She obeyed, choosing one of the four chairs suddenly arranged near the center of the platform. The sky was deep blue, cloudless, and the sun hung at about three-quarters of the way to its zenith. How long had it been since she’d seen the sun in Tel’aran’rhiod? Lately, that omnipresent black storm had blanketed the sky. But, then, this wasn’t completely Tel’aran’rhiod. Nor was it Moridin’s dream, but a … melding of the two. Like a temporary lean-to built off the side of the dream world. A bubble of merged realities.
Moghedien wore a gown of black and gold, lacework on the sleeves faintly reminiscent of a spider’s web. Only faintly. One did well not to overuse a theme.
As she sat, Moghedien tried to exude control and self-confidence. Once, both had come easily for her. Today, trying to capture either was like trying to snatch dandelion seeds from the air, only to have them dance away from her hand. Moghedien gritted her teeth, angry at herself. She was one of the Chosen. She had made kings weep, armies tremble. Her name had been used by generations of mothers to frighten their children. And now …
She felt at her neck, found the pendant hanging there. It was still safe. She knew it was, but touching it brought her calmness.
“Do not grow too comfortable wearing that,” Moridin said. A wind blew across him, rippling the pristine ocean surface. On that wind she heard faint screams. “You are not completely forgiven, Moghedien. This is a probation. Perhaps when you fail next, I will give the mindtrap to Demandred.”
She sniffed. “He would toss it aside in boredom. Demandred wants only one thing. Al’Thor. Anyone who does not lead him toward his goal is unimportant to him.”
“You underestimate him,” Moridin said softly. “The Great Lord is pleased with Demandred. Very pleased. You, however…”
Moghedien sank down in her chair, feeling her tortures anew. Pain such as few in this world had ever known. Pain beyond what a body should be able to endure. She held to the cour’souvra and embraced saidar. That brought some relief.
Before, channeling in the same room as the cour’souvra had been agonizing. Now that she, rather than Moridin, wore the pendant, it was not so. Not just a pendant, she thought, clutching it. My soul itself. Darkness within! She had never thought that she, of all people, would find herself subject to one of these. Was she not the spider, careful in all that she did?
She reached her other hand up, clasping it over the one that held the pendant. What if it fell, what if someone took it? She wouldn’t lose it. She couldn’t lose it.
This is what I have become? She felt sick. I have to recover. Somehow. She forced herself to let go of the mindtrap.
The Last Battle was upon them; already, Trollocs poured into the southern lands. It was a new War of the Shadow, but only she and the other Chosen knew the deeper secrets of the One Power. The ones she hadn’t been forced to give up to those horrible women …
No, don’t think about that. The pain, the suffering, the failure.
In this war, they faced no Hundred Companions, no Aes Sedai with centuries of skill and practice. She would prove herself, and past errors would be forgotten.
Moridin continued to stare at those impossible flames. The only sounds were that of the fire and of the water that boiled near it. He would eventually explain his purpose in summoning her, wouldn’t he? He had been acting increasingly strange, lately. Perhaps his madness was returning. Once, the man named Moridin—or Ishamael, or Elan Morin Tedronai—would have delighted in holding a cour’souvra for one of his rivals. He would have invented punishments, thrilled in her agony.
There had been some of that at the start; then … he had lost interest. He spent more and more time alone, staring into flames, brooding. The punishments he had administered to her and Cyndane had seemed almost routine.
She found him more dangerous this way.
A gateway split the air just to the side of the platform. “Do we really need to do this every other day, Moridin?” Demandred asked, stepping through and into the World of Dreams. Handsome and tall, he had jet hair and a prominent nose. He gave Moghedien a glance, noting the mindtrap on her neck before continuing. “I have important things to do, and you interrupt them.”
“There are people you need to meet, Demandred,” Moridin said softly. “Unless the Great Lord has named you Nae’blis without informing me, you will do as you are told. Your playthings can wait.”
