The Great Hunt (68 page)

And then, while Egwene blinked wearily, Liandrin was riding away from a Guiding, not toward another bridge or ramp, but down a pitted white line that led off into the darkness. Egwene stared at her friends, and then they all hurried to follow. Ahead, by the light of her lantern, the Aes Sedai was already removing the
Avendesora
leaf from the carvings on a Waygate.

“We are here,” Liandrin said, smiling. “I have brought you at last to where you must go.”

CHAPTER
40

Damane

E
gwene dismounted as the Waygate opened, and when Liandrin motioned them through, she led the shaggy mare carefully out. Even so, she and Bela both stumbled in brush flattened by the opening Waygate as they suddenly seemed to be moving even more slowly. A screen of dense shrubs had surrounded and hidden the Waygate. There were only a few trees close by, and a morning breeze ruffled foliage with a little more color than the leaves had had in Tar Valon.

Watching her friends emerge after her, she had been standing there a good minute before she became aware that others were already there, just out of sight on the other side of the gates. When she did notice them she stared uncertainly; they were as odd a group as she had ever seen, and she had heard too many rumors of the war on Toman Head.

Armored men, at least fifty of them, with overlapping steel plates down their chests and dull black helmets shaped like insects’ heads, sat their saddles or stood beside their horses, staring at her and the emerging women, staring at the Waygate, muttering among themselves. The only bareheaded man among them, a tall, dark-faced, hook-nosed fellow standing with a gilded-and-painted helmet on his hip, looked astonished at what he was seeing. There were women with the soldiers, too. Two wore plain, dark gray dresses and wide silver collars, and stood staring intently at those coming out of the Waygate, each with another woman close behind her as if ready to speak into her ear. Two other women, standing a little apart, wore wide, divided skirts that came well short of their ankles, and panels embroidered with forked lightning bolts on their bosoms and skirts. Oddest of all was the last woman, reclining on a palanquin borne by eight muscular, bare-chested men in baggy black trousers. The sides of her scalp were shaved so that only a wide crest of black hair remained to fall down her back. A long, cream-colored robe worked in flowers and birds on blue ovals was carefully arranged to show her skirts of pleated white, and her fingernails were a good inch long, the first two on each hand lacquered blue.

“Liandrin Sedai,” Egwene asked uneasily, “do you know who these people are?” Her friends fingered their reins as if wondering whether to mount and run, but Liandrin replaced the
Avendesora
leaf and stepped forward confidently as the Waygate began to close.

“The High Lady Suroth?” Liandrin said, making it halfway between a question and statement.

The women on the palanquin nodded fractionally. “You are Liandrin.” Her speech was slurred, and it took Egwene a moment to understand. “Aes Sedai,” Suroth added with a twist to her lips, and a murmur rose among the soldiers. “We must be done here quickly, Liandrin. There are patrols, and it would not do to be found. You would enjoy the attentions of the Seekers for Truth no more than I. I mean to be back in Falme before Turak knows I am gone.”

“What are you talking about?” Nynaeve demanded. “What is she talking about, Liandrin?”

Liandrin laid a hand on Nynaeve’s shoulder and one on Egwene’s. “These are the two of whom you were told. And there is another.” She nodded toward Elayne. “She is the Daughter-Heir of Andor.”

The two women with the lightning on their dresses were approaching the party in front of the Waygate—they carried coils of some silvery metal in their hands, Egwene noticed—and the bareheaded soldier came with them. He did not put a hand near the sword hilt sticking up above his shoulder, and he wore a casual smile, but Egwene still watched him narrowly. Liandrin gave no sign of agitation; otherwise Egwene would have jumped onto Bela right then.

“Liandrin Sedai,” she said urgently, “who are these people? Are they here to help Rand and the others, too?”

The hook-nosed man suddenly seized Min and Elayne by the scruffs of their necks, and in the next instant everything seemed to happen at once. The man yelled a curse, and a woman screamed, or perhaps more than one woman; Egwene could not be sure. Abruptly the breeze was a gale that whipped away Liandrin’s angry shout in clouds of dirt and leaves and made the trees bend and groan. Horses reared and whinnied shrilly. And one of the women reached out and fastened something around Egwene’s neck.

