River of Souls Part 3/3
A short time later, he left the cavern and stepped into Angarai’la, the River of Souls, to wash off the blood of the fallen guardian, and drank deeply of the cold water. That done, he walked to his pack and removed the golden rod, as long as his forearm, that he had carried in it. A short distance below the end, the metal splayed out into a disc shape.
He took the “cup” and slid it down onto the rod, the two locking into place. How enraged he’d been when he’d found the rod, thinking his quest done, only to find that the sa’angreal had been separated into two pieces!
Now they were whole again. He took a deep breath, then channeled through the rod.
The One Power rushed into him, flooding him. Bao cast his head back, drinking it in, and laughed.
Laughter. How long had it been since he had laughed? This land, these experiences, had brought mirth back to him somehow. He exulted in the power. What he held was no cup, but the second most powerful sa’angreal ever created for a man to use. D’jedt, known simply as the Scepter during his time, had been so powerful that it had been kept locked away during the War of the Power. This…this was a grand weapon, greater than Callandor. Holding it, Bao felt powerful, invincible. He found himself running back up along the river, and did not grow fatigued.
He ran through the rest of that day. The hours passed as if in the blink of an eye. At sunset, he burst up the last few feet of the trail, bearing his prize. He raised it up high over his head, striding to where he had left Shendla.
She waited there still, sleeping in the very spot where he had left her. She rose, then immediately went to one knee before him. The Freed scrambled down from their hillside above. He did not fail to notice that the female Ayyad, dressed in black robes with white tassels, had arrived to watch for him. Two hundred of them waited with the gathered nobility that Bao had appointed. In a wave, they fell to their knees as Shendla had, leaving only Mintel, who sat at the top of the path with legs crossed as he meditated.
“Mintel!” Bao announced, walking up to Shendla and reaching down to her shoulder. “Open your eyes to angor’lot! The day has come at long last. I name myself the Wyld. Your dragonslayer has come!”
The people began to cheer him, and Shendla looked up. “You smile,” she whispered.
“Yes.”
“You have accepted it?” she asked. “Your role among us?”
“Yes.”
He noticed a tear roll down her cheek, and she bowed her head again. He had come among them as a stranger. And oh, what power he had found, far more than he had ever anticipated. The Scepter was merely a beginning.
Mintel cried out, standing, eyes opening. “Hail the Wyld! Hail him and bow! He who shall save us from the Dragon, who shall prevent the death of the land and bring us to glory! Hail Bao! Hail our king!”
The cries of the people rose to the heavens above. Bao drew in power thirstily, and fully embraced what he had become. Two years ago he had started on this course when he had decided to impersonate a slave among the Sharans. After that had come the revolution, which he had led almost by accident.
Through it all, he had sought one thing. Through earning the allegiance of the Ayyad—won at a terrible price—and gaining the fervent loyalty of the Freed. Through the chaos of revolution and vanished monarchs, through the solidification of a kingdom beneath him.
Through it all, he had sought this one object for a single purpose. Finally, Lews Therin, thought Bao—once named Berid Bel, and later called Demandred, now reborn as the savior of the Sharan people. Finally, I have the power to destroy you.