#seta zarbey

This chapter gets a heron-marked blade icon because Rand is going to become a blademaster.

Sitting on an upended barrel in front of a still-closed ironmonger’s shop, Nynaeve warmed her hands under her arms and surveyed her army.

She is not a blademaster, but I guess the very brief time Nynaeve spent as a queen has instilled a sense of authority in her, to be considering Min, Elayne, and a sack as much of an army.

Once again she resolved that if anything went wrong, she would somehow pull attention to herself while Min and Elayne escaped. She had told them to run if anything went wrong, and let them think she would run, too.

Really, if at this point you aren't at least warming up to Nynaeve a bit, you're deliberately blind to her good sides. For all she worries about the group giving her away, she's much more concerned with making sure they escape.

The damane put a shaking hand to her throat, but before the woman in the lightning-marked dress had time to move, the damane turned and punched her in the face; the sul’dam’s knees buckled, and she almost fell.

More power to this lady. Must be one of the newer damane (or perhaps the sul'dam is especially awful) to still have this kind of response. Probably not an Aes Sedai though.

The four of them stood in a rapidly emptying street, but the people who had decided to be elsewhere were avoiding looking at them. Nynaeve had been counting on that—people doing their best to ignore anything that had to do with Seanchan—to gain them a few moments. They would talk eventually, but in whispers; it might take hours for the Seanchan to learn anything had happened.

Oh no, the villains have planted the seeds of their own defeat, what a tragedy.

Nynaeve wiggled her toes in the boots; they were a little tight. The dress was tight, too, across the bosom, and loose elsewhere. The hem hung almost to the ground, lower than sul’dam wore them, but the fit would have been even worse on any of the others.

It's not often that you see the hero steal a minion's clothes and have a hard time fitting into them.

She thought she would have gone mad if she had had to wear the collar; that was why she could not make her voice sharp with Elayne now.

Another bit of Nynaeve's kinder nature leaking out, though I expect Elayne and Min register it as "vaguely sharp" instead of "monomolecular sharp".

It was not as if she, Nynaeve, felt these things, but in her head was a lump of sensations that she knew belonged to the sul’dam.

Note to self: see how this compares with descriptions of the Warder bond later.

“But an a’dam isn’t supposed to work that way,” Min said. “They always claimed it won’t work on any woman who cannot channel.”

Well they're right, it doesn't. It's just "woman who cannot channel" is not a set category; an a'dam won't do anything to a three-year old even if in twenty years they'll grow up to be Lanfear-tier. They even know that, and they must know about the difference between sparkers and learners, but that's a truth too inconvenient for them to address.

Stark terror rolled across the woman’s face, and Nynaeve’s stomach heaved as she suddenly realized the sul’dam had taken her literally. If she thinks I can, it’s because she knows. That is what these leashes are for. She took firm hold of herself to stop from clawing the bracelet off her wrist.

What does it say about the sul'dam that they can so easily use these powers that Nynaeve finds repulsive? Just how deep does Seanchan propaganda have to go to make people into carefree torturers?

As far as I am concerned, you are worse than a murderer, worse than a Darkfriend.

Of course, as much as I agree with Nynaeve on a gut level, the setting and logic disagree. Darkfriends are still worse than those who wield the a'dam - but I don't think there's much more difference than a step or two. The Seanchan build a society based so much on fear and vice that there's little practical difference between their lands and the world the Shadow would make except that the Seanchan might be overthrown, whereas the Shadow freed possibly never could be.

A gull perched on a piling stared at him; gulls had pitiless eyes.

I'm really all the more offended by Jordan's corvid slander when it's clear that he knows that there are birds that would gladly serve the Dark for a french fry and refuses to use them.

He did not look back to check on them. There was not supposed to be anything to connect them; five men coming into Falme at an early hour, but not together.

Both Rand and Nynaeve are pretty good at spy missions, all things considered. What part of Two Rivers life has taught them all this?

He had not been able to leave the banner behind. He did not think any of the soldiers would have gone into the bags, but he could not say the same for Verin, nor predict what she would do if she found the banner.

