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Chapter 35

Caemlyn


Rand twisted up to kneel behind the driver's seat. He could not help laughing with relief. "We made it,
Mat! I told you we'd . . ." Words died in his mouth as his eyes fell on Caemlyn. After Baerlon, even
more after the ruins of Shadar Logoth, he had thought he knew what a great city would look like, but
this . . .this was more than he would have believed.
Outside the great wall, buildings clustered as if every town he had passed through had been gathered and
set down there, side-by-side and all pushed together. Inns thrust their upper stories above the tile roofs of
houses, and squat warehouses, broad and windowless, shouldered against them all. Red brick and gray stone
and plastered white, jumbled and mixed together, they spread as far as the eye could see. Baerlon could have
vanished into it without being noticed, and Whitebridge swallowed up twenty times over with hardly a ripple.
And the wall itself. The sheer, fifty-foot height of pale gray stone, streaked with silver and white, swept
out in a great circle, curving to north and south till he wondered how far it must run. All along its length towers
rose, round and standing high above the wall's own height, red-and-white banners whipping in the wind atop
each one. From inside the wall other towers peeked out, slender towers even taller than those at the walls, and
domes gleaming white and gold in the sun. A thousand stories had painted cities in his mind, the great cities of
kings and queens, of thrones and powers and legends, and Caemlyn fit into those mind-deep pictures as water
fits into a jug.
The cart creaked down the wide road toward the city, toward tower-flanked gates. The wagons of a
merchants' train rolled out of those gates, under a vaulting archway in the stone that could have let a giant
through, or ten giants abreast. Unwalled markets lined the road on both sides, roof tiles glistening red and
purple, with stalls and pens in the spaces between. Calves bawled, cattle lowed, geese honked, chickens
clucked, goats bleated, sheep baaed, and people bargained at the top of their lungs. A wall of noise funneled
them toward the gates of Caemlyn.
"What did I tell you?" Bunt had to raise his voice to near a shout in order to be heard. "The grandest city
in the world. Built by Ogier, you know. Least, the Inner City and the Palace were. It's that old, Caemlyn is.
Caemlyn, where good Queen Morgase, the Light illumine her, makes the law and holds the peace for Andor.
The greatest city on earth."
Rand was ready to agree. His mouth hung open, and he wanted to put his hands over his ears to shut out
the din. People crowded the road, as thick as folk in Emond's Field crowded the Green at Bel Tine. He
remembered thinking there were too many people in Baerlon to be believed, and almost laughed. He looked at
Mat and grinned. Mat did have his hands over his ears, and his shoulders were hunched up as if he wanted to
cover them with those, too.
"How are we going to hide in this?" he demanded loudly when he saw Rand looking. "How can we tell
who to trust with so many? So bloody many. Light, the noise!"
Rand looked at Bunt before answering. The farmer was caught up in staring at the city; with the noise,
he might not have heard anyway. Still, Rand put his mouth close to Mat's ear. "How can they find us among so
many? Can't you see it, you wool-headed idiot? We're safe, if you ever learn to watch your bloody tongue!" He
flung out a hand to take in everything, the markets, the city walls still ahead. "Look at it, Mat! Anything could
happen here. Anything! We might even find Moiraine waiting for us, and Egwene, and all the rest."
"If they're alive. If you ask me, they're as dead as the gleeman."
The grin faded from Rand's face, and he turned to watch the gates come nearer. Anything could happen
in a city like Caemlyn. He held that thought stubbornly.
The horse could not move any faster, flap the reins as Bunt would; the closer to the gates they came, the
thicker the crowd grew, jostling together shoulder to shoulder, pressing against the carts and wagons heading in.
Rand was glad to see a good many were dusty young men afoot with little in the way of belongings. Whatever
their ages, a lot of the crowd pushing toward the gates had a travel-worn look, rickety carts and tired horses,
clothes wrinkled from many nights of sleeping rough, dragging steps and weary eyes. But weary or not, those
eyes were fixed on the gates as if getting inside the walls would strip away all their fatigue.
Half a dozen of the Queen's Guards stood at the gates, their clean red-and-white tabards and burnished
plate-and-mail a sharp contrast to most of the people streaming under the stone arch. Backs rigid and heads
straight, they eyed the incomers with disdainful wariness. It was plain they would just as soon have turned away
most of those coming in. Aside from keeping a way clear for traffic leaving the city, though, and having a hard
word with those who tried to push too fast, they did not hinder anyone.
"Keep your places. Don't push. Don't push, the Light blind you! There's room for everybody, the Light
help us. Keep your places."
Bunt's cart rolled past the gates with the slow tide of the throng, into Caemlyn.
The city rose on low hills, like steps climbing to a center. Another wall encircled that center, shining
pure white and running over the hills. Inside that were even more towers and domes, white and gold and purple,
their elevation atop the hills making them seem to look down on the rest of Caemlyn. Rand thought that must be
the Inner City of which Bunt had spoken.
The Caemlyn Road itself changed as soon as it was inside the city, becoming a wide boulevard, split
down the middle by broad strips of grass and trees. The grass was brown and the tree branches bare, but people
hurried by as if they saw nothing unusual, laughing, talking, arguing, doing all the things that people do. Just as
if they had no idea that there had been no spring yet this year and might be none. They did not see, Rand
realized, could not or would not. Their eyes slid away from leafless branches, and they walked across the dead
and dying grass without once looking down. What they did not see, they could ignore; what they did not see
was not really there.
Gaping at the city and the people, Rand was taken by surprise when the cart turned down a side street,
narrower than the boulevard, but still twice as wide as any street in Emond's Field. Bunt drew the horse to a halt
and turned to look back at them hesitantly. The traffic was a bit lighter here; the crowd split around the cart
without breaking stride.
"What you're hiding under your cloak, is it really what Holdwin says?"
Rand was in the act of tossing his saddlebags over his shoulder. He did not even twitch. "What do you
mean?" His voice was steady, too. His stomach was a sour knot, but his voice was steady.
Mat stifled a yawn with one hand, but he shoved the other under his coat - clutching the dagger from
Shadar Logoth, Rand knew - and his eyes had a hard, hunted look under the scarf around his head. Bunt avoided
looking at Mat, as if he knew there was a weapon in that hidden hand.
"Don't mean nothing, I suppose. Look, now, if you heard I was coming to Caemlyn, you were there long
enough to hear the rest. Was I after a reward, I'd have made some excuse to go in the Goose and Crown, speak
to Holdwin. Only I don't much like Holdwin, and I don't like that friend of his, not at all. Seems like he wants
you two more than he wants . . . anything else."
"I don't know what he wants," Rand said. "We've never seen him before." It might even be the truth; he
could not tell one Fade from another.
"Uh-huh. Well, like I say, I don't know nothing, and I guess I don't want to. There's enough trouble
around for everybody without I go looking for more."
Mat was slow in gathering his things, and Rand was already in the street before he started climbing
down. Rand waited impatiently. Mat turned stiffly from the cart, hugging bow and quiver and blanket roll to his
chest, muttering under his breath. Heavy shadows darkened the undersides of his eyes.
Rand's stomach rumbled, and he grimaced. Hunger combined with a sour twisting in his gut made him
afraid he was going to vomit. Mat was staring at him now, expectantly. Which way to go? What to do now?
Bunt leaned over and beckoned him closer. He went, hoping for advice about Caemlyn.
"I'd hide that . . ." The old farmer paused and looked around warily. People pushed by on both sides of
the cart, but except for a few passing curses about blocking the way, no one paid them any attention. "Stop
wearing it," he said, "hide it, sell it. Give it away. That's my advice. Thing like that's going to draw attention,
and I guess you don't want any of that."
Abruptly he straightened, clucking to his horse, and drove slowly on down the crowded street without
another word or a backward glance. A wagon loaded with barrels rumbled toward them. Rand jumped out of the
way, staggered, and when he looked again Bunt and his cart were lost to sight.
"What do we do now?" Mat demanded. He licked his lips, staring wide-eyed at all the people pushing by
and the buildings towering as much as six stories above the street. "We're in Caemlyn, but what do we do?" He
had uncovered his ears, but his hands twitched as if he wanted to put them back. A hum lay on the city, the low,
steady drone of hundreds of shops working, thousands of people talking. To Rand it was like being inside a
giant beehive, constantly buzzing. "Even if they are here, Rand, how could we find them in all of this?"
"Moiraine will find us," Rand said slowly. The immensity of the city was a weight on his shoulders; he
wanted to get away, to hide from all the people and noise. The void eluded him despite Tam's teachings; his
eyes drew the city into it. He concentrated instead on what was right around him, ignoring everything that lay
beyond. Just looking at that one street, it almost seemed like Baerlon. Baerlon, the last place they had all
thought they were safe. Nobody's safe anymore. Maybe they are all dead. What do you do then?
"They're alive! Egwene's alive!" he said fiercely. Several passersby looked at him oddly.
"Maybe," Mat said. "Maybe. What if Moiraine doesn't find us? What if nobody does but the . . . the. . . ."
He shuddered, unable to say it.
"We'll think about that when it happens," he told Mat firmly. "If it happens." The worst meant seeking
out Elaida, the Aes Sedai in the Palace. He would go on to Tar Valon, first. He did not know if Mat remembered
what Thom had said about the Red Ajah - and the Black – but he surely did. His stomach twisted again. "Thom
said to find an inn called The Queen's Blessing. We'll go there first."
"How? We can't afford one meal between the two of us."
"At least it's a place to start. Thom thought we could find help there."
"I can't. . . . Rand, they're everywhere." Mat dropped his eyes to the paving stones and seemed to shrink
in on himself, trying to pull away from the people that were all around them. "Wherever we go, they're right
behind us, or they're waiting for us. They'll be at The Queen's Blessing, too. I can't. . . . I. . . . Nothing's going to
stop a Fade."
Rand grabbed Mat's collar in a fist that he was trying hard to keep from trembling. He needed Mat.
Maybe the others were alive - Light, please! - but right then and there, it was just Mat and him. The thought of
going on alone . . . He swallowed hard, tasting bile.
He looked around quickly. No one seemed to have heard Mat mention the Fade; the crowd pressed past
lost in its own worries. He put his face close to Mat's. "We've made it this far, haven't we?" he asked in a hoarse
whisper. "They haven't caught us yet. We can make it all the way, if we just don't quit. I won't just quit and wait
for them like a sheep for slaughter. I won't! Well? Are you going to stand here till you starve to death? Or until
they come pick you up in a sack?"
He let go of Mat and turned away. His fingernails dug into his palms, but his hands still trembled.
Suddenly Mat was walking alongside him, his eyes still down, and Rand let out a long breath.
"I'm sorry, Rand," Mat mumbled.
"Forget it," Rand said.
Mat barely looked up enough to keep from walking into people while the words poured out in a lifeless
voice. "I can't stop thinking I'll never see home again. I want to go home. Laugh if you want; I don't care. What
I wouldn't give to have my mother blessing me out for something right now. It's like weights on my brain; hot
weights. Strangers all around, and no way to tell who to trust, if I can trust anybody. Light, the Two Rivers is so
far away it might as well be on the other side of the world. We're alone, and we'll never get home. We're going
to die, Rand."
"Not yet, we won't," Rand retorted. "Everybody dies. The Wheel turns. I'm not going to curl up and wait
for it to happen, though."
"You sound like Master al'Vere," Mat grumbled, but his voice had a little spirit in it.
"Good," Rand said. "Good." Light, let the others be all right. Please don't let us be alone.
He began asking directions to The Queen's Blessing. The responses varied widely, a curse for all those
who did not stay where they belonged or a shrug and a blank look being the most common. Some stalked on by
with no more than a glance, if that.
A broad-faced man, nearly as big as Perrin, cocked his head and said, "The Queen's Blessing, eh? You
country boys Queen's men?" He wore a white cockade on his wide-brimmed hat, and a white armband on his
long coat. "Well, you've come too late."
He went off roaring with laughter, leaving Rand and Mat to stare at one another in puzzlement. Rand
shrugged; there were plenty of odd folk in Caemlyn, people like he had never seen before.
Some of them stood out in the crowd, skins too dark or too pale, coats of strange cut or bright colors,
hats with pointed peaks or long feathers. There were women with veils across their faces, women in stiff dresses
as wide as the wearer was tall, women in dresses that left more skin bare than any tavernmaid he had seen.
Occasionally a carriage, all vivid paint and gilt, squeezed through the thronged streets behind a four - or sixhorse
team with plumes on their harness. Sedan chairs were everywhere, the polemen pushing along with never
a care for who they shoved aside.
Rand saw one fight start that way, a brawling heap of men swinging their fists while a pale-skinned man
in a red-striped coat climbed out of the sedan chair lying on its side. Two roughly dressed men, who seemed to
have been just passing by up till then, jumped on him before he was clear. The crowd that had stopped to watch
began to turn ugly, muttering and shaking fists. Rand pulled at Mat's sleeve and hurried on. Mat needed no
second urging. The roar of a small riot followed them down the street. Several times men approached the two of
them instead of the other way around. Their dusty clothes marked them as newcomers, and seemed to act like a
magnet on some types. Furtive fellows who offered relics of Logain for sale with darting eyes and feet set to
run. Rand calculated he was offered enough scraps of the false Dragon's cloak and fragments of his sword to
make two swords and half a dozen cloaks. Mat's face brightened with interest, the first time at least, but Rand
gave them all a curt no, and they took it with a bob of the head and a quick, "Light illumine the Queen, good
master," and vanished. Most of the shops had plates and cups painted with fanciful scenes purporting to show
the false Dragon being displayed before the Queen in chains. And there were Whitecloaks in the streets. Each
walked in an open space that moved with him, just as in Baerlon.
Staying unnoticed was something Rand thought about a great deal. He kept his cloak over his sword, but
that would not be good enough for very long. Sooner or later someone would wonder what he was hiding. He
would not - could not - take Bunt's advice to stop wearing it, not his link to Tam. To his father.
Many others among the throng wore swords, but none with the heron-mark to pull the eye. All the
Caemlyn men, though, and some of the strangers, had their swords wound in strips of cloth, sheath and hilt, red
bound with white cord, or white bound with red. A hundred heron-marks could be hidden under those
wrappings and no one would see. Besides, following local fashion would make them seem to fit in more.
A good many shops were fronted with tables displaying the cloth and cord, and Rand stopped at one.
The red cloth was cheaper than the white, though he could see no difference apart from the color, so he bought
that and the white cord to go with it, despite Mat's complaints about how little money they had left. The tightlipped
shopkeeper eyed them up and down with a twist to his mouth while he took Rand's coppers, and cursed
them when Rand asked for a place inside to wrap his sword.
"We didn't come to see Logain," Rand said patiently. "We just came to see Caemlyn." He remembered
Bunt, and added, "The grandest city in the world." The shopkeeper's grimace remained in place. "The Light
illumine good Queen Morgase," Rand said hopefully.
"You make any trouble," the man said sourly, "and there's a hundred men in sound of my voice will take
care of you even if the Guards won't." He paused to spit, just missing Rand's foot. "Get on about your filthy
business. "
Rand nodded as if the man had bid him a cheerful farewell, and pulled Mat away. Mat kept looking back
over his shoulder toward the shop, growling to himself, until Rand tugged him into an empty alleyway. With
their backs to the street no passerby could see what they were doing. Rand pulled off the sword belt and set to
wrapping the sheath and hilt.
"I'll bet he charged you double for that bloody cloth," Mat said. "Triple."
It was not as easy as it looked, fastening the strips of cloth and the cord so the whole thing would not fall
off.
"They'll all be trying to cheat us, Rand. They think we've come to see the false Dragon, like everybody
else. We'll be lucky if somebody doesn't hit us on the head while we sleep. This is no place to be. There are too
many people. Let's leave for Tar Valon now. Or south, to Illian. I wouldn't mind seeing them gather for the
Hunt of the Horn. If we can't go home, let's just go." .
"I'm staying," Rand said. "If they're not here already, they'll come here sooner or later, looking for us."
He was not sure if he had the wrappings done the way everyone else did, but the herons on scabbard and
hilt were hidden and he thought it was secure. As he went back out on the street, he was sure that he had one
less thing to worry about causing trouble. Mat trailed along beside him as reluctantly as if he were being pulled
on a leash.
Bit by bit Rand did get the directions he wanted. At first they were vague, on the order of "somewhere in
that direction" and "over that way." The nearer they came, though, the clearer the instructions, until at last they
stood before a broad stone building with a sign over the door creaking in the wind. A man kneeling before a
woman with red-gold hair and a crown, one of her hands resting on his bowed head. The Queen's Blessing.
"Are you sure about this?" Mat asked.
"Of course," Rand said. He took a deep breath and pushed open the door.
The common room was large and paneled with dark wood, and fires on two hearths warmed it. A
serving maid was sweeping the floor, though it was clean, and another was polishing candlesticks in the corner.
Each smiled at the two newcomers before going back to her work.
Only a few tables had people at them, but a dozen men was a crowd for so early in the day, and if none
looked exactly happy to see him and Mat, at least they looked clean and sober. The smells of roasting beef and
baking bread drifted from the kitchen, making Rand's mouth water.
The innkeeper was fat, he was pleased to see, a pink-faced man in a starched white apron, with graying
hair combed back over a bald spot that it did not quite cover. His sharp eye took them in from head to toe, dusty
clothes and bundles and worn boots, but he had a ready, pleasant smile, too. Basel Gill was his name.
"Master Gill," Rand said, "a friend of ours told us to come here. Thom Merrilin. He - " The innkeeper's
smile slipped. Rand looked at Mat, but he was too busy sniffing the aromas coming from the kitchen to notice
anything else. "Is something wrong? You do know him?"
"I know him," Gill said curtly. He seemed more interested in the flute case at Rand's side now, than in
anything else. "Come with me." He jerked his head toward the back. Rand gave Mat a jerk to get him started,
then followed, wondering what was going on.
In the kitchen, Master Gill paused to speak to the cook, a round woman with her hair in a bun at the back
of her head who almost matched the innkeeper pound for pound. She kept stirring her pots while Master Gill
talked. The smells were so good-two days' hunger made a fine sauce for anything, but this smelled as good as
Mistress al'Vere's kitchen-that Rand's stomach growled. Mat was leaning toward the pots, nose first. Rand
nudged him; Mat hastily wiped his chin where he had begun drooling.
Then the innkeeper was hurrying them out the back door. In the stableyard he looked around to make
sure no one was close, then rounded on them. On Rand. "What's in the case, lad?"
"Thom's flute," Rand said slowly. He opened the case, as if showing the gold-and-silver-chased flute
would help. Mat's hand crept under his coat.
Master Gill did not take his eyes off Rand. "Aye, I recognize it. I saw him play it often enough, and
there's not likely two like that outside a royal court." The pleasant smiles were gone, and his sharp eyes were
suddenly as sharp as a knife. "How did you come by it? Thom would part with his arm as soon as that flute."
"He gave it to me." Rand took Thom's bundled cloak from his back and set it on the ground, unfolding
enough to show the colored patches, as well as the end of the harp case. "Thom's dead, Master Gill. If he was
your friend, I'm sorry. He was mine, too."
"Dead, you say. How?"
"A . . . a man tried to kill us. Thom pushed this at me and told us to run." The patches fluttered in the
wind like butterflies. Rand's throat caught; he folded the cloak carefully back up again. "We'd have been killed
if it hadn't been for him. We were on our way to Caemlyn together. He told us to come here, to your inn. "
"I'll believe he's dead," the innkeeper said slowly, "when I see his corpse." He nudged the bundled cloak
with his toe and cleared his throat roughly. "Nay, nay, I believe you saw whatever it was you saw; I just don't
believe he's dead. He's a harder man to kill than you might believe, is old Thom Merrilin."
