The Gathering Storm

22 The Last That Could Be Done

Semirhage sat alone in the small room. They had taken away her chair and given her no lantern or candle. Blast this cursed Age and its cursed people! What she would have given for glowbulbs on the walls. During her days, prisoners hadn’t been denied light. Of course, she had locked several of her experiments away in total darkness, but that was different. It had been important to discover what effect the lack of light would have on them. These so-called Aes Sedai who held her, they had no rational reason for leaving her in darkness. They just did it to humiliate her.

She pulled her arms closer, huddling against the wooden wall. She did not cry. She was of the Chosen! So what if she had been forced to abase herself? She was not broken.

But . . . the fool Aes Sedai no longer regarded her as they had. Semirhage hadn’t changed, but they had. Somehow, in one swoop, that cursed woman with the paralis-net in her hair had unraveled Semirhage’s authority with the entire lot of them.

How? How had she lost control so quickly? She shuddered as she remembered being turned over the woman’s knees and spanked. And the nonchalance of it. The only emotion in the woman’s voice had been a slight annoyance. She’d treated Semirhage—one of the Chosen!—as if she were barely worthy of notice. That had galled more than the blows.

It would not happen again. Semirhage would be ready for the blows next time, and she would give them no weight. Yes, that would work. Wouldn’t it?

She shuddered again. She had tortured hundreds, perhaps thousands, in the name of understanding and reason. Torture made sense. You truly saw what a person was made of, in more ways than one, when you began to slice into them. That was a phrase she’d used on numerous occasions. It usually made her smile.

This time it did not.

Why couldn’t they have given her pain? Broken fingers, cuts into her flesh, coals in the pits of her elbows. She had steeled her mind to each of these things, preparing for them. A small, eager part of herself had looked forward to them.

But this? Being forced to eat food off the floor? Being treated like a child in front of those who had regarded her with such awe?

I will kill her, she thought, not for the first time. I will remove her tendons, one at a time, using the Power to heal her so that she lives to experience the pain. No. No, I’ll do something new to her. I will show her agony that hasn’t been known to anyone in any Age!

“Semirhage.” A whisper.

She froze, looking up in the darkness. That voice had been soft, like a chill wind, yet still sharp and biting. Had she imagined it? He couldn’t be there, could he?

“You have failed greatly, Semirhage,” the voice continued, so soft. A faint light shone underneath the door, but the voice came from inside her cell. The light seemed to grow brighter, and it flushed a deep red, illuminating the hem of a figure in a black cloak standing before her. She looked up. The ruddy light revealed a face of white, the color of dead skin. The face had no eyes.

She immediately knelt to the floor, prostrating herself on the aged wood. Though the figure before her looked like a Myrddraal, it was much taller and much, much more important. She shivered as she remembered the voice of the Great Lord himself, speaking to her.

When you obey Shaidar Haran, you obey me. When you disobey. . . .

“You were to capture the boy, not kill him,” the figure whispered in a hiss, like steam escaping through cracks between pot and lid. “You took his hand and nearly his life. You have revealed yourself and have lost valuable pawns. You have been captured by our enemies, and now they have broken you.” She could hear the smile on its lips. Shaidar Haran was the only Myrddraal she had ever seen bear a smile. But, then, she did not think this thing was truly a Myrddraal.

She did not reply to its charges. One did not lie, or even make excuses, before this figure.

Suddenly, the shield blocking her vanished. Her breath caught. Saidar had returned! Sweet power. However, as she reached for it, she hesitated. Those imitation Aes Sedai outside would feel it if she channeled.

A cold, long-nailed hand touched her chin. The flesh of it felt like dead leather. It rotated her face upward to meet the eyeless gaze. “You have been given one last chance,” the maggotlike lips whispered. “Do. Not. Fail.”

The light faded. The hand at her chin withdrew. She continued to kneel, fighting down terror. One last chance. The Great Lord always rewarded failure in ... imaginative ways. She had given such rewards before, and had no desire to receive them. They would make any torture or punishment these Aes Sedai could imagine look childish.

She forced herself to her feet, feeling her way around the room. She reached the door and, holding her breath, tried it.

The door opened. She slipped out of the room without letting the hinges creak. Outside, three corpses lay on the ground, slumped free of their chairs. The women who had been maintaining her shield. There was someone else there, kneeling on the floor before the three of them. One of the Aes Sedai. A woman in green, with brown hair, pulled back into a tail, her head bowed.

“I live to serve, Great Mistress,” the woman whispered. “I am instructed to tell you that there is Compulsion in my mind you are to remove.”

