In the early morning sunlight streaming through her windows, Seaine dipped the pen, but before she could write the next word, the door to the hall opened and the Amyrlin swept in. Seaine’s thick black eyebrows rose; she would have expected anyone else at all before Elaida, perhaps not excluding Rand al’Thor himself. Still, she set the pen down and rose smoothly, pulling down the silver-white sleeves she had pushed up to keep clear of the ink. She made the degree of curtsy proper to the Amyrlin Seat from a Sitter in her own apartments.

"I do hope that you haven’t found any White sisters hiding away angreal, Mother." She did hope it quite fervently. Elaida’s decent on the Greens a few hours ago, while most of them slept, was probably producing wails and gnashing of teeth. In living memory no one had been ordered birched for keeping back an angreal, and now there were two. The Amyrlin must have been in one of her infamous cold furies.

But if she had been then, no sign of it remained now. For a moment she regarded Seaine silently, cool as a winter pond in her red-slashed silks, then glided to the carved sideboard where painted ivory miniatures of Seaine’s family stood. All years dead, but she still loved every one.

"You did not stand to raise me Amyrlin," Elaida said picking up the picture of Seaine’s father. She set it down hastily and took up her mother instead.

Seaine’s eyebrows almost rose again, but she tried to make it a rule not to let herself be surprised more than once in a day. "I was not informed that the hall was sitting until afterwards, Mother." After all these years, a touch of Lugard still clung to her voice.

"Yes, yes." Abandoning the paintings, Elaida glided to the fireplace. Seaine had always had a fondness for cats, and carved wooden cats of every sort crowded the mantelpiece, some in amusing poses. The Amyrlin frowned at the display, then squeezed her eyes shut and gave her head a tiny shake. "But you remained," she said, turning quickly. "Every Sitter who was not informed fled the Tower and joined the rebels. Except you. Why"

Seaine spread her hands. "What else could I do but stay, Mother? The Tower must be whole." Whoever the Amyrlin, she added to herself. And what’s wrong with my cats, if I may ask? Not that she would aloud, of course. Sereille Bagand had been a fierce Mistress of Novices before being raised Amyrlin Seat, the very year she herself earned the shawl, and a fiercer Amyrlin than Elaida could be with a sore tooth. Seaine had had the proprieties driven into her too hard and deep for more years to shift, or any dislike for the woman who wore the stole. One did not have to like an Amyrlin.

"The Tower must be whole," Elaida agreed, rubbing her hands together. "It must be whole." Now, why was she so nervous? She had ninety-nine kinds of temper, all hard as a knife and twice as sharp, but nervous thee woman was not. "What I say to you now is seated to the flame, Seaine." Her mouth twisted wryly, and she shrugged, giving her stole an irritable twitch. "If I knew how to make the seal stronger, I would," she said, dry as yesterday’s dust.

"I will hold your words in my heart, Mother."

"I want you-I command you-to undertake an inquiry. And you must indeed hold it in your heart. The wrong ear hearing of it might mean death, and disaster for the whole Tower."

Seaine’s eyebrows twitched. Death and disaster for the whole Tower? "In my heart," she said again. "Will you sit yourself, Mother? That was proper, in her own apartments. "May I pour some mint tea? Or plum punch?"

Waving away the offer of refreshment, Elaida took the most comfortable chair, carved by Seaine’s father as a gift when she received the shawl, though of course the cushions had been replaced many times since. The Amyrlin made the country chair seem a throne, all stiff back and iron countenance. Most ungraciously, she did not give permission for Seaine to sit, too, so Seaine folded her hands and remained standing.

"I have though long and hard on treason, Seaine, since my predecessor and her Keeper were allowed to escape. Helped to escape. Treason must have been at the core of that, and I fear only a sister, or sisters could have effected it.

"That would certainly be a possibility, Mother."

Elaida frowned at the interruption. "We can never be sure who has the shadow of treason in her heart, Seaine. Why, I suspect that someone arranged for an order of mine to be countermanded. And I have reason to believe that someone has communicated privately with Rand al’Thor; to what end, I cannot say, but that is surely treason against me, and against the Tower."

Seaine waited for more, but the Amyrlin only looked back at her, slowly smoothing her red-slashed shirts. "Exactly what inquiry do you wish me to make, Mother?" she asked cautiously.

Elaida bounded to her feet. "I charge you to follow the stench of treason, no matter where it leads or how high, even to the Keeper herself. Yes, even to her. What you find, whoever it leads to you will bring before the Amyrlin Seat alone, Seaine. No one else must know. Do you understand me?"

"I understand your commands, Mother."

Which she thought, once Elaida had departed even more swiftly than she had come., was about all she did understand. In order to think she took the chair the Amyrlin had vacated, fists pressed beneath her chin in just the way her father had always sat thinking. Everything fell to logic, eventually.

She would not have stood against Siuan Sanche-she had proposed the girl as Amyrlin in the first place!-but once it was done and all the forms were followed, however sparely, aiding her escape certainly had been treason, and deliberately countermanding an Amyrlin’s order just as much. Possibly communicating with al’Thor was; too; that depended on what was communicated, with what intent. Finding who had changed the Amyrlin’s command would be difficult without knowing what command. At this late date learning who might have helped Siuan escape stood about as much chance of success as learning who might be writing to al’Thor. So many pigeons flew into and out of the Tower cotes every day that at times the sky seemed to be raining feathers. If Elaida knew more than she had said, she had certainly gone around the barn. This all made very little sense. Treason ought to make Elaida boil with rage, but she had not been angry. She had been nervous. And anxious to be gone. And secretive, as if she did not want to tell everything she knew or suspected. Almost as though she was afraid to. What kind of treason would make Elaida nervous or afraid? Death and disaster for the whole Tower.

Like the pieces of a blacksmith’s puzzle, all fell into place, and Seaine’s eyebrows tried to climb onto her scalp. It fit. She felt the blood draining from her face; her hands and feet were suddenly icy. Sealed to the Flame. She had said she would keep this in her heart, but everything had changed since she spoke those words. She only let herself be afraid when it was logical to be, and right then, she was terrified. She could not face this alone. But who? Under the circumstances, who? This answer came much more easily. Gathering herself took a little time, but she hurried from her rooms and out of the White quarters walking a good deal faster than she usually did.

Servants scurried through the corridors as always, though she walked so quickly that she was past most before they could bow or curtsy, but there seemed fewer sisters about than the early hour could account for. Many fewer. Yet if most were staying close to their quarters for some reason, the few she saw made up for it in one way. Sisters swanned along the tapestry-hung hallways, faces all serenity, and their eyes seemed to have steam behind them. Here and there two or three women spoke together, with sharp eyes darting to see if who might be listening. Always two or three of the same Ajah. Even yesterday, she was sure she had still seen women sharing friendships between Ajahs. Whites were supposed to put emotion away entirely, but she had never seen the reason for blinding herself, as some did. Suspicion made the air in the Tower like hot jelly. Not a new thing, unfortunately-the Amyrlin had begun it with her harsh measures, and the rumors about Logain had only exacerbated the situation-but this morning seemed worse than ever.

Talene Minly came around the corner ahead of her, her shawl not just across her shoulders, but spread down her arms as though to display the green fringe. For that matter, she realized that every Green she had seen this morning wore her shawl. Talene, golden haired and statuesque and lovely, had stood to depose Siuan, but she had not gone to the Tower while Seaine was Accepted, and that decision had not dented their long friendship. Talene had had reason Seaine accepted if not agreed with. Today he friend stopped watching her warily. So many sisters seemed to watch one another that way of late. Another time, she would have stopped, but not with what made her head want to bust open like a spoiled melon. Talene was a friend and she thought she could be sure of her, but thinking was not enough for this. Later, if possible, she would approach Talene. Hoping it would be possible she hurried past with only a nod.

In the Red quarters, the mood was even worse, the air thicker. As with the other Ajahs, there were many more rooms than there were sisters to fill them now that had been so long before the first rebel fled but the Red was the largest of the Ajahs, and sisters filled the levels still in use. Reds frequently wore their shawls when there was no need, but now every last woman sported her red fringe like a banner. Conversation stopped as Seaine approached, and cold eyes followed her in a bubble of icy silence. She felt an invader deep in enemy country as she crossed those peculiar floor tiles, white with the teardrop Flame of Tar Valon in red. But then, any part of the Tower might be enemy country. Looking another way, those scarlet flames might be taken for red Dragon’s Fangs. She had never believed those irrational tales about the Reds and false Dragons, but…Why would none of them deny it?

She had to ask directions. "I will not disturb her if she is busy," she said. "We were close friends, once, and I would like us to be again. Now more than ever the Ajahs cannot afford to drift apart." All true, though the Ajahs seemed to splitting apart rather than drifting, but the Domani woman listened with a face that could have been cast in copper. There was not many Domani Reds, and those few usually meaner than snakes caught in a fence.

"I will show you, Sitter," the woman said at last, and not very respectfully. She led the way, then watched while Seaine knocked on the door, as though she could not be trusted here alone. The door panels were carved with the Flame, too, lacquered the color of fresh blood.

"Come!" a brisk voice called from within. Seaine opened the door hoping she was right.

"Seaine!" Pavara exclaimed cheerfully. "What brings you here this morning? Come! Shut the door and sit!" It was as if all the years since they were Novice and Accepted together had melted away. Quite plump and not tall-in truth, for a Kandori, she was short-Pevara was also quite pretty, with a merry twinkle in her dark eyes and a ready smile. It was sad that she had chosen Red, no matter how good her reasons, because she still liked men. The Red did attract women who were normally suspicious of men, of course, but others chose it because the task of finding men who could channel was important. Whether they liked me, or disliked them, or did not care one way or the other in the beginning, however, not many women could belong to the Red for long without taking a jaundiced view of all men. Seaine had reason to believe Pevara had served a penance shortly after attaining the shawl for saying that she wished she had a warder; since reaching the safer heights of the Hall, she had openly said Warders would make the Red Ajah’s work easier. Not that that had any part in Seaine trusting her. Of all the sisters in the Tower, though, Pevara was the one she was sure she could trust with this.

"I cannot tell you how happy I am to see you," Pevara said once they were ensconced in armchairs carved in the spirals popular in Kandor a hundred years ago, with delicate, butterfly-painted cups of blueberry tea in hand. "I’ve often thought how I should go to you, but I admit to fearing what you would say after I gave you the cut direct so many years ago. Sworn on the blade, Seaine, I’d not have don it, except Tesien Jorhald practically had me by the scruff of my neck, and I was too new to the shawl to have much backbone yet. Can you forgive me?"

"Of course, I can," Seaine replied. "I understand." The Red firmly discouraged friendships outside the Ajah. Quite firmly, and quite efficiently. "We cannot go against our Ajahs when we are young, and later, it seems impossible to retrace our steps. A thousand times I’ve remembered us whispering together after Last-oh, and the pranks! Do you recall when we dusted Serancha’s shift with powdered itchcloak?-but I’m shammed to say it took being terrified out of my wits to stir my feet. I do want us to be friends again, but I need your help, too. You are the only one I’m sure I can trust."

Serancha was a prig then, and still is." Pevara laughed. "The gray is a good place for her. But I can’t believe you terrified at anything. Why, you never decided it was logical to be afraid until we were back in our beds. Short of a promise to stand in the Hall without knowing what for, whatever help I can give is yours, Seaine. What do you need?"

Brought to the point, Seaine hesitated, sipping her tea. Not that she had any doubts about Pevara, but pushing the words out of her mouth was…difficult. "The Amyrlin came to see me this morning," she said finally. "she instructed me to make an inquiry, Sealed to the Flame." Pevara frowned slightly, but she did not say that in that case Seaine should not be speaking of it. Seaine might have planned how to carry out most of their pranks as girls, but Pevara had always been the one with the audacity to think most of them up, and she had provided most of the nerve to go through with them." She was very circumspect, but after a little thought, it was clear to me what she wanted. I am to hunt out…" At the last, courage failed her tongue. "…Darkfriends in the Tower."

