The Path Of Daggers
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Who would sup with the mighty must climb the path of daggers.
—Anonymous notation found inked in the
margin of a manuscript history (believed
to date to the time of Artur Hawkwing)
of the last days of the Tovan Conclaves
On the heights, all paths are paved with daggers.
—Old Seanchan saying
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Westward, vultures wheeled patient circles like an omen.
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A slender spire like a column of gleaming golden lace lay slanting and partly buried in the bare hillside, a good seventy paces of it showing above the treetops. Every child in the Black Hills old enough to run off leading strings knew of it, but there was not a village inside four days' travel, nor would anyone come within ten miles willingly. The stories of this place spoke of mad visions, of the dead walking, and death at touching the spire.
Ethenielle did not consider herself fanciful, yet she shivered slightly. Nianh said the spire was a fragment from the Age of Legends, and harmless.
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Besides, far better to behave as a novice than be punished like one, especially when it earned you only pain and humiliation.
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For a moment Verin wondered whether things would be better if the women now held in the Aiel camp had been caught up as she had been, a woodchip in the millrace of Rand al'Thor's ta'veren swirl, words pouring from her mouth before they had time to form in her brain. Not words she could never have said on her own—that was not how ta'veren affected you—but words she might possibly have said one time in a thousand under those circumstances, one time in ten thousand. No, the arguments had been long and hot over whether oaths given in that way had to be kept; and the arguments over how to keep them still continued. Much better as it was. Absently she fingered a hard shape inside her belt pouch, a small brooch, a translucent stone carved into what appeared to be a lily with too many petals. She never wore it, but it had not been out of her reach in nearly fifty years.
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[Moridin]
From time to time he idly stroked one of the two mindtraps that hung on plain silken cords around his neck. At his touch, the blood-red crystal of the cour'souvra pulsed, swirls moving in endless depths like the beating of a heart. His real attention was on the game laid out before him on the table, thirty-three red pieces and thirty-three green arrayed across a playing surface of thirteen squares by thirteen. A re-creation of the early stages of a famous game. The most important piece, the Fisher, black-and-white like the playing surface, still waited in its starting place on the central square. A complex game, sha'rah, ancient long before the War of Power. Sha'rah, tcheran, and no'ri, the game now called simply "stones," each had adherents who claimed it encompassed all the subtleties of life, but Moridin had always favored sha'rah. Only nine people living even remembered the game. He had been a master of it. Much more complex than tcheran or no'ri. The first object was capture of the Fisher. Only then did the game truly begin.
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The Fisher held his attention, baiting him. Several pieces had varying moves, but only the Fisher's attributes altered according to where it stood; on a white square, weak in attack yet agile and far-ranging in escape; on black, strong in attack but slow and vulnerable. When masters played, the Fisher changed sides many times before the end. The green-and-red goal-row that surrounded the playing surface could be threatened by any piece, but only the Fisher could move onto it. Not that he was safe, even there; the Fisher was never safe. When the Fisher was yours, you tried to move him to a square of your color behind your opponent's end of the board. That was victory, the easiest way, but not the only one. When your opponent held the Fisher, you attempted to leave him no choice for the Fisher but to move onto your color. Anywhere at all along the goal-row would do; holding the Fisher could be more dangerous than not. Of course, there was a third path to victory in sha'rah, if you took it before letting yourself be trapped. The game always degenerated in a bloody melee, then, victory coming only with complete annihilation of your enemy. He had tried that, once, in desperation, but the attempt had failed. Painfully.
Fury boiled suddenly in Moridin's head, and black flecks swam across his eyes as he seized the True Power. Ecstasy that amounted to pain thundered through him. His hand closed around the two mindtraps, and the True Power closed around the Fisher, snatching it into the air, a hair from crushing it to powder, crushing the powder out of existence. The goblet shattered in his hand. His grip bordered on crushing the cour'souvra. The saa were a blizzard of black, but they did not hinder his sight. The Fisher was always worked as a man, a bandage blinding his eyes and one hand pressed to his side, a few drops of blood dripping through his fingers. The reasons, like the source of the name, were lost in the mist of time. That troubled him sometimes, enraged him, what knowledge might be lost in the turnings of the Wheel, knowledge he needed, knowledge he had a right to. A right!
Slowly he set the Fisher back on the board. Slowly his fingers uncurled from around the cour'souvra. There was no need for destruction. Yet. Icy calm replaced rage in the blink of an eye. Blood and wine dripped from his gashed hand, unnoticed. Perhaps the Fisher did come from some dim remnant of a memory of Rand al'Thor, the shadow of a shadow. It did not matter. He realized he was laughing, and made no effort to stop. On the board, the Fisher stood waiting, but in the greater game, al'Thor moved already to his wishes. And soon, now. . . . It was very hard to lose a game when you played both sides of the board. Moridin laughed so hard that tears rolled down his face, but he was not aware of them.
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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 above the great mountainous island of Tremalking. 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
East the wind blew across Tremalking, where the fair-skinned Amayar farmed their fields, and made fine glass and porcelain, and followed the peace of the Water Way. The Amayar ignored the world beyond their scattered islands, for the Water Way taught that this world was only illusion, a mirrored reflection of belief, yet some watched the wind carry dust and deep summer heat where cold winter rains should be falling, and they remembered tales heard from the Atha'an Miere. Tales of the world beyond, and what prophecy said was to come. Some looked to a hill where a massive stone hand rose from the earth, holding a clear crystal sphere larger than many houses. The Amayar had their own prophecies, and some of those spoke of the hand and the sphere. And the end of illusions.
