Lord of Chaos (The Wheel of Time 6)

Sending Corman and Havien back to their guard, Rand moved on, with Rhuarc and Berelain to either side and the rest following close. A parade. All it needed was drums and trumpets.

The clatter of practice swords started up again behind him. Another change, however small. Even Moiraine, who had long studied the Prophecies of the Dragon, had not known whether his Breaking the World again meant he would bring on a new Age, but he was certainly bringing changes, one way and another. As many by accident, it seemed, as on purpose.

When they reached the door of the study Berelain and Rhuarc shared — rising suns decorated the long panels of dark polished wood, indicating some royal use once — Rand stopped, turning to Sulin and Urien. If he could not dispense with all these guards here, there was nowhere he could. “I mean to return to Caemlyn an hour or so after sunrise tomorrow. Until then, visit the tents, see your friends, and try not to start any blood feuds. If you insist, two of you can hang about to protect me from mice; I don’t think anything larger will jump out at me here.”

Urien grinned slightly and nodded, though he did gesture about head-high to a Cairhienin and murmur, “The mice can be big here.”

For an instant Rand thought Sulin meant to argue. Her flat stare lasted only a moment, though, before she nodded. Still tight-mouthed, however. Doubtless he would hear the argument in full once there were only Maidens to hear.

A large room, the study presented sharp contrasts even at his second sight of it. On the high worked-plaster ceiling, straight lines and sharp angles made elaborately repeating patterns, and around the walls as well as on a wide fireplace faced with deep blue marble. A massive table stood in the middle of the floor, covered with papers and maps, marking a boundary of sorts. The two tall narrow windows to one side of the fireplace held clay pots on deep stools, filled with small plants that showed a few tiny red-and-white blossoms. On that side of the table a long wall hanging showed ships at sea, and men hauling nets filled with oilfish, the source of Mayene’s wealth; An embroidery hoop, with needle and red thread dangling from a piece of half-finished work, sat on a high-backed chair wide enough for Berelain to curl up in if she wished. There was a single carpet on the floor, in flowerlike patterns of gold and red and blue, and a small table beside the chair held a silver wine pitcher and goblets on a silver tray, as well as a slim book bound in red with a gold-worked piece of leather marking Berelain’s place.

The floor on the other side of the table was layered in brightly colored rugs, with tasseled cushions of red and blue and green scattered about. A tabac pouch, a short-stemmed pipe, and a pair of tongs sat beside a covered brass bowl atop a small brass-bound chest, while a slightly larger chest, strapped with iron, held an ivory carving of a gawky animal Rand doubted really existed. Two dozen books of all sizes, from small enough to fit a coat pocket to large enough that even Rhuarc must need both hands to pick them up, made a neat row across the floor along the wall. Aiel made everything in the Waste that they needed except books; peddlers had made fortunes among Aiel hauling nothing but books.

“Now,” Rand said when the door was closed, leaving him alone with Rhuarc and Berelain, “how are things really?”

“As I said,” Berelain replied. “As well as can be expected. There is more talk of Caraline Damodred and Toram Riatin in the streets, but most people are too tired to want another war for a time.”

“It is said ten thousand Andormen soldiers have joined them.“ Rhuarc began thumbing his pipe full. “Rumor always multiplies by ten when not twenty, yet it is troubling if true. The scouts say their numbers are not large, but left to grow they could be more than an annoyance. The yellowfly is almost too small to see, but if you leave its egg in your skin, you will lose an arm or leg before it hatches — if it does not kill you.”

Rand grunted noncommittally. Darlin’s rebellion in Tear was not the only one he had to face. House Riatin and House Damodred, the last two to hold the Sun Throne, had been bitter rivals before Rand appeared, and likely would be again if he disappeared. Now they had put rivalry aside — on the surface at least; what went on below the surface with Cairhienin could be something else entirely — and, like Darlin, meant to gather strength somewhere Toram and Caraline thought safe. In their case, the foothills of the Spine of the World, as far from the city as they could be and remain in the country. They had gathered the same mix as Darlin, nobles mainly of middle rank, displaced country folk, some outright mercenaries and perhaps a few former brigands. Niall’s hand might be there, as well, as it was with Darlin.

Those foothills were not nearly so impenetrable as Haddon Mirk, but Rand held his hand: He had too many enemies in too many places. If he paused to swat Rhuarc’s yellowfly here, he might find a leopard on his back somewhere else. He had it in mind to take the leopard first. If only he knew where all the other leopards were.

“What of the Shaido?” he asked, setting the Dragon Scepter down on a half-unrolled map. It showed the north of Cairhien, and the mountains called Kinslayer’s Dagger. The Shaido might not be as big a leopard as Sammael, but they were a sight bigger than High Lord Darlin or Lady Caraline. Berelain handed him a goblet of wine, and he thanked her. “Have the Wise Ones said anything at all about Sevanna’s intentions?”

