The Gathering Storm

by Robert Jordan

  Milisair paled visibly. “Lord Dragon,” she said. “A moment of weakness! I—”

  Rand waved for silence. “What am I to do with you now?”

  “She should be executed, my Lord!” Ramshalan said, stepping forward eagerly.

  Rand looked up with a frown. He hadn’t been asking for a response. Lanky, with one of the thin black Domani mustaches, Ramshalan had a prominent nose that might have indicated some Saldaean forebear. He wore an outrageous coat of blue, orange and yellow, with ruffled white cuffs peeking out underneath. Apparently, such things passed for fashionable among some segments of the Domani upper crust. His earrings bore the mark of his house, and he had a black beauty mark in the shape of a bird in flight affixed to his cheek.

  Rand had known many like him, courtiers with too few brains but too many family connections. Noble life seemed to breed them, much as the Two Rivers bred sheep. Ramshalan was particularly annoying because of his nasal voice and eager willingness to betray others in his desire to curry favor with Rand.

  Still, men like him had their uses. Occasionally. “What do you think, Milisair?” Rand said musingly. “Should I have you executed for treason, as this man suggests?”

  She did not weep, but she was obviously terrified, her hands shaking as she held them out, her eyes wide, unblinking.

  “No,” Rand said finally. “I need you to help choose a new king. What good would it do to search the countryside for your colleagues if I began to execute the Council members I’ve already found?”

  She let out the breath she had been holding, and tension left her shoulders

  “Lock her in the same dungeon where she imprisoned the King’s messenger,” Rand said to the Maidens. “Make sure she doesn’t suffer the same fate—at least, not until after I’m finished with her.”

  Milisair cried out in despair. Aiel Maidens pulled her from the room screaming, but Rand had already put her from his head. Ramshalan watched her go with satisfaction; apparently, she’d insulted him several times in public. That was one point in her favor.

  “The other members of the merchant council,” Rand said to the functionaries. “Have any of them had contact with the King?”

  “None more recently than four or five months ago, my Lord,” said one of them, a stumpy, large-bellied Domani man named Noreladim. “Though we don’t know about Alamindra, as she was just recently . . . discovered.”

  Perhaps she would have news, though he couldn’t see her having a better lead than a messenger who claimed to have come from Alsalam himself. Burn that woman for letting him die!

  If Graendal sent the messenger, Lews Therin said suddenly, I’d have never been able to break him. She’s too good with Compulsion. Crafty, so crafty.

  Rand hesitated. It was a good point. If the messenger had been subject to Graendal’s Compulsion, there would have been little chance of him being able to betray her location. Not unless the web of Compulsion had been lifted, which would have required a Healing beyond Rand’s skill. Graendal had always covered her tracks well.

  But he wasn’t sure she was in the country. If he could find a messenger and Compulsion was there, he’d have enough. “I need to speak with anyone else who claims to have a message from the King,” he said. “Others in the city who might have had contact.”

  “They will be found, Lord Dragon,” said the prim Ramshalan.

  Rand nodded absently. If Naeff set up the meeting with the Seanchan as hoped, then Rand could leave Arad Doman soon after. He hoped to leave them with a king, hoped to find and kill Graendal. But he would settle for peace with the Seanchan and food for these people. He could not solve everyone’s problems. He could just force them into abeyance long enough for him to die at Shayol Ghul.

  And thereby leave the world to break again once he was gone. He gritted his teeth. He had already wasted too much time worrying about things he could not fix.

  Is that why I resist naming a Domani king? he thought. Once I die, that man would lose his authority, and Arad Doman would be back where it began. If I don’t leave a king who has the support of the merchants, then I’m essentially offering the kingdom up to the Seanchan the moment I die.

  So many things to balance. So many problems. He couldn’t fix them all. He couldn’t.

  “I don’t approve of this, Rand,” Nynaeve said, standing beside the door, arms folded. “And we’re not done talking about Lan, either.”

  Rand waved a dismissive hand.

  “He’s your friend, Rand,” Nynaeve said. “Light! And what of Perrin and Mat? Do you know where they are? What has happened to them?”

