If the Great Lord meant to make al’Thor Nae’blis, she herself would kneel to him—and wait for a slip to deliver him into her hands. Immortality meant infinite time to wait. There would always be other patients to amuse her in the meantime. What troubled her was Shaidar Haran. She had never been more than an indifferent tcheran player, but Shaidar Haran was a new piece on the board, one of unknown strength and purpose. And one daring way to capture your opponent’s High Counselor and turn it to your side was to sacrifice your Spires in a false attack. She would kneel if need be, for as long as need be, but she would not be sacrificed.

An odd feel to the net pulled her out of her thoughts. She took one look at the patient and clicked her tongue in exasperation. His head hung to one side, chin dark with blood where he had chewed his tongue, eyes staring and already filmed over. Inattention, and she had let the stimulation grow too fast, too far. With an irritation that never touched her face, she stopped channeling. There was no point trying to stimulate the brain of a corpse.

A sudden thought occurred to her. If the Warder could feel what the Aes Sedai felt, was the reverse true? Eyeing the scars that decorated the man’s body, she was sure it was impossible; even these simple fools would have altered the bond if it meant sharing the feel of that. Still, she abandoned the cadaver and stepped across the corridor with some haste.

Screams heard before she opened the iron-bound door onto darkness brought a deep breath of relief. Killing the woman before draining her of everything she knew would probably have meant remaining here until another Aes Sedai was captured. At the least.

There were barely intelligible words among the throat-shredding howls, words that seemed to have all the force of the patient’s soul behind them. “Pleeeeaaaase! Oh, Light, PLEEEEAAAASE!”

Semirhage smiled faintly. There was a little fun in this after all.

CHAPTER

7

A Matter of Thought

Seated on her mattress, Elayne finished the one hundred strokes with her left hand, then put the hairbrush away in her small leather traveling case and pushed it back under the narrow bed. A dull ache rested behind her eyes from a day spent channeling, making ter’angreal. Too often trying to make ter’angreal Nynaeve, balanced atop their loose-jointed stool, had long since completed brushing her waist-length hair and was nearly done replaiting her braid loosely for sleep. Sweat made her face glisten.

Even with the one window open, the small room was stifling. The moon hung fat in a star-filled black sky. Their stub of candle provided a fitful glow. Candles and lamp oil were in short supply in Salidar; no one got more than a scrap of light at night unless they had to work with pen and ink. The room truly was cramped, with little space to move around the two short beds. Most of what they owned was packed away in a pair of battered brass-bound chests. Accepted’s dresses and cloaks they certainly had no need of now hung from pegs in the walls, where ragged holes in the crazed yellowing plaster showed the lathing beneath. A tiny table with a tilt was shoved between the beds, and a rickety washstand in the corner held a white pitcher and basin with an amazing number of chips between them. Even Accepted who had their heads patted at every turn were not indulged.

A handful of bedraggled blue and white wildflowers—fooled by the weather into blooming late, and not very well—stuck out of a yellow vase with a broken neck between a pair of brown pottery cups on the table. The only other spot of color was a green-striped song sparrow in a wicker cage. Elayne was nursing it for a broken wing. She had tried her small skill with Healing on another bird, but songbirds at least were too small to survive the shock.

No complaining, she told herself firmly. Aes Sedai lived a little better, novices and servants a little worse, and Gareth Bryne’s soldiers slept on the ground most often. What can’t be changed must be endured. Lini used to say that all the time. Well, Salidar held small enough comfort, and no luxury. And no coolness, either.

Pulling her shift away from her body, she blew down her front. “We want to be there ahead of them, Nynaeve. You know how they go on if they have to wait.”

Not a breath of breeze stirred, and the parched air seemed to pull perspiration from every pore. There must be something that could be done about the weather. Of course, if there was, Sea Folk Windfinders would probably already have done it, but she still might think of something, if only the Aes Sedai would give her time enough away from ter’angreal. As Accepted, she supposedly could take her studies where she wanted, but. . . . If they thought I could eat and show them how to make ter’angreal at the same time, I wouldn’t have a minute to myself. At least there would be a break in that tomorrow.

Shifting to her bed, Nynaeve frowned and fiddled with the a’dam bracelet on her wrist. She always insisted one of them wear it even when they slept, though it produced decidedly odd and unpleasant dreams. There was hardly need; the a’dam would hold Moghedien just as well hanging on a peg, and on top of that, she shared a truly tiny cubbyhole with Birgitte. Birgitte was as good a guard as could be, and besides, Moghedien almost wept any time Birgitte so much as frowned. She had the least reason to want Moghedien alive, the most to want her dead, which the woman knew very well. Tonight the bracelet would be less use than usual.

“Nynaeve, they’ll be waiting.”

Nynaeve sniffed loudly—she did not do well being at anyone’s beck and call—but she took one of two flattened stone rings from the table between the beds. Both too large for a finger, one was striped and flecked blue and brown, the other blue and red, and each was twisted so it had only one edge. Unfastening the leather thong hanging around her neck, Nynaeve threaded the blue-and-brown ring alongside another, heavy and gold. Lan’s signet. She touched the thick gold band tenderly before tucking both inside her shift.

Elayne picked up the blue-and-red ring, frowning at it.

The rings were ter’angreal she had made in imitation of one now in Siuan’s possession, and despite their simple appearance, they were complex beyond belief. Sleeping with one next to your skin would take you into Tel’aran’rhiod, the World of Dreams, a reflection of the real world. Perhaps of all worlds; some Aes Sedai claimed that there were many worlds, as if all variations of the Pattern had to exist, and that all those worlds together made up a still larger Pattern. The important thing was that Tel’aran’rhiod reflected this world, and had properties that were extremely useful. Especially since the Tower knew nothing of entering it, so f