Knife of Dreams

Chapter Twenty-Five Attending Elaida

Gold-embossed leather folder under her arm, Tarna kept to the central core of the Tower as she climbed toward Elaida’s apartments, although it meant using a seemingly endless series of staircases—twice those stairs were not located where she remembered them, but so long as she continued upward, she would reach her destination—rather than the gently spiraling corridors. On the stairs, she met no one but occasional liveried servants who bowed or curtsied before hurrying on about their tasks. In either of the spiraling hallways she would have to pass the entrances to the Ajah quarters and perhaps encounter other sisters. Her Keeper’s stole allowed her to enter any Ajah’s quarters, yet she avoided all except the Red save when duty called. Among sisters of the other Ajahs she was all too aware that her narrow stole was red, all too aware of hot eyes watching her from cold faces. They did not unnerve her—little did; she took the shifting interior of the Tower in stride—but still… She thought matters had not gone so far that anyone would actually attack the Keeper, yet she took no chances. Retrieving the situation was going to be a long, hard struggle, whatever Elaida thought, and an assault on the Keeper might make it irretrievable.

Besides, not having to watch over her shoulder allowed her to think on Pevara’s troubling question, one she had not considered before suggesting the bonding of Asha’man. Who in the Red actually could be trusted with the task? Hunting men who could channel led Red sisters to look askance at all men, and a fair number hated them. A surviving brother or father might well escape hatred, a favorite cousin or uncle, but once they were all gone, so was affection. And trust. And there was another matter of trust. Bonding any man violated custom strong as law. Even with Tsutama’s blessings, who might run to Elaida when bonding Asha’man was broached? She had removed three more names from her mental list of possibilities by the time she reached the entrance to Elaida’s apartments, only two floors below the top of the Tower. After almost two weeks, her list of those she could be certain of still contained only a single name, and that one was impossible for the task.

Elaida was in her sitting room, where the furnishings were all gilt and ivory inlays and the large patterned carpet was one of Tear’s finest creations. She was sitting in a low-backed chair before the marble fireplace sipping wine with Meidani. Seeing the Gray was no surprise despite the early hour. Meidani dined with the Amyrlin most nights, and visited often during the day by invitation. Elaida, her six-striped stole wide enough to cover her shoulders, was regarding the taller woman over her crystal goblet, a dark-eyed eagle regarding a mouse with big blue eyes. Meidani, emeralds at her ears and on a wide collar around her slim throat, seemed very conscious of that gaze. Her full lips smiled, but they seemed tremulous. The hand not holding her goblet moved constantly, touching the emerald comb over her left ear, patting her hair, covering her bosom, which was largely exposed by her snug bodice of brocaded silvery-gray silk. Her bosom was hardly excessive, yet her slenderness made it seem so, and she appeared about to pop free of the garment. The woman was garbed for a ball. Or a seduction.

“The morning reports are ready. Mother,” Tarna said, bowing slightly. Light! She felt as if she had intruded on lovers!

“You won’t mind leaving us, Meidani?” Even the smile Elaida directed at the yellow-haired woman was predatory.

“Of course not. Mother.” Meidani set her goblet on the small table beside her chair and leaped to her feet, offering a curtsy that nearly had her out of her dress. “Of course not.” She scurried from the room breathing hard, her eyes wide.

When the door closed behind her, Elaida laughed. “We were pillow-friends as novices,” she said, rising, “and I believe she wants to renew the relationship. I may let her. She might reveal more on the pillows than she’s let slip so far. Which is nothing, truth to tell.” She strode to the nearest window and stood staring down toward where her fantastical palace would rise to overtop the Tower itself. Eventually. If sisters could be convinced to work on it again. The heavy rain that had begun during the night was still falling, and it seemed unlikely she could see anything of that palace’s foundations, all that had been completed so far. “Help yourself to wine if you wish.”

Tarna kept her face smooth with an effort. Pillow-friends were common among novices and Accepted, but girlhood things should be left behind with girlhood. Not all sisters saw it so, certainly. Galina had been quite surprised when Tarna refused her advances after gaining the shawl. She herself found men far more attractive than women. Most seemed heavily intimidated by Aes Sedai, to be sure, especially if they learned you were Red Ajah, but over the years she had come across a few who were not.