Pevara’s eyes, as dark as her own were blue, became stone, and swept to the mantel above her fireplace, where miniatures of her own family made a precise line. They had all died while she was a novice, parents, brothers and sisters, aunts, uncles and all, murdered in a quickly suppressed uprising of Darkfriends who had become convinced the Dark One was about to break free. That was why Seaine had been sure she could trust her. That was why Pevara had chosen Red-though Seaine still she could have done as well and been happier as a Green-because she believed a Red hunting men who could channel had the best chance of finding Darkfriends. She had been very good at it; that plump exterior covered a core of steel. And she possessed the courage to say calmly what Seaine had been unable to bring herself to utter.

"The Black Ajah. Well. No wonder Elaida would be circumspect."

"Pevara, I know she’s always denied it’s existence harder than any three other sisters combined, but I’m certain sure that’s what she meant, and if she is convinced…"

Her friend waved her off. "You have no need to convince me, Seaine. I have been sure the Black Ajah exists for…" Strangely, Pevara became hesitant, peering into her teacup like a fortune-teller at a fair. "What do you know about events right after the Aiel War?"

"Two Amyrlins dying suddenly in the space of five years," Seaine said carefully. She assumed the other woman meant events in the Tower. Truth to tell, until being raised a Sitter nearly fifteen years ago, just a year after Pevara, she had not given much attention to anything outside the Tower. And not that much inside, really. "A great many sisters died in those years, as I recall. Do you mean to say you think the…Black Ajah had a hand in that?" There; she had said it, and the name had not burned her tongue.

"I don’t know," Pevara said softly, shaking her head. "You’ve done well to wrap yourself deep in Philosophy. There were…things…done then, and Sealed to the Flame." She drew a troubled breath.

Seaine did not press her; she had committed something akin to treason by breaking that same seal, and Pevara would have to decide on her own. "Looking at reports will be safer than asking questions with no idea who we’re really asking. Logically, a Black sister must be able to lie despite the Oaths." Otherwise, The Black Ajah would have been revealed long since. That name seemed to be coming easier with use. "If any sister wrote that she did one thing when we can prove she did another, then we have found a darkfriend."

Pevara nodded. "Yes. Perhaps the Black Ajah has no hand in the rebellion, but I cannot think they would let this turmoil pass without taking advantage. We must look closely at this last year, I think."

To that, Seaine agreed reluctantly. There would be fewer pieces of paper to read and more questions to ask concerning recent months. Deciding who to make part of the inquiry was even harder. Especially after Pevara said, "You were very brave in coming to me, Seaine. I’ve known Darkfriends to kill brothers, sisters, parents, to try hiding who they are and what they’ve done. I love you for it, but you were very brave indeed."

Seaine shivered as if a goose had walked on her grave. Had she wanted to be brave, she would have chosen Green. She almost wished Elaida had gone to someone else. There was no turning back now, though.

Seaine strode the hallways of the tower with a growing sense of being confounded at every turn. The White Tower was quite large. True, but she had been at this for hours. She very much wanted to be snug in her own rooms. Despite casements in place in every window, drafts drifted along the broad, tapestry-hung corridors and made the stand lamps flicker. Cold drafts, and difficult to ignore when they slipped under her skirts. Her rooms were warm and comfortable, and safe.

Maids bobbed curtsies and manservants bowed in her wake, half-seen and completely ignored. Most sisters were in their own Ajahs’ quarters, and those few out and about moved with wary pride, often in pairs, always of the same Ajah, shawls spread along their arms and displayed like banners. She smiled and nodded pleasantly to Talene, but the statuesque, golden-haired Sitter returned a hard stare, beauty carved from ice, then stalked away twitching her green-fringed shawl.

Too late now to approach Talene about being part of the search, even had Pavara been agreeable. Pavara counseled caution, then more caution, and truth to tell, Seaine was more than willing to listen under the circumstances. It was just that Talene was a friend. Had been a friend.

Talene was not the worst. Several ordinary sisters sniffed at her openly. At a Sitter! None White, of course, but that should have made no difference. No matter what was going on in the Tower, proprieties should be observed. Juilaine Madome, a tall, attractive woman with short-cut black hair who had held a chair for the brown less than a year, brushed past her without so much as a murmur of apology and went off with those mannish strides of hers. Saerin Asnobar another Brown Sitter, gave Seaaine a fierce scowl and fingered that curved knife she always carried behind her belt before disappearing down a side corridor. Saerin was Altaran, slight touches of white at her dark temples emphasizing a thin age-faded white scar across one olive cheek, and only a warder could match her for scowling.

Perhaps these things were all to be expected. There had been several unfortunate incidents recently, and no sister would forget being bundled unceremoniously from the hallways around another Ajah’s quarters, much less what had sometimes gone with it. Rumor said a Sitter-a Sitter!-had had more than her dignity ruffled by the Reds, though not who. A great pity the hall could not obstruct Elaida’s mad decree, but first one Ajah, then another, had leapt on the new prerogatives, few Sitters were willing to think of giving them up now they were in place, and the result was a Tower divided very nearly into army camps. Once Seaine the air in the Tower felt like a quivering hot jelly of suspicion and backbiting; now it was quivering hot jelly with an acid bite.

Clicking her tongue in vexation, she adjusted her own white-fringed shawl as Saerin vanished. It was illogical to flinch because an Altaran scowled-even Saerin would go no further; surely not-and more illogical to worry over what she could not change when she had a task.

And then, after all of her search that morning, she took a single step and saw her long-sought quarry walking toward her. Zerah Dacan was a slim, black-haired girl with a prideful air, properly self-possessed, and by all outward evidence untouched by the heated currents flowing through the Tower these days. Well, not a girl precisely, but Seaine was sure she had not worn that white fringed shawl fifty years yet. She was inexperienced. Relatively inexperienced. That might help.

Zerah made no move to avoid a Sitter of her own Ajah, bowing her head in respect as Seaine fell in beside her. Quite a lot of intricate golden embroidery climbed the sleeves of her snowy dress and made a wide band at the bottom of her skirt. It was an unusual degree of show for the White Ajah. "Sitter," she murmured. Did her blue eyes hold a touch of worry?

"I need you for something," Seaine said more calmly than she felt. Very likely she was transplanting her own feeling into Zerah’s big eyes. "Come with me." There was nothing to fear, not in the heart of the White Tower, but keeping her hands folded at her waist, unclenched, required surprising effort.

As expected-as hoped-Zerah went along with only murmur, this of acquiescence. She glided at Seaine’s side quite gracefully as they descended broad marble staircases and wide curving ramps, and gave only the slightest frown when Seaine opened a door on the ground floor, onto narrow stairs that spiraled down into darkness.

"After you, sister," Seaine said, channeling a small ball of light. By protocol, she should have preceded the other woman, but she could not bring herself to do that.

Zerah did not hesitate in going down. Logically, she had nothing to fear from a Sitter, a White Sitter. Logically, Seaine would tell her what she wanted when the time was ripe, and it would be nothing she could not do. Illogically, Seaine’s stomach fluttered like a huge moth. Light, she held saidar and the other woman did not. Zerah was weaker in any case. There was nothing to fear. Which did nothing to quiet those fluttering wings in her middle.

Down they climbed and down, past doors letting onto basements and sub-basements, until they reached the very lowest level, below even where the Accepted were tested. The dark hallway was lit only by Seaine’s small light. They held their skirts high, but their slippers kicked up small clouds of dust however carefully they stepped. Plain wooden doors lined the smooth stone walls, many with great lumps of rust for hinges and locks.

"Sitter," Zerah asked, finally showing doubt, "whatever can we be after down here? I don’t believe anyone has been this deep for years."

Seaine was sure her own visit, a few days earlier, had been the first to this level in at least a century. That was one of the reasons she and Pavara had chosen it. "Just in here," she said, swinging open a door that moved with only a little squealing. No amount of oil could loosen all the rust, and efforts to use the power had been useless. Her abilities with Earth were better than Pevara’s but that was not saying very much.

Zerah stepped in, and blinked in surprise. In an otherwise empty room, Pevara sat behind a sturdy if rather worn table with three small benches around it. Getting those few pieces unseen had been difficult-especially when servants could not be trusted. Clearing out the dust had been much simpler if no more pleasant, and smoothing the dust in the hall outside, necessary after every visit, had been simply onerous.

"I was about to give up sitting here in the dark," Pevara growled. The glow of saidar surrounded her as she lifted a lantern from beneath the table and channeled it alight, casting as much illumination as the rough-walled former storeroom deserved. Somewhat plump and normally pretty, the Red Sitter looked a bear with two sore teeth. "We want to ask you a few questions, Zerah." And she shielded the woman as Seaine shut the door.

Zerah’s shadowed face remained utterly calm, but she swallowed audibly. "About what, Sitters?" There was the faintest tremor in the younger woman’s voice, as well. It could be simply the mood of the Tower, though.

"The Black Ajah," Pevara replied curtly. "We want to know whether you’re a Darkfriend."

Amazement and outrage shattered Zerah’s calm. Most would have taken that for sufficient denial without her snapped "I don’t have to take that from you! You Reds have been have been setting up false Dragons for years! If you ask me, there’s no need to look further than the Red quarters to find Black sisters!"

Pevara’s face darkened with fury. Her loyalty to her Ajah was strong, which went without saying, but worse, she had lost her entire family to Darkfriends. Seaine decided to step in before Pevara resorted to brute force. They had no proof. Not yet.

"Sit, Zerah," she said with as much warmth as she could muster. "Sit down, sister."

Zerah turned toward the door as though she might disobeying order from a Sitter-and her own Ajah!-but at last she settled onto one of the benches, stiffly, sitting right at the edge.

Before Seaine had finished taking a seat that placed Zerah between them, Pevara laid the ivory-white Oath Rod on the battered tabletop. Seaine sighed. They were Sitters, with a perfect right to use any ter-angreal they wished, but she had been the one to filch it-she could not help thinking of it as filching when she had observed none of the proper procedures-and the whole time, in the back of her head, she had been sure she would turn to find long-dead Sereille Bagand standing here, ready to haul her off to the Mistress of Novices’ study by her ear. Irrational, but no less real.

"We want to make sure that you tell the truth," Pevara said, still sounding like an angry bear, "so you will swear an oath on this, and then I’ll ask again."

"I should not be subjected to this," Zareh said with an accusing look at Seaine, "but I will re-swear all of the oaths, if that’s what it needs to satisfy you. And I will demand an apology from you both afterwards." She hardly sounded like a woman shielded and asked such a question. Almost contemptuously, she reached for the slim, foot-long rod. It shone in the dim light of the lantern.

"You’ll swear to obey the two of us absolutely," Pevara told her, and that hand snatched back as if from a coiled viper. Pevara went right on, even sliding the Rod closer to the woman with two fingers. That way, we can tell you to answer truthfully, and know you will, and if you give the wrong answer we can know that you will be obedient and helpful in helping us hunt down your Black sisters. The Rod can be used to free you of the oath, if you give the right answer."

"To free-?" Zerah exclaimed. "I’ve never heard of anyone being loosed from an oath on the Oath Rod."

"That is why we are taking all these precautions," Seaine told her. "Logically, a Black sister must be able to lie, which means that she must have freed of at least that Oath and likely all three. Pevara and I tested, and found the procedure much the same as taking an oath." She did not mention how painful it had been, though, leaving the pair of them weeping. She also did not mention that Zerah would not be freed of her oath whatever her answer, not until the search for the Black Ajah came to a conclusion. For one thing, she could not be allowed to run off and complain about this questioning, which she most certainly would, with every right, if she was not of the Black. If.

Light, but Seaine wished they had found a sister from another Ajah who fit the criteria they had set. A Green or a Yellow would have done quite nicely. That lot were overweening at the best of times, and of late…! No. She was not going to fall prey to the sickness spreading through the Tower. Yet she could not help the names that flashed through her head, a dozen Greens, twice as many Yellows, and every one long past due taking down a few rungs. Sniff at a Sitter!

You freed yourselves of one of the Oaths?" Zerah sounded startled, disgusted, uneasy, all at the same time. Perfectly reasonable responses.

