"The Wheel of Time - The Great Hunt" by Robert Jordan

[tirepanted3]

Chapter 45
Blademaster

The rising sun pushed its crimson edge above the horizon and sent long shadows down the cobblestone streets of Falme toward the harbor. A sea breeze bent the smoke of breakfast cook fires inland from the chimneys. Only the early risers were already out of doors, their breath making steam in the morning cold. Compared to the crowds that would fill the streets in another hour, the town seemed nearly empty.

Sitting on an upended barrel in front of a stillclosed ironmonger's shop, Nynaeve warmed her hands under her arms and surveyed her army. Min sat on a doorstep across the way, swathed in her Seanchan cloak and eating a wrinkled plum, and Elayne in her fleece coat huddled at the edge of an alley just down the street from her. A large sack, pilfered from the docks, lay neatly folded beside Min. My army, Nynaeve thought grimly. But there isn't anybody else.

She caught sight of a sul'dam and a damane climbing the street, a yellowhaired woman wearing the bracelet and a dark woman the collar, both yawning sleepily. The few Falmen sharing the street with them averted their eyes and gave them a wide berth. As far as she could see down toward the harbor, there was not another Seanchan. She did not turn her head the other way. Instead, she stretched and shrugged as if working cold shoulders before settling back as she had been.

Min tossed her halfeaten plum aside, glanced casually up the street, and leaned back on the doorpost. The way was clear there, too, or she would have put her hands on her knees. Min had started rubbing her hands nervously, and Nynaeve realized that Elayne was now bouncing eagerly on her toes.

If they give us away, I'll thump both their heads. But she knew if they were discovered, it would be the Seanchan who would say what happened to all three of them. She was all too aware that she had no real notion of whether what she planned would work or not. It could easily be her own failure that would give them away. Once again she resolved that if anything went wrong, she would somehow pull attention to herself while Min and Elayne escaped. She had told them to run if anything went wrong, and let them think she would run, too. What she would do then, she did not know. Except I won't let them take me alive. Please, Light, not that.

Sul'dam and damane came up the street until they were bracketed by the three waiting women. A dozen Falmen walked wide of the linked pair.

Nynaeve gathered all of her anger. Leashed Ones and Leash Holders. They had put their filthy collar on Egwene's neck, and they would put it on hers, and Elayne's, if they could. She had made Min tell her how sul'dam enforced their will. She was sure Min had kept some back, the worst, but what she told was enough to heat Nynaeve to whitehot fury. In an instant a white blossom on a black, thorny branch had opened to light, to saidar, and the One Power filled her. She knew there was a glow around her, for those who could see it. The paleskinned sul'dam gave a start, and the dark damane's mouth fell open, but Nynaeve gave them no chance. It was only a trickle of the Power that she channeled, but she cracked it, a whip snapping a dust mote out of the air.

The silver collar sprang open and clattered to the cobblestones. Nynaeve heaved a sigh of relief even as she leaped to her feet.

The sul'dam stared at the fallen collar as if at a poisonous snake. The damane put a shaking hand to her throat, but before the woman in the lightningmarked dress had time to move, the damane turned and punched her in the face; the sul'dam's knees buckled, and she almost fell.

“Good for you!” Elayne shouted. She was already running forward, too, and so was Min.

Before any of them reached the two women, the damane took one startled look around, then ran as hard as she could.

“We won't hurt you!” Elayne called after her. “We are friends!”

“Be quiet!” Nynaeve hissed. She produced a handful of rags from her pocket and ruthlessly stuffed them into the gaping mouth of the still staggering sul'dam. Min hastily shook out the sack in a cloud of dust and plunged it over the sul'dam's head, shrouding the woman to the waist. “We are already attracting attention."

It was true, and yet not entirely true. The four of them stood in a rapidly emptying street, but the people who had decided to be elsewhere were avoiding looking at them. Nynaeve had been counting on that — people doing their best to ignore anything that had to do with Seanchan — to gain them a few moments. They would talk eventually, but in whispers; it might take hours for the Seanchan to learn anything had happened.

The hooded woman began to struggle, making ragmuffled shouts from the sack, but Nynaeve and Min threw their arms around her and wrestled her toward a nearby alley. The leash and collar trailed across the cobblestones behind them, clinking.

