The Wheel of Time Read online

  She felt a growing irritation over that, but with herself, not Myrelle. One thing every Accepted agreed on was that whatever the sisters did to you in the test would be worse than anything your friends could think of. And if they were your friends, they would do the worst they could think of, short of actual harm, to help you prepare. Light, if Myrelle and Siuan could make her fail six times in so short a time, what hope did she have in the actual test? But she kept on with unbending determination. She would pass, and on her first try. She would!

  She was making that second weave yet again when the door opened once more, and she let the flows vanish, reluctantly let go of saidar altogether. There was always a reluctance to let go. Life seemed to drain away along with the Power; the world became drab. But she would not have had time to finish in any case before her novice class. Accepted were not allowed clocks, which were too expensive for most to afford in any event, and the gongs that sounded the hour were not always audible inside the Tower, so it was best if you developed a keen sense of time. Accepted were no more permitted to be late than novices were.

  The woman who stood holding the door open was not a friend. Taller than Siuan, Tarna Feir was from the north of Altara, close to Andor, but her pale yellow hair was not her only difference from Myrelle. Accepted were not allowed to be arrogant, yet one look into those cold blue eyes told you that she was. She possessed no sense of humor, either, and as far as anyone knew, she had never played a joke on anyone. Tarna had gained the ring a year before Siuan and Moiraine, after nine years as a novice, and she had had few friends as a novice and few now. She did not seem to notice the lack. A very different woman from Myrelle.

  “I should have expected to find you two together,” she said coolly. There never seemed to be any heat in her. “I can’t understand why you don’t just move into the same room. Are you joining Siuan’s coterie now, Myrelle?” All said matter-of-factly, yet Myrelle’s eyes began to flash. The glow had vanished from Siuan, but Myrelle still held the Power. Moiraine hoped she was not rash enough to use it.

  “Go away, Tarna,” Siuan said with a quick dismissive gesture. “We’re busy. And close the door.” Tarna did not move.

  “I have to hurry to make my novice class,” Moiraine said, to Siuan. Tarna, she ignored. “They are just learning how to make a ball of fire, and if I am not there, one of them is sure to try it anyway.” Novices were forbidden to channel or even embrace the Source without a sister or one of the Accepted looking over their shoulders, but they did anyway, given half a chance. New girls never really believed the dangers involved, while the older were always sure they knew how to avoid those dangers.

  “The novices have been given a freeday,” Tarna said, “so no classes today.” Being dismissed and ignored did not disconcert her a bit. Nothing did. No doubt Tarna would pass for the shawl on her first try with ease. “The Accepted are summoned to the Oval Lecture Hall. The Amyrlin is going to address us. One other thing you should know. Gitara Moroso died just a few hours ago.”

  The light surrounding Myrelle winked out. “So that’s the secret you were keeping!” she exclaimed. Her eyes flashed hotter than they had for Tarna.

  “I told you it wasn’t ours to share,” Siuan replied. An Aes Sedai answer if ever there was one. It was enough to make Myrelle nod agreement, however reluctantly. And that nod was reluctant. Her eyes did not lose their heat. Moiraine expected that she and Siuan might soon have surprising encounters with ice.

  Still holding the door open—was the woman immune to the cold, like a sister?—Tarna studied Moiraine and then Siuan. “That’s right; you two would have been in attendance. What happened? All the rest of us have heard is that she died.”

  “I was handing her a cup of tea when she gasped and fell dead in my arms,” Moiraine replied. And that was an even better Aes Sedai answer than Siuan’s, every word true while avoiding the whole truth.

  To her surprise, an expression of sadness crossed Tarna’s face. It was fleeting, but it had been there. Tarna never showed emotion. She was carved from stone. “Gitara Sedai was a great woman,” she murmured. “She will be badly missed.”

  “Why is the Amyrlin going to speak to us?” Moiraine asked. Plainly Gitara’s death had already been announced, and by custom, her funeral would be tomorrow, so there was no need to announce that. Surely Tamra did not mean to tell the Accepted about the Foretelling?

