Page 276 of A Memory of Light (The Wheel of Time 14)

“I deny you,” Rand whispered. “I deny you.”

DENYING THE SUN DOES NOT MAKE IT SET. DENYING ME DOES NOT PREVENT MY VICTORY.

“Come,” Dannil said, towing Rand. “Please. You must save me!”

“End this,” Rand said.

END IT? THERE ARE NO ENDINGS, ADVERSARY. IT IS. I HAVE CREATED IT.

“You imagine it.”

“Please,” Dannil said.

Rand allowed himself to be pulled along toward the dark fortress. “What were you doing out there, Dannil?” Rand demanded. “Why gather wood in the Blight itself? It isn’t safe.”

“It was our punishment,” Dannil whispered. “Those who fail our master are sent out and told to bring back a tree they have cut down with their own hands. If the deathswarms or the twigs don’t get you, the sound of cutting wood draws other things…”

Rand frowned as they stepped onto a road leading to the town and its dark fortress. Yes, this place was familiar. The Quarry Road, Rand thought with surprise. And that ahead… The fortress dominated what had once been the Green at the center of Emond’s Field.

The Blight had consumed the Two Rivers.

The clouds overhead seemed to push down on Rand, and he heard Jori’s screams in his head. He again saw Tam struggling as he was strangled.

It isn’t real.

This was what would happen if Rand failed. So many people depended on him… so many. Some, he had already failed. He had to fight to keep from going over in his head the list of those who had died in his service. Even if he saved others, he had failed to protect these.

It was an attack of a different kind from the one that had tried to destroy his essence. Rand felt it, the Dark One forcing his tendrils into Rand, infecting his mind with worry, doubt, fear.

Dannil led him to the walls of the village where a pair of Myrddraal in unmoving cloaks guarded the gates. They slid forward. “You were sent to gather wood,” one whispered with too-white lips.

“I… I brought this one!” Dannil said, stumbling away. “A gift for our master! He can channel. I found him for you!”

Rand growled, then plunged toward the One Power again, swimming in filth. He reached the trickle of saidin, seizing it.

It was immediately knocked from his grasp. A shield slid between him and the Source.

“It isn’t real,” he whispered as he turned to see who had channeled.

Nynaeve strode through the city gates, dressed in black. “A wilder?” she asked. “Undiscovered? How did he survive this long? You have done well, Dannil. I give you back your life. Do not fail again.”

Dannil wept for joy, then scrambled past Nynaeve into the city.

“It isn’t real,” Rand said as Nynaeve tied him in weaves of Air, then dragged him into the Dark One’s version of Emond’s Field, the two Myrddraal rushing in ahead of her. It was a large city now. The houses had the feel of mice clustered together before a cat, each one of the same, uniform dullness. People scuttled through alleyways, eyes down.

People scattered before Nynaeve, sometimes calling her “mistress.” Others named her Chosen. The two Myrddraal sped through the city, like shadows. When Rand and Nynaeve reached the fortress, a small group had gathered in the courtyard. Twelve people—Rand could sense that the four men in the group held saidin, though he only recognized Damer Flinn from among them. A couple of the women were girls he had known in the Two Rivers.

Thirteen of them. And thirteen Myrddraal, gathering beneath that clouded sky. For the first time since the start of the vision, Rand felt fear. Not this. Anything but this.

What if they Turned him? This wasn’t real, but it was a version of reality. A mirror world, created by the Dark One. What would it do to Rand if they Turned him here? Had he been trapped that easily?

He began to struggle, panicked, against the bonds of Air. It was useless, of course.

“You are an interesting one,” Nynaeve said, turning to him. She didn’t look a day older than when he had left her in the cavern, but there were other differences. She wore her hair in a braid again, but her face was leaner, more… harsh. And those eyes.

The eyes were all wrong.

“How did you survive out there?” she asked him. “How did you go undiscovered so long?”