Asmodean sat against the wall beside the door with his legs crossed. He was not embracing the Source, but Rand slammed a block between the man and saidin anyway. Whirling with his arm still around Aviendha, he found the gateway gone. No, not gone—he could still see his weaving, and what he knew must be Asmodean’s—but there seemed to be nothing there at all. Without pause he slashed his weave, and suddenly the gateway appeared, a rapidly narrowing view of Seanchan, the Lady Morsa slumped in her saddle, Jalindin shouting orders. A green-and-white tasseled spear lanced through the opening, just before it snapped shut. Instinctively, Rand channeled Air to snatch the suddenly wobbling two-foot length of spear. The shaft ended as smoothly as any craftsman could have worked it. Shivering, he was glad that he had not tried removing the gray barrier—whatever it had been—before jumping through.

“A good thing neither of the sul’dam recovered in time,” he said, taking the severed spear in his hand, “or we’d have had worse than this coming after us.” He watched Asmodean from the corner of his eye, but the man only sat there, looking slightly ill. He could not know whether Rand meant to stuff that spear down his throat.

Aviendha’s sniff was her most pointed yet. “Do you think I released them?” she said heatedly. She removed his arm firmly, but he did not think her temper was for him. Or not for his arm, anyway. “I tied their shields as tightly as I could. They are your enemies, Rand al’Thor. Even the ones you called damane are faithful dogs who would have killed you rather than be free. You must be hard with your enemies, not soft.”

She was right, he thought, hefting the spear. He had left enemies behind that he might well have to face one day. He had to become harder. Or else he would be ground to flour before he ever reached Shayol Ghul.

Abruptly she began smoothing her skirts, and her voice became almost conversational. “I notice that you did not save that whey-faced Morsa from her fate. From the way you looked at her, I thought big eyes and a round bosom had caught your eye.”

Rand stared at her in amazement that oozed across the emptiness surrounding him like syrup. She could have been saying the soup was ready. He wondered how he was supposed to have noticed Morsa’s bosom, hidden as it was in a fur-lined cloak. “I should have brought her,” he said. “To question her about the Seanchan. I will be troubled by them again, I am afraid.”