The Wheel of Time

by Robert Jordan

  At that moment, Rand felt terror. He met Semirhage’s eyes anyway, and she smiled deeply. “I’ve been waiting for quite a long time to get a Domination Band on you, Lews Therin. Odd, how circumstances occur, isn’t—”

  Something flashed in the air, and Semirhage barely had time to cry out before something deflected the blade just barely—a weave of Air, Rand could only assume, though he could not see weaves made from saidar. Still, Min’s knife had left a gash on the side of Semirhage’s face before passing by and burying itself in the wood of the door.

  “Guards!” Min cried. “Maidens, to arms! The Car’a’carn is in danger!”

  Semirhage cursed, waving a hand, and Min cut off. Rand twisted anxiously, trying—and failing—to seize saidin. Something blocked him. Min was tossed off the bed by weaves of Air, her mouth locked shut. Rand tried to run to her, but again found that he could not. His legs simply refused to move.

  At that moment, the door to his room opened. Another woman entered with a hurried step. She glanced out of the doorway, as if watching for something, then closed it behind her. Elza. Rand felt a surge of hope, but then the small woman joined Semirhage, taking up the other bracelet that controlled the a’dam around Rand’s neck. She looked up at Rand, her eyes red, looking dazed—as if something had hit her soundly on the head. However, when she saw him kneeling, she smiled. “And so you finally come to your destiny, Rand al’Thor. You will face the Great Lord. And you will lose.”

  Elza. Elza was Black, burn her! Rand’s skin prickled as he felt her embrace saidar, standing beside her mistress. They both confronted him, each one wearing a bracelet, and Semirhage looked supremely confident.

  Rand growled, turning to Semirhage. He would not be trapped like this!

  The Forsaken touched the bleeding gash on her cheek, then tsked to herself. She wore a drab brown dress. How had she escaped captivity? And where had she gotten this cursed collar? Rand had given that to Cadsuane for safekeeping. She had vowed that it would be safe!

  “No guards will come, Lews Therin,” Semirhage said absently, holding up her braceleted hand; the bracelet matched the collar on his neck. “I’ve warded the room against listeners. You will find that you cannot so much as move unless I allow it. You’ve tried already, and you must see how futile it is.”

  Desperate, Rand reached for saidin again, but found nothing. In his head, Lews Therin began to snarl and weep, and Rand felt almost as if he would join the man. Min! He had to get to her. He had to be strong enough!

  He forced himself toward Semirhage and Elza, but it was as if he were trying to move someone else’s legs. He was trapped in his own head, like Lews Therin. He opened his mouth to curse, but nothing came out beyond a croak.

  “Yes,” Semirhage said, “you cannot speak without permission either. And I would suggest that you not reach for saidin again. You will find the experience unpleasant. When I tested the Domination Band before, I found it to be a far more elegant tool than those Seanchan a’dam. Their a’dam allow some small measure of freedom, relying on nausea as an inhibitor. The Domination Band demands far more obedience. You will act exactly as I desire. For instance. . . .”

  Rand stood up off the bed, his legs moving against his will. Then, his own hand whipped up and began to squeeze his throat just above the neck band. He gasped, stumbling. Frantic, he reached again for saidin.

  He found pain. It was as if he’d reached into a burning vat of oil, then drawn the fiery liquid into his own veins. He screamed in shock and agony, collapsing to the wooden floor. The pain made him writhe, his vision growing black.

  “You see.” Semirhage’s voice sounded distant. “Ah, I had forgotten how satisfying that is.”

  The pain was like a million ants burrowing through his skin and down to the bone. He twisted, muscles spasming.

  We’re in the box again! Lews Therin cried.

  And suddenly, he was. He could see it, the black confines, crushing him. His body sore from repeated beatings, his mind frantic to remain sane. Lews Therin had been his only companion. It was one of the first times Rand could remember communicating with the madman; Lews Therin had started to respond to him only shortly before that day.

  Rand hadn’t been willing to see Lews Therin as part of himself. The mad part of himself, the part that could deal with the torture, if only because it was already so tortured. More pain and suffering was meaningless. You could not fill a cup that had already begun to overflow.

