This is it, my friends. “A Crown of Swords,” the exciting final chapter of A Crown of Swords. Has anyone else noticed that Rand seems to have a pattern here? This is the third time Rand has gone after one of the Forsaken and ended up chasing him through or into surprising places. He chased Asmodean to Rhuidean using Skimming for only the second time ever, he chased both Ishamael and Rahvin in and out of Tel’aran’rhiod, and now he’s leaping almost blindly into traps set for him by Sammael and ending up in Shadar Logoth. I guess the other three victories have made our hero a little cocky—but his success this time will depend on some very unexpected encounters.
But first, let us recap.
Rand wakes from nightmares able to feel someone holding saidin. He opens his eyes and discovers that Min is curled up in bed with him. Amys, Bera, and Kiruna stand on one side of his bed, Cadsuane and Samitsu and another Yellow Sister on the other, while Dashiva, Flinn, and Narishma are standing at the foot, Jonan Adley behind them. Rand asks how he is alive, and Cadsuane admits that Samitsu and Flinn each did a part, along with Corele, the other Yellow. Together, she says, she believes the three have done things that haven’t been done since the Breaking.
Rand learns that he has been asleep for two days. He encounters resistance and scorn from all the women—except Min, who continues to insist that she won’t let them kill Rand—and an offer from the men to clear the women out. Rand hastily stops them, but he does send the women away, insisting that he isn’t going anywhere. He allows Min to stay.
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He sends Dashiva and the others to wait in the anteroom. Alone with Min, she tells him that she has had a viewing that Cadsuane is going to teach him and the Asha’man a lesson, one they must learn but will not like learning from her. Rand knows that her viewings always come true, but can’t imagine what Cadsuane, a female channeler, could teach him and his men.
Out in the anteroom, Adley reports that the army has arrived in Illian earlier than expected because High Lord Weiramon left the foot soldiers behind, though the Aiel were able to keep up with the horsemen. Eben and Adley started using their channeling in the fight, and Sammael arrived very quickly—or at least a channeler who is as strong as Rand did. Rand tells the men that they are going to help him kill Sammael today.
Rand is surprised when Min agrees to stay behind, although she warns him that the Aes Sedai and Maidens will be angry with her. Rand opens a gateway and they step through into Davram Bashere’s camp outside Caemlyn. Rand informs Bashere that it is time, and that none of the wives can come, despite Saldaean custom. Once all the men are assembled, and Rand has his Asha’man in order, he opens a gateway into the Square of Tammaz in Illian. People stop to stare until Rand declares himself, and then everyone flees quickly.
With the army still pouring through the gateway, Rand and the Asha’man make new gateways and emerge on the top of various high buildings, lashing out with saidin to trigger and destroy all of Sammael’s hidden traps and wards at once. With that done, everyone releases saidin and Rand waits, watching the Saldeans clash with the local forces far below him. As the sun sinks towards the horizon he starts to worry that Sammael won’t return, but then suddenly feels channeling over at the Great Hall of the Council.
Rand makes a gateway and emerges in a large room. The towertop where he was just standing explodes, fragments striking him through the still-open gateway. Even as he’s avoiding that, Sammael attacks and Rand retaliates, though he holds himself back from using balefire. Then he hears Sammael’s voice booming.
“Illian is mine! I won’t destroy what belongs to me killing you, and I won’t let you destroy it, either. You had the nerve to come after me here? Do you have the courage to follow me again?” A sly mocking tone entered that thundering voice. “Do you have the courage?” Somewhere above, a gateway opened and closed; Rand had no doubt that was what it was.
He goes to the floor above where he can can see the remnants of Sammael’s weave well enough to copy it. At the last moment he remembers not to follow blindly through to the exact place Sammael went, and shifts the weave to come out close by instead. He emerges into Shadar Logoth, and he can feel the wound from Fain’s dagger throb in his side as it echoes the familiar evil.