“That seems odd, Mother.” she said, putting the leather folder down on the side table that held an ornately wrought golden tray bearing a crystal wine pitcher and goblets. “She appears frightened of you.” Filling a goblet, she sniffed the wine before sipping. The Keepings seemed to be working. For now. Elaida had finally agreed that that weave, at least, must be shared. “Almost as if she knew that you know about her being a spy.”

“Of course she’s afraid of me.” Sarcasm dripped heavily from Elaida’s voice, but then hardened to stone. “I want her afraid. I intend to put her through the mangle. By the time I have her birched, she’ll tie herself to the birching frame if I order it. If she knew I knew, Tarna, she’d be fleeing instead of delivering herself into my hands.” Still staring out into the rainstorm, Elaida sipped at her wine. “Have you any news of the others?”

“No, Mother. If I could inform the Sitters of why they’re to be watched—”

“No!” Elaida snapped, spinning to face her. Her dress was such a mass of intricate red scrollwork that the embroidery all but hid the gray silk beneath. Tarna had suggested that less flaunting of her former Ajah—she had phrased it more diplomatically, but that was what she meant—might help bring the Ajahs together again, yet Elaida’s eruption of fury had been sufficient to keep her quiet on the topic since.

“What if some of the Sitters are working with them? I wouldn’t put it past them. Those ridiculous talks continue at the bridge despite my orders. No, I wouldn’t put it past them at all!”

Tarna inclined her head over her goblet, accepting what she could not change. Elaida refused to see that if the Ajahs disobeyed her order to break off the talks, they were unlikely to spy on their own sisters at her command without knowing why. Saying so would only result in another tirade, though.

Elaida stared at her as if to make sure she was not going to argue. The woman seemed harder than ever. And more brittle. “A pity the rebellion in Tarabon failed,” she said at last. “There’s nothing to be done about it, I suppose.” But she mentioned it frequently, at odd moments, since word came that the Seanchan were reasserting their grip on that country. She was not so resigned as she pretended. “I want to hear some good news, Tarna. Is there any word of the seals on the Dark One’s prison? We must make sure no more get broken.” As if Tarna did not know that!

“Not that the Ajahs have reported, Mother, and I don’t think they would hold that back.” She wished she had those last words back as soon as they were spoken.

Elaida grunted. The Ajahs released only trickles of what their eyes-and-ears told them, and she resented that bitterly. Her own eyes-and-ears were concentrated in Andor. “How is the work coming at the harbors?”

“Slowly. Mother.” With the flow of trade stifled, the city was already feeling hunger. It would begin starving soon, unless the harbor mouths were cleared. Even cutting away the portion of the Southharbor chain that was still iron had proved not enough to allow sufficient ships in to feed Tar Valon. Once Tarna was able to convince her of the necessity, Elaida had ordered the chain towers dismantled so those huge pieces of cuendillar could be removed. Like the city walls, however, the towers had been built and strengthened with the Power, and only the Power could disassemble them. It was far from easy. The original builders had done good work, and those wards seemed not to have weakened a hair. “Reds are doing most of the work for the time being. Sisters from other Ajahs come now and then, but only a few. I expect that will change soon, though.” They knew the necessity of the work, however much they might resent it—no sister could like having to labor in that fashion: the Reds doing most of it certainly grumbled enough—but the order had come from Elaida, and these days, that resulted in foot-dragging.

Elaida breathed heavily, then took a long drink. She seemed to need it. Her hand gripped the goblet so hard that tendons stood out on its back. She advanced across the patterned silk carpet as if she meant to strike at Tarna. “They defy me again. Again! I will have obedience, Tarna. I will have it! Write out an order, and once I sign and seal it, post it in every Ajah’s quarters.” She stopped almost nose-to-nose with Tarna, her dark eyes glittering like a raven’s. “The Sitters of any Ajah that fails to send its fair share of sisters to work on the chain towers will take a daily penance from Silviana until the matter is rectified. Daily! And the Sitters of any Ajah that sends sisters to those… those talks will do the same. Write it out for me to sign!”

