The Shadow Rising twot-4 Page 15

  She grimaced. "It applies to this as well as it does to anything. Illian under Sammael is surely a forsaken city. Lead the Tairen spears to war, chain Sammael, and he has fulfilled the verse. The ancient dream of the Dragon Reborn. But he will not see it. He even has a copy in the Old Tongue, as if he understood two words. He runs after shadows, and Sammael, or Rahvin, or Lanfear may have him by the throat before I can convince him of his mistake."

  "He is desperate." Nynaeve's gentle tone was not for Moiraine, Elayne was sure, but for Rand. "Desperate and trying to find his way."

  "So am I desperate," Moiraine said firmly. "I have dedicated my life to finding him, and I will not let him fail if I can prevent it. I am almost desperate enough to—" She broke off, pursing her lips. "Let it be enough that I will do what I must."

  "But it isn't enough," Egwene said sharply. "What is it you'll do?"

  "You have other matters to concern you," the Aes Sedai said. "The Black Ajah—"

  "No!" Elayne's voice was knife-edged and commanding, her knuckles a hard white where she gripped her soft blue skirts. "You keep many secrets, Moiraine, but tell us this. What do you mean to do to him?" An image flashed in her mind of seizing Moiraine and shaking the truth out of her if need be.

  "Do to him? Nothing. Oh, very well. There is no reason you should not know. You have seen what the Tairens call the Great Holding?"

  Oddly for a people that feared the Power so, the Tairens held in the Stone a collection of objects connected to the Power second only to that in the White Tower. Elayne, for one, thought it was because they had been forced to guard Callandor so long, whether they wanted or not. Even the Sword That Is Not a Sword might seem less than what it was when it was one among many. But the Tairens had never been able to make themselves display their prizes. The Great Holding was kept in a filthy series of crowded rooms buried even deeper than the dungeons. When Elayne had first seen them the locks on the doors had long since rusted shut, where the doors had not simply collapsed from dry rot.

  "We spent an entire day down there," Nynaeve said. "To see if Liandrin and her friends took anything. I don't think they did. Everything was buried in dust and mold. It will take ten riverboats to transport all of it to the Tower. Perhaps they can make some sense of it there; I surely could not." The temptation to prod Moiraine was apparently too great to avoid, for she added, "You would know all this if you had given us a little more of your time."

  Moiraine took no notice. She seemed to be looking inward, examining her own thoughts, and she spoke almost to herself. "There is one particular ter'angreal in the Holding, a thing like a redstone doorframe, subtly twisted to the eye. If I cannot make him reach some decision, I may have to step through." The small blue stone on her forehead trembled, sparkling. Apparently she was not eager to take that step.

  At the mention of ter'angreal, Egwene instinctively touched the bodice of her dress. She had sewn a small pocket there herself, to hide the stone ring it now held. That ring was a ter'angreal, powerful in its way if small, and Elayne was one of only three women who knew she had it. Moiraine was not one of the three.

  They were strange things, ter'angreal, fragments of the Age of Legends like angreal and sa'angreal, if more numerous. Ter'angreal used the One Power instead of magnifying it. Each had apparently been made to do one thing and one thing alone, but though some were used now, no one was sure if those uses were anything like what they had been made for. The Oath Rod, on which a woman took the Three Oaths on being raised Aes Sedai, was a ter'angreal that made those oaths a part of her flesh and bone. The last test a novice took on being raised to Accepted was inside another ter'angreal that ferreted out her most heartfelt fears and made them seem real — or perhaps took her to a place where they were real. Odd things could happen with ter'angreal. Aes Sedai had been burned out or killed, or had simply vanished, in studying them. And in using them.

  "I saw that doorway," Elayne said. "In the last room at the end of the hall. My lamp went out, and I fell three times before I made it to the door." A slight flush of embarrassment reddened her cheeks. "I was afraid to channel in there, even to relight the lamp. Much of it looks rubbish, to me — I think the Tairens simply grabbed anything that anyone hinted might be connected to the Power — but I thought if I channeled, I might accidentally empower something that wasn't rubbish, and who knows what it might do."

  "And if you had stumbled in the dark and fallen through the twisted doorway?" Moiraine said wryly. "That needs no channeling, only to step through."

