Welcome back to my re-read, recap, and reaction to Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series. This post will only have spoilers through the current chapter.
You can find my previous chapter recaps HERE.
Chapter 15: Insects
NOTE: The following chapter summary comes from wot.fandom.com
Point of view: Jaichim Carridin
Carridin has been stirring up mobs in Altara and Murandy to provide justification for the Children of the Light invading to restore order. He also has orders to abduct Elayne Trakand out of the Tarasin Palace. He rebukes Shiaine Avarhin for her lack of progress on her assignment to find a stash of angreal, sa’angreal, and ter’angreal. As he looks out the window, Carridin spots Mat talking to a white-haired old man. Sammael arrives in his room and Carridin reports spotting Mat outside. Sammael emphasizes that the search is the most important thing Carridin should be working on, the only thing. During their conversation Shiaine is frozen. When Sammael leaves, she is startled since Carridin is not in the place he was a moment before, at least to her. Despite his orders, Carridin tells Shiaine to focus on finding Mat.
REACTION:
The man who calls himself Bors has a pretty serious drinking problem. His entire family has been murdered for his previous failures and now he’s gone Samael looking over his shoulder. We seem to be nearing Whiskey Lullaby territory.
The start of the chapter focuses on what the Children of the Light are up to, from Carridin’s perspective. We don’t spend lot of time in the story really seeing this happen, but we get word of it constantly. “Dragonsworn” are the terrorists of Randland at this point. The Children of the Light commit atrocities, make it look like the terrorist Dragonsworn are the ones who did it, and thus obtain the political capital to invade and put down the terrorists. It’s basically a false flag operation and we really don’t know how far in scale this goes. Carridin discusses riots and killing (and even nailing a guy to a door) pretty casually. The Children are probably not even the only ones using this false flag tactic.
Of course, it only works because Masema is out there also committing atrocities. If Masema didn’t exist, someone would have to invent him. He’s extremely useful to the power brokers of Randland (except Rand, ironically.)
It’s worth remembering that these atrocities are the thing that the Salidar Aes Sedai cite as a reason not to trust Rand. It’s why Egwene couldn’t get the Hall of the Tower to sign off on her going to Rand personally – the thing that makes BY FAR the most sense. Do they know that a lot of these incidents are false flag operations and likely carried out by Whitecloaks? Probably. We’re always hearing about their fabled spy networks. But it’s useful to pretend not to know.
Oh, fiction. It’s a good thing plots like this are limited to your pages.
Politics are gross – in real life or in fiction.
We learn a little about the Darkfriend woman Mat followed in the last chapter. The Lady Shiane is 22 years old (Carridin notes that she joined her first “Circle” at 15 and that this was 7 years ago), she’s killed at least 20 people, and she is regarded by higher ups within the Darkfriends as one of the best assassins available. Carridin also knows – though she doesn’t know he knows – that she tried at 15 to become Aes Sedai and that her real name is Milli Skane – a saddler’s daughter from a village near Whitebridge. (Western Andor had a lot going on, I tell ya.)
Carridin spots Mat outside, freaks out, and turns around to find Sammael in the room. He tells everything he knows (as one does with the Forsaken) and is told to focus on finding a stash of angreal, sa’angreal, and ter’angreal in the city. We haven’t heard prior to now any specifics regarding the other objects hidden away alongside the Bowl of the Winds. I wonder if Sammael is merely guessing. I know he’s got to be relatively desperate to have an angreal or a sa’angreal. He knows Rand has them.
Here’s a thought… how does Sammael know that these objects are in the city? Based on what we learn here, he only recently set people to hunting for them. What tipped him off? Given the lack of other known options, we should probably assume that he found out via the Salidar camp. Someone in the Black Ajah must have reported to him. Elayne and Nynaeve told Aes Sedai there what they had seen in the World of Dreams and what they were looking for before they left. Egwene might be telling Halima *everything* given the high likelihood that she’s under Halima’s Compulsion.
Sammael tells Carridin to prioritize the search over killing Mat. He also promises to send Carridin some help in dealing with the Aes Sedai in the city. That definitely doesn’t bode well.
To me… this feels like a fatal mistake on Sammael’s part. Deal with the ta’veren first. But it’s an understandable mistake. I don’t know what he’s going to send against the Aes Sedai, but I’d guess Mat will have to pull their bacon out of the fire before all is said and done.
One other wildcard in play that I just thought of? al’Lan Mandragoran is on his way. I’m invested!