The Great Hunt (The Wheel of Time #2)

The Great Hunt (The Wheel of Time #2) Page 97

By the time they made camp that night beside a mountain stream that provided fish for their supper, Selene seemed to have regained some of her temper, chatting with the Ogier about books, speaking kindly to Hurin.

She barely spoke to Rand, though, unless he spoke first, either that evening or the following day as they rode through mountains that reared on either side of them like huge, jagged gray walls, ever climbing. But whenever he looked at her, she was watching him and smiling. Sometimes it was the sort of smile that made him smile back, sometimes the sort that made him clear his throat and blush at his own thoughts, and sometimes the mysterious, knowing smile that Egwene sometimes wore. It was a kind of smile that always put his back up — but at least it was a smile.

She can't be Aes Sedai.

The way began to slope downwards, and with the promise of twilight in the air, Kinslayer's Dagger at last gave way to hills, rolling and round, with more brush than trees, more thickets than forest. There was no road, just a dirt track, such as might be used by a few carts now and again. Fields carved some of the hills into terraces, fields full of crops but empty of people at this hour. None of the scattered farm buildings lay close enough to the path they rode for Rand to make out more than that they were all made of stone.

When he saw the village ahead, lights already twinkled in a few windows against the coming of night.

“We'll sleep in beds tonight,” he said.

“That I will enjoy, Lord Rand.” Hurin laughed. Loial nodded agreement.

“A village inn,” Selene sniffed. “Dirty, no doubt, and full of unwashed men swilling ale. Why can't we sleep under the stars again? I find I enjoy sleeping under the stars.”

“You would not enjoy it if Fain caught up with us while we slept,” Rand said, “him and those Trollocs. He's coming after me, Selene. After the Horn, too, but it is me he can find. Why do you think I've kept such a close watch these past nights?”

“If Fain catches us, you will deal with him.” Her voice was coolly confident. “And there could be Darkfriends in the village, too.”

“But even if they knew who we are, they can't do much with the rest of the villagers around. Not unless you think everyone in the village is a Darkfriend.”

“And if they discover you carry the Horn? Whether you want greatness or not, even farmers dream of it.”

“She is right, Rand,” Loial said. “I fear even farmers might want to take it.”

“Unroll your blanket, Loial, and throw it over the chest. Keep it covered.” Loial complied, and Rand nodded. It was obvious there was a box or chest beneath the Ogier's striped blanket, but nothing suggested it was more than a travel chest. “My Lady's chest of clothes,” Rand said with a grin and a bow.

Selene met his sally with silence and an unreadable look. After a moment, they started on again.

Almost immediately, off to Rand's left, a glitter from the setting sun reflected from something on the ground. Something large. Something very large, by the light it threw up. Curious, he turned his horse that way.

“My Lord?” Hurin said. “The village?”

“I just want to see this first,” Rand said. It's brighter than sunlight on water. What can it be?

His eyes on the reflection, he was surprised when Red suddenly stopped. On the point of urging the bay on, he realized that they stood on the edge of a clay precipice, above a huge excavation. Most of the hill had been dug away to a depth of easily a hundred paces. Certainly more than one hill had vanished, and maybe some farmers' fields, for the hole was at least ten times as wide as it was deep. The far side appeared to have been packed hard to a ramp. There were men on the bottom, a dozen of them, getting a fire started; down there, night was already descending. Here and there among them armor turned the light, and swords swung at their sides. He hardly glanced at them.

Out of the clay at the bottom of the pit slanted a gigantic stone hand holding a crystal sphere, and it was this that shone with the last sunlight. Rand gaped at the size of it, a smooth ball — he was sure not so much as a scratch marred its surface — at least twenty paces through.

Some distance away from the hand, a stone face in proportion had been uncovered. A bearded man's face, it thrust out of the soil with the dignity of vast years; the broad features seemed to hold wisdom and knowledge.

Unsummoned, the void formed, whole and complete in an instant, saidin glowing, beckoning. So intent was he on the face and the hand that he did not even realize what had happened. He had once heard a ship captain speak of a giant hand holding a huge crystal sphere; Bayle Domon had claimed it stuck out of a hill on the island of Tremalking.

“This is dangerous,” Selene said. “Come away, Rand.”

“I believe I can find a way down there,” he said absently. Saidin sang to him. The huge ball seemed to glow white with the light of the sinking sun. It seemed to him that in the depths of the crystal, light swirled and danced in time to the song of saidin. He wondered why the men below did not appear to notice.

Selene rode close and took hold of his arm. “Please, Rand, you must come away.” He looked at her hand, puzzled, then followed her arm up to her face. She seemed genuinely worried, perhaps even afraid. “If this bank doesn't give way beneath our horses and break our necks with the fall, those men are guards, and no one puts guards on something they wish every passerby to examine. What good will it do you to avoid Fain, if some lord's guards arrest you? Come away.”

Suddenly — a drifting, distant thought — he realized that the void surrounded him. Saidin sang, and the sphere pulsed — even without looking, he could feel it — and the thought came that if he sang the song saidin sang, that huge stone face would open its mouth and sing with him. With him and with saidin. All one.

“Please, Rand,” Selene said. “I will go to the village with you. I won't mention the Horn again. Only come away!”

He released the void ... and it did not go. saidin crooned, and the light in the sphere beat like a heart. Like his heart. Loial, Hurin, Selene, they all stared at him, but they seemed oblivious to the glorious blaze from the crystal. He tried to push the void away. It held like granite; he floated in an emptiness as hard as stone. The song of saidin, the song of the sphere, he could feel them quivering along his bones. Grimly, he refused to give in, reached deep inside