“So you all say.”
“It is cleansed, Pevara. All things come and pass, and the Wheel turns. It was once pure, so it must someday be pure again. It has happened.”
And the way you look at shadows, Androl? Is that a sign of purity? The way that Nalaam mutters in unknown languages? Do you think we don’t notice such things?
“You have two choices, as an Ajah,” Androl continued. “You can either continue to hunt us—ignoring the proof that we offer, that the Source is cleansed—or you can give up on being Red Ajah.”
“Nonsense. Of all Ajahs, the Reds should be your greatest ally.”
“You exist to destroy us!”
“We exist to make certain that men who can channel do not accidentally hurt themselves or those around them. Would you not agree that is a purpose of the Black Tower as well?”
“I suppose that might be part of it. The only purpose I have been told was that we are to be a weapon for the Dragon Reborn, but keeping good men from hurting themselves without proper training is important as well.”
“Then we can unite on that idea, can we not?”
“I would like to believe that, Pevara, but I’ve seen the way you and yours look at us. You see us as… as some stain that needs to be cleansed, or poison to be bottled.”
Pevara shook her head. “If what you say is true, and the Source is cleansed, then changes will come, Androl. The Red Ajah and the Asha’man will grow together in common purpose, over time. I’m willing to work with you now, here.”
“Contain us.”
“Guide you. Please. Trust me.”
He studied her by the light of the room’s many lamps. He did have a sincere face. She could see why the others followed him, though he was weakest among them. He had a strange mixture of passion and humility. If only he hadn’t been one of… well… what he was.
“I wish I could believe you,” Androl said, looking away. “You’re different from the others, I’ll admit. Not like a Red at all.”
“I think you’ll find we’re more varied than you suppose,” Pevara said. “There isn’t one single motive that makes a woman choose the Red.”
“Other than hatred of men.”
“If we hated you, would we have come here looking to bond you?” That was a sidestep, in truth. Though Pevara herself did not hate men, many Reds did—at the very least, many regarded men with suspicion. She hoped to change that.
“Aes Sedai motivations are odd sometimes,” Androl said. “Everyone knows that. Anyway, different though you are from many of your sisters, I’ve seen that look in your eyes.” He shook his head. “I won’t believe you’re here to help us. No more than I believed that the Aes Sedai who hunted down male channelers really thought they were helping the men. No more than I believe a headsman thinks he’s doing a criminal a favor by killing him. Just because a thing needs to be done doesn’t make the one doing it a friend, Pevara Sedai. I’m sorry.”
He turned back to his leather, working by the close light of a lantern on the table.
Pevara found her annoyance rising. She’d almost had him. She liked men; she had often thought Warders would be useful. Couldn’t the fool recognize a hand extended across the chasm when he saw it?
Calm yourself, Pevara, she thought. You won’t get anywhere if anger rules you. She needed this man on her side.
“That will be a saddle, won’t it?” she said.
“Yes.”
“You’re staggering the stitches.”
“It’s my own method,” he said. “Helps prevent rips from spreading. I think it looks nice, too.”
“Good linen thread, I assume? Waxed? And do you use a single lacing chisel for those holes, or a double? I didn’t get a good look.”
He glanced at her, wary. “You know leatherworking?”
“From my uncle,” she said. “He taught me a few things. Let me work in the shop, when I was little.”
“Maybe I’ve met him.”
She fell still. For all Androl’s comments that she was good at steering a conversation, she had blundered this one directly into places she didn’t like to go.
“Well?” he asked. “Where?”
“Back in Kandor.”
“You’re Kandori?” he asked, surprised.
“Of course I am. Don’t I look it?”
“I just thought I could pick out any accent,” he said, pulling a pair of stitches tight. “I’ve been there. Maybe I do know your uncle.”
“He’s dead,” she said. “Murdered by Darkfriends.”
Androl fell silent. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s been over a hundred years now. I miss my family, but they’d be dead by now even if the Darkfriends hadn’t killed them. Everyone I knew back home is dead.”
“My sorrow is deeper, then. Truly.”
“It is long past,” Pevara said. “I can remember them with fondness without having the pain intrude. But what of your family? Siblings? Nieces, nephews?”
“A smattering of each group,” Androl said.
“Do you ever see them?”
He eyed her. “You’re trying to engage me in friendly conversation to prove that you don’t feel awkward around me. But I’ve seen how you Aes Sedai look at people like me.”
“I—”
“Say you don’t find us repulsive.”
“I hardly think what you do should be—”
“Straight answer, Pevara.”
“Very well, fine. Men who can channel do discomfort me. You make me itch all over, and it has only grown worse the longer I’ve been here, surrounded by you.”
Androl nodded in satisfaction at having pulled it from her.
“However,” Pevara continued, “I feel this way because it has been ingrained in me over decades of life. What you do is terribly unnatural, but you yourself do not disgust me. You are just a man trying to do your best, and I hardly think that is worthy of disgust. Either way, I am willing to look beyond my inhibitions in the name of common good.”
“That’s better than I could have expected, I suppose.” He looked back toward the rain-splattered windows. “The taint is cleansed. This isn’t unnatural any longer. I wish… I wish I could just show you, woman.” He looked toward her sharply. “How does one form one of those circles you mentioned?”
