He became aware of the sun, first, moving across a cloudless sky, filling his unblinking eyes. It seemed to go by fits and starts, standing still for days, then darting ahead in a streak of light, jerking toward the far horizon, day falling with it. Light. That should mean something. Thought was a new thing. I can think. I means me. Pain came next, the memory of raging fever, the bruises where shaking chills had thrown him around like a rag doll. And a stink. A greasy, burned smell, filling his nostrils, and his head.
With aching muscles, he heaved himself over, pushed up to hands and knees. Uncomprehending, he stared at the oily ashes in which he had been lying, ashes scattered and smeared over the stone of the hilltop. Bits of dark green cloth lay mixed in the char, edge-blackened scraps that had escaped the flames.
Aginor.
His stomach heaved and twisted. Trying to brush black streaks of ash from his clothes, he lurched away from the remains of the Forsaken. His hands flapped feebly, not making much headway. He tried to use both hands and fell forward. A sheer drop loomed under his face, a smooth rock wall spinning in his eyes, depth pulling him. His head swam, and he vomited over the edge of the cliff.
Trembling, he crawled backwards on his belly until there was solid stone under his eyes, then flopped over onto his back, panting for breath. With an effort he fumbled his sword from its scabbard. Only a few ashes remained from the red cloth. His hands shook when he held it up in front of his face; it took both hands. It was a heron-mark blade—Heron-mark? Yes. Tam. My father—but only steel for that. He needed three wavering tries to sheathe it again. It had been something else. Or there was another sword.
“My name,” he said after a while, “is Rand al’Thor.” More memory crashed back into his head like a lead ball, and he groaned. “The Dark One,” he whispered to himself. “The Dark One is dead.” There was no more need for caution. “Shai’tan is dead.” The world seemed to lurch. He shook in silent mirth until tears poured from his eyes. “Shai’tan is dead!” He laughed at the sky. Other memories. “Egwene!” That name meant something important.
Painfully he got to his feet, wavering like a willow in a high wind, and staggered past Aginor’s ashes without looking at them. Not important anymore. He fell more than climbed down that first, steep part of the slope, tumbling and sliding from bush to bush. By the time he reached more level ground, his bruises ached twice as much, but he found strength enough to stand, barely. Egwene. He broke into a shambling run. Leaves and flower petals showered around him as he blundered through the undergrowth. Have to find her. Who is she?
His arms and legs seemed to flail about more like long blades of grass than go as he wanted them to. Tottering, he fell against a tree, slamming against the trunk so hard that he grunted. Foliage rained on his head while he pressed his face to the rough bark, clutching to keep from falling. Egwene. He pushed himself away from the tree and hurried on. Almost immediately he tilted again, falling, but he forced his legs to work faster, to run into the fall so that he was staggering along at a good clip, all the while one step from falling flat on his face. Moving made his legs begin to obey him more. Slowly, he found himself running upright, arms pumping, long legs pulling him down the slope in leaps. He bounded into the clearing, half-filled now by the great oak marking the Green Man’s grave. There was the white stone arch marked with the ancient symbol of the Aes Sedai, and the blackened, gaping pit where fire and wind had tried to trap Aginor and failed.
“Egwene! Egwene, where are you?” A pretty girl looked up with big eyes from where she knelt beneath the spreading branches, flowers in her hair, and brown oak leaves. She was slender and young, and frightened. Yes, that’s who she is. Of course. “Egwene, thank the Light you’re all right.”
There were two other women with her, one with haunted eyes and a long braid, still decorated with a few white morningstars. The other lay outstretched, her head pillowed on folded cloaks, her own sky-blue cloak not quite hiding her tattered dress. Charred spots and tears in the rich cloth showed, and her face was pale, but her eyes were open. Moiraine. Yes, the Aes Sedai. And the Wisdom, Nynaeve. All three women looked at him, unblinking and intent.
“You are all right, aren’t you? Egwene? He didn’t harm you.” He could walk without stumbling, now—the sight of her made him feel like dancing, bruises and all—but it still felt good to drop down cross-legged beside them.
“I never even saw him after you pushed—” Her eyes were uncertain on his face. “What about you, Rand?”
“I’m fine.” He laughed. He touched her cheek, and wondered if he had imagined a slight pulling away. “A little rest, and I’ll be new made. Nynaeve? Moiraine Sedai?” The names felt new in his mouth.
The Wisdom’s eyes were old, ancient in her young face, but she shook her head. “A little bruised,” she said, still watching him. “Moiraine is the only . . . the only one of us who was really hurt.”
“I suffered more injury to my pride than anything else,” the Aes Sedai said irritably, plucking at her cloak blanket. She looked as if she had been a long time ill, or hard used, but despite the dark circles under them her eyes were sharp and full of power. “Aginor was surprised and angry that I held him as long as I did, but fortunately, he had no time to spare for me. I am surprised myself that I held him so long. In the Age of Legends, Aginor was close behind the Kinslayer and Ishamael in power.”
