Chapter 15

Deep in the Stone’s Great Hold, Mat finds the twisted redstone doorframe ter'angreal and steps through. He arrives in a serpentine, curved palace lit by glowing spheres where a yellow-wrapped, snake-eyed guide ushers him to three red-wrapped beings atop pedestals. They demand his questions per an ancient agreement.

Mat explains his worries about Whitecloaks in the Two Rivers and asks if he should go home. They answer instead that he must go to Rhuidean. As a tolling bell shakes the place, they grow anxious and insist there is still time if he asks quickly.

Angered, Mat demands why he must go. They reply that avoiding Rhuidean would sidestep his fate, inviting enemies to kill him. As the tremors intensify, many yellow-wrapped beings seize him. In the chaos Mat shouts for a clear answer, and the three shriek prophecies: he will marry the Daughter of the Nine Moons; he will die and live again, and live once more a part of what was; and he will give up half the light of the world to save the world.

They hurl Mat back through the doorway into the dusty Hold. The ter'angreal no longer works for him. Rand emerges next, troubled, saying the snake-folk feared his sword and that he received answers. Moiraine follows, furious that two ta’veren entered at once, warning they could have severed the connection and been trapped.

Moiraine explains the beings speak a harsh Old Tongue dialect, trade in sensations, and give true but often obscure answers about one’s own future. She offers to help interpret but shares none of her own questions or answers. Rand conjures flame and declares he must pursue his greater task, leaving Perrin to do what’s needed in Emond’s Field. Mat, shaken by the prophecies, frets over Rhuidean and the Whitecloaks.