“I know,” Elayne said patiently. “We have discussed it.”
The older woman frowned at nothing. “We still have not a glimmer as to what it is, or where.”
“I know.”
“Even if we could bag Liandrin and the rest right this minute, we cannot leave it floating about out there, waiting for someone else to find.”
“I know that, Nynaeve.” Reminding herself to be patient, Elayne softened her tone. “We will find them. They must make some sort of slip, and between Thom's rumors, and Juilin's thieves, and Bayle Domon's sailors, we will learn of it.”
Nynaeve's frown became thoughtful. “Did you notice Egeanin's eyes when Thom mentioned Domon?”
“No. Do you think she knows him? Why would she not say so?”
“I do not know,” Nynaeve said vexedly. “Her face did not change, but her eyes... She was startled. She knows him. I wonder what —” Someone tapped softly on the door. “Is everyone in Tanchico going to march in on us?” she growled, jerking it open.
Rendra gave a start at the look on Nynaeve's face, but her everpresent smile returned immediately. “Forgive me for disturbing you, but there is the woman below who asks for you. Not by name, but she describes you as you stand. She says that she believes she knows you. She is...” That rosebud mouth tightened in a slight grimace. “I forgot to ask her name. This morning I am the witless goat. She is a welldressed woman, not yet to her middle years. Not of Tarabon.” She gave a little shiver. “A stern woman, I think. When first she saw me, she looked at me as my older sister did when we were children and she was thinking of tying my braids to the bush.”
“Or have they found us first?” Nynaeve said softly.
Elayne embraced the True Source before she thought of it, and felt a shudder of relief that she could, that she had not been shielded unaware. If the woman below was Black Ajah... But if she was, why announce herself? Even so, she wished the glow of saidar surrounded Nynaeve, too. If only the woman could channel without anger.
“Send her in,” Nynaeve said, and Elayne realized she was very much aware of her lack, and afraid. As Rendra turned to go, Elayne began weaving flows of Air, thick as cables and ready to bind, flows of Spirit to shield another from the Source. If this woman so much as resembled one on their list, if she tried to channel a spark...
The woman who stepped into the Chamber of Falling Blossoms, in a shimmering black silk gown of unfamiliar cut, was no one Elayne had ever seen before, and surely not on the list of the women who had gone with Liandrin. Dark hair spilling loose to her shoulders framed a sturdily handsome face with large, dark eyes and smooth cheeks, but not with Aes Sedai agelessness. Smiling, she closed the door behind her. “Forgive me, but I thought you were—” The glow of saidar surrounded her, and she...
Elayne released the True Source. There was something very commanding in those dark eyes, in the halo around her, the pale radiance of the One Power. She was the most regal woman Elayne had ever seen. Elayne found herself hurriedly curtsying, flushing that she had considered... What had she considered? So hard to think.
The woman studied them for a moment, then gave a satisfied nod and swept to the table, taking the carved chair at its head. “Come here where I can see you both more closely,” she said in a peremptory voice. “Come. Yes. That's it.”
Elayne realized she was standing beside the table, looking down at the darkeyed, glowing woman. She did hope that was all right. On the other side of the table Nynaeve had a tangle of her long, thin braids gripped in her fist, but she stared at the visitor with a foolishly rapt expression. It made Elayne want to giggle.
“About what I have come to expect,” the woman said. “Little more than girls, and obviously not close to halftrained. Strong, though; strong enough to be more than troublesome. Especially you.” She fixed Nynaeve with her eyes. “You might become something one day. But you've blocked yourself, haven't you? We would have had that out of you though you howled for it.”
Nynaeve still had that tight hold on her braids, but her face went from a pleased, girlish smile at praise to shamed liptrembling. “I am sorry I blocked myself,” she almost whimpered. “I'm afraid of it . . all that power... the One Power... how can I —?”
“Be silent unless I ask a question,” the woman said firmly. “And do not start crying. You are joyful at seeing me, ecstatic. All you want is to please me and answer my questions truthfully.”
Nynaeve nodded vigorously, smiling even more rapturously than before. Elayne realized that she was, too. She was sure she could answer the questions first. Anything to please this woman.
“Now. Are you alone? Are there any other Aes Sedai with you?”
“No,” Elayne said quickly in answer to the first question, and just as fast, to the second, “There are no Aes Sedai with us.” Perhaps she should tell that they were not really Aes Sedai either. But she had not been asked that. Nynaeve glared at her, knuckles white on her braids, furious at being beaten to the answer.
“Why are you in this city?” the woman said.
“We are hunting Black sisters,” Nynaeve burst out, shooting Elayne a triumphant look.
The handsome woman laughed. “So that is why I have not felt you channel before today. Wise of you to keep low when it is eleven to two. I have always followed that policy myself. Let other fools leap about in full view. They can be brought low by a spider hiding in the cracks, a spider they never see until it is too late. Tell me all you have discovered about these Black sisters, all you know of them.”
