“It is time, Rhuarc.” Mat could not tell from which of the Aiel that came, but Rhuarc nodded.
“Yes, Gaul.” He looked from Mat to Sandar and back. “Do not give the armcry.” He turned away, and in two steps he had blended into the night.
Mat gave a start. The other Aiel were gone, too, leaving him alone with the thief-taker. Unless they left somebody to watch us. Burn me, how could I tell if they did? “I hope you don’t mean to try stopping me, either,” he told Sandar as he slung the bundle of fireworks on his back again and picked up his quarterstaff. “I mean to go inside, by you or through you, one way or the other.” He went over to the chimney to pick up the tin box; the wire handle was more than warm, now.
“These friends of yours,” Sandar said. “They are three women?”
Mat frowned at him, wishing there was enough light to show the man’s face clearly. The fellow’s voice sounded odd. “What do you know of them?”
“I know they are inside the Stone. And I know a small gate near the river where a thief-catcher can gain entrance with a prisoner, to take him to the cells. The cells where they must be. If you will trust me, gambler, I can take us that far. What happens after that is up to chance. Perhaps your luck will bring us out again alive.”
“I have always been lucky,” Mat said slowly. Do I feel lucky enough to trust him? He did not much like the idea of pretending to be a prisoner; it seemed too easy for pretense to become reality. But it seemed no bigger risk than trying to climb three hundred feet or more straight up in the dark.
He glanced toward the city wall, and stared. Shadows flowed along it; dim shapes trotting. Aiel, he was sure. There must have been over a hundred. They vanished, but now he could make out shadows moving on the cliff face that was the sheer side of the Stone of Tear. So much for going up that way. That one fellow earlier might have made it inside without raising an alarm—Rhuarc’s armcry—but a hundred or more Aiel would have to be like sounding bells. They might make a diversion, though. If they caused a commotion somewhere up there, inside the Stone, then whoever was guarding the cells might not pay as much attention to a thief-taker bringing a thief.
I might as well add a little to the confusion. I worked hard enough on it. “Very well, thief-taker. Just don’t decide I am a real prisoner at the last minute. We can start for your gate as soon as I stir the anthill a bit.” He thought Sandar frowned, but he did not mean to tell the man more than he had to.
Sandar followed him across the rooftops, climbing to higher levels as easily as he did. The last roof was only a little lower than the top of the wall and ran right up to it, a matter of pulling himself up rather than climbing.
“What are you doing?” Sandar whispered.
“Wait here for me.”
With the tin box dangling from one hand by its wire handle and his quarterstaff held horizontally in front of him, Mat took a deep breath and started toward the Stone. He tried not to think of how far it was to the pavement below. Light, the bloody thing is three feet wide! I could walk it with a bloody blindfold, in my sleep! Three feet wide, in the dark, and better than fifty feet to the pavement. He tried not to think about Sandar not being there when he came back, either. He was all but committed to this fool notion of pretending to be a thief caught by the man, but it seemed all too probable that he would return to the roof to find Sandar gone, maybe bringing more men to make him a prisoner in truth. Don’t think about it. Just do the job at hand. At least I’ll finally see what it is like.
As he had suspected, there was an arrowslit in the wall of the Stone right at the end of the wall, a deep wedge cut into the rock holding a tall, narrow opening for an archer to shoot through. If the Stone were attacked, the soldiers inside would want some way to stop any trying to follow this path. The slit was dark, now. There did not appear to be anyone watching. That was something he had tried not to think about, too.
Quickly he set down the tin box at his feet, balanced his quarterstaff across the wall right against the side of the Stone, and unslung the bundle from his back. Hurriedly he wedged it into the slit, forcing it in as far as he could; he wanted a
s much of the noise to be inside as he could manage. Pulling aside a corner of the oiled cloth cover revealed knotted fuses. After a little thinking, back in his room, he had cut the longer fuses to match the shortest, using the pieces to help tie all the fuses together. It seemed they should all go off at once, and a bang-and-flash like that should be enough to pull everyone who was not completely deaf.
The lid of the tin box was hot enough that he had to blow on his fingers twice before he could pry it off—he wished he had whatever Aludra’s trick had been, lighting that lantern so easily—to expose the dark bit of charcoal inside, lying on a bed of sand. The wire handle came off to make tongs, and a little blowing had the coal glowing red again. He touched the hot coal to the knotted fuses, let tongs and coal fall over the side of the wall as the fuses hissed into flame, snatched up his quarterstaff and darted back along the wall.
This is crazy, he thought as he ran. I don’t care how big a bang it makes. I could break my fool neck doing thi—!
The roar behind him was louder than anything he had ever heard in his life; a monstrous fist punched him in the back, knocking all the wind out of him even before he landed, sprawled on his belly on the wall top, barely holding on to his staff as it swung over the edge. For a moment he lay there, trying to make his lungs work again, trying not to think how he must have used up all his luck this time by not falling off the wall. His ears rang like all the bells in Tar Valon.
Pushing himself up carefully, he looked back toward the Stone. A cloud of smoke hung around the arrowslit. Behind the smoke, the shadowed shape of the arrowslit itself seemed different. Larger. He did not understand how or why, but it did seem larger.
He only thought for a moment. At one end of the wall Sandar might be waiting, might be intending to take him into the Stone as a pretend prisoner—or might be hurrying back with soldiers. At the other end of the wall, there might be a way inside without any chance of Sandar betraying him. He darted back the way he had just come, no longer worrying about the darkness or the drop to either side.
The arrowslit was larger, most of the thinner stone at the middle simply gone, leaving a rough hole as if someone had hammered at it with a sledge for hours. A hole just big enough for a man. How in the Light? There was no time for wondering.
He pushed through the jagged opening, coughing at the acrid smoke, jumped to the floor inside, and had run a dozen steps before Defenders of the Stone appeared, at least ten of them, all shouting in confusion. Most wore only their shirts, and none had helmet or breastplate. Some carried lanterns. Some held bared swords.
Fool! he shouted inside his head. This is why you set the bloody things off in the first place! Light-blinded fool!
He had no time to make it back out onto the wall. Quarterstaff spinning, he threw himself at the soldiers before they had a chance to do more than see he was there, hurled himself into them, smashing at heads, swords, knees, whatever he could reach, knowing they were too many for him to handle alone, knowing that his fool toss of the dice had cost Egwene and the others whatever chance he might have had.
Suddenly Sandar was there beside him, in the light of lanterns dropped by men clawing for their swords, his slender staff whirling even faster than Mat’s quarterstaff. Caught between two staffmen, taken by surprise, the soldiers went down like pins in a game of bowls.
Sandar stared at the fallen men, shaking his head. “Defenders of the Stone. I have attacked Defenders! They will have my head for—! What was it that you did, gambler? That flash of light, and thunder, breaking stone. Did you call lightning?” His voice fell to a whisper. “Have I joined myself to a man who can channel?”
“Fireworks,” Mat said curtly. His ears were still ringing, but he could hear more boots coming, running boots thudding on stone. “The cells, man! Show me the way to the cells before any more get here!”
Sandar shook himself. “This way!” He dashed down a side hall, away from the oncoming boots. “We must hurry! They will kill us if they find us!” Somewhere above, gongs began to sound an alarm, and more thundered echoes through the Stone.
I’m coming, Mat thought as he ran after the thief-taker. I’ll get you out or die! I promise it!