  “I don’t know,” Tarna replied, all coolness once more. “But I shouldn’t have stood here talking. Everyone else was told to leave breakfast immediately. If we run, we can just make it before the Amyrlin arrives.”

  Accepted were required to maintain a certain amount of dignity, preparation for the day they reached the shawl. They certainly were never supposed to run unless ordered to. But run they did, Tarna as hard as the rest of them, hiking their skirts to their knees and ignoring the startled looks of liveried servants in the corridors. Aes Sedai did not keep the Amyrlin Seat waiting. Accepted never even thought of it.

  The Oval Lecture Hall, with its wide scrollwork crown running beneath a gently domed ceiling painted with sky and white clouds, was seldom used. Moiraine and the others were the last of the Accepted to arrive, yet the rows of polished wooden benches were less than a quarter filled. The babble of voices, Accepted offering suggestions of why the Amyrlin would address them, seemed to emphasize how few they were compared to what the chamber had been built to hold. Moiraine put dwindling numbers firmly out of her head. Maybe, if the sisters…. No. She would not brood.

  Thankfully, the dais at the front of the hall was still empty. She and Siuan found places at the back of the crowd, and Tarna sat beside them, but clearly not with them. The woman wore aloofness like a cloak. Myrelle, still in a huff over not being told about Gitara, stalked around to the other end of the row. Half the women in the room seemed to be talking, all on top of one another. It was nearly impossible to make out what anyone in particular was saying, and the little Moiraine did hear was utter nonsense. All of them to be tested for the shawl? Immediately? Aledrin must have brain fever to be spouting such drivel. Well, she was excitable. Brendas was even worse. Normally sensible, she was claiming they were all to be sent home because Gitara had Foretold the end of the White Tower, or maybe of the world, before she died. Likely by noon there would be a dozen tales about Gitara having a Foretelling if there were not more than that already—rumors grew in the Accepted’s quarters like roses in a hothouse—but Moiraine still did not like hearing one. To keep their secret, she was going to have to spin the truth like a top, at least for the next few days. She hoped she was up to it.

  “Does anybody know anything,” Siuan asked the Accepted next to her, a slim, very dark woman with straight black hair hanging to her waist and a scattering of black tattoos on her hands, “or is it all just wind?”

  Zemaille regarded her soberly for a moment before saying, “Wind, I think.” Zemaille always took her time. For that matter, she was always sober and thoughtful. Very likely, she would choose Brown when she was raised. Or perhaps White.

  She was a rarity in the Tower, one of the Sea Folk, the Atha’an Miere. There were only four Sea Folk Aes Sedai, all Browns, and two of them were almost as old as Gitara had been. Atha’an Miere girls never came to the Tower unless they manifested the spark or managed to begin learning on their own. In either case, a delegation of Sea Folk delivered the girl, then left as soon as they could. The Atha’an Miere disliked being very long away from salt water, and the nearest sea to Tar Valon lay four hundred leagues to the south.

  Zemaille, though, seemed to want to forget her origins. At least, she would never talk about the Sea Folk unless pressed by an Aes Sedai. And she was diligent, intently focused on earning the shawl from her first day, so Moiraine had heard, though she was not quick to learn. Not slower than most, just not quick. She had been Accepted for eight years, now, and ten years a novice before that, and Moiraine had seen her fumble a weave time after time before suddenly setting it so perfectly that you wonde
red why she had failed before. But then, everyone progressed at her own pace, and the Tower never pushed harder than you could go.

  A tall Accepted on the row in front of them, Aisling Noon, twisted around. She was almost bouncing on the bench with excitement. “It’s the Foretelling, I say. Gitara had a Foretelling before she died, and the Amyrlin is going to tell us what it was. You two had the duty this morning, didn’t you? You were with her when she died. What did she say?”

  Siuan stiffened, and Moiraine opened her mouth to lie, but Tarna saved her. “Moiraine told me Gitara didn’t have a Foretelling, Aisling. We’ll find out what the Amyrlin wants to tell us when she arrives.” Her voice was cool, as always, but not cutting. Aisling blushed furiously anyway.

