The stones around him faded almost to mist; the Stone faded. Reality trembled; he could feel it unraveling, feel himself unraveling. He was being pushed out of the here, into some other place where nothing existed at all. Callandor blazed in his hands like the sun till he thought it would melt. He thought he himself would melt from the surge of the One Power through him, the flood that he somehow directed into sealing up the hole that had opened around him, into holding himself on the side of existence. The Stone became solid again.

He could not even begin to imagine what it was that he did. The One Power raged inside him till he barely knew himself, till he barely was himself, till what was himself almost did not exist. His precarious stability teetered. To either side lay the endless fall, obliteration by the Power that coursed through him into the sword. Only in the dance along the razor’s sharp edge was there even an uncertain safety. Callandor shone in his fist until it seemed he carried the sun. Dimly within him, fluttering like a candle flame in a storm, was the surety that holding Callandor, he could do anything. Anything.

Through endless corridors he ran, dancing along the razor, chasing the one who would slay him, the one he must slay. There could be no other end, this time. This time one of them must die! That Ba’alzamon knew it as well was clear. Always he fled, always staying ahead of sight so that only the sounds of his flight drew Rand on, but even fleeing he turned this Stone of Tear that was not the Stone of Tear against Rand, and Rand fought back with instinct and guesses and chance, fought and ran down that knife edge in perfect balance with the Power, the tool and weapon that would consume him utterly if he faltered.