Elayne took Liandrin her flatbread and cheese. The Aes Sedai made it obvious that she did not want their company, so the rest of them ate their bread and cheese a little apart from her, sitting on their saddles drawn close together. The darkness beyond their lanterns made a poor sauce.
After a time, Egwene said, “Liandrin Sedai, what if we encounter the Black Wind?” Min mouthed the word questioningly, but Elayne gave a squeak. “Moiraine Sedai said it could not be killed, or even hurt very much, and I can feel the taint on this place waiting to twist anything we do with the Power.”
“You will not so much as think of the Source unless I tell you to,” Liandrin said sharply. “Why, if one such as you tried to channel here, in the Ways, you might well go as mad as a man. You have not the training to deal with the taint of those men who made this. If the Black Wind appears, I will deal with it.” She pursed her lips, studying a lump of white cheese. “Moiraine does not know so much as she thinks.” She popped the cheese into her mouth with a smile.
“I do not like her,” Egwene muttered, low enough to make sure the Aes Sedai could not hear.
“If Moiraine can work with her,” Nynaeve said quietly, “so can we. Not that I like Moiraine any better than I do Liandrin, but if they’re meddling with Rand and the others again. . . .” She fell silent, hitching her cloak up. The darkness was not cold, but it seemed as if it should be.
“What is this Black Wind?” Min asked. When Elayne had explained, with a great deal of what Elaida had said and what her mother had said, Min sighed. “The Pattern has a great deal to answer for. I don’t know that any man is worth this.”
“You did not have to come,” Egwene reminded her. “You could have gone at any time. No one would have tried to stop you leaving the Tower.”
“Oh, I could have wandered off,” Min said wryly. “As easily as you, or Elayne. The Pattern doesn’t much care what we want. Egwene, what if, after all you are going through for him, Rand doesn’t marry you? What if he marries some woman you’ve never seen before, or Elayne, or me? What then?”
Elayne chortled. “Mother would never approve.”
Egwene was silent for a time. Rand might not live to marry anyone. And if he did. . . . She could not imagine Rand hurting anyone. Not even after he’s gone mad? There had to be some way to stop that, some way to change it; Aes Sedai knew so much, could do so much. If they could stop it, why don’t they? The only answer was because they could not, and that was not the one she wanted.
She tried to put lightness in her voice. “I don’t suppose I will marry him. Aes Sedai seldom do marry, you know. But I would not set my heart on him if were you. Or you, Elayne. I do not think. . . .” Her voice caught, and she coughed to cover it. “I do not think he will ever marry. But if he does, I wish well to whoever ends up with him, even one of you.” She thought she sounded as if she meant it. “He is stubborn as a mule, and wrongheaded to a fault, but he is gentle.” Her voice shook, but she managed to turn the quaver into a laugh.
“However much you say you do not care,” Elayne said, “I think you’d approve less than Mother would. He is interesting, Egwene. More interesting than any man I’ve ever met, even if he is a shepherd. If you are silly enough to throw him away, you will have only yourself to blame if I decide to face down you and Mother both. It would not be the first time the Prince of Andor had no title before he wed. But you won’t be that silly, so don’t try to pretend you will. No doubt you will choose the Green Ajah, and make him one of your Warders. The only Greens I know with only one Warder are married to them.”
Egwene made herself go along with it, saying if she did become a Green she would have ten Warders.
Min watched her, frowning, and Nynaeve watched Min thoughtfully. They all fell silent by the time they changed into more suitable clothes for traveling, from their saddlebags. It was not easy, keeping spirits up in that place.
Sleep came slowly to Egwene, fitfully, and it was filled with bad dreams. She did not dream of Rand, but of the man whose eyes were fire. His face was not masked this time, and it was horrible with almost healed burns. He only looked at her and laughed, but that was worse than the dreams that followed, the dreams of being lost in the Ways forever, the ones where the Black Wind was chasing her. She was grateful when the toe of Liandrin’s riding boot dug into her ribs to waken her; she felt as if she had not slept at all.