Rand soon discovers that there are Shadowspawn in the city—Sammael must have forced them in. He also notices that evening has finally fallen, and in the distance the silvery shape of Mashadar is moving. He thinks Sammael might have left, now that Mashadar is out, but the sight of two Trollocs hunting nearby convinces him that the Forsaken must still be there. Suddenly Liah leaps from the shadows and, unveiled, kills both Trollocs. Rand calls out and runs towards her. She confronts him, screaming the word “Mine!” and hissing at him, her face contorted with rage. But as he pleads with her she suddenly starts to recognize him, and then quickly veils herself and flees. Rand follows, but he can’t keep up with her in his weakened state. As he rounds a corner he encounters a Myrddraal and two Trollocs, and channels to make a sword of flame to kill them. Lightning strikes down at him the same moment he lets the sword go, knocking him down, and he has to scramble away into a building. But the rotting floor gives way under his feet and he only manages to catch the edge with one hand. He struggles, hesitant to use Air to lift himself lest Sammael sense even that small amount of saidin.
Suddenly a man grabs his reaching hand, calling Rand a fool as he helps pull Rand out of the hole. Rand doesn’t recognize him and asks who the man is, but the fellow only says he’s a wanderer. Mashadar suddenly appears, rolling towards them, and they both shoot balefire at it. The two bars of light strike each other instead of Mashadar.
Head ringing like a struck gong, Rand convulsed, saidin and the Void shattering. Everything was doubled in his eyes, the balconies, the chunks of stone lying about the floor. There seemed to be a pair of the other man overlapping one another, each clutching his head between two hands.
Mashadar retreats, and the strange man urges Rand to run. Outside, Rand again asks who the man is and how he learned to channel, and urges him to go to the Black Tower. The man tells Rand that if he wants to defeat Sammael he needs to start thinking like him.
He always liked destroying a man in sight of one of that man’s triumphs, if he could. Lacking that, somewhere the man had marked as his would do.
The only thing like that here is the Waygate, and Rand realizes that this is where Sammael must be waiting, traps set all around Shadar Logoth as they had been around Illian. The man laughs and says that Rand can get there after all, if he’s led by the hand anyway. He tells Rand not to stumble; if he dies, a great many plans will have to be relaid. He walks away, ignoring Rand’s questions, and seems to just disappear. Rand can’t see the remnants of a gateway, and he realizes that he didn’t feel saidin when the man channeled balefire, either.
Rand goes to the Waygate, hiding well back until he sees Sammael moving, pacing as he waits for Rand to arrive. He also sees Mashadar hovering behind Sammael, creeping closer and closer. But Rand is determined that he is the only one who is going to kill Sammael, and starts to weave balefire.
Suddenly he hears a woman screaming, and turns to see Liah, a single strand of Mashadar touching her leg, screaming and thrashing. Rand knows that nothing can save someone touched by Mashadar. He releases the balefire and strikes Liah with it, destroying her before she was ever touched. Then he sweeps the balefire across the buildings, but he stops before he hits Mashadar. Sammael is nowhere to be seen, and there is no residual sign of a gateway. Rand is confident that Sammael was killed by Mashadar.
Sammael was dead, killed by an evil almost as great as himself. Emotion raced across the outside of the Void; Rand wanted to laugh, or perhaps cry. He had come here to kill one of the Forsaken, but instead he had killed a woman he had abandoned here to her fate.
Rand Skims back to Illian, taking time to flagellate himself with Liah’s name and memory. He finds Bashere and the Asha’man waiting for him in the throne room of the King’s Palace, where he learns that they took the city easily. The Council of Nine, eight now without “Lord Brend,” presents the Crown of Illian to him. Rand is surprised, even after he learns that Mattin Stepaneos disappeared two days ago. Their leader Gregorin tell him that they could have chosen one of their own to rule, but the grain he had sent from Tear saved many people from starving. Rand had almost forgotten about that, and he hadn’t even known how long Tear kept sending the grain. Still, he thinks that perhaps he has some right to this crown, a gold circlet of laurel leaves and sharp-pointed swords.
He sets it on his head, feeling the points of some of those swords against his scalp, and Gregorin declares “All Hail Rand al’Thor, King of Illian.” Dashiva takes up the chant, changing it, and the other Asha’man join in, changing the chant to “All hail Rand al’Thor, King of the World!” Rand thinks that has a nice sound to it.
The story spreads, changing often as rumors do, and much of it is confused or exaggerated or mixed with other events.
One fact, though, turned up again and again in those tales. The Laurel Crown of Illian had been given a new name. The Crown of Swords.
And for some reason, men and women who told the tales often found a need to add almost identical words. The storm is coming, they said, staring southward in worry. The storm is coming.
