She's just prattling on rather than talking about important things like lifespans.
A New Player in the Game (Wheel of Time)
- Thread starter Teebs
- Start date
-
- Tags
- wheel of time
She's just prattling on rather than talking about important things like lifespans.
Interlude XXXII - Three Cheers for Lord Mat
Interlude XXXII - Three Cheers for Lord Mat
A few days ago
Lord Covlan looked nervously around himself as his file of cavalry carefully worked their way away from the Erinin. He had been with the second group that had been going to cross directly into Aringill. With Andor leaderless and weakened after the strife it had been through, holding both banks of the river would have been of huge advantage to Cairhien in general and his house in particular.
He could only bless the Creator that he had not been in the first group across the river. That meant that he had had the opportunity to see lightning flashing down from the cloudless sky, sending Cairhienin bodies flying off the docks rather than being among them. He had also seen some of the boats trying to cross the river burst into flame or simply explode, depositing screaming cargoes into the river's waters where. Weighed down by their armour, the soldiers had sunk into the Erinin's murky depths never to be seen again.
That was why he and his men had crossed upstream, away from whatever aes sedai witchcraft was defending Aringill. It must have been some of the Dragon's pet aes sedai since the Tower was on Cairhien's side. Andor had always been too close to the White Tower, but that had changed with their new rivals.
Regardless, it seemed crossing upstream had not been enough. Worried messengers had appeared and vanished, speaking of a mysterious force of Andoran troops that seemed to hit Cairhienin forces at the exact worst moment possible. There must have been tens of thousands of them in the countryside around Aringill, for wherever Cairhienin forces went they met opposition. Hitting them unexpectedly and then fading back into the forest and hills that surrounded the town. With the Dragon safely in the hands of the White Tower it should have been impossible. The Andorans could not have anticipated this, or the Dragon would never have come to Cairhien and, even if they had, his spies should have detected the build-up of their army.
With a lurch in Lord Covlan's stomach another thought occurred to him. He had heard that Morgase had returned to Andor and dismissed it as a trick of the Dragon, or at worst that she was now a powerless puppet of his. What if that was not true? She was a wily woman, what if she had known of Cairhien and the aes sedai's plans and played them all? Giving the Dragon to the White Tower to regain her independence and being ready for the Cairhienin invasion at the same time. Andor always had been close to the White Tower and Lord Covlan had no doubt that the Tar Valon witches would have been perfectly happy to treat him as a pawn to be sacrificed to get control of the Dragon and bring Andor back into the fold at the same time. He turned to his second, Lord Najarl.
Thwack! Lord Covlan looked behind him to see his adjutant collapsing, an arrow through his throat. Then another soldier went down and another. As he started shouting orders he felt a piercing pain through his chest.
==========
There were Cairhienin bodies everywhere. Mat had no idea how he'd ended up in this situation, but it was probably Elayne's bloody fault. Lord Mat this, Lord Mat that. He went for a quiet ride and now he found himself with almost 2,000 troops under his command. Andorans and mercenaries alike. All of them relying on him while he just wanted to get back to bloody Aringill, grab Elayne and tell her to spin one of her gateways back to Caemlyn for reinforcements like anyone sane would.
The flaming Cairhienin had decided to invade and like any sensible man he had wanted to make himself scarce, but he could hardly leave Elayne behind when they were sure to overrun Aringill. So instead, like the Light-blinded fool he was, he'd turned his horse around to ride for Aringill.
Except things were never that simple in reality. First he blundered into Andoran troops, just in time to save them from an ambush. Then another group, then some mercenaries, then a local lord's levy. At the same time more and more Cairhienin were crossing the Erinin until it felt like he was in a running battle for survival, all as he tried to make his way back towards Aringill to rescue Elayne. Like some idiot from a romantic story, when any normal man would just have turned around and ridden as far as he could from royalty, aes sedai or bloody Cairhienin.
=========
Elayne paced the walls of Aringill, looking out with worried eyes. Really she should be going for help and reinforcements, but she could handle this, it would be fine. The Cairhienin had no idea what they were doing, the fucking idiots. She was a full aes sedai, she'd heard enough lectures from Taija about how to demolish troops who could not use the Power.
Also Mat was somewhere out there and she refused to leave him to his fate if there was anything she could possibly do.
"Please my lady, come down from the walls. If an archer sees you…" The city's governor trailed off and Elayne ignored him. There, movement out at the edge of the forest. She embraced saidar and spun air, fire and water, watching in satisfaction as lightning struck several times. Mat would be fine and so would Aringill, but she was not going to leave the town without him.
=========
The present day
Siuan resisted the urge to ask the young man in the black coat to repeat himself. "Thank you Jahar, we will discuss what you have told us and provide an answer for you shortly. Ellia, please could you see that Jahar is provided with refreshments and somewhere comfortable to wait."
She paused until he had been led out of the room and wove a ward against eavesdropping before turning her attention to the Sitters. "So, comments?"
Lelaine was the first to her feet. "Mother, we cannot be seen to be supplicants to the Hall. They have already humiliated us with their treatment of fellow aes sedai and now they offer us gifts that are already ours. We must act, not allow them to humiliate us. They will give us what is ours regardless, why allow them to show their position with these ceremonies Taija has suggested."
Romanda followed straight after. "While I share Lelaine's distaste for the Hall, we must see the world as it is. We are being offered something we could not have recovered by ourselves. We must be conscious of our image and the perception of the Tower, but to be offered the oath rod and the Tower itself, how can we refuse her offer? If we throw it back in her face, Taija may still let us have it, but we will be making an unnecessary enemy. One that is clearly even more powerful than we had feared. The Last Battle is coming and we need to cooperate until it does." She left unsaid that that would no longer apply after the battle had been done.
Siuan sighed and resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of her nose. Taija continued to dump problems onto her lap, all while doing impossible things in the most casual of ways. She knew she should be grateful to the woman, but it was still infuriating.
Nowhere near as infuriating as some of her Sitters though. What in the Light did they think the outcome would be from deliberately antagonising Taija and the Hall? They were already close to being outnumbered by them and that was ignoring the fact that someone like Taija or Sa… Tel Janin, she could not even say his old name in her head. Taija's infatuation with the man was more than problematic in itself. Regardless, any of that pair could probably kill a significant number of aes sedai by themselves if they put their minds to it. She was not under any illusion about how any such conflict would go.
But even that was not the point! The Last Battle was coming. She found Taija and the Hall infuriating, wrong-headed and both an insult and a threat to the White Tower, although also a source of huge potential gains for the Tower. However, all of that paled into insignificance compared to the importance of defeating the Shadow. If it was the only way to win the Last Battle she would get on her knees and swear allegiance to Taija herself, even if she did it with gritted teeth. Fortunately it was not necessary and so that was not going to happen. However, the inability of some of her aes sedai to have a proper sense of priorities was beyond shameful. Any scores with the Hall could be settled after the Last Battle had been won and until then they would act as allies, however reluctant her aes sedai might be.
=========
As the cheers in the throne room faded away, its setting much less ornate than the one she had used before Taija and Rahvin had demolished her palace, Morgase raised her voice. "The Lion Throne gives its gratitude to Elayne Trakand, my beloved daughter-heir and to Matrim Cauthon, a loyal subject. Now I wish to speak to my daughter and Master Cauthon alone, leave us."
She sighed to herself internally. Of course she would have to fete them in public, both not to undermine Elayne's own position and for the nation's morale. They had, after all, scored a great victory over Cairhienin perfidy. However, she was absolutely furious with the idiot girl. She could make gateways. Why had she not immediately returned to Caemlyn or the Hall and summoned reinforcements? The fact that she had been able to hold off the Cairhienin by herself was no excuse, she could not have known that she would be able to.
Morgase watched courtiers and guards filing out. As for Matrim or Mat as he styled himself, he was a problem. She had not forbidden Elayne from carrying on with him, guessing that it would just be a phase that she would grow out of, instead limiting herself to being officially unaware of it. Well, just a phase, but also Matrim's connection to the Dragon Reborn and Perrin made things more difficult. Of course he was nothing like her Perrin, none of his solidity or good sense. She knew what Matrim liked to get up to in his free time, carousing in taverns, although at least her eyes and ears reported that he seemed loyal to Elayne. Her first meeting with the boy had done little to reassure her. He seemed to have an odd view of courtly manners and an inability to take things seriously.
Now after this she was going to have to change her position. He had very publicly supported both Elayne and the Crown and it made it impossible for her to officially ignore their relationship. She would also grudgingly admit that he had also down good work helping with holding Aringill. Based on the reports she had received, he had single handedly rallied and unified a force of disparate troops and then led them on an expert campaign against far superior Cairhienin forces that might have cut-off and overwhelmed Aringill. Where had he even learned those kind of skills?
Of course none of that would have been necessary if her fool daughter had not refused to return to Caemlyn for reinforcements.
As the last of the courtiers filed out she turned her gaze on Elayne. "What in the Light were you thinking?!" Elayne's self-satisfied look vanished. "Why did you not go for reinforcements? Has your brain been addled by the sight of a well-turned calf and a cheeky grin?"
"I knew what I was doing mother!" Elayne scowled defiantly at her. "If I had left then there would have been nobody to hold the town together and I could handle the invasion force."
"Really? I heard that they nearly breached the walls on two occasions and that if Matrim had not been disrupting their attempts at flanking the town they would have overwhelmed its defences." Before Elayne could argue, she continued. "Regardless, what would have stopped you from delivering a message to me and immediately returning? Or from sending a messenger while you stayed? Instead you risked yourself, House Trakand's line," why did Elayne wince at that, "and Aringill itself for what? A romantic dream? Your own pride? Politics dictates that I must reward you in public, but I am very disappointed in you."
Sensibly Elayne did not reply, just staring back at her all tense defiance. She would take the time to go over things with her daughter later. This was the problem with the girl being allowed to run off without proper training. She was the future ruler of Andor, not some hero out of a story.
"As for you Matrim, for once I have no complaints about your actions. In fact I am impressed. You have served the Crown well. Perhaps you can push some sense into my daughter's head since she seems to lack so much. I cannot say that I approve of you, but the two of you seem determined to ignore that and Perrin assures me that you are a good man at heart. So I shall continue to allow it until and unless you give me reason to change my mind. Now, I think for your services to the Crown, a minor lordship. Good service should be rewarded and it might go some way towards making you a more appropriate consort for my daughter."
How odd, he did not look as pleased as she might have expected.
A few days ago
Lord Covlan looked nervously around himself as his file of cavalry carefully worked their way away from the Erinin. He had been with the second group that had been going to cross directly into Aringill. With Andor leaderless and weakened after the strife it had been through, holding both banks of the river would have been of huge advantage to Cairhien in general and his house in particular.
He could only bless the Creator that he had not been in the first group across the river. That meant that he had had the opportunity to see lightning flashing down from the cloudless sky, sending Cairhienin bodies flying off the docks rather than being among them. He had also seen some of the boats trying to cross the river burst into flame or simply explode, depositing screaming cargoes into the river's waters where. Weighed down by their armour, the soldiers had sunk into the Erinin's murky depths never to be seen again.
That was why he and his men had crossed upstream, away from whatever aes sedai witchcraft was defending Aringill. It must have been some of the Dragon's pet aes sedai since the Tower was on Cairhien's side. Andor had always been too close to the White Tower, but that had changed with their new rivals.
Regardless, it seemed crossing upstream had not been enough. Worried messengers had appeared and vanished, speaking of a mysterious force of Andoran troops that seemed to hit Cairhienin forces at the exact worst moment possible. There must have been tens of thousands of them in the countryside around Aringill, for wherever Cairhienin forces went they met opposition. Hitting them unexpectedly and then fading back into the forest and hills that surrounded the town. With the Dragon safely in the hands of the White Tower it should have been impossible. The Andorans could not have anticipated this, or the Dragon would never have come to Cairhien and, even if they had, his spies should have detected the build-up of their army.
With a lurch in Lord Covlan's stomach another thought occurred to him. He had heard that Morgase had returned to Andor and dismissed it as a trick of the Dragon, or at worst that she was now a powerless puppet of his. What if that was not true? She was a wily woman, what if she had known of Cairhien and the aes sedai's plans and played them all? Giving the Dragon to the White Tower to regain her independence and being ready for the Cairhienin invasion at the same time. Andor always had been close to the White Tower and Lord Covlan had no doubt that the Tar Valon witches would have been perfectly happy to treat him as a pawn to be sacrificed to get control of the Dragon and bring Andor back into the fold at the same time. He turned to his second, Lord Najarl.
Thwack! Lord Covlan looked behind him to see his adjutant collapsing, an arrow through his throat. Then another soldier went down and another. As he started shouting orders he felt a piercing pain through his chest.
==========
There were Cairhienin bodies everywhere. Mat had no idea how he'd ended up in this situation, but it was probably Elayne's bloody fault. Lord Mat this, Lord Mat that. He went for a quiet ride and now he found himself with almost 2,000 troops under his command. Andorans and mercenaries alike. All of them relying on him while he just wanted to get back to bloody Aringill, grab Elayne and tell her to spin one of her gateways back to Caemlyn for reinforcements like anyone sane would.
The flaming Cairhienin had decided to invade and like any sensible man he had wanted to make himself scarce, but he could hardly leave Elayne behind when they were sure to overrun Aringill. So instead, like the Light-blinded fool he was, he'd turned his horse around to ride for Aringill.
Except things were never that simple in reality. First he blundered into Andoran troops, just in time to save them from an ambush. Then another group, then some mercenaries, then a local lord's levy. At the same time more and more Cairhienin were crossing the Erinin until it felt like he was in a running battle for survival, all as he tried to make his way back towards Aringill to rescue Elayne. Like some idiot from a romantic story, when any normal man would just have turned around and ridden as far as he could from royalty, aes sedai or bloody Cairhienin.
=========
Elayne paced the walls of Aringill, looking out with worried eyes. Really she should be going for help and reinforcements, but she could handle this, it would be fine. The Cairhienin had no idea what they were doing, the fucking idiots. She was a full aes sedai, she'd heard enough lectures from Taija about how to demolish troops who could not use the Power.
Also Mat was somewhere out there and she refused to leave him to his fate if there was anything she could possibly do.
"Please my lady, come down from the walls. If an archer sees you…" The city's governor trailed off and Elayne ignored him. There, movement out at the edge of the forest. She embraced saidar and spun air, fire and water, watching in satisfaction as lightning struck several times. Mat would be fine and so would Aringill, but she was not going to leave the town without him.
=========
The present day
Siuan resisted the urge to ask the young man in the black coat to repeat himself. "Thank you Jahar, we will discuss what you have told us and provide an answer for you shortly. Ellia, please could you see that Jahar is provided with refreshments and somewhere comfortable to wait."
She paused until he had been led out of the room and wove a ward against eavesdropping before turning her attention to the Sitters. "So, comments?"
Lelaine was the first to her feet. "Mother, we cannot be seen to be supplicants to the Hall. They have already humiliated us with their treatment of fellow aes sedai and now they offer us gifts that are already ours. We must act, not allow them to humiliate us. They will give us what is ours regardless, why allow them to show their position with these ceremonies Taija has suggested."
Romanda followed straight after. "While I share Lelaine's distaste for the Hall, we must see the world as it is. We are being offered something we could not have recovered by ourselves. We must be conscious of our image and the perception of the Tower, but to be offered the oath rod and the Tower itself, how can we refuse her offer? If we throw it back in her face, Taija may still let us have it, but we will be making an unnecessary enemy. One that is clearly even more powerful than we had feared. The Last Battle is coming and we need to cooperate until it does." She left unsaid that that would no longer apply after the battle had been done.
Siuan sighed and resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of her nose. Taija continued to dump problems onto her lap, all while doing impossible things in the most casual of ways. She knew she should be grateful to the woman, but it was still infuriating.
Nowhere near as infuriating as some of her Sitters though. What in the Light did they think the outcome would be from deliberately antagonising Taija and the Hall? They were already close to being outnumbered by them and that was ignoring the fact that someone like Taija or Sa… Tel Janin, she could not even say his old name in her head. Taija's infatuation with the man was more than problematic in itself. Regardless, any of that pair could probably kill a significant number of aes sedai by themselves if they put their minds to it. She was not under any illusion about how any such conflict would go.
But even that was not the point! The Last Battle was coming. She found Taija and the Hall infuriating, wrong-headed and both an insult and a threat to the White Tower, although also a source of huge potential gains for the Tower. However, all of that paled into insignificance compared to the importance of defeating the Shadow. If it was the only way to win the Last Battle she would get on her knees and swear allegiance to Taija herself, even if she did it with gritted teeth. Fortunately it was not necessary and so that was not going to happen. However, the inability of some of her aes sedai to have a proper sense of priorities was beyond shameful. Any scores with the Hall could be settled after the Last Battle had been won and until then they would act as allies, however reluctant her aes sedai might be.
