Saven 18, 998 NE,(May 28th)
Something had shocked, horrified, and outraged Egwene about an hour ago. She'd been angry and worried ever since, though Moiraine had not been. She'd been patient, unconcerned, amused and resigned at various times but never shocked or horrified. They were together as they usually were, Moiraine having taken Egwene on as all but an apprentice. I assume Nynaeve would get the same treatment if she deigned to stay in the Aes Sedai's presence for more than an hour before scowling and walking off upset.
I waited, impatiently, alone. It was already past eight in the evening, Mikeyo had left, and they had only just started moving towards my room. Instead of worrying about whatever awful thing Moiraine apparently had in store, I seized saidin to feel the rush of life flowing through me, the power of a river of fire as hot as the sun at my fingertips, and with it I wove six Torchlights, all simple flame, to dance in a row.
Then, as I held each flow, I altered first one weave then another, tugging carefully, trying to find what part of the weave governed color and how. I made flames sparkle, roar, turn to dying coals, and flare up. I made flames pop, distort, twist and fade until finally I made flames that turned bright red and green and blue, painting the room in lurid colors.
I tugged on the half-knot of Air, having found angle and rotation changed the color. Getting the correct color was a much more delicate process and one I did not have time to do, as I felt the pair make their way onto my floor. The unnatural lights winked out, the pure power that flowed through my veins gone, the world duller for its absence and the calm of ko'di dissipating. I shook my head roughly, making my way to the door to open before they knocked.
A red-eyed Egwene burst into the room when the door opened and slammed herself into me, knocking me back a few steps, and I held her while looking over her brown hair at Moiraine, who had muted herself in the bond the moment I saw her. I hate when she does that.
"Woah there Egwene. What happened?" The Aes Sedai held herself as if entirely unaware that the upset woman in my arms was probably her fault, striding into the room and closing the door.
"I have discovered an aspect about the bond that is sure to make you into a brooding mess, so let us retire to the bed. It would be best if you heard this news while sitting in between us. I won't even pretend it is not so we can prevent you from escaping." My worry peaked.
Egwene turned around, keeping my arms around her, her words biting, "I'm upset for you, Rand, unlike Moiraine. One of us has to care for you." Moiraine let out a haughty sniff and her calm face curdled a moment, but she made no reply.
What exactly is going wrong with the bond? What kind of curse do I have to suffer this time? And must they fight over it? I thought bitterly as a sniffling Egwene led me to the bed, glaring at Moiraine.
"She's right, though. We need to make sure you don't get any fool notions in your thick skull. You know I love you, right?" Egwene said the last sentence fiercely, with conviction shining.
"Of course. I love you too Egwene," I replied, confused and worried as I sat with my back against the pillows as my two Dragonwives held each arm.
"Do you know I care for you?" asked Moiraine. Egwene squeezed tighter, and at a glance I saw her grit her teeth.
Hesitantly, with another glance at Egwene like the question was a poisonous viper, I said, "Yes?"
"When do you think I began to care for you?"
"Maybe sometime between the 7th and the 11th?" I guessed, before adding, "You got upset on the 11th when I said everything about our relationship was fake. Loial thought I was being a stubborn fool. I guess I was." I cracked a smile, my nervousness abating a little. Maybe this is just about making the relationship real, and that's why Egwene is upset, I realized.
Moiraine thoroughly crushed that hope. She spoke in a clinical tone. "The 1st of Saven was when I noticed the changes that were happening to me. I acted in ways that felt natural and right to me, but were objectively quite different from my previous actions. I began writing it down, fearing it was a side effect of our bond. Now, I am quite certain it is a feature and protective aspect of our bond."
Anxiety roiled in my stomach. Something in our bond changed the way she thought. How is that protective? Did it change the way I thought too?
"I found you more attractive suddenly, when beforehand I considered you mildly handsome and far too tall. And women are the ones that usually catch my eye and my heart.Not that I am opposed to romancing men, rather the opportunity had never truly arisen," Moiraine explained, calm as a winter pond.
