The great hunt - By Robert Jordan Page 0,340

his right, every line clean and true. Once the heron to set his path; Twice the heron to name him true. “No!”

“They are gone,” she said. “Saying ‘no’ won’t change it.”

He shook his head. Something told him the pain in his side was important. He could not remember being injured, but it was important. He started to lift his blankets to look, but she slapped his hands away.

“You can’t do any good with that. It isn’t healed all the way, yet. Verin tried Healing, but she said it didn’t work the way it should.” She hesitated, nibbling her lip. “Moiraine says Nynaeve must have done something, or you wouldn’t have lived till we carried you to Verin, but Nynaeve says she was too frightened to light a candle. There is . . . something wrong with your wound. You will have to wait for it to heal naturally.” She seemed troubled.

“Moiraine is here?” He barked a bitter laugh. “When you said Verin was gone, I thought I was free of Aes Sedai again.”

“I am here,” Moiraine said. She appeared, all in blue and as serene as if she stood in the White Tower, strolling up to stand over him. Min was frowning at the Aes Sedai. Rand had the odd feeling that she meant to protect him from Moiraine.

“I wish you weren’t here,” he told the Aes Sedai. “As far as I am concerned, you can go back to wherever you’ve been hiding and stay there.”

“I have not been hiding,” Moiraine said calmly. “I have been doing what I could, here on Toman Head, and in Falme. It was little enough, though I learned much. I failed to rescue two of my sisters before the Seanchan herded them onto the ships with the Leashed Ones, but I did what I could.”

“What you could. You sent Verin to shepherd me, but I’m no sheep, Moiraine. You said I could go where I wanted, and I mean to go where you are not.”

“I did not send Verin.” Moiraine frowned. “She did that on her own. You are of interest to a great many people, Rand. Did Fain find you, or you him?”

The sudden change of topic took him by surprise. “Fain? No. A fine hero I make. I tried to rescue Egwene, and Min did it before me. Fain said he would hurt Emond’s Field if I didn’t face him, and I never laid eyes on him. Did he go with the Seanchan, too?”

Moiraine shook her head. “I do not know. I wish I did. But it is as well you did not find him, not until you know what he is, at least.”

“He’s a Darkfriend.”

“More than that. Worse than that. Padan Fain was the Dark One’s creature to the depths of his soul, but I believe that in Shadar Logoth he fell afoul of Mordeth, who was as vile in fighting the Shadow as ever the Shadow itself was. Mordeth tried to consume Fain’s soul, to have a human body again, but found a soul that had been touched directly by the Dark One, and what resulted. . . . What resulted was neither Padan Fain nor Mordeth, but something far more evil, a blend of the two. Fain—let us call him that—is more dangerous than you can believe. You might not have survived such a meeting, and if you had, you might have been worse than turned to the Shadow.”

“If he is alive, if he did not go with the Seanchan, I have to—” He cut off as she produced his heron-mark sword from under her cloak. The blade ended abruptly a foot from the hilt, as if it had been melted. Memory came crashing back. “I killed him,” he said softly. “This time I killed him.”

Moiraine put the ruined sword aside like the useless thing it now was, and wiped her hands together. “The Dark One is not slain so easily. The mere fact that he appeared in the sky above Falme is more than merely troubling. He should not be able to do that, if he is bound as we believe. And if he is not, why has he not destroyed us all?” Min stirred uneasily.

“In the sky?” Rand said in wonder.

“Both of you,” Moiraine said. “Your battle took place across the sky, in full view of every soul in Falme. Perhaps in other towns on Toman Head, too, if half what I hear is to be believed.”

“We—we saw it all,” Min said in a faint voice. She