I apologize for the delay. I beg your forgiveness. I really do. I've had this chapter ready for a long time, but I never got around to uploading it. High school and college are time-gluttons, always devouring any spare time I have. Anyway, here's Chapter 4.
Chapter 4 - The First Chamber: Math Is Evil
By Luna Nightraven
Rand stumbled into... somewhere. He didn't know where he was. It was dark, and however hard he strained his eyes, there was only more darkness to be seen. He reached for saidin, then remembered that it wasn't there. He almost cried when he realized this. Well, he would have if he had more feeling than a rock.
Suddenly the darkness vanished as light flared to life. Rand shielded his eyes from the sudden brightness. After a few moments, the Dragon opened his eyes and blinked a few times. He noticed, incredibly, that the light seemed to come from everywhere, yet from nowhere.
"Hello, al'Thor," a voice like chimes said easily. "I have been waiting to meet you for a long time."
Rand looked at the owner of the voice, and his eyes widened slightly in surprise. Even though the speaker was using an Illusion of ever-shifting black and white, he knew who it was. Well, with the help of Lews Therin, he knew who it was. "Mesaana," he said neutrally.
"That's right," Mesaana said, letting the Illusion go. "Did you like my Illusion?"
"Not particularly," Rand answered.
Mesaana's eyes narrowed. "Oh, really? Well, you never were all that bright, Lews Therin. Let's see what you can do as the dimwitted shepherd you are now."
"I can handle anything you throw at me," Rand said, sounding much more confident than he felt. Without the Power, he was virtually defenseless against the Forsaken.
He abandoned his gloomy thought and looked at Mesaana again. Good thing, too, or else he probably would have had a good-sized bump on his head. Or would it have been better if he had been hit? Anyway, he moved out of the way just in time. "You crazy woman! Why in the Pit of Doom did you just throw that... thing at me!"
"We're going to play a little game, al'Thor," Mesaana told him. "It's called 'dodgeball,' except I'm using these old cannonballs. I'm going to ask you math questions, and you will answer them. I will also be throwing these at you, but you'll never know when I decide to throw them. This will be both fun and educational."
"Those two words don't belong in the same sentence," Rand muttered. He was scared now. What could Mesaana have come up with that was... he shuddered, educational?
"What's two plus two?" the lady Forsaken asked suddenly.
"Uh, four," Rand answered almost immediately. He noticed that Mesaana looked disappointed.
"What's seven times eight?"
Rand thought for a moment. "Fifty-six."
Once again, Mesaana looked disappointed as she asked the next one. "Two hundred twenty-four substract eighteen?"
Rand thought for a few minutes, his eyes narrowed in concentration. Beads of sweat began to trickle down his forehead. "Two hundred six," he answered at last.
Mesaana snapped her hand back to throw one of the cannonballs, and Rand cringed. Then she lowered her hand and laughed softly. "I'm only joking, you twitchy thing. What's one hundred forty-four divided by twelve?"
"Um, twelve?" came the answer.
"Is that your final answer?"
"Why? Am I wrong?"
"I can't tell you that. Now is that your final answer?"
Rand gulped. "Yes," he said glumly.
"Very good," Mesaana said, hefting the cannonball. "Now for the hard stuff."
"You mean that other stuff was supposed to be easy?" Rand looked worried. You'd be worried, too, if you could barely do the math any third-grader should know, and a creepy evil woman was threatening to bombard you with cannonballs.
"What is the square root of four?" Mesaana's eyes gleamed with anticipation.
Rand didn't know. He guessed. "Two?"
He figured he must have been right, since she asked the next question. "How many feet in a mile?"
Rand blinked. "How many what in what!"
"Answer it, Dragon!" The disconcerting gleam in Mesaana's eyes had become almost predatory.
"Uh..."
It's 5280, Lews Therin whispered in the back of Rand's head.
What in the Pit of Doom, Lews Therin? How do you know? Rand was truly disturbed now. The long-dead madman in his head was trying to help him with math?
I liked math. Oh, Ilyena! Lews Therin said, ending in a wail.
"Hurry, Dragon, you don't have all day," Mesaana chided, but she drew her hand back to throw the cannonball.
Rand shrugged. What did he have to lose? He might as well use the old loon's answer since he himself didn't know. "Five thousand two hundred eighty."
Mesaana was impressed in spite of herself. The measuring system of the people in this Age was so screwed up that she had thought Rand wouldn't get that one. Fine, she'd have to try a little harder. "Four halves times the square root of 25?"
The Dragon Reborn was completely lost. What in the Pit of Doom was a square root? He tried asking Lews Therin, but the Lord of the Morning was currently curled into a fetal position in Rand's mind, crying about his dead wife. Bloody wonderful. "I don't know!" Rand wailed. "Please stop!"
Mesaana grinned triumphantly at the plea. She hurled another cannonball at Rand, who barely got out of the way in time.
Unfortunately for poor Rand, the mathematical assault went on and on. Mesaana delighted in Rand's pleas and wrong answers as she bombarded him with more and more complicated and difficult math problems. And cannonballs, of course. Lews Therin, who had taken up chanting about breaking the Seals and occasionally screaming about Ilyena, was no help at all.
At last Rand sank down to the floor, his head in his hands as he tried to block out Mesaana's voice and silence Lews Therin's. "I don't know! Just stop! Please stop! It hurts! I never went to school! I don't know how to think! I just act! It hurts! Stop!" He looked up and blinked as he realized it was quiet. Even Lews was silent. He got to his feet and looked at Mesaana.
"Are you quite finished?" Mesaana asked disdainfully. When Rand nodded, she continued, "I may enjoy hurting your poor little mind, but I'm not Semirhage. Go through that door to face your next challenge."
The Dragon Reborn nodded and practically sprinted for the door. He wasn't sure, but he thought he heard Mesaana whisper, "If you thought that was bad, just wait till you see what's next."
I hope you enjoyed. Actually, I just hope someone reads this, considering how long I've let it sit without an update. Oh well. Please R&R, and I'll try to write another chapter sometime this year. Now where did I put that list of ideas...?
