A Memory of Light (Wheel of Time, #14)

by Robert Jordan

“I want to do more than that, Elayne,” Mat said, stepping forward. “This ploy the Shadow tried … it was clever, Elayne. Bloody clever. We’re bloodied and almost broken. We don’t have the luxury of fighting on multiple battlefronts anymore.” “What, then?” “A last stand,” Mat said softly. “All of us, together, at one place where the terrain favors us.”

A drawn-out fight would serve the Shadow. Once enough Trollocs reached southern lands, there would be no containing them. He had to win or lose quickly. One last toss of the dice indeed.

“This will do,” Mat said, placing his hand on the map. “Elayne?” “Let it be done,” Elayne said. “I hope you know what you’re doing, Mat.” As she spoke, the dice started tumbling inside his head.

“Galad,” Elayne said, “you really should allow one of the Asha’man to wash away your fatigue. Your insistence upon treating them like outcasts is foolish.” Galad straightened up. “It has nothing to do with the Asha’man,” he snapped. Too argumentative. He was tired. “This fatigue reminds me of what we lost today. It is an exhaustion my men must endure, and so I will, lest I forget just how tired they are and push them too far.”

“I will count that a victory,” Elayne insisted. “We were expecting complete destruction.” “The only victor today is the butcher,” Nurelle said softly. He looked haunted. “No,” Tam al’Thor said, “she’s right. The troops have to understand what their losses earned. We must treat this as a victory. It must be recorded that way in the histories, and the soldiers must be convinced to see it so.” “That is a lie,” Galad found himself saying. “It is not,” al’Thor said. “We lost many friends today. Light, but we all did. Focusing on death, however, is what the Dark One wants us to do. I dare you to tell me I’m wrong. We must look and see Light, not Shadow, or we’ll all be pulled under.” “By winning here,” Elayne said, deliberately emphasizing the word, “we earn a reprieve. We can gather at Merrilor, entrench there, and make our last stand in our strength against the Shadow.”

“People are dying,” Mandevwin said, disapproving. “This is not simply a battle, Vanin. It is Tarmon Gai’don itself!” “Which means nobody is paying us,” Vanin said. Mandevwin sputtered, “Paying … to fight the Last Battle … You knave! This battle means life itself.”

Faile rested her fingers on the chest. Philosophers claimed the Pattern did not have a sense of humor. The Pattern, and the Wheel, simply were; they did not care, they did not take sides. However, Faile could not help thinking that somewhere, the Creator was grinning at her. She had left home with her head full of arrogant dreams, a child thinking herself on a grand quest to find the Horn. Life had knocked those out from under her, leaving her to haul herself back up. She had grown up, had started paying mind to what was really important. And now … now the Pattern, with almost casual indifference, dropped the Horn of Valere into her lap.

These aren’t Aiel, Aviendha thought. They’re something different. Her mind wrestled with the concept. Aiel who were not Aiel? Men who could channel? The men we send, she realized with horror. Men discovered among the Aiel with the ability to channel were sent to try to kill the Dark One. Alone, they came to the Blight. Nobody knew what happened to them after that.

Sorilea turned sharply, meeting Aviendha’s eyes. “Explain.” “I think they must be the men we sent to kill Sightblinder,” Aviendha said. Sorilea hissed softly. “If this is true, child, then this night will mark great toh for us all. Toh toward the Car’a’carn, toh toward the land itself.”

“We’re moving,” Aviendha said. “Send for Amys and Cadsuane to make gateways. But I warn you. I caught a Dreadlord sneaking around near your tent…” Darlin paled. “Like Ituralde … Light, they didn’t touch me. I swear it. I…” He raised a hand to his head. “Who do we trust if we cannot trust our own minds?” “We must make the dance of spears as simple as possible,” Aviendha said. “Go to Rhuarc, gather your leaders. Plan how you will face the Shadow together, do not let one man control the battle—and set your plans in place; do not allow them to be changed.” “That could lead to disaster,” Darlin said. “If we don’t have flexibility…” “What needs be changed?” Aviendha asked grimly. “We hold. With everything we have, we hold. We don’t pull back. We don’t try anything clever. We just hold.”

