#twot

PERSPECTIVE: A newly retraumatized Rand and co leave Far Madding, and Cads has arranged for all of them to be blotted from the records, as if they never came or left. Rand retrieves Callandor from where he buried it under an inverted illusion weave, and tells everyone he plans to cleanse the taint, with Nynaeve and the Choedan Kal access keys. Some of the Aes Sedai try to argue, even Lews Therin’s voice in his head protests that they were never tested, but Cads just asks where he plans to do it. He says Shadar Logoth, and opens a gateway near that blighted city.

They all move through, and the Aes Sedai redistribute the available angreal in preparation. Rand and Nyn sit down, and each gets to feel the other's power as they try to figure out how to link. Rand takes control in the end, and starts passing saidin through a conduit of Nyn's saidar, filtering the taint into Shadar Logoth.

PERSPECTIVE: Elza Penfell watches the proceedings start, as Cads comments that the amount of the Power being channeled will be felt at least as far as Tar Valon. The group forms defensive rings around the hilltop.

PERSPECTIVE:

Riding his cart down the snowy road to Tremonsien, Barmellin wondered whether old Maglin at The Nine Rings(1) would pay what he wanted for the plum brandy in the cart behind him. He was not sanguine. She was tight with silver, Maglin was, the brandy was not very good, and this late in the winter, she might be willing to wait until spring to get better. Suddenly he realized that the day seemed very bright. Almost like summer noon instead of a winter morning. Strangest of all, the glow seemed to be coming from the huge pit beside the road where workmen from the City had been digging away until the previous year. There was supposed to be a monstrous statue down there, but he had never been interested enough to actually look for himself. Now, almost against his will, he reined in his stout mare and climbed down into the snow to trudge to the brink of the pit. It was a hundred paces deep and ten times as far across, and he had to put his hands in front of his face against the blinding glare that came from the bottom. Squinting through his fingers, he could make out a glowing ball, like a second sun. Abruptly, it came to him that this must the One Power. With a strangled yell he lumbered back through the snow to his cart and scrambled up, flailing Nisa with the reins to get her moving even as he was trying to jerk her head around to head back to his farm. He was going to stay in his own house and drink that brandy himself. All of it.

PERSPECTIVE:

Strolling lost in thought, Timna barely saw the fallow fields that covered all the hillsides but one around her. Tremalking was a large island, and this far from the sea, the wind carried no hint of salt, yet it was the Atha’an Miere that troubled her. They refused the Water Way, yet Timna was one of the Guides chosen to protect them from themselves, if possible. That was very difficult now, with them all in an uproar over this Coramoor of theirs. Very few remained on the island. Even the Governors, always fretting at being away from the sea as the Atha’an Miere did, had set sail to search for him in any craft they could find. Suddenly the one unplowed hill caught her eye. A great stone hand stuck out of the ground clasping a clear sphere as large as a house. And that sphere was shining like a glorious summer sun.(2) All thoughts of the Atha’an Miere gone, Timna gathered her cloak and sat down on the ground, smiling to think that she might see the fulfillment of prophecy and the end of Illusion.(3)

PERSPECTIVE: Cyndane feels saidar and knows Lews Therin found someone to use the female access key. She's angry: if he hadn't spurned her, she would have faced down the Dark One and the Creator with him. She feels Moridin touching her cour'souvra, and she weaves a gateway to near where Rand is working.

PERSPECTIVE: Cads holds a shield over Rand and Nyn, and lightning starts to strike it. Rand's eyes are glazed over, and she wonders if he knows what's going on around him.

PERSPECTIVE: Rand struggles to keep control, wondering how much longer he can hold on.

PERSPECTIVE: Demandred arrives in Shadar Logoth intent on stopping Rand, and hopefully killing him in the process. He realizes those protecting Rand have a ter'angreal that can locate those who channel in the vicinity, men or women, something his age never managed.(4) Two beautiful women and an old man show up, and the man attacks Demmy, who runs so he can come back somewhere else.

