The Dragon Reborn (The Wheel of Time #3)

The Dragon Reborn (The Wheel of Time #3) Page 191

“Can you go to sleep again so soon?” Nynaeve asked finally.

“Sing to me.” Egwene managed a smile. “Like when I was a little girl. Please?” Holding Nynaeve's hand with one of hers, the stone ring clasped in the other, she closed her eyes and tried to find sleep in the wordless humming tune.

The wide door of iron bars stood open, and the room beyond seemed empty of life, but Mat entered cautiously. Sandar was still out in the hall, trying to peer both ways at once, certain that a High Lord, or maybe a hundred Defenders or so, would appear at any moment.

There were no men in the room now — and by the looks of the halfeaten meals on a long table, they had left hurriedly; no doubt because of the fighting above — and from the looks of the things on the walls, he was just as glad he did not have to meet any of them. Whips in different sizes and lengths, different thicknesses, with different numbers of tails. Pincers, and tongs, and clamps, and irons. Things that looked like metal boots, and gauntlets, and helmets, with great screws all over them as if to tighten them down. Things he could not even begin to guess the use of. If he had met the men who used these things, he thought he would surely have checked that they were dead before he walked away.

“Sandar!” he hissed. “Are you going to stay out there all bloody night!” He hurried to the inner door — barred like the outer, but smaller— without waiting for an answer, and went through.

The hall beyond was lined by rough wooden doors, and lit by the same rush torches as the room he had just left. No more than twenty paces from him, a woman sat on a bench beside one of the doors, leaning back against the wall in a curiously stiff fashion. She turned her head slowly toward him at the sound of his boots grating on the stone. A pretty young woman. He wondered why she did not move more than her head, and why even that moved as if she were halfasleep.

Was she a prisoner? Out in the hall? But nobody with a face like that could be one of the people who uses the things on those walls. She did look almost asleep, with her eyes only partly open. And the suffering on that lovely face surely made her one of the tortured, not a torturer.

“Stop!” Sandar shouted behind him. “She is Aes Sedai! She is one of those who took the women you seek!”

Mat froze in the middle of a step, staring at the woman. He remembered Moiraine hurling balls of fire. He wondered if he could deflect a ball of fire with his quarterstaff. He wondered if his luck extended to outrunning Aes Sedai.

“Help me,” she said faintly. Her eyes still looked nearly asleep, but the pleading in her voice was fully awake. “Help me. Please!”

Mat blinked. She still had not moved a muscle below her neck. Cautiously, he stepped closer, waving to Sandar to stop his groaning about her being Aes Sedai. She moved her head to follow him. No more than that.

A large iron key hung at her belt. For a moment he hesitated. Aes Sedai, Sandar said. Why doesn't she move? Swallowing, he eased the key free as carefully as if he were trying to take a piece of meat from a wolfs jaws. She rolled her eyes toward the door beside her and made a sound like a cat that had just seen a huge dog come snarling into the room and knew there was no way out.

He did not understand it, but as long as she did not try to stop him opening that door, he did not care why she just sat there like a stuffed scarecrow. On the other hand, he wondered if there was something on the other side worth being afraid of. If she it one of those who took Egwene and the others, it stands to reason she's guarding them. Tears leaked from the woman's eyes. Only she looks like it's a bloody Halfman in there. But there was only one way to find out. Propping his staff against the wall, he turned the key in the lock and flung open the door, ready to run if need be.

Nynaeve and Elayne were kneeling on the floor with Egwene apparently asleep between them. He gasped at the sight of Egwene's swollen face, and changed his mind about her sleeping. The other two women turned toward him as he opened the door — they were almost as battered as Egwene; Burn me! Burn me! — looked at him, and gaped.

“Matrim Cauthon,” Nynaeve said, sounding shocked, “what under the Light are you doing here?”

“I came to bloody rescue you,” he said. “Burn me if I expected to be greeted as if I had come to steal a pie. You can tell me why you look as if you'd been fighting bears later, if you want. If Egwene cannot walk, I'll carry her on my back. There are Aiel all over the Stone, or near enough, and either they are killing the bloody Defenders or the bloody Defenders are killing them, but whichever way it is, we had better get out of here while we bloody well can. If we can!”

“Mind your language,” Nynaeve told him, and Elayne gave him one of those disapproving stares women were so good at. Neither one seemed to have her full attention in it, though. They began shaking Egwene as if she were not covered with more bruises than he had ever seen in his life.

Egwene's eyelids fluttered open, and she groaned. “Why did you wake me? I must understand it. If I loose the bonds on her, she will wake and I'll never catch her again. But if I do not, she cannot go all the way to sleep, and — ”Her eyes fell on him and widened. “Matrim Cauthon, what under the Light are you doing here?”

“You tell her,” he told Nynaeve. “I am too busy trying to rescue you to watch my langu—”

They were all staring beyond him, glaring as if they wished they had knives in their hands.

He spun, but all he saw was Juilin Sandar, looking as if he had swallowed a rotten plum whole.

“They have cause,” he told Mat. “I... I betrayed them. But I had to.” That was addressed past Mat to the women. “The one with many honeycolored braids spoke to me, and I... I had to do it.” For a long moment the three continued to stare.

“Liandrin has vile tricks, Master Sandar,” Nynaeve said finally. “Perhaps you are not entirely to blame. We can apportion guilt later.”

“If that is all cleared up,” Mat said, “could we go now?” It was as clear as mud to him, but he was more interested in leaving right then.

The three women limped after him into the hall, but they stopped around the woman on the bench. She rolled her eyes at them and whimpered. “Please. I will come back to the Light. I will swear to obey you. With the Oath Rod in my hands I will swear. Please do not — ”

Mat jumped as Nynaeve suddenly reared back and swung a fist, knocking the woman completely off the bench. She lay there, her eyes closed all the way finally, but even lying on her side she was still in exactly the same position she