“Thank you for seeing me, Mother,” Verin said as she straightened. “I have urgent news from Falme. And more. I scarcely know where to begin.”

“Begin where you will,” Siuan said. “These rooms are warded, in case anyone thinks to use childhood tricks of eavesdropping.” Verin’s eyebrows lifted in surprise, and the Amyrlin added, “Much has changed since you left. Speak.”

“Most importantly, then, Rand al’Thor has proclaimed himself the Dragon Reborn.”

Siuan felt a tightness loosen in her chest. “I hoped it was he,” she said softly. “I have had reports from women who could only tell what they had heard, and rumors by the score come with every trader’s boat and merchant’s wagon, but I could not be sure.” She took a deep breath. “Yet I think I can name the day it happened. Did you know the two false Dragons no longer trouble the world?”

“I had not heard, Mother. That is good news.”

“Yes. Mazrim Taim is in the hands of our sisters in Saldaea, and the poor fellow in Haddon Mirk, the Light have pity on his soul, was taken by the Tairens and executed on the spot. No one even seems to know what his name was. Both were taken on the same day and, according to rumor, under the same circumstances. They were in battle, and winning, when suddenly a great light flashed in the sky, and a vision appeared, just for an instant. There are a dozen different versions of what it was, but in both cases the result was exactly the same. The false Dragon’s horse reared up and threw him. He was knocked unconscious, and his followers cried out that he was dead, and fled the field, and he was taken. Some of my reports speak of visions in the sky at Falme. I’ll wager a gold mark to a week-old delta perch that was the instant Rand al’Thor proclaimed himself.”

“The true Dragon has been Reborn,” Verin said almost to herself, “and so the Pattern has no room for false Dragons anymore. We have loosed the Dragon Reborn on the world. The Light have mercy on us.”

The Amyrlin shook her head irritably. “We have done what must be done.” And if even the newest novice learns of it, I will be stilled before the next sunrise, if I’m not torn to pieces first. Me, and Moiraine, and Verin, and likely anyone thought to be a friend of ours, as well. It was not easy to carry on so great a conspiracy when only three women knew of it, when even a close friend would betray them and consider it a duty well done. Light, but I wish I could be sure they would not be right to do it. “At least he is safely in Moiraine’s hands. She will guide him, and do what must be done. What else have you to tell me, Daughter?”

For answer, Verin placed the leather sack on the table and took out a curled, gold horn, with silver script inlaid around its flaring bell mouth. She laid the horn on the table, then looked to the Amyrlin with quiet expectation.

Siuan did not have to be close enough to read the script to know what it said. Tia mi aven Moridin isainde vadin. “The grave is no bar to my call.” “The Horn of Valere?” she gasped. “You brought that all the way here, across hundreds of leagues, with the Hunters looking everywhere for it? Light, woman, it was to be left with Rand al’Thor.”

“I know, Mother,” Verin said calmly, “but the Hunters all expect to find the Horn in some great adventure, not in a sack with four women escorting a sick youth. And it would do Rand no good.”

“What do you mean? He is to fight Tarmon Gai’don. The Horn is to summon dead heroes from the grave to fight in the Last Battle. Has Moiraine once again made some new plan without consulting me?”

“This is none of Moiraine’s doing, Mother. We plan, but the Wheel weaves the Pattern as it wills. Rand was not first to sound the Horn. Matrim Cauthon did that. And Mat now lies below, dying of his ties to the Shadar Logoth dagger. Unless he can be Healed here.”

Siuan shivered. Shadar Logoth, that dead city so tainted that even Trollocs feared to enter, and with reason. By chance, a dagger from that place had come into young Mat’s hands, twisting and tainting him with the evil that had killed the city long ago. Killing him. By chance? Or by the Pattern? He is ta’veren, too, after all. But . . . Mat sounded the Horn. Then—

“So long as Mat lives,” Verin went on, “the Horn of Valere is no more than a horn to anyone else. If he dies, of course, another can sound it and forge a new link between man and Horn.” Her gaze was steady and untroubled by what she seemed to be suggesting.

