Light filled him. Heat filled him. He could see the Stone, see the others watching him — Loial and Hurin anxiously, Selene showing no doubt that he could save her — but they might as well not have been there. The light was all. The heat and the light, suffusing his limbs like water sinking into dry sand, filling him. The symbol burned against his flesh. He tried to suck it all in, all the heat, all the light. All. The symbol...
Suddenly, as if the sun had gone out for the blink of an eye, the world flickered. And again. The symbol was a live coal under his hand; he drank in the light. The world flickered. Flickered. It made him sick, that light; it was water to a man dying of thirst. Flicker. He sucked at it. It made him want to vomit; he wanted it all. Flicker. The triangleandcircle seared him; he could feel it charring his hand. Flicker. He wanted it all! He screamed, howling with pain, howling with wanting.
Flicker ... flicker ... flickerflickerflicker ...
Hands pulled at him; he was only vaguely aware of them. He staggered back; the void was slipping away, the light, and the sickness that twisted at him. The light. He watched it go regretfully. Light, that's crazy to want it. But I was so full of it! I was so ... Dazed, he stared at Selene. It was she who held his shoulders, stared wonderingly into his eyes. He raised his hand in front of his face. The heron brand was there, but nothing else. No triangleandcircle burned into his flesh.
“Remarkable,” Selene said slowly. She glanced at Loial and Hurin. The Ogier looked stunned, his eyes as big as plates; the sniffer was squatting with one hand on the ground, as if unsure he could support himself else. “All of us here, and all of our horses. And you do not even know what you did. Remarkable.”
“Are we ...?” Rand began hoarsely, and had to stop to swallow.
“Look around you,” Selene said. “You've brought us home.” She gave a sudden laugh. “You brought all of us home.”
For the first time Rand became aware of his surroundings again. The hollow surrounded them without any stairs, through here and there lay a suspiciously smooth piece of stone, colored red, or blue. The column lay against the mountainside, half buried in the loose rock of a fall. The symbols were unclear, here; wind and water had worked long on them. And everything looked real. The colors were solid, the granite a strong gray, the brush green and brown. After that other place, it seemed almost too vivid.
“Home,” Rand breathed, and then he was laughing, too. “We're home.” Loial's laughter sounded like a bull bellowing. Hurin danced a caper.
“You did it,” Selene said, leaning closer, until her face filled Rand's eyes. “I knew that you could.”
Rand's laughter died. “I — I suppose I did.” He glanced at the fallen Portal Stone and managed a weak laugh. “I wish I knew what it was I did, though.”
Selene looked deep into his eyes. “Perhaps one day you will know,” she said softly. “You are surely destined for great things.”
Her eyes seemed as dark and deep as night, as soft as velvet. Her mouth ... If I kissed her ... He blinked and stepped back hurriedly, clearing his throat.
“Selene, please don't tell anyone about this. About the Portal Stone, and me. I don't understand it, and neither will anybody else. You know how people are about things they don't understand.”
Her face wore no expression at all. Suddenly he wished very much that Mat and Perrin were there. Perrin knew how to talk to girls, and Mat could lie with a straight face. He could manage neither very well.
Suddenly Selene smiled, and dropped a halfmocking curtsy. “I will keep your secret, my Lord Rand al'Thor.”
Rand glanced at her, and cleared his throat again. Is she angry with me? She'd certainly be angry if I had tried to kiss her. I think. He wished she would not look at him as she was, as if she knew what he was thinking. “Hurin, is there any chance the Darkfriends used this Stone before us?”
The sniffer shook his head ruefully. “They were angling to the west of here, Lord Rand. Unless these Portal Stone things are more common than I've seen, I'd say they're still in that other world. But it wouldn't take me an hour to check it. The land's the same here as there. I could find the place here where I lost the trail there, if you see what I mean, and see if they've already gone by.”
Rand glanced at the sky. The sun — a wonderfully strong sun, not pale at all — sat low to the west, stretching their shadows out across the hollow. Another hour would bring full twilight. “In the morning,” he said. “But I fear we've lost them.” We can't lose that dagger! We can't! “Selene, if that's the case, in the morning we will take you on to your home. Is it in the city of Cairhien itself, or ...?”
“You may not have lost the Horn of Valere yet,” Selene said slowly. “As you know, I do know a few things about those worlds.”
“Mirrors of the Wheel,” Loial said.
She gave him a look, then nodded. “Yes. Exactly. Those worlds truly are mirrors in a way, especially the ones where there are no people. Some of them reflect only great events in the true world, but some have a shadow of that reflection even before the event occurs. The passage of the Horn of Valere would certainly be a great event. Reflections of what will be are fainter than reflections of what is or what was, just as Hurin says the trail he followed was faint.”
Hurin blinked incredulously. “You mean to say, my Lady, I've been smelling where those Darkfriends are going to be? The Light help me, I wouldn't like that. It's bad enough smelling where violence has been, with out smelling where it will be, too. There can't be many spots where there won't be some kind of violence, some time. It would drive me crazy, like as not. That place we just left nearly did. I could smell it all the time, there, killing and hurting, and the vilest evil you could think of. I could even smell it on us. On all of us. Even on you, my Lady, if you'll forgive me for saying so. It was just that place, twisting me the way it twisted your eye.” He gave himself a shake. “I'm glad we're out of there. I can't get it out of my nostrils yet, all the way.”
Rand rubbed absently at the brand on his palm. “What do you think, Loial? Could we really be ahead of Fain's Darkfriends?”
The Ogier shrugged, frowning. “I don't know, Rand. I don't know anything about any of this. I think we are back in our world. I think we are in Kinslayer's Dagger. Beyond that ...