The Wheel of Time

by Robert Jordan

  “Not in so many words, Cadsuane Sedai,” Beldeine replied lightly. The Green had a face that some might have called pretty, bearing traces of her Saldaean heritage. Young enough to not yet have the ageless face, she often seemed to try too hard to prove herself.

  “You obviously thought something when Min spoke, Beldeine,” Cadsuane replied, turning a page. “Out with it.”

  Beldeine flushed slightly—one noticed these things, if one spent a lot of time with Aes Sedai. They did have emotional reactions, they were just subtle. Unless, of course, the Aes Sedai in question was Nynaeve. Although she’d grown better at controlling her emotions, she . . . well, she was still Nynaeve.

  Beldeine said, “I simply think that the child is amusing in the way she pokes through those tomes, as if she were a scholar.”

  Min would have taken that as a challenge from most people, but from Beldeine, the words were matter-of-fact.

  Cadsuane turned another page. “I see. Min, what was it you were saying to me?”

  “Nothing important, Cadsuane Sedai.”

  “I didn’t ask if it was important, girl,” Cadsuane said briskly. “I asked you to repeat yourself. Out with it.”

  Min sighed. Nobody could humiliate one more soundly than an Aes Sedai, for they did it without malice. Moiraine had explained it to Min once in simple terms: Most Aes Sedai felt it was important to establish control when there was no great conflict, so that if a crisis did happen, people would know where to look.

  It was very frustrating.

  “I said,” Min repeated, “that a passage is wrong. I’m reading commentary on the Karaethon Cycle. Sajius claims that this line about the three becoming one speaks of the unification of three kingdoms beneath the Dragon’s banner. But I think he’s wrong.”

  “And why,” Cadsuane said, “is it that you think you know more than a respected scholar of the prophecies?”

  “Because,” Min said, bristling, “the theory doesn’t make sense. Rand only really holds one crown. There might have been a good argument here if he hadn’t given away Tear to Darlin. But the theory doesn’t hold any longer. I think the passage refers to some way he has to use Callandor.”

  “I see,” Cadsuane said, turning yet another page in her own book. “That is a very unconventional interpretation.” Beldeine smiled thinly, turning back to her embroidery. “Of course,” Cadsuane added, “you are quite right.”

  Min looked up.

  “It was that very passage that led me to investigate Callandor,” Cadsuane continued. “Through a great deal of searching I discovered that the sword could only be used properly in a circle of three. That is likely the ultimate meaning of the passage.”

  “But that would imply that Rand had to use Callandor in a circle sometime,” Min said, looking at the passage again. He’d never done so, as far as she knew.

  “It would,” Cadsuane said.

  Min felt a sudden thrill. A hint, perhaps. Something that Rand didn’t know, that might help him! Except . . . Cadsuane had already known it. So Min hadn’t discovered anything of real import after all.

  “I should think,” Cadsuane said, “that an acknowledgment is due. Bad manners are not to be tolerated, after all.”

  Beldeine looked up from her needlework, face dark. Then, unexpectedly, she stood and left the room. Her Warder, the youthful Asha’man Karldin, followed quickly from the side chamber, crossing the room with the Aes Sedai and following Beldeine out into the hallway outside. Cadsuane gave a sniff, then turned back to her book.

  The door closed, and Nynaeve eyed Min before returning to her pacing. Min could read a lot in that glance. Nynaeve was annoyed that nobody else seemed nervous. She was frustrated that they hadn’t found some way to listen in on Rand and Tam’s conversation. And she was obviously terrified for Lan. Min understood. She felt similarly about Rand.

  And . . . what was that vision that was suddenly hovering above Nynaeve’s head? She was kneeling over someone’s corpse in a posture of grief. The viewing was gone a moment later.

  Min shook her head. That hadn’t been a viewing she could interpret, so she let it pass. She couldn’t waste her time trying to unravel all of those. For instance, the black knife that spun around Beldeine’s head recently could mean anything.

  She focused on the book. So . . . Rand was to use Callandor as part of a circle, then? The three becoming one? But for what reason and with whom? If he was to fight the Dark One, then it didn’t make sense for him to be in a circle with someone else in control, did it?

  “Cadsuane,” she said. “This is still wrong. There’s more here. Something we haven’t discovered.”

  “About Callandor?” the woman asked.

