The Shadow Rising (The Wheel of Time 4)

Despite her denials, despite her pleas, Bethamin could channel. Could other sul’dam? Was that why the High Lady Suroth wanted those left behind at Falme killed? It was unthinkable. It was impossible. The yearly testings all across Seanchan found every girl who had the spark of channeling in her: each was struck from the rolls of citizens, struck from family records, taken away to become collared damane. The same testings found the girls who could learn to wear the bracelet of the sul’dam. No woman escaped being tested each year until she was old enough that she would have begun channeling if the spark was there. How could even one girl be taken for sul’dam when she was damane? Yet there Bethamin was in the basement, held by an a’dam as by an anchor.

One thing was certain. The possibilities here were potentially deadly. This involved the Blood, and Seekers. Maybe even the Crystal Throne. Would the High Lady Suroth dare keep knowledge of this sort from the Empress? A mere ship captain could die screaming for a misplaced frown in that company, or find herself property for a whim. She had to know more if she hoped to avoid the Death of Ten Thousand Tears. To begin with, that meant spreading more money to Gelb and other ferrety skulkers like him, finding more sul’dam and seeing if a’dam held them. Beyond that … . Beyond that she was sailing uncharted reefs with no linesman in the bow.

Touching the crossbow, still lying there with its lethal bolt, she realized that something else was certain. She was not going to let the Seekers kill her. Not just to help the High Lady Suroth keep a secret. Perhaps not for any reason. It was a thought shiveringly close to treason, but it would not go away.

CHAPTER 39

A Cup of Wine

When Elayne came on deck with her things neatly bundled, the setting sun seemed to be just touching the water out beyond the mouth of Tanchico’s harbor, and the final thick hawsers were being tied to snug Wave-dancer to a ship-lined dock, only one of many along this westernmost peninsula of the city. Some of the crew were furling the last sails. Beyond the long wharves the city rose on hills, shining white, domed and spired, with polished weather vanes glittering. Perhaps a mile north she could make out high, round walls; the Great Circle, if she remembered correctly.

Slinging her bundle on the same shoulder as her leather scrip, she went to join Nynaeve by the gangplank, with Coine and Jorin. It seemed almost odd to see the sisters fully dressed again, in bright brocaded silk blouses that matched their wide trousers. Earrings and even nose rings she had become used to, and the fine gold chain across each woman’s dark cheek hardly made her wince at all now.

Thom and Juilin stood apart with their own bundles, looking a touch sullen. Nynaeve had been right. They had tried to second-guess, starting when the real purpose of this journey, or some of it, was revealed to them two days ago. Neither seemed to think two young women were competent—competent!—to seek the Black Ajah. A threat by Nynaeve to have them transferred to another Sea Folk ship, headed the other way, had nipped that in the bud. At least it had once Toram and a dozen crewmen gathered ready to shove them into a boat to be rowed across. Elayne gave them a searching look. Sullenness meant rebellion; they were going to have more trouble from these two.

“Where will you go now, Coine?” Nynaeve was asking as Elayne reached them.

“To Dantora, and the Aile Jafar,” the Sailmistress replied, “and then on to Cantorin and the Aile Somera, spreading news of the Coramoor, if it pleases the Light. But I must allow Toram to trade here, or he will burst.”

Her husband was down on the docks now, without his strange wire-framed lens, bare-chested and be-ringed, talking earnestly with men in baggy white trousers and coats embroidered with scrollwork on the shoulders. Each Tanchican wore a dark, cylindrical cap, and a transparent veil across his face. The veils looked ridiculous, especially on the men with thick mustaches.

“The Light send you a safe voyage,” Nynaeve said, shifting her bundles on her back. “If we discover any danger here that might threaten you before you sail, we will send word.” Coine and her sister looked remarkably calm. Knowledge of the Black Ajah hardly fazed them; it was the Coramoor, Rand, who was important.

Jorin kissed her fingertips and pressed them to Elayne’s lips. “The Light willing, we shall meet again.”

