Nynaeve spared a piece of glare for her. Muley, indeed! When all she did was refuse to be pushed about like a rag doll.
After a long moment, Melaine sighed. “Very well. But it would be well to remember, Aes Sedai, that you are but a child in Tel’aran’rhiod. Come, Egwene. We must go.” An amused wince crossed Egwene’s face as the two faded away.
Abruptly Nynaeve realized that her clothes had changed. Had been changed; the Wise Ones knew enough of Tel’aran’rhiod to alter things about others as well as themselves. She wore a white blouse and a dark skirt, but unlike those of the women who had just gone, this stopped well short of her knees. Her shoes and stockings were gone, and her hair was divided into two braids, one over each ear, woven with yellow ribbons. A rag doll with a carved and painted face sat beside her bare feet. She could hear her teeth grinding. This had happened once before, and she had pried out of Egwene that this was how the Aiel dressed little girls.
In a fury she switched back to the yellow Taraboner silk—this time it adhered even more closely—and kicked the doll. It sailed away, vanishing in midair. That Melaine probably had her eye on Lan; the Aiel all seemed to think he was some sort of hero. The high neck became a tall lace collar, and the deep narrow neckline showed her cleavage. If that woman so much as smiled at him . . . ! If he . . . ! Suddenly she became aware of her fast-sinking, rapidly widening neckline and hastily brought it back up; not all the way, but enough that she did not have to blush. The dress had grown so tight that she could not move; she took care of that, too.
So she was supposed to ask permission, was she? Go begging the Wise Ones before doing anything? Had she not defeated Moghedien? They had been properly impressed at the time, but they seemed to have forgotten.
If she could not use Birgitte to find out what was going on in the Tower, perhaps there was a way she could do it herself.
CHAPTER
15
What Can Be Learned in Dreams
Carefully Nynaeve formed an image in her mind of the Amyrlin’s study, just as she had envisioned the Heart of the Stone on going to sleep. Nothing happened, and she frowned. She should have been taken to the White Tower, to the room she had visualized. Trying again, she imagined a room there that she had visited much more often, if more unhappily.
The Heart of the Stone became the study of the Mistress of Novices, a compact, dark-paneled room full of plain, sturdy furnishings that had been used by generations of women who had held that office. When a novice’s transgressions were such that extra hours of scrubbing floors or raking paths would not atone, it was here that she was sent. For an Accepted to receive that summons took a greater transgression, but still she went, on leaden feet, knowing the outcome would be just as painful, perhaps more so.
Nynaeve did not want to look at the room—Sheriam had called her willfully stubborn on her numerous visits—but found herself staring into the mirror on the wall, where novices and Accepted had to look at their own weeping faces while listening to Sheriam lecture about obeying the rules or showing proper respect or whatever. Obeying others’ rules and showing required respect had always tripped up Nynaeve. The faint remnants of gilt on the carved frame said it had been there since the War of the Hundred Years, if not the Breaking.
The Taraboner dress was beautiful, but anyone who saw her in it would be suspicious. Even Domani women usually dressed circumspectly when they visited the Tower, and she could not imagine anybody dreaming of herself in the Tower except on her best behavior. Not that she was likely to meet anyone, except perhaps someone who had dreamed herself into Tel’aran’rhiod for a few moments; before Egwene, there had not been a woman in the Tower who could enter the World of Dreams unaided since Corianin Nedeal, over four hundred years ago. On the other hand, among the ter’angreal stolen from the Tower that were still in the hands of Liandrin and her confederates, eleven had last been studied by Corianin. The two others of Corianin’s study, the two that she and Elayne had in hand, both gave access to Tel’aran’rhiod; it was best to assume that the rest did, too. There was small chance that Liandrin or any of the others would dream themselves back to the Tower they had fled, but even that chance was too big to risk when it might mean being waylaid. For that matter, she could not really be sure that the stolen ter’angreal were all that Corianin had investigated. The records were often murky about ter’angreal no one understood, and others could very well be in the hands of Black sisters still in the Tower.
