Lord of Chaos (98 page)

The sound of the black gelding’s hooves was all but swallowed in the noise of Amador as Eamon Valda rode slowly through the crowded streets. Sweat oozed from his every pore, the more for his perfectly polished mail and breastplate, gleaming despite a layer of dust, and the snowy cloak spread over the gelding’s powerful rump, yet it might have been a fine spring day for all the notice he took. He did his best to ignore the dirty men and women, even children, with lost expressions and travelworn clothes. Even here. Even here.

For once in his life, the great stone walls of the Fortress of the Light, towered and bannered and impregnable, bastion of truth and right, did not lift his spirits. Dismounting in the main courtyard, he tossed his reins to a Child with grated instructions for caring for the animal; the man knew what to do, of course, but Valda wanted to snap at something. White cloaked men scurried everywhere in a great show of energy despite the heat. He hoped there was something more than show behind it.

Young Dain Bornhald came trotting across the courtyard, pressing fist to mailed chest in an eager salute. “The Light illumine you, my Lord Captain. You had a good ride from Tar Valon, yes?” His eyes were bloodshot, and a smell of brandy wafted from him. There was no excuse for drinking during the day.

“Fast, at least,” Valda growled, jerking off his gauntlets and stuffing them behind his sword belt.

It was not the brandy, though he would make a mark against the man for it. The journey had been fast, for that distance. He intended to give the legion a night in the city by way of reward, once they finished making camp outside the city. A fast journey, but he disapproved of the orders that called him back just when a strong push might have toppled the crippled Tower and buried the witches under the rubble. A ride to be remarked, yet every day had brought worse news. Al’Thor in Caemlyn. It did not really matter whether the man was a false Dragon or the real one; he could channel, and any man who did that had to be a Darkfriend. Dragonsworn rabble in Altara. This so-called Prophet and his scum in Ghealdan, in Amadicia itself.

He had managed to kill some of that filth, at least, though it was hard fighting foes who melted away more often than they stood, who could blend into the accursed streams of refugees, and worse, of brainless wanderers who seemed to think al’Thor had turned all order on its head. He had found a solution, however, if not a completely satisfactory one. The roads behind his legion were littered now, and the ravens fed to bursting. If it was not possible to tell the Prophet’s trash from refugee trash, well then, kill whoever clogged the way. The innocent should have remained in their homes where they belonged; the Creator would shelter them anyway. As far as he was concerned, the wanderers were added plums on the cake.

“I heard in the city that Morgase is here,” he said. He did not believe it—every other word in Andor had been speculation over who killed Morgase—so he was startled when Dain nodded.

Surprise turned to disgust as the young man babbled about Morgase’s apartments and her hunting, how well she was treated, how she was sure to sign a treaty with the Children any day. Valda scowled openly. He should have expected no better from Niall. The man had been one of the best soldiers in his time, accounted a great captain, but he grew old and soft. Valda had known that as soon as his orders reached Tar Valon. Niall should have moved on Tear in strength with the first word of al’Thor. He would have gathered all the numbers he needed on the march; nations would have rallied to the Children against a false Dragon. They would have, then. Now al’Thor was in Caemlyn, and strong enough to frighten the fainthearted. But Morgase was here. If he had Morgase, she would sign that treaty the first day if somebody had to guide her hand to hold the pen.
By the Light, he would teach her to leap when he said leap. If she balked at returning to Andor with the Children, he would lash her to a staff by her wrists. That would be a banner to lead the advance into Andor.

Dain ran down, waiting. No doubt hoping for an invitation to dinner this evening. As a junior, he could not issue one to an officer senior to him, but doubtless he hoped to talk with his old commander, about Tar Valon, perhaps even about his dead father. Valda had not thought much of Geofram Bornhald; the man had been soft. “I will see you at the camp for dinner at six. I will see you sober, Child Bornhald.”

Bornhald surely was in drink; he gaped and stammered before making his salute and going. Valda wondered what had happened. Dain had been a fine young officer. One who worried too much over niceties, such as proof of guilt when there was no way to obtain it, yet still fine for all that. Not as weak as his father. A shame to see him waste himself in brandy.

