#cuale

This chapter has a harp icon because it's Thom time! I'm as happy as Rand is to see him.

Rand, I may have been too hasty in leaving Stedding Shangtai the way I did. When I do go home, I may be in a great deal of trouble.

Not sure why you couldn't just lie about being a young Ogier from Saldaea or something, Loial. You all can't keep that close a set of tabs on each other. Or is the unbearded look a dead giveaway?

When they came pounding through the common room, Rand winked at the innkeeper, then laughed at his startled look. Let him think I’m off to play his bloody Great Game. Let him think what he wants. Thom’s alive.

What is it about needing to keep a low profile in inns that makes Rand so reckless? First Baerlon and his channeling sickness, now this when he doesn't even have that excuse.

The innkeeper was a woman with hair as white as Thom’s, and sharp eyes that studied Loial as well as Rand.

Innkeeper size, and therefore loyalty, uncertain.

The slender woman sitting cross-legged on the bed with her skirts tucked under her was keeping six colored balls spinning in a wheel between her hands.

Dena meanwhile has to be small so that Jordan can fit her into the fridge more easily.

“I have never heard of a woman gleeman,” Loial said.

And this frankly makes Dena's fridging all the more exhausting. Why are there no gleegals anyway? Surely there'd be a good source: women who go to the Tower to become Aes Sedai and then get put out again when it's clear they're not worthy but who don't want to go back home now that they've tasted the world. Especially since this world seems to be pretty low on sex work, you'd think that gals who don't have much else in the realm of prospects would pick up the job.

But also, it's infuriating that Dena is intro'd in this way and then killed off and then we never have any other woman who tries to take up the mantle later. One can hardly blame Thom for being in a hurry to pick up a lady apprentice given what happens to Dena and the events of the next few months, but by the time he ended up in Ebou Dar it should have been going again. It's a wasted opportunity.

They hang a scrap of painted canvas behind them, supposed to make the audience believe these fools are in Matuchin Hall, or the high passes of the Mountains of Dhoom. I make the listener see every banner, smell every battle, feel every emotion. I make them believe they are Gaidal Cain. Seaghan will have his hall torn down around his ears if he puts this lot on to follow me.

And here's another apparent revolution in the world's culture that doesn't seem to go anywhere. Theater exists; there's a play held in Andor much later, but apparently Gleemen will stay the preferred style for now. I suppose after the circus it's probably for the best we didn't pick up a subplot of players.

“She listens to a tale once—once only, mind!—and she has it right, not just the words, but every nuance, every rhythm. She has a fine hand on the harp, and she played the flute better the first time she picked it up than you ever did.”

Yes yes, we all know she's too pure for this sinful Earth.

She’ll be court-bard to a king or a queen before she’s done.

Okay but for real Thom, there's only so many monarchs in the world and I doubt many more nobles besides their immediate subordinates could afford court-bards so what are all the women in the world who aren't mind-bogglingly talented supposed to do in the performance arts? They can't all just give up their dreams and move on. Why are they absent?

“Your clumsy sheepherder’s fingers were never meant for the harp.”

There is something very sad in Rand not being meant for the sophisticated forms of art (and science) that he'd really rather be a part of than conquering.

There is even a lord in the city has what he claims is the Horn locked up inside his manor. He says it’s a treasure handed down in his House since the Breaking.

You know, I'm willing to believe that this lord really does have a 3,500 year old horn in his basement. Obviously not a magic one, but still. Stranger things have happened.

“Moiraine says it’s the Horn,” Rand said. Thom’s mirth was cut short.

Thom takes Moiraine as gospel even now.

“I don’t suppose you are talking about simply riding to Shienar and handing the Horn to—who?—the King? Why Shienar? The legends all tie the Horn to Illian.”

I suppose this must be one of those myths that grew in the telling. That or there was some confusion with a Foretelling and the sea that the Horn gets tossed into is off of Illian's coast.

“Thom,” he said at last, “are there any books that have The Karaethon Cycle in them?” Easier to call it that than the Prophecies of the Dragon. “In the great libraries,” Thom said slowly. “Any number of translations, and even in the Old Tongue, here and there.”

