Lord of Chaos (The Wheel of Time #6)

Lord of Chaos (The Wheel of Time #6) Page 149

“I did not think it would be so bad,” Haman muttered. “It almost washes away the Waygate.” Erith moaned, and Covril looked as though she would if she were not too dignified. Ogier were sensitive to the mood of a place. Haman pointed. The sweat on his face had nothing to do with the heat. “That way.”

Broken pavement crunched beneath Rand’s boots like bones grinding. Haman directed them around corners and down streets, past one set of ruins after another, but his direction was sure. The encircling Aiel moved on their toes. Their eyes above the black veils did not look as if they expected attack, but as if the attack had already begun.

The unseen watchers and broken buildings brought back memories Rand would as soon have avoided. Here Mat had begun a road that took him to the Horn of Valere, that almost killed him on the way, maybe the road that had led him to Rhuidean and the ter’angreal he did not want to talk about. Here Perrin had disappeared when they were all forced to flee in the night, and when Rand finally saw him again, far from here, he had golden eyes and a sad look and secrets that Moiraine had never shared with Rand.

He had not escaped unscathed himself, though Shadar Logoth had not touched him directly. Padan Fain had followed them all here, himself and Mat and Perrin, Moiraine and Lan, Nynaeve and Egwene. Padan Fain, peddler and frequent visitor to the Two Rivers. Padan Fain, Darkfriend. More than Darkfriend now, and worse, so Moiraine had said. Fain had followed them all here, but what left was more than Fain, or less. Fain, as much as he was still Fain, wanted Rand dead. He had threatened everyone Rand loved if Rand would not come to him. And Rand had not. Perrin had dealt with that, kept the Two Rivers safe, but Light how it hurt. What had Fain been doing with the Whitecloaks? Could Pedron Niall be a Darkfriend? If Aes Sedai could be, then so could the Lord Captain Commander of the Children of the Light.

“There it is,” Haman said, and Rand gave a start. Shadar Logoth was the last place on earth to lose yourself in thought.

Where the Elder stood had been a spacious square once, though a weathered mound of rubble filled one end now. In the middle of the square, where a fountain might have been, was instead an ornate filigree fence of some shiny metal, Ogier-high and untouched by rust. That enclosed what appeared to be a tall length of stone carved with vines and leaves so delicately done that you expected to feel the breeze that was riffling them, that you were surprised to realize, they were gray not green. The Waygate, though it certainly looked like no kind of gate.

“They cut down the grove as soon as the Ogier departed for the stedding,” Haman muttered angrily, long brows drawn down, “no more than twenty or thirty years, and extended the city.”

Rand touched the fence with a flow of Air, wondering how to get through, and blinked as the whole thing collapsed into twenty or more pieces, which fell with loud shivering clangs that made the Ogier jump. Rand shook his head. Of course. Metal that had survived so long without a spot of rust must be Power-wrought, maybe even remnants from the Age of Legends, but the joins that had held them together had long since corroded, awaiting one good shove.

Covril laid a hand on his shoulder. “I would ask you not to open it. No doubt Loial told you how—he always did show too much interest in that sort of thing—but the Ways are dangerous.”

“I can lock it,” Haman said, “so it cannot be opened again without the Talisman of Growing. Um. Um. A simple matter; simply done.” He did not seem eager, though. He certainly did not move any closer.

“It might have to be used without time for fetching anything,” Rand told him. All the Ways might have to be used, whatever the dangers. If he could cleanse them somehow. . . . That was almost as grandiose as his boast to Taim that he would cleanse saidin.

He began weaving saidin around the Waygate, using all Five Powers, even lifting the segments of fence back into place. From the first flow he channeled, the taint seemed to pulse inside him, a slowly building vibration. It must have been the evil in Shadar Logoth itself, a resonance of evil to evil. Even in the Void he felt dizzy from those reverberations, as though the world swung beneath his feet in time to them; they made him want to vomit up everything he had ever eaten. Still, he persevered. He could not send men to stand guard here any more than he could have had them search.

What he wove and then inverted was a vicious sort of trap to suit a vicious place. A ward of surpassing nastiness. Humans could cross it unharmed, perhaps even the Forsaken—he could ward against humans or Shadowspawn, not both—and even a male Forsaken could not detect it. Should any sort of Shadowspawn pass through. . . . That was the viciousness. They would not die right away; they might even live to make it beyond the city walls. Long enough for the dead to be far off, not here to frighten the next Myrddraal that came. Long enough for a Trolloc army to exit perhaps, picking up their own deaths as they did. Cruel enough for a Trolloc. Making the thing sickened him as much as the taint on saidin.

Tying off the weave and loosing saidin brought only some relief. The residue of filth that always seemed to remain behind still throbbed; it almost felt as though the ground were throbbing beneath his boots. His teeth and ears ached. He could not wait to get away from here.

Taking a deep breath, he prepared to channel again, to open a gateway—and stopped, frowning. Quickly he counted everyone, then did it again, more slowly. “Somebody’s missing. Who?”

The Aiel took only a moment to confer.

“Liah,” Sulin said through her veil.

“She was right behind me.” There was no mistaking Jalani’s voice.

“Maybe she saw something.” He thought that was Desora.

“I told everybody to stay together!” Rage washed across the Void, waves breaking to froth on a boulder. One of them missing, here, and they took it with that Light-blasted Aiel coolness. A Maiden missing. A woman missing, in Shadar Logoth. “When I find her . . . !” Inch by inch he fought down the fury that threatened to engulf the emptiness around him. What he wanted to do to Liah was shout at her till she fainted, send her to Sorilea for the rest of her life. That rage wanted white-hot murder. “Split up in pairs. Shout, look everywhere, but don’t go inside, not for any reason. And stay out of shadows. You can die here before you know it. You can all die before any of you know it. If you see her in a building, even if she looks just fine, find me unless she comes out to you.”

“We can search faster if we each search alone,” Urien said, and Sulin nodded agreement. The