I kind of love that so many of Rand’s wins have been because one of the Forsaken who was obsessed with him helped him out against one of the other Forsaken. I guess it was just Lanfear that one time and now Moridin, who I’m quite confident is a reincarnated Ishamael, but still. It’s weird that it happened twice. Rand would not have realized Asmodean’s plan in time without Lanfear’s tip—and Asmodean would have been quite the threat if he had managed to retrieve that angreal. This time, Rand almost certainly would not have survived this encounter in Shadar Logoth without Moridin’s assistance. And I have to say, as much as I dislike how Cadsuane talks to him… one has to admit that she has a point about some of Rand’s attitude and behavior.
Ever since he accepted his identity as the Dragon Reborn, Rand has been contending as best he can with some pretty impossible circumstances. Given what he’s facing and the fact that he’s had to learn everything on the fly, he’s really been doing pretty well. But we’re starting to see signs in him of that arrogance everyone was accusing him of basically as soon as he started wearing nice clothes. I can certainly appreciate that it’s nice for Rand to be welcomed to Illian, given how antagonistic and suspicious most people are of him, but the Rand of a few books ago would never have thought that “King of the World” had a nice ring to it.
He also wasn’t so obsessive a few books ago. We have seen those tendencies developing in him for some time—the ongoing list of dead women and the way he punishes himself with them is the most obvious example. And as he is confronted with enemies who are obsessed with him—Ba’alzamon, Sammael, Mordeth-Fain, and even Lanfear in a way—Rand has become increasingly focused on them in turn. He has also become dominated by the idea that he cannot trust anybody, and that he can’t care about anyone or anything, though there are exceptions to this rule, some healthy, some less so.
But the way he reacted to Sammael has struck me as different, or at least more intense, than most of what came before. This is more like how he went after Rahvin, but that was a heated emotional reaction that came from Rand’s guilt over the apparent death of Morgase, and then fueled further by the death of Aviendha and Mat. Rand was half-crazed by grief at that point, and in some ways this helped him, since it caused him to remember how to Travel.
But this attack on Sammael and Illian was premeditated, and for a reason. Rand knew that Sammael would have heavily fortified Illian, and that Rand and his forces would be at a disadvantage on Sammael’s “home turf,” so to speak. Drawing him out and destroying the traps and wards was an important part of the attack on Sammael, and yet as soon as that part of the plan was executed, Rand seemed to forget all about strategy, and it never occurred to him that Sammael might have any other plan, or any other tricks up his sleeve.
We see evidence of Rand’s lack of logic throughout the confrontation. He only thinks after he’s attacked about the possibility of collateral damage as he shoots weaves blindly back at Sammael, for example. He very nearly recreates Sammael’s gateway exactly, which no doubt would have been a deadly mistake. He can see that Sammael has at least planned far enough ahead to have Trollocs and Myrddraal in Shadar Logoth, but it never occurs to him until Moridin points it out to him that Sammael might have laid wards and traps here, too, that he might have planned to lure Rand to Shadar Logoth from the start.
I keep thinking about how he reacted to Sammael’s challenge, how easy it was for the Forsaken to bait Rand by questioning his courage. It was so obviously a trick, and Rand took the bait whole, fully egotistical in his emotional response to the challenge. You would think that he might have learned his lesson from the last time he got cocky, two days ago, where his attempts to leverage a particularly strong ta’veren spell to his own advantage ended up running into Fain. And Fain’s dagger.
It’s clear that Rand is changing. No doubt the taint on saidin is part of that, but also the strain of his experiences. Some of this really isn’t his fault—one can hardly blame him for his distrust of Aes Sedai, for example, however much that friction hampers the side of the Light. But you can also see that having power is going to his head, and it’s changing how he thinks of himself. No longer does he disdain the trappings of lordship or the titles that he has gained. Now he uses them, and proudly. Now he feels good when someone calls him “King of the World.”
It makes me wonder what the Dark One’s plans, which rely so heavily on the spread of chaos and Rand’s continued existence, are. We’ve seen plenty of enemies try to weaken Rand and divide his potential allies by committing atrocities in his name—that was Niall’s whole thing. But these plans seem to be something more than that, though I’m not sure if the Dark One and Moridin mean to capture and use Rand, or hope that he will go mad from the taint and start making mistakes and causing his own downfall, or if there’s something more complicated at work. Maybe some mix of the three?