Thom of course has to answer slowly because Rand's question has given him a heart attack and he needs to take deep breaths. This might well be one of the more terrifying moments of Thom's life, having a young boy taken from his home on suspicion of channeling asking about the Prophecies while waving the sign of their imminent fulfillment around. Or at least this would be the case if Thom was taking it at all seriously (he's not, not yet).

For a moment, Rand could only gape at him, and when he could speak, his voice was unsteady. “The sword makes five. Hilt, scabbard, and blade.” He turned his hand down on the table, hiding the brand on his palm. For the first time since Selene’s salve had done its work, he could feel it. Not hurting, but he knew it was there.

Moiraine of course thought she was fulfilling prophecy but as Rand points out the coat counts for nothing, though funnily enough the sword and the coat are echoes of the later, true markings: the sword setting Rand on his path away from home and the coat being Moiraine naming him among the candidates as the real deal.

Thom's got to be happy Rand's denying it though.

I suspect Aes Sedai would want to make events fit the Prophecies as closely as they can. Dying somewhere in the Blasted Lands would be a high price to pay for going along with them.

Thom's a very kind mentor for actually telling Rand straight out what the price of being the Dragon is and suggesting that if he's just doing it for the Aes Sedai that it's time to do something.

“Then why ask about the Prophecies? Why send the Ogier out of the room?”

One of the problems of being an expert player of the Great Game is that when a novice shows up and starts blundering around, you're going to mistake his idiotic moves for strategic ones. Thom correctly identifies Rand's got an ulterior motive for his behavior and skips right past the obvious, simple, and true answer in favor of a conspiracy theory.

“I’ve learned a few things since we parted, Thom. They will come for whoever blows the Horn, even a Darkfriend.”

I'm not sure you've learned that at all Rand, and I suppose we should have taken Thom not knowing that detail as warning enough that it wasn't true.

“Owyn held it off almost three years. He never hurt anyone. He didn’t use the Power unless he had to, and then only to help his village. He. . . .” Thom threw up his hands.

The taint on saidin was an absolutely masterful counterstroke if you think about it. The perfect way for the divisive paranoia of the Shadow to worm its way into the minds of Light aligned individuals. Thom knows that Owyn was a danger to society but he still tries to make excuses out of love.

If Moiraine’s let you go, then you are well out of it.

While Rand outplays Thom through naivety, Moiraine outflanks him legitimately.

“A clean break is best, boy. If you’re always coming around, even if you never mention it, I won’t be able to get the Horn out of my head. And I won’t be tangled in it. I won’t.”

A cruel move by Thom, but one can hardly blame an old man for trying to refuse the call. One can blame the Wheel for how refusing the call plays out for him though.

Ruefully, he realized he was considering whether to tell Zera the truth or let her continue thinking as she did. All it takes is to think about the Great Game, and I start playing it.

Politics as a whole are a rather infectious way of corrupting the Light too, and the fools do it to themselves. It's no wonder part of Rand's coming is resetting the whole damn board on the players.

Coat or no coat, Rand was still only a shepherd. If he had been more, if he had been what Thom once suspected—a man who could channel—neither Moiraine nor any other Aes Sedai would ever have let him walk away ungentled.

Frankly, I think Thom's very much hiding in denial here like Rand does. He has to know that the facts don't add up in any way that's good but he pretends he can send Rand away and not have to worry about it.

We have a rising sun chapter as we're still in Cairhien and Thom's not around.

He gave one abrupt shudder and stopped laughing; she left him to crouch over Hurin.

Another not subtle thing to be doing. It's a good thing these Cairhienien are so politically suspicious that they miss the much greater threat right in front of them.

He said he didn’t know it, but he had a smile that shouted ‘lie’ a mile off.

Perrin could probably smell the lies on the dude before he opened his mouth.

I couldn’t hear what she said, but I didn’t know whether his eyes were going to pop out of his head or he was going to swallow his tongue first.

I'm sure that Verin just did the usual Aes Sedai thing and that the specifics aren't important, but it amuses me to imagine that she just told the dude the truth straight out.