  "To what purpose?" Nynaeve asked.

  "To gain answers. Three answers, each true, about past, present or future."

  Elayne's first thought was for the children's tale, Bili Under the Hill, but only because of the three answers. A second thought came on its heels, and not to her alone. She spoke while Nynaeve and Egwene were still opening their mouths. "Moiraine, this solves our problem. We can ask whether Joiya or Amico is telling the truth. We can ask where Liandrin and the others are. The names of the Black Ajah still in the Tower—"

  "We can ask what this thing is that is dangerous to Rand," Egwene put in, and Nynaeve added, "Why haven't you told us of this before? Why have you let us go on listening to the same tales day after day when we could have settled it all by now?"

  The Aes Sedai winced and threw up her hands. "You three rush in blindly where Lan and a hundred Warders would tread warily. Why do you think I have not stepped through? Days ago I could have asked what Rand must do to survive and triumph, how he can defeat the Forsaken and the Dark One, how he can learn to control the Power and hold off madness long enough to do what he must." She waited, hands on hips, while it sank in. None of them spoke. "There are rules," she went on, "and dangers. No one may step through more than once. Only once. You may ask three questions, but you must ask all three and hear the answers before you may leave. Frivolous questions are punished, it seems, but it also seems what may be serious for one can be frivolous coming from another. Most importantly, questions touching the Shadow have dire consequences. If you asked about the Black Ajah, you might be returned dead, or come out a gibbering madwoman, if you came out at all. As for Rand… I am not certain it is possible to ask a question about the Dragon Reborn that does not touch the Shadow in some way. You see? Sometimes there are reasons for caution."

  "How do you know all this?" Nynaeve demanded. Planting fists on hips she confronted the Aes Sedai. "The High Lords surely never let Aes Sedai study anything in the Holding. From the filth down there, none of it has seen sunlight in a hundred years or more."

  "More, I should think," Moiraine told her calmly. "They ceased their collecting nearly three hundred years gone. It was just before they stopped completely that they acquired this ter'angreal. Up until then it was the possession of the Firsts of Mayene, who used its answers to help keep Mayene out of Tear's grasp. And they allowed Aes Sedai to study it. In secret, of course; Mayene has never dared anger Tear too openly."

  "If it was so important to Mayene," Nynaeve said suspiciously, "why is it here, in the Stone?"

  "Because Firsts have made bad decisions as well as good in trying to keep Mayene free of Tear. Three hundred years ago the High Lords were planning to build a fleet to follow Mayener ships and find the oilfish shoals. Halvar, the then First, raised the price of Mayener lamp oil well above that of oil from Tear's olives, and to further convince the High Lords that Mayene would always put its own interests behind those of Tear, made them a gift of the ter'angreal. He had already used it, so it was no further good to him, and he was almost as young as Berelain is now, apparently with a long reign ahead of him and many years of needing Tairen goodwill."

  "He was a fool," Elayne muttered. "My mother would never make such a mistake."

  "Perhaps not," Moiraine said. "But then, Andor is not a small nation cornered by a much larger and stronger. Halvar was a fool as it turned out — the High Lords had him assassinated the very next year — but his foolishness does present me with an opportunity, if
I need it. A dangerous one, yet better than none."

  Nynaeve muttered to herself, perhaps disappointed that the Aes Sedai had not tripped herself up.

  "It leaves the rest of us right where we were." Egwene sighed. "Not knowing who is lying, or whether they both are."

  "Question them again, if you wish," Moiraine said. "You have until they are put on the ship, though I very much doubt either will change her tale now. My advice is to concentrate on Tanchico. If Joiya speaks truly, it will take Aes Sedai and Warders to guard Mazrim Taim, not just the three of you. I sent a warning to the Amyrlin by pigeon when I first heard Joiya's story. In fact, I sent three pigeons, to make sure one reaches the Tower."

  "So kind of you to keep us informed," Elayne murmured coolly. The woman did go her own way. Just because they were only pretending to be full Aes Sedai was no reason for Moiraine to keep them in the dark. The Amyrlin had sent them out to hunt the Black Ajah.

