That man knelt on the floor, with Nynaeve’s hand on his shoulder. She stood just behind Rand and to the left. Moiraine was on Rand’s right, all three of them standing tall, with eyes forward, staring into the nothingness ahead.
The mountain rumbled.
“Perfect,” Lanfear whispered. “I couldn’t have dreamed that it could come out this well.” She eyed the two women. “We will need to strike quickly. I will kill the taller woman, you the shorter one.”
Perrin frowned. Something about that seemed very wrong. “Kill . . . ?
Of course,” Lanfear said. “If we strike quickly, there will still be time to seize control of Moridin while he holds that blade. With that, I can force Lews Therin to bow.” She narrowed her eyes. “He holds the Dark One between his fingers, needing only one squeeze to pinch the life—if it can be called that—away. Only one hand can save the Great Lord. In this moment, I earn my reward. In this moment, I become highest of the high.”
“You . . . you want to save the Dark One?” Perrin said, raising a hand to his head. “You joined us. I remember . . .”
She glanced at him. “Such an inferior tool,” she said, smelling dissatisfied. “I hate having to use it. This makes me no better than Graendal.” She shivered. “If they had given me more time, I would have had you fairly.” She patted Perrin fondly on the cheek. “You are troubled. The taller one is from your village, I remember. You grew up together, I presume? I won’t make you kill her, my wolf. You can kill the short one. You hate her, don’t you?
I . . . yes, I do. She stole me away from my family. It’s because of her that they died, really. I would have been there, otherwise.”
“That’s right,” Lanfear said. “We must be quick. Our moment of opportunity will not last long.”
She turned toward the two women. Nynaeve and Moiraine. His friends. And then . . . and then Rand. She would kill him, Perrin knew. She would force him to bow, and then she would kill him. All along, her goal had been to put herself into a position where the Dark One himself would be helpless and she could step in to bring him salvation.
Perrin came up beside her.
“We strike together,” Lanfear said softly. “The barriers between worlds have been broken here. They will be able to fight back unless we are quick. We must kill them at the same time.”
This is wrong, Perrin thought. This is very, very wrong. He couldn’t let it happen, and yet his hands rose.
IT IS WRONG. He didn’t know why. His thoughts wouldn’t allow him to think of why.
“Ready,” Lanfear said, eyes on Nynaeve.
Perrin turned toward Lanfear.
“I will count to three,” Lanfear said, not looking at him.
My duty, Perrin thought, is to do the things Rand cannot.
This was the wolf dream. In the wolf dream, what he felt became reality.
“One,” Lanfear said.
He loved Faile.
“Two.”
He loved Faile.
“Three.”
He loved Faile. The Compulsion vanished like smoke in the wind, thrown off like clothing changed in the blink of an eye. Before Lanfear could strike, Perrin reached out and took her by the neck.
He twisted once. Her neck popped in his fingers.
Lanfear crumpled, and Perrin caught her body. She was beautiful. As she died, she changed back to the other form she had been wearing before, her new body.
Perrin felt a horrible stab of loss. He hadn’t completely wiped what she’d done from his mind. He’d overcome it, perhaps overlaid it with something new, something right. Only the wolf dream and his ability to view himself as he should be had allowed him to accomplish that.
Unfortunately, deep within, he still felt love for this woman. That sickened him. The love was nowhere near as strong as his love for Faile, but it was there. He found himself crying as he lowered her body, draped in sleek white and silver, to the stone floor.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. Killing a woman, particularly one who wasn’t threatening him personally ... it was something he’d never have thought himself capable of.
Someone had needed to do it. This was one test, at least, that Rand would not need to face. It was one burden that Perrin could carry for his friend.
He looked up toward Rand. “Go,” Perrin whispered. “Do what you must do. As always, I will watch your back.”
The seals crumbled. The Dark One burst free.
Rand held the Dark One tightly.
Filled with the Power, standing in a column of light, Rand pulled the Dark One into the Pattern. Only here was there time. Only here could the Shadow itself be killed.
The force in his hand, which was at once vast and yet tiny, trembled. Its screams were the sounds of planets grinding together.
A pitiful object. Suddenly, Rand felt as if he were holding not one of the primal forces of existence, but a squirming thing from the mud of the sheep pens.
YOU REALLY ARE NOTHING, Rand said, knowing the Dark Ones secrets completely. YOU WOULD NEVER HAVE GIVEN ME REST AS YOU PROMISED, FATHER OF LIES. YOU WOULD HAVE ENSLAVED ME AS YOU WOULD HAVE ENSLAVED THE OTHERS. YOU CANNOT GIVE OBLIVION. REST IS NOT YOURS. ONLY TORMENT.
The Dark One trembled in his grip.
YOU HORRIBLE, PITIFUL MITE, Rand said.
Rand was dying. His lifeblood flowed from him, and beyond that, the amount of the Powers he held would soon burn him away.
He held the Dark One in his hand. He began to squeeze, then stopped.
He knew all secrets. He could see what the Dark One had done. And Light, Rand understood. Much of what the Dark One had shown him was lies.
But the vision Rand himself had created—the one without the Dark One—was truth. If he did as he wished, he would leave men no better than the Dark One himself.
