Lord of Chaos (104 page)

When Nalesean entered with Daerid and Talmanes, he greeted them with, “We are going to tickle some Aes Sedai under the chin, rescue a mule, and put a snip-nosed girl on the Lion Throne. Oh, yes. That’s Aviendha. Don’t look at her crosswise, or she’ll try to cut your throat and probably slit her own by mistake.” The woman laughed as if he had made the funniest joke in the world. She did not stop sharpening her knife, though.

For a moment Egwene could not understand why the pain had stopped increasing. Then she pushed herself up from the carpets of her tent and stood, sobbing so hard she quivered. She wanted very much to blow her nose. She did not know how long she had been crying that hard; she only knew she felt on fire from the top of her hips to the backs of her knees. Standing still was a problem she barely mastered. The shift she had thought of as scant protection had been discarded some time back. Tears rolled down her face, and she stood there and bawled.

Sorilea and Amys and Bair regarded her soberly, and they were not the only ones, though most of the rest were sitting about on cushions or stretched out, talking and enjoying tea served by a slender
gai’shain.
A woman, thank the Light. They were all women, Wise Ones and apprentices, women Egwene had told she was Aes Sedai. She was grateful that just letting them think she was did not count; she could not have survived that! It was the telling, the spoken lie, but there had been surprises. Cosain, a lean yellow-haired Spine Ridge Miagoma, had said gruffly that Egwene had no
toh
toward her but she would stay for the tea, and so had Estair. Aeron, on the other hand, seemed to want to cut her in two, and Surandha. . . .

Trying to blink away the haze of tears, Egwene glanced toward Surandha. She was sitting with three Wise Ones, chatting and occasionally looking in Egwene’s direction. Surandha had been absolutely merciless. Not that any of them had gone easy. The belt Egwene had found in one of her chests was thin and supple, but twice as wide as her hand, and these women all had strong arms. A half-dozen or so strokes from each added up.

Egwene had never felt so ashamed in her life. Not that she was naked and red-faced and weeping like a baby. Well, the weeping was part. Not
even that they had all watched her strapped, when not taking their own turns. What shamed her was that she had taken it so badly. An Aiel child would have been more stoic. Well, a child would never have had to face it, but the principle was the simple truth.

“Is it over?” Was that thick, unsteady voice really hers? How these women would laugh if they knew how carefully she had gathered her courage.

“Only you know the worth of your honor,” Amys said flatly. She held the belt dangling at her side, using the wide buckle as a handle. The murmur of conversation had ceased.

Egwene drew a long, shaking breath through her sobs. All she had to do was say it was done, and it was. She could have said enough after one blow from each woman. She could. . . .

Wincing, she knelt and stretched herself out on the carpets. Her hands went beneath Bair’s skirts to grasp the woman’s bony ankles through her soft boots. This time she
would
hold on to her courage. This time she would not cry out. This time she would not kick, or thrash about, or. . . . The belt had not hit her yet. Raising her head, she blinked her eyes clear to glare at them. “What are you waiting for?” Her voice still shook, but there was more than a note of anger too. Making her
wait
on top of everything else? “I have a journey to make tonight, in case you’ve forgotten. Get on with it.”

Amys tossed the belt down beside Egwene’s head. “This woman has no
toh
toward me.”

“This woman has no
toh
toward me.” That was Bair’s thin voice.

“This woman has no
toh
toward me,” Sorilea said forcefully. Bending, she smoothed damp hair from Egwene’s face. “I knew you were Aiel in your heart. Do not be overproud now, girl. You have met your
toh.
Get up before we think you are boasting.”

Then they were helping her to her feet, hugging her and wiping away her tears, holding a handkerchief for her to finally blow her nose. The other women gathered around, each announcing that this woman had no
toh
toward her before adding her own hugs and smiles. It was the smiles that were the biggest shock; Surandha beamed at her as brightly as ever. But of course.
Toh
did not exist once it was met; whatever earned it might as well never have happened. A bit of Egwene that was not wrapped up in
ji’e’toh
thought that maybe what she had said at the end helped, too, as well as getting back down in the first place. Perhaps she had not faced it with the indifference of an Aiel in the beginning, but at the end, Sorilea was right.
She had been Aiel in her heart. She thought a part of her heart always would be Aiel.

The Wise Ones and apprentices left slowly. Apparently they should remain the rest of the night or longer, all laughing and talking with Egwene, but that was just custom, not
ji’e’toh
, and with Sorilea’s help she managed to convince them that she just did not have the time. At last it was only her, Sorilea and the two dreamwalkers. All the hugs and smiles had slowed her tears to a trickle, and if her lips still trembled no matter what she did, she could still smile. In truth, she wanted to cry again, if for a different reason. Partly for a different reason; she
was
on fire.

“I am going to miss all of you so much.”

“Nonsense.” Sorilea snorted for emphasis. “If you have luck, they will tell you you can never be Aes Sedai now. Then you can return to us. You will be my apprentice. In three or four years, you will have your own hold. I even know the husband for you. My greatdaughter Amaryn’s youngest greatson, Taric. He will be a clan chief one day, I think, so you must watch for a sister-wife to be his roofmistress.”

“Thank you.” Egwene laughed. It seemed she had something to fall back on if the Hall in Salidar did send her away.