Onward the wind blew into the Sea of Storms, eastward beneath a searing sun in a sky abandoned by clouds, whipping the tops of green sea swells, battling winds from the south and westward winds, shearing and swirling as the waters below heaved. Not yet the storms of winter's heart, though winter should have been half gone, much less the greater storms of a dying summer, but winds and currents that could be used by ocean-faring folk to coast around the continent from World's End to Mayene and beyond, then back again. Eastward the wind howled, over rolling ocean where the great whales rose and sounded, and flying fish soared on outstretched fins two paces and more across, eastward, now whirling north, east and north, over small fleets of fishing ships dragging their nets in the shallower seas. Some of those fishermen stood gaping, hands idle on the lines, staring at a huge array of tall vessels and smaller that purposefully rode the wind's hard breath, shattering swells with bluff bows, slicing swells with narrow, their banner a golden hawk with talons clutching lightning, a multitude of streaming banners like portents of storm. East and north and on, and the wind reached the broad, ship-filled harbor of Ebou Dar, where hundreds of Sea Folk vessels rode as they did in many ports, awaiting word of the Coramoor, the Chosen One.
Across the harbor the wind roared, tossing small ships and large, across the city itself, gleaming white beneath the unfettered sun, spires and walls and color-ringed domes, streets and canals bustling with the storied southern industry. Around the shining domes and slender towers of the Tarasin Palace the wind swirled, carrying the tang of salt, lifting the flag of Altara, two golden leopards on a field of red and blue, and the banners of ruling House Mitsobar, the Sword and Anchor, green on white. Not yet the storm, but a harbinger of storms.
Skin prickled between Aviendha's shoulder blades as she strode ahead of her companions through palace hallways tiled in dozens of pleasing bright hues. A sense of being watched that she had last felt while still wed to the spear. Imagination, she told herself. Imagination and knowing there are enemies about I cannot face! Not so long ago that crawling sensation had meant someone might be intending to kill her. Death was nothing to fear—everyone died, today or on another—but she did not want to die like a rabbit kicking in a snare. She had toh to meet.
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Heat shimmered up from pale paving stones, but it was tension that thickened the air.
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"They will have their chance to try again, and if they fail, they still will not be sent away. No woman who can channel will be cut off from the Tower again. They will all be a part of the White Tower."
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There was a joy in holding the Power, a joy in working saidar, that she could not have put into words. To contain saidar, to be contained by it, was to seem alive beyond any other time. A delusion, the Wise Ones said, as false and dangerous as a mirage of water in the Termool, yet it seemed more real than the paving stones beneath her feet. She fought the urge to draw more; already she held nearly as much as she could. Everyone crowded close as she began to weave the flows.
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A bright red bird flashed across the clearing and was gone.
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A stone carving a little larger than her hand—it felt like stone; it might have been a carving, though it did not exactly look carved, for some reason—all deep blue curves vaguely like roots. It seemed to warm faintly at her touch; it held a . . . resonance . . . to saidar. That was the closest word she could think of. What it was meant to do, she had no idea, but it was a ter'angreal without any doubt.
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A small box that felt like ivory, covered in wavering red and green stripes; she set it down carefully without opening the hinged lid. You could never tell what might trigger a ter'angreal. A black rod no thicker than her little finger, a pace in length, stiff yet so flexible she thought she could have doubled it into a circle. A tiny stoppered vial that might have been crystal, with a dark red liquid inside. The figure of a stout, bearded man with a jolly smile, holding a book; two feet tall, it appeared to be age-darkened bronze and took both of her hands to move. Other things. Most was trash, though. And none was what she truly wanted. Not yet.
"Is this the time to be doing that?" Nynaeve asked. She straightened hastily from the small cluster of ter'angreal, grimacing and rubbing her hand on her skirt. "That rod feels like . . . pain," she muttered.
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Stripping away the decayed cloth revealed a small amber brooch in the shape of a turtle. It looked like amber, anyway, and it might have been amber once, but when she opened herself to the Source through it, saidar rushed into her, a torrent compared to what she could draw safely on her own. Not a strong angreal, but far better than nothing. With it, she could handle twice as much of the Power as Nynaeve, and Nynaeve herself would do better still. Releasing the extra flow of saidar, she slipped the brooch into her belt pouch with a smile of delight and went back to searching. Where there was one, there might be more. And now that she had one to study, she might be able to reason out how to make an angreal. That was something she had wished for. It was all she could do not to take the brooch out again and begin probing it right there.
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He seized the True. Power without thought, the saa billowing black across his sight. His fingers tightened in the wrought-iron grille across the window; the metal groaned, twisting, not from his grip but from the tendrils of the True Power, drawn from the Great L-rd himself, that wreathed around the grillework, flexing as he flexed his hand in anger. The Great L-rd would not be pleased. He had strained from his prison to touch the world enough to fix the seasons in place. He was impatient to touch the world more, to shatter the void that contained him, and he would not be pleased. Rage enveloped Moridin, blood pounding in his ears. A moment past, he had not cared where those women went, but now. . . . Somewhere far from here. People fleeing ran as far and as fast as they could. Somewhere they felt safe. No use sending Madic to ask questions, no use squeezing anyone here; they would not have been fool enough to leave anyone behind alive who knew their destination. Not to Tar Valon. To al'Thor? To that band of rebel Aes Sedai? In all three places he had eyes, some that did not know they served him. All would serve him, before the end. He would not allow chance slips to spoil his plans now.