Tarna drew a deep breath. Penances might work and they might not, depending on how set the Sitters were, and the Ajah heads—she did not think things had gone so wrong that they might refuse to accept penance at all; that would be an end to Elaida for sure, perhaps an end to the Tower. But posting the order publicly, not allowing the Sitters a scrap to hide behind and maintain their dignity, was the wrong way to go about it. In truth, it might well be the very worst way. “If I may make a suggestion,” she began as delicately as she could manage. She had never been known for delicacy.

“You may not,” Elaida cut in harshly. She took another long drink, draining her goblet, and glided across the carpet to refill it. She drank too much, of late. Tarna had even seen her drunk once! “How is Silviana doing with the al’Vere girl?” she said as she poured.

“Egwene spends near enough half of every day in Silviana’s study. Mother.” She was careful to keep her tone neutral. This was the first time Elaida had asked after the young woman since her capture, nine days ago.

“So much? I want her tamed to the Tower’s harness, not broken.”

“I… doubt she will be broken. Mother. Silviana will be careful of that.” And then there was the girl herself. That was not for Elaida’s ears, though. Tarna had been shouted at more than enough. She had learned to avoid subjects that only resulted in shouting. Advice and suggestions unoffered were no more useless than advice and suggestions untaken, and Elaida almost never took either. “Egwene’s stubborn, but I expect she must come around soon.” The girl had to. Galina, beating Tama’s block out of her, had not expended a tenth of the effort Silviana was putting into Egwene. The girl had to yield to that soon.

“Excellent.” Elaida murmured. “Excellent.” She looked over her shoulder, her face a mask of serenity. Her eyes still glittered, though. “Put her name on the roster to attend me. In fact, have her attend me tonight. She can serve supper for Meidani and me.”

“It will be as you command. Mother.” It seemed yet another visit to the Mistress of Novices was inevitable, but no doubt Egwene would earn just as many of those if she never came near Elaida.

“And now your reports. Tarna.” Elaida sat down again and crossed her legs.

Replacing her barely touched goblet on the tray, Tarna took up her folder and sat in the chair Meidani had been using. “The redone wards appear to be keeping rats out of the Tower. Mother.” for how long was another question; she checked those wards herself every day, “but ravens and crows have been seen in the Tower grounds, so the wards on the walls must be…”

The midday sun cast dappled light through the leafy branches of the tall trees, mostly oak and leatherleaf and sourgum with a smattering of cottonwoods and massive pines. Apparently there had been a fierce windstorm some years back, because fallen timber, scattered about here and there but all stretched in the same general direction, provided good seating with only a little hatchet work to hack away a few limbs. Sparse undergrowth allowed a good view in all directions, and not far off, a small clear stream splashed over mossy stones. It would have been a good campsite if Mat had not been intent on covering as much ground as he could every day, but it did just as well as a place to rest the horses and eat. The Damona Mountains still lay at least three hundred miles to the east, and he intended to reach them in a week. Vanin said he knew a smugglers’ pass—purely by hearsay, of course: just something he had overheard by chance, but he knew right where to find it—that would have them inside Murandy two days after that. Much safer than trying to go north into Andor or south toward Illian. In either direction, the distance to safety would be further and the chance of encountering Seanchan greater.

Mat gnawed the last scrap of meat from a rabbit’s hind leg, and tossed the bone on the ground. Balding Lopin darted in, stroking at his beard in consternation, to pick it up and drop it in the pit he and Nerim had made in the mulch-covered forest floor, though the pit would be dug up by animals within a half-hour after their departure. Mat moved to wipe his hands on his breeches. Tuon, nibbling at a grouse leg on the other side of the low fire, gave him a very direct look, her eyebrows raised, while the ringers of her free hand wiggled at Selucia, who had ravaged half a grouse by herself. The bosomy woman did not reply, but she sniffed. Loudly. Meeting Tuon’s gaze, he deliberately wiped his hands on his breeches. He could have gone over to the stream, where the Aes Sedai were washing their hands, but no one’s clothing was going to be pristine by the time they reached Murandy in any case. Besides, when a woman named you Toy all the time, it was natural to take any chance to let her know you were nobody’s toy. She shook her head and waggled her fingers again. This time. Selucia laughed, and Mat felt his face heat. He could imagine two or three things she might have said, none of which he would have enjoyed hearing.

