Jordan, Robert - Wheel of Time 01- The Eye Of The World

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PROLOGUE
Dragonmount
he palace still shook occasionally as the earth rumbled in memory, groaned as if it would
deny what had happened. Bars of sunlight cast through rents in the walls made motes of
dust glitter where they yet hung in the air. Scorch-marks marred the walls, the floors, the
ceilings. Broad black smears crossed the blistered paints and gilt of once-bright murals, soot
overlaying crumbling friezes of men and animals, which seemed to have attempted to walk
before the madness grew quiet. The dead lay everywhere, men and women and children, struck
down in attempted flight by the lightings that had flashed down every corridor, or seized by the
fires that had stalked them, or sunken into stone of the palace, the stones that had flowed and
sought, almost alive, before stillness came again. In odd counterpoint, colorful tapestries and
paintings, masterworks all, hung undisturbed except where bulging walls had pushed them awry.
Finely carved furnishings, inlaid with ivory and gold, stood untouched except where rippling
floors had toppled them. The mind twisting had struck at the core, ignoring peripheral things.
Lews Therin Telamon wandered the palace, deftly keeping his balance when the earth
heaved. "Ilyena! My love, where are you?" The edge of his pale gray cloak trailed through blood
as he stepped across the body of a woman, her golden-haired beauty marred by the horror of her
last moments, her still-open eyes frozen in disbelief. "Where are you, my wife? Where is
everyone hiding?"
His eyes caught his own reflection in a mirror hanging askew from bubbled marble. His
clothes had been regal once, in gray and scarlet and gold; now the finely-woven cloth, brought
by merchants from across the World Sea, was torn and dirty, thick with the same dust that
covered his hair and skin. For a moment he fingered the symbol on his cloak, a circle half white
and half black, the colors separated by a sinuous line. It meant something, that symbol. But the
embroidered circle could not hold his attention long. He gazed at his own image with as much
wonder. A tall man just into his middle years, handsome once, but now with hair already more
white than brown and a face lined by strain and worry, dark eyes that had seen too much. Lews
Therin began to chuckle, then threw back his head; his laughter echoed down the lifeless halls.
"Ilyena, my love! Come to me, my wife. You must see this."
Behind him the air rippled, shimmered, solidified into a man who looked around, his mouth
twisting briefly with distaste. Not so tall as Lews Therin, he was clothed all in black, save for the
snow-white lace at his throat and the silverwork on the turned-down tops of his thigh-high boots.
He stepped carefully, handling his cloak fastidiously to avoid brushing the dead. The floor
trembled with aftershocks, but his attention was fixed on the man staring into the mirror and.
laughing.
"Lord of the Morning," he said, "I have come for you."
The laughter cut off as if it had never been, and Lews Therin turned, seeming unsurprised.
T
"Ah, a guest. Have you the Voice, stranger? It will soon be time for the Singing, and here all are
welcome to take part. Ilyena, my love, we have a guest. Ilyena, where are you?"
The black-clad man's eyes widened, darted to the body of the golden-haired woman, then
back to Lews Therin. "Shai'tan take you, does the taint already have you so far in its grip?"
"That name. Shai-" Lews Therin shuddered and raised a hand as though to ward off
something. "You mustn't say that name. It is dangerous."
"So you remember that much, at least. Dangerous for you, fool, not for me. What else do you
remember? Remember, you Light-blinded idiot! I will not let it end with you swaddled in
unawareness! Remember!"
For a moment Lews Therin stared at his raised hand, fascinated by the patterns of grime.
Then he wiped his hand on his even dirtier coat and turned his attention back to the other man.
"Who are you? What do you want?"
The black-clad man drew himself up arrogantly. "Once I was called Elan Morin Tedronai,
but now-"
"Betrayer of Hope." It was a whisper from Lews Therin. Memory stirred, but he turned his
head, shying away from it.
"So you do remember some things. Yes, Betrayer of Hope. So have men named me, just as
they named you Dragon, but unlike you I embrace the name. They gave me the name to revile
me, but I will yet make them kneel and worship it. What will you do with your name? After this
day, men will call you Kinslayer. What will you do with that?"
Lews Therin frowned down the ruined hall. "Ilyena should be here to offer a guest welcome,"
he murmured absently, then raised his voice. "Ilyena, where are you?" The floor shook; the
golden-haired woman's body shifted as if in answer to his call: His eyes did not see her.