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The world had changed, as it seemed, in the blink of an eye.
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There was a saying that no woman was finished with the Tower until it was finished with her, but truthfully, once the White Tower touched you, it never was finished.
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What you order done, you must be willing to do with your own hand. As a queen, what you order done, you have done. If she did break the law. . . . Her mother's voice again. Even a queen cannot be above the law, or there is no law.
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A flat, worm-eaten box, half-falling apart and whatever had lined it long since gone to dust, held pieces of jewelry—a necklace and bracelets set with colored stones, a slim gem-studded belt, several finger rings—and there were spaces for more. Every single one was a ter'angreal, and they all matched, meant to be worn together, though Elayne could not imagine why any woman would want to carry so many about her at one time. Aviendha found a dagger with gold wire wrapped around a hilt of rough deer-horn; the blade was dull, and by all evidence, always had been. She kept turning that over and over in her fingers—her hands actually began to tremble—until Elayne took it away from her and put it with the others on the cistern's lid. Even then Aviendha stood for a time, looking at it and licking her lips as though they had gone dry. There were finger rings, earrings, necklaces, bracelets and buckles, many of very peculiar pattern indeed. There were statuettes and figures of birds and animals and people, several knives that did have edges, half a dozen large medallions in bronze or steel, most worked with strange patterns and not one carrying an image Elayne could really understand, a pair of peculiar hats seemingly made of metal, too ornate and too thin to be helmets, and any number of items she could not think what to call. A rod, as thick as her wrist, bright red and smooth and rounded, firm rather than hard for all that it seemed to be stone; it did not warm slightly in her hand, it almost felt hot! Not real heat any more than the warmth was real, but still! What about a set of metal basketwork balls, one inside the other? Any movement produced a faint musical chime, a different tone every time, and she had the feeling that no matter how hard she looked into it, there would always be a still smaller ball waiting to be discovered. A thing that looked like a blacksmith's puzzle made of glass? It was heavy enough that she dropped it, and it broke a chip off the edge of the cistern cover. A collection to stir amazement in any Aes Sedai. More important, they found two more angreal. Those Elayne set very carefully aside, within arm's reach.
One was an odd piece of jewelry, a golden bracelet attached by four flat chains to finger rings, every bit of it engraved in an intricate mazelike pattern. That was the stronger of the two, stronger than the turtle still in her pouch. It was made for a smaller hand than hers or Aviendha's. Strangely, the bracelet had a tiny lock, complete with a minuscule, tubular key dangling from a fine chain that was obviously made to be removed. Along with the key! The other was a seated woman in age-darkened ivory, her legs folded in front of her, her exposed knees bare, but with hair so long and luxuriant she could not have been more muffled in the heaviest cloak. It was not even as strong as the turtle, but she found it very appealing. One hand rested on a knee, palm up and fingers arranged so the thumb touched the tips of the middle two fingers, while the other hand was lifted, the first two fingers raised and the others folded. The whole figure carried an air of supreme dignity, yet the delicately worked face showed amusement and delight.
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From at least fifty paces above the farm, the spectacular view stretched for miles over a patchwork quilt of farms and pastures, forests and olive groves. Far too many browns and sere yellows were mixed in with a hundred shades of green, crying the need for what they were to do, yet even so, the beauty of it struck Elayne. Despite dust in the air like a faint mist, she could see so far! The land really was quite flat here except for those few hills. Ebou Dar lay just out of sight to the south even if she embraced the Power, yet it seemed she should be able to see it, by straining just a little. Surely with a little effort she could see the River Eldar. A marvelous view.
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The Bowl of the Winds sat atop its unfolded white wrappings in the center of the hilltop, a shallow, heavy disc of clear crystal two feet across, worked inside with thick swirling clouds. An ornate piece, yet simple when you thought of what it could do. What they hoped it could do. Nynaeve took up her place nearby, the angreal finally clicking shut on her wrist. She worked her hand, looking surprised that the chains did not seem to inconvenience her; it fit as if made for her hand.
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It was proven conclusively that one woman cannot form a link with another against her will. It simply cannot be done; nothing happens. A willing surrender is necessary, just as in embracing to saidar itself." She sounded absolutely definite, but Renaile still frowned; too many people knew how Aes Sedai could sidestep the Oath against lying.
"And why did they study it?" Renaile demanded. "Why was the White Tower so interested in such a thing? Perhaps you Aes Sedai still study?"
"That is ridiculous." Exasperation dripped from Sareitha's voice. "If you must know, it was the problem of men who can channel that drew them to it. The Breaking of the World was a living memory to some, then. I don't suppose even very many sisters remember—it hasn't been part of the required instruction since before the Trolloc Wars—but men can be brought into a circle, too, and as the circle doesn't break even if you go to sleep. . . . Well, you can see the advantages. That was an utter failure, unfortunately. More to the point here, I say again that it is impossible to force a woman into a circle. If you doubt, try it yourself. You will see."
