The Gathering Storm - By Robert Jordan & Brandon Sanderson Page 0,252

Loral stopped walking. The four workers stopped behind her, bundling together with worried expressions. Nynaeve glanced at Loral. “Well?”

“There, Lady.” The woman pointed a bony finger to the building across the street.

“The chandler’s shop?” Nynaeve asked.

Loral nodded.

Nynaeve summoned one of the bowlegged Saldaean soldiers. “You, watch these five and make sure they don’t get into trouble. You other two, come with me.”

She started across the street, but when she didn’t hear footsteps leave the boardwalk, she turned with a frown. The three guards stood together, looking at the single lantern, likely cursing themselves for not thinking to bring another.

“Oh, for the Light’s sake,” Nynaeve snapped, raising her hand and embracing the Source. She wove a globe of light above her fingers, casting a cool, even illumination across the ground around her. “Leave the lantern.”

The two Saldaeans complied, hurrying after her. She stepped up to the chandler’s door, then wove a ward against eavesdropping and placed it in the air around herself, the door and the two soldiers.

She looked at one of the soldiers. “What’s your name?”

“Triben, my Lady,” he said. He was a hawk-faced man with a short, trimmed mustache and a scar across his forehead. “That’s Lurts,” he said, pointing at the other soldier, a massive wall of a man who Nynaeve had been surprised to see was uniformed as a cavalryman.

“All right, Triben,” Nynaeve said. “Kick the door open.”

Triben didn’t question her; he just raised a booted foot and kicked. The frame cracked easily and the door slammed open, but if her ward had been placed correctly, nobody in the building would be able to hear. She peeked in. The room smelled of wax and perfumes, and the wooden floor was marked by numerous spots. Drip marks; wax that had been cleaned up often left a mark.

“Quickly,” she said to the soldiers, releasing the ward but maintaining the globe of light. “Lurts, go to the back of the shop and watch the alley; make certain nobody escapes. Triben, with me.”

Lurts moved with surprising speed for his bulk, taking his position in the back room of the shop. Her globe illuminated barrels for dipping candles and a pile of burned nubs in the corner, bought for pennies to be re-melted. A staircase mounted to the right. A small alcove in the front of the shop was the storefront, and it contained various sizes and shapes of candles, from the standard white rod to the perfumed and decorated brick. If Loral was wrong about this being the place. . . .

But any good secret operation would have a working front. Nynaeve hurried up the stairs, wood creaking beneath her weight. The building was narrow. On the upper floor, she and Triben found two rooms. One door was open a crack, so Nynaeve dimmed her globe of light and wove a ward against listeners into the room. Then she burst in, hawk-faced Triben following, his sword scraping against its scabbard as he pulled it free.

There was only one person in the room, an overweight man sleeping on a mattress on the floor, blankets in a heap around his feet. Nynaeve wove a few threads of Air, tying him up in one smooth motion. His eyes bulged open, and he opened his mouth to scream, but Nynaeve stuffed Air between his lips, gagging him.

She turned to Triben and nodded, tying off her weaves. They left the bound man there, struggling against his bonds, and crossed to the other door. She wove another weave against eavesdropping into the room before entering, and it was a good thing she did—for the two younger men in this room roused much more quickly. One sat bolt upright, letting out a yelp just as Triben headed across the floorboards. Triben punched him in the stomach, knocking the air out of his lungs.

Nynaeve bound him with a thread of Air, then did the same for the other young man, who was rousing drowsily in his bunk. She towed the two toward her, brightening her globe of light, hanging the men up in the air a few inches. They were both Domani, with dark hair and crude faces, thin mustaches above their lips. Both wore only their smallclothes. They seemed too old to be apprentices.

“I think we have the right place, Nynaeve Sedai,” Triben said, walking around the pair to stand beside her.

She raised an eyebrow at him.

“Those are no chandler’s apprentices,” Triben continued. He slid his sword back into its sheath. “Calluses on the palms, but no burns