Elan Morin grimaced. "Look at you," he said scornfully. "Once you stood first among the
Servants. Once you wore the Ring of Tamyrlin, and sat in the High Seat. Once you summoned
the Nine Rods of Dominion. Now look at you! A pitiful, shattered wretch. But it is not enough.
You humbled me in the Hall of Servants. You defeated me at the Gates of Paaran Disen. But I
am the greater, now. I will not let you die without knowing that. When you die, your last thought
will be the full knowledge of your defeat, of how complete and utter it is. If I let you die at all."
"I cannot imagine what is keeping Ilyena. She will give me the rough side of her tongue if
she thinks I have been hiding a guest from her. I hope you enjoy conversation, for she surely
does. Be forewarned. Ilyena will ask you so many questions you may end up telling her
everything you know."
Tossing back his black cloak, Elan Morin flexed his hands. "A pity for you," he mused, "that
one of your Sisters is not here. I was never very skilled at Healing, and I follow a different power
now. But even one of them could only give you a few lucid minutes, if you did not destroy her
first. What I can do will serve as well, for my purposes." His sudden smile was cruel. "But I fear
Shai'tan's healing is different from the sort you know. Be healed, Lews Therin!" He extended his
hands, and the light dimmed as if a shadow had been laid across the sun.
Pain blazed in Lews Therin, and he screamed, a scream that came from his depths, a scream
he could not stop. Fire seared his marrow; acid rushed along his veins. He toppled backwards,
crashing to the marble floor; his head struck the stone and rebounded. His heart pounded, trying
to beat its way out of his chest, and every pulse gushed new flame through him. Helplessly he
convulsed, thrashing, his skull a sphere of purest agony on the point of bursting. His hoarse
screams reverberated through the palace.
Slowly, ever so slowly, the pain receded. The out flowing seemed to take a thousand years
and left him twitching weakly, sucking breath through a raw throat. Another thousand years
seemed to pass before he could manage to heave himself over, muscles like jellyfish, and shakily
push himself up on hands and knees. His eyes fell on the golden-haired woman, and the scream
that was ripped out of him dwarfed every sound he had made before. Tottering, almost falling, he
scrabbled brokenly across the floor to her. It took every bit of his strength to pull her up into his
arms. His hands shook as he smoothed her hair back from her staring face.
"Ilyena! Light help me, Ilyena!" His body curved around hers protectively, his sobs the
full-throated cries of a man who had nothing left to live for. "Ilyena, no! No!"
"You can have her back, Kinslayer. The Great Lord of the Dark can make her live again, if
you will serve him. If you will serve me."
Lews Therin raised his head, and the black-clad man took an involuntary step back from that
gaze. "Ten years, Betrayer," Lews Therin said softly, the soft sound of steel being bared. "Ten
years your foul master has wracked the world. And now this. I will. . . ."
"Ten years!, You pitiful fool! This war has not lasted ten years, but since the beginning of
time. You and I have fought a thousand battles with the turning of the Wheel, a thousand times a
thousand, and we will fight until time dies and the Shadow is triumphant!" He finished in a
shout, with a raised fist, and it was Lews Therin's turn to pull back, breath catching at the glow in
the Betrayer's eyes.
Carefully Lews Therin laid Ilyena down, fingers gently brushing her hair. Tears blurred his
vision as he stood, but his voice was iced iron: "For what else you have done, there can be no
forgiveness, Betrayer, but for Ilyena's death I will destroy you beyond anything your master can
repair. Prepare to-"
"Remember, you fool! Remember your futile attack on Great Lord of the Dark! Remember
his counterstroke!
Remember! Even now the Hundred Companions are tearing the world apart, and every day a
hundred men more join them. What hand slew Ilyena Sunhair, Kinslayer? Not mine. Not mine.
What hand struck down every life that bore a drop of your blood, everyone who loved you,
everyone you loved? Not mine, Kinslayer. Not mine. Remember, and know the price of opposing
Shai'tan!"
Sudden sweat made tracks down Lews Therin's face through the dust and dirt. He
remembered, a cloudy memory like a dream of a dream, but he knew it true.
His howl beat at the walls, the howl of a man who had discovered his soul damned by his
own hand, and he clawed at his face as if to tear away the sight of what he had done. Everywhere
he looked his eyes found the dead. Torn they were, or broken or burned, or half-consumed by
stone. Everywhere lay lifeless faces he knew, faces he loved. Old servants and friends of his
childhood, faithful companions through the long years of battle. And his children. His own sons
and daughters, sprawled like broken dolls, play stilled forever. All slain by his hand. His
children's faces accused him, blank eyes asking why, and his tears were no answer. The
Betrayer's laughter flogged him, drowned out his howls. He could not bear the faces, the pain.
