New Spring: The Novel

EPILOGUE

Next dawn found the Aesdaishar in mourning, white banners flying from every prominence, the servants with long white cloths tied to their arms. Rumors in the city already talked of portents that had foretold the deaths, comets in the night, fires in the sky. People had a way of folding what they saw into what they knew and what they wanted to believe. The disappearance of a simple soldier, and even of an Aes Sedai, escaped notice alongside bone-deep grief that had strong men weeping in the corridors.

Returning from destroying Merean's belongings-after searching in vain for any clue to other Black sisters-Moiraine stepped aside for Edeyn Arrel, who glided down the hallway in a white gown, her hair cut raggedly short. Whispers said she intended to retire from the world. Moiraine thought she already had. The woman's staring eyes looked haggard and old. In a way, they looked much as her daughter's did, in Moiraine's mind, full of despair and the knowledge of death coming soon.

When she entered her apartments, Siuan leaped up from a chair in the sitting room. It seemed weeks since Moiraine had seen her. "You look like you reached into the bait well and found a fangfish," she growled. "Well, it's no surprise. I always hated mourning when I knew the people. Anyway, we can go whenever you're ready. Rahien was born in a farmhouse almost two miles from Dragonmount. Merean hasn't been near him, as of this morning. I don't suppose she'll harm him on suspicion even if she is Black."

Not the one. Somehow, Moiraine had almost expected that. "Merean will not harm anyone ever again, Siuan. Put that mind of yours to a puzzle for me." Settling in a chair, she began with the end, and hurried through despite Siuan's gasps and demands for more detail. It was almost like living it again. Getting to what had led her to that confrontation was a relief. "She wanted Diryk dead most of all, Siuan; she killed him first. And she tried to kill Lan."

"That's mad," Siuan growled. "What links an eight-year-old boy to a coldhearted lionfish like Lan?"

"Luck. Diryk survived a fall that should have killed him, and everyone says Lan is the luckiest man alive or the Blight would have killed him years ago. It makes a pattern, but the pattern looks crazy to me. Maybe your blacksmith is even part of it. And Josef Najima, back in Canluum, for all I know. He was lucky, too. Puzzle it out for me if you can. I think it is important, but I cannot see how."

Siuan strode back and forth across the room, kicking her skirt and rubbing her chin, muttering about "men with luck" and "the blacksmith rose suddenly" and other things Moiraine could not make out. Suddenly she stopped dead and said, "She never went near Rahien, Moiraine. The Black Ajah knows the Dragon was Reborn, but they don't bloody know when! Maybe Tamra managed to keep it back, or maybe they were too rough and she died before they could pry it out of her. That has to be it!" Her eagerness turned to horror. "Light! They're killing any man or boy who might be able to channel! Oh, burn me, thousands could die, Moiraine. Tens of thousands."

It did make a terrible sense. Men who could channel seldom knew what they were doing, at least in the beginning. At first, they often just seemed to be lucky. Events favored them, and frequently, like the blacksmith, they rose to prominence with unexpected suddenness. Siuan was right. The Black Ajah had begun a slaughter.

"But they do not know to look for a baby," Moiraine said. As hard as she had to be. "An infant will show no signs. We have more time than we thought. Not enough to be careless, though. Any sister can be Black. I think Cadsuane is. They know others are looking. If one of Tamra's searchers locates the boy and they find her with him, or if they decide to question one of them instead of killing her as soon as it is convenient…" Siuan was staring at her. "We still have the task," Moiraine told her.

"I know," Siuan said slowly. "I just never thought… Well, when there's work to do, you haul nets or gut fish." That lacked her usual force, though. "We can be on our way to Arafel before noon."

"You go back to the Tower," Moiraine said. Together, they could search no faster than one could alone, and if they had to be apart, what better place for Siuan than working for Cetalia Delarme, seeing the reports of all the Blue Ajah eyes-and-ears? While Moiraine hunted for the boy, Siuan could learn what was happening in every land, and knowing what she was looking for, she could spot any sign of the Black Ajah or the Dragon Reborn. Siuan truly could see sense when it was pointed out to her, though it took some effort this time, and when she agreed, she did it with a poor grace.

"Cetalia will use me to caulk drafts for running off without leave," she grumbled. "Burn me! Hung out on a drying rack in the Tower! I'll be lucky if she doesn't have me birched! Moiraine, the politics are enough to make you sweat buckets in midwinter! I hate it!" But she was already pawing through the trunks to see what she could take with her for the ride back to Tar Valon. "I suppose you warned that fellow Lan. Seems to me, he deserves it, much good it'll do him. I heard he rode out an hour ago, heading for the Blight, and if that doesn't kill him-Where are you going?"

