Crossroads of Twilight (74 page)

Startled, Egwene leaned forward. They
were
working together. But to what end?

She was not the only one to realize that the three Sitters who had called the Hall were all on their feet. By remaining standing, Moria and Malind had made a clear declaration. Escaralde stood like a queen, yet the tiny Brown seemed all too aware of the eyes sliding between her and Malind and Moria, the thoughtful frowns and too-still faces. She shifted her shawl twice before speaking. She sounded as though she were lecturing a class, her voice thin yet forceful.

“The ancient literature is quite clear, though little studied, I fear. It gathers dust rather than readers. Writings collected in the earliest years of the Tower make it plain that circles were not limited to thirteen, in the Age of Legends. The precise mechanism—I should say, the precise balance—is unknown, but it should not be too difficult to work out. For those of you who have not spent the time you should have in the Tower library, the
manner
of increasing the size of a circle involves . . .” For the first time, she faltered, and visibly forced herself to continue. “. . . involves the inclusion of men who can channel.”

Faiselle popped to her feet. “What are you suggesting?” she demanded and sat down immediately, as though someone might think she was standing in support.

“I do ask that the Hall be cleared!” Magla said, rising. Like Moria, she was Illianer, and agitation thickened her accent markedly. “This do no be a matter for discussion before any save the Hall in closed sitting.” She, too, dropped back onto her bench as soon as she finished, and sat glowering, wide shoulders hunched and hands opening and closing on her skirts.

“I do fear it be too late for that,” Moria said loudly. She had to speak loudly, to be heard over the murmur of sisters talking excitedly behind the benches, a hum like a huge beehive. “What has been said has been said,
and heard by too many sisters for anyone to try shutting the words away now.” Her bosom rose as she pulled in a deep breath, and she raised her voice a notch louder. “I do put before the Hall the proposal that we do enter into an agreement with the Black Tower, that we may bring men into our circles at need.” If she sounded a trifle strangled at the end, it was no wonder. Few Aes Sedai could say that name without emotion, disgust if not outright hatred. It struck against the buzz of voices—and produced absolute silence for the space of three heartbeats.

“That is madness!” Sheriam’s shriek shattered the stillness in more ways than one. The Keeper did not enter discussions in the Hall. She could not even enter the Hall itself without the Amyrlin. Face flooding with red, Sheriam drew herself up, perhaps to face the inevitable rebuke, perhaps to defend herself. The Hall had other things on its mind than rebuking her, though.

Leaping up from their benches just long enough to get their words out, Sitters began to speak, to shout, sometimes on top of one another.

“Madness hardly begins to describe it!” Faiselle shouted, at the same time that Varilin cried, “How can we
ally
ourselves with men who can channel?”

“These so-called Asha’man are tainted!” Saroiya called out with no sign of the vaunted White Ajah reserve. Hands knotted in her shawl, she trembled so hard that the long snowy fringe swayed. “Tainted with the Dark One’s touch!”

“Even suggesting such a thing puts us against all the White Tower stands for,” Takima said roughly. “We would be despised by every woman who calls herself Aes Sedai, by Aes Sedai long in their graves!”

Magla went so far as to shake a fist, with a fury she did not attempt to mask. “Only a Darkfriend could suggest this! Only a Darkfriend!” Moria paled at the accusation, then went bright red with anger of her own.

Egwene did not know where she stood on this. The Black Tower was Rand’s creation, and perhaps necessary, if there was to be any hope of winning the Last Battle, yet the Asha’man
were
men who could channel, a thing feared for three thousand years, and they channeled Shadow-stained
saidin.
Rand himself was a man who could channel, yet without him, the Shadow would win at Tarmon Gai’don. The Light help her for seeing it so coldly, but it was hard truth. Wherever she stood on the matter, matters were getting out of hand there and then. Escaralde was exchanging insults with Faiselle, both at the tops of their lungs. Open insults! In the Hall! Saroiya had abandoned the last shreds of White Ajah coolness and was screaming at Malind,
who screamed back, neither waiting on the other. It would have been a wonder if either could understand what the other was saying, and perhaps a blessing if they could not. Surprisingly, neither Romanda nor Lelaine had opened her mouth since the beginning. They sat staring at one another, unblinking. Likely each was trying to read how the other would stand just so she could stand in opposition. Magla got down from her bench and stalked toward Moria with the glare of someone eager to come to blows. Not words, but fists. Magla’s were clenched at her sides. Her vine-worked shawl slid off onto the carpets, unnoticed.

