|
RIP - Robert Jordan... The True Master of Fantasy
Robert Jordan was born in 1948 in Charleston, South Carolina, in a house built in 1797.
He taught himself to read when he was four with the incidental aid of a twelve-years-older brother, and was tackling Mark Twain and Jules Verne by five. He is a graduate of The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina, with a degree in physics. He served two tours in Vietnam with the U.S. Army; among his decorations are the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Bronze Star with "V", and two Vietnamese Crosses of Gallantry.
Sadly, Robert Jordan, aged 58, died on the 16th September 2007.
It is with great sadness that I tell you that the Dragon is gone. RJ left us today at 2:45 PM. He fought a valiant fight against this most horrid disease. In the end, he left peacefully and in no pain. In the years he had fought this, he taught me much about living and about facing death. He never waivered in his faith, nor questioned our God’s timing. I could not possibly be more proud of anyone. I am eternally grateful for the time that I had with him on this earth and look forward to our reunion, though as I told him this afternoon, not yet. I love you bubba.
Harriet Jordan....
I would like to extend my most deepest sympathies to Robert Jordan’s family. He touched all of our lives in some way and we wish
him the rest and peace he deserves.
Dragonmount
The palace still shook occasionally as the earth rumbled in memory, groaned as if it would
deny what had happened. Bars of sunlight cast through rents in the walls made motes of
dust glitter where they yet hung in the air. Scorch-marks marred the walls, the floors, the
ceilings. Broad black smears crossed the blistered paints and gilt of once-bright murals, soot
overlaying crumbling friezes of men and animals, which seemed to have attempted to walk
before the madness grew quiet. The dead lay everywhere, men and women and children, struck
down in attempted flight by the lightings that had flashed down every corridor, or seized by the
fires that had stalked them, or sunken into stone of the palace, the stones that had flowed and
sought, almost alive, before stillness came again. In odd counterpoint, colorful tapestries and
paintings, masterworks all, hung undisturbed except where bulging walls had pushed them awry.
Finely carved furnishings, inlaid with ivory and gold, stood untouched except where rippling
floors had toppled them. The mind twisting had struck at the core, ignoring peripheral things.
Lews Therin Telamon wandered the palace, deftly keeping his balance when the earth
heaved. "Ilyena! My love, where are you?" The edge of his pale gray cloak trailed through blood
as he stepped across the body of a woman, her golden-haired beauty marred by the horror of her
last moments, her still-open eyes frozen in disbelief. "Where are you, my wife? Where is
everyone hiding?"
His eyes caught his own reflection in a mirror hanging askew from bubbled marble. His
clothes had been regal once, in gray and scarlet and gold; now the finely-woven cloth, brought
by merchants from across the World Sea, was torn and dirty, thick with the same dust that
covered his hair and skin. For a moment he fingered the symbol on his cloak, a circle half white
and half black, the colors separated by a sinuous line. It meant something, that symbol. But the
embroidered circle could not hold his attention long. He gazed at his own image with as much
wonder. A tall man just into his middle years, handsome once, but now with hair already more
white than brown and a face lined by strain and worry, dark eyes that had seen too much. Lews
Therin began to chuckle, then threw back his head; his laughter echoed down the lifeless halls.
"Ilyena, my love! Come to me, my wife. You must see this."
Behind him the air rippled, shimmered, solidified into a man who looked around, his mouth
twisting briefly with distaste. Not so tall as Lews Therin, he was clothed all in black, save for the
snow-white lace at his throat and the silverwork on the turned-down tops of his thigh-high boots.
He stepped carefully, handling his cloak fastidiously to avoid brushing the dead. The floor
trembled with aftershocks, but his attention was fixed on the man staring into the mirror and.
laughing.
"Lord of the Morning," he said, "I have come for you."
The laughter cut off as if it had never been, and Lews Therin turned, seeming unsurprised.
"Ah, a guest. Have you the Voice, stranger? It will soon be time for the Singing, and here all are
welcome to take part. Ilyena, my love, we have a guest. Ilyena, where are you?"
The black-clad man's eyes widened, darted to the body of the golden-haired woman, then
back to Lews Therin. "Shai'tan take you, does the taint already have you so far in its grip?"
"That name. Shai-" Lews Therin shuddered and raised a hand as though to ward off
something. "You mustn't say that name. It is dangerous."
"So you remember that much, at least. Dangerous for you, fool, not for me. What else do you
remember? Remember, you Light-blinded idiot! I will not let it end with you swaddled in
unawareness! Remember!"
