New Spring (The Wheel of Time, #0)

by Robert Jordan

The death’s-head spider came from the Aiel Waste. How did she know that? Its name came from more than the gray marking on its back that resembled a human skull. One bite could sicken a strong man for days. Two could kill him.

“It is half done,” the Amyrlin intoned, “and the White Tower is graven on your bones.” But she did not complete the ceremony. Instead, she took the Rod and placed it in Siuan’s hands. Moiraine fought down a smile. She could have kissed Tamra.

“She wanted me to puzzle out what happened forty or fifty years ago in Tarabon and Saldaea and Altara.”

My great-grandmother, Carewin, ruled more than fifty years, and the Tower calls her a very successful ruler because Cairhien prospered and had few wars under her, but her name is still used to frighten children. Better to be forgotten than remembered like Carewin Damodred, but even with the Tower behind me, I will have to try matching her if the Hall succeeds.”

Siuan could have kissed her. In fact, she did.

“The Light send Pedron Niall doesn’t choose now to paint his face.” Niall, Lord Captain Commander of the Children of the Light, had the command today.

Lan did not speak at all unless Bukama addressed him. He felt the pull of home sharply. All he wanted was a return to the Blight. And no encounters with Aes Sedai.

who gravely guided her to the study of Mistress Dormaile, a slim, graying little woman a full hand shorter than Moiraine. Her father had banked with Ilain Dormaile’s elder brother, who still handled her own accounts in Cairhien, making her choice easy in Tar Valon.

“As you say. Nine days ago a man came to me, a Cairhienin, wearing the uniform of a captain in the Tower Guard and giving the name Ries Gorthanes. He spoke with cultured accents, an educated man, perhaps even nobility, and he was tall, a good three hands or more taller than me, and broad-shouldered, with a soldier’s bearing. He was clean-shaven, of course, and his face was well-proportioned, and good-looking despite a scar about an inch long, here.” With one finger, she drew a line from the corner of her left eye back toward her ear.

“Last night, Tamra Ospenya, the Watcher of the Seals, the Flame of Tar Valon, the Amyrlin Seat, died in her sleep. May the Light shine on her soul.”

and by the evening after Tamra’s funeral, Sierin Vayu had been raised from the Gray.

Four nations bordered the Blight, but his war covered the length of it, from the Aryth Ocean to the Spine of the World. One place to meet death was as good as another. He was almost home. Almost back to the Blight. He had been away too long.

Lord Varan, the High Seat of House Marcasiev; Queen Ethenielle did not fly so many of her own banners even in Chachin itself.

Varan’s antlered crest and the Red Stag

“Tai’shar Malkier!” True blood of Malkier. “I stand ready, Majesty.”

“The Light shine upon you, Lord Mandragoran. The son of el’Leanna and al’Akir, blessed be their memories, is always welcome.”

Then a jut-nosed man named Nazar Kurenin rode in front of Bukama’s eyes, and he did not blink. The young guard surely had been born after the Blight swallowed Malkier, but Kurenin, his hair cut short and wearing a forked beard, was twice Lan’s age.

Lord Marcasiev’s fortress-like palace covered the peak, with those of lesser lords and ladies on the terraces below. Any threshold up there offered warm welcome for al’Lan Mandragoran.

Ryne Venamar, his oldest friend except for Bukama.

Bukama did not exactly dislike Ryne—not exactly—yet in his present mood only Nazar Kurenin could have had a worse effect.

Lan up and down openly as she set his mug in front of him, then whispered her name, Lira, in his ear, and an invitation,

“By tomorrow,” she announced in a throaty voice, and loudly, “I’ll have honored you till your knees won’t hold you up.”

If Lira did share his bed tonight, as seemed certain, she would discover there was nothing shy or retiring about him once they were abed,

“Out of Shol Arbela. The luckiest trader in Arafel, they say. Said. Much good it did him. We arrived yesterday, and last night footpads slit his throat two streets over. No return money for me this trip.”

“Why should I be near the Lady Arrel?” he demanded softly. Softly, but emphasizing her proper title.

“Burn me, do you mean to say you haven’t heard? She’s raised the Golden Crane. In your name, of course. Since the year turned, she’s been from Fal Moran to Maradon, and coming back now.”

Old Kurenin wept when he heard her speak. All ready to carve Malkier out of the Blight again.”