I'm pretty sure that Verin would have left your shit alone, Rand. Though I guess the Pattern would have needed someone to show up with the banners if you'd tried ditching them. Still though, Verin really isn't anywhere near as invested in fucking with him as the boy thinks.

“He’s crisscrossed this town,” Hurin muttered, grimacing. “His smell is everywhere, and it stinks so, it’s hard to tell old from new. At least I know he’s still here. Some of it cannot be older than a day or two, I’m sure. I am sure,” he added less doubtfully.

The fact that Fain's spent the past four months scuttling through town like a madman is entirely unsurprising to me.

A banner flapped in the wind over the house the soldiers protected; a golden hawk clutching lightning bolts.

I don't think I've explicitly highlighted the fascist imagery of the Seanchan banner, so uhh... You all know what kinds of symbols Hitler liked, right? Besides the right-angled kinds?

I have to find Fain, too, Rand thought. I have to. But when he looked at Mat’s face, he said, “Ingtar, if the dagger is in that house, Fain likely is, too. I can’t see him letting the dagger or the Horn, either one, far out of his sight.”

Rand not being willing to let the well-being of his friends fall to the wayside for the sake of the mission is why he's a hero and also if you think about it why he's so tremendously bad at the whole prophecized savior part of it.

I mean to have the Horn in my hands before the sun sets again.

He who thinks he turns the Wheel of Time may learn the truth too late.

Wait! A guard. One man. He isn’t even wearing his helmet.

Either the garden has been so safe of late the Seanchan can no longer conceptualize it at as a threat vector (unlikely, considering how paranoid they are), or Fain's influence has got another soldier slacking.

Rand stared at him. The Seanchan was overconfident? The only thing that kept him from going back right then was Mat’s anguished murmurs.

It's a shame Rand never remembers Ingtar as an object lesson in hubris. If anything, he practically learned the sin from this guy.

The furnishings in the hallways were sparse, and seemed all curves. Here and there a tapestry hung on a wall, or a folding screen stood against it, each painted with a few birds on branches, or a flower or two. A river flowed across one screen, but aside from rippling water and narrow strips of riverbank, the rest of it was blank.

I'm trying to decide if the Seanchan are minimalist in their decor or if they just couldn't risk bringing the cool stuff across the sea with them, so they only have a few bits here and there that no one would miss if a storm wiped them all out.

“It is. By the Light, it is! I am saved.”

Everyone is much too busy to realize how strange Ingtar's last sentence there is.

One of the women with a collar around her neck looked up. He was too far to make out her face clearly, but for an instant it seemed that their eyes met, and he knew. The blood drained from his face. “Egwene,” he breathed.

For a pair that aren't fated lovers, these two really have a way of spying each other through windows and across crowded streets.

“What are you talking about?” Mat said. “Egwene is safe in Tar Valon. I wish I were.”

Ha!

It will please me to kill one or two of you for disturbing my morning. Those who survive will tell me of who you are and why you came.

I can't wait for him to die.

I have been suspicious of him since Huan died so mysteriously, and he has always wanted that dagger.”

Oh sure, the ONE TIME the Seanchan's overzealous secret police might have been useful, they're not deployed. Also note that Fain did say he'd kill Huan in his last POV.

The trembling hand he held up in front of his face was turning black, darkness creeping outwards from the bleeding gash that crossed his palm. He opened his mouth wide and howled, clawing at his arm, then his shoulder. Kicking, jerking, he toppled to the floor, thrashing on the silken carpet, shrieking as his face grew black and his dark eyes bulged like overripe plums, until a dark, swollen tongue gagged him. He twitched, choking raggedly, heels drumming, and did not move again. Every bit of his exposed flesh was black as putrid pitch and looked ready to burst at a touch.

Yeah that dagger really ought to be destroyed ASAP. It won't be, naturally, but they really ought to have done it.