“Pick it up,” Nynaeve snapped at Elayne. “It won't bite you!”

Elayne took a deep breath, then gathered the silver metal gingerly, as if she feared it very well might. Nynaeve felt some sympathy, but not much; everything rested on each of them doing as they had planned.

The sul'dam kicked and tried to throw herself free, but between them, Nynaeve and Min forced her along, down the alley into another, slightly wider passage behind houses, to yet another alley and at last into a rough wooden shed that had apparently once housed two horses, by the stalls. Few could afford to keep horses since the Seanchan came, and in a day of Nynaeve's watching, no one had gone near it. The interior had a musty dustiness that spoke of abandonment. As soon as they were inside, Elayne dropped the silver leash and wiped her hands on some straw.

Nynaeve channeled another trickle, and the bracelet fell to the dirt floor. The sul'dam squalled and hurled herself about.

“Ready?” Nynaeve asked. The other two nodded, and they yanked the sacking off their prisoner.

The sul'dam wheezed, blue eyes teary from dust, but her red face was red as much from anger as from the sack. She darted for the door, but they caught her in the first step. She was not weak, yet they were three, and when they were done the sul'dam was stripped to her shift and lying in one of the stalls, bound hand and foot with stout cord, with another piece of cord to keep her from forcing the gag out.

Soothing a puffy lip, Min eyed the lightningpaneled dress and soft boots they had laid out. “It might fit you, Nynaeve. It won't fit Elayne or me.” Elayne was picking straw out of her hair.

“I can see that. You were never a choice anyway, not really. They know you too well.” Nynaeve hurriedly removed her own clothes. She tossed them aside and donned the sul'dam's dress. Min helped with the buttons.

Nynaeve wiggled her toes in the boots; they were a little tight. The dress was tight, too, across the bosom, and loose elsewhere. The hem hung almost to the ground, lower than sul'dam wore them, but the fit would have been even worse on any of the others. Snatching up the bracelet, she took a deep breath and closed it around her left wrist. The ends merged, and it seemed solid. It did not feel like anything except a bracelet. She had been afraid that it would.

“Get the dress, Elayne.” They had dyed a pair of dresses — one of hers and one of Elayne's — to the gray damane wore, or as close as they could manage, and hidden them here. Elayne did not move except to stare at the open collar and lick her lips. “Elayne, you have to wear it. Too many of them have seen Min for her to do it. I would have worn it, if this dress had fit you instead.” She thought she would have gone mad if she had had to wear the collar; that was why she could not make her voice sharp with Elayne now.

“I know.” Elayne sighed. “I just wish I knew more of what it does to you.” She drew her redgold hair out of the way. “Min, help me, please.” Min began undoing the buttons down the back of her dress.

Nynaeve managed to pick up the silver collar without flinching. “There is one way to find out.” With only a moment of hesitation, she bent and snapped it around the neck of the sul'dam. She deserves it if anyone does, she told herself firmly. “She might be able to tell us something useful, anyway.” The blueeyed woman glanced at the leash trailing from her neck to Nynaeve's wrist, then glared up at her contemptuously.

“It doesn't work that way,” Min said, but Nynaeve barely heard.

She was ... aware ... of the other woman, aware of what she was feeling, cord digging into her ankles and into her wrists behind her back, the rank fish taste of the rags in her mouth, straw pricking her through the thin cloth of her shift. It was not as if she, Nynaeve, felt these things, but in her head was a lump of sensations that she knew belonged to the sul'dam.

She swallowed, trying to ignore them — they would not go away — and addressed the bound woman. “I won't hurt you if you answer my questions truthfully. We aren't Seanchan. But if you lie to me ...” She lifted the leash threateningly.

The woman's shoulders shook, and her mouth curled around the gag in a sneer. It took Nynaeve a moment to realize the sul'dam was laughing.

Her mouth tightened, but then a thought came to her. That bundle of sensation inside her head seemed to be everything physical that the other woman felt. Experimentally, she tried adding to it.

Eyes suddenly bulging out of her head, the sul'dam gave a cry that the gag only partially stopped. Fanning her hands behind her as if trying to ward off something, she humped through the straw in a vain effort to escape.

