"Be quiet", Perrin said. "Turned? What do you mean? Is that . . ".
"Thirteen Myrddraal and thirteen Dreadlords". Lanfear sneered. "Such crudeness. Such a waste".
"I don’t understand".
Lanfear sighed, speaking as if she were explaining to a child. "Those who can channel can be Turned to the Shadow by force in the right circumstances. M’Hael has been having trouble here making the process work as easily as he should. He needs women if he’s going to Turn men easily.
Light, Perrin thought. Did Rand know this could happen to people? Were they planning to do the same thing to him?
"I’d be careful around those two", Lanfear said. "They’re powerful".
"Then you should be speaking more softly", Perrin whispered.
"Bah. It’s easy to bend sound in this place. I could shout for all I'm worth, and they wouldn’t hear. They’re drinking, you see? They brought the wine through with them. They’re here in the flesh, of course. I doubt their leader warned them of the dangers of that".
Perrin looked up at the guards. The two men sipped at their wine, chuckling to one another. As Perrin watched, the first slumped to the side, then the other did as well. They slipped out of their seats and hit the ground.
"What did you do?"
"Forkroot in the wine", Lanfear said.
"Why are you helping me?" Perrin demanded.
"I'm fond of you, Perrin".
"You’re one of the Forsaken!"
"I was", Lanfear said. "That . . . privilege has been removed from me. The Dark One discovered I was planning to help Lews Therin win. Now, I—" She froze, looking toward the sky again. What did she see in those clouds? Something that made her grow pale. She vanished a moment later.
Perrin tried to decide what to do. He couldn’t trust her, of course. However, she was good with the wolf dream. She managed to appear next to him without making any sound at all. That was tougher than it seemed; she had to still the air as it was moved out of the way when she arrived. She had to land just precisely so that she didn’t make noise, and had to mute her clothing’s rustle.
With a start, Perrin realized that this time she’d also been masking her scent. He’d only been able to smell her—her scent was that of soft night lily—after she’d begun speaking to him.
Uncertainly, he crawled out of the pit and approached the shack. Both men were asleep. What happened to men who slept in the dream? Normally, this would have sent them back to the waking world—but they were here in the flesh.
He shivered, thinking of what had been done to them. "Turned"? Was that the word she’d used? Light. It seemed unfair. Not that the Pattern is ever fair, Perrin acknowledged, quickly searching through the hut.
He found the dreamspike driven into the ground under the table. The silvery piece of metal looked like a long tent spike, carved with designs down its length. It was similar to the other one he’d seen, but not exactly the same. He pulled it free, then waited, hand on his hammer, expecting Slayer to come for him.
"He’s not here", Lanfear said.
"Light!" Perrin jumped, hammer raised. He turned. "Why do you keep appearing like that, woman?"
"He searches for me", she said, glancing skyward. "I’m not supposed to be able to do this, and he’s grown suspicious. If he finds me, he’ll know for certain, and I will be destroyed, captured and burned for an eternity".
"You expect me to feel sorry for you, one of the Forsaken?" Perrin snapped.
"I chose my master", she said, studying him. "This is my price—unless I can find a way free of it".
"What?"
"I think you have the best chance", she said. "I need you to win, Perrin, and I need to be at your side when you do".
He snorted. "You haven’t learned any new tricks, have you? Take your offers elsewhere. I’m not interested". He turned the dreamspike over in his fingers. He had never been able to figure out how the other one worked.
"You have to twist it at the top". Lanfear held out a hand.
Perrin eyed her.
"You don’t think I could have taken it on my own if I’d wanted?" she asked, amused. "Who was it who put M’Hael’s little pets down for you?"
He hesitated, then handed it over. She ran her thumb from tip to midlength, and something clicked inside it. She reached up and twisted the head about. Outside, the faint wall of violet shrank and vanished.
She handed it back. "Twist it again to set up the field—the longer you twist, the larger it will grow—then slide your finger in the reverse of what I did to lock it. Be careful. Wherever you set it will have ramifications in the waking world as well as this world, and it will stop even your allies from moving in or out. You can get through with a key, but I do not know it for this spike".
"Thank you", Perrin said grudgingly. At his feet, one of the slumbering men grunted, then rolled to his side. "Is there . . . Is there really no way to resist being Turned? Nothing they can do?"
"A person can resist for a short time", she said. "A short time only. The strongest will fail eventually. If you are a man facing women, they will beat you quickly".
"It shouldn’t be possible", Perrin said, kneeling. "Nobody should be able to force a man to turn to the Shadow. When all else is taken from us, this choice should remain".
"Oh, they have the choice", Lanfear said, idly nudging one with her foot. "They could have chosen to be gentled. That would have removed the weakness from them, and they could never have been Turned".
