Lord of Chaos twot-6 Page 48

  The floor on the other side of the table was layered in brightly colored rugs, with tasseled cushions of red and blue and green scattered about. A tabac pouch, a short-stemmed pipe, and a pair of tongs sat beside a covered brass bowl atop a small brass-bound chest, while a slightly larger chest, strapped with iron, held an ivory carving of a gawky animal Rand doubted really existed. Two dozen books of all sizes, from small enough to fit a coat pocket to large enough that even Rhuarc must need both hands to pick them up, made a neat row across the floor along the wall. Aiel made everything in the Waste that they needed except books; peddlers had made fortunes among Aiel hauling nothing but books.

  "Now," Rand said when the door was closed, leaving him alone with Rhuarc and Berelain, "how are things really?"

  "As I said," Berelain replied. "As well as can be expected. There is more talk of Caraline Damodred and Toram Riatin in the streets, but most people are too tired to want another war for a time."

  "It is said ten thousand Andormen soldiers have joined them." Rhuarc began thumbing his pipe full. "Rumor always multiplies by ten when not twenty, yet it is troubling if true. The scouts say their numbers are not large, but left to grow they could be more than an annoyance. The yellowfly is almost too small to see, but if you leave its egg in your skin, you will lose an arm or leg before it hatches — if it does not kill you."

  Rand grunted noncommittally. Darlin’s rebellion in Tear was not the only one he had to face. House Riatin and House Damodred, the last two to hold the Sun Throne, had been bitter rivals before Rand appeared, and likely would be again if he disappeared. Now they had put rivalry aside — on the surface at least; what went on below the surface with Cairhienin could be something else entirely — and, like Darlin, meant to gather strength somewhere Toram and Caraline thought safe. In their case, the foothills of the Spine of the World, as far from the city as they could be and remain in the country. They had gathered the same mix as Darlin, nobles mainly of middle rank, displaced country folk, some outright mercenaries and perhaps a few former brigands. Niall’s hand might be there, as well, as it was with Darlin.

  Those foothills were not nearly so impenetrable as Haddon Mirk, but Rand held his hand: He had too many enemies in too many places. If he paused to swat Rhuarc’s yellowfly here, he might find a leopard on his back somewhere else. He had it in mind to take the leopard first. If only he knew where all the other leopards were.

  "What of the Shaido?" he asked, setting the Dragon Scepter down on a half-unrolled map. It showed the north of Cairhien, and the mountains called Kinslayer’s Dagger. The Shaido might not be as big a leopard as Sammael, but they were a sight bigger than High Lord Darlin or Lady Caraline. Berelain handed him a goblet of wine, and he thanked her. "Have the Wise Ones said anything at all about Sevanna’s intentions?"

  He would have thought at least one or two could listen and look around just a little when she journeyed up to Kinslayer’s Dagger. He would wager the Shaido Wise Ones did when they came below the River Gaelin. He said neither thing, of course. The Shaido might have abandoned ji’e’toh, but Rhuarc had a traditional Aiel view of spying. The Wise Ones’ views were another thing again, though exactly what could be hard to pin down.

  "They say the Shaido are building holds." Rhuarc paused, using a pair of tongs to hold a hot coal from the sand-filled brass bowl over his pipe. When he had it puffed alight, he went on. "They do not think the Shaido ever mean to return to the Threefold Land. Nor do I."

  Rand scrubbed his free hand through his hair. Caraline and Toram festering, and the Shaido settling in this side of the Dragonwall. A far more dangerous brew than Darlin. And Alanna’s unseen finger seemed on the point of touching him. "Is there any other good news?"

  "There is fighting in Shamara," Rhuarc said around his pipestem.

  "Where?" Rand asked.

  "Shamara. Or Shara. They give many names for their land. Co’dansin, Tomaka, Kigalij others. Any could be true, or none. They lie without thought, those people. Unwind every bolt of silk you trade for, or find that only the outside is silk. And if the next time in the tradehold you happen to find the man who traded with you, he will deny seeing you before, or coming to trade before. If you press it, the others kill him to appease you, then say only he could do anything concerning the silk, and try to trade you water as wine."

