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neuxue · 6 years

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Wheel of Time liveblogging: The Gathering Storm ch 39

VERIN!

Chapter 39: A Visit from Verin Sedai

Where were we? Oh yes.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

“You never held the Oath Rod,” Egwene accused her.

Odd that that’s the first conclusion she jumps to. Verin has the ageless face, after all; she must have sworn oaths of some sort. Then again, I suppose Egwene can be forgiven for being thrown a little by that reveal. And for not wanting to jump to the other conclusion that might immediately come to mind.

“I don’t trust you,” Egwene found herself blurting. I don’t think I ever have.” “Very wise,” Verin said, sipping her tea. It was not a scent Egwene recognised. “I am, after all, of the Black Ajah.”

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

She!

She just!

Did that!

Just came right out and said it. I waited ELEVEN BOOKS to find out what her deal was. ELEVEN BOOKS of wondering and suspecting and second-guessing and she just SAYS IT. LIKE THAT. RIGHT THERE.

WELL NOW WE KNOW, I GUESS.

Just. Well played. So very, very well played. One of the characters who held her cards closest to the chest all series, one of the most difficult to pin down, and so of coursethe reveal is on her own terms, direct and straightforward and stunning even if it’s not completely surprising.

Well. Played.

Also I’m suspicious of how often and pointedly the tea she’s drinking has been mentioned. The scent you don’t recognise is called foreshadowing, Egwene.

Egwene felt a sudden chill, like an ice cold spike pounded directly through her back and down into her chest.

Damn it Brandon get your hemalurgy out of my WoT.

Verin was Black. Light!

Nice forced juxtaposition in the phrasing there.

Those eyes that always had seemed to know too much. What better way to hide than as an unassuming Brown, constantly dismissed by the other sisters because of your distracted, scholarly ways?

Indeed. Who looks too closely at the absentminded scholar? Who suspects duplicity of a plump older woman with ink smudges on her dress? Who thinks too hard on disturbing comments made by a distracted Brown with little attention to tact? Verin, and people like Verin, are so easily…not even overlookedso much as set aside. I wonder, sometimes, why we’re so quick in times of crisis or uncertainty to disregard those who have made it the subject of their life’s work and study. Why we hold so strongly to this notion that scholarship means setting oneself aside from the ‘real world’, even when, without the real world, there would be nothing to study.

It’s my whole thing with the ‘lol the mapmaker can’t actually navigate’ nonsense with Roidelle a few chapters back. Like listen, fuck you, I can read and use just about any map you give me. I can navigate by the stars in either hemisphere. You think I spent my Ivory Tower Years studying the earth without getting my hands dirty? I did not haul a literal bucket full of shit through a jungle in volcano-melted shoes for this.

(Yes, there are parts of academia that are, to put it kindly, Out Of Touch, and whose publications are more self-referential and inbred than your average European monarchy. But the ease with which we write off ‘scholars’ and ‘academics’ as hopeless in all matters relating to the Real World is kind of mind-boggling.)

Anyway. Rather than diving headfirst into an essay on the insidious nature of anti-intellectualism, I’ll just say…Verin really did have the perfect disguise.

Not quite as much to the reader – it’s been very much made clear that she was up to something and that the distracted-and-muddled act was very much an act – but in-world? Even in ourworld, without the insight given by the narrative, who would have looked twice?

Verin, of course, just responds to Egwene’s shock with possibly the most English thing she could possibly say aside from ‘shit weather we’re having, isn’t it?’:

“My, but this is good tea.”

I love her.

What a troll.

She just SHOWED UP IN EGWENE’S ROOM, DRINKING TEA, AND ANNOUNCED THAT SHE’S BLACK AJAH. AFTER ELEVEN BOOKS. OF GIVING AWAY NOTHING. EVEN IN HER THOUGHTS.

She is, truly, On Another Level.

I’m also just running through everything she’s ever done or said or thought in the last eleven books with the certainty of hindsight and my brain feels a little bit like one of those flipbooks you play with as a kid.

Just…*shakes head* well fucking played, Verin.

“I would offer you some tea, but I sincerely doubt you want any of what I’m having.”

Even I don’t mention tea as frequently as it’s been mentioned in these last two or three pages. What exactly is in that tea, Verin?

Egwene’s still in panic mode, and I love the way this is played out, with her thoughts scattered and frantic, juxtaposed against Verin’s calm, collected, and utterly shocking matter-of-fact, conversational, mild statements.

But while Egwene – I suppose understandably – sees Verin immediately as a threat after that admission, I…don’t.

“I compliment you on what you’ve done here, Egwene.”

‘I’m Black Ajah, but more importantly, I love what you’ve done with the room! Such a good eye for colour, and the minimalist style is so in right now. Tea?’

