The Gathering Storm

Spittle dripped from the boy's lips. They seemed to quiver. Rand stood up, looming, still holding the youth's eyes with his own. Kerb shivered, then whispered two words.

"Natrin's Barrow."

Rand exhaled softly, then released Kerb with an almost reverent motion. The youth slipped from the bench to the floor, spittle drooling from his lips onto the rug. Nynaeve cursed, leaping from her seat, then wobbling slightly as the room spun. Light, she was exhausted! She steadied herself, closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths. Then she knelt at the boy's side.

"You needn't bother," Rand said. "He is dead."

Nynaeve confirmed the death for herself. Then she snapped her head up, looking at Rand. What right did he have to look as exhausted as she felt? He had done barely anything! "What did you—"

"I did nothing, Nynaeve. I suspect that once you removed that Compulsion, the only thing keeping him alive was his anger at Graendal, buried deeply. Whatever bit of himself remained, it knew the only help it could give were those two words. After that, he just let go. There was nothing more we could do for him."

"I don't accept that," Nynaeve said, frustrated. "He could have been

Healed!" She should have been able to help him! Undoing Graendal's Compulsion had felt so good, so right. It shouldn't have ended this way!

She shuddered, feeling dirtied. Used. How was she better than the jailer who had done such horrible things for information? She glared at Rand. He could have told her what removing Compulsion would do!

"Don't look at me like that, Nynaeve." He walked to the door and gestured for the Maidens there to collect Kerb's body. They did so, carrying it away as Rand called softly for a new pot of tea.

He returned, sitting down on the bench beside the sleeping Min; she'd tucked one of the bench's pillows under her head. One of the two lamps in the room was burning low, and that left his face half in shadow. "This was the only way it could have happened," he continued. "The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills. You are Aes Sedai. Is that not one of your creeds?"

"I don't know what it is," Nynaeve snapped, "but it's not an excuse for your actions."

"What actions?" he asked. "You brought this man to me. Graendal used Compulsion on him. Now I will kill her for it—that action will be my sole responsibility. Now, let me be. I shall try to go back to sleep."

"Don't you feel any guilt at all?" she demanded.

They locked eyes, Nynaeve frustrated and helpless, Rand. . . . Who could guess what Rand felt these days!

"Should I suffer for them all, Nynaeve?" he asked quietly, rising, face still half in the darkness. "Lay this death at my feet, if you wish. It will just be one of many. How many stones can you pile on a man's body before the weight stops mattering? How far can you burn a lump of flesh until further heat is irrelevant? If I let myself feel guilt for this boy, then I would need to feel guilt for the others. And it would crush me."

She regarded him in the half light. A king, certainly. A soldier, though he had only occasionally seen war. She forced down her anger. Hadn't this all been about proving to him that he could trust her?

"Oh, Rand," she said, turning away. "This thing you have become, the heart without any emotion but anger. It will destroy you."

"Yes," he said softly.

She looked back at him, shocked.

"I continue to wonder," he said, glancing down at Min, "why you all assume that I am too dense to see what you find so obvious. Yes, Nynaeve. Yes, this hardness will destroy me. I know."

"Then why?" she asked. "Why won't you let us help you?"

He looked up—not at her, but staring off at nothing. A servant knocked quietly, wearing the white and forest green of Milisair's house. She entered and deposited the new pot of tea, picked up the old one, then withdrew.

"When I was much younger," he said, voice soft, "Tam told me of a story he'd heard while traveling the world. He spoke of Dragonmount. I didn't know at the time that he'd actually seen it, nor that he had found me there. I was just a shepherd boy, and Dragonmount, Tar Valon and Caemlyn were almost mythical places to me.

"He told me of it, though, a mountain so high it made even Twin-horn's Peak back home seem a dwarf. Tarn's stories claimed no man had ever climbed to Dragonmount's peak. Not because it was impossible— but because reaching the top would take every last ounce of strength a man had. So tall was the mountain that besting it would be a struggle that drained a man completely."

He fell silent.

"So?" Nynaeve finally asked.

He looked at her. "Don't you see? The stories claimed no man had climbed the mountain because in doing so, he would be without strength to return. A mountaineer could best it, reach the top, see what no man had ever seen. But then he would die. The strongest and wisest explorers knew this. So they never climbed it. They always wanted to, but they waited, reserving that trip for another day. For they knew it would be their last."

"But that's just a story," Nynaeve said. "A legend."

"That's what I am," Rand said. "A story. A legend. To be told to children years from now, spoken of in whispers." He shook his head. "Sometimes, you can't turn back. You have to keep pressing on. And sometimes, you know this climb is your last.