The Dragon Reborn
Rand walked stiff-legged and nervous at first, beside the Warder. Face it on your feet. It was easy for Lan to say. He had not been summoned by the Amyrlin Seat. He was not wondering if he would be gentled before the day was done, or worse. Rand felt as if he had something caught in his throat; he could not swallow, and

Blood Calls Blood
As the litter carrying Mat left the Amyrlin Seat's chambers, Moiraine carefully rewrapped the angreal - a small, age-darkened ivory carving of a woman in flowing robes - in a square of silk and put it back into her pouch. Working together With other Aes Sedai, merging their abilities, channeling the flow of the One Powe

CHAPTER 6
Dark Prophecy
The farmhouse door shook under furious blows from outside; the heavy bar across the door jumped in its brackets. Beyond the window next to the door moved the heavy-muzzled silhouette of a Trolloc. There were windows everywhere, and more shadowy shapes outside. Not shadowy enough, though. Rand could still m

CHAPTER 5
The Shadow in Shienar
Stilled. The word seemed to quiver in the air, almost visible. When it was done to a man who could channel the Power, who must be stopped before madness drove him to the destruction of all around him, it was called gentling, but for Aes Sedai it was stilling. Stilled. No longer able to channel the

Summoned
Alone in her rooms in the women's apartments, Moiraine adjusted the shawl, embroidered with curling ivy and grapevines, on her shoulders and studied the effect in the tall frame mirror standing in a corner. Her large, dark eyes could appear as sharp as a hawk's when she was angry. They seemed to pierce the silvered glass, now. I

Friends and Enemies
Rand did not run far, only as far as the sally gate around the corner from the stable. He slowed to a walk before he got there, trying to appear casual and unhurried.
The arched gate was closed tight. It was barely big enough for two men to ride through abreast, but like all the gates in the outer wall, it was

The Welcome
The halls of Fal Dara keep, their smooth stone walls sparsely decorated with elegantly simple tapestries and painted screens, bustled with news of the Amyrlin Seat's imminent arrival. Servants in black-and-gold darted about their tasks, running to prepare rooms or carry orders to the kitchens, moaning that they could not have

CHAPTER 1
The Flame of Tar Valon
The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass leaving memories that become legend, then fade to myth, and are long forgot when that Age comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose in the Mountains of Dhoom. The wind was not the beginni

I taught myself how to read and write again during those last two weeks of summer with my new mother, Ruth Day. She was determined to keep me inside or within earshot or in her line of vision, and I happily obliged her. Reading, of course, is merely associating symbols with sounds, memorizing the combinations, rules and effects, and, most import

I am gone.
This is not a fairy tale, but the true history of my double life, left behind where it all began, in case I may be found again.
My own story begins when I was a boy of seven, free of my current desires. Nearly thirty years ago, on an August afternoon, I ran away from home and never made it back. Certain trivial and for

Don't call me a fairy. We don't like to be called fairies anymore. Once upon a time, fairy was a perfectly acceptable catchall for a variety of creatures, but now it has taken on too many associations. Etymologically speaking, a fairy is something quite particular, related in kind to the na­iads, or water nymphs, and while of the genus, we a

It was one of the hottest days of the dry season. We had not seen rain in almost a month. The crops were dying. The creeks and streams were long gone back into the earth. If we didn't see some rain soon, we would lose everything. It was on this day that I learned the true lesson of sharing and witnessed the only miracle I have seen with my own

"Looking at a king's mouth," said an old man, "one would think he never sucked at his mother's breast." He was talking about Okonkwo, who had risen so suddenly from great poverty and misfortune to be one of the lords of the clan. The old man bore no ill will towards Okonkwo. Indeed he respected him

Okonkwo did not have the start in life which many young men usually had. He did not inherit a barn from his father. There was no barn to inherit. The story was told in Umuofia, of how his father, Unoka, had gone to consult the Oracle of the Hills and the Caves to find out why he always had a miserable harvest.

Okonkwo had just blown out the palm-oil lamp and stretched himself on his bamboo bed when he heard the ogene of the town crier piercing the still night air. Gome, gome, gome, gome, boomed the hollow metal. Then the crier gave his message, and at the end of it beat his instrument again. And this was the