The Gathering Storm

by Robert Jordan

  The nobleman wilted slightly.

  “You have one of the merchant council for me?” Rand asked.

  “Yes,” Dobraine said. “Milisair Chadmar, last to flee the city’s chaos.” His eyes were eager. He had always been stalwart, but was that a ruse? Rand had trouble trusting anyone lately. The ones who seemed most trustworthy were the ones you needed to watch the most. And Dobraine was Cairhienin. Dared Rand trust anyone from Cairhien, with their games?

  Moiraine was Cairhienin. I trusted her. Mostly.

  Perhaps Dobraine hoped that Rand would choose him as king in Arad Doman. He had been steward of Cairhien, but he—like most others—knew that Rand intended Elayne for the Sun Throne.

  Well, Rand might give this kingdom to Dobraine at that. He was better than most. Rand nodded for him to lead the way, and he did so, turning with the group of Aiel to march down a large side street. Rand continued, list still running through his mind.

  The buildings here were tall and square, with the shape of boxes stacked atop one another. Many of them had balconies, packed with people, like the boardwalks beneath.

  Each name on Rand’s list pained him, but that pain was a strange, distant thing now. His feelings were . . . different since the day he had killed Semirhage. She had taught him how to bury his guilt and his hurt. She had thought to chain him, but instead had given him strength.

  He added her name and Elza’s name to the list. They didn’t have any right to be there. Semirhage was less a woman and more a monster. Elza had betrayed him, serving the Shadow all along. But he added the names. They had as much claim on him for killing them as any. More, even. He had been unwilling to kill Lanfear to save Moiraine, but he had used balefire to burn Semirhage out of existence rather than allow himself to be captured again.

  He fingered the object he carried in a pouch on his saddle. It was a smooth figurine. He had not told Cadsuane that his servants had recovered it from her room. Now that Cadsuane was exiled from his presence, he never would. He knew that she tagged along still with his entourage, pushing the limits of his command to never let him see her face. But she did as ordered, and so he let it be. He would not speak to her, and she would not speak to him.

  Cadsuane had been a tool, and that tool had proven ineffective. He did not regret casting it aside.

  Jendhilin, Maiden of the Cold Peak Miagoma, he thought, Lews Therin muttering alongside him. The list was so long. It would grow before he died.

  Death no longer worried him. Finally, he understood Lews Therin’s cries to let it end. Rand deserved to die. Was there a death so strong that a man would never have to be reborn? He reached the end of the list, finally. Once, he’d repeated it to keep himself from forgetting the names. That was not possible now; he could not forget them if he wished. He repeated them as a reminder of what he was.

  But Lews Therin had one more name to add. Elmindreda Farshaw, he whispered.

  Rand pulled Tai’daishar up short, stopping his column of Aiel, Saldaean cavalry, and camp attendants in the middle of the street. Dobraine turned back questioningly on his white stallion.

  I did not kill her! Rand thought. Lews Therin, she lives on. We didn’t kill her! That was Semirhage who was to blame, in any case.

  Silence. He could still feel his fingers on her flesh, squeezing, impotent yet incredibly strong. Even if Semirhage had been behind the actions, Rand was the one who had been too weak to send Min away and protect her.

  He hadn’t sent her away. Not because he was too weak, but because something in him had stopped caring. Not about her—he loved her fiercely, and always would. But he knew that death, pain and destruction came in his wake, and he dragged them behind him like a cloak. Min might die here, but if he sent her away, she would be in just as much danger. His enemies likely suspected that he loved her.

  There was no safety. If she died, he would add her to the list and suffer for it.

  He started moving again before question could be called to his actions. Tai’daishar’s hooves thumped on the earthen streets, made soft by the humidity. Rains came often here; Bandar Eban was the prime port city of the northwest. If it wasn’t a great city like those in the south, it was still impressive. Row upon row of square houses, built of wood, ridged at the second and third stories. They looked like children’s blocks, stacked on top of one another, so perfectly square with the stories divided. They filled the city, rolling down a gentle incline to the massive port.

