The Gathering Storm (The Wheel of Time #12)

The Gathering Storm (The Wheel of Time #12) Page 54

"Well, no," Min said. "Of course not. But we can't let the troubles in the world destroy us. Cadsuane says that—"

"Wait," he snapped, twisting around so that he was facing her. She knelt on the bed, short dark hair curling down beneath her chin. She looked shocked by his tone.

"What does Cadsuane have to do with this?" he asked.

Min frowned. "Nothing."

"She's been telling you what to say," Rand said. "She's been using you to get to me!"

"Don't be an idiot," Min said.

"What has she said about me?"

Min shrugged. "She worries about how harsh you've become. Rand, what is this?"

"She's trying to get to me, manipulate me," he said. "She's using you. What have you told her, Min?"

Min pinched him again sharply. "I don't like that tone, looby. I thought Cadsuane was your counselor. Why should I need to watch what I say around her?"

The serving woman continued to clink dishes. Why couldn't she just leave! This wasn't the kind of discussion he wanted to have in front of strangers.

Min couldn't be working with Cadsuane, could she? Rand didn't trust Cadsuane by any measure. If she'd gotten to Min. . . .

Rand felt his heart twist. He wasn't suspicious of Min, was he? She'd always been the one he could look to for honesty, the one who played no games with him. What would he do if he lost her? Burn me! he thought. She's right. I've grown too harsh. What will become of me if I begin to grow suspicious of those that I know love me? I'll be no better than mad Lews Therin.

"Min," he said, softening his voice. "Maybe you're right. Perhaps I've gone too far."

She turned to look at him, relaxing. Then she stiffened, eyes widening in shock.

Something cold clicked around Rand's neck.

Rand immediately raised his hand to his neck, spinning. The serving woman stood behind him, but her form was shimmering. She vanished and was replaced by a woman with dark skin and black eyes, her sharp face triumphant. Semirhage.

Rand's hand touched metal. Too-cold metal that felt like ice, pressed against his skin. In a rage, he tried to pull free his sword from its black, dragon-painted sheath, but found that he could not do so. His legs strained as if against some incredible weight. He scratched at the collar—his fingers could still move—but the metal seemed to be a single solid piece.

At that moment, Rand felt terror. He met Semirhage's eyes anyway, and she smiled deeply. "I've been waiting for quite a long time to get a Domination Band on you, Lews Therin. Odd, how circumstances occur, isn't—"

Something flashed in the air, and Semirhage barely had time to cry out before something deflected the blade just barely—a weave of Air, Rand could only assume, though he could not see weaves made from saidar. Still, Min's knife had left a gash on the side of Semirhage's face before passing by and burying itself in the wood of the door.

"Guards!" Min cried. "Maidens, to arms! The Car'a'carn is in danger!"

Semirhage cursed, waving a hand, and Min cut off. Rand twisted anxiously, trying—and failing—to seize saidin. Something blocked him. Min was tossed off the bed by weaves of Air, her mouth locked shut. Rand tried to run to her, but again found that he could not. His legs simply refused to move.

At that moment, the door to his room opened. Another women entered with a hurried step. She glanced out of the doorway, as if watching for something, then closed it behind her. Elza. Rand felt a surge of hope, but then the small woman joined Semirhage, taking up the other bracelet that controlled the a'dam around Rand's neck. She looked up at Rand, her eyes red, looking dazed—as if something had hit her soundly on the head. However, when she saw him kneeling, she smiled. "And so you finally come to your destiny, Rand al'Thor. You will face the Great Lord. And you will lose."

Elza. Elza was Black, burn her! Rand's skin prickled as he felt her embrace saidar, standing beside her mistress. They both confronted him, each one wearing a bracelet, and Semirhage looked supremely confident.

Rand growled, turning to Semirhage. He would not be trapped like this!

The Forsaken touched the bleeding gash on her cheek, then tsked to herself. She wore a drab brown dress. How had she escaped captivity? And where had she gotten this cursed collar? Rand had given that to Cadsuane for safekeeping. She had vowed that it would be safe!