Cloak flapping like a sail, Egwene braced against the wind and tugged at what felt like a collar of smooth metal. It would not budge; under her frantic fingers, it felt all of one piece, though she knew it had to have some kind of clasp. The silvery coils the woman had carried now trailed over Egwene’s shoulder, their other end joining a bright bracelet on the woman’s left wrist. Balling her fist tightly, Egwene hit the woman as hard as she could, right in her eye—and staggered and fell to her knees herself, head ringing. It felt as if a large man had struck her in the face.

When she could see straight once more, the wind had died. A number of horses wandered loose, Bela and Elayne’s mare among them, and some of the soldiers were cursing and picking themselves up off the ground. Liandrin was calmly brushing dust and leaves from her dress. Min knelt, supporting herself with her hands, groggily trying to rise further. The hook-nosed man stood over her, his hand dripping blood. Min’s knife lay just out of her reach, the blade stained red along one side. Nynaeve and Elayne were nowhere to be seen, and Nynaeve’s mare was gone, too. So were some of the soldiers, and one of the pairs of women. The other two were still there, and Egwene could see now that they were linked by a silver cord just like the one that still joined her to the woman standing over her.

That woman was rubbing her cheek as she squatted beside Egwene; there was a bruise already coming up around her left eye. With long, dark hair and big brown eyes, she was pretty, and perhaps as much as ten years older than Nynaeve. “Your first lesson,” she said emphatically. There was no animosity in her voice, but what almost sounded like friendliness. “I will not punish you further this time, since I should have been on guard with a newly caught
damane.
Know this. You are a
damane
, a Leashed One, and I am a
sul’dam
, a Holder of the Leash. When
damane
and
sul’dam
are joined, whatever hurt the
sul’dam
feels, the
damane
feels twice over. Even to death. So you must remember that you may never strike at a
sul’dam
in any way, and you must protect your
sul’dam
even more than yourself. I am Renna. How are you called?”

“I am not . . . what you said,” Egwene muttered. She pulled at the collar again; it gave no more than before. She thought of knocking the woman down and trying to pry the bracelet from her wrist, but rejected it. Even if the soldiers did not try to stop her—and so far they seemed to be ignoring her and Renna altogether—she had the sinking feeling the woman was telling the truth. Touching her left eye brought a wince; it did not feel puffy, so perhaps she was not actually growing a bruise to match Renna’s, but it still hurt. Her left eye, and Renna’s left eye. She raised her voice. “Liandrin Sedai? Why are you letting them do this?” Liandrin dusted her hands together, never looking in her direction.

“The very first thing you must learn,” Renna said, “is to do exactly as you are told, and without delay.”

Egwene gasped. Suddenly her skin burned and prickled as if she had rolled in stinging nettles, from the soles of her feet to her scalp. She tossed her head as the burning sensation increased.

“Many
sul’dam,
” Renna went on in that almost friendly tone, “do not believe
damane
should be allowed names, or at least only names they are given. But I am the one who took you, so I will be in charge of your training, and I will allow you to keep your own name. If you do not displease me too far. I am mildly upset with you now. Do you really wish to keep on until I am angry?”

Quivering, Egwene gritted her teeth. Her nails dug into her palms with the effort of not scratching wildly.
Idiot! It’s only your name.
“Egwene,” she managed to get out. “I am Egwene al’Vere.” Instantly the burning itch was gone. She let out a long, unsteady breath.

“Egwene,” Renna said. “That is a good name.” And to Egwene’s horror, Renna patted her on the head as she would a dog.

That, she realized, was what she had detected in the woman’s voice—a certain good will for a dog in training, not quite the friendliness one might have toward another human being.

Renna chuckled. “Now you are even angrier. If you intend to strike at me again, remember to make it a small blow, for you will feel it twice as hard as I. Do not attempt to channel; that you will never do without my express command.”

