The Aes Sedai thrust the dagger into the box and snapped the lid down, letting out a loud sigh as it clicked shut. “A filthy thing,” she said.
As soon as the dagger was hidden, Mat's shriek cut off, and he collapsed as if muscle and bone had turned to water. An instant later the glow surrounding Aes Sedai and table winked out.
“Done,” the Amyrlin said hoarsely, as if she had been the one screaming. “It is done.”
Some of the Aes Sedai sagged visibly, and sweat beaded on more than one brow. Anaiya pulled a plain linen handkerchief from her sleeve and wiped her face openly. The cooleyed White dabbed almost surreptitiously at her cheeks with a bit of Lugard lace.
“Fascinating,” Verin said. “That the Old Blood could flow so strongly in anyone today.” She and Serafelle put their heads together, talking softly, but with many gestures.
“Is he Healed?” Nynaeve said. “Will he... live?”
Mat lay as if sleeping, but his face still had that hollowcheeked gauntness. Egwene had never heard of a Healing that did not cure everything. Unless just separating him from the dagger took all of the Power they used. Light!
“Brendas,” the Amyrlin said, “will you see that he is taken back to his room?”
“As you command, Mother,” the cooleyed woman said, her curtsy as emotionless as she herself seemed. When she left to summon bearers, several of the other Aes Sedai left, too, including Anaiya. Verin and Serafelle followed, still talking to one another too quietly for Egwene to make out what they said.
“Is Mat all right?” Nynaeve demanded. Sheriam raised her eyebrows.
The Amyrlin Seat turned toward them. “He is as well as he can be,” she said coldly. “Only time will tell. Carrying something with Shadar Logoth's taint for so long... who knows what effect it will have on him? Perhaps none, perhaps much. We will see. But the bond with the dagger is broken. Now he needs rest, and as much food as can be gotten into him. He should live.”
“What was that he was shouting, Mother?” Elayne asked, then hastily added, “If I may ask.”
“He was ordering soldiers.” The Amyrlin gave the young man lying on the table a quizzical look. He had not moved since collapsing, but Egwene thought his breathing seemed easier, the rise and fall of his chest more rhythmic. “In a battle two thousand years gone, I would say. The Old Blood comes again.”
“It was not all about a battle,” Nynaeve said. “I heard him say Aes Sedai. That was no battle. Mother,” she added belatedly.
For a moment the Amyrlin seemed to consider, perhaps what to say, perhaps whether to say anything. “For a time,” she said finally, “I believe the past and the present were one. He was there, and he was here, and he knew who we were. He commanded us to release him.” She paused again.“ 'I am a free man, Aes Sedai. I am no Aes Sedai meat.' That is what he said.”
Leane sniffed loudly, and some of the other Aes Sedai muttered angrily under their breath.
“But, Mother,” Egwene said, “he could not have meant it as it sounds. Manetheren was allied with Tar Valon.”
“Manetheren was an ally, child,” the Amyrlin told her, “but who can know the heart of a man? Not even he himself, I suspect. A man is the easiest animal to put on a leash, and the hardest to keep leashed. Even when he chooses it himself.”
“Mother,” Sheriam said, “it is late. The cooks will be waiting for these helpers.”
“Mother,” Egwene asked anxiously, “could we not stay with Mat? If he may still die...”
The Amyrlin's look was level, her face without expression. “You have chores to do, child.”
It was not scrubbing pots she meant. Egwene was sure of that.
“Yes, Mother.” She curtsied, her skirts brushing Nynaeve's and Elayne's as they made theirs. One last time she looked at Mat, then followed Sheriam out. Mat had still not moved.
Chapter 19
(Dice)
Awakening
Mat opened his eyes slowly and stared up at the white plaster ceiling, wondering where he was and how he had come there. An intricate fringe of gilded leaves bordered the ceiling, and the mattress under his back felt plumped full of feathers. Somewhere rich, then. Somewhere with money. But his head was empty of the where and the how, and a lot more besides.
He had been dreaming, and bits of those dreams still tumbled together with memories in his head. He could not separate one from the other. Wild flights and fights, strange people from across the ocean, Ways and Portal Stones and pieces of other lives, things right out of a gleeman's tales, these had to be dreams. At least, he thought they must be. But Loial was no dream, and he was an Ogier. Chunks of conversations drifted around in his thoughts, talks with his father, with friends, with Moiraine, and a beautiful woman, and a ship captain, and a welldressed man who spoke to him like a father giving sage advice. Those were probably real. But it was all bits and fragments. Drifting.
“Muad'drin tia dar allende caba'drin rhadiem,” he murmured. The words were only sounds, yet they sparked — something.
The packed lines of spearmen stretched a mile or more to either side below him, dotted with the pennants and banners of towns and cities and minor Houses. The river secured his flank on the left, the bogs and mires on the right. From the hillside he watched the spearmen struggle against the mass of Trollocs trying to break through, ten times the humans' number. Spears pierced black Trolloc mail, and spiked axes carved bloody gaps in the human ranks. Screams and bellows harried the air. The sun burned hot overhead in a cloudless sky, and shimmers of heat rose above the battle line. Arrows still rained down from the enemy,
slaying Trolloc and human alike. He had called his archers back, but the Dreadlords did not care so long as they broke his line. On the ridge behind him, the Heart Guard awaited his command, horses stamping impatiently. Armor on men and horses alike shone silver in the sunlight; neither men nor animals could stand the heat much longer.
They must win here or die. He was known as a gambler; it was time to toss the dice. In a voice that carried over the tumult below, he gave the order as he swung up into his saddle. “Footmen prepare to pass cavalry forward.” His bannerman rode close beside him, the Red Eagle banner flapping over his head, as the command was repeated up and down the line.
Below, the spearmen suddenly moved, sidestepping with good discipline, narrowing their formations, opening wide gaps between. Gaps into which the Trollocs poured, roaring bestial cries, like a bl