45 What Follows in Shadow

Before dawn, Moiraine leads Rand, Mat, Perrin, Egwene, Nynaeve, Lan, and Loial through The Queen’s Blessing to a concealed exit Master Gill provides. They move quietly across Caemlyn’s streets as the city wakes, Loial unerringly guiding them despite growing notice from early risers. Loial identifies a shuttered shop as the site of the Waygate, and Moiraine uses a floating light to find a cellar entrance.

In the unused cellar, Loial mourns the lost Ogier grove once there. Moiraine reveals an intricately carved stone wall and removes the trefoil leaf of Avendesora, placing it lower to unlock the Waygate. Lan rides through first; Loial follows, then the others. Passing the shimmering surface chills Rand, and inside they find oppressive blackness where lantern light barely holds back the dark and time in the outside world slows like a dream.

Moiraine closes the Waygate from within and urges haste. Loial points out the white Guiding line to the first stone slab inscribed in Ogier script. The party rides tightly clustered, the silence and weight of the black pressing on everyone, even the horses. At the Guiding, Loial deciphers the route and leads them onto bridges and up curving ramps between Islands, all pocked and crumbling as if the stone is rotting.

With time precious, Moiraine forbids stopping except for sleep. They eat in the saddle as Lan marks midday by feel, while Loial continues reading damaged Guidings. The sameness and decay unsettle Rand; the Ways feel both empty and menacing, with their light swallowed at a short distance. Finally, in mid-bridge, Loial abruptly halts: the path ahead ends in a jagged gap, revealing the growing peril of the ruined Ways.