The Fires of Heaven (The Wheel of Time, #5)

by Robert Jordan

She forced herself to go on, though the words curdled in her mouth. “Rand al’Thor is the Dragon Reborn, daughters.” Shemerin’s knees gave way, and she sat down hard on the floor. Some of the others appeared to have weak knees as well. Elaida’s eyes flogged them with scorn. “There can be no doubt of it. He is the one spoken of in the Prophecies. The Dark One is breaking free of his prison, the Last Battle is coming, and the Dragon Reborn must be there to face him or the world is doomed to fire and destruction so long as the Wheel of Time turns. And he runs free, daughters. We do not know where he is. We know a dozen places he is not. He is no longer in Tear. He is not here in the Tower, safely shielded, as he should be. He brings the whirlwind down on the world, and we must stop it if there is to be any hope of surviving Tarmon Gai’don. We must have him in hand to see he fights in the Last Battle. Or do any of you believe he will go willingly to his prophesied death to save the world? A man who must be going mad already? We must have him in control!”

Of course, no one called it Aridhol any longer, but Shadar Logoth. Where the Shadow Waits. An apt name. So much had changed. Even himself. Padan Fain. Mordeth. Ordeith. Sometimes he was uncertain which name was really his, who he really was. One thing was sure. He was not what anyone thought. Those who believed they knew him were badly mistaken. He was transfigured, now. A force unto himself, and beyond any other power. They would all learn, eventually.

“Are you certain Asmodean went over?” Sammael demanded. “He never had the courage to take a chance before. Where did he find the heart to join a lost cause?” Lanfear’s brief smile was amused. “He had the courage for an ambush he thought would set him above the rest of us. And when his choice became death or a doomed cause, it took little courage for him to choose.”

Sammael absently rubbed the scar across his face; it had been Lews Therin who gave it to him. Three thousand years ago and more, well before the Breaking of the World, before the Great Lord was imprisoned, before so much, but Sammael never forgot.

It was true, what she said of them. Rahvin himself preferred diplomacy and manipulation to open conflict, though he would not shy from it if needed. Sammael’s way had always been armies and conquest; he would not go near Lews Therin, even reborn as a shepherd, until he was sure of victory. Graendal, too, followed conquest, though her methods did not involve soldiers; for all her concern with her toys, she took one solid step at a time. Openly to be sure, as the Chosen reckoned such things, but never stretching too far at any step.

Siuan studied her shrewdly a moment more. “That isn’t the reason. Not the whole reason. Out with it.” Hurling a small brush into the box, Leane blazed up in a fury. “The whole reason? I do not know the whole reason. I only know I need something in my life to replace—what is gone. You yourself told me that is the only hope of surviving. Revenge falls short, for me. I know your cause is necessary, and perhaps even right, but the Light help me, that is not enough either; I can’t make myself be as involved as you. Maybe I came too late to it. I will stay with you, but it isn’t enough.”

“You will regret stealing horses?” Min said hoarsely. “You plan to break an oath anyone but a Darkfriend would keep, and you regret stealing horses? I can’t believe either of you. I don’t know either of you.” “Do you really mean to stay and scrub pots,” Leane asked, her voice just as low as theirs, “when Rand is out there with your heart in his pocket?”

He was a tall man in a blue silk coat, with a sword at his side, his hair curling to broad shoulders, darkly handsome despite a hardening as though misfortune had marked him deeply. And he was the last man Min expected to see. “Is this your work?” Siuan demanded of him. Logain smiled as he reined in beside the cart, though there was little amusement in it. “A sling is a useful thing, Mara. You are lucky I am here. I didn’t expect you to leave the village for some hours yet, and barely able to walk then. The local lord was indulgent, it seems.” Abruptly his face went even darker, and his voice was rough stone. “Did you think I would leave you to your fate? Maybe I should have. You made promises to me, Mara. I want the revenge you promised.

“Rand al’Thor,” Morgase mused softly. “I met him once. He did not look like one who would name himself the Dragon Reborn. A frightened shepherd boy, trying not to show it. Yet thinking back, he seemed to be looking for some—escape.” Her blue eyes looked inward. “Elaida warned me of him.”

They were names he would have avoided if he could, but that time was long past if it had ever existed, and he no longer thought of it. Or if he did, on rare occasion, it was with the faint regret of a man recalling a foolish dream of his boyhood. As if he were not close enough to boyhood to remember every minute. Instead, he tried to think only of what he had to do. Fate and duty held him on the path like a rider’s reins, but he had often been called stubborn. The end of the road must be reached, but if it could be attained by a different way, maybe it need not be the end.

