The Fires of Heaven (133 page)

Getting to her feet, Nynaeve fastened the proper image in her mind. She did not just imagine Moghedien leashed in the
a’dam,
she
knew
Moghedien
was leashed, as firmly as she knew her own name. The sense of shifting, of her skin trying to crawl, did not go away, though. “Stop that,” she said sharply. The
a’dam
did not move, but it seemed to tremble unseen. She thought of blackwasp nettles lightly brushing the other woman from shoulders to knees. Moghedien shuddered, exhaled convulsively. “Stop it, I said, or I’ll do worse.” The shifting ceased. Moghedien watched her warily, still clutching the silver collar around her neck and with an air of being poised on her toes for flight.

Birgitte—the child who was, or had been, Birgitte—stood eyeing them curiously. Nynaeve formed the image of her as a grown woman, concentrated. The little girl put her finger back in her mouth and began studying the toy bow. Nynaeve breathed angrily. It was hard changing what someone else was already maintaining. And on top of that, Moghedien had claimed she could make changes permanent. But what she could do, she could undo. “Restore her.”

“If you release me, I—”

Nynaeve thought of nettles again, and not a light brush this time. Moghedien sucked air through clenched teeth, shook like a bedsheet in a high wind.

“That,” Birgitte said, “was the most frightening thing that has ever happened to me.” Herself once more, she wore the short coat and wide trousers, but she had no bow or quiver. “I
was
a child, but at the same time, what was me—really me—was just some fancy floating in the back of that child’s mind. And I knew it. I knew I was just going to watch what happened and play. . . .” Flipping her golden braid back over her shoulder, she gave Moghedien a hard look.

“How did you get here?” Nynaeve asked. “I am grateful, you understand, but . . . how?”

Birgitte gave Moghedien a final stony stare, then opened her coat to fish in the neck of her blouse, pulling up the twisted stone ring on a leather thong. “Siuan woke up. Just for a moment, and not all the way. Long enough to grumble about you snatching this from her. When you didn’t wake right behind her, I knew something must be wrong, so I took the ring and the last of what you mixed for Siuan.”

“There was hardly any left. Only the dregs.”

“Enough to put me to sleep. It tastes horrible, by the way. After that, it was as easy as finding feather-dancers in Shiota. In some ways this is almost as if I were still—” Birgitte cut off with another glare for Moghedien. The silver bow reappeared in her hand, and a quiver of silver arrows at her
hip, yet after one moment they vanished again. “Past is past, and the future is ahead,” she said firmly. “I was not truly surprised to realize there were two of you who knew they were in
Tel’aran’rhiod.
I knew the other must be her, and when I arrived and saw the pair of you . . . It seemed as if she had already captured you, but I hoped that if I distracted her, you might come up with something.”

Nynaeve felt a stab of shame. She had considered abandoning Birgitte. That was what she had almost come up with. The thought had only been there for a moment, rejected as soon as it came, but it had come. What a coward she was. Surely Birgitte never even had moments when fear almost took control of her. “I . . .” A faint taste of boiled catfern and powdered mavinsleaf. “I almost ran away,” she said faintly. “I was so frightened my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. I almost ran away and left you.”

“Oh?” Nynaeve writhed inside as Birgitte considered her. “But you did not, did you? I should have loosed before I called out, but I’ve never felt comfortable shooting anyone from behind. Even her. Still, it all worked out. But what do we do with her now?”

Moghedien certainly seemed to have overcome her fear. Ignoring the silver collar around her throat, she watched Nynaeve and Birgitte as though they were the prisoners, not she, and she was deliberating what to do with them. Except for an occasional twitch of her hands, as if she wanted to scratch where her skin held the memory of nettles, she appeared black-clad serenity. Only the
a’dam
let Nynaeve know there was fear in the woman, almost a gibbering, but pushed down to a muted buzz. She wished the thing let her know what Moghedien was thinking as well as feeling. Then again, she was just as glad not to be inside the mind behind those cold dark eyes.

