The Black Tower - (a big one)
Lews Therin - (much smaller than it could have been)
Hope you like. New stuff soon.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Updates, and Yet Another WoT FAQ
I took a break from WOTRR because I was starting to bore myself with my own writing. To an extent, that's inevitable, since I'm a pretty boring writer most of the time. I will be back at it very soon, but in the meantime, I have been working on some things, such as this.
I wanted to make a FAQ that is a little more geared to the recent and open questions that have arisen since CoT (the last time the questions were really updated on the old FAQ). Since Dragonmount has only so far updated the old FAQ, many of those old questions are long since resolved, and many new questions are ignored. In the meantime, I often find myself wishing I had nice pre-made answers to common questions that are either not thoroughly covered on the DM FAQ, or not updated yet (I am very impatient), or not covered in a way that I necessarily agree with, or not covered at all.
So, here are a few articles that have been completed so far (they have been added to the blog index). Some of them were written by Marie Curie. There are several other articles planned and some in various stages of completion, and eventually I will probably move all the articles here. I'd love to hear what you think. It's possible I have overlooked a thing or two. Also, let me know if there are other questions you'd like to see addressed.
Blood on the Rocks - A full survey of the prophecies touching on Rand's death (including all the relevant quotes for easy reference), and an overview of the most plausible theories about Rand's fate.
Rand's New Sword - A breakdown of all the lovely evidence and foreshadowing surrounding the sword.
Aviendha's Babies - An overview of the plausible theories about Aviendha's Odd Babies.
Seanchan Prophecies - An analysis of the veracity of Seanchan prophecies (with quotes, of course).
The Dark Prophecies - A comprehensive look at the known Prophecies of the Shadow, and authoritative quotes on their veracity.
Mirror Worlds - A concise explanation of how Mirror Worlds work.
Can Tuon Channel? Has she already? - Everything you need to know about Tuon's ability.
The Red-Veiled 'Aiel' - What we know about them, and what we don't know.
The Right to Kill Rand - Which Forsaken has been given this privilege?
The Gholam - Is it really dead? How did it survive passage through the gateway?
Gaidal Cain For Noobs - The title says it all. If you believe Gaidal Cain is Olver, or anyone else in the series for that matter, click here.
I wanted to make a FAQ that is a little more geared to the recent and open questions that have arisen since CoT (the last time the questions were really updated on the old FAQ). Since Dragonmount has only so far updated the old FAQ, many of those old questions are long since resolved, and many new questions are ignored. In the meantime, I often find myself wishing I had nice pre-made answers to common questions that are either not thoroughly covered on the DM FAQ, or not updated yet (I am very impatient), or not covered in a way that I necessarily agree with, or not covered at all.
So, here are a few articles that have been completed so far (they have been added to the blog index). Some of them were written by Marie Curie. There are several other articles planned and some in various stages of completion, and eventually I will probably move all the articles here. I'd love to hear what you think. It's possible I have overlooked a thing or two. Also, let me know if there are other questions you'd like to see addressed.
Blood on the Rocks - A full survey of the prophecies touching on Rand's death (including all the relevant quotes for easy reference), and an overview of the most plausible theories about Rand's fate.
Rand's New Sword - A breakdown of all the lovely evidence and foreshadowing surrounding the sword.
Aviendha's Babies - An overview of the plausible theories about Aviendha's Odd Babies.
Seanchan Prophecies - An analysis of the veracity of Seanchan prophecies (with quotes, of course).
The Dark Prophecies - A comprehensive look at the known Prophecies of the Shadow, and authoritative quotes on their veracity.
Mirror Worlds - A concise explanation of how Mirror Worlds work.
Can Tuon Channel? Has she already? - Everything you need to know about Tuon's ability.
The Red-Veiled 'Aiel' - What we know about them, and what we don't know.
The Right to Kill Rand - Which Forsaken has been given this privilege?
The Gholam - Is it really dead? How did it survive passage through the gateway?
Gaidal Cain For Noobs - The title says it all. If you believe Gaidal Cain is Olver, or anyone else in the series for that matter, click here.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
WOTRR recap: TEOTW Part IV (Chapters 16-20)
Wow, this one took a while! I blame (mostly) chapter nineteen.
1) Spoilers up to TOM in every post.
2) Helpful links to the right, and hopefully within the text as well.
3) Major pontificating in ch. 19. You have been warned.
Chapter 16 - The Wisdom
Chapter 17 - Watchers and Hunters
Chapter 18 - The Caemlyn Road
Chapter 19 - Shadow's Waiting
Chapter 20 - Dust on the Wind
Chapter 16 - The Wisdom
If Min's talk of escaping in the previous chapter was not enough, here's some serious foreshadowing (along with a reminder of the escaping comment):
Anyway, back to Min. The most interesting thing she said about Nynaeve was this:
Brandon was keeping his eye out for the first braid tug of the series, and here it is (along with yet another hint of the Ultimate Showdown between the two women):
I find it interesting because it's one thing to know that Nynaeve is tugging her braid because she's frustrated, and another to know that she's doing it because she's insecure about her apparent age and can't stand people talking down to her. Moiraine called her 'child' when they first met, and no matter what Rand thought (and no matter how keen I thought his observation), Nynaeve didn't forget it. Partly because of the events that followed, I'm sure. It's true that Nynaeve typically does not hold grudges (beyond her prejudices, that is), but she sure held one against Moiraine for a long time. And of course, we all know what her primary motivation was for most of that...but she continued to believe for a long time - like Rand - that Moiraine had ruined their lives, that they could have gone on as they were had she not come to the Two Rivers. A part of Nynaeve knew - just like Rand - that this was irrational, but a part of her believed it anyway.
Nynaeve's story about how she tracked them and Lan's amazement...seriously blatant stuff there. However, right after that, there's one I bet most missed:
As for the next bit, I've always found it to be just a little bit OOC compared to the later version of Nynaeve. She is condescending in a particular sort of way that's not necessarily bad in this passage:
One thing I find interesting that is easy to forget:
You might say this is Rand's first real confirmation that Tam's fever-dreams were true:
Chapter 17 - Watchers and Hunters
This chapter begins with merriment in the common room at the Stag and Lion. There's not much to say about it that isn't well-known, other than maybe to say that it goes further toward painting Moiraine as human and even likable. Rand's nervousness when dancing with her is cute, and the continuing saga of Moiraine vs Nynaeve is well-played, with Nynaeve stubbornly hanging on for one more dance after Moiraine goes to bed.
The man with the scarred face has led some people to question whether Sammael had escaped from the Bore already, but it seems highly unlikely. Aginor and Balthamel seem to have just escaped when they show up at the Eye, and it's implied that they were the first to escape because they were trapped so near the surface. None of the other Forsaken seem to have suffered the aging and decomposition that those two did. Lan assumed it was a Whitecloak spy, however, and it was probably a Darkfriend spy, sent to investigate Fain's claims before the Fade was dispatched to the inn.
What is most interesting to me is the fact that Lan could sense that trouble was imminent - or perhaps Moiraine could, and told him of it:
This is actually one of the most detailed descriptions of a Fade traveling via shadows in the series. From the BWB:
So, of course, they decide to leave, and Thom decides that he will ride with them again. It's funny in a way, knowing that Thom will one day be Moiraine's Warder. Does he already have a desire to protect her? Lan dislikes Thom almost as much as Nynaeve dislikes Moiraine. Brandon found this worth a tweet:
And of course, at the Caemlyn Gate, they encounter Bornhald and a few of his men. I've always thought this to be a little strange:
Now that the importance of the ferry has been diminished, we have a new reason to mistrust Moiraine:
Chapter 18 - The Caemlyn Road
Skipping back to chapter fourteen, I sort of glossed over the bath scene, but the bath attendant mentioned that there were Trollocs up in Saldaea, which of course inspired Mat's stupid desire to blab about them. Just before that, at the gates of Baerlon, Avin mentions the trouble up in Saldaea as well. Seemingly by chance, Lan mentions Maradon:
One thing that has always bothered me a bit is that Aridhol (see map) seems just as far from Baerlon (see other map) as Baerlon is from Emond's Field, but it took them more than twice as long to reach Baerlon. But RJ was always just a little bit apathetic about maps, so whatever.
First hint of Lan's greatness (aside from being a Warder):
After another battle in which Moiraine takes care of everything, she makes a weave to throw the Trollocs off their trail so that they can make for Shadar Logoth. An important quote to keep in mind when re-reading this chapter, from chapter 47, 'More Tales of the Wheel':
But back in Shadar Logoth, our Heroes (including Moiraine) are blissfully unaware of any of this - that is, until the Trollocs start knocking.
Chapter 19 - Shadow's Waiting
This chapter is mostly about Shadar Logoth, Fain, and Mordeth. You'll know when I get there. But speaking of Aemon:
Brandon questions his teenagerish perspective:
Aside from Mat picking up the dagger - not a negligible thing, to be sure - their little jaunt into the city turned out to be a good thing, in a way. If Lan hadn't gone out looking for them, he might not have discovered that there were Trollocs inside the city in time to allow them to escape. Most amusing is the way they told the story to Moiraine:
In the next chapter, 'Dust on the Wind', they are separated. Mat begins to fall prey to the influence of the dagger, and Thom meets the Fade at Whitebridge. Rand and Mat begin their perilous journey down the road to Caemlyn. The next time Rand sees Perrin, his eyes are golden, hiding secrets, and not long after, Rand realizes he has his own secrets, worse than anything Perrin could possibly be hiding. The estrangement only seems to grow until they are separated again in TSR, not to be reunited (all three) until AMOL.
Mordeth
The encounter with Mordeth in Shadar Logoth remains to be one of the most mysterious scenes of the series, in some ways. There is a lot to say about it. First, skipping to later in the chapter, Moiraine's story of Mordeth:
So perhaps what Mordeth experienced was different from what Liah experienced. We also know that Sammael's soul was corrupted by Mashadar:
All of these things give us a little bit of insight on what, exactly, Mordeth is. But Brandon has said some interesting things on Mordeth as well:
I have always assumed that Mordeth's body was an illusion, but it occurred to me to ask Brandon about it:
As I noted at the end of the last chapter, Moiraine and Lan are completely unaware of Padan Fain, or anything strange going on with the Shadowspawn, until they show up in Shadar Logoth:
Odds and ends:
1. An amusing variation on the 'every character is more beautiful than the ones before' etc. memes: The Stag and Lion 'covered more than twice as much ground as the Winespring Inn, and was four stories high besides'. Now we have a random building in Shadar Logoth:
2. This exchange is interesting because of the dynamic between Lan and Nynaeve:
3. When they first encounter Mordeth, he acts like he's never heard of Caemlyn, and he does the same later:
4. Caar was Aemon's grandfather, and Rhea is a parallel to the mother of Zeus. There is another Rhea parallel in Rand's Aiel ancestry, and there is a hint that the Andoran royal line is descended from her. There is even a small hint that Perrin might be the rebirth of Ishara's grandfather, the last king of Aldeshar (incidentally, Mat has 'Finn memories of being his general against Hawkwing - Aldeshar was the last nation to fall to the Empire), in which case it may be that all three boys have a Rhea in their ancestry, in this life or another (though Rhea was the sister of Rand's direct Aiel ancestor, he would theoretically be directly descended from her through Tigraine). For more details on the parallels in this story, search any of the names or places she mentioned at 13th Depository (linked in sidebar). I find the search function to be the most useful tool for utilizing 13th Depository but in cases where it doesn't work, the index usually does. This is all very tenuous, but I find it interesting.
5. There are a few theories floating around about the possibility that the Dark One has a string of sorts tied to Mat. One older example is the Mat Pawn theory, but some might say the idea became more popular after RJ said this:
I find these lyrics to be relevant to our interests (in, on, same difference):
As our young heroes set out to depart Shadar Logoth, they are immediately separated from the elders (including Nynaeve) by Mashadar:
Interesting, how Perrin's introduction in chapter three is so much like the introduction to his thoughts:
EDIT: Thanks to JeffB for pointing out that later editions say 'second-best knives'. That is kind of amusing, actually, that something in the book was changed to meet continuity with an interview. But really, I doubt any other author has been near as good as RJ at answering plot questions like this off the cuff.
But, moving on to the most important part of the chapter: Domon's ship.
1. There was a long conversation with Brandon over the matter of whether or not Rand channeled to deal with the Trolloc that was about to kill him. It lasted a few days (starting here), but in the end, we all agreed that he did, in fact, channel there.
2. Floran Gelb.
3. I find Domon to be one of the most interesting characters upon introduction. Obviously, he becomes a major player in the series, appearing in TGH, and again in TSR, and finally hooking up with Mat in WH. A good taste of his character, along with another hint about the Horn's connection to Illian:
We get a piece of the foreshadowed story on the Shadowspawn up in Saldaea:
On to the final point of the chapter...poor Rand realizes that the ship is traveling fast, leaving poor Egwene behind. This might be the first time in the series that Rand pulls the Dimmesdale act (really, the parallel exists on many levels of Rand's character), beating himself up for the women he can't protect:
Rand was rather depressed about leaving Egwene behind. But despite Thom's hints of protectiveness, he seems both resigned and resolute about leaving Moiraine behind:
And on that note, I will see you guys next time. Thanks to chapter 24 especially, the fare is no lighter. But it's good stuff.
1) Spoilers up to TOM in every post.
2) Helpful links to the right, and hopefully within the text as well.
3) Major pontificating in ch. 19. You have been warned.
Chapter 16 - The Wisdom
Chapter 17 - Watchers and Hunters
Chapter 18 - The Caemlyn Road
Chapter 19 - Shadow's Waiting
Chapter 20 - Dust on the Wind
Chapter 16 - The Wisdom
If Min's talk of escaping in the previous chapter was not enough, here's some serious foreshadowing (along with a reminder of the escaping comment):
Perrin led the way into the depths of the inn. Rand was so intent on what he intended to say to Nynaeve that he did not see Min until she seized his arm and pulled him to one side. The others kept on a few steps down the hall before realizing he had stopped, then they halted, too, half impatient to go on, half reluctant to do so.Again, this is great foreshadowing - blatant foreshadowing. What makes it great is that it is at the same time blatant and relatively unobtrusive to the plot. By the time we get to Elayne later on, we've already forgotten that Min was a potential love interest for Rand, unless we have the audacity to assume on first read that the three women over a funeral bier indicated that Rand would have three lovers. I'd wager most of us were not that audacious. I mean, the standard Country Boy Saves the World stories are not where you expect to find this sort of thing.
"We don't have time for that, boy," Thom said gruffly.
Min gave the white-haired gleeman a sharp look. "Go juggle something," she snapped, drawing Rand further away from the others.
"I really don't have time," Rand told her. "Certainly not for any more fool talk about escaping and the like."
Anyway, back to Min. The most interesting thing she said about Nynaeve was this:
"The sparks, Rand. She met Mistress Alys coming in, and there were sparks, with just the two of them. Yesterday I couldn't see sparks without at least three or four of you together, but today it's all sharper, and more furious." She looked at Rand's friends, waiting impatiently, and shivered before turning back to him. "It's almost a wonder the inn doesn't catch fire. You're all in more danger today than yesterday. Since she came."I rather think the danger has to do with Rand's encounter with Padan Fain more than anything else, but the sparks with Nynaeve and Moiraine - with no ta'veren around - is a nice touch, blatantly foreshadowing their importance but in a mysterious way.
Brandon was keeping his eye out for the first braid tug of the series, and here it is (along with yet another hint of the Ultimate Showdown between the two women):
Moiraine and Nynaeve sat at opposite ends of the table, neither taking her eyes from the other. All the other chairs were empty. Moiraine's hands rested on the table, as still as her face. Nynaeve's braid was thrown over her shoulder, the end gripped in one fist; she kept giving it little tugs the way she did when she was being even more stubborn than usual with the Village Council. Perrin was right. Despite the fire it seemed freezing cold, and all coming from the two women at the table.I didn't cover 'Ravens', the extra prologue in the split version of TEOTW because I'd never read it until a few days ago. Egwene is nine years old, and she observes that Nynaeve started tugging at her hair when she started braiding it, to remind everyone that she was an adult. Maybe it was obvious to everyone else (hell, maybe I even missed a direct mention of it elsewhere in the text), but I had never thought of it that way. I should have, with all her talk about wanting gray hairs. We learn later from Moiraine that Nynaeve looks so young because she started channeling (and slowing) years before and therefore barely looks older than Egwene.
I find it interesting because it's one thing to know that Nynaeve is tugging her braid because she's frustrated, and another to know that she's doing it because she's insecure about her apparent age and can't stand people talking down to her. Moiraine called her 'child' when they first met, and no matter what Rand thought (and no matter how keen I thought his observation), Nynaeve didn't forget it. Partly because of the events that followed, I'm sure. It's true that Nynaeve typically does not hold grudges (beyond her prejudices, that is), but she sure held one against Moiraine for a long time. And of course, we all know what her primary motivation was for most of that...but she continued to believe for a long time - like Rand - that Moiraine had ruined their lives, that they could have gone on as they were had she not come to the Two Rivers. A part of Nynaeve knew - just like Rand - that this was irrational, but a part of her believed it anyway.
