Lord of Chaos (The Wheel of Time #6)

Lord of Chaos (The Wheel of Time #6) Page 150

“Pairs!” Rand fought the fury down again. The Light burn Aiel stubbornness! “At least that way you have somebody to watch your back. For once do what I say when I say it. I’ve been here; I know a little about this place.”

A few minutes later, most spent in argument over how many should stay with Rand, twenty pairs of Aiel scattered. The one remaining was Jalani, Rand thought, though it was hard to tell with the veil. For once she did not appear to be happy guarding him; the green eyes held a decided touch of sullenness.

“I suppose we could make another pair,” Haman said, looking at Covril.

She nodded. “And Erith can remain here.”

“No!” Rand and Erith said at almost the same instant. The older Ogier turned with faces of grave disapproval. Erith’s ears sagged until they looked ready to fall off.

Rand grabbed hold of his temper firmly. Once it had seemed that in the Void, any anger was off in the far distance somewhere, attached to him by no more than a thread. More and more it threatened to overwhelm him, to overwhelm the Void. Which might be disastrous. Aside from that, though. . . . “I’m sorry. I had no business shouting at you, Elder Haman, or you, Speaker Covril.” Was that the right way to say it? Was it even a title of that sort? Nothing in their expressions said either way. “I would appreciate it if you would all stay with me. Then we can all search together.”

“Of course,” Haman said. “I really don’t see how I can offer you more protection than you can offer yourself, but it is yours.” Covril and Erith both nodded approvingly. Rand had no idea what Haman was talking about, but it did not seem the time to ask, with the three of them apparently bucked up to protect him. He had no doubt he could safeguard all three as long as they kept close.

“So long as you follow your own rules, Rand al’Thor.” The green-eyed Maiden was indeed Jalani, and sounding heartened that she would not have to stand and wait. Rand hoped he had given the others a better idea of what this place was like.

From the beginning the search was frustrating. They walked up and down the streets watched by invisible eyes, sometimes climbing over strewn rubble, taking turns calling, “Liah! Liah!” Covril’s shouts made leaning walls creak; Haman’s made them groan ominously. Nothing answered. The only other sounds were the shouts of the search parties and mocking echoes along the streets. Liah! Liah!

The sun had climbed nearly overhead when Jalani said, “I do not think she would have gone this far, Rand al’Thor. Not unless she was trying to get away from us, and she would not do that.”

Rand turned from peering through shadowed columns at the head of wide stone steps, trying to see into a great chamber beyond. As far as he could make out, there was nothing in there but dust. No footprints. The unseen watchers had faded; they were not gone even now, but almost. “We have to search as much as we can. Maybe she. . . .” He did not know how to finish. “I won’t leave her here, Jalani.”

The sun swung higher and began to descend, and he was standing atop what had been a palace once, or maybe a whole block of buildings. It was a hill now, weathered enough over the years that only the number of broken bricks and pieces of worked stone sticking out of the dry soil said it had been anything else. “Liah!” he shouted through cupped hands. “Liah!”

“Rand al’Thor,” a Maiden called from the street below, lowering her veil so he could see it was Sulin. She and another Maiden, still veiled, stood with Jalani and the Ogier. “Come down.”

He scrambled down in a cloud of dust and a shower of bits of brick and stone, moving so fast that he nearly fell twice. “You’ve found her?”

Sulin shook her head. “We should have by now if she is alive. She would not have gone far on her own. If anyone carried her far, they carried her dead, I think; she would not go easily. And if she was injured too badly to answer our shouts, I think that also must mean she is dead.” Haman sighed sadly. The Ogier women’s long eyebrows dropped to their cheekbones; for some reason, their sad, pitying looks were directed at Rand.

“Keep looking,” he said.

“May we look inside the buildings? There are many rooms we cannot see from outside.”

Rand hesitated. Well short of midafternoon yet, and he could feel the eyes again. As strong as they had been with the sun setting his first time here. Shadows were not safe in Shadar Logoth. “No. But we keep looking.”

He was not sure how long he went on shouting his way up one street and down the next, but after a time Urien and Sulin stepped in front of him, both unveiled. The sun sat at the treetops to the west, a blood-red ball in a cloudless sky. Shadows stretched long across the ruins.

“I will search as long as you wish,” Urien said, “but calling and looking have done what they can. If we could search the buildings—”

“No.” It came out a croak, and Rand cleared his throat. Light, but he wanted a drink of water. The invisible watchers filled every window, every opening, thousands of them, waiting, anticipating. And shadows cloaked the city. Shadows were not safe in Shadar Logoth, but darkness brought out death. Mashadar rose with sunset. “Sulin, I. . . .” He could not make himself say they had to give up, leave Liah behind whether she was dead or alive, maybe lying somewhere unconscious, behind a wall, or under a heap of bricks that might have tumbled down on her. She could be.

“Whatever watches us is waiting for nightfall, I think,” Sulin said. “I have looked into windows where something was looking back at me, but there was nothing there. Dancing the spears with something we cannot see will not be easy.”

Rand realized he had wanted her to say again that Liah must be dead, that they could go. Liah could be injured somewhere; it was possible. He touched his coat pocket; the fat-little-man angreal was back in Caemlyn with his sword and the scepter. He was not sure he could protect everyone once night fell. Moiraine had thought the whole White Tower could not kill Mashadar. If it could be said to be alive.

Haman cleared his throat. “From what I remember of Aridhol,” he said, frowning, “of Shadar Logoth, that is—when the sun goes down, we will probably all die.”

“Yes.” Rand breathed the word reluctantly. Liah, maybe alive. All the others. Covril and Erith had their heads together a little way off. He caught a murmur of “Loial.”

Duty is heavier than a mountain, dea