A Memory of Light (The Wheel of Time 14)

“I’m fond of you, Perrin.”

“You’re one of the Forsaken!”

“I was,” Lanfear said. “That… privilege has been removed from me. The Dark One discovered I was planning to help Lews Therin win. Now, I—” She froze, looking toward the sky again. What did she see in those clouds? Something that made her grow pale. She vanished a moment later.

Perrin tried to decide what to do. He couldn’t trust her, of course. However, she was good with the wolf dream. She managed to appear next to him without making any sound at all. That was tougher than it seemed; she had to still the air as it was moved out of the way when she arrived. She had to land just precisely so that she didn’t make noise, and had to mute her clothing’s rustle.

> With a start, Perrin realized that this time she’d also been masking her scent. He’d only been able to smell her—her scent was that of soft night lily—after she’d begun speaking to him.

Uncertainly, he crawled out of the pit and approached the shack. Both men were asleep. What happened to men who slept in the dream? Normally, this would have sent them back to the waking world—but they were here in the flesh.

He shivered, thinking of what had been done to them. “Turned”? Was that the word she’d used? Light. It seemed unfair. Not that the Pattern is ever fair, Perrin acknowledged, quickly searching through the hut.

He found the dreamspike driven into the ground under the table. The silvery piece of metal looked like a long tent spike, carved with designs down its length. It was similar to the other one he’d seen, but not exactly the same. He pulled it free, then waited, hand on his hammer, expecting Slayer to come for him.

“He’s not here,” Lanfear said.

“Light!” Perrin jumped, hammer raised. He turned. “Why do you keep appearing like that, woman?”

“He searches for me,” she said, glancing skyward. “I’m not supposed to be able to do this, and he’s grown suspicious. If he finds me, he’ll know for certain, and I will be destroyed, captured and burned for an eternity.”

“You expect me to feel sorry for you, one of the Forsaken?” Perrin snapped.

“I chose my master,” she said, studying him. “This is my price—unless I can find a way free of it.”

“What?”

“I think you have the best chance,” she said. “I need you to win, Perrin, and I need to be at your side when you do.”

He snorted. “You haven’t learned any new tricks, have you? Take your offers elsewhere. I’m not interested.” He turned the dreamspike over in his fingers. He had never been able to figure out how the other one worked.

“You have to twist it at the top.” Lanfear held out a hand.

Perrin eyed her.

“You don’t think I could have taken it on my own if I’d wanted?” she asked, amused. “Who was it who put M’Hael’s little pets down for you?”

He hesitated, then handed it over. She ran her thumb from tip to mid-length, and something clicked inside it. She reached up and twisted the head about. Outside, the faint wall of violet shrank and vanished.

She handed it back. “Twist it again to set up the field—the longer you twist, the larger it will grow—then slide your finger in the reverse of what I did to lock it. Be careful. Wherever you set it will have ramifications in the waking world as well as this world, and it will stop even your allies from moving in or out. You can get through with a key, but I do not know it for this spike.”

“Thank you,” Perrin said grudgingly. At his feet, one of the slumbering men grunted, then rolled to his side. “Is there… Is there really no way to resist being Turned? Nothing they can do?”

“A person can resist for a short time,” she said. “A short time only. The strongest will fail eventually. If you are a man facing women, they will beat you quickly.”

“It shouldn’t be possible,” Perrin said, kneeling. “Nobody should be able to force a man to turn to the Shadow. When all else is taken from us, this choice should remain.”

“Oh, they have the choice,” Lanfear said, idly nudging one with her foot. “They could have chosen to be gentled. That would have removed the weakness from them, and they could never have been Turned.”

“That’s not much of a choice.”

“This is the weave of the Pattern, Perrin Aybara. Not all options will be good ones. Sometimes you have to make the best of a bad lot and ride the storm.”

He looked at her sharply. “And you imply that’s what you did? You joined the Shadow because it was the ‘best’ option? I don’t buy it for a moment. You joined for power. Everyone knows it.”

“Think what you will, wolf pup,” she said, eyes growing hard. “I’ve suffered for my decisions. I’ve borne pain, agony, excruciating sorrow because of what I’ve done in my life. My suffering goes beyond what you could conceive.”

“And of all of the Forsaken,” Perrin said, “you chose your place and accepted it most readily.”