Winter's Heart
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Heart and mind are the true weapons.
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You won't survive, Lews Therin whispered. None of us will survive. Go back to sleep, Rand thought irritably. He knew he was not going to survive. But he wanted to.
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He wanted very badly to leave something behind, something to help the world survive the new Breaking the Prophecies said he would bring. The trouble was, he had no idea what that might be, save for the schools themselves. Who knew what a marvel could do? Light, he wanted to build something that could last.
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"You'll know when to deliver the other. Whether to deliver it. Pry him out if need be, and decide by what he says. If you decide not, or he refuses, I'll pick someone else. Not you."
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Knees turning to water, he stumbled. A shimmering face he could not make out flashed through his head. With an effort, he caught himself, forced his legs straight. And the whirling sensation vanished. Lews Therin panted hoarsely in the shadows. Could the face be his?
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"We had this out, Rand bloody Dragon al'Thor! You are not leaving me behind!"
"The thought never crossed my mind," he lied. He was too weak; he could not make himself say the words, to make her stay. Too weak, he thought bitterly, and she might well die for it, the Light burn me forever!
It will, Lews Therin promised softly.
"I just thought you should know what we've been doing, and what we are going to do," Rand went on. "I haven't been very forthcoming, I suppose." Gathering himself, he seized saidin. The room seemed to whirl, and he rode the avalanche of fire and ice and filth with nausea seething in his belly.
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"Your eyes belong on an eagle."
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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 Aryth Ocean. 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.
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East the wind blew for leagues, gusting and fading, dividing but never dying, east and veering to the south, across forests and plains wrapped in winter, bare branched and brown-grassed, at last crossing what had once been the border between Tarabon and Amadicia.
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East the wind howled over a desolated land where as many villages lay burned and farms ruined as held people. Snow blanketed charred timbers and abandoned barns alike, softening the view even as it added freezing to starvation as a way of dying. Sword and axe and spear had been there already, and remained to kill again. East, until the wind moaned a dirge over unwalled Abila. No banners flew above the town's watchtowers, for the Prophet of the L-rd Dragon was there, and the Prophet needed no banner save his name. In Abila, people shivered harder at the name of the Prophet than they did for the wind. People elsewhere shivered at that name, too.
Striding out of the tall merchant's house where Masema lived, Perrin let the wind whip his fur-lined cloak as he pulled on his gloves. The midday sun gave no warmth, and the air bit deep.
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Most of the branches were stark and bare, and those that retained leaf or needle splashed a vivid green against the white.
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"We all wake from the dream one day," Gaul said gently, "but if she still dreams, we will find her. But if Aiel took her, we must go. They will move quickly. Even in . . . this." He put considerable disgust in the word, kicking at a clod of snow.
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Thought came in a trickle of shadows that melted if she tried to hold them too hard.
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Only things that had stood in one place for a goodly time had a truly permanent reflection in the World of Dreams.
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The feel of filth remained, though, the Dark One's taint oozing into him from the weaves he had tied off around himself.
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It is well known how Aes Sedai make truth spin like a whirlpool.
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From the scrip he produced two statuettes a foot high, a wise-looking, bearded man and an equally wise and serene woman, each in flowing robes and holding aloft a clear crystal sphere. From the way he handled them, they were heavier than they appeared. "I want you to keep these hidden for me until I send for them, Nynaeve." One hand on the figure of the woman, he hesitated. "And for you. I'll need you when I use them. When we use them. After I take care of those men. That has to come first."
"Use them?" she said suspiciously. Why did killing anyone have to come first? That was hardly the important question, though. "For what? Are they ter'angreal?"
He nodded. "With this, you can touch the greatest sa'angreal ever made for a woman. It's buried on Tremalking, I understand, but that doesn't matter." His hand moved to the figure of the man. "With this one, I can touch its male twin. I was told by . . . someone . . . once, that a man and woman using those sa'angreal could challenge the Dark One. They might have to be used for that, one day, but in the meantime, I hope they're enough to cleanse the male half of the Source."
"If it could be done, wouldn't they have done it in the Age of Legends?" Lan said quietly. Quiet the way steel sliding from a scabbard was quiet. "You said once that I could get her hurt." It seemed impossible his voice could grow any harder, but it did. "You could kill her, sheepherder." And his tone made clear that he would not allow that.
Rand met Lan's cold blue stare with one just as cold. "I don't know why they didn't. I don't care why. It has to be tried."
Nynaeve bit her lower lip. She supposed Rand made this a public occasion -- shifting from public to private, deciding which was which, made her dizzy sometimes -- but she did not care that Lan had spoken out of turn. He was bad that way, in any case, but she liked an outspoken man. She needed to think. Not about her decision. She had made that. About how to implement it. Rand might not like it. Lan certainly would not. Well, men always wanted their own way. Sometimes you just had to teach them they could not always have it. "I think it is a wonderful idea," she said. That was not exactly a lie. It was wonderful, compared to the alternatives. "But I don't see why I should sit here waiting for your summons like a serving maid. I'll do it, but we all go together."
She had been right. They did not like it one bit.
