A Crown Of Swords
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There can be no health in us, nor any good thing grow, for the land is one with the Dragon Reborn, and he one with the land. Soul of fire, heart of stone, in pride he conquers, forcing the proud to yield. He calls upon the mountains to kneel, and the seas to give way, and the very skies to bow. Pray that the heart of stone remembers tears, and the soul of fire, love.
—From a much-disputed translation of
The Prophecies of the Dragon by the poet
Kyera Termendal, of Shiota, believed to
have been published between FY 700 and FY 800
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An Amyrlin could issue any decree she wished, her word law and absolute. Yet as a practical matter, without support from the Hall of the Tower, many of those decrees were wasted ink and paper. No sister would disobey an Amyrlin, not directly at least, yet many decrees required a hundred other things ordered to implement them. In the best of times that could come slowly on occasion so slowly it never happened, and these were far from the best.
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The White Tower had to be whole, and it had to be strong.
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"The White Tower will be whole again, except for remnants cast out and scorned, whole and stronger than ever. Rand al'Thor will face the Amyrlin Seat and know her anger. The Black Tower will be rent in blood and fire, and sisters will walk its grounds. This I Foretell."
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The second was that she saw what could be if you refused to let outworn custom and stale tradition tie your hands.
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Many traditions fell today, traditions old and strong as law. Wise Ones did not take part in battles. Wise Ones kept far from Aes Sedai. They knew the ancient tales, that the Aiel had been sent to the Three-fold Land for failing the Aes Sedai, that they would be destroyed if ever they failed them again. They had heard the stories, what Rand al'Thor had claimed before all, that as part of their service to the Aes Sedai, the Aiel had sworn to do no violence.
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Then she tossed down the spear and felt her belt pouch, where a small cube of intricately carved stone lay. Well that she had hesitated over throwing that away.
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Sometimes she went out on the balcony to see Tar Valon spread out before her, the greatest city in the world, filled with countless thousands who were less than pieces on a stone's board.
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The horses screamed as they fought, and men grunted with effort, shouted with the fever that over-took men in battle, the fever that said they were alive and would live to see another sunrise if they had to wade waist-deep in blood. They shouted as they killed, shouted as they died; there seemed little difference.
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The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose in the great forest called Braem Wood. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning.
North and east the wind blew as the searing sun rose higher in a cloudless sky, north and east through parched trees with brown leaves and bare branches, through scattered villages where the air shimmered from the heat. The wind brought no relief, no hint of rain, much less snow. North and east it blew, past an ancient arch of finely worked stone that some said had been a gateway to a great city and others a monument to some long forgotten battle. Only weathered, illegible remnants of carving remained on the massive stones, mutely recalling the lost glories of storied Coremanda. A few wagons trundled by in sight of the arch, along the Tar Valon Road, and folk afoot shielded their eyes from dust raised by hooves and wagon wheels and driven by the wind. Most had no idea where they were going, only that the world seemed to turn somersaults, all order ending where it was not gone already. Fear drove some on, while others were drawn by something they could not quite see and did not understand, and most of them were afraid, too.
Onward the wind traveled, across the gray-green River Erinin, heeling ships that still carried trade north and south, for there had to be trade even in these days, though none could be sure where it was safe to trade. East of the river, the forests began to thin, giving way eventually to low rolling hills covered in brown, tinder-dry grass and dotted sparsely with small clumps of trees. Atop one of those hills stood a circle of wagons, many with the canvas scorched or else completely burned away from the iron hoops. On a makeshift flagstaff, trimmed from a young tree dead in the drought and lashed to a bare wagon hoop for more height, waved a crimson banner, a black-and-white disc in its heart. The Banner of Light, some called it, or al'Thor's Banner. Others had darker names, and shivered as they spoke them in whispers. The wind shook the banner hard and was gone quickly, as if glad to be away.
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Life is a dream—that knows no shade.
Life is a dream—of pain and woe.
A dream from which—we pray to wake.
A dream from which—we wake and go.
Who would sleep—when the new dawn waits?
Who would sleep—when the sweet winds blow?
A dream must end—when the new day comes.
This dream from which—we wake and go.
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She looked as disbelieving now as she had the day before, when she knelt down there by the wells at battle's end and swore beneath the Light and by her hope of salvation and rebirth to obey the Dragon Reborn and serve him until the Last Battle had come and gone. Perrin understood her shock. Even without the Three Oaths, had she denied it, he would have doubted his own memories. Nine Aes Sedai on their knees, faces aghast at the words coming out of their mouths, reeking of disbelief.
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" 'If you don't know everything, you must go on with what you do know,' " Rand quoted wryly. "It seems I never do know everything. Hardly enough, most of the time. But there's no choice but to go on, is there."
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Faile almost hissed. A black viper could not have dripped so much venom.
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She was always as much kingfisher as falcon, changing direction faster than he could think, yet this.
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By the smell of her, every word was the Light's pure truth, but he would believe that when horses roosted in trees.