Nynaeve's story about how she tracked them and Lan's amazement...seriously blatant stuff there. However, right after that, there's one I bet most missed:
"Perhaps now," Moiraine said quietly, "you will answer a few of my questions. I have answered yours freely enough."It's easy to accept Thom's explanation at face value even now, because he always gives the impression of looking out for number one, but I don't think it's coincidence he mentioned Moiraine first, or Lan next.
"With a great sackful of gleeman's tales," Nynaeve retorted. "The only facts I can see are that four young people have been carried off, for the Light alone knows what reason, by an Aes Sedai."
"You have been told that isn't known here," Lan said sharply. "You must learn to guard your tongue."
"Why should I?" Nynaeve demanded. "Why should I help hide you, or what you are? I've come to take Egwene and the boys back to Emond's Field, not help you spirit them away."
Thom broke in, in a scornful voice. "If you want them to see their village again – or you, either – you had better be more careful.There are those in Baerlon who would kill her" – he jerked his head toward Moiraine – "for what she is. Him, too." He indicated Lan, then abruptly moved forward to put his fists on the table. He loomed over Nynaeve, and his long mustaches and thick eyebrows suddenly seemed threatening.
Her eyes widened, and she started to lean back, away from him; then her back stiffened defiantly. Thom did not appear to notice; he went right on in an ominously soft voice. "They'd swarm over this inn like murderous ants on a rumor, a whisper. Their hate is that strong, their desire to kill or take any like these two. And the girl? The boys? You? You are all associated with them, enough for the Whitecloaks, anyway. You wouldn't like the way they ask questions, especially when the White Tower is involved. Whitecloak Questioners assume you're guilty before they start, and they have only one sentence for that kind of guilt. They don't care about finding the truth; they think they know that already. All they go after with their hot irons and pincers is a confession. Best you remember some secrets are too dangerous for saying aloud, even when you think you know who hears." He straightened with a muttered, "I seem to tell that to people often of late."
"Well put, gleeman," Lan said. The Warder had that weighing look in his eyes again. "I'm surprised to find you so concerned."
Thom shrugged. "It's known I arrived with you, too. I don't care for the thought of a Questioner with a hot iron telling me to repent my sins and walk in the Light."
As for the next bit, I've always found it to be just a little bit OOC compared to the later version of Nynaeve. She is condescending in a particular sort of way that's not necessarily bad in this passage:
"You have grown." She smiled, and for a moment her amusement had him shifting his feet. "I can think of a time when you would not have questioned where I chose to go or what I chose to do, wherever or whatever it was. A time just a week ago."...but it still seems a little strange compared to the way she acts before and after. Since when is Nynaeve ever happy about people questioning her? Even when Nynaeve is not being all that irritable, her requests are generally more peremptory than "Let's walk while we talk." But Brandon commented on the passage here:
He cleared his throat and pressed on stubbornly. "It doesn't make sense. Why are you really here?"
She half glanced at the still-empty doorway, then took his arm. "Let's walk while we talk."
And that's a really good way to describe how Nynaeve acts in general, and it applies to the above. I like Nynaeve, but I still think that passage is OOC - as if RJ hadn't really smoothed out her character yet. I would say that later events changed her, but she was Nynaeve on the money in the early chapters.Brandon
Nynaeve is a divisive force among WoT fans. Yes, she likes to call men wool-headed. Next time you read, though, watch her actions.
Brandon
She often speaks in a way influenced by her culture. But if you watch her body language and intent, she's a very different person.
Brandon
An excellent example of this is her conversation with Rand in EotW 16. She very reasonable, empathetic, and treats Rand as an adult.
Brandon
Yes, she calls all men wool-headed. If you want to understand Nynaeve, see these comments as kin to a Seanchan "May she live forever"
Brandon
Sure, she means them. Kind of. But mostly, they're just things you say when you are part of her culture.
Leah Dehnel
Its not just Nynaeve though, theres not a main character who is a women who doesn't voice these sentiments at least once...
Brandon
That's why I argue it's cultural. Makes sense in a culture where men who have magic are a danger, but women are a resource.
Mignon Fogarty
I find Nynaeve very annoying. She's such an irrational pill.
Brandon
Lol. I can't help seeing her, even still, as a big sister.
One thing I find interesting that is easy to forget:
"...almost every man wanted to be one of the party. Tam, and Bran al'Vere, with the scales of office around his neck, and Haral Luhhan, till Alsbet made him sit down. Even Cenn Buie. The Light save me from men who think with the hair on their chests. Though I don't know as there are any other kind." She gave a hearty sniff, and looked up at him, an accusing glance. "At any rate, I could see it would be another day, perhaps more, before they came to any decision, and somehow ... somehow I was sure we did not dare wait that long. So I called the Women's Circle together and told them what had to be done. I cannot say they liked it, but they saw the right of it. And that is why I am here; because the men around Emond's Field are stubborn wool-heads. They're probably still arguing about who to send, though I left word I would take care of it."Nynaeve essentially left the Two Rivers because of a bad feeling. Turns out, that feeling was pretty important, and Rand telling Tam what happened was probably important as well. If Nynaeve had waited even hours later, she would have missed them, and though she could have tracked them past Caemlyn, she probably wouldn't have survived it.
You might say this is Rand's first real confirmation that Tam's fever-dreams were true:
"And she wanted to know about you boys. To see if she could reason out why you ... have attracted the kind of attention you have ... she said." She paused, watching him out of the corner of her eye. "She tried to disguise it, but most of all she wanted to know if any of you was born outside the Two Rivers."And of course, Nynaeve reassures him that Tam was his father, and the way in which she does it makes it pretty clear that she is saying, 'Even if he's not your biological father, he's still your father.' But like Brandon says, this is a very real issue for Rand quite aside from the fact that it implies he might be the one that the Dark One is really looking for. He ignores that implication almost completely:
His face was suddenly as taut as a drumhead. He managed a hoarse chuckle. "She does think of some odd things. I hope you assured her we're all Emond's Field born."
"Of course," she replied. There had only been a heartbeat's pause before she spoke, so brief he would have missed it if he had not been watching for it.
He tried to think of something to say, but his tongue felt like a piece of leather. She knows. She was the Wisdom, after all, and the Wisdom was supposed to know everything about everyone. If she knows, it was no fever-dream. Oh, Light help me, father!
"Were any of the others born outside?" As soon as the question was out, he shook his head. "No, don't answer. It's none of my business, either." But it would be nice to know if Moiraine had some special interest in him, over and above what she had in the whole lot of them. Would it?It's a blow to his sense of identity, his long-held definitions of himself. It takes a couple more blows, each worse than the next, to minimize the problem in Rand's brain enough that he can accept it. But one thing that I, as a Lews Therin enthusiast, find interesting is the way that his conscious mind glosses over the point about Moiraine while his small voice questions it.
Chapter 17 - Watchers and Hunters
This chapter begins with merriment in the common room at the Stag and Lion. There's not much to say about it that isn't well-known, other than maybe to say that it goes further toward painting Moiraine as human and even likable. Rand's nervousness when dancing with her is cute, and the continuing saga of Moiraine vs Nynaeve is well-played, with Nynaeve stubbornly hanging on for one more dance after Moiraine goes to bed.
The man with the scarred face has led some people to question whether Sammael had escaped from the Bore already, but it seems highly unlikely. Aginor and Balthamel seem to have just escaped when they show up at the Eye, and it's implied that they were the first to escape because they were trapped so near the surface. None of the other Forsaken seem to have suffered the aging and decomposition that those two did. Lan assumed it was a Whitecloak spy, however, and it was probably a Darkfriend spy, sent to investigate Fain's claims before the Fade was dispatched to the inn.
What is most interesting to me is the fact that Lan could sense that trouble was imminent - or perhaps Moiraine could, and told him of it:
Not for the first time, Rand wished Mat could think seriously about something for more than two minutes. Their own shoes were not very comfortable right then. "I'm going to get some milk," he said. Maybe it would help him sleep. Maybe I won't dream tonight.I wonder if this is some part of the mysterious benefits package of becoming a Warder, or if it's just a TEOTWism. Also worth noting is that this is probably Rand's first real confirmation that Moiraine was telling the truth:
Lan looked at him sharply. "There's something wrong tonight. Don't wander far. And remember, we leave whether you are awake enough to sit your saddle or have to be tied on."
As he came out of the kitchen, drinking, a shape in dull black started toward him down the length of the hall, raising pale hands to toss back the dark cowl that had hidden the face beneath. The cloak hung motionless as the figure moved, and the face ... A man's face, but pasty white, like a slug under a rock, and eyeless. From oily black hair to puffy cheeks was as smooth as an eggshell. Rand choked, spraying milk.And also, the first description of how Fades travel:
"You are one of them, boy," the Fade said, a hoarse whisper like a file softly drawn across bone.
Trembling, Rand knew he was going to die. Midnight steel flashed at his head . . . and stopped.We are left to wonder why the Fade let Rand go. Was it because he already had orders to capture rather than kill? Or was it because the Fade feared Lan would kill it?
"You belong to the Great Lord of the Dark." The breathy grating of that voice sounded like fingernails scratched across a slate. "You are his."
Spinning in a black blur, the Fade darted down the hall away from Rand. The shadows at the end of the hall reached out and embraced it, and it was gone.
Lan leaped down the last stairs, landing with a crash, sword in hand.
Rand struggled to find his voice. "Fade," he gasped. "It was ..." Abruptly he remembered his sword. With the Myrddraal facing him he had never thought of it. He fumbled the heron-mark blade out now, not caring if it was too late. "It ran that way!"
Lan nodded absently; he seemed to be listening to something else. "Yes. It's going; fading. No time to pursue it, now. We're leaving sheepherder. "
This is actually one of the most detailed descriptions of a Fade traveling via shadows in the series. From the BWB:
But apparently Lan could sense its presence fading.Sight without eyes is not their only inhuman ability - they can also vanish wherever there are shadows, and travel far distances by stepping into any area of shadow, only to suddenly appear elsewhere, in a shadow far away. Even Aginor, who made the Trollocs, and thus, indirectly, the Myrddraal, was not able to discover how they could use shadow to transport themselves.
So, of course, they decide to leave, and Thom decides that he will ride with them again. It's funny in a way, knowing that Thom will one day be Moiraine's Warder. Does he already have a desire to protect her? Lan dislikes Thom almost as much as Nynaeve dislikes Moiraine. Brandon found this worth a tweet:
I suppose what he was getting at is the fact that riding with them is essentially tantamount to riding to Shayol Ghul...either in the end game, or very close to Shayol Ghul at the end of the book. Either way, Lan's dislike of Thom is amusing.Brandon
Lan to Thom, as they prepare to flee: "You can ride with us, or ride to Shayol Ghul, gleeman." Well...actually...
And of course, at the Caemlyn Gate, they encounter Bornhald and a few of his men. I've always thought this to be a little strange:
Moiraine's shadowed shape towered high over the log palisade, head and shoulders a deeper darkness against the night sky, surrounded by a silver nimbus from the hidden moon. As he watched, mouth hanging open, the Aes Sedai stepped over the wall. The gates began swinging shut frantically. As soon as her feet were on the ground outside, she was suddenly her normal size again.But I suppose that the explanation is good enough. Obviously, Illusion itself does not make it possible for Moiraine to step over the wall, but it may be that she walked through the gate while her woven Illusion was stepping over it. Presumably her Illusion extended to hiding her real body stepping through the gate. Aside from that small worry, Illusion is one weave that has been described pretty consistently since TEOTW.
"Hold the gates!" an unsteady voice shouted inside the wall. Rand thought it was Bornhald. "We must pursue them, and take them!" But the Watchmen did not slow the pace of closing. The gates slammed shut, and moments later the bar crashed into place, sealing them. Maybe some of those other Whitecloaks aren't as eager to confront an Aes Sedai as Bornhald.
Now that the importance of the ferry has been diminished, we have a new reason to mistrust Moiraine:
"...Wisdom, you think I can help Master Fitch and the people at the inn? Well, you are right." Nynaeve started to say something, but Moiraine waved it away and went on. "I can go back by myself and give some help. Not too much, of course. That would draw attention to those I helped, attention they would not thank me for, especially with the Children of the Light in the town. And that would leave only Lan to protect the rest of you. He is very good, but it will take more than him if a Myrddraal and a fist of Trollocs find you. Of course, we could all return, though I doubt I can get all of us back into Baerlon unnoticed. And that would expose all of you to whomever set that fire, not to mention the Whitecloaks. Which alternative would you choose, Wisdom, if you were I?"But the Two Rivers folk are a stubborn lot. Does Mat even remember what Moiraine told them in chapter thirteen? She told them the danger was far from over. It doesn't seem to matter much to any of them that she was right:
"I would do something," Nynaeve muttered unwillingly.
"And in all probability hand the Dark One his victory," Moiraine replied.
"I wonder what Dav did with that badger." Rand shook his head silently, and Mat hesitated. Finally he said, "I thought we were safe, you know, Rand. Not a sign of anything since we crossed the Taren, and there we were in a city, with walls around us. I thought we were safe. And then that dream. And a Fade. Are we ever going to be safe again?"If it's not one thing, it's another...
"Not until we get to Tar Valon," Rand said. "That's what she told us."
"Will we be safe then?" Perrin asked softly, and all three of them looked to the shadowy mound that was the Aes Sedai. Lan had melded into the darkness; he could have been anywhere.
Rand yawned suddenly. The others twitched nervously at the sound. "I think we'd better get some sleep," he said. "Staying awake won't answer anything."
Perrin spoke quietly. "She should have done something."
No one answered.
Chapter 18 - The Caemlyn Road
Skipping back to chapter fourteen, I sort of glossed over the bath scene, but the bath attendant mentioned that there were Trollocs up in Saldaea, which of course inspired Mat's stupid desire to blab about them. Just before that, at the gates of Baerlon, Avin mentions the trouble up in Saldaea as well. Seemingly by chance, Lan mentions Maradon:
"Have you seen a farm this morning?" Lan asked. "Or even the smoke from a chimney? You haven't, because it's all wilderness from Baerlon to Whitebridge, and Whitebridge is where we must cross the Arinelle. That is the only bridge spanning the Arinelle south of Maradon, in Saldaea."And that horn was the first sign of the chase that led them into Shadar Logoth, and led Rand, Mat, and Thom to meeting Bayle Domon, who had a rather intimate experience with those Trollocs, who were almost certainly after his cuendillar seal. I just find it interesting how even small details like that are foreshadowed in WoT - it's a simple matter of using the details you have already introduced to further the story, but RJ was very good at it. Even Thom's fate in Whitebridge is foreshadowed here.
Thom snorted and blew out his mustaches. "What is to stop them from having someone, something, at Whitebridge already?"
From the west came the keening wail of a horn.
One thing that has always bothered me a bit is that Aridhol (see map) seems just as far from Baerlon (see other map) as Baerlon is from Emond's Field, but it took them more than twice as long to reach Baerlon. But RJ was always just a little bit apathetic about maps, so whatever.
First hint of Lan's greatness (aside from being a Warder):
"The Light go with you, last Lord of the Seven Towers ..." Moiraine said almost too softly for Rand to hear. Drawing a deep breath, she turned Aldieb to the east. "We must go on," she said, and started off at a slow, steady trot. The others followed her in a tight file.And another hint of Thom's worldliness, as well. Of course, once they get surrounded by Shadowspawn, Lan talks Moiraine into heading up toward Shadar Logoth, and they run into a full fist on the way there. This is a very important moment for the boys - their first real battle, not counting Winternight:
Rand twisted once in his saddle to look for Lan, but the Warder was already lost to sight among the low hills and leafless trees. Last Lord of the Seven Towers, she had called him. He wondered what that meant. He had not thought anyone besides himself had heard, but Thom was chewing the ends of his mustaches, and he had a speculative frown on his face. The gleeman seemed to know a great many things.
Even before the Myrddraal moved, Lan's sword was in his hand. "Stay with me!" he cried, and Mandarb plunged down the slope toward the Trollocs. "For the Seven Towers!" he shouted.Brandon had some interesting comments on this:
Rand gulped and booted the gray forward; the whole group of them streamed after the Warder. He was surprised to find Tam's sword in his fist. Caught up by Lan's cry, he found his own. "Manetheren! Manetheren!"
Perrin took it up. "Manetheren! Manetheren!"
But Mat shouted, "Carai an Caldazar! Carai an Ellisande! Al Ellisande!"
More on that in the next chapter.Brandon
At the 35% mark we have Mat speaking the Old Tongue for the first time, books ahead of him getting memories stuck in his head.
Brandon
I've always found this a very curious event. Of the five Two Riversers, Mat's powers are the most subtly foreshadowed in the book.
Brandon
Unless you count the short exchange between Lan and Perrin about wolves in a much earlier chapter.
Krit Petty
I thought that Mat's Old Tongue was a small way of RJ letting you think maybe Mat was the important one, not Rand.
Brandon
Yes, I think you're right on that count. It was certainly meant to make us think.
