The wheel turns, the wind picks up, and once again, we start a new book in Reading the Wheel of Time. Today we start Book Eight of the series, if you can believe that. It’s the prologue of The Path of Daggers!
Ethenielle, the Queen of Kandor, rides through the countryside with her First Advisor and fifty men. They have been very careful not to be spotted by anyone, even when it meant riding days out of their way. She finds herself asking her advisor, Serailla, if she’s made the right choice; Serailla answers that the other options carried different risk, but not lesser.
A scout they sent ahead indicates that they are near the meeting place, and Ethenielle leaves her followers behind to ride forward with Serailla and Lord Baldhere, Swordbearer to the throne and commander of the armies of Kandor. The meeting place is a small valley not far from a tall spire believed to have been built during the Age of Legends. The spire is an easy landmark, but it is also avoided due to strange stories of what happens if someone touches the spire.
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She meets with the Kings of Arafel and Shienar and their attendants, one of whom is Lord Agelmar. They exchanging greetings and discuss the sleepiness of the Blight before being joined by Queen Tenobia of Saldaea and her uncle. She is fiercely dismissive of what she sees as the others’ lack of commitment to the plan, and reminds them that she sent her uncle Davram to bring back Mazrim Taim, only for both to end up serving Rand al’Thor. She declares that she has brought fifty thousand men, and that she will make al’Thor recognize who rules Saldaea. Ethenielle thinks about how Tenobia takes Saldaean showiness to an extreme, and that she is going to add difficulties to their endeavor.
Ethenielle is startled to learn that Paitar has eight Aes Sedai with him. The rest of the rulers have all been abandoned by their Aes Sedai advisors, but Paitar’s sister Kiruna is Aes Sedai, and he has a fondness for Aes Sedai as a result. He has brought his advisor with him, along with seven other Aes Sedai who were visiting at the time. Tenobia has five with her as well. They apparently encountered Tenobia by chance and learned of her plans, and rather than alert the Tower, chose to come along. They seem as intent on secrecy as the rulers are.
“Even so,” Ethenielle insisted. “Thirteen sisters. All that is needed is for one of them to find some way to send a message. A few lines. A soldier or a maid intimidated. Does any of you think you can stop them?
Paitar points out that what’s done is done, while Easar, the King of Shienar adds that it might be useful to have thirteen Aes Sedai. That suggestion is met with uneasy silence.
Ethenielle directs them all back to their purpose for meeting: to engage in an ancient Borderland ceremony. They all cut their palms and hold their hands out so the falling blood will mingle together on the ground.
“We are one, to the death,” Easar said, and they all spoke with him. “We are one, to the death.” By blood and soil, they were committed. Now they had to find Rand al’Thor. And do what needed to be done. Whatever the price.
In the Aiel camp outside Cairhien, Verin tends to Turanna, one of the sisters taken prisoner after Dumai’s Wells. She is aware that the Aiel are making sure that Verin witnesses the toiling of the black-robed Aes Sedai, but she isn’t sure what the message is supposed to be. She is also puzzled by the Wise Ones’ complex hierarchy. Still, Verin is satisfied with her work, and is even attempting to aid the Wise Ones by providing a requested list of things that would be shaming to these particular wetlander prisoners.
Some of the captives she had never met, but she thought that for most women, that list summed up the weaknesses Sorilea was seeking. Life was going to grow much more difficult for the women in black. And her own efforts would be aided no end, with luck.
She asks her Aielmen guards to have the next woman brought to the tent, and then is shocked to catch sight of Irgain, the former Green sister who was stilled when Rand escaped his imprisonment. Verin is confused to see Irgain wearing Aiel garb and working alongside Aiel women, and sick to her stomach at the reminder of stilling.
Two Wise Ones come to take Turanna away, half-carried, and shielded by the linked Wise Ones. Shortly afterwards Aeron arrives, and Verin reports what she learned from Turanna about Rand’s capture, though it isn’t any new information. She promises she will learn more soon. She is careful to appear respectful, compliant, and meek—not because she is afraid, but because she doesn’t want to risk everything she has worked so hard for. It is hard to know what is risky with the Aiel, who often don’t react the way Verin would expect.
