Lord of Chaos (The Wheel of Time 6)

The crowds in the New City gave way before more than forty Aiel, and a handful recognized the Dragon Reborn as well. Maybe more did, but it was a ragged handful of cheers that went up as he rode by. “The Light shine on the Dragon Reborn!” and “The glory of the Light for the Dragon Reborn!” and “The Dragon Reborn, King of Andor!”

That last one jolted him whenever he heard it, and he heard it more than once. He had to find Elayne. He could feel his teeth grinding. He could not look at the people in the street; he wanted to smash them to their knees, roar at them that Elayne was their queen. Trying not to hear, he studied the sky, the rooftops, anything but the crowd. And that was why he saw the man in a white cloak rise up on a red-tiled rooftop and lift a crossbow.

Everything happened in heartbeats. Rand seized saidin and channeled as the bolt flew toward him; it struck Air, a silvery blue mass hanging above the street, with a clang as of metal against metal. A ball of fire leaped from Rand’s hand, struck the crossbowman in the chest as the bolt was bouncing away from the shield of Air. Flames engulfed the man, and he fell shrieking from the rooftop. And someone leaped into Rand, carrying him out of the saddle.

He hit the paving stones hard with a weight atop him; breath and saidin left him together. Struggling for air, he wrestled with the weight, wrenched it off — and found himself holding Desora by the arms. S

he smiled at him, a beautiful smile; then her head slumped sideways. Sightless blue eyes stared at him, already glazing. The crossbow bolt standing out from her ribs pressed against his wrist. Why had she ever wanted to hide such a beautiful smile?

Hands seized him, hauled him to his feet; Maidens and Mountain Dancers pushed him to the side of the street, close against the front of a tinsmith’s shop, and formed a tight, veiled circle around him, horn bows in hand, eyes searching street and rooftops. Shouts and screams rang everywhere, but the street was already clear for better than fifty paces either way, and then it was a milling mass of people struggling to get away. The street was clear except for bodies. Desora, and six others, three of them Aiel. One more a Maiden, he thought. It was hard to be sure from a distance with someone lying crumpled like a heap of rags.

Rand moved, and the Aiel around him pressed together more tightly, a wall of flesh. “These places are rabbit warrens,” Nandera said conversationally, without letting her eyes stop their search above her veil. “If you join the dance in there, you can take a blade in the back before you know there is danger.”

Caldin nodded. “This reminds me of a time near Sedar Cut, when — We have a prisoner, at least.” Some of his Hama N’dore had appeared from a tavern across the street, pushing ahead of them a man with his arms and elbows bound behind him. He continued to struggle until they shoved him to his knees on the paving stone and laid spearpoints against his throat. “Perhaps he will tell us who commanded this.” Caldin sounded as though he did not doubt it in the least.

A moment later Maidens came out of another building with a second bound man who was limping, his face covered in blood. In short order four men knelt in the street under Aiel guard. Finally the semicircle hemming Rand loosened.

The four were hard-faced men all, though the blood-smeared fellow swayed and rolled his eyes at the Aiel. Two others wore sullen defiance, the fourth a sneer.

Rand’s hands twitched. “Are you sure they were part of it?” He could not believe how soft his voice sounded, how steady. Balefire would solve everything. Not balefire, Lews Therin panted at him. Never again. “Are you sure?”

“They were,” a Maiden said; he could not see who, behind her veil. “Those we killed all wore this.” She tugged a cloak free from behind the bloodied man’s bound arms. A worn white cloak, grimy and stained, with a golden sunburst embroidered on the chest. The other three had them too.

“These were set to watch,” a broad Mountain Dancer added, “and report if the attack went badly for the others.” He laughed, a short bark. “Whoever sent them did not know how badly it would go.”

“None of these men fired a crossbow?” Rand asked. Balefire. No, Lews Therin shrieked in the distance. The Aiel exchanged glances, shook shoufa-wrapped heads. “Hang them,” Rand said. The bloody-faced man nearly collapsed. Rand seized him in flows of Air, dragged him to his feet. It was the first he realized that he held saidin. He welcomed the struggle for survival; he even welcomed the taint, staining his bones like acid slime. It made him less aware of things he would rather not remember, emotions he would rather not have. “What is your name?”

“F-Faral, m-my Lord. D-Dimir Faral.” Eyes almost popping out of his head stared at Rand through that mask of blood. “P-Please don’t h-hang me, m-my Lord. I’ll w-walk in the Light, I s-swear!”

