As Egwene opened her mouth, Beldeine moved beside her. Then the Keeper's staff struck her head.
Blackness.
First there was pain in her head. There was something hard under her back, and cold. Next came the voices. Murmurs.
“Is she still unconscious?” It was a rasp, a file on bone.
“Do not worry,” a woman said from far, far away. She sounded uneasy, afraid, and trying not to show either. “She will be dealt with before she knows what is happening to her. Then she is ours, to do with as we will. Perhaps we will give her to you for sport.”
“After you make your own use of her.”
“Of course.”
The distant voices moved further away.
Her hand brushed against her leg, touched bare, pebbly flesh. She opened her eyes a crack. She was naked, bruised, lying on a rough wooden table, in what seemed to be a disused storeroom. Splinters stuck her back. There was a metallic taste of blood in her mouth.
A cluster of Aes Sedai stood to one side of the room, talking among themselves, voices low yet urgent. The pain in her head made thinking difficult, but it seemed important to count them. Thirteen.
Another group, blackcloaked and hooded men, joined the Aes Sedai, who seemed caught between cowering and trying to dominate with their presence. One of the men turned his head to look toward the table. The dead white face within the hood had no eyes.
Egwene had no need to count the Myrddraal. She knew. Thirteen Myrddraal, and thirteen Aes Sedai. Without another thought, she screamed in pure terror. Yet even in the midst of fear that tried to split her bones, she reached out for the True Source, clawed desperately for saidar.
“She's awake!”
“She cannot be! Not yet!”
“Shield her! Quickly! Quickly! Cut her off from the Source!”
“It's too late! She is too strong!”
“Seize her! Hurry!”
Hands reached for her arms and legs. Pasty pale hands like slugs under rocks, ordered by minds behind pale, eyeless faces. If those hands touched her flesh, she knew she would go mad. The Power filled her.
Flames burst from Myrddraal skin, ripping through black cloth as if they were solid daggers of fire. Shrieking Halfmen crisped and burned like oiled paper. Fistsized chunks of stone tore themselves free of the walls and whizzed across the room, producing shrieks and grunts as they thudded into flesh. The air stirred, shifted, howled into a whirlwind.
Slowly, painfully, Egwene pushed herself off the table. The wind whipped her hair and made her stagger, but she continued to drive it as she stumbled toward the door. An Aes Sedai loomed in front of her, a woman bruised and bleeding, surrounded by the glow of the Power. A woman with death in her dark eyes.
Egwene's mind put a name to the face. Gyldan. Elaida's closest confidante, always whispering together in corners, closeting themselves in the night. Egwene's mouth tightened. Disdaining stones and wind, she balled up her fist and punched Gyldan between the eyes as hard as she could. The Red sister — the Black sister — crumpled as if her bones had melted.
Rubbing her knuckles, Egwene staggered out into the hall. Thank you, Perrin, she thought, for showing me how to do that. But you didn't tell me how much it hurts when you do.
Shoving the door shut against the wind, she channeled. Stones around the doorway shivered, cracked, settled against the wood. It would not hold them for long, but anything that slowed pursuit for even a minute was worth doing. Minutes might mean life. Gathering her strength, she forced herself to break into a run. It wobbled, but at least it was a run.
She must find some clothes, she decided. A woman clothed had more authority than the same woman naked, and she was going to need every bit of authority. They would look for her first in her rooms, but she had a spare dress and shoes in her study — and another stole — and that lay not far off.
It was unnerving, trotting through empty hallways. The White Tower no longer held the numbers it once had, but there was usually someone about. The loudest sound was the slap of her bare soles on the tiles.
She hurried through the antechamber of her study to the inner room, and at last she found someone. Beldeine was sitting on the floor, head in her hands weeping.
Egwene stopped warily, as Beldeine raised reddened eyes to meet hers. No glow of saidar surrounded the Keeper, but Egwene was still cautious. And confident. She could not see her own glow, of course, but the power — the Power — surging through her was enough. Especially when added to her secret.
Beldeine scrubbed a hand across tearstained cheeks. “I had to. You must understand. I had to. They... They...” She took a deep, shuddering breath; it all came out in a rush. “Three nights ago they took me while I slept and stilled me.” Her voice rose to a near shriek. “They stilled me! I cannot channel any longer!”
“Light,” Egwene breathed. The rush of saidar cushioned her against the shock. “The Light help and comfort you, my daughter. Why didn't you tell me? I would have...” She let it trail away, knowing there was nothing she could do.
“What would you have done? — What? Nothing! There's nothing you can do. But they said they could give it back to me, with the power of... the power of the Dark One.” Her eyes squeezed shut, leaking tears. “They hurt me, Mother, and they made me... Oh, Light, they hurt me! Elaida told me they would make me whole again, make me able to channel again, if I obeyed. That's why I... I had to!”
“So Elaida is Black Ajah,” Egwene said grimly. A narrow wardrobe stood against the wall, and in it hung a green silk dress, kept for when she had no time to return to her rooms. A striped stole hung beside the dress. She began to dress herself, quickly. “What have they done with Rand? Where have they taken him? Answer me, Beldeine! Where is Rand al'Thor?”
Beldeine huddled, lips trembling, eyes turned bleakly inward, but finally she roused herself enough to say, “The Traitor's Court, Mother. They took him to the Traitor's Court.”
Shivers assaulted Egwene. Shivers of fear. Shivers of rage. Elaida had not waited, not even an hour. The Traitor's Court was used for only three purposes: executions, the stilling of an Aes Sedai, or the gentling of a man who could channel. But all of the three took an order from the Amyrlin Seat. So who wears the stole out there? Elaida, she was sure. But how could she make them accept her so quickly, with me not tried, not sentenced? There cannot be another Amyrlin until I've been stripped of stole and staff. And they'll not find that easy to do. Light! Rand!
