Heartbeats. He was cold in the emptiness of the Void, and if he felt sorrow for the dead and dying and scarred, the feeling was so far off it might not have been. He was cold itself. Emptiness itself. Only the rage of saidin filled him.
Movement to either side. Aviendha and Egwene, eyes concentrated on Lanfear. He had meant to shut them out from this. They must have raced with him. Mat and Asmodean; outside; the wall missed the final few wagons. In icy calm he channeled Air to snare Lanfear; Egwene and Aviendha could shield her while he distracted her.
Something severed his flows; they snapped back so hard that he grunted.
"One of them?" Lanfear snarled. "Which is Aviendha?" Egwene threw her head back and wailed, eyes bulging, the world's agony shrieking from her mouth. "Which?" Aviendha rose on tiptoes, shuddering, howls chasing Egwene's as they climbed higher and higher.
The thought was suddenly there in the emptiness. Spirit woven so, with Fire and Earth. There. Rand felt something being cut, something he could not see, and Egwene collapsed in a motionless heap, Aviendha to hands and knees, head down and swaying.
Lanfear staggered, her eyes going from the women to him, dark pools of black fire. "You are mine, Lews Therin! Mine!"
"No." Rand's voice seemed to come to his ears down a mile-long tunnel. Distract her from the girls. He kept moving forward, did not look back. "I was never yours, Mierin. I will always belong to Ilyena." The Void quivered with sorrow and loss. And with desperation, as he fought something besides the scouring of saidin. For a moment he hung balanced. I am Rand al'Thor. And, Ilyena, ever and always my heart. Balanced on a razor edge. I am Rand al'Thor! Other thoughts tried to well up, a fountain of them, of Ilyena, of Mierin, of what he could do to defeat her. He forced them down, even the last. If he came down on the wrong side… I am Rand al'Thor! "Your name is Lanfear, and I'll die before I love one of the Forsaken."
Something that might have been anguish crossed her face; then it was a marble mask once more. "If you are not mine," she said coldly, "then you are dead."
Agony in his chest, as if his heart was about to explode, in his head, white-hot nails driving into his brain, pain so strong that inside the Void he wanted to scream. Death was there, and he knew it. Frantically — even in the Void, frantic; emptiness shimmered, dwindled — he wove Spirit and Fire and Earth, flailing it wildly. His heart was no longer beating. Fingers of dark pain crushing the Void. Gray veil falling over his eyes. He felt his weave slice raggedly through hers. The burn of breath in empty lungs, lurch of heart beginning to pump again. He could see again, silver and black flecks floated between him and a stone-faced Lanfear still catching her balance from the rebound of her flows. The pain was there in head and chest like wounds, but the Void firmed, and bodily pain was remote.
Well that it was distant, for he had no time to recover. Forcing himself to move forward, he struck at her with Air, a club to knock her senseless. She slashed the weave, and he struck again, again, again each time that she sliced through his last weave, a furious rain of blows she somehow saw and countered, always moving closer. If he could keep her occupied for a moment more, if one of those invisible cudgels landed on her head, if he could get close enough to strike her with his fist… Unconscious, she would be as helpless as anyone else.
Suddenly she seemed to realize what he was doing. Still blocking his blows as easily as if she could see every one, she danced backwards until her shoulders hit the wagon behind her. And she smiled like winter's heart. "You will die slowly, and beg me to let you love me before you die," she said.
It was not at him directly that she struck this time. It was at his link to saidin.
Panic rang the Void like a gong at the first knife-sharp touch, the Power diminishing as it slid deeper between him and the Source. With Spirit and Fire and Earth he cut at the knife blade; he knew where to find it; he knew where his link was, could feel that first nick. Her attempted shield vanished, reappeared, returned as fast as he could cut it, but always with that momentary ebbing of saidin, moments when it almost failed, leaving his counterstroke barely enough to foil her attack. Handling two weaves at once should have been easy — he could handle ten or more — but not when one was a desperate defense against something he could not know was there until it was almost too late. Not when another man's thoughts kept trying to surface inside the Void, trying to tell him how to defeat her. If he listened, it might be Lews Therin Telamon who walked away, with Rand al'Thor a voice sometimes floating in his head if that.