Renaile nodded, accepting at last; there was very little else to do when an Aes Sedai made a simple statement of fact. Yet Elayne wondered. What was in the pages that had not survived? She had noticed a slight change in Sareitha's inflection at one point. She had questions. For later, when there were fewer ears around.
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The next part of the lesson was passing control of the circle. That had to be done voluntarily, too, and even as she reached out toward Nynaeve, Elayne held her breath until she felt the subtle shift that meant she now controlled the Power flowing into her. And that flowing through Nynaeve, of course. She had not been sure it would work. Nynaeve could form a circle easily, if not with any finesse, but passing guidance also involved a form of surrender; Nynaeve had considerable difficulties relinquishing control or being brought into a circle, just as she had once had difficulty surrendering to saidar.
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She watched closely as Caire channeled, forming a complex weave of all Five Powers, a four-pointed star that she laid atop the Bowl with what Elayne somehow was sure was exquisite precision. The star touched, and Elayne gasped. Once, she had channeled a trickle into the Bowl—in Tel'aran'rhiod, to be sure, and only a reflection of the Bowl, though still a dangerous thing to do—and that clear crystal had turned a pale blue, and the carved clouds moved. Now, the Bowl of the Winds was blue, the bright blue of a summer sky, and fleecy white clouds billowed across it.
The four-point star became five-pointed, the composition of the weave altered slightly, and the Bowl was a green sea with great heaving waves. Five points became six, and it was another sky, a different blue, darker, winter perhaps, with purple clouds heavy with rain or snow. Seven points, and a gray-green sea raged in storm. Eight points and sky. Nine and sea, and suddenly, Elayne felt the Bowl itself drawing saidar, a wild torrent far greater than all the circle together could manage.
The changes continued unabated inside the Bowl, sea to sky, waves to clouds, but a writhing, braided column of saidar shot up from that flattish crystal disc, Fire and Air, Water and Earth and Spirit, a column of intricate lace as wide as the Bowl, climbing up and up into the sky, until its top rose out of sight. Caire continued her weaving, sweat streaming down her face; she paused seemingly only to blink salty drops away from her eyes as she examined the images in the Bowl, then laid a new weave. The pattern of the braiding in the thick column altered with every weave, subtly echoing what Caire wove.
It was a very good thing she had not wanted to focus the flows for this circle, Elayne realized; what the woman was doing required years more study than she had. Many years more. Suddenly, she realized something else. That ever-changing lacework of saidar bent itself around something else, something unseen that made the column solid. She swallowed, hard. The Bowl was drawing saidin as well as saidar.
Her hope that no one else had puzzled that out vanished with one glance at the other women. Half stared at the twisting column with a revulsion that should have been reserved for the Dark One. Fear grew stronger among the emotions shared in her head. Some were approaching the level of Garenia and Kirstian, and it was a wonder those two had not fainted. Nynaeve was a hair from sicking up, for all her suddenly too smooth face. Aviendha appeared just as calm outwardly, but inside, that tiny fear quivered and pulsed, trying to grow.
From Caire came only determination, as steely hard as her expression. Nothing was going to stand in Caire's way, certainly not the mere presence of Shadow-tainted saidin mixed into her weaving. Nothing was going to stop her. She worked the flows, and abruptly spiderwebs of saidar blossomed from the unseen top of the column, like uneven spokes of a wheel, almost a solid fan to the south, sparser fans reaching north and northwest, single lacy spokes stretching in other directions. They changed as they grew, never the same from one moment to the next, spreading across the sky, farther and farther, until the ends of the pattern also passed out of sight. Not just saidar there either, Elayne was certain; in places that spiderweb caught and curved around something she could not see. Still Caire wove, and the column danced to her bidding, saidar and saidin together, and the spiderweb altered and flowed like a lopsided kaleidoscope spinning across the heavens, vanishing into the distance, on and on and on.
Without warning, Caire straightened, knuckling her back, and released the Source completely. Column and spiderweb evaporated, and she collapsed as much as sat down, breathing hard. The Bowl turned clear again, but small patches of saidar flashed and crackled around its edges. "It is done, the Light willing," she said tiredly.
Elayne hardly heard. That was not the way to end a circle. When Caire let go in that way, the Power disappeared from every woman simultaneously. Elayne's eyes popped. For one instant, it was as though she stood atop the highest tower in the world, and suddenly the tower was not there anymore! Just an instant, yet hardly pleasant. She felt tired, if not anywhere near what she would have had she actually done anything beyond serve as a conduit, but what she felt most was loss. Letting go of saidar was bad enough; having it simply vanish out of you went beyond thinking about.
Others had suffered far worse than she. As the glow joining the circle winked out, Nynaeve sat down right where she stood as though her legs had melted, sat stroking the bracelet-and-rings, staring at it and panting. Sweat rolled down her face. "I feel like a kitchen sieve that just had the whole mill poured through it," she murmured. Carrying that much of the Power had its cost even if you did nothing, even with an angreal.
Talaan wavered, a reed in the wind, casting surreptitious glances at her mother, plainly afraid to sit. Aviendha stood straight, her fixed expression saying that willpower had as much to do with that as anything else. She gave a slight smile, though, and made a gesture in Maiden handtalk—worth the price—and then another—more—right behind. More than worth the price. Everyone looked weary, if not so much as those who had used angreal. The Bowl of the Winds went quiet at last, just a wide bowl of clear crystal, but decorated now with towering waves. Saidar still seemed to be there, though, not being wielded by anyone, not visible, but in dimly felt flashes like those that had played around the Bowl at the end.
