As it turned out, Rand found out and to Perrin's relief, Moiraine did indeed find a need to find the Eye of the World. Rand suspected that Verin wove something on Nyneave's unknowing object of hate, but he didn't really care. All he knew was that right now he was standing in front of the Green Man, the last of the Nym. The corrupted heat and twisted plants of the Blight were non-existent here.
Loial was so excited at being here, to meet the Green Man, that he even forgot about the book in his hand for a while.
Moiraine looked obviously relieved at reaching their destination without having to balefire anything, though Rand was a little disappointed. Lan just kept looking like a rock.
Mat was wondering idly if the Green Man would be interested in a game of dice.
Nyneave and Egwene looked around with cool serenity, trying desperately to copy the other Aes Sedai that came with them.
Verin was looking with interest at a particular flower, making notes in her small notebook.
Rand couldn't help being amused at Liandrin's and Alviarin's reactions. They tired to maintain the Aes Sedai mask of serenity, but they kept looking over their shoulders nervously.
Romanda just acted as if she owned the place. She walked over to Egwene no doubt to give her some small task, such as to shine her boots, but Egwene moved away from her, obviously fed up with doing nothing but that ever since she got to Salidar in the Foretelling.
Allana was looking around in wonder, her collection of Warders momentarily without her hands all over them.
Merilille wasn't paying attention to her surroundings, but was actually trying to compose in her head the next treaty between Tarabon and Arad-Doman. She didn't care which side wanted what, she just wanted them to sign it, if she had to trace the letters for them.
Thom looked like he was composing his next song in his head, his hands moving as if playing an invisible harp.
Min looked a little scared, and walked close to Rand, muttering about keeping him safe, and not letting his bacon burn. Mat glared at her for using his saying.
"The Green Man," Egwene whispered, if just because she did in the Foretelling.
"Of course I am. Who else would be here?" The scarred face was consorted into a smile, the body made of plants was quivering with excitement. He could feel the end coming. His eyes fell on Loial. "It is good to see you, little brother. In the past, many of you have come to visit me, but few of recent days."
Loial almost fell out of the saddle he was in. "You honor me, Treebrother." He said solemnly, and bowed.
"There is no honoring, little brother. We will sing Tree Songs together, and remember the Great Trees, and the stedding and hold the Longing at bay." The Green Man turned his attention to the rest of the group, now that the important part was taken care of. "A Wolfbrother! do the old times truly walk again, then?" He seemed delighted.
Perrin just shrugged. "No, not yet. But soon." Perrin wore a secretive smile, such as an Aes Sedai might wear, and it took a lot for Rand to hold in his shock. He smiled! Secretively! Perrin!
Suddenly, the Green Man's eyes wondered to Rand. He looked shocked. "Strange clothes you wear, Child of the Dragon. Has the Wheel turned so far? Do the People of the Dragon returned to the First Covenant? But you wear a sword. that is neither now nor then."
Rand's face consorted into anger. "Child of the Dragon?!" He was outraged. "I am the Dragon, you Power-made piece of plant! I ought to get Cadsuane stare at you while Sevanna talks to you, and Elayne sniff at you, and then let Nyneave tug her braid at you and box your ears." Rand threatened the Green Man with the worst torture imaginable to him. Nyneave tugged her braid at his language.
While Rand was fuming, The Green Man turned to Moiraine. "You surprise me, Moiraine Sedai. This place was made to be found only once, and you have been here before. But now you bring some of your sisters. I never understood why you bind yourselves like criminals." He suddenly looked embarrassed, as if he didn't mean to say what he said.
Rand answered for her. "The so-called Servants of All now think that they can impress people by cutting their lives short." He sniffed, and all the women gathered glared at him, not for bad-mouthing Aes Sedai, but for using their trademark action. Only a woman was allowed to sniff at people. Rand nevertheless continued talking. "I have come to relieve you of your duty, Nym." He told the Green Man solemnly, all traces of his previous outrage forgotten. "You do not need to guard the Eye any longer."
The last Nym looked gravely at Rand, and beckoned him to follow. Rand and Logain followed the Green Man to a stone archway with the ancient symbol of the Aes Sedai engraved at the peak. Inside was a shallow pool filled with the pure essence of saidin. Rand told Logain as much. Logain seemed to think it over, then tried to take hold of the Source.
He couldn't.
The bloody flaming thing was warded so that only the Dragon Reborn could use it. And by the look on his face, it looked as if he was.