“Before you consider anything . . . drastic,” Moghedien said, “remember that I know much that would be useful to you. I have observed the other Chosen, peeked into their schemes. Is that not worth something?”

“Tell me, and I will consider whether it’s worth anything,” Nynaeve said. What could she do with the woman?

“Lanfear, Graendal, Rahvin and Sammael are plotting together.”

Nynaeve gave the leash a short tug, staggering her. “I know that. Tell me something new.” The woman was captive here, but the
a’dam
only existed so long as they were in
Tel’aran’rhiod.

“Do you know they are drawing Rand al’Thor to attack Sammael? But when he does, he will find the others as well, waiting to trap him between them. At least, he will find Graendal and Rahvin. I think Lanfear plays another game, one the others know nothing about.”

Nynaeve exchanged worried glances with Birgitte. Rand must learn of this. He would, as soon as she and Elayne could speak to Egwene tonight. If they could manage to put their hands on the
ter’angreal
long enough.

“That is,” Moghedien murmured, “if he lives long enough to find them.”

Nynaeve took hold of the silvery leash where it joined the collar and pulled the Forsaken’s face close to hers. Dark eyes met her gaze flatly, but she could feel anger through the
a’dam,
and fear wriggling up and being stamped down. “You listen to me. Do you think I don’t know why you are pretending to be so cooperative? You think if you keep talking long enough, I will make some slip, and you can escape. You think the longer we talk, the harder I’ll find it to kill you.” That much was true enough. To kill somebody in cold blood, even one of the Forsaken, would be hard, maybe harder than she could manage. What was she going to do with the woman? “But you understand this. I won’t allow hinting at things. If you try keeping anything back from me, I will do to you everything you ever thought of doing to me.” Dread, creeping through the leash, like bone-chilling shrieks deep in Moghedien’s mind. Maybe she did not know as much about
a’dam
as Nynaeve thought. Maybe she believed Nynaeve could read her thoughts if she tried. “Now if you know of some threat to Rand, something ahead of Sammael and the others, you tell me. Now!”

Words spilled from Moghedien’s mouth, and her tongue flickered out to wet her lips continually. “Al’Thor means to go after Rahvin. Today. This morning. Because he thinks Rahvin killed Morgase. I don’t know whether he did or not, but al’Thor believes it. But Rahvin never trusted Lanfear. He never trusted any of them. Why should he? He thought it all might be some trap set for him, so he has laid a trap of his own. He has set Wards through Caemlyn so if a man channels a spark he will know. Al’Thor will walk right into it. He almost certainly already has. I think he meant to leave Cairhien right after sunrise. I had no part of it. It was none of it my doing. I—”

Nynaeve wanted to shut her up; the fear sweat glistening on the woman’s face made her sick, but if she had to listen to that pleading voice, too . . . She started to channel, wondering whether she would be strong enough to hold Moghedien’s tongue, then smiled. She was linked to Moghedien, and in control. Moghedien’s eyes bulged as she wove flows to stop her own mouth and tied them. Nynaeve added plugs for her ears, too, before turning to Birgitte. “What do you think?”

“Elayne’s heart will break. She loves her mother.”

“I know that!” Nynaeve took a breath. “I will cry with her and mean every tear, but right now I must worry about Rand. I think she was telling
the truth. I could almost feel it.” She caught the silver leash just below her bracelet and shook it. “Maybe it’s this, and maybe it was imagination. What do you believe?”

“That it’s the truth. She was never very brave unless she clearly had the upper hand, or thought she could get it. And you certainly put the fear of the Light into her.”

Nynaeve grimaced. Birgitte’s every word put another bubble of anger in her belly. She was never very brave except when she clearly had the upper hand. That could describe herself. She had put the fear of the Light into Moghedien. She had, and she had meant every word when she said it. Boxing somebody’s ears when they needed it was one thing; threatening torture, wanting to torture, even Moghedien, was something else again. And here she was trying to avoid what she knew she had to do. Never very brave except when she clearly had the upper hand. This time the bubble of anger was seeded by herself. “We have to go to Caemlyn. I do, at least. With her. I may not be able to channel strongly enough to tear paper as I am, but with the
a’dam
I can use her strength.”

