The Gathering Storm - Robert Jordan

He resumed walking, straightening his back. He had to be strong— or at least appear strong—at all times.

Hurin was a relic from an earlier life. Days when Mat had still mocked Rand's coats, days when Rand had hoped that he'd marry Egwene and somehow return to the Two Rivers. He had traveled with Hurin and Loial, determined to stop Fain and get back Mat's dagger, to prove that he was a friend. That had been a much simpler time, although Rand hadn't known it. He'd have wondered if anything could grow more complicated than thinking his friends hated him.

The colors shifted in his vision. Perrin walking through a dark camp, that stone sword looming in the air above him. The vision changed to Mat, who was still in that city. It was Caemlyn? Why could he be near Elayne, when Rand had to remain so far away? He could barely feel her emotions through the bond. He missed her so. Once they had stolen kisses from one another in the halls of this very fortress.

No, he thought. / am strong. Longing was an emotion he mustn't feel. Nostalgia got him nowhere. He tried to banish both, ducking into a stairwell and moving down the steps, working his body, trying to make his breath come in gasps.

Do we run from the past, then? Lews Therin asked softly. Yes. That is well. Better to run than to face it.

Rand's time with Hurin had ended at Falme. Those days were indistinct in his mind. The changes that had come upon him then—realizing that he had to kill, that he could never return to the life he had loved— were things he could not dwell on. He'd headed out toward Tear, almost delirious, separated from his friends, seeing Ishamael in his dreams.

That last one was happening again.

Rand burst out onto one of the lower floors of the keep, breathing deeply. His Maidens followed him, not winded. He strode down the hallway and into a massive chamber with rows of pillars, stout and broad, wider than a man could wrap his arms around. The Heart of the Stone. Several Defenders came to attention and saluted as Rand passed them.

He walked to the center of the Heart. Once, Callandor had hung here, glistening with light. The crystal sword was now in Cadsuane's possession. Hopefully, she hadn't bungled that and lost it as she had the male a'dam. Rand didn't really care. Callandor was inferior; to use it, a man had to subject himself to the will a of woman. Besides, it was powerful, but not nearly as powerful as the Choedan Kal. The access key was a much better tool. Rand stroked it quietly, regarding the place where Callandor had once hung.

This had always bothered him. Callandor was the weapon spoken of in the prophecies. The Karaethon Cycle said that the Stone would not fall until Callandor was wielded by the Dragon Reborn. To some scholars, that passage had implied that the sword would never be wielded. But the prophecies did not work that way—they were made to be fulfilled.

Rand had studied the Karaethon Prophecy. Unfortunately, teasing out its meaning was like trying to untie a hundred yards of tangled rope. With one hand.

Taking the Sword That Cannot Be Touched was one of the first major prophecies that he had fulfilled. But was his taking of Callandor a meaningless sign, or was it a step? Everyone knew the prophecy, but few asked the question that should have been inevitable. Why? Why did Rand have to take up the sword? Was it to be used in the Last Battle?

The sword was inferior as a sa'angreal, and he doubted that it was intended to be used simply as a sword. Why did the prophecies not speak of the Choedan Kal? He had used those to cleanse the taint. The access key gave Rand power well beyond what Callandor could provide, and that power came with no strings. The statuette was freedom, but Callandor was just another box. Yet talk of the Choedan Kal and their keys was absent from the prophecies.

Rand found that frustrating, for the prophecies were—in a way—the grandest and most stifling box of them all. He was trapped inside of them. Eventually, they would suffocate him.

I told them . . . Lews Therin whispered.

Told them what? Rand demanded.

That the plan would not work, Lews Therin said, voice very soft. That brute force would not contain him. They called my plan brash, but these weapons they created, they were too dangerous. Too frightening. No man should hold such Power. . .

Rand struggled with the thoughts, the voice, the memories. He couldn't recall much at all of Lews Therin's plan to Seal the Dark One's prison. The Choedan Kal—had they been built for that purpose?

Was that the answer? Had Lews Therin made the wrong choice? Why, then, was there no mention of them in the prophecies?

Rand turned to leave the empty chamber. "Guard this place no more," he said to the Defenders. "There is nothing here of worth. I'm not sure if there ever was."

The men looked shocked, mortified, like children just chastised by a beloved father. But there was a war coming, and he wouldn't leave soldiers behind to defend an empty room.

Rand gritted his teeth and strode into a hallway. Callandor. Where had Cadsuane hidden it? He knew she'd taken rooms in the Stone, again pushing the limits of his exile. He would have to do something about that. Cast her from the Stone, perhaps. He hurried up the stone steps, then left the stairwell on a random floor, continuing to move. Sitting now would drive him mad.

