AN: To the one reviewer who asked about a scene focused on the relationship between Rand and Tam, look what you did. Also, next chapter is either going to be very long, or split into two. Not sure yet. It'll be either two or three chapters worth of content just for Caemlyn, certainly more words than I'd expected before I started on them.
A few hours after they left Whitebridge, well-rested after their first night in an inn in some time, Lan returned, Elyas and a pack of wolves right behind him.
Understandably, the rest of the party looked rather wary at the sight of the animals. Elyas probably didn't inspire the Emond's Fielders with much confidence either, with his long grey hair and beard, both tied together, and clothes made completely out of animal skins. His golden eyes, like those of a wolf, finished the picture.
After some tense introductions, Elyas honed in on Perrin.
"You're the one, aren't you?"
"What?" Perrin said.
"I suppose it's time for an explanation," Rand said. "Moiraine, shall you, or should I?"
Moiraine was probably better at explaining things in general, but Rand had more specific knowledge because he knew what Perrin had gone through before the time travel.
"It's an old Talent," Moiraine said, turning her horse to Elyas. It and Lan's horse were the only ones completely unperturbed by the wolves. "It dates to the First Age, the Age before the Age of Legends, and it's called 'wolfbrother'. Men and women who can speak to wolves, live with them. As far as I am aware, Elyas was the first in thousands of years to manifest the Talent. He was a warder, but some of my Sisters thought his Talent a sign of the Dark One's touch."
Elyas scoffed. "Fools, the lot of them. It is hard to find a human who hates trollocs and Myrddraal with the intensity a wolf does."
"You can speak to them?" Mat asked.
"Not like we're talking right now," Elyas said. "Wolves can communicate with one another – or a wolfbrother – through images and senses. Often, it's hard to put into words."
"You said it was a Talent," Egwene brought up. "I thought Talents had to do with the One Power?"
"They can be related to the One Power, but not always," Moiraine said. "Some Talents, such as that of Foretelling, only occur among channelers. Others, like the Talent of Dreaming, which you have, are more common among channelers, but occur in other people as well. And yet others, such as the wolfbrother Talent, have no association to the One Power at all."
"Remember Min, from Baerlon?" Rand added. "She also has a Talent."
"And I'm one of these… wolfbrothers?" Perrin asked, looking back and forth between Rand and Moiraine.
"Yes," Rand said. "It should be awakening now that the Pattern is ready for it and you're among the wolves of the pack that Elyas runs with. I'm hoping he and the pack are willing to stay nearby for a while – no, not enter villages, I won't ask that – so that you can become familiar with your Talent."
Elyas focused his attention on Rand. "So who are you, boy? You look like you're just another sheltered village boy like those other two and the girls, but you're showing more respect to the wolves than I'd expected from anyone."
Because he had called them 'the pack that Elyas runs with', rather than 'Elyas' pack', Rand realized.
"I'm afraid I have some secrets," Rand said. He trusted Elyas, based on how much the man had done for Perrin, but there was a difference between trusting someone and telling them your greatest, most dangerous and most valuable secret. "But you are right, I am more knowledgeable about wolfbrothers than most people."
"Perhaps we should start traveling again," Moiraine suggested. "We can continue speaking while on the road."
"The wolves won't travel along the road," Elyas pointed out.
"That's fine," Rand said. "So long as they stay nearby, we can take a while occasionally for Perrin to get to know them."
"Are you sure I can do that? Talk to them?" Perrin asked uncertainly.
Rand couldn't help but chuckle. "Yes. As Moiraine said, it's a very old skill, even in the Age of Legends little was known about it. But I'm sure Elyas can give a better idea of what'll happen in the coming days."
The wolves disappeared to the north, and as the party started traveling again, Elyas started to give an explanation while walking next to Rand and Perrin.
"You'll start to recognize them, understand what they're thinking or implying even when body language can't explain the detail of your understanding," he said. "In a while, you'll start to get more detailed sensations, until eventually it practically becomes a language that you can understand and speak."
"When is 'in a while'?" Perrin asked.
"For me, it was about a week of time spent with wolves," Elyas said. "If you interact with them less, it might take longer. If you interact more, it might take shorter, but that doesn't seem likely considering you're staying with your friends here on the road."
"Do you need to be able to see the wolves to communicate with them?" Rand asked, nudging the conversation along.
"No," Elyas said. "I can still speak to the pack, even though they're a while away."
