Re-Reading "The Shadow Rising": "Chapter 24: Rhuidean," "Chapter 25: The Road to the Spear," and "Chapter 26: The Dedicated"

Rand and Mat both face deadly challenges as they navigate the fraught city of Rhuidean.

Hello, dear reader! Do you like what you read here at Omnivorous? Do you like reading fun but insightful takes on all things pop culture? Do you like supporting indie writers? If so, then please consider becoming a subscriber and get the newsletter delivered straight to your inbox. There are a number of paid options, but you can also sign up for free! Every little bit helps. Thanks for reading and now, on with the show!

---

We’ve now reached one of my very favorite parts of The Shadow Rising: the moment when Rand, having entered Rhuidean, has to confront the history of the Aiel. In so doing, he learns some shattering truths about this people that he is fated to lead. Just as importantly, he also gets some important glimpses into the Age of Legends, learning just how much was lost during the Breaking of the World. Mat, meanwhile, goes through another twisted doorway, though his experience there is very different, and more perilous, than the one in Tear.

Let’s start with Rand’s visions. These are, I think, some of the most haunting passages that Jordan ever wrote. Even now, after I’ve read the book so many times, I’m struck by how skillfully he captured the sense of disorientation that Rand feels as he literally travels back in time through the psyches and the lived experiences of his ancestors. The tale of the Aiel is, like that of so much of the rest of this fictional world, one of loss, of a fall from grace, of a deliberate obfuscation of one’s origins. Even though Rand doesn’t have the same investment in the ideal of the Aiel as a warrior people for whom fighting is everything, it’s still clear that this whole experience is tremendously difficult to endure. After all, the poor guy has already been suffering from the effects of channeling saidin; it’s really quite remarkable that his journey through the pillars doesn’t just drive him over the edge altogether.  

These visions are often wrenching and at times even downright heartbreaking. Particularly notable is the one in which Lewin, in an attempt to rescue his sister, ends up committing that gravest of sins: taking another life. This, in turn, leads to his condemnation by his grandfather and his abandonment by his mother, who refuses to see the face of her son on a killer. It’s a brief moment in the book, but the entire time I was reading it I kept replaying the scene as it appeared in the Amazon adaptation. My heart broke again for this young man who merely wanted to save his sister from the horrors that awaited her at the hands of those who kidnapped her.

In some ways, this entire sequence is a microcosm of the struggle of the Aiel in the aftermath of the Breaking. This is a people, after all, who went from being the most devoted servants of the Aes Sedai to being outcasts, people who can be exploited and killed seemingly without consequence. Is it any wonder that some of them would turn aside from the Way of the Leaf? A devotion to peace sounds like a mighty fine thing when one is living in the immediate shadow of the Age of Legends–when peace was the norm–but it loses its luster when one’s people are constantly subjected to murder, rape, and diminishment. 

As we go further back in time, we learn just how much was lost in the Breaking of the World and the end of the Age of Legends. A world that hadn’t known war, that had been fertile and beautiful and filled with wonder, was torn apart by the very One Power that had made it all possible. In a remarkably short amount of time, Lews Therin goes from being the savior of humanity to its greatest threat, and 

For me, the most devastating of these visions is the last one, in which Rand inhabits the body and mind of Charn, the Aiel who served with Mierin. As we will come to know in later books, this is none other than the woman who would become Lanfear, which makes Rand’s ancestor’s encounter with her all the more intriguing. Just as importantly, Charn’s memory–the last that Rand experiences–takes us back to the very root of it all, the fateful moment when the world was never the same. It’s beautifully yet enigmatically wrought, and it leaves us as readers feeling deeply bereft. After all, it’s one thing to know that the world knew nothing but peace before the Aes Sedai accidentally bored a hole in the Dark One’s prison; it’s quite another to actually bear witness to such an event. 

Just as horrifying, in its own way, is the fate of Muradin in the present. Like so many others among the Aiel, he simply cannot accept the reality that the Aiel were once peaceful, that they were, in fact, one and the same as the Tuatha’an, who they now view with such contempt and fear. Given just how much the martial spirit has been baked into the collective psyche of the Aiel, it’s no wonder that not all who pass through the crystal pillars are able to really deal with what they have seen.

While Rand is obviously the most important character in these chapters, we also get to spend a bit of time with Mat. Even though he doesn’t go into the crystal pillars with Rand, he does see a twisted doorway very like the one in Tear and so, Mat being Mat, he decides to go in, hoping that he will be able to get some answers to the questions that seem to be burning a hole in his brain. Unfortunately, the fox-like creatures who greet him are even more dangerous than the snaky fellows of a few chapters before. One would think that Mat, having seen and experienced quite a lot so far, would realize that things with ter’angreal are never quite what they seem but, well, like I said, this is Mat we’re talking about, so it also makes sense that he would plunge headfirst into this situation without really taking some time think about what the potential consequences might be.

It’s just lucky for him that Rand comes out of the pillars at just the right time to save him from hanging. The whole sequence is really quite touching, and it reveals the extent to which Rand still views Mat as his friend, whatever the latter might think of Rand now that he has been revealed as the Dragon Reborn and a man who can channel. 

So, needless to say, these were mighty powerful chapters, and they definitely make it clear why The Shadow Rising is often regarded as one of the very best books in the series. I can’t wait to share my further thoughts with you next week!