Liandrin pushed them hard through the next day, or what passed for day, with only their lanterns for a sun, not letting them stop for sleep until they were swaying in their saddles. Stone made a hard bed, but Liandrin roused them ruthlessly after a few hours, hardly waiting for them to mount before riding on. Ramps and bridges, Islands and Guidings. Egwene saw so many of them in that pitch-dark that she lost count. She had long since lost any count of hours or of days. Liandrin allowed only brief halts to eat and rest the horses, and the darkness weighed down on their shoulders. They slumped in their saddles like sacks of grain, except for Liandrin. The Aes Sedai seemed unaffected by tiredness, or the dark. She was as fresh as she had been back in the White Tower, and as cold. She would not let anyone glimpse the parchment she compared to the Guidings, stuffing it away with a curt, “It is nothing you would understand,” when Nynaeve asked.
And then, while Egwene blinked wearily, Liandrin was riding away from a Guiding, not toward another bridge or ramp, but down a pitted white line that led off into the darkness. Egwene stared at her friends, and then they all hurried to follow. Ahead, by the light of her lantern, the Aes Sedai was already removing the Avendesora leaf from the carvings on a Waygate.
“We are here,” Liandrin said, smiling. “I have brought you at last to where you must go.”
CHAPTER
40
Damane
Egwene dismounted as the Waygate opened, and when Liandrin motioned them through, she led the shaggy mare carefully out. Even so, she and Bela both stumbled in brush flattened by the opening Waygate as they suddenly seemed to be moving even more slowly. A screen of dense shrubs had surrounded and hidden the Waygate. There were only a few trees close by, and a morning breeze ruffled foliage with a little more color than the leaves had had in Tar Valon.
Watching her friends emerge after her, she had been standing there a good minute before she became aware that others were already there, just out of sight on the other side of the gates. When she did notice them she stared uncertainly; they were as odd a group as she had ever seen, and she had heard too many rumors of the war on Toman Head.
Armored men, at least fifty of them, with overlapping steel plates down their chests and dull black helmets shaped like insects’ heads, sat their saddles or stood beside their horses, staring at her and the emerging women, staring at the Waygate, muttering among themselves. The only bareheaded man among them, a tall, dark-faced, hook-nosed fellow standing with a gilded-and-painted helmet on his hip, looked astonished at what he was seeing. There were women with the soldiers, too. Two wore plain, dark gray dresses and wide silver collars, and stood staring intently at those coming out of the Waygate, each with another woman close behind her as if ready to speak into her ear. Two other women, standing a little apart, wore wide, divided skirts that came well short of their ankles, and panels embroidered with forked lightning bolts on their bosoms and skirts. Oddest of all was the last woman, reclining on a palanquin borne by eight muscular, bare-chested men in baggy black trousers. The sides of her scalp were shaved so that only a wide crest of black hair remained to fall down her back. A long, cream-colored robe worked in flowers and birds on blue ovals was carefully arranged to show her skirts of pleated white, and her fingernails were a good inch long, the first two on each hand lacquered blue.
“Liandrin Sedai,” Egwene asked uneasily, “do you know who these people are?” Her friends fingered their reins as if wondering whether to mount and run, but Liandrin replaced the Avendesora leaf and stepped forward confidently as the Waygate began to close.
“The High Lady Suroth?”
Liandrin said, making it halfway between a question and statement.
The women on the palanquin nodded fractionally. “You are Liandrin.” Her speech was slurred, and it took Egwene a moment to understand. “Aes Sedai,” Suroth added with a twist to her lips, and a murmur rose among the soldiers. “We must be done here quickly, Liandrin. There are patrols, and it would not do to be found. You would enjoy the attentions of the Seekers for Truth no more than I. I mean to be back in Falme before Turak knows I am gone.”
“What are you talking about?” Nynaeve demanded. “What is she talking about, Liandrin?”
Liandrin laid a hand on Nynaeve’s shoulder and one on Egwene’s. “These are the two of whom you were told. And there is another.” She nodded toward Elayne. “She is the Daughter-Heir of Andor.”