The Shadow Rising (The Wheel of Time 4)

head and looked over her shoulder. “She hates me, I think.”

“Go to sleep.” Elayne stifled another yawn.

“You do not.”

“Don’t be too sure of yourself,” she said firmly. “You are taking this very calmly. How can you be so calm?”

“Calm?” The other woman’s hands moved involuntarily, twisting at her Air-woven bonds. “I am so terrified I could weep.” She did not sound it. Yet it sounded the simple truth.

“We won’t harm you, Egeanin.” Whatever Nynaeve wanted, she would see to that. “Go to sleep.” After a moment Egeanin’s head lowered.

An hour. It was right not to worry Egwene needlessly, but she wished that hour could be spent on their problem instead of wandering uselessly in Tel’aran’rhiod. If they could not find out whether Amathera was prisoner or captive … . Set that aside; I won’t puzzle it out here. Once they did find out, how could they get inside the palace with all those soldiers about, and the Civil Watch, not to mention Liandrin and the others?

Nynaeve had started snoring softly, a habit she denied even more heatedly than she did flinging her elbows about. Egeanin appeared to be taking the long, slow breaths of deep sleep. Yawning into the back of her hand, Elayne shifted on the hard wooden seat and began planning how to sneak into the Panarch’s Palace.

CHAPTER 52

Need

For a moment Nynaeve stood in the Heart of the Stone not seeing it, not thinking of Tel’aran’rhiod at all. Egeanin was Seanchan. One of those vile people who had put a collar on Egwene’s neck and tried to put one on hers. Knowing it still made her feel hollow. Seanchan, and she had snaked her way into Nynaeve’s affections. True friends had seemed so few and far between since leaving Emond’s Field. To find a new one, then lose her in this way … .

“I hate her for that worst of all,” she growled, folding her arms tightly. “She made me like her, and I cannot stop, and I hate her for it!” Said aloud, it made no sense at all. “I do not have to make sense.” She laughed quietly, with a rueful shake of her head. “I am supposed to be Aes Sedai.” But not to be wool-gathering like a fool girl.

Callandor sparkled, the crystal sword rising out of the floorstones beneath the great dome, and the massive redstone columns ran off in shadowed rows through that odd, dim light that came from everywhere. Easy to remember the feel of being watched, to imagine it again. If it had been imagination before. If it was now. Anything might be hiding back in there. A good stout stick appeared in her hands as she peered among the columns. Where was Egwene? Just like the girl to keep her waiting. All that murkiness. For all she knew, something could be about to jump out at—

“That is an odd dress, Nynaeve.”

Just stifling a yelp, she spun around heavily, rattling metallically, heart thumping in her throat. Egwene stood on the other side of Callandor with two women in bulky skirts and dark shawls over white blouses, snowy hair held by folded scarves falling to their waists. Nynaeve swallowed, hoping none of them noticed, tried to make herself breathe normally again. Sneaking up on her that way!

One of the Aiel women she knew from Elayne’s description; Amys’s face was much too young for such hair, but apparently it had been almost silver even as a child. The other, thin and bony, had pale blue eyes in a leathery, wrinkled face. That must be Bair. The tougher of the two, in Nynaeve’s opinion now that she saw them, not that this Amys looked very—Odd dress? I rattled?

Staring down at herself, she gasped. Her dress looked vaguely like a Two Rivers garment; if Two Rivers women wore dresses fashioned from steel mail, with pieces of plate armor like those she had seen in Shienar. How did men run about and jump into saddles in these things? It dragged at her shoulders as if it weighed a hundred pounds. The good stick was metal now, and spiked at the end like a shiny steel sandburr. Without touching her head she knew she had on some sort of helmet. Blushing furiously, she concentrated, changed it all to good Two Rivers woolens and a walking staff. It felt good to have her hair back in one proper braid, hanging over her shoulder.

“Uncontrolled thoughts are troublesome when you walk the dream,” Bair said in a thin, strong voice. “You must learn to control them if you mean to continue.”

“I can control my thoughts very well, thank you,” Nynaeve said crisply. “I—” Bair’s voice was not all that was thin. The Two Wise Ones seemed … misty, almost, and Egwene, in a pale blue riding dress, was very nearly transparent. “What’s the matter with you? Why do you look that way?”

“You try entering Tel’aran’rhiod while half-asleep in a saddle,” Egwene said dryly. She seemed to flicker. “It is morning in the Three-fold Land, and we are on the move. I had to talk Amys into letting me come at all, but I was afraid you would be worried.”

“It is a difficult enough task without the horse,” Amys said, “sleeping shallowly when you wish to be awake. Egwene has not learned it entirely yet.”

“I will,” Egwene said with an irritated determination. She was always too hasty and stubborn in her desire to learn; if these Wise Ones did not hold on to the scruff of her neck she would very likely jump into all sorts of trouble.

Nynaeve stopped worrying about Egwene and trouble as the younger woman began to speak of Trollocs and Draghkar attacking Cold Rocks Hold. Seana, a Wise One dreamwalker, among the dead. Rand hurrying the Taardad Aiel toward this Alcair Dal, apparently in violation of all custom, sending out runners to bring more septs. The boy was confiding his intentions to no one, the Aiel were jumpy, and Moiraine was ready to bite the heads off nails. Moiraine’s frustration would have been some relief—she had hoped he could escape that woman’s influence somehow—if Egwene had not frowned so worriedly.

“I don’t know whether it is madness or design,” Egwene finished. “I could almost bear it either way if I knew. Nynaeve, I’ll admit it isn’t prophecy, or Tarmon Gai’don, that makes me anxious right now. Maybe it is foolish, but I promised Elayne to look after him, and I do not know how.”

Nynaeve walked around the crystal sword to put an arm around her. At least she felt solid, even if she did look a reflection in a foggy mirror. Rand’s sanity. There was nothing she could do about that, no comfort she could offer. Egwene was the one there to see him. “The best you can do for Elayne is to tell him to read what she wrote. She worries about it sometimes; she won’t talk, but I think she’s afraid she said more than she should have. If he believes she is totally besotted, he’s more likely to feel the same, which will not hurt her in the least. At least we have some good news in Tanchico. Some.” When she explained, though, it barely seemed to justify “some.”

“So you still don’t know what it is they’re after,” Egwene said after she finished, “but even if you did, they are on top of it and still might find it first.”

“Not if I can help it.” Nynaeve fixed the two Wise Ones with a firm, level look. From what Elayne said of Amys’s reluctance to give anything but warnings, she would need firmness to deal with them. The pair was so hazy a strong puff might blow them away like fog. “Elayne thinks you know all sorts of tricks with dreams. Is there any way I could get into Amathera’s dreams to see if she is a Darkfriend?”

“Foolish girl.” Bair’s long hair swung as she shook her head. “If Aes Sedai, a foolish girl still. To step into another’s dream is very dangerous unless she knows you and expects you. It is her dream, not as here. There, this Amathera will control all. Even you.”

She had been sure that was the way. It was irritating to learn differently. And “foolish girl”?

“I am not a girl,” she snapped. She wanted to yank her braid, but clenched a fist at her side instead; for some reason, pulling at her hair felt strangely uncomfortable of late. “I was Wisdom of Emond’s Field before I … became Aes Sedai …” She hardly stumbled over the lie at all now. “ … and I told women as old as you when to sit down and be quiet. If you know how to help me, say so instead of giving me foolish maunderings about what is dangerous. I know danger when I see it.”