“He thinks a great deal of himself for a peddler,” Agelmar said to Lan over his shoulder. “I think Ingtar is right. He is mad.”

Fain’s eyes tightened angrily, but his voice remained smooth. “Great Lord, I know my words must appear grandiose, but if you will only—” He cut off abruptly, stepping back, as Moiraine rose and started slowly around the table. Only the guards’ lowered bills kept Fain from backing right out of the room.

Stopping behind Mat’s chair, Moiraine put a hand on his shoulder and bent to whisper in his ear. Whatever she said, the tension went out of his face, and he took his hand from under his coat. The Aes Sedai went on until she stood beside Agelmar, confronting Fain. As she came to a halt, the peddler sank into a crouch once more.

“I hate him,” he whimpered. “I want to be free of him. I want to walk in the Light again.” His shoulders began to shake, and tears streamed down his face even more heavily than before. “He made me do it.”

“I am afraid he is more than a peddler, Lord Agelmar,” Moiraine said. “Less than human, worse than vile, more dangerous than you can imagine. He can be bathed after I have spoken with him. I dare not waste a minute. Come, Lan.”

CHAPTER

47

More Tales of the Wheel

An itchy restlessness had Rand pacing beside the dining table. Twelve strides. The table was exactly twelve strides long no matter how many times he stepped it off. Irritably he made himself stop keeping tally. Stupid thing to be doing. I don’t care how long the bloody table is. A few minutes later he discovered that he was counting the number of trips he made up the table and back. What is he saying to Moiraine and Lan? Does he know why the Dark One is after us? Does he know which of us the Dark One wants?

He glanced at his friends. Perrin had crumbled a piece of bread and was idly pushing the crumbs around on the table with one finger. His yellow eyes stared unblinking at the crumbs, but they seemed to see something far off. Mat slouched in his chair, eyes half closed and the beginnings of a grin on his face. It was a nervous grin, not amusement. Outwardly he looked like the old Mat, but from time to time he unconsciously touched the Shadar Logoth dagger through his coat. What is Fain telling her? What does he know?

Loial, at least, did not look worried. The Ogier was studying the walls. First he had stood in the middle of the room and stared, turning slowly in a circle; now he was almost pressing his broad nose against the stone while he gently traced a particular join with fingers thicker than most men’s thumbs. Sometimes he closed his eyes, as if the feeling was more important than seeing. His ears gave an occasional twitch, and he muttered to himself in Ogier, appearing to have forgotten anyone else was in the room with him.

Lord Agelmar stood talking quietly with Nynaeve and Egwene in front of the long fireplace at the end of the room. He was a good host, adept at making people forget their troubles; several of his stories had Egwene in giggles. Once even Nynaeve threw back her head and roared with laughter. Rand gave a start at the unexpected sound, and jumped again when Mat’s chair crashed to the floor.

“Blood and ashes!” Mat growled, ignoring the way Nynaeve’s mouth tightened at his language. “What’s taking her so long?” He righted his chair and sat back down without looking at anyone. His hand strayed to his coat.

The Lord of Fal Dara looked at Mat disapprovingly—his gaze took in Rand and Perrin without any improvement—then turned back to the women. Rand’s pacing had taken him close to them.

“My Lord,” Egwene was saying, as glibly as if she had been using titles all of her life, “I thought he was a Warder, but you call him Dai Shan, and talk about a Golden Crane banner, and so did those other men. Sometimes you sound almost as if he’s a king. I remember once Moiraine called him the last Lord of the Seven Towers. Who is he?”

Nynaeve began studying her cup intently, but it was obvious to Rand that abruptly she was listening even more closely than was Egwene. Rand stopped and tried to overhear without seeming to eavesdrop.

“Lord of the Seven Towers,” Agelmar said with a frown. “An ancient title, Lady Egwene. Not even the High Lords of Tear have older, though the Queen of Andor comes close.” He heaved a sigh, and shook his head. “He will not speak of it, yet the story is well known along the Border. He is a king, or should have been, al’Lan Mandragoran, Lord of the Seven Towers, Lord of the Lakes, crownless King of the Malkieri.” His shaven head lifted high, and there was a light in his eye as if he felt a father’s pride. His voice grew stronger, filled with the force of his feeling. The whole room could hear without straining. “We of Shienar call ourselves Bordermen, but fewer than fifty years ago, Shienar was not truly of the Borderlands. North of us, and of Arafel, was Malkier. The lances of Shienar rode north, but it was Malkier that held back the Blight. Malkier, Peace favor her memory, and the Light illumine her name.”

