Towers of Midnight (The Wheel of Time 13)

"Mat . . ."

He tossed them above the table. They came down in a spray, hitting the tabletop. Not a single one of them bounced or rolled from the table onto the floor.

Mat didn't look down at the coins. He met her eyes as they all rolled and vibrated to a stop. She glanced at them. Two dozen coins. Each had landed face up.

"One in a thousand is good odds," he said. "For me."

"Bloody ashes. You're as bad as Elayne! Don't you see? All it takes is one wrong throw. Even you miss once in a while."

"I'll take the chance. Burn me, Birgitte, I know it's stupid, but I'm doing it. How do you know so much about the Tower anyway? You've been into it, haven't you?"

"I have," she admitted.

Mat looked smug. "Well you got back out! How'd you manage it?" She hesitated, then finally took up her mug of milk. "That legend didn't survive, I'm assuming?"

"I don't know it," Mat said.

"I went in to ask them to save the life of my love," she said. "It came after the battle of Lahpoint Hills, where we led the Buchaner rebellion.

Gaidal was wounded horribly; a blow to the head that made him unable to think straight. He forgot who I was, some of the time. It tore my heart, so I took him to the Tower to be Healed."

"And how'd you get out?" Mat asked. "How'd you fool them?"

"I didn't," Bitgitte said softly.

Mat froze.

"The Eelfinn never Healed him," she continued. "They killed us both. I didn't survive, Mat. That is the end of that particular legend."

He fell silent. "Oh," he finally said. "Well, that's kind of a sad story, then."

"They can't all end in victory. Gaidal and I don't deal well with happy endings anyway. Better for us to burn out in glory." She grimaced, remembering one incarnation when she and he had been forced to grow old together, peacefully. Most boring life she'd ever known, though at the time ignorant of her grander part in the Pattern she'd been happy with it.

"Well I'm still going," Mat said.

She sighed. "I can't go with you, Mat. Not and leave Elayne. She has a death wish the size of your pride, and I mean to see she survives."

"I don't expect you to go," Mat said quickly. "Burn me, that's not what I'm asking. And . . ." He frowned. "A death what the size of my what?"

"Never mind," she said, drinking her milk. She had a soft spot for milk, though she didn't tell people of it. Of course, she'd be happy when she could drink again; she missed Old Snert's yeasty drinks. She liked ugly beer as much as she liked ugly men.

"I came to you because I need help," Mat said.

"What more is there to say? You're taking iron, fire, and music. Iron will hurt them, ward them, and hold them. Fire will scare them and kill them. Music will entrance them. But you'll find that both fire and music grow less and less effective the longer you use them.

"The tower isn't a place, it's a portal. A kind of gate to the crossroads between their realms. You'll find both of them there, Aelfinn snakes and Eelfinn foxes. Assuming they're working together currently. They have a strange relationship."

"But what do they want?" Mat asked. "From us, I mean. Why do they care?"

"Emotion," Birgitte said. "That's why they built portals into our world, that's why they entice us in. They feed off what we feel. They like Aes Sedai in particular, for some reason. Perhaps those with the One Power taste like a strong ale."

Mat shivered visibly.

"The inside will be confusing," Birgitte said. "Getting anywhere specific in there is difficult. Going in through the tower instead of the archways put me in danger, but I knew that if I could reach that grand hall, I'd be able to make a deal. You don't get anything free if you go in the tower, by the way. They'll ask for something, something dear to you.

"Anyway, I figured out a method to find the grand hall. Iron dust, left behind me in the intersections where I'd passed so that I knew which ways I'd gone before. They couldn't touch it, you see, and ... are you sure you've never heard this story?"

Mat shook his head.