The Dragon Reborn
Authors: Robert Jordan
Praise for
T
HE
W
HEEL OF
T
IME
®
Book Three
THE DRAGON REBORN
“An exciting, well-written adventure. Jordan offers distinctive heroes and themes, including an interesting look at relations between the sexes.”
—
Milwaukee Sentinel
“Jordan’s writing is clear and his vision is fascinating, as are the philosophies which run his characters. And speaking of characters, a more interesting bunch I would be hard put to name. . . .
The Dragon Reborn
will be one of
the
books to read this year.”
—Steven Sawicki,
Science Fiction Review
“Jordan has created a world where everything fits together . . . his characters follow their own personalities rather than types, and his settings are presented with detail that belief is easy.”
—
Lexington Herald-Leader
“Robert Jordan’s latest book is a fine one, filled with the cleverness, imagination, and wonderfully drawn characters expected. . . . Jordan’s skill as a writer doubles the pleasure. . . .
The Dragon Reborn
is on a far higher plane than most fantasy novels.”
—
The Post and Courier
(Charleston, South Carolina)
“[The Wheel of Time] continues to exhibit a freshness that makes it a welcome addition to any . . . fantasy collection.”
—
Library Journal
“A complex tapestry of fascinating characters, descriptive details, and events. I highly recommend this series to anyone who loves epic fantasy.”
—Carol Lynn Ukockis,
Galactic Dispatch
HE
D
RAGON
R
EBORN
ROBERT JORDAN
A TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES BOOK
NEW YORK
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us.macmillanusa.com/piracy
.
Dedicated to
James Oliver Rigney, Sr.
(1920–1988)
He taught me always to follow the dream,
and when I caught it, to live it.
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And his paths shall be many, and who shall know his name, for he shall be born among us many times, in many guises, as he has been and ever will be, time without end. His coming shall be like the sharp edge of the plow, turning our lives in furrows from out of the places where we lie in our silence. The breaker of bonds; the forger of chains. The maker of futures; the unshaper of destiny.
—from
Commentaries on the Prophecies of the Dragon
,
by Jurith Dorine, Right Hand to the
Queen of Almoren, 742 AB, the Third Age
Pedron Niall’s aged gaze wandered about his private audience chamber, but dark eyes hazed with thought saw nothing. Tattered wall hangings, once battle banners of the enemies of his youth, faded into dark wood paneling laid over stone walls, thick even here in the heart of the Fortress of the Light. The single chair in the room—heavy, high-backed, and almost a throne—was as invisible to him as the few scattered tables that completed the furnishings. Even the white-cloaked man kneeling with barely restrained eagerness on the great sunburst set in the wide planks of the floor had vanished from Niall’s mind for the moment, though few would have dismissed him so lightly.
Jaret Byar had been given time to wash before being brought to Niall, but both his helmet and his breastplate were dulled from travel and battered from use. Dark, deep-set eyes shone with a feverish, urgent light in a face that seemed to have had every spare scrap of flesh boiled away. He wore no sword—none was allowed in Niall’s presence—but he seemed poised on the edge of violence, like a hound awaiting the loosing of the leash.
