This week in Reading The Wheel of Time, Rand confronts remnants of Sammael’s army and receives a message, and a messenger, from Taim. Questions are raised about the safety and trustworthiness of the members of the Black Tower, and Rand begins to lay plans to stop the Seanchan advance and, possibly, to make the first step towards trying to cleanse saidin. It’s Chapters 13 and 14 of The Path of Daggers!
Rand sits on his horse, contemplating the change in the weather and wondering if the nobles believe he is responsible for it somehow. He has a group of them assembled with him, men and women from Illian, Cairhien and Tear, as well as their soldiers. They have come to deal with the remnants of Sammael’s army. Most of the men Sammael gathered to protect Illian from Rand dispersed on their own once they learned that there was a new king in Illian, but small groups have stayed together and this one is the largest, possibly two or three thousand in number.
Rand declares that he will go talk to them himself, and every noble protests, in their own way and often by insulting those from other nations. Rand tells them he didn’t ask for opinions, and brings only Lord Gregorin, one of the members of the Illian Council of Nine, and Marcolin, First Captain of the Illianer Companions, along with Dashiva and Eben Hopwil.
Buy the Book
The Water Outlaws
Rand checks in with Hopwil as they ride. The young man Traveled to Amador and discovered the Seanchan there. Hopwil had to kill a Seanchan patrol, including a sul’dam and damane. Rand hears the echo of his own list of women he’s killed as he reassures Hopwil that he did the right thing, and as Hopwil describes burning the bodies. He claims it doesn’t bother him.
A man with a bow comes out of the trees. He is ragged and coughing, but his bow, Rand notes, is well cared for. When asked, he claims to speak for the leader of the group. Using a weave to amplify his voice for all to hear, Rand announces his offer: Any man who lays down his arms may return home, and any who wish to follow the Dragon Reborn may do that instead.
“I know most of you are good men, who answered the call of your King and the Council of Nine to defend Illian, but I am your King, now, and I’ll not have anyone tempted to turn bandit.” Marcolin nodded grimly.
“What about your Dragonsworn burning farms?” a man’s frightened voice shouted from the trees. “They do be flaming bandits!”
Another voice shouts about the Aiel carrying off whole villages, and the leader tells Rand that he expects them to give up their weapons while his own people burn and kill. Furious, Rand shouts that those Aiel and those bandits are his enemies, that his Aiel are hunting down the Shaido, and that Davram Bashere and his men are hunting the bandits, whatever they call themselves. He cuts off the leader’s attempt to respond and tells him that they have until midday to decide, then wheels his horse away.
Rand forces himself to let go of saidin, and experiences a moment of dizziness and vertigo—a new problem he’s been having. He hates how dull and lifeless everything looks when he isn’t holding the One Power, and desperately wants to “seize the Source again and wring the One Power out of it,” which also happens every time.
Rage boils in him at the knowledge that brigands are hiding behind his name. He wonders if Sammael is somehow responsible for setting the Shaido loose on the land, or even the White Tower; some of the Shaido prisoners they’ve recently taken have spoken of an Aes Sedai.
He tells the nobles to watch the group and goes to his tent, followed by the two Asha’man and his Illianer banner-bearers. As he passes through the camp he observes the mingling Illianer Companions, Tairen Defenders, and Cairhienin soldiers.
The safety of the Dragon Reborn was their responsibility, and they took the job seriously. Any of them might betray him, but not while the others were there to watch. Old hatreds and new dislikes would bring betrayal of any plot before the betrayer stopped to think.
At his tent, servants—also a mix of the three nationalities, and for the same reason—rush to take his horse and attend him. Flinn meets him as well, and reports that Torval has arrived and has insisted on waiting in the council tent. Rand has given instructions that no one arriving from the Black Tower is to be left alone, so Flinn left Narishma to watch him. Torval apparently wasn’t pleased to learn that Rand has raised Flinn, Hopwil, and Narishma.
