The wheel of time, p.71
The Wheel of Time, page 71
“And this is where you picked for us to hide?” Rand said in disbelief. “We’d be safer out there trying to outrun them.”
“If you had not gone running off,” Moiraine said patiently, “you would know that I set wards around this building. A Myrddraal would not even know these wards were there, for it is a different kind of evil they are meant to stop, but what resides in Shadar Logoth will not cross them, or even come too near. In the morning it will be safe for us to go; these things cannot stand the light of the sun. They will be hiding deep in the earth.”
“Shadar Logoth?” Egwene said uncertainly. “I thought you said this city was called Aridhol.”
“Once it was called Aridhol,” Moiraine replied, “and was one of the Ten Nations, the lands that made the Second Covenant, the lands that stood against the Dark One from the first days after the Breaking of the World. In the days when Thorin al’Toren al Ban was King of Manetheren, the King of Aridhol was Balwen Mayel, Balwen Ironhand. In a twilight of despair during the Trolloc Wars, when it seemed the Father of Lies must surely conquer, the man called Mordeth came to Balwen’s court.”
“The same man?” Rand exclaimed, and Mat said, “It couldn’t be!” A glance from Moiraine silenced them. Stillness filled the room except for the Aes Sedai’s voice.
“Before Mordeth had been long in the city he had Balwen’s ear, and soon he was second only to the King. Mordeth whispered poison in Balwen’s ear, and Aridhol began to change. Aridhol drew in on itself, hardened. It was said that some would rather see Trollocs come than the men of Aridhol. The victory of the Light is all. That was the battlecry Mordeth gave them, and the men of Aridhol shouted it while their deeds abandoned the Light.
“The story is too long to tell in full, and too grim, and only fragments are known, even in Tar Valon. How Thorin’s son, Caar, came to win Aridhol back to the Second Covenant, and Balwen sat his throne, a withered shell with the light of madness in his eyes, laughing while Mordeth smiled at his side and ordered the deaths of Caar and the embassy as Friends of the Dark. How Prince Caar came to be called Caar One-Hand. How he escaped the dungeons of Aridhol and fled alone to the Borderlands with Mordeth’s unnatural assassins at his heels. How there he met Rhea, who did not know who he was, and married her, and set the skein in the Pattern that led to his death at her hands, and hers by her own hand before his tomb, and the fall of Aleth-Loriel. How the armies of Manetheren came to avenge Caar and found the gates of Aridhol torn down, no living thing inside the walls, but something worse than death. No enemy had come to Aridhol but Aridhol. Suspicion and hate had given birth to something that fed on that which created it, something locked in the bedrock on which the city stood. Mashadar waits still, hungering. Men spoke of Aridhol no more. They named it Shadar Logoth, the Place Where the Shadow Waits, or more simply, Shadow’s Waiting.
“Mordeth alone was not consumed by Mashadar, but he was snared by it, and he, too, has waited within these walls through the long centuries. Others have seen him. Some he has influenced through gifts that twist the mind and taint the spirit, the taint waxing and waning until it rules . . . or kills. If ever he convinces someone to accompany him to the walls, to the boundary of Mashadar’s power, he will be able to consume the soul of that person. Mordeth will leave, wearing the body of the one he worse than killed, to wreak his evil on the world again.”
“The treasure,” Perrin mumbled when she stopped. “He wanted us to help carry the treasure to his horses.” His face was haggard. “I’ll bet they were supposed to be outside the city somewhere.” Rand shivered.
“But we are safe, now, aren’t we?” Mat asked. “He didn’t give us anything, and he didn’t touch us. We’re safe, aren’t we, with the wards you set?”
“We are safe,” Moiraine agreed. “He cannot cross the ward lines, nor can any other denizen of this place. And they must hide from the sunlight, so we can leave safely once it is day. Now, try to sleep. The wards will protect us until Lan returns.”
“He has been gone a long time.” Nynaeve looked worriedly at the night outside. Full dark had fallen, as black as pitch.