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He floated in the Void, surrounded by emptiness beyond knowing, and saidin filled him, trying to grind him to dust beneath steel-shattering cold and heat where stone would flash to flame, carrying the Dark One's taint on its flow, forcing corruption into his bones. Into his soul, he feared sometimes. It did not make him feel so sick to his stomach as it once had. He feared that even more. And larded through that torrent of fire, ice and filth—life. That was the best word. Saidin tried to destroy him. Saidin filled him to overflowing with vitality. It threatened to bury him, and it enticed him. The war for survival, the struggle to avoid being consumed, magnified the joy of pure life. So sweet even with the foulness. What would it be like, clean? Beyond imagining. He wanted to draw more, draw all there was.
There lay the deadly seduction. One slip, and the ability to channel would be seared out of him forever. One slip and his mind was gone, if he was not simply destroyed on the spot, and maybe everything around him too. It was not madness, focusing on the fight for existence; it was like highwalking blindfolded over a pit full of sharpened stakes, basking in so pure a sense of life that thinking of giving it up was like thinking of a world forever in shades of gray. Not madness.
His thoughts whirled through his dance with saidin, slid across the Void.
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He smoothed his face, tried to. It felt a mask, somebody else's face.
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Do what you must, then pay the price for it, was what she had been taught, by the same women who had marked off those forbidden areas. It was refusal to admit the debt, refusal to pay, that often turned necessity to evil.
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"You know about the division in the White Tower." Bair shook her head and grimaced; she knew, but she did not understand. None of them did. To Aiel, it was as unreal as clan or warrior society dividing against itself. Perhaps it was also affirmation in their eyes that Aes Sedai were less than they should be.
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[Egwene Dream]
Logain, laughing, stepped across something on the ground and mounted a black stone; when she looked down, she thought it was Rand's body he had stepped over, laid out on a funeral bier with his hands crossed at his breast, but when she touched his face, it broke apart like a paper puppet.
A golden hawk stretched out its wing and touched her, and she and the hawk were tied together somehow; all she knew was that the hawk was female. A man lay dying in a narrow bed, and it was important he not die, yet outside a funeral pyre was being built, and voices raised songs of joy and sadness. A dark young man held an object in his hand that shone so brightly she could not see what it was.
On and on they came, and she sorted feverishly, desperately tried to understand. There was no rest in it, but it must be done. She would do what must be done.
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[Jaichim Carridin]
Suddenly he felt as though a knotted rope had been fastened around his head and was being drawn ever tighter. For an instant a face hidden behind a red mask filled his vision. Night-dark eyes stared at him, and then were endless caverns of flame, and still staring. Within his head, the world exploded in fire, cascading images that battered him and swept him beyond screaming. The forms of three young men stood unsupported in air, and one of them began to glow, the form of the man in the street, brighter and brighter till it must have seared any living eyes to ash, brighter still, burning. A curled golden horn sped toward him, its cry pulling his soul, then flashed into a ring of golden light, swallowing him, chilling him until the last fragment of him that recalled his name was sure his bones must splinter. A ruby-tipped dagger hurdled straight at him, curved blade striking him between the eyes and sinking in, in, until gold-wrapped hilt and all was gone, and he knew agony that washed away all thought that what had gone before was pain. He would have prayed to a Creator he had long abandoned if he remembered how. He would have shrieked if he remembered how, if he remembered that humans shrieked, that he was human. On and on, more and more. . . .
Raising a hand to his forehead, he wondered why it trembled. His head ached, too. There had been something. . . . He gave a start at the street below. Everything was changed in the blink of an eye, the people different, wagons moved, colorful coaches and chairs replaced by others. Worse, Cauthon was gone. He wanted to swallow that whole flask of brandy in one gulp.
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Releasing the Source again increased his irritation, the hissing in his head, the water drops on red coals. An echo pulsing in time with Lews Therin's mad, distant rage.
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"All things change." Janwin's voice was even softer than usual. He believed, but he did not want to. Wise Ones taking part in battle violated custom as old as the Aiel.
Mandelain set his cup down with exaggerated care. "Corehuin wishes to see Jair again before the dream ends, and so do I." Like Bael and Rhuarc, he had two wives; the other chiefs had only one each, except Timolan, but a widowed chief seldom remained so long. The Wise Ones saw to that if he did not. "Will any of us ever see the sun rise again in the Three-fold Land?"
"I hope so," Rand said slowly. As the plow breaks the earth shall he break the lives of men, and all that was shall be consumed in the fire of his eyes. The trumpets of war shall sound at his footsteps, the ravens feed at his voice, and he shall wear a crown of swords. The Prophecies of the Dragon gave little hope for anything except victory over the Dark One, and only a chance of that. The Prophecy of Rhuidean, the Aiel Prophecy, said he would destroy them. The bleakness swept through the clans because of him and ancient customs were ripped apart. Even without the Aes Sedai, small wonder if some chiefs pondered whether they were right to follow Rand al'Thor, Dragons on his arms or no. "I hope so."
