DEMANDRED
Born one day after Lews Therin, Demandred had almost as much strength and almost as much skill. He spent years almost equalling Lews Therin's accomplishments and fame. If not for Lews Therin Telamon, he would have undoubtedly been the most acclaimed man of his Age.
- excerpt from 'The Forsaken'
The news had hardly been fact for longer than a few hours before it was on the desk of Barid Bel Medar, to be studied, analysed, criticised and denounced. During times like these, it never took long for news to travel; everyone wanted to know what was happening, what would be done to stop the encroaching Shadow, or indeed if anything could be done to stop it. But it had always travelled faster for Barid Bel, especially this kind of news. He was a man who always made sure to stay on top of current events.
And he had been waiting for this news for some time. Ever since war had officially been declared by the forces of the Shadow, the rumours had been flying around regarding who would command the forces of the Light. Names had been mentioned, Tel Janin Aellinsar, perhaps, or Duram Laddel Cham, and even his own. Ultimately, though, the decision fell to the Hall of Servants to decide who would be given control over all the forces of the Light. And Barid Bel knew who they had to choose.
He had never met the much-vaunted Lews Therin Telamon, but he knew him well. Well, he could hardly help it, could he? His whole adult life, he had tried to stand out, to do things no one else could, to be respected and honoured as a leader, and what had he gotten? He was always compared to Telamon. Every time, it was the same. Everything he did wasn't quite good enough. It drove him to try harder, to achieve even one thing that people would accept as better than Lews Therin's, but it was never enough. He hadn't worked his entire life to be second best to anyone, much less someone who he knew was his inferior. Any direct comparison showed the difference, in terms of cunning, strategy, intelligence, or any criteria you chose. Barid Bel always came out as the better man. Yet he couldn't even get accepted as an equal to the man.
He had been waiting and waiting for the opportunity to finally demonstrate this once and for all, for the people to finally accept him as the best, and he had thought that the opportunity had finally arrived when the war broke out. On the field of battle, that was the perfect place to show once and for all who the better man was! Lews Therin could barely even win a game of stones. He was little more than an overconfident fool, whose ridiculous pans would likely kill more of his own men than of the enemy. He arrogantly believed that everything would come through for him. Barid Bel could see it, even if apparently no one else could. He had never thought about the odds, never weighed up the chances or made the difficult decisions like Barid Bel had. Lews Therin was willing to trust to blind luck that things would work. He had no idea how to gamble with men's lives at stake.
Finally, then, Barid Bel had found an area where he was undoubtedly the better man. There could be no argument. As soon as war had been declared, he had started to gather men, form an army to defend the Light. He had marched out onto the battlefield – well, not him personally; his talents were too important to be lost to a stray arrow – and fought battles, and won. His army had won more victories than Aellinsar's, and suffered fewer losses than Cham's (it was only a pity as far as Barid Bel was concerned that the man himself had not been among them). And what had Lews Therin done this time? Lews Therin had done nothing. Lews Therin had barely even stepped foot on the battlefield yet, despite the fact the war had been raging for almost a year now and the Shadow was advancing in power with every day. Lews Therin was content to sit in the Hall and hide behind bureaucracy, afraid that he would finally be exposed as a fraud. This time, they couldn't take it away from him. This time, Barid Bel knew they would have no choice but to give him the power and respect and honour he had craved for all these years. They would have no choice but to acknowledge him as the better man once and for all.
So when the news arrived that the Hall had appointed Lews Therin Telamon as the Commander of the Forces of the Light, and unanimously ratified this decision, it proved what Barid Bel had suspected all along. They were conspiring against him. The man was terrified of him and too spineless to confront him face to face! And they allowed him to do so! They humoured him! It could not go on. He could not continue fighting in an army controlled by that pathetic coward. Did they not realise how many people could die in order to satisfy the man's vanity? Were they unaware that with Lews Therin in control, they could very well lose this war? This was nothing but unbridled arrogance.
They had passed him over every day of his life, and they were going to pass him over again. Well, he'd had enough. If they wanted to lose this war so badly, then they could see how well they managed to do without their best general fighting for them anymore. Every single person who had ever slighted him, who had ever suggested that he was inferior to the so-called Lord of the Morning, would get to see his power first hand as he crushed them. He would be second best to no man. All who had dishonoured him would feel his wrath. He would make them realise that, compared to him, they were ordinary. They would realise that they were common, that they were in the presence of a superior being. And they would realise that the reason they loved Lews Therin so much, was because he was one of them.
And as for Lews Therin? He knew that one day, it would come down to just the two of them. No one for him to hide behind, no one but Lews Therin Telamon and Barid Bel Medar. And then the people would see how their precious Dragon fared. Barid Bel may have been born one day after Lews Therin, but there was nothing he could do about that. The one thing he could control was when Lews Therin died and was forgotten, while Barid Bel lived forever.
His hatred and jealously of Lews Therin Telamon increased with every honour Lews awarded him. He apparently also made a cold calculation that, with Lews Therin in command, the Shadow was the more likely victor. In the third year of the war, he turned to the Dark Lord to avenge his overwhelming hatred of the Dragon, and was called Demandred.
- excerpt from 'The Forsaken'