"No guards will come, Lews Therin," Semirhage said absently, holding up her braceleted hand; the bracelet matched the collar on his neck. "I've warded the room against listeners. You will find that you cannot so much as move unless I allow it. You've tried already, and you must see how futile it is."

Desperate, Rand reached for saidin again, but found nothing. In his head, Lews Therin began to snarl and weep, and Rand felt almost as if he would join the man. Min! He had to get to her. He had to be strong enough!

He forced himself toward Semirhage and Elza, but it was as if he were trying to move someone else's legs. He was trapped in his own head, like Lews Therin. He opened his mouth to curse, but nothing came out beyond a croak.

"Yes,' Semirhage said, "you cannot speak without permission either. And I would suggest that you not reach for saidin again. You will find the experience unpleasant. When I tested the Domination Band before, I found it to be a far more elegant tool than those Seanchan a'dam. Their a'dam allow some small measure of freedom, relying on nausea as an inhibitor. The Domination Band demands far more obedience. You will act exactly as I desire. For instance. ..."

Rand stood up off the bed, his legs moving against his will. Then, his own hand whipped up and began to squeeze his throat just above the neck band. He gasped, stumbling. Frantic, he reached again for saidin.

He found pain. It was as if he'd reached into a burning vat of oil, then drawn the fiery liquid into his own veins. He screamed in shock and agony, collapsing to the wooden floor. The pain made him writhe, his vision growing black.

"You see." Semirhage's voice sounded distant. "Ah, I had forgotten how satisfying that is."

The pain was like a million ants burrowing through his skin and down to the bone. He twisted, muscles spasming.

We're in the box again! Lews Therin cried.

And suddenly, he was. He could see it, the black confines, crushing him. His body sore from repeated beatings, his mind frantic to remain sane. Lews Therin had been his only companion. It was one of the first times

Rand could remember communicating with the madman; Lews Therin had started to respond to him only shortly before that day.

Rand hadn't been willing to see Lews Therin as part of himself. The mad part of himself, the part that could deal with the torture, if only because it was already so tortured. More pain and suffering was meaningless. You could not fill a cup that had already begun to overflow.

He stopped screaming. The pain was still there, it made his eyes water, but the screams would not come. All fell still.

Semirhage looked down at him, frowning, blood dripping from her chin. Another wave of pain washed across him. Whoever he was.

He stared up at her. Silent.

"What are you doing?" she said, compelling him. "Speak."

"No more can be done to me," he whispered.

Another wave of pain. It shocked him, and something inside of him whimpered, but he gave no outward reaction. Not because he held the screams in, but because he couldn't feel anything. The box, the two wounds in his side corrupting his own blood, beatings, humiliation, sorrows and his own suicide. Killing himself. He could suddenly and starkly remember that. After all of these things, what more could Semirhage do to him?

"Great Mistress," Elza said, turning to Semirhage, eyes still seeming faintly dazed by something. "Perhaps now we should—"

"Quiet, worm," Semirhage spat at her, wiping the blood from her chin. She looked at it. "That's twice now those knives have tasted my blood." She shook her head, then turned and smiled at Rand. "You say nothing more can be done to you? You forget, Lews Therin, to whom you speak. Pain is my specialty, and you are still little more than a boy. I've broken men ten times as strong as you. Stand."

He did. The pain had not gone away. She obviously intended to keep using it against him until she got a reaction.

He turned around, obeying her wordless command, and found Min hanging above the floor, tied by invisible ropes of Air. Her eyes were wild with fear, her arms bound behind her back, her mouth blocked by a woven Air gag.

Semirhage chuckled. "There is nothing more that I can do, you say?"

Rand seized saidin—not of his choice, but of hers. The roar of power slammed into him, bringing with it the strange nausea that he'd never been able to explain. He fell to his hand and knees, emptying his stomach with a groan as the room shook and spun around him.

"How odd," he heard Semirhage say, as if distant. He shook his head, still holding the One Power—wrestling with it as he always had to with saidin, forcing that powerful, twisting flow of energy to his will. It was like chaining a tempest of wind, and was difficult even when he was strong and healthy. Now it was nearly impossible.