He could not bear to remain any longer. Desperately he reached out to the True Source, to tainted
saidin, and he Traveled.
The land around him was flat and empty. A river flowed nearby, straight and broad, but he
could sense there were no people within a hundred leagues. He was alone, as alone as a man
could be while still alive, yet he could not escape memory. The eyes pursued him through the
endless caverns of his mind. He could not hide from them. His children's eyes. Ilyena's eyes.
Tears glistened on his cheeks as he turned his face to the sky.
"Light, forgive me!" He did not believe it could come, forgiveness. Not for what he had
done. But he shouted to the sky anyway, begged for what he could not believe he could receive.
"Light, forgive me!"
He was still touching saidin, the male half of the power that drove the universe, that turned
the Wheel of Time, and he could feel the oily taint fouling its surface, the taint of the Shadow's
counterstroke, the taint that doomed the world. Because of him. Because in his pride he had
believed that men could match the Creator, could mend what the Creator had made and they had
broken. In his pride he had believed.
He drew on the True Source deeply, and still more deeply, like a man dying of thirst. Quickly
he had drawn more of the One Power than he could channel unaided; his skin felt as if it were
aflame. Straining, he forced himself to draw more, tried to draw it all.
"Light, forgive me! Ilyena!"
The air turned to fire, the fire to light liquefied. The bolt that struck from the heavens would
have seared and blinded any eye that glimpsed it, even for an instant. From the heavens it came,
blazed through Lews Therin Telamon, bored into the bowels of the earth. Stone turned to vapor
at its touch. The earth thrashed and quivered like a living thing in agony. Only a heartbeat did the
shining bar exist, connecting ground and sky, but even after it vanished the earth yet heaved like
the sea in a storm. Molten rock fountained five hundred feet into the air, and the groaning ground
rose, thrusting the burning spray ever upward, ever higher. From north and south, from east and
west, the wind howled in, snapping trees like twigs, shrieking and blowing as if to aid the
growing mountain ever skyward. Ever skyward.
At last the wind died, the earth stilled to trembling mutters. Of Lews Therin Telamon, no
sign remained. Where he had stood a mountain now rose miles into the sky, molten lava still
gushing from its broken peak. The broad, straight river had been pushed into a curve away from
the mountain, and there it split to form a long island in its midst. The shadow of the mountain
almost reached the island; it lay dark across the land like the ominous hand of prophecy. For a
time the dull, protesting rumbles of the earth were the only sound.
On the island, the air shimmered and coalesced. The black-clad man stood staring at the fiery
mountain rising out of the plain. His face twisted in rage and contempt. "You cannot escape so
easily, Dragon. It is not done between us. It will not be done until the end of time."
Then he was gone, and the mountain and the island stood alone. Waiting.
And the Shadow fell upon the Land, and the World was riven stone from stone. The oceans
fled, and the mountains were swallowed up, and the nations were scattered to the eight corners of
the World. The moon was as blood, and the sun was as ashes. The seas boiled, and the living
envied the dead. All was shattered, and all but memory lost, and one memory above all others, of
him who brought the Shadow and the Breaking of the World. And him they named Dragon.
(from Aleth nin Taerin alta Camora
The Breaking of the World.
Author unknown, the Fourth Age)
And it came to pass in those days, as it had come before and would come again, that the Dark
lay heavy on the land and weighed down the hearts of men, and the green things failed, and hope
died. And men cried out to the Creator, saying, O Light of the Heavens, Light of the World, let
the Promised One be born of the mountain, according to the prophecies, as he was in ages past
and will be in ages to come. Let the Prince of the Morning sing to the land that green things will
grow and the valleys give forth lambs. Let the arm of the Lord of the Dawn shelter us from the
Dark, and the great sword of justice defend us. Let the Dragon ride again on the winds of time.
(from Charal Drianaan to Calamon,
The Cycle of the Dragon.
Author unknown, the Fourth Age)
CHAPTER
1
An Empty Road
he Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend.
Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth
comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long
past, a wind rose in the Mountains of Mist. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither
beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning.
Born below the ever cloud-capped peaks that gave the mountains their name, the wind blew
east, out across the Sand Hills, once the shore of a great ocean, before the Breaking of the World.
Down it flailed into the Two Rivers, into the tangled forest called the Westwood, and beat at two
men walking with a cart and horse down the rock-strewn track called the Quarry Road. For all
that spring should have come a good month since, the wind carried an icy chill as if it would
rather bear snow.