Demandred’s expression darkened, but he did not object further. He let the gateway close, then moved to the side, looking down into the sea. He frowned. What was in the waters? She hadn’t looked. She felt foolish for not having done so. What had happened to her caution?
Demandred walked to one of the chairs near her, but did not sit. He stood, contemplating Moridin from behind. What had Demandred been doing? During her period bound to the mindtrap, she had done Moridin’s bidding, but had never found an answer to Demandred.
She shivered again, thinking of those months under Moridin’s control. I will have vengeance.
“You’ve let Moghedien free,” Demandred said. “What of this … Cyndane?”
“She is not your concern,” Moridin said.
Moghedien had not failed to notice that Moridin still wore Cyndane’s mindtrap. Cyndane. It meant “last chance” in the Old Tongue, but the woman’s true nature was one secret that Moghedien had discovered. Moridin himself had rescued Lanfear from Sindhol, freeing her from the creatures that feasted upon her ability to channel.
In order to rescue her, and of course to punish her, Moridin had slain her. That had allowed the Great Lord to recapture her soul and place it in a new body. Brutal, but very effective. Precisely the kind of solution the Great Lord preferred.
Moridin was focused on his flames, and Demandred on him, so Moghedien used the chance to slip out of her seat and walk to the edge of the floating stone platform. The water below was completely clear. Through it she could see people very distinctly. They floated with their legs chained to something deep below, arms bound behind them. They swayed like kelp.
There were thousands of them. Each of them looked up at the sky with wide, horrified eyes. They were locked in a perpetual state of drowning. Not dead, not allowed to die, but constantly gasping for air and finding only water. As she watched, something dark reached up from below and pulled one of them down into the depths. Blood rose like a blooming flower; it caused the others to struggle all the more urgently.
Moghedien smiled. It did her good to see someone other than herself suffering. These might simply be figments, but it was possible that they were ones who had failed the Great Lord.
Another gateway opened at the side of the platform, and an unfamiliar woman stepped through. The creature had alarmingly unpleasant features, with a hooked yet bulbous nose and pale eyes that were off center with one another. She wore a dress that tried to be fine, of yellow silk, but it only served to highlight the woman’s ugliness.
Moghedien sneered and returned to her seat. Why was Moridin admitting a stranger to one of their meetings? This woman could channel; she must be one of those useless women who called themselves Aes Sedai in this Age.
Granted, Moghedien thought, sitting, she is powerful. How had Moghedien missed noticing one with this talent among the Aes Sedai? Her sources had picked out that wretched lightskirt Nynaeve almost immediately, yet they’d missed this hag?
“This is who you wish us to meet?” Demandred said, lips turning down.
“No,” Moridin said absently. “You’ve met Hessalam before.”
Hessalam? It meant … “without forgiveness” in the Old Tongue. The woman met Moghedien’s eyes proudly, and there was something familiar about her stance.
“I have things to be about, Moridin,” the newcomer said. “This had better be—”
Moghedien gasped. The tone in that voice …
“Do not take that tone with me,” Moridin cut in, speaking softly, not turning. “Do not take it with any of us. Currently, even Moghedien is favored more than you.”
“Graendal?” Moghedien asked, horrified.
“Do not use that name!” Moridin said, spinning on her, the burning water flaring up. “It has been stripped from her.”
Graendal—Hessalam—sat down without looking again at Moghedien. Yes, the way the woman carried herself was right. It was her.
Moghedien almost chortled with glee. Graendal had always used her looks as a bludgeon. Well, now they were a bludgeon of a different type. How perfect! The woman must be positively writhing inside. What had she done to earn such a punishment? Graendal’s stature—her authority, the myths told about her—were all linked to her beauty. What now? Would she have to start searching for the most horrid people alive to keep as pets, the only ones who could compete with her ugliness?
This time, Moghedien did laugh. A quiet laugh, but Graendal heard. The woman shot her a glare that could have set a section of the ocean aflame all on its own.
Moghedien returned a calm gaze, feeling more confident now. She resisted the urge to stroke the cour’souvra. Bring what you will, Graendal, she thought. We are on level footing now. We shall see who ends this race ahead.
