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Maybe parts of it no other sister has seen. I used to watch the ships sail into Tear full of silk and ivory from Shara, and I’d wonder if any of the crew had had the nerve to sneak outside the trade ports. I would have.”
Who knows what lies west of the Aryth Ocean? Strange lands with strange customs. Maybe cities as great as Tar Valon, and mountains higher than the Spine of the World. Just think of it, Moiraine. Just think!”
For more than three thousand years the world had waited on the Prophecies of the Dragon to be fulfilled, fearing them, yet knowing they told of the world’s only hope. And now a boychild was about to be born—very soon, perhaps, by the way Gitara had spoken—to bring those Prophecies to a conclusion. He would be born on the slopes of Dragonmount, reborn where it was said the man he had once been had died. Three thousand years ago and more, the Dark One had almost broken free into the world of humankind and brought on the War of the Shadow, which had ended only with the Breaking of the World.
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Men still tried to channel from time to time. Some actually managed to teach themselves, and survived learning without a teacher, no easy feat.
Among women, only one in four survived trying to learn on their own.
Madmen who could tap into the One Power that turned the Wheel of Time and drove the universe.
And the Prophecies said that the Dragon Reborn would bring a new Breaking of the World.
She cut off as a stout serving woman with the white Flame of Tar Valon on her breast appeared around a corner just ahead of them.
Male servants often turned a blind eye to what Accepted, and even novices, got up to; perhaps they wanted no more involvement with Aes Sedai than their jobs entailed. Female servants, on the other hand, kept as close a watch as the sisters themselves.
Space for above two hundred Accepted, but the second well had been shut up since time out of memory for any living Aes Sedai, and barely more than sixty of these rooms were occupied.
but one of those was long closed, too, and the other held under a hundred.
The Tower had been built to house three thousand sisters, but only four hundred and twenty-three were in residence at the moment, with perhaps twice as many more scattered across the nations.
but the White Tower was failing. The Tower was failing, and the Last Battle was coming.
‘Change what you can if it needs changing, but learn to live with what you can’t change.’ You’ll only get a sick stomach, otherwise.
A frown creased her forehead for a moment, and then Moiraine felt that small tingle again as the light of saidar briefly surrounded the other woman. Any woman who could channel could feel another wielding the Power if she was close enough, but the tingle was unusual. Women who spent a lot of time together in their training sometimes felt it, but the sensation was supposed to fade away over time. Hers and Siuan’s never had. Sometimes Moiraine thought it was a sign of how close their friendship was. When the glow winked out, the short lengths of log were burning merrily.
“Besides, you must remember Akarrin’s lecture two weeks ago. ‘You must know the rules to the letter,’” she quoted, “‘and live with them before you can know which rules you may break and when.’ That says right out that sometimes you can break the rules.”
Akarrin, a slender Brown with quick eyes to catch who was not following her, had been lecturing about being Aes Sedai, not Accepted, but Moiraine held her tongue.
Elaida had made their first year as novices a misery,
Their major triumph had been filling the largest fountain in the Water Garden with fat green trout one night the previous summer.
The test for the shawl consisted of creating one hundred different weaves perfectly and in a precise order while under great stress.
Holding two weaves at once was more than twice as taxing as one, three more than twice as wearing as two. Beyond that, difficult no longer sufficed as a description, though it could be done. She motioned for Moiraine to turn her back.
The door also let in Myrelle Berengari, an Accepted from Altara who had earned the ring in the same year as they. Olive-skinned and beautiful, and almost as tall as Siuan, Myrelle was gregarious and also mercurial, with a boisterous sense of humor and a temper even worse than Moiraine’s when she let it go.
“What do you mean, Myrelle?” Siuan asked cautiously. “Why, the Aiel, of course. What else could I mean?”
climbed before she could control her face. What was Siuan up to? Was she trying to play Daes Dae’mar? Moiraine had tried to teach her how the Game of Houses worked.
Siuan liked to use tickles at the worst possible moment, sudden pokes in unpleasant places, embarrassing caresses, and startling noises right beside her ear.
But Moiraine would like to see how Myrelle managed to make it materialize inside her dress, in the worst places.
Taller than Siuan, Tarna Feir was from the north of Altara, close to Andor, but her pale yellow hair was not her only difference from Myrelle.