Verin is surprised when they bring her a different sister than the one she asked for, and even more surprised to learn that Katerine Alruddin has escaped. A Wise One and two guards were found dead from poison, and the gai’shain who brought the drink was also killed. Verin is very worried about Rand’s safety, and Aeron tells her that her concern for Rand is honorable before taking her to task for her tone.
Verin apologizes, secretly wishing she had a way for Katerine to meet with an accident, and is instructed not to tell Rand about the escape. Verin promises, and assumes the shield of the next captured sister, Beldeine. Beldeine is defiant at first, refusing water and Healing, calling Verin a traitor for swearing fealty to Rand and sharing Tower secrets with the “savages.” Beldine believes that the treatment of the prisoners is designed to break them so that they will also swear fealty to Rand, but Verin explains what da’tsang actually means, and that the treatment is designed to shame them, not to force them to do anything. She continues to talk until Beldeine’s resolve wavers and she starts to despair, and finally Beldeine accepts Healing.
Verin Heals her, and then, while Beldeine is even more off her guard from the experience of being Healed, starts on another weave, bolstering her channeling with an angreal she keeps hidden in her pouch. It is a weave she pieced together by talking to wilders. Those who start channeling before they came to Tower usually have a trick. One was the ability to eavesdrop. The other trick is getting people, usually their parents, to do things for them, like buy a new dress or approve of a prospective suitor. Since this kind of weaving is similar to Compulsion, the Tower is very stern about rooting out the ability. However, Verin has pieced together a weave from bits and pieces that various initiates could remember. Something forbidden in the Tower.
In the beginning it had been simple curiosity on her part. Curiosity, she thought wryly, working at the weave on Beldeine, has made me climb into more than one pickling kettle. Usefulness came later.
She starts interrogating Beldeine about the Tower’s intention with Rand, then shifts to giving instructions, pulling the weave tighter as she does so. When it’s done, Verin knows only the most careful Delving will be able to detect that anything has been done.
When Beldeine comes to, Verin blames the heat and tries not to look as weary as she feels after all the channeling she has been doing today. She tells the guards that she is done with Beldeine, and makes sure to mention that Beldeine knocked over the water pitcher—the extra punishment will be even more of a reason for Beldeine to want to carry out instructions that she doesn’t know she was given, and Verin’s weave requires the subject to have their own motivation.
Verin is tempted to be done for the day, knowing that she will be exhausted and sore in the morning, but decides to see one more sister.
The pain in her muscles tomorrow would be a small penance for Beldeine’s suffering over that spilled water, but that was not why she did it, or even her curiosity, really. She still had a task. Somehow, she had to keep young Rand alive until it was time for him to die.
In a room with no windows and no doors, a fire that gives no heat burning in a marble hearth. Moridin sits at a gilded table, attended to by a handsome servant clad in white with black, lifeless eyes.
They were necessary to impress; no more. Not that he really needed more than himself to overawe the stiffest pride. He called himself Moridin, and surely no one had ever had more right to name himself Death.
Moridin toys idly with the two cour’souvra hanging on silk cords around his neck as he considers the game board before him. Sha’rah is an ancient form of the game now known as stones, and Moridin’s favorite form. He is a master of sha’rah, and as he considers the board he considers how the first objective of the game is to capture the piece called the Fisher. He thinks of the different ways of winning the game, and remembers one gambit he tries that ended in painful failure. Suddenly furious, he clutches the mindtraps and uses the True Power to lift the piece, ready to crush it into dust. Black specks fly across his vision and the goblet shatters in his hand as he considers the piece.
The Fisher was always worked as a man, a bandage blinding his eyes and one hand pressed to his side, a few drops of blood dripping through his fingers. The reasons, like the source of the name, were lost in the mist of time. That troubled him sometimes, enraged him, what knowledge might be lost in the turnings of the Wheel, knowledge he needed, knowledge he had a right to. A right!
Moridin replaces the piece and lets go of the mindtraps, icy calm replacing his rage. He tells himself that it doesn’t matter if the Fisher comes from “some dim remnant of a memory of Rand al’Thor,” and that in the great game, Rand al’Thor is moving according to Moridin’s wishes. And it is very hard to lose a game when you play both sides of the board.
