Sheathing the Sword

I stuffed up Ishamael very badly so unfortunately the other half of the image cannot be posted.


THE SCENE:

Mat sounded the Horn again, long and high—the mists rang with it—and Perrin heeled his horse forward. Rand drew the heron-mark blade and rode between them.

He could see nothing but thick billows of white, but somehow he could still see what he had before, too. Falme, where someone used the Power in the streets, and the harbor, and the Seanchan host, and the dying Whitecloaks, all of it beneath him, all of it hanging above, all of it just as it had been. It seemed as if no time at all had passed since the Horn was first blown, as though time had paused while the heroes answered the call and now resumed counting.

The wild cries Mat wrung from the Horn echoed in the fog, and the drumming of hooves as the horses picked up speed. Rand charged into the mists, wondering if he knew where he was headed. The clouds thickened, hiding the far ends of the rank of heroes galloping to either side of him, obscuring more and more, till he could see only Mat and Perrin and Hurin clearly. Hurin crouched low in his saddle, wide-eyed, urging his horse on. Mat sounding the Horn, and laughing between. Perrin, his yellow eyes glowing, the Dragon’s banner streaming behind him. Then they were gone, too, and Rand rode on alone, as it seemed.

In a way, he could still see them, but now it was the way he could see Falme, and the Seanchan. He could not tell where they were, or where he was. He tightened his grip on his sword, peered into the mists ahead. He charged alone through the fog, and somehow he knew that was how it was meant to be.

Suddenly Ba’alzamon was before him in the mists, throwing his arms wide.

Red reared wildly, hurling Rand from his saddle. Rand clung to his sword desperately as he soared. It was not a hard landing. In fact, he thought with a sense of wonder that it was very much like landing on . . . nothing at all. One instant he was sailing through the mists, and the next he was not.

When he climbed to his feet, his horse was gone, but Ba’alzamon was still there, striding toward him with a long, black-charred staff in his hands. They were alone, only they and the rolling fog. Behind Ba’alzamon was shadow. The mist was not dark behind him; this blackness excluded the white fog.

Rand was aware of the other things, too. Artur Hawkwing and the other heroes meeting the Seanchan in dense fog. Perrin, with the banner, swinging his axe more to fend off those who tried to reach him than harm them. Mat, still blowing wild notes on the Horn of Valere. Hurin down from his saddle, fighting with short sword and sword-breaker in the way he knew. It seemed as if the Seanchan numbers would overwhelm them in one rush, yet it was the dark-armored Seanchan who fell back.

Rand went forward to meet Ba’alzamon. Reluctantly, he assumed the void, reached for the True Source, was filled with the One Power. There was no other way. Perhaps he had no chance against the Dark One, but whatever chance he did have lay in the Power. It soaked into his limbs, seemed to suffuse everything about him, his clothes, his sword. He felt as if he should be glowing like the sun. It thrilled him; it made him want to vomit.

“Get out of my way,” he grated. “I am not here for you!”

“The girl?” Ba’alzamon laughed. His mouth turned to flame. His burns were all but healed, leaving only a few pink scars that were already fading. He looked like a handsome man of middle years. Except for his mouth, and his eyes. “Which one, Lews Therin? You will not have anyone to help you this time. You are mine, or you are dead. In which case, you are mine anyway.”

“Liar!” Rand snarled. He struck at Ba’alzamon, but the staff of charred wood turned his blade in a shower of sparks. “Father of Lies!”

“Fool! Did those other fools you summoned not tell you who you are?” The fires of Ba’alzamon’s face roared with laughter.

Even floating in emptiness, Rand felt a chill. Would they have lied? I don’t want to be the Dragon Reborn. He firmed his grip on his sword. Parting the Silk, but Ba’alzamon beat every cut aside; sparks flew as from a blacksmith’s forge and hammer. “I have business in Falme, and none with you. Never with you,” Rand said. I have to hold his attention until they can free Egwene. In that odd way, he could see the battle rage among the fog-shrouded wagon yards and horse lots.

“You pitiful wretch. You have sounded the Horn of Valere. You are linked to it, now. Do you think the worms of the White Tower will ever release you, now? They will put chains around your neck so heavy you will never cut them.”