Semirhage raised an eyebrow; she hadn’t realized there were any of the Black among those Aes Sedai here. Removing Compulsion could have a very . . . nasty effect on a person. Even if the Compulsion were weak or subtle, the brain could be harmed seriously by removing it. If the Compulsion were strong . . . well, it was quite interesting to watch.

“Also,” the woman said, handing something forward, wrapped in cloth. “I am to give you this.” She removed the cloth, revealing a dull-colored metallic collar, and two bracelets. The Domination Band. Crafted during the Breaking, strikingly similar to the a’dam Semirhage had spent so much time working with.

With this ter’angreal, a male channeler could be controlled. A smile finally broke through Semirhage’s fear.

Rand had only visited the Blight on a single occasion, though he could faintly remember having come to this area on several occasions, before the Blight infected the land. Lews Therin’s memories. Not his own.

The madman took to hissing and muttering angrily as they rode through the Saldaean scrub. Even Tai’daishar grew skittish as they moved northward.

Saldaea was a brown landscape of brushland and dark soil, nowhere near as barren as the Aiel Waste, but hardly a soft or lush land. Homesteads were common, but they had nearly the look of forts, and young children held themselves like trained warriors. Lan had once told him that among Borderlanders, a boy became a man when he earned the right to carry a sword.

“Has it occurred to you,” Ituralde said, riding on Rand’s left, “that what we are doing here could constitute an invasion?”

Rand nodded toward Bashere, who rode through the brush at Rand’s right. “I bring with me troops of their own blood,” he said. “The Saldaeans are my allies.”

Bashere laughed. “I doubt that the Queen will see it that way, my friend! It’s been many months since I last asked her for orders. Why, I wouldn’t be surprised to find that she’s demanded my head by now.”

Rand turned his eyes forward. “I am the Dragon Reborn. It is not an invasion to march against the forces of the Dark One.” Ahead of them rose the foothills of the Mountains of Dhoom. They had a dark cast, as if their slopes were coated with soot.

What would he himself do if another monarch used a gateway to deposit nearly fifty thousand troops within his borders? It was an act of war, but the Borderlanders’ forces were away doing Light only knew what, and he would not leave these lands undefended. Just an hour’s ride to the south, Ituralde’s Domani had set up a fortified camp beside a river that had its source up in the highlands of World’s End. Rand had inspected their camp and ranks. After that, Bashere had suggested that Rand ride up to inspect the Blight. The scouts had been surprised at how quickly the Blight was advancing, and Bashere thought it important that Ituralde and Rand see for themselves. Rand agreed. Maps sometimes couldn’t convey the truth eyes could see.

The sun was dipping toward the horizon like a drooping eye longing for sleep. Tai’daishar stamped a hoof, tossing his head. Rand raised a hand, halting his group—two generals, fifty soldiers and an equal number of Maidens, with Narishma at the back to weave gateways.

Northward, on the shallow slope, a scrub of broad-bladed grasses and squat brush swayed like waves in the wind. There was no specific line where the Blight began. A spot on a blade there, a sickly cast to a stem there. Each individual speck was innocent, yet there were too many, far too many. At the top of the hillside, not a single plant was free of the spots. The pox seemed to fester even as he watched.

There was an oily sense of death to the Blight, of plants barely surviving, kept alive like prisoners starved to the very edge of mortality. If Rand had seen anything like this back in a field in the Two Rivers, he would have burnt the entire crop, and would have been surprised that it hadn’t been done already.

To his side, Bashere knuckled his long, dark mustaches. “I remember when it didn’t start for another few leagues,” he noted. “That wasn’t so long ago.”

“I have patrols running the length of it already,” Ituralde said. He stared out at the sickly landscape. “All the reports are the same. It’s quiet out there.”

“That should be enough warning that something is wrong,” Bashere said. “There are always patrols or raids of Trollocs to fight. If not that, then something worse, to scare them away. Worms or bloodwrasps.”

Ituralde leaned one arm on his saddle, shaking his head as he continued staring at the Blight. “I’ve no experience with fighting such things. I know how men think, but Trolloc raiding parties keep no supply lines, and I’ve only heard stories of what worms can do.”

“I will leave some of Bashere’s officers with you as advisors,” Rand said.

“That would help,” Ituralde said, “but I wonder if it wouldn’t be better to just leave him here. His soldiers could patrol this area, and you could use my troops in Arad Doman. No offense, my Lord, but don’t you think it’s odd to have us working in each other’s kingdoms?”

