Knife Of Dreams
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The sweetness of victory and the bitterness of defeat are alike a knife of dreams.
—From Fog and Steel by Madoc Comadrin
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A man who fought in a rage, died in a rage.
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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 broken mountain named Dragonmount. 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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Several of those ancient Foretellings, from the earliest days of the Tower, said the dead appearing was the first sign, a thinning of reality as the Dark One gathered himself.
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When the Wolf King carries the hammer, thus are the final days known. When the fox marries the raven, and the trumpets of battle are blown.
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Pretend something too long, and it could become truth.
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Opening his mouth to say that he did not know, he caught sight through the trees of three tall hills in a row, perhaps another mile on. The middle hill had a cleft top, like a wedge cut cleanly out, while the hill on the left had two. And he knew. There could hardly be three hills exactly like that anywhere else.
Those hills had been called The Dancers when this place had been Londaren Cor, the capital city of Eharon. The road behind them had been paved then and ran through the heart of the city, which had sprawled for miles. People had said that the artistry in stone that the Ogier had practiced in Tar Valon, they had perfected in Londaren Cor. Of course, the people of every Ogier-built city had claimed their own outdid Tar Valon, confirming Tar Valon as the touchstone. He had a number of memories of the city—dancing at a ball in the Palace of the Moon, carousing in soldiers' taverns where veiled dancers writhed, watching the Procession of Flutes during the Blessing of the Swords—but oddly, he had another memory of those hills, from near enough five hundred years after the Trollocs left no stone standing in Londaren Cor and Eharon died in blood and fire. Why it had been necessary for Nerevan and Esandara to invade Shiota, as the land was then, he did not know. Those old memories were fragments however long a time any one covered, and full of gaps. He had no idea why those hills had been called The Dancers, either, or what the Blessing of the Swords was. But he remembered being an Esandaran L-rd in a battle fought among these ruins, and he remembered having those hills in view when he took an arrow through his throat. He must have fallen no more than half a mile from the very spot where he sat Pips, drowning in his own blood.
Light, I hate to remember dying, he thought, and the thought turned to a coal burning in his brain. A coal that burned hotter and hotter. He remembered those men's deaths, not just one but dozens of them. He—remembered—dying.
"Toy, are you ill?" Tuon brought the mare close and peered up into his face. Concern filled her big eyes. "You've gone pale as the moon."
"I'm right as spring water," he muttered. She was close enough for him to kiss if he bent his head, but he did not move. He could not. He was thinking so furiously he had nothing left for motion. Somehow only the Light knew, the Eelfinn had gathered the memories they had planted in his head, but how could they harvest memory from a corpse? A corpse in the world of men, at that. He was certain they never came to this side of that twisted doorframe ter'angreal for longer than minutes at a time. A way occurred to him, one he did not like, not a scrap. Maybe they created some sort of link to any human who visited them, a link that allowed them to copy all of a man's memories after that right up to the moment he died. In some of those memories from other men he was white-haired, in some only a few years older than he really was, and everything in between, but there were none of childhood or growing up. What were the odds of that, if they had just stuffed him with random bits and pieces, likely things they considered rubbish or had done with? What did they do with memories, anyway? They had to have some reason for gathering them beyond giving them away again. No, he was just trying to avoid where this led. Burn him, the bloody foxes were inside his head right then! They had to be. It was the only explanation that made sense.
"Well, you look as if you're about to vomit," Tuon said, backing the razor away with a grimace. "Who in the show would have herbs? I have some knowledge there."
"I'm all right, I tell you." In truth, he did want to sick up. Having those foxes in his head was a thousand times worse than the dice however hard the dice rattled. Could the Eelfinn see through his eyes? Light, what was he going to do? He doubted any Aes Sedai could Heal him of this, not that he would trust them to, not when it meant leaving off the foxhead. There was nothing to be done. He would just have to live with it. He groaned at the thought.
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Noal remained too, despite any number of telling looks, rambling on about the Seven Towers in dead Malkier, which apparently had overtopped anything in Cairhien, and Shol Arbela, the City of Ten Thousand Bells, in Arafel, and all manner of Borderland wonders, strange spires made of crystal harder than steel and a metal bowl a hundred paces across set into a hillside and the like.
