Lord of Chaos (The Wheel of Time 6)

They made their goodbyes — a careful bow of the head, as between equals, and at that more than when they arrived — but as they turned to go, Rand caught Dyelin’s sleeve. “I have a question for you.” The others paused, half turning back. “A private question.” After a moment she nodded, and her companions moved a little way down the throne room. They watched closely, but they were not near enough to hear. “You looked at me . . . strangely,” he said. You and every other noble I’ve met in Caemlyn. Every Andoran noble, at least. “Why?”

Dyelin peered up at him, then finally nodded slightly to herself. “What is your mother’s name?”

Rand blinked. “My mother?” Kari al’Thor was his mother. That was how he thought of her; she had raised him from infancy, until she died. But he decided to give her the cold truth he had learned in the Waste. “My mother’s name was Shaiel. She was a Maiden of the Spear. My father was Janduin, clan chief of the Taardad Aiel.” Her eyebrows rose doubtfully. “I will swear it on any oath you choose. What does that have to do with what I want to know? They’re both long dead.”

Relief crept across her face. “A chance resemblance, it seems; no more. I do not mean to say you don’t know your parents, but you have the west of Andor on your tongue.”

“A resemblance? I grew up in the Two Rivers, but my parents were as I said. Who do I look like to make you stare at me?”

She hesitated, then sighed. “I do not suppose it matters. Someday you must tell me how you had Aiel parents yet were raised in Andor. Twenty-five years ago, more now, the Daughter-Heir of Andor vanished in the night. Her name was Tigraine. She left behind a husband, Taringail, and a son, Galad. I know it is only chance, yet I see Tigraine in your face. It was a shock.”

Rand felt a shock of his own. He felt cold. Fragments of the tale the Wise Ones had told him spun through his head . . . a golden-haired young wetlander, in silks . . . son she loved; a husband she did not . . . Shaiel was the name she t

ook. She never gave another . . . You have something of her in your features. “How was it that Tigraine vanished? I have an interest in the history of Andor.”

“I will thank you not to call it history, my Lord Dragon. I was a girl when it happened, but more than a child, and here in the Palace often. One morning, Tigraine simply was not in the Palace, and she was never seen again. Some claimed to see Taringail’s hand in it, but he was half-mad with grief. Taringail Damodred wanted more than anything else in the world to see his daughter Queen of Andor and his son King of Cairhien. He was Cairhienin, Taringail. That marriage was meant to stop the wars with Cairhien, and it did, yet Tigraine vanishing made them think Andor wanted to break the treaty, which led them to scheme the way Cairhienin do, which led to Laman’s Pride. And you of course know where that led,” she added dryly. “My father said Gitara Sedai was really at fault.”

“Gitara?” A wonder he did not sound strangled. He had heard that name more than once. It had been an Aes Sedai named Gitara Moroso, a woman with the Foretelling, who announced that the Dragon had been Reborn on the slopes of Dragonmount, and so set Moiraine and Siuan on their long search. It had been Gitara Moroso who years before that told “Shaiel” that unless she fled to the Waste, telling no one, and became a Maiden of the Spear, disaster would fall on Andor and the world.

Dyelin nodded, a touch impatiently. “Gitara was counselor to Queen Mordrellen,” she said briskly, “but she spent more time with Tigraine and Luc, Tigraine’s brother, than with the Queen. After Luc rode north, never to return, whispers said Gitara had convinced him that his fame lay in the Blight, or his fate. Others said it was that he would find the Dragon Reborn there, or that the Last Battle depended on him going. That was about a year before Tigraine disappeared. Myself, I doubt Gitara had anything to do with it, or with Luc. She stayed the Queen’s counselor until Mordrellen died. From heartbreak over Tigraine on top of Luc, so it was said. Which began the Succession, of course.” She glanced toward the others, who were shifting their feet and frowning with suspicion and impatience, but she could not resist adding one more thing. “You would have found a different Andor, without that. Tigraine queen, Morgase only High Seat of House Trakand, Elayne not born at all. Morgase married Taringail once she had the throne, you see. Who can say what else would be changed?”