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"Things aren't as bad in Andor as you might have heard," he told her. "Caemlyn was quiet, last I was there, and Rand—the Dragon Reborn—means to put Morgase's daughter Elayne on the Lion Throne."
Far from being mollified, Maighdin rounded on him, blue eyes blazing. "He intends to put her on the throne? No man puts a queen on the Lion Throne! Elayne will claim the throne of Andor by her right!"
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The sun was more than peeking above the horizon, spreading a sharp morning light, by the time he finished, and over at the tent, Tallanvor and Lamgwin were lugging out chests under Lini's direction, while Maighdin and Breane appeared to be sorting the contents out on a broad patch of dead grass, blankets and linens mainly, and long bright swaths of silk satin that had been intended to drape the bed he had misplaced.
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"All things change," Gaul said dismissively. "Until we wake, the dream drifts on the wind."
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Instead of answering the important question, Alliandre said, "The First told me a great deal about you, L-rd Aybara, and about the L-rd Dragon Reborn, blessed be his name in the Light."
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A white rod like polished ivory, a foot long and no thicker than her wrist. Then she saw the flowing marks carved into the end toward her, numerals used in the Age of Legends. One hundred eleven. She had thought it was the Oath Rod, somehow stolen from the White Tower. That also was marked, but with the numeral three, which some thought stood for the Three Oaths. Maybe this was not what it seemed.
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"Put your mind to what we can do about the sisters held by the Aiel. I know you'll reason out something if anyone can."
Cadsuane snorted. "They deserve whatever happens to them." She had not been allowed near the Aiel tents herself, nor had any of her companions, but some of the fools who had sworn fealty to the al'Thor boy had ventured out to the sprawling encampment and come back white-faced and torn between outrage and sicking up. Normally, she also would have been furious over the affront to Aes Sedai dignity, whatever the circumstances; not now. To achieve her goal, she would have run the entire White Tower through the streets naked. How could she concern herself with the discomfort of women who might have ruined everything?
Kumira opened her mouth to protest despite knowing her feelings, but Cadsuane went on, calm yet relentless. "Perhaps they'll weep enough to atone for the dog's dinner they made of matters, but I doubt it. They are out of our hands, and if they were in mine, I might just give them to the Aiel. Forget them, Daigian, and put that fine mind of yours on the track I set you."
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Even the filth woven through saidin seemed less obtrusive than it once had; still vile, still loathsome, but no longer worth notice.
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There was never enough time, but maybe this once. . . . Fire and ice and death.
What would you do? he thought. Are you there? And then, doubtfully, hating the doubt, Were you ever there? Silence answered, deep and dead in the emptiness that surrounded him. Or was there mad laughter somewhere in the recesses of his mind? Did he imagine it, like the feel of someone looking over his shoulder, someone just on the brink of touching his back? Or the colors that swirled just out of sight, more than colors, and were gone? A thing of madmen. His gloved thumb slid along the carvings that serpentined the Dragon Scepter. The long green-and-white tassels below the polished spear-point fluttered in the wind. Fire and ice, and death would come.
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Lews Therin was gone. Unless that feel of someone staring at the back of his head, brushing his shoulder blades with a finger, was him. Was there a madman's hoarse laughter deep in his thoughts? Or was it his own? The man had been there! He had!
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"I told you about damane and sul'dam," he said calmly, but inside of him, rage flared, fire spiderwebbing around the emptiness of the Void.
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"The Aiel you've heard about are my enemies!" Not spiderwebs of flame this time, but solid sheets of fury that wrapped tight around the Void. Rand's voice was ice, though; it roared like the crack of winter. The storm was coming? Light, he was the storm! "My Aiel are hunting them down. My Aiel hunt the Shaido, and they and Davram Bashere and most of the Companions hunt bandits, whatever they call themselves! I am the King of Illian, and I will allow no one to disrupt the peace of Illian!"
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Reluctantly he let go of the Power, forced himself not to hang on like a man clutching salvation with his fingernails as life and filth drained from him together. For an instant, he saw double; the world seemed to tilt dizzily. That was a recent problem, and he worried it might be part of the sickness that killed men who channeled, but the dizziness never lasted more than moments. It was the rest of letting go that he regretted. The world seemed to dull. No, it did dull, and became somehow less. Colors were washed-out, the sky smaller, compared to what they had been before. He wanted desperately to seize the Source again and wring the One Power out of it. Always it was so when the Power left him.
No sooner had saidin gone, though, than rage bubbled in its place, white-hot and searing, nearly as hot as the Power had been. The Seanchan were not enough, and brigands hiding behind his name? Deadly distractions he could not afford. Was Sammael reaching out from the grave? Had he sown the Shaido to sprout like thorns wherever Rand laid a hand? Why? The man could not have believed he would die. And if half the tales Rand heard were true, there were more in Murandy and Altara and the Light alone knew where! Many among the Shaido already taken prisoner had spoken of an Aes Sedai. Could the White Tower be involved somehow? Would the White Tower never give him peace? Never? Never.
Battling fury, he was blind to Gregorin and the rest catching up. When they topped the ridge among the waiting nobles, he drew rein so abruptly that Tai'daishar reared, pawing the air and flinging mud from his hooves. The nobles edged their mounts back, from his gelding, from him.
