Light, I am going crazy.
Then he opened another storeroom door, and human voices, human laughter, drifted out to fill him with relief. There would be no unseen eye here. He went in.
Half the room was stacked to the ceiling with sacks of grain. In the other half a thick semicircle of men knelt in front of one of the bare walls. They all seemed to wear the leather jerkins and bowl-cut hair of menials. No warriors’ topknots, no livery. No one who might betray him accidentally. What about on purpose? The rattle of dice came through their soft murmurs, and somebody let out a raucous laugh at the throw.
Loial was watching them dice, rubbing his chin thoughtfully with a finger thicker than a big man’s thumb, his head almost reaching the rafters nearly two spans up. None of the dicers gave him a glance. Ogier were not exactly common in the Borderlands, or anywhere else, but they were known and accepted here, and Loial had been in Fal Dara long enough to excite little comment. The Ogier’s dark, stiff-collared tunic was buttoned up to his neck and flared below the waist over his high boots, and one of the big pockets bulged and sagged with the weight of something. Books, if Rand knew him. Even watching men gamble, Loial would not be far from a book.
In spite of everything, Rand found himself grinning. Loial often had that effect on him. The Ogier knew so much about some things, so little about others, and he seemed to want to know everything. Yet Rand could remember the first time he ever saw Loial, with his tufted ears and his eyebrows that dangled like long mustaches and his nose almost as wide as his face—saw him and thought he was facing a Trolloc. It still shamed him. Ogier and Trollocs. Myrddraal, and things from the dark corners of midnight tales. Things out of stories and legends. That was how he had thought of them before he left Emond’s Field. But since leaving home he had seen too many stories walking in the flesh ever to be so sure again. Aes Sedai, and unseen watchers, and a wind that caught and held. His smile faded.
“All the stories are real,” he said softly.
Loial’s ears twitched, and his head turned toward Rand. When he saw who it was, the Ogier’s face split in a grin, and he came over. “Ah, there you are.” His voice was a deep bumblebee rumble. “I did not see you at the Welcome. That was something I had not seen before. Two things. The Shienaran Welcome, and the Amyrlin Seat. She looks tired, don’t you think? It cannot be easy, being Amyrlin. Worse than being an Elder, I suppose.” He paused, with a thoughtful look, but only for a breath. “Tell me, Rand, do you play at dice, too? They play a simpler game here, with only three dice. We use four in the stedding. They won’t let me play, you know. They just say, ‘Glory to the Builders,’ and will not bet against me. I don’t think that’s fair, do you? The dice they use are rather small”—he frowned at one of his hands, big enough to cover a human head—“but I still think—”
Rand grabbed his arm and cut him off. The Builders! “Loial, Ogier built Fal Dara, didn’t they? Do you know any way out except by the gates? A crawl hole. A drain pipe. Anything at all, if it’s big enough for a man to wiggle through. Out of the wind would be good, too.”
Loial gave a pained grimace, the ends of his eyebrows almost brushing his cheeks. “Rand, Ogier built Mafal Dadaranell, but that city was destroyed in the Trolloc Wars. This”—he touched the stone wall lightly with broad fingertips—“was built by men. I can sketch a plan of Mafal Dadaranell—I saw the maps, once, in an old book in Stedding Shangtai—but of Fal Dara, I know no more than you. It is well built, though, isn’t it? Stark, but well made.”
Rand slumped against the wall, squeezing his eyes shut. “I need a way out,” he whispered. “The gates are barred, and they won’t let anyone pass, but I need a way out.”
“But why, Rand?” Loial said slowly. “No one here will hurt you. Are you all right? Rand?” Suddenly his voice rose. “Mat! Perrin! I think Rand is sick.”
Rand opened his eyes to see his friends straightening up out of the knot of dicers. Mat Cauthon,