When you get an opportunity like this, you don’t squander it. And she is making the absolute most of her chance here, and I honestly don’t even blame her. She could say something reassuring, but where’s the fun in that? Besides, Verin has always dealt in truths, not platitudes.

I love her, you guys. I love her so much.

“It was more important to continue my research and keep an eye on young al’Thor. He’s a fiery one”

TOO. SOON.

That was rude. Fuck. Wow. Okay.

“I’m not certain he understands how the Great Lord works. Not all evil is as…obvious as the Chosen. The Forsaken, as you’d call them.”

Two things here. One: there is absolutely no way Verin is truly aligned with the Shadow. Two: she gets it. She understands what’s going on, with Rand and even, I think, with how the Shadow is manipulating him without ever having to truly turn him.

“I’m convinced that it isn’t intelligence, craftiness, or skill that makes one Chosen—though of course, those things are important. No, I believe it is selfishness the Great Lord seeks in his greatest leaders.”

YES. THIS.

THIS, EXACTLY.

Of course Verin is the one to put it into words so clearly. With one exception, they are so focused on their own power and their own promised rewards and their own plans and successes and positions of favour that they don’t even see the game they’re truly playing. They serve themselves, not a cause, and because they are intelligent and crafty and skilled, they become incredibly effective pawns in that game, set on a board they hardly understand and let loose to serve a purpose they never truly consider because they are so hell-bent on their own. And so they will destroy the world and themselves with it and never notice until their own flames consume them.

It’s also an interesting statement to consider in the context of Rand, given that Verin has just voiced her worries that he doesn’t understand how the Great Lord works.

Because Rand has an…interesting relationship with selfishness and altruism. Especially now. He has pushed himself into a state of literal selflessness – total denial of the existence of a self – but for the sake of self-preservation. He did it because it hurt too much to hold on to anything of who he was, to let himself feel. So it’s a selfish motivator…and yet, the motivation behind that is a layer of altruism, because that need for survival arises from a need to fulfil his duty to a selfless cause.

And so we go around and around in circles; is he selfish or selfless in his choice to leave his humanity and life and redemption behind? Is it more selfish to seek death or survival, to martyr himself or to endure, to live for something or to die for it?

Listen, I’m a scientist and a programmer and an atheist, and also I cannot get enough of spiralling questions of eschatology and metaphysics and fate in fiction. It’s a thing.

(And that’s not even getting into my obsession with divinity as an entire concept).

But back to the Forsaken. I think Verin has it absolutely right here – power and cunning and other abilities are all well and good, but if you want a group of people you can control and predict and move around like the pawns they are (while they believe themselves to be the players, and masters of the game), selfishness is a perfect trait to select for.

Wise of Verin to see that.

And, back to Rand for just a moment here, maybe that’s part of where he struggles: he’s too close to the Forsaken in his knowledge of them from Lews Therin’s memories to take that step back and view them as an outside observer, yet at the same time he’s so far on the other side of the spectrum in terms of motivations to see this unifying trait and understand how it works and how to use it.

“The Chosen are predictable, but the Great Lord is anything but. Even after decades of study, I can’t be certain exactly what he wants or why he wants it.”

Because, unless you’re Moridin, I think it would break your mind to truly understand what it is he wants. None of the Chosen seem to fully understand it either, because if they did, would they still fight for it? Total destruction of everything, a world remade in the image of chaos, wouldn’t serve any of their goals. And yet because of that selfishness, they are made to serve precisely that cause, and are kept blind by their own narrow ambitions to what end they truly work towards.

“And what does this have to do with me?” Egwene asked.

“Not much,” Verin said, tsking at herself. “I’m afraid I let myself get sidetracked.”

In which Verin’s tangents are more insightful than many character’s introspection. Not to mention about a hundred times more communicative, suddenly. I love when an enigma of a character finally decides it’s time to spill her secrets. It’s so satisfying.

Verin’s so proud of Egwene for what she’s done with the Tower. It’s lovely to see, not just to have someone in a position to recognise and appreciate what Egwene has managed to do, but to have it be someone who’s known Egwene since even before she went to Tar Valon, someone who watched her first learnings and chided her for her early mistakes, and also who knows and understands what’s going on, on a level that seems to be far deeper than most Aes Sedai. Verin sees. And so her praise is worth far more than most. Especially now, when she seems to be so sure that time is short, when she’s making her final play.

Egwene’s still trying to figure out what the hell is even going on here, and…

Oh.

“A number of years ago, I faced a decision. I found myself in a position where I could either take the oaths to the Dark One, or I could reveal that I had actually never wanted—or intended—to do so, whereupon I would have been executed.”

ALL THE SECRETS COME OUT.

DOUBLE AGENT VERIN.

So this was the mistake she alluded to in her thoughts. This is why she’s thought so many times about how sometimes you just have to make the best of the situation you’re given.

