Robert Jordan - The Gathering Storm

Mat slowed Pips to a halt. One of the men whispered to the other, who ran inside. A moment later, a balding man with a white apron stepped out through the doorway. Mat felt himself go pale.

"The innkeeper," Mat said. "Burn me, I saw you dead!"

"Best go get the mayor, son," the innkeeper said to one of the working men. He glanced back at Mat. "Quickly."

"What in the bloody name of Hawkwing's left hand is going on here?" Mat demanded. "Was it all some kind of twisted show? You—"

A head stuck out of the inn door, peeking around the innkeeper toward Mat. The pudgy face had curly blond hair. Last time he'd seen this man, the cook, Mat had been forced to gut the man and slit his throat.

"You!" he said, pointing. "I killed you!"

"Calm down, now, son," the innkeeper said. "Come in, we'll get you some tea, and—"

"I'm not going anywhere with you, spirit," Mat said. "Thorn, you seeing this?"

The gleeman rubbed his chin. "Perhaps we should hear the man out, Mat."

"Ghosts and spirits," Mat muttered, turning Pips. "Come on." He urged Pips forward, charging around to the front of the inn, Thom following. Here he caught a glimpse of many workers inside, carrying buckets of white paint. To fix the places where Aes Sedai fire had scored the building, likely.

Thom pulled up beside Mat. "I've never seen anything like this, Mat," he said. "Why would spirits need to paint walls and repair doors?"

Mat shook his head. He'd spotted the place where he'd fought the villagers to save Delarn. He pulled Pips to a halt suddenly, making Thom curse and round his own mount around to come back.

"What?" Thom asked.

Mat pointed. There was a stain of blood on the ground and across several rocks beside the road. "Where they stabbed Delarn," he said.

"All right," Thom said. Around them, men passed on the street, gazes averted. They gave Mat and Thom a wide berth.

Blood and bloody ashes, Mat thought. I've gotten us surrounded again. What if they attack? Bloody fool!

"So there's blood," Thorn said. "What did you expect?"

"Where's the rest of the blood, Thorn?" Mat growled. "I killed a good dozen men here, and I saw them bleed. You dropped three with your knives. Where's the blood?"

"It vanishes," a voice said.

Mat spun Pips to find the burly, hairy-armed mayor standing on the road a short distance away. He must have been near already; there was no way the workers could have fetched him that quickly. Of course, the way things seemed to be going in this village, who could tell that for certain? Barlden wore a cloak and shirt with several fresh rips in them.

"The blood vanishes," he said, sounding exhausted. "None of us have seen it. We just wake up and it's gone."

Mat hesitated, looking around the village. Women peeked out of houses, holding children. Men left for the fields, carrying crooks or hoes. Save for the air of anxiety at Mat and Thorn's presence, one would never know anything had gone wrong in the village.

"We won't hurt you," the mayor said, turning away from Mat. "So you needn't look so worried. At least, not until the sun sets. I'll give you an explanation, if you want one. Either come and listen or be gone with you. I don't really care, so long as you stop disturbing my town. We've work to do. Much more than usual, thanks to you."

Mat glanced at Thorn, who shrugged. "It never hurts to listen," Thorn said.

"I don't know," Mat said, eyeing Barlden. "Not unless you think it could hurt to end up surrounded by crazy, homicidal mountainfolk."

"We leave, then?"

Mat shook his head slowly. "No. Burn me, they've still got my gold. Come on, let's see what he has to say."

"It started several months back," the mayor said, standing beside the window. They were in a neat—yet simple—sitting room in his manor. The curtains and carpet were of a soft pale green, almost the color of ox-eye leaves, with light tan wood paneling. The mayor's wife had brought tea made from dried sweetberries. Mat hadn't chosen to drink any, and he had made certain to lean against the wall near the street door. His spear rested beside him.

Barlden's wife was a short, brown-haired woman, faintly pudgy, with a motherly air. She returned from the kitchen, carrying a bowl of honey for the tea, then hesitated as she saw Mat leaning by the wall. She eyed the spear, then put the bowl on the table and retreated.

"What happened?" Mat asked, glancing at Thorn, who had also declined a seat. The old gleeman stood with arms crossed beside the door from the kitchens. He nodded to Mat; the woman wasn't listening at the door. He'd make a motion if he heard someone approach.

"We aren't sure if it was something we did, or just a cruel curse by the Dark One himself," the mayor said. "It was a normal day, early this year, just before the Feast of Abram. Nothing really special about it that I can remember. The weather had broken by then, though the snows hadn't come yet. A lot of us went about our normal activities the next morning, thinking nothing of it.

"The oddities were small, you see. A broken door here, a rip in someone's clothing they didn't remember. And the nightmares. We all shared them, nightmares of death and killing. A few of the women started talking, and they realized that they couldn't remember turning in the previous evening. They could remember waking, safe and comfortable in their beds, but only a few remembered actually getting into bed. Those who could remember had gone to sleep early, before sunset. For the rest of us, the late evening was just a blur."

He fell silent. Mat glanced at Thorn, who did not respond. Mat could see in those blue eyes of his that he was memorizing the tale. He'd better get it right if he puts me in any ballads, Mat thought, folding his arms. And he'd better include my hat. This is a good bloody hat.