Setalle, sitting on the end of his log, made sure he heard some of them anyway. Reaching an agreement with the onetime Aes Sedai had not shifted her attitudes a hair. “She might have said men are pigs,” she murmured without lifting her eyes from her embroidery hoop, “or just that you are.” Her dark gray riding dress had a high neck, but she still wore her snug silver necklace with the marriage knife hanging from it. “She may have said you’re a mud-footed country lout with dirt in your ears and hay in your hair. Or she might have said—”

“I think I see the direction you’re going,” he told her through gritted teeth. Tuon giggled, though the next instant her face belonged on an executioner once more, cold and stern.

Pulling his silver-mounted pipe and goatskin tabac pouch from his coat pocket, he thumbed the bowl full and lifted the lid on the box of strikers at his feet. It fascinated him the way fire just sprang up, spikes of it darting in all directions at first, when he scratched the lumpy, red-and-white head of a striker down the rough side of the box. He waited until the flame burned away from the head before using it to light his pipe. Pulling the taste and smell of sulphur into his mouth once had been enough for him. He dropped the burning stick and ground it firmly under his boot. The mulch was still damp from the last rain to fall here, but he took no chances with fire in woods. In the Two Rivers, men turned out from miles around when the woods caught fire. Sometimes hundreds of marches burned, even so.

“The strikers, they should not be wasted,” Aludra said, lifting her eyes from the small stones board balanced atop a nearby log. Thom, stroking his long white mustaches, continued to contemplate the cross-hatched board. He rarely lost at stones, yet she had managed to win two games from him since they left the show. Two out of a dozen or more, but Thorn took care with anyone who could defeat him even once. She swept her beaded braids back over her shoulders. “Me, I must be in the same place for two days to make more. Men always find ways to make work for women, yes?”

Mat puffed away, if not contentedly, at least with some degree of pleasure. Women! A delight to look at and a delight to be with. When they were not finding ways to rub salt into a man’s hide. It seemed six up and a half dozen down. It truly did.

Most of the party had finished eating—the best part of two grouse and one rabbit were all that remained on the spits over the fire, but they would be taken along wrapped in linen; the hunting had been good during the morning’s ride, yet there was no certainty the afternoon would be as profitable, and flatbread and beans made a poor meal. Those who had finished were taking their ease or, in the case of the Redarms, checking the hobbled packhorses, better than sixty of them on four leads. Buying so many in Maderin had been expensive, but Luca had rushed into town to take care of the bargaining himself once he heard about a merchant dead in the street. He almost—almost but not quite—had been ready to give them packhorses from the show’s animals to be rid of Mat after that. Many of the animals were loaded with Aludra’s paraphernalia and her supplies. Luca had ended up with the greater part by far of Mat’s gold, one way and another. Mat had slipped a fat purse to Petra and Clarine, too, but that was friendship, to help them buy their inn a little sooner. What remained in his saddlebags was more than enough to see them comfortably to Murandy, though, and all he needed to replenish it was a common room where dice were being tossed.

Leilwin, with a curved sword hanging from a broad leather strap that slanted across her chest, and Domon, with a shortsword on one side of his belt and a brass-studded cudgel on the other, were chatting with Juilin and Amathera on yet another log close by. Leilwin—he had come to accept that that was the only name she would stomach—made a point of showing that she would not avoid Tuon or Selucia, or lower her eyes when they met, though she had to steel herself visibly to carry it off. Juilin had the cuffs of his black coat turned back, a sign he felt among friends, or at least people he could trust. The onetime Panarch of Tarabon still clutched the thief-catcher’s arm tightly, but she met Leilwin’s sharp blue eyes with little flinching. In fact, she often seemed to gaze at the other woman with something approaching awe.

