The Dragon Reborn - Robert Jordan, ebook
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//-->Fortress of the Light........................................................................................................................ 3Waiting.......................................................................................................................................... 14Saidin ............................................................................................................................................ 20News from the Plain...................................................................................................................... 28Shadows Sleeping.......................................................................................................................... 34Nightmares Walking...................................................................................................................... 39The Hunt Begins............................................................................................................................ 47The Way Out of the Mountains ..................................................................................................... 56Jarra.............................................................................................................................................. 60Wolf Dreams ................................................................................................................................. 69Secrets ........................................................................................................................................... 74Tar Valon ...................................................................................................................................... 84The Amyrlin Seat........................................................................................................................... 91Punishments .................................................................................................................................. 95The Bite of the Thorns................................................................................................................. 102The Gray Man ............................................................................................................................. 107Hunters Three ............................................................................................................................. 112The Red Sister ............................................................................................................................. 117Healing........................................................................................................................................ 121Awakening................................................................................................................................... 125Visitations ................................................................................................................................... 130A World of Dreams ..................................................................................................................... 137The Price of The Ring ................................................................................................................. 142Sealed.......................................................................................................................................... 156Scouting and Discoveries............................................................................................................ 161Questions..................................................................................................................................... 169Behind a Lock ............................................................................................................................. 175Tel’aran’rhiod............................................................................................................................. 180A Way Out ................................................................................................................................... 189A Trap To Spring ........................................................................................................................ 194The First Toss ............................................................................................................................. 200The Woman of Tanchico ............................................................................................................. 207The First Ship.............................................................................................................................. 212Within the Weave ........................................................................................................................ 221A Different Dance ....................................................................................................................... 228The Falcon .................................................................................................................................. 235Daughter of the Night ................................................................................................................. 240Fires in Cairhien......................................................................................................................... 248Maidens of the Spear .................................................................................................................. 254Threads in the Pattern ................................................................................................................ 260A Hero in the Night ..................................................................................................................... 272A Hunter’s Oath.......................................................................................................................... 281Easing the Badger....................................................................................................................... 286Shadowbrothers .......................................................................................................................... 295Hunted......................................................................................................................................... 300Caemlyn ...................................................................................................................................... 308A Message Out of the Shadow .................................................................................................... 314To Race the Shadow.................................................................................................................... 320Following the Craft..................................................................................................................... 325A Storm in Tear........................................................................................................................... 335The Hammer................................................................................................................................ 346Bait for the Net............................................................................................................................ 355In Search of a Remedy ................................................................................................................ 361A Flow of the Spirit ..................................................................................................................... 