Robert Jordan - The Wheel of Time - book 4

The Shadow shall rise across the world, and darken every

land, even to the smallest corner, and there shall be neither

Light nor safety. And he who shall be born of the Dawn, born

of the Maiden, according to Prophecy, he shall stretch forth his

hands to catch the Shadow, and the world shall scream in the

pain of salvation. All Glory be to the Creator, and to the Light,

and to he who shall be born again. May the Light save us from

him.

-from Commentaries on the Karaethon Cycle

Sereine dar Shamelle Motara

Counsel-Sister to Comaelle, High Queen of Jaramide

(circa 325 AB, the Third Age)

CHAPTER

1

Seeds of Shadow

The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend.

Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes

again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind

rose on the great plain called the Caralain Grass. The wind was not the beginning. There are

neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning.

North and west the wind blew beneath early morning sun, over endless miles of rolling grass

and far-scattered thickets, across the swift-flowing River Luan, past the broken-topped fang of

Dragonmount, mountain of legend towering above the slow swells of the rolling plain, looming

so high that clouds wreathed it less than halfway to the smoking peak. Dragonmount, where the

Dragon had died-and with him, some said, the Age of Legends-where prophecy said he would be

born again. Or had been. North and west, across the villages of Jualdhe and Darein and Alindaer,

where bridges like stone lacework arched out to the Shining Walls, the great white walls of what

many called the greatest city in the world. Tar Valon. A city just touched by the reaching shadow

of Dragonmount each evening.

Within those walls Ogier-made buildings well over two thousand years old seemed to grow

out of the ground rather than having been built, or to be the work of wind and water rather than

that of even the fabled hands of Ogier stone-masons. Some suggested birds taking flight, or huge

shells from distant seas. Soaring towers, flared or fluted or spiraled, stood connected by bridges

hundreds of feet in the air, often without rails. Only those long in Tar Valon could avoid gaping

like country folk who had never been off the farm.

Greatest of those towers, the White Tower dominated the city, gleaming like polished bone in

the sun. The Wheel of Time turns around Tar Valon, so people said in the city, and Tar Valon

turns around the Tower. The first sight travelers had of Tar Valon, before their horses came in

view of the bridges, before their river boat captains sighted the island, was the Tower reflecting

the sun like a beacon. Small wonder then that the great square surrounding the walled Tower

grounds seemed smaller than it was under the massive Tower’s gaze, the people in it dwindling

to insects. Yet the White Tower could have been the smallest in Tar Valon, the fact that it was

the heart of Aes Sedai power would still have overawed the island city.

Despite their numbers, the crowd did not come close to filling the square. Along the edges

people jostled each other in a milling mass, all going about their day’s business, but closer to the

Tower grounds there were ever fewer people, until a band of bare paving stones at least fifty

paces wide bordered the tall white walls. Aes Sedai were respected and more in Tar Valon, of

course, and the Amyrlin Seat ruled the city as she ruled the Aes Sedai, but few wanted to be

closer to Aes Sedai power than they had to. There was a difference between being proud of a

grand fireplace in your hall and walking into the flames.

A very few did go closer, to the broad stairs that led up to the Tower itself, to the intricately

carved doors wide enough for a dozen people abreast. Those doors stood open, welcoming.

There were always some people in need of aid or an answer they thought only Aes Sedai could

give, and they came from far as often as near, from Arafel and Ghealdan, from Saldaea and

Illian. Many would find help or guidance inside, though often not what they had expected or

hoped for.

Min kept the wide hood of her cloak pulled up, shadowing her face in its depths. In spite of

the warmth of the day, the garment was light enough not to attract comment, not on a woman so

obviously shy. And a good many people were shy when they went to the Tower. There was

nothing about her to attract notice. Her dark hair was longer than when she was last in the Tower,

though still not quite to her shoulders, and her dress, plain blue except for narrow bands of white

Jaerecuz lace at neck and wrists, would have suited the daughter of a well-to-do farmer, wearing

her feastday best to the Tower just like the other women approaching the wide stairs. Min hoped

she looked the same, at least. She had to stop herself from staring at them to see if they walked or

held themselves differently. I can do it, she told herself.

