He fell silent. 'Oh,' he finally said. 'Well, that's kind of a sad story, then.'
'They can't all end in victory. Gaidal and I don't deal well with happy endings anyway. Better for us to burn out in glory.' She grimaced, remembering one incarnation when she and he had been forced to grow old together, peacefully. Most boring life she'd ever known, though at the time—ignorant of her grander part in the Pattern—she'd been happy with it.
'Well I'm still going,' Mat said.
She sighed. 'I can't go with you, Mat. Not and leave Elayne. She has a death wish the size of your pride, and I mean to see she survives.'
'I don't expect you to go,' Mat said quickly. 'Burn me, that's not what I'm asking. And…' He frowned. 'A death what the size of my what?'
'Never mind,' she said, drinking her milk. She had a soft spot for milk, though she didn't tell people of it. Of course, she'd be happy when she could drink again; she missed Old Snert's yeasty drinks. She liked ugly beer as much as she liked ugly men.
'I came to you because I need help,' Mat said.
'What more is there to say? You're taking iron, fire, and music. Iron will hurt them, ward them, and hold them. Fire will scare them and kill them. Music will entrance them. But you'll find that both fire and music grow less and less effective the longer you use them.
'The tower isn't a place, it's a portal. A kind of gate to the crossroads between their realms. You'll find both of them there, Aelfinn snakes and Eelfinn foxes. Assuming they're working together currently. They have a strange relationship.'
'But what do they want?' Mat asked. 'From us, I mean. Why do they care?'
'Emotion,' Birgitte said. 'That's why they built portals into our world, that's why they entice us in. They feed off what we feel. They like Aes Sedai in particular, for some reason. Perhaps those with the One Power taste like a strong ale.'
Mat shivered visibly.
'The inside will be confusing,' Birgitte said. 'Getting anywhere specific in there is difficult. Going in through the tower instead of the archways put me in danger, but I knew that if I could reach that grand hall, I'd be able to make a deal. You don't get anything free if you go in the tower, by the way. They'll ask for something, something dear to you.
'Anyway, I figured out a method to find the grand hall. Iron dust, left behind me in the intersections where I'd passed so that I knew which ways I'd gone before. They couldn't touch it, you see, and… are you sure you've never heard this story?'
Mat shook his head. 'It used to be popular around these parts,' she said, frowning. 'A hundred years ago or so.'
'You sound offended.'
'It was a good story,' she said.
'If I survive, I'll have Thom compose a bloody ballad about it, Birgitte. Tell me about the dust. Did your plan work?' She shook her head. 'I still got lost. I don't know if they blew away the dust somehow, or if the place is so huge that I never repeated myself. I ended up cornered, my fire going out, my lyre broken, my bowstring snapped, Gaidal unconscious behind me. He could walk some of the days in there, but was too dizzy on others, so I pulled him on the litter I'd brought.'
'Some of the days?' Mat said. 'How long were you in there?'
'I had provisions for two months,' Birgitte said, grimacing. 'Don't know how long we lasted after those ran out.'
'Bloody ashes!' Mat said, then took a long swig of his ale.
'I told you not to go in,' Birgitte said. 'Assuming you do reach your friend, you'll never get back out. You can wander for weeks in that place and never turn right or left, keep going straight, passing hallway after hallway. All the same. The grand hall could be minutes away, if you knew which direction to take. But you'll keep missing it.'
Mat stared into his mug, perhaps wishing he'd ordered something more potent.
'You reconsidering?' she asked.
'No,' he said. 'But when we get out, Moiraine better bloody appreciate this! Two months?' He frowned. 'Wait. If you both died in there, how did the story get out?'
She shrugged. 'Never did find out. Perhaps one of the Aes Sedai used their questions to ask. Everyone knew I'd gone in. I was called Jethari Moondancer then. You're sure you've never heard the story?' He shook his head again. She sighed, settling back. Well, not every one of the tales about her could live on forever, but she'd thought that one would stand for a few more generations. She raised her mug to drink the last of her milk. The mug never got there. She froze when she felt a jolt of emotion from Elayne. Anger, fury, pain.
Birgitte slammed the mug down on the table, then threw coins down and stood up, cursing.
'What?' Mat said, on his feet in an eyeblink. 'Elayne. In trouble. Again. She's hurt.'
'Bloody ashes,' Mat snapped, grabbing his coat and staff as they ran for the exit.
CHAPTER 23
Elayne turned the strange medallion around in her fingers, tracing the fox's head worked into the front. As with many ter'angreal, it was difficult to tell exactly what kind of metal had been used to create it originally. She suspected silver, with the senses of her Talent. However, the medallion was no longer silver. It was something else, something new.
The songmistress of the Lucky Man's Theater Troop continued her song. It was beautiful, pure and high. Elayne sat on a cushioned chair on the right side of the hall, which had been repurposed with a raised area at the front for the players. A pair of Birgitte's Guards stood behind her.
The room was dim, lit only by a line of small flickering lamps set behind blue glass in alcoves on the walls. The blue light was overwhelmed by the burning yellow lanterns set around the front of the platform.
Elayne was barely paying attention. She had often listened to 'The Death of Princess Walishen' as a ballad, and didn't really see the point of adding words to it and different players, instead of just having one bard do the entire thing. But it was Ellorien's favorite ballad, and the favorable news out of Cairhien about these players—which nobles there had recently discovered—had many of the nobles in Andor buzzing. Hence this evening. Ellorien had come at Elayne's invitation; likely she was intrigued. Why had Elayne been so audacious as to invite her? Soon, Elayne would take advantage of having Ellorien here. But not quite yet. Let the woman enjoy the production first. She'd be expecting a political ambush.
She'd wait for Elayne to walk over and sit in one the seats near her, or perhaps send a servant with an offer. Elayne did neither, instead sitting and regarding the foxhead ter'angreal, It was a complex work of art, despite being only a single, solid piece of metal. She could feel the weaves that had been used to create it. Its intricacy was far beyond the simplicity of the twisted dream rings. She was doing something wrong in trying to reproduce the medallion. She carried in her pouch one of her failed attempts. She'd had copies cast for her, as precise in detail as her silversmiths could create, though she suspected the form was not important. The amount of silver seemed to be, for some reason, but not the shape that silver took.
She'd gotten close. The copy in her pouch didn't work perfectly. Less powerful weaves slid off anyone holding it, but very powerful ones could not be deflected for some reason. And, more problematic, it was impossible to channel while touching the copy.
She could channel while holding the original. Indeed, she'd been giddy when she'd discovered that holding the medallion didn't interfere with her weaves at all. Being pregnant did—that was still a source of frustration to her— but it was possible to hold the foxhead and channel.
But not the copy. She hadn't gotten it quite right. And, unfortunately, her time was slim. Mat would need his medallion back soon.
She took out the fake and set it on the seat beside her, then embraced the Source and wove Spirit. Several of