Lee Davis
The speaking the Old Tongue is from his bloodline though, not his memories in that case, isn't it?
Brandon
Yes, but it's still foreshadowing. He's the one who does it, not the others.
sleepinghour
In TEotW, is Mat remembering the Old Tongue from his own past life or from his ancestors?
Terez
Good question. He seems to have confirmed Old Blood for the Old Tongue, but the Aemon memory (in TDR19)?
Felix
That's what my belief is, Aemon. Mat Cauthon is the reborn soul of Aemon. Aemon's Old Tongue.
Brandon
It isn't made clear. It could be either. The implication is his bloodline.
Brandon
The Aemon connection is certainly implied strongly.
After another battle in which Moiraine takes care of everything, she makes a weave to throw the Trollocs off their trail so that they can make for Shadar Logoth. An important quote to keep in mind when re-reading this chapter, from chapter 47, 'More Tales of the Wheel':
"Fain would follow you three into the grave, because he must. When the Myrddraal failed at Emond's Field, it brought Fain with the Trollocs on our trail. The Fade would not let Fain ride with him; although he thought he should have the best horse in the Two Rivers and ride at the head of the band, the Myrddraal forced him to run with the Trollocs, and the Trollocs to carry him when his feet gave out. They talked so that he could understand, arguing about the best way to cook him when his usefulness was done. Fain claims he turned against the Dark One before they reached the Taren. But sometimes his greed for his promised rewards seeps into the open.Even then, Moiraine was unaware that Fain had run afoul of Mordeth; she did not realize that until her research at Tifan's Well jogged the facts in her head.
"When we had escaped across the Taren the Myrddraal took the Trollocs back to the closest Waygate, in the Mountains of Mist, and sent Fain across alone. He thought he was free then, but before he reached Baerlon another Fade found him, and that one was not so kind. It made him sleep doubled up on himself in a Trolloc kettle at night, to remind him of the price of failure. That one used him as far as Shadar Logoth. By then Fain was willing to give the Myrddraal his mother if it would free him, but the Dark One never willingly loosens a hold he has gained.
"What I did there, sending an illusion of our tracks and smell off toward the mountains, fooled the Myrddraal, but not Fain. The Halfmen did not believe him; afterward, they dragged him behind them on a leash. Only when we seemed to keep always just ahead, no matter how hard they pressed, did some begin to credit him. Those were the four who returned to Shadar Logoth. Fain claims it was Ba'alzamon himself who drove the Myrddraal. "
But back in Shadar Logoth, our Heroes (including Moiraine) are blissfully unaware of any of this - that is, until the Trollocs start knocking.
Chapter 19 - Shadow's Waiting
This chapter is mostly about Shadar Logoth, Fain, and Mordeth. You'll know when I get there. But speaking of Aemon:
Mat scowled. "I was thinking about ... about what happened back there. About those words I ..." Everybody turned to look at him then, not just Rand, and he shifted uneasily. "Well, you heard what Moiraine said. It's as if some dead man was speaking with my mouth. I don't like it." His scowl grew deeper when Perrin chuckled.What is interesting here is that Thom speaks of being reborn as if it is something bad - as if it is a dead person taking over your body. Well, for one, everybody is somebody reborn, whether there's any sign of it or not. For another, Thom has probably heard vague stories about cases like Rand's, where people remember past life memories and then jump to the (erroneous) conclusion that another person is trying to take over. From the grapevine perspective of Thom the Bard, it probably does sound pretty scary. Rand thought it was scary. But in reality, it's quite normal to be somebody else reborn. RJ noted that most people in the WoT world are very uncomfortable with the concept:
"Aemon's warcry, she said – right? Maybe you're Aemon come back again. The way you go on about how dull Emond's Field is, I'd think you would like that – being a king and hero reborn."
"Don't say that!" Thom drew a deep breath; everybody stared at him now. "That is dangerous talk, stupid talk. The dead can be reborn, or take a living body, and it is not something to speak of lightly." He took another breath to calm himself before going on. "The old blood, she said. The blood, not a dead man. I've heard that it can happen, sometimes. Heard, though I never really thought ... It was your roots, boy. A line running from you to your father to your grandfather, right on back to Manetheren, and maybe beyond. Well, now you know your family is old. You ought to let it go at that and be glad. Most people don't know much more than that they had a father."
Some of us can't even be sure of that, Rand thought bitterly. Maybe the Wisdom was right. Light, I hope she was.
And of course, we have Rand and Birgitte and the like to demonstrate that this is not exactly true, but in many ways it might as well be. Thom's fear might simply be because of the stories that he has heard, but he seems to be conflating those stories with the general idea of reincarnation - as in, he might assume that, if you do not remember past lives, then you are not a dead person reborn (which we know is untrue). Lews Therin is an example of the dead being reborn, and you might say that Mordeth is an example of the dead taking a living body. And on that note, the timing is rather immaculate.Everybody fears death because the being that is reborn, while possessing the same soul, will not be the same person. The fear is simple. I will cease to exist. Someone else will exist, bearing my soul. But I will cease. I have met many believers in reincarnation, and most of them seem to fear death just as much as anyone else.
Brandon questions his teenagerish perspective:
I was always just a little underwhelmed by Rand and Perrin in particular in this instance. They're both 'solid lads', as Tam al'Thor says (and he didn't say the same about Mat), but they are quick to fall in with Mat's enthusiasm, and each of them has a ridiculously illogical argument to add to the justification of it:Brandon
Amusingly, as a young man, I was annoyed at Nynaeve & Moiraine. But I didn't bat an eye when the boys ran off alone in Shadar Logoth.
"We are all in this together, not just one of us," Rand told Mat.In a way, you might say this is the last time that the three of them have a chance to pretend that they are still children (not that they would have seen it that way, of course), and that everything is going to be alright, and soon they can go back to not worrying about being chased by Trollocs and maybe even back home. What better place could there be, for the sun to set on their innocence? What better place, to teach them how wrong they were?
Mat gave himself a shake, and laughed, a short bark. "Right. Well, speaking of being in things together, now that we're done with the horses, why don't we go see a little more of this city. A real city, and no crowds to jostle your elbow and poke you in the ribs. Nobody looking down their long noses at us. There's still an hour, maybe two, of daylight left."
"Aren't you forgetting the Trollocs?" Perrin said.
Mat shook his head scornfully. "Lan said they wouldn't come in here, remember? You need to listen to what people say."
"I remember," Perrin said. "And I do listen. This city – Aridhol? – was an ally of Manetheren. See? I listen."
"Aridhol must have been the greatest city in the Trolloc Wars," Rand aid, "for the Trollocs to still be afraid of it. They weren't afraid to come into the Two Rivers, and Moiraine said Manetheren was – how did she put it? – a thorn to the Dark One's foot."
Perrin raised his hands. "Don't mention the Shepherd of the Night. Please?"
"What do you say?" Mat laughed. "Let's go."
"We should ask Moiraine," Perrin said, and Mat threw up his hands.
"Ask Moiraine? You think she'll let us out of her sight? And what about Nynaeve? Blood and ashes, Perrin, why not ask Mistress Luhhan while you're about it?"
Perrin nodded reluctant agreement, and Mat turned to Rand with a grin. "What about you? A real city? With palaces!" He gave a sly laugh. "And no Whitecloaks to stare at us."
Rand gave him a dirty look, but he hesitated only a minute. Those palaces were like a gleeman's tale. "All right."
Aside from Mat picking up the dagger - not a negligible thing, to be sure - their little jaunt into the city turned out to be a good thing, in a way. If Lan hadn't gone out looking for them, he might not have discovered that there were Trollocs inside the city in time to allow them to escape. Most amusing is the way they told the story to Moiraine:
Everyone began in a different place. Mat started with finding the treasure, sounding almost as if he had done it alone, while Perrin began explaining why they had gone off in the first place without telling anyone. Rand jumped right to what he thought was important, meeting the stranger among the columns. But they were all so excited that nobody told anything in the order it happened; whenever one of them thought of something, he blurted it out with no regard for what came before or after, or for who was saying what. The watchers. They all babbled about the watchers.Rand is of course the sensible one, and Perrin the overly-sensible one. And Mat...
"Did he touch you?" she asked them all. "Did he give you anything, or did you do anything for him? I must know."At least he did not lie about it. He just did not tell the whole truth. And of course, Nynaeve saw straight to the heart of the situation.
"No," Rand said. "None of us. None of those things."
Perrin nodded agreement, and added, "All he did was try to kill us. Isn't that enough? He swelled up until he filled half the room, shouted that we were all dead men, then vanished." He moved his hand to demonstrate. "Like smoke." Egwene gave a squeak.
Mat twisted away petulantly. "Safe, you said. All that talk about Trollocs not coming here. What were we supposed to think?"
"Apparently you did not think at all," she said, coolly composed once more. "Anyone who thinks would be wary of a place that Trollocs are afraid to enter."
"Mat's doing," Nynaeve said, certainty in her voice. "He's always talking some mischief or other, and the others lose the little wits they were born with when they're around him."
In the next chapter, 'Dust on the Wind', they are separated. Mat begins to fall prey to the influence of the dagger, and Thom meets the Fade at Whitebridge. Rand and Mat begin their perilous journey down the road to Caemlyn. The next time Rand sees Perrin, his eyes are golden, hiding secrets, and not long after, Rand realizes he has his own secrets, worse than anything Perrin could possibly be hiding. The estrangement only seems to grow until they are separated again in TSR, not to be reunited (all three) until AMOL.
Mordeth
The encounter with Mordeth in Shadar Logoth remains to be one of the most mysterious scenes of the series, in some ways. There is a lot to say about it. First, skipping to later in the chapter, Moiraine's story of Mordeth:
"Shadar Logoth?" Egwene said uncertainly. "I thought you said this city was called Aridhol."The interesting part is that Mordeth was theoretically 'snared' but not 'consumed'. There are a few examples in the series of people having been either snared or consumed by Mashadar, aside from Fain. First, we have Liah, who disappeared in LOC21. Rand saw her again in ACOS41 when he went after Sammael:
"Once it was called Aridhol," Moiraine replied, "and was one of the Ten Nations, the lands that made the Second Covenant, the lands that stood against the Dark One from the first days after the Breaking of the World. In the days when Thorin al Toren al Ban was King of Manetheren, the King of Aridhol was Balwen Mayel, Balwen Ironhand. In a twilight of despair during the Trolloc Wars, when it seemed the Father of Lies must surely conquer, the man called Mordeth came to Balwen's court."....
...."Before Mordeth had been long in the city he had Balwen's ear, and soon he was second only to the King. Mordeth whispered poison in Balwen's ear, and Aridhol began to change. Aridhol drew in on itself, hardened. It was said that some would rather see Trollocs come than the men of Aridhol. The victory of the Light is all. That was the battlecry Mordeth gave them, and the men of Aridhol shouted it while their deeds abandoned the Light.
"The story is too long to tell in full, and too grim, and only fragments are known, even in Tar Valon. How Thorin's son, Caar, came to win Aridhol back to the Second Covenant, and Balwen sat his throne, a withered shell with the light of madness in his eyes, laughing while Mordeth smiled at his side and ordered the deaths of Caar and the embassy as Friends of the Dark. How Prince Caar came to be called Caar One-Hand. How he escaped the dungeons of Aridhol and fled alone to the Borderlands with Mordeth's unnatural assassins at his heels. How there he met Rhea, who did not know who he was, and married her, and set the skein in the Pattern that led to his death at her hands, and hers by her own hand before his tomb, and the fall of Aleth-loriel. How the armies of Manetheren came to avenge Caar and found the gates of Aridhol torn down, no living thing inside the walls, but something worse than death. No enemy had come to Aridhol but Aridhol. Suspicion and hate had given birth to something that fed on that which created it, something locked in the bedrock on which the city stood. Mashadar waits still, hungering. Men spoke of Aridhol no more. They named it Shadar Logoth, the Place Where the Shadow Waits, or more simply, Shadow's Waiting.
"Mordeth alone was not consumed by Mashadar, but he was snared by it, and he, too, has waited within these walls through the long centuries. Others have seen him. Some he has influenced through gifts that twist the mind and taint the spirit, the taint waxing and waning until it rules ... or kills. If ever he convinces someone to accompany him to the walls, to the boundary of Mashadar's power, he will be able to consume the soul of that person. Mordeth will leave, wearing the body of the one he worse than killed, to wreak his evil on the world again."
Abruptly a figure in rags leaped from a window above the Trollocs, falling on them with spear already stabbing. An Aiel, a woman, shoufa wrapped around her head but veil hanging. The eagle-beaked Trolloc shrieked as her spearpoint stabbed deep into its side, stabbed again. As its companion fell, kicking, boar-snout spun with snarl, thrusting viciously, but she ducked low under the black hooked point and stabbed up into the creature's stomach, and it went down in a thrashing heap with the other.It seems as though Liah was 'snared' like Mordeth, but not 'consumed' by Mashadar. If she was not snared, then why did she disappear in the first place? Someone asked RJ about her:
Rand was on his feet and running before he thought. "Liah!" he shouted. He had thought her dead, abandoned here by him, dead for him. Liah, of the Cosaida Chareen; that name blazed on the list in his head.
She whirled to confront him, spear ready in one hand, round bull-hide buckler in the other. The face he remembered as pretty despite scars on both cheeks was contorted with rage. "Mine!" she hissed threateningly through her teeth. "Mine! No one may come here! No one!"
He stopped in his tracks. That spear waited, eager to seek his ribs too. "Liah, you know me," he said softly. "You know me. I’ll take you back to the Maidens, back to your spear-sisters." He held out his hand.
Her rage melted into a twisted frown. She tilted her head to one side. "Rand al’Thor?" she said slowly. Her eyes widened, falling to the dead Trollocs, and a look of horror spread across her face. "Rand al’Thor," she whispered, fumbling the black veil into place across her face with the hand that held her spear. "The Car’a’carn!" she wailed. And fled.
He hobbled after her, scrambling over piles of rubble spread across the street, falling, ripping his coat, falling again and nearly ripping it off, rolling and picking himself up on the run. The weakness of his body was distant, and the pain of it, but even floating deep in the Void, he could only push that body so hard. Liah vanished into the night.
Rand saw her again later in ACOS41:DaveB62 asks: How do you explain Liah being in Shadar Logoth for so long?
RJ: She became absorbed into the city. She was left there and she is, after all, an Aiel, one of the people better at surviving under harsh circumstances than anyone else in the world. And also her corruption by Shadar Logoth gave her some protection.
A scream tore the darkness, a woman shrieking in agony beyond knowing. Rand saw Sammael turn to stare toward the great mound of rubble even as his own eyes flashed that way. Atop the mound a shape stood outlined against the night sky in coat and breeches, a single thin tendril of Mashadar touching her leg. Arms outstretched, she thrashed about, unable to move from the spot, and her wordless wail seemed to call Rand’s name.Presumably, that was the first time Mashadar touched her. It's interesting because it means that the fog - the physical manifestation of Mashadar - is not the only danger in the city. RJ said Liah was 'absorbed' by the city, and that her Aiel training equipped her to survive the harsh conditions. She was protected from Mashadar until Rand returned. It may be that Rand's appearance - particularly the fact that Liah recognized him - somehow weakened the hold that the city had on her mind.
"Liah," he whispered. Unconsciously he reached out, as though he could stretch his arm across the intervening distance and pull her away. Nothing could save what Mashadar touched, though, no more than anything could have saved him had Fain’s dagger plunged into his heart. "Liah," he whispered. And balefire leaped from his hand.
So perhaps what Mordeth experienced was different from what Liah experienced. We also know that Sammael's soul was corrupted by Mashadar:
Brandon later clarified that Sammael's soul was not permanently damaged, but that it was only corrupted to the point that the Dark One could not transmigrate him.The Gathering Storm Book Tour, Scottsdale Public Library, Phoenix Arizona 16 November 2009 - kcf reporting
Brandon...said that the Dark One would have liked very much to transmigrate Sammael but didn’t. Apparently, since he died by Mashadar, Sammael was either unable to be transmigrated or it would have been a very bad idea. Basically, Mashadar tainted Sammael’s thread somehow.
All of these things give us a little bit of insight on what, exactly, Mordeth is. But Brandon has said some interesting things on Mordeth as well:
Most interesting is that Mordeth sought out things - comparable to the Wolfbrother talent - that were related to the Shadow, in order to fight the Shadow, and that there is one in particular that is driving him. What resulted was an evil that is diametrically opposed to the power of the Shadow, but it is probably important to remember that it was related to the Shadow in the first place. As Aginor says, "An old friend, an old enemy." Further complicating the issue is the fact that Fain was the Dark One's hound:Driving Mr. Sanderson (from Half Moon Bay to San Jose), 21 November 2009 - Matt Hatch reporting
Matt: Ok. You mentioned that Mordeth was a man that had "power". You are reported as saying that his power was that "which he got by seeking out all of the evil things that weren’t related to the Shadow"…
Brandon: He was seeking things that were related to the Shadow. I think that that might be a misquote. He was looking into the power of the Shadow in order to defeat it, was his goal. He was looking into everything. He was looking into things that were not necessarily related to the Dark One as well. He was looking for everything that he could get.
