This week in Reading The Wheel of Time, we’re covering chapters two and three of Knife of Dreams. First, Beonin muses on the Dark One’s touch and is revealed as an undercover agent, then we move to a meeting of the Forsaken in which Moridin reminds everyone that the last battle is near and Aran’gar plots to get rid of him anyway.
Beonin wakes early, forcing herself to go through her normal morning ritual and practice patience—something she once had much of, but she is now finding more difficult. Noticing how spoiled most of the food, and even the tea, has become, she wonders how long it will be until there is nothing edible left in the camps, and whether or not anything similar is happening in Tar Valon.
She orders her Warder, Tervail, to saddle their horses. As she waits, she thinks about her grandmother and mother, and the respective lessons they taught her about the law and about ambition, then muses about the changes the rebel Tower has made to traditional Aes Sedai ways. On the one hand, she considers law and custom to be “a bedrock of stability” that rules an Aes Sedai’s life, and that allowing women older than eighteen to enroll as novices is too radical a change, but on the other hand, she can’t stop thinking about how much potential the White Tower lost out on by the age limit, and by only searching for girls born with the spark.
She takes notice of the negotiators leaving the camp, and wonders why they bother—surely they are beyond any talks now. Her thoughts are interrupted by Ashmanaille and Phaedrine, who have been pondering the matter of Anaiya and Kairen’s wanting Beonin’s expert advice on searching for a killer. Beonin advises them to find sisters who knew the two murdered Blues well and to look for other connections between the two, then leaves with Tervail for the traveling tent. They wait in line for a while, then Beonin opens a Gateway.
On the other side, Beonin is shocked to see Turanine Merdagon, an Aes Sedai who died when Beonin was still Accepted. The image vanishes, and Beonin realizes that this is another sign of the Dark One’s touch on the Pattern.
Tervail realizes they aren’t far from Tar Valon and assumes that Beonin is planning to assassinate Elaida. He wants to go in her stead, but Beonin gives him instructions to wait for her at an inn with the horses, then disguises herself with an inverted weave of Illusion.
In her study, Elaida listens impatiently to the ranting of Mattin Stepaneos, who is angry about being kidnapped and held on a boat while being transported to Tar Valon. Elaida initially ordered the kidnapping in an attempt to display the White Tower’s power, but now implies to Stepaneos that this was done to protect him from Rand’s conquering of Illian. This mollifies Stepaneos somewhat, as does Elaida’s suggestion that she can help him regain his throne. She dismisses him, and then turns her attention to other matters, such as the cleaning of the streets and the city sewers. People are afraid to leave their homes, claiming to have seen ghosts, but Elaida issues angry orders to have both issues dealt with immediately.
She delightedly receives a woman who has come with a petition to the Amyrlin; Elaida has been frustrated by how few petitions have been brought to her. The woman reveals herself to be Beonin in disguise. Knowing about Beonin’s love of the law and strong personal ambition, Elaida sent Beonin to infiltrate the rebel Aes Sedai, but is angry at Beonin’s lack of success in dissolving the rebels’ cohesion and thwarting their plans. Beonin tells Elaida about Egwene’s ability as a Dreamwalker and her message to her followers, and Elaida doesn’t share Beonin’s optimism that the rebels are on the brink of falling apart without her.
Beonin also tells Elaida about all the new weaves she has learned in her time with the rebels, and is excited to demonstrate them. Elaida commands her to swear not to teach any sister the new weaves without Elaida’s express permission.
“The woman stood peering into her teacup long enough that Elaida was beginning to think she would refuse. But ambition won out. She had tied herself to Elaida’s skirts in the hope of preferment, and she would not abandon that now. “Under the Light and by my hope of salvation and rebirth, I swear that I will teach the weaves I learned among the rebels to no one without the permission of the Amyrlin Seat.” She paused, taking a sip from the cup. “Some sisters in the Tower, they are perhaps less reliable than you think. I tried to stop it, but that ‘ruling council’ sent ten sisters to return to the Tower and spread the tale of the Red Ajah and Logain.” Elaida recognized few of the names she reeled off, until the last. That one made her sit bolt upright.