“The prophecy said you would break us,” Han said sourly, “and you have made a good beginning. But we will follow you. Till shade is gone,” he recited, “till water is gone, into the Shadow with teeth bared, screaming defiance with the last breath, to spit in Sightblinder’s eye on the Last Day.” Sightblinder was one of the Aiel names for the Dark One. There was nothing for Rand except to make the proper response. Once he had not known it. “By my honor and the Light, my life will be a dagger for Sightblinder’s heart.”

“She still wouldn’t suspect.” Settling back onto the cushions, the other man took up the harp again, strumming a line of music that had a devious sound. “How could anyone suspect? I do not entirely believe the situation myself.” If there was even a touch of bitterness in his voice, Rand could not detect it. He was not entirely sure he believed it either, though he had worked hard enough for it. The man in front of him, Jasin Natael, had another name. Asmodean. Idly playing the harp, Asmodean did not look like one of the dreaded Forsaken.

I came across a saying in Arad Doman. ‘The more women there are about, the softer a wise man steps.’ It would not be bad to remember it.”

“You found . . . something . . . in the square the day we met here.” “Forget that,” Rand said harshly. There had been two, not one. “I destroyed it, in any case.” He thought Asmodean’s shoulders slumped a trifle. “Then the—Dark One—will consume you alive. As for me, I intend to open my veins the hour I know he is free. If I get the chance. A quick death is better than what I’ll find elsewhere.” He tossed the blankets aside and sat staring glumly at nothing. “Better than going mad, certainly. I’m as subject to that as you, now. You broke the bonds that protected me.” There was no bitterness in his voice, only hopelessness.

“The Maidens,” he had once said, “carry my honor.” Everyone remembered that, and the Maidens were as proud of it as if he had given them all thrones. But it had turned out that they carried it in a manner they chose.

Asmodean had been amused at the first thing he’d wanted to learn, and then frustrated at how long Rand took to learn it.

“It means nothing,” he said, nodding sadly. Not that he wanted it to mean anything, really, but it would have been pleasing to think she might be beginning to see him as a friend. It was plain foolish to feel jealousy over her. I wonder who gave it to her? “Aviendha? Was I one of those you hate so much?” “Yes, Rand al’Thor.” She suddenly sounded hoarse. For a moment she turned her face away, eyes shut and quivering. “I hate you with all of my heart. I do. And I always will.”

Sleep finally came, and with it, safely protected dreams, safe from the Wise Ones or anyone else. Not protected from his own thoughts, though. Three women invaded them continually. Not Isendre, except in a brief nightmare that nearly woke him. By turns he dreamed of Elayne, and Min, and Aviendha, by turns and together. Only Elayne had ever looked at him as a man, but all three saw him as who he was, not what he was. Aside from the nightmare, they were all pleasant dreams.

“I am glad,” Amys said dryly, “to see you no longer hold your emotions so tightly, Aviendha. Maidens are as foolish as men when it comes to that; I remember it well, and it embarrasses me still. Letting emotions go clouds judgment for a moment, but holding them in clouds it always. Just be sure you do not release them too often, or when it is best to keep control of them.”

“Egwene, could a woman of your land accept a sister-wife?” Aviendha asked, using a stick to push the cover off the smoke hole. Egwene wished she had left that duty till last; the heat began to dissipate immediately. “I don’t know,” she said, quickly gathering the cups and the honey jar. The siaera went onto the tray, too. “I don’t think so. Maybe if it was a close friend,” she added hurriedly; there was no point in seeming to denigrate Aiel ways. Aviendha only grunted and began pushing up the side flaps.

“We’re fine.” Uneasily, Mat looked around the antechamber. “Now we are. You killed it, or something? I don’t want to know what it was, as long as it’s gone. It’s bloody hard on a man sometimes, being your friend.” Not only a friend. Another ta’veren, and perhaps a key to victory in Tarmon Gai’don; anyone who wanted to strike at Rand had reason to strike at Mat, as well. But Mat always tried to deny both things.

Rand had been Healed before, and seen it done, but instead of what he expected, Mat only gave a shiver and lifted up the medallion by its leather thong so that it hung against his hand. “Bloody thing is colder than ice all of a sudden,” he muttered. “What are you doing, Moiraine? If you want to do something, Heal this itch; it has my whole arm now.” His right arm was red from wrist to shoulder, and had begun to look puffy. Moiraine stared at him with the most startled expression Rand had ever seen on her face. Maybe the only one. “I will,” she said slowly. “If the medallion is cold, take it off.”