Nynaeve gaped, and hastily rid herself of the extra feelings she had added. The sul'dam sagged, weeping.

“What ... What did you ... do to her?” Elayne asked faintly. Min only stared, her mouth hanging open.

Nynaeve answered gruffly. “The same thing Sheriam did to you when you threw a cup at Marith.” Light, but this is a filthy thing.

Elayne gulped loudly. “Oh.”

“But an a'dam isn't supposed to work that way,” Min said. “They always claimed it won't work on any woman who cannot channel.”

“I do not care how it is supposed to work, so long as it does.” Nynaeve seized the silver metal leash right where it joined the collar, and pulled the woman up enough to look her in the eyes. Frightened eyes, she saw. “You listen to me, and listen well. I want answers, and if I don't get them, I'll make you think I have had the hide off you.” Stark terror rolled across the woman's face, and Nynaeve's stomach heaved as she suddenly realized the sul'dam had taken her literally. If she thinks I can, it's because she knows. That is what these leashes are for. She took firm hold of herself to stop from clawing the bracelet off her wrist. Instead, she hardened her face. “Are you ready to answer me? Or do you need persuasion?"

The frantic headshaking was answer enough. When Nynaeve removed the gag, the woman only paused to swallow once before babbling, “I will not report you. I swear it. Only take this from my neck. I have gold. Take it. I swear, I will never tell anyone.”

“Be quiet,” Nynaeve snapped, and the woman shut her mouth immediately. “What is your name?”

“Seta. Please. I will answer you, but please take — it — off! If anyone sees it on me ...” Seta's eyes rolled down to stare at the leash, then squeezed shut. “Please?” she whispered.

Nynaeve realized something. She could never make Elayne wear that collar.

“Best we get on with it,” Elayne said firmly. She was down to her shift, too, now. “Give me a moment to put this other dress on, and — ”

“Put your own clothes back on,” Nynaeve said.

“Someone has to pretend to be a damane,” Elayne said, “or we will never reach Egwene. That dress fits you, and it cannot be Min. That leaves me.”

“I said put your clothes on. We have somebody to be our Leashed One.” Nynaeve tugged at the leash that held Seta, and the sul'dam gasped.

“No! No, please! If anyone sees me —” She cut off at Nynaeve's cold stare.

“As far as I am concerned, you are worse than a murderer, worse than a Darkfriend. I can't think of anything worse than you. The fact that I have to wear this thing on my wrist, to be the same as you for even an hour, sickens me. So if you think there is anything I'll balk at doing to you, think again. You don't want to be seen? Good. Neither do we. No one really looks at a damane, though. As long as you keep your head down the way a Leashed One is supposed to, no one will even notice you. But you had better do the best you can to make sure the rest of us aren't noticed, either. If we are, you surely will be seen, and if that is not enough to hold you, I promise you I'll make you curse the first kiss your mother ever gave your father. Do we understand each other?”

“Yes,” Seta said faintly. “I swear it.”

Nynaeve had to remove the bracelet in order for them to slide Elayne's graydyed dress down the leash and over Seta's head. It did not fit the woman well, being loose at the bosom and tight across the hips, but Nynaeve's would have been as bad, and too short besides. Nynaeve hoped people really did not look at damane. She put the bracelet back on reluctantly.

Elayne gathered up Nynaeve's clothes, wrapped the other dyed dress around them, and made a bundle, a bundle for a woman in farm clothes to be carrying as she followed a sul'dam and a damane. “Gawyn will eat his heart out when he hears about this,” she said, and laughed. It sounded forced.

Nynaeve looked at her closely, then at Min. It was time for the dangerous part. “Are you ready?”

Elayne's smile faded. “I am ready.”

“Ready,” Min said curtly.

“Where are you ... we ... going?” Seta said, quickly adding, “If I may ask?”

“Into the lions' den,” Elayne told her.

“To dance with the Dark One,” Min said.

Nynaeve sighed and shook her head. “What they are trying to say is, we are going where all the damane are kept, and we intend to free one of them.”

Seta was still gaping in astonishment when they hustled her out of the shed.