Chapter 33: A Message from the Dark
In the lower levels of Barthanes’s manor, Hurin tells Rand he has tracked the Darkfriends’ trail to a walled garden behind the building. Trollocs joined them there, and none came back out. Mat and Loial meet them belowstairs; Mat reports he cannot sense the dagger anywhere in the manor despite searching from rafters to basement.
At the walled garden, Loial confirms a Waygate lies within the walls. Rand sends Mat back to fetch Ingtar and Verin, then climbs the wall with Hurin and Loial. Inside they find the Waygate—a huge stone slab carved with lifelike vines and leaves. Rand opens it using the Avendesora leaf, but instead of the usual silvery surface, pitch-blackness oozes out: Machin Shin, the Black Wind. It whispers his name.
Rand seizes saidin and hurls the One Power into the Black Wind, creating a coruscating fountain of light that forces the darkness back inch by inch. The torrent of Power nearly overwhelms him—heat going to white, cold beyond anything bearable—but Loial finds the Avendesora leaf in the grass and replaces it, closing the Waygate and severing the link. Rand collapses, shaking.
As they leave the manor, Barthanes pulls Rand aside and delivers a message from a Lugarder—Fain. Fain says he will wait for Rand on Toman Head, and if Rand refuses to follow, he will hound Rand’s blood, his people, and those he loves.
At The Great Tree, Rand tells the others what happened. Perrin is already there, reading. Despair settles over the group—Machin Shin guards the Waygate, and Fain could be anywhere by now. Ingtar bangs his fist against the wall: the Horn is lost, and he is lost.
Rand announces he will ride for Toman Head at first light. Loial, Mat, and Perrin all volunteer to go with him. Verin reveals that writings found in Fal Dara’s dungeons point to Toman Head, and proposes they follow Fain through the Ways using the Waygate at Stedding Tsofu, south and east of the city. Privately, she tells Rand that Mat’s condition is worsening—his body wastes while his strength holds, and he has a few weeks at most.