Lord of Chaos (73 page)

Haman gave her a look and lettered in the name just above the River Iralell, not far north of Haddon Mirk. In the strip west of the Dragonwall from the southern border of Shienar to the Sea of Storms, there were only four, all newfound as the Ogier considered it, meaning the youngest, Tsofu, had had Ogier back for six hundred years and none of the others for more than a thousand. Some of the locations were as big a surprise as the Borderlands, such as the Mountains of Mist, which had six, and the Shadow Coast. The Black Hills were included, and the forests above the
River Ivo, and the mountains above the River Dhagon, just north of Arad Doman.

Sadder was the list of
stedding
abandoned, given up because the numbers there had grown too few. The Spine of the World and the Mountains of Mist and the Shadow Coast were in that list too, and so was a
stedding
deep on Almoth Plain, near the great forest called the Paerish Swar, and one in the low mountains along the north of Toman Head, facing the Aryth Ocean. Perhaps saddest was the one marked on the very edge of the Blight in Arafel; Myrddraal might be reluctant to enter a
stedding
, but as the Blight marched south year by year, it swept over everything.

Pausing, Haman said sadly, “Sherandu was swallowed by the Great Blight one thousand eight hundred forty-three years ago, and Chandar nine hundred sixty-eight.”

“May their memories flourish and flower in the Light,” Covril and Erith murmured together.

“I know of one you didn’t mark,” Rand said. Perrin had told him of sheltering in it once. He pulled out a map of Andor east of the River Arinelle and touched a spot well above the road from Caemlyn to White-bridge. It was close enough.

Haman grimaced, almost a snarl. “Where Hawkwing’s city was to be. That was never reclaimed. Several
stedding
were found and never reclaimed. We try to stay away from the lands of men as much as possible.” All of the marks were in rugged mountains, in places men found hard to enter, or in a few cases just far from any human habitation. Stedding Tsofu lay far closer than any other to where humans dwelled, and even then Rand knew it was a full day to the nearest village.

“This would be a fine discussion another time,” Covril said, directing her words to Rand yet plainly meaning them for Haman, as her sidelong looks indicated, “but I want to make as far west as I can before nightfall.” Haman sighed heavily.

“Surely you’ll stay here awhile,” Rand protested. “You must be exhausted, walking all the way from Cairhien.”

“Women do not become exhausted,” Haman said, “they only exhaust others. That is a very old saying among us.” Covril and Erith sniffed in harmony. Muttering to himself, Haman went on with his listing, but now it was cities that the Ogier had built, cities where the groves had been, each grove holding its Waygate to carry Ogier back and forth to the
stedding
without passing through the so-often troubled lands of men.

Caemlyn he marked, of course, and Tar Valon, Tear and Illian, Cairhien
and Maradon and Ebou Dar. That was the end as far as cities that still existed were concerned, and Ebou Dar he wrote as Barashta. Perhaps Barashta belonged with the others, in a way, with the dots made in places where the maps showed nothing but a village if that. Mafal Dadaranell, Ancohima, and Londaren Cor, of course, and Manetheren. Aren Mador, Aridhol, Shaemal, Braem, Condaris, Hai Ecorimon, Iman. . . . As that list grew, Rand began to see damp spots on each map when Haman was done. It took him a moment to realize that the Ogier Elder was weeping silently, letting the tears fall as he marked cities dead and forgotten. Perhaps he wept for the people, perhaps for the memories. The one thing Rand could be sure of was that it was not for the cities themselves, not for the lost works of Ogier masons. To the Ogier, stonework was only something they had picked up during the Exile, and what work in stone could compare with the majesty of trees?

One of those names more than tugged at Rand’s memories, and its location as well, east of Baerlon, several days above Whitebridge on the Arinelle. “There was a grove here?” he said, fingering the mark.

“At Aridhol?” Haman said. “Yes. Yes, there was. A sad business, that.”

Rand did not raise his head. “In Shadar Logoth,” he corrected. “A very sad business. Could you—would you—show me that Waygate if I took you there?”

“Take us there?” Covril said, frowning formidably at the map in Rand’s hands. “It will carry us well out of our way, if I remember where the Two Rivers is correctly. I will not waste another day finding Loial.” Erith nodded firmly.

Haman, cheeks still damp with tears, shook his head for their haste but said, “I cannot allow it. Aridhol—Shadar Logoth, as you rightly name it now—is no place for someone as young as Erith. In good truth, it is no place for anyone.”

Letting the map fall, Rand stood up. He knew Shadar Logoth better than he wanted to. “You will lose no time. In fact, you’ll gain. I will take you there by Traveling, by a gateway; you will be most of the way to the Two Rivers today. We’ll not be long. I know you can lead me right to the Waygate.” Ogier could sense Waygates, if they were not too far.

This necessitated another conference beyond the fountain, one Erith demanded to be part of. Rand caught only snatches, yet it was plain that Haman, shaking his great head doggedly, opposed the plan while Covril, ears so stiff it seemed she was trying for every inch of height, insisted on it. At first Covril frowned at Erith as much as at Haman; whatever the relationship between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law among Ogier, she clearly thought the younger woman had no business in this. It did not take
her long to change her mind, though. The Ogier women flanked Haman, hammering at him relentlessly.

“. . . too dangerous. Much too dangerous,” came like distant thunder from Haman.

“. . . almost there today. . . .” A slighter thunder from Covril.

