Face frozen, Rand fought for his own mind. I am Rand al’Thor. Rand al’Thor! I never knew Sammael or Demandred or any of them! The Light burn me, I am Rand al’Thor! Like a faint echo, one more thought came from elsewhere. The Light burn me. It sounded like a plea. Then Lews Therin was gone, driven back into whatever shadows he lived in.
Bashere took advantage of the silence. “You say you’re Mazrim Taim?” He sounded doubtful, and Rand looked at him in confusion. Was this Taim or not? Only a madman would claim that name if it was not his.
The prisoner’s mouth quirked in what might have been the beginning of a smile, and he rubbed his chin. “I shaved, Bashere.” His voice held more than a hint of mockery. “It is hot this far south, or had you not noticed? Hotter than it should be, even here. Do you want proof of me? Shall I channel for you?” His dark eyes flickered to Rand, then back to Bashere, whose face was growing darker by the minute. “Perhaps not that, not now. I remember you. I had you beat at Irinjavar, until those visions appeared in the sky. But everyone knows that. What does everyone not know, that you and Mazrim Taim will?” Focused on Bashere, he seemed unaware of his guards, or their swords still hovering near his ribs. “I hear you hid what happened to Musar and Hachari and their wives.” The mockery was gone; he was just relating what had happened, now. “They shouldn’t have tried to kill me under a parley flag. I trust you found them good places as servants? All they’ll really want to do now is serve and obey; they won’t be happy otherwise. I could have killed them. They all four drew daggers.”
“Taim,” Bashere growled, hand darting for his hilt, “you . . . !”
Rand stepped in front of him, seizing his wrist with the blade half-drawn. The guards’ blades, Tumad’s as well, were touching Taim now, very likely touching flesh the way they were shoved against his coat, but he did not flinch. “Did you come to see me,” Rand demanded, “or to taunt Lord Bashere? If you do it again, I’ll let him kill you. My amnesty pardons what you’ve done, but it doesn’t let you flaunt your crimes.”
Taim studied Rand a moment before speaking. Despite the heat, the fellow barely sweated. “To see you. You were the one in the vision in the sky. They say it was the Dark One himself you fought.”
“Not the Dark One,” Rand said. Bashere was not fighting him exactly, but he could feel the tension in the man’s arm. If he let go, that blade would be out and through Taim in a heartbeat. Unless he used the Power. Or Taim did. That had to be avoided, if it could be. He kept his grip on Bashere’s wrist. “He called himself Ba’alzamon, but I think he was Ishamael. I killed him later, in the Stone of Tear.”
“I hear you’ve killed a number of the Forsaken. Should I call you my Lord Dragon? I have heard this lot use the title. Do you mean to kill all the Forsaken?”
“Do you know any other way to deal with them?” Rand asked. “They die, or the world does. Unless you think they can be talked into abandoning the Shadow the way they abandoned the Light.” This was becoming ridiculous. Here he was, carrying on a conversation with a man who certainly had five sword points drawing blood beneath his coat while he himself held on to another man who wanted to add a sixth and draw more than a trickle. At least Bashere’s men were too disciplined to do more without their general’s word. At least Bashere was keeping his mouth shut. Admiring Taim’s coolness, Rand went on as quickly as he could without seeming to be hurried.
“Whatever your crimes are, Taim, they pale beside the Forsaken’s. Have you ever tortured an entire city, made thousands of people assist in breaking each other slowly, in breaking their own loved ones? Semirhage did that, for no more reason than that she could, to prove she could, for the pleasure of it. Have you murdered children? Graendal did. She called it kindness, so they would not suffer after she enslaved their parents and carried them away.” He just hoped the other Saldaeans were listening half as closely as Taim; the man had actually leaned forward slightly in interest. He hoped they did not ask too many questions about where all this came from. “Have you given people to Trollocs to eat? All the Forsaken did — prisoners who would not turn always went to the Trollocs, if they weren’t murdered out of hand — but Demandred captured two cities just because he thought the people there had slighted him before he went over to the Shadow, and every man, woman and child went into Trolloc bellies. Mesaana set up schools in the territory she controlled, schools where children and young people were taught the glories of the Dark One, taught to kill their friends who didn’t learn well enough or fast enough. I could go on. I could start from the beginning of the list and go through all thirteen names, adding a hundred crimes as bad to every name. Whatever you’ve done, it doesn’t rank with that. And now you’ve come to accept my pardon, to walk in the Light and submit to me, to battle the Dark One as hard as you ever battled anyone. The Forsaken are reeling; I mean to hunt them all down, eradicate them. And you will help me. For that, you’ve earned your pardon. I tell you true, you’ll probably earn it a hundred times over again before the Last Battle is done.”
At last he felt Bashere’s arm relax, felt the man’s sword sliding back into its scabbard. Rand barely stopped himself from exhaling in relief. “I don’t see any reason to guard him so closely now. Put up your swords.”
Slowly, Tumad and the others began sheathing their blades. Slowly, but they were doing it. Then Taim spoke.