Also, is it just me or does Ishamael seem way less… bananas? Like, he’s so calm and relatively collected compared to the guy we used to know. I wonder if being reincarnated reset him somehow. From the narration around his scenes as well as what Moghedien said, I get the impression that using the “True Power” is kind of bad for you, and it makes me wonder if maybe it corrupts the mind the same way the taint on saidin does. They both come from the Dark One, after all. And of course, that’s why the two bolts of balefire make everything go so topsy-turvy; one was created from saidin, which is part of creation, and the other from the Dark One’s power, which isn’t. The two are fundamentally incompatible.
Though I’m now wondering what would happen if two regular bolts of balefire collided. Would they just erase each other from existence? How would that affect the people who channeled them? I don’t know, metaphysics is confusing. Also, I understand why Rand felt like killing Liah with balefire was a mercy compared to being consumed by Mashadar. And maybe it was. But using balefire on her also removes her from the Pattern, from Creation, forever, as far as I understand it. The soul, or whatever we want to call it, of Rahvin was lost forever after Rand killed him with balefire, which meant that the Dark One couldn’t reincarnate him. Is Liah also lost forever, with no soul to go to whatever afterlife might exist in this world, or to be spun back out into the Pattern if that was her fate? It’s a chilling thought.
You know, I can’t help wondering if some of Rand’s attachment to balefire is because it restored Mat and Aviendha to him. Rand has so much guilt around deaths, especially of women but also of civilians in general, that were caused by the bad guys but that Rand feels he should have prevented. When he killed Rahvin with balefire, though, he restored several people to life, including one of his best friends from childhood and a woman he loves. Now when he uses balefire, perhaps some part of him is remembering what it has done for him in the past.
I also find it interesting that Rand never considers the possibility that Cadsuane might have something to teach him that doesn’t have to do with channeling. Of course he doesn’t trust Aes Sedai, and with fair reason, but he also doesn’t really see any value in them at all, not since Moiraine. He doesn’t even pause to wonder if Cadsuane, an elder stateswoman of the White Tower and someone who has seen much of the world, faced Darkfriends, faced politics, and learned much in her long life. No, she can’t teach them weaves or how to seize saidin, but she might have experience organizing channelers more effectively, or advice on how to handle interactions with those who fear channelers. She might even know something about resisting the effects of the taint from her experience with other male channelers.
Not that I would expect Rand to trust her with that last one, given all the gentling and everything. But there’s nothing in his thoughts, as far as the narration tells us, about fear or mistrust Cadsuane. He just thinks it’s weird that Min’s vision would say she would teach the men something, given that women and men can’t help each other with channeling at all.
Wrapping up A Crown of Swords has definitely left me with some questions. I’m worried about Rand for all the above-mentioned reasons. I’m wondering what’s up with Lews Therin as well, and how Rand’s connection with Alanna might change or evolve now that he’s starting to experience loneliness when he’s far away from her. Also I’m wondering what Elayne might do when she finds out about Alanna’s bonding—probably she’ll demand that Alanna transfer the bond to her.
I’m still wondering what the eventual reveal will be with whatever is going on with Dashiva. Is he going to go mad? Is he secretly one of the Forsaken? Something else?
And finally, I’m desperately super curious about how the Asha’man and the Aes Sedai might start working together now that Flinn and Dashiva have earned the respect of Cadsuane and the Yellows. We’ve been told time and again that men and women working together can achieve so much more than either can apart, and it’s clearly going to be a crucial step towards preparing for the Last Battle. But there is still so much pain and distrust there, and it’s hard to imagine what a united Aes Sedai/Asha’man force would look like.
And finally, I’m wondering about the taint. There seems to be some some clue here in the interaction between Mashadar and the taint, between Fain’s dagger and the wound Rand received from Ishamael. Now that some Aes Sedai and some Asha’man have begun to learn about healing wounds made by these evils, what else might they be able to accomplish, especially if we pulled Nynaeve into the mix?
As I always say at the end of these posts, only time will tell. Reading The Wheel of Time will be on hiatus for the next two weeks, and then The Path of Daggers is up. Book Eight in the series, friends! I can’t believe it.
And also as always, I’m so grateful to all of you for your engagement and support on this read. It’s truly a joy to be able to do this, and to count myself as a fan of the series. May the Light be upon all of you.
Sylas K Barrett has more existential questions about souls and the afterlife in The Wheel of Time. So many more.
