A Memory of Light

How many jobs had he done in his life? She had worried about him. A life such as he had led could indicate a dissatisfaction with the world, an impatience. The way he spoke of the Black Tower, though . . . the passion with which he was wil ing to fight . . . that said something different. This wasn’t just about a loyalty to Logain. Yes, Androl and the others respected Logain, but to them, he represented something far greater. A place where men like them were accepted.

A life like Androl’s could indicate a man who would not commit or be satisfied, but it could also indicate something else: a man who searched. A man who knew that the life he wanted existed out there. He just had to find it.

“They teach you to analyze people like that in the White Tower?” Androl whispered to her as he stopped beside a doorway and moved his globe of light in, then waved the others to follow.

No, she sent back, trying to practice this method of communicating, to make her thoughts smoother. Is something a woman picks up after her first century of life.

He sent back tense amusement. They passed into a series of unfinished rooms, none of them roofed, before reaching a section of unworked earth. Some barrels here held pitch, but they had been shifted to the side and the boards they normal y sat upon had been pulled away. A pit opened in the ground here. The water trailed over the lip of the pit and down into darkness. Androl knelt and listened, then nodded to the others before slipping down into it. His splash came a second later.

Pevara followed him, dropping only a few feet. The water was cold on her feet, but she was already soaked. Androl hunched, leading the way under an earthen overhang, then stood up on the other side. His little globe of light revealed a tunnel. A trench had been dug here to hold the rainwater. Pevara judged they’d been standing directly above this when they’d taken down the guards.

Dobser right, she sent as the others splashed down behind. Taim building secret tunnels and chambers.

They crossed the trench and continued on. A short distance down the tunnel, they reached an intersection where the earthen wal s were shored up, like the shafts of a mine. The five of them gathered there, looking in one direction, then another. Two paths.

“That way slopes upward,” Emarin whispered, pointing left. “Perhaps to another entrance into these tunnels?”

“We should probably move deeper,” Nalaam said. “Don’t you think?”

“Yes,” Androl said, licking his finger and testing the air. “The wind is blowing right. We’ll go that way first. Be careful. There wil be other guards.”

The group slipped further down into the tunnels. How long had Taim been working on this complex? It didn’t seem terribly extensive—they didn’t pass other branchings—but still, it was impressive.

Suddenly Androl stopped, and the others pulled to a halt. A grumbling voice echoed up the tunnel, too soft for them to make out the words, accompanied by a flickering light on the walls. Pevara embraced the Source and prepared weaves. If she channeled, would someone in the foundation notice? Androl was obviously hesitant as wel ; channeling above, to kill the guards, had been suspicious enough. If Taim’s men down here sensed the One Power being used . . .

The figure was approaching, the light illuminating him.

A creak came from beside her, as Jonneth drew his restrung Two Rivers bow. There was barely room in the tunnel for it. He loosed with a snap, the air whistling. The grumbling cut off, and the light fel .

The group scrambled forward to find Coteren down on the ground, eyes staring up glassily, the arrow through his chest. His lantern burned fitfully on the ground beside him. Jonneth retrieved his arrow, then wiped it on the dead mans clothing. “That’s why I still carry a bow, you bloody son of a goat.”

“Here,” Emarin said, pointing at a thick door. “Coteren was guarding it.”

“Prepare yourselves,” Androl whispered, then shoved open the thick wooden door. Beyond, they found a line of crude cells built into the earthen wall—each one little more than a roofed cubbyhole burrowed into the earth with a door set in the opening. Pevara peeked in one, which was empty. The cubby didn’t have enough room for a man to stand up inside, and the room was unlit. Being locked in those cel s would mean being trapped in blackness, squeezed into a space like a grave.

“Light!” Nalaam said. “Androl! He’s in here. It’s Logain!”

The others hurried to join him, and Androl picked the door’s lock with a surprisingly adept hand. They pulled open the cell door, and Logain rolled out with a groan. He looked horrible, covered in grime. Once, that curling dark hair and strong face might have made him handsome. He looked as weak as a beggar.

He coughed, then rose to his knees with Nalaam’s help. Androl knelt immediately, but not in reverence. He looked Logain in the eyes as Emarin gave the Asha’man leader his flask for a drink.

Well? Pevara asked.

It’s him, Androl thought, a wave of relief coming through the bond. It’s still him.

They’d have let him go if they’d Turned him, Pevara sent back, growing increasingly comfortable with this method of communicating.