Elayne hoped that the journey to Caemlyn would go smoothly, and in the beginning, it seemed to do so. She thought that even as she and Aviendha and Birgitte sat bone-weary and huddled in the rags that remained of their clothing, filthy with dirt and dust and the blood of the injuries they had received when the gateway exploded. In two weeks at most, she would be ready to present her claims to the Lion Throne. There on the hilltop, Nynaeve Healed their numerous hurts and spoke barely a word, certainly not berating them. Surely that was a pleasant sign, if unusual. Relief at finding them alive battled worry on her face.
Lan’s strength was necessary to remove the Seanchan crossbow bolt from Birgitte’s thigh before she could be Healed of that wound, but although her face drained of blood and Elayne felt a stab of agony through the bond, agony that made her want to cry out, her Warder barely groaned through her gritted teeth.
“Tai’shar Kandor,” Lan murmured, tossing the pile-head quarrel, made to punch through armor, aside on the ground. True blood of Kandor. Birgitte blinked, and he paused. “Forgive me if I erred. I assumed from your clothes you were Kandori.”
“Oh, yes,” Birgitte breathed. “Kandori.” Her sickly grin might have been from her injuries; Nynaeve was impatiently shooing Lan out of the way so she could lay hands on her. Elayne hoped the woman knew more of Kandor than the name; when Birgitte had last been born, there had been no Kandor. She should have taken it as an omen.
For the five miles to the small slate-roofed manor house, Birgitte rode behind Nynaeve on the latter’s stout brown mare—named Loversknot, of all things—and Elayne and Aviendha rode Lan’s tall black stallion. At least, Elayne sat Mandarb’s saddle with Aviendha’s arms around her waist while Lan led the fiery-eyed animal. Trained warhorses were as much weapons as a sword, and dangerous mounts for strange riders. Be sure of yourself, girl, Lini had always told her, but not too sure, and she did try. She should have realized events were no more in her control than Mandarb’s reins.
At the three-story stone house, Master Hornwell, stout and gray-haired, and Mistress Hornwell, slightly less round and slightly less gray but otherwise resembling her husband remarkably, had every last person who worked the estates, and Merilille’s maid, Pol, and the green-and-white liveried servants who had come from the Tarasin Palace as well, all bustling to find sleeping accommodations for over two hundred people, most women, who had appeared out of nowhere with dark near to falling. The work went with surprising swiftness, in spite of the estates’ people stopping to gawk at an Aes Sedai’s ageless face, or a Warder’s shifting cloak making parts of him vanish, or one of the Sea Folk with all of her bright silks, her earrings and nosering and medallioned chain. Kinswomen were deciding that now it was safe to be frightened and cry no matter what Reanne and the Knitting Circle said to them; Windfinders were snarling over how far from the salt they had come, against their will as Renaile din Calon loudly claimed; and nobles and crafts women who had been all too willing to flee whatever lay back in Ebou Dar, willing to carry their bundled possessions on their backs, were now balking at being shown a hayloft for a bed.
All that was going on when Elayne and the others arrived with the sun red on the western horizon, a great upheaval and milling all about the house and thatch-roofed outbuildings, but Alise Tenjile, smiling pleasantly and implacable as an avalanche, seemed to have everything more in hand than even the capable Hornwells. Kinswomen who wept harder for all of Reanne’s attempts at comfort dried their tears at a murmur from Alise and began moving with the purposeful air of women who had been caring for themselves in a hostile world for many years. Haughty nobles with marriage knives dangling into the oval cutouts in their lace-trimmed bodices and craftswomen who displayed almost as much arrogance and nearly as much bosom, if not in silk, flinched at the sight of Alise approaching, and went scurrying for the tall barns hugging their bundles and announcing loudly that they had always thought it might be amusing to sleep on straw. Even the Windfinders, many of them important and powerful women among the Atha’an Miere, muffled their complaints when Alise came near. For that matter, Sareitha, still lacking the Aes Sedai agelessness, eyed Alise askance and touched her brown-fringed shawl as if to remind herself it was there. Merilille—unflappable Merilille—watched the woman go about her work with a blend of approval and open amazement.
Clambering down from her saddle at the front door of the house, Nynaeve glared toward Alise, gave her dark braid one deliberate, measured tug that the other woman was far too busy to notice, and stalked inside, stripping off her blue riding gloves and muttering to herself. Watching her go, Lan chuckled softly, then stifled his laughter immediately when Elayne dismounted. Light, but his eyes were cold! For Nynaeve’s sake, she hoped the man could be saved from his fate, yet looking into those eyes, she did not believe it.
“Where is Ispan?” she murmured, helping Aviendha scramble down. So many of the women knew an Aes Sedai—a Black sister—was being held prisoner that the news was bound to spread through the estates like fire in dry grass, but better if the manor’s folk had a little preparation.
“Adeleas and Vandene took her to a small woodcutter’s hut about half a mile away,” he replied just as quietly.  The sisters said they would stay there with her tonight.”
Elayne shivered. The Darkfriend was to be questioned again once the sun went down, it seemed. They were in Andor, now, and that made her feel more deeply as if she had given the order for it.
Soon she was in a copper bathtub, luxuriating in perfumed soap and clean skin again, laughing and splashing water at Birgitte, who lolled in another tub except when she was splashing back, both of them giggling over the wincing horror Aviendha could not quite conceal at sitting up to her breasts in water. She thought it was a very good joke on herself, though, and told a most improper story about a man getting segade spines in his bottom. Birgitte told one still more improper, about a woman getting her head caught between the slats of a fence, that made even Aviendha blush. They were funny, though. Elayne wished she knew one to tell.