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From each of them, she extended the weave in narrow lines toward Rand, twisting the three lines into one, changing it into the Warder bond. That, she laid on Rand as softly as if she were laying a blanket on a baby. The spiderweb of Spirit settled around him, settled into him. He did not even blink, but it was done. She let go of saidar. Done.
He stared at them, expressionless, and slowly put his fingers to his temples.
"Oh, Light, Rand, the pain," Min murmured in a hurt voice. "I never knew; I never imagined. How can you stand it? There are pains you don't even seem to know, as if you've lived with them so long they're part of you. Those herons on your hands; you can still feel the branding. Those things on your arms hurt! And your side. Oh, Light, your side! Why aren't you crying, Rand? Why aren't you crying?"
"He is the Car'a'carn," Aviendha said, laughing, "as strong as the Three-fold Land itself!" Her face was proud -- oh, so proud -- but even as she laughed, tears streamed down her sun-dark cheeks. "The veins of gold. Oh, the veins of gold. You do love me, Rand."
Elayne simply stared at him, felt him in her head. The pain of wounds and hurts he really had forgotten. The tension and disbelief; the wonder. His emotions were too rigid, though, like a knot of hardened pine sap, almost stone. Yet laced through them, golden veins pulsed and glowed whenever he looked at Min, or Aviendha. Or her. He did love her. He loved all three of them. And that made her want to laugh with joy. Other women might find doubts, but she would always know the truth of his love.
"The Light send you know what you've done," he said in a low voice. "The Light send you aren't . . ." The pine sap grew a trifle harder. He was sure they would be hurt, and was already steeling himself. "I . . . I have to go, now. At least I'll know you are all well now; I won't have to worry about you." Suddenly he grinned; he might have looked almost boyish if it had reached his eyes.
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"We must follow Tower law." Loosely interpreted, to be sure. She had always believed the spirit of the law was far more important than the letter.
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Cadsuane made a vexed sound. "I suppose you already have them serving penance," she murmured, thinking hard. Nineteen sisters had been prisoners in the Aiel camp, nineteen sisters sent by that fool Elaida to kidnap the boy, and now they all had sworn to follow him! These last were the worst. "What could make Red sisters swear fealty to a man who can channel?"
Verin began to make an observation, but fell silent for the Aiel woman. Strangely, Verin had taken to her own enforced apprenticeship like a heron to the marsh. She spent more time in the Aiel camp than out of it. "Not penance, Cadsuane Melaidhrin." Sorilea made a dismissive gesture with one sinewy hand in another rattle of gold and ivory bracelets. "They are attempting to meet toh that cannot be met. As foolish in its way as our naming them da'tsang in the first place, but perhaps they are not beyond redemption if they are willing to try," she allowed grudgingly. Sorilea more than merely disliked those nineteen sisters. She gave a thin smile. "In any event, we will teach them much they need to learn." The woman seemed to believe all Aes Sedai could do with time apprenticing under the Wise Ones.
"I hope you will continue to watch them all closely," Cadsuane said. "Especially these last four." She was sure they would keep that ridiculous oath, if not always in ways the boy would like, but there was always the possibility that one or two might be Black Ajah. Once she had thought herself on the point of rooting out the Black only to watch her quarry slip through her fingers like smoke, her bitterest failure except possibly for failing to learn what Caraline Damodred's cousin had been up to in the Borderlands until the knowledge was years too late to do any good. Now, even the Black Ajah seemed a diversion from what was truly important.
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"In the first place, my dear Graendal, I doubt that even I could devise a method to remove the Great L-rd's shadow from saidin. Al'Thor is a primitive. Anything he tries inevitably will prove insufficient, and I, for one, cannot believe he can even imagine how to begin. In any event, we will stop him trying because the Great L-rd commands it. I can understand fear of the Great L-rd's displeasure if we somehow failed, unlikely as that might be, but why should those of us you named have any special fear?"
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"If the young man does somehow remove the shadow, well . . . You who channel saidin will no longer need the Great L-rd's special protection. Will he trust your . . . loyalty . . . then?" Smiling, she sipped her wine.
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"Whether Isam succeeds in finding and killing that other vermin, Fain. A word whispered in the wrong ear, or not spoken to the right. A butterfly stirs its wings on a branch, and on the other side of the world a mountain collapses."
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"You recall the Choedan Kal, I suppose." No amount of effort could make that low, breathy voice anything except sultry, but she managed to inject sarcasm. "Lews Therin has two of the access keys, one for each. And he knows a woman strong enough to use the female of the pair. He plans to use the Choedan Kal for his deed."
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"Killed?" Moridin moved his hands as though weighing something. "If it comes to that, yes," he said finally. "But finding him is no problem. When he touches the Choedan Kal, you will know where he is. And you will go there and take him. Or kill him, if necessary. The Nae'blis has spoken."
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"I must find a way to make contact with the Dragon Reborn as soon as possible. He must kneel before the Crystal Throne before Tarmon Gai'don, or all is lost." The Prophecies of the Dragon said so, clearly.
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Behind her veil, she was merely the High Lady Tuon, of no higher rank than many others of the Blood, but in her heart, always, she was Tuon Athaem Kore Paendrag, Daughter of the Nine Moons, and she had come to reclaim what had been stolen from her ancestor.