“Lan will be well,” Moiraine said soothingly, and spread her blankets beside the fire while she spoke. “He was pledged to fight the Dark One before he left the cradle, a sword placed in his infant hands. Besides, I would know the minute of his death and the way of it, just as he would know mine. Rest, Nynaeve. All will be well.” But as she was rolling herself into her blankets, she paused, staring at the street as if she, too, would have liked to know what kept the Warder.
Rand’s arms and legs felt like lead and his eyes wanted to slide shut on their own, yet sleep did not come quickly, and once it did, he dreamed, muttering and kicking off his blankets. When he woke, it was suddenly, and he looked around for a moment before he remembered where he was.
The moon was up, the last thin sliver before the new moon, its faint light defeated by the night. Everyone else was still asleep, though not all soundly. Egwene and his two friends twisted and murmured inaudibly. Thom’s snores, soft for once, were broken from time to time by half-formed words. There was still no sign of Lan.
Suddenly he felt as if the wards were no protection at all. Anything at all could be out there in the dark. Telling himself he was being foolish, he added wood to the last coals of the fire. The blaze was too small to give much warmth, but it gave more light.
He had no idea what had awakened him from his unpleasant dream. He had been a little boy again, carrying Tam’s sword and with a cradle strapped to his back, running through empty streets, pursued by Mordeth, who shouted that he only wanted his hand. And there had been an old man who watched them and cackled with mad laughter the whole time.
He gathered his blankets and lay back, staring at the ceiling. He wanted very much to sleep, even if he had more dreams like the last one, but he could not make his eyes close.
Suddenly the Warder trotted silently out of the darkness into the room. Moiraine came awake and sat up as if he had rung a bell. Lan opened his hand; three small objects fell to the tiles in front of her with the clink of iron. Three blood-red badges in the shape of horned skulls.
“There are Trollocs inside the walls,” Lan said. “They will be here in little more than an hour. And the Dha’vol are the worst of them.” He began waking the others.
Moiraine smoothly began folding her blankets. “How many? Do they know we are here?” She sounded as if there were no urgency at all.
“I don’t think they do,” Lan replied. “There are well over a hundred, frightened enough to kill anything that moves, including one another. The Halfmen are having to drive them—four just to handle one fist—and even the Myrddraal seem to want nothing more than to pass through the city and out as quickly as possible. They are not going out of their way to search, and they’re so slipshod that if they were not heading nearly straight for us I would say we had nothing to worry about.” He hesitated.
“There is something else?”
“Only this,” Lan said slowly. “The Myrddraal forced the Trollocs into the city. What forced the Myrddraal?”
Everyone had been listening in silence. Now Thom cursed under his breath, and Egwene breathed a question. “The Dark One?”
“Don’t be a fool, girl,” Nynaeve snapped. “The Dark One is bound in Shayol Ghul by the Creator.”
“For the time being, at least,” Moiraine agreed. “No, the Father of Lies is not out there, but we must leave in any case.”
Nynaeve eyed her narrowly. “Leave the protection of the wards, and cross Shadar Logoth in the night.”
“Or stay here and face the Trollocs,” Moiraine said. “To hold them off here would require the One Power. It would destroy the wards and attract the very thing the wards are meant to protect against. Besides, as well build a signal fire atop one of those towers for every Halfman within twenty miles. To leave is not what I would choose to do, but we are the hare, and it is the hounds who dictate the chase.”
“What if there are more outside the walls?” Mat asked. “What are we going to do?”
“We will use my original plan,” Moiraine said. Lan looked at her. She held up a hand and added, “Which I was too tired to carry out before. But I am rested, now, thanks to the Wisdom. We will make for the river. There, with our backs guarded by the water, I can raise a smaller ward that will hold the Trollocs and Halfmen back until we can make rafts and cross over. Or better yet, we may even be able to hail a trader’s boat coming down from Saldaea.”
The faces of the Emond’s Fielders looked blank. Lan noticed.
“Trollocs and Myrddraal loathe deep water. Trollocs are terrified of it. Neither can swim. A Halfman will not wade anything more than waist deep, especially if it’s moving. Trollocs won’t do even that if they can find any way to avoid it.”
