The Gathering Storm (The Wheel of Time, #12)

by Robert Jordan

Meidani looked up, studying Egwene. “How . . . how do you do it? They say you are punished three and four times a day, that you need Healing between so that they can beat you further. How can you take it?” “I take it because I must,” Egwene said, lowering her hand. “Just as we all do what we must. Your service here watching Elaida is difficult, I can see, but know that your work is noticed and appreciated.” Egwene didn’t know if Meidani really had been sent to spy on Elaida, but it was always better for a woman to think that her suffering was for a good purpose.

You didn’t get mad at the weasel who was sneaking into your yard and eating your hens. You simply laid a trap and disposed of the animal. Anger was pointless.

I understand, Egwene thought. I didn’t realize what the Aiel did. I assumed that I just had to be harder, and that was what would teach me to laugh at pain. But it’s not hardness at all. It’s not strength that makes me laugh. It’s understanding.

Were they so eager to wake from the dream? Aviendha did not fear death, but there was a very big difference between embracing death and wishing for it.

As Rhuarc said, the Car’a’carn had sent them to Arad Doman to “restore order.” But that was a wetlander concept; Aiel brought their own order with them.

“He is a man of many burdens,” Aviendha said more carefully. “I fear that he makes many of those burdens heavier than they need be. I once thought that there was only one way to be strong, but I have learned from my first-sister that I was wrong. Rand al’Thor . . . I do not think he has learned this yet. I worry that he mistakes hardness for strength.”

Honor didn’t come from being punished, but accepting a punishment and bearing it restored honor. That was the soul of toh—the willing lowering of oneself in order to recover that which had been lost.

“We came all this way for an opportunity,” Gawyn said, backing away from the hilltop, making certain he didn’t show a profile on the horizon. “And now that I’ve inspected that opportunity, we’re not going to take it. Only a fool looses his arrow just because he’s got a bird in front of him.” “Why wouldn’t you loose it if it’s right there in front of you?” Jisao asked as he joined Gawyn. “Because sometimes the prize isn’t worth the arrow,” Gawyn said.

Just a few months ago, Rajar had been a youth. But now Gawyn couldn’t think of him as anything other than a soldier. A veteran. Some men gained experience through years spent living. Other men gained experience through months spent watching their friends die.

And yet, he had quickly learned one thing from being a king: the more authority you gained, the less control you had over your life. Duty was truly heavier than a mountain; it forced his hand as often as the prophecies did. Or were they both one and the same? Duty and prophecy?

We all do as we must, Moiraine’s voice from the past returned to his memory. As the Pattern decrees. For some there is less freedom than for others. It does not matter whether we choose or are chosen. What must be, must be.

Unfortunately, her years had taught her that no measure of planning or determination could make life turn out as you wanted. That didn’t stop her from being annoyed when it didn’t.

He did what needed to be done, when it needed to be done. And right now, Arad Doman needed to fight. They would lose, but their children would always know that their fathers had resisted. That resistance would be important in a hundred years, when a rebellion came. If one came.

Being in control wasn’t so much about the power you had, but the power you implied that you had. It was much like dealing with men, actually.

She herself was so strong in the Power—one of the strongest alive—that she often took little thought for her ability. It was much as a very tall man rarely paid attention to other people’s heights; everyone else was shorter than he, and so their different heights didn’t matter much.

Those gray clouds, blotting out the sun, temperamental and sullen. Perhaps the others—here in the camp just outside of Tar Valon—hadn’t noticed the persistent clouds, but Siuan had. No sailor would miss them. Not dark enough to promise a storm, not light enough to imply smooth waters either.

Superstitious? Siuan thought indignantly. A thousand generations of wisdom isn’t superstition. It’s good sense!

It was amazing how much you could accomplish when people dismissed you. How many women had she dismissed because they lacked visible power? How often had she been manipulated much as she now manipulated Lelaine?

A person didn’t gain stature in Gareth Bryne’s eyes by being a king or queen; one gained stature by keeping to one’s oaths and doing one’s duty.

Clean the patch of floor you’re working on first before you move on to the rest of the house.

“Unjust punishment sometimes cannot be avoided, but it is best never to let others forget that it is unjust. If she simply accepts the way people treat her, then it won’t be long before they assume she deserves the position they’ve placed her in.”

“I don’t care how you regard me,” Egwene said evenly, seating herself on an oversized oak chair, bearing a plaque that identified it as a gift from a moneylender in Tear. “An Amyrlin needs not the regard of those who follow her, so long as she is obeyed.”

Gawyn’s mother had always taught that the workers were the spine of a kingdom; break them, and you’d soon find that you could no longer move.

By bottling up the seething fury within him—by becoming cuendillar—he had gained an understanding that had long eluded him. People did not respond to anger. They did not respond to demands. Silence and questions, these were far more effective.

Respond to demands with silence, respond to challenges with questions.

Those who conquered, those who dominated the world, burned themselves out quickly, like lamps with untrimmed wicks.

“It was built during a different time,” Rand said. “A time when people still thought that the majesty of a structure lent it strength.”

some in your place have failed not because they lacked the capacity for greatness, but because they stretched that capacity too thin, sprinting when they should have walked.”

Men thought differently from women, and things she found complicated and baffling, Bryne saw as straightforward and simple. Make your decision and go.

Tam nodded. “I suppose. I killed a man who was one, did it in front of witnesses, but I’ve never forgiven myself for it. Though it needed doing.” “The ones that need to be done often seem the ones that we least like to have to do.”

“The choice isn’t always about what you do, son, but why you do it. When I was a soldier, there were some men who fought simply for the money. There were others who fought for loyalty—loyalty to their comrades, or to the crown, or to whatever. The soldier who dies for money and the soldier who dies for loyalty are both dead, but there’s a difference between them. One death meant something. The other didn’t.

You may not be able to choose the duties you’re given. But you can choose why you fulfill them.

You may not have a choice about which duties are given you, Tam’s voice, just a memory, said in his mind. But you can choose why you fulfill them.