — ” She saw Cadsuane then, and her cheeks went the deepest possible crimson. Embarrassment looked quite odd on the statuesque woman.
“Put the tray on the table, girl,” Sorilea said, “and go to Chaelin. She will be waiting to give you your lessons.”
Stiffly, Kiruna set her burden down, avoiding Cadsuane’s eyes. As she turned to go, Sorilea caught her chin in sinewy fingers. “You have begun to make a true effort, girl,” the Wise One told her firmly. “If you continue, you will do very well. Very well. Now, go. Chaelin is not as patient as I.”
Sorilea waved toward the corridor, but Kiruna stood staring at her for a long moment, a strange expression on her face. If Cadsuane had had to make a wager, she would have called Kiruna pleased at the praise and surprised at being pleased. The white-haired woman opened her mouth, and Kiruna gave herself a shake and hurried from the room. A remarkable show.
“Do you really think she will learn your ways of weaving saidar?” Cadsuane asked, hi
ding her incredulity. Kiruna and the others had told her of these lessons, but many of the Wise Ones’ weaves were very different from those taught in the White Tower. The first way you learned the weave for a particular thing imprinted itself on you; learning a second was all but impossible, and even when you could learn, the second-learned weave almost never worked nearly as well. That was one reason some sisters did not welcome wilders to the Tower at any age; too much might have been learned already, and could not be unlearned.
Sorilea shrugged. “Perhaps. Learning a second way is hard enough without all the hand-waving you Aes Sedai do. The main thing Kiruna Nachiman must learn is that she owns her pride; it does not own her. She will be a very strong woman once she learns that.” Pulling a chair around to face the one Cadsuane had been sitting in, she eyed it doubtfully, then sat down. She appeared almost as stiff and uncomfortable as Kiruna had, but she motioned authoritatively for Cadsuane to sit, a strong-willed woman used to command.
Cadsuane swallowed a rueful chuckle as she took her chair. It was well to be reminded that, wilders or not, the Wise Ones were far from ignorant savages. Of course they would know the difficulties. As for hand-waving . . . Few had channeled where she could see, but she had noticed that they created some weaves without the gestures that sisters used. The hand movements were not truly part of the weave, but in a way they were, because they had been part of learning the weave. Perhaps, once, there had been Aes Sedai who could, say, hurl a ball of fire without some sort of throwing motion, but if so, they were long dead, and their teachings with them. Today, some things just could not be done without the appropriate gestures. There were sisters who claimed they could tell who had taught another sister by which motions she used for which weaves.
“Teaching any of our new apprentices anything has been difficult at best,” Sorilea went on. “I do not speak to offend, but you Aes Sedai give oath, it seems, and immediately try to find a way around it. Alanna Mosvani is particularly difficult.” Suddenly her clear green eyes were very sharp on Cadsuane’s face. “How can we punish her willful failings if it means harming the Car’a’carn’?”
Cadsuane folded her hands in her lap. Masking surprise was not easy. So much for the secret of Alanna’s crime. But why had the woman let her know that she knew? Perhaps one revelation called for another. “The bond does not work in that fashion,” she said. “If you kill her, he will die, then or soon after. Short of that, he will be aware of what happens to her, but he will not really feel it. As far away as he is now, he will only be vaguely aware, at that.”
Sorilea nodded slowly. Her fingers touched the golden tray on the table, then came away. Her expression was as hard to read as the face of a statue, but Cadsuane suspected that Alanna would find an unpleasant surprise the next time she let her temper flare, or threw one of her Arafellin sulks. That was unimportant, though. Only the boy was important.
“Most men will take what is offered, if it seems attractive and pleasant,” Sorilea said. “Once, we thought of Rand al’Thor so. Unfortunately, it is too late to change the path we walk. Now, he suspects whatever is offered freely. Now, if I wanted him to accept something, I would pretend I did not want him to have it. If I wanted to stay close to him, I would pretend indifference to whether I ever saw him again.” Once more, those eyes focused on Cadsuane, green augers. Not trying to see what lay inside her head. The woman knew. Some, at least. Enough, or too much.
Still, Cadsuane felt a rising thrill of possibility. If she had had any doubts that Sorilea wanted to feel her out, they were gone. And you did not feel out someone in this manner unless you hoped for some agreement. “Do you believe a man must be hard?” she asked. She was taking a chance. “Or strong?” By her tone, she left no doubt she saw a difference.
Again Sorilea touched the tray; the smallest of smiles might have quirked her lips for an instant. Or not. “Most men see the two as one and the same, Cadsuane Melaidhrin. Strong endures; hard shatters.”
Cadsuane drew breath. A chance she would have scoured anyone else for taking. But she was not anyone else, and sometimes chances had to be taken. “The boy confuses them,” she said. “He needs to be strong, and makes himself harder. Too hard, already, and he will not stop until he is stopped. He has forgotten how to laugh except in bitterness; there are no tears left in him. Unless he finds laughter and tears again, the world faces disaster. He must learn that even the Dragon Reborn is flesh. If he goes to Tarmon Gai’don as he is, even his victory may be as dark as his defeat.”