“I suspected it might come to you and me.” Turak spun his blade easily, a full circle one way, then the other, his long-nailed fingers moving delicately on the hilt. His fingernails did not seem to hamper him at all.

They might not seem to hamper him right now but I would not be at all surprised if the small lack of mobility they caused as a result is what let Rand win this battle.

The void enveloped Rand. Saidin flowed toward him, glowing with the promise of the One Power, but he ignored it. It was no more difficult than ignoring a barbed thorn twisting in his flesh. He refused to be filled with the Power, refused to be one with the male half of the True Source. He was one with the sword in his hands, one with the floor beneath his feet, one with the walls. One with Turak.

Rand is going to get very skilled at ignoring barbed thorns twisting his flesh before too much longer. It does seem appropriate that saidin is easy to avoid when Rand feels that doing so is an immediate matter of life and death.

The Swallow Takes Flight met Parting the Silk. Moon on the Water met The Wood Grouse Dances. Ribbon in the Air met Stones Falling From the Cliff.

I can picture a couple of these but others... Is it stones plural because there's a lot of jabs, for example?

Lightning of Three Prongs met Leaf on the Breeze.

Yeah these definitely both involve multiple motions.

The Boar Rushes Down the Mountain. Every movement of his blade was an attempt to reach the High Lord; now all Turak could do was retreat and defend, down the length of the room, almost to the door.

Turak's mistake of course was expending the initial effort letting Rand warm up instead of cutting him down immediately.

The River Undercuts the Bank. He dropped to one knee, blade slashing across. He did not need Turak’s gasp, or the feel of resistance to his cut to know.

Well, now that Rand's seeing without looking, we can determine that not only is he a blademaster but he's also a Jedi.

Never before had he confronted a human being with a sword except in practice or bluff. I just killed a man. The void shook, and saidin tried to fill him.

Yeah, it's apparently never easy the first time. I wouldn't know because I've never k-

Because my first time I killed fifty people at once so I just spedrun the cold badassery process. Obviously.

“From birth to death,” they intoned in unison, “I serve the Blood.” And plunged the daggers into their own hearts.

It's good to see that the Seanchan are so thoroughly dedicated to creating as repulsive a society as possible.

What can one girl count, even if you love her, alongside the Horn, and what it stands for?

GRRM would later steal this.

“The Dark One can have the Horn for all I care! What does finding the Horn count if I abandon Egwene to this? If I did that, the Horn couldn’t save me. The Creator couldn’t save me. I would damn myself.”

Remember up there when I said that logic defended the Seanchan? Fuck logic, let's go with our guts. This is where the narrative itself clashes against the inevitable end of "ally with the Seanchan as they are". What does saving the world count if our heroes abandon the damane to this? Despite how bloated the narrative had gotten, Jordan still should have made the redemption of the empire (just like the redemption of the Tower, the Whitecloaks, the nobility, etc.) part of the main story, not try to shove it into a sequel trilogy that will never be written. As is, our heroes damned themselves: it's all well and good to say the hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of damane are better off under Tuon's regime that might fall than the Dark One's which might not ever fall, but the underpinning logic of the series is that the Dark One will not ever win this war. The damane could have been saved.

He ran with them. Part of him hated himself for running, but another part whispered, I’ll come back. I’ll free her somehow.

Because this itself could set up an echo for things down the line: Yeah, Rand has to ally with the Seanchan, but Nynaeve could have outed the secret and shook the empire to its foundation in much the same way that she's the one who will save Egwene here. It's not like she was doing much anything else in the last few books anyway.

PERSPECTIVE: Sunrise finds Nynaeve surveying her little army of Min and Elayne. A damane and sul'dam come by. As they get close enough, Nynaeve remembers what Min's told her of how the sul'dam enforce their will, and finds it all too easy to channel.(1) She unlocks the damane's collar from a distance with a flick of the power, and after a moment's shock at freedom, the damane punches the sul'dam clear out, and runs.(2)

Nynaeve stuffs rags into the sul'dam's mouth and Min lowers a sack over her head. They drag her to a nearby shed that used to hold horses, but no longer. They strip her of the special sul'dam dress and Min says it'll fit Nynaeve. Elayne has to put on a grey dress they've dyed, but is hesitant now.

