The Eye of the World: Chapter 51

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Against the Shadow

Author: Dinn da Noor

Characters: Rand, Aginor, soldiers, Shadowspawn, Ba'alzamon

Setting: The Blight

Point of view: Rand

Rand scrambles upward and the land keeps growing steeper and steeper. He ends up on a hilltop, but when he walks to the end hoping to find a goat path or some track, he looks down a sheer hundred-foot drop. When he turns around, Aginor is there. The Forsaken walks up the steep hill as if it is level ground. Rand notices that his drawn parchment face seems less withered than before, as if Aginor has fed well on something.

The Forsaken says that the Dark One will give rewards beyond dreaming to the one that brings Rand to Shayol Ghul, but why should he share power and bend knee to Rand? As he talks, Rand feels something and though he know there is nothing to see, he sees a glowing rope from Aginor, connecting the Forsaken to something distant beyond knowing. The rope pulses, and with every throb Aginor grows stronger, more fully fleshed. Yet beside the glowing cord, Aginor seemed not to exist.

A bright finger-strand drifts towards Rand and fills him with heat, building up warmth; the warmth and radiance of light, of the Light. Aginor shouts "You shall not have it! It is mine!", and suddenly flames shoot from his mouth and eyes, leaving him screaming.

The Light is blinding Rand's mind, stunning him with awe. He stands in a mountain pass, surrounded by the tail end of a battle, and he can see the banners of Fal Dara, Shienar, Dha'vol, Ko'bal and Dhai'mon.

He has humans on one side and Shadowspawn on the other, and when a Myrddraal points at him, Draghkar flies down towards him. He feels the heat of the touched sun again and from the clear sky, a lightning bolt struck each Draghkar. He falls on his knees, screaming, as a wall of fire envelopes the Trolloc host, leaving it highly reduced.

A voice rises, making Rand's skull vibrate telling that only the chosen one can do what must be done. Steps rises, stretching up into the murk that obscures the sun. The human forces launches their last charge, and seeing as he will get trampled over by the horses, Rand steps on the first step, causing him to be surrounded in darkness. He continues walking, till he reaches a wooden door, and when he enters, he fins himself standing in the chamber from his dream. He finds Ba'alzamon seated in the front of the fireplace, and notices that he also has a cord, though his is black. He tells Rand that he only has one choice: to kneel before him, but Rand denies him. Ba'alzamon shows him his mother, who tells him that the Father of Lies is stronger than he once was. As she disappears screaming, Rand finds himself with a sword of light, of the Light.

Ba'alzamon shouts that he cannot wield it so until he has taught him and that Rand will destroy himself, but as Rand cuts the black cord from his back, he hurls into the fireplace, and as Rand's cord thins out, he walks over to Ba'alzamon and flames fill the room. Rand falls through endless black, and is struck with tremendous force, turning him to jelly, screaming from the fire raging inside and the hungry cold burning without end.

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