Jordan continues to drag us through visions of the past, ad nauseam, until we finally reach the moment where some ancient Aes Sedai idiots got the bright idea to drill a hole into the Dark One’s prison. Rand emerges from the glass columns, saves Mat from being hanged, and they escape Rhuidean together.
Whew. After such an exposition-heavy lore-dump, I’m ready to find out what happened to Mat after his latest adventure in redstone doorframes. Or maybe we’ll find out how things are going with Nynaeve and Elayne’s trip to Tanchico? Hell, I’d even take a Perrin chapter.
ROBERT JORDAN: Haha. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Sorry, fuckers! We’re not done with Aiel history yet.
I guess we don’t get a break from the brain-fuckery of learning about Rand’s ancestors. You know we won’t ever hear about them ever again, don’t you? Apparently this chapter is called “The Dedicated” because this is where anyone who wasn’t serious about wading through piles of shit bails out.
This time, Rand is in Adan’s shoes. Adan crouches in a hiding spot with Lewin and some other children. Raiders have torched and pillaged the wagons. They’ve killed Adan’s wife and his last surviving son. And now, he watches as they ride away with his last surviving daughter. This is the very same pussy of a man who banished Lewin during Rand’s most recent vision.
Some other survivors approach Adan and demand to know what is next. Adan insists that their duty is still to safeguard the artifacts the Aes Sedai entrusted to them, but not everyone agrees. The dissenters want to forget about their duty to the Aes Sedai and find a peaceful place where they can sing. It’s dumb and dumber here, and I can’t bring myself to root for either side, but I suspect that the talk about songs means this is where the Tuatha’an broke off from the Aiel.
Another step back in time, Rand becomes Adan’s father, Jonai. Adan is a young man born into a bleak world, perhaps not too long after the Breaking. Whereas any sane person would be simply trying to survive, Jonai is obsessed with keeping a Covenant that his people made with the Aes Sedai, presumably to protect ter’angreal and other similar artifacts. In the end, the stress is too much for the old codger, and he suffers a heart attack.
With the next step, Jonai is a younger man. He goes to see some Aes Sedai who are deliberating about what to do with Callandor and the Dragon Banner. It sounds like one of them has an inkling that the Dragon will be reborn to save the world, but this is an understandably unpopular notion this soon after the Breaking. The Aes Sedai charge Jonai and the Aiel with the duty to protect their angreal, sa’angreal, and ter’angreal — to keep them from men wielding the One Power — until they find a place of safety.
When Rand becomes Coumin, this definitely seems to be before the Breaking. There is talk of all kinds of steampunk technology — jo-cars, shocklances, hoverflies, jumpers, sho-wings… do I need to go on? It kind of feels like Jordan was just making shit up at this point. There is talk of Lews Therin leading the Companions on a strike at Shayol Ghul, and sealing the Bore with the Forsaken on the other side.
Next comes Charn, an Aiel who served the Aes Sedai during a quaint, idyllic period of time when the world knew nothing of the Dark One, and he had no influence. The Aes Sedai, at the height of hubris, believed they found a new source of Power that both men and women could wield equally. On this day, this source of Power was tapped, creating the Bore — the hole in the Dark One’s prison — and all hell broke loose.
With this, we’re finally done with the glass columns. Rand tries to process what he has seen, but spots Mat hanging by the neck from a pole balanced across two branches. Rushing to cut him down, Rand miraculously invents CPR on the spot to resuscitate his friend. Gosh, is there anything Mary Sue Rand can’t do? Whataguy.
Mat wakes up sporting a foxhead medallion around his neck and notices the pole he was hanging from has a blade embedded in one end. He decides to keep these “parting gifts” and tells Rand the short version of what happened in the redstone doorframe. The celebration is short-lived, because the Dark One’s flatulence returns in the form of dust monsters! The two friends fight their way through the apparitions and run back through the wall of fog surrounding the city.
The sense of relief, when they finally make it out of Rhuidean, is palpable: we’re finally finished with this fucking chapter!