"That’s not much of a choice".
"This is the weave of the Pattern, Perrin Aybara. Not all options will be good ones. Sometimes you have to make the best of a bad lot and ride the storm".
He looked at her sharply. "And you imply that’s what you did? You joined the Shadow because it was the ‘best’ option? I don’t buy it for a moment. You joined for power. Everyone knows it".
"Think what you will, wolf pup", she said, eyes growing hard. "I’ve suffered for my decisions. I’ve borne pain, agony, excruciating sorrow because of what I’ve done in my life. My suffering goes beyond what you could conceive".
"And of all of the Forsaken", Perrin said, "you chose your place and accepted it most readily".
She sniffed. "You think you can believe stories three thousand years old?"
"Better to trust them than the words of one such as yourself".
"As you wish", she said, then looked down again at the sleeping men. "If it helps you to understand, wolf pup, you should know that many think men like these are killed when the Turning happens. And then something else invades the body. Some think that, at least". She vanished.
Perrin sighed, then tucked the dreamspike away and shifted back to the rooftop. As soon as he appeared, Gaul spun about, drawing an arrow. "Is it you, Perrin Aybara?"
"It’s me".
"I wonder if I should ask for proof", Gaul said, arrow still drawn. "It seems to me that in this place, one could easily change one’s appearance". Perrin smiled. "Appearance isn’t all. I know that you have two gai’shain, one you want, one you do not. Neither seems content to act as proper gai’shain. If we live through this, one might marry you".
"One might", Gaul agreed, lowering his bow. "It’s looking like I’ll have to take both or neither. Perhaps it is punishment for making them put away their spears, though it is not my choice that makes them do so, but their own". He shook his head. "The dome is gone".
Perrin held up the dreamspike. "It is".
"What is our next task?"
"To wait", Perrin said, settling down on the rooftop, "and see if removing the dome draws Slayer’s attention".
"What if it does not?"
"Then we go to the next likely place to find him", Perrin said, rubbing his chin. "And that is wherever there are wolves to kill".
"We heard you!" Canler yelled to Androl amid the firefight. "Burn me if it isn’t true! We were in my shop above and we heard you speak, begging! We decided we had to attack. Now or never".
Weaves exploded through the room. Earth erupted, and Fire shot from Taim’s people at the dais toward the Two Rivers men. Fades slunk across the room with cloaks that did not move, unsheathing swords.
Androl scrambled away from Canler, head low, making for Pevara, Jonneth and Emarin at the side of the room. Canler had heard him? The gateway he’d made, just before Taim heaved him in air. It must have opened, so small he hadn’t been able to see it.
He could make gateways again. But only very small ones. What good was that? Enough to stop Taim’s balefire, he thought, reaching Pevara and the others. None of the three were in a state to fight. He wove a gateway, hitting the wall, pushing to—
Something changed.
The wall vanished.
Androl sat, stunned for a moment. Blasts and explosions in the room assaulted his ears. Canler and the others fought well, but the Two Rivers lads faced fully trained Aes Sedai and maybe one of the Forsaken. They were dropping one by one.
The wall was gone.
Androl stood up slowly, then walked back toward the center of the room. Taim and his people fought on the dais; the weaves coming from Canler and his lads were flagging.
Androl looked to Taim and felt a powerful, overwhelming surge of anger. The Black Tower belonged to the Asha’man, not this man.
It was time for the Asha’man to reclaim it.
Androl roared, raising his hands beside him, and wove a gateway. The power rushed through him. As always, his gateways snapped into place faster than any others, growing larger than a man of his strength should be able to make.
He built this one the size of a large wagon. He opened it facing Taim’s channelers, snapping it in place right as they released their next round of deadly weaves.
The gateway only covered the distance of a few paces, and opened behind them.
Weaves crafted by Taim’s women and men hit the open gateway—which hung before Androl like a haze in the air—then exploded out behind them.
Weaves killed their own masters, burning away Aes Sedai, killing Asha’man and the few remaining Myrddraal. Straining at the exertion, Androl bellowed louder and opened small gateways on Logain’s bonds, snapping them. He opened another one directly in the floor beneath Logain’s chair, dropping it from the room to a place far away from the Black Tower—one that was, the Light send, safe.
The woman called Hessalam fled. As she darted through a gateway of her own, Taim followed with a couple of others. The rest were not so wise—for a moment later, Androl opened a gateway as wide as the floor, dropping the other women and Asha’man through it to plummet hundreds of feet.
CHAPTER 15
Your Neck in a Cord
The Tarasin Palace of Ebou Dar was far from the most difficult place that Mat had broken into. He told himself that over and over again as he dangled outside a balcony three stories above the gardens.