"And took it again," Pevara muttered impatiently. Snatching up the slim rod, she channeled a little spirit into one end while maintaining Zerah’s shield. "Under the Light, I vow to speak no word that is not true. Under the Light, I vow to make no weapon for one man to kill another. Under the Light, I vow not to use the One Power as a weapon except against shadowspawn, or in the last defense of my life, or the life of my warder. Or that of another sister." She did not grimace over the part about warders; new sisters bound for the Red often did. "I am not a Darkfriend, I hope that satisfies you." She showed Zerah her teeth, but whether in smile or snarl was hard to say.

Seaine retook the Oaths in turn, each producing a slight momentary pressure everywhere from her scalp to the soles of her feet. In truth, the pressure was difficult to detect at all, with her skin still feeling too tight from taking the Oath against speaking a lie. Claiming that Pevara had a beard or that the streets of Tar Valon were paved with cheese had been strangely exhilarating for a time-even Pevara had giggled-but hardly worth the discomfort now. Testing had not really seemed necessary, to her. Logically, it must be so. Saying that she was not of the Black twisted her tongue-a vile thing to be forced to deny-but she handed Zerah the Oath Rod with a decisive nod.

Shifting on her bench, the slender turned the smooth white rod in her fingers, swallowing convulsively. The pale lantern light made her appear ill. She looked from one of them to the other, wide-eyed, then her hands tightened on the Rod, and she nodded.

"Exactly as I said," Pevara growled, channeling Spirit to the Rod again, "or you’ll be swearing until you have it right."

"I vow to obey the two of you absolutely," Zerah said in a tight voice, then shuddered as the oath took hold. It was always tighter at the first. "Ask me about the Black Ajah," she demanded. Her hands shook holding the Rod. "Ask me about the Black Ajah!" Her intensity told Seaine the answer even before Pevara released the flow of Spirit and asked the question, commanding utter truth. "No!" Zerah practically shouted. No, I am not Black Ajah! Now take this oath from me! Free me!"

Seaine slumped dejectedly, resting her elbows on the table. She certainly had not wanted Zerah to answer yes, but she had been sure they had found the other woman out in a lie. One lie found, or so it had seemed, after weeks of searching. How many more weeks of searching lay ahead? And of looking over her shoulder from waking to sleeping? When she managed to sleep.

Pevara stabbed an accusing finger at the woman. "You told people that you came from the north."

Zerah’s eyes went wide again. "I did," she said slowly. "I rode down the bank of the Erinin to Jualdhe. Now free me of this oath!" She licked her lips.

Seaine frowned at her. "Goldenthorn seeds and red cockleburr were found on your saddlecloth, Zerah. Goldenthorn and red cockleburr can’t be found for a hundred miles south of Tar Valon."

Zerah leaped to her feet, and Pevara snapped, "Sit down!"

The woman dropped onto the bench with a loud smack, but she did not even wince. She was trembling. No, shaking. Her mouth was clamped shut, otherwise Seaine was sure her teeth would have been chattering. Light, the question of north or south frightened her more than an accusation of being a Darkfriend.

"From where did you start out," Seaine asked slowly, "and why-?" She meant to ask why the woman had gone round about-which plainly she had-just to hide which direction she came from, but answers burst from Zerah’s mouth.

"From Salidar," she squealed. There was no other word for it. Still clutching the Oath Rod, she writhed on her bench. Tears spilled from her eyes, eyes as wide as they would go and fixed on Pevara. Words poured out, though her teeth truly did chatter now. "I c-came to m-make sure all the sisters here know about the Reds and Logain, so they’ll d-depose Elaida and the T-Tower can be whole again." With a whale she collapsed openmouthed bawling as she stared at the Red Sitter.

"Well," Pevara said. Then again, more grimly, "Well!" her face was all composure, but the glitter in her dark eyes was far from the mischief Seaine remembered from novice and Accepted. "So you are the source of that…rumor. You are going to stand before the Hall and reveal it for the lie it is! Admit the lie, girl!"

If Zerah’s eyes had been wide before, they bulged now. The Rod dropped from her hands to roll across the tabletop, and she clutched her throat. A choking sound came from her suddenly gaping mouth. Pevara stared at her in shock, but suddenly Seaine understood.

"Lights’ mercy," she breathed. "You do not have to lie, Zerah." Zerah’s legs thrashed beneath the table as if she were trying to rise and could not get her feet under her. "Tell her, Pevara. She believes it’s true! You’ve commanded her to speak the truth and to lie. Don’t look at me that way! She believes!" A bluish tinge appeared on Z to lie. Don’t look at me that way! She believes!" A bluish tinge appeared on Zerah’s lips. Her eyelids fluttered. Seaine gathered calm with both hands. "Pevara, you gave the order so apparently you must release her, or she will suffocate right in front of us."

"She’s a rebel." Pevara’s mutter invested that word with all the scorn it could hold. But then she sighed. "She hasn’t been tried, yet. You don’t have to…lie…girl." Zerah toppled forward and lay with her cheek pressed against the tabletop gulping air between whimpers.

Seaine shook her head in wonder. They had not considered the possibility of conflicting oaths. What if the Black Ajah did not merely remove the oath against lying, but replaced it with one of their own? What if they replaced all Three with their own oaths? She and Pevara would need to go very carefully if they did find a Black Sister, or they might have her fall dead before they knew what the conflict was. Perhaps first a renunciation of all oaths-no way to go about it without knowing what Black sisters swore-followed by retaking the Three? Followed by retaking the Three? Light, the pain of being loosed from everything at once would be little short of being put to the question. Maybe not short of it at all. But certainly a Darkfriend deserved that and more. If they ever found one.

Pevara glared down at the gasping woman without the slightest touch of pity on her face. "When she stands trial for rebellion, I intend to sit on her court."

"When she is tried Pevara," Seaine said thoughtfully. "A pity to lose the assistance we know isn’t a Darkfriend. And since she is a rebel, we need not be overly concerned about using her." There had been a number of discussions, none to a conclusion, about the second reason for leaving the new oath in place. A sworn sister could be compelled-Seaine shifted uneasily; that sounded entirely too close to the forbidden vileness of Compulsion-she could be induced to help in the hunt, so long as you did not mind forcing her to accept the danger, whether she wished to or not. "I cannot think they would send only one," she went on. "Zerah, how many of you came to spread this tale?"

"Ten," the woman mumbled against the tabletop, then jerked erect, glaring in defiance. "I will not betray my sisters! I won’t-!" Abruptly she cut off, lips twisting bitterly as she realized she had done just that.

"Names!" Pevara barked. "Give me their names, or I will have your hide here and now!"

Names spilled from Zerah’s unwilling lips. At the command, certainly, more than the threat. Looking at Pevara’s grim face, though, Seaine was sure she needed little provocation to stripe Zerah like a novice caught stealing. Strangely, she herself did not feel the same animosity. Revulsion, yes, but clearly not as strong. The woman was a rebel who had helped break the White Tower when a sister must accept anything to keep the Tower whole, and yet…Very strange.

You agree, Pevara?" she said when the list concluded. The stubborn woman gave her only a fierce nod for agreement. "Very well. Zerah, you will bring Bernaile to my rooms this afternoon." There were two from each Ajah excepting the Blue and the Red, it seemed, but best to begin with the other White. "You will say only that I wish to speak with her on a private matter. You will give her no warning by word, deed, or omission. Then you will stand quietly and let Pevara and me do what is necessary. You are being recruited into a worthier cause than your misguided rebellion, Zerah." Of course it was misguided. No matter how mad with power Elaida had become. "You are going to help us hunt down the Black Ajah."

Zerah’s head jerked unwilling nods at each injunction, her face pained, but at mention of a hunt for the Black Ajah, she gasped. Light, her wits must have been totally unhinged by her experiences not to see that!

And you will stop spreading these…stories," Pevara put in sternly. ""From this moment, you’ll not mention the Red Ajah and false Dragons together. Am I understood?"

Zerah’s face donned a mask of sullen stubbornness. Zerah’s mouth said, "I understand, Sitter." She looked ready to begin weeping again from sheer frustration.

"The get out of my sight," Pevara told her, releasing the shield and saidar together. "And compose yourself! Wash your face and straighten your hair!" That last was directed at the back of the woman already darting from the table. Zerah had to pull her hands away from her hair to open the door. As the door squeaked shut behind her, Pevara snorted. "I wouldn’t put it past her to have gone to this Bernaile like a sloven, hoping to warn her that way."

"A valid point," Seaine admitted. "But who will we warn if we scowl right and left at these women? At the very least, we will attract notice."

"The way matters are, Seaine, we wouldn’t attract notice kicking them across the Tower grounds." Pevara sounded as if that were an attractive notion. "They are rebels, and I intend to hold them so hard they if one of them so much as has a wrong thought!"

They went round and round about that. Seaine insisted that care in the orders they gave, leaving no loopholes, would be sufficient. Pevara pointed out that they were letting ten rebels- ten!-walk the Tower’s halls unpunished. Seaine said they would face punishment eventually, and Pevara growled that eventually was not soon enough. Seaine had always admired the other woman’s strength of will, but really, sometimes it was pure stubbornness.

A faint creak from a hinge was all the warning Seaine had to snatch the Oath Rod into her lap, hiding it in folds of her skirt as the door opened wide. She and Pevara embraced the source almost at once.

Saerin walked into the room calmly, holding a lantern, and stood aside for Talene, who was followed by tiny Yukiri, with a second light, and boyishly slim Doesine, tall for a Cairienin, who closed the door quite firmly and settled her back against it as if to keep anyone from leaving. Four Sitters, representing all the remaining Ajahs in the Tower. They seemed to ignore the fact that Seaine and Pevara held saidar. Suddenly, to Seaine, the room felt rather crowded. Imagination, and irrational, but…

"Strange to see the pair of you together," Saerin said. Her face might be serene, but she slid fingers along the hilt of that carved knife behind her belt. She had held her chair forty years, longer than anyone else in the hall, and everyone had learned to be careful of her temper.

"We might say the same of you," Pevara replied dryly. Saerin’s temper never upset her. "Or did you come down here to help Doesine try to get some of her own back?" A sudden flush made the Yellow’s face look even more than a pretty boy despite her elegant bearing, and told Seaine had strayed too near the Red quarters with unfortunate results. "I wouldn’t have thought that would bring you together, though. Greens’ at Yellows throats, Browns at Grays’. Or did you just bring them down for a quiet duel, Saerin?"

Frantically, Seaine cast around for what reason would have these four this deep into the bedrock of Tar Valon. What could tie them together? Their Ajahs-all of the Ajahs-truly were at one another’s throats. All four had been handed penances by Elaida. No Sitter could enjoy labor, especially when everyone knew exactly why she was scrubbing floors or pots, yet that was hardly a bond. What else? None were nobly born. Saerin and Yukiri were the daughters of innkeepers, Talene of farmers, while Doesine’s father had been a cutler. Saerin had been trained first by the Daughters of Silence, the only one of that lot to reach the shawl. Absolutely useless frivel. Suddenly, something did strike her, and dried her throat. Saerin with her temper often barely in rein. Doesine, who had actually run away three times as a novice, though she had only once made it as far as the bridges. Talene, who might have earned more punishments than any other novice in the history of the Tower. Yukiri, always the last gray to join her sisters’ consensus when she wanted to go another way, the last to join the Hall’s, for that matter. All four were considered rebels, in a way, and Elaida had humiliated every one. Could they be thinking they had made a mistake, standing to depose Siuan and raise Elaida? Could they have found about Zerah and the others? And if so, what did they intend to do?

Mentally, Seaine prepared herself to weave saidar, though without much hope that she could escape. Pevara matched Saerin and Yukiri in strength, but she herself was weaker than any here save Doesine. She prepared herself, and Talene stepped forward and burst all of her logical deductions to flinders.

"Yukiri noticed you two sneaking about together, and want to know why." Her surprisingly deep voice held heat despite the ice that seemed to coat her face. "Did the heads of your Ajahs set you a secret task? In public, the Ajahs’ heads snarl at one another worse than anyone else, but they’ve been sneaking into corners to talk, it seems. Whatever they’re scheming, the Hall has a right to know.