"I was in the pastures that night," the mayor continued. "I was helping old man Garken with a broken strip of fencing. And then . . . nothing. A fuzzing. I awoke the next morning in my own bed, next to my wife. We felt tired, as if we hadn't slept well." He stopped, then more softly, he added, "And I had the nightmares. They're vague, and they fade. But I can remember one vivid image. Old man Garken, dead at my feet. Killed as if by a wild beast."

Barlden stood next to a window in the eastern wall, opposite Mat, staring out. "But I went to see Garken the next day, and he was fine. We finished fixing the fence. It wasn't until I got back to town that I heard the chattering. The shared nightmares, the missing hours just after sunset. We gathered, talking it through, and then it happened again. The sun set, and when it rose I woke up in bed again, tired, mind full of nightmares."

He shivered, then walked over to the table and poured himself a cup of tea.

"We don't know what happens at night," the mayor said, stirring in a spoonful of honey.

"You don't know?" Mat demanded. "I can bloody tell you what happens at night. You—"

"We don't know what happens," the mayor interrupted, looking up sharply. "And have no care to know."

"But—"

"We have no need to know, outlander," the mayor said harshly. "We want to live our lives as best we can. Many of us turn in early, lying down before sunset. There are no holes in our memories that way. We go to bed, we wake up in that same bed. There are nightmares, perhaps some damage to the house, but nothing that can't be fixed. Others prefer to visit a tavern and drink to the setting of the sun. There's a blessing in that, I suppose. Drink all you want, and you never have to worry about getting home. You always wake safe and sound in bed."

"You can't avoid this entirely," Thom said softly. "You can't pretend nothing is different."

"We don't." Barlden took a drink of tea. "We have the rules. Rules that you ignored. No fires lit after sunset—we can't have a blaze starting in the night, without anyone to fight it. And we forbid outsiders inside the town after sunset. We learned that lesson quickly. The first people trapped here after nightfall were relatives of Sammrie the cooper. We found blood on the walls of his home the next morning. But his sister and her family were safely asleep in the beds he'd given them." The mayor paused. "Now they have the same nightmares we do."

"So just leave," Mat said. "Leave this bloody place and go somewhere else!"

"We've tried," the mayor said. "We always wake up back here, no matter how far we go. Some have tried ending their lives. We buried the bodies. They woke up the next morning in their beds."

The room fell silent.

"Blood and bloody ashes," Mat whispered. He felt chilled.

"You survived the night," the mayor said, stirring his tea again. "I assumed that you hadn't, after seeing that bloodstain. We were curious to see where you'd wake up. Most of the rooms in the inns are permanently taken by travelers who are now, for better or worse, part of our village. We aren't able to choose where someone awakens. It just happens. An empty bed gets a new occupant, and from then on they wake up there each morning.

"Anyway, when I heard you talking to one another about what you'd seen, I realized that you must have escaped. You remember the night too vividly. Anyone who . . . joins us simply has the nightmares. Count yourselves lucky. I suggest you move on and forget Hinderstap."

"We have Aes Sedai with us," Thorn said. "They might be able to do something to help you. We could tell the White Tower, have them send—"

"No!" Barlden said sharply. "Our lives aren't so bad, now that we know how to deal with our situation. We don't want Aes Sedai eyes on us." He turned away. "We nearly turned your group away flat. We do that, sometimes, if we sense that the travelers won't obey our rules. But you had Aes Sedai with you. They ask questions, they get curious. We worried that if we turned you away, they'd get suspicious and force entrance."

"Forcing them to leave at sunset made them even more curious," Mat said. "And having their bathing attendants bloody try to kill them isn't a good way to keep the secret either."

The mayor looked wan. "Some wished . . . well, that you'd be trapped here. They thought that if Aes Sedai were bound here, they'd find a way out for all of us. We don't all agree. Either way, it's our problem. Please, just. . . .Just go."

"Fine." Mat stood up straight and picked up his spear. "But first, tell me where these came from." He pulled the paper from his pocket, the one that bore a drawing of his face.

Barlden glanced at it. "You'll find those spread around the nearby villages," he said. "Someone's looking for you. As I told Ledron last night, I'm not in the business of selling out guests. I wasn't about to kidnap you and risk keeping you here overnight just for some reward."

"Who's looking for me?" Mat repeated.

"About twenty leagues to the northeast, there's a small town called Trustair. Rumor says that if you want a little coin, you can bring news about a man who looks like the one in this picture, or the other one. Visit an inn in Trustair called The Shaken Fist to find the one looking for you."

"Other picture?" Mat asked, frowning.

"Yes. A burly fellow with a beard. A note at the bottom says he has golden eyes."

Mat glanced at Thorn, who'd raised a bushy eyebrow.

"Blood and bloody ashes," Mat muttered and pulled the side of his hat down. Who was looking for him and Perrin, and what did they want? "We'll be going, I suppose," he said. He glanced at Barlden. Poor fellow. That went for the entire village. But what was Mat to do about it? There were rights you could win, and others you just had to leave for someone else.