"And…" Perrin hesitated. "Your eyes, does that have to do with this as well?"
"Yes," Elyas said. "They turned golden when I became a wolfbrother. Don't worry, it doesn't affect you in any other way."
After briefly traveling in silence, Elyas turned to Rand.
"Moiraine mentioned the Talent of Dreaming," he said. "Do you know if that has anything to do with the wolf dream?"
"It does," Rand said. "Both Dreamers and wolfbrothers can interact with the World of Dreams."
"Don't go there," Elyas warned Perrin. "It's a dangerous place."
"Only without guidance," Rand argued. "Egwene also has the Talent of Dreaming, and I intend to teach both her and Perrin."
"You are familiar with the wolf dream?" Elyas asked. "Does that mean you are one of these Dreamers too?"
"Perhaps an Aes Sedai would call me one," Rand said, "though I am not particularly skilled. I know enough to teach Egwene and Perrin, but they will likely surpass my skill."
Elyas grunted, but let the topic lie.
That evening, when falling asleep, Rand performed the meditative exercises that Lews Therin had learned in the Age of Legends to enter the World of Dreams. As he had alluded to in the conversation with Elyas, he didn't truly have the Talent of Dreaming. However, what the Aes Sedai of this Age did not know was that pretty much every strong channeler had some skill, just like with Traveling and a few other abilities, and only those who were exceptional at it were actually considered to have the Talent.
Of course, Egwene was not only one of those, but in addition to that she was significantly stronger than Moiraine, who was herself one of the strongest current Aes Sedai.
After Rand found himself in the World of Dreams – or Tel'aran'rhiod, as it was called in the Old Tongue – he reached out in that space in between dreams, a sea of pinpricks of light. Every single pinprick was another person who was currently asleep and dreaming – just regular dreams.
Though Rand could theoretically visit any dream if he wanted, there was often no way to tell what pinprick belonged to who.
Except if he knew the person. Using that strange sixth sense, he floated through the void and grabbed first Egwene, then Perrin, and pulled them both into the World of Dreams, to the main street of the village whose inn they were populating this night.
"Is this the World of Dreams?" Egwene asked. She yelped. "My clothes!"
Indeed, her clothes were constantly changing, flickering between various kinds of regular Two Rivers clothing every few seconds. The same happened for Perrin.
"That's something you'll have to get used to, at least for a bit," Rand said. His clothes weren't changing at all. "The World of Dreams displays our world, as you can see, but how well it does so depends on how permanent something is. The houses here are unchanging, but look at the inn's door, for example."
Indeed, just then the door suddenly flickered open, and a second later it was closed again.
"The more something changes in the real world, the more it changes here. You wear different clothes every day, so it varies what Tel'aran'rhiod represents."
"But your clothes don't change," Egwene said.
"That's because I have learned to control the dream," Rand said. He concentrated, and suddenly he was wearing a Tairen style noble outfit. "I can change it when I want to, though."
"That looks expensive," Egwene said, stepping closer to inspect it.
"It is," Rand said with a chuckle. "I'll be wearing a lot of outfits like these in the coming years. But to stay on topic, this is the single most important lesson for both of you. This is a dream." He made a wide gesture. "Everything here can be changed according to your wish, if you learn how to control it. Thought beats everything. An experienced Dreamer without a lick of channeling ability would be able to match me, or perhaps even beat me, in a fair fight, no matter how much of the One Power I used."
"Where are all the people from the village?" Egwene asked. "Wouldn't they be asleep, too?"
"People do not usually enter Tel'aran'rhiod while sleeping," Rand explained. "Most dreams are simply within someone's own mind, and even if people touch onto this world, they usually do so only briefly. Like a flicker, or staying maybe a second or two.
"This is a good thing, too, because there are some dangers associated with this world. For example, if you get injured here, you'll wake up with that same injury. It could be small, like a pinprick, or big, like a broken leg. And if you die here, you won't wake up."
"Is that why Elyas warned against going here?" Perrin asked.
"I think so," Rand said. "He warned you the previous time around as well, but you ended up visiting quite regularly, and often with good reason. You know the wolf Hopper?"
Perrin thought. "I remember Elyas naming him, and I'm reminded of one wolf specifically, but I don't know if it's actually him."
"It likely is," Rand said, "though you probably shouldn't take my word for it. The last time around, he died somewhere around this time – it probably won't happen this time around, so don't worry – and you regularly met him here in the World of Dreams."
