“By the Stone, it’s him,” one of the men said, sheathing his sword hurriedly. Stocky, with a puckered scar that began on his forehead and journeyed across the bridge of his nose and down to his jaw, he bowed deeply, hands in steel-backed gauntlets spreading wide. “My Lord Dragon,” he said. “Iagin Handar, my Lord. The Stone stands. I got this that day.” He touched the scar on his face.
“An honorable wound, Handar, and a day to remember,” Rand told him as the other, leaner man hastily put up his blade and bowed. Only then did the Maidens lower their spears, but their faces remained veiled. A day to remember? Trollocs and Myrddraal inside the Stone. The second time he had truly wielded Callandor, using the Sword that was Not a Sword as it was meant to be used. The dead lying everywhere. A dead girl he could not make live again. Who could forget such a day? “I know I gave orders for the Heart to be guarded while Callandor was there, but why are you still standing guard?”
The two men exchanged puzzled looks. “You gave the order to set guards, my Lord Dragon,” Handar said, “and the Defenders obey, but you never said anything about Callandor except that no one was to approach it unless they had proof they came from you.” Suddenly the stocky man gave a start and bowed again, more deeply still. “Forgive me, my Lord, if I seem to question you. I don’t mean to. Shall I summon the High Lords to your apartments? Your rooms have been kept in readiness for your return.”
“No need,” Rand told him. “Darlin will be expecting me, and I know where to find him.”
Handar winced. The other man suddenly found something interesting on the floor to study. “You may require a guide, my Lord,” Handar said slowly. “The corridors. . . . Sometimes the corridors change.”
So. The Pattern truly was loosening. That meant the Dark One was touching the world more than he had since the War of the Shadow. If it loosened too much before Tarmon Gai’don, the Age Lace might unravel. An end to time and reality and creation. Somehow he had to bring about the Last Battle before that happened. Only he did not dare. Not yet.
He assured Handar and the other man that he needed no guide, and the pair of them bowed yet again, apparently accepting that the Dragon Reborn could do anything he said he could do. In simple truth, he knew he could locate Alanna—he could have pointed straight at her—and she had moved since he first felt her. To find Darlin and inform him that Rand al’Thor was approaching, he was sure. Min had named her as one he held in his hand, yet Aes Sedai always found a way to play both ends against the middle. They always had schemes of their own, goals of their own. Witness Nynaeve and Verin. Witness any of them.
“They hop when you say toad,” Cadsuane said coolly, pushing the cowl of her cloak down her back, as they walked away from the Heart. “That can be bad for you, when too many people jump at your word.” She had the nerve to say that! Cadsuane bloody Melaidhrin!
“I’m fighting a war,” he told her harshly. The nausea had his temper on edge. That was part of the reason he was harsh. “The fewer people who obey, the more chance I’ll lose, and if I lose, everybody loses. If I could make everyone obey, I would.” There were far too many who did not obey as it was, or obeyed in their own way. Why in the Light would Min feel pity?
Cadsuane nodded. “As I thought,” she murmured, half to herself. And what was that supposed to mean?
The Stone had all the trappings of a palace, from silk tapestries and rich runners in the corridors from Tarabon and Altaraand Tear itself to golden stands holding mirrored lamps. Chests standing against the stone walls might be for storing what the servants needed for cleaning, yet they were of rare woods, often elaborately carved and always with gilded banding. Niches held bowls and vases of Sea Folk porcelain, thin as leaves and worth many times their weight in gold, or massive, gem-studded figures, a golden leopard with ruby eyes trying to pull down a silver deer with pearl-covered antlers that stood a pace tall, a golden lion that was even taller, with emerald eyes and firedrops for claws, others set so extravagantly with gems that no metal showed. Servants in black-and-gold livery bowed or curtsied as Rand climbed through the Stone, those who recognized him very deeply indeed. Some eyes widened at sight of the Maidens trailing behind, but their surprise never slowed their courtesies.
All the trappings of a palace, yet the Stone had been designed for war within as well as without. Wherever two corridors crossed, murderholes dotted the ceiling. Between the tapestries, arrowslits pierced the walls high up, angled to cover the corridors in both directions, and no flight of sweeping stairs but had arrowslits placed so the staircase could be swept by arrows or crossbow bolts. Only one assailant had ever succeeded in forcing a way into the Stone, the Aiel, and they had swept over the opposition too quickly for many of those defenses to come into play, but any other enemy that managed to get inside the Stone would pay a price in blood for every hallway. Except that Traveling had changed warfare forever. Traveling and Blossoms of Fire and so much more. That blood price would still be paid, yet stone walls and high towers could no longer hold back an assault. The Asha’man had made the Stone as obsolete as the bronze swords and stone axes men had often been reduced to in the Breaking. Mankind’s oldest stronghold was now a relic.
The bond with Alanna led him up and up, until he came to tall, polished doors with golden leopards for door handles. She was on the other side. Light, but his stomach wanted to empty itself. Hardening himself, he pulled open one of the doors and went in, leaving the Maidens to stand guard. Min and the others followed him in.
The sitting room was almost as ornate as his own apartments in the Stone, the walls hung with broad silk tapestries showing scenes of the hunt and battle, the large, patterned Taraboner carpet on the floor worth sufficient gold to feed a large village for a year, the black marble fireplace tall enough for a man to walk into and wide enough to hold eight abreast. Every piece of furnishing, all massively made, was elaborately carved, crusted with gilt and dotted with gems, as were the tall golden stand-lamps, their mirrored flames adding to the light let in by the glass-paned ceiling. A golden bear with ruby eyes and silver claws and teeth, more than a pace high, stood atop a gilded plinth on one side of the room, while an identical plinth held an emerald-eyed, ruby-taloned eagle nearly as tall. Restrained pieces for Tear.
Seated in an armchair, Alanna looked up as he walked in, and held out a golden goblet for one of the two young serving women in black and gold to fill with dark wine from a tall golden pitcher. Slender in a gray riding dress slashed with green, Alanna was beautiful enough that Lews Therin began humming to himself. Rand almost thumbed his earlobe before snatching his hand down, suddenly unsure whether that gesture was his or the madman’s. She smiled, but darkly, and as her eyes swept across Min and Nynaeve, Alivia and Cadsuane, the bond carried her suspicion, not to mention anger and sulkiness. The last two heightened for Cadsuane. And there was joy, as well, mixed in with all the rest, when her gaze touched him. Not that it showed in her voice. “Why, who would have expected you, my Lord Dragon?” she murmured, with a hint of asperity in the title. “Quite a surprise, wouldn’t you say, my Lord Astoril?” So she had not warned anyo