The Great Hunt (49 page)

Their clothes were certainly not Cairhienin. The man wore breeches as baggy as his shirt sleeves, both in a soft yellow, with embroidery on the legs of his breeches and across the chest of his shirt. The woman’s dress, worked elaborately across the breast, seemed a pale green, and her hair was done in a multitude of short braids.

“All is in readiness, you say?” the woman demanded. “You are certain, Tammuz? All?”

The man spread his hands. “Always you check behind me, Aludra. All is in readiness. The display, it could be given this very moment.”

“The gates and doors, they are all barred? All of the . . . ?” Her voice faded as they moved on to the far end of the lighted building.

Rand studied the open area, recognizing almost nothing. In the middle of it, several dozen upright tubes, each nearly as tall as he and a foot or more across, sat on large wooden bases. From each tube, a dark, twisted cord ran across the ground and behind a low wall, perhaps three paces long, on the far side. All around the open space stood a welter of wooden racks with troughs and tubes and forked sticks and a score of other things.

All the fireworks he had ever seen could be held in one hand, and that was as much as he knew, except that they burst with a great roar, or whizzed along the ground in spirals of sparks, or sometimes shot into the air. They always came with warnings from the Illuminators that opening one could cause it to go off. In any case, fireworks were too expensive for the Village Council to have allowed anybody unskilled to open one. He could well remember the time when Mat had tried to do just that; it was nearly a week before anyone but Mat’s own mother would speak to him. The only thing that Rand found familiar at all was the cords—the fuses. That, he knew, was where you set the fire.

With a glance back at the unbarred door, he motioned the others to follow and started around the tubes. If they were going to find a place to hide, he wanted to be as far from that door as he could.

It meant making their way between the racks, and Rand held his breath every time he brushed against one. The things in them shifted with the slightest touch, rattling. All of them seemed to be made of wood, without a piece of metal. He could imagine the racket if one were knocked over. He eyed the tall tubes warily, remembering the bang made by one the size of his finger. If those were fireworks, he did not want to be this close to them.

Loial muttered to himself continually, especially when he bumped one of the racks, then started back so fast that he bumped another. The Ogier crept along in a cloud of clatters and muttering.

Selene was no less unnerving. She strode as casually as if they were on a city street. She did not bump anything, did not make a sound, but she also made no effort to keep the cloak closed. The white of her dress seemed brighter than all the walls together. He peered at the lighted windows, waiting for someone to appear. All it would take was one; Selene could not fail to be seen, the alarm given.

The windows remained empty, though. Rand was just breathing a sigh of relief as they approached the low wall—and the alleys and buildings behind it—when Loial brushed against another rack, standing right beside the wall. It held ten soft-looking sticks, as long as Rand’s arm, with thin streams of smoke rising from their tips. The rack made hardly a sound when it fell, the smoldering sticks sprawling across one of the fuses. With a crackling hiss, the fuse burst into flame, and the flame raced toward one of the tall tubes.

Rand goggled for an instant, then he tried to whisper a shout. “Behind the wall!”

Selene made an angry noise when he bore her to the ground behind the wall, but he did not care. He tried to spread himself over her protectively as Loial crowded beside them. Waiting for the tube to burst, he wondered if there would be anything left of the wall. There was a hollow thump that he felt through the ground as much as heard. Cautiously, he lifted himself off of Selene enough to peer around the edge of the wall. She fisted him in the ribs, hard, and wriggled out from under him with an oath in a language he did recognize, but he was beyond noticing.

A trickle of smoke was leaking from the top of one of the tubes. That was all. He shook his head wonderingly.
If that’s all there is to it. . . .

With a crash like thunder, a huge flower of red and white bloomed high in the now dark sky, then slowly began drifting away in sparkles.

As he goggled at it, the lighted building erupted with noise. Shouting men and women filled the windows, staring and pointing.

Rand longingly eyed the dark alleyway, only a dozen steps away. And the first step would be in full view of the people at the windows. Pounding feet poured from the building.

He pressed Loial and Selene back against the wall, hoping they looked like just another shadow. “Be still and be silent,” he whispered. “It’s our only hope.”

