Towers of midnight wot-13

by Robert Jordan

  But next time, Olver would do the choosing. And then Mat had better be nice, or he would be left behind.

  "Your roll, Talmanes," Olver said.

  Talmanes mumbled something, reaching over and tossing the handful of dice without losing his place in the book. He was an all-right fellow, though a little stiff. Olver would not choose to have a man like him on a good night of drinking and hunting serving girls. As soon as Olver was old enough to go drinking and hunting serving girls. He figured he would be ready in another year or so.

  Olver moved the snakes and foxes, then picked up the dice for his next throw. He had figured it all out. There were a lot of Shaido out there, and he had no idea how to find the one who had killed his parents. But the Aelfinn, they could answer questions. He had heard Mat talking about it. So Olver would go get his answers, then track the man down. Easy as riding a horse. He just had to train with the Band beforehand, so he could fight well enough to see done what needed to be done.

  He threw his dice. Another full run. Olver smiled, moving his piece back toward the center of the board, half lost in thought and dreaming of the day when he would finally get his revenge, like was proper.

  He moved his piece across one more line, then froze.

  His piece was on the center spot.

  "I won!" he exclaimed.

  Talmanes looked up, pipe lowering in his lips. He cocked his head, staring at the board. "Burn me," he muttered. "We must have counted wrong, or…"

  "Counted wrong?"

  "I mean…" Talmanes looked stunned. "You can't win. The game can't be won. It just can't."

  That was nonsense. Why would Olver play if it could not be won? He smiled, looking over the board. The snakes and the foxes were within one toss of getting to his piece and making him lose. But this time, he'd gotten all the way to the outside ring and back. He had won.

  Good thing, too. He had started to think he would never manage it!

  Olver stood up, stretching his legs. Talmanes climbed off his chair, squatting down beside the game board and scratching his head, smoke idly curling from the end of his pipe.

  "I hope Mat will be back soon," Olver said.

  "I'm sure he will be," Talmanes said. "His task for Her Majesty shouldn't take much longer." That was the lie they had told Olver—that Mat, Thom and Noal had gone off on some secret errand for the Queen. Well, that was just another reason that Mat would owe him. Honestly, Mat could be so prim sometimes, acting as if Olver could not take care of himself.

  Olver shook his head, strolling over to the side of the tent, where a stack of Mat's papers sat waiting his return. There, peeking from between two of them, Olver noticed something interesting. A bit of red, like blood. He reached up, sliding a worn letter from between two of the sheets. It was sealed closed with a dollop of wax.

  Olver frowned, turning the small letter over. He had seen Mat carrying it about. Why had he not opened it? That was downright rude. Setalle had worked hard to explain propriety to Olver, and while most of what she said made no sense—he just nodded his head so she would let him snuggle up to her—he was sure you were supposed to open letters people sent you, then respond kindly.

  He turned the letter over again, then shrugged and broke the seal. Olver was Mat's personal messenger, all official and everything. It was no wonder Mat sometimes forgot things, but it was Olver's job to take care of him. Now that Lopin was gone, Mat would need extra taking care of. It was one of the reasons Olver stayed with the Band. He was not sure what Mat would do without him.

  He unfolded the letter and removed a small, stiff piece of paper inside. He frowned, trying to make out the words. He was getting pretty good with reading, mostly because of Setalle, but some words gave him trouble. He scratched his head. "Talmanes," he said. "You should probably read this."

  "What's that?" the man looked up from the game. "Here, now! Olver, what are you doing? That wasn't to be opened!" The man rose, striding over to snatch the paper from Olver's fingers.

  "But—" Olver began.

  "Lord Mat didn't open it," Talmanes said. "He knew that it would get us tied up in White Tower politics. He waited all those weeks! Now look what you've done. I wonder if we can stuff it back inside…"

  "Talmanes," Olver said insistently. "I think it's important."

  Talmanes hesitated. He seemed torn for a moment, then held the letter so that the light shone better on it. He read it quickly, with the air of a boy stealing food from a street vendor's cart and stuffing into his mouth before he could be discovered.