That whole notion was something that came out of the blue for me. I didn't even know that women could romance amongst themselves. Can men do that too? I wondered. I do not know if I would like such a thing. The softness of women is a comfort. Perrin would be too solid a sleeping partner.
"Is that… common? I have never heard of women being married to each other." I asked curiously.
Egwene was bright red and she beat a staccato rhythm on my arm while squeaking indignantly, but Moiraine just shook her head, sounding almost wistful.
"Sapphic love is not common in the Westlands, but far more common in the White Tower and Tar Valon. Tar Valon is the only city in which women can marry women, as it can be a lonely life, living as an Aes Sedai, and your sisters are sometimes the closest of companions, even in love. Warders are sometimes as well, but more often than not they seem useful tools to my sisters, not men with love in their hearts. Only amongst the Green Ajah does such sapphic love maintain a minority."
I looked at both women. Moiraine's hair was braided once more, something she had done often since we bonded. Now it seemed sinister rather than nostalgic, just another change forced on her. Egwene wore her hair braided as well, something she has done since we bonded. What about the clothes they wore? She wore green tonight, as did Egwene, like the Green Ajah that loves men, not like her own Blue which is presumably as 'sapphic'. Did that mean something? Both were simple but well-cut dresses tight across the chest and the collar dipping low enough to reveal the beginnings of cleavage. I think at least Moiraine meant to entice me, maybe the both of them. I kept my eyes on faces, but I wondered, Do they do such things out of their own desire or the bonds?
"Does it disappoint you that I have taken that from you?" I wondered, feeling lost. There was so much about the world I did not know.
Her look was serious, and she felt sincere in her voice, though the bond remained muted. "No. I am not disappointed in the least. I am happy to be at your side, Rand. This is my life's duty."
That she really believed that was something I could not dismiss. She had said as much before, some of it even before the bond, and an Aes Sedai cannot lie. Where before it would flatter me and make me happy that someone cared so much about me, it now felt the fawning false words of a thrall. I shuddered. Exactly how long has she felt so strongly that way?
"But to continue, as the days went on, I had desires to touch you. To be with you, speak to you, smile and parade you as my own to others, even to Egwene, to kiss you. Desires I had never even once considered before we bonded. Desires I certainly would not have acted on in the way I did before our bond." My stomach churned. The anxiety grew.
"Compulsion," Moiraine explained to me, her voice soft and steady, "is any weave that uses the One Power to manipulate and control someone's mind. I believe the bond uses something like it in a number of ways, both to make sure we are compatible in matters of the heart and to defend you."
I couldn't believe it. Truly, I had enthralled Moiraine, made her fall in love with me, like a villain from a story. I didn't want to think about it, so I latched onto the part that was confusing. "What do you mean, defend me?"
"The prophecy the Spirit gave you stated one enemy would be amongst your Dragonwives, Rand. That is why it must defend you." She paused, taking a deep breath. "You must understand that when I discovered the bond was manipulating me, I became…somewhat upset, and I intended to use a weave similar to Compulsion on you, a weave of the Blue Ajah used on others to inspire loyalty and authority in the channeler. When I attempted to channel I found I couldn't. I was shielded from the One Power somehow, unable to touch saidar as if a glass window imposed itself on me." What!? Did she seriously try to enthrall me back in some kind of petty revenge?! My skin felt cold and clammy, my heart beat fluttering and the world suddenly seemed far away.
Egwene interrupted, letting me focus on her and not the horrific revelation. "If you had had your way, Rand would be little more than a tool! Shame on you, Moiraine Sedai. Better the bond changed you, and protected him, I say." Egwene peered over at me and Moiraine, who looked as if she ate a lemon, glared back.