“No,” Rand said. It wasn’t odd, it was bitter sense. He trusted Bashere, and the Saldaeans had served Rand well, but it would be dangerous to leave them in their own homelands. Bashere was cousin to the Queen herself, and what of his men? How would they react when their own people asked why they had become Dragonsworn? Strange as it was, Rand knew that he would cause a much smaller conflagration by leaving foreigners on Saldaean soil.

His reasoning with Ituralde was equally brutal. The man had sworn to him, but allegiances could change. Out here, near the Blight, Ituralde and his troops would have very little opportunity to turn against Rand. They were in hostile territory, and Rand’s Asha’man would be their only quick means of getting back to Arad Doman. If left in his homeland, however, Ituralde could marshal troops and perhaps decide he didn’t need the Dragon Reborn’s protection.

It was much safer to keep the armies in hostile territory. Rand hated thinking that way, but that was one of the main differences between the man he had been and the man he had become. Only one of those men could do what needed to be done, no matter that he hated it.

“Narishma,” Rand called. “Gateway.”

He didn’t have to turn to feel Narishma seize the One Power and begin weaving. The sensation prickled at Rand, enticing, but he fought it off. It was becoming more and more difficult for him to seize the Power without emptying his stomach, and he did not intend to sick up in front of Ituralde.

“You shall have a hundred Asha’man by the end of the week,” Rand said, speaking to Ituralde. “I suspect you will make good use of them.”

“Yes, I think I can do just that.”

“I want daily reports, even if nothing happens,” Rand replied. “Send the messengers through a gateway. I’ll be breaking camp and moving to Bandar Eban in four days.”

Bashere grunted; this was the first Rand had said of the move. Rand turned his horse toward the large, open gateway behind them. Some of the Maidens had already ducked through, going first, as always. Narishma stood to the side, his hair in its two dark braids set with bells. He had been a Borderlander, too, before he had become Asha’man. Too many clouded loyalties. Which would come first for Narishma? His homeland? Rand? The Aes Sedai to whom he was a Warder? Rand was fairly certain the man was loyal; he was one of those who had come to him at Dumai’s Wells. But the most dangerous enemies were those you assumed you could trust.

None of them can be trusted! Lews Therin said. We should never have let them get so close to us. They’ll turn on us!

The madman always had trouble with other men who could channel. Rand nudged Tai’daishar forward, ignoring Lews Therin’s ramblings, though hearing the voice did take him back to that night. The night where he had dreamed of Moridin, and there had been no Lews Therin in his mind. It twisted Rand’s belly to know that his dreams were no longer safe. He had come to rely on them as a refuge. Nightmares could take him, true, but they were his own nightmares.

Why had Moridin come to help Rand in Shadar Logoth, back during the fight with Sammael? What twisted webs was he weaving? He had claimed that Rand had invaded his dream, but was that just another lie?

I have to destroy them, he thought. All of the Forsaken, and I must do it for good this time. I must be hard.

Except that Min didn’t want him to be hard. He didn’t want to frighten her, of all people. There were no games with Min; she might call him a fool, but she did not lie, and that made him want to be the man she wished him to be. But did he dare? Could a man who could laugh also be the man who could face what needed to be done at Shayol Ghul?

To live you must die, the answer to one of his three questions. If he succeeded, his memory—his legacy—would live on after he died. It was not very comforting. He didn’t want to die. Who did? The Aiel claimed they did not seek death, though they embraced it when it came.

He entered the gateway, Traveling back to the manor house in Arad Doman, with the ring of pines surrounding the trampled brown grounds and the long ranks of tents. It would take a hard man to face his own death, to fight the Dark One while his blood spilled on the rocks. Who could laugh in the face of that?

He shook his head. Having Lews Therin in his mind didn’t help.

She’s right, Lews Therin said suddenly.

She? Rand asked.

The pretty one. With the short hair. She says we need to break the seals. She’s right.

Rand froze, pulling Tai’daishar up short, ignoring the groom who had come to take the horse. To hear Lews Therin agreeing. . . .

What do we do after that? Rand asked.

We die. You promised we could die!

Only if we defeat the Dark One, Rand said. You know that if he wins, there will be nothing for us. Not even death.

Yes . . . nothing, Lews Therin said. That would be nice. No pain, no regret. Nothing.

Rand felt a chill. If Lews Therin began to think that way . . . No, Rand said, it wouldn’t be nothing. He would have our soul. The pain would be worse, far worse.

Lews Therin began to weep.

Lews Therin! Rand snapped in his mind. What do we do? How did you seal the Bore last time?