  Talmanes whispered a curse under his breath. He read the letter again, then cursed more loudly. He grabbed his sword from the side of the room and dashed out of the tent. He left the letter on the floor.

  Olver looked it over again, sounding out the words he had not understood the first time.

  Matrim,

  If you are opening this, then I am dead. I had planned to return and release you of your oath in a single day. There are many potential complications to my next task, however, and a large chance that I will not survive. I needed to know that I'd left someone behind who could see this work done.

  Fortunately, if there's one thing I believe I can rely upon, it is your curiosity. I suspect you lasted a few days before opening this letter, which is long enough for me to have returned if I were going to. Therefore, this task falls upon you.

  There is a Waygate in Caemlyn. It is guarded, barricaded, and thought secure. It is not.

  An enormous force of Shadowspawn moves through the Ways toward Caemlyn. I do not know when they left exactly, but there should be time to stop them. You must reach the Queen and persuade her to destroy the Waygate. It can be done; walling it up will not suffice. If you cannot destroy it, the Queen must bring all of her forces to bear upon guarding the location.

  If you fail in this, I fear Caemlyn will be lost before the month is out.

  Sincerely, Verin Mathwin

  Olver rubbed his chin. What was a Waygate? He thought he had heard Mat and Thom talking about them. He took the letter and walked out of the tent.

  Talmanes stood just outside the tent, looking eastward. Toward Caemlyn.

  A reddish haze hung on the horizon, a glow over the city. One larger than had been there on other nights.

  "Light preserve us," Talmanes whispered. "It's burning. The city is burning." He shook his head, as if clearing it, then raised a call. "To arms! Trollocs in Caemlyn! The city is at war! To arms, men! Burn me, we have to get into the city and salvage those dragons! If those fall into the Shadow's hands, we're all dead men!"

  Olver lowered the letter in his fingers, eyes wide. Trollocs in Caemlyn? It would be like the Shaido in Cairhien, only worse.

  He hurried into Mat's tent, stumbling over the rug, and threw himself to his knees beside his sleeping pallet. He hurriedly pulled at the stitchings on the side. The wool stuffed inside bulged out through the opening. He reached in, fishing about, and pulled free the large knife he had hidden there. It was wrapped in a leather sheath. He had taken it from one of the Band's quartermasters, Bergevin, when he had not been looking.

  After Cairhien, Olver had sworn to himself that he would never prove himself a coward again. He gripped the large knife in two hands, knuckles white, then dashed out of the tent.

  It was time to fight.

  Barriga stumbled as he crawled past the stump of a fallen tree. Blood from his brow dripped onto the ground, and the dark-speckled nettles seemed to soak it in, feeding upon his life. He raised a trembling hand to his brow. The bandage was soaked through.

  No time to stop. No time! He forced himself to his feet and hastily scrambled through the brown sawleaf. He tried not to look at the black spots on the plants. The Blight, he'd entered the Blight. But what else was he to do? The Trollocs rampaged to the south; the towers had all fallen. Kandor itself had fallen.

  Barriga tripped and fell to the earth. He groaned, rolling over, gasping. He was in a trough between two hills north of Heeth Tower. His once fine
clothing—coat and vest of rich velvet—was ragged and stained with blood. He stank of smoke, and when he closed his eyes, he saw the Trollocs. Washing over his caravan, slaughtering his servants and soldiers.

  They'd all fallen. Thum, Yang… both dead. Light, they were all dead.

  Barriga shuddered. How had he come to this? He was just a merchant. I should have listened to Rebek, he thought. Smoke rose from Heeth Tower behind. That was where his caravan had been going. How could this be happening?

  He needed to keep moving. East. He'd make for Arafel. The other Borderlands would couldn't have fallen, could they?

  He climbed up a hillside, hands pulling against short, coiling choke-vine. Like worms between his fingers. He was growing woozy. He reached the hilltop; the world was spinning. He fell there, blood seeping from his bandage.

  Something moved in front of him. He blinked. Those clouds above were a tempest. In front of him, three figures wearing black and brown approached with a sleek grace. Myrddraal!