"I gave them to midday," he announced. "Watch them. I don't want this lot breaking into fifty smaller bands and slipping away. I'll be in my tent." Except for wind-tossed cloaks they might have been stone, rooted to one spot as if he meant the command to watch for them personally. At that moment, he did not care if they stayed there till they froze or melted.
Without another word he trotted down the back slope of the ridge, followed by the two black-coated Asha'man and his Illianer banner-bearers. Fire and ice, and death was coming. But he was steel. He was steel.
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The world would die unless he succeeded, but he had no illusions that they shared any loyalty to him, or even believed that the fate of the world could not be made to accommodate their own concerns, their own desires for gold or glory or power. A handful did, perhaps, a bare handful, but for the most part, they followed because they feared him far more than they did the Aiel. Maybe more than they did the Dark One, in whom some did not really believe, not in the depths of their hearts, not that he could and would touch the world harder than he had already. Rand stood before their faces, and they believed in that. He accepted it, now. He had too many battles ahead of him to waste effort on one he could not win. So long as they followed and obeyed, it had to be enough.
The largest of the camps was his own, and here Illianer Companions in green coats with yellow cuffs rubbed shoulders with Tairen Defenders of the Stone in fat-sleeved coats striped black-and-gold and an equal number of Cairhienin drawn from forty-odd Houses, in dark colors, some with con stiff above their heads. They cooked at different fires, slept apart, picketed their horses apart, and eyed one another warily, but they mingled. The safety of the Dragon Reborn was their responsibility, and they took the job seriously. Any of them might betray him, but not while the others were there to watch.
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A flash of color just beyond the edge of sight, the feel of someone about to touch him from behind.
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What had to be done, had to be done. The whole world paid a price for his existence. He would die for it, but the whole world paid.
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Taim was a great one for naming things. But men needed the trappings, the symbols and the names, the black coats and the pins, to help hold them together. Until it was time to die.
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[Rand to himself]
My soul is black with blood, and damned.
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The sand was melted to sheets of glass.
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He had asked once, warily, where he knew the answers would be true, how to cleanse the taint from saidin. And got a riddle for answer. Herid Fel had claimed the riddle stated "sound principles, in both high philosophy and natural philosophy," but he had not seen any way to apply it to the problem at hand. Had Fel been killed because he might have puzzled out the riddle? Rand had a hint at the answer, or thought he might, a guess that could be disastrously wrong. Hints and riddles were not answers, yet he had to do something. If the taint was not cleansed somehow, Tarmon Gai'don might find a world already ruined by madmen. What had to be done, had to be done.
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[Egwene Dream]
Rand, wearing different masks, until suddenly one of those false faces was no longer a mask, but him. Perrin and a Tinker, frenziedly hacking their way through brambles with axe and sword, unaware of the cliff that lay just ahead. And the brambles screamed with human voices they did not hear. Mat, weighing two Aes Sedai on a huge set of balance scales, and on his decision depended. . . . She could not say what; something vast; the world, perhaps. There had been other dreams, most tinged with suffering. Recently, all of her dreams about Mat were pale and full of pain, like shadows cast by nightmares, almost as though Mat himself were not quite real.
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The sun rose and climbed, a pale golden ball that gave no warmth.
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"Mother, may I present to you, of Andor, Arathelle Renshar, High Seat of House Renshar. Pelivar Coelan, High Seat of House Coelan. Aemlyn Carand, High Seat of House Carand, and her husband, Culhan Carand." They acknowledged their names sourly, with bare nods and no more. Pelivar was the lean man; he was losing his dark hair from the front. Sheriam went on without pause; it was a good thing Bryne had been able to supply the names of those who had been chosen to speak. "May I present, of Murandy, Donel do Morny a'L-rdeine. Cian do Mehon a'Macansa. Paitr do Fearna a'Conn. Segan do Avharin a'Roos." The Murandians seemed to feel the lack of titles even more than the Andorans. Donel, wearing more lace than most of the women, twisted his curled mustaches fiercely, and Paitr appeared to be trying to yank his loose. Segan pursed full lips and her dark eyes caught fire, while Cian, a stocky, graying woman, snorted quite loudly. Sheriam took no notice. "You are beneath the eyes of the Watcher of the Seals. You are before the Flame of Tar Valon. You may present your supplications to the Amyrlin Seat."
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Sometimes friendship and responsibility pushed in the same direction.
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The sun had passed its peak.
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The sun made a red dome on the treetops to the west, and a lurid light shone off the snow.
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No; she was Egwene al'Vere, and whatever the secret histories would say of her faults and virtues, the Light only knew, but they would be hers, not copies of some other woman's.
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That voice invaded Rand's dreams, and when he saw himself in a dream, it was not always himself at all that he saw. It was not always Lews Therin, either, the face he had come to recognize as Lews Therin's. Sometimes it was blurred, yet vaguely familiar, and Lews Therin seemed startled by it, too.
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What with the molten filth floating on saidin, the frozen slime, touching the Source came close to emptying his stomach.
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But he had to talk to Nynaeve. Could he cleanse saidin? It might work. It might destroy the world, too. Lews Therin gibbered at him in stark terror.
