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December 15 - December 17, 2024
What of Rand? No colors swirled in his vision. No image of Rand. Perrin felt no more tugging, pulling him in any direction. Those seemed like very bad signs.
Moiraine knelt beside him, her hand on his face, whispering so softly none but he could hear. “You did well, Rand. You did well.”
“Who else died?” Perrin asked, bracing himself. It was obvious from her expression. She had lost one already. “Egwene.” Perrin closed his eyes, breathing out. Egwene. Light. No masterwork comes without a price, he thought. That doesn’t mean it’s not worth forging.
“I left … to save you,” Nynaeve whispered. “I only came along to protect you.” “You did, Nynaeve. You protected Rand so he could do what he had to do.” She shook, and he let her weep. Light. He shed a few tears himself.
“Excuse me,” Loial asked the Maidens sitting beside the tent. “Have you seen Matrim Cauthon?” “Oosquai?” one of them asked, laughing, holding up the skin. “No, no,” Loial said. “I have to find Matrim Cauthon and get his account of the battle, you see. While it’s fresh. I need everyone to tell me what they saw and heard, so that I can write it down. There will never be a better time.”
“It’s not fair,” Nynaeve whispered. “Why should he die, when the other one gets better?”
It was odd, though. Min and Elayne. Shouldn’t they be at Rand’s side? Elayne seemed to be taking reports on casualties and refugee supplies, and Min sat looking up at Shayol Ghul, a far-off expression in her eyes. Neither went in to hold Rand’s hand as he slipped toward death.
Mat felt a jolt, as sure as if a firework had gone off inside of his stomach. An heir. A son, no doubt! What odds that it was a boy? Mat forced a grin. “Well, I guess I’m off the hook, now. You have an heir.” “I have an heir,” Tuon said, “but I am the one off that hook. Now I can kill you, if I want.” Mat felt his grin widen. “Well, we’ll have to see what we can work out. Tell me, do you ever play dice?”
Something cold snapped around her neck. Moghedien reached up with horror, then screamed. “No! Not again!” Her disguise melted away and the One Power left her. A smug-looking sul’dam stood behind. “They said we could not take any who called themselves Aes Sedai. But you, you do not wear one of their rings, and you skulk like one who has done something wrong. I do not think you will be missed at all.”
“He’s dead,” she whispered to the small crowd gathered outside. Saying the words felt like dropping a brick onto her own feet. She did not cry. She had shed those tears already. That did not mean that she didn’t hurt. Lan came out of the tent behind her, putting an arm around her shoulders. She raised her hand to his. Nearby, Min and Elayne looked at one another. Gregorin whispered to Darlin—he had been found, half dead, in the wreckage of his tent. Both of them frowned at the women. Nynaeve overheard part of what Gregorin said. “… expected the Aiel savage to be heartless, and maybe the Queen
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Nynaeve leaned down. “All right,” she said menacingly, embracing the Source. “Out with it. I chose you because you can’t run away from me.” Aviendha displayed a moment of what might have been fear. It was gone in a flash. “Let us prepare his pyre.”
It took him only two heartbeats to shift into the wolf dream, carry Faile to Nynaeve far to the north and shift out. Seconds later, he felt her being Healed in his arms, unwilling to let go of her even for that. Faile, his falcon, trembled and stirred. Then she opened her eyes and smiled at him.
“I sent Olver away,” Birgitte said. “With guards I trust. I told Olver to find someplace nobody would look, a place he could forget, and toss the Horn into it. Preferably the ocean.” Elayne exhaled softly, then turned back toward the pyre. “Insufferable woman.” She hesitated. “Thank you for saving me from having to make that decision.”
“I’m being reborn, Elayne,” Birgitte whispered. “Now. Somewhere, a woman is preparing to give birth, and I will go to that body. It’s happening.” “I don’t want to lose you.” Birgitte chuckled. “Well, perhaps we will meet again. For now, be happy for me, Elayne. This means the cycle continues. I get to be with him again. Gaidal … I’ll be only a few years younger than he.” Elayne took her arm, eyes watering. “Love and peace, Birgitte. Thank you.”
Tam lit his torch from the small, flickering flame that crackled in the pit nearby. He went forward, passing lines of those who stood in the night. They had not told many of Rand’s funeral rites. All would have wanted to come. Perhaps all deserved to come. The Aes Sedai were planning an elaborate memorial for Egwene; Tam preferred a quiet affair for his son. Rand could finally rest.
Tam looked at the corpse, gazing down into his son’s face by the fire’s light. He did not wipe the tears from his eyes. You did well. My boy … you did so well. He lit the pyre with a reverent hand.
“I’ve seen this,” Min said. “I knew it would come the day I first met him. We three, together, here.” Elayne nodded. “So now what?” “Now…” Aviendha said. “Now we make sure that everyone well and truly believes he is gone.” Min nodded, feeling the pulsing throb of the bond in the back of her mind. It grew stronger each moment.
Rand backed away, then mounted the dapple. As he did so, he noticed one figure who was not standing by the fire. A solitary figure, who looked toward him when all other eyes were turned away. Cadsuane. She looked him up and down, eyes reflecting firelight from the glow of Rand’s pyre. Rand nodded, waited for a moment, then turned the horse and heeled it away. * * * Cadsuane watched him go. Curious, she thought. Those eyes had confirmed her suspicions. That would be information she could use. No need to keep watching this sham of a funeral, then. She walked away through the camp, and there
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He found nothing. No saidin in the void, nothing. He paused, then smiled and felt an enormous relief. He could not channel. Just to be certain, he tentatively reached for the True Power. Nothing there either. He regarded his pipe, riding up a little incline to the side of Thakan’dar, now covered in plants. No way to light the tabac. He inspected it for a moment in the darkness, then thought of the pipe being lit. And it was.
He couldn’t pick. He had three women in love with him, and didn’t know which he would like to have follow him. Any of them. All of them. Light, man. You’re hopeless. Hopelessly in love with all three, and there’s no way out of it.
The wind blew southward, through knotted forests, over shimmering plains and toward lands unexplored. This wind, it was not the ending. There are no endings, and never will be endings, to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was an ending.
Drianaan
He came like the wind, like the wind touched everything, and like the wind was gone. —from The Dragon Reborn. By Loial, son of Arent son of Halan, the Fourth Age.