"Oh, do give over, Talene." Yukiri’s voice was always an even bigger surprise than Talene’s. The woman looked a miniature queen, in dark silver silk and ivory lace, but she sounded a comfortable country woman. She claimed the contrast helped in negotiations. She smiled at Seaine and Pevara, a monarch perhaps unsure how gracious she should be. "I saw the pair of you sniffing about like ferrets at the hencoop," she said, "But I held my tongue-you might be pillow friends, for all I know, and whose business is that but your?-I held my tongue till Talene here started yelping about who’s been huddling in corners. I’ve seen a bit of huddling in corners myself, and I suspect some of those women might head their Ajahs as well, so…Sometimes six and six makes a dozen, and sometimes they can make a mess. Tell us if you can, now. The Hall does have a right."

"We are not leaving until you do tell," Talene put in even more heatedly than before.

Pevara snorted and folded her arms. "If the head of my Ajah spoke two words to me, I’d see no reason to tell you what they were. As it happens, what Seaine and I were discussing has nothing to do with the Red or the White. Snoop elsewhere." But she did not release saidar. Neither did Seaine.

"Bloody useless and I bloody knew it," Doesine muttered from her place by the door. "Why I flaming ever let you talk me into this…Just as bloody well nobody else knows, or we’d have sheepswallop all over faces for the whole bloody Tower to see." At times she had a tongue like a boy, too, a boy who needed his mouth washed out.

Seaine would have stood to leave if she had not feared her knees would betray her. Pevara did stand, and raised an impatient eyebrow at the women between her and the door.

Saerin fingered her knife hilt and eyed them quizzically, not shifting a step. "A puzzle," she murmured. Suddenly she glided forward, her free hand dipped into Seaine’s lap so quickly that Seaine gasped. She tried to keep the Oath Rod hidden, but the only result was that she ended with Saerin holding the Rod waist high with one hand while she held the other end and a fistful of her skirts. "I enjoy puzzles," Saerin said.

Seaine let go and adjusted her dress; there seemed nothing else to do.

The appearance of the Rod produced a momentary babble as nearly everyone spoke at once.

"Blood and fire," Doesine growled. "Are you down here raising new bloody sisters?"

"Oh, leave it with them, Saerin," Yukiri laughed right on top of her. "Whatever they’re up to, it’s their own business."

Atop both, Talene barked, "Why else are they sneaking about-together!-if it isn’t to do with the Ajah heads?"

Saerin waved a hand, and after a moment gained quiet. All present were Sitters, but she had the right to speak first in the Hall, and her forty years counted for something, too. "This is the key to the puzzle, I think," she said, stroking the rod with her thumb. "Why this, after all?" Abruptly the glow of saidar surrounded her, too, and she channeled Spirit to the Rod. "Under the Light, I will speak no word that is not true. I am not a Darkfriend."

In the silence that followed, a mouse sneezing would have sounded loud.

"Am I right?" Saerin said, releasing the Power. She held the Rod out toward Seaine.

For the third time, Seaine retook the Oath against lying, and for the second time repeated that she was not of the Black. Pevara did the same with frozen dignity. And eyes sharp as an eagle’s.

"This is ridiculous," Talene said. "There is no Black Ajah."

Yukiri took the Rod from Pevara and channeled. "Under the Light, I will speak no word that is not true. I am not Black Ajah." The light of saidar around her winked out, and she handed the Rod to Doesine.

Talene frowned in disgust. "Stand aside, Doesine. I for one will not put up with this filthy suggestion."

"Under the Light, I will speak no word that is not true," Doesine said almost reverently, the glow around her like a halo. "I am not of the Black Ajah." When matters were serious, her tongue was as clean as any Mistress of Novices could have wished. She extended the Rod to Talene.

The golden-haired woman started back as from a poisonous snake. "Even to ask this is slander. Worse than slander!" Something feral moved in her eyes. An irrational thought, perhaps, but that was what Seaine saw. "Now move out of my way," Talene demanded with all the authority of a Sitter in her voice. "I am leaving!"

"I think not," Pevara said quietly, and Yukiri nodded slowly in agreement. Saerin did not stroke her knife hilt; she gripped it till her knuckles went white.

Three lanterns cast a flickering light, more than enough to illuminate the small room with its stark white walls and ceiling, but Seaine kept her eyes fixed on the heavy wooden door. Illogical, she knew; foolish in a Sitter for the White. The weave of saidar she had pushed around the jamb brought her occasional whispers of distant footsteps in the warren of hallways outside, whispers that faded away almost as soon as heard. A simple thing that she learned from a friend in her long-ago novice days, but she would have warning before anyone came near. Few people came down as deep as the second basement, anyway.

Her weave picked up the far-off chattering of rats. Light! How long since there had been rats in Tar Valon, in the Tower itself? Were any of them spies for the Dark One? She wet her lips uneasily. Logic counted for nothing in this. True. If illogical. She wanted top laugh. With an effort she crept back from the brink of hysteria. Think of something besides rats. Something besides…A muffled squeal rose in the room behind her, faltered into muted whimpering. She tried to stop her ears. Concentrate!

In a way, she and her companions had been led to this room because the heads of the Ajahs seemed to be meeting in secret. She herself had glimpsed Ferane Neheran whispering in a secluded nook of the library with Jesse Bilal, who stood very high among the Browns if not at the very top. She thought she was on firmer ground concerning Suana Dragand, of the Yellows. She thought so. But why had Ferane gone walking with Suana in a secluded part of the Tower grounds, both swathed in plain cloaks? Sitters of different Ajahs still talked to one another openly, if coldly. The others had seen similar things; they could not give names from their own Ajahs, of course, but two had mentioned Ferane. A troubling puzzle. The Tower was a seething swamp these days, every Ajah at every other Ajah’s throat, yet the heads met in corners. No one outside an Ajah knew for certain who within it led, but apparently the leaders knew each other. What could they be up to? What? It was unfortunate that she could not simply ask Ferane, but even if Ferane had been tolerant of anyone’s questions, and she did not dare. Not now.

Concentrate as she would, Seaine could not keep her mind on the question. She knew she was staring at the door and worrying at puzzles she could not solve just to avoid looking over her shoulder. Toward the source of those stilled whimpers and snuffing groans.

As if thinking of the sounds compelled her, she looked back slowly to her companions, her breath growing more uneven as he head moved by inches. Snow was falling heavily on Tar Valon, far overhead, but the room seemed unaccountably hot. She made herself see!

Brown-fringed shawl looped over her elbows, Saerin stood with her feet planted apart, fingering the hilt of the curved Altaran dagger thrust behind her belt. Cold anger darkened her olive complexion enough to make the scar along her jaw stand out in a pale line. Pevara appeared calmer, at first glance, yet one hand gripped her red-embroidered skirts and the other held the smooth white cylinder of the Oath rod like a foot-long club she was ready to use. She might be ready; Pevara was far tougher than her plump exterior suggested, and determined enough to make Saerin seem a shirker.

On the other side of the Chair of Remorse, tiny Yukiri had her arms wrapped tightly around herself; the long silver-gray fringe on her shawl trembled with her shivers. Licking her lips, Yukiri cast a worried glance at the woman standing beside her. Doesine, looking more like a pretty boy than a Yellow sister of considerable repute, displayed no reaction to what they were doing. She was the one actually manipulating the weaves that stretched into the Chair, and she stared at the ter-angreal so hard on her work that perspiration beaded on her pale forehead. They were all Sitters, including the tall woman writhing on the Chair.

Sweat drenched Talene, matting her golden hair, soaking her linen shift till it clung to her. The rest of her clothes made a jumbled pile in a corner. Her closed eyelids fluttered, and she let out a constant stream of strangled moans and mewling, half-uttered pleas. Seaine felt il, but could not drag her eyes away. Talene was a friend, had been a friend.

Despite its name, the ter-angreal looked nothing like a chair, just a large rectangular block of marbled gray. No one knew what is was made of, but the material was hard as steel everywhere except the slanted top. The statuesque Green sank a little into that, and somehow it molded itself to her no matter how she twisted. Doesine’s weaving flowed into the only break anywhere on the Chair, a palm-sized rectangular hole in one side with tiny notches spaced-unevenly around it. Criminals caught in Tar Valon were brought down here to experience the Chair of Remorse, to experience carefully selected consequences of their of their crimes. On release, they invariably fled the island. There was very little crime in Tar Valon. Queasily, Seaine wondered whether this was anything like the Chair had been put to in the Age of Legends.

"What is she…seeing?" Her question came out a whisper in spite of herself. Talene would be more than seeing; to her, it all would seen real. Thank the light she had no warder, almost unheard of for a Green. She claimed a Sitter had no need for on. Different reasons came to mind, now.

"She is bloody being flogged by bloody Trollocs," Doesine said hoarsely. Touches of her native Cairhien had appeared in her voice, something that seldom happened except under stress. "When they are done…She can see the Trollocs cook kettle boiling over a fire, and a Myrddraal watching her. She must know it will be one or the other next. Burn me, if she doesn’t break this time…" Doesine brushed perspiration from her forehead irritably and drew a ragged breath. "Stop joggling my elbow. It has been a long while since I did this."

"Three times under," Yukiri muttered. "The toughed strong-arm is broken by his own guilt, if nothing else, after two! What if she’s innocent? Light, this is like stealing sheep with the shepherd watching!" Even shaking, she appeared regal, but she always sounded like what she had been, a village woman. She glared around at the rest of them in a sickly fashion. "The law forbids using the Chair on initiates. We’ll all be unchaired! And if being thrown out of the Hall isn’t enough, we’ll probably be exiled. And birched before we go, just to drop salt in our tea! Burn me, if we’re wrong, we could all be stilled!"

Seaine shuddered. They would escape that last, if their suspicions proved right. No, not suspicions; certainties. They had to be right! But even if they were, Yukiri was correct about the rest. Tower law seldom allowed for necessity, or any supposed higher good. If they were right, though, the price was worth paying. Please, the light send they were right!

"Are you blind and deaf?" Pevara snapped, shaking the Oath Rod at Yukiri. "She refused to reswear the Oath against an untrue word, and it had to be more than stupid Green Ajah pride after we’d all done as much already. When I shielded her, she tried to stab me! Does that shout innocence? Does it? For all she knew, we just meant to talk at her until our tongues dried up! What reason would she have to expect more?"

"Thank you both," Searin put in dryly, "for stating the obvious. It’s too late to go back, Yukiri, so we might as well go forward. And if I were you, Pevara, I wouldn’t be shouting at one of the four women in the whole Tower I knew I could trust."

Yukiri flushed and shifted her shawl, and Pevara looked a trifle abashed. A trifle. They might all be Sitters, but Saerin had most definitely taken charge. Seaine was unsure how she felt about that. A few hours ago, she and Pevara had been two old friends alone on a dangerous quest, equals reaching decisions together; now they had allies. She should be grateful for more companions. They were not in the Hall, though, and they could not claim Sitters rights to this. Tower hierarchies had taken over, all the subtle and not-so-subtle distinctions as to who stood where in respect to whom. In truth, Saerin had been both novice and Accepted twice as long as most of them, but forty years as a Sitter, longer than anyone else in the Hall, counted for a great deal. Seaine would be lucky if Saerin asked her opinion, much less her advice, before deciding anything at all. Foolish, but the knowledge pricked like a thorn in her foot.

The Trollocs are dragging her toward the kettle," Doesine said suddenly, her voice grating. A thin keening escaped through Talene’s clenched teeth; she shook so hard she seemed to vibrate. "I-I do not know if I can…can flaming make myself…"

"Bring her awake," Saerin commanded without so much as glancing at anyone else to see what they thought. "Stop sulking, Yukiri, and be ready."

The Grey gave her a proud, furious stare, but when Doesine let her weaves fade and Talene’s blue eyes fluttered open, the glow of saidar surrounded Yukiri and she shielded the woman lying on the Chair without uttering a word. Saerin was in charge, and everyone knew it, and that was that. A very sharp thorn.

A shield hardly seemed necessary. Her face was a mask of terror, Talene trembled and panted as though she had run ten miles at top speed. She still sank into the soft surface, but with Doesine channeling, it no longer formed itself to her. Talene stared at the ceiling with bulging eyes, then squeezed them shut, but they popped right open again. Whatever memories lay behind her eyelids were nothing she wanted to face.