Egwene frowned. "If he was dead, then why was he here?"
"Because wolves remain here after they die, and are eventually reborn," Rand said. "And living wolves can appear here too. I'm sure Perrin will meet a few of them before long."
"Do you think I'll meet anyone?" Egwene asked.
"Perhaps," Rand said. "There are currently no Dreamers among the Aes Sedai, but the Aiel Wise Ones do have Dreamers among them. In fact, the last time around you learned most of your Dreaming skills from them. It's possible for us to come across them, as the Aiel are currently sending some people to look for, well, me. But enough of that. You don't rest as well as you should when Dreaming, so we only have an hour or two, and then we should go back to normal sleeping, which means we'd better get started."
Not quite every night had the group stay in an inn. In order to ensure Perrin and Mat – just the two of them, now – could continue learning how to defend themselves, they occasionally stopped early, setting up camp away from the view of the road, which was well-traveled on the east side of Whitebridge.
There was, in fact, something of a teacher overload. Rand had been a blademaster even back in the Age of Legends, when it had been a sport rather than a technique for battle, and in this life, had received a lot of training from Lan. The other two teachers, Lan and Tam, were each distinguished blademasters in their own right.
Of course, there was also the need to keep up their skills. Tam hadn't practiced the sword in almost two decades, and Rand had needed to deal with the loss of his left hand for the last month or two before everything came to a crescendo on Dragonmount, which had locked him out of many of the more advanced forms.
But if one man – Lan, this evening – could teach both Mat and Perrin at once, that left the other two free to have a practice duel against each other.
Despite his age, Tam was still very good, Rand had to admit as he drove his father back. They both had quick strikes, trusting each other to block the blade or dodge the strike in most situations – if either of them were to mess up, only Moiraine was available for healing, as that was a particular Talent that Rand was notably poor at, despite his overall strength.
When Rand was a teenager, Tam had taught him the meditative technique of the Flame and the Void. Rand would focus on an imagined flame, and would feed every thought, every emotion, to it, entering a state of calm, where there was only the dance with the blade.
Ironically, that was also where saidin was to be found, but Rand stayed away from it, instead simply moving with the flow, recognizing which sword form he should take, and which form his father would fall into, before it happened. Tam was no doubt doing the same, and Rand knew Lan also used the technique.
Therefore, Rand knew ahead of time when he had Tam outmaneuvered, and stopped his blade inches from his father's shoulder.
"Six – three," Rand said.
"Well fought," Tam complimented. "Break?"
"Yeah," Rand agreed, sitting down next to the campfire and grabbing a flask of water for himself, throwing another to his father, who sat down next to him.
Rand sighed as he drank, and left the Void.
"What are you thinking, son?"
"It's hard to resist the pull of saidin, sometimes," Rand said. "I told you I find it in the Void, right?"
Tam nodded.
"It's addictive. Once you channel even once – it's the same with saidin and saidar – you'll always want more. That's also why if someone is gentled or stilled, or just burned out, they tend to commit suicide within a year or two. Once you've known it, once you've experienced how all your senses get clearer, how you can hear what you couldn't hear before, see the detail you always missed, you can't go without it anymore."
"But you're trying to avoid it because of the taint."
"I am," Rand confirmed. "It's just going to be another three weeks maybe, and then the taint is gone, and I can safely take it in. I won't have to resist if I want to clean myself in seconds or grab an object without physically moving."
A comfortable silence fell for a few seconds.
"At least," Rand said, "the sickness is gone. I'm not sure why this kept happening even after I'd cleansed the taint last time, but over the last months, whenever I'd grab saidin, in those first seconds, I felt some kind of illness. Nausea, discomfort, one or two times I almost vomited."
"That doesn't sound good," Tam sympathized. "Anything else? How was your general condition? The taint affects the mind, doesn't it?"
"It does," Rand said. "Neither my mind nor body were in very good condition. I had two overlapping wounds in my left side that wouldn't heal, one from Ba'alzamon and the other from Shadar Logoth's evil, and both hurt at pretty much all times. I lost my left hand protecting Min from an attack by Semirhage, and both my hands had a scar from the heron from my blade being burned into them." Rand held up his blade, showing the heron on the hilt. It was a sign of ancient swords, forged with the One Power to always remain sharp, and an exceptional quality. Though imitations of course existed, this blade was a true Power-wrought blade.