“Lan is from Malkier,” the Wisdom said softly, looking up. She seemed troubled.

It was not a question, but Agelmar nodded. “Yes, Lady Nynaeve, he is the son of al’Akir Mandragoran, last crowned King of the Malkieri. How did he become as he is? The beginning, perhaps, was Lain. On a dare, Lain Mandragoran, the King’s brother, led his lances through the Blight to the Blasted Lands, perhaps to Shayol Ghul itself. Lain’s wife, Breyan, made that dare for the envy that burned her heart that al’Akir had been raised to the throne instead of Lain. The King and Lain were as close as brothers could be, as close as twins even after the royal ‘al’ was added to Akir’s name, but jealousy wracked Breyan. Lain was acclaimed for his deeds, and rightfully so, but not even he could outshine al’Akir. He was, man and king, such as comes once in a hundred years, if that. Peace favor him, and el’Leanna.

“Lain died in the Blasted Lands with most of those who followed him, men Malkier could ill afford to lose, and Breyan blamed the King, saying that Shayol Ghul itself would have fallen if al’Akir had led the rest of the Malkieri north with her husband. For revenge, she plotted with Cowin Gemallan, called Cowin Fairheart, to seize the throne for her son, Isam. Now Fairheart was a hero almost as well loved as al’Akir himself, and one of the Great Lords, but when the Great Lords had cast the rods for king, only two separated him from Akir, and he never forgot that two men laying a different color on the Crowning Stone would have set him on the throne instead. Between them, Cowin and Breyan moved soldiers back from the Blight to seize the Seven Towers, stripping the Borderforts to bare garrisons.

“But Cowin’s jealousy ran deeper.” Disgust tinged Agelmar’s voice. “Fairheart the hero, whose exploits in the Blight were sung throughout the Borderlands, was a Darkfriend. With the Borderforts weakened, Trollocs poured into Malkier like a flood. King al’Akir and Lain together might have rallied the land; they had done so before. But Lain’s doom in the Blasted Lands had shaken the people, and the Trolloc invasion broke men’s spirit and their will to resist. Too many men. Overwhelming numbers pushed the Malkieri back into the heartland.

“Breyan fled with her infant son Isam, and was run down by Trollocs as she rode south with him. No one knows their fate of a certainty, but it can be guessed. I can find pity only for the boy. When Cowin Fairheart’s treachery was revealed and he was taken by young Jain Charin—already called Jain Farstrider—when Fairheart was brought to the Seven Towers in chains, the Great Lords called for his head on a pike. But because he had been second only to al’Akir and Lain in the hearts of the people, the King faced him in single combat and slew him. Al’Akir wept when he killed Cowin. Some say he wept for a friend who had given himself to the Shadow, and some say for Malkier.” The Lord of Fal Dara shook his head sadly.

“The first peal of the doom of the Seven Towers had been struck. There was no time to gather aid from Shienar or Arafel, and no hope that Malkier could stand alone, with five thousand of her lances dead in the Blasted Lands, her Borderforts overrun.

“Al’Akir and his Queen, el’Leanna, had Lan brought to them in his cradle. Into his infant hands they placed the sword of Malkieri kings, the s

word he wears today. A weapon made by Aes Sedai during the War of Power, the War of the Shadow that brought down the Age of Legends. They anointed his head with oil, naming him Dai Shan, a Diademed Battle Lord, and consecrated him as the next King of the Malkieri, and in his name they swore the ancient oath of Malkieri kings and queens.” Agelmar’s face hardened, and he spoke the words as if he, too, had sworn that oath, or one much similar. “To stand against the Shadow so long as iron is hard and stone abides. To defend the Malkieri while one drop of blood remains. To avenge what cannot be defended.” The words rang in the chamber.

“El’Leanna placed a locket around her son’s neck, for remembrance, and the infant, wrapped in swaddling clothes by the Queen’s own hand, was given over to twenty chosen from the King’s Bodyguard, the best swordsmen, the most deadly fighters. Their command: to carry the child to Fal Moran.

