“Try them in other places inside the perimeter,” Androl said. “But try not to let any of Taim’s loyalists see what you’re doing. Pretend to be surveying, as Taim ordered.”
The men nodded, the three of them hiking toward the east. Androl left the glade. Norley was standing beside the road, looking about for him. The short, thick-waisted Cairhienin man waved and approached. Androl met him halfway. Norley had an open, inviting smile. Nobody ever suspected him of spying on them, something Androl had put to good use.
“You spoke with Mezar?” Androl asked.
“Sure did,” Norley replied. “Shared a lunch with him.” Norley waved at Mishraile as they passed him supervising a group of soldiers practicing their weaves. The golden-haired man turned away dismissively.
“And?” Androl asked, tense.
“It’s not really Mezar,” Norley said. “Oh, it has Mezar’s face, right enough. But it’s not him. I can see it in his eyes. Trouble is, whatever the thing is, it has Mezar’s memories. Talks right like him. But the smile is wrong. All wrong.”
Androl shivered. “It has to be him, Norley.”
“It ain’t. I promise you that.”
“But—”
“It just ain’t,” the stout man said.
Androl took a deep breath. When Mezar had returned a few days back—explaining that Logain was well and that all would soon be resolved with Taim—Androl had begun to hope that there was a way out of this mess. But something had seemed off about the man. Beyond that, the M’Hael had made a great show of accepting Mezar as a full Asha’man; the Dragon had raised him. And now Mezar—once fiercely loyal to Logain—was spending his time with Coteren and Taim’s other lackeys.
“This is getting bad, Androl,” Norley said softly, smiling and waving toward another group of practicing men. “I’d say it’s time for us to leave here, whether or not it’s against orders.”
“We’d never get past those guard posts,” Androl said. “Taim won’t even let those Aes Sedai leave; you heard the fit that plump one threw at the gates the other day. Taim doubles the guard at night, and gateways don’t work.”
“Well, we have to do something, don’t we? I mean…what if they’ve got Logain? What then?”
“I…” I don’t know. “Go talk to the others who are loyal to Logain. I’m going to move us to a shared barrack. Them and their families. We’ll tell the M’Hael that we want to give more space for his new recruits. Then we’ll post a guard at nights.”
“That’s going to be a little obvious.”
“The division is already obvious,” Androl said. “Go do it.”
“Sure thing. But what are you going to do?”
Androl took a deep breath. “I’m going to find us some allies.”
Norley moved off to the left, but Androl continued down the path, through the village. It seemed that fewer and fewer people were showing him respect these days. Either they were afraid to do so, or they’d thrown their lot in with Taim.
Packs of black-coated men stood, with arms folded, watching him. Androl tried not to feel a chill. As he walked, he noted Mezar—hair graying at the sides, skin a Domani copper—standing with a group of lackeys. The man smiled at him. Mezar hadn’t ever been one who smiled easily. Androl nodded to him, meeting his eyes.
And he saw what Norley had seen. Something was deeply wrong, something not-quite-alive inside those eyes. This didn’t seem to be a man, but a parody of one. A shadow stuffed inside human skin.
Light help us all, Androl thought, hurrying by. He made his way to the southern side of the village, to a group of small huts with bleached white wood walls and thatched roofs that needed to be replaced.
Androl hesitated outside. What was he doing? This was where the women of the Red Ajah were staying. They said they’d come to bond the Asha’man, but they hadn’t done it so far. That was obviously some kind of ruse. Perhaps they’d come here to try to find a way to gentle the entire lot.
But if that were the case, then at least he could count on them not siding with Taim. When you stared down the gullet of a lionfish, a pirate’s brig didn’t seem so bad. Androl had heard the saying once while working a fisher’s boat in the south.
Taking a deep breath, he knocked. The plump Red answered the door. She had the ageless face of an Aes Sedai—not young, really, but also not old. She eyed him.
“I hear you want to leave the Black Tower,” Androl said, hoping he was doing the right thing.
“Has your M’Hael changed his mind?” she asked, sounding hopeful. She actually smiled. A rare action for an Aes Sedai.
“No,” Androl said, “so far as I know, he still forbids you to leave.”
She frowned. “Then—”
Androl lowered his voice. “You’re not the only one who would like to leave this place, Aes Sedai.”
She looked at him, her face becoming perfectly calm. She doesn’t trust me, he thought. Odd, how the mere lack of emotion could itself convey meaning.
Desperate, he took a step forward, laying a hand on the frame of the door. “Something’s wrong in this place. Something worse than you understand. Once, long ago, men and women who worked the Power strove together. They were stronger for it. Please. Hear me out.”
She stood for a moment longer, then pulled the door open. “Come in, quickly. Tarna—the woman I share this hut with—is away. We must be done before she returns.”
Androl stepped up into the building. He didn’t know whether he was stepping into the pirate’s brig or the lionfish’s mouth. But it would have to do.