"I'll make both of those trulls watch you beg," Lanfear said. "But should I make them watch you die first, or you them?" When had she climbed into the open wagon-bed? He had to watch her, watch for any hint that she was tiring, her concentration slipping. It was a vain hope. Standing beside the twisted doorframe ter'angreal, she looked down at him, a queen about to pass sentence, yet she could spare time for chill smiles at a dark ivory bracelet that she turned over and over in her fingers. "Which will hurt you most, Lews Therin? I want you to hurt. I want you to know pain such as no man has ever known!"
The thicker the flow to him from the Source, the harder it would be to cut. His hand tightened on his coat pocket, the fat little stone man with his sword hard against the heron branded into his palm. He drew on saidin as deeply as he could, till the taint floated in the emptiness with him like misting rain.
"Pain, Lews Therin."
And there was pain, the world swallowed in agony. Not heart or head this time, but everywhere, every part of him, hot needles stabbing into the Void. He almost thought he could hear a quenching hiss at each thrust, and each came deeper than the last. Her attempts to shield him did not slow; they came faster, stronger. He could not believe she was so strong. Clinging to the Void, to searing, freezing saidin, he defended himself wildly. He could end it, finish her. He could call down lightning, or wrap her in the fire she herself had used to kill.
Images darted through the pain; A woman in a dark merchant's dress, toppling from her horse, the fire-red sword light in his hands; she had come to kill him, with a fistful of other Darkfriends. Mat's bleak eyes; I killed her. A golden-haired woman lying in a ruined hallway where, it seemed, the very walls had melted and flowed. Ilyena, forgive me! It was a despairing cry.
He could end it. Only, he could not. He was going to die, perhaps the world would die, but he could not make himself kill another woman. Somehow it seemed the richest joke the world had ever seen.
Wiping the blood from her mouth, Moiraine crawled out from beneath the tail of the wagon and rose unsteadily to her feet, the sound of a man's laughter in her ears. In spite of herself, her eyes darted, searching for Lan, found him lying almost against the foggy gray wall of the dome that stretched overhead. He twitched, perhaps trying to find strength to rise, perhaps dying. She forced him out of her mind. He had saved her life so many times that by rights it should have belonged to him, but she had long since done what she could to see that he survived his lone war with the Shadow. Now he must live or die without her.
It was Rand laughing, on his knees on the stones of the quay. Laughing, with tears streaming down a face twisted like a man being put to the question. Moiraine felt a chill. If the madness had him, it was beyond her. She could only do what she could do. What she must do.
The sight of Lanfear hit her like a blow. Not surprise, but the shock of seeing what had been in her dreams so often since Rhuidean. Lanfear standing on the wagon-bed, blazing bright as the sun with saidar, framed by the twisted redstone ter'angreal as she stared down at Rand, a pitiless smile on her lips. She was turning a bracelet in her hands. An angreal; unless Rand had his own angreal, she should be able to crush him with that. Either he did, or Lanfear was toying with him. It did not matter. Moiraine did not like that circle of carved age-dark ivory. At first glance it seemed to be an acrobat bending backwards to grip his ankles. Only a closer look would show that his wrists and ankles were bound together. She did not like it, but she had brought it out of Rhuidean. Yesterday she had t
aken the bracelet from a sack of odds-and-ends and left it lying there at the foot of the doorframe.
Moiraine was slight, a small woman. Her weight did not disturb the wagon at all as she pulled herself up. She winced as her dress caught on a splinter and tore, but Lanfear did not look around. The woman had dealt with every threat except Rand; he was the only corner of the world she acknowledged in the least right then.
Suppressing a small bubble of hope — she could not allow herself that luxury — Moiraine balanced upright a moment on the wagon-tail, then embraced the True Source and leaped at Lanfear. The Forsaken had an instant's warning, enough to turn before Moiraine struck her, clawing the bracelet away. Face to face, they toppled through the doorframe ter'angreal. White light swallowed everything.