  The city was widest at the port, making it seem like the head of a man opening his mouth wide, as if to drink in the ocean itself. The docks were nearly empty; the only ships moored were a cluster of Sea Folk vessels—three-masted rakers—and some fishing trawlers. The massive size of the port only made it look more desolate for the lack of ships.

  That was the first sign that all was not well in Bandar Eban.

  Other than the virtually unoccupied harbor, the most distinctive aspect of the city was the banners. They flew above—or hung from—every building, no matter how humble. Many of those banners proclaimed the trade practiced in a given building—much as a simple wooden sign would in Caemlyn. The banners were far more extravagant than most, bright-colored and fluttering in the wind above the buildings. Matching tapestry-like banners hung from the sides of most buildings, announcing in bright lettering the owner, master craftsman and merchant of each shop. Even homes bore banners with the names of the families who lived therein.

  Copper-skinned and dark-haired, the Domani favored bright clothing. Domani women were infamous for their dresses, which were filmy enough to be scandalous. It was said that very young Domani girls practiced the art of manipulating men, preparing for the day when they would be of age.

  The sight of them all standing along the roads, watching, was nearly spectacle enough to draw Rand out of his brooding. Perhaps a year ago, he would have gawked, but now he barely gave them a glance. In fact, it came to him that Domani people were far less striking when gathered together like this. A flower in a field of weeds was always a sight, but if you passed cultivated flower beds every day, none of them drew your notice.

  Distracted though he was, he did pick out the signs of starvation. There was no mistaking that haunted cast to the children, that lean look to the faces of the adults. This city had been in chaos just weeks ago, though Dobraine and the Aiel had restored the law. Some of the buildings bore poorly mended windows or broken boards, and some of the banners had obviously been ripped recently and shoddily mended. Law had been restored, but the lack of it was still a fresh memory.

  Rand’s group reached a central crossroads, proclaimed by large flapping banners to be Arandi Square, and Dobraine turned the procession to the east. Many of the Aiel with the Cairhienin wore the red headband marking them as siswai’aman. Spears of the Dragon. Rhuarc had some twenty thousand Aiel camped around the city and in the nearby towns; by now most Domani would know that these Aiel followed the Dragon Reborn.

  Rand was glad to find that the Sea Folk rakers had arrived—finally—with grain from the south. Hopefully, that would do as much to restore order as Dobraine and the Aiel had.

  The procession turned into the wealthy section of the city. He knew where they’d find it long before the homes started looking more lavish: as far from the docks as possible, while still remaining a comfortable distance from the city walls. Rand could have found the rich even without looking at a map. The city’s landscape all but demanded their location.

  A horse clopped up beside Rand. At first, he assumed it would be Min—but no, she was riding behind, with the Wise Ones. Did she look at him differently now, or was he just imagining it? Did she remember his fingers at her throat every time she saw his face?

  It was Merise who had moved up beside him, riding a placid dun mare. The Aes Sedai was infuriated by Rand’s exile of Cadsuane. Unsurprising. Aes Sedai liked to maintain a very calm and controlled front, but Merise and the others had pandered to Cadsuane much like a village innkeeper simpering over a visiting king.

/>   The Taraboner woman had chosen to wear her shawl today, proclaiming her affiliation to the Green Ajah. She wore it, perhaps, in an effort to reinforce her authority. Inwardly, Rand sighed. He had been expecting a confrontation, but he had hoped that the business of the move would delay it until tempers subsided. He respected Cadsuane, after a fashion, but he had never trusted her. There had to be consequences for failure, and he felt a great relief from having dealt with her. There would be no more of her strings wrapping themselves around him.

  Or, at least, fewer of them.

  “This exile, it is foolish, Rand al’Thor,” Merise said dismissively. Was she intentionally trying to rile him, perhaps to make him easier to bully? After months of dealing with Cadsuane herself, this woman’s pale imitation was almost amusing.