I had to speak; I had to understand. "So you found out I accidentally used Compulsion on you, through something gifted to me by a Spirit of the Creator, and your first action was to use Compulsion on me in revenge?" The bitter bite of betrayal, something new to me. I wish I had never had to feel it. It felt like my foundation had collapsed, that before stood a yawning abyss. "To apparently make me an Aes Sedai tool and prove the Father of Lies true?" Ba'alzamon had told me the Amyrlin Seat and the White Tower would bind me and truss me up like a lamb to slaughter after the Last Battle. Was this the beginning of that plan? No, I cannot think that. She was simply upset with me and restored to petty cruelty.
"It is not a true Compulsion,—Egwene scoffed—I have used it often in my travels, for decades, on my best agents. Someone must actively maintain true Compulsion each time they make an order until the victim's mind is so damaged they become biddable to every order without it. The secret weave merely nudges the person towards viewing me in a better light. After a few years, there is no longer a need for it. It is how the Blue Ajah maintained our networks even in the Fortress of Light and the Stone of Tear."
What she said shocked me. Moiraine straight up told me at least one entire Ajah, one of the seven that composed the White Tower, had a secret enthralling weave that they apparently used constantly to make people agents for them. And may have already been used on me without me knowing, on everyone in our group… That thought sent a chill down my spine. I did not wish to think of Moiraine having betrayed me, betrayed us that way. I would not. I locked that thought away tight and burnt it to nothingness.
"Then why did the bond stop you, if this secret weave wasn't 'true Compulsion', and not damaging or dangerous?" Egwene asked accusingly.
Disturbingly, Moiraine ignored her question and instead she looked right through me though, seeing something else, something very far away. "When I discovered this, I began to experiment and take notes, trying different ways to harm you and failing. I spent days on it. I even tried to order Lan obliquely, trying to leave him notes to puzzle out what was happening to me and instructions to harm you. Nothing worked. Either I could not do it at all, or I could not finish whatever action I took, like a marionette stuck on the wires, or I would make a critical mistake that conveniently caused my most elaborate and oblique plans to fall apart before anything could happen to you., Rand al'Thor."
I shuddered, my skin clammy. Hearing her talk, even distantly, of trying to 'harm' me had my thoughts roiling. What kind of harm? Deadly harm? Did she try to kill me before the bond stopped her? Did she ever mean it? I felt sick to my stomach. I heard voices speaking but they sounded like distant buzzing, unintelligible until Egwene laid a kiss on my cheek, breaking me from my panic.
"It's okay, Rand, it's going to be okay. Breathe," she told me. "She cannot hurt you, I cannot hurt you. You are safe with me." When she saw I was back, breathing easily, she smiled a sad smile. "She had me test it, just so you know. She gave me poison to slip into your food. I could pick it up, walk around with it, but when I got close enough, I could almost spill the poison on the food from afar, something stopped me like bonds of Air. And when I attempted to use saidar to move the poison with Air I felt the same glass wall blocking me from touching it. As far as finding you attractive and falling in love with you, that happened years ago. My love simply feels fuller now. I honestly quite like it, and you have made no complaints at night."
By sheer force of will, I stopped my reaction and simply ignored the last sentence, instead letting my anger fill me. "And this will happen with every woman I bond with? No way to harm me and spurious love from every woman who I am fated for, even Egwene?" I growled.
"It is definitely not love," replied Moiraine, rather forcefully. "I've been in love and what I feel is not that. Its more like…a persistent crush. You are… in my thoughts often, and your presence brings a frisson of joy, despite who and what you are, the nightmare of the White Tower. I find myself wanting to spend time with you, proud in your achievements and even sometimes pining for your bed the nights I sleep alone. Those, the other actions I described earlier, the off behavior, it is not love, not yet. It is something lesser but still powerful for how prevalent and active it is in my day-to-day life."
As if she could read my worried mind, Egwene dragged my face to hers. "Listen, you stubborn ox. None of this is fake. You did not do this. I love you and Moiraine may be a witch who hides awful secrets and tried to betray you, but her feelings are still real. A woman knows, Rand. They grew from the seeds the bond planted and may grow into love someday. Seeds that every woman you bond will have. Love will surround you in the future, Rand al'Thor, so you better not mope about this or I will swat your behind just like Nynaeve did when she caught you and Mat drinking apple brandy at thirteen."
