The Dragon Reborn

Mat seemed to remember seeing others like it. Ancient, like this one, but broken, where this was whole. Three of them, he had seen; not all together, but all in pieces. But that could not be; he remembered that they were made of cuendillar, unbreakable by any power, even the One Power.

"One of the seven seals Lews Therin Kinslayer and the Hundred Companions put on the Dark One's prison when they resealed it," Elayne said, nodding as if confirming her own memory.

"More precisely," Moiraine told her, "a focus point for one of the seals. But in essence, you are correct. During the Breaking of the World they were scattered and hidden for safety; since the Trolloc Wars they have been lost in truth." She sniffed. "I begin to sound like Verin."

Egwene shook her head. "I suppose I should have expected to find that here. Twice before Rand faced Ba'alzamon, and both times at least one of the seals was present."

"And this time unbroken," Nynaeve said. "For the first time, the seal is unbroken. As if that mattered, now."

"You think it does not?" Moiraine's voice was dangerous in its quiet, and the other women frowned at her.

Mat rolled his eyes. They kept talking about unimportant things. He did not much like standing not twenty feet from that disc now that he knew what it was, no matter the value of cuendillar, but... "Your pardon?" he said.

They all turned to stare at him as if he were interrupting something important. Burn me! Break them out of a prison cell, save their lives half a dozen times between them before the night is done, and they glower as hard as the bloody Aes Sedai! Well, they did not thank me then, either, did they? You'd have thought I was sticking my nose in where it wasn't wanted then, too, instead of keeping some bloody Defender from putting a sword through one of them. Aloud, he said mildly, "You do not mind if I ask a question, do you? You have all been talking this Aes Sedai... uh... business, and no one has bothered to tell me anything."

"Mat?" Nynaeve said warningly, tugging her braid, but Moiraine said, in a calm only just touched with impatience, "What is it that you wish to know?"

"I want to know how all of this can be." He meant to keep his tone soft, but despite himself he picked up intensity as he went along. "The Stone of Tear has fallen! The Prophecies said that would never happen till the People of the Dragon came. Does that mean we are the bloody People of the Dragon? You, me, Lan, and a few hundred bloody Aiel?" He had seen the Warder during the night; there had not seemed to be much edge between Lan and the Aiel as to who was the more deadly. As Rhuarc straightened to stare at him, he hastily added, "Uh, sorry, Rhuarc. Slip of the tongue."

"Perhaps," Moiraine said slowly. "I came to stop Be'lal from killing Rand. I did not expect to see the Stone of Tear fall. Perhaps we are. Prophecies are fulfilled as they are meant to be, not as we think they should be."

Be'lal. Mat shivered. He had heard that name last night, and he did not like it any more in daylight. If he had known one of the Forsaken was loose – and inside the Stone – he would never have gone near the place. He glanced at Egwene, and Nynaeve, and Elayne. Well, I'd have come in like a bloody mouse, anyway, not thumping people left and right! Sandar had gone scurrying out of the Stone at daybreak; to take the news to Mother Gue

Rhuarc cleared his throat. "When a man wishes to become a clan chief, he must go to Rhuidean, in the lands of the Je

He pushed back the sleeves of his coat and shirt together to reveal his left forearm, the skin much paler than that of his hands and face. Etched into the skin as if part of it, wrapped twice around, marched the same gold-and-scarlet form as rippled on the ba

The Aiel let his sleeve fall with a sigh. "It is a name not spoken except among the clan chiefs and the Wise Ones. We are..." He cleared his throat again, unable to say it here.

"The Aiel are the People of the Dragon." Moiraine spoke quietly, but she sounded as close to startlement as Mat could remember ever hearing her. "That I did not know."

"Then it really is all done," Mat said, "just as the Prophecies said. We can all go on our way with no more worries." The Amyrlin won't need me to blow that bloody Horn now!

"How can you say that?" Egwene demanded. "Don't you understand the Forsaken are loose?"

"Not to mention the Black Ajah," Nynaeve added grimly. "We took only Amico and Joiya here. Eleven escaped – and I would like to know how! – and the Light alone knows how many others there are we do not know."

"Yes," Elayne said in a tone just as hard. "I may not be up to facing one of the Forsaken, but I mean to take pieces out of Liandrin's hide!"

"Of course," Mat said smoothly. "Of course." Are they crazy? They want to chase after the Black Ajah and the Forsaken? "I only meant the hardest part is done. The Stone has fallen to the People of the Dragon, Rand has Callandor, and Shai'tan is dead." Moiraine's stare was so hard that he thought the Stone shook for a moment.

"Be quiet, you fool!" the Aes Sedai said in a voice like a knife. "Do you want to call his attention to you, naming the Dark One?"

"But he's dead!" Mat protested. "Rand killed him. I saw the body!" And a fine stink that was, too. I never thought anything could rot that fast.

"You saw 'the body,' " Moiraine said with a twist to her mouth. "A man's body. Not the Dark One, Mat."

He looked at Egwene and the other two women; they appeared as confused as he. Rhuarc looked to be thinking of a battle he had thought was won and now learned had not even been fought. "Then who was it?" Mat demanded. "Moiraine, my memory has holes big enough for a wagon and team, but I remember Ba'alzamon being in my dreams. I remember! Burn me, I do not see how I can ever forget! And I recognized what was left of that face."

"You recognized Ba'alzamon," Moiraine said. "Or rather, the man who called himself Ba'alzamon. The Dark One yet lives, imprisoned at Shayol Ghul, and the Shadow yet lies across the Pattern."

"The Light illumine and protect us," Elayne murmured in a faint voice."I thought... I thought the Forsaken were the worst we had to worry about, now."

"Are you sure, Moiraine?" Nynaeve said. "Rand was certain – is certain – that he killed the Dark One. You seem to be saying Ba'alzamon was not the Dark One at all. I don't understand! How can you be so sure? And if he was not the Dark One, who was he?"

"I can be sure for the simplest of reasons, Nynaeve. However fast decay took it, that was a man's body. Can you believe that if the Dark One were killed he would leave a human body? The man Rand killed was a man. Perhaps he was the first of the Forsaken freed, or perhaps he was never entirely bound. We may never know which."

"I... may know who he was." Egwene paused with an uncertain frown. "At least, I may have a clue. Verin showed me a page from an old book that mentioned Ba'alzamon and Ishamael together. It was almost High Chant and very nearly incomprehensible, but I remember something about 'a name hidden behind a name.' Maybe Ba'alzamon was Ishamael."

"Perhaps," Moiraine said. "Perhaps it was Ishamael. But if it was, at least nine of the thirteen still live. Lanfear, and Sammael, and Ravhin, and... Paah! Even knowing that some of those nine at least are free is not the most important thing." She laid a hand atop the black-and-white disc on the table. "Three of the seals are broken. Only four still hold. Only those four seals stand between the Dark One and the world, and it may be that even with those whole he can touch the world after a fashion. Whatever battle we won here – battle or skirmish – it is far from the last."