The Eye of the World

The Eye of the World Plot Summary

Introduction

# The Wheel of Time: From Shepherd to Dragon Reborn The wheel turns, and with it comes a darkness that has slumbered for three thousand years. In the remote village of Emond's Field, where sheep graze on rolling hills and the greatest concern is whether the harvest will be good, Rand al'Thor tends his father's flock, unaware that ancient eyes have found him. The night of Winternight brings terror in the form of Trollocs—twisted creatures of shadow and malice—and with them, a mysterious Aes Sedai named Moiraine who speaks of prophecies older than memory. As flames consume the familiar and friends scatter like leaves before a storm, Rand finds himself thrust into a world where dreams bleed into reality and the Dark One's servants hunt with relentless purpose. Alongside his childhood companions Mat and Perrin, and the village girl Egwene who harbors her own dangerous gifts, he must flee everything he has ever known. The Pattern weaves around them, drawing them inexorably toward a destiny that will either save the world or damn it to eternal darkness. The Dragon has been Reborn, though he does not yet know it, and the Last Battle draws near.

Chapter 1: Chapter 1: Shadows Fall Upon the Two Rivers

The ravens came first, black shapes wheeling against the spring sky with intelligence that chilled the blood. Rand al'Thor watched them from his farmyard, tall and lean with gray eyes that seemed older than his twenty years. Something felt wrong in the air—a tension that made the sheep huddle together and the dogs whine softly. His father Tam, weathered from years of shepherding and old battles, sharpened his sword with methodical precision, the heron-mark blade gleaming in the afternoon light. When darkness fell on Winternight, it brought nightmares made flesh. Trollocs swept through Emond's Field like a plague of twisted metal and bestial howls, their wolf-muzzles slavering as curved swords carved through the peaceful night. Leading them rode something worse—a Myrddraal, its eyeless face freezing blood and its black cloak never stirring though the wind howled around it. The Fade's presence turned courage to ice and hope to ash. Rand found his father grievously wounded in their burning farmhouse, delirious with fever and babbling of battles fought in distant lands. As he dragged Tam through the winter woods toward the village, the older man spoke of things that made no sense—of finding a child on a mountainside, of wars against the Shadow, of a past that belonged to someone other than a simple shepherd. The words cut deeper than any blade, raising questions Rand was not ready to face. Into this chaos rode salvation wearing a serene mask. Moiraine Damodred appeared like something from legend, an Aes Sedai whose dark eyes held depths of knowledge and power. Beside her came Lan, her Warder, a man whose sword moved like lightning and whose granite features spoke of the Borderlands where the Shadow pressed close. They brought word that shattered Rand's world completely—the attack was no random raid. The Trollocs had come hunting three young men: Rand, Mat Cauthon, and Perrin Aybara. The Dark One himself had marked them, though none could say why.

Chapter 2: Chapter 2: Flight from Home: The Breaking of Innocence

The village burned behind them as they fled into the night, but escape came at a price that would haunt them forever. Nynaeve al'Meara, the Wisdom of Emond's Field, refused to let her people vanish into legend without a fight. Her braid swung like a weapon as she confronted Moiraine with all the fury of a village healer whose charges had been stolen. Egwene al'Vere, the innkeeper's daughter whose dark eyes had always held stubborn courage, forced her way into their company despite the danger. Through the dark forest they rode, pursued by shadows that howled their names and overhead creatures that should not exist. Draghkar circled on leathery wings, their cries promising death to any who heard them. Moiraine's power concealed their passage, weaving fog and confusion to baffle their hunters, but even Aes Sedai strength had limits. The peaceful world of the Two Rivers had shattered like glass, and there could be no going back. The ferry crossing at Taren Ferry should have been simple, but the Pattern weaves as the Wheel wills. As they reached the far shore, the boat broke apart in a whirlpool that appeared from nowhere, its destruction ensuring no pursuit could follow the same path. Whether this was Moiraine's work or the Pattern's own protection remained unclear, but the message was unmistakable—they had crossed more than just a river. They had left their old world behind forever. Mat's nervous jokes could not hide the fear in his eyes, while Perrin's broad shoulders hunched forward as if expecting a blow. These were no longer the boys who had danced at Bel Tine just days before. The Shadow had found them, marked them, and would not rest until they were claimed or destroyed. As they made camp in the wilderness beyond the ferry, each of them understood that their childhood had ended in fire and blood, and whatever lay ahead would demand more than they had ever imagined giving.

