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Chapter Text

Stasis Box

“A museum is a place where one should lose one’s head.” --Renzo Piano, Italian architect and senator

Rand’s breath was a raw rasp in his ears. The muscles of his legs and stomach clenched and cramped as he ran up the hill flanking the Caemlyn Road. More than almost anything he wanted to lie down in the grass and sleep. The horns of the Trolloc armies were the only thing that kept him stumbling upward. He mustn't have been the only one struggling, because from the corner of his eye he saw Egwene begin to falter, slowing. Rand caught her hand. They were still in the lead, but would surely be overtaken, and then—what then? Would the eager Trollocs kill them at once, or would they take them prisoner for their masters? If they were killed, surely the man with the fiery eyes would be furious enough to slaughter his Trolloc hordes, but Rand and the others would be dead, and to them it would matter little .

Exhausted and half-blind, Rand didn’t notice the hill take a sudden slope downwards until he was over the hump and falling. With Egwene’s weight on his arm, he failed to correct his course, and took the girl down with him. Helplessly, both rolled toward the copse at the bottom of the hill.

“Cover your face!” Rand shouted.

He hoped that Egwene had heard him. Rand covered his own head and let nature take its course. He braced for impact against the trees, only to feel his body slam into something much harder than wood. A fine mist of rough dust scattered across his face and flooded his mouth, and the night turned even blacker. Rand coughed and struggled to catch his breath. It was so dark that he wondered if he might be dead. Only his awareness of someone else breathing reassured him.

“Egwene?” Rand whispered. He coughed again; the dust in his mouth tasted like blood, grainy and iron-sharp. Whatever he had hit must have been metal, but so old that it had disintegrated like paper.

“Egwene?”

She said nothing, and Rand felt around for the girl. He found her hand not far from him; limp, but the pulse was strong. Rand hauled himself up and took a few careful, blind steps around the area, trying to map it. He found a wall some three metres away. It was cool and smooth, like polished stone, flat until it rose into something like a case, which seemed to be covered in very dusty glass. Rand followed the walls until he circled back, touching the jagged portal where he had entered. The broken part was framed by the remnants of something that must have been a metal door. Rand carefully felt around the edges and was shocked when the place was flooded with a gentle, white light. He blinked and shaded his eyes with his hand, letting his vision adjust. Behind him, he heard a low groan, and turned in time to see Egwene stirring on the floor. She slowly sat, cupping her face with one brown hand. Even dazed, her dark eyes pinned Rand in place.

“Where are we?” she asked, coughing.

“Just spit out the dust. I think it’s rust from this door,” Rand said. “And I don’t know. Some place old, I guess. Must have sunk into the ground over time.”

Egwene hauled herself up, spitting and dusting off her dress. “A very long time, I’d say. Look at this strange light! And the walls. Have you ever seen anything like it?”

She pointed at the walls and their cases. Rand saw the trailing marks of his own fingertips on the glass. There were little plaques affixed next to the cases, covered in words which had been engraved with unnatural uniformity. Rand wandered over to a case and peered into the glass, running the flat of his palm over it to clear the dust away, with only partial success.

“What are these things?” he muttered.

“Relics from the last Age.”

Rand recognized Moiraine’s voice, and he turned to see her climbing in through the door, followed at once by Lan, Thom, Nynaeve, Mat, and Perrin. As he watched, Moiraine waved her hand near the frame of the door. At once, an impenetrable shroud of darkness covered it.

“With any luck, the Myrdraals will ride past us,” Moiraine sighed.

“And if they don’t?” Mat gasped.

“There is no “if”. We have nowhere else to go from here unless they leave. Even the ruins of Shadar Logoth are too far to reach without our being spotted. We will wait here and, if needed, make a stand. They can only enter one at a time, after all."

Nynaeve scoffed, and Rand cast her a nod of agreement. It seemed like a poor and desperate plan. Still, they had no other.

“Let us be silent now,” Moiraine murmured. “And stay close together.”

The party gathered with her by the door. They listened to the Fists of Trollocs thundering down the hill, until the horns sounded so close that they must have passed within feet of their hiding place. Rand thought of home, of the valley where he had grown from a boy to a man, the mountains he had loved to roam—but never too far. Travel had always been Mat’s dream, Egwene’s dream, not his. Something in him had eschewed the distance. Adventures had not been what he wanted. What he had desired most of all had been simple happiness—to marry a girl he loved and keep the sheep on his father’s farm until, one day, it became his farm. Then children, grandchildren, and a peaceful death in his own bed.

Yes, that was what he had wanted, and he swore that, if he lived through this, he would return to do just that, even if the girl he married was not Egwene.

“They’re gone,” Moiraine said at last. "I can hold the darkness no longer, but I will bring it back should I hear them again."

As she spoke, the shadow on the door began to thin, allowing the gentle overhead light to spill into the surrounding trees. The tension in the air dissipated, and everyone started talking at once, with the Emond’s Fielders hauling one another into frenzied embraces of relief.

“Not so loud,” Moiraine said. “Let us be cautious for a time.”

A renewed hush settled on them, but their fear had passed, and they looked at their curious surroundings with interest.

“Moiraine Sedai, what is this place?” Egwene asked.

Moiraine hesitated, looking strangely uncertain. “I believe it may be a place where valuable or historic items were displayed for public viewing.”

She wiped the dust from of the little plaques. “Yes, you see, here is a date in the old calendar, pre-Breaking. C.E 5203.”

“What does that mean?” Egwene asked, leaning in to look.

It was Thom who answered, speaking for the first time since their fall.

“C.E. meant “common era” in another tongue, called “English,” a popular language prior to the rise in prominence of the Old Tongue.”

