The Path of Daggers (The Wheel of Time 8)

“ . . . telling you I felt nothing,” Gedwyn was saying. “He’s dead!”

And Dashiva saw Rand, at the head of the stairs.

The only warning he had was the sudden snarl that contorted Dashiva’s face. Dashiva channeled, and with no time to think, Rand wove — as so often, he did not know what; something dredged from Lews Therin’s memories; he was not even sure he created the weave entirely himself, or whether Lews Therin snatched at saidin — Air and Fire and Earth woven around himself just so. The fire that leaped from Dashiva erupted, shattering marble, flinging Rand back down the hallway, bounding and rolling in his cocoon.

That barrier would keep out anything short of balefire. Including air to breathe. Rand released it panting, scraping along the floor, with the crash of the explosions still ringing in the air, dust still hanging and bits of broken marble tumbling. As much as for breath, though, he let it go because what could keep the Power out, kept it in. Before he stopped sliding, he channeled Fire and Air, but woven much differently than for Folded Light. Thin red wires leaped from his left hand, fanning out as they sliced through the intervening stone toward where Dashiva and the others had been standing. From his left sped balls of flame, Fire woven with Air, faster than he could count, and they burned through the stone before exploding in that chamber. One continuous deafening roar made the Palace tremble. Dust that had fallen rose up again, and pieces of stone bounced.

Almost immediately, though, he was up and running, back past Ailil’s apartments. The man who struck and stayed in one spot was asking to die. He was ready to die, but not yet. Snarling soundlessly, he sped down another hall, descended narrow servants’ stairs, and came out on the floor below.

He took care making his way back to where he had seen Dashiva, deadly weaves ready to fling at so much as a glimpse.

I should have killed them all in the beginning, Lews Therin panted. I should have killed them all!

Rand let him rage.

The large chamber seemed to have been washed in fire. Only charred fragments licked by flames remained of the tapestries, and great gouges a pace across had been burned into floor and walls. The stairs Rand had been about to descend ended in a ten-foot gap halfway down. Of the three men, there was no sign. They would not have been consumed completely. Something would have remained.

A servant in a black coat cautiously poked his head from a tiny door beside the stairs on the other side of the chamber. His eyes fell on Rand, rolled up in his head, and he fell forward in a heap. Another servant peeped out of a corridor, then gathered her skirts and raced back the way she had come, shrieking at the top of her lungs that the Dragon Reborn was killing everyone in the Palace.

Rand slipped out of the chamber grimacing. He was very good at frightening people who could not harm him. Very good at destroying.

To destroy, or be destroyed, Lews Therin laughed. When that’s your choice, is there a difference?

Somewhere in the Palace, a man channeled enough of the Power to make a gateway. Dashiva and the others fleeing? Or wanting him to think that?

He walked the corridors of the Palace, no longer bothering to hide. Everyone else seemed to be. The few servants he saw, fled screaming. Corridor after corridor, he hunted, filled near to bursting with saidin, full of fire and ice trying to annihilate him as surely as Dashiva had, full of the taint worming its way into his soul. He had no need of Lews Therin’s ragged laughter and ravings to be filled with a desire to kill.

A glimpse of a black coat ahead, and his hand shot up, fire streaking, exploding, tearing away the corner where the two hallways met. Rand let the weave subside, but did not let it go. Had he killed him?

“My Lord Dragon,” a voice shouted from beyond the torn stonework, “it’s me, Narishma! And Flinn!”

“I didn’t recognize you,” Rand lied. “Come here.”

“I think maybe your blood’s hot,” Flinn’s voice called, “I think may we should wait for everybody to cool down.”

“Yes,” Rand said slowly. Had he really tried to kill Narishma? He did not think he could claim the excuse of Lews Therin. “Yes, that might be best. For a little while longer.” There was no answer. Did he hear boots retreating? He forced his hands down and turned another way.

He searched through the Palace for hours without finding a sign of Dashiva or the others. The corridors and great halls, even the kitchens, were empty of people. He found nothing, and learned nothing. No. He realized that he had learned one thing. Trust was a knife, and the hilt was as sharp as the blade.

Then he found pain.

The small stone-walled room was deep below the Sun Palace and warm despite the lack of a fireplace, but Min felt cold. Three gilded lamps on the tiny wooden table gave more than enough light. Rand had said that from there, he could get her away even if someone tried to root the Palace out of the ground. He had not sounded as if he were joking.

Holding the crown of Illian on her lap, she watched Rand. Watched Rand watching Fedwin. Her hands tightened on the crown, and loosened immediately at the stabs of those small swords hidden among the laurel leaves. Strange, that the crown and scepter should have survived when the Dragon Throne itself was a pile of gilded splinters buried in rubble. A large leather scrip beside her chair, with Rand’s sword belt and scabbarded sword resting against it, held what else he had been able to salvage. Strange choices for the most part, in her estimation.

You brainless loobie, she thought. Not thinking about what’s right in front of you won’t make it go away.

Rand sat cross-legged on the bare stone floor, still covered in dust and scratches, his coat torn. His face might have been carved. He seemed to watch Fedwin without blinking. The boy was sitting on the floor, too, his legs sprawled out. Tongue caught between his teeth, Fedwin was concentrating on making a tower out of blocks of wood. Min swallowed hard.

She could still remember the horror when she realized the boy “guarding” her now had the mind of a small child. The sadness remained, too — Light, he was only a boy! it was not right! — but she hoped Rand still had him shielded. It had not been easy, talking Fedwin into playing with those wooden blocks instead of pulling stones out of the walls with the Power to make a “big tower to keep you safe in.” And then she had sat guarding him until Rand came. Oh, Light, she wanted to cry. For Rand even more than Fedwin.

“You hide yourself in the depths, it appears.”

The deep voice was not finished speaking from the doorway before Rand was on his feet, facing Mazrim Taim. As usual, the hook-nosed man wore a black coat with blue-and-gold Dragons spiraling up the arms. Unlike the other Asha’man, he had neither Sword nor Dragon on his high collar. His dark face wore nearly as little expression as Rand’s. Now, staring at Taim, Rand seemed to be gritting his teeth. Min surreptitiously eased a knife in her coatsleeve. As many images and auras danced around one as the other, but it was not a viewing that made her suddenly wary. She had seen a man trying to decide whether to kill another before, and she was seeing it again.

“You come here holding saidin, Taim?” Rand said, much too softly. Taim spread his hands, and Rand said, “That’s better.” But he did not relax.