The Gathering Storm

'But—'

'We have no need to know, outlander,' the mayor said harshly. 'We want to live our lives as best we can. Many of us turn in early, lying down before sunset. There are no holes in our memories that way. We go to bed, we wake up in that same bed. There are nightmares, perhaps some damage to the house, but nothing that can't be fixed. Others prefer to visit a tavern and drink to the setting of the sun. There's a blessing in that, I suppose. Drink all you want, and you never have to worry about getting home. You always wake safe and sound in bed.'

'You can't avoid this entirely,' Thom said softly. 'You can't pretend nothing is different.'

'We don't.' Barlden took a drink of tea. 'We have the rules. Rules that you ignored. No fires lit after sunset—we can't have a blaze starting in the night, without anyone to fight it. And we forbid outsiders inside the town after sunset. We learned that lesson quickly. The first people trapped here after nightfall were relatives of Sammrie the cooper. We found blood on the walls of his home the next morning. But his sister and her family were safely asleep in the beds he'd given them.' The mayor paused. 'Now they have the same nightmares we do.'

'So just leave,' Mat said. 'Leave this bloody place and go somewhere else!'

'We've tried,' the mayor said. 'We always wake up back here, no matter how far we go. Some have tried ending their lives. We buried the bodies. They woke up the next morning in their beds.'

The room fell silent.

'Blood and bloody ashes,' Mat whispered. He felt chilled.

'You survived the night,' the mayor said, stirring his tea again. 'I assumed that you hadn't, after seeing that bloodstain. We were curious to see where you'd wake up. Most of the rooms in the inns are permanently taken by travelers who are now, for better or worse, part of our village. We aren't able to choose where someone awakens. It just happens. An empty bed gets a new occupant, and from then on they wake up there each morning.

'Anyway, when I heard you talking to one another about what you'd seen, I realized that you must have escaped. You remember the night too vividly. Anyone who . . . joins us simply has the nightmares. Count yourselves lucky. I suggest you move on and forget Hinderstap.'

'We have Aes Sedai with us,' Thorn said. 'They might be able to do something to help you. We could tell the White Tower, have them send—'

'No!' Barlden said sharply. 'Our lives aren't so bad, now that we know how to deal with our situation. We don't want Aes Sedai eyes on us.' He turned away. 'We nearly turned your group away flat. We do that, sometimes, if we sense that the travelers won't obey our rules. But you had Aes Sedai with you. They ask questions, they get curious. We worried that if we turned you away, they'd get suspicious and force entrance.'

'Forcing them to leave at sunset made them even more curious,' Mat said. 'And having their bathing attendants bloody try to kill them isn't a good way to keep the secret either.'

The mayor looked wan. 'Some wished . . . well, that you'd be trapped here. They thought that if Aes Sedai were bound here, they'd find a way out for all of us. We don't all agree. Either way, it's our problem. Please, just. . . .Just go.'

'Fine.' Mat stood up straight and picked up his spear. 'But first, tell me where these came from.' He pulled the paper from his pocket, the one that bore a drawing of his face.

Barlden glanced at it. 'You'll find those spread around the nearby villages,' he said. 'Someone's looking for you. As I told Ledron last night, I'm not in the business of selling out guests. I wasn't about to kidnap you and risk keeping you here overnight just for some reward.'

'Who's looking for me?' Mat repeated.

'About twenty leagues to the northeast, there's a small town called Trustair. Rumor says that if you want a little coin, you can bring news about a man who looks like the one in this picture, or the other one. Visit an inn in Trustair called The Shaken Fist to find the one looking for you.'

'Other picture?' Mat asked, frowning.

'Yes. A burly fellow with a beard. A note at the bottom says he has golden eyes.'

Mat glanced at Thorn, who'd raised a bushy eyebrow.

'Blood and bloody ashes,' Mat muttered and pulled the side of his hat down. Who was looking for him and Perrin, and what did they want? 'We'll be going, I suppose,' he said. He glanced at Barlden. Poor fellow. That went for the entire village. But what was Mat to do about it? There were rights you could win, and others you just had to leave for someone else.

'Your gold is on the wagon outside,' the mayor said. 'We didn't take any from your winnings. The food is there too.' He met Mat's eyes. 'We hold to our word, here. Other things are out of our control, particularly for those who don't listen to the rules. But we aren't going to rob a man just because he's an outsider.'

'Mighty tolerant of you,' Mat said flatly, pulling open the door. 'Have a good day, then, and when night comes, try not to kill anyone I wouldn't kill. Thorn, you coming?'

The gleeman joined him, limping slightly from his old wound. Mat glanced back at Barlden, who stood with sleeves rolled up in the center of the room, looking down at his teacup. He seemed like he was wishing that cup held something a little stronger.

'Poor fellow,' Mat said, then stepped out into the morning light after Thom and pulled the door shut behind him.

'I assume we're going after that person spreading around pictures of you?' Thom asked.

'Right as Light, we are,' Mat said, tying his ashandarei to Pips' saddle. 'It's on the way to Four Kings anyway. I'll lead your horse if you can drive the wagon.'

Thom nodded. He was studying the mayor's home.

'What?' Mat asked.

'Nothing, lad,' the gleeman said. 'It's just . . . well, it's a sad tale. Something's wrong in the world. There's a snag in the Pattern here. The town unravels at night, and then the world tries to reset it each morning to make things right again.'

'Well, they should be more forthcoming,' Mat said. The villagers had pulled the food-filled wagon up while Mat and Thom had been chatting with the mayor. It was hitched to two strong draft horses, tan of coloring and wide of hoof.

'More forthcoming?' Thom asked. 'How? The mayor is right, they did try to warn us.'

Mat grunted, walking over to open the chest and check on his gold. It was there, as the mayor had said. 'I don't know,' he said. 'They could put up a warning sign or something. Hello. Welcome to Hinderstap. We will murder you in the night and eat your bloody face if you stay past sunset. Try the pies. Martna Baily makes them fresh daily.'

Thorn didn't chuckle. 'Poor taste, lad. There's too much tragedy in this town for levity.'

'Funny,' Mat said. He counted out about as much gold as he figured would be a good price for the food and the wagon. Then, after a moment, he added ten more silver crowns. He set all of this in a pile on the mayor's doorstep, then closed the chest. 'The more tragic things get, the more / feel like laughing.'

'Are we really going to take this wagon?'

'We need the food,' Mat said, lashing the chest to the back of the wagon. Several large wheels of white cheese and a half dozen legs of mutton lay prominently alongside the casks of ale. The food smelled good, and his stomach rumbled. 'I won it fair.' He glanced at the villagers passing on the street. When he'd first seen them the day before, he'd thought the slowness of their pace was due to the lazy nature of the mountain villagers. Now it struck him that there was another reason entirely.

He turned back to his work, checking the horses' harness. 'And I don't feel a bit bad taking the wagon and horses. I doubt these villagers are going to be doing much traveling in the future. …'