Rand watched as admiration blossomed in Egwene’s eyes. She wanted to know all of these things, he saw, knowledge that would be easily found in the libraries of Tar Valon and the lore chains of bards, and perhaps nowhere else.

“Indeed, the Gleeman is correct,” Moiraine said. “By the old calendar, the Breaking would have taken place in C.E. 7228. According to the oldest records we have, that was the year when Lews Therin Telamon led the Hundred Companions in the assault on Shayol Ghul. Sadly, those accounts were written many decades after the Breaking. There seems to have been some other method of recording information in the Age of Legends, which was lost after that period. It was many years before the survivors of the Breaking were able to gather writing materials for record keeping on a large scale.”

“How else would they do it?” Nynaeve asked testily, in that way that suggested that she wanted to know, but despised asking Moiraine for the answer. 

Moiraine shrugged. “The old records refer to mechanical devices, but they do not provide many details.”

Rand heard Perrin hum in thought. Of all of them, the blacksmith’s apprentice had always been the most interested in how things fit together, how they worked. Perrin, too, might learn many things here. Thinking of himself, Rand wondered if there was something wrong with him, that he never wanted more than what he had.

“We must take some of these relics with us, if we are able,” Moiraine said, “To the Tower, these things are worth more than gold.”

“To any of us that value the past,” Thom added firmly.

“Just so,” Moiraine agreed with a tiny smile.

“What are they?” Egwene crowded in by Moiraine, inspecting the little objects inside the windows.

“The writing here should tell us, but it is written in the oldest form of the Old Tongue. Very difficult.”

“What do you mean the oldest form?” Rand asked. “Isn’t it all the same?”

Thom laughed. “By no means, boy. Language changes over time. The form of the Old Tongue spoken in Manetheren is a thousand years younger than the language spoken in the last days of the Age of Legends, and its syntax and vocabulary vary greatly.”

“Quite learned,” Moiraine said, pinning Thom under her dark eyes. “For a mere Gleeman.”

Thom grimaced and riffled through his pockets, muttering about his pipe.

“In any case,” Moiraine continued, “That is true enough. And the language written here is thousands of years older yet than the language spoken at the time of the Breaking. There is sparse mention of it in grammars of the Old Tongue, mere fragments. I believe that this writing refers to the objects inside this case as art, apparently crafted by the One Power. These ones below were crafted without the Power, and they appear to have suffered significant damage over time.”

Rand leaned in to look at the sculptures and saw that the items on the upper shelf were still pristine, while the little sculptures below them were covered in grime and appeared to be falling apart.

“What are these ones?” Egwene asked from the next case.

Moiraine began lecturing again, but Rand lost interest. He crossed the room and wiped the dust from the case farthest from Moiraine, then pulled back when he touched something sharp. The glass was broken in one spot, and the items inside were covered by even more dust. Rand reached in carefully and withdrew a long, flat case. Under its own cover of dust, the surface was shining white and unnaturally uniform; more of that precise, mechanical writing covered a metal plate on the top of the box. Rand squinted at it. He had a feeling as if he should know what it said, if only he tried hard enough, but the meaning remained stubbornly elusive.

“What’s that?” Mat asked him, sidling up to peer at the thing in his hands.

“A box,” Rand snorted.

“No, really. What’s inside?”

“I can’t tell where it’s supposed to open.”

He ran his hands over it again, looking for a seam or a latch, anything that might unseal the case.

Moiraine must have been watching them, because she crossed the floor to inspect the box, reading the words on the top. Rand was surprised to hear a little gasp escape her.

“I have heard of such things, but I have never seen one.”

“What is it?”

“A stasis box. A kind of ter’angreal, I believe, a device of the Power invented during the Age of Legends. It worked like a machine and could perform a number of functions, including preserving indefinitely anything placed inside.”

With a sudden hiss, the two halves of the box separated under her hands. The lid peeled back to reveal a small cup filled with liquid. Rand was astonished to see steam rising from the surface of the drink.

“It’s still hot!” Mat hooted. “Look at that!”

Nynaeve muttered a curse, and Perrin shifted uneasily, but Rand saw amazement flicker across Moiraine’s face. She couldn’t make that sort of thing, he realized, and she had never seen anything like it.

“Why would they keep a cup of tea in a box?” Egwene scoffed. “It doesn’t make sense!”

Moiraine ran her finger across the text imprinted on the inside of the stasis box. Rand watched as the colour drained from her face, as if she had witnessed something terrifying.

“What it is?” he asked.

“I have read of this in the deepest annals, but...” She shook her head.

“What?” Rand insisted.

“Be silent, sheepherder,” Lan growled, speaking for the first time in what felt like hours.

“No, Lan, he has a right to know,” Moiraine said, setting a gentle hand on the Warder’s shoulder. She turned to face the group. “Have you never wondered how our ancestors knew that our souls are born again and again? It is more than mere faith. Scholars of the Age of Legends devised tools for accessing memories from previous lifetimes. They had many means of doing so, and one of them was this tea. Records tell us that all Aes Sedai of the Dragon’s time were required to consume this tea as a rite of passage, before they were granted the final rank in the Hall of Servants. Some candidates could not endure the revelation of their ancient past and ran, screaming, casting their honours to the ground, never to set foot in the Hall again. The deepest knowledge of the soul could either make or ruin the woman or man who dared to claim it.”

Rand found himself stumbling back from the simple, innocuous shape of the steaming cup of tea in Moiraine’s hand. If there was one thing that he did not want, he realized, it was knowledge of some other life. He was Rand al’Thor now, whoever he might once have been, and that was enough for him. Of course his father had taught him that all people were born and reborn with the turning of the Wheel, but the past was the past. If he wanted a story to entertain himself with, Tam had always kept plenty of books at home.

“Amazing,” he heard Egwene breathe. “What an incredible tool. Imagine how many things you could do, or know, without the struggle and time of learning them. Is it still good? Can we drink it?”