Rand faced the emptiness. “So,” he said into it. “This is where it will really happen. Moridin would have had me believe that a simple sword fight would decide this all.” HE IS OF ME. BUT HIS EYES ARE SMALL. “Yes,” Rand said. “I have noticed the same.” SMALL TOOLS CAN BE EFFECTIVE. THE THINNEST OF KNIVES CAN STOP A HEART. HE HAS BROUGHT YOU HERE, ADVERSARY. None of this had happened the last time, when Rand had worn the name of Lews Therin. He could only interpret that as a good sign. 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.

“There is another option,” Setalle said hesitantly. Faile looked to her. “That peak you see to the east of us,” Setalle said, speaking with obvious reluctance. “That is Shayol Ghul.” Mandevwin whispered something quietly that Faile didn’t catch, squeezing his eyes shut. The others looked sick. Faile, however, caught Setalle’s implication. “That is where the Dragon Reborn is making war against the Shadow,” Faile said. “One of our armies will be there. With channelers who could get us out.”

“I think I knew him,” Aviendha said, disturbed. “He channeled for the first time when I was a child, making algode grow when it should not.” She let the veil fall down on his face. “His name was Soro. He was kind to me. I watched him run across the dry ground at sunset after vowing to spit in Sightblinder’s eye.”

Vanin looked at Faile and grew as pale as a Whitecloak’s shirt. “Thief!” Faile shouted. “Stop him! He has stolen the Horn of Valere!”

Why stab her and leave her here? She bonded Rand, Nynaeve realized. Oh, Light. It was a trap. Moridin had left Alanna bleeding, then confronted Rand. When Alanna died, Rand—as her Warder—would be driven mad with rage, making him easy for Moridin to destroy.

“Urien?”

“You,” Egwene said, “passing judgment?” “I know,” Mat said. “Too much bloody work, if you ask me. I’ve been dodging guardsmen all day, trying to steal a little time for myself.” “A little honest work wouldn’t kill you, Mat.” “Now, you know that’s not true. Soldiering is honest work, and it gets men killed all the bloody time.”

“Have you found it yet?” he asked softly. “No,” Egwene said, eyes forward. No need to mention what it was. “How could you have lost the thing? After all the work we bloody went through to find it?” “We? From the telling I hear, Rand, Loial and the Borderlanders had far more to do with finding it than you.” “I was there,” Mat said. “I rode across the entire bloody continent, didn’t I? Burn me, first Rand, then you. Is everybody going to chivvy me about those days? Gawyn, you want a turn?” “Yes, please.” He sounded eager. “Shut up,” Mat said.

“I have never known anyone else,” Egwene said to him, “who will work so hard to avoid hard work, Matrim Cauthon.” “You haven’t spent enough time around soldiers.”

“How are we going to do that?” Egwene asked. “Mat, you’re not talking sense. Weren’t you just saying yesterday how outnumbered we’ll be?” He looked toward the bog, imagining shadows trying to slog through it. Shadows of dust and memory. “I have to change it all,” he said. He could not do what they would expect. He could not do what spies might have reported he was planning. “Blood and bloody ashes … one last toss of the dice. Everything we have, piled into a heap…”

“This is it, Egwene,” Mat said. “Take a deep breath, a last pull on the brandy, or burn your final pinch of tabac. Have a good look at the ground before you, as it’s soon going to be covered in blood. In an hour, we’ll be in the thick of it. The Light watch over us all.”

“Tell them to Heal the others,” Elayne said to Birgitte. Birgitte raised an eyebrow, probably wondering why Elayne wouldn’t just give the order herself. Well, these Seanchan paid very close attention to which people could speak to one another. Elayne would not give them the honor of speaking to them directly. Birgitte relayed the order, and the sul’dam’s lips drew to a line. She had had the sides of her hair shaved; she was highborn. Light willing, Elayne had managed to insult her again.

“Why didn’t you guess this would happen?” Elayne demanded. He looked at her, expressionless. One side of his mouth twitched up, then he pulled his hat down, shading his eyepatch. “Light,” Elayne said. “You knew. You spent this whole week planning with us, and you knew the entire time you’d throw it out with the dishwater.” “That’s giving me too much bloody credit,” Mat said, looking back at his maps. “I think a part of me might have known all along, but I didn’t figure it out until just before the Sharans got here.” “So what is the new plan?” He didn’t reply. “You’re going to keep it in your head,” Elayne said, her legs feeling weak. “You’re going to lead the battle, and none of us are going to know what in the Light you’re planning, are we? Otherwise, someone might overhear, and the news would travel to the Shadow.” He nodded. “Creator shelter us,” she whispered. Mat scowled. “You know, that’s what Tuon said.”