Logain felt the ground shake a little, just a little, but Rand was already running out of the archway. Slightly confused, Logain followed his teacher outside, and stared at what he saw.
Two men were striding toward where the group was as if they had all the time in the world. Logain could feel that they both held tremendous amounts of saidin, more than he himself could hold unaided, but they weren't even sweating. Rand was talking hurriedly with the two young women that came with him out of the Two Rivers, and they didn't seem too happy about that he was telling them. Logain noticed that Rand was not holding the Power. When Rand finally turned toward the two men coming toward him, he looked as if he were pleasantly surprised.
"Ishar Morrad Chuain! Long time, no see! It's been, what, three thousand years since I've seen you last? How've you been?" Rand looked absolutely delighted at meeting one of the Forsaken. Again, by the sound of it. "And you, Eval Ramman, I haven't seen you around, either. Was it as bad as I hear, being trapped down there with nothing to do but listen to Joar Addam's music all the time?" He actually sounded sympathetic! The bloody Dragon was making sure that his flaming enemies (in more than one sense, counting Ishamael) were not bloody flaming bored! What a woolhead! "And I wouldn't think there were any women in there worth hitting on, eh, Eval Ramman?" He bloody well winked! "Mierin Eronaile might be pretty, and believe me, I know-" another wink "-but she does tend to get touchy if you go out with other people later on." Here a sigh "Now, that is something I really don't want to go through again." He sounded as if he were talking from experience.
The two Forsaken had a hurried conversation with each other, and then turned to Rand, also seemingly happy.
"Lews Therin Telamon, you have no idea how bad it is." Aginor shuddered. "Not only does Asmodean want us to listen to his terrible music, but Semirhage goes around, asking for volunteers so that she can try out a new weave she made up." A shiver. "We wanted to get Graendal to get the sadism out of her head, but no one wanted to get to close, in case she wove Compulsion over them." A grimace. "And Sammael kept drawing strait lines, so that he could think." An amused smirk.
Now Belthamael began to speak. "And Moghedien, may the Dark save me, she kept running away whenever I came close to her, and she was the only woman I dared get close to. Messana would just whine about how they didn't allow her to do her own research. The way I see it, if you quote one person then it's plagiarism; if you quote a lot of people, then it's research. But, no, she just had to go and study the Great Lord, so he got angry with her, and made her teach us all about stuff some boring dead person found. It was really boring." He emphasized his point with a yawn.
"But now, I'm afraid that we must get down to business." Aginor cut in. "We were sent by the Great Lord of the Dark to kill you, Lews Therin, though I won't pretend it gives me any pleasure. If only I could find out how those Myrddraal travel from shadow to shadow like they do, that would give me pleasure." He muttered to himself for a few minutes, as if arguing with himself. Finally, he turned to Rand apologetically. "I hope you don't take this personally, Dragon, but orders are orders."
What happened next happened so fast, that Logain wasn't really sure they really happened. Rand took hold of the Source and wove a gateway to behind the two Forsaken, so that the weave Aginor threw at him went through the gateway back towards him, from the other side, knocking him unconscious. The one called Lan drew his sword and ran toward the remaining Forsaken, rather stupidly. To save him, Moiraine and Nyneave both wove Air around him to keep him in place. Belthamael slashed at Rand's gateway, and threw a shield at him. Logain at this point came to his senses, and tried to take hold of the Source again, and succeeded. As soon as saidin flooded into him, he slashed at the shield, and tried to throw one of his own at Belthamael. Logain could feel his arms prickling, a sure sign that the women have broken through their shields, and were channeling at the Forsaken.
Nyneave and Egwene hastily threw shields at Alviarin and Liandrin, so that they wouldn't attack Rand when his back was turned.
Romanda acted as if this mere brush with two Forsaken was not worth her notice.
Allana and her Warders did their best to catch their breath after their little... practice in CPR that they were having, and were looking a little out of it.
Alviarin and Liandrin did their best to break through the shields, but they did not stand much of a chance, being shielded by the two strongest women ever to lay eyes on the White Tower.
Verin had her notebook out, and was scribbling furiously.
Merilille was busy trying to compose the next treaty between Tear and Illian, without actually changing any borders. It was a skill not many people had, using a lot of words to not really say anything.
Apparently, not many Aes Sedai considered a meeting with two of the Forsaken to be worthy of their attention for even a minute.