“Then did al’Akir and el’Leanna lead the Malkieri out to face the Shadow one last time. There they died, at Herat’s Crossing, and the Malkieri died, and the Seven Towers were broken. Shienar, and Arafel, and Kandor, met the Halfmen and the Trollocs at the Stair of Jehaan and threw them back, but not as far as they had been. Most of Malkier remained in Trolloc hands, and year by year, mile by mile, the Blight has swallowed it.” Agelmar drew a heavyhearted breath. When he went on, there was a sad pride in his eyes and voice.

“Only five of the Bodyguards reached Fal Moran alive, every man wounded, but they had the child unharmed. From the cradle they taught him all they knew. He learned weapons as other children learn toys, and the Blight as other children their mother’s garden. The oath sworn over his cradle is graven in his mind. There is nothing left to defend, but he can avenge. He denies his titles, yet in the Borderlands he is called the Uncrowned, and if ever he raised the Golden Crane of Malkier, an army would come to follow. But he will not lead men to their deaths. In the Blight he courts death as a suitor courts a maiden, but he will not lead others to it.

“If you must enter the Blight, and with only a few, there is no man better to take you there, nor to bring you safely out again. He is the best of the Warders, and that means the best of the best. You might as well leave these boys here, to gain a little seasoning, and put your entire trust in Lan. The Blight is no place for untried boys.”

Mat opened his mouth, and shut it again at a look from Rand. I wish he’d learn to keep it shut.

Nynaeve had listened just as wide-eyed as Egwene, but now she was staring into her cup again, her face pale. Egwene put a hand on her arm and gave her a sympathetic look.

Moiraine appeared in the doorway, Lan at her heels. Nynaeve turned her back on them.

“What did he say?” Rand demanded. Mat rose, and Perrin, too.

“Country oaf,” Agelmar muttered, then raised his voice to a normal tone. “Did you learn anything, Aes Sedai, or is he simply a madman?”

“He is mad,” Moiraine said, “or close to it, but there is nothing simple about Padan Fain.” One of the black-and-gold-liveried servants bowed his way in with a blue washbasin and pitcher, a bar of yellow soap, and a small towel on a silver tray; he looked anxiously at Agelmar. Moiraine directed him to put them on the table. “Your pardon for commanding your servants, Lord Agelmar,” she said. “I took the liberty of asking for this.”

Agelmar nodded to the servant, who put the tray on the table and left hurriedly. “My servants are yours to command, Aes Sedai.”

The water Moiraine poured into the basin steamed as if only just off the boil. She pushed up her sleeves and began vigorously washing her hands without regard for the heat of the water. “I said he was worse than vile, but I did not come close. I do not believe I have ever met someone so abject and debased, yet at the same time so foul. I feel soiled from touching him, and I do not mean for the filth on his skin. Soiled in here.” She touched her breast. “The degradation of his soul almost makes me doubt he has one. There is something worse to him than a Darkfriend.”

“He looked so pitiful,” Egwene murmured. “I remember him arriving in Emond’s Field each spring, always laughing and full of news from outside. Surely there’s some hope for him? ‘No man can stand in the Shadow so long that he cannot find the Light again,’ ” she quoted.

The Aes Sedai toweled her hands briskly. “I have always believed it so,” she said. “Perhaps Padan Fain can be redeemed. But he has been a Darkfriend more than forty years, and what he has done for that, in blood and pain and death, would freeze your heart to hear. Among the least of these—though not small to you, I suspect—he brought the Trollocs to Emond’s Field.”

“Yes,” Rand said softly. He heard Egwene gasp. I should have guessed. Burn me, I should have, as soon as I recognized him.

“Did he bring any here?” Mat asked. He looked at the stone walls around them and shivered. Rand thought he was remembering the Myddraal more than Trollocs; walls had not stopped the Fade at Baerlon, or at Whitebridge.

“If he did”—Agelmar laughed—“they’ll break their teeth on the walls of Fal Dara. Many others have before.” He was speaking to everyone, but obviously addressing his words to Egwene and Nynaeve, from the glances he gave them. “And do not worry yourself about Halfmen, either.” Mat’s face reddened. “Every street and alley in Fal Dara is lit by night. And no man may hide his face inside the walls.”