“Many would have simply opted for death. I, however, saw this as an opportunity. You see, one rarely has such a chance as this, to study a beast from inside its heart, to see really what makes the blood flow. To discover where all of the little veins and vessels lead. Quite an extraordinary experience.”

“Wait,” Egwene said. “You joined the Black Ajah to study them?”

YES!!!!!!!!!!

VERINNNNN!!!!!!!!!!

THIS IS EVERYTHING I EVER WANTED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The scholar driven by a desire for knowledge, faced with the consequences of that search, and choosing to push forward anyway, to sacrifice herself not by dying but by living, and swearing herself to a cause she never wanted to join, and seeing it as an opportunity. To keep studying them. HOW FUCKING AWESOME IS SHE?

“Tomas. Does he know what you’ve done?”

“He was a Darkfriend himself, child,” Verin said. “Wanting a way out. Well, there really isn’t a way out, not once the Great Lord has his claws in you. But there was a way to fight, to make up a little of what you’ve done. I offered that chance to Tomas, and I believe he was quite grateful to me for it.”

No man can walk so long in the Shadow…I wonder if Ingtar knew.

It’s such a lovely little addition to this whole reveal; Tomas is a fairly minor character, but it adds that extra bit of depth to an already fantastic scene that she found a way to offer him some small form of redemption, by joining her in hers. It ties everything together just that little bit more. There may not be a way out, but there is a way to go forwards, a way to fight.

Verin was a Darkfriend…but not one at the same time.

It’s not so different from Ingtar’s choice, really. It’s just the timeframe that’s different.

“You said he ‘was’ quite grateful to you?”

And, like Ingtar’s choice, I don’t think there’s much chance of this not being a fatal one.

“The oaths one makes to the Great Lord are quite specific,” she finally continued. “And, when they are placed upon one who can channel, they are quite binding. Impossible to break. You can double-cross other Darkfriends, you can turn against the Chosen if you can justify it. Selfishness must be preserved. But you can never betray him.”

I just love the way she gets so cleanly to the heart of it with her observations of the role of selfishness. It explains so much, so neatly. And yet they are all bound, though they claim to set themselves above everyone else; all of them must serve, in the end, but they are so easily manipulated into believing that they rule.

She looked up, meeting Egwene’s eyes. “‘I sear not to betray the Great Lord, to keep my secrets until the hour of my death.’ That was what I promised. Do you see?”

…oh.

Oh, Verin.

The tea is poison and this is her final play. Killing herself in order to betray all of her secrets, because it’s the one loophole open to her. The only way to share the knowledge she spent decades collecting.

Decades of secrecy and evasion, of hiding behind that distracted scholarly mask, of observing, unseen, from within. And it all ends here, in a single hour of honesty, with the captive Amyrlin she can look at and be proud of.

VEEEEEERRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNNNNN

She joined them to stay alive because the alternative was death and now she’s choosing her own death as a way of allowing herself to betray them THIS IS TOO MUCH.

“A curious hole in the oaths,” Verin said softly. “To allow one to effect a betrayal in the final hour of one’s life. I cannot help wondering if the Great Lord knows of it. Why wouldn’t he close that hole?”

Because no one selfish enough to serve him would ever think to use it. Because to use it would be an act of absolute altruism, anathema to any in a position to do so.

Except Verin.

“Perhaps he doesn’t see it as threatening,” Egwene said, opening her eyes. “After all, what kind of Darkfriend would kill themselves in order to advance the greater good? It doesn’t seem the kind of thing his followers would consider.”

What she said.

Or…maybe it’s almost meant as a taunt, a cruel reminder of the cost of betrayal. A way of saying to those who might be considering it, who might be regretting their choice, ‘you can betray me but to do so demands your death’. A loophole kept as a warning sign, and a way of making any who might be wavering turn back.

Egwene shook her head. It seemed such a tragedy. “You come to me to confess, killing yourself in a final quest for redemption?”

Not quite, I don’t think. She wouldn’t waste all those years just to gain peace of mind in a confession. She’s come to share knowledge.

IN THE FORM OF HER NOTEBOOKS.

ALL HER NOTES.

THIS IS GOING TO BE GOOD.

“Every woman in the Brown,” Verin said, “seeks to produce something lasting. Research or study that will be meaningful. Others often accuse us of ignoring the world around us. They think we only look backward. Well, that is inaccurate. If we are distracted, it is because we look forward, toward those who will come. And the information, the knowledge we gather…we leave it for them. The other Ajahs worry about making today better; we yearn to make tomorrow better.”

That, right there, is a perfect and utterly lovely redemption of the stereotype of the scholar. Thank you for this.

The desire to leave something lasting, to not just know but to share that knowledge with those who come after, to lay the foundations for future generations to learn from and to learn beyond. A distractedness that comes not from ignoring the world but from looking to its future. A study of the past or the present for the purpose of that future. This is absolutely beautiful. I want it framed on my wall.