He heard gasps from the Cairhienin listening, but he did not care. They could play their Great Game if they wanted, but Ingtar had come, and he was finished with it at last.

This is called dramatic irony and also counting your chickens before they hatch and whatnot.

Rand glanced at Perrin—He’s a sniffer?—and found Perrin studying him in return. He thought Perrin muttered something. Shadowkiller?

Have you boys tried talking to each other about your-

Nope. Can't even pretend to ask with a straight face.

Everyone was watching now—not even Cuale gave any attention to his own burning inn—and Rand thought a little caution might not be amiss after all.

Exactly Rand. You're surrounded by strangers in an immediate sense and surrounded by Darkfriends in a metaphorical sense. No point celebrating being free just yet.

Suddenly he noticed that the others were looking at him, Verin and Ingtar, Mat and Perrin. He realized what he had been doing, and his face colored. “I am sorry, Ingtar. It’s just that I’ve become used to being in charge, I suppose. I’m not trying to take your place.”

It's fascinating, how this boy has to be dragged kicking and screaming into everything, but once he accepts it he just takes to it instantly. A couple weeks' leadership and the boy completely forgets Ingtar's even there.

You can see why Demandred, Sammael, and Etcetera'al got so pissy.

She’s Moiraine’s eyes watching me, Moiraine’s hand trying to pull my strings. But I have cut the strings.

If only Rand had tried to learn about politics while he was here. He might have realized that Verin knowing things doesn't at all mean she's on Moiraine's side.

I guess that would probably have only made him more suspicious.

Also I forgot to mention her directly when taking these notes but Tiedra's plump so we know she's a good innkeeper.

It almost seemed to him that she was in the room with him, that he could smell her perfume, so much so that he looked around, and laughed to find himself alone.

It wouldn't surprise me at all if she had popped in invisibly somehow.

It was him, he thought. Rand is the Shadowkiller. Light, what’s happening to all of us? His hands tightened into fists, large and square. These hands were meant for a smith’s hammer, not an axe.

The duality that Perrin will be grappling with rears its ugly head. At last he already knows the answer. Though that really just makes his plot arc all the more frustrating.

Also, points to Perrin for pulling off having Rand in his POV instead of what usually happens (thus far in the series) and Rand hogging the spotlight. This isn't the first time this has happened (Egwene did it back in Fal Dara), but it does show the transition this series is slowly undergoing.

One of Mat’s eggs hit the floor and cracked. He did not look at it, though. He was looking at Rand, and Ingtar had turned around.

Mat, the so-called idiot, irresponsible fool: Has a tell about Rand's situation but volunteers nothing and doesn't cause any trouble.

Perrin realized he was staring, too. “Well, he did not fly,” he said. “I don’t see any wings. Maybe he has more important things to tell us.” Verin shifted her attention to him, just for a moment. He managed to meet her eyes, but he was the first to look away.

Perrin, the so-called quiet, responsible kid: Tries to get in a fight with a woman several decades his senior over his friend's honor.

“Interesting,” the Aes Sedai said, a thoughtful expression on her face. “I would very much like to meet this girl. If she can use a Portal Stone. . . . Even that name is not very widely known.”

Verin must suspect. How panicked does this make her?

Rand asked the innkeeper if there were any more books, and she brought him The Travels of Jain Farstrider. Perrin liked that one, too, with its stories of adventures among the Sea Folk and journeys to the lands beyond the Aiel Waste, where silk came from.

Is this our first real Shara reference? I think it might be.

The Shienaran played with a slashing, daring style. Perrin had always played doggedly, giving ground reluctantly, but he found himself placing the stones with as much recklessness as Ingtar. Most of the games ended in a draw, but he managed to win as many as Ingtar did.

Ignore the terrible pun and focus on how Perrin is being shifted by his experiences as well. Perhaps this is why he talked back to Verin earlier.

“There are Darkfriends among the high as well as the low,” Verin said smoothly. “The mighty give their souls to the Shadow as often as the weak.” Ingtar scowled as if he did not want to think of that.

