“I am ta’veren,” Rand said. “Things happen around me, unpredictable things. For the longest time, there was a balance. In one town, someone would discover a great treasure unexpectedly under the stairs. In the next I visited, people would discover that their coins were fakes, passed to them by a clever counterfeiter.
“People died in terrible ways; others were saved by a miracle of chance. Deaths and births. Marriages and divisions. I once saw a feather drift down from the sky and fall point-first into the mud so it stuck there. The next ten that fell did the same thing. It was all random. Two sides to a flipping coin.”
“This tea is not random.”
“Yes, it is,” Rand said. “But, you see, I get only one side of the coin these days. Someone else is doing the bad. The Dark One injects horrors into the world, causing death, evil, madness. But the Pattern… the Pattern is balance. So it works, through me, to provide the other side. The harder the Dark One works, the more powerful the effect around me becomes.”
“The growing grass,” Elayne said. “The splitting clouds. The food unspoiled…”
“Yes.” Well, some other tricks helped on occasion, but he didn’t mention them. He fished in his pocket for a small pouch.
“If what you say is true,” Elayne replied, “then there can never be good in the world.”
“Of course there can.”
“Will the Pattern not balance it out?”
He hesitated. That line of reasoning cut too close to the way he had begun thinking before Dragonmount—that he had no options, that his life was planned for him. “So long as we care,” Rand said, “there can be good. The Pattern is not about emotions—it is not even about good or evil. The Dark One is a force from outside of it, influencing it by force.”
And Rand would end that. If he could.
“Here,” Rand said. “The gift I mentioned.” He pushed the pouch toward her.
She looked at him, curious. She untied the strings, and took from it a small statue of a woman. She stood upright, with a shawl about her shoulders, though she did not look like an Aes Sedai. She had a mature face, aged and wise, with a wise look about her and a smile on her face.
“An angreal?” Elayne asked.
“No, a Seed.”
“A… seed?”
“You have the Talent of creating ter’angreal,” Rand said. “Creating angreal requires a different process. It begins with one of these, an object created to draw your Power and instill it into something else. It takes time, and will weaken you for several months, so you should not attempt it while we are at war. But when I found it, forgotten, I thought of you. I had wondered what I could give you.”
“Oh, Rand, I have something for you as well.” She hurried over to an ivory jewelry chest that rested on a camp table and took a small object from it. It was a dagger with a short, dull blade and a handle made of deerhorn wrapped in gold wire.
Rand glanced at the dagger quizzically. “No offense, but that looks like a poor weapon, Elayne.”
“It’s a ter’angreal, something that may be of use when you go to Shayol Ghul. With it, the Shadow cannot see you.” She reached up to touch his face.
He placed his hand on hers.
They stayed together long into the night.
CHAPTER
10
The Use of Dragons
Perrin rode Stayer, light cavalry from Elayne’s forces following behind him: Whitecloaks, Mayeners, Ghealdanin, joined by some of the Band of the Red Hand. Only a fraction of their armies. That was the point.
They swept along diagonally toward the Trollocs camped outside of Caemlyn. The city still smoldered; Elayne’s plan with the oil had driven the creatures out, for the most part, but some still held the walls above.
“Archers,” Arganda yelled, “loose!” His voice would be lost to most in the roar of the charge, the snorting of horses, the gallop of hooves. Enough would hear to start shooting, and the rest knew what to do anyway.
Perrin leaned low, hoping his hammer would not be needed on this sortie. They charged past the Trollocs, sweeping in front of them, launching arrows; then they turned away from the city.
Perrin glanced over his shoulder as he rode, and he was rewarded with the sight of Trollocs falling. The Band followed after Perrin’s cavalry, getting close enough to launch arrows.