The building was an inn with nice balconies on the second floor, delicate ironwork patterns on the glass windows, and a darkly stained porch. The door was open, and as she lifted her foot up to step onto the low porch, the boards also turned to powder. She froze, looking down. Naeff stepped up beside her, then knelt down, pinching the dust between his fingers.
“It’s soft,” he said quietly, “as fine a powder as I’ve ever touched.”
The air smelled unnaturally fresh, contrasting strangely with the silent street. Nynaeve took a deep breath, then went into the inn. She had to push forward, walking with the wooden floor at her knees, the boards disintegrating as she touched them.
The inside was dim. The stand-lamps no longer burned. People sat about the room, frozen in midmotion. Most were nobles with fine clothing, the men wearing beards oiled to a point. One sat at a nearby tall table with long-legged chairs. He had a mug of morning ale halfway to his lips. He was motionless, his mouth open to accept the drink.
Naeff’s face was grim, although little seemed to surprise or unsettle Asha’man. As he took another step forward, Nynaeve lunged and grabbed his arm. He frowned at her, and she pointed down. Right in front of him—barely visible beneath the still-whole floorboards right ahead of them—the ground fell away. He’d been about to step into the inn’s cellar.
“Light,” Naeff said, stepping back. He knelt down, then tapped the board in front of him. It fell to dust, showering down into the dark cellar below.
Nynaeve wove Spirit, Air and Water to Delve the man sitting at the chair near her. Normally she would touch someone to Delve them, but she hesitated this time. It would work without touch, but would not be as effective for Healing.
Her Delving found nothing. No life, no sense that he had ever been alive. His body wasn’t even flesh. With a sinking feeling, she Delved other people in the darkened room. A serving maid carrying breakfast toward three Andoran merchants. A corpulent innkeeper, who must have had trouble navigating between the close-set tables. A woman in a rich dress sitting in the very back of the room, primly reading a small book.
There was no life in any of them. These weren’t corpses; they were husks. Fingers trembling, Nynaeve reached out and brushed the shoulder of the man at the high table. He immediately fell to powder, dust showering downward in a puff. The chair and floorboards underneath did not dissolve.
“There is nobody here to save,” Nynaeve said.
“Poor people,” Naeff said. “Light shelter their souls.”
Nynaeve often had trouble feeling pity for the Tairen nobles—of all the people she had met, they seemed among the most arrogant. But nobody deserved this. Besides, a large number of commoners had been caught in this bubble as well.
She and Naeff made their way out of the building, Nynaeve’s frustration mounting as she tugged on her braid. She hated feeling helpless. Like with the poor guard who had started the fire back at the manor house in Arad Doman, or the people who were struck down by strange diseases. The dusty husks this day. What was the good of learning to Heal if she couldn’t help people?
And now she had to leave. Go back to the White Tower. It felt like running away. She turned to Naeff. “Wind,” she said.
“Nynaeve Sedai?”
“Give the building a gust of wind, Naeff,” she said. “I want to see what happens.”
The Asha’man did as she asked, his invisible weaves blowing a jet of air. The entire building burst, shattering into dust that blew away, like the white seeds of a dandelion. Naeff turned to her.
“How wide did they say this bubble was?” she asked.
“About two streets wide in all directions.”
“We need more wind,” she said, beginning a weave. “Create a gust as large as you can. If there is anyone wounded in here, we’ll find them this way.”
Naeff nodded. The two of them strode forward, creating wind. They shattered buildings, causing them to burst and fall. Naeff was far more skilled at the process than she, but Nynaeve was stronger in the One Power. Together, they swept the crumbling buildings, stones and husks before them in a dust storm.
It was exhausting work, but they kept at it. She hoped—against reason—that she might find someone to help. Buildings fell before her and Naeff, the dust getting caught in swirling air. They pushed the dust in a circle, moving inward. Like a woman sweeping the floor.
They passed people frozen on the streets in midstride. Oxen pulling a cart. Heart-wrenchingly, some children playing in an alley. All fell to dust.
They found nobody alive. Eventually, she and Naeff had dissolved all of the broken part of the city and blown the dust into the center. Nynaeve looked at it, kept swirling in place by a small cyclone Naeff had woven. Curious, Nynaeve channeled a tongue of Fire into the cyclone, and the dust caught alight.
Nynaeve gasped; that dust went up like dried paper thrown into a fire, creating a roaring tempest of flames. She and Naeff backed away, but it was over in a flash. It didn’t leave any ash behind.
If we hadn’t gathered it, she thought, watching the fire fade away, someone might have dropped a candle on it. A fire like that…
Naeff stilled his winds. The two of them stood in the center of an open circle of bare earth with periodic holes for cellars. On the edges, buildings had been sliced into, rooms open to the air, some structures having collapsed. It was eerie, to see this hollow area. Like a gouged-out eye socket in an otherwise healthy face.
Several groups of Defenders stood at the perimeter. She nodded to Naeff, and they walked to the largest group. “You didn’t find anyone?” she demanded.