“With a sa’angreal like Callandor, you could annihilate a city with balefire. The Pattern could be disrupted for years to come. Who can say that the weave would even remain centered on you, ta’veren as you are, until it settled down? Being ta’veren, and so strongly so, may be your margin of victory, even in the Last Battle.”

Lan was watching Moiraine intently, expressionless as always, while she looked ready to burst with impatience as she glared at Rand. “She started telling him why this is the wrong thing to do—sounded to me like she was saying it for the hundredth time—and he said, ‘I’ve decided, Moiraine. Stand over there and be quiet till I have time for you.’ Like he expected her to do as she was told. And she did. Is that steam coming out of her ears?”

“I hope to return, but who can say what will happen? The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills.” He hesitated, with every eye on him. “But I will leave you something to remember me by,” he added, sticking a hand in his coat pocket. Abruptly a fountain near the Roof burst to life, water gushing from the mouths of incongruous porpoises standing on their tails. Beyond that, a statue of a young man with a horn raised to the sky suddenly was putting up a spreading fan, and then two stone women farther on were casting sprays of water from their hands. In stunned stillness the Aiel watched as all the fountains of Rhuidean flowed once more.

“This arid land seems to have withered your own humility, al’Lan Mandragoran. I shall have to find some water to make it grow again.” “My humility is honed to razor sharpness,” he told her dryly. “You never let it grow too dull.”

“Why did you tell him I could not keep away from boys? There was no need for that, Nynaeve!” “I was ready to tell him anything that would make him go away and leave us alone! And you—!” “Both of you shut up,” Thom barked suddenly, “before they come back to see which of you is murdering the other!”

“I do love him, but . . . He is very far away, Nynaeve. In the Waste, surrounded by a thousand Maidens of the Spear who jump to do his bidding. I cannot see him, or speak to him, or touch him.” She was whispering by the end. “You can’t think he’ll turn to a Maiden,” Nynaeve said incredulously. “He is a man, but he isn’t as fickle as that, and besides, one of them would put a spear in him if he looked at her crossways, even if he is this Dawn whatever. Anyway, Egwene says Aviendha is keeping an eye on him for you.” “I know, but . . . I should have made sure that he knew I love him.” Elayne’s voice was determined. And worried. “I should have told him so.” Nynaeve had hardly looked at a man before Lan, at least not seriously, but she had seen and learned much as Wisdom; from her observations, there was no quicker way to send a man running for his life, unless he said it first. “I think Min had a viewing,” Elayne went on. “About me, and about Rand. She always used to joke about having to share him, but I think it wasn’t a joke and she could not bring herself to say what it really was.”

“Well, I don’t see why you have to flirt just because you think Rand might.”

“Juilin,” she asked hesitantly, “what were you going to do with the salt and cooking oil? Not exactly,” she added more quickly. “Just a general idea.” He looked at her for a moment. “I do not know. But they did not, either. That is the trick of it; their minds made up worse than I ever could. I have seen a tough man break when I sent for a basket of figs and some mice. You have to be careful, though. Some will confess anything, true or not, just to escape what they imagine. I do not think those two did, though.”

She did not go near Callandor. Rand claimed to have woven traps around it with saidin, traps that no woman could see. She expected they would be nasty—the best of men could be vicious when they tried to be devious—nasty and just as primed for a woman as for the men who might use that sa’angreal. He had meant to guard it against those in the Tower as much as the Forsaken. Aside from Rand himself, the one who touched Callandor might die or worse.

The Wheel wove the heroes into the Pattern as they were needed, to shape the Pattern, and when they died they returned here to wait again. That was what it meant to be bound to the Wheel. New heroes could find themselves bound so as well, men and women whose bravery and accomplishments raised them far above the ordinary, but once bound, it was forever.

How long since I was worrying how to protect him? she thought bitterly. And now I just want him to stay sane to fight the Last Battle. Not only for that reason, but for that one, too. He was what he was. The Light burn me, I’m as bad as Siuan Sanche or any of them!

“Do you think Melaine was exaggerating?” Egwene said sternly, shaking her finger almost exactly like Melaine. “She was not, Nynaeve. The Wise Ones have told you the simple truth about Tel’aran’rhiod time and again, but you seem to think they’re fools whistling in a high wind. You are supposed to be a grown woman, not a silly little child. I vow, whatever sense you once had in your head seems to have vanished like a puff of smoke. Well, find it, Nynaeve!” She sniffed loudly, rearranging the shawl on her shoulders. “Right now you are trying to play with the pretty flames in the fireplace, too foolish to realize you might fall in.”

