The Fires of Heaven (41 page)

“That is what I mean,” Nynaeve told her patiently. She had not sounded sulky, and she had not looked sullen. It was ridiculous. “The woman who furnished this room doesn’t look at the world the same as the woman who chose what used to be here. Look at those paintings. I don’t know what the triple thing is, but you can recognize the other as well as I.” They had both seen it happen.

“Bonwhin, I should say,” Egwene said thoughtfully. “You never did listen to the lectures as you should. It is a triptych.”

“Whatever it is, it’s the other that’s important.” She had listened to the Yellows well enough. The rest was a pack of useless nonsense often as not. “It seems to me that the woman who hung it wants to be reminded how dangerous Rand is. If Siuan Sanche has turned against Rand for some reason . . . Egwene, this could be far worse than just her wanting Elayne back in the Tower.”

“Perhaps,” Egwene said judiciously. “Maybe the papers will tell us something. You search in here. When I finish with Leane’s desk, I will help you.”

Nynaeve stared indignantly at Egwene’s back as she left.
You search in here, indeed!
Egwene had no right to give her orders. She ought to march right after her and tell her so in no uncertain terms.
Then why are you standing here like a lump?
she asked herself angrily. Searching the papers was a good idea, and she might as well do so in here as out there. In fact, the Amyrlin’s desk was more likely to hold something important. Grumbling to herself about what she would do to set Egwene straight, she stalked to the thickly carved table, kicking her skirts with every step.

There was nothing on the table except three ornately lacquered boxes, arrayed with painful precision. Remembering the sorts of traps that could be set by someone wanting to insure privacy, she made a long stick to push open the hinged lid of the first, a gold and green thing decorated with wading herons. It was a writing case, with pens and ink and sand. The largest box, with red roses twining through golden scrolls, held twenty or more delicate carvings of ivory and turquoise, animals and people, all laid out on pale gray velvet.

As she pushed up the lid of the third box—golden hawks fighting among white clouds in a blue sky—she noticed that the first two were closed again. Things like that happened here; everything seemed to want to remain as it was in the waking world, and on top of that, if you took your eyes away for a moment, details could be different when you looked back.

The third box did hold documents. The stick vanished, and she gingerly lifted out the top sheet of parchment. Formally signed “Joline Aes Sedai,” it was a humble request to serve a set of penances that made Nynaeve wince just scanning them rapidly. Nothing there that mattered, except to Joline. A scrawl at the bottom said “approved” in angular script. As she reached to put the parchment down, it faded away; the box was closed, too.

Sighing, she opened it again. The papers inside looked different. Holding the lid, she lifted them out one by one and read quickly. Or tried to read. Sometimes the letters and reports vanished while she was still picking them up, sometimes when she was no more than halfway down a page. If they had a salutation, it was simply, “Mother, with respect.” Some were signed by Aes Sedai, others by women with other titles, nobles, or no honorific at all. None of it seemed to bear on the matter at hand. The Marshal General of Saldaea and his army could not be found, and Queen Tenobia was refusing to cooperate; she managed to finish that report, but it assumed that the reader knew why the man was not in Saldaea and what the queen was supposed to be cooperating about. No report had come from any Ajah’s eyes-and-ears in Tanchico for three weeks; but she got no further than that one fact. Some trouble between Illian on one side and Murandy on the other was abating, and Pedron Niall was claiming credit; even in the few lines she got she could see the writer’s teeth gnashing. The letters were all no doubt very important, those she was able to hurry through and those that faded away under her eyes, but of no use to her at all. She had just begun what seemed to be a report on a suspected—that was the word used—gathering of Blue sisters, when a wretched cry of “Oh, Light, no!” came from the outer room.

Darting for the door, she made a stout wooden club appear in her hands, its head bristling with spikes. But when she dashed in expecting to find Egwene defending herself, the woman was standing behind the Keeper’s table staring at nothing. With a look of horror on her face, to be sure, but still unharmed and unthreatened that Nynaeve could see.

Egwene gave a start at the sight of her, then gathered herself visibly. “Nynaeve, Elaida is Amyrlin Seat.”

“Don’t be a goose,” Nynaeve scoffed. Yet the other room, so unlike Siuan Sanche . . . “You’re imagining things. You must be.”

