Knife of Dreams (The Wheel of Time 11)

"If you're going to fondle one another," Demandred growled, "do it in private."

"Jealous?" Aran'gar murmured, and laughed lightly at his scowl. "Where is the girl kept, Mesaana? She didn't say."

Mesaana's big blue eyes narrowed. They were her best feature, yet only ordinary when she frowned. "Why do you want to know? So you can 'rescue' her yourself? I won't tell you."

Graendal hissed, and Aran'gar realized that her hand had become a fist in that golden hair, bending Graendal's head back. The other woman's face remained tranquil, but her gown was a red mist and rapidly growing darker, more opaque. Aran'gar loosened her grip, holding on lightly. One of the first steps was making your quarry accustomed to your touch. She did nothing to keep the anger from her voice this time, however. Her bared teeth were an undisguised snarl. "I want the girl, Mesaana. Without her, I have much weaker tools to work with."

Mesaana sipped wine calmly before responding. Calmly! "By your own account, you don't need her at all. It has been my plan from the start, Aran'gar. I will adapt it according to need, but it is mine. And I will decide when and where the girl is set free."

"No, Mesaana, I will decide when and where, or whether, she is freed," Moridin announced, striding through the stone arch. So he had set ears in place. He was in unrelieved black this time, a black somehow darker than what Semirhage wore. As usual. Moghedien and Cyndane followed him, both attired in identical red-and-black that suited neither. What hold did he have on them? Moghedien, at least, had never willingly followed anyone. As for that beautiful, bosomy little pale-haired doll Cyndane. . . . Aran'gar had approached her, just to see what might be learned, and the girl had coldly threatened to rip her heart out if Aran'gar touched her again. Hardly the words of someone who submitted easily.

"Sammael appears to have resurfaced," Moridin announced, crossing the floor to take a seat. He was a big man, and he made the ornate high-backed chair seem a throne. Moghedien and Cyndane sat down to either side of him, but interestingly, not until he had. Zomaran in snowy white were there instantly with wine, yet Moridin received his first. Whatever was at work there, the zomaran sensed it.

"That hardly seems possible," Graendal said as they all moved to take chairs. Her gown was dark gray now, concealing everything. "He must be dead." No one moved quickly, though. Moridin was Nae'blis, yet no one except Moghedien and Cyndane was willing to display any hint of subservience. Aran'gar certainly was not.

She took a seat across from Moridin, where she could watch him without seeming to. And Moghedien and Cyndane. Moghedien was so still she would have faded into the chair except for her bright dress. Cyndane was a queen, her face chiseled from ice. Trying to pull down the Nae'blis was dangerous, yet those two might hold the key. If she could figure out how to turn it. Graendal sat down beside her, and the chair was suddenly closer. Aran'gar could have laid her hand on the other woman's wrist but refrained from anything more than a slow smile. It was best to keep her mind centered right then.

"He could never have borne staying hidden this long,” Demandred put in, lounging into his chair between Semirhage and Mesaana, legs crossed as though perfectly at ease. That seemed doubtful. He was another who was unreconciled, she was sure. "Sammael needed to have every eye directed at him."

"Nevertheless, Sammael, or someone disguised as him, gave orders to Myrddraal, and they obeyed, so it was one of the Chosen." Moridin scanned around the chairs as though he could detect who it had been. Black saa trickled across his blue

eyes in a continuous stream. She had no regrets that the True Power was limited to his use alone, now. The price was much too high. Ishamael had certainly been at least half insane, and he still was as Moridin. How long before she could remove him?

"Are you going to tell us what these orders were?” Semirhage's tone was cool, and she sipped her wine calmly, watching Moridin over the goblet's rim. She sat very erect, but she always did. She too appeared completely at ease, yet that was unlikely.

Moridin's jaw tightened. "I don't know.'' he said at last, reluctantly. He never liked saying that. "But they sent a hundred Myrddraal and thousands of Trollocs into the Ways."