“Many will die before we are done, Daughter.” And who else could I use to sound it again? I’ll not take the risk of trying to return it to Moiraine, now. One of the Gaidin, perhaps. Perhaps. “The Pattern has yet to make his fate clear.”

“Yes, Mother. And the Horn?”

“For the moment,” the Amyrlin said finally, “we will find some place to hide this where no one but we two know. I will consider what to do after that.”

Verin nodded. “As you say, Mother. Of course, a few hours will make one decision for you.”

“Is that all you have for me?” Siuan snapped. “If it is, I have those three runaways to deal with.”

“There is the matter of the Seanchan, Mother.”

“What of them? All my reports say they have fled back across the ocean, or to wherever they came from.”

“It seems so, Mother. But I fear we may have to deal with them again.” Verin pulled a small leather notebook from behind her belt and began leafing through it. “They spoke of themselves as the Forerunners, or Those Who Come Before, and talked of the Return, and of reclaiming this land as theirs. I’ve taken notes on everything I heard of them. Only from those who actually saw them, of course, or had dealings with them.”

“Verin, you are worrying about a lionfish out in the Sea of Storms, while here and now the silverpike are chewing our nets to shreds.”

The Brown sister continued turning pages. “An apt metaphor, Mother, the lionfish. Once I saw a large shark that a lionfish had chased into the shallows, where it died.” She tapped one page with a finger. “Yes. This is the worst. Mother, the Seanchan use the One Power in battle. They use it as a weapon.”

Siuan clasped her hands tightly at her waist. The reports the pigeons had brought spoke of that, too. Most had only secondhand knowledge, but a few women wrote of seeing for themselves. The Power used as a weapon. Even dry ink on paper carried an edge of hysteria when they wrote of that. “That is already causing us trouble, Verin, and will cause more as the stories spread, and grow with the spreading. But I can do nothing about that. I am told these people are gone, Daughter. Do you have any evidence otherwise?”

“Well, no, Mother, but—”

“Until you do, let us deal with getting the silverpike out of our nets before they start chewing holes in the boat, too.”

With reluctance, Verin closed the notebook and tucked it back behind her belt. “As you say, Mother. If I might ask, what do you intend to do to Nynaeve and the other two girls?”

The Amyrlin hesitated, considering. “Before I am done with them, they will wish they could go down to the river and sell themselves for fishbait.” It was the simple truth, but it could be taken in more than one way. “Now. Seat yourself, and tell me everything those three have said and done in the time they were with you. Everything.”

CHAPTER

13

Punishments

Lying on her narrow bed, Egwene frowned up at the flickering shadows cast on the ceiling by her single lamp. She wished she could form some plan of action, or reason out what to expect next. Nothing came. The shadows had more pattern than her thoughts. She could hardly even make herself worry about Mat, yet the shame she felt at that was small, crushed by the walls around her.

It was a stark, windowless room, like all those in the novices’ quarters, small and square and painted white, with pegs on one wall for hanging her belongings, the bed built against a second, and a tiny shelf on a third, where in other days she had kept a few books borrowed from the Tower library. A washstand and a three-legged stool completed the furnishings. The floorboards were almost white from scrubbing. She had done that task, on hands and knees, every day she

had lived there, in addition to her other chores and lessons. Novices lived simply, whether they were innkeepers’ daughters or the Daughter-Heir of Andor.

She wore the plain white dress of a novice again—even her belt and pouch were white—but she felt no joy at having rid herself of the hated gray. Her room had become too much of a prison cell. What if they mean to keep me here. In this room. Like a cell. Like a collar and. . . .

She glanced at the door—the dark Accepted would still be standing guard on the other side, she knew—and rolled close to the white plastered wall. Just above the mattress was a small hole, almost invisible unless you knew where to look, drilled through into the next room by novices long ago. Egwene kept her voice to a whisper.

“Elayne?” There was no answer. “Elayne? Are you asleep?”

“How could I sleep?” came Elayne’s reply, a reedy whisper through the hole. “I thought we might be in some trouble, but I did not expect this. Egwene, what are they going to do to us?”