Seated cross-legged on the ground and unmindful of the dampness, Noal was playing Snakes and Foxes with Olver and spinning wild tales about the lands beyond the Aiel Waste, about some great coastal city that foreigners were not allowed to leave except by ship and the inhabitants were not allowed to leave at all. Mat wished they would find another game to play. Every time they brought out that piece of red cloth with its spiderweb of black lines, it reminded him of his promise to Thorn, reminded him the bloody Eelfinn were inside his head somehow, and maybe the flaming Aelfinn, too. The Aes Sedai came up from the stream, and Joline stopped to talk with Blaeric and Fen. Bethamin and Seta, trailing along behind, hesitated until a gesture from the Green sent them to stand behind the log where Teslyn and Edesina sat, as far apart as they could manage, with uncut branches between, and began reading small leather-bound books taken from their belt pouches. Both Bethamin and Seta stood behind Edesina.

The yellow-haired former sul’dam had come round in spectacular, and painful, fashion. Painful for her and for the sisters. When she first hesitantly asked them to teach her, too, at supper the night before, they refused. They were only teaching Bethamin because she had already channeled. Seta was too old to become a novice, she had not channeled, and that was that. So she duplicated whatever it was that Bethamin had done and had all three leaping about the cookfire and squealing in showers of dancing sparks for as long as she could hold onto the Power. They agreed to teach her then. At least. Joline and Edesina did. Teslyn still was having none of any sul’dam, former or not. All three of them took a hand in switching her, though, and she had spent the morning continually easing herself in her saddle. She still looked afraid, of the One Power and maybe of the Aes Sedai, but strangely, her face somehow seemed… content, too. How to understand that was beyond Mat.

He should have felt content himself. He had avoided a charge of murder, avoided riding blindly into a Seanchan trap that would have killed Tuon, and left the gholam behind for good this time. It would be following Luca’s show, and Luca had been warned, for whatever good that would do. In well under two weeks he would be over the mountains into Murandy. The need to figure out how to get Tuon back to Ebou Dar safely, no easy task at all now, especially since he would have to guard against Aes Sedai trying to spirit her away, would mean that much longer to look at her face. And to try puzzling out what went on behind those big beautiful eyes. He should have been as happy as a goat in a corn crib. He was far from it.

For one thing, all those sword-cuts he had received in Maderin hurt. Some of them were inflamed, though he had managed to keep that from anyone so far. He hated being fussed over nearly as much as he hated anyone using the Power on him. Lopin and Nerim had sewed him up as well as they could, and he had refused Healing despite attempted bullying by all three Aes Sedai. He had been surprised that Joline, of all people, tried to insist, but she did, and flung up her hands in disgust when he failed to relent. Another surprise had been Tuon.

“Don’t be foolish. Toy,” she had drawled in his tent, standing over him, arms folded beneath her breasts, while Lopin and Nerim plied their needles and he gritted his teeth. Her proprietary air, very much a woman making sure her property was repaired properly, had been enough to make him grind his teeth, never mind the needles. Or that he was down to his smallclothes! She had just walked in and refused to leave short of manhandling, and he had felt in no condition to manhandle a woman he suspected might be able to break his arm. “This Healing is a wonderful thing. My Mylen knows it, and I taught it to my others, too. Of course, many people are foolish about having the Power touch them. Half my servants would faint at the suggestion, and most of the Blood, too, I shouldn’t be surprised. But I wouldn’t have expected it of you.” If she had a quarter his experience of Aes Sedai, she would have.

They had ridden off up the road from Maderin as if setting out for Lugard, then taken to the forest as soon as the last farms were out of sight. The moment they entered the trees, the dice started up in his head again. That was the other thing that soured his mood, those bloody dice drumming inside his head for two days. There hardly seemed any way they could stop here in the forest. What kind of momentous event could happen in the woods? Still, he had stayed well clear of the small villages they had passed. Sooner or later the dice would stop, though, and he could only wait for it.

Tuon and Selucia headed for the stream to wash, wiggling their fingers at one another rapidly. Talking about him, he was sure. When women started putting their heads together, you could be sure—

Amathera screamed, and every head whipped around toward her. Mat spotted the cause as quickly as Juilin did, a black-scaled snake a good seven feet long wriggling quickly away from the log Juilin was seated on. Leilwin cursed and leaped to her feet drawing her sword, but no faster than Juilin, who tugged his shortsword free of its scabbard and started after the snake so swiftly that his conical red cap fell off.

