A Crown of Swords (62 page)

Contemptuously Sevanna studied her dusty companions, seated in a circle with her in the small clearing. The nearly leafless branches overhead provided a bit of cool shade, and the place where Rand al’Thor had hurled death lay more than a hundred miles to the west, yet the other women’s eyes shifted with an air of looking over shoulders. Without sweat tents, none had been able to clean herself properly, no more than a hasty washing of face and hands at day’s end. Eight small silver cups, all different, sat by her side on the dead leaves, and a silver pitcher, filled with water, that had been dented in the retreat.

“Either the
Car’a’carn
is not following,” she said abruptly, “or he has been unable to find us. Either contents me.”

Some of them actually jumped. Tion’s round face paled, and Modarra patted her shoulder. Modarra would have been pretty if she was not so tall, if she did not always try to mother everyone within reach. Alarys became much too intent on straightening skirts already neatly spread around her, attempting to ignore what she did not want to see. Meira’s thin mouth drew down, but who could say whether for the others’ open fear of the
Car’a’carn
or her own? They had reason to be afraid.

Two full days since the battle, and fewer than twenty thousand spears had grouped around Sevanna. Therava and most of the Wise Ones who had been to the west were still absent, including all the rest who were tied
to her. Some of the missing surely were making their way back to Kinslayer’s Dagger, but how many would never again see the sun rise? No one remembered such a slaughter, so many dead in so short a time. Even the
algai’d’siswai
were not truly ready to dance the spears again so soon. Reason to be afraid, yet none for showing it, displaying heart and soul on your face like a wetlander, open and naked for all to see. Rhiale at least seemed to realize that much. “If we are to do this thing, let us do it,” she muttered, stiff with embarrassment. She was one who had jumped.

Sevanna took the small gray cube from her pouch and placed it atop the brown leaves in the middle of the circle. Someryn put her hands on her knees, leaning over to examine it until she appeared in danger of falling out of her blouse. Her nose nearly touched the cube. Intricate patterns covered every side, and close up you could see smaller patterns within the larger, and still smaller inside those, and a hint of what seemed smaller yet. How they could have been made, the tiniest so fine, so precise, Sevanna had no idea. Once she had thought the cube stone, but she was no longer certain. Yesterday she had dropped it accidentally on some rocks without marring one line of the carving. If it
was
carving. The thing must be a
ter’angreal
; that they knew.

“The smallest flow possible of Fire must be touched lightly there, on what looks like a twisted crescent moon,” she told them, “and another there on the top, on that mark like a lightning bolt.” Someryn straightened very quickly.

“What will happen then?” Alarys asked, combing her hair with her fingers. It seemed an absentminded gesture, but she always found ways to remind everyone that her hair was black instead of common yellow or red.

Sevanna smiled. She enjoyed knowing what they did not. “I will use it to summon the wetlander who gave it to me.”

“That much you told us already,” Rhiale said in a sour voice, and Tion bluntly asked, “How will it summon him?” She might fear Rand al’Thor, but not a great deal else. Certainly not Sevanna. Belinde lightly stroked the cube with one bony finger, her sun-bleached eyebrows drawn down.

Maintaining a smooth face, Sevanna irritably prevented her hands from fingering a necklace or adjusting her shawl. “I have told you all you need know.” Considerably more than they needed, in her opinion, but it had been necessary. Otherwise they would all be back with the spears and the other Wise Ones, eating hard bread and dried meat. Or rather they would all be on the move eastward, watching for any sign of other survivors.

Watching for any sign of pursuit. With a late start, they might still cover fifty miles before halting. “Words will not skin the boar, much less kill it. If you have decided to creep back to the mountains and spend your lives running and hiding, then go. If not, then do what you must, and I will do my part.”

Rhiale’s blue eyes stared flat defiance, and Tion’s gray. Even Modarra looked doubtful, and she and Someryn lay the most solidly in her grasp.