Chapter 3: Chapter 3: Paths Divided: Lost in Ancient Evils

The ruined city of Shadar Logoth rose from the mist like a fever dream, its white towers gleaming with malevolent beauty. Once it had been called Aridhol, a proud ally in the war against the Shadow, but that was before a different evil had taken root in its heart. Moiraine led them through its empty streets with desperate urgency, warning them to touch nothing, take nothing, for the corruption here was older and hungrier than the Dark One's servants. In the depths of an ancient treasure room, Mat Cauthon's curiosity proved stronger than caution. His hand closed around a ruby-hilted dagger, its blade gleaming with unnatural sharpness and its pommel winking like a drop of blood. The moment he touched it, something changed in his eyes—a possessiveness that had nothing to do with greed and everything to do with the malice that had consumed Shadar Logoth itself. When Trollocs breached the city's defenses, chaos erupted in the cursed streets. The company scattered like leaves before a storm, friends separated by walls of silver mist that rose from the stones themselves. Mashadar, the entity that had devoured the city's population in ages past, writhed through the ruins with hungry purpose, consuming Shadow and Light alike. The Trollocs' screams echoed through the night as the city's evil proved it cared nothing for the Dark One's servants. Rand found himself alone with Mat, fleeing through streets where the very stones whispered of ancient hatreds. Behind them, the silver fog rose like a living thing, and in that moment of terror, something stirred within him—a warmth, a power that felt as natural as breathing. He pushed the feeling down, refusing to acknowledge what it might mean, but the seed of his destiny had already begun to sprout. The Pattern had scattered them for its own purposes, and each would face trials that would forge them into what the world needed them to become.

Chapter 4: Chapter 4: Awakening Powers: The Price of Destiny

The dreams came like poison in the night, seeping through the barriers of sleep to corrupt rest with visions of fire and shadow. Rand woke screaming in taverns and barns, his hands clawing at sheets soaked with sweat, while in his mind Ba'alzamon's voice echoed like funeral bells. The Dark One's most trusted servant wore a face of flame and shadow, his mouth a furnace that spoke promises of power and threats of eternal torment. Mat's condition worsened with each passing day, the ruby dagger's influence spreading through him like corruption through water. His laughter turned brittle and sharp, his jokes edged with cruelty that made Rand's skin crawl. The weapon had bound itself to his soul with threads of malice, and only Aes Sedai healing could break the connection before it consumed him completely. Meanwhile, Perrin Aybara discovered gifts he had never wanted among the wolves of the wilderness. The pack found him as he traveled with Egwene and the strange man Elyas Machera, whose yellow eyes reflected the same feral gleam that was growing in Perrin's own gaze. Through images and emotions that bypassed human speech, the wolves spoke to him of hunts and bonds older than civilization itself. Egwene faced her own awakening among the Traveling People, the Tuatha'an who wandered the world in their brightly painted wagons. Under patient guidance, she learned to touch the True Source, to channel the One Power that flowed through creation like liquid fire. The sensation was intoxicating and terrifying, a rush of energy that made her feel as though she could reshape the world with a thought. But control seemed impossible when every emotion threatened to unleash forces that could level mountains or boil seas.