It didn’t work, Lews Therin whispered. We used saidin, but we touched it to the Dark One. It was the only way! Something has to touch him, something to close the gap, but he was able to taint it. The seal was weak!

Yes, but what do we do differently? Rand thought.

Silence. Rand sat for a moment, then slid off of Tai’daishar and let the nervous groom lead him away. The rest of the Maidens were coming through the large gateway, Bashere and Narishma taking the rear. Rand didn’t wait for them, though he noticed Deira Bashere—Davram Bashere’s wife—standing outside the Traveling ground. The tall, statuesque woman had dark hair with lines of white at the temples. She gave Rand a measuring look. What would she do if Bashere died in Rand’s service? Would she continue to follow, or would she lead the troops away, back to Saldaea? She was as strong of will as her husband. Perhaps more so.

Rand passed her with a nod and a smile and walked through the evening camp toward the manor house. So Lews Therin did not know how to seal the Dark One’s prison. What good was the voice then? Burn him, but he had been one of Rand’s few hopes!

Most people here were wise enough to move away when they saw him stalking across the grounds. Rand could remember when such moods hadn’t struck him, when he had been a simple sheepherder. Rand the Dragon Reborn was a different man altogether. He was a man of responsibility and duty. He had to be.

Duty. Duty was like a mountain. Well, Rand felt as if he was trapped between a good dozen different mountains, all moving to destroy him. Among those forces, his emotions seemed to boil under pressure. Was it any wonder when they burst free?

He shook his head, approaching the manor. To the east lay the Mountains of Mist. The sun was near to setting, and the mountains were bathed in a red light. Beyond them and to the south, so strangely close, lay Emond’s Field and the Two Rivers. A home he would never see again, for a visit would only alert his enemies to his affection for it. He had worked hard to make them think he was a man without affection. At times, he feared that his ruse had become reality.

Mountains. Mountains like duty. The duty of solitude in this case, for somewhere southward along those too-near mountains was his father. Tarn. Rand hadn’t seen him in so long. Tam was his father. Rand had decided that. He had never known his birth father, the Aiel clan chief named

Janduin, and while he had obviously been a man of honor, Rand had no desire to call him father.

At times, Rand longed for Tarn’s voice, his wisdom. Those were the times when Rand knew he had to be the most hard, for a moment of weakness—a moment running to his father for succor—would destroy nearly everything he had worked for. And it would likely mean the end of Tarn’s life as well.

Rand entered the manor house through the burned hole in the front, pushing aside the thick canvas that now formed an entry, and kept his back to the Mountains of Mist. He was alone. He needed to be alone. Relying on anyone would risk being weak when he reached Shayol Ghul. At the Last Battle, he would not be able to lean on anyone other than himself.

Duty. How many mountains must one man carry?

It still smelled of smoke inside the manor house. Lord Tellaen had complained about the fire hesitantly—yet persistently—until Rand had ordered compensation for the man, although the bubble of evil hadn’t been Rand’s fault. Or had it? Being ta’veren had many strange effects, from making people say things they wouldn’t normally to bringing him the allegiance of those who had been wavering. He was a focus for trouble, bubbles of evil included. He hadn’t chosen to be that focus, but he had chosen to stay in the manor house.

Either way, Tellaen had been compensated. It was a pittance compared with the amount of money Rand was spending to fund his armies, and even that was small compared with the funds he’d dedicated to bring food to Arad Doman and other troubled areas. At this rate, his stewards worried that he would soon bankrupt his assets in Illian, Tear and Cairhien. Rand had not told them that he didn’t care.

He would see the world to the Last Battle.

And will you have no legacy other than that? a voice whispered in the back of his mind. Not Lews Therin, but his own thought, a small voice, the part of him that had prompted him to found schools in Cairhien and Andor. You wish to live after you die? Will you leave all of those who follow you to war, famine and chaos? Will the destruction be how you live on?

Rand shook his head. He couldn’t fix everything! He was just one man. Looking beyond the Last Battle was foolish. He couldn’t worry about the world then, he couldn’t. To do so would be to take his eye off the goal.

And what is the goal? that voice seemed to say. Is it to survive, or is it to thrive? Will you set the groundwork for another Breaking or for another Age of Legends?

He had no answers. Lews Therin roused slightly, babbling incoherently. Rand climbed the stairs to the second floor of the manor. Light, he was tired.

