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Suddenly his eyes narrowed, fixing on a woers On her right hand rested a gold ring in the shape of a serpent eating its own tail Aes Sedai, or at least a woman trained in Tar Valon by Aes Sedai None else would wear that ring Either way made no difference to hi, and almost immediately he spotted another wo a Great Serpent ring The titches gave no sign that they knew each other In the White Tower they sat like spiders in the s and queens dance,Curse the his teeth If numbers must dwindle -- and they must, before the Day -- there were some ould be le, shivering note that came from everywhere at once and cut off all other sounds like a knife

The tall doors at the far end of the cha open, and two Trollocs stepped into the roo to their knees Everyone shied back Even the man who called himself Bors

Head and shoulders taller than the tallestblend of man and animal, human faces twisted and altered One had a heavy, pointed beak where his mouth and nose should have been, and feathers covered his head instead of hair The other walked on hooves, his face pushed out in a hairythe humans, the Trollocs turned back toward the door and bowed, servile and cringing The feathers on the one lifted in a tight crest

A Myrddraal stepped between thearbed in black that made the Trollocs’still, without a ripple, as it race

Theback over his teeth, half snarl and half, he was shamed to admit even to himself, fear It had its face uncovered Its pasty pale face, a rave

The s theh them under that eyeless look Thin, bloodless lips quirked in what ht almost have been a smile as, one by one, theto avoid that gaze The Myrddraal’s look shaped the the door

The man who called himself Bors sed There will coain, he will choose his new Dreadlords, and you will cower before them You will cower beforeat me, and speak!

"Your Master comes" The Myrddraal’s voice rasped like a dry snake skin cru "To your bellies, wore filled the man who called himself Bors, at the tone as much as the words, but then the air above the Halfman shimmered, and the import drove home It can’t be! It can’t! The Trollocs were already on their bellies, writhing as if they wanted to burrow into the floor

Without waiting to see if anyone else runting as he bruised hiainst danger -- they were a charainst what he feared -- and he heard a hundred other voices, breathy with fear, speaking the saainst the floor

"The Great Lord of the Dark is my Master, and most heartily do I serve him to the last shred of my very soul" In the back of his mind a voice chattered with fear The Dark One and all the Forsaken are bound Shivering, he forced it to silence He had abandoned that voice long since "Lo, ainst the Day of his co, yet do I serve in the sure and certain hope of life everlasting" bound in Shayol Ghul, bound by the Creator at the moment of creation No, I serve a different master now "Surely the faithful shall be exalted in the land, exalted above the unbelievers; exalted above thrones, yet do I serve huainst the Day of his Return" The hand of the Creator shelters us all, and the Light protects us from the Shadow No, no! A different master "Swift come the Day of Return Swift couide us and rule the world forever and ever"

The , as if he had run ten miles The rasp of breath all around told him he was not the only one

"Rise All of you, rise"

The mellifluous voice took hi on their bellies with their masked faces pressed to the mosaic tiles, would have spoken, but it was not the voice he expected froh to see with one eye

The figure of a man floated in the air above the Myrddraal, the he a span over the Halfman’s head Masked in bloodred, too Would the Great Lord of the Dark appear to theaze fear, treure’s shadow The rasped for an answer hisOne of the Forsaken, perhaps

That thought was only a little less painful Even so, it meant the Day of the Dark One’s return must be close at hand if one of the Forsaken was free The Forsaken, thirteen of the e filled with powerful wielders, had been sealed up in Shayol Ghul along with the Dark One, sealed away froon and the Hundred Co had tainted the male half of the True Source; and all the male Aes Sedai, those cursed wielders of the Poent mad and broke the world, tore it apart like a pottery bowl sends before they died, rotting while they still lived A fitting death for Aes Sedai, to his retted only that the women had been spared

Slowly, painfully, he forced the panic to the back of his et out It was the best he could do None of those on their bellies had risen, and only a few had even dared raise their heads

"Rise" There was a snap in the redestured with both hands "Stand!"

The man who called himself Bors scrambled up aardly, but halfway to his feet, he hesitated Those gesturing hands were horribly burned, crisscrossed by black fissures, the raw flesh between as red as the figure’s robes Would the Dark One appear so? Or even one of the Forsaken? The eyeholes of that bloodred htened hastily He thought he could feel the heat of an