New Spring: The Novel

thought, had she not known it was not.

It took almost as long again to reach the doorway, which opened onto a scene as strange as that long walk. A solid wall of massive stones, five paces high and thirty on a side, surrounded a stone-paved square, but she saw nothing beyond it, not one building, not a tree. Nor were there any gates or doors; the one she had come out of was gone when she glanced back. A very casual glance, with her face holding its mask of calm as though it were carved. The air was moist and spring-like, the sky bright and clear save for a few drifting white clouds, yet that failed to dent the ominous feel of the place.

The six-pointed star, a span across, was carved into the center of the square, and she walked toward it as close to quickly as she dared. Just before she reached it, a massive form in spiked mail pulled itself up on the wall and dropped down inside. It was as tall as an Ogier, but no amount of squinting could make it seem human, though the body was human in form. A wolf's jaws and twitching ears made a horror of a face otherwise that of a man. She had seen drawings of Trollocs, but never before one in the flesh. Shadowspawn born of the war that ended the Age of Legends, servants of the Dark One, Trollocs inhabited the Shadow-corrupted Blight along the Borderlands. Could she be in the Blight? Her blood chilled at the thought. Behind her, she heard the thud of boots landing heavily, and of hooves. Not all Trollocs had human feet. The wolf-muzzled creature drew a huge, scythe-curved sword that had been hanging on its back and began to run at her. Light, the thing was fast! She heard more running feet, running hooves. More Trollocs dropped over the wall ahead of her, faces marred with eagles' beaks and boars' tusked snouts. One more step, and she was on the star. Straightaway, she embraced saidar and began to weave. The required weave first, but as soon as the first strands of Air, Earth and Spirit were laid down, she divided her flows, making a second weave, and a third, of Fire. There were a number of ways to produce balls of fire, and she chose the simplest. Throwing with both hands, she hurled them at the nearest Trollocs and spun, still weaving Fire. She had to pause in the more important weave, but so long as she was quick enough? Light, there were a dozen Trollocs in the square with her, and more climbing over the walls! With both hands she threw, as fast as she could weave, aiming for those closest, and where her fireballs struck, they exploded, decapitating a creature with a ram's snout and horns, blowing a goat-horned Trolloc in two, ripping off legs. She felt no pity. Trollocs took human prisoners only for food.

Completing her spin, she was just in time to catch the major weave on the point of collapse. Just in time to hurl balls of fire that removed an eagle-beaked head, only paces away, and half the torso of a wolf-muzzled Trolloc that staggered across the edge of the star before toppling in a lifeless sprawl. It was not going to work. There were too many Trollocs, with more crossing the walls all the while, and she could not neglect the important weave even spinning as quickly as she could. There had to be a way. She would not fail! Somehow, the thought of being killed and eaten by Trollocs never entered into it. She would not fail; that was the whole.

Abruptly, the way came to her, and she smiled and began to hum the quickest court dance that she knew. Perhaps the way; a chance, in any case. The rapid steps took her around the rim of the star without ever requiring her to lose sight of the weave she had to complete above all else. After all, however quickly her feet moved, what could be more serene than a court dance, with her face properly smooth, as though she were dancing in the Sun Palace? She wove the Five Powers as fast as she could, faster than she had ever woven before, she was certain. In some way, the dancing helped, and the intricate weave began to take shape like the finest Mardina lace. Dancing, she wove, hurling fire with both hands, killing Shadowspawn with both hands. Sometimes they came so close that their blood spattered her face, sometimes so close that she had to dance out of their way as they fell, dance away from their down-curving swords, but she ignored the blood and danced.

The final weave fell into place, and she let the whole thing evaporate, but there were still Trollocs in the square. A quick step took her to the center of the star, where she danced in a tiny circle, back-to-back with an imaginary partner. Working three separate weaves at once had left her exhausted, but she summoned the strength to manage three again. Dancing, she hurled fire and called lightning from the sky, harrowing the square with explosions.

At last, nothing moved except for her, dancing. She circled three more times before she realized it and stopped. Stopped humming. There was an archway in the wall now, a shadowed opening with the star carved above it. Her heart turned to ice. An archway that led out to where the Trollocs had come from. Into the Blight. Only madmen entered the Blight willingly. Gathering her rough skirts, she made herself cross that charnel square toward the gate. It was the way she had to go.

CHAPTER 10

It Finishes

Ninety-nine weaves. She found the six-pointed star laid out in round river stones amid the towering dunes of a desert where the heat made her lightheaded and sucked the moisture from her skin before sweat had time to form. She found it drawn in the snow on a mountainside where gale winds beat at her and lightning struck all around, and in a great city of impossible towers where people babbled at her incomprehensibly. She found it in a night-shrouded forest, in a blackwater swamp, in a marsh of tall grass that cut like knives, on farms and plains, in hovels and palaces. Sometimes she found it while she was clothed, but her clothing frequently vanished, and just as often, she had none to begin. Sometimes she was suddenly bound with ropes or manacles, bent into contorted positions that twisted her joints, or hanging suspended by her wrists or ankles. She faced poisonous serpents and toothed water lizards three spans long, rampaging wild boars and hunting lions, hungry leopards and stampeding herds of wild cattle. She was stung by hornets and groundwasps, bitten by swarms of ants and horseflies and insects she did not recognize. Mobs carrying torches tried to drag her away for burning, Whitecloaks to hang her, robbers to stab her, footpads to strangle her. And every time, she forgot, and wondered how she had gotten a slash across her cheek, what had to be a sword-cut along her ribs, three gouges down her back that must have come from claws, other wounds and injuries and bruises that left her bleeding, limping. And she was weary. Oh, so weary, down to the bone. More than channeling even ninety-nine weaves could explain. Perhaps her wounds did. Ninety-nine weaves.

Clutching her plain woolen skirts, she hobbled to the six-pointed star, marked out in red tiles beside a burbling marble fountain in a small garden surrounded by a colonnade of thin, fluted columns. She could barely stand, and maintaining a smooth face took her to the limits of her ability. Pain throbbed in every part of her. No, agony was a better description than pain. But this was the last. Once it was done, this would be done as well, whatever this was, and she would be free to seek Healing. If she could find an Aes Sedai. Otherwise, a Reader would do.

This was another of the useless weaves, producing only a shower of shining colorful flecks if woven correctly. Incorrectly woven, it would redden her skin, painfully, as from a bad sunburn. She began very carefully.

Her father walked out of the colonnade right in front of her, in a long coat of a style at least a year out of fashion, with bars of the House Damodred colors marching from his high collar down to below his knees. He was very tall, for a Cairhienin man, just an inch short of six feet, with hair more gray than not worn in a club at the nape of his neck. He had always stood straight as a blade, except when bending to let her leap into his arms as a child, but now his shoulders were slumped. She could not understand why the sight of him made her suddenly teary.

'Moiraine,' he said, worry adding lines to his gentle face, 'you must come with me immediately. It is your mother, child. She is dying. There is just time, if you come now.'

It was too much. She wanted to weep. She wanted to rush off with him. She did neither. The weave seemed to complete itself in a sudden blur, and gaily glittering flecks fell around them. The display seemed especially bitter. She opened her mouth to ask where her mother was, and saw the second star behind him, worked in red tile above the colonnade just where he had first appeared. A steady pace, without hesitation.

'I love you, Father,' she said calmly. Light, how could she stay calm? But she must. 'Please tell Mother that I love her with all my heart.'

Brushing past him, she limped toward the second star. She thought he called after her, that he ran after and