Rand put a hand on Mat's shoulder. "It's all right, Mat. He's a friend."
Master Gill glanced at Mat, and sighed. "I suppose I am at that."
Mat straightened up slowly, folding his arms over his chest. He was still watching the innkeeper warily,
though, and a muscle in his cheek twitched.
"Coming to Caemlyn, you say?" The innkeeper shook his head. "This is the last place on earth I'd expect
Thom to come, excepting maybe it was Tar Valon." He waited for a stableman to pass, leading a horse, and
even then he lowered his voice. "You've trouble with the Aes Sedai, I take it."
"Yes," Mat grumbled at the same time that Rand said, "What makes you think that?"
Master Gill chuckled dryly. "I know the man, that's what. He'd jump into that kind of trouble, especially
to help a couple of lads about the age of you . . . ." The reminiscence in his eyes flickered out, and he stood up
straight with a chary look. "Now . . . ah . . . I'm not making any accusations, mind, but . . . ah . . . I take it neither
of you can . . . ah . . . what I'm getting at is . . . ah . . . what exactly is the nature of your trouble with Tar Valon,
if you don't mind my asking?"
Rand's skin prickled as he realized what the man was suggesting. The One Power. "No, no, nothing like
that. I swear. There was even an Aes Sedai helping us. Moiraine was. . . ." He bit his tongue, but the innkeeper's
expression never changed.
"Glad to hear it. Not that I've all that much love for Aes Sedai, but better them than . . . that other thing."
He shook his head slowly. "Too much talk of that kind of thing, with Logain being brought here. No offense
meant, you understand, but . . . well, I had to know, didn't I?"
"No offense," Rand said. Mat's murmur could have been anything, but the innkeeper appeared to take it
for the same as Rand had said.
"You two look the right sort, and I do believe you were-are-friends of Thom, but it's hard times and
stony days. I don't suppose you can pay? No, I didn't think so. There's not enough of anything, and what there is
costs the earth, so I'll give you beds - not the best, but warm and dry - and something to eat, and I cannot
promise more, however much I'd like."
"Thank you," Rand said with a quizzical glance at Mat. "It's more than I expected." What was the right
sort, and why should he promise more?
"Well, Thom's a good friend. An old friend. Hot-headed and liable to say the worst possible thing to the
one person he shouldn't, but a good friend all the same. If he doesn't show up . . . well, we'll figure something
out then. Best you don't talk any more talk about Aes Sedai helping you. I'm a good Queen's man, but there are
too many in Caemlyn right now who'd take it wrong, and I don't mean just the Whitecloaks."
Mat snorted. "For all I care, the ravens can take every Aes Sedai straight to Shayol Ghul!"
"Watch your tongue," Master Gill snapped. "I said I don't love them; I didn't say I'm a fool thinks they're
behind everything that's wrong. The Queen supports Elaida, and the Guards stand for the Queen. The Light send
things don't go so bad that changes. Anyway, lately some Guards have forgotten themselves enough to be a
little rough with folks they overhear speaking against Aes Sedai. Not on duty, thank the Light, but it's happened,
just the same. I don't need off-duty Guards breaking up my common room to teach you a lesson, and I don't
need Whitecloaks egging somebody on to paint the Dragon's Fang on my door, so if you want any help out of
me, you just keep thoughts about Aes Sedai to yourself, good or bad." He paused thoughtfully, then added,
"Maybe it's best you don't mention Thom's name, either, where anyone but me can hear. Some of the Guards
have long memories, and so does the Queen. No need taking chances. "
"Thom had trouble with the Queen?" Rand said incredulously, and the innkeeper laughed.
"So he didn't tell you everything. Don't know why he should. On the other hand, I don't know why you
shouldn't know, either. Not like it's a secret, exactly. Do you think every gleeman thinks as much of himself as
Thom does? Well, come to think of it, I guess they do, but it always seemed to me Thom had an extra helping of
thinking a lot of himself. He wasn't always a gleeman, you know, wandering from village to village and
sleeping under a hedge as often as not. There was a time Thom Merrilin was Court-bard right here in Caemlyn,
and known in every royal court from Tear to Maradon. "
"Thom?" Mat said.
Rand nodded slowly. He could picture Thom at a Queen's court, with his stately manner and grand
gestures.
"That he was," Master Gill said. "It was not long after Taringail Damodred died that the . . . trouble
about his nephew cropped up. There were some said Thom was, shall we say, closer to the Queen than was
proper. But Morgase was a young widow, and Thom was in his prime, then, and the Queen can do as she wishes
is the way I look at it. Only she's always had a temper, has our good Morgase, and he took off without a word
when he learned what kind of trouble his nephew was in. The Queen didn't much like that. Didn't like him
meddling in Aes Sedai matters, either. Can't say I think it was right, either, nephew or no. Anyway, when he
came back, he said some words, all right. Words you don't say to a Queen. Words you don't say to any woman
with Morgase's spirit. Elaida was set against him because of his trying to mix in the business with his nephew,
and between the Queen's temper and Elaida's animosity, Thom left Caemlyn half a step ahead of a trip to prison,
if not the headsman's axe. As far as I know, the writ still stands."
"If it was a long time ago," Rand said, "maybe nobody remembers."
Master Gill shook his head. "Gareth Bryne is Captain-General of the Queen's Guards. He personally
commanded the Guardsmen Morgase sent to bring Thom back in chains, and I misdoubt he'll ever forget
returning empty-handed to find Thom had already been back to the Palace and left again. And the Queen never
forgets anything. You ever know a woman who did? My, but Morgase was in a taking. I'll swear the whole city
walked soft and whispered for a month. Plenty of other Guardsmen old enough to remember, too. No, best you
keep Thom as close a secret as you keep that Aes Sedai of yours. Come, I'll get you something to eat. You look
as if your bellies are gnawing at your backbones. "
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Chapter 36

Web of the Pattern


Master Gill took them to a corner table in the common room and had one of the serving maids bring
them food. Rand shook his head when he saw the plates, with a few thin slices of gravy-covered
beef, a spoonful of mustard greens, and two potatoes on each. It was a rueful, resigned headshake,
though, not angry. Not enough of anything, the innkeeper had said. Picking up his knife and fork, Rand
wondered what would happen when there was nothing left. It made his half-covered plate seem like a feast. It
made him shiver.
Master Gill had chosen a table well away from anyone else, and he sat with his back to the corner, where
he could watch the room. Nobody could get close enough to overhear what they said without him seeing. When
the maid left, he said softly, "Now, why don't you tell me about this trouble of yours? If I'm going to help, I'd
best know what I'm getting into."
Rand looked at Mat, but Mat was frowning at his plate as if he were mad at the potato he was cutting.
Rand took a deep breath. "I don't really understand it myself," he began.
He kept the story simple, and he kept Trollocs and Fades out of it. When somebody offered help, it
would not do to tell them it was all about fables. But he did not think it was fair to understate the danger, either,
not fair to pull someone in when they had no idea what they were getting into. Some men were after him and
Mat, and a couple of friends of theirs, too. They appeared where they were least expected, these men, and they
were deadly dangerous and set on killing him and his friends, or worse. Moiraine said some of them were
Darkfriends. Thom did not trust Moiraine completely, but he stayed on with them, he said, because of his
nephew. They had been separated during an attack while trying to reach Whitebridge, and then, in Whitebridge,
Thom died saving them from another attack. And there had been other tries. He knew there were holes in it, but
it was the best he could do on short notice without telling more than was safe.
"We just kept on till we reached Caemlyn," he explained. "That was the plan, originally. Caemlyn, and
then Tar Valon." He shifted uncomfortably on the edge of his chair. After keeping everything secret for so long,
it felt odd to be telling somebody even as much as he was. "If we stay on that route, the others will be able to
find us, sooner or later."
"If they're alive," Mat muttered at his plate.
Rand did not even glance at Mat. Something compelled him to add, "It could bring you trouble, helping
us."
Master Gill waved it off with a plump hand. "Can't say as I want trouble, but it wouldn't be the first I've
seen. No bloody Darkfriend will make me turn my back on Thom's friends. This friend of yours from up north,
now - if she comes to Caemlyn, I'll hear. There are people keep their eyes on comings and goings like that
around here, and word spreads."
Rand hesitated, then asked, "What about Elaida?"
The innkeeper hesitated, too, and finally shook his head. "I don't think so. Maybe if you didn't have a
connection to Thom. She'd winkle it out, and then where would you be? No telling. Maybe in a cell. Maybe
worse. They say she has a way of feeling things, what's happened, what's going to happen. They say she can cut
right through to what a man wants to hide. I don't know, but I wouldn't risk it. If it wasn't for Thom, you could
go to the Guards. They'd take care of any Darkfriends quick enough. But even if you could keep Thom quiet
from the Guards, word would reach Elaida as soon as you mentioned Darkfriends, and then you're back where
we started."
"No Guards," Rand agreed. Mat nodded vigorously while stuffing a fork into his mouth and got gravy
on his chin.
"Trouble is, you're caught up in the fringes of politics, lad, even if it's none of your doing, and politics is
a foggy mire full of snakes."
"What about - " Rand began, but the innkeeper grimaced suddenly, his chair creaking under his bulk as
he sat up straight.
The cook was standing in the doorway to the kitchen, wiping her hands with her apron. When she saw
the innkeeper looking she motioned for him to come, then vanished back into the kitchen.
"Might as well be married to her." Master Gill sighed. "Finds things that need fixing before I know
there's anything wrong. If it's not the drains stopped up, or the downspouts clogged, it's rats. I keep a clean
place, you understand, but with so many people in the city, rats are everywhere. Crowd people together and you
get rats, and Caemlyn has a plague of them all of a sudden. You wouldn't believe what a good cat, a prime
ratter, fetches these days. Your room is in the attic. I'll tell the girls which; any of them can show you to it. And
don't worry about Darkfriends. I can't say much good about the Whitecloaks, but between them and the Guards,
that sort won't dare show their filthy faces in Caemlyn." His chair squeaked again as he pushed it back and
stood. "I hope it isn't the drains again."
Rand went back to his food, but he saw that Mat had stopped eating. "I thought you were hungry," he
said. Mat kept staring at his plate, pushing one piece of potato in a circle with his fork. "You have to eat, Mat.
We need to keep up our strength if we're going to reach Tar Valon."
Mat let out a low, bitter laugh. "Tar Valon! All this time it's been Caemlyn. Moiraine would be waiting
for us in Caemlyn. We'd find Perrin and Egwene in Caemlyn. Everything would be all right if we only got to
Caemlyn. Well, here we are, and nothing's right. No Moiraine, no Perrin, no anybody. Now it's everything will
be all right if we only get to Tar Valon. "
"We're alive," Rand said, more sharply than he had intended. He took a deep breath and tried to
moderate his tone. "We are alive. That much is all right. And I intend to stay alive. I intend to find out why
we're so important. I won't give up." "All these people, and any of them could be Darkfriends. Master Gill
promised to help us awfully quick. What kind of man just shrugs off Aes Sedai and Darkfriends? It isn't natural.
Any decent person would tell us to get out, or . . . or . . . or something."
"Eat," Rand said gently, and watched until Mat began chewing a piece of beef.
He left his own hands resting beside his plate for a minute, pressing them against the table to keep them
from shaking. He was scared. Not about Master Gill, of course, but there was enough without that. Those tall
city walls would not stop a Fade. Maybe he should tell the innkeeper about that. But even if Gill believed,
would he be as willing to help if he thought a Fade might show up at The Queen's Blessing? And the rats.
Maybe rats did thrive where there were a lot of people, but he remembered the dream that was not a dream in
Baerlon, and a small spine snapping. Sometimes the Dark One uses carrion eaters as his eyes, Lan had said.
Ravens, crows, rats . . . .
He ate, but when he was done he could not remember tasting a single bite.
A serving maid, the one who had been polishing candlesticks when they came in, showed them up to the
attic room. A dormer window pierced the slanting outer wall, with a bed on either side of it and pegs beside the
door for hanging their belongings. The dark-eyed girl had a tendency to twist her skirt and giggle whenever she
looked at Rand. She was pretty, but he knew if he said anything to her he would just make a fool of himself. She
made him wish he had Perrin's way with girls; he was glad when she left.
He expected some comment from Mat, but as soon as she was gone, Mat threw himself on one of the
beds, still in his cloak and boots, and turned his face to the wall.
Rand hung his things up, watching Mat's back. He thought Mat had his hand under his coat, clutching
that dagger again.
"You just going to lie up here hiding?" he said finally.
"I'm tired," Mat mumbled.
"We have questions to ask Master Gill, yet. He might even be able to tell us how to find Egwene, and
Perrin. They could be in Caemlyn already if they managed to hang onto their horses."
"They're dead," Mat said to the wall.
Rand hesitated, then gave up. He closed the door softly behind him, hoping Mat really would sleep.
Downstairs, however, Master Gill was nowhere to be found, though the sharp look in the cook's eye said
she was looking for him, too. For a while Rand sat in the common room, but he found himself eyeing every
patron who came in, every stranger who could be anyone-or anything-especially in the moment when he was
first silhouetted as a cloaked black shape in the doorway. A Fade in the room would be like a fox in a chicken
coop.
A Guardsman entered from the street. The red-uniformed man stopped just inside the door, running a
cool eye over those in the room who were obviously from outside the city. Rand studied the tabletop when the
Guardsman's eyes fell on him; when he looked up again, the man was gone.
The dark-eyed maid was passing with her arms full of towels. "They do that sometimes," she said in a
confiding tone as she went by. "Just to see there's no trouble. They look after good Queen's folk, they do.
Nothing for you to worry about." She giggled.
Rand shook his head. Nothing for him to worry about. It was not as if the Guardsman would have come
over and demanded to know if he knew Thom Merrilin. He was getting as bad as Mat. He scraped back his
chair.
Another maid was checking the oil in the lamps along the wall.
"Is there another room where I could sit?" he asked her. He did not want to go back upstairs and shut
himself up with Mat's sullen withdrawal. "Maybe a private dining room that's not being used?"
"There's the library." She pointed to a door. "Through there, to your right, at the end of the hall. Might
be empty, this hour."
"Thank you. If you see Master Gill, would you tell him Rand al'Thor needs to talk to him if he can spare
a minute?"
"I'll tell him," she said, then grinned. "Cook wants to talk to him, too."
The innkeeper was probably hiding, he thought as he turned away from her.
When he stepped into the room to which she had directed him, he stopped and stared. The shelves must
have held three or four hundred books, more than he had ever seen in one place before. Clothbound, leatherbound
with gilded spines. Only a few had wooden covers. His eyes gobbled up the titles, picking out old
favorites. The Travels of Jain Farstrider. The Essays of Willim of Maneches. His breath caught at the sight of a
leather bound copy of Voyager Among the Sea Folk. Tam had always wanted to read that.
Picturing Tam, turning the book over in his hands with a smile, getting the feel of it before settling down
before the fireplace with his pipe to read, his own hand tightened on his sword hilt with a sense of loss and
emptiness that dampened all his pleasure in the books.
A throat cleared behind him, and he suddenly realized he was not alone. Ready to apologize for his
rudeness, he turned. He was used to being taller than almost everyone he met, but this time his eyes traveled up
and up and up, and his mouth fell open. Then he came to the head almost reaching the ten-foot ceiling. A nose
as broad as the face, so wide it was more a snout than a nose. Eyebrows that hung down like tails, framing pale
eyes as big as teacups. Ears that poked up to tufted points through a shaggy, black mane. Trolloc! He let out a
yell and tried to back up and draw his sword. His feet got tangled, and he sat down hard, instead.
"I wish you humans wouldn't do that," rumbled a voice as deep as a drum. The tufted ears twitched
violently, and the voice became sad. "So few of you remember us. It's our own fault, I suppose. Not many of us
have gone out among men since the Shadow fell on the Ways. That's… oh, six generations, now. Right after the
War of the Hundred Years, it was." The shaggy head shook and let out a sigh that would have done credit to a
bull. "Too long, too long, and so few to travel and see, it might as well have been none."
Rand sat there for a minute with his mouth hanging open, staring up at the apparition in wide-toed, kneehigh
boots and a dark blue coat that buttoned from the neck to the waist, then flared out to his boot tops like a
kilt over baggy trousers. In one hand was a book, seeming tiny by comparison, with a finger broad enough for
three marking the place.
"I thought you were -" he began, then caught himself. "What are -?" That was not any better. Getting to
his feet, he gingerly offered his hand. "My name is Rand al'Thor."
A hand as big as a ham engulfed his; it was accompanied by a formal bow. "Loial, son of Arent son of
Halan. Your name sings in my ears, Rand al'Thor. "
That sounded like a ritual greeting to Rand. He returned the bow. "Your name sings in my ears, Loial,
son of Arent . . . ah . . . son of Halan. "
It was all a little unreal. He still did not know what Loial was. The grip of Loial's huge fingers was
surprisingly gentle, but he was still relieved to get his hand back in one piece.
"You humans are very excitable," Loial said in that bass rumble. "I had heard all the stories, and read the
books, of course, but I didn't realize. My first day in Caemlyn, I could not believe the uproar. Children cried,
and women screamed, and a mob chased me all the way across the city, waving clubs and knives and torches,
and shouting, 'Trolloc!' I'm afraid I was almost beginning to get a little upset. There's no telling what would
have happened if a party of the Queen's Guards hadn't come along."
"A lucky thing," Rand said faintly.
"Yes, but even the Guardsmen seemed almost as afraid of me as the others. Four days in Caemlyn now,
and I haven't been able to put my nose outside this inn. Good Master Gill even asked me not to use the common
room." His ears twitched. "Not that he hasn't been very hospitable, you understand. But there was a bit of
trouble that first night. All the humans seemed to want to leave at once. Such screaming and shouting, everyone
trying to get through the door at the same time. Some of them could have been hurt."
Rand stared in fascination at those twitching ears.
"I'll tell you, it was not for this I left the stedding."
"You're an Ogier!" Rand exclaimed. "Wait! Six generations? You said the War of the Hundred Years!
How old are you?" He knew it was rude as soon as he said it, but Loial became defensive rather than offended.
"Ninety years," the Ogier said stiffly. "In only ten more I'll be able to address the Stump. I think the
Elders should have let me speak, since they were deciding whether I could leave or not. But then they always
worry about anyone of any age going Outside. You humans are so hasty, so erratic." He blinked and gave a
short bow. "Please forgive me. I shouldn't have said that. But you do fight all the time, even when there's no
need to."
"That's all right," Rand said. He was still trying to take in Loial's age. Older than old Cenn Buie, and still
not old enough to . . . He sat down in one of the high-backed chairs. Loial took another, made to hold two; he
filled it. Sitting, he was as tall as most men standing. "At least they did let you go."
Loial looked at the floor, wrinkling his nose and rubbing at it with one thick finger. "Well, as to that,
now. You see, the Stump had not been meeting very long, not even a year, but I could tell from what I heard
that by the time they reached a decision I would be old enough to go without their permission. I am afraid
they'll say I put a long handle on my axe, but I just . . . left. The Elders always said I was too hot-headed, and I
fear I've proven them right. I wonder if they have realized I'm gone, yet? But I had to go. "
Rand bit his lip to keep from laughing. If Loial was a hot-headed Ogier, he could imagine what most
Ogier were like. Had not been meeting very long, not even a year? Master al'Vere would just shake his head in
wonder; a Village Council meeting that lasted half a day would have everybody jumping up and down, even
Haral Luhhan. A wave of homesickness swept over him, making it hard to breathe for memories of Tam, and
Egwene, and the Winespring Inn, and Bel Tine on the Green in happier days. He forced them away.