She reached out for the cup then, as if she intended to down the brew without hesitation. Simultaneously with Nynaeve, Rand shouted a warning, while Moiraine yanked the cup out of Egwene’s reach.

“Fool girl!” Nynaeve hissed, tugging furiously on her braid.

“What are you doing?” Rand barked. “You don’t know what would happen if you took that. You could turn into a completely different person! Do you hate us all so much?”

Egwene’s eager regard grew cold. “Unlike some people, I want to grow and change, to learn new things. We can’t all stay the same forever, Rand al'Thor.”

Moiraine put a forbidding arm between them, and the elegant blue folds of her gown glittered in the white overhead light.

“There’s no need to argue. The stasis box has preserved the drink, but there is only enough here for one person. I believe that we should use it wisely.”

Nynaeve snorted. “Why should we use it at all? And why exactly was it there, prepared and steaming and waiting for us? It sounds like a trap.”

Moiraine grimaced. “Perhaps. But the writing on the box suggests that the drink was prepared as an educational display for the public during the Age of Legends. The stasis box was intended to keep the tea fresh until used. And the state of this building indicates that no one has been here for hundreds, most likely thousands, of years. There are no footprints, no fingermarks, and we have freshly broken the door. No, I do believe that this is exactly what it purports to be. As for why any one of us should drink it, Egwene is correct—in this, if nothing else,” she added, casting a firm glance at Egwene’s pleased face, “There is much to be learned, and the Dark One is emerging in force for the first time in centuries. Knowledge of ancient techniques in the Power, of the nature of the Dark One himself: these are all vital to our struggle. I would drink the tea myself, but—”

She stopped, a pensive expression crossing her fine features.

“But what?” Rand asked, a feeling of foreboding growing inside of him.

Moiraine sighed and stared down at the tea in her hand. “Yes, there is something. I believe that one of you has been targeted by the Dark One, not for who you are now, but for who you would once were. It was for that reason that I came to the Two Rivers. There has been talk of an ancient soul born again, one with great knowledge, and of tremendous value to the Dark One. It may be one of you.”

“An ancient soul with knowledge?” Mat repeated. “What does that even mean?”

“I cannot say,” Moiraine answered, cool and firm.

Rand stared at the cup. “Well, it won’t be me. The only thing I have knowledge of is how to raise sheep. I won’t be drinking that tea, and I don’t believe that any of you should, either.”

“Smart boy,” Thom muttered, then quieted as the Aes Sedai cast him another quelling glance.

“Come on, Rand,” Mat urged, “Imagining knowing how to fight with that sword or speak the Old Tongue without a day of study?”

“I can learn the sword on my own if I want to,” Rand said, scowling. “And what good is the Old Tongue to a shepherd?”

He felt eyes on him and turned to see Moiraine regarding him with a thoughtful expression that raised goosebumps on the back of his arms.

“Unusual for a young man not to desire adventures,” she said slowly.

“Then I’m unusual!”

It was the wrong thing to say, ill-considered and too swift.

“Yes,” she said, still pinning him with her cool, grey eyes, “You are.”

Chapter Text

They argued for a little longer about the tea, without result, until Moiraine announced that they should rest.

“We can't travel tonight. We're in no shape to run, and the Trollocs are still too close. I’ve thrown them off the scent,” the Aes Sedai said, “But the weave won’t last forever, and they may turn back if the Myrddraals aren’t deceived. We will settle the issue of the tea in the morning and then leave after, if we’re able.”

Rand’s last burst of curious energy had flagged, and he wasn’t up to asking what would happen if they weren’t "able". He didn’t feel too badly about it; even prickly Nynaeve looked exhausted. Mat, still poking around, discovered that by waving his hand around the building’s door-frame that the room’s peculiar light lowered in intensity, until it resembled the distant, warm glow of a candle flame, and the company prepared to bed down for the night, laying blankets on the smooth floor.

Rand listened to the breathing of his companions slow and deepen as they drifted to sleep. He tried to do the same, but restless energy teased Rand’s limbs, and he found himself staring up at the light in the ceiling, wondering for the first time how it worked. Moiraine claimed it must be a ter’angreal. Like the stasis box, it functioned without active use of the Power, even after thousands of years. The incongruity fascinated Rand as much as it disturbed him, and he thought about how much knowledge must have been lost during the Breaking. To someone born in that time, the Dragon’s time, Rand’s Age would seem barbarically simple.

An itch in his leg had Rand sitting up, scratching at it gently, then more urgently, until he jumped to his feet to walk it off. He passed by Moiraine and Lan and saw them twitch in their sleep, ready to wake a the slightest hint of danger. Rand stood still, holding his breath, until his eyes adjusted to the low light and he saw something white and gleaming on Moiraine’s blanket.

The stasis box.

Rand looked from Moiraine to Egwene, her dark hair a smooth lump at the top of her blankets. She would fight to drink the tea. Certainly, if no one else wanted to, she would say that it shouldn’t go to waste. And Mat was mostly talk. He probably wouldn’t do it. The others wouldn’t, and Moiraine had said that she was searching for one of them. Why shouldn’t it be Egwene? The Aes Sedai had said an “ancient soul,” with no mention of man or woman.

Rand held his breath and inched closer to the Aes Sedai, a litany running through his head.

I’m not here. Don’t notice me. I’m not here.

A foot or so from Moiraine, Rand looked down at the status box. It was the same as before, no crack or hinge to tell him how the thing opened.

I’m not here. I’m not here!

