The Gathering Storm - Robert Jordan

Elaida awoke to a very odd sensation. Why was her bed moving? Rippling, undulating. So rhythmic. And that wind! Had Carlya left the window open? If so, the maid would be beaten. She'd been warned. She'd been—

This was not her bed. Elaida opened her eyes and found herself looking down at a dark landscape hundreds of feet below. She was tied to the back of some strange beast. She couldn't move. Why couldn't she move? She reached for the Source, then felt a sudden, sharp pain, as though she had suddenly been beaten on every inch of her body with a thousand rods.

She reached up, dazed, feeling the collar at her throat. There was a dark figure riding in the saddle next to her; no lanterns lit the woman's face, but Elaida could feel her somehow. Elaida could just barely remember spending time dangling in the air, tied to a rope, as she fell in and out of consciousness. When had she been pulled up? What was happening?

A voice whispered from the night. "I shall forgive that little mistake. You have been marath'damane for very long, and bad habits are to be expected. But you will not reach for the Source again without permission. Do you understand?"

"Release me!" Elaida bellowed.

The pain returned tenfold, and Elaida retched at the intensity of it. Her bile and sick-up fell over the side of the beast and dropped far to the ground below.

"Now, now," the voice said, patient, like a woman speaking to a very young child. "You must learn. Your name is Suffa. And Suffa will be a good damane. Yes she will. A very, very good damane."

Elaida screamed again, and this time, she didn't stop when the pain came. She just kept screaming out into the uncaring night.

CHAPTER 42

Before the Stone of Tear

TT TT*"/^ e don't know the names of the women who were in Graendal's palace, \ / Lews Therin said. We can't add them to the list. W Rand tried to ignore the madman. That proved impossible.

Lews Therin continued.

How can we continue the list if we don't know the names! In war, we sought out the Maidens who had fallen, We found every one! The list is flawed! I can't continue!

It's not your list! Rand growled. It's mine, Lews Therin. MINE!

No! the madman sputtered. Who are you? It's mine! I made it. I can't continue now that they're dead. Oh, Light! Balefire? Why did we use balefire! I promised that I would never do that again. . . .

Rand squeezed his eyes shut, holding tightly to Tai'daishar's reins. The warhorse picked his way down the street; the hooves hit packed earth, one after another.

What have we become? Lews Therin whispered. We're going to do it again, aren't we? Kill them all. Everyone we've loved. Again, again, again. . . .

"Again and again," Rand whispered. "It doesn't matter, as long as the world survives. They cursed me before, swore at Dragonmount and by my name, but they lived. We're here, ready to fight. Again and again."

"Rand?" Min asked.

He opened his eyes. She rode her dun mare next to Tai'daishar. He couldn't let her, or any of them, see him slipping. They mustn't know how close he was to collapsing.

So many names we don't know, Lews Therin whispered. So many dead by our hand.

And it was just the beginning.

"I am well, Min," he said. "I was thinking."

"About the people?" Min asked. The wooden walks of Bandar Eban were filled with people. Rand no longer saw the colors of their clothing; he saw how worn that clothing was. He saw the rips in the magnificent fabric, the threadbare patches, the dirt and the stains. Virtually everyone in Bandar Eban was a refugee of one sort or another. They watched him with haunted eyes.

Each time he'd conquered a kingdom before, he'd left it better than when he'd arrived. Rand had removed Forsaken tyrants, brought an end to warfare and sieges. He'd cast out Shaido invaders, he'd delivered food, he'd created stability. Each land he'd destroyed had, essentially, been saved at the same time.

Arad Doman was different. He'd brought in food—but that food had drawn even more refugees, straining his supplies. Not only had he failed to give them peace with the Seanchan, he had appropriated their only troops and sent them up to watch the Borderlands. The seas were still unsafe. The tiny Seanchan empress hadn't trusted him. She would continue her attacks, perhaps double them.

The Domani would be trampled beneath the hooves of war, crushed between the invading Trollocs to the north and the Seanchan to the south. And Rand was leaving them.

Somehow, the people realized that, and it was very hard for Rand to look at them. Their hungry eyes accused him: Why bring hope, then let it dry up, like a newly dug well during a drought? Why force us to accept you as our ruler, only to abandon us?

Flinn and Naeff had ridden before him; he could see their black coats ahead as they sat their horses watching Rand's procession approach the city square. The pins sparkled on their high collars. The fountain in the square still flowed among gleaming copper horses leaping from copper waves. Which of those silent Domani continued to shine the fountain, when no king ruled and half the merchant council was lost?

Rand's Aiel hadn't been able to track down enough of the council to form a majority; he suspected that Graendal had killed or captured enough of them to keep a new king from ever being chosen. If any of the merchant council members had been pretty enough, they'd have joined the ranks of her pets—which meant that Rand had killed them.

Ah, Lews Therin said. Names I can add to the list. Yes. . . .

Bashere rode up beside Rand, knuckling his mustaches, looking thoughtful. "Your will is done," he said.