“Sometimes,” Selene said quietly, “if you are very still, no one can see you at all.” She did not sound the least bit worried.

Boots thumped back and forth on the other side of the wall, and voices were raised in anger. Especially the one Rand recognized as Aludra.

“You great buffoon, Tammuz! You great pig, you! Your mother, she was a goat, Tammuz! One day you will kill us all.”

“I am not to blame for this, Aludra,” the man protested. “I have been sure to put everything where it belonged, and the punks, they were—”

“You will not speak to me, Tammuz! A great pig does not deserve to speak like a human!” Aludra’s voice changed in answer to another man’s question. “There is no time to prepare another. Galldrian, he must be satisfied with the rest for tonight. And one early. And you, Tammuz! You will set everything right, and tomorrow you will leave with the carts to buy the manure. Does anything else go wrong this night, I will not trust you again even with so much as the manure!”

Footsteps faded back toward the building to the accompaniment of Aludra’s muttering. Tammuz remained, growling under his breath about the unfairness of it all.

Rand stopped breathing as the man came over to right the toppled stand. Pressed back in the shadows against the wall, he could see Tammuz’s back and shoulder. All the man had to do was turn his head, and he could not miss seeing Rand and the others. Still complaining to himself, Tammuz arranged the smoldering sticks in the stand, then stalked off toward the building where everyone else had gone.

Letting his breath go, Rand took a quick look after the man, then pulled back into the shadows. A few people still stood at the windows. “We can’t expect any more luck tonight,” he whispered.

“It is said great men make their own luck,” Selene said softly.

“Will you stop that,” he told her wearily. He wished the smell of her did not fill his head so; it made it hard to think clearly. He could remember the feel of her body when he pushed her down—softness and firmness in a disturbing blend—and that did not help either.

“Rand?” Loial was peering around the end of the wall away from the lighted building. “I think we need some more luck, Rand.”

Rand shifted to look over the Ogier’s shoulder. Beyond open space, in the alleyway that led to the barless door, three Trollocs were peering cautiously out of the shadows toward the lighted windows. One woman was standing at a window; she did not seem to see the Trollocs.

“So,” Selene said quietly. “It becomes a trap. These people may kill you if they take you. The Trollocs surely will. But perhaps you can slay the Trollocs too quickly for them to make any outcry. Perhaps you can stop the people from killing you to preserve their little secrets. You may not want greatness, but it will take a great man to do these things.”

“You don’t have to sound happy about it,” Rand said. He tried to stop thinking about how she smelled, how she felt, and the void almost surrounded him. He shook it away. The Trollocs did not seem to have located them, yet. He settled back, staring at the nearest dark alleyway. Once they made a move toward it, the Trollocs would surely see, and so would the woman at the window. It would be a race as to whether Trollocs or Illuminators reached them first.

“Your greatness will make me happy.” Despite the words, Selene sounded angry. “Perhaps I should leave you to find your own way for a time. If you’ll not take greatness when it is in your grasp, perhaps you deserve to die.”

Rand refused to look at her. “Loial, can you see if there’s another door down that alley?”

The Ogier shook his head. “There is too much light here and too much dark there. If I were in the alley, yes.”

Rand fingered the hilt of his sword. “Take Selene. As soon as you see a door—
if
you do—call out, and I’ll follow. If there isn’t a door at the end, you will have to lift her so she can reach the top of the wall and climb over.”

“All right, Rand.” Loial sounded worried. “But when we move, those Trollocs will come after us, no matter who is watching. Even if there is a door, they will be on our heels.”

“You let me worry about the Trollocs.”
Three of them. I might do it, with the void.
The thought of
saidin
decided him. Too many strange things had happened when he let the male half of the True Source come close. “I will follow as soon as I can. Go.” He turned to peer around the wall at the Trollocs.

From the corner of his eye, he had an impression of Loial’s bulk moving, of Selene’s white dress, half covered by his cloak. One of the Trollocs beyond the tubes pointed to them excitedly, but still the three hesitated, glancing up at the window where the woman still watched.
Three of them. There has to be a way. Not the void. Not
saidin.