Elaida orders Tarna to have the rebel moles watched, but not arrested, and gives permission for Beonin to teach Tarna every weave she knows. And then she sets Beonin to teach them to Elaida herself.
Aran’gar answers Moridin’s summons to gather in Tel’aran’rhiod, finding Semirhage, Demandred, and Mesaana deep in conversation while Graendal watches them. Aran’gar approaches Graendal and flirts with her, and makes overtures at an alliance at the same time. Graendal warns Aran’gar of Moridin’s disapproval, but seems cautiously interested. Aran’gar intends to use and discard Graendal, while avoiding being caught in one of Graendal’s traps.
Mesaana is furious at Aran’gar for letting Egwene be captured, but she relaxes a little when she learns that the rebel Aes Sedai still intend to hold out. The breaking of the White Tower was Mesaana’s plan, and she intends to decide what happens next—until Moridin arrives, correcting her that he is the only one who will be making those calls now.
Moridin informs them that either Sammael is still alive, or someone else is masquerading as him. This person sent “a hundred Myrddraal and thousands of Trollocs” into the Ways, though Moridin doesn’t know what their orders are. He commands the Forsaken to report any movement of Shadowspawn outside of the Blight, and reminds them that no one is allowed to be working on their own anymore… as Mesaana learned recently.
Aran’gar exchanged looks with Graendal. Something had been done to punish Mesaana’s failure to appear at Shadar Logoth, but what? Once, dereliction on that scale would have meant death. They were too few for that, now. Cyndane and Moghedien appeared as curious as she was, so they did not know either.
Watching the interaction between Moridin, Moghedien, and Cyndane, Aran’gar deduces that the two women have been mindtrapped, and plots to take control of them once Aran’gar can get rid of Moridin.
Moridin gives orders to search for where Rand has hidden the last three seals on the Dark One’s prison, and shows the other Forsaken an image of Perrin and Mat, commanding that they be found and killed. Rand is his alone to kill when he decides.
Aran’gar is happy to kill Perrin or Mat if she comes across them, but doesn’t intend to leave Rand alone, either.
Well, that was certainly a ride!
One always had to assume that someone either among the Salidar Sitters or among Sheriam’s original leadership group had to be a spy for Elaida, but it’s something I kind of forgot about once Egwene became Amyrlin and the more pressing question was whether anyone besides Siuan and Leane would support her at all. Not to mention the knowledge that there are at least two Black Sisters (Delana and Sheriam) and one of the Forsaken in Salidar, right under Egwene’s nose and messing with her Dreams.
It was easy to get lulled into a false sense of security when it came to the sisters who were forced to swear fealty to Egwene. I was initially surprised, therefore, when Beonin turned out to be working for Elaida, but on reflection, it makes perfect sense that it’s her, and chapter two does an excellent job showing us everything we need to know about her character to understand exactly where she’s coming from, and how and why she has made the choices that we learn about in chapter two.
It is mentioned several times that Beonin is both dedicated to the law and very ambitious. First, in Beonin’s section, she remembers her grandmother, “a noted advocate in Tanchico, [who] had infused her with a love for the intricacies of the law,” and her mother, who taught Beonin “that it was always possible to better yourself.” Later, Elaida considers that Beonin has “a wholehearted dedication to the law” and also possesses a great deal of ambition, which made her the perfect person to send after the sisters who fled the Tower.
I am curious how, exactly, Beonin has thought her way around her oath of obedience to Egwene. Since the events around Egwene’s raising and the decision to travel to Tar Valon to begin the siege covers such a large span of time, I cannot for the life of me remember exactly when, or in what chapter of what book, Egwene found out about Sheriam and company’s little secret and leveraged that into making them swear oaths of fealty to her. I imagine the exact wording is important here, but without the page in front of me, I’m going off my best guess, and a clue that Jordan left at the end of chapter two.