She and Aviendha combed and brushed one another’s hair—a nightly ritual for near-sisters—and then they snuggled tiredly into the canopied bed in a small room. She and Aviendha, Birgitte and Nynaeve, and lucky there were no more. Larger rooms had cots and pallets covering the floors, including the sitting rooms, the kitchens, and most of the halls. Nynaeve muttered half the night about the indecency of making a woman sleep apart from her husband, and for the other half, her elbows seemed to wake Elayne every time she dropped off. Birgitte flatly refused to change places, and she could not ask Aviendha to endure the woman’s sharp prodding, so she did not get a great deal of sleep.
Elayne was still groggy when they prepared to depart the next morning, with the rising sun a molten ball of gold. The manor had few animals to spare unless she stripped the estates bare, so while she rode a black gelding named Fireheart, and Aviendha and Birgitte had new mounts, those who had been afoot when they fled the Kin’s farm remained afoot. That included most of the Kinswomen themselves, the servants leading the pack animals, and the twenty-odd women who plainly were beyond regretting their visit to the Kin’s farm in hopes of peace and contemplation. The Warders rode ahead to scout the way across rolling hills covered in drought-starved forest, and the rest of them stretched out in a most peculiar snake, with Nynaeve and herself and the other sisters at the head. And Aviendha, of course.
It was hardly a group that could escape notice, so many women traveling with so few men for guards, not to mention twenty dark Windfinders, awkward on their horses and as bright as exotically plumaged birds, and nine Aes Sedai, six of them recognizably so to anyone who knew what to look for. Though one did ride with a leather sack over her head, of course. As if that would not attract eyes by itself. Elayne had hoped to reach Caemlyn unnoticed, but that no longer seemed possible. Still, there was no reason that anyone would suspect that the Daughter-Heir, Elayne Trakand herself, was one of this group. In the beginning, she thought that the greatest difficulty they might face would be someone who opposed her claims learning of her presence, sending armed men to try taking her into custody until the succession was settled.
In truth, she expected the first trouble to come from the footsore craftswomen and nobles, proud women all, and none used to tramping dusty hills. Especially since Merilille’s maid had her own plump mare to ride. The few farm wives among them did not seem to mind too much, but nearly half their number were women who possessed lands and manors and palaces, and most of the rest could have afforded to buy an estate if not two or three.  They walked, their possessions strapped to their backs, while their horses bore packsaddles laden with food. There was real need. Every last coin in everyone’s purse had been pooled together and given into Nynaeve’s tightfisted keeping, but all might not be sufficient to buy food, fodder and lodgings for so large a party all the way to Caemlyn. They did not seem to understand. They complained loudly and incessantly through the first day’s march. Loudest of all was a slim lady with a thin scar on one cheek, a stern-faced woman named Malien, who was nearly bent double under the weight of a huge bundle containing a dozen or more dresses and all the changes that went with them.
When they made camp that first night, with their cook fires glowing in the twilight and everyone full of beans and bread if not entirely satisfied with them, Malien gathered the noblewomen around her, their silks more than travel-stained. The craftswomen joined in, too, and the banker, and the farmers stood close. Before Malien could say a word, Reanne strode into the group. Her face full of smile lines, in plain brown woolens with her skirts sewn up on the left to expose bright layered petticoats, she might have been one of the farm women.
“If you wish to go home,” she announced in that surprisingly high voice, “you may do so at any time. I regret that we must keep your horses, though. You will be paid for them as soon as can be arranged. If you choose to remain, please remember that the rules of the farm still apply.” A number of the women around her gaped. Malien was not alone in opening her mouth angrily.
Alise just seemed to appear at Reanne’s side, fists planted on her hips. She was not smiling now. “I said the last ten to be ready would do the washing up,” she told them firmly. And she named them off; Jillien, a plump goldsmith; Naiselle, the cool-eyed banker; and all eight of the nobles. They stood staring at her until she clapped her hands and said, “Don’t make me invoke the rule on failure to do your share of the chores.”
Malien, wide-eyed and muttering in disbelief, was the last to dart off and begin gathering dirty bowls, but the next morning she pared her bundle down, leaving lace-trimmed silk dresses and shifts to be trampled on the hillside as they departed. Elayne continued to expect an explosion, but Reanne kept a firm hand on them, Alise kept a firmer, and if Malien and the others glared and muttered over the grease stains that grew on their clothes day by day, Reanne had only to speak a few words to send them to their work. Alise only had to clap her hands.
If the rest of the journey could have gone as smoothly, Elayne would have been willing to join those women in their greasy labors. Long before reaching Caemlyn, she knew that for a fact.
Once they reached the first narrow dusty road, little more than cart track, farms began to appear, thatched stone houses and barns clinging to the hillsides or nestled in hollows. From then on, whether the land was hilly or flat, forested or cleared, they rarely spent many hours beyond sight of a farm or a village. At each of those, while the local folk goggled at the very strange strangers, Elayne tried to learn how much support House Trakand had, and what concerned the people most. Addressing those concerns would be important in making her claim to the throne strong enough to stand, as important as the backing of other Houses. She heard a great deal, if not always what she wished to hear. Andorans claimed the right to speak their minds to the Queen herself; they were hardly shy with a young noblewoman, no matter how peculiar her traveling companions.
In a village called Damelien, where three mills sat beside a small river shrunken to leave their tall waterwheels dry, the square-jawed innkeeper at The Golden Sheaves allowed as how he thought Morgase had been a good queen, the best that could be, the best that ever was. “Her daughter might’ve been a good ruler, too, I suppose,” he muttered, thumbing his chin. “Pity the Dragon Reborn killed them. I suppose he had to—the Prophecies or some such—but he had no call to dry up the rivers, now did he? How much grain did you say your horses need, my lady? It’s dreadful dear, mind.”