He laughs until tears roll down his cheeks, but doesn’t notice them.
It can be difficult to keep track of the many, many characters in The Wheel of Time. Not only is there a large main cast and an expansive and important set of secondary characters, but there are numerous other players who affect the plot in significant ways, and almost anyone you meet in the series is likely to crop up again when you least expect it. It’s really impressive to see how Jordan wrangles them all, and a real challenge to remember who is who and whether or not we’ve met them before, especially since the names can sometimes be very similar to each other, which is realistic for a world but often avoided in story to prevent confusion. And the names are also often referential to names we know in our age as well! It took me a minute to remember that we hadn’t actually met Tenobia yet, only heard her talked about by Bashere and others. I did remember Agelmar though! It’s exciting to see him again.
The narration is very careful not to reveal exactly what the Borderland rulers’ plan is with Rand, but they clearly aren’t exactly fans of his. It’s not surprising that some of them doubt that he is the Dragon Reborn, since they live far from where the action has been so far, and it usual takes a dramatic confrontation with Rand for people to recognise the truth of who he is. Tenobia’s attitude is clear enough: Whether or not Rand is the Dragon Reborn, her focus is on enforcing her rights as Queen of Saldaea, and obtaining some kind of recompense (revenge?) for the pardon of Mazrim Taim and the fact that Rand commandeered Davram Bashere and his men. Ethenielle isn’t sure if Rand is the Dragon Reborn, and isn’t sure if it would be better or worse if he turns out not to be a False Dragon. We also know that she believes the White Tower to be both broken and impotent, now, and that it appears to the Borderlanders that the other nations are “crumbling.” And so they are taking action about it in a very serious way, one that involves swearing an ancient blood oath. They are also acting with extreme secrecy. None of that suggests that they expect to be swearing allegiance to Rand anytime soon, though it doesn’t necessarily indicate their first intention is to wage war, either.
Well, Tenobia might intend that. There’s also the coincidence—not really a coincidence at all, I think—of the rulers having thirteen Aes Sedai between them. Easar is the one who brought up that they might be glad to have thirteen Aes Sedai with them, but it’s clear they’re all aware of the possibility that they might need to, and choose to, overpower and shield Rand, Dragon Reborn or no.
Still, I have to wonder what Agelmar, specifically, is thinking, since he’s the only one of their number who has met Rand. I have a fair idea of what Rand will think when a bunch of rulers show up anywhere near him with thirteen Aes Sedai though! Even if the rulers are hoping for diplomacy, are open to the idea of having their minds changed about Rand’s personal responsibility for the current state of the world, if he gets hostile they are definitely going to respond in kind. And he’s probably going to be hostile from the get-go.
Earlier in the series, I found it a little baffling how many people were unwilling to recognize Rand’s importance as the Dragon Reborn. It was understandable that many people continued to believe he was a False Dragon even after he took Callandor—there were False Dragons before him who accomplished incredible feats, and prophecies are vague and difficult to interpret at the best of times. It was also understandable that people might choose to believe, to hope, that he wasn’t the real Dragon Reborn, that they might be paralyzed by fear and unable to face the fact that they would see the Last Battle occur in their lifetimes. But when people did recognize that he must be the real Dragon, and yet tried to block him, or believed he should be gentled or imprisoned, that was harder for me to understand.
It still is pretty baffling when it comes to Aes Sedai thinking that Rand should either be gentled or basically held in stasis until the last battle, and only hubris can really explain that. (Looking at you, Elaida.) But now that we have seen more of the politics of the westlands, now that we have seen varied examples of leaders’ responses to Rand, it’s easier to put myself in their shoes. For these Borderlanders, everything that has happened since Rand declared himself is distant news, much of it little more than rumor. Additionally, there’s a lot that has nothing to do with Rand muddying the waters of information—between the Seanchan conquests, the Whitecloaks’ attempts to spread destruction in Rand’s name, and the Shadow’s manipulation of events, it’s no wonder that the Borderlanders think that the world is crumbling behind them. Normally they are the line of defense against the Blight, protection order and civilization; now their orientation is reversed as the Blight remains uncharacteristically quiet and all the usually stable nations are in an uproar.
