Something moved in front of him. He blinked. Those clouds above were a tempest. In front of him, three figures wearing black and brown approached with a sleek grace. Myrddraal!
No. He blinked the tears and blood from his eyes. No, those weren’t Myrddraal. They were men, wearing red veils over their faces. They walked at a crouch, scanning the terrain, short spears worn on their backs.
“Light be praised,” he whispered. “Aiel.” He’d been in Andor when Rand al’Thor had come. Everyone knew the Aiel followed the Dragon Reborn. He had tamed them.
I’m safe!
One of the Aiel stepped up to Barriga. Why was the man’s veil red? That was unusual. The Aiel’s dark eyes were glassy and hard. The Aiel man undid his veil, and revealed a smiling face.
The man’s teeth had been filed to points. His smile broadened, and he slipped a knife from his belt.
Barriga stuttered, looking at that horrific maw and the glee in this man’s eyes as he reached in for the kill. These weren’t Aiel. They were something else.
Something terrible.
Rand al’Thor, the Dragon Reborn, sat quietly in his dream. He breathed in the cool, chill air. White clouds floated gently around him, kissing his skin with their condensation.
His throne for the night was a flat boulder on a mountain slope; he looked down through the clouds at a narrow valley. This wasn’t the real location. It wasn’t even the World of Dreams, that place where he’d fought Forsaken, the place he’d been told was so dangerous.
No, this was one of his own ordinary dreams. He controlled them now. They were a place he could find peace to think, protected by wards while his body slept beside Min in their new camp, surrounded by Borderlanders, set up on the Field of Merrilor. Egwene was there, with armies marshaled. He was ready for that. He’d counted on it.
On the morrow, they’d hear his demands. Not what he would demand to keep him from breaking the seals—he was going to do that, regardless of what Egwene said. No, these would be the demands he made on the monarchs of the world in exchange for going to Shayol Ghul to face the Dark One.
He wasn’t certain what he’d do if they refused him. They’d find it very difficult to do so. Sometimes, it could be useful to have a reputation for being irrational.
He breathed in deeply, peaceful. Here, in his dreams, the hills grew green. As he remembered them. In that nameless valley below, sheltered in the Mountains of Mist, he’d begun a journey. Not his first, and not his last, but perhaps the most important. One of the most painful, for certain.
“And now I come back,” he whispered. “I’ve changed again. A man is always changing.”
He felt a unity in returning here, to the place where he’d first confronted the killer inside him. The place where he’d first tried to flee from those whom he should have kept near. He closed his eyes, enjoying tranquility. Calmness. Harmony.
In the distance, he heard screams of pain.
Rand opened his eyes. What had that been? He stood up, spinning. This place was created of his own mind, protected and safe. It couldn’t—
The scream came again. Distant. He frowned and raised a hand. The scene around him vanished, puffing away into mist. He stood in blackness.
There, he thought. He was in a long corridor of dark wood paneling. He walked down it, boots thumping. That screaming. It shook his peace. Someone was in pain. They needed him.
Rand began to run. He reached a doorway at the end of the hall. The door’s russet wood was knobbed and ridged, like the thick roots of an ancient tree. Rand seized the handle—just another root—and wrenched the door open.
The vast room beyond was pure black, lightless, like a cavern deep beneath the ground. The room seemed to suck in the light and extinguish it. The screaming voice was inside. It was weak, as if it were being smothered by the darkness.
Rand entered. The darkness swallowed him. It seemed to pull the life out of him, like a hundred leeches sucking blood from his veins. He pressed onward. He couldn’t distinguish the direction of the cries, so he moved along the walls; they felt like bone, smooth but occasionally cracked.
The room was round. As if he stood inside the bowl of an enormous skull.
There! A faint light ahead, a single candle on the ground, illuminating a floor of black marble. Rand hurried toward it. Yes, there was a figure there. Huddled against the bone-white wall. It was a woman with silvery hair, wearing a thin white shift.
She was weeping now, her figure shaking and trembling. Rand knelt beside her, the candle flickering from his motion. How had this woman gotten into his dream? Was she someone real, or was this a creation of his mind? He laid a hand on her shoulder.
She glanced toward him, eyes red, face a mask of pain, tears dripping from her chin. “Please,” she pled. “Please. He has me.”
“Who are you?”
“You know me,” she whispered, taking his hand, clinging to it. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. He has me. He flays my soul anew each eve. Oh, please! Let it stop.” The tears flowed more freely.
“I don’t know you,” Rand said. “I…”
Those eyes. Those beautiful, terrible eyes. Rand gasped, releasing her hand. The face was different. But he did know that soul. “Mierin? You’re dead. I saw you die!”