Rand finds Torval examining maps in the council tent. Sneeringly, he congratulates Rand on conquering Illian, and gives Narishma a back-handed insult. Torval delivers a letter from Taim, and informs Rand that the M’Hael warns of Aes Sedai in Murandy with an army, apparently marching towards the Black Tower. Rand replies that they are going to Caemlyn, not the Black Tower, and reminds Torval of his orders to stay away from Aes Sedai. Torval resists, and Rand has to put his foot down, threatening to come back to the Black Tower to make his point.
Torval is immediately diffident, almost appearing frightened as he assures Rand that his orders are always obeyed. Rand assumes Torval is afraid of getting in trouble with Taim. They’re served refreshments as Rand reads the letter, in which Taim reports that there are now twenty-nine Asha’man, ninety-seven Dedicated and three hundred twenty-two Soldiers in the Black Tower, and estimates that, with three or four men being enrolled every day, the Black Tower will equal the White Tower in numbers in a few months, just as Taim promised. He also reports to have “harvested a blackberry bush,” which Rand tries to put out of his mind.
Rand finds Taim’s report overly optimistic. They may soon outnumber the White Tower in recruits, but even the newest Aes Sedai has had years and years of training—including training on how to handle a man who can channel. He doesn’t like thinking about a confrontation between Asha’man and Aes Sedai; the Asha’man aren’t aimed at the Aes Sedai, whatever Taim seems to think.
Torval reports that there have been nineteen deserters so far. When they are caught Taim has them killed and their heads hung from the “Traitor’s Tree.” Rand approves—men who run now can’t be trusted not to run later, when lives depend on them. He says that he wants to see every deserter’s head, the next time he goes back to the Black Tower, despite Torval’s hesitant point that it might be difficult to find every man.
Rand also asks about the exact number of training losses suffered by the Tower—fifty one in total, between those burned out, those killed outright while training, and those who have begun to succumb to madness. The later group is surreptitiously killed by Taim with poisoned wine. They go to sleep and don’t wake up—a mercy compared to being gentled and left mad.
He is clearly baiting Rand, but Rand only replies that it is a mercy any man might wish for. Seeing pity on one of the female servants, Rand becomes enraged and sends all the servants out, though he can still see compassion in her eyes as she goes.
Pity weakened as surely as fear, and they had to be strong. To face what they had to face, they all must be steel. His making, his responsibility.
Fedwin bursts suddenly into the tent, reporting that the Seanchan are going to move from Ebou Dar soon. The young man has been watching the Seanchan army gathering wagons and has spoken, in disguise, to some of the Taraboners in the Seanchan’s service. Torval sneers at Fedwin’s findings, but Rand praises him. He also notes to himself that Torval didn’t show any surprise at hearing that the Seanchan were in Ebou Dar. If that information was known in the Black Tower, why had Taim failed to mention it?
Rand turns the maps, considering what the Seanchan’s next move might be and how to defend Illian, but Fedwin hasn’t finished his report. He tells them of rumors of a new Aes Sedai weapon. Fedwin found where it was used, an area all burned around a center where the sand was melted to glass. He mentions saidin being “the worst” there, which grabs Rand’s attention. He practically shakes more information out of him, and Fedwin admits that all around Ebou Dar saidin seemed to act strange, that it sometimes resisted or refused to do what he wanted, like it had a mind of its own.
“Sometimes, it… did something else. It did. I’m not mad! It did!” The wind gusted, howling for a moment, shivering and snapping the tent walls, and Morr fell silent. Narishma’s bells chimed at a jerk of his head, then were still.
Dashiva mutters “that isn’t possible” and Rand snaps that neither of them know what’s possible. In a more reassuring tone he tells Fedwin not to worry, and promises that he’ll be at the Last Battle with Rand. Torval has gone still as stone.
[Rand] had asked once, warily, where he knew the answers would be true, how to cleanse the taint from saidin. And got a riddle for answer. Herid Fel had claimed the riddle stated “sound principles, in both high philosophy and natural philosophy,” but he had not seen any way to apply it to the problem at hand. Had Fel been killed because he might have puzzled out the riddle? Rand had a hint at the answer, or thought he might, a guess that could be disastrously wrong.
