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Isam is Lan's blood cousin. Lord Luc is the brother of Tigraine, former Queen of Andor, and thus Rand's blood uncle. Slayer seems to be some amalgamation of the two.
Isam is first mentioned late in tEotW. In tEotW, 47, More Tales of the Wheel, 595, Agelmar begins his tale of the history of the fall of Malkier. Briefly, it is revealed that al'Lan Mandragoran is the son of al'Akir and el'Leanna. Al'Akir had a brother, Lain Mandragoran, who was wed to Breyan. Lain and Breyan were parents to a child named Isam.
Agelmar goes on to explain Breyan's jealousy and grief over her husband's death in the Blasted Lands, and her plot with Cowin Fairheart, hero and Darkfriend, to seize the throne for her son Isam. This plot failed, and Breyan fled south with her infant son Isam, and were overtaken by Trollocs. Their bodies were never recovered.
It was at this time that el'Leanna and al'Akir sent their own infant son, al'Lan, south to Fal Moran to safety. The Glossary of LoC places al'Lan's birthdate in 953 NE, and thus we can surmise that these events took place no later than 956 NE.
Lord Luc is the brother of Tigraine, former Daughter Heir of Andor. In tEotW, 34, The Last Village, 441 we learn that Luc died in the Blight while ostensibly in training to become the First Prince of the Sword. Tigraine later vanished, before properly assuming her throne.
Later, in tSR, 34, He Who Comes With The Dawn, 392 we learn that Tigraine ran off to become a Maiden of the Spear with the Aiel at the directions of Gitara Moroso Sedai, some four years before Laman's Sin. The Glossary of tSR places the Aiel War, which begun as a direct result of Laman's Sin, from 976 to 978 NE. Thus, Tigraine disappeared circa 972 NE.
On the next page, we learn that Janduin, Rand's biological father, was killed on a venture to the Blasted Lands by a man who looked so like Shaiel that Janduin would not raise his spear. This is almost certinaly Lord Luc, and is in the third year of the Aiel War, 977 NE.
Finally, in 16, LoC, Tellings of the Wheel, 277 we learn that Luc himself may have been sent into the Blight by Gitara Moroso Sedai. After his disappearance, a year before Tigraine's flight, or about 971 NE, rumors whispered that Gitara sent him to find fame, or fate, or the Dragon Reborn or the Last Battle. Given her connection with Tigraine's flight, it seems very likely that the rumors are true.
The first reference tying Luc and Isam together in any way comes from the Dark Prophecy, scrawled on the walls in Fal Dara after the Trolloc raid. A relevant stanza says:
"Luc came to the Mountains of Dhoom.
Isam waited in the high passes.
The hunt is now begun. The Shadow's hounds now course, and kill.
One did live, and one did die, but both are.
The Time of Change has come."
(tGH, 7, Blood Calls Blood, 89)
The exact interpretation of this stanza is uncertain, but clearly, Isam survived Breyan's flight south as long as circa 971 NE, when Luc went north into the Blight. Curiously, Luc and Isam would have been roughly the same age, as well. Something happened -- one died and one lived -- but somehow, both still exist.
Now, the only time we know of that Luc or Isam enter the picture in person, rather than as background, is in those segments of tSR set around Perrin's trip back home to the Two Rivers.
The middle aged Lord Luc who arrives in the Two Rivers, claiming to help the villagers with the Whiteclaoks and Trollocs is that same Luc. His age and coloring are correct, and Perrin muses that if he resembles anyone, it is Rand. A cousinly resemblance, no doubt. Luc is Rand's blood uncle.
Isam appears only in the Unseen World, and only by implication.
In tSR, 28, To the Tower of Ghenjei Perrin has several encounters in the Unseen world. One is with a man who tries to kill him, a man with a cold, inhuman scent to Perrin's nose. Hopper later identifies this dangerous creature as 'Slayer,' after Slayer leads Perrin on a chase to the Tower of Ghenjei. Birgitte appears, then, identifies the Tower, connects it with the Aelfinn and the Eelfinn, and warns Perrin away from it, and Slayer.