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Tuon paused, examining the long signet ring on his finger. It had been carved as a try-piece, to show the carver's skills, a running fox and two ravens in flight, all surrounded by crescent moons, and he had bought it by chance, though he had come to like it.
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[Matt a "pretty" who finally encounters Tuon, Daughter of the Nine Moons he is fated to marry]
"Pretties are an old and honored custom in Altara. Many a young man or woman has a final fling as a pretty, pampered and showered with presents, before settling down."
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Those two Aes Sedai had not been part of any plot, just a chance meeting. Light's truth, they had been little more than girls, and near innocents at that, too softhearted to accept her suggestion they cut the Seeker's throat when they had the chance. A pity, that. They had handed her the male a'dam. Ice crept down her spine. If the Seeker ever learned she had intended disposing of the a'dam the way those Aes Sedai suggested, if anyone learned, she would be judged as guilty of treason as if she had succeeded in dropping it into the ocean's depths. Are you not? she demanded of herself. The Dark One was coming to steal her eyes.
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She was as frightened as the sul'dam, but as always, she kept her fear hard-reefed.
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"What can the Seeker learn about them?" Bethamin's eyes slid away, refusing to meet hers, and abruptly she knew. "They are sul'dam, aren't they, Bethamin? And they were collared, too, just like you."
"They are in Suroth's service," the woman whimpered. "They are never allowed to be complete, though. Suroth knows."
Egeanin rubbed at her eyes wearily. Perhaps there was a conspiracy, after all. Or Suroth might be hiding what the pair were to protect the Empire. The Empire depended on sul'dam; its strength was built on them. The news that sul'dam were women who could learn to channel might shatter the Empire to its core. It had surely shaken her. Maybe shattered her. She herself had not freed Bethamin out of duty. So many things had changed in Tanchico. She no longer believed that any woman who could channel deserved to be collared. Criminals, certainly, and maybe those who refused oaths to the Crystal Throne, and . . . She did not know. Once, her life had been made up of rock-solid certainties, like guiding stars that never failed. She wanted her old life back. She wanted a few certainties.
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The Seeker had knitted moonbeams and happenstance into a strangling cord for her neck.
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For some reason, hundreds of the Aiel who fled after learning the truth of their history had ended up there, attempting to follow the Way of the Leaf when they had no more idea of what that entailed except that they were supposed to be lifelong gai'shain.
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Alivia paused in the act of following, and glared at Rand. No, there was nothing subdued about her any longer. "You could get yourself killed like that," she said disapprovingly. "You have too much to do to get killed yet. You must let us help."
He frowned at the door closing behind her. "Have you had any viewings about her, Min?"
"All the time, but not the kind you mean, nothing I under stand." She wrinkled her nose at one of the books and set it aside. Small chance she would abandon a single volume of her not-so-small library. Undoubtedly she meant to carry that one, and read it at the first opportunity. She spent hours with her nose in those books. "Rand," she said slowly, "you did all that, killed one man and faced another, and . . . Rand, I didn't feel anything. In the bond, I mean. No fear, no anger. Not even concern! Nothing."
"I wasn't angry with him." Shaking his head, he began shoving clothes into the hamper again. "He just needed killing, that's all. And why would I be afraid?"
"Oh," she said in a small voice. "I see." She bent back to the books. The bond had gone very still, as if she were deep in thought, but there was a troubled thread worming though the stillness.
"Min, I promise I won't let anything happen to you." He did not know whether he could keep that promise, but he intended to try.
She smiled at him, almost laughing. Light, she was beautiful. "I know that, Rand. And I won't let anything happen to you." Love flowed along the bond like the blaze of a noonday sun.
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[Lan's cousin Isam is "L-rd" Luc]
Stopping beside the bed, he carefully unsheathed the two poisoned daggers and stepped out of the Unseen World into the waking. As he did, he became Luc.
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His patron of the moment was waiting for him. A man, he was sure of that much, but Luc could not look at him. It was not as it was with those slimy Gray Men, whom you just did not notice. He had killed one of them, once, in the White Tower itself. They felt cold and empty to the touch. It had been like killing a corpse. No, this man had done something with the Power so Luc's eyes slid away from him like water sliding down glass. Even seen at the corner of the eye, he was a blur.
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Supposedly the White Tower was like some mechanical contrivance that ground up thrones and reshaped them to its will. Of course, the machinery did seem to be broken, now.
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What was she talking about? What orders had Sarene carried out, and why did Harine want them forgotten?
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"We do not speak of Far Madding often, except for sisters born there, and even they seldom visit. Still, you should know before you enter. The city possesses a ter'angreal. Or perhaps it is three ter'angreal. No one knows. They -- or it -- cannot be studied any more than they can be removed. They must have been made during the Breaking, when fear of madmen channeling the Power was the matter of every day. But to pay such a price for the safety." The beaded braids dangling onto her chest rattled together as she shook her head in disbelief. "These ter'angreal, they duplicate a stedding. In the important ways at least, I fear, though I suppose an Ogier would not think so." She gave a doleful sigh.
Shalon gaped at her, and exchanged confused looks with Harine and Moad. Why would fables frighten an Aes Sedai? Harine opened her mouth, then motioned for Shalon to ask the obvious question. Perhaps she was to make friends with Sarene to help smooth her course, too? Shalon's head really did ache. But she was curious, too.
