A Memory of Light

“Light,” Arganda said, then groaned. He could tell his left arm was broken. Well, he lived.

Good enough for now. He looked toward the front lines where his soldiers stil held their ranks. Queen Alliandre rode in their midst, back and forth through the ranks, encouraging them. Light. He wished she’d been wil ing to serve at the hospital in Mayene.

There was peace here at the moment—the Sharans had been hit hard enough that they had pulled back, leaving a section of ground open between the opposing armies. They probably hadn’t been expecting such a sudden and strong attack.

But wait. Shadows approached from Arganda’s right, oversized figures walking from the darkness. More Trollocs? He set his jaw against the pain. He’d dropped his mace, but he still had his boot knife. He’d not go down without . . . Without . . .

Ogier, he realized, blinking. Those aren’t Trol ocs. They're Ogier. Trollocs wouldn’t carry torches as these beings did.

Glory to the Builders! ’’ Lan called up to them. “So you were part of the army Cauthon sent to attack the Sharans’ flank. Where is he? I would have words with him!”

One of the Ogier let out a rumbling laugh. “You are not the only one, Dai Shan! Cauthon moves about like a squirrel hunting nuts in the underbrush. One moment here, another moment gone. I am to tell you that we must hold back this Sharan advance, at all cost.”

More light flashed from the distant side of the Heights. The Aes Sedai and Sharans fought there. Cauthon was trying to box the Shadow’s forces in. Arganda shoved aside his pain, trying to think.

What of Demandred? Arganda could now see another swath of destruction launched from the Forsaken. It burned through defenders across the river. The pike formations had begun to shatter, each burst of light kil ing hundreds.

Sharan channelers in the distance on one side,” Arganda mumbled, “and one of the Forsaken on the other! Light! I didn’t realize how many Trol ocs there were. They’re endless.’ He could see them now, confronting Elayne’s troops; blasts of the One Power showed thousands of them in the distance below. “We’re finished, aren’t we?”

Lan’s face reflected torchlight. Eyes like slate, a face of granite. He did not correct Arganda.

“What will we do?” Arganda said. “To win . . . Light, to win we’d need to break these Sharans, rescue the pikemen—they wil soon be surrounded by the Trol ocs—and each man of ours would need to kil at least five of those beasts! That’s not even counting Demandred.”

No reply from Lan.

“We’re doomed,” Arganda said.

“If so,” Lan said, “we stand atop the high ground, and we fight until we die, Ghealdanin. You surrender when you’re dead. Many a man has been given less.”

The threads of possibility resisted Rand as he wove them together into the world he imagined. He did not know what that meant. Perhaps what he demanded was highly unlikely. This thing he did, using threads to show what could be, was more than simple il usion. It involved looking to worlds that had been before, worlds that could be again.

Mirrors of the reality he lived in.

He didn’t create these worlds. He merely . . . manifested them. He forced the threads to open the reality he demanded, and final y they obeyed. One last time, the darkness became light, and the nothing became something.

He stepped into a world that did not know the Dark One.

He chose Caemlyn as a point of entry. Perhaps because the Dark One had used the place in his last creation, and Rand wanted to prove to himself that the terrible vision was not inevitable. He needed to see the city again, but untainted.

He walked on the road before the palace, taking a deep breath. The butterchain trees were in bloom, the bright yel ow blossoms spil ing out of the gardens and hanging over the courtyard walls. Children played in them, throwing the petals into the air.

Not a cloud marred the brilliant sky. Rand looked up, raising his arms, and stepped out from beneath the blossoming branches into the deep warming sunlight. No guards stood at the way into the palace, only a kindly servant who answered questions for some visitors.

Rand strode forward, feet leaving tracks in golden petals as he approached the entrance. A child came toward him, and Rand stopped, smiling at her.

She stepped up, reaching to touch the sword at Rand’s waist. The child seemed confused.

“What is it?” she asked, looking up with wide eyes.

“A relic,” Rand whispered.

Laughter from the other children turned the girl’s head, and she left him, giggling as one of the children threw an armful of petals into the air.

Rand walked on.

IS THIS PERFECTION FOR YOU? The Dark One s voice felt distant. He could pierce this reality to speak to Rand, but he could not appear here as he had in the other visions. This place was his antithesis.

For this was the world that would exist if Rand kil ed him in the Last Battle.