=========
As the cheers in the throne room faded away, its setting much less ornate than the one she had used before Taija and Rahvin had demolished her palace, Morgase raised her voice. "The Lion Throne gives its gratitude to Elayne Trakand, my beloved daughter-heir and to Matrim Cauthon, a loyal subject. Now I wish to speak to my daughter and Master Cauthon alone, leave us."
She sighed to herself internally. Of course she would have to fete them in public, both not to undermine Elayne's own position and for the nation's morale. They had, after all, scored a great victory over Cairhienin perfidy. However, she was absolutely furious with the idiot girl. She could make gateways. Why had she not immediately returned to Caemlyn or the Hall and summoned reinforcements? The fact that she had been able to hold off the Cairhienin by herself was no excuse, she could not have known that she would be able to.
Morgase watched courtiers and guards filing out. As for Matrim or Mat as he styled himself, he was a problem. She had not forbidden Elayne from carrying on with him, guessing that it would just be a phase that she would grow out of, instead limiting herself to being officially unaware of it. Well, just a phase, but also Matrim's connection to the Dragon Reborn and Perrin made things more difficult. Of course he was nothing like her Perrin, none of his solidity or good sense. She knew what Matrim liked to get up to in his free time, carousing in taverns, although at least her eyes and ears reported that he seemed loyal to Elayne. Her first meeting with the boy had done little to reassure her. He seemed to have an odd view of courtly manners and an inability to take things seriously.
Now after this she was going to have to change her position. He had very publicly supported both Elayne and the Crown and it made it impossible for her to officially ignore their relationship. She would also grudgingly admit that he had also down good work helping with holding Aringill. Based on the reports she had received, he had single handedly rallied and unified a force of disparate troops and then led them on an expert campaign against far superior Cairhienin forces that might have cut-off and overwhelmed Aringill. Where had he even learned those kind of skills?
Of course none of that would have been necessary if her fool daughter had not refused to return to Caemlyn for reinforcements.
As the last of the courtiers filed out she turned her gaze on Elayne. "What in the Light were you thinking?!" Elayne's self-satisfied look vanished. "Why did you not go for reinforcements? Has your brain been addled by the sight of a well-turned calf and a cheeky grin?"
"I knew what I was doing mother!" Elayne scowled defiantly at her. "If I had left then there would have been nobody to hold the town together and I could handle the invasion force."
"Really? I heard that they nearly breached the walls on two occasions and that if Matrim had not been disrupting their attempts at flanking the town they would have overwhelmed its defences." Before Elayne could argue, she continued. "Regardless, what would have stopped you from delivering a message to me and immediately returning? Or from sending a messenger while you stayed? Instead you risked yourself, House Trakand's line," why did Elayne wince at that, "and Aringill itself for what? A romantic dream? Your own pride? Politics dictates that I must reward you in public, but I am very disappointed in you."
Sensibly Elayne did not reply, just staring back at her all tense defiance. She would take the time to go over things with her daughter later. This was the problem with the girl being allowed to run off without proper training. She was the future ruler of Andor, not some hero out of a story.
"As for you Matrim, for once I have no complaints about your actions. In fact I am impressed. You have served the Crown well. Perhaps you can push some sense into my daughter's head since she seems to lack so much. I cannot say that I approve of you, but the two of you seem determined to ignore that and Perrin assures me that you are a good man at heart. So I shall continue to allow it until and unless you give me reason to change my mind. Now, I think for your services to the Crown, a minor lordship. Good service should be rewarded and it might go some way towards making you a more appropriate consort for my daughter."
How odd, he did not look as pleased as she might have expected.
I'm no bloody lord!
Unfortunately he definitely is one now. Elayne will probably take great pleasure in reminding him of it too.
Thanks! I'm trying not to just make it a complete fix fic, which would be very easy given the boost to the Light and part of that is not having too much in the way of character shields. That being said, there are places where I had worse outcomes planned and then toned them down because they made me too sad!
Chapter C - I Never Want to See a Binding Rod Again!
As usual all speech in italics is in the Old Tongue.
Chapter C - I Never Want to See a Binding Rod Again!
The day after the party Taija was sniggering to herself about the fact that Aleksi hadn't turned up yet. He was normally an early riser and she suspected she knew what he'd been up to. She'd need to think of a good way to wind him up about it, not too much of course, she didn't want to actually upset him, but just enough. A good life was about balance after all.
Taija was broken out of her happy musings by Bennae. "Good morning my dear, you're looking well. Not too much in the way of celebration to give you a sore head?"
"Oh no, I went to bed at a reasonable hour and I don't drink to excess." Taija's mind dropped back to what might have been the worst day of her life and she batted it away.
"Probably wise." Bennae seemed almost awkward, it was an odd thing to think about her. She was always so smoothly herself.
"Is something wrong?"
"Oh, well, no, not as such, but could we perhaps speak in private?"
A few minutes later the two of them were in Taija's office, wards against eavesdropping spun around it. "So what did you want to talk to me about Bennae?"
She hesitated, actually looking nervous. "Tell me, what would it take for me to become one of the Hall's aes sedai?"
Taija froze for a second, that wasn't what she'd expected to hear. "A a are you sure?" It wasn't that it didn't make sense, Bennae had basically attached herself to the Hall, sure, but why now? Was it going to piss off Siuan? Did Taija care?
"Taija dear, have you ever seen me be unsure?"
Well that was a fair point. Why now though? Oh. The binding rod. It would be that. "No, that's true. Why though?"
"Is the Hall not simply offering a better way of life that anyone sensible would wish to join?"
Taija sighed, just a little, and raised her eyebrows.
"I do believe you used to be sweeter before someone put you in charge of this place. Very well." Bennae smiled, Taija could have sworn there was a hint of satisfaction behind Bennae's words, although Light knew why. "I genuinely do think that the Hall offers a better vision for the future. Aes sedai have become too… distant, aloof. However, I think that you would also benefit from a certain amount of… tempering, to ensure that you are not taken advantage of. Also, I have no wish to die of old age in the next few years and would like to unswear the oaths that I have taken on the oath rod."
And there Taija had it, although the rest must be true as well. Bennae was still bound after all. Taija thought fast. "You're welcome in the Hall, of course. But you'd have to pass the tests to be aes sedai in the same way as any other person."
"Would that be problematic?"
"Morally? No. The channeling? I think you would need some practice," Taija grimaced. "Your spinning is a little bit... crude. But I'd be happy to help you with that." It was always a pleasure to spend time with Bennae. "As for the oaths… I don't really care. You know how I feel about people binding themselves, so I'd be happy to help you with that even if you don't want to sign-up, but you do realise it might get you in trouble with the Tower aes sedai?"
Bennae smiled, "I never acknowledged Siuan as the Amyrlin and Elaida is certainly no longer worthy of the title. I think I shall manage."
"You'd have to be an aspirant until your channeling was up to scratch." Taija needed to keep the Hall's integrity, not just hand out titles to friends…
========
Bennae knelt, it had been quite a while since she did that for anybody, especially with her rather aged knees. Even the Amyrlin only required aes sedai to kiss her ring. Still, today was a day of firsts.
She wore the formal, unadorned black coat of the Hall, like the crowd of initiates behind her. She would have thought that Taija was deliberately making a political statement of this, except that she knew this was what was done for every raising of an initiate. There was none of the secrecy that characterised the White Tower's ceremonies.
Taija, Tel and Egwene stood in front of her in their own black coats. Behind them hung the gigantic banner of the Hall. The banner of the ancient aes sedai, sinuously divided circle looming on its red background. Bennae could not help but glance up to it. So strange to think that she was here, swearing herself to a resurrected organisation that had died millennia ago, kneeling before an almost forgotten symbol.
"I swear to follow the ideals of the Hall of Servants, now and forever. I shall conduct myself as a servant of all. I shall help those that are in need, I shall inflict no cruelty on others and I shall always remember, my role is to make the world a better place." At least she could speak the Old Tongue well enough. She would of course soon be able to break this oath whenever she wanted, but she doubted she would. It was a good oath.
Taija stepped forward and pulled a red patch from her pocket, the flame of Tar Valon at its centre. "Rise Bennae Nalsad, aes sedai of the White Tower." It floated over to her on invisible flows of saidar. "We welcome you as an aspirant to the Hall of Servants. You have completed the first step on the road to becoming true aes sedai. Stand." Oh that was a spicy extra word Taija had added to the ceremony. How many of the initiates would speak the Old Tongue well enough to pick up on that? Presumably some. Bennae felt a slight pressure and the patch was there, stuck onto the left breast of her long black coat.
She stood and Tel and Nynaeve sedai both came forward and clasped her hands in theirs, "Welcome!"
Finally Taija came forward, but instead of taking her hands she enveloped her in a hug. "Welcome Bennae. Welcome."
Excellent, she was still aes sedai, that was why Taija had decided on the altered patch of an aspirant, but now she would be treated as a student in the Hall rather than an honoured guest and teacher. The demotion was less than ideal, but the Hall was hardly an onerous place to be a student and it was for a worthwhile goal.
Another aspirant stepped forward and clasped her hands, speaking words of welcome. Now she just needed to get through this and then Taija had said to come to her rooms and they could deal with the three oaths.
========
As Bennae headed off, newly released from her oaths, Taija looked over at Tel. He was staring at the binding rod again. Like he had when Elaida first pulled it out. She gave him a poke. "What's up?"
He didn't answer for a second, "I was thinking about something you said to me, before we...."
"Oh?" Taija was suddenly feeling a bit tense.
Instead of replying he suddenly picked the binding rod up, Taija couldn't feel it, but she still somehow just knew he was channeling into it. What the fuck was he doing?
"I swear I will never betray the Light…"
"What are you doing?!" She couldn't keep the panic out of your voice.
Tel ignored her and just continued speaking. "I swear I will never do anything to hurt Taija Kosola." He put the rod down again and met her eyes. "I know you still have nightmares about me. You wake up terrified of me. I've hurt you so much, I could never hurt you again."
No! "You…" She was too angry? Upset? Overwrought to speak coherently. "You can't do that, no!" The idea was repulsive, disgusting.
"It's done." He folded his arms across his chest.
"You fucking idiot Tel! I don't want that! I don't want this! Either you're forgiven or you're not. I'm not going to sit here and watch you bind yourself. No! You're the only person I have left I'm not watching you do this to yourself. I won't!" Taija's vision was blurred and she could feel tears on her cheeks. She wished she'd just dropped the fucking rod out of a gateway outside Siuan's village.
He didn't reply, just looked mulish. Taija's temper snapped. She couldn't stand the thought of him with that smooth bound face, of him cutting his life short like that, dying young, just because of some misguided desire to… No!
In a rage Taija channeled, shielding him and snatching the rod into the air, spirit already flowing into it. "Unswear it! Now!"
"Just until after the Last Battle?" He made the offer tentatively. "I just…"
She stepped forward, right into his personal space, looking up at him through streaming eyes. "Fucking unswear it! Don't do this to me! I don't want to see you get old and die I don't want you bound and I really don't want a slave telling himself it's for me. I know what you did and Light help me I still trust you. I still want you, but I can't take this. Take this fucking thing, unswear on it and never try anything this fucking stupid again!"
Tel was blanching, retreating from her furious expression until his back hit the wall. "I didn't think you'd…"
"No you fucking didn't think did you. Unswear. The. Oaths."
After a moment he reached out and touches the rod. "I unswear all oaths that bind me." As the rod released its hold on him he gasped and shuddered. Taija didn't feel at all sympathetic.
"Right." She struggled to get her temper under control, communication, not lashing out. "I… I understand that you thought you were making a nice gesture, but I'm really angry with you right now. I'm going to go and calm down. We can talk more this evening. Just… don't do something like that again. Please..."
Taija spun on her heel and stormed out.
========
Verin smiled at Cadsuane over her cup of tea. "It really has been fascinating staying in the Hall, although I must confess to occasional frustrations, sometimes they can be singularly unhelpful, still the opportunities for learning about the Age of Legends…"
"Mmm indeed." Were her eyelids drooping yet? "They have certainly been making waves. Now this latest development is yet more impressive. Siuan will no doubt be delighted by what she is being offered."
Verin took another sip of tea. Yes Cadsuane's eyelids were certainly drooping. "Well of course, who would not be delighted? The importance to the Tower cannot be understated and it is exciting that we shall soon be able to return to our proper homes." As she prattled on she watched Cadsuane gradually slump in her seat. It was always satisfying to see a plan come together.
Soon the older aes sedai was snoring away on Verin's bed. After a moment's thought she used a funnel or air to put some more of the 'special' tea down Cadsuane's throat. It would keep her asleep for some hours. If all went well, she would be back to deny everything before Cadsuane woke. If things did not go well, in that case she would likely have bigger problems than an angry Cadsuane.
Verin carefully reached out and started to extract Cadsuane's web of ornaments from her hair, ready to move it to her own head. One of these would be the one she needed, the one that unraveled any weave it encountered.
========
Taija jolted awake in her bed with the sound of an alarm ringing in her head. The one that told her someone successfully unraveled her more obvious wards. After a moment of thought she poked Tel.
"Sorry to wake you, but someone's trying to get to the binding rod."
He went from bleary to wide awake in a second. Taija was glad she'd sat down and talked with him that evening. It was never good to go to sleep on an argument, even if she was still annoyed with him for his stunt with the binding rod. Also, whatever stupid things he thought she felt, she still slept better with him there beside her.
In no time at all the two of them had almost silently exited Taija's bedroom and crept over to the nearby room she'd left the binding rod in. Tel held up three fingers and Taija nodded. Then he counted them down, 2, 1, go.
With the Power Taija blew the door open and spun saidar into a blinding flash and crash of noise. At the same time Tel dived through the doorway going into a roll while she stood ready to annihilate anyone or anything through the doorway. Taija was almost surprised when the only person in there was Verin looking around utterly disoriented with the binding rod in her hand. Taija didn't hesitate, slamming a shield between her and saidar only to see it unravel, just like with Cadsuane. Speaking of Cadsuane, were those her ornaments in Verin's hair?
The momentary surprise didn't slow her down. Taija was already spinning. Air ripped several chunks of wood from the door with a crashing splintering sound and she pulled them round herself dramatically. Verin just about managed to focus on her, her eyes starting to widen when Tel crashed into her from the side. He wasn't holding back, Verin hit the ground with a thump, probably only saved from broken bones by the ter'angreal in her hair. Tel was already forcing her face down, making sure she couldn't see anything other than the floor.
Then he was pulling the ornaments out of her hair and passing them back to Taija. As soon as they left Verin, Taija pushed a shield into place and bound her in air to hold her down.
With that, both of them relaxed slightly and Tel climbed off Verin, brushing himself down. Taija took a second to study the net of ornaments. What she could do with something like that… The temptation to say Verin lost them was almost overwhelming, but no. That wasn't who she wanted to be. Cadsuane served the Light in her own somewhat obnoxious way, Taija even got on reasonably well with her by that point and she wasn't a thief. Not unless they really deserved it anyway.
"Tel, please could you go and wake Nynaeve and then check Verin's rooms. I think Cadsuane was visiting her, so she might well be there. If she's not we'll have to get some more answers out of Verin. If you find her, get Nynaeve to look after her and then we can have a chat with Verin together."
Tel hurried off and Taija thought about whether to get Verin into a more comfortable position. After a moment she decided that since she hadn't been allowed to have a good night's sleep Verin could put up with some discomfort until Tel got back.
As she waited for Tel to return she played around with some webs she'd been thinking about. Since the cleansing of the taint she'd had so little time to think about proper research and there were ideas that had been jostling for attention in her head.
Taija wasn't sure how long it was before Tel returned, but when he did he looked a bit grim. "Cadsuane was in Verin's room, unharmed luckily, just fast asleep. Nynaeve thinks she was drugged and has healed her, hopefully she'll be awake soon and she'll be keeping an eye on her."
"Well at least she's not hurt." Taija hauled Verin to her feet with air. "So, Verin, care to explain yourself?"
She looked surprisingly unflustered given her circumstances. "Do you always speak the Old Tongue with each other? How fascinating."
Taija sighed to herself. "Enough with the games please, based on your actions I'm struggling to conclude anything other than that you're Black Ajah and if you can't convince me you're not, then believe me you won't enjoy the consequences."
"Mmm an understandable conclusion for you to draw. Allow me to explain." Verin paused. "Actually, if I am going to explain then I will need access to the Oath rod."
Taija raised her eyebrows, but released one of Verin's hands and placed the binding rod there with air before spinning uninverted spirit into it. "Go ahead."
"Thank you." Verin hesitated, was that a look of satisfaction on her face? It seemed inappropriate given her situation. "I unswear all oaths that bind me." The pain must have been agonising based on the way she screamed. Yet she still looked pleased when it had passed. "I swear to speak no word that is not true."
"Alright, so are you Black Ajah?"