"What ways are those?" she asked carefully. Did the woman really believe in people five spans tall who sang to trees? There was something about axes, too. Here come the Aelfinn to steal all your bread; here come the Ogier to chop off your head. Light, she had not heard that since Harine was still in leading strings. With their mother rising in the ships, she had been charged with raising Harine along with her own first child.
Sarene's eyes widened in surprise. "You truly do not know?" Her gaze went back to the island city ahead. By her expression, she was about to enter the bilges. "Inside the stedding, you cannot channel. You cannot even feel the True Source. No weave made outside can affect what is inside, not that that matters. In truth, here there are two stedding, one within the other. The larger affects men, but we will enter the smaller before we reach the bridge."
"You will not be able to channel in there?" Harine said. When the Aes Sedai nodded without looking away from the city, a thin frosty smile touched Marine's lips. "Perhaps after we find quarters, you and I can discuss instructions."
"You read the philosophy?" Sarene looked startled. "The Theory of Instructions, it is not well thought of these days, yet I have always believed there was much to learn there. A discussion will be pleasant, to take my mind from other matters. If Cadsuane allows us time."
Harine's mouth fell open. Gaping at the Aes Sedai, she forgot to cling to her saddle, and only Moad seizing her arm saved her from a fall. Shalon had never heard Harine mention philosophy, but she did not care what her sister was talking about. Staring toward Far Madding, she swallowed hard. She had learned to sheathe someone against using the Power, of course, and been sheathed herself as part of her training, yet when you were sheathed, you could still feel the Source. What would it be like not to feel it, like the sun just out of sight beyond the corner of your eye? What would it be like to lose the sun?
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The city vanished. Time vanished. Everything vanished except her fear that she would never feel the Source again. She had never before realized what comfort she had taken in its unseen presence. It had always been there, promising joy beyond knowing, life so rich that colors paled when the Power was gone from her. And now the Source itself was gone. Gone. That was all she was aware of, all she could be aware of. It was gone.
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To Shalon's surprise, the drop that made Kumira uneasy was less than twenty feet, below, a smooth floor tiled in blue and white to make a convoluted maze centered on a double-pointed red oval rimmed with yellow. Beneath the balcony, three women in white sat on stools spaced equally around the edge of the floor, right against the dome's wall, and beside each woman, a disc a full span across that looked like clouded crystal had been set into the floor and inlaid with a long thin wedge of clear crystal that pointed toward the chamber's center. Metal collars surrounded the murky discs, marked off like a compass but with ever-smaller markings between the larger. Shalon could not be sure, but the collar nearest her appeared to be inscribed with numerals. That was all. No monstrous shapes. She had imagined something huge and black that sucked in the light. Her hands tightened on the rail to keep from trembling, and she locked her knees to hold herself still. Whatever was down there, it had stolen the Light.
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"I was just thinking that he couldn't use the Power, yet he crushed Far Madding like an overripe plum." The stout little Aes Sedai paused as though something had just occurred to her. "You know, the Dragon Reborn has armies in Illian and Tear, in Andor and Cairhien. Not to mention many tens of thousands of Aiel. Very fierce, the Aiel. I wonder you can be so complacent about his Asha'man scouting you."
"I think you have frightened them quite enough," Cadsuane said firmly. Verin finally turned from the gilded rail, her eyes open very wide, a round, startled shorebird. Her plump hands even fluttered like wings. "Oh. I didn't mean . . . Oh, no. I would think the Dragon Reborn would have moved against you already if he intended to. No, I suspect the Seanchan . . . You've heard of them? What we hear from Altara and farther west is really quite horrible. They seem to sweep everything before them. No, I suspect they're somewhat more important to his plans than capturing Far Madding. Unless you do something to anger him, of course, or upset his followers. But I am sure you are too intelligent to do that." She looked very innocent. There was a stir among the Counsels, the ripple that small fish made on the surface when a lionfish swam below.
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In his room at The Counsel's Head, Rand sat on the bed with his legs folded and his back against the wall, playing the silver-mounted flute Thom Merrilin had given him so long ago. An Age ago. This room, with carved wall panels and windows overlooking the Nethvin Market, was better than that they had abandoned at The Crown of Maredo. The pillows stacked beside him were goose down, the bed had an embroidered canopy and curtains, and the mirror above the washstand had not a single bubble. The lintel above the stone fireplace even had a bit of simple carving. It was a room for a well-to-do foreign merchant. He was glad he had thought to bring enough gold when he left Cairhien. He had lost the habit of carrying much. Everything had been provided for the Dragon Reborn. Still, he could have earned a bed of some sort with the flute. The tune was called "Lament for the Long Night," and he had never heard it before in his life. Lews Therin had, though. It was like the skill at drawing. Rand thought that should frighten him, or make him angry, but he simply sat and played while Lews Therin wept.
