Rand of the Scoth.
Rand hails from the windswept highlands of the Scoth, northernmost clan of The Realm.
He’s an only child, raised primarily by his mother. His father, though a loving man, is often gone away on duty as a Knight of the Realm. Rand worships the ground his father walks on, and wants to become a knight like his father. His obsession with knighthood, a profession that brings the sacred honor of wielding a Nyakil, legendary black sword of the ancient, immortal illuminar, causes him to frequently neglect his duties minding the sheep and tending to the chores around their small cottage, and this causes his mother endless grief. He is frequently running off through the heather, his unruly shock of jet-black hair tousled by the wind. Beside tumbling mountain streams and in groves of bigtooth maples, wearing scraps of shingle wood tied to his limbs like armor plates, he thrusts and parries his wooden sword against imaginary foes, eyes the color of polished steel gleaming with the pride of pretend victories.
He always plays alone. He’s not a large boy, not strong for his age, not gifted with speed or agility, just a plain, average youth, though his square cut jaw, straight nose, and attractive features hint at a sprinkling of nobility somewhere in his genealogy. His eyes sparkle with unusually high intelligence, and he often excels in his studies. He has an amazing gift for solving puzzles and riddles. It’s an admirable quality. In fact, girls much older would be fawning for his attention, enraptured by his sharp wit, quick laugh, and penetrating gaze, except for one thing. Rand suffers a terrible affliction, which he calls his curse. It’s a strange ailment that no one else has, and the curse keeps him moody, withdrawn, seldom smiling, and slow to make friends. He’s ashamed of it, embarrassed by it, and wishes more than anything to discover why he has such a thing, and how to be rid of it.
Rand can see the spirit world.
The avanyar, the mortal race in The Realm that make up the twelve clans, worship the Creator, whom they name Aradun. They believe Aradun is the giver of life to all things. They also believe that each being is given two Guardian angels at birth, who serve as protectors against the evil from the spirit world of the Demon Lord. In ancient days, before the disappearance of the immortal illuminar, it was said that the great immortal ones had the gift of the Kallah, the inner voice. It was said that they could hear and communicate with that voice, and some believed they were hearing and speaking to their Guardians. The mortal avanyar had not this gift, but believe that one’s conscience, the innate feeling of knowing right from wrong, and the knowledge of discerning good from evil, is the voice of the Guardians.
Rand knows this to be true, but that’s not his problem. His curse is that he alone in the entire world can see his Guardians. He can see everyone’s Guardians. And not only that, he can see the demons in the spirit world, see their constant attacks upon the souls of everyone around him. He can watch other’s Guardians fending off the demons, and can see when someone has renounced good and has turned to evil, for their Guardians move apart from that person and the demons live upon the person, feeding like leeches on his doomed soul. It’s terrifying to see, and Rand lived a fearful, withdrawn life as a child until he learned to turn off the sight, which he can do now at will.
Talking to his Guardians, seeking their counsel, their thoughts, and their friendship, seems a normal act for Rand, since they’ve always been with him, but it is a frightening thing to witness for those around him. Because of his strange behavior they have labeled him touched in the mind, just an addled fool, and some tease him by calling him a seer, not because he sees the future like a mystic, but because he sees things that aren’t there.
He asked his parents about the Guardians, and his ability to see and communicate with them, when he was little boy, but his parents, Rommen and Staria, just passed it off as their son talking with imaginary friends. They really saw nothing wrong with it in the beginning, but when Rand grew older and the behavior continued, they scolded to grow out of it he began to hide the curse from his parents.
At the tender age of ten, Rand loses his mother to the cancer, and his father takes him to live at the castle Hearthside, seat of The Realm. Losing his mother is the most devastating experience of Rand’s life because he watches the demon masters come and haul away his mother’s soul. It was so horrifying for Rand that he shut down completely, descending into a catatonic state that lasts for almost a year, and even after recovering, Rand has a life-long fear of the dark and of death.
