A Memory of Light

their perfume lacing the air. With those beautiful pink-throated white blossoms, the trees almost looked aflame.
    Rand wore simple Two Rivers clothing. After months in a king’s garments of brilliant colors and soft textures, the loose wool trousers and linen felt very comfortable. He placed sturdy boots on his feet, like those he’d worn growing up. They fit him in a way that no new boot, no matter how well made, ever could.
    He wasn’t allowed old boots any longer. If his boots showed a hint of wear, one servant or another made them vanish.
    Rand stood up in the dream hills and made himself a walking staff. He then began to walk upward through the mountains. This wasn’t a real place, not any longer. He’d crafted it from memory and desire, somehow mixing both familiarity and a sense of exploration. It smelled fresh, of overturned leaves and sap. Animals moved in the underbrush. A hawk cried somewhere distant.
    Lews Therin had known how to create dreamshards like this. Though he had not been a Dreamer, most Aes Sedai of that era had made use of Tel’aran’rhiod in one way or another. One thing they learned was how to slice out a dream for themselves, a haven within their own mind, more controlled than regular dreams. They learned how to enter a fragment like this while meditating, somehow giving the body rest as real as sleep.
    Lews Therin had known these things, and more. How to reach into someone’s mind if they entered his dreamshard. How to tell if someone else had invaded his dreams. How to expose his dreams to others. Lews Therin had liked to know things, like a traveler who wanted to have one of everything useful in his rucksack.
    Lews Therin had rarely used these tools. He’d left them stored on a back shelf in his mind, gathering dust. Would things have gone differently if he’d taken time, each night, to wander a peaceful valley such as this? Rand didn’t know. And, truth be told, this valley was no longer safe. He passed a deep cavern to his left. He had not put it there. Another attempt by Moridin to draw him? Rand passed it by without looking.
    The forest didn’t seem as alive as it had moments ago. Rand kept walking, trying to enforce his will upon the land. He had not practiced that enough, however—so as he walked, the forest grayed, looking washed out.
    The cavern came again. Rand stopped at its mouth. Cold, humid air blew out over him, chilling his skin, smelling of fungus. Rand cast aside his walking staff, then strode into the cavern. As he passed into darkness, he wove a globe of white-blue light and hung it beside his head. The glow reflected from the wet stone, shining on smooth knobs and clefts.
    Panting echoed from deep within the cavern. It was followed by gasps. And . . . splashes. Rand walked forward, though by now he had guessed what this was. He had begun to wonder if she would try again.
    He came to a small chamber, perhaps ten paces wide, at the end of the tunnel, where the stone sank down into a clear pool of water, perfectly circular. The blue depths seemed to extend downward forever.
    A woman in a white dress struggled to stay afloat in the center of it.
    The fabric of her dress rippled in the water, forming a circle. Her face and hair were wet. As Rand watched, she gasped and sank, flailing in the crystalline water.
    She came up a moment later, gasping.
    “Hello, Mierin,” Rand said softly. His hand formed into a fist. He would not jump into that water to rescue her. This was a dreamshard. That pool could actually be water, but more likely it represented something else.
    His arrival seemed to buoy her, and her vigorous thrashings became more effective. “Lews Therin,” she said, wiping her face with one hand, panting.
    Light! Where was his peace? He felt like a child again, a boy who thought Baerlon the grandest city ever built. Yes, her face was different, but faces were no longer of much matter to him. She was still the same person.
    Of all the Forsaken, only Lanfear had chosen her new name. She had always wanted one of those.
    He remembered. He remembered. Walking into grand parties with her on his arm. Her laughter over the music. Their nights alone. He had not wanted to remember making love to another woman, particularly not to one of the Forsaken, but he could not pick and choose what was in his mind.
    Those memories mixed with his own, when he had desired her as the Lady Selene. A foolish, youthful lust. He no longer felt these things, but the memories of