"Lady Chadmar?" Rand asked.

"Returned to her mansion," Bashere said. "We've done the same with the other four members of the merchant council the Aiel were holding near the city."

"They understand what they are to do?"

"Yes," Bashere said, sighing. "But I don't think they'll do it. If you ask me, the moment we're gone they'll bolt from the city like thieves fleeing a prison once the guards leave."

Rand gave no reaction. He'd ordered the merchant council to choose new members, then pick a king. But Bashere was probably right. Already, Rand had reports from the other cities along the coast, where he'd told his Aiel to withdraw. The city leaders were vanishing, running before the presumed Seanchan assault.

Arad Doman, as a kingdom, was finished. Like a table laden with too much weight, it would soon collapse. It is not my problem, Rand thought, not looking at the people. / did everything I could.

That wasn't true. Though he'd wanted to help the Domani, his real reasons for coming had been to deal with the Seanchan, to find out what had happened to the king, and to track down Graendal. Not to mention to secure what he could of the Borderlands.

"What news from Ituralde?" Rand asked.

"Nothing good, I'm afraid," Bashere said grimly. "He's had skirmishes with Trollocs, but you knew that already. The Shadowspawn always withdraw quickly, but he warns that something is gathering. His scouts catch glimpses of forces large enough to overrun him. If the Trollocs are gathering there, then they're likely gathering elsewhere as well. Particularly the Gap."

Curse those Borderlanders! Rand thought. / will have to do something about them. Soon. Reaching the square, he reined in Tai'daishar and nodded to Flinn and Naeff.

At his signal, they each opened a large gateway in the city square. Rand had wanted to leave directly from Lady Chadmar's mansion grounds, but that would have been to vanish like a thief, there one day and gone the next. He would at least let the people see that he was leaving and know that they had been left to themselves.

They lined the boardwalks, much as they had when Rand had first entered the city. If possible, they were more quiet now than they had been. Women in their sleek gowns, men in colorful coats and ruffled sleeves beneath. There were many without the coppery skin of the Domani. Rand had lured so many to the city with promises of food.

Time to go. He approached one of the gateways, but a voice called out. "Lord Dragon!"

The voice was easy to hear, since the crowds were so silent. Rand turned in his saddle, seeking out the source of the voice. A willowy man in a red Domani coat—buttoned at the waist, open in a "V" up the front, with a ruffled shirt beneath. His golden earrings sparkled as he elbowed his way through the crowd. The Aiel intercepted him, but Rand recognized him as one of the dockmasters. Rand nodded for the Aiel to let the man—Iralin was his name—approach.

Iralin hurried up to Tai'daishar. He was uncharacteristically clean shaven for a Domani man, and his eyes were shadowed from lack of sleep.

"My Lord Dragon," the man said in a hushed voice, standing beside Rand's horse, "The food! It has spoiled."

"What food?" Rand asked.

"All of it," the man said, voice taut. "Every barrel, every sack, every bit in our stores and in the Sea Folk ships. My Lord! It's not just full of weevils. It's grown black and bitter, and it makes men sick to eat it!"

"All of it?" he repeated, shocked.

"Everything," Iralin said softly. "Hundreds upon hundreds of barrels. It happened suddenly, in the blink of an eye. One moment, it was good, the next moment. . . . My Lord, so many people have come to the city because they heard we had food! Now we have nothing. What will we do?"

Rand closed his eyes.

"My Lord?" Iralin asked.

Rand opened his eyes and kicked Tai'daishar into motion. He left the dockmaster behind, mouth open, and passed through the gateway. There was nothing more Rand could do. Nothing more he would do.

He put the coming starvation out of his mind. It was shocking how easy that was.

Bandar Eban vanished, those too-silent people vanished. The moment he passed through the gateway, cheers exploded from the waiting crowds.

It was so shocking, such a contrast, that Rand pulled Tai'daishar up short, stunned.

Tear spread before him. This was one of the great cities, massive and sprawling, and the gateways opened directly into Feaster's Run, one of the main city squares. A short rank of Asha'man saluted with fists to chests. Rand had sent them on earlier in the morning to prepare the city for his arrival and clear the square for gateways.

The people continued their cheers. Thousands had gathered, and Banners of Light flapped atop dozens of poles held aloft by the crowd. The adulation hit Rand like a wave of reproach. He didn't deserve such praise. Not after what he had done in Arad Doman.

Must keep moving, he thought, kicking Tai'daishar into motion again. The horse's hooves fell on flagstones here, rather than rain-dampened dirt. Bandar Eban was a large city, but Tear was something else entirely. Streets snaked across the landscape, lined with buildings that most country folk would have called cramped, but that were ordinary to the Tairens. Many of the peaked slate or tile roofs had men or boys perched on their edges, hoping for a better view of the Lord Dragon. The building stones were a lighter hue here than they had been in Bandar Eban, and they were the preferred building material. Perhaps that was because of the fortress that loomed above the city. The Stone of Tear, it was called. A relic of a previous age, still impressive.