Still, Rand knows he has to try something. If saidin can’t be cleansed, the world might be destroyed by male channelers gone mad before Tarmon Gai’don even comes. Torval responds, awestruck, to the idea, making Rand realize that he’s been speaking his thoughts out loud. Narishma, Fedwin, and Hopwil all look suddenly hopeful, while Dashiva looks dumbstruck. Rand worries that he’s said too much.
He begins issuing orders, sending Torval back with commands for Taim and the others running to organize Rand’s allies in the camp. Narishma receives separate, secret orders—and a command not to fail Rand even by a hair.
Dangerous, a voice whispered in Rand’s head. Oh, yes, very dangerous, maybe too dangerous. But it might work; it might. In any event, you must kill Torval now. You must.
When some of the nobles enter the tent, they are surprised to find Rand laughing so hard tears are rolling down his cheeks. Lews Therin has come back, or perhaps Rand really is mad, but either way, it’s a reason to laugh.
Laughter and tears indeed. But unfortunately, not the kind Cadsuane and Sorilea hope to teach.
These chapters make it immediately apparent how much Rand has changed from the young man of the first few books, or even the person he was in, say, Lord of Chaos. Ever since Rand declared himself as the Dragon Reborn, his POV sections of the story have shown how his anger has continually grown, as have the violent thoughts and impulses that accompany it. We’ve also seen him present an exterior of cold heartlessness to those around him, believing that this is the best—and indeed, the only—way to get people to respect and follow him. (Not that fear is the same as respect, but we’ll get to that.)
At the same time, we have also seen his distress over the way he feels he must behave, and his hatred and self-loathing for the hardness he feels he has to adopt. There have been many moments, too, when his thoughts have lingered on the price the world must pay for his existence, and when he has wished that at least some groups might be spared the effect he is prophesied to have on the world. His attempt to avoid meeting with the Sea Folk is a perfect example of this. He kept putting off a visit, kept ignoring their requests and messages, because the Karaethon Cycle doesn’t mention them at all. He hopes that he can avoid engaging with the Sea Folk so as to avoid bringing them into the sphere of his effect.
There is a sort of push and pull here, between Rand the shepherd and the mask he was putting on as the Dragon Reborn. That mask was made up of different elements—what he thought people expected to see, what the prophecies made him believe would be needed to save the world, and a cold exterior that kept people from seeing any pain or suffering he was experiencing—but there was always a line between that mask and the real person Rand actually was. As readers, we were privy to Rand’s thoughts about that mask; we could watch him observe it as if from a distance, calculating or judging, studying the effect it had on those he interacted with. It was very interesting to watch the push and pull between these two personas, to see when the mask seemed to help Rand and when it hindered him. It was also interesting to see the way his friends and allies interpreted the mask. As regular readers of Reading The Wheel of Time will remember, I complained more than once when people like Nynaeve and Elayne believed Rand’s mask; in the early days it seemed so obvious that his fancy clothes and Dragon persona were just that, and I was surprised that they never seemed to give him the benefit of the doubt, or to guess at why Rand was putting on the front. I was annoyed with Rand’s friends for not seeing what was happening to him, and in a way I still am—though in their defense everyone has been kept pretty busy by their own powerful destinies and frightening enemies.
The answer, as I concluded at the time and still believe now, lies in the fact that everyone has a preconceived notion of who and what the Dragon is supposed to be, and very little of it is good. Even those who know nothing about the Prophecies of the Dragon share the (understandable) societal fear of men who can channel, and most people at least know that the Dragon is supposed to Break the World a second time. The Dragon’s birth also heralds the coming of Tarmon Gai’don, which isn’t his fault, but for your average person that distinction makes little difference; emotionally, at least, they see him as a cause, rather than an effect, of the Last Battle.
