The Wheel of Time, page 953
The Banner-General slowed her bay and frowned at the field. At the far end, men were feeding four more of the peculiar animals, holding up large baskets for them to eat from, horned snouts darting and horny mouths gulping. Perrin hated to think what a creature that looked like that might eat. “They should have more raken than this here,” she muttered. “If this is all there are. . . .”
“We take what we can get and go on,” he said. “None, if it comes to that. We already know where the Shaido are.”
“I like to know if anything is coming up behind me,” she told him dryly, picking up the pace again.
At a nearby farm that appeared to have been taken over by the Seanchan, a dozen or so soldiers were dicing at tables set up haphazardly in front of the thatch-roofed house. More were passing in and out of the stone barn, though he saw no sign of horses except for a team hitched to a wagon that was being unloaded of its crates and barrels and jute sacks by a pair of men in rough woolens. At least, Perrin assumed the others were soldiers. Nearly half were women, the men as short as the women for the most part and thin if taller, and none carried a sword, but they all wore close-fitting coats of sky-blue and each had a pair of knives in scabbards sewn to their snug boots. Uniforms implied soldiers.
Mat would be right at home with this lot, he thought, watching them laugh over good tosses and groan over bad. Those colors spun in his head, and for an instant he glimpsed Mat riding off a road into forest followed by a line of mounted folk and packhorses. An instant only, because he dashed the image aside without so much as a thought to why Mat was going into the woods or who was with him. Only Faile mattered. That morning he had tied a fifty-first knot in the leather cord he carried in his pocket. Fifty-one days she had been a prisoner. He hoped she had been a prisoner that long. It would mean she was still alive to be rescued. If she was dead. . . . His hand tightened on the head of the hammer hanging at his belt, tightened until his knuckles hurt.
The Banner-General and Mishima were watching him, he realized, Mishima warily, with a hand hovering near his sword hilt, Tylee thoughtfully. A delicate alliance, and little trust on either side. “For a moment, I thought you might be ready to kill the fliers,” she said quietly. “You have my word. We will free your wife. Or avenge her.”
Perrin drew a shuddering breath and released his hold on the hammer. Faile had to be alive. Alyse had said she was under her protection. But how much protection could the Aes Sedai give when she wore gai’shain white herself? “Let’s be done here. Time is wasting.” How many more knots would he need to tie in that cord? The Light send not many.
Dismounting, he handed Stayer’s reins to Carlon Belcelona, a clean-shaven Tairen with a long nose and an unfortunately narrow chin. Carlon had a habit of fingering that chin as if wondering where his beard had gone, or running a hand over his hair as though wondering why it was tied with a ribbon at the nape of his neck, making a tail that just reached his shoulders. But he gave no more sign of giving up his fool pretense that he was following Aiel ways than the others did. Balwer had given them their instructions, and at least they obeyed those. Most of them were already drifting over to the tables, leaving their mounts in the care of the rest, some producing coin, others offering leather flasks of wine. Which the soldiers were rejecting, strangely, though it seemed anyone with silver was welcome in their games.
Without more than glancing in their direction, Perrin tucked his gauntlets behind his thick belt and followed the two Seanchan inside, tossing back his cloak so his silk coat showed. By the time he came out, Faile’s people—his people, he supposed—would have learned a great deal of what those men and women knew. One thing he had learned from Balwer. Knowledge could be very useful, and you never knew which scrap would turn out worth more than gold. For the moment, though, the only knowledge he was interested in would not come from this place.
The front room of the farmhouse was filled with tables facing the door, where clerks sat poring over papers or writing. The only sound was the scritching of pen on paper and a man’s dry persistent cough. The men wore coats and breeches of dark brown, the women dresses in the exact same shade. Some wore pins, in silver or brass, in the shape of a quill pen. The Seanchan had uniforms for everything, it seemed. A round-cheeked fellow at the back of the room who wore two silver pens on his chest stood and bowed deeply, belly straining his coat, as soon as Tylee entered. Their boots were loud on the wooden floor as they walked back to him between the tables. He did not straighten until they reached his table.
“Tylee Khirgan,” she said curtly. “I would speak with whoever is in command here.”
“As the Banner-General commands,” the fellow replied obsequiously, made another deep bow, and hurried through a door behind him.
The clerk who was coughing, a smooth-faced fellow younger than Perrin who, by his face, might have come from the Two Rivers, began hacking more roughly, and covered his mouth with a hand. He cleared his throat loudly, but the harsh cough returned.
Mishima frowned at him. “Fellow shouldn’t be here if he’s ill,” he muttered. “What if it’s catching? You hear about all sorts of strange sicknesses these days. Man’s hale at sunrise, and by sunfall, he’s a corpse and swollen to half again his size, with no one knowing what he died of. I heard of a woman who went mad in the space of an hour, and everybody who touched her went mad, too. In three days, she and her whole village were dead, those who hadn’t fled.” He made a peculiar gesture, forming an arc with thumb and forefinger, the others curled tightly.
“You know better than to believe rumors, or repeat them,” the Banner-General said sharply, making the same gesture. She seemed unaware she had done so.