"As for my mind…" Rand continued. "The taint is insidious. It's not some kind of raving madness, at least not unless it perhaps overtakes you completely, or losing control of your actions or anything. Rather, everything you do sounds and feels logical, and at times I think even the people around me did not see how it was affecting my judgement.
"One thing that I kept struggling with was that I forced myself not to feel, and not to care, because I believed that to be the only way. Without the taint, I'm sure I would have been better at remembering how you'd raised me. And another…
"As you know, I now have all of Lews Therin's knowledge and memories, but of course that wasn't always the case. I see now that I am him, and he is me, but at first, that knowledge manifested as a voice in my head." Rand gave a humorless chuckle. "Talk about classic signs of insanity. Of course, the difference was that with this voice actually came knowledge that I didn't have, that no one had. Over time, the voice slowly became more and more reasonable, perhaps because I got worse and worse. Now, it's gone completely, perhaps because I've accepted that Rand al'Thor and Lews Therin are not, and will never be, two different people. I think part of me realized that back on Dragonmount, before I unwound the Pattern, but it was only after I found myself back in Two Rivers that I really accepted it."
"Was that also fueled by the insanity?" Tam asked, and Rand had to admire the determination and support with which he was willing to talk about this to the man he considered a son. And Rand was very glad for it.
"It was," he said, thinking back to the events preceding that day. This was… tough to talk about, in particular to Tam. After all, the man had played a significant role in it.
He sighed, looking for words.
"If you don't want to talk about it…" Tam proposed.
"No," Rand said. "It's probably good that I share this with you. It… I was in a very bad state. I'd pretty much closed myself off from the world, not allowing myself to feel. In hindsight, exactly what the Dark One wanted. There was this Aes Sedai, Cadsuane, she's pretty much a living legend among Aes Sedai. After Moiraine's death, she'd found me and more or less bullied herself into a position as my advisor, but often she would simply annoy me without offering much valuable input.
"After one event, I had banished her, but that didn't stop her from trying to influence me. I'd been in Arad Doman, trying to free the country from Graendal's destructive influences, but it was a complete failure, and I'd abandoned it and returned to Tear.
"Then, she went and got you from where you were at the time, in an attempt to use you against me."
He hesitated, finding himself holding back tears.
Tam shuffled closer, putting his hand on Rand's shoulder.
"I almost killed you," Rand confessed. "When I realized she'd manipulated you into coming."
Tam put his arm around him, comforting him while he searched for his next words.
"I only barely stopped myself," Rand said, "and I think that's the moment where I realized the madness had almost taken me. That's what Lews Therin is most famous for in this day and age, isn't it? The Kinslayer, they call him." He grimaced. He had those memories too. The flash of sanity Ishamael had given him, that had driven him to suicide, a process during which he'd formed the gigantic Dragonmount, a volcano visible from Tar Valon.
Tam somehow understood what Rand needed, and didn't interrupt.
"Instead, I fled. I went to Ebou Dar, which had been conquered by the Seanchan, an empire from across the Aryth Ocean established by Artur Hawkwing's armies. I meant to destroy them, that day. I had the access key to the Choedan Kal with me, the most powerful amplifier of the One Power ever created. I could have destroyed the entire palace in the blink of an eye. Almost did it.
"But I couldn't ignore what I saw around me. That the people were happier under the rule of a conqueror from across the ocean, than those in Arad Doman had been under mine. I drew the One Power, and felt the sickness I mentioned, stronger than before. That time, I actually collapsed. And when I got my bearings, I saw how the people around me were concerned for me, were looking to help me.
"And I couldn't. I couldn't destroy them. So I fled once again, fighting my own thoughts and beliefs. Eventually, I made my way to the top of Dragonmount, the very place where I'd once committed suicide after killing my family.
"I think, as I channeled more and more saidin through the Choedan Kal, part of me started to understand. All the questions I asked myself, everything I was struggling with. Why we live again and again. What our purpose is in life. Why the Wheel keeps turning, over and over, and never stops. But I couldn't allow it in.
"And that's when I turned the One Power, the unbelievable amounts of it that I was channeling, against the Pattern itself, against the Wheel it normally drives." Rand gave a humorless chuckle. "In a way, the Dark One had won, in that very moment. It is his goal, after all, to break the Wheel and end it all.