She possessed no sense of humor, either, and as far as anyone knew, she had never played a joke on anyone.
“The Accepted are summoned to the Oval Lecture Hall. The Amyrlin is going to address us. One other thing you should know. Gitara Moroso died just a few hours ago.”
Zemaille regarded her soberly for a moment before saying, “Wind, I think.” Zemaille always took her time. For that matter, she was always sober and thoughtful. Very likely, she would choose Brown when she was raised. Or perhaps White. She was a rarity in the Tower, one of the Sea Folk, the Atha’an Miere. There were only four Sea Folk Aes Sedai, all Browns, and two of them were almost as old as Gitara had been. Atha’an Miere girls never came to the Tower unless they manifested the spark or managed to begin learning on their own. In either case, a delegation of Sea Folk delivered the girl, then
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A tall Accepted on the row in front of them, Aisling Noon, twisted around. She was almost bouncing on the bench with excitement.
Aisling blushed furiously anyway. She was another rarity for the Tower, one of the Tuatha’an, the Tinkers.
Verin, a stout Brown who was even shorter than Moiraine, said that Tinker girls never tried to find their way to channeling on their own, that they did not want to channel or become Aes Sedai.
bounty of one hundred crowns in gold to every woman in the city who bore a child between the day the first soldiers arrived and the day the threat is ended. It is being announced on the streets even as I speak.”
“If I hear that someone has used the Power to defend herself, Alanna, that someone will sit very tenderly after a visit to the Mistress of Novices.”
Green, the Battle Ajah, and have a dozen Warders. Only Greens bonded more than a single Warder.
Some said Aes Sedai had invented the Game of Houses.
Tower Guards who wore gray steel breastplates over nearly black coats and equally dark cloaks worked with the white teardrop of the Flame of Tar Valon.
Alindaer lay empty and still. The village had been burned at least three times in the Trolloc Wars, once more near the end of the War of the Second Dragon, and twice during the twenty-year siege of Tar Valon by Artur Hawkwing’s armies, and it seemed the inhabitants had expected the same again. Here a chair sat in the snow-covered street, there a table, a child’s doll, a cookpot, all dropped by people hurrying to get inside the city with whatever they could take with them. Then again, every window appeared to be shuttered tightly, every door closed and no doubt locked, whatever remained behind
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Sarene was the most beautiful woman in the Accepted’s quarters, except perhaps for Ellid, though she seemed completely unconscious of it, which Ellid definitely was not, but she had remarkably little tact for a shopkeeper’s daughter. Her mother must have been glad to see Sarene’s sharp tongue go off to Tar Valon.
But then, they both knew Sarene all too well. A friend, but a nettlesome one at times.
“I am the Lady Meri do Ahlan a’Conlin, a direct descendant of Katrine do Catalan a’Coralle, the first Queen of Murandy.”
“This is my son, Sedrin. He was born just a week ago. I refused to stay behind when my husband rode to war, of course. I’ll have the coins mounted in a frame, so Sedrin will always know he was honored by the White Tower.”
“Careme’s girl is the same age as Lord Sedrin to the day, begging your pardon for speaking, my Lady, begging your pardon, Aes Sedai. But the fellow Careme wanted to marry, he run off thinking to become a Warder, and she don’t like who she did marry half so well.” She gave an emphatic shake of her head. “Oh, she wants nothing from the White Tower, Careme don’t.”
“She’s Careme Mowly, Aes Sedai, and her girl’s Ellya.”
The only surprise was the number of women who were not Murandian.
The only two infants born that day, after Gitara’s Foretelling, were girls and, like every other newborn, birthed within a mile of the camp.
“Susa Wynn, Aes Sedai,” the woman said meekly. “That’s me. This is my Cyril,” she added, stroking the boy’s head.
“The father’s name?” Moiraine asked, playing for time to decide. This child was too old by far, and that was that. Except…. “Jac, Aes Sedai. Jac Wynn. He….” Tears welled in the woman’s sunken eyes. “Jac died before the fighting even started. Slipped in the snow and cracked his head on a stone. Hardly seems right, to come all this way and die for slipping in the snow.”
Meilyn Arganya, with her silver-gray hair and thrusting chin, was one of the most respected women in the Tower.