“There is a door!” came Loial’s soft call. One of the Trollocs took a step out of the shadows, and the others followed, gathering themselves. As from a distance, Rand heard the woman at the window cry out, and Loial shouted something.

Without thinking, Rand was on his feet. He had to stop the Trollocs somehow, or they would run him down, and Loial and Selene. He snatched one of the smoldering sticks and hurled himself at the nearest tube. It tilted, started to fall over, and he caught the square wooden base; the tube pointed straight at the Trollocs. They slowed uncertainly—the woman at the window screamed—and Rand touched the smoking end of the stick to the fuse right where it joined the tube.

The hollow thump came immediately, and the thick wooden base slammed against him, knocking him down. A roar like a thunderclap broke the night and a blinding burst of light tore away the dark.

Blinking, Rand staggered to his feet, coughing in thick, acrid smoke, ears ringing. He stared in amazement. Half the tubes and all of the racks lay on their sides, and one corner of the building beside which the Trollocs had stood was simply gone, flames licking at ends of planks and rafters. Of the Trollocs there was no sign.

Through the ringing in his ears, Rand heard shouts from the Illuminators in the building. He broke into a tottering run, lumbered into the alley. Halfway down it he stumbled over something and realized it was his cloak. He snatched it up without pausing. Behind him, the cries of the Illuminators filled the night.

Loial was bouncing impatiently on his feet beside the open door. And he was alone.

“Where is Selene?” Rand demanded.

“She went back, Rand. I tried to grab her, and she slipped right out of my hands.”

Rand turned back toward the noise. Through the incessant sound in his ears, some of the shouts were barely distinguishable. There was light there, now, from the flames.

“The sand buckets! Fetch the sand buckets quickly!”

“This is disaster! Disaster!”

“Some of them went that way!”

Loial grabbed Rand’s shoulder. “You cannot help her, Rand. Not by being taken yourself. We must go.” Someone appeared at the end of the alley, a shadow outlined by the glow of flames behind, and pointed toward them. “Come on, Rand!”

Rand let himself be pulled out of the door into the darkness. The fire faded behind them until it was only a glow in the night, and the lights of the Foregate came closer. Rand almost wished more Trollocs would appear, something he could fight. But there was only the night breeze ruffling the grass.

“I tried to stop her,” Loial said. There was a long silence. “We really couldn’t have done anything. They would just have taken us, too.”

Rand sighed. “I know, Loial. You did what you could.” He walked backwards a few steps, staring at the glow. It seemed less; the Illuminators must be putting out the flames. “I have to help her somehow.”
How?
Saidin?
The Power?
He shivered. “I have to.”

They went through the Foregate by the lighted streets, wrapped in a silence that shut out the gaiety around them.

When they entered The Defender of the Dragonwall, the innkeeper held out his tray with a sealed parchment.

Rand took it, and stared at the white seal. A crescent moon and stars. “Who left this? When?”

“An old woman, my Lord. Not a quarter of an hour gone. A servant, though she did not say from what House.” Cuale smiled as if inviting confidences.

“Thank you,” Rand said, still staring at the seal. The innkeeper watched them go upstairs with a thoughtful look.

Hurin took his pipe out of his mouth when Rand and Loial entered the room. Hurin had his short sword and sword-breaker on the table, wiping them with an oily rag. “You were long with the gleeman, my Lord. Is he well?”

Rand gave a start. “What? Thom? Yes he’s. . . .” He broke open the seal with his thumb and read.

When I think I know what you are going to do, you do something else. You are a dangerous man. Perhaps it will not be long before we are together again. Think of the Horn. Think of the glory. And think of me, for you are always mine.

Again, it bore no signature but the flowing hand itself.

“Are all women crazy?” Rand demanded of the ceiling. Hurin shrugged. Rand threw himself into the other chair, the one sized for an Ogier; his feet dangled above the floor, but he did not care. He stared at the blanket-covered chest under the edge of Loial’s bed.
Think of the glory.
“I wish Ingtar would come.”