Sevanna waited, outwardly calm, unwilling to tell them again or ask. Inside, her stomach churned with anger. She would not be beaten because these women had pale hearts.

“If we must,” Rhiale sighed at last. Excepting the absent Therava, she resisted most often, but Sevanna had hopes of her. The spine that refused to bend at all was often the most malleable once it gave way. That was as true for women as men. Rhiale and the others turned their eyes to the cube, some frowning.

Sevanna saw nothing, of course. In fact, she realized that if they did nothing, they could claim the cube failed to work, and she would never know.

Abruptly, though, Someryn gasped, and Meira almost whispered, “It draws more. Look.” She pointed. “Fire there and there, and Earth, and Air and Spirit, filling the runnels.”

“Not all of them,” Belinde said. “They could be filled many ways, I think. And there are places where the flows . . . twist . . . around something that is not there.” Her forehead furrowed. “It must be drawing the male part, as well.”

Several drew back a little, shifting shawls, brushing skirts as though to rub away dirt. Sevanna would have given anything to see. Almost anything. How could they be such cowards? How could they let it show?

Finally Modarra said, “I wonder what would happen if we touched it with Fire elsewhere.”

“Power the callbox too much or in the wrong way, and it may melt,” a man’s voice said out of the air. “It could even ex—”

The voice cut off as the other women surged to their feet, peering in among the trees. Alarys and Modarra went so far as to draw their belt knives, though they had no need of steel when they had the One Power. Nothing moved among the sun-streaked shadows, not so much as a bird.

Sevanna did not stir. She had believed perhaps a third of what of the wetlander had told her, not including this, in truth, but she recognized Caddar’s voice. Wetlanders always had more names, but that was all he had
given. A man of many secrets, she suspected. “Take your places again,” she ordered. “And put the flows back where they were. How can I summon him if you fear words?”

Rhiale swung around, mouth gaping and eyes incredulous. Undoubtedly wondering how she knew they had stopped channeling; the woman was not thinking clearly. Slowly, uneasily, they settled in the circle again. Rhiale donned a flatter face than anyone else.

“So you are back,” Caddar’s voice said from the air. “Do you have al’Thor?”

Something in his tone warned her. He could not know. But he did. She abandoned all she had prepared to say. “No, Caddar. But we still must talk. I will meet you in ten days where we first met.” She could reach that valley in Kinslayer’s Dagger sooner, but she needed time to prepare. How did he know?

“Well that you told the truth, girl,” Caddar murmured dryly. “You will learn I do not like being lied to. Maintain the wayline for location, and I will come to you.”

Sevanna stared at the cube in shock.
Girl?
“What did you say?” she demanded.
Girl!
She could not believe her ears. Rhiale very pointedly did not look at her, and Meira’s mouth twisted in a smile, awkward because so seldom used.

Caddar’s sigh filled the clearing. “Tell your Wise One to continue doing exactly what she is doing—nothing else—and I will come to you.” The forced patience in his tone scraped like a grist-stone. When she had what she wanted from the wetlander, she would dress him in
gai’shain
white. No, in black!

“What do you mean, you will come, Caddar?” Silence answered. “Caddar, where are you?” Silence. “Caddar?”

The others exchanged uneasy glances.

“Is he mad?” Tion said. Alarys muttered that he must be, and Belinde angrily demanded to know how long they were to continue this nonsense.

“Until I say to stop,” Sevanna said softly, staring at the cube. A prickle of hope wormed through her chest. If he could do this, then surely he could deliver what he had promised. And maybe. . . . She would not hope too much. She looked up through the branches that nearly met above the clearing. The sun still had a way to climb to its peak. “If he has not come by midday, we will go.” It was too much to expect they would not grumble.

“So we sit here like stones?” Alarys tossed her head in a practiced way, sweeping all of her hair over one shoulder. “For a wetlander?”

“Whatever he promised you, Sevanna,” Rhiale said with a scowl, “it cannot be worth this.”

“He is mad,” Tion growled.