Matt: Previous to him arriving to Aridhol?
Brandon: Yeah.
Matt: Before he went to the king and became the counselor, Mordeth was this guy that went around searching for power?
Brandon: Yeah, he wanted to defeat the Dark One and he felt that he could find other ways to do it. He originally was good. He did not…he wasn’t this terrible person to begin with, but he was looking to defeat the Dark One, to find a way to defeat the Shadow. And he looked into a lot of things he shouldn’t have looked into. There are evils that are not necessarily directly related to the Dark One, though everything evil kind of has…just as there are goods that are not related necessarily to the One Power…we are talking much as Perrin runs with wolves. This is a thing older than…there are other evil things that are old in a similar way.
Matt: Is the assumption then that he found one of these?
Brandon: He did.
Matt: He found one or multiple?
Brandon: He found many things of darkness. There is one in specific that is driving him, but he knew too much. He found things he should not have gotten into and that is what turned him into…when he got there he was already corrupt. He still thought he was doing a good work. He still thought, 'We are going to raise this kingdom up and it is going to become this bastion against the Shadow', but he was already by then corrupted.
Matt: Is this same corrupting influence what corrupts everyone through the dagger itself?
Brandon: Yeah. Through him, yes. And even through his presence.
Matt: I heard you answer a question last night, which sounded interesting. Someone asked about Padan Fain and Elaida...
Brandon: A lot of people don’t remember that they met.
Matt: So, his influence...how long, for example…wasn’t Egwene exposed to Padan Fain? Are there still effects that Egwene has on people because of him?
Brandon: Remember the idea that people have, generally, a choice. There are ways to turn people to the Shadow against their will, but when that happens the person is no longer the [same] person. What is happening with Padan Fain is, natural tendencies can be exacerbated or they can be fought off...
Matt: ...so Elaida’s paranoia fed that? With someone like Egwene, she might have fought it off, so it’s not going to be…
Brandon: ...right. exactly, or someone like Rand who continues to fight it off. He has become very paranoid. And the wound in his side, certainly someone could make the connection that that might have an influence. I won’t say for certain but…
Matt: ...so, the suggestion is, not only does he have the taint, which is negatively influencing him, or influencing him in such ways that might bring on paranoia; there is this accentuation of it because of Fain…
Brandon: ...this corruption…I mean that wound and the dagger…
Matt: ...that is another source…
Brandon: Mat managed to fight it off pretty much completely; well, not completely, but we don’t see Mat running around paranoid anymore. Elaida gave it something to feed upon, and it was very, very small and subtle with Elaida, but certainly that was an influence.
Matt: Ok. Is Mordeth’s power, this evil power, comparable to the One Power and True Power? Is it a power that can be woven?
Brandon: No, it’s more something along the lines of Perrin’s wolf power, something more natural. You couldn’t weave Mordeth.
Matt: Ok, so it’s more of a natural…
Brandon: ...it’s more of a natural [thing], though it is unnatural. It’s an unnatural natural thing.
Matt: ...because Jordan was really particular about…he tried to have a logic-based system as it pertained to the One Power. Is this power more supernatural in this sense than it is based on physics?
Brandon: Let’s say more instinctual, alright?
TOR Questions of the Week, August 2004-January 2005As far as that connection to the city goes...most of us assumed that RJ's comment meant that Mashadar had been destroyed. Of course, it turned out in TOM that we were wrong. Mashadar now follows Fain around, his pet attack dog.
Week 10 Question: Now that Shadar Logoth is gone, (cool way to get rid of it by the way), has the evil power in Padan Fain/Mordeth/the Ruby Dagger decreased any? Has it driven him even more insane? Or since the next book is called the Knife of Dreams, will all these questions be answered in it?
Robert Jordan Answers: The evil power in Padan Fain has neither decreased nor increased, nor has that in the dagger. The corruption in him was partly caused by the taint on Shadar Logoth, but it didn't constitute a real connection to the city. Remember that it was because he was Padan Fain, the Hound of the Shadow, that he was able to leave Shadar Logoth in his new condition after he merged with/absorbed Mordeth. (By the way, any other artifacts that might be lying around from Shadar Logoth would have the same long-term corrupting effect as the dagger. Fortunately, or unfortunately, any such thing would need to be metal or stone. The wood and fabric had decayed. It wouldn't have been pleasant to get a splinter from, say, a chair from Shadar Logoth.)
The destruction of Shadar Logoth has not driven Fain any more insane. I'm not certain he'd be able to function at all if he were any madder than he already is. But being insane doesn't make him any less dangerous, only less predictable. He no longer responds to situations or events in any sort of sane, logical manner. His abiding concerns are hatred of Rand al'Thor (and to a lesser degree Mat and Perrin) because he blames them for what the Dark One did to him in order to turn him into the Shadow's Hound, and hatred for the Dark One because of what the Dark One did to him. He goes after Rand because Rand is the easiest target in his mind, but if he can take a swipe at the Dark One or the Dark One's minions in some way that he felt would cause real harm, he'd leap at it.
I have always assumed that Mordeth's body was an illusion, but it occurred to me to ask Brandon about it:
Not very helpful, really. There is certainly the sense that Mordeth did not leave anything behind when he rode out of the city on Fain's back, never to return. In the prologue of TFOH, Fain (Mordeth) thinks of all the years he was trapped in Shadar Logoth:In ch. 19, is Mordeth's body an illusion? Does this foreshadow Fain's powers in WH and TOM?Mordeth's body is more than an illusion. But you could call it less than real.
The Tower held things worth a little patience in its strong rooms. The Horn of Valere was there, the fabled Horn made to call dead heroes back from the grave for the Last Battle. Even most of the Aes Sedai were ignorant of that, but he knew how to sniff out things. The dagger was there. He felt its pull where he stood. He could have pointed to it. It was his, a part of him, stolen and mired away here by these Aes Sedai. Having the dagger would make up for so much lost; he was not sure how, but he was sure it would. For Aridhol lost. Too dangerous to return to Aridhol, perchance to be trapped there again. He shivered. So long trapped. Not again.It is actually rather confusing, the way the power of Shadar Logoth - whatever it is - in some ways works against Mordeth, and in some ways works with him. He confirms later (in TFOH19) that the power of the dagger is the same power that bound him in Shadar Logoth:
Of course, no one called it Aridhol any longer, but Shadar Logoth. Where the Shadow Waits. An apt name. So much had changed. Even himself. Padan Fain. Mordeth. Ordeith. Sometimes he was uncertain which name was really his, who he really was. One thing was sure. He was not what anyone thought. Those who believed they knew him were badly mistaken. He was transfigured, now. A force unto himself, and beyond any other power. They would all learn, eventually.
He sighed as soon as he touched it, stretched languorously. He was whole again, one with what had bound him so long ago, one with what in a very real way had given him life.So, enough about the nature of Mordeth. Back to what happens, hopefully with a greatly-expanded perspective as compared to the first time we read it (or the next few, for that matter). What are the watching eyes in Shadar Logoth? Are they the souls of those who were killed by Mashadar? RJ said Sammael could be reborn - did they wait there until they were reborn, or can Sammael only be reborn because Shadar Logoth was destroyed? RJ said that just after WH was released. Check it out:
Rand untangled himself and picked Tam's sword up from the pavement, looking around uneasily. Less than half of the sun still showed above the rooftops. Shadows reached out like dark hands, made blacker by the remaining light, nearly filling the street. He shivered. The shadows looked like Mordeth, reaching....What is up with that? What happened to the bodies of all the Shadowspawn who were killed there? Moiraine says the evidence disappeared after a time:
.....Rand knew it was not his imagination this time. The back of his neck prickled. Something was watching them from the darkness in the columns. He spun around, staring at the buildings across the way. He could feel eyes on him from there, too. His grip tightened on his sword hilt, though he wondered what good it would be. Watching eyes seemed to be everywhere. The others looked around warily; he knew they could feel it, too.....
.....The watchers followed them. Or else there were lots of watchers, lots of eyes staring out of almost every building. Rand could not see anything move, hard as he tried, but he could feel the eyes, eager, hungry. He did not know which would be worse. Thousands of eyes, or just a few, following them.
In the stretches where the sun still reached them, they slowed, just a little, squinting nervously into the darkness that always seemed to lay ahead. None of them was eager to enter the shadows; no one was really sure something might not be waiting. The watchers' anticipation was a palpable thing whenever shadows stretched across the street, barring their way. They ran through those dark places shouting. Rand thought he could hear dry, rustling laughter...
At last, with twilight falling, they came in sight of the white stone building they had left what seemed like days ago. Suddenly the watching eyes departed. Between one step and the next, they vanished in a blink. Without a word Rand broke into a trot, followed by his friends, then a full run that only ended when they hared through the doorway and collapsed, panting.
"Late in the Trolloc Wars, an army camped within these ruins – Trollocs, Darkfriends, Myrddraal, Dreadlords, thousands in all. When they did not come out, scouts were sent inside the walls. The scouts found weapons, bits of armor, and blood splattered everywhere. And messages scratched on walls in the Trolloc tongue, calling on the Dark One to aid them in their last hour. Men who came later found no trace of the blood or the messages. They had been scoured away. Halfmen and Trollocs remember still. That is what keeps them outside this place."Is Mashadar really mindless? Is it a part of Fain now because of Mordeth, or because of the dagger? More likely both. Before TOM I didn't think there was enough evidence to suggest that Fain was able to impersonate Sammael because of a connection to Mashadar, but now I wonder. He was a strong candidate for the attack on Algarin's manor even without that possibility.
As I noted at the end of the last chapter, Moiraine and Lan are completely unaware of Padan Fain, or anything strange going on with the Shadowspawn, until they show up in Shadar Logoth:
"There are Trollocs inside the walls," Lan said. "They will be here in little more than an hour. And the Dha'vol are the worst of them." He began waking the others.Only the boys knew that Ba'alzamon - Ishamael - was free to influence the world. But they did not trust Moiraine enough to tell her.
Moiraine smoothly began folding her blankets. "How many? Do they know we are here?" She sounded as if there were no urgency at all.
"I don't think they do," Lan replied. "There are well over a hundred, frightened enough to kill anything that moves, including one another. The Halfmen are having to drive them – four just to handle one fist – and even the Myrddraal seem to want nothing more than to pass through the city and out as quickly as possible. They are not going out of their way to search, and they're so slipshod that if they were not heading nearly straight for us I would say we had nothing to worry about." He hesitated.
"There is something else?"
"Only this," Lan said slowly. "The Myrddraal forced the Trollocs into the city. What forced the Myrddraal?"
Odds and ends:
1. An amusing variation on the 'every character is more beautiful than the ones before' etc. memes: The Stag and Lion 'covered more than twice as much ground as the Winespring Inn, and was four stories high besides'. Now we have a random building in Shadar Logoth:
And I thought Baerlon was a city! Burn me, but Thom must have been laughing up his sleeve. Moiraine and Lan, too.Each city is greater than the next. Until Caemlyn, at least. You might even say it applied to Lews Therin's screams in the prologue. Three of them, each one dwarfing the one before it.
He was so caught up in staring that he was taken by surprise when Lan suddenly stopped in front of a white stone building that had once been twice as big as the Stag and Lion in Baerlon. There was nothing to say what it had been when the city lived and was great, perhaps even an inn.
2. This exchange is interesting because of the dynamic between Lan and Nynaeve:
"I may not like her, it is true," Nynaeve was saying to the Warder as Rand, leading Bela and Cloud, came in behind Thom, "but I help anyone who needs my help, whether I like them or not."Moiraine said straight out that Nynaeve meant no harm, so she must have believed it. But Lan did not. Lan was probably closer to the truth, though Nynaeve would probably not have gone so far as to poison Moiraine. She's not above putting in a little something to make it taste more awful than is strictly necessary.
"I made no accusation, Wisdom. I only said, have a care with your herbs."
She gave him a look from the corner of her eye. "The fact is, she needs my herbs, and so do you." Her voice was acerbic to start, and grew more tart as she spoke. "The fact is, she can only do so much, even with her One Power, and she has done about as much as she can without collapsing. The fact is, your sword cannot help her now, Lord of the Seven Towers, but my herbs can."
Moiraine laid a hand on Lan's arm. "Be at ease, Lan. She means no harm. She simply does not know." The Warder snorted derisively.
3. When they first encounter Mordeth, he acts like he's never heard of Caemlyn, and he does the same later:
"We're on our way to Caemlyn," Rand said. "We stopped to take shelter for the night."Caemlyn was known as Hai Caemlyn during the Trolloc Wars (and before), and we know it wasn't destroyed (unlike Mafal Dadaranell) because the Ogier-built inner city remains. It could be, however, that the name is simply pronounced so differently that Mordeth did not identify with it:
"Caemlyn," Mordeth said slowly, rolling the name around his tongue, then shook his head. "Shelter for the night, you say? Perhaps you will join me."......
.......Rage twisted Mordeth's face, and fear, too. His lips pulled back from his teeth. "Tar Valon!" He shook clenched fists at them. "Tar Valon! You said you were going to this ... this ... Caemlyn! You lied to me!"
Rand thought the man's accent sounded odd, even after Baerlon; some words he pronounced strangely, so Rand could barely understand them.3. Re: Moiraine's story of Mordeth. It leaves one to wonder how Tar Valon could possibly know what Mordeth would do if he managed to convince someone to take him outside the city. It's not like he was going to be telling people about it. I suppose that some Aes Sedai or another put forward a theory on it that happened to connect all the dots, and that it became accepted as truth over time.
4. Caar was Aemon's grandfather, and Rhea is a parallel to the mother of Zeus. There is another Rhea parallel in Rand's Aiel ancestry, and there is a hint that the Andoran royal line is descended from her. There is even a small hint that Perrin might be the rebirth of Ishara's grandfather, the last king of Aldeshar (incidentally, Mat has 'Finn memories of being his general against Hawkwing - Aldeshar was the last nation to fall to the Empire), in which case it may be that all three boys have a Rhea in their ancestry, in this life or another (though Rhea was the sister of Rand's direct Aiel ancestor, he would theoretically be directly descended from her through Tigraine). For more details on the parallels in this story, search any of the names or places she mentioned at 13th Depository (linked in sidebar). I find the search function to be the most useful tool for utilizing 13th Depository but in cases where it doesn't work, the index usually does. This is all very tenuous, but I find it interesting.
5. There are a few theories floating around about the possibility that the Dark One has a string of sorts tied to Mat. One older example is the Mat Pawn theory, but some might say the idea became more popular after RJ said this:
Tim Kington suggests that RJ's comment refers to the dagger:DragonCon 4 September 2005 - Emma reporting
Question: In The Dragon Reborn, Lanfear visits Mat as he is recuperating from his One Power surgery over the dagger. At one point she stretches out her hand towards him and he feels a tingle going over him, somebody interrupts them, and she turns her head and sobs, at about the same time a member of Black Ajah stole [ter'angreal] out of the Tower cache, one of which was...known to have some effect on chance. So it was about this time that Mat's really really really weird luck and the dice rolling in his head began. Is this a connection or coincidence?
Jordan: That is a coincidence. When they say that Mat has the Dark One's own luck, he can get as mad as he wants to, but in a way it is true. It wasn't a gift from Lanfear, though.Question Part 2: In that case, what was Lanfear doing?
Jordan: She was checking his health. She doesn't care very much, except that he is important to Rand, to Lews Therin, him and Perrin both, so she is interested in, the one she wants mainly is Lews Therin, or wanted anyway, and uh, so she is interested in these other two ta'veren, who seemed to be tied in with him, because they might be important to him.
Tim Kington on Twitter - 15 January 2011I always figured that Mordeth was simply second-guessing his insistence that the boys go and not come back:
I thought it was because Mat picked up the dagger. Earlier he says "Take what you want. Except... Except..."
"You are not alone?" Mordeth said. He had let them rush past him into the treasure room, but now he followed. "Who else is with you?"Perhaps Mordeth was going to tell them not to take the dagger, although it would seem strange for Mordeth to have left the dagger in the treasure pile if it were important to him in some way - RJ says it was not any more tainted than anything else in the city. I will probably cover the issue of Mat's luck in more detail when it appears in TDR - there is certainly a great deal more detail to consider on the subject. The possibility of the Dark One having a string tied to him will come up a few times before then.
Mat, wrist deep in the riches before him, answered absently. "Moiraine and Lan. And then there's Nynaeve, and Egwene, and Thom. He's a gleeman. We're going to Tar Valon."
Rand caught his breath. Then the silence from Mordeth made him look at the man.
Rage twisted Mordeth's face, and fear, too. His lips pulled back from his teeth. "Tar Valon!" He shook clenched fists at them. "Tar Valon! You said you were going to this ... this ... Caemlyn! You lied to me!"
"If you still want," Perrin said to Mordeth, "we'll come back tomorrow and help you." Carefully he set the axe back on the heap of gem-encrusted chalices and jewelry. "If you want."
"No. That is ..." Panting, Mordeth shook his head as if he could not decide. "Take what you want. Except... Except..."
