The great hunt - By Robert Jordan Page 0,52

as it fell on the sleeve of her dress. “The Lady Amalisa gave me this,” she said so softly he wondered if she was speaking to herself. She stroked the silk with her fingers, outlining the embroidered flowers, smiling, lost in thought.

“It’s very pretty on you, Nynaeve. You’re pretty tonight.” He winced as soon as he said it. Any Wisdom was touchy about her authority, but Nynaeve was touchier than most. The Women’s Circle back home had always looked over her shoulder because she was young, and maybe because she was pretty, and her fights with the Mayor and the Village Council had been the stuff of stories.

She jerked her hand away from the embroidery and glared at him, brows lowering. He spoke quickly to forestall her.

“They can’t keep the gates barred forever. Once they are opened, I will be gone, and the Aes Sedai will never find me. Perrin says there are places in the Black Hills and the Caralain Grass you can go for days without seeing a soul. Maybe—maybe I can figure out what to do about. . . .” He shrugged uncomfortably. There was no need to say it, not to her. “And if I can’t, there’ll be no one to hurt.”

Nynaeve was silent for a moment, then she said slowly, “I am not so sure, Rand. I can’t say you look like more than another village boy to me, but Moiraine insists you are ta’veren, and I don’t think she believes the Wheel is finished with you. The Dark One seems—”

“Shai’tan is dead,” he said harshly, and abruptly the room seemed to lurch. He grabbed his head as waves of dizziness sloshed through him.

“You fool! You pure, blind, idiotic fool! Naming the Dark One, bringing his attention down on you! Don’t you have enough trouble?”

“He’s dead,” Rand muttered, rubbing his head. He swallowed. The dizziness was already fading. “All right, all right. Ba’alzamon, if you want. But he’s dead; I saw him die, saw him burn.”

“And I wasn’t watching you when the Dark One’s eye fell on you just now? Don’t tell me you felt nothing, or I’ll box your ears; I saw your face.”

“He’s dead,” Rand insisted. The unseen watcher flashed through his head, and the wind on the tower top. He shivered. “Strange things happen this close to the Blight.”

“You are a fool, Rand al’Thor.” She shook a fist at him. “I would box your ears for you if I thought it would knock any sense—”

The rest of her words were swallowed as bells crashed out ringing all over the keep.

He bounded to his feet. “That’s an alarm! They’re searching. . . .” Name the Dark One, and his evil comes down on you.

Nynaeve stood more slowly, shaking her head uneasily. “No, I don’t think so. If they are searching for you, all the bells do is warn you. No, if it’s an alarm, it is not for you.”

“Then what?” He hurried to the nearest arrowslit and peered out.

Lights darted through the night-cloaked keep like fireflies, lamps and torches dashing here and there. Some went to the outer walls and towers, but most of those that he could see milled through the garden below and the one courtyard he could just glimpse part of. Whatever had caused the alarm was inside the keep. The bells fell silent, unmasking the shouts of men, but he could not make out what they were calling.

If it isn’t for me. . . . “Egwene,” he said suddenly. If he’s still alive, if there’s any evil, it’s supposed to come to me.

Nynaeve turned from looking through another arrowslit. “What?”

“Egwene.” He crossed the room in quick strides and snatched his sword and scabbard free of the bundle. Light, it’s supposed to hurt me, not her. “She’s in the dungeon with Fain. What if he’s loose somehow?”

She caught him at the door, grabbing his arm. She was not as tall as his shoulder, but she held on like iron. “Don’t be a worse goat-brained fool than you’ve already been, Rand al’Thor. Even if this doesn’t have anything to do with you, the women are looking for something! Light, man, this is the women’s apartments. There will be Aes Sedai out there in the halls, likely as not. Egwene will be all right. She was going to take Mat and Perrin with her. Even if she met trouble, they would look after her.”

“What if she couldn’t find them, Nynaeve? Egwene would never let that stop her. She would go alone, the