The Great Hunt (The Wheel of Time #2)

The Great Hunt (The Wheel of Time #2) Page 155

“I have seen chests such as this, chests from the Age of Legends,” the High Lord said, “though none so fine. They are meant to be opened only by those who know the pattern, but I — ah!” He pressed among the ornate whorls and bosses, there was a sharp click, and he lifted back the lid. A flicker of what might have been disappointment passed across his face.

Fain bit the inside of his mouth till blood came to keep from snarling. It lessened his bargaining position that he was not the one who had opened the chest. Still, all the rest could go as he had planned if he could only make himself be patient. But he had been patient so long.

“These are treasure from the Age of Legends?” Turak said, lifting out the curled Horn in one hand and the curved dagger with the ruby in its golden hilt in the other. Fain clutched his hands in fists at his sides so he would not grab the dagger. “The Age of Legends,” Turak repeated softly, tracing the silver script inlaid around the golden bell of the Horn with the tip of the dagger's blade. His brows rose in startlement, the first open expression Fain had seen from him, but in the next instant Turak's face was as smooth as ever. “Do you have any idea what this is?”

“The Horn of Valere, High Lord,” Fain said smoothly, pleased to see the mouth of the man with the braid drop open. Turak only nodded as if to himself.

The High Lord turned away. Fain blinked and opened his mouth, then, at a sharp gesture from the yellowhaired man, followed without speaking.

It was another room with all the original furnishings gone, replaced by folding screens and a single chair facing a tall round cabinet. Still holding the Horn and the dagger, Turak looked at the cabinet, then away. He said nothing, but the other Seanchan snapped quick orders, and in moments men in plain woolen robes appeared through a door behind the screens bearing another small table. A young woman with hair so pale it was almost white came behind them, her arms full of small stands of polished wood in various sizes and shapes. Her garment was white silk, and so thin that Fain could see her body clearly through it, but he had eyes only for the dagger. The Horn was a means to an end, but the dagger was a part of him.

Turak briefly touched one of the wooden stands the girl held, and she placed it on the center of the table. The men turned the chair to face it under the direction of the man with the braid. The lower servants' hair hung to their shoulders. They scurried out with bows that almost put their heads on their knees.

Placing the Horn on the stand so that it stood upright, Turak laid the dagger on the table in front of it and went to sit in the chair.

Fain could stand it no longer. He reached for the dagger.

The yellowhaired man caught his wrist in a crushing grip. “Unshaven dog! Know that the hand that touches the property of the High Lord unbidden is cut off.”

“It is mine,” Fain growled. Patience! So long.

Turak, lounging back in the chair, lifted one bluelacquered fingernail, and Fain was pulled out of the way so the High Lord could view the Horn unobstructed.

“Yours?” Turak said. “Inside a chest you could not open? If you interest me sufficiently, I may give you the dagger. Even if it is from the Age of Legends, I have no interest in such as that. Before all else, you will answer me a question. Why have you brought the Horn of Valere to me?”

Fain eyed the dagger longingly a moment more, then jerked his wrist free and rubbed it as he bowed. “That you may sound it, High Lord. Then you may take all of this land, if you wish. All of the world. You may break the White Tower and grind the Aes Sedai to dust, for even their powers cannot stop heroes come back from the dead.”

“I am to sound it.” Turak's tone was flat. “And break the White Tower. Again, why? You claim to obey, await, and serve, but this is a land of oathbreakers. Why do you give your land to me? Do you have some private quarrel with these... women?”

Fain tried to make his voice convincing. Patient, like a worm boring from within. “High Lord, my family has passed down a tradition, generation upon generation. We served the High King, Artur Paendrag Tanreall, and when he was murdered by the witches of Tar Valon, we did not abandon our oaths. When others warred and tore apart what Artur Hawkwing had made, we held to our swearing, and suffered for it, but held to it still. This is our tradition, High Lord, handed father to son, and mother to daughter, down all the years since the High King was murdered. That we await the return of the armies Artur Hawkwing sent across the Aryth Ocean, that we await the return of Artur Hawkwing's blood to destroy the White Tower and take back what was the High King's. And when the Hawkwing's blood returns, we will serve and advise, as we did for the High King. High Lord, except for its border, the banner that flies over this roof is the banner of Luthair, the son Artur Paendrag Tanreall sent with his armies across the ocean.”

Fain dropped to his knees, giving a good imitation of being overwhelmed. “High Lord, I wish only to serve and advise the blood of the High King.”

Turak was silent so long that Fain began to wonder if he needed further convincing; he was ready with more, as much as was required. Finally, though, the High Lord spoke. “You seem to know what none, neither the high nor the low, has spoken since sighting this land. The people here speak it as one rumor among ten, but you know. I can see it in your eyes, hear it in your voice. I could almost think you were sent to entangle me in a trap. But who, possessing the Horn of Valere, would use it so? None of those of the Blood who came with the Hailene could have had the Horn, for the legend says it was hidden in this land. And surely any lord of this land would use it against me rather than put it in my hands. How did you come to possess the Horn of Valere? Do you claim to be a hero, as in the legend? Have you done valorous deeds?”

“I am no hero, High Lord.” Fain ventured a selfdeprecating smile, but Turak's face did not alter, and he let it go. “The Horn was found by an ancestor of mine during the turmoil after the High King's death. He knew how to open the chest, but that secret died with him in the War of the Hundred Years, that rent Artur Hawkwing's empire, so that all we who followed him knew was that the Horn lay within and we must keep it safe until the High King's blood returned.”

“Almost could I believe you.”

“Believe, High Lord. Once you sound the Horn — ”

“Do not ruin what convincing you have managed to do. I shall not sound the Horn of Valere. When I return to Seanchan, I shall present it to the Empress as the chiefest of my trophies. Perhaps the Empress wil