"If you don't mind my asking," he said, clearing his throat, "why did you want to go . . . ah, Outside, so
much? I wish I'd never left my home, myself. "
"Why, to see," Loial said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "I read the books, all the
travelers' accounts, and it began to burn in me that I had to see, not just read." His pale eyes brightened, and his
ears stiffened. "I studied every scrap I could find about traveling, about the Ways, and customs in human lands,
and the cities we built for you humans after the Breaking of the World. And the more I read, the more I knew
that I had to go Outside, go to those places we had been, and see the groves for myself."
Rand blinked. "Groves?"
"Yes, the groves. The trees. Only a few of the Great Trees, of course, towering to the sky to keep
memories of the stedding fresh." His chair groaned as he shifted forward, gesturing with his hands, one of
which still held the book. His eyes were brighter than ever, and his ears almost quivered. "Mostly they used the
trees of the land and the place. You cannot make the land go against itself. Not for long; the land will rebel. You
must shape the vision to the land, not the land to the vision. In every grove was planted every tree that would
grow and thrive in that place, each balanced against the next, each placed to complement the others, for the best
growing, of course, but also so that the balance would sing in the eye and the heart. Ah, the books spoke of
groves to make Elders weep and laugh at the same time, groves to remain green in memory forever."
"What about the cities?" Rand asked. Loial gave him a puzzled look. "The cities. The cities the Ogier
built. Here, for instance. Caemlyn. Ogier built Caemlyn, didn't you? The stories say so."
"Working with stone . . .” His shoulders gave a massive shrug. "That was just something learned in the
years after the Breaking, during the Exile, when we were still trying. to find the stedding again. It is a fine thing,
I suppose, but not the true thing. Try as you will - and I have read that the Ogier who built those cities truly did
try - you cannot make stone live. A few still do work with stone, but only because you humans damage the
buildings so often with your wars. There were a handful of Ogier in . . . ah . . . Cairhien, it's called now . . .
when I passed through. They were from another stedding, luckily, so they didn't know about me, but they were
still suspicious that I was Outside alone so young. I suppose it's just as well there was no reason for me to linger
there. In any case, you see, working with stone is just something that was thrust on us by the weaving of the
Pattern; the groves came from the heart."
Rand shook his head. Half the stories he had grown up with had just been stood on their heads. "I didn't
know Ogier believed in the Pattern, Loial. "
"Of course, we believe. The Wheel of Time weaves the Pattern of the Ages, and lives are the threads it
weaves. No one can tell how the thread of his own life will be woven into the Pattern, or how the thread of a
people will be woven. It gave us the Breaking of the World, and the Exile, and Stone, and the Longing, and
eventually it gave us back the stedding before we all died. Sometimes I think the reason you humans are the
way you are is because your threads are so short. They must jump around in the weaving. Oh, there, I've done it
again. The Elders say you humans don't like to be reminded of how short a time you live. I hope I didn't hurt
your feelings."
Rand laughed and shook his head. "Not at all. I suppose it'd be fun to live as long as you do, but I never
really thought about it. I guess if I live as long as old Cenn Buie, that'll be long enough for anybody."
"He is a very old man?"
Rand just nodded. He was not about to explain that old Cenn Buie was not quite as old as Loial.
"Well," Loial said, "perhaps you humans do have short lives, but you do so much with them, always
jumping around, always so hasty. And you have the whole world to do it in. We Ogier are bound to our
stedding."
"You're Outside."
"For a time, Rand. But I must go back, eventually. This world is yours, yours and your kind's. The
stedding are mine. There's too much hurly-burly Outside. And so much is changed from what I read about."
"Well, things do change over the years. Some, anyway."
"Some? Half the cities I read about aren't even there any longer, and most of the rest are known by
different names. You take Cairhien. The city's proper name is Al’cair’rahienallen, Hill of the Golden Dawn.
They don't even remember, for all of the sunrise on their banners. And the grove there. I doubt if it has been
tended since the Trolloc Wars. It's just another forest, now, where they cut firewood. The Great Trees are all
gone, and no one remembers them. And here? Caemlyn is still Caemlyn, but they let the city grow right over the
grove. We're not a quarter of a mile from the center of it right where we sit-from where the center of it should
be. Not a tree of it left. I've been to Tear and Illian, too. Different names, and no memories. There's only pasture
for their horses where the grove was at Tear, and at Illian the grove is the King's park, where he hunts his deer,
and none allowed inside without his permission. It has all changed, Rand. I fear very much that I will find the
same everywhere I go. All the groves gone, all the memories gone, all the dreams dead."
"You can't give up, Loial. You can't ever give up. If you give up, you might as well be dead." Rand sank
back in his chair as far as he could go, his face turning red. He expected the Ogier to laugh at him, but Loial
nodded gravely instead.
"Yes, that's the way of your kind, isn't it?" The Ogier's voice changed, as if he were quoting something.
"Till shade is gone, till water is gone, into the Shadow with teeth bared, screaming defiance with the last breath,
to spit in Sightblinder's eye on the Last Day." Loial cocked his shaggy head expectantly, but Rand had no idea
what it was he expected.
A minute went by with Loial waiting, then another, and his long eyebrows began to draw down in
puzzlement. But he still waited, the silence growing uncomfortable for Rand.
"The Great Trees," Rand said finally, just for something to break that silence. "Are they like
Avendesora?"
Loial sat up sharply; his chair squealed and cracked so loudly Rand thought it was going to come apart.
"You know better than that. You, of all people."
"Me? How would I know?"
"Are you playing a joke on me? Sometimes you Aielmen think the oddest things are funny. "
"What? I'm not an Aielman! I'm from the Two Rivers. I never even saw an Aielman!"
Loial shook his head, and the tufts on his ears drooped outward. "You see? Everything is changed, and
half of what I know is useless. I hope I did not offend you. I'm sure your Two Rivers is a very fine place,
wherever it is."
"Somebody told me," Rand said, "that it was once called Manetheren. I'd never heard it, but maybe
you . . . "
The Ogier's ears had perked up happily. "Ah! Yes. Manetheren." The tufts went down again. "There was
a very fine grove there. Your pain sings in my heart, Rand al'Thor. We could not come in time."
Loial bowed where he sat, and Rand bowed back. He suspected Loial would be hurt if he did not, would
think he was rude at the least. He wondered if Loial thought he had the same sort of memories the Ogier seemed
to. The corners of Loial's mouth and eyes were certainly turned down as if he were sharing the pain of Rand's
loss, just as if the destruction of Manetheren were not something that happened two thousand years ago, near
enough, something that Rand only knew about because of Moiraine's story.
After a time Loial sighed. "The Wheel turns," he said, "and no one knows its turning. But you have
come almost as far from your home as I have. A very considerable distance, as things are now. When the Ways
were freely open, of course-but that is long past. Tell me, what brings you so far? Is there something you want
to see, too?"
Rand opened his mouth to say that they had come to see the false Dragon-and he could not say it.
Perhaps it was because Loial acted as if he were no older than Rand, ninety years old or no ninety years old.
Maybe for an Ogier ninety years was not any older than he was. It had been a long time since he had been able
to really talk to anyone about what was happening. Always the fear that they might be Darkfriends, or think he
was. Mat was so drawn in on himself, feeding his fears on his own suspicions, that he was no good for talking.
Rand found himself telling Loial about Winternight. Not a vague story about Darkfriends; the truth about
Trollocs breaking in the door, and a Fade on the Quarry Road.
Part of him was horrified at what he was doing, but it was almost as if he were two people, one trying to
hold his tongue while the other only felt the relief at being able to tell it all finally. The result was that he
stumbled and stuttered and jumped around in the story. Shadar Logoth and losing his friends in the night, not
knowing if they were alive or dead. The Fade in Whitebridge; and Thom dying so they could escape. The Fade
in Baerlon. Darkfriends later, Howal Gode, and the boy who was afraid of them, and the woman who tried to
kill Mat. The Halfman outside the Goose and Crown.
When he started babbling about dreams, even the part of him that wanted to talk felt the hackles rising
on the back of his neck. He bit his tongue clamping his teeth shut. Breathing heavily through his nose, he
watched the Ogier warily, hoping he thought he had meant nightmares. The Light knew it all sounded like a
nightmare, or enough to give anyone nightmares. Maybe Loial would just think he was going mad. Maybe....
"Ta'veren, " Loial said.
Rand blinked. "What?"
"Ta'veren. " Loial rubbed behind a pointed ear with one blunt finger and gave a little shrug. "Elder
Haman always said I never listened, but sometimes I did. Sometimes, I listened. You know how the Pattern is
woven, of course?"
"I never really thought about it," he said slowly. "It just is."
"Um, yes, well. Not exactly. You see, the Wheel of Time weaves the Pattern of the Ages, and the
threads it uses are lives. It is not fixed, the Pattern, not always. If a man tries to change the direction of his life
and the Pattern has room for it, the Wheel just weaves on and takes it in. There is always room for small
changes, but sometimes the Pattern simply won't accept a big change, no matter how hard you try. You
understand?"
Rand nodded. "I could live on the farm or in Emond's Field, and that would be a small change. If I
wanted to be a king, though . . . ." He laughed, and Loial gave a grin that almost split his face in two. His teeth
were white, and as broad as chisels.
"Yes, that's it. But sometimes the change chooses you, or the Wheel chooses it for you. And sometimes
the Wheel bends a life-thread, or several threads, in such a way that all the surrounding threads are forced to
swirl around it, and those force other threads, and those still others, and on and on. That first bending to make
the Web, that is ta'veren, and there is nothing you can do to change it, not until the Pattern itself changes. The
Web - ta'maral'ailen, it's called - can last for weeks, or for years. It can take in a town, or even the whole
Pattern. Artur Hawkwing was ta'veren. So was Lews Therin Kinslayer, for that matter, I suppose." He let out a
booming chuckle. "Elder Haman would be proud of me. He always droned on, and the books about traveling
were much more interesting, but I did listen sometimes."
"That's all very well," Rand said, "but I don't see what it has to do with me. I'm a shepherd, not another
Artur Hawkwing. And neither is Mat, or Perrin. It's just . . . ridiculous."
"I didn't say you were, but I could almost feel the Pattern swirl just listening to you tell your tale, and I
have no Talent there. You are ta'veren, all right. You, and maybe your friends, too." The Ogier paused, rubbing
the bridge of his broad nose thoughtfully. Finally he nodded to himself as if he had reached a decision. "I wish
to travel with you, Rand."
For a minute Rand stared, wondering if he had heard correctly. "With me?" he exclaimed when he could
speak. "Didn't you hear what I said about . . . ?" He eyed the door suddenly. It was shut tight, and thick enough
that anyone trying to listen on the other side would hear only a murmur, even with his ear pressed against the
wooden panels. Just the same he went on in a lower voice. "About who's chasing me? Anyway, I thought you
wanted to go see your trees."
"There is a very fine grove at Tar Valon, and I have been told the Aes Sedai keep it well tended.
Besides, it is not just the groves I want to see. Perhaps you are not another Artur Hawkwing, but for a time, at
least, part of the world will shape itself around you, perhaps is even now shaping itself around you. Even Elder
Haman would want to see that."
Rand hesitated. It would be good to have someone else along. The way Mat was behaving, being with
him was almost like being alone. The Ogier was a comforting presence. Maybe he was young as Ogier reckoned
age, but he seemed as unflappable as a rock, just like Tam. And Loial had been all of those places, and knew
about others. He looked at the Ogier, sitting there with his broad face a picture of patience. Sitting there, and
taller sitting than most men standing. How do you hide somebody almost ten feet tall? He sighed and shook his
head.
"I don't think that is a good idea, Loial. Even if Moiraine finds us here, we'll be in danger all the way to
Tar Valon. If she does not . . . ." If she doesn't, then she's dead and so is everyone else. Oh, Egwene. He gave
himself a shake. Egwene was not dead, and Moiraine would find them.
Loial looked at him sympathetically and touched his shoulder. "I am sure your friends are well, Rand."
Rand nodded his thanks. His throat was too tight to speak.
"Will you at least talk with me sometimes?" Loial sighed, a bass rumble. "And perhaps play a game of
stones? I have not had anyone to talk to in days, except good Master Gill, and he is busy most of the time. The
cook seems to run him unmercifully. Perhaps she really owns the inn?"
"Of course, I will." His voice was hoarse. He cleared his throat and tried to grin. "And if we meet in Tar
Valon, you can show me the grove there." They have to be all right. Light send they're all right.
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Chapter 37

The Long Chase


Nynaeve gripped the reins of the three horses and peered into the night as if she could somehow pierce
the darkness and find the Aes Sedai and the Warder. Skeletal trees surrounded her, stark and black in
the dim moonlight. The trees and the night made an effective screen for whatever Moiraine and Lan
were doing, not that either of them had paused to let her know what that was. A low "Keep the horses quiet,"
from Lan, and they were gone, leaving her standing like a stableboy. She glanced at the horses and sighed with
exasperation.
Mandarb blended into the night almost as well as his master's cloak. The only reason the battle-trained
stallion was letting her get this close was because Lan had handed her the reins himself. He seemed calm
enough now, but she remembered all too well the lips drawing back silently when she reached for his bridle
without waiting for Lan's approval. The silence had made the bared teeth seem that much more dangerous. With
a last wary look at the stallion, she turned to peer in the direction the other two had gone, idly stroking her own
horse. She gave a startled jump when Aldieb pushed a pale muzzle under her hand, but after a minute she gave
the white mare a pat, too.
"No need to take it out on you, I suppose," she whispered, "just because your mistress is a cold-faced - "
She strained at the darkness again. What were they doing?
After leaving Whitebridge they had ridden through villages that seemed unreal in their normality,
ordinary market villages that seemed to Nynaeve unconnected to a world that had Fades and Trollocs and Aes
Sedai. They had followed the Caemlyn Road, until at last Moiraine sat forward in Aldieb's saddle, peering
eastward as if she could see the whole length of the great highway, all the many miles to Caemlyn, and see, too,
what waited there.
Eventually the Aes Sedai let out a long breath and settled back. "The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills,"
she murmured, "but I cannot believe it weaves an end to hope. I must first take care of that of which I can be
certain. It will be as the Wheel weaves." And she turned her mare north, off the road into the forest. One of the
boys was in that direction with the coin Moiraine had given him. Lan followed.
Nynaeve gave a long last look at the Caemlyn Road. Few people shared the roadway with them there, a
couple of high-wheeled carts and one empty wagon in the distance, a handful of folk afoot with their belongings
on their backs or piled on pushcarts. Some of those were willing to admit they were on their way to Caemlyn to
see the false Dragon, but most denied it vehemently, especially those who had come through Whitebridge. At
Whitebridge she had begun to believe Moiraine. Somewhat. More, at any rate. And there was no comfort in
that.
The Warder and the Aes Sedai were almost out of sight through the trees before she started after them.
She hurried to catch up. Lan looked back at her frequently, and waved for her to come on, but he kept at
Moiraine's shoulder, and the Aes Sedai had her eyes fixed ahead.
One evening after they left the road, the invisible trail failed. Moiraine, the unflappable Moiraine,
suddenly stood up beside the small fire where the tea kettle was boiling, her eyes widening. "It is gone," she
whispered at the night.
"He is . . . ?" Nynaeve could not finish the question. Light, I don't even know which one it is!
"He did not die," the Aes Sedai said slowly, "but he no longer has the token." She sat down, her voice
level and her hands steady as she took the kettle off the flames and tossed in a handful of tea. "In the morning
we will keep on as we've been going. When I get close enough, I can find him without the coin."
As the fire burned down to coals, Lan rolled himself in his cloak and went to sleep. Nynaeve could not
sleep. She watched the Aes Sedai. Moiraine had her eyes closed, but she sat upright, and Nynaeve knew she
was awake.
Long after the last glow had faded from the coals, Moiraine opened her eyes and looked at her. She
could feel the Aes Sedai's smile even in the dark. "He has regained the coin, Wisdom. All will be well." She lay
down on her blankets with a sigh and almost at once was breathing deep in slumber.
Nynaeve had a hard time joining her, tired as she was. Her mind conjured up the worst no matter how
she tried to stop it. All will be well. After Whitebridge, she could no longer make herself believe that so easily.
Abruptly Nynaeve was jerked from memory back to the night; there really was a hand on her arm.
Stifling the cry that rose in her throat, she fumbled for the knife at her belt, her hand closing on the hilt before
she realized that the hand was Lan's.
The Warder's hood was thrown back, but his chameleon-like cloak blended so well with the night that
the dim blur of his face seemed to hang suspended in the night. The hand on her arm appeared to come out of
thin air.
She drew a shuddering breath. She expected him to comment on how easily he had come on her
unaware, but instead he turned to dig into his saddlebags. "You are needed," he said, and knelt to fasten hobbles
on the horses.
As soon as the horses were secured, he straightened, grasped her hand, and headed off into the night
again. His dark hair fit into the night almost as well as his cloak, and he made even less noise than she did.
Grudgingly she had to admit that she could never have followed him through the darkness without his grip as a
guide. She was not certain she could pull loose if he did not want to release her, anyway; he had very strong
hands.
As they came up on a small rise, barely enough to be called a hill, he sank to one knee, pulling her down
beside him. It took her a moment to see that Moiraine was there, too. Unmoving, the Aes Sedai could have
passed for a shadow in her dark cloak. Lan gestured down the hillside to a large clearing in the trees.
Nynaeve frowned in the dim moonlight, then suddenly smiled in understanding. Those pale blurs were
tents in regular rows, a darkened encampment.
"Whitecloaks," Lan whispered, "two hundred of them, maybe more. There's good water down there.
And the lad we're after."
"In the camp?" She felt, more than saw, Lan nod.
"In the middle of it. Moiraine can point right to him. I went close enough to see he's under guard."
"A prisoner?" Nynaeve said. "Why?"
"I don't know. The Children should not be interested in a village boy, not unless there was something to
make them suspicious. The Light knows it doesn't take much to make Whitecloaks suspicious, but it still
worries me. "
"How are you going to free him?" It was not until he glanced at her that she realized how much
assurance there had been in her that he could march into the middle of two hundred men and come back with
the boy. Well, he is a warder. Some of the stories must be true. She wondered if he was laughing at her, but his
voice was flat and businesslike. "I can bring him out, but he'll likely be in no shape for stealth. If we're seen, we
may find two hundred Whitecloaks on our heels, and us riding double. Unless they are too busy to chase us. Are
you willing to take a chance?"
"To help an Emond's Fielder? Of course! What kind of chance?"
He pointed into the darkness again, beyond the tents. This time she could make out nothing but shadows.
"Their horse-lines. If the picket ropes are cut, not all the way through, but enough so they'll break when
Moiraine creates a diversion, the Whitecloaks will be too busy chasing their own horses to come after us. There
are two guards on that side of the camp, beyond the picket-lines, but if you are half as good as I think you are,
they'll never see you."
She swallowed hard. Stalking rabbits was one thing; guards, though, with spears and swords . . . So he
thinks I'm good, does he? "I'll do it."
