That had been Sheriam’s mistake, all the Aes Sedai’s mistake probably. By trying to channel against the nightmare they had accepted it as real, and that acceptance had pulled them into it as surely as walking in, leaving them helpless unless they remembered what they had forgotten. Which they showed no sign of doing. The climbing shrieks augured into Elayne’s ears.

"The corridor," she muttered, trying to form in her head how it had been when she saw it last. "Think of the corridor the way you remember it."

"I’m trying, girl," Siuan growled. "It isn’t working."

Elayne sighed. Siuan was right. Not a line of the scene before them so much as wavered. Sheriam’s head was almost vibrating above the metal shroud that enclosed the rest of her. Morvrin’s howls came in strained pants; Elayne almost thought she could hear the woman’s joints being pulled apart. Carlinya’s hair, hanging below her, was almost touching the roiling surface of the hot oil. Two women were not enough. The nightmare was too big.

"We need the others," she said.

"Leane and Nynaeve? Girl, if we knew where to find them, Sheriam and the rest would be dead before... " She trailed off, staring at Elayne. "You don’t mean Leane and Nynaeve, do you? You mean Sheriam and... " Elayne only nodded; she was too frightened to speak. "I don’t think they can hear us from here, or see us. Those Trollocs haven’t even glanced our way. That means we have to try from inside." Elayne nodded again. "Girl," Siuan said in a toneless voice, "you have a lion’s courage, and maybe a fisherbird’s sense." With a heavy sigh, she added, "But I don’t see any other way myself."

Elayne agreed with her about everything except the courage. If she had not had her knees locked, she would have been in a heap on the floor tiles, patterned in all the colors of the Ajahs. She realized she had a sword in her hand, a great gleaming length of steel, absolutely useless even had she known how to wield it. She let it fall, and it vanished before reaching the floor. "Waiting isn’t helping anything," she muttered. Much longer, and the little courage she had managed to scrape together would surely evaporate. Together she and Siuan stepped toward the boundary. Elayne’s foot touched that dividing line, and suddenly she felt herself being pulled in, sucked like water through a tube.

One instant she was standing in the hallway, staring at the horrors, the next she was lying on her belly on rough gray stone, wrists and ankles tightly tied in the small of her back, and the horrors were all around her. The cavern stretched endless in every direction; the Tower corridor no longer seemed to exist. Screams filled the air, echoing from rocky walls and a ceiling dripping stalactites. A few paces from her a huge black cauldron stood steaming over a roaring fire. A boar-snouted Trolloc, complete with tusks, was tossing in lumps that seemed to be unidentifiable roots. A cookpot. Trollocs ate anything. Including people. She thought of her hands and feet free, but the coarse rope still dug into her flesh. Even the pale shadow of. saidarhad vanished; the True Source no longer existed for her, not here. A nightmare in truth, and she was well and truly caught.

Siuan’s voice cut through the screams in a pained moan. "Sheriam, listen to me!" The Light alone knew what was being done to her; Elayne could not see any of the others. Only hear them. "This is a dream! Aah... aaaaaaah!Th-think how it should be!"

Elayne took it up. "Sheriam, Anaiya, everybody, listen to me! You must think of the corridor as it was! As it really is! This is only real as long as you believe it!" She set the image of the corridor in her head firmly, colored tiles in ordered rows and gilded stand-lamps and brilliant woven tapestries. Nothing changed. The screams still echoed. "You must think of the corridor! Hold it in your minds, and it will be real! You can defeat this if you try!" The Trolloc looked at her; it had a thick sharp-pointed knife in its hand now. "Sheriam, Anaiya, you have to concentrate! Myrelle, Beonin, concentrate on the corridor!" The Trolloc heaved her on to her side. She tried to wriggle away, but a massive knee held her in place effortlessly while the thing began slicing at her clothes like a hunter skinning a deer carcass. Desperately she held on to the image of the hallway. "Carlinya, Morvrin, for the love of the Light, concentrate! Think of the corridor! The corridor! All of you! Think of it hard!" Grunting something in a harsh language never meant for a human tongue, the Trolloc flipped her facedown again and knelt on her, thick knees crushing her arms against her back. "The corridor!" she screamed. It tangled heavy fingers in her hair, yanked her head back. "The corridor! Think of the corridor!" The Trolloc’s blade touched her tight-stretched neck beneath her left ear. "The corridor! The corridor!" The blade began to slide.

Suddenly she was staring at colored floor tiles under her nose. Clapping hands to her throat, marveling that they were free to move, she felt wetness and brought her fingers up to stare at them. Blood, but only a tiny smear. A shudder rippled through her. If that Trolloc had succeeded in cutting her throat... No Healing could have cured that. Shuddering again, she pushed slowly to her feet. It was the Tower hallway outside the Amyrlin’s study, with no sign of Trollocs or caverns.

Siuan was there, looking a mass of bruises in a torn dress, and the Aes Sedai, misty forms of near ruin. Carlinya was in the best shape, and she stood wide-eyed and shaking, fingering dark hair that now ended frizzily a hand from her scalp. Sheriam and Anaiya seemed to be weeping heaps of bloody rags. Myrelle huddled in on herself, white-faced, naked and covered with long red scratches and welts. Morvrin moaned every time she moved, and she moved unnaturally, as though her joints did not work properly anymore. Beonin’s dress appeared to have been clawed to shreds, and she was panting on her knees, more wide-eyed than ever, holding on to the wall to keep from falling over.

Abruptly Elayne realized that her own dress and shift were hanging from her shoulders, neatly sliced open down the front. A hunter skinning a deer carcass. She shivered so hard she almost fell. Repairing the garments was a simple matter of thought, but she was not sure how long it would take to repair her memories.

"We must go back," Morvrin said, kneeling awkwardly between Sheriam and Anaiya. Despite her stiffness and groans, she sounded as stolid as ever. "There is Healing to be done, and none here can manage it as we are."

"Yes." Carlinya touched her short hair again. "Yes, it might be best if we returned to Salidar." Her voice was a decidedly unsteady version of its normal iciness.

"I will stay a little while, if no one objects," Siuan told them. Or rather suggested, in that ill-fitting humble voice. Her dress was whole again, but the bruises remained. "I might learn a little more that’s useful. All that’s wrong with me are a few lumps, and I’ve had worse falling in a boat."

"You look more as if someone had dropped a boat on you," Morvrin told her, "but the choice is yours."

"I will stay, too," Elayne said. "I can help Siuan, and I wasn’t hurt at all." She was aware of the nick on her throat every time she swallowed.

"I don’t need any help," Siuan said, at the same time that Morvrin said in an even firmer voice, "You kept your head very well tonight, child. Don’t spoil it now. You are coming with us."

Elayne nodded grumpily. Arguing would get her nowhere except into hot water. You would have thought the Brown sister was the teacher here, and Elayne the pupil. They probably thought she had stumbled into the nightmare the same way they did. "Remember, you can step out of the dream straight into your own body. You do not have to go back to Salidar first." There was no way of telling whether they heard her. Morvrin had turned away as soon as she nodded.