Chapter 5: Chapter 5: Convergence in Caemlyn: Threads of Fate Intertwine

The great city of Caemlyn sprawled before them like a jewel set in green hills, its white walls rising proud beneath the Lion Banner of Andor. Here, Queen Morgase held court while political tensions simmered between those who supported her alliance with Tar Valon and those who whispered that Aes Sedai influence would bring only ruin. In the streets, red cockades and white marked the divide, and violence lurked beneath the surface of every conversation. Rand's path led him over the Palace garden wall, driven by desperate curiosity to glimpse the false Dragon's arrival. What he found changed everything. Elayne Trakand, the Daughter-Heir of Andor, knelt beside him as he struggled to consciousness, her red-gold hair catching sunlight like spun copper. Her brother Gawyn watched with calculating eyes, while their words echoed in Rand's mind like prophecy: wrapped in a shoufa, he would look like an Aielman. In the throne room's magnificence, Queen Morgase sat in judgment beneath the Rose Crown, but it was the woman behind the throne who made Rand's blood run cold. Elaida Sedai studied him with eyes that held knowledge better left unlearned, and when she spoke, her voice carried the hollow ring of prophecy: "From this day Andor marches toward pain and division. The Shadow has yet to darken to its blackest, and I cannot see if the Light will come after." The false Dragon's arrival marked more than the end of one man's ambitions. Logain sat caged like a wild animal, but his eyes held terrible dignity as they swept the crowd. When their gazes met across the distance, Rand felt something respond within him—a recognition that terrified him more than any Trolloc blade. That night, in dreams that were more than dreams, Ba'alzamon appeared with eyes of fire, speaking of eternal war and choices that would damn or save the world.

Chapter 6: Chapter 6: Journey to the Eye: Confronting the Forsaken

The Ways opened before them like wounds in reality itself, passages between worlds that the male Aes Sedai had created before madness claimed them all. Loial, the gentle Ogier who served as their guide, spoke of corruption seeping into these ancient roads, of the Black Wind that devoured souls and left only empty husks behind. Through tunnels of living stone they traveled, where bridges spanned impossible voids and darkness pressed against them with malevolent intent. When the Black Wind found them, its whispers promised torments beyond imagination. Only Moiraine's power and Loial's knowledge saved them from dissolution as they burst from the Ways into sunlight and clean air. But relief was short-lived, for before them stretched the Blight—that wasteland where the Dark One's touch had corrupted the very earth, where trees grew with leaves of poison and flowers bloomed with petals of razored glass. At the Eye of the World, in a grove that remained green and pure amid the Blight's corruption, they found the Green Man—a being of living wood and leaves who had guarded this sanctuary since the Breaking of the World. His ancient eyes held sadness as he spoke of endings and beginnings, of prices that must be paid when the Wheel turns and ages die. The Eye itself lay beneath the earth, a pool of liquid light containing pure saidin, untainted by the Dark One's touch. From the twisted forest came two figures in robes of gray and green—Aginor and Balthamel, Forsaken who had been bound with the Dark One since the Age of Legends but had worked free of their prison. Their faces were masks of corruption, one withered to ancient parchment, the other hidden behind leather that could not conceal the rot beneath. They had come for the same prize, and their power made the very air tremble with malice as the final confrontation began.

Chapter 7: Chapter 7: The Dragon Awakens: Power and Prophecy Fulfilled

The battle was brief and terrible. The Green Man fell defending them, his sacrifice allowing an oak tree to grow from his body, marking his grave with living wood. But as Aginor reached for the Eye's power, Rand felt the warmth within him blaze into an inferno that threatened to consume everything. Without understanding what he did, he grasped saidin itself, the male half of the True Source, and felt it fill him with light and fire beyond mortal comprehension. Power flowed through him in torrents that should have destroyed him, carrying him beyond the grove to Tarwin's Gap where the armies of Shienar made their last stand against a Trolloc horde. Through him the One Power struck at the Shadow's forces with lightning and earthquake, with fire that fell from clear skies. The earth itself rose up to swallow the Dark One's servants, and when the destruction ended, the Borderland army stood victorious on a field where no enemy remained. But the true battle was yet to come. In a place between dream and waking, Rand faced Ba'alzamon himself—not the Dark One as he had believed, but Ishamael, first and greatest of the Forsaken, the Betrayer of Hope who had never been fully bound. Their confrontation shook the foundations of reality as blade met blade, Light against Shadow, in a duel that would echo through the ages. When Rand's sword of pure light severed the black cord connecting the Forsaken to his power, Ba'alzamon's scream echoed across dimensions. The victory came at a cost that would haunt him forever—as the power faded and he collapsed, broken by forces beyond mortal comprehension, Rand finally understood the truth Moiraine had known from the beginning. He was the Dragon Reborn, prophesied savior and destroyer, and the taint on saidin would eventually drive him mad as it had Lews Therin Kinslayer three thousand years before.