Muttering under his breath—officers drinking in the very Fortress of the Light was another sign that Niall was rotting at the core—Valda went in search of his rooms. He intended to sleep in the camp, but a hot bath would not be amiss.

A square-shouldered young Child approached in the plain stone corridor, the scarlet shepherd’s crook of the Hand of the Light behind the flaring golden sun on his chest. Without stopping or even looking at Valda, the Questioner murmured respectfully, “My Lord Captain might wish to visit the Dome of Truth.”

Valda frowned after the man—he did not like Questioners; they did good work in their way, yet he could never escape the feeling that they had donned the crook because that way they would never have to face an armed foe—started to raise his voice and dress the fellow down, then stopped. Questioners were sloppy in their discipline, but a simple Child would never speak idly to a Lord Captain. Perhaps the bath could wait.

The Dome of Truth was a wonder that finally did restore some of his essence. Pure white outside, inside gold leaf cast down the light of a thousand hanging lamps. Thick white columns ringed the chamber, plain and polished to glistening, but the dome itself stretched a hundred paces across unsupported and rose fifty at its peak, above the simple white marble dais, centered on the white marble floor, where the Lord Captain Commander of the Children of the Light stood to address the assembled Children in their most solemn moments, their most serious ceremonies. He would stand there, one day. Niall would not live forever.

Dozens of Children wandered about the vast chamber—it was a sight worth seeing, though none but the Children ever did, of course—yet that message had not come so he could admire the Dome. He was sure of it. Behind the great columns ran rows of smaller ones, just as simple and polished just as highly, and tall alcoves where scenes of the Children’s triumphs made frescoes of a thousand years. Valda strolled, looking into each recess. Finally he saw a tall, graying man studying one of the paintings, Serenia Latar being raised on the scaffold, the only Amyrlin the Children had ever managed to hang. She had been dead already, of course, live witches being somewhat hard to hang, but that was beside the point. Six hundred and ninety-three years ago, justice had been done according to the law.

“Are you troubled, my son?” The voice was soft, almost mild.

Valda stiffened slightly. Rhadam Asunawa might be the High Inquisitor, but he was still a Questioner. And Valda was a Lord Captain, Anointed of the Light, not “my son.” “Not that I have noticed,” he said flatly.

Asunawa sighed. His gaunt face was a picture of martyred suffering, so that his sweat might have been taken for tears, but his deep-set eyes seemed to burn with the heat that had boiled away all his spare flesh. His cloak bore only the crook, no flaring golden sun, as though he stood outside the Children. Or perhaps above. “The times are troubled. The Fortress of the Light harbors a witch.”

Valda suppressed a wry look before it formed. Cowards or not, Questioners could be dangerous even to a Lord Captain. The man might never be able to hang an Amyrlin, but he probably dreamed of being the first to hang a queen. Valda did not care whether Morgase died, provided it was not before all the use was wrung out of her. He said nothing, and Asunawa’s thick gray eyebrows drew down until he seemed to peer out of caverns.

“The times are troubled,” he said again, “and Niall must not be allowed to destroy the Children of the Light.”

For long minutes Valda examined the painting. Perhaps the artist had been good, perhaps not; he knew nothing of such things and cared even less. The fellow had gotten the weapons and armor right on the guards, though, and the rope and scaffold looked real. Those were things he knew. “I am prepared to listen,” he said finally.

“Then we will talk, my son. Later, where there are fewer eyes to see and ears to hear. The Light illumine you, my son.” Asunawa strode away without another word, white cloak billowing slightly and the sound of his boots
echoing as if he was trying to drive every step into the stone. Some of the Children bowed deeply as he passed.

From a narrow window high above the courtyard Niall watched Valda dismount and speak to young Bornhald, then stalk away in a fury. Valda was always in a fury. Had there been some means to bring the Children home from Tar Valon and leave Valda there, Niall would have jumped at it. The man was a fair enough battle commander, but better suited to rousing mobs. His notion of tactics was the charge, and of strategy—the charge.

Shaking his head, Niall made his way to his audience chamber. He had more important things than Valda to concern him. Morgase was still resisting like an army on the heights with water and high morale. She refused to admit she held a valley floor with no way out, and it was her enemy who had the heights.

