Robert Jordan: The Eye of the World

Her father studied the boys for a moment, pursing his lips, then said, “Well, lads, I know you’ve been working hard.” Mat gave Rand a startled look, and Pen-in shrugged his shoulders uncomfortably. Rand just nodded, but uncertainly. “So I thought it might be time for that story I promised you,” her father finished. Egwene grinned. Her father told the best stories.

Mat straightened up. “I want a story with adventures.” The look he shot at Rand this time was defiant.

“I want Aes Sedai and Warders,” Dav said hurriedly.

“I want Trollocs,” Mat added, “and … and … and a false Dragon!”

Dav opened his mouth, and closed it again without saying anything. He glared at Mat, though. There was no way for him to top a false Dragon, and he knew it.

Egwene’s father chuckled. “I’m no gleeman, lads. I don’t know any stories like that. Tam? Would you like to give it a try?”

Egwene blinked. Why would Rand’s father know stories like that if her father did not? Master al’Thor had been chosen to the Council to speak for the farmers around Emond’s Field, but as far she knew, all he had ever done was farm sheep and tabac like anyone else.

Master al’Thor looked troubled, and Egwene began to hope he did not know any stories like that. -She did not want anyone to show up her father. Of course, she liked Rand’s father, so she did not want him embarrassed, either. He was a sturdy man with gray flecks in his hair, a quiet man, and just about everybody liked him.

Master al’Thor finished shearing his sheep, and as he was brought another, he exchanged smiles with Rand. “As it happens,” he said, “I do know a story something like that. I’ll ten you about the real Dragon, not a false one.”

Master Buie straightened from his half-shorn sheep so fast that the animal nearly got away from him. His eyes narrowed, though they were always pretty narrow. “We’ll have none of that, Tam al’Thor,” he growled in his scratchy voice. “That’s nothing fit for decent ears to hear.”

“Be easy, Cenn,” Egwene’s father said soothingly. “It’s only a story.” But he glanced toward Rand’s father, and plainly he was not quite as certain as he sounded.

“Some stories shouldn’t be told,” Master Buie insisted. “Some stories shouldn’t be known! It isn’t decent, I say. I don’t like it. If they need to hear about wars, give them something about the War of the Hundred Years, or Trolloc Wars. That’ll give them Aes Sedai and Trollocs, if you have to talk about such things. Or the Aiel War.” For a moment, Egwene thought Master al’Thor’s face changed. For an instant he seemed harder. Hard enough to make the merchants’ guards look soft. She was imagining a lot of things, today. She did not usually allow her imagination to run away with her this way.

Master Cole’s eyes popped open. “It’s just a story he’ll be telling them, Cenn. Just a story, man.” His eyes drifted shut again. You could never tell when Master Cole was really napping.

“You never heard, smelled or saw anything you did like, Cenn,” Master al’Dai said. He was Bili’s grandfather, a lean man with wispy white hair, and as old as Master Cole, if not older. He had to walk with a stick most of the time, but his eyes were clear and sharp, and so was his mind. He was almost as quick with the wool-shears as Master al’Thor. “My advice to you, Cenn, is chew on your liver in silence and let Tam get on with it.”

Master Buie subsided with a bad grace, muttering under his breath. Scowling at Rand’s father, he bent back to his sheep. Egwene shook her head in surprise. She had often heard Master Buie telling people how important he was on the Council, and how all the other men always listened to him.

The boys moved closer to Master al’Thor and squatted on their heels in a semi-circle. Any story that caused an argument on the Council was sure to be of interest. Master al’Thor carried on with his shearing, but at a slower pace. He would not want to risk cutting the sheep with his attention divided.

“This is just a story,” he said, ignoring Master Buie’s scowls, “because no one knows everything that happened. But it really did happen. You’ve heard of the Age of Legends?”

Some of the boys nodded, doubtfully. Egwene nodded, too, in spite of herself. She had heard grownups say, “Maybe in the Age of Legends,” when they did not believe something had really happened or doubted a thing could be done. It was just another way saying, “When pigs had wings,” though. At least, she had thought it was.

“Three thousand years ago and more, it was,” Rand’s father went on. “Mere were great cities full of buildings taller that the White Tower, and that’s taller than anything but a mountain. Machines that used the One Power carried people across the ground faster than a horse can run, and some say machines carried people through the air, too. There was no sickness anywhere. No hunger. No war. And then the Dark One touched the World.”

The boys jumped, and Elam actually fell over. He scrambled back up, blushing and tying to pretend he had not toppled at all. Egwene held her breath. The Dark One. Maybe it was because she had been thinking about him earlier, but he seemed particularly frightening now. She hoped that Master al’Thor would not actually name him. He wouldn’t name the Dark One, she thought, but that did not stop her being afraid that he might.

Master al’Thor smiled at the boys to soften the shock of what he had said, but he went on. “The Age of Legends hadn’t so much as the memory of war, so they say, but once the Dark One touched the world, they learned fast enough. This wasn’t a war like those you hear about when the merchants come for wool and tabac, between two nations. This war covered the whole world. The War of the Shadow, it came be called. Those who stood for the Lightfaced as many who stood for the Shadow, and besides Darkfriends beyond counting, there were armies of Myrddraal and Trollocs greater than anything the Blight spewed up during the Trolloc Wars. Aes Sedai went over to the Shadow, too. They were called the Forsaken.”

Egwene shivered, and was glad to see some of the boys wrapping their arms around themselves. Mothers used the Forsaken to frighten their children when they were bad. If you keep lying, Semirhage will come and get you. Lanfear waits for children who steal. Egwene was glad her mother did not do that. Wait. The Forsaken had been Aes, Sedai? She hoped Master al’Thor did not say that too freely, or the Women’s Circle would come calling on him. Anyway, some of the Forsaken were men, so he had to be wrong.

“You’ll be expecting me to tell you about the glories of battle, but I won’t.” For a moment, he sounded grim, but only for a moment. “No one knows anything about those battles, except that they were huge. Maybe the Aes Sedai have some records, but if they do, they don’t let anyone see them except other Aes Sedai. You’ve heard about the great battles during Artur Hawkwing’s rise, and during the War of the Hundred Years? A hundred thousand men on each sides?” Eager nods answered him. From Egwene, too, though hers was not eager. All those men trying to kill one another did not excite her the way it did the boys. “Well,” Master al’Thor went on, “those battles would have been counted small in the War of the Shadow. Whole cities were destroyed, razed to the ground. The countryside outside the cities fared as badly. Wherever a battle was fought, it left only devastation and rain behind. The war went on for years and years, all over the world. And slowly the Shadow began to win. The Light was pushed back and back, until it appeared certain the Shadow would conquer everything. Hope faded away like mist in the sun. But the Light had a leader who would never give up, a man called Lews Therin Telamon. The Dragon.”