“I had a parchment in my hands, Nynaeve, signed ‘Elaida do Avriny a’Roihan, Watcher of the Seals, Flame of Tar Valon, The Amyrlin Seat,’ and sealed with the Amyrlin’s seal.”

Nynaeve’s stomach tried to flutter up into her chest. “But how? What has happened to Siuan? Egwene, the Tower doesn’t depose an Amyrlin except for something serious. Only two in nearly three thousand years.”

“Maybe Rand was serious enough.” Egwene’s voice was steady, though her eyes were still too wide. “Maybe she became ill with something the Yellows couldn’t Heal, or fell down the stairs and broke her neck. What matters is that Elaida is Amyrlin. I don’t think she will support Rand as Siuan did.”

“Moiraine,” Nynaeve muttered. “So sure that Siuan would put the Tower behind him.” She could not imagine Siuan Sanche dead. She had hated the woman often, been the slightest bit afraid of her on occasion—she could admit that now, to herself anyway—yet she had respected her, too. She had thought that Siuan would last forever. “Elaida. Light! She’s as mean as a snake and as cruel as a cat. There’s no telling what she might do.”

“I am afraid I have a clue.” Egwene pressed both hands to her stomach as though to quell flutters of her own. “It was a very short document. I managed to read it all. ‘All loyal sisters are required to report the presence of the woman Moiraine Damodred. She is to be detained if possible, by whatever means are necessary, and returned to the White Tower for trial on charge of treason.’ The same sort of language that was apparently used about Elayne.”

“If Elaida wants Moiraine arrested, it must mean she knows Moiraine has been helping Rand, and she does not like it.” Talking was good. Talking kept her from sicking up. Treason. They stilled women for that. She had wanted to bring Moiraine down. Now Elaida was going to do it for her. “She certainly won’t support Rand.”

“Exactly.”

“Loyal sisters. Egwene, that fits with the Macura woman’s message. Whatever happened to Siuan, the Ajahs have split over Elaida as Amyrlin. It must be.”

“Yes, of course. Very good, Nynaeve. I did not see that.”

Her smile was so pleased that Nynaeve smiled back. “There’s a report on Siu—on the Amyrlin’s writing table about a gathering of Blues. I was just reading it when you shouted. I’ll wager the Blues didn’t support Elaida.” The Blue and Red Ajahs had a sort of armed truce at the best of times, and came near going for each other’s throats at the worst.

But when they went back into the inner room, the report was not to be found. There were plenty of documents—Joline’s letter had reappeared; a brief reading made Egwene’s eyebrows climb nearly to her hair—but not the one that they wanted.

“Can you remember what it said?” Egwene asked.

“I had just gotten a few lines when you shouted, and . . . I just can’t remember.”

“Try, Nynaeve. Try very hard.”

“I am, Egwene, but it will not come. I
am
trying.”

What she was doing hit Nynaeve like a sudden hammer between the eyes. Excusing herself. To Egwene, a girl whose bottom she had switched
for throwing a tantrum not more than two years ago. And a moment earlier she had been proud as a hen with a new egg because Egwene was pleased with her. She remembered quite clearly the day when the balance between them had shifted, when they ceased being the Wisdom and the girl who fetched when the Wisdom said fetch, becoming instead just two women far from home. It seemed that balance had shifted further, and she did not like it. She was going to have to do something to move it back where it belonged.

The lie. She had deliberately lied to Egwene for the first time ever today. That was why her moral authority had vanished, why she was floundering around, unable to assert herself properly. “I drank the tea, Egwene.” She forced each word deliberately. She had to force them. “The Macura woman’s forkroot tea. She and Luci hauled us upstairs like sacks of feathers. That is about how much strength we had between us. If Thom and Juilin hadn’t come to pull us out by the scruffs of our necks, we would probably be there still. Or else on our way to the Tower, so full of forkroot we wouldn’t wake up until we got here.” Taking a deep breath, she tried for a tone of righteous firmness, but it was difficult when you had just confessed to having been an utter fool. What came out sounded much more tentative than she liked. “If you tell the Wise Ones about this—especially that Melaine—I’ll box your ears.”

Something in that should have sparked Egwene’s ire. It seemed odd to want to start a row—usually their quarrels were over Egwene refusing to see reason, and they seldom ended pleasantly, since the girl had formed the habit of continuing to refuse—but that was certainly better than this. Yet Egwene only smiled at her. An amused smile. A
condescending
amused smile.

