Chapter 7

Sniffing Out Secrets

It took Sheraine until we'd had lunch to confront me in my room. Maybe she'd been hungry, but probably she wanted to make sure Gemiad was otherwise occupied with an exercise the Aes Sedai had given her. "You mentioned something interesting in the Rahad," she said. "Would you care to expand upon your warning?"

I considered her words, why was she approaching so obliquely? Why not come out and ask what I meant by people here able to trace weaves? Oh. "You don't want to come out and ask what I know about the Kin on the off chance I didn't actually know about them."

She let out a sigh and sat down in another chair. "Of course, you know. Though, why worry about them? We certainly don't want them to think the Tower is looking for them, but a few failed Novices will only have noticed our Weaves if they were close by."

"Ah, yes, I forgot how little the Tower knows about the Kin."

That earned me a frown. "And what is that supposed to mean?"

I spread my hands out, palms up. "That there are two facts that the Tower hasn't considered when it comes to the Kin. One," I said, closing my left hand, "is understandable since it's information that's lost." I closed the other hand with the exception of my index finger and wagged it. "But the other fact is inexcusable since every channeler knows it."

I waited, but Sheraine remained silent and then shook her head. "I'm not indulging you."

"Alright, let's start with what no Aes Sedai knows anymore." I got up and paced. "The Oath Rod is a ter'angreal used to create an unbreakable vow within a channeler's mind. This is what you know, but what you don't know is the reason why, back in the Age of Legends, they would only use it for criminals who couldn't be rehabilitated by any other means. Because it ultimately was a delayed death sentence anyway," I said, turning to face her.

Her expression of detached interest broke. "What?"

I gave her a grim smile. "Oh yes. It cuts a channeler's life expectancy in half. So rather than living for three or even five hundred years you only live a couple of centuries at best. What did you think caused that so-called ageless look? It's the constant strain on your body, and like a bowstring constantly under tension, your body can only endure it for so long."

Sheraine wetted her lips. "E-even then, we live far longer than a regular person can. To be an Aes Sedai is to put the good of everyone before your own."

I shrugged. "The counter to that is that you're not serving anybody when you're dead. But the Kin are failed Novices and Accepted, none of them swore on the Oath Rod, yet they're channelers still."

"How certain are you about this?"

This would have been tricky to answer, if not for Falme. "You didn't speak to any of the former damane, the ones that grew up in Seanchan. At least two of them were over three hundreds year old. Cadsuane's the oldest Aes Sedai and she's what, pushing 290?"

"A-around that, yes. Two hundred and ninety-two. But none of the damane looked that old," Sheraine said.

"Without the oaths, Cadsuane could easily reach five to six hundred years. With the oaths, I don't think she'll have another fifty. Now, the Kin don't have that problem, so channelers the Tower considers as dead from old age are actually still alive and in better shape than many an Aes Sedai. Which brings me to the second fact."

She took a deep breath to regain her composure. "The one I'm supposed to already know?"

"Yes, that no channeler will voluntarily stop channeling." I shook my head at that dumb idea. "I don't know where the delusional idea came from that any channeler could somehow forget the One Power. That any one would willingly stop touching the True Source."

"But they have," Sheraine fired back. "We've kept an eye on the Kin and they don't channel. They're too afraid of catching our attention. It's why we even allowed them to continue to exist."

"Sheraine," I said softly. "If certain madness and death couldn't stop the male Aes Sedai from channeling, why would you think that the possible wrath of the White Tower would stop anybody? The Kin are afraid, yes, so they hide like mice and don't recruit openly. But they still practice the weaves they know in private and quite a few figure things out on their own."

The Aes Sedai looked troubled. "How many? How many Kin are there, according to you?"

I shook my head. "I don't have access to their exact count, but at least twice the number of currently alive Aes Sedai."

She gasped. "That would be 1,800 women. It's impossible they could hide that many channelers!"

"You haven't been looking, secure in the knowledge that you already knew what was going on. And the Kin have been very careful to make sure they move their members about and don't concentrate in too great a number. But the Tower's arrogance is our good fortune in this case. Tar Valon is riddled with traitors, which means she'll be ineffective for what's to come. And that means most of the channelers for our side will have to come from elsewhere."