He felt more than cold inside. Suddenly Seroku’s surprise that he intended to ride north took on new meaning, and the young guard’s assertion that he stood ready. Even the looks here in the common room seemed different. And Edeyn was part of it. Always she liked standing in the heart of the storm. “I must see to my horse,” he told Ryne, scraping his bench back.

Plainly Mistress Arovni had sent word to the ostlers that he and Bukama were being given accommodation.

Edeyn’s face, surrounded by silky black hair that hung below her waist, a beautiful face with large dark eyes that could drink a man’s soul even when filled with command.

From his belt pouch he took a heavy gold signet ring worked with a flying crane and turned it over and over in his fingers. The ring of Malkieri kings,

That piece of metal represented over three thousand years fighting the Blight.

It had been his almost as long as he had lived, but he had never worn it.

In his cradle he had been given four gifts. The ring in his hands and the locket that hung around his neck, the sword on his hip and an oath sworn in his name.

The locket, containing the painted images of the mother and father he could not remember seeing in life, was the most precious, the oath the heaviest. “To stand against the Shadow so long as iron is hard and stone abides. To defend the Malkieri while one drop of blood remains. To avenge what cannot be defended.” And then he had been anointed with oil and named Dai Shan, consecrated as the next King of Malkier and sent away from a land that knew it would die.

Only, now, Edeyn Arrel wanted to try.

She was his carneira, his first lover. A thousand years of tradition shouted that, despite the stillness that enveloped him.

He had been fifteen, Edeyn more than twice that, when she gathered the hair that had still hung to his waist in her hands and whispered her intentions. Women had still called him beautiful then, enjoying his blushes, and for half a year she had enjoyed parading him on her arm and tucking him into her bed.

Almost ten years past now that Edeyn had watched him ride away from Fal Moran, and been gone when he returned, yet he still could recall her face more clearly than that of any woman who had shared his bed since. He was no longer a boy, to think that she loved him just because she had chosen to become his first lover, yet there was an old saying among Malkieri men. Your carneira wears part of your soul as a ribbon in her hair forever. Custom strong as law made it so.

Only in stories did one man face six without injury. The Rose Unfolds sliced down a bald man’s left arm, and ginger-hair nicked the corner of Lan’s eye. Only in stories did one man face six and survive.

Duty was a mountain, death a feather, and his duty was to Bukama, who had carried an infant on his back.

“That one listened to Edeyn Arrel when she was here, and he liked what he heard. One of the others did, too, I think.” Bells chimed as he shook his head. “It’s peculiar. The first she said of raising the Golden Crane was after we heard you were dead outside the Shining Walls. Your name brings men, but with you dead, she could be el’Edeyn.”

think I’ll ride with you. I’d as soon not go back to Shol Arbela until I’m sure Ceiline Noreman doesn’t lay her husband’s death at my boots. And it will be good to see the Golden Crane flying again.”

Lan nodded. To put his hand on the banner and abandon what he had promised himself all those years ago, or to stop her, if he could. Either way, he had to face Edeyn. The Blight would have been much easier.

The Three Oaths still made her skin feel too tight, and now saddlesoreness added to the mix.

Not that many people seemed to be mourning Laman in Cairhien itself. The latest news she had from there, a month old, spoke of four Houses laying claim to the throne and fierce skirmishes, some approaching battles.

“It’s just that Josef was always so lucky, my Lady Alys. Everyone spoke of it. They said if Josef Najima fell down a hole, there’d be opals at the bottom. When he answered the Lady Kareil’s call to go fight the Aiel, I worried, but he never took a scratch. When camp fever struck, it never touched us or the children. Josef gained the Lady’s favor without trying. Then it seemed the Light truly did shine on us. Jerid was born safe and whole, and the war ended, all in a matter of days, and when we came home to Canluum, the Lady gave us the livery stable for Josef’s service, and…and….” She swallowed tears she would not shed. Colar began to weep, and her mother pulled her closer, whispering comfort.

That’s suspicious

Jurine Najima had lost her husband and three sons in one fiery morning, but her Jerid had been born in the wrong place by almost twenty miles. Moiraine disliked feeling relief in connection with the death of an infant. Yet she did. The dead boy was not the one she sought.

Anyone who went about the streets of Canluum with an open cloak would draw stares. Any outlander, at least, unless clearly Aes Sedai. Besides, not allowing the cold to touch you did not make you entirely unaware of it. How these people could call this “new spring” without a hint of mockery was beyond her. Mentally

Years might pass before it was safe for her to return to Tar Valon. A great many years.