The Great Hunt Read online

  “I will let them see me in the common room with these,” he said slowly. Whatever was seen in the common room at midday was known in ten Houses before nightfall, and in all of them by daybreak next. “I won’t break the seals. That way, they will know I have not answered either one yet. As long as they are waiting to see which way I jump, maybe I can earn a few more days. Ingtar has to come soon. He has to.”

  “Now that is thinking like a Cairhienin, my Lord,” Hurin said, grinning.

  Rand gave him a sour look, then stuffed the parchments into his pocket on top of Selene’s letters. “Let’s go, Loial. Maybe Ingtar has arrived.”

  When he and Loial reached the common room, no man and woman in it looked at Rand. Cuale was polishing a silver tray as if his life depended on its gleam. The serving girls hurried between the tables as if Rand and the Ogier did not exist. Every last person at the tables stared into his or her mug as if the secrets of power lay in wine or ale. Not one of them said a word.

  After a moment, he pulled the two invitations from his pocket and studied the seals, then stuck them back. Cuale gave a little jump as Rand started for the door. Before it closed behind him, he heard conversation spring up again.

  Rand strode down the street so fast that Loial did not have to shorten his stride to stay beside him. “We have to find a way out of the city, Loial. This trick with the invitations can’t work more than two or three days. If Ingtar doesn’t come by then, we must leave anyway.”

  “Agreed,” Loial said.

  “But how?”

  Loial began ticking off points on his thick fingers. “Fain is out there, or there would not have been Trollocs in the Foregate. If we ride out, they will be on us as soon as we are out of sight of the city. If we travel with a merchant train, they’ll certainly attack it.” No merchant would have more than five or six guards, and they would probably run as soon as they saw a Trolloc. “If only we knew how many Trollocs Fain has, and how many Darkfriends. You have cut his numbers down.” He did not mention the Trolloc he had killed, but from his frown, his long eyebrows hanging down onto his cheeks, he was thinking of it.

  “It doesn’t matter how many he has,” Rand said. “Ten are as bad as a hundred. If ten Trollocs attack us, I don’t think we’ll get away again.” He avoided thinking of the way he might, just might, deal with ten Trollocs. It had not worked when he tried to help Loial, after all.

  “I do not think we could, either. I don’t think we have money to take passage very far, but even so, if we tried to reach the Foregate docks—well, Fain must have Darkfriends watching. If he thought we were taking ship, I don’t believe he would care who saw the Trollocs. Even if we fought free of them somehow, we would have to explain ourselves to the city guards, and they would certainly not believe we cannot open the chest, so—”

  “We are not letting any Cairhienin see that chest, Loial.”

  The Ogier nodded. “And the city docks are no good, either.” The city docks were reserved for the grain barges and the pleasure craft of the lords and ladies. No one came to them without permission. One could look down on them from the wall, but it was a drop that would break even Loial’s neck. Loial wiggled his thumb as if trying to think of a point for that, too. “I suppose it is too bad we cannot reach Stedding Tsofu. Trollocs would never come into a stedding. But I don’t suppose they would let us get that far without attacking.”

  Rand did not answer. They had reached the big guardhouse just inside the gate by which they had first entered Cairhien. Outside, the Foregate teemed and milled, and a pair of guards kept watch on them. Rand thought a man, dressed in what had once been good Shienaran clothes, ducked back into the crowd at the sight of him, but he could not be sure. There were too many people in clothes from too many lands, all of them hurrying. He went up the steps into the guardhouse, past breastplated guards on either side of the door.

  The large anteroom had hard wooden benches for people with business there, mainly folk waiting with a humble patience, wearing the plain, dark garments that marked the poorer commoners. There were a few Foregaters among them, picked out by shabbiness and bright colors, no doubt hoping for permission to seek work inside the walls.

  Rand went straight to the long table in the back of the room. There was only one man seated behind it, not a soldier, with one green bar across his coat. A plump fellow whose skin looked too tight, he adjusted documents on the table and shifted the position of his inkwell twice before looking up at Rand and Loial with a false smile.

  “How may I help you, my Lord?”

  “The same way I hoped you could help me yesterday,” Rand said with more patience than he felt, “and the day before, and the day before that. Has Lord Ingtar come?”

