The Shadow Rising (The Wheel of Time, #4)

by Robert Jordan

Nynaeve gave Thom a sharp look. “I’ve no time for that now. The Black sisters are in the Panarch’s Palace, and for all I know, Amathera is helping them search it from cellar to attic.” “I found out less than an hour ago,” he said disbelievingly. “How did you … ?” He looked at Domon and Juilin, both still glowering like boys who had each wanted the whole cake.

Even Domon, rather surprisingly, supported Egeanin when Nynaeve wanted her to keep quiet. “She do make sense, Mistress al’Meara. Only a fool do reject sense, wherever it do come from.”

As he scanned for the birds, a patch of sky darkened, became a window to somewhere else. Egwene stood among a crowd of women, fear in her eyes; slowly the women knelt around her. Nynaeve was one of them, and he believed he saw Elayne’s red-gold hair. That window faded and was replaced. Mat stood naked and bound, snarling; an odd spear with a black shaft had been thrust across his back behind his elbows, and a silver medallion, a foxhead, hung on his chest. Mat vanished, and it was Rand. Perrin thought it was Rand. He wore rags and a rough cloak, and a bandage covered his eyes. The third window disappeared; the sky was only sky, empty except for the clouds.

“Faile, please. I need you to carry this message to Caemlyn.” Her hand tightened in his beard, and her head swung as if she were arguing with herself inside her head. “I will go,” she said at last, “but I want a price. You always make me do things the hard way. In Saldaea, I would not have to be the one who asked. My price is … a wedding. I want to marry you,” she finished up in a rush.

Amys’s long pale hair, hanging below her shawl, swung as she shook her head firmly. “It is not his decision, Aes Sedai. This is the business of chiefs, men’s business. If we let you go into Alcair Dal now, the next time Wise Ones meet, or roofmistresses, some clan chief will want to put his nose in. They think we meddle in their affairs, and often try to meddle in ours.”

“Do not keep to yourself, Rand. You do not fight alone. Others do battle for you, too.” Frowning, he tried not to look at her. His first thought was of Emond’s Field and Perrin, but he did not see how she could know where Perrin had gone. “What do you mean?” he said finally. “I fight for you,” Moiraine said before Egwene could open her mouth, “as does Egwene.” A look flashed between the two women. “People fight for you who do not know it, any more than you know them. You do not realize what it means that you force the form of the Age Lace, do you? The ripples of your actions, the ripples of your very existence, spread across the Pattern to change the weave of life-threads of which you will never be aware. The battle is far from yours alone. Yet you stand in the heart of this web in the Pattern. Should you fail, and fall, all fails and falls. Since I cannot go with you into Alcair Dal, let Lan accompany you. One more pair of eyes to watch your back.”

“What does the Prophecy of Rhuidean say? ‘Born of the blood.’ My mother was Shaiel, a Maiden of the Chumai Taardad.” Who was she really? Where did she come from? “My father was Janduin, of the Iron Mountain sept, clan chief of the Taardad.” My father is Tam al’Thor. He found me, raised me, loved me. I wish I could have known you, Janduin, but Tam is my father. “‘Born of the blood, but raised by those not of the blood.’ Where did the Wise Ones send to look for me? Into the holds of the Three-fold Land? They sent across the Dragonwall, where I was raised. According to the prophecy.”

There was a consideration beyond getting out alive; he needed these people, needed their loyalty. He had to have people who followed him because they believed, not to use him, or for what he could give them. He had to.

“I saw the Age of Legends,” Rand announced, “and the beginning of the Aiel journey to the Three-fold Land.” Rhuarc caught his arm, but he shook the clan chief off. This moment had been fated since the Aiel gathered before Rhuidean the first time. “I saw the Aiel when they were called the Da’shain Aiel, and followed the Way of the Leaf.”

“Why?” Rhuarc said softly beside Rand. “Did you not understand why we do not speak of Rhuidean? To face that we were once so different from everything we believe, that we were the same as the despised Lost Ones you call Tuatha’an. Rhuidean kills those who cannot face it. Not more than one man in three lives who goes to Rhuidean. And now you have spoken for all to hear. It cannot be stopped here, Rand al’Thor. It will spread. How many will be strong enough to bear it?” He will take you back, and he will destroy you. “I bring change,” Rand said sadly. “Not peace, but turmoil.” Destruction follows on my heels everywhere. Will there ever be anywhere I do not tear apart? “What will be, will be, Rhuarc. I can’t change it.” “What will be, will be,” the Aielman murmured after a moment.

“Rand al’Thor,” Rhuarc said, “is He Who Comes With the Dawn.” In a voice too soft to carry even from the ledge, he added, “And the Light have mercy on us.”

Asmodean turned his head, and Rand gaped. The Forsaken could change their faces—or at least make you see a different face; he had seen Lanfear do it—but these were the features of Jasin Natael, the gleeman. He had been sure it would be Kadere, with his predatory eyes that never changed.

Somehow Rand managed to stand, still holding the stone-and-crystal figure to his chest. He would not continue on his knees in her presence. “You Chosen”—he knew taunting her was dangerous, but he could not stop himself—“gave your souls to the Dark One. You let him attach himself to you.” How many times had he replayed his battle with Ba’alzamon? How many times before he began to suspect what those black wires were? “I cut him off from the Dark One, Lanfear. I cut him off!”

You gave me the whole idea, Lanfear. A man to teach me how to control the Power. But I won’t be taught by a man linked to the Dark One. Now I don’t have to be. He may be the same man, but he doesn’t have much choice, does he? He can stay and teach me, hope I win, help me win, or he can hope the rest of you don’t take the excuse to turn on him. Which do you think he’ll choose?”

“Did you harm anyone at Alcair Dal, or in the camps?” Her face never stopped smiling, but her caress changed, fingers suddenly poised as if to rip out his throat. “Such as who? I thought you had realized you did not love that little farmgirl. Or is it the Aiel jade?” A viper. A deadly viper who loved him—The Light help me!—and he did not know how to stop her if she decided to bite, whether him or someone else. “I don’t want anyone hurt. I need them yet. I can use them.” It was painful saying that, painful for the amount of truth in it. But keeping Lanfear’s fangs out of Egwene and Moiraine, away from Aviendha and anyone else close to him, that was worth a little pain.

“Use his teachings well, Lews Therin. The others are still out there, Sammael with his envy of you, Demandred with his hate, Rahvin with his thirst for power. They will be more eager to bring you down, not less, if—when—they discover you hold that.”

Out from the great tree, a little searching among the jumble found what he sought. Kicking aside pieces of what seemed to be spiraled glass tubes, he shoved a plain-carved chair of red crystal aside and picked up a foot-tall figurine, a robed woman with a serene face, worked in white stone, holding up a clear sphere in one hand. Unbroken. As useless to him, or to any man, as its male twin was to Lanfear.

The valley floor tilted sharply to the south now, and water spilled out of the great rent across the city, the gash that went all the way down to where that deep hidden ocean of water lay. Already the lower end of the valley was filling. A lake. It might reach nearly to the city eventually, a lake maybe three miles long in a land where a pool ten feet across drew people. People would come to this valley to live. He could almost see the surrounding mountains already terraced with crops growing green. They would tend Avendesora, the last chora tree. Perhaps they would even rebuild Rhuidean. The Waste would have a city. Perhaps he would even live to see it.