I love Verin so much.

“That tome is the…work. My work. The work of my life.”

The work she is quite literally giving her life for. It’s sad but there’s this sense of absolute triumph to it as well.

“Names, locations, explanations,” Verin said. “Everything I learned about them. About the leaders among the Darkfriends, about the Black Ajah. The prophecies they believe, the goals and motivations of the separate factions. Along with a list, at the back, of every Black Ajah sister I could identify.”

And with that one book, with this one hour, with this single but incredible act of betrayal that should be impossible, she’s just dealt a potentially crippling blow to the Shadow.

It costs her life, but she’s done what so many aspire to: created something that could change the future. All that knowledge she gained, all those years of studying, and now she can leave it in the hands of someone who can use it. She can quite literally hand it to the next generation, leave the knowledge she gathered in the hands of the one who will shape the future. It’s a quite victory, witnessed only by Egwene, but what a victory it is.

I. LOVE. VERIN. SO. MUCH.

I just.

I love this tone of triumphant sadness, of a sacrifice that is the exact opposite of in vain. She’s dying for this, but in doing so she’s achieving the the epitome of her Ajah’s ideals. She’s carrying out the most thorough betrayal the Shadow has perhaps ever seen, and handing Egwene information no other Aes Sedai has even come close to managing to uncover.

Her life’s work is thorough and practical and meaningful and could quite literally help save the world.

“I doubt I caught them all,” Verin said, smiling. “But I think I got the large majority of them. I promise you, Egwene. I can be quitethorough.”

And this is one of those things that could so easily tip over into deus ex machina territory – handing a protagonist a list of everyone in the secret evil organisation that’s been causing problems for the whole series and also several centuries previously, right as we move into the final act? Giving her a list that multiple characters and plotlines have been spent trying to find even part of? – and yet manages to avoid that entirely because of how perfectly Verin’s character has been written since the beginning.

Because this doesn’t even remotely come out of nowhere. This has been seeded from the very start, even if I never would have been able to say that this is specifically what it was going to come to. Verin’s been there almost from the beginning, and she’s been so clearly up to something, yet in a way that never quite reveals exactly what…but the fact that she’s been around, and keeping the reader guessing, makes this kind of reveal work. Because you know that somekind of reveal must be coming. And everything she’s done up until now fits so perfectly in hindsight, and makes absolute sense, and it all feels like a natural and surprising-yet-inevitable end to her storyline.

It doesn’t come out of nowhere; it just finishes and ties off what has been there all along.

Egwene looked down at the books with awe. Incredible! Light, but this was a treasure greater than any king’s hoard. A treasure as great as the Horn of Valere itself. She looked up, tears in her eyes, imagining a life spent among the Black, always watching, recording, and working for the good of all.

“Oh, don’t go doing that,” Verin said.

I mean, if I were someone who cried at books, I’m pretty sure I’d be doing the same.

I’m glad that not only does Verin see and understand and and appreciate all that Egwene has done, when so few others are really in a position to, but Egwene understands just how much Verin has done and sacrificed, and what it means.

“This is worth one woman’s life. Few people have had a chance to create something as useful, and as wonderful, as that book you hold. We all seek to change the future, Egwene. I think I might just have a chance at doing so.”

And I’m glad that Verin herself understands just how much of a victory this is, and sees it as such. This is worth her death, and she knows it, and so there is a sense of peace and acceptance rather than tragedy.

Magic bookmark! I want one.

“I will admit that the poison was a backup plan,” Verin said. “I am not eager for death; there are still things I need to do. Fortunately, I have set several of them in motion to be…seen to, in case I do not return. Regardless, my first plan was to find the Oath Rod, then see if I could use it to remove the Great Lord’s oaths. The Oath Rod appears to have gone missing, unfortunately.”

Saerin, Egwene thought, and the others.

How beautifully ironic. They’re using the Oath Rod to try to find the Black Ajah, but because they have it, a Black Ajah double agent couldn’t use it to free herself of the oaths preventing her from betraying the Black Ajah without killing herself.

Also, the Oath Rod itself seems like a bigger loophole than the ‘hour of my death’ phrasing. Or would a Black sister not be able to voluntarily free herself from her oaths because to do so would be a betrayal of the Dark One? Maybe it only worked with Talene and any others because they didn’t decide to renounce all oaths that bound them; they were forced to? Otherwise it seems like a huge vulnerability, to swear Black Ajah members to these binding oaths but leave them free to unbind themselves should they so choose.

Verin, at least, seems to think it might not have worked, even if she hoped it would.

What are the other oaths they take, I wonder?

“One of the Chosen is in the Tower, child. It’s Mesaana, I’m certain of it. I had hoped to be able to bring you the name she was hiding under, but the two times I met with her, she was shrouded to the point that I couldn’t tell.”