Elayne spilled out everything, battling with Nynaeve to be first. It was not very much. Their descriptions, the ter'angreal they had stolen, the murders in the Tower and the fear of more Black sisters still there, aiding one of the Forsaken in Tear before the Stone fell, their flight here seeking something dangerous to Rand. “They were all staying in a house together,” Elayne finished up, panting, “but they left last night.”
“It seems you came very close,” the woman said slowly. “Very close. Ter'angreal. Turn out your purses on the table, your pouches.” They did, and she fingered quickly through coins and sewing kits and handkerchiefs and the like. “Do you have any ter'angreal in your rooms? Angreal or sa'angreal?”
Elayne was conscious of the twisted stone ring hanging between her breasts, but that was not the question. “No,” she said. They had none of those things in their room.
Pushing everything away, the woman leaned back, speaking half to herself. “Rand al'Thor. So that is his name now.” Her face crumpled in a momentary grimace. “An arrogant man who stank of piety and goodness. Is he still the same? No, do not bother to answer that. An idle question. So Be'lal is dead. The other sounds like Ishamael, to me. All his pride at being only halfcaught, whatever the price — there was less human left in him than any of us when I saw him again; I think he halfbelieved he was the Great Lord of the Dark — all his three thousand years of machinations, and it comes to an untaught boy hunting him down. My way is best. Softly, softly, in the shadows. Something to control a man who can channel. Yes, it would have to be that.” Her eyes turned sharp, studying them in turn. “Now. What to do with you.”
Elayne waited patiently. Nynaeve wore a silly smile, her lips parted expectantly; it looked especially foolish with the way she was gripping her braids.
“You are too strong to waste; you may be useful one day. I would love to see Rahvin's eyes the day he meets you unblocked,” she told Nynaeve. “I would put you off this hunt of yours, if I could. A pity compulsion is so limited. Still, with the little you have learned, you are too far behind to catch up now. I suppose I must collect you later and see to your... retraining.” She stood, and suddenly Elayne's entire body tingled. Her brain seemed to shiver; she was conscious of nothing but the woman's voice, roaring in her ears from a great distance. “You will pick up your things from the table, and when you have replaced them where they belong, you will remember nothing of what happened here except that I came thinking you were friends I knew from the country. I was mistaken, I had a cup of tea, and I left.”
Elayne blinked and wondered why she was tying her purse back beside her belt pouch. Nynaeve was frowning at her own hands, adjusting her pouch.
“A nice woman,” Elayne said, rubbing her forehead. She had a headache coming on. “Did she give her name? I don't remember.”
“Nice?” Nynaeve's hand came up and gave a sharp tug to her braids; she stared as if it had moved of its own accord. “I... do not think she did.”
“What were we talking of when she came in?” Egeanin had just gone. What had it been?
“I remember what I was about to say.” Nynaeve's voice firmed. “We must find the Black sisters without them suspecting, or we will never have a chance of following them to whatever this thing is that's dangerous to Rand.”
“I know,” Elayne said patiently. Had she said that already? Of course not. “We have discussed it. — ”
At the arched gates leading from the inn's small courtyard, Egeanin paused, studying the hardfaced men who lounged, barefoot and often barechested, among the idlers on this side of the narrow street. They looked as if they could use the curved boarding swords hanging at their belts or thrust through their sashes, but none of those faces looked familiar. If any of them had been on Bayle Demon's ship when she took him and it to Falme, she did not remember. If any had been, it was to be hoped none connected a woman in a riding dress to the woman in armor who had captured their vessel.
Suddenly she realized her palms were damp. Aes Sedai. Women who could wield the Power, and not decently leashed. She had sat at the same table with them, talked with them. They were not at all what she had expected; she could not dig that thought out of her head. They could channel, therefore they were dangerous to proper order, therefore they must be safely leashed — and yet... Not at all what she had been taught. It could be learned. Learned! As long as she could avoid Bayle Domon — he would surely recognize her — she should be able to return. She had to learn more. More than ever, she had to.
Wishing she had a hooded cloak, she took a firm grip on her staff and started up the street, threading her way into the passing throng. None of the sailors looked at her twice, and she watched them to be sure.
She did not see the palehaired man in filthy Tanchican garb huddled against the front of a whiteplastered wineshop on the other side of the street. His eyes, blue above a dingy veil and a thick mustache held in place with glue, followed her before sliding back to the Three Plum Court. Standing, he crossed the street, ignoring the disgusting way people brushed against him. Egeanin had nearly spotted him when he had forgotten himself enough to break that fool's arm. One of the Blood, as such things were reckoned in these lands, reduced to begging and without enough honor to open his veins. Disgusting. Perhaps he could learn more of what she was up to, in this inn, once they realized he had more coin t