Taim stood on the dais, beside Logain’s slumped form, the women and the Fades. He seemed to consider this woman, perhaps one of the Forsaken, a greater threat than anyone else in the room.

“You think that will work, do you?” Taim asked. “When the Nae’blis hears of how you are bungling—”

“The Nae’blis? I care not for Moridin. I have already provided a gift to the Great Lord himself. Beware, I am in his favor. I hold the keys in my hands, Hessalam.”

“You mean… you actually did it? You stole them?”

Taim smiled. He turned back to Androl, who hung in the air, struggling without success. He wasn’t shielded. He flung another weave at Taim, but the man blocked it indifferently.

Androl wasn’t even worth shielding. Taim dropped him from the weaves of Air. Androl hit the ground hard. He grunted.

“How long have you trained here, Androl?” Taim asked. “You shame me. That is the best you can do when trying to kill?”

Androl struggled to his knees. He felt pain and worry from Pevara behind, her mind clouded with forkroot. In front of him, Logain sat on his throne, locked in place, surrounded by the enemy. The man’s eyes were closed; he was barely conscious.

“We are done here,” Taim said. “Mishraile, kill these captives. We will take those above and carry them to Shayol Ghul. The Great Lord has promised me more resources for my work there.”

Taim’s lackeys approached. Androl looked up from his knees. The darkness grew all around, shapes moving in the shadows. The darkness… it terrified him. He had to let go of saidin, he had to. And yet, he could not.

He had to begin weaving.

Taim glanced at him, then smiled and wove balefire.

Shadows, all around!

Androl clung to the Power.

The dead, they come for me!

He wove by instinct, the best weave he knew. A gateway. He hit that wall, that blasted wall.

So tired. Shadows… Shadows will take me.

A white-hot bar of light sprang from Taim’s fingers, pointed right at Androl. Androl shouted, straining, thrusting his hands forward and snapping his weave into place. He hit that wall and heaved.

A gateway the width of a coin opened in front of him. He caught the stream of balefire in it.

Taim frowned, and the room grew still, stunned Asha’man pausing their weaves. At that moment, the door to the room exploded inward.

Canler, holding the One Power, roared in. He was followed by the twenty or so Two Rivers boys who had come to train in the Black Tower.

Taim yelled, embracing the Source. “We are attacked!”

The dome seemed to be centered on the building project he’d noted. That was bad; with those foundations and pits, Slayer would have plenty of places to hide and ambush him.

Once they reached the village, Perrin pointed to a particularly large building. Two stories, built like an inn, with a solid wooden roof. “I’m going to take you up there,” Perrin whispered. “Ready your bow. Yell if you spot anyone trying to sneak up on me, all right?”

Gaul nodded. Perrin shifted them up onto the top of the building, and Gaul took position by the chimney. His clothing blended to match the color of the clay bricks, and he stayed low, bow out. It wouldn’t have the range of a longbow, but from here, he’d be deadly.

Perrin dropped to the ground, floating softly the last inch or so in order to keep from making noise. He crouched and shifted to the side of a building just ahead. He shifted again, to the edge of the last building in the row before the excavation, then looked over his shoulder. Gaul, hidden quite well up above, raised his fingers. He had tracked Perrin.

From here, Perrin crept forward on his belly, not wanting to shift to a place he couldn’t see directly. He reached the lip of the first cavernous foundation hole and looked down on a dirt floor. The wind still blew, and dust swirled down below, obscuring any tracks that might have been left.

Perrin rose to a crouch and began to make his way around the perimeter of the large foundation. Where would the exact center of the dome be? He couldn’t tell; it was too large. He kept his eyes open.

His attention was so focused on the foundation holes that he nearly walked right into the guards. A quiet chuckle from one of them alerted him, and he shifted immediately, jumping to the other side of the foundation and dropping to his knees, Two Rivers longbow appearing in his hands. He scanned the area he’d left, now distant.