Obviously the Blight is not asleep—this is the proverbial calm before the storm, and I’m sure the Shadow has agents watching and waiting for just such an opportunity as this. But it’s easy for me, the reader, to see that coming, and much harder for these people who are caught in the middle of unprecedented times, to make such a determination. And even if they did guess that the sleeping Blight was about to erupt in horrific ways, and all stayed put in their kingdoms, that might not be the right move. As Serailla points out, each decision presented different risks, not lesser ones.
In any case, what is most interesting is seeing which characters believe that Rand is supposed to be in charge leading up to the Last Battle and which see the Dragon as necessary for the battle, but don’t believe he has a right to do much else. Bashere has pretty much put himself at Rand’s disposal, for example, while the rulers of Andor only tolerate him because he has promised to restore the throne to Elayne. The Council gave Rand the crown of Illian, but that had more to do with Rand’s relief efforts than with his being the Dragon Reborn. There are still Aes Sedai who believe Rand should be gentled, while most of the rest of the White Tower is following Elaida’s belief that Rand is necessary only for the last Battle, and should be controlled by the Aes Sedai even then. The Salidar Aes Sedai, on the other hand, think that Rand needs to be governed by them to a lesser degree, though it’s a lot more than Rand himself thinks he should be.
It’s fascinating to watch it all unfold, and Jordan is very good and spinning all these threads out (I’m sure I’m not the first person to make the meta joke that the author is, of course, the Creator of the Pattern of the story). And I’m not the only one who is interested—Verin is taking note of which of the sisters captured in Dumai’s wells believed that Rand needs to be protected. It is also mentioned that she’s surprised by some of those who believe Rand must be kept safe, and I’m very curious for more details about that. Beldeine is Green Ajah, so it’s not very surprising that she would be one of those.
I’m also just so curious about Verin in general, as I have been since The Great Hunt. Jordan continues to tease the possibility that she may be a Darkfriend, as she lays her own plans that certainly aren’t directed by the Tower. She “has a task,” as the narrative puts it, “to keep young Rand alive until it [is] time for him to die.” That sounds pretty much exactly the directive that the Darkfriends have all been given! On the other hand, it’s possible that Verin believes, as Rand himself does, that the prophecy says that he will die in the Last Battle, so the above sentence could be a slightly poetic reference to that. A lot of people have had similar thoughts about keeping Rand alive, including Moiraine and even Elayne.
It’s also not that suspicious that Verin is acting on her own initiative, given the state of the White Tower and the position she’s in, sworn to obey Rand and to take orders from the Wise Ones. But we know that Verin has been playing her own game, to some degree, for a long time. She lied to Rand about being sent by Moiraine to join him all the way back in The Great Hunt. And she is using a weave similar to Compulsion, which is a pretty Darkfriend-y move. Still not a nail in the coffin, though—Moiraine uses Balefire despite its forbidden nature, and while using Compulsion or any related weave is certainly morally abhorrent and rightly banned by the Tower, I can also see how a “good guy” might feel that it is a necessary evil. And as always, it behooves us to remember that there is a difference between being a bad or amoral person and a Darkfriend. (Looking at you again, Elaida. And most of the Whitecloaks.)
Another questions occurs to me here, though, which is whether the use of Compulsion would count as a breaking of the Three Oaths? The third one specifically says that an Aes Sedai can’t “use the One Power as a weapon except against Darkfriends or Shadowspawn, or in the last extreme defense of her life, the life of her Warder, or another Aes Sedai.” But when the oath says “weapon,” what does that mean? Does it literally only mean killing and harming in the physical sense, or does that definition extend beyond the obvious? Using saidar to control and manipulate people to carry out your bidding could certainly be categorized as using the One Power as a weapon if you wanted it to be, but I’m not sure who (or what?) decides how an oath sworn on the Oath Rod is interpreted. Is it defined somewhere? Or does it depend on the definition that the woman swearing holds in her own mind? Or the definition in the mind of the Amyrlin who holds the rod as she swears, maybe.