What a fool I have been.
Rand yelled, thrusting the Dark One back through the pit from where it had come. Rand pushed his arms to the side, grabbing twin pillars of saidar and saidin with his mind, coated with the True Power drawn through Moridin, who knelt on the floor, eyes open, so much power coursing through him he couldn’t even move.
Rand hurled the Powers forward with his mind and braided them together. Saidin and saidar at once, the True Power surrounding them and forming a shield on the Bore.
He wove something majestic, a pattern of interlaced saidar and saidin in their pure forms. Not Fire, not Spirit, not Water, not Earth, not Air. Purity. Light itself. This didn’t repair, it didn’t patch, it forged anew.
With this new form of the Power, Rand pulled together the rent that had been made here long ago by foolish men.
He understood, finally, that the Dark One was not the enemy.
It never had been.
Moiraine grabbed Nynaeve beside her, moving only by touch, for that light was blinding.
She pulled Nynaeve to her feet. Together, they ran. Away from the burning light behind. Up the corridor, scrambling. Moiraine burst into open air without realizing it, and almost ran off the edge of the path, which would have sent her stumbling down the steep slope. Someone caught her.
“I have you,” Thom’s voice said as she collapsed into his arms, completely drained. Nynaeve fell to the ground nearby, gasping.
Thom turned Moiraine away from the corridor, but she refused to look away. She opened her eyes, though she knew that the light was too intense, and she saw something. Rand and Moridin, standing in the light as it expanded outward to consume the entire mountain in its glow.
The blackness in front of Rand hung like a hole, sucking in everything. Slowly, bit by bit, that hole shrank away until it was just a pinprick.
It vanished.
EPILOGUE
To See the Answer
Rand slipped on his blood.
He couldn’t see. He carried something. Something heavy. A body. He stumbled up the tunnel.
Closing, he thought. It’s closing The ceiling lowered like a shutting jaw, stone grinding against stone. With a gasp, Rand reache
d open air as the rocks slammed down behind him, locking together like clenched teeth.
Rand tripped. The body in his arms was so heavy. He slipped to the ground.
He could . . . see, just faintly. A figure kneeling down beside him. “Yes,” a woman whispered. He did not recognize the voice. “Yes, that’s good. That is what you need to do.”
He blinked, his vision fuzzy. Was that Aiel clothing? An old woman, with gray hair? Her form retreated, and Rand reached toward her, not wanting to be alone. Wanting to explain himself. “I see the answer now,” he whispered. “I asked the Aelfinn the wrong question. To choose is our fate. If you have no choice, then you aren’t a man at all. You’re a puppet . . .” Shouting.
Rand felt heavy. He plunged into unconsciousness.
Mat stood up as the mist of Mashadar burned away from him and vanished. The field was littered with the bodies of those eerie pockmarked Trollocs.
He looked upward through the vanishing wisps and found the sun directly overhead.
“Well, you’re a sight,” he said to it. “You should come out more often. You have a pretty face.” He smiled, then looked down at the dead man by his feet. Padan Fain looked like a bundle of sticks and moss, the flesh slipping from his bones. The blackness of the dagger had spread across his rotting skin. It stank.
Almost, Mat reached for that dagger. Then he spat. “For once,” he said, “a gamble I don’t want to touch.” He turned his back on it and walked off.
Three steps away, he found his hat. He grinned, snatched it up and set it on his head, then began whistling as he rested the ashandarei on his shoulder and strolled away. The dice had stopped rolling in Mat’s head.
Behind, the dagger, ruby and all, melted away into the mess that had been Padan Fain.
Perrin walked wearily into the camp they had set up at the base of Shayol Ghul after the fighting had ceased. He dropped his coat. The air felt good on his bare chest. He tucked Mah’alleinir away in its place at his belt. A good smith never neglected his tools, for all that sometimes, carrying them felt as if they would bear him down to the grave itself.
He thought that he could sleep a hundred days straight. But not yet. Not yet.
Faile.
No. Deep down, he knew he had to face something horrible about her. But not yet. For the moment, he shoved that worry—that terror—away.
The last spirits of the wolves faded back into the wolf dream.
Farewell, Young Bull.
Find what you seek, Young Bull.
The hunt ends, but we will hunt again, Young Bull.
Perrin plodded among rows of wounded men and Aiel celebrating the defeat of the Shadowspawn. Some tents were filled with moans, others with yells of victory. People of all stripes ran through the now-blooming valley of Thakan’dar, some hunting for the wounded, others crying in joy and whooping as they met with friends who had survived the last, dark moments.
Aiel called to Perrin, “Ho, blacksmith, join us!” But he did not enter their celebrations. He looked for the guards. Someone around here had to be levelheaded enough to worry about a rogue Myrddraal or Draghkar taking the opportunity to try for a little revenge. Sure enough, he found a ring of defenders at the center of camp guarding a large tent. 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.
He pushed through the guards, numb, and entered the tent. Where had they found a tent this large on this battlefield? Everything had been trampled, blown away or burned.
The inside smelled of herbs, and was partitioned with several hanging cloths.