She shook her head. “I wish I were dead. I wish it. Please! He grinds my bones and snaps them like twigs, then leaves me to die before Healing me just enough to keep me alive. He—” She cut off, jerking.
“What?”
Her eyes opened wide and she spun toward the wall. “No!” she screamed. “He comes! The Shadow in every man’s mind, the murderer of truth. No!” She spun, reaching for Rand, but something towed her backward. The wall broke away, and she tumbled into the darkness.
Rand jumped forward, reaching for her, but he was too late. He caught a glimpse of her before she vanished into the blackness below.
Rand froze, staring into that pit. He sought calmness, but he could not find it. Instead, he felt hatred, concern, and—like a seething viper within him—desire. That had been Mierin Eronaile, a woman he had once called the Lady Selene.
A woman most people knew by the name she’d taken upon herself. Lanfear.
A cruel, dry wind blew across Lan’s face as he looked down at a corrupt landscape. Tarwin’s Gap was a wide pass, rocky, speckled with Blighted knifegrass. This had once been part of Malkier. He was home again. For the last time.
Masses of Trollocs clustered on the other side of the Gap. Thousands. Tens of thousands. Probably hundreds of thousands. Easily ten times the number of men Lan had gathered during his march across the Borderlands. Normally, men held at their side of the Gap, but Lan could not do that.
He had come to attack, to ride for Malkier. Andere rode up beside him on his left, young Kaisel of Kandor on his right. He could feel something, distant, that had given him strength recently. The bond had changed. The emotions had changed.
He could still feel Nynaeve, so wonderful, caring, and passionate in the back of his mind. He should have been pained to know that now she would suffer when he died, instead of another. However, that closeness to her—a final closeness—brought him strength.
The hot wind seemed too dry; it smelled of dust and dirt, and drew the moisture from his eyes, forcing him to blink.
“It is fitting,” Kaisel said.
“What?” Lan asked.
“That we should strike here.”
“Yes,” Lan said.
“It is bold,” Kaisel said. “It shows the Shadow that we will not be beaten down, that we will not cower. This is your land, Lord Mandragoran.”
My land, he thought. Yes, it was. He nudged Mandarb forward.
“I am al’Lan Mandragoran,” Lan bellowed. “Lord of the Seven Towers, Defender of the Wall of First Fires, Bearer of the Sword of the Thousand Lakes! I was once named Aan’allein, but I reject that title, for I am alone no more. Fear me, Shadow! Fear me and know. I have returned for what is mine. I may be a king without a land. But I am still a king!”
He roared, raising his sword. A cheer rose from behind him. He sent a final, powerful sensation of love to Nynaeve as he kicked Mandarb into a gallop.
His army charged behind him, each man mounted—a charge of Kandori, Arafellin, Shienarans, and Saldaeans. But most of all Malkieri. Lan wouldn’t be surprised if he’d drawn every living man from his former kingdom who could still hold a weapon.
They rode, cheering, brandishing swords and leveling lances. Their hooves were thunder, their voices a crash of waves, their pride stronger than the blazing sun. They were twelve thousand strong. And they charged a force of at least one hundred and fifty thousand.
This day will be remembered in honor, Lan thought, galloping forward. The Last Charge of the Golden Crane. The fall of the Malkieri.
The end had come. They would meet it with swords raised.
Lo, it shall come upon the world that the prison of the Greatest One shall grow weak, like the limbs of those who crafted it. Once again, His glorious cloak shall smother the Pattern of all things, and the Great Lord shall stretch forth His hand to claim what is His. The rebellious nations shall be laid barren, their children caused to weep. There shall be none but Him, and those who have turned their eyes to His majesty.
In that day, when the One-Eyed Fool travels the halls of mourning, and the First Among Vermin lifts his hand to bring freedom to Him who will Destroy, the last days of the Fallen Blacksmith’s pride shall come. Yea, and the Broken Wolf, the one whom Death has known, shall fall and be consumed by the Midnight Towers. And his destruction shall bring fear and sorrow to the hearts of men, and shall shake their very will itself.
And then, shall the Lord of the Evening come. And He shall take our eyes, for our souls shall bow before Him, and He shall take our skin, for our flesh shall serve Him, and He shall take our lips, for only Him will we praise. And the Lord of the Evening shall face the Broken Champion, and shall spill his blood and bring us the Darkness so beautiful. Let the screams begin, O followers of the Shadow. Beg for your destruction!
—from The Prophecies of the Shadow
The End