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"Rand, I like Alivia. I do, even if she does make Nynaeve have kittens left and right." One fist planted on her hip, Min leaned forward and pointed a finger at his nose. "But she is going to kill you." She bit off every word. "You said she was going to help me die," he said quietly. "Those were your words." How would he feel at dying? Sadness at leaving her, at leaving Elayne and Aviendha. Sadness for the pain he had brought them. He would like to see his father again before the end. Aside from those things, he almost thought death would be a relief.
Death is a relief, Lews Therin said fervently. I want death. We deserve death! "Helping me die isn't the same as killing me," Rand went on. He was very good at ignoring the voice, now.
"Unless you've changed your mind about what you saw." Min flung up her hands in exasperation. "I saw what I saw and it's what I told you, but the Pit of Doom swallow me if I can see any difference. And I can't see why you think there is!"
"Sooner or later, I have to die, Min," he said patiently. He had been told by those he had to believe. To live, you must die. That still made no sense to him, but it left one cold hard fact. Just as the Prophecies of the Dragon seemed to say, he had to die. "Not soon, I hope. I plan not soon. I'm sorry, Min. I never should have let you bond me." But he had not been strong enough to refuse, any more than he had been strong enough to push her away. He was too weak for what had to be done. He needed to drink in winter, till he made winter's heart seem Sunday noon.
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[he demanded their fealty to prove to the world Aes Sedai were not puppetting him. Seems Robert Jordan forgot that key element.]
Rand nodded slowly. It had seemed just a way to impress people with his power, that Aes Sedai gave him fealty. Fear that they might manipulate him to their own ends had blinded him to anything else. He did not like admitting that. He had been a fool.
A man who trusts everyone is a fool, Lews Therin said, and a man who trusts no one is a fool. We are all fools, if we live long enough. He almost sounded sane.
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"Verin, he can do whatever his heart desires, anything at all, as long as he lives to reach Tarmon Gai'don. And as long as I can be at his side long enough to make him learn how to laugh again, and cry." Closing her eyes, she rubbed her temples with her fingertips and sighed. "He is turning into a stone, Verin, and if he doesn't relearn that he's human, winning the Last Battle may not be much better than losing. Young Min told him he needs me; I got that much out of her without rousing her suspicions. But I must wait for him to come to me. You see the way he runs roughshod over Alanna and the others. It will be hard enough teaching him, if he does ask. He fights guidance, he thinks he must do everything, learn everything, on his own, and if I do not make him work for it, he won't learn at all." Her hands dropped onto the embroidery hoop on her lap. "I seem to be in a confiding mood tonight. Unusual, for me. If you ever finish pouring that tea, I may confide some more."
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"The Wheel turns, Elayne, and everything changes."
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The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills, but it is still me who has to decide."
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"And the other matter, Mistress Harfor?"
"Nothing yet, my Lady, but I have hopes," Reene said even more grimly than before. "I have hopes."
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"Stories have power. Gleemen's tales, and bards' epics, and rumors in the street alike. They stir passions, and change the way men see the world."
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"You can never know everything," Lan said quietly, "and part of what you know is always wrong. Perhaps even the most important part. A portion of wisdom lies in knowing that. A portion of courage lies in going on anyway."
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Smiling, Nynaeve thumbed one of the three rings on her right hand, the one with a pale green stone. "I knew this would detect someone channeling saidar as much as three miles away, if I set it, but she says it will detect saidin, too. She seemed to think it should tell me what direction they were, as well, but we could not see how."
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Her hands settled on the slim jeweled belt around her waist. "She called it a 'Well.' " He gave a start as something brushed his face, and she giggled. Nynaeve actually giggled! "It is a well," she laughed behind fingers pressed over her mouth, "or a barrel, anyway. And full of saidar. Not very much, but all I have to do to refill it is embrace saidar through it as if it was an angreal. Isn't that wonderful?"
"Wonderful," he said without much enthusiasm. So Cadsuane was walking around with ter'angreal in her hair, was she, and very likely one of these "wells" among them, or she would not have recognized it. Light, he thought no one had ever found two ter'angreal that did the same thing. Meeting her tonight would have been bad enough without knowing she would be able to channel, even here.
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She thrust her hand out from under her cloak to show the bracelet with its pale red stones. "This can cover me with armor better than any steel. I'd hardly even feel a sword hitting me."
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"Fain is here," Rand whispered. As if saying the name were a trigger, the twin wounds in his side began throbbing, the older like a disc of ice, the newer a bar of fire across it. "It was him sent the letter."
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The wounds in his side no longer throbbed; they clawed at him, molten iron and the very soul of ice warring to rip him open.
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Moiraine had died because he was not hard enough to do what had to be done. Her name always headed the list engraved on his brain, the women who had died because of him. Moiraine Damodred. Every name on that list brought anguish that made him forget the pains of his body, forget the stone walls just beyond his fingertips. Colavaere Saighan, who died because he had stripped her of everything she valued. Liah, Maiden of the Spear, of the Cosaida Chareen, who died at his own hands because she followed him to Shadar Logoth. Jendhilin, a Maiden of the Cold Peak Miagoma who died because she wanted the honor of guarding his door. He had to be hard! One by one he summoned up the names on that long list, patiently forging his soul in the fires of pain.
