The pretty one. With the short hair. She says we need to break the seals. She’s right.
Rand froze, pulling Tai’daishar up short, ignoring the groom who had come to take the horse. To hear Lews Therin agreeing. . . .
What do we do after that? Rand asked.
We die. You promised we could die!
Only if we defeat the Dark One, Rand said. You know that if he wins, there will be nothing for us. Not even death.
Yes . . . nothing, Lews Therin said. That would be nice. No pain, no regret. Nothing.
Rand felt a chill. If Lews Therin began to think that way . . . No, Rand said, it wouldn’t be nothing. He would have our soul. The pain would be worse, far worse.
Lews Therin began to weep.
Lews Therin! Rand snapped in his mind. What do we do? How did you seal the Bore last time?
It didn’t work, Lews Therin whispered. We used saidin, but we touched it to the Dark One. It was the only way! Something has to touch him, something to close the gap, but he was able to taint it. The seal was weak!
Yes, but what do we do differently? Rand thought.
Silence. Rand sat for a moment, then slid off of Tai’daishar and let the nervous groom lead him away. The rest of the Maidens were coming through the large gateway, Bashere and Narishma taking the rear. Rand didn’t wait for them, though he noticed Deira Bashere—Davram Bashere’s wife—standing outside the Traveling ground. The tall, statuesque woman had dark hair with lines of white at the temples. She gave Rand a measuring look. What would she do if Bashere died in Rand’s service? Would she continue to follow, or would she lead the troops away, back to Saldaea? She was as strong of will as her husband. Perhaps more so.
Rand passed her with a nod and a smile and walked through the evening camp toward the manor house. So Lews Therin did not know how to seal the Dark One’s prison. What good was the voice then? Burn him, but he had been one of Rand’s few hopes!
Most people here were wise enough to move away when they saw him stalking across the grounds. Rand could remember when such moods hadn’t struck him, when he had been a simple sheepherder. Rand the Dragon Reborn was a different man altogether. He was a man of responsibility and duty. He had to be.
Duty. Duty was like a mountain. Well, Rand felt as if he was trapped between a good dozen different mountains, all moving to destroy him. Among those forces, his emotions seemed to boil under pressure. Was it any wonder when they burst free?
He shook his head, approaching the manor. To the east lay the Mountains of Mist. The sun was near to setting, and the mountains were bathed in a red light. Beyond them and to the south, so strangely close, lay Emond’s Field and the Two Rivers. A home he would never see again, for a visit would only alert his enemies to his affection for it. He had worked hard to make them think he was a man without affection. At times, he feared that his ruse had become reality.
Mountains. Mountains like duty. The duty of solitude in this case, for somewhere southward along those too-near mountains was his father. Tam. Rand hadn’t seen him in so long. Tam was his father. Rand had decided that. He had never known his birth father, the Aiel clan chief named Janduin, and while he had obviously been a man of honor, Rand had no desire to call him father.
At times, Rand longed for Tam’s voice, his wisdom. Those were the times when Rand knew he had to be the most hard, for a moment of weakness—a moment running to his father for succor—would destroy nearly everything he had worked for. And it would likely mean the end of Tam’s life as well.
Rand entered the manor house through the burned hole in the front, pushing aside the thick canvas that now formed an entry, and kept his back to the Mountains of Mist. He was alone. He needed to be alone. Relying on anyone would risk being weak when he reached Shayol Ghul. At the Last Battle, he would not be able to lean on anyone other than himself.
Duty. How many mountains must one man carry?
It still smelled of smoke inside the manor house. Lord Tellaen had complained about the fire hesitantly—yet persistently—until Rand had ordered compensation for the man, although the bubble of evil hadn’t been Rand’s fault. Or had it? Being ta’veren had many strange effects, from making people say things they wouldn’t normally to bringing him the allegiance of those who had been wavering. He was a focus for trouble, bubbles of evil included. He hadn’t chosen to be that focus, but he had chosen to stay in the manor house.
Either way, Tellaen had been compensated. It was a pittance compared with the amount of money Rand was spending to fund his armies, and even that was small compared with the funds he’d dedicated to bring food to Arad Doman and other troubled areas. At this rate, his stewards worried that he would soon bankrupt his assets in Illian, Tear and Cairhien. Rand had not told them that he didn’t care.
He would see the world to the Last Battle.
And will you have no legacy other than that? a voice whispered in the back of his mind. Not Lews Therin, but his own thought, a small voice, the part of him that had prompted him to found schools in Cairhien and Andor. You wish to live after you die? Will you leave all of those who follow you to war, famine and chaos? Will the destruction be how you live on?
Rand shook his head. He couldn’t fix everything! He was just one man. Looking beyond the Last Battle was foolish. He couldn’t worry about the world then, he couldn’t. To do so would be to take his eye off the goal.
And what is the goal? that voice seemed to say. Is it to survive, or is it to thrive? Will you set the groundwork for another Breaking or for another Age of Legends?
He had no answers. Lews Therin roused slightly, babbling incoherently. Rand climbed the stairs to the second floor of the manor. Light, he was tired.
What was it the madman had said? When he’d sealed the Bore into the Dark One’s prison, he’d used saidin. That was because so many of the Aes Sedai at the time had turned against him, and he’d been left only with the Hundred Companions—the most powerful male Aes Sedai of his time. No women. The female Aes Sedai had called his plan too risky.
Eerily, Rand felt as if he could almost remember those events—not what had happened, but the anger, the desperation, the decision. Was the mistake, then, not using the female half of the power as well as the male? Was that what had allowed the Dark One to counterstrike and taint saidin, driving Lews Therin and the remaining men of the Hundred Companions insane?
Could it be that simple? How many Aes Sedai would he need? Would he need any? Plenty of Wise Ones could channel. Surely there was more to it than that.