A Memory of Light

“Perhaps I should have done just that,” she replied coldly. “This entire battle has been a disaster. You lose ground each moment. You talk lightly and joke, refusing proper protocol; I do not think you approach this with the solemnity befitting your station.”


Knotai laughed. It was a loud, genuine laugh. He was good at this. Fortuona thought she was the only one who saw the twin lines of smoke rising exactly behind him from the Heights. An appropriate omen for Knotai: a large gamble would yield large rewards. Or a great cost.

“I’ve had it with you,” Knotai said, waving a hand at her. “You and your bloody Seanchan rules just keep getting in the way.”

“Then I have had it with you as well,” she said, raising her head. “We should never have joined this battle. We would be better preparing to defend our own lands to the southwest.

I will not let you throw away the lives of my soldiers.”

“Go, then,” Knotai snarled. “What do I care?”

She spun about, stalking away. “Come,” she said to the others. “Gather our damane. All but those Deathwatch Guards will Travel to our army’s camp at the Erinin, then we will all return to Ebou Dar. We wil fight the true Last Battle there once these fools have bloodied the Shadowspawn for us.”

Her people fol owed. Had the ploy been convincing? The spy had seen her consign to death men who loved her; would that show that she was reckless? Reckless and self-important enough to pull her troops away from

Knotai? It was plausible enough. In a way, she wanted to do as she said, and fight in the south instead.

To do that, of course, would be to ignore the breaking sky, the trembling land, and the Dragon Reborns fight. These were not omens she could let pass her by.

The spy did not know that. It could not know her. The spy would see a young woman, foolish enough to want to fight on her own. So she hoped.

The Dark One spun a web of possibility around Rand.

Rand knew this struggle between them—the fight for what could be— was vital to the Last Battle. Rand could not weave the future. He was not the Wheel, nor anything like it. For everything that had happened to him, he was stil merely a man.

Yet, in him was the hope of humankind. Humankind had a destiny, a choice for its future.

The path they would take . . . this battle would decide it, his wil clashing with that of the Dark One. As of yet, what could be might become what would be. Breaking now would be to let the Dark One choose that future.

BEHOLD, the Dark One said as the lines of light came together and Rand entered another world. A world that had not yet happened, but a world that very well might soon come to be.

Rand frowned, looking up at the sky. It was not red in this vision, the landscape not ruined.

He stood in Caemlyn, much as he knew it. Oh, there were differences. Steamwagons rattled down the streets, mingling with the traffic of horse-drawn carriages and crowds walking.

The city had expanded beyond the new wal —he could see that from the height of the central hil he stood upon. He could even make out the place where Talmanes had blown a hole in the wal . It had not been repaired. Instead, the city had spil ed out through it.

Buildings covered what had once been fields outside.

Rand frowned, turning and walking down the street. What game was the Dark One playing?

Surely this normal, even prosperous, city would not be part of his plans for the world. The people were clean and did not look oppressed. He saw no sign of the depravity that had marked the previous world the Dark One had created for him.

Curious, he walked up to a stand where a woman sold fruit. The slender woman gave him an inviting smile, gesturing toward her wares. “Welcome, good sir. I am Renel, and my shop is a second home to al seeking the finest of fruits from around the world. I have fresh peaches from Tear!”

“Peaches!” Rand said, aghast. Everyone knew those were poisonous.

“Ha! Fear not, good sir! These have had the toxin removed. They are as safe as I am honest.”

The woman smiled, taking a bite of one to prove it. As she did, a grubby hand appeared from under the fruit stand—an urchin hid underneath, a young boy that Rand had not noticed earlier.

The little boy snatched a red fruit of a type Rand did not recognize, then dashed off. He was so thin that Rand could see his ribs pressing against the skin of his too-small form, and he ran on legs so slender that it was a wonder the boy could walk.

The woman continued smiling at Rand as she reached to her side, took out a smal rod with a lever at the side for her finger. She pulled the lever, and the rod cracked.

The urchin died in a spray of blood. He fel , sprawling, to the ground. People moved around him in the flow of traffic, though somebody—a man with many guards—did scoop up the piece of fruit. He wiped the blood off of it and took a bite, continuing on his way. A few moments later, a steam-wagon rolled over the corpse, pressing it into the muddy roadway.

Rand, aghast, looked back at the woman. She tucked away her weapon, a smile still on her face. “Were you looking for any type of fruit in particular?” she asked him.

“You just kil ed that child!”