The Great Hunt (The Wheel of Time #2)

“I do not think you need worry about Taim,” Moiraine said absently. It was a link with Toman Head, however small and tenuous. “He will be dealt with as Logain was. What of Shadar Logoth?”

“Shadar Logoth!” Vandene snorted. “In brief, the city was destroyed by its own hate, every living thing except Mordeth, the councilor who began it all, using the tactics of the Darkfriends against the Darkfriends, and he now lies trapped there waiting for a soul to steal. It is not safe to enter, and nothing in the city is safe to touch. But every novice close to being Accepted knows as much as that. In full, you will have to stay here a month and listen to Adeleas lecture — she has the true knowledge of it — but even I can tell you there's nothing of the Dragon in it. That place was dead a hundred years before Yurian Stonebow rose from the ashes of the Trolloc Wars, and he lies closest to it in history of all the false Dragons.”

Moiraine raised a hand. “I did not speak clearly, and I do not speak of the Dragon, now, Reborn or false. Can you think of any reason why a Fade would take something that had come from Shadar Logoth?”

“Not if it knew the thing for what it was. The hate that killed Shadar Logoth was hate they thought to use against the Dark One; it would destroy Shadowspawn as surely as it would those who walk in the Light. They rightly fear Shadar Logoth as much as we.”

“And what can you tell me of the Forsaken?”

“You do leap from subject to subject. I can tell you little more than you learned as a novice. No one knows much more of the Nameless than that. Do you expect me to ramble on with what we both learned as girls?”

For an instant, Moiraine was silent. She did not want to say too much, but Vandene and Adeleas had more knowledge their fingertips than existed anywhere else but the White Tower, amore complications awaited her there than she cared to deal with now. She let the name slip between her lips as if it were escaping. “Lanfear.”

“For once,” the other woman sighed, “I know not a whit more than I did as a novice. The Daughter of the Night remains as much a mystery as if she truly had cloaked herself in darkness.” She paused, peering into her cup, and when she looked up, her eyes were sharp on Moiraine's face. “Lanfear was linked to the Dragon, to Lews Therin Telamon. Moiraine, do you have some clue as to where the Dragon will be Reborn? Or was Reborn? Has he come already?”

“If I did,” Moiraine replied levelly, “would I be here, instead of in the White Tower? The Amyrlin knows as much as I, that I swear. Have you received a summons from her?”

“No, and I suppose we would. When the time comes that we must face the Dragon Reborn, the Amyrlin will need every sister, every Accepted, every novice who can light a candle unguided.” Vandene's voice lowered, musing. “With such power as he will wield, we must overwhelm him before he has a chance to use it against us, before he can go mad and destroy the world. Yet first we must let him face the Dark One.” She laughed mirthlessly at the look on Moiraine's face. “I am not a Red. I've studied the Prophecies enough to know we dare not gentle him first. If we can gentle him. I know as well as you, as well as any sister who cares to find out, that the seals holding the Dark One in Shayol Ghul are weakening. The Illianers call the Great Hunt of the Horn. False Dragons abound. And two of them, Logain and now this fellow in Saldaea, able to channel. When was the last time the Reds found two men channeling in less than a year? When did they last find one in five years? Not in my lifetime, and I am a good deal older than you. The signs are everywhere. Tarmon Gai'don is coming. The Dark One will break free. And the Dragon will be Reborn.” Her cup rattled as she set it down. “I suppose that is why I feared you might have seen some sign of him.”

“He will come,” Moiraine said smoothly, “and we will do what must be done.”“If I thought it would do any good, I'd pull Adeleas's nose out of her book and set off for the White Tower. But I find I am glad to be here where I am instead. Perhaps we will have time to finish our history.”

“I hope that you will, Sister.”

Vandene rose to her feet. “Well, I have tasks to be about before bed. If you have no more questions, I will leave you to your studies.” But she paused and revealed that however long she had spent with books, she was still of the Green Ajah. “You should do something about Lan, Moiraine. The man is rumbling inside worse than Dragonmount. Sooner or later, he will erupt. I've known enough men to see when one is troubled with a woman. You two have been together a long time. Perhaps he has finally come to see you are a woman as well as Aes Sedai.”

“Lan sees me as what I am, Vandene. Aes Sedai. And still as a friend, I hope.”

“You Blues. Always so ready to save the world that you lose yourselves.”

After the whitehaired Aes Sedai left, Moiraine gathered her cloak and, muttering to herself, went into the garden. There was something in what Vandene had said that tugged at her mind, but she could not remember what it was. An answer, or a hint to an answer, for a question she had not asked — but she could not bring the question to mind, either.

The garden was small, like the house, but neat even in moonlight aided by the yellow glow from the cottage windows, with sandy walks between careful beds of flowers. She settled her cloak loosely on her shoulders against the soft coolness of the night. What was the answer, and what was the question?

Sand crunched behind her, and she turned, thinking it was Lan.

A shadow loomed dimly only a few paces from her, a shadow that appeared to be a tootall man wrapped in his cloak. But the face caught the moon, gauntcheeked, pale, with black eyes too big above a puckered, redlipped mouth. The cloak opened, unfolding into great wings like a bat's.

Knowing it was too late, she opened herself to saidar, but the Draghkar began to croon, and its soft hum filled her, fragmenting her will. Saidar slipped away. She felt only a vague sadness as she stepped toward the creature; the deep crooning that drew her closer suppressed feeling. White, white hands — like a man's hands, but tipped with claws — reached for her, and lips the color of blood curved in a travesty of a smile, baring sharp teeth, but dimly, so dimly, she knew it would not bite or tear. Fear the Draghkar's kiss. Once those lips touched her, she would be as good as dead, to be drained of soul, then of life. Whoever found her, even if they came as the Draghkar let her fall, would find a corpse without a mark and cold as if dead two days. And if they came before she was dead, what they found would be worse, and not really her at all any longer. The croon pulled her within reach of those pale hands, and the Draghkar's he