Modarra nodded toward the cube. “What if he can still hear?”

Tion sniffed dismissively, and Someryn said, “How should we care if a man hears what we say? But I do not relish waiting for him.”

“What if he is like those wetlanders in black coats?” Belinde compressed her lips till they nearly matched Meira’s.

“Do not be ridiculous,” Alarys sneered. “Wetlanders kill such men on sight. Whatever the
algai’d’siswai
claim, that must have been the work of the Aes Sedai. And Rand al’Thor.” That name produced a pained silence, but it did not last.

“Caddar must have a cube like this one,” Belinde said. “He must have a woman with the gift to make it work.”

“An Aes Sedai?” Rhiale made a noise of disgust in her throat. “If there are ten Aes Sedai with him, let them come. We will deal with them as they deserve.”

Meira laughed, a dry sound as narrow as her face. “I think you almost begin to believe they did kill Desaine.”

“Watch your tongue!” Rhiale snarled.

“Yes,” Someryn murmured anxiously. “Careless words might be heard by the wrong ears.”

Tion’s laugh was short and unpleasant. “The lot of you has less courage than one wetlander.” Which made Someryn snap back, of course, and Modarra too, and Meira spoke words that would have brought a challenge had they not been Wise Ones, and Alarys spoke harsher, and Belinde. . . . Their squabbling irritated Sevanna, though it guaranteed they would not conspire against her. But that was not why she raised a hand for silence. Rhiale frowned at her, opening her mouth, and in that moment they heard what she did. Something rustled in the dead leaves among the trees. No Aiel would make so much noise, even if any would approach Wise Ones unbidden, and no animal would come so near people. This time, she rose to her feet with the others.

Two shapes appeared, a man and a woman, breaking enough branches underfoot to wake a stone. Just short of the clearing, they stopped, and the man bent his head slightly to speak to the woman. It was Caddar, in a nearly black coat with lace at his neck and wrists. At least he did not wear a sword. They seemed to be arguing. Sevanna should have been able to hear something of their words, yet the silence was complete. Caddar stood
nearly a hand taller than Modarra—tall for a wetlander, or even for an Aiel—and the woman’s head reached no higher than his chest. As dark of face and hair as he, and beautiful enough to tighten Sevanna’s mouth, she wore bright red silk, cut to expose even more of her bosom than Someryn showed.

As if thinking of the woman called her, Someryn drew close to Sevanna. “The woman has the gift,” she whispered without taking her eyes from the pair. “She weaves a barrier.” Pursing her lips, she added, reluctantly, “She is strong. Very strong.” From her, that meant something indeed. Sevanna had never been able to understand why strength in the Power did not count among Wise Ones—while being thankful that it did not, for her own sake—but Someryn prided herself that she had never encountered a woman near as strong as she. By her tone, Sevanna suspected this woman was stronger.

Right then, she did not care whether the woman could move mountains or barely light a candle. She must be Aes Sedai. She did not have the face, yet some Sevanna had seen did not. That must be how Caddar could put his hand on
ter’angreal.
That was how he could find them and come. So soon; so quickly. Possibilities unfolded, and hope grew. But between him and her, who commanded?

“Stop channeling into that,” she ordered. He might still be able to hear through it.

Rhiale gave her a look that did not stop short of pity. “Someryn already did, Sevanna.”

Nothing could spoil her mood. She smiled and said, “Very well. Remember what I said. Let me do all of the talking.” Most of the others nodded; Rhiale sniffed. Sevanna kept her smile. A Wise One could not be made
gai’shain
, but so many worn-out customs had been set aside already that others might follow.

Caddar and the woman started forward, and Someryn whispered again. “She still holds the Power.”

“Sit next to me,” Sevanna told her hastily. “Touch my leg if she channels.” How that galled. But she must know.

She sat, folding her legs under, and the others joined her, leaving a space for Caddar and the woman. Someryn sat close enough that their knees touched. Sevanna wished she had a chair.