The great hunt - By Robert Jordan Page 0,142

his nostrils.

“Uh . . . my Lord?”

Rand swallowed, and sought the void. It came easily, springing up around him without effort. Emptiness. Emptiness except for the light, wavering in a way that turned his stomach. Emptiness except for saidin. But even the queasiness was distant. He was one with the Portal Stone. The column felt smooth and slightly oily under his hand, but the triangle-and-circle seemed warm against the brand on his palm. Have to get them to safety. Have to get them home. The light drifted toward him, it seemed, surrounded him, and he . . . embraced . . . it.

Light filled him. Heat filled him. He could see the Stone, see the others watching him—Loial and Hurin anxiously, Selene showing no doubt that he could save her—but they might as well not have been there. The light was all. The heat and the light, suffusing his limbs like water sinking into dry sand, filling him. The symbol burned against his flesh. He tried to suck it all in, all the heat, all the light. All. The symbol. . . .

Suddenly, as if the sun had gone out for the blink of an eye, the world flickered. And again. The symbol was a live coal under his hand; he drank in the light. The world flickered. Flickered. It made him sick, that light; it was water to a man dying of thirst. Flicker. He sucked at it. It made him want to vomit; he wanted it all. Flicker. The triangle-and-circle seared him; he could feel it charring his hand. Flicker. He wanted it all! He screamed, howling with pain, howling with wanting.

Flicker . . . flicker . . . flickerflickerflicker. . . .

Hands pulled at him; he was only vaguely aware of them. He staggered back; the void was slipping away, the light, and the sickness that twisted at him. The light. He watched it go regretfully. Light, that’s crazy to want it. But I was so full of it! I was so. . . . Dazed, he stared at Selene. It was she who held his shoulders, stared wonderingly into his eyes. He raised his hand in front of his face. The heron brand was there, but nothing else. No triangle-and-circle burned into his flesh.

“Remarkable,” Selene said slowly. She glanced at Loial and Hurin. The Ogier looked stunned, his eyes as big as plates; the sniffer was squatting with one hand on the ground, as if unsure he could support himself else. “All of us here, and all of our horses. And you do not even know what you did. Remarkable.”

“Are we . . . ?” Rand began hoarsely, and had to stop to swallow.

“Look around you,” Selene said. “You’ve brought us home.” She gave a sudden laugh. “You brought all of us home.”

For the first time Rand became aware of his surroundings again. The hollow surrounded them without any stairs, though here and there lay a suspiciously smooth piece of stone, colored red, or blue. The column lay against the mountainside, half buried in the loose rock of a fall. The symbols were unclear, here; wind and water had worked long on them. And everything looked real. The colors were solid, the granite a strong gray, the brush green and brown. After that other place, it seemed almost too vivid.

“Home,” Rand breathed, and then he was laughing, too. “We’re home.” Loial’s laughter sounded like a bull bellowing. Hurin danced a caper.

“You did it,” Selene said, leaning closer, until her face filled Rand’s eyes. “I knew that you could.”

Rand’s laughter died. “I—I suppose I did.” He glanced at the fallen Portal Stone and managed a weak laugh. “I wish I knew what it was I did, though.”

Selene looked deep into his eyes. “Perhaps one day you will know,” she said softly. “You are surely destined for great things.”

Her eyes seemed as dark and deep as night, as soft as velvet. Her mouth. . . . If I kissed her. . . . He blinked and stepped back hurriedly, clearing his throat. “Selene, please don’t tell anyone about this. About the Portal Stone, and me. I don’t understand it, and neither will anybody else. You know how people are about things they don’t understand.”

Her face wore no expression at all. Suddenly he wished very much that Mat and Perrin were there. Perrin knew how to talk to girls, and Mat could lie with a straight face. He could manage neither very well.

Suddenly Selene smiled, and dropped a half-mocking