Chapter 24: Flight Down the Arinelle

Rand suffers another Ba'alzamon nightmare—a stone-spire labyrinth giving way to a thorn maze paved with human skulls, then a hall of mirrors where his face and Ba'alzamon's blur into one. He escapes by naming it a dream and wakes on the Spray with a fresh thorn-prick bleeding on his finger.

The boat crawls down the Arinelle against contrary winds. Captain Domon drives the crew hard and silences mutterings by hanging the captured Trolloc weapons from the mast. The men shun Gelb, who failed his watch the night of the attack, even as he tries to pin the blame on the passengers. Thom keeps a wary eye for signs of mutiny and teaches Rand and Mat gleeman tricks to hold their cover.

Domon talks of wonders he has seen in his travels: a flawless steel tower on the riverbank, a stone hand gripping a crystal sphere on Tremalking, bones of impossible animals in Tanchico's Panarch's Palace. Mat fixates on the talk of treasure.

Four days downriver, Rand climbs to the masthead and slides down the forestay; only afterward does he grasp how reckless it was. He catches Mat hiding a ruby-hilted, gold-scabbarded dagger taken from Shadar Logoth, and Mat admits he too has been dreaming of Ba'alzamon. Shaken, Rand resolves to reach Tar Valon before he goes mad.