“Who?” Zarine demanded. “Sammael?” Her voice shook a little. “You said he was in Illian. How could he see anything here? What did you do?”
“Something forbidden,” Moiraine said coolly. “Forbidden by vows almost as strong as the Three Oaths.” She took Aldieb's reins from the girl, and patted the mare's neck, calming her. “Something not used in nearly two thousand years. Something I might be stilled just for knowing.”
“Perhaps...?” Loial's voice was a faint boom. “Perhaps we should be going? There could be more.”
“I think not,” the Aes Sedai said, mounting. “He would not loose two packs at once, even if he has two; they would turn on each other instead of their prey. And I think we are not his main quarry, or he would have come himself. We were... an annoyance, I think” — her tone was calm, but it was clear she did not like being regarded so lightly — “and perhaps a little something extra to slip into his gamebag, if we were not too much trouble. Still, there is small good in remaining any nearer him than we must.”
“Rand?” Perrin asked. He could almost feel Zarine leaning forward to listen. “If we are not what he hunts, is it Rand?”
“Perhaps,” Moiraine said. “Or perhaps Mat. Remember that he is ta'veren also, and he blew the Horn of Valere.”
Zarine made a strangled sound. “He blew it? Someone has found it already?”
The Aes Sedai ignored her, leaning out of her saddle to stare closely into Perrin's eyes, dark gleaming into burnished gold. “Once again events outpace me. I do not like that. And neither should you. If events outrun me, they may well trample you, and the rest of the world with you.”
“We have many leagues to Tear yet,” Lan said. “The Ogier's suggestion is a good one.” He was already in his saddle.
After a moment Moiraine straightened and touched the mare's ribs with her heels. She was halfway down the side of the mound before he could get his bow unstrung and take Stepper's reins from Loial. Burn you, Moiraine! I'll find some answers somewhere!
Leaning back against a fallen log, Mat enjoyed the warmth of the campfire — the rains had drifted south three days earlier, but he still felt damp — yet right at that moment, he was hardly aware of the dancing flames. He peered thoughtfully at the small, waxcovered cylinder in his hand. Thom was engrossed in tuning his harp, muttering to himself of rain and wet, never glancing Mat's way. Crickets chirped in the dark thicket around them. Caught between villages by sunset, they had chosen this copse away from the road. Two nights they had tried to buy a room for the night; twice a farmer had loosed his dogs on them.
Mat unsheathed his belt knife, and hesitated. Luck. It only explodes sometimes, she said. Luck. As carefully as he could, he slit along the length of the tube. It was a tube, and of paper, as he had thought — he had found bits of paper on the ground after fireworks were set off, back home — layers of paper, but all that filled the inside was something that looked like dirt, or maybe tiny grayblack pebbles and dust. He stirred them on his palm with one finger. How in the Light could pebbles explode?
“The Light burn me!” Thom roared. He thrust his harp into its case as if to protect it from what was in Mat's hand. “Are you trying to kill us, boy? Haven't you ever heard those things explode ten times as hard for air as for fire? Fireworks are the next thing to Aes Sedai work, boy.”
“Maybe,” Mat said, “but Aludra did not look like any Aes Sedai to me. I used to think that about Master al'Vere's clock — that it had to be Aes Sedai work — but once I got the back of the cabinet open, I saw it was full of little pieces of metal.” He shifted uncomfortably at the memory. Mistress al'Vere had been the first to reach him that time, with the Wisdom and his father and the Mayor all right behind her, and none believing he just meant to look. I could have put them all back together. “I think Perrin could make one, if he saw those little wheels and springs and I don't know what all.”
“You would be surprised, boy,” Thom said dryly. “Even a bad clockmaker is a fairly rich man, and they earn it. But a clock does not explode in your face!”
“Neither did this. Well, it is useless, now.” He tossed the handful of paper and little pebbles into the fire to a screech from Thom; the pebbles sparked and made tiny flashes, and there was a smell of acrid smoke.
“You are trying to kill us.” Thom's voice was unsteady, and it rose in intensity and pitch as he spoke. “If I decide I want to die, I will go to the Royal Palace when we reach Caemlyn, and I'll pinch Morgase!” His long mustaches flailed. “Do not do that again!”
“It did not explode,” Mat said, frowning at the fire. He fished into the oiledcloth roll on the other side of the log and pulled out a firework of the next larger size. “I wonder why there was no bang.”
“I do not care why there was no bang! Do not do it again!”
Mat glanced at him and laughed. “Stop shaking, Thom. There's no need to be afraid. I know what is inside them, now. At least, I know what it looks like, but... Don't say it. I will not be cutting any more open, Thom. It is more fun to set them off, anyway.”
“I am not afraid, you mudfooted swineherd,” Thom said with elaborate dignity. “I am shaking with rage because I'm traveling with a goatbrained lout who might kill the pair of us because he cannot think past his own — ”
“Ho, the fire!”
Mat exchanged glances with Thom as horses' hooves approached. It was late for anyone honest to be traveling. But the Queen's Guards kept the roads safe this close to Caemlyn, and the four who rode into the firelight certainly did not look like robbers. One was a woman. The men all wore long cloaks and seemed to be her retainers, while she was pretty and blueeyed, in gold necklace and a gray silk dress and a velvet cloak with a wide hood. The men dismounted. One held her reins and another her stirrup, and she smiled at Mat, doffing her gloves as she came near the fire.
“I fear we are caught out late, young master,” she said, “and I would trouble you for directions to an inn, if you know one.”
He grinned and started to rise. He had made it as far as a crouch when he heard one of the men mutter something, and another produced a crossbow from under his cloak, already drawn, with a clip holding the bolt.
“Kill him, fool!” the woman shouted, and Mat tossed the firework into the flames and threw himself toward his quarterstaff. There was a loud bang and a flash of light — “Aes Sedai!” a man cried. “Fireworks, fool!” the woman shouted — and he rolled to his feet with the staff in his hand to see the crossbow bolt sticking out of the fallen log almost where he had been sitting, and the crossbowman falling with the hilt of one of Thom's knives adorning his chest.
It was all he had time to see, for the other two men darted past the fire at him, drawing swords. One of them suddenly stumbled to his knees, dropping his sword to claw at the knife in his back as he fell facedown. The last man did not see his companion fall; he obviously expected to be one of a pair, dividing their opponent's attention, as he thrust his blade at Mat's middle. Feeling almost contemptuous, Mat cracked the fellow's wrist with one end of his staff, sending the sword flying, and cracked his forehead with the other. The man's eyes rolled up in his head as he collapsed.
From the corner of his eye, Mat saw the woman walking toward him, and he stuck a finger at her like a knife. “Fine clothes you wear for a thief, woman! You sit down till I decide what to do with you, or I'll — ”
She looked as surprised as Mat at the knife that suddenly bloomed in her throat, a red flower of spreading blood. He took a half step, as if to catch her as she fell, knowing it was no good. Her long cloak settled over her, covering everything but her face, and the hilt of Thom's knife.
“Burn you,” Mat muttered. “Burn you, Thom Merrilin! A woman! Light, we could have tied her up, given her to the Queen's Guards tomorrow in Caemlyn. Light, I might even have let her go. She'd rob nobody without these three, and the only one that lives will be days before he can see straight and months before he can hold a sword. Burn you, Thom, there was no need to kill her!”