A stronger wind blew past, and ripples started to rise around them, though the platform itself remained secure. Moridin let his fire die out, and nearby, waves rose. Moghedien could make out bodies, little more than dark shadows, inside those waves. Some were dead. Others struggled for the surface, their chains removed, but as they neared the open air, something always towed them back down again.
“We are few, now,” Moridin said. “We four, and the one who is punished most, are all that remain. By definition, that makes us the strongest.”
Some of us are, Moghedien thought. One of us was slain by al’Thor, Moridin, and required the Great Lord’s hand to return him. Why had Moridin never been punished for his failure? Well, it was best not to look too long for fairness in the Great Lord’s hand.
“Still, we are too few.” Moridin waved a hand, and a stone doorway appeared on the side of the platform. Not a gateway, just a door. This was Moridin’s dreamshard; he could control it. The door opened, and a man strode through it and out onto the platform.
Dark-haired, the man had the features of a Saldaean—a nose that was faintly hooked, eyes that tilted. He was handsome and tall, and Moghedien recognized him. “The leader of those fledgling male Aes Sedai? I know this man, Mazri—”
“That name has been discarded,” Moridin said. “Just as each of us, upon being Chosen, discarded what we were and the names men called us. From this moment on, this man shall be known only as M’Hael. One of the Chosen.”
“Chosen?” Hessalam seemed to choke on the word. “This child? He—” She cut off.
It was not their place to debate if one was Chosen. They could argue among themselves, even plot, if they did so with care. But questioning the Great Lord … that was not allowed. Ever.
Hessalam said no more. Moridin would not dare call this man Chosen if the Great Lord had not decided it. There was no argument to be made. Still, Moghedien shivered. Taim … M’Hael … was said to be strong, perhaps as strong as the rest of them, but elevating one from this Age, with all of their ignorance.… It galled her to consider that this M’Hael would be regarded as her equal.
“I see the challenge in your eyes,” Moridin said, looking at the three of them, “though only one of you was foolish enough to start voicing it. M’Hael has earned his reward. Too many of our number threw themselves into contests with al’Thor when he was presumed to be weak. M’Hael instead earned Lews Therin’s trust, then took charge of the training of his weapons. He has been raising a new generation of Dreadlords to the Shadow’s cause. What do the three of you have to show for your work since being released?”
“You will know the fruits I have harvested, Moridin,” Demandred said, voice low. “You will know them in bushels and droves. Just remember my requirement: I face al’Thor on the field of battle. His blood is mine, and no one else’s.” He met each of their eyes in turn, then finally those of M’Hael. There seemed to be a familiarity to them. The two had met before.
You will have competition with that one, Demandred, Moghedien thought. He wants al’Thor nearly as much as you do.
Demandred had been changing lately. Once, he wouldn’t have cared who killed Lews Therin—so long as the man died. What made Demandred insist on doing the deed himself?
“Moghedien,” Moridin said. “Demandred has plans for the war to come. You are to assist him.”
“Assist him?” she said. “I—”
“Do you forget yourself so quickly, Moghedien?” Moridin’s voice was silky. “You will do as you are told. Demandred wants you watching over one of the armies that now lacks proper monitoring. Speak a single word of complaint, and you will realize that the pain you have known up to now is but a shadow of true agony.”
Her hand went to the cour’souvra at her neck. Looking into his eyes, she felt her authority evaporate. I hate you, she thought. I hate you more for doing this to me in front of the others.
“The last days are upon us,” Moridin said, turning his back on them. “In these hours, you will earn your final rewards. If you have grudges, put them behind you. If you have plots, bring them to completion. Make your final plays, for this … this is the end.”
* * *
Talmanes lay on his back, staring up at a dark sky. The clouds above seemed to be reflecting light from below, the light of a dying city. That was wrong. Light came from above, didn’t it?
He’d fallen from the horse not long after starting for the city gate. He could remember that, most of the time. Pain made it hard to think. People yelled at one another.