  No. He blinked the tears and blood from his eyes. No, those weren't Myrddraal. They were men, wearing red veils over their faces. They walked at a crouch, scanning the terrain, short spears worn on their backs.

  "Light be praised," he whispered. "Aiel." He'd been in Andor when Rand al'Thor had come. Everyone knew the Aiel followed the Dragon Reborn. He had tamed them.

  I'm safe!

  One of the Aiel stepped up to Barriga. Why was the man's veil red? That was unusual. The Aiel's dark eyes were glassy and hard. The Aiel man undid his veil, and revealed a smiling face.

  The man's teeth had been filed to points. His smile broadened, and he slipped a knife from his belt.

  Barriga stuttered, looking at that horrific maw and the glee in this man's eyes as he reached in for the kill. These weren't Aiel. They were something else.

  Something terrible.

  Rand al'Thor, the Dragon Reborn, sat quietly in his dream. He breathed in the cool, chill air. White clouds floated gently around him, kissing his skin with their condensation.

  His throne for the night was a flat boulder on a mountain slope; he looked down through the clouds at a narrow valley. This wasn't the real location. It wasn't even the World of Dreams, that place where he'd fought Forsaken, the place he'd been told was so dangerous.

  No, this was one of his own ordinary dreams. He controlled them now. They were a place he could find peace to think, protected by wards while his body slept beside Min in their new camp, surrounded by Borderlanders, set up on the Field of Merrilor. Egwene was there, with armies marshaled. He was ready for that. He'd counted on it.

  On the morrow, they'd hear his demands. Not what he would demand to keep him from breaking the seals—he was going to do that, regardless of what Egwene said. No, these would be the demands he made on the monarchs of the world in exchange for going to Shayol Ghul to face the Dark One.

  He wasn't certain what he'd do if they refused him. They'd find it very difficult to do so. Sometimes, it could be useful to have a reputation for being irrational.

  He breathed in deeply, peaceful. Here, in his dreams, the hills grew green. As he remembered them. In that nameless valley below, sheltered in the Mountains of Mist, he'd begun a journey. Not his first, and not his last, but perhaps the most important. One of the most painful, for certain.

  "And now I come back," he whispered. "I've changed again. A man is always changing."

  He felt a unity in returning here, to the place where he'd first confronted the killer inside him. The place where he'd first tried to flee from those whom he should have kept near. He closed his eyes, enjoying tranquility. Calmness. Harmony.

  In the distance, he heard screams of pain.

  Rand opened his eyes. What had that been? He stood up, spinning. This place was created of his own mind, protected and safe. It couldn't— The scream came again. Distant. He frowned and raised a hand. The scene around him vanished, puffing away into mist. He stood in blackness.

  There, he thought. He was in a long corridor of dark wood paneling. He walked down it, boots thumping. That screaming. It shook his peace. Someone was in pain. They needed him.

  Rand began to run. He reached a doorway at the end of the hall. The door's russet wood was knobbed and ridged, like the thick roots of an ancient tree. Rand seized the handle—just another root—and wrenched the door open.

  The vast room beyond was pure black, lightless, like a cavern deep beneath the ground. The room seemed to suck in the light and extinguish it. The screaming voice was inside. It was weak, as if it were being smothered by the darkness.

  Rand entered. The darkness swallowed him. It seemed to pull the life out of him, like a hundred leeches sucking blood from his veins. He pressed onward. He couldn't distinguish the direction of the cries, so he moved along the walls; they felt like bone, smooth but occasionally cracked.

  The room was round. As if he stood inside the bowl of an enormous skull.

  There! A faint light ahead, a single candle on the ground, illuminating a floor of black marble. Rand hurried toward it. Yes, there was a figure there. Huddled against the bone-white wall. It was a woman with silvery hair, wearing a thin white shift.

  She was weeping now, her figure shaking and trembling. Rand knelt beside her, the candle flickering from his motion. How had this woman gotten into his dream? Was she someone real, or was this a creation of his mind? He laid a hand on her shoulder.

  She glanced toward him, eyes red, face a mask of pain, tears dripping from her chin. "Please," she pled. "Please. He has me."

  "Who are you?"

