“Saerin,” she said as the women fell in around her. “Yukiri, Lyrelle, Rubinde. What is this?”
“We would like direction,” Rubinde said.
“Direction?” Cadsuane snorted. “Ask the new Amyrlin, once you find some poor woman to put into the position.”
The other women continued to walk with her.
As it hit her, Cadsuane stopped in place.
“Oh, blood and ashes, no!” Cadsuane said, spinning on them. “No, no, no”
The women smiled in an almost predatory way.
“You always talked so wisely to the Dragon Reborn of responsibility,” Yukiri said.
“You speak of how the women of this Age need better training,” Saerin added.
“It is a new Age,” Lyrelle said. “We have many challenges ahead of us . . . and we will need a strong Amyrlin to lead us.”
Cadsuane closed her eyes, groaning.
*
Rand breathed a sigh of relief as he left Cadsuane behind. She did not raise an alarm, though she had continued to study him as he put distance between them. Glancing over his shoulder, he noticed her walking off with some other Aes Sedai.
She worried him; she probably suspected something he wished she did not. It was better than her raising an alarm, though.
He sighed, fishing in his pocket, where he found a pipe. Thank you, Alivia, for that, he thought, packing it with tabac from a pouch he found in the other pocket. By instinct, he reached for the One Power to light it.
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.
Rand smiled and turned south. He glanced over his shoulder. All three women at the pyre had turned from it to look directly at him. He could make them out, though not much else, by the light of the burning body.
I wonder which of them will follow me, he thought, then smiled deeper. Rand al’Thor, you’ve built up quite a swelled head, haven’t you? Assuming that one, or more, would follow.
Maybe none of them would. Or maybe all of them would, in their own time. He found himself chuckling.
Which would he pick? Min . . . but no, to leave Aviendha? Elayne. No. He laughed. 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.
He heeled the horse into a canter, heading farther south. He had a purse full of coin, a good horse and a strong sword. Laman’s sword, which was a better sword than he’d have wanted. It might draw attention. It was a true heron-marked sword with a fine blade.
Did Alivia realize how much money she’d given him? She didn't know a thing about coins. She’d probably stolen the lot of it, so he wasn't just a horsethief. Well, he’d told her to get him some gold, and she’d done it. He could buy an entire farm in the Two Rivers with what he carried.
South. East or west would do, but he figured he wanted to go someplace away from it all for good. South first, then maybe out west, along the coast. Maybe he could find a ship? There was so much of the world he hadn't seen. He’d experienced a few battles, he’d gotten caught up in a huge Game of Houses. Many things he hadn’t wanted anything to do with. He’d seen his father’s farm. And palaces. He’d seen a lot of palaces.
He just had not had the leisure to have a real look at much of the world. That will be new, he thought. Traveling without being chased, or having to rule here or there. Traveling where he could just sleep in a barn in exchange for splitting someone’s firewood. He thought about that, and found himself laughing, riding on south and smoking his impossible pipe. As he did so, a wind rose up around him, around the man who had been called lord, Dragon Reborn, king, killer, lover and friend.
The wind rose high and free, to soar in an open sky with no clouds. It passed over a broken landscape scattered with corpses not yet buried. A landscape covered, at the same time, with celebrations. It tickled the branches of trees that had finally begun to put forth buds.
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.
*
And it came to pass in those days, as it had come before and would come again, that the Dark lay heavy on the land and weighed down the hearts of men, and the green things failed, and hope died. And men cried out to the Creator, saying, O Light of the Heavens, Light of the World, let the Promised One be born of the mountain, according to the prophecies, as he was in ages past and will be in ages to come. Let the Prince of the Morning sing to the land that green things will grow and the valleys give forth lambs. Let the arm of the Lord of the Dawn shelter us from the Dark, and the great sword of justice defend us. Let the Dragon ride again on the winds of time.
—from Charal Drianaan te Calamon,
The Cycle of the Dragon.
Author unknown, the Fourth Age.
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.
The End
of the Last Book of
The Wheel of Time
About the Authors
Robert Jordan was born in 1948 in Charleston, South Carolina. He taught himself to read when he was four with the incidental aid of a twelve-years-older brother, and was tackling Mark Twain and Jules Verne by five. He was a graduate of the Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina, with a degree in physics. He served two tours in Vietnam with the U.S. Army; among his decorations are the Distinguished Flying Cross with bronze oak leaf cluster, the Bronze Star with “V” and bronze oak leaf cluster, and two Vietnamese Gallantry Crosses with Palm. A history buff, he also wrote dance and theater criticism. He enjoyed the outdoor sports of hunting, fishing, and sailing, and the indoor sports of poker, chess, pool, and pipe collecting. He began writing in 1977 and continued until his death on September 16, 2007.
Brandon Sanderson was born in 1975 in Lincoln, Nebraska. After a semester as a biochem major, Brandon came to his senses and recognized writing as his true vocation. He switched to English, graduating from Brigham Young University, then returning for a master’s in creative writing. During this time Brandon wrote thirteen novels, finally publishing his sixth, Elantris, in 2005. He has since released books for both adults and young readers, including the Mistborn trilogy, Warbreaker, The Way of Kings, and the Alcatraz series. He lives with his wife and children in Utah, where he often plays Magic: The Gathering, regularly eats mac-and-cheese, and occasionally teaches writing at BYU. Find more at www.brandonsanderson.com.
The Wheel of Time®
by Robert Jordan
The Eye of the World
The Great Hunt
The Dragon Reborn
The Shadow Rising
The Fires of Heaven
Lord of Chaos
A Crown of Swords
The Path of Daggers
Winter's Heart
Crossroads of Twilight
Knife of Dreams
by Robert Jordan
and Brandon Sanderson
The Gathering Storm
Towers of Midnight
A Memory of Light
A
MEMORY
OF
LIGHT
ROBERT JORDAN
AND
BRANDON SANDERSON
TOR®
fantasy
A TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES BOOK
NEW YORK<
br />
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously.
A MEMORY OF LIGHT
Copyright © 2012 by The Bandersnatch Group, Inc.
The phrases “The Wheel of Time®” and “The Dragon Reborn™,” and the snake-wheel symbol are trademarks of The Bandersnatch Group, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Maps by Ellisa Mitchell
Interior illustrations by Matthew C. Nielsen and Ellisa Mitchell A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC 175 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10010
www.tor-forge.com
Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Jordan, Robert, 1948-2007.
A memory of light / Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson. —1st ed.
p. cm. —(The wheel of time ; bk. 14)
“A Tom Doherty Associates book.”
ISBN 978-0-7653-2595-2 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4299-9717-1 (e-book)
1. Rand al’Thor (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Fantasy fiction. I. Sanderson, Brandon. II. Title. PS3560.07617M46 2013 813'.54—dc23
2012037361
First Edition: January 2013
Printed in the United States of America
0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 21
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