A hard-faced woman, in a worn brown dress that hung on her as if she had lost weight, surveyed a field surrounded by a low stone wall, where the hot wind sent sheets of dust marching into the woods. The other farms around Buryhill looked as bad or worse. “That Dragon Reborn’s got no right to do this to us, now has he? I ask you!” She spat and frowned up at Elayne in her saddle. “The throne? Oh, Dyelin’s as good as any, now Morgase and her girl are dead. Some around here still speak up for Naean or Elenia, but I’m for Dyelin. Any lookout, Caemlyn’s a long way off. I’ve got crops to worry about. If I ever make another crop.”
“Oh, it’s true, my lady, so it is; Elayne’s alive,” a gnarled old carpenter told her in Forel Market. He was bald as a leather egg, his fingers twisted with age, but the work standing among the shavings and sawdust that littered his shop looked as fine as any Elayne had seen. She was the only person in the shop besides him. From the look of the village, half the residents had left. “The Dragon Reborn is having her brought to Caemlyn so he can put the Rose Crown on her head himself,” he allowed. “The news is all over. ’Tisn’t right, if you ask me. He’s one of them black-eyed Aielmen, I hear. We ought to march on Caemlyn and drive him and all them Aiel back where they come from. Then Elayne can claim the throne her own self. If Dyelin lets her keep it, anyway.”
Elayne heard a great deal about Rand, rumors ranging from him swearing fealty to Elaida to him being the King of Illian, of all things. In Andor, he was blamed for everything bad that happened for the last two or three years, including stillbirths and broken legs, infestations of grasshoppers, two-headed calves, and three-legged chickens.  The Dragon Reborn was supposed to fight the Dark One at Shayol Ghul, and he should be driven out of Andor. Not what she had hoped to hear, not a bit of it. But she heard it all again and again. It was not a pleasant journey at all. It was one long lesson in one of Lini’s favorite sayings. It isn’t the stone you see that trips you on your nose.
She thought a number of things beside the nobles might cause trouble, some sure to be explosions as great as the gateway. The Windfinders, smug in the bargain made with Nynaeve and herself, behaved in an irritatingly superior manner toward the Aes Sedai, especially after it came out that Merilille had let herself agree to be one of the first sisters to go the ships. Yet if the sizzling there continued like the burning of an Illuminator’s fuse-cord, the explosion never quite came. The Windfinders and the Kinswomen, in particular the Knitting Circle, seemed as certain to blow up. They cut one another dead when not sneering openly, the Kin at “Sea Folk wilders getting above themselves,” the Windfinders at “cringing sandlappers kissing Aes Sedai feet.” But it never went beyond lips curled or daggers caressed.
Ispan certainly presented problems that Elayne was sure would grow, yet after a few days, Vandene and Adeleas let her ride unhooded if not unshielded, a silent figure with colored beads in her thin braids, ageless face turned down and hands still on her reins. Renaile told everyone who would listen that among the Atha’an Miere, a Darkfriend was stripped of his or her names as soon as proven guilty, then thrown over the side tied to ballast stones. Among the Kinswomen, even Reanne and Alise paled every time they saw the Taraboner woman. But Ispan grew meeker and meeker, eager to please and full of ingratiating smiles for the two white-haired sisters no matter what it was they did to her when they carried her away from the others at night. On the other hand, Adeleas and Vandene grew more and more frustrated. Adeleas told Nynaeve in Elayne’s hearing that the woman spilled out volumes about old plots of the Black Ajah, those she had not been involved in much more enthusiastically than those she was, yet even when they pressed her hard—Elayne could not quite make herself ask how they pressed—and she let slip the names of Darkfriends, most were certainly dead and none was a sister. Vandene said they were beginning to fear she had taken an Oath—the capital was audible—against betraying her cohorts. They continued to isolate Ispan as much as possible and continued with their questions, but it was plain they were feeling their way blindly, now, and carefully.
And there was Nynaeve, and Lan. Most definitely Nynaeve and Lan, with her near to bursting at the effort of holding her temper around him, mooning over him when they had to sleep apart—which was nearly always, the way accommodations divided up—and torn between eager and afraid when she could sneak him off to a hayloft. It was her own fault for choosing a Sea Folk wedding, in Elayne’s estimation. The Sea Folk believed in hierarchy as they did in the sea, and they knew a woman and her husband might be promoted one past the other many times in their lives. Their marriage rites took that into account. Whoever had the right to command in public, must obey in private. Lan never took advantage, so Nynaeve said—“not really,” whatever that was supposed to mean! She always blushed when she said it—but she kept waiting for him to do so, and he just seemed to grow more and more amused. This amusement, of course, screwed Nynaeve’s temper to a fever pitch. Nynaeve did erupt, out of all the explosions Elayne had expected. She snapped at anyone and everyone who got in her way. Except at Lan; with him, she was all honey and cream. And not at Alise. She came close once or twice, but even Nynaeve could not seem to make herself snap at Alise.
Elayne had hopes, not worries, about the things brought out of the Rahad along with the Bowl of the Winds. Aviendha helped her search, and so did Nynaeve once or twice, but she was entirely too slow and ginger about it and showed little skill at finding what they were searching for. They found no more angreal, yet the collection of ter’angreal grew; once all the rubbish had been thrown away, objects that used the One Power filled five entire panniers on the packhorses.
Careful as Elayne was, though, her attempts to study them did not go so well. Spirit was the safest of the Five Powers to use in this—unless, of course, Spirit happened to be what triggered the thing!—yet at times she had to use other flows, as fine as she could weave. Sometimes her delicate probing did nothing, but her first touch at the thing that looked like a blacksmith’s puzzle made of glass left her dizzy and unable to sleep for half the night, and a thread of Fire touching what looked like a helmet made of fluffy metal feathers gave everyone within twenty paces a blinding headache. Except for herself. And then there was the crimson rod that felt hot. Hot, in a way.
Sitting on the edge of her bed at an inn called The Wild Boar, she examined the smooth rod by the light of two polished brass lamps. Wrist-thick and a foot long, it looked like stone, but felt firm rather than hard. She was alone; since the helmet, she had tried to do her studying away from the others. The heat of the rod made her think of Fire . . .