Watching her join the others and go, he thought of one thing that would have changed. He would not be in Andor, for he would not have been born. Everything folded back into itself, in endless circles. Tigraine went to the Waste in secret, which made Laman Damodred cut down Avendoraldera, a gift of the Aiel, to make a throne, an act which brought the Aiel across the Spine of the World to kill him — that had been their only goal, though the nations called it the Aiel War — and with the Aiel came a Maiden named Shaiel, who died giving birth. So many lives changed, lives ended, so she could give birth to him at the proper time and place and die doing it. Kari al’Thor was the mother he remembered, if dimly, yet he wished he could have known Tigraine or Shaiel or whatever she wanted to call herself, even if only for a little while. Just to have seen her.

Useless dreaming. She was long dead. It was over and done. So why did it still nag at him?

The Wheel of Time and the wheel of a man’s life turn alike without pity or mercy, Lews Therin murmured.

Are you really there? Rand thought. If there’s more than a voice and a few old memories, answer me! Are you there? Silence. He could use Moiraine’s advice now, or somebody’s.

Abruptly he realized he was staring at the white marble wall of the Grand Hall, staring just north of west. Toward Alanna. She was away from Culain’s Hound. No! Burn her! He would not replace Moiraine with a woman who would ambush him that way. He could not trust any woman touched by the Tower. Except three. Elayne, Nynaeve and Egwene. He hoped he could trust them. If only just a little.

For some reason he looked up at the great vaulted ceiling, with its colored windows depicting battles and queens, alternating with the White Lion. Those more than life-size women seemed to stare at him, in disapproval, wondering what he was doing there. Imagination, of course, but why? Because he had learned about Tigraine? Imagination, or madness?

“Someone has come I think you should see,” Bashere said at his elbow, and Rand jerked away from the women overhead. Had he really been glaring back at them? Bashere had one of his horsemen with him, a taller fellow — not hard to be, beside Bashere — with a dark beard and mustaches, his tilted eyes green.

“Not unless it’s Elayne,” Rand said, more harshly than he meant, “or somebody with proof the Dark One is dead. I am going to Cairhien this morning.” He had had no such intention until the words left his mouth. Egwene was there. And the queens overhead were not. “It’s been weeks since I was there last. If I don’t keep an eye on them, some lord or lady will claim the Sun Throne behind my back.” Bashere looked at him strangely. He was explaining too much.

“As you say, but you will want to see this man first. He says he comes from Lord Brend, and I think he speaks truth.” The Aiel were on their feet in the instant; they knew who used that name.

For Rand’s part, he stared at Bashere in surprise. The last thing he expected was an emissary from Sammael. “Bring him in.”

“Hamad,” Bashere said with a jerk of his head, and the younger Saldaean trotted away.

A few minutes later Hamad returned with a knot of Saldaeans warily guarding a fellow in their midst. At first glance nothing about the man accounted for their caution. With no weapon visible, he wore a long gray coat with a raised collar, and a curly beard but no mustache, both in the Illianer fashion. He had a stub of a nose and a wide, grinning mouth. As he came closer, though, Rand realized that grin never altered by a hair. The man’s whole face seemed frozen in that one mirthful expression. By contrast, his dark eyes stared out of that mask, swimming with fear.

At ten paces, Bashere raised his hand, and the guard halted. The Illianer, staring at Rand, did not seem to notice until Hamad presented a sword point to his chest, making him stop or be run through. He only glanced at the slightly serpentine blade, then returned to staring at Rand with those terrified eyes in that grinning face. His hands hung at his sides, twitching as much as his face was still.

Rand started to close the distance, but abruptly Sulin and Urien were there, not exactly blocking his way, yet positioned so that he would have to push between them.

“I wonder what has been done to him?” Sulin said, studying the fellow. A number of Maidens and Red Shields had come out from the columns, some even veiled. “If he is not Shadowspawn, he is touched by the Shadow.”

“One like that might do things we cannot know,” Urien said. He was one of those with a scarlet strip of cloth around his temples. “Kill with a touch, perhaps. A pretty message that would be to send an enemy.”

Neither looked at Rand, not directly, but he nodded. Perhaps they were right. “How are you called?” he asked. Sulin and Urien moved a step to either side when they saw he would stay where he was.

“I do come from . . . from Sammael,” the man said woodenly through that grin. “I do bring a message for . . . for the Dragon Reborn. For you.”

Well, that was direct enough. Was he a Darkfriend, or just some poor soul Sammael had trapped in one of the nastier weavings Asmodean had talked about? “What message?” Rand said.