The Fires of Heaven (The Wheel of Time #5)

Wondering who it could be, Liandrin started for the nearest of the curving staircases. She knew few others of the Black Ajah, of course, for safety's sake; what others did not know, they could not betray. In the Tower she had known only one of the twelve who went with her when she left. Two of the twelve were dead, and she knew at whose feet to lay the blame. Egwene al'Vere, Nynaeve al'Meara, and Elayne Trakand. Everything had gone so badly in Tanchico that she would have thought those three upstart Accepted had been there, except that they were fools who had twice walked tamely into traps she had set. That they had escaped each was of no consequence. Had they been in Tanchico, they would have fallen into her hands, whatever Jeaine claimed to have seen. The next time she found them, they would never escape anything again. She would be done with them whatever her orders.

“My Lady,” Amellia stammered. “My husband, my Lady. Jorin. Please, will one of you help him? He did not mean it, my Lady. He has learned his lesson.”

Liandrin paused with one hand on the carved banister, looking back over her shoulder. “He should not have thought that his oaths to the Great Lord could be conveniently forgotten, no?”

“He has learned, my Lady. Please. He lies beneath blankets all day — in this heat — shivering. He weeps when anyone touches him, or speaks above a whisper.”

Liandrin paused as if considering, then nodded graciously. “I will ask Chesmal to see what she can do. Yet you understand that I make no promises.” The woman's unsteady thanks followed her up, but she paid them no mind. Temaile had let herself be carried away. She had been Gray Ajah before becoming Black, and she always made a point of spreading the pain evenly when she mediated; she had been very successful as a mediator, for she liked spreading pain. Chesmal said he might be able to do small tasks in a few months, so long as they were not too hard and no one raised a voice. She had been one of the best Healers in generations among the Yellow, so she should know.

The front withdrawing room startled her when she went in. Nine of the ten Black sisters who had come with her stood around the room against the carved and painted paneling, though there were plenty of silkcushioned chairs on the goldfringed carpet. The tenth, Temaile Kinderode, was handing a delicate porcelain cup of tea to a darkhaired, sturdily handsome woman in a bronzecolored gown of unfamiliar cut. The seated woman looked vaguely familiar, though she was not Aes Sedai; she was plainly approaching her middle years, and despite smooth cheeks there was nothing of agelessness about her.

Yet the mood made Liandrin cautious. Temaile was deceptively fragile in appearance, with big, childlike blue eyes that made people trust her, those eyes appeared worried now, or uneasy, and the teacup rattled on the saucer before the other woman took it. Every face looked uneasy, except that of the oddly familiar woman. Copperyskinned Jeaine Caide, in one of those disgusting Domani garments that she wore inside the house, had tears still glistening on her cheeks; she had been a Green, and liked flaunting herself in front of men even more than most Greens. Rianna Andomeran, once White and always a coldly arrogant killer, nervously kept touching the pale streak in her black hair above her left ear. Her arrogance had been flattened.

“What has happened here?” Liandrin demanded. “Who are you, and what —?” Suddenly the memory flashed into her head. A Darkfriend, a servant in Tanchico who had continually gotten above herself. “Gyldin!” she snapped. This servant had followed them in some fashion and obviously was trying to pass herself off as a Black courier with some dire news. “You have overstepped yourself too far this time.” She reached to embrace saidar, yet even as she did the glow surrounded the other woman, and Liandrin's reach ran into a thick invisible wall shutting her away from the Source. It hung there like the sun, tantalizingly out of reach.

“Stop gaping, Liandrin,” the woman said calmly. “You look like a fish. It is not Gyldin, but Moghedien. This tea needs more honey, Temaile.” The slender, foxfaced woman darted to take the cup, breathing heavily.

It had to be so. Who else could have so cowed the others? Liandrin looked at them standing around the walls. Roundfaced Eldrith Jhondar, for once not looking vague at all despite an ink smudge on her nose, nodded vigorously. The others seemed afraid to twitch. Why one of the Forsaken — they were not supposed to use that name, but usually did, among themselves — why Moghedien would have masqueraded as a servant, she could not understand. The woman had or could have everything that she herself wanted. Not just knowledge of the One Power beyond her dreams, but power. Power over others, power over the world. And immortality. Power for a lifetime that would never end. She and her sisters had speculated on dissension among the Forsaken; there had been orders at odds with each other, and orders given to other Darkfriends at odds with theirs. Perhaps Moghedien had been hiding from the rest of the Forsaken.

Liandrin spread her divided riding skirts as best she could in a deep curtsy. “We welcome you, Great Mistress. With the Chosen to lead us, we shall surely triumph before the Day of the Great Lord's Return.”

“Nicely said,” Moghedien said dryly, taking the cup back from Temaile. “Yes, this is much better.” Temaile looked absurdly grateful, and relieved. What had Moghedien done?

Suddenly a thought came to Liandrin, an unwelcome one. She had treated one of the Chosen as a servant. “Great Mistress, in Tanchico I did not know that you —”

“Of course you did not,” Moghedien said irritably. “What good to bide my time in the shadows if you and these others knew me?” Abruptly a small smile appeared on her lips; it touched nothing else. “Are you worried about those times you sent Gyldin to the cook to be beaten?” Sweat beaded suddenly on Liandrin's face. “Do you truly believe I would allow such a thing? The man no doubt reported to you, but he remembered what I wanted him to remember. He actually felt sorry for Gyldin, so cruelly treated by her mistress.” That seemed to amuse her greatly. “He gave me some of the desserts that he made for you. It would not displease me if he still lives.”

Liandrin drew a relieved breath. She would not die. “Great Mistress, there is no need to shield me. I also serve the Great Lord. I swore my oaths as a Darkfriend before ever I went to the White Tower. I sought the Black Ajah from the day that I knew that I could channel.”

“So you will be the only one in this illordered pack who does not need to learn who her mistress is?” Moghedien quirked an eyebrow. “I would not have thought it of you.” The glow around her vanished. “I have tasks for you. For all of you. Whatever you have been doing, you will forget. You are an inept lot, as you proved in Tanchico. With my hand on the dog whip, perhaps you will hunt