"But that's not what happened. I don't know if it might be because part of me had found the answer – I feel like I remember Lews Therin's voice screaming it at me through the storm, though I wasn't willing to hear – or if the Creator had accounted for this, had made the Wheel such that even a sa'angreal as powerful as the Choedan Kal couldn't break it. Perhaps, he had even accounted for these very events.
"Perhaps he had designed it such that if I, or any of my incarnations over the many turnings of the Wheel, would reach this point, we wouldn't destroy the Wheel, but rather throw ourselves back in time, and even learn the answer in the process.
"Because I understand it now. We live again, our new lives, but even these two years that I get to repeat, to do better. To learn from our mistakes, and to do right by those who have been wronged."
He smiled weakly. "I will make sure that this time, the people under my rule won't suffer. I will make them prosper, even with the Last Battle on the horizon, and once that day arrives, we will be ready."
Rand's voice had gone hoarse, and he realized he had been crying, though he had been too involved in the story, almost lost in the past, to notice it.
Tam pulled him into an embrace.
"Thanks for listening, father."
"Always," Tam replied. "I can see it, you know. Under all that knowledge you have, all the experience. You are still very much the awkward boy that I've raised for twenty years."
Rand smiled. "I think that might be the biggest difference between this Age and the last. This time, I was raised better."
"I think it's time to teach you how to use balefire," Rand told Moiraine one evening. They'd just had dinner in a private room in the inn, and the two of them and Tam were still sitting in that room, while the rest of the group had moved to the inn's common room.
"Isn't that far too dangerous?" Moiraine asked. "It could destroy the entire building."
"Well, I wasn't planning on teaching you here," Rand said with a laugh. "We'll skim to a forest nearby and I can teach you there."
"Do you think I need to know it?" Moiraine asked. "It's forbidden for a reason."
"Last time around, you dug up the weave yourself and learned how to cast it just from whatever old text you'd found," Rand said. "If you don't want to be completely helpless against a Forsaken, you're going to need to know it; that's why you learned it that time, in fact."
"We'll have to figure out a way to get out and back in without anyone thinking we've been doing anything… untoward," Moiraine said.
Rand smirked. "So no entering your room together and leaving from there."
"No," Moiraine said. She was wearing her emotionless Aes Sedai mask, but that was enough of a tell in itself for Rand.
"Rand, don't tease an Aes Sedai." Also enough for Tam, apparently.
"It might be best if we just leave from here, at least if you're willing to keep the room occupied by yourself for the better part of an hour, father?"
"I'm sure I can convince at least one of the others to join me here," he said, moving to the door.
"Then we'll be off," Rand said. "Moiraine, the honor is yours. Oh, and Tam, make sure no one enters the back of the room. If we were to return at the wrong moment… well, a Gateway can cut through anything. Including a person."
Moiraine embraced the Power and wove a Gateway to the black void of skimming. Unlike previously, she and Rand both entered, standing on the stone platform that stretched a few yards in each direction.
The Gateway closed behind them, leaving them alone, having only some alien light without a source to see by as the platform moved through the surrounding darkness.
"This is strange," Moiraine said as she looked around.
"Skimming takes some getting used to," Rand agreed. "But it is very convenient that you do not need to know your location of departure."
As they were only traveling a short distance, the platform soon stopped moving, and a new Gateway opened, indeed to an empty forest in the night – Moiraine had chosen her location well.
They stepped off the platform and let it disappear behind them, and seconds later Moiraine linked them up, then gave control to Rand.
Before anything else, he created a few lights – using saidar, of course – so they had something to see by – and spot predators.
"I know a weave very much like that," Moiraine said.
"Oh?"
"I discovered it by myself, after I'd learned I could channel, but before I went to the White Tower. I used it to illuminate the hallways in the palace while I walked." She frowned. "I'm assuming you know my family history."
"Moiraine Damodred, from the Cairhienin noble house of Damodred," Rand said. "The niece of King Laman, who died in the Aiel War. And if I remember correctly, you're also Elayne's aunt."
"I am," Moiraine said. "Not that I know her well."
Taringael – Moiraine's half-brother – had married into the royal line of Andor. Twice, in fact. The first time to Tigraine, the then Daughter-Heir who ran away and became an Aiel, eventually giving birth to none other than Rand, and the second time to the current Queen Morgase, mother of Elayne.
And to make the web even more complicated, Rand strongly suspected that Thom Merrilin was behind Taringael's death.