Covering the two strides to the Chair, Pevara thrust the Oath Rod at the distraught woman. "Forswear all oaths that bind you and retake the Three Oaths, Talene," she said harshly. Talene recoiled from the Rod as from a poisonous serpent, then jerked the other way as Saerin bent over her.

"Next time, Talene, it’s the cookpot for you. Or the Myrddraal’s tender attentions." Saerin’s face was implacable, but her tone made it soft by comparison. "No waking up before. And if that doesn’t do, there’ll be another time, and another, as long as it takes if we have to be down here until summer." Doesine opened her mouth in protest before giving over with a grimace. Only she among them knew how to operate the Chair, but in this group, she stood as low as Seaine.

Talene continued to stare at Saerin. Tears filled her big eyes, and she began to weep, great shuddering, hopeless sobs. Blindly, she reached out, groping until Pevara stuck the Oath Rod into her hand. Embracing the Source, Pevara channeled a thread of Spirit to the Rod. Talene gripped the wrist-thick rod so hard that her knuckles turned write, yet she just lay there sobbing.

Saerin straightened. "I fear it is time to put her back to sleep, Doesine."

Talene’s tears redoubled, but she mumbled through them. "I-forswear-all oaths-that bind me." With the last word, she began to howl.

Seaine jumped, then swallowed hard. She personally knew the pain of removing a single oath and had speculated on the agony of removing more than one at once, but now the reality was in front of her. Talene screamed till there was no breath left in her, then pulled in air only to scream again, until Seaine half expected people to come running down from the Tower itself. The tall Green convulsed, flinging her arms and legs about, then suddenly arched up till only her head and heels touched the gray surface, every muscle clenched, her whole body spasming wildly.

As abruptly as the seizure had begun, Talene collapsed bone-lessly and lay there weeping like a lost child. The Oath Rod rolled from her limp hand down the sloping gray surface. Yukiri murmured something with the sound of a fervent prayer. Doesine kept whispering, "Light!" over and over in a shaken voice. "Light! Light!"

Pevara scooped up the Rod and closed Talene’s fingers around it again. There was no mercy in Seaine’s friend, not in this matter. "Now swear the Tree Oaths," she spat.

For an instant, it seemed Talene might refuse, but slowly she repeated the oaths that made them all Aes Sedai and held them together. To speak no word that was not true. Never to make a weapon for one man to kill another. Never to use the One Power as a weapon, except in defense of her life, or that of her warder or another sister. At the end, she began weeping in silence, shaking without a sound. Perhaps it was the oaths tightening down on her. They were uncomfortable when fresh. Perhaps.

Then Pevara told the other oath they required of her. Talene flinched, but muttered the words in tones of hopelessness. "I vow to obey all five of you absolutely." Otherwise, she only stared straight ahead dully, tears trailing down her cheeks.

"Answer me truthfully," Saerin told her. "Are you of the Black Ajah?"

"I am." The words creaked, as if Talene’s throat was rusty.

The words froze Seaine in a way she had never expected. She had set out to hunt the Black Ajah, after all, and believed in her quarry as many sisters did not. She had laid hands on another sister, on a Sitter, had helped bundle Talene along deserted basement hallways wrapped in flows of Air, had broken a dozen Tower laws, committed serious crimes, all to hear an answer she had been certain of before the question was asked. Now she had heard. The Black Ajah really did exist. She was staring at a Black sister, a Darkfriend who wore the shawl. And believing turned out to be a pale shadow of confronting. Only her jaw clenched near to cramping kept her teeth from chattering. She struggled to compose herself, to think rationally. But nightmares were awake and walking the Tower.

Someone exhaled heavily, and Seaine realized she was not the only one who found her world turned upside down. Yukiri gave herself a shake, then fixed her eyes on Talene as though determined to hold the shield on her by willpower if need be. Doesine was licking her lips, and smoothing her dark golden skirts uncertainly. Only Saerin and Pevara appeared at ease.

"So," Saerin said softly. Perhaps, "faintly" was a better word. "So. Black Ajah." She drew a deep breath, and her tone became brisk. "There’s no more need for that, Yukiri. Talene, you won’t try to escape, or resist in any way. You won’t so much as touch the Source without permission from one of us. Though I suppose someone else will take this forward once we’ve handed you over. Yukiri?" The shield on Talene dissipated, but the glow remained around Yukiri, as if she did not trust the effect of the Rod on a Black sister.

Pevara frowned. "Before we give her over to Elaida, Saerin, I want to dig out as much as we can. Names, places, anything. Everything she knows!" Darkfriends have killed Pevara’s entire family, and Seaine was sure she would go into exile ready to hunt down every last Back sister personally.

Still huddled on the Chair, Talene made a sound half bitter laugh, half weeping. "When you do that, we are all dead. Dead! Elaida is Back Ajah!"

"That’s impossible!" Seaine burst out. "Elaida gave me the order herself."

"She must be," Doesine half whispered. "Talene’s sworn the oaths again; she just named her!" Yukiri nodded vehemently.

"Use your heads," Pevara growled, shaking her own head in disgust. "You know as well as I do if you believe a lie, you can say it for truth."

"And that is truth," Saerin said firmly. "What proof do you have, Talene? Have you seen Elaida at your…meetings?" She gripped her knife hilt so hard that her knuckles paled. Saerin had had to fight harder than most for the shawl, for the right to remain in the Tower at all. To her, the Tower was more than home, more important than her own life. If Talene gave the wrong answer, Elaida might not live to face trial.

"They don’t have meetings," Talene muttered sullenly. "Except the Supreme Council, I suppose. But she must be. They know every report she receives, even the secret ones, every word spoken to her. They know every decision she makes before it’s announced. Days before; sometimes weeks. How else, unless she tells them?" Sitting up with an effort, she tried to fix each with an intent stare. It only made her eyes seem to dart anxiously. "We have to run; he have to find a place to hide. I’ll help you-tell you everything I know! -But they’ll kill us unless we run."

Strange, Seaine thought how quickly Talene had made her former cronies "they" and tried to identify herself with the rest of them. No. She was avoiding the real problem, and avoidance was witless. Had Elaida really set her to dig out the Back Ajah? She had never once actually mentioned the name. Could she have meant something else? Elaida ha always jumped down the throat of anyone who mentioned the Black. Nearly any sister would do the same, yet…

"Elaida’s proven herself a fool," Saerin said, "and more than once I’ve regretted standing for her, but I’ll not believe she Black, not without more than that." Tight-lipped, Pevara jerked an agreeing nod. As a Red, she would want much more.

"That’s as may be, Saerin," Yukiri said, "but we cannot hold Talene long before the Greens start asking where she is. Not to mention the…the Black We’d better decide what to do fast, or we’ll still be digging at the bottom of the well when the rains hit." Talene gave Saerin a feeble smile that was probably meant to be ingratiating. It faded under the Brown Sitter’s frown.

"We don’t dare tell Elaida anything until we can cripple the Black at one blow," Saerin said finally. "Don’t argue, Pevara; it’s sense." Pevara threw up her hands and put on a stubborn expression, but she closed her mouth. "If Talene is right," Saerin went on, "the Black knows about Seaine or soon will, so we must ensure her safety, as much as we can. That won’t be easy, with only the five of us. We can’t trust anyone until we are certain them! At least we have Talene, and who knows what we’ll learn before she’s wrung out?" Talene attempted to look willing to be wrung out, but no one was paying her any mind. Seaine’s throat had gone dry.

"We might not be entirely alone," Pevara said reluctantly. "Seaine, tell them your little scheme with Zerah and her friends."

"Scheme?" Saerin said. "Who’s Zerah? Seaine? Seaine!"

Seaine gave a start. "What? Oh. Pevara and I uncovered a small nest of rebels here in the tower," she began breathily. "Ten sisters sent to spread dissent." Saerin was going to make sure she was safe, was she? Without so much as asking. She was a Sitter herself; she had been Aes Sedai for almost a hundred and fifty years. What right had Saerin or anyone to…? "Pevara and I have been begun putting an end to that. We’ve already made one of them, Zerah Dacan, take the same extra oath Talene did, and told her to bring Bernaile Gelbarn to my rooms this afternoon without rousing her suspicions." Light, any sister outside this room might be Black. Any sister. "Then we will use those two to bring another, until they have all been made to swear obedience. Of course, we’ll ask the same question we put to Zerah, the same we put to Talene." The Black Ajah might already have her name, already know she had been set hunting them. How could Saerin keep her safe? "Those who give the wrong answer can be questioned, and those who give the right can repay for a little of their treachery by hunting the Black under our direction." Light, how?

When she was done, the others discussed the matter at some length, which could only mean that Saerin was unsure what decision she would make. Yukiri insisted on giving Zerah and her confederates over to the law immediately-if it could be done without exposing their own situation with Talene. Pevara argued for using the rebels, though halfheartedly; the dissent they had been spreading centered around a vile tale concerning the Red Ajah and false Dragons. Doesine seemed to be suggesting that they kidnap every sister in the Tower and force them all to take the added oath, but the other three paid little attention to her.

Seaine took no part in the discussion. Her reaction to their predicament was the only possible one, she thought. Tottering to the nearest corner, she vomited noisily.

Slowly descending one of the wide hallways that spiraled gently through the White Tower, Yukiri felt prickly as a starved cat. She could barely make herself listen to what the sister gliding beside her was saying. The morning was still dim, first light darkened by the snow falling heavily on Tar Valon, and the middle levels of the Tower were as icy as a Borderland winter. Well, perhaps so cold as that, she allowed after a moment. She had not been that far north in a number of years, and memory expanded what it did not shrink. That was the reason written records were so important. Except when you did not dare write down anything, at least. Still, it was chill enough. For all the ancient builders’ cleverness and skill, heat from the great furnaces in the basement never reached this high. Drafts made the flames dance on the gilded stand-lamps, and some were strong enough to stir the heavy tapestries spaced along the white walls, spring flowers and woodlands and exotic animals and birds alternating with scenes of Tower triumphs that would never be displayed in the public areas below. Her own rooms, with their warm fireplaces, would once have been much more comfortable.

News of the outside world churned through her head despite her efforts to avoid it. Or rather, more often, the lack of solid news. What eyes-and-ears reported from Altera and Arad Doman was all confusion, and the few reports beginning to seep out of Tarabon again were frightening. Rumor put the Borderland rulers everywhere from the Blight to Andor to Amadicia to the Aiel Waste; the only confirmed fact was that none were where they were supposed to be, guarding the Blightborder. The Aiel were everywhere, and finally out of al’Thor’s control, it appeared, if they had ever been in it. The latest news from Murandy made her want to grind her teeth and weep at the same time, while Cairhien…! Sisters all over the Sun Palace, some suspected of being rebels and known to be loyal, and still no word of Coiren and her embassy since they departed the city, though they should have been back in Tar Valon long since. And as if that were not enough, al’Thor himself had vanished like a soap bubble yet again. Could the tales that he had half destroyed the Sun Palace be true? Light, the man could not go mad yet! Or had Elaida witless offer of "protection" frightened him into hiding? Did anything frighten him? He frightened her. He frightened the rest of the Hall, too, let them put whatever face on it they wanted.

The only thing truly certain was none of that mattered a spit in a rainstorm. Knowing so did not help her mood in the slightest. Worry over being caught in a tangle of roses, even if the thorns might kill you eventually, was a luxury when you had a knife point pressed to your ribs.

"Every time she’s left the Tower in the last ten years, it has been on her own affairs, so there are no recent records to check," her companion murmured. "It’s difficult to learn exactly when she has been out of the Tower and remain…discreet." Her dark golden hair held back by ivory combs, Meidani was tall, and slender enough to look overbalanced by her bosom, an effect emphasized by both the fit of her dark silver embroidered bodice and the way she walked in a stoop to put her mouth more on the level of Yukiri’s ear. Her shawl was caught on her wrists, the long gray fringe dragging the floor tiles.

"Straighten your backbone," Yukiri growled quietly. "My ears aren’t clogged with dirt."

