Towers of Midnight (103 page)

"I must have time to consult with my advisors," Talana said.

We have her, Oncala thought, smiling. Oncala already knew what the Queen's answer would be. The trick had been to get her to consider action.

Hehyal nodded, and the two of them withdrew. Oncala had to keep herself from yelling in victory. If Andor entered the war, the other nations would as well, particularly those in the Pact of the Griffin and those in the Court of the Sun. They looked to the Andoran Queen much as the other Aiel clans looked to Oncala. The blood of Rand al'Thor held much weight.

"Is this tight?" Hehyal asked as they walked, their spears surrounding them to keep away prying ears.

Oncala started. "It was your plan."

He nodded, frowning.

Nothing he had said to the Queen had been unttue. Their honor was unsoiled. However, Hehyal had left out one of the sheets they'd discovered. That one had explained that the other sheets were contingency plans.

The descriptions of Andor's military forces, suggestions on how to use gateways and dragons to attack Caemlyn, the very plot to assassinate Queen Talana
 
these had been drawn up only in case Andor entered the war. They were meant as a preemptive study on a potential enemy, not an actual plan to attack.

It was virtually the same thing. The Seanchan were snakes. They would seize Andor eventually, and by then the Aiel might be unable to help. If this war went badly, her people would go to the Three-fold Land and leave the foolish wetlanders to be conquered. The Seanchan would find it impossible to fight the Aiel in their homeland.

Much better for Queen Talana to enter the war now. For her own good, it was best she never saw that other sheet.

"It is done," Hehyal said. "There is no room for question now."

Oncala nodded. The Seanchan would fall, and the Aiel would take their rightful place. The blood of the Dragon Reborn was in her veins. She deserved to rule.

It would not be the Raven Empire that rose at the end of this all, but the Dragon Empire.

"I don't want to go on," Aviendha said to the empty forest of glass.

The breeze had fallen still. Her comment was met with silence. Her teats had marked the dust by het feet, like fallen drops of rain.

"That . . . creature had no honor," she said. "She has ruined us."

The worst part was, the woman
 
Oncala
 
had thought of her mother's mother. Her greatmother. Inside Ocala's head, there had been a face attached to that title. Aviendha had recognized it.

As her own.

Cringing, closing her eyes, she stepped forward into the very center of the radiant columns.

She was Padra, daughter of the Dragon Reborn, proud Maiden of the Spear. She yanked her weapon from the neck of a dying Seanchan, then watched the rest flee through their gateway.

Light curse the one who taught the Seanchan Traveling, Padra thought. Even if their weaves aren't very elegant.

She was convinced that no living person understood the One Power as she and her siblings did. She'd been able to weave since she'd been a child, and her brothers and sister were the same. To them, it was natural, and all others who channeled seemed awkward by comparison.

She was careful not to speak that way. Aes Sedai and Wise Ones didn't like being reminded of their shortcomings. It was true nonetheless.

Padra joined her spear-sisters. They left one of their number dead on the grass, and Padra mourned for her. Tarra, of the Taardad Aiel. She would be remembered. But honor was theirs, for they had slain eight Seanchan soldiers.

She wove a gateway
 
for her, it happened as fast as she could think. She held the One Power perpetually, even while she slept. She'd never known what it was like not to have that comforting, surging Power in the back of her mind. Others said they feared being consumed by it, but how was that possible? Saidar was a piece of her, like her arm or her leg. How could one be consumed by one's own flesh, bone and blood?

The gateway led to the Aiel camp in the land called Arad Doman. The camp wasn't a city; Aiel didn't have cities. But it was a very large camp, and it had not moved in almost a decade. Padra strode across the grass, and Aiel in cadin'sor showed her deference. Padra and her siblings, as children of the Dragon, had become . . . something to the Aiel.

Not lords
 
that concept made her sick. But she was more than an ordinary algai'd'siswai. The clan chiefs looked to her and her siblings for advice, and the Wise Ones took special interest in them. They allowed her to channel, though she was not one of them. She could no sooner stop channeling than she could stop breathing.

She dismissed her spear-sisters, then made her way directly to Ronam's tent. The clan chief
 
son of Rhuarc
 
would need to hear her report. She entered and was surprised to see that Ronam was not alone. A group of men sat on the rug, clan chiefs every one. Her siblings were sitting there as well.

"Ah, Padra," Ronam said. "You have returned."

"I can come back another time, Ronam," she said.

"No, you were wanted for this meeting. Sit and share my shade."

Padra bowed her head at the honor he showed her. She sat between Alarch and Janduin, her brothers. Though the four siblings were quadruplets, they looked very dissimilar. Alarch took more after their wetlander side, and had dark hair. Janduin was blond and tall. Beside him sat Marinna, their sister, small of build with a round face.

"I should report," Padra said to Ronam, "that the Seanchan patrol was where we thought. We engaged them."

There were uncomfortable mumbles about that.

"It is not against the Dragon's Peace for them to enter Arad Doman," said Tavalad, clan chief of the Goshien Aiel.

"Nor is it wrong for us to kill them for getting too close, clan chief," Padra replied. "The Aiel are not bound by the Dragon's Peace. If the Seanchan wish to risk inspecting our camp, then they need to know that it is a risk."

Several of the others
 
more than she would have expected
 
nodded at that comment. She glanced at Janduin, and he raised an eyebrow. She covertly raised two fingers. Two Seanchan, dead by her spear. She would have liked to take them captive, but the Seanchan did not deserve to become gai'shain. They also made terrible prisoners. Better to spare them the shame and let them die.