What was it the madman had said? When he’d sealed the Bore into the Dark One’s prison, he’d used saidin. That was because so many of the Aes Sedai at the time had turned against him, and he’d been left only with the Hundred Companions—the most powerful male Aes Sedai of his time. No women. The female Aes Sedai had called his plan too risky.

Eerily, Rand felt as if he could almost remember those events—not what had happened, but the anger, the desperation, the decision. Was the mistake, then, not using the female half of the power as well as the male? Was that what had allowed the Dark One to counterstrike and taint saidin, driving Lews Therin and the remaining men of the Hundred Companions insane?

Could it be that simple? How many Aes Sedai would he need? Would he need any} Plenty of Wise Ones could channel. Surely there was more to it than that.

There was a game children played, Snakes and Foxes. It was said that the only way to win was to break the rules. What of his other plan, then? Could he break the rules by slaying the Dark One? Was that something that even he, the Dragon Reborn, dared contemplate?

He crossed the creaking wood floor of the hallway and pushed open the door to his room. Min lay propped up by pillows on the log bed, wearing her embroidered green trousers and a linen shirt, as she leafed through yet another book by the light of a lamp. An elderly serving woman bustled about, collecting dishes from Min’s evening meal. Rand threw off his coat, sighing to himself and flexing his hand.

He sat down on the side of the bed as Min set aside her book, a volume called A Comprehensive Discussion of Pre-Breaking Relics. She sat up and rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. Bowls clinked as the serving woman gathered them, and she bowed in apology, moving with extra speed as she placed them in her carrying basket.

“You’re pushing yourself too hard again, sheepherder,” Min said.

“I have to.”

She pinched his neck hard, and he flinched, grunting. “No you don’t,” she said, her voice close to his ear. “Haven’t you been listening to me? What good will you be if you wear yourself out before you reach the Last Battle? Light, Rand, I haven’t heard you laugh in months!”

“Is this really a time for laughter?” he asked. “You would have me be happy while children starve and men slaughter one another? I should laugh to hear that Trollocs are still getting through the Ways? I should be happy that the majority of the Forsaken are still out there somewhere, plotting how best to kill me?”

“Well, no,” Min said. “Of course not. But we can’t let the troubles in the world destroy us. Cadsuane says that—”

“Wait,” he snapped, twisting around so that he was facing her. She knelt on the bed, short dark hair curling down beneath her chin. She looked shocked by his tone.

“What does Cadsuane have to do with this?” he asked.

Min frowned. “Nothing.”

“She’s been telling you what to say,” Rand said. “She’s been using you to get to me!”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Min said.

“What has she said about me?”

Min shrugged. “She worries about how harsh you’ve become. Rand, what is this?”

“She’s trying to get to me, manipulate me,” he said. “She’s using you. What have you told her, Min?”

Min pinched him again sharply. “I don’t like that tone, looby. I thought Cadsuane was your counselor. Why should I need to watch what I say around her?”

The serving woman continued to clink dishes. Why couldn’t she just leave! This wasn’t the kind of discussion he wanted to have in front of strangers.

Min couldn’t be working with Cadsuane, could she? Rand didn’t trust Cadsuane by any measure. If she’d gotten to Min. . . .

Rand felt his heart twist. He wasn’t suspicious of Min, was he? She’d always been the one he could look to for honesty, the one who played no games with him. What would he do if he lost her? Burn me! he thought. She’s right. I’ve grown too harsh. What will become of me if I begin to grow suspicious of those that I know love me? I’ll be no better than mad Lews Therin.

“Min,” he said, softening his voice. “Maybe you’re right. Perhaps I’ve gone too far.”

She turned to look at him, relaxing. Then she stiffened, eyes widening in shock.

Something cold clicked around Rand’s neck.

Rand immediately raised his hand to his neck, spinning. The serving woman stood behind him, but her form was shimmering. She vanished and was replaced by a woman with dark skin and black eyes, her sharp face triumphant. Semirhage.

Rand’s hand touched metal. Too-cold metal that felt like ice, pressed against his skin. In a rage, he tried to pull free his sword from its black, dragon-painted sheath, but found that he could not do so. His legs strained as if against some incredible weight. He scratched at the collar—his fingers could still move—but the metal seemed to be a single solid piece.

At that moment, Rand felt terror. He met Semirhage’s eyes anyway, and she smiled deeply. “I’ve been waiting for quite a long time to get a Domination Band on you, Lews Therin. Odd, how circumstances occur, isn’t—”

Something flashed in the air, and Semirhage barely had time to cry out before something deflected the blade just barely—a weave of Air, Rand could only assume, though he could not see weaves made from saidar. Still, Min’s knife had left a gash on the side of Semirhage’s face before passing by and burying itself in the wood of the door.