As we know, the Aes Sedai are regarded by many as being tricky and deceitful. They find ways to deceive without lying; they stretch the limits of their oaths wherever they can. Those Aes Sedai who were compelled to swear fealty to Rand have spent a lot of time debating whether or not they had to stick to that oath given the circumstances it was sworn under, and you can bet that most, if not all, of them would have wiggled out of it if they could. Until now we have only seen Darkfriends use Compulsion or Compulsion-like weaves (Liandrin had that kind of trick from her own time as a wilder, of course) so we don’t really have anything to compare Verin’s actions to.
But we do know that Verin initially learned this cobbled-together weave out of curiosity, not with the intention to use it, necessarily. I really enjoyed everything we learned about her note-taking and her curiosity, since we usually only see the Browns from the outside. They appear bookish and distracted to others, but Verin is not the only Brown Sister who has proven to be much keener than she lets on. It might be more of an intentional performance with her than with some of the others, but people who are keen and curious thinkers can often be seen by others as distracted or flighty just because their minds work differently. As a bookish and distracted person myself, I’ve definitely experienced being underestimated that way.
And being curious is clearly a strong weapon in Verin’s arsenal, whether she’s Black Ajah or just an interesting and unconventional Aes Sedai. If she is Black, she’s certainly different than any Black we have encountered thus far, and I noticed within this section that, while she is willing to hurt and manipulate the imprisoned sisters, she also regrets the treatment of the Aes Sedai. Lines like “she could not truly like seeing sisters treated so, whatever the reasons or need,” suggest a lot more care for, and loyalty to, the Aes Sedai than the Black Sisters we’ve met before. And at the end of the day, I find Verin so interesting and likeable. Kind of like how Pedron Niall was interesting, though not as likable. Verin’s assessment of her own curiosity, her musings that if not for being curious she would have married and had children, and be long dead, instead of going to the White Tower and being in the position she is now, really resonated with me. And her determination to push on with what she’s doing, to endure the exhaustion and the backache, reminded me more of Moiraine and Siuan than it does Liandrin or Ispan, or even the Forsaken. And that seems significant.
Of course the line about Verin having made her last serious mistake seventy-one years ago is terribly tantalizing. It had to have been a very important moment in her life, if she is still keeping track of how many years it has been. And I wonder if her curiosity isn’t something that led her to that mistake, as well.
I’m really curious about Irgain’s treatment by the Aiel. Perhaps because she was stilled, the Aiel don’t view her as an Aes Sedai anymore and that changes how they are treating her. It seems a bit much to suggest that she’s been allowed to become Aiel, but she doesn’t appear to have been made da’tsang, either—she’s not wearing black and she’s allowed to do work that has a purpose. Is she still a prisoner? There is resentment in her face when Verin observes her, and a cringing nature, which doesn’t suggest that she’s there willingly, but if she’s dealing with the pain of being stilled it might just be that she doesn’t want to live anymore. If the Wise Ones know about stilling, which they probably do, then they might be mostly concerned with keeping Irgain alive and focused on some kind of purpose, and probably don’t think punishment is as important. They might even think that stilling is shaming enough for an Aes Sedai, more so than carrying rocks around or any other task they might come up with.
And then there’s the Forsaken formerly known as Ishamael. Moridin has two of the cour’souvra now, and I’m embarrassed to say that even with my college French and junior year abroad in Paris I just got that “coeur s’ouvre” means “heart opens.” I guess I’m so used to Jordan altering or disguising the references slightly I wasn’t expecting him to be quite so direct. But who is the other soul in the mindtrap? Knowing what goes into creating the things, I don’t think it’s done lightly, even by the Dark One. One would suspect, therefore, that the other mindtrapped person is another one of the Forsaken who the Dark One feels went too far out of their way to do their own thing, or who disappointed him in some way. There are really only a few options under that theory.
- Asmodean. He’s dead, but could have been reincarnated and mindtrapped. He was severed from the Dark One by Rand, and Lanfear told the others that he defected to Rand’s side. Whether the Dark One believes this or knows the truth hardly matters—Asmodean is going to be in deep trouble either way, as the guy himself well knew. Asmodean was captured and forced to help the Dark One’s enemies just as Moghedien was, and no doubt once he died and his soul went to the Dark One’s control he was going to pay for every little bit of help Rand got from him.
