“He's an Ogier,” Rand explained, and watched their amazement change in kind. Even after Trollocs and Fades in the flesh, it was still astonishing to meet a legend walking and breathing. Remembering his own first reaction to Loial, he grinned ruefully. They were doing better than he had.
Loial took their gaping in his stride. Rand supposed he hardly noticed it compared with a mob shouting “Trolloc.”
“And the Aes Sedai, Rand?” Loial asked.
“Upstairs with Mat.”
The Ogier raised one bushy eyebrow thoughtfully. “Then he is ill. I suggest we all be seated. She will be joining us? Yes. Then there's nothing to do but wait.”
The act of sitting seemed to loosen some catch inside the Emond's Field folk, as if being in a wellstuffed chair with a fire in the fireplace and a cat now curled up on the hearth made them feel at home. As soon as they were settled they excitedly began asking the Ogier questions. To Rand's surprise, Perrin was the first to speak.
“The stedding, Loial. Are they really havens, the way the stories say?” His voice was intent, as if he had a particular reason for asking.
Loial was glad to tell about the stedding, and how he came to be at The Queen's Blessing, and what he had seen in his travels. Rand soon leaned back, only partly listening. He had heard it all before, in detail. Loial liked to talk, and talk at length when he had the slightest chance, though he usually seemed to think a story needed two or three hundred years of background to make it understood. His sense of time was very strange; to him three hundred years seemed a reasonable length of time for a story or explanation to cover. He always talked about leaving the stedding as if it were just a few months before, but it had finally come out that he had been gone more than three years.
Rand's thoughts drifted to Mat. A dagger. A bloody knife, and it might kill him just from carrying it. Light, I don't want any more adventure. If she can heal him, we should all go ... not home. Can't go home. Somewhere. We'll all go somewhere they've never heard of Aes Sedai or the Dark One. Somewhere.
The door opened, and for a moment Rand thought he was still imagining. Mat stood there, blinking, with his coat buttoned up and the dark scarf wrapped low around his forehead. Then Rand saw Moiraine, with her hand on Mat's shoulder, and Lan behind them. The Aes Sedai was watching Mat carefully, as one watches someone only lately out of a sickbed. As always, Lan was watching everything while appearing to watch nothing.
Mat looked as if he had never been sick a day. His first, hesitant smile included everyone, though it slipped into an openmouthed stare at the sight of Loial, as if he were seeing the Ogier for the first time. With a shrug and a shake, he turned his attention back to his friends. “I ... ah ... that is...” He took a deep breath. “It ... ah ... it seems I've been acting ... ah ... sort of oddly. I don't remember much of it, really.” He gave Moiraine an uneasy look. She smiled back confidently, and he went on. “Everything is hazy after Whitebridge. Thom, and the ...” He shivered and hurried on. “The further from Whitebridge, the hazier it gets. I don't really remember arriving in Caemlyn at all.” He eyed Loial askance. “Not really. Moiraine Sedai says I ... upstairs, I ... ah ...” He grinned, and suddenly he truly was the old Mat. “You can't hold a man to blame for what he does when he's crazy, can you?”
“You always were crazy,” Perrin said, and for a moment he, too, sounded as of old.
“No,” Nynaeve said. Tears made her eyes bright, but she was smiling. “None of us blames you.”
Rand and Egwene began talking at once then, telling Mat how happy they were to see him well and how well he looked, with a few laughing comments thrown in about hoping that he was done with tricks now that one so ugly had been played on him. Mat met banter with banter as he found a chair with all of his old swagger. As he sat down, still grinning, he absentmindedly touched his coat as if to make sure that something tucked behind his belt was still there, and Rand's breath caught.
“Yes,” Moiraine said quietly, “he still has the dagger.” The laughter and talk was still going on among the rest of the Emond's Field folk, but she had noticed his sudden intake of breath and had seen what had caused it. She moved closer to his chair, where she did not have to raise her voice for him to hear clearly. “I cannot take it away from him without killing him. The binding has lasted too long, and grown too strong. That must be unknotted in Tar Valon; it is beyond me, or any lone Aes Sedai, even with an angreal.”
“But he doesn't look sick anymore.” He had a thought and looked up at her. “As long as he has the dagger, the Fades will know where we are. Darkfriends, too, some of them. You said so.”
“I have contained that, after a fashion. If they come close enough to sense it now, they will be on top of us anyway. I cleansed the taint from him, Rand, and did what I could to slow its return, but return it will, in time, unless he receives help in Tar Valon.”
“A good thing that's where we're going, isn't it?” He thought maybe it was the resignation in his voice, and the hope for something else, that made her give him a sharp look before turning away.
Loial was on his feet, bowing to her. “I am Loial, son of Arent son of Halan, Aes Sedai. The stedding offers sanctuary to the Servants of the Light. ”
“Thank you, Loial, son of Arent,” Moiraine answered dryly, “but I would not be too free with that greeting if I were you. There are perhaps twenty Aes Sedai in Caemlyn at this moment, and every one but I of the Red Ajah.” Loial nodded sagely, as if he understood. Rand could only shake his head in confusion; he would be Lightblinded if he knew what she meant. “It is strange to find you here,” the Aes Sedai went on. “Few Ogier leave the stedding in recent years.”
“The old stories caught me, Aes Sedai. The old books filled my unworthy head with pictures. I want to see the groves. And the cities we built, too. There do not seem to be many of either still standing, but if buildings are a poor substitute for trees, they are still worth seeing. The Elders think I'm odd, wanting to travel. I always have, and they always have. None of them believe there is anything worth seeing outside the stedding. Perhaps when I return and tell them what I've seen, they will change their minds. I hope so. In time.”
“Perhaps they will,” Moiraine said smoothly. “Now, Loial, you must forgive me for being abrupt. It is a failing of humankind, I know. My companions and I have urgent need to plan our journey. If you could excuse us?”
It was Loial's turn to look confused. Rand came to his rescue. “He's coming with us. I promised him he could.”
Moiraine stood looking at the Ogier as if she had not heard, but finally she nodded. “The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills,” she murmured. “Lan, see that we are not taken unaware.” The Warder vanished from the room, silently but for the click of the door shutting behind him.
Lan's disappearance acted like a signal; all talk was cut off. Moiraine moved to the fireplace, and when she turned back to the room every eye was on her. Slight of build as she was, her presence dominated. “We cannot remain long in Caemlyn, nor are we safe here in The Queen's Blessing. The Dark One's eyes are already in the city. They have not found what they are searching for, or they would not still be looking. That we have to our advantage. I have set wards to keep them away, and by the time the Dark One realizes that there is a part of the city the rats no longer enter, we will be gone. Any ward that will turn a man aside, though, would be as good as a beacon fire for the Myrddraal, and there are Children of the Light in Caemlyn, also, looking for Perrin and Egwene.” Rand made a sound, and Moiraine raised an eyebrow at him.
“I thought they were looking for Mat and me,” he said.
The explanation made both the Aes Sedai's eyebrows lift. “Why would you think the Whitecloaks were looking for you?”
“I heard one say they were looking for someone from the Two Rivers. Darkfriends, he said. What else was I supposed to think? With everything that's been happening, I'm lucky I can think at all.”
“It has been confusing, I know, Rand,” Loial put in, “but you can think more clearly than that. The Children hate Aes Sedai. Elaida would not — ”
“Elaida?” Moiraine cut in sharply. “What has Elaida Sedai to do with this?”