The stout clerk reappeared, holding the door for a graying, lean-faced man with a black leather patch hiding the spot where his right eye had been. A puckered white scar ran down his forehead, behind the patch and onto his cheek. As short as the men outside, he wore a coat of darker blue, with two small white bars on his chest, though he had the same sheaths sewn to his boots. “Blasic Faloun, Banner-General,” he said with a bow as the clerk hurried back to his table. “How may I serve you?”
“Captain Faloun, we need to speak in—” Tylee cut off when the man who was coughing surged to his feet, his stool toppling with a clatter.
Clutching his middle, the young man doubled over and vomited a dark stream that hit the floor and broke up into tiny black beetles that went scurrying in every direction. Someone cursed, shockingly loud in what was otherwise dead silence. The young man stared at the beetles in horror, shaking his head to deny them. Wild-eyed, he looked around the room still shaking his head and opened his mouth as if to speak. Instead, he bent over and spewed another black stream, longer, that broke into beetles darting across the floor. The skin of his face began writhing, as though more beetles were crawling on the outside of his skull. A woman screamed, a long shriek of dread, and suddenly clerks were shouting and leaping up, knocking over stools and even tables in their haste, frantically dodging the flitting black shapes. Again and again the man vomited, sinking to his knees, then falling over, twitching disjointedly as he spewed out more and more beetles in a steady stream. He seemed somehow to be getting . . . flatter. Deflating. His jerking ceased, but black beetles continued to pour from his gaping mouth and spread across the floor. At last—it seemed to have gone on for an hour, but could not have been more than a minute or two—at last, the torrent of insects dwindled and died. What remained of the fellow was a pale flat thing inside his clothes, like a wineskin that had been emptied. The shouting went on, of course. Half the clerks were up on the tables that remained upright, men as well as women, cursing or praying or sometimes alternating both at the tops of their lungs. The other half had fled outside. Small black beetles scuttled all across the floor. The room stank of terror.
“I heard a rumor,” Faloun said hoarsely. Sweat beaded on his forehead. He smelled of fear. Not terror, but definitely fear. “From east of here. Only that was centipedes. Little black centipedes.” Some of the beetles scurried toward him, and he backed away with a curse, making the same odd gesture that Tylee and Mishima had.
Perrin crushed the beetles under his boot. They made the hair on the back of his neck want to stand, but nothing mattered except Faile. Nothing! “They’re just borer beetles. You can find them almost anywhere there’s old fallen timber.”
The man jerked, lifted his gaze and jerked again when he saw Perrin’s eyes. Catching sight of the hammer at Perrin’s belt, he darted a quick, startled glance at the Banner-General. “These beetles came from no log. They’re Soulblinder’s work!”
“That’s as may be,” Perrin replied calmly. He supposed Soulblinder was a name for the Dark One. “It makes no difference.” He moved his foot, revealing the crushed carcasses of seven or eight of the insects. “They can be killed. And I have no time to waste on beetles I can crush underfoot.”
“We do need to talk in private, Captain,” Tylee added. Her scent was full of fear, too, yet tightly controlled. Mishima’s hand was locked in that same strange gesture. His fear was almost as well controlled as hers.
Faloun gathered himself visibly, the fear smell fading. It did not go away, yet he had mastery of himself, now. He avoided looking at the beetles, however. “As you say, Banner-General. Atal, get down off that table and have these . . . these things swept out of here. And see that Mehtan is laid out properly for the rites. However he died, he died in service.” The stout clerk bowed before climbing down, gingerly, and again when he was on the floor, but the captain was already turning away. “Will you follow me, Banner-General?”
His study might have been a bedroom originally, but now it held a writing table with flat boxes full of papers and another table, larger, that was covered with maps weighted down by inkwells, stones and small brass figures. A wooden rack against one wall held rolls that appeared to be more maps. The gray stone fireplace was cold. Faloun gestured them to half a dozen mismatched chairs that stood on the bare floor in front of the writing table and offered to send for wine. He seemed disappointed when Tylee refused both. Perhaps he wanted a drink to steady his nerves. A small scent of fright still clung to him.
Tylee began. “I need to replace six raken, Captain, and eighteen morat’raken. And a full company of groundlings. The one I had is somewhere in Amadicia heading west, and beyond finding.”
Faloun winced. “Banner-General, if you lost raken, you know everything has been stripped to the bone because of. . . .” His one eye flickered to Perrin, and he cleared his throat before going on. “You ask for three-quarters of the animals I have left. If you can possibly do with fewer, perhaps only one or two?”
“Four,” Tylee said firmly, “and twelve fliers. I’ll settle for that.” She could make that slurred Seanchan accent sound crisp when she wanted to. “This region is as stable as Seandar by all I hear, but I’ll leave you four.”
“As you say, Banner-General,” Faloun sighed. “May I see the order, please? Everything has to be recorded. Since I lost the ability to fly myself, I spend all my time pushing a pen like a clerk.”
“Lord Perrin?” Tylee said, and he produced the document signed by Suroth from his coat pocket.
