Moiraine gathered them in the private room with the gravity of someone about to change everything.
The space was cramped with ten bodies — Moiraine and Lan against one wall, Rand and Mat and Perrin on the bed, Egwene and Nynaeve in chairs, Spencer standing near the door. Master Gill had been sent away with thanks and coin, leaving the group alone with whatever news demanded such secrecy.
"The Eye of the World," Moiraine said.
The words landed on the table like a blade.
---
Spencer had known this was coming. He'd read the books, understood the plot, anticipated every step of the journey from Emond's Field to this moment. But watching Moiraine deliver the information in person — watching the others' reactions, feeling the weight of destiny settling onto young shoulders — was different from reading about it.
"The Eye is threatened," Moiraine continued, her silver-blue thread pulsing with controlled urgency. "I have dreamed of it — true dreams, the kind that show what must be. The Dark One moves against the last reservoir of pure saidin, and if he claims it, the world will fall."
"Saidin?" Rand's voice was carefully neutral, but his thread blazed with fear. "The male half of the Source?"
"Yes. Untainted, preserved from the Age of Legends. The Eye guards it, along with other treasures: the Horn of Valere, the Dragon Banner, a seal on the Dark One's prison." Moiraine's gaze swept across them all. "We must reach it before the Shadow does."
Mat shifted uncomfortably, still weak from the Healing but alert in a way he hadn't been for weeks. "How? You said yourself the Darkfriends are everywhere. The roads are watched."
"We will travel through the Ways."
The word fell into silence like a stone into deep water.
---
Spencer listened as Moiraine explained the Ways — the paths between Waygates, built by Ogier in ages past, connecting locations across thousands of miles. He listened as she described the dangers: the darkness, the twisting paths, Machin Shin, the Black Wind that consumed souls. He listened as Rand, Mat, and Perrin pushed back with objections that Moiraine dismantled with Aes Sedai precision.
He said nothing.
I already know all of this . I know we'll survive the Ways, reach the Eye, fight at the Eye, and Rand will channel for the first time consciously.
But knowing doesn't help. They have to discover it themselves, make the choices themselves, become the heroes themselves.
All I can do is make sure they live long enough to become who they need to be.
Nynaeve was arguing with Moiraine about the danger to the boys — her boys, the Two Rivers children she'd felt responsible for since before Winternight. Egwene was asking practical questions about supplies and timing. Perrin sat silent, golden eyes distant, probably listening to wolves who couldn't help him in the dark paths ahead.
And Rand... Rand was staring at his hands, thinking about lightning, thinking about madness, thinking about the tainted Power that waited for him at the Eye of the World.
He knows. On some level, he knows what he is. He's just not ready to admit it yet.
The door opened, and everything changed.
---
The Ogier had to duck to enter the room.
Loial son of Arent son of Halan was easily ten feet tall, with a broad face, tufted ears, and eyes like deep pools of patience and curiosity. His thread was unlike anything Spencer had seen before — deep green-brown, thick as a tree trunk, pulsing with a rhythm that matched the slow growth of forests rather than the quick flutter of human hearts.
"Forgive the intrusion," Loial said, his voice a bass rumble that seemed to vibrate through the floorboards. "Master Gill said you were here, and I felt... drawn. As if I needed to find you."
"Ta'veren," Moiraine said quietly. "The Pattern bends around them, Loial. You've been caught in their current."
"Ah." The Ogier nodded as if this explained everything. "I thought I felt something. The Treesong speaks of such things, but I never expected to encounter them myself."
[Skill Archive: Recording. Category: Entity — Non-Human Sentient. Entry: Ogier Thread Signature. Comprehension: 0.]
Spencer studied Loial's thread with fascination. The Ogier were alien in a way that Trollocs and Myrddraal weren't — not corrupted, not evil, simply different. Their connection to the Pattern was older and slower than humanity's, rooted in something deeper than three thousand years of history.
And gentle. The thread reads as kind. Patient. Protective.
This is someone I want to protect, not just use.
"We need a guide through the Ways," Moiraine said. "Someone who knows the paths, who can read the Ogier script on the guidings."
Loial's ears twitched — a sign of distress, Spencer remembered from the books. "The Ways are dangerous. Machin Shin hunts there now. My people no longer travel them except in dire need."
"This is dire need. The Eye of the World is threatened."
Something shifted in Loial's expression — the curiosity transforming into something more serious, more resolved. "The Eye? Truly?"
"I would not lie about such a thing."
