The wheel of time, p.190
The Wheel of Time, page 190
CHAPTER 39
Flight from the White Tower
Egwene and Elayne inclined their heads briefly to each group of women they passed as they made their way through the Tower. It was a good thing there were so many women from outside in the Tower today, Egwene thought, too many for each to have an Aes Sedai or an Accepted for escort. Alone or in small groups, garbed richly or poorly, in dress from half a dozen different lands, some still dusty from their journey to Tar Valon, they kept to themselves and waited their turn to ask their questions of the Aes Sedai, or present their petitions. Some women—ladies or merchants or merchants’ wives—had female servants with them. Even a few men had come with petitions, standing by themselves, looking unsure about being in the White Tower, and eyeing everyone else uneasily.
In the lead, Nynaeve kept her eyes purposefully ahead, her cloak swirling behind her, walking as if she knew where they were going—which she did, as long as no one stopped them—and had a perfect right to go there—which was a different matter altogether, of course. Dressed now in the clothes they had brought to Tar Valon, they certainly did not look like residents of the Tower. Each had chosen her best dress that had a skirt divided for riding, and cloaks of fine wool rich with embroidery. As long as they kept away from all who might recognize them—they had already dodged several who knew their faces—Egwene thought they might make it.
“This would do better for a turn in some lord’s park than a ride to Toman Head,” Nynaeve had said dryly as Egwene helped her with the buttons of a gray silk with thread-of-gold work and pearled flowers across the bosom and down the sleeves, “but it may allow us to leave unnoticed.”
Now Egwene shifted her cloak and smoothed her own gold-embroidered, green silk dress and glanced at Elayne, in blue slashed with cream, hoping Nynaeve had been right. So far, everyone had taken them for petitioners, nobles, or at least women of wealth, but it seemed that they should stand out. She was surprised to realize why; she felt uncomfortable in the fine dress after wearing a novice’s plain white for the past few months.
A little cluster of village women in stout, dark woolens dropped curtsies as they passed. Egwene glanced back at Min as soon as they were beyond. Min had kept her breeches and baggy man’s shirt under a boy’s brown cloak and coat, with an old, wide-brimmed hat pulled down over her short hair. “One of us has to be the servant,” she had said, laughing. “Women dressed the way you are always have at least one. You’ll wish you had my breeches if we have to run.” She was burdened with four sets of saddlebags bulging with warm clothes, for it would surely be winter before they returned. There were also packets of food pilfered from the kitchens, enough to last until they could buy more.
“Are you sure I can’t carry some of those, Min?” Egwene asked softly.
“They’re just awkward,” Min said with a grin, “not heavy.” She seemed to think it was all a game, or else was pretending to think so. “And people would be sure to wonder why a fine lady such as yourself was carrying her own saddlebags. You can carry yours—and mine, too, if you want—once we—” Her grin vanished, and she whispered fiercely, “Aes Sedai!”
Egwene whipped her eyes forward. An Aes Sedai with long, smooth black hair and aged-ivory skin was coming toward them down the corridor, listening to a woman wearing rough farm clothes and a patched cloak. The Aes Sedai had not seen them yet, but Egwene recognized her; Takima, of the Brown Ajah, who taught the history of the White Tower and Aes Sedai, and who could recognize one of her pupils at a hundred paces.
Nynaeve turned down a side hall without breaking stride, but there one of the Accepted, a lanky woman with a permanent frown, hurried past them hauling a red-faced novice by the ear.
Egwene had to swallow before she could speak. “That was Irella, and Else. Did they notice us?” She could not make herself look back to see.
“No,” Min said after a moment. “All they saw was our clothes.” Egwene let out a long, relieved breath, and heard one from Nynaeve, too.
“My heart may burst before we reach the stables,” Elayne murmured. “Is this what an adventure is like all the time, Egwene? Your heart in your mouth, and your stomach in your feet?”
“I suppose it is,” Egwene said slowly. She found it hard to think that there had been a time when she had been eager to have an adventure, to do something dangerous and exciting like the people in stories. Now she thought the exciting part was what you remembered when you looked back, and the stories left out a good deal of unpleasantness. She told Elayne as much.