She had certainly not come all this way to turn back now. The dress was a good disguise.

Those who remembered her in the Tower remembered a young woman with close-cropped hair,

always in a boy’s coat and breeches, never in a dress. It had to be a good disguise. She had no

choice about what she was doing. Not really.

Her stomach fluttered the closer she came to the Tower, and she tightened her grip on the

bundle clutched to her breast. Her usual clothes were in there, and her good boots, and all her

possessions except the horse she had left at an inn not far from the square. With luck, she would

be back on the gelding in a few hours, riding for the Ostrein Bridge and the road south.

She was not really looking forward to climbing onto a horse again so soon, not after weeks in

the saddle with never a day’s pause, but she longed to leave this place. She had never seen the

White Tower as hospitable, and right now it seemed nearly as awful as the Dark One’s prison at

Shayol Ghul. Shivering, she wished she had not thought of the Dark One. I wonder if Moiraine

thinks I came just because she asked me? The Light help me, acting like a fool girl. Doing fool

things because of a fool man!

She mounted the stairs uneasily - each was deep enough to take two strides for her to reach

the next - and unlike most of the others, she did not pause for an awed stare up the pale height of

the Tower. She wanted this over.

Inside, archways almost surrounded he large, round entry hall, but the petitioners huddled in

the middle of the chamber, shuffling together beneath a flat-domed ceiling. The pale stone floor

had been worn and polished by countless nervous feet over the centuries. No one thought of

anything except where they were, and why. A farmer and his wife in rough woolens, clutching

each other’s callused hands, rubbed shoulders with a merchant in velvet-slashed silks, a maid at

her heels clutching a small worked-silver casket, no doubt her mistress’s gift for the Tower.

Elsewhere, the merchant would have stared down her nose at farm folk who brushed so close,

and they might well have knuckled their foreheads and backed away apologizing. Not now. Not

here.

There were few men among the petitioners, which was no surprise to Min. Most men were

nervous around Aes Sedai. Everyone knew it had been male Aes Sedai, when there still had been

male Aes Sedai, who were responsible for the Breaking of the World. Three thousand years had

not dimmed that memory, even if time had altered many of the details. Children were still

frightened by tales of men who could channel the One Power, men doomed to go mad from the

Dark One’s taint on saidin, the male half of the True Source. Worst was the story of Lews Therin

Telamon, the Dragon, Lews Therin Kinslayer, who had begun the Breaking. For that matter, the

stories frightened adults, too. Prophecy said the Dragon would be born again in mankind’s

greatest hour of need, to fight the Dark One in Tarmon Gai’don, the Last Battle, but that made

little difference in how most people looked at any connection between men and the Power. Any

Aes Sedai would hunt down a man who could channel, now; of the seven Ajahs, the Red did

little else.

Of course, none of that had anything to do with seeking help from Aes Sedai, yet few men

felt easy about being linked in any way to Aes Sedai and the Power. Few, that is, except

Warders, but each Warder was bonded to an Aes Sedai; Warders could hardly be taken for the

general run of men. There was a saying: “A man will cut off his own hand to get rid of a splinter

before asking help from Aes Sedai.” Women meant it as a comment on men’s stubborn

foolishness, but Min had heard some men say the loss of a hand might be the better decision.

She wondered what these people would do if they knew what she knew. Run screaming,

perhaps. And if they knew her reason for being here, she might not survive to be taken up by the

Tower guards and thrown into a cell. She did have friends in the Tower, but none with power or

influence. If her purpose was discovered, it was much less likely that they could help her than

that she would pull them to the gallows or the headsman behind her. That was saying she lived to

be tried, of course; more likely her mouth would be stopped permanently long before a trial.

She told herself to stop thinking like that. I’ll make it in, and I’ll make it out. The Light burn

Rand al’Thor for getting me into this!

Three or four Accepted, women Min’s age or perhaps a little older, were circulating through

the round room, speaking softly to the petitioners. Their white dresses had no decoration except

for seven bands of color at the hem, one band for each Ajah. Now and again a novice, a still

younger woman or girl all in white, came to lead someone deeper into the Tower. The petitioners

always followed the novices with an odd mix of excited eagerness and foot-dragging reluctance.