“Guards!” Min cried. “Maidens, to arms! The Car’a’carn is in danger!”

Semirhage cursed, waving a hand, and Min cut off. Rand twisted anxiously, trying—and failing—to seize saidin. Something blocked him. Min was tossed off the bed by weaves of Air, her mouth locked shut. Rand tried to run to her, but again found that he could not. His legs simply refused to move.

At that moment, the door to his room opened. Another women entered with a hurried step. She glanced out of the doorway, as if watching for something, then closed it behind her. Elza. Rand felt a surge of hope, but then the small woman joined Semirhage, taking up the other bracelet that controlled the a’dam around Rand’s neck. She looked up at Rand, her eyes red, looking dazed—as if something had hit her soundly on the head. However, when she saw him kneeling, she smiled. “And so you finally come to your destiny, Rand al’Thor. You will face the Great Lord. And you will lose.”

Elza. Elza was Black, burn her! Rand’s skin prickled as he felt her embrace saidar, standing beside her mistress. They both confronted him, each one wearing a bracelet, and Semirhage looked supremely confident.

Rand growled, turning to Semirhage. He would not be trapped like this!

The Forsaken touched the bleeding gash on her cheek, then tsked to herself. She wore a drab brown dress. How had she escaped captivity? And where had she gotten this cursed collar? Rand had given that to Cadsuane for safekeeping. She had vowed that it would be safe!

“No guards will come, Lews Therin,” Semirhage said absently, holding up her braceleted hand; the bracelet matched the collar on his neck. “I’ve warded the room against listeners. You will find that you cannot so much as move unless I allow it. You’ve tried already, and you must see how futile it is.”

Desperate, Rand reached for saidin again, but found nothing. In his head, Lews Therin began to snarl and weep, and Rand felt almost as if he would join the man. Min! He had to get to her. He had to be strong enough!

He forced himself toward Semirhage and Elza, but it was as if he were trying to move someone else’s legs. He was trapped in his own head, like Lews Therin. He opened his mouth to curse, but nothing came out beyond a croak.

“Yes,” Semirhage said, “you cannot speak without permission either. And I would suggest that you not reach for saidin again. You will find the experience unpleasant. When I tested the Domination Band before, I found it to be a far more elegant tool than those Seanchan a’dam. Their a’dam allow some small measure of freedom, relying on nausea as an inhibitor. The Domination Band demands far more obedience. You will act exactly as I desire. For instance. ...”

Rand stood up off the bed, his legs moving against his will. Then, his own hand whipped up and began to squeeze his throat just above the neck band. He gasped, stumbling. Frantic, he reached again for saidin.

He found pain. It was as if he’d reached into a burning vat of oil, then drawn the fiery liquid into his own veins. He screamed in shock and agony, collapsing to the wooden floor. The pain made him writhe, his vision growing black.

“You see.” Semirhage’s voice sounded distant. “Ah, I had forgotten how satisfying that is.”

The pain was like a million ants burrowing through his skin and down to the bone. He twisted, muscles spasming.

We’re in the box again! Lews Therin cried.

And suddenly, he was. He could see it, the black confines, crushing him. His body sore from repeated beatings, his mind frantic to remain sane. Lews Therin had been his only companion. It was one of the first times

Rand could remember communicating with the madman; Lews Therin had started to respond to him only shortly before that day.

Rand hadn’t been willing to see Lews Therin as part of himself. The mad part of himself, the part that could deal with the torture, if only because it was already so tortured. More pain and suffering was meaningless. You could not fill a cup that had already begun to overflow.

He stopped screaming. The pain was still there, it made his eyes water, but the screams would not come. All fell still.

Semirhage looked down at him, frowning, blood dripping from her chin. Another wave of pain washed across him. Whoever he was.

He stared up at her. Silent.

“What are you doing?” she said, compelling him. “Speak.”

“No more can be done to me,” he whispered.

Another wave of pain. It shocked him, and something inside of him whimpered, but he gave no outward reaction. Not because he held the screams in, but because he couldn’t feel anything. The box, the two wounds in his side corrupting his own blood, beatings, humiliation, sorrows and his own suicide. Killing himself. He could suddenly and starkly remember that. After all of these things, what more could Semirhage do to him?