  “Lord Ingtar, my Lord?”

  Rand took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Lord Ingtar of House Shinowa, from Shienar. The same man I have asked after every day I’ve come here.”

  “No one of that name has entered the city, my Lord.”

  “Are you certain? Don’t you need to look at your lists, at least?”

  “My Lord, the lists of foreigners who have come to Cairhien are exchanged among the guardhouses at sunrise and at sunset, and I examine them as soon as they come before me. No Shienaran lord has entered Cairhien in some time.”

  “And the Lady Selene? Before you ask again, I do not know her House. But I’ve given you her name, and I have described her to you three times. Isn’t that enough?”

  The man spread his hands. “I am sorry, my Lord. Not knowing her House makes it very difficult.” He had a bland look on his face. Rand wondered whether he would tell even if he knew.

  A movement at one of the doors behind the desk caught Rand’s eye—a man starting to step into the anteroom, then turning away hurriedly. “Perhaps Captain Caldevwin can help me,” Rand told the clerk.

  “Captain Caldevwin, my Lord?”

  “I just saw him behind you.”

  “I am sorry, my Lord. If there was a Captain Caldevwin in the guardhouse, I would know.”

  Rand stared at him until Loial touched his shoulder. “Rand, I think we might as well go.”

  “Thank you for your help,” Rand said in a tight voice. “I will return tomorrow.”

  “It is my pleasure to do what I may,” the man said with his false smile.

  Rand stalked out of the guardhouse so fast that Loial had to hurry to catch him up in the street. “He was lying, you know, Loial.” He did not slow down, but rather hurried along as if he could burn away some of his frustration through physical exertion. “Caldevwin was there. He could be lying about all of it. Ingtar could already be here, looking for us. I’ll bet he knows who Selene is, too.”

  “Perhaps, Rand. Daes Dae’mar—”

  “Light, I’m tired of hearing about the Great Game. I don’t want to play it. I do not want to be any part of it.” Loial walked beside him, saying nothing. “I know,” Rand said at last. “They think I’m a lord, and in Cairhien, even outland lords are part of the Game. I wish I’d never put on this coat.” Moiraine, he thought bitterly. She’s still causing me trouble. Almost immediately, though, if reluctantly, he admitted that she could hardly be blamed for this. There had always been some reason to pretend to be what he was not. First keeping Hurin’s spirits up, and then trying to impress Selene. After Selene, there had not seemed to be any way out of it. His steps slowed until he came to a halt. “When Moiraine let me go, I thought things would be simple again. Even chasing after the Horn, even with—with everything, I thought it would be simple.” Even with saidin inside your head? “Light, what I wouldn’t give to have everything be simple again.”

  “Ta’veren,” Loial began.

  “I do not want to hear about that, either.” Rand started off again as fast as before. “All I want is to give the dagger to Mat, and the Horn to Ingtar.” Then what? Go mad? Die? If I die before I go mad, at least I won’t hurt anybody else. But I don’t want to die, either. Lan can talk about Sheathing the Sword, but I’m a sh
epherd, not a Warder. “If I can just not touch it,” he muttered, “maybe I can. . . . Owyn almost made it.”

  “What, Rand? I didn’t hear that.”

  “It was nothing,” Rand said wearily. “I wish Ingtar would get here. And Mat, and Perrin.”

  They walked along in silence for a time, with Rand lost in thought. Thom’s nephew had lasted almost three years by channeling only when he thought he had to. If Owyn had managed to limit how often he channeled, it must be possible to not channel at all, no matter how seductive saidin was.

  “Rand,” Loial said, “there’s a fire up ahead.”

  Rand got rid of his unwelcome thoughts and looked off into the city, frowning. A thick column of black smoke billowed up above the rooftops. He could not see what lay at the base of it, but it was too close to the inn.

  “Darkfriends,” he said, staring at the smoke. “Trollocs can’t come inside the walls without being seen, but Darkfriends. . . . Hurin!” He broke into a run, Loial easily keeping pace beside him.