While she changes, Nynaeve puts the collar on the sul'dam, ignoring Min's insistence that it doesn't work that way. When she puts the bracelet on, she can feel the sul'dam's physical sensations and feelings. The sul'dam laughs. Nyn thinks about adding something to the feelings, and the sul'dam cries out, only just muffled by the gag. Min is surprised, the Seanchan claim it will only work on a woman who can channel.(3)

Nynaeve threatens the woman into giving them answers, and she names herself Seta and begs Nynaeve not to let anyone see her with the collar on. Nyn realizes in that moment that she could never let Elayne wear the thing. Nyn tells El to put her own clothes back on, they have someone to play the leashed one. Seta weeps and begs, and Nynaeve says as far as she's concerned the sul'dam is worse than a murderer, she can't think of anything worse than what they do. Now, no one pays attention to damane anyway, so if she keeps her head down, maybe nobody will notice. If she raises a fuss, Nynaeve will make her regret the first kiss her mother ever gave her father. Seta agrees, reluctantly.

As they set out, Seta asks where they're going. The young women say, in three different, colourful ways, that they're going to free a damane.(4)

PERSPECTIVE: Bayle Domon is overseeing his ship readied for passage. He commands that an axe be next to every mooring line, ready to cut them all at once, and if a single line is cut before those women are on board, he'll split the man's skull who did it. He waits nervously at the railing, watching the area of town where the damane quarters are.(5)

PERSPECTIVE: Rand, sneaking into town, trying to hide his fancy coat and his sword, just in case. The others are spaced ahead and behind him, so there's nothing to connect them. He finds Hurin shortly after entering town, though, and he confirms the trail. He goes down an alley where Ingtar is waiting, and debates whether to take his saddlebags or not. He brought the Dragon banner in them, just in case Verin got any ideas about looking in his bags while they're in town, but he doesn't want to carry it all around. He leaves the bag on the horse, figuring it should be safe enough here while they go on foot.

Hurin finds many Fain trails, hard to tell old from new, but some are no more than a day or two old for sure. Rand recognizes grolm, the monsters in the other world, among the Seanchan beasts.(6) Eventually they find a building that Mat points to and says the dagger is there, and Hurin confirms Fain's been here very recently, maybe even last night. They sneak around the back, up some stairs, and find Horn and dagger displayed as a set. Mat grabs them up excitedly, and Perrin tells him to keep it down until they're away.

Rand looks out a window and sees Egwene, collared.(7) He's about to run out and find her when Turak says they’re not who he expected,(8) and an entourage of soldiers come out from behind the fancy screens in the room. Turak commands one of the soldiers to take back the Horn, but Mat slashes at him with the dagger, and the man screams, turns black, falls to the floor, and swells up like he's several days dead in the heat.

The rest of the party engages in combat with the Seanchan soldiers, and Rand is left to face Turak, who wonders aloud what it takes to earn a heron on this side of the ocean. He notices that Turak's blade bears a heron, too.

Rand wishes he could seek the void, but he can't risk being detected by damane, if they can feel men channelling. They fight, Turak clearly testing Rand's proficiency as much as toying with him, until he says it's time for Rand to die. Then Rand takes the void and saidin more by instinct than purpose, and manages, just, to hold his own. Eventually, he finds an opening, and takes it. Turak falls, blood obscuring the pattern of the carpet beneath him. The void shakes as he realizes he's just killed a man.(9)

The two servants that had been with Turak realize what's happened, say "From birth to death, I serve the Blood," and plunge daggers into their own chests. Rand thinks he might go mad someday, but they already were, to do that.(10)

The others have also defeated their soldiers, and when Ingtar says they're leaving immediately, Rand says he's going after Egwene. Ingtar calls him a fool, they have the Horn, what can one girl count? Rand says the Dark One can have the Horn for all he cares, because what does it matter to find it if he abandons Egwene to the fate of a damane? Not the Horn, not the Creator could save him from his own guilt. Ingtar's face is unreadable as he says "You mean exactly that, don't you?"(11)

Hurin warns that an officer is coming, and they take off at a run. Rand swears he'll come back for her, as he realizes he can't help her right now while he has to escape.

