"I do hope you haven’t tried to use Callandor," she said complacently behind him. "I have heard it’s vanished from the Stone. You managed to escape once, but you might not twice."

He stopped short, looking over his shoulder. The woman was pushing that bloody needle through the cloth stretched on her hoop! The wind gusted, swirling snow around her, and she did not even lift her head. "What do you mean, escape?"

"What?" She did not look up. "Oh. Very few even in the Tower knew what Callandoris before you drew it, but there are surprising things hidden in musty corners of the Tower Library. I went rummaging some years ago, when I first had the suspicion you might be suckling at your mother’s breast. Just before I decided to go back into retirement. Babes are messy things, and I could not see how to find you before you stopped dripping at one end or the other."

"What do you mean?" he demanded roughly.

Cadsuane looked up then, and with her hair flung about and snow settling on her dress, she looked a queen. "I told you I cannot abide incivility. If you ask for my help again, I expect you to ask politely. And I will expect an apology for your behavior today!"

"What do you mean about Callandor?"

"It is flawed," she replied curtly, "lacking the buffer that makes other sa’angrealsafe to use. And it apparently magnifies the taint, inducing wildness of the mind. So long as a man is using it, anyway. The only safe way for you to use The Sword That Is Not a Sword, the only way to use it without the risk of killing yourself, or trying to do the Light alone knows what insanity, is linked with two women, and one of them guiding the flows."

Trying not to hunch his shoulders, he strode away from her. So it had been not just the wildness of saidinaround Ebou Dar that had killed Adley. He had murdered the man the moment he sent Narishma for the thing.

Cadsuane’s voice pursued him. "Remember, boy. You must ask very nicely, and apologize. I might even agree, if your apology sounds truly sincere."

Rand barely heard her. He had hoped to use Callandoragain, hoped it would be strong enough. Now only one chance remained, and it terrified him. He seemed to hear another woman’s voice, a dead woman’s voice. You could challenge the Creator.

It hardly seemed the setting for the explosion Elayne feared. Harlon Bridge was a village of moderate size, with three inns and enough houses that no one had to sleep in a hayloft. When Elayne and Birgitte went downstairs to the common room that morning, Mistress Dill, the round innkeeper, smiled warmly and offered as much of a curtsy as her size allowed. It was not just that Elayne was Aes Sedai. Mistress Dill was so pleased that her inn was full, what with the roads snowpacked, that she bobbed at nearly everyone. At their entrance, Aviendha hastily gulped the last of her breakfast bread and cheese, brushed a few crumbs from her green dress, and snatched up her dark cloak to join them.

Outside, the sun was just peeking over the horizon, a low dome of pale yellow. Only a few clouds marred a beautiful blue sky, and they were white and fluffy, not the sort to carry snow. It seemed a wonderful day for traveling.

Except that Adeleas was trampling a path up the snowy street, and the white-haired sister was dragging one of the Kin, Garenia Rosoinde, by her arm. Garenia was a slim-hipped Saldaean who had spent the last twenty years as a merchant although she looked only a few years older than Nynaeve did. Normally, her strongly hooked nose gave her a forceful appearance, a woman who would make hard trading and not back away. Now her dark tilted eyes were large in her face and her wide mouth hung open, emitting a wordless wail. A growing knot of Kinswomen followed behind, skirts held high out of the snow, whispering among themselves, with more running from every direction to join. Reanne and the rest of the Knitting Circle were in the front, all grim-faced except for Kirstian, who seemed even paler than usual. Alise was there, too, wearing an utterly blank expression.

Adeleas stopped in front of Elayne and shoved Garenia so hard the woman fell to hands and knees in the snow. Where she stayed, still wailing. The Kinswomen gathered behind her, more of their number flocking in.

"I’m bringing this to you because Nynaeve is busy," the Brown sister told Elayne. She meant that Nynaeve was enjoying a little time alone with Lan somewhere, but for once, not so much as a hint of a smile crossed her lips. "Be quiet, child!" she snapped at Garenia. Who promptly went silent. Adeleas gave a satisfied nod. "This is not Garenia Rosoinde," she said. "I finally recognized her. Zarya Alkaese, a novice who ran away just before Vandene and I decided to retire and write our history of the world. She admitted it, when I confronted her. I’m surprised Careane didn’t recognize her before this; they were novices together for two years. The law is clear, Elayne. A runaway must be put back in white as soon as possible and kept under strict discipline until she can be returned to the Tower for proper punishment. She won’t think of running again after that!"

Elayne nodded slowly, trying to think of what to say. Whether or not Garenia – Zarya – thought of running again, she would not be allowed the opportunity. She was very strong in the Power; the Tower would not let her go if it took the rest of her life to earn the shawl. But Elayne was recalling something she had heard this woman say the first time she met her. The meaning had not registered then, but now it did. How would Zarya face novice white again after living as her own woman for seventy years? Worse, those whispers among the Kinswomen had begun to sound like rumbles.

She did not have long to think. Suddenly Kirstian fell to her knees, clutching at Adeleas’ skirts with one hand. "I submit myself," she said calmly, her tone a wonder coming from that bloodless face. "I was enrolled in the novice book almost three hundred years ago, and ran away less than a year later. I submit myself, and... and beg mercy."

It was white-haired Adeleas’ turn to go wide-eyed. Kirstian was claiming to have run away from the White Tower when she herself was an infant, if not before she was born! Most of the sisters still did not really believe the ages claimed by the Kin. Indeed, Kirstian appeared just into her middle years.

Even so, Adeleas recovered herself quickly. However old the other woman was, Adeleas had been Aes Sedai about as long as anyone living. She carried an aura of age, and authority. "If that is so, child," her voice did falter just a bit at that, "I fear we must put you in white, too. You will still be punished, but surrendering as you have will gain you some mitigation."

"That is why I did it." Kirstian’s steady tone was spoiled somewhat by a hard swallow. She was almost as strong as Zarya – none of the Knitting Circle were weak – and she would be held very closely. "I knew you would find me out sooner or later."

Adeleas nodded as though that were clearly obvious, though how the woman would have been found out, Elayne could not guess. She very much doubted that Kirstian Chalwin was the name the woman had been born with. Most of the Kin believed in Aes Sedai omniscience, though. They had, at least.

"Rubbish!" Sarainya Vostovan’s husky voice cut through the murmured babble of the Kin. Neither strong enough to become Aes Sedai nor nearly old enough to stand very high among the Kin, she still stepped from the pack defiantly. "Why should we give them up to the White Tower? We have helped women run away, and rightly so! It is not part of the rules to give them back!"

"Control yourself!" Reanne said sharply. "Alise, take Sarainya in hand, please. It seems she forgets too many of the rules she claims to know."