  The closer they came, the more certain it was, until they rounded the last stone-terraced corner and there was The Defender of the Dragonwall, smoke pouring out of its upper windows and flames breaking through the roof. A crowd had gathered in front of the inn. Cuale, shouting and jumping about, was directing men carrying furnishings out into the street. A double line of men passed inside buckets filled with water from a well down the street and empty buckets back out. Most of the people only stood and watched; a new gout of flame burst through the slate roof, and they gave a loud aaaah.

  Rand pushed through the crowd to the innkeeper. “Where is Hurin?”

  “Careful with that table!” Cuale shouted. “Do not scrape it!” He looked at Rand and blinked. His face was smudged with smoke. “My Lord? Who? Your manservant? I do not remember seeing him, my Lord. No doubt he went out. Do not drop those candlesticks, fool! They are silver!” Cuale danced off to harangue the men lugging his belongings out of the inn.

  “Hurin wouldn’t have gone out,” Loial said. “He would not have left the. . . .” He looked around and left it unsaid; some of the onlookers seemed to find an Ogier as interesting as the fire.

  “I know,” Rand said, and plunged into the inn.

  The common room hardly seemed as if the building were on fire. The double line of men stretched up the stairs, passing their buckets, and others scrambled to carry out what furniture was left, but there was no more smoke down here than if something had been burning the kitchen. As Rand pressed upstairs, it began to thicken. Coughing, he ran up the steps.

  The lines stopped short of the second landing, men halfway up the stairs hurling their water up into a smoke-filled hallway. Flames licking up the walls flickered red through the black smoke.

  One of the men grabbed Rand’s arm. “You cannot go up there, my Lord. It is all lost above here. Ogier, speak to him.”

  It was the first Rand realized that Loial had followed him. “Go back, Loial. I’ll bring him out.”

  “You cannot carry Hurin and the chest both, Rand.” The Ogier shrugged. “Besides, I won’t leave my books to burn.”

  “Then keep low. Under the smoke.” Rand dropped to his hands and knees on the stairs, and scrambled up the rest of the way. There was cleaner air down near the floor; still smoky enough to make him cough, but he could breathe it. Yet even the air seemed blistering hot. He could not get enough of it through his nose. He breathed through his mouth, and felt his tongue drying.

  Some of the water the men threw landed on him, soaking him to the skin. The coolness was only a momentary relief; the heat came right back. He crawled on determinedly, aware of Loial behind him only from the Ogier’s coughing.

  One wall of the hallway was almost solid flame, and the floor near it had already begun to add thin tendrils to the cloud that hung over his head. He was glad he could not see what lay above the smoke. Ominous crackling told enough.

  The door to Hurin’s room had not caught yet, but it was hot enough that he had to try twice before he could manage to push it open. The first thing to meet his eye was Hurin, sprawled on the floor. Rand crawled to the sniffer and lifted him up. There was a lump on the side of his head the size of a plum.

  Hurin opened unfocused eyes. “Lord Rand?” he murmured faintly. “. . . knock at the door . . . thought it was more invi. . . .” His eyes rolled back in his head. Rand felt for a heartbeat, and sagged with relief when he found it.

  “Rand. . . .” Loial coughed. He was beside his bed, with the covers thrown up to reveal the bare boards underneath. The chest was gone.

  Above the smoke, the ceiling creaked, and flaming pieces of wood fell to the floor.

  Rand said, “Get your books. I will take Hurin. Hurry.” He started to drape the limp sniffer over his shoulders, but Loial took Hurin from him.

  “The books will have to burn, Rand. You can’t carry him and crawl, and if you stand up, you will never reach the stairs.” The Ogier pulled Hurin up onto his broad back, arms and legs hanging to either side. The ceiling gave a loud crack. “We must hurry, Rand.”

  “Go, Loial. Go, and I’ll follow.”

  The Ogier crawled into the hall with his burden, and Rand started after him. Then he stopped, staring back at the connecting door to his room. The banner was still in there. The banner of the Dragon. Let it burn, he thought, and an answering thought came as if he had heard Moiraine say it. Your life may depend on it. She’s still trying to use me. Your life may depend on it. Aes Sedai never lie.

  With a groan, he rolled across the floor and kicked open the door to his room.

