Carridin took a deep breath. That gaze on his back felt like a knife blade grating along his spine. “Things . . . have changed. Some matters are not as much in my control as they were.” A harsh, scraping noise jerked his head around.

The Myrddraal was drawing a hand across the tabletop, and thin tendrils of wood curled away from its fingernails. “Nothing has changed, human. You forswore your oaths to the Light and swore new oaths, and those oaths you will obey.”

Carridin started at the gouges marring the polished wood and swallowed hard. “I don’t understand. Why is it suddenly so important to kill him? I thought the Great Lord of the Dark meant to use him.”

“You question me? I should take your tongue. It is not your part to question. Or to understand. It is your part to obey! You will give dogs lessons in obedience. Do you understand that? Heel, dog, and obey your master.”

Anger wormed its way through the fear, and Carridin’s hand groped at his side, but his sword was not there. It lay in the next room now, where he had left it on going to attend Pedron Niall.

The Myrddraal moved faster than a striking viper. Carridin opened his mouth to scream as its hand closed on his wrist in a crushing grip; bones grated together, sending jolts of agony up his arm. The scream never left his mouth, though, for the Halfman’s other hand gripped his chin and forced his jaws shut. His heels rose up, and then his toes left the floor. Grunting and gurgling, he dangled in the Myrddraal’s grasp.

“Hear me, human. You will find this youth and kill him as quickly as possible. Do not think you can dissemble. There are others of your children who will tell me if you turn aside in your purpose. But I will give you this to encourage you. If this Rand al’Thor is not dead in a month, I will take one of your blood. A son, a daughter, a sister, an uncle. You will not know who until the chosen has died screaming. If he lives another month, I will take another. And then another, and another. And when there is no one of your blood living except yourself, if he still lives, I will take you to Shayol Ghul itself.” It smiled. “You will be years in the dying, human. Do you understand me, now?”

Carridin made a sound, half groan, half whimper. He thought his neck was going to break.

With a snarl, the Myrddraal hurled him across the room. Carridin slammed against the far wall and slid to the rug, stunned. Facedown, he lay fighting for breath.

“Do you understand me, human?”

“I . . . I hear and obey,” Carridin managed into the carpet. There was no answer.