"We should speak what we came to say," said Alalved, chief of the To-manelle Aiel. Padra did a quick count. All eleven chiefs were accounted for, including those who had blood oaths against one another. A meeting like this hadn't been seen in years, not since her father had been preparing for the Last Battle.

"And what did we come to say?" asked one of the others.

Alalved shook his head. "The spears grow restless. The Aiel are not meant to grow fat in lush lands, tending crops. We are warriors."

"The Dragon asked for peace," Tavalad said.

"The Dragon asked others for peace," Alalved replied. "He excluded the Aiel."

"That is true," said Darvin, chief of the Reyn.

"Do we return to raiding one another after all of these years of holding our blood feuds in abeyance?" Ronam asked softly. He was an excellent clan chief, much as Rhuarc had been. Wise, yet not afraid of battle.

"What would be the point?" asked Shedren, chief of the Daryne Aiel.

Others nodded. But that raised a larger problem, one her mother had

often spoken of. What was it to be Aiel, now that theit duty to the past had been fulfilled, their toh as a people cleansed?

"How long can we wait," Alalved said, "knowing that they have Aiel women captive with those bracelets of theirs? It has been years, and they still continue to refuse all offers of payment and bartet! They return our civility with rudeness and insults."

"We ate not meant to beg," said aged Bruan. "The Aiel will soon become milk-fed wetlanders."

All nodded at his words. Wise Bruan had lived through the Last Battle.

"If only the Seanchan Empress . . ." Ronam shook his head, and she knew what he was thinking. The old empress, the one who had ruled during the days of the Last Battle, had been considered a woman of honor by Ronam's father. An understanding had nearly been reached with her, so it was said. But many years had passed since her rule.

"Regardless," Ronam continued, "the spears clash; our people fight when they meet. It is our nature. If the Seanchan won't listen to reason, then what cause do we have to leave them be?"

"This peace of the Dragon's will not last long, anyway," Alalved said. "Skirmishes between the nations are common, though none speak of them. The Car'a'carn required promises of the monatchs, but there is no enforcement. Many wetlanders cannot be held at their word, and I worry that the Seanchan will devour them while they squabble."

There were many nods. Only Darvin and Tavalad did not seem convinced.

Padra held her breath. They had known this was coming. The skirmishes with the Seanchan, the restlessness of the clans. She had dreamed of this day, but feared it as well. Het mother had gained great ji in battle. Padra had had few chances to prove herself.

A war with the Seanchan . . . the prospect invigorated her. But it would also mean much death.

"What say the Dragon's children?" Ronam asked, looking at the four of them.

It still seemed strange that these elders looked to het. She checked on saidar, comfortable in the back of her mind, and drew strength from it. What would she do without it?

"I say that we must reclaim our own who are held by the Seanchan," said Marinna. She was training to become a Wise One.

Alarch seemed uncertain, and he glanced at Janduin. Alarch often deferred to his brother.

"The Aiel must have a purpose," Janduin said, nodding. "We are useless as we are, and we made no promise not to attack. It is a testament to our patience and respect for my fathet that we have waited this long."

Eyes turned to Padra. "They are our enemies," she said.

One by one, the men in the room nodded. It seemed such a simple event to end years of waiting.

"Go to your clans." Ronam stood up. "Prepare them."

Padra remained seated as the others said their farewells, some somber, others excited. Seventeen yeats was too long for the Aiel to be without battle.

Soon, the tent was empty save for Padra. She waited, staring at the tug before her. War. She was excited, but another part of her was somber. She felt as if she had set the clans on a path that would change them forever.

"Padra?" a voice asked.

She turned to see Ronam standing in the entryway to the tent. She blushed and stood. Though he was ten years her senior, he was quite handsome. She'd nevet give up the spear, of course, but if she did. . . .

"You seem worried," he said.

"I was simply thinking."

"About the Seanchan?"

"About my father," she replied.

"Ah." Ronam nodded. "I remember when he first came to Cold Rocks Hold. I was very young."

"What was your impression of him?"

"He was an impressive man," Ronam said. "Nothing else?"

He shook his head. "I'm sorry, Padra, but I did not spend much time with him. My path led me elsewhere. I . . . heard things, from my father, though."

She cocked her head.

Ronam turned and looked out the open tent flaps, toward the gteen grass beyond. "My father called Rand al'Thor a clever man and great leader, but one who did not know what to do with the Aiel. I temember him saying that when the Car'a'carn was among us, he did not feel like one of us. As if we made him uncomfortable." Ronam shook his head. "Everyone else was planned for, but the Aiel were left adrift."

"Some say we should have returned to the Three-fold Land," she said.

"No," Ronam said. "No, that would have destroyed us. Our fathers knew nothing of steamhorses or dragon tubes. Were the Aiel to return to the Waste, we would have become irrelevant. The world would pass us by, and we would vanish as a people."

"But war?" Padra said. "Is it right?"

"I do not know," Ronam said softly. "We are Aiel. It is what we know how to do."

Padra nodded, feeling more certain.

The Aiel would ride to war again. And there would be much honor in it.

Aviendha blinked. The sky was dark.

She was exhausted. Her mind was drained, her heart opened
 
as if bleeding out strength with every beat. She sat down in the midst of the dimming columns. Her . . . children. She remembered their faces from her first visit to Rhuidean. She had not seen this. Not that she remembered, at least.

"Is it destined?" she asked. "Can we change it?" There was no answer, of course.

Her tears were dry. How did one react to seeing the utter destruction
 
no, the utter decay
 
of one's people? Each step had seemed logical to the people who took it. But each had taken the Aiel toward their end.

Should anyone have to see such terrible visions? She wished she'd never stepped back into the forest of pillars. Was she to blame for what was to happen? It was her line that would doom her people.