Gusts plastered Rand al'Thor's cloak to his back, whipped the earth-colored wool around his
legs, then streamed it out behind him. He wished his coat were heavier, or that he had worn an
extra shirt. Half the time when he tried to tug the cloak back around him it caught on the quiver
swinging at his hip. Trying to hold the cloak one-handed did not do much good anyway; he had
his bow in the other, an arrow nocked and ready to draw.
As a particularly strong blast tugged the cloak out of his hand, he glanced at his father over
the back of the shaggy brown mare. He felt a little foolish about wanting to reassure himself that
Tam was still there, but it was that kind of day. The wind howled when it rose, but aside from
that, quiet lay heavy on the land. The soft creak of the axle sounded loud by comparison. No
birds sang in the forest, no squirrels chittered from a branch. Not that he expected them, really;
not this spring.
Only trees that kept leaf or needle through the winter had any green about them. Snarls of last
year's bramble spread brown webs over stone outcrops under the trees. Nettles numbered most
among the few weeds; the rest were the sorts with sharp burrs or thorns, or stinkweed, which left
a rank smell on the unwary boot that crushed it. Scattered white patches of snow still dotted the
ground where tight clumps of trees kept deep shade. Where sunlight did reach, it held neither
strength nor warmth. The pale sun sat above the trees to the east, but its light was crisply dark, as
if mixed with shadow. It was an awkward morning, made for unpleasant thoughts.
Without thinking he touched the nock of the arrow; it was ready to draw to his cheek in one
smooth movement, the way Tam had taught him. Winter had been bad enough on the farms,
worse than even the oldest folk remembered, but it must have been harsher still in the mountains,
if the number of wolves driven down into the Two Rivers was any guide. Wolves raided the
sheep pens and chewed their way into barns to get the cattle and horses. Bears had been after the
T
sheep, too, where a bear had not been seen in years. It was no longer safe to be out after dark.
Men were the prey as often as sheep, and the sun did not always have to be down.
Tam was taking steady strides on the other side of Bela, using his spear as a walking staff,
ignoring the wind that made his brown cloak flap like a banner. Now and again he touched the
mare's flank lightly, to remind her to keep moving. With his thick chest and broad face, he was a
pillar of reality in that morning, like a stone in the middle of a drifting dream. His sun-roughened
cheeks might be lined and his hair have only a sprinkling of black among the gray, but there was
a solidness to him, as though a flood could wash around him without uprooting his feet. He
stumped down the road now impassively. Wolves and bears were all very well, his manner said,
things that any man who kept sheep must be aware of, but they had best not try to stop Tam
al'Thor getting to Emond's Field.
With a guilty start Rand returned to watching his side of the road, Tam's matter-of-factness
reminding him of his task. He was a head taller than his father, taller than anyone else in the
district, and had little of Tam in him physically, except perhaps for a breadth of shoulder. Gray
eyes and the reddish tinge to his hair came from his mother, so Tam said. She had been an
outlander, and Rand remembered little of her aside from a smiling face, though he did put
flowers on her grave every year, at Bel Tine, in the spring, and at Sunday, in the summer.
Two small casks of Tam's apple brandy rested in the lurching cart, and eight larger barrels of
apple cider, only slightly hard after a winter's curing. Tam delivered the same every year to the
Winespring Inn for use during Bel Tine, and he had declared that it would take more than wolves
or a cold wind to stop him this spring. Even so they had not been to the village for weeks. Not
even Tam traveled much these days. But Tam had given his word about the brandy and cider,
even if he had waited to make delivery until the day before Festival. Keeping his word was
important to Tam. Rand was just glad to get away from the farm, almost as glad as about the
coming of Bel Tine.
As Rand watched his side of the road, the feeling grew in him that he was being watched. For
a while he tried to shrug it off. Nothing moved or made a sound among the trees, except the
wind. But the feeling not only persisted, it grew stronger. The hairs on his arms stirred; his skin
prickled as if it itched on the inside.
He shifted his bow irritably to rub at his arms, and told himself to stop letting fancies take
him. There was nothing in the woods on his side of the road, and Tam would have spoken if
there had been anything on the other. He glanced over his shoulder . . . and blinked. Not more
than twenty spans back down the road a cloaked figure on horseback followed them, horse and
rider alike black, dull and ungleaming.
It was more habit than anything else that kept him walking backward alongside the cart even
while he looked.
