Lord of Chaos (The Wheel of Time #6)

Lord of Chaos (The Wheel of Time #6) Page 139

He caught sight of himself in a gilt-framed mirror. “At least you didn’t let her see you were tired,” he told his reflection. That had been one of Moiraine’s more succinct bits of advice. Never let them see you weaken. He just had to become used to thinking of Egwene as one of them.

Apparently squatting at her ease in the garden below Rand al’Thor’s rooms, Sulin tossed a small knife into the dirt, seemingly amusing herself with a game of flip. A rock owl’s cry from one of the windows brought her to her feet with an oath, slipping the knife behind her belt. Rand al’Thor had left his rooms again. Keeping watch over him this way was not going to work. If she had Enaila or Somara here, she would set them on him. Normally she tried to protect him from that sort of nonsense as she would a first-brother.

Trotting to the nearest doorway, she joined three more Maidens—none had come with her—and began to search the warren of corridors while trying to appear just to be walking. Whatever the Car’a’carn wanted, nothing must happen to the only son of a Maiden ever to come back to them.

CHAPTER

19

Matters of Toh

Rand thought that he would sleep well that night. He was nearly tired enough to forget Alanna’s touch, and more important, Aviendha was out in the tents with the Wise Ones, not undressing for bed with no regard for his presence, not disturbing his rest with the sound of her breathing. Something else made him toss, though. Dreams. He always warded his dreams, to keep the Forsaken out—and the Wise Ones—but warding could not keep out what was already inside. Dreams came of huge white things like giant birdwings without the bird, sailing across the sky; of great cities of impossibly tall buildings, shining in the sun, with shapes like beetles and flattened water-drops speeding along the streets. He had seen all that before, inside the huge ter’angreal in Rhuidean where he had gained the Dragons on his arms, and knew them for images of the Age of Legends, but this time it was all different. Everything seemed twisted, the colors . . . wrong, as though something had gone askew in his eyes. The sho-wings faltered and fell, each carrying hundreds to death. Buildings shattered like glass, cities burned, the land heaved like storm-tossed seas. And time after time he faced a beautiful golden-haired woman, watched love turn to terror on her face. Part of him knew her. Part of him wanted to save her, from the Dark One, from any harm, from what he himself was about to do. So many parts of him, mind splintered in glittering shards, all screaming.

He woke in darkness, sweating, shaking. Lews Therin’s dreams. That had never happened before, not dreaming the man’s dreams. He lay there the hours remaining until sunrise, staring at nothing, afraid to close his eyes. He held on to saidin as if he could use it to fight the dead man, but Lews Therin remained silent.

When pale light finally appeared at the windows, a gai’shain slipped silently into the room with a cloth-covered silver tray. Seeing Rand awake, he did not speak, only bowed and left just as quietly. With the Power in him, Rand smelled cool sweetberry tea and warm bread, butter and honey, the hot porridge Aiel ate mornings, all as if his nose were in the tray. Releasing the Source, he dressed and buckled on his sword. He did not touch the cloth covering the food; he did not much feel like eating. Holding the Dragon Scepter in the crook of his elbow, he left his apartments.

The Maidens were back in the wide corridor with Sulin, and Urien and his Red Shields, but not alone. People crowded the hallway shoulder to shoulder beyond the guards. And some inside the ring. Aviendha stood among a delegation of Wise Ones, Amys and Bair and Melaine, Sorilea of course, Chaelin, a Smoke Water Miagoma with touches of gray in her dark red hair, and Edarra, a Neder Shiande who looked not much older than himself, though she already had an apparently unshakable calm in her blue eyes and a straight-backed presence to match the others. Berelain was with them, too, but not Rhuarc or any of the other clan chiefs. What he had had to say to them had been said, and Aiel did not draw things out. But then, why were the Wise Ones there? Or Berelain? The green-and-white dress she wore this morning showed a pleasant expanse of pale bosom.

Then there were the Cairhienin, outside the ring of Aiel. Colavaere, strikingly handsome in her middle years, dark hair an elaborate tower of curls and horizontal slashes coloring her gown from high gold-embroidered collar to below her knees, more slashes than anyone else present. Solid, square-faced Dobraine, the front of his mostly gray hair shaved soldier fashion and his coat worn from the straps of a breastplate. Maringil, straight as a blade, white hair touching his shoulders; he had not shaved his forehead, and his dark silk coat, striped like Dobraine’s nearly to his knees, was fit for a ball. Two dozen or more clustered behind, mostly younger men and women, few wearing horizontal stripes even as low as the waist. “Grace favor the Lord Dragon,” they murmured, bowing hand to heart or curtsying, and, “Grace honors us with the Lord Dragon’s presence.”

The Tairens had their contingent as well, High Lords and Ladies without lesser nobles, in peaked velvet hats and silk coats with puffy, satin-striped sleeves, in bright gowns with broad lace ruffs and close-fitting caps of pearls or gems, making their respects with “The Light illumine the Light Dragon.” Meilan stood foremost, of course, lean and hard and expressionless, with his gray pointed beard. Close beside him, Fionnda’s stem expression and iron eyes somehow did not diminish her beauty, while willowy Anaiyella’s simpers lessened hers. There were certainly no smiles of any sort on the faces of Maraconn, a blue-eyed rarity among Tairens, or bald Gueyam, or Aracome, who looked twice as slender alongside Gueyam’s solid width if just as steely. They—and Meilan—had been thick with Hearne and Simaan. Rand had not mentioned those two yesterday, or their treason, but he was sure it was known here, and equally sure his silence was given meaning according to each man’s own mind. They had grown used to such since coming to Cairhien, and this morning they watched Rand as if he might suddenly produce orders for their arrest.

In truth, nearly everyone was watching someone. A good many eyed the Aiel nervously, often hiding anger with varying success. Others watched Berelain almost as closely; he was surprised to see that even the men, even the Tairens, had more thought than lechery on their faces. Most watched him, of course; he was who he was, and what he was. Colavaere’s cool gaze shifted between him and Aviendha, where it heated; there was bad blood there, though Aviendha seemed to have forgotten. Colavaere would certainly never forget the beating she had received from Aviendha after being discovered in Rand’s rooms, or forgive the fact that it was common knowledge now. Meilan and Maringil each made his awareness of the other plain by avoiding the other’s eyes. Both wanted the throne of Cairhien, and both thought the other his chief rival. Dobraine watched Meilan and Maringil, though why was anyone’s guess. Melaine studied Rand, while Sorilea studied her, and Aviendha frowned at the floor. One big-eyed young woman among the Cairhienin wore her hair loose and cut off at the shoulder instead of piled in ornate curls, and a sword belted over a dark riding dress with only six slashes of color. Many of the others did not bother to hide disparaging smiles when they glanced at her; she hardly seemed to notice, alternating between staring at the Maidens with stark admiration or at Rand with stark fear. He remembered her. Selande, one of the stream of beautiful women Colavaere had thought would tie the Dragon Reborn to her schemes, until Rand convinced her it would not work. With Aviendha’s unasked help, unfortunately. He hoped Colavaere feared him enough to forget revenge on Aviendha, but he wished he could make Selande believe she had nothing to fear. You cannot please everyone, Moiraine had said. You cannot soot