Lan nodded again, as if he had expected no less. "One other thing. There are wolves about, tonight. I
saw two, and if I saw that many, there are probably more." He paused, and though his voice did not change she
had the feeling he was puzzled. "It was almost as if they wanted me to see them. Anyway, they shouldn't bother
you. Wolves usually stay away from people." "I wouldn't have known that," she said sweetly. "I only grew up
around shepherds." He grunted, and she smiled into the darkness.
"We'll do it now, then," he said.
Her smile faded as she peered down at the camp full of armed men. Two hundred men with spears and
swords and . . . Before she could reconsider, she eased her knife in its sheath and started to slip away. Moiraine
caught her arm in a grip almost as strong as Lan's.
"Take care," the Aes Sedai said softly. "Once you cut the ropes, return as quickly as you can. You are a
part of the Pattern, too, and I would not risk you, any more than any of the others, if the whole world was not at
risk in these days."
Nynaeve rubbed her arm surreptitiously when Moiraine released it. She was not about to let the Aes
Sedai know the grip had hurt. But Moiraine turned back to watching the camp below as soon as she let go. And
the Warder was gone, Nynaeve realized with a start. She had not heard him leave. Light blind the bloody man!
Quickly she tied her skirts up to give her legs freedom, and hurried into the night.
After that first rush, with fallen branches cracking under her feet, she slowed down, glad there was no
one there to see her blush. The idea was to be quiet, and she was not in any kind of competition with the
Warder. Oh, no?
She shook off the thought and concentrated on making her way through the dark woods. It was not hard
in and of itself; the faint light of the waning moon was more than enough for anyone who had been taught by
her father, and the ground had a slow, easy roll. But the trees, bare and stark against the night sky, constantly
reminded her that this was no childhood game, and the keening wind sounded all too much like Trolloc horns.
Now that she was alone in the darkness, she remembered that the wolves that usually ran away from people had
been behaving differently in the Two Rivers this winter.
Relief flooded through her like warmth when she finally caught the smell of horses. Almost holding her
breath, she got down on her stomach and crawled upwind, toward the smell.
She was nearly on the guards before she saw them, marching toward her out of the night, white cloaks
flapping in the wind and almost shining in the moonlight. They might as well have carried torches; torchlight
could not have made them much more visible. She froze, trying to make herself a part of the ground. Nearly in
front of her, not ten paces away, they marched to a halt with a stomp of feet, facing each other, spears
shouldered. Just beyond them she could make out shadows that had to be the horses. The stable smell, horse and
manure, was strong.
"All is well with the night," one white-cloaked shape announced. "The Light illumine us, and protect us
from the Shadow."
"All is well with the night," the other replied. "The Light illumine us, and protect us from the Shadow."
With that they turned and marched off into the darkness again.
Nynaeve waited, counting to herself while they made their circuit twice. Each time they took exactly the
same count, and each time they rigidly repeated the same formula, not a word more or less. Neither so much as
glanced to one side; they stared straight ahead as they marched up, then marched away. She wondered if they
would have noticed her even if she had been standing up.
Before the night swallowed the pale swirls of their cloaks a third time, she was already on her feet,
running in a crouch toward the horses. As she came close, she slowed so as not to startle the animals. The
Whitecloak guards might not see what was not shoved under their noses, but they would certainly investigate if
the horses suddenly began whickering.
The horses along the picket-lines-there was more than one row-were barely realized masses in the
darkness, heads down. Occasionally one snorted or stamped a foot in its sleep. In the dim moonlight she was
nearly on the endpost of the picket-line before she saw it. She reached for the picket-line, and froze when the
nearest horse raised its head and looked at her. Its single lead-rein was tied in a big loop around the thumb-thick
line that ended at the post. One whinny. Her heart tried to pound its way out of her chest, sounding loud enough
to bring the guards.
Never taking her eyes off the horse, she sliced at the picket-rope, feeling in front of her blade to see how
far she had cut. The horse tossed its head, and her breath went cold. Just one whinny.
Only a few thin strands of hemp remained whole under her fingers. Slowly she headed toward the next
line, watching the horse until she could no longer see if it was looking at her or not, then drew a ragged breath.
If they were all like that, she did not think she would last.
At the next picket-rope, though, and the next, and the next, the horses remained asleep, even when she
cut her thumb and bit off a yelp. Sucking the cut, she looked warily back the way she had come. Upwind as she
was, she could no longer hear the guards make their exchange, but they might have heard her if they were in the
right place. If they were coming to see what the noise had been, the wind would keep her from hearing them
until they were right on top of her. Time to go. With four horses out of five running loose, they won't be chasing
anyone.
But she did not move. She could imagine Lan's eyes when he heard what she had done. There would be
no accusation in them; her reasoning was sound, and he would not expect any more of her. She was a Wisdom,
not a bloody great invincible Warder who could make himself all but invisible. Jaw set, she moved to the last
picket-line. The first horse on it was Bela.
There was no mistaking that squat, shaggy shape; for there to be another horse like that, here and now,
was too big a coincidence. Suddenly she was so glad that she had not left off this last line that she was shaking.
Her arms and legs trembled so that she was afraid to touch the picket-rope, but her mind was as clear as the
Winespring Water. Whichever of the boys was in the camp, Egwene was there, too. And if they left riding
double, some of the Children would catch them no matter how well the horses were scattered, and some of them
would die. She was as certain as if she were listening to the wind. That stuck a spike of fear into her belly, fear
of how she was certain. This had nothing to do with weather or crops or sickness. Why did Moiraine tell me I
can use the Power? Why couldn't she leave me alone?
Strangely, the fear stilled her trembling. With hands as steady as if she were grinding herbs in her own
house she slit the picket-rope as she had the others. Thrusting the dagger back into its sheath, she untied Bela's
lead-rein. The shaggy mare woke with a start, tossing her head, but Nynaeve stroked her nose and spoke
comforting words softly in her ear. Bela gave a low snort and seemed content.
Other horses along that line were awake, too, and looking at her. Remembering Mandarb, she reached
hesitantly to the next lead-rein, but that horse gave no objection to a strange hand. Indeed, it seemed to want
some of the muzzle-stroking that Bela had received. She gripped Bela's rein tightly and wrapped the other
around her other wrist, all the while watching the camp nervously. The pale tents were only thirty yards off, and
she could see men moving among them. If they noticed the horses stirring and came to see what caused it . . . .
Desperately she wished for Moiraine not to wait on her return. Whatever the Aes Sedai was going to do,
let her do it now. Light, make her do it now, before . . . .
Abruptly lightning shattered the night overhead, for a moment obliterating darkness. Thunder smote her
ears, so hard she thought her knees would buckle, as a jagged trident stabbed the ground just beyond the horses,
splashing dirt and rocks like a fountain. The crash of riven earth fought the thunderstroke. The horses went mad,
screaming and rearing; the picket-ropes snapped like thread where she had cut them. Another lightning bolt
sliced down before the image of the first faded.
Nynaeve was too busy to exult. At the first clash Bela jerked one way while the other horse reared away
in the opposite direction. She thought her arms were being pulled out of their sockets. For an endless minute she
hung suspended between the horses, her feet off the ground, her scream flattened by the second crash. Again the
lightning struck, and again, and again, in one continuous, raging roar from the heavens. Balked in the way they
wanted to go, the horses surged back, letting her drop. She wanted to crouch on the ground and soothe her
tortured shoulders, but there was no time. Bela and the other horse buffeted her, eyes rolling wildly till only
whites showed, threatening to knock her down and trample her. Somehow she made her arms lift, clutched her
hands in Bela's mane, pulled herself onto the heaving mare's back. The other rein was still around her wrist,
pulled tight into the flesh.
Her jaw dropped as a long, gray shadow snarled past, seeming to ignore her and the horses with her, but
teeth snapping at the crazed animals now darting in every direction. A second shadow of death followed close
behind. Nynaeve wanted to scream again, but nothing came out. Wolves! Light help us! What is Moiraine
doing?
The heels she dug into Bela's sides were not needed. The mare ran, and the other was more than happy
to follow. Anywhere, so long as they could run, so long as they could escape the fire from the sky that killed the
night.
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Chapter 38

Rescue


Perrin shifted as best he could with his wrists bound behind him and finally gave up with a sigh. Every
rock he avoided brought him two more. Awkwardly he tried to work his cloak back over him. The
night was cold, and the ground seemed to draw all the heat out of him, as it had every night since the
Whitecloaks took them. The Children did not think prisoners needed blankets, or shelter. Especially
not dangerous Darkfriends.
Egwene lay huddled against his back for warmth, sleeping the deep sleep of exhaustion. She never even
murmured at his shifting. The sun was long hours below the horizon, and he ached from head to foot after a day
walking behind a horse with a halter around his neck, but sleep would not come for him.
The column did not move that fast. With most of their remounts lost to the wolves in the stedding, the
Whitecloaks could not push on as hard as they wanted; the delay was another thing they held against the
Emond's Fielders. The sinuous double line did move steadily, though-Lord Bornhald meant to reach Caemlyn in
time for whatever it was-and always in the back of Perrin's mind was the fear that if he fell the Whitecloak
holding his leash would not stop, no matter Lord Captain Bornhald's orders to keep them alive for the
Questioners in Amador. He knew he could not save himself if that happened; the only times they freed his
hands were when he was fed and for visits to the latrine pit. The halter made every step momentous, every rock
underfoot potentially fatal. He walked with muscles tense, scanning the ground with anxious eyes. Whenever he
glanced at Egwene, she was doing the same. When she met his eyes, her face was tight and frightened. Neither
of them dared take their eyes off the ground long enough for more than a glance.
Usually he collapsed like a wrung-out rag as soon as the Whitecloaks let him stop, but tonight his mind
was racing. His skin crawled with dread that had been building for days. If he closed his eyes, he would see
only the things Byar promised for them once they reached Amador.
He was sure Egwene still did not believe what Byar told them in that flat voice. If she did, she would not
be able to sleep no matter how tired she was. In the beginning he had not believed Byar either. He still did not
want to; people just did not do things like that to other people. But Byar did not really threaten; as if he were
talking about getting a drink of water he talked about hot irons and pincers, about knives slicing away skin and
needles piercing. He did not appear to be trying to frighten them. There was never even a touch of gloating in
his eyes. He just did not care if they were frightened or not, if they were tortured or not, if they were alive or
not. That was what brought cold sweat to Perrin's face once it got through to him. That was what finally
convinced him Byar was telling the simple truth.
The two guards' cloaks gleamed grayly in the faint moonlight. He could not make out their faces, but he
knew they were watching. As if they could try something, tied hand and foot the way they were. From when
there had still been light enough to see, he remembered the disgust in their eyes and the pinched looks on their
faces, as though they had been set to guard filth-soaked monsters, stinking and repellent to look at. All the
Whitecloaks looked at them that way. It never changed. Light, how do I make them believe we aren't
Darkfriends when they're already convinced we are? His stomach twisted sickeningly. In the end, he would
probably confess to anything just to make the Questioners stop.
Someone was coming, a Whitecloak carrying a lantern. The man stopped to speak with the guards, who
answered respectfully. Perrin could not hear what was said, but he recognized the tall, gaunt shape.
He squinted as the lantern was held close to his face. Byar had Perrin's axe in his other hand; he had
appropriated the weapon as his own. At least, Perrin never saw him without it.
"Wake up," Byar said emotionlessly, as if he thought Perrin slept with his head raised. He accompanied
the words with a heavy kick in the ribs.
Perrin gave a grunt through gritted teeth. His sides were a mass of bruises already from Byar's boots.
"I said, wake up." The foot went back again, and Perrin spoke quickly.
"I'm awake." You had to acknowledge what Byar said, or he found ways to get your attention.
Byar set the lantern on the ground and bent to check his bonds. The man jerked roughly at his wrist,
twisting his arms in their sockets. Finding those knots still as tight as he had left them, Byar pulled at his ankle
rope, scraping him across the rocky ground. The man looked too skeletal to have any strength, but Perrin might
as well have been a child. It was a nightly routine.
As Byar straightened, Perrin saw that Egwene was still asleep. "Wake up!" he shouted. "Egwene! Wake
up!"
"Wha . . . ? What?" Egwene's voice was frightened and still thick with sleep. She lifted her head,
blinking in the lantern light.
Byar gave no sign of disappointment at not being able to kick her awake; he never did. He just jerked at
her ropes the same way he had Perrin's, ignoring her groans. Causing pain was another of those things that
seemed not to affect him one way or another; Perrin was the only one he really went out of his way to hurt.
Even if Perrin could not remember it, Byar remembered that he had killed two of the Children.
"Why should Darkfriends sleep," Byar said dispassionately, "when decent men must stay awake to guard
them?"
"For the hundredth time," Egwene said wearily, "we aren't Darkfriends. "
Perrin tensed. Sometimes such a denial brought a lecture delivered in a grating near monotone, on
confession and repentance, leading into a description of the Questioners' methods of obtaining them. Sometimes
it brought the lecture and a kick. To his surprise, this time Byar ignored it.
Instead the man squatted in front of him, all angles and sunken hollows, with the axe across his knees.
The golden sun on his cloak's left breast, and the two golden stars beneath it, glittered in the lantern light.
Taking off his helmet, he set it beside the lantern. For a change there was something besides disdain or hatred
on his face, something intent and unreadable. He rested his arms on the axehandle and studied Perrin silently.
Perrin tried not to shift under that hollow-eyed stare.
"You are slowing us down, Darkfriend, you and your wolves. The Council of the Anointed has heard
reports of such things, and they want to know more, so you must be taken to Amador and given to the
Questioners, but you are slowing us down. I had hoped we could move fast enough, even without the remounts,
but I was wrong." He fell silent, frowning at them.
Perrin waited; Byar would tell him when he was ready.
"The Lord Captain is caught in the cleft of a dilemma," Byar said finally. "Because of the wolves he
must take you to the Council, but he must reach Caemlyn, too. We have no spare horses to carry you, but if we
continue to let you walk, we will not reach Caemlyn by the appointed time. The Lord Captain sees his duties
with a single-minded vision, and he intends to see you before the Council."
Egwene made a sound. Byar was staring at Perrin, and he stared back, almost afraid to blink. "I don't
understand," he said slowly.
"There is nothing to understand," Byar replied. "Nothing but idle speculation. If you escaped, we would
not have time to track you down. We don't have an hour to spare if we are to reach Caemlyn in time. If you
frayed your ropes on a sharp rock, say, and vanished into the night, the Lord Captain's problem would be
solved." Never taking his gaze from Perrin, he reached under his cloak and tossed something on the ground.
Automatically Perrin's eyes followed it. When he realized what it was, he gasped. A rock. A split rock
with a sharp edge.
"Just idle speculation," Byar said. "Your guards tonight also speculate."
Perrin's mouth was suddenly dry. Think it through! Light help me, think it through and don't make any
mistakes!
Could it be true? Could the Whitecloaks' need to get to Caemlyn quickly be important enough for this?
Letting suspected Darkfriends escape? There was no use trying that way; he did not know enough. Byar was the
only Whitecloak who would talk to them, aside from Lord Captain Bornhald, and neither was exactly free with
information. Another way. If Byar wanted them to escape, why not simply cut their bonds? If Byar wanted them
to escape? Byar, who was convinced to his marrow that they were Darkfriends. Byar, who hated Darkfriends
worse than he did the Dark One himself. Byar, who looked for any excuse to cause him pain because he had
killed two Whitecloaks. Byar wanted them to escape?
If he had thought his mind was racing before, now it sped like an avalanche. Despite the cold, sweat ran
down his face in rivulets. He glanced at the guards. They were only shadows of pale gray, but it seemed to him
that they were poised, waiting. If he and Egwene were killed trying to escape, and their ropes had been cut on a
rock that could have been lying there by chance . . . The Lord Captain's dilemma would be solved, all right. And
Byar would have them dead, the way he wanted them.
The gaunt man picked up his helmet from beside the lantern and started to stand.
"Wait," Perrin said hoarsely. His thoughts tumbled over and over as he searched in vain for some way
out. "Wait, I want to talk. I – ”
Help comes!
The thought blossomed in his mind, a clear burst of light in the midst of chaos, so startling that for a
moment he forgot everything else, even where he was. Dapple was alive. Elyas, he thought at the wolf,
demanding without words to know if the man was alive. An image came back. Elyas, lying on a bed of
evergreen branches beside a small fire in a cave, tending a wound in his side. It all took only an instant. He
gaped at Byar, and his face broke into a foolish grin. Elyas was alive. Dapple was alive. Help was coming.
Byar paused, risen only to a crouch, looking at him. "Some thought has come to you, Perrin of the Two
Rivers, and I would know what it is."
For a moment Perrin thought he meant the thought from Dapple. Panic fled across his face, followed by
relief. Byar could not possibly know.
Byar watched his changes of expression, and for the first time the Whitecloak's eyes went to the rock he
had tossed on the ground.
He was reconsidering, Perrin realized. If he changed his mind about the rock, would he dare risk leaving
them alive to talk? Ropes could be frayed after the people wearing them were dead, even if it made for risk of
discovery. He looked into Byar's eyes - the shadowed hollows of the man's eye sockets made them appear to
stare at him from dark caves - and he saw death decided.
Byar opened his mouth, and as Perrin waited for sentence to be pronounced, things began to happen too
fast for thought.
Suddenly one of the guards vanished. One minute there were two dim shapes, the next the night
swallowed one of them. The second guard turned, the beginning of a cry on his lips, but before the first syllable
was uttered there was a solid tchunk and he toppled over like a felled tree.
Byar spun, swift as a striking viper, the axe whirling in his hands so fast that it hummed. Perrin's eyes
bulged as the night seemed to flow into the lantern light. His mouth opened to yell, but his throat locked tight
with fear. For an instant he even forgot that Byar wanted to kill them. The Whitecloak was another human
being, and the night had come alive to take them all.
Then the darkness invading the light became Lan, cloak swirling through shades of gray and black as he
moved. The axe in Byar's hands lashed out like lightning . . . and Lan seemed to lean casually aside, letting the
blade pass so close he must have felt the wind of it. Byar's eyes widened as the force of his blow carried him off
balance, as the Warder struck with hands and feet in rapid succession, so quick that Perrin was not sure what he
had just seen. What he was sure of was Byar collapsing like a puppet. Before the falling Whitecloak had
finished settling to the ground, the Warder was on his knees extinguishing the lantern.
In the sudden return to darkness, Perrin stared blindly. Lan seemed to have vanished again.
"Is it really . . . ?" Egwene gave a stifled sob. "We thought you were dead. We thought you were all
dead."
"Not yet." The Warder's deep whisper was tinged with amusement.
Hands touched Perrin, found his bonds. A knife sliced through the ropes with barely a tug, and he was
free. Aching muscles protested as he sat up. Rubbing his wrists, he peered at the graying mound that marked
Byar. "Did you . . . ? Is he . . . ?"
"No," Lan's voice answered quietly from the darkness. "I do not kill unless I mean to. But he won't
bother anyone for a while. Stop asking questions and get a pair of their cloaks. We do not have much time."
Perrin crawled to where Byar lay. It took an effort to touch the man, and when he felt the Whitecloak's
chest rising and falling he almost jerked his hands away. His skin crawled as he made himself unfasten the
white cloak and pull it off. Despite what Lan said, he could imagine the skull-faced man suddenly rearing up.
