The Gathering Storm

Rand reined in Tai'daishar, unprepared for the memories those scents would carry with them. Memories of a time when he'd still been uncertain about his role in the world. Memories of a time when Mat had constantly ribbed him for wearing fine coats, despite the fact that Rand tried to avoid them. Memories of a time when he had been ashamed of the banners that now flapped behind him. He had once insisted on keeping them hidden, as if in doing so he could hide from his own fate.

The procession waited for him, buckles creaking, horses snorting. Rand had visited Falme once, briefly. Back in those days, he hadn't been able to stay anywhere for long. He'd spent those months either chasing or being chased. Fain had led him to Falme, bearing the Horn of Valere and the ruby dagger to which Mat had been bound. The colors flashed again, as he thought of Mat, but Rand ignored them. For these few moments, he wasn't in the present.

Falme marked a turning point in Rand's life as profound as the one that had later occurred in the barren lands of the Aiel, when he had proven himself to be the Car'a'cam. After Falme, there had been no more hiding, no more fighting what he was. This was the place where he'd first acknowledged himself as a killer, the place where he'd first realized what a danger he was to those around him. He'd tried to leave them all behind. They'd come after him.

At Falme, the shepherd boy had burned, his ashes scattered and blown away by those ocean winds. From those ashes, the Dragon Reborn had risen.

Rand kneed Tai'daishar forward, and the procession began again. He had ordered the gateway opened a short ride from the city, hopefully out of eyesight of damane. Of course he had Asha'man creating it—thereby hiding the weaves from women—but he didn't want to give them any clues about Traveling. The Seanchan inability to Travel was one of his greatest advantages.

Falme itself stood on a small spit of land—Toman Head—jutting out into the Aryth Ocean. High cliffs along both sides broke the waves, creating a soft, distant roar. The city's dark stone buildings covered the peninsula like rocks on the bed of a river. Most were squat, one-story buildings—built wide, as if the inhabitants expected the waves to wash up over the cliffs and crash against their homes. The grasslands here didn't show as much withering as the land did to the north, but the new spring grass was starting to look yellow and wan, as if the blades regretted poking their heads out of the soil.

The peninsula sloped down to a natural harbor, and numerous Seanchan ships lay at anchor there. Seanchan flags flew, proclaiming this city a part of their empire; the banner that fluttered highest above the city displayed a golden hawk in flight, clutching three bolts of lightning. It was fringed with blue.

The strange creatures the Seanchan had brought from their side of the ocean moved through distant streets, too far off for Rand to make out details. Raken flew in the sky; the Seanchan apparently had a large stable of them here. Toman Head was just south of Arad Doman, and this city was no doubt a major staging area for the Seanchan campaign to the north.

That conquest would end today. Rand had to make peace, had to convince the Daughter of the Nine Moons to call off her armies. That peace would be the calm before a storm. He wouldn't be protecting his people from war; just preserving them so that they could die for him elsewhere. But he would do what had to be done.

Nynaeve rode up beside him as they continued toward Falme. Her neat dress of blue and white was cut after the Domani fashion, but made of a much thicker—and far more modest—material. She seemed to be adopting fashions from around the world, wearing dresses from the cities she visited, but imposing her own sense of what was proper upon them. Once, perhaps, Rand would have found this amusing. That emotion no longer seemed possible for him. He could only feel the cold stillness inside, the stillness that capped a fountain of frozen rage.

He would keep the rage and stillness balanced long enough. He had to.

"And so we return," Nynaeve said. Her multicolor ter'angreal jewelry somewhat spoiled the look of her neatly tailored dress.

"Yes," Rand said.

"I remember the last time we were here," she said idly. "Such chaos, such madness. And at the end of it all, we found you with that wound in your side."

"Yes," Rand whispered. He had earned that first of his unhealable wounds here, fighting Ishamael in the skies above the city. The wound grew warm as he thought of it. Warm, and painful. He had started regarding that pain as an old friend, a reminder that he was alive.

"I saw you up in the air," Nynaeve said. "I didn't believe it. I ... tried to Heal that wound, but I was still blocked then, and couldn't summon the anger. Min wouldn't leave your side."

Min hadn't come with him this day. She remained close to him, but something had changed between them. Just as he had always feared that it would. When she looked at him, he knew she saw him killing her.

;All right," he said again. He looked back at Aludra. "Though—for completely different reasons—I'd like to take these plans with me and keep them safe."

"Completely different reasons?" Leilwin asked in a flat tone, as if searching for another insult.

"Yes," Mat said. "Those reasons being that I don't want them here when Aludra taps one of those nightflowers the wrong way and blows herself halfway to Tarwin's Gap!"

Aludra chuckled at that, though Leilwin looked offended again. It was hard not to offend a Seanchan. Them and the bloody Aiel. Strange how opposite they could be in many ways, yet the same in so many others.

"You may take the plans, Mat," Aludra said. "So long as you keep them in that trunk with your gold. That is one object in this camp that will receive the greatest attention from you."

"Thank you kindly," he said, stooping to gather up the pages, ignoring the veiled insult. Hadn't they just made up? Bloody woman. "By the way, I nearly forgot. Do you know anything about crossbows, Aludra?"

"Crossbows?" she asked.

"Yes," Mat said, stacking the papers. "I figure there should be a way to make them load faster. You know, like those new cranks, only maybe with some kind of spring or something. Maybe a crank you could twist without having to lower the weapon first."

"This is hardly my area of expertise, Mat," Aludra said.

"I know. But you're smart about things like this, and maybe. . . ."

"You will have to find someone else," Aludra said, turning to pick up another half-finished nightflower. "I am far too busy."

Mat reached up under his hat, scratching his head. "That—"

"Mat!" a voice called. "Mat, you've got to come with me!" Mat turned as Olver ran into Aludra's camp. Bayle held out a warning hand, but of course Olver just ran right beneath it.