Blinking, she opened her eyes and sat up in the bed. Sunlight streamed in at the window. She was in her shift, and Nynaeve, fully dressed, stood frowning down at her. Aviendha and Birgitte were watching from beside the door.
“What happened?” Elayne demanded, and Nynaeve shook her head grimly.
“You don’t want to know.” Her lips twitched.
Aviendha’s face gave away nothing. Birgitte’s mouth might have been a little tight, but the strongest emotion Elayne felt from her was a combination of relief and—hilarity! The woman was doing her utmost not to roll on the floor laughing!
The worst of it was, no one would tell what had happened. What she had said, or done; she was sure it was that, by the quickly hidden grins she saw, from Kinswomen and Windfinders as well as sisters. But no one would tell her! After that, she decided to leave studying the ter’angreal to somewhere more comfortable than a inn. Somewhere definitely more private!
Nine days after their flight from Ebou Dar, scattered clouds appeared in the sky and a sprinkling of fat raindrops splashed dust in the road. An intermittent drizzle fell the next day, and the day after, a deluge kept them huddled in the houses and stables of Forel Market. That night, the rain turned to sleet, and by morning, thick flurries of snow drifted from a cloud-dark sky. More than halfway to Caemlyn, Elayne began to wonder whether they could make it in two weeks from where they stood.
With the snow, clothes became a worry. Elayne blamed herself for not thinking of the fact that everyone might need warm clothes before they reached their destination. Nynaeve blamed herself for not thinking of it. Merilille thought she was at fault, and Reanne thought she was. They actually stood in the main street of Forel Market that morning with snowflakes drifting down on their heads, arguing over who could claim the blame. Elayne was not sure which of them saw the absurdity first, who was the first to laugh, but all were laughing as they settled around a table in The White Swan to decide what to do. A solution turned out to be no laughing matter. Providing one warm coat or cloak for everyone would take a large bite out of their coin, if so many could be found. Jewelry could be sold or traded, of course, but no one in Forel Market seemed to be interested in necklaces or bracelets, however fine.
Aviendha solved that difficulty by producing a small sack that bulged with clear, perfect gemstones, some quite large. Strangely, the same folk who had said with bare politeness that they had no use for be-gemmed necklaces went round-eyed at the unset stones rolling about in Aviendha’s palm. Reanne said they saw one as frippery, the other as wealth, but whatever their reasons, in return for two rubies of moderate size, one large moonstone, and a small firedrop, the people of Forel Market were more than willing to provide as many thick woolens as their visitors desired, some of them hardly worn.
“Very generous of them,” Nynaeve muttered sourly as people began rooting clothes out of their chests and attics. A steady stream marched into the inn with their arms full. “Those stones could buy the whole village!” Aviendha shrugged slightly; she would have surrendered a handful of the gems if Reanne had not intervened.
Merilille shook her head. “We have what they want, but they have what we need. I’m afraid that means they set the price.” Which was entirely too much like the situation with the Sea Folk. Nynaeve looked positively ill.
When they were alone, in a hallway of the inn, Elayne asked Aviendha where she had gotten such a fortune in jewels, and one she seemed eager to be rid of. She expected her near-sister to say they were her takings from the Stone of Tear, or perhaps Cairhien.
“Rand al’Thor tricked me,” Aviendha muttered sullenly. “I tried to buy my toh from him. I know that is the least honorable way,” she protested, “but I could see no other. And he stood me on my head! Why is it, when you reason things out logically, a man always does something completely illogical and gains the upper hand?”
“Their pretty heads are so fuzzy, a woman can’t expect to follow how they skitter,” Elayne told her. She did not inquire what toh Aviendha had tried to buy, or how the attempt had ended with her near-sister possessing a sack full of rich gems. Talking about Rand was hard enough without where that might lead.
Snow brought more than a need for warm clothing. At midday, with the snow flurries falling thicker by the minute, Renaile strode down the stairs into the common room, proclaimed that her part of the bargain had been met, and demanded not only the Bowl of the Winds, but Merilille. The Gray sister stared in consternation, and so did a great many others. The benches were filled with Kinswomen taking their turn at the midday meal, and serving men and women ran to serve this third lot of meals. Renaile did not keep her voice down, and every head in the common room swiveled toward her.
“You can begin your teaching, now,” Renaile told the wide-eyed Aes Sedai. “Up the ladder with you to my quarters.” Merilille started to protest, but face suddenly cold, the Windfinder to the Mistress of the Ships planted fists on her hips.  Now jump!”
Merilille did not precisely jump, but she did gather herself and go, with Renaile practically chivvying her up the stairs from behind. Given her promise, she had no other choice. Reanne’s face was aghast. Alise and stout Sumeko, still wearing her red belt, watched thoughtfully.
In the days that followed, whether laboring along a snow-covered road on their horses, walking the streets of a village, or trying to find room for everyone at a farm, Renaile kept Merilille at her heels except when she told her off to follow another Windfinder. The glow of saidar surrounded the Gray sister and her escort almost constantly, and Merilille demonstrated weaves unceasingly. The pale Cairhienin was markedly shorter than any of the dark Sea Folk women, but at first Merilille managed to stand taller by the sheer force of Aes Sedai dignity. Soon, though, she began to wear a permanently startled expression. Elayne learned that when they all had beds to sleep in, which they did not always, Merilille was sharing with Pol, her maid, and the two apprentice Windfinders, Talaan and Metarra. What that said of Merilille’s status, Elayne was not sure. Clearly, the Windfinders did not put her on a level with the apprentices. They just expected her to do as she was told, when she was told, with no delays or equivocations.