“Submit? I had thought more of a compact between us.” The other Saldaeans tensed; Bashere was still behind Rand, but Rand could feel him stiffening. The Maidens did not move a muscle, except
that Jalani’s hand twitched toward her veil. Taim tilted his head, unaware. “I would be the lesser partner, of course, yet I have had years more than you to study the Power. There is much I could teach you.”
Rage rose up in Rand till his vision filmed red. He had spoken of things he should have no knowledge of, had probably birthed a dozen rumors about himself and the Forsaken, all to make this fellow’s deeds seem less dark, and the man had the audacity to speak of compacts? Lews Therin raved in his head. Kill him! Kill him now! Kill him! For once Rand did not bother to quell the voice. “No compact!” he growled. “No partners! I am the Dragon Reborn, Taim! Me! If you have knowledge I can make use of, I will, but you will go where I say, do as I say, when I say.”
Without a pause Taim slipped to one knee. “I submit to the Dragon Reborn. I will serve and obey.” The corners of his mouth quivered again in that almost smile as he rose. Tumad gaped at him.
“That fast?” Rand said softly. The rage was not gone; it was white hot. If he gave way, he was not sure what he would do. Lews Therin still babbled in the shadows of his head. Kill him! Must kill him! Rand pushed Lews Therin away, to a barely audible murmur. Perhaps he should not be surprised at this; strange things happened around ta’veren, especially one as strong as himself. That a man might change his mind in a moment, even if his course had been carved in stone, should be no great surprise. But the anger had him, and a strong streak of suspicion. “You named yourself the Dragon Reborn, fought battles all over Saldaea, were only captured because you were knocked unconscious, and you give up this quickly? Why?”
Taim shrugged. “What are my choices? To wander the world alone, friendless, hunted, while you rise to glory? That’s supposing Bashere doesn’t manage to kill me before I can leave the city, or your Aiel women don’t. Even if they don’t, the Aes Sedai will corner me sooner or later; I doubt the Tower means to forget Mazrim Taim. Or I can follow you, and part of that glory will be mine.” For the first time he looked around, at his guards, at the Maidens, and shook his head as if he could not believe it. “I might have been the one. How could I be sure otherwise? I can channel; I’m strong. What said I was not the Dragon Reborn? All I had to do was fulfill just one of the Prophecies.”
“Like managing to be born on the slopes of Dragonmount?” Rand said coldly. “That was the first Prophecy to be met.”
Taim’s mouth quirked again. It really was not a smile; it never touched his eyes. “Victors write history. Had I taken the Stone of Tear, history would have shown I was born on Dragonmount, of a woman never touched by a man, and the heavens opened up in radiance to herald my coming. The sort of thing they say about you, now. But you took the Stone with your Aiel, and the world hails you as the Dragon Reborn. I know better than to stand against that; you are the one. Well, since the whole loaf won’t be mine, I will settle for whatever slices fall my way.”
“You may find honors, Taim, and you may not. If you begin to fret over them, think what happened to the others who’ve done what you did. Logain, captured and gentled; rumor says he died in the Tower. A nameless fellow beheaded in Haddon Mirk by the Tairens. Another burned by the Murandians. Burned alive, Taim! That’s what the Illianers did to Gorin Rogad four years ago, as well.”
“Not a fate I would embrace,” Taim said levelly.
“Then forget honors and remember the Last Battle. Everything I do is aimed at Tarmon Gai’don. Everything I tell you to do will be aimed at it. You will aim at it!”
“Of course.” Taim spread his hands. “You are the Dragon Reborn. I don’t doubt that; I acknowledge it publicly. We march toward Tarmon Gai’don. Which the Prophecies say you will win. And the histories will say that Mazrim Taim stood at your right hand.”
“Perhaps,” Rand told him curtly. He had lived too many prophecies to believe any of them meant exactly what they said. Or even that they insured anything. In his opinion, prophecy set the conditions that had to be met for a thing to happen; only, meeting them did not mean the thing would happen, just that it could. Some of the conditions set in the Prophecies of the Dragon more than implied that he had to die for any chance at victory. Thinking of that did nothing for his temper. “The Light send your chance doesn’t come too soon. Now. What knowledge do you have that I need? Can you teach men to channel? Can you test a man to know whether he can be taught?” Unlike women, one man who could channel could not simply sense the ability in another. There was as much different between men and women with the One Power as there was between men and women; sometimes it was a matter of hair-fine degree, sometimes stone versus silk.
“Your amnesty? Some fools have actually shown up to learn how to be like you and me?”
Bashere only stared at Taim contemptuously, arms folded and boots spread apart, but Tumad and the guards shifted uneasily. The Maidens did not. Rand had no idea how the Maidens felt about the score of men who had answered his call; they never gave any sign. With the memory of Taim as a false Dragon strong in their heads, few of the Saldaeans could hide their ill ease.
“Just answer me, Taim. If you can do what I want, say so. If not . . . ” That was the anger talking. He could not send the man away, not if every day was a struggle with him. Taim seemed to think he would, though.
“I can do both,” he said quickly. “I have found five over the years — not that I was really looking — but only one had the courage to go beyond the testing.” He hesitated, then added, “He went mad after two years. I had to kill him before he killed me.”
Two years. “You’ve held it off a deal longer than that. How?”