Moiraine, one of the few Aes Sedai that actually did things to help the world, was drawing more of saidar through the angreal in her pouch. The weave that would make lightning come down was slashed at by Belthamael, who broke through Logain's feeble shield. Being one of the targets of a man channeling was putting Moiraine's teeth on edge.
Rand began to talk to Lews Therin as soon as Belthamael's shield was fixed on him, and didn't stop until the Green Man stepped into view from where he was talking with Loial. Loial looked extremely excited about seeing and talking to the Green Man, despite the fact that he was caught in the middle of a... confrontation... between the Dragon, two of the Forsaken, and some people on the sidelines. He had his notebook out and a pen and was scratching furiously, obviously trying to record every single word that he exchanged with the last Nym. Mat, who stayed out of the multi-sided dual as best he could, wondered if he should tell the Ogier that he needed to dip the quill in ink to make it write.
Bob the Whitecloak wiped the blood off his sword, while everyone else stared at him in amazement. No one has ever done that before. Unless someone in some Light-forsaken Age used a sword to chop a leg of a Forsaken, and then use the leg to beat the same person to death, while using the sword to swat away flies.
Rand, following Bob's example, used his Power-made sword to decapitate Aginor. For some reason this irritated Nyneave, who marched up to Rand and boxed his ear. This startled him so much, he jumped as if he were goosed.
"You dare box the Dragon's ear?" he asked, outraged.
"You know it is not polite to kill someone without asking their permission first." Nyneave answered firmly. "I will not tolerate any impoliteness around me. Now apologies to him."
"No. He tried to kill me first." Rand whined. "That makes no difference. When the Dark One resurrects Osa'ngar, you are going to go to him and ask his forgiveness. And don't kill him again after that, or I'll box your ears again. I can still remember when I used to paddle your bottom for less, so don't irritate me." Nyneave tugged on her braid for emphasis.
"But I wasn't impolite to you, so you didn't need to box my ears." Rand tried feebly to turn the situation to his advantage, the poor idiot. "So you need to apologize to me now, for unprovoked boxing of ears." This seemed to satisfy Rand. However, Nyneave's face colored in anger.
"I will not apologize." she said defiantly.
Rand was dreaming. He was in a corridor with no doors in sight. The corridor was black, lined with torches. There was water dripping in the background. Rand smiled. Finally, Ishamael found him. It was time to get him at his own game. But it was only a smile in the sense that the corners of his mouth were upturned, and all his teeth were showing.
Rand walked down the corridor until he came to a door, which he opened.
Inside was a fireplace on the far side, with a heatless fire burning. Rand walked up to it, and stared into it.
"You're very predictable, Ishamael." He said to the man who just appeared behind him. "You always liked things that didn't make any sense. But I guess any philosopher would be like that." He turned to look into the mask that hid the fire.
"You cannot escape your destiny, Lews Therin." Ishamael said. Rand shrugged.
"I don't intend to." He replied. "Besides, even if I can, do I deserve to?"
"No. You do not deserve to, Lews Therin." Ishamael said with certainty.
Rand stared into the fire for some time. "Why do you call me Lews Therin? My name is Rand al'Thor."
"You are the Dragon. I've known you by many names, met you many time in every Age. You are Lews Therin Telamon."
"You say that you've known me by many names. Then why do you call me Lews Therin? Why not some other name from a different Age?"
Ishmael looked a little embarrassed. "Alright, I don't know you by a lot of names. I just know you by Lews Therin and Rand al'Thor, but I wanted to intimidate you, y'know, just so that I could have the upper hand." Rand could feel Ishamael take hold of the Source. "But I have the upper hand anyway." The fireball would have hit Rand if he hadn't changed his position to the other end of the room.
"You know, Ishi, Lanfear and I did more than... you know... when we were going out." Rand gestured vaguely, wondering if Ishamael really did know what he was talking about. In the Age of Legends, Ellan Morrin was usually stayed inside at night, and Rand wondered if he was still a virgin. The fact that the fire burned red-er in those eyes told Rand that he did indeed know what he was talking about. "She told me a few of her secrets about this place. For example, she told me that I could do this." Rand concentrated for a moment, and suddenly both of them were in the Stone of Tear, in the Heart of the Stone, facing callandor. "I'd love to take that right now, but that would ruin Be'lal's plans. It amuses me how his petty schemes never work. Not even the master manipulator can hide his plans from me." Rand smirked. "While we are here, how about a game of sha'rah?" Rand asked. Ishamael smirked. No one could surpass his ability in sha'rah.