For a moment Lews Therin stared at his raised hand, fascinated by the patterns of grime.
Then he wiped his hand on his even dirtier coat and turned his attention back to the other man.
"Who are you? What do you want?"
The black-clad man drew himself up arrogantly. "Once I was called Elan Morin Tedronai,
but now-"
"Betrayer of Hope." It was a whisper from Lews Therin. Memory stirred, but he turned his
head, shying away from it.
"So you do remember some things. Yes, Betrayer of Hope. So have men named me, just as
they named you Dragon, but unlike you I embrace the name. They gave me the name to revile
me, but I will yet make them kneel and worship it. What will you do with your name? After this
day, men will call you Kinslayer. What will you do with that?"
Lews Therin frowned down the ruined hall. "Ilyena should be here to offer a guest welcome,"
he murmured absently, then raised his voice. "Ilyena, where are you?" The floor shook; the
golden-haired woman's body shifted as if in answer to his call: His eyes did not see her.
Elan Morin grimaced. "Look at you," he said scornfully. "Once you stood first among the
Servants. Once you wore the Ring of Tamyrlin, and sat in the High Seat. Once you summoned
the Nine Rods of Dominion. Now look at you! A pitiful, shattered wretch. But it is not enough.
You humbled me in the Hall of Servants. You defeated me at the Gates of Paaran Disen. But I
am the greater, now. I will not let you die without knowing that. When you die, your last thought
will be the full knowledge of your defeat, of how complete and utter it is. If I let you die at all."
"I cannot imagine what is keeping Ilyena. She will give me the rough side of her tongue if
she thinks I have been hiding a guest from her. I hope you enjoy conversation, for she surely
does. Be forewarned. Ilyena will ask you so many questions you may end up telling her
everything you know."
Tossing back his black cloak, Elan Morin flexed his hands. "A pity for you," he mused, "that
one of your Sisters is not here. I was never very skilled at Healing, and I follow a different power
now. But even one of them could only give you a few lucid minutes, if you did not destroy her
first. What I can do will serve as well, for my purposes." His sudden smile was cruel. "But I fear
Shai'tan's healing is different from the sort you know. Be healed, Lews Therin!" He extended his
hands, and the light dimmed as if a shadow had been laid across the sun.
Pain blazed in Lews Therin, and he screamed, a scream that came from his depths, a scream
he could not stop. Fire seared his marrow; acid rushed along his veins. He toppled backwards,
crashing to the marble floor; his head struck the stone and rebounded. His heart pounded, trying
to beat its way out of his chest, and every pulse gushed new flame through him. Helplessly he
convulsed, thrashing, his skull a sphere of purest agony on the point of bursting. His hoarse
screams reverberated through the palace.
Slowly, ever so slowly, the pain receded. The out flowing seemed to take a thousand years
and left him twitching weakly, sucking breath through a raw throat. Another thousand years
seemed to pass before he could manage to heave himself over, muscles like jellyfish, and shakily
push himself up on hands and knees. His eyes fell on the golden-haired woman, and the scream
that was ripped out of him dwarfed every sound he had made before. Tottering, almost falling, he
scrabbled brokenly across the floor to her. It took every bit of his strength to pull her up into his
arms. His hands shook as he smoothed her hair back from her staring face.
"Ilyena! Light help me, Ilyena!" His body curved around hers protectively, his sobs the
full-throated cries of a man who had nothing left to live for. "Ilyena, no! No!"
"You can have her back, Kinslayer. The Great Lord of the Dark can make her live again, if
you will serve him. If you will serve me."
Lews Therin raised his head, and the black-clad man took an involuntary step back from that
gaze. "Ten years, Betrayer," Lews Therin said softly, the soft sound of steel being bared. "Ten
years your foul master has wracked the world. And now this. I will. . . ."
"Ten years!, You pitiful fool! This war has not lasted ten years, but since the beginning of
time. You and I have fought a thousand battles with the turning of the Wheel, a thousand times a
thousand, and we will fight until time dies and the Shadow is triumphant!" He finished in a
shout, with a raised fist, and it was Lews Therin's turn to pull back, breath catching at the glow in
the Betrayer's eyes.
Carefully Lews Therin laid Ilyena down, fingers gently brushing her hair. Tears blurred his
vision as he stood, but his voice was iced iron: "For what else you have done, there can be no
forgiveness, Betrayer, but for Ilyena's death I will destroy you beyond anything your master can
repair. Prepare to-"
"Remember, you fool! Remember your futile attack on Great Lord of the Dark! Remember
his counterstroke!