Chapter 53
(Flame of Tar Valon)
Fading Words
In the depths of a shrinking Void, Rand saw Moiraine hurtle seemingly out of nowhere to grapple with Lanfear. The attacks on him ceased as the two women plunged through the doorframe ter'angreal in a flash of white light that did not end; it filled the subtly twisted redstone rectangle as though trying to flood through and striking some invisible barrier. Lightnings arched silver and blue around the ter'angreal, more and more violently; rasping buzzes crackled through the air.
Rand staggered to his feet. The pain was not gone really, but the pressure was, bringing promise that the pain would go. His eyes could not leave the ter'angreal. Moiraine. Her name hung in his head, sliding across the Void.
Lan lurched by him, fixed on the wagon, leaning as if only by moving forward could he stop from falling.
More than standing was beyond Rand for the moment. He channeled, caught the Warder in flows of Air. "You… You can't do anything, Lan. You can't go after her."
"I know," Lan said hopelessly. Held in mid-step, he did not struggle, only stared at the ter'angreal that had swallowed Moiraine. "The Light send me peace, I know."
The wagon itself had caught fire now. Rand tried to suppress the flames, but as soon as he drew the heat from one blaze the lightnings ignited another. The doorframe itself was beginning to smoke, though it was stone, a white, acrid smoke that gathered thickly under the gray dome. Even a whiff burned Rand's nostrils and made him cough; his skin prickled and stung where the smoke brushed. Hastily he untied the weave of the dome, dispelled it rather than wait for it to dissipate, and wove around the wagon a tall chimney of Air that gleamed like glass to carry the fumes high and away. Only then did he release Lan. He would not have put it past the man to follow Moiraine anyway if he could have reached the wagon. It was all in flames now, the redstone doorway as well, melting as if it were wax, but for a Warder that might not matter.
"She is gone. I cannot feel her presence." The words sounded ripped out of Lan's chest. He turned and began walking down the line of wagons without a backward glance.
Following the Warder with his eyes, Rand saw Aviendha on her knees, holding Egwene. Releasing saidin, he began to run down the quay. Physical pain that had been distant crashed home, but he ran, however awkwardly. Asmodean was there, too, looking around as if he expected Lanfear to leap out from behind a wagon or a toppled grain-cart. And Mat, squatting with his spear propped across his shoulder, fanning Egwene with his hat.
Rand skidded to a halt. "Is she…?"
"I don't know," Mat said miserably.
"She still breathes." Aviendha sounded uncertain how long that would continue, but Egwene's eyes fluttered open as Amys and Bair pushed roughly past Rand with Melaine and Sorilea. The Wise Ones knelt clustered around the younger women, murmuring to themselves and each other as they examined Egwene.
"I feel…" Egwene began weakly, and stopped to swallow. Her face was bloodless pale. "I… hurt." A tear leaked from one eye.
"Of course you do," Sorilea said briskly. "That is what happens when you let yourself be caught in a man's schemes."
"She cannot go with you, Rand al'Thor." Melaine's sun-haired beauty was openly angry, but she was not looking at him; it could have been anger at him or anger at what had happened.
"I… will be right as wellwater… with a little rest," Egwene whispered.
Bair dampened a cloth from a waterskin and laid it across Egwene's forehead. "You will be right with a great deal of rest. I fear you will not be meeting Nynaeve and Elayne tonight. You will not go near Tel'aran'rhiod for some days, until you are stronger again. Do not give me that stubborn look, girl. We will watch your dreams to make sure, if need be, and give your care to Sorilea if you so much as think of disobeying."
"You will not disobey me more than once, Aes Sedai or not," Sorilea said, but with a touch of sympathy at odds with her leathery-faced grimness. Frustration was plain in Egwene's face.
"I, at least, am well enough to do what must be done," Aviendha said. In truth, she looked not much less haggard than Egwene, but she managed a defiant stare at Rand, plainly expecting argument. Her defiance faded somewhat when she realized the four Wise Ones were looking at her. "I am," she muttered.
"Of course," Rand said hollowly.
"I am," she insisted. To him; she carefully avoided meeting the Wise Ones' gaze. "Lanfear had me a moment less than she did Egwene. That was enough to make the difference between us. I have toh to you, Rand al'Thor. I do not think we would have survived many moments more. She was very strong." Her eyes darted down to the burning wagon. Fierce flames had already reduced it to a shapeless charred pile inside the glassy chimney; the redstone ter'angreal was no longer visible at all. "I did not see all that happened."