  The colors swirled before his eyes, revealing an image of Perrin standing by a tent with Galad. Why was Perrin with Galad of all people? And when had Elayne’s half-brother joined the Whitecloaks? The colors changed to Mat, riding through the streets of a familiar city. Caemlyn? Thom was there, with him.

  Rand frowned to himself. He could feel a pull from Perrin and Mat, both distant. It was their ta’veren natures, trying to draw them together. They both needed to be with him for the Last Battle.

  “Rand?” Nynaeve asked. “Aren’t you going to respond?”

  “About Perrin and Mat?” Rand asked. “They live.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I simply do.” He sighed, shaking his head. “And they had better remain alive. I’ll have need of them both before this is over.”

  “Rand!” she said. “They’re your friends!”

  “They’re threads in the Pattern, Nynaeve,” he said, rising. “I barely know them anymore, and I suspect they would say the same thing of me.”

  “Don’t you care about them?”

  “Care?” Rand walked down the steps of the raised platform that held his throne. “What I care about is the Last Battle. What I care about is making peace with the Light-cursed Seanchan so that I can stop bothering with their squabble and get to the real battle. Beside those cares, a pair of boys from my little village are meaningless.”

  He looked at her, challenging. Ramshalan and the other attendants backed away quietly, not wanting to be caught between his gaze and Nynaeve.

  She was silent, although her face took on a profound sadness. “Oh, Rand,” she finally said. “You can’t go on like this. This hardness within you, it will break you.”

  “I do what I must,” he said, anger creeping into him. Would he never hear the end of complaints about his choices?

  “This isn’t what you must do, Rand,” she said. “You’re going to destroy yourself. You’ll—”

  Rand’s anger surged. He spun, pointing at her. “Would you end up exiled like Cadsuane, Nynaeve?” he bellowed. “I will not be played with! I am done with that. Give advice when it is asked for, and the rest of the time do not patronize me!”

  She recoiled, and Rand gritted his teeth, forcing the anger back down. He lowered his hand, but realized it had begun to reach reflexively for the access key in the pocket at his side. Nynaeve’s eyes fixed on it, opening wide, and he slowly forced his hand away from the statuette.

  The explosion surprised him. He had thought his temper controlled. He forced it down, and had a surprisingly difficult time of it. He turned and stalked from the room, throwing open the door, his Maidens following him. “I will have no more audiences today,” he told the attendants who tried to follow him. “Go and do as I have told you! I need the other members of the merchant council. Go!”

  They scattered. Only the Aiel remained, guarding him as he made his way to the rooms he had claimed in the mansion.

  A short time longer. He only had to keep things balanced a short time longer. Then it could end. And he found that he was beginning to look forward to that end as much as Lews Therin did.

  You promised we could die, Lews Therin said between distant sobs.

  I did, Rand said. And we will.

  CHAPTER 32

  Rivers of Shadow

  Nynaeve stood on the broad wall around Bandar Eban, looking down over the darkened city. The wall
was on the inland side of the city, but Bandar Eban was built on a slope, so she could see out over it, past the city, toward the ocean beyond. The night fog rolled in across the waters, hanging above a crisp black mirror sea. It seemed like a reflection of the clouds high above. Those clouds glowed with a phantom pearl light, cast by a moon she could not see.

  The fog did not reach the city; it rarely did. It hung over the ocean, churning. Like the ghost of a forest fire, stopped by some unseen barrier.

  She could still feel the storm to the north. It called on her to ride through the streets, shouting warning. Flee to the cellars! Store up food, for a disaster will strike! Unfortunately, packing earth or reinforcing walls would not help against this tempest. It was of a different sort entirely.

  The ocean fog was often herald to winds, and this night was no exception. She pulled her shawl close, smelling brine on the air. It mixed with the inevitable scents of an overcrowded city. Refuse, packed bodies, soot and smoke from fires and stoves. She missed the Two Rivers. The winds there were cold in the winters, but they were always fresh. Bandar Eban’s winds always felt slightly used.