Chapter 8: Chapter 8: Burden of Truth: Accepting the Pattern's Design

The Eye of the World was gone, leaving only cracked earth where once a pool of pure saidin had gleamed like liquid light. Among the ruins lay artifacts that spoke of ages past and prophecies yet to be fulfilled—the Horn of Valere that could call dead heroes from their graves, and the banner of Lews Therin Telamon, the Dragon who had broken the world to save it. The seals on the Dark One's prison showed cracks that spoke of weakening bonds and approaching freedom. Moiraine's revelation cut through Rand's desperate denials like a blade through silk. She had known from the first, had seen the signs in his unconscious use of the Power to heal Bela's exhaustion, in his resistance to Aes Sedai compulsion, in the way the Pattern bent around him like light around a prism. The bonding should have made him compliant, but ta'veren—those around whom the Wheel weaves—follow their own paths regardless of others' plans. In Fal Dara's celebration, as bells rang victory and soldiers danced with flowers in their topknots, Rand grappled with the weight of his destiny. The power that had saved them all was also his doom, for no man could channel saidin without eventually succumbing to madness. Yet in his veins flowed the blood of ancient kings, and in his soul burned memories of the Dragon who had paid the ultimate price for the world's salvation. The choice to leave came not from cowardice but from love. He could not risk those he cared about, could not chance that his growing power might harm them or that his enemies might use them as weapons against him. As the sun set over Fal Dara's walls, Rand slipped from the keep like a shadow, turning his face toward an unknown road and a destiny he could no longer deny. The Dragon was Reborn, and the Last Battle was coming whether the world was ready or not.

Summary

The Wheel of Time turns, and what was once shall be again, though perhaps not as it was before. Rand al'Thor's journey from shepherd to Dragon Reborn reflects the cruel mathematics of prophecy—power demands sacrifice, destiny destroys innocence, and salvation often wears the face of damnation. His friends scatter to their own fates: Mat bound to an ancient evil that only Aes Sedai healing can break, Perrin learning to speak with wolves in ways that blur the line between man and beast, Egwene discovering abilities that mark her as surely as any brand. Each has been changed by their passage through Shadow and Light, forged by trials into what the Pattern needs them to become. The victory at the Eye of the World marks not an ending but a beginning—the first movement in a symphony of destruction and rebirth that will reshape the very foundations of existence. The Dragon Reborn walks alone now, carrying power that could save or damn the world, while behind him the Wheel continues its eternal turning. The Last Battle approaches with patient, hungry eyes, and somewhere in the Pattern's weaving, threads of possibility converge toward a moment when Light and Shadow will meet in final confrontation. The boy who wanted nothing more than to tend sheep has become hope itself, wrapped in the promise of ending, and the world will never be the same.

About Author

Loading

Robert Jordan

Jordan weaves intricate narratives, merging his scientific acumen and military experience to create compelling fantasy realms. His epic series, "The Wheel of Time", showcases a profound exploration of themes such as the cyclical nature of time and the perpetual conflict between good and evil, drawing on his background in physics and his personal engagement with Freemasonry. This series is renowned for its detailed world-building and complex character development, aspects that mirror Jordan's interest in history and politics.\n\nIn his work, Jordan employs a meticulous approach to crafting expansive narratives, as seen in the 14-volume "The Wheel of Time" saga. This dedication to depth and detail enriches the reader’s experience, offering a multi-layered exploration of mythological and cultural elements. His ability to intertwine diverse motifs and themes resonates with audiences seeking epic tales filled with political intrigue and moral dilemmas. Although Jordan’s books did not garner significant literary awards, their critical and commercial success is evident in the over 100 million copies sold worldwide, as well as in adaptations like the Amazon Prime series.\n\nReaders captivated by comprehensive fantasy worlds and intricate plots benefit greatly from Jordan's works. His early book, "The Eye of the World", serves as an entry point into a richly imagined universe, while subsequent volumes deepen the exploration of the series' core themes. The author’s influence extends beyond literature, fostering an enduring global fanbase and inspiring annual conventions such as JordanCon. This bio of Jordan encapsulates the impact of his narrative craftsmanship and thematic depth, establishing him as a pivotal figure in modern fantasy literature.

Read more