“I mean to deal with the world as I find the world, for as long as I can. At least Rand will be—easier to be around—now that I no longer need try to turn him from what he wants. I suppose I should be happy that he does not make me fetch his wine. He does listen most of the time, even if he seldom gives any sign what he thinks of what I tell him.”

Moiraine leaned over to put a hand on her arm, a look of affection on her face. “We cannot hold his hand forever, Egwene. He has learned to walk. He is learning to run. We can only hope he learns before his enemies catch him. And, of course, continue to advise him. To guide him when we can.”

“Moiraine, why have you started doing everything Rand tells you to? Even Nynaeve doesn’t think it is right.” “She does not, does she?” Moiraine murmured. “She will be Aes Sedai yet, whatever she wishes. Why? Because I remembered how to control saidar.” After a moment, Egwene nodded. To control saidar, first you had to surrender to it.

“I had hoped . . . Gawyn was nearly unhinged with worry when she disappeared. He cares for her, too. Will you tell me where she is?” Nynaeve took note of that “too.” The man had become a Whitecloak, yet he “cared for” a woman who wanted to be Aes Sedai. Men were so strange they were hardly human sometimes.

“Elayne, what’s the matter?” “We must leave immediately, Nynaeve. At once.” She did not look up until the last article was crammed in. “Right this minute, wherever he is, Galad is puzzling over something he may never have faced before. Two things that are right, but opposite.

Now she knew why the girl behaved as she did with Thom. She had seen the same back in the Two Rivers a few times. A girl just old enough to really think of herself as a woman. Who else would she measure herself against except her mother? And sometimes, who better to compete against, to prove that she was a woman?

“Stand on your feet, Cerandin,” Elayne said. “No one requires people to behave that way in this land. Not even a ruler.”

“Do you think that you are my equal, little sister?” Moghedien grimaced in disgust. “Did you stand in the Pit of Doom to dedicate your soul to the Great Lord? Did you taste the sweetness of victory at Paaran Disen, or the bitter ashes at the Asar Don? You are a barely trained puppy, not the packmistress, and you will go where I point until I see fit to give you a better place.

“You will go and wait for me, Morgase.” His voice was a distant roar filling her ears. “I have dealt with all that needs dealing with. I will come to you this evening. You will go now. You will go.” She had one hand lifted to open the door of her sitting room before she realized where she was. And what had happened. He had told her to go, and she had gone. Staring at the door in horror, she could see the smirks on the men’s faces, open laughter on some of the women’s. What has happened to me? How could I become so besotted with any man?

“Why do you keep calling him young?” Lini demanded once the door closed. “It puts his back up. ‘A fool puts a burr under the saddle before she rides.’ ”

Stuffing the low-necked gown away under the bed, her old nurse had muttered some saying about displaying wares you did not mean to sell, and when Morgase claimed she had just made it up, her reply was At my age, if I make it up, it’s still an old saying.

Moiraine talked at him that way from daybreak to sunset whenever he let her. Her lectures could be on small things—details of court behavior, say, in Cairhien or Saldaea or somewhere else—or on large: the political influence of the Whitecloaks, or perhaps the effects of trade on rulers’ decisions to go to war. It was as if she meant to see him educated, as a noble would be, or should be, before he reached the other side of the mountains. It was surprising how often what she said reflected what anyone back in Emond’s Field would have called simple common sense. And also how often it did not.

“There is plenty of time ahead of us, Moiraine,” he said gently. “I don’t pretend to think I know as much of the world as you. I mean to keep you close from now on.” He barely realized how great a change that was from when she was keeping him close. “But I have something else on my mind right now.”

I am Rand al’Thor. Lews Therin Telamon is dead three thousand years. I am myself! That was one battle he meant to win. If he did have to die at Shayol Ghul, he would die as himself.

How long now had he been doing what was necessary instead of what was right?

“Well, just you remember it. It was not your fault.” She heeled Mist on, and began talking to Aviendha before she was out of earshot. “I am glad he is taking it so well. He has the habit of feeling guilty over things he cannot control.” “Men always believe they are in control of everything around them,” Aviendha replied. “When they find out they are not, they think they have failed, instead of learning a simple truth women already know.”