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Running a green-gloved hand across the top of her head, she sighed. "Toy, Toy," she murmured, resettling the cowl of her cloak. "How many children's tales do you believe? Do you believe that if you sleep on Old Hob's Hill under a full moon, the snakes will give you true answers to three questions, or that foxes steal people's skins and take the nourishment from food so you can starve to death while eating your fill?"
Putting on a smile took effort. "I don't think I ever heard either one of those." Making his voice amused required effort, too. What were the odds of her mentioning snakes giving true answers, which the Aelfinn did after a fashion, in the same breath with foxes stealing skins? He was pretty sure that the Eelfinn did, and made leather from it. But it was Old Hob that nearly made him flinch. The other was likely just ta'veren twisting at the world. She certainly knew nothing about him and the snakes or the foxes. In Shandalle, the land where Artur Hawkwing had been born, though, Old Hob, Caisen Hob, had been another name for the Dark One. The Aelfinn and the Eelfinn both surely deserved to be connected to the Dark One, yet that was hardly anything he wanted to think on when he had his own connection to the bloody foxes. And to the snakes, too?
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"The Tower of Ghenjei," Olver piped up, and all three adults turned their heads to stare at him. "Birgitte told me," he said defensively. "The Tower of Ghenjei is the way to the lands of the Aelfinn and the Eelfinn." He made the gesture that began a game of Snakes and Foxes, a triangle drawn in the air and then a wavy line through it. "She knows even more stories than you, Master Charin."
"That wouldn't be Birgitte Silverbow, would it?" Noal said wryly.
The boy gave him a level look. "I'm not an infant, Master Charin. But she is very good with a bow, so maybe she is. Birgitte born again, I mean."
"I don't think there's any chance of that," Mat said. "I've talked with her, too, you know, and the last thing she wants is to be any kind of hero." He kept his promises, and Birgitte's secrets were safe with him. "In any case, knowing about this tower doesn't help much unless she told you where it is." Olver shook his head sadly, and Mat bent to ruffle his hair. "Not your fault, boy. Without you, we wouldn't even know it exists." That did not seem to help much. Olver stared at the red cloth game board dejectedly.
"The Tower of Ghenjei," Noal said, sitting up cross-legged and tugging his coat straight. "Not many know that tale anymore. Jain always said he'd go looking for it one day. Somewhere along the Shadow Coast, he said."
"That's still a lot of ground to search." Mat fitted the lid on one of the boxes. "It could take years." Years they did not have if Tuon was right, and he was sure that she was.
Thom shook his head. "She says you know, Mat. 'Mat knows the way to find me.' I doubt very much she'd have written that on a whim."
"Well, I can't help what she says, now can I? I never heard of any Tower of Ghenjei until tonight."
"A pity," Noal sighed. "I'd like to have seen it, something Jain bloody Farstrider never did. You might as well give over," he added when Thom opened his mouth. "He wouldn't forget seeing it, and even if he never heard the name, he'd have to think of it when he heard of a strange tower that lets people into other lands. The thing gleams like burnished steel, I'm told, two hundred feet high and forty thick, and there's not an opening to be found in it. Who could forget seeing that?"
Mat went very still. His black scarf felt too tight against his hanging scar. The scar itself suddenly felt fresh and hot. It was hard for him to draw breath.
"If there's no opening, how do we get in?" Thom wanted to know.
Noal shrugged, but Olver spoke up once more. "Birgitte says you make the sign on the side of it anywhere with a bronze knife." He made the sign that started the game. "She says it has to be a bronze knife. Make the sign, and a door opens."
"What else did she tell you about—" Thom began, then cut off with a frown. "What ails you, Mat? You look about to sick up."
What ailed him was his memory, and not the other men's memories for once. Those had been stuffed into him to fill holes in his own memories, which they did and more, or so it seemed. He certainly remembered many more days than he had lived. But whole stretches of his own life were lost to him, and others were like moth-riddled blankets or shadowy and dim. He had only spotty memories of fleeing Shadar Logoth, and very vague recollections of escaping on Domon's rivership, but one thing seen on that voyage stood out. A tower shining like burnished steel. Sick up? His stomach wanted to empty itself.
"I think I know where that tower is, Thom. Rather, Domon knows. But I can't go with you. The Eelfinn will know I'm coming, maybe the Aelfinn, too. Burn me, they might already know about this letter, because I read it. They might know every word we've said. You can't trust them. They'll take advantage if they can, and if they know you're coming, they'll be planning to do just that. They'll skin you and make harnesses for themselves from your hide." His memories of them were all his own, but they were more than enough to support the judgment.