Sorilea listened intently, and kept silent even after Cadsuane finished. Those green eyes studied her. “Your Dragon Reborn and your Last Battle are not in our prophecies,” Sorilea said at last. “We have tried to make Rand al’Thor know his blood, but I fear he sees us as only another spear. If one spear breaks in your hand, you do not pause to mourn before taking up another. Perhaps you and I aim at targets not too far apart.”
“Perhaps we do,” Cadsuane said cautiously. Targets even a hand apart might be not at all alike.
Abruptly, the glow of saidar surrounded the leather-faced woman. She was weak enough to make Daigian look at least moderately strong. But then, Sorilea’s strength did not lie in the Power. “There is a thing you may find useful,” she said. “I cannot make it work, but I can weave the flows to show you.” She did just that, laying feeble skeins that fell into place and melted, too poor to do what they were intended for. “It is called Traveling,” Sorilea said.
This time, Cadsuane’s jaw dropped. Alanna and Kiruna and the rest denied teaching the Wise Ones how to link, or a number of other skills they suddenly seemed to have, and Cadsuane had assumed the Aiel had managed to wring them out of the sisters held in the tents. But this was . . .
Impossible, she would have said, yet she did not believe Sorilea was lying. She could hardly wait to try the weave herself. Not that it was of much use immediately. Even if she knew exactly where the wretched boy was, she had to make him come to her. Sorilea was right about that. “A very great gift,” she said slowly. “I have nothing I can give you to compare.”
This time, there was no doubt of the brief smile that flashed across Sorilea’s lips. She knew very well that Cadsuane was in her debt. Taking up the heavy golden pitcher with both hands, she carefully filled the small white cups. With plain water. She did not spill a drop.
“I offer you water oath,” she said solemnly, picking up one of the cups. “By this, we are bound as one, to teach Rand al’Thor laughter and tears.” She sipped, and Cadsuane imitated her.
“We are bound as one.” And if their targets turned out not to be the same at all? She did not underestimate Sorilea as ally or opponent, but Cadsuane knew which target had to be struck, at any cost.
Chapter 13
Floating Like Snow
* * *
The northern horizon was purple with the fierce rain that had hammered the east of Illian through the night. Overhead, a morning sky of dark boiling clouds threatened, and strong winds flung cloaks about, made banners snap and crack like whips on the crest of the ridge, the white Dragon Banner and the crimson Banner of Light, and the bright standards of nobility from Illian and Cairhien and Tear. The nobles kept to their own kind, three widely spaced knots awash in gilt and silver-plated steel, silks and velvets and laces, but in common they looked around uneasily. Even the best-trained of their horses tossed heads and stamped hooves on the muddy ground. The wind was cold, and colder seeming for the heat it had replaced so abruptly, just as the rain had been a shock after so long without. From whatever nation, they had prayed for the baking drought to break, but none knew what to make of unrelenting storms in answer to their prayers. Some glanced at Rand when they thought he would not notice. Perhaps wondering if he had answered them so. The thought made him laugh softly, bitterly.
He patted his black gelding’s neck with a leather-gauntleted hand, glad that Tai’daishar did not show nerves. The massive animal might have been a statue, awaiting the pressure of reins or knees to move
. It was good that the Dragon Reborn’s horse seemed as cold as he did, as though they floated in the Void together. Even with the One Power raging through him, fire and ice and death, he was barely aware of the wind, though it flailed his gold-embroidered cloak about and cut through his coat, green silk thickly worked with gold and not intended for wear in such weather. The wounds in his side ached and throbbed, the old and the new cutting across it, the wounds that would never heal, but that was distant, too, another man’s flesh. The Crown of Swords might have been pricking someone else’s temples with the sharp points of the tiny blades among its golden laurel leaves. Even the filth woven through saidin seemed less obtrusive than it once had; still vile, still loathsome, but no longer worth notice. The nobles’ eyes on his back were palpable, though.
Shifting his sword hilt, he leaned forward. He could see the tight cluster of low, wooded hills half a mile to the east as clearly as if he were using a looking glass. The land was flat, here, the only prominences those forested hills and this long ridge, thrusting up from the heath. The next thicket dense enough to truly deserve the name lay close to ten miles off. Only storm-battered half-leafless trees and tangles of undergrowth were visible on the hills, but he knew what they hid. Two, perhaps three thousand of the men Sammael had gathered to try to stop him from taking Illian.
That army had disintegrated once they learned that the man who had summoned them was dead, that Mattin Stepaneos had vanished, perhaps into the grave as well, and that there was a new king in Illian. Many had scattered back to their homes, yet just as many clung together. Usually no more than twenty here, thirty there, but a great army if they came together again, and countless armed bands otherwise. Either way, they could not be allowed to roam the countryside. Time weighed down on his shoulders like lead. There was never enough time, but maybe this once . . . Fire and ice and death.