Use it, Lews Therin whispered. Kill her while we can!

I will not kill a woman, Rand thought stubbornly, a figment of a memory from the back of his mind. That is the line I will not cross. . . .

Lews Therin roared, trying to take saidin from Rand, but without success. In fact, Rand found that he couldn't channel willfully any more than he could step without Semirhage's permission.

He righted himself by her command, the room growing more steady, the nausea retreating. And then he began to form weaves, complicated ones of Spirit and Fire.

"Yes," Semirhage said, almost to herself. "Now, if I can remember. . . . The male way of doing this is so odd, sometimes."

Rand made the weaves, then pushed them toward Min. "No!" he screamed as he did so. "Not that!"

"Ah, so you see," Semirhage said. "You weren't so difficult to break after all."

The weaves touched Min and she writhed in pain. Rand continued to channel, tears springing to his eyes as he was forced to send the complex weaves through her body. They brought agony only, but they did it very well. Semirhage must have released Min's gag, for she began to scream, weeping.

"Please, Rand!" she begged. "Please!"

Rand roared in anger, trying to stop, unable to. He could feel Min's pain through the bond, feel it as he caused it.

"Stop this!" he bellowed.

"Beg," Semirhage said.

"Please," he said, weeping. "Please, I beg you."

Suddenly, he stopped, the torturing weaves unraveling. Min hung in the air, whimpering, eyes dazed from the shock of pain. Rand turned around, facing Semirhage and the smaller figure of Elza beside her. The Black looked terrified, as if she'd gotten herself into something she hadn't been prepared for.

"Now," the Forsaken said, "you see that you have always been intended to serve the Great Lord. We will leave this room and will deal with those so-called Aes Sedai who imprisoned me. We will travel to

Shayol Ghul and present you to the Great Lord, and then this can all be finished."

He bowed his head. There had to be a way out! He imagined her using him to tear through the ranks of his own men. He imagined them afraid to attack, lest they harm him. He saw the blood, death and destruction he would cause. And it chilled him, turned him to ice inside.

They have won.

Semirhage glanced at the door, then turned back to him and smiled. "But I'm afraid we must deal with her first. Let us be about it, then."

Rand turned and began to walk toward Min. "No!" he said. "You promised if I begged—"

"I promised nothing," Semirhage said with a laugh. "You begged quite prettily, Lews Therin, but I have chosen to ignore your pleas. You can release saidin, however. This needs to be somewhat more personal."

Saidin winked away, and Rand felt the withdrawal of power with regret. The world seemed more dull around him. He stepped up to Min, her pleading eyes meeting his. Then he pressed his hand to her throat, gripping it, and began to squeeze.

"No. . . ." he whispered in horror as his hand, against his will, cut off her air. Min stumbled, and he unwillingly forced her down to the ground, easily ignoring her struggles. He loomed above her, pressing his hand against her throat, gripping it and choking her. She looked at him, eyes beginning to bulge.

This can't be happening.

Semirhage laughed.

Hyena! Lews Therin wailed. Oh, Light! I've killed her!

Rand squeezed harder, leaning down for leverage, his fingers squeezing Min's skin and pushing down on her throat. It was as if he gripped his own heart, and the world became black around him, everything darkened except for Min. He could feel her pulse throbbing beneath his fingers.

Those beautiful dark eyes of hers watched him, loving him even as he killed her.

This can't be happening!

I've killed her!

I'm mad!

Hyena!

There had to be a way out! Had to be! Rand wanted to close his eyes,

but he couldn't. She wouldn't let him—not Semirhage, but Min. She held his eyes with her own, tears lining her cheeks, dark, curled hair disheveled. So beautiful.

He scrambled for saidin, but could not take it. He tried with every bit of will he had to relax his fingers, but they just continued to squeeze. He felt horror, he felt her pain. Min's face grew purple, her eyes fluttered.

Rand wailed. THIS CAN'T BE HAPPENING/ I WILL NOT DO THIS AGAIN/

Something snapped inside of him. He grew cold; then that coldness vanished, and he could feel nothi