A Memory of Light

“We’ll run,” Faile whispered, once the Trol oc passed. “Scatter in a dozen different directions, and in doing so, try to disorient them. Maybe a few of us will escape.” She frowned. “What is delaying Aravine?”


Almost as she said it, Aravine strode through the gateway. The woman in white who had channeled fol owed her out, and then Aravine pointed at Faile.

Faile jerked into the air. Olver gasped, and Mandevwin cursed, throwing down his bundle and digging for his sword while Arrela and Selande shouted. All three were hauled into the air by weaves moment later, and Aiel in red veils ran through the gateway, weapons out.

Pandemonium followed. A few of Faile’s soldiers fell as they tried to fight back with their fists. Olver dove for the ground, hunting for his knife, but by the time he had his hand on its hilt, the skirmish was over. The others were all subdued or tied in air.

So fast! Olver thought with despair. Why hadn’t anyone warned him that fighting happened so quickly?

They seemed to have forgotten him, but he didn’t know what to do.

Aravine walked up to Faile, still hanging in the air. What was happening? Aravine . . . she had betrayed them?

“I am sorry, my Lady,’ Aravine said to Faile. Olver could barely hear. Nobody paid any attention to him; the Aiel kept watch on the soldiers, shoving them into a group to be guarded. More than a few of their number lay bleeding on the ground.

Faile struggled in the air, her face growing red as she strained. Her mouth was obviously gagged. Faile would never remain quiet at a time like this.

Aravine untied the Horn’s bag from Faile’s back, then checked inside it. Her eyes widened.

She pulled the sack tight at the top and held it close. “I had hoped,” she whispered to Faile, “to leave my old life behind. To start fresh and new. I thought I could hide, or that I would be forgotten, that I could come back to the Light. But the Great Lord does not forget, and one cannot hide from him. They found me the very night we reached Andor. This is not what I intended, but it is what I must do.”

Aravine turned away. “A horse!” she called. “I will deliver this package to Lord Demandred myself, as I have been commanded.”

The woman in white walked up beside her, and the two started arguing in hushed tones.

Olver glanced about. Nobody was looking at him.

His fingers started trembling. He’d known that Trol ocs were big, and that they were ugly.

But . . . these things were nightmares. Nightmares all around. Oh, Light!

What would Mat do?

“Dovie’andi se tovya sagain,” Olver whispered, unsheathing his knife. With a cry, he threw himself at the woman in white and rammed his knife into her lower back.

She screamed. Faile dropped free of her bonds of Air. And then, suddenly, the captive pens burst open and a group of yel ing men scrambled to freedom.



*

“Raise it higher!” Doesine cried. “Flaming quickly!”

Leane obeyed, weaving Earth with the other sisters. The ground trembled in front of them, buckling and slumping like a bunched-up rug. They finished, then used the mound for cover as fire dropped from upslope.

Doesine led the motley bunch. A dozen or so Aes Sedai, a smattering of Warders and soldiers. The men clutched their weapons, but lately those had proven about as effective as loaves of bread. The Power crackled and sizzled in the air. The improvised bulwark thumped as Sharans pounded it with fire.

Leane peeked above the defences, clutching the One Power. She had recovered from her encounter with the Forsaken Demandred. It had been an unsettling experience—she had been total y in his power, and her life could have been snuffed out in an instant. She had also been unnerved by the intensity of his ravings; his hatred of the Dragon Reborn was unlike anything she had ever seen.

A group of Sharans moved down the slope, and together they sent weaves at the makeshift fortification. Leane sliced one weave from the air, working like a surgeon cutting away withered flesh. Leane was much weaker in the One Power now than she had once been.

She had to be more efficient with her channeling. It was remarkable what a woman could achieve with less.

The bulwark exploded.

Leane threw herself aside as clods of soil rained down. She rolled through curling smoke, coughing and clinging to saidar. It was those Sharan men! She couldn’t see their weaves.

She picked herself up, her dress tattered from the explosion, her arms scored by scratches.

She caught a hint of blue peeking from a furrow nearby. Doesine. She scrambled over.

She found the woman’s body there. Not her head, though.