Standing, Egwene embraced the Source. Except for certain exactly prescribed functions, channeling was forbidden in the Hall—another of the customs that pointed to darker days in the Hall’s history—but she made a simple weave of Air and Fire. “A proposal has been laid before the Hall,” she said, and released
saidar
. That was not as hard as it once had been. Not easy, not close to easy, but not as hard. A memory of the Power’s sweetness remained, enough to sustain her until the next time.

Magnified by the weave, her words boomed in the pavilion like thunder. Aes Sedai shrank back, wincing and covering their ears. The silence after seemed incredibly loud. Magla gaped at her in astonishment, then gave a start at realizing that she was standing halfway to the Blue benches. Hastily unloosing her fists, she paused to snatch up her shawl and hurried back to her own seat. Sheriam stood weeping openly. Surely it had not been that loud.

“A proposal has been laid before the Hall,” Egwene repeated into the silence. After that Power-magnified blare, her voice rang in her own ears. Perhaps it
had
been louder than she thought. That weave had never been intended for use inside walls, even patched canvas walls. “How speak you in support of an alliance with the Black Tower, Moria?” She sat down as soon as she finished. How
did
she stand on this? What difficulties would it present her? How could it be used to advantage? The Light help her, indeed. Those were the first two things to come to mind. She wished Sheriam would dry her eyes and straighten her backbone. She was the Amyrlin Seat, and she needed a Keeper, not a milksop.

It took a few minutes for order to restore itself, Sitters straightening clothes and smoothing skirts unnecessarily, avoiding each other’s eyes and especially not looking at the watching sisters crowded behind the benches. Some Sitter’s faces became stained with red that had nothing to do with anger. Sitters did not shriek at one another like farmhands at shearing.
Most
especially not in front of other sisters.

“We do be faced with two seemingly insurmountable difficulties,” Moria said finally. Her voice was composed and cool once more, but a hint of flush still hung in her cheeks. “The Forsaken have discovered a weapon—discovered or uncovered; they surely would have used it before now, had they possessed it—a weapon we can no counter. A weapon we can no match, though the Light do know why we would wish to, but most importantly, a weapon we can neither survive nor stop. At the same time, the . . . Asha’man . . . have grown like weeds. Reliable reports do put their numbers at nearly equal to all the Aes Sedai living. Even if that number do be inflated, we can no afford to believe it exaggerated far. And more men come every day. The eyes-and-ears do be too consistent to believe anything else. We should take these men and gentle them, of course, but we have ignored them because of the Dragon Reborn. We have put them off, to be dealt with later. The bitter truth do be that it be too late to try taking them. They do be too many. Maybe it did be too late when we did first learned what they were doing.

“If we can no gentle these men, then we must control them somehow. An agreement with the Black Tower—
alliance
be too strong a word—with a carefully worded agreement, we can take the first steps toward protecting the world from them. We also can bring them into our circles.” Raising a cautionary finger, Moria ran her gaze along the benches, but her voice remained cool and composed. And firm. “We must make it clear that a sister will always meld the flows—I do
not
suggest letting a man control a linked circle!—but with men in the circles, we can expand them. With the blessings of the Light, perhaps we can expand the circles far enough to counter this weapon of the Forsaken. We do kill two hares with one stone. But these hares do be lions, and if we do no cast that stone, one of them will surely kill us. It is as simple as that.”

Silence fell. Excepting Sheriam, at least. Standing hunched in on herself a few feet from Egwene, shoulders shaking, she still had not mastered her weeping.

Then Romanda sighed heavily. “Perhaps we can expand the circles enough to counter the Forsaken,” she said in a quiet voice. In a way, that gave her words more weight than if she had shouted. “Perhaps we can control the Asha’man. A thin word, perhaps, in either context.”

“When you do be drowning,” Moria replied, equally quiet, “you do grab at whatever branch floats by, even when you can no be sure it will support your weight until you have hold. The water has no closed over our heads yet, Romanda, but we be drowning. We do be drowning.”