Cold fire ran through his bones, and Rand felt as if he were becoming transparent. Even if Moiraine woke, he was somehow certain that she would not see him there, leaning over her. Gently, he slid the white box from her blanket and retreated to the far end of the room. Still cocooned in that feeling of invisibility, Rand ran his hands around the object. Seeking focus, he looked for the Flame and the Void, as Tam had taught him. The Void came to him quickly; indeed, it felt as if he were already inside it. The Flame was there too, its light darker and oilier than what he was used to, but it steadied his hands and sharpened his vision until he saw something like a crack in the box, so faint it was as if it existed only in his mind. He touched the seam and was astonished to see it spring apart with a soft hiss of air.

The cover and the bottom sat in Rand’s hands, one on each palm. On a bed of soft red material sat the teacup, its bone china and hand-painted flowers looking both elegant and innocuous. A loud snore from across the room, probably Perrin, disrupted Rand’s grip on the Flame, and his hands shook, almost spilling the cup’s contents. He breathed deeply, securing his grip on the Flame, focusing until his hands were rock-solid. He sneaked a glance at Moiraine, still asleep in her bedroll. He had no doubt that she had solid plans for this tea. Someone would have to drink it.

Better that he take it, than one of the others.

Before he could reconsider, Rand picked up the cup and drained it in single, long swallow. Despite the steam still wafting from the tea’s surface, the liquid was warm rather than scalding, and it tasted of rosehips. Rand licked his lips, cleaning away the last of the drought, and waited for something to happen.

Two or three minutes passed, and nothing changed, except that he finally began to feel tired. Gently, Rand put the cup back into the box, set it on the floor, then stumbled to his bedroll.

He felt asleep at once, tumbling into a perfect, restful emptiness which lasted only until the dreams began.

Moiraine woke to the sound of screaming.

Reflexes honed by many years of battle drove her to her feet. She felt Lan behind her and joined with him, back to back, to cover the whole room.

“It’s the sheepherder,” Lan said. “He’s having a nightmare.”

The Aes Sedai ran to where al’Thor had bedded down. She shook the boy, harshly, but he did not respond. He appeared to be caught in the grip of a powerful night terror. Tears were running down his face in a display that Moiraine had never before witnessed in a sleeping person. A chill ran down her back. She started to run diagnostics on the boy, but his continued screaming woke the rest of the party, who came rushing to al’Thor’s side.

“Do not touch him!” Moiraine ordered. “This may be the work of the Shadow.”

“But how?” Egwene al’Vere demanded. Her eyes were already shiny with unshed tears.

“I am not sure,” Moiraine murmured. “Nothing about this is normal.”

Moiraine felt Lan leave to walk around the room, checking the open door for intruders and signally Moiraine to weave the veil of darkness back across the ragged opening. Nynaeve al’Meara followed Lan, sticking to the Warder’s side in a way that might have concerned the Aes Sedai under other circumstances. She decided to pay no mind for the moment, but no sooner had Moiraine turned back to al’Thor, who had begun to quiet, than she heard the Wisdom gasp behind her.

“Moiraine,” Lan said. His voice was harsh and shaken, and Moiraine tensed for more unwelcome surprises. Turning, she saw the open box in the Warder’s hands, the drained cup of memory tea.

“The fool boy!” she barked.

“Blood and ashes,” Thom Merrilin whispered.

“He drank the tea?” Egwene gasped. “But why would do that?”

“So that you wouldn’t have to,” Perrin Aybara said, his voice thick and low.

“But I wanted to!”

“Exactly. He was worried that you would do it, that it would be poison, or you would turn into a completely different person, so he did it himself.”

Moiraine alloweed herself to softly curse. The Aybara boy was smarter than he looked; his logic made terrible sense. If only she had been less tired; paid more attention, she might have seen what would happen, seen the awful, stubborn core in al’Thor that courted recklessness for the sake of loyalty. True, she had suspected he was the one, and might have given him the tea regardless, but with guidance and under supervision. Now, there were no more choices.

The last of Rand’s tortured moans ceased. His writhing body dropped back to his blankets like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Only then did he open his eyes. Moiraine saw the change at once, the profound knowledge that no boy in his twentieth year, no matter how loyal or clever, could possibly possess.

al’Thor sat up. “Well. I should have been more careful.”

The voice had changed too; there was a mature inflection that made it sound new and strange.

“Are you the one?” Moiraine whispered. She spoke openly, in a way she had not since her youth, but, if he was the one, there was nothing to do but ask. And if he wasn’t, well, perhaps he had learned a trick or two that might help them anyway.

Rand stood and looked down at her.

“Light help me,” Rand whispered, “I am the one.”

A fine tremour ran through Moiraine’s body and she swayed, overwhelmed by the knowledge that she was speaking to the Dragon, awoken from a sleep of three thousand years.

“Rand!” Egwene scolded. “How could you be so reckless? You could have poisoned yourself.”

“So might have you. And in a way, I suppose I did.”

“Whatever do you mean by that?” she snapped.

“It’s changed him,” the Aybara boy said, with that surprising insight. “Don’t you see? He’s different now.”

Yes, Moiraine thought, though they may stand in the same room, the tea had taken al’Thor very far from his companions.

“You’re right, Perrin,” Rand said. “We used to do it all the time, long ago, but the tea was distilled to show a mere, weak impression of our past lives. Very few people wished to be entirely overwhelmed by memories that might change them significantly as people. Although not entirely,” he added, in an academic aside uncharacteristic of the boy he had been, “There’s blood to consider, after all, which has a not-insignificant effect on the behaviour of the individual. I suppose that was why it took so long. The perfect combination of two bloodlines was required to craft a vessel capable of…directing,” he looked at Moiraine, “the necessary force.”

Moiraine hummed thoughtfully, her customary calm returning. It was too bad for the boy, but what was done was done.

“An interesting theory. Do you believe that the tea was mixed incorrectly?”

