The Fires of Heaven twot-5 Page 27

  From her first sight of the inn's sign — a flaring golden sun like that the Children wore on their cloaks — she wished the "boar-horse" had taken exception to this place instead of the other. At least there was no shepherd's crook behind it. Half the men filling the common room wore snowy white cloaks, their helmets set on the tables in front of them. She took a deep breath and a firm hold on herself not to spin on her heel and leave.

  Aside from the soldiers, it was a pleasant inn, with high-beamed ceilings and dark polished paneling. Cut green branches decorated the cold hearths of two large fireplaces, and good cooking smells wafted from the kitchens. The white-aproned serving maids all seemed cheerful as they scurried among the tables with trays of wine and ale and food.

  The arrival of a lady created little stir, this close to the capital. Or perhaps it was because of that lord's manor. A few men looked at her; more eyed her "maid" with interest, though Nynaeve's stern frown, when she realized they were staring at her, quickly turned them back to their wine. Nynaeve seemed to think a man looking was a crime, even if he said nothing and did not leer. Given that, sometimes Elayne wondered why she did not wear less becoming clothes. She had had to work very hard to make sure that simple gray dress fit the other woman properly. Nynaeve was hopeless with a needle when it came to fine work.

  The innkeeper, Mistress Jharen, was a plump woman with long gray curls, a warm smile, and searching dark eyes. Elayne suspected she could spot a worn hem or a flat purse at ten paces. They obviously passed muster, for she made a deep curtsy, spreading her gray skirts wide, and made effusive welcome, inquiring whether the Lady was on her way to or from Amador.

  "From," Elayne replied with a languid hauteur. "The city's balls were most enjoyable, and King Ailron is quite as handsome as they say, which is not always so for kings, but I must return to my estates. I require a room for myself and Nana, and something for my footman and driver." Thinking of Nynaeve and the trundle, she added, "I must have two full beds. I need Nana close, and if she has only a trundle, she will keep me awake with her snoring." Nynaeve's respectful face slipped — just a fraction, thankfully — but it was quite true. She had snored terribly.

  "Of course, my Lady," the plump innkeeper said. "I have just the thing. But your men will have to bed down in the stable, in the hayloft. I am quite crowded, as you can see. A troupe of vagabonds brought some horrible great animals into the village yesterday and one of them quite destroyed The King's Lancer. Poor Sim has lost half his custom or more, and they've all come here." Mistress Jharen's smile was more satisfaction than commiseration. "I do have one room left, however."

  "I am sure it will do very well. If you will send up a light repast and some wash water, I think I shall retire early." There was still sunlight showing in the windows, but she put a hand delicately over her mouth as if stifling a yawn.

  "Of course, my Lady. As you wish. This way."

  Mistress Jharen seemed to think she had to keep Elayne entertained as she showed them to the second floor. She went on the whole way about the crowding at the inn and how it was a miracle that she had a room left, about the vagrants with their animals and how they had been chased out of town and good riddance to rubbish, about all the nobles who had stayed at her establishment over the years, even the Lord Captain Commander of the Children, once. Why, a Hunter of the Horn had come through just the day before, on his way to Tear, where they said the Stone of Tear had fallen into the hands of some false Dragon, and was it not horrible wickedness that men could do such things? "I hope they never find it." The innkeeper's gray curls swung as she shook her head.

  "The Horn of Valere?" Elayne said. "Why ever not?"

  "Why, my Lady, if they find it, it means the Last Battle is coming. The Dark One breaking free." Mistress Jharen shivered. "The Light send the Horn is never found. That way, the Last Battle cannot happen, can it?" There did not seem to be much answer to such curious logic.

  The bedchamber was snug, if not exactly cramped. Two narrow beds with striped coverlets stood to either side of a window looking out onto the street, and little more than walking room separating them from each other or the white-plastered walls. A small table holding a lamp and tinderbox between the beds, a tiny, flowered rug, and a washstand with a small mirror above it completed the furnishings. Everything was clean and well polished, at least.

