The Path of Daggers (The Wheel of Time #8)

“I’ve always thought it best if women with experience handle this sort of thing,” she said finally. “The young can easily be caught up in hot blood. Then they do too much. Or sometimes, they realize they can’t bring themselves to do enough. Because they haven’t really seen enough, yet. Or worst of all, they find a... taste for it. Not that I believe either of you has that flaw.” She gave Aviendha a weighing glance without pausing; Aviendha hastily sheathed her belt knife. “Adeleas and I have seen enough to know why we must do what must be done, and we left hot blood behind long ago. Perhaps you will leave this to us. Much better that way, all around.” Vandene seemed to take the recommendation as accepted. She nodded and turned back toward the door.

No sooner had she disappeared behind it, than Elayne felt the use of the Power within, a weave that must have blanketed the room inside. A ward against eavesdropping, certainly. They would not want stray ears to catch whatever Ispan said. Then another use hit her, and suddenly the silence from within was more ominous than any shrieks that ward would contain.

She crushed her hat back onto her head. The heat she could not feel, but the sun’s glare suddenly made her queasy. “Maybe you’ll help me look over what the packhorses are carrying,” she said breathily. She had not ordered it done — whatever it was — but that did not seem to change anything. Aviendha nodded with surprising quickness; she seemed to want to be away from that silence, too.

The Windfinders were waiting not far from where the servants had the pack animals, waiting impatiently and staring about imperiously, arms folded beneath their breasts, copying Renaile. Alise marched up to them, marking Renaile out as the leader after one sweeping glance. Elayne and Aviendha she ignored.

“Come with me,” she said in brisk tones that brooked no argument. “The Aes Sedai say you will want to be out of the sun until matters are more settled.” The words “Aes Sedai” held as much bitterness as they did the awe Elayne was used to from Kinswomen. Maybe more. Renaile stiffened, her dark face growing darker, but Alise plowed on. “You wilders can sit out here and sweat if that’s what you want, for all of me. If you can sit.” It was obvious none of the Atha’an Miere had received Healing for their saddle soreness; they stood like women who wanted to forget they existed below the waist. “What you will not do is keep me waiting.”

“Do you know who I am?” Renaile demanded in a tight fury, but Alise was already walking away and not looking back. Struggling with herself visibly, Renaile dashed sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand, then angrily ordered the other Windfinders to leave the “shorecursed” horses and follow her. They made a spraddlelegged line wobbling along after Alise, everyone but the two apprentices muttering to herself — Alise included.

Instinctively, Elayne began to plan how to smooth matters over, how to get the Atha’an Miere’s pains Healed without them having to ask. Or a sister having to offer too strenuously; Nynaeve had to be appeased, too, and the other sisters. To her surprise, she suddenly realized that for once in her life she had no real desire to smooth anything. Watching the Windfinders limp toward one of the farm buildings, she decided that matters were fine just as they were. Aviendha wore a large, open grin as she watched the Atha’an Miere. Elayne snatched the much smaller smile from her own face and turned to the packhorses. They did deserve it, though. Not grinning was very hard.

With Aviendha’s help, the searching went more quickly than before, though Aviendha did not recognize what they were after as quickly as she did. Not a great surprise. A few of the sisters Elayne had trained showed a greater skill in this than she did herself, but most came nowhere near. Still, two sets of hands found more than one, and there was a great deal to be found. Liveried stablemen and women carried away the rubbish, while a collection of ter’angreal grew on the broad stone lid of a square cistern.

Four more horses were unloaded quickly, and they accumulated a selection that would have caused a celebration, brought into the Tower. Even with no one studying ter’angreal. They took every form imaginable. Cups and bowls and vases, no two the same size or design or in the same material. A flat, wormeaten box, halffalling apart and whatever had lined it long since gone to dust, held pieces of jewelry — a necklace and bracelets set with colored stones, a slim gemstudded belt, several finger rings — and there were spaces for more. Every single one was a ter’angreal, and they all matched, meant to be worn together, though Elayne could not imagine why any woman would want to carry so many about her at one time. Aviendha found a dagger with gold wire wrapped around a hilt of rough deerhorn; the blade was dull, and by all evidence, always had been. She kept turning that over and over in her fingers — her hands actually began to tremble — until Elayne took it away from her and put it with the others on the cistern’s lid. Even then Aviendha stood for a time, looking at it and licking her lips as though they had gone dry. There were finger rings, earrings, necklaces, bracelets and buckles, many of very peculiar pattern indeed. There were statuettes and figures of birds and animals and people, several knives that did have edges, half a dozen large medallions in bronze or steel, most worked with strange patterns and not one carrying an image Elayne could really understand, a pair of peculiar hats seemingly made of metal, too ornate and too thin to be helmets, and any number of items she could not think what to call. A rod, as thick as her wrist, bright red and smooth and rounded, firm rather than hard for all that it seemed to be stone; it did not warm slightly in her hand, it almost felt hot! Not real heat any more than the warmth was real, but still! What about a set of metal basketwork balls, one inside the other? Any movement produced a faint musical chime, a different tone every time, and she had the feeling that no matter how hard she looked into it, there would always be a still smaller ball waiting to be discovered. A thing that looked like a blacksmith’s puzzle made of glass? It was heavy enough that she dropped it, and it broke a chip off the edge of the cistern cover. A collection to stir amazement in any Aes Sedai. More important, they found two more angreal. Those Elayne set very carefully aside, within arm’s reach.

One was an odd piece of jewelry, a golden bracelet attached by four flat chains to finger rings, every bit of it engraved in an intricate mazelike pattern. That was the stronger of the two, stronger than the turtle still in her pouch. It was made for a smaller hand than hers or Aviendha’s. Strangely, the bracelet had a tiny lock, complete with a minuscule, tubular key dangling from a fine chain that was obviously made to be removed. Along with the key! The other was a seated woman in agedarkened ivory, her legs folded in front of her, her exposed knees bare, but with hair so long and luxuriant she could not have been more muffled in the heaviest cloak. It was not even as strong as the turtle, but she found it very appealing. One hand rested on a knee, palm up and fingers arranged so the thumb touched the tips of the middle two fingers, while the other hand was lifted, the first two fingers raised and the others folded. The whole figure carried an air of supreme dignity, yet the delicately worked face showed amusement and delight. Maybe it had been made for a particular woman? It seemed personal, somehow. Perhaps they had done that, in the Age of Legends. Some ter’angreal were immense, needing men and horses, or even the Power, to move, but most angreal were small enough to carry about your