Min’s grip tightened on her bundle as one of the Accepted stopped in front of her. “The Light

illumine you,” the curly-haired woman said perfunctorily. “I am called Faolain. How may the

Tower help you?”

Faolain’s dark, round face held the patience of someone doing a tedious job when she would

rather be doing something else. Studying, probably, from what Min knew of the Accepted.

Learning to be Aes Sedai. Most important, however, was the lack of recognition in the

Accepted’s eyes; the two of them had met when Min was in the Tower before, though only

briefly.

Just the same, Min lowered her face in assumed diffidence. It was not unnatural; a good

many country folk did not really understand the great step up from Accepted to full Aes Sedai.

Shielding her features behind the edge of her cloak, she looked away from Faolain.

“I have a question I must ask the Amyrlin Seat,” she began, then cut off abruptly as three Aes

Sedai stopped to look into the entry hall, two from one archway and one from another.

Accepted and novices curtsied when their rounds took them close to one of the Aes Sedai, but

otherwise went on about their tasks, perhaps a trifle more briskly. That was all. Not so for the

petitioners. They seemed to catch their breaths all together. Away from the White Tower, away

from Tar Valon, they might simply have thought the Aes Sedai three women whose ages they

could not guess, three women in the flush of their prime, yet with more maturity than their

smooth cheeks suggested. In the Tower, though, there was no question. A woman who had

worked very long with the One Power was not touched by time in the same way as other women.

In the Tower, no one needed to see a golden Great Serpent ring to know an Aes Sedai.

A ripple of curtsies spread through the huddle, and jerky bows from the few men. Two or

three people even fell to their knees. The rich merchant looked frightened; the farm couple at her

side stared at legends come to life. How to deal with Aes Sedai was a matter of hearsay for most;

it was unlikely that any here, except those who actually lived in Tar Valon, had seen an Aes

Sedai before, and probably not even the Tar Valoners had been this close.

But it was not the Aes Sedai themselves that halted Min’s tongue. Sometimes, not often, she

saw things when she looked at people, images and auras that usually flared and were gone in

moments. Occasionally she knew what they meant. It happened rarely, the knowing-much more

rarely that the seeing, even-but when she knew, she was always right.

Unlike most others, Aes Sedai - and their Warders - always had images and auras, sometimes

so many dancing and shifting that they made Min dizzy. The numbers made no difference in

interpreting them, though; she knew what they meant for Aes Sedai as seldom as for anyone else.

But this time she knew more than she wanted to, and it made her shiver.

A slender woman with black hair falling to her waist, the only one of the three she

recognized - her name was Ananda; she was Yellow Ajah - wore a sickly brown halo, shriveled

and split by rotting fissures that fell in and widened as they decayed. The small, fair-haired Aes

Sedai beside Ananda was Green Ajah, by her green-fringed shawl. The White Flame of Tar

Valon on it showed for a moment when she turned her back. And on her shoulder, as if nestled

among the grape vines and flowering apple branches worked on her shawl, sat a human skull. A

small woman’s skull, picked dean and sun-bleached. The third, a plumply pretty woman halfway

around the room, wore no shawl; most Aes Sedai did not except for ceremony. The lift of her

chin and the set of her shoulders spoke of strength and pride. She seemed to be casting cool, blue

eyes on the petitioners through a tattered curtain of blood, crimson streamers running down her

face.

Blood and skull and halo faded away in the dance of images around the three, came and

faded again. The petitioners stared in awe, seeing only three women who could touch the True

Source and channel the One Power. No one but Min saw the rest. No one but Min knew those

three women were going to die. All on the same day.

“The Amyrlin cannot see everyone,” Faolain said with poorly hidden impatience. “Her next

public audience is not for ten days. Tell me what you want, and I will arrange for you to see the

sister who can best help you.”

Min’s eye flew to the bundle in her arms and stayed there, partly so she would not have to

see again what she had already seen. All three of them! Light! What chance was there that three

Aes Sedai would die on the same day? But she knew. She knew.

“I have the right to speak to the Amyrlin Seat. In person.” It was a right seldom demanded -

who would dare? - but it existed. “Any woman has that right, and I ask it.”

