"Better than trying to play that blasted flute," Mat grumbled. "Never was very good at that. Rand took to it right fine, though, didn't he?"
Colors swirled in Mat's head, resolving to an image of Rand, sitting alone in a room by himself. He sat splay-legged in a richly embroidered shirt, a coat of black and red tossed aside and crumpled next to the log wall beside him. Rand had one hand to his forehead as if trying to squeeze away the pain of a headache. His other was . . .
That arm ended in a stump. The first time Mat had seen that—a few weeks back—it had shocked him. How had Rand lost the hand? The man barely seemed alive, propped up like that, unmoving. Though his lips did seem to be moving, mumbling or muttering. Light! Mat thought. Burn you, what are you doing to yourself?
Well, at least Mat wasn't near him. Count your fortunes in that, Mat told himself. Life hadn't been so easy lately, but he could have been stuck near Rand. Sure, Rand was a friend. But Mat didn't mean to be there when Rand went insane and killed everyone he knew. There was friendship, and then there was stupidity. They'd fight together at the Last Battle, of course, no helping that. Mat just hoped to be on the other side of that battlefield from any saidin-wielding madmen.
"Ah, Rand," Thorn said. "That boy could have made a life for himself as a gleeman, I warrant. Maybe even a proper bard, if he'd started when he was younger."
Mat shook his head, dispelling the vision. Burn you, Rand. Leave me alone,
"Those were better days, weren't they, Mat?" Thorn smiled. "The three of us, traveling down the river Arinelle."
"Myrddraal chasing us for reasons unknown," Mat added grimly. Those days hadn't been so easy either. "Darkfriends trying to stab us in the back every time we turned around."
"Better than gholam and Forsaken trying to kill us."
"That's like saying you're grateful to have a noose around your neck instead of a sword in your gut."
"At least you can escape the noose, Mat." Thorn knuckled his long, white mustache. "Once the sword is stuck into you, there's not much you can do about it."
Mat hesitated, then found himself laughing. He rubbed at the scarf around his neck. "I suppose you're right at that, Thom. I suppose you're right. Well, for today why don't we forget about all of that? We'll go back and pretend things are like they once were!"
"I don't know if that's possible, lad."
"Sure it is," Mat said stubbornly.
"Oh?" Thom asked, amused. "You're going to go back to thinking that old Thom Merrilin is the wisest, most well traveled man you've ever known? You'll play the gawking peasant again, clinging to my coat every time we pass a village with more than one inn in it?"
"Here now. I wasn't so bad as all that."
"I hasten to differ, Mat," Thom said, chuckling.
"I don't remember much." Mat scratched at his head again. "But I do recall that Rand and I did right well for ourselves after we split up with you. We made it to Caemlyn, at least. Brought your flaming harp back to you unharmed, didn't we?"
"I noticed a few nicks in the frame. . . ."
"Burn you, none of that!" Mat said, pointing at him. "Rand practically slept with that harp. Wouldn't think of selling it, even when we were so hungry we'd have gnawed on our own boots if we hadn't needed them to get to the next town." Those days were fuzzy to Mat, full of holes, like an iron bucket left too long to rust. But he had pieced together some things.
Thom chuckled. "We can't go back, Mat. The Wheel has turned, for better or worse. And it will keep on turning, as lights die and forests dim, storms call and skies break. Turn it will. The Wheel is not hope, and the Wheel does not care, the Wheel simply is. But so long as it turns, folk may hope, folk may care. For with light that fades, another will eventually grow, and each storm that rages must eventually die. As long as the Wheel turns. As long as it turns. ..."
Mat guided Pips around a particularly deep cleft in the broken roadway. Ahead, Talmanes chatted with several of their guards. "That has the sound of a song about it, Thom."
"Aye," Thom said, almost with a sigh. "An old one, forgotten by most. I've discovered three versions of it, all with the same words, set to different tunes. I guess the area has me thinking of it; it's said that Dor-eille herself penned the original poem."
"The area?" Mat said with surprise, glancing at the three-needle pines.
Thom nodded, thoughtful. "This road is old, Mat. Ancient. Probably was here before the Breaking. Landmarks like this have a tendency to find their way into songs and stories. I think this area is what was once called the Splintered Hills. If that's true, then we're in what was once Coremanda, right near the Eagle's Reaches. I bet you if we climbed a few of those taller hills, we'd find old fortifications."
"And what does that have to do with Doreille?" Mat asked, uncomfortably. She'd been Queen of Aridhol.
"She visited here," Thorn said. "Penned several of her finest poems in the Eagle's Reaches."
Burn me, Mat thought. I remember. He remembered standing on the walls of a high fort, cold on the mountaintop, looking down at a long, twisting roadway, broken and shattered, and an army of men with violet pennants charging up the hillside into a rain of arrows. The Splintered Hills. A woman on the balcony. The Queen herself.
He shivered, banishing the memory. Aridhol had been one of the ancient nations that had stood long ago, when Manetheren had been a power. The capital of Aridhol had another name. Shadar Logoth.
Mat hadn't felt the pull of the ruby dagger in a very long time. He was nearly beginning to forget what it had been like to be tied to it, if it was possible to forget such a thing. But sometimes he remembered that ruby, red like his own blood. And the old lust, the old desire, would seep into him again . . .