“What man?” Nynaeve demanded. Her hat had been knocked askew in pushing among the horses, and that, with the tight frown she directed at everyone impartially, made her look ready for a fight. Perhaps she was. Careane’s gelding accidentally nudged her with a shoulder, and she swatted the blue dun’s nose.
“A servant,” Merilille said dismissively. “Whatever orders Tylin gave, Altaran servants are an independent lot. Or perhaps her son; that boy is too curious by half.”
The sisters around her nodded, and Careane said, “One of the Forsaken would hardly have stood and watched. You said so yourself.” She was patting her gelding’s neck and frowning accusingly at Nynaeve — Careane was one of those who gave her horse the sort of affection most people reserved for infants — she was frowning at Nynaeve, and Nynaeve took the words for her, too.
“Maybe it was a servant, and maybe it was Beslan. Maybe.” Nynaeve’s sniff said she did not believe it. Or that she wanted them to believe she did not; she could tell you to your face that you were a blind idiot, yet let anyone else say it, and she would defend you until she went hoarse. Of course, she did not seem ready to decide whether she liked Aviendha, but she definitely did not like the older Aes Sedai. She tugged her hat almost straight, and her frown swept across them, then started over. “Whether it was Beslan or the Dark One, there’s no call to stand here all day. We need to get ready and move on to the farm. Well? Move!” She clapped her hands sharply, and even Vandene gave a little start.
There was little preparation left to do when the sisters moved their horses away. Lan and the other Warders had not sat on their heels once they realized there was no danger. Some of the servants had gone back through the gateway before Aviendha disposed of it, but the rest stood with the three dozen or so packhorses, occasionally glancing at the Aes Sedai, clearly wondering what marvel they might produce next. The Windfinders were all mounted, if awkwardly, and holding their reins as though expecting their horses to bolt any moment, or perhaps sprout wings and take flight. So were the Knitting Circle, with a good deal more grace, unconcerned that their skirts and petticoats were pushed up past their knees, and with Ispan still hooded and tied across a saddle like a sack. She could not possibly have sat upright on a horse, yet even Sumeko’s eyes popped whenever they touched her.
Glaring about her, Nynaeve looked ready to tongue-lash everybody into doing what they had already done, but only until Lan handed her the reins of her plump brown mare. She had adamantly refused the gift of a better horse from Tylin. Her hand trembled a little when it touched Lan’s, and her face changed color as she swallowed the anger she had been about to unleash. When he offered a hand for her foot, she stared at him for a moment as if wondering what he was about, then colored again when he boosted her to her saddle. Elayne could only shake her head. She hoped she did not turn into an idiot when she married. If she married.
Birgitte brought her silvery-gray mare and the yellow dun Aviendha rode, but she seemed to understand that Elayne wanted a private word with Aviendha. She nodded almost as if Elayne had spoken, swung up onto her mouse-colored gelding, and rode to where the other Warders were waiting. They greeted her with nods and began discussing something in low voices. By the glances directed at the sisters, the “something” had to do with taking care of Aes Sedai whether Aes Sedai wanted care taken or not. Including herself, Elayne noted grimly. There was no time now for that, though. Aviendha stood fiddling with her horse’s reins, staring at the animal like a novice staring at a kitchen full of greasy pots. Very likely, Aviendha saw small difference between having to scrub pots and having to ride.
Snugging her green riding gloves, Elayne casually shifted Lioness to block them from the others’ view, then touched Aviendha’s arm. “Talking to Adeleas or Vandene might help,” she said gently. She had to be very careful here, as careful as with any ter’angreal. “They’re old enough to know more than you might suspect. There has to be a reason you’ve been . . . having trouble . . . with Traveling.” That was a mild way of putting it. Aviendha almost had failed to make the weave work at all, in the beginning. Careful. Aviendha was far more important than any ter’angreal ever could be. “They might be able to help.”