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Without thought he reached out and filled the emptiness in himself with saidin, an avalanche of fire, a storm of ice, all larded with the filthy taint that made the larger wound in his side pulse. He swayed in the saddle as his head spun and his stomach clenched even as he fought to ride the avalanche that tried to sear his mind, to soar on the storm that tried to scour his soul. There was no forgiveness or pity in the male half of the Power. A man fought it, or died. He could feel the three Asha'man behind him filling themselves too, drinking at saidin like men just out of the Waste who had found water. In his head, Lews Therin sighed with relief.
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To other eyes than his, nothing distinguished the place where he had dug before going into Far Madding. To his eyes, a thin shaft that shone like a lantern rose through the damp mulch on the forest floor. Even another man who could channel could have walked through that shaft without knowing it was there. He did not bother to dismount. Using flows of Air, he ripped aside the thick layer of rotting leaves and twigs and shoveled away damp earth until he uncovered a long, narrow bundle tied with leather cords. Clods of dirt clung to the wrapping-cloth as he floated Callandor to his hand. He had not dared carry that to Far Madding. Without a scabbard, he would have had to leave it at the bridge fortress, a dangerous flag waiting to announce his presence. It was unlikely there was another sword made of crystal to be found in the world, and too many people knew that the Dragon Reborn had one. And leaving it here, he had still ended up in a dark, cramped stone box under the . . . No. That was done and over. Over. Lews Therin panted in the shadows of his mind.
Thrusting Callandor under his saddle-girth, he reined the gray around to face the others. The horses held their tails tight against the wind, but now and then one stamped a hoof or tossed its head, impatient to be moving again after so long in the stable. The leather scrip that hung from Nynaeve's shoulder looked incongruous with all the be-gemmed ter'angreal she wore. Now that the time was near, she was stroking the bulging scrip, apparently without realizing what she was doing. She was trying to hide her fear, but her chin trembled. Cadsuane was looking at him impassively. Her cowl had fallen down her back, and sometimes a gust stronger than most swayed the golden fish and birds, stars and moons, dangling from her bun.
"I am going to remove the taint from the male half of the Source," he announced. The three Asha'man, now in plain dark coats and cloaks like the other Warders, exchanged excited glances, but a ripple passed through the Aes Sedai. Nesune let out a gasp that seemed too large for the slender, bird-like sister. Cadsuane's expression never altered. "With that?" she said, raising a skeptical eyebrow at the bundle beneath his leg.
"With the Choedan Kal," he replied. That name was another gift from Lews Therin, resting in Rand's head as if it had always been there. "You know them as immense statues, sa'angreal, one buried in Cairhien, the other on Tremalking." Harine's head jerked, making the golden medallions on her nose chain click together, at mention of the Sea Folk island. "They're too big to be moved with any ease, but I have a pair of ter'angreal called access keys. Using those, the Choedan Kal can be tapped from anywhere in the world."
Dangerous, Lews Therin moaned. Madness. Rand ignored him. For the moment, only Cadsuane mattered.
Her bay flicked one black ear, and at that he seemed more excitable than his rider. "One of those sa'angreal is made for a woman," she said coolly. "Who do you propose to use that? Or do these keys allow you to draw on both yourself?"
"Nynaeve will link with me." He trusted Nynaeve, to link with, but no one else. She was Aes Sedai, but she had been the Wisdom of Emond's Field; he had to trust her. She smiled at him and nodded firmly, her chin no longer trembling. "Don't try to stop me, Cadsuane." She said nothing, only studied him, dark eyes weighing and measuring.
"Forgive me, Cadsuane," Kumira broke into the silence, heeling her dapple forward. "Young man, have you considered the possibility of failure? Have you considered the consequences of failure?"
"I must ask the same question," Nesune said sharply. She sat very straight in her saddle, and her dark eyes met Rand's gaze levelly. "By everything I have read, the attempt to use those sa'angreal may result in disaster. Together, they might be strong enough to crack the world like an egg." Like an egg! Lews Therin agreed. They were never tested, never tried. This is insane! he shrieked. You are mad! Mad!
"The last I heard," Rand told the sisters, "one Asha'man in fifty had gone mad and had to be put down like a rabid dog. More will have, by now. There is a risk to doing this, but it's all maybe and might. If I don't try, the certainty is that more and more men will go mad, maybe scores, maybe all of us, and sooner or later it will be too many to be killed easily. Will you enjoy waiting for the Last Battle with a hundred rabid Asha'man wandering about, or two hundred, or five? And maybe me one of them? How long will the world survive that?" He spoke to the two Browns, but it was Cadsuane who he watched. Her almost black eyes never left him. He needed to keep her with him, but if she tried to talk him out of it, he would reject her advice no matter the consequences. If she tried to stop him . . .? Saidin raged inside him.
"Will you do the deed here?" she asked.
"In Shadar Logoth," he told her, and she nodded.
"A fitting place," she said, "if we are to risk destroying the world."
Lews Therin screamed, a dwindling howl that echoed inside Rand's skull as the voice fled into the dark depths. There was nowhere to hide, though. No safe place.
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Min stood up in her stirrups and pulled Rand's head to where she could kiss his eyes. Without speaking a word, she went to join the men with the horses. The bond surged with her love for him, with confidence and a trust so complete that he stared after her in amazement.