I mean, I think you can be forgiven for not uncovering the secret identity of the Forsaken you’ve identified in the Tower, given everything else you’ve done, Verin. I’m also anything but sure of who Mesaana’s hiding as. I suspected the Brown who helped Elaida with the coup, but now I can’t even remember her name (which is kind of unlike me; I have crap memory for people’s names IRL but I’m great with fictional characters) so that tells you how sure I am.

“So many decisions you must make, for one so young.” […]

“Thank you, Verin. Thank you for choosing me to carry this burden.”

Verin smiled faintly. “You did very well with the previous tidbits I gave you. That was quite the interesting situation. The Amyrlin commanded that I give you information to hunt the Black sisters who fled the Tower, so I had to comply, even though the leadership of the Black was frustrated by the order. I wasn’t supposed to give you the dreaming ter’angreal, you know. But I’ve always had a feeling about you.”

It is a lovely way of bringing so many things full circle here. Egwene being set to hunt the Black Ajah all the way back in TDR, and Verin giving her the information, and choosing to trust her with the dream ter’angreal…and now Verin coming to her, and choosing to trust her with her life’s work and her secret and her redemption, and handing her the key to the puzzle she was set to all that time ago.

And this whole scene has been full of this sense of mutual recognition and understanding and respect between them; Verin of what Egwene has done and Egwene of what Verin is doing here, with her last act, and what it means.

So much trust, and oh, how it is rewarded.

Trust usually is, in these books, on the rare occasions that it happens.

“You will be Amyrlin. I’m confident of it. And an Amyrlin should be well armed with knowledge. That, among all things, is the most sacred duty of the Brown—to arm the world with knowledge.”

HAVE I MENTIONED THAT LOVE THIS? BECAUSE I LOVE THIS. THIS IS SO GOOD. It’s just a slight…shifting of angles, in a sense, on the usual perception of Browns, but it casts so much in a different light, and it’s beautiful. We’ve almost exclusively seen the Brown from an outside perspective, and they almost always are portrayed as distracted, esoteric, intelligent but more caught up in knowledge than in anything ‘useful’, absentminded…and Verin doesn’t contradict that so much as shine a light on everything behind it. She gives the Brown Ajah depth, and with that, purpose and meaning and value. To arm the world with knowledge. That is a sacred duty, and a necessary one, whatever the knowledge may be.

It’s what Rand himself was trying to do, by setting up his schools in order to try to preserve something against another Breaking of the World.

And it’s just so, so nice to see, after twelve books of fond disdain for the Brown Ajah. To have them redeemed this way, illuminated this way. To have the narrative itself illustrate the fallacy of such a limited view of scholarship and knowledge.

“I’m still one of them. Please see that they know, although the word Black may brand my name forever, my soul is Brown. Tell them…”

“I will, Verin,” Egwene promised. “But your soul is not Brown. I can see it.” Her eyes fluttered open, meeting Egwene’s, a frown creasing her forehead.

“Your soul is of a pure white, Verin,” Egwene said softly, “Like the Light itself.”

Verin smiled, and her eyes closed.

Ahhhhhhhh.

What a perfect farewell to such a fantastic character.

It’s a completely different context and manner of death, but it still puts me in mind of Ingtar, and his final redemption. The way his last words were ‘for the Light, and Shinowa’ as he turned at last away from the Shadow, after Rand offered him understanding and his blessing and, through that, redemption. Egwene does something similar here, in promising to let the others know the truth—and what a beautifully sad last request that is, to have done so much and to just want it known that she was truly of her Ajah, that she did what she did in the service of the Light—and in that last evocation of the Light, and the sense of peace it brings.

Goodbye, Verin. You were every kind of awesome and you will be missed. But damn, what a way to go.

It felt callous to double-check, but there were some poisons which could make one appear to be dead and breathe only very shallowly, and if Verin had wanted to trick Egwene and point a finger at the wrong sisters, this would have been a wonderful method. Callous indeed to double-check, and it made Egwene feel sick, but she was Amyrlin. She did that which was difficult and considered all possibilities.

Callous, but good to be certain. She trusts Verin, and admits and accepts that trust…but that doesn’t stop her from doing the pragmatic thing just in case. And yet – perhaps more importantly – her ability to do the pragmatic thing, and her consideration of all possibilities, does not prevent her from trusting. She doesn’t step across that line into paranoia; she’ll check because it’s a possibility she should be sure to eliminate, but she will also trust. She’ll do the callous thing when necessary, but she doesn’t allow that callousness to become her only mode.

Her heart trusted Verin, although her mind wanted to be certain.

That’s a good way of putting it, actually. And she can balance those two, rather than blocking one off. No point not double-checking, but she can use that as a way to affirm her instinctive want to trust, rather than as a way of rejecting it completely.

All in all, they’re each incredibly lucky the other turned out to be worthy of that trust, aren’t they? If Verin were Black Ajah in purpose as well as in name, or if Egwene were truly powerless or incompetent, that could have gone very badly for one or both of them.

