Mat Cauthon - Rescue of Moiraine

Rescue of Moiraine

In Knife of Dreams Mat finally brings up the courage to ask Thom Merrilin about the note that Moiraine handed him before she entered the land of the Aelfinn and Eelfinn while attacking Lanfear. Thom explains to him that he had specific instructions not to show him the note until he asked. The note explained that Moiraine was a prisoner and that Mat, Thom and a third member were to enter the land via a mysterious spire called The Tower of Ghenjei.

While discussing how to enter the Tower, Olver overhears them and says that Birgitte Silverbow told him a tale where the heroine (actually herself in another life) used a bronze knife to draw the symbol for the game Snakes and Foxes on the tower and created a doorway. After deciding to rescue Moiraine, one of Mat's companions, Noal, insisted accompanying him and Thom.

They take along iron, music and fire, three things which can be used against the Finn. Once in the tower, the group uses Mat's luck with random chance to find Moiraine's location. Mat throws two six-sided dice to figure out which direction to go, assigning 1-3, 4-6, 7-9, and 10-12 to the four options (When it is pointed out that he can't roll a 1, his luck defies this by trapping one of the dice in a cleft of the floor while the other stops to show one pip). They must reach the Chamber of Bonds, the only place in the Tower of Ghenjhi where the Eelfinn will be bound to the bargain that they might make with humans. The fox-like Eelfinn try to distract the group first by trying to hypnotize them into leaving their fire, until Mat orders Thom to play music and break the lulling tone of the Eelfinn's voice. The Eelfinn falls asleep after hearing the music, but when they enter another chamber, they are accosted by some of the senior groups of Eelfinn, and they have to use their iron weapons and fireworks to escape them. At first, Noal tried to make a map of which chambers they had been in, but the geometry of the land did not work according to the normal laws of physics, so when Mat rolled his dice they often headed back the same direction and ended in a different place.

Once in the Chamber of Bonds, Mat offers one of his eyes as payment for the safe return of Moiraine, a straight passage back to their doorway and that none of the Eelfinn will stop them. In return, Mat fulfills the prophecy he received from them to give up half the light of the world to save the world. This meant giving up one of his eyes, which one of the Eelfinn violently tears out with a claw. Mistakenly, Mat forgets to bargain for safety from the snake like Aelfinn, and the group (plus a weakened Moiraine) is deterred from returning the way they came. Noal dies fending off the Aelfinn and reveals that he is the legendary Jain Farstrider, a famous traveler and author who disappeared years before. Having lost his dice to the Eelfinn, Mat leads the group through the tower by closing his eye and spinning around to stop in a random direction. In this way, he leads them to the other ter'angreal that was in the storage room in Tear, but they find it destroyed. Remembering that his original deal was for a way out, Matt realizes that his spear can create an exit and the three manage to escape.