  She was another rarity for the Tower, one of the Tuatha’an, the Tinkers. The Tuatha’an lived in garishly painted wagons, traveling from village to village, and like the Sea Folk, they wanted no self-taught wilders among them. If a band discovered the spark coming out in one of their girls, they turned their train of wagons and headed for Tar Valon as fast as their horses could move. Verin, a stout Brown who was even shorter than Moiraine, said that Tinker girls never tried to find their way to channeling on their own, that they did not want to channel or become Aes Sedai. It must be so, since Verin had said it, yet Aisling applied herself with just as much determination as Zemaille, and with more success. She had earned the ring in five years, in the same year as Moraine and Siuan, and Moiraine thought she might test for the shawl in another year, perhaps less.

  One of the doors at the back of the dais opened, and Tamra glided out, still in the blue dress she had worn the night before, the Amyrlin’s stole draped around her neck. Moiraine was one of the first to see her, the first to rise, but in moments everyone was on her feet and silent. It seemed strange to see the Amyrlin by herself. Always when Tamra was seen in the corridors, she was accompanied by at least a few Aes Sedai, whether ordinary sisters presenting petitions or Sitters in the Hall of the Tower discussing some matter that was before the Hall. She looked weary, to Moiraine. Oh, her back was straight, and her expression said she could walk through a wall if she took it in mind, but something about her eyes spoke of tiredness that had little to do with missing sleep.

  “In thanksgiving for the continued safety of Tar Valon,” she said, her voice carrying easily to everyone, “I have decided the Tower will give a bounty of one hundred crowns in gold to every woman in the city who bore a child between the day the first soldiers arrived and the day the threat is ended. It is being announced on the streets even as I speak.”

  Everyone knew better than to make a sound while the Amyrlin was speaking, yet that brought a few murmurs, including one from Siuan. Actually, hers was more of a grunt. She had never seen ten gold crowns in one place, much less a hundred. A hundred would buy a very large farm, or who knew how many fishing boats.

  Ignoring the break in the proprieties, Tamra continued without a pause. “As some of you may already know, an army is always accompanied by camp followers, sometimes more camp followers than there are soldiers. Many of these are craftsfolk an army needs, the armorers and fletchers, the blacksmiths and farriers and wagonwrights, but among them are soldiers’ wives and other women. Since the army provided the shield to Tar Valon, I have decided to extend the bounty to those women also.”

  Moiraine realized she was biting at her lower lip, and made herself stop. It was a habit she was trying to break. There was certainly no point to letting anyone who saw you know that you were thinking furiously. At least now they knew what Tamra was after. She must believe the boychild really would be born soon. But why under the Light tell Accepted?

  “That threat might continue for some time,” Tamra said, “though I have reports this morning that the Aiel may be retreating, yet the situation appears safe enough to begin collecting names, at least in the camps closest to the city. To be fair to those women, we must begin as soon as possible, before any of them leave. Some will, if the Aiel really are going. Many of the soldiers will follow the Aiel, soon to be joined by their camp followers, and other soldiers will return to their homes. No sisters have returned to the Tower yet, so I am sending all of you to begin taking names. Since, inevitably, some women will slip away before you find them, you also will ask after those who gave birth and can’t be found. Write down everything that might help locate them. Who the father is, from what town or village, what country, everything. You will each be accompanied by four Tower Guards to make sure no one troubles you.”

  Moiraine almost choked trying to keep silent. Astonished gasps rose from women less successful than she. It was rare enough for Accepted to be allowed to leave the city, but without a sister? That was unheard of!

  With a small, indulgent smile, Tamra paused to let order restore itself. She plainly knew she had startled them out of their wits. She also apparently heard something that Moiraine did not catch. As silence fell again, the Amyrlin said, “If I hear that someone has used the Power to defend herself, Alanna, that someone will sit very tenderly after a visit to the Mistress of Novices.”