That made Faloun’s eyebrows climb higher and higher as he read, and he fingered the wax seal lightly, but he did not question it any more than the Banner-General had. It appeared the Seanchan were accustomed to such things. He appeared relieved to hand it back, though, and wiped his hands on his coat unconsciously. Accustomed to them, but not comfortably so. He studied Perrin, trying to be surreptitious, and Perrin could all but see on his face the question the Banner-General had asked. Who was he, to have such a thing?
“I need a map of Altara, Captain, if you have one,” Tylee said. “I can manage if you don’t, but better if you do. The northwestern quarter of the country is what I’m interested in.”
“You’re favored by the Light, Banner-General,” the man said, bending to pull a roll from the lowest level of the rack. “I have the very thing you want. By accident, it was in with the Amadician maps I was issued. I’d forgotten I had the thing until you mentioned it. Uncommon luck for you, I’d say.” Perrin shook his head slightly. Accident, not ta’veren work. Even Rand was not ta’veren enough to make this happen. The colors whirled, and he splintered them unformed.
Once Faloun had the map spread out on the map table, the corners held down by brass weights in the form of raken, the Banner-General studied it until she had her landmarks fixed. It was large enough to cover the table and showed exactly what she had asked for, along with narrow strips of Amadicia and Ghealdan, the terrain rendered in great detail, with the names of towns and villages, rivers and streams, in very small letters. Perrin knew he was looking at a fine example of the mapmaker’s art, far better than most maps. Could it be ta’veren work? No. No, that was impossible.
“They’ll find my soldiers here,” she drawled, marking a point with her finger. “They’re to leave immediately. One flier to a raken, and no personal items. They fly light, and as fast as possible. I want them there before tomorrow night. The other morat’raken will travel with the groundlings. I hope to be leaving in a few hours. Have them assembled and ready.”
“Carts,” Perrin said. Neald could not make a gateway large enough to accommodate a wagon. “Whatever they bring has to be in carts, not wagons.” Faloun mouthed the word incredulously.
“Carts,” Tylee agreed. “See to it, Captain.”
Perrin could smell an eagerness in the man that he interpreted as a desire to ask questions, but all Faloun said, bowing, was, “As you command, Banner-General, so shall it be done.”
The outer room was in a different sort of turmoil when they left the captain. Clerks darted everywhere, sweeping frantically or beating at the remaining beetles with their brooms. Some of the women wept as they wielded their brooms, some of the men looked as though they wanted to, and the room was still rank with terror. There was no sign of the dead man, but Perrin noticed that the clerks moved around the place where he had lain, refusing to let a foot touch it. They tried not to step on any beetles, either, which made for considerable dancing about on their toes. When Perrin crunched his way toward the outer door, they stopped to stare at him.
Outside, the mood was calmer, but not by much. Tylee’s soldiers still stood by their horses in a row, and Neald was affecting an air of casual indifference, even to yawning and patting his mouth, but the sul’dam was petting the trembling damane and murmuring soothingly, and the blue-coated soldiers, many more than had been there before, stood in a large cluster talking worriedly. The Cairhienin and Tairens rushed to surround Perrin, leading their horses and all talking at once.
“Is it true, my Lord?” Camaille asked, her pale face twisted with worry, and her brother Barmanes said uneasily, “Four men carried out something in a blanket, but they averted their eyes from whatever it was.”
All of them atop one another, all smelling of near panic. “They said he spewed beetles,” and “They said the beetles chewed their way out of him,” and “The Light help us, they’re sweeping beetles out of the door; we’ll be killed,” and “Burn my soul, it’s the Dark One breaking free,” and more that made less sense.
“Be quiet,” Perrin said, and for a wonder, they fell silent. Usually, they were very prickly with him, insisting that they served Faile, not him. Now they stood staring at him, waiting for him to put their fears to rest. “A man did spew up beetles and die, but they’re ordinary beetles you can find in dead timber anywhere. Give you a nasty pinch if you sit on one, but nothing worse. Likely it was the Dark One’s work somehow, true enough, but it has nothing to do with freeing the Lady Faile, and that means it has nothing to do with us. So calm yourselves, and let’s get on about our business.”
Strangely, it worked. More than one cheek reddened, and the smell of fear was replaced—or at least suppressed—by the scent of shame at letting themselves come so near to panic. They looked abashed. As they began mounting, their own natures reasserted themselves, though. First one then another offered boasts of the deeds they would do in rescuing Faile, each wilder than the next. They knew them for wild, because each boast brought laughter from the others, yet the next always tried to make his more outrageous still.
The Banner-General was watching him again, he realized as he took Stayer’s reins from Carlon. What did she see? What did she think she might learn? “What sent all the raken away?” he asked.
“We should have come here second or third,” she replied, swinging up into her saddle. “I still have to acquire a’dam. I wanted to keep believing I had a chance as long as I could, but we might as well get to the heart. That piece of paper faces a real test now, and if it fails, there’s no point to going after a’dam.” A frail alliance, and small trust.
“Why should it fail? It worked here.”
“Faloun’s a soldier, my Lord. Now we must talk with an Imperial functionary.” She imbued that last word with a wealth of scorn. She turned her bay, and he had no choice but to mount and follow.