  The innkeeper plumped the pillows and smoothed the coverlets and said the mattresses were the best goose down and the Lady's men would be bringing her chests up by the back stairs and everything would be very cozy, there was a good breeze at night if the Lady opened the window and left the door cracked. As though she would sleep with her door open to a public hallway. Two aproned girls arrived with a large blue pitcher of steaming water and a large lacquered tray covered with a white cloth before Elayne managed to get Mistress Jharen out. The shape of a wine pitcher and two cups mounded up one side of the cloth.

  "I think she believed we might go to The King's Lancer even with a hole in it," she said, once the door was firmly shut. Looking around the room, she grimaced. There would barely be room for them and the chests. "I am not certain we shouldn't."

  "I do not snore," Nynaeve said in a tight voice.

  "Of course you do not. I had to say something, though."

  Nynaeve gave a loud harrumph, but all she said was "I am glad I am tired enough to go to sleep. Aside from that forkroot, I did not recognize anything to aid sleep in what that Macura woman had."

  It took Thom and Juilin three trips to bring the iron-bound wooden chests up, grumbling all the while, the way men did, about having to haul them up the narrow stairs at the rear of the inn. They were muttering about being made to sleep in the stables, too, when they brought in the first one between them — it had leaf-shaped hinges; the bulk of their money and valuables were in the bottom of that, including the recovered ter'angreal — but one glance at the room and they shared a look and shut their mouths. About that, at least.

  "We're going to see what we can learn in the common room," Thom said once the last chest was jammed in. Barely enough space remained to reach the washstand.

  "And maybe take a walk around the village," Juilin added. "Men talk when there's as much dislike as I saw in the street."

  "That will be very good," Elayne said. They did so want to think they had more to do than haul and carry. It had been so in Tanchico — and Mardecin, of course — and might well be again, but hardly here. "Do be careful not to get into any trouble with the Whitecloaks, now." A long-suffering look passed between them, just as if she had not seen both with bruised and bleeding faces after jaunts for information, but she forgave them, and smiled at Thom. "I cannot wait to hear what you learn."

  "In the morning," Nynaeve said firmly. She was looking away from Elayne so hard that she might as well have been glowering at her. "If you disturb us before then for less than Trollocs, you'll learn the reason why."

  The glance that passed between the two men spoke volumes — it made Nynaeve's eyebrows rise sharply — but once she had reluctantly handed over a few coins, they left agreeing to let the women sleep untroubled.

  "If I cannot even speak to Thom," Elayne began when they were gone, but Nynaeve cut her off.

  "I am not having them walk in on me asleep in my shift." She was awkwardly undoing the buttons down the back of her dress. Elayne went to help her, and she said, "I can manage. You get the ring out for me."

  With a sniff, Elayne pulled up her skirt to reach the small pocket she had sewn to the underside. If Nynaeve wanted to be peevish, let her; she would not respond even if Nynaeve began ranting again. There were two rings in the pocket. She left the golden Great Serpent she had been given on being raised to Accepted, and took out the stone ring.

  All flecks and stripes of red and blue and brown, it was just too large to fit a finger, and flattened and twisted besides. Odd as it seemed, the ring had only one edge; a finger drawn along that edge would circle inside and out before coming back to where it began. It was a
ter'angreal, and what it did was allow access to Tel'aran'rhiod, even for someone who did not have the Talent that Egwene and the Aiel dreamwalkers shared. All that was needed was to sleep with it next to your skin. Unlike the two ter'angreal they had recovered from the Black Ajah, it did not require channeling. For all Elayne knew, even a man might be able to use it.

  Clad only in her linen shift, Nynaeve threaded the ring onto the leather thong with Lan's signet and her own Great Serpent, then re-knotted and hung it back around her neck before lying down atop one of the beds. Carefully tucking the rings in next to her skin, she settled her head on the pillows.

  "Is there time before Egwene and the Wise Ones get there?" Elayne asked. "I can never reason out what hour it is in the Waste."

  "There is time unless she comes early, which she won't. The Wise Ones keep her on a very short leash. It will do her good, in the long run. She was always headstrong." Nynaeve opened her eyes, looking right at her — at her! — as if that could stand for her as well.

