Mat shivered against the cold and crossed his legs awkwardly as he sat on the stool in the middle of Tylin's tower's flat roof, located in the wilderness of a land he did not recognize. His body was open to the sky. Tylin sat beside him, setting down the last of Mat's clothes, which she had just finished cutting up with the Shadar Logoth dagger.
"So why are you doing this?" Mat asked. "There's nothing out here."
"Ebou Daur got Seanchaned," replied Tylin, "this is my home away from home."
"Why am I naked?"
"Because of this universe!" Tylin raised her fists at the sky. "I am tired of all the unneeded, unexplained female nudity in this universe. Gonna sit in the sweat tent? Better be as nude as a baby. Gonna go into Rhuidean? Not while wearing clothes, you aren't. See that archway that all must pass through before being accepted into the White Tower? It's magic powers kill anyone who's wearing clothes who try to go into it. The Aiel want to bond two girls as first-sisters. But they have to do it in the creepiest way imaginable. Min has a vision of Siuan's fall from the Amyrlin Seat? Well, she sees a vision of her naked and hogtied. Why? I dunno! It never comes true! Cleavage gets lots of attention, much more attention than faces or voices. And its almost always women. Well, if there's going to be nakedness for stupid reasons, then there's got to be enough guys there to balance it out." She stomped her foot. "See this tower? It's owner, that would be me, kills any man who sits atop it on a stool without going naked first."
"Hey, Rand and I have been exposed whenever we got dressed…" Mat began.
"For practical, understandable, explicable reasons. You're here for no reason at all." Tylin huffed as she went down a trapdoor to the tower's lower levels and slammed the door shut.
"Great," groaned Mat. He looked down the tower and knew the fall would be fatal. He tried the trapdoor, but it was locked. When a train of Tinkers rolled by, he tried calling to them for help.
"Way of the Leaf!" they shouted back at him. Angry, Mat threw a long ladder at them in rage. The ladder splintered on the ground and the Tinkers left, cackling.
"Great," he groaned again and began to whistle "Dance With Jacko-the-Shadows" to pass the time.
Or was it Jacko-the-Wisps? He was sure the song had at least two names.
"Hey there," sneered a mocking voice from behind him. Mat looked in time to spot Padan Fain, crawling up the wall with his bare hands. He was like a spider.
"Get help, hurry," Mat begged. Padan Fain gave him the finger and took the Shadar Logoth dagger. Mat backed away, but Padan wasn't interested in him at all.
"Now it is mine!" he cackled, "my precious." Mat backed away, but Padan was uninterested in killing him. Padan clambered back down the wall.
Now the shadow had the dagger.
…
In the Pit of Doom, Shai'tan was bubbling with excitement. He looked once more over his list and considered how he would get them.
"WITH THESE NEW FORSAKEN, THERE IS NO WAY THE DRAGON WILL DEFEAT ME," he said to himself as he read his list once more. Underneath the written heading "New Forsaken" was listed thirteen names.
Megatron. 2. Darth Vader. 3. Frankenstein. 4. King Kong. 5. Elmer Fudd. 6. Black Lagoon Creature. 7. The Blob. 8. The Joker. 9. Godzilla. 10. Jaws 11. Freddy Kruger 12. Jack the Ripper 13. Dracula
"Um, your vileness?" asked Padan Fain as he stumbled into the Pit of Doom, "I have your dagger."
"WHAT?" Shai'tan rolled up his list and leaned forward, squinting at the tiny man on the ledge below him. Padan waved up and pointed triumphantly at the dagger of Shadar Logoth.
"I've totally got it sir," Padan said. Shai'tan looked disappointed. They say the worst feeling in the world was fulfillment. Now what did Shai'tan have left to do?
"WELL, NOW I CAN GET TO SACKING THE LAND, I GUESS," Shai'tan said. "I…JUST…HANG ON." He leaned down and picked the dagger from Padan's hands, squishing the man himself between his huge fingers by mistake. He could feel the power of the dagger's evil course through him. HAHAHA! It felt great. Now, he could conquer the sunlit lands of…whatever this planet was called.
"HONEY!" Shai'tan shouted into the other room. "WHERE IS MY TROLLOC HORDE!"
"YOU COME FOR DINNER RIGHT NOW!" shouted Ladi'tan in her shrill, agitated housewife voice. "I AIN'T CARE IF YOU WANNA GO AN MAKE A FUSS ON THE MORTALS. WE'VE GOTTA EAT!"
"BUT I NEED MY TROLLOC…"
"WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE MAN I MARRIED? WHAT HAPPENED TO US JUST SITTING DOWN AND EATING AS A FAMILY? HM?" Shai'tan rolled his burning eyes as Baby'tan and Girl'tan, his two kids, pulled him towards the other room, pleading with him not to fight with their mommy again.