  The other room was a mass of flame. The bed was a bonfire, red runners already crossed the floor. There would be no crawling across that. Getting to his feet, he ran crouching into the room, flinching from the heat, coughing, choking. Steam rose from his damp coat. One side of the wardrobe was already burning. He snatched open the door. His saddlebags lay inside, still protected from the fire, one side bulging with the banner of Lews Therin Telamon, the wooden flute case beside them. For an instant, he hesitated. I could still let it burn.

  The ceiling above him groaned. He grabbed saddlebags and flute case and threw himself back through the door, landing on his knees as burning timbers crashed where he had stood. Dragging his burden, he crawled into the hall. The floor shook with more falling beams.

  The men with the buckets were gone when he reached the stairs. He all but slid down the steps to the next landing, scrambled to his feet and ran through the now-empty building into the street. The onlookers stared at him, with his face blackened and his coat covered with smut, but he staggered to where Loial had propped Hurin against the wall of a house across the street. A woman from the crowd was wiping Hurin’s face with a cloth, but his eyes were still closed, and his breath came in heaves.

  “Is there a Wisdom nearby?” Rand demanded. “He needs help.” The woman looked at him blankly, and he tried to remember the other names he had heard people call the women who would be Wisdoms in the Two Rivers. “A Wise Woman? A woman you call Mother somebody? A woman who knows herbs and healing?”

  “I am a Reader, if that is what you mean,” the woman said, “but all I know to do for this one is to make him comfortable. Something is broken inside his head, I fear.”

  “Rand! It is you!”

  Rand stared. It was Mat, leading his horse through the crowd, with his bow strung across his back. A Mat whose face was pale and drawn, but still Mat, and grinning, if weakly. And behind him came Perrin, his yellow eyes shining in the fire and earning as many looks as the blaze. And Ingtar, dismounting in a high-collared coat instead of armor, but still with his sword hilt sticking up over his shoulder.

  Rand felt a shiver run through him. “It’s too late,” he told them. “You came too late.” And he sat down in the street and began to laugh.

  CHAPTER

  31

  On the Scent

  Rand did not know Verin was there until the Aes Sedai took his face in her hands. For a m
oment he could see worry in her face, perhaps even fear, and then suddenly he felt as if he had been doused with cold water, not the wet but the tingle. He gave one abrupt shudder and stopped laughing; she left him to crouch over Hurin. The Reader watched her carefully. So did Rand. What is she doing here? As if I didn’t know.

  “Where did you go?” Mat demanded hoarsely. “You all just disappeared, and now you’re in Cairhien ahead of us. Loial?” The Ogier shrugged uncertainly and eyed the crowd, his ears twitching. Half the people had turned from the fire to watch the newcomers. A few edged closer trying to listen.

  Rand let Perrin give him a hand up. “How did you find the inn?” He glanced at Verin, kneeling with her hands on the sniffer’s head. “Her?”

  “In a way,” Perrin said. “The guards at the gate wanted our names, and a fellow coming out of the guardhouse gave a jump when he heard Ingtar’s name. He said he didn’t know it, but he had a smile that shouted ‘lie’ a mile off.”

  “I think I know the man you mean,” Rand said. “He smiles that way all the time.”

  “Verin showed him her ring,” Mat put in, “and whispered in his ear.” He looked and sounded sick, his cheeks flushed and tight, but he managed a grin. Rand had never noticed his cheekbones before. “I couldn’t hear what she said, but I didn’t know whether his eyes were going to pop out of his head or he was going to swallow his tongue first. All of a sudden, he couldn’t do enough for us. He told us you were waiting for us, and right where you were staying. Offered to guide us himself, but he really looked relieved when Verin told him no.” He snorted. “Lord Rand of House al’Thor.”

  “It’s too long a story to explain now,” Rand said. “Where are Uno and the rest? We will need them.”

  “In the Foregate.” Mat frowned at him, and went on slowly, “Uno said they’d rather stay there than inside the walls. From what I can see, I’d rather be with them. Rand, why will we need Uno? Have you found . . . them?”

  It was the moment Rand realized suddenly he had been avoiding. He took a deep breath and looked his friend in the eye. “Mat, I had the dagger, and I lost it. The Darkfriends took it back.” He heard gasps from the Cairhienin listening, but he did not care. They could play their Great Game if they wanted, but Ingtar had come, and he was finished with it at last. “They can’t have gone far, though.”