“Still,” the Daughter-Heir said firmly, “I have never had any real excitement before, and never likely to as long as Mother has any say in it, which she will until I take the throne myself.”
“You two be quiet,” Nynaeve said. They were alone in the hall for a change, with no one in sight in either direction. She pointed to a narrow flight of stairs going down. “That should be what we want. If I haven’t gotten turned around completely, with all the twists and turns we’ve made.”
She took the stairs as if she were certain anyway, and the others followed. Surely enough, the small door at the bottom let out into the dusty yard of the South Stable, where novices’ horses were kept, for those who had them, until they had need of mounts again, which was generally not until they became Accepted or were sent home. The gleaming bulk of the Tower itself rose behind them; the Tower grounds spread over a good many hides of land, with its own walls higher than some city walls.
Nynaeve strode into the stable as if she owned it. It had a clean smell of hay and horse, and two long rows of stalls ran back into shadows barred with light from the vents above. For a wonder, shaggy Bela and Nynaeve’s gray mare stood in stalls near the doors. Bela put her nose over the stall door and whickered softly to Egwene. There was only one groom in evidence, a pleasant-looking fellow with gray in his beard, chewing a straw.
“We will have our horses saddled,” Nynaeve told him in her most commanding tone. “Those two. Min, find your horse and Elayne’s.” Min dropped the saddlebags and drew Elayne deeper into the stables.
The stableman frowned after them and slowly took the straw from his mouth. “There must be some mistake, my Lady. Those animals—”
“—are ours,” Nynaeve said firmly, folding her arms so that the Serpent ring was obvious. “You will saddle them now.”
Egwene held her breath; it was a last-ditch plan, that Nynaeve would try to pass as an Aes Sedai if they had difficulties with anyone who might actually accept her as one. No Aes Sedai or Accepted would, of course, and probably not even a novice, but a stableman. . . .
The man blinked at Nynaeve’s ring, then at her. “I was told two,” he said at last, sounding unimpressed. “One of the Accepted and a novice. Wasn’t nothing said about four of you.”
Egwene felt like laughing. Of course Liandrin would not have believed them able to get their horses by themselves.
Nynaeve looked disappointed, and her voice sharpened. “You trot those horses out and saddle them, or you’ll have need of Liandrin’s Healing, if she will give it to you.”
The groom mouthed Liandrin’s name, but one look at Nynaeve’s face and he saw to the horses with no more than a mutter or two, not loud enough for any but himself to hear. Min and Elayne came back with their own mounts just as he finished tightening the second girth. Min’s was a tall dust-colored gelding, Elayne’s a bay mare with an arched neck.
When they were mounted, Nynaeve addressed herself to the stableman again. “No doubt you were told to keep this quiet, and that hasn’t changed whether we are two or two hundred. If you think it has, think about what Liandrin will do if you talk what you were told to keep quiet.”
As they were riding out, Elayne tossed him a coin and murmured, “For your trouble, goodman. You have done well.” Outside, she caught Egwene’s eye and smiled. “Mother says a stick and honey always work better than a stick alone.”
“I hope we don’t need either with the guards,” Egwene said. “I hope Liandrin spoke to them, too.”
At Tarlomen’s Gate, though, piercing the tall south wall of the Tower grounds, there was no telling if anyone had spoken to the guards or not. They waved the four women through with no more than a glance and a cursory bow. Guards were meant to keep out those who were dangerous; apparently these had no orders about keeping anyone in.
A cool river breeze gave them an excuse to pull up the hoods of their cloaks as they rode slowly through the streets of the city. The ring of their horses’ hooves on the paving stones was lost in the murmur of the crowds filling the streets and the music that came from some of the buildings they passed. People dressed in garments from every land, from the dark and somber mode of Cairhien to the bright, brilliant colors of the Traveling People, and every style in between, split around the horsewomen like a river around a rock, but they still could not move at more than a slow walk.
Egwene gave no attention to the fabulous towers with their sky-borne bridges or the buildings that looked more like breaking waves, or wind-sculpted cliffs, or fanciful shells, than anything made from stone. Aes Sedai often went into the city, and in that crowd they could come face-to-face with one before they knew it. After a time she realized the other women were keeping as close a watch as she, but she still felt more than a glimmer of relief when the Ogier grove came into view.