  He stopped screaming. The pain was still there, it made his eyes water, but the screams would not come. All fell still.

  Semirhage looked down at him, frowning, blood dripping from her chin. Another wave of pain washed across him. Whoever he was.

  He stared up at her. Silent.

  “What are you doing?” she said, compelling him. “Speak.”

  “No more can be done to me,” he whispered.

  Another wave of pain. It shocked him, and something inside of him whimpered, but he gave no outward reaction. Not because he held the screams in, but because he couldn’t feel anything. The box, the two wounds in his side corrupting his own blood, beatings, humiliation, sorrows and his own suicide. Killing himself. He could suddenly and starkly remember that. After all of these things, what more could Semirhage do to him?

  “Great Mistress,” Elza said, turning to Semirhage, eyes still seeming faintly dazed by something. “Perhaps now we should—”

  “Quiet, worm,” Semirhage spat at her, wiping the blood from her chin. She looked at it. “That’s twice now those knives have tasted my blood.” She shook her head, then turned and smiled at Rand. “You say nothing more can be done to you? You forget, Lews Therin, to whom you speak. Pain is my specialty, and you are still little more than a boy. I’ve broken men ten times as strong as you. Stand.”

  He did. The pain had not gone away. She obviously intended to keep using it against him until she got a reaction.

  He turned around, obeying her wordless command, and found Min hanging above the floor, tied by invisible ropes of Air. Her eyes were wild with fear, her arms bound behind her back, her mouth blocked by a woven Air gag.

  Semirhage chuckled. “There is nothing more that I can do, you say?”

  Rand seized saidin—not of his choice, but of hers. The roar of power slammed into him, bringing with it the strange nausea that he’d never been able to explain. He fell to his hand and knees, emptying his stomach with a groan as the room shook and spun around him.

  “How odd,” he heard Semirhage say, as if distant. He shook his head, still holding the One Power—wrestling with it as he always had to with saidin, forcing that powerful, twisting flow of energy to his will. It was like chaining a tempest of wind, and was difficult even when he was strong and healthy. Now it was nearly impossible.

  Use it, Lews Therin whispered. Kill her while we can!

  I will not kill a woman, Rand thought stubbornly, a figment of a memory from the back of his mind. That is the line I will not cross. . . .

  Lews Therin roared, trying to take saidin from Rand, but without success. In fact, Rand found that he couldn’t channel willfully any more than he could step without Semirhage’s permission.

  He righted himself by her command, the room growing more steady, the nausea retreating. And then he began to form weaves, complicated ones of Spirit and Fire.

  “Yes,” Semirhage said, almost to herself. “Now, if I can remember. . . . The male way of doing this is so odd, sometimes.”

  Rand made the weaves, then pushed them toward Min. “No!” he screamed as he did so. “Not that!”

  “Ah, so you see,” Semirhage said. “You weren’t so difficult to break after all.”

  The weaves touched Min and she writhed in pain. Rand continued to channel, tears springing to his eyes as he was forced to send the complex weaves through her body. They brought agony only, but they did it very well. Semirhage must have released Min’s gag, for she began to scream, weeping.

  “Please, Rand!” she begged. “Ple
ase!”

  Rand roared in anger, trying to stop, unable to. He could feel Min’s pain through the bond, feel it as he caused it.

  “Stop this!” he bellowed.

  “Beg,” Semirhage said.

  “Please,” he said, weeping. “Please, I beg you.”

  Suddenly, he stopped, the torturing weaves unraveling. Min hung in the air, whimpering, eyes dazed from the shock of pain. Rand turned around, facing Semirhage and the smaller figure of Elza beside her. The Black looked terrified, as if she’d gotten herself into something she hadn’t been prepared for.

  “Now,” the Forsaken said, “you see that you have always been intended to serve the Great Lord. We will leave this room and will deal with those so-called Aes Sedai who imprisoned me. We will Travel to Shayol Ghul and present you to the Great Lord, and then this can all be finished.”

  He bowed his head. There had to be a way out! He imagined her using him to tear through the ranks of his own men. He imagined them afraid to attack, lest they harm him. He saw the blood, death and destruction he would cause. And it chilled him, turned him to ice inside.

