The Fires of Heaven (124 page)

Rand discovered that he was sitting in one of the chairs across from Mat, though he did not remember moving. Aviendha laid a hand on his shoulder. Concern tightened her eyes. “I am all right,” he said roughly. “There’s no need to send for Somara.” Her face reddened, but he hardly noticed.

Elayne would never be able to forgive him. He had known that Rahvin—Gaebril—held Morgase prisoner, but he had ignored it because the Forsaken might expect him to help her. He had gone his own way, to do what they did not expect. And ended chasing Couladin instead of doing what he planned. He had known, and concentrated his attention on Sammael. Because
the man taunted him. Morgase could wait while he smashed Sammael’s trap and Sammael with it. And so Morgase was dead. Elayne’s mother was dead. Elayne would curse him to her deathbed.

“I’ll tell you one thing,” Mat was going on. “There are a lot of queen’s men down there. They are not so sure about fighting for a king. You find Elayne. Half of them will flock to you to put her on the—”

“Shut up!” Rand barked. He quivered so hard with fury that Egwene stepped back, and even Moiraine eyed him carefully. Aviendha’s hand tightened on his shoulder, but he shook it off as he stood. Morgase dead because he had done nothing. His own hand had been on the knife as surely as Rahvin’s. Elayne. “She will be avenged. Rahvin, Mat. Not Gaebril. Rahvin. I’ll lay him by the heels if I never do another thing!”

“Oh, blood and bloody ashes!” Mat groaned.

“This is madness.” Egwene flinched as if realizing what she had said, but she kept that firm, calm voice. “You have your hands full with Cairhien yet, not to mention the Shaido to the north and whatever it is you’re planning in Tear. Do you mean to start another war, with two on your plate already and a ruined land besides?”

“Not a war. Me. I can be in Caemlyn in an hour. A raid—right, Mat?— a raid, not a war. I’ll rip Rahvin’s heart out.” His voice was a hammer. He felt as if acid filled his veins. “I could wish I had Elaida’s thirteen sisters to take with me, to smother him, and bring him to justice. Tried and hung for murder. That would be justice. But he’ll just have to die however I can kill him.”

“Tomorrow,” Moiraine said softly.

Rand glared at her. But she was right. Tomorrow would be better. A night to let his rage cool. He needed to be cold when he faced Rahvin. Now he wanted to seize
saidin
and lay about him, destroying. Asmodean’s music had changed again, to a tune that street musicians in the city had played during the civil war. You could still hear it sometimes when a Cairhienin noble passed. “The Fool Who Thought He Was King.” “Get out, Natael. Get out!”

Asmodean straightened smoothly, bowing, but his face could have done for snow, and he crossed the room quickly, as if uncertain what one second more might bring. He always pushed, but perhaps this time he had pushed too far. As he opened the door, Rand spoke again.

“I will see you tonight. Or I will see you dead.”

Asmodean’s bow was not so graceful this time. “As my Lord Dragon
commands,” he said hoarsely, and hurriedly pulled the door shut with him on the other side.

The three women looked at Rand, expressionless, not blinking.

“The rest of you go, too.” Mat practically bounded toward the door. “Not you. I have things to say to you yet.”

Mat stopped short, sighing loudly and fiddling with his medallion. He was the only one who had moved.

“You do not have thirteen Aes Sedai,” Aviendha said, “but you have two. And myself. I may not know as much as Moiraine Sedai, but I am as strong as Egwene, and I am no stranger to the dance.” She meant the dance of spears, what the Aiel called battle.

“Rahvin is mine,” he told her quietly. Maybe Elayne could forgive him a little if he at least avenged her mother. Probably not, but maybe he could forgive himself. A little. He forced his hands to stay at his sides, to not make fists.

“Will you draw a line on the ground for him to step over?” Egwene asked. “Put a chip on your shoulder? Have you considered that Rahvin might not be alone if he calls himself King of Andor now? Much good it will do when you appear if one of his guards puts an arrow through your heart.”

He could remember wishing she would not shout at him, but it had been so much easier then. “Did you think I meant to go alone?” He had; he had never thought of anyone to guard his back, though now he could hear a small whisper,
He likes to come from behind, or at your flanks.
He could hardly think clearly at all. His anger seemed to have a life of its own, stoking the fires that kept it boiling. “But not you. This is dangerous. Moiraine can come if she wishes.”