Frankly Verin, if there weren't so few Aes Sedai I'd argue the Tower's horrible percentages make the mighty even more frequent donaters. And indeed note that Ingtar isn't "as if" anything. It's exactly the case that he doesn't want to think about noble Darkfriends.

“I know little of Cairhienin,” Ingtar told him, “but I’ve heard enough of Galldrian. He would feast us and thank us for the glory we had brought to Cairhien. He would stuff our pockets with gold and heap honors on our heads. And if we tried to leave with the Horn, he’d cut our honored heads off without pausing to take a breath.”

It's mind-boggling how actively detrimental to the cause of existence most of the modern day royalty proves to be. Like obviously they need to be toppled from their thrones and all that but damn.

There was a dignity to him that Perrin did not remember; Rand was looking at the Aes Sedai and the Shienaran lord as equals.

Well he's found the Horn of Valere twice now, so he's worthy of being a legendary hero even ignoring all the stuff he hasn't done yet. Selene's flirting sadly helped.

It will also help if you remember the way you behaved before the Amyrlin. If you are that arrogant, they will believe you are a lord if you wear rags.

Lan's training paying off in a dozen ways. He'd be so proud if he were here.

“A sa’angreal.” She sounded as if it were really not very important, but Perrin suddenly had the feeling the two of them had entered a private conversation, saying things no one else could hear.

For example, she's basically telling Rand what tools are available to him.

One by itself is powerful enough, but I can think of few women strong enough to survive the flow through the one on Tremalking. The Amyrlin, of course. Moiraine, and Elaida. Perhaps one or two others. And three still in training.

I guess Verin must think Cadsuane dead, since Lelaine and Romanda would make three if she were being counted. How terrifying that at this very point the White Tower has a total of eight, kind of nine women capable of using the Choedan Kal. It should be so much more.

As for Logain, it would have taken all his strength simply to keep from being burned to a cinder, with nothing left for doing anything.

Unless the male statue is quite different and only ever meant for Lews to use, Verin is very mistaken here. Logain is only a step below Rand, and there's sixteen tiers in between him and Moiraine.

She was talking to Rand. Perrin knew it, and from the queasy look in Mat’s eye, he did, too. Even Loial shifted nervously in his chair.

Thank goodness the empath is the POV to confirm that Loial is not blind or stupid but has in fact put two and two together.

Watching Verin’s smile, small and mysterious, Perrin felt a chill. He did not think Rand knew half what he thought he did. Not half.

Perrin you don't even know half of how right you are.

This chapter has the Trolloc triptych since we will be getting Trollocs in Cairhien.

The street was empty save for one of the big puppets, a goat-horned Trolloc with a sword at its belt, coming toward them with five men working the poles, but sounds of merriment drifted still from other parts of the Foregate, where the halls of entertainment and the taverns stood. Here, doors were already barred and windows shuttered.

Presumably this is the work of the undescribed man who saw Rand awhile back. I suppose that if Fain is going to defy fate, he might as well defy narrative convention as well.

Instinct brought the sword out of its sheath in a flashing arc. The Moon Rises Over the Lakes.

Honestly the motion I picture when I think of the sword form's name is a bit more complex than a flashing arc, but it gets points for being such a great name.

“Loial, we have to get back to the inn. Hurin’s alone, and they—” He grunted as he was lifted into the air by a thick arm long enough to pin both of his to his chest.

Rand's Shadowspawn Senses still don't seem to have kicked in yet.

The Power. That could do it. How, he did not know, but he knew nothing else to try. The Trolloc had its sword half unsheathed. When the curved blade was bare, it would kill Loial.

I love it when a hero is forced to use an undesirable power because the escalation of the narrative has left them with nothing else.

Driven by a distant desperation, he tried again and again. And again and again there was only the taint.

Of course, that really only makes it all the more hilarious that Rand isn't capable of channeling consistently yet.

“I’m sorry you had to do it, Loial, but it would have killed both of us, or worse.” “I know. But I cannot like it. Even a Trolloc.” Pointing toward the setting sun, the Ogier seized Rand’s arm. “There’s another of them.”