"Oh yes, I am indeed."
Taija's jaw dropped.
Verin seemed to enjoy the silence that her slightly smug statement created because she paused before continuing. "But there is a certain amount of context that I feel you would find helpful."
========
Taija was still slightly stunned after her conversation with Verin. She'd left her with Tel, not quite a prisoner, not quite a guest, she needed to decide what to do with her and what she'd just told her. Taija also needed to move fast. The Black Ajah in Siuan's village were going to be getting ready to either strike or flee before the binding rod was handed over to her.
Before she did that though, she should check on Cadsuane. It didn't take her long to get to Verin's room where she found Cadsuane sitting in bed looking thunderous while Nynaeve loomed over her. Knowing Nynaeve, Cadsuane had already tried to get out of bed and been told she needed to rest.
When Taija came in Cadsuane looked up at her, "Taija! Tell Nynaeve she's to let me up immediately!"
Taija glanced at Nynaeve, "I'm not sure I'd dare to do that, anyway you'll be pleased to know we've apprehended Verin. She hasn't gotten away with your ter'angreal."
"Well then, where are they?" Cadsuane gave Taija a suspicious look that Taija felt was rather unfair, but the older woman was a bit out of sorts. Taija couldn't imagine people managed to drug her very often.
"Here!" Taija gave her a cheery smile, "I got them back for you."
she held them out and could see Cadsuane nearly snatched at them, but then restrained herself and moved with more dignity. "Thank you." She hesitated. "I appreciate it."
Chapter C - I Never Want to See a Binding Rod Again!
The day after the party Taija was sniggering to herself about the fact that Aleksi hadn't turned up yet. He was normally an early riser and she suspected she knew what he'd been up to. She'd need to think of a good way to wind him up about it, not too much of course, she didn't want to actually upset him, but just enough. A good life was about balance after all.
Taija was broken out of her happy musings by Bennae. "Good morning my dear, you're looking well. Not too much in the way of celebration to give you a sore head?"
"Oh no, I went to bed at a reasonable hour and I don't drink to excess." Taija's mind dropped back to what might have been the worst day of her life and she batted it away.
"Probably wise." Bennae seemed almost awkward, it was an odd thing to think about her. She was always so smoothly herself.
"Is something wrong?"
"Oh, well, no, not as such, but could we perhaps speak in private?"
A few minutes later the two of them were in Taija's office, wards against eavesdropping spun around it. "So what did you want to talk to me about Bennae?"
She hesitated, actually looking nervous. "Tell me, what would it take for me to become one of the Hall's aes sedai?"
Taija froze for a second, that wasn't what she'd expected to hear. "A a are you sure?" It wasn't that it didn't make sense, Bennae had basically attached herself to the Hall, sure, but why now? Was it going to piss off Siuan? Did Taija care?
"Taija dear, have you ever seen me be unsure?"
Well that was a fair point. Why now though? Oh. The binding rod. It would be that. "No, that's true. Why though?"
"Is the Hall not simply offering a better way of life that anyone sensible would wish to join?"
Taija sighed, just a little, and raised her eyebrows.
"I do believe you used to be sweeter before someone put you in charge of this place. Very well." Bennae smiled, Taija could have sworn there was a hint of satisfaction behind Bennae's words, although Light knew why. "I genuinely do think that the Hall offers a better vision for the future. Aes sedai have become too… distant, aloof. However, I think that you would also benefit from a certain amount of… tempering, to ensure that you are not taken advantage of. Also, I have no wish to die of old age in the next few years and would like to unswear the oaths that I have taken on the oath rod."
And there Taija had it, although the rest must be true as well. Bennae was still bound after all. Taija thought fast. "You're welcome in the Hall, of course. But you'd have to pass the tests to be aes sedai in the same way as any other person."
"Would that be problematic?"
"Morally? No. The channeling? I think you would need some practice," Taija grimaced. "Your spinning is a little bit... crude. But I'd be happy to help you with that." It was always a pleasure to spend time with Bennae. "As for the oaths… I don't really care. You know how I feel about people binding themselves, so I'd be happy to help you with that even if you don't want to sign-up, but you do realise it might get you in trouble with the Tower aes sedai?"
Bennae smiled, "I never acknowledged Siuan as the Amyrlin and Elaida is certainly no longer worthy of the title. I think I shall manage."
"You'd have to be an aspirant until your channeling was up to scratch." Taija needed to keep the Hall's integrity, not just hand out titles to friends…
========
Bennae knelt, it had been quite a while since she did that for anybody, especially with her rather aged knees. Even the Amyrlin only required aes sedai to kiss her ring. Still, today was a day of firsts.
She wore the formal, unadorned black coat of the Hall, like the crowd of initiates behind her. She would have thought that Taija was deliberately making a political statement of this, except that she knew this was what was done for every raising of an initiate. There was none of the secrecy that characterised the White Tower's ceremonies.
Taija, Tel and Egwene stood in front of her in their own black coats. Behind them hung the gigantic banner of the Hall. The banner of the ancient aes sedai, sinuously divided circle looming on its red background. Bennae could not help but glance up to it. So strange to think that she was here, swearing herself to a resurrected organisation that had died millennia ago, kneeling before an almost forgotten symbol.
"I swear to follow the ideals of the Hall of Servants, now and forever. I shall conduct myself as a servant of all. I shall help those that are in need, I shall inflict no cruelty on others and I shall always remember, my role is to make the world a better place." At least she could speak the Old Tongue well enough. She would of course soon be able to break this oath whenever she wanted, but she doubted she would. It was a good oath.
Taija stepped forward and pulled a red patch from her pocket, the flame of Tar Valon at its centre. "Rise Bennae Nalsad, aes sedai of the White Tower." It floated over to her on invisible flows of saidar. "We welcome you as an aspirant to the Hall of Servants. You have completed the first step on the road to becoming true aes sedai. Stand." Oh that was a spicy extra word Taija had added to the ceremony. How many of the initiates would speak the Old Tongue well enough to pick up on that? Presumably some. Bennae felt a slight pressure and the patch was there, stuck onto the left breast of her long black coat.
She stood and Tel and Nynaeve sedai both came forward and clasped her hands in theirs, "Welcome!"
Finally Taija came forward, but instead of taking her hands she enveloped her in a hug. "Welcome Bennae. Welcome."
Excellent, she was still aes sedai, that was why Taija had decided on the altered patch of an aspirant, but now she would be treated as a student in the Hall rather than an honoured guest and teacher. The demotion was less than ideal, but the Hall was hardly an onerous place to be a student and it was for a worthwhile goal.
Another aspirant stepped forward and clasped her hands, speaking words of welcome. Now she just needed to get through this and then Taija had said to come to her rooms and they could deal with the three oaths.
========
As Bennae headed off, newly released from her oaths, Taija looked over at Tel. He was staring at the binding rod again. Like he had when Elaida first pulled it out. She gave him a poke. "What's up?"
He didn't answer for a second, "I was thinking about something you said to me, before we...."
"Oh?" Taija was suddenly feeling a bit tense.
Instead of replying he suddenly picked the binding rod up, Taija couldn't feel it, but she still somehow just knew he was channeling into it. What the fuck was he doing?
"I swear I will never betray the Light…"
"What are you doing?!" She couldn't keep the panic out of your voice.
Tel ignored her and just continued speaking. "I swear I will never do anything to hurt Taija Kosola." He put the rod down again and met her eyes. "I know you still have nightmares about me. You wake up terrified of me. I've hurt you so much, I could never hurt you again."
No! "You…" She was too angry? Upset? Overwrought to speak coherently. "You can't do that, no!" The idea was repulsive, disgusting.
"It's done." He folded his arms across his chest.
"You fucking idiot Tel! I don't want that! I don't want this! Either you're forgiven or you're not. I'm not going to sit here and watch you bind yourself. No! You're the only person I have left I'm not watching you do this to yourself. I won't!" Taija's vision was blurred and she could feel tears on her cheeks. She wished she'd just dropped the fucking rod out of a gateway outside Siuan's village.
He didn't reply, just looked mulish. Taija's temper snapped. She couldn't stand the thought of him with that smooth bound face, of him cutting his life short like that, dying young, just because of some misguided desire to… No!
In a rage Taija channeled, shielding him and snatching the rod into the air, spirit already flowing into it. "Unswear it! Now!"
"Just until after the Last Battle?" He made the offer tentatively. "I just…"
She stepped forward, right into his personal space, looking up at him through streaming eyes. "Fucking unswear it! Don't do this to me! I don't want to see you get old and die I don't want you bound and I really don't want a slave telling himself it's for me. I know what you did and Light help me I still trust you. I still want you, but I can't take this. Take this fucking thing, unswear on it and never try anything this fucking stupid again!"
Tel was blanching, retreating from her furious expression until his back hit the wall. "I didn't think you'd…"
"No you fucking didn't think did you. Unswear. The. Oaths."
After a moment he reached out and touches the rod. "I unswear all oaths that bind me." As the rod released its hold on him he gasped and shuddered. Taija didn't feel at all sympathetic.
"Right." She struggled to get her temper under control, communication, not lashing out. "I… I understand that you thought you were making a nice gesture, but I'm really angry with you right now. I'm going to go and calm down. We can talk more this evening. Just… don't do something like that again. Please..."
Taija spun on her heel and stormed out.
========
Verin smiled at Cadsuane over her cup of tea. "It really has been fascinating staying in the Hall, although I must confess to occasional frustrations, sometimes they can be singularly unhelpful, still the opportunities for learning about the Age of Legends…"
"Mmm indeed." Were her eyelids drooping yet? "They have certainly been making waves. Now this latest development is yet more impressive. Siuan will no doubt be delighted by what she is being offered."
Verin took another sip of tea. Yes Cadsuane's eyelids were certainly drooping. "Well of course, who would not be delighted? The importance to the Tower cannot be understated and it is exciting that we shall soon be able to return to our proper homes." As she prattled on she watched Cadsuane gradually slump in her seat. It was always satisfying to see a plan come together.
Soon the older aes sedai was snoring away on Verin's bed. After a moment's thought she used a funnel or air to put some more of the 'special' tea down Cadsuane's throat. It would keep her asleep for some hours. If all went well, she would be back to deny everything before Cadsuane woke. If things did not go well, in that case she would likely have bigger problems than an angry Cadsuane.
Verin carefully reached out and started to extract Cadsuane's web of ornaments from her hair, ready to move it to her own head. One of these would be the one she needed, the one that unraveled any weave it encountered.
========
Taija jolted awake in her bed with the sound of an alarm ringing in her head. The one that told her someone successfully unraveled her more obvious wards. After a moment of thought she poked Tel.
"Sorry to wake you, but someone's trying to get to the binding rod."
He went from bleary to wide awake in a second. Taija was glad she'd sat down and talked with him that evening. It was never good to go to sleep on an argument, even if she was still annoyed with him for his stunt with the binding rod. Also, whatever stupid things he thought she felt, she still slept better with him there beside her.
In no time at all the two of them had almost silently exited Taija's bedroom and crept over to the nearby room she'd left the binding rod in. Tel held up three fingers and Taija nodded. Then he counted them down, 2, 1, go.
With the Power Taija blew the door open and spun saidar into a blinding flash and crash of noise. At the same time Tel dived through the doorway going into a roll while she stood ready to annihilate anyone or anything through the doorway. Taija was almost surprised when the only person in there was Verin looking around utterly disoriented with the binding rod in her hand. Taija didn't hesitate, slamming a shield between her and saidar only to see it unravel, just like with Cadsuane. Speaking of Cadsuane, were those her ornaments in Verin's hair?
The momentary surprise didn't slow her down. Taija was already spinning. Air ripped several chunks of wood from the door with a crashing splintering sound and she pulled them round herself dramatically. Verin just about managed to focus on her, her eyes starting to widen when Tel crashed into her from the side. He wasn't holding back, Verin hit the ground with a thump, probably only saved from broken bones by the ter'angreal in her hair. Tel was already forcing her face down, making sure she couldn't see anything other than the floor.
Then he was pulling the ornaments out of her hair and passing them back to Taija. As soon as they left Verin, Taija pushed a shield into place and bound her in air to hold her down.
With that, both of them relaxed slightly and Tel climbed off Verin, brushing himself down. Taija took a second to study the net of ornaments. What she could do with something like that… The temptation to say Verin lost them was almost overwhelming, but no. That wasn't who she wanted to be. Cadsuane served the Light in her own somewhat obnoxious way, Taija even got on reasonably well with her by that point and she wasn't a thief. Not unless they really deserved it anyway.
"Tel, please could you go and wake Nynaeve and then check Verin's rooms. I think Cadsuane was visiting her, so she might well be there. If she's not we'll have to get some more answers out of Verin. If you find her, get Nynaeve to look after her and then we can have a chat with Verin together."
Tel hurried off and Taija thought about whether to get Verin into a more comfortable position. After a moment she decided that since she hadn't been allowed to have a good night's sleep Verin could put up with some discomfort until Tel got back.
As she waited for Tel to return she played around with some webs she'd been thinking about. Since the cleansing of the taint she'd had so little time to think about proper research and there were ideas that had been jostling for attention in her head.
Taija wasn't sure how long it was before Tel returned, but when he did he looked a bit grim. "Cadsuane was in Verin's room, unharmed luckily, just fast asleep. Nynaeve thinks she was drugged and has healed her, hopefully she'll be awake soon and she'll be keeping an eye on her."
"Well at least she's not hurt." Taija hauled Verin to her feet with air. "So, Verin, care to explain yourself?"
She looked surprisingly unflustered given her circumstances. "Do you always speak the Old Tongue with each other? How fascinating."
Taija sighed to herself. "Enough with the games please, based on your actions I'm struggling to conclude anything other than that you're Black Ajah and if you can't convince me you're not, then believe me you won't enjoy the consequences."
"Mmm an understandable conclusion for you to draw. Allow me to explain." Verin paused. "Actually, if I am going to explain then I will need access to the Oath rod."
Taija raised her eyebrows, but released one of Verin's hands and placed the binding rod there with air before spinning uninverted spirit into it. "Go ahead."
"Thank you." Verin hesitated, was that a look of satisfaction on her face? It seemed inappropriate given her situation. "I unswear all oaths that bind me." The pain must have been agonising based on the way she screamed. Yet she still looked pleased when it had passed. "I swear to speak no word that is not true."
"Alright, so are you Black Ajah?"
"Oh yes, I am indeed."
Taija's jaw dropped.
Verin seemed to enjoy the silence that her slightly smug statement created because she paused before continuing. "But there is a certain amount of context that I feel you would find helpful."
========
Taija was still slightly stunned after her conversation with Verin. She'd left her with Tel, not quite a prisoner, not quite a guest, she needed to decide what to do with her and what she'd just told her. Taija also needed to move fast. The Black Ajah in Siuan's village were going to be getting ready to either strike or flee before the binding rod was handed over to her.
Before she did that though, she should check on Cadsuane. It didn't take her long to get to Verin's room where she found Cadsuane sitting in bed looking thunderous while Nynaeve loomed over her. Knowing Nynaeve, Cadsuane had already tried to get out of bed and been told she needed to rest.
When Taija came in Cadsuane looked up at her, "Taija! Tell Nynaeve she's to let me up immediately!"
Taija glanced at Nynaeve, "I'm not sure I'd dare to do that, anyway you'll be pleased to know we've apprehended Verin. She hasn't gotten away with your ter'angreal."
"Well then, where are they?" Cadsuane gave Taija a suspicious look that Taija felt was rather unfair, but the older woman was a bit out of sorts. Taija couldn't imagine people managed to drug her very often.
"Here!" Taija gave her a cheery smile, "I got them back for you."
she held them out and could see Cadsuane nearly snatched at them, but then restrained herself and moved with more dignity. "Thank you." She hesitated. "I appreciate it."
I always liked Verin. It takes a certain amount of both smarts and guts to decide entirely alone on a long term infiltration mission with no support and then fully intend to kill yourself with a slow-acting poison to get around your oaths.
Interlude XXXIII - A Quick Look at the Forsaken
As usual all speech in italics is in the Old Tongue.
Interlude XXXIII - A Quick Look at the Forsaken
The Competent Forsaken Duo
Demandred and Semirhage both wore black as a matter of course, but he suspected that if that had not been the case then for this meeting in the Unseen World they would have worn it anyway.
"So… Mesaana?" Semirhage sounded as glum as he had ever heard her.
"Yes, it seems that Taija Kosola and Sammael, although I should really call him Tel Janin now, got her. "
"Them and the others they brought forward from our time." Semirhage sounded almost defiant.
"I still think you are being paranoid there, it was a bluff."
"You say that, Mesaana said that, but now Mesaana is dead."
"You do make a point." Demandred sighed to himself. He was not a man who was prone to fondness or emotion, but he had liked Mesaana as much as he had liked any of the Chosen. He could not say he would miss her, she was competition after all, but things somehow still seemed… less without her. "Do you know how she died?"
