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The Dragon on his arm shone, gold and crimson. “Once the Dragon, for remembrance lost.” He held up his other arm, ending at the stump near the wrist. “Twice the Dragon … for the price he must pay.”
“You are Galad’s brother?”
“This is a fake. Please, it is all right. Tell me the truth. You made a copy and gave it to me.”
Tattered shreds of cloth flew into the air amid
“Well, you will listen and remember,” the man said. “I am Bao, the Wyld. I am your savior. I have crawled through the depths of sorrow and have risen up to accept my glory. I have come seeking what was taken from me. Remember that.”
You are to deliver a message for me, Aes Sedai, to Lews Therin. The one who calls himself the Dragon Reborn. Tell him that I have come to slay him, and in so doing, I will claim this world. I will take what originally should have been mine. Tell him that. Tell him you have seen me, and describe me to him. He will know me.
“Tell him this, little Aes Sedai. Tell him that an old friend awaits. I am Bao, the Wyld. He Who Is Owned Only by the Land. The dragonslayer. He knew me once by a name I have scorned, the name Barid Bel.”
Barid Bel Medar … Demandred.
Rand stood in a place that was not. A place outside of time, outside of the Pattern itself. All around him spread a vast nothingness. Voracious and hungry, it longed to consume. He could actually see the Pattern. It looked like thousands upon thousands of twisting ribbons of light; they spun around him, above him, undulating and shimmering, twisting together. At least, that was how his mind chose to interpret it. Everything that had ever been, everything that could be, everything that could have been … it all lay right there, before him. Rand could not comprehend it. The blackness around it
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Now the battle truly began. He looked into the nothingness and felt it welling up. Then, like a sudden storm, the Dark One brought all of his force against Rand.
Sometimes, if a weave is done incorrectly, it simply does nothing. Other times, the result is disastrous. I have not heard of a weave doing something like this, working but in the wrong way.”
It wasn’t that Sarene didn’t care; she just didn’t let caring distract her.
Both vanished, twisting upon themselves, Traveling without use of a gateway.
Knock a man down, and you saw what he was made of. That man might run. If he didn’t—if he stood back up with blood at the corner of his mouth and determination in his eyes—then you knew. That man was about to become truly dangerous.
THE FIGHT IS OVER. “IT HAS NOT YET BEGUN!” Rand screamed.
Rand seized those threads spinning about him, taking them—hundreds upon hundreds of them. There was no Fire, Air, Earth, Water or Spirit here … these were somehow more base, somehow more varied. Each one was individual, unique. Instead of Five Powers, there were thousands. Rand took them, gathered them and in his hand held the fabric of creation itself. Then he channeled it, spinning it into a different possibility. “Now,” Rand said, breathing deeply, trying to banish the horror of what he had seen. “Now I will show you what is going to happen.”
“You are darkness,” Rand said loudly. “Darkness cannot push back Light. Darkness exists only when Light fails, when it flees. I will not fail. I will not flee. You cannot win so long as I bar your path, Shai’tan.”
“I will do what needs to be done,” Galad said, cold inside. Cold as winter steel. “I will bring Light to the Shadow. I will bring justice to the Forsaken.”
MEN WHO THINK THEY ARE OPPRESSED WILL SOMEDAY FIGHT. I WILL REMOVE FROM THEM NOT JUST THEIR WILL TO RESIST, BUT THE VERY SUSPICION THAT SOMETHING IS WRONG.
“Demandred, you call for the Dragon Reborn! You demand to fight him! He is not here, but his brother is! Will you stand against me?”
Egwene strode back onto the killing fields, bringing the fury of the Amyrlin with her.
“Cauthon lives,” Arganda said. “And that’s bloody amazing, considering that someone blew up his command post, set fire to his tent, killed a bunch of his damane, and chased off his wife. Cauthon crawled out of it somehow.”
The balefire destroyed the weave—as it did the air, and indeed, the Pattern itself.
