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Rands rage was gone, replaced by loathing. Hed wanted to make himself hard. Hed needed to be hard. But this was where hardness had brought him. Lews Therin had been able to claim madness for his atrocities. Rand had nothing, no place to hide, no refuge from himself.
Ebou Dar. It was a busy, bulging city, split in half by its large river. Rand walked the west side, through squares edged with beautiful statues and streets lined with row upon row of white houses, many several stories high. He often passed men fighting with fists or knives, and nobody making any effort to break them apart. Even the women wore knives at their necks in jeweled scabbards, hanging above low-cut dresses worn over colorful petticoats.
He ignored them all. Instead, he thought on the Tinkers. Tinkers were safe here, but Rands own father wasnt safe in his empire. Rands friends feared him; he had seen it in Nynaeves eyes.
The people here werent afraid. Seanchan officers moved through the crowds, wearing those insectlike helms. The people made way for them, but out of respect. When Rand heard commoners speaking, they were glad for the stability. They actually praised the Seanchan for conquering them!
Rand crossed a short, canal-spanning bridge. Small boats idled down the waterway, boatmen calling greetings to one another. There didnt seem to be any sense of order to the city layout; where he expected houses, he found shops, and instead of similar shops clustering together—as was common in most cities—here they were scattered, haphazard. On the other side of the bridge, he passed a tall, white mansion, then a tavern right next to it.
A man in a colorful silk vest jostled Rand on the street, then offered a lengthy, overly polite apology. Rand hurried on, lest the man want to start a duel.
This did not seem like an oppressed people. There was no undercurrent of resentment. The Seanchan had a much better hold on Ebou Dar than Rand had on Bandar Eban, and the people here were happy—even prosperous! Of course, Altara—as a kingdom—had never been very strong. Rand knew from his tutors that the Crowns authority hadnt extended much beyond the borders of the city. It was much the same for the other places the Seanchan had conquered. Tarabon, Amadicia, Almoth Plain. Some were more stable than Altara, others less, but all would welcome security.
Rand stopped and leaned against another white building, this one a farriers shop. He raised his stump to his head, trying to clear his mind.
He didnt want to confront what he had nearly done back in the Stone. He didnt want to confront what he bad done: weaving Air and shoving Tam to the ground, threatening him; raving.
Rand couldnt focus on that. He had not come to Ebou Dar to gawk like a farmboy. He had come to destroy his enemies! They defied him; they needed to be eliminated. For the good of all nations.
But if he drew that much power through the access key, what damage would he cause? How many lives would he end? And would he not simply light a beacon for the Forsaken, as he had in cleansing saidirii
Let them come. He straightened up. He could defeat them.
It was time to attack. Time to burn the Seanchan off the land. He set aside his staff and took the key off its strap at his belt, but could not force himself to unwrap it from its linen shroud. He stared at it in his hand for a time, then continued to walk, idly leaving the staff behind. It felt so odd to be just another foreigner. The Dragon Reborn walked among this people, and they did not know him. To them, Rand alThor was far off. The Last Battle was secondary to whether or not they could get their chickens to market, or whether their son would recover from his cough, or whether they would be able to afford that new silk vest they had been wanting.
They would not know Rand until he destroyed them.
It will be a mercy, Lews Therin whispered. Death is always a mercy. The madman didnt sound as crazy as he once had. In fact, his voice had started to sound an awful lot like Rands own voice.
Rand stopped atop another bridge, looking over at the citys massive white-walled palace, home to the Seanchan court. It rose four stories high, with rings of gold at the base of its four domes and more gold at the tips of its many spires. The Daughter of the Nine Moons would be found in there. He could give those walls a purity they had never known, a perfection. That would make the building complete, in a way, in the moment before it faded into nothingness.
He unwrapped the access key, just another foreigner, standing on the muddy bridge. After destroying the palace, he would have to be quick. Hed send off bursts of balefire to destroy the ships in the harbor, then use something more mundane to rain fire on the city itself, throw it into a panic. The chaos would delay his enemies reaction. After that, he would Travel to the garrisons at the city gates and destroy them. He vaguely remembered scout reports of supply camps to the north, well stocked with both soldiers and foodstuffs. He would destroy them next.
From there, hed need to move on to Amador, then to Tanchico and others. Hed Travel quickly, never remaining in one place long enough to be caught by the Forsaken. A flickering light of death, like a burning ember, flaring to life here, then there. Many would die, but most would be Seanchan. Invaders.
He stared down at the access key. Then he seized saidin. The sickness washed across him more powerfully than it ever had before. The force of it knocked him to the ground like a physical blow. He cried out, barely noticing when he hit the stones. He groaned, gripping the access key, curling around it. His insides seemed to burn, and he turned his head, rolling onto his shoulder and vomiting onto the bridge.
But he held on to saidin. He needed the power. The succulent, beautiful power. Even the stench of his own vomit seemed more real to him, more sweet, for the power within him.
He opened his eyes. People were gathered around him, concerned. A Seanchan patrol was approaching. Now was the time. He had to strike.
But he could not. The people looked so concerned. So worried. They cared.