“You won’t be able to affect anything in the waking world from
Tel’aran’rhiod,
” Birgitte said quietly.

“I know! I know, but I have to do something.”

Birgitte threw back her head and laughed. “Oh, Nynaeve, it is such an embarrassment being associated with such a coward as you.” Abruptly her eyes widened in surprise. “There wasn’t much of your potion left. I think I am wak—” In mid-word, she was simply no longer there.

Taking a deep breath, Nynaeve untied the flows around Moghedien. Or made her do it; with the
a’dam
it was hard to tell which, really. She wished Birgitte was still there. Another pair of eyes. Someone who probably knew
Tel’aran’rhiod
better than she ever could. Someone who was brave. “We are taking a trip, Moghedien, and you are going to help me with every last scrap of you. If anything takes me by surprise . . . Suffice it to say, anything that happens to the one wearing this bracelet happens to the one wearing the collar. Only about tenfold.” The sickly look on Moghedien’s face said she believed. Which was just as well, since it was true.

Another deep breath, and Nynaeve began forming the image of the one place in Caemlyn she knew well enough to remember. The Royal Palace, where Elayne had taken her. Rahvin must be there. But in the waking world, not the World of Dreams. Still, she had to do something.
Tel’aran’rhiod
changed around her.

R
and stopped. A long scorch along the corridor wall marked where half a dozen costly tapestries had gone to ash. Flames licked upward on another; a number of inlaid chests and tables were only charred ruins. Not his work. Thirty paces further on, red-coated men in breastplates and helmets with barred face-guards lay contorted in death on the white floor tiles, useless swords in hands. Not his work either. Rahvin had been wasteful of his own in attempting to reach Rand. He had been clever in his attacks, clever in his escapes, but from the moment he fled the throne room he had not faced Rand for more than the instant it took to strike and flee. Rahvin was strong, perhaps as strong as Rand, and more knowledgeable, but Rand had the fat-little-man
angreal
in his pocket, and Rahvin had none.

The corridor was doubly familiar, once for having seen it before, once for having seen something similar.

I walked this way with Elayne and Gawyn the day I met Morgase
. The thought slithered painfully along the boundaries of the Void. He was cold in there, without emotion.
Saidin
raged and burned, but he was icy calm.

And another thought, like a stab.
She lay on a floor like this, her golden hair spread as though sleeping. Ilyena Sunhair. My Ilyena
.

Elaida had been there that day, too.
She Foretold the pain I’d bring. She knew the darkness in me. Some of it. Enough
.

Ilyena, I did not know what I was doing. I was mad! I am mad. Oh, Ilyena!

Elaida knew—some—but she did not tell even all of that. Better if she had told
.

Oh, Light, is there no forgiveness? I did what I did in madness. Is there no mercy?

Gareth Bryne would have killed me, had he known. Morgase would have ordered my death. Morgase would be alive, perhaps. Elayne’s mother alive. Aviendha alive. Mat. Moiraine. How many alive, if I had died?

I have earned my torment. I deserve the final death. Oh, Ilyena, I deserve death
.

I deserve death
.

Bootsteps behind him. He turned.

They came out of a broad crossing corridor not twenty paces from him, two dozen men in breastplates and helmets and the white-collared red coats of the Queen’s Guards. Except that Andor had no queen now, and these men had not served her while she lived. A Myrddraal led them, pale eyeless face like something found under a rock, overlapping plates of black armor heightening the illusion of a serpent as it moved, black cloak hanging motionless however it moved. The look of the Eyeless was fear, but fear was a distant thing in the Void. They hesitated when they saw him; then the Halfman raised its black-bladed sword. Men who had not already drawn put hands to hilts.