"May you always find water and shade, Rand al'Thor," Indirian said.
After they left, Rand sat frowning into his cup, finding no answers in the dark tea.
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"What do you want?"
Cadsuane's gaze lingered on him for no more than a moment, and she did not answer. Merana's lips parted, but the gray-haired woman looked at her, raising one eyebrow, and that was that. Merana actually reddened and lowered her eyes. Annoura was still staring at the newcomer as if at a ghost. Or a giant.
Without a word, Cadsuane swept across the room to the two Asha'man, dark green divided skirts swishing. Rand was beginning to get the feeling that she always moved in that rushing glide, graceful yet wasting no time and allowing nothing to impede her. Dashiva stared her up and down, and sneered. Although looking him straight in the face, she did not seem to notice, any more than she appeared to notice Narishma's hands on his sword when she put a finger under his chin, moving his head from side to side before he could jerk back.
"What lovely eyes," she murmured. Narishma blinked uncertainly, and Dashiva's sneer turned to a grin, but a nasty one that made his former smirk lighthearted in comparison.
"Do nothing," Rand snapped. Dashiva had the gall to glower at him before sullenly pressing a fist to his chest in the salute the Asha'man used. "What do you want here, Cadsuane," Rand went on. "Look at me, burn you!"
She did, turning just her head. "So you are Rand al'Thor, the Dragon Reborn. I'd have thought even a child like Moiraine could have taught you a few manners."
Riallin put the spear from her right hand with those clutched behind her buckler and flashed Maiden handtalk. For once, none laughed. For once, Rand was sure the talk was not a joke about him. "Be easy, Riallin," he said, raising a hand. "All of you, be easy."
Cadsuane ignored the byplay too, directing a smile to Berelain. "So this is your Berelain, Annoura. She is more beautiful than I had heard." The curtsy she made, bowing her head, was quite deep, yet somehow without any suggestion of obeisance, no hint that she was in any way less. It truly was a courtesy, no more. "My Lady First of Mayene, I must speak with this young man, and I would retain your advisor. I've heard you have undertaken many duties here. I would not keep you from them." It was as clear a dismissal as could be, short of holding the door open.
Berelain inclined her head graciously, then smoothly turned to Rand and spread her skirts in a curtsy so deep that he worried whether she would remain even as clothed as she was. "My L-rd Dragon," she intoned, "I ask your kind permission to withdraw."
Rand's return bow was not so practiced. "Granted, my Lady First, as you wish." He offered her a hand, to help her rise. "I hope you will consider my proposal."
"My L-rd Dragon, I will serve you wherever and however you desire." Her voice was all honey again. For Cadsuane's benefit, he supposed. There was certainly no flirtation on her face, only determination. "Remember Harine," she added in a whisper.
When the door closed behind Berelain, Cadsuane said, "It's always good to see children play, don't you think, Merana?" Merana goggled, head swiveling between Rand and the gray-haired sister. Annoura looked as though only willpower held her upright.
Most of the Maidens followed Berelain, apparently deciding there was to be no killing, but Riallin and two others remained before the door, still veiled. It might have been coincidence that there was one for each Aes Sedai. Dashiva also seemed to think any danger past. He leaned back against the wall with a foot propped, lips moving silently, arms folded, apparently watching the Aes Sedai.
Narishma frowned questioningly at Rand, but Rand only shook his head. The woman was deliberately trying to provoke him. The question was, why provoke a man she must know could still her, or kill her, without exerting himself? Lews Therin muttered the same thing. Why? Why? Stepping onto the dais, Rand took up the Dragon Scepter from the throne and sat, waiting to see what would happen. The woman was not going to succeed.
"Rather ornate, wouldn't you say?" Cadsuane said to Annoura, looking around. Aside from all the other gold, broad bands of it ran around the walls above the mirrors, and the cornices were nearly two feet of golden scales. "I've never known whether Cairhienin or Tairens overdo worse, but either can make an Ebou Dari blush, or even a Tinker. Is that a tea tray? I would like some, if it's fresh, and hot."
Channeling, Rand scooped up the tray, half expecting to see the metal corrode from the taint, and wafted it to the three women. Merana had brought extra cups, and four still stood unused on the tray. He filled three, replaced the teapot and waited. It floated in midair, supported by saidin.
Three very different women in appearance, and three distinctly different reactions. Annoura looked at the tray much as one might a coiled viper, gave a tiny shake of her head, and took a small step back. Merana drew a deep breath and slowly picked up a cup with a hand that trembled slightly. Knowing a man could channel and being forced to see it were not at all the same. Cadsuane, though, took her cup and sniffed the vapors with a pleased smile. Nothing could tell her which of the three men had poured the tea, yet she looked across her cup straight at Rand, lounging with one leg over the arm over his chair. "That's a good boy," she said. The Maidens passed shocked looks above their veils.
Rand quivered. No. She would not provoke him. For whatever reason, that was what she wanted, and she would not! "I will ask one more time," he said. Strange, that his voice could be that cold; inside, he was hotter than the hottest fires of saidin. "What do you want? Answer, or leave. By the door or a window; your choice."
