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In any case, it was best to avoid becoming involved with Aes Sedai more than absolutely necessary. Years later you could find one of them had tied strings to you just in case she might have need. Aes Sedai thought far ahead, and seldom seemed to care who they used in their schemes or how. That was one reason Lan avoided them.
As Lan walked on, he found himself chuckling. He seldom laughed, and it was a fool thing to laugh over, but laughter was better than worrying over what he could not change, such as weary men drowsing on guard. As well worry about death. What could not be changed must be endured.
Sliding his sword from its scabbard, he held it loosely at his side. It was just a sword now, with nothing about it to catch the eye or set it out. It would never again be anything except a sword. But it held his past, and his future.
“He is born again!” Gitara cried. “I feel him! The Dragon takes his first breath on the slope of Dragonmount! He is coming! He is coming! Light help us! Light help the world! He lies in the snow and cries like the thunder! He burns like the sun!”
For more than three thousand years the world had waited on the Prophecies of the Dragon to be fulfilled, fearing them, yet knowing they told of the world’s only hope. And now a boychild was about to be born—very soon, perhaps, by the way Gitara had spoken—to bring those Prophecies to a conclusion. He would be born on the slopes of Dragonmount, reborn where it was said the man he had once been had died. Three thousand years ago and more, the Dark One had almost broken free into the world of humankind and brought on the War of the Shadow, which had ended only with the Breaking of the World.
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‘Change what you can if it needs changing, but learn to live with what you can’t change.’ You’ll only get a sick stomach, otherwise.
This time, the weave produced a silver-blue disc the size of a small coin that dropped into Moiraine’s outstretched hand. The shape was not specified, either, another oddity, but discs and balls were easiest. Woven of Air yet hard as steel, it felt slightly cold.
Some may think you are Aes Sedai, and you may let them so long as you aren’t foolish enough to claim that you are.”
Light! Men never seemed to understand, or care, when a woman wished to be looked at and when not.
A Borderman in plate-and-mail passed them riding in the other direction, a stone-faced Shienaran with his crested helmet hanging from his saddle and his head shaved except for a topknot.
“When a man believes he may die, he wants to leave something of himself behind. When a woman believes her man may die, she wants that part of him desperately. The result is a great many babies born during wars. It’s illogical, given the hardship that comes if the man does die, or the woman, but the human heart is seldom logical.”
The black smear suddenly glistened wetly and began to shrink, rising onto the surface of the wool as it did. Smaller and smaller it became, until it was only a small ebon bead of dried ink that fell into her cupped palm. “I might keep this as a memento,” she said, setting the black bead on the edge of the table. A reminder that Siuan had been correct. There were times when the rules could be broken.
From her carved jewelry box, she took her favorite piece, a kesiera. She had regretted not being able to wear that here, but even after six years her hands remembered how to weave the thin gold chain into her hair so the small sapphire hung in the middle of her forehead. Studying herself in a wall mirror with a scroll-worked wooden frame, she smiled. She might lack the ageless face yet, but now she looked the Lady Moiraine Damodred,
Now, you must learn to compare your strength to that of every sister you meet.
If another sister stands higher than you in the Power, whatever her Ajah, you must defer to her. The higher she stands above you, the greater your deference.
In his cradle he had been given four gifts. The ring in his hands and the locket that hung around his neck, the sword on his hip and an oath sworn in his name.
Bukama had carried him out of Malkier tied to his back.
Duty was a mountain, death a feather, and his duty was to Bukama, who had carried an infant on his back.
Cadsuane scowled, a fearsome sight. “No one has come to the Tower in a thousand years who could match me. No one to match Meilyn or Kerene in almost six hundred. A thousand years ago, there would have been fifty sisters or more who stood higher than this child. In another hundred years, though, she’ll stand in the first rank. Oh, someone stronger may be found in that time, but there won’t be fifty, and there may be none. We dwindle.”
Her father used to say that once was happenstance, twice might be coincidence, but thrice or more indicated the actions of your enemies.
but it was beginning to seem she meant to kill him after all. Slowly.
Lan shook his head slightly. “He was better. But he thought I was finished, with only one arm. He never understood. You surrender after you’re dead.”
everyone says Lan is the luckiest man alive
muttering about “men with luck” and “the blacksmith rose suddenly”
“Light! They’re killing any man or boy who might be able to channel! Oh, burn me, thousands could die, Moiraine. Tens of thousands.”
“Only fools choose to die before they must. I want you to be my Warder, Lan Mandragoran.”
Say a prayer for the dead, Moiraine Sedai, and ride on.”
“The world, if need be. We win this battle, or the world dies.”
