Tam went up to the bier, beside Thom and Moiraine, who were holding hands, faces solemn. Moiraine reached over and gently squeezed Tam’s arm. Tam looked at the corpse, gazing down into his son’s face by the fire’s light. He did not wipe the tears from his eyes.
You did well. My boy … you did so well.
He lit the pyre with a reverent hand.
* * *
Min stood at the front of the crowd. She watched Tam, with slumped shoulders, bow his head before the flames. Eventually the man walked back to join the Two Rivers folk. Abell Cauthon embraced him, whispering softly to his friend.
Heads in the night, shadows, turned toward Min, Aviendha and Elayne. They expected something from the three of them. A show of some sort.
Solemnly, Min stepped forward with the other two; Aviendha needed the help of two Maidens to walk, though she was able to stand by leaning on Elayne. The Maidens withdrew to leave the three of them alone before the pyre. Elayne and Min stood with her, watching the fire burn, consuming Rand’s corpse.
“I’ve seen this,” Min said. “I knew it would come the day I first met him. We three, together, here.”
Elayne nodded. “So now what?”
“Now…” Aviendha said. “Now we make sure that everyone well and truly believes he is gone.”
Min nodded, feeling the pulsing throb of the bond in the back of her mind. It grew stronger each moment.
* * *
Rand al’Thor—just Rand al’Thor—woke in a dark tent by himself. Someone had left a candle burning beside his pallet.
He breathed deeply, stretching. He felt as if he’d just slept long and deep. Shouldn’t he be hurting? Stiff? Aching? He felt none of that.
He reached to his side and felt no wounds there. No wounds. For the first time in a long while, there was no pain. He almost didn’t know what to make of it.
Then he looked down and saw that the hand prodding his side was his own left hand. He laughed, holding it up before him. A mirror, he thought. I need a mirror.
He found one beyond the next partition of the tent. Apparently, he’d been left completely alone. He held up the candle, looking into the small mirror. Moridin’s face looked back at him.
Rand touched his face, feeling it. In his right eye hung a single saa, black, shaped like the dragon’s fang. It didn’t move.
Rand slipped back into the portion of the tent where he’d awakened. Laman’s sword was there, sitting atop a neat pile of mixed clothing. Alivia apparently hadn’t known what he would want to wear. She had been the one to leave these things, of course, along with a bag of coins from a variety of nations. She hadn’t ever cared much for either clothing or coin, but she had known he’d need both.
She will help you die. Rand shook his head, dressing and gathering the coins and the sword, then slipping out of the tent. Someone had left a good horse, a dappled gelding, tied not far away. That would do him well. From Dragon Reborn to horsethief. He chuckled to himself. Bareback would have to do.
He hesitated. Nearby, in the darkness, people were singing. This was Shayol Ghul, but not as he remembered it. A blooming Shayol Ghul, full of life.
The song they sang was a Borderlander funeral song. Rand led the horse through the night to get a little closer. He peered between the tents to where three women stood around a funeral pyre.
Moridin, he thought. He’s being cremated with full honors as the Dragon Reborn.
Rand backed away, then mounted the dapple. As he did so, he noticed one figure who was not standing by the fire. A solitary figure, who looked toward him when all other eyes were turned away.
Cadsuane. She looked him up and down, eyes reflecting firelight from the glow of Rand’s pyre. Rand nodded, waited for a moment, then turned the horse and heeled it away.
* * *
Cadsuane watched him go.
Curious, she thought. Those eyes had confirmed her suspicions. That would be information she could use. No need to keep watching this sham of a funeral, then.
She walked away through the camp, and there strolled directly into an ambush.
“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 t
hat, 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
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 © 2013 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.
Cover art by Michael Whelan
Maps by Ellisa Mitchell
Interior illustrations by Matthew C. Nielsen and Ellisa Mitchell
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The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
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.O7617M46 2013
813'.54—dc23
2012037361
e-ISBN 9781429997171
First Edition: April 2013
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
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.
Read on for a preview of
The Way of Kings
Book One of The Stormlight Archive
Brandon Sanderson
Available now in the following formats:
Hardcover ISBN 978-0-7653-2635-5
Trade Paperback ISBN 978-0-7653-7667-1
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Copyright © 2010 by Dragonsteel Entertainment, LLC
For Emily,
Who is too patient
Too kindly
And too wonderful
For words.
But I try anyway.
PRELUDE TO
THE STORMLIGHT ARCHIVE
Kalak rounded a rocky stone ridge and stumbled to a stop before the body of a dying thunderclast. The enormous stone beast lay on its side, riblike protrusions from its chest broken and cracked. The monstrosity was vaguely skeletal in shape, with unnaturally long limbs that sprouted from granite shoulders. The eyes were deep red spots on the arrowhead face, as if created by a fire burning deep within the stone. They faded.
Even after all these centuries, seeing a thunderclast up close made Kalak shiver. The beast’s hand was as long as a man was tall. He’d been killed by hands like those before, and it hadn’t been pleasant.
Of course, dying rarely was.
He rounded the creature, picking his way more carefully across the battlefield. The plain was a place of misshapen rock and stone, natural pillars rising around him, bodies littering the ground. Few plants lived here.
The stone ridges and mounds bore numerous scars. Some were shattered, blasted-out sections where Surgebinders had fought. Less frequently, he passed cracked, oddly shaped hollows where thunderclasts had ripped themselves free of the stone to join the fray.
Many of the bodies around him were human; many were not. Blood mixed. Red. Orange. Violet. Though none of the bodies around him stirred, an indistinct haze of sounds hung in the air. Moans of pain, cries of grief. They did not seem like the sounds of victory. Smoke curled from the occasional patches of growth or heaps of burning corpses. Even some sections of rock smoldered. The Dustbringers had done their work well.
But I survived, Kalak thought, hand to breast as he hastened to the meeting place. I actually survived this time.
That was dangerous. When he died, he was sent back, no choice. When he survived the Desolation
, he was supposed to go back as well. Back to that place that he dreaded. Back to that place of pain and fire. What if he just decided…not to go?
Perilous thoughts, perhaps traitorous thoughts. He hastened on his way.
The place of meeting was in the shadow of a large rock formation, a spire rising into the sky. As always, the ten of them had decided upon it before the battle. The survivors would make their way here. Oddly, only one of the others was waiting for him. Jezrien. Had the other eight all died? It was possible. The battle had been so furious this time, one of the worst. The enemy was growing increasingly tenacious.
But no. Kalak frowned as he stepped up to the base of the spire. Seven magnificent swords stood proudly here, driven point-first into the stone ground. Each was a masterly work of art, flowing in design, inscribed with glyphs and patterns. He recognized each one. If their masters had died, the Blades would have vanished.
These Blades were weapons of power beyond even Shardblades. These were unique. Precious. Jezrien stood outside the ring of swords, looking eastward.
“Jezrien?”
The figure in white and blue glanced toward him. Even after all these centuries, Jezrien looked young, like a man barely into his thirtieth year. His short black beard was neatly trimmed, though his once-fine clothing was scorched and stained with blood. He folded his arms behind his back as he turned to Kalak.
“What is this, Jezrien?” Kalak asked. “Where are the others?”
“Departed.” Jezrien’s voice was calm, deep, regal. Though he hadn’t worn a crown in centuries, his royal manner lingered. He always seemed to know what to do. “You might call it a miracle. Only one of us died this time.”
“Talenel,” Kalak said. His was the only Blade unaccounted for.
“Yes. He died holding that passage by the northern waterway.”
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