Hastily he fumbled around till he found his axe, then crawled to another guard. It seemed strange, at first, that
he felt no reluctance to touch this unconscious man, but the reason came to him. All the Whitecloaks hated him,
but that was a human emotion. Byar felt nothing beyond that he should die; there was no hate in it, no emotion
at all.
Gathering the two cloaks in his arms, he turned-and panic grabbed him. In the darkness he suddenly had
no sense of direction, of how to find his way back to Lan and the others. His feet rooted to the ground, afraid to
move. Even Byar was hidden by the night without his white cloak. There was nothing by which to orient
himself. Any way he went might be out into the camp.
"Here. "
He stumbled toward Lan's whisper until hands stopped him. Egwene was a dim shadow, and Lan's face
was a blur; the rest of the Warder seemed not to be there at all. He could feel their eyes on him, and he
wondered if he should explain.
"Put on the cloaks," Lan said softly. "Quickly. Bundle your own. And make no sound. You aren't safe
yet."
Hurriedly Perrin passed one of the cloaks to Egwene, relieved at being saved from having to tell of his
fear. He made his own cloak into a bundle to carry, and swung the white cloak around his shoulders in its place.
He felt a prickle as it settled around his shoulders, a stab of worry between his shoulder blades. Was it Byar's
cloak he had ended up with? He almost thought he could smell the gaunt man on it.
Lan directed them to hold hands, and Perrin gripped his axe in one hand and Egwene's handwith the
other, wishing the Warder would get on with their escape so he could stop hisimagination from running wild.
But they just stood there, surrounded by the tents of theChildren, two shapes in white cloaks and one that was
sensed but not seen.
"Soon," Lan whispered. "Very soon."
Lightning broke the night above the camp, so close that Perrin felt the hair on his arms, his head, lifting
as the bolt charged the air. Just beyond the tents the earth erupted from the blow, the explosion on the ground
merging with that in the sky. Before the light faded Lan was leading them forward.
At their first step another strike sliced open the blackness. Lightning came like hail, so that the night
flickered as if the darkness were coming in momentary flashes. Thunder drummed wildly, one roar rumbling
into the next, one continuous, rippling peal. Fear-stricken horses screamed, their whinnies drowned except for
moments when the thunder faded. Men tumbled out of their tents, some in their white cloaks, some only half
clothed, some dashing to and fro, some standing as if stunned.
Through the middle of it Lan pulled them at a trot, Perrin bringing up the rear. Whitecloaks looked at
them, wild-eyed, as they passed. A few shouted at them, the shouts lost in the pounding from the heavens, but
with their white cloaks gathered around them no one tried to stop them. Through the tents, out of the camp and
into the night, and no one raised a hand against them.
The ground turned uneven under Perrin's feet, and brush slapped at him as he let himself be drawn
along. The lightning flickered fitfully and was gone. Echoes of thunder rolled across the sky before they, too,
faded away. Perrin looked over his shoulder. A handful of fires burned back there, among the tents. Some of the
lightning must have struck home, or perhaps men had knocked over lamps in their panic. Men still shouted,
voices tiny in the night, trying to restore order, to find out what had happened. The land began to slope upwards,
and tents and fires and shouting were left behind.
Suddenly he almost trod on Egwene's heels as Lan stopped. Ahead in the moonlight stood three horses.
A shadow stirred, and Moiraine's voice came, weighted with irritation. "Nynaeve has not returned. I fear
that young woman has done something foolish." Lan spun on his heel as if to return the way they had come, but
a single whip-crack word from Moiraine halted him. "No!" He stood looking at her sideways, only his face and
hands truly visible, and they but dimly shadowed blurs. She went on in a gentler tone; gentler but no less firm.
"Some things are more important than others. You know that." The Warder did not move, and her voice
hardened again. "Remember your oaths, al'Lan Mandragoran, Lord of the Seven Towers! What of the oath of a
Diademed Battle Lord of the Malkieri?"
Perrin blinked. Lan was all of that? Egwene was murmuring, but he could not take his eyes off the
tableau in front of him, Lan standing like a wolf from Dapple's pack, a wolf at bay before the diminutive Aes
Sedai and vainly seeking escape from doom.
The frozen scene was broken by a crash of breaking branches in the woods. In two long strides Lan was
between Moiraine and the sound, the pale moonlight rippling along his sword. To the crackle and snap of
underbrush a pair of horses burst from the trees, one with a rider.
"Bela!" Egwene exclaimed at the same time that Nynaeve said from the shaggy mare's back, "I almost
didn't find you again. Egwene! Thank the Light you're alive!"
She slid down off Bela, but as she started toward the Emond's Fielders Lan caught her arm and she
stopped short, staring up at him.
"We must go, Lan," Moiraine said, once more sounding unruffled, and the Warder released his grip.
Nynaeve rubbed her arm as she hurried to hug Egwene, but Perrin thought he heard her give a low
laugh, too. It puzzled him because he did not think it had anything to do with her happiness at seeing them
again.
"Where are Rand and Mat?" he asked.
"Elsewhere," Moiraine replied, and Nynaeve muttered something in a sharp tone that made Egwene
gasp. Perrin blinked; he had caught the edge of a wagoneer's oath, and a coarse one. "The Light send they are
well," the Aes Sedai went on as if she had not noticed.
"We will none of us be well," Lan said, "if the Whitecloaks find us. Change your cloaks, and get
mounted."
Perrin scrambled up onto the horse Nynaeve had brought behind Bela. The lack of a saddle did not
hamper him; he did not ride often at home, but when he did it was more likely bareback than not. He still
carried the white cloak, now rolled up and tied to his belt. The Warder said they must leave no more traces for
the Children to find than they could help. He still thought he could smell Byar on it.
As they started out, the Warder leading on his tall black stallion, Perrin felt Dapple's touch on his mind
once more. One day again. More a feeling than words, it sighed with the promise of a meeting foreordained,
with anticipation of what was to come, with resignation to what was to come, all streaked in layers. He tried to
ask when and why, fumbling in haste and sudden fear. The trace of the wolves grew fainter, fading. His frantic
questions brought only the same heavy-laden answer. One day again. It hung haunting in his mind long after
awareness of the wolves winked out.
Lan pressed southward slowly but steadily. The night-draped wilderness, all rolling ground and
underbrush hidden until it was underfoot, shadowed trees thick against the sky, allowed no great speed in any
case. Twice the Warder left them, riding back toward the slivered moon, he and Mandarb becoming one with
the night behind. Both times he returned to report no sign of pursuit.
Egwene stayed close beside Nynaeve. Soft-spoken scraps of excited talk floated back to Perrin. Those
two were as buoyed up as if they had found home again. He hung back at the tail of their little column.
Sometimes the Wisdom turned in her saddle to look back at him, and each time he gave her a wave, as if to say
that he was all right, and stayed where he was. He had a lot to think about, though he could not get any of it
straight in his head. What was to come. What was to come?
Perrin thought it could not be much short of dawn when Moiraine finally called a halt. Lan found a gully
where he could build a fire hidden within a hollow in one of the banks.
Finally they were allowed to rid themselves of the white cloaks, burying them in a hole dug near the fire.
As he was about to toss in the cloak he had used, the embroidered golden sun on the breast caught his eye, and
the two golden stars beneath. He dropped the cloak as if it stung and walked away, scrubbing his hands on his
coat, to sit alone.
"Now," Egwene said, once Lan was shoveling dirt into the hole, "will somebody tell me where Rand and
Mat are?"
"I believe they are in Caemlyn," Moiraine said carefully, "or on their way there." Nynaeve gave a loud,
disparaging grunt, but the Aes Sedai went on as if she had not been interrupted. "If they are not, I will yet find
them. That I promise."
They made a quiet meal on bread and cheese and hot tea. Even Egwene's enthusiasm succumbed to
weariness. The Wisdom produced an ointment from her bag for the weals the ropes had left on Egwene's wrists,
and a different one for her other bruises. When she came to where Perrin sat on the edge of the firelight, he did
not look up.
She stood looking at him silently for a time, then squatted with her bag beside her, saying briskly, "Take
your coat and shirt off, Perrin. They tell me one of the Whitecloaks took a dislike to you."
He complied slowly, still half lost in Dapple's message, until Nynaeve gasped. Startled, he stared at her,
then at his own bare chest. It was a mass of color, the newer, purple blotches overlaying older ones faded into
shades of brown and yellow. Only thick slabs of muscle earned by hours at Master Luhhan's forge had saved
him from broken ribs. With his mind filled by the wolves, he had managed to forget the pain, but he was
reminded of it now, and it came back gladly. Involuntarily he took a deep breath, and clamped his lips on a
groan.
"How could he have disliked you so much?" Nynaeve asked wonderingly.
I killed two men. Aloud, he said, "I don't know."
She rummaged in her bag, and he flinched when she began spreading a greasy ointment over his bruises.
"Ground ivy, five-finger, and sunburst root," she said.
It was hot and cold at the same time, making him shiver while he broke into a sweat, but he did not
protest. He had had experience of Nynaeve's ointments and poultices before. As her fingers gently rubbed the
mixture in, the heat and cold vanished, taking the pain with them. The purple splotches faded to brown, and the
brown and yellow paled, some disappearing altogether. Experimentally, he took a deep breath; there was barely
a twinge.
"You look surprised," Nynaeve said. She looked a little surprised herself, and strangely frightened.
"Next time, you can go to her. "
"Not surprised," he said soothingly, "just glad." Sometimes Nynaeve's ointments worked fast and
sometimes slow, but they always worked. "What . . . what happened to Rand and Mat?"
Nynaeve began stuffing her vials and pots back into her bag, jamming each one in as if she were
thrusting it through a barrier. "She says they're all right. She says we'll find them. In Caemlyn, she says. She
says it's too important for us not to, whatever that means. She says a great many things."
Perrin grinned in spite of himself. Whatever else had changed, the Wisdom was still herself, and she and
the Aes Sedai were still far from fast friends.
Abruptly Nynaeve stiffened, staring at his face. Dropping her bag, she pressed the backs of her hands to
his cheeks and forehead. He tried to pull back, but she caught his head in both hands and thumbed back his
eyelids, peering into his eyes and muttering to herself. Despite her small size she held his face easily; it was
never easy to get away from Nynaeve when she did not want you to.
"I don't understand," she said finally, releasing him and settling back to sit on her heels. "If it was
yelloweye fever, you wouldn't be able to stand. But you don't have any fever, and the whites of your eyes aren't
yellowed, just the irises."
"Yellow?" Moiraine said, and Perrin and Nynaeve both jumped where they sat. The Aes Sedai's
approach had been utterly silent. Egwene was asleep by the fire, wrapped in her cloaks, Perrin saw. His own
eyelids wanted to slide closed.
"It isn't anything," he said, but Moiraine put a hand under his chin and turned his face up so she could
peer into his eyes the way Nynaeve had. He jerked away, prickling. The two women were handling him as if he
were a child. "I said it isn't anything."
"There was no foretelling this." Moiraine spoke as if to herself. Her eyes seemed to look at something
beyond him. "Something ordained to be woven, or a change in the Pattern? If a change, by what hand? The
Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills. It must be that."
"Do you know what it is?" Nynaeve asked reluctantly, then hesitated. "Can you do something for him?
Your Healing?" The request for aid, the admission that she could do nothing, came out of her as if dragged.
Perrin glared at both the women. "If you're going to talk about me, talk to me. I'm sitting right here. "
Neither looked at him.
"Healing?" Moiraine smiled. "Healing can do nothing about this. It is not an illness, and it will not . . ."
She hesitated briefly. She did glance at Perrin, then, a quick look that regretted many things. The look did not
include him, though, and he muttered sourly as she turned back to
Nynaeve. "I was going to say it will not harm him, but who can say what the end will be? At least I can
say it will not harm him directly."
Nynaeve stood, dusting off her knees, and confronted the Aes Sedai eye to eye. "That's not good enough. If
there's something wrong with-"
"What is, is. What is woven already is past changing." Moiraine turned away abruptly. "We must sleep
while we can and leave at first light. If the Dark One's hand grows too strong . . . We must reach Caemlyn
quickly."
Angrily, Nynaeve snatched up her bag and stalked off before Perrin could speak. He started to growl an
oath, but a thought hit him like a blow and he sat there gaping silently. Moiraine knew. The Aes Sedai knew
about the wolves. And she thought it could be the Dark One's doing. A shiver ran through him. Hastily he
shrugged back into his shirt, tucking it in awkwardly, and pulled his coat and cloak back on. The clothing did
not help very much; he felt chilled right down to his bones, his marrow like frozen jelly.
Lan dropped to the ground cross-legged, tossing back his cloak. Perrin was glad of that. It was
unpleasant, looking at the Warder and having his eyes slide past.
For a long moment they simply stared at one another. The hard planes of the Warder's face were
unreadable, but in his eyes Perrin thought he saw something. Sympathy? Curiosity? Both?
"You know?" he said, and Lan nodded.
"I know some, not all. Did it just come to you, or did you meet a guide, an intermediary?"
"There was a man," Perrin said slowly. He knows, but does he think the same as Moiraine? "He said his
name was Elyas. Elyas Machera." Lan drew a deep breath, and Perrin looked at him sharply. "You know him?"
"I knew him. He taught me much, about the Blight, and about this." Lan touched his sword hilt. "He was
a Warder, before . . . before what happened. The Red Ajah . . ." He glanced to where Moiraine was, lying before
the fire.
It was the first time Perrin could remember any uncertainty in the Warder. At Shadar Logoth Lan had
been sure and strong, and when he was facing Fades and Trollocs. He was not afraid now - Perrin was
convinced of that - but he was wary, as if he might say too much. As if what he said could be dangerous.
"I've heard of the Red Ajah," he told Lan.
"And most of what you've heard is wrong, no doubt. You must understand, there are . . . factions within
Tar Valon. Some would fight the Dark One one way, some another. The goal is the same, but the differences . .
. the differences can mean lives changed, or ended. The lives of men or nations. He is well, Elyas?"
"I think so. The Whitecloaks said they killed him, but Dapple - " Perrin glanced at the Warder
uncomfortably. "I don't know." Lan seemed to accept that he did not, reluctantly, and it emboldened him to go
on. "This communicating with the wolves. Moiraine seems to think it's something the . . . something the Dark
One did. It isn't, is it?" He would not believe Elyas was a Darkfriend.
But Lan hesitated, and sweat started on Perrin's face, chill beads made colder by the night. They were
sliding down his cheeks by the time the Warder spoke.
"Not in itself, no. Some believe it is, but they are wrong; it was old and lost long before the Dark One
was found. But what of the chance involved, blacksmith? Sometimes the Pattern has a randomness to it-to our
eyes, at least-but what chance that you should meet a man who could guide you in this thing, and you one who
could follow the guiding? The Pattern is forming a Great Web, what some call the Lace of Ages, and you lads
are central to it. I don't think there is much chance left in your lives, now. Have you been chosen out, then? And
if so, by the Light, or by the Shadow?"
"The Dark One can't touch us unless we name him." Immediately Perrin thought of the dreams of
Ba'alzamon, the dreams that were more than dreams. He scrubbed the sweat off his face. "He can't."
"Rock-hard stubborn," the Warder mused. "Maybe stubborn enough to save yourself, in the end.
Remember the times we live in, blacksmith. Remember what Moiraine Sedai told you. In these times many
things are dissolving, and breaking apart. Old barriers weaken, old walls crumble. The barriers between what is
and what was, between what is and what will be." His voice turned grim. "The walls of the Dark One's prison.
This may be the end of an Age. We may see a new Age born before we die. Or perhaps it is the end of Ages, the
end of time itself. The end of the world." Suddenly he grinned, but his grin was as dark as a scowl; his eyes
sparkled merrily, laughing at the foot of the gallows. "But that's not for us to worry about, eh, blacksmith? We'll
fight the Shadow as long as we have breath, and if it overruns us, we'll go under biting and clawing. You Two
Rivers folk are too stubborn to surrender. Don't you worry whether the Dark One has stirred in your life. You
are back among friends, now. Remember, the Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills, and even the Dark One cannot
change that, not with Moiraine to watch over you. But we had better find your friends soon."
"What do you mean?"
"They have no Aes Sedai touching the True Source to protect them. Blacksmith, perhaps the walls have
weakened enough for the Dark One himself to touch events. Not with a free hand, or we'd be done already, but
maybe tiny shiftings in the threads. A chance turning of one corner instead of another, a chance meeting, a
chance word, or what seems like chance, and they could be so far under the Shadow not even Moiraine could
bring them back."
"We have to find them," Perrin said, and the Warder gave a grunt of a laugh.
"What have I been saying? Get some sleep, blacksmith." Lan's cloak swung back around him as he
stood. In the faint light from fire and moon he seemed almost part of the shadows beyond. "We have a hard few
days to Caemlyn. Just you pray we find them there."
"But Moiraine . . . she can find them anywhere, can't she? She says she can."
"But can she find them in time? If the Dark One is strong enough to take a hand himself, time is running
out. You pray we find them in Caemlyn, blacksmith, or we may all be lost."
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Chapter 39

Weaving of the Web


Rand looked down on the crowds from the high' window of his room in The Queen's Blessing. They ran
shouting along the street, all streaming in the same direction, waving pennants and banners, the white
lion standing guard on a thousand fields of red. Caemlyners and outlanders, they ran together, and for
a change no one appeared to want to bash anyone else's head. Today, maybe, there was only one faction.
He turned from the window grinning. Next to the day when Egwene and Perrin walked in, alive and
laughing over what they had seen, this was the day he had been waiting for most.
"Are you coming?" he asked again.
Mat glowered from where he lay curled up in a ball on his bed. "Take that Trolloc you're so friendly
with."
"Blood and ashes, Mat, he's not a Trolloc. You're just being stubborn stupid. How many times do you
want to have this argument? Light, it's not as if you'd never heard of Ogier before."
"I never heard they looked like Trollocs." Mat pushed his face into his pillow and curled himself tighter.
"Stubborn stupid," Rand muttered. "How long are you going to hide up here? I'm not going to keep
bringing you your meals up all those stairs forever. You could do with a bath, too." Mat shrugged around on the
bed as if he were trying to burrow deeper into it. Rand sighed, then went to the door. "Last chance to go
together, Mat. I'm leaving now." He closed the door slowly, hoping that Mat would change his mind, but his
friend did not stir. The door clicked shut.
In the hallway, he leaned against the doorframe. Master Gill said there was an old woman two streets
over, Mother Grubb, who sold herbs and poultices, besides birthing babies, tending the sick, and telling
fortunes. She sounded a little like a Wisdom. Nynaeve was who Mat needed, or maybe Moiraine, but Mother
Grubb was who he had. Bringing her to The Queen's Blessing might bring the wrong kind of attention as well,
though, if she would even come. For her as well as for Mat and him.
Herbalists and hedge-doctors were lying low in Caemlyn right now; there was talk against anyone who
did any kind of healing, or fortunetelling. Every night the Dragon's Fang was scrawled on doors with a free
hand, sometimes even in the daylight, and people might forget who had cured their fevers and poulticed their
toothaches when the cry of Darkfriend went up. That was the temper in the city.
It was not as if Mat were really sick. He ate everything Rand carried up from the kitchen-he would take
nothing from anyone else's hand, though-and never complained about aches or fever. He just refused to leave
the room. But Rand had been sure today would bring him out.
He settled his cloak on his shoulders and hitched his sword belt around so the sword, and the red cloth
wrapped around it, was covered more.
