“You know the Prophecies of the Dragon? 'When the Wolf King carries the hammer, thus are the final days known. When the fox marries the raven, and the trumpets of battle are blown.' I never understood that second line, myself.”
This is the kind of dialogue that will not be almost in any other type of fiction. Well, almost any other kind; one possible exception is a spy parody where it is said as a satire of those absurd phrases spies supposedly use to identify each other. This quote is a definitive hallmark of the genre of fantasy fiction and it is interesting that it can be spoken with complete sincerity without sounding parodic while at the same time including that addition there at the end which kind of admits to its inherent absurd qualities. Who speaks like this in real life in any world? The answer, of course, is simple: who knows?
“`The north and the east must be as one. The west and the south must be as one. The two must be as one.'”
Rand here is quoting the answer he received from the Aelfinn, otherwise known as the Snake people. This is a strange David Lynchian sort of race of people with the ability to foresee the future. The entire series revolves around just one aspect of the future that would be worth inquiring about and Rand, being no idiot, recognizes this. If one were to be given the opportunity to ask the Aelfinn just one single question, the question that Rand asks which results in this answer would definitely be the one. As it turns out, Rand was not limited to a single question, but, again, the man’s no idiot. The answer, however, does harken back to the quote above. Those who inhabit the world of fantasy fiction really are Lynchian in their inability to answer a question simply and directly. Rand’s query? “How can I win the Last Battle.” Well, sometimes they can be simple and direct.
“What would you have me say? Fair is fair? Equal shares? Accept `very well’ and ask who will let you bond them. Besides, you must remember the old saying. Let the lord of chaos rule." The chamber erupted with men's laughter.
Pevara had never heard any saying like that. The laughter made the hair of her neck try to stand.
The final lines of the narrative (an extensive Glossary follows) feature another defining aspect of fantasy fiction or, at least, fantasy fiction when it comprises a series of books. That aspect is popularly known these days as the callback. Knife of Dreams is the eleventh book in The Wheel of Time series. Book number six is titled Lord of Chaos. Therefore, book number eleven ends not with a definite look forward, but a very definite look back. The lack of precision regarding what is next in line is another recurring element of the series and a perfectly understandable one: it is not as if the author is writing all the books in the series simultaneously.
Extensive notes and outlines give him a much better view toward the shape of things to come, of course, but the actual act of writing is also organic and flexible and thus subject to unforeseen alteration, making even the author of the next book somewhat blind to its future. What is successfully done here, however, is making that callback to an earlier book with the reference to the lord of chaos take on an ambiguous sense of menace regarding what is to come. The author proves himself quite adept when it comes to such ending: nearly every one of the books in the series concludes on a line that is pregnant with potential meaning without giving away, figuratively speaking, whether it will be a boy or a girl.