Suddenly Rand realized what had been nagging at him about the man. The scattered torches in the hallway had given each of them a ring of shadows, just as the torches in the treasure room did. Only ... He was so shocked he said it out loud. "You don't have a shadow."
I find these lyrics to be relevant to our interests (in, on, same difference):
I close my eyes, only for a moment, and the moment's goneIt always gets stuck in my head when I read this chapter, so I figured I'd share (though I imagine I was too late for most of you). The actual quote comes from Thom at the end of the chapter - 'That's how gleemen travel, like dust on the wind.' - but the lyrics are simple and vague enough that they happen to apply pretty well. And of course, the wind theme is pretty central to the story, and all dreams must end.
All my dreams pass before my eyes, a curiosity
Dust in the wind--all they are is dust in the wind
Same old song, just a drop of water in an endless sea
All we do crumbles to the ground, though we refuse to see
Dust in the wind--All we are is dust in the wind
Don't hang on, nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky
It slips away, all your money won't another minute buy
Dust in the wind--All we are is dust in the wind
As our young heroes set out to depart Shadar Logoth, they are immediately separated from the elders (including Nynaeve) by Mashadar:
When Rand looked up from the thick trunk of opaque mist, the Warder and the Aes Sedai were gone. He licked his lips and met his companions' eyes. They were as nervous as he was. And something worse: they all seemed to be waiting for someone else to move first. Night and ruins surrounded them. The Fades were out there, somewhere, and the Trollocs, maybe around the next corner. The tentacles of fog drifted nearer, halfway to them now, and no longer wavering. They had chosen their intended prey. Suddenly he missed Moiraine very much.Of course, now that she is gone, he appreciates her. Imagine that. And then...
Two Trollocs stepped into the street before them, not ten spans away.Brandon notes that this is the point at which we get our first non-Rand POV (from Perrin) - since the prologue, anyway (Rand was in it, but the POV was omniscient):
For an instant the humans and the Trollocs just stared at one another, each more surprised than the other. Another pair of Trollocs appeared, and another, and another, colliding with the ones in front, folding into a shocked mass at the sight of the humans. Only for an instant did they remain frozen, though. Guttural howls echoed from the buildings, and the Trollocs bounded forward. The humans scattered like quail.
Rand's gray reached full gallop in three strides. "This way!" he shouted, but he heard the same cry from five throats. A hasty glance over his shoulder showed him his companions disappearing in as many directions, Trollocs pursuing them all.
Brandon
First non-Rand viewpoint is Perrin, at about the 38% mark. RJ's juggling of viewpoints is something I didn't see until I was older.
BrandonIn some ways, you might say that the chapter title represents the breaking up of the Holy Trinity, or the Three Amigos. They have not been truly separated since Emond's Field, but now that they are, it is important that the story take up Perrin's POV.
Many a new fantasy writer, fresh off a WoT book, plans and plots a huge epic with 20 viewpoints. That can be overwhelming to start.
Brandon
Both WoT and GRRM ease into it more than you realize. In most cases, it's better to build to complexity.
Interesting, how Perrin's introduction in chapter three is so much like the introduction to his thoughts:
"I had been thinking you were going to stay out on the farm through the whole Festival," Perrin Aybara shouted at Rand over the clamor. Half a head shorter than Rand, the curly-haired blacksmith's apprentice was so stocky as to seem a man and a half wide, with arms and shoulders thick enough to rival those of Master Luhhan himself. He could easily have pushed through the throng, but that was not his way. He picked his path carefully, offering apologies to people who had only half a mind to notice anything but the peddler. He made the apologies anyway, and tried not to jostle anyone as he worked through the crowd to Rand and Mat.Compare:
He knew that Mat, and almost everyone else in Emond's Field, considered him slow of thought. It was partly because he was big and usually moved carefully – he had always been afraid he might accidentally break something or hurt somebody, since he was so much bigger than the boys he grew up with – but he really did prefer to think things all the way through if he could. Quick thinking, careless thinking, had put Mat into hot water one time after another, and Mat's quick thinking usually managed to get Rand, or him, or both, in the cookpot alongside Mat, too.So, Perrin hooks up with Egwene, and Rand runs into Mat and Thom, the latter of whom rushes them to the river. They all make it across, of course, but especially of note is that Perrin considered the Dilemma of the Axe in his very first POV:
His throat tightened. Light, don't think about being in a cookpot. He tried to order his thoughts again. Careful thought was the way.
Even without the cloak, his coat and boots each seemed to weigh as much as he did. And the axe dragged at his waist, threatening to roll him over if it did not pull him under. He thought about letting the river have that, too; he thought about it more than once. It would be easy, much easier than struggling out of his boots, for instance. But every time he thought of it, he thought of crawling out on the far bank to find Trollocs waiting. The axe would not do him much good against half a dozen Trollocs – or even against one, maybe – but it was better than his bare hands.
Back to Rand's POV...Thom kicks some ass:Brandon
I'd forgotten that Perrin nearly decides to drop his axe in the water as he swims. But he keeps it, almost against logic.
Suddenly Thom's gelding galloped out of the night, hard behind the Trollocs. The Trollocs had only time enough to look back in surprise before the gleeman's hands whipped back and then forward. Moonlight flashed off steel. One Trolloc tumbled forward, rolling over and over before landing in a heap, while a second dropped to its knees with a scream, clawing at its back with both hands. The third snarled, baring a muzzleful of sharp teeth, but as its companions toppled it whirled away into the darkness. Thom's hand made the whip-like motion again, and the Trolloc shrieked, but the shrieks faded into the distance as it ran.This scene creates a small problem with one of the many non-explanations for the blue flashes at Whitebridge (which I will address more specifically when we get there):
Rand and Mat pulled up and stared at the gleeman.
"My best knives," Thom muttered, but he made no effort to get down and retrieve them.
But he had already lost his best knives by then. *sigh*USAToday Chat - 5 January 2004
NY, NY: Why was there a blue light flashing when Thom met the Fade in Whitebridge?
RJ: Because Thom's best knives are very special indeed.
EDIT: Thanks to JeffB for pointing out that later editions say 'second-best knives'. That is kind of amusing, actually, that something in the book was changed to meet continuity with an interview. But really, I doubt any other author has been near as good as RJ at answering plot questions like this off the cuff.
But, moving on to the most important part of the chapter: Domon's ship.
1. There was a long conversation with Brandon over the matter of whether or not Rand channeled to deal with the Trolloc that was about to kill him. It lasted a few days (starting here), but in the end, we all agreed that he did, in fact, channel there.
2. Floran Gelb.
"Spare me!" he cried. "Take whatever you want, take the boat, take everything, but spare me!"He's a character, isn't he? He blabs everything in Whitebridge, and then we see him again in TSR, working for Egeanin. At that point RJ apparently decided he'd had enough of Gelb, but I wouldn't be surprised to see him show up again in AMOL. His name is German for 'yellow', obviously not an accident, and 'Floran' might be derived from 'flora', implying that Gelb was a bit of a pansy. But if anyone is a parallel to Yellowbeard, it's Domon.
3. I find Domon to be one of the most interesting characters upon introduction. Obviously, he becomes a major player in the series, appearing in TGH, and again in TSR, and finally hooking up with Mat in WH. A good taste of his character, along with another hint about the Horn's connection to Illian:
"You come below," Captain Domon said, "where I can see what manner of thing be hauled up on my deck. Come. Fortune desert me, somebody secure this horn-cursed boom!" As crewmen rushed to take the boom, he stumped off toward the stern of the boat. Rand and his two companions followed.Thom mentioned in chapter eighteen that men in the Borderlands hunt the Eye of the World like men in Illian hunt the Horn.
We get a piece of the foreshadowed story on the Shadowspawn up in Saldaea:
Thom leaned forward interestedly. "You have had encounters with Trollocs before? Lately?"Of course, that didn't turn out so well as Domon expected.
Domon hesitated, eyeing Thom narrowly, but when he spoke he merely sounded disgusted. "I wintered in Saldaea, man. Not my choice, but the river froze early and the ice broke up late. They say you can see the Blight from the highest towers in Maradon, but I've no mind for that. I've been there before, and there always be talk of Trollocs attacking a farm or the like. This winter past, though, there be farms burning every night. Aye, and whole villages, too, betimes. They even came right up to the city walls. And if that no be bad enough, the people be all saying it meant the Dark One be stirring, that the Last Days be come." He gave a shiver, and scratched at his head as if the thought made his scalp itch. "I can no wait to get back where people think Trollocs be just tales, the stories I tell be traveler's lies."
On to the final point of the chapter...poor Rand realizes that the ship is traveling fast, leaving poor Egwene behind. This might be the first time in the series that Rand pulls the Dimmesdale act (really, the parallel exists on many levels of Rand's character), beating himself up for the women he can't protect:
"I tried to talk her out of coming," Rand said.Just a taste of the interconnectivity: Four times Rand visits Shadar Logoth. The first time, he leaves Egwene behind, not to mention Nynaeve and Perrin. The second time (in LOC21), he leaves Liah behind. And the Two Rivers all over again, as quoted in chapter eight (he takes the Ogier there by gateway). The day before that second visit, Sammael sends Andris with a message of truce for Rand (LOC16, LOC23). Eight days after, Fain's Whitecloaks attack Rand in Caemlyn (LOC28), and yet another Maiden (Desora) dies for him (LOC26). When Fain gives Rand his second never-healing wound in ACOS36, Rand makes his third visit to Shadar Logoth as soon as he wakes up (ACOS41), which was totally by chance since that was where Sammael had planned his escape route from Illian (which he thought about when talking to Graendal in LOC6). Contrast Domon wanting to get the hell out of Shadar Logoth and back to Illian. On the fourth visit, Rand and Nynaeve (accompanied by Lan) destroy the place in the process of cleansing the taint from saidin - the taint Rand feared would lead him to kill everyone he loved. Unlike the first time, Ishamael is the only one of the Forsaken not there (aside from Mesaana, who skipped out). Just before that visit, Rand meets Fain in Far Madding (WH33), for the first time since ACOS36. And while Moiraine lost control of the situation at Shadar Logoth (momentarily, anyway), Cadsuane held everything together in WH35 while Rand did his thing.
"You did what you could, lad. No one could ask more."
"I told her I'd take care of her. I should have tried harder." The creak of the sweeps and the hum of the rigging in the wind made a mournful tune. "I should have tried harder," he whispered.
Rand was rather depressed about leaving Egwene behind. But despite Thom's hints of protectiveness, he seems both resigned and resolute about leaving Moiraine behind:
"No use staying here all night," Thom said. "Pick a direction. Upriver, or down?"That's okay, though. Because on Domon's ship, Mat catches sight of something that somehow, Thom missed. That thing turned out to be pretty important, wouldn't you say?
"But Moiraine and the others could be anywhere," Mat protested. "Any way we choose could just take us further away."
"So it could." Clucking to his gelding, Thom turned downriver, heading along the bank. "So it could."
And on that note, I will see you guys next time. Thanks to chapter 24 especially, the fare is no lighter. But it's good stuff.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
WOTRR recap: TEOTW Part III (Chapters 11-15)
Better late than never! This post was complicated. Not a lot of stuff in the last few chapters I felt I could gloss over. Lots of important groundwork being laid.
1) Spoilers up to TOM in every post.
2) Helpful links to the right, including EWOT. I use the hell out of their resources (including in-text links for chapter summaries and character profiles) and you should too. For those who want to go deeper on this sort of thing, use 13th Depository.
Chapter 11 - The Road to Taren Ferry
Chapter 12 - Across the Taren
Chapter 13 - Choices
Chapter 14 - The Stag and Lion
Chapter 15 - Strangers and Friends
Chapter 11 - The Road to Taren Ferry
By the way...thematically, the chapters of TEOTW break up very nicely into groups of five and ten, with the last three chapters being significant enough to stand alone in that sense. The first five chapters were a build-up to Winternight; the second five build to leaving the Two Rivers. These five chapters lead to Baerlon, and on the way, both Rand and Egwene touch the True Source for the first time.
How many people even notice this on first read? I can't remember if I did or not, to be honest. My first read has long since faded mostly to myth:
Odds and ends:
1. You might call this a foreshadowing of Rand's ability:
2. Following that passage, I love Lan's little proclamations of doom in the early chapters, before the Two Rivers kids start growing on him:
3. Maybe a foreshadowing of the relationship between dogs and Aes Sedai:
Chapter 12 - Across the Taren
This chapter, in a very subtle way, goes a long way toward developing Moiraine's character. Twice in a row we are given a glimpse of something like the younger, more carefree Moiraine, and this little scene is one of the best:
The next example of the real Moiraine comes in her satisfaction at a job well done with the fog that distracted the Draghkar. It shows that she is not so arrogant as to take such things for granted:
As much as has been made about Egwene's reaction to learning that Rand could channel, it's easy to forget that Rand had the same reaction to learning that she could:
This is certainly one of the more blatant foreshadowings in the entire series:
Chapter 13 - Choices
Back to Harriet's lovely chapter names. I'm not sure if she did this intentionally, to be honest. It's such a simple and generic chapter name. Choices. It could refer to anything.
She used it again, for TFOH52, probably one of the most dramatic chapters in the entire series, and barring their eventual reunion, the culmination of the relationship between Rand and Moiraine. A vital seed for the relationships between Moiraine and Mat, and Moiraine and Thom. The event that made Moiraine a legend among Aes Sedai.
Back to the chapter of the same name in TEOTW13, which covers the journey to Baerlon. From the opening paragraphs, the chapter is about Moiraine:
It's really no surprise that Egwene came to admire and respect Moiraine rather quickly; the strength of her character became evident quickly. But the boys (and Thom) were a different story. They felt like Moiraine was pushing them and pulling their strings, and they didn't trust her motives:
She continued to gain Egwene's trust, while continuing to stoke Rand's paranoia:
If he mistrusted her because she used the Power...at least her half was untainted. And as for the ferry...Rand left Perrin and the rest of the Two Rivers to defend itself against thousands of Trollocs with only two Aes Sedai to aid them (which Rand did not even know....in fact, he only knew about the Whitecloaks). Rand had his reasons, just as Moiraine did...but which was worse? In a way, you might say that Rand believed that Moiraine burned their bridges for them when she took them out of the Two Rivers. He believed that for a long time, even though a part of him always knew (since chapter eight, anyway) that none of them had any real choice in the matter.
Even after Moiraine swore her oath, Rand only barely respected her. That was not to truly change until her battle with Lanfear in the 'Choices' of TFOH. There were many choices referenced in that chapter: Asmodean's "You know my choices. I am clinging to that tuft of grass on the cliff's lip, praying for it to hold one more heartbeat." Rand's choice to refrain from killing Lanfear. Of the three possible futures Moiraine saw, Rand killing Lanfear was not one of them. Moiraine's choice, to avoid the two roads that would lead to doom for all.
The 'Choices' of TEOTW culminates with a piece of advice, from Moiraine to our three heroes:
Did she make Rand's choices for him just because she threatened him? Hardly so - he needed her protection, then and for a long time after.
Did Rand make her choices on the docks of Cairhien? I think there's no way to get around that. Moiraine had no way to change the fact that the Dark One wanted Rand, that Rand had to step up to rule the world with peach fuzz still on his cheeks. But Rand was the only one who could have changed Moiraine's choices at Cairhien, and from what Moiraine saw at Rhuidean, the Pattern knew that Rand was far too stubborn for that.
Odds and ends:
1. This makes me laugh every time I see it (which is far more often than I do rereads):
2. Rand gets his first taste of the KC:
Chapter 14 - The Stag and Lion
First up: a bath! With MEN. That's right. This is one of the few scenes in the entire series with MALE NUDITY, against which RJ was very prejudiced. :) (No really, did you notice that you almost never see the men hanging out in sweat tents among the Aiel? Just women. And only women get naked for rituals.)
In any case, I always thought Mat's blabbing about the Trollocs was just a little bit unbelievable. I mean, was he really that dumb before his first POV? It's a sad thought. More interesting is a foreshadowing of Rand's talent for reading between the lines:
It certainly seems to have some properties of Tel'aran'rhiod. Fires that give no heat, and an ever-present light that comes from nowhere. But Moghedien makes an observation in ACOS25 that is worth noting:
The reason it is supposed that Rand has been pulled into Ishamael's dream rather than the other way around is that it is supposedly impossible to control another person's dream. You can only control your own dreams. However, Lanfear has shown up in Rand's own dreams (once Asmodean showed up too, in TSR50), and both Lanfear and Ishamael showed up in Perrin's dream at the same time (in TDR4). We can't really be sure how much control they had over the dreams.
The most important aspect of the dream, aside from the blurred mirror - Ishamael does not yet know if Rand is the one - is Rand's refusal to drink:
Ba'alzamon tells Rand that he will be used by the White Tower, just like all of the other false Dragons, though Rand does not know quite what he is getting at. Ba'alzamon claims that the Eye of the World will not serve him. Most interestingly, he tells us a few things about his plans:
Last thing of note (because it's important) is that Ishamael kills a rat by breaking its back. He did the same thing in WH13. Apparently he likes killing rats.