“So once we get across the river we’re safe,” Rand said, and the Warder nodded.
“The Myrddraal will find it almost as hard to make the Trollocs build rafts as it was to drive them into Shadar Logoth, and if they try to make them cross the Arinelle that way, half will run away and the rest probably drown.”
“Get to your horses,” Moiraine said. “We are not across the river yet.”
CHAPTER
20
Dust on the Wind
As they left the white stone building on their nervously shifting horses, the icy wind came in gusts, moaning across the rooftops, whipping cloaks like banners, driving thin clouds across the thin sliver of the moon. With a quiet command to stay close, Lan led off down the street. The horses danced and tugged at the reins, eager to be away.
Rand looked up warily at the buildings they passed, looming now in the night with their empty windows like eye sockets. Shadows seemed to move. Occasionally there was a clatter—rubble toppled by the wind. At least the eyes are gone. His relief was momentary. Why are they gone?
Thom and the Emond’s Fielders made a cluster with him, all keeping close enough to touch one another. Egwene’s shoulders were hunched, as if she were trying to ease Bela’s hooves to the pavement. Rand did not even want to breathe. Sound might attract attention.
Abruptly he realized that a distance had opened ahead of them, separating them from the Warder and the Aes Sedai. The two were indistinct shapes a good thirty paces ahead.
“We’re falling behind,” he murmured, and booted Cloud to a quicker step. A thin tendril of silver-gray fog drifted low across the street ahead of him.
“Stop!” It was a strangled shout from Moiraine, sharp and urgent, but pitched not to carry far.
Uncertain, he pulled up short. The splinter of fog lay completely across the street now, slowly fattening as if more were oozing out of the buildings on either side of the street. It was as thick as a man’s arm now. Cloud whickered and tried to back further away as Egwene and Thom and the others came up on him. Their horses, too, tossed their heads and bridled against coming too near the fog.
Lan and Moiraine rode slowly toward the fog, grown to as big around as a leg, stopping on the other side, well back. The Aes Sedai studied the branch of mist that separated them. Rand shrugged at a sudden itch of fear between his shoulder blades. A faint light accompanied the fog, growing as the foggy tentacle became fatter, but still only a little more than the moonlight. The horses shifted uneasily, even Aldieb and Mandarb.
“What is it?” Nynaeve asked.
“The evil of Shadar Logoth,” Moiraine replied. “Mashadar. Unseeing, unthinking, moving through the city as aimlessly as a worm burrows through the earth. If it touches you, you will die.” Rand and the others let their horses dance a few quick steps back, but not too far. As much as Rand would have given to be free of the Aes Sedai, she was as safe as home compared to what lay around them.
“Then how do we join you?” Egwene said. “Can you kill it . . . clear a way?”
Moiraine’s laugh was bitter and short. “Mashadar is vast, girl, as vast as Shadar Logoth itself. The whole White Tower could not kill it. If I damaged it enough to let you pass, drawing that much of the One Power would pull the Halfmen like a trumpet call. And Mashadar would rush in to heal whatever harm I did, rush in and perhaps catch us in its net.”
Rand exchanged looks with Egwene, then asked her question again. Moiraine sighed before answering.
“I do not like it, but what must be done, must be done. This thing will not be above ground everywhere. Other streets will be clear. See that star?” She twisted in her saddle to point to a red star low in the eastern sky. “Keep on toward that star, and it will bring you to the river. Whatever happens, keep moving toward the river. Go as quickly as you can, but above all make no noise. There are still the Trollocs, remember. And four Halfmen.”
“But how will we find you again?” Egwene protested.
“I will find you,” Moiraine said. “Be assured, I can find you. Now be off. This thing is utterly mindless, but it can sense food.” Indeed, ropes of silver-gray had lifted from the larger body. They drifted, wavering, like the tentacles of a hundredarms on the bottom of a Waterwood pond.