“Do you think the Amyrlin Seat herself can see everyone who comes to the White Tower?

Surely another Aes Sedai can help you.” Faolain gave heavy weight to the titles as if to

overpower Min. “Now tell me what your question is about. And give me your name, so the

novice will know who to come for.”

“My name is . . . Elmindreda.” Min winced in spite of herself. She had always hated the

name, but the Amyrlin was one of the few people living who had ever heard it. If only she

remembered. “I have the right to speak to the Amyrlin. And my question is for her alone. I have

the right.”

The Accepted arched an eyebrow. “Elmindreda?” Her mouth twitched toward an amused

smile. “And you claim your rights. Very well. I will send word to the Keeper of the Chronicles

that you wish to see the Amyrlin Seat personally, Elmindreda.”

Min wanted to slap the woman for the way she emphasized “Elmindreda,” but instead she

forced out a murmured “Thank you.”

“Do not thank me yet. No doubt it will be hours before the Keeper finds time to reply, and it

will certainly be that you can ask your question at the Mother’s next public audience. Wait with

patience. Elmindreda.” She gave Min a tight smile, almost a smirk, as she turned away.

Grinding her teeth, Min took her bundle to stand against the wall between two of the

archways, where she tried to blend into the pale stonework. Trust no one, and avoid notice until

you reach the Amyrlin, Moiraine had told her. Moiraine was one Aes Sedai she did trust. Most of

the time. It was good advice in any case. All she had to do was reach the Amyrlin, and it would

be over. She could don her own clothes again, see her friends, and leave. No more need for

hiding.

She was relieved to see that the Aes Sedai had gone. Three Aes Sedai dying on one day. It

was impossible; that was the only word. Yet it was going to happen. Nothing she said or did

could change it-when she knew what an image meant, it happened-but she had to tell the

Amyrlin about this. It might even be as important as the news she brought from Moiraine, though

that was hard to believe.

Another Accepted came to replace one already there, and to Min’s eyes bars floated in front

of her apple-cheeked face, like a cage. Sheriam, the Mistress of Novices, looked into the

hall-after one glance, Min kept her gaze on the stone under her feet; Sheriam knew her all too

well - and the red-haired Aes Sedai’s face seemed battered and bruised. It was only the viewing,

of course, but Min still had to bite her lip to stifle a gasp. Sheriam, with her calm authority and

sureness, was as indestructible as the Tower. Surely nothing could harm Sheriam. But something

was going to.

An Aes Sedai unknown to Min, wearing the shawl of the Brown Ajah, accompanied a stout

woman in finely woven red wool to the doors. The stout woman walked as lightly as a girl, face

shining, almost laughing with pleasure. The Brown sister was smiling, too, but her aura faded

like a guttering candle flame.

Death. Wounds, captivity, and death. To Min it might as well have been printed on a page.

She set her eyes on her feet. She did not want to see any more. Let her remember, she

thought. She had not felt desperation at any time on her long ride from the Mountains of Mist,

not even on the two occasions when someone tried to steal her horse, but she felt it now. Light,

let her remember that bloody name.

“Mistress Elmindreda?”

Min gave a start. The black-haired novice who stood before her was barely old enough to be

away from home, perhaps fifteen or sixteen, though she made a great effort at dignity. “Yes? I

am . . . . That is my name.’

“I am Sahra. If you will come with me - ” Sahra’s piping voice took on a note of wonder - the

Amyrlin Seat will see you in her study now.’

Min gave a sigh of relief and followed eagerly.

Her cloak’s deep hood still hid her face, but it did not stop her seeing, and the more she saw,

the more she grew eager to reach the Amyrlin. Few people walked the broad corridors that

spiraled upward with their brightly colored floor tiles, and their wall hangings and golden

lampstands - the Tower had been built to hold far greater numbers than it did now - but nearly

everyone she saw as she climbed higher wore an image or aura that spoke to her of violence and

danger.