Reanne remained appalled at the turn of events, but Alise and Sumeko were not the only ones among the Kin to watch closely, not the only ones to nod thoughtfully. And suddenly, another problem came to Elayne’s notice. The Kinswomen saw Ispan made more and more malleable in her captivity, but she was the prisoner of other Aes Sedai. The Sea Folk were not Aes Sedai, and Merilille not a prisoner, yet she was starting to jump when Renaile issued a command, or, for that matter, when Dorile, or Caire, or Caire’s blood-sister Tebreille did. Each of those was Windfinder to a clan Wavemistress, and none of the others made her hop with such alacrity, but that was enough. More and more of the Kin slid from horrified gaping to thoughtful observation. Perhaps Aes Sedai were not a different flesh after all. If Aes Sedai were just women like themselves, why should they subject themselves once more to the rigors of the Tower, to Aes Sedai authority and Aes Sedai discipline? Had they not survived very well on their own, some for more years than any of the older sisters were quite ready to believe? Elayne could practically see the idea forming in their heads.
When she mentioned it to Nynaeve, though, Nynaeve just muttered, “About time some of the sisters learned what it’s like trying to teach a woman who thinks she knows more than her teacher. Those who have a chance at a shawl will still want it, and for the rest, I don’t see why they shouldn’t grow some backbone.” Elayne refrained from mentioning Nynaeve’s complaints about Sumeko, who had certainly grown backbone; Sumeko had criticized several of Nynaeve’s Healing weaves as “clumsy,” and Elayne had thought Nynaeve was going to have apoplexy on the spot. “In any case, there’s no need to tell Egwene about this. If she’s there. Any of it. She has enough on her plate.” Without doubt, “any of it” referred to Merilille and the Windfinders.
They were in their shifts, seated on their bed on the second floor of The New Plow, with the twisted-ring dream ter’angreal hanging about their necks, Elayne’s on a simple leather cord, Nynaeve’s alongside Lan’s heavy signet ring on a narrow golden chain. Aviendha and Birgitte, still fully dressed, sat on two of their clothing chests. Standing guard, they called it, until she and Nynaeve returned from the World of Dreams. Both wore their cloaks until they could climb under the blankets. The New Plow was definitely not new; cracks spidered across the plastered walls, and unfortunate drafts crept in everywhere.
The room itself was small, and the chests and stacked bundles left room for little beyond the bed and washstand. Elayne knew she had to present herself properly in Caemlyn, but sometimes she felt guilty, with her belongings on pack animals when most others had to make do with what they could carry on their backs. Nynaeve certainly never showed any regrets over her chests. They had been sixteen days on the road, the full moon outside the narrow window shone on a white blanket of snow that would make traveling tomorrow slow even if the sky remained clear, and Elayne thought another week to Caemlyn was an optimistic estimate.
“I have enough sense not to remind her,” she told Nynaeve.
That was a mild way of putting it. They had not been in Tel’aran’rhiod since informing Egwene, the night after leaving the estate, that the Bowl had been used. Reluctantly, they also had told her of the bargain they had been forced into with the Sea Folk, and found themselves facing the Amyrlin Seat with the striped stole on her shoulders. Elayne knew it was necessary and right—a Queen’s closest friend among her subjects knew she was the Queen as well as a friend, had to know—but she had not enjoyed her friend telling them in a heated voice that they had behaved like witless loobies who might have brought ruin down on all their heads. Especially when she herself agreed. She had not liked hearing that the only reason Egwene did not set them both a penance that would curl their hair was that she could not afford to have them waste the time. Necessary and right, though; when she sat on the Lion Throne, she would still be Aes Sedai, and subject to the laws and rules and customs of Aes Sedai. Not for Andor—she would not give her land to the White Tower—but for herself. So, unpleasant as it had been, she accepted her castigation calmly. Nynaeve had writhed and stammered with embarrassment, protested and all but pouted, then apologized so profusely that Elayne hardly believed it was the same woman she knew. Quite rightly, Egwene had remained the Amyrlin, cool in her displeasure even while giving pardon for their mistakes. At best, tonight could not be pleasant or comfortable if she was there.
But when they dreamed themselves into the Salidar of Tel’aran’rhiod, into the room in the Little Tower that had been called the Amyrlin’s Study, she was not there, and the only sign she had visited since their meeting was some barely visible words roughly scratched on a beetle-riddled wall panel, as if by an idle hand that did not want to spend the effort to carve deeply.
STAY IN CAEMLYN
And a few feet away:
KEEP SILENT AND BE CAREFUL
Those had been Egwene’s final instructions to them. Go to Caemlyn, and stay there until she could puzzle out how to keep the Hall from salting all of them down and nailing them into a barrel. A reminder they had no way to erase.
Embracing saidar, Elayne channeled to leave her own message, the number fifteen seemingly scratched on the heavy table that had been Egwene’s writing desk. Inverting the weave and tying it off meant that only someone who ran her fingers across the numerals would realize they were not really there. Perhaps it would not take fifteen days to reach Caemlyn, but more than a week, she was certain.
Nynaeve strode to the window and peered out both ways, careful not to put her head out through the open casement. It was night out there as in the waking world, a full moon gleaming on bright snow, though the air did not feel cold. No one else should be there except them, and if anyone was, it was someone to avoid. “I hope she isn’t having trouble with her plans,” she muttered.
“She told us not to mention those even to each other, Nynaeve. ‘A secret spoken finds wings.’ ” That had been another of Lini’s many favorites.
Nynaeve grimaced over her shoulder, then returned to peering down the narrow alley. “It’s different for you. I tended her as a child, changed her swaddling, smacked her bottom a time or two. And now I have to leap when she snaps her fingers. It’s hard.”
Elayne could not help herself. She snapped her fingers.
Nynaeve spun so fast that she blurred, her face pop-eyed with horror. Her dress blurred, too, from blue riding silks to an Accepted’s banded white to what she referred to as good, stout Two Rivers wool, dark and thick. When she realized Egwene was not there, had not been listening, she almost fainted with relief.