And for those who have read the Karaethon Cycle, well, most of what those prophecies and foretellings state is pretty bleak. “Women shall weep and men quail as the nations of the earth are rent like rotting cloth,” “As the plow breaks the earth shall he break the lives of men, and all that was shall be consumed in the fire of his eyes,” etc. It’s not exactly stuff to inspire feelings of confidence and safety, even before you consider the taint on saidin. Some Aes Sedai believed he was so dangerous that he should be immediately gentled, never mind Tarmon Gai’don, and most consider him a dangerous weapon that needs to be carefully controlled and directed, not allowed to make his own choices.
Really, it’s no wonder that Rand feels the way he does about himself. If memory serves, I believe Moiraine tried to dissuade him from reading the Prophecies. Perhaps she worried that he would become fatalistic and depressed by what he read—as indeed he has. Rand has come to see himself the way the world sees him, or at least the way he believes the world sees him, and these chapters make that very, very clear. This is the first section of the series in which I see no separation between Rand and Dragon, between the shepherd and the mask he made for himself. And it is very bleak to witness.
Throughout this section, Rand is continually thinking of himself in terribly dark terms. Before he was “hard” and “dangerous.” Now we also see things like the phrase “fire and ice and death,” first in reference to the feeling of tainted saidin and then repeated several more times in reference to himself. He also thinks more than once about how he is stained black with blood, including after he learns that Taim is poisoning those Asaha’man who show signs of madness.
My soul is black with blood, and damned. It was not a hard thought, not biting or edged; a simple statement of fact.
The word damned is of particular interest here. It’s not exactly clear what to be damned means in the mythos of this world. Randlanders don’t seem to have a heaven and hell, exactly, but they do believe one’s soul can either go to the Creator or to the Dark One, so I presume to be damned means to be destined to end up with the Dark One after death. None of the faith systems we’ve encountered have said anything about how you end up going to the Dark One, other than by swearing your soul to him. But this statement certainly implies that one also can end up belonging to him, rather than to the Creator, by bad actions, as do the various prayers and catechisms we’ve encountered so far in the series, which tend to include invocations for the Creator to take and shelter people in life and in death, and a hope that one will return to him—which does not seem to be viewed as a guarantee.
Everything Rand has done has been in service of uniting the world and preparing to fight in Tarmon Gai’don. Putting aside the question of whether or not he is making the correct and most moral decisions, he fully believes that he is doing what he must. Although he doesn’t think he is infallible or has never made mistakes, generally the actions he finds most detestable were either accidents he thinks he should have prevented (such as the Maiden who was shot during the assassination attempt, or Liah getting left behind in Shadar Logoth) or necessary evils. He despises himself for these events, and yet he believes fully that they must be done. It is a contradiction, in a way: He thinks he is damned for the actions he is taking to save the entire world from being destroyed and remade in the Dark One’s terrible image. Pre-damned, at that, since prophecy and fate laid this burden on his shoulders, without his consent or ability to choose.
Rand’s task is almost impossibly difficult, and full of suffering. But even with all that, he has come to a particularly nihilistic and fatalistic way of handling events. Because enemies can be everywhere, he fears and distrusts everyone. Because the prophecies say that people will suffer at his coming, he sees himself as an agent that brings only suffering and death, never anything good to balance. This is partly a response to pain; psychologically speaking, people often close themselves off to painful and difficult emotions because they don’t know how to face them, and fear being overwhelmed or consumed if they try. But there is an arrogance to it as well, I think.
Perhaps the arrogance is also born from Rand’s suffering. Perhaps he feels that no one can understand what he has been through, so he considers himself aloof from everyone, even above them in a way. But you can see how he is separating himself from other people, both emotionally and functionally, and setting himself apart from the rest of the world. Cadsuane believes that he needs to remember that he is still just a man, and based on this section alone you can see her point. Look at his reaction to the man he was parlaying with. The man says that they say a storm is coming, and in Rand’s mind he thinks “The storm was coming? Light, he was the storm!”
(Speaking of which, I thought that the repeated sense of a storm coming, which we saw frequently in the last part of A Crown of Swords was either supposed to be a reference to the Seanchan arriving in Ebou Dar or to the winter storms returning once the Bowl of the Winds was used. But since those two events happened and people are still saying it, almost as though the comment has been ta’veren-ed out of them, it must refer to something else.)