Fool, he thought, finally spotting them. The two men lounged in a shack built beside the foundations. The shack was the type of structure you’d expect workers to take meals in. Perrin looked about anxiously, but Slayer did not rise out of hiding to attack him, and the two guards failed to spot him.

He couldn’t make out many details, so he cautiously shifted back to near where he’d been. He dropped down into the foundation and created an earthen ledge on its side to stand on while peering over the lip of the hole into the shack.

Yes, there were two of them. Men in black coats. Asha’man. He thought he recognized them from the aftermath of Dumai’s Wells, where they had rescued Rand. They were loyal to him, weren’t they? Had Rand sent help for Perrin?

Light burn that man, Perrin thought. Couldn’t he just be up front with everyone for once?

Of course, even Asha’man could be Darkfriends. Perrin debated climbing out of the pit and confronting them.

“Broken tools,” Lanfear said idly.

Perrin jumped, cursing to find her standing on the ledge beside him, peeking up at the two men.

“They’ve been Turned,” she said. “I’ve always found that to be a wasteful business. You lose something in the transformation—they will never serve as well as if they’d come willingly. Oh, they’ll be loyal, but the light is gone. The self-motivation, the spark of ingenuity that makes people into people.”

“Be quiet,” Perrin said. “Turned? What do you mean? Is that…”

“Thirteen Myrddraal and thirteen Dreadlords.” Lanfear sneered. “Such crudeness. Such a waste.”

“I don’t understand.”

Lanfear sighed, speaking as if she were explaining to a child. “Those who can channel can be Turned to the Shadow by force in the right circumstances. M’Hael has been having trouble here making the process work as easily as he should. He needs women if he’s going to Turn men easily.”

Light, Perrin thought. Did Rand know this could happen to people? Were they planning to do the same thing to him?

“I’d be careful around those two,” Lanfear said. “They’re powerful.”

“Then you should be speaking more softly,” Perrin whispered.

“Bah. It’s easy to bend sound in this place. I could shout for all I’m worth, and they wouldn’t hear. They’re drinking, you see? They brought the wine through with them. They’re here in the flesh, of course. I doubt their leader warned them of the dangers of that.”

Perrin looked up at the guards. The two men sipped at their wine, chuckling to one another. As Perrin watched, the first slumped to the side, then the other did as well. They slipped out of their seats and hit the ground.

“What did you do?”

“Forkroot in the wine,” Lanfear said.

“Why are you helping me?” Perrin demanded.

“I’m fond of you, Perrin.”

“You’re one of the Forsaken!”

“I was,” Lanfear said. “That… privilege has been removed from me. The Dark One discovered I was planning to help Lews Therin win. Now, I—” She froze, looking toward the sky again. What did she see in those clouds? Something that made her grow pale. She vanished a moment later.

Perrin tried to decide what to do. He couldn’t trust her, of course. However, she was good with the wolf dream. She managed to appear next to him without making any sound at all. That was tougher than it seemed; she had to still the air as it was moved out of the way when she arrived. She had to land just precisely so that she didn’t make noise, and had to mute her clothing’s rustle.

>   With a start, Perrin realized that this time she’d also been masking her scent. He’d only been able to smell her—her scent was that of soft night lily—after she’d begun speaking to him.

Uncertainly, he crawled out of the pit and approached the shack. Both men were asleep. What happened to men who slept in the dream? Normally, this would have sent them back to the waking world—but they were here in the flesh.

He shivered, thinking of what had been done to them. “Turned”? Was that the word she’d used? Light. It seemed unfair. Not that the Pattern is ever fair, Perrin acknowledged, quickly searching through the hut.

He found the dreamspike driven into the ground under the table. The silvery piece of metal looked like a long tent spike, carved with designs down its length. It was similar to the other one he’d seen, but not exactly the same. He pulled it free, then waited, hand on his hammer, expecting Slayer to come for him.

“He’s not here,” Lanfear said.