“Great Mistress,” Elza said, turning to Semirhage, eyes still seeming faintly dazed by something. “Perhaps now we should—”

“Quiet, worm,” Semirhage spat at her, wiping the blood from her chin. She looked at it. “That’s twice now those knives have tasted my blood.” She shook her head, then turned and smiled at Rand. “You say nothing more can be done to you? You forget, Lews Therin, to whom you speak. Pain is my specialty, and you are still little more than a boy. I’ve broken men ten times as strong as you. Stand.”

He did. The pain had not gone away. She obviously intended to keep using it against him until she got a reaction.

He turned around, obeying her wordless command, and found Min hanging above the floor, tied by invisible ropes of Air. Her eyes were wild with fear, her arms bound behind her back, her mouth blocked by a woven Air gag.

Semirhage chuckled. “There is nothing more that I can do, you say?”

Rand seized saidin—not of his choice, but of hers. The roar of power slammed into him, bringing with it the strange nausea that he’d never been able to explain. He fell to his hand and knees, emptying his stomach with a groan as the room shook and spun around him.

“How odd,” he heard Semirhage say, as if distant. He shook his head, still holding the One Power—wrestling with it as he always had to with saidin, forcing that powerful, twisting flow of energy to his will. It was like chaining a tempest of wind, and was difficult even when he was strong and healthy. Now it was nearly impossible.

Use it, Lews Therin whispered. Kill her while we can!

I will not kill a woman, Rand thought stubbornly, a figment of a memory from the back of his mind. That is the line I will not cross. . . .

Lews Therin roared, trying to take saidin from Rand, but without success. In fact, Rand found that he couldn’t channel willfully any more than he could step without Semirhage’s permission.

He righted himself by her command, the room growing more steady, the nausea retreating. And then he began to form weaves, complicated ones of Spirit and Fire.

“Yes,” Semirhage said, almost to herself. “Now, if I can remember. . . . The male way of doing this is so odd, sometimes.”

Rand made the weaves, then pushed them toward Min. “No!” he screamed as he did so. “Not that!”

“Ah, so you see,” Semirhage said. “You weren’t so difficult to break after all.”

The weaves touched Min and she writhed in pain. Rand continued to channel, tears springing to his eyes as he was forced to send the complex weaves through her body. They brought agony only, but they did it very well. Semirhage must have released Min’s gag, for she began to scream, weeping.

“Please, Rand!” she begged. “Please!”

Rand roared in anger, trying to stop, unable to. He could feel Min’s pain through the bond, feel it as he caused it.

“Stop this!” he bellowed.

“Beg,” Semirhage said.

“Please,” he said, weeping. “Please, I beg you.”

Suddenly, he stopped, the torturing weaves unraveling. Min hung in the air, whimpering, eyes dazed from the shock of pain. Rand turned around, facing Semirhage and the smaller figure of Elza beside her. The Black looked terrified, as if she’d gotten herself into something she hadn’t been prepared for.

“Now,” the Forsaken said, “you see that you have always been intended to serve the Great Lord. We will leave this room and will deal with those so-called Aes Sedai who imprisoned me. We will travel to Shayol Ghul and present you to the Great Lord, and then this can all be finished.”

He bowed his head. There had to be a way out! He imagined her using him to tear through the ranks of his own men. He imagined them afraid to attack, lest they harm him. He saw the blood, death and destruction he would cause. And it chilled him, turned him to ice inside.

They have won.

Semirhage glanced at the door, then turned back to him and smiled. “But I’m afraid we must deal with her first. Let us be about it, then.”

Rand turned and began to walk toward Min. “No!” he said. “You promised if I begged—”

“I promised nothing,” Semirhage said with a laugh. “You begged quite prettily, Lews Therin, but I have chosen to ignore your pleas. You can release saidin, however. This needs to be somewhat more personal.”

Saidin winked away, and Rand felt the withdrawal of power with regret. The world seemed more dull around him. He stepped up to Min, her pleading eyes meeting his. Then he pressed his hand to her throat, gripping it, and began to squeeze.

“No. . . .” he whispered in horror as his hand, against his will, cut off her air. Min stumbled, and he unwillingly forced her down to the ground, easily ignoring her struggles. He loomed above her, pressing his hand against her throat, gripping it and choking her. She looked at him, eyes beginning to bulge.

This can’t be happening.

Semirhage laughed.

Ilyena! Lews Therin wailed. Oh, Light! I’ve killed her!

Rand squeezed harder, leaning down for leverage, his fingers squeezing Min’s skin and pushing down on her throat. It was as if he gripped his own heart, and the world became black around him, everything darkened except for Min. He could feel her pulse throbbing beneath his fingers.

Those beautiful dark eyes of hers watched him, loving him even as he killed her.

