Recently, I've read a few people mentioning two curious things about the end of The Eye of the World. Both occur in chapter fifty-one, "Against the Shadow."

The first is that Rand appears to Travel from the Eye to a mountain pass (presumably Tarwin's Gap), where the Borderlanders are fighting the trollocs. The weird thing is that the way he Travels does not include a portal. He just appears at the battle.

The second is that, once he is in the mountain pass, he hears a voice speak to him, and the text is rendered all in capital letters.

Here is the text:

The wind died. The screams died. The earth was still. Dust and smoke swirled back down the pass to surround him.

“The Light blind you, Ba'alzamon! This has to end!”

IT IS NOT HERE.

It was not Rand's thought, making his skull vibrate.

I WILL TAKE NO PART. ONLY THE CHOSEN ONE CAN DO WHAT MUST BE DONE, IF HE WILL.

“Where?” He did not want to say it, but he could not stop himself. “Where?”

The haze surrounding him parted, leaving a dome of clear, clean air ten spans high, walled by billowing smoke and dust. Steps rose before him, each standing alone and unsupported, stretching up into the murk that obscured the sun.

NOT HERE.

Through the mist, as from the far end of the earth, came a cry. “The Light wills it!” The ground rumbled with the thunder of hooves as the forces of humankind launched their last charge.

Is the voice that of the Dark One or the Creator?

Here's what Robert Jordan had to say:

Rand has no direct connection with the Creator. The Creator is completely removed from the world; aside from...creating...the Pattern, he does nothing else whatsoever to influence anything.

Another time, Jordan is asked a question concerning just this moment:

Q: Is the Dark One pure True Power? Why does the Creator ignore Randland except to talk to Rand at the end of The Eye of the World?

Robert Jordan: No, the Dark One is not pure True Power. Who says the Creator takes little interest in the activities of mankind? And I will neither confirm nor deny that the Creator spoke to Rand.

Both quotations can be found here: http://www.dragonmount.com/index.php/News/theoryblog/wot-ifthe-all-caps-voice-is-really-r388

My theory resolves these two problems at the same time. Rand is communicating with the Dark One. This connection with the Dark One allowed Rand to use the True Power to Travel to the mountain pass without a portal. This sort of Travelling was introduced in the prologue to The Eye of the World: it is how Ishamael gets to Lews Therin. Perhaps Rand can use the True Power through Ishamael, for all I know. Moments after the exchange with the voice in the mountain pass, Rand is pulled into one of Ishamael's dream shards, where Ishamael says that Rand has revealed himself to him now, and so on.

What the voice said to Rand is, of course, consistent with the speaker being the Creator. "I take no part" sounds like something the Creator would say. But it is also consistent with the speaker being the Dark One. What Shai'tan wants is to break Rand, not to kill him. That's something we learn in the battle between them in A Memory of Light. He needs to build Rand up at the start in order to break him later. He really does take no part. The beginning of the series features attempts by Ishamael and the other Forsaken to destroy Rand, but we know for a fact that Ishamael went rogue. We learn later, too, that the other Forsaken disobey their orders and try to kill Rand. The Dark One never tried to kill Rand; he took no part in those plans, and he aimed to break Rand instead.