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By Linda
Perrin POV
In Tel’aran’rhiod, the wind blows hard in natural patterns, but Perrin finds it easy to impose calm on a limited area, due to his skill and also his devotion to rightness and the natural order of things. Reality in the dream looks worn and the Land is coming apart. This is a step beyond what Moridin described to Rand earlier in the book:
"It dies, and the dust soon will rule. The dust . . . then nothing."Moridin saw the end as a winding down of a universe crushed by entropy rather than a big crunch:
A Memory of Light, Advantages To a Bond
”The end is near,” Moridin said. “The Wheel has groaned its final rotation, the clock has lost its spring, the serpent heaves its final gasps.”The storm is no longer gathering: it has arrived and is eroding the Land in Tel’aran’rhiod. It is worse where Rand is, reflecting the conflict between Rand and the Dark One and Rand’s arrival near Shayol Ghul. Fragments of land are sucked up by the wind and pulled toward the black clouds. The winds herald oncoming destruction. This is part of the “hills take flight” motif in the Lord of Chaos rhyme:
The Gathering Storm, Prologue
The lions sing and the hills take flight.Rand becomes Lord of Chaos as he fights the Dark One. It is the Dark One’s aim to make him the Lord of Misrule so that he has trouble garnering support, but the Pattern accounts for this by making Rand’s chaotic actions resulting in unexpected counters to the Shadow’s plan. Perrin sees that sometimes the land comes back together again—resists the pressure of destruction.
The moon by day and the sun by night.
Blind woman, deaf man, jackdaw fool.
Let the Lord of Chaos rule.
Lord of Chaos Prologue
Gaul’s strong will, identity and focus keeps him steady in Tel’aran’rhiod. Perrin asks him what he did to deserve Gaul’s loyalty. First was freeing him, which made Gaul follow Perrin because the Aielman had toh. He continued to follow not from what Perrin did, but what he is: ta’veren, strong, wise, an honourable fighter against. Gaul was always impressed with Perrin’s fighting ability and physical and mental strength and has assigned himself the task of supporting him. He won’t explain this to Perrin and deliberately changes the subject.
Gaul has to choose whether to marry two women– one who doesn’t love him and one who does—or no marriage. Mirrors Perrin who had to “choose” between Faile and Berelain, though that was an easy choice, and will again between Faile and Lanfear.
Lanfear surprises Perrin by appearing beside him—like a lamia or succubus apparition. A lamia is a beautiful woman from the waist up and a serpent from the waist down, who kills children, seduces sleeping men, and enchants her victims with glamour and illusion. A succubus is a female demon who takes on a human female form to seduce men in their dreams. Lanfear—or Cyndane, as we should call her, because Moridin is strict with names—is not wearing Moridin’s colours, but her own. When she learns the wolves’ name for her, she denies hunting the moon because it is hers already. The name 'Moonhunter' is derogatory as well as accurate—Lanfear is arrogant and deluded.
The Forsaken declares that she wants vengeance on somebody, this obviously being Rand, whom she blames for her predicament (and perhaps Moiraine, in passing, also). Moridin indicated this earlier:
"Mierin hates you now, anyway," Moridin continued. "I think she blames you for what happened to her.”The two scenes are linked. Lanfear can sense when Moridin is wondering where she is and quickly flits back to a more acceptable activity.
A Memory of Light, Advantages to a Bond
Perrin says Lanfear has never made any sense to him. He remembers that the wolves said she wants him. He doesn’t know what for, and neither do we. Not yet.
Androl POV
Turned, Toveine has flung aside her reservations about Logain to be openly affectionate. Logain is crucial to either side due to his influence and strength. His resistance and devotion to the Light is very impressive; he has resisted eleven or so attempts to Turn him. Only this time does he scream in agony.
The Black Asha’man are exhausted trying to Turn Logain and his faction. All Reds except Pevara have also been Turned. Graendal—Hessalam, now—is in charge of the Black sisters. She is dressed in black, which she has never worn on screen before. The eleventh attempt at Turning Logain is underway, and with plenty of women, the procedure is close to succeeding, judging by his screams. Truly the eleventh hour, the last chance to save him; a twelfth attempt (symbolic number!) will probably be successful. Women Turn men easily and men women, as with Healing stilling. It is evidence of the necessary balance between the sexes and between saidin and saidar.