Warders hurried by with barely a glance for the two women, men who moved like hunting

wolves, their swords only an afterthought to their deadliness, but they seemed to have bloody

faces, or gaping wounds. Swords and spears danced about their heads, threatening. Their auras

flashed wildly, flickered on the knife edge of death. She saw dead men walking, knew they

would die on the same day as the Aes Sedai in the entry hall, or at most a day later. Even some of

the servants, men and women with the Flame of Tar Valon on their breasts, hurrying about their

work, bore signs of violence. An Aes Sedai glimpsed down a side hallway appeared to have

chains in the air around her, and another, crossing the corridor ahead of Min and her guide,

seemed for most of those few strides to wear a silver collar around her neck. Min’s breath caught

at that; she wanted to scream.

“It can all be overwhelming to someone who’s never seen it before,” Sahra said, trying and

failing to sound as if the Tower were as ordinary to her now as her home village. “But you are

safe here. The Amyrlin Seat will make things right.” Her voice squeaked when she mentioned

the Amyrlin.

“Light, let her do just that,” Min muttered. The novice gave her a smile that was meant to be

soothing.

By the time they reached the hall outside the Amyrlin’s study, Min’s stomach was churning

and she was treading almost on Sahra’s heels. Only the need to pretend that she was a stranger

had kept her from running ahead long since.

One of the doors to the Amyrlin’s chambers opened, and a young man with red-gold hair

came stalking out, nearly striding into Min and her escort. Tall and straight and strong in his blue

coat thickly embroidered with gold on sleeves and collar, Gawyn of House Trakand, eldest son

of Queen Morgase of Andor, looked every inch the proud young lord. A furious young lord.

There was no time to drop her head; he was staring down into her hood, right into her face.

His eyes widened in surprise, then narrowed to slits of blue ice. “So you are back. Do you

know where my sister and Egwene have gone?”

“They are not here?” Min forgot everything in a rising flood of panic. Before she knew what

she was doing she had seized his sleeves, peering up at him urgently, and forced him back a step.

“Gawyn, they started for the Tower months ago! Elayne and Egwene, and Nynaeve, too. With

Verin Sedai and . . . . Gawyn, I . . . I. . . . ”

“Calm yourself,” he said, gently undoing her grip on his coat. “Light! I didn’t mean to

frighten you so. They arrived safely. And would not say a word of where they had been, or why.

Not to me. I suppose there’s scant hope you will?” She thought she kept her face straight, but he

took one look and said, “I thought not. This place has more secrets than . . . . They’ve vanished

again. And Nynaeve, too.” Nynaeve was almost an offhand addition; she might be one of Min’s

friends, but she meant nothing to him. His voice began to roughen once more, growing tighter by

the second. “Again without a word. Not a word! Supposedly they’re on a farm somewhere as

penance for running away, but I cannot find out where. The Amyrlin won’t give me a straight

answer.”

Min flinched; for a moment, streaks of dried blood had made his face a grim mask. It was

like a double hammer blow. Her friends were gone - it had eased her coming to the Tower,

knowing they were here - and Gawyn was going to be wounded on the day the Aes Sedai died.

Despite all she had seen since entering the Tower, despite her fear, none of it had really

touched her personally until now. Disaster striking the Tower would spread far from Tar Valon,

yet she was not of the Tower and never could be. But Gawyn was someone she knew, someone

she liked, and he was going to be hurt more than the blood told, hurt somehow deeper than

wounds to his flesh. It hit her that if catastrophe seized the Tower, not only distant Aes Sedai

would be harmed, women she could never feel close to, but her friends as well. They were of the

Tower.

In a way she was glad Egwene and the others were not there, glad she could not look at them

and perhaps see signs of death. Yet she wanted to look, to be sure, to look at her friends and see

nothing, or see that they would live. Where in the Light were they? Why had they gone?

Knowing those three, she thought it possible that if Gawyn did not know where they were, it was

because they did not want him to know. It could be that.

Suddenly she remembered where she was and why, and that she was not alone with Gawyn.

Sahra seemed to have forgotten she was taking Min to the Amyrlin; she seemed to have forgotten

everything but the young lord, making calf-eyes that he was not noticing. Even so, there was no

use pretending any longer to be a stranger to the Tower. She was at the Amyrlin’s door; nothing

could stop her now.

“Gawyn, I don’t know where they are, but if they are doing penance on a farm, they’re

probably all sweat, and mud to their hips, and you are the last one they will want to see them.”

