It was Rand laughing, on his knees on the stones of the quay. Laughing, with tears streaming down a face twisted like a man being put to the question. Moiraine felt a chill. If the madness had him, it was beyond her. She could only do what she could do. What she must do.
The sight of Lanfear hit her like a blow. Not surprise, but the shock of seeing what had been in her dreams so often since Rhuidean. Lanfear standing on the wagon bed, blazing bright as the sun with saidar, framed by the twisted redstone ter’angreal as she stared down at Rand, a pitiless smile on her lips. She was turning a bracelet in her hands. An angreal; unless Rand had his own angreal, she should be able to crush him with that. Either he did, or Lanfear was toying with him. It did not matter. Moiraine did not like that circle of carved age-dark ivory. At first glance it seemed to be an acrobat bending backwards to grip his ankles. Only a closer look would show that his wrists and ankles were bound together. She did not like it, but she had brought it out of Rhuidean. Yesterday she had taken the bracelet from a sack of odds-and-ends and left it lying there at the foot of the doorframe.
Moiraine was slight, a small woman. Her weight did not disturb the wagon at all as she pulled herself up. She winced as her dress caught on a splinter and tore, but Lanfear did not look around. The woman had dealt with every threat except Rand; he was the only corner of the world she acknowledged in the least right then.
Suppressing a small bubble of hope—she could not allow herself that luxury—Moiraine balanced upright a moment on the wagon tail, then embraced the True Source and leaped at Lanfear. The Forsaken had an instant’s warning, enough to turn before Moiraine struck her, clawing the bracelet away. Face to face, they toppled through the doorframe ter’angreal. White light swallowed everything.
CHAPTER
53
Fading Words
In the depths of a shrinking Void, Rand saw Moiraine hurtle seemingly out of nowhere to grapple with Lanfear. The attacks on him ceased as the two women plunged through the doorframe ter’angreal in a flash of white light that did not end; it filled the subtly twisted redstone rectangle as though trying to flood through and striking some invisible barrier. Lightnings arched silver and blue around the ter’angreal, more and more violently; rasping buzzes crackled through the air.
Rand staggered to his feet. The pain was not gone really, but the pressure was, bringing promise that the pain would go. His eyes could not leave the ter’angreal. Moiraine. Her name hung in his head, sliding across the Void.
Lan lurched by him, fixed on the wagon, leaning as if only by moving forward could he stop from falling.
More than standing was beyond Rand for the moment. He channeled, caught the Warder in flows of Air. “You . . . You can’t do anything, Lan. You can’t go after her.”
“I know,” Lan said hopelessly. Held in mid-step, he did not struggle, only stared at the ter’angreal that had swallowed Moiraine. “The Light send me peace, I know.”
The wagon itself had caught fire now. Rand tried to suppress the flames, but as soon as he drew the heat from one blaze, the lightnings ignited another. The doorframe itself was beginning to smoke, though it was stone, a white, acrid smoke that gathered thickly under the gray dome. Even a whiff burned Rand’s nostrils and made him cough; his skin prickled and stung where the smoke brushed. Hastily he untied the weave of the dome, dispelled it rather than wait for it to dissipate, and wove around the wagon a tall chimney of Air that gleamed like glass to carry the fumes high and away. Only then did he release Lan. He would not have put it past the man to follow Moiraine anyway if he could have reached the wagon. It was all in flames now, the redstone doorway as well, melting as if it were wax, but for a Warder that might not matter.
“She is gone. I cannot feel her presence.” The words sounded ripped out of Lan’s chest. He turned and began walking down the line of wagons without a backward glance.
Following the Warder with his eyes, Rand saw Aviendha on her knees, holding Egwene. Releasing saidin, he began to run down the quay. Physical pain that had been distant crashed home, but he ran, however awkwardly. Asmodean was there, too, looking around as if he expected Lanfear to leap out from behind a wagon or a toppled grain cart. And Mat, squatting with his spear propped across his shoulder, fanning Egwene with his hat.
Rand skidded to a halt. “Is she . . . ?”
“I don’t know,” Mat said miserably.