When they stepped back to their bodies and woke long enough to tell the others they could come to bed, Aviendha certainly thought it a good joke, and Birgitte laughed as well. Nynaeve had her revenge, though. The next morning, she woke Elayne with an icicle. Elayne’s shrieks woke everybody else in the whole village.
Three days later, the first explosion came.


“Their dynamic design, creative direction and level of code exceeded any of our expectations.”
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I rather like coding and it's proved to be a somewhat useful hobby. I keep all my projects in my github page, and feedback is always welcome!


The first stage of this is that there is now a JavaScript library, PsychoJS, that mirrors the PsychoPy Python library classes and functions.
PsychoPy Builder is effectively just writing a script for you based on the visual representation of your study so the new feature is for it simply to write a html/JavaScript/PsychoJS page instead.
Modern browsers are remarkably powerful. Most browsers released since 2011 have allowed HTML5 which supports more flexible rendering of web pages (images and text can be positioned precisely enough to run “proper” behavioural experiments). Since 2013 most have supported WebGL. That allows graphics to be rendered really quickly using “hardware acceleration” on your graphics card. The result is rich pages that can be updated very rapidly and can be forced to sync to screen refresh, which is critical for stimulus timing.
All this means we can do great things with online experiments that actually have good temporal precision!
The way it works is that you have a web page containing JavaScript (generated by PsychoPy Builder). You upload that to a web server. The participant of your study uses their web browser to visit the page you’ve created with a standard URL you send them.
Now, JavaScript executes on their computer (as opposed to scripts like PHP that operate on the server and aren’t directly visible to the viewer/browser). In this case the PsychoJS script will present a dialog box at the start of the study to get the participant ID and any other basic information you need. While that dialog box is presented the script will be downloading all your stimuli and files to the local computer and storing them in memory. When all the necessary files are downloaded the participant can press “OK” and the experiment will start.
The experiment supports all the standard timing aspects of any PsychoPy Builder experiment; you can specify your stimuli in terms of time presented or number of screen refreshes etc (and the actual refresh rate of your participant’s computer will be stored in your data file). When it’s finished it saves the data into a comma-separated-value (CSV) file in the “data” folder on the web server. This looks very much like the standard CSV outputs of your same PsychoPy experiment run locally.
Not all components are currently supported. Keep an eye on the Status of online options page to see what objects you can use already.
The PsychoPy team doesn’t don’t know much about the underlying technology of jsPsych (e.g. its timing of stimuli and use of advanced graphics like WebGL) but one notable difference is the additional flexibility that PsychoPy provides in terms of creating your trials. In jsPsych you use one of the pre-programmed “types” of trial (like single stimulus or 2-alternative-forced-choice) and you have rather little flexibility over how that gets conducted. If you wanted to alter the positioning of the stimuli, for instance, in a 2-alternative-force-choice task or you wanted a stimulus to change in time (appear gradually or move location) then you would need to write a new trial “type” using raw javascript.
PsychoPy, by comparison, is designed to give you total flexibility. You decide what constitutes a “trial” and how things should operate in time. We think that control is very important to creating a wide range of studies.
Also, of course, there’s no Builder interface for jsPsych as far as we know, so you’ll need to know how to program in JavaScript.


The following operator character sequences are permitted and represent a cross between PDP-10 Macro SNOBOL4, SITBOL and Catspaw SPITBOL usage:
SPITBOL and BLOCKS extensions control operator definitions are orthogonal and can be controlled separately.
| Char | Defn. | Assoc. | Enabled |
| = _ | assignment | RIGHT | w/ SPITBOL |
| ? | pattern match | LEFT | w/ SPITBOL |
| & | definable | LEFT | |
| | | alternation | LEFT | |
| # | normal concat | LEFT | w/ BLOCKS |
| % | vertical concat | LEFT | w/ BLOCKS |
| sp | concatenation | LEFT | |
| @ | definable | LEFT | |
| - + | subtract, add | LEFT | |
| # | definable | LEFT | w/o BLOCKS |
| * | multiplication | LEFT | |
| % | definable | LEFT | w/o BLOCKS |
| ? | definable | LEFT | w/o SPITBOL |
| / | division | LEFT | |
| ^ ** | exponentiation | RIGHT | |
| $ . | match naming | LEFT | |
| ~ | definable | RIGHT |
| Char | Defn. |
| \ | negation |
| ? | interrogation |
| $ | indirect reference |
| . | none |
| ! | none |
| % | none |
| * | unevaluated expression |
| / | none |
| # | none |
| + | positive |
| - | negative |
| @ | cursor position assignment |
| | | none |
| & | keyword |


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debugger
(no-debugger)The debugger
statement is used to tell the executing JavaScript environment to stop execution and start up a debugger at the current point in the code. This has fallen out of favor as a good practice with the advent of modern debugging and development tools. Production code should definitely not contain debugger
, as it will cause the browser to stop executing code and open an appropriate debugger.
This rule disallows debugger
statements.
Example of incorrect code for this rule:
/*eslint no-debugger: "error"*/
function isTruthy(x) {
debugger;
return Boolean(x);
}
Example of correct code for this rule:
/*eslint no-debugger: "error"*/
function isTruthy(x) {
return Boolean(x); // set a breakpoint at this line
}
If your code is still very much in development and don’t want to worry about stripping about debugger
statements, then turn this rule off. You’ll generally want to turn it back on when testing code prior to deployment.
This rule was introduced in ESLint 0.0.2.


1. Install and run Docker.
2. Ensure you have a stable Internet connection. To operate with Docker you need the busybox image be available on your machine. Ensure that you have a stable Internet connection, so that PyCharm can download and run busybox:latest. Once you have successfully configured Docker, you can go offline.