Once Rand is relocated to Hearthside, the castle’s caretaker, Baladar, a jolly old man who is as fat as a wine cask with a stained beard to match, works with the healers to bring Rand out of his fugue state. Baladar has a twinkle in his eye that gives away intelligence equal to Rand’s. Encouraged by his father, the boy begins to learn from the old man. He learns that Baladar had been a friar, a member of the sacred order who led the avanyar in the worship of Aradun, and who were given the task of training the Knights of the Realm. He learns much of swordplay and weaponry from his father, endlessly training on the grounds, while learning much of the ancient ways of the avanyar, and their illuminar companions of old. Rand learns of herb and leaf, woodlore and craftsmanship, and seems especially interested in learning the language and ways of the ancient immortals. Baladar secretly believes Rand is the long sought after seer, foretold in the ancient tomes, but Rommen has his doubts. Rand also goes to great lengths to keep his secret curse from everyone at Hearthside.
Rand catches a glimpse of Erinwe, daughter of the King, and his love for her is renewed. It’s not the first time they’ve met. She was there in Cheyne eight years earlier when the nightshade attacked Rand, and she killed it with help from her silver hair brooch. They are both older now, Rand having just turned eighteen, while Erinwe is two years older.
Rand watches Erinwe pass the Clannad, the invitation to knighthood, and is terribly proud but jealous of her accomplishment. He watches from afar, for he is afraid to approach her for fear of rejection.
In the meantime, Rand has never forgotten his encounter with the stranger on the moor all those years ago, just before his mother died. He relentlessly quizzes Baladar about the ancient illuminar, in part because he suspects the man he met that day long before was of that immortal race. He is obsessed with learning their ways because he realizes that immortality would be the answer to his dreaded fear of death.
Rand believes winning a Nyakil as a Knight of the Realm will impress Erinwe, but he fails the Clannad because his fear of death prevents him from completing the task of demonstrating a willingness to sacrifice his life to save another. He feels disgraced.
Rand’s father feels bad for his son. When the Demon Horde launches an attack on The Realm at Breachfille, Rand offers his son the job of standard bearer for the Captain of the Guard, which Rand accepts. It is during the battle at Breachfille that Rommen falls at the hand of a demon master incarnate, which Rand kills with his father’s Nyakil. Crushed at the death of his father, Rand refuses to give up the Nyakil blade, even though he knows the penalty for anyone other than a knight to possess a Nyakil is death. He flees the battlefield and disappears for a time.
Scathe, a mysterious Druid from the east, appears during the midst of the battle for Breachfille, and helps the avanyar defeat the Demon Horde. He goes with the Guard back to Hearthside where the king heralds him for the victory. In time, Scathe works his way to becoming king’s counselor. Erinwe distrusts Scathe. Rand, feeling guilty about coveting the sword that he hasn’t earned, decides to sneak into Hearthside with Baladar’s help and return the Nyakil to the Wall of Swords, where it will remain until the next knight from Scoth is appointed. He discovers that Scathe has come to Hearthside, has been anointed chief counselor, and he can see immediately that Scathe is evil.
Scathe knows Rand will betray him so he kills the king and frames Rand for the murder. Rand flees the palace as Scathe takes control of the kingdom. Erinwe is tasked with hunting down Rand. While doing so, Scathe declares the knights themselves are traitors to the crown and the knights themselves are outlawed.
Rand remembers the words of Hadrin the old, told to him by Baladar, that revealed the intertwined future of illuminar and avanyar:
…The Creator’s light is righteousness, a beacon on the path
That marks the road to eternal life, away from Shaitan’s wrath
He hears their cries and delivers to them a mortal to kindle the flame
A se’er of realms beyond the veil; Rand shall be his name
He’ll gather the shards, the Keystones five, and root out from their holes
The minions who stand ‘tween death and life, guarding the well of souls
And joined with the last illuminar, the Captain of the Guard
With nightshade turned, and the soulless one, they’ll form at last The Star
United as five against darkness, though in the end betrayed
The Messiah steps free from the well itself and Shaitan’s hand is stayed
He doesn’t want to face the truth, that he is the Rand foretold of, and doesn’t want to be one of the five Keystones. He has no idea who the others are supposed to be, nor where to find them.
Fleeing to elude capture, he encounters a Wood Nymph, who places around his neck a Keystone, and he knows he has no choice but to walk the road destined for him.
Afraid of the dark and armed with only his father’s sword, led by Guardians only he can see, chased as an outlaw by the Captain of the Guard whom he loves, Rand plunges into the forbidden Great Wood in search of a chance to cheat death and win the right to carry the sword he bears. Unknowingly, he is leading the worlds of light and darkness, mortal and immortal, even the realms of Heaven and Hell, all on a collision course that threatens the very fabric of the universe and could deliver them all into the hands of the Demon Lord.