As the Amyrlin strode around in front of the table, Min set down her bundle and began an awkward curtsy, muttering irritably under her breath at having to do so. Not that she wanted to be disrespectful — that did not even occur to one facing a woman like Siuan Sanche — but the bow she usually would have made seemed foolish in a dress, and she had only a rough idea of how to curtsy.
Halfway down, with her skirts already spread, she froze like a crouching toad. Siuan Sanche was standing there as regal as any queen, and for a moment she was also lying on the floor, naked. Aside from her being in only her skin, there was something odd about the image, but it vanished before Min could say what. It was as strong a viewing as she had ever seen, and she had no idea what it meant.
“Seeing things again, are you?” the Amyrlin said. “Well, I can certainly make use of that ability of yours. I could have used it all the months you were gone. But we'll not talk of that. What's done is done. The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills.” She smiled a tight smile. “But if you do it again, I'll have your hide for gloves. Stand up, girl. Leane forces enough ceremony on me in a month to last any sensible woman a year. I don't have time for it. Not these days. Now, what did you just see?”
Min straightened slowly. It was a relief to be back with someone who knew of her talent, even if it was the Amyrlin Seat herself. She did not have to hide what she saw from the Amyrlin. Far from it. “You were... You weren't wearing any clothes. I... I don't know what it means, Mother.”
Siuan barked a short, mirthless laugh. “No doubt that I'll take a lover. But I have no time for that, either. There's no time for winking at the men when you're busy bailing the boat.”
“Maybe,” Min said slowly. It could have meant that, though she doubted it. “I just do not know. But, Mother, I've been seeing things ever since I walked into the Tower. Something bad is going to happen, something terrible.”
She started with the Aes Sedai in the entry hall and told everything she had seen, as well as what everything meant, when she was sure. She held back what Gawyn had said, though, or most of it; it was no use telling him not to anger the Amyrlin if she did it for him. The rest she laid out as starkly as she had seen it. Some of her fear came out as she dredged it all up, seeing it all again; her voice shook before she was done.
The Amyrlin's expression never changed. “So you spoke with young Gawyn,” she said when Min finished. “Well, I think I can convince him to keep quiet. And if I remember Sahra correctly, the girl could do with some time working in the country. She'll spread no gossip hoeing a vegetable patch.”
“I don't understand,” Min said. “Why should Gawyn keep quiet? About what? I told him nothing. And Sahra... ? Mother, perhaps I didn't make myself clear. Aes Sedai and Warders are going to die. It has to mean a battle. And unless you send a lot of Aes Sedai and Warders off somewhere — and servants, too; I saw servants dead and injured, too — unless you do that, that battle will be here! In Tar Valon!”
“Did you see that?” The Amyrlin demanded. “A battle? Do you know, with your... your talent, or are you guessing?”
“What else could it be? At least four Aes Sedai are as good as dead. Mother, I've only laid eyes on nine of you since coming back, and four are going to die! And the Warders.... What else could it be?”
“More things than I like to think of,” Siuan said grimly. “When? How long before this... thing... occurs?”
Min shook her head. “I do not know. Most of it will happen in the space of a day,, maybe two, but that could be tomorrow or a year from now. Or ten.”
“Let us pray for ten. If it comes tomorrow, there isn't much I can do to stop it.”
Min grimaced. Only two Aes Sedai besides Siuan Sanche knew of what she could do: Moiraine, and Verin Mathwin, who had tried to study her talent. None of them knew how it worked any more than she did, except that it had nothing to do with the Power. Perhaps that was why only Moiraine seemed able to accept the fact that when she knew what a viewing meant, it happened.
“Maybe it's the Whitecloaks, Mother. They were everywhere in Alindaer when I crossed the bridge.” She did not believe the Children of the Light had anything to do with what was coming, but she was reluctant to say what she believed.
Believed, not knew; yet that was bad enough.
But the Amyrlin had begun shaking her head before she finished. “They would try something if they could, I've no doubt — they would love to strike at the Tower — but Eamon Valda won't move openly without orders from the Lord Captain Commander, and Pedron Niall will not strike unless he thinks we're injured. He knows our strength too well to be foolish. For a thousand years the Whitecloaks have been like that. Silverpike in the reeds, waiting for a hint of Aes Sedai blood in the water. But we've showed them none yet, nor will we, if I can help it.”
“Yet if Valda did try something on his own — ”
Siuan cut her off. “He has no more than five hundred men close to Tar Valon, girl. He sent the rest away weeks ago, to cause trouble elsewhere. The Shining Walls held off the Aiel. And Artur Hawkwing, too. Valda will never break into Tar Valon unless the city is already falling apart from the inside.” Her voice did not change as she went on. “You very much want me to believe the trouble will come from the Whitecloaks. Why?” There was no gentleness in her eyes.
“Because I want to believe it,” Min muttered. She licked her lips and spoke the words she did not want to say. “The silver collar I saw on that one Aes Sedai. Mother, it looked.... It looked like one of the collars the... the Seanchan use to... to control women who can channel.” Her voice dwindled as Siuan's mouth twisted with distaste.