"I believe so. I visited the White Tower when I learnt of her death. It had a hole drilled through it and the Black Ajah believe she was the target. From talking to some of this time's so-called aes sedai it seems that the Tower was attacked by Lews Therin and probably Taija Kosola and they were surprised Mesaana did not smash them with the sa'angreal she had."
"Ah," their eyes met, they could both work out what had happened, but he said it out loud to be sure. "So she lit herself up with a sa'angreal and Tel Janin had placed a team with Callandor on the nearby mountain?"
"That would be my guess." Semirhage nodded.
"Well… That is why you do not send someone with no military experience against a professional. She had many skills, but she was not a fighter."
"And her sa'angreal?"
Semirhage shrugged. "Gone. Unfortunately."
He was not totally sure he believed that, he would need to watch her more carefully. Demandred hesitated. "What did you do with the half-trained children left in the Tower?"
"Oh I gathered them up, they will be useful and leaving them in the Tower is just asking for this new Hall to destroy them at their leisure. Mesaana hardly needs them anymore after all."
"Mmm sensible. Now, do we retaliate against their so-called Hall?"
Semirhage immediately shook her head. "They will be expecting it and they will have defences. I have no doubt that you can bring a substantial amount of firepower to bear, but I also learnt that they emptied the angreal and sa'angreal stores at the Tower. Do you have the resources to beat multiple female sa'angreal and Callandor?"
Allies as they were, he was not going to give her any more information than she needed on his resources. "A tough nut to crack certainly. Neither of us is prone to sentimentality, Mesaana's foolishness was her own, we will not take any unnecessary risks and I think a direct attack would be too much of a risk. I do, however, have one asset in the Hall. There are two truly indispensable people in the Hall. Perhaps it is time to give Taim some new orders."
Death and spiders
Moridin sat back in his chair, steepling his fingers. Saa flowing across his eyes. Everything was happening as he intended. Soon, soon he would be able to end the pattern. He just needed to ensure that young al'Thor made the right choice when it came to it. The boy would need to be just broken enough.
=====
Moghedien sighed to herself as the 'initiate of the hall' eagerly told her about the latest gossip. Apparently Taija Kosola and Tel Janin had resumed their relationship. As if that had not happened long ago. Sometimes she was not sure what was even the point of speaking to some of these darkfriends. Knowledge was power, but in some cases only barely.
Love and Pleasure
Lanfear, although she was not allowed to call herself that anymore, stalked through the Unseen World, hunting. Lews had betrayed her, Taija was out of her reach, Tel Janin had cheated his way into victory. It simply was not fair!
She would show them, she would show them all. She had gone to speak to Aginor, or Osan'gar as he was now known, with some ideas and he had practically laughed her out of the hole that he called his laboratory. She was the greatest scientist alive, whatever he said!
Moghedien had been easy enough to bribe for the location of this so-called Hall of Servants yet everywhere she went dreams were warded. She knew some of these dreams must belong to Taija's new initiates, but warded, every single one was warded! She had tried to follow some of Taija's new aes sedai, but again their dreams were warded!
She had even remembered the boys that had been with young Lews before he declared himself. The big bearded one's dreams were… different, she could access them, but some instinct told her it would be the kind of mistake she would only make once. The other one… Warded. Again! No doubt another thing to lay at Taija's sanctimonious little feet.
Where had it all gone wrong? She had had love with Lews, Taija had been her friend. A slightly irritating young friend, like a poorly trained puppy, but nevertheless someone she was genuinely fond of. Then they had betrayed her, like everybody else.
Lews she might give another chance to, if he begged her. She did believe in love after all. The rest of them, she would leave screaming for the mercy of death. She certainly would not be repeating her mistake of letting Taija go. Lanfear did not often make mistakes, but truly that had been one. Oh the misery it had caused Taija had been utterly delicious, but in a flash the fucking woman seemed to have somehow re-seduced Tel Janin and turned him back into a weakling of a sanctimonious prick.
She honestly could not even work out what the man saw in her. He had been a world-famous professional athlete, who could have almost anyone he wanted, one of the strongest of the Chosen. Then he went for Taija, an overly earnest, mousy-looking academic. Madness! If she did not know that Taija was far too much of a goody-two shoes for it, she would think the girl had compelled him.
With a growl she stepped out of the Unseen World, she would just have to continue to work against them until Lews saw the truth.
Just Vibing
Graendal lay back in her bath and smiled to herself. Everything was going simply perfectly. She had much of the west sewn up and eating out of her hands, her collection of pets was growing apace and another of the competition had just died.
With trembling hands young Lina scraped a pumice stone along her bare arm. She truly was enjoyable. Graendal had considered erasing her mind as she almost always did with her pets, but she felt she owed the former leash holder a special experience. So she, alone among them, was allowed to remember, allowed to know what was happening to her. Then, sometimes, not every day, but just intermittently enough to keep her wondering, Graendal would remove something from her mind. A memory, a sensation, it did not matter what. What mattered was that she knew what she had lost and that at any moment Graendal might choose to take more, that one day in the distant future she would be just like any of Graendal's other pets, joyously and unknowingly serving her.
Simping for Science
Osan'gar spun spirit, water and earth into the construct he had been making, watching it twitch awkwardly in front of him. No, that was not quite right. He would need to adapt the web a bit, but he'd get this.
His mind went back to Lanfear's visit to him. He didn't know what happened to the woman. She had had such a talent before the Bore, but then she had allowed one failure to destroy her love for science. It had been bad for her career of course, but her complete abdication of any interest in pushing the bounds of human knowledge was an embarrassment.
When she'd come to him yesterday wanting to collaborate, it hadn't been a difficult decision to send her on her way. The woman was not interested in furthering human knowledge, she was only interested in bringing down her perceived rival. As if there was any equivalence between her and Taija Kosola. Ironic that she had said he was obsessed with the woman when Lanfear was the one who seemed to be centering her life around bringing her down.
Interlude XXXIII - A Quick Look at the Forsaken
The Competent Forsaken Duo
Demandred and Semirhage both wore black as a matter of course, but he suspected that if that had not been the case then for this meeting in the Unseen World they would have worn it anyway.
"So… Mesaana?" Semirhage sounded as glum as he had ever heard her.
"Yes, it seems that Taija Kosola and Sammael, although I should really call him Tel Janin now, got her. "
"Them and the others they brought forward from our time." Semirhage sounded almost defiant.
"I still think you are being paranoid there, it was a bluff."
"You say that, Mesaana said that, but now Mesaana is dead."
"You do make a point." Demandred sighed to himself. He was not a man who was prone to fondness or emotion, but he had liked Mesaana as much as he had liked any of the Chosen. He could not say he would miss her, she was competition after all, but things somehow still seemed… less without her. "Do you know how she died?"
"I believe so. I visited the White Tower when I learnt of her death. It had a hole drilled through it and the Black Ajah believe she was the target. From talking to some of this time's so-called aes sedai it seems that the Tower was attacked by Lews Therin and probably Taija Kosola and they were surprised Mesaana did not smash them with the sa'angreal she had."
"Ah," their eyes met, they could both work out what had happened, but he said it out loud to be sure. "So she lit herself up with a sa'angreal and Tel Janin had placed a team with Callandor on the nearby mountain?"
"That would be my guess." Semirhage nodded.
"Well… That is why you do not send someone with no military experience against a professional. She had many skills, but she was not a fighter."
"And her sa'angreal?"
Semirhage shrugged. "Gone. Unfortunately."
He was not totally sure he believed that, he would need to watch her more carefully. Demandred hesitated. "What did you do with the half-trained children left in the Tower?"
"Oh I gathered them up, they will be useful and leaving them in the Tower is just asking for this new Hall to destroy them at their leisure. Mesaana hardly needs them anymore after all."
"Mmm sensible. Now, do we retaliate against their so-called Hall?"
Semirhage immediately shook her head. "They will be expecting it and they will have defences. I have no doubt that you can bring a substantial amount of firepower to bear, but I also learnt that they emptied the angreal and sa'angreal stores at the Tower. Do you have the resources to beat multiple female sa'angreal and Callandor?"
Allies as they were, he was not going to give her any more information than she needed on his resources. "A tough nut to crack certainly. Neither of us is prone to sentimentality, Mesaana's foolishness was her own, we will not take any unnecessary risks and I think a direct attack would be too much of a risk. I do, however, have one asset in the Hall. There are two truly indispensable people in the Hall. Perhaps it is time to give Taim some new orders."
Death and spiders
Moridin sat back in his chair, steepling his fingers. Saa flowing across his eyes. Everything was happening as he intended. Soon, soon he would be able to end the pattern. He just needed to ensure that young al'Thor made the right choice when it came to it. The boy would need to be just broken enough.
=====
Moghedien sighed to herself as the 'initiate of the hall' eagerly told her about the latest gossip. Apparently Taija Kosola and Tel Janin had resumed their relationship. As if that had not happened long ago. Sometimes she was not sure what was even the point of speaking to some of these darkfriends. Knowledge was power, but in some cases only barely.
Love and Pleasure
Lanfear, although she was not allowed to call herself that anymore, stalked through the Unseen World, hunting. Lews had betrayed her, Taija was out of her reach, Tel Janin had cheated his way into victory. It simply was not fair!
She would show them, she would show them all. She had gone to speak to Aginor, or Osan'gar as he was now known, with some ideas and he had practically laughed her out of the hole that he called his laboratory. She was the greatest scientist alive, whatever he said!
Moghedien had been easy enough to bribe for the location of this so-called Hall of Servants yet everywhere she went dreams were warded. She knew some of these dreams must belong to Taija's new initiates, but warded, every single one was warded! She had tried to follow some of Taija's new aes sedai, but again their dreams were warded!
She had even remembered the boys that had been with young Lews before he declared himself. The big bearded one's dreams were… different, she could access them, but some instinct told her it would be the kind of mistake she would only make once. The other one… Warded. Again! No doubt another thing to lay at Taija's sanctimonious little feet.
Where had it all gone wrong? She had had love with Lews, Taija had been her friend. A slightly irritating young friend, like a poorly trained puppy, but nevertheless someone she was genuinely fond of. Then they had betrayed her, like everybody else.
Lews she might give another chance to, if he begged her. She did believe in love after all. The rest of them, she would leave screaming for the mercy of death. She certainly would not be repeating her mistake of letting Taija go. Lanfear did not often make mistakes, but truly that had been one. Oh the misery it had caused Taija had been utterly delicious, but in a flash the fucking woman seemed to have somehow re-seduced Tel Janin and turned him back into a weakling of a sanctimonious prick.
She honestly could not even work out what the man saw in her. He had been a world-famous professional athlete, who could have almost anyone he wanted, one of the strongest of the Chosen. Then he went for Taija, an overly earnest, mousy-looking academic. Madness! If she did not know that Taija was far too much of a goody-two shoes for it, she would think the girl had compelled him.
With a growl she stepped out of the Unseen World, she would just have to continue to work against them until Lews saw the truth.
Just Vibing
Graendal lay back in her bath and smiled to herself. Everything was going simply perfectly. She had much of the west sewn up and eating out of her hands, her collection of pets was growing apace and another of the competition had just died.
With trembling hands young Lina scraped a pumice stone along her bare arm. She truly was enjoyable. Graendal had considered erasing her mind as she almost always did with her pets, but she felt she owed the former leash holder a special experience. So she, alone among them, was allowed to remember, allowed to know what was happening to her. Then, sometimes, not every day, but just intermittently enough to keep her wondering, Graendal would remove something from her mind. A memory, a sensation, it did not matter what. What mattered was that she knew what she had lost and that at any moment Graendal might choose to take more, that one day in the distant future she would be just like any of Graendal's other pets, joyously and unknowingly serving her.
Simping for Science
Osan'gar spun spirit, water and earth into the construct he had been making, watching it twitch awkwardly in front of him. No, that was not quite right. He would need to adapt the web a bit, but he'd get this.
His mind went back to Lanfear's visit to him. He didn't know what happened to the woman. She had had such a talent before the Bore, but then she had allowed one failure to destroy her love for science. It had been bad for her career of course, but her complete abdication of any interest in pushing the bounds of human knowledge was an embarrassment.
When she'd come to him yesterday wanting to collaborate, it hadn't been a difficult decision to send her on her way. The woman was not interested in furthering human knowledge, she was only interested in bringing down her perceived rival. As if there was any equivalence between her and Taija Kosola. Ironic that she had said he was obsessed with the woman when Lanfear was the one who seemed to be centering her life around bringing her down.
ClawClawBite
Mad Engineering!
- Location
- Seattle, WA
Poor Lanfear, at best #3 in the global science ranks. At this rate, some youth from this age will beat her to the next great discovery too.
Chapter CI - An Unpleasant Awakening
As usual all speech in italics is in the Old Tongue.
Chapter CI - An Unpleasant Awakening
With Cadsuane's possessions returned to her Taija headed back to Tel who was guarding Verin. "We can decide what to do with her later, just… keep an eye on her." She really wasn't sure what to do with an apparent defector from the Black Ajah. She supposed with the binding rod it had been easy enough to establish her honesty. Punishing her for what she did to infiltrate them would be the height of hypocrisy, it wasn't something Taija would even seriously consider, but Verin was probably at some risk now. Revenge attacks from darkfriends, possibly angry Tower sedai. Something to think about. "I need to go and speak to Siuan."
"What, by yourself? What if they…"
"Yes," Taija's voice was firm, "by myself. I'll need to move fast and only speak to her, I want to actually get this lot, not have them slip away because they got some warning."
"So you're just going to waltz in through all of their defences?"
There was no need for him to sound so sceptical. "Yep, that's the plan."
Tel just sighed. He should definitely have more confidence in her abilities. "It'll be fine Tel, if I do get caught you can come and be manly and rescue me." He sighed again a put upon look on his face. Fine. Taija huffed to herself and turned to leave. There'd be no need for rescues. Obviously.
========
It was a hot night. One of a very long stretch. Taija was sure it should have been well into autumn by then? It couldn't be natural.
Taija found herself making her way towards Siuan's village, inverted tendrils of spirit spread ahead of her to check for any unexpected wards. She'd spun a couple of extra webs over herself. One of illusion that was a kind of discount invisibility. It didn't actually make her invisible, especially if she was moving, but it made her blend in with the background in an impossible way, turning her into a vaguely visible blur. Another dampened any sound she made. The rest was all her own skill. She wasn't an elite scout, but she could be pretty quiet when she wanted to be. Misspent years trying to sneak up on Tel maybe.
It was surprisingly easy to pick her way through the woods to Siuan's village. As soon as she reached the edge Taija spun saidar and her appearance rippled, its blur replaced with that of an elderly serving lady carrying a bundle of clothing. The streets were almost empty due to the late hour and anyway, no one really looked at servants.
From there it was easy enough to find the house she knew Siuan lived in. Obviously it would be warded and it was also guarded properly. A pair of soldiers stood at the door and Taija would have been surprised if there weren't more patrolling around. There'd be no ducking her head and just walking in there.
However, Siuan's house had a small, walled off garden at the back. When no one was around Taija ducked into the dark gap between two buildings, respinning the light distortion web around herself and made her way there. Another quick web made steps of air and she climbed them to carefully poke her head just over the wall. There was no one in the garden, but there was a simple ward that would go off if a human crossed the wall. Visible to Taija and to any other woman who could channel, she could trace its workings easily enough. The key thing was it was tied off, that meant no live feedback. Easy. Taija couldn't imagine Siuan would be having aes sedai holding live wards all night, that would have been beyond paranoid.
Still, there was no point underestimating these people, she felt out with probes of inverted spirit and, yes, there. A smaller inverted ward that she was fairly sure would trigger if there were any changes to the visible ward. Clever. If she'd just bent her way through the first ward she'd probably have triggered that one.
Still, easy enough to deal with. After a little more checking for more wards Taija felt her way around the inverted ward's connections to the visible one. A real master could probably replace the inputs, she wasn't that, so instead she decided to just unravel the inverted ward. A deft bit of work and it came undone in a fading mist of flows. This was far easier than the White Tower. As she'd expected. The aes sedai would have had centuries to refine their wards there and it was pretty obvious they'd been added to by one of the Forsaken, presumably the now dead one.
With the inverted ward gone and the anti-intruder ward both relatively simple and un-inverted it was easy enough to keep it stable while opening a hole in it for her to climb through.
Taija dropped to the ground inside the garden and hesitated, looking around her for any reaction to the faint noise. When nothing happened she smiled to herself and made her way closer. Windows were open due to the unseasonal heat and she could hear movement inside. Presumably they were confident that the wards around the garden and the guards would keep anyone from getting inside.
She reached up to climb through a window and then her instincts screamed, pulling her attention behind her. Taija dived under a blow and spun air, wrapping a guard in it as fast as thought. After a moment to allow her frantic heartbeat to slow and her hands to stop trembling she reached up and hauled herself through the window.