Funny how this bit of work towards Perrin's arc is here in Rand's, considering how many dead Trollocs this boy will be making even in Zen Mode.

He pulled Loial along to the next corner and turned toward the nearest sounds of laughter and music, but long before they reached it, another group of men appeared ahead of them in the otherwise empty street with a puppet that was no puppet.

Rand has something in common with that Trolloc, I suppose. There are some parallels of course - the puppeteers are far less dangerous than the "puppet"; they control it only to the degree that it's convenient for the Trolloc, everything is being done out of sight and in the shadows - but I'm sad to say that I'm at a blank for any deeper meaning.

Sometimes, here where there were no eyes to see, a Trolloc stalked alone. More than once he was sure it was one he had seen before. They were closing in, and making sure he and Loial did not leave the deserted streets with their shuttered windows.

I really like that the Trollocs are still terrifying at this point.

“I don’t have it with me,” he snapped, “and I don’t know how it could help if I did. The dead heroes are not supposed to come back to save me from Trollocs. Selene, you have to get away. Now!”

This is (very likely unintentional) irony, since the Horn isn't blown in the Last Battle until a young boy with no other options has to be saved from Trollocs.

“Seek the Oneness, and be calm. One who would be great must always be calm.”

This is also ironic, since Lanfear has the chill of a blast furnace on the surface of the sun.

Selene cut him off. “If he wants to go in, alantin, he needs a door. Such as that one.” She pointed to a dark patch a little down the wall. Even with her telling him, Rand was not certain it was a door, but when she strode to it and pulled, it opened.

If it weren't for the fact that the far side of this wall had brackets for a bar, I'd half think that Selene had some incredible forgotten weave for turning walls into doors.

At the worst, humans had to be better to deal with than Trollocs. He might be able to talk the Illuminators into letting them go; Trollocs did not listen before they killed.

Rand of course will forget this lesson much later in his dealings with the Seanchan.

The woman’s dress, worked elaborately across the breast, seemed a pale green, and her hair was done in a multitude of short braids.

Hi Aludra! Sorry about what happens to you for the next six books or so. (Also hi Tammuz I guess? Apparently you're technically a recurring character. Good luck with that; I barely remember you from this chapter and I only reread it seven hours ago.)

In any case, fireworks were too expensive for the Village Council to have allowed anybody unskilled to open one. He could well remember the time when Mat had tried to do just that; it was nearly a week before anyone but Mat’s own mother would speak to him.

I'm pretty sure we hear about this story again. I'm also pretty sure Mat will finally open a firework next book.

Rand was just breathing a sigh of relief as they approached the low wall—and the alleys and buildings behind it—when Loial brushed against another rack, standing right beside the wall. It held ten soft-looking sticks, as long as Rand’s arm, with thin streams of smoke rising from their tips. The rack made hardly a sound when it fell, the smoldering sticks sprawling across one of the fuses.

It's like the Illuminators were asking for their chapterhouse to be burned down, frankly.

“Sometimes,” Selene said quietly, “if you are very still, no one can see you at all.” She did not sound the least bit worried.

This is both a useful observational fact about life and clearly a good weave.

“I am not to blame for this, Aludra,” the man protested. “I have been sure to put everything where it belonged, and the punks, they were—”

Sorry Tammuz, I'm absolutely blaming you.

“It is said great men make their own luck,” Selene said softly.

Lanfear: Just because I'm pretending to be a helpless noblewoman doesn't mean I'm not going to expect credit for every secret thing I do to help you.

“Your greatness will make me happy.” Despite the words, Selene sounded angry. “Perhaps I should leave you to find your own way for a time. If you’ll not take greatness when it is in your grasp, perhaps you deserve to die.”

I can see why she hooked up with LTT in the first place and why the dude dumped her the second he had a chance with a slightly more chill woman.

“You let me worry about the Trollocs.” Three of them. I might do it, with the void.

Of course, Rand is finally embracing the greatness she wants anyway. Doesn't even realize it.

It tilted, started to fall over, and he caught the square wooden base; the tube pointed straight at the Trollocs.

Hence the picture above.

Blinking, Rand staggered to his feet, coughing in thick, acrid smoke, ears ringing.