Chapter 15 - Strangers and Friends
And of course, when Rand wakes up he discovers that all of the rats in the inn were found with broken backs. He talks to Perrin and realizes that they all had the same dream. Of course, they don't trust Moiraine enough to talk to her about it, even though she suspected this would happen, and warned Rand about it (in chapter seven, before he has a chance to ask her to Heal Tam). So, instead of Moiraine, they go to Thom. Which is, of course, amusing in retrospect. You might say this Moiraine vs. Thom thing continues until TSR17 when Moiraine finally takes the initiative to put an end to the competition.
But first, Rand meets Min! Much to cover here. First, the vision of the Shadow and the fireflies:
About Lan:
Thom:
Perrin:
Mat:
Rand:
Rand woke up with a headache, and after he left Min, it started to get worse. This was the first time that Rand experienced channeling sickness. Moiraine explains it to Nynaeve later on, and it fits perfectly. First, Rand runs into Padan Fain, and (stupidly) tells Fain where they are staying. Then he (quite literally) runs into Mat.
But Rand's channeling sickness is coming on strong, now. It's the reaction to his channeling days before when he gave strength to Bela in chapter eleven. Mat plays a prank...and the first Whitecloak we meet in the series is Dain Bornhald - a minor character who ends up playing a very pivotal role throughout the series:
Dain Bornhald was always a little on the pissy side, but he wasn't crazy. He became an alcoholic after Byar brought him the fairy tale about his father, but he was sane enough to do the right thing when it came down to it in TOM41. It's rather like the comparison to TSR in chapter nine, isn't it? Alongside that comparison, we have Bornhald and his Whitecloaks (including Byar) on the Green, sitting armed and pretty and forcing the women to join the fighting, but Bornhald never showed any humility when it came to being a thorn in the Dark One's foot. That wasn't what his story was about. You might say that's where his story really began - with a nice comparison to Paet al'Caar, he vowed that he would see Perrin dead. Both of them were wrong.
Continuing in the topic of character development, now we get back to the way the boys look to Thom for guidance, as an alternative to Moiraine, and the biggest thing they don't like about Moiraine is the fact that she's secretive. But watch Thom here:
But the point is, Thom didn't tell them the whole truth here. It's easy to see why he didn't, but he was clearly being evasive. Why didn't the boys mistrust him for it? Because he couldn't use the Power? Because he was a man? In any case, Thom seemed to consider advising them to tell Moiraine about the dream, but then he decided against it:
And one more time...TAKE THAT YOU STUPID FERRY:
Odds and ends:
1. Just as Moiraine said, Rand's sickness disappeared almost as soon as it appeared:
2. First detail on the Eye:
But we will talk about that Fade, among other things, in the next chapter. I was a day late on this one, so I'm going to hold off on promising a date for the next one. I will be getting to work on it after I catch up on cataloging Brandon's feed (which ballooned quite a bit yesterday).
1) Spoilers up to TOM in every post.
2) Helpful links to the right, including EWOT. I use the hell out of their resources (including in-text links for chapter summaries and character profiles) and you should too. For those who want to go deeper on this sort of thing, use 13th Depository.
Chapter 11 - The Road to Taren Ferry
Chapter 12 - Across the Taren
Chapter 13 - Choices
Chapter 14 - The Stag and Lion
Chapter 15 - Strangers and Friends
Chapter 11 - The Road to Taren Ferry
By the way...thematically, the chapters of TEOTW break up very nicely into groups of five and ten, with the last three chapters being significant enough to stand alone in that sense. The first five chapters were a build-up to Winternight; the second five build to leaving the Two Rivers. These five chapters lead to Baerlon, and on the way, both Rand and Egwene touch the True Source for the first time.
How many people even notice this on first read? I can't remember if I did or not, to be honest. My first read has long since faded mostly to myth:
Lying low on Cloud's neck, Rand kept a worried eye on Bela and on her rider. When he had said the shaggy mare could stay with the others, he had not meant on the run. She kept up now only by running as he had not thought she could. Lan had not wanted Egwene in their number. Would he slow for her if Bela began to flag? Or would he try to leave her behind? The Aes Sedai and the Warder thought Rand and his friends were important in some way, but for all of Moiraine's talk of the Pattern, he did not think they included Egwene in that importance.I mean, how blatant is that? Also, 'And Bela ran' is such a great line. Tells us everything, and nothing at the same time. But if that wasn't blatant enough, we have this just a few paragraphs later:
If Bela fell back, he would fall back, too, whatever Moiraine and Lan had to say about it. Back where the Fade and the Trollocs were. Back where the Draghkar was. With all his heart and desperation he silently shouted at Bela to run like the wind, silently tried to will strength into her. Run! His skin prickled, and his bones felt as if they were freezing, ready to split open. The Light help her, run! And Bela ran.
"You were right about your Bela, Rand," Moiraine said from where she stood by the mare. "She has a good heart, and as much stubbornness as the rest of you Two Rivers folk. Strange as it seems, she may be the least weary of all.
A scream ripped the darkness, a sound like a man dying under sharp knives, and wings swooped low above the party. The night deepened in the shadow that swept over them. With panicked cries the horses reared wildly.And in true RJ style, he doesn't even give Rand time to think about it.
Odds and ends:
1. You might call this a foreshadowing of Rand's ability:
He had vaguely noticed her moving among the horses, but he had not paid any real attention to what she did. Now she pushed past him to lay her hands on Cloud's neck. Rand fell silent. Suddenly the horse tossed his head with a soft wicker, nearly pulling the reins from Rand's hands. The gray danced a step sideways, as restive as if he had spent a week in a stable. Without a word Moiraine went to Bela.Of course, Lan gives the real reason he said that, but on re-read this one always gives me a split-second of cognitive dissonance before I read the rest of what he says.
"I did not know she could do that," Rand said softly to Lan, his cheeks hot.
"You, of all people, should have suspected it," the Warder replied. "You watched her with your father. She will wash all the fatigue away. First from the horses, then from the rest of you."
2. Following that passage, I love Lan's little proclamations of doom in the early chapters, before the Two Rivers kids start growing on him:
"The rest of us. Not you?"He tries to make them appreciate her at first, probably because it annoys him to see them suspect and resent her after all of her years of searching and sacrifice. But by the next book, he's already starting to take Rand's side. Sometimes. He never stops trying to get Rand to see Moiraine in a better light, and he never wavers in his dedication to protecting her. Or he only did that once (before Nynaeve left for Tanchico) and it didn't have anything to do with Rand. Or at least, it did only because Rand was in the same state over Elayne. :D
"Not me, sheepherder. I don't need it, not yet. And not her. What she can do for others, she cannot do for herself. Only one of us will ride tired. You had better hope she does not grow too tired before we reach Tar Valon."
3. Maybe a foreshadowing of the relationship between dogs and Aes Sedai:
A lone dog, unseen in the cold mist, barked at them furiously, then ran away. Here and there a light appeared in a window as some early-riser stirred. Other than the dog, no sound save the muted clops of their horses' hooves disturbed the last hour of the night.Cats love Aes Sedai, but hate Asha'man. Dogs hate female channelers but love male channelers. It's like RJ codified a gender stereotype.
Chapter 12 - Across the Taren
This chapter, in a very subtle way, goes a long way toward developing Moiraine's character. Twice in a row we are given a glimpse of something like the younger, more carefree Moiraine, and this little scene is one of the best:
Lan leaned against his saddle with apparent casualness, but one hand rested ostentatiously on the long hilt of his sword. There was an air about him of a metal spring, compressed, waiting.This is before Min even sees them together in Baerlon, but Moiraine is already showing an appreciation for Thom. How often does she let herself laugh? Not very often, that's for sure. But Thom observed in TSR17 that she often laughs at his quips, and you might say this was the first time.
Rand hurriedly copied the Warder's pose – at least insofar as putting his hand on his sword. He did not think he could achieve that deadly-seeming slouch. They'd probably laugh if I tried.
Perrin eased his axe in its leather loop and planted his feet deliberately. Mat put a hand to his quiver; though Rand was not sure what condition his bowstring was in after being out in all this damp. Thom Merrilin stepped forward grandly and held up one empty hand, turning it slowly. Suddenly he gestured with a flourish, and a dagger twirled between his fingers. The hilt slapped into his palm, and, abruptly nonchalant, he began trimming his fingernails.
A low, delighted laugh floated from Moiraine. Egwene clapped as if watching a performance at Festival, then stopped and looked abashed, though her mouth twitched with a smile just the same.
The next example of the real Moiraine comes in her satisfaction at a job well done with the fog that distracted the Draghkar. It shows that she is not so arrogant as to take such things for granted:
"It follows the river as if drawn with a pen," Moiraine was saying in satisfied tones. "There are not ten women in Tar Valon who could do that unaided. Not to mention from the back of a galloping horse."And another moment of development for Thom and Moiraine. But in between these two glimpses of the real Moiraine...she sunk the ferry:
"I don't mean to complain, Moiraine Sedai," Thom said, sounding oddly diffident for him, "but would it not have been better to cover us a little further? Say to Baerlon? If that Draghkar looks on this side of the river, we'll lose everything we have gained."
"Draghkar are not very smart, Master Merrilin," the Aes Sedai said dryly. "Fearsome and deadly dangerous, and with sharp eyes, but little intelligence. It will tell the Myrddraal that this side of the river is clear, but the river itself is cloaked for miles in both directions. The Myrddraal will know the extra effort that cost me. He will have to consider that we may be escaping down the river, and that will slow him. He will have to divide his efforts. The fog should hold long enough that he will never be sure that we did not travel at least partway by boat. It could have extended the fog a little way toward Baerlon, instead, but then the Draghkar could search the river in a matter of hours, and the Myrddraal would know exactly where we were headed."
Thom made a puffing sound and shook his head. "I apologize, Aes Sedai. I hope I did not offend."
"No whirlpools on the Taren." Hightower sounded empty. "Never been a whirlpool..."Moiraine's 'hollow' voice and Lan's 'flat tone' are meant to convey a sort of cold-bloodedness. The Two Rivers folk certainly picked up on it. Against the nature of the coin bond with Moiraine, Mat tried to question it:
"An unfortunate occurrence. " Moiraine's voice was hollow in the fog that made her a shadow as she turned from the river.
"Unfortunate," Lan agreed in a flat tone. "It seems you'll be carrying no one else across the river for a time. An ill thing that you lost your craft in our service." He delved again into his purse, ready in his hand. "This should repay you."
"Ah, Moi ... ah, Aes Sedai." Mat stopped to swallow audibly. "The ferry ... ah ... did you... I mean... I don't understand why ..." He trailed off weakly, and there was a silence so deep that the loudest sound Rand heard was his own breathing.That must have been very difficult for Mat to do. This action - despite the fact that it harmed no one, and that the ferryman was compensated - was to define the way the boys in particular saw her for a very long time. Perhaps Mat in particular. How much of that would have been averted if Moiraine had deigned to answer this one question, as she answered Thom's?
Finally Moiraine spoke, and her voice filled the empty silence with sharpness. "You all want explanations, but if I explained my every action to you, I would have no time for anything else." In the moonlight, the Aes Sedai seemed taller, somehow, almost looming over them. "Know this. I intend to see you safely in Tar Valon. That is the one thing you need to know."
As much as has been made about Egwene's reaction to learning that Rand could channel, it's easy to forget that Rand had the same reaction to learning that she could:
"And you really think I can learn?" Egwene asked. Her face shone with eagerness. Rand had never seen her look so beautiful, or so far away from him. "I can become an Aes Sedai?"And Thom's sympathy is, of course, very amusing in retrospect.
Rand jumped up, cracking his head against the low roof of logs. Thom Merrilin grabbed his arm, yanking him back down.
"Don't be a fool," the gleeman murmured. He eyed the women – neither seemed to have noticed—and the look he gave Rand was sympathetic. "It's beyond you now, boy."
This is certainly one of the more blatant foreshadowings in the entire series:
For a moment Egwene continued to stare at the small stone, then she looked up at Moiraine. "I ... I thought I felt ... something, but ... Perhaps you're mistaken about me. I am sorry I wasted your time."Poor Rand. Moiraine, however, is two for two on Amyrlin predictions. Nice job!
"I have wasted nothing, child." A small smile of satisfaction flitted across Moiraine's lips. "That last light was yours alone."
"It was?" Egwene exclaimed, then slid immediately back into glumness. "But it was barely there at all."
"Now you are behaving like a foolish village girl. Most who come to Tar Valon must study for many months before they can do what you just did. You may go far. Perhaps even the Amyrlin Seat, one day, if you study hard and work hard."
"You mean ... ?" With a cry of delight Egwene threw her arms around the Aes Sedai. "Oh, thank you. Rand, did you hear? I'm going to be an Aes Sedai!"
Chapter 13 - Choices
Back to Harriet's lovely chapter names. I'm not sure if she did this intentionally, to be honest. It's such a simple and generic chapter name. Choices. It could refer to anything.
She used it again, for TFOH52, probably one of the most dramatic chapters in the entire series, and barring their eventual reunion, the culmination of the relationship between Rand and Moiraine. A vital seed for the relationships between Moiraine and Mat, and Moiraine and Thom. The event that made Moiraine a legend among Aes Sedai.
Back to the chapter of the same name in TEOTW13, which covers the journey to Baerlon. From the opening paragraphs, the chapter is about Moiraine:
Before they went to sleep Moiraine knelt by each in turn and laid her hands on their heads. Lan grumbled that he had no need and she should not waste her strength, but he did not try to stop her. Egwene was eager for the experience; Mat and Perrin clearly frightened of it, and frightened to say no. Thom jerked away from the Aes Sedai's hands, but she seized his gray head with a look that allowed no nonsense. The gleeman scowled through the entire thing. She smiled mockingly once she took her hands away. His frown deepened, but he did look refreshed. They all did.Beautiful. Not even to Baerlon yet, and Moiraine is already flirting!
Rand had drawn back into a niche in the uneven wall where he hoped he would be overlooked. His eyes wanted to slide closed once he leaned back against the timber jumble, but he forced himself to watch. He pushed a fist against his mouth to stifle a yawn. A little sleep, an hour or two, and he would be just fine. Moiraine did not forget him, though.Already, Rand mistrusts her, but RJ is very clearly highlighting the strength of her character, and how much she is willing to sacrifice for their safety. And again:
He flinched at the coolness of her fingers on his face, and said, "I don't —" His eyes widened in wonder. Tiredness drained out of him like water running downhill; aches and soreness ebbed to dim memories and vanished. He stared at her with his mouth hanging open. She only smiled and withdrew her hands.
"It is done," she said, and as she stood with a weary sigh he was reminded that she could not do the same for herself. Indeed, she only drank a little tea, refusing the bread and cheese Lan tried to press on her, before curling up beside the fire. She seemed to fall asleep the instant she wrapped her cloak around her.
The Warder awakened them all, except Moiraine, and he sternly hushed any sound that might disturb her. Even so, he allowed them only a short stay in the snug cave of trees. Before the sun was twice its own height above the horizon, all traces that anyone had ever stopped there had been cleared away and they were all mounted and moving north toward Baerlon, riding slowly to conserve the horses. The Aes Sedai's eyes were shadowed, but she sat her saddle upright and steady.Most of the trip to Baerlon involved a lot of sentimental wonderment from the Two Rivers folk as they left it further and further behind. Lan begins to give the boys lessons with their weapons. After they wow him with their archery skills, he moves on to Rand and the sword. This is probably Lan's first real clue that Tam al'Thor really was a blademaster:
"Moving the blade is not enough," Lan said, "though some think it is. The mind is part of it, most of it. Blank your mind, sheepherder. Empty it of hate or fear, of everything. Burn them away. You others listen to this, too. You can use it with the axe or the bow, with a spear, or a quarterstaff, or even your bare hands."And of course, it's likely that Moiraine instructed him to give the lessons in the first place.
Rand stared at him. "The flame and the void," he said wonderingly. "That's what you mean, isn't it? My father taught me about that."
The Warder gave him an unreadable look in return. "Hold the sword as I showed you, sheepherder. I cannot make a mud-footed villager into a blademaster in an hour, but perhaps I can keep you from slicing off your own foot."
Rand sighed and held the sword upright before him in both hands. Moiraine watched without expression, but the next evening she told Lan to continue the lessons.
It's really no surprise that Egwene came to admire and respect Moiraine rather quickly; the strength of her character became evident quickly. But the boys (and Thom) were a different story. They felt like Moiraine was pushing them and pulling their strings, and they didn't trust her motives:
"Aes Sedai don't braid their hair," she said simply. "At least, not unless they want to."And there goes the ferry again. What's the big deal about the ferry? This always annoyed me, but really, both of them have points. Moiraine need not have been quite so secretive as she was, but Rand was focusing on the ferry to the point of ignoring all of the evidence that she was trying to do the right thing. His mistrust more than likely made Moiraine afraid:
"You aren't an Aes Sedai. You're Egwene al'Vere from Emond's Field, and the Women's Circle would have a fit if they could see you now."
"Women's Circle business is none of yours, Rand al'Thor. And I will be an Aes Sedai. Just as soon as I reach Tar Valon."