"That sounds like Sammael," Demandred said thoughtfully, twisting his goblet and studying the swirling wine. "Perhaps I was mistaken." A remarkable admission, coming from him. Or an attempt to hide being the one who had worn Sammael as a disguise. She would like very much to know who had begun playing her own game. Or whether Sammael really was alive.

Moridin grunted sourly. "Pass orders to your Friends of the Dark. Any report of Trollocs or Myrddraal outside the Blight is to be handed to me as soon as you receive it. The Time of Return is coming soon. No one is allowed to go adventuring on their own any longer." He studied them again, each in turn save for Moghedien and Cyndane. With a smile even more languorous than Graendal's, Aran'gar met his gaze. Mesaana shrank back from it.

"As you learned to your sorrow," he told Mesaana, and impossible as it seemed, her face went paler still. She took a long drink from her goblet, her teeth clicking on the crystal. Semirhage and Demandred avoided looking at her.

Aran'gar exchanged looks with Graendal. Something had been done to punish Mesaana's failure to appear at Shadar Logoth, but what? Once, dereliction on that scale would have meant death. They were too few for that, now. Cyndane and Moghedien appeared as curious as she was, so they did not know either.

"We can see the signs as clearly as you, Moridin," Demandred said irritably. "The Time is near. We need to find the rest of the seals on the Great Lord's prison. I've had my followers searching everywhere, but they've found nothing.''

"Ah, yes. The seals. Indeed, they must be found." Moridin's smile was almost complacent. "Only three remain, all in al'Thor's possession, though I doubt he has them with him. They're too susceptible to breaking, now. He will have hidden them. Direct your people to places he has been. Search them yourselves."

"The easiest way is to kidnap Lews Therin." In strong contrast to her ice-maiden appearance, Cyndane's voice was breathy and sultry, a voice made for lying on soft pillows wearing very little. There was considerable heat in those big blue eyes, now. A searing heat. "I can make him tell where the seals are."

"No!" Moridin snapped, fixing her with a steady stare. "You would 'accidentally' kill him. The time and manner of al'Thor's death will be at my choosing. No one else." Strangely, he put his free hand to the breast of his coat, and Cyndane flinched. Moghedien shivered. "No one else," he repeated, in a hard voice.

"No one else," Cyndane said. When he lowered his hand, she exhaled softly then took a swallow of wine. Sweat glistened on her forehead.

Aran'gar found the exchange illuminating. It seemed that once she had disposed of Moridin, she would have Moghedien and the girl on leashes. Very good, indeed.

Moridin straightened himself in his chair, directing that stare at the rest of them. "That goes for all of you. Al'Thor is mine. You will not harm him in any way!" Cyndane bent her head over her goblet, sipping, but the hatred in her eyes was plain. Graendal had said she was not Lanfear, that she was weaker in the One Power, but she surely was fixated on al'Thor, and she called him by the same name Lanfear had always used.

"If you want to kill someone," he went on. "kill these two!" Suddenly the semblances of two young men in rough country clothes stood in the center of the circle, turning so that everyone could get a good look at their faces. One was tall and wide, with yellow eyes, of all things, while the other was not quite slender and wore a cheeky grin. Creations of Tel’aran'rhiod, they moved stiffly and their expressions never altered. "Perrin Aybara and Mat Cauthon are ta'veren, easily found. Find them, and kill them."

Graendal laughed, a mirthless sound. "Finding ta'veren was never as simple as you made out, and now it's harder than ever. The whole Pattern is in flux, full of shifts and spikes."

"Perrin Aybara and Mat Cauthon," Semirhage murmured, inspecting the two shapes. "So that is what they look like. Who knows, Moridin. If you had shared this with us before now, they might already have been dead."

Moridin's fist came down hard on the arm of his chair. "Find them! Make doubly sure that your followers know their faces. Find Aybara and Cauthon and kill them! The Time is coming, and they must be dead!"

Aran'gar took a sip of her wine. She had no objections to killing these two if she happened to come across them, but Moridin was going to be terribly disappointed over Rand al'Thor.