Egwene had no answer, and her guesses were not of the sort she wanted to voice aloud. She did not even want to think of them. “I actually thought we might be heroes, Elayne. We brought back the Horn of Valere safely. We discovered Liandrin is Black Ajah.” Her voice skipped on that. Aes Sedai had always denied the existence of a Black Ajah, an Ajah that served the Dark One, and were known to become angry with anyone who even suggested it was real. But we know it’s real. “We should be heroes, Elayne.”

“ ‘Should and would build no bridges,’ ” Elayne said. “Light, I used to hate it when Mother said that to me, but it’s true. Verin said we mustn’t speak of the Horn, or Liandrin, to anyone but her or the Amyrlin Seat. I do not think any of this will work out the way we thought. It is not fair. We’ve been through so much; you’ve been through so much. It just is not fair.”

“Verin says. Moiraine says. I know why people think Aes Sedai are puppetmasters. I can almost feel the strings on my arms and legs. Whatever they do, it will be what they decide is good for the White Tower, not what is good or fair for us.”

“But you still want to be Aes Sedai. Don’t you?”

Egwene hesitated, but there was never any real question as to her answer. “Yes,” she said. “I still do. It is the only way we will ever be safe. But I will tell you this. I’ll not let myself be stilled.” That was a new thought, voiced as soon as it came to her, but she realized she did not want to take it back. Give up touching the True Source? She could sense it there, even now, the glow just over her shoulder, the shining just out of sight. She resisted the desire to reach out to it. Give up being filled with the One Power, feeling more alive than I ever have before? I won’t! “Not without a fight.”

There was a long silence from the other side of the wall. “How could you stop it? You may be as strong as any of them, now, but neither one of us knows enough yet to stop even one Aes Sedai from shielding us from the Source, and there are dozens of them here.”

Egwene considered. Finally she said, “I could run away. Really run away, this time.”

“They would come after us, Egwene. I’m sure they would. Once you show any ability at all, they don’t let you go until you’ve learned enough not to kill yourself. Or just die from it.”

“I am not a simple village girl anymore. I have seen something of the world. I can keep out of Aes Sedai hands if I want to.” She was trying to convince herself as much as Elayne. And what if I don’t know enough, yet? Enough about the world, enough about the Power? What if just channeling can still kill me? She refused to think of that. So much I have to learn yet. I won’t let them stop me.

“My mother might protect us,” Elayne said, “if what that Whitecloak said is true. I never thought I would hope something like that was the truth. But if it isn’t, Mother is just as likely to send us both back in chains. Will you teach me how to live in a village?”

Egwene blinked at the wall. “You will come with me? If it comes to that, I mean?”

There was another long silence, then a faint whisper. “I do not want to be stilled, Egwene. I will not be. I will not be!”

The door swung open, crashing against the wall, and Egwene sat up with a start. She heard the bang of a door from the other side of the wall. Faolain stepped into Egwene’s room, smiling as her eyes went to the tiny hole. Similar holes joined most of the novice rooms; any woman who had been a novice knew of them.

“Whispering with your friend, eh?” the curly-haired Accepted said with surprising warmth. “Well, it grows lonely, waiting by yourself. Did you have a nice chat?”

Egwene opened her mouth, then closed it again hastily. She could answer Aes Sedai, Sheriam had said. No one else. She regarded the Accepted with a level expression and waited.

The false sympathy slid off Faolain’s face like water running off a roof. “On your feet. The Amyrlin’s not to be kept waiting by the likes of you. You are lucky I did not come in in time to hear you. Move!”

Novices were supposed to obey the Accepted almost as quickly as they obeyed Aes Sedai, but Egwene got to her feet slowly, and took as much time as she dared in smoothing her dress. She gave Faolain a small curtsy and a tiny smile. The scowl that rolled across the Accepted’s face made Egwene’s smile grow before she remembered to rein it in; there was no point in pushing Faolain too far. Holding herself straight, pretending her knees were not shaking, she preceded the Accepted out of the room.

Elayne was already waiting outside with the apple-cheeked Accepted, looking fiercely determined to be brave. Somehow, she managed to give the impression that the Accepted was a handmaid carrying her gloves. Egwene hoped that she herself was doing half so well.