=====

This chapter has the dagger icon because... It's about how tempting it is to justify our worse impulses as good rather than actually being good? It sure isn't because the dagger shows up, or Fain for that matter.

Shifting her bundle nervously, Elayne peered toward the noise of shouts, one street over, where the golden hawk clutching lightning rippled in the wind. “What is happening?”

Elayne and Min, Rand's actual soulmates, get no opportunity to see him at all. Just Egwene.

She used the a’dam to keep Seta close by her side, so if the damane sensed the ability to channel in one of them, she would think it was Seta.

The Seanchan do have more powerful channelers than the main region does of course, but I suspect that if it weren't for the way that the Seanchan have so utterly crushed people's keeping an eye out for things, Nynaeve's plan here wouldn't really work. Even by Seanchan standards, she and Elayne should be rather noteworthy channelers.

Near the back of the house, Min took a narrow stairs that spiraled upwards. Nynaeve pushed Seta up it ahead of her, all the way to the fourth floor. The ceilings were low, there, the halls empty and silent except for the soft sounds of weeping. Weeping seemed to fit the air of the chilly halls.

This place existed before the Seanchan arrived. I wonder who built it with the fourth floor in such a way here. Usually servants are the downstairs folk, not the upstairs ones.

Her voice hardened so that Nynaeve barely recognized it. “I’d like to put her in a pot of boiling water.” Seta had her eyes squeezed shut, and her hands clutched her skirts; she was trembling.

You can hardly blame Egwene for thinking such things, despite Elayne's shock. She'd be wrong to do it, technically. But you can't blame her for the desire.

The collar sprang open and fell away from Egwene’s throat. With an expression of wonder, Egwene touched her neck.

It's so understated for how wonderful it is.

“I have thought about it a great deal,” Egwene said. “Thinking was all I could do when they left me alone up here. Sul’dam claim they develop an affinity after a few years. Most of them can tell when a woman is channeling whether they’re leashed to her or not. I wasn’t sure, but Seta proves it.”

I never appreciated how clever Egwene was for working out the whole mystery before Seta proved it. Under the circumstances, working out anything makes you one of the great minds of your time.

“I know she is horrible,” Elayne said, “but I feel as if I should help her somehow. She could be one of our sisters, only the Seanchan have twisted it all.”

This foreshadows the fact that Seta will someday be an Aes Sedai and that she'll be going to Seanchan to start untwisting it. Funny ol' wheel, isn't it?

Before anyone else could move, Egwene snatched the pitcher from her washstand and smashed it into Renna’s midriff. The pitcher shattered, and the sul’dam lost all her breath in a gurgling gasp and doubled over.

Violence may not be the answer, but I feel like this is one of those tests where certain wrong answers can still get you partial credit, you know?

“I know,” Nynaeve said gently. She smoothed Egwene’s hair. “It is all right to hate them, Egwene. It is. They deserve it. But it isn’t all right to let them make you like they are.”

Nynaeve is right, though sadly I think the Seanchan have had a more permanent influence on Egwene than we could have hoped.

“Perhaps they do,” Nynaeve said, “and perhaps he would. But men often mistake revenge and killing for justice. They seldom have the stomach for justice.”

Have I said lately that Nynaeve is the best? Because she is.

“Perhaps, if you are very quiet, you will be left alone here long enough to manage to remove the collars. The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills, and it may be that you’ve done enough good to counterbalance the evil you have done, enough that you will be allowed to remove them. If not, you will be found, eventually. And I think whoever finds you will ask a great many questions before they remove those collars. I think perhaps you will learn at first hand the life you have given to other women. That is justice,” she added, to the others.