When Elaida demands Beonin swear not to teach anyone the re-discovered weaves without her express permission, Beonin speaks the following words:
*“Under the Light and by my hope of salvation and rebirth, I swear that I will teach the weaves I learned among the rebels to no one without the permission of the Amyrlin Seat.”
I noticed immediately that she said “the Amyrlin Seat,” not Elaida’s name. This is significant because if Elaida is deposed at any point, Beonin will no longer be beholden to her orders on the subject—although I imagine the wording means that this oath will transfer to the next Amyrlin. However, the point here is that if she and Sheriam and the rest used similar wording when they swore fealty to Egwene, then Egwene’s capture may release Beonin from that fealty. If interpreted a certain way, that is. As a spy for Elaida and not someone who sided with the rebels in truth, Beonin may never have seen Egwene as being a true Amyrlin, in which case an oath of fealty to the Amyrlin would not have held her to Egwene’s orders at all, other than via a need to appear to be bound by said oath to maintain her cover. Even if Beonin did begrudgingly consider Egwene as an Amyrlin, her capture by the White Tower and the entrance of her name back into the novice books certainly makes a fair argument to say she isn’t an Amyrlin anymore. Egwene wouldn’t agree, and neither would I, but someone who was always more loyal to Elaida might see things differently.
Of course, if she can change her mind once, Beonin could always change her mind again. If Egwene wins out in this battle of wills against Elaida, if she can sway other sisters in the Tower to see her as the true and proper Amyrlin, Beonin might find her opinion changing again, even against her will. I don’t expect she has any particular love for Elaida, anyway. Beonin might really see Elaida as the lawful Amyrlin, but maybe she was undecided, as many sisters seem to be. Perhaps she found Elaida’s methods in deposing Siuan to be legally questionable, but not outright and clearly illegal. After all, when she’s musing on the situation in her tent in the beginning of the chapter, Beonin considers that it is “always possible to better yourself, if you seized the moment when it appeared, as she had when Elaida a’Roihan deposed Siuan Sanche.” We also saw how hesitant she was to swear the oath Elaida demanded, which seems very significant.
Beonin’s situation shows us once again the limits of oaths enforced by the Oath Rod, and how much they are dependent on an individual’s interpretation. Egwene herself considered this more than once when musing over how far she could trust women whose oaths were given under duress, even with the first of the Three Oaths in play. A woman who wishes she hadn’t had to swear such an oath might be able to convince herself of any number of loopholes, as it seems Beonin has done here.
Beonin’s advice on hunting down murderers is also interesting. Some of her logic seemed rather flawed to me, until I considered that she can’t possibly be expected to factor in such extreme ideas as “maybe there’s a Forsaken hiding among us.” It feels so obvious to the reader, who has been there for much of the Forsaken’s machinations, who knows about Mesaana’s presence in the White Tower, about Be’lal, Rahvin, and Sammael masquerading as lords of Tear, Andor, and Illian, respectively, before being routed and killed by Moiraine and Rand, etc, etc. Even if the reader didn’t know Halima’s true nature, unexplained murders by someone wielding saidin which cause fear and disorder among the Aes Sedai certainly sounds more like Forsaken work than an Asha’man’s, or at least, the work of an Asha’man who is also a Darkfriend. But of course, the reader knows so much more than the Aes Sedai about the Asha’man, their desires, their motivations, and the fact that Rand has given certain orders about keeping away from Aes Sedai. The sisters, on the other hand, don’t even know that saidin has been cleansed!
So, I found myself wondering if I was dismissing Beonin’s experience too quickly. Sure, connecting the two murdered Blues to Rand via Moiraine is way off, as we know, but her suggestion that Ashmanaille and Phaedrine follow the connections, that they speak to a sister who knew both Anaiya and Kairen and find out what else they had in common seemed like really good advice.