She sounded serious, but I couldn't help how I felt. "Egwene… It is hard for me not to think of this as violating a woman's mind. My father taught me to treat women well. That I needed to love and care for my wife. How is forcing her to like me care?"
"Rand. Get this through your thick skull. The binding gifted to you by a spirit of the Creator does this. Not you. Besides, Moiraine may have made it seem like the One Power is in use, but I cannot feel what stops me like I can when I've felt weaves of saidin. This is another power altogether that is being used. She even told me this was so. It cannot be your fault if it is not even your power."
Moiraine spoke up as well. "You must bind six women, or there will be no Age of Light that follows this benighted Age. Even though you have moral qualms, this was a prophecy given to you by the Iridescent Flame so that you may win the Last Battle and survive, Rand. Do you not wish to learn to love your wives, living centuries from now, grandchildren upon grandchildren? Or do you wish to be bitter and alone amongst them, shunning their feelings?"
Even with their obvious new enmity they agree on this. How do I even know this isn't the damnable bond somehow making them say this, act like they are fine with it? I cannot know. It is a rabbit hole I must stop climbing down, I cannot doubt Egwene. I can mistrust Moiraine now, she has proven who she is, but I cannot doubt Egwene.
Chills went down my spine and both my ears were pinched, and someone dragged me into a circle that sputtered out instantly. I released saidin as I spun left and right, but both women sat next to me looking nonchalant. It was probably Moiraine. I glared at her.
"I get the message, do not do that again or maybe I'll have to spank someone." Then I glanced back at my brown-eyed childhood friend. "I trust Egwene. She tells me this is not bad, not wrong, then I can live with that, but Moiraine,—I turned to look at her, glaring at once—you're out of my bed until Egwene parts from us and she will join us on every picnic, every time you visit me. That you wished to use Compulsion on me is such a betrayal, my first betrayal. I knew you wanted to make me King of Illian before I ever met you again. I knew my destiny before I spoke a word to you, as this Rand al'Thor. I decided to trust you, to put my faith in you that you would do the right thing. And you planned on using a weave that regularly enthralls spies to the White Tower's cause, to make me all but a thrall to you, to use and discard! Goddamnit Moiraine, you know something is fucking wrong with Aes Sedai when you start proving the Father of Lies right. He spoke of how the White Tower bewitched the minds of previous false Dragons, and now I find out you'd do the same to me. I cannot believe the audacity of you Aes Sedai, you 'do not use Compulsion' while describing the Compulsion weave you used for decades! I can only somewhat trust you because you conveniently let me know that I hold the leash now, if that's what you want our relationship to be. Get out of my sight." My voice was soft and cold as ice. I felt cold. The realization kept washing over me. Moiraine tried to enthrall me. Moiraine tried to make me into a puppet. I cannot let her make me a puppet. I cannot let the White Tower make me into a thrall.
The muted fuzziness of her faded for a single moment of intense shock, before snapping back less fuzzy and more a tinny buzz that whined in the back of mind. I do not know how she muted the bond but I would learn how. I need to stop being such an open book for an Aes Sedai to use. Must I attain ko'di always when we're together? A look of resigned acceptance came over her face and she stood up to leave with a quiet, "My apologies, Lord Dragon. I'll see myself out." The title was her parting shot, and made my thoughts spiral.
I realized I was in so'shan when I felt Egwenes' soft hands touching my golden antlers. I did not know how long it had been, a minute or ten. "They're larger than before. I think you grew." I think she was trying to distract me.
"Was I too harsh?"
Egwene smiled sadly, and lay her head on my shoulder. "No. Betrayal hurts deep, because you care. But she needed to hear that. She assumed you would listen to her, follow her direction. Just let it be water under the bridge, no harm with no foul. Ridiculous, to think a Two Rivers man would just accept that meekly." She paused, voice careful, a hint of fear lingering in the bond. "I think she used the weave on you before."