“I come for the Dragon Reborn!” the figure in silver announced. “You will send for him. Either that, or I will see that your screams bring him.” The ground beneath the dragons heaved into the air just a few feet from Uno. He threw his arm up in front of his face, bits of wood and soil flying across him. “Light help us,” Einar said. “I’m trying to stop him, but he’s in a circle. A full circle. Seventy-two. I’ve never seen such power before! I—” A bar of white-hot light cut through the broken dragon, vaporizing it and striking Einar. The man was gone in an instant, and Uno scrambled back, cursing.

The Power drained out of him, as if his veins had been opened and he was bleeding out across the ground. He took a deep breath. Holding that much of the One Power—that of thirty-nine people in a circle—had been intoxicating. Letting go reminded him of his gentling, when the Power had been stolen from him. When every breath had encouraged him to find a knife and slit his own throat. He suspected this was his madness: the terror that releasing the One Power would cause him to lose it forever.

Gabrelle looked at Logain with level eyes. “What of Toveine?” she asked. “We will kill her if we find her.” “It is that simple for you?” “Yes.” “She—” “Would you rather live, Gabrelle, if you were she? Live and serve him?”

You promised, he thought to himself. You said you were willing to stand in her shadow. That didn’t mean he had to stop doing important work, did it? He fished in his pouch and took out a ring of the Bloodknives. He put it on, and immediately his strength returned, his exhaustion fleeing. He hesitated, then took out the other rings and slipped them on as well.

She glanced at the sword. “I’m a Warder now.” He shrugged. “Might as well look like one, eh?” He could cut a Trolloc in half with a gateway at three hundred paces, and summon fire from inside Dragonmount itself, and he still wanted to carry a sword. It was, she decided, a male thing. I heard that, Androl sent her.

As always, linking with him was an overwhelming experience. She felt her own emotions bounce back against him and to her again, and that made her blush. Did he sense how she was starting to regard him? Foolish as a girl in knee-length skirts, she thought at herself—careful to shield her thoughts from him—barely old enough to know the difference between boys and girls. And in the middle of a war, too.

Androl regarded the gateway, stunned. “I thought you aren’t supposed to be able to channel if someone else is leading a circle you are in.” “You aren’t,” she said. “I did it by accident.”

He looked up, frowning. Min had just said something softly to Tuon. “What is it?” he asked. “I saw his body alone, on a field,” Min said, “as if dead.”

Sabinel

“Cards aren’t like dice. In dice, you want to win as many throws as possible. Lots of throws, lots of wins. It’s random, see? But not cards. In cards, you need to make the other fellows start betting. Betting well. You do that by letting them win a little. Or a lot. “That’s not so hard here, since we’re outnumbered and overwhelmed. The only way to win is to bet everything on the right hand. In cards, you can lose ninety-nine times but come out ahead if you win that right hand. So long as the enemy starts gambling recklessly. So long as you can ride the losses.” “And that’s what you’re doing?” Elayne asked. “You’re faking that we’re losing?” “Bloody ashes, no,” Mat said. “I can’t fake that. He’d see through it. I am losing, but I’m also watching. Holding back for that last bet, the one that could win it all.”

Light, Galad thought, I’m watching the Game of Houses on the battlefield itself. Yes, he had not given Cauthon nearly enough credit.

Damodred, the orders read, bring yourself and a dozen of the best men from your twenty-second company and move along the river toward Hawal Ford. Stop when you can see Elayne’s banner and hold there for more orders. P.S. If you see any Trollocs with quarterstaffs, I suggest you let Golever fight them instead, as I know you have trouble with those types. Mat.

Rand could see it. His connection to the Pattern, the glimmering of half-truths and shadowed ways. This possibility … it could happen. It was one path the world could take. The Dark One, here, had won the Last Battle and broken the Wheel of Time. That had allowed him to remake it, to spin the pattern in a new way. Everyone alive had forgotten the past, and now knew only what the Dark One had inserted in their minds. Rand could read the truth, the history of this place, in the threads of the Pattern he had touched earlier.

THE FIGHT IS OVER. “IT HAS NOT YET BEGUN!” Rand screamed.