As Taija slid into the room she heard a cough outside it and froze. Nothing more happened, but that had told her enough. She was going to have to deal with at least one more guard. Oh well.
Taija crept up to the door and grasped the handle with saidar, other webs poised for completion. A deep breath and then she pulled it open. Two guards. Before they could do more than start to turn shed already spun a ward against eavesdropping around them and then air to bind them. They didn't have time to make any noise, even if anyone could have heard through her ward, before she'd dragged the back into the reception room. Terrified eyes stared at her from frozen bodies and she mouthed an apology, although really there wasn't much point as all they'd see was a shapeless blur. Taija quickly pulled the other guard in through the window too.
Another web and they were all asleep, it was probably kinder to them. Taija tied off the webs around them so that they'd dissolve in about two hours and then put them in a corner with an illusion over them so they wouldn't be found without a proper search.
Then it was time for Siuan's room, assuming there weren't any other guards. Taija glided out of the reception room, shutting the door behind her and headed up the stairs, her appearance rippling again to be replaced by Anaiya's. The question was, which one would be Siuan's bedroom? Fortunately it wasn't too difficult to work out. Only one room glowed with wards. There was also only one room with an aes sedai sitting sleepily outside it. Oops. Taija's assessment of Siuan's paranoia went up a notch.
She didn't recognise the aes sedai, but it didn't really matter. Taija had her shielded and bound in air before she could even realise what was happening. Taija supposed she could store the woman in Siuan's room while they talked.
With that she sat down and started to study Siuan's wards. Reflecting the fact that people needed to be going in and out of her room all the time, they weren't overly complicated and Taija didn't think there was anything lethal in there. There were some tricky mixtures of inverted webs among the visible ones, but all in all not overly difficult.
Really what she'd normally do was just rip the wards down, ignore the alarms, kill everyone inside and then run away, but that was hardly appropriate here. She was trying to be helpful. So she sat down and started picking away at the wards.
After a few minutes Taija was getting frustrated. She could bring them down, no question, but she was struggling to get through them or unravel them without setting off alarms, which isn't what she wanted.
Another few minutes and Taija was going from frustrated to just bored and irritated. Perhaps instead if she just cut the wards off from any outside warning? It didn't matter so much if Siuan knew she was coming in… It was slightly less dramatic than having her wake up with Taija sitting on her bed, but then that might be a bit much anyway. Tel had once told her that when she got over enthusiastic about things she could come off a bit serial killer. She'd sulked for the rest of the day, but to be fair, he'd had a point. Hiding under Nadyel's bed for over five hours had been a bit excessive.
Fine. It was easy enough to follow the bits of the two wards that went away from Siuan's room. Those Taija smoothly unraveled, they were pretty simple. For the rest… She started by spinning her own larger ward against eavesdropping, laying it just outside Siuan's wards. With that done Taija drew fully on her angreal, readied a web of air and then reached out with spirit.
She crushed the wards and yanked open the door at the same time. A quick step and she was through pulling the shielded aes sedai guard behind her, even as bells sounded in Siuan's bedroom. Taija was already spinning saidar, shielding Siuan and tying her up in air. A bit of probing with spirit and a couple of seconds later she was able to stop the bells too. Taija quickly shut the door behind her, leaving her faced with an utterly furious looking Siuan frozen in her bed.
Taija took a moment to spin a couple more webs around the other aes sedai to make sure she couldn't hear or speak, making them visible for once so Siuan knew what she was doing. "Siuan, I'm really sorry, but we need to talk and I couldn't let anyone else know I was here."
Siuan's eyes bulged wider and Taija realised she'd better release her. Then she also realised she was still under her web of illusion. Ooops. She untied it. "It's me. Taija." She added the last part even though it probably wasn't necessary, Siuan knew what she looked like. "I'm going to let you go now, I just didn't want you to lash out at me." With those words Taija released the air and shield. Trying to ignore the sinking feeling in her stomach that was saying she might have been over enthusiastic in the way she'd done this.
"What in the Light do you…?!" Siuan quivered as she brought herself back under control. When she spoke again her voice is flat. "I take it that this is important, even you would not be mad enough to do something like this if it was not. So fine, I shall pull my nets in. Tell me and then I will decide whether you are leaving here alive or not."
She must really be angry if she was threatening Taija's life. Not that she was in any position to follow through, but Taija would let her have that one, she have been just as furious if someone did this to her.
"I really am sorry Siuan. It was absolutely vital that I got you this information as soon as possible and that no one knew I was speaking to you. I couldn't think of any other way that wouldn't set things off early." Siuan looked sceptical so Taija hurriedly continued. "It's about the Black Ajah."
Siuan's irritation faded, replaced by worry, but her voice is still flat. "I do not see why that makes it so important to pretend to make an assassination attempt on me."
That wasn't what she'd done! Although from Siuan's perspective… Anyway. "What's important is that I've managed to get a list of Black Ajah sisters, over 200 of them, although most of them are dead or not with you."
Siuan's eyes widened. "And you were worried that with the Oath Rod coming back they would either flee or attack? Of course. That would create the urgency." She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Fine. You had a good reason to be here. I accept that, just… Can you please not do that again."
Taija nodded. "If it helps I really am sorry, it was just necessary. Here's the list." She fumbled in a pocket and pulled out the hastily copied list of names.
"Thank you," Siuan took it and channeled a ball of light into the air before starting to read through it. Her eyes widening in places, she punctuated her study with occasional curses. When she looked up there was grim determination on her face. "Well most of these people are gone already, but some of them are about to have an even more unpleasant awakening than I had."
That made Taija smile, slightly guiltily. "There might be others of course, but there are so many on that list that it's hard to believe. Also you'll have the binding rod to check."
"Yes I will indeed. Thank you." The words actually sounded heartfelt.
"It's nothing, we both serve the Light. Do you want any help with the black sisters?"
Siuan paused and then shook her head. "No, thank you. The White Tower will clean up its own mess in this case. Would you be able to leave as discretely as you came?"
"It shouldn't be too difficult, especially if I can just walk out of the building disguised as a servant or guard." Taija thought for a second, "you'll need to say something to the sister here obviously, but there are also three guards asleep in the reception room with the big candlestick on the table."
Siuan gave her a deeply unimpressed look. "Thank you."
"One more thing, if you have a second?" She didn't deny it so Taija continued. "I also have Elaida in captivity."
"You have what?!"
"Elaida, when we raided the Tower she ended up coming back with Rand."
Siuan sighed. "I take it you will be insisting on stilling or executing her? I suppose it is not the end of the world since that is the sentence she would face here too."
"Mmm about that, not quite. We've tested her with the binding rod. She's an idiot, there's no question about that, but she honestly believed she was doing the right thing. She did order Rand's kidnapping, but not the rest, so while we have a claim on her, it ultimately doesn't have the driving force that it did for the others. We'd probably just send her to join Turanna for a few years. Given that, if you want her, she's yours. The only condition is that I'd want her to swear an oath not to attack me, Rand or the Hall."
"You do realise that under Tower law the penalty for falsely claiming to be the Amyrlin is stilling?"
Taija grimaced, "I can't believe I'm saying this, but this might be a time to think about whether you can see a way round that. Honestly, the woman was a fucking idiot, but I can actually see why she thought you were a darkfriend and needed to be removed. She's a strongish channeler," Taija ignored Siuan's scowl at that, "and has actually realised her errors. It seems a waste to get rid of someone who'll fight for the Light and her publicly supporting you might go some way to reuniting the White Tower."
"And what about Leane, Alric? Have you forgotten them?" The vehemence in Siuan's voice surprised Taija. She was normally far more composed.
"Of course I haven't! I liked Leane. Frankly I liked her better than you and I know Alric mattered to you. However, Elaida confirmed they died in the fighting, she didn't order their deaths." Did that make it different? Taija threw her hands up in the air. "Whatever, I don't really care what you do with her. If you do sever her I won't shed a tear, she's done more damage to the forces of the Light than half the Forsaken. I just wanted to put the idea out there since it might be good for the Light. Regardless of what you decide, you'll get her along with the binding rod."
"Fine. Fine. I am sorry, I should not have allowed myself to become emotional. I understand what you are saying and I will think on it."
"No, it's alright, I understand too. They were people you were close to. I'm not sure she'd have survived coming back to the Hall if it had been my friends. Like I said, she's all yours, take political advantage, or leave her body for the crows."
"Thank you. You have done a great service for the White Tower, I will not forget it." That seemed to be a dismissal, so Taija gave Siuan a polite bow.
"I'll see you in a couple of days." Now to find her way out again.
Chapter CI - An Unpleasant Awakening
With Cadsuane's possessions returned to her Taija headed back to Tel who was guarding Verin. "We can decide what to do with her later, just… keep an eye on her." She really wasn't sure what to do with an apparent defector from the Black Ajah. She supposed with the binding rod it had been easy enough to establish her honesty. Punishing her for what she did to infiltrate them would be the height of hypocrisy, it wasn't something Taija would even seriously consider, but Verin was probably at some risk now. Revenge attacks from darkfriends, possibly angry Tower sedai. Something to think about. "I need to go and speak to Siuan."
"What, by yourself? What if they…"
"Yes," Taija's voice was firm, "by myself. I'll need to move fast and only speak to her, I want to actually get this lot, not have them slip away because they got some warning."
"So you're just going to waltz in through all of their defences?"
There was no need for him to sound so sceptical. "Yep, that's the plan."
Tel just sighed. He should definitely have more confidence in her abilities. "It'll be fine Tel, if I do get caught you can come and be manly and rescue me." He sighed again a put upon look on his face. Fine. Taija huffed to herself and turned to leave. There'd be no need for rescues. Obviously.
========
It was a hot night. One of a very long stretch. Taija was sure it should have been well into autumn by then? It couldn't be natural.
Taija found herself making her way towards Siuan's village, inverted tendrils of spirit spread ahead of her to check for any unexpected wards. She'd spun a couple of extra webs over herself. One of illusion that was a kind of discount invisibility. It didn't actually make her invisible, especially if she was moving, but it made her blend in with the background in an impossible way, turning her into a vaguely visible blur. Another dampened any sound she made. The rest was all her own skill. She wasn't an elite scout, but she could be pretty quiet when she wanted to be. Misspent years trying to sneak up on Tel maybe.
It was surprisingly easy to pick her way through the woods to Siuan's village. As soon as she reached the edge Taija spun saidar and her appearance rippled, its blur replaced with that of an elderly serving lady carrying a bundle of clothing. The streets were almost empty due to the late hour and anyway, no one really looked at servants.
From there it was easy enough to find the house she knew Siuan lived in. Obviously it would be warded and it was also guarded properly. A pair of soldiers stood at the door and Taija would have been surprised if there weren't more patrolling around. There'd be no ducking her head and just walking in there.
However, Siuan's house had a small, walled off garden at the back. When no one was around Taija ducked into the dark gap between two buildings, respinning the light distortion web around herself and made her way there. Another quick web made steps of air and she climbed them to carefully poke her head just over the wall. There was no one in the garden, but there was a simple ward that would go off if a human crossed the wall. Visible to Taija and to any other woman who could channel, she could trace its workings easily enough. The key thing was it was tied off, that meant no live feedback. Easy. Taija couldn't imagine Siuan would be having aes sedai holding live wards all night, that would have been beyond paranoid.
Still, there was no point underestimating these people, she felt out with probes of inverted spirit and, yes, there. A smaller inverted ward that she was fairly sure would trigger if there were any changes to the visible ward. Clever. If she'd just bent her way through the first ward she'd probably have triggered that one.
Still, easy enough to deal with. After a little more checking for more wards Taija felt her way around the inverted ward's connections to the visible one. A real master could probably replace the inputs, she wasn't that, so instead she decided to just unravel the inverted ward. A deft bit of work and it came undone in a fading mist of flows. This was far easier than the White Tower. As she'd expected. The aes sedai would have had centuries to refine their wards there and it was pretty obvious they'd been added to by one of the Forsaken, presumably the now dead one.
With the inverted ward gone and the anti-intruder ward both relatively simple and un-inverted it was easy enough to keep it stable while opening a hole in it for her to climb through.
Taija dropped to the ground inside the garden and hesitated, looking around her for any reaction to the faint noise. When nothing happened she smiled to herself and made her way closer. Windows were open due to the unseasonal heat and she could hear movement inside. Presumably they were confident that the wards around the garden and the guards would keep anyone from getting inside.
She reached up to climb through a window and then her instincts screamed, pulling her attention behind her. Taija dived under a blow and spun air, wrapping a guard in it as fast as thought. After a moment to allow her frantic heartbeat to slow and her hands to stop trembling she reached up and hauled herself through the window.
As Taija slid into the room she heard a cough outside it and froze. Nothing more happened, but that had told her enough. She was going to have to deal with at least one more guard. Oh well.
Taija crept up to the door and grasped the handle with saidar, other webs poised for completion. A deep breath and then she pulled it open. Two guards. Before they could do more than start to turn shed already spun a ward against eavesdropping around them and then air to bind them. They didn't have time to make any noise, even if anyone could have heard through her ward, before she'd dragged the back into the reception room. Terrified eyes stared at her from frozen bodies and she mouthed an apology, although really there wasn't much point as all they'd see was a shapeless blur. Taija quickly pulled the other guard in through the window too.
Another web and they were all asleep, it was probably kinder to them. Taija tied off the webs around them so that they'd dissolve in about two hours and then put them in a corner with an illusion over them so they wouldn't be found without a proper search.
Then it was time for Siuan's room, assuming there weren't any other guards. Taija glided out of the reception room, shutting the door behind her and headed up the stairs, her appearance rippling again to be replaced by Anaiya's. The question was, which one would be Siuan's bedroom? Fortunately it wasn't too difficult to work out. Only one room glowed with wards. There was also only one room with an aes sedai sitting sleepily outside it. Oops. Taija's assessment of Siuan's paranoia went up a notch.
She didn't recognise the aes sedai, but it didn't really matter. Taija had her shielded and bound in air before she could even realise what was happening. Taija supposed she could store the woman in Siuan's room while they talked.
With that she sat down and started to study Siuan's wards. Reflecting the fact that people needed to be going in and out of her room all the time, they weren't overly complicated and Taija didn't think there was anything lethal in there. There were some tricky mixtures of inverted webs among the visible ones, but all in all not overly difficult.
Really what she'd normally do was just rip the wards down, ignore the alarms, kill everyone inside and then run away, but that was hardly appropriate here. She was trying to be helpful. So she sat down and started picking away at the wards.
After a few minutes Taija was getting frustrated. She could bring them down, no question, but she was struggling to get through them or unravel them without setting off alarms, which isn't what she wanted.
Another few minutes and Taija was going from frustrated to just bored and irritated. Perhaps instead if she just cut the wards off from any outside warning? It didn't matter so much if Siuan knew she was coming in… It was slightly less dramatic than having her wake up with Taija sitting on her bed, but then that might be a bit much anyway. Tel had once told her that when she got over enthusiastic about things she could come off a bit serial killer. She'd sulked for the rest of the day, but to be fair, he'd had a point. Hiding under Nadyel's bed for over five hours had been a bit excessive.
Fine. It was easy enough to follow the bits of the two wards that went away from Siuan's room. Those Taija smoothly unraveled, they were pretty simple. For the rest… She started by spinning her own larger ward against eavesdropping, laying it just outside Siuan's wards. With that done Taija drew fully on her angreal, readied a web of air and then reached out with spirit.
She crushed the wards and yanked open the door at the same time. A quick step and she was through pulling the shielded aes sedai guard behind her, even as bells sounded in Siuan's bedroom. Taija was already spinning saidar, shielding Siuan and tying her up in air. A bit of probing with spirit and a couple of seconds later she was able to stop the bells too. Taija quickly shut the door behind her, leaving her faced with an utterly furious looking Siuan frozen in her bed.
Taija took a moment to spin a couple more webs around the other aes sedai to make sure she couldn't hear or speak, making them visible for once so Siuan knew what she was doing. "Siuan, I'm really sorry, but we need to talk and I couldn't let anyone else know I was here."
Siuan's eyes bulged wider and Taija realised she'd better release her. Then she also realised she was still under her web of illusion. Ooops. She untied it. "It's me. Taija." She added the last part even though it probably wasn't necessary, Siuan knew what she looked like. "I'm going to let you go now, I just didn't want you to lash out at me." With those words Taija released the air and shield. Trying to ignore the sinking feeling in her stomach that was saying she might have been over enthusiastic in the way she'd done this.
"What in the Light do you…?!" Siuan quivered as she brought herself back under control. When she spoke again her voice is flat. "I take it that this is important, even you would not be mad enough to do something like this if it was not. So fine, I shall pull my nets in. Tell me and then I will decide whether you are leaving here alive or not."
She must really be angry if she was threatening Taija's life. Not that she was in any position to follow through, but Taija would let her have that one, she have been just as furious if someone did this to her.