"I have unfinished business with the man," Moiraine said over her shoulder. She had made a decision about him the first day she knew him, if he turned out not to be a Darkfriend, and she intended to keep it.

In the stable where Arrow was kept, silver marks tossed like pennies got the mare saddled and bridled almost while the coins were still in air, and she scrambled onto the animal's back without a care that her skirts pushed up to bare her legs above the knee. Digging her heels in, she galloped out of the Aesdaishar and north through the city, making people leap aside and once setting Arrow to leap cleanly over an empty wagon with a driver too slow to move out of her way. She left a tumult of shouts and shaken fists behind.

On the road north from the city, she slowed enough to ask wagon drivers heading the other way whether they had seen a Malkieri on a bay stallion, and was more than a little relieved the first time she got a "yes." The man could have gone in fifty directions after crossing the moat bridge. And with an hour's lead… She would catch him if she had to follow him into the Blight!

"A Malkieri?" The skinny merchant in a dark blue cloak looked startled. "Well, my guards told me there's one up there. Dangerous fellows, those Malkieri." Twisting on his wagon seat, he pointed to a grassy hill a hundred paces off the road. Two horses stood in plain sight at the crest, one a packhorse, and the thin smoke of a fire curled into the breeze.

Lan barely looked up when she dismounted. Kneeling beside the remains of a small fire, he was stirring the ashes with a long twig. Strangely, the smell of burned hair hung in the air. "I had hoped you were done with me," he said.

"Not quite yet," she told him. "Burning your future? It will sorrow a great many, I think, when you die in the Blight."

"Burning my past," he said, rising. "Burning memories. A nation. The Golden Crane will fly no more." He started to kick dirt over the ashes, then hesitated and bent to scoop up damp soil and pour it out of his hands almost formally. "No one will sorrow for me when I die, because those who would are dead already. Besides, all men die."

"Only fools choose to die before they must. I want you to be my Warder, Lan Mandragoran."

He stared at her unblinking, then shook his head. "I should have known it would be that. I have a war to fight, Aes Sedai, and no desire to help you weave White Tower webs. Find another."

"I fight the same war as you, against the Shadow. Merean was Black Ajah." She told him all of it, from Gitara's Foretelling in the presence of the Amyrlin Seat and two Accepted to what she and Siuan had reasoned out, the deaths of Tamra's searchers, every last bit. For another man, she would have left most unsaid, but there were few secrets between Warder and Aes Sedai. For another man, she might have softened it, but she did not believe hidden enemies frightened him, not even when they were Aes Sedai. "You said you burned your past. Let the past have its ashes. This is the same war, Lan. The most important battle yet in that war. And this one, you can win."

For a long time he stood staring north, toward the Blight. She did not know what she would do if he refused. She had told him more than she should have anyone but her bonded Warder.

Suddenly he turned, sword flashing out, and for an instant she thought he meant to attack her. Instead he sank to his knees, the sword lying bare across his hands. "By my mother's name, I will draw as you say 'draw' and sheathe as you say 'sheathe.' By my mother's name, I will come as you say 'come' and go as you say 'go.'" He kissed the blade and looked up at her expectantly. On his knees, he made any king on a throne look meek. She would have to teach him some humility for his own sake. And for a pond's sake.

"There is a little more," she said, laying hands on his head.

The weave of Spirit was one of the most intricate known to Aes Sedai. It wove around him, settled into him, vanished. Suddenly she was aware of him, in the way that Aes Sedai were of their Warders. His emotions were a small knot in the back of her head, all steely hard determination, sharp as his blade's edge. She knew the muted pain of old injuries, tamped down and ignored. She would be able to draw on his strength at need, to find him however far away he was. They were bonded.

He rose smoothly, sheathing his sword, studying her. "Men who weren't there call it the Battle of the Shining Walls," he said abruptly. "Men who were, call it the Blood Snow. No more. They know it was a battle. On the morning of the first day, I led nearly five hundred men. Kandori, Saldaeans, Domani. By evening on the third day, half were dead or wounded. Had I made different choices, some of those dead would be alive. And others would be dead in their places. In war, you say a prayer for your dead and ride on, because there is always another fight over the next horizon. Say a prayer for the dead, Moiraine Sedai, and ride on."

Startled, she came close to gaping. She had forgotten that the bond's flow worked both ways. He knew her emotions, too, and apparently could make out hers far better than she could his. After a moment, she nodded, though she did not know how many prayers it would take to clear her mind.

Handing her Arrow's reins, he said, "Where do we ride first?"

"Back to Chachin," she admitted. "And then Arafel, and…" So few names remained that were easy to find. "The world, if need be. We win this battle, or the world dies."

Side by side they rode down the hill and turned south. Behind them the sky rumbled and turned black, another late storm rolling down from the Blight.