The Dragon Reborn - By Robert Jordan Page 0,113

been cried away long ago, and the world was as it was. Ruin was what she expected to see.

Careless of making more rips in her dress but as careful of sound as a mouse, she climbed one of the piles of rubble and peered into the curving streets of the Inner City. As far as she could see in every direction lay ruin and desolation, buildings that looked as if they had been torn apart by madmen, thick plumes of smoke rising from the fires still burning. There were people in the streets, bands of armed men prowling, searching. And Trollocs. The men shied away from the Trollocs, and the Trollocs snarled at them and laughed, harsh guttural laughter. But they knew each other, worked together.

A Myrddraal came striding down the street, its black cloak swaying gently with its steps even when the wind gusted to drive dust and rubbish past it. Men and Trollocs alike cowered under its eyeless stare. “Hunt!” Its voice sounded like something long dead crumbling. “Do not stand there shivering! Find him!”

Egwene slipped back down the pile of jumbled stones as silently as she could.

The way back will come but once. Be steadfast.

She stopped, afraid the whisper had come from Shadowspawn. In some way, though, she was sure it had not. Glancing back over her shoulder, half fearful of seeing the Myrddraal standing where she had just been, she hurried onward and into the ruined palace, climbing over fallen timbers, squeezing between heavy blocks of collapsed masonry as she made her way. Once she stepped on a woman’s arm, sticking out from under a mound of plaster and bricks that had been an interior wall and perhaps part of the floor above. She noticed the arm as little as she noticed the Great Serpent ring on one finger. She had trained herself not to see the dead buried in the refuse heap Trollocs and Darkfriends had made of Caemlyn. She could do nothing for the dead.

Forcing her way through a narrow gap where part of the ceiling had fallen, she found herself in a room half buried under what had stood above it. Rand lay with a heavy beam pinning him across the waist, his legs hidden beneath the stone blocks that filled half the room. Dust and sweat coated his face. He opened his eyes when she came near him.

“You came back.” He forced the words out in a hoarse rasp. “I was afraid—No matter. You have to help me.”

She sank wearily to the floor. “I could lift that beam easily with Air, but as soon as it moves, everything else will come down on top of you. On top of both of us. I cannot manage all of it, Rand.”

His laugh was bitter and painful, and cut off almost as soon as it began. Fresh sweat glistened on his face, and he spoke with an effort. “I could shift the beam myself. You know that. I could shift that and the stones above, all of them. But I have to let go of myself to do it, and I can’t trust that. I cannot trust—” He stopped, wheezing for breath.

“I do not understand,” she said slowly. “Let go of yourself? What can’t you trust?” The way back will come but once. Be steadfast. She rubbed her hands roughly over her ears.

“The madness, Egwene. I am—actually—holding it—at bay.” His gasping laugh made her skin prickle. “But it takes everything I have just to do that. If I let go, even a little, even for an instant, the madness will have me. I won’t care what I do then. You have to help me.”

“How, Rand! I’ve tried everything I know. Tell me how, and I will do it.”

His hand flopped out, fell just short of a dagger lying in the dust bare-bladed. “The dagger,” he whispered. His hand made a painful journey back to his chest. “Here. In the heart. Kill me.”

She stared at him, at the dagger, as if they were both poisonous serpents. “No! Rand, I will not. I cannot! How could you ask such a thing?”

Slowly his hand crept back toward the dagger. His fingers came short again. He strained, moaning, brushed it with a fingertip. Before he could try again, she kicked it away from him. He collapsed with a sob.

“Tell me why,” she demanded. “Why would you ask me to—to murder you? I will Heal you, I will do anything to get you out of there, but I cannot kill