Towers of Midnight (The Wheel of Time 13)

Thom let out a whoop. "Mat, you wood-headed shepherd! For this, I'll let you play my harp!"

"I don't want to play your bloody harp," Mat said, glancing over his shoulder. "But you can buy me a mug or two when we're out."

He heard screams and screeches from the dark room. That was one trick used up; they would be expecting nightflowers now. Birgitte, you were right, he thought. You probably walked past the corridor you needed several times, never knowing it was only a few feet away.

Never choose the card a man wants you to. Mat should have realized that. It was one of the oldest cons in creation. They hastened fotward, passing five-sided doorways leading into large star-shaped caverns. Thom and Noal glanced into them, but Mat kept on. Straight forward. This was the way his luck had sent them.

Something was different from when he had visited before. There was no dust on the floot to make footprints. Had they known he was coming, and used the dust to confuse him? Or had they cleaned the place this time, knowing that visitots might arrive? Who knew in a realm such as this?

It had been a long walk before. Or had it been a short one? Time blended here. It seemed that they tan for many hours, yet it also felt like moments.

And then the doorway was in front of them, appearing like a striking adder. It had not been there a moment before. The rim of the opening was intricately carved wood, with an impossible pattern of weaving vines that seemed to double back on one another and make no sense.

All three pulled to a halt. "Mirrors," Noal said. "I've seen it before. That's how they do it, obscuring things with mirrors." He sounded unnerved. Where did one hide mirrors in a bloody straight tunnel?

They were in the right place; Mat could smell it. The stink of the Eelfinn was strongest here. He set his jaw and stepped through the doorway.

The room beyond was as he remembered it. No columns here, though the room was distinctly star-shaped. Eight tips and only the one doorway. Those glowing yellow strips ran up the shatp ends of the room, and eight empty pedestals stood, black and ominous, one at each point.

It was exactly the same. Except for the woman floating at its center.

She was clothed only in a fine white mist that shifted and shone around her, the details of her figure obfuscated but not hidden. Her eyes were closed, and her dark hair curly but no longer in perfect ringlets fluttered as if in a wind blowing up from beneath. Her hands rested atop her stomach, and there was a strange bracelet of something that looked like aged ivory on her left wrist.

Moiraine.

Mat felt a surge of emotions. Worry, frustration, concern, awe. She was the one who had started this all. He had hated her at times. He also owed her his life. She was the first one who had meddled, yanking him this way and that. Yet looking back he figured that she had been the most honest about it of anyone who had used him. Unapologetic, unyielding. And selfless.

She had dedicated everything to protecting three foolish boys, all ignorant of what the world would demand of them. She had determined to take them to safety. Maybe train them a little, whether they wanted it or not.

Because they needed it.

Light, her motives seemed clear to him now. That did not make him any less angry with her, but it did make him grateful. Burn her, but this was a confusing set of emotions! Those bloody foxes how dare they keep her like this! Was she alive?

Thom and Noal were staring Noal solemn, Thom disbelieving. So Mat stepped forward to pull Moiraine free. As soon as his hands touched the mist, however, he felt a blazing pain. He screamed, pulling back, shaking his hand.

"It's bloody hot" Mat said. "It- "

He cut off as Thom stepped forward.

"Thom . . ." Mat said warningly.

"I don't care," the gleeman said. He stepped up to the mist, reaching in, his clothing beginning to steam, his eyes watering from the pain. He did not flinch. He dug into that mist and took hold of her, then pulled her free. Her weight sank into his arms, but his aging limbs were strong, and she looked frail enough that she must not have weighed much.

Light! Mat had forgotten how small she was. A good head shorter than he was. Thom knelt, pulling off his gleeman's cloak and wrapping her in it. Her eyes were still closed.

"Is she . . ." Noal asked.

"She lives," Thom said quietly. "I felt her heartbeat." He took the btacelet off her arm. It was in the shape of a man bent backward with his wrists bound to his ankles, clothed in a strange suit of clothing. "It looks like a ter'angreal of some sort," Thom said, tucking it into his cloak pocket. "I "

"It is an angreal" a voice proclaimed. "Strong enough to be nearly sa'angreal. It can be part of her price, should you wish to pay it."

Mat spun. The pedestals were now occupied by Eelfinn, four males, four females. All eight wore white instead of black white skirts with straps across the chests for the males and blouses for the females, made from that disturbing pale substance that looked like skin.

"Mark your tongues," Mat said to Thom and Noal, trying to contain his worry. "Speak amiss, and they'll have you strung up, claiming it was your own desire. Ask nothing of them."

The other two fell silent, Thom holding Moiraine close, Noal carrying his torch and staff warily, pack over his shoulder.

"This is the great hall," Mat said to the Eelfinn. "The place called the Chamber of Bonds. You must abide by the pacts you make here."