Chapter 33: The Dark Waits

Rand and Mat stagger east from Four Kings through a thunderstorm. Mat is half-blind from Gode's lightning and his eyes hurt in any sunlight, so Rand leads him by the hand. Sheltering under a bush, Rand dreams of Ba'alzamon in the empty Dancing Cartman. A burned husk of Gode sits at a table. Ba'alzamon crumbles him to dust as a reward, says the Eye of the World will never serve Rand, and hurls a ball of flame that marks his face. Rand wakes with his cheek tender as sunburn.

A wary farmer, Alpert Mull, gives them a ride and parts with two woolen scarves to hide Mat's eyes, refusing to know what they are running from.

At Master Allwine's inn in Market Sheran, a young Darkfriend named Paitr sits at their table to talk. Rand bloodies his nose when he grabs his shoulder, and they flee. Travellers later carry wild rumours of Darkfriends in the village.

In the next village Rand collapses with fever, and Mat nurses him through the night in the stable behind the inn. Rand hallucinates accusing visions of the people he left behind. At dawn a well-dressed woman walks in and lunges at Mat with a dagger whose blade chars the wall it strikes. Mat pins her with the Shadar Logoth blade at her throat, locks her in the tack room, and warns of a Myrddraal coming. The boys hobble out of the village and a passing farmer, Hyam Kinch, takes them up in his cart.