A pitiful object. Suddenly, Rand felt as if he were holding not one of the primal forces of existence, but a squirming thing from the mud of the sheep pens.
YOU REALLY ARE NOTHING, Rand said, knowing the Dark Ones secrets completely. YOU WOULD NEVER HAVE GIVEN ME REST AS YOU PROMISED, FATHER OF LIES. YOU WOULD HAVE ENSLAVED ME AS YOU WOULD HAVE ENSLAVED THE OTHERS. YOU CANNOT GIVE OBLIVION. REST IS NOT YOURS. ONLY TORMENT.
The Dark One trembled in his grip.
YOU HORRIBLE, PITIFUL MITE, Rand said.
Rand was dying. His lifeblood flowed from him, and beyond that, the amount of the Powers he held would soon burn him away.
He held the Dark One in his hand. He began to squeeze, then stopped.
He knew all secrets. He could see what the Dark One had done. And Light, Rand understood. Much of what the Dark One had shown him was lies.
But the vision Rand himself had created—the one without the Dark One—was truth. If he did as he wished, he would leave men no better than the Dark One himself.
What a fool I have been.
Rand yelled, thrusting the Dark One back through the pit from where it had come. Rand pushed his arms to the side, grabbing twin pillars of saidar and saidin with his mind, coated with the True Power drawn through Moridin, who knelt on the floor, eyes open, so much power coursing through him he couldn’t even move.
Rand hurled the Powers forward with his mind and braided them together. Saidin and saidar at once, the True Power surrounding them and forming a shield on the Bore.
He wove something majestic, a pattern of interlaced saidar and saidin in their pure forms. Not Fire, not Spirit, not Water, not Earth, not Air. Purity. Light itself. This didn’t repair, it didn’t patch, it forged anew.
With this new form of the Power, Rand pulled together the rent that had been made here long ago by foolish men.
He understood, finally, that the Dark One was not the enemy.
It never had been.
Moiraine grabbed Nynaeve beside her, moving only by touch, for that light was blinding.
She pulled Nynaeve to her feet. Together, they ran. Away from the burning light behind. Up the corridor, scrambling. Moiraine burst into open air without realizing it, and almost ran off the edge of the path, which would have sent her stumbling down the steep slope. Someone caught her.
“I have you,” Thom’s voice said as she collapsed into his arms, completely drained. Nynaeve fell to the ground nearby, gasping.
Thom turned Moiraine away from the corridor, but she refused to look away. She opened her eyes, though she knew that the light was too intense, and she saw something. Rand and Moridin, standing in the light as it expanded outward to consume the entire mountain in its glow.
The blackness in front of Rand hung like a hole, sucking in everything. Slowly, bit by bit, that hole shrank away until it was just a pinprick.
It vanished.
EPILOGUE
To See the Answer
Rand slipped on his blood.
He couldn’t see. He carried something. Something heavy. A body. He stumbled up the tunnel.
Closing, he thought. It’s closing The ceiling lowered like a shutting jaw, stone grinding against stone. With a gasp, Rand reached open air as the rocks slammed down behind him, locking together like clenched teeth.
Rand tripped. The body in his arms was so heavy. He slipped to the ground.
He could . . . see, just faintly. A figure kneeling down beside him. “Yes,” a woman whispered. He did not recognize the voice. “Yes, that’s good. That is what you need to do.”
He blinked, his vision fuzzy. Was that Aiel clothing? An old woman, with gray hair? Her form retreated, and Rand reached toward her, not wanting to be alone. Wanting to explain himself. “I see the answer now,” he whispered. “I asked the Aelfinn the wrong question. To choose is our fate. If you have no choice, then you aren’t a man at all. You’re a puppet . . .” Shouting.
Rand felt heavy. He plunged into unconsciousness.
Mat stood up as the mist of Mashadar burned away from him and vanished. The field was littered with the bodies of those eerie pockmarked Trollocs.
He looked upward through the vanishing wisps and found the sun directly overhead.
“Well, you’re a sight,” he said to it. “You should come out more often. You have a pretty face.” He smiled, then looked down at the dead man by his feet. Padan Fain looked like a bundle of sticks and moss, the flesh slipping from his bones. The blackness of the dagger had spread across his rotting skin. It stank.
Almost, Mat reached for that dagger. Then he spat. “For once,” he said, “a gamble I don’t want to touch.” He turned his back on it and walked off.
Three steps away, he found his hat. He grinned, snatched it up and set it on his head, then began whistling as he rested the ashandarei on his shoulder and strolled away. The dice had stopped rolling in Mat’s head.
Behind, the dagger, ruby and all, melted away into the mess that had been Padan Fain.
Perrin walked wearily into the camp they had set up at the base of Shayol Ghul after the fighting had ceased. He dropped his coat. The air felt good on his bare chest. He tucked Mah’alleinir away in its place at his belt. A good smith never neglected his tools, for all that sometimes, carrying them felt as if they would bear him down to the grave itself.
He thought that he could sleep a hundred days straight. But not yet. Not yet.
Faile.
No. Deep down, he knew he had to face something horrible about her. But not yet. For the moment, he shoved that worry—that terror—away.
The last spirits of the wolves faded back into the wolf dream.
Farewell, Young Bull.
Find what you seek, Young Bull.
The hunt ends, but we will hunt again, Young Bull.
Perrin plodded among rows of wounded men and Aiel celebrating the defeat of the Shadowspawn. Some tents were filled with moans, others with yells of victory. People of all stripes ran through the now-blooming valley of Thakan’dar, some hunting for the wounded, others crying in joy and whooping as they met with friends who had survived the last, dark moments.
Aiel called to Perrin, “Ho, blacksmith, join us!” But he did not enter their celebrations. He looked for the guards. Someone around here had to be levelheaded enough to worry about a rogue Myrddraal or Draghkar taking the opportunity to try for a little revenge. Sure enough, he found a ring of defenders at the center of camp guarding a large tent. What of Rand?
No colors swirled in his vision. No image of Rand. Perrin felt no more tugging, pulling him in any direction.
Those seemed like very bad signs.
He pushed through the guards, numb, and entered the tent. Where had they found a tent this large on this battlefield? Everything had been trampled, blown away or burned.
The inside smelled of herbs, and was partitioned with several hanging cloths.
“I’ve tried everything,” a voice whispered. Damer Flinn’s voice. “Nothing changes what is happening. He—”
Perrin pushed in on Nynaeve and Flinn standing beside a pallet behind one of the partitions. Rand, cleaned and dressed, lay there, eyes closed. Moiraine knelt beside him, her hand on his face, whispering so softly none but he could hear. “You did well, Rand. You did well.”
“He lives?” Perrin asked, wiping the sweat from his face with his hand.