"Back on topic," Moiraine said. "Balefire."
"Do you know why it's dangerous?" Rand asked.
"It burns the threads of the Pattern itself," Moiraine said, "and it burns them back into the past. If too many threads are burned away, the Pattern comes undone, just like a piece of cloth that has threads torn out."
"Indeed," Rand said, confirming her knowledge. "There were some… strange events happening, back during the War of the Shadow before we figured that out. A strong shot of balefire can in fact undo several hours of events. When I attacked Caemlyn, Rahvin killed Mat and several others almost immediately after we arrived. After a back-and-forth fight, I killed him with balefire, and they were back alive."
"Why did you use balefire?" Moiraine asked. "Wouldn't you be stronger than him anyway? Or at least equally strong?"
"I could beat him, if we fought now," Rand said. "However, there is a second reason to use balefire, specifically when fighting Forsaken. If someone tied to the Dark One as closely as a Forsaken is killed, he can hold onto their soul. If he then has a suitable human body, he can put their soul into that body, returning them to life. But if the Forsaken dies to balefire, their thread is burned back, so it's as if they died at an earlier point, and that leaves the Dark One unable to bring them back."
"So it's the only way to get rid of them for good," Moiraine summarized.
"Yes," Rand said. "Though, I suppose Asmodean stopped being an issue once I cut him off from the Dark One and Lanfear bullied him into becoming my teacher. I told you about that, didn't I?"
"You did," Moiraine said.
"Well, anyway. The weave. I probably don't need to remind you, but only use it for Forsaken. I would even recommend against using it simply to bring someone back who died, even if they themselves suffer no consequences from it, just because of the destructive effect it has on the Pattern."
Rand drew in Moiraine's saidar and wove all five elements into a complicated pattern, then shot a tiny beam of white-hot light that hit a tree branch, which briefly glowed up and then disappeared from existence.
He gave control to Moiraine, and had her practice the weave herself, and they went back and forth several times.
Like before with Skimming and Traveling, it took Moiraine several times to copy the weave, but it wasn't a crazy long time. A strange, yet fundamental characteristic of channeling was that the stronger a channeler was, the quicker they learned.
Someone as weak as Queen Morgase, who could only barely channel in the first place, had trouble just learning to reliably channel the Source, and needed months of practice to be able to weave a thread of Air that could move a feather. Usually, people who were that weak in the One Power did not even bother. On the other extreme, a channeler as strong as Rand could usually copy and use a weave after seeing it once.
Moiraine, while not extremely strong by Age of Legends standards, was one of the strongest current Aes Sedai, and it had shown in how she became an Aes Sedai in only six years of training, whereas a weaker channeler might need as many as fifteen. Nynaeve would probably make it that far in the coming two years – she had pretty much been ready when Rand traveled back in time, and she had spent a lot of the time in between not actually practicing.
Once Rand was confident in Moiraine's ability to not only weave balefire, but also control how much power she put into it, they Skimmed back to the inn.
The first time back in an inn, in Whitebridge, had seen the Emond's Fielders enthusiastic to entertain themselves in the common room to Thom's storytelling and music – a gleeman visiting an inn was always a big event – but when having the opportunity almost every single day, even Mat eventually got tired of it.
It was a good thing too, because Rand had started giving him battle training in a dreamshard, and going to bed on time made it that much easier to balance it with a good night's sleep.
Mat shuddered the moment he arrived in Rand's dreamshard, which showed a temperate landscape and, right next to them, a watchtower.
"It still feels weird," Mat said. "I'm just, you know, having a normal dream, that I won't remember the next day, and then I'm suddenly here. And I just feel that I will remember this when I've woken up."
"You get used to it eventually," Rand said. "Though it's easier if you make the choice yourself, rather than being pulled into it."
Mat shivered. "At least this isn't creepy like that dream in Baerlon. I'm glad I didn't get any more of those."
"He knows I'm the one," Rand said. "So he's stopped bothering you."
"So where are we?" Mat asked.
"Close to Cairhien," Rand said. "A year and a few months in the future from now. Let's get up in the watchtower."
Mat followed him as they climbed the ladders.
"This is the closest I was able to recreate the battle we fought," Rand said. "Cairhien is to the west, and we used this tower to give me a vantage point for channeling, and for our generals to command.
