The Fires of Heaven (The Wheel of Time #5) 75

“Just bloody wonderful,” he muttered, and took a long, choking swallow of the rough brandy. Talmanes and Nalesean seemed to think be meant it as said, and Melindhra laughed agreement.

Some fifty or so Tairens and Cairhienin had gathered to watch the two lords speak to him, and they took his drinking as a signal to serenade him, beginning with a verse of their own.

"Well toss the dice however they fall,

and snuggle the girls be they short or tall,

then follow young Mat whenever he calls,

to dance with Jak o' the Shadows."

With a wheezing laugh he could not stop, Mat sank back down onto the boulder and set about emptying the pitcher. There had to be some way out of this. There just had to be.

Rand's eyes opened slowly, staring up at the roof of his tent. He was naked beneath a single blanket. The absence of pain seemed almost startling, yet he felt even weaker than he remembered. And he did remember. He had said things, thought things... His skin went cold. I cannot let him take control. I am me! Me! Fumbling beneath the blanket, he found the smooth round scar on his side, tender yet whole.

“Moiraine Sedai Healed you,” Aviendha said, and he gave a start.

He had not seen her, sitting crosslegged on the layered rugs near the firepit, sipping from a silver cup worked with leopards. Asmodean lay sprawled across tasseled cushions, chin on his arms. Neither appeared to have slept; dark circles underlined their eyes.

“She should not have had to,” Aviendha went on in a cool voice. Tired or not, she had every hair in place, and her neat clothes were a sharp contrast to Asmodean's rumpled dark velvets. Now and then she twisted the ivory bracelet of rosesandthorns that he had given her as if not realizing what she was doing. She wore the silver snowflake necklace, too. She still had not told him who had given it to her, though she had seemed amused when she realized he really wanted to know. She certainly did not look amused now. “Moiraine Sedai herself was near collapse from Healing wounded. Aan'allein had to carry her to her tent. Because of you, Rand al'Thor. Because Healing you took the last of her strength.”

“The Aes Sedai is on her feet already,” Asmodean put in, stifling a yawn. He ignored Aviendha's pointed stare. “She has been here twice since sunrise, though she said you would recover. I think she was not so certain last night. Nor was I.” Pulling his gilded harp around in front of him, he fussed with it, speaking in an idle tone. “I did what I could for you, of course — my life and fortune are tied to yours — but my talents lie elsewhere than Healing, you understand.” He strummed a few notes to demonstrate. “I understand that a man can kill or gentle himself doing what you did. Strength in the Power is useless if the body is exhausted. Saidin can easily kill, if the body is exhausted. Or so I have heard.”

“Are you finished sharing your wisdom, Jasin Natael?” Aviendha's tone was chillier, if anything, and she did not wait for a reply before turning a gaze like bluegreen ice back to Rand. The interruption, it seemed, was his fault. “A man may behave like a fool sometimes, and little is the worse for it, but a chief must be more than a man, and the chief of chiefs more still. You had no right to push yourself near to death. Egwene and I tried to make you come with us when we grew too tired to continue, but you would not listen. You may be as much stronger than we as Egwene claims, yet you are still flesh. You are the Car'a'carn, not a new Seia Doon seeking honor. You have toh, obligation, to the Aiel, Rand al'Thor, and you cannot fulfill it dead. You cannot do everything yourself.”

For a moment he could only gape at her. He had barely managed to do anything at all, had left the battle to others for all practical purposes while he stumbled about trying to be useful. He had not even been able to stop Sammael from striking where and as he chose. And she upbraided him for doing too much.

“I will try to remember,” he said finally. Even so, she looked ready to lecture more. “What news of the Miagoma and the other three clans?” he asked, as much to divert her as because he wanted to know. Women seldom seemed willing to stop until they had hammered you into the ground, unless you managed to distract them.

It worked. She was full of what she knew, of course, and as eager to instruct as to scold. Asmodean's soft strumming — for once, something pleasant, even pastoral — made an odd background for her words.

The Miagoma, the Shiande, the Daryne and the Codarra were camped within sight of one another, a few miles to the east. A steady stream of men and Maidens moved between the camps, including Rand's, but only among societies, and Indirian and the other chiefs were not stirring. There was no doubt now that they would come to Rand eventually, but not until the Wise Ones finished their talks.

“They are still talking?” Rand said. “What under the Light do they have to discuss that takes so long? The chiefs are coming to follow me, not them.”

She gave him a flat look that would have done credit to Moiraine. “The Wise Ones' words are for Wise Ones, Rand al'Thor.” Hesitating, she added, as if making a concession, “Egwene may tell you something of it. When it is done.” Her tone implied that Egwene might not, too.

She resisted his attempts to learn more, and finally he let it lie. Perhaps he would find out before it bit him, and perhaps not, but either way, he was not going to pry one word out of her that she did not want to speak. Aes Sedai had nothing on Aiel Wise Ones when it came to guarding their secrets and surrounding themselves with mystery. Aviendha was absorbing that particular lesson very well.

Egwene's presence at the meeting of Wise Ones came as a surprise, and so did Moiraine's absence — he would have expected her to be in the middle, twitching strings to her plans — but it turned out that one grew from the other. The newcome Wise Ones had wanted to meet with one of the Aes Sedai who followed the Car'a'carn, and although she was back on her feet after Healing him, Moiraine claimed to have no time. Egwene had been routed from her blankets as a replacement.

That made Aviendha laugh. She had been outside when Sorilea and Bair practically dragged Egwene from her tent, trying to pull on her clothes while they hustled her along. “I called to her that she would have to dig holes in the ground with her teeth this time if she had been caught in a misdeed, and she was so sleepy she believed me. She began protesting that she would not, so hard that Sorilea began demanding what she had done to think she deserved to. You should have seen Egwene's face.” She laughed so hard tha