They stared at him as if he were mad, even Olver. There was nothing for it but to tell them about his encounters with the Aelfinn and the Eelfinn. As much as was needful, at least. Not about his answers from the Aelfinn, certainly, or his two gifts from the Eelfinn. But the other men's memories were necessary to explain what he had reasoned out about the Eelfinn and Aelfinn having links to him, now. And the pale leather harnesses the Eelfinn wore; those seemed important. And how they had tried to kill him. That was very important. He had said he wanted to leave and failed to say alive, so they took him outside and hanged him. He even removed the scarf to show his scar for extra weight, and he seldom let anybody see that. The three of them listened in silence, Thom and Noal intently, Olver's mouth slowly dropping open in wonder. The rain beating on the tent roof was the only sound aside from his voice.
"That all has to stay inside this tent," he finished. "Aes Sedai have enough reasons already to want to put their hands on me. If they find out about those memories, I'll never be free of them." Would he ever be entirely free of them? He was beginning to think not, yet there was no reason to give them fresh reasons to meddle in his life.
"Are you any relation to Jain?" Noal raised his hands in a placating gesture. "Peace, man. I believe you. It's just, that tops anything I ever did. Anything Jain ever did, too. Would you mind if I made the third? I can be handy in tight spots, you know."
"Burn me, did everything I said pass in one ear and out the other? They'll know I'm coming. They may already know everything!"
"And it doesn't matter," Thom put in, "not to me. I'll go by myself, if necessary. But if I read this correctly," he began folding the letter up, almost tenderly, "the only hope of success is if you are one of the three." He sat there on the cot, silent now, looking Mat in the eye.
Mat wanted to look away, and could not. Bloody Aes Sedai! The woman almost certainly was dead, and yet she still tried coercing him into being a hero. Well, heroes got patted on the head and pushed out of the way until the next time a hero was needed, if they survived being a hero in the first place. Very often heroes did not. He had never really trusted Moiraine, or liked her either. Only fools trusted Aes Sedai. But then, if not for her, he would be back in the Two Rivers mucking out the barn and tending his da's cows. Or he would be dead. And there old Thom sat, saying nothing, just staring at him. That was the rub. He liked Thom. Oh, blood and bloody ashes.
"Burn me for a fool," he muttered. "I'll go."
Thunder crashed deafeningly right atop a flash of lightning so bright it shone through the tent canvas. When the rumbling booms faded, there was dead silence in his head. The last set of dice had stopped. He could have wept.
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I need them, and they're off for a day at the Ansaline Gardens!
Abruptly another image was floating in his head, a man's face, and his breath caught. For the first time, it came without any dizziness. For the first time, he could see it clearly in the moments before it vanished. A blue-eyed man with a square chin, perhaps a few years older than himself. Or rather, he saw it clearly for the first time in a long while. It was the face of the stranger who had saved his life in Shadar Logoth when he fought Sammael. Worse. . . .
He was aware of me, Lews Therin said. He sounded sane for a change. Sometimes he did, but the madness always returned eventually. How can a face appearing in my mind be aware of me?
If you don't know, how do you expect me to? Rand thought. But I was aware of him, as well. It had been a strange sensation, as if he were . . . touching . . . the other man somehow. Only not physically. A residue hung on. It seemed he only had to move a hair's breadth, in any direction, to touch him again. I think he saw my face, too.
Talking to a voice in his head no longer seemed peculiar. In truth, it had not for quite a long time. And now . . . ? Now, he could see Mat and Perrin by thinking of them or hearing their names, and he had this other face coming to him unbidden. More than a face, apparently. What was holding conversations inside his own skull alongside that? But the man had been aware, and Rand of him.
When our streams of balefire touched in Shadar Logoth, it must have created some sort of link between us. I can't think of any other explanation. That was the only time we ever met. He was using their so-called True Power. It had to be that. I felt nothing, saw nothing except his stream of balefire. Having bits of knowledge seem his when he knew they came from Lews Therin no longer seemed odd, either. He could remember the Ansaline Gardens, destroyed in the War of the Shadow, as well as he did his father's farm. Knowledge drifted the other way, too. Lews Therin sometimes spoke of Emond's Field as if he had grown up there. Does that make any sense to you?