Jordan should have added tinnitus to Rand's list of agonies because it is a bitch and the boy damages his ear drums way too much not to end up with it.

“An old woman, my Lord. Not a quarter of an hour gone. A servant, though she did not say from what House.” Cuale smiled as if inviting confidences.

Definitely Lanfear in disguise. She's not too vain to try and fool Rand this way as we'll know from later, and the difference in age is more than enough for Mr. Idiot here not to suspect that the Obviously Magic Woman following him around improbably might have left the letter herself.

Think of the glory. “I wish Ingtar would come.”

Another rising sun chapter because we're in Cairhien. I hope these icons start getting a little more obscure soon.

The Illuminators were on everyone’s tongues in the city, even now, days after the night when they had lofted only one nightflower into the sky, and that early. A dozen different versions of the scandal were being told, discounting minor variations, but none close to the truth.

Note how distorted these tales are in comparison to the Seanchan because of how much is being deliberately kept in secrecy.

It was an effort for Rand not to sigh again. “Hurin, I’m sorry. I should not have shouted at you.”

This whole conversation is of course a microcosm of Rand's upcoming dealings with humanity as a whole and a rehearsal for when Rand gets really shitty to Hurin much, much later.

“He hasn’t done that before. Loial, do you think he was listening at the door before he knocked?”

As Loial says, Rand is starting to understand how the game is played. That said, Cuale probably was just freaking out over the senders of the invitations more than eavesdropping.

“Whatever they make of it, at least it’s the same for everybody. I am not for anyone in Cairhien, and I am not against anyone.”

You can't blame the kid for trying I suppose. But this is just the Pattern trying to teach Rand that he doesn't get to sit in holding patterns and have everything work out. He's got to move forward and act.

With most Houses, it wouldn’t matter. Even when they’re plotting against each other to the knife, they act like they aren’t, out where everybody can see. But not these two.

Again, Rand doesn't get to just wait it out. He has to make a decision.

“I won’t break the seals. That way, they will know I have not answered either one yet. As long as they are waiting to see which way I jump, maybe I can earn a few more days. Ingtar has to come soon. He has to.”

Of course, Rand really doesn't want to learn any lessons at all, so he's still kicking and screaming.

After a moment, he pulled the two invitations from his pocket and studied the seals, then stuck them back.

This chapter uses the word "seal" so much that I'm trying to find a way to tie it into the actual seals but so far I've got nothing. Rand does hang onto the unbroken seals he finds, but his hesitance in breaking those is a lot more about not being ready for the final boss fight yet than refusal to play and he doesn't really showboat with them for obvious reasons.

He avoided thinking of the way he might, just might, deal with ten Trollocs. It had not worked when he tried to help Loial, after all.

At least his denial here is based on practicality instead of just pigheadedness.

Rand thought a man, dressed in what had once been good Shienaran clothes, ducked back into the crowd at the sight of him, but he could not be sure.

Almost certainly that's exactly what Rand saw, and the news that he and Loial are so far away from the Horn spread quickly.

“It is my pleasure to do what I may,” the man said with his false smile.

The question here is, is he outright lying of his own accord because that's what he always does or is he being specifically instructed from above not to cooperate?

Moiraine, he thought bitterly. She’s still causing me trouble. Almost immediately, though, if reluctantly, he admitted that she could hardly be blamed for this. There had always been some reason to pretend to be what he was not. First keeping Hurin’s spirits up, and then trying to impress Selene. After Selene, there had not seemed to be any way out of it.

Points to Rand for having the self-awareness to admit that all Moiraine did was give him the rope to hang himself with. All things considered, many would just be angry with her and move on with their lives from there.

Thom’s nephew had lasted almost three years by channeling only when he thought he had to. If Owyn had managed to limit how often he channeled, it must be possible to not channel at all, no matter how seductive saidin was.

Well sure Rand, but you've literally just established that you have a hard time not using every available tool at your disposal so plot-convenient ultra-heroin is probably not a drug you can just take a little hit of at parties, you know?