She was not much easier about their absence than Gawyn was, in truth. Too much had happened,

too much was happening, too much with ties to them, and to her. But it was not impossible they

had been sent off for punishment. “You won’t help them by making the Amyrlin angry.”

“I don’t know that they are on a farm. Or even alive. Why all this hiding and sidestepping if

they’re just pulling weeds? If anything happens to my sister . . . . Or to Egwene. . . .” He frowned

at the toes of his boots. “I am supposed to look after Elayne. How can I protect her when I don’t

know where she is?”

Min sighed. “Do you think she needs looking after? Either of them?” But if the Amyrlin had

sent them somewhere, maybe they did. The Amyrlin was capable of sending a woman into a

bear’s den with nothing but a switch if it suited her purposes. And she would expect the woman

to come back with a bearskin, or the bear on a leash, as instructed. But telling Gawyn that would

only inflame his temper and his worries. “Gawyn, they have pledged to the Tower. They won’t

thank you for meddling.”

“I know Elayne isn’t a child,” he said patiently, “even if she does bounce back and forth

between running off like one and playing at being Aes Sedai. But she a my sister, and beyond

that, she is Daughter-Heir of Andor. She’ll be queen, after Mother. Andor needs her whole and

safe to take the throne, not another Succession.”

Playing at being Aes Sedai? Apparently he did not realize the extent of his sister’s talent. The

Daughter-Heirs of Andor had been sent to the Tower to train for as long as there had been an

Andor, but Elayne was the first to have enough talent to be raised to Aes Sedai, and a powerful

Aes Sedai at that. Very likely he also did not know Egwene was just as strong.

“So you will protect her whether she wants it or not?” She said it in a flat voice meant to let

him know he was making a mistake, but he missed the warning and nodded agreement.

“That has been my duty since the day she was born. My blood shed before hers; my life

given before hers. I took that oath when I could barely see over the side of her cradle; Gareth

Bryne had to explain to me what it meant. I won’t break it now. Andor needs her more than it

needs me.”

He spoke with a calm certainty, an acceptance of something natural and right, that sent chills

through her. She had always thought of him as boyish, laughing and teasing, but now he was

something alien. She thought the Creator must have been tired when it came time to make men;

sometimes they hardly seemed human. “And Egwene? What oath did you take about her?”

His face did not change, but he shifted his feet warily. “I’m concerned about Egwene, of

course. And Nynaeve. What happens to Elayne’s companions might happen to Elayne. I assume

they’re still together; when they were here, I seldom saw one without the others.”

“My mother always told me to marry a poor liar, and you qualify. Except that I think

someone else has first claim.”

“Some things are meant to be,” he said quietly, “and some never can. Galad is heartsick

because Egwene is gone.” Galad was his half-brother, the pair of them sent to Tar Valon to train

under the Warders. That was another Andoran tradition. Galadedrid Damodred was a man who

took doing the right thing to the point of a fault, as Min saw it, but Gawyn could see no wrong in

him. And he would t speak his feelings for a woman Galad had set his heart on.

She wanted to shake him, shake some sense into him, but there was no time now. Not with

the Amyrlin waiting, not with what she had to tell the Amyrlin waiting. Certainly not with Sahra

standing there, calf-eyes or no calf-eyes. “Gawyn, I am summoned to the Amyrlin. Where can I

find you, when she is done with me?”

“I will be in the practice yard. The only time I can stop worrying is when I am working the

sword with Hammar.” Hammar was a blademaster, and the Warder who taught the sword. “Most

days I’m there until the sun sets.”

“Good, then. I will come as soon as I can. And try to watch what you say. If you make the

Amyrlin angry with you, Elayne and Egwene might share in it.”

“That I cannot promise,” he said firmly. “Something is wrong in the world. Civil war in

Cairhien. The same and worse in Tarabon and Arad Doman. False Dragons. Troubles and rumors

of troubles everywhere. I don’t say the Tower is behind it, but even here things are not what they

should be. Or what they seem. Elayne and Egwene vanishing isn’t the whole of it. Still, they are

the part that concerns me. I will find out where they are. And if they have been hurt . . . . If they

are dead . . . .”