  Moiraine inclined her head briefly, as if accepting the thanks for real. "You are welcome. Remember that you are the hounds the Amyrlin set after the Black Ajah." Her slight smile at Elayne's start said she knew exactly what Elayne had been thinking. "The decision on where to course must be yours. You have pointed that out to me, as well," she added drily. "I trust it will prove an easier decision than mine. And I trust you will sleep well, what sleep is left before daybreak. A good night to you."

  "That woman…." Elayne muttered when the door had closed behind the Aes Sedai. "Sometimes I could almost strangle her." She dropped into one of the chairs at the table and sat frowning at her hands in her lap.

  Nynaeve gave a grunt that might have been agreement as she went to a narrow table against the wall where silver goblets and spice jars stood next to two pitchers. One pitcher, full of wine, rested in a gleaming bowl of now mostly melted ice, brought all the way from the Spine of the World packed in chests of sawdust. Ice in the summer to chill a High Lord's drink; Elayne could barely imagine such a thing.

  "A cool drink before bed will do us all good," Nynaeve said, busying herself with wine and water and spices.

  Elayne lifted her head as Egwene took a seat next to her. "Did you mean what you said, Egwene? About Rand?" Egwene nodded, and Elayne sighed. "Do you remember what Min used to say, all her jokes about sharing him? I sometimes wondered if that was a viewing she did not tell us about. I thought she meant we both loved him, and she knew it. But you had the right to him, and I didn't know what to do. I still don't. Egwene, he loves you."

  "He will just have to be put straight," Egwene said firmly. "When I marry, it will be because I want to, not just because a man expects me to love him. I will be gentle with him, Elayne, but before I am done, he will know he is free. Whether he wants to be or not. My mother says men are different from us. She says we want to be in love, but only with the one we want; a man needs to be in love, but he will love the first woman to tie a string to his heart."

  "That is all very well," Elayne said in a tight voice, "but Berelain was in his chambers."

  Egwene sniffed. "Whatever she intends, Berelain won't keep her mind on one man long enough to make him love her. Two days ago she was casting eyes at Rhuarc. In two more, she'll be smiling at someone else. She is like Else Grinwell. You remember her? The novice who spent all her time out at the practice yards fluttering her eyelashes at the Warders?"

  "She was not just fluttering her eyelashes, in his bedchamber at this hour. She was wearing even less than usual, if that is possible!"

  "Do you mean to let her have him, then?"

  "No!" Elayne said it very fiercely, and she meant it, but in the next breath she was full of despair. "Oh, Egwene, I do not know what to do. I love him. I want to marry him. Light! What will mother say? I would rather spend a night in Joiya's cell than listen to the lectures mother will give me." Andoran nobles, even in royal families, married commoners often enough that it hardly occasioned comment — in Andor, at least — but Rand was not exactly the usual run of commoner. Her mother was quite capable of actually sending Lini to drag her home by her ear…

  "Morgase can hardly say much if Mat is to be believed," Egwene said comfortingly. "Or even half believed. This Lord Gaebril your mother is mooning after hardly sounds the choice of a woman thinking with her head."

  "I am sure Mat exaggerated," Elayne replied primly. Her mother was too shrewd to make herself a fool over any man. If Lord Gaebril — she had never even heard of him before Mat spoke his name — if this fellow dreamed he could gain power through Morgase, she would give him a rude awakening.

  Nynaeve brought three goblets of spiced wine to the table, beads of condensation running down their shining sides, and small green-and-gold woven straw mats to put them on so the damp would not mar the table's polish. "So," she said, taking a chair, "you've discovered you are in love with Rand, Elayne, and Egwene has discovered she isn't."

  The two younger women gaped at her, one dark, the other fair, yet a near mirror image of astonishment.

  "I have eyes," Nynaeve said complacently. "And ears, when you don't take the trouble to whisper." She sipped at her wine, and her voice grew cold when she continued. "What do you mean to do about it? If that chit Berelain has her claws into him, it will not be easy to pry them loose. Are you sure you want to go to the effort? You know what he is. You know what lies ahead of him, even setting the Prophecies aside. Madness. Death. How long does he have? A year? Two? Or will it begin before summer's end? He is a man who can channel." She bit off each word in tones of iron. "Remember what you were taught. Remember what he is."