Screaming in frustration, Rand made a gateway, causing the people to jump back in shock. He stumbled to his feet and threw himself through, scrabbling on all fours, as the Seanchan soldiers drew swords and yelled unfamiliar words.
Rand landed on a large stone disc of black and white, the air around him a void of darkness. The portal closed behind, locking Ebou Dar away, and the disc began to move. It floated through the void, lit by some strange ambient light. Rand curled up on the disc, cradling the access key, breathing deeply.
Why cant I be strong enough? He didnt know if the thought was his or if it was Lews Therins. The two were the same. Why cant I do what I must?
The disc traveled for a short time, the only sound in the void that of his breathing. The disc looked like one of the seals to the Dark Ones prison, split with a sinuous line dividing the black from the white. Rand lay directly atop it. They called the black half the Dragons Fang. To the people, it symbolized evil. Destruction.
But Rand was necessary destruction. Why had the Pattern pushed him so hard if he didnt need to destroy? Originally, he had tried to avoid killing—but there had been little chance of that working. Then hed made himself avoid killing women. That had proven impossible.
He was destruction. He just had to accept that. Someone had to be hard enough to do what was necessary, didnt they?
A gateway opened, and he stumbled to his feet, clutching the access key. He stepped from the Skimming platform and out onto an empty meadow. The place where hed fought the Seanchan once with Callandor. And failed.
He stared at this place for a long time, breathing in and out, then spun another gateway. This one opened onto a field of snow, and icy wind blasted at him. He stepped through, feet crunching into the snow, and let the gateway close.
Here, the world spread before him.
Why have we come here? Rand thought.
Because, Rand replied. Because we made this. This is where we died.
He stood on the very point of Dragonmount, the lone peak that had erupted where Lews Therin had killed himself three thousand years before. To one side, he could see down hundreds of fe
et to where the side of the mountain opened into a blasted-out chasm. The opening was enormous, larger than it looked from profile. A wide oval of red, blazing, churning rock. It was as if a chunk of the mountain were simply missing, torn away, leaving the peak to rise into the air but the entire side of the mountain gone.
Rand stared down into that seething chasm. It was like the maw of a beast. Heat burned from below and flakes of ash twisted into the sky.
The dun sky was clouded above him. The ground seemed equally distant, barely visible, like a quilt marked with patterns. Here a patch of green that was a forest. There a stitch that was a river. To the east, he saw a small speck in the river, like a floating leaf caught in the tiny current. Tar Valon.
Rand sat down, the snow crunching beneath his weight. He set the access key into the bank before him and wove Air and Fire to keep himself warm.
Then he rested his elbows on his knees and his head on his hands, staring at the diminutive statue of the man with the globe.
To think.
CHAPTER 50
Veins of Gold
Wind blew around Rand as he sat at the top of the world. His weaving of Air and Fire had melted away the snow around him, exposing a jagged gray-black tip of rock about three paces wide. The peak was like a broken fingernail jutting into the sky, and Rand sat atop it. As far as he could tell, it was the very tip of Drag-onmount. Perhaps the highest point in the world.
He sat upon his small outcropping, the access key sitting on the rock in front of him. The air was thin here, and hed had trouble breathing until hed found a way to weave Air so that it compressed slightly around him. Like the weave that warmed him, he wasnt certain how hed done it. He vaguely remembered Asmodean trying to teach him a similar weave, and Rand hadnt been able to get it right. Now it came naturally. Lews Therins influence, or his own growing familiarity with the One Power?
Dragonmounts broken, open mouth lay several hundred feet beneath him, to the left. The scents of ash and sulphur were pungent, even at this distance. The maw was black with ash and red from molten rock and blazing fires.
He still held to the Source. He didnt dare let go. This last time hed seized it had been the worst he could remember, and he feared that the sickness would overpower him if he tried again.
He had been here for hours. And yet he did not feel tired. He stared at the terangreal. Thinking.
What was he? What was the Dragon Reborn? A symbol? A sacrifice? A sword, meant to destroy? A sheltering hand, meant to protect?
A puppet, playing a part over and over again?
He was angry. Angry at the world, angry at the Pattern, angry at the Creator for leaving humans to fight against the Dark One with no direction. What right did any of them have to demand Rands life of him?
Well, Rand had offered that life to them. It had taken him a great while to accept his death, but he badma. de his peace. Wasnt that enough? Did he have to be in pain until the end?
He had thought that if he made himself hard enough, it would take away the pain. If he couldnt feel, then he couldnt hurt.
The wounds in his side pulsed in agony. For a time, hed been able to forget them. But the deaths he had caused rubbed his soul raw. That list starting with Moiraine. Everything had begun to go wrong at her death. Before that, hed still had hope.
Before that, hed never been put in a box.
He understood what would be required of him, and hed changed in the ways he thought he needed. Those changes were to keep him from being overwhelmed. Die to protect people he didnt know? Chosen to save mankind? Chosen to force the kingdoms of the world to unite behind him, destroying those who refused to listen? Chosen to cause the deaths of thousands who fought in his name, to hold those souls upon his shoulders, a weight that must be borne? What man could do these things and remain sane? The only way he had seen had been to cut off his emotions, to make himself cuendiliar.
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