Ashes of Snow

Chapter 19

SNOWFLAKES DRIFT AROUND me, turning the air over the ivory field white and cold.

I'm in Winter.

"I thought I'd have more time." Egwene stands beside me in a white silk gown, the locket gleaming from her neck. Her eyes are glazed, whether from tears or the cold I can't tell.

"What?" I feel a flicker of alarm. I shouldn't be in Winter. Last I remember, I was ... somewhere else. Where?

"I thought I'd have more time," Egwene repeats. "The connection to conduit magic never breaks, but it was too soon earlier. I've been trying to give you time, but time has run out." She faces me, and I know now that those are tears in her eyes, tears that crest over her lids and tumble down her cheeks. She steps forward, reaching one hand out to me.

"Wait." I pull away. I can't remember ... anything. Why I'm here, in a dream again, why my stomach hangs with a painful weight. Why ...

Sir's dead. And I've been captured by Cain.

I fall to my knees, gasping on snowflakes. "No ..."

Egwene steps closer. "Once you arrive in Spring, Lorgen will use his dark magic to watch you like he's been watching Lucien since Winter fell." Her face softens. "I'm sorry I can't explain what I'm about to show you, but I don't have time for more than this now."

She puts her hand on my forehead. I moan in protest, but the moment her skin touches mine, scenes fill my head, images and pictures of ... the past. Egwene is showing me the past. I don't know how I know that, but the truth zings through me as certainly as the images, and I draw in ragged breaths to keep myself from descending into panic.

Dozens of people stand on a dark lane, holding stones and pendants and sticks in unrelenting fists. The objects glow faintly, gentle pulses of light under the deep black sky. The people turn as a different group approaches, also holding glowing objects. The two groups don't hesitate—with a scream and a bellow they attack. Fists split bones as if they're no more than brittle pieces of wood; bodies fly through the air, thrown like fistfuls of straw.

Normal people shouldn't be able to fight like this. But these aren't just normal people—those objects are conduits. People once had their own conduits? But only the Royal Conduits were created before the chasm disappeared... .

Or was that wrong?

A shadow rises from the fight, drifting out of each thrown punch, each snarl of hatred. The larger it grows, the angrier the crowd gets, like each feeds the other. Anger for more anger, evil for stronger evil—

From the light, there came a great Decay.

More black clouds of Decay appear, rising out of towns, villages, all from people who use conduits to do terrible things. A murder, a theft, a woman cowering as her husband beats her. Each time someone uses a conduit for corrupt ends, the Decay grows; and each time the Decay grows, it finds people, seeps inside them, and makes them do even more corrupt things.

And woe was it unto those who had no light.

Eight people stand before me on the edge of a cliff in a great underground cavern. A brilliant ball of light from the endless depth beyond all but blinds me, and as I realize what this is, everything I've ever felt evaporates, leaving only gentle awe.

The lost chasm of magic.

They did beg, thus the lights were formed.

The eight people stack stones and pendants and sticks on the edge of the chasm. Conduits, still glowing softly in eight separate piles. On the very top of his or her pile, each person places an object that does not glow. A locket, a dagger, a crown, a staff, an ax, a shield, a ring, a cuff. I run my eyes over the eight people again. Four male, four female.