A Memory of Light

“You’re mad.”


“Hardly,” Demandred walked around him, cutting the air with a few sweeps of his sword.

“That man you follow, Lews Therin Telamon, he is mad. He thinks he can defeat the Great Lord. He cannot. That is simple fact.”

“You’d have us join the Shadow instead?”

“Yes.” Demandred’s eyes were cold. “If I kill Lews Therin, in victory I will be given the right to remake the world as I wish. The Great Lord cares nothing for rule. The only way to protect this world is to destroy it, and then shelter its people. Is that not what your Dragon claims he can do?”

“Why do you keep calling him my Dragon?” Gawyn said, then spat blood to the side. The rings . . . they urged him forward. His limbs pulsed with strength, energy. Fight! Kill!

“You follow him,” Demandred said.

“I do not!”

“Lies,” Demandred said. “Or perhaps you are simply fooled. I know that Lews Therin leads this army. At first I was uncertain, but no longer. That weave about you is proof enough, but I have a greater one. No mortal general has such skill as this day has shown; I face a true master on the battlefield. Perhaps Lews Therin wears the Mask of Mirrors, or perhaps he leads by sending messages to this Cauthon through the One Power. It does not matter, I see the truth. I dice with Lews Therin this day.

“I was always the better general. I will prove it here. I would have you tell that to Lews Therin, but you will not live long enough, little swordsman. Prepare yourself.” Demandred raised his sword.

Gawyn stood, dropping his knife, taking his sword in two hands. Demandred stalked toward him, using forms that were different from those Gawyn knew. They were stil familiar enough for him to counter, but despite his greater speed, time and time again Demandred caught his sword and deflected it harmlessly to the side.

The man did not strike. He barely moved, feet set wide apart, sword in two hands, battering aside each and every attack Gawyn hurled at him. The Dove Takes Flight, The Falling Leaf, Leopard’s Caress. Gawyn gritted his teeth, growling through them. The rings should have been enough. Why weren’t the rings enough?

Gawyn stepped back, then ducked backward as another stone came hurtling toward him. It missed him by inches. Thank the Light for these rings, he thought.





“You fight with skill,” Demandred said, “for one of this Age. But you still wield your sword, little man.”

“What else would I do?”

“Become the sword yourself,” Demandred said, as if baffled that Gawyn did not understand.

Gawyn growled and came in again, battering at Demandred. Gawyn was still faster.

Demandred didn’t attack; he was on the defensive, then, although he didn’t retreat. He just stood there, turning aside each blow.

Demandred closed his eyes. Gawyn smiled, then thrust in Black Lance’s Last Strike.

Demandred’s sword became a blur.

Something struck Gawyn. He gasped, pulling to a stop. He wobbled and fel to his knees, looking down at a hole in his gut. Demandred had thrust straight through the mail, then pulled his sword free in a single fluid motion.

Why can’t. . . why can’t I feel anything?

“If you do survive this and see Lews Therin,” Demandred said, “tell him I am very much looking forward to a match between the two of us, sword against sword. I have improved since we last met.”

Demandred whipped his sword around, catching the back of the blade in the crook between his thumb and forefinger. He pulled the sword across, stripping the blood from the steel and splattering it to the ground.

He slid the weapon into his sheath. He shook his head, then released a bal of fire toward a still-firing dragon.

It fel silent. Demandred strode away along the edge of the steep slope facing the river, his Sharan guard forming around him. Gawyn col apsed to the ground, stunned, spurting his life onto the burned grass. He tried to hold in the blood through trembling fingers.

Somehow Gawyn managed to push himself up to his knees. His heart cried out; he needed to return to Egwene. He began to crawl, blood mixing with the earth beneath him as it seeped from his wound. Through eyes clouded with cold perspiration, he spotted several cavalry mounts twenty paces ahead, poking at blackened tufts of grass at their feet and tethered to a picket-line. After minutes of struggle, an impossible interval of time that left him drained, he pulled himself up on to the back of the first horse he could reach and untether. Gawyn hunched over, dazed, grasping its mane in one hand. Summoning his remaining strength, he kicked his heel into the animal’s rib cage.



*

“My Lady,” Mandevwin said to Faile, “I have known those two men for years! They are not