  Min nodded.

  “I suspect so as well,” Cadsuane replied. How odd to hear her being frank! “But I haven’t been able to determine what. If only that fool boy would revoke my exile, we could get on with more important—”

  The door to Cadsuane’s room slammed open, causing Merise to jump in shock. Nynaeve hopped back from the door—it had nearly hit her.

  Standing in the doorway was a very angry Tam al’Thor. He glared at Cadsuane. “What have you done to him?” he demanded.

  Cadsuane lowered her book. “I have done nothing to the boy, other than to encourage him toward civility. Something, it seems, other members of the family could learn as well.”

  “Watch your tongue, Aes Sedai,” Tam snarled. “Have you seen him? The entire room seemed to grow darker when he entered. And that face—I’ve seen more emotion in the eyes of a corpse! What has happened to my son?”

  “I take it,” Cadsuane said, “that the reunion did not go as hoped?”

  Tam took a deep breath, and the anger seemed to suddenly flow out of him. He was still firm, his eyes displeased, but the rage was gone. Min had seen Rand take control of himself that quickly, before things had started to go wrong in Bandar Eban.

  “He tried to kill me,” Tam said in a level voice. “My own son. Once he was as gentle and faithful a lad as a father could hope for. Tonight, he channeled the One Power and turned it against me.”

  Min raised her hand to her mouth, feeling a panicked terror. The words brought back memories of Rand looming over her, trying to kill her.

  But that hadn’t been him! It had been Semirhage. Hadn’t it? Oh, Rand, she thought, understanding the pain she’d felt through the bond. What have you done?

  “Interesting,” Cadsuane said, her voice cold. “And did you speak the words I prepared for you?”

  “I began to,” Tam said, “but I realized that it wasn’t working. He wouldn’t open up to me, and well he shouldn’t. A man using an Aes Sedai script with his own son! I don’t know what you did to him, woman, but I recognize hatred when I see it. You have a lot to explain to—”

  Tam cut off as he was suddenly lifted into the air by unseen hands. “You recall, perhaps, what I said about civility, boy?” Cadsuane asked.

  “Cadsuane!” Nynaeve said. “You don’t need to—”

  “It’s all right, Wisdom,” Tam said. He looked at Cadsuane. Min had seen her treat others like this, including Rand. He had always grown frustrated, and others she did it to were prone to bellowing.

  Tam stared her in the eyes. “I’ve known men who, when challenged, always turn to their fists for answers. I’ve never liked Aes Sedai; I was happy to be rid of them when I returned to my farm. A bully is a bully, whether she uses the strength of her arm or other means.”

  Cadsuane snorted, but the words had irked her, for she set Tam down.

  “Now,” Nynaeve said, as if she’d been the one to defuse the exchange, “perhaps we can get back to what is important. Tam al’Thor, I’d have expected you of all people to handle this better. Didn’t we warn you that Rand had grown unstable?”

  “Unstable?” Tam asked. “Nynaeve, that boy is right near insane. What has happened to him? I understand what battle can do to a man, but. . . .”

  “This is irrelevant,” Cadsuane said. “You realiz
e, child, that might have been our last opportunity to save your son?”

  “If you’d explained to me how he regarded you,” Tam said, “it might have gone differently. Burn me! This is what I get for listening to Aes Sedai.”

  “This is what you get for being wool-headed and ignoring what you are told!” Nynaeve interjected.

  “This is what we all get,” Min said, “for assuming we can make him do what we want.”

  The room fell still.

  And suddenly Min realized that through their bond, she could feel Rand. Distant, to the west. “He’s gone,” she whispered.

  “Yes,” Tam said, sighing. “He opened one of those gateways right on the balcony. Left me alive, though I could have sworn—looking in his eyes—that he meant to kill me. I’ve seen that look in the eyes of men before, and one of the two of us always ended up bleeding on the floor.”

  “What happened, then?” Nynaeve asked.

  “He . . . seemed to be distracted by something, suddenly,” Tam said. “He took that little statue and dashed through the gateway.”

  Cadsuane raised an eyebrow. “And did you see, by chance, where that gateway took him?”

  West, Min thought. Far to the west.

  “I’m not certain,” Tam admitted. “It was dark, though I thought. . . .”

  “What?” Nynaeve prodded.