"I really am sorry Siuan. It was absolutely vital that I got you this information as soon as possible and that no one knew I was speaking to you. I couldn't think of any other way that wouldn't set things off early." Siuan looked sceptical so Taija hurriedly continued. "It's about the Black Ajah."
Siuan's irritation faded, replaced by worry, but her voice is still flat. "I do not see why that makes it so important to pretend to make an assassination attempt on me."
That wasn't what she'd done! Although from Siuan's perspective… Anyway. "What's important is that I've managed to get a list of Black Ajah sisters, over 200 of them, although most of them are dead or not with you."
Siuan's eyes widened. "And you were worried that with the Oath Rod coming back they would either flee or attack? Of course. That would create the urgency." She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Fine. You had a good reason to be here. I accept that, just… Can you please not do that again."
Taija nodded. "If it helps I really am sorry, it was just necessary. Here's the list." She fumbled in a pocket and pulled out the hastily copied list of names.
"Thank you," Siuan took it and channeled a ball of light into the air before starting to read through it. Her eyes widening in places, she punctuated her study with occasional curses. When she looked up there was grim determination on her face. "Well most of these people are gone already, but some of them are about to have an even more unpleasant awakening than I had."
That made Taija smile, slightly guiltily. "There might be others of course, but there are so many on that list that it's hard to believe. Also you'll have the binding rod to check."
"Yes I will indeed. Thank you." The words actually sounded heartfelt.
"It's nothing, we both serve the Light. Do you want any help with the black sisters?"
Siuan paused and then shook her head. "No, thank you. The White Tower will clean up its own mess in this case. Would you be able to leave as discretely as you came?"
"It shouldn't be too difficult, especially if I can just walk out of the building disguised as a servant or guard." Taija thought for a second, "you'll need to say something to the sister here obviously, but there are also three guards asleep in the reception room with the big candlestick on the table."
Siuan gave her a deeply unimpressed look. "Thank you."
"One more thing, if you have a second?" She didn't deny it so Taija continued. "I also have Elaida in captivity."
"You have what?!"
"Elaida, when we raided the Tower she ended up coming back with Rand."
Siuan sighed. "I take it you will be insisting on stilling or executing her? I suppose it is not the end of the world since that is the sentence she would face here too."
"Mmm about that, not quite. We've tested her with the binding rod. She's an idiot, there's no question about that, but she honestly believed she was doing the right thing. She did order Rand's kidnapping, but not the rest, so while we have a claim on her, it ultimately doesn't have the driving force that it did for the others. We'd probably just send her to join Turanna for a few years. Given that, if you want her, she's yours. The only condition is that I'd want her to swear an oath not to attack me, Rand or the Hall."
"You do realise that under Tower law the penalty for falsely claiming to be the Amyrlin is stilling?"
Taija grimaced, "I can't believe I'm saying this, but this might be a time to think about whether you can see a way round that. Honestly, the woman was a fucking idiot, but I can actually see why she thought you were a darkfriend and needed to be removed. She's a strongish channeler," Taija ignored Siuan's scowl at that, "and has actually realised her errors. It seems a waste to get rid of someone who'll fight for the Light and her publicly supporting you might go some way to reuniting the White Tower."
"And what about Leane, Alric? Have you forgotten them?" The vehemence in Siuan's voice surprised Taija. She was normally far more composed.
"Of course I haven't! I liked Leane. Frankly I liked her better than you and I know Alric mattered to you. However, Elaida confirmed they died in the fighting, she didn't order their deaths." Did that make it different? Taija threw her hands up in the air. "Whatever, I don't really care what you do with her. If you do sever her I won't shed a tear, she's done more damage to the forces of the Light than half the Forsaken. I just wanted to put the idea out there since it might be good for the Light. Regardless of what you decide, you'll get her along with the binding rod."
"Fine. Fine. I am sorry, I should not have allowed myself to become emotional. I understand what you are saying and I will think on it."
"No, it's alright, I understand too. They were people you were close to. I'm not sure she'd have survived coming back to the Hall if it had been my friends. Like I said, she's all yours, take political advantage, or leave her body for the crows."
"Thank you. You have done a great service for the White Tower, I will not forget it." That seemed to be a dismissal, so Taija gave Siuan a polite bow.
"I'll see you in a couple of days." Now to find her way out again.
Chapter CII - The Wrath of Siuan
Chapter CII - The Wrath of Siuan
A couple of days later it was time for the second official meeting of the First Among Servants and the Amyrlin Seat. Taija couldn't say she particularly liked having her title. It wasn't very… her. She wouldn't have to put up with it forever though. Just until she could find someone else to take it on and leave her to enjoy life more. Maybe Egwene?
This time she went to Siuan, taking an entourage with her. Apparently going alone was a sign of weakness, or possibly made her vulnerable, either way she wasn't allowed. Not for official visits anyway.
Rand was busy sorting out Cairhien. Apparently he was thinking of making Elayne queen of it, although Taija suspect that she'd rather he didn't, so that would be interesting to watch. She did have Tel, Aleksi and Nynaeve, along with a small crowd of Aspirants as her escorts, plus some of the Dedicated from the Hall. She also had Elaida, shielded by an aspirant, but allowed to walk unbound in the middle of them.
Taija had been a bit surprised Elaida was so blasé about it when she'd told her she'd be handing her over to Siuan. Elaida must have known Tower law and the likely consequences, but she'd just said that if that was what was needed to heal the Tower then so be it. She also hadn't hesitated in giving her oath that she wouldn't attack Taija, Rand or the Hall. Of course with Taija handing the binding rod over to Siuan there was nothing stopping them from having her unswear the oath, but by that point Taija didn't have the mental energy to add that to her list of worries.
When Taija emerged from the gateway she was greeted by a crowd of Tower aes sedai, novices and warders. Siuan's keeper, Maigan, welcomed her with a shallow curtsy. "The White Tower welcomes the First Among Servants, our ally under the Light."
Taija gave her an even shallower bow in response, after all, Siuan was her peer there, not the Keeper. "Thank you, it is a pleasure to be here among our allies and friends of the White Tower."
Taija was soon escorted to the pavilion Siuan had had set up for the occasion. As she walked one thing that struck her from the crowd was that Siuan certainly seemed to be increasing the number of novices she had. There must have been close to a hundred of them, including maybe ten men also dressed in white. Nothing like the Hall's rapidly growing numbers, but still impressive compared to what the White Tower used to have.
Siuan received Taija sat on an ornate chair, more of a throne. Putting the Amyrlin onto the seat. Heh. However, when Taija arrived Siuan stood to greet her. There was no curtsy there, of course, modern people saw a curtsy as a sign of submission. Another sign of why curtsies were inferior to bows. A carefully calibrated bow could be anything from polite greeting to a social inferior all the way to abject submission.
Regardless of Siuan's own lack of curtsy or bow, Taija gave her a bow of her own when she stopped in front of her. One appropriate for an equal in a professional context.
"The White Tower welcomes the First Among Servants. Welcome Taija, it is my pleasure to see you here when you bring such good news for the White Tower."
"Thank you Siuan. The pleasure is all mine, to be able to serve the Light at your side as the Last Battle approaches is an honour." Time for a bit of drama. "You of course know of the great victory that the Hall of Servants struck against the Shadow only a week ago. The death of one of the Forsaken and the weakening of the Black Ajah," Taija saw some eyes tighten at that. "During that battle we were also fortunate enough to obtain two things that we knew would be of great interest to our friends and allies in the White Tower."
She gestured grandly behind her and Aleksi floated an ornately carved box forward. "We were able to capture the White Tower's oath rod," Taija was careful to use their term, "and now I return it to you as one friend to another."
Siuan already knew about its effect on aes sedai lifespans, but Taija had the feeling she might not have told any of the others about it. Taija had already made sure to slip that fact into conversation with Moiraine and Cadsuane and the others had been given a nudge to mention it to any Tower aes sedai they could, as long as they could do it without being too clumsy. Her conscience wouldn't allow her to have those people keep on subjecting themselves to binding without fully understanding the consequences, but Taija's meaner side also thought that it would be very helpful for undermining the attractiveness of the White Tower if people knew they were halving their lifespans by becoming aes sedai under it.
The box landed on a stand that Siuan had had placed there and one of her sitters came forward and opened it before holding up the binding rod. Siuan's stern visage faded to be replaced with a smile, just for a second.
When the binding rod was replaced in its box Taija continued. "Second is Elaida do Avriny a'Roihan. Rand sedai," always good to remind them he was aligned with her, "was able to bring her to us from the White Tower. While she has committed crimes against the Hall of Servants, I recognise that the White Tower has the greater claim on her. As such, I give her to you without preconditions or demands. She is yours to do with as you wish."
Taija stepped slightly to the side and Elaida walked proudly forward. Taija had told her what would be happening and had even given her some advice, she was far too nice really. Whether Elaida would follow it or not, Taija didn't know. Whether it would even be enough to save her or not she didn't know either. Nor did she care overly. She'd made a small effort to help Elaida and that was more than enough.
Elaida stepped in front of her, meeting Siuan's eyes, chin held high. For a moment Taija thought she was about to commit suicide by arrogance and then she sank to her knees, bowing her head.
"Mother, I am sorry. In my arrogance I have led the White Tower to the greatest disaster in its existence. I had what I believed to be good reasons at the time, but it has become clear to me that I was wrong. You are the rightful Amyrlin and I will acknowledge that in any way you command. I beg for mercy. The Last Battle is coming and I wish to live to fight for the Light in it, but I will accept any punishment you see fit to give me."
Siuan studied her for a long moment, disgust on her face. "We shall discuss your fate later. Take her away." A pair of warders came and took Elaida's arms, before hustling her away, not particularly gently. Meh.
Once Elaida had been removed Siuan turned back to Taija. "Thank you Taija, the White Tower does not forget its friends. You have done us a great service." She scanned across the crowd of aes sedai. "Taija also delivered me a secret message earlier. It seems that she has been able to identify the remaining members of the Black Ajah, or so she believes. Bring them out!"
A number of aes sedai were prodded forward. Taija even recognised a few of them from her time in the White Tower. Given Siuan's numbers, it wasn't as many as she'd expected, perhaps twelve or so, but then Taija had already thinned out their ranks with her ploy before the cleansing of the taint.
On the other side of Siuan a burly warder dragged forward a block of wood and placed it on the grass.
"Sisters, you are accused of being members of the Black Ajah by our ally. I would not act just on her word for that would not be justice, but now we have the oath rod." Taija saw some of the sisters pale. "You will reswear the three oaths, or you will go to the headsman's block immediately."
"You cannot do this!" One of the sisters pushed her way forward, defiance written across her face. "I will not be treated like this! I am aes sedai, there are laws."
Siuan just smiled, "the Hall has already decided, any of the accused darkfriends who refuses to reswear the oaths here and now will be found guilty of being part of the Black Ajah with the penalty applied immediately. Should you reswear them, well then there is potential for other options to be discussed."
The Tower aes sedai blanched. Then shook her head, defiance in her tone, "I will not be treated like this."
"Very well." Siuan shrugged, impressively cold. "This is your last chance to change your mind."
The aes sedai just stared defiantly at her until Siuan gestured. The woman was immediately seized by a pair of warders and dragged over to the wooden block before being forced down onto it. One drew his sword and seconds later it was over, her blood pumping onto the grass. Taija gave Siuan a mental nod of approval. Darkfriends were a plague on the world and there could be no mercy. If they had tried to return to the Light of their own volition then there would be something to discuss, people could redeem themselves, but it had to be their choice, their actions. As it was, fuck them.
"Next." Siuan cast her eyes back to the shielded sisters and one was pushed forward. "What about you Careane? Will you reswear the oaths?"
Careane glanced to the headless corpse and back at Siuan and hurriedly nodded, words seeming to have temporarily failed her. It dudn't take long for her to unswear whatever oaths she had sworn, Taija would have to ask Verin about them, and reswear the aes sedai's three oaths.
"Are you a member of the Black Ajah?"
"No! I am not!"
Siuan sighed loudly. "Have you every been a member of the Black Ajah and, if so, when do you consider yourself to have stopped?"
Careane looked like she didn't want to answer and then swallowed nervously. "Yes I have been. However, I am no longer a member, I wish to walk in the Light, I can tell you the secrets of the Black Ajah!"
"Very well, I will of course take your cooperation into account. Who do you know or suspect is a member of the Black Ajah?"
Taija listened with interest as Black Ajah member after Black Ajah member reswore the oaths and frantically, almost eagerly betrayed their comrades. Nearly all of the names that were given were already on the list, but a few seemed to be surprises. Two were right there in the watching crowd, they made themselves obvious with their reactions to being named. They were immediately shielded and dragged forward to join the small line of black sisters. One more name resulted in a quick search and an angry expression from Siuan when it was reported that she'd left the village the night before.
It wasn't long before the final two, newly revealed sisters were brought forward. Taija didn't recognise either of them. The first reswore the oaths and was quickly revealed as yet another member of the Black Ajah. So it seemed Verin's list wasn't perfect. That would have been too much to hope for.
Then the other angrily reswore the oaths and declared with an ice-cold tone, "I am not nor have I ever been a member of the Black Ajah! I am not a darkfriend and have always walked in the Light!" She was actually trembling a bit, whether from rage or fear Taija wasn't sure.
Siuan quickly gestured and the shield on her was released. "My apologies daughter, we had to be sure. Let it be known that Gwenalle Cawl is not a darkfriend and has proven her innocence in front of the Tower." She turned angry eyes on the black sister that had named Gwanelle. "Explain. Now."
The darkfriend visibly shrunk in on herself. "I I I thought she was, you asked if I suspected anyone not just if I knew. I did not know for sure."
"Hmph. Very well." Siuan turned away, towards the sitters gathered behind her. "You have seen these women swear the three oaths and every one of them insists that they will cooperate and wish to serve the Light. I told them that if they reswore the oaths there would be potential for other options. Here is that potential. The Hall will now vote on their fate, taking into account the cooperation they have provided. Personally I say that they are only claiming to have changed to save their own skins. A lionfish in roundfish's clothing remains a lionfish. I believe they will return to the Shadow as soon as the opportunity is given to them, but it shall not be my choice."
Maigan then spoke, "those who vote for execution for all of the self-confessed members of the Black Ajah, stand." Every single sitter stood without hesitation, although Taija thought that at least one or two of the kneeling black sisters might have been among them a couple of days ago. "Very well, we have the greater consensus."
It all happened very quickly after that. There was no further discussion. Each sister was dragged forward, beheaded and then her corpse hauled away to make room for the next. Some were too stunned to react, others begged and one or two raged against the decision. Taija watched each one, with a vague sense of satisfaction. This would significantly strengthen the Light and make Siuan's group more able to fight at her side. Of course there were many more black sisters outside Siuan's village, especially those that had stayed out of the White Tower's split. Still, many of those would be suffering accidents over the next few days. Taija doubted they'd all be successfully dealt with, but a further trimming of the Black Ajah's numbers would do the world some good.
As sister after sister was summarily beheaded her mind went back to Verin. She'd need to ask her what she wanted to do. Verin had struck a blow for the Light that was probably greater than almost any modern aes sedai. If she wanted, Taija would keep her involvement a complete secret and ask Cadsuane, Nynaeve and Tel to do the same. Otherwise, some kind of public declaration might be appropriate. She wanted to make sure that Verin didn't get over zealously caught up in a purge after being named by another Black Ajah member after all.
When the last sister had been executed Siuan spoke again, breaking the stunned silence. "Once again Taija and the Hall of Servants have the White Tower's gratitude. Working together we have struck a blow for the Light. As part of this, the White Tower and the Hall of Servants have been discussing a historic agreement that will strengthen both of us. For the first time ever the White Tower will enter into a treaty of friendship and recognition with another organisation of channelers." There was definitely some tightening of eyes among the Tower aes sedai at that.
Two servants carried a table over, two large sheets of parchment on it. If everything had been done correctly they'd be identical copies of the treaty that Taija's comrades in the Hall had quietly been negotiating in the background since she'd obtained the binding rod. With a wave, Siuan gestured her forward to it and Taija gave the papers a quick scan. It was as expected, covering all of the key points that she wanted.
Taija took the pen she was offered and dipped it in the ink pot, what wouldn't she have given for a ballpoint pen, and then signed both copies with a flourish. Taija Kosola Miranen, First Among Servants.
A couple of days later it was time for the second official meeting of the First Among Servants and the Amyrlin Seat. Taija couldn't say she particularly liked having her title. It wasn't very… her. She wouldn't have to put up with it forever though. Just until she could find someone else to take it on and leave her to enjoy life more. Maybe Egwene?
This time she went to Siuan, taking an entourage with her. Apparently going alone was a sign of weakness, or possibly made her vulnerable, either way she wasn't allowed. Not for official visits anyway.
