Weird chapter ahead. Rand wakes up one morning in a strange, off-putting place and finds only Hurin (the sniffer) and Loial (Goat Boy) around. Everyone else is gone. The atmosphere appears muted, the trees burned, the stone they were sleeping near was now as big as a house with scrawling in an unknown language. It’s all fucked up and scary!

Rand thinks he’s dreaming, but Hurin and Loial are freaked out and pretty insistent that they, too, are experiencing this. Loial recognizes the stone from an old book he read where there was a passage that implied that, from Stone to Stone, runs the paths between worlds. Loial doesn’t know exactly what that means, but they are totally Stargates, man.

A person has to use the One Power to use the Stone to launch himself to “another world”, and Rand is denial that he may have accidentally done it at the stone they slept next to. Hurin is beside himself with anxiety, fear, and plenty of pants-pooping, and Rand assumes the leadership role that Ingtar so fervently foisted upon him if something like this were to happen. Rand will try to get them home, although he’s as sure as shit and shinola on a shingle. FIGURATIVELY SPEAKING. I don’t know what I’m talking about.

Rand awkwardly approaches the stone and puts his hand upon it, trying to channel the One Power and touch the True Source and fondle saidan and a bunch of other made-up Wheel of Time ideas. The only thing he can feel is its “taint”, and that’s an lol. He keeps talking about this “void” he feels whenever something One Powery happens, and this time he feels it breaking and, subsequently, needs to rest.

Hurin smells the faint smell of Darkfriends in the distance, and it is suggested that they find the Darkfriends and tickle them or something into telling them how to get home. I think this idea is straight dumb, but they have no other real option except continue tapping into that True Source, and Rand is terrified of doing that kind of thing. So let’s go look for some Darkfriends.