  There would never again be a place for her in the Two Rivers. She knew this, though it hurt her. She was Aes Sedai now; it had become who she was, more important to her now than being Wisdom had once been. With the One Power, she could Heal people in a way that still seemed a marvel. And with the authority of the White Tower behind her, she was one of the most powerful individuals in the world, matched only by other sisters and the occasional monarch.

  And in regard to monarchs, she herself was married to a king. He might not have a kingdom, but Lan was a king. To her, if nobody else. Life in the Two Rivers would not suit him. And, truthfully, it wouldn’t suit her either. That simple life—once all she had been able to imagine—would now seem dull and unfulfilling.

  Still, it was difficult not to feel wistful, particularly when watching the night fogs.

  “There,” Merise said, voice edged with tension. She, along with Cadsuane and Corele, stood looking in the other direction—not southwest over the city and ocean, but east. Nynaeve had almost decided against accompanying the group, as she had little doubt that Cadsuane partly blamed Nynaeve for her exile. However, the prospect of seeing the apparitions had been too enticing.

  Nynaeve turned from the city and crossed the top of the wall, joining the others. Corele glanced at her, but Merise and Cadsuane ignored her. That suited Nynaeve. Though it did continue to irk her that Corele—of the Yellow Ajah—was so guarded in her acceptance of Nynaeve. Corele was pleasant, consoling, yet sternly unwilling to admit that Nynaeve was also a member of the Yellow. Well, the woman would have to change ruts eventually, once Egwene secured the White Tower.

  Nynaeve peered through the crenellations atop the wall, scanning the dark landscape outside the city. She could faintly make out the remnants of the shanties that had crowded up against the walls until recently. The dangers—some real, others exaggerated—in the countryside had caused most of the refugees to crowd into the city’s streets. Dealing with them, and the disease and hunger they brought with them, still demanded a lot of Rand’s time.

  Out beyond that trampled-down shantytown there were only shrubs, stunted trees, a shadowed bit of broken timber that might have been a wagon wheel. The nearby fields were barren. Plowed, seeded, yet still barren. Light! Why didn’t crops grow anymore? Where would they find food this winter?

  Anyway, that wasn’t what she was looking for at the moment. What was it Merise had seen? Where—

  Then Nynaeve saw it. Like a wisp of the ocean fog, a tiny patch of glowing light was blowing across the ground. It grew, bulging like a tiny storm cloud, glowing with a pearly light not unlike that of the clouds above. It resolved into the shape of a man, walking. Then that luminescent fog sprouted more figures. Within moments, an entire glowing procession strode across the dark ground, moving at a mournful pace.

  Nynaeve shivered, then sternly reprimanded herself. Spirits from the dead they might be, but they were no danger so far away. But try as she might, she could not banish the goose bumps from her arms.

  The procession was too distant for her to make out many details. There were both men and women in the line, clad in glowing clothing that flowed and shimmered like the city’s banners. There was no color to the apparitions, just paleness, unlike most of the ghosts that had been appearing lately.

  These were composed completely of a strange, otherworldly light. Several figures in the group—which was now about two hundred strong—were carrying a large object. Some kind of palanquin? Or . . . no. It was a coffin. Was this a funeral procession from long ago, then? What had happened to these people, and why had they been drawn back to the world of the living?

  Rumors in the city said the procession had first appeared the night after Rand arrived in Bandar Eban. The wall’s guards, who were likely the most reliable, had confirmed that to her in uneasy voices.

  “I do not see the reason for so much fuss,” Merise said with her Taraboner accent, folding her arms. “Ghosts, we are all accustomed to them by now, are we not? At least these aren’t causing people to melt or burst into flames.”

  Reports in the city indicated that “incidents” were growing more and more frequent. Just in the last few days, Nynaeve had investigated three credible reports of people who had had insects burrow out of their skin, killing them. There had also been the man who had been found in his bed one morning, completely changed into burned charcoal. His linens hadn’t been singed. She had seen that body herself.

  These incidents weren’t caused by the ghosts, but the people had begun to blame the apparitions. Better than them blaming Rand, she supposed.

  “This waiting in the city, it is frustrating,” Merise continued.

  “Our time in this city does seem to lack fruit,” Corele agreed. “We should be moving on. You’ve heard that he is proclaiming that the Last Battle will begin soon.”