Rand was so surprised he felt it inside the void. He doesn’t know everything. He doesn’t know! He was sure it must show on his face. To cover it, he rushed at Ba’alzamon. Hummingbird Kisses the Honeyrose. The Moon on the Water. The Swallow Rides the Air. Lightning arched between sword and staff. Coruscating glitter showered the fog. Yet Ba’alzamon fell back, his eyes blazing in furious furnaces.

At the edge of his awareness, Rand saw the Seanchan falling back in the streets of Falme, fighting desperately. Damane tore the earth with the One Power, but it could not harm Artur Hawkwing, nor the other heroes of the Horn.

“Will you remain a slug beneath a rock?” Ba’alzamon snarled. The darkness behind him boiled and stirred. “You kill yourself while we stand here. The Power rages in you. It burns you. It is killing you! I alone in all the world can teach you how to control it. Serve me, and live. Serve me, or die!”

“Never!” Have to hold him long enough. Hurry, Hawkwing. Hurry! He launched himself at Ba’alzamon again. The Dove Takes Flight. The Falling Leaf.

This time it was he who was driven back. Dimly, he saw the Seanchan fighting their way back in among the stables. He redoubled his efforts. The Kingfisher Takes a Silverback. The Seanchan gave way to a charge, Artur Hawkwing and Perrin side by side in the van. Bundling Straw. Ba’alzamon caught his blow in a fountain like crimson fireflies, and he had to leap away before the staff split his head; the wind of the blow ruffled his hair. The Seanchan surged forward. Striking the Spark. Sparks flew like hail, Ba’alzamon jumped from his stroke, and the Seanchan were driven back to the cobblestone streets.

Rand wanted to howl aloud. Suddenly he knew that the two battles were linked. When he advanced, the heroes called by the Horn drove the Seanchan back; when he fell back, the Seanchan rose up.

“They will not save you,” Ba’alzamon said. “Those who might save you will be carried far across the Aryth Ocean. If ever you see them again, they will be collared slaves, and they will destroy you for their new masters.”

-Egwene. I can’t let them do that to her.-

Ba’alzamon’s voice rode over his thoughts. “You have only one salvation, Rand al’Thor. Lews Therin Kinslayer. I am your only salvation. Serve me, and I will give you the world. Resist, and I will destroy you as I have so often before. But this time I will destroy you to your very soul, destroy you utterly and forever.”

"I have won again, Lews Therin." The thought was beyond the void, yet it took an effort to ignore it, not to think of all the lives where he had heard it. He shifted his sword, and Ba’alzamon readied his staff.

For the first time Rand realized that Ba’alzamon acted as if the heron-mark blade could harm him. Steel can’t hurt the Dark One. But Ba’alzamon watched the sword warily. Rand was one with the sword. He could feel every particle of it, tiny bits a thousand times too small to be seen with the eye. And he could feel the Power that suffused him running into the sword, as well, threading through the intricate matrices wrought by Aes Sedai during the Trolloc Wars.

It was another voice he heard then. Lan’s voice. "There will come a time when you want something more than you want life." Ingtar’s voice. "It is every man’s right to choose when to Sheathe the Sword." The picture formed of Egwene, collared, living her life as a damane. Threads of my life in danger. Egwene. If Hawkwing gets into Falme, he can save her. Before he knew it, he had taken the first position of Heron Wading in the Rushes, balanced on one foot, sword raised high, open and defenseless. Death is lighter than a feather, duty heavier than a mountain.

Ba’alzamon stared at him. “Why are you grinning like an idiot, fool? Do you not know I can destroy you utterly?”

Rand felt a calmness beyond that of the void. “I will never serve you, Father of Lies. In a thousand lives, I never have. I know that. I’m sure of it. Come. It is time to die.”

Ba’alzamon’s eyes widened; for an instant they were furnaces that put sweat on Rand’s face. The blackness behind Ba’alzamon boiled up around him, and his face hardened. “Then die, worm!” He struck with the staff, as with a spear.

Rand screamed as he felt it pierce his side, burning like a white-hot poker. The void trembled, but he held on with the last of his strength, and drove the heron-mark blade into Ba’alzamon’s heart. Ba’alzamon screamed, and the dark behind him screamed. The world exploded in fire.