“I’ve tried everything,” a voice whispered. Damer Flinn’s voice. “Nothing changes what is happening. He—”
Perrin pushed in on Nynaeve and Flinn standing beside a pallet behind one of the partitions. Rand, cleaned and dressed, lay there, eyes closed. Moiraine knelt beside him, her hand on his face, whispering so softly none but he could hear. “You did well, Rand. You did well.”
“He lives?” Perrin asked, wiping the sweat from his face with his hand.
“Perrin!” Nynaeve said. “Oh, Light. You look horrible. Sit down, you lummox! You’re going to fall over. I don’t want two of you to tend.”
Her eyes were red. “He’s dying anyway, isn’t he?” Perrin asked. “You got him out alive, but he’s still going to die.”
“Sit,” Nynaeve commanded, pointing to a stool.
“Dogs obey that command, Nynaeve,” Perrin said, “not wolves.” He knelt down, resting a hand on Rand’s shoulder.
I couldn’t feel your tugging, or see the visions, Perrin thought. You’re no longer ta’veren. I suspect neither am I. “Have you sent for the three?” Perrin asked. “Min, Elayne, Aviendha. They need to visit him a last time.”
“That’s all you can say?” Nynaeve snapped.
He looked up at her. The way she folded her arms made her look as if she were holding herself together. Wrapping her arms about herself to stop from crying.
“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 Still . . . Egwene?
“It’s not your fault, Nynaeve,” he said, opening his eyes.
“Of course it’s not. I know it’s not, you numb-brained fool.” She turned away.
He stood up, embracing her and patting her back with his smith’s hands. “I’m sorry.”
“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. Nynaeve pulled away sharply after a moment, then barreled out of the tent.
“I tried,” Flinn said desperately, looking at Rand. “Nynaeve did, too. Together, we tried, with Moiraine Sedai’s angreal. Nothing worked. Nobody knows how to save him.”
“You did what you could,” Perrin said, peeking around the next partition. Another man lay on the pallet there. “What is he doing here?”
“We found them together,” Flinn said. “Rand must have carried him out of the pit. We don’t know why the Lord Dragon would save one of the Forsaken, but it doesn’t matter. We can’t Heal him either. They’re dying. Both of them.”
“Send for Min, Elayne and Aviendha,” Perrin said again. He hesitated. “Did they all survive?”
“The Aiel girl took a beating,” Flinn said. “She came stumbling into camp, half-carried by a horrid-looking Aes Sedai who had made a gateway for her. She’ll live, though I don’t know how well she’ll walk in years to come.”
“Let them know. All of them.”
Flinn nodded, and Perrin stepped out after Nynaeve. He found what he’d hoped to see, the reason why she’d left so quickly. Just outside the tent, Lan held her tightly. The man looked as bloodied and tired as Perrin felt. Their eyes met, and they nodded to one another.
“Several of the Windfinders have opened a gateway between here and Merrilor,” Lan said to Perrin. “The Dark One is sealed away again. The Blasted Lands are blooming, and gateways can open here again.”
“Thank you,” Perrin said, passing him by. “Has anyone . . . heard anything about Faile?”
“No, blacksmith. The Hornsounder saw her last, but she left him and entered the battlefield to draw the Trollocs away from him. I’m sorry.”
Perrin nodded. He’d already spoken with Mat, and Olver. It seemed to him that . . . that he’d been avoiding thinking about what must have happened.
Don’t think about it, he told himself. Don’t you dare. He steeled himself, then went to seek the gateway Lan had mentioned.
“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 its 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.”
And, he admitted to himself, he wanted to see Mat and Perrin. See that they were all right. So much had happened; he wanted to talk to his friends and make certain they were well. With what was happening to Rand . . .
The Aiel woman smiled at him drunkenly. Loial sighed, then continued through the camp. The day was coming to an end. The day of the Last Battle! It was the Fourth Age now, wasn’t it? Could an age start in the middle of a day? That would be inconvenient for the calendars, wouldn’t it? But everyone agreed. Rand had sealed the Bore at noon.
Loial continued through the camp. They hadn’t moved from the base of Shayol Ghul. Nynaeve said she was too worried to move Rand. Loial kept searching, peeking into tents. In the next, he found the grizzled general Ituralde, surrounded by four Aes Sedai.
“Look,” Ituralde said. “I’ve served the kings of Arad Doman all of my life. I swore oaths.”
“Alsalam is dead,” Saerin Sedai said from beside the chair. “Someone has to take the throne.”
“There is confusion in Saldaea,” Elswell Sedai added. “The succession is messy, with the ties it has to Andor now. Arad Doman cannot afford to be leaderless. You must take the throne, Rodel Ituralde. You must do it quickly.
The Merchant Council . . .”
“All dead or vanished,” another Aes Sedai said.
“I swore oaths . . .”
“And what would your king have you do?” Yukiri Sedai asked. “Let the kingdom disintegrate? You must be strong, Lord Ituralde. This is not a time for Arad Doman to be without a leader.”
Loial slipped away and shook his head, feeling sorry for the man. Four Aes Sedai. Ituralde would be crowned before the day was out.
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