The approaching group of Aes Sedai broke apart, some remaining below, one limping tiredly up toward the cavern. Cadsuane. There were fewer Aes Sedai here than there had been before; casualties were mounting. Of course, most who had come here had known that death waited for them. This battle was the most desperate, and fighters here were the least likely to survive. Of every ten who had come to Shayol Ghul to fight, only one still stood. Thom knew for a fact that old Rodel Ituralde had sent a farewell letter to his wife before accepting this command. Just as well that he had.

Cadsuane nodded toward Thom, then continued on toward the cavern where Rand was fighting for the fate of the world. As soon as her back was to Thom, he flipped a single knife—his other hand still holding the pipe in his mouth—through the air. It hit the Aes Sedai in the back, right in the middle, severing the spine.

She dropped like a sack of potatoes.

That’s an overused term it is, Thom thought, puffing on his pipe. A sack of potatoes? I'll need a different simile there. Besides, how often do sacks of potatoes drop? Not often. She dropped like . . . like what? Barley spilling from the ripped end of a sack, slumping to the ground in a heap. Yes, that worked better.

As the Aes Sedai hit the ground, her weave faded, revealing another face behind the “Cadsuane” mask she’d been using. He recognized this woman, vaguely. A Domani. What was her name? Jeaine Caide. That was it. She was a pretty one.

Thom shook his head. The walk had been all wrong. Didn’t any of them realize that a person’s walk was as distinctive as the nose on their face? Each woman who tried to slip past him assumed that changing her face and dress—maybe her voice—would be enough to fool him.

He climbed off his perch and grabbed the corpse under the arms, then stuffed it a hollow nearby—there were five bodies in there now, so it was getting crowded. He drew on his pipe and took his cloak off, placing it here so that it covered up the dead hand of the Black sister, which was peeking out.

He checked one more time down the tunnel—though he could not see Moiraine, it comforted him to look. Then he returned to his perch and took out a sheet of paper and his pen. And—to the thunder, the yells, the explosions, and the howl of the wind—he began to compose.

CHAPTER 45

Tendrils of Mist

Dice tumbling in his head, Mat found Grady with Olver and Noal on the Heights. He carried Rand's bloody banner wrapped up in a small bundle, under his arm. Bodies lay scattered around, fallen weapons and pieces of armor, and blood stained the rocks. But the fighting was done here, the place empty of foes.

Noal smiled at Mat from horseback; Olver rode in front of him, clutching the Horn. Olver looked exhausted from Grady’s Healing—the Asha’man stood beside the horse—but also seemed proud as could be at the same time.

Noal. One of the heroes of the Horn. It bloody made sense. Jain Farstrider himself. Well, you wouldn’t find Mat trading places with him. Noal might enjoy it, but Mat wouldn’t dance at another man’s command. Not for immortality itself, no he wouldn’t.

“Grady!” Mat said. “You did a nice job upriver. That water came just when we needed it!”

Grady’s face was ashen, as if he’d seen something he had not wanted to. He nodded. “What . . . What were . . .”

“I’ll explain another time,” Mat said. “Right now, I need a bloody gateway.”

“Where to?” Grady asked.

Mat took a deep breath, pulling up. “Shayol Ghul.” And curse me for a fool.

Grady shook his head. “It can’t happen, Cauthon.”

“You’re too tired?”

“I am tired,” Grady said. “It isn’t that. Something’s happening at Shayol Ghul. Gateways opened there are deflected. The pattern is . . . warped, if that makes any sense. The valley isn’t one location any longer, but many, and a gateway can’t pinpoint it.”

“Grady,” Mat said, “that made about as much sense to me as playing a harp with no fingers.”

“Traveling to Shayol Ghul don’t work, Cauthon,” Grady said with annoyance. “Pick somewhere else.”

“How close can you send me?”

Grady shrugged. “One of the scouting camps a day’s hike out, probably.” A day’s hike out. The tugging pulled at Mat.

“Mat?” Olver said. “I think I need to go with you, don’t I? To the Blight? Won’t the heroes be needed to fight there?”

That was a piece of it. The tugging was insufferable. Bloody ashes, Rand. Leave me alone, you—

Mat stopped himself, a thought occurring to him. Scout camps. “One of those Seanchan patrol camps, you mean?”

“Yes,” Grady said. “They’ve been sending us status reports on the battle up there, now that the gateways are unreliable.”

“Well, don’t just sit there looking stupid,” Mat said. “Get a gateway open! Come on, Olver. We have some more work to do.”

“Ahhhh . . .” Shaisam rolled onto the battlefield at Thakan’dar. So perfect. So pleasurable. His enemies were killing one another. And he . . . he had grown vast.

His mind was in every tendril of mist that rolled down the side of the valley. The souls of Trollocs were . . . well, unsatisfying. Still, simple grain could be filling in plentitude. And Shaisam had consumed quite a number of them.

His drones stumbled down the hillside, cloaked in mists. Trollocs with their skin pocked, as if it had boiled. Dead white eyes. He hardly needed them any longer, as their souls had given him fuel to rebuild himself. His madness had retreated. Mostly. Well, not mostly. Enough.

He walked at the center of the bank of mist. He was not reborn yet, not completely. He would need to find a place to infest, a place where the barriers between worlds was thin. There, he could seep his self into the very stones and embed his awareness into that location. The process would take years, but once it happened, he would become more difficult to kill.

Right now, Shaisam was frail. This mortal form that walked at the center of his mind . . . he was bound to it. Fain, it had been. Padan Fain.

Still, he was vast. Those souls had given rise to much mist, and it—in turn—found others to feed upon. Men fought Shadowspawn before him. All would give him strength.

His drones stumbled onto the battlefield, and immediately, both sides took to fighting them. Shaisam quivered in joy. They did not see. They did not understand. The drones weren’t there to fight.

They were there to distract.

As the battle proceeded, he trailed his essence down in misty tendrils, then began stabbing it through the bodies of fighting men and Trollocs. He took Myrddraal. Converted them. Used them.

Soon, this entire army would be his.

He needed that strength in case his ancient enemy . . . his dear friend decided to attack him.

Those two friends—those two enemies—were occupied with one another. Excellent. Shaisam continued his attack, striking down enemies on both sides and consuming them. Some tried to attack him by running into his mists, his embrace. Of course, that killed them. This was his true self. He had tried to create this mist before, as Fain, but he had not been mature enough.

They could not reach him. No living thing could withstand his mist. Once, it had been a mindless thing. It had not been him. But it had been trapped with him, inside of a seed carried away, and that death—that wonderful death—had been given fertile ground in the flesh of a man.

The three entwined within him. Mist. Man. Master. That wonderful dagger—his physical form carried it now—had grown something delightful and new and ancient all at once.

So, the mist was him, but the mist was also not him. Mindless, but it was his body, and it carried his mind. Wonderfully, with those clouds in the sky he did not have to worry about the sun burning him away.