Crossroads of Twilight (The Wheel of Time, #10)

by Robert Jordan

“Taim gave the order,” Logain said, coldly uncomfortable explaining himself in front of an audience. Sudden lightning close to the house cast his face in lurid shadows for an instant, a bleak mask of darkness. “I assumed it came from you.” His eyes moved slightly in Bashere’s direction, and his mouth tightened. “Taim does a great many things people think are at your direction,” he went on reluctantly, “but he has his own plans. Flinn and Narishma and Manfor are on the deserters’ list, like every Asha’man you kept with you. And he has a coterie of twenty or thirty he keeps close and trains privately. Every man who wears the Dragon is one of that group except me, and he’d have kept the Dragon from me, if he dared. No matter what you’ve done, it is time to turn your eyes to the Black Tower before Taim splits it worse than the White Tower is. If he does, you’ll find the larger part is loyal to him, not you. They know him. Most have never even seen you.”

The seals on the Dark One’s prison on one hand, Taim splitting the Asha’man on the other. Was the seventh seal already broken? Was the Shadow beginning the opening moves of the Last Battle? “You told me something once, Bashere. If your enemy offers you two targets…” “Strike at a third,” Bashere finished promptly, and Rand nodded. He had already decided, anyway.

Kireyin

“I’ve been told you can hold out for days and still say next to nothing,” Perrin said. His voice sounded too loud in his ears. “I don’t have time for you to show how tough you are, or how brave. I know you’re brave and tough. But my wife’s been a prisoner too long. You’ll be separated and asked about some women. Whether you’ve seen them and where. That’s all I want to know. There’ll be no hot coals or anything else; just questions. But if anybody refuses to answer, or if your answers are too different, then everybody loses something.” He was surprised to find that he could lift the axe after all. The blade was smeared with red. “Two hands and two feet,” he said coldly. Light, he sounded like ice. He felt like ice to his bones. “That means you get four chances to answer the same. And if you all hold out, I still won’t kill you. I’ll find a village to leave you in, some place that will let you beg, somewhere the boys will toss a coin to the fierce Aielmen with no hands or feet. You think on it and decide whether it’s worth keeping my wife from me.”

“Allies?” Perrin prompted. “Nothing less than an army will be much use, but I’ll take any aid you can bring.” Tallanvor looked at Balwer, who returned a half bow and a blandly encouraging smile. The unshaven man drew a deep breath. “Fifteen thousand Seanchan, near enough. Most are Taraboners, actually, but they ride under Seanchan banners. And … And they have at least a dozen damane.” His voice quickened with urgency, a need to finish before Perrin could cut him off. “I know it’s like taking help from the Dark One, but they’re hunting the Shaido, too, and I’d take the Dark One’s help to free Maighdin.”

Fortune rides like the sun on high with the fox that makes the ravens fly. Luck his soul, the lightning his eye, He snatches the moons from out of the sky. The broken-nosed old man looked around as if just realizing anyone else was there. “I’ve been trying to remember that. It’s from the Prophecies of the Dragon.”

That left him with a job of work to do. Well, he hated work, but those old memories had his head stuffed full of battles. He hated battle, too—a man could get killed dead!—but it was better than work. Strategy and tactics. Learn the ground, learn your enemy, and if you could not win one way, you found another.

The next night, he brought a small red paper flower made by one of the show’s seamstresses. And presented it to a startled Selucia. Setalle’s eyebrows rose, and even Tuon seemed taken aback. Tactics. Put your opponent off balance. Come to think, women and battles were not that different. Both wrapped a man in fog and could kill him without trying. If he was careless.

“You can’t think she’ll complete the ceremony, can you? You can’t be that big a fool.” “What ceremony? What are you talking about?” “You named her your wife three times that night in Ebou Dar,” she said slowly. “You really don’t know? A woman says three times that a man is her husband, and he says three times she’s his wife, and they’re married. There are blessings involved, usually, but it’s saying it in front of witnesses that makes it a marriage. You really didn’t know?”

On the third day after leaving the river, they reached the salt town of Jurador, and he told Tuon that he would. She smiled at him, and the dice in his head stopped dead. He would always remember that. She smiled, and then the dice stopped. A man could weep!

Mat grinned. “The question is, does she mean to marry me? The strangest people marry, sometimes.” When you knew you were going to hang, the only thing to do was grin at the noose.

Domon would learn; even when a woman needed help, if she did not want it, she made you pay for giving it.

Selucia made an angry sound, though, blue eyes blazing, and dropped the bundle of cloth from her back as she took a step toward Domon. A quick flash of Tuon’s fingers stopped her in her tracks, though it was a quivering halt. Tuon’s face was a dark mask, unreadable. She did not like what she had heard, though. Come to think, she had said she trained damane. Oh, burn him, on top of everything else, he was going to marry a woman who could channel?

Mat met Tuon’s eyes. Big dark liquid eyes, in a smooth expressionless face. She had pushed her hood back a little, so he could see her face clearly. If he left her behind, then she could not say the words, or if she did, he would be too far away for the words to matter. If he left her behind, he would never learn why she smiled those mysterious smiles, or what lay behind the mystery. Light, he was a fool! Pips danced a few impatient steps. “Everybody,” he said. Did Tuon nod slightly, as if to herself? Why would she nod?

“My Lord?” Harnan said. He had an arrow nocked and his bow half raised. Gorderan held the heavy crossbow to his shoulder, a thick pointed bolt in place. Mat felt something flicker and die inside him. He did not know what. Something. The dice rolled like thunder. “Shoot,” he said. He wanted to close his eyes. The crossbow snapped; the bolt made a black streak through the air. Renna slammed forward when it hit her back. She had almost managed to push herself erect against the bay’s neck when Harnan’s arrow took her.

“I forbid it, Toy!” Tuon snapped, pointing a finger at him sharply. “I forbid you to mourn a traitor!” Her voice softened, slightly, but it remained firm. “She earned death by betraying the Empire, and she would have betrayed you as easily. She was trying to betray you. What you did was justice, and I name it so.”

She obeyed her oath of fealty as scrupulously as Egwene could have wished for, but you could not order someone to believe. They only mouthed what you told them, and nothing changed.

“I have laid out the facts,” Egwene said calmly. “Any decision will be the Hall’s. Tell me, Daughter. Would you choose to die, when you could live and continue to serve the Tower?”

We may need these men, but we must be certain we are in control. Complete control.” Egwene nodded. A small nod. She agreed, but … “There might be difficulties bringing them to accept that,” she said. Difficulties. She was displaying a positive talent for understatement today. “The Warder bond could be modified slightly,” Maigan said. “As it is, you can make the man do as you wish with a little tweaking, but the need to tweak could be removed quite easily.” “That sounds too much like Compulsion,” Egwene said firmly.

We rode on the winds of the rising storm, We ran to the sounds of the thunder. We danced among the lightning bolts, and tore the world asunder. —Anonymous fragment of a poem believed written near the end of the previous Age, known by some as the Third Age. Sometimes attributed to the Dragon Reborn.