And now she has a babysitter again. Good timing, all things considered; she could have shown up five minutes ago and then where would they be? Still, I can absolutely sympathise with Egwene’s annoyance at someone interrupting what otherwise promises to be a solid chunk of reading time.

Slow clap to Egwene for managing to hide a bodyin half-truths.

She would simply have to wait. And read.

And RAFO.

Kind of literally.

She shoved aside the longing to embrace the Power and create a ball of light by which to read. She’d have to be satisfied with the single candle’s flame.

There’s something about this that feels rather…fitting. Symbolic, even. The Amyrlin Seat, the Flame of Tar Valon, dedicated to the victory of the Light, imprisoned and effectively powerless but for a single candle’s flame, with which to reveal the secrets that will help her bring down the Shadow. She doesn’t need enormous power, or a force of light; she will make do with a single candle’s flame. One candle against the Shadow, but it can be enough.

Especially contrasted against Natrin’s Barrow, just before this. Where all the light the Dragon Reborn with the Choedan Kal could summon couldn’t seem to keep the Shadow at bay and, if anything, seemed only to help it.

I just like the contrast of images, and of the moods the evoke. Rand, illuminated to the extent that he looks like little more than Power and light made flesh, and yet everything about it is cold and frightening and ominous. And then Egwene, quiet and unable to channel and alone in a dark room with nothing but a candle, and yet there is a sense of hope and energy and victory, of a much-needed true victory for the Light. Even if it is only a small candle against so much darkness, it is enough.

She’s gone straight to the list of names at the back of the book—I guess Egwene doesn’t share my aversion to spoilers.

Katerine, Alviarin, Elza, Galina, Sheriam…all names we already know, so far.

Steel yourself, Egwene, she thought, continuing to read down the list.

Steel yourself, as she reads through a list of women’s names. How…perfect. That has to be deliberate.

(A list of dead women’s names, one could argue; it seems unlikely most of them will be allowed to live).

She worked through the feelings of betrayal, the bitterness and the regret. She would not let emotions get in the way of her duty.

Here, again, we have a slight similarity to Rand that is actually more of a difference. True, she steels herself against the names on the list, hardens herself to face them. But more accurate, perhaps, to say she prepares herself to face them. She knows it will be hard, knows it will hurt – it already does; some of those names are already shocking or painful. This is not an easy task. And she also knows she can’t let emotion overcome her, or get in the way.

But she doesn’t shut it out. She works through the feelings of betrayal. She allows them to exist, and processes them, acknowledges them before setting them aside. She lets herself feel, even as she reminds herself to not let that get in the way of what she must do. It’s not a binary switch, a complete suppression of emotion to the point where she denies even its existence. She’s just…doing something difficult, but something that must be done. It hurts, and that’s part of it, and she can steel herself against it to some extent, but she doesn’t try to block it off entirely. She just has to get through it.

There’s a difference between setting aside emotion in order to approach something rationally and trying to shut it off altogether in an attempt to avoid the pain it causes.

Her role as Amyrlin demands that she read these names, and deal with the truths they reveal, and figure out what to do about it. And so she will, and she’ll do that even though it hurts Egwene to have to read them. But she doesn’t deny that part of her that is Egwene, that part of her that does hurt. She just works through it and puts it to one side for now, because now is a time for being Amyrlin.

Moria? Isn’t she the one who convinced the rebel Hall to vote in favour of an alliance with the Black Tower? Damn. I liked her; that was a good speech.

Each name was like a thorn through Egwene’s skin.

At least it’s not (yet) a white-hot line of fire across her soul.

I have to say, it’s not easy to make a character reading a list into an interesting or engaging scene, but this is well done. There’s a palpable sense of tension running through this whole section, even if most of it is simply names strung together with brief interludes of Egwene’s thoughts on them. It draws the reader’s focus alongside Egwene’s; we’re seeing these names through her eyes, an relentless assault of name after name that she has to confront, some of which area easy or mean very little, and some of which are harder, but she can’t dwell on them. The fact that we do only get those brief thoughts from her, before returning to the list of names, helps drive this feeling of urgency and also of…Egwene trying to hold herself together, in a way. Of pushing through and steeling herself and having to just keep reading, keep confronting truth after truth, trying to keep herself rational and calm and together.

So Elaida is not Black Ajah. Or at least, Verin was all but sure she isn’t. That’s no more surprising to me than it is to Egwene, but it’s good to have sort-of-confirmation.

Hi Nicola. Perfect timing yet again – both interruptions have come exactly when they’ll be the least incriminating or disruptive. First right after Verin died, and now right as Egwene has finished reading and hidden the books.

Hidden notes in the food; we’re deep into intrigue territory now.