The railed galleries of the novices’ quarters rose tier on tier above, in a hollow column, and fell as many below, to the Novices’ Court. There were no other women in sight. Even if every novice in the Tower had been there, though, less than a quarter of the rooms would have been filled. The four of them walked ’round the empty galleries and down the spiraling ramps in silence; none could bear to have the sounds of voices emphasize the emptiness.

Egwene had never before been into the part of the Tower where the Amyrlin had her rooms. The corridors there were wide enough for a wagon to pass down easily, and taller than they were wide. Colorful tapestries hung on the walls, tapestries in a dozen styles, of floral designs and forest scenes, of heroic deeds and intricate patterns, some so old they looked as if they might break if handled. Their shoes made loud clicks on diamond-shaped floor tiles that repeated the colors of the seven Ajahs.

There were few other women in evidence—an Aes Sedai now and then, sweeping majestically along with no time to notice Accepted or novices; five or six Accepted hurrying self-importantly about their tasks or studies; a sprinkling of serving women with trays, or mops, or armfuls of sheets or towels; a few novices moving on errands even more quickly than the servants.

Nynaeve and her slim-necked escort, Theodrin, joined them. Neither spoke. Nynaeve wore an Accepted’s dress, now, white with the seven colored bands at the hem, but her belt and pouch were her own. She gave Egwene and Elayne each a reassuring smile and a hug—Egwene was so relieved to see another friendly face that she returned the hug with barely a thought that Nynaeve was behaving as if she were comforting children—but as they walked on, Nynaeve gave her thick braid a sharp tug from time to time, too.

Very few men came into that part of the Tower, and Egwene saw only two: Warders walking side by side in conversation, one with his sword on his hip, the other with his on his back. One was short and slender, even slight, the other almost as wide as he was tall, yet both moved with a dangerous grace. The color-shifting Warder cloaks made them queasy-making to watch for long, parts of them sometimes seeming to fade into the walls beyond. She saw Nynaeve looking at them, and shook her head. She has to do something about Lan. If any of us can do anything about anyone after today.

The antechamber of the Amyrlin Seat’s study was grand enough for any palace, though the chairs scattere

d about for those who might wait were plain, but Egwene had eyes only for Leane Sedai. The Keeper wore her narrow stole of office, blue to show she had been raised from the Blue Ajah, and her face could have been carved from smooth, brownish stone. There was no one else there.

“Did they give any trouble?” The Keeper’s clipped way of talking gave no hint now of either anger or sympathy.

“No, Aes Sedai,” Theodrin and the apple-cheeked Accepted said together.

“This one had to be pulled by the scruff of her neck, Aes Sedai,” Faolain said, indicating Egwene. The Accepted sounded indignant. “She balks as if she has forgotten what the discipline of the White Tower is.”

“To lead,” Leane said, “is neither to push nor to pull. Go to Marris Sedai, Faolain, and ask her to allow you to contemplate on this while raking the paths in the Spring Garden.” She dismissed Faolain and the other two Accepted, and they dropped deep curtsies. From the depth of hers, Faolain shot a furious look at Egwene.

The Keeper paid no attention to the Accepted’s leaving. Instead, she studied the remaining women, tapping a forefinger against her lips, till Egwene had the feeling they had all been measured to the inch and weighed to the ounce. Nynaeve’s eyes took on a dangerous sparkle, and she had a tight grip on her braid.

Finally Leane raised a hand toward the doors to the Amyrlin’s study. The Great Serpent bit its own tail, a pace across, on the dark wood of each. “Enter,” she said.

Nynaeve stepped forward promptly and opened one of the doors. That was enough to get Egwene moving. Elayne held her hand tightly, and she gripped Elayne’s just as hard. Leane followed them in and took a place to one side, halfway between the three of them and the table in the center of the room.

The Amyrlin Seat sat behind the table, examining papers. She did not look up. Once Nynaeve opened her mouth, but closed it again, at a sharp look from the Keeper. The three of them stood in a line in front of the Amyrlin’s table and waited. Egwene tried not to fidget. Long minutes went by—it seemed like hours—before the Amyrlin raised her head, but when those blue eyes fixed them each in turn, Egwene decided she could have waited longer. The Amyrlin’s gaze was like two icicles boring into her heart. The room was cool, but a trickle of sweat began to run down her back.