  "Why is fighting in Shara good news?" Rand asked softly. He did not really want to hear the answer. Berelain was listening with interest; no one except the Aiel and the Sea Folk knew much more of the closed lands beyond the Waste than that ivory and silk came from there. That, and the tales in The Travels of Jain Farstrider, which were probably too fanciful to be true. Though come to think of it, Rand did remember the lying being mentioned, and the different names, except the examples Farstrider had given matched none of Rhuarc’s as far as he could recall.

  "There is never fighting in Shara, Rand al’Thor. It is said the Trolloc Wars infested them" — Trollocs had entered the Aiel Waste too; since then the Trolloc name for the Aiel Waste was the Dying Ground — "but if there has been one battle since, no word of it has come to the tradeholds. Not much word of anything outside the holdwalls does come inside. They say their land has always been one, not many as here, always at peace. When you came from Rhuidean as the Car’a’carn, word of you spread, and of your title among the wetlanders here. The Dragon Reborn. Word traveled to the tradeholds along the Great Rift and the Cliffs of Dawn." Rhuarc’s eyes were calm and steady; this did not trouble him. "Now word comes back across the Three-fold Land. There is fighting in Shara, and Sharamen in the tradeholds ask when the Dragon Reborn will Break the World."

  Suddenly the wine tasted sour. Another place like Tarabon and Arad Doman, torn just by hearing of him. How far did the ripples spread? Were there wars he would never hear of in lands he would never hear of, because of him?

  Death rides on my shoulder, Lews Therin muttered. Death walks in my footsteps. I am death.

  Shuddering, Rand set his goblet on the table. How much did the Prophecies demand in all those tantalizing hints and grandly roundabout verses? Was he supposed to add Shara, or whatever it was really called, to Cairhien and the rest? The entire world? How, when he could not even hold Tear or Cairhien completely? It would take more than one man’s lifetime. Andor. If he was meant to rip every other land apart, rip the whole world, he would hold Andor safe for Elayne. Somehow.

  "Shara, or whatever it’s called, is a long way from here. One step at a time, and Sammael is the first step."

  "Sammael," Rhuarc agreed. Berelain shivered, and emptied her goblet.

  For a time they talked of the Aiel who were still moving south. Rand intended the hammer being made in Tear to be clearly big enough to smash anything Sammael could put in its way. Rhuarc seemed content; it was Berelain who complained that more needed to be kept in Cairhien. Until Rhuarc shushed her. She muttered something about him being too stubborn for his own good, but she went on to the efforts to resettle farmers on the land. She thought by next year there would be no need for grain from Tear. If the drought ever broke. If it did not, Tear would not be supplying grain to itself, much less anywhere else. The first tendrils of trade were beginning to reappear. Merchants had begun coming in from Andor and Tear and Murandy, down from the Borderlands. A Sea Folk ship had even dropped anchor in the river that very morning, which she found strange, so far from the sea, but welcome.

  Berelain’s face took on an intensity, and her voice a brisk tone, as she moved around the table to take up this sheaf of papers or that, discussing what Cairhien needed to buy and what it could afford to buy, what it had to sell now and what it would have in six months, in a year. Depending on the weather, of course. She brushed by that as if it was of no matter, though giving Rand a level look that said he was the Dragon Reborn and if there was any way to stop the heat, he should find it. Rand had seen her meltingly seductive, he had seen her frightened, defiant, wrapped in arrogance, but never like this. She seemed a different woman altogether. Rhu
arc, seated on one of his cushions puffing on his pipe, appeared amused as he watched her.

  "… this school of yours might do some good," she said, frowning at a long sheet covered in a precise hand, "if they would stop thinking of new things long enough to make what they have already thought of." She tapped her lips with a finger, peering at nothing thoughtfully. "You say give them what gold they ask, but if you would let me hold back unless they actually — "

  Jalani put her plump face in at the door — Aiel seemed not to understand knocking — and said, "Mangin is here to speak with Rhuarc and you, Rand al’Thor."