And now Meidani stops by…and the ruse is up. Verin is very obviously dead and Meidani is understandably a bit ‘um what the fuck why is there a dead Aes Sedai in your bed’.

“Verin Sedai was poisoned by a Darkfriend shortly before her conversation with me. She was aware of the poison, and came to pass on some important information to me during her last moments.”

I love half-truths. An elegant lie spoken with not a single untrue word is honestly a thing of beauty.

Meidani paled, then looked at Egwene, likely wondering how she could be so callous. Good. Let her see the collected, determined Amyrlin. As long as she didn’t see a hint of the grief, confusion, and anxiety inside.

She can be that collected, determined Amyrlin…but she also doesn’t deny that the rest exists beneath that surface, even as she maintains it. She can hold a separation that isn’t a true denial or suppression. She can be callous when necessary, but she can also still feel that grief and confusion and anxiety.

And she also doesn’t spend time hating herself for having to be callous when callousness is necessary, because she accepts that necessity. She may not like it, but she doesn’t turn it against herself, doesn’t direct that pain inwards as some kind of punishment. Whereas I think part of the reason Rand has reached a point where the only way he can endure is to deny all feeling whatsoever, and simply accept that he is damned and there’s no point trying to save any part of himself, is that he internalised too much of that anger and pain at what he had to do, turned it into self-loathing and used it to punish himself for what he must do. And so now the only way he can be callous when needed and do what is necessary is by becoming that entirely; otherwise, the pain of his self-hatred at having to do any of it becomes too much. Easier to just accept that he’s damned and have done with it; he still hates himself but now he doesn’t have to fight against it.

Whereas Egwene doesn’t allow necessity to develop into that sharp-edged self-hatred, because she understands that it is simply necessity, and that she, Egwene, is still there beneath it. She can work through the emotions she feels and set them aside when needed, but she doesn’t spend time inflicting pain on herself as punishment for what she must do. Instead she embraces the pain she must endure, because she can hold onto the knowledge that she is doing all of this for a purpose, that there is a reason for both the pain and for the harder things she has to do, and that it will be worth it. That she’s fighting for something important enough to make those things worthwhile.

That all makes far more sense in my head than I can seem to get it to on paper but I tried.

Meidani’s basically here to act as a news feed: Elaida’s still Amyrlin but the Hall is pissed off, mostly.

“They informed Elaida that the Amyrlin was not an absolute ruler, and that she couldn’t continue to make decrees and demands without consulting them.”

Must—not—make—political—analogy—

“[Saerin] also noted that your own insistence that the Red Ajah not be allowed to fall—spread by a group of novices who overheard you—was part of what kept Elaida from being deposed.”

Sucks when doing the right thing makes your life harder. And yet she couldn’t have done anything else; she is here to heal the Tower and she cannot let another Ajah be broken apart if she is to do that. This is just a test of her resolve, really.

It smelled of a compromise; Elaida had probably met in closed conference with the head of the Red Ajah—whoever that was, now that Galina had vanished—hashing out the details. Silviana wuld still be punished, although not as strongly, but Elaida would submit to the will of the Hall.

But at least the government will remain open and the Aes Sedai won’t have to work without pay.

So not a perfect outcome, but it definitely seems as if things are tipping, slowly but more and more, towards Egwene. Though this may have played out too soon; it wasn’t quite enough to push Elaida over completely, and now the issue has been resolved, so there will have to be something else to push them again.

Luckily – for a given definition of luck – Tuon seems to have set something in motion that could do precisely that…

Given just a little more time, Egwene was confident she could get the woman overturned and the Tower reunited. But dared she spend that time?

She glanced at the table, where the precious books lay hidden from eyes. If she staged a mass assault on the Black Ajah, would that precipitate a battle?

Somehow I don’t think you’re going to be given the chance to find out. I’m not precisely sure how Egwene’s timeline lines up with Tuon and Rand’s, but I rather doubt, given the pace this book is setting, that Egwene’s going to be given much time to consider how to proceed before events decide it for her.

“I want you to report to the others. They must take Alviarin into captivity and test her with the Oath Rod. Tell them to take any reasonable risk to achieve it.”

Or not. Alright then. Egwene’s not wasting any time.

She may not be able to act on all of Verin’s information immediately, but she certainly isn’t going to just sit on it and wait for some sort of opportune moment. Fair enough; this is important enough and bigger than any personal goals she may have. Once again she’s putting the Tower ahead of herself: it’s not about becoming Amyrlin or gaining power for her own ends; it’s about healing the Tower and part of that, now, means taking the steps she is now in a position to take to eliminate the Black Ajah if she can. She’s not going to wait until it would give her a strategic advantage if she can do something about it now. And that is impressive. It would be so easy to hold everything back, to wait and make it part of a play for power. And maybe it still will be, but if it is, it won’t be because she’s withholding information or delaying acting for the sake of her own goals. It will be because that coincides with what she can do for the Tower in any given moment.