Remember! Even now the Hundred Companions are tearing the world apart, and every day a
hundred men more join them. What hand slew Ilyena Sunhair, Kinslayer? Not mine. Not mine.
What hand struck down every life that bore a drop of your blood, everyone who loved you,
everyone you loved? Not mine, Kinslayer. Not mine. Remember, and know the price of opposing
Shai'tan!"
Sudden sweat made tracks down Lews Therin's face through the dust and dirt. He
remembered, a cloudy memory like a dream of a dream, but he knew it true.
His howl beat at the walls, the howl of a man who had discovered his soul damned by his
own hand, and he clawed at his face as if to tear away the sight of what he had done. Everywhere
he looked his eyes found the dead. Torn they were, or broken or burned, or half-consumed by
stone. Everywhere lay lifeless faces he knew, faces he loved. Old servants and friends of his
childhood, faithful companions through the long years of battle. And his children. His own sons
and daughters, sprawled like broken dolls, play stilled forever. All slain by his hand. His
children's faces accused him, blank eyes asking why, and his tears were no answer. The
Betrayer's laughter flogged him, drowned out his howls. He could not bear the faces, the pain.
He could not bear to remain any longer. Desperately he reached out to the True Source, to tainted
saidin, and he Traveled.
The land around him was flat and empty. A river flowed nearby, straight and broad, but he
could sense there were no people within a hundred leagues. He was alone, as alone as a man
could be while still alive, yet he could not escape memory. The eyes pursued him through the
endless caverns of his mind. He could not hide from them. His children's eyes. Ilyena's eyes.
Tears glistened on his cheeks as he turned his face to the sky.
"Light, forgive me!" He did not believe it could come, forgiveness. Not for what he had
done. But he shouted to the sky anyway, begged for what he could not believe he could receive.
"Light, forgive me!"
He was still touching saidin, the male half of the power that drove the universe, that turned
the Wheel of Time, and he could feel the oily taint fouling its surface, the taint of the Shadow's
counterstroke, the taint that doomed the world. Because of him. Because in his pride he had
believed that men could match the Creator, could mend what the Creator had made and they had
broken. In his pride he had believed.
He drew on the True Source deeply, and still more deeply, like a man dying of thirst. Quickly
he had drawn more of the One Power than he could channel unaided; his skin felt as if it were
aflame. Straining, he forced himself to draw more, tried to draw it all.
"Light, forgive me! Ilyena!"
The air turned to fire, the fire to light liquefied. The bolt that struck from the heavens would
have seared and blinded any eye that glimpsed it, even for an instant. From the heavens it came,
blazed through Lews Therin Telamon, bored into the bowels of the earth. Stone turned to vapor
at its touch. The earth thrashed and quivered like a living thing in agony. Only a heartbeat did the
shining bar exist, connecting ground and sky, but even after it vanished the earth yet heaved like
the sea in a storm. Molten rock fountained five hundred feet into the air, and the groaning ground
rose, thrusting the burning spray ever upward, ever higher. From north and south, from east and
west, the wind howled in, snapping trees like twigs, shrieking and blowing as if to aid the
growing mountain ever skyward. Ever skyward.
At last the wind died, the earth stilled to trembling mutters. Of Lews Therin Telamon, no
sign remained. Where he had stood a mountain now rose miles into the sky, molten lava still
gushing from its broken peak. The broad, straight river had been pushed into a curve away from
the mountain, and there it split to form a long island in its midst. The shadow of the mountain
almost reached the island; it lay dark across the land like the ominous hand of prophecy. For a
time the dull, protesting rumbles of the earth were the only sound.
On the island, the air shimmered and coalesced. The black-clad man stood staring at the fiery
mountain rising out of the plain. His face twisted in rage and contempt. "You cannot escape so
easily, Dragon. It is not done between us. It will not be done until the end of time."
Then he was gone, and the mountain and the island stood alone. Waiting.
And the Shadow fell upon the Land, and the World was riven stone from stone. The oceans
fled, and the mountains were swallowed up, and the nations were scattered to the eight corners of
the World. The moon was as blood, and the sun was as ashes. The seas boiled, and the living
envied the dead. All was shattered, and all but memory lost, and one memory above all others, of
him who brought the Shadow and the Breaking of the World. And him they named Dragon.
from Aleth nin Taerin alta Camora. The Breaking of the World.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
http://www.dragonmount.com/RobertJordan/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Jordan
http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/j/robert-jordan/
This is by far the best saga ever written. listen to this and be blown away... |