Egwene and Aviendha did not look at one another before stepping forward, but they moved as one, not stopping until they were so close even Aviendha had to tilt her head back to look up at him.

“Moiraine can come if she wishes,” Egwene said.

If her voice was smooth ice, Aviendha’s was molten stone. “But it is too dangerous for us.”

“Have you become my father? Is your name Bran al’Vere?”

“If you have three spears, do you put two aside because they are newer made?”

“I do not want to risk you,” he said stiffly.

Egwene arched her eyebrows. “Oh?” That was all.

“I am not
gai’shain
to you.” Aviendha bared her teeth. “You will never choose what risks I take, Rand al’Thor. Never. Know it now.”

He could . . . What? Wrap them in
saidin
and leave them? He still could not shield them. So they might well snare him in return. A fine mess, all because they wanted to be stubborn.

“You have thought of guards,” Moiraine said, “but what if who is with Rahvin is Semirhage, or Graendal? Or Lanfear? These two might overwhelm one such, but could you face her and Rahvin together alone?”

There had been something in her voice when she said Lanfear’s name. Was she afraid that if Lanfear was there, he might finally join her? What would he do if she was there? What could he do? “They can come,” he said through clenched teeth. “Now will you go?”

“As you command,” Moiraine said, but they were in no hurry about it. Aviendha and Egwene took ostentatious care in rearranging their shawls before they started for the door. Lords and ladies might dart at his word, but never them.

“You did not try to talk me out of it,” he said abruptly.

He meant it for Moiraine, but Egwene spoke first, though to Aviendha, and with a smile. “Stopping a man from what he wants to do is like taking a sweet from a child. Sometimes you have to do it, but sometimes it just isn’t worth the trouble.” Aviendha nodded.

“The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills,” was Moiraine’s reply. She stood in the doorway looking more Aes Sedai than he ever remembered her, ageless, with dark eyes that seemed ready to swallow him, slight and slender yet so regal she could have commanded a roomful of queens if she could not channel a spark. That blue stone on her forehead was catching the light again. “You will do well, Rand.”

He stared at the door long after it closed behind them.

It was a scuff of boots that recalled him to Mat’s presence. Mat was trying to slide toward the door, moving slowly so as not to be seen.

“I need to talk to you, Mat.”

Mat grimaced. Touching the foxhead like a talisman, he spun to face Rand. “If you think I’m going to put my head on the block just because those fool women did, you can forget it now. I’m no bloody hero, and I don’t want to be one. Morgase was a pretty woman—I even liked her; as much as you can like a queen—but Rahvin is Rahvin, burn you, and I—”

“Shut up and listen. You have to stop running.”

“Burn me if I will! This is no game I chose, and I won’t—”

“I said, shut up!” Rand drove the foxhead against Mat’s chest with a hard finger. “I know where you got this. I was there, remember? I cut the rope you were hanging from. I don’t know exactly what got shoved into
your head, but whatever it is, I need it. The clan chiefs know war, but somehow you know it, too, and maybe better. I need that! So this is what you’re going to do, you and the Band of the Red Hand. . . .”

“Be careful tomorrow,” Moiraine said.

Egwene paused at the door to her room. “Of course we’ll be careful.” Her stomach was turning backflips, but she kept her voice steady. “We know how dangerous facing one of the Forsaken will be.” By Aviendha’s expression, they might have been talking about what was for supper. But then, she was never afraid of anything.

“Do you, now,” Moiraine murmured. “Be very careful anyway, whether you think one of the Forsaken is near or not. Rand will need both of you in the days to come. You handle his temper well—though I may say your methods are unusual. He will need people who cannot be driven away or quelled by his rages, who will tell him what he must hear instead of what they think he wants to.”

“You do that, Moiraine,” Egwene told her.

“Of course. But he will still need you. Rest well. Tomorrow will be . . . difficult for us all.” She glided away down the corridor, passing from dimness to pool of lamplight to dimness. Night was already coming to these shadowed halls, and oil was in short supply.

“Will you stay with me awhile, Aviendha?” Egwene asked. “I feel more like talking than eating.”

“I must tell Amys what I have promised to do tomorrow. And I must be in Rand al’Thor’s sleeping chamber when he comes.”