  "Tell him I’ll be happy to talk with him later —" Rand got that far before Rhuarc broke in quietly.

  "You should speak with him now, Rand al’Thor." The clan chief’s face looked grave; Berelain had replaced the long paper on the table and was studying the floor.

  "Very well," Rand said slowly.

  Jalani’s head vanished, and Mangin came in. Taller than Rand, he had been one of those who crossed the Dragonwall in search of He Who Comes With the Dawn, one of the handful who took the Stone of Tear. "Six days ago I killed a man," he began without preamble, "a treekiller, and I must know if I have toh to you, Rand al’Thor."

  "To me?" Rand said. "You can defend yourself, Mangin; Light, you know tha—" For a moment he was silent, meeting gray eyes that were sober but certainly not afraid. Curious, maybe. Rhuarc’s face told him nothing; Berelain was still not meeting his gaze. "He did attack you, didn’t he?"

  Mangin shook his head slightly. "I saw that he deserved to die, so I killed him." He said it conversationally; he saw the drains needed cleaning, so he cleaned them. "But you have said we cannot kill the oathbreakers except in battle, or if they attack us. Do I have toh toward you now?"

  Rand remembered what he had said… him will I hang. His chest felt tight. "Why did he deserve to die?"

  "He wore what he had no right to," Mangin replied.

  "Wore what? What did he wear, Mangin?"

  Rhuarc answered, touching his left forearm. "This." He meant the Dragon coiled around his arm. Clan chiefs did not display them often, or even speak of them; almost everything about the markings were shrouded in mystery, and the chiefs were content to leave it so. "It was a thing of needles and inks, of course." A tattoo.

  "He was pretending to be a clan chief?" Rand realized he was searching for an excuse… him will I hang. Mangin had been one of the first to follow him.

  "No," Mangin said. "He was drinking, and showing off what he should not have had. I see your eyes, Rand al’Thor." He grinned suddenly. "It is a puzzle. I was right to kill him, but now I have toh to you."

  "You were wrong to kill him. You know the penalty for murder."

  "A rope around the neck, as these wetlanders use." Mangin nodded thoughtfully. "Tell me where and when; I will be there. May you find water and shade today, Rand al’Thor."

  "May you find water and shade, Mangin," Rand told him sadly.

  "I suppose," Berelain said when the door closed behind Mangin, "that he really will walk to his own hanging of his own accord. Oh, don’t look at me that way, Rhuarc. I don’t mean to impugn him, or Aiel honor."

  "Six days," Rand growled, rounding on her. "You knew why he was here, both of you. Six days ago, and you left it to me. Murder is murder, Berelain."

  She drew herself up regally, but she sounded defensive. "I am not used to men coming to me and saying they have just committed murder. Bloody ji’e’toh. Bloody Aielmen and their bloody honor." The curses sounded odd coming from her mouth.

  "You have no cause to be angry with her, Rand al’Thor," Rhuarc put in. "Mangin’s toh is to you, not to her. Or to me."

  "His toh was to the man he murdered," Rand said coldly. Rhuarc looked shocked. "The next time somebody commits murder, don’t wait for me. You follow the law!" That way, perhaps he would not have to pass sentence again on a man he knew and liked. He would if he had to. He knew that, and it saddened him. What had he become?

  The wheel of a man’s life. Lews Therin murmured. No mercy. No pity.

  Chapter 18

  (Rising Sun)

  A Taste of Solitude

  "Are there any more problems you want me to deal with?" Rand’s tone made it clear he meant problems they should have already solved. Rhuarc shook his head slightly; Berelain’s face reddened as well. "Good. Set a date for Mangin’s hanging —" If it hurts too much, Lews Therin laughed in a hoarse whisper, make it hurt someone else instead. His responsibility. His duty. He stiffened his back to keep that mountain from crushing him. "Hang him tomorrow. Tell him I said so." He paused, glaring, then realized he was waiting for Lews Therin’s comment, not theirs. Waiting for a dead man’s voice, a dead madman. "I’m going to the school."