The closer they came, the more certain it was, until they rounded the last stone-terraced corner and there was The Defender of the Dragonwall, smoke pouring out of its upper windows and flames breaking through the roof.

If Tuon were here, she'd likely explain to Rand that a military-themed inn bursting into flame was a Seanchan omen foretelling the fall of its city to the depicted enemy within the year.

She's not here, thank the Light, but that's probably what she'd say and she'd be right.

The common room hardly seemed as if the building were on fire. The double line of men stretched up the stairs, passing their buckets, and others scrambled to carry out what furniture was left, but there was no more smoke down here than if something had been burning the kitchen.

The Cairhieniens are probably pretty big on fire safety after the last invasion anyway. Without industrial pipes and hydrants to supply water for you, city fires can be downright apocalyptic.

“You cannot carry Hurin and the chest both, Rand.” The Ogier shrugged. “Besides, I won’t leave my books to burn.”

The books are obviously Loial's number one priority here but he has the decency to feel a bit guilty about that.

The banner was still in there. The banner of the Dragon. Let it burn, he thought, and an answering thought came as if he had heard Moiraine say it. Your life may depend on it. She’s still trying to use me. Your life may depend on it. Aes Sedai never lie.

Yeah this boy can't even leave behind the thing that would get him killed anywhere in the known world for possessing it. No way he's not going to be shooting up ultra-heroin every chance he gets even if his life didn't turn into an epic fantasy.

The onlookers stared at him, with his face blackened and his coat covered with smut, but he staggered to where Loial had propped Hurin against the wall of a house across the street.

I'd be staring too, who walks around with a coat covered in por-

"A small flake of soot or other dirt".

Oh. Do you know this may be literally the only time I've ever seen this word used in its non-sexy context?

Rand felt a shiver run through him. “It’s too late,” he told them. “You came too late.” And he sat down in the street and began to laugh.

A new chapter icon! The rising sun icon refers to events in Cairhien, usually just the city proper. It's not too complex in its meaning.

Fat ships and broad barges filled the river, and tall granaries sprawled along the far bank, but Cairhien seemed to be laid out in a precise grid behind its high, gray walls. Those walls themselves made a perfect square, with one side hard along the river. In just as exact a pattern, towers rose within the walls, soaring as much as twenty times the height of the wall, yet even from the hills Rand could see that each one ended in a jagged top.

Planned, grid cities are pretty new; they're relatively common in America because most of our cities were built up after the idea took off. Cairhien's grid is likely the result of their recent devastation. The towers all still being in such a state of disrepair is another sign of this, and another sign of the societal decay afflicting the subcontinent.

Many of the farmers were afraid to go back to their lands near the Spine of the World, and they all came here, near enough. That’s why Galldrian has the river full of grain barges up from Andor and Tear. There’s no crops coming from farms in the east because there aren’t any farms anymore.

Frankly, details like this make it seem as though, if events had continued on their current course, Cairhien would have been the next western nation to disappear. Food insecurity on such a massive scale would bankrupt any economy sooner or later, especially in the event of supernatural, unending winters keeping everyone starving.

“I fear Galldrian keeps his people quiet by entertaining them. He gives gleemen and musicians the King’s Gift, a bounty in silver, to perform here in the Foregate, and he sponsors horse races down by the river every day. There are fireworks many nights, too.” He sounded disgusted. “Elder Haman says Galldrian is a disgrace.”

Panem et circenses. Frankly, it's a miracle the whole affair has lasted Rand's lifetime; the treasury must be nearly emptied at this point.

And damn if Loial isn't pissed.

He had never seen fireworks elaborate enough to require even one Illuminator. He had heard they only left Tanchico to put on displays for rulers. It was a strange place he was coming to.

I'm going to guess that Rand's knowledge here is just outdated instead of being fully wrong. The chapter house is likely a necessity of keeping up with Galldrian's expectations.

“Well, they were tall enough to warrant the name, once. When the Aiel took Cairhien, about the time you were born, the towers burned, and cracked, and fell. I don’t see any Ogier among the stonemasons. No Ogier could like working here—the Cairhienin want what they want, without embellishment—but there were Ogier when I was here before.”