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The taint on saidin felt especially heavy today, a thick foul oil that oozed into his pores and stained his bones deep. Stained his soul. He had thought himself accustomed to the vileness, after a fashion, yet today it was nauseating, stronger than the frozen fire and molten cold of saidin itself. He held on to the Source as often as possible now, accepting the vileness to avoid the new sickness of seizing it. It could be deadly, if he let sickness distract him from that struggle. Maybe it was connected to the dizzy spells, somehow. Light, he could not go mad yet, and he could not die. Not yet. There was too much still to be done.
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Part of the chill was the effect of floating in emotionless emptiness.
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When you die, people begin to forget, who you were and what you did, or tried to do. Everybody dies eventually, and everybody is forgotten, eventually, but there's no bloody point dying before your time comes.
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He seized saidin and sweet life and filth poured into him together. His head spun. There were two archers. Bile rose in his throat as he fought wild, uncontrolled surges of the Power that tried to sear him to the bone and freeze his flesh solid. He could not control them; it was all he could do to stay alive. Desperately, he fought to clear his sight, to be able to see well enough to weave the flows he could barely form, with nausea flooding him as strongly as the Power.
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Thought slid across the surface of the Void.
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Rand let himself really feel saidin. Life and corruption commingled; ice to make winter's heart seem warm, and fire to make a forge's flames cold; death, waiting for him to slip. Wanting him to slip.
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The Prophecies of the Dragon had been known in Seanchan even before Luthair Paendrag began the Consolidation. In corrupted form, it was said, much different from the pure version Luthair Paendrag brought. Miraj had seen several volumes of The Karaethon Cycle printed in these lands, and they were corrupted too—not one mentioned him serving the Crystal Throne!—but the Prophecies held men's minds and hearts still. More than a few hoped the Return came soon, that these lands could be reclaimed before Tarmon Gai'don so the Dragon Reborn could win the Last Battle for the glory of the Empress, might she live forever.
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The sun was a pale yellow ball.
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Rand made himself feel saidin. He was always aware of the Power—anything else meant death or worse—yet he had become used to the struggle. He fought for life, but the fight had become as natural as life. The struggle was life. He made himself feel that battle, his life. Cold to make stone shatter into dust. Fire to make stone flash to vapor. Filth to make a rotten cesspit smell a garden in full flower. And . . . a pulsing, like something quivering in his fist. This was not the sort of throbbing he had felt in Shadar Logoth, when the taint on saidin had resonated with the evil of that place, and saidin had pulsed with it. The vileness was strong, but steady here. It was saidin itself that seemed full of currents and surges. Eager, Dashiva called it, and Rand could see why.
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Thunder rumbled, and Bertome looked to the sky, perplexed. There were few more clouds than earlier. No; Doile—Dalyn?—had mentioned those women. And then he forgot all about whatever the fool Tairen wanted as steel-veiled Taraboners poured over the wooded hills toward him, the earth blooming fire and the sky raining lightning ahead of them.
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The half-healed, never-healing wounds in his left side were agony, the older an auger trying to drill through the Void, the newer a blaze of raw flame.
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Saidin seemed to leap into Callandor before he touched the Source through it. From pommel to point, the crystal sword shone with a white light. He had only thought the Power filled him before. Now he held more than ten men could have unaided, a hundred, he did not know how many. The fires of the sun, searing through his head. The cold of all of the winters of all the Ages, eating into his heart. In that torrent, the taint was all the midden heaps in the world emptying into his soul. Saidin still tried to kill him, tried to scour away, burn away, freeze away, every scrap of him, but he fought, and he lived for a moment more, and another moment, another. He wanted to laugh. He could do anything!
Once, holding Callandor, he had made a weapon that searched out Shadowspawn through the Stone of Tear, struck them dead with hunting lightning wherever they stood or ran or hid. Surely there must be something like that, to use against his enemies here. But when he called to Lews Therin, only anguished whimpers answered, as if that disembodied voice feared the pain of saidin.
With Callandor blazing in his hand—he did not remember raising the blade overhead—he stared at the hills where his enemies hid. They were gray now, with thickening rain, and dense black clouds blocking the sun. What was it he had told Eagan Padros?
"I am the storm," he whispered—a shout in his ears, a roar—and he channeled.
Overhead, the clouds boiled. Where they had been the black of soot, they became midnight, the heart of midnight. He did not know what he was channeling. So often, he did not, in spite of Asmodean's teaching. Maybe Lews Therin was guiding him, in spite of the man's weeping. Flows of saidin spun across the sky, Wind and Water and Fire. Fire. The sky truly did rain lightning. A hundred bolts at once, hundreds, forked blue-white shafts stabbing down as far as he could see. The hills before him erupted. Some flew apart under the torrent of lightning like kicked anthills. Flames sprang up in thickets, trees turning to torches in the rain, flames racing through olive orchards.
Something struck him hard, and he realized he was picking himself up from the ground. The crown had fallen from his head. Callandor still blazed in his hand, though. Vaguely, he was aware of Tai'daishar scrambling to his feet, trembling. So they thought to strike back at him, did they.
Shoving Callandor high, he screamed at them. "Come against me, if you dare! I am the storm! Come if you dare, Shai'tan! I am the Dragon Reborn!" A thousand sizzling lightning bolts hailed down from the clouds.
Again something struck him down. He tried to fight up again. Callandor, still shining, lay a pace from his outstretched hand. The sky shattered with lightnings. Suddenly, he realized that the weight atop him was Bashere, that the man was shaking him. It must have been Bashere who had flung him down!
