Rand quivered. The light from the columns was a shimmering blue haze that seemed solid, that seemed to claw the nerves out of his skin. The wind howled, one vast whirlwind sucking inward. Muradin had managed to veil himself; bloody sockets stared blindly above the black veil. The Aiel was chewing, and bloody froth dripped onto his chest. Forward.
Charn made his way down the side of the wide, crowded street beneath the spreading chora trees, their trefoil leaves spreading peace and contentment in the shadows of silvery buildings that touched the sky. A city without choras would seem bleak as wilderness. Jo-cars hummed quietly down the street, and a great white sho-wing darted across the sky, carrying citizens to Comelle or Tzora or somewhere. He seldom used the sho-wings, himself—if he needed to go very far, an Aes Sedai usually Traveled with him—but tonight he would, to M’jinn. Today was his twenty-fifth naming day, and tonight he intended to accept Nalla’s latest offer of marriage. He wondered if she would be surprised; he had been putting her off for a year, not wanting to settle down. It would mean changing his service to Zorelle Sedai, whom Nalla served, but Mierin Sedai had already given her blessing.
He rounded a corner and just had time to see a dark, wide-shouldered man with a fashionably narrow beard before the man’s shoulder sent him crashing to his back, head bouncing on the walkway so he saw spots. Dazed, he lay there.
“Watch where you are going,” the bearded man said irritably, adjusting his sleeveless red coat and flicking the lace at his wrists. His black hair, hanging to his shoulders, was gathered in back. That was the latest fashion, too, as near as anyone who had not sworn to the Covenant would come to imitating Aiel.
The pale-haired woman with him laid a hand on his arm, her dress of shimmery white streith becoming more opaque with her
sudden embarrassment. “Jom, look at his hair. He is Aiel, Jom.”
Feeling his head to see if it was cracked, Charn’s fingers brushed through short-cut, reddish-gold hair. He gave the longer tail at his nape a tug in lieu of shaking his head. A bruise, he thought, but no more.
“So he is.” The man’s annoyance vanished in consternation. “Forgive me, Da’shain. I am the one who should be watching where he walks. Let me help you up.” He was already suiting his words, hoisting Charn to his feet. “Are you all right? Let me call a jumper to take you where you are going.”
“I am not hurt, citizen,” Charn said mildly. “Truly, it was my fault.” It had been, hurrying like that. He could have injured the man. “Did I harm you? Please, forgive me.”
The man opened his mouth to protest—citizens always did; they seemed to think Aiel were made of spinglass—but before he could speak, the ground rippled under their feet. The air rippled, too, in spreading waves. The man looked about uncertainly, pulling his stylish fancloth cloak around himself and his lady so their heads seemed to float disembodied. “What is it, Da’shain?”
Others who had seen Charn’s hair were gathering around him anxiously asking the same questions, but he ignored them, not even thinking of whether he was being rude. He actually began to push through the crowd, his eyes fixed on the Sharom; the white sphere, a thousand feet in diameter, floated as high above the blue and silver domes of the Collam Daan.
Mierin had said today was the day. She said she had found a new source for the One Power. Female Aes Sedai and male would be able to tap the same source, not separate halves. What men and women could do united would be even greater now that there would be no differences. And today she and Beidomon would tap it for the first time—the last time men and women would work together wielding a different Power. Today.
What seemed a tiny chip of white spun away from the Sharom in a jet of black fire; it descended, deceptively slow, insignificant. Then a hundred gouts spurted everywhere around the huge white sphere. The Sharom broke apart like an egg and began to drift down, falling, an obsidian inferno. Darkness spread across the sky, swallowing the sun in unnatural night, as if the light of those flames was blackness. People were screaming, screaming everywhere.
With the first spurt of fire, Charn broke into a run toward the Collam Daan, but he knew he was too late. He was sworn to serve Aes Sedai, and he was too late. Tears rolled down his face as he ran.