  Rhuarc pointed out that the Wise Ones were probably on their way from the tents, and Berelain that Tairen and Cairhienin nobles alike would be clamoring to know where she was hiding Rand, but he told them to tell the truth. And tell the lot of them not to follow him; he would return when he returned. The pair looked as if they had swallowed sour plums, but he snatched up the Dragon Scepter and left.

  In the hallway, Jalani and a yellow-haired Red Shield not much older than she came smoothly to their feet, glancing at one another hastily. Otherwise the corridor was empty except for a few scurrying servants. One of each; it figured, though Rand wondered whether Urien had had to wrestle Sulin to make it so.

  Motioning them to follow, he went straight down to the nearest stable, where the stalls were the same green marble as the columns that held the high ceiling. The head groom, a gnarled fellow with big ears, the Rising Sun of Cairhien worked on his short leather vest, was so shocked by Rand appearing with only two Aiel for escort that he kept staring at the stable doors for more and bowed so often between stares that Rand wondered whether he would ever get a horse. But once the man shouted "A horse for the Lord Dragon!" six stablemen leaped to prepare a tall, fiery-eyed bay gelding with a gold-fringed bridle and a gold-worked saddle atop a sky-blue saddlecloth fringed and embroidered with rising suns in gold.

  As quickly as they moved, the big-eared head groom was gone by the time Rand swung into the saddle. To hunt for the coterie of followers the Dragon Reborn must have, possibly. Or to tell someone Rand was leaving the palace practically alone. Cairhien was like that. The sleek bay wanted to frisk, but while still trying to settle his dancing, Rand trotted him out of the palace grounds, past startled Cairhienin guards. He was not worried about assassins laying an ambush from the big-eared man’s warning; anyone who ambushed him would find they had come to the shearing without clippers. Any delay, though, and likely he would have nobles crowding around so thickly he could not leave without them. It felt good to be alone for a change.

  He glanced at Jalani and the young Aielman trotting beside the bay. Dedric, he thought; a Jaern Rift Codara. Almost alone. He could feel Alanna still, and Lews Therin moaned in the far distance over his dead Ilyena. He could never be entirely alone. Maybe never again. What he had of solitude felt good, though, after so long.

  Cairhien was a large city, its major streets wide enough to dwarf the people crowding them. Each street slashed arrow-straight through hills carved and stone-terraced until they seemed man-made, meeting every other street at a right angle. Throughout the city rose huge towers wrapped in wooden scaffolding that nearly hid elaborate square-arched buttresses, towers that seemed to touch the sky and meant to go higher. Twenty years since the fabled topless towers of Cairhien, a wonder of the world, had burned like torches during the Aiel War, and their rebuilding was still not done.

  Making a way was not easy; the trotting did not last. Rand had grown accustomed to crowds opening up before his usual escort, yet with hundreds of cadin’sor-clad Aiel just within his sight among the slow-flowing throng, it was not quite the same, not for only two. Some of those Aiel recognized him, he thought, but they ignored him, not about to cause embarrassment by calling attention when the Car’a’carn wore a sword and, not as
bad but hardly to be applauded, rode a horse. To Aiel, shame and embarrassment were far worse than pain, though of course ji’e’toh had to complicate things with degrees Rand understood only in part. Aviendha could explain it certainly; she seemed to want him to become Aiel.

  Plenty of others jammed the streets too, Cairhienin in their usual drab clothing and also in the shabby bright colors of those who had lived in the Foregate before it burned, Tairens a head taller in the crowd, if not as tall as the Aiel. Ox-carts and horse-drawn wagons threaded through the throng, yielding way to closed lacquer carriages and sedan chairs, sometimes with a House banner. Hawkers cried wares from trays, and peddlers from pushcarts; musicians, tumblers and jugglers performed on street corners. Both were changes. Once Cairhien had been quiet, subdued, except in the Foregate. Some of that sobriety still held. The shops still had small signs, displaying no goods outside. And if the former Foregaters seemed raucous as ever, laughing loudly and shouting at one another, arguing right there in the street, the other Cairhienin still eyed them with prim distaste.