Rand starts getting creeped out by Perrin, who is acting weird and subdued. Plus, his yellow eyes are bright and disconcerting.

Moiraine carts Mat out into the inn library, where everyone is hanging out with Loial the Windbag. Mat seems better, still kind of twitchy, but otherwise a little bit more friendly. Later, Moiraine explains to Rand that Mat’s connection with the dagger was too strong to de-taint-ify Mat completely. As a result, Mat still needs to keep the dagger with him lest he’ll die. Keeping the dagger will eventually make him crazy again, and as long as he still has the dagger, the Fades and Trollocs and Darkfriends will still trail them. It’s a real fucked up circumstance and he really shouldn’t have stolen the goddamned dagger from Shadar Logoth. But, what’s done is done, it’s part of the Pattern now, all that and everything else etc. etc. What they all should really do is find a nice well and dump him down to the bottom of it. Barring that, Tar Valon will be a good place to go for help as well. They need more Aes Sedai.

Loial tells a story where, about twenty years ago, a man visited his stedding and spoke of the Dark One intending to blind the Eye of the World, slay the Great Serpent, destroy time, and spin the Wheel of Time and hope to avoid landing on Bankrupt. Loial asks Moiraine what this all actually means and if it’s possible for the Dark One to do this.

Perrin recognizes this story! The Tinkers said something similar, that a bunch of women traversing the Aiel Waste heard the same foreboding message.

This is the part where Perrin, Mat, and Rand have to own up to all the scary dreams they’ve been having. Moiraine chastises them for not telling her all this much sooner, since the Dark One can taint these fools through their dreams and she could’ve help de-taint-ify them. Her specialty is de-taint-ifying, certainly. Too late now. In the Pattern, yada yada yada. Plus, Moiraine is suprised that all three of them are central to this Pattern weaving. She expected one. This is like trying to take care of triplets. She wasn’t prepared for this at all.

Moiraine has made up her mind; time to switch courses! Screw Tar Valon, that’s loser talk. Time to go to the Blight instead where the Dark One is encased in that one mountain. What’s it called again? Mount Doom? Shayol Ghul. The need to warn the Green Man! AKA Charlie Kelly.

At the end, she asks Loial if he knows “the Ways”. He does, and she asks him to help find a Waygate. Loial doesn’t wanna, because if they go through the Waygate they’ll *DUN DUN DUUUUUUNNNN*…

All die.

Hopefully.