As subtle as a brick, this foreshadowing. But also:

The divide growing between the people's interests and the Ogier seems like something that will probably grow rather than be fully healed by the end of the age. Perhaps it's the seed of whatever leads to the Ogier taking off eventually.

He wanted to tell them he was not playing their Great Game, but instead he said, “We will take rooms in the city. We can go now?”

Poor Rand doesn't understand that just by being here he's playing it, same as everybody else. He also doesn't get that the best way to avoid attention is to be unremarkable and meet expectations. There's a reason he takes to disguising himself as a beggar later on.

He felt as if people were looking at him. He could not wait to get a good, plain coat again, and stop pretending to be what he was not.

Of course, Rand would attract attention in Cairhien even in a beggar's robes because he looks just like an Aielman for some reason.

checks notes

The reason is genetics.

The innkeeper was a plump, unctuous man with a single stripe of green across his dark gray coat.

You can tell he's a good guy both because he's fat and because he catches Rand up on the whole Aiel thing. That said he is a bit racist what with his inn sign being an Aiel being killed by a Cairhienien.

“We have to show these Cairhienin we know what’s right as well as they do, Lord Rand”

It's unfortunate for Rand that Hurin gets too caught up in the gravity of Rand's alleged lordship to be a better teacher about these things, because he's right but he's saying it in the way Rand will care about the least.

He often forgot that Loial had run away from home, in effect, to see the world. “What about you, Hurin? There’s music in the Foregate, and people laughing. I’ll wager no one is playing Daes Dae’mar there.”

Rand forgets that Loial is a baby runaway so often because as he aptly demonstrates, he's somehow even more naive. Of course people are playing the Game in the space immediately outside the city walls, where movements and actions are a little harder to track.

“Everyone by now, Lord Rand,” Hurin said quietly. He seemed to feel eyes watching, too. “The guards at the gate would not keep their mouths closed about an outland lord coming to Cairhien. The hostler, the innkeeper . . . everybody tells what they know where they think it will do them the most good, my Lord.”

I'm actually a little with Rand on this one. The gossip spreading this quickly is shocking as hell. He hasn't been here an hour yet!

You must answer any more invitations you receive, my Lord. Decline if you will—though they’ll read things into whose invitations you do decline. And into whose you accept. Of course, if you decline them all, or accept them all—

It really is a great joke on the Wheel's part to have Rand come to Cairhien without Moiraine when this would be the time she'd be a much better teacher to him. But perhaps she'd force Rand to play politics when in fact his solution proves to be the best: delay the issue until the breaking point and then accept the invitation that seems to matter.

A man standing in front of the guardhouse took note of him—his bright coat marked him out, as well as his height among the Cairhienin—and hurried inside, but Rand did not notice.

It's pretty unusual for the narration to point out stuff the POV doesn't know. Not sure what to make of it.

Memories of Thom were always sad. Thom had been a friend. A friend who had died for him. While I ran away and let him die.

This is foreshadowing both short and long term. The short should be obvious (guess who's back?) but the long is of course Rand's increasingly unhealthy obsession with blaming himself for the suffering of others. Back in Whitebridge there was nothing Rand could have done to stop Thom's "death" and Thom chose to die when he could have ditched the boys and left them to their fates unscathed.

He walked on in a daze, staring at the man bowing on the dais to the clapping of his listeners, cradling his harp in one arm and with the other spreading his patch-covered cloak as if to trap all the sound they made. He was a tall man, lanky and not young, with long mustaches as white as the hair on his head. And when he straightened and saw Rand, the eyes that widened were sharp and blue.

It's a good thing he didn't notice Rand mid-performance or he might have given something away.

Rand shook his head. To his surprise, Thom seemed disappointed.

Jordan is beating us over the head with the inevitable Moiraine/Thom pairing that surprised so many. I figured it out in junior high folks, it's not subtle!

Even if I could have reached the boat before it sailed, Domon and his whole crew would be spreading the tale all over Illian about how I was being chased by Trollocs.

Thom would love to know how dramatically ironic this claim is.

It's good to have you back, Thom!