“The Light willing,” Elayne responded, duplicating the Windfinder’s gesture. It still felt odd, but it was an honor, too, used only between close family members or lovers. She was going to miss the Sea Folk woman. She had learned a great deal, and taught a little, as well. Jorin could certainly weave Fire much better now.

When they reached the foot of the gangplank, Nynaeve heaved a sigh of relief. An oily potion Jorin produced had settled her stomach after two days at sea, but all the same she had been tight-eyed and tight-mouthed until Tanchico came in sight.

The two men bracketed them immediately, without any instructions, Juilin taking the lead with his bundle on his back and his pale, thumb-thick staff held in both hands, dark eyes alert. Thom brought up the rear, somehow managing a dangerous look despite his white hair and his limp and his gleeman’s cloak.

Nynaeve pursed her lips for a moment but said nothing, which Elayne thought wise. Before they had gone fifty paces down the long stone dock she had seen as many slitty-eyed, hungry-faced men studying them, and Tanchicans and others shifting crates and bales and sacks on the dock. She suspected any of them would have been willing to cut her throat in the hope that a silk dress meant money in her purse. They did not frighten her; she could handle any two or three of them, she was sure. But she and Nynaeve had their Great Serpent rings in their pouches, and it would be useless to pretend no connection with the White Tower if she channeled in front of a hundred men. Best if Juilin and Thom looked as fierce as they could. She would not have minded having ten more just like them.

Suddenly there was a roar from the deck of one of the smaller ships. “You! It do be you!” A wide, round-faced man in a green silk coat leaped onto the dock, ignoring Juilin’s raised staff to stare at her and Nynaeve. A beard with no mustache marked him as an Illianer, and so did his accent. He seemed vaguely familiar.

“Master Domon?” Nynaeve said after a moment, giving her braid a sharp tug. “Bayle Domon?”

He nodded. “Aye. I did never think to see you again. I ??? did wait as long as I could in Falme, but the time did come when I must sail or watch my ship burn.”

Elayne knew him now. He had agreed to carry them out of Falme, but chaos had seized that city before they could reach his vessel. That coat said he had done well since.

“A pleasure to see you again,” Nynaeve said coolly, “but if you will excuse us, we must find rooms in the city.”

“That will be hard. Tanchico do burst its caulking. I do know a place where my word may bring something, though. I could no remain longer in Falme, but I do feel I owe you some debt.” Domon paused, frowning with sudden unease. “Your being here. Will the same happen here as in Falme, then?”

“No, Master Domon,” Elayne said when Nynaeve hesitated. “Of course not. And we will be glad to accept your help.”

She half-expected some protest out of Nynaeve, yet the older woman only nodded thoughtfully and made introductions among the men. Thom’s cloak made Domon’s eyebrows rise—for an instant she almost thought it looked as though he recognized the gleeman—but Juilin’s Tairen garb brought a frown that was returned in kind. Neither man said anything, though; perhaps they could keep the animosity between Tear and Illian out of Tanchico. If they could not, she would have to speak firmly with them.

Domon talked of what had happened with him since Falme as he accompanied them down the dock, and he had indeed done well. “A dozen good coasting ships the Panarch’s taxmen do know about,” he laughed, “and four deepwater they do no.”

He could hardly have acquired so many honestly in so short a time. It shocked her to hear him speak so openly on a dock full of men.

“Aye, I do smuggle, and make such profits as I did never believe. A tenth the amount of the excise in the customs men’s pockets do turn their eyes and seal their mouths.”

Two Tanchicans in those veils and round hats strolled past, hands clasped behind their backs. Each wore a heavy brass key dangling from a thick chain about his neck; it had the look of a mark of office. They nodded to Domon in a familiar way. Thom looked amused, but Juilin glared at Domon and the two Tanchicans equally. As a thief-catcher he had a proper dislike of those who flouted the law.

“I do no believe it will last much longer though,” Domon said when the Tanchicans had passed. “Things do be even worse in Arad Doman than here, and it do be bad enough here. Perhaps the Lord Dragon does no Break the World yet, but he did break Arad Doman and Tarabon.”