He worked so hard to keep from being tied with strings, but at the end of the day, the prophecies would see that he did what he was supposed to. They were more manipulative, more devious, than any Aes Sedai.

His anger welled up inside him, raging against its constraints. The quiet voice deep within shivered at the tempest. Rand leaned his left arm against the wall, bowing his head, teeth gritted.

"I will be strong," he whispered. And yet, the anger would not go away. And why should it? The Borderlanders defied him. The Seanchan defied him. The Aes Sedai pretended to obey him, yet dined with Cadsuane behind his back and danced at her command.

Cadsuane defied him most of all. Staying right near him, flouting his words of command and twisting his intentions. He pulled out the access key, fingering it. The Last Battle loomed, and he spent what little time he had riding to meetings with people who insulted him. The Dark One was unraveling the Pattern more each day, and those sworn to protect the borders were hiding in Far Madding.

He glanced around, breathing deeply. Something about this particular hallway seemed familiar. He wasn't certain why; it looked like all of the others. Rugs of gold and red. An intersection of hallways ahead.

Maybe he shouldn't have let the Borderlanders survive their defiance. Perhaps he should go back and see that they learned to fear him. But no. He didn't need them. He could leave them for the Seanchan. That Border-lander army would serve to slow his enemies here in the south. Perhaps that would keep the Seanchan from his flanks while he dealt with the Dark One.

But . . . was there, perhaps, a way to stop the Seanchan for good? He looked down at the access key. Once he had tried to use Callandor to fight the foreign invaders. He hadn't yet understood why the sword was so difficult to control: only after his disastrous assault had Cadsuane explained what she knew about it. Rand needed to be in a circle with two women before he could safely wield the sword that was not a sword.

That had been his first major failure as a commander.

But he had a better tool now. The most powerful tool ever created; surely no human could hold more of the One Power than he had when cleansing saidin. Burning Graendal and Natrin's Barrow away had required only a fraction of what Rand could summon.

If he turned that against the Seanchan, then he could go to the Last Battle with confidence, no longer worried about what was creeping along behind him. He had given them their chance. Several chances. He had warned Cadsuane, told her that he'd bind the Daughter of the Nine Moons to him. One way ... or another.

It would not take long.

There, Lews Therin said. We stood there.

Rand frowned. What was the madman babbling about? He glanced around. The wide hallway's floor was tiled in red and black patterns. A few tapestries fluttered on the walls. With shock, Rand realized that several of them depicted him, taking the Stone, holding Callandor, killing Trollocs.

Fighting the Seanchan wasn't our first failure, Lews Therin whispered. No, our first failure happened here. In this hallway.

Exhausted, following the battle with the Trollocs and Myrddraal. His side throbbing. The Stone still ringing with the cries of the wounded. Feeling he could do anything. Anything.

Standing above the corpse of a young girl. Just a child. Callandor glowing in his fingers. The body suddenly jerked.

Moiraine had stopped him. Bringing life to the dead was beyond him, she'd said.

How I wish she was still here, Rand thought. He had often been frustrated with her, but she—more than anyone else—had seemed to grasp just what it was he was expected to do. She'd made him more willing to do it, even when he'd been angry with her.

He turned away. Moiraine had been right. He could not bring life to those who were dead. But he was very good at bringing death to those who lived. "Gather your spear-sisters," Rand called over his shoulder to his Aiel guards. "We are going to battle."

"Now?" one of them asked. "It is nightfall!"

Rave I been walking that long? Rand thought with surprise. "Yes," he said. "The darkness won't matter; I shall create light enough." He fingered the access key, feeling a thrill and a horror at the same time. He had driven the Seanchan back into the ocean once. He would do so again. Alone.

Yes, he would drive them back—at least, the ones he left alive.

"Go!" he shouted at the Maidens. They left him, loping down the hallway. What had happened to his control? The ice had grown thin lately.

He walked back to the stairway and climbed a few flights up toward his rooms. The Seanchan would know his fury. They dared to provoke the Dragon Reborn? He offered them peace, and they laughed at him?

He threw open the door to his rooms, silencing the eager Defenders on guard outside with a sharply upraised hand. He was not in the mood for their prattle.

He stormed inside, and was annoyed to find that the guards had allowed someone inside. An unfamiliar figure stood with his back to Rand, looking out the open balcony doors. "What—" Rand began.

The man turned. It was not a stranger. Not a stranger at all.

It was Tam. His father.

Rand stumbled back. Was this an apparition? Some twisted trick of the Dark One? But no, it was Tam. There was no mistaking the man's kindly eyes. Though he was a head shorter than Rand, Tam had always seemed more solid than the world around him. His broad chest and steady legs could not be moved, not because he was strong—Rand had met many men of greater strength during his travels. Strength was fleeting. Tam was real. Certain and stable. Just looking at him brought comfort.