Balwer rose from his table as Niall entered the anteroom. “Omerna was here, my Lord. He left these for you.” Balwer touched a sheaf of papers tied with a red ribbon on the table. “And this.” Thin lips tightened as he drew a tiny bone tube from his pocket.

Niall took the tube with a mutter and stumped into the inner room. Omerna was becoming more useless every day, for some reason. Leaving his reports with Balwer was bad enough, nonsense as they were, but even Omerna knew better than to hand one of these tubes with three red stripes to anyone but Niall himself. He held the tube close to a lamp to examine the wax. Unbroken, before his thumbnail pierced it. He would have to light a fire under Omerna, put the fear of the Light into him. The fool was no good as a decoy unless he played the consummate spymaster as far as he was able.

The message was from Varadin again, Niall’s private cipher in that mad, spidery scrawl on a strip of thin paper. He almost burned it unread; then something at the end caught his eye. Beginning at the beginning, he consciously worked the cipher in his mind. He wanted to be absolutely sure. Just as before, it was gibberish about Aes Sedai on leashes and strange beasts, but right at the last. . . . Varadin had helped Asidim Faisar find a hiding place in Tanchico; he would try to smuggle Faisar out, but the Forerunners kept such a guard that a whisper could not pass the walls without permission.

Niall rubbed his chin in thought. Faisar was one of those he had sent to Tarabon to see if anything could be salvaged. Faisar knew nothing of
Varadin, and Varadin should know nothing of Faisar. The Forerunners kept a such a guard that not a whisper could pass the walls. A madman’s scrawl.

Stuffing the paper into his pocket, he returned to the anteroom. “Balwer, what is the latest from the west?” Between them, “the west” always meant the border with Tarabon.

“No change from before, my Lord. Patrols that penetrate very deeply into Tarabon do not return. The worst trouble near the border is refugees trying to cross.”

Patrols that penetrated too deeply. Tarabon was a pit writhing with poisonous vipers and rabid rats, but. . . . “How quickly could you get a courier to Tanchico?”

Balwer did not even blink. The man would not show surprise if one day his horse spoke to him. “The problem will be fresh horses once he crosses the border, my Lord. Normally, I would say twenty days there and back, perhaps a few less with luck. Now, twice that, with luck. Maybe twice that just to reach Tanchico.” A pit that could swallow a courier and not even leave bones behind.

There would be no need for a return, but Niall kept that to himself. “Let it be arranged, Balwer. I will have a letter ready in an hour. I will speak to the courier myself.” Balwer bowed his head in assent, but dry-washed his hands at the same time, insulted. Let him be. There was a small chance this could be done without exposing Varadin. Unnecessary precaution if he was insane, of course, but if not. . . . Revealing him would not make anything happen faster.

Back in the audience chamber, Niall studied Varadin’s message once more before holding the slip in a lamp flame, watching it catch. He crumpled the ash between his fingers.

He had four rules concerning action and information. Never make a plan without knowing as much as you can of the enemy. Never be afraid to change your plans when you receive new information. Never believe you know everything. And never wait to know everything. The man who waited to know everything was still sitting in his tent when the enemy burned it over his head. Niall followed those rules. Only once in his life had he abandoned them to follow a hunch. At Jhamara, for no reason but a tickling at the back of his head, he had set a third of his army to watch mountains all said were impassable. While he maneuvered the rest of his forces to crush the Murandians and Altarans, an Illianer army that was supposed to be a hundred miles away came out of those “impassable”
passes. The only reason he managed to withdraw without being crushed was a “feeling.” And now he felt that tickling again.

“I do not trust him,” Tallanvor said firmly. “He reminds me of a young sharp I saw at the fair once, a baby-faced fellow who could look you in the eye and grin while he was palming the pea from under its cup.”

For once Morgase had no difficulty holding her temper. Young Paitr had reported that his uncle had finally found a way to smuggle her out of the Fortress of the Light, her and the others. The others had been the rub; Torwyn Barshaw had claimed himself able to get her out alone long since, but she would not leave them behind to the mercies of the Whitecloaks. Not even Tallanvor.