Again Merana began to speak, and again Cadsuane silenced her, this time by a sharp gesture without looking away from him. "To see you," she said calmly. "I am Green Ajah, not Red, but I have worn the shawl longer than any other sister living, and I have faced more men who could channel than any four Reds, maybe than any ten. Not that I hunted them, you understand, but I seem to have a nose." Calmly, a woman saying she had been to market once or twice in her life. "Some fought to the bitter end, kicking and screaming even after they were shielded and bound. Some wept and begged, offering gold, anything, their very souls, not to be taken to Tar Valon. Still others wept from relief, meek as lambs, thankful finally to be done with it. Light's truth, they all weep, at the end. There is nothing left for them but tears at the end."
The heat inside him erupted in rage. Tray and massive teapot hurtled across the room, smashing a mirror with a thunderous crash and bouncing back in a shower of glass, half-flattened pot spraying tea, tray spinning across the floor bent double. Everyone jumped except Cadsuane. Rand leaped from the dais, clutching the Dragon Scepter so hard his knuckles hurt. "Is that supposed to frighten me?" he growled. "Do you expect me to beg, or to be thankful? To weep? Aes Sedai, I could close my hand and crush you." The hand he held up shook with fury. "Merana knows why I should. The Light only knows why I don't."
The woman looked at the battered tea things as if she had all the time in the world. "Now you know," she said at last, calm as ever, "that I know your future, and your present. The Light's mercy fades to nothing for a man who can channel. Some see that and believe the Light denies those men. I do not. Have you begun to hear voices, yet?"
"What do you mean?" he asked slowly. He could feel Lews Therin listening.
The tingle returned to his skin, and he very nearly channeled, but all that happened was that the teapot rose and floated to Cadsuane, turning slowly in the air for her to examine. "Some men who can channel begin to hear voices." She spoke almost absently, frowning at the flattened sphere of silver and gold. "It is a part of the madness. Voices conversing with them, telling them what to do." The teapot drifted gently to the floor by her feet. "Have you heard any?"
Startlingly, Dashiva gave a raucous laugh, shoulders shaking. Narishma wet his lips; he might not have been afraid of the woman before, but now he watched her closely as a scorpion.
"I will ask the questions," Rand said firmly. "You seem to forget. I am the Dragon Reborn." You are real, aren't you? he wondered. There was no answer. Lews Therin? Sometimes the man did not answer, but Aes Sedai always drew him. Lews Therin? He was not mad; the voice was real, not imagination. Not madness. A sudden desire to laugh did not help.
Cadsuane sighed. "You are a young man who has little idea where he is going or why, or what lies ahead. You seem overwrought. Perhaps we can speak when you are more settled. Have you any objection to my taking Merana and Annoura away for a little while? I've seen neither in quite some time."
Rand gaped at her. She swooped in, insulted him, threatened him, casually announced she knew about the voice in his head, and with that she wanted to leave and talk with Merana and Annoura? Is she mad? Still no answer from Lews Therin. The man was real. He was!
"Go away," he said. "Go away, and. . . ." He was not mad. "All of you, get out! Get out!"
Dashiva blinked at him, tilting his head, then shrugged and started for the door. Cadsuane smiled in such a way that he half-expected her to tell him again he was a good boy, then gathered up Merana and Annoura and herded them toward the Maidens, who were lowering their veils and frowning worriedly. Narishma looked at him too, hesitating until Rand gestured sharply. Finally they were all gone, and he was alone. Alone.
Convulsively he hurled the Dragon Scepter. The spear-point stuck quivering in the back of one the chairs, the tassels swaying.
"I am not mad," he said to the empty room. Lews Therin had told him things; he would never have escaped Galina's chest without the dead man's voice. But he had used the Power before he ever heard the voice; he had figured out how to call lightning and hurl fire and form a construct that had killed hundreds of Trollocs. But then, maybe that had been Lews Therin, like those memories of climbing trees in a plum orchard, and entering the Hall of the Servants, and a dozen more that crept up on him unawares. And maybe those memories were all fancies, mad dreams of a mad mind, just like the voice.
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Sevanna took the small gray cube from her pouch and placed it atop the brown leaves in the middle of the circle. Someryn put her hands on her knees, leaning over to examine it until she appeared in danger of falling out of her blouse. Her nose nearly touched the cube. Intricate patterns covered every side, and close up you could see smaller patterns within the larger, and still smaller inside those, and a hint of what seemed smaller yet. How they could have been made, the tiniest so fine, so precise, Sevanna had no idea. Once she had thought the cube stone, but she was no longer certain. Yesterday she had dropped it accidentally on some rocks without marring one line of the carving. If it was carving. The thing must be a ter'angreal; that they knew.
"The smallest flow possible of Fire must be touched lightly there, on what looks like a twisted crescent moon," she told them, "and another there on the top, on that mark like a lightning bolt."