PERSPECTIVE: Cyndane is gatewaying around, hoping to get to Lews Therin first, hoping she can see him die.(5)

PERSPECTIVE: Osan'gar has been masquerading as Corlan Dashiva, but never considered himself to be a soldier. He doesn't want to be here, but Moridin will kill him anyway if he flees, and if Rand succeeds, the Dark One might kill them both.

PERSPECTIVE: Verin sees a woman in a colour-changing dress,(6) that sometimes even seems transparent, who must be Forsaken. Verin uses her small circle's power to try to shield the other woman, and ends up in a fight for their lives as the woman shrugs it off and counterattacks.

PERSPECTIVE: Eben Hopwil and his small circle of Aes Sedai encounter a woman wandering in the woods, holding saidin.(7) He attacks her physically, since he's linked his Power access to Daigian.

PERSPECTIVE: Cyndane sees a woman in the woods,(8) holding saidar. The woman is much stronger than Cyndane was before the Aelfinn and Eelfinn held her, and seems to have an angreal as well. Cyndane fights her, determined to see Lews Therin die.

PERSPECTIVE: Moggy is on a hill not too near the action, and sees a black dome growing over Shadar Logoth. She doesn't care who lives or dies as long as she lives, and she would like to see Graendal or Cyndane gone. She retreats to watch the action.(9)

PERSPECTIVE: Rand is sure that he and Lews Therin are both screaming, but all he can hear is a roar as the Power flows through him.

PERSPECTIVE: Cads asks Min how Rand is doing, and she thinks he's in agony. Nyn looks very weak, after hours of channeling more than the whole White Tower could channel together with every angreal and sa'angreal in their possession, so Cads Heals her.(10)

PERSPECTIVE: Osan'gar can see Narishma holding Callandor, near Rand. If he can kill Rand and take Callandor, he believes he will be named Nae'blis. He starts weaving Balefire.

PERSPECTIVE: Elza regrets fighting the Chosen but hopes the Great Lord will forgive her. She sees Dashiva on a nearby hilltop, casting balefire. Drawing on Callandor through her link with Narishma, she vaporizes the top of the hill, not realizing he's one of the Forsaken himself.(11)

PERSPECTIVE: Moggy feels no more channeling except the access key, and assumes the battle must be over. The black dome is like a mountain two miles high, and she doesn't understand why she's not afraid of it. Suddenly, something writhes up out of it, like a flame if flames could be vantablack, then it collapses in on itself and vanishes.(12) She thinks if she survives this, she'll never be afraid again.

PERSPECTIVE: Cads examines the female access key, melted and broken. The male key is intact in her saddlebags.(13) There's a hole in the forest where Shadar Logoth used to be. Rand and Nyn are unconscious, but alright, and need to recover on their own. Eben and Kumira are dead, and Sarene is in shock, but everyone else is healable, and the surviving Asha'man say that saidin is clean, though Cads wonders if the taint is totally gone. She doesn't want to lose Rand now.(14)

PERSPECTIVE:

Night fell. On the hilltop, the wind blew dust across the fragments of what had once been a ter’angreal. Below lay the tomb of Shadar Logoth, open to give the world hope. And on distant Tremalking, the word began to spread that the Time of Illusions was at an end.

The End of the Ninth Book of The Wheel of Time

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Once again a long stretch of not a lot I have anything to say about. I don't rightly recall the way the Bethamin-Egeanin-Seeker situation resolves but it doesn't feel consequential to the greater picture. I find Egeanin's arc to be a stretch of my suspension of disbelief, but I accept that Egwene accepting a Seanchan Warder is a resolution to her trauma arc and also probably not something RJ had in mind. The whole Last Battle, though… I'll have plenty of feelings closer to when I get there in a couple more years.

The Alivia payoff is such a dud. She helps him die? She literally just hands him some clothes and money after the body swap. Helps him die, fuck off. I almost want to believe there was more planned for it than that, but knowing RJ, it probably wasn't.