  “You should beg for her forgiveness,” Merise continued. “She has condescended to continue with us, though your inane restriction has forced her to wear a cloak with the hood up, despite the warmth of the day. You should be ashamed.”

  Cadsuane again. He shouldn’t have left her room to wiggle around his command.

  “Well?” Merise asked.

  Rand turned his head and looked Merise in the eyes. He had discovered something shocking during the last few hours. 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. Indeed, Merise—a fully trained Aes Sedai—wilted before that stare.

  He put no emotion into it. His rage, his anger, his passion—it was all still there, buried within. But he had surrounded it with ice, cold and immobilizing. It was the ice of the place Semirhage had taught him to go, the place that was like the void, but far more dangerous.

  Perhaps Merise could sense frozen rage within him. Or perhaps she could sense the other thing, the fact that he’d used that . . . power. Distantly, Lews Therin began to cry. The madman did that whenever Rand thought of what he had done to escape Semirhage’s collar.

  “What you did, it was a foolish move,” Merise continued. “You should—”

  “Do you think me a fool, then?” Rand asked softly.

  Respond to demands with silence, respond to challenges with questions. It was amazing how it worked. Merise cut off, then shivered visibly. She glanced down, to the pouch on his saddle where he carried the small statue of a man holding aloft a sphere. Rand fingered it, holding his reins loosely.

  He did not flaunt the statuette. He simply carried it, but Merise and most of the others knew the nearly unlimited power he could tap if he wished. It was a weapon greater than any other ever known. With it, he might be able to annihilate the world itself. And it sat innocently on his saddle. That had an effect on people.

  “I . . . No, I don’t,” she admitted. “Not always.”

  “Do you think that failures should be unpunished?” Rand asked, voice still soft. Why had he lost his temper? These little annoyances were not worth his passion, his fury. If one bothered him too much, all he needed do was snuff it out, like a candle.

  A dangerous thought. Had that been his? Had it been Lews Therin’s? Or . . . had the thought come from . . . elsewhere?

  “Surely you have been too harsh,” Merise said.

  “Too harsh?” he asked. “Do you realize her mistake, Merise? Have you considered what could have happened? What should have happened?”

  “I—”

  “The end of all things, Merise,” he whispered. “The Dark One with control of the Dragon Reborn. The two of us, fighting on the same side.”

  She fell silent, then said, “Yes. But mistakes, you yourself have made them. They might have ended in similar disaster.”

  “I pay for my mistakes,” he said, turning away. “I pay for them each day. Each hour. Each breath.”

  “I—”

  “Enough.” He did not yell the word. He spoke firmly, but quietly. He made her feel the full force of his displeasure, his gaze seizing her own. She suddenly slumped in her saddle, looking up at him with wide eyes.

  There was a loud cracking noise from the side, followed by a sudden crash. Screams broke the air. Rand turned with alarm. A balcony filled with onlookers had broken free of its supports and fallen to the street, smashing like a barrel hit by a boulder. People groaned in pain, others called out for help. But the sounds had come from both sides of the street. Rand frowned and turned; a second balcony—directly across from the first—had fallen as well.

  Merise paled, then turned her horse hastily, heading to help the wounded. Other Aes Sedai were already hurrying to Heal those who had fallen.

  Rand kneed Tai’daishar forward. That had not been caused by the Power, but by his ta’veren nature changing probability. Wherever he visited, remarkable and random events occurred. Large numbers of births, deaths, weddings and accidents. He had learned to ignore them.

  He had rarely seen an occurrence quite so . . . violent, however. Could he be sure it wasn’t due to some interaction with the new force? That unseen yet tempting well of power Rand had tapped, used and enjoyed? Lews Therin thought what happened should have been impossible.

  The original reason mankind had bored into the Dark One’s prison had been power. A new source of energy for channeling, like the One Power, but different. Unknown and strange, and potentially vast. That source of power had turned out to be the Dark One himself.

  Lews Therin whimpered.

