The Eye of the World: Chapter Twenty-Six

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: WHITEBRIDGE

Forget what I said at the end of the last post. This is the chapter where shit gets real.

It didn't seem like it would at the beginning, though. We started this rather eventful and pleasantly long chapter with Mat completely botching and ruining a flute melody:

• "I suppose I should thank you," Thom Merrilin muttered finally, "for teaching me how true the old saying is. Teach him how you will, a pig will never play the flute." The sailor burst out laughing, and Mat raised the flute as if to throw it at him.

Shortly after that, they enter Whitebridge, and the description of the mysterious structure the city is named after actually makes me feel a sense of wonder at it:

• The White Bridge arched high over the wide waters, twice as high as the Spray's mast and more, and from end to end it gleamed milky white in the sunlight, gathering the light until it seemed to glow. Spidery piers of the same stuff plunged into the strong currents, appearing too frail to support the weight and width of the bridge. It looked all of one piece, as if it had been carved from a single stone or molded by a giant's hand, broad and tall, leaping the river with an airy grace that almost made the eye forget its size. All in all it dwarfed the town that sprawled about its foot on the east bank, thought Whitebridge was larger by far than Emond's Field, with houses of stone and brick as tall as those in Taren Ferry and wooden docks like thin fingers sticking out into the river. Small boats dotted the Arinelle thickly, fishermen hauling out their nets. And over it all the White Bridge towered and shone.

That's it. Nobody knows where it came from. It's just there. A few minutes after I was mesmerized by this, I realized that the same thing happened with the Elderglass structures in The Lies of Locke Lamora, and I love that book a lot more than this one. But you know what? I'll take what I can get, and I wish that the White Bridge was a real thing that I could visit on vacation.

The three of them disembark, and the captain kicks Floran Gelb's worthless ass off with them. As Rand notes, they managed to get to Whitebridge without any sort of mutiny happening on the Sway, though he likely loses the chance at making friends with the sailors who overheard him.

Gotta be more careful than that, Rand. I thought you'd be more cautious after the mistake you and your friends made in Shadar Logoth. Everyone is still feeling the ramifications of that mistake now. Nobody in one group knows whether the people in the other groups are dead or alive, and Thom's pretty much given up hope, as he says when Rand questions the need for him to teach them gleeman skills.

This brings me to what I think the chapter's ultimately about. Though it takes place from Rand's perspective, this chapter is essentially all about Thom. The gleeman has always seemed like the odd man out in the protagonists' party from the very beginning. He joined Rand's party solely for protection against the Trollocs, an explanation which seems flimsy when we know that the forces of darkness are concentrating almost entirely on Rand and his friends. If he really wanted safety, he would have been far better off just taking his chances on his own. He gives off the air of someone who isn't all that concerned with shepherding the boys to Tar Valon. Turns out I was only half right about that.

As Thom leaves, he's sorely tempted by an offer from Captain Domon to stay and entertain the sailors as they sail to Illian, a really happening place where there's going to be a Great Hunt for the Horn of Valere, an event that hasn't happened in four hundred years, as the party learns when they collect information later. So paralyzed by indecision is Thom that Rand has to pull him away from the docks in order to

After they go to a strategically-placed tavern and learn that their friends haven't passed through town, that a madman (I thought it was Padan Fain when I first heard this, but he's unidentified for now.) and a Fade (It was gratifying to know that Fades do in fact have the ability to go wherever they want without detection, hence that name for them.) have both inquired after the eight of them, and that the false Dragon, Logain, has been captured by the Aes Sedai, Thom thinks of the offer again, and begs Rand and Mat to come with him. Rand counters Thom's assurance that it'll throw off the bad guys and that he needs the Aes Sedai's help for his dreams, which cues him remembering the thorn prick that transferred to real life. But I can sense that this is a hard decision for Rand to make, just as Thom was sorely tempted to leave the boys behind at the docks for money and success. Mat, meanwhile, continues to have an inexplicable bee in his bonnet and snaps at Thom to just leave them if he wants to go so bad.

I'm not going to recap every single point made here, but it centers around trusting the Aes Sedai, or rather not trusting them. Thom reveals that he wants to get the two of them away from the Aes Sedai, because they did something horrible to his nephew Owyn a long time ago. The guilt he feels about not even trying to help Owyn is the reason why he tagged along and did his best to help out the boys, and until now he concealed his hatred of Moiraine's kin until he had the opportunity to get them away.

I didn't get the brilliance of this twist until a few minutes after I finished the chapter, but with a single detail Jordan managed to make a previously superfluous character not only relevant, but a potential game-changer. We'll get into how that is in a little while, but for now I just wanted to point out that my assessment of Thom has turned completely on its head.