“I more than suspected as much, Nynaeve. You used to drone on about herbs day and night, but you never mentioned any plant called forkroot. I was sure you’d never heard of it until that woman mentioned it. You’ve always tried to put the best face on things. If you fell head first into a pigsty, you’d try to convince everybody you did it on purpose. Now, what we have to decide—”

“I do no such thing,” Nynaeve spluttered.

“You certainly do. Facts are facts. You might as well stop whining about it and help me decide—”

Whining! This was not going at all the way she wanted. “They are no such thing. Not facts, I mean. I have never done what you said.”

For a moment Egwene stared at her silently. “You will not let go of this, will you? Very well. You lied to me . . .”

“It was not a lie,” she muttered. “Not exactly.”

The other woman ignored her interruption. “. . . And you lie to yourself. Do you remember what you made me drink the last time I lied to you?” Suddenly a cup was in her hand, full of viscous sickly green liquid; it looked as if it had been scooped from a scummy stagnant pond. “The
only
time I ever lied to you. The memory of that taste was an effective discouragement. If you cannot tell the truth even to yourself . . .”

Nynaeve took a step back before she could stop herself. Boiled catfern and powdered mavinsleaf; her tongue writhed at just the thought. “I did not
really
lie, actually.” Why was she making excuses? “I just didn’t tell the whole truth.”
I am the Wisdom! I was the Wisdom; that ought to count for something still.
“You cannot really think . . .”
Just tell her. You’re not the child here, and you certainly are not going to drink.
“Egwene, I—” Egwene pushed the cup nearly under her nose; she could smell the acrid tang. “All right,” she said hastily.
This can’t be happening!
But she could not take her eyes off that brimming cup, and she could not stop the words tumbling out. “Sometimes I try to make things look better for myself than they were. Sometimes. But never anything important. I’ve never—lied—about anything important. Never, I swear. Only small things.” The cup vanished, and Nynaeve heaved a sigh of relief.
Fool, fool woman! She couldn’t have made you drink it! What is wrong with you?

“What we have to decide,” Egwene said as if nothing at all had happened, “is who to tell. Moiraine certainly has to know, and Rand, but if everyone hears of it . . . The Aiel are peculiar, about Aes Sedai no less than anything else. I think they’ll follow Rand as He Who Comes With the Dawn in spite of anything, but once they learn the White Tower is against him, maybe they won’t be so fervent.”

“They’ll learn sooner or later,” Nynaeve muttered.
She could
not
have made me drink it!

“Later better than sooner, Nynaeve. So don’t you go bursting out in a temper and telling the Wise Ones about this at our next meeting. In fact, it would be best if you didn’t mention this visit to the Tower at all. That way maybe you can keep it secret.”

“I am not a fool,” Nynaeve said stiffly, and felt a slow burn when Egwene quirked that eyebrow at her again. She was not about to bring the visit up with the Wise Ones. Not because it was easier defying them behind
their backs. Nothing like that. And she was
not
trying to put a good face on things. It was not fair that Egwene could leap about
Tel’aran’rhiod
however she wanted, while she had to put up with lectures and bullying.

“I know you are not,” Egwene said. “Unless you let your temper get the better of you. You need to hold your temper and keep your wits about you if you’re right about the Forsaken, especially Moghedien.” Nynaeve glowered at her, opening her mouth to say that she could too keep her temper and she would smack Egwene’s ears if she thought differently, but the other woman gave her no chance. “We must find that gathering of Blue sisters, Nynaeve. If they oppose Elaida, maybe—just maybe—they will support Rand the way Siuan did. Was a town mentioned, or a village? A country, even?”

“I think . . . I cannot remember.” She struggled to take the defensive note out of her voice.
Light, I confessed everything, made a fool of myself, and it’s only made things worse!
“I will keep trying.”

“Good. We must find them, Nynaeve.” For a moment Egwene studied her, while she refused to repeat herself. “Nynaeve, take care concerning Moghedien. Do not go rushing off like a bear in spring just because she got away from you in Tanchico.”

“I am not a fool, Egwene,” Nynaeve said carefully. It was frustrating having to hold her temper, but if all Egwene would do was ignore it or scold her, there was nothing to be gained beyond looking a bigger ninny-head than she did already.