Elayne hardly heard. That was not the way to end a circle. When Caire let go in that way, the Power disappeared from every woman simultaneously. Elayne’s eyes popped. For one instant, it was as though she stood atop the highest tower in the world, and suddenly the tower was not there anymore! Just an instant, yet hardly pleasant. She felt tired, if not anywhere near what she would have had she actually done anything beyond serve as a conduit, but what she felt most was loss. Letting go of saidar was bad enough; having it simply vanish out of you went beyond thinking about.
Others had suffered far worse than she. As the glow joining the circle winked out, Nynaeve sat down right where she stood as though her legs had melted, sat stroking the braceletandrings, staring at it and panting. Sweat rolled down her face. “I feel like a kitchen sieve that just had the whole mill poured through it,” she murmured. Carrying that much of the Power had its cost even if you did nothing, even with an angreal.
Talaan wavered, a reed in the wind, casting surreptitious glances at her mother, plainly afraid to sit. Aviendha stood straight, her fixed expression saying that willpower had as much to do with that as anything else. She gave a slight smile, though, and made a gesture in Maiden handtalk — worth the price — and then another — more — right behind. More than worth the price. Everyone looked weary, if not so much as those who had used angreal. The Bowl of the Winds went quiet at last, just a wide bowl of clear crystal, but decorated now with towering waves. Saidar still seemed to be there, though, not being wielded by anyone, not visible, but in dimly felt flashes like those that had played around the Bowl at the end.
Nynaeve raised her head to glower at the cloudless sky, then lowered her gaze to Caire. “All that, for what? Did we do anything, or not?” A breath of air stirred across the hilltop, warm as the air in a kitchen.
The Windfinder struggled her feet. “Do you think Weaving the Winds is like throwing the helm over on a darter?” she demanded contemptuously. “I just moved the rudder on a skimmer with a beam as broad as the world! He will take time to turn, time to know he is supposed to turn. That he must turn. But when he does, not the Father of Storms himself will be able to stand in his way. I have done it, Aes Sedai, and the Bowl of the Winds is ours!”
Renaile moved into the circle, kneeling beside the Bowl. Carefully she began folding the white silk around it. “I will take this to the Mistress of the Ships,” she said to Nynaeve. “We have fulfilled our part of the bargain. Now, you Aes Sedai must fulfill the rest of yours.” Merilille made a sound in her throat, but when Elayne glanced at her, the Gray appeared a study in composure.
“Maybe you’ve done your part,” Nynaeve said, rising unsteadily. “Maybe. We’ll see when this... this skimmer of yours turns. If it turns!” Renaile stared hard at her across the Bowl, but Nynaeve ignored her. “Strange,” she muttered, rubbing her temple. The braceletandrings caught in her hair, and she grimaced. “I can almost feel an echo of saidar. It must be this thing!”
“No,” Elayne said slowly. “I can feel it, too.” Not just the dimly perceived crackling in the air, and not an echo, exactly. More the shadow of an echo, so faint that it was as if she were feeling someone use saidar at a... She turned. On the horizon to the south, lightning flashed, dozens of bolts vivid silverblue against the afternoon sky. Very near to Ebou Dar.
“A rainstorm?” Sareitha said eagerly. “The weather must be righting itself already.” But there were no clouds in the sky even where the lightning forked and fell. Sareitha was not strong enough to sense saidar being wielded at that distance.
Elayne shivered. She was not strong enough. Unless someone was using as much as they had on this hilltop. Fifty or even a hundred Aes Sedai, all channeling at once. Or... “Not one of the Forsaken,” she murmured. Someone behind her moaned.
“One couldn’t do that,” Nynaeve agreed quietly. “Maybe they didn’t feel us the way we do them, maybe, but they’ll have seen, unless they’re all blind. The Light burn our luck!” Quiet or not, she was agitated; she often called Elayne down for using language like that. “Take everyone who will go to Andor with you, Elayne. I’ll... I’ll meet you there. Mat’s in the city. I have to go back for him. Burn the boy; he came for me, and I have to.”
Elayne wrapped her arms around herself and drew a deep breath. Queen Tylin she left to the mercies of the Light; Tylin would survive if it was possible. But Mat Cauthon, her very strange, very instructive subject; her most unlikely rescuer. He had come for her, too, and offered more. And Thom Merrilin; dear Thom, who she sometimes still wished would turn out to be her real father, and the Light burn what that would make of her mother. And the boy, Olver, and Chel Vanin, and... She had to think like a queen. The Rose Crown is heavier than a mountain, her mother had told her, and duty will make you weep, but you must bear and do what must be done.
“No,” she said, then more firmly, “No. Look at you, Nynaeve; you can hardly stand. Even if we all went, what could we do? How many of the Forsaken are there? We’d die, or worse, for no gain. The Forsaken have no reason to look for Mat or the others. It’s us they will be after.”
Nynaeve gaped at her, stubborn Nynaeve with sweat running down her face and her legs unsteady. Wonderful, gallant, foolish Nynaeve. “You’re saying leave him, Elayne? Aviendha, talk to her. Tell her about that honor you’re always going on about!”
Aviendha hesitated, then shook her head. She was almost as sweaty as Nynaeve, and from the way she moved, just as tired. “There are times to fight without hope, Nynaeve, but Elayne is right. The Shadowsouled will not be looking for Mat Cauthon; they will be after us, and the Bowl. He may have left the city already. If we go, we risk giving them what can undo what we have done. Wherever we send the Bowl, they will be able to make us tell them who we sent it with and where.”
Nynaeve’s face crumpled in pain. Elayne reached to put her arms around her.
“Shadowspawn!” someone screamed, and suddenly women were embracing saidar all over the hilltop. Balls of fire shot up from Merilille’s hands, from Careane’s and Sareitha’s, as fast as they could throw. A huge winged shape enveloped in flame tumbled out of the sky trailing oily black smoke, falling just beyond the cliff.
“There’s another one!” Kirstian shouted, pointing. A second winged creature dove away from the hill, body as big as a horse, ribbed wings spanning thirty paces or more, long neck stretched out before and longer tail streaming behind. Two figures crouched low on its back. A storm of fire rained after it, quickest of all from Aviendha and the Sea Folk, who made no throwing gesture as part of their weaving. A hail of fire so thick it seemed that Fire must be forming itself out of the air, and the thing dodged behind the hill on the other side of the fa