I have the advantage of knowing that Halima’gar is in the Aes Sedai’s midst, so the question for me has never been who, but rather why. Anaiya’s murder came right after the vote to try to make an alliance with the Black Tower, an alliance which of course would strengthen the forces of Light. So I thought maybe Halima wanted to murder someone important to that decision with saidin—who is going to go forward in reaching out to the Black Tower when they think there’s an Asha’man in their midst murdering sisters. Anaiya was also very important to Egwene, one of her inner circle and also the only person who fully believed that she was a dreamer. Losing her was a serious blow to Egwene, so, again, it made sense. Kairen’s murder didn’t seem to have the same motivations behind it, but it did further the anxiety and distress felt by the sisters, so much so that Beonin is concerned that the novices will notice something is off.
But Beonin’s point that both murdered sisters were Blue Ajah caught my attention, and when I went back through my notes I realized something I’d forgotten: Halima’s cover story, the one she instructs Delana to tell the Hall, is that she was a companion of Cabriana Mecandes. Cabriana was the sister Shadar Haran set Semirhage to interrogate, and we know from chapter three that several of the Forsaken were involved in setting Aran’gar up to infiltrate the rebel Aes Sedai. And even if Mesaana claims credit for the plan, both Moridin and Shaidar Haran have been overseeing it.
When Halima’gar first arrived, she told Delana that she knew every detail of Cabriana’s life, but if Anaiya and Kairen both knew Cabriana well, if they were her friends, perhaps they might have realized that “Halima” is not who she claimed to be. Even if they heard that she was a friend of Cabriana and started asking Halima questions about how Cabriana died, or how Halima became so close to her, Halima’gar may have felt compelled to murder them lest her cover be blown.
In any case, I have been expecting some sister to run off to Elaida sooner or later simply because the ability to Travel and the fact Sisters’ destinations are not monitored in any way was a narrative Chekhov’s gun that I knew Jordan wouldn’t be ignoring. It was only a matter of time before we learned that someone was sneaking off to do something that was against Egwene’s desires, or even against the rebels as a whole. Egwene herself observed that this was a possibility, and one she could do nothing about. We’ll just have to wait and see what the repercussions of this are, but Beonin has already been largely unsuccessful in bringing about the end of the rebellion the way Elaida expected her to, and there is clearly friction between them now. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out.
Now that Elaida and Tarna know about the rebel spies, and will be attempting to watch them even as Seaine and the Black Ajah hunters are controlling them, and while Alviarin is trying to track down Talene and keep an eye on Doesine and Yukiri—it’s not so much a web as a messy ball of yarn at this point, and it’s hard to guess which watcher, or which watchee, is going to become an issue first. The only good thing is that everyone has so much else to worry about that Egwene might be less closely watched than she would otherwise be.
I thought it was kind of funny that Elaida just wrote “Get this done now or else!” on her orders about the street cleaning and sewer work. True, she is the head of a large organization and it is her underlings’ jobs to organize and oversee the details. However, I think it is indicative of Elaida’s ruling style as well; she just wants to be powerful and wave her hands and have everyone be and do exactly what she wants. She doesn’t know how to lead, how to inspire, how to elevate those who don’t meet her standards into people who can. This is something that Siuan was good at, and something that Egwene is good at, and I have a feeling that it’s going to make all the difference in the ongoing battle for the Amyrlin Seat—both in a logistical sense but also in the sense of who inspires the most confidence, and the most loyalty, in the sisters she is trying to lead.
One thing that I found very interesting about the contrast of these two chapters was how the Forsaken have been working hard to undermine the Aes Sedai, sowing fear and discord, turning Sisters and Ajah against each other, but even with all their success in this area, no group of people dedicated to the Light will ever be as fractured, as mistrustful, or as dangerous to each other as the Forsaken are themselves.