The other woman jerked herself upright, faint splashes of color in her cheeks. Pulling her shawl higher on her arms, Meidani half glanced over her shoulder toward her Warder Leonin, who was following at a discreet distance. If they could barely hear the faint tingling of the silver bells in the lean man’s black braids, though, he could hear nothing said in a moderate tone. The man knew no more than necessary-precious little, in fact, except that his Aes Sedai wanted certain things of him; that was enough for any good Warder-and he might cause problems if he learned too much, but there was no need for whispering. People who saw whispering wanted to know what the secret was.

The other Gray was no more the source of her irritation than the outside word, however, even if the woman was a jackdaw in swan’s feather. Not the main source, anyway. A disgusting thing, a rebel pretending loyalty, yet Yukiri was actually glad that Saerin and Pevara had convinced her that they should not yet turn Meidani and her sister jackdaws over to Tower law. Their wings were clipped, now, and they were useful. They might even gain a measure of clemency, for when they did face justice. Of course, when the oath that had clipped Meidani’s wings came out, Yukiri might easily find herself wishing for clemency herself. Rebels or not, what she and the others had done with Meidani and her confederates was as far outside the law as murder. Or treason. An oath of personal obedience-sworn on the Oath Rod itself; sworn under duress-was all too close to Compulsion, which was clearly prohibited if not really defined. Still, sometimes you had to smudge the plaster to smoke out hornets, and the Black Ajah were hornets with venomous stings. The law would have its course in due time-without the law, there was nothing-but she needed to be more concerned with whether she would survive the smoking out than with what penalties the law would exact. Corpses had no need to worry about punishment.

She motioned curtly for Meidani to go on, but no sooner had the other woman opened her mouth than three Browns rounded a corner from another hallway right in front of them, flaunting their shawls like Greens. Yukiri knew Marris Thornhill and Doraise Mesianos slightly, in the manner Sitters knew sisters of other Ajahs who spent long periods in the Tower, which was to say enough to attach names to faces and not much more. Mild and absorbed in their studies was how she would have described them, if pressed. Elin Warrel was so newly raised to the shawl, she still should have been bobbing curtsies on instinct. Instead of offering courtesies to a Sitter, though, all three stared at Yukiri and Meidani the way cats stared at strange dogs. Or maybe dogs at strange cats. No mildness, there.

"May I ask a point of Arafellin law, Sitter?" Meidani said, as smoothly as if that were what she had been intending to say all along.

Yukiri nodded, and Meidani began rambling about fishing rights on rivers versus lakes, hardly an inspired choice. A magistrate might ask an Aes Sedai to listen to case of fishing rights, but only to bolster her own opinion if powerful people were involved and she was worried about an appeal to the throne.

A single warder trailed the Browns-Yukiri could not recall whether he belonged to Marris or Doraise-a heavyset fellow with a hard round face and a dark top knot who eyed Leonin and the swords on his back with a distrust surely picked up from his sister. That pair stalked by up the slowly spiraling corridor with plump chins high, the skinny newling leaping anxiously to keep up. The Warder strode after them radiating the air of a man in hostile country.

Hostility was all too usual, nowadays. The invisible walls between the Ajahs, once barely thick enough to hide each Ajah’s own mysteries, had become hard stone ramparts with moats. No, not moats; chasms, deep and wide. Sisters never left their own Ajah’s quarters alone, often took their Warders even to the library and the dinning rooms, and always wore their shawls, as though someone might mistake their Ajah, otherwise. Yukiri herself was wearing her best, embroidered in silver and thread-of-gold, with the long silk fringe that hung to her ankles. So she supposed she was flaunting her Ajah a bit, too. And lately, she had been considering that a dozen years might be long enough to go without a Warder. A horrible thought, once she sifted out the source. No sister should have need of a Warder inside the White Tower.

Not for the first time, the thought hit her hard that someone had to mediate among the Ajahs, and soon, or the rebels would dance in through the front door, bold as thieves, and empty the house while the rest of them squabbled over who got Great Aunt Sumi’s pewter. But the only end of the thread she could see to begin working out the snarl was to have Meidani and her friends publicly admit that they had been sent to the Tower by the rebels to spread rumors-tales they still insisted were true!-that the Red Ajah had created Logain as a false Dragon. Could it be true? Without Pevara knowing? Impossible to think that a Sitter, especially Pevara, could have been fooled. In any case, that bit of the tangle had been overlaid with so many others by now that it scarcely could make any difference by itself. Besides, it would through away the aid of ten out of the fourteen women she could be sure were not Black Ajah, not to mention likely exposing what the rest of them were doing, before the storm, over it blew out.

She shivered, and it had nothing to do with drafts in the corridor. She and every other woman who might reveal the truth would die before that storm ended, by so-called accidents or in bed. Or she might just vanish, apparently gone out of the Tower never to be seen again. She had no doubt of that. Any evidence would be buried so deep, an army with shovels could never dig it up. Even rumors would be plastered over. It had happened before. The world and most sisters still believed Tamra Ospenya had died in her bed. She had believed it. They had to have the Black Ajah wrapped up and tied, as near as possible, before they dared risk going public.

Meidani took up her report again once the Browns were safely past, but fell silent only moments later when, just ahead of them, a big hairy hand suddenly thrust aside a tapestry from behind. An icy draft swept out of the doorway that had been hidden by the tapestry’s brightly colored birds from the Drowned Lands, and a heavy fellow in a thick brown workcoat backed into the corridor, pulling a handcart stacked high with split hickory that another serving man in a rough coat was pushing from behind. Common laborers: neither had the Flame on his chest.

At the sight of two Aes Sedai, the men hastily let the tapestry fall back into place and wrestled their cart out of the way against the wall while trying to make their bows, almost toppling the loads, which set them grabbing at the sliding firewood frantically while still bobbing. No doubt they had expected to finish their work without encountering any sisters. Yukiri always felt sympathy for the people who had to haul wood and water and everything else up the servants’ ramps all the way from the ground, but she strode past them with a scowl.

Talk while walking was never overheard, and the hallways in the common areas had seemed a good place to be private with Meidani. Much better than her own apartments, where any ward against eavesdropping would just announce to everyone in the Gray quarters that she was discussing secrets, and, far worse, with whom. There were only two hundred or so sisters in the Tower at the moment, a number the White Tower could swallow and seem vacant, and with everyone keeping to themselves, the common areas should have been empty. So she had thought.

She had taken into account the liveried servants rushing about to check lamp-wicks and oil levels and a dozen other things, and the plain-clad workers carrying wicker baskets of the Light knew what on their backs. They were always about in the in the early hours, readying the Tower for the day, but they made hasty bows and curtsies and scurried to get out of a sister’s way. Out of hearing. Tower servants knew how to be tactful, especially since anyone eavesdropping on a sister would be shown the door. Given the present mood in the Tower, the servants were particularly quick to avoid so much as a chance of overhearing things they should not.

What she failed to reckon on how many sisters would choose to walk outside the quarters, by twos and threes, despite the hour and the cold, Reds trying to stare down anyone they encountered except other Reds, Greens and Yellows competing for the crown of haughty and Browns doing their best to outdo both. A few Whites, all but one Warderless, attempted to maintain a façade of cool reason while jumping at their own footfalls. One little group was not out of sight for more than minutes, it seemed, before another appeared, so Meidani spent nearly as much time chattering about points of law as she did giving her reports.

Worst of all, twice Grey smiled in what looked like relief on seeing others of their Ajah, and would have joined them had Yukiri not shaken her head. Which infuriated her no end, because it let all who saw know she had special reason to be alone with Meidani. Even if the Black Ajah took no notice, the Light send there was no reason they should, too many sisters spied on other Ajahs these days, and in spite of the Three Oaths, the tales they carried somehow grew in the carrying. With Elaida apparently trying to force the Ajahs into line by brute force, those tales too often resulted in penance’s, and the best to be hoped for was that you could pretend to have taken it on for reasons of your own. Yukiri had already suffered through one such, and she had no desire to waste days scrubbing floors again, especially now that she had more on her plate than she knew what to do with. And taking the alternative, a private visit to Silviana, was no better, even if it did save the time! Elaida seemed fiercer than ever since she began summoning Silviana for her own supposedly private penances. The whole Tower was still buzzing with that.

As much as Yukiri hated admitting it, all that made her careful how she looked at the other sisters she saw. Look too long, and you might seem to be spying on yourself. Shift your gaze too fast, and you looked furtive, with the same result. Even so, she could barely keep her eyes from lingering on one pair of Yellows who glided along a crossing corridor like queens in their own palace.

The dark stocky Warder followed just far enough behind to give them privacy must have belonged to Pritalle Nerbaijan, a green-eyed woman who had largely escaped the Saldaean nose, because Atuan Larisett had no Warder. Yukiri knew little about Pritalle, but she would learn more after seeing her in close conversation with Atuan. In high-necked gray slashed with yellow and a silk-fringed shawl, the Taraboner was striking. Her dark hair, in thin, brightly beaded braids that hung to her waist, framed a face that somehow seemed perfect as it was without being beautiful,. She was even fairly modest, at least as Yellows went. But she was the one Meidani and the others were trying to study without being caught out. The woman whose name they were afraid to speak aloud except behind strong wards. Atuan Larisett was one of only three Black sisters Talene knew. That was how they organized themselves, three women who knew each other, three women who formed one heart, with each woman knowing one more the other two did not. Atuan had been Talene’s "one more," so there was some hope she could be followed to two others.

Just before the pair passed out of view around the corner, Atuan glanced up the spiral hallway. Her gaze only brushed by Yukiri, yet that was enough to make Yukiri’s heart leap into her throat. She kept walking, holding her face calm with an effort, and risked a quick glance of her own when she reached the corner. Atuan and Pritalle were already well along the corridor, heading toward the outer ring. The Warder was in the way, but neither was looking back. Pritalle was shaking her head. To something Atuan was saying? They were too far for Yukiri to hear any sound other than the faint click of the of the dark Warder’s bootheels on the floor tiles. It had just been a glance. Of course it had. She quickened her step to take her beyond sight if one of them did look over a shoulder, and let out a long breath she she had not realized she was holding. Meidani echoed her faintly, her shoulders sagging.

Strange, how it takes us, Yukiri thought, squaring her own shoulders.

When they first learned Talene was a Darkfriend, Talene had been a shielded prisoner. And she still scared us spitless, she admitted to herself. Well, what they did to make her confess had scared them spitless first, but learning the truth had turned their tongues to dust. Now Talene was tethered tighter than Meidani, closely guarded even if she did appear to walk free-how to keep a Sitter prisoner without anyone noticing had been beyond even Saerin-and she was pathetically eager to offer up every scrap sshe knew or even suspected in hope it might save her life, not that she had any choice. Hardly an object of fear. As for the rest…

Pevara had tried to maintain that Talene must be wrong about Galina Casban, and went into a rage that lasted a full day when she finally was convinced that her Red sister was really Black. She still spoke of strangling Galina with her own hands. Yukiri herself had felt a cold detachment when Temaile Kinderode was named. If there were darkfriend in the Tower, it stood to reason that some had to be Grays, though perhaps disliking Temaile helped. She remained cool even after she did the sums and realized that Temaile had left the Tower at the same time that three sisters were murdered. That provided more names for suspicion, other sisters who had gone then, too, but Galina and Temaile and the rest were out of the Tower, beyond reach for the moment, and only the two could be proven Darkfriend.

Atuan was right there, Black Ajah without a doubt, walking the Tower as she wished, unrestrained and unbound of the Three Oaths. And until Doesine could arrange for her to be questioned in secret-a difficult matter, even for a Sitter of Atuan’a Ajah, since it had to be secret from everyone-until then, all they could do was watch. A distant, carefully circumspect watching. It was like living with a red adder, never knowing when you would find yourself eye to eye with it, never knowing when it might bite. Like living in a den of red adders, and only being able to see one.

Suddenly, Yukiri noticed that the wide, curving corridor was empty ahead as far as she could see, and a glance back showed only Leonin behind. The Tower might have been empty save for the three of them. Nothing moved except the flickering flames on the stand lamps. Silence.