He scowled, and for an instant his face was that bloody mask again. More: a sword floated

above his head, and a banner waved behind it. The long-hilted sword, like those most Warders

used, had a heron engraved on its slightly curved blade, symbol of a blademaster, and Min could

not say whether it belonged to Gawyn or threatened him. The banner bore Gawyn’s sigil of the

charging White Boar, but on a field of green rather than the red of Andor. Both sword and banner

faded with the blood.

“Be careful, Gawyn.” She meant it two ways. Careful of what he said, and careful in a way

she could not explain, even to herself. “You must be very careful.”

His eyes searched her face as if he had heard some of her deeper meaning. “I . . . will try,” he

said finally. He put on a grin, almost the grin she remembered, but the effort was plain. “I

suppose I had better get myself back to the practice yard if I expect to keep up with Galad. I

managed two out of five against Hammar this morning, but Galad actually won three, the last

time he bothered to come to the yard.” Suddenly he appeared to really see her for the first time,

and his grin became genuine. “You ought to wear dresses more often. It’s pretty on you.

Remember, I will be there till sunset.”

As he strode away with something very close to the dangerous grace of a Warder, Min

realized she was smoothing the dress over her hip and stopped immediately. The Light burn all

men!

Sahra exhaled as if she had been holding her breath. “He is very good-looking, isn’t he?” she

said dreamily. “Not as good-looking as Lord Galad, of course. And you really know him.” It was

half a question, but only half.

Min echoed the novice’s sigh. The girl would talk with her friends in the novices’ quarters.

The son of a queen was a natural topic, especially when he was handsome and had an air about

him like the hero in a gleeman’s tale. A strange woman only made for more interesting

speculation. Still, there was nothing to be done about it. At any rate, it could hardly cause any

harm now.

“The Amyrlin Seat must be wondering why we haven’t come,” she said.

Sahra came to herself with a wide-eyed start and a loud gulp. Seizing Min’s sleeve with one

hand, she jumped to open one of the doors, pulling Min behind her. The moment they were

inside, the novice curtsied hastily and burst out in panic, “I’ve brought her, Leane Sedai.

Mistress Elmindreda? The Amyrlin Seat wants to see her?”

The tall, coppery-skinned woman in the anteroom wore the hand-wide stole of the Keeper of

the Chronicles, blue to show she had been raised from the Blue Ajah. Fists on hips, she waited

for the girl to finish, then dismissed her with a dipped “Took you long enough, child. Back to

your chores, now.” Sahra bobbed another curtsy and scurried out as quickly as she had entered.

Min stood with her eyes on the floor, her hood still pulled up around her face. Blundering in

front of Sahra had been bad enough-though at least the novice did not know her name-but Leane

knew her better than anyone in the Tower except the Amyrlin. Min was sure it could make no

difference now, but after what had happened in the hallway, she meant to hold to Moiraine’s

instructions until she was alone with the Amyrlin.

This time her precautions did no good. Leane took two steps, pushed back the hood, and

grunted as if she had been poked in the stomach. Min raised her head and stared back defiantly,

trying to pretend she had not been attempting to sneak past. Straight, dark hair only a little longer

than her own framed the Keeper’s face; the Aes Sedai’s expression was a blend of surprise and

displeasure at being surprised.

“So you are Elmindreda, are you?” Leant said briskly. She was always brisk. “I must say you

look it more in that dress than in your usual . . . garb.”

“Just Min, Leane Sedai, if you please.” Min managed to keep her face straight, but it was

difficult not to glare. The Keeper’s voice had held too much amusement. If her mother had had

to name her after someone in a story, why did it have to be a woman who seemed to spend most

of her time sighing at men, when she was not inspiring them to compose songs about her eyes, or

her smile?

“Very well. Min. I’ll not ask where you’ve been, nor why you’ve come back in a dress,

apparently wanting to ask a question of the Amyrlin. Not now, at least.” Her face said she meant

to ask later, though, and get answers. “I suppose the Mother knows who Elmindreda is? Of

course. I should have known that when she said to send you straight in, and alone. The Light

alone knows why she puts up with you.” She broke off with a concerned frown. “What is the

matter, girl? Are you ill?”