Rand was busy sorting out Cairhien. Apparently he was thinking of making Elayne queen of it, although Taija suspect that she'd rather he didn't, so that would be interesting to watch. She did have Tel, Aleksi and Nynaeve, along with a small crowd of Aspirants as her escorts, plus some of the Dedicated from the Hall. She also had Elaida, shielded by an aspirant, but allowed to walk unbound in the middle of them.
Taija had been a bit surprised Elaida was so blasé about it when she'd told her she'd be handing her over to Siuan. Elaida must have known Tower law and the likely consequences, but she'd just said that if that was what was needed to heal the Tower then so be it. She also hadn't hesitated in giving her oath that she wouldn't attack Taija, Rand or the Hall. Of course with Taija handing the binding rod over to Siuan there was nothing stopping them from having her unswear the oath, but by that point Taija didn't have the mental energy to add that to her list of worries.
When Taija emerged from the gateway she was greeted by a crowd of Tower aes sedai, novices and warders. Siuan's keeper, Maigan, welcomed her with a shallow curtsy. "The White Tower welcomes the First Among Servants, our ally under the Light."
Taija gave her an even shallower bow in response, after all, Siuan was her peer there, not the Keeper. "Thank you, it is a pleasure to be here among our allies and friends of the White Tower."
Taija was soon escorted to the pavilion Siuan had had set up for the occasion. As she walked one thing that struck her from the crowd was that Siuan certainly seemed to be increasing the number of novices she had. There must have been close to a hundred of them, including maybe ten men also dressed in white. Nothing like the Hall's rapidly growing numbers, but still impressive compared to what the White Tower used to have.
Siuan received Taija sat on an ornate chair, more of a throne. Putting the Amyrlin onto the seat. Heh. However, when Taija arrived Siuan stood to greet her. There was no curtsy there, of course, modern people saw a curtsy as a sign of submission. Another sign of why curtsies were inferior to bows. A carefully calibrated bow could be anything from polite greeting to a social inferior all the way to abject submission.
Regardless of Siuan's own lack of curtsy or bow, Taija gave her a bow of her own when she stopped in front of her. One appropriate for an equal in a professional context.
"The White Tower welcomes the First Among Servants. Welcome Taija, it is my pleasure to see you here when you bring such good news for the White Tower."
"Thank you Siuan. The pleasure is all mine, to be able to serve the Light at your side as the Last Battle approaches is an honour." Time for a bit of drama. "You of course know of the great victory that the Hall of Servants struck against the Shadow only a week ago. The death of one of the Forsaken and the weakening of the Black Ajah," Taija saw some eyes tighten at that. "During that battle we were also fortunate enough to obtain two things that we knew would be of great interest to our friends and allies in the White Tower."
She gestured grandly behind her and Aleksi floated an ornately carved box forward. "We were able to capture the White Tower's oath rod," Taija was careful to use their term, "and now I return it to you as one friend to another."
Siuan already knew about its effect on aes sedai lifespans, but Taija had the feeling she might not have told any of the others about it. Taija had already made sure to slip that fact into conversation with Moiraine and Cadsuane and the others had been given a nudge to mention it to any Tower aes sedai they could, as long as they could do it without being too clumsy. Her conscience wouldn't allow her to have those people keep on subjecting themselves to binding without fully understanding the consequences, but Taija's meaner side also thought that it would be very helpful for undermining the attractiveness of the White Tower if people knew they were halving their lifespans by becoming aes sedai under it.
The box landed on a stand that Siuan had had placed there and one of her sitters came forward and opened it before holding up the binding rod. Siuan's stern visage faded to be replaced with a smile, just for a second.
When the binding rod was replaced in its box Taija continued. "Second is Elaida do Avriny a'Roihan. Rand sedai," always good to remind them he was aligned with her, "was able to bring her to us from the White Tower. While she has committed crimes against the Hall of Servants, I recognise that the White Tower has the greater claim on her. As such, I give her to you without preconditions or demands. She is yours to do with as you wish."
Taija stepped slightly to the side and Elaida walked proudly forward. Taija had told her what would be happening and had even given her some advice, she was far too nice really. Whether Elaida would follow it or not, Taija didn't know. Whether it would even be enough to save her or not she didn't know either. Nor did she care overly. She'd made a small effort to help Elaida and that was more than enough.
Elaida stepped in front of her, meeting Siuan's eyes, chin held high. For a moment Taija thought she was about to commit suicide by arrogance and then she sank to her knees, bowing her head.
"Mother, I am sorry. In my arrogance I have led the White Tower to the greatest disaster in its existence. I had what I believed to be good reasons at the time, but it has become clear to me that I was wrong. You are the rightful Amyrlin and I will acknowledge that in any way you command. I beg for mercy. The Last Battle is coming and I wish to live to fight for the Light in it, but I will accept any punishment you see fit to give me."
Siuan studied her for a long moment, disgust on her face. "We shall discuss your fate later. Take her away." A pair of warders came and took Elaida's arms, before hustling her away, not particularly gently. Meh.
Once Elaida had been removed Siuan turned back to Taija. "Thank you Taija, the White Tower does not forget its friends. You have done us a great service." She scanned across the crowd of aes sedai. "Taija also delivered me a secret message earlier. It seems that she has been able to identify the remaining members of the Black Ajah, or so she believes. Bring them out!"
A number of aes sedai were prodded forward. Taija even recognised a few of them from her time in the White Tower. Given Siuan's numbers, it wasn't as many as she'd expected, perhaps twelve or so, but then Taija had already thinned out their ranks with her ploy before the cleansing of the taint.
On the other side of Siuan a burly warder dragged forward a block of wood and placed it on the grass.
"Sisters, you are accused of being members of the Black Ajah by our ally. I would not act just on her word for that would not be justice, but now we have the oath rod." Taija saw some of the sisters pale. "You will reswear the three oaths, or you will go to the headsman's block immediately."
"You cannot do this!" One of the sisters pushed her way forward, defiance written across her face. "I will not be treated like this! I am aes sedai, there are laws."
Siuan just smiled, "the Hall has already decided, any of the accused darkfriends who refuses to reswear the oaths here and now will be found guilty of being part of the Black Ajah with the penalty applied immediately. Should you reswear them, well then there is potential for other options to be discussed."
The Tower aes sedai blanched. Then shook her head, defiance in her tone, "I will not be treated like this."
"Very well." Siuan shrugged, impressively cold. "This is your last chance to change your mind."
The aes sedai just stared defiantly at her until Siuan gestured. The woman was immediately seized by a pair of warders and dragged over to the wooden block before being forced down onto it. One drew his sword and seconds later it was over, her blood pumping onto the grass. Taija gave Siuan a mental nod of approval. Darkfriends were a plague on the world and there could be no mercy. If they had tried to return to the Light of their own volition then there would be something to discuss, people could redeem themselves, but it had to be their choice, their actions. As it was, fuck them.
"Next." Siuan cast her eyes back to the shielded sisters and one was pushed forward. "What about you Careane? Will you reswear the oaths?"
Careane glanced to the headless corpse and back at Siuan and hurriedly nodded, words seeming to have temporarily failed her. It dudn't take long for her to unswear whatever oaths she had sworn, Taija would have to ask Verin about them, and reswear the aes sedai's three oaths.
"Are you a member of the Black Ajah?"
"No! I am not!"
Siuan sighed loudly. "Have you every been a member of the Black Ajah and, if so, when do you consider yourself to have stopped?"
Careane looked like she didn't want to answer and then swallowed nervously. "Yes I have been. However, I am no longer a member, I wish to walk in the Light, I can tell you the secrets of the Black Ajah!"
"Very well, I will of course take your cooperation into account. Who do you know or suspect is a member of the Black Ajah?"
Taija listened with interest as Black Ajah member after Black Ajah member reswore the oaths and frantically, almost eagerly betrayed their comrades. Nearly all of the names that were given were already on the list, but a few seemed to be surprises. Two were right there in the watching crowd, they made themselves obvious with their reactions to being named. They were immediately shielded and dragged forward to join the small line of black sisters. One more name resulted in a quick search and an angry expression from Siuan when it was reported that she'd left the village the night before.
It wasn't long before the final two, newly revealed sisters were brought forward. Taija didn't recognise either of them. The first reswore the oaths and was quickly revealed as yet another member of the Black Ajah. So it seemed Verin's list wasn't perfect. That would have been too much to hope for.
Then the other angrily reswore the oaths and declared with an ice-cold tone, "I am not nor have I ever been a member of the Black Ajah! I am not a darkfriend and have always walked in the Light!" She was actually trembling a bit, whether from rage or fear Taija wasn't sure.
Siuan quickly gestured and the shield on her was released. "My apologies daughter, we had to be sure. Let it be known that Gwenalle Cawl is not a darkfriend and has proven her innocence in front of the Tower." She turned angry eyes on the black sister that had named Gwanelle. "Explain. Now."
The darkfriend visibly shrunk in on herself. "I I I thought she was, you asked if I suspected anyone not just if I knew. I did not know for sure."
"Hmph. Very well." Siuan turned away, towards the sitters gathered behind her. "You have seen these women swear the three oaths and every one of them insists that they will cooperate and wish to serve the Light. I told them that if they reswore the oaths there would be potential for other options. Here is that potential. The Hall will now vote on their fate, taking into account the cooperation they have provided. Personally I say that they are only claiming to have changed to save their own skins. A lionfish in roundfish's clothing remains a lionfish. I believe they will return to the Shadow as soon as the opportunity is given to them, but it shall not be my choice."
Maigan then spoke, "those who vote for execution for all of the self-confessed members of the Black Ajah, stand." Every single sitter stood without hesitation, although Taija thought that at least one or two of the kneeling black sisters might have been among them a couple of days ago. "Very well, we have the greater consensus."
It all happened very quickly after that. There was no further discussion. Each sister was dragged forward, beheaded and then her corpse hauled away to make room for the next. Some were too stunned to react, others begged and one or two raged against the decision. Taija watched each one, with a vague sense of satisfaction. This would significantly strengthen the Light and make Siuan's group more able to fight at her side. Of course there were many more black sisters outside Siuan's village, especially those that had stayed out of the White Tower's split. Still, many of those would be suffering accidents over the next few days. Taija doubted they'd all be successfully dealt with, but a further trimming of the Black Ajah's numbers would do the world some good.
As sister after sister was summarily beheaded her mind went back to Verin. She'd need to ask her what she wanted to do. Verin had struck a blow for the Light that was probably greater than almost any modern aes sedai. If she wanted, Taija would keep her involvement a complete secret and ask Cadsuane, Nynaeve and Tel to do the same. Otherwise, some kind of public declaration might be appropriate. She wanted to make sure that Verin didn't get over zealously caught up in a purge after being named by another Black Ajah member after all.
When the last sister had been executed Siuan spoke again, breaking the stunned silence. "Once again Taija and the Hall of Servants have the White Tower's gratitude. Working together we have struck a blow for the Light. As part of this, the White Tower and the Hall of Servants have been discussing a historic agreement that will strengthen both of us. For the first time ever the White Tower will enter into a treaty of friendship and recognition with another organisation of channelers." There was definitely some tightening of eyes among the Tower aes sedai at that.
Two servants carried a table over, two large sheets of parchment on it. If everything had been done correctly they'd be identical copies of the treaty that Taija's comrades in the Hall had quietly been negotiating in the background since she'd obtained the binding rod. With a wave, Siuan gestured her forward to it and Taija gave the papers a quick scan. It was as expected, covering all of the key points that she wanted.
- Mutual recognition of aes sedai raised by each organisation acknowledging them as having the right to call themselves aes sedai and be accorded the respect that went with the title. Effectively recognising reality there.
- Acceptance that the internal governance of each organisation was for them alone to decide. Neither of them wanted the other interfering, but it was probably more to Taija's advantage as, unlike the White Tower, she wasn't particularly interested in getting involved in other groups' internal politics.
- Recognition that aes sedai from either organisation could join the other if they so wished and be governed by the other's rules if accepted, Taija suspected that Siuan had only agreed to that one with an eye on dominance after the Last Battle. On the other hand she'd had Bennae in mind and the hope that others would follow.
- Recognition that the Hall could not in future take novices and accepted from the White Tower (or vice versa, not that that was a risk) unless and until the White Tower consented or they had been turned out. That was the biggest concession Taija had made, but it was bending to reality. It was also necessary to get the White Tower to relinquish its c*laims over the existing defectors among the Hall's ranks. She didn't want them to be looking over their shoulders constantly in case they were brought back as runaways.
- The Hall gave the Tower the binding rod to be theirs in perpetuity, but in return the Tower agreed that the Hall would be permitted to borrow it when they needed to use it for their own purposes. Taija had made sure that the impression was given to Siuan that it would be used for rooting out darkfriends and administering punishments. She didn't think Siuan had realised yet that she could make the Hall a much more attractive prospect by offering aes sedai the opportunity to unbind themselves if they joined it.
- General declarations of friendship and cooperation. Taija had no doubt the Tower would stab her in the back at the first opportunity after the Last Battle, but at least it wouldn't be in the front after Siuan had signed the treaty.
Taija took the pen she was offered and dipped it in the ink pot, what wouldn't she have given for a ballpoint pen, and then signed both copies with a flourish. Taija Kosola Miranen, First Among Servants.
This chapter was an interesting one to write for me because in real life I'm *very* anti-death penalty, but I think it's very realistic that given everything Taija would be very much in favour of it for darkfriends and be completely unphased by immediate executions of proven darkfriends.
Obviously I'm not looking to start a debate on the death penalty in real life, but I do think it's an interesting challenge when writing the hero of a story who one is portraying as a thoroughly good person to have them support some things that you find deeply objectionable.
Obviously I'm not looking to start a debate on the death penalty in real life, but I do think it's an interesting challenge when writing the hero of a story who one is portraying as a thoroughly good person to have them support some things that you find deeply objectionable.
- Location
- Madness realms
I mean I feel like the options for dealing with people who essentially sold out all humanity for a pat on the head are death or to be so bound up in oaths from the slave rod that they struggle to do anything without accidentally crossing oath wires and exploding. Safer and easier to kill them.
- Location
- Toronto
I think the death penalty here, in the story, while absolutely awful, is what was emphasized in the treaty here: bowing to reality.
This isn't a modern era where resources are plentiful and the indefinite care and containment of a person is a cost which can be casually paid. Each prisoner is costly to feed and care for, they don't have a surplus of people to supervise and contain them - every one is needed in the fight.
This isn't a typical war where its simply two factions arguing over who has the right to make use of land and its resources and enforce the laws of that land. This is an existential enemy that is provably and not logically evil. There is no 'I was just serving my country' here. They've committed treason because the Shadow is the enemy of their native people.
Finally these aren't normal combatants. Every single member of the black ajah is not just a dark friend, but also a channeler who was spying to gain the benefits of enemy training methods and knowledge on top of everything else. This is 'caught stealing launch codes while being a highly trained black ops combatant' levels of in the shit here, not just regular treason.
It would absolutely be better to have more options for punishing them - a secure encampment where they could be bound by carefully crafted oaths and just live out their lives performing useful but mundane service like making clothing would be great. But that's a whole village you need to feed and defend and supply, on top of being a military target that needs to be concealed and guarded and patrolled. And they can't afford that right now - hell, they can't even make ter'angreal.
Now, Taija not thinking those thoughts, and just being okay with what's happening? Yeah, that's a rough headspace to get into, but she's a very damaged person who's been hurt badly by people just like this, to a degree that basically no one in this era can really understand. Even Tel got the comfort of going through the fall of their age thinking those people deserved what he was helping do to them.
This isn't a modern era where resources are plentiful and the indefinite care and containment of a person is a cost which can be casually paid. Each prisoner is costly to feed and care for, they don't have a surplus of people to supervise and contain them - every one is needed in the fight.
This isn't a typical war where its simply two factions arguing over who has the right to make use of land and its resources and enforce the laws of that land. This is an existential enemy that is provably and not logically evil. There is no 'I was just serving my country' here. They've committed treason because the Shadow is the enemy of their native people.
Finally these aren't normal combatants. Every single member of the black ajah is not just a dark friend, but also a channeler who was spying to gain the benefits of enemy training methods and knowledge on top of everything else. This is 'caught stealing launch codes while being a highly trained black ops combatant' levels of in the shit here, not just regular treason.
It would absolutely be better to have more options for punishing them - a secure encampment where they could be bound by carefully crafted oaths and just live out their lives performing useful but mundane service like making clothing would be great. But that's a whole village you need to feed and defend and supply, on top of being a military target that needs to be concealed and guarded and patrolled. And they can't afford that right now - hell, they can't even make ter'angreal.
Now, Taija not thinking those thoughts, and just being okay with what's happening? Yeah, that's a rough headspace to get into, but she's a very damaged person who's been hurt badly by people just like this, to a degree that basically no one in this era can really understand. Even Tel got the comfort of going through the fall of their age thinking those people deserved what he was helping do to them.
