Chapter 58

Rand enters the dark in-between and sprints up vanishing stone steps, improvising a speeding platform to chase Asmodean, who rides a silvery glide. Asmodean hurls vast curtains of fire; Rand counters and keeps pace. When Asmodean opens a sunlit exit, Rand forces it wide and tumbles into the Waste before Rhuidean.

Inside the fog, Rand narrowly avoids razor-thin traps, then drives Asmodean through Rhuidean with lightning and fire. In the plaza, Asmodean seizes the male access key ter’angreal; Rand grabs it too, and both link to the immense male sa’angreal in Cairhien. Their struggle ravages the city and shakes the glass columns while neither dares release the statue.

Exhausting, Rand draws a trickle through his small angreal and strikes at Asmodean’s unseen link, severing his connection to the Dark One. As Rand collapses, Lanfear appears, confirms they fought using one of the two great sa’angreal, and coldly refuses to save Asmodean. When she tries to kill him, Rand blasts a searing barrier to stop her. She instead fixes a reducing shield on Asmodean so he can teach but cannot challenge Rand for months.

Lanfear admits she had been among the peddlers and implies she was Keille, leaving the actual Isendre to Aiel justice for theft. Rand retrieves both male and female access keys, notes Rhuidean’s devastation and the fog’s collapse, and foresees a new lake forming from a great rift to hidden water beneath the valley.

Using Skimming, Rand returns with the broken Forsaken, now to be known as Jasin Natael, and orders Isendre’s beating stopped. At Alcair Dal he learns the Shaido have fled with Sevanna and Couladin, while the remaining clans accept him as Car’a’carn despite many deserters. Rand warns of a long, bloody road and prepares to lead the Aiel as the Fourth Age prophecy echoes.