The Gathering Storm - By Robert Jordan & Brandon Sanderson Page 0,201

Splintered Hills. If that’s true, then we’re in what was once Coremanda, right near the Eagle’s Reaches. I bet you if we climbed a few of those taller hills, we’d find old fortifications.”

“And what does that have to do with Doreille?” Mat asked, uncomfortably. She’d been Queen of Aridhol.

“She visited here,” Thom said. “Penned several of her finest poems in the Eagle’s Reaches.”

Burn me, Mat thought. I remember. He remembered standing on the walls of a high fort, cold on the mountaintop, looking down at a long, twisting roadway, broken and shattered, and an army of men with violet pennants charging up the hillside into a rain of arrows. The Splintered Hills. A woman on the balcony. The Queen herself.

He shivered, banishing the memory. Aridhol had been one of the ancient nations that had stood long ago, when Manetheren had been a power. The capital of Aridhol had another name. Shadar Logoth.

Mat hadn’t felt the pull of the ruby dagger in a very long time. He was nearly beginning to forget what it had been like to be tied to it, if it was possible to forget such a thing. But sometimes he remembered that ruby, red like his own blood. And the old lust, the old desire, would seep into him again . . .

Mat shook his head, forcing down those memories. Burn it, he was supposed to be enjoying himself!

“What a time we’ve had,” Thom said idly. “I feel old these days, Mat, like a faded rug, hung out to dry in the wind, hinting of the colors it once showed so vibrantly. Sometimes, I wonder if I’m any use to you anymore. You hardly seem to need me.”

“What? Of course I need you, Thom!”

The aging gleeman eyed him. “The trouble with you, Mat, is that you’re actually good at lying. Unlike those other two boys.”

“I mean it! Burn me, but I do. I suppose you could run off and tell stories and travel like you used to. But things around here might run a lot less smoothly, and I sure would miss your wisdom. Burn me, but I would. A man needs friends he can trust, and I’d trust you with my life any day.”

“Why Matrim,” Thom said, looking up, eyes glimmering with mirth, “bolstering a man’s spirits when he’s down? Convincing him to stay and do what is important, rather than running off to seek adventure? That sounds downright responsible. What’s gotten into you?”

Mat grimaced. “Marriage, I guess. Burn me, but I’m not going to stop drinking or gambling!” Ahead, Talmanes turned around and glanced at Mat, then rolled his eyes.

Thom laughed, watching Talmanes. “Well, lad, I didn’t mean to get your spirits down. Just idle talk. I still have a few things I can show this world. If I really can free Moiraine . . . well, we’ll see. Besides, somebody needs to be here to watch, then put this all to song, someday. There will be more than one ballad that comes from all of this.”

He turned, rifling through his saddlebags. “Ah!” he said, pulling out his patchwork gleeman’s cloak. He threw it on with a flourish.

“Well,” Mat said, “when you write about us, you might find a few gold marks in it if you saw your way to include a nice verse about Talmanes. You know, something about how he has one eye that stares in strange directions, and how he often carries this scent about him which reminds one of a goat pen.”

“I heard that!” Talmanes called from ahead.

“I meant you to!” Mat called back.

Thom just laughed, plucking at his cloak, arranging it for best display. “I can’t promise anything.” He chuckled some more. “Though, if you don’t mind, Mat, I think I’ll separate from the rest of you once we get into the village. A gleeman’s ears may pick up information that won’t be spoken in the presence of soldiers.”

“Information would be nice,” Mat said, rubbing his chin. The trail turned up ahead; Vanin said they’d find the village just beyond the turn. “I feel as though I’ve been traveling through a tunnel for months now, with no sight or sound of the outside world. Burn me, but it would be nice to know where Rand is, if only to know where not to go.” The colors spun, showing him Rand—but the man was standing in a room with no view of the outside, giving Mat no clue as to where he might be.

“Life’s that tunnel most times, I’m afraid,” Thom