"They are… Rand cleared his throat. "They are both gone. Lanfear is dead. And so is Moiraine." Egwene began to cry, sobs shaking her in Aviendha's clasp. Aviendha put her head down on the other woman's shoulder as if she, too, might weep.
"You are a fool, Rand al'Thor," Amys said, standing. That surprisingly youthful face beneath her headscarf and white hair was stone hard. "About this and many other things, you are a fool."
He turned away from the accusation in her eyes. Moiraine was dead. Dead because he could not bring himself to kill one of the Forsaken. He did not know whether he wanted to cry or laugh wildly; if he did either, he did not think he would be able to stop.
The dockside that had been emptying when he made the dome was filled again, though few came nearer than where that misty gray wall had stood. Wise Ones moved about aiding the burned, comforting the dying, assisted by white-robed gai'shain and men in the cadin'sor. Moans and cries stabbed at him. He had not been quick enough. Moiraine dead; no Healing for even the worst injured. Because he… I could not. The Light help me, I could not!
More Aielmen stood watching him, some only now unveiling; he still did not see one Maiden. Not only Aiel were there. Dobraine, bareheaded on a black gelding, did not take his eyes from Rand, and not far off Talmanes and Nalesean and Daerid sat their horses watching Mat almost as closely as they did Rand. People lined the top of the great city wall, outlined and cast in shadow by the rising sun, and more along the curtain walls. Two of those shadowed shapes turned away when he looked up, saw each other only twenty paces apart, and seemed to recoil. He would have wagered they were Meilan and Maringil.
Lan was back with the horses at the last wagon in the line, stroking Aldieb's white nose. Moiraine's mare.
Rand went to him. "I'm sorry, Lan. If I'd been faster, if I'd…" He exhaled heavily. I couldn't kill one, so I killed the other. The Light burn me blind! If it had, at that moment, he would not have cared.
"The Wheel weaves." Lan went to Mandarb, busied himself checking the black stallion's saddle-girth. "She was a soldier, a warrior in her way as much as I. This could have happened two hundred times these past twenty years. She knew it, and so did I. It was a good day to die." His voice was as hard as it had ever been, but those cold blue eyes were red-rimmed.
"Still, I am sorry. I should have…" The man would not be comforted by should-haves, and they dug at Rand's soul. "I hope you can still be my friend, Lan, after…
I value your counsel — and your sword-training — and I'll need both in the days to come."
"I am your friend, Rand. But I cannot stay." Lan swung up into his saddle. "Moiraine did something to me that has not been done in hundreds of years, not since the time when Aes Sedai still sometimes bonded a Warder whether he wanted it or not. She altered my bond so it passed to another when she died. Now I must find that other, become one of her Warders. I am one, already. I can feel her faintly, somewhere far to the west, and she can feel me. I must go, Rand. It is part of what Moiraine did. She said she would not allow me time to die avenging her." He gripped the reins as if holding Mandarb back, as if holding himself back from digging his spurs in. "If you ever see Nynaeve again, tell her…" For an instant that stone face crumpled in anguish; an instant, then it was granite again. He muttered under his breath, but Rand heard. "A clean wound heals quickest and pains shortest." Aloud, he said, "Tell her I've found someone else. Green sisters are sometimes as close to their Warders as other women are to husbands. In every way. Tell her I've gone to be a Green sister's lover, as well as her sword. These things happen. It has been a long time since I've seen her."
"I will tell her whatever you say, Lan, but I don't know that she'll believe me."
Lan bent from the saddle to catch Rand's shoulder in a hard grip. Rand remembered calling the man half-tame wolf, but those eyes made a wolf seem a lapdog. "We are alike in many ways, you and I. There is a darkness in us. Darkness, pain, death. They radiate from us. If ever you love a woman, Rand, leave her and let her find another. It will be the best gift you can give her." Straightening, he raised one hand. "Peace favor your sword. Tai'shar Manetheren." The ancient salute. True blood of Manetheren.
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