“Why would Master Fain do that?” Egwene asked.

“Three years ago. . . .” With a heavy sigh Moiraine sat down, folding up as if what she had done with Fain had drained her. “Three years, this summer. As far back as that. The Light surely favors us, else the Father of Lies would have triumphed while I still sat planning in Tar Valon. Three years, Fain has been hunting you for the Dark One.”

“That’s crazy!” Rand said. “He’s come into the Two Rivers every spring as regular as a clock. Three years? We’ve been right there in front of him, and he never looked at any of us twice before last year.” The Aes Sedai pointed a finger at him, fixing him.

“Fain told me everything, Rand. Or almost everything. I believe he managed to hold back something, something important, despite all I could do, but he said enough. Three years ago, a Halfman came for him in a town in Murandy. Fain was terrified, of course, but it is considered a very great honor among Darkfriends to be so summoned. Fain believed he had been chosen for great things, and he had, though not in the manner he believed. He was brought north to the Blight, to the Blasted Lands. To Shayol Ghul. Where he met a man with eyes of fire, who named himself Ba’alzamon.”

Mat shifted uneasily, and Rand swallowed hard. It had to have been that way, of course, but that did not make it any easier to accept. Only Perrin looked at the Aes Sedai as if nothing could surprise him any longer.

“The Light protect us,” Agelmar said fervently.

“Fain did not like what was done to him at Shayol Ghul,” Moiraine continued calmly. “While we talked, he screamed often of fire and burning. It almost killed him, bringing it all out from where he had it hidden. Even with my Healing he is a shattered ruin. It will take much to make him whole again. I will make the effort, though, if for no other reason than to learn what more he still hides. He had been chosen because of where he did his peddling. No,” she said quickly when they stirred, “not the Two Rivers only, not then. The Father of Lies knew roughly where to find what he sought, but not much better than we in Tar Valon.

“Fain said he has been made the Dark One’s hound, and in a way he is right. The Father of Lies set Fain to hunt, first changing him so he could carry out that hunt. It is the things done to bring about those changes that Fain fears to remember; he hates his master for them as much as he fears him. So Fain was sent sniffing and hunting through all the villages around Baerlon, and all the way to the Mountains of Mist, and down to the Taren and across into the Two Rivers.”

“Three springs ago?” Perrin said slowly. “I remember that spring. Fain came later than usual, but what was strange was that he lingered on. A whole week he remained, idle and gnashing his teeth abo

ut laying out money for a room at the Winespring Inn. Fain likes his money.”

“I remember, now,” Mat said. “Everybody was wondering was he sick, or had he fallen for a local woman? Not that any of them would marry a peddler, of course. As well marry one of the Traveling People.” Egwene raised an eyebrow at him, and he shut his mouth.

“After that, Fain was taken to Shayol Ghul again, and his mind was—distilled.” Rand’s stomach turned over at the tone in the Aes Sedai’s voice; it told more of what she meant than the grimace that flashed across her face. “What he had . . . sensed . . . was concentrated and fed back. When he entered the Two Rivers the next year, he was able to choose his targets out more clearly. Indeed, more clearly even than the Dark One had expected. Fain knew for a certainty that the one he sought was one of three in Emond’s Field.”

Perrin grunted, and Mat began cursing in a soft monotone that even Nynaeve’s glare did not stop. Agelmar looked at them curiously. Rand felt only the faintest chill, and wondered at it. Three years the Dark One had been hunting him . . . hunting them. He was sure it should have made his teeth chatter.

Moiraine did not allow Mat to interrupt her. She raised her voice enough to be heard over him. “When Fain returned to Lugard, Ba’alzamon came to him in a dream. Fain abased himself and performed rites that would strike you deaf to hear the half of them, binding himself even more tightly to the Dark One. What is done in dreams can be more dangerous than what is done awake.” Rand stirred at the sharp, warning look, but she did not pause. “He was promised great rewards, power over kingdoms after Ba’alzamon’s victory, and told that when he returned to Emond’s Field he was to mark the three he had found. A Halfman would be there, waiting for him with Trollocs. We know now how the Trollocs came to the Two Rivers. There must have been an Ogier grove and a Waygate at Manetheren.”