Evin still kind and well-meaning to Androl, and persuaded Taim not to kill him. Evin still has anxiety from before his turning, as well as paranoia from taint. Androl plays on it to break free.
The doses of forkroot have been stopped for Androl, because they are going to Turn him soon and also because he is considered negligible, particularly with the dreamspike preventing his only major Talent from working. Which is why he is triumphant when he uses Evin’s paranoia from the taint to make him strike at Abors, who is holding Androl’s shield; using the Shadow’s weapons against them. Later in the chapter he does the same with their weaves. Impressively, he is able to open a tiny gateway under extreme duress despite the dreamspike being still in place. This could well be something the Forsaken consider impossible.
Taim reveals that he has the Seals but hasn’t handed them to the Dark One yet:
"I have already provided a gift to the Great Lord himself. Beware, I am in his favor. I hold the keys in my hands, Hessalam."Taim uses similar tactics to those of Sammael, and she backed off from him also. Androl doesn’t know what Taim is referring to, but he can see that Hessalam does. He doesn’t know who she really is, either.
"You mean . . . you actually did it? You stole them!"
A Memory of Light, Doses of Forkroot
It is amazing that Androl broke the barrier of the dreamspike for a tiny gateway. He uses gateways to beat Taim’s minions and kill most of them by using their own weaves against them.
Logain he sent far from the Black Tower. On the Shadow’s side, it was Graendal who opened a gateway to safety, and Taim followed her.
Perrin POV
Lanfear explains to Perrin that the Asha’man guards were Turned and what this process is. She thinks Turning people to the Shadow is a waste, because it damages them; better if people come willingly. It is a crude method in her opinion, but since Semirhage devised it, Lanfear was always likely to reject it. After all, she says that Compulsion – Graendal’s preferred method – is cheating. Lanfear’s way to tie people to her was seduction.
She puts a dose of forkroot in the guards’ wine to help Perrin because she is “fond of him”. Perrin says no one should be forced to the Shadow. She counters, saying that they could have chosen to be severed from the Source; then, as non-channellers, they couldn’t be Turned. It’s spiritual warfare.
"That's not much of a choice."The storm is outside. Time for final choices.
"This is the weave of the Pattern, Perrin Aybara. Not all options will be good ones. Sometimes you have to make the best of a bad lot and ride the storm."
A Memory of Light, Doses of Forkroot
When she reminds him that the Pattern offers only bad choices sometimes, Lanfear implies that’s all that she had when she swore to the Shadow. It led her to be shut in the Bore for over 3,000 years. Perrin is not convinced by her claim—excuse, really—that she has suffered enormously—he is aware of how many she has made suffer enormously. Any thwarting of her desires or plans is agony to such a spoiled brat. Her current sufferings are punishment for trying to use Rand to overthrow the Dark One or make the Dark One owe her—and have not stopped her from promoting this plan.
As “the one who is punished most” (A Memory of Light Prologue) she says she is no longer one of the Forsaken due to the Dark One learning that she was planning to help Rand win. (At the time of the prologue, Moridin indicated that she was a Forsaken, though the lowest ranked.) This sounds more altruistic and cooperative than it actually is: Lanfear planned to use Rand, not help him. He was to either beat the Dark One with her “at his side” or she would kill him as he tried to do so and thereby save the Dark One. Now she is helping Perrin to keep him amenable to her influence.
Perrin is impressed with her skill in Tel’aran’rhiod. Lanfear is not supposed to be able to “do this” – move around independently in Tel’aran’rhiod? The Forsaken is sticking to her usual methods of using powerful men: she tells Perrin how he will be of use to her: to win with her at his side, as though he is doing it for her or sharing it with her. Basically he is to win the battle for her as her Champion, and Lanfear would be the dark Lady of Sovereignty.
Perrin shrugs her off. Lanfear tries a little honey and shows him how to set and unset the dreamspike. Perrin hopes that the retraction of the dome will bring Slayer to him. What it does immediately is enable Androl to make gateways again—gateways that aimed the Dreadlords’ weaves back at them.
In both scenes we see the Shadow undermining itself—Evin manipulated into attacking another Dreadlord, Dreadlords killed by their own weaves, and Lanfear plotting against the Dark One.
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