Darkfriends steal the dagger and horn back and set fire to the inn just before Ingtar arrives. Rand and Loial take the dagger and horn from Fain and his Trollocs and go to Cairhien. In the chaos of the attack against Fal Dara, he escaped with Mat's dagger and the Horn of Valere. While imprisoned, he was able to remove his ties to Ba'alzamon, renounced his Darkfriend vows, and claimed to be a changed man in fact, any changes wrought made him more dangerous and evil, not less. Following them to Fal Dara in Shienar, he was captured and arrested. He blamed the boys, on some level, for causing what had happened to him. After this merger, his compulsion to hunt Rand, Mat and Perrin grew even stronger, aided by the fact that he could already sense where they were. The resulting entity was considered a maverick by the forces of the Shadow Mordeth's hatred of the Shadow combined corrosively with Fain's resentment of the changes forced upon him. Mordeth had at last found the vessel he needed to command so he could escape the damned city, but because the Dark One had touched and changed Fain's soul, Mordeth could only merge with Fain, not overtake him.

When they hid in Shadar Logoth, he managed to escape the Myrddraal only to be trapped by Mordeth, the ancient spirit which had caused the downfall of Aridhol (now Shadar Logoth). With this certainty in mind, he brought Trollocs and Myrddraal to Emond's Field on Winternight.ДЇain with the ruby dagger portrait done by Seamas Gallagher EscapeДЄfter the failure of that attack, he was forced to join the Trollocs in the hunt for Moiraine Damodred and company. By 998 NE, given the special ability to track the ones he was seeking, he had narrowed his search to three boys from Emond's Field: Rand al'Thor, Matrim Cauthon and Perrin Aybara. In 997 NE, he journeyed back to Shayol Ghul and his mind was 'distilled' of his findings. He journeyed to Shayol Ghul and met Ba'alzamon, who gave him dark powers to aid in his hunt. Sometime in 996 NE he was chosen for a special task: to seek the Dragon Reborn. Unknown to anyone in the town, he has also been a Darkfriend for more than forty years, and was the 'Dark One's Hound', searching for the Dragon Reborn. Continuing his work as a peddler, he came to Emond's Field every spring, and loved being the center of attention. Padan Fain became a Darkfriend in his twenties, for the promise of immortality. He has a large beak of a nose and wide ears. Fain is pale and skinny, with gangly arms.

Sarna blackwind