Loial was silent for a long moment, his slow thread churning with deliberation. Then he nodded, his ears settling back against his head.
"I will guide you. The Treesong remembers the Eye, even if my people have forgotten it. If the Eye is threatened, we must act."
"Thank you, Loial."
"Don't thank me yet." The Ogier's voice held a note of grim humor that Spencer hadn't expected. "The Ways may kill us all. But at least we'll die trying to save something worth saving."
---
The group dispersed to prepare, and Spencer found his moment.
The storeroom was quiet, dusty, stacked with barrels of dried goods and racks of preserved meats. Nobody came here except the kitchen staff, and they wouldn't arrive for hours. Spencer had the space to himself, and he used it.
[Codex Inventory: Accessing.]
The coin was gone — he'd given it to Moiraine earlier, letting the Aes Sedai examine the corruption and confirm its origin. That freed up Slot 1 for something more useful.
Spencer moved through the storeroom with purpose, selecting items from the inn's supplies and transferring them to the Codex's dimensional storage. Dried meat. Rope. Flint and steel. Bandages. A small lantern with oil.
[Slot 2: Dried provisions — 3 days supply. Stored.] [Slot 3: Rope (50 ft), flint, steel. Stored.] [Slot 4: Medical supplies — bandages, needle, thread. Stored.] [Slot 5: Lantern with oil. Stored.]
Four slots occupied. The fifth remained empty, reserved for whatever they might find at the Eye itself.
The Horn of Valere. The Dragon Banner. A seal on the Dark One's prison.
Any of those might be worth carrying. Any of those might be worth protecting.
Spencer left the storeroom as quietly as he'd entered, and nobody noticed his absence.
---
Loial found Spencer in the common room that evening.
The Ogier settled onto a reinforced bench — the only piece of furniture in the inn capable of supporting his weight — and studied Spencer with those deep, patient eyes.
"You're the carpenter," Loial said. "From the Two Rivers."
"Aldan Maeren. Yes."
"I've read about Two Rivers craftsmanship. The woodworking tradition there is supposed to be exceptional, though isolated from Ogier techniques." Loial's ears twitched with curiosity. "What do you think about trees?"
The question caught Spencer off guard. He'd expected suspicion, like Perrin's, or interrogation, like Moiraine's. Not genuine interest in his professional opinion about lumber.
"I used to see them as materials," Spencer said slowly, finding honesty in the unexpected question. "Wood for chairs, beams, handles. The dead remains of something that had been alive."
"And now?"
Spencer thought about Thread Sight. About the way even plants had threads, faint and simple but present, connecting them to the Pattern's weave. About the deep green-brown of Loial's signature, rooted in something older than human memory.
"Now I think about what holds them to the ground," he said. "The connections they make. The way they're part of something larger than themselves."
Loial's ears perked forward — a sign of pleasure, Spencer remembered. "That is a very Ogier way to think about trees. Unexpected, from a human."
"I've been having a lot of unexpected thoughts lately."
"Haven't we all." Loial's rumbling laugh was warm and genuine. "The Pattern is stirring. Everything feels unexpected now."
They sat in comfortable silence for a moment, the Ogier and the transmigrator, watching the common room's fire crackle in its hearth.
"I will try to bring you all through the Ways safely," Loial said finally. "But I cannot promise success. Machin Shin is... unpredictable. And the paths have changed since my people abandoned them."
"We'll face what we face."
"Yes." Loial nodded, his deep eyes holding something that might have been respect. "I suppose we will."
---
That night, Spencer lay in his bed and stared at the ceiling.
Tomorrow they would enter the Ways. Tomorrow they would walk through darkness, hunted by something that consumed souls, racing toward a confrontation with powers that could reshape the world.
The Eye of the World. The pool of pure saidin. The treasures that will start the war for real.
And I'll be there when Rand claims his destiny. I'll watch the Dragon Reborn take his first conscious step toward madness or glory.
He checked his Inventory one last time — four slots full, one reserved, supplies secured against whatever came next. The Codex pulsed with quiet readiness, its systems stable, its Stamina regenerating through the long night.
Outside the window, Caemlyn hummed with ten thousand lives, all of them unaware that the Age was about to turn.
Spencer closed his eyes and tried to sleep, but the knowledge of what was coming kept him awake until the sky began to lighten.
The Waygate waited in Caemlyn's outer wall. Behind it stretched roads of stone and darkness, paths through a dimension where the Black Wind screamed with stolen voices.
Tomorrow, they would walk those roads.
Tonight, Spencer counted the hours and prepared himself for the descent.
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