Renna and Seta don't seem like the sort of people who've done much good at all, but they must have done something nice before this book considering all that does end up happening.

They were still halfway down the street from the women, but they marched with a grim, implacable step, and it seemed to Nynaeve that every eye was fixed on her. That’s ridiculous. I can’t see their eyes inside those helmets, and if anybody had given an alarm, it would be behind us. She stopped anyway.

It is very hard to be rational when your emotions are in full swing, so I don't blame Nynaeve here at all.

“I will not go back,” Egwene said grimly. “I’ll die first. Let me show them what they’ve taught me.” To Nynaeve’s eye, a golden nimbus suddenly seemed to surround her.

Egwene on the other h-

No, of course I'm kidding. I'd say she clearly has PTSD only I'm not sure that "five minutes since the trauma ended" is sufficiently post. It might just be TSD at this point.

With a roar like thunder, the street under the first ranks of Seanchan erupted, dirt and cobblestones and armored men thrown aside like spray from a fountain. Still glowing, Egwene spun to stare up the street, and the thunderous roar was repeated. Dirt rained down on the women.

Say what you will about the Oaths, they really are a blessing for having prevented three thousand years of this crap.

If Domon doesn’t have that ship waiting, I’ll. . . . Light, let us all reach it safely.

Nynaeve very clearly demonstrates her anger to surrender pipeline right here, right after grabbing the Source. As best as I can figure, her block must be about how her personality requires her to work herself up into an insensate state before she can do something as passive as total surrender.

“I did give my word,” Domon said. He wrenched the axe from Cole’s hand and threw it clattering onto the deck. “I did give my word.”

Rather unfortunate that the gals won't be making it then.

With a creak of saddles the long line of white-cloaked men moved slowly toward Falme.

I don't have anything to say about Bornhald's POV (Byar leaving right on schedule means this whole thing coulda been skipped; frankly same with Domon) so lemme just add "Fuck Whitecloaks."

“Close?” Ingtar said. “The Horn of Valere must be saved, Rand.” Despite the Seanchan, despite the lightning and strange explosions down in the town proper, he seemed preoccupied with his own thoughts.

Well, that's Darkfriends for you. Always thinking of themselves when they could be thinking of someone else.

“A pale little man you didn’t seem to really notice even when you were looking at him. Take him inside Fal Dara, I was told, inside the fortress. I did not want to, but I had to do it. You understand? I had to. I never knew what he intended until he shot that arrow. I still don’t know if it was meant for the Amyrlin, or for you.”

Aren't Gray Men delightful? And Ingtar shows he's not as oblivious to everything else going on as Rand might hope.

“It seemed the only way. We would be destroyed for nothing, defending people who do not even know, or care. It seemed logical. Why should we be destroyed for them, when we could make our own peace? Better the Shadow, I thought, than useless oblivion, like Caralain, or Hardan, or. . . . It seemed so logical, then.”

And so Ingtar's logic destroyed him. Really a shame, how similar he is to Ishamael's fall, that he's going so soon and that the narrative won't really touch much on the parallels. Ah well. He's a better man than Ishamael is at least.

“I think. . . . I think wanting to is enough. I think all you have to do is stop being . . . one of them.”

Rand's got a point. People try to obsess about cosmic justice and karma and all that but really all that stuff seems to accomplish is getting people stuck in their ways.

“There has to be a price, Rand. There is always a price. Perhaps I can pay it here.”

Of course, Ingtar's probably right too. The Wheel is a creature of balance above all else.

“The Light shine on you, Lord Ingtar of House Shinowa, and may you shelter in the palm of the Creator’s hand.” He touched Ingtar’s shoulder. “The last embrace of the mother welcome you home.” Hurin gasped.

Hurin, unlike Ingtar, definitely doesn't know anymore than he lets on, which makes thinking about everything that's happened so far from his perspective so much more hilarious. By this point it's a real gonzo plot from his eyes. That's probably why he doesn't stick around.

But yeah. Ingtar can die without regret at least. In a way he's almost lucky, getting to miss everything that's about to go down.