The Power was in him. Callandor blazed, and he was the Power. He channeled, directing flows into the child’s body, searching, trying, fumbling; she lurched to her feet, arms and legs unnaturally rigid and jerky.
“Rand, you cannot do this,” Moiraine cried. “Not this!”
Breathe. She had to breathe. The girl’s chest rose and fell. Heart. Had to beat. Blood already thick and dark oozed from the wound in her chest. Live, burn you! his mind howled. I didn’t mean to be too late! Her eyes stared at him, filmed, heedless of all the Power in him. Lifeless. Tears trickled unheeded down his cheeks.
He forced the memory away roughly; even encased in the Void, it hurt. With this much Power . . . With this much Power, he could not be trusted. “You are not the Creator,” Moiraine had told him as he stood over that child. But with that male figure, with only half of its power, he had made the mountains move, once. With far less, with only Callandor, he had been sure he could turn back the Wheel, make a dead child live. Not only the One Power was seductive; the power of it was, too. He should destroy them both. Instead he rewove the flows, reset the traps.
“What are you doing there?” a woman’s voice said as the wall became apparently whole again.
Tying off the flows hastily—and the knot with its own deadly surprises—he pulled the Power into him and turned.
Beside Lanfear, in her white and silver, Elayne or Min or Aviendha would look almost ordinary. Her dark eyes alone were enough to make a man give up his soul. At the sight of her, his stomach clenched until he wanted to vomit.
“What do you want?” he demanded. Once he had blocked Egwene and Elayne both from the True Source, but he could not remember how. So long as Lanfear could touch the Source, he had more chance of catching the wind in his hands than of holding her prisoner. One flash of balefire, and . . . He could not do it. She was one of the Forsaken, but the memory of a woman’s head rolling on the ground stopped him dead.
“You have two of them,” she said finally. “I thought I glimpsed . . . One is a woman, isn’t it?” Her smile could have halted a man’s heart and made him grateful. “You are beginning to consider my plan, aren’t you? With those, together, the other Chosen will kneel at our feet. We can supplant the Great Lord himself, challenge the Creator. We—”
“You were always ambitious, Mierin.” His voice grated in his ears. “Why do you think I turned away from you? It wasn’t Ilyena, whatever you like to think. You were out of my heart long before ever I met her. Ambition is all there is to you. Power is all you ever wanted. You disgust me!”
She stared at him, both hands pressed hard against her stomach, her dark eyes even larger than usual. “Graendal said . . .” she began faintly. Swallowing, she began again. “Lews Therin? I love you, Lews Therin. I have always loved you, and I always will. You know that. You must!”
Rand’s face was like rock; he hoped it hid his shock. He had no idea where his words had come from, but it seemed he could remember her. A dim memory, from before. I am not Lews Therin Telamon! “I am Rand al’Thor!” he said harshly.
“Of course you are.” Studying him, she nodded slowly to herself. That cool composure returned. “Of course. Asmodean has been telling you things, about the War of Power, and me. He lies. You did love me. Until that yellow-haired trollop Ilyena stole you.” For an instant, rage made her face a contorted mask; he did not think she was even aware of it. “Did you know that Asmodean severed his own mother? What they call stilling, now. Severed her, and let Myrddraal drag her away screaming. Can you trust a man like that?”
Rand laughed aloud. “After I caught him, you helped trap him so he had to teach me. And now you say I cannot trust him?”
“For teaching.” She sniffed dismissively. “He will do that because he knows his lot is cast with you for good. Even if he managed to convince the others that he has been a prisoner, they would still tear him apart, and he knows it. The weakest dog in the pack often suffers that fate. Besides, I watch his dreams on occasion. He dreams of you triumphing over the Great Lord and putting him up beside you on high. Sometimes he dreams of me.” Her smile said those dreams were pleasant for her, b
ut not so for Asmodean. “But he will try to turn you against me.”
“Why are you here?” he demanded. Turn against her? No doubt she was full of the Power right that moment, ready to shield him if she even suspected he meant to try anything. She had done it before, with humiliating ease.
“I like you like this. Arrogant and proud, full of your own strength.”
Once she had said that she liked him unsure, that Lews Therin had been too arrogant. “Why are you here?”
“Rahvin sent the Darkhounds after you tonight,” she said calmly, folding her hands at her waist. “I would have come sooner, to help you, but I cannot let the others know I am on your side yet.”
On his side. One of the Forsaken loved him, or rather the man he had been three thousand years ago, and all she wanted was for him to give his soul to the Shadow and rule the world with her. Or a step below her, at least. That, and try to replace both the Dark One and the Creator. Was she completely mad? Or could the power of those two huge sa’angreal really be as great as she claimed? That was a direction he did not want his thoughts to take.
“Why would Rahvin choose now to attack me? Asmodean says he looks to his own interests, that he’ll sit to one side even in the Last Battle, if he can, and wait for the Dark One to destroy me. Why not Sammael, or Demandred? Asmodean says they hate me.” Not me. They hate Lews Therin. But to the Forsaken, that was the same thing. Please, Light, I am Rand al’Thor. He pushed away a sudden memory of this woman in his arms, both of them young and just learning what they could do with the Power. I am Rand al’Thor! “Why not Semirhage, or Moghedien, or Graen—?”
“But you are impinging on his interests now.” She laughed. “Don’t you know where he is? In Andor, in Caemlyn itself. He rules there in all but name. Morgase simpers and dances for him, her and half a dozen others.” Her lip curled in disgust. “He has men scouring town and countryside to find new pretties for him.”
For a moment shock held him. Elayne’s mother in the hands of one of the Forsaken. Yet he dared not show concern. Lanfear had displayed her jealousy more than once; she was capable of hunting Elayne down and killing her, if she even thought he had feelings for her. What do I feel for her? Aside from that, one hard fact floated beyond the Void, cold and cruel in its truth. He would not run off to attack Rahvin even if what Lanfear said was true. Forgive me, Elayne, but I can’t. She might well be lying—she would weep no tears for any of the other Forsaken he killed; they all stood in the way of her own plans—but in any event, he was done with reacting to what others did. If he reacted, they could reason out what he would do. Let them react to him, and be as surprised as Lanfear and Asmodean had been.
“Does Rahvin think I’ll rush to defend Morgase?” he said. “I have seen her once in my life. The Two Rivers is part of Andor on a map, but I never saw a Queen’s Guardsman there. No one has in generations. Tell a Two Rivers man Morgase is his queen, and he’ll probably think you’re crazy.”
“I doubt Rahvin expects you to run to defend your homeland,” Lanfear said wryly, “but he will expect you to defend your ambitions. He means to sit Morgase on the Sun Throne, too, and use her like a puppet until the time he can come into the open. More Andoran soldiers move into Cairhien every day. And you sent Tairen soldiers north, to secure your own hold on the land. No wonder that he attacked you as soon as he found you.”
Rand shook his head. It had not been that way at all, sending the Tairens, but he did not expect her to understand. Or believe him if he told her, for that matter. “I thank you for the warning.” Politeness to one of the Forsaken! Of course, there was nothing he could do except hope that some of what she told him was truth. A good reason not to kill her. She’ll tell you more than she thinks, if you listen carefully. He hoped that was his own thought, chill and cynical as it was.
“You ward your dreams against me.”
“Against everyone.” That was simple truth, though she was at least as prominent in the list as the Wise Ones.
“Dreams are mine. You and your dreams are mine especially.” Her face remained smooth, but her voice hardened. “I can break through your warding. You would not like it.”