“No, Lady Aes Sedai,” a man said. “Er…well, we did find a few, but they were dead already.”
Another man nodded, a barrel-like fellow whose uniform was very tight. “Seems anyone who had even a toe inside of that ring fell dead. Found a few of them missing only a foot or part of their arm. But they were dead anyway.” The man shuddered visibly.
Nynaeve closed her eyes. The entire world was falling apart, and she was powerless to Heal it. She felt sick and angry.
“Maybe they caused it,” Naeff said softly. She opened her eyes to see him nodding toward the shadows of a building nearby. “The Fades. There are three of them there, Nynaeve Sedai, watching us.”
“Naeff…” she said, frustrated. Telling him the Fades weren’t real didn’t help. I have to do something, she thought. Help someone. “Naeff, stand still.” She took hold of his arm and Delved him. He looked at her, surprised, but didn’t object.
She could see the madness, like a dark network of veins digging into his mind. It seemed to pulse, like a small beating heart. She’d found similar corruption recently in other Asha’man. Her skill with Delving was improving, her weaves more refined, and she could find things once hidden to her. She had no idea how to fix what was wrong, though.
Anything should be Healable, she told herself. Anything but death itself. She concentrated, weaving all Five Powers, and carefully prodded at the madness, remembering what had happened when she’d removed the Compulsion from Graendal’s unfortunate servant. Naeff was better off with this madness than he would be if she damaged his mind further.
Oddly, the darkness did seem similar to Compulsion. Was that what the taint had done? Bent the men who used the One Power with the Dark One’s own Compulsion?
She carefully wove a counterweave opposite the madness, then laid it over Naeff’s mind. The weave just faded away, doing nothing.
She gritted her teeth. That should have worked. But, as seemed so common lately, it had failed.
No, she thought. No, I can’t just sit back. She Delved deeper. The darkness had tiny, thornlike projections stuck into Naeff’s mind. She ignored the people gathering around her, and inspected those thorns. She carefully used weaves of Spirit to pry one free.
It came out with some resistance, and she quickly Healed the spot where it had punctured Naeff’s flesh. The brain seemed to pulse, looking more healthy. One by one, she pried the others free. She was forced to maintain her weaves, holding the barbs back, lest they plunge down again. She began to sweat. She was already tired from sweeping the area clean, and no longer could spare concentration to keep the heat off her. Tear was so muggy.
She continued working, preparing another counterweave. Once she had pried up each and every thorn, she released her new weave. The dark patch undulated and shook, like something alive.
Then it vanished.
Nynaeve stumbled back, drained near to exhaustion. Naeff blinked, then looked around. He raised a hand to his head.
Light! she thought. Did I hurt him? I shouldn’t have barreled into that. I could have—
“They’re gone,” Naeff said. “The Fades…I can’t see them anymore.” He blinked. “Why would Fades be hiding in the shadows anyway? If I could see them, they’d have killed me, and—” He looked at her, focusing. “What did you do?”
“I…I think I just Healed your madness.” Well, she’d done something to it. What she’d done hadn’t been any standard Healing, and hadn’t even used Healing weaves. But it had worked, it seemed.
Naeff smiled deeply, seeming bewildered. He took her hand with both of his, then knelt before her, growing teary-eyed. “For months, I have felt as if I were always being watched. As if I would be murdered the moment I turned my back on the shadows. Now I…Thank you. I need to go find Nelavaire.”
“Off with you, then,” Nynaeve said. Naeff left her in a dash, running back toward the Stone to search out his Aes Sedai.
I can’t let myself begin to think that nothing I do matters. That’s what the Dark One wants. As she watched Naeff hasten away, she noticed that the clouds above were breaking. Rand had returned.
Workers began clearing away the rubble of buildings that had half turned to dust, and Nynaeve ended up speaking soothingly to the worried Tairens who began to cluster around the perimeter. She didn’t want there to be a panic; she assured everyone that the danger was past, and then she asked to meet with any families who had lost someone.
She was still doing this—talking softly with a thin, worried woman—when Rand found her. The woman was a commoner, wearing a high-necked dress with three aprons and a straw hat. Her husband had worked in the inn Nynaeve had entered. The woman kept glancing at the hole in the ground that had been the cellar.
After a moment, Nynaeve noticed Rand, watching her and standing with his arms behind his back, hand clasping his stump. Two Maidens guarded him, a pair of women named Somma and Kanara. Nynaeve finished speaking with the Tairen, but the woman’s tearful eyes wrenched her heart. How would she react, if she lost Lan?
Light protect him. Please, please protect him, she prayed. She unhooked her coin pouch and sent the woman off with it. Perhaps that would help.
Rand stepped up to Nynaeve. “You care for my people. Thank you.”
“I care for any who need it,” Nynaeve said.
“As you’ve always done,” Rand said. “Along with caring for some who don’t need it.”
“Like you?” she said, raising an eyebrow.