The Eye of the World: Chapter Fourteen

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: THE STAG AND LION

Hoo boy.

Okay, first I'm going to go over the normal stuff, the stuff that didn't give me the wim-wams. All of that settling into the inn plays out in the first half of this chapter, with Rand and his friends chatting up the locals about whatever information they can find. What they find out isn't really anything we don't already know: the Children of the Light are bullying assholes, they're busy harassing the local government, and Trollocs are rampaging throughout the land. Before we can learn anything that's really new, Mat demonstrates that he caught the stupid virus on the streets of Baerlon and nearly blabs about the Trollocs in Two Rivers.

Lan arrives just in time and gives Mat a well-deserved talking to. He points out that the situation is more complicated than they think, and that any stranger they talk to could be a Darkfriend or a Whitecloak toady who'd screw them over at the first sign of trouble. At the dinner later (the first decent one they had since they started the journey, I might add), Moiraine reinforces this claim, telling them that they have to be careful who they trust, even in Tar Valon. Of course, Rand gets another point of respect from me when he thinks that he might not be able to trust Lan and Moiraine either.

Oh, and Rand tries to open a dialogue with Egwene in order to apologize, but she ain't having any of it, and I honestly can't blame her. She'll open back up eventually, Rand, just as long as you don't put your foot in your mouth again.

Everyone settles in for a quiet night's rest, and that's when everything goes to hell. No seriously, I would not be surprised if Rand's dream literally took him to hell.

The last five pages of Chapter Fourteen are so creepy and unnerving that I wish I could just transcribe them all here and call it a day. But that would be cheating, so I'll just gush about it and try to explain why I like this so much.

Rand shows up in a foreboding place that's colored almost entirely in grays and reds and oranges, even in the sky! The architecture seems melted and distorted until he walks into a room where the only thing that's wrong is his own reflection in the mirror. And who is there to meet him but THE LORD OF DARKNESS HIMSELF?

• A man stood in front of the fireplace. [Rand] had not noticed the man when he first came in. If he had not known it was impossible, he would have said no one had been here until he actually looked at the man. Dressed in dark colors of a fine cut, he seemed in the prime of his maturity, and Rand supposed women would have found him good-looking.
  
  "Once more we meet face-to-face," the man said and, just for an instant, his mouth and eyes became openings into endless caverns of flame.

When Moiraine and Lan told the boys to be so discreet that they don't even think of the evil forces opposed to them, I thought they were being ridiculous. But now that I know that Ba'alzemon, as he calls himself, can invade Rand's mind, I'm starting to see the wisdom in those orders.

Rand tries to escape, but it's all in vain. Not even the realization that he's in a dream frees him from being in Ba'alzemon's presence, and he's essentially kept prisoner as Ba'alzemon monologues and demoralizes him, rebutting each of Rand's feeble claims about limits on his power, name-dropping people and events from history to make the young man seem insignificant, and sowing more doubt about the Aes Sedai, as if Rand needed any more of that.

I really can't do justice to how intimidating he actually seems right now, but I'm going to try. Part of the appeal I think would be lost if it weren't for me keeping my experience spoiler-free. I did not see this sequence coming at all. Until I read this chapter, I was expecting the Dark One to never directly appear in the narrative, once again drawing a parallel with Lord of the Rings. So this scene was the literary equivalent of a jump scare, and by God, I never thought I would actually say that one of those was beneficial, nay, pivotal to the storytelling experience.

The other half of this is that the sequence is a version of the old villainous monologue cliche that actually kind of works. The way I'm used to seeing this play out, it takes place near the end of the story, or at least in the second half, and serves as a blatant delivery of exposition on the villain's master plan, usually distracting the villain from just killing the hero and preventing the one thing that can stop his plan from stopping his plan.

But here, it's a different story. Rand is just starting out on his journey; he has no special skills, no inkling as to his destiny, and absolutely no idea if the Dark One even has a plan, let alone what it is. Rand has no control over his own dream, and there's nobody else to help him, so he can't stop the Dark One, either. Lastly, he's waging psychological warfare again, likely in the hopes that Rand will be filled with doubt and make a catastrophic mistake that will tip the scales for evil.

At least that's what I hope will come from this sequence. If that's not the reason behind this dream, then I have something else to ponder. If the Dark Lord can enter Rand's mind, what's to keep him from just killing Rand there, or keeping him comatose in that little dream? Ba'alzemon asks Rand if he'll ever wake up again, and then that's exactly what he does. Kind of a funny moment to close this sequence with, eh?

Jordan, please provide a follow-up of this idea or an explanation of how this power of the Dark One's works. And while you're at it, please give the villain a backstory. Lord knows there are enough pages in this behemoth of a series to fit it in.

NEXT TIME: Rand talks to people!