Egwene’s eye throbbed. She pushed herself to her feet and tried to ignore Renna, as much as it was possible to ignore someone who held a leash fastened to a collar around your neck. Her cheeks burned when the other woman chuckled again. She wanted to go to Min, but the amount of leash Renna had let out would not reach that far. She called softly, “Min, are you all right?”

Sitting slowly back on her heels, Min nodded, then put a hand to her head as if she wished she had not moved it.

Jagged lightning crackled across the clear sky, then struck among the trees some distance off. Egwene jumped, and suddenly smiled. Nynaeve was still free, and Elayne. If anyone could free her and Min, Nynaeve could. Her smile faded into a glare for Liandrin. For whatever the reason the Aes Sedai had betrayed them, there would be a reckoning.
Someday. Somehow.
The glare did no good; Liandrin did not look away from the palanquin.

The bare-chested men knelt, lowering the palanquin to the ground, and Suroth stepped down, carefully arranging her robe, then picked her way to Liandrin on soft-slippered feet. The two women were much of a size. Brown eyes stared levelly into black.

“You were to bring me two,” Suroth said. “Instead, I have only one, while two run loose, one of them more powerful by far than I had been led to believe. She will attract every patrol of ours within two leagues.”

“I brought you three,” Liandrin said calmly. “If you cannot manage to hold them, perhaps our master should find another among you to serve him. You take fright at trifles. If patrols come, kill them.”

Lightning flashed again in the near distance, and moments later something roared like thunder not far from where it struck; a cloud of dust rose into the air. Neither Liandrin nor Suroth took any notice.

“I could still return to Falme with two new
damane,
” Suroth said. “It grieves me to allow an . . . Aes Sedai”—she twisted the words like a curse—“to walk free.”

Liandrin’s face did not change, but Egwene saw a nimbus abruptly glow around her.

“Beware, High Lady,” Renna called. “She stands ready!”

There was a stir among the soldiers, a reaching for swords and lances, but Suroth only steepled her hands, smiling at Liandrin over her long nails. “You will make no move against me, Liandrin. Our master would disapprove, as I am surely needed here more than you, and you fear him more than you fear being made
damane.
”

Liandrin smiled, though white spots marked her cheeks with anger. “And you, Suroth, fear him more than you fear me burning you to a cinder where you stand.”

“Just so. We both fear him. Yet even our master’s needs will change with time. All
marath’damane
will be leashed eventually. Perhaps I will be the one who places the collar around your lovely throat.”

“As you say, Suroth. Our master’s needs will change. I will remind you of it on the day when you kneel to me.”

A tall leatherleaf perhaps a mile away suddenly became a roaring torch.

“This grows tiresome,” Suroth said. “Elbar, recall them.” The hook-nosed man produced a horn no bigger than his fist; it made a hoarse, piercing cry.

“You must find the woman Nynaeve,” Liandrin said sharply. “Elayne is of no importance, but both the woman and this girl here must be taken with you on your ships when you sail.”

“I know very well what has been commanded,
marath’damane
, though I would give much to know why.”

“However much you were told, child,” Liandrin sneered, “that is how much you are allowed to know. Remember that you serve and obey. These two must be removed to the other side of the Aryth Ocean and kept there.”

Suroth sniffed. “I will not remain here to find this Nynaeve. My usefulness to our master will be at an end if Turak hands me over to the Seekers for Truth.” Liandrin opened her mouth angrily, but Suroth refused to allow her a word. “The woman will not remain free for long. Neither of them will. When we sail again, we will take with us every woman on this miserable spit of land who can channel even slightly, leashed and collared. If you wish to remain and search for her, do so. Patrols will be here soon, thinking to engage the rabble that still hides in the countryside. Some patrols take
damane
with them, and they will not care what master you serve. Should you survive the encounter, the leash and collar will teach you a new life, and I do not believe our master will trouble to deliver one foolish enough to let herself be taken.”

“If either is allowed to remain here,” Liandrin said tightly, “our master will trouble himself with you, Suroth. Take them both, or pay the price.” She strode to the Waygate, clutching the reins of her mare. Soon it was closing behind her.