The Dragon Reborn - By Robert Jordan Page 0,297

knocked down. He rolled off onto the roof tiles, loosing the bundle of fireworks—If that falls into the street, I’ll break their necks!—staff whirling; he felt it strike flesh, and a second time, heard grunts. Then there were two blades at his throat.

He froze, arms outflung. The points of short spears, dull so they hardly caught the faint light of the moon at all, pressed into his flesh just short of bringing blood. His eyes followed them up to the faces of whoever was holding them, but their heads were shrouded, their faces veiled in black except for their eyes, staring at him. Burn me, I have to run into real thieves! What happened to my luck?

He put on a grin, with plenty of teeth so they could see it in the moonlight. “I do not mean to trouble you in your work, so if you let me go my way, I’ll let you go yours and say nothing.” The veiled men did not move, and neither did their spears. “I want no more outcry than you. I’ll not betray you.” They stood like statues, staring down at him. Burn me, I do not have time for this. Time to toss the dice. For a chilling moment he thought the words in his head had been strange. He tightened his grip on the quarterstaff, lying out to one side of him—and almost cried out when someone stepped hard on his wrist.

He rolled his eyes to see who. Burn me for a fool, I forgot the one I fell on. But he saw another shape moving behind the one standing on his wrist, and decided maybe it was as well he had not managed to bring the staff into use after all.

It was a soft boot, laced to the knee, that rested on his arm. It tugged at his memory. Something about a man met in mountains. He eyed the night-cloaked shape the rest of the way up, trying to make out the cut and colors of his clothes—they seemed all shadow, colors that blended with the darkness too well to see them clearly—past a long-bladed knife at the fellow’s waist, right up to the dark veil across his face. A black-veiled face. Black-veiled.

Aiel! Burn me, what are bloody Aiel doing here! He had a sinking feeling in his stomach as he remembered hearing that Aiel veiled themselves when they killed.

“Yes,” said a man’s voice, “we are Aiel.” Mat gave a start; he had not realized he had spoken aloud.

“You dance well for one caught by surprise,” a young woman’s voice said. He thought she was the one standing on his wrist. “Perhaps another day I will have time to dance with you properly.”

He started to smile—If she wants to dance, they can’t be going to kill me, at least!—then frowned instead. He seemed to remember Aiel sometimes meant something different when they said that.

The spears were pulled back, and hands hauled him to his feet. He shook them away and brushed himself off as if he were standing in a common room instead of on a night-cloaked rooftop with four Aiel. It always paid to let the other man know you had a steady nerve. The Aiel had quivers at their waists as well as knives, and more of those short spears on their backs with cased bows, the long spear points sticking up above their shoulders. He heard himself humming “I’m Down at the Bottom of the Well,” and stopped it.

“What do you do here?” the man’s voice asked. With the veils, Mat was not entirely sure which one had spoken; the voice sounded older, confident, used to command. He thought he could pick out the woman, at least; she was the only one shorter than he, and that not by much. The others all stood a head taller than he or more. Bloody Aiel, he thought. “We have watched you for some little time,” the older man went on, “watched you watch the Stone. You have studied it from every side. Why?”

“I could ask the same of all of you,” another voice said. Mat was the only one who gave a start as a man in baggy breeches stepped out of the shadows. The fellow appeared to be shoeless, for better footing on the tiles. “I expected to find thieves, not Aiel,” the man went on, “but do not think your numbers frighten me.” A slim staff no taller than his head made a blur and a hum