Later, Perrin sees Slayer in the Unseen World looking much like Lan, dressed and styled in the Malkieri fashion (tSR, 42, A Missing Leaf, 476). He muses that the man looked enough like Lan to be a brother.
In tSR, 53, The Price of a Departure, 614-615 Perrin faces Slayer in the Unseen World, and shoots him with an arrow. Slayer disappears from the Unseen World, and when Perrin wakes up, learns that Lord Luc had suddenly run off as if wounded.
Here, Perrin connects the two. He notes the simultanaity of the wounds, and notes the same icy, inhuman smell from both of them.
In tSR, 56, Goldeneyes, 645-646 the Trollocs in the Two Rivers form a battle cry out of the name Isam. Clearly, even though his activities seem limited to the Unseen World, his influence extends to the physical flesh.
So much for evidence. What the Hell does any of this mean?
The best anyone has been able to do is note that Luc and Isam now seem to be separate parts of a single being, aptly named Slayer by the wolves he kills in the Unseen World.
We know from Egwene's training what some of the properties of the Unseen World are. Relevant properties here include the loss of one's humanity (as in, a cold, icy, inhuman scent coming from both Luc and Isam) after going to the Unseen World in the flesh, and the Unseen World's tendency to reflect the traveler's mental state. Given that Slayer always appears as Lord Luc in the world of the flesh and as Isam in the Unseen World, it is a fairly safe to assume that Isam is somehow piloting Luc's body.
From the stanza, it seems likely that Luc is the one who lived, because his body is still wandering around, twitching and talking, and that Isam is the one who died. In any other discussion, we'd just call this a possession, and be done with it. There are no firm answers on how or why Isam was given control over Luc's body, nor how much of the future Gitara Moroso saw when she sent Luc to his doom.
However, it should be noted that odd phenomena concerning life and death, the mind and memory are hardly unknown in the Wheel of Time. Specifically, channelers of skill and strength are perfectly capable of forcing spirits bound to wait their next incarnation in the Unseen World back into the physical world. See Moghedien and Birgitte. Channelers are perfectly able to directly and powerfully impose their wills on others through Compulsion. The Dark One is capable of taking deceased souls and reincarnating them directly into new bodies, as with Aran'gar and Osan'gar. (In fact, David Wren-Hardin goes so far as to suggest that Aran'gar and Osan'gar have undergone the same process as Slayer.)
It does not seem unlikely that Ishamael, perhaps with the counsel or active help of the Dark One could have managed this feat for some obscure purpose.
One further note: Hopper says that Slayer is in TAR "in the flesh." Folks have taken this as evidence that Slayer can channel. There is no reason to suppose this (also, see section 1.54, at the end, on evidence for why Slayer cannot channel). What's up with that "in the flesh" stuff?
Let us assume nothing weird like Isam is permanently in TAR in the flesh and controls Luc's body from there. Let us assume that, somehow, Isam put himself into TAR in the flesh by walking through a Gateway. That was the time when Perrin met Hopper and they discussed Slayer. There is ANOTHER time when Slayer was dreaming into TAR--the time Perrin shot him. How do we know this?
Well, the sequence of events goes like this: Perrin is sleeping. Perrin dreams the wolf dream, and sees Slayer (looking like Isam). He shoots Slayer with an arrow, producing a wound in the chest. I now quote: "Slayer faded, him and his cry together, growing misty, transparent, vanishing." (NOT like he opened a Gateway and walked out, like he woke up.) Perrin then wakes up, hears a commotion, asks what's going on, and finds out that Luc's just run off on his horse, hunched over like he's got a wound. He was NOT wounded earlier. Now, why would he have to escape from town if he was PHYSICALLY in TAR? He could just have run someplace else in TAR and exited there. Much easier, and safer. The whole scene is consistent with all the stuff we've heard before about people being wounded while dreaming in TAR, and having the wounds on their physical bodies.
We don't know enough about Slayer, or even going in and out of TAR in the flesh, to say that the only way to do it is via a gateway. I can think of at least one way to get into TAR in the flesh w/o channelling yourself there. Somebody else can open a gateway for you. There's just as much evident for this as for him channelling himself in (i.e. none), and it doesn't produce the contradiction that if Slayer could channel on his own, his 2R strategy would have been very different.
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