“How can they?” Aviendha stared stiffly at the saddle on her gelding. “They cannot Travel. How could any of them know how to help?” Abruptly her shoulders slumped, and she turned her head to Elayne. Shockingly, unshed tears glistened in her green eyes. “That isn’t the truth, Elayne. Not the whole truth. They cannot help, but . . . You are my near-sister; you have the right to know. They think I panicked at a servant. If I ask for help, it must all come out. That I Traveled once to run from a man, a man I hoped in my soul would catch me. To run like a rabbit. To run, wanting to be caught. How could I let them know such shame? Even if they really could help, how could I?”
Elayne wished she did not know. About the catching part, at least. About the fact that Rand had caught her. Snatching the flecks of jealousy that suddenly were floating through her, she pushed them into a sack and stuffed it into the back of her head. Then she jumped up and down on it for good measure. When a woman plays the fool, look for the man. That was one of Lini’s favorites. Another was, Kittens tangle your yarn, men tangle your wits, and it’s simple as breathing for both. She drew a deep breath. “No one will know from me, Aviendha. I’ll help you as much as
I can. If I can figure out how.” Not that there was much she could think to do. Aviendha was remarkably quick at seeing how weaves were formed, much quicker than she herself.
Aviendha merely nodded and scrambled clumsily into her saddle, showing a bit more grace than the Sea Folk. “There was a man watching, Elayne, and he was no servant.” Looking Elayne right in the eye, she added, “He frightened me.” An admission she likely would have made to no one else in the world.
“We’re safe from him now, whoever he was,” Elayne said, turning Lioness to follow Nynaeve and Lan from the clearing. In truth, it very likely had been a servant, but she would never tell that to anyone, Aviendha least of all. “We’re safe, and in a few more hours, we will reach the Kin’s farm, we’ll use the Bowl, and the world will be right again.” Well, somewhat. The sun seemed lower than it had in the stableyard, but she knew that was only imagination. For once, they had gained a clear jump on the Shadow.
From behind a screen of white wrought iron, Moridin watched the last of the horses vanish through the gateway, and then the tall young woman and the four Warders. It was possible they were carrying away some item he could use — an angreal attuned to men, perhaps — but the chances were small. For the rest, the ter’angreal, the greatest likelihood was that they would kill themselves trying to puzzle out how to use them. Sammael was a fool to have risked so much to seize a collection of no one knew what. But then, Sammael had never been half as clever as he thought. He himself would not disrupt his own plans merely on the off chance, to see what scraps of civilization he could find. Only idle curiosity had brought him here. He liked to know what others thought important. But it was dross.
He was about to turn away when the outlines of the gateway suddenly began to flex and tremble. Transfixed, he watched until the opening simply — melted. He had never been a man to give way to obscenities, but several rose in his mind. What had the woman done? These barbarous rustics offered too many surprises. A way to Heal being severed, however imperfectly. That was impossible! Except that they had done it. Involuntary rings. Those Warders and the bond they shared with their Aes Sedai. He had known of that for a long, long time, but whenever he thought he had the measure of them, these primitives revealed some new skill, did something that no one in his own Age had dreamed of. Something the pinnacle of civilization had not known! What had the girl done?
“Great Master?”
Moridin barely turned his head from the window. “Yes, Madic?” Her soul be damned, what had the girl done?
The balding man in green-and-white who had slipped into the small room bowed deeply before falling to his knees. One of the upper servants in the palace, Madic, with his long face, possessed a pompous dignity that he tried to maintain even now. Moridin had seen men who stood far higher do far worse. “Great Master, I have learned what the Aes Sedai brought to the palace this morning. It is said they found a great treasure hidden in ancient days, gold and jewels and heartstone, artifacts from Shiota and Eharon and even the Age of Legends. There are said to be things among them that use the One Power. It is said that one can control the weather. No one knows where they are going, Great Master. The palace is aquiver with talk, but ten tongues name ten different destinations.”
Moridin went back to studying the stableyard below as soon as Madic spoke. Ridiculous tales of gold and cuendillar held no interest. Nothing would make a gateway behave that way. Unless . . . Could she actually have unraveled the web? Death held no fear for him. Coldly he considered the possibility that he had been within sight of an unraveling web. One that had been unmade successfully. Another impossibility casually offered up by these . . .