3. If you are using Docker for Windows, enable connection to Docker via the TCP protocol: Right-click the Docker icon Docker icon on the Notification bar on the Notification bar, select Settings from the context menu, and then select the Expose daemon on tcp://localhost:2375 without TLS checkbox in the General section of your system Docker settings.
4. Configure the Docker daemon connection settings:
a. In the Settings/Preferences dialog Ctrl+Alt+S, select Build, Execution, Deployment | Docker.
b. Click The Add button to add a Docker configuration and specify how to connect to the Docker daemon.
The connection settings depend on your Docker version and operating system.
For more information, see Docker configuration.
5. Connect to the Docker daemon. The configured Docker connection should appear in the Services tool window (View | Tool Windows | Services or Alt+8). Select the Docker node Docker node, and click The Connect button, or select Connect from the context menu.


LunarikoCSS
Simple CSS libraryAbout.
When I was trying to use mainstream css frameworks, I had a weird feeling about adding rather large amounts of code for my simple web-projects. After getting lost in documentation while being confused why something doesn't appear as I expected, I felt the need to understand how everything works from the ground up. This is my attempt to make reusable, modular styles and give my projects a unique view.
Some ideas I am trying out:- Stylizing general elements. No need for .a and .button classes.
- Using var for on-the-fly theming capabilities.
- Trying to minimize the use of javascript.
Components
Buttons
Write stories Start nowCards
Rather long description of a simple card item
Rather long description of a simple card item
Rather long description of a simple card item
Rather long description of a simple card item
Rather long description of a simple card item
Tabs
- Item 1 ×
- Item 2 ×
- Item 3 ×
- +
- Monday
- Tuesday
- Wednesday
- Thursday
- Friday
- Saturday
- Sunday
- Monday
- Tuesday
- Wednesday
- Thursday
- Friday
- Saturday
- Sunday
- Item 1×
- Item 2×
- Item 3×
- +
Misc.
contrast formula:
function luminanace(r, g, b) {
var a = [r, g, b].map(function (v) {
v /= 255;
return v <= 0.03928 ? v / 12.92 : Math.pow( (v + 0.055) / 1.055, 2.4 );
});
return a[0] * 0.2126 + a[1] * 0.7152 + a[2] * 0.0722;
}
function contrast(rgb1, rgb2) {
var lum1=luminanace(rgb1[0], rgb1[1], rgb1[2]);
var lum2=luminanace(rgb2[0], rgb2[1], rgb2[2]);
var brightest=Math.max(lum1, lum2);
var darkest=Math.min(lum1, lum2);
return (brightest + 0.05) / (darkest + 0.05);
}
Bookmarks
- Related to this library:
- Rust programming language:
- QA-related:
- Programming in general:


Vladan Tošev
JavaScript Web Developer
I am Junior JavaScript Web Developer who loves Programming and Web Development.
JavaScript is just the beginning of my path in programming, because I am planning to learn more programming languages in the future.
I am both driven and self-motivated, and I am constantly experimenting with new technologies and techniques.
I am very passionate about Web Development, and strive to better myself as a developer.
Able to work independently as well as part of the team;
Determined, hardworking and responsible;
Eager to constant learning and development.


---
title: "Daffodils!"
date: "2018-04-20 00:00:00 -06:00"
categories:
- whats-blooming
layout: "post"
blog-banner: "whats-blooming-now-spring.jpg"
post-date: "April 20, 2018"
post-time: "12:00 PM"
blog-image: "2018-04-20-wbn.jpg"
published: true
---
We have quite the magnificent display of daffodils throughout the Garden right now. Come see the unique diversity!
...but wait! Daffodils are not the only bloomers in the Garden right now...
This Utah native is a favorite! It is a member of the waterleaf family. The flowers hang below the leaves, so they may be a little harder to spot. They can be seen in the Natural Area, as well as under the oaks near the Northwest end of the Orangerie building.
This is just one of the many trees of the rose family that are blossoming right now.
Make sure to come up to the Garden for our famous Daffodil Display! While you're here, your nose will be greeted with many pleasant smells from all of the new blossoms in the Garden.


Keep your personal notes here; they will be available from any page on this site. You can choose to use html syntax for formatting.


一、泰山与泰安
1. Mount Tai and Taian City
As a Chinese, you may not know Taian, but you definitely hear of Mount Tai. In the program “Chinese attractions that foreigners are interested in “, Mount Tai ranks the second place after the Great Wall.
Mount Tai is located in the territory of Taian City, Shandong province. It is the world’s natural and cultural heritage, one of the ten famous mountains of China, the World Geopark and the national 5A tourist attractions. The name of Taian derives from the sentence: “The country is prosperous and the people are at peace”. Taian is the National Health City, the National Historical and Cultural City, the National Forest City, and has won the Chinese Habitat Environment Award.
By the way, the earliest Taian Railway Station was probably built by the Germans and then renamed the Taishan Railway Station; and the station at Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway is the Taian station. Therefore, the outsiders to Taian must pay attention: Taishan Station and Taian Station are not the same place.
作为一名中国人，你可能不知道泰安，但你一定知道泰山。在“外国人感兴趣的中国景点”一项中,泰山仅次于长城，排名屈居第二。
泰山就位于山东省泰安市境内，为世界自然与文化遗产，中华十大名山，世界地质公园，国家5A级旅游景区。泰安因泰山而得名，“泰山安则四海皆安”，寓国泰民安之意。为国家卫生城市，国家历史文化名城，国家森林城市，荣膺中国人居环境奖。
顺便说一下，最早的泰安火车站大概是德国人所建，后改名为泰山站；而京沪高铁在这里设置的站点为泰安站。所以，外地人来泰安一定要注意，泰山站与泰安站不是一个地方，高铁站为泰安站。
二、泰山煎饼
2. Taishan Pancake
Located in the North Temperate Zone, Taian has a semi-moist warm temperate continental monsoon climate, characterized by four distinct seasons, rain and heat in the same quarter, cold and dry over the same period, adequate lighting, and concentrated rainfall. Sunshine, air temperature and precipitation of Taian City are very beneficial to the growth and development of crops and forest fruits. The main crops are wheat, corn, vegetables, silkworms, fruit trees and peanuts.