“Well,” Pevara said, “I’ve never actually done it with a male channeler, of course. I did some reading before coming down here, but much of what we have is hearsay. So much has been lost. To start with, you must put yourself on the edge of embracing the Source, then open yourself to me. That is how we establish the link.”
“All right,” he said. “You’re not holding the Source, however.”
It was downright unfair, that a man could tell when a woman was holding the One Power and when she wasn’t. Pevara embraced the Source, flooding herself with the sweet nectar that was saidar.
She reached out to link with Androl as she would with a woman. That was how one was supposed to begin, according to the records. But it was not the same. Saidin was a torrent, and what she had read was true; she could do nothing with the flows.
“It’s working; my power is flowing into you.”
“Yes,” Pevara said. “But when a man and woman link, the man must be in control. You must take the lead.”
“How?” Androl asked.
“I don’t know. I’ll try to pass it. You must control the flows.”
He eyed her, and she prepared herself to pass control to him. Instead, he somehow seized it. She was caught in the tempestuous link, yanked—as if by her hair—right in.
The force of it nearly made her teeth rattle, and it felt as if her skin was being pulled off. Pevara closed her eyes, breathed deeply, and did not let herself fight back. She had wanted to try this; it could be useful. But she couldn’t help a moment of sheer panic.
She was linked with a male channeler, one of the most feared things the land had ever known. Now he had control of her, completely. Her Power flowed through her, washing over
him, and Androl gasped.
“So much…” he said. “Light, you’re strong.”
She allowed herself a smile. The link brought with it a storm of awareness. She could feel Androl’s emotions. He was as fearful as she was. He was also solid. She’d imagined that being linked to him would be terrible, because of his madness, but she sensed none of it.
But saidin… that liquid fire that he wrestled with, like a serpent that was trying to consume him. She pulled back. Was it tainted? She wasn’t certain she could tell. Saidin was so different, so alien. Reports from the early days fragmented, spoke of the taint like an oil slick upon a river. Well, she could see a river—more a stream, really. It appeared that Androl had been honest with her, and wasn’t very powerful. She could not sense any taint—but then again, she did not know what to look for.
“I wonder…” Androl said. “I wonder if I can make a gateway with this power.”
“Gateways don’t work in the Black Tower anymore.”
“I know,” he said. “But I keep feeling that they’re just beyond my fingertips.”
Pevara opened her eyes, looking at him. She could feel his honesty within the circle, but creating a gateway required a lot of the One Power, at least for a woman. Androl would have to be orders of magnitude too weak for that weave. Could it require a different level of strength for a man?
He reached out a hand, using her Power somehow, mixed with his own. She could feel him pulling the One Power through her. Pevara tried to maintain her composure, but she did not like him having control. She could do nothing!
“Androl,” she said. “Release me.”
“It’s wonderful…” he whispered, eyes unfocused as he stood up. “Is this what it feels like, to be one of the others? Those with strength in the Power?”
He drew more of her power and used it. Objects in the room began to rise into the air.
“Androl!” Panic. It was the panic she’d felt after hearing that her parents were dead. She hadn’t known this sense of horror in over a hundred years, not since taking the test for her shawl.
He had control of her channeling. Absolute control. She began to gasp, trying to reach for him. She could not use saidar without him releasing it back to her—but he could use it against her. Images of him using her own strength to tie her in Air ran through her mind. She could not end the link. Only he could.
He noticed, suddenly, and his eyes widened. The circle vanished like a wink of the eye, and her power was her own again. Without thinking, she lashed out. This would not happen again. She would have the control. The weaves sprang from her before she knew what she was doing.
Androl fell to his knees, hand sweeping across his table as he threw his head back, brushing tools and scraps of leather to the floor. He gasped. “What have you done?”
“Taim said we could pick any of you,” Pevara muttered as she realized what she had done. She’d bonded him. The reverse, after a fashion, of what he’d done to her. She tried to calm her thundering heart. An awareness of him blossomed in the back of her mind, like what they’d known in the circle, but somehow more personal. Intimate.
“Taim is a monster!” Androl growled. “You know that. You take his word on what you can do, and you do it without my permission?”
“I… I…”
Androl clenched his jaw, and Pevara immediately felt something. Something alien, something strange. It felt like looking at herself. Feeling her emotions circled back on her endlessly.
Her self melded with his for a seeming eternity. She knew what it was like to be him, think his thoughts. She saw his life in the blink of an eye, was absorbed by his memories. She gasped and fell to her knees in front of him.
It faded. Not completely, but it faded. It felt like swimming a hundred leagues through boiling water, and only now emerging, having forgotten what it was like to have normal sensations.
“Light…” she whispered. “What was that?”
He lay on his back. When had he fallen? He blinked, looking up at the ceiling. “I saw one of the others do it. Some of the Asha’man bond their wives.”
“You bonded me?” she said, horrified.
He groaned, rolling over. “You did it to me first.”
She realized, with horror, that she could still feel his emotions. His self. She could even understand some of what he was thinking. Not the actual thoughts, but some impressions of them.