“Filthy things,” the Amyrlin growled. “As well most people don't believe a quarter of what they hear about the Seanchan. But there's more chance of it being the Whitecloaks. If the Seanchan land again, anywhere, I will know it in days by pigeon, and it is a long way from the sea to Tar Valon. If they do reappear, I will have plenty of warning. No, I fear what you see is something far worse than the Seanchan. I fear it can only be the Black Ajah, Only a handful of us know about them, and I don't relish what will happen when the knowledge becomes common, but they are the greatest immediate threat to the Tower.”
Min realized she was clutching her skirt so hard that her hands hurt; her mouth was dry as dust. The White Tower had always coldly denied the existence of a hidden Ajah, dedicated to the Dark One. The surest way to anger an Aes Sedai was merely to mention such a thing. For the Amyrlin Seat herself to give the Black Ajah reality so casually made Min's spine turn to ice.
As if she had said nothing out of the ordinary, the Amyrlin went on. “But you didn't come all this way just to do your viewings. What word from Moiraine? I know everything from Arad Doman to Tarabon is in chaos, to say the least.” That was saying the least, indeed; men supporting the Dragon Reborn were fighting those opposing him, and had turned both countries to civil war while they still fought each other for control of Almoth Plain. Siuan's tone dismissed all that as a detail. “But I've heard nothing of Rand al'Thor for months. He is the focus of everything. Where is he? What does Moiraine have him doing? Sit, girl. Sit.” She gestured to the chair in front of the table.
Min approached the chair on wobbly legs and half fell into it. The Black Ajah! Oh, Light! Aes Sedai were supposed to stand for the Light. Even if she did not really trust them, there was always that. Aes Sedai, and all the power of the Aes Sedai, stood for the Light and against the Shadow. Only now it was not true any longer. She hardly heard herself say, “He's on his way to Tear.”
“Tear! It's Callandor, then. Moiraine means him to take the Sword That Cannot Be Touched out of the Stone of Tear. I swear I'll hang her in the sun to dry! I will make her wish she were a novice again! He cannot be ready for that yet!”
“It was not....” Min stopped to clear her throat. “It was not Moiraine's doing. Rand left in the middle of the night, by himself. The others followed, and Moiraine sent me to tell you. They could be in Tear by now. For all I know, he could have Callandor by now.”
“Burn him!” Siuan barked. “By now, he could be dead! I wish he had never heard a word of the Prophecies of the Dragon. If I could keep him from hearing another, I would.”
“But doesn't he have to fulfill the Prophecies? I don't understand”
The Amyrlin leaned back against her table wearily. “As though anyone even understands most of them! The Prophecies aren't what makes him the Dragon Reborn; all that takes is for him to admit it, and he must have if he is going for Callandor. The Prophecies are meant to announce to the world who he is, to prepare him for what is coming, to prepare the world for it. If Moiraine can keep some control over him, she will guide him to the Prophecies we can be sure of — when he is ready to face them! — And for the rest, we trust that what he does is enough. We hope. For all I know, he has already fulfilled Prophecies none of us understands. The Light send it's enough.”
“So you do mean to control him. He said you'd try to use him, but this is the first I've heard you admit it.” Min felt cold inside. Angry, she added, “You haven't done such a good job of it so far, you and Moiraine.”
Siuan's tiredness seemed to slide from her shoulders. She straightened and stood looking down at Min. “You had best hope we can. Did you think we could just let him run about loose? Headstrong and stubborn, untrained, unprepared, maybe going mad already. Do you think we could trust to the Pattern, to his destiny, to keep him alive, like some story? This isn't a story, he isn't some invincible hero, and if his thread is snipped out of the Pattern, the Wheel of Time won't notice his going, and the Creator will produce no miracles to save us: If Moiraine cannot reef his sails, he very well may get himself killed, and where are we then? Where is the world? The Dark One's prison is failing. He will touch the world again; it is only a matter of time. If Rand al'Thor is not there to face him in the Last Battle, if the headstrong young fool gets himself killed first, the world is doomed. The War of the Power all over again, with no Lews Therin and his Hundred Companions, Then fire and shadow, forever.” She stopped suddenly, peering at Min's face. “So that's the way the wind sets, is it? You and Rand. I did not expect this.”
Min shook her head vigorously, felt her cheeks coloring. “Of course not! I was... It's the Last Battle. And the Dark One... Light, just thinking about the Dark One loose ought to be enough to freeze a Warder's marrow. And the Black Ajah —”
“Don't try to dissemble,” the Amyrlin said sharply. “Do you think this is the first time I ever saw a woman afraid for her man's life? You might as well admit it.”
Min squirmed on her chair. Siuan's eyes dug at her, knowing and impatient. “All right,” she muttered finally, “I'll tell you all of it, and much good it does either of us. The first time I ever saw Rand, I saw three women's faces, and one of them was mine. I've never seen anything about myself before or since, but I knew what it meant. I was going to fall in love with him. Al