“Let it go, Juilin.” Mat said. “It’s heading away from us. Let it go.” The thing probably had a den under that log and had been surprised to come out and find people. Luckily, blacklances were solitary snakes.

Juilin hesitated before deciding that comforting a shivering Amathera was more important than chasing a snake. “What kind is it, anyway?” he said, folding her in his arms. He was a city man, after all. Mat told him, and for a moment, he looked as though he meant to go after it again. Wisely, he decided against. Blacklances were quick as lightning, and with a shortsword, he would have needed to get close. Anyway, Amathera was clinging to him so hard he would have had a time getting free of her.

Taking his hat from the butt of his ashandarei, which was driven point-down into the ground, Mat settled it on his head. “Daylight’s wasting,” he said around his pipestem. “Time we were moving on. Don’t dawdle over there, Tuon. Your hands are clean enough.” He had tried calling her Precious, but since her claim of victory back in Maderin, she refused to acknowledge that he had even spoken when he did.

She did not hurry in the slightest, of course. By the time she returned, drying her small hands on a small piece of toweling that Selucia would drape across the pommel of her saddle to dry, Nerim and Lopin had filled in the refuse pit, wrapped the remains of the meal and tucked them into Nerim’s saddlebags, and doused the fire with water brought from the stream in folding leather buckets. Ashandarei in hand, Mat was ready to mount Pips.

“A strange man, who lets poisonous serpents go,” Tuon said. “From the fellow’s reaction, I assume a blacklance is poisonous?”

“Very.” he told her. “But snakes don’t bite anything they can’t eat unless they’re threatened.” He put a foot in the stirrup.

“You may kiss me. Toy.”

He gave a start. Her words, not spoken softly, had made them the object of every eye. Selucia’s face was so stiffly expressionless her disapproval could not have been plainer. “Now?” he said. “When we stop tonight, we could take a stroll alone—”

“By tonight. I may have changed my mind, Toy. Call it a whim, for a man who lets poisonous snakes go.” Maybe she saw one of her omens in that?

Taking off his hat and sticking the black spear back into the ground, he took the pipe from between his teeth and planted a chaste kiss on her full lips. A first kiss was nothing to be rough with. He did nor want her to think him pushy, or crude. She was no tavern maid to enjoy a bit of slap and tickle. Besides, he could almost feel all those eyes watching. Someone snickered. Selucia rolled her eyes.

Tuon folded her arms beneath her breasts and looked up at him through her long eyelashes. “Do I remind you of your sister?” she asked in a dangerous tone. “Or perhaps your mother?” Somebody laughed. More than one somebody, in fact.

Grimly. Mat tapped the dottle from his pipe on the heel of his boot and stuffed the warm pipe into his coat pocket. He hung his hat back on the ashandarei. If she wanted a real kiss… Had he really thought she would not fill his arms? Slim, she was to be sure, and small, but she filled them very nicely indeed. He bent his head to hers. She was far from the first woman he had kissed. He knew what he was about. Surprisingly—or then again, perhaps not so surprisingly—she did not know. She was a quick pupil, though. Very quick.

When he finally released her, she stood there looking up at him and trying to catch her breath. For that matter, his breath came a little raggedly, too. Metwyn whistled appreciatively. Mat smiled. What would she think of what plainly was her first real kiss ever? He tried not to smile too widely, though. He did not want her to think he was smirking.

She laid fingers against his cheek. “I thought so,” she said in that slow honey drawl. “You’re feverish. Some of your wounds must be infected.”

Mat blinked. He gave her a kiss that had to have curled her toes, and all she said was that his face was hot? He bent his head again—this time, she would bloody well need help to stay standing!—but she put a hand against his chest, lending him off.

“Selucia, fetch the box of ointments I got Irom Mistress Luca,” she commanded. Selucia went scurrying for Tuon’s black-and-white mount.

“We don’t have time for that now,” Mat said. “I’ll smear on something tonight.” He might as well have kept his mouth shut.

“Strip off, Toy.” she said in the same tone she had used with her maid. “The ointment will sting, but I expect you be brave.”

“I am not going to—!”