  "Remember to tell Egwene to let Rand know that I am thinking of him." She was not going to let the woman start a row. "Tell her to… tell him that I love him, and only him." There. She had it out.

  Nynaeve rolled her eyes in what was really a most offensive way. "If you wish me to," she said dryly, snuggling herself into the pillows.

  As the other woman's breathing began to slow, Elayne pushed one of the chests against the door and sat on it to wait. She always hated waiting. It would serve Nynaeve right if she went down to the common room. Thom would probably still be there, and… And nothing. He was supposed to be her coachman. She wondered whether Nynaeve had thought of that before agreeing to be the maid. With a sigh, she leaned back against the door. She did hate waiting.

  Chapter 14

  (Dream Ring)

  Meetings

  The effects of the ring ter'angreal did not startle Nynaeve anymore. She was in the place she had been thinking of when sleep closed in, the great chamber in Tear called the Heart of the Stone, within the massive fortress called the Stone of Tear. The gilded stand-lamps were unlit, but pale light seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, to simply be, all around her, fading into dim shadows in the distance. At least it was not hot; it never seemed hot or cold in Tel'aran'rhiod.

  Huge redstone columns ran off in every direction, the vaulted dome far above lost in dim shadows along with more golden lamps hanging on golden chains. The pale floorstones beneath her feet were worn; the High Lords of Tear had come to this chamber — in the waking world, of course — only when their law and custom demanded, but they had come ever since the Breaking of the World. Centered beneath the dome was Callandor, apparently a glittering sword made of crystal, driven half its length into the stone of the floor. Just as Rand had left it.

  She did not go near Callandor. Rand claimed to have woven traps around it with saidin, traps that no woman could see. She expected they would be nasty — the best of men could be vicious when they tried to be devious — nasty and just as primed for a woman as for the men who might use that sa'angreal. He had meant to guard it against those in the Tower as much as the Forsaken. Aside from Rand himself, the one who touched Callandor might die or worse.

  That was a fact of Tel'aran'rhiod. What was in the waking world was here, too, although the reverse was not always so. The World of Dreams, the Unseen World, reflected the waking world, if sometimes in odd ways, and perhaps other worlds as well. Verin Sedai had told Egwene that there was a pattern woven of worlds, of the reality here and others, just as the weaving of people's lives made up the Pattern of the Ages. Tel'aran'rhiod touched them all, yet few could enter except accidentally, for unknowing moments, during their own mundane dreams. Dangerous moments for those dreamers, though they never knew it unless they were very unlucky. Another fact of Tel'aran'rhiod was that what happened to the dreamer here happened in the waking world, too. To die in the World of Dreams was to die in fact.

  She had the sensation of being watched from the dimnesses between the columns, but it did not trouble her. It was not Moghedien. Imaginary eyes; there are no watchers. I told Elayne to ignore them, and here I… Moghedien would certainly do more than look. Even so, she wished she were angry enough to channel. Not that she was frightened, of course. Only not angry. Not frightened at all.

  The twisted stone ring felt light, as if it were trying to drift up out of her shift, reminding her that she was wearing only that. As soon as she thought of clothing herself, she was in a dress. It was a trick of Tel'aran'rhiod that she liked; in some ways channeling was unnecessary, for here she could do things that she doubted any Aes Sedai had ever done with the Power. It was not the dress she had expected, though; not good stout Two Rivers wool. The high neck trimmed in Jaerecuz lace came right up under her chin, but pale yellow silk draped her in folds that clung revealingly. How many times had she called Taraboner gowns like this indecent when she had worn them to blend into Tanchico? It seemed that she had grown more used to them than she knew.

  Giving her braid a sharp pull for the waywardness of her own mind, she left the dress as it was. The gown might not be as she wanted, but she was no flighty girl to go leaping and squealing over it. A dress is a dress. She would wear it when Egwene arrived, with whichever of the Wise Ones accompanied her this time, and if any of them said a word… I did not come early to blather at myself about dresses!

  "Birgitte?" Silence answered her, and she raised her voice, though it should not have been necessary. In this place, this particular woman could hear her own name spoken on the other side of the world. "Birgitte?"

