The Dragon Reborn

Water filled the halls from top to bottom, thick and black as the bottom of the sea, choking off breath. He made it air again, unknowingly, and ran on, and suddenly the air gained weight until it seemed every inch of his skin supported a mountain, squeezing in from all directions. In the instant before he was crushed to nothingness he chose tides out of the flood of Power raging through him – he did not know how or which or why; it was too fast for thought or knowing – and the pressure vanished. He pursued Ba'alzamon, and the very air was abruptly solid rock encasing him, then molten stone, then nothing at all to fill his lungs. The ground beneath his boots pulled at him as if every pound suddenly weighed a thousand, then all weight vanished so that a step left him spi

And then he was in the Heart of the Stone again, stalking through the rubbled gap that had been a wall. Some of the columns hung like broken teeth, now. And Ba'alzamon backed away from him, eyes burning, shadow cloaking him. Black lines like steel wires seemed to run off from Ba'alzamon into the darkness mounding around him, vanishing into unimaginable heights and distances within that blackness.

"I will not be undone!" Ba'alzamon cried. His mouth was fire; his shriek echoed among the columns. "I ca

"You are destroyed!" Rand shouted. Callandor spun in his hands. Its light roiled the darkness, severed the steel-black lines around Ba'alzamon, and Ba'alzamon convulsed. As if there were two of him he seemed to dwindle and grow larger at the same time. "You are undone!" Rand plunged the shining blade into Ba'alzamon's chest.

Ba'alzamon screamed, and the fires of his face flared wildly. "Fool!" he howled. "The Great Lord of the Dark can never be defeated!"

Rand pulled Callandor's blade free as Ba'alzamon's body sagged and began to fall, the shadow around him vanishing.

And suddenly Rand was in another Heart of the Stone, surrounded by columns still whole, and fighting men screaming and dying, veiled men and men in breastplates and helmets. Moiraine still lay crumpled at the base of a redstone column. And at Rand's feet lay the body of a man, sprawled on its back with a hole burned through the chest. He might have been a handsome man in his middle years, except that where his eyes and mouth should have been were only pits from which rose tendrils of black smoke.

I have done it, he thought. I have killed Ba'alzamon, killed Shai'tan! I have won the Last Battle! Light, I AM the Dragon Reborn! The breaker of nations, the Breaker of the World. No! I will END the breaking, end the killing! I will MAKE it end!

He raised Callandor above his head. Silver lightning crackled from the blade, jagged streaks arching toward the great dome above. "Stop!" he shouted. The fighting ceased; men stared at him in wonder, over black veils, from beneath the rims of round helmets. "I am Rand al'Thor!" he called, so his voice rang through the chamber. "I am the Dragon Reborn!" Callandor shone in his grasp.One by one, veiled men and helmeted, they knelt to him, crying, "The Dragon is Reborn! The Dragon is Reborn!"

Chapter 56

(Serpent and Wheel)

People of the Dragon

Throughout the city of Tear people woke with the dawn, speaking of the dreams they had had, dreams of the Dragon battling Ba'alzamon in the Heart of the Stone, and when their eyes rose to the great fortress of the Stone, they beheld a ba

"The Dragon!" they shouted. "Al'Thor! The Dragon! Al'Thor!"

Peering through an arrowslit high on the side of the Stone, Mat shook his head as he listened to the chorus rising out of the city in waves. Well, maybe he is. He was still having a hard enough time coming to grips with Rand really being there.

Everyone in the Stone seemed to agree with the people below, or if they did not, they were not letting on. He had seen Rand just once since the night before, striding along a hall with Callandor in his hand, surrounded by a dozen veiled Aiel and trailing a cloud of Tairens, a knot of Defenders of the Stone and most of the few surviving High Lords. The High Lords, at least, seemed to think Rand would need them to help him rule the world; the Aiel kept everyone back with sharp looks, though, and spears if need be. They surely believed Rand was the Dragon, though they called him He Who Comes With the Dawn. There were nearly two hundred Aiel in the Stone. They had lost a third of their numbers in the fight, but they had killed or captured ten times as many Defenders.

As he turned from the arrowslit, his eyes brushed across Rhuarc. There was a tall stand at one end of the room, carved and polished upright wheels of some pale, dark-striped wood with shelves slung between them so all of the shelves would stay flat as the wheels were revolved. Each shelf held a large book, bound in gold, covers set with sparkling gems. The Aiel had one of the books open and was reading. Some sort of essays, Mat thought. Who would have thought an Aiel would read books? Who'd have thought an Aiel could bloody read?

Rhuarc glanced in his direction, all cold blue eyes and level stare. Mat looked away hastily, before the Aiel could read his thoughts on his face. At least he is not veiled, thank the Light! Burn me, that Aviendha nearly took my head off when I asked her if she could do any dances without spears. Bain and Chiad presented another problem. They were certainly pretty and more than friendly, but he could not manage to talk to one without the other. The male Aiel seemed to think his efforts to get one of them alone were fu

The great table in the middle of the room, ornately carved and gilded on edges and thick legs, had been meant for gatherings of the High Lords. Moiraine sat in one of the throne-like chairs, with the Crescent Ba

"I still ca

Mat shook his head. He would have expected Perrin to have been up in the Stone last night; the blacksmith had always been braver than anyone with good sense.

"He was well when I left him." Moiraine's voice was serene. "Whether he still is, I do not know. His... companion is in some considerable danger, and he may have put himself into it, also."

"His companion?" Egwene said sharply. "Wha —? Who is Perrin's companion?"

"What sort of danger?" Nynaeve demanded.

"Nothing that need concern you," the Aes Sedai said calmly. "I will go and see to her as I may, shortly. I have delayed only to show you this, which I found among the ter'angreal and other things of the Power the High Lords collected over the years." She took something from her pouch and laid it on the table before her. It was a disc the size of a man's hand, seemingly made of two teardrops fitted together, one black as pitch, the other white as snow.