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"Power the callbox too much or in the wrong way, and it may melt," a man's voice said out of the air. "It could even ex—"
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The True Power, drawn directly from the Great L-rd, could neither be seen nor detected except by who wielded it. Black flecks floated across his vision. There was a price, to be sure, one that grew with each use, but he had always been willing to pay the price when it was necessary. Being filled with the True Power was almost like kneeling beneath Shayol Ghul, basking in the Great L-rd's glory.
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Black flecks sped across his eyes, faster, faster.
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The Great L-rd delighted in setting his servants one against another, to see who was stronger. Only the strongest could stand near his glory.
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The black flecks filled his eyes, a horizontal blizzard.
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"If this is about Olver," he began, and suddenly a twist of memory unfolded, a mist thinned over one day, one hour in his life.
There was no hope, with Seanchan to the west and Whitecloaks to the east, no hope and only one chance, so he raised the curled Horn and blew, not really knowing what to expect. The sound came golden as the Horn, so sweet he did not know whether to laugh or cry. It echoed, and the earth and heavens seemed to sing. While that one pure note hung in the air, a fog began to rise, appearing from nowhere, thin wisps, thickening, billowing higher, until all was obscured as if clouds covered the land. And down the clouds they rode, as though down a mountainside, the dead heroes of legend, bound to be called back by the Horn of Valere. Artur Hawkwing himself led, tall and hook-nosed, and behind came the rest, little more than a hundred. So few, but all those the Wheel would spin out again and again to guide the Pattern, to make legend and myth. Mikel of the Pure Heart, and Shivan the Hunter behind his black mask. He was said to herald the end of Ages, the destruction of what had been and the birth of what was to be, he and his sister Calian, called the Chooser, who rode red-masked at his side. Amaresu, with the Sword of the Sun glowing in her hands, and Paedrig, the golden-tongued peacemaker, and there, carrying the silver bow with which she never missed. . . .
He pushed the door shut trying to lean against it. He felt dizzy, dazed. "You are she. Birgitte, for true. Burn my bones to ash, it's impossible. How? How?"
The woman of legend gave a resigned sigh and propped his bow back in the corner next to his spear. "I was ripped out untimely, Hornsounder, cast out by Moghedien to die and saved by Elayne's bonding." She spoke slowly, studying him as if to be sure he understood. "I feared you might remember who I used to be."
Still feeling hit between the eyes, he flung himself scowling into the armchair beside his table. Who she used to be, indeed. Fists on hips, she confronted him challengingly, no whit different from the Birgitte he had seen ride out of the sky. Even her clothes were the same, though this short coat was red and the wide trousers yellow. "Elayne and Nynaeve know and kept it from me, true? I weary of secrets, Birgitte, and they harbor secrets as a grain barn harbors rats. They've become Aes Sedai, eyes and hearts. Even Nynaeve is twice a stranger, now."
"You have your own secrets." Folding her arms under her breasts, she sat on the foot of his bed. The way she looked at him, you would have thought he was a tavern puzzle. "For one, you've not told them you blew the Horn of Valere. The smallest of your secrets from them, I think."
Mat blinked. He had assumed they had told her. After all, she was Birgitte. "What secrets do I have? Those women know my toenails and dreams." She was Birgitte. Of course. He leaned forward. "Make them see reason. You're Birgitte Silverbow. You can make them do as you say. This city has a pit-trap at every crossing, and I fear the stakes grow sharper by the day. Make them come away before it's too late."
She laughed. Put a hand over her mouth and laughed! "You have the wrong end, Hornsounder. I do not command them. I am Elayne's Warder. I obey." Her smile became rueful. "Birgitte Silverbow. Faith of the Light, I'm not sure I still am that woman. So much of what I was and knew has faded like mist beneath the summer sun since my strange new birth. I'm no hero now, only another woman to make my way. And as for your secrets. What language do we speak, Hornsounder?"
He opened his mouth . . . and stopped, really hearing what she had just asked. Nosane iro gavane domorakoshi, Diynen'd'ma'purvene? Speak we what language, Sounder of the Horn? The hair on his neck tried to stand. "The old blood," he said carefully. Not in the Old Tongue. "An Aes Sedai once told me the old blood runs strong in—What are you bloody well laughing at now?"
"You, Mat," she managed while trying not to double over. At least she was not speaking the Old Tongue any more either. She knuckled a tear from the corner of her eye. "Some people speak a few words, a phrase or two, because of the old blood. Usually without understanding what they say, or not quite. But you. . . . One sentence you're an Eharoni High Prince and the next a First L-rd of Manetheren, accent and idiom perfect. No, don't worry. Your secret is safe with me." She hesitated. "Is mine with you?"
He waved a hand, still too flabbergasted to be offended. "Do I look like my tongue flaps?" he muttered. Birgitte! In the flesh!
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It had to be saidin—among the living, only the Chosen knew how to tap the True Power—the Power that came from the Dark One—and few were fool enough to except in direst need—but that was impossible!