Growing a lot of corn, Taian has its food product: Taishan Pancake. With a history of over 1000 years, Taishan Pancak, made of corn, millet as raw material, is a famous traditional food product which is thin, crisp, ans shelf-stable. Pancake roll stuffed with scallions is a local cuisine.
Growing up by eating pancakes, I have a special feeling for pancakes. In Shandong the people of Linyi also eat pancakes, but Linyi pancakes are not the same as Tai’an pancakes. It looks like that Linyi pancakes are thick and wet, and Tai’an pancakes are thin and dry.
When I was a child, my father and other miners went to visit West Lake, bringing some pancakes with them, and the people of the South were unable to understand: “Look, they are eating paper.”
 I had studied for four years in a secondary school in Weifang City, where people don’t eat pancakes. When I came back home to eat pancakes, I found it a hard thing.
泰安市属于温带大陆性半湿润季风气候区，四季分明，寒暑适宜，光温同步，雨热同季。日照、气温、降水等对农作物和林果生长发育十分有利，主要作物有小麦、玉米、、蔬菜、桑蚕、果树、花生为主。
由于大量种植玉米，也就有了美食产品——泰山煎饼。
泰安有着一千多年摊制煎饼的历史。泰安煎饼，以玉米、小米为原料，磨成糊状鏊摊而成，薄如纸，脆如酥，少水份，耐贮存，是久富盛名的泰安传统食品。泰安民谣说得好：”吃煎饼，卷大葱，香喷喷，赛油饼”。
当年黄巢起义转战泰山山脉时，我们当地百姓就用煎饼犒劳士兵。解放战争期间，沂蒙山人民推着小车，装上吃的煎饼和棉衣就上了前线。陈毅元帅曾经很形象地形容:“淮海战役是沂蒙老区人民用小推车推出来的。”
从小吃着煎饼长大，所以对煎饼有着一种特殊的感情，至今还隔三串五地买上几斤煎饼吃。我们当地的煎饼还是以玉米为主，在山东还有临沂也是吃煎饼，但临沂煎饼与泰安煎饼不太一样，好像临沂煎饼厚而湿，泰安煎饼薄而干。
我小时候，父亲与矿友们去西湖游览，带了点煎饼去，南方人大为不解：“看，他们在吃纸。”
别看煎饼类似纸，可若是头一次吃会累的你的牙有点痛。我在潍坊市上了四年中专，那里不吃煎饼，全是面食：馒头、面饼等，再回到家里吃煎饼时，就觉得费劲了。
三、泰山煎饼的制作
3. Process of Making Pancakes
a. Select the corn particle to remove the bad; b. Put corn in a bucket with water, usually for a night; c. Use stone mill to grind the corn into thick paste; d. Put the corn paste for a period of time to let it ferment, the degree of fermentation can determine the sweet and sour of the pancake； e. Wipe the griddle with soybean, put the corn paste on the heated griddle with a spoon; f. Extend the paste evenly on the griddle, slowly making circles to make it mature; g. Lift the pancake h. Stack and store.
The freshly made pancakes are the best to eat, and if they are stuffed with salted fish or shallots or sauces, that’s more delicious.
The pancakes are delicious, but making them is the most laborious.
Burn up and smoked, the maker suffers a lot, even in summer. It would cost at least three or four hours to finish a big pot of corn paste. I still remember when I was a child, my mother got up to make pancakes with the first cockcrew. Mother did not have the breakfast until she finished the work.
Now, even the pancake production is also mechanized, which is no longer so tiring. However people always feel that the hand-made pancakes are good to eat. It is said that on the top of Mt.Tai, a piece of pancake, stuffed with a shallot and a bit of sauce, is worth several yuan, or is it 10 yuan? And I’m not sure.
The pancakes bear the culture, and the memories of my childhood, where I can find happiness and the sweat and hardship of my mother.
When I pick up the pancakes, as if I am chewing the hard times, I seem to see my mother keeping making pancakes in smoke, backhunched……
（一）挑选玉米粒子，把不好的去掉； （二）把玉米放到桶里用水泡，一般是泡一晚上； （三）泡好的玉米用磨磨成糊糊； （四）把玉米糊糊放置一段时间让其发酵，发酵的程度可决定煎饼的酸甜； （五）用豆油擦一遍鏊子，把糊糊舀到烧好的鏊子上面。 （六）用竹制小耙子把糊糊均匀地摊在鏊子上，慢慢在上面转圈，使它定型，成熟。 （七）用小耙子粘一下鏊子边，把煎饼揭起来； （八）叠好，存放。
刚摊好的煎饼最好吃，也吃的多，如是卷上咸鱼或者大葱、酱等，那就更可口了。
煎饼好吃，可这摊煎饼的活最辛苦。火烤烟熏，冬天还好，夏天就更遭罪了，而且摊完那一大盆子的糊糊至少要三、四个小时。我还记得小时候，母亲听到第一声鸡叫就起床摊煎饼，一直摊到我们吃完早饭，母亲才完工，洗洗脸吃饭。
现在，连煎饼的制作也都机械化了，不再那么劳累，可人们总觉得还是摊的煎饼好吃。据说，在泰山顶上，一块薄煎饼，卷上一根葱，蘸上点酱，要好几块钱，是不是到了10元了，我就不清楚了。
煎饼承载着文化，也藏着我小时候的回忆，煎饼里有着幸福，也有着母亲的汗水和艰辛。
每每拿起煎饼，我就仿佛在咀嚼着那段岁月，仿佛看到母亲弓着腰，在烟熏火燎中，不停地用耙子摊煎饼的身影……
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