[ACoS: 39, Promises to Keep, 606-7]

"Gholam were created in the middle of the War of the Power, during the Age of Legends... They were made to assassinate Aes Sedai. No other reason. To kill people who could channel. The One Power won't help you; the Power won't touch a gholam. In fact, they can sense the ability to channel, if they're within, say, fifty paces of you. They can feel the power in you, too. You won't know the gholam until it's too late. They look just like anybody else. On the outside. Inside... Gholam have no bones; they can squeeze themselves under a door. And they're strong enough to rip a door off steel hinges with one hand.

There were only six gholam made--three male and three female; at least, that's what they look like. Apparently even the Forsaken were a little uneasy about them. Or maybe they just decided six was enough."

--Matrim Cauthon

[TPoD: 1, To Keep the Bargain, 52-3]

"...a gholam, a kind of Shadowspawn the Power won't touch. It looks like a man, but it was made, and made to kill Aes Sedai. Steel doesn't seem to hurt it either, and it can awueeze through a mousehole."

Nynaeve al'Meara Sedai

[TPoD: 2, Unweaving, 84-5]

The gholam appeared to be merely a slender man, a little taller than average in this time, yet it had never encountered anything that could harm it. Until that man with the medallion...

Its nostrils flared again, though it was not by scent that it tracked those who could channel... The one who commanded it wanted the man who had wounded it dead perhaps as much as he did the women, but the women were an easier target. The women had been named, too, and for the time being, it was constrained. For its entire existence it had been compelled to obey one or another human...