Knife of Dreams (44 page)

There are many words I would like to write to you, words from my heart, but I have put this off because I knew that I must, and now there is little time. There are many things I cannot tell you lest I bring disaster, but what I can, I will. Heed carefully what I say. In a short while I will
go down to the docks, and there I will confront Lanfear. How can I know that? That secret belongs to others. Suffice it that I know, and let that foreknowledge stand as proof for the rest of what I say.

When you receive this, you will be told that I am dead. All will believe that. I am not dead, and it may be that I shall live to my appointed years. It also may be that you and Mat Cauthon and another, a man I do not know, will try to rescue me. May, I say because it may be that you will not or cannot, or because Mat may refuse. He does not hold me in the affection you seem to, and he has his reasons which he no doubt thinks are good. If you try, it must be only you and Mat and one other. More will mean death for all. Fewer will mean death for all. Even if you come only with Mat and one other, death also may come. I have seen you try and die, one or two or all three. I have seen myself die in the attempt. I have seen all of us live and die as captives.

Should you decide to make the attempt anyway, young Mat knows the way to find me, yet you must not show him this letter until he asks about it. That is of the utmost importance. He must know nothing that is in this letter until he asks. Events must play out in certain ways, whatever the costs.

If you see Lan again, tell him that all of this is for the best. His destiny follows a different path from mine. I wish him all happiness with Nynaeve.

A final point. Remember what you know about the game of Snakes and Foxes. Remember, and heed.

It is time, and I must do what must be done.

May the Light illumine you and give you joy, my dearest Thom, whether or not we ever see one another again.

Moiraine

Thunder boomed as he finished. Fitting, that. Shaking his head, he handed the letter back. “Thom,” he said gently, “Lan’s bond to her was broken. It takes death to do that. He
said
she was dead.”

“And her letter says everyone would believe that. She knew, Mat. She knew it all in advance.”

“That’s as may be, but Moiraine and Lanfear went into that doorframe
ter’angreal
, and it melted. The thing was redstone, or looked to be,
stone
, Thom, yet it melted like wax. I
saw
it. She went to wherever the
Eelfinn are, and even if she is alive, there’s no way for us to get there anymore.”

“The Tower of Ghenjei,” Olver piped up, and all three adults turned their heads to stare at him. “Birgitte told me,” he said defensively. “The Tower of Ghenjei is the way to the lands of the Aelfinn and the Eelfinn.” He made the gesture that began a game of Snakes and Foxes, a triangle drawn in the air and then a wavy line through it. “She knows even more stories than you, Master Charin.”

“That wouldn’t be Birgitte Silverbow, would it?” Noal said wryly.

The boy gave him a level look. “I’m not an infant, Master Charin. But she is very good with a bow, so maybe she is. Birgitte born again, I mean.”

“I don’t think there’s any chance of that,” Mat said. “I’ve talked with her, too, you know, and the last thing she wants is to be any kind of hero.” He kept his promises, and Birgitte’s secrets were safe with him. “In any case, knowing about this tower doesn’t help much unless she told you where it is.” Olver shook his head sadly, and Mat bent to ruffle his hair. “Not your fault, boy. Without you, we wouldn’t even know it exists.” That did not seem to help much. Olver stared at the red cloth game board dejectedly.

“The Tower of Ghenjei,” Noal said, sitting up cross-legged and tugging his coat straight. “Not many know that tale anymore. Jain always said he’d go looking for it one day. Somewhere along the Shadow Coast, he said.”

“That’s still a lot of ground to search.” Mat fitted the lid on one of the boxes. “It could take years.” Years they did not have if Tuon was right, and he was sure that she was.

Thom shook his head. “She says you know, Mat. ‘Mat knows the way to find me.’ I doubt very much she’d have written that on a whim.”

“Well, I can’t help what she says, now can I? I never heard of any Tower of Ghenjei until tonight.”

“A pity,” Noal sighed. “I’d like to have seen it, something Jain bloody Farstrider never did. You might as well give over,” he added when Thom opened his mouth. “He wouldn’t forget seeing it, and even if he never heard the name, he’d have to think of it when he heard of a strange tower that lets people into other lands. The thing gleams like burnished steel, I’m told, two hundred feet high and forty thick, and there’s not an opening to be found in it. Who could forget seeing that?”

Mat went very still. His black scarf felt too tight against his hanging scar. The scar itself suddenly felt fresh and hot. It was hard for him to draw breath.

“If there’s no opening, how do we get in?” Thom wanted to know.

Noal shrugged, but Olver spoke up once more. “Birgitte says you make the sign on the side of it anywhere with a bronze knife.” He made the sign that started the game. “She says it has to be a bronze knife. Make the sign, and a door opens.”

“What else did she tell you about—” Thom began, then cut off with a frown. “What ails you, Mat? You look about to sick up.”

What ailed him was his memory, and not the other men’s memories for once. Those had been stuffed into him to fill holes in his own memories, which they did and more, or so it seemed. He certainly remembered many more days than he had lived. But whole stretches of his own life were lost to him, and others were like moth-riddled blankets or shadowy and dim. He had only spotty memories of fleeing Shadar Logoth, and very vague recollections of escaping on Domon’s rivership, but one thing seen on that voyage stood out. A tower shining like burnished steel. Sick up? His stomach wanted to empty itself.