“Light!” Perrin jumped, hammer raised. He turned. “Why do you keep appearing like that, woman?”

“He searches for me,” she said, glancing skyward. “I’m not supposed to be able to do this, and he’s grown suspicious. If he finds me, he’ll know for certain, and I will be destroyed, captured and burned for an eternity.”

“You expect me to feel sorry for you, one of the Forsaken?” Perrin snapped.

“I chose my master,” she said, studying him. “This is my price—unless I can find a way free of it.”

“What?”

“I think you have the best chance,” she said. “I need you to win, Perrin, and I need to be at your side when you do.”

He snorted. “You haven’t learned any new tricks, have you? Take your offers elsewhere. I’m not interested.” He turned the dreamspike over in his fingers. He had never been able to figure out how the other one worked.

“You have to twist it at the top.” Lanfear held out a hand.

Perrin eyed her.

“You don’t think I could have taken it on my own if I’d wanted?” she asked, amused. “Who was it who put M’Hael’s little pets down for you?”

He hesitated, then handed it over. She ran her thumb from tip to mid-length, and something clicked inside it. She reached up and twisted the head about. Outside, the faint wall of violet shrank and vanished.

She handed it back. “Twist it again to set up the field—the longer you twist, the larger it will grow—then slide your finger in the reverse of what I did to lock it. Be careful. Wherever you set it will have ramifications in the waking world as well as this world, and it will stop even your allies from moving in or out. You can get through with a key, but I do not know it for this spike.”

“Thank you,” Perrin said grudgingly. At his feet, one of the slumbering men grunted, then rolled to his side. “Is there… Is there really no way to resist being Turned? Nothing they can do?”

“A person can resist for a short time,” she said. “A short time only. The strongest will fail eventually. If you are a man facing women, they will beat you quickly.”

“It shouldn’t be possible,” Perrin said, kneeling. “Nobody should be able to force a man to turn to the Shadow. When all else is taken from us, this choice should remain.”

“Oh, they have the choice,” Lanfear said, idly nudging one with her foot. “They could have chosen to be gentled. That would have removed the weakness from them, and they could never have been Turned.”

“That’s not much of a choice.”

“This is the weave of the Pattern, Perrin Aybara. Not all options will be good ones. Sometimes you have to make the best of a bad lot and ride the storm.”

He looked at her sharply. “And you imply that’s what you did? You joined the Shadow because it was the ‘best’ option? I don’t buy it for a moment. You joined for power. Everyone knows it.”

“Think what you will, wolf pup,” she said, eyes growing hard. “I’ve suffered for my decisions. I’ve borne pain, agony, excruciating sorrow because of what I’ve done in my life. My suffering goes beyond what you could conceive.”

“And of all of the Forsaken,” Perrin said, “you chose your place and accepted it most readily.”

She sniffed. “You think you can believe stories three thousand years old?”

“Better to trust them than the words of one such as yourself.”

“As you wish,” she said, then looked down again at the sleeping men. “If it helps you to understand, wolf pup, you should know that many think men like these are killed when the Turning happens. And then something else invades the body. Some think that, at least.” She vanished.

Perrin sighed, then tucked the dreamspike away and shifted back to the rooftop. As soon as he appeared, Gaul spun about, drawing an arrow. “Is it you, Perrin Aybara?”

“It’s me.”

“I wonder if I should ask for proof,” Gaul said, arrow still drawn. “It seems to me that in this place, one could easily change one’s appearance.”

Perrin smiled. “Appearance isn’t all. I know that you have two gai’shain, one you want, one you do not. Neither seems content to act as proper gai’shain. If we live through this, one might marry you.”

“One might,” Gaul agreed, lowering his bow. “It’s looking like I’ll have to take both or neither. Perhaps it is punishment for making them put away their spears, though it is not my choice that makes them do so, but their own.” He shook his head. “The dome is gone.”

Perrin held up the dreamspike. “It is.”