Oh, Light, why do I have this voice in my head? Lews Therin moaned. Why can I not die? Oh, Ilyena, my precious Ilyena, I want to join you. He trailed off into weeping. He often did when he spoke of the wife he had murdered in his madness.
It did not matter. Rand suppressed the sound of the man crying, pushed it down to a faint noise on the edge of hearing. He was certain that he was right. But who was the fellow? A Darkfriend, for sure, but not one of the Forsaken. Lews Therin knew their faces as well as he knew his own, and now Rand did, too. A sudden thought made him grimace. How aware of him was the other man? Ta'veren could be found by their effect on the Pattern, though only the Forsaken knew how. Lews Therin certainly had never mentioned knowing—their "conversations" were always brief, and the man seldom gave information willingly—and nothing had drifted across from him on the subject. At least, Lanfear and Ishamael had known how, but no one had found him that way since they had died. Could this link be used in the same fashion? They could all be in danger. More danger than usual, as if the usual were not enough.
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Thirteen and looking for him? He had stayed clear of the Borderlanders because Elayne did not welcome his help—interference, she called it, and he had begun to see that she had the right of it; the Lion Throne was hers to gain, not his to give—but perhaps it was as well that he had.
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"I went through that doorframe ter'angreal in Tear, Cadsuane. You know about that?" Golden ornaments bobbled as she nodded impatiently. "One of my questions for the Aelfinn was 'How can I win the Last Battle?' "
"A dangerous question to pose," she said quietly, "touching on the Shadow as it does. Supposedly, the results can be quite unpleasant. What was the answer?"
" 'The north and the east must be as one. The west and the south must be as one. The two must be as one.' " He blew a smoke ring, put another in the middle of it as it expanded. That was not the whole of it. He had asked how to win and survive. The last part of his answer had been 'To live, you must die.' Not something he was going to bring up in front of Min anytime soon. In front of anyone except Alivia, for that matter. Now he just had to figure out how to live by dying. "At first, I thought it meant I had to conquer everywhere, but that wasn't what they said. What if it means the Seanchan hold the west and south, as you could say they already do, and there's an alliance to fight the Last Battle, the Seanchan with everybody else?"
"It's possible," she allowed. "But if you're going to make this . . . truce . . . why are you moving what seems to be a considerable army to Arad Doman and reinforcing what is already in Illian?"
"Because Tarmon Gai'don is coming, Cadsuane, and I can't fight the Shadow and the Seanchan at the same time. I'll have a truce, or I'll crush them whatever the cost. The Prophecies say I have to bind the nine moons to me. I only understood what that meant a few days ago. As soon as Bashere returns, I'll know when and where I'm to meet the Daughter of the Nine Moons. The only question now is how do I bind her, and she'll have to answer that."
He spoke matter-of-factly, now and then blowing a smoke ring for punctuation. Reactions varied. Loial just wrote very fast, trying to capture every word, while Harilin and Enaila went on with their game. If the spears had to be danced, they were ready. Alivia nodded fiercely, doubtless hoping it would come to crushing those who had kept her wearing an a'dam for five hundred years. Logain had found another winecup and filled it with the last of what was in the pitcher, but he merely held the cup rather than drinking, his expression unreadable. Now it was Rand whom Verin studied intently. But then, she had always been curious about him. But why in the Light would Min feel bone-deep sadness? And Cadsuane. . . .
"Stone cracks from a hard enough blow," she said, her face an Aes Sedai mask of calm. "Steel shatters. The oak fights the wind and breaks. The willow bends where it must and survives."
"A willow won't win Tarmon Gai'don," he told her.
