Contents
49 The Dark One Stirs
Overview
Escorted to the Border by Ingtar, the party crosses into the sickly fringe of the Blight and presses north toward the Mountains of Dhoom. They camp by the ruins of Malkier’s Seven Towers, where Moiraine wards their hill and conceals their lights. Egwene speaks of Tar Valon; Nynaeve and Lan confront love and duty, accepting a painful divide.
Summary
At Fal Dara’s dawn exodus, Agelmar leads Shienar to Tarwin’s Gap while refugees stream south. Ingtar escorts Moiraine, Lan, and the companions to the Border but halts at the stone post by command. Moiraine insists they must go on alone; the party rides into the fringe of the Blight under growing heat and wrongness.
As they advance, the land festers: diseased leaves, stinking blooms, and hidden predators force silence and vigilance. The heat and decay sicken most, though Lan and Perrin endure. Moiraine and Loial explain the Eye lies beyond high passes that shift in finding, and Lan urges haste to reach them by daylight.
Toward sunset they reach lakes encircling jagged hills; a monstrous, tentacled shape rolls beneath nearby waters, ending thoughts of camping by the shore. Moiraine sets distant warning wards and bends sight around their hill to hide their lights. Rand glimpses the shattered Seven Towers of Malkier in the fading sun, a stark reminder of Lan’s lost homeland. Around the stove, Egwene speaks eagerly of Tar Valon; Moiraine hints all will have roles there. Nynaeve, defensive yet resolved, considers going to support Egwene.
In the sweltering night, Moiraine’s oils mask the fetor but not the heat. While others sleep, Nynaeve offers Lan tea, and they speak frankly: she offers love and a future; Lan, bound to a hopeless war and unwilling to doom her to widowhood, refuses. He vows never to shame her and slips away to tend the horses, leaving Nynaeve silently in tears as the company prepares to face deeper Blight at dawn.
Who Appears
- Lan MandragoranLeads through the Blight; reveals Malkieri roots; declines Nynaeve’s love, bound to war and duty.
- Moiraine DamodredDirects the route, sets wards and concealment; plans to reach the Eye via high passes.
- Rand al'ThorObserves the Border towers and the Blight’s corruption; contemplates Egwene’s hopes and duty.
- Nynaeve al'MearaConsiders Tar Valon; confesses love to Lan; accepts his refusal with pain and resolve.
- Egwene al'VereEager for Tar Valon; imagines future roles, even naming Rand as potential Warder.
- Mat CauthonSickened by the Blight; anxious about lurking threats; offers grim humor despite fear.
- Perrin AybaraUnsettled but steady in the Blight; eyes glow; handles the axe, endures the stench.
- LoialDisgusted by the Blight; explains the Eye and the Green Man’s shifting place; helps camp.
- IngtarEscorts them to the Border; frustrated to miss battle, turns east to Tarwin’s Gap.
- Lord Agelmar JagadLeads Shienaran forces toward Tarwin’s Gap as refugees flee south.