It’s little wonder that Rand spends so much thought trying and hoping for Lews Therin’s presence to return to his mind. As isolated as he is from everyone, even the few men he feels he can (mostly) trust, he must be desperate for some kind of contact, even if it is with a dead man who might be nothing more than the manifestation of oncoming madness.
Speaking of men he can (or can he?) trust, we also see this week how Rand’s idea of himself is extended to the other Asha’man. Just as he thinks of himself as a weapon rather than a man, so he thinks of the other male channelers. The only difference is that he is the one who decides where the weapon should be aimed. Even as he tries to be kind to Hopwil, we also see that he expects the boy, who is only 16, to learn the same lessons Rand has taught himself about becoming hard. Hopwil claims that he wasn’t bothered after killing the Seanchan and disposing of the bodies, and Rand’s narration follows:
Rand heard the lie on the man’s tongue, but Hopwil had to learn. After all, he had. They were what they were, and that was all there was to it.
There are other examples of this attitude throughout the chapter, and we also see how Rand deliberately chooses to display certain emotions to get certain results. He “lets anger touch his voice,” when he thinks Fedwin may have exposed his identity. Once he’s satisfied that Fedwin was careful, he gives him a smile and clap on the shoulder that feels entirely performative, from the reader’s point of view, just as Rand’s conversation with Hopwil about having to kill the sul’dam and damane does. Rand offers reassurance that Hopwil did what he had to, and did it well, but neither in the conversation nor in Rand’s internal narration is there any real empathy or connection with Hopwil, despite Rand’s own pain over having to kill women (or perhaps I should say, because of). Rand now fully denies himself any feelings of sadness or compassion, so much so that he is enraged at seeing compassion in the eyes of Boreane, the servant. And so he denies those feelings to the Asha’man; they must become steel, must become fire and death, just as Rand himself has.
Min did see that Cadsuane would be teaching her lesson to all the Asha’man, not just Rand himself, after all. And we can see how very necessary it is.
I have to assume that there are a variety of Darkfriends among the Black Tower recruits. Taim is an obvious suspect, so obvious that I was hesitant to consider him, really. But he really is classic Darkfriend material—vain, power-hungry, obsessed with symbols of title and status. And he’s super jealous of Rand, which… well, how many of the Forsaken began their journey to the Dark because they were jealous of Lews Therin Telamon? Quite a few. Taim is also cruel and bloodthirsty, which doesn’t necessarily make him a Darkfriend—there are plenty of bad people in the series who aren’t sworn to the Dark One—but it certainly doesn’t make him less likely of a candidate. His desire to hunt down and hurt Aes Sedai could be a result of the fact that he was once captured and nearly gentled… but again, it could also be Darkfriend stuff.
If Taim were to turn out to be a Darkfriend, that would be quite a blow to the Black Tower. He could hamper Rand’s plans in a variety of ways. He could go behind his back and make his own plans, tempt other Black Tower recruits to join the Dark, even assassinate anyone he thinks might be too useful to Rand, under the pretense of euthanizing another madman. Rand notes that Torval seems to have already known about the Seanchan presence in Ebou Dar, and wonders why Taim didn’t inform him of it. What else might “the M’hael” be hiding from the man who is supposed to be his leader?
Torval is certainly unlikable enough to be a Darkfriend. He was the man who sneered at Rand during Rand’s last visit to the Black Tower, saying he seemed unimpressive and not powerful enough. Taim had him disciplined, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t both Darkfriends. Torval even could have been recruited by Taim after he demonstrated disdain for Rand. You know, if these theories are correct, which, who knows? (All of you. All of you know if I’m right about any of this. It is a thing I think about sometimes while I am musing about these mysteries.)
And then there’s Dashiva. Obviously there is something going on there; you can feel the narration building to something. Either he is a Darkfriend or he is already mad, and whichever one it is, I have a feeling that revelation is going to come up at a particularly bad time for Rand.