He would have thought at least one or two could listen and look around just a little when she journeyed up to Kinslayer’s Dagger. He would wager the Shaido Wise Ones did when they came below the River Gaelin. He said neither thing, of course. The Shaido might have abandoned ji’e’toh, but Rhuarc had a traditional Aiel view of spying. The Wise Ones’ views were another thing again, though exactly what could be hard to pin down.

“They say the Shaido are building holds.” Rhuarc paused, using a pair of tongs to hold a hot coal from the sand-filled brass bowl over his pipe. When he had it puffed alight, he went on. “They do not think the Shaido ever mean to return to the Threefold Land. Nor do I.”

Rand scrubbed his free hand through his hair. Caraline and Toram festering, and the Shaido settling in this side of the Dragonwall. A far more dangerous brew than Darlin. And Alanna’s unseen finger seemed on the point of touching him. “Is there any other good news?”

“There is fighting in Shamara,” Rhuarc said around his pipestem.

“Where?” Rand asked.

“Shamara. Or Shara. They give many names for their land. Co’dansin, Tomaka, Kigalij others. Any could be true, or none. They lie without thought, those people. Unwind every bolt of silk you trade for, or find that only the outside is silk. And if the next time in the tradehold you happen to find the man who traded with you, he will deny seeing you before, or coming to trade before. If you press it, the others kill him to appease you, then say only he could do anything concerning the silk, and try to trade you water as wine.”

“Why is fighting in Shara good news?” Rand asked softly. He did not really want to hear the answer. Berelain was listening with interest; no one except the Aiel and the Sea Folk knew much more of the closed lands beyond the Waste than that ivory and silk came from there. That, and the tales in The Travels of Jain Farstrider, which were probably too fanciful to be true. Though come to think of it, Rand did remember the lying being mentioned, and the different names, except the examples Farstrider had given matched none of Rhuarc’s as far as he could recall.

“There is never fighting in Shara, Rand al’Thor. It is said the Trolloc Wars i

nfested them” — Trollocs had entered the Aiel Waste too; since then the Trolloc name for the Aiel Waste was the Dying Ground — “but if there has been one battle since, no word of it has come to the tradeholds. Not much word of anything outside the holdwalls does come inside. They say their land has always been one, not many as here, always at peace. When you came from Rhuidean as the Car’a’carn, word of you spread, and of your title among the wetlanders here. The Dragon Reborn. Word traveled to the tradeholds along the Great Rift and the Cliffs of Dawn.” Rhuarc’s eyes were calm and steady; this did not trouble him. “Now word comes back across the Three-fold Land. There is fighting in Shara, and Sharamen in the tradeholds ask when the Dragon Reborn will Break the World.”

Suddenly the wine tasted sour. Another place like Tarabon and Arad Doman, torn just by hearing of him. How far did the ripples spread? Were there wars he would never hear of in lands he would never hear of, because of him?

Death rides on my shoulder, Lews Therin muttered. Death walks in my footsteps. I am death.

Shuddering, Rand set his goblet on the table. How much did the Prophecies demand in all those tantalizing hints and grandly roundabout verses? Was he supposed to add Shara, or whatever it was really called, to Cairhien and the rest? The entire world? How, when he could not even hold Tear or Cairhien completely? It would take more than one man’s lifetime. Andor. If he was meant to rip every other land apart, rip the whole world, he would hold Andor safe for Elayne. Somehow.

“Shara, or whatever it’s called, is a long way from here. One step at a time, and Sammael is the first step.”

“Sammael,” Rhuarc agreed. Berelain shivered, and emptied her goblet.

For a time they talked of the Aiel who were still moving south. Rand intended the hammer being made in Tear to be clearly big enough to smash anything Sammael could put in its way. Rhuarc seemed content; it was Berelain who complained that more needed to be kept in Cairhien. Until Rhuarc shushed her. She muttered something about him being too stubborn for his own good, but she went on to the efforts to resettle farmers on the land. She thought by next year there would be no need for grain from Tear. If the drought ever broke. If it did not, Tear would not be supplying grain to itself, much less anywhere else. The first tendrils of trade were beginning to reappear. Merchants had begun coming in from Andor and Tear and Murandy, down from the Borderlands. A Sea Folk ship had even dropped anchor in the river that very morning, which she found strange, so far from the sea, but welcome.

Berelain’s face took on an intensity, and her voice a brisk tone, as she moved around the table to take up this sheaf of papers or that, discussing what Cairhien needed to buy and what it could afford to buy, what it had to sell now and what it would have in six months, in a year. Depending on the weather, of course. She brushed by that as if it was of no matter, though giving Rand a level look that said he was the Dragon Reborn and if there was any way to stop the heat, he should find it. Rand had seen her meltingly seductive, he had seen her frightened, defiant, wrapped in arrogance, but never like this. She seemed a different woman altogether. Rhuarc, seated on one of his cushions puffing on his pipe, appeared amused as he watched her.

“ . . . this school of yours might do some good,” she said, frowning at a long sheet covered in a precise hand, “if they would stop thinking of new things long enough to make what they have already thought of.” She tapped her lips with a finger, peering at nothing thoughtfully. “You say give them what gold they ask, but if you would let me hold back unless they actually — ”