“Is that where you need me?” Siuan asked. “Actually…” Egwene lowered her voice. “I want someone to join Mat and the Seanchan Empress and listen with ears accustomed to hearing what is not spoken.” Siuan nodded, approval—even pride—in her expression. Egwene was Amyrlin; she had no need of either emotion from Siuan, and yet it lifted a little of her grinding fatigue. “You look amused,” Egwene said. “When Moiraine and I set out to find the boy,” Siuan said, “I had no idea the Pattern would send you to us as well.”

Egwene’s anger poured through the bond. Gawyn smiled. He had not expected her to be pleased. As he ran, arrows slicing the earth around him, he found peace with his choice. Once, perhaps, he would have done this for the pride of the battle and the chance to pit himself against Demandred. That was not his heart now. His heart was the need. Someone had to fight this creature, someone had to kill him or they would lose this battle. They could all see it. Risking Egwene or Logain would be too great a gamble. Gawyn could be risked. No one would send him to do this—no one would dare—but it was necessary. He had a chance to change things, to really matter. He did it for Andor, for Egwene, for the world itself.

“So,” Demandred said, “an assassin. And Lews Therin always spoke of the ‘honor’ of facing a man face-to-face.” “I wasn’t sent by the Dragon Reborn.” “With Night’s Shade surrounding you, a weave that none from this Age remember? Do you know that what Lews Therin has done to you will leak your life away? You are dead, little man.” “Then you can join me in the grave,” Gawyn said.

“The little queen’s brother,” Demandred said. “You realize who I am.” “A murderer.” “And has your Dragon not murdered?” Demandred said. “Has your sister never killed to keep, dare I say seize, her throne?” “That’s different.” “So everyone always says.”

“You cheat,” Gawyn said with a sneer. “Cheat?” Demandred asked. “Are there rules, little swordsman? As I recall, you tried to stab me in the back while hiding in a shroud of darkness.”

“You fight with skill,” Demandred said, “for one of this Age. But you still wield your sword, little man.” “What else would I do?” “Become the sword yourself,” Demandred said, as if baffled that Gawyn did not understand.

“I might add,” Berelain said, “that this is a somewhat familiar situation for me, Lord Aybara. I took precautions this time, in case you were wondering.” Precautions? Perrin sniffed the air. Uno? He could smell the man. Indeed, Berelain nodded to the side, and Perrin turned to find Uno sitting in a chair nearby, his arm in a sling.

That attack … it had been so powerful. What was that? he sent to Pevara. It wasn’t Taim, she replied, standing up, dusting off her skirts. I think it was Demandred. I purposefully brought us to a place far from where he was fighting. Yes. How dare he move and interfere with the group of channelers attacking his forces? Androl sat up, groaning. You know, Pevara, you are unusually smart-lipped, for an Aes Sedai. He was surprised by her amusement. You don’t know Aes Sedai nearly as well as you assume.

“I’m trying to read that thought,” Pevara said. “Did you just … compare me to an old strap of leather?” He blushed. “I’ll assume it’s a leatherworker’s thing.” She sipped her tea.

He saw familiar faces among the statuary in the center of the fountain, and turned away. Not final yet, he thought. This isn’t real yet. He’d built this reality out of threads of what could be, of mirrors of the world as it now played out. It wasn’t set. For the first time since entering this vision of his own design, his confidence shook. He knew the Last Battle wasn’t a failure. But people were dying. Did he think to stop all death, all pain? This should be my fight, he thought. They shouldn’t have to die. Wasn’t his sacrifice enough?

“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.”

YOU THINK YOU CAN ELIMINATE SUFFERING? EVEN IF YOU WIN, YOU WILL NOT. ON THOSE PERFECT STREETS, MEN ARE STILL MURDERED AT NIGHT. CHILDREN GO HUNGRY DESPITE THE EFFORTS OF YOUR MINIONS. THE WEALTHY EXPLOIT AND CORRUPT; THEY MERELY DO SO QUIETLY. “It is better,” Rand whispered. “It is good.” IT IS NOT ENOUGH, AND WILL NEVER BE ENOUGH. YOUR DREAM IS FLAWED. YOUR DREAM IS A LIE. I AM THE ONLY HONESTY YOUR WORLD HAS EVER KNOWN.

“What’s wrong?” Silviana asked, pulling up beside her and letting the gateway vanish. “Mother?” “It’s Gawyn,” she said, pale, trembling. “He’s been hurt. Badly. He’s dying, Silviana.” Oh, Light, Silviana thought. Warders! She had feared something like this from the moment she’d seen that fool boy.