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Drawing a deep breath, Rand gripped the casement on either side of the window against the dizziness that would come—the Dragons' golden-maned heads on the backs of his hands seemed to writhe—and reached out to seize the Power. His head spun as saidin flooded into him, icy flames and crumbling mountains, a chaos trying to pull him under. But blessedly clean. He still felt the wonder of that. His head spun and his stomach wanted to empty itself, the odd illness that should have gone with the taint, yet that was not why he clung to the casement even harder. The One Power filled him—but in that moment of dizziness, Lews Therin had seized it away from him. Numb with horror, he stared at the Trollocs and Myrddraal racing toward the outbuildings. With the Power in him, he could make out the pins fastened to massive mailed shoulders. The silver whirlwind of the Ahf'frait band and the blood-red trident of the Ko'bal. The forked lightning of the Ghraem'lan and the hooked axe of the Al'ghol. The iron fist of the Dhai'mon and the red, bloodstained fist of the Kno'mon. And there were skulls. The horned skull of the Dha'vol and the piled human skulls of the Ghar'ghael and the skull cloven by a scythe-curved sword of the Dhjin'nen and the dagger-pierced skull of the Bhan'sheen. Trollocs liked skulls, if they could be said to like anything. It seemed the twelve principal bands might all be involved, and some of the lesser. He saw pins he did not recognize. What seemed a staring eye, a dagger-pierced hand, a man-shape wrapped in flames. They neared the outbuildings, where swords were beginning to thrust through the thatch as the Saldaeans tried to cut ways onto the roofs. Thatch was tough. They would need to work desperately hard. Odd, the thoughts that came when a madman who wanted to die might well kill you in the next heartbeat.
Flows of Air pushed the casement in front of him out in a shower of shattered glass and fragmented wood. My hands, Lews Therin panted. Why can't I move my hands? I need to raise my hands! Earth, Air and Fire went into a weave Rand did not know, six of them at once. Except that as soon as he saw the spinning, he did know. Blossom of Fire. Six vertical red shafts appeared among the Trollocs, ten feet tall and thinner than Rand's forearm. The nearest Trollocs would be hearing their shrill whine, but unless memories had been passed down from the War of the Shadow, they would not realize they were hearing death. Lews Therin spun the last thread of Air, and fire blossomed. With a roar that shook the manor house, each red shaft expanded in a heartbeat to a disc of flame thirty feet across. Horned heads and snouted heads flew into the air, and pinwheeling arms, booted legs and legs that ended in paws or hooves. Trollocs a hundred paces and more away from the explosions went down, and only some got up again. Even as he was spinning those webs, Lews Therin spun six others, Spirit touched with Fire, the weave for a gateway, but then he added touches of Earth, so, and so. The familiar silvery-blue vertical streaks appeared, spaced out not far from the manor house, ground Rand knew well, rotating into—not openings, but the misty back of a gateway, four paces by four. Rather than remaining open, they rotated shut again, opening and shutting continuously. And rather than remaining fixed, they sped toward the Trollocs. Gateways and yet not. Deathgates. As soon as the Deathgates began to move, Lews Therin knotted the webs, a loose knotting that would hold only for minutes before allowing the whole weave to dissipate, and began spinning again. More Deathgates, more Blossoms of Fire, rattling the walls of the house, blowing Trollocs apart, flinging them down. The first of the speeding Deathgates struck the Trollocs and carved through them. It was not just the slicing edge of the constantly opening and closing gateways. Where a Deathgate passed, there simply were no Trollocs remaining. My hands! the madman howled. My hands!
Slowly Rand raised his hands, stuck them through the opening. Immediately Lews Therin wove Fire and Earth in intricate combination, and red filaments flashed from Rand's fingertips, ten from each, fanning out. Arrows of Fire, this. He knew. As soon as those vanished, more appeared, so fast that they seemed to flicker rather than actually go away. Trollocs struck by the filaments jerked as flesh and blood, heated in a flash beyond boiling, erupted, jerked and fell, holes blown entirely through their thick bodies. Often, two or three behind fell victim as well before a filament died. He spread his fingers and moved his hands slowly from side to side, spreading death across the whole line. Blossoms of Fire appeared that were not his weaving, and Deathgates, slightly smaller than Lews Therin's, and Arrows of Fire that must have been Logain's. The other Asha'man were paying attention, but few would be where they could see those last two webs spun.
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You should have killed them, Lews Therin wept. Too late, now. Too late.
The Source is clean now, fool, Rand thought.
Yes, Lews Therin replied. But are they? Am I?
Rand had wondered that about himself. Half of the double wound in his side had come from Ishamael, the other half from Padan Fain's dagger that carried the taint of Shadar Logoth. They often throbbed, and when they did, they seemed alive.
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"I've never seen anything like what's outside," Bashere said quietly as he walked. "A big raid out of the Blight is a thousand Trollocs. Most are only a few hundred. Ah, Kirkun, you never did guard your left the way you should. Even then, you need to outnumber them three or four times to be assured you won't go into their cookpots. Out there. . . . I think I saw a foreshadowing of Tarmon Gai'don. A small part of Tarmon Gai'don. Let's hope it really is the Last Battle. If we live through that, I don't think we'll ever want to see another. We will, though. There's always another battle. I suppose that will be the case until the whole world turns Tinker."