“Unlikely. It sat too long in the box, I suppose. The effects of long-term storage in a stasis box are unpredictable, largely because no one ever had the opportunity to test it over a period of several thousand years.”

“A tea sat to steep for a few thousand years got stronger,” the al’Meara girl interjected, scoffing. “Who would have thought?”

A wry look passed over al’Thor’s youthful face. “A remarkable oversight.  And so, I have who you needed, Moiraine, at the cost of Rand a’Thor’s life.”

“Are you saying that you’re not Rand anymore?” Mat Cauthon appeared bewildered.

al’Thor hesitated. “In a sense, no. The blood is the same, but the boy you knew is gone, subsumed by the memories of a life lived over the course of four centuries.”

“Rand al’Thor, you stop this at once!” Egwene scoffed. “No one can live that long. You’re just playing a trick on us. Did you cook this up with Mat? I’ll bet you did, Matrim Cauthon!”

She wheeled on the dark-haired boy with a furious expression that did not conceal her devastation.

“Egwene…” Rand said softly. “I’m sorry.”

She turned back to him, and the tears started running down her face.

“Why did you do it?” she shouted. “Why did you? How could you?”

He reached out to her and she flinched back, turning to address Moiraine. 

“What kind of “ancient soul” did you need so badly that it was worth this?”

“Was this not the knowledge you wanted for yourself?” al’Thor whispered.

“How dare you!” Egwene shouted. Her hand went up to slap him, and was caught by Nynaeve, who held her back with a fierce grip. Egwene struggled for a moment, then collapsed, sobbing, against the Wisdom.

“Maybe you should answer her question, boy,” Thom Merrlin said. His voice was gentle, too gentle, as if he already knew what Rand would say.

Moiraine flicked a glance at al’Thor. What had happened could not be concealed from his companions. The boy closed with eyes wearily and opened his mouth, preparing to speak the words that would change everything, when the sound of a horn split the air. It was close. Very close.

“They’ve returned!” Lan spat. “You fools with your screaming have drawn the Trollocs straight to us.”

Moiraine embraced the Source, filling herself to the limit with saidar.

“Can you help?” she asked al’Thor. She found him already in a defensive position, wearing a look of deep concentration that she had seen many times on the faces of her sisters. Otherwise, she felt nothing.

“I will engage the front lines,” Rand said. “I need you to cover me.”

There was tremendous certainty in his voice, the sound of a man who had been in a thousand battles, and the Aes Sedai tried to take comfort from that and not dwell too long on the fact that the Dragon had lost his last battle rather spectacularly. She took up her position while al’Thor waved his hand quickly through the air and spoke a strange word in the Old Tongue.

Moiraine was quietly astonished to see some kind of transparent illusion pop up, covered in more unnaturally uniform writing in the Old Tongue, most of them words she had never seen. al'Thor's hand skimmed over one of the words, hesitated, then moved to another. She was alarmed to see him look confused for just a second, and then the light in the room turned blazingly bright, illuminating every corner. It was almost too light to see, and Moiraine had no doubt that the sensitive eyes of the Trollocs would be bothered more than aided. She released the weave in her own veil of darkness on the doorframe, letting the light spill out into the hills. Rand gave a nod of approval, as if that were what he had intended, and then Trollocs were upon them.

Moiraine tensed with expectation, unsure what would happen next. Just how strong was the man who had broken the world?

A hurricane wind crashed into the Trollocs, hurling the first line into the forest, and then another, until an entire Fist had been dispensed with. A Myrddraal rushed into the open space, poison blade at the ready, and was incinerated. Moiraine flinched at the wave of fire, knowing that even the strongest sister in the tower could not have produced such a flame, so furious yet accurate. al’Thor did not even look winded.

Moiraine thanked the Light that the Two Rivers youths behind her had reigned in their sorrows. They stood with their staves and arrows at the ready while the Aes Sedai used weaves of air and fire to block the Trolloc missiles flying in through the empty space at the top of the door. Yet the Trollocs seemed to keep coming forever, more and more filling the doorway, until even the Dragon appeared strained. Sweat ran down his face, and his white skin turned even paler.

“There will be a gap in a moment while they regroup and clear the corpses,” Rand said through gritted teeth. “I’ll open a gateway in the air. Everyone be prepared to move.”

Moiraine heard another gasp behind her. Surely the children must have put it all together before this. Perhaps it was simply the vocal admission that it was their friend who was channelling, a man channelling, and not one of the female Aes Sedai who were, if not trusted, at least trusted not to go mad.

As al’Thor had predicted, the Trollocs and their Myrddraal leaders fell back, dragging bodies away. Some continued to shoot arrows from a distance, which the party blocked, but Rand stopped channelling in the direction of the enemy. Moiraine had an idea of what to expect, but she still felt a shock run through her when she saw the hole open up in the air. The space beyond was blacker than a starless night, its only feature a round, flat platform that rapidly expanded to accommodate them all.

The Cauthon boy released a strangled gasp. "Blood and bloody ashes! Why didn't you do that before?"

“I couldn't remember exactly how! Forgive me for taking more than five minutes to organize centuries of memories," al'Thor shouted. "Come on! Jump in now!”

Moiraine didn’t hesitate. She gathered her skirts and leaped into the darkness.

Chapter Text

Moiraine landed firmly in the centre of the platform. With the hem of her gown still tucked in one fist, she whirled around in time to see the young people and Thom Merrilin tumble through the opening. Lan followed, with al’Thor at the last. The Dragon Reborn’s invisible weaves began pulling shut the gap in the air, just in time, as a Trolloc reached it. Axe bared, the creature ran to clear the space and met more of al'Thor's weaves. The monster’s head fell, dripping, onto the grey platform.