“She still breathes.” Aviendha sounded uncertain how long that would continue, but Egwene’s eyes fluttered open as Amys and Bair pushed roughly past Rand with Melaine and Sorilea. The Wise Ones knelt clustered around the younger women, murmuring to themselves and each other as they examined Egwene.
“I feel . . .” Egwene began weakly, and stopped to swallow. Her face was bloodless pale. “I . . . hurt.” A tear leaked from one eye.
“Of course you do,” Sorilea said briskly. “That is what happens when you let yourself be caught in a man’s schemes.”
“She cannot go with you, Rand al’Thor.” Melaine’s sun-haired beauty was openly angry, but she was not looking at him; it could have been anger at him or anger at what had happened.
“I . . . will be right as wellwater . . . with a little rest,” Egwene whispered.
Bair dampened a cloth from a waterskin and laid it across Egwene’s forehead. “You will be right with a great deal of rest. I fear you will not be meeting Nynaeve and Elayne tonight. You will not go near Tel’aran’rhiod for some days, until you are stronger again. Do not give me that stubborn look, girl. We will watch your dreams to make sure, if need be, and give your care to Sorilea if you so much as think of disobeying.”
“You will not disobey me more than once, Aes Sedai or not,” Sorilea said, but with a touch of sympathy at odds with her leathery-faced grimness. Frustration was plain in Egwene’s face.
“I, at least, am well enough to do what must be done,” Aviendha said. In truth, she looked not much less haggard than Egwene, but she managed a defiant stare at Rand, plainly expecting argument. Her defiance faded somewhat when she realized the four Wise Ones were looking at her. “I am,” she muttered.
“Of course,” Rand said hollowly.
“I am,” she insisted. To him; she carefully avoided meeting the Wise Ones’ gaze. “Lanfear had me a moment less than she did Egwene. That was enough to make the difference between us. I have toh to you, Rand al’Thor. I do not think we would have survived many moments more. She was very strong.” Her eyes darted down to the burning wagon. Fierce flames had already reduced it to a shapeless charred pile inside the glassy chimney; the redstone ter’angreal was no longer visible at all. “I did not see all that happened.”
“They are . . .” Rand cleared his throat. “They are both gone. Lanfear is dead. And so is Moiraine.” Egwene began to cry, sobs shaking her in Aviendha’s clasp. Aviendha put her head down on the other woman’s shoulder as if she, too, might weep.
“You are a fool, Rand al’Thor,” Amys said, standing. That surprisingly youthful face beneath her headscarf and white hair was stone hard. “About this and many other things, you are a fool.”
He turned away from the accusation in her eyes. Moiraine was dead. Dead because he could not bring himself to kill one of the Forsaken. He did not know whether he wanted to cry or laugh wildly; if he did either, he did not think he would be able to stop.
The dockside that had been emptying when he made the dome was filled again, though few came nearer than where that misty gray wall had stood. Wise Ones moved about aiding the burned, comforting the dying, assisted by white-robed gai’shain and men in the cadin’sor. Moans and cries stabbed at him. He had not been quick enough. Moiraine dead; no Healing for even the worst injured. Because he . . . I could not. The Light help me, I could not!
More Aielmen stood watching him, some only now unveiling; he still did not see one Maiden. Not only Aiel were there. Dobraine, bareheaded on a black gelding, did not take his eyes from Rand, and not far off Talmanes and Nalesean and Daerid sat their hor
ses watching Mat almost as closely as they did Rand. People lined the top of the great city wall, outlined and cast in shadow by the rising sun, and more along the curtain walls. Two of those shadowed shapes turned away when he looked up, saw each other only twenty paces apart, and seemed to recoil. He would have wagered they were Meilan and Maringil.
Lan was back with the horses at the last wagon in the line, stroking Aldieb’s white nose. Moiraine’s mare.
Rand went to him. “I’m sorry, Lan. If I’d been faster, if I’d . . .” He exhaled heavily. I couldn’t kill one, so I killed the other. The Light burn me blind! If it had, at that moment, he would not have cared.
