Knife of Dreams (The Wheel of Time #11)

Knife of Dreams (The Wheel of Time #11) Page 197

Were they looking at him differently? Logain’s face was a carved mask, unreadable. Bashere looked as though he still could not believe. Nynaeve’s mouth hung open, and her eyes were wide. The bond. . . .

For a long moment, the bond was full of. . . numbness. If Min turned away from him, he did not know whether he could stand it. If she turned away, it would be the best thing in the world for her. But compassion and determination as strong as mountains replaced numbness, and love so bright he thought he could have warmed his hands over it. Her grip on his arm tightened, and he tried to put a hand over hers. Too late, he remembered and snatched the nub of his hand away, but not before it had touched her. Nothing in the bond wavered by a hair.

Cadsuane moved closer to the taller woman and looked up at her. Facing one of the Forsaken seemed to faze her no more than facing the Dragon Reborn did. “You’re very calm for a prisoner. Rather than deny the charge, you give evidence against yourself.”

Semirhage shifted that cold smile from Rand to Cadsuane. “Why should I deny myself?” Pride dripped from every word. “I am Semirhage.”

Someone gasped, and a number of the sul’dam and damane started trembling and weeping. One sul’dam, a pretty, yellow-haired woman, suddenly vomited down the front of herself, and another, stocky and dark, looked as if she might.

Cadsuane simply nodded. “I am Cadsuane Melaidhrin. I look forward to long talks with you.” Semirhage sneered. She had never lacked courage.

“We thought she was the High Lady,” Falendre said hurriedly, and haltingly at the same time. Her teeth seemed near to chattering, but she forced words out. “We thought we were being honored. She took us to a room in the Tarasin Palace where there was a … a hole in the air, and we stepped through to this place. I swear it on my eyes! We thought she was the High Lady.”

“So, no army rushing toward us,” Logain said. You could not have told from his tone whether he was relieved or disappointed. He bared an inch of his sword and thrust it back into its scabbard hard. “What do we do with them?” He jerked his head toward the sul’dam and damane. “Send them to Caemlyn like the others?”

“We send them back to Ebou Dar,” Rand said. Cadsuane turned to stare at him. Her face was a perfect mask of Aes Sedai serenity, yet he doubted she was anywhere near serene inside. The leashing of damane was an abomination that Aes Sedai took personally. Nynaeve was anything but serene. Angry-eyed, gripping her braid in a tight, blood-daubed fist, she opened her mouth, but he spoke over her. “I need this truce, Nynaeve, and taking these women prisoner is no way to get one. Don’t argue. That’s what they’d call it, including the damane, and you know it as well as I do. They can carry word that I want to meet the Daughter of the Nine Moons. The heir to the throne is the only one who can make a truce stand.”

“I still don’t like it,’ she said firmly. “We could free the damane. The others will do as well for carrying messages.” The damane who had not been weeping before burst into tears. Some of them cried to the sul’dam to save them. Nynaeve’s face took on sickly cast, but she threw up her hands and gave over arguing.

The two soldiers Bashere had sent into the house came out, young men who walked with a rolling motion, more accustomed to saddles than their own feet. Hamad had a luxuriant black beard that fell below the edge of his helmet and a scar down his face. Aghan wore thick mustaches like Bashere’s and carried a plain wooden box with no lid under his arm. They bowed to Bashere, free hands swinging their swords clear.

“The house is empty, my Lord,” Aghan said, “but there’s dried blood staining the carpets in several rooms. Looks like a slaughter yard, my Lord. I think whoever lived here is dead. This was sitting by the front door. It didn’t look like it belonged, so I brought it along.” He held out the box for inspection. Within lay coiled a’dam and a number of circlets made of segmented black metal, some large, some small.

Rand started to reach in with his left hand before he remembered. Min caught the movement and released his right arm so he could scoop up a handful of the black metal pieces. Nynaeve gasped. “You know what these are?” he asked.

“They’re a’dam for men,” she said angrily. “Egeanin said she was going to drop the thing in the ocean! We trusted her, and she gave it to somebody to copy!”

Rand dropped the things back into the box. There were six of the larger circlets, and five of the silvery leashes. Semirhage had been prepared no matter who he brought with him. “She really thought she could capture all of us.” That thought should have made him shiver. He seemed to feel Lews Therin shiver. No one wanted to fall into Semirhage’s hands.

“She shouted for them to shield us,” Nynaeve said, “but they couldn’t because we were all holding the Power already. If we hadn’t been, if Cadsuane and I hadn’t had our ter’angreal, I don’t know what would have happened.” She did shiver.

He looked at the tall Forsaken, and she stared back, utterly composed. Utterly cold. Her reputation as a torturer loomed so large that it was easy to forget how dangerous she was otherwise. “Tie off the shields on the others so they’ll unravel in a few hours, and send them to somewhere near Ebou Dar.” For a moment, he thought Nynaeve was going to protest again, but she contented herself with giving her braid a strong tug and turning away.

“Who are you to ask for a meeting with the High Lady?” Falendre demanded. She emphasized the title for some reason.

“My name is Rand al’Thor. I’m the Dragon Reborn.” If they had wept at hearing Semirhage’s name, they wailed at hearing his.

Ashandarei slanted across his saddle, Mat sat Pips in the darkness among the trees and waited, surrounded by two thousand mounted crossbowmen. The sun was not long down, and events should be in motion. The Seanchan were going to be hit hard tonight in half a dozen places. Some small and some not so small, but hard in every case.

Moonlight filtering through the branches overhead gave just enough illumination for him to make out Tuon’s shadowed face. She had insisted on staying with him, which meant Selucia was at her side on her dun, of course, glaring at him as usual. There were not enough moon-shadows to obscure that, unfortunately. Tuon must be unhappy about what was to happen tonight, yet nothing showed on her face. What was she thinking? Her expression was