The portal vanished before more of the wretched creatures could enter, and Rand tumbled onto his knees. He sat with his hands on his thighs, gasping for breath. His eyes were fixed on the monstrous head, staring blindly at what was left of the Trolloc, until at least he gave it a tentative poke with his index finger.

“One of Aginor’s...modifications,” he muttered. The last he said in the Old Tongue, in an accent that Moiraine almost couldn’t parse. When he looked over his shoulder, Moraine saw a wild look spark in his eyes, then disappear just as quickly. She wondered if he was injured, but felt reluctant to approach him. For the same reason, she forced herself to his side. It wouldn’t do to get soft.

The Aes Sedai ran her hands over the boy’s copper hair, just barely skimming it as she scanned him with her meagre healing weaves.

“Worried so soon, little sister?” Rand murmured.

Moiraine frowned down at him. It was an odd thing to say.

“You’re fine,” she answered. She pointed to the Trolloc head. “Won’t you dispose of that?”

He stood and sketched a foreign sort of bow. “As you command," he said, too lightly to be sincere.

More unseen weaves plucked the head from the grey platform. It hovered grotesquely in the air before al’Thor, where he regarded it like a man looking into a mirror.

“You get rid of that immediately, Rand al’Thor!” Egwene scolded from behind Moiraine.

Moiraine followed Rand’s gaze to the group. Except for Lan, who had joined her, the others were huddled close together, looking alarmed and rather grey in the skin. The Wisdom’s lips were pressed in a tight line, and Egwene’s eyes were wider than Moiraine had ever seen them.

The Trolloc head rotated once, al’Thor’s eyes fixed on the dead eyes, and then it went sailing out into the darkness. The force of the weaves propelling it peeled the lips back the fangs, fixing the Trolloc’s retreating expression into an eternal snarl. Moiraine smoothed her hands over the silk of her gown before turning firmly from al’Thor to check the others. Finding them all in reasonable condition, she approached the edge of the platform to inspect their surroundings. She had the feeling that they were moving, but the darkness beyond the grey floor was beyond dense, almost a physical thing in its uniformity. She stretched out her arm to test for resistance and met nothing. Her hand appeared to grow less visible the farther it moved from the platform.

“Careful,” Rand warned. “If you fall, you will fall forever. At least until you die from from thirst. Or terror.”

“You might have said that before, sheepherder!” Lan barked.

Rand said nothing. With great dignity, Moiraine took several smooth steps away from the edge. She turned back to Rand and found him still standing next to the small puddle of blood left by the Trolloc’s head. There was a glint of amusement on his face that Moiraine could not deny she found alarming.

“We’ll arrive soon,” al'Thor said.

Lan looked ready to truly lose his temper, a rare event in Moiraine’s experience, and she offered a slight nod of warning to him. Not now. She could not risk her Warder exposing himself to the Dragon's anger, not when she was beginning to think that there was something truly wrong with Rand. His behaviour had changed radically in the past hour.  It was too soon for the madness to have caught him, even after that extraordinary display of power against the Trollocs and their Myrddraal masters. No, it was something else, Moiraine thought. Something had gone wrong with that tea.

Slowly, the young people from Emond's Field began to relax, speaking together in low whispers. Mat laughed, and then Egwene as well. Moiraine tensed when Egwene broke from the group with a determined expression, heading for al'Thor. The Aes Sedai debated catching the girl’s arm, stopping her, but she had no reason to do so beyond a sense of unease. She watched as Egwene put one slim hand on al’Thor’s wool coat and leaned in to speak to him.

At the same time, Moiraine noted Thom Merrlin edging his way across the platform, apparently using Rand’s distraction as cover.

“Be careful,” Thom muttered when he reached her. “I have a bad feeling about the boy now.”

She didn’t like to hear her own worries replicated in the gleeman’s too-smooth accent. Gleeman. Who did he think he was fooling. Every noble from Caemlyn to Cairhien had heard about the falling out between Morgase and her court bard, who hadn’t even bothered to change his name after he left her.

“What will be will be,” she said.

Thom gave her a sharp look. “That may be so, but I expect that tea didn’t figure into your plans.”

Moiraine waited a moment, then shook her head very slightly.

“It already went wrong one way. Brought back the Kinslayer all at once. Who's to say it didn’t bring back his madness, too?”

Moiraine closed her eyes for just a second. When she opened them, she saw that Lan had played one of his little tricks, slipping unseen across the length of the platform, quickly enough to have heard the bard’s speculation.

“What do you think?” he muttered.

Moiraine hesitated. The truth was that she didn’t know what had happened. The matter was so far beyond her purview that she feared to articulate the breadth of her ignorance. She thought it best to stay silent while she listened to Lan and Thom debate the matter in low voices.

A short scream broke through their speculation. Moiraine looked over just in time to see Egwene stumble by the edge of the platform. Moiraine extended desperate, fumbling weaves of air which could not possibly catch the girl in time, but Rand was far quicker. An unseen hand scooped Egwene up in time to save her from falling into the precipitous blackness. She stood, grey-faced, near the edge. Even from a dozen paces away, Moiraine could see the tremours shaking her body like a leaf in the wind.

Rand reached out with her hand to soothe her, and Egwene pulled back sharply.

“You. You did that!” she gasped.

“Egwene?” Rand asked.

“I felt it. It was you!”

She backed away, watching Rand with the same awful fury and disgust she had levelled at the Trollocs.

“Calm down,” Rand said. He took another step, and Egwene back away again, looking over her shoulder to see how close the edge was.

“Egwene,” Moiraine said, keeping her voice low and smooth. “Calm yourself. We will soon be back on our way to Tar Valon. You have nothing to fear.”

“Not on our way, “ Rand corrected her. “We will arrive on its very threshold.”