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The ledge on which she lay projected above a black-mottled red lake of molten rock where flames the size of men danced and died and reappeared. Overhead, the cavern rose roofless through the mountain to a sky where wild clouds raced, striated red and yellow and black, as if on the winds of time themselves. It was not the dark-clouded sky seen outside on Shayol Ghul. None of that earned a second glance, and not just because she had seen it many times. The Bore into the Great L-rd's place of imprisonment was no closer here than anywhere else in the world, but here she could feel it, here she could bathe in the radiant glory of the Great L-rd. The True Power washed around her, so strong here that attempting to channel it would fry her to a cinder.
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In those stunned moments, the Myrddraal forced her mouth open, scraped the blade along her tongue, then nicked her ear. And as it straightened with her blood and saliva, she knew, even before it produced what appeared to be a tiny, fragile cage of gold wire and crystal. Some things could only be done here, some only to those who could channel, and she had brought a number of men and women for this very purpose.
"No," she breathed. Her eyes could not leave the cour'souvra. "No, not me! NOT ME!"
Ignoring her, Shaidar Haran scraped the fluids from the knife onto the cour'souvra. The crystal turned a milky pink, the first setting. With a flick of its wrist, it tossed the mind-trap out over the lake of molten stone for the second. The gold-and-crystal cage arched through the air and suddenly stopped, floating at the very spot where it seemed the Bore was, the place where the Pattern lay thinnest of all.
Moghedien forgot the Myrddraal. She flung out her hands toward the Bore. "Mercy, Great L-rd!" She had never noticed that the Great L-rd of the Dark possessed any mercy, but had she been bound in a cell with rabid wolves or with a darath in moult, she would have begged the same. In the right circumstances, you begged even for the impossible. The cour'souvra hung in midair, turning slowly, glittering in the light of leaping fires below. "I have served you with all my heart, Great L-rd. I beg mercy. I beg! MERCYYYYYYY!"
YOU MAY SERVE ME STILL.
The voice flung her into ecstasy beyond knowing, but at the same instant the sparkling mindtrap suddenly glowed like the sun, and in the midst of rapture, she knew pain as if she had been immersed in the fiery lake. They blended, and she howled, thrashing like a mad thing, thrashing in endless pain, endless, until after Ages, after nothing remained but agony and the memory of agony, the tiny mercy of darkness overwhelmed her.
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"I greet you eagerly, Mia'cova." The lashed-together title burned on her tongue. "One Who Owns Me," it meant, or simply, "My Owner." The strange shield Shaidar Haran had used on her—Myrddraal could not, but it did—the shield was not in evidence, yet she did not consider channeling. The True Power was denied her, of course—that could be drawn only with the Great L-rd's blessing—but the Source tantalized, though the glow just beyond sight seemed somehow odd. She still did not consider it. Every time the Myrddraal visited, it displayed her mindtrap. Channeling too near your own cour'souvra was extremely painful, the nearer, the more the pain; this close, she did not think she would survive a simple touch on the Source. And that was the least of the mindtrap's dangers.
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"What is your name?" she demanded. "Do you have any idea who you are speaking to?"
"Yes, I do, Moghedien. You may call me Moridin."
Moghedien gasped. Not for the name; any fool could call himself Death. But a tiny black fleck, just large enough to see, floated straight across one of those blue eyes and then across the other in the same line. This Moridin had tapped into the True Power, and more than once. Much more. She knew that some men who could channel survived in this time aside from al'Thor—this fellow was much of a size with al'Thor—but she had not expected the Great L-rd to allow one that particular honor. An honor with a bite, as any of the Chosen knew. In the long run, the True Power was far more addictive than the One Power; a strong will could hold down the desire to draw more saidar or saidin, but she herself did not believe the will existed strong enough to resist the True Power, not once the saa appeared in your eyes. The final price was different, but no less terrible.
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Endure; let the past pass, and go on with your life.
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A woman was not done with the White Tower until it was done with her.
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Any woman in the city who could channel would know someone had drawn a great deal of saidar, if not for what, and any eye watching had seen that bar of liquid white fire sear across the afternoon.
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Strangely, Pevara became hesitant, peering into her teacup like a fortune-teller at a fair.
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On the fourth morning, he woke groggily from a dream of the White Tower, flinging up a hand to shield grainy eyes from what he thought was a flare of saidar-wrought fire. Dust motes sparkled in the sunlight streaming through the window to reach his bed, with its great square blackwood bedposts inlaid with ivory wedges. Every piece of furnishing in the room was polished blackwood and ivory, square and stark and heavy enough to suit his mood. For a moment he lay there, but if sleep returned, it would only bring another dream.
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[Min Viewing]
"I saw you and another man. I couldn't make out either face, but I knew one was you. You touched, and seemed to merge into one another, and. . . ." Her mouth tightened worriedly, and she went on in a very small voice. "I don't know what it means, Rand, except that one of you dies, and one doesn't."