  Rand carried the access key with him for a reason. It linked him to one of the greatest sa’angreal ever created. With that power and the aid of Nynaeve, Rand had cleansed saidin. The access key had allowed him to tap an unimaginable river, a tempest as vast as the ocean. It had been the greatest thing he had ever experienced.

  Until the moment when he had used the unnamed power.

  That other force called to him, sang to him, tempted him. So much power, so much divine wonder. But it terrified him. He didn’t dare touch it, not again.

  And so he carried the key. He was not certain which of the two sources of energy was more dangerous, but as long as both called to him, he was able to resist both. Like two people, both yelling for his attention, they drowned one another out. For the moment.

  Besides, he would not be collared again. The access key wouldn’t have helped him against Semirhage—no amount of the One Power would aid a man if he were caught unaware—but perhaps it would in the future. Once, he hadn’t dared carry it for fear of what it offered. He no longer had room to indulge such weakness.

  The destination was easy to pick out; about five hundred Cairhienin armsmen were camped on the grounds of a spacious, stately mansion. Aiel also had tents on the grounds—but they had also claimed nearby buildings, and several nearby roofs. For the Aiel, camping in a place was essentially the same thing as guarding it, as an Aiel resting was about twice as alert as a regular soldier on patrol. Rand had left the larger bulk of his force outside the city; he would leave it to Dobraine and his stewards to find quarters for Rand’s men within the walls.

  Rand halted Tai’daishar, then surveyed his new home.

  We have no home, Lews Therin whispered. We destroyed it. Burned it away, melted to slag, like sand in a fire.

  The mansion was certainly a step up from the mostly log manor. Its large grounds were bordered by iron gates. The flower beds were empty—flowers were hesitant to bloom this spring—but the lawn was greener than most he had seen. Oh, it was mostly yellow and brown, but there were patches of green. The groundskeepers were trying very hard, their efforts also manifest in the rows of Aryth yews cut in the shapes of fanciful animals at the sides of the lawn.

  The mansion itself was nearly a palace; there was one of those in the city, of course, belonging to the king. But it was said to be inferior to the homes of the Council of Merchants. The banner flapping tall atop the manor was of brilliant gold and black, and it proclaimed this to be the seat of House Chadmar. Perhaps this Mil
isair had seen the departure of the others as an opportunity. If so, the only real opportunity she’d gained was the chance to be taken by Rand.

  The gates to the mansion grounds were open, and the Aiel in his entourage were already hurrying in, joining clusters of society or clan members. It was irksome that they rarely waited on Rand’s commands or orders, but Aiel were Aiel. Any suggestion that they should wait was simply met with laughter, as if he had made a grand joke. It would be easier to tame the wind itself than to get them to behave like wetlanders.

  That made him think of Aviendha. Where had she gone, so suddenly? He could feel her through the bond, but it was faint—she was very far away. To the east. What business was there for her in the Waste?

  He shook his head. All women were difficult to understand, and an Aiel woman was tenfold more incomprehensible. He had hoped that he would be able to spend some time with her, but she’d pointedly avoided him. Well, perhaps it was Min’s presence that kept her away. Perhaps he would be able to keep himself from hurting her before death came. Better that Aviendha fled. His enemies didn’t know of her yet.

  He urged Tai’daishar through the gates, riding up the drive to the manor house itself. He dismounted, plucking the statuette from its strap and sliding it into the oversized pocket of his coat, which had been quickly tailored to hold it. He handed his mount off to a groom—one of the manor house’s own servants, wearing a coat of green with a bright white shirt beneath, the collar and cuffs ruffled. The manor’s servants had already been apprised that Rand would be using the place as his own, now that its former occupant had been . . . given his protection.

  Dobraine joined him as he strode up the steps to the building. It was washed a crisp white, with wooden pillars lining the front landing. He stepped inside the front doors. After living in several palaces, he was still impressed. And disgusted. The opulence he found beyond the manor’s front doors would never have indicated that the people of the city starved. A line of very nervous servants stood in a row along the back of the entryway. He could sense their fear. It was not every day that one’s dwelling was annexed by the Dragon Reborn himself.