Blinking to dispel the spots fluttering across his vision, Rand squeezed his head with both hands. The image still drifted through his head, that huge sphere, burning black, falling. Did I really see the hole being drilled into the Dark One’s prison? Did I? He stood at the edge of the glass columns, staring out at Avendesora. A chora tree. A city is a wilderness without choras. And now there’s only one. The columns sparkled in the blue glow from the dome of fog above, but once again the light seemed only brilliant reflections. There was no sign of Muradin; he did not think the Aiel had come out of the glass forest. Or ever would.
Suddenly something caught his eye, low in the branches of the Tree of Life. A shape swinging slowly. A man, hanging from a pole laid across two branches by a rope around his neck.
With a wordless roar, he ran for the tree, grabbing at saidin, the fiery sword coming into his hands as he leaped, slashing at the rope. He and Mat hit the dusty white paving stones with twin thuds. The pole jarred free and clattered down beside them; not a pole, but an odd black-hafted spear with a short sword blade in place of a spearpoint, slightly curved and single-edged. Rand would not have cared if it was made of gold and cuendillar set with sapphires and firedrops.
Letting sword and Power go, he ripped the rope away from Mat’s neck and pressed an ear to his friend’s chest. Nothing. Desperately, he tore open Mat’s coat and shirt, breaking the leather cord that held a silver medallion on Mat’s chest. He tossed the medallion aside, listened again. Nothing. No heartbeat. Dead. No! He’d be all right if I hadn’t let him follow me here. I can’t let him be dead!
As hard as he could he pounded his fist against Mat’s chest, listened. Nothing. Again he hammered, listened. Yes. There. A faint heartbeat. It was. So faint, so slow. And slowing. But Mat was still alive despite the heavy purple welt around his neck. He might yet be kept alive.
Filling his lungs, Rand scrambled around to breathe into Mat’s mouth as strongly as he could. Again. Again. Then he leaped astride Mat, seized the waist of his breeches and heaved upward, lifting his hips off the pavement. Up and down, three times, and then back to breathing into his mouth. He could have channeled; he might have been able to do something that way. The memory of that girl in the Stone stopped him. He wanted Mat to live. Live, not be a puppet moved by the Power. Once back in Emond’s Field he had seen Master Luhhan revive a boy who had been found floating in the Winespring Water. So he breathed and heaved, breathed and heaved and prayed.
Abruptly Mat jerked, coughed. Rand knelt beside him as he put both hands to his throat and rolled onto his side, sucking air in an agonized rattle.
Mat touched the piece of rope with one hand and shivered. “Those flaming—sons—of goats,” he muttered hoarsely. “They tried—to kill me.”
“Who did?” Rand asked, looking around warily. Half-finished palaces around the great littered square stared back at him. Surely Rhuidean was empty except for the two of them. Unless Muradin was still alive, somewhere.
“The folk—on the other side—of that—twisted doorway.” Swallowing painfully, Mat sat up and took a deep unsteady breath. “There’s one here, too, Rand.” He still sounded as if his throat had been rasped.
“You could go through it? Did they answer questions?” That could be useful. He desperately needed more answers. A thousand questions, and too few answers.
“No answers,” Mat said huskily. “They cheat. And they tried to kill me.” He picked up the medallion, a silver foxhead that almost filled his palm, and after a moment stuffed it into his pocket with a grimace. “I got something out of them, at least.” Pulling the strange spear to him, he ran his fingers along the black shaft. A line of some strange cursive script ran its length, bracketed by a pair of birds inlaid in metal even darker than the wood. Ravens, Rand thought they were. Another pair were engraved on the blade. With a rough wry laugh, Mat levered himself to his feet, half-leaning on the spear, the sword blade beginning just level with his head. He did not bother to lace up his shirt or button his coat. “I’ll keep this, too. Their joke, but I will keep it.”
“A joke?”
Mat nodded. “What it says.
‘Thus is our treaty written; thus is agreement made.
Thought is the arrow of time; memory never fades.