“I think I know where that tower is, Thom. Rather, Domon knows. But I can’t go with you. The Eelfinn will know I’m coming, maybe the Aelfinn, too. Burn me, they might already know about this letter, because I read it. They might know every word we’ve said. You can’t trust them. They’ll take advantage if they can, and if they know you’re coming, they’ll be planning to do just that. They’ll skin you and make harnesses for themselves from your hide.” His memories of them were all his own, but they were more than enough to support the judgment.

They stared at him as if he were mad, even Olver. There was nothing for it but to tell them about his encounters with the Aelfinn and the Eelfinn. As much as was needful, at least. Not about his answers from the Aelfinn, certainly, or his two gifts from the Eelfinn. But the other men’s memories were necessary to explain what he had reasoned out about the Eelfinn and Aelfinn having links to him, now. And the pale leather harnesses the Eelfinn wore; those seemed important. And how they had tried to kill him. That was very important. He had said he wanted to leave and failed to say alive, so they took him outside and hanged him. He even removed the scarf to show his scar for extra weight, and he seldom let anybody see that. The three of them listened in silence, Thom and Noal intently, Olver’s mouth slowly dropping open in wonder. The rain beating on the tent roof was the only sound aside from his voice.

“That all has to stay inside this tent,” he finished. “Aes Sedai have enough reasons already to want to put their hands on me. If they find out about those memories, I’ll never be free of them.”
Would
he ever be entirely
free of them? He was beginning to think not, yet there was no reason to give them fresh reasons to meddle in his life.

“Are
you
any relation to Jain?” Noal raised his hands in a placating gesture. “Peace, man. I believe you. It’s just, that tops anything I ever did. Anything Jain ever did, too. Would you mind if I made the third? I can be handy in tight spots, you know.”

“Burn me, did everything I said pass in one ear and out the other? They’ll know I’m coming. They may already know everything!”

“And it doesn’t matter,” Thom put in, “not to me. I’ll go by myself, if necessary. But if I read this correctly,” he began folding the letter up, almost tenderly, “the only hope of success is if you are one of the three.” He sat there on the cot, silent now, looking Mat in the eye.

Mat wanted to look away, and could not. Bloody Aes Sedai! The woman almost certainly was dead, and yet she still tried coercing him into being a hero. Well, heroes got patted on the head and pushed out of the way until the next time a hero was needed, if they survived being a hero in the first place. Very often heroes did not. He had never really trusted Moiraine, or liked her either. Only fools trusted Aes Sedai. But then, if not for her, he would be back in the Two Rivers mucking out the barn and tending his da’s cows. Or he would be dead. And there old Thom sat, saying nothing, just staring at him. That was the rub. He liked Thom.
Oh, blood and bloody ashes.

“Burn me for a fool,” he muttered. “I’ll go.”

Thunder crashed deafeningly right atop a flash of lightning so bright it shone through the tent canvas. When the rumbling booms faded, there was dead silence in his head. The last set of dice had stopped. He could have wept.

Despite the late hours kept by everyone that night, the show made a very early start the next morning. Grainy-eyed and groggy, Mat trudged out of his tent while the sky was still dark to find men and women with lanterns trotting to get ready when they were not running, and nearly everyone shouting for somebody or other to move faster. Many had the unsteady step of people who had not slept. Everyone seemed to feel that the farther they could get from where that village had vanished in front of their eyes, the better. Luca’s great gaudy wagon took to the road before the sun had cleared the horizon, and once again he set a goodly pace. Two merchants’ trains of twenty or so wagons each passed them heading south, and a slow caravan of Tinkers, but nothing going the other way. The farther, the better.

Mat rode with Tuon, and Selucia made no attempt to put the dun between them, yet there was no conversation however much he tried to start one. Save for an occasional unreadable glance when he made a sally or told a joke, Tuon rode looking straight ahead, the cowl of her blue cloak hiding her face. Even juggling failed to catch her attention. There was something broody about her silence, and it worried him. When a woman went silent on you, there usually was trouble in the offing. When she brooded, you could forget about usually. He doubted it was the village of the dead that had her fretting. She was too tough for that. No, there was trouble ahead.

Little more than an hour after they set out, a farm on rolling ground hove into sight, with dozens of black-faced goats cropping grass in a wide pasture and a large olive grove. Boys weeding among the rows of dark-leaved olive trees dropped their hoes and rushed down to the stone fences to watch the show pass, shouting with excitement to know who they were and where they were going and where coming from. Men and women came out of the sprawling tile-roofed farmhouse and two big thatch-roofed barns, shading their eyes to watch. Mat was relieved to see it. The dead paid no mind to the living.

As the show rolled onward, farms and olive groves grew thicker on the ground until they ran side by side, pushing the forest back a mile or more on either side of the road, and well short of midmorning they reached a prosperous town somewhat larger than Jurador. A merchant’s long train of canvas-topped wagons was turning in at the main gates, where half a dozen men in polished conical helmets and leather coats sewn with steel discs stood guard with halberds. More men, cradling crossbows, kept watch atop the two gate towers. But if the Lord of Maderin, one Nathin Sarmain Vendare, expected trouble, the guards were the only sign of it. Farms and olive groves reached right to the stone walls of Maderin, an unsound practice, and right costly should the town ever need to be defended. Luca had to bargain with a farmer for the right to set up the show in an unused pasture and came back muttering that he had just bought the scoundrel a new flock of goats or maybe two. But the canvas wall was soon rising, with Luca chivvying everyone for speed. They were to perform today and leave early in the morning. Very early. Nobody complained, or much said an unneeded word. The farther, the better.