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The Power roared in Rand, and the filth tarnishing the pure life of saidin seeped into him, rank runnels that would bring madness and death.
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Rand folded himself to the ground cross-legged in front of her as she produced the two access keys, smooth white statues a foot tall, each holding a clear sphere in one upraised hand. The figure of a bearded man in robes, she handed to him. That of a robed woman, she set on the ground at her feet. The faces on those figures were serene and strong and wise with years. "You must put yourself right on the edge of embracing the Source," she told him, smoothing skirts that did not need smoothing. "Then I can link with you." With a sigh, Rand put down the bearded man and released saidin. Raging fire and cold vanished, and the grease-slick vileness of the taint, and with them, life seemed to dwindle, too, turning the world pale and drab. He placed his hands on the ground beside him against the sickness that would strike when he took hold of the Source again, but a different dizziness suddenly spun his head. For a heartbeat, a vague face filled his eyes, blotting out Nynaeve, a man's face, almost recognizable. Light, if that ever happened while he was actually grabbing hold of saidin . . . Nynaeve bent toward him, concern on her face.
"Now," he said, and reached for the Source through the bearded man. Reached, but did not seize it. He hung on the brink, wanting to howl with the agony as flickering flames seemed to broil him even while shrieking winds blasted particles of frozen sand across his skin. Watching Nynaeve take a quick breath, he knew it lasted only an instant, yet it seemed he endured for hours before . . .
Saidin flowed through him, all the molten fury and icy tumbling, all the foulness, and he could not control a hair-thin thread. He could see the flow from him into Nynaeve. To feel it seething through him, feel the treacherous tides and shifting ground that could destroy him in a heartbeat, to feel that without being able to fight or control was an agony in itself. He was aware of her, he realized suddenly, in much the same way he was aware of Min, but all he could think of was saidin, flooding through him uncontrolled. She drew a shuddering breath. "How can you stand . . . that?" she said hoarsely. "All chaos and rage and death. Light! Now, you must try as hard as you can to control the flows while I -- " Desperate to gain his balance in that never-ending war with saidin, he did as she said, and she yelped and jumped. "You were supposed to wait until I. . . ." she began in angry tones, then went on in a merely irritated voice. "Well, at least I'm rid of it. What are you so wide-eyed about? I'm the one had her skin yanked off!"
"Saidar," he murmured in wonder. It was so . . . different.
Alongside the turmoil of saidin, saidar was a tranquil river flowing smoothly. He dipped into that river, and suddenly he was struggling against currents that tried to pull him further in, swirling whirlpools that tried to yank him under. The harder he struggled, the stronger the shifting fluxes grew. Only an instant since he had tried to control saidar, and already he felt as if he was drowning in it, being swept away into eternity. Nynaeve had warned him what he must do, but it seemed so foreign he had not truly believed until now. With an effort, he forced himself to stop fighting the currents, and as quickly as that the river was tranquil once more.
That was the first difficulty, to fight saidin while surrendering to saidar. The first difficulty, and the first key to what he had to do. The male and female halves of the True Source were alike and unalike, attracting and repelling, fighting against each other even as they worked together to drive the Wheel of Time. The taint on the male half had its opposite twin, too. The wound given him by Ishamael throbbed in time with the taint, while the other, from Pain's blade, beat counterpoint in time with the evil that had killed Aridhol. Awkwardly, forcing himself to work gently, to use the unfamiliar saidar's own immense strength to guide it as he wanted, he wove a conduit that touched the male half of the Source at one end and the distantly seen city at the other. The conduit had to be of untainted saidar. If this worked as he hoped, a tube of saidin might shatter when the taint began to leech out of it. He thought of it as a tube, at least, though it was not. The weave did not form at all as he expected it to. As if saidar had a mind of its own, the weave took on convolutions and spirals that made him think of a flower. There was nothing to see, no grand weaves sweeping down from the sky. The Source lay at the heart of creation. The Source was everywhere, even in Shadar Logoth. The conduit covered distance beyond his imagining, and had no length at all. It had to be a conduit, no matter its appearance. If it was not. . . .
Drawing on saidin, fighting it, mastering it in the deadly dance he knew so well, he forced it into the flowery weave of saidar. And it flowed through. Saidin and saidar, like and unlike, could not mix. The flow of saidin squeezed in on itself, away from the surrounding saidar, and the saidar pushed it from all sides, compressing it further, making it flow faster. Pure saidin, pure except for the taint, touched Shadar Logoth.
Rand frowned. Had he been wrong? Nothing was happening. Except . . . The wounds in his side seemed to be throbbing faster. Amid the firestorm and icy fury of saidin, it seemed that the foulness stirred and shifted. Just a slight movement that might have escaped notice had he not been straining to find anything. A slight stirring in the midst of chaos, but all in the same direction. "Go on," Nynaeve urged. Her eyes were bright, as though just having saidar flow in her was enough for joy.
He drew more deeply on both halves of the source, strengthening the conduit as he forced more of saidin into it, drew on the Power until nothing he did would bring more. He wanted to shout at how much was flowing into him, so much that it seemed he did not exist any more, only the One Power. He heard Nynaeve groan, but the murderous struggle with saidin consumed him.
