Darkhounds attack Mat and Rand in the middle of the night. Rand destroys them with balefire, earning a lecture from Moiraine. Mat discovers that his foxhead medallion shields him from channeling. Couladin moves the Shaido toward Jangai Pass, and Rand hurries to follow.
Rand wakes in the middle of the night. He senses evil approaching. The text specifically mentions a “foul miasma,” which is a phrase we’ve not seen since the Dark One’s flatulence attacked the Stone of Tear. Knowing the presence is coming for him, Rand goes to the empty upper floor of the building. Three Darkhounds attack, but Rand effortlessly summons his Power sword and chops them to pieces. His gloating is cut short when the pieces liquefy, congeal, and form back into three living Darkhounds again. Fuck, looks like someone just watched Terminator 2 before he penned this scene!
Rand doesn’t have an industrial steel mill handy, but he’s got the next best thing: balefire! He blasts them out of existence just as Moiraine runs into the room. She is relieved Rand is unhurt and surprised there were only three Darkhounds, as their packs are typically larger. The Aes Sedai tries to launch into a lecture about the effects of balefire, but Rand ignores her and rushes out of the building and across the city to Mat’s place. Three more Darkhounds are tearing his friend’s bedchamber door to shreds. Rand stands off to the side and erases them with another deadly dose of balefire.
Inside, Mat is naked. So is Melindhra, but she’s got a blanket wrapped around her. Oops — looks like the Darkhounds interrupted sexy time. Mat is confused because he remembers the Darkhounds biting through the door and salivating on his arm, but now the door is intact. Moiraine arrives and examines Mat’s arm, which is becoming increasingly inflamed. Her first attempt to Heal him fails, and they quickly determine it’s because of the foxhead medallion Mat got in the twisted redstone doorframe. It seems to somehow absorb the One Power. Well — he did ask for a way to be free from the Aes Sedai and the One Power, and it seems he got it! Moiraine is extremely bothered by the existence of this ter’angreal, and Rand has to command Moiraine multiple times to not try to take it away from Mat.
Is this what happens when you use too much balefire?
Moiraine has to beg Rand to listen long enough for her to talk about balefire. She explains that balefire erases things from existence retroactively. The more powerful the balefire, the farther back in time the object is erased. As you can imagine, this can cause all kinds of causality issues, and is the reason using balefire has been forbidden since the Age of Legends. You know, so far I have resisted the temptation to make a Loom™ joke, but with all the talk of weaving, the Pattern, and now of unmaking things, it’s getting a little difficult to ignore the fact that this was a popular video game when Jordan wrote The Fires of Heaven.
Lecture received, Rand shocks Moiraine by opening a Skimming doorway. He steps through it, once again reminding Moiraine to leave Mat alone about his medallion. Rand makes sure Asmodean is okay, then Skims back to his bedchamber. He checks on the Choedan Kal ter’angreal to make sure they’re still safely hidden.
When Lanfear catches him looking at the statues, she becomes hopeful that Rand is considering her offer to rule the universe together. Hey, you miss all the shots you don’t take, so you can’t fault the woman for trying, right? Following Rand’s predictable rebuke, Lanfear informs him that Rahvin sent the Darkhounds. Rand is confused, so she connects the dots: Rahvin wants to conquer Cairhien, and Rand sent troops to Cairhien in The Shadow Rising, which the Forsaken has taken as an act of aggression.
The conversation is interrupted by a knock at the door. The clan chiefs have come with news: the Shaido are moving for Jangai Pass. Couladin is making his move! The clan chiefs also somehow know that several other clans are on the move, but it is too early to say where they are headed. Not that it matters terribly much. Clearly the plot is converging on Cairhien and Caemlyn. Ah, narrative gravity — the strongest force in the Pattern.