"Stop it!" the Saldaean shouted. Blood fanned down his face from a split across his scalp. "You're killing us, man! Stop!"
Rand turned his head, and one stunned look was enough. Lightnings flashed all around him, in every direction. A bolt stabbed down onto the reverse slope, where Denharad and the armsmen were; the screams of men and horses rose. Anaiyella and Ailil were both afoot, trying vainly to quiet mounts that reared, eyes rolling, trying to rip reins free. Flinn was bending over someone, not far from a dead horse with legs already stiff.
Rand let saidin go. He let it go, but for moments it still flowed into him, and lightning raged. The flow into him dwindled, tailed off and vanished. Dizziness swept through him in its place. For three more heartbeats, two of Callandor shone where they lay on the ground, and lightning fell. Then, silence except for the rising drum of the rain. And the screams from behind the hill.
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I've lost, Rand thought dully. I'm the Dragon Reborn, but for the first time, I've lost.
Suddenly, Lews Therin raged up inside him, sly digs forgotten. I've never been defeated, he snarled. I am the L-rd of the Morning! No one can defeat me!
Rand sat in the rain, turning the Crown of Swords in his hands, looking at Callandor lying in the mud. He let Lews Therin rage.
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[Elaida Foretelling]
The Black Tower would be rent in fire and blood, she had Foretold, and sisters would walk its grounds. Surely that meant that somehow, Toveine would triumph. More, the rest of the Foretelling had told her that the Tower would regain all its old glories under her, that al'Thor himself would quail at her anger. Alviarin had heard the words coming out of Elaida's mouth when the Foretelling took her. And she had not remembered later, when she began her blackmail, had not understood her own doom. Elaida waited in patience. She would repay the woman three-fold! But she could be patient. For now.
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Something feral moved in her eyes. An irrational thought, perhaps, but that was what Seaine saw.
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[Cadsuane to Rand]
Whatever I do, it will be for your own good; not mine, not the good of the White Tower, yours.
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"What do you mean, escape?"
"What?" She did not look up. "Oh. Very few even in the Tower knew what Callandor is before you drew it, but there are surprising things hidden in musty corners of the Tower Library. I went rummaging some years ago, when I first had the suspicion you might be suckling at your mother's breast. Just before I decided to go back into retirement. Babes are messy things, and I could not see how to find you before you stopped dripping at one end or the other."
"What do you mean?" he demanded roughly.
Cadsuane looked up then, and with her hair flung about and snow settling on her dress, she looked a queen. "I told you I cannot abide incivility. If you ask for my help again, I expect you to ask politely. And I will expect an apology for your behavior today!"
"What do you mean about Callandor?"
"It is flawed," she replied curtly, "lacking the buffer that makes other sa'angreal safe to use. And it apparently magnifies the taint, inducing wildness of the mind. So long as a man is using it, anyway. The only safe way for you to use The Sword That Is Not a Sword, the only way to use it without the risk of killing yourself, or trying to do the Light alone knows what insanity, is linked with two women, and one of them guiding the flows."
Trying not to hunch his shoulders, he strode away from her. So it had been not just the wildness of saidin around Ebou Dar that had killed Adley. He had murdered the man the moment he sent Narishma for the thing.
Cadsuane's voice pursued him. "Remember, boy. You must ask very nicely, and apologize. I might even agree, if your apology sounds truly sincere."
Rand barely heard her. He had hoped to use Callandor again, hoped it would be strong enough. Now only one chance remained, and it terrified him. He seemed to hear another woman's voice, a dead woman's voice. You could challenge the Creator.
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Outside, the sun was just peeking over the horizon, a low dome of pale yellow.
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The streets followed the curves of the hills, and every rise presented a new vista of snow-covered parks and monuments laid out to be seen from above as well as up close, of brightly tiled towers shining with a hundred colors in the afternoon sun. And then the Royal Palace itself was before them, a confection of pale spires and golden domes and intricate stonework traceries. The banner of Andor waved from nearly every prominence, the White Lion on red. And from the others, the Dragon Banner or the Banner of Light.
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Among all of those images spilling around Rand and the women, suddenly an aura flashed, blue and yellow tinged with green, encompassing them all. And Min knew its meaning. She gasped, half in surprise, half in relief.
"They will serve you, each in her fashion, Rand," she said hurriedly. "I saw it." Sorilea would serve him? Suddenly Min wondered exactly what "in her fashion" meant. The words came with the knowing, but she did not always know what the words themselves meant. But they would serve; that much was plain.
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He seized the Source, and saidin flooded him with molten cold and freezing heat, with life and sweetness, filth and death. His stomach twisted, and the hallway in front of him doubled itself. For an instant, he thought he saw a face. Not with his eyes; in his head. A man, shimmering and unrecognizable, gone. He floated in the Void, empty, and full of the Power.
You won't win, he told Lews Therin. If I die, I'll die me!
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Backing against the wall beside a long table topped with porcelain, he quickly wove Fire and Air around himself and held very still wrapped in Folded Light.
Maidens appeared, a stream of them, veiled, and ran by without seeing him.
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To destroy, or be destroyed, Lews Therin laughed. When that's your choice, is there a difference?
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Tangling both hands in his hair, she stared in his eyes. Now blue, now gray, a morning sky just at sunrise.
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"The blessed L-rd Dragon is not as other men, Aybara!" Masema snarled. "He is the Light made flesh!"
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