Lanfear smiled that sweet, treacherous smile. “You were always a pig, Rahvin, but seldom a fool. That woman is Aes Sedai. What if they miss her? Do you also send out heralds to announce where you are?”
“Channel?” he sneered. “She is not strong enough to be allowed outdoors without a keeper. They call untutored children Aes Sedai when half what they know is selftaught tricks and the other half barely scratches the surface.”
“Would you still be so complacent if those untutored children put a circle of thirteen around you?” The cool mockery in her voice stabbed him, but he did not let it show.
“I take my precautions, Lanfear. Rather than one of, my 'play pretties,' as you call them, she is the Tower's spy here. Now she reports exactly what I want her to, and she is eager to do so. Those who serve the Chosen in the Tower told me right where to find her.” The day would come soon when the world gave up the name Forsaken and knelt to the Chosen. It had been promised, so very long ago. “Why have you come, Lanfear? Surely not in aid of defenseless women.”
She merely shrugged. “You can play with your toys as much as you wish, so far as I am concerned. You offer little in the way of hospitality, Rahvin, so you will forgive me if...” A silver pitcher rose from a small table by Rahvin's bed and tilted to pour dark wine into a goldchased goblet. As the pitcher settled, the goblet floated to Lanfear's hand. He felt nothing beyond a slight tingle, of course, saw no flows being woven; he had never liked that. That she would be able to see as little of his weaving was only a slight redressing of the balance.
“Why?” he demanded again.
She sipped calmly before speaking. “Since you avoid the rest of us, a few of the Chosen will be coming here. I came first so you would know it was not an attack.”
“Others? Some plan of yours? What need have I of someone else's designs?” Suddenly he laughed, a deep, rich sound. “So it is no attack, is it? You were never one for attacking openly, were you? Not as bad as Moghedien, perhaps, but you did always favor the flanks and the rear. I will trust you this time, enough to hear you out. As long as you are under my eye.” Who trusted Lanfear behind him deserved the knife he might well find in his back. Not that she was so very trustworthy even when watched; her temper was uncertain at best. “Who else is supposed to be part of this?”
He had clearer warning this time — it was male work — as another gateway opened, showing marble arches open onto wide stone balconies, and gulls wheeling and crying in a cloudless blue sky. Finally a man appeared and stepped through, the way closing behind him.
Sammael was compact, solid and largerseeming than he truly was, his stride quick and active, his manner abrupt. Blueeyed and goldenhaired, with a neat squaretrimmed beard, he would perhaps have been above the ordinary in looks except for a slanting scar, as if a redhot poker had been dragged across his face from hairline to jaw. He could have had it removed as soon as it was made, all those long years ago, but he had elected not to.
Linked to saidin as tightly as Rahvin — this close Rahvin could feel it, dimly — Sammael eyed him warily. "I expected serving maids and dancing girls, Rahvin. Have you finally wearied of your sport after all these years?' Lanfear laughed softly into her wine.
“Did someone mention sport?”
Rahvin had not even noticed the opening of a third gateway, showing a large room full of pools and fluted columns, nearly nude acrobats and attendants wearing less. Oddly, a lean old man in a wrinkled coat sat disconsolately among the performers. Two servants in filmy bits of nothing much, a wellmuscled man bearing a wroughtgold tray and a beautiful, voluptuous woman anxiously pouring wine from a cutcrystal flagon into a matching goblet on the tray, followed the true arrival before the opening winked out.
In any other company but Lanfear's, Graendal would have been accounted a stunningly beautiful woman, lush and ripe. Her gown was green silk, cut low. A ruby the size of a hen's egg nestled between her breasts, and a coronet encrusted with more rested on her long, suncolored hair. Beside Lanfear she was merely plumply pretty. If the inevitable comparison bothered her, her amused smile gave no sign of it.
Golden bracelets clattered as she waved a heavily beringed hand generally behind her; the female servant quickly slipped the goblet into her grasp with a fawning smile mirrored by the man. Graendal took no notice. “So,” she said gaily. “Nearly half the surviving Chosen in one place. And no one trying to kill anyone. Who would have expected it before the Great Lord of the Dark returns? Ishamael did manage to keep us from one another's throats for a time, but this…”
“Do you always speak so freely in front of your servants?” Sammael said with a grimace.
Graendal blinked, glanced back at the pair as if she had forgotten them. “They won't speak out of turn. They worship me. Don't you?” The two fell to their knees, practically babbling their fervent love of her. It was real; they actually did love her. Now. After a moment, she frowned slightly, and the servants froze, mouths open in midword. “They do go on. Still, they won't bother you now, will they?”
Rahvin shook his head, wondering who they were, or had been. Physical beauty was not enough for Graendal's servants; they had to have power or position as well. A former lord for a footman, a lady to draw her bath; that was Graendal's taste. Indulging herself was one thing, but she was wasteful. This pair might have been of use, properly manipulated, but the level of compulsion Graendal employed surely left them good for little more than decoration. The woman had no true finesse.
“Should I expect more, Lanfear?” he growled. “Have you convinced Demandred to stop thinking he is all but the Great Lord's heir?”
“I doubt he is arrogant enough for that,” Lanfear replied smoothly. “He can see where it took Ishamael. And that is the point. A point Graendal raised. Once we were thirteen, immortal. Now four are dead, and one has betrayed us. We four are all who meet here today, and enough.”
“Are you certain Asmodean went over?” Sammael demanded. “He never had the courage to take a chance before. Where did he find the heart to join a lost cause?”
Lanfear's brief smile was amused. “He had the courage for an ambush he thought would set him above the rest of us. And when his choice became death or a doomed cause, it took little courage for him to choose.”
“And little time, I'll wager.” The scar made Sammael's sneer even more biting. “If you were close enough to him to know all of this, why did you leave him alive? You could have killed him before he knew you were there.”
“I am not as quick to kill as you. It is final, with no going back, and there are usually other, more profitable ways. Besides, to put it in terms you would understand, I did not want to launch a frontal assault against superior forces.”
“Is he really so strong?” Rahvin asked quietly. “This Rand al'Thor. Could he have overwhelmed you, facetoface?” Not that he himself could not, if it came to it, or Sammael, though Graendal would likely link with Lanfear if either of the men tried. For that matter, both women were probably filled to bursting with the Power right that moment, ready to strike at the slightest suspicion of either man. Or of each other. But this farmboy. An untrained shepherd! Untrained unless Asmodean was trying.
“He is Lews Therin Telamon reborn,” Lanfear said just as softly, “and Lews Therin was as strong as any.” Sammael absently rubbed the scar across his face; it had been Lews Therin who gave it to him. Three thousand years ago and more, well before the Breaking of the World, before the Great Lord was imprisoned, before so much, but Sammael never forgot.
“Well,” Graendal put in, “have we come around at last to what we are here to discuss?”
Rahvin gave a displeased start. The two servants were frozen still— or again, rather. Sammael muttered in his beard.
“If this Rand al'Thor really is Lews Therin Telamon reborn,” Graendal went on, settling herself on the man's back where he crouched on all fours, “I am surprised you haven't tried to snuggle him into your bed, Lanfear. Or would it be so easy? I seem to remember Lews Therin led you by the nose, not the other way around. Squelched your little tantrums. Sent you running to fetch his wine, in a manner of speaking.” She set her own wine on the tray, held out rigidly by the sightlessly kneeling woman. “You were so obsessed with him you'd have stretched out at his feet if he said 'rug'.”
Lanfear's dark eyes glittered for a moment before she regained control of herself. “He may be Lews Therin reborn, but he is not Lews Therin himself.”