This can’t be happening!

I’ve killed her!

I’m mad!

Ilyena!

There had to be a way out! Had to be! Rand wanted to close his eyes, but he couldn’t. She wouldn’t let him—not Semirhage, but Min. She held his eyes with her own, tears lining her cheeks, dark, curled hair disheveled. So beautiful.

He scrambled for saidin, but could not take it. He tried with every bit of will he had to relax his fingers, but they just continued to squeeze. He felt horror, he felt her pain. Min’s face grew purple, her eyes fluttered.

Rand wailed. THIS CAN’T BE HAPPENING! I WILL NOT DO THIS AGAIN!

Something snapped inside of him. He grew cold; then that coldness vanished, and he could feel nothing. No emotion. No anger.

At that moment he grew aware of a strange force. It was like a reservoir of water, boiling and churning just beyond his view. He reached toward it with his mind.

A clouded face flashed before Rand’s own, one whose features he couldn’t quite make out. It was gone in a moment.

And Rand found himself filled with an alien power. Not saidin, not saidar, but something else. Something he’d never felt before.

Oh, Light, Lews Therin suddenly screamed. That’s impossible! We can’t use it! Cast it away! That is death we hold, death and betrayal.

It is HIM.

Rand closed his eyes as he knelt above Min, then he channeled the strange, unknown force. Energy and life surged through him, a torrent of power like saidin, only ten times as sweet and a hundred times as violent. It made him alive, made him realize that he’d never been alive before. It gave him such strength as he’d never imagined. It rivaled, even, the power he’d held when drawing from the Choedan Kal.

He screamed, in both rapture and rage, and wove enormous spears of Fire and Air. He slammed the weaves against the collar at his neck, and the room exploded with flames and bits of molten metal, each one distinct to Rand. He could feel each shard of metal blast away from his neck, warping the air with its heat, trailing smoke as it hit a wall or the floor. He opened his eyes and released Min. She gasped and sobbed.

Rand stood and turned, white-hot magma in his veins—as when Semirhage had tortured him, yet somehow opposite. As painful as this was, it was also pure ecstasy.

Semirhage looked utterly shocked. “But . . . that’s impossible . . .” she said. “I felt nothing. You can’t—” She looked up, staring at him with wide eyes. “The True Power. Why have you betrayed me, Great Lord? Why?”

Rand raised a hand and, filled with the power he did not understand, wove a single weave. A bar of pure white light, a cleansing fire, burst from his hand and struck Semirhage in the chest. She flashed and vanished, leaving a faint afterimage to Rand’s vision. Her bracelet dropped to the floor.

Elza ran toward the door. She vanished before another bar of light, her entire figure becoming light for a moment. Her bracelet dropped to the floor, as well, the women who had held them burned completely from the Pattern.

What have you done? Lews Therin asked. Oh, Light. Better to have killed again than to do this. . . . Oh, Light. We are doomed.

Rand savored the power for a moment longer, then—regretfully—let it drop away. He would have held on, but he was simply too exhausted. The vanishing of it left him numb.

Or . . . no. That numbness had nothing to do with the power he’d held. He turned around, looking down at Min, who coughed quietly and rubbed her neck. She looked up at him, and seemed afraid. He doubted that she would ever see him the same way again.

He had been wrong; there had indeed been something more that Semirhage could do to him. He had felt himself killing one he loved dearly. Before, when he’d done it as Lews Therin, he had been mad and unable to control himself. He could barely remember slaying Ilyena, as if through a clouded dream. He’d realized what he had done only after Ishamael had awakened him.

Finally, now, he knew precisely what it was like to watch as he killed those he loved.

“It is done,” Rand whispered.

“What?” Min asked, coughing again.

“The last that could be done to me,” he said, surprised at his own calmness. “They have taken everything from me now.”

“What are you saying, Rand?” Min asked. She rubbed her neck again. Bruises were beginning to show.

He shook his head as—finally—voices sounded in the hallway outside. Perhaps the Asha’man had sensed him channeling when he’d tortured Min.

“I have made my choice, Min,” he said, turning toward the door. “You have asked for flexibility and laughter from me, but such things are no longer mine to give. I am sorry.”

Once, weeks ago, he had decided that he must become stronger—where he had been iron, he had decided to become steel. It appeared that steel was too weak.

He would be harder, now. He understood how. Where he had once been steel, he became something else. From now on, he was cuendillar. He had entered a place like the void that Tarn had trained him to seek, so long ago. But within this void he had no emotion. None at all.

They could not break or bend him.

It was done.