Chapter 57
A Rabbit for Supper
Mat hit uneven ground, blinded by the flash of light. Cursing, he used the ashandarei to steady himself on the springy earth. He smelled foliage, dirt and rotting wood. Insects buzzed in the shade.
The whiteness faded, and he found himself standing outside the Tower of Ghenjei. He had half-expected to reappear in Rhuidean. It seemed that the spear returned him to his world in the place where he had entered. Thom sat on the ground, propping up Moiraine, who was blinking and looking about her.
Mat spun on the tower and pointed upward. “I know you’re watching!” he said, thrilled. He had made it. He had bloody made it out alive! “I beat you, you crusty boot-leavings! I, Matrim Cauthon, survived your traps! Ha!” He raised the ashandarei over his head. “And you gave me the way out! Chew on that bitterness for lunch, you flaming, burning, misbegotten liars!”
Mat beamed, slamming the spear down butt first onto the ground beside him. He nodded. Nobody got the better of Matrim Cauthon. They had lied to him, told him vague prophecies and threatened him, and then they had hanged him. But Mat came out ahead in the end.
“Who was the other?” Moiraine’s soft voice asked from behind. “The one I saw, but did not know?”
“He didn’t make it out,” Thom said somberly.
That dampened Mat’s spirits. Their victory had come at a price, a terrible one. Mat had been traveling with a legend all this time?
“He was a friend,” Thom said softly.
“He was a great man,” Mat said, turning and pulling his ashandarei from where he had planted it in the dirt. “When you write the ballad of all this, Thom, make sure you point out that he was the hero.”
Thom glanced at Mat, then nodded knowingly. “The world will want to know what happened to that man.” Light. As Mat thought about it, Thom had not been at all surprised to hear Noal was Jain Farstrider. He had known. When had he figured it out? Why had he said nothing to Mat? Some friend Thom was.
Mat just shook his head. “Well, we’re out, one way or another. But Thom, next time I want to do the bloody negotiating, sneak up behind and hit me on the head with something large, heavy and blunt. Then take over.”
“Your request is noted.”
“Let’s move on a little way. I don’t like that bloody tower looming over me.”
“Yes,” Moiraine said, “you could say that they feed off emotion. Though I wouldn’t call it ‘feeding off’ so much as ‘delighting in’ emotion. They don’t need it to survive, but it pleases them greatly.”
They sat in a wooded hollow a short walk from the tower, next to the meadow beside the Arinelle. The thick tree canopy cooled the air and obscured their view of the tower.
Mat sat on a small, mossy boulder as Thom made a fire. He had a few of Aludra’s strikers in his pocket as well as some packets of tea, though there was nothing to warm the water in.
Moiraine sat on the ground, still wrapped in Thom’s cloak, leaning back against a fallen log. She held the cloak closed from the inside, letting it envelop her completely, save for her face and those dark curls. She looked more a woman than Mat remembered—in his memories, she was like a statue. Always expressionless, face like polished stone, eyes like dark brown topaz.
Now she sat with pale skin, flushed cheeks, hair curled and falling naturally around her face. She was fetching, save for that ageless Aes Sedai face. Yet that face showed far more emotion than Mat remembered, a look of fondness when she glanced at Thom, a faint shiver when she spoke of her time in the tower.
She glanced at Mat, and her eyes were still appraising. Yes, this was the same Moiraine. Humbled, cast down. That made her seem stronger to him for some reason.
Thom blew at a hesitant flame that curled a lock of smoke into the air before flickering out. The wood was probably too wet. Thom cursed.
“It’s all right, Thom,” Moiraine said softly. “I will be well.”
“I won’t have you catching cold the moment we free you from that place,” Thom said. He got out a striker, but suddenly the wood sparked, and then fire sputtered to life as it consumed the too-wet tinder.
Mat glanced at Moiraine, who had a look of concentration on her face.
“Oh,” Thom said, then chuckled. “I’d forgotten about that, nearly….”
“It’s all I can manage now on my own,” Moiraine said, grimacing. Light, had Moiraine grimaced before? She had been too high-and-mighty for that, had she not? Or was Mat remembering her wrong?
Moiraine. He was talking to flaming Moiraine! Though he had gone into the tower with the distinct purpose of rescuing her, it seemed incredible that he was speaking with her. It was like talking to…
Well, like talking to Birgitte Silverbow or Jain Farstrider. Mat smiled, shaking his head. What a world this was, and what a strange place he had in it.
“What did you mean by that, Moiraine?” Thom asked, nurturing the fire with some sticks. “It’s all you can manage?”
“The Aelfinn and Eelfinn,” she explained, voice calm. “They savor and relish powerful emotions. For some reason the effects of a ta’veren are even more intoxicating to them. There are other things that they enjoy.”
Thom glanced at her, frowning.
“My Power, Thom,” she explained. “I could hear them barking and hissing to one another as they fed on me, both Aelfinn and Eelfinn in turn. They have not often had an Aes Sedai to themselves, it seems. While draining my ability to channel, they were fed twofold—my sorrow at what I was losing and the Power itself. My capacity has been greatly reduced.