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

The Fires of Heaven (The Wheel of Time #5) Page 80

The men — creatures — vanished, and her feet thudded to the floor. For a moment all she could do was shudder and weep. Hastily she repaired the damage to her dress, but the scratches from long fingernails remained on her neck and chest. Clothing could be mended easily in Tel'aran'rhiod, but whatever happened to a human... Her knees shook so badly that it was all she could do to stay upright.

She halfexpected Egwene to comfort her, and for once she would have accepted it gladly. But the other woman only said, “There are worse things here, but nightmares are bad enough. I made these, and unmade them, but even I have trouble with those I just find. And I did not try to hold them, Nynaeve. If you knew how to unmake them, you could have.”

Nynaeve tossed her head angrily, refusing to scrub the tears from her cheeks. “I could have dreamed myself away. To Sheriam's study, or back to my bed.” She did not sound sulky. Of course she did not.

“If you had not been too scared spitless to think of it,” Egwene said dryly. “Oh, take that sullen look off your face. It looks silly on you.”

She glared at the other woman, but it did not work as it usually did. Instead of flaring into argument, Egwene merely arched an eyebrow at her. “None of this looks like Siuan Sanche,” Nynaeve said to change the subject. What had gotten into the girl?

“It doesn't,” Egwene agreed, looking around the room. “I see why I had to come by way of my old room in the novices' quarters. But I suppose people do decide to try something new sometimes.”

“That is what I mean,” Nynaeve told her patiently. She had not sounded sulky, and she had not looked sullen. It was ridiculous. “The woman who furnished this room doesn't look at the world the same as the woman who chose what used to be here. Look at those paintings. I don't know what the triple thing is, but you can recognize the other as well as I.” They had both seen it happen.

“Bonwhin, I should say,” Egwene said thoughtfully. “You never did listen to the lectures as you should. It is a triptych.”

“Whatever it is, it's the other that's important.” She had listened to the Yellows well enough. The rest was a pack of useless nonsense often as not. “It seems to me that the woman who hung it wants to be reminded how dangerous Rand is. If Siuan Sanche has turned against Rand for some reason... Egwene, this could be far worse than just her wanting Elayne back in the Tower.”

“Perhaps,” Egwene said judiciously. “Maybe the papers will tell us something. You search in here. When I finish with Leane's desk, I will help you.”

Nynaeve stared indignantly at Egwene's back as she left. You search in here, indeed! Egwene had no right to give her orders. She ought to march right after her and tell her so in no uncertain terms. Then why are you standing here like a lump? she asked herself angrily. Searching the papers was a good idea, and she might as well do so in here as out there. In fact, the Amyrlin's desk was more likely to hold something important. Grumbling to herself about what she would do to set Egwene straight, she stalked to the thickly carved table, kicking her skirts with every step.

There was nothing on the table except three ornately lacquered boxes, arrayed with painful precision. Remembering the sorts of traps that could be set by someone wanting to insure privacy, she made a long stick to push open the hinged lid of the first, a gold and green thing decorated with wading herons. It was a writing case, with pens and ink and sand. The largest box, with red roses twining through golden scrolls, held twenty or more delicate carvings of ivory and turquoise, animals and people, all laid out on pale gray velvet.

As she pushed up the lid of the third box — golden hawks fighting among white clouds in a blue sky — she noticed that the first two were closed again. Things like that happened here; everything seemed to want to remain as it was in the waking world, and on top of that, if you took your eyes away for a moment, details could be different when you looked back.

The third box did hold documents. The stick vanished, and she gingerly lifted out the top sheet of parchment. Formally signed “Joline Aes Sedai,” it was a humble request to serve a set of penances that made Nynaeve wince just scanning them rapidly. Nothing there that mattered, except to Joline. A scrawl at the bottom said “approved” in angular script. As she reached to put the parchment down, it faded away; the box was closed, too.

Sighing, she opened it again. The papers inside looked different. Holding the lid, she lifted them out one by one and read quickly. Or tried to read. Sometimes the letters and reports vanished while she was still picking them up, sometimes when she was no more than halfway down a page. If they had a salutation, it was simply, “Mother, with respect.” Some were signed by Aes Sedai, others by women with other titles, nobles, or no honorific at all. None of it seemed to bear on the matter at hand. The Marshal General of Saldaea and his army could not be found, and Queen Tenobia was refusing to cooperate; she managed to finish that report, but it assumed that the reader knew why the man was not in Saldaea and what the queen was supposed to be cooperating about. No report had come from any Ajah's eyesandears in Tanchico for three weeks; but she got no further than that one fact. Some trouble between Illian on one side and Murandy on the other was abating, and Pedron Niall was claiming credit; even in the few lines she got she could see the writer's teeth gnashing. The letters were all no doubt very important, those she was able to hurry through and those that faded away under her eyes, but of no use to her at all. She had just begun what seemed to be a report on a suspected — that was the word used — gathering of Blue sisters, when a wretched cry of “Oh, Light, no!” came from the outer room.

Darting for the door, she made a stout wooden club appear in her hands, its head bristling with spikes. But when she dashed in expecting to find Egwene defending herself, the woman was standing behind the Keeper's table staring at nothing. With a look of horror on her face, to be sure, but still unharmed and unthreatened that Nynaeve could see.

Egwene gave a start at the sight of her, then gathered herself visibly. “Nynaeve, Elaida is Amyrlin Seat.”

“Don't be a goose,” Nynaeve scoffed. Yet the other room, so unlike Siuan Sanche... “You're imagining things. You must be.”

“I had a parchment in my hands, Nynaeve, signed 'Elaida do Avriny a'Roihan, Watcher of the Seals, Flame of Tar Valon, The Amyrlin Seat,' and sealed with the