Meidani gave a start. "Forgive me, Sitter. Seeing her so suddenly took me aback. Where was I? Oh, yes. I understand that Celestin and Annharid are trying to find out her close friends in the Yellow." Celestin and Annharid were Meidani’s fellow conspirators, both Yellows. There were two from each Ajah-except the Red and Blue, of course-which had proven very useful. "I fear that won’t be much help. She has a wide circle of friends, or did before the…current situation rose between the Ajahs." A touch of satisfaction tinged her voice, however smooth her face; she was still a rebel, in spite of the added oath. "Investigating all of them will be difficult, if not impossible."

"Forget her for the moment." It took an effort for Yukiri not to crane her neck trying to look every way at once. A tapestry worked with large white flowers rippled slightly, and she hesitated until she was sure it was a draftand not another servant coming out of a servants’ ramp. She never could recollect where they were located. Her new topic was as dangerous as discussing Atuan, in its own way. "Last night, I remembered you were a novice with Elaida, and close friends as I recall. It would be a good idea for you to renew that friendship."

"That was some years ago," the taller woman replied stiffly, lifting her shawl to her shoulders and wrapping it around herself as though she suddenly felt the clod. "Elaida very promptly broke it off when she was raised Accepted. She might have been accused of favoritism if I was in a class she was given to teach."

"As well for you that you weren’t a favorite," Yukiri said dryly. Elaida’s current ferocity had its precedent. Before she went off to Andor years ago, she had pushed those she favored so hard that sisters had needed to step in more than once. Siuan Sanche had been one of them, strange to remember, though Siuan had never needed rescuing from standards she could not meet. Strange and sad. "Even so, you will do everything in your power to renew that friendship."

Chapter 22 – One Answer – (pages 520-256)

Meidani walked two dozen paces along the corridor opening and closing her mouth, adjusting and readjusting her shawl, twitching her shoulders as though trying to shrug off a horsefly, looking everywhere but at Yukiri. How had the woman ever functioned as a Grey, with so little self-control? "I did try," she said finally. In a breathy tone. She still avoided Yukiri’s eye. "Several times. The Keeper…Alviarin always put me off. The Amyrlin was busy, she had appointments, she needed rest. There was always some excuse. I think Elaida just doesn’t want to take up a friendship she dropped more than thirty years ago."

So the rebels had remembered that friendship, too. How had they thought to use it? Spying, most likely. She would have to find out how Meidani was supposed to pass on what she learned. In any case, the rebels had provided the tool, and Yukiri would use it. Alviarin is out of your way. She left the Tower yesterday, or maybe the day before. No one is quite certtain. But the maids say she took spare clothes, so it’s unlikely she’ll return for a few days at the soonest."

"Where could she have gone in this weather?" Meidani frowned. "It’s been snowing since yesterday morning, and it was threatening before."

Yukiri stopped and used both hands to turn the other woman to face her. "The only thing that need concern you, Meidani, is that she’s gone," she said firmly. Where had Alviarin gone in this weather? "You have a clear path to Elaida, and you will take it. And you will keep a close watch to see if anyone might be reading Elaida’s papers. Just be sure nobody sees you watching. Talene said the Black Ajah knew everything that came out of the Amyrlin’s study before it was announced, and they needed someone close to Elaida if they were to find out how it was done. Of course, Alviarin saw everything before Elaida signed, and the woman had taken on more authority than any Keeper in memory, but that was no reason to accuse her of being a Darkfriend. No reason not to, either. Her past was being investigated, too. "Watch Alviarin, as well, as much as you can, but Elaida’s papers are the important thing."

Meidani sighed and gave a reluctant nod. She might have to obey, but she knew the added danger she would be in if Alviarin did turn out to be a Darkfriend. Yet Elaida herself might still be Black, whatever Saerin and Pevara insisted. A Darkfriend as Amyrlin Seat. Now that was a thought to pickle your heart.

"Yukiri!" a woman’s voice called from back up the hallway.

A Sitter in the Hall of the Tower did not jump like a startled goat at hearing her own name, but Yukiri did.If she had not been holding on to Meidani, she might have fallen, and as it was, the pair of them staggered like drunken farmers at a harvest dance.

Recovering, Yukiri jerked her shawl straight and set her face in a scowl that did not diminish when she saw who was hurrying toward her. Seaine was supposed to be keeping close to her own rooms, with as many White sisters around her as she could manage, when she was not with Yukiri or one of the other Sitters who knew about Talene and the Black Ajah, but here she was scurrying down the hallway with only Bernaile Gelbarn, a sticky Taraboner and another of Meidani’s jackdaws, for company. Leonin stepped aside, and gave Seaine a formal bow, fingertips pressed to his heart. Meidani and Bernaile were foolish enough to exchange smiles. They were friends, but they should know better, when they could not tell not tell who might see.

Yukiri was in no mood for smiles. "Taking the air, Seaine?" she said sharply. "Saerin won’t be pleased when I tell her. Not at all pleased. I’m not pleased, Seaine."

Meidani made a small sound in her throat, and Bernaile’s head twitched, her multitude of narrow beaded braids rattleing against one another. The pair of them took to studying the tapestry that supposedly showed the humbling of Queen Rhiannon, and for all their smooth faces, clearly they wished they were somewhere else. In their eyes, Sitters were supposed to be equals. And so they were. Normally. After a fashion. Leonin should not have been able to hear a word, but he could feel Meidani’s mood, of course, and he moved a step farther away. While still keeping watch along the corridor, of course. A good man. A wise man.

Seaine had sense enough to look abashed. Unconsciously, she smoothed her dress, covered with snowy embroidery along the hem and across the bodice, but almost immediately her hands knotted in her shawl and her eyebrows drew down stubbornly. Seaine had been strong-willed from the day she first came to the Tower, a furniture-maker’s daughter from Lugard who had talked her father into buying passage for her and her mother. Passage for two upriver, but only one down. Strong-willed and confident. And frequently as blind of the world around her as any Brown. Whites were often like that, all logic and no judgement. "There’s no need for me to hide from the Black Ajah, Yukiri," she said.

Yukiri winced. Fool woman, naming the Black right out in the open. The corridor was still empty in both directions as far as the curve allowed sight, but carelessness led to more carelessness. She could bed stubborn herself, when there was need, but at least she showed more brain than a goose about when and where. She opened her mouth to give Seaine a piece of her mind, a sharp piece, but the other woman rushed on before she could think.

"Saerin told me I could find you." Seaine’s mouth tightened and spots of color flared in her cheeks, at having asked permission or at having to ask. It was understandable for her to resent her situation, of course. Just witless for her not to accept it. "I need to talk to you alone, Yukiri. About the second mystery."

For a moment, Yukiri was as puzzled as Meidani and Bernaile looked. They could sham not listening, but that did not shut their ears. Second mystery? What did Seaine mean? Unless…Could she mean the thing that had brought Yukiri into the hunt for the Black Ajah in the first place? Wondering why the heads of the Ajahs were meeting in secret had lost its urgency compared to finding Darkfriends among the sisters.

"Very well, Seaine," Yukiri said, more calmly than she felt. "Meidani, take Leonin down the hall until you can just see Seaine and me around the curve. Keep a sharp eye for anyone coming this way. Bernaile, do the same up the hall." They were moving before she was finished speaking, and as soon as they were out of earshot, she turned her attention to Seaine. "Well?"

To her surprise, the glow of saidar sprang up around the White Sitter, who wove a ward against eavesdropping around the pair of them. It was a clear sign of secrets to anyone who saw. This had better be important.

"Think about it logically." Seaine’s voice was calm, but her hands still gripped her shawl in fists. She stood very straight, towering over Yukiri, though she was not much above average height herself. "It’s more than a month, almost two, since Elaida came to me, and near two weeks since you found Pevara and me. If the Black Ajah knew about me, I would be dead by now. Pevara and I would have been dead before you and Doesine and Saerin ever walked in on us. Therefore, they don’t know. About any of us. I admit I was frightened, at first, but I have control of myself, now. There’s no reason for the rest of you to keep trying to treat me like a novice," a little heat invaded the calmness, "and a brainless one, at that."

You’ll have to talk to Saerin," Yukiri said curtly. Saerin had taken charge from the start-after forty years in the hall for the Brown, Saerin was very good at taking charge-and Yukiri had no intention of going against her unless she must, not without the Sitter’s privilege she could hardly claim in the circumstances. As well try to catch a falling boulder. If Saerin could be convinced, Pevara and Doesine would come around, and she herself would hardly try to stand in the way. "Now, what about this ‘second secret’? You do mean the Ajah heads’ meeting?"

Seaine’s face took on a muley expression. Yukiri almost expected her ears to lie back. Then she exhaled. "Did the head of your Ajah have a hand in choosing Andaya for the Hall? More than usual, I mean?"

"She did," Yukiri replied carefully. Everyone had been sure Andaya would go into the Hall one day, perhaps in another forty or fifty years, yet Serancha had all but anointed her, when the customary method was discussion until a consensus could be reached on two or three candidates, then a secret ballot. That was Ajah business, though, as secret as Serancha’s name and title.

"I knew it." Seaine nodded excitedly, not at all her normal manner. "Saerin says that Juilaine was handpicked for the Brown, too, apparently not their usual way, and Doesine says the same about Suana, though she was hesitant about saying anything. I think Suana may be head of the Yellow herself. In any case, she was a Sitter for forty years the first time, and you know it isn’t common to take a chair after you were a Sitter that long. And Ferane stepped down for the White less than ten years ago; no on has ever entered the Hall again so soon. To cap it off, Talen says the Greens nominate choices and their Captain-General chooses one, but Adelorna chose Rina without any nominations."

Yukiri managed to stifle a grimace, but only by a hair. Everyone had suspicions about who headed other Ajahs, else no one would have noticed the meetings in the first place, yet speaking those names aloud was rude at best. Anyone but a Sitter might face penance for it. Of course, she and Seaine both knew when it came to Adelorna. In her attempts to curry favor, Talen poured out all the secrets of the Green without being asked. It embarrassed all of them, except Talene herself. At least it explained why the Greens had been in such an outstanding rage when Adelorna was birched. Still, Captain-General was a ridiculous title, Battle Ajah or no Battle Ajah. At least Head Clerk really described what Serancha did, in a manner of speaking.

Down the corridor, Meidani and her Warder were standing just in sight on the curve, apparently talking quietly. One or the other always watched further down around the curve, though. In the opposite direction, Bernaile was just in sight, too. Her head was swiveling constantly as she tried to watch Yukiri and Seaine while trying to keep an eye out for anyone approaching. The way she kept shifting from one foot to the other would attract attention, too, but these days a sister alone outside her Ajah quarters was asking for trouble, and she knew it. This conversation had to end soon.

Yukiri raised one finger. "Five Ajahs had to choose new Sitters after women they had in the Hall joined the rebels." Seaine nodded, and Yukiri raised a second finger. "Each of those Ajahs chose a woman as Sitter who wasn’t the…logical…choice." Seaine nodded again. A third finger joined the first two. "The Brown had to choose two new Sitter, but you didn’t mention Shevan. Is there anything…" Yukiri smiled wryly, "odd …about her?"

"No; acording to Saerin, Shevan would likely have been her replacement when she decided to step down, but-"

"Seaine, if you’re actually implying the Ajah heads conspired over who would go into the Hall-an I never heard a more crack-brained notion!-if that’s what you’re suggesting, why would they choose five odd women and one who isn’t?"

"Yes, I am suggesting it. With the rest of you keeping me practically under lock and key, I’ve had more time for thinking than I know what to do with. Juilaine and Rina and Andaya gave me a hint, and Ferane made me decide to check." What did Seaine mean about Andaya and the other two giving a hint? Oh. Of course: Rina and Andaya were not really old enough to be in the Hall yet, either. The custom of not talking about age soon enough became the habit of not thinking about it, either.

"Two might have been coincidence," Seaine went on, "even three, though that strains credulity, but five makes a pattern. Except for the Blue, the Brown was the only Ajah to have two Sitters join the rebels. Maybe there’s a reason in that why they chose one odd sister and one not, if I can figure it out. But there is a pattern, Yukiri-a puzzle-and whether it’s rational or not, something tells me we had better solve it before the rebels get here. It makes me feel as though somebody’s hand is on my shoulder, but when I look, there isn’t anyone there."