He snorted. "As soon as you reach Tar Valon. Why? Light, tell me that. You're no Darkfriend."
"Do you think Moiraine Sedai is a Darkfriend? Do you?" She squared around to face him with her fists clenched, and he almost thought she was going to hit him. " After she saved the village? After she saved your father?"
"I don't know what she is, but whatever she is, it doesn't say anything about the rest of them. The stories —"
"Grow up, Rand! Forget the stories and use your eyes."
"My eyes saw her sink the ferry! Deny that! Once you get an idea in your head, you won't budge even if somebody points out you're trying to stand on water. If you weren't such a Light blinded fool, you'd see – !"
"Fool, am I? Let me tell you a thing or two, Rand al'Thor! You are the muliest, most wool-headed – !"
"You two trying to wake everybody inside ten miles?" the Warder asked.
Warily, Rand looked around the camp. Everybody was looking at him, not just the Warder. Mat and Perrin, with their faces white. Thom, tensed as if ready to run or fight. Moiraine. The Aes Sedai's face was expressionless, but her eyes seemed to bore into his head. Desperately, he tried to recall exactly what he had said, about Aes Sedai and Darkfriends.But that was not how Rand saw it. She feared that he would escape her protection out of stubbornness, but Rand probably feared that she would harm him, maybe even kill him. And while it is clear that Moiraine had reason to say what she said here, it still did not help:
"It is time to be going," Moiraine said. She turned to Aldieb, and Rand shivered as if he had been let out of a trap. He wondered if he had been.
"What's so special about Illian?" Perrin said, yawning.She was only trying to impress upon them just how much danger they were in, how badly they were wanted. The last thing she could have done was say, "No really boys, one of you is the Dragon Reborn. You can't just go running off somewhere before you learn to protect yourself." Any hint of that would have sent all three of them running screaming, and Moiraine knew it well. How else could she tell them how important they were? That she was on their side?
"For one thing," Mat replied, "Illian isn't full of Aes Se —"
A silence fell, and Rand was suddenly wide awake. Moiraine had come back early. Egwene was with her, but it was the Aes Sedai, standing at the edge of the firelight, who held their attention. Mat lay there on his back, his mouth still open, staring at her. Moiraine's eyes caught the light like dark, polished stones. Abruptly Rand wondered how long she had been standing there.
"The lads were just – " Thom began, but Moiraine spoke right over the top of him.
"A few days respite, and you are ready to give up." Her calm, level voice contrasted sharply with her eyes. "A day or two of quiet, and already you have forgotten Winternight."
"We haven't forgotten," Perrin said. "It's just – " Still not raising her voice, the Aes Sedai treated him as she had the gleeman.
"Is that the way you all feel? You are all eager to run off to Illian and forget about Trollocs, and Halfmen, and Draghkar?" She ran her eyes over them – that stony glint playing against the everyday tone of voice made Rand uneasy – but she gave no one a chance to speak. "The Dark One is after you three, one or all, and if I let you go running off wherever you want to so, he will take you. Whatever the Dark One wants, I oppose, so hear this and know it true. Before I let the Dark One have you, I will destroy you myself."
It was her voice, so matter-of-fact, that convinced Rand. The Aes Sedai would do exactly what she said, if she thought it was necessary. He had a hard time sleeping that night, and he was not the only one. Even the gleeman did not begin snoring till long after the last coals died. For once, Moiraine offered no help.
She continued to gain Egwene's trust, while continuing to stoke Rand's paranoia:
"You want to know that Aes Sedai are good and pure, that it was those wicked men of the legends who caused the Breaking of the World, not the women. Well, it was the men, but they were no more wicked than any men. They were insane, not evil. The Aes Sedai you will find in Tar Valon are human, no different from any other women except for the ability that sets us apart. They are brave and cowardly, strong and weak, kind and cruel, warm-hearted and cold. Becoming an Aes Sedai will not change you from what you are."But RJ seems to be trying to tell the reader that, no matter what Rand thinks, Moiraine can be trusted. Her words are logical and wise. The men who broke the world were not evil, but insane - was she preparing both of them for that inevitable problem? It is foreshadowing, at the very least. Rand kept Moiraine at arm's length because he felt she used him, pulled his strings. In a way, she did...but Rand learned from the best, and started pulling his own multitude of strings well before Moiraine finally grew so desperate that she swore to obey Rand, just before they left Rhuidean to follow Couladin across the Waste to the Dragonwall in early TFOH.
Egwene drew a heavy breath. "I suppose I was afraid of that, that I'd be changed by the Power. That and the Trollocs. And the Fade. And ... Moiraine Sedai, in the name of the Light, why did the Trollocs come to Emond's Field?"
The Aes Sedai's head swung and she looked straight at Rand's hiding place. His breath seized in his throat; her eyes were as hard as when she had threatened them, and he had the feeling they could penetrate the leatherleaf's thick branches. Light, what will she do if she finds me listening?
He tried to melt back into the deeper shadows. With his eyes on the women, a root snagged his foot, and he barely caught himself from tumbling into dead brush that would have pointed him out with a crackle of snapping branches like fireworks. Panting, he scrambled away on all fours, keeping silent as much by luck as by anything he did. His heart pounded so hard he thought that might give him away itself. Fool! Eavesdropping on an Aes Sedai!
If he mistrusted her because she used the Power...at least her half was untainted. And as for the ferry...Rand left Perrin and the rest of the Two Rivers to defend itself against thousands of Trollocs with only two Aes Sedai to aid them (which Rand did not even know....in fact, he only knew about the Whitecloaks). Rand had his reasons, just as Moiraine did...but which was worse? In a way, you might say that Rand believed that Moiraine burned their bridges for them when she took them out of the Two Rivers. He believed that for a long time, even though a part of him always knew (since chapter eight, anyway) that none of them had any real choice in the matter.
Even after Moiraine swore her oath, Rand only barely respected her. That was not to truly change until her battle with Lanfear in the 'Choices' of TFOH. There were many choices referenced in that chapter: Asmodean's "You know my choices. I am clinging to that tuft of grass on the cliff's lip, praying for it to hold one more heartbeat." Rand's choice to refrain from killing Lanfear. Of the three possible futures Moiraine saw, Rand killing Lanfear was not one of them. Moiraine's choice, to avoid the two roads that would lead to doom for all.
The 'Choices' of TEOTW culminates with a piece of advice, from Moiraine to our three heroes:
"And you, Rand?" Moiraine said. "What do you think of your first sight of Baerlon?"From all of Moiraine's impassioned speech earlier, all they remember is the threat. They don't remember what she said about the Dark One wanting them. They don't even want to believe it.
"I think it's a long way from home," he said slowly, bringing a sharp laugh from Mat.
"You have further to go yet," Moiraine said. "Much further. But there is no other choice, except to run and hide and run again for the rest of your lives. And short lives they would be. You must remember that, when the journey becomes hard. You have no choice."
Rand exchanged glances with Mat and Perrin. By their faces, they were thinking the same thing he was. How could she talk as if they had any choice after what she had said? The Aes Sedai's made our choices.
Did she make Rand's choices for him just because she threatened him? Hardly so - he needed her protection, then and for a long time after.
Did Rand make her choices on the docks of Cairhien? I think there's no way to get around that. Moiraine had no way to change the fact that the Dark One wanted Rand, that Rand had to step up to rule the world with peach fuzz still on his cheeks. But Rand was the only one who could have changed Moiraine's choices at Cairhien, and from what Moiraine saw at Rhuidean, the Pattern knew that Rand was far too stubborn for that.
Odds and ends:
1. This makes me laugh every time I see it (which is far more often than I do rereads):
"I'm only saying what I heard, ain't I? Just what I heard, Master Andra. They say, some do, that [Logain is] moving his army east and south, toward Tear." His voice became heavy with meaning. "They say he's named them the People of the Dragon."Avin seems like my kind of guy.
"Names mean little," Moiraine said calmly. If anything she had heard disturbed her, she gave no outward sign of it now. "You could call your mule People of the Dragon, if you wanted."
"Not likely, mistress." Avin chuckled. "Not with the Whitecloaks around, for sure. I don't expect anybody else would look kindly on a name like that, neither. I see what you mean, but ... oh, no, mistress. Not my mule."
2. Rand gets his first taste of the KC:
The way led through dirt streets barely the width of two wagons, empty of people, all lined with warehouses and occasional high, wooden fences. Rand walked a time beside the gleeman. "Thom, what was all that about Tear, and the People of the Dragon? Tear is a city all the way down on the Sea of Storms, isn't it?"Too late, buddy!
"The Karaethon Cycle," Thom said curtly.
Rand blinked. The Prophecies of the Dragon. "Nobody tells the ... those stories in the Two Rivers. Not in Emond's Field, anyway. The Wisdom would skin them alive, if they did."
"I suppose she would, at that," Thom said dryly...(cut prophecy we all know)
...Rand frowned. "The Stone cannot fall until the Dragon wields the sword, but how can he, unless the Stone has already fallen? Is the Dragon supposed to be a Great Lord of Tear?"
"Not much chance of that," the gleeman said dryly. "Tear hates anything to do with the Power even more than Amador, and Amador is the stronghold of the Children of the Light."
"Then how can the Prophecy be fulfilled?" Rand asked. "I'd like it well enough if the Dragon was never reborn, but a prophecy that cannot be fulfilled doesn't make much sense. It sounds like a story meant to make people think the Dragon never will be reborn. Is that it?"
"You ask an awful lot of questions, boy," Thom said. "A prophecy that was easily fulfilled would not be worth much, now would it?"
Chapter 14 - The Stag and Lion
First up: a bath! With MEN. That's right. This is one of the few scenes in the entire series with MALE NUDITY, against which RJ was very prejudiced. :) (No really, did you notice that you almost never see the men hanging out in sweat tents among the Aiel? Just women. And only women get naked for rituals.)
In any case, I always thought Mat's blabbing about the Trollocs was just a little bit unbelievable. I mean, was he really that dumb before his first POV? It's a sad thought. More interesting is a foreshadowing of Rand's talent for reading between the lines:
"There was something that fellow wouldn't tell us," Rand said. "Something he thought was trouble, but he wouldn't say what it was."And then Rand goes to sleep:
"Probably the Children," Lan said, pouring more hot water into his tub. "Most people consider them trouble. Some don't, though, and he did not know you well enough to risk it. You might have gone running to the Whitecloaks, for all he knew."
One wall opened in a series of arches onto a gray stone balcony, and beyond that was a sky such as he had never seen. Striated clouds in blacks and grays, reds and oranges, streamed by as if storm winds drove them, weaving and interweaving endlessly. No one could ever have seen a sky like that; it could not exist.Since this is the first dream of the series that visits Ishamael's little penthouse overlooking the Pit of Doom - the same place Rand visited in TGS when he chatted with Moridin - I figured I would address a few questions about the nature of the place. Is it Rand's dream? Is it Moridin's? Is it in Tel'aran'rhiod?
He pulled his eyes away from the balcony, but the rest of the room was no better. Odd curves and peculiar angles, as if the chamber had been melted almost haphazardly out of the stone, and columns that seemed to grow out of the gray floor. Flames roared on the hearth like a forge-fire with the bellows pumping, but gave no heat. Strange oval stones made the fireplace; they just looked like stones, wet-slick despite the fire, when he looked straight at them, but when he glimpsed them from the corner of his eye they seemed to be faces instead, the faces of men and women writhing in anguish, screaming silently. The high-backed chairs and the polished table in the middle of the room were perfectly ordinary, but that in itself emphasized the rest. A single mirror hung on the wall, but that was not ordinary at all. When he looked at it he saw only a blur where his reflection should have been. Everything else in the room was shown true, but not him.
A man stood in front of the fireplace. He had not noticed the man when he first came in. If he had not known it was impossible, he would have said no one had been there until he actually looked at the man. Dressed in dark clothes of a fine cut, he seemed in the prime of his maturity, and Rand supposed women would have found him good-looking.
"Once more we meet face-to-face," the man said and, just for an instant, his mouth and eyes became openings into endless caverns of flame.
It certainly seems to have some properties of Tel'aran'rhiod. Fires that give no heat, and an ever-present light that comes from nowhere. But Moghedien makes an observation in ACOS25 that is worth noting:
Rand says the same thing - that it does not have the feel of Tel'aran'rhiod - when he visits in TGS15:No door or window broke the featureless stone walls of her small prison, and there were no glowbulbs or even lamps, but light came from somewhere...(she is taken to visit Moridin, obviously not far away)......She did not doubt it was somewhere close by Shayol Ghul, though; it did not have the feel of Tel'aran'rhiod, the only other possibility.
Was this the World of Dreams? Though he had visited it on occasion, he knew very few specifics. Egwene and the Aiel dreamwalkers spoke of it only guardedly.So, it's not Tel'aran'rhiod. It feels different because it is somehow close to Shayol Ghul, even though the most likely possibility seems to be that it is Moridin's dream, and that Rand has been pulled into it. We know that Ishamael was able to find the boys in TEOTW because they are ta'veren, and he and the other Forsaken have some unexplained ability to read the Pattern, though only Ishamael and Lanfear seem to have any real Talent for it. (This is discussed more thoroughly in KOD3 than anywhere else.)
This place felt different from the dream world, and oddly familiar. He looked down the hallway; it was so long that it vanished into shadows, walls broken by doors at intervals, the wood dry and cracked. Yes . . . he thought, seizing at a memory. I have been here before, but not in a long time.
The reason it is supposed that Rand has been pulled into Ishamael's dream rather than the other way around is that it is supposedly impossible to control another person's dream. You can only control your own dreams. However, Lanfear has shown up in Rand's own dreams (once Asmodean showed up too, in TSR50), and both Lanfear and Ishamael showed up in Perrin's dream at the same time (in TDR4). We can't really be sure how much control they had over the dreams.
The most important aspect of the dream, aside from the blurred mirror - Ishamael does not yet know if Rand is the one - is Rand's refusal to drink:
"You seem thirsty," the man by the fire said. "Drink."Some have theorized that perhaps Mat drank the wine, but it's impossible to know for sure.
On the table was a goblet, shining gold and ornamented with rubies and amethysts. It had not been there before. He wished he could stop jumping. It was only a dream. His mouth felt like dust.
"I am, a little," he said, picking up the goblet. The man leaned forward intently, one hand on the back of a chair, watching him. The smell of spiced wine drove home to Rand just how thirsty he was, as if he had had nothing to drink in days. Have I?
With the wine halfway to his mouth, he stopped. Whispers of smoke were rising from the chairback between the man's fingers. And those eyes watched him so sharply, flickering rapidly in and out of flames.
Rand licked his lips and put the wine back on the table, untasted. "I'm not as thirsty as I thought." The man straightened abruptly, his face without expression. His disappointment could not have been more plain if he had cursed. Rand wondered what was in the wine.
Ba'alzamon tells Rand that he will be used by the White Tower, just like all of the other false Dragons, though Rand does not know quite what he is getting at. Ba'alzamon claims that the Eye of the World will not serve him. Most interestingly, he tells us a few things about his plans:
"Fool, I have never been bound!" The fires of his face roared so hot that Rand stepped back, sheltering behind his hands. The sweat on his palms dried from the heat. "I stood at Lews Therin Kinslayer's shoulder when he did the deed that named him. It was I who told him to kill his wife, and his children, and all his blood, and every living person who loved him or whom he loved. It was I who gave him the moment of sanity to know what he had done. Have you ever heard a man scream his soul away, worm? He could have struck at me, then. He could not have won, but he could have tried. Instead he called down his precious One Power upon himself, so much that the earth split open and reared up Dragonmount to mark his tomb.As Brandon noted in reference to the prologue, Ishamael is pretty much insane by now, probably due to his 3000+ years of being half-trapped in the Bore with the Dark One. As I noted (also re: the prologue), he was probably lying about having stood by Lews Therin's side when he killed Ilyena. However, the info in the BWB indicates quite strongly that he wasn't lying about being behind Luthair Paendrag's armies and Hawkwing's paranoia.
"A thousand years later I sent the Trollocs ravening south, and for three centuries they savaged the world. Those blind fools in Tar Valon said I was beaten in the end, but the Second Covenant, the Covenant of the Ten Nations, was shattered beyond remaking, and who was left to oppose me then? I whispered in Artur Hawkwing's ear, and the length and breadth of the land Aes Sedai died. I whispered again, and the High King sent his armies across the Aryth Ocean, across the World Sea, and sealed two dooms. The doom of his dream of one land and one people, and a doom yet to come. At his deathbed I was there when his councilors told him only Aes Sedai could save his life. I spoke, and he ordered his councilors to the stake. I spoke, and the High King's last words were to cry that Tar Valon must be destroyed."
Last thing of note (because it's important) is that Ishamael kills a rat by breaking its back. He did the same thing in WH13. Apparently he likes killing rats.
Chapter 15 - Strangers and Friends
And of course, when Rand wakes up he discovers that all of the rats in the inn were found with broken backs. He talks to Perrin and realizes that they all had the same dream. Of course, they don't trust Moiraine enough to talk to her about it, even though she suspected this would happen, and warned Rand about it (in chapter seven, before he has a chance to ask her to Heal Tam). So, instead of Moiraine, they go to Thom. Which is, of course, amusing in retrospect. You might say this Moiraine vs. Thom thing continues until TSR17 when Moiraine finally takes the initiative to put an end to the competition.