“It’s well known that [Nicola]’s one of your greatest advocates among the novices.”

It was odd to hear that of a woman who had effectively betrayed her, but the girl couldn’t really be blamed for that, all things considered.

How easily she can brush off that betrayal, now.

It’s growth even from Honey in the Tea, when the thing that broke Egwene’s determined calm was seeing Beonin and thinking Beonin must have been the one to betray her. Now, she’s moved past the point where it matters who betrayed her and why, because because again, it’s not about her, and holding a grudge against a novice won’t help the Tower, so what’s the point?

So Egwene sets Meidani to the task of ensuring that Alviarin is captured…and then just tells her essentially ‘oh and hide the body on your way out’. Bless.

And then she puts herself to sleep for a quick dream visit. Now that her bed is vacated of the corpse. I just…wow, Egwene. Wow. She has things to do and a Tower to heal, and she’s not going to let anything stand in her way. Or lay down and die in her way, as the case may be.

While she waits, she’s following all the possible trains of thought regarding Sheriam being Black Ajah, which basically results in a mess of what-ifs pretty much designed to cause system overload.

I do like the way we get a full three paragraphs of it; it conveys the full sense of both how tangled everything can get when you know even one person is Black Ajah, and the sense of panicked back-tracking trying to find all the possible places that could have had an effect, and also the sheer overwhelming impossibility of doing any such thing…but the difficulty of switching off that line of thinking, once you’ve started it.

What of Egwene’s own rise to power? How many of the Shadow’s strings did she dance on without knowing it?

That way lies madness, Egwene.

This is an exercise in futility, she told herself firmly. Don’t go down that path.

I should have just turned the page. But yes, that. It’s so easy to get caught up in that tangle of hypotheticals to the point where you paralyse yourself in terms of doing anything at all for fear of making things worse…but that’s not going to help anyone. She can’t look back; all she can do is look forward with more information now than she had before, and try to make the most of the situation she finds herself in. Trying to figure out all the possible ways in which she was pushed into it is tempting, but ultimately isn’t going to help her get anywhere. Find the winning move based on where the pieces are now, rather than wasting time trying to figure out how they got there.

For a moment, she felt herself to be the country girl many thought her to be. If Elaida had been a pawn for the Blacks, then so had she. Light! How the Dark One must have laughed to see two rival Amyrlins, each with one of his loyal minions at her side, pitting them against one another.

It is good that she can recognise this, though. She can’t afford to dwell on it, but she’s not arrogant enough to think that she’s somehow exempt from this manipulation. And there is a bit of anger at herself here…but she fairly quickly shifts it and refocuses it outwards rather than inwards, into determination rather than self-destruction:

Whatever his plan, she would fight him. Resist him. Spit in his eye, even if he won, just as the Aiel said.

There’s nothing she can do about what has already happened except learn from it and keep fighting, and find a way to move forward, find a way to turn what she has now into a position of strength.

“Siuan,” she said curtly. “You may want to summon yourself a chair. Something has happened.”

Siuan frowned. “What?”

“First off, Sheriam and Moria are Black Ajah.”

Don’t waste any time there. She did tell Siuan to summon up a chair, I suppose she figures that’s warning enough. I’m with you, Egwene, I hate small talk when there’s shit to be done.

“I need time to plan and think, an evening perhaps.”

An evening to process several decades’ worth of spying and research and a near-comprehensive list of hundreds of Aes Sedai who secretly serve the Shadow and to figure out how best to deal with all of that doesn’t seemlike too much to ask, especially as she’s not even getting any kind of overtime pay, but this genre being what it is…not sure you’re even going to get that much, Egwene. Think fast.

“This could be dangerous.”

And the award for UNDERSTATEMENT OF THE AGE goes to SIUAN FUCKING SANCHE.

“Are you still captive?”

“Not exactly. Elaida has—” Egwene hesitated, frowning to herself. Something was wrong.

You’ll have to be more specific, Egwene. The list of things that are wrong could fill Verin’s journals several times over.

Oh.

Shit.

She didn’t even get ten minutes, much less an evening.

Nicola shaking her arm. “Mother,” she was saying. “Mother!”

The girl had a bloody gash on her cheek. Egwene sat up sharply, and at that moment the entire Tower shook as if from an explosion.

And it was shaping up to be such a quiet, relaxing, peaceful evening.

Oh shit she can’t channel, can she? That’s uh….Bad.

It wasn’t Tarmon Gai’don, but it was nearly as bad. The Seanchan had finally attacked the White Tower, just as Egwene had Dreamed.

And she couldn’t channel enough Power to light a candle, let alone fight back.

GODDAMN IT SANDERSON THESE CLIFFHANGER CHAPTER ENDINGS ARE KILLING ME. Have some mercy for those of us who make terrible life choices and decide to liveblog these books!

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