Robert Jordan - A Memory of Light

The ground beneath the dragons heaved into the air just a few feet from Uno. He threw his arm up in front of his face, bits of wood and soil flying across him.

“Light help us,” Einar said. “I’m trying to stop him, but he’s in a circle. A full circle. Seventy-two. I’ve never seen such power before! I—”

A bar of white-hot light cut through the broken dragon, vaporizing it and striking Einar. The man was gone in an instant, and Uno scrambled back, cursing. He ducked away as the wreckage of dragons crashed to the ground around him.

Uno yelled for his men to fall back, whipping them into motion, delaying only long enough to grab a wounded man under the arm and help him away. He no longer questioned the order to retreat from the Heights. It was the finest bloody order any man had ever given!

Logain Ablar released the One Power. He stood beside the Mora, below the Heights, and felt the attacks up above.

Releasing the One Power today was one of the most difficult things he’d ever done. More difficult than the decision to name himself Dragon, more difficult than keeping himself from strangling Taim during their early days together in the Black Tower.

The Power drained out of him, as if his veins had been opened and he was bleeding out across the ground. He took a deep breath. Holding that much of the One Power—that of thirty-nine people in a circle—had been intoxicating. Letting go reminded him of his gentling, when the Power had been stolen from him. When every breath had encouraged him to find a knife and slit his own throat.

He suspected this was his madness: the terror that releasing the One Power would cause him to lose it forever.

“Logain?” Androl asked.

Logain turned his head toward the shorter man and his companions. They were loyal. Logain didn’t know why, but they were loyal. The whole lot of them. Fools. Faithful fools.

“Can you feel that?” Androl asked. The others—Canler, Emarin, Jonneth—were staring at the Heights. The Power being released there . . . it was amazing.

“Demandred,” Emarin said. “It must be him.”

Logain nodded slowly. Such power . . . Even one of the Forsaken could not be so strong. He must carry a sa’angreal of immense strength.

With such a tool, his thoughts whispered, no man or woman could ever take the Power from you again.

Taim had done it, during Logain’s imprisonment. Held him captive, shielded, unable to touch the One Power. The attempts to Turn him had been painful, crushing. But being without saidin . . .

Strength, he thought, watching that powerful channeling. The lust to be so strong almost drowned out his hatred of Taim.

“For now, we will not engage him,” Logain said. “Split yourselves into the prearranged teams.” Those would be one woman and five or six men in each team. The woman and two men could form a circle, while the other two offered support. “We will hunt the traitors of the Black Tower.”

Pevara, standing at Androl’s side, raised an eyebrow. “You mean to go hunting Taim already? Didn’t Cauthon want you here to help move men?”

“I’ve made it clear to Cauthon,” Logain said. “I will not spend this battle delivering soldiers around the field. As for orders, we have a directive from the Dragon Reborn himself.”

Rand al’Thor had called them his “last” orders for them, a note delivered with a small angreal of a man holding a sword. The Shadow has stolen the seals of the Dark One’s prison. Find them. If you can, please find them.

During their captivity, Androl had heard what he thought was Taim bragging about the seals. It was their only lead. Logain scanned the distance. Their forces were retreating from the Heights. Logain could not see the array of dragons from where he stood, but the thick lines of smoke did not speak well for their safety.

He still gives orders, Logain thought. Am I inclined to obey them any longer?

For the chance at revenge on Taim? Yes, he would follow Rand al’Thor’s orders. Once he wouldn’t have questioned doing so nearly as much. That had been before his captivity and torture.

“Go,” Logain said to his Asha’man. “You have read what the Lord Dragon wrote. We must recover the seals at all costs. Nothing is more important than this. We must hope that Taim indeed has them. Watch for signs of men channeling, hunt them, kill them.”

It didn’t matter if those men channeling were Sharans. The Asha’man would help this battle by removing enemy channelers anyway. They had discussed the tactic earlier. When they sensed channeling from men, they could use gateway jumps to pinpoint where they were, then try to surprise them and attack.

“If you see one of Taim’s men,” Logain said, “try to capture him so we can pry out of him where Taim has set up his base.” He paused. “If we’re lucky, the M’Hael himself will be here. Be wary that he might be carrying the seals; it would not do to destroy them in our attack. If you see him, return and bring me word of his location.”

Logain’s teams moved off. They left him with Gabrelle, Arel Malevin and Karldin Manfor. It was well that at least some of his more skilled men had been absent from the Tower during Taim’s betrayal.

Gabrelle looked at Logain with level eyes. “What of Toveine?” she asked.

“We will kill her if we find her.”

“It is that simple for you?”

“Yes.”

“She—”

“Would you rather live, Gabrelle, if you were she? Live and serve him?”

She closed her mouth, lips drawn tight. She still feared him; he could sense that. Good.

Was this what you wished for, his mind whispered, when you raised the banner of the Dragon? When you sought to save mankind? Did you do it to be feared? Hated?

He ignored that voice. The only times he had accomplished anything in life had come when he’d been feared. It was the only edge he’d had against Siuan and Leane. The primal Logain, that something deep inside that drove him to keep living, needed people to fear him.

“Can you sense her?” Gabrelle asked.

“I released the bond.”

Her envy was sharp and immediate. It shocked him. He had thought that she was beginning to enjoy, or at least suffer, their place together.

But, of course, it was all an act so that she could try to manipulate him. That was the Aes Sedai way. Yes, he had felt lust from her before, perhaps even affection. He wasn’t certain he could trust what he thought he’d felt from her. It seemed that for all he had tried to be strong and free, his strings had been pulled since he’d been a youngling.

Demandred’s channeling radiated strength. Such power.

A loud boom sounded from the Heights. Logain laughed, throwing his head back. Bodies, like leaves, were thrown off the Heights and into the air.

“Link to me!” he commanded those who remained with him. “Join me in a circle, and let us hunt the M’Hael and his men as well. Light send that I can find him—my table deserves only the finest of meat, the head stag himself!”

And after that . . . Who knew? He had always wanted to test himself against one of the Forsaken. Logain seized the Source again, holding to the thrashings of saidin as if it were a serpent writhing and trying to bite him. He used his angreal to draw more, and then the Power from the others streamed into him. He laughed louder.

Gawyn felt so tired. This week of preparation would normally have rested him, but he felt today as if he’d hiked for tens of leagues.

There was no helping it. He forced his attention toward the gateway in the table in front of him, overlooking the battlefield. “You’re certain they cannot see this?” he asked Yukiri.