At the foot of the stairs he met Master Gill just starting up. "There's someone been asking after you in
the city," the innkeeper said around his pipe. Rand felt a surge of hope. "Asking after you and those friends of
yours, by name. You younglings, anyway. Seems to want you three lads most. "
Anxiety replaced hope. "Who?" Rand asked. He still could not help glancing up and down the hall.
Except for they two, it was empty, from the exit into the alley to the common room door.
"Don't know his name. Just heard about him. I hear most things in Caemlyn, eventually. Beggar." The
innkeeper grunted. "Half mad, I hear. Even so, he could take the Queen's Bounty at the Palace, even with things
as hard as they are. On High Days, the Queen gives it out with her own hands, and there's never anyone turned
away for any reason. No one needs to beg in Caemlyn. Even a man under warrant can't be arrested while he's
taking the Queen's Bounty."
"A Darkfriend?" Rand said reluctantly. If the Darkfriends know our names . . .
"You've got Darkfriends on the brain, young fellow. They're around, certainly, but just because the
Whitecloaks have everybody stirred up is no reason for you to think the city's full of them. Do you know what
rumor those idiots have started now? 'Strange shapes.' Can you believe it? Strange shapes creeping around
outside the city in the night." The innkeeper chuckled till his belly shook.
Rand did not feel like laughing. Hyam Kinch had talked about strange shapes, and there had surely
enough been a Fade back there. "What kind of shapes?"
"What kind? I don't know what kind. Strange shapes. Trollocs, probably. The Shadowman. Lews Therin
Kinslayer himself, come back fifty feet high. What kind of shapes do you think people will imagine now the
idea's in their heads? It's none of our worry." Master Gill eyed him for a moment. "Going out, are you? Well, I
can't say I care for it, myself, even today, but there's hardly anybody left here but me. Not your friend?"
"Mat's not feeling very well. Maybe later."
"Well, be that as it may. You watch yourself, now. Even today good Queen's men will be outnumbered
out there, Light burn the day I ever thought to see it so. Best you leave by the alleyway. There's two of those
blood-be-damned traitors sitting across the street watching my front door. They know where I stand, by the
Light!"
Rand stuck his head out and looked both ways before slipping into the alley. A bulky man Master Gill
had hired stood at the head of the alley, leaning on a spear and watching the people run past with an apparent
lack of interest. It was only apparent, Rand knew. The fellow – his name was Lamgwin - saw everything
through those heavy-lidded eyes, and for all his bullish bulk he could move like a cat. He also thought Queen
Morgase was the Light made flesh, or near enough. There were a dozen like him scattered around The Queen's
Blessing.
Lamgwin's ear twitched when Rand reached the mouth of the alley, but he never took his disinterest off
the street. Rand knew the man had heard him coming.
"Watch your back today, man." Lamgwin's voice sounded like gravel in a pan. "When the trouble starts,
you'll be a handy one to have here, not somewhere with a knife in your back."
Rand glanced at the blocky man, but his surprise was muted. He always tried to keep the sword out of
sight, but this was not the first time one of Master Gill's men had assumed he would know his way in a fight.
Lamgwin did not look back at him. The man's job was guarding the inn, and he did it.
Pushing his sword back a little further under his cloak, Rand joined the flow of people. He saw the two
men the innkeeper had mentioned, standing on upturned barrels across the street from the inn so they could see
over the crowd. He did not think they noticed him coming out of the alley. They made no secret of their
allegiance. Not only were their swords wrapped in white tied with red, they wore white armbands and white
cockades on their hats.
He had not been in Caemlyn long before learning that red wrappings on a sword, or a red armband or
cockade, meant support for Queen Morgase. White said the Queen and her involvement with Aes Sedai and Tar
Valon were to blame for everything that had gone wrong. For the weather, and the failed crops. Maybe even for
the false Dragon.
He did not want to get involved in Caemlyn politics. Only, it was too late, now. It was not just that he
had already chosen-by accident, but there it was. Matters in the city had gone beyond letting anyone stay
neutral. Even outlanders wore cockades and armbands, or wrapped their swords, and more wore the white than
the red. Maybe some of them did not think that way, but they were far from home and that was the way
sentiment was running in Caemlyn. Men who supported the Queen went about in groups for their own
protection, when they went out at all.
Today, though, it was different. On the surface, at least. Today, Caemlyn celebrated a victory of the
Light over the Shadow. Today the false Dragon was being brought into the city, to be displayed before the
Queen before he was taken north to Tar Valon. No one talked about that part of it. No one but the Aes Sedai
could deal with a man who could actually wield the One Power, of course, but no one wanted to talk about it.
The Light had defeated the Shadow, and soldiers from Andor had been in the forefront of the battle. For today,
that was all that was important. For today, everything else could be forgotten.
Or could it, Rand wondered. The crowd ran, singing and waving banners, laughing, but men displaying
the red kept together in knots of ten or twenty, and there were no women or children with them. He thought
there were at least ten men showing white for every one proclaiming allegiance to the Queen. Not for the first
time, he wished white cloth had been the cheaper. But would Master Gill have helped if you'd been showing the
white?
The crowd was so thick that jostling was inevitable. Even Whitecloaks did not enjoy their little open
spaces in the throng today. As Rand let the crowd carry him toward the Inner City, he realized that not all
animosities were being reined in. He saw one of the Children of the Light, one of three, bumped so hard he
almost fell. The Whitecloak barely caught himself and started an angry oath at the man who had bumped him
when another man staggered him with a deliberate, aimed shoulder. Before matters could go any further the
Whitecloak's companions pulled him over to the side of the street to where they could shelter in a doorway. The
three seemed caught between their normal glaring stare and disbelief. The crowd streamed on by as if none had
noticed, and perhaps none had.
No one would have dared do such a thing two days earlier. More, Rand realized, the men who had done
the bumping wore white cockades on their hats. It was widely believed the Whitecloaks supported those who
opposed the Queen and her Aes Sedai advisor, but that made no difference. Men were doing things of which
they had never before thought. Jostling a Whitecloak, today. Tomorrow, perhaps pulling down a Queen?
Suddenly he wished there were a few more men close to him showing red; jostled by white cockades and
armbands, he abruptly felt very alone.
The Whitecloaks noticed him looking at them and stared back as if meeting a challenge. He let a singing
swirl in the crowd sweep him out of their sight, and joined in their song.
"Forward the Lion,
forward the Lion,
the White Lion takes the field.
Roar defiance at the Shadow.
Forward the Lion, forward,
Andor triumphant."
The route that would bring the false Dragon into Caemlyn was well known. Those streets themselves
were kept clear by solid lines of the Queen's Guards and red-cloaked pikemen, but people packed the edges of
them shoulder to shoulder, even the windows and the rooftops. Rand worked his way into the Inner City, trying
to get closer to the Palace. He had some thought of actually seeing Logain displayed before the Queen. To see
the false Dragon and a Queen, both…that was something he had never dreamed of back home.
The Inner City was built on hills, and much of what the Ogier had made still remained. Where streets in
the New City mostly ran every which way in a crazy-quilt, here they followed the curves of the hills as if they
were a natural part of the earth. Sweeping rises and dips presented new and surprising vistas at every turn. Parks
seen from different angles, even from above, where their walks and monuments made patterns pleasing to the
eye though barely touched with green. Towers suddenly revealed, tile-covered walls glittering in the sunlight
with a hundred changing colors. Sudden rises where the gaze was thrown out across the entire city to the rolling
plains and forests beyond. All in all, it would have been something to see if not for the crowd that hurried him
along before he had a chance to really take it in. And all those curving streets made it impossible to see very far
ahead.
Abruptly he was swept around a bend, and there was the Palace. The streets, even following the natural
contours of the land, had been laid out to spiral in on this-this gleeman's tale of pale spires and golden domes
and intricate stonework traceries, with the banner of Andor waving from every prominence, a centerpiece for
which all the other vistas had been designed. It seemed more sculpted by an artist than simply built like ordinary
buildings.
That glimpse showed him he would get no nearer. No one was being allowed close to the Palace.
Queen's Guards made scarlet ranks ten deep flanking the Palace gates. Along the tops of the white walls, on
high balconies and towers, more Guards stood rigidly straight, bows precisely slanted across breastplated
chests. They, too, looked like something out of a gleeman's tale, a guard of honor, but Rand did not believe that
was why they were there. The clamoring crowd lining the streets was almost solid with white-wrapped swords,
white armbands, and white cockades. Only here and there was the white wall broken by a knot of red. The reduniformed
guards seemed a thin barrier against all that white.
Giving up on making his way closer to the Palace, he sought a place where he could use his height to
advantage. He did not have to be in the front row to see everything. The crowd shifted constantly, people
shoving to get nearer the front, people hurrying off to what they thought was a better vantage point. In one of
those shifts he found himself only three people from the open street, and all in front of him were shorter than he,
including the pikemen. Almost everyone was. People crowded against him from both sides, sweating from the
press of so many bodies. Those behind him muttered about not being able to see, and tried to wriggle past. He
stood his ground, making an impervious wall with those to either side. He was content. When the false Dragon
passed by, he would be close enough to see the man's face clearly.
Across the street and down toward the gates to the New City, a ripple passed through the tight-packed
crowd; around the curve, an eddy of people was drawing back to let something go by. It was not like the clear
space that followed Whitecloaks on any day but today. These people jerked themselves back with startled
glances that became grimaces of distaste. Pressing themselves out of the way, they turned their faces from
whatever it was, but watched out of the corners of their eyes until it was past.
Other eyes around him noted the disturbance, too. Keyed for the coming of the Dragon but with nothing
to do now but wait, the crowd found anything at all worthy of comment. He heard speculation ranging from an
Aes Sedai to Logain himself, and a few coarser suggestions that brought rough laughter from the men and
disdainful sniffs from the women.
The ripple meandered through the crowd, drawing closer to the edge of the street as it came. No one
seemed to hesitate in letting it go where it wanted, even if that meant losing a good spot for viewing as the
crowd flowed back in on itself behind the passing. Finally, directly across from Rand, the crowd bulged into the
street, pushing aside red-cloaked pikemen who struggled to shove them back, and broke open. The stooped
shape that shuffled hesitantly out into the open looked more like a pile of filthy rags than a man. Rand heard
murmurs of disgust around him.The ragged man paused on the far edge of the street. His cowl, torn and stiff
with dirt, swung back and forth as if searching for something, or listening. Abruptly he gave a wordless cry and
flung out a dirty claw of a hand, pointing straight at Rand. Immediately he began to scuttle across the street like
a bug.
The beggar. Whatever ill chance had led the man to find him like this, Rand was suddenly sure that,
Darkfriend or not, he did not want to meet him face-to-face. He could feel the beggar's eyes, like greasy water
on his skin. Especially he did not want the man close to him here, surrounded by people balanced on the brink
of violence. The same voices that had laughed before now cursed him as he pushed his way back, away from
the street.
He hurried, knowing the densely packed mass through which he had to shove and wriggle would give
way before the filthy man. Struggling to force a path through the crowd, he staggered and almost fell when he
abruptly broke free. Flailing his arms to keep his balance he turned the stagger into a run. People pointed at him;
he was the only one not pressing the other way, and running at that. Shouts followed him. His cloak flapped
behind him, exposing his red-clad sword. When he realized that, he ran faster. A lone supporter of the Queen,
running, could well spark a white-cockaded mob to pursuit, even today. He ran, letting his long legs eat paving
stones. Not until the shouts were left far behind did he allow himself to collapse against a wall, panting.
He did not know where he was, except that he was still within the Inner City. He could not remember
how many twists and turns he had taken along those curving streets. Poised to run again, he looked back the
way he had come. Only one person moved on the street, a woman walking placidly along with her shopping
basket. Almost everyone in the city was gathered for a glimpse of the false Dragon. He can't have followed me.
1 must have left him behind.
The beggar would not give up; he was sure of it, though he could not say why. That ragged shape would
be working its way through the crowds at that very minute, searching, and if Rand returned to see Logain he ran
the risk of a meeting. For a moment he considered going back to The Queen's Blessing, but he was sure he
would never get another chance to see a Queen, and he hoped he would never have another to see a false
Dragon. There seemed to be something cowardly in letting a bent beggar, even a Darkfriend, chase him into
hiding.
He looked around, considering. The way the Inner City was laid out, buildings were kept low, if there
were buildings at all, so that someone standing at a particular spot would have nothing to interrupt the planned
view. There had to be places from where he could see the procession pass with the false Dragon. Even if he
could not see the Queen, he could see Logain. Suddenly determined, he set off.
In the next hour he found several such places, every last one already packed cheek-to-cheek with people
avoiding the crush along the procession route. They were a solid front of white cockades and armbands. No red
at all. Thinking what the sight of his sword might do in a crowd like that, he slipped away carefully, and
quickly.
Shouting floated up from the New City, cries and the blaring of trumpets, the martial beat of drums.
Logain and his escort were already in Caemlyn, already on their way to the Palace.
Dispirited, he wandered the all but empty streets, still halfheartedly hoping to find some way to see
Logain. His eyes fell on the slope, bare of buildings, rising above the street where he was walking. In a normal
spring the slope would be an expanse of flowers and grass, but now it was brown all the way to the high wall
along its crest, a wall over which the tops of trees were visible.
This part of the street had not been designed for any grand view, but just ahead, over the rooftops, he
could see some of the Palace spires, topped by White Lion banners fluttering in the wind. He was not sure
exactly where the curve of the street ran after it rounded the hill beyond his sight, but he suddenly had a thought
about that hilltop wall.
The drums and trumpets were drawing nearer, the shouting growing louder. Anxiously he scrambled up
the slope. It was not meant to be climbed, but he dug his boots into the dead sod and pulled himself up using
leafless shrubs as handholds. Panting as much with desire as effort, he scrambled the last yards to the wall. It
reared above him, easily twice his height and more. The air thundered with the drumbeat, rang with trumpet
blasts.
The face of the wall had been left much in the natural state of the stone, the huge blocks fitted together
so well that the joins were nearly invisible, the roughness making it seem almost a natural cliff. Rand grinned.
The cliffs just beyond the Sand Hills were higher, and even Perrin had climbed those. His hands sought rocky
knobs, his booted feet found ridges. The drums raced him as he climbed. He refused to let them win. He would
reach the top before they reached the Palace. In his haste, the stone tore his hands and scraped his knees through
his breeches, but he flung his arms over the top and heaved himself up with a sense of victory.
Hastily he twisted himself around to a seat on the flat, narrow top of the wall. The leafy branches of a
towering tree stuck out over his head, but he had no thought for that. He looked across tiled rooftops, but from
the wall his line of sight was clear. He leaned out, just a little, and could see the Palace gate, and the Queen's
Guards drawn up there, and the expectant crowd. Expectant. Their shouts drowned out by the thunder of drums
and trumpets, but waiting still. He grinned. 1 won.
Even as he settled in place, the first part of the procession rounded the final curve before the Palace.
Twenty ranks of trumpeters came first, splitting the air with peal after triumphant peal, a fanfare of victory.
Behind them, as many drummers thundered. Then came the banners of Caemlyn, white lions on red, borne by
mounted men, followed by the soldiers of Caemlyn, rank on rank on rank of horsemen, armor gleaming, lances
proudly held, crimson pennants fluttering. Treble rows of pikemen and archers flanked them, and came on and
on after the horsemen began passing between the waiting Guards and through the Palace gates.
The last of the foot soldiers rounded the curve, and behind them was a massive wagon. Sixteen horses
pulled it in hitches of four. In the center of its flat bed was a large cage of iron bars, and on each corner of the
wagonbed sat two women, watching the cage as intently as if the procession and the crowd did not exist. Aes
Sedai, he was certain. Between the wagon and the footmen, and to either side, rode a dozen Warders, their
cloaks swirling and tangling the eye. If the Aes Sedai ignored the crowd, the Warders scanned it as if there were
no other guards but they.
With all of that, it was the man in the cage who caught and held Rand's eyes. He was not close enough
to see Logain's face, as he had wanted to, but suddenly he thought he was as close as he cared for. The false
Dragon was a tall man, with long, dark hair curling around his broad shoulders. He held himself upright against
the sway of the wagon with one hand on the bars over his head. His clothes seemed ordinary, a cloak and coat
and breeches that would not have caused comment in any farming village. But the way he wore them. The way
he held himself. Logain was a king in every inch of him. The cage might as well not have been there. He held
himself erect, head high, and looked over the crowd as if they had come to do him honor. And wherever his
gaze swept, there the people fell silent, staring back in awe. When Logain's eyes left them, they screamed with
redoubled fury as if to make up for their silence, but it made no difference in the way the man stood, or in the
silence that passed along with him. As the wagon rolled through the Palace gates, he turned to look back at the
assembled masses. They howled at him, beyond words, a wave of sheer animal hate and fear, and Logain threw
back his head and laughed as the Palace swallowed him.
Other contingents followed behind the wagons, with banners representing more who had fought and
defeated the false Dragon. The Golden Bees of Illian, the three White Crescents of Tear, the Rising Sun of
Cairhien, others, many others, of nations and of cities, and of great men with their own trumpets, their own
drums to thunder their grandeur. It was anticlimactic after Logain.
Rand leaned out a bit further to try to catch one last sight of the caged man. He was defeated, wasn't he?
Light, he wouldn't be in a bloody cage if he wasn't defeated.
Overbalanced, he slipped and grabbed at the top of the wall, pulled himself back to a somewhat safer
seat. With Logain gone, he became aware of the burning in his hands, where the stone had scraped his palms
and fingers. Yet he could not shake free of the images. The cage and the Aes Sedai. Logain, undefeated. No
matter the cage, that had not been a defeated man. He shivered and rubbed his stinging hands on his thighs.
"Why were the Aes Sedai watching him?" he wondered aloud.
"They're keeping him from touching the True Source, silly."
He jerked to look up, toward the girl's voice, and suddenly his precarious seat was gone. He had only
time to realize that he was toppling backward, falling, when something struck his head and a laughing Logain
chased him into spinning darkness.
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Chapter 40

The Web Tightens


It seemed to Rand that he was sitting at table with Logain and Moiraine. The Aes Sedai and the false
Dragon sat watching him silently, as if neither knew the other was there. Abruptly he realized the walls of
the room were becoming indistinct, fading off into gray. A sense of urgency built in him. Everything was
going, blurring away. When he looked back to the table, Moiraine and Logain had vanished, and Ba'alzamon sat
there instead. Rand's whole body vibrated with urgency; it hummed inside his head, louder and louder. The hum
became the pounding of blood in his ears.
With a jerk he sat up, and immediately groaned and clutched his head, swaying. His whole skull hurt;
his left hand found sticky dampness in his hair. He was sitting on the ground, on green grass. That troubled him,
vaguely, but his head spun and everything he looked at lurched, and all he could think of was lying down until it
stopped.
The wall! The girl's voice!
Steadying himself with one hand flat on the grass, he looked around slowly. He had to do it slowly;
when he tried to turn his head quickly everything started whirling again. He was in a garden, or a park; a slatepaved
walk meandered by through flowering bushes not six feet away, with a white stone bench beside it and a
leafy arbor over the bench for shade. He had fallen inside the wall. And the girl?
He found the tree, close behind his back, and found her, too-climbing down out of it. She reached the
ground and turned to face him, and he blinked and groaned again. A deep blue velvet cloak lined with pale fur
rested on her shoulders, its hood hanging down behind to her waist with a cluster of silver bells at the peak.
