The Dragon Reborn - By Robert Jordan Page 0,208

deal with the right buyer. If you’re ready to risk having your belly ripped out through your mouth should you try selling him a pig in a sack. Not so safe as slitting the crew’s throats on a trader’s ship, eh, Coke? Not so easy, wouldn’t you say?”

There was a nervous stir among the other men, and the one addressed, a stocky fellow with shifty eyes, leaned forward anxiously. “They are Aes Sedai, Adden.” She recognized that voice; the man who had made the coarse suggestions. “They must be, Adden. The rings prove it, I tell you!” Adden picked up something from the table, a small circle that glinted gold in the lamplight.

Egwene gasped and felt at her fingers. They took my ring!

“I do no like it,” muttered the lanky man with the missing ear. “Aes Sedai. Any one of them could kill us all. Fortune prick me! You do be a stone-carved fool, Coke, and I ought to carve your throat. What if one of them do wake before he does come?”

“They’ll not wake for hours.” That was a fat man with a hoarse voice and a gap-toothed sneer. “My granny taught me of that stuff we fed them. They’ll sleep till sunrise, and he’ll come long afore then.”

Egwene worked her mouth around the sour wine taste and the bitterness. Whatever it was, your granny lied to you. She should have strangled you in your cradle! Before this “he” came, this man who thought he could buy Aes Sedai—like a bloody Seanchan!—she would have Nynaeve and Elayne on their feet. She crawled to Nynaeve.

As near as she could tell, Nynaeve seemed to be sleeping, so she began with the simple expedient of shaking her. To her surprise, Nynaeve’s eyes shot open.

“Wha—?”

She got a hand over Nynaeve’s mouth in time to stop the word. “We are being held prisoner,” she whispered. “There are a dozen men on the other side of that wall, and more outside. A great many more. They gave us something to make us sleep, but it wasn’t very successful. Do you remember, yet?”

Nynaeve pulled Egwene’s hand aside. “I remember.” Her voice was soft and grim. She grimaced and twisted her mouth, then suddenly barked a nearly silent laugh. “Sleepwell root. The fools gave us sleepwell root mixed in wine. Wine near gone to vinegar, it tastes like. Quick, do you remember anything of what I taught you? What does sleepwell root do?”

“It clears headaches so you can sleep,” Egwene said just as softly. And nearly as grimly, until she heard what she was saying. “It makes you a little drowsy, but that is all.” The fat man had not listened well to what his granny told him. “All they did was help clear the pain of being hit in the head.”

“Exactly,” Nynaeve said. “And once we wake Elayne, we’ll give them a thanking they won’t forget.” She rose, only to crouch beside the golden-haired woman.

“I think I saw more than a hundred of them outside when they brought us in,” Egwene whispered to Nynaeve’s back. “I am sure you won’t mind if I use the Power as a weapon this time. And someone is apparently coming to buy us. I mean to do something to that fellow that will make him walk in the Light till the day he dies!” Nynaeve was still crouched over Elayne, but neither of them was moving. “What is the matter?”

“She is hurt badly, Egwene. I think her skull is broken, and she is barely breathing. Egwene, she is dying as surely as Dailin was.”

“Can’t you do something?” Egwene tried to remember all the flows Nynaeve had woven to Heal the Aiel woman, but she could recall no more than every third thread. “You have to!”

“They took my herbs,” Nynaeve muttered fiercely, her voice trembling. “I can’t! Not without the herbs!” Egwene was shocked to realize Nynaeve was on the point of tears. “Burn them all, I can’t do it without—!” Suddenly she seized Elayne’s shoulders as if she meant to lift the unconscious woman and shake her. “Burn you, girl,” she rasped, “I did not bring you all this way to die! I should have left you scrubbing pots! I should have tied you up in a sack for Mat to carry to your mother! I will not let you die on me! Do you hear me? I won’t allow it!” Saidar suddenly shone around her, and Elayne’s eyes and mouth opened wide together.

Egwene got her hands over Elayne’s mouth