The Great Trees were now visible beyond the rooftops, their spreading tops a hundred spans and more in the air. Towering oaks and elms, leatherleafs and firs, were dwarfed beneath them. A wall of sorts encompassed the grove, which was a good two miles across, but it was only an endless series of spiraling stone arches, each five spans high and twice as wide. By the outer side of the wall, carriages, carts, and people bustled along a street, while inside lay a wilderness of sorts. The grove had neither the tame look of a park nor the complete haphazardness of the forest depths. Rather, it seemed to be the ideal of nature, as if this were the perfect woods, the most beautiful forest that could be. Some of the leaves had already begun to turn, and even the small swathes of orange and yellow and red among the green seemed to Egwene to be exactly the way autumn foliage should look.
A few people strolled just inside the open arches, and no one looked twice when the four women rode in under the trees. The city was quickly lost to view, even the sounds of it softened, then blocked, by the grove. In the space of ten strides they seemed to be miles from the nearest town.
“The north edge of the grove, she said,” Nynaeve muttered, peering around. “There isn’t any point of it further north than—” She cut off as two horses burst from a copse of black elder, a dark, glossy mare with a rider and a lightly laden pack horse.
The dark mare reared, pawing the air, as Liandrin reined her harshly. The Aes Sedai’s face wore fury like a mask. “I told you not to tell anyone of this! Not anyone!” Egwene noticed pole-lanterns on the pack horse, and thought it odd.
“These are friends,” Nynaeve began, her back stiffening, but Elayne broke in on her.
“Forgive us, Liandrin Sedai. They did not tell us; we overheard. We did not mean to listen to anything we should not have, but we did overhear. And we want to help Rand al’Thor, too. And the other boys, of course,” she added quickly.
Liandrin peered at Elayne and Min. The late afternoon sunlight, slanting through the branches, shadowed their faces beneath the hoods of their cloaks. “So,” she said finally, still watching those two. “I had made arrangements for you to be taken care of, but as you are here, you are here. Four can make this journey as well as two.”
“Taken care of, Liandrin Sedai?” Elayne said. “I do not understand.”
“Child, you and that other are known as friends of these two. Do you not think there are those who would question you when they are found to be gone? Do you believe the Black Ajah would be gentle with you just because you are heir to a throne? Had you remained in the White Tower, you might not have lived the night.” That silenced them all for a moment, but Liandrin wheeled her horse and called, “Follow me!”
The Aes Sedai led them deeper into the grove, until they came to a tall fence of stout ironwork topped with a hedge of razor-sharp spikes. Curving slightly, as if it enclosed a large area, the fence ran out of sight among the trees to left and right. There was a gate in the fence, secured with a big lock. Liandrin unfastened this with a large key she produced from her cloak, motioned them through, then relocked it behind them and rode on ahead immediately. A squirrel chittered at them from a branch overhead, and from somewhere came the sharp drumming of a woodpecker.
“Where are we going?” Nynaeve demanded. Liandrin did not answer, and Nynaeve looked angrily at the others. “Why are we just riding deeper into these woods? We have to cross a bridge, or else take ship, if we’re going to leave Tar Valon, and there isn’t any bridge or ship in—”
“There is this,” Liandrin announced. “The fence, it keeps away those who might harm themselves, but we have a need this day.” What she gestured to was a tall, thick slab of what seemed to be stone, standing on edge, one side carved intricately in vines and leaves.
Egwene’s throat tightened; suddenly she knew why Liandrin had brought lanterns, and she did not like what she knew. She heard Nynaeve whisper, “A Waygate.” They both remembered the Ways all too well.
“We did it once,” she told herself as much as Nynaeve. “We can do it again.” If Rand and the others need us, we have to help them. That’s all there is to it.
“Is that really . . . ?” Min began in a choked voice and could not finish.
“A Waygate,” Elayne breathed. “I did not think the Ways could be used any longer. At least, I did not think their use was allowed.”