Again there was silence, but for Sheriam’s sniveling. Had she forgotten all self-control? But then, no one among the Sitters wore a pleasant expression, not even Moria or Malind or Escaralde. It was not a pleasant prospect that lay in front of them. Delana’s face had turned decidedly greenish. She looked as if she might be the one to sick up rather than Sheriam.

Egwene stood once more, long enough to ask the required question. Even when the unthinkable was proposed, the rituals must be followed. Perhaps more so then than ever. “Who speaks against this proposal?”

There was no shortage of speakers there, though everyone had regained herself enough for them to follow protocol. Several Sitters moved at once, but Magla was first on her feet, and the others sat back with no outward displays of impatience. Faiselle followed Magla, and Varilin followed Faiselle. Then came Saroiya, and finally Takima. Each spoke at length, Varilin and Saroiya coming very near making the forbidden speeches, and each spoke with all the eloquence she could summon. No one reached a Sitter’s chair lacking eloquence at need. Even so, it soon became clear that they were repeating themselves and each other, just in different words.

The Forsaken and their weapon were never mentioned. The Black Tower was the Sitters’ topic, the Black Tower and the Asha’man. The Black Tower was a blight on the face of the earth, as great a threat to the world as the Last Battle itself. The very name suggested connections to the Shadow, not to mention being a direct slap at the White Tower. The so-called Asha’man—no one used the name without adding “so-called,” or saying it with a sneer; “guardians” it meant in the Old Tongue, and they were
anything
but guardians—the so-called Asha’man were men who could
channel
! Men doomed to go insane if the male half of the Power did not kill them first. Madmen wielding the One Power. From Magla to Takima, every one of them invested that with every scrap of horror in them. Three thousand years of the world’s horror, and the Breaking of the World before that. Men like this had
destroyed
the world, destroyed the Age of Legends and changed the face of the world to desolation. This was who they were being asked to make
alliance
with. If they did so, they would be anathema in every nation, and rightly. They would be scorned by every Aes Sedai, and rightly. It could not be. It
could
not.

When Takima finally sat, arranging her shawl carefully along her arms, she wore a small but quite satisfied smile. Together they had managed to make the Asha’man seem more fearsome, more dangerous, than the Forsaken and the Last Battle combined. Maybe even a match for the Dark One himself.

Since Egwene had begun the ritual questions, it was for her to finish, and she rose long enough to say, “Who stands for an agreement with the Black Tower?” She had only thought there was silence in the pavilion before. Sheriam had finally governed her weeping, though tears glistened on her cheeks still, but her gulp sounded like shouts in the quiet that followed that question.

Takima’s smile slid sideways when Janya stood as soon as the question left Egwene’s mouth. “Even a slim branch is better than no branch when you’re drowning,” Janya said. “I’d rather try than trust to hope until I go under.” She had the habit of speaking when she was not supposed to.

Samalin rose to stand beside Malind, and suddenly there was a rush, Salita and Berana and Aledrin together, with Kwamesa only a tick behind. Nine Sitters on their feet, and there it hung as the moments stretched out. Egwene realized she was biting her lip and stopped hurriedly, hoping no one had noticed. She could still feel the impression of her teeth. She hoped she had not drawn blood. Not that anyone was looking at her. Everyone seemed to be holding their breath.

Romanda sat frowning up at Salita, who was staring straight ahead, her face gray and her lips trembling. The Tairen sister might not be able to hide her fear, but she was going ahead. Romanda nodded slowly and then, shockingly, stood. She, too, decided to violate custom. “Sometimes,” she said, looking straight at Lelaine, “we must do things we would rather not.”

Lelaine met the gray-haired Yellow’s eyes without blinking. Her face might have been cast in porcelain. Her chin rose by slow increments. And suddenly, she stood, glancing down impatiently at Lyrelle, who gaped at her a moment before coming to her feet.

Everyone stared. No one made a sound. It was done.

Almost done, anyway. Egwene cleared her throat, trying to catch Sheriam’s attention. The next part was the Keeper’s, but Sheriam stood scrubbing the tears from her cheeks with her fingers and running her eyes along the benches as if counting how many Sitters were standing and hoping to find she had miscounted. Egwene cleared her throat more loudly, and the green-eyed woman gave a start and turned to stare at her. Even then, it seemed to take forever before she recalled herself to her duty.