"Liandrin is just one person. There are nearly a thousand Aes Sedai," Sheraine argued.

I shook my head. "She was expendable. You don't waste an asset like that unless you will not notice the loss. I don't know how many, just that it's less than half of the Aes Sedai because otherwise they would have taken over the Tower already. Unless I miss my guess, when Nynaeve, Egwene, and Elayne return to the Tower, Siuan Sanche will use them to hunt for any other Black sisters. She doesn't have anybody else in the Tower she can be sure of."

Sheraine looked troubled. "It can't be that bad."

I shrugged. "Why did you think I don't want Gemiad anywhere near the Tower right now and that you don't report anything you learn for at least a year? Because things are going to heat up in Tar Valon and then explode like an Illuminator Chapter House set on fire. Between the panic about facing the Dragon Reborn and the Last Battle, Forsaken infiltration, and the Black Ajah making their move, it's going to be safer to take a stroll through the Blight than spend the night in the White Tower."

"The Forsaken, I suppose they would try something." The Aes Sedai grimaced, her hands clasped she squeezed them hard. The news that Lanfear was out and about had broken back in Falme. "Each one of them would know hundreds of weaves lost to memory. And the White Tower is the greatest obstacle to the Shadow's victory." She looked up at me. "Whatever you may think, that is still true. Otherwise, the Dark One wouldn't have to go to all this effort to try and sabotage us."

I considered her words. "You're not wrong. Though I fear you are underestimating how successful those efforts have already been."

"And I would have a much easier time believing you if you would but tell me where you are getting all your information from."

"Ah, fair," I said. I didn't really know what to say to that. It was true that I was making a lot of claims that I couldn't quite prove right now. "Unfortunately, I can't at the moment. But if you don't believe me, then there's nothing to report to the White Tower either except the ramblings of a stranger and who in the White Tower has time for that with everything going on?"

For some reason, Sheraine didn't look happy with that reasoning.

VVVV

I took a deep sniff and nodded as I looked up at the building. Six stories, the plaster only clinging here and there to the naked brick while every window was yawning empty. There was no sign anybody had lived here in a decade, but I could smell the trail.

It was old, nothing magical had been brought in for years now, but the power lingered, and with so many items in one place, I had smelled it even before we'd left the docks lining the Eldar. "It's in there."

"Are you certain? Some of the locals are paying particular attention to us," Sheraine said.

Gemiad looked inside the building through the open doorway. The door for it was long gone. "It looks abandoned. Shouldn't it be guarded if there's really … everything you say is here?"

"Much of it was gathered in earlier times. These days, they're just keeping watch on it, and people around here don't touch what's considered the Wise Women's property." I grinned. "That's a quick way to get several knives slipped into your back."

"I think I see some of those knives now," Sheraine said.

"Then let's make this a quick in and out." I led them into the building. We passed empty doorways and ones that had a few boards and slats hammered together into what I could only call a parody of a door. Nothing seemed to move beyond them, and the wood was old, the dust on the ground undisturbed until we walked through it.

"Can you give us a light?" I said as we neared the staircase. It ran up through the middle of the building, with no windows to provide light, and electricity hadn't been reinvented. Yet.

Sheraine raised a hand, and an orb of gentle white light sprang up above it. "What floor are we going to?"

"Top floor." I remembered that much from the books. "At least it's only six stories."

"Only six flights of stairs," Gemiad said as she went up ahead of me with Sheraine going first. Any threat right now I expected to come up from behind us. "Most people don't ever have to go up to the sixth floor in their lives."

"It's twelve flights, actually," I said. "Two per floor, that's why they go back and forth." And elevators weren't a thing. "Say, Sheraine, do you think the White Tower might be interested in an alternative mechanism instead of stairs? A platform that goes up and down rather than having to climb all those stairs all the time? It'll keep you in shape, no doubt about it, but it has to be exhausting for the servants."

"If you have something, I'll personally advocate for it once I've returned." She huffed as we passed the fourth floor. We weren't sprinting up the stairs, exactly, but we were walking as quick as we could.