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She could feel saidar sweeping through Nynaeve in torrents undreamed of. All the sisters of the Tower combined could have wielded only a fraction of that ocean.
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He was darkly beautiful, but the crystal sword in his hands shone with a faint light, and she could feel the incredible seething tumult that must be saidin. Even though Merise was controlling the flows, the vileness of saidin turned Elza's stomach. It was a midden heap rotting in a sweltering summer.
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He swam in surging seas of flame, scrambled across collapsing mountains of ice. The taint flowed like an ocean tide, trying to sweep him away. If he lost control for an instant, it would strip away everything that was him and carry that down the conduit, too. As bad, or maybe worse, despite the tide of filth flooding through that odd flower, the taint on the male half of the Source seemed no less. It was like oil floating on water in a coating so thin you would not notice till you touched the surface, yet covering the vastness of the male half, it was an ocean in itself. He had to hold on. He had to. But for how long? How long could he hold on?
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Beside him rose half a pale dome, its shattered top two hundred feet or more above the street, and above it, the sky held the light of midmorning. From the broken rim of the ruin down to the street, though, the air was dark with shadows, as if night were already falling. The city . . . quivered.
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She was stronger than Cyndane had been before the Aelfinn and the Eelfinn held her! That was impossible; no woman could be stronger. She must have an angreal, too. Shock lasted only the time it took her to slice the other woman's flows. She did not know how to reverse them. Maybe that would be enough advantage. She would see Lews Therin die! The taller woman jerked as her cut flows snapped back into her, but even as she shifted her feet with the blow, she channeled again. Snarling, Cyndane fought back, and the earth heaved beneath their feet. She would see him die! She would.
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The high hilltop was not very near to the access key, but even so the key shone so brightly in Moghedien's head that she hungered for just a sip at that immense flow of saidar. To hold so much, the thousandth part of so much, would be ecstasy. She hungered, but this wooded vantage was as near as she intended going. Only the threat of Moridin's hands caressing her cour'souvra had driven her to Travel here at all, and she had delayed coming, prayed that it would be over before she was forced to. Always she had worked in secrecy, but she had had to flee an attack as soon as she arrived, and in widely separated places in the forest spread out before her, lightnings and fires woven of saidar and others that must have been saidin flashed and flared beneath the mid-afternoon sun. Black smoke rose in plumes from burning clumps of trees, and thunderous explosions rolled through the air.
Who fought, who lived, who died were all matters of indifference to her. Except that it would be pleasant if Cyndane or Graendal perished. Or both. Moghedien would not, not thrashing about in the middle of a battle. And if that were not bad enough, there was what stood beyond the shining key, an immense flattened dome of black in the forest, as though night had turned to stone. She flinched as a ripple passed across the dark surface and the dome heaved perceptibly higher. Madness to go any closer to that, whatever it was. Moridin would not know what she did here, or did not do.
Retreating to the back of the hilltop, away from the shining key and the strange dome, she sat down to do what she had done so often in the past. Watch from the shadows, and survive.
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Inside his head, Rand was screaming. He was sure that he was screaming, that Lews Therin was screaming, but he could not hear either voice in the roar. The foul ocean of the taint was flooding through him, howling with its speed. Tidal waves of vileness crashed over him. Raging gales of filth ripped at him. The only reason he knew that he still held the Power was the taint. Saidin could be shifting, flaring, about to kill him, and he would never know. That putrid flood overwhelmed everything else, and he hung on by his fingernails to keep from being swept away on it. The taint was moving. That was all that counted, now. He had to hold on!
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[Osan'gar / Dashiva, killed by Elza]
A huge ball of coruscating fire surrounded the other hilltop, red and gold and blue. When it was gone, that other hill ended in a smooth surface fifty feet lower than the old crest.
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Suddenly something writhed up from that dark smooth surface, like a flame if flames were blacker than black, then another, another, until the dome boiled with Stygian fire. The roar of ten thousand thunders made her clap her hands over her ears and shriek, soundlessly in that crash, and the dome collapsed in on itself in the space of a heartbeat, to a pinpoint, to nothing. It was wind that howled then, rushing toward the vanished dome, dragging her along the stony ground no matter how desperately she clawed for purchase, tumbling her against trees, lifting her into the air. Strangely, she still felt no fear. She thought if she survived this, she would never feel fear again.
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Cadsuane let the thing that had been a ter'angreal drop to the ground. It could no longer be called a statue of a woman. The face was as wisely serene as ever, but the figure was broken in two and lumpy like bubbled wax where one side had melted, including the arm that had held the crystal sphere now lying in shattered fragments around the ruined thing. The male figure was whole, and already tucked away in her saddlebags. Callandor was secured, too. It was best not to leave temptation on the open hilltop. Where Shadar Logoth had been there was a now a huge opening in the forest, perfectly round and so wide that even with the sun low on the horizon she could see the far side sloping down into the earth.
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Saidin was so alien that anything could be hidden in that mad chaos.
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Night fell. On the hilltop, the wind blew dust across the fragments of what had once been a ter'angreal. Below lay the tomb of Shadar Logoth, open to give the world hope. And on distant Tremalking, the word began to spread that the Time of Illusions was at an end.
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