- Lanfear herself. From a storytelling perspective she was too good of an antagonist to Rand to kill her off for good, just as Ishamael is. I have a feeling that neither she nor Moiraine died falling through the doorway, and that both of them will eventually reappear. I could easily see her getting the same punishment as Moghedien, since Lanfear was even more about playing her own game than Moghedien is. She even told Rand they could get the giant statue angreal and overthrow the Dark One and the Creator together! The Dark One might not have heard that, but he probably has a better idea of what his people are up to than they sometimes think, especially if Shadar Haran has been lurking about spying on the Forsaken for longer than we’ve seen.
- Sammael. We didn’t actually see him die, so there’s every chance he survived Mashadar somehow. And there’s still the reincarnation issue even if he did die, although that would be a pretty fast turnaround because there isn’t any time between the end of A Crown of Swords and the beginning of The Path of Daggers, and in fact it seems like there might be a slight overlap. And come to think of it, I wonder if the contamination of Mashadar might also affect the Dark One’s ability to reclaim Sammael’s soul. It’s not like it is with Balefire—Sammael hasn’t been removed from the Pattern or anything—but given that Mashadar corrupts as well as kills and that its corruption seems to be violently at odds with the corruption of the Dark One (hence Mashadar not being sentient yet still drawn to attacking Shadowspawn) so there’s at least the possibility of some kind of interference.
But given the timing I’d say either Lanfear or Asmodean are the most likely to be the other person trapped by the cour’souvra alongside Moghedien. Unless it’s not a Forsaken at all, of course, and my whole theory is way off. But I just feel like the Dark One is going to be most angry at mistakes or failures from the Forsaken, and we don’t really know of any Darkfriends of this Age that would rate as high in importance as those who were imprisoned when the Bore was patched. And given Jordan’s style, I think it’s definitely going to be a character we’ve met before.
You know, when I think about it in these terms, I’m surprised Moridin is in the position he’s in. It doesn’t appear he’s being punished in any way, though he also failed rather spectacularly and got himself killed. Maybe Moghedien’s version of failure is viewed differently than Ishamael’s; it’s much clearer that Moghedien was acting on her own plans to the detriment of her orders, though that’s mostly because we had more sections from her point of view. He still seems to be the most favored of the Forsaken, using the True Power, holding the mindtraps. He doesn’t seem to have been punished at all, though I can imagine there are lots of other ways the Dark One could hurt him as punishment, including before he was reincarnated, so I don’t want to form too many definite theories just yet. But I am curious.
Last week I suggested that he seems much less insane now than he did as Ishamael. From Moghedien’s observations of Moridin we know that using the True Power does drive you mad, and that makes sense—it comes from the Dark One. I wonder how different the effects of using the True Power are from the effects of the taint. Both come from the Dark One, after all, and both destroy the mind of a person who encounters it for any length of time. Anger also seems to be part of both experiences, though as with Rand, I can imagine many other reasons for Moridin to have an anger problem. It’s just interesting.
I think this might be my favorite book title since The Great Hunt. I really liked the reveal of the crown of swords at the end of the last book, particularly since it seemed like the crown of swords referenced in the prophecies could have been metaphorical. But The Path of Daggers is evocative right off the bat, calling to mind both a metaphorical path filled with enemies and danger—one which Rand has been walking for a while—and also reminding me of the dagger-teeth stalactites and stalagmites of the path down into Shayol Ghul.
Next week we’ll be covering Chapters One and Two of The Path of Daggers, catching up with Aviendha and Elayne and Nynaeve. Until then I wish you all a much nicer path than the dagger one. It seems rough.
On the heights, all paths are paved with daggers.
—Old Seachan saying
Sylas K Barrett is interested in the Fisher piece from the game, and wondering if it’s a reference to the Fisher King of Arthurian legend. It’s neat to suggested that the Fisher King, not Arthur himself, might be the Dragon in some other, long-forgotten guise.