"JUST GIMME A QUICK BIT…" Shai'tan began, while Baby'tan crawled up his leg to his shoulders and pulled on his hair.
"YOU SAY THAT ALL THE TIME, THEN I FIND YOU DRUNK!" screamed Ladi'tan. "I FIND YOU PASSED OUT IN ONE MORE TAVERN AND IT'S THE DOOR WITH THE KIDS AND I!"
"AW SHUT UP WOMAN!"
"WHAT IF I KNOCK YOUR LIGHTS OUT?"
Shai'tan knew there was no point to continue arguing. He'd just have to invade the world and purge it of light and remake it in his own terrible image.
Right after dinner.
"URGH," groaned Shai'tan as he walked into the Kitchen of Doom and dodged a skillet swung by his angry wife. He laid Baby'tan onto the ground and walked to the Washroom of Doom. Shai'tan had to take a dump.
"HANG ON, I GOTTA GO THROW THE GREAT WHEEL UNDER THE SHADOW," Shai'tan said, pointing to the toilet seat. He closed the door and sat down. A great darkness fell over the wheel.
…
Nyaneve's misadventure with the anvil had been cured during the previous day by Rand's use of Saidin. She was now about half her original height, having been compressed by the anvil's weight. She looked bizarre, even to Rand, who had seen some weird stuff. She looked like a figure of soft clay that had been compressed. It was hard not to laugh, but each laugh was answered with a kick to the groin. Her mistreatment by the hands of fate made her angry, and she had Lan pull on her braid for her, tugging it upwards.
"We'll kill two men with one stone," she said as Lan pulled her hair up harder. "This will help my anger and uncompress my spine."
"Dude," Lan replied. "Dude."
"Good point," Nyaneve replied, her squished face managing to speak despite her flattened skull. "I'll get Perrin, tomorrow."
…
It was nighttime now and Elayne was the only person awake. She stared wide-eyed at the starry sky, contemplating the future. Her kingdom of Andor needed her. She had to get back to claim her throne from her dead mother.
"Yes," Egwene's voice gasped in the darkness. She was talking in her sleep again. "Give it to me Gawyn, give it to me! Yes!" Elayne fumbled around in the dark for her music player. Unable to find it, she stood up and took a walk, leaving the camp far behind. Thus, the Wheel of Time set its plans in motion.
Elayne walked around the night-blackened forest they were traveling through that suddenly thrust itself out onto an open plain that overlooked a valley. Below her, marching through the valley, were the Bad Guys.
Shadowspawn, so they were called. A mighty rogues gallery of nasties created by the dark powers. Columns of trollocs formed the bulk of the force. They were too-human beasts on two legs. Artists still debate whether they were total animal people or just men with beastly features.
Some were wolf-headed, some had elephant trunks, some were horned, goat-faced, and some were covered in beastly hair. A number sported the heads and beaks of crows. A few bore bold red rooster waddles or rabbit ears. They marched on cloven hoofs, delicate chicken legs, crab legs or talons. There were pigeon people with swords and shields, beaver-toothed men armed with a woodcutter's chainsaw and wrinkled warriors with turtle shells to carry the army's white flags. Elayne saw carp-like trollocs flopping across the ground on scaly bellies armed with harpoons, caterpillar trollocs to creep out the squeamish and deer-headed trollocs hefting shotguns and wearing hillbilly overalls.
Behind them marched a retinue of workers, clearing up the shed fur, poops, feathers and other nonsense that the untamed trollocs left in their wake. It sounded like a barnyard, even from up here.
Overseeing them were the pale Fades, armed with ferocious seeing-eye hellhounds to lead their blind masters. They had to wear hooded robes (to protect their sensitive skin from the sunlight) and a few walked with canes, because their nimble bodies were too weak to carry them.
The grey men stood with their fellow shadowspawn. They had grey, hairless skin with small bodies and big heads that had large, black almond-shaped eyes and no mouths. The grey men got around in flying saucers that fired death rays at those who displeased Shai'tan.
To disorient the reader even more, there were yet more types of shadowspawn.
There was the Draghkar, the great bats who attacked by getting caught in one's hair. There were the darkhounds, the unnatural dogs. They left pawprints in stone, could see in the dark and peed all over gravestones instead of trees. There were also the Gholam, who, when not in the service of the Shadow, were acrobats at the local circus. Standing over them were the dreadlords! They looked like great pale men with demonic wings, horns, claws and turned into bats when they died. They could cast Sleep, Inferno, Carrion Swarm and had a Vampiric Aura.
"Well this sucks," Elayne remarked in dismay. They were dangerously close to Andor. They had bigger problems now than Mat. "I've got to warn the others."