They jingled when she moved. A silver filigree circlet held her long, red-gold curls, and delicate silver rings
hung at her ears, while a necklace of heavy silver links and dark green stones he thought were emeralds lay
around her throat. Her pale blue dress was smudged with bark stains from her tree climbing, but it was still silk,
and embroidered with painstakingly intricate designs, the skirt slashed with inserts the color of rich cream. A
wide belt of woven silver encircled her waist, and velvet slippers peeked from under the hem of her dress.
He had only ever seen two women dressed in this fashion, Moiraine and the Darkfriend who had tried to
kill Mat and him. He could not begin to imagine who would choose to climb trees in clothes like that, but he
was sure she had to be someone important. The way she was looking at him redoubled the impression. She did
not seem in the least troubled at having a stranger tumble into her garden. There was a self-possession about her
that made him think of Nynaeve, or Moiraine.
He was so enmeshed in worrying whether or not he had gotten himself into trouble, whether or not she
was someone who could and would call the Queen's Guards even on a day when they had other things to
occupy them, that it took him a few moments to see past the elaborate clothes and lofty attitude to the girl
herself. She was perhaps two or three years younger than he, tall for a girl, and beautiful, her face a perfect oval
framed by that mass of sunburst curls, her lips full and red, her eyes bluer than he could believe. She was
completely different from Egwene in height and face and body, but every bit as beautiful. He felt a twinge of
guilt, but told himself that denying what his eyes saw would not bring Egwene safely to Caemlyn one whit
faster.
A scrabbling sound came from up in the tree and bits of bark fell, followed by a boy dropping lightly to
the ground behind her. He was a head taller than she and a little older, but his face and hair marked him as her
close kin. His coat and cloak were red and white and gold, embroidered and brocaded, and for a male even more
ornate than hers. That increased Rand's anxiety. Only on a feastday would any ordinary man dress in anything
like that, and never with that much grandeur. This was no public park. Perhaps the Guards were too busy to
bother with trespassers.
The boy studied Rand over the girl's shoulder, fingering the dagger at his waist. It seemed more a
nervous habit than any thought that he might use it. Not completely, though. The boy had the same selfpossession
as the girl, and they both looked at him as if he were a puzzle to be solved.
"I don't know why that always surprises you," Gawyn answered her. "Even you don't try telling Gareth
what to do. He's served three Queens and been Captain-General, and First Prince Regent, for two. I daresay
there are some think he's more a symbol of the Throne of Andor than the Queen is."
"Mother should go ahead and marry him," she said absently. Her attention was on Rand's hands. "She
wants to; she can't hide it from me. And it would solve so many problems."
Gawyn shook his head. "One of them must bend first. Mother cannot, and Gareth will not. "
"If she commanded him . . ."
"He would obey. I think. But she won't. You know she won't."
Abruptly they turned to stare at Rand. He had the feeling they had forgotten he was there. "Who . . . ?"
He had to stop to wet his lips. "Who is your mother?"
Elayne's eyes widened in surprise, but Gawyn spoke in an ordinary tone that made his words all the
more jarring. "Morgase, by the Grace of the Light, Queen of Andor, Protector of the Realm, Defender of the
People, High Seat of the House Trakand."
"The Queen," Rand muttered, shock spreading through him in waves of numbness. For a minute he
thought his head was going to begin spinning again. Don't attract any attention. Just fall into the Queen's
garden and let the Daughter-Heir tend your cuts like a hedge-doctor. He wanted to laugh, and knew it for the
fringes of panic.
Drawing a deep breath, he scrambled hastily to his feet. He held himself tightly in rein against the urge
to run, but the need to get away filled him, to get away before anyone else discovered him there.
Elayne and Gawyn watched him calmly, and when he leaped up they rose gracefully, not hurried in the
least. He put up a hand to pull the scarf from his head, and Elayne seized his elbow. "Stop that. You will start
the bleeding again." Her voice was still calm, still sure that he would do as he was told.
“I have to go," Rand said. "I'll just climb back over the wall and - ”
"You really didn't know." For the first time she seemed as startled as he was. "Do you mean you climbed
up on that wall to see Logain without even knowing where you were? You could have gotten a much better
view down in the streets."
"I . . . I don't like crowds," he mumbled. He sketched a bow to each of them. "If you'll pardon me, ah . . .
my Lady." In the stories, royal courts were full of people all calling one another Lord and Lady and Royal
Highness and Majesty, but if he had ever heard the correct form of address for the Daughter-Heir, he could not
think clearly enough to remember. He could not think clearly about anything beyond the need to be far away.
"If you will pardon me, I'll just leave now. Ah . . . thank you for the . . ." He touched the scarf around his head.
"Thank you."
"Without even telling us your name?" Gawyn said. "A poor payment for Elayne's care. I've been
wondering about you. You sound like an Andorman, though not a Caemlyner, certainly, but you look like . . . .
Well, you know our names. Courtesy would suggest you give us yours."
Looking longingly at the wall, Rand gave his right name before he thought what he was doing, and even
added, "From Emond's Field, in the Two Rivers."
"From the west," Gawyn murmured. "Very far to the west."
Rand looked around at him sharply. There had been a note of surprise in the young man's voice, and
Rand caught some of it still on his face when he turned. Gawyn replaced it with a pleasant smile so quickly,
though, that he almost doubted what he had seen.
"Tabac and wool," Gawyn said. "I have to know the principal products of every part of the Realm. Of
every land, for that matter. Part of my training. Principal products and crafts, and what the people are like. Their
customs, their strengths and weaknesses. It's said Two Rivers people are stubborn. They can be led, if they think
you are worthy, but the harder you try to push them, the harder they dig in. Elayne ought to choose her husband
from there. It'll take a man with a will like stone to keep from being trampled by her."
Rand stared at him. Elayne was staring, too. Gawyn looked as much under control as ever, but he was
babbling. Why?
"What's this?"
All three of them jumped at the sudden voice, and spun to face it.
The young man who stood there was the handsomest man Rand had ever seen, almost too handsome for
masculinity. He was tall and slender, but his movements spoke of whipcord strength and a sure confidence.
Dark of hair and eye, he wore his clothes, only a little less elaborate in red and white than Gawyn's, as if they
were of no importance. One hand rested on his sword hilt, and his eyes were steady on Rand.
"Stand away from him, Elayne," the man said. "You, too, Gawyn."
Elayne stepped in front of Rand, between him and the newcomer, head high and as confident as ever.
"He is a loyal subject of our mother, and a good Queen's man. And he is under my protection, Galad."
Rand tried to remember what he had heard from Master Kinch, and since from Master Gill. Galadedrid
Damodred was Elayne's half-brother, Elayne's and Gawyn's, if he remembered correctly; the three shared the
same father. Master Kinch might not have liked Taringail Damodred too well - neither did anyone else that he
had heard - but the son was well thought of by wearers of the red and the white alike, if talk in the city was any
guide.
"I am aware of your fondness for strays, Elayne," the slender man said reasonably, "but the fellow is
armed, and he hardly looks reputable. In these days, we cannot be too careful. If he's a loyal Queen's man, what
is he doing here where he does not belong? It is easy enough to change the wrappings on a sword, Elayne."
"He is here as my guest, Galad, and I vouch for him. Or have you appointed yourself my nurse, to
decide whom I may talk to, and when?"
Her voice was rich with scorn, but Galad seemed unmoved. "You know I make no claims for control
over your actions, Elayne, but this . . . guest of yours is not proper, and you know that as well as I. Gawyn, help
me convince her. Our mother would - "
"Enough!" Elayne snapped. "You are right that you have no say over my actions, nor have you any right
to judge them. You may leave me. Now!"
Galad gave Gawyn a rueful look; at one and the same time it seemed to ask for help while saying that
Elayne was too headstrong to be helped. Elayne's face darkened, but just as she opened her mouth again, he
bowed, in all formality yet with the grace of a cat, took a step back, then turned and strode down the paved path,
his long legs carrying him quickly out of sight beyond the arbor.
"I hate him," Elayne breathed. "He is vile and full of envy."
"There you go too far, Elayne," Gawyn said. "Galad does not know the meaning of envy. Twice he has
saved my life, with none to know if he held his hand. If he had not, he would be your First Prince of the Sword
in my place."
"Never, Gawyn. I would choose anyone before Galad. Anyone. The lowest stableboy." Suddenly she
smiled and gave her brother a mock-stern look. "You say I am fond of giving orders. Well, I command you to
let nothing happen to you. I command you to be my First Prince of the Sword when I take the throne - the Light
send that day is far off! - and to lead the armies of Andor with the sort of honor Galad cannot dream of."
"As you command, my Lady." Gawyn laughed, his bow a parody of Galad's.
Elayne gave Rand a thoughtful frown. "Now we must get you out of here quickly. "
"Galad always does the right thing," Gawyn explained, "even when he should not. In this case, finding a
stranger in the gardens, the right thing is to notify the Palace guards. Which I suspect he is on his way to do
right this minute."
"Then it's time I was back over the wall," Rand said. A fine day for going unnoticed! I might as well
carry a sign! He turned to the wall, but Elayne caught his arm.
"Not after the trouble I went to with your hands. You'll only make fresh scrapes and then let some backalley
crone put the Light knows what on them. There is a small gate on the other side of the garden. It's
overgrown, and no one but me even remembers it's there."
Suddenly Rand heard boots pounding toward them over the slate paving stones.
"Too late," Gawyn muttered. "He must have started running as soon as he was out of eyeshot."
Elayne growled an oath, and Rand's eyebrows shot up. He had heard that one from the stablemen at The
Queen's Blessing and had been shocked then. The next moment she was in cool self-possession once more.
Gawyn and Elayne appeared content to remain where they were, but he could not make himself stay for
the Queen's Guards with such equanimity. He started once more for the wall, knowing he would be no more
than halfway up before the guards arrived, but unable to stand still.
Before he had taken three steps red-uniformed men burst into sight, breastplates catching the sun as they
dashed up the path. Others came like breaking waves of scarlet and polished steel, seemingly from every
direction. Some held drawn swords; others only waited to set their boots before raising bows and nocking
feathered shafts. Behind the barred face-guards every eye was grim, and every broadhead arrow was pointed
unwaveringly at him.
Elayne and Gawyn leaped as one, putting themselves between him and the arrows, their arms spread to
cover him. He stood very still and kept his hands in plain sight, away from his sword.
While the thud of boots and the creak of bowstrings still hung in the air, one of the soldiers, with the
golden knot of an officer on his shoulder, shouted, "My Lady, my Lord, down, quickly!"
Despite her outstretched arms Elayne drew herself up regally. "You dare to bring bare steel into my
presence, Tallanvor? Gareth Bryne will have you mucking stables with the meanest trooper for this, if you are
lucky!"
The soldiers exchanged puzzled glances, and some of the bowmen uneasily half lowered their bows.
Only then did Elayne let her arms down, as if she had only held them up because she wished to. Gawyn
hesitated, then followed her example. Rand could count the bows that had not been lowered. The muscles of his
stomach tensed as though they could stop a broadhead shaft at twenty paces.
The man with the officer's knot seemed the most perplexed of all. "My Lady, forgive me, but Lord
Galadedrid reported a dirty peasant skulking in the gardens, armed and endangering my Lady Elayne and my
Lord Gawyn." His eyes went to Rand, and his voice firmed. "If my Lady and my Lord will please to step aside,
I will take the villain into custody. There is too much riff-raff in the city these days."
"I doubt very much if Galad reported anything of the kind," Elayne said. "Galad does not lie."
"Sometimes I wish he would," Gawyn said softly, for Rand's ear. "Just once. It might make living with
him easier."
"This man is my guest," Elayne continued, "and here under my protection. You may withdraw,
Tallanvor. "
"I regret that will not be possible, My Lady. As My Lady knows, the Queen, your lady mother, has
given orders regarding anyone on Palace grounds without Her Majesty's permission, and word has been sent to
Her Majesty of this intruder." There was more than a hint of satisfaction in Tallanvor's voice. Rand suspected
the officer had had to accept other commands from Elayne that he did not think proper; this time the man was
not about to, not when he had a perfect excuse.
Elayne stared back at Tallanvor; for once she seemed at a loss.
Rand looked a question at Gawyn, and Gawyn understood. "Prison," he murmured. Rand's face went
white, and the young man added quickly, "Only for a few days, and you will not be harmed. You'll be
questioned by Gareth Bryne, the Captain-General, personally, but you will be set free once it's clear you meant
no harm." He paused, hidden thoughts in his eyes. "I hope you were telling the truth, Rand al'Thor from the
Two Rivers. "
"You will conduct all three of us to my mother," Elayne announced suddenly. A grin bloomed on
Gawyn's face.
Behind the steel bars across his face, Tallanvor appeared taken aback. "My Lady, I – ”
"Or else conduct all three of us to a cell," Elayne said. "We will remain together. Or will you give orders
for hands to be laid upon my person?" Her smile was victorious, and the way Tallanvor looked around as if he
expected to find help in the trees said he, too, thought she had won.
Won what? How?
"Mother is viewing Logain," Gawyn said softly, as if he had read Rand's thoughts, "and even if she was
not busy, Tallanvor would not dare troop into her presence with Elayne and me, as if we were under guard.
Mother has a bit of a temper, sometimes."
Rand remembered what Master Gill had said about Queen Morgase. A bit of a temper?
Another red-uniformed soldier came running down the path, skidding to a halt to salute with an arm
across his chest. He spoke softly to Tallanvor, and his words brought satisfaction back to Tallanvor's face.
"The Queen, your lady mother," Tallanvor announced, "commands me to bring the intruder to her
immediately. It is also the Queen's command that my Lady Elayne and my Lord Gawyn attend her. Also
immediately."
Gawyn winced, and Elayne swallowed hard. Her face composed, she still began industriously brushing
at the stains on her dress. Aside from dislodging a few pieces of bark, her effort did little good.
"If My Lady pleases?" Tallanvor said smugly. "My Lord?"
The soldiers formed around them in a hollow box that started along the slate path with Tallanvor
leading. Gawyn and Elayne walked on either side of Rand, both appearing lost in unpleasant thoughts. The
soldiers had sheathed their swords and returned arrows to quivers, but they were no less on guard than when
they had had weapons in hand. They watched Rand as if they expected him at any moment to snatch his sword
and try to cut his way to freedom.
Try anything? I won't try anything. Unnoticed! Hah!
Watching the soldiers watching him, he suddenly became aware of the garden. He had regained his
balance completely since the fall. One thing had happened after another, each new shock coming before the last
had a chance to fade, and his surroundings had been a blur, except for the wall and his devout wish to be back
on the other side of it. Now he saw the green grass that had only tickled the back of his mind before. Green! A
hundred shades of green. Trees and bushes green and thriving, thick with leaves and fruit. Lush vines covering
arbors over the path. Flowers everywhere. So many flowers, spraying the garden with color. Some he
knewbright golden sunburst and tiny pink tallowend, crimson starblaze and purple Emond's Glory, roses in
every color from purest white to deep, deep red - but others were strange, so fanciful in shape and hue he
wondered if they could be real.
"It's green," he whispered. "Green." The soldiers muttered to themselves; Tallanvor gave them a sharp
look over his shoulder and they fell silent.
"Elaida's work," Gawyn said absently.
"It is not right," Elayne said. "She asked if I wanted to pick out the one farm she could do the same for,
while all around it the crops still failed, but it still isn't right for us to have flowers when there are people who
do not have enough to eat." She drew a deep breath, and refilled her selfpossession. "Remember yourself," she
told Rand briskly. "Speak up clearly when you are spoken to, and keep silent otherwise. And follow my lead.
All will be well. "
Rand wished he could share her confidence. It would have helped if Gawyn had seemed to have it as
well. As Tallanvor led them into the Palace, he looked back at the garden, at all the green streaked with
blossoms, colors wrought for a Queen by an Aes Sedai's hand. He was in deep water, and there was no bank in
sight.
Palace servants filled the halls, in red liveries with collars and cuffs of white, the White Lion on the left
breast of their tunics, scurrying about intent on tasks that were not readily apparent. When the soldiers trooped
by with Elayne and Gawyn, and Rand, in their midst, they stopped dead in their tracks to stare openmouthed.
Through the middle of all the consternation a gray-striped tomcat wandered unconcernedly down the
hall, weaving between the goggling servants. Suddenly the cat struck Rand as odd. He had been in Baerlon long
enough to know that even the meanest shop had cats lurking in every corner. Since entering the Palace, the tom
was the only cat he had seen.
"You don't have rats?" he said in disbelief. Every place had rats.
"Elaida doesn't like rats," Gawyn muttered vaguely. He was frowning worriedly down the hall,
apparently already seeing the coming meeting with the Queen. "We never have rats."
"Both of you be quiet." Elayne's voice was sharp, but as absent as her brother's. "I am trying to think."
Rand watched the cat over his shoulder until the guards took him round a corner, hiding the tom from
sight. A lot of cats would have made him feel better; it would have been nice if there was one thing normal
about the Palace, even if it was rats.
The path Tallanvor took turned so many times that Rand lost his sense of direction. Finally the young
officer stopped before tall double doors of dark wood with a rich glow, not so grand as some they had passed,
but still carved all over with rows of lions, finely wrought in detail. A liveried servant stood to either side.
"At least it isn't the Grand Hall." Gawyn laughed unsteadily. "I never heard that Mother commanded
anyone's head cut off from here." He sounded as if he thought she might set a precedent.
Tallanvor reached for Rand's sword, but Elayne moved to cut him off. "He is my guest, and by custom
and law, guests of the royal family may go armed even in Mother's presence. Or will you deny my word that he
is my guest?"
Tallanvor hesitated, locking eyes with her, then nodded. "Very well, my Lady." She smiled at Rand as
Tallanvor stepped back, but it lasted only a moment. "First rank to accompany me," Tallanvor commanded.
"Announce the Lady Elayne and the Lord Gawyn to Her Majesty," he told the doorkeepers. "Also Guardsman-
Lieutenant Tallanvor, at Her Majesty's command, with the intruder under guard."
Elayne scowled at Tallanvor, but the doors were already swinging open. A sonorous voice sounded,
announcing those who came.
Grandly Elayne swept through the doors, spoiling her regal entrance only a little by motioning for Rand
to keep close behind her. Gawyn squared his shoulders and strode in flanking her, one measured pace to her
rear. Rand followed, uncertainly keeping level with Gawyn on her other side. Tallanvor stayed close to Rand,
and ten soldiers came with him. The doors closed silently behind them.
Suddenly Elayne dropped into a deep curtsy, simultaneously bowing from the waist, and stayed there,
holding her skirt wide. Rand gave a start, then hastily emulated Gawyn and the other men, shifting awkwardly
until he had it right. Down on his right knee, head bowed, bending forward to press the knuckles of his right
hand against the marble tiles, his left hand resting on the end of his sword hilt. Gawyn, without a sword, put his
hand on his dagger the same way.
Rand was just congratulating himself on getting it right when he noticed Tallanvor, his head still bent,
glaring sideways at him from behind his face-guard. Was I supposed to do something else? He was suddenly
angry that Tallanvor expected him to know what to do when no one had told him. And angry over being afraid
of the guards. He had done nothing to be fearful for. He knew his fear was not Tallanvor's fault, but he was
angry at him anyway.
Everyone held their positions, frozen as if waiting for the spring thaw. He did not know what they were
waiting for, but he took the opportunity to study the place to which he had been brought. He kept his head
down, just turning it enough to see. Tallanvor's scowl deepened, but he ignored it.
