The Fires of Heaven (The Wheel of Time #5)

The Fires of Heaven (The Wheel of Time #5) Page 270

The quivers had ceased. Moghedien's eyes shone with terror. By what Nynaeve felt through the a'dam, it was a wonder the woman was not writhing on the floor, shrieking and frothing at the mouth. Nynaeve felt a little like shrieking herself. She made herself put her foot on the next step. Up was as good a way as any. The second step was almost as hard. Slowly, though. No need to come on him too suddenly. Surprise had to be on his part. Moghedien followed like a whipped dog, shivering.

As Nynaeve climbed, she embraced saidar as fully as she could, as much as Moghedien could handle, to the point where the sweetness of it became almost a pain. That was the warning. More, and she would approach the point where it was more than she could take in, the point where she would still herself, burn the ability to channel right out of herself. Or perhaps out of Moghedien, under the circumstances. Or both of them. Any way at all, it would be disaster now. She held that point though, the... life... filling her a needle's light pressure just short of breaking skin. It was as much as she could have embraced had she been channeling on her own. She and Moghedien were much the same strength in the Power; Tanchico had proved that. Was it enough? Moghedien insisted the men were stronger. Rahvin, at least — Moghedien knew him — and it did not seem likely Rand could have survived this long unless he was just as strong. It was not fair that men should have the muscles and greater strength in the Power too. The Aes Sedai in the Tower had always said they had been equal. It just was not —

She was babbling. Taking a deep breath, she drew Moghedien behind her off the staircase. This was as high as it went.

This hall was empty. She went to where it met the crossing corridor, peeked. And there he was. A tall blackclad man, large, with wings of white in his dark hair, peering through the curving slots of one of the stone windowscreens at something below. There was sweat and effort on his face, but he seemed to be smiling. A handsome face, as handsome as Galad's, but she felt no quickening of her breath for this one.

Whatever he was staring at — Rand perhaps? — had his full attention, but Nynaeve gave him no chance to notice her. It might be Rand down there. She could not tell whether Rahvin was channeling or not. She filled the corridor around him with fire from wall to wall, floor to ceiling, pouring into it all of saidar she held, fire so hot the stone itself smoked. The heat made her flinch back.

Rahvin screamed in the middle of the flame — it was one flame — and staggered away from her, back to where the hallway became a columned walk. A heartbeat, less, while she still flinched, and he stood, inside the flame but surrounded by clear air. Every scrap of saidar she could channel was going into that inferno, but he held it at bay. She could see him through the fire; it gave everything a red cast, but she could see. Smoke rose from his charred coat. His face was a seared ruin, one eye milky white. But both eyes were malevolent as he turned them on her.

No emotion reached her along the a'dam's leash, only leaden dullness. Nynaeve's stomach fluttered. Moghedien had given up. Given up because death was there for them.

Fire thrust through the carved windowscreens above Rand, fingers of it filling every hole, dancing toward the colonnade. As it did, the struggle within him ceased abruptly. He was himself so suddenly it was almost a shock. He had been drawing desperately at saidin, trying to hold onto some of it. Now it rushed into him, an avalanche of fire and ice that made his knees buckle, made the Void tremble with pain that shaved at it like a lathe.

And Rahvin stumbled backwards out onto the colonnade, face turned to something inside. Rahvin wreathed in fire, yet somehow standing as though untouched. If untouched now, it had not been so before. Only the size of the figure, the impossibility of it being anyone else, told Rand it was him. The Forsaken was a figure of char and cracked red flesh that would have strained any Healer to mend. The agony of it must have been overwhelming. Except that Rahvin would be inside the Void within that burned remnant of a man, wrapped in emptiness where the body's pain was distant and saidin close at hand.

Saidin raged inside Rand, and he loosed it all. Not to Heal.

“Rahvin!” he screamed, and balefire flew from his hands, molten light thicker than a man, driven by all the Power he could draw.

It struck the Forsaken, and Rahvin ceased to exist. The Darkhounds in Rhuidean had become motes before they vanished, whatever kind of life they had had struggling to continue, or the Pattern struggling to maintain itself even for them. Before this, Rahvin simply... ceased.

Rand let the balefire die, pushed saidin away a little. Trying to blink away the purple afterimage, he stared up at the wide hole in the marble balustrade, the remains of one column a fang above it, stared at the matching hole in the palace roofs They did not flicker, as if what he had done was too strong even for this place to mend. After everything, it seemed almost too easy. Perhaps there was something up there to convince him Rahvin was really dead. He ran toward a door.

Frantically, Nynaeve threw everything into trying to close the flame tight around Rahvin once more. The thought came that she should have used lightning. She was going to die. Those horrible eyes had fixed on Moghedien, not her, but she was going to die too.

Liquid fire sliced up into the colonnade, so hot it made the fire she had made seem cool. Shock made her release her weaving, and she flung up a hand to protect her face, yet before it had raised halfway, the liquid fire was gone. So was Rahvin. She did not believe he had escaped. There had been an instant, so brief she could almost have imagined it, when that white bar touched him and he became... mist. Just an instant. She could have imagined. But she did not believe so. She drew a shuddering breath.

Moghedien had her face in her hands, weeping, trembling. The one emotion Nynaeve sensed through the a'dam was relief so powerful it drowned anything else.

Hurried boots grated on the stairs below.

Nynaeve spun, took a step toward the spiral staircase. She was surprised to realize she was drinking deeply of saidar, holding herself ready.

That surprise faded when Rand climbed into sight. He was not as she remembered. His features were the same, but his face was hard. Blue ice made his eyes. The bloody rips in his coat and breeches, the blood on his face, seemed to suit that face.

The way he looked, she would not be surprised if he killed Moghedien on the spot the instant he discovered who she was. Nynaeve had uses for her yet. He would recognize an a'dam. Without another thought she changed it, let the leash vanish, leaving only the silver bracelet on her wrist and the collar on Moghedien. A moment of panic when she comprehended what she had done, then a sigh as she realized that she still felt the other woman. It worked exactly as Elayne had said it would. Perhaps he had not seen. She was between him and Moghedien; the lea