He also touches into the theme of the mistrust the common folk have for the Aes Sedai, and the direction Jordan's taking it is really making me curious to see more of them. He could have dispelled all doubt regarding them and make the prejudices seem stupid and unfounded. Thom sort of references this when he points out, in response to Rand saying that he'll go to Tar Valon without Thom if he has to, that Rand doesn't know the first thing about the Ajahs the Aes Sedai have organized themselves into. But instead, the mistrust seems entirely genuine; we know as little about them as Rand does and the only fully-realized Aes Sedai that's appeared has hints of ruthlessness about her. Even Rand's counter-argument doesn't rest on his trust of the Aes Sedai's motives, but his quite reasonable assumption that they're the only people who can possibly help him with his dreams, protect him from the Trollocs, and give him answers. It's an understandable dilemma that does interest me, and if Thom had parted ways with Rand and Mat, I would have been satisfied with the way his part in the story ended, at least until he popped up again.

But that doesn't happen, because Floran Gelb pops up again and ruins everything:

• "It's true, I tell you," Gelb protested loudly. "I've been in the Borderlands. I've seen Trollocs, and these were Trollocs as sure as I'm sitting here. Those three claimed the Trollocs were chasing them, but I know better. That's why I wouldn't stay on the Spray. I've had my suspicions about Bayle Domon for some time, but those three are Darkfriends for sure. I tell you..." Laughter and coarse jokes drowned out the rest of what Gelb had to say.

I seem to recall you getting booted off the ship against your will, you lying sack of crap. Gelb is an obviously unsympathetic character, designed solely to get the readers to boo him. Usually I would prefer more three-dimensional characters in my stories whenever possible, but there are times when it works well, the best example being Dolores Umbridge in the Harry Potter series. They get the reader's attention and make the characters opposing them seem more sympathetic by contrast. However, the effectiveness with which Jordan gets us to hate Gelb (in a good way) is offset by the sheer convenience that Rand's party just happened to overhear him talking shit about them and spreading a story that will get them noticed by the Fade who's still in Whitebridge. Mark has gone on record saying that it always annoys him whenever people just happen to overhear things by chance, and this here is a prime example of that.

I'm willing to let that slide, though, because of what happens next. This curveball dashes Thom's plan to get on the boat to Illian, since the Sway isn't leaving for another day, so they decide to sneak out of the city as quickly as they can. But it's not quick enough; no sooner do they make it halfway across the square than a Fade spots them, and starts making their way towards them.

The entire end of the chapter is very tense and ends up being a little heart-wrenching, because there's so much fatalism in Thom's reaction to this that it's hard to believe I didn't see his fate coming.

• "Think..." Thom stopped to swallow, and went on hoarsely. "Think you can outrun it, do you, boy?" He began to mutter to himself; the only work Rand could make out was "Owyn." Abruptly Thom growled, "I never should have gotten mixed up with you boys. Should never have." He shrugged the bundled gleeman's cloak off of his back and thrust it into Rand's arms. "Take care of that. When I say run, you run and don't stop until you get to Caemlyn. The Queen's Blessing. An Inn. Remember that, in case... just remember it."

That's when Thom attacks the Fade, giving Rand and Mat the time to escape Whitebridge. Thom manages to surprise the Fade and push it to the ground, but in the end, its magic envelopes Thom in a flash of blue light, and the last we hear of him is his screams of pain, mixed with the word "RUN!"

And run they do, out into the Caemlyn Road. Rand's heart is broken by Thom's sacrifice, and he keeps checking the road in the vain hopes that Thom got away, following them. I feel for Rand, really I do. I'd be lying if I said this ending brought me to tears, but that's just who I am. Fiction rarely makes me physically cry. But I was genuinely moved. I liked Thom quite a lot, I love how he contributed to the story, and I love how he went down fighting. For the first time, I'm really feeling how vulnerable Rand is without Lan and Moiraine, and I'm burning to know what's at the Queen's Blessing and if it can change the course of the entire book. The other details, like the description of the White Bridge and the hints that Mat's bad attitude is just him cracking under the stress of the chase is icing on the cake. I don't even care that Nynaeve's been out of the story for several chapters now, that's how awed I am.

It is true that we never saw Thom's dead body, and there's a possibility that he could always come back. But that would just cheapen this moment, and Jordan's been pretty good about not making stupid decisions like that so far, so it looks like this is really it for Thom. Even if the characters and the writer ultimately forget him, I'll try my best not to do the same.

NEXT TIME: Jordan pulls out the drag chute.