366Into the Stone .............................................................................................................................. 371What Is Written in Prophecy....................................................................................................... 382People of the Dragon .................................................................................................................. 394PROLOGUEFortress of the LightPedron Niall’s aged gaze wandered about his private audience chamber, but dark eyes hazedwith thought saw nothing. Tattered wall hangings, once battle banners of the enemies of hisyouth, faded into dark wood paneling laid over stone walls, thick even here in the heart of theFortress of the Light. The single chair in the room - heavy, high-backed, and almost a throne -was as invisible to him as the few scattered tables that completed the furnishings. Even thewhite-cloaked man kneeling with barely restrained eagerness on the great sunburst set in thewide planks of the floor had vanished from Niall’s mind for the moment, though few would havedismissed him so lightly.Jaret Byar had been given time to wash before being brought to Niall, but both his helmetand his breastplate were dulled from travel and battered from use. Dark, deep-set eyes shonewith a feverish, urgent light in a face that seemed to have had every spare scrap of flesh boiledaway. He wore no sword - none was allowed in Niall’s presence - but he seemed poised on theedge of violence, like a hound awaiting the loosing of the leash.Twin fires on long hearths at either end of the room held off the late winter cold. It was aplain, soldier’s room, really, everything well made but nothing extravagant - except for thesunburst. Furnishings came to the audience chamber of the Lord Captain Commander of theChildren of the Light with the man who rose to the office; the flaring sun of coin gold had beenworn smooth by generations of petitioners, replaced and worn smooth again. Gold enough to buyany estate in Amadicia, and the patent of nobility to go with it. For ten years Niall had walkedacross that gold and never thought of it twice, any more than he thought of the sunburstembroidered across the chest of his white tunic. Gold held little interest for Pedron Niall.Eventually his eyes went back to the table next to him, covered with maps and scatteredletters and reports. Three loosely rolled drawings lay among the jumble. He took one upreluctantly. It did not matter which; all depicted the same scene, though by different hands.Niall’s skin was as thin as scraped parchment, drawn tight by age over a body that seemed allbone and sinew, but there was nothing of frailty about him. No man held Niall’s office before hishair was white, nor did any man softer than the stones of the Dome of Truth. Still, he wassuddenly aware of the tendon-ridged back of the hand holding the drawing, aware of the need forhaste. Time was growing short. Hit time was growing short. It had to be enough. He had to makeit enough.He made himself unroll the thick parchment halfway, just enough to see the face thatinterested him. The chalks were a little smudged from travel in saddlebags, but the face wasclear. A gray-eyed youth with reddish hair. He looked tall, but it was hard to say for certain.Aside from the hair and the eyes, he could have been set down in any town without excitingcomment.“This . . . this boy has proclaimed himself the Dragon Reborn?” Niall muttered.The Dragon. The name made him feel the chills of winter and age. The name borne by LewsTherin Telamon when he doomed every man who could channel the One Power, then or everafter, to insanity and death, himself among them. It was more than three thousand years sinceAes Sedai pride and the War of the Shadow had brought an end to the Age of Legends. Threethousand years, but prophecy and legend helped men remember-the heart of it, at least, if thedetails were gone. Lews Therin Kinslayer. The man who had begun the Breaking of the World,when madmen who could tap the power that drove the universe leveled mountains and sankancient lands beneath the seas, when the whole face of the earth had been changed and all whosurvived fled like beasts before a wildfire. It had not ended until the last male Aes Sedai laydead, and a scattered human race could begin trying to rebuild from the rubble - where evenrubble remained. It was burned into memory by the stories mothers told children. And prophecysaid the Dragon would be born again.Niall had not really meant it for a question, but Byar took it for one. “Yes, my Lord CaptainCommander, he has. It is a worse madness than any false Dragon I’ve ever heard of. Thousandshave declared for him already. Tarabon and Arad Doman are in civil war, as well as at war witheach other. There is fighting all across Almoth Plain and Toman Head, Taraboner againstDomani against Darkfriends crying for the Dragon - or there was fighting until winter chilledmost of it. I’ve never seen it spread so quickly, my Lord Captain Commander. Like throwing alantern into a hay barn. The snow may have damped it down, but come spring, the flames willburst out hotter than before.”Niall cut him off with a raised finger. Twice already Niall had let him tell his story through,his voice burning with anger and hate. Parts of it Niall knew from other sources, and in someareas he knew more than Byar, but each time he heard it, it goaded him anew. “GeoframBornhald and a thousand of the Children dead. And Aes Sedai did it. You have no doubts, ChildByar?”“None, my Lord Captain Commander. After a skirmish on the way to Falme, I saw two of theTar Valon witches. They cost us more than fifty dead before we stuck them full of arrows.”“You are sure - sure they were Aes Sedai?”“The ground erupted under our feet.” Byar’s voice was firm and full of belief. He had littleimagination, did Jaret Byar; death was part of a soldier’s life, however it came. “Lightningsstruck our ranks out of a clear sky. My Lord Captain Commander, what else could they havebeen?”Niall nodded grimly. There had been no male Aes Sedai since the Breaking of the World, butthe women who still claimed that title were bad enough. They prated of their Three Oaths: tospeak no word that was not true, to make no weapon for one man to kill another, to use the OnePower as a weapon only against Darkfriends or Shadowspawn. But now they had showed thoseoaths for the lies they were. He had always known no one could want the power they wieldedexcept to challenge the Creator, and that meant to serve the Dark One.“And you know nothing of those who took Falme and killed half of one of my legions?”“Lord Captain Bornhald said they called themselves Seanchan, my Lord CaptainCommander,” Byar said stolidly. “He said they were Darkfriends.And his charge broke them, even if they killed him.” His voice gained intensity. “There weremany refugees from the city. Everyone I spoke to agreed the strangers had broken and fled. LordCaptain Bornhald did that.”Niall sighed softly. They were almost the same words Byar had used the first two times aboutthe army that had seemingly come out of nowhere to take Falme.A good soldier,Niall thought,so Geofram Bornhald always said, but not a man to think for himself.“My Lord Captain Commander,” Byar said suddenly, “Lord Captain Bornhalddidcommandme to stand aside from the battle. I was to watch, and report to you. And tell his son, Lord Dain,how he died.”“Yes, yes,” Niall said impatiently. For a moment he studied Byar’s hollow-cheeked face,then added, “No one doubts your honesty or courage. It is exactly the sort of thing Geofram
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