It will be in much the same vein as what we saw in TSR, except we'll see the area in wich the two realms are connected together (Mat might have to go from one to the other to find Moiraine).

I think the areas (in each realm) in which the doorway ter'angreal of the AOL Aes Sedai were placed are actually "inside" the Tower of Ghenjei (with "windows" looking on the outside). I think the guides came to meet visitors and lead them out of the "Tower" (I don't think the inside is actually shaped like a tower) and into the realm of either Foxes or Snakes proper. The Tower connects them, and both of them with the world of men (and I suspect, with many, many other worlds).

I think Mat and co. will at some point get lost in the labyrinthine, escher-like non-sensical mazes.



I think the two Finn people built the Tower, but I don't really hold to a single theory about this. My general hunch is that the Tower is a "nastier" native version of the ter'angreal doorways of the AS, ie: a kind of hub for portals, sort of a Portal Stone you can get in. The shape, the way it works with a symbol (this time invisible and just drawn on it) reminds me a lot of the way the Portal Stones work, and IMO, the two devices are connected. It's long been my theory that the Finns were the makers of both the Portal Stones system and the Horn of Valere (and yes, I think this will be revealed to Mat in TOM). I think the Finns were the ones who "knew the numbers of chaos" (but keep this secret). I think there's also a missing link between them and the "Ogier Translation".

The thing about the Tower is that unlike the ter'angreal we know it's much easier to get in than to get out, and near impossible to get out from TAR (they don't want spies looking at their realms, among other things I suspect). I think it's almost as much a trap for the unwary as a portal, really (I think to get out you really have to be lucky and find out how, or the Finns open you the "door". I think it was designed so the Finns themselves can go in and out to other worlds, not for visitors of other races. They're the ones using bronze knives, so I'm guessing the whole drawing the symbols with a bronze knife stuff is primarly <>i>their own way back in, and somehow humans have learned about that (from the Finns who wanted to lure humans inside, or by observing a Finn go back in) I think the Portal Stones were once a kind of complement to Ghenjei. Ghenjei has all the portals, and the Stones were for when you were far from the ToG in a given world (the worlds of "if", but also other "real" realms, like those of the Finns, that is confirmed not to be a if world. The PS also let you return to Ghenjei, and can be used to travel in a world from one to another).

The whole thing is a transportation system, one very evolved one that makes the Ways look like toy train tracks.


We also know that the whole science of travelling between worlds (applications include The Ways) was derived from the study of the Portal Stones technology, and trying to puzzle them out. This wasn't a science created from the groundwork by Aes Sedai, it's a fringe science they developped from the study of devices they didn't fully understand, and could activate only with the OP even though they suspect it's not really the way they were activated by the makers. IMHO, study of the Portal Stones technology eventually lead to finding ways to open portals to other worlds with the Power, and creating passages/connections. I think the ter'angreal doorways were built using this technology, to come to a compact with the Finns on the humans' own terms. With the TOG, you're at the mercy and whims of the Finns. With the doorways and the compact it's safer. They are bound by the compact to let you out of there, unless you refuse to pay, or break the rules. I think the payment is always more or less the same (they want your experiences, from you whole life thread in the pattern - they seem obsessed with knowledge), and forcibly it can only be paid once, so the ter'angreal were designed so people can't use them twice by accident, as I think the Finns would capture your person then, as you have nothing else they want anymore, not even to pay for your way out of there. I don't think they necessarily always respect the compact if you come through their own portal of the TOG, I think in that case they pretty much decide if you'll get out or not, unless you're very lucky and find the way back to your world (I suspect it's very confusing, with many portals to many worlds in many rooms... as confusing to non-Finns as all those symbols on the Portal Stones).

I think beside the Ways and the doorways, the study of the Portal Stones eventually lead to the discovery of a way to access vacuoles, those bubble of reality (new worlds in gestation?) outside the Pattern. More ominously, I suspect a very great deal the PS technology and science interested Lanfear so much because they were also the inspiration for the method by which a portal to the new source of Power would be constructed... a portal and gateway that rather became a Bore...



Beware of the context, as I think you might be misinterpreting RJ a bit on this. He never said the Foxes can't in any way affect other worlds, in the sense they can't even go there or build anything there, not even that their bargains wouldn't work there, or that couldn't live there. He rather just explained that they don't have any special powers to affect other worlds or the Pattern in a god-like fashion to grant your bargains, that their so-called "gifts" come from their own realm or are achieved there (eg: memory transfers), and if you're not careful and ask for something impossible, they'll first find a way to cheat you instead of refusing the bargain. For instance, they had no way to make it so Mat would be "rid of Aes Sedai and the One Power" (which would have required powers to affect the Pattern and so on), so they cheated him with a ter'angral that meld weaves, when what Mat really wanted was that his life be freed of AS and the OP. He was extremely lucky and should be thankful the Foxes were fairly kind to him. The way he made his request, they could very well have dumped him in an empty world free of AS and the OP, just like that man in RJ's example who asked to be made King of the World.... his stroke luck was really to have asked to get out and back, which prevented the worst cheats.

The Finns can get out and do things in the human world: they came out through the doorway and hung Mat to Avendesora (does the "one-time only" limitation affects them too? We don't know.. if it does this would in any case mean that Ghenjei aside (if my theory is correct, anyway), the Finn people have only one chance each to visit the world of men and be able to return home).