"I do not want to think about it, otherwise I won't be able to trust myself. That way lies madness, and I am not mad, but I do not want to think about it."
"Shift back and tell Mikeyo we're good for the night when he returns, and I'll show you something you'll love to think about."
I followed my wife's advice to its blissful end.
Saven 19, 998 NE,(May 29th)
I could tell something was wrong when I awoke. Fog filled the room, nearly up to the side of the bed and Moiraine lay next to instead of Egwene when I specifically forbade her from it. Anger lit a fire in my belly. I forcefully shook her to wake her, but she only mumbled, moving lazily with sleep.
"She will not wake Lews Therin Kinslayer." I froze at that voice. By the door, deep in the fog, stood a shadowy figure clothed and gloved in black, with a black silk mask covering his face, and their shadow in the fog writhed like a living thing. His staff was black, too, as if the wood had been charred, yet smooth and shining like water by moonlight. For an instant the eyeholes of the mask glowed, as if fires stood behind them rather than eyes, but I did not need that to know who it was. I recognize that fire and that voice, Ba'alzamon.
"At least, not until I let her. You always had strange companions, Lews. Two farm boys, the village girl who moons after your stolen heart, a young witch in your bed and the manservant she cuckolds you with, a witch-doctor and an Ogier, pitiful creatures still living in this midden heap of an Age. They are dross before the might of the Shadow!"
This was a dream. It had to be. He knows nothing. Knows not of our fights, or our bonds. I stepped from the bed, his words washing over me.
"That girl in your bed is no defense against me. A poor guardian and weak, Kinslayer. If she had a lifetime to grow, she would never grow strong enough for you to hide behind. She is centuries too young to defy me. And besides, she is simply the collar of your leash." Ba'alzamon took a step closer through the swirling fog, though it did not seem to touch him. Did he just call Moiraine a girl?
"My name is Rand al'Thor and I defeated you, Father of Lies. You lie and lie and even when you tell the truth you twist it to a lie," I spat, trying to stay angry rather than terrified.
He took another step. "Do I, Lews Therin? You know what you are, who you are. I have told you and so have those women of Tar Valon." He gave a laugh like a small thunderclap, but the fog continued to drift, unaffected by him.
"They think themselves safe in their White Tower, but my followers number even some of their own. The so-called Aes Sedai named Moiraine, the one who stole your heart, told you who you are, did she not? Did she lie? Or is she one of mine? The White Tower means to use you like a hound on a leash. Do I lie? Do I lie when I say you have the Horn of Valere?" He laughed again, and it was all I could do not to cover my ears from the booming thunder and sepulchral screams. "Sometimes old enemies fight so long that they become allies and never realize it. They think they strike at you, but they have become so closely linked it is as if you guided the blow yourself."
I scoffed, his lies obvious. Even if he did have Aes Sedai in the Tower, Moiraine was not one of them. Could never be one of them. For all her mistakes, she fought on the side of Light or I would have already long been a slave to the Dark One. "You do not guide me, I deny you. I will always deny you. I deny you thrice." I grabbed my sword from where it lay beside my bed.
"Swords do no good against me, Lews Therin. You should know that." Darkness filled the room, the living shadow growing as I unsheathed the heron-marked blade slowly. Ba'alzamon took another step. "I have a thousand strings tied to you, Kinslayer, each one finer than silk and stronger than steel. Time has tied a thousand cords between us. The battle we two have fought; do you remember any part of that? Do you have any glimmering that we have fought before, battles without number back to the beginning of the Wheel, and even further? I know much that you do not! That battle will soon end, the Last Battle coming. The last, Lews Therin. Do you really think you can avoid it?"
His grin was an open furnace. "You poor shivering worm, you will serve me or you will die! And this time the cycle will not begin anew with your death. The grave belongs to the Great Lord of the Dark and this time, if you die? You will be destroyed, utterly. This time the Wheel will be broken, as the Song was Sundered in a Time before Time. This time, the world will be remade in a new image. Serve me! Serve Shai'tan, or be destroyed forever!"