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Drums and trumpets fell silent, and Rand channeled, making a bridge of Air laced with Fire that connected the longboat's railing to that of the Sea Folk ship. With Min on his arm, he started across, to every eye but that of an Asha'man, walking upward on nothing.
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[Min Viewing]
"You will be punished for what happens here today, Harine, but not so much as you fear, I think. At least, one day you will be the Mistress of the Ships."
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What matter whether the Horn of Valere was in the White Tower? He was ta'veren. He was the Dragon Reborn, and the Coramoor. The golden sun still burned well short of its noon peak. "The day is young yet, Min." He could do anything. "Would you like to see me settle the rebels? A thousand crowns to a kiss, they're mine before sunset."
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[Min Viewing]
That one viewing came and went a hundred times a day, and whenever Mat or Perrin were present, it encompassed them, too, and sometimes others. A vast shadow lurked over him, swallowing up thousands upon thousands of tiny lights like fireflies that hurled themselves into it in an attempt to fill up the darkness. Today, there seemed to be countless tens of thousands of fireflies, but the shadow seemed larger, too. Somehow that viewing represented his battle with the Shadow, but he almost never wanted to know how it stood. Not that she could really say, except that the shadow always seemed to be winning, to one degree or another. She sighed with relief to see the image go.
A tiny stab of guilt made her shift her seat on the coverlet. She had not really lied when he asked what viewings she had kept back. Not really. What good to tell him he would almost certainly fail without a woman who was dead and gone?
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"Name the evil, and you can point to the good. The turning of the Wheel requires balance, and he only increases the chances of what might have happened anyway in nature."
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[Min Viewing]
Caraline Damodred drew herself up on her saddle, face cold enough to shame an Aes Sedai, but suddenly auras of red and white flashed around her and Darlin, and Min knew. The colors never seemed to matter, but she knew that they would marry—after Caraline had led him a merry chase. More, to her eyes a crown suddenly appeared on Darlin's head, a simple golden circlet with a slightly curved sword lying on its side above his brows. The king's crown he would wear one day, though of what country, she could not say. Tear had High L-rds instead of a king.
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His hand rose before Cadsuane could move, and a bar of . . . something . . . liquid white fire brighter than the sun . . . shot out over the running woman's head. The creature simply vanished. For a moment there was clear air where it had been, and along the line that the bar had burned, until the fog began closing in. A moment while the woman froze where she stood. Then, shrieking at the top of her lungs, she turned and ran from them, still downslope, fleeing what she feared more than nightmares in these mists.
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With shocking suddenness and no warning, she stumbled into it, one moment surrounded by gray, the next with the sun burning golden high overhead in a blue sky, all so bright she had to shade her eyes. And there, perhaps five miles across all but treeless hills, Cairhien rose solid and square on its own prominences. Somehow, it did not look quite real anymore.
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"Gholam were created in the middle of the War of the Power, during the Age of Legends," he began from the beginning. Almost from the beginning of what Birgitte had told him. He turned, facing each group of women as he spoke. Burn him if he was going to let one bunch think they were more important. Or that he was bloody pleading with them. Especially since he was. "They were made to assassinate Aes Sedai. No other reason. To kill people who could channel. The One Power won't help you; the Power won't touch a gholam."
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"Wash the spears, while the sun climbs high.
Wash the spears, while the sun climbs high.
Wash the spears, while the sun falls low.
Wash the spears; who fears to die?
Wash the spears; no one I know!"
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"The truth doesn't matter anymore, if it ever has. You rise with me, or fall with me. The Great L-rd rewards success, and he's never cared how it was achieved."
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The Myrddraal moved from the deeper shadows, becoming visible. In its eyes, the gateways had left a residue—three patches of glowing mist. It could not tell one flow from another, but it could distinguish saidin from saidar by the smell. Saidin smelled like the sharp edge of a knife, the point of a thorn. Saidar smelled soft, but like something that would grow harder the harder it was pressed. No other Myrddraal could smell that difference. Shaidar Haran was like no other Myrddraal.
Picking up a discarded spear, Shaidar Haran used it to upend the bag Sammael had discarded, and then to stir the bits of stone that fell out. Much was happening outside the plan. Would these events churn chaos, or. . . .
Angry black flames raced down the spear haft from Shaidar Haran's hand, the hand of the Hand of the Shadow. In an instant the wooden haft was charred and twisted; the spearhead dropped off. The Myrddraal let the blackened stick fall and dusted soot from its palm. If Sammael served chaos, then all was well. If not. . . .
A sudden ache climbed the back of its neck; a faint weakness washed along its limbs. Too long away from Shayol Ghul. That tie had to be severed somehow. With a snarl, it turned to find the edge of shadow that it needed. The day was coming. It would come.
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"It's Cadsuane. She is going to teach you something, you and the Asha'man. All the Asha'man, I mean. It's something you have to learn, but I don't know what it is, except that none of you will like learning it from her. You aren't going to like it at all."
