The large fivesided doorway looked more like a tunnel mouth, for the corridor beyond was exactly the same size and shape, with those softly glowing yellow strips running along the bends, edging floor and ceiling. It seemed to stretch ahead forever, fading into a murky distance, broken at intervals by more of the great fivesided doorways. The kilted man did not turn to lead until they were both in the hallway, and even then he kept glancing over a wide shoulder as if to make certain Mat was still there. The air was no longer musty; instead it held a faint hint of something unpleasant, something tickling familiarity but not strong enough to recognize.
At the first of the doorways, Mat glanced through in passing, and sighed. Beyond starshaped black columns, a twisted red stone doorway stood on a dull glassy white floor where dust showed the marks of one set of boots coming from the ter'angreal, led toward the corridor by the prints of narrow bare feet. He looked over his shoulder. Instead of ending fifty paces back in another chamber like this, the hallway ran back as far as he could see, a mirror image of what lay ahead. His guide gave him a sharptoothed smile; the fellow looked hungry.
He knew he should have expected something of the sort after what he had seen on the other side of the doorway in the Stone. Those spires moving from where they should be to where they could not, logically. If spires, why not rooms. I should have stayed out there waiting for Rand, is what I should have done. I should have done a lot of things. At least he would have no trouble finding the ter'angreal again, if all of the doorways ahead were the same.
He peered into the next and saw black columns, the redstone ter'angreal, his footprints and his guide's in the dust. When the narrow jawed man looked over his shoulder again, Mat gave him a toothy grin. “Never think you have caught a babe in your snare. If you try to cheat me, I will have your hide for a saddlecloth.”
The fellow started, pale eyes widening, then shrugged and adjusted the silver studded straps across his chest; his mocking smile seemed tailored to draw attention to what he was doing. Suddenly Mat found himself wondering where that pale leather came from. Surely not... Oh, Light, I think it is. He managed to stop himself from swallowing, but only just. “Lead, you son of a goat. Your hide is not worth silver studding. Take me where I want to go.”
With a snarl, the man hurried on, stiffbacked. Mat did not care if the fellow was offended. He did wish he had just one knife, though. I'll be burned if I'll let some foxfaced goat brain make a harness out of my hide.
There was no way of telling how long they walked. The corridor never changed, with its bent walls and its glowing yellow strips. Every doorway showed the identical chamber, ter'angreal, footprints and all. The sameness made time slip into formlessness. Mat worried about how long he had been there. Surely longer than the hour he had given himself. His clothes were only damp now; his boots no longer made squishing noises. But he walked, staring at his guide's back, and walked.
Suddenly the corridor ended ahead in another doorway. Mat blinked. He could have sworn that a moment before the hall had stretched on as far as he could see. But he had been watching the sharptoothed fellow more than what lay ahead. He looked back, and nearly swore. The corridor ran back until the glowing yellow strips seemed to come together in a point. And there was not an opening to be seen anywhere along it.
When he turned, he was alone in front of the big fivesided doorway. Burn me, I wish they wouldn't do that. Taking a deep breath, he walked through.
It was another whitefloored starshaped chamber, not so large as the one — or ones — with columns. An eightpointed star with a glassy black pedestal standing in each point, like a two span slice out of one of those columns. Glowing yellow strips ran up the sharp edges of room and pedestals. The unpleasant smell was stronger here; he recognized it now. The smell of a wild animal's lair. He hardly noticed it, though, because the chamber was empty except for him.
Turning slowly, he frowned at the pedestals. Surely someone should be up on them, whoever was supposed to answer his questions. He was being cheated. If he could come here, he should be able to get answers.
Suddenly he spun in a circle, searching not the pedestals but the smooth gray walls. The doorway was gone; there was no way out.
Yet before he completed a second turn there was someone standing on each pedestal, people like his guide, but dressed differently. Four were men, the others women, their stiff hair rising in a crest before spilling down their backs. All wore long white skirts that hid their feet. The women had on white blouses that fell below their hips, with high lace necks and pale ruffles at their wrists. The men wore even more straps than the guide, wider and studded with gold. Each harness supported a pair of bare bladed knives on the wearer's chest. Bronze blades, Mat judged from the color, but he would have given all the gold in his possession for just one of them.
“Speak,” one of the women said in that growling voice. “By the ancient treaty, here is agreement made. What is your need? Speak.”
Mat hesitated. That was not what the snaky people had said. They were all staring at him like foxes staring at dinner. “Who is the Daughter of the Nine Moons and why do I have to marry her?” He hoped they would count that as one question.
No one answered. None of them spoke. They just continued to stare at him with those big pale eyes.
“You are supposed to answer,” he said. Silence. “Burn your bones to ash, answer me! Who is the Daughter of the Nine Moons and why do I have to marry her? How will I die and live again? What does it mean that I have to give up half the light of the world? Those are my three questions. Say something!”
Dead silence. He could hear himself breathing, hear the blood throbbing in his ears.
“I have no intention of marrying. And I have no intention of dying, either, whether I am supposed to live again or not. I walk around with holes in my memory, holes in my life, and you stare at me like idiots. If I had my way, I would want those holes filled, but at least answers to my questions might fill some in my future. You have to answer—!”
“Done,” one of the men growled, and Mat blinked.
Done? What was done? What did he mean? “Burn your eyes,” he muttered. “Burn your souls! You are as bad as Aes Sedai. Well, I want a way to be free of Aes Sedai and the Power, and I want to be away from you and back to Rhuidean, if you will not answer me. Open up a door, and let me —”
“Done,” another man said, and one of the women echoed, “Done.”
Mat scanned the walls, then glared, turning to take them all in, standing up there on their pedestals staring down at him. “Done? What is done? I see no door. You lying goatfathered —”
“Fool,” a woman said in a whispered growl, and others repeated it. Fool. Fool. Fool.
“Wise to ask leavetaking, when you set no price, no terms.”
“Yet fool not to first agree on price.”
“We will set the price.”
They spoke so quickly he could not tell which said what.
“What was asked will be given.”
“The price will be paid.”