"On both sides, the main force is made up of Aiel, as we were chasing Couladin while he was trying to invade Cairhien, which itself was embroiled in civil war. What's notable is that you weren't a commander of any form at the time, but ended up taking charge of some troops, and you ended up aiding the battle greatly; that's also what we're going to be discussing as events play out."
"Do you even know how to take breaks?" Mat sniped.
Rand chuckled. "Not an hour ago you were sitting in the common room drinking terrible beer and listening to Thom reciting a story you've heard at least five times in the last month."
He drew Mat's attention back to the battlefield, discussing events and explaining why commanders – on both sides – made the decisions they did, and what effects they had.
"Why is it so important that you teach me this?" Mat asked as the battle was winding down. Rand had sped up parts of it so they could cover it in a single session.
"When it comes to commanding an army," Rand said, creating chairs for him and Mat to sit in, "there are many skills one can learn to improve. To save lives on one's own side, and incur losses for the opponents. During the War of the Shadow, where I was in command, I learned everything that was known at the time. When I led armies in this era, such as on the day we watched here, or in Illian, or against the Seanchan that conquered Ebou Dar, I learned more things from my generals. Some, I also know from the Age of Legends, others are new – military tactics is one area of knowledge that is actually more refined than it was in the Age of Legends.
"However, it's not everything. Even back in the Age of Legends, I was not the best commander. Demandred was, and it was his anger that I was given the position of ultimate command over the armies of the Light that drove him to the Shadow in the first place.
"I can even tell you what my biggest problem is. I think too much. I try to find ways to spare as many lives as possible, only to realize that I'm too hesitant with my troops, and then I send them in at the wrong time.
"I could probably wage most wars, mind you, and while I cannot match the five Great Generals of our time, I can get close to them. Give me a better army, and I'd win. But even they cannot match Demandred, and I have no doubt that he will be waiting on the other side of the battlefield, come Tarmon Gai'don."
"And what does that all have to do with me?" Mat asked.
"Simple," Rand said. "You do have that battle sense, which I lack. You understand the flow of battle in a way I simply cannot grasp. Based on what I know from you before the time travel, it's similar to your knack for gambling. You intuitively know when to double down, and when to pull out."
Despite himself, Mat pulled himself out of his chair and once again looked over the battlefield, examining it.
"I could barely follow your explanation," he said. "While the battle was going on. How am I ever going to come up with this myself? How did I become so good at this in so little time."
"You did have a form of help," Rand said. "It almost cost you your life, so I'm not letting you do the same thing again, at least not without some careful words of warning, but you obtained memories of hundreds of battles fought during this Age, most of them during the Free Years, after the Trolloc Wars but before Artur Hawkwing's empire. That allowed you to turn into the general we saw here pretty much overnight, but it didn't give you your battle sense. That is all yours."
"There's no way I'll be ready in two years," Mat said, frowning.
"I believe in you," Rand said. "And you'll be getting even better tutors as soon as I can manage. One of the Great Generals themselves, I hope. Or perhaps even more than one."
"Who are they?" Mat asked.
"Gareth Bryne is currently the Captain-General of the Queen's Guard in Andor," Rand said. "I hope that Queen Morgase can be an ally, which would give us access to his knowledge. Davram Bashere is the uncle of the current queen of Saldea, and through a series of events his daughter got involved with us. I don't know if that will happen again, though. Agelmar Jagad is the Lord of Fal Dara, and we might meet him even before the cleansing, as Fal Dara is the closest city to the Blight when we go there for the Eye of the World."
"We're going to the Blight?" Mat exclaimed.
"We don't have much choice," Rand said. "The Eye of the World is a well of pure, untainted saidin, making it both highly desirable for me, and an absolute necessity if I wish to fight any Forsaken before the cleansing – which I will need to do. Anyway, the fourth Great General is Rodel Ituralde, a Domani general. Arad Doman was thrown into chaos by Graendal, and while I will try to stop that from happening, I'm not sure if I can. If it is thrown into chaos, then I will likely have to step in myself, and it is quite likely that he will become a major player in events that way.
"The last general is Pedron Niall, the Lord Captain Commander of the Children of the Light. As far as Whitecloaks go, he is actually a reasonable man, but he is also very old already, and died without me ever meeting him."
A brief silence descended upon them.
"Maybe we can leave it at this, actually," Rand said. "Get ourselves some real sleep as well."
They wished each other good night, and Rand pushed Mat out of the dreamshard before destroying it and letting himself fall into a normal sleep.
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