When Rand looked up from the thick trunk of opaque mist, the Warder and the Aes Sedai were gone. He licked his lips and met his companions’ eyes. They were as nervous as he was. And something worse: they all seemed to be waiting for someone else to move first. Night and ruins surrounded them. The Fades were out there, somewhere, and the Trollocs, maybe around the next corner. The tentacles of fog drifted nearer, halfway to them now, and no longer wavering. They had chosen their intended prey. Suddenly he missed Moiraine very much.
Everyone was still staring, wondering which way to go. He turned Cloud, and the gray broke into a half trot, tugging against the reins to go faster. As if moving first had made him the leader, everyone followed.
With Moiraine gone, there was no one to protect them should Mordeth appear. And the Trollocs. And. . . . Rand forced himself to stop thinking. He would follow the red star. He could hold onto that thought.
Three times they had to backtrack from a street blocked from side to side by a hill of stone and brick the horses could never have crossed. Rand could hear the others breathing, short and sharp, just shy of panic. He gritted his teeth to stop his own panting. You have to at least make them think you’re not afraid. You’re doing a good job, wool-head! You’ll get everybody out safely.
They rounded the next corner. A wall of fog bathed the broken pavement with a light as bright as a full moon. Streamers as thick as their horses broke off toward them. Nobody waited. Wheeling, they galloped away in a tight knot with no heed for the clatter of hooves they raised.
Two Trollocs stepped into the street before them, not ten spans away.
For an instant the humans and the Trollocs just stared at one another, each more surprised than the other. Another pair of Trollocs appeared, and another, and another, colliding with the ones in front, folding into a shocked mass at the sight of the humans. Only for an instant did they remain frozen, though. Guttural howls echoed from the buildings, and the Trollocs bounded forward. The humans scattered like quail.
Rand’s gray reached full gallop in three strides. “This way!” he shouted, but he heard the same cry from five throats. A hasty glance over his shoulder showed him his companions disappearing in as many directions, Trollocs pursuing them all.
Three Trollocs ran at his own heels, catchpoles waving in the air. His skin crawled as he realized they were matching Cloud stride for stride. He dropped low on Cloud’s neck and urged the gray on, chased by thick cries.
The street narrowed ahead, broken-topped buildings leaning out drunkenly. Slowly the empty windows filled with a silvery glow, a dense mist bulging outward. Mashadar.
Rand risked a glance over his shoulder. The Trollocs still ran less than fifty paces back; the light from the fog was enough to see them clearly. A Fade rode behind them now, and they seemed to flee the Halfman as much as to pursue Rand. Ahead of Rand, half a dozen gray tendrils wavered from the windows, a dozen, feeling the air. Cloud tossed his head and screamed, but Rand dug his heels in brutally, and the horse lunged forward wildly.
The tendrils stiffened as Rand galloped between them, but he crouched low on Cloud’s back and refused to look at them. The way beyond was clear. If one of them touches me. . . . Light! He booted Cloud harder, and the horse leaped forward into the welcome shadows. With Cloud still running, he looked back as soon as the glow of Mashadar began to lessen.
The waving gray tentacles of Mashadar blocked half the street, and the Trollocs were balking, but the Fade snatched a whip from its saddlebow, cracking it over the heads of the Trollocs with a sound like a lightning bolt, popping sparks in the air. Crouching, the Trollocs lurched after Rand. The Halfman hesitated, black cowl studying Mashadar’s reaching arms, before it, too, spurred forward.
The thickening tentacles of fog swung uncertainly for a moment, then struck like vipers. At least two latched to each Trolloc, bathing them in gray light; muzzled heads went back to scream, but fog rolled over open mouths, and in, eating the howls. Four leg-thick tentacles whipped around the Fade, and the Halfman and its black horse twitched as if dancing, till the cowl fell back, baring that pale, eyeless face. The Fade shrieked.
There was no sound from that cry, any more than from the Trollocs, but something came through, a piercing whine just beyond hearing, like all the hornets in the world, digging into Rand’s ears with all the fear that could exist. Cloud convulsed, as if he, too, heard, and ran harder than ever. Rand hung on, panting, his throat as dry as sand.