The dust was worse on the top floor, but at least there was daylight again. It made it easy to tell our target. It was the only solid door, though age had shrunk the wood, and the lock on it was encrusted with rust. "Best you both don't get too close, channeling close to this many ter'angreals is begging for an accident."

"I'll be careful," Sheraine said, letting the orb wink out and I stopped smelling flowers.

I shrugged and headed for the door.

Unimpeded Entry

The lock groaned as it unlocked itself, the hinges screeched as the door swung open to let me in. The room wasn't that large, but it was packed with all manner of stuff. It looked like a hoarder had lived here for forty years. A clay bowl holding a tangle of jewelry rested on a wooden chair with one leg missing. The chair itself looked so old I was afraid it would collapse if I breathed on it.

"What are we looking for?" Gemiad asked.

"A small statue of a bearded man." I scanned the room again, but there wasn't that much light in here. And I still had plenty of Effort left today.

Discern the artifact's intent

Quite a few things in the room grew darker as they held not a drop of power. They were simply mundane things. But much of the clutter wasn't and a riot of color filled my vision. But I was only after a particular thing, data storage.

"We will be here all day then," Sheraine said. "Gemiad, whatever you, don't channel or even embrace the One Power while in this room. If there are ter'angreal here, there's nothing more dangerous to a channeler then a ter'angreal whose function you don't know."

"We won't be here all day," I told her as I walked over to a half collapsed crate with a faded rug thrown over it. The rug had several holes from mice and moths, which was enough to let the glow spill out. Throwing it back sent off a cloud of dust that had me held my breath.

But then I caught sight of what was inside of the crate, and I gasped, inhaling the dust and sending me into a coughing fit.

"Is something wrong?" Gemiad came over, but I warded her off.

"I wasn't careful enough," I said between coughs. I had not actually expected to see the Bowl of the Winds, it was only one ter'angreal in a hoard of them. What were the odds the statue was buried underneath it?

For a moment, I weighed the choice of taking it with me. It would mean it wouldn't get stolen or destroyed. Something that had nearly happened in the books. But if Nynaeve and Elayne weren't led to Ebou Dar by their search for the Bowl, then they wouldn't find the Kin and recruit them. Between the Bowl and the Kin, the Kin were more important.

I could make another Bowl of the Winds if necessary, but I couldn't mass produce channelers, and I couldn't risk them all being in Ebou Dar when the Seanchan invaded; if they invaded.

Carefully, I moved the Bowl aside and grabbed the statue of a bearded man with a pleased smile on his lips and a book in his hand. The material looked to be bronze but was instead some other copper alloy that had been infused with the One Power. It was taller than I expected, though, over fifty centimeters. This wouldn't fit in my pocket.

"Is that what you came here for?" Sheraine asked.

"Yes," I said as I retrieved the moth-eaten rug. A twist and a flick later I had a sturdy canvas bag in which I deposited the heavy statue. "Now, let's get out of here."

"We can't just leave all of this unguarded," Sheraine protested. "Even I can tell some of these things are indeed ter'angreal. One or two could even be angreal. We need to take them with us until such time as they can be brought to the White Tower."

I shook my head and barely held a snort. There was still dust hanging in the air. "All of this has been safe here for decades if not a couple of centuries. And taking more than this would just earn us a swifter and more vigorous response by those that guard this collection."

"If this is guarded, why could we walk in and why does it look nearly abandoned?" Gemiad looked from me to Sheraine and back again. "And why does she know who you're talking about?"

I shrugged. "Aes Sedai secrets. But regardless, we need to move now and I'm not carrying anything else out of here."

Sheraine gave the room another look, then tossed her head. "Very well. You've hinted that this journey isn't finished and between leaving it here or taking it to who-knows-where I suppose these treasures will be safer here. But we must lock that door again," she said, pointing at the door.

"Not a problem," I said, herding them out of the room. I closed the door behind me and studied the lock. It was heavily corroded and I didn't have a key, but while Freedom couldn't close a door, all I needed was for the lock to perform its function.

Restore to function!

A flex of Effort and much of the corrosion flaked off as the lock clicked shut smoother than it must have had in decades. "There, it's shut. Come on, let's take the other stairs." There should be another set.