It also is occurring to me, as I write this, that although we’ve seen a lot of Aran’gar/Balthamel in their guise as Halima, I don’t think we know where Osan’gar/Aginor ended up. Dashiva would be a prime candidate to turn out to be the other half of those resurrected Forsaken, renamed for a pair of deadly dueling blades. I believe Dashiva was one of the earliest raised to Asha’man, and he’s shown other signs of being particularly knowledgeable and talented in surprising ways. He was the one who “put the idea” of how to heal into Flinn’s head, for example. If he was Osan’gar, Dashiva would have wanted Rand’s life to be saved, since the Dark One had commanded he shouldn’t yet be killed.
I do remember wondering why Rand chose Dashiva as one of his regular Asha’aman companions. He trusts Flinn, Hopwil, and Narishma more than most of the others, it seems; Dashiva is an odd choice, and the only fully-fledged Asha’man Rand chose, though Flinn and Hopwil have now been raised to that rank. Dashiva often seems shifty to me, and Rand is always conscious of the man’s reactions and mutterings. And Dashiva always just seems low-key annoyed by Rand, which is an odd stance for an Asha’man to take.
Maybe that’s nothing. Maybe not. But it would be very symbolic to have one half of this pair shadowing Rand and the other Egwene. The right-handed blade and the left, placed just beside the heads of the White and Black Towers.
When Rand mentioned that he had once asked about cleansing saidin, I really had to think about whether or not this is new information, and when the heck it could have happened. But I finally remembered that Rand went through the redstone doorway at the same time Mat and Moiraine did. We saw that from Mat’s point of view only, so we know what he asked, and we were able to infer that Moiraine learned of her fate at the same time. But we never learned what Rand was asking—he just ignores Mat’s questions about it. Now we know that Rand has been thinking about the possibility of cleansing saidin and asking for help with the problem. Fel was making some headway with it, apparently, and Rand wonders if this is why he was murdered. I am still thinking that the interaction between Rand’s wound from Ishamael and the more recent one from Fain’s dagger might also be a clue, but Rand is keeping those secrets so close that even his narration isn’t revealing his plan. Not yet.
But he has told at least a bit to Narishma. I like Narishma a lot; he has a very interesting way about him, and I hope we get to see more of him in the future. Plus it’s nice to see Rand trust someone else, if only a little.
Other moments of note include Taim’s mention of picking blackberries from a bush. I assume this is a coded reference to let Rand know that Taim killed the Red Ajah hunting party Elaida sent to take care of the Black Tower, back when they thought it was a smaller, less organized group. The way Rand deems it necessary but also hurries to put it out of his mind suggests this is the case.
There is also the revelation that Rand has been experiencing vertigo and seeing double every time he releases the One Power. This could easily be the result of continual exposure to the taint, and there have been mentions of a sickness other than madness that sometimes kills men who channel, as Rand recalls. However, I do remember that when Rand was in Shadar Logoth chasing Sammael, there was a moment when he and Moridin both shot balefire at Mashadar and the two streams crossed each other. Rand felt like his head had been struck, and saw double. Later he realized that he hadn’t felt saidin when the man channeled, and even thinking of the memory brings back double vision for a moment. Now, in the beginning of the next book we are told that he has a new recent problem of seeing double when he releases saidin. Presumably Moridin was channeling the “True” Power, which is why Rand didn’t feel saidin. I can imagine that the One Power and the Power that comes from the Dark One are fundamentally at odds, so there may be some kind of problem or damage from that encounter. Just in general, it’s probably not great for two bits of balefire to collide, even if they are both from the One Power.
And finally, as bleak as these chapter are, I really enjoyed the visual of Rand hoisting himself up to sit on the edge of the table while he reads Taim’s letter. It’s such a cute moment, much more reminiscent of a youthful shepherd than a cold, distant lord, and it made me smile.
Next week we’ll be covering Chapters 15 and 16, catching up with Egwene and Siuan. Rand still thinks they’re headed to Caemlyn, but the young Amyrlin has plans of her own.
Sylas K Barrett finds the psychology of Rand’s journey very interesting, and is beginning to understand just what Jordan meant when he said the series was written to explore what being the chosen one would do to a person.
