Lord of Chaos twot-6 Page 50

  You were not summoned. Amys had said sharply, while Aviendha sat cross-legged on a cushion, staring dejectedly at the layered carpets in front of her. Go and take a walk. And eat something. A woman is not meant to look like a reed.

  Bair and Melaine had come hurrying, summoned by gai’shain, but Egwene was excluded. It had helped a little seeing a string of Wise Ones turned away too, though only a little. After all, she was Aviendha’s friend, and if she was in some sort of trouble, Egwene wanted to help.

  "Why are you here?" Sorilea’s voice demanded behind her.

  Egwene was proud of herself. She turned calmly to face the Wise One of Shende Hold. A Jarra Chareen, Sorilea had thin white hair and a face that was leathery skin pulled tight over her skull. She was all sinew and bone, and though she could channel, she had less strength in the Power than most novices Egwene had met. In fact, in the Tower, she certainly would never have gone beyond novice before being sent away. Of course, channeling did not really count for much among Wise Ones. Whatever the mysterious rules governing Wise Ones, when Sorilea was about, leadership always settled on her. Egwene thought it was pure strength of will.

  A good head taller than Egwene, as most Aiel women were, Sorilea stared at her with a green-eyed gaze that could knock a bull off its feet. That was a relief; it was Sorilea’s normal way of looking at everyone. Had she a bone to pick, the walls would have been crumbling wherever she looked and tapestries catching fire. Well, that was how it seemed, anyway.

  "I’ve come to see Rand," Egwene said. "Walking in from the tents seemed as good exercise as any." Certainly better than walking five or six times briskly around the city walls, the usual Aiel notion of light exercise. She hoped Sorilea did not ask why. She truly did not like lying to any of the Wise Ones.

  Sorilea stared at her a moment as if she had sniffed something hidden, then hitched her shawl up on narrow shoulders and said, "He is not here. He has gone to his school. Berelain Paeron suggests it would not be wise to follow him, and I agree."

  Keeping her face smooth was an effort for Egwene. That the Wise Ones would take to Berelain had been the last thing she expected. They treated her as a woman of sense and respect, which made no sense at all to Egwene, and not because Rand had given her authority. They cared not a twig for any wetlander authority. It seemed ridiculous. The Mayener woman flaunted herself in scandalous clothes and flirted outrageously — when she did not do more than flirt, as Egwene darkly believed she did. Not at all the sort of woman for Amys to smile on like a favorite daughter. Or Sorilea.

  Unbidden thoughts of Gawyn floated up in her head. It had only been a dream, and his dream at that. Certainly nothing like what Berelain did.

  "When a young woman’s cheeks redden for no apparent reason," Sorilea said, "there is usually a man involved. What man has attracted your interest? Can we expect to see you lay a bridal wreath at his feet soon?"

  "Aes Sedai seldom marry," Egwene told her coolly.

  The leather-faced woman’s snort sounded like cloth ripping. The Maidens and the Wise Ones, indeed all the Aiel, might have decided she was not Aes Sedai so long as she studied with Amys and the others, but Sorilea took it further. She seemed to think Egwene had become Aiel. Added to which, there was nowhere Sorilea did not think she had a right to stick a finger. "You will, girl. You are not one to become Far Dareis Mai and think men are a sport like hunting, if that. Those hips were made for babies, and you will have them."

  "Will you tell me where I can wait for Rand?" Egwene asked, more faintly than she would have liked. Sorilea was not a dreamwalker, able to interpret dreams, and she certainly had none of the Foretelling, but she could be so definite that what she said seemed inevitable. Gawyn’s babies. Light, how could she have Gawyn’s babies? In truth, Aes Sedai almost never married. Rare was the man who wanted to marry a woman who, with the Power, could handle him like a child if she chose.

  "This way," Sorilea said. "Is it Sanduin, that strapping True Blood I saw around Amys’ tent yesterday? That scar makes the rest of his face more handsome…"

  Sorilea continued to come up with names as she led Egwene through the palace, always watching from the corner of a shrewd eye for any reaction. She also did her best to list each man’s charms, and since this included describing what he looked like without clothes — Aiel men and women shared the same sweat tents — she certainly got enough blushes.

  By the time they reached the rooms where Rand would be spending the night, Egwene was more than glad to offer hasty thanks and firmly shut the sitting room door on her. Luckily, the Wise One must have had business of her own to see to, or she might well have pushed her way in.

  Drawing a deep breath, Egwene began smoothing her skirts and adjusting her shawl. They did not need it, but she felt as if she had been tumbled downhill. The woman more than liked to play matchmaker. She was capable of fashioning the bridal wreath for a woman, dragging her to lay it at the feet of the man Sorilea had chosen, and twisting his arm until he picked it up. Well, not exactly dragging and arm-twisting, but it came to the same thing. Of course, Sorilea would not take it that far with her. The thought made her giggle. After all, Sorilea did not really think she had become Aiel; she knew Egwene was Aes Sedai, or thought she was anyway. No, of course there was no reason to worry over that!

  With her hands on the folded gray scarf that held her hair back, she froze at the sound of soft footsteps in the bedchamber. If Rand could leap about from Caemlyn to Cairhien, perhaps he had leaped straight to his bedchamber. And perhaps someone — or something — was waiting for him. She embraced saidar and wove several nasty things, ready to use. A gai’shain woman came out, arms full of bundled sheets, and gave a start at the sight of her. Egwene released saidar and hoped she was not blushing again.

  Niella looked enough like Aviendha to startle at first glance in that deep-cowled white robe. Until you realized you had to add six or seven years to a face that was perhaps not quite so tanned, perhaps a little plumper. Aviendha’s sister had never been a Maiden of the Spear; a weaver instead, she had completed well over half her year and a day.

  Egwene offered no greeting; it would only embarrass Niella. "Do you expect Rand soon?" she asked.

  "The Car’a’carn will come when he comes," Niella replied, eyes meekly downcast. That truly appeared odd; Aviendha’s face, even plumper, did not go well with meekness. "It is for us to be ready when he comes."

  "Niella, do you have any idea why Aviendha would need to closet herself with Amys and Bair and Melaine?" It certainly had nothing to do with dreamwalking; Sorilea had as much ability there as Aviendha.

  "She is here? No, I know no reason." But Niella’s blue-green eyes narrowed slightly as soon as she spoke.

  "You do know something," Egwene insisted. She might as well take advantage of gai’shain obedience. "Tell me what it is, Niella."

  "I know that Aviendha will stripe me till I cannot sit if the Car’a’carn finds me standing here with dirty bedding," Niella said ruefully. Egwene did not know whether ji’e’toh was involved somehow, yet when they were together, Aviendha held her sister twice as strictly to account as any other gai’shain.

  Niella’s robe trailed across the patterned carpet as she glided hurriedly toward the door, but Egwene caught her sleeve. "When your time is up, will you put off the white?"

  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 severe
ly 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 anything 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

  (Lion Rampant)

  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.