What strained credulity was the idea of the Ajah heads conspiring in the first place. But then, Yukiri thought, a conspiracy of Sitters is beyond far-fetched, and I’m in the middle of one. And there was the simple fact that no one outside the Ajah was supposed to know the Ajah’s head, but the Ajah heads against all custom did. "If there’s a puzzle," she said wearily, "you have a long time to solve it. The rebels can’t leave Murandy before spring, whatever they’ve told people, and the march upriver will take months, if they hold their army together that long." She did not doubt they would, though bot any longer. "Go back to your rooms before someone sees us standing here warded, and think on your puzzle," she said, not unkindly, resting a hand on Seaine’s sleeve. You’ll have to put up with being watched over until we’re all sure you are safe."

The expression on Seaine’s face would have been called sullen on anyone but a Sitter, "I’ll speak to Saerin again," she said, but the light of saider around her vanished.

Watching her join Bernaile and the other two of them glide up the curving hallway toward the Ajah quarter, both are wary as fawns when wolves were out, Yukiri felt a heavy heart. It was a pitty the rebels could not get here before summer. At least that might make the Ajahs come together again, so sisters were not forced to slink about the White Tower. As well wish for wings, she thought sadly.

Determined to keep her mood in check, she went to gather up Meidani and Leonin. She had a Black sister to investigate, and at least investigation was a puzzle she knew how to work.

Pevara waited with a touch of impatience while the slim little Accepted placed the rimmed silver tray on a side table and uncovered the dish of cakes. A short woman with a serious face, Pedra was not being laggard, or resentful over having to szpend the morning fetching and carrying for a Sitter, just precise and careful. Those were useful qualities, to be encouraged. Still, when the accepted asked whether she should pour the wine, Pevara said crisply, "We will do for ourselves, child. You may wait in the anteroom." She almost told the young woman to go back to her studies.

Pedra spread her banded white skirts in a graceful curtsy without and sign of being flustered the way Accepted often were when a Sitter showed snappishness. All too frequently, Accepted took any bit in a Sitter’s tone as an opinion on their fitness for the shawl, as if Sitters had no other concerns.

Pevara waited until the door closed behind Pedra and the latch clicked before nodding approvingly. "That one will be raised Aes Sedai soon," she said. It was satisfying when any woman attained the shawl, but especially when the woman had appeared unpromising to begin with. Small pleasures seemed to be the only ones available, these days.

Not one of our, though, I think" was her reply from her surprising guest, who turned from the study of the row of painted miniatures of Pevara’s dead family that stood in a line on the waved-carved marble mantle above the fireplace. "She’s uncertain about men. I believe they make her nervous."

Tarna had certainly never been nervous of men or very much of anything else, at least not since she reached the shawl just over twenty years ago. Pevara could remember a very jumpy novice, but the pale-haired woman’s blue eyes were steady as stones, now. And about as warm as stones in winter. Even so, there was something in that cool prideful face, something in the set of her mouth, that made her seem uneasy this morning. Pevara could not imagine what might make Tarna Feir nervous.

The real question, though, was why the woman had come to see her. It bordered on impropriety for her to visit any Sitter privately, particularly a Red. Tarna still maintained her quarters here in the Red quarter, but so long as she held her new position, she was no longer part of the Red Ajah despite the crimson embroidery on her dark gray dress. Delaying the move to her new apartment might be taken as a show of delicacy, by those who did not know her.

Anything out of the ordinary made Pevara wary since Seaine had pulled her into hunting the Black Ajah. And Elaida trusted Tarna, just as she had trusted Galina; it was wise to be wary of anyone Elaida trusted. Just thinking of Galina-the Light burn the woman forever!-still set Pevara’s teeth on edge, but there was a second connection. Galina had taken a special interest in Tarna as a novice, too. True, Galina had taken an interest in any novice or Accepted she thought might join the Red, but it was another reason for caution.

Not that Pevara let anything show on her face, of course. She had been Aes Sedai too long for that. Smiling, she reached for the long-necked silver pitcher that sat on the tray giving off the sweet scent of spices. "Will you take wine, Tarna, in congratulation for being raised?"

Silver goblet in hand, they settled on spiral-worked armchairs, a style that had gone out of fashion in Kandor near a hundred years ago, but one that Pevara liked. She saw no reason to change her furniture or anything else according to the whims of the moment. The chairs had served her since they were new-made, and they were comfortable with the addition of a few cushions. Tarna sat stiffly, however, on the edge of her seat. No one had ever called her languid, but clearly she was uneasy.

"I am not certain congratulations are in order," she said, fingering the narrow red stole draped around her neck. The exact shade was not prescribed, except that anyone who saw it must call the color red, and she had chosen a brilliant scarlet color that nearly shone. "Elaida insisted, that I could not refuse. Much has changed since I left the Tower, inside as well as out. Alviarin made everyone…watchful…of the Keeper. I suspect someone will want her birched, when she finally returns. And Elaida…" She paused to sip at her wine, but when she lowered the goblet, she went on in a different vein. "I have often heard you called unconventional. I have even heard that you once said that you would like to have a Warder."

"I’ve been called worse than unconventional," Pevara said dryly. What had the woman been about to say about Elaida? She sounded as though she would have refused the Keeper’s stole, given her wishes. Strange. Tarna was hardly shy or shrinking. Silence seemed best. Especially about Warders. She had been talking too much if that was general gossip. Besides, keep silent long enough, and the other woman always spoke if only to fill up the gap. You could learn a great deal through silence. She sipped her own wine slowly. There was too much honey in it for her taste, and not enough ginger.

Still stiff, Tarna rose and strode to the fireplace, where she stood staring at the miniatures sitting on their white lacquered stands. She raised a hand to touch one of the ivory ovals, and Pevara felt her own shoulders tighten in spite of herself. Georg, her youngest brother, had been only twelve when he died, when all of the people in those paintings died, in an uprising by Darkfriends. They had not been a family who could afford ivory miniature, but once she had the coin, she found a painter a painter who could capture her memories. A beautiful boy, Georg, tall for his years and utterly fearless. Long after the event, she had learned how her baby brother died. With a knife in his hand, standing over their father’s body and trying to keep the mob from their mother. So many years ago, now. They would all have been long dead in any case, and their childern’s children’s children, as well. But some hatreds never died.

"The Dragon reborn is ta’veren, so I have heard," Tarna said finally, still staring at Goerg’s picture. "Do you think he alters chance everywhere? Or do we change the future by ourselves, one step following another until we find ourselves somewhere we never expected?"

"What do you mean?" Pevara said, a trifle more curtly than she could have wished. She did not like the other woman peering at her brother’s image so intently while talking of a man who could channel, even if he was the Dragon Reborn. She bit her lip so as not to tell Tarna to turn around and look at her. You could not read someone’s back the way you could a face.

"I anticipated no great difficulty in Salidar. No great success, either, but what I found…." Was that a shake of her head, or had she merely changed the angle at which she was peering at the miniature? She spoke slowly, but with an undercurrent of remembered urgency. "I left a pigeon handler a day outside the village, yet it took me less than half a day to get back to her, and after I loosed the birds with copies of my report, I pressed on so hard I had to pay the woman off because she could not keep up. I can hardly say how many horses I went through. Sometimes, the animal was spent to the point I had to show my ring to make a stable take it in trade, even with silver added. And because I pressed so hard, I happened to reach a village in Murandy while a…recruiting party…was there. If I had not been frightened out of my wits for the Tower by what I saw in Salidar, I would have ridden to Ebou Dar and take ship for Illian and then upriver, but the thought of going south instead of north, the thought of waiting for a vessel, sent me like an arrow toward Tar Valon. So I was in that village to see them."

"Who, Tarna?"

"Asha’man." The woman did turn then. Her eyes were still blue ice, but tight. She held her goblet in both hands as if trying to soak in the warmth. "I did not know what they were then, of course, but they were openly recruiting me to follow the Dragon Reborn, and it seemed wise to listen before I spoke. Well for me that I did. There were six of them, Pevara, six men in black coats. Two with silver swords on their collars were feeling men out about whether they might like to learn to channel. Oh, they did not say so right out. Wield the lightnings, they called it. Wield the lightnings and ride the thunder. But it was clear enough to me, if not to the fools they were talking to."

"Yes; very well for you that you kept silent," Pevara said quietly. "Six men who can channel would be more than merely dangerous for a sister by herself. Our eyes-and-ears are full of talk about these recruiting parties-they appear everywhere from Saldaea to Tear-but no one seems to have any idea how to stop them. If it isn’t too late for that already." She very nearly bit her lip again. That was the trouble with talking. Sometimes, you said more than you wanted.

Oddly, the comment took some of the stiffness out of Tarna. She resumed her seat, leaning back, though a hint of wariness still clung to the way she held herself. She chose her words carefully, pausing to touch the wine to her lips, but she did not actually drink, that Pevara saw. "I had a long time to think on the rivership coming north. Longer, after the fool captain ran us aground so hard he broke a mast and put a whole in the hull. Days trying to hail another ship, after we got ashore, and days finding a horse. Six of those men sent to one village convinced me, finnally. Oh, the district around, as well, but it was not very populous. I…I believe it is too late."

"Elaida thinks they can all be gentled," Pevara said noncommittally. She had already exposed herself too much.

"When they can send six men to one small village, and Travel? There is only one answer I can see. We…" Tarna took a deep breath, fingering the bright red stole again, but now it seemed more in regret than to play for time. "Red sisters must take them as Warders, Pevara."

That was so startling that Pevara blinked. A hair less self-control, and she would have gaped. "Are you serious?"

Those icy blue eyes met her gaze steadily. The worst was past-the unthinkable spoken aloud-and Tarna was a woman of stone once more. "This is hardly a matter for joking. The only other choice is to let them run loose. Who else can do it? Red sisters are used to facing men like this, and ready to take the necessary risks. Anyone else will flinch. Each sister will have to take more than one, but Greens appear to manage well enough with that. I think the Greens will faint if this is suggested to them, though. We…Red sisters…must do what needs to be done."

"Have you broached this to Elaida?" Pevara asked, and Tarna shook her head impatiently.

"Elaida believes as you said. She…." The yellow-haired woman frowned into her wine before going on. "Elaida often believes what she wants to and sees what she wants to see. I tried to bring up the Asha’man the first day I was back. Not to suggest bonding; not to her. I am not a fool. She forbade me to mention them to her. But you are…unconventional."

"And do you believe they can be gentled after they are bonded? I have no idea what that would do to the sister holding the bond, and in truth, I don’t want to learn." She was the one playing for time, Pevara realized. She had no idea where this interview was headed when it began, but she would have wagered everything she owned against it coming to this.

"That might be the end, and it might prove impossible," the other woman replied coolly. The woman was stone. "Either way, I can see no other way to handle these Asha’man. Red sisters must bond them as Warders. If there is any way, I will be among the first, but it must be done.

She sat there, calmly sipping her wine, and for a long time, Pevara could only stare at her in consternation. Nothing Tarna had said proved she was not Black Ajah, yet she could not distrust every sister unable to prove that. Well, she could and did, when it came to matters of the Black, but there were other matters she had to deal with. She was a Sitter, not simply a hunting dog. She had the White Tower to think of, and Aes Sedai far from the Tower. And the future.

Dipping her fingers into her embroidered belt pouch, she drew out a small piece of paper rolled into a thin tube. It seemed to her that it should glow with letters of fire. So far, she was one of two within the Tower who knew what was written there. Even once she had it out, she hesitated before handing it to Tarna. "This came from one of our agents in Cairhien, but it was sent by Toveine Gazal."

Tarna’s eyes jerked to Pevara’s face at the mention of Toveine’s name, then fell to reading again. Her stony face did not change even after she finished and let the paper roll back into a tube in her hand. "This changes nothing," she said flatly. Coldly. "It only makes what I suggest more urgent."

"O the contrary," Pevara sighed. "That changes everything. It changes the whole world."