The Fires of Heaven (The Wheel of Time #5)

The Fires of Heaven (The Wheel of Time #5) Page 123

But Nynaeve al'Meara. That woman she meant to make beg to be bound in her service. She would take her in the flesh, perhaps ask the Great Lord to grant her immortality, so Nynaeve could have forever to regret opposing Moghedien. She and Elayne were scheming with Birgitte, were they? That was another she had reason to punish. Birgitte had not even known who Moghedien was, so long ago, in the Age of Legends, when she foiled Moghedien's finely wrought plan to lay Lews Therin by his heels. But Moghedien had known her. Only, Birgitte — Teadra, she had been then — had died before she could deal with her. Death was no punishment, no end, not when it meant living on here.

Nynaeve al'Meara, Elayne Trakand, and Birgitte. Those three she would find, and deal with. From the shadows, so that they would not know until too late. All three, without exception.

She vanished, and the banners waved on in the breeze of Tel'aran'rhiod.

Chapter 26

(Serpent and Wheel)

Sallie Daera

The halo of greatness, blue and gold, flickered fitfully around Logain's head, though he rode slumped in his saddle. Min did not understand why it had appeared more often of late. He no longer even bothered to lift his eyes from the weeds in front of his black stallion to the low, wooded hills rolling by all around them.

The other two women rode together a little ahead, Siuan as awkward on shaggy Bela as she had ever been, Leane guiding her gray mare deftly, with knees more than reins. Only an unnaturally straight ribbon of ferns, poking through the leafcovered forest floor, hinted that there had ever been a road here. The lacy ferns were withering, and the leaf mold rustled and crackled dryly under the horses' hooves. Thickly woven branches gave a little shelter from the noonday sun, but it was hardly cool. Sweat rolled down Min's face, despite an occasional breeze that stirred from behind them.

Fifteen days now they had ridden west and south from Lugard, guided only by Siuan's insistence that she knew exactly where they were heading. Not that she shared her destination, of course; Siuan and Leane were as closemouthed as sprung bear traps. Min was not even sure that Leane actually knew. Fifteen days, while towns and villages grew fewer and farther between, until finally there were none. Day by day Logain's shoulders had sagged a little more, and day by day the halo appeared more often. At first he had only begun muttering that they were chasing Jak o' the Mists, but Siuan had regained her leadership without opposition as he turned more and more inward. For the past six days he had not seemed to have the energy to care where they were going or whether they would ever get there.

Siuan and Leane talked quietly up ahead, now. All Min could hear was a barely audible murmur that might as well have been the wind in the leaves. And if she tried to ride closer, they would tell her to keep an eye on Logain, or simply stare at her until only a stoneblind fool could keep her nose where it did not belong. They had done both often enough. From time to time, though, Leane twisted in her saddle to look at Logain.

Finally Leane let Moonflower fall back beside his black stallion. The heat did not seem to be bothering her; not so much as a sheen of perspiration marred her coppery face. Min reined Wildrose aside to give her room.

“It won't be long now,” Leane told him in a sultry voice. He did not look up from the weeds in front of his horse. She leaned closer, holding his arm for balance. Pressing against it, really. “A little while longer, Dalyn. You will have your revenge.” His eyes stayed dully on the road.

“A dead man would pay more notice,” Min said, and meant it. She had been taking notes in her head of everything Leane did, and talking with her of an evening, though trying not to let on why. She would never be able to behave the way that Leane did — not unless I had enough wine in me that I couldn't think at all — yet a few pointers might come in handy. “Maybe if you kissed him?”

Leane shot her a glare that could have frozen a rushing stream, but Min merely looked back. She had never had the problems with Leane that she did with Siuan — well, not as many, anyway — and the few difficulties had grown less since the other woman had left the Tower. Much fewer since they had begun discussing men. How could you be intimidated by a woman who had told you in dead seriousness that there were one hundred and seven different kisses, and ninetythree ways to touch a man's face with your hand? Leane actually seemed to believe these things.

Min had not meant it as a jibe, really, the suggestion of a kiss. Leane had been cooing at him, giving him smiles that should have made steam rise from his ears, since the day he had had to be hauled out of his blankets instead of rising first to chivvy the rest of them. Min did not know whether Leane actually felt something for the man, though she did find it hard to credit even the possibility, or was just trying to keep him from giving up and dying, to keep him alive for whatever Siuan had planned.

Leane certainly had not given up flirting with others besides him. She and Siuan had apparently worked out that Siuan would deal with women, Leane with men, and so it had been ever since Lugard. Her smiles and glances had twice gotten them rooms where the innkeeper had said there were none, lowered the bill at those and three more, and on two nights earned barns instead of bushes for sleeping. They had also gotten the four of them chased off by one farmwife with a pitchfork, and a breakfast of cold porridge thrown at them by another, but Leane had thought the incidents funny, if no one else did. The last few days, however, Logain had stopped reacting like every other man who saw her for more than two minutes. He had stopped reacting to her or anything else.

Siuan pulled Bela back stiffly, elbows out and managing to look on the point of falling off any moment. The heat was not touching her, either. “Have you viewed him today?” She hardly glanced at Logain.

“It is still the same,” Min said patiently. Siuan refused to understand or believe, however many times she told her, and so did Leane. It would not have mattered if she had not seen the aura since her first viewing of it in Tar Valon. Had Logain been lying in the road, rasping his death tattle, she would have wagered all she had and more on a miraculous recovery, somehow. The appearance of an Aes Sedai to Heal him. Something. What she saw was always true. It always happened. She knew the same way that she had known the first time she saw Rand al'Thor that she would fall desperately, helplessly in love with him, the same way she had known she would have to share him with two other women. Logain was destined for glory such as few men had dreamed of.

“Don't you take that tone with me,” Siuan said, that blueeyed gaze sharpening. “It is bad enough we have to spoonfeed this great hairy carp to make him eat, without you going sulky as a fisherbird in winter. I may have to put up with him, girl, but if you start giving me trouble too, you will regret it in short order. Do 1