The Gathering Storm twot-12 Page 40

  Three problems. He would face them and he would decide. But he would consider them first, because that was what he did. A man was a fool to make decisions without thinking first.

  But the decision to face his problems brought him a measure of peace, and he rolled over and drifted back to sleep.

  CHAPTER 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. / 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 Sal-daeans 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. Ran
d 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?

  / 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, sta
tuesque 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.