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“I thought I was right on top of her,” Egwene said slowly, “but it was someone else. Nynaeve, I turned my back for a moment, and she was gone. Not Else — I never even saw her! — the woman I thought was Else at first. She was just — gone, and I don't know where.”

Elayne's breath caught. “One of the Soulless?” She looked around hastily, but the gallery was still empty except for the three of them.Advertisement

“Not her,” Egwene said firmly. “She —” I am not going to tell them she made me feel six years old, with a torn dress, a dirty face, and a runny nose. “She was no Gray Man. She was tall and striking, with black eyes and black hair. You'd notice her in a crowd of a thousand. I have never seen her before, but I think she is Aes Sedai. She must be.”

Nynaeve waited, as though for more, then said impatiently, “If you see her again, point her out to me. If you think there's cause. We've no time to stand here talking. I mean to see what is in that storeroom before Else has a chance to tell the wrong person about it. Maybe they were careless. Let's not give them a chance to correct it, if they were.”

As she fell in beside Nynaeve, with Elayne on the other side, Egwene realized she still had the stone ring — Corianin Nedeal's ter'angreal — clutched in her fist. Reluctantly, she tucked it into her pouch and pulled the drawstrings tight. As long as I don't go to sleep with the bloody — But that's what I am planning, isn't it?

But that was for tonight, and no use worrying about it now. As they made their way through the Tower, she kept an eye out for the woman in silver and white. She was not sure why she was relieved not to see her. I am a grown woman, and quite capable, thank you. Still, she was just as glad that no one they encountered looked even remotely like her. The more she thought of the woman, the more she felt there was something — wrong — about her. Light, I am starting to see the Black Ajah under my bed. Only, maybe they are under the bed.

The library stood a little apart from the tall, thick shaft of the White Tower proper, its pale stone heavily streaked with blue, and it looked much like crashing waves frozen at their climax. Those waves loomed as large as a palace in the morning light, and Egwene knew they certainly contained as many rooms as one, but all those rooms — those below the odd corridors in the upper levels, where Verin had her chambers — were filled with shelves, and the shelves filled with books, manuscripts, papers, scrolls, maps, and charts, collected from every nation over the course of three thousand years. Not even the great libraries in Tear and Cairhien held so many.

The librarians — Brown sisters all — guarded those shelves, and guarded the doors as closely, to make sure not a scrap of paper left unless they knew who took it and why. But it was not to one of the guarded entrances that Nynaeve led Egwene and Elayne.

Around the foundations of the library, lying flat to the ground in the shade of tall pecan trees, were other doors, both large and small. Laborers sometimes needed access to the storerooms beneath, and the librarians did not approve of sweating men tracking through their preserve. Nynaeve pulled up one of those, no bigger than the front door of a farmhouse, and motioned the others down a steep flight of stairs descending into darkness. When she let it down behind them, all light vanished.

Egwene opened herself to saidar — it came so smoothly that she barely realized what she was doing — and channeled a trickle of the Power that flooded through her. For a moment the mere feel of that rush surging within her threatened to overwhelm other sensations. A small ball of bluishwhite light appeared, balanced in the air above her hand. She took a deep breath and reminded herself of why she was walking stiffly. It was a link to the rest of the world. The feel of her linen shift against her skin returned, of woolen stockings, and her dress. With a small pang of regret, she banished the desire to pull in more, to let saidar absorb her.

Elayne made a glowing sphere for herself at the same time, and the pair provided more light than two lanterns would have. “It feels so — wonderful, doesn't it?” she murmured.

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“Be careful,” Egwene said.

“I am.” Elayne sighed. “It just feels... I will be careful.”

“This way,” Nynaeve told them sharply and brushed by to lead them down. She did not go too far ahead. She was not angry, and had to use the light the other two provided.

The dusty side corridor by which they had entered, lined with wooden doors set in gray stone walls, took nearly a hundred paces to reach the much wider main hall that ran the length of the library. Their lights showed footprints overlaying footprints in the dust, most from the large boots men would wear and most themselves faded by dust. The ceiling was higher here, and some of the doors nearly large enough for a barn. The main stairs at the end, half the width of the hall, were where large things were brought down. Another flight beside them led deeper. Nynaeve took it without a pause.

Egwene followed quickly. The bluish light washed out Elayne's face, but Egwene thought it still looked paler than it should. We could scream our lungs out down here, and no one would hear a whimper.

She felt a lightning bolt form, or the potential for one, and nearly stumbled. She had never before channeled two flows at once; it did not seem difficult at all.

The main hall of the second basement was much like the first level, wide and dusty but with a lower ceiling. Nynaeve hurried to the third door on the right and stopped.

The door was not large, but its rough wooden planks somehow gave an impression of thickness. A round iron lock hung from a length of stout chain that was drawn tight through two thick staples, one in the door, the other cemented into the wall. Lock and chain alike had the look of newness; there was almost no dust on them.

“A lock!” Nynaeve jerked at it; the chain had no give, and neither did the lock. “Did either of you see a lock anywhere else?” She pulled it again, then flung it against the door hard enough to bounce. The bang echoed down the hall. “I did not see one other locked door!” She pounded a fist on the rough wood. “Not one!”

“Calm yourself,” Elayne said. “There is no need to throw a tantrum. I could open the lock myself, if I could see how the inside of it works. We will open it some way.”

“I do not want to calm myself,” Nynaeve snapped. “I want to be furious! I want...!”

Letting the rest of the tirade fade from her awareness, Egwene touched the chain. She had learned more things than how to make lightning bolts since leaving Tar Valon. One was an affinity for metal. That came from Earth, one of the Five Powers few women had much strength in — the other was Fire — but she had it, and she could feel the chain, feel inside the chain, feel the tiniest bits of the cold metal, the patterns they made. The Power within her quivered in time to the vib pqdm.com