“Elayne can never complain that you haven’t watched Rand closely for her. Did you really drag the Lady Berewin down the hall by her hair?”

Aviendha’s cheeks colored faintly. “Do you think these Aes Sedai in—Salidar?—will help him?”

“Be careful of that name, Aviendha. Rand cannot be allowed to find them without preparation.” The way he was now, they would be more likely to gentle him, or at least send thirteen sisters of their own, than help him. She would have to stand between them in
Tel’aran’rhiod,
she and Nynaeve and Elayne, and hope those Aes Sedai had committed themselves too far to back out before they discovered how near the brink he was.

“I will be careful. Rest well. And eat well tonight. In the morning, eat nothing. It is not good to dance the spears with a full stomach.”

Egwene watched her stride away before pressing her hands to her stomach. She did not think she would eat tonight or in the morning. Rahvin. And maybe Lanfear, or one of the others. Nynaeve had faced Moghedien and won. But Nynaeve was stronger than she or Aviendha, when she could channel at all. There might not be another. Rand said the Forsaken did not trust one another. She could almost wish he was wrong, or at least that he was not so certain. It was frightening when she thought she saw another man looking through his eyes, heard another man’s words come out of his mouth. It should not be so; everyone was reborn as the Wheel turned. But everyone was not the Dragon Reborn. Moiraine would not talk of it. What would Rand do if Lanfear was there? Lanfear had loved Lews Therin Telamon, but what had the Dragon felt for her? How much of Rand was still Rand?

“You will work yourself into a tizzy this way,” she said firmly. “You’re not a child. Act like a woman.”

When a serving woman brought her supper of snapbeans and potatoes and fresh baked bread, she made herself eat. It tasted like ashes.

Mat strode through the dimly lit corridors of the palace and flung open the door of the rooms that had been set aside for the young hero of the battle against the Shaido. Not that he had spent much time there; hardly any. Servants had lit two of the stand-lamps. Hero! He was no hero! What did a hero get? An Aes Sedai patting you on the head before she sent you out like a hound to do it again. A noblewoman condescending to favor you with a kiss, or laying a flower on your grave. He stalked back and forth in his anteroom, for once not pricing the flowered Illianer carpet or the chairs and chests and tables gilded and inlaid with ivory.

The stormy meeting with Rand had gone on till the sun set, him dodging, refusing, Rand following as doggedly as Hawkwing after the rout at Cole Pass. What was he to do? If he rode out again, Talmanes and Nalesean would surely follow with as many men as they could put in the saddle, expecting him to find another battle. And he probably would; that was what really put a chill on it. Much as he hated to admit it, the Aes Sedai was right. He was drawn to battle or it to him. Nobody could have tried harder to avoid one on the other side of the Alguenya. Even Talmanes had commented on it. Until the second time his careful creeping away from one lot of Andorans took them where there was no choice but to fight another.
And every time he could feel the dice rolling in his head; it was almost like a warning that a fight was just over the next hill, now.

There was always a ship, or might be, down at the docks beside the grain barges. Hard to find yourself in a battle on a ship in the middle of a river. Except the Andorans held one bank of the Alguenya for half its length or more below the city. The way his luck was running, the ship would run aground on the west bank with half the Andoran army camped there.

That left doing what Rand wanted. He could just see it.

“Good morrow, High Lord Weiramon, and all you other High Lords and Ladies. I’m a gambler, a farmboy, and I’m here to take command of your bloody army! The bloody lord Dragon Reborn will be with us as soon as he flaming takes care of one bloody little matter!”

Snatching his black-hafted spear from the corner, he hurled it the length of the room. It struck a wall hanging—a hunting scene—and the stone wall behind with a loud
clang,
then dropped to the floor, leaving the hunters neatly sliced in two. Swearing, he hurried to pick it up. The two-foot sword-blade was not chipped or marred. Of course not. Aes Sedai work.

He fingered the ravens on the blade. “Will I ever be free of Aes Sedai work?”

“What was that?” Melindhra asked from the door.

He eyed her as he propped the spear against the wall, and for a change it was not spun-gold hair or clear blue eyes or a firm body that he thought of. It seemed that every Aiel went to the river sooner or later, to stare silently at so much water in one place, but Melindhra went every day, just about. “Has Kadere found ships yet?” Kadere would not be going to Tar Valon on grain barges.