“What is our next task?”

“To wait,” Perrin said, settling down on the rooftop, “and see if removing the dome draws Slayer’s attention.”

“What if it does not?”

“Then we go to the next likely place to find him,” Perrin said, rubbing his chin. “And that is wherever there are wolves to kill.”

“We heard you!” Canler yelled to Androl amid the firefight. “Burn me if it isn’t true! We were in my shop above and we heard you speak, begging! We decided we had to attack. Now or never.”

Weaves exploded through the room. Earth erupted, and Fire shot from Taim’s people at the dais toward the Two Rivers men. Fades slunk across the room with cloaks that did not move, unsheathing swords.

Androl scrambled away from Canler, head low, making for Pevara, Jonneth and Emarin at the side of the room. Canler had heard him? The gateway he’d made, just before Taim heaved him in air. It must have opened, so small he hadn’t been able to see it.

He could make gateways again. But only very small ones. What good was that? Enough to stop Taim’s balefire, he thought, reaching Pevara and the others. None of the three were in a state to fight. He wove a gateway, hitting the wall, pushing to—

Something changed.

The wall vanished.

Androl sat, stunned for a moment. Blasts and explosions in the room assaulted his ears. Canler and the others fought well, but the Two Rivers lads faced fully trained Aes Sedai and maybe one of the Forsaken. They were dropping one by one.

The wall was gone.

Androl stood up slowly, then walked back toward the center of the room. Taim and his people fought on the dais; the weaves coming from Canler and his lads were flagging.

Androl looked to Taim and felt a powerful, overwhelming surge of anger. The Black Tower belonged to the Asha’man, not this man.

It was time for the Asha’man to reclaim it. Androl roared, raising his hands beside him, and wove a gateway. The power rushed through him. As always, his gateways snapped into place faster than any others, growing larger than a man of his strength should be able to make.

He built this one the size of a large wagon. He opened it facing Taim’s channelers, snapping it in place right as they released their next round of deadly weaves.

The gateway only covered the distance of a few paces, and opened behind them.

Weaves crafted by Taim’s women and men hit the open gateway—which hung before Androl like a haze in the air—the

n exploded out behind them.

Weaves killed their own masters, burning away Aes Sedai, killing Asha’man and the few remaining Myrddraal. Straining at the exertion, Androl bellowed louder and opened small gateways on Logain’s bonds, snapping them. He opened another one directly in the floor beneath Logain’s chair, dropping it from the room to a place far away from the Black Tower—one that was, the Light send, safe.

The woman called Hessalam fled. As she darted through a gateway of her own, Taim followed with a couple of others. The rest were not so wise—for a moment later, Androl opened a gateway as wide as the floor, dropping the other women and Asha’man through it to plummet hundreds of feet.

CHAPTER

15

Your Neck in a Cord

The Tarasin Palace of Ebou Dar was far from the most difficult place that Mat had broken into. He told himself that over and over again as he dangled outside a balcony three stories above the gardens.

He clung to a marble ledge with one hand while holding his hat on his head with the other, his ashandarei strapped to his back. He’d stowed his bundle in the gardens below. The night air was cool against the sweat running down the sides of his face.

Above, a pair of Deathwatch Guards clanked as they moved on the balcony. Blood and bloody ashes. Did those fellows never take off their armor? They looked like beetles. He could barely make them out. The balcony was surrounded by an ironwork screen to keep people from looking in at the occupants from below, but Mat was close enough to see the guards moving inside through it.

Light, they were spending a long time in there. Mat’s arm started to ache. The two men murmured to one another. Perhaps they were going to sit down and have some tea. Pull out a book, start reading into the night. Tuon really needed to dismiss these two. Why were they having a leisurely conversation on a balcony? There could be assassins out here!

Eventually, thank the Light, the two moved on. Mat tried to count to ten before swinging up, but only lasted to seven. He pushed open one of the unlatched screens, and scrambled over the balcony railing.