“The Wheel weaves.” Lan went to Mandarb, busied himself checking the black stallion’s saddlegirth. “She was a soldier, a warrior in her way as much as I. This could have happened two hundred times these past twenty years. She knew it, and so did I. It was a good day to die.” His voice was as hard as it had ever been, but those cold blue eyes were red-rimmed.
“Still, I am sorry. I should have . . .” The man would not be comforted by should-haves, and they dug at Rand’s soul. “I hope you can still be my friend, Lan, after. . . . I value your counsel—and your sword-training—and I’ll need both in the days to come.”
“I am your friend, Rand. But I cannot stay.” Lan swung up into his saddle. “Moiraine did something to me that has not been done in hundreds of years, not since the time when Aes Sedai still sometimes bonded a Warder whether he wanted it or not. She altered my bond so it passed to another when she died. Now I must find that other, become one of her Warders. I am one, already. I can feel her faintly, somewhere far to the west, and she can feel me. I must go, Rand. It is part of what Moiraine did. She said she would not allow me time to die avenging her.” He gripped the reins as if holding Mandarb back, as if holding himself back from digging his spurs in. “If you ever see Nynaeve again, tell her . . .” For an instant that stone face crumpled in anguish; an instant, then it was granite again. He muttered under his breath, but Rand heard. “A clean wound heals quickest and pains shortest.” Aloud, he said, “Tell her I’ve found someone else. Green sisters are sometimes as close to their Warders as other women are to husbands. In every way. Tell her I’ve gone to be a Green sister’s lover, as well as her sword. These things happen. It has been a long time since I’ve seen her.”
“I will tell her whatever you say, Lan, but I don’t know that she’ll believe me.”
Lan bent from the saddle to catch Rand’s shoulder in a hard grip. Rand remembered calling the man a half-tame wolf, but those eyes made a wolf seem a lapdog. “We are alike in many ways, you and I. There is a darkness in us. Darkness, pain, death. They radiate from us. If ever you love a woman, Rand, leave her and let her find another. It will be the best gift you can give her.” Straightening, he raised one hand. “Peace favor your sword. Tai’shar Manetheren.” The ancient salute. True blood of Manetheren.
Rand lifted his hand. “Tai’shar Malkier.”
Lan heeled Mandarb’s flanks, and the stallion leaped forward, scattering Aiel and everyone else from his path, as if to carry the last of the Malkieri wherever he was headed at a gallop the entire way.
“The last embrace of the mother welcome you home, Lan,” Rand murmured, then shivered. That was part of the funeral service in Shienar, and elsewhere in the Borderlands.
They were still watching him, the Aiel, the people atop the walls. The Tower would know of today, or a version of it, as soon as a pigeon could fly there. If Rahvin did have some way of watching as well—all it took was one raven in the city, one rat here along the river—he certainly would not expect anything today. Elaida would think him weakened, perhaps more pliable, and Rahvin . . .
He realized what he was doing and winced. Stop it! For one minute at least, stop and mourn! He did not want all those eyes on him. Aiel fell back before him almost as readily as they had before Mandarb.
The dockmaster’s slate-roofed hut was a single windowless stone room lined with shelves full of ledgers and scrolls and papers, lit by two lamps on a rough table covered with tax seals and customs stamps. Rand slammed the door behind him to shut out eyes.
Moiraine dead, Egwene injured, and Lan gone. A high price to pay for Lanfear.
“Mourn, burn you!” he growled. “She deserved that much! Don’t you have any feelings left?” But mostly he felt numb. His body hurt, but under it was deadness.
Hunching his shoulders, he stuffed his hands into his pockets and felt Moiraine’s letters. Slowly he drew them out. Some things he should think on, she had said. Stuffing Thom’s back, he broke the seal on the other. The pages were covered thickly with Moiraine’s elegant script.
These words will fade within moments after this leaves your hands—a warding attuned to you—so be careful of it. That you are reading this means that events have fallen out at the docks as I hoped. . . .
He stopped, staring, then read on quickly.