“All are taught it, you see. Do not channel if you are too tired. There can be complications. I needed a gateway back to the palace, though. To bring him to safety, to restore…”
YOU WANTED PEACE. I GIVE IT TO YOU. THE PEACE OF THE VOID THAT YOU SO OFTEN SEEK. I GIVE YOU NOTHING AND EVERYTHING.
The Flame of Tar Valon.
Her body was spent. She offered it up and became a column of light, releasing the Flame of Tar Valon into the ground beneath her and high into the sky. The Power left her in a quiet, beautiful explosion, washing across the Sharans and sealing the cracks created by her fight with M’Hael. Egwene’s soul separated from her collapsing body and rested upon that wave, riding it into the Light.
“I sure am growing tired of that man,” Mat said.
Some men would call it brash, foolhardy, suicidal. The world was rarely changed by men who were unwilling to try being at least one of the three.
“I am the man who will kill you.”
But in the back of his mind, a voice. Frail, almost forgotten. Let go.
“I am just a man,” Lan whispered. “That is all I have ever been.”
“I did not come here to win,” Lan whispered, smiling. “I came here to kill you. Death is lighter than a feather.”
How could a man just … let go? Wasn’t that letting go of responsibility? Or was it giving the responsibility to them?
And then, Rand al’Thor—the Dragon Reborn—stood up once again to face the Shadow.
Within the tempest, Rand sought the void as Tam had taught him. All emotion, all worry, all pain. He took it and fed it into the flame of a single candle. He felt peace. The peace of a single drop of water hitting a pond. The peace of moments, the peace between eyeblinks, the peace of the void.
Shouts rang behind him: “Tai’shar Malkier!” Shouts from all nationalities, all peoples, Borderlander and not.
HERE IS THE TRUTH, SHAI’TAN, Rand said, taking another step forward, arms out, woven Pattern spreading around them. YOU CANNOT WIN UNLESS WE GIVE UP. THAT’S IT, ISN’T IT? THIS FIGHT ISN’T ABOUT A VICTORY IN BATTLE. TAKING ME … IT WAS NEVER ABOUT BEATING ME. IT WAS ABOUT BREAKING ME. THAT’S WHAT YOU’VE TRIED TO DO WITH ALL OF US. IT’S WHY AT TIMES YOU TRIED TO HAVE US KILLED, WHILE OTHER TIMES YOU DIDN’T SEEM TO CARE. YOU WIN WHEN YOU BREAK US. BUT YOU HAVEN’T. YOU CAN’T.
Terrified, crying, bloodied, the boy raised a golden horn to his lips.
So very wrong, Shai’tan, Rand’s voice whispered in Mat’s mind. Then the voice was no longer in Mat’s mind. It could be heard distinctly by everyone on the battlefield. That one you have tried to kill many times, Rand said, that one who lost his kingdom, that one from whom you took everything …
That man, Rand shouted. That man still fights!
Behind him, Birgitte Silverbow stood over her corpse, one foot to either side of the headless body.
“The Horn of Valere has sounded, calling all to the Last Battle. The heroes have returned!”
His death at Rhuidean must have broken him from it.
Your life is a gift from the Dragon Reborn, Gambler. Twice over.”
It doesn’t matter if one is immortal when one cannot move.”
“The Pattern was not finished with me, son. Sound that Horn! Sound it proudly, Hornsounder!”
“You’re not my Warder any longer,” Elayne said. “But you’re still my friend. Will you ride with me?” “Stubborn fool.” “I’m not the one who just refused to stay dead. Together?” “Together,” Birgitte said, nodding.
“Darkhounds?” Aviendha shouted. “Yes,” he called back, bellowing to be heard over the tempest. “This is the Wild Hunt, the worst of their kind. These cannot fall to mortal weapons. The bites of common wolves will not harm them, not permanently.”
He’d watched them die, and now they were back again.