“. . . he has been Outside too long already. . . .” An almost silvery peal from Erith.

“. . . haste makes for waste . . .”

“. . . my Loial. . . .”

“. . . my Loial. . . .”

“. . . Mashadar beneath our feet. . . .”

“. . . my Loial. . . .”

“. . . my Loial. . . .”

“. . . as an Elder. . . .”

“. . . my Loial. . . .”

“. . . my Loial. . . .”

Haman came back to Rand tugging at his coat as though it had been ripped half off, followed by the women. Covril maintained a smoother face than Erith, who fought to suppress a smile, but their tufted ears were at the same jaunty angle, somehow conveying satisfaction.

“We have decided,” Haman said stiffly, “to accept your offer. Let this ridiculous gallivanting be done with so I can return to my classes. And to the Stump. Um. Um. There is much to be said about you before the Stump.”

Rand did not care whether Haman told the Stump he was a bully. Ogier held themselves apart from men except for repairing their old stonework, and it was unlikely they would influence any human one way or another about him. “Good,” he said. “I will send someone to fetch your belongings from your inn.”

“We have everything right here.” Covril went back around to the other side of the fountain, bent, and straightened with two bundles that had been hidden behind the basin. Either would have made a heavy load for a man. She handed one to Erith and slipped a strap tied to the other over her head so it slanted across her chest, holding the bundle against her back.

“If Loial were here,” Erith explained, donning her bundle, “we would be ready to start back to Stedding Tsofu without delay. If not, we would be ready to go on. Without delay.”

“Actually, it was the beds,” Haman confided, holding his hands to indicate a size to fit a human child. “Once every inn Outside had two or
three Ogier rooms, but they seem very hard to find now. It is difficult to understand.” He glanced at the marked maps and sighed. “It was difficult to understand.”

Waiting just long enough for Haman to fetch his own bundle, Rand seized
saidin
and opened a gateway right there beside the fountain, a hole in the air that showed a ruined, weed-filled street and collapsing buildings.

“Rand al’Thor.” Sulin almost strolled into the courtyard, just ahead of a cluster of map-laden servants and
gai’shain.
Liah and Cassin were with her, pretending to be just as casual. “You asked for more maps.” Sulin’s glance at the gateway was barely short of accusing.

“I can protect myself better there than you can,” Rand told her coldly. He did not intend it to be cold, but wrapped in the Void, he could not make his voice anything but cold and distant. “There is nothing your spears can fight, and some things they can’t.”

Sulin still wore a good deal of her earlier stiffness. “All the more reason for us to be there.”

That could not possibly make sense to anyone not Aiel, but. . . . “I will not argue it,” he said. She would try to follow, if he refused; she would summon Maidens who would try to leap through even if he was closing the gateway. “I expect you have the rest of today’s guard just inside. Whistle them up. But everyone is to stay close to me and touch nothing. Be quick about it. I want this done with.” His memories of Shadar Logoth were not pleasant.

“I sent them away as you insisted,” Sulin said disgustedly. “Give me a slow count of one hundred.”

“Ten.”

“Fifty.”

Rand nodded, and her fingers flashed. Jalani darted away inside, and Sulin’s hands flickered again. Three
gai’shain
women dropped their armloads of maps, looking startled—Aiel
never
looked that surprised—gathered long white robes and vanished back into the Palace in different directions, but quickly as they moved, Sulin was ahead of them.

As Rand reached, twenty, Aiel began bounding into the courtyard, hurtling though windows, leaping down from balconies. He almost lost the count. Every one was veiled, and only some Maidens. They stared about in confusion when they found only Rand and three Ogier, who blinked at them curiously. Some lowered their veils. The Palace servants huddled together.

The flow continued even after Sulin returned, unveiled, dead on the
count of fifty, the courtyard filling with Aiel. Quickly it became clear that she had spread the word the
Car’a’carn
was in danger, the only way she felt she could gather enough spears in the time allotted. A little sour grumping passed among the men, but most decided it was a fine joke, some chuckling or rattling spears on bucklers. None left, though; they looked at the gateway and settled on their haunches to see what was happening.

Ears sharpened with the Power, Rand heard a Maiden named Nandera, sinewy yet still handsome despite more gray than yellow in her hair, whisper to Sulin. “You spoke to
gai’shain
as
Far Dareis Mai.
”

Sulin’s blue eyes met Nandera’s green levelly. “I did. We will deal with it when Rand al’Thor is safe today.”

“When he is safe,” Nandera agreed.

Sulin chose out twenty Maidens quickly, some who had been part of the guard that morning and some not, but when Urien began picking Red Shields, men from other societies insisted they should be included. That city through the gateway looked a place where enemies might be found, and the
Car’a’carn
must be protected. If the truth be told, no Aiel turned away from a possible fight, and the younger they were, the more likely to try to find one. Another argument almost started when Rand said the men could not number more than the Maidens—that would dishonor
Far Dareis Mai
, since he had given them his honor to carry—and the Maidens not more than Sulin had already chosen. He truly was taking them where no battle skills could protect them, and every one who came with him was one more he would have to watch out for. That he did not explain; no telling whose honor he would step on if he did.

“Remember,” he said once they were sorted out, “touch nothing. Take nothing, not even a sip of water. And stay in sight always; don’t go inside any building for any reason.” Haman and Covril nodded vigorously, which seemed to impress the Aiel more than Rand’s words. So long as they
were
impressed.