But first, Rand meets Min! Much to cover here. First, the vision of the Shadow and the fireflies:
"She says I see pieces of the Pattern. " Min gave a little laugh and shook her head. "Sounds too grand, to me. I just see things when I look at people, and sometimes I know what they mean. I look at a man and a woman who've never even talked to one another, and I know they'll marry. And they do. That sort of thing. She wanted me to look at you. All of you together."The three ta'veren and their closest associates - including Moiraine, Lan, and Thom - are all major players in the war against the Shadow. That viewing is easy enough to interpret. And now we know that Rand and Egwene won't marry.
Rand shivered. "And what did you see?"
"When you're all in a group? Sparks swirling around you, thousands of them, and a big shadow, darker than midnight. It's so strong, I almost wonder why everybody can't see it. The sparks are trying to fill the shadow, and the shadow is trying to swallow the sparks." She shrugged. "You are all tied together in something dangerous, but I can't make any more of it."
"All of us?" Rand muttered. "Egwene, too? But they weren't after – I mean —"
Min did not seem to notice his slip. "The girl —? She's part of it. And the gleeman. All of you. You're in love with her." He stared at her. "I can tell that even without seeing any images. She loves you, too, but she's not for you, or you for her either. Not the way you both want.....When I look at her, I see the same as when I look at ... Mistress Alys. Other things, things I don't understand, too, but I know what that means. She won't refuse it."
About Lan:
"The War ... ah ... Master Andra has seven ruined towers around his head, and a babe in a cradle holding a sword, and ... " She shook her head. "Men like him – you understand? – always have so many images they crowd one another.Obviously this is about Malkier, but there has been some discussion over this viewing because RJ said that Min's viewings are always about the future:
Perhaps this simply indicates that the oath he was given as a baby is very important for his destiny. At the end of TOM, he finally declared himself a king. But will he survive Tarwin's Gap?DragonCon 4 September 2005 - Emma reportingQuestion: The auras that Min sees: would they ever show the person's past or other elements that are simply unique to that person?
Jordan: No, it is the future.
Thom:
"...The strongest images around the gleeman are a man – not him – juggling fire, and the White Tower, and that doesn't make any sense at all for a man.."Some have argued that the man juggling fire must be Owyn, but the RJ quote above seems to suggest we should look for other answers. Rand is a possibility, certainly, but Mat is the juggler. Thom has several connections to the White Tower, but perhaps this will have something to do with his marriage to Moiraine (though you'd think Min would have picked up on that...maybe she did and just didn't want to tell Rand about Moiraine's business).
Perrin:
The strongest things I see about the big, curly-haired fellow are a wolf, and a broken crown, and trees flowering all around him.The wolf is obvious, and so is the broken crown (though we're still not sure if he will ever wear it personally....we do know now that Faile is second in line for the throne after Bashere, who seems like the abdicating type). The trees are still a mystery, though. Some have said it might refer to the hill with the apple trees where his family was buried in TSR. That experience was in many ways pivotal for Perrin. Many others think that Perrin will have something to do with re-instituting the practice of seed-singing, partly because of his relationship with the Tinkers, and partly because of the connection to the Slavic god Perun upon whom Perrin was partly based. Some think that Perrin will invite Loial to plant a grove in the Two Rivers.
Mat:
"...And the other one – a red eagle, an eye on a balance scale, a dagger with a ruby, a horn, and a laughing face..."The red eagle is Manetheren. Many of Mat's memories come from Manetheren, and he even had memories of the battle of Aemon's Field (apparently from the POV of Aemon himself) before he ever went to 'Finnland. The Band of the Red Hand was based on these memories. The eye on the balance scale is finally fulfilled - his eye for Moiraine. The dagger with the ruby is, of course, both obvious and imminent. The horn, obvious. The laughing face...we still don't know. Some think this might already be fulfilled, but it's hard to be sure as it's so vague.
Rand:
"The same kind of things as the rest. A sword that isn't a sword, a golden crown of laurel leaves, a beggar's staff, you pouring water on sand, a bloody hand and a white-hot iron, three women standing over a funeral bier with you on it, black rock wet with blood —"Callandor and the crown of Illian are obvious. The beggar's staff was fulfilled in TGS49. Rand pouring water on sand might refer to the rain at Alcair Dal, but more likely refers to the new lake in Rhuidean. The bloody hand and the white-hot iron are less certain. Some think the bloody hand refers to the loss of his hand, but it's not certain (especially considering that the hand itself was simply destroyed, rather than bloodied). The white-hot iron might have been Semirhage's fireball, but it might be something else. The three women over a funeral bier viewing is interesting, because we know that dead-yet-lives Rand will be on a boat, not a funeral bier (though it's all the same to the Sea Folk). Min has another viewing later of three women before a pyre (this is a viewing of Rand, so it's implied that Rand is on the pyre), and Egwene also dreams of Rand on a funeral bier, though his body breaks apart like a paper puppet when she touches it. The lightning seems to refer to using the Power as a weapon, which Rand does, and has done against him. And of course, we know why Rand and Min will meet again.
"All right," he broke in uneasily. "You don't have to list it all."
"Most of all, I see lightning around you, some striking at you, some coming out of you. I don't know what any of it means, except for one thing. You and I will meet again." She gave him a quizzical look, as if she did not understand that either.
"Why shouldn't we?" he said. "I'll be coming back this way on my way home."
"I suppose you will, at that." Suddenly her grin was back, wry and mysterious, and she patted his cheek. "But if I told you everything I saw, you'd be as curly-haired as your friend with the shoulders."
Rand woke up with a headache, and after he left Min, it started to get worse. This was the first time that Rand experienced channeling sickness. Moiraine explains it to Nynaeve later on, and it fits perfectly. First, Rand runs into Padan Fain, and (stupidly) tells Fain where they are staying. Then he (quite literally) runs into Mat.
"Mat?" People still streamed by without paying them any heed, but Rand lowered his voice anyway, and leaned closer. "Mat, did you have a nightmare last night? About a man who killed a rat?"The stupid ferry again. Why is Mat so much more paranoid about Moiraine? Was it just to delay suspicious about his connection to the dagger, or was there an actual reason? Did he drink the wine?
Mat stared at him without blinking. "You, too?" he said finally. "And Perrin, I suppose. I almost asked him this morning, but ... He must have. Blood and ashes! Now somebody's making us dream things. Rand, I wish nobody knew where I was."
"There were dead rats all over the inn this morning." He did not feel as afraid at saying it as he would have earlier. He did not feel much of anything. "Their backs were broken." His voice rang in his own ears. If he was getting sick, he might have to go to Moiraine. He was surprised that even the thought of the One Power being used on him did not bother him.
Mat took a deep breath, hitching his cloak, and looked around as if searching for somewhere to go. "What's happening to us, Rand? What?"
"I don't know. I'm going to ask Thom for advice. About whether to tell ... anyone else."
"No! Not her. Maybe him, but not her."
The sharpness of it took Rand by surprise. "Then you believed him?" He did not need to say which "him" he meant; the grimace on Mat's face said he understood.
"No," Mat said slowly. "It's the chances, that's all. If we tell her, and he was lying, then maybe nothing happens. Maybe. But maybe just him being in our dreams is enough for ... I don't know." He stopped to swallow. "If we don't tell her, maybe we'll have some more dreams. Rats or no rats, dreams are better than ... Remember the ferry? I say we keep quiet."
"All right." Rand remembered the ferry – and Moiraine's threat, too—but somehow it seemed a long time ago. "All right."
But Rand's channeling sickness is coming on strong, now. It's the reaction to his channeling days before when he gave strength to Bela in chapter eleven. Mat plays a prank...and the first Whitecloak we meet in the series is Dain Bornhald - a minor character who ends up playing a very pivotal role throughout the series:
"Does fear of the Light hold your tongue?" Anger made the Whitecloak's narrow face seem even more pinched. He glanced dismissively at the sword hilt sticking out from Rand's cloak. "Perhaps you are responsible for this, yes?" Unlike the others he had a golden knot beneath the sunburst on his cloak.This is also the first time Rand ever lets anyone think he's actually a blademaster. But I think Dain Bornhald's progression as a character was probably one of the most unexpected in the series. Good stuff. By the KOD Prologue it was clear that Galad would probably have an influence, but it was looking like Byar was the more likely turn. In retrospect, it's easy to see that the flaws of rabid personalities like Byar's are typically insurmountable. Masema and Aram come to mind, and Abdel Omerna too. They probably weren't Darkfriends. They were just crazy.
Rand moved to cover the sword, but instead swept his cloak back over his shoulder. In the back of his head was a frantic wonder at what he was doing, but it was a distant thought. "Accidents happen," he said. "Even to the Children of the Light."
The narrow-faced man raised an eyebrow. "You are that dangerous, youngling?" He was not much older than Rand.
"Heron-mark, Lord Bornhald," one of the others said warningly.
The narrow-faced man glanced at Rand's sword hilt again – the bronze heron was plain – and his eyes widened momentarily. Then his gaze rose to Rand's face, and he sniffed dismissively. "He is too young. You are not from this place, yes?" he said coldly to Rand. "You come from where?"
"I just arrived in Baerlon. " A tingling thrill ran along Rand's arms and legs. He felt flushed, almost warm. "You wouldn't know of a good inn, would you?"
"You avoid my questions," Bornhald snapped. "What evil is in you that you do not answer me?" His companions moved up to either side of him, faces hard and expressionless. Despite the mudstains on their cloaks, there was nothing funny about them now.
The tingling filled Rand; the heat had grown to a fever. He wanted to laugh, it felt so good. A small voice in his head shouted that something was wrong, but all he could think of was how full of energy he felt, nearly bursting with it. Smiling, he rocked on his heels and waited for what was going to happen. Vaguely, distantly, he wondered what it would be.
The leader's face darkened. One of the others drew his sword enough for an inch of steel to show and spoke in a voice quivering with anger. "When the Children of the Light ask questions, you gray-eyed bumpkin, we expect answers, or – " He cut off as the narrow-faced man threw an arm across his chest. Bornhald jerked his head up the street.
The Town Watch had arrived, a dozen men in round steel caps and studded leather jerkins, carrying quarterstaffs as if they knew how to use them. They stood watching, silently, from ten paces off.
Dain Bornhald was always a little on the pissy side, but he wasn't crazy. He became an alcoholic after Byar brought him the fairy tale about his father, but he was sane enough to do the right thing when it came down to it in TOM41. It's rather like the comparison to TSR in chapter nine, isn't it? Alongside that comparison, we have Bornhald and his Whitecloaks (including Byar) on the Green, sitting armed and pretty and forcing the women to join the fighting, but Bornhald never showed any humility when it came to being a thorn in the Dark One's foot. That wasn't what his story was about. You might say that's where his story really began - with a nice comparison to Paet al'Caar, he vowed that he would see Perrin dead. Both of them were wrong.
Continuing in the topic of character development, now we get back to the way the boys look to Thom for guidance, as an alternative to Moiraine, and the biggest thing they don't like about Moiraine is the fact that she's secretive. But watch Thom here:
"If only one of you had had this dream ..." He tugged at his mustache furiously. "Tell me everything you remember about it. Every detail." He kept up his wary watch while he listened.Maybe a bit of foreshadowing here for Siuan's lie about Logain and the Reds - especially considering that the names Siuan used were most likely the same names Moiraine promised Thom in TSR17.
"... He named the men he said had been used," Rand said finally. He thought he had told everything else. "Guaire Amalasan. Raolin Darksbane."
"Davian," Mat added before he could go on. " And Yurian Stonebow."
"And Logain," Rand finished.
"Dangerous names," Thom muttered. His eyes seemed to drill at them even more intently than before. "Nearly as dangerous as that other, one way and another. All dead, now, except for Logain. Some long dead. Raolin Darksbane nearly two thousand years. But dangerous just the same. Best you don't say them aloud even when you're alone. Most people wouldn't recognize a one of them, but if the wrong person overhears ..."
"But who were they?" Rand said.
"Men," Thom murmured. "Men who shook the pillars of heaven and rocked the world on its foundations." He shook his head. "It doesn't matter. Forget about them. They are dust now."
"Did the ... were they used, like he said?" Mat asked. "And killed?"
"You might say the White Tower killed them. You might say that." Thom's mouth tightened momentarily, then he shook his head again. "But used ... ? No. I cannot see that. The Light knows the Amyrlin Seat has enough plots going, but I can't see that."
But the point is, Thom didn't tell them the whole truth here. It's easy to see why he didn't, but he was clearly being evasive. Why didn't the boys mistrust him for it? Because he couldn't use the Power? Because he was a man? In any case, Thom seemed to consider advising them to tell Moiraine about the dream, but then he decided against it:
"What do we do, Thom?" Rand said. "Do we tell her? I don't want any more dreams like that. Maybe she could do something."It's easy to assume in the beginning that Thom's mistrust is just normal - that people just typically don't trust Aes Sedai at all, perhaps men in particular. But it's made very clear by a number of clues that Thom's mistrust is mostly tied up in his experience with Owyn. If not for that, he might have advised them to tell her about the dream. It would have been the wise thing to do. As it is, he's even more paranoid about it than they are. Well, Rand at least.
"Maybe we wouldn't like what she did," Mat growled.
Thom studied them, considering and stroking his mustache with a knuckle. "I say hold your peace," he said finally. "Don't tell anyone, for the time, at least. You can always change your mind, if you have to, but once you tell, it's done, and you're tied up worse than ever with ... with her. "Suddenly he straightened, his stoop almost disappearing. "The other lad! You say he had the same dream? Does he have sense enough to keep his mouth shut?"
"I think so," Rand said at the same time that Mat said, "We were going back to the inn to warn him."
"The Light send we're not too late!" Cloak flapping around his ankles, patches fluttering in the wind, Thom strode out of the alley, looking back over his shoulder without stopping. "Well? Are your feet pegged to the ground?"
And one more time...TAKE THAT YOU STUPID FERRY:
"All right," Perrin replied slowly, still looking confused. Suddenly he slapped his head. "You almost made me forget why I was looking for you, not that I don't wish I could. Nynaeve is inside."Like, it's not the end of the world people. But Nynaeve? Different story...
"Blood and ashes!" Mat yelped. "How did she get here? Moiraine... The ferry..."
Perrin snorted. "You think a little thing like a sunken ferry could stop her? She rooted Hightower out – I don't know how he got back over the river, but she said he was hiding in his bedroom and didn't want to go near the river – anyway, she bullied him into finding a boat big enough for her and her horse and rowing her across. Himself. She only gave him time to find one of his haulers to work another set of oars."
"She can't make us go back. Winternight should have been enough to make her see that. If she doesn't, we will have to make her."Hilarious.
Mat's eyebrows lifted higher with every word, and when Rand finished he let out a low whistle. "You ever try to make Nynaeve see something she doesn't want to see? I have. I say we stay away till night, and sneak in then."
"From my observation of the young woman," Thom said, "I don't think she will stop until she has had her say. If she is not allowed to have it soon, she might keep on until she attracts attention none of us wants."
That brought them all up short. They exchanged glances, drew deep breaths, and marched inside as if to face Trollocs.
Odds and ends:
1. Just as Moiraine said, Rand's sickness disappeared almost as soon as it appeared:
Rand still rocked on his heels, waiting. The tingle was so strong that be almost quivered; he felt as if he were burning up.And even Mat was overwhelmed by Rand's audacity with Bornhald. That's saying something.
Mat came out of the shop, staring at him. "You aren't sick," he said finally. "You are crazy!"
Rand drew a deep breath, and abruptly it was all gone like a pricked bubble. He staggered as it vanished, the realization of what he had just done flooding in on him. Licking his lips, he met Mat's stare. "I think we had better go back to the inn, now," he said unsteadily.
"Yes," Mat said. "Yes. I think we better had."
2. First detail on the Eye:
Mat shivered. "He said so many things. Crazy things. All that about Lews Therin Kinslayer, and Artur Hawkwing. And the Eye of the World. What in the Light is that supposed to be?"I get the feeling that Thom has heard some stories of it that he was tempted to believe. But of course, he wasn't with them when they went, so we never learn any more about that, just like we coincidentally never learn more about how he knew Fain because they haven't since crossed paths. In fact, like Barthanes' manor, this chapter is one of those places where they narrowly miss each other, and because Rand doesn't make the connection between Fain and the Fade, he never tells anyone (besides Mat) about seeing him in Baerlon until he shows up again in Fal Dara.
"A legend," the gleeman said slowly. "Maybe. As big a legend as the Horn of Valere, at least in the Borderlands. Up there, young men go hunting the Eye of the World the way young men from Illian hunt the Horn. Maybe a legend."
But we will talk about that Fade, among other things, in the next chapter. I was a day late on this one, so I'm going to hold off on promising a date for the next one. I will be getting to work on it after I catch up on cataloging Brandon's feed (which ballooned quite a bit yesterday).
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