Something Madic had said caught his ear. “The weather, Madic?” The shadows of the palace spires had barely lengthened from their bases, but there was not a cloud to shield the baking city.
“Yes, Great Master. It is called the Bowl of the Winds.”
The name meant nothing to him. But . . . a ter’angreal to control the weather . . . In his own Age, weather had been carefully regulated with the use of ter’angreal. One of the surprises of this Age — one of the smaller, it had seemed — was that there were those who could manipulate weather to a degree that should have required one of those ter’angreal. One such device should not be enough to affect even a large part of a single continent. But what could these women do with it? What? If they used a ring?
He seized the True Power without thought, the saa billowing black across his sight. His fingers tightened in the wrought-iron grille across the window; the metal groaned, twisting, not from his grip but from the tendrils of the True Power, drawn from the Great Lord himself, that wreathed around the grillework, flexing as he flexed his hand in anger. The Great Lord would not be pleased. He had strained from his prison to touch the world enough to fix the seasons in place. He was impatient to touch the world more, to shatter the void that contained him, and he would not be pleased. Rage enveloped Moridin, blood pounding in his ears. A moment past, he had not cared where those women went, but now . . . Somewhere far from here. People fleeing ran as far and as fast as they could. Somewhere they felt safe. No use sending Madic to ask questions, no use squeezing anyone here; they would not have been fool enough to leave anyone behind alive who knew their destination. Not to Tar Valon. To al’Thor? To that band of rebel Aes Sedai? In all three places he had eyes, some that did not know they served him. All would serve him, before the end. He would not allow chance slips to spoil his plans now.
Abruptly he heard something other than the thundering drumbeat of his own fury. A bubbling sound. He looked at Madic curiously, and stepped back from the spreading puddle on the floor. It seemed that in his anger he had seized at more than the wrought-iron screen with the True Power. Remarkable how much blood could be squeezed from a human body.
He let what remained of the man fall without regret; indeed, thinking only that when Madic was found, the Aes Sedai would surely be blamed. A small addition to the chaos growing in the world. Ripping a hole in the fabric of the Pattern, he Traveled with the True Power. He had to find those women before they used this Bowl of the Winds. And failing that . . . He disliked people meddling with his carefully laid plans. Those who did so and lived, lived to pay.
The gholam stepped into the room cautiously, nostrils already twitching with the scent of still hot blood. The livid burn on its cheek seemed like a live coal. The gholam appeared to be merely a slender man, a little taller than average in this time, yet it had never encountered anything that could harm it. Until that man with the medallion. What might have been smile or snarl bared its teeth. Curious, it peered around the room, but there was nothing beyond the crushed corpse on the floor tiles. And a . . . feel . . . of something. Not the One Power, but something that made it . . . itch, if not quite in the same way. Curiosity had brought it here. Parts of the grill over the window were crushed, pulling the whole thing loose at the sides. The gholam seemed to remember something that made it itch in that manner, yet so much of what it recalled was fogged and dim. The world had changed, as it seemed, in the blink of an eye. There had been a world of war and killing on a huge scale, with weapons that reached across miles, across thousands of miles, and then there was . . . this. But the gholam had not changed. It was still the most dangerous weapon of all.
Its nostrils flared again, though it was not by scent that it tracked those who could channel. The One Power had been used below, and miles to the north. To follow, or not? The man who had wounded it was not with them; it had made sure of that before leaving the high vantage place. The one who commanded it wanted the man who had wounded it dead perhaps as much as he did the women, but the women were an easier target. The women had been named, too, and for the time being, it was constrained. For its entire existence it had been compelled to obey one or another human, but its mind held the concept of not being constrained. It must follow the women. It wanted to follow. The moment of death, when it felt the ability to channel vanish along with life, produced ecstasy. Rapture. But it was hungry, too, and there was time. Where they could run, it could follow. Settling fluidly beside the mangled body, it began to feed. Fresh blood, hot blood, was a necessity, but human blood always held the sweetest savor.
Chapter 3
A Pleasant Ride
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