The Dragon Reborn (The Wheel of Time, #3)

by Robert Jordan

“As well I went after you,” Lan said, and the Aes Sedai sniffed loudly. “I could wish you were a woman, Gaidin. I would send you to the Tower as a novice to learn to obey!” He raised an eyebrow and touched the hilt of his sword, then swung into his saddle, and she sighed. “Perhaps it is as well you are disobedient. Sometimes it is well. Besides, I do not think Sheriam and Siuan Sanche together could teach you obedience.”

“You are trying to kill us.” Thom’s voice was unsteady, and it rose in intensity and pitch as he spoke. “If I decide I want to die, I will go to the Royal Palace when we reach Caemlyn, and I’ll pinch Morgase!” His long mustaches flailed. “Do not do that again!” “It did not explode,” Mat said, frowning at the fire. He fished into the oiled-cloth roll on the other side of the log and pulled out a firework of the next larger size. “I wonder why there was no bang.” “I do not care why there was no bang! Do not do it again!”

“ ‘Stay close to the inn,’ ” Zarine mimicked as the Aes Sedai and the Warder disappeared down the stairs. But she said it quietly enough that they would not hear. “This Rand. He is the one you called the. . . .” If she looked like a falcon right then, it was a very uneasy falcon. “And we are in Tear, where the Heart of the Stone holds. . . . And the Prophecies say. . . . The Light burn me, ta’veren, is this a story I want to be in?” “It is not a story, Zarine.” For a moment Perrin felt almost as hopeless as the innkeeper had sounded. “The Wheel weaves us into the Pattern. You chose to tangle your thread with ours; it’s too late to untangle it, now.”

“Take it.” Ajala cleared his throat. “I do not usually give away good hammers, but. . . . The work you’ve done today is worth more than the price of that hammer by far, and maybe it will help you to that ‘one day.’ Man, if I have ever seen anyone made to hold a smith’s hammer, it is you. So take it. Keep it.” Perrin closed his hand around the haft. It did feel right. “Thank you,” he said. “I cannot say what this means to me.” “Just remember the ‘one day,’ man. Just you remember it.”

“Once we rode to war side by side, and for that I give you a chance. A bare chance, but a chance to save yourself, a chance to save those three I mean to make my pets. Take the sword, countryman. Perhaps it will be enough to help you survive me.” Rand laughed. “Do you believe you can frighten me so easily, Forsaken? Ba’alzamon himself has hunted me. Do you think I will cower now for you? Grovel before a Forsaken when I have denied the Dark One to his face?”

“Matrim Cauthon,” Nynaeve said, sounding shocked, “what under the Light are you doing here?” “I came to bloody rescue you,” he said. “Burn me if I expected to be greeted as if I had come to steal a pie. You can tell me why you look as if you’d been fighting bears later, if you want. If Egwene cannot walk, I’ll carry her on my back. There are Aiel all over the Stone, or near enough, and either they are killing the bloody Defenders or the bloody Defenders are killing them, but whichever way it is, we had better get out of here while we bloody well can. If we can!”

He raised Callandor above his head. Silver lightning crackled from the blade, jagged streaks arching toward the great dome above. “Stop!” he shouted. The fighting ceased; men stared at him in wonder, over black veils, from beneath the rims of round helmets. “I am Rand al’Thor!” he called, so his voice rang through the chamber. “I am the Dragon Reborn!” Callandor shone in his grasp. One by one, veiled men and helmeted, they knelt to him, crying, “The Dragon is Reborn! The Dragon is Reborn!”

“I want to know how all of this can be.” He meant to keep his tone soft, but despite himself he picked up intensity as he went along. “The Stone of Tear has fallen! The Prophecies said that would never happen till the People of the Dragon came. Does that mean we are the bloody People of the Dragon? You, me, Lan, and a few hundred bloody Aiel?” He had seen the Warder during the night; there had not seemed to be much edge between Lan and the Aiel as to who was the more deadly. As Rhuarc straightened to stare at him, he hastily added, “Uh, sorry, Rhuarc. Slip of the tongue.” “Perhaps,” Moiraine said slowly. “I came to stop Be’lal from killing Rand. I did not expect to see the Stone of Tear fall. Perhaps we are. Prophecies are fulfilled as they are meant to be, not as we think they should be.”

“Are you sure, Moiraine?” Nynaeve said. “Rand was certain—is certain—that he killed the Dark One. You seem to be saying Ba’alzamon was not the Dark One at all. I don’t understand! How can you be so sure? And if he was not the Dark One, who was he?” “I can be sure for the simplest of reasons, Nynaeve. However fast decay took it, that was a man’s body. Can you believe that if the Dark One were killed he would leave a human body? The man Rand killed was a man. Perhaps he was the first of the Forsaken freed, or perhaps he was never entirely bound. We may never know which.” “I . . . may know who he was.” Egwene paused with an uncertain frown. “At least, I may have a clue. Verin showed me a page from an old book that mentioned Ba’alzamon and Ishamael together. It was almost High Chant and very nearly incomprehensible, but I remember something about ‘a name hidden behind a name.’ Maybe Ba’alzamon was Ishamael.”