  A few of the Accepted were still unsettled enough to giggle, and one or two laughed aloud. Alanna was a shy woman at heart, but she worked hard at being fierce. She told anyone who would listen that she wanted to belong to the Green, the Battle Ajah, and have a dozen Warders. Only Greens bonded more than a single Warder. None had that many Warders, of course, but that was Alanna, always exaggerating.

  Tamra slapped her palms together, quieting gigglers and laughers alike at a stroke. There were limits to her indulgence. “You will all take great care, and heed the soldiers escorting you.” There were no smiles, now. Her voice was firm. The Amyrlin Seat brooked no nonsense from rulers; she certainly would not from Accepted. “The Aiel are not the only danger outside Tar Valon’s walls. Some may think you are Aes Sedai, and you may let them so long as you aren’t foolish enough to claim that you are.” That deepened the stillness; claiming to be Aes Sedai when you were not violated a Tower law that was enforced strictly, even against women who were not initiates of the Tower. “But there are ruffians who will see only a youthful woman’s face. Easy prey, they might think, if not for your escort. Better to remove temptation and avoid the problem altogether. And don’t forget that there are Children of the Light in the army. A Whitecloak will know an Accepted’s dress when he sees one, and if he can safely put an arrow through her back, it will please him as much as if she were Aes Sedai.”

  It hardly seemed possible the room could grow any quieter, yet it did. Moiraine thought she could have heard people breathing, except that no one seemed to be breathing. When an Aes Sedai went out into the world and vanished, as sometimes happened, the first thought was always the Whitecloaks. The Children called Aes Sedai Darkfriends and claimed that touching the One Power was blasphemy punishable by death, a sentence they were all too willing to carry out. No one could understand why they had come to help defend Tar Valon. No one among the Accepted, at least.

  The Amyrlin ran her eyes slowly along the rows. At last she gave a nod, satisfied that her warning had sunk in. “Horses are being saddled for you at the West Stable. There will be food for midday in the saddlebags, and everything else you will need. Now, return to your rooms, put on stout shoes, and fetch your cloaks. It will be a long day for you, and cold. Go in the Light.” It was a dismissal, and they offered curtsies almost as one, but as they began moving toward the door to the corridor, she added, as though it had just occurred to her, “Oh, yes.” The words jerked everyone to a halt. “When you record the woman’s name, also put down the infant’s name and sex, the day he or she was born, and exactly where. The Tower’s records must be complete in this matter. You may go.” Just as though what she had left till last was not the most important thing. That was how Aes Sedai hid things in plain sight. Some said Aes Sedai had invented the Game of Houses.

  Moiraine could not help exchanging excited glances with Siuan. Siuan absolutely hated anything that smacked of c
lerical work, but she wore a wide grin. They were going to help find the Dragon Reborn. Just his name, of course, and his mother’s name, but it was as near to an adventure as Accepted could dare to hope for.

  Chapter

  4

  Leaving the Tower

  Moiraine’s room was little different from Siuan’s. Her small square table, with four books lying on it, and the two cushionless straight-backed chairs could have come from the same farmhouse that had provided Siuan’s. Her bed was narrower, her Illianer carpet round and flowered, and darned in several places, while on her washstand, it was the basin that had taken a blow sometime in the past. The mirror had a crack in one corner. Apart from that, they could have been the same room. She did not bother with starting a fire. She had banked her coals more carefully than Siuan, but there was no time to so much as take the edge off the room’s chill.

  Reaching into the back of her wardrobe, slightly larger than Siuan’s but just as plain, she brought out a stout pair of shoes that made her grimace. Ugly things, made of leather much thicker than her slippers. The laces could have done to mend a saddle. But the shoes would keep her feet dry in the snow, and her slippers would not. Adding a pair of woolen stockings, she sat on the edge of her unmade bed to pull them on over those she was already wearing. For a moment, she considered donning a second shift, as well. However cold it was inside the Tower, it would be colder where she was going. But time was short. And besides, she did not want to take off her dress in that icy air. Surely recording names would be done in some sort of shelter, with a fire or a brazier for warmth. Of course it would. Most people in the camps likely would take them for sisters, just as Tamra had suggested.