Liandrin had already dismounted and plucked the trefoil Avendesora leaf out of the carving; like two huge doors woven of living vines, the gates were swinging open, revealing what appeared to be a dull, silvery mirror that gave their reflections back dimly.
“You do not have to come,” Liandrin said. “You can wait here for me, safely enclosed by the fence until I come for you. Or perhaps the Black Ajah will find you before anyone else.” Her smile was not pleasant. Behind her, the Waygate came open to its fullest and stopped.
“I did not say I wouldn’t come,” Elayne said, but she gave the shadowed woods a lingering look.
“If we are going to do this,” Min said hoarsely, “then let’s do it.” She was staring at the Waygate, and Egwene thought she heard her mutter, “The Light burn you, Rand al’Thor.”
“I must go last,” Liandrin said. “All of you, in. I will follow.” She was eyeing the woods now, too, as if she thought someone might be following them. “Quickly! Quickly!”
Egwene did not know what Liandrin expected to see, but if anyone at all came they would probably stop them from using the Waygate. Rand, you wool-headed idiot, she thought, why can’t you just once get yourself into some kind of trouble that doesn’t force me to act like the heroine in a story?
She dug her heels into Bela’s flanks, and the shaggy mare, restive from too much time in a stable, leaped forward.
“Slowly!” Nynaeve shouted, but it was too late.
Egwene and Bela surged toward their own dull reflections; two shaggy horses touched noses, appeared to flow into each other. Then Egwene was merging into her own image with an icy shock. Time seemed to stretch out, as if the cold crept over her by the width of one hair at a time, and every hair took minutes.
Suddenly Bela was stumbling in pitch-blackness, moving so fast the mare almost pitched over on her head. She caught herself and stood trembling as Egwene dismounted hurriedly, feeling the mare’s legs in the dark to see if she had been hurt. She was almost glad of the dark, to hide her crimson face. She knew that time as well as distance were different the other side of a Waygate; she had moved before thinking.
There was only the blackness around her in every direction, except for the rectangle of the open Waygate, like a window of smoked glass when seen from this side. It let no light in—the black seemed to press right up against it—but through it Egwene could see the others, moving by the slowest increments, like figures in a nightmare. Nynaeve was insisting on handing around the pole-lanterns and lighting them; Liandrin was acceding with a bad grace, apparently insisting on speed.
When Nynaeve came though the Waygate—leading her gray mare slowly, ever so slowly—Egwene almost ran to hug her, and at least half of her feeling was for the lantern Nynaeve carried. The lantern made a smaller pool of light than it should have—the darkness pressed against the light, trying to force it back into the lantern—but Egwene had begun to feel that darkness pressing against her, as if it had weight. Instead, she contented herself with saying, “Bela’s all right, and I did not break my neck the way I deserved to.”
Once there had been light along the Ways, before the taint on the Power with which they had first been made, the taint of the Dark One on saidin, had begun to corrupt them.
Nynaeve thrust the pole of the lantern into her hands and turned to pull another from under her saddle girth. “As long as you know you deserved to,” she murmured, “then you didn’t deserve to.” Suddenly she chuckled. “Sometimes I think it was sayings like that more than anything else that created the title of Wisdom. Well, here’s another. You break your neck, and I’ll see it mended just so I can break it again.”
It was said lightly, and Egwene found herself laughing, too—until she recalled where she was. Nynaeve’s amusement did not last long either.
Min and Elayne came though the Waygate hesitantly, leading their horses and carrying lanterns, obviously expecting to find monsters waiting at the least. They looked relieved, at first, to find nothing but darkness, but the oppressiveness of it soon had them shifting nervously from foot to foot. Liandrin replaced the Avendesora leaf and rode through the closing Waygate leading the pack horse.
Liandrin did not wait for the gate to finish closing, but tossed the lead line of the pack horse to Min without a word and started along a white line, dimly made out by the light of her lantern, leading into the Ways. The floor seemed to be stone, eaten and pitted by acid. Egwene scrambled hurriedly onto Bela’s back, but she was no quicker to follow the Aes Sedai than anyone else. There seemed to be nothing in the world except the rough floor under the horses’ hooves.