  "You know me," she whispered, taking his hand, clinging to it. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. He has me. He flays my soul anew each eve. Oh, please! Let it stop." The tears flowed more freely.

  "I don't know you," Rand said. "I…"

  Those eyes. Those beautiful, terrible eyes. Rand gasped, releasing her hand. The face was different. But he did know that soul. "Mierin? You're dead. I saw you die!"

  She shook her head. "I wish I were dead. I wish it. Please! He grinds my bones and snaps them like twigs, then leaves me to die before Healing me just enough to keep me alive. He—" She cut off, jerking.

  "What?"

  Her eyes opened wide and she spun toward the wall. "No!" she screamed. "He comes! The Shadow in every man's mind, the murderer of truth. No!" She spun, reaching for Rand, but something towed her backward. The wall broke away, and she tumbled into the darkness.

  Rand jumped forward, reaching for her, but he was too late. He caught a glimpse of her before she vanished into the blackness below.

  Rand froze, staring into that pit. He sought calmness, but he could not find it. Instead, he felt hatred, concern, and—like a seething viper within him—desire. That had been Mierin Eronaile, a woman he had once called the Lady Selene.

  A woman most people knew by the name she'd taken upon herself. Lanfear.

  A cruel, dry wind blew across Lan's face as he looked down at a corrupt landscape. Tarwin's Gap was a wide pass, rocky, speckled with Blighted knifegrass. This had once been part of Malkier. He was home again. For the last time.

  Masses of Trollocs clustered on the other side of the Gap. Thousands.

  Tens of thousands. Probably hundreds of thousands. Easily ten times the number of men Lan had gathered during his march across the Borderlands. Normally, men held at their side of the Gap, but Lan could not do that.

  He had come to attack, to ride for Malkier. Andere rode up beside him on his left, young Kaisel of Kandor on his right. He could feel something, distant, that had given him strength recently. The bond had changed. The emotions had changed.

  He could still feel Nynaeve, so wonderful, caring, and passionate in the back of his mind. He should have been pained to know that now she would suffer when he died, instead of another. However, that closeness to her—a final closeness—brought him strength.

  The hot wind seemed too dry; it smelled of dust and dirt, and drew the moisture from his eyes, forcing him to blink.
<
br />   "It is fitting," Kaisel said.

  "What?" Lan asked.

  "That we should strike here."

  "Yes," Lan said.

  "Perhaps," Kaisel said. "But it is bold. It shows the Shadow that we will not be beaten down, that we will not cower. This is your land, Lord Mandragoran."

  My land, he thought. Yes, it was. He nudged Mandarb forward.

  "I am al'Lan Mandragoran," Lan bellowed. "Lord of the Seven Towers, Defender of the Wall of First Fires, Bearer of the Sword of the Thousand Lakes! I was once named Aan'allein, but I reject that title, for I am alone no more. Fear me, Shadow! Fear me and know. I have returned for what is mine. I may be a king without a land. But I am still a king!"

  He roared, raising his sword. A cheer rose from behind him. He sent a final, powerful sensation of love to Nynaeve as he kicked Mandarb into a gallop.

  His army charged behind him, each man mounted—a charge of Kandori, Arafellin, Shienarans, and Saldaeans. But most of all Malkieri. Lan wouldn't be surprised if he'd drawn every living man from his former kingdom who could still hold a weapon.

  They rode, cheering, brandishing swords and leveling lances. Their hooves were thunder, their voices a crash of waves, their pride stronger than the blazing sun. They were twelve thousand strong. And they charged a force of at least one hundred and fifty thousand.

  This day will be remembered in honor, Lan thought, galloping forward. The Last Charge of the Golden Crane. The fall of the Malkieri.

  The end had come. They would meet it with swords raised.

  Lo, it shall come upon the world that the prison of the Greatest One shall grow weak, like the limbs of those who crafted it. Once again, His glorious cloak shall smother the Pattern of all things, and the Great Lord shall stretch forth His hand to claim what is His. The rebellious nations shall be laid barren, their children caused to weep. There shall be none but Him, and those who have turned their eyes to His majesty.