The first several pages are just more of Rand running around looking for a way out, and not finding one. It goes on way too long, and the novelty of seeing more of Fal Dara is long gone by the time it’s over. There’s a creepy new element of Rand sensing someone following him and laughing, but never showing themselves, but even that can’t carry me through this padding for as long as it goes on.
Finally he meets Mat, Perrin, and Loial, but of course he can’t tell them why he wants to leave. So instead he’s nasty to all of them so they won’t want to go with him, and it’s pretty painful. Can at least one more person know soon? I really hate it when stories do this. After getting them away, he tries the same thing with Egwene, but she sees right through it and gives him a great What the Hell, Hero?.
Egwene suggests he hide in the dungeon, where she’s been visiting Fain in desperation of someone to talk to about home. That’s kind of a Tearjerker. But Fain is particularly creepy today, and she sees it’s not going to work, so instead she suggests a Crazy Enough to Work plan of hiding him in the women’s quarters, right in the middle of the Aes Sedai but where no one would look for a man. And I continue to struggle to find a point to this.
Another chapter that comes off as just padding and reminding us of what’s happened already. Maybe this was nice on the first release, but moving directly through the series, it’s now really getting on my nerves. The whole “hide Rand from the Aes Sedai” plot has yet to go anywhere, and I’m starting to suspect it’ll be a big anticlimax when it turns out what they want him for isn’t nearly as bad as he’s thinking. At least Egwene’s as awesome as ever, and the scene with Fain is nicely creepy.
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