“You are a very lucky man, Dimir Faral.” Rand’s voice sounded as distant in his own ears as Lews Therin’s cries. “You are going to watch your friends hang.” Faral began to weep. “Then you’ll be given a horse, and you will go tell Pedron Niall that one day I will hang him too for what happened here.” When he loosed the flows of Air, Faral collapsed in a heap, moaning that he would ride to Amador without stopping. The three who were to die stared contemptuously at the sobbing man. One of them spat at him.

Rand put them out of his mind. Niall was the only one he had to remember. There was something else he had to do yet. He pushed away saidin, went through the struggle to escape it without being obliterated, the struggle to make himself release it. For what he had to do, he wanted no screen between him and his emotions.

A Maiden was straightening Desora’s body; she had raised Desora’s veil. She reached to stop him when he touched that piece of black algode, then hesitated, looking at his face, and settled back on her haunches.

Lifting the veil, he memorized Desora’s face. She looked as if she were sleeping now. Desora, of the Musara sept of the Reyn Aiel. So many names. Liah, of the Cosaida Chareen, and Dailin, of the Nine Valleys Taardad, and Lamelle, of the Smoke Water Miagoma, and . . . So many. Sometimes he ran down that list name by name. There was one name in it he had not added. Ilyena Therin Moerelle. He did not know how Lews Therin had put it there, but he would not have erased it if he knew how.

It was both an effort and a relief to turn away from Desora, a pure relief to find that what he had thought was a second dead Maiden was instead a man, short for an Aielman. He hurt for the men who died for him, but with them he could remember an old saying. “Let the dead rest, and care for the living.” Not easily, but he could make himself do it. He could not even make himself summon the words when it was a woman who had died.

Skirts spread on the paving stones caught his eye. Not only Aiel had died.

She had taken a crossbow bolt squarely between the shoulder blades. Almost no blood stained the back of her dress; it had been quick, a small mercy. Kneeling, he turned her over as gently as he could; the other end of the bolt stood out from her chest. It was a square face, a woman in her middle years, a touch of gray in her hair. Her dark eyes were open wide; she looked surprised. He did not know her name, but he memorized her face. She had died for being on the same street with him.

He caught at Nandera’s arm, and she shook his hand free, not wanting the use of her bow impaired, but she did look at him. “Find this woman’s family and see they have whatever they need. Gold . . . ” It was not enough. What they needed was a wife back, a mother back; he could not give them that. “See to them,” he said. “And find out her name.”

Nandera stretched a hand toward him, then put it back to her bow. When he stood, the Maidens were watching him. Oh, they were watching everything as usual, but those veiled faces turned toward him a little more often. Sulin knew how he felt, if she did not know about the list, but he had no idea whether she had told the others. If she had, he had no idea how they felt about it.

Walking back to where he had fallen, he picked up the tasseled Dragon Scepter. Bending was an effort, and the short length of spear felt heavy. Jeade’en had not gone far once his saddle was empty; the horse was well trained. Rand climbed onto the dapple’s back. “I’ve done as much as I can here,” he said — let them think whatever they wanted — and dug in his heels.

If he could not outdistance memory, he outdistanced the Aiel. For a time at least. He had handed Jeade’en over to a stableman and was inside the Palace before Nandera and Caldin caught up to him, with about two-thirds the number of Maidens and Mountain Dancers they had had. Some had been left to care for the dead. Caldin looked sourly irritated. From the heat in Nandera’s eyes, Rand thought he should be glad she was not veiled.

Before she could speak, Mistress Harfor approached Rand and curtsied deeply. “My Lord Dragon,” she said in a deep, strong voice, “there is a petition for audience with you from the Wavemistress of Clan Catelar, of the Atha’an Miere.”

If the fine cut of Reene’s red-and-white dress was not enough to say that “first maid” was a misnomer, her manner certainly was. A slightly plump woman with graying hair and a long chin, she looked Rand right in the eye, tilting her head back to manage it, and somehow combined a proper degree of deference, an utter lack of obsequiousness, and an aloofness most noblewomen could not attain. Like Halwin Norry, she had stayed when most others fled, though Rand half-suspected that her motive had been to defend and preserve the Palace from invaders. He would not have been surprised to learn that she periodically searched his chambers

for hidden Palace valuables. He would not have been surprised to learn she tried to search the Aiel.

“Sea Folk?” he said. “What do they want?”