Difference between revisions of "The Shadow Rising: Chapter 25"
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Up ahead he sees another man, dressed in the browns 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. | Up ahead he sees another man, dressed in the browns 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. He 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. | + | 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. He 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. |
This Rhuidean they build could not be defended, thinks Mandein. Not that anyone would attack the Jenn of course. The Aiel avoided them like they avoided the [[Tuatha'an|Lost Ones]], who wandered searching for songs they claimed would bring back lost days. | This Rhuidean they build could not be defended, thinks Mandein. Not that anyone would attack the Jenn of course. The Aiel avoided them like they avoided the [[Tuatha'an|Lost Ones]], who wandered searching for songs they claimed would bring back lost days. | ||
Revision as of 17:47, 10 September 2012
The Road to the Spear
Author: Inanna Landred
Characters: Rand, Muradin, Mandein, Dermon, Rhodric, Jeordam, Lewin
Setting: Inside Rhuidean
Point of view: Rand, various historical Aiel
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 browns 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. He 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.
This Rhuidean they build could not be defended, thinks Mandein. 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.
Rand 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.
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 Wetlander town and one of them tells him his father has an Aes Sedai advisor and that they mean to build their own city.
Rand takes a deep breath as he awakes briefly from the experience. He is even closer to Muradin now, the Aiel's legs are shifting uneasy and he seems to struggle against taking another step. Rand moves forward.
In the third turn he is Jeordam. While squatting on the hillside in the snow, he sees five people plough their way through towards him. Three cloaked men and two women in bulky dresses. He lowers he veil and stands up slowly. He asks the Jenn if they need help. 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. The Jenn woman tells them that they were betrayed while trading with the Wetlanders, they came back in the night to take back what they had traded and killed several of their people, taking others captive. Lewin, the Aiel clan chief 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. Morin, the Jenn woman picks up a spear as well, and so the first Maiden of the Spear is born.
On the next turn again he is Lewin and he learns how the first Aiel strayed from the Way and picked up a weapon to defend his family and was cast out for that. And how his mother told him to hide his face because she did not want to see it on a killer. 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.
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