“ ‘The Dark One and all the Forsaken,’ ” Egwene quoted in a faint, unsteady voice, “ ‘are bound in Shayol Ghul, bound by the Creator . . . ’ ” She drew a shuddering breath.
“Aginor and Balthamel must have been trapped near the surface.” Moiraine sounded as if she had already explained this, impatient at doing so again. “The patch on the Dark One’s prison weakened enough to free them. Let us be thankful no more of the Forsaken were freed. If they had been, we would have seen them.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Rand said. “Aginor and Balthamel are dead, and so is Shai’—”
“The Dark One,” the Aes Sedai cut him off. Ill or not, her voice was firm, and her dark eyes commanding. “Best we still call him the Dark One. Or Ba’alzamon, at least.”
He shrugged. “As you wish. But he’s dead. The Dark One’s dead. I killed him. I burned him with . . . ” The rest of memory flooded back then, leaving his mouth hanging open. The One Power. I wielded the One Power. No man can . . . He licked lips that were suddenly dry. A gust of wind swirled fallen and falling leaves around them, but it was no colder than his heart. They were looking at him, the three of them. Watching. Not even blinking. He reached out to Egwene, and there was no imagination in her drawing back this time. “Egwene?” She turned her face away, and he let his hand drop.
Abruptly she flung her arms around him, burying her face in his chest. “I’m sorry, Rand. I’m sorry. I don’t care. Truly, I don’t.” Her shoulders shook. He thought she was crying. Awkwardly patting her hair, he looked at the other two women over the top of her head.
“The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills,” Nynaeve said slowly, “but you are still Rand al’Thor of Emond’s Field. But, the Light help me, the Light help us all, you are too dangerous, Rand.” He flinched from the Wisdom’s eyes, sad, regretting, and already accepting loss.
“What happened?” Moiraine said. “Tell me everything!”
And with her eyes on him, compelling, he did. He wanted to turn away, to make it short, leave things out, but the Aes Sedai’s eyes drew everything from him. Tears ran down his face when he came to Kari al’Thor. His mother. He emphasized that. “He had my mother. My mother!” There was sympathy and pain on Nynaeve’s face, but the Aes Sedai’s eyes drove him on, to the sword of Light, to severing the black cord, and the flames consuming Ba’alzamon. Egwene’s arms tightened around him as if she would pull him back from what had happened. “But it wasn’t me,” he finished. “The Light . . . pulled me along. It wasn’t really me. Doesn’t that make any difference?”
“I had suspicions from the first,” Moiraine said. “Suspicions are not proof, though. After I gave you the token, the coin, and made that bonding, you should have been willing to fall in with whatever I wanted, but you resisted, questioned. That told me something, but not enough. Manetheren blood was always stubborn, and more so after Aemon died and Eldrene’s heart was shattered. Then there was Bela.”
“Bela?” he said. Nothing makes any difference.
The Aes Sedai nodded. “At Watch Hill, Bela had no need of me to cleanse her of tiredness; someone had already done it. She could have outrun Mandarb, that night. I should have thought of who Bela carried. With Trollocs on our heels, a Draghkar overhead, and a Halfman the Light alone knew where, how you must have feared that Egwene would be left behind. You needed something more than you had ever needed anything before in your life, and you reached out to the one thing that could give it to you. Saidin.”
He shivered. He felt so cold his fingers hurt. “If I never do it again, if I never touch it again, I won’t . . . ” He could not say it. Go mad. Turn the land and people around him to madness. Die, rotting while he still lived.
“Perhaps,” Moiraine said. “It would be much easier if there was someone to teach you, but it might be done, with a supreme effort of will.”
“You can teach me. Surely, you—” He stopped when the Aes Sedai shook her head.
“Can a cat teach a dog to climb trees, Rand? Can a fish teach a bird to swim? I know saidar, but I can teach you nothing of saidin. Those who could are three thousand years dead. Perhaps you are stubborn enough, though. Perhaps your will is strong enough.”
Egwene straightened, wiping reddened eyes with the back of her hand. She looked as if she wanted to say something, but when she opened her mouth, nothing came out. At least she isn’t pulling away. At least she can look at me without screaming.
“The others?” he said.
“Lan took them into the cavern,” Nynaeve said. “The Eye is gone, but there’s something in the middle of the pool, a crystal column, and steps to reach it. Mat and Perrin wanted to look for you first—Loial did, too—but Moiraine said . . . ” She glanced at the Aes Sedai, troubled. Moiraine returned her look calmly. “She said we mustn’t disturb you while you were . . . ”
His throat constricted until he could hardly breathe. Will they turn their faces the way Egwene did? Will they scream and run away like I’m a Fade? Moiraine spoke as if she did not notice the blood draining from his face.