  Nynaeve felt a stab of worry for Lan, then anger toward Rand. He still thought that if he could stage his assault at the same time as Lan’s attack on Tarwin’s Gap, he could confuse his enemies. Lan’s attack could very well be the beginning of the Last Battle. Why, then, wouldn’t Rand commit troops to help?

  “Yes,” Cadsuane said, musingly, “he is probably right.” Why did she keep that hood up? Rand obviously wasn’t around.

  “Then we have all the greater reason to move on,” Merise said sternly. “Rand al’Thor, he is a fool! And Arad Doman, it is irrelevant. A king or no king? What does it matter?”

  “The Seanchan are not irrelevant,” Nynaeve said, sniffing. “What of them? You would have us march to the Blight and leave our kingdoms open to invasion?”

  Merise didn’t react. Corele smiled and shrugged, then looked toward Damer Flinn, who leaned against the wall behind them, his arms folded. The leathery old man’s casual posture suggested that he saw the procession of ghosts as nothing special. And these days, he might be right.

  Nynaeve looked back out at the ghost procession, who were walking in an arc, rounding the city wall. The other Aes Sedai resumed their conversation, Merise and Corele taking further opportunity to voice their displeasure with Rand in their separate ways—one dour, the other congenial.

  It made Nynaeve want to defend him. Though he had been difficult and erratic lately, there was important work for him to do in Arad Doman. The meeting with the Seanchan in Falme was only a short time away. Beyond that, Rand was right to worry about filling the Domani throne. And what if Graendal really was here, as he seemed to think? The others thought he must be mistaken about the Forsaken, but Rand had discovered Forsaken in nearly every other kingdom. Why not Arad Doman? A missing king, a land seething with confusion, famine and strife? These things sounded exactly like the kinds of trouble one would discover near one of the Forsaken.

  The others continued to talk. Nynaeve started to leave, and as she did so she noticed that Cadsuane was watching her. Nynaeve hesitated, turning t
oward the cloaked woman. Cadsuane’s face was barely visible by torchlight, but Nynaeve caught a grimace in the shadows, as if Cadsuane were displeased with Merise’s and Corele’s complaints. Nynaeve and Cadsuane stared at each other for a moment; then Cadsuane nodded curtly. The aged Aes Sedai turned and began to walk away, right in the middle of one of Merise’s tirades about Rand.

  The other Aes Sedai bustled to catch up. What had that look been for? Cadsuane had a habit of treating other Aes Sedai as if they were less worthy of respect than a common mule. It was as if all the rest of them were mere children in her eyes.

  But, well, considering the way many Aes Sedai had been acting lately. . . .

  Frowning to herself, Nynaeve left in the other direction, nodding to the wall guards. That nod of Cadsuane’s couldn’t possibly have been given out of respect. Cadsuane was far too self-righteous and arrogant for that.

  What to do about Rand, then? He didn’t want Nynaeve’s help—or anyone’s help—but that was nothing new. He’d been just as stubborn as a sheepherder back in the Two Rivers, and his father had been nearly as bad. That had never stopped Nynaeve the Wisdom, so it certainly wouldn’t stop Nynaeve the Aes Sedai. She’d wrangled Coplins and Congars; she could do the same for trumped-up Rand al’Thor. She had half a mind to stride to his new “palace” and give him an earful.

  Except . . . Rand al’Thor wasn’t just any Coplin or Congar. Stubborn folks back in the Two Rivers hadn’t had Rand’s strangely menacing aura.

  She’d dealt with dangerous men before. Her own Lan was as dangerous as a wolf on the prowl, and could be as prickly, too, even if he was good at hiding it from most people. But as threatening and as intimidating as Lan could be, he’d sooner chop off his own hand than raise it to harm her.

  Rand was different. Nynaeve reached the steps leading off the wall into the city and headed down them, waving away a guard’s suggestion that she take one of them in escort. It was night and there were a lot of refugees about, but she was hardly helpless. She did accept a lantern from another guard, however. Using the One Power to craft light would make the passersby uncomfortable.