“Riders coming.” Harnan announced. He was already in his saddle, on a dark bay gelding with white forefeet, holding the lead to one of the strings of packhorses. “One of them’s Vanin.”

Mat swung up onto Pips for a better vantage. A pair of horsemen were approaching at a gallop, dodging around fallen trees when they had to. Aside from recognizing Chel Vanin’s dun, there was no mistaking the man himself. Nobody else who was that wide and sat his saddle like a sack of suet could have maintained his seat at that pace without any apparent effort. The man could have stayed in the saddle on a wild boar. Then Mat recognized the other rider, whose cloak was flailing behind him, and felt as if he had been punched in the belly. He would not have been surprised in the least had the dice stopped then, but they kept bouncing off the inside of his skull. What in the Light was Talmanes bloody well doing in Altara?

The two riders slowed to a walk short of Mat, and Vanin reined in to let Talmanes approach alone. It was not shyness. There was nothing shy about Vanin. He leaned lazily on the tall pommel of his saddle and spat to one side through a gap in his teeth. No, he knew Mat would not be best pleased, and he meant to stay clear.

“Vanin brought me up to date. Mat,” Talmanes said. Short and wiry, with the front of his head shaved and powdered, the Cairhienin had the right to wear stripes of color across his chest in considerable number, but a small red hand sewn to the breast of his dark coat was its only decoration unless you counted the long red scarf tied around his left arm. He never laughed and seldom smiled, but he had his reasons. “I was sorry to hear about Nalesean and the others. A good man, Nale-sean. They all were.”

“Yes, they were.” Mat said, keeping a tight rein on his temper. “I assume Egwene never came to you for help getting away from those fool Aes Sedai, but what in the bloody flaming Light are you doing here?” Well, maybe he did not have such a tight rein after all. “At least tell me you haven’t brought the whole bloody Band three hundred bloody miles into Altara with you.”

“Egwene is still the Amyrlin,” the other man said calmly, straightening his cloak. Another red hand, larger, marked that. “You were wrong about her. Mat. She really is the Amyrlin Seat, and she has those Aes Sedai by the scruff of the neck. Though some of them might not know it yet. The last I saw, she and the whole lot of them were off to besiege Tar Valon. She might have it by now. They can make holes in the air like the one the Dragon Reborn made to take us near Salidar.” The colors spun in Mat’s head, resolving for an instant into Rand talking to some woman with gray hair in a bun atop her head, an Aes Sedai, he thought, but his anger blew the image away like mist.

All that talk of the Amyrlin Seat and Tar Valon attracted the sisters, of course. They heeled their horses up beside Mat and tried to take over. Well, Edesina hung back a little the way she did when Teslyn or Joline had the bit in her teeth, but the other two…

“Who do you be talking about?” Teslyn demanded while Joline was still opening her mouth. “Egwene? There did be an Accepted named Egwene al’Vere, but she be a runaway.”

“Egwene al’Vere is the one, Aes Sedai.” Talmanes said politely. The man was always polite to Aes Sedai. “And she is no runaway. She is the Amyrlin Seat, my word on it.” Edesina made a sound that would have been called a squeak coming from anyone but an Aes Sedai.

“Later for that.” Mat muttered. Joline opened her mouth again, angrily. “Later, I said.” That was not enough to stop the slender Green, but Teslyn laid a hand on her arm and murmured something, and that was. Joline still glared daggers, though, promising to drag out everything she wanted to know later. “The Band, Talmanes?”

“Oh. No, I only brought three banners of horse and four thousand mounted crossbowmen. I left three banners of horse and five of foot, a little short of crossbows, in Murandy with orders to move north to Andor. And the Mason’s Banner, of course. Handy to have masons ready to hand if you need a bridge built or the like.”

Mat squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. Six banners of horse and five of foot. And a banner of masons! The Band had only been two banners counting horse and foot when he left them in Salidar. He wished he had back half the gold he had handed over to Luca so freely. “How am I supposed to pay that many men?” he demanded. “I couldn’t find enough dice games in a year!”

“Well, as to that, I made a small deal with King Roedran. Finished with, now, and not before time—I think he was about ready to turn on us; I will explain later—but the Band’s coffers hold a year’s pay and more. Besides, sooner or later the Dragon Reborn will give you estates, and grand ones. He has raised men to rule nations, so I hear, and you grew up with him.”