“There was a vast amount of the One Power in the Eye. Even in the Age of Legends, few could have channeled so much unaided without being destroyed. Very few.”
“You told them?” he said hoarsely. “If everybody knows . . . ”
“Only Lan,” Moiraine said gently. “He must know. And Nynaeve and Egwene, for what they are and what they will become. The others have no need, yet.”
“Why not?” The rasp in his throat made his voice harsh. “You will be wanting to gentle me, won’t you? Isn’t that what Aes Sedai do to men who can wield the Power? Change them so they can’t? Make them safe? Thom said men who have been gentled die because they stop wanting to live. Why aren’t you talking about taking me to Tar Valon to be gentled?”
“You are ta’veren,” Moiraine replied. “Perhaps the Pattern has not finished with you.”
Rand sat up straight. “In the dreams Ba’alzamon said Tar Valon and the Amyrlin Seat would try to use me. He named names, and I remember them, now. Raolin Darksbane and Guaire Amalasan. Yurian Stonebow. Davian. Logain.” The last was the hardest of all to say. Nynaeve went pale and Egwene gasped, but he pressed on angrily. “Every one a false Dragon. Don’t try to deny it. Well, I won’t be used. I am not a tool you can throw on the midden heap when it’s worn out.”
“A tool made for a purpose is not demeaned by being used for that purpose,” Moiraine’s voice was as harsh as his own, “but a man who believes the Father of Lies demeans himself. You say you will not be used, and then you let the Dark One set your path like a hound sent after a rabbit by his master.”
His fists clenched, and he turned his head away. It was too close to the things Ba’alzamon had said. “I am no one’s hound. Do you hear me? No one’s!”
Loial and the others appeared in the arch, and Rand scrambled to his feet, looking at Moiraine.
“They will not know,” the Aes Sedai said, “until the Pattern makes it so.”
Then his friends were coming close. Lan led the way, looking as hard as ever but still somewhat the worse for wear. He had one of Nynaeve’s bandages around his temples, and a stiff-backed way of walking. Behind him, Loial carried a large gold chest, ornately worked and chased with silver. No one but an Ogier could have lifted it unaided. Perrin had his arms wrapped around a big bundle of folded white cloth, and Mat was cupping what appeared to be fragments of pottery in his two hands.
“So you’re alive after all.” Mat laughed. His face darkened, and he jerked his head at Moiraine. “She wouldn’t let us look for you. Said we had to find out what the Eye was hiding. I’d have gone anyway, but Nynaeve and Egwene sided with her and almost threw me through the arch.”
“You’re here, now,” Perrin said, “and not too badly beaten about, by the look of you.” His eyes did not glow, but the irises were all yellow, now. “That’s the important thing. You’re here, and we’re done with what we came for, whatever it was. Moiraine Sedai says we’re done, and we can go. Home, Rand. The Light burn me, but I want to go home.”
“Good to see you alive, sheepherder,” Lan said gruffly. “I see you hung onto your sword. Maybe you’ll learn to use it, now.” Rand felt a sudden burst of affection for the Warder; Lan knew, but on the surface at least, nothing had changed. He thought that perhaps, for Lan, nothing had changed inside either.
“I must say,” Loial said, setting the chest down, “that traveling with ta’veren has turned out to be even more interesting than I expected.” His ears twitched violently. “If it becomes any more interesting, I will go back to Stedding Shangtai immediately, confess everything to Elder Haman, and never leave my books again.” Suddenly the Ogier grinned, that wide mouth splitting his face in two. “It is so good to see you, Rand al’Thor. The Warder is the only one of these three who cares much at all for books, and he won’t talk. What happened to you? We all ran off and hid in the woods until Moiraine Sedai sent Lan to find us, but she would not let us look for you. Why were you gone so long, Rand?”
“I ran and ran,” he said slowly, “until I fell down a hill and hit my head on a rock. I think I hit every rock on the way down.” That should explain his bruises. He tried to watch the Aes Sedai, and Nynaeve and Egwene, too, but their faces never changed. “When I came to, I was lost, and finally I stumbled back here. I think Aginor is dead, burned. I found some ashes, and pieces of his cloak.”
The lies sounded hollow in his ears. He could not understand why they did not laugh with scorn and demand the truth, but his friends nodded, accepting, and made sympathetic sounds as they gathered around the Aes Sedai to show her what they had found.
“Help me up,” Moiraine said. Nynaeve and Egwene lifted her until she was sitting; they had to support her even then.
“How could these things be inside the Eye,” Mat asked, “without being destroyed like that rock?”
“They were not put there to be destroyed,” the Aes Sedai said curtly, and frowned away their questions while she took the pottery fragments, black and white and shiny, from Mat.