I should have … I should have taunted Mat more, he thought, a hint of a smile cracking his lips. Stupid time to be thinking of such things. I have to … have to find the dragons. Or did we find them already…?
“I’m telling you, the bloody things don’t work like that!” Dennel’s voice. “They’re not bloody Aes Sedai on wheels. We can’t make a wall of fire. We can send these balls of metal hurtling through the Trollocs.”
“They explode.” Guybon’s voice. “We could use the extras like I say.”
Talmanes’ eyes drifted closed.
“The balls explode, yes,” Dennel said. “But we have to launch them first. Setting them all in a row and letting the Trollocs run over them won’t do much.”
A hand shook Talmanes’ shoulder. “Lord Talmanes,” Melten said. “There is no dishonor in letting it end now. I know the pain is great. May the last embrace of the mother shelter you.”
A sword being drawn. Talmanes steeled himself.
Then he found that he really, really didn’t want to die.
He forced his eyes open and held up a hand to Melten, who stood over him. Jesamyn hovered nearby with arms folded, looking worried.
“Help me to my feet,” Talmanes said.
Melten hesitated, then did so.
“You shouldn’t be standing,” Jesamyn said.
“Better than being beheaded in honor,” Talmanes grumbled, gritting his teeth against the pain. Light, was that his hand? It was so dark, it looked as if it had been charred in a fire. “What … what is going on?”
“We’re cornered, my Lord,” Melten said grimly, eyes solemn. He thought them all as good as dead. “Dennel and Guybon are arguing over placement of the dragons for a last stand. Aludra is measuring the charges.”
Talmanes, finally standing, sagged against Melten. Before him, two thousand people clustered in the large city square. They huddled like men in the wilderness seeking one another’s warmth on a cold night. Dennel and Guybon had set up the dragons in a half-circle bowed outward, pointing toward the center of the city, refugees behind. The Band was now committed to manning the dragons; three pairs of hands were needed to operate each weapon. Almost all of the Band had had at least some training.
The buildings nearby had caught fire, but the light was doing strange things. Why didn’t it reach the streets? Thos
e were all too dark. As if they’d been painted. Like …
He blinked, clearing the tears of pain from his eyes, realization dawning. Trollocs filled the streets like ink flowing toward the half-circle of dragons that were pointed at them.
Something held the Trollocs back for the moment. They’re waiting until they are all together for a rush, Talmanes thought.
Calls and snarls came from behind. Talmanes pivoted, then clutched Melten’s arm as the world lurched. He waited for it to steady. The pain … the pain was actually dulling. Like glowing flames running out of fresh coal. It had feasted upon him, but there wasn’t much left of him for it to eat.
As things steadied, Talmanes saw what was creating the snarls. The square they were in adjoined the city wall, but the townspeople and soldiers had kept their distance from the wall, for it was coated with Trollocs, like a thick grime. They raised weapons in the air and roared down at the people.
“They throw down spears at anyone who comes too close,” Melten said. “We’d been hoping to reach the wall, then follow it along to the gate, but we can’t—not with those things up there raining death upon us. All other routes are cut off.”
Aludra approached Guybon and Dennel. “Charges, I can set under the dragons,” she said to them; softly, but not as softly as she should have. “These charges, they will destroy the weapons. They may hurt the people in an unpleasant way.”
“Do it,” Guybon said very softly. “What the Trollocs would do is worse, and we cannot allow the dragons to fall into the Shadow’s hands. That’s why they’re waiting. Their leaders are hoping that a sudden rush will give them time to overwhelm us and seize the weapons.”
“They’re moving!” a soldier called from beside the dragons. “Light, they’re coming!”
That dark slime of Shadowspawn bubbled down the streets. Teeth, nails, claws, too-human eyes. The Trollocs came from all sides, eager for the kill. Talmanes struggled to draw breath.
On the walls, the calls grew excited. We’re surrounded, Talmanes thought. Pressed back against the wall, caught in a net. We …
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