A Memory of Light

Logain rolled to the side, beginning two weaves. One, a shield of his own that he did not intend to use. The other, a desperate, final gateway. The coward’s choice.

Demandred growled, raising a hand to his face and lashing out with the Power. He chose to destroy the shield, immediately recognizing it as the greater risk. The gateway opened, and Logain rolled through, letting it snap closed. He collapsed on the other side, his flesh scalded, his arms flayed, his ears ringing, his sight almost gone.

He forced himself to sit up, back in the Asha’man camp below the bogs where Gabrelle and the others awaited his return. He howled in anger. Ga-brel e’s concern radiated through the bond. Real concern. He hadn't imagined it. Light.

“Quiet,” she said, kneeling beside him. “You fool. What have you done to yourself?”

“I have failed,” he said. Distantly, he felt the strikes of Demandred’s power begin again as he continued bel owing for Lews Therin. “Heal me.”

“You’re not going to try that again, are you?” she said. “I don’t want to Heal you only to let you—”

“I won’t try again,” Logain said, voice ragged. The pain was horrible, but it paled compared to the humiliation of defeat. “I won’t, Gabrel e. Stop doubting my word. He’s too strong.”

“Some of these burns are bad, Logain. These holes in your skin, I don’t know if I can Heal them completely. You will be scarred.”

“That is fine,” he growled. That would be where the lava had splashed on his arm and the side of his face.

Light, he thought. How are we going to deal with that monster?

Gabrel e put her hands on him and Healing weaves poured into his body.

The thunder of Egwene’s battle with M’Hael rivaled that of the crashing clouds above.

M’Hael. A new Forsaken, his name proclaimed by his Dreadlords across the battlefield.

Egwene wove without thought, hurling weave after weave toward the renegade Asha’man.

She had not cal ed upon the wind, but stil it rushed and roared about her, whipping her hair and her dress, catching her stole and flipping it about. Narishma and Merise huddled with Leilwin on the ground beside her, Narishma’s voice—barely audible above the battle— calling out weaves as M’Hael crafted them.

Fol owing her advance, Egwene stood upon the top of the Heights, on even ground with M’Hael. She knew, somewhere deep, that her body would need rest soon.

For now, that was an unaffordable luxury. For now, only the fight mattered.

Fire flared toward her, and she slapped it aside with Air. The sparks caught in the wind, swirling about her in a spray of light as she wove Earth. She sent a ripple through the already-broken ground, trying to knock M’Hael down, but he split the wave with a weave of his own.

He’s slowing, she thought.

Egwene stepped forward, swol en with power. She began two weaves, one above each hand, and spouted fire at him.

He responded with a bar of pure whiteness, wire-thin, which missed her by less than a handspan. The balefire left an afterimage in Egwene’s eyes, and the ground groaned beneath them as the air warped. Those spiderwebs sprang out across the ground, fractures into nothingness.

“Fool!” she yelled at him. “You will destroy the Pattern itself!” Already, their clash threatened that. This wind was not natural, this sizzling air. Those cracks in the ground spread from M’Hael, widening.

“He’s weaving it again!” Narishma cried, voice caught in the tempest.

M’Hael released this second weave of balefire, fracturing the ground, but Egwene was ready.

She sidestepped, her anger building. Balefire. She needed to counter it!

They don’t care what they ruin. They are here to destroy. That is their master’s call. Break.

Burn down. Kil .

Gawyn . . .

She screamed in fury, weaving column after column of fire, one after another. Narishma shouted what M’Hael was doing, but Egwene couldn’t hear for the rush of sound in her ears.

She saw soon, anyway, that he had constructed a barrier of Air and Fire to deflect her attacks.

Egwene strode forward, sending repeated strikes at him. That gave him no time to recover, no time to attack. She stopped the rhythm only to form a shield that she held at the ready.

A spray of fire off his barrier made him stumble back, his weave cracking, and he raised his hand, perhaps to attempt balefire again.

Egwene slammed the shield between him and the Source. It didn’t quite cut him off, for he held it back by force of wil . They were near enough now that she could see his incredulity, his anger. He fought back, but was weaker than she. Egwene pushed, bringing that shield closer and closer to the invisible thread that connected him to the One Power. She forced it with al her strength . . .