They seemed like rubble to Rand, but she fitted them together deftly on the ground beside her, making a perfect circle the size of a man’s hand. The ancient symbol of the Aes Sedai, the Flame of Tar Valon joined with the Dragon’s Fang, black siding white. For a moment Moiraine only looked at it, her face unreadable, then she took the knife from her belt and handed it to Lan, nodding to the circle.
The Warder separated out the largest piece, then raised the knife high and brought it down with all his might. A spark flew, the fragment leaped with the force of the blow, and the blade snapped with a sharp crack. He examined the stump left attached to the hilt, then tossed it aside. “The best steel from Tear,” he said dryly.
Mat snatched the fragment up and grunted, then showed it around. There was no mark on it.
“Cuendillar,” Moiraine said. “Heartstone. No one has been able to make it since the Age of Legends, and even then it was made only for the greatest purpose. Once made, nothing can break it. Not the One Power itself wielded by the greatest Aes Sedai who ever lived aided by the most powerful sa’angreal ever made. Any power directed against heartstone only makes it stronger.”
“Then how . . . ?” Mat’s gesture with the piece he held took in the other bits on the ground.
“This was one of the seven seals on the Dark One’s prison,” Moiraine said. Mat dropped the piece as if it had become white-hot. For a moment, Perrin’s eyes seemed to glow again. The Aes Sedai calmly began gathering the fragments.
“It doesn’t matter anymore,” Rand said. His friends looked at him oddly, and he wished he had kept his mouth shut.
“Of course,” Moiraine replied. But she carefully put all the pieces into her pouch. “Bring me the chest.” Loial lifted it closer.
The flattened cube of gold and silver appeared to be solid, but the Aes Sedai’s fingers felt across the intricate work, pressing, and with a sudden click a top flung back as if on springs. A curled, gold horn nestled within. Despite its gleam, it seemed plain beside the chest that held it. The only markings were a line of silver script inlaid around the mouth of the bell. Moiraine lifted the horn out as if lifting a babe. “This must be carried to Illian,” she said softly.
“Illian!” Perrin growled. “That’s almost to the Sea of Storms, nearly as far south of home as we are north now.”
“Is it . . . ?” Loial stopped to catch his breath. “Can it be . . . ?”
“You can read the Old Tongue?” Moiraine asked, and when he nodded, she handed him the horn.
The Ogier took it as gently as she had, delicately tracing the script with one broad finger. His eyes went wider and wider, and his ears stood up straight. “Tia mi aven Moridin isainde vadin,” he whispered. “The grave is no bar to my call.”
“The Horn of Valere.” For once the Warder appeared truly shaken; there was a touch of awe in his voice.
At the same time Nynaeve said in a shaky voice, “To call the heroes of the Ages back from the dead to fight the Dark One.”
“Burn me!” Mat breathed.
Loial reverently laid the horn back in its golden nest.
“I begin to wonder,” Moiraine said. “The Eye of the World was made against the greatest need the world would ever face, but was it made for the use to which . . . we . . . put it, or to guard these things? Quickly, the last, show it to me.”
After the first two, Rand could understand Perrin’s reluctance. Lan and the Ogier took the bundle of white cloth from him when he hesitated, and unfolded it between them. A long, white banner spread out, lifting on the air. Rand could only stare. The whole thing seemed of a piece, neither woven, nor dyed, nor painted. A figure like a serpent, scaled in scarlet and gold, ran the entire length, but it had scaled legs, and feet with five long, golden claws on each, and a great head with a golden mane and eyes like the sun. The stirring of the banner made it seem to move, scales glittering like precious metals and gems, alive, and he almost thought he could hear it roar defiance.
“What is it?” he said.
Moiraine answered slowly. “The banner of the Lord of the Morning when he led the forces of Light against the Shadow. The banner of Lews Therin Telamon. The banner of the Dragon.” Loial almost dropped his end.
“Burn me!” Mat said faintly.
“We will take these things with us when we go,” Moiraine said. “They were not put here by chance, and I must know more.” Her fingers brushed her pouch, where the pieces of the shattered seal were. “It is too late in the day for starting now. We will rest, and eat, but we will leave early. The Blight is all around here, not as along the Border, and strong. Without the Green Man, this place cannot hold long. Let me down,” she told Nynaeve and Egwene. “I must rest.”
Rand became aware of what he had been seeing all along, but not noticing. Dead, brown leaves falling from the great oak. Dead leaves rustling thick on the ground in the breeze, brown mixed with petals dropped from thousands of flowers. The Green Man had held back the Blight, but already the Blight was killing what he had made.
“It is done, isn’t it?” he asked Moiraine. “It is finished.”
The Aes Sedai turned her head on its pillow of cloaks. Her eyes seemed as deep as the Eye of the World. “We have done what we came here to do. From here you may live your life as the Pattern weaves. Eat, then sleep, Rand al’Thor. Sleep, and dream of home.”