  “Ebou Dar,” Min said, surprising them all. “He’s gone to destroy the Seanchan. Just as he told the Maidens he would.”

  “I don’t know about that last part,” Tam said. “But it did look like Ebou Dar.”

  “Light preserve us,” Corele whispered.

  CHAPTER 49

  Just Another Man

  Rand walked, stump shoved in the pocket of his coat, head down, carrying the access key securely wrapped in white linen and looped to his belt at his side. Nobody paid attention to him. He was just another man walking the streets of Ebou Dar. Nothing special, despite the fact that he was taller than most. He had reddish gold hair, maybe suggesting some Aiel blood. But a lot of strange people had fled to the city recently to seek Seanchan protection. What was one more?

  As long as a person wasn’t able to channel, he or she could find stability here. Safety.

  That bothered him. They were his enemies. They were conquerors. He felt their lands shouldn’t be peaceful. They should be terrible, full of suffering because of the tyrannical rule. But it wasn’t like that at all.

  Not unless you could channel. What the Seanchan did with this group of people was horrifying. Not all was well beneath this happy surface. And yet, it was shocking to realize how well they treated others.

  Tinkers camped outside the city in large groups. Their wagons had not moved for weeks, and it seemed they were forming villages. As Rand had moved among them, he’d heard some of them speak of settling down. Others had objected to this, of course. They were the Tinkers, the Traveling People. How would they find the Song if they did not search for it? It was as much a part of them as the Way of the Leaf.

  Last night, Rand had listened to them at one of the campfires. They’d welcomed him in, fed him, never asking who he was. He’d kept the dragon on his hand hidden and the access key carefully tucked in his coat pocket, looking at that fire burning down to coals.

  He hadn’t ever been to Ebou Dar itself; he’d only visited the hills to the north, where he’d fought the Seanchan while wielding Callandor. That had been a place of failure. Now he had returned to Altara. But for what?

  In the morning, when the gates to the city had opened, he made his way inside with the others who had arrived at night. The Tinkers had taken them all in; apparently, they were receiving a ration of food from the Seanchan to house after-hour travelers. That was only one of their many occupations. They mended pots, sewed uniforms and did other odd jobs. For this, they received the protection of rulers for the first time in their long history.

  He’d spent long enough with the Aiel to pick up some of their disdain for the Tinkers. Yet that disdain warred with his knowledge that the Tuatha’an—in many ways—followed more true, traditional Aiel ways. Rand could remember what it was like to live as they had. In the visions of Rhuidean, he had followed the Way of the Leaf. He’d also seen the Age of Legends. He’d lived those lives, the lives of others, for a few brief moments.

  He walked along the packed streets of the muggy city, still in something of a daze. Last night, he had traded his fine black coat to a Tinker for a common brown cloak, ragged on the bottom and stitched in places. Not a Tinker cloak, just one that a Tinker had sewn up for a man who had never returned to claim it. It made him stand out less, even if it did require him to carry the access key looped to his belt, rather than his deep pocket. The Tinker also gave him a walking staff, which Rand used as he walked, slouching slightly. Height might make him memorable. He wanted to be invisible to these people.

  He had nearly killed his father. He hadn’t been forced to by Semirhage, or by Lews Therin’s influence. No excuses. No argument. He, Rand al’Thor, had tried to kill his own father. He’d drawn in the Power, made the weaves and nearly released them.

  Rand’s rage was gone, replaced by loathing. He’d wanted to make himself hard. He’d 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 Rand’s own father wasn’t safe in his empire. Rand’s friends feared him; he had seen it in Nynaeve’s eyes.

  The people here weren’t 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 didn’t 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 Crown’s authority hadn’t 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 farrier’s shop. He raised his stump to his head, trying to clear his mind.

  He didn’t want to confront what he had nearly done back in the Stone. He didn’t want to confront what he had done: weaving Air and shoving Tam to the ground, threatening him; raving.

  Rand couldn’t 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 s
imply light a beacon for the Forsaken, as he had in cleansing saidin?

  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 al’Thor 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 didn’t sound as crazy as he once had. In fact, his voice had started to sound an awful lot like Rand’s own voice.

  Rand stopped atop another bridge, looking over at the city’s 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. He’d 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, he’d need to move on to Amador, then to Tanchico and others. He’d 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.