Egwene watched them both the way a farm wife might a snake in the barn. Her eyes darted to Moiraine, and Rand caught her arm in the moment of distraction. She screamed and struggled against him while Rand murmured something in a low, soothing voice and passed his hand once over the crown of her head. Immediately, Egwene’s eyes closed and she slumped in his arms. Nynaeve rushed forward and Rand passed the girl to the Wisdom. The young woman looked as if she wanted to say something, scold him, but she kept silent, her troubled brown eyes running over Rand’s impassive features.

Ignoring her, al’Thor lifted a hand and traced a circle in the air. Another wrinkle in the face of reality opened before him, while Moiraine struggled to keep in check her astonishment, her wild awe and envy of his powers. The world outside of the darkness was framed like an unspeakably accurate landscape painting. The Aes Sedai saw the grey-blue sky of very early morning, casting deep indigo shadows on black rock and crisp, unbroken white snow. Behind that, far below, she saw the dark outline of a sprawling city and a magnificent fortress that she would have recognised if she were half-blind.

The White Tower.

“You first, little sister,” Rand said softly.

She felt his eyes on her as she passed through the circle, and shivered not only from the sudden cold. Once the rest of the group arrived, she wasted no time in checking Egwene. The girl appeared stunned but unharmed, and as Moiraine watched, her brown eyes fluttered open. She wrapped the girl more tightly in her clothes and guided her to a boulder in the shadow of a ledge, a meagre shelter from the biting wind. Only then did Moiraine settle down herself, grimacing at the cold press of snow on her backside, tangible even through the many layers of her gown.

“What was that?” Egwene voice split the pure mountain air, reverberating off the jagged cliff. She turned pleading eyes on Moiraine. “Did I...imagine it all?”

Moiraine suddenly felt every minute of the exhausting journey they had put behind them. She wanted nothing more than to sleep, and she had no idea what the exasperating girl was talking about. Was it the platform; the sudden near-stumble into the dark that Egwene had been so sure was al’Thor’s doing, even her fainting spell? It was clear that none of it had been imaginary. Yet the girl, and her friends gathered around her, wanted so badly to believe that their companion was not a channeller, not the Dragon Reborn, that Moiraine thought if she told them she had been solely responsible for all of the strangeness, they would take her at her word. Nevermind that no woman alive was capable of the strength and variety of weaves that al’Thor had produced.

Moiraine exchanged a quick look with the red-haired young man, offering to take the credit and the blame, if he so wished. She saw a flicker of longing pass over his face before his features hardened with determination.

“You know better than that, Egwene,” he scolded. “And asking Moiraine to lie to you won’t help.”

The three young people who had been Rand al'Thor's friends drew together, like wolf pups abandoned in the snow.

“Then you did push me,” Egwene whispered. “I thought I felt it. I was so sure. But why, Rand? Why?”

al'Thor shook his head. “That I was not responsible for. I told you to stay away from the edge of the platform. Strange things can happen when Skimming. I would have Travelled, cut a direct path between there and here, but to do so without thorough of knowledge of one’s location would be to court to disaster.”

“And yet disaster nearly caught us, regardless,” Moiraine said.

Rand sighed. “There are many risks in channelling. You know that.”

“It wasn’t you, then?” Egwene begged.

“Egwene. Why would I push you? I love you.”

The words fell smoothly from his lips, with none of a young man’s awkwardness or hesitation. Egwene gasped, and Moiraine saw her dark skin blush even darker.

Lews Therin Kinslayer, Moiraine remembered. The man who killed everyone he ever loved, and everyone who ever loved him.

She didn’t know what to think. Had the tea truly brought back the Dragon, or only fragments of him? And most importantly, had it brought him back sane?

“Where are we?” Mat Cauthon muttered, breaking through the tension.

Rand pointed off the side of the rocks, down into the city below.

“Where we intended to be. Look,” he said.

The youths gathered around al'Thor with relief in their eyes, eager to trust him again.

“Blood and bloody ashes!” Cauthon swore. “This must be the greatest city in the world.”

A distant look passed over al’Thor’s face. “I suppose it is now.”

I suppose it is now, Moiraine repeated to herself, just as Rand had said it.

As if he had seen far greater.

Chapter Text

Perrin watched the interplay between Rand and the Aes Sedai—or perhaps he should say the other Aes Sedai, for hadn’t the Dragon been an Aes Sedai, one of the last men to claim that title? Certainly Rand was different beyond reckoning now. Perrin thought that he just might believe Rand’s claims, especially given how Moiraine was looking at him. The woman who had been as confident as a queen, and as relentless, now seemed to have faltered, her expression wavering between amazement and deepest worry. And then there was the empty, lost look in Egwene’s eyes, the ones that still seemed to be wondering if Rand had tried to push her over the edge of the platform. Perrin could scarcely credit the notion, so foreign to Rand’s character, yet how unlike Egwene it would be to make a false accusation!

He didn’t know what to think. Perhaps it was best to address more practical concerns.

“How do we get down there?” Perrin asked, pointing to Tar Valon. Watching Rand carefully, he noticed a second of hesitation.

“Let’s take a short rest now," Rand whispered, "I cannot make the climb before resting, and I am too tired to Skim."

It was true that Rand looked beyond exhausted, grey-skinned and trembling, but none of them were dressed for mountain weather, and they had left their blankets behind them, far away in the west.

“Can the Shadowspawn follow us here?” Mat asked.

Rand closed his eyes and shook his head. “They have not the way of it.”

“The way…” Moiraine repeated, and her eyes were as wide as a startled sparrow’s. “Not as you did, but it makes great sense!”

Rand cracked an eye. “What does?”

“The Ways,” she said, stressing the last word in an odd manner. “By what other means would the Myrrdraal transport an army across the land unseen?”

“I’m afraid I don’t follow.”

Moiraine stared, then released a wry huff of air.