The rider's cloak covered him to his boot tops, the cowl tugged well forward so no part of
him showed. Vaguely Rand thought there was some- thing odd about the horseman, but it was
the shadowed opening of the hood that fascinated him. He could see only the vaguest outlines of
a face, but he had the feeling he was looking right into the rider's eyes. And he could not look
away. Queasiness settled in his stomach. There was only shadow to see in the hood, but he felt
hatred as sharply as if he could see a snarling face, hatred for everything that lived. Hatred for
him most of all, for him above all things.
Abruptly a stone caught his heel and he stumbled, breaking his eyes away from the dark
horseman. His bow dropped to the road, and only an outthrust hand grabbing Bela's harness
saved him from falling flat on his back. With a startled snort the mare stopped, twisting her head
to see what had caught her.
Tam frowned over Bela's back at him. "Are you all right, lad?"
"A rider," Rand said breathlessly, pulling himself upright. "A stranger, following us. "
"Where?" The older man lifted his broad-bladed spear and peered back warily.
"There, down the… Rand's words trailed off as he turned to point. The road behind was
empty. Disbelieving, he stared into the forest on both sides of the road. Bare-branched trees
offered no hiding place, but there was not a glimmer of horse or horseman. He met his father's
questioning gaze. "He was there. A man in a black cloak, on a black horse."
"I wouldn't doubt your word, lad, but where has he gone?"
"I don't know. But he was there." He snatched up the fallen bow and arrow, hastily checked
the fletching before renocking, and half drew before letting the bowstring relax. There was
nothing to aim at. "He was."
Tam shook his grizzled head. "If you say so, lad. Come on, then. A horse leaves hoof prints,
even on this ground." He started toward the rear of the cart, his cloak whipping in the wind. "If
we find them, we'll know for a fact he was there. If not . . . well, these are days to make a man
think he's seeing things. "
Abruptly Rand realized what had been odd about the horseman, aside from his being there at
all. The wind that beat at Tam and him had not so much as shifted a fold of that black cloak. His
mouth was suddenly dry. He must have imagined it. His father was right; this was a morning to
prickle a man's imagination. But he did not believe it. Only, how did he tell his father that the
man who had apparently vanished into thin air wore a cloak the wind did not touch?
With a worried frown he peered into the woods around them; it looked different than it ever
had before. Almost since he was old enough to walk, he had run loose in the forest. The ponds
and streams of the Waterwood, beyond the last farms east of Emond's Field, were where he had
learned to swim. He had explored into the Sand Hills-which many in the Two Rivers said was
bad luck-and once he had even gone to the very foot of the Mountains of Mist, him and his
closest friends, Mat Cauthon and Perrin Aybara. That was a lot further afield than most people in
Emond's Field ever went; to them a journey to the next village, up to Watch Hill or down to
Deven Ride, was a big event. Nowhere in all of that had he found a place that made him afraid.
Today, though, the Westwood was not the place he remembered. A man who could disappear so
suddenly could reappear just as suddenly, maybe even right beside them.
"No, father, there's no need." When Tam stopped in surprise, Rand covered his flush by
tugging at the hood of his cloak. "You're probably right. No point looking for what isn't there,
not when we can use the time getting on to the village and out of this wind."
"I could do with a pipe," Tam said slowly, "and a mug of ale where it's warm." Abruptly he
gave a broad grin. "And I expect you're eager to see Egwene.
Rand managed a weak smile. Of all things he might want to think about right then, the
Mayor's daughter was far down the list. He did not need any more confusion. For the past year
she had been making him increasingly jittery whenever they were together. Worse, she did not
even seem to be aware of it. No, he certainly did not want to add Egwene to his thoughts.
He was hoping his father had not noticed he was afraid when Tam said, "Remember the
flame, lad, and the void."
It was an odd thing Tam had taught him. Concentrate on a single flame and feed all your
passions into it - fear, hate, anger - until your mind became empty. Become one with the void,
Tam said, and you could do anything. Nobody else in Emond's Field talked that way. But Tam
won the archery competition at Bel Tine every year with his flame and his void. Rand thought he
摘要：

PROLOGUEDragonmounthepalacestillshookoccasionallyastheearthrumbledinmemory,groanedasifitwoulddenywhathadhappened.Barsofsunlightcastthroughrentsinthewallsmademotesofdustglitterwheretheyyethungintheair.Scorch-marksmarredthewalls,thefloors,theceilings.Broadblacksmearscrossedtheblisteredpaintsandgiltofo...

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