It was almost like she was floating in a bath, with only her mouth and nose above the surface. But there were no currents of water to swirl against her skin. No warm candlelight glowed comfortingly from behind a screen. In fact there was nothing to be seen at all. It was like the memory of darkness that had ended all of her nightmares leading up to this day. Though, there was no sense of time anymore. Perhaps it was weeks she'd been here, or years. She was adrift in the void, with only the sound of her breath, and a dull, thudding heartbeat to keep her company. She could not channel, nor even sense the Source as anything but a memory.
Fear would not help her now.
She instead focused all of her energy on moving, making another sound, seeing or smelling something. No one would come for her. She remembered what had happened after the burning light, but nothing she thought of could help her to escape. Her life was forfeit, because of the woman she'd come in with - the foulness of that woman's soul. There had been no wishes, no chance of going back the way she had come. Only this. This, and she could not remember how to move her limbs.
It could not have been an eternity that she struggled within herself to escape, because she found that after some time she'd stopped. Surely she'd been here for years. Decades had probably passed with her like this, with no one left in the outside world to remember that she was here. She would just have to regain her strength to try again to free herself.
She thought of the circumstances that led her here, going over her memories of the docks with the proverbial fine-toothed comb. Time must have gone by, for then she played games with herself to keep her mind occupied. Stones boards were visualized in front of her, moves played out with precision. She counted each breath until reaching into the thousands, and then multiplied that by the number of times her life had been in danger in the past, and then by the number Lan's had. She did it again so that she could be sure of the solution.
The games frustrated her.
Her breathing continued on, even and measured. She found that she couldn't alter it's rhythm, or use her mouth to speak. It was as if her breathing existed somewhere outside of herself. It didn't seem to matter with what fierceness she fought. It was as if there was nothing to move. There wasn't even a chill running down her spine to accompany her uneasiness.
She was here, in this place, because there was no other way. She had always known that at any moment her life could be taken away, in one way or another. She and Siuan both would have been stilled, had other Aes Sedai discovered what they knew.
So much of life was built on chance. Even the prophecies may not have been fulfilled, had errors been made, and different paths been chosen. But what had occurred was for Rand's benefit. He would survive to fight in the Last Battle, and be victorious. She held onto that thought for a long time, allowing it to steady her emotions.
The Eelfinn must be holding her like this because they needed something from her. Memories of Matrim's weapon surfaced in her mind. She'd gone into his tent once, after discovering what his foxhead medallion could do. The weapon was there, close to his bedroll. She studied it, and the boy. He had gotten much from them. She wished she knew what he'd done while there.
They placed importance on memory, and time. Perhaps that was what they wanted with her, to drain her of herself.
She must not forget who she was, and so made herself remember her life, and the lives of people around her. When she was a little girl she'd fallen out of the boat her parents had hired to take a pleasure sail around a lake in the south of Cairhien. The water had been warm but her body was frozen in disbelief at suddenly being immersed. Water was everywhere around her.
She remembered how beautiful it was, with the sunlight dancing through the eddies. They made blue-green swirls. She thought they were water spirits, as in the stories Innloine had read to her. She was in love with this new world, even as her body sank further below. Her father was like a great beast breaking through the water when he dove in to save her. It was almost comical. In fact, she'd felt completely unafraid about the whole event, until sometime later, when the panic of the others finished settling in. Reality had been what emerged from that. The knowledge of death was revealed through...almost a veil childhood had woven for her.
Other memories surfaced. Her lovely mother, who sang while embroidering. Her sisters. Laman, and Caraline. Siuan, and Lan. Rand. Hundreds of others. Some of those people she had saved, others she'd had killed or worse, and some she failed to save at all. She saw Thom's eyes again, sparkling with humor and so blue, clear enough to see beyond faces and motives. It wasn't true that they had never danced, for she had danced while his fingers did, moving over the strings of his harp.
She saw these things, and all of her life that had followed. She simply had not been good enough to stop all of the worst things. So much of it was filled with pain and struggling. And, it was not over. They chose to keep her here, alive, forever. She wasn't sure how much longer she could keep hold of herself. The thought of drifting away became enticingly sweet, though to where she did not know. There was no longer a use for her.
But, she simply could not allow herself to give up. She wondered if this was her final failing. Why should she continue to fight the same paradox of struggle and embrace. It became clear that life was a spiral, and not a circle. The world was full of them in every form, from leaf to woman's face. It was a sign of the Pattern. It was not a true wheel that completes itself, or a line stretching into infinity, but an undulating curl that twists and repeats to create a great Lace of nature. And, after all, where was there left to go but down into the center of this spiral? Nothing can truly be destroyed. She would only be carrying on her work in another form. That could not be giving up.
She pondered these things slowly, all the while feeling as if a veil of another kind were opening in her mind, allowing her to understand.
"Indeed," she thought, "at the end of it all there is no choice left but to follow the path we all must take." In just a little while she would do so. It would be alright to hang on to this heartbeat, breath, and thought for a short time before she went away. Time was without boundaries in this place so close to the Pattern.
Later, she heard them. They came in the way of deep thunderous rumblings, of shouting and metal. She felt something tugging at her, and a burning smoke causing her to cough. They were pulling her out of the dark. They couldn't be her companions, for they must all have died during the Last Battle some time ago. It was then that fear engulfed her. They wanted to take her, take what was left of her mind and soul before she'd had the chance to let those things go. She was helpless.
She tried to fight them as she woke, with every strength she had left within her. The light was blinding. It was burning her eyes as much as the smoke hurt her lungs. Someone was saying a name. Was it hers?
Thom Merrilin brought her into the world. He held the woman, his Aes Sedai, to his chest, not knowing whether or not she could see him. Moiraine's eyes had opened only to stare blindly upwards. He bent closer, whispering into her ear.
"Moiraine, I've come for you."
The sounds of Mat and company fighting the last of the Eelfinn grew worse. The stench of the creatures blood filled the air, and sounds of their dying shrieks reached a crescendo as the last small stick of firework powder finally exploded.
Moiraine's scream came out as a soft sound, barely heard, and like a melody broken.