Egeanin, arms folded in front of the doors, seemed ready to let it go on, but Elayne wove flows of Air around Amathera's waist. To her surprise she was able to lift her off the already senseless woman and set her on her feet. Perhaps learning how to handle those heavy weavings from Jorin had increased her strength.
Amathera kicked at Temaile, turning her glare on Elayne and Egeanin when her slippered feet missed. "I am the Panarch of Tarabon, and I mean to dispense justice to this woman!" That rosebud mouth had a very sulky look. Had the woman no sense of herself, of her position? She was equal to the king, a ruler!
"And I am the Aes Sedai who has come to rescue you," Elayne said coolly. Realizing she still held the tray, she set it on the floor hurriedly. The woman seemed to be having enough trouble seeing beyond the white servants' dresses without that. Temaile's face was quite red; she would wake to bruises. No doubt fewer than she deserved. Elayne wished there was a way to take Temaile with them. A way to bring even one to justice in the Tower. "We have come – at considerable risk! – to take you out of here. Then you can reach the Lord Captain of the Panarch's Legion, and Andric and his army, and you can chase these women out. Perhaps we will be lucky enough to take some of them for trial. But first we must get you away from them."
"I do not need Andric," Amathera muttered. Elayne would have sworn she almost said "now." "There are soldiers of my Legion around the palace. I know this. I have been allowed to speak to none of them, but once they see me, and hear my voice, they will do what must be done, yes? You Aes Sedai cannot use the One Power to harm..." She trailed off, scowling at the unconscious Temaile. "You cannot use it as a weapon, at least, yes? I know this."
Elayne surprised herself by weaving tiny flows of Air, one to each of Amathera's braids. The braids lifted straight up into the air, and the pouty-mouth fool had no choice but to follow them up on tiptoe. Elayne walked her that way, on tiptoe, until the woman stood right in front of her, dark eyes wide and indignant.
"You will listen to me, Panarch Amathera of Tarabon," she said in icy tones. "If you try to walk out to your soldiers, Temaile's cronies may very well tie you up in a bundle and hand you back to her. Worse, they will learn that my friends and I are here, and that I will not allow. We are going to creep out of here, and if you will not agree to that, I'll bind and gag you and leave you beside Temaile for her friends to find." There had to be some way to take Temaile, too. "Do you understand me?"
Amathera nodded slightly, held up as she was. Egeanin made an approving sound.
Elayne loosed the flows; the woman's heels dropped to the carpet. "Now let's see if we can find you something to wear that is suitable for sneaking." Amathera nodded again, but her mouth was set at its sulkiest. Elayne hoped Nynaeve was having an easier time of it.
Nynaeve entered the great exhibition hall with its multitude of thin columns, feather duster already moving. This collection must always need dusting, and surely no one would look twice at a woman doing what was needed. She looked around, eyes drawn to wired-together bones that looked like a long-legged horse with a neck that pushed its skull up twenty feet. The vast chamber stretched emptily in all directions.
But someone could come in at any moment; servants who actually had been sent to clean, or Liandrin and all of her fellows come to search. Still holding the duster prominently, just in case, she hurried down to the white stone pedestal that had held the dull black collar and bracelets. She did not realize she had been holding her breath until she exhaled on seeing the things still there. The glass-sided table holding the cuendillar seal lay another fifty paces on, but this came first.
Climbing over the wrist-thick white silk rope, she touched the wide, jointed collar. Suffering. Agony. Woe. They rolled through her; she wanted to weep. What kind of thing could absorb all that pain? Pulling her hand back, she glared at the black metal. Meant to control a man who could channel. Liandrin and her Black sisters meant to use it to control Rand, turn him to the Shadow, force him to serve the Dark One. Someone from her village, controlled and used by Aes Sedai! Black Ajah, but Aes Sedai as surely as Moiraine with her scheming! Egeanin, making me like a filthy Seanchan!
The sudden incongruity of the last thought hit her; abruptly she realized she was deliberately making herself angry, angry enough to channel. She embraced the Source; the Power filled her. And a serving woman with the tree-and-leaf on her shoulder entered the columned hall.
Quivering with the urge to channel, Nynaeve waited, even lifting the duster, running the feathers over the collar and bracelets. The serving woman started down the pale floorstones; she would go in a moment, and Nynaeve could... What? Slip the things into her belt pouch and take them, but...
The serving woman would go? Why did I think she'll leave instead of staying to work? She glanced sideways up the room at the woman coming toward her. Of course. No broom or mop, no feather duster, not even a rag. Whatever she's here for, it cannot take lo—
Suddenly she saw the woman's face clearly. Sturdily handsome, framed by dark braids, smiling in an almost friendly fashion but not really paying her any mind. Certainly not threatening in any way. Not quite the same face, but she knew it.
Before thought she struck out, weaving a hammer-hard flow of Air to smash that face. In an instant the glow of saidar surrounded the other women, her features changed – somehow more regal now, prouder, Moghedien's face remembered; and startled as well, surprised that she had not approached unsuspected – and Nynaeve's flow was sliced razor clean. She staggered under the whiplash recoil, like a physical blow, and the Forsaken struck with a complex weave of Spirit streaked by Water and Air. Nynaeve had no idea what it was meant to do; frantically she tried to cut it as she had seen the other woman do, with a keen-edged weave of Spirit. For a heartbeat she felt love, devotion, worship for the magnificent woman who would deign to allow her to...
The intricate weave parted, and Moghedien missed a step. A tinge remained in Nynaeve's mind, like a fresh memory of wanting to obey, to grovel and please, what had happened at their first meeting all over again; it heated her rage. The knife-sharp shield that Egwene had used to still Amico Nagoyin sprang into being, more weapon than shield, lashed at Moghedien – and was blocked, woven Spirit straining against woven Spirit, just short of severing Moghedien from the Source forever. Again the Forsaken's counterblow came, slashing like an axe, intended to cut Nynaeve off in the same way. Forever. Desperately Nynaeve blocked it.
Suddenly she realized that under her anger she was terrified. Holding off the other woman's attempt to still her while trying to do the same to her took everything she had. The Power boiled in her till she thought she must burst; her knees quivered with the effort of standing. And all went into those two things; she could not spare enough to light a candle. Moghedien's axe of Spirit waxed and waned in sharpness, but that would not matter if the woman managed to drive it home; Nynaeve could not see any real difference in outcome between being stilled by the woman and merely – merely! – being shielded and at her mercy. The thing brushed against the flow of Power from the Source into her, like a knife hovering over a chicken's stretched neck. The image was all too apt; she wished she had not thought of it. In the back of her mind a tiny voice gibbered at her. Oh, Light, don't let her. Don't let her! Light, please, not that!
For a moment she considered letting go her own attempt to cut Moghedien off – for one thing, she had to keep forcing it back to a razor edge; the woven flows did not want to hold the keenness – letting go and using that strength to force Moghedien's attack further back, maybe sever it. But if she tried, the other woman would not need to defend; she could add that strength to her own attack. And she was one of the Forsaken. Not just a Black sister. A woman who had been Aes Sedai in the Age of Legends, when Aes Sedai had been able to do things undreamed of now. If Moghedien threw her whole strength at her...