The clearing was browner than he remembered, more leaves crackling under his boots and still fewer on the trees. Some of the pines were completely yellow, and a number of leatherleafs stood dead, gray and bare. But if the clearing had changed, the farm was altered almost beyond recognition.
The farmhouse looked in much better repair with its new thatch, and the barn had certainly been rebuilt entirely; it was much larger than before and did not lean at all. Horses filled a large corral beside the barn, and the pens of cows and sheep had been moved farther away. The goats were penned now as well, and neat rows of coops held the chickens. The forest had been cleared back. Over a dozen long white tents made a row beyond the barn, and nearby stood the frames for two buildings much larger than the farmhouse, where a cluster of women sat outside doing their sewing and watching a score of children roll hoops and toss balls and play with dolls. The biggest change was the students, most in close-fitting high-collared black coats and few sweating. There must have been well over a hundred, of all ages. Rand had had no idea Taim’s recruiting trips had gone this well. The feel of saidin seemed to fill the air. Some men practiced weaves, setting fire to stumps or shattering stones or snaring each other in coils of Air. Others channeled to haul water, the buckets gripped with Air, or to push dung carts from the barn, or stack firewood. Not everyone was channeling. Henre Haslin had a line of bare-chested men under his eye, working the forms with practice swords. With only a fringe of white hair and a bulbous red nose, Haslin sweated more than his students, and doubtless was wishing for his wine, but he watched and corrected as sharply as when he was Master of the Sword for the Queen’s Guards. Saeric, a gray-haired Red Water Goshien with no right hand, had two shirtless rows under his stony eyes. One was kicking as high as their heads, pivot and kick, then pivot and kick with the other foot, over and over; the other punched the air in front of them as fast they could. All in all, it was a far cry from the pitiful handful Rand had seen the last time.
A black-coated man just short of his middle years planted himself in front of Rand. He had a sharp nose and a sneering mouth. “And who are you?” he demanded in a Taraboner accent. “I suppose you have come to the Black Tower to learn, yes? You should have waited in Caemlyn for the wagon to bring you. You could have had another day to enjoy that fine coat.”
“I am Rand al’Thor,” Rand said quietly. Quietly so as not to let out a sudden surge of anger. Civility cost nothing, and if this fool did not decide it was cheap at the price soon. . . .
If anything, the sneer deepened. “So you are him, are you?” He looked Rand up and down insolently. “You do not look so grand to me. I think that I myself could—” A flow of Air solidified just before it clipped him under the ear, and he collapsed in a heap.
“Sometimes we need a hard discipline,” Taim said, coming to stand over the man on the ground. His voice was almost jolly, but his dark tilted eyes stared close to murder at the man he had clubbed. “You cannot tell a man he has the power to make the earth shake, then expect him to walk small.” The Dragons climbing the sleeves of his black coat glittered in the sunlight; thread-of-gold would do for the one, but what could make the blue shine so? Abruptly he raised his voice. “Kisman! Rochaid! Drag Torval away and douse him until he wakes. No Healing, mind you. Maybe an aching head will teach him to mind his tongue.”
Two men in black coats, younger than Rand, came running and bent over Torval, then hesitated, glancing at Taim. After a moment, Rand felt saidin fill them; flows of Air lifted a limp Torval, and the pair trotted away with him floating between them.
I should have killed him long ago, Lews Therin panted. I should have . . . should have. . . . There was a stretching toward the Source.
No, burn you! Rand thought. No, you don’t! You’re only a bloody voice! With a fading wail Lews Therin fled.
Rand took a slow breath. Taim was looking at him, wearing that almost-smile. “You teach them Healing?”
“The little I know, first thing. Even before how not to sweat to death in this weather. A weapon loses its utility if it’s going to be laid up with the first wound. As it is, I have had one kill himself drawing too deeply and three burn themselves out, but no one has died from a sword yet.” He managed to put a good deal of contempt into the word “sword.”
“I see,” Rand said simply. One dead and three burned out. Did Aes Sedai lose that many in the Tower? But then, they went slowly. They could afford to go slowly. “What is this Black Tower the fellow was talking about? I don’t like the sound of it, Taim.” Lews Therin was mumbling and moaning again, just short of making words.
The hawk-nosed man shrugged, studying the farm and the students with a proprietory pride. “A name the students use. You could not go on calling this just ‘the farm.’ They certainly did not feel right about it; they wanted something more. The Black Tower to balance the White Tower.” He tilted his head, looking at Rand almost sideways. “I can suppress it, if you wish. It is easy enough to take a word from men’s lips.”
Rand hesitated. Easy enough to take a word from their lips perhaps, but not from their minds. It did have to be called something. He had not thought of that. Why not the Black Tower? Though looking at the farmhouse and the framing—larger, but only wood—the name did make him smile. “Let it stand.” Maybe the White Tower had begun as humbly. Not that the Black Tower would ever have time to grow into anything to rival the White. That erased his smile, and he looked at the children sadly. He was playing as much as they, pretending there was a chance of building something that might last. “Assemble the students, Taim. I have a few things to say to them.”
He had come expecting to gather them round him, and then seeing their numbers, maybe to speak from the back of the rickety cart that now seemed to have vanished. Taim had a platform for making addresses, though, a plain block of black stone dressed and polished so finely that it shone like a mirror in the sunlight, with two steps cut into the back. It stood in an open area beyond the farmhouse, the ground beaten bare and flat and hard around it. The women and children gathered to one side to watch and listen.
From the block, Rand had a chance to see clues to how far Taim’s recruiting had ranged. Jahar Narishma, whom Taim had pointed out, the young man with the spark, had dark eyes as big as a girl’s, a pale face filled with confidence, and hair in two long braids with silver bells on the ends. Actually, Taim had said he came from Arafel, but Rand recognized a Shienaran’s shaved head and topknot on another man, and two with the transparent veils often worn by men and women alike in Tarabon. There were tilted eyes from Saldaea and pale, short fellows from Cairhien. One old man had a beard oiled and cut to a point in imitation of a Tairen lord, which he assuredly was not with that creased leathery face, and no fewer than three wore beards that left their upper lips bare. He hoped Taim had not roused Sammael’s interest by recruiting into Illian. He had expected mainly younger men, but fresh faces like Eben’s and Fedwin’s were balanced by gray or balding heads, some even more grizzled than Damer. Now that he thought of it, though, there was no mystery, no reason there should not be as many grandfathers wh
