Frozen needles pierced his brain with agony, grated into his bones. The void formed inside him before he even realized he had thought of it, but it could not hold out the pain. Dimly he sensed light and warmth somewhere in the distance. It flickered queasily, but the light was warm, and he was cold. Distant beyond knowing, but somehow just within reach. Light, so cold. I have to reach . . . what? She’s killing me. I have to reach it, or she’ll kill me. Desperately he stretched toward the light.
“What is going on here?”
Abruptly the cold and the pressure and the needles vanished. His knees sagged, but he forced them stiff. He would not fall to his knees; he would not give her the satisfaction. The void was gone, too, as suddenly as it had come. She was trying to kill me. Panting, he raised his head. Moiraine stood in the doorway.
“I asked what is going on here, Liandrin,” she s
aid.
“I found this boy here,” the Red Aes Sedai replied calmly. “The guards are murdered, and here he is. One of yours. And what are you doing here, Moiraine? The battle is above, not here.”
“I could ask the same of you, Liandrin.” Moiraine looked around the room with only a slight tightening of her mouth for the charnel. “Why are you here?”
Rand turned away from them, awkwardly shoved back the bolts on the inner door and pulled it open. “Egwene came down here,” he announced for anyone who cared, and went in, holding his lamp high. His knees kept wanting to give way; he was not sure how he stayed on his feet, only that he had to find Egwene. “Egwene!”
A hollow gurgle and a thrashing sound came from his right, and he thrust the lamp that way. The prisoner in the fancy coat was sagging against the iron grille of his cell, his belt looped around the bars and then around his neck. As Rand looked, he gave one last kick, scraping across the straw-covered floor, and was still, tongue and eyes bulging out of a face gone almost black. His knees almost touched the floor; he could have stood anytime he wanted to.
Shivering, Rand peered into the next cell. The big man with the sunken knuckles huddled in the back of his cell, eyes as wide as they could open. At the sight of Rand, he screamed and twisted around, clawing frantically at the stone wall.
“I won’t hurt you,” Rand called. The man kept on screaming and digging. His hands were bloody, and his scrabblings streaked across dark, conjealed smears. This was not his first attempt to dig through the stone with his bare hands.
Rand turned away, relieved that his stomach was already empty. But there was nothing he could do for either of them. “Egwene!”
His light finally reached the end of the cells. The door to Fain’s cell stood open, and the cell was empty, but it was the two shapes on the stone in front of the cell that made Rand leap forward and drop to his knees between them.
Egwene and Mat lay sprawled bonelessly, unconscious . . . or dead. With a flood of relief he saw their chests rise and fall. There did not seem to be a mark on either of them.
“Egwene? Mat?” Setting the sword down, he shook Egwene gently. “Egwene?” She did not open her eyes. “Moiraine! Egwene’s hurt! And Mat!” Mat’s breathing sounded labored, and his face was deathly pale. Rand felt almost like crying. It was supposed to hurt me. I named the Dark One. Me!
“Do not move them.” Moiraine did not sound upset, or even surprised.
The chamber was suddenly flooded with light as the two Aes Sedai entered. Each balanced a glowing ball of cool light, floating in the air above her hand.
Liandrin marched straight down the middle of the wide hall, holding her skirts up out of the straw with her free hand, but Moiraine paused to look at the two prisoners before following. “There is nothing to do for the one,” she said, “and the other can wait.”
Liandrin reached Rand first and began to bend toward Egwene, but Moiraine darted in ahead of her and laid her free hand on Egwene’s head. Liandrin straightened with a grimace.
“She is not badly hurt,” Moiraine said after a moment. “She was struck here.” She traced an area on the side of Egwene’s head, covered by her hair; Rand could see nothing different about it. “That is the only injury she has taken. She will be all right.”
Rand looked from one Aes Sedai to the other. “What about Mat?” Liandrin arched an eyebrow at him and turned to watch Moiraine with a wry expression.
“Be quiet,” Moiraine said. Fingers still lying on the area where she said Egwene had been hit, she closed her eyes. Egwene murmured and stirred, then lay still.
“Is she . . . ?”
“She is sleeping, Rand. She will be well, but she must sleep.” Moiraine shifted to Mat, but here she only touched him for a moment before drawing back. “This is more serious,” she said softly. She fumbled at Mat’s waist, pulling his coat open, and made an angry sound. “The dagger is gone.”
“What dagger?” Liandrin asked.
Voices suddenly came from the outer room, men exclaiming in disgust and anger.
“In here,” Moiraine called. “Bring two litters. Quickly.” Someone in the outer room raised a cry for litters.
“Fain is gone,” Rand said.
The two Aes Sedai looked at him. He could read nothing on their faces. Their eyes glittered in the light.
“So I see,” Moiraine said in a flat voice.