With the utterance of that name, the darkness swelled and the air thickened, and I felt it engulf me, colder than ice and hotter than flame, burning my skin and freezing my soul. I shifted and pulled on the Flame Imperishable, the sacred fire of the Creator that the Iridescent Flame left lit in my heart and blew dragonfire. The polychromatic radiance of the flames tore through the darkness, burning it back like kindling, burning Ba'alzamon. It was like everything else, the room, Moiraine, the air itself was an illusion, but Ba'alzamon and the now-distant shadow who fled the light of the flames.
He screamed a horrid scream, a scream of a thousand dead souls moaning for salvation. His clothes burnt away in the Flame Imperishable, revealing a horrific knitting of burnt and healthy skin, leaving black-edged, red crevices crossing strips of healthy flesh, ever healing and ever burning over and over, crawling across his body like snakes in grass.
In response, the air seemed to grow hot as flames grew in the trenches of burnt flesh and the sword burned in my hand, glowing cherry red. My skin seemed to crackle and I screamed and screamed and screamed as I burned. My hand turned to ash, then my arms, my chest and finally my face and eyes, but I still lived, my heart pumping the sacred flame amidst the ash.
And then suddenly I was back in my room alone in the dark, healthy and fine but for the heron burnt into my hand. It already wept pus, skin blackened and cracked. I could feel Moiraine and Egwene moving swiftly towards me as a throbbing siren of pain erupted, distracting me. I seized saidin and lit the hearth with a quick flow of Fire. I heard swift feet that entered and found me kneeling with my hand on the floor, the cherry red sword now merely a dull red at my side, my bedclothes smoking.
Egwene raced to my side, while I felt the chill of saidar. Holding saidin meant she could not pull me into the circle. She cannot hurt me, I told myself as Moiraine quickly wove threads of Power into what I recognized as a healing weave. The cold shock of Healing was a comfort as the pain abated. I watched her like a hawk.
Egwene had been explaining something. "I did not know what to do. You were screaming and bleeding and burning but you would not wake, so I had to call on Moiraine Sedai. What happened?"
I looked at Egwene. "Ba'alzamon, that Forsaken who pretends to be the Dark One. He visited my dreams again, trying to make it seem he visited me in the flesh but he made my room wrong. Moiraine was in the bed, not you."
"Fool," muttered Moiraine audibly, but I ignored the barb, speaking to Egwene. She had paled at the mention of the Forsaken.
"He spoke nonsense and lies, mostly. Things about how he controls parts of the White Tower, that we had fought each other Age after Age, even in a Time before Time. He ranted that he knew things I did not and that he had a thousand strings pulling me so it would be better if I served him. When the Shadow that powered him rose up to engulf the room I burned him with dragonfire from my so'shan and he burnt me back, the bastard. But it was good, what I learned was important. Ba'alzamon is mad, he believes himself the Dark Lord in some form, and he has been wounded once again. He has spies here but they cannot alert him of information in any timely manner. He named Moiraine my lover, and you, Egwene, as a lovestruck fool. He truly believes it, too."
I finally looked at Moiraine. I made my voice cool, and became One. I became one with the colorful fibers of the rug atop the cold stone floor of the fortress, one with the heron-marked blade that had cooled enough to touch, one with the soft skin of Moiraine's hands as she still held my hand.
"Is the Healing done?"
Moiraine nodded, taking her hands from mine, and I missed the cool touch almost instantly. I am a fool. A dull throb pulsed in my hand, heavy and slow, but no more pain than that. A heron marked my hand, a perfect impression burnt into my palm in new pink scar tissue, and looked as if it had been healing for weeks, if not months.
"Twice and twice he shall be marked," she murmured. I ignored her once again.
"What is the time?" I asked Egwene. Darkness came from the arrow-slits, the only light from the hearth I had lit.
Lan spoke from where he leaned in the corner of the room. "Just before dawn, sheepherder. Get dressed in your clothes, let us see how badly that thing sets your training back."