He was confused, worried and… curious. He was curious about the new experience. Foolish man!
She’d hoped that the two bonds would have somehow canceled one another out. They did not. “We have to stop this,” she said. “I’ll release you. I vow it. Just… just release me.”
“I don’t know how,” he said, standing up and breathing in deeply. “I’m sorry.”
He was telling the truth. “That circle was a bad idea,” she said. He offered a hand to help her to her feet. She stood on her own without accepting it.
“I believe it was your bad idea before it was mine.”
“So it was,” she admitted. “It isn’t my first one, but it might be one of my worst.” She sat down. “We need to think through this. Find a way to—”
The door to his shop slammed open.
Androl spun, and Pevara embraced the Source. Androl had grabbed his stitching groover in one hand like a weapon. He’d also seized the One Power. She could sense that molten force within him—weak because of his lack of talent, like a single small jet of magma, but still burning and hot. She could feel his awe. So it was the same for him as it was for her. Holding the One Power felt like opening your eyes for the first time, the world coming to life.
Fortunately, neither weapon nor the One Power was needed. Young Evin stood in the doorway, raindrops dribbling down the sides of his face. He shut the door and hurried to Androl’s workbench.
“Androl, it—” He froze, seeing Pevara.
“Evin,” Androl said. “You’re alone.”
“I left Nalaam to watch,” he said, breathing in and out. “It was important, Androl.”
“We are never to be alone, Evin,” Androl said. “Never. Always in pairs. No matter the emergency.”
“I know, I know,” Evin said. “I’m sorry. It’s just—the news, Androl.” He glanced at Pevara.
“Speak,” Androl said.
“Welyn and his Aes Sedai are back,” Ewan said.
Pevara could feel Androl’s sudden tension. “Is he… one of us, still?”
Evin shook his head, sick. “He’s one of them. Probably Jenare Sedai is, too. I don’t know her well enough to tell for sure. Welyn, though… his eyes aren’t his own any longer, and he now serves Taim.”
Androl groaned. Welyn had been with Logain. Androl and the others had been holding to the hope that although Mezar had been taken, Logain and Welyn were still free.
“Logain?” Androl whispered.
“He isn’t here,” Evin said, “but Androl, Welyn says Logain will come back soon—and that he’s met with Taim, and they have reconciled their differences. Welyn is promising that Logain will come tomorrow to prove it. Androl… that’s it. We have to admit it now. They have him.”
Pevara could feel Androl’s agreement, and his horror. It mirrored her own.
Aviendha moved through the darkened camps silently.
So many groups. There had to be at least a hundred thousand people gathered here at the Field of Merrilor. All waiting. Like a breath taken in and held before a great leap.
The Aiel saw her, but she did not approach them. The wetlanders didn’t notice her, save for a Warder who spotted her as she skirted the Aes Sedai camp. That camp was a place of motion and activity. Something had happened, though she caught only fragments. A Trolloc attack somewhere?
She listened enough to determine that the attack was in Andor, in the city of Caemlyn. There was worry the Trollocs would leave the city and rampage across the land.
She needed to know more; would the spears be danced tonight? Perhaps Elayne would share news
with her. Aviendha moved silently out of the Aes Sedai camp. Stepping softly in these wet lands, with their lush plants, presented different challenges than the Three-fold Land did. There, the dry ground was often dusty, which could muffle footsteps. Here, a dry twig could inexplicably be buried beneath wet grass.
She tried not to think about how dead that grass seemed. Once, she’d have considered those browns lush. Now, she knew these wetland plants should not look so wan and… and hollow.
Hollow plants. What was she thinking? She shook her head and crept through the shadows out of the Aes Sedai camp. She briefly contemplated sneaking back to surprise that Warder—he’d been hiding in a moss-worn cleft in the rubble of an old, fallen building and watching the Aes Sedai perimeter—but discarded the idea. She wanted to get to Elayne and ask her for details on the attack.
Aviendha approached another busy camp, ducked beneath the leafless branches of a tree—she didn’t know what type, but its limbs spread wide and high—and slipped inside the guard perimeter. A pair of wetlanders in white and red stood on “watch” near a fire. They didn’t come close to spotting her, though they did jump up and level polearms toward a thicket a good thirty feet away when an animal rustled in it.
Aviendha shook her head and passed them.
Forward. She needed to keep moving forward. What to do about Rand al’Thor? What were his plans for tomorrow? These were other questions she wanted to ask Elayne.
The Aiel needed a purpose once Rand al’Thor finished with them. That was clear from the visions. She had to find a way to give this to them. Perhaps they should return to the Three-fold Land. But… no. No. It tore her heart, but she had to admit that if the Aiel did so, they would be going to their graves. Their death, as a people, might not be immediate, but it would come. The changing world, with new devices and new ways of fighting, would overtake the Aiel, and the Seanchan would never leave them alone. Not with women who could channel. Not with armies full of spears that could, at any time, invade.
A patrol approached. Aviendha drew some fallen brown undergrowth over herself for camouflage, then lay down flat beside a dead shrub and remained perfectly still. The guards walked two handspans from her.