The square chamber was about the size of the common room at The Queen's Blessing, its walls
presenting hunting scenes carved in relief in stone of the purest white. The tapestries between the carvings were
gentle images of bright flowers and brilliantly plumaged hummingbirds, except for the two at the far end of the
room, where the White Lion of Andor stood taller than a man on scarlet fields. Those two hangings flanked a
dais, and on the dais a carved and gilded throne where sat the Queen.
A bluff, blocky man stood bareheaded by the Queen's right hand in the red of the Queen's Guards, with
four golden knots on the shoulder of his cloak and wide golden bands breaking the white of his cuffs. His
temples were heavy with gray, but he looked as strong and immovable as a rock. That had to be the Captain-
General, Gareth Bryne. Behind the throne and to the other side a woman in deep green silk sat on a low stool,
knitting something out of dark, almost black, wool. At first the knitting made Rand think she was old, but at
second glance he could not put an age to her at all. Young, old, he did not know. Her attention seemed to be
entirely on her needles and yarn, just as if there were not a Queen within arm's reach of her. She was a
handsome woman, outwardly placid, yet there was something terrible in her concentration. There was no sound
in the room except for the click of her needles.
He tried to look at everything, yet his eyes kept going back to the woman with the gleaming wreath of
finely wrought roses on her brow, the Rose Crown of Andor. A long red stole, the Lion of Andor marching
along its length, hung over her silken dress of red and white pleats, and when she touched the Captain-General's
arm with her left hand, a ring in the shape of the Great Serpent, eating its own tail, glittered. Yet it was not the
grandeur of clothes or jewelry or even crown that drew Rand's eyes again and again: it was the woman who
wore them.
Morgase had her daughter's beauty, matured and ripened. Her face and figure, her presence, filled the
room like a light that dimmed the other two with her. If she had been a widow in Emond's Field, she would
have had a line of suitors outside her door even if she was the worst cook and most slovenly housekeeper in the
Two Rivers. He saw her studying him and ducked his head, afraid she might be able to tell his thoughts from his
face. Light, thinking about the Queen like she was a village woman! You fool!
"You may rise," Morgase said in a rich, warm voice that held Elayne's assurance of obedience a hundred
times over.
Rand stood with the rest.
"Mother - " Elayne began, but Morgase cut her off.
"You have been climbing trees, it seems, daughter." Elayne plucked a stray fragment of bark from her
dress and, finding there was no place to put it, held it clenched in her hand. "In fact," Morgase went on calmly,
"it would seem that despite my orders to the contrary you have contrived to take your look at this Logain.
Gawyn, I have thought better of you. You must learn not only to obey your sister, but at the same time to be
counterweight for her against disaster." The Queen's eyes swung to the blocky man beside her, then quickly
away again. Bryne remained impassive, as if he had not noticed, but Rand thought those eyes noticed
everything. "That, Gawyn, is as much the duty of the First Prince as is leading the armies of Andor. Perhaps if
your training is intensified, you will find less time for letting your sister lead you into trouble. I will ask the
Captain-General to see that you do not lack for things to do on the journey north."
Gawyn shifted his feet as if about to protest, then bowed his head instead. "As you command, mother."
Elayne grimaced. "Mother, Gawyn cannot keep me out of trouble if he is not with me. It was for that
reason alone he left his rooms. Mother, surely there could be no harm in just looking at Logain. Almost
everyone in the city was closer to him than we."
"Everyone in the city is not the Daughter-Heir." Sharpness underlay the Queen's voice. "I have seen this
fellow Logain from close, and he is dangerous, child. Caged, with Aes Sedai to guard him every minute, he is
still as dangerous as a wolf. I wish he had never been brought near Caemlyn."
"He will be dealt with in Tar Valon." The woman on the stool did not take her eyes from her knitting as
she spoke. "What is important is that the people see that the Light has once again vanquished the Dark. And that
they see you are part of that victory, Morgase."
Morgase waved a dismissive hand. "I would still rather he had never come near Caemlyn. Elayne, I
know your mind."
"Mother," Elayne protested, "I do mean to obey you. Truly I do."
"You do?" Morgase asked in mock surprise, then chuckled. "Yes, you do try to be a dutiful daughter.
But you constantly test how far you may go. Well, I did the same with my mother. That spirit will stand you in
good stead when you ascend to the throne, but you are not Queen yet, child. You have disobeyed me and had
your look at Logain. Be satisfied with that. On the journey north you will not be allowed within one hundred
paces of him, neither you nor Gawyn. If I did not know just how hard your lessons will be in Tar Valon, I would
send Lini along to see that you obey. She, at least, seems able to make you do as you must."
Elayne bowed her head sullenly.
The woman behind the throne seemed occupied with counting her stitches. "In one week," she said
suddenly, "you will be wanting to come home to your mother. In a month you will be wanting to run away with
the Traveling People. But my sisters will keep you away from the unbeliever. That sort of thing is not for you,
not yet." Abruptly she turned on the stool to look intently at Elayne, all her placidity gone as if it had never
been. "You have it in you to be the greatest Queen that Andor has ever seen, that any land has seen in more than
a thousand years. It is for that we will shape you, if you have the strength for it."
Rand stared at her. She had to be Elaida, the Aes Sedai. Suddenly he was glad he had not come to her
for help, no matter what her Ajah. A sternness far beyond Moiraine's radiated from her. He had sometimes
thought of Moiraine as steel covered with velvet; with Elaida the velvet was only an illusion.
"Enough, Elaida," Morgase said, frowning uneasily. "She has heard that more than enough. The Wheel
weaves as the Wheel wills." For a moment she was silent, looking at her daughter. "Now there is the problem of
this young man" - she gestured to Rand without taking her eyes off Elayne's face - "and how and why he came
here, and why you claimed guest-right for him to your brother."
"May I speak, mother?" When Morgase nodded her assent, Elayne told of events simply, from the time
she first saw Rand climbing up the slope to the wall. He expected her to finish by proclaiming the innocence of
what he had done, but instead she said, "Mother, often you tell me I must know our people, from the highest to
the lowest, but whenever I meet any of them it is with a dozen attendants. How can I come to know anything
real or true under such circumstances? In speaking with this young man I have already learned more about the
people of the Two Rivers, what kind of people they are, than I ever could from books. It says something that he
has come so far and has put on the red, when so many incomers wear the white from fear. Mother, I beg you not
to misuse a loyal subject, and one who has taught me much about the people you rule."
"A loyal subject from the Two Rivers." Morgase sighed. "My child, you should pay more heed to those
books. The Two Rivers has not seen a tax collector in six generations, nor the Queen's Guards in seven. I
daresay they seldom even think to remember they are part of the Ream." Rand shrugged uncomfortably,
recalling his surprise when he was told the Two Rivers was part of the Realm of Andor. The Queen saw him,
and smiled ruefully at her daughter. "You see, child?"
Elaida had put down her knitting, Rand realized, and was studying him. She rose from her stool and
slowly came down from the dais to stand before him. "From the Two Rivers?" she said. She reached a hand
toward his head; he pulled away from her touch, and she let her hand drop. "With that red in his hair, and gray
eyes? Two Rivers people are dark of hair and eye, and they seldom have such height." Her hand darted out to
push back his coat sleeve, exposing lighter skin the sun had not reached so often. "Or such skin."
It was an effort not to clench his fists. "I was born in Emond's Field," he said stiffly. "My mother was an
outlander; that's where my eyes come from. My father is Tam al'Thor, a shepherd and farmer, as I am."
Elaida nodded slowly, never taking her eyes from his face. He met her gaze with a levelness that belied
the sour feeling in his stomach. He saw her note the steadiness of his look. Still meeting him eye to eye, she
moved her hand slowly toward him again. He resolved not to flinch this time.
It was his sword she touched, not him, her hand closing around the hilt at the very top. Her fingers
tightened and her eyes opened wide with surprise. "A shepherd from the Two Rivers," she said softly, a whisper
meant to be heard by all, "with a heron-mark sword."
Those last few words acted on the chamber as if she had announced the Dark One. Leather and metal
creaked behind Rand, boots scuffling on the marble tiles. From the corner of his eye he could see Tallanvor and
another of the guardsmen backing away from him to gain room, hands on their swords, prepared to draw and,
from their faces, prepared to die. In two quick strides Gareth Bryne was at the front of the dais, between Rand
and the Queen. Even Gawyn put himself in front of Elayne, a worried look on his face and a hand on his dagger.
Elayne herself looked at him as if she were seeing him for the first time. Morgase did not change expression,
but her hands tightened on the gilded arms of her throne.
Only Elaida showed less reaction than the Queen. The Aes Sedai gave no sign that she had said anything
out of the ordinary. She took her hand from the sword, causing the soldiers to tense even more. Her eyes stayed
on his, unruffled and calculating.
"Surely," Morgase said, her voice level, "he is too young to have earned a heron-mark blade. He cannot
be any older than Gawyn."
"It belongs with him," Gareth Bryne said.
The Queen looked at him in surprise. "How can that be?"
"I do not know, Morgase," Bryne said slowly. "He is too young, yet still it belongs with him, and he
with it. Look at his eyes. Look how he stands, how the sword fits him, and he it. He is too young, but the sword
is his."
When the Captain-General fell silent, Elaida said, "How did you come by this blade, Rand al'Thor from
the Two Rivers?" She said it as if she doubted his name as much as she did where he was from.
"My father gave it to me," Rand said. "It was his. He thought I'd need a sword, out in the world."
"Yet another shepherd from the Two Rivers with a heron-mark blade." Elaida's smile made his mouth
go dry. "When did you arrive in Caemlyn?"
He had had enough of telling this woman the truth. She made him as afraid as any Darkfriend had. It
was time to start hiding again. "Today," he said. "This morning."
"Just in time," she murmured. "Where are you staying? Don't say you have not found a room
somewhere. You look a little tattered, but you have had a chance to freshen. Where?"
"The Crown and Lion." He remembered passing The Crown and Lion while looking for The Queen's
Blessing. It was on the other side of the New City from Master Gill's inn. "I have a bed there. In the attic." He
had the feeling that she knew he was lying, but she only nodded.
"What chance this?" she said. "Today the unbeliever is brought into Caemlyn. In two days he will be
taken north to Tar Valon, and with him goes the Daughter-Heir for her training. And at just this juncture a
young man appears in the Palace gardens, claiming to be a loyal subject from the Two Rivers . . . "
"I am from the Two Rivers." They were all looking at him, but all ignored him. All but Tallanvor and
the guards; those eyes never blinked.
“. . . with a story calculated to entice Elayne and bearing a heron-mark blade. He does not wear an
armband or a cockade to proclaim his allegiance, but wrappings that carefully conceal the heron from
inquisitive eyes. What chance this, Morgase?"
The Queen motioned the Captain-General to stand aside, and when he did she studied Rand with a
troubled look. It was to Elaida that she spoke, though. "What are you naming him? Darkfriend? One of Logain's
followers?"
"The Dark One stirs in Shayol Ghul," the Aes Sedai replied. "The Shadow lies across the Pattern, and
the future is balanced on the point of a pin. This one is dangerous."
Suddenly Elayne moved, throwing herself onto her knees before the throne. "Mother, I beg you not to
harm him. He would have left immediately had I not stopped him. He wanted to go. It was I who made him
stay. I cannot believe he is a Darkfriend."
Morgase made a soothing gesture toward her daughter, but her eyes remained on Rand. "Is this a
Foretelling, Elaida? Are you reading the Pattern? You say it comes on you when you least expect it and goes as
suddenly as it comes. If this is a Foretelling, Elaida, I command you to speak the truth clearly, without your
usual habit of wrapping it in so much mystery that no one can tell if you have said yes or no. Speak. What do
you see?"
"This I Foretell," Elaida replied, "and swear under the Light that I can say no clearer. From this day
Andor marches toward pain and division. The Shadow has yet to darken to its blackest, and I cannot see if the
Light will come after. Where the world has wept one tear, it will weep thousands. This I Foretell."
A pall of silence clung to the room, broken only by Morgase expelling her breath as if it were her last.
Elaida continued to stare into Rand's eyes. She spoke again, barely moving her lips, so softly that he
could barely hear her less than an arm's length away. "This, too, I Foretell. Pain and division come to the whole
world, and this man stands at the heart of it. I obey the Queen," she whispered, "and speak it clearly."
Rand felt as if his feet had become rooted in the marble floor. The cold and stiffness of the stone crept
up his legs and sent a shiver up his spine. No one else could have heard. But she was still looking at him, and he
had heard.
"I'm a shepherd," he said for the entire room. "From the Two Rivers. A shepherd. "
"The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills," Elaida said aloud, and he could not tell if there was a touch of
mockery in her tone or not.
"Lord Gareth," Morgase said, "I need the advice of my Captain-General. "
The blocky man shook his head. "Elaida Sedai says the lad is dangerous, My Queen, and if she could tell
more I would say summon the headsman. But all she says is what any of us can see with our own eyes. There's
not a farmer in the countryside won't say things will get worse, without any Foretelling. Myself, I believe the
boy is here through mere happenstance, though an ill one for him. To be safe, My Queen, I say clap him in a
cell till the Lady Elayne and the Lord Gawyn are well on their way, then let him go. Unless, Aes Sedai, you
have more to Foretell concerning him?"
"I have said all that I have read in the Pattern, Captain-General," Elaida said. She flashed a hard smile at
Rand, a smile that barely bent her lips, mocking his inability to say that she was not telling the truth. "A few
weeks imprisoned will not harm him, and it may give me a chance to learn more." Hunger filled her eyes,
deepening his chill. "Perhaps another Foretelling will come."
For a time Morgase considered, chin on her fist and elbow on the arm of her throne. Rand would have
shifted under her frowning gaze if he could have moved at all, but Elaida's eyes froze him solid. Finally the
Queen spoke.
"Suspicion is smothering Caemlyn, perhaps all of Andor. Fear and black suspicion. Women denounce
their neighbors for Darkfriends. Men scrawl the Dragon's Fang on the doors of people they have known for
years. I will not become part of it."
"Morgase - " Elaida began, but the Queen cut her off.
"I will not become part of it. When I took the throne I swore to uphold justice for the high and the low,
and I will uphold it even if I am the last in Andor to remember justice. Rand al'Thor, do you swear under the
Light that your father, a shepherd in the Two Rivers, gave you this heron-mark blade?"
Rand worked his mouth to get enough moisture to speak. "I do." Abruptly remembering to whom he was
speaking he hastily added, "My Queen." Lord Gareth raised a heavy eyebrow, but Morgase did not seem to
mind.
"And you climbed the garden wall simply to gain a look at the false Dragon?"
"Yes, my Queen."
"Do you mean harm to the throne of Andor, or to my daughter, or my son?" Her tone said the last two
would gain him even shorter shrift than the first.
"I mean no harm to anyone, my Queen. To you and yours least of all."
"I will give you justice then, Rand al'Thor," she said. "First, because I have the advantage of Elaida and
Gareth in having heard Two Rivers speech when I was young. You have not the look, but if a dim memory can
serve me you have the Two Rivers on your tongue. Second, no one with your hair and eyes would claim that he
is a Two Rivers shepherd unless it was true. And that your father gave you a heron-mark blade is too
preposterous to be a lie. And third, the voice that whispers to me that the best lie is often one too ridiculous to
be taken for a lie . . . that voice is not proof. I will uphold the laws I have made. I give you your freedom, Rand
al'Thor, but I suggest you take a care where you trespass in the future. If you are found on the Palace grounds
again, it will not go so easily with you."
"Thank you, my Queen," he said hoarsely. He could feel Elaida's displeasure like a heat on his face.
"Tallanvor," Morgase said, "escort this . . . escort my daughter's guest from the Palace, and show him
every courtesy. The rest of you go as well. No, Elaida, you stay. And if you will too, please, Lord Gareth. I must
decide what to do about these Whitecloaks in the city." Tallanvor and the guardsmen sheathed their swords
reluctantly, ready to draw again in an instant. Still Rand was glad to let the soldiers form a hollow box around
him and to follow Tallanvor. Elaida was only half attending what the Queen was saying; he could feel her eyes
on his back. What would have happened if Morgase had not kept the Aes Sedai with her? The thought made him
wish the soldiers would walk faster.
To his surprise, Elayne and Gawyn exchanged a few words outside the door, then fell in beside him.
Tallanvor was surprised, too. The young officer looked from them back to the doors, closing now.
"My mother," Elayne said, "ordered him to be escorted from the Palace, Tallanvor. With every courtesy.
What are you waiting for?"
Tallanvor scowled at the doors, behind which the Queen was conferring with her advisors. "Nothing, my
Lady," he said sourly, and needlessly ordered the escort forward.
The wonders of the Palace slid by Rand unseen. He was befuddled, snatches of thought spinning by too
fast to grasp. You have not the look. This man stands at the heart of it.
The escort stopped. He blinked, startled to find himself in the great court at the front of the Palace,
standing at the tall, gilded gates, gleaming in the sun. Those gates would not be opened for a single man,
certainly not for a trespasser, even if the Daughter-Heir did claim guest-right for him.
Wordlessly Tallanvor unbarred a sally-port, a small door set within one gate.
"It is the custom," Elayne said, "to escort guests as far as the gates, but not to watch them go. It is the
pleasure of a guest's company that should be remembered, not the sadness of parting."
"Thank you, my Lady," Rand said. He touched the scarf bandaging his head. "For everything. Custom in
the Two Rivers is for a guest to bring a small gift. I'm afraid I have nothing. Although," he added dryly,
"apparently I did teach you something of the Two Rivers folk."
"If I had told Mother I think you are handsome, she certainly would have had you locked in a cell."
Elayne favored him with a dazzling smile. "Fare you well, Rand al'Thor."
Gaping, he watched her go, a younger version of Morgase's beauty and majesty.
"Do not try to bandy words with her." Gawyn laughed. "She will win every time."
Rand nodded absently. Handsome? Light, the Daughter-Heir to the throne of Andor! He gave himself a
shake to clear his head.
Gawyn seemed to be waiting for something. Rand looked at him for a moment.
"My Lord, when I told you I was from the Two Rivers you were surprised. And everybody else, your
mother, Lord Gareth, Elaida Sedai" - a shiver ran down his back - "none of them . . . ." He could not finish it; he
was not even sure why he started. I am Tam al’Thor’s son, even if I was not born in the Two Rivers.
Gawyn nodded as if it was for this he had been waiting. Still he hesitated. Rand opened his mouth to
take back the unspoken question, and Gawyn said, "Wrap a shoufa around your head, Rand, and you would be
the image of an Aielman. Odd, since Mother seems to think you sound like a Two Rivers man, at least. I wish
we could have come to know one another, Rand al'Thor. Fare you well."
An Aielman.
Rand stood watching Gawyn's retreating back until an impatient cough from Tallanvor reminded him
where he was. He ducked through the sallyport, barely clearing his heels before Tallanvor slammed it behind
him. The bars inside were jammed into place loudly.
The oval plaza in front of the Palace was empty, now. All the soldiers gone, all the crowds, trumpets,
and drums vanished in silence. Nothing left but a scattering of litter blowing across the pavement and a few
people hurrying about their business now that the excitement was done. He could not make out if they showed
the red or the white.
Aielman.
With a start he realized he was standing right in front of the Palace gates, right where Elaida could find
him easily once she finished with the Queen. Pulling his cloak close, he broke into a trot, across the plaza and
into the streets of the Inner City. He looked back frequently to see if anyone was following him, but the
sweeping curves kept him from seeing very far. He could remember Elaida's eyes all too well, though, and
imagined them watching. By the time he reached the gates to the New City, he was running.
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