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Surrounding himself with the emptiness of the Void, he seized saidin and forced frozen fire and molten filth into the weaves for a gateway. Dashiva leaped back as it opened. Maybe having a hand sliced off would teach the man not to lick his lips like a goat. Something crooked and red spiderwebbed across the outside of the Void.
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Lews Therin! he called silently. The wind blowing across Illian answered.
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The sun slid downward, and shadows lengthened across the city. Twilight, and the sun a low crimson dome in the west. A few stars appeared. Had he been wrong? Would Sammael simply go elsewhere, find another land to master? Had he been listening to anything other than his own mad ramblings?
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All around the great city lay huge marble palaces each with four and five domes of different shapes painted crimson by the setting sun, bronze fountains and statues at every intersection, great stretches of columns running to towers that soared across the sun. They soared when intact, at least; more ended in abrupt jaggedness than not. For every dome that stood whole, ten were broken eggshells with the top hacked off or one side gone. Statues lay toppled in fragments, or stood with missing arms, or heads. Swiftly deepening darkness raced across sprawling hills of rubble, the few stunted trees clinging to their slopes twisted shapes like broken fingers against the sky.
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Closer, the Void itself pulsated around him, the Dark One's taint on saidin beating in time with the knife slash across his ribs.
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The weakness of his body was distant, and the pain of it, but even floating deep in the Void, he could only push that body so hard. Liah vanished into the night.
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No sooner did the sword disappear than silver lightning lanced down from the cloudless, starry sky.
The first bolt struck with a deafening roar not four paces away. The world turned white, and the Void collapsed.
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Pain no longer buffered by the Void stabbed through his side like a dagger going in. Spots danced in his vision.
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Without a thought, his free hand rose, and balefire shot upward, a bar of liquid white fire slicing across the wave sinking toward them. Dimly he was aware of another bar of pale solid fire rising from the other man's hand that was not clasping his, a bar slashing the opposite way from his. The two touched.
Head ringing like a struck gong, Rand convulsed, saidin and the Void shattering. Everything was doubled in his eyes, the balconies, the chunks of stone lying about the floor. There seemed to be a pair of the other man overlapping one another, each clutching his head between two hands. Blinking, Rand searched for Mashadar. The wave of shining mist was gone; a glow remained in the balconies above, but dimming, receding, as Rand's eyes began to clear. Even mindless Mashadar fled balefire, it seemed.
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Suddenly he realized that he had not felt saidin when the man made balefire, either. Just thinking of that, of the two streams touching, made his vision double again. Just for an instant, he could see the man's face again, sharp where everything else blurred. He shook his head until it cleared. "Who in the Light are you?" he whispered. And after a moment, "What in the Light are you?"
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A scream tore the darkness, a woman shrieking in agony beyond knowing. Rand saw Sammael turn to stare toward the great mound of rubble even as his own eyes flashed that way. Atop the mound a shape stood outlined against the night sky in coat and breeches, a single thin tendril of Mashadar touching her leg. Arms outstretched, she thrashed about, unable to move from the spot, and her wordless wail seemed to call Rand's name.
"Liah," he whispered. Unconsciously he reached out, as though he could stretch his arm across the intervening distance and pull her away. Nothing could save what Mashadar touched, though, no more than anything could have saved him had Fain's dagger plunged into his heart. "Liah," he whispered. And balefire leaped from his hand.
For less than a heartbeat, the shape of her still seemed to be there, all in stark blacks and snowy whites, and then she was gone, dead before her agony began.
Screaming, Rand swept the balefire down toward the square, the rubble collapsing on itself, swept down death out of time—and let saidin go before the bar of white touched the lake of Mashadar that now rolled across the square, billowing past the Waygate toward rivers of glowing gray that flowed out from another palace on the other side. Sammael had to be dead. He had to be. There had not been time for him to run, no time to weave a gateway, and if he had, Rand would have felt saidin being worked. Sammael was dead, killed by an evil almost as great as himself. Emotion raced across the outside of the Void; Rand wanted to laugh, or perhaps cry. He had come here to kill one of the Forsaken, but instead he had killed a woman he had abandoned here to her fate.
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Rand blinked, and snatched one hand from the crown to suck on a pricked finger. Almost buried among the laurel leaves of the crown were the sharp points of swords. How long ago had he commanded the Tairens to sell grain to their ancient enemy, sell it or die for refusing? He had not realized they kept on after he began preparations to invade Illian. Maybe they feared to bring it up, but they had feared to stop, too. Maybe he had earned some right to this crown.
Gingerly he set the circle of laurel leaves on his head. Half those swords pointed up, half down. No head would wear this crown casually or easily.
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The Laurel Crown of Illian had been given a new name. The Crown of Swords.
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Master of the lightnings, rider on the storm,
wearer of a crown of swords, spinner-out of fate.
Who thinks he turns the Wheel of Time,
may learn the truth too late.
—From a fragmentary translation of
The Prophecies of the Dragon, attributed to L-rd
Mangore Kiramin, Sword-bard of Aramaelle and
Warder to Caraighan Maconar, into what was
then called the vulgar tongue (circa 300 AB).
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