This time, he did not fight the colors as they resolved into Rand and the Aes Sedai. It was an Aes Sedai, for sure. A hard woman, she looked. If Rand tried to give him any titles, he would stuff them down Rand’s bloody throat is what he would do. Mat Cauthon had no liking for nobles—well, a few like Talmanes were all right; and Tuon: never forget Tuon—and he certainly had no bloody desire to become one! “That’s as may be,” was all he said, though.

Selucia cleared her throat loudly. She and Tuon moved their horses up beside Mat, and Tuon was so straight in her mare’s saddle, so cool-eyed, cold-faced and regal, that he expected Selucia to start proclaiming her titles. She did nothing of the sort. Instead, she shifted on her dun and scowled at him, eyes like blue coals in a fire, then cleared her throat again. Very loudly. Ah.

“Tuon,” Mat said, “allow me to present Lord Talmanes Delovinde of Cairhien. His family is distinguished and ancient, and he has added honors to its name.” The little woman inclined her head. Perhaps all of an inch. “Talmanes, this is Tuon.” So long as she called him Toy, she would get no titles from him. Selucia glared, eyes hotter than ever, impossible as that seemed.

Talmanes blinked in surprise, though, and bowed very low in his saddle. Vanin pulled the sagging brim of his hat lower, half hiding his face. He still avoided looking directly at Mat. So. It seemed the man had already told Talmanes exactly who Tuon was.

Growling under his breath. Mat leaned from the saddle to snatch his hat from the spear and pull up the ashandarei. He clapped the hat on his head. “We were ready to move on, Talmanes. Take us to where your men are waiting, and we’ll see if we can have as good luck avoiding Seanchan on the way out of Altara as you had on the way in.”

“We saw a good many Seanchan.” Talmanes said, turning his bay to fall in beside Pips. “Though most of the men we saw seemed to be Altaran. They have camps scattered everywhere, it seems. Luckily, we saw none of those flying creatures I have heard tell of. But there is a problem. Mat. There was a landslide. I lost my rear guard and some of the packhorses. The pass is well and truly blocked, Mat. I sent three men to try climbing over with the orders sending the Band to Andor. One broke his neck, and another his leg.”

Mat stopped Pips short. “I’m guessing this is the same pass Vanin was talking about?”

Talmanes nodded, and Vanin, waiting to fall in farther back, said, “Bloody right, it was. Passes don’t grow on trees, not in mountains like the Damonas.” He was no respecter of rank.

“Then you’ll have to find another one.” Mat told him. “I’ve heard you can find your way blindfolded at midnight. It should be easy for you.” Flattery never hurt. Besides, he had heard that about the man.

Vanin made a sound like he was swallowing his tongue. “Find another pass?” he muttered. “Find another pass, the man says. You don’t just go find another pass in new mountains like the Damonas. Why do you think I only knew the one?” He was shaken to admit that much. Before this, he had been adamant that he had only heard of it.

“What are you talking about?” Mat demanded, and Vanin explained. At great length, for him.

“An Aes Sedai explained it to me, once. You see, there’s old mountains. They was there before the Breaking, maybe on the bottom of the sea or the like. They have passes all over, broad and gentle. You can ride into those and as long you keep your head and your direction and have enough supplies, sooner or later you come out the other side. And then there’s mountains made during the Breaking.” The fat man turned his head and spat copiously. “Passes in those are narrow, twisty things, and sometimes they aren’t really what you’d call passes at all. Ride into one of those, and you can wander around till your food runs out trying to find a way to the other side. Loss of that pass is going to hurt a lot of folks who use it for what you might call untaxed goods, and men’ll die before they find a new one that gets them all the way through. We go into the Damonas with that pass gone, likely we’ll all die, too. Them as doesn’t turn back in time and hasn’t gotten their heads so turned around they can’t find the way back.”

Mat looked around, at Tuon, the Aes Sedai, at Olver. They were all depending on him to get them to safety, but his safe route out of Altara was not there any more. “Let’s ride.” he said. “I have to think.” He had to bloody think for all he was worth.