The dress changed completely, became white wool, soft but not of a particularly fine quality, and banded at the hem with seven colored stripes, one for each Ajah. If she saw anyone who did not vanish after a few moments, she would take herself back to Sienda, and they would think she was only one of the Accepted, touching Tel’aran’rhiod in her dreams. No. Not the inn, but Sheriam’s study. Anyone like that would have to be Black Ajah, and after all, she was supposed to be hunting them.
Completing her disguise, she gripped her suddenly red-gold braid and grimaced at Melaine’s face in the mirror. Now, there was a woman she would like to hand over to Sheriam.
The study of the Mistress of Novices was near the novices’ quarters, and the wide, tiled hallways flickered with occasional motion past elaborate wall hangings and unlit stand-lamps; flashes of frightened girls all in novice white. A good many novice nightmares would contain Sheriam. She ignored them as she hurried by; they were not in the World of Dreams long enough to see her, or if they did they would simply think her part of their own dream.
It was only a short climb up broad stairs to the Amyrlin’s study. As she approached, suddenly Elaida was in front of her, sweaty-faced in a blood-red gown, the stole of the Amyrlin Seat around her shoulders. Or almost the Amyrlin’s stole; it had no blue stripe.
Those stern dark eyes focused on Nynaeve. “I am the Amyrlin Seat, girl! Do you not know how to show respect? I will have yo—” In midword, she was gone.
Nynaeve exhaled raggedly. Elaida as Amyrlin; that was a ni
ghtmare for certain. Probably her fondest dream, she thought wryly. It will snow in Tear before she ever rises that high.
The anteroom was much as she remembered it, with one wide table and a chair behind it for the Keeper of the Chronicles. A few chairs sat against the wall for Aes Sedai waiting to speak with the Amyrlin; novices and Accepted stood. The neat array of papers on the table, bound scrolls and large parchments with seals and letters, seemed unlike Leane, though. Not that she was untidy, quite the reverse, yet Nynaeve had always thought she would put everything away at night.
She pushed open the door to the inner room, but her step slowed as she entered. No wonder she had not been able to dream herself here; the room was nothing like what she remembered. That heavily carved table and tall, thronelike chair. The vine-carved stools arranged in a perfect curve in front of the table, not one so much as an inch out of place. Siuan Sanche affected simple furnishings, as if pretending she was still only a fisherman’s daughter, and she kept only one extra chair, which she did not always let visitors use. And that white vase full of red roses, rigidly arranged on a pedestal like a monument. Siuan enjoyed flowers, but she preferred a bouquet of colors, like a field of wildflowers in miniature. Above the fireplace had hung a simple drawing of fishing boats in tall reeds. Now there were two paintings, one of which Nynaeve recognized. Rand, battling the Forsaken who had called himself Ba’alzamon, in the clouds above Falme. The other, on three wooden panels, portrayed scenes that linked to nothing she could pull out of her memory.
The door opened, and Nynaeve’s heart leaped into her throat. A red-haired Accepted she had never seen before stepped into the room and stared at her. She did not wink out of existence. Just as Nynaeve was preparing to leap back to Sheriam’s study, the red-haired woman said, “Nynaeve, if Melaine knew you were using her face, she’d do more than put you in a child’s dress.” And just that suddenly she was Egwene, in her Aiel garb.
“You nearly frightened ten years out of me,” Nynaeve muttered. “So the Wise Ones have finally decided to let you come and go as you please? Or is Melaine behind—”
“You should be frightened,” Egwene snapped, color rising in her cheeks. “You are a fool, Nynaeve. A child playing in the barn with a candle.”
Nynaeve gaped. Egwene berating her? “You listen to me, Egwene al’Vere. I’ll not take that from Melaine, and I won’t take it—”
“You had best take it from someone, before you get yourself killed.”
“I—”
“I ought to take that stone ring away from you. I should have given it to Elayne and told her not to let you use it at all.”
“Told her not—!”