When Moridin arrives at the meeting, his first words are to remind the other Forsaken that all the decisions that are to be made now are his, and later he states that nobody “is allowed to go adventuring on their own any longer.” Until now, the Forsaken have been following a loose set of directions from their Dark Lord—gain power, sow chaos—and have also sometimes received individualized instructions. Being led by Moridin as a sort of general is a new level of cohesion for them, and one that is clearly not welcome. Despite the fact that everyone knows now that Moridin is Ishamael, and that he has been named Nae’blis, Aran’gar doesn’t even hesitate in thinking about her desire to get rid of him. I’m sure at least some of the others—those who aren’t mindtrapped—are thinking along similar lines, though I wonder if Mesaana might be pretty cowed out of thinking about any kind of sneaking around behind Shaidar Haran’s back right now.
Darkfriends have always been motivated by greed and kept in line by fear; even the Dark One’s top lieutenants are ultimately forced to cower before him, and we’ve seen how intense a visit to Shayol Ghul can be. We’ve also seen how the Dark One punishes his followers with intense tortures, such as how Moghedien was held in a vacuole or the punishment Mesaana received for her failure to appear at Shadar Logoth. Obedience is very important to the Dark One, but only, I think, if it interferes with the results the Dark One wants. If a Forsaken’s schemes for their own power results in the advancement of the cause, I think he mostly overlooks it. Something to this effect was told to Moghedien—that her going off on her own had been tolerated while it produced results, but that privilege was being revoked after Moghedien’s capture and subsequent revealing of secrets to Elayne, Nynaeve, and Egwene.
This, no doubt, is why the Forsaken feel comfortable sneaking around trying to undermine each other, why Aran’gar still thinks she can get rid of Moridin (I believe Graendal also had some similar thoughts at some point, and may still), why so many of them plotted ways to kill Rand even after being ordered not to, and so forth.
Speaking of Sammael, I love that Jordan left us just that little bit of doubt as to his actual death, since Rand wasn’t looking at the exact moment Sammael would have been touched by Mashadar. For myself, I’m pretty confident the guy is dead, but it’s fun not to be entirely sure.
Still, I have a feeling that it is another Forsaken masquerading as Sammael. Now that Moridin’s taking over and Shaidar Haran is lurking about, pretending to be another of the Forsaken is probably the safest, and possibly the only, way to get away with breaking the rules. My money’s on Demandred, here. He’s the only Forsaken we don’t know much about, now that we know Semirhage is meddling with the Seanchan. In fact, Demandred is mentioned so infrequently that I tend to forget that he exists, and every time he’s brought up again I have to remember that he’s one of the Forsaken, not one of Moiraine’s relatives. Demandred, not Damodred.
We did see him in the Prologue of Lord of Chaos, in which he was summoned to Shayol Ghul and met Shaidar Haran, then was given orders and enticed with the possibility of being named Nae’blis. He passed on the Dark One’s orders about letting the Lord of Chaos rule to Semirhage, Mesaana, and Graendal, but other than that, we don’t really know what the guy’s been up to. He’s the only sneaky one of the male Forsaken, apparently, and I am interested to find out what he’s been up to.
And then there’s Mat and Perrin, who haven’t had so specific a target painted on them since The Great Hunt, when Ba’alzamon gave their images, along with Rand’s, to the Darkfriends he called to gather. Back then, of course, no one was sure which of the boys was the Dragon Reborn, and although both Perrin and Mat have been on different Darkfriends’ radars from time to time, their importance to the Forsaken paled in comparison to Rand’s. But now it looks like Moridin is about to remedy that.
I’m sure he’s right that getting rid of Perrin and Mat is necessary to defeating Rand—the way they are called to him is clearly the Pattern at work. Of course, they are both distracted by wives right now, but I’m (perhaps foolishly) hopeful that those situations will get resolved in this book.
I’m taking a week off next week while a family member has surgery, but we’ll be back on the 25th with chapters four and five. In the meantime, the third season of the television series drops on Thursday, so keep your eyes peeled for my reviews of the first three episodes! I’m very excited about them, as I’m sure you all are too. Have a great week everyone, and I’ll see you on Thursday!
