The Shadow Rising: Chapter 25

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Author: Inanna Landred

Wheel and Serpent Chapter Icon.png


The Road to the Spear


Chapter Icon: Wheel and Serpent

Points of View: Rand, Muradin, Mandein, Dermon, Rhodric, Jeordam, Lewin

Outline

Rand sees visions of the history of the Aiel.

Summary

Rand's Point of View:

Setting: The glass columns in Rhuidean

Characters: Rand, Muradin

Rand enters the glass columns in Rhuidean and notices the air is a lot cooler inside.

The glass columns are scattering rays of light everywhere.

Up ahead he sees another man, dressed in the brown and grey of the Aiel. He is standing stiff and still like a statue. Rand assumes it is Muradin, Couladin's brother. He wonders why they never saw him enter, seeing he is only a few paces away.

Rand takes another step forward and is suddenly looking through the eyes of another man, feeling but not controlling the body. He starts off as Mandein, a 40 year old sept chief.




Mandein's Point of View:

Setting: Outside Rhuidean

Characters: Mandein, Sealdre, Dermon, Charendin, Mordaine, Narisse

Mandein is crouching between some boulders on a barren mountainside, peering down on half-made stone structures. He watches the people from the Jenn Aiel walk past fountains they build as if the amounts of water were of no consequence. Looking at Rhuidean, Mandein thinks it could not be defended, not that anyone would attack the Jenn of course. The Aiel avoided them like they avoided the Lost Ones, who wandered searching for songs they claimed would bring back lost days.

He witnesses how the Aiel gathered by request of the Jenn Aiel. Sealdre, Mandein's wife comes up to him and tells him he must agree to whatever the Jenn Aiel ask. She and the other Wise Ones have shared dreams that the Septs who will not agree, will die. He walks down the slope to Rhuidean where all the Septs have gathered. They are approached by Dermon from the Jenn Aiel who asks them why they do not carry swords. The Aiel respond that they don't need any weapon but their spears and Dermon says the past and the reason why they do not carry swords is lost to them and they must find it back. He tells them that whoever leads among them must enter Rhuidean to learn of their past. Who cannot learn, will not live. Charendin asks if the person who goes will lead the Aiel, but they are told he will come later.




Rand's Point of View:

Setting: The glass columns

Rand steps forward confused. He can still feel the way Mandein's contempt for the Jenn changed to admiration.




Rhodric's Point of View:

Setting: Near Kinslayer's Dagger

Characters: Rhodric, Garam

The second turn takes him through a fragment of the life of Rhodric and he sees the Aiel before they found their Three-Fold-Land. He and his clan are following a group of Jenn Aiel across the Spine of the World. The Jenn have four Aes Sedai with them.

They are gathering water from a town, the first time men have freely allowed the Aiel to do that, even though the wells they dig are useable after the Aiel leave. The man asks Rhodric if the Aiel and the Jenn are truly the same and he says they are the same and they are not, and that he can't explain further. Garam tells him his father has an Aes Sedai advisor and that they mean to build their own city. He thinks they should attack, and destroy the Aes Sedai before they break the world again.




Rand's Point of View:

Setting: The glass columns

Characters: Rand, Muradin

Rand takes a deep breath as he awakes briefly from the experience. He is even closer to Muradin now. The Aiel appears distressed and seems to be finding it difficult to go on. Rand moves forward.




Jeordam's Point of View:

Setting: Somewhere in the westlands

Characters: Jeordam, Morin, Lewin

Jeordam sees five people plough their way through snow towards him. Three cloaked men and two women in bulky dresses. He lowers his veil and stands up slowly. He asks the Jenn if they need help. One of them reacts angrily to being called Jenn, asserting that it is true as the Aiel have given up the Way. Jeordam says that is a lie and he has never held a sword. He points them in the direction of their wagons in case they are lost. They reply they are not lost. Jeordam didn't think they were, as the Jenn only came to them if they were desperate. He takes them to his father's tent. Their camp is the largest of the ten Aiel groups, with almost two hundred people. The Jenn woman tells them that they were betrayed while trading, they came back in the night to take back what they had traded and killed several of their people, taking others captive. Lewin, tells the Jenn that they will bring back their captured people and if they want to stay they are welcome to do so, but they will have to pick up the spear and never be allowed back to the Jenn. One of them heads back at that, but Morin, the Jenn woman picks up a spear as well and tells Jeordam that it is her husband now, and so the first Maiden of the Spear is born.




Rand's Point of View:

Setting: The glass columns

Rand takes another step, having almost caught up with Muradin.




Lewin's Point of View:

Setting: Somewhere in the westlands

Characters: Lewin, Luca, Gearan, Charlin, Maigran, Colline, Alijha, Adan, Nerrine, Saralin

Lewin and a group of his friends have gathered to take back his sister and her friend who have been kidnapped. He gets to Maigran, but she is unresponsive and doesn't even try to run when one of the men wakes up. As the man advances with a knife, Charlin throws himself at the man, taking him to the ground. One of the others gets up with a sword, to kill Charlin and Lewin takes a kettle and hits him with it. A second man comes toward Lewin with a sword, and Lewin grabs what he thinks is a stick, but is actually a spear, to fend him off, stabbing him in the stomach and killing him. He looks round to see that his friends have killed the other men, but that Charlin has been injured. He dies. They decide to collect anything useful, but Lewin says not the swords as they are only weapons, and unlike spears cannot put food in their bellies and is forbidden by the Way. They return to the camp to be greeted by their parents and Maigran tells them that they killed men. Adan is furious, telling them they are corrupt and there is no reason good enough to justify killing another man; he orders them from the tents. Lewin looks for support from his mother, but she tells him that she does not want to look at him, as she used to have a son with that face and doesn't want to see it on a killer.




Rand's Point of View:

Setting: The glass columns

When Rand comes to again, he is almost next to Muradin, the Shaido who entered Rhuidean and the columns just before him. Muradin is struggling and his face is stretched in agony.


Notes

This section contains Notes on this Chapter which may contain spoilers. Please expand to view.

Visions and Prophecies

Foretellings
  • The stone that never falls will fall to announce his coming. Of the blood, but not raised by the blood, he will come from Rhuidean at dawn, and tie you together with bonds you cannot break. He will take you back, and he will destroy you.

Does "take you back" mean physically - over the Mountains of Mist, or culturally, to the time when they did not kill?


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