“Of course. I’ve already fallen into the error of thinking that you know everything that has happened since the Breaking. The Ways are a thing of the Third Age. A kind of…road behind reality, built near the Ogier Stedding as a means of travel after the Breaking. They provided a sorely needed service for some time, but having been constructed themselves with tainted saidin, they fell in time to Darkness and terror. Using them now is not far from suicide, but for the Shadowspawn, at the urging of the Dark One himself, the risk would be less costly than the consequences of refusal.”

“What you say makes sense,” Rand muttered, in that newly adult way of his. “I will think on it later.”

He turned away with hunched shoulders, as if he were hiding from them, and Moiraine stared after him for some time while Perrin considered them both. He watched until Moiraine eventually gave up, turning her gaze away from Rand, before he turned to look down at the city again. The sky was still mostly dark, but ten thousand torches and candles lit the streets even in the hour before dawn.

Perrin felt a nudge in his side and saw Mat to the right of him.

“What do you think of all this?” the slighter boy muttered, clutching his arms around his body in a pitiful defence against the cold wind.

Perrin hesitated. “Nothing yet.”

“Nothing! Did you see what happened there? What Rand did?” Mat was trying so hard to sound experienced and sophisticated, but Perrin heard the stumble, the crack in his voice.

“Yes, I saw,” the blacksmith’s apprentice whispered.

“We should leave,” Mat insisted. “All this Aes Sedai business…and now Rand’s mixed up in it.”

“You don’t mean that. Rand’s our friend. Your friend. You’ve known him since you were born.”

Perrin had come later to that friendship. Only by a few years, but enough to sometimes feel like an outsider. Enough to sometimes wonder if they needed a third. Yet Mat could be fickle and a bit self-serving, and sometimes it was a good idea to remind him of his loyalties.

Mat scowled and stamped his feet in the snow. “He's too different now. Strange. Dangerous. We’re not meant to know our past lives, Perrin,” he added, and there was a plea in his voice, as if he were begging Perrin to understand why his feelings had changed. “Everyone knows that. You live as long as you can and then you die, and by the grace of the light you’re reborn, but you don’t remember. Why did she do that?”

“Moiraine didn’t give him the tea.” It was no use reminding Mat that he had been the one crowing about how bloody brilliant it would be to speak the Old Tongue. 

“No, but she would have given it to one of us, wouldn’t she? Bloody woman. Bloody Aes Sedai.”

A raw scream split the early hours of the morning. The two boys ran towards the source of the noise at and saw Rand writhing on the ground, screaming the same way he had in the west. Nynaeve arrived seconds later, followed closely by Moiraine, who pushed past the indignant Wisdom to put her hands on Rand’s face. At once, a white glow grew around Rand, rapidly expanding to push Moiraine away. The Aes Sedai gasped and stumbled, and Lan stepped in, a pillar of stone between the man on the ground and the woman the Warder served.

“Peace, Lan,” she commanded. “He knows not what he does.”

More cautiously, she approached Rand, careful this time not to touch him, while Thom Merrilin hovered not far from the Aes Sedai, perhaps hoping to gather material for a song that would last clear through the next Age. Perrin, Mat, Egwene were more cautious, standing back. Although too far from Rand to touch him, they were still close enough to hear when Rand started talking in his sleep. His voice sounded tortured, wracked with unspeakable grief, but the words were unintelligible.

“What’s he saying?” Egwene demanded, her dark eyes wide.

“It’s like I can almost understand,” Mat muttered.

“It is the Old Tongue,” Moiraine announced tersely. “The Old Tongue as it was spoken in the Age of Legends.”

She inched closer to Rand again, to where he lay weeping and groaning on the rocky ground.

“Wake, Rand al’Thor,” Moiraine commanded. “Wake, Lews Therin Telamon, whom men called Dragon.”

Perrin heard Mat let loose a string of curses, but Rand quieted at once, and his eyes slid open. There was unspeakable clarity there, Perrin thought, age and knowledge beyond reckoning, and pain as well.

“I see them every time I close my eyes, little sister,” he said. “The dead. Ilyena and our own dear children. I see them everywhere, as if it had happened only yesterday, and not in an Age long past.”

Moiraine nodded, and a bit of her queenly carriage seemed to return to her. “Yes, and I suspect that it is a burden you will carry with you all the way to Shayol Ghul. But carry it you must.”

“Duty is lighter than a feather,” Lan muttered, barely audible. “Heavier than a mountain.”

Rand’s gaze landed on the Warder, and the shepherd laughed just once, sounding dry and uncomfortable, like a man waking from an illness.

“That is something new. I like it.”

He stood, pulling himself to his feet with one hand planted in the snow. Perrin tried to see the man before him as Rand, the Rand he had known, but it was like the image didn’t quite fit, as if there was some ancient shadow laid atop the features of his friend’s face. He thought about how forging a piece of metal into a tool sometimes felt like revealing something that had already been there, just waiting beneath the surface. Sometimes that thing was better than the raw elements that had formed it. Sometimes it was worse.

Only time would tell.

“Rand,” Egwene insisted. "You are still Rand.”

Perrin watched Rand walk to the mountain's edge. Standing there with his back turned to them, he gazed down at the city, where the sun was just beginning to crack over the horizon.

“Once,” he said, “they called me the Lord of the Morning. The Prince of the Dawn. Perhaps they will again.”

Unceremoniously, he began to climb down, and the dawn gilded him all over in a curtain of gold as the sun rose higher in the sky. Perrin watched Rand dwindle, by turns smaller and brighter, until he appeared as an outline made entirely of light, and Perrin had to squint against the glare of him.

Only then did the blacksmith look over his shoulder.

"Well, are you coming?" he asked.

With the dawn in his eyes, Perrin followed the Dragon down the mountain.