Since the first day I reached Rhuidean, I have known—it need not trouble you how; some secrets belong to others, and I will not betray them—that a day would come in Cairhien when news would arrive of Morgase. I did not know what that would be—if what we heard is true, the Light have mercy on her soul; she was willful and stubborn, with the temper of a lioness at times, but for all that a true, good and gracious queen—but each time that news led to the docks on the following day. There were three branches from the docks, but if you are reading this, I am gone, and so is Lanfear. . . .
Rand’s hands tightened on the pages. She had known. Known, and still she brought him here. Hurriedly he smoothed out the crumpled paper.
The other two paths were much worse. Down one, Lanfear killed you. Down the other, she carried you away, and when next we saw you, you called yourself Lews Therin Telamon and were her devoted lover.
I hope that Egwene and Aviendha have survived unharmed. You see, I do not know what happens in the world after, except perhaps for one small thing which does not concern you.
I could not tell you, for the same reason I could not tell Lan. Even given the choices, I could not be sure which you would pick. Men of the Two Rivers, it seems, retain much of storied Manetheren in them, traits shared with men of the Borderlands. It is said that a Borderlander will take a dagger’s wound to avoid harm to a woman and count it fair trade. I dared not risk that you would place my life above your own, certain that somehow you could sidestep fate. Not a risk, I fear, but a foolish certainty, as today has surely proved. . . .
“My choice, Moiraine,” he muttered. “It was my choice.”
A few final points.
If Lan has not already gone, tell him that what I did to him, I did for the best. He will understand one day, and I hope, bless me for it.
Trust no woman fully who is now Aes Sedai. I do not speak simply of the Black Ajah, though you must always be watchful for them. Be as suspicious of Verin as you are of Alviarin. We have made the world dance as we sang for three thousand years. That is a difficult habit to break, as I have learned while dancing to your song. You must dance free, and even the best intentioned of my sisters may well try to guide your steps as I once did.
Please deliver Thom Merrilin’s letter safely when you meet him again. There is a small matter that I once told him of which I must make clear for his peace of mind.
Lastly, be wary, too, of Master Jasin Natael. I cannot approve wholly, but I understand. Perhaps it was the only way. Yet be careful of him. He is the same man now that he always was. Remember that always.
May the Light illumine and protect you. You will do well.
It was signed simply “Moiraine.” She had almost never used her House name.
He reread the second last paragraph again closely. Somehow she had known who Asmodean was. It had to be that. Known that one of the Forsaken was right there in front of her, and never blinked once. She had known why, too, if he read it right. He would have thought in a letter that would go blank when he set it down, she could have come right
out and said what she meant. Not just concerning Asmodean. About how she had learned what she had in Rhuidean—something to do with Wise Ones, or he missed his guess, and as much chance of finding out more from the letter as from them—about Aes Sedai—was there a reason she mentioned Verin? And why Alviarin instead of Elaida?—even about Thom and Lan. For some reason he did not think she had left a letter for Lan; the Warder was not the only one who believed in clean wounds. He almost took Thom’s letter out and opened it, but she might have warded it the same way she had his. Aes Sedai and Cairhienin, she had wrapped herself in mystery and manipulation to the end. To the end.
That was what he was trying to avoid with all this blather about her keeping secrets. She had known what would happen and come as bravely as any Aiel. Come to her death knowing it waited. She had died because he could not bring himself to kill Lanfear. He could not kill one woman, so another died. His eyes fell on the last words.
. . . You will do well.
They cut like a cold razor.
“Why do you weep here alone, Rand al’Thor? I have heard that some wetlanders think it is shame to be seen weeping.”
He glared at Sulin, standing in the doorway. She was fully accoutred, cased bow on her back, quiver at her belt, round hide buckler and three spears in hand. “I’m not. . . .” There was dampness on his cheeks. He scrubbed it away. “It’s hot in here. Makes me sweat like a . . . What do you want? I thought you had all decided to abandon me and go back to the Three-fold Land.”
“It is not we who have abandoned you, Rand al’Thor.” Shutting the door behind her, she sat on the floor and laid her buckler and a pair of the spears down. “You have abandoned us.” In one motion she put a foot against the last spear between her hands, heaved, and snapped it in two.