Rand took a deep breath, then rubbed the stump of his left arm. “Let’s go.”
“Are you certain you don’t want to bring more people?” Min asked.
“Yes,” Rand said. “Cadsuane, be ready to open a gateway and get us out if needed.”
“We’re going into Far Madding, boy,” Cadsuane said. “Surely you haven’t forgotten that we are prevented from touching the Source while there.”
Rand smiled. “And you’re wearing a full paralis-net in your hair, which includes a Well. I’m certain you keep it full, and that should be enough to create a single gateway.”
Cadsuane’s face grew expressionless. “I’ve never heard of a paralis-net.”
“Cadsuane Sedai,” Rand said softly. “Your net has a few ornaments I don’t recognize—I suspect it is a Breaking-era creation. But I was there when the first ones were designed, and I wore the original male version.”
The room fell still.
“Well, boy,” Cadsuane finally said. “You—”
“Are you ever going to give up that affectation, Cadsuane Sedai?” Rand asked. “Calling me boy? I no longer mind, though it does feel odd. I was four hundred years old on the day I died during the Age of Legends. I suspect that would make you my junior by several decades at the least. I show you respect. Perhaps it would be appropriate for you to return it. If you wish, you may call me Rand Sedai. I am, so far as I know, the only male Aes Sedai still alive who was properly raised but who never turned to the Shadow.”
Cadsuane paled visibly.
Rand’s smile turned kindly. “You wished to come in and dance with the Dragon Reborn, Cadsuane. I am what I need to be. Be comforted—you face the Forsaken, but have one as ancient as they at your side.” He turned away from her, eyes growing distant. “Now, if only great age really were an indication of great wisdom. As easy to wish that the Dark One would simply let us be.”
He took Min by the arm, and together they walked through Narishma’s gateway. Beyond, a small cluster of Maidens waited inside a wooded clearing, guarding a group of horses. Min climbed into her saddle, noting how reserved Cadsuane looked. As well she should. When Rand spoke like that, it troubled Min more than she wanted to admit.
They rode out of the small thicket, down toward Far Madding, an impressive city set on an island in the middle of a lake. A large army—flying hundreds of banners—spread out around the lake.
“It’s always been a city of importance, you know,” Rand said from beside Min, his eyes distant. “The Guardians are newer, but the city was here long ago. Aren Deshar, Aren Mador, Far Madding. Always a thorn in our side, Aren Deshar was. The enclave of the Incastar—those afraid of progress, afraid of wonder. Turns out they had a right to be afraid. How I wish I had listened to Gilgame…”
“Rand?” Min said softly.
It drew him out of his reverie. “Yes?”
“Is it really as you said? Are you four centuries old?”
“I’m nearly four and a half, I suppose. Do my years in this Age add to those I had before?” He looked at her. “You’re worried, aren’t you? That I’m no longer me, the man you knew, the foolish sheepherder?”
“You’ve got all of this in your mind, so much past.”
“Memories, only,” Rand said.
“But you’re him, too. You talk like you were the one who tried to seal the Bore. Like you knew the Forsaken personally.”
Rand rode in silence for a time. “I suppose I am him. But Min, what you’re missing is this: I may be him now, but he was always me as well. I was always him. I’m not going to change just because I remember—I was the same. I’m me. And I always have been me.”
“Lews Therin was mad.”
“At the end,” Rand said. “And yes, he made mistakes. I made mistakes. I grew arrogant, desperate. But there’s a difference this time. A great one.”
“What difference?”
He smiled. “This time, I was raised better.”
Min found herself smiling as well.
“You know me, Min. Well, I promise you, I feel more like myself now than I have in months. I feel more like myself than I ever did as Lews Therin, if that makes any kind of sense. It’s because of Tam, because of the people around me. You, Perrin, Nynaeve, Mat, Aviendha, Elayne, Moiraine. He tried very hard to break me. I think if I’d been the same as I was so long ago, he would have succeeded.”
They rode across the meadow surrounding Far Madding. As everywhere else, the green here had departed, leaving yellow and brown. It was getting worse and worse.
Pretend that it slumbers, Min told herself. The land isn’t dead. It’s waiting through the winter. A winter of storms and war.
Narishma hissed softly, riding behind. Min glanced at him. The Asha’man’s face had gone hard. Apparently, they’d passed inside the bubble of the Guardian’s influence. Rand gave no indication he’d noticed. He didn’t seem to be having the trouble with sickness when he channeled any longer, which relieved her. Or was he just covering it?
She turned her mind to the task at hand. The Borderlander armies had never explained why they’d defied custom and logic by marching south to find Rand. They were needed desperately. Rand’s intervention at Maradon had saved what was left of the city, but if that sort of thing was happening all across the border with the Blight….
Twenty soldiers—lances upheld with narrow, blood-red banners flapping from them like streamers—intercepted Rand’s group long before it reached the army. Rand stopped and let them approach.
“Rand al’Thor,” one of the men announced. “We are representatives of the Unity of the Border. We will provide escort.”
Rand nodded, and the procession started forward again, this time with guards.
“They didn’t call you Lord Dragon,” Min whispered to Rand. He nodded thoughtfully. Perhaps the Borderlanders did not believe he was the Dragon Reborn.
“Do not be arrogant here, Rand al’Thor,” Cadsuane said, trotting up to ride beside him. “But do not back down. Most Borderlanders will respond to strength when they see it.”
So. Cadsuane called Rand by name, instead of naming him “boy.” It seemed a victory, and it made Min smile.
“I will have that gateway ready,” Cadsuane continued more softly. “But it will be very small. The Well will only give me enough to make one we’d have to crawl through. We shouldn’t need it. These people will fight for you. They will want to fight for you. Only bumbling foolishness could