  They have won.

  Semirhage glanced at the door, then turned back to him and smiled. “But I’m afraid we must deal with her first. Let us be about it, then.”

  Rand turned and began to walk toward Min. “No!” he said. “You promised if I begged—”

  “I promised nothing,” Semirhage said with a laugh. “You begged quite prettily, Lews Therin, but I have chosen to ignore your pleas. You can release saidin, however. This needs to be somewhat more personal.”

  Saidin winked away, and Rand felt the withdrawal of power with regret. The world seemed more dull around him. He stepped up to Min, her pleading eyes meeting his. Then he pressed his hand to her throat, gripping it, and began to squeeze.

  “No. . . .” he whispered in horror as his hand, against his will, cut off her air. Min stumbled, and he unwillingly forced her down to the ground, easily ignoring her struggles. He loomed above her, pressing his hand against her throat, gripping it and choking her. She looked at him, eyes beginning to bulge.

  This can’t be happening.

  Semirhage laughed.

  Ilyena! Lews Therin wailed. Oh, Light! I’ve killed her!

  Rand squeezed harder, leaning down for leverage, his fingers squeezing Min’s skin and pushing down on her throat. It was as if he gripped his own heart, and the world became black around him, everything darkened except for Min. He could feel her pulse throbbing beneath his fingers.

  Those beautiful dark eyes of hers watched him, loving him even as he killed her.

  This can’t be happening!

  I’ve killed her!

  I’m mad!

  Ilyena!

  There had to be a way out! Had to be! Rand wanted to close his eyes, but he couldn’t. She wouldn’t let him—not Semirhage, but Min. She held his eyes with her own, tears lining her cheeks, dark, curled hair disheveled. So beautiful.

  He scrambled for saidin, but could not take it. He tried with every bit of will he had to relax his fingers, but they just continued to squeeze. He felt horror, he felt her pain. Min’s face grew purple, her eyes fluttered.

  Rand wailed. THIS CAN’T BE HAPPENING! I WILL NOT DO THIS AGAIN!

  Something snapped inside of him. He grew cold; then that coldness vanished, and he could feel nothing. No emotion. No anger.

  At that moment he grew aware of a strange force. It was like a reservoir of water, boiling and churning just beyond his view. He reached toward it with his mind.

  A clouded face flashed before Rand’s own, one whose features he couldn’t quite make out. It was gone in a moment.

  And Rand found himself filled with an alien power. Not saidin, not saidar, but something else. Something he’d never felt before.

  Oh, Light, Lews Therin suddenly screamed. That’s impossible! We can’t use it! Cast it away! That is death we hold, death and betrayal.

  It is HIM.

  Rand closed his eyes as he knelt above Min, then he channeled the strange, unknown force. Energy and life surged through him, a torrent of power like saidin, only ten times as sweet and a hundred times as violent. It made him alive, made him realize that he’d never been alive before. It gave him such strength as he’d never imagined. It rivaled, even, the power he’d held when drawing from the Choedan Kal.

  He screamed, in both rapture and rage, and wove enormous spears of Fire and Air. He slammed the weaves against the collar at his neck, and the room exploded with flames and bits of molten metal, each one distinct to Rand. He could feel each shard of metal blast away from his neck, warping the air with its heat, trailing smoke as it hit a wall or the floor. He opened his eyes and released Min. She gasped and sobbed.

  Rand stood and turned, white-hot magma in his veins—as when Semirhage had tortured him, yet somehow opposite. As painful as this was, it was also pure ecstasy.

  Semirhage looked utterly shocked. “But . . . that’s impossible . . .” she said. “I felt nothing. You can’t—” She looked up, staring at him with wide eyes. “The True Power. Why have you betrayed me, Great Lord? Why?”

  Rand raised a hand and, filled with the power he did not understand, wove a single weave. A bar of pure white light, a cleansing fire, burst from his hand and struck Semirhage in the chest. She flashed and vanished, leaving a faint afterimage to Rand’s vision. Her bracelet dropped to the floor.

  Elza ran toward the door. She vanished before another bar of light, her entire figure becoming light for a moment. Her bracelet dropped to the floor, as well, the women who had held them burned completely from the Pattern.