Min carefully blanked her face. “No. No, I am all right.” For a moment the Keeper had been

looking through a transparent mask of her own face, a screaming mask. “May I go in now, Leane

Sedai?”

Leane studied her a moment longer, then jerked her head toward the inner chamber. “In with

you.” Min’s leap to obey would have satisfied the hardest taskmistress.

The Amyrlin Seat’s study had been occupied by many grand and powerful women over the

centuries, and reminders of the fact filled the room, from the tall fireplace all of golden marble

from Kandor, cold now, to the paneled walls of pale, oddly striped wood, iron hard yet carved in

wondrous beasts and wildly feathered birds. Those panels had been brought from the mysterious

lands beyond the Aiel Waste well over a thousand years ago, and the fireplace was more than

twice as old. The polished redstone of the floor had come from the Mountains of Mist. High

arched windows let onto a balcony. The iridescent stone framing the windows shone like pearls,

and had been salvaged from the remains of a city sunk into the Sea of Storms by the Breaking of

the World; no one had ever seen its like.

The current occupant, Siuan Sanche, had been born a fisherman’s daughter in Tear, though,

and the furnishings she had chosen were simple, if well made and well polished. She sat in a

stout chair behind a large table plain enough to have served a farmhouse. The only other chair in

the room, just as plain and usually set off to one side, now stood in front of the table atop a small

Tairen rug, simple in blue and brown and gold. Half a dozen books rested open on tall reading

stands about the floor. That was all of it. A drawing hung above the fireplace: tiny fishing boats

working among reeds in the Fingers of the Dragon, just as her father’s boat had.

At first glance, despite her smooth Aes Sedai features, Siuan Sanche herself looked as simple

as her furnishings. She herself was sturdy, and handsome rather than beautiful, and the only bit

of ostentation in her clothing was the broad stole of the Amyrlin Seat she wore, with one colored

stripe for each of the seven Ajahs. Her age was indeterminate, as with any Aes Sedai; not even a

hint of gray showed in her dark hair. But her sharp blue eyes brooked no nonsense, and her firm

jaw spoke of the determination of the youngest woman ever to be chosen Amyrlin Seat. For over

ten years Siuan Sanche had been able to summon rulers, and the powerful, and they had come,

even if they hated the White Tower and feared Aes Sedai.

As the Amyrlin strode around in front of the table, Min set down her bundle and began an

awkward curtsy, muttering irritably under her breath at having to do so. Not that she wanted to

be disrespectful - that did not even occur to one facing a woman like Siuan Sanche - but the bow

she usually would have made seemed foolish in a dress, and she had only a rough idea of how to

curtsy.

Halfway down, with her skirts already spread, she froze like a crouching toad. Siuan Sanche

was standing there as regal as any queen, and for a moment she was also lying on the floor,

naked. Aside from her being in only her skin, there was something odd about the image, but it

vanished before Min could say what. It was as strong a viewing as she had ever seen, and she

had no idea what it meant.

“Seeing things again, are you?” the Amyrlin said. “Well, I can certainly make use of that

ability of yours. I could have used it all the months you were gone. But we’ll not talk of that.

What’s done is done. The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills.” She smiled a tight smile. “But if

you do it again, I’ll have your hide for gloves. Stand up, girl. Leane forces enough ceremony on

me in a month to last any sensible woman a year. I don’t have time for it. Not these days. Now,

what did you just see?”

Min straightened slowly. It was a relief to be back with someone who knew of her talent,

even if it was the Amyrlin Seat herself. She did not have to hide what she saw from the Amyrlin.

Far from it. “You were.... You weren’t wearing any clothes. I . . . I don’t know what it means,

Mother.”

Siuan barked a short, mirthless laugh. “No doubt that I’ll take a lover. But I have no time for

that, either. There’s no time for winking at the men when you’re busy bailing the boat.”

“Maybe,” Min said slowly. It could have meant that, though she doubted it. “I just do not

know. But, Mother, I’ve been seeing things ever since I walked into the Tower. Something bad is

going to happen, something terrible.”

She started with the Aes Sedai in the entry hall and told everything she had seen, as well as

what everything meant, when she was sure. She held back what Gawyn had said, though, or most

Robert Jordan - The Wheel of Time - book 4

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