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The Tower had failed Malkier in need, and the Malkieri had turned their backs on the Tower.
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"My name is Nynaeve ti al'Meara Mandragoran. The message I want sent is this. My husband rides from World's End toward Tarwin's Gap, toward Tarmon Gai'don. Will he ride alone?"
He trembled. He did not know whether he was laughing or crying. Perhaps both. She was his wife? "I will send your message, my Lady, but it has nothing to do with me. I am a merchant. Malkier is dead. Dead, I tell you."
The heat in her eyes seemed to intensify, and she gripped her long, thick braid with one hand. "Lan told me once that Malkier lives so long as one man wears the hadori in pledge that he will fight the Shadow, so long as one woman wears the ki'sain in pledge that she will send her sons to fight the Shadow. I wear the ki'sain, Master Aldragoran. My husband wears the hadori. So do you. Will Lan Mandragoran ride to the Last Battle alone?"
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His destination had been in sight since long before he entered the city, a mass of stone like a barren, sheer-sided hill that stretched from the River Erinin into the city's heart, covering at least eight or nine marches, a good square mile or more, and dominating the city's sky. The Stone of Tear was mankind's oldest stronghold, the oldest structure in the world, made with the One Power in the last days of the Breaking itself. One solid piece of stone it was, without a single join, though better than three thousand years of rain and wind had weathered the surface to roughness. The first battlements stood a hundred paces above the ground, though there were arrowslits aplenty lower, and stone spouts for showering attackers with boiling oil or molten lead. No besieger could stop the Stone from being supplied through its own wall-shielded docks, and it contained forges and manufactories to replace or mend every sort of weapon should its armories fall short. Its highest tower, rearing over the very center of the Stone, held the banner of Tear, half red, half gold, with a slanting line of three silver crescents, and so large that it could be made out plainly as it curled in a strong breeze. It had to be strong to move that flag. Lower towers supported smaller versions, but here they alternated with another rippling banner, the ancient symbol of Aes Sedai black-and-white on a field of red. The Banner of Light. The Dragon Banner, some called it, as if there were not another that bore that name.
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Mountains of flame collapsing in fiery avalanches tried to scour him away. Waves that made ice seem warm tried to crush him in raging seas. He gloried in it, suddenly so alive it seemed he had been sleepwalking before. He could hear the breath of everyone in the room, could see that great banner atop the Stone so clearly he almost thought he could make out the weave of the fabric. The double wound in his side throbbed as if trying to rip itself out of his body, but with the Power filling him, he could ignore that pain. He thought he could have ignored a sword thrust.
Yet with saidin came the inevitable violent nausea, the almost overwhelming desire to double over and empty himself of every meal he had ever eaten. His knees trembled with it. He fought that as hard as he fought the Power, and saidin had to be fought ever and always. A man forced saidin to his will, or it destroyed him. The face of the man from Shadar Logoth floated in his head for a moment. He looked furious. And near to sicking up. Without any doubt he was aware of Rand in that moment, and Rand of him. Move a hair in any direction, and they would touch. No more than a hair.
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"The Great Hand on Tremalking melted. The hill where it stood reportedly is now a deep hollow. It seems the Amayar had prophecies that spoke of the Hand, and when it was destroyed, they believed this signaled the end of time, what they called the end of Illusion. They believed it was time for them to leave this . . . this illusion"—she laughed the word bitterly—"we call the world."
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[Nicola and Areina]
The two women had made her seem a combination of every legendary sister in the histories, along with Birgitte Silverbow and Amaresu herself, carrying the Sword of the Sun into battle.
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Ta'veren are people the Pattern shapes itself around, people who were spun out by the Pattern itself to maintain the proper course of the weaving, perhaps to correct flaws that were creeping in.
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Abruptly a leg-thick bar of what appeared to be liquid white fire shot out from one of the women beside the wagon. It quite literally carved a gap fifteen paces wide in the lines. For a heartbeat, shimmering flecks floated in the air, the shapes of men and horses struck, and then were consumed. The bar suddenly jerked up into the air, higher and higher, then winked out leaving dim purple lines across Birgitte's vision. Balefire, burning men out of the Pattern so that they were dead before it struck them.
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Continuity provides stability, and stability brings prosperity.
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