  What have you done? Lews Therin asked. Oh, Light. Better to have killed again than to do this. . . . Oh, Light. We are doomed.

  Rand savored the power for a moment longer, then—regretfully—let it drop away. He would have held on, but he was simply too exhausted. The vanishing of it left him numb.

  Or . . . no. That numbness had nothing to do with the power he’d held. He turned around, looking down at Min, who coughed quietly and rubbed her neck. She looked up at him, and seemed afraid. He doubted that she would ever see him the same way again.

  He had been wrong; there had indeed been something more that Semirhage could do to him. He had felt himself killing one he loved dearly. Before, when he’d done it as Lews Therin, he had been mad and unable to control himself. He could barely remember slaying Ilyena, as if through a clouded dream. He’d realized what he had done only after Ishamael had awakened him.

  Finally, now, he knew precisely what it was like to watch as he killed those he loved.

  “It is done,” Rand whispered.

  “What?” Min asked, coughing again.

  “The last that could be done to me,” he said, surprised at his own calmness. “They have taken everything from me now.”

  “What are you saying, Rand?” Min asked. She rubbed her neck again. Bruises were beginning to show.

  He shook his head as—finally—voices sounded in the hallway outside. Perhaps the Asha’man had sensed him channeling when he’d tortured Min.

  “I have made my choice, Min,” he said, turning toward the door. “You have asked for flexibility and laughter from me, but such things are no longer mine to give. I am sorry.”

  Once, weeks ago, he had decided that he must become stronger—where he had been iron, he had decided to become steel. It appeared that steel was too weak.

  He would be harder, now. He understood how. Where he had once been steel, he became something else. From now on, he was cuendillar. He had entered a place like the void that Tam had trained him to seek, so long ago. But within this void he had no emotion. None at all.

  They could not break or bend him.

  It was done.

  CHAPTER 23

  A Warp in the Air

  “What of the sisters who were guarding her cell?” Cadsuane asked, stomping up the wooden steps beside Merise.

  “Corele and Nesune are alive, thankfully,
though they were left extremely weak,” Merise said, holding her skirt up as she hurried along. Narishma followed them, the bells at the end of his braids ringing softly. “Daigian is dead. We’re not certain why the other two were left alive.”

  “Warders,” Cadsuane said. “Kill the Aes Sedai, and their Warders would know immediately—and we would have learned that something was wrong.” The Warders should have noticed that something was wrong anyway—they’d have to interrogate the men to see what they had felt. But there was likely a correlation.

  Daigian had no living Warder. Cadsuane felt a stab of regret for the pleasant sister, but shoved it aside. No time for it now.

  “The other two were placed in some kind of trance,” Merise said. “I could see no remnants of weaves, nor could Narishma. We discovered the sisters just before the alarm was sounded, then went for you as soon as we were assured that al’Thor was alive and our enemies had been dealt with.”

  Cadsuane nodded crossly. Of all the nights to be out visiting the Wise Ones in their tents! Sorilea and a small group of them followed behind Narishma, and Cadsuane didn’t dare slow her pace, lest the Aiel women trample her in their haste to see al’Thor.

  They reached the top of the stairs, then sped down the hallway toward al’Thor’s room. How could he have gotten himself into this much trouble, again! And how had that blasted Forsaken gotten free of her cell? Someone must have helped her, but that meant a Darkfriend in their camp. It wasn’t unlikely—if Darkfriends existed in the White Tower, then they could undoubtedly be found here. But what Darkfriend could incapacitate three Aes Sedai? Surely channeling on that level should have been felt by every sister or Asha’man in the camp.

  “Was the tea involved?” Cadsuane asked Merise quietly.

  “Not that we can tell,” the Green replied. “We’ll know more when the other two wake. They fell unconscious as soon as we brought them out of their trance.”

  Cadsuane nodded. Al’Thor’s door was open, and Maidens swarmed outside it like wasps who had just discovered their nest was gone. Cadsuane couldn’t say that she blamed them. Apparently, al’Thor had said little of what had happened. The fool boy was lucky to still be alive! What a Light-cursed mess, Cadsuane thought, passing the Maidens and entering the chamber.