  Elayne held her head high and met Nynaeve stare for stare. "It does not matter. Perhaps it should, but it doesn't. Perhaps I am being foolish. I do not care. I cannot change my heart to order, Nynaeve."

  Suddenly Nynaeve smiled. "I had to be sure," she said warmly. "You must be sure. It isn't easy loving any man, but loving this man will be harder yet." Her smile faded as she went on. "My first question still has to be answered. What do you mean to do about it? Berelain may look soft — she certainly makes men see her so! — but I do not think she is. She will fight for what she wants. And she's the kind to hold hard to something she doesn't particularly want, just because someone else does want it."

  "I would like to stuff her in a barrel," Egwene said, gripping her goblet as if it were the First's throat, "and ship her back to Mayene. In the bottom of the hold."

  Nynaeve's braid swung as she shook her head. "All very well, but try to offer advice that helps. If you cannot, keep silent and let her decide what she must do." Egwene stared at her, and she added, "Rand is Elayne's to deal with, now, not yours. You have stepped aside, remember."

  The remark should have made Elayne smile, but it did not. "This was all supposed to be different." She sighed. "I thought I would meet a man, learn to know him over months or years, and slowly I would come to realize I loved him. That is the way I always thought it would be. I hardly know Rand. I've talked with him no more than half a dozen times in the space of a year. But I knew I loved him five minutes after I first set eyes on him." Now that was foolish. Only, it was true, and she did not care if it was foolish. She would tell her mother the same to her face, and Lini. Well, perhaps not Lini. Lini had drastic ways of dealing with foolishness, and she seemed to think Elayne had not aged beyond ten. "As matters stand, though, I don't even have the right to be angry with him. Or Berelain." But she was. I would like to slap his face till his ears ring for a year! I'd like to switch her all the way to the ship that takes her back to Mayene! Only, she did not have the right, and that made it all the worse. Infuriatingly, a plaintive tone touched her voice. "What can I do? He has never looked at me twice."

  "In the Two Rivers," Egwene said slowly, "if a woman wants a man to know she is interested in him, she puts flowers in his hair at Bel Tame or Sunday. Or she might embroider a feastday shirt for him any time. Or make a point of asking him to dance and no one else." Elayne gave her an incredulous look, and she hastened to add, "I am not suggesting you emb
roider a shirt, but there are ways to let him know how you feel."

  "Mayeners believe in speaking out." Elayne's voice held a brittle edge. "Perhaps that is the best way. Just tell him right out. At least he'll know how I feel, then. At least I'll have some right to — "

  She snatched her spiced wine and tilted her head back, drinking. Speak out? Like some Mayener hussy! Setting the empty goblet back on the small mat, she drew a deep breath and murmured, "What will Mother say?"

  "What's more important," Nynaeve said gently, "is what you will do when we have to leave here. Whether it's Tanchico, or the Tower, or somewhere else, we will have to go. What will you do when you've just told him you love him, and you must leave him behind? If he asks you to stay with him? If you want to?"

  "I will go." There was no hesitation in Elayne's reply, but a touch of asperity. The other woman should not have had to ask. "If I must accept him being the Dragon Reborn, he must accept that I am what I am, that I have duties. I want to be Aes Sedai, Nynaeve. It isn't some idle amusement. Neither is the work we three have to do. Could you really think I would abandon you and Egwene?"

  Egwene hurried to assure her that the thought had never crossed her mind; Nynaeve did the same, but slowly enough to give herself the lie.

  Elayne looked from one to the other of them. "In truth, I feared you might tell me I was foolish, fretting over a thing like this when we have the Black Ajah to worry about."

  A slight flicker of Egwene's eyes said the thought had occurred to her, but Nynaeve said, "Rand is not the only one who might die next year, or next month, We might, too. Times are not what they were, and we cannot be, either. If you sit and wish for what you want, you may not see it this side of the grave."

  It was a chilling sort of reassurance, but Elayne nodded. She was not being silly. If only the Black Ajah could be settled so easily. She pressed her empty silver goblet to her forehead for the coolness. What were they to do?