  A woman stepped out from among the columns, blue eyes calm and proudly confident, her golden hair in a long braid more intricate than Nynaeve's own. Her short white coat and voluminous yellow silk trousers, gathered at the ankles above short boots with raised heels, were garments of more than two thousand years ago that she had taken a liking to. The arrows in the quiver at her side appeared to be silver, and so did the bow she carried.

  "Is Gaidal about?" Nynaeve asked. He was usually close by Birgitte, and he made Nynaeve nervous, refusing to acknowledge her existence, scowling when Birgitte spoke to her. It had been something of a shock at first to find Gaidal Cain and Birgitte — long-dead heroes linked in so many stories and legends — in Tel'aran'rhiod. But, as Birgitte herself had said, where better for heroes bound to the Wheel of Time to await rebirth than in a dream? A dream that had existed as long as the Wheel. It was they, Birgitte and Gaidal Cain and Rogosh Eagle-eye and Artur Hawkwing and all the others, that the Horn of Valere would summon back to fight at Tarmon Gai'don.

  Birgitte's braid swung as she shook her head. "I have not seen him for some time. I think the Wheel has spun him out again. It always happens so." Expectation and concern both touched her voice.

  If Birgitte was right, then somewhere in the world a boychild had been born, a mewling babe with no knowledge of who he was, yet destined for adventures that would make new legends. The Wheel wove the heroes into the Pattern as they were needed, to shape the Pattern, and when they died they returned here to wait again. That was what it meant to be bound to the Wheel. New heroes could find themselves bound so as well, men and women whose bravery and accomplishments raised them far above the ordinary, but once bound, it was forever.

  "How long do you have?" Nynaeve asked. "Years yet, surely." Birgitte was always tied to Gaidal, had been tied in story after story, in Age after Age, of adventure and a romance that even the Wheel of Time did not break. She was always born after Gaidal; a year, or five, or ten, but after.

  "I do not know, Nynaeve. Time here is not like time in the waking world. I met you here last ten days gone, as it seems to me, and Elayne only a day before. What was it for you?"

  "Four days and three," Nynaeve muttered. She and Elayne had been coming to speak with Birgitte as often as they could, though too frequently it had not been possible with Thom and Juilin sharing the camp and standing night guard. Birgitte actually remembered the War of Power,
one lifetime of it anyway, and the Forsaken. Her past lives were like books fondly remembered from long ago, the more distant dimmer than the nearer, but the Forsaken stood out. Especially Moghedien.

  "You see, Nynaeve? The flow of time here can shift in larger ways, too. It might be months before I am born again, or days. Here, for me. In the waking world it could be years yet before my birth."

  With an effort Nynaeve suppressed her vexation. "Then we mustn't waste what time we have. Have you seen any of them since we last met?" There was no need to say who.

  "Too many. Lanfear is often in Tel'aran'rhiod, of course, but I have seen Rahvin and Sammael and Graendal. Demandred. And Semirhage." Birgitte's voice tightened at the last name; even Moghedien, who hated her, did not frighten her visibly, but Semirhage was another matter.

  Nynaeve shivered as well — the golden-haired woman had told her too much of that one — and realized she was wearing a thick wool cloak, with a deep hood pulled up to hide her face; flushing, she made it disappear.

  "None of them have seen you?" she asked anxiously. Birgitte was more vulnerable than herself in many ways, despite her knowledge of Tel'aran'rhiod. She had never been able to channel; any of the Forsaken could destroy her as if crushing an ant, without breaking stride. And if she were destroyed here, there would be no rebirth for her ever again.

  "I am not so unskilled — or so foolish — as to allow that." Birgitte leaned on her silver bow; legend said she never missed with that bow and her silver arrows. "They are concerned with each other, not anyone else. I have seen Rahvin and Sammael, Graendal and Lanfear, each stalking the others unseen. And Demandred and Semirhage each shadowing them as well. I have not seen so much of them here since they were freed."

  "They are up to something." Nynaeve bit her lip in vexed frustration. "But what?"