I don’t bring up the show much, especially now that it’s been cancelled, but it was such a cruel move for them to make Alanna so fun and charming on screen when her arc was still leading to at least some of this stuff, especially as Rand confronts her about the bond and she ignores him and just keeps demanding to know who bonded him. I just. I need to know if her arc was leading somewhere else, or if it would've been even crueler to have her turn out this way in the end. But I also don't wanna know, not really, so that I can imagine it was headed for something more interesting or compassionate. I dunno. I miss the show so bad. I'm glad we got Rhuidean, I'm SO glad we got Rhuidean, and I will die angry at the failures of marketing and studio priority that led to the cancellation… but I am a little tiny bit glad we don't have to see some of the ickiest bits.

So begins the second coming of the circus plot, as Mat's team escape to Valan Luca's protection. Godspeed to us all having to follow it.

Instead of filling this space with it now and having nothing for next time she comes up, imagine I have a whole rant about Cadsuane here. I'm trying to interpret her from the perspective of her whole arc, if you can call it that, but for some reason she's the kind of "interesting character" on this reread that just makes me really angry to keep reading about. Interesting (derogatory), not to be confused with interesting (dismissive), you know?

PERSPECTIVE: Nyn waits outside the alley for Rand and Lan to return, and sees guards heading for the house they were infiltrating. She's about to cause a distraction when Min, Cads, and Alivia stop her. Min says Rand is hurt and possibly unconscious. Cads tells Nyn off for using her well in the city, as that was likely caught by the protective ter'angreal and caused the guards to come.(1)

PERSPECTIVE: Rand wakes in darkness and pain, in a small cell where nightmares of his time in the White Tower's box haunt him. He recites the names of the women who have died for his sake, to harden himself against the fear.(2)

PERSPECTIVE: Cads brings her whole contingent in to face the Counsels. When they won't release the Dragon into her care, she points out that three of the Warders with them are also Asha'man. She draws on her own well to channel the Aleis's crown off her head and blames the channeling on the Asha'man, claiming there is a flaw in the ter'angreal that protects the city. Aleis gives in. Cads mentally notes the debt Rand is building with what he's making her do to save him, like breaking a good woman's will.(3)

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PERSPECTIVE: Min tries to discourage Rand from going to kill the remaining renegade Asha'man, because it’s obviously a trap. Rand is going, though, and Lan and Nyn are going with him, while Alivia is to stay and watch over Min. A while after they leave, Min and Alivia leave to find Cadsuane. PERSPECTIVE: Rand spots the renegades entering the house. Rand has Nyn use her well ter'angreal(1) to lift him and Lan up to the roof with Air, and they find a trapdoor entrance in, stumbling on the two renegades, dead and bloated. Rand recognizes the work of the ruby-hilted dagger, and Fain almost catches him in the arm with it. Toram Riatin is there as well, and Fain orders him to kill Lan, then uses some kind of ability to distract Rand with an illusion of the recent past, Fain and Riatin coming up the stairs, as cover to attack. Rand defends against the attack, wounding Fain who screams and runs away down the stairs. Rand and Lan escape by the roof trapdoor, but Lan's boot slips and, when Rand tries to catch him, they both slide off the roof into the alley below.(2)

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PERSPECTIVE: Rand visits inns looking for the renegade Asha'man, to no avail, though he hears plenty of rumours. Verin catches him between inns and says the Seanchan are moving toward Illian again. He decides to leave Far Madding tomorrow. Verin suggests that if he can convince Cadsuane to be his advisor, he’ll find none better.(1) His innkeeper passes on a message for him to Min, a note from someone powerful. It gives the location of the remaining renegades, a house on Blue Carp Street, and tells Rand to kill them and leave the city. Nyn reveals that one of the ter'angreal she carries is a well, storing some saidar for use later, and can be accessed even in Far Madding, and another can point to anyone channeling nearby, and should work for saidin or saidar.(2)

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