“And Amys and I will meet you in
Tel’aran’rhiod
,” Bair said, “and tell you what we know of events here, and with Rand al’Thor. You will go your own way in the World of Dreams now, but if you wish it, I will still teach you.”

“I do wish it.” If the Hall let her anywhere near
Tel’aran’rhiod.
But then, they could not keep her out; whatever they did, they could not do that. “Please keep a close eye on Rand and the Aes Sedai. I don’t know what he is playing, but I’m sure it is more dangerous than he thinks.”

Amys said nothing about more teaching, of course. She had given her word on a course of action, and even meeting
toh
did not erase that. Instead, she said, “I know Rhuarc will regret not being here tonight. He has gone north to look at the Shaido for himself. Do not be afraid your
toh
toward him must go unmet. He will give you the opportunity when you meet once more.”

Egwene gaped, and covered by blowing her nose for what seemed the tenth time. She had forgotten all about Rhuarc. Of course, nothing said she
had
to pay her obligation to him in the same way. Maybe her heart was at least partly Aiel, but for a moment her mind sought frantically for another method. There had to be one. And she would have plenty of time to find it before seeing him again. “I will be very grateful,” she said faintly.
And there was Melaine, too. And Aviendha. Light! She had thought she was done with it. Her feet kept shifting no matter how hard she tried to hold still. There had to be another way.

Bair opened her mouth, but Sorilea cut her off. “We must let her clothe herself. She has a journey to begin.” Bair’s thin neck stiffened, and Amys’ mouth turned down. Clearly neither liked what Egwene was going to try any more than before.

Maybe they meant to stay and try talking her out of it, but Sorilea began muttering only half under her breath about fools who tried to stop a woman from doing what she thought she had to do. The younger pair straightened their shawls—Bair had to be seventy or eighty, but she certainly still was younger than Sorilea—gave Egwene a farewell hug and left with murmurs of, “May you always find water and shade.”

Sorilea waited only a moment longer. “Think on Taric. I should have asked him to the sweat tent so you could see him. Until you can, remember this. We are always more afraid than we wish to be, but we can always be braver than we expect. Hold on to your heart, and the Aes Sedai cannot harm what is really you, your heart. They are not nearly so far above us as we believed. May you always find water and shade, Egwene. And always remember your heart.”

Alone, Egwene merely stood for a time, staring at nothing and thinking. Her heart. Perhaps she did have more courage than she thought. She had done what she had to do here; she had been Aiel. In Salidar, she was going to need that. Aes Sedai methods differed from the Wise Ones’ in some respects, but they would not go easy if they knew she had called herself Aes Sedai. If they knew. She could not imagine why else they would summon her so coldly, but Aiel did not surrender before battle was joined.

With a start she came to herself.
If I’m not going to surrender before fighting
, she thought wryly,
I might as well get on to the battle.

Egwene washed her face. Twice. Then she found her saddlebags and filled them. Her ivory comb and brush and mirror went in, and her sewing box—a small, finely gilded casket that likely had held some lady’s jewels once—plus a white cake of rose-perfumed soap and clean stockings and shifts and handkerchiefs and a host of things, until the leather sides bulged and she could hardly buckle the flaps down. Several dresses and cloaks, an Aiel shawl, remained to make a bundle, which she tied neatly with a cord. That done, she looked around for anything else she might want to take. It was all hers. Even the tent had been given to her, but that was certainly too bulky, as were the carpets and cushions. Her crystal washbasin was beautiful, and far too heavy. The same for the chests, though several had beautiful work on the strapping and lovely carving.

Only then, thinking about the chests of all things, did she realize she was trying to put off the hardest bit of getting ready. “Courage,” she said dryly. “Heart of an Aiel.”

It turned out to be quite possible to put on stockings without sitting down, so long as you did not mind hopping around. Stout shoes followed, good if she had to walk far, and a silk shift, white and soft. Then the dark green riding dress, with its narrow divided skirts. Unfortunately that fit quite snugly over the hips, enough to remind her, unnecessarily, that she would not enjoy sitting for a while.

There was no point going outside. Bair and Amys were probably in their own tents, but she had no intention of risking the chance one of them might see her do this. It would be like slapping them. If it worked, that was. If not, she had a very long ride ahead of her.

Nervously rubbing her fingers over her palms, she embraced
saidar
, letting it fill her. And shifted her feet.
Saidar
made you more aware of everything, including your own body, which she would just as soon have missed right then. Trying something new, something no one had ever tried before that she knew, should have been done slowly and carefully, but for once she wanted to be rid of the Source. She channeled briskly, flows of Spirit, woven just so.

The air shimmered in the middle of the tent along her weave, cloaking the other side in mistiness. If she was right, she had just created a place where the interior of her tent was so similar to its reflection in
Tel’aran’rhiod
that there was no difference at all right there. One
was
the other. But there was only one way to be sure.

Tossing the saddlebags over her shoulder, she took the bundle under one arm and stepped through the weave, then let go of
saidar.

She was in
Tel’aran’rhiod.
All it took to tell her was that the lamps that had been lit were no longer burning, yet there was a sort of light. Things moved slightly between one glance and the next, the washbasin, a chest. She was in
Tel’aran’rhiod
in the flesh. It felt no different than when she came in a dream.