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

The Fires of Heaven (The Wheel of Time #5) Page 32

Chapter 4

(Spears and Shield)

Twilight

With his Far Dareis Mai escort, Rand approached the Rhuidean Roof of the Maidens. White stairs as wide as the tall building, each step a stride deep, ran up to thick columns twenty paces high, blackseeming in the twilight but bright blue by day, and fluted in spirals. The outside of the building was a patterned mosaic of glazed tiles, white and blue in spirals that appeared endless to the eye, and a huge window of colored glass directly above the columns showed a blackhaired woman fifteen feet tall, in complicated blue robes, right hand upraised, either to bless or command a halt. Her face was serene and stern at the same time. Whoever she had been, she was surely no Aiel, not with that pale skin and those dark eyes. An Aes Sedai, perhaps. He tapped his pipe out on his bootheel and stuffed it into his coat pocket before starting up the steps.

Except for gai'shain, men were not allowed beneath a Roof of the Maidens, not any man, not in any hold in the Waste. A chief or a Maiden's blood kin could die trying, though in fact no Aielman would ever think of it. It was the same for any society; only members and the gai'shain were allowed inside.

The two Maidens standing guard at the tall bronze doors flashed Maiden handtalk at one another, cutting their eyes in his direction as he came through the columns, then shared a small grin. He wished he knew what they had said. Even in as dry a land as the Waste, bronze would tarnish with enough time, but gai'shain had polished these doors until they looked newmade. They stood wide open, and the pair of guards made no move to hinder him as he walked through, Adelin and the others on his heels.

The wide, whitetiled corridors and great rooms inside were full of Maidens, sitting about on bright cushions, talking, tending to weapons, playing cat's cradle, or stones, or Thousand Flowers, an Aiel game that involved laying out patterns of flat bits of stone carved with what seemed a hundred different symbols. Of course, a profusion of gai'shain moved smoothly about their chores, cleaning, serving, mending, seeing to oil lamps that ranged from simple glazed pottery to gilded loot from somewhere to the tall standlamps that had been found in the city. In most rooms, colorful carpets, and bright tapestries covered the floors and walls, in nearly as many patterns and styles as there were carpets and tapestries. The walls and ceilings themselves were detailed mosaics, of forests and rivers and skies that had never been seem in the Waste.

Young or old, the Maidens smiled when they saw him, and some nodded familiarly or even patted his shoulder. Others called out, asking how he was, had he eaten, would he like the gai'shain to bring him wine or water? He responded briefly though with answering smiles. He was well, and neither hungry nor thirsty. He kept walking, not even slowing when he spoke. Slowing would lead inevitably to stopping, and he was not up to that tonight.

Far Dareis Mai had adopted him, after a fashion. Some treated him as a son, others as a brother. Age seemed not to come into it; women with white in their hair might talk to him as a brother over tea, while Maidens no more than a year older than he tried to make sure he wore the proper clothes for the heat. There was no avoiding the mothering; they simply did it, and he could not see how to make them stop, short of using the Power against the whole lot of them.

He had thought of trying to have another society provide his guards — Shae'en M'taal, the Stone Dogs, perhaps, or Aethan Dor, the Red Shields; Rhuarc had been a Red Shield before becoming chief — only, what reason could he possibly give? Not the truth, certainly. Just thinking about explaining that to Rhuarc and the others made him uncomfortable; Aiel humor being what it was, even sour old Han would likely break his ribs laughing. Any reason at all would probably offend the honor of every last Maiden. At least they rarely mothered him except under the Roof, where there was no one to see but themselves, and gai'shain who knew better than to speak of anything that happened there. “The Maidens,” he had once said, “carry my honor.” Everyone remembered that, and the Maidens were as proud of it as if he had given them all thrones. But it had turned out that they carried it in a manner they chose.

Adelin and the other four left him to join their friends, but he was hardly alone as he climbed higher in the building, along curving flights of wide white stairs. He had to answer the same questions at practically every step. No, he was not hungry. Yes, he knew he was not used to the heat yet, and no, he had not spent too much time in the sun. He bore it all patiently, but he did heave a sigh of relief when he reached the second story above the huge window. Here there were no Maidens and no gai'shain in the broad hallways or on the stairs that led on upward. The bare walls and empty chambers emphasized the absence of people, but after traversing the floors below, he found solitude a blessing.

His bedroom was a windowless chamber near the center of the building, one of the few that was not huge, though its ceiling still reached high enough to make height the room's longest dimension. What it had been meant for originally, he had no idea; a mosaic of vines around the small fireplace was the only ornamentation. A servant's room, he would have said, but servants' rooms did not have a door sheathed in bronze, however plain, that he pushed most of the way shut. Gai'shain had polished the metal to a dull gleam. A few tasseled cushions lay scattered on the blue floor tiles for sitting, and a thick pallet, atop bright layered rugs, for sleeping. A simple blueglazed pitcher of water and. a dark green cup sat on the floor near the “bed.” That was it, except for two threepronged standlamps, already lit, and a pacehigh pile of books in one corner. With a tired sigh, he lay down on the pallet still in his coat and boots; no matter how he shifted it was not much softer than sleeping on the bare floor.

The night's chill was already seeping into the room, but he did not bother to light the dried cow dung on the hearth; he was readier to face the cold than the smell. Asmodean had tried to show him a simple way to keep the room warm; simple, but something the man did not have enough strength to do himself. The one time Rand had tried it, he had awakened in the middle of the night, gasping for breath while the edges of the rugs smoldered from the heat of the floor. He had not made another attempt.

He had chosen this building for his quarters because it was whole and near to the plaza; its great high ceilings gave a semblance of coolness even to the hottest part of the day, and its thick walls kept out the worst of the cold at night. It had not been the Roof of the Maidens then, of course. One morning he simply awakened to find it so, Maidens in every room on the first two floors and their guards on the doors. It had taken him a while to realize that they intended the building for their society's Roof in Rhuidean, yet expected him to continue to stay in it. In fact, they were ready to move the Roof wherever he went. That was why he had to meet the clan chiefs elsewhere. The best he had been able to manage was to make the Maidens agree to stay below the floor where he slept; that had amused them all no end. Even the Car'a'carn is not a king, he reminded himself wryly. Twice already he had moved upward as the numbers of Maidens increased. Idly he tried to calculate how many more could come in before he