ClawClawBite
Mad Engineering!
- Location
- Seattle, WA
I wonder how the other channelers out there will react when they hear about this. It opens up some new possibilities that the others might find interesting.
Funnily enough I'd think that the Windfinders and Wise Ones would be too arrogant to think they needed a treaty with the White Tower, although the Sea Folk do like agreements. The Kin obviously wouldn't ever dare to see themselves as equals to the aes sedai. The damane don't get a say.
ClawClawBite
Mad Engineering!
- Location
- Seattle, WA
I was thinking that some of the kin would see this as a second chance, and want to try a different way. The windfinders would at least wonder if they can use this to get out of ever sending anyone to the tower without the Bowl of Winds deal to make.
ScottotheUnwise
Verified Crack (fic) Dealer
- Location
- Mulberry, Fl
Mercy is a peacetime option, they are at war. What is the expected punishment for spies and saboteurs in wartime? Severing might be more in line of justice since it too is a death sentence, but uses up extra resources for no benefit to draw it out.
I wonder if Cadsuane's extended lifespan compared to other oath bound Aes Sedai has to do with the terangreal that unravels weaves blocking/mitigating the deleterious part of the oath?
I wonder if Cadsuane's extended lifespan compared to other oath bound Aes Sedai has to do with the terangreal that unravels weaves blocking/mitigating the deleterious part of the oath?
Interlude XXXIV - Dilemmas Moral and Otherwise Part 1
Interlude XXXIV - Dilemmas Moral and Otherwise Part 1
Siuan let out a breath as she returned to the privacy of her office. The day had been a huge success all in all. The oath rod was restored to her, the curse of the Black Ajah had been dealt with, if not everywhere, then at least among her own people. Every aes sedai in her faction would be reswearing the three oaths in front of witnesses and that would deal with any further members.
The Tower was also reunited. Elaida's declaration would see to that. What was left of it anyway.
What to do with her was the question, the fury that Siuan still felt at the thought of Leane and what had been done to the Tower coursed through her, but Taija, damn her, had had a point. Was it worth expending political capital to save Elaida's miserable hide or should she hang it up to dry amidst the nets?
A decision for later, for now she needed to finish assigning the teams that would be going out to snatch those members of the Black Ajah that they knew the location of. Hopefully it would be before any warning could reach them. She had been tempted to ask for Taija's help with that, no doubt the woman would have given it without hesitation. She had wondered how she would react to the executions, some of her views really were quite soft, but they had not seemed to trouble her in the slightest. Perhaps unsurprising given her attitude to darkfriends.
There was also the return to the White Tower to organise. Light only knew what kind of condition it had been left in. It was difficult, owing so much to a woman who was so thoroughly and deeply irritating. If Taija could spend a few years as a novice, for seasoning, it would be to the benefit of everybody. It truly was a pity Taija had turned down her offer of joining the Tower. Her views were naive, but they had their strengths. If they could be combined with the strengths of the White Tower both they and the world would benefit from it. Sadly that was no longer a viable prospect.
========
Demandred looked Taim over, resisting the urge to sneer. There was no point in being unnecessarily unpleasant to subordinates, no matter how unimpressive he found them. The man had not failed him, even if he was not living up to what Demandred had hoped was his potential. Still, this would solve things one way or another. Taim would deal with a thorn in the Shadow's side and start to rise in its ranks. Or he would fail, in which case he would be suitably punished by Demandred. Or die making the attempt of course.
"You have your orders." He saw Taim's mouth start to open, anticipated the protest. "I am not sending you to die pointlessly, take this." Demandred reached into his pocket and pulled out a thin golden bracelet, dancing figures etched into it. "This is an angreal, do you know what that is?"
Taim's eyes widened. "I do." Good, the ignorant barbarian was not completely ignorant.
"Very well. I am not sending you on a suicide mission, I expect you to succeed. Do so and you will be rewarded, fail and I will make you wish you had died. Are we clear?"
Taim nodded spasmodically. Good. With the angreal and surprise on his side Taim should be able to succeed. It was infuriating how rare the things were in this time, but his own one was stronger and he would rather a subordinate like Taim had it than a real threat like Moridin.
========
Elaida knelt in front of the Hall of the Tower, eyes downcast. She had not been present while her fate was discussed, but when she had been brought in she had been able to see from the hard faces of the sitters that she had no friends in this room. Hardly a surprise. She doubted she had friends left anywhere. Ironic to think that the person who had shown the most concern over her continued existence in the last few days was someone she had publicly declared to be a darkfriend. Another misjudgment among so many.
Siuan stood from her chair. "Elaida do'Avriny a'Roihan, the Hall of the Tower has sat in judgment upon you. Tower law is clear, the only punishment for falsely claiming to be Amyrlin is stilling." Elaida felt her stomach clench. She had known this was the likely outcome, but had still hoped…
"However," hope sparked back to life in her heart, "there are extenuating circumstances. The Hall has discussed the matter, you were led astray by one of the Forsaken, deceived. The White Tower does not accept excuses, but in this case the Last Battle is coming. The Light cannot afford to throw away its servants. Therefore you will be allowed to continue to be aes sedai. This is subject to a number of conditions…"
Elaida was so relieved that she could barely hear the list of penances and restrictions that Siuan was setting out. She would not be stilled! She would be able to serve the Light! It was enough. Certainly more than she deserved.
========
Siuan looked up at the Tower for the first time in over a year. It looked… battered. Burn marks traced their way up it, the walls of the courtyard she was stood in were simply gone in places. Worst of all was the hole bored straight through it, as if it was a simple block of wood at the carpenter's. Still, it was home and it was hers once more. The White Flame of Tar Valon would fly again.
Maigan came up to her, looking grim. "It is as we had feared. The Black Ajah emptied the angreal and sa'angreal stores. We think a number of the ter'angreal are missing too, but there are too many for us to have a full accounting. I will let you know once we have that."
Fish guts. "I suppose it would have been too much to hope for that the blacks would have left those behind for us. We shall have to make to do, as ever. What is important is that we are home and the White Tower stands."
She had a lot of work to do. Logistics, organisation, reestablishing control over the city, finding out what else was gone. There were also raisings to be done. Two accepted to test and raise, plus Padaul of course, although he would be excused the testing. A number of novices would need to be tested to become accepted too. That was just the day to day business of the Tower, of course she also had to think about the future, the war with the Shadow.
=======
Aleksi sat back and took a long gulp of water as he watched Lan and Tel spar. They circled each other, eyes never wavering, as they took slow steps to the side. Then suddenly Lan moved, striking almost too fast for Aleksi to follow. Tel's sword was already there though, deflecting the slash. The cracks of their training swords impacting on each other echoed across the training ground as they exchanged a blindingly fast flurry of blows. Then they were apart, circling each other as if nothing had happened.
Again they came together and split apart and again, neither able to score a blow. It was fascinating to watch. Taija had mentioned that Tel had been one of the best alive in her time, famous around the world for his skills. Aleksi could certainly believe it. Impressively, Lan seemed to be a relatively even match for him. While neither was trying to kill the other, there was a definite tension there. Nothing like the relaxed friendliness that Tel gave off when he trained with Aleksi. Nothing to be done there. Lan was more than justified in his dislike.
Over the next few minutes each scored a few times on the other. Tel always said that if you won all the time when you were sparring then you had learnt nothing from the bout, so hopefully they both felt they'd learnt something. When they decided they had had enough of their spar, they both bowed to each other. Lan's bow was perfectly calculated politeness, not an inch lower than required. Tel gave him a lower bow though, the man did try Light damn him.
As Lan stalked off Aleksi saw the momentary tightening of Tel's eyes the distant look. He must be lonely, in his position. Of course the initiates all looked up to him, but other than that, as far as Aleksi could tell, the only people who would willingly spend their free time with him were Taija, Rand and oddly enough Bennae.
It was still far more than he deserved. Obviously. Aleksi's sympathy for a man who had done what Tel had done was more than limited. However, it still hit him occasionally, when Tel would let some sign of his feelings slip through his cheerful mask. He was clearly a tormented man.
Aleksi got to his feet. "A quick round, me with my staff you with your sword?"
Tel jumped, refocusing on Aleksi and giving him a smile. All signs of his previous mien gone. "Of course, just something light though. Lan's so good it's exhausting."
"Absolutely." Aleksi grabbed his staff and strode out into the ring. They both bowed to each other, at least there was no tension there.
Aleksi made the first move, leaping forward sweeping the tip of his staff towards Tel's head, before reversing the swing to attack his legs with the other end. Tel effortlessly leant out of the way before forcing Aleksi back with a flurry of blows. "Nice, but you'll have to be sneakier than that Aleksi!"
"You did ask me to go easy on you didn't you?"
"Ha!" Tel's sword flickered out, lightning fast, probing for openings in his defences.
As they settled into rhythm, circling, maneuvering and exchanging blows with each other, Aleksi sighed internally. Tel had proven he was trustworthy, he was probably the third most important single person to the forces of the Light and he made Taija happy after everything she'd gone through. Did usefulness absolve someone of their sins? Could good actions wash away someone's past? He ducked under a blow and jabbed out with his staff, hooking it behind one of Tel's ankles and nearly taking him off his feet.
"Oh very good!" Tel backed off and then seemed to somehow slide past Aleksi's whirling staff, slipping into his space and hooking an ankle with his foot before pushing him to the ground.
With a grunt Aleksi took Tel's extended hand and hauled himself back to his feet. "I still don't understand how you can move so fast."
"Decades upon decades of practice. Something for you to look forward to."
"Huh. I suppose I can." Tel was tolerated, but everyone who knew his secret kept their distance from him. He could see the pain it caused the man, but he could also see that Tel was never going to utter a word of complaint, even as it ground him down. Was forgiveness even possible? A normal life? Even if people did forgive him, did that mean they had to welcome him?
It was a conundrum. Ultimately he was no philosopher, leave that to people better suited for it. If Tel was doing his best, and he was, then that was a start. More importantly, he made Taija smile every day. If she had decided that Tel deserved to be not just tolerated, but welcomed, then maybe that should be enough for him too. He'd leave the moral conundrums to people who actually enjoyed them.
"So, Tel, how exactly did you start with learning the sword? I thought your time was meant to be peaceful with no fighting at all until the Bore?"
Perhaps he could learn something he could use for revenge on Taija too. He owed her for Melinn, in both senses of the word. Helping Taija's lover and finding some way to get back at her at the same time would be perfect.
Siuan let out a breath as she returned to the privacy of her office. The day had been a huge success all in all. The oath rod was restored to her, the curse of the Black Ajah had been dealt with, if not everywhere, then at least among her own people. Every aes sedai in her faction would be reswearing the three oaths in front of witnesses and that would deal with any further members.
The Tower was also reunited. Elaida's declaration would see to that. What was left of it anyway.
What to do with her was the question, the fury that Siuan still felt at the thought of Leane and what had been done to the Tower coursed through her, but Taija, damn her, had had a point. Was it worth expending political capital to save Elaida's miserable hide or should she hang it up to dry amidst the nets?
A decision for later, for now she needed to finish assigning the teams that would be going out to snatch those members of the Black Ajah that they knew the location of. Hopefully it would be before any warning could reach them. She had been tempted to ask for Taija's help with that, no doubt the woman would have given it without hesitation. She had wondered how she would react to the executions, some of her views really were quite soft, but they had not seemed to trouble her in the slightest. Perhaps unsurprising given her attitude to darkfriends.
There was also the return to the White Tower to organise. Light only knew what kind of condition it had been left in. It was difficult, owing so much to a woman who was so thoroughly and deeply irritating. If Taija could spend a few years as a novice, for seasoning, it would be to the benefit of everybody. It truly was a pity Taija had turned down her offer of joining the Tower. Her views were naive, but they had their strengths. If they could be combined with the strengths of the White Tower both they and the world would benefit from it. Sadly that was no longer a viable prospect.
========
Demandred looked Taim over, resisting the urge to sneer. There was no point in being unnecessarily unpleasant to subordinates, no matter how unimpressive he found them. The man had not failed him, even if he was not living up to what Demandred had hoped was his potential. Still, this would solve things one way or another. Taim would deal with a thorn in the Shadow's side and start to rise in its ranks. Or he would fail, in which case he would be suitably punished by Demandred. Or die making the attempt of course.
"You have your orders." He saw Taim's mouth start to open, anticipated the protest. "I am not sending you to die pointlessly, take this." Demandred reached into his pocket and pulled out a thin golden bracelet, dancing figures etched into it. "This is an angreal, do you know what that is?"
Taim's eyes widened. "I do." Good, the ignorant barbarian was not completely ignorant.
"Very well. I am not sending you on a suicide mission, I expect you to succeed. Do so and you will be rewarded, fail and I will make you wish you had died. Are we clear?"
Taim nodded spasmodically. Good. With the angreal and surprise on his side Taim should be able to succeed. It was infuriating how rare the things were in this time, but his own one was stronger and he would rather a subordinate like Taim had it than a real threat like Moridin.
========
Elaida knelt in front of the Hall of the Tower, eyes downcast. She had not been present while her fate was discussed, but when she had been brought in she had been able to see from the hard faces of the sitters that she had no friends in this room. Hardly a surprise. She doubted she had friends left anywhere. Ironic to think that the person who had shown the most concern over her continued existence in the last few days was someone she had publicly declared to be a darkfriend. Another misjudgment among so many.
Siuan stood from her chair. "Elaida do'Avriny a'Roihan, the Hall of the Tower has sat in judgment upon you. Tower law is clear, the only punishment for falsely claiming to be Amyrlin is stilling." Elaida felt her stomach clench. She had known this was the likely outcome, but had still hoped…
"However," hope sparked back to life in her heart, "there are extenuating circumstances. The Hall has discussed the matter, you were led astray by one of the Forsaken, deceived. The White Tower does not accept excuses, but in this case the Last Battle is coming. The Light cannot afford to throw away its servants. Therefore you will be allowed to continue to be aes sedai. This is subject to a number of conditions…"
Elaida was so relieved that she could barely hear the list of penances and restrictions that Siuan was setting out. She would not be stilled! She would be able to serve the Light! It was enough. Certainly more than she deserved.
========
Siuan looked up at the Tower for the first time in over a year. It looked… battered. Burn marks traced their way up it, the walls of the courtyard she was stood in were simply gone in places. Worst of all was the hole bored straight through it, as if it was a simple block of wood at the carpenter's. Still, it was home and it was hers once more. The White Flame of Tar Valon would fly again.
Maigan came up to her, looking grim. "It is as we had feared. The Black Ajah emptied the angreal and sa'angreal stores. We think a number of the ter'angreal are missing too, but there are too many for us to have a full accounting. I will let you know once we have that."
Fish guts. "I suppose it would have been too much to hope for that the blacks would have left those behind for us. We shall have to make to do, as ever. What is important is that we are home and the White Tower stands."
She had a lot of work to do. Logistics, organisation, reestablishing control over the city, finding out what else was gone. There were also raisings to be done. Two accepted to test and raise, plus Padaul of course, although he would be excused the testing. A number of novices would need to be tested to become accepted too. That was just the day to day business of the Tower, of course she also had to think about the future, the war with the Shadow.
=======
Aleksi sat back and took a long gulp of water as he watched Lan and Tel spar. They circled each other, eyes never wavering, as they took slow steps to the side. Then suddenly Lan moved, striking almost too fast for Aleksi to follow. Tel's sword was already there though, deflecting the slash. The cracks of their training swords impacting on each other echoed across the training ground as they exchanged a blindingly fast flurry of blows. Then they were apart, circling each other as if nothing had happened.
Again they came together and split apart and again, neither able to score a blow. It was fascinating to watch. Taija had mentioned that Tel had been one of the best alive in her time, famous around the world for his skills. Aleksi could certainly believe it. Impressively, Lan seemed to be a relatively even match for him. While neither was trying to kill the other, there was a definite tension there. Nothing like the relaxed friendliness that Tel gave off when he trained with Aleksi. Nothing to be done there. Lan was more than justified in his dislike.
Over the next few minutes each scored a few times on the other. Tel always said that if you won all the time when you were sparring then you had learnt nothing from the bout, so hopefully they both felt they'd learnt something. When they decided they had had enough of their spar, they both bowed to each other. Lan's bow was perfectly calculated politeness, not an inch lower than required. Tel gave him a lower bow though, the man did try Light damn him.
As Lan stalked off Aleksi saw the momentary tightening of Tel's eyes the distant look. He must be lonely, in his position. Of course the initiates all looked up to him, but other than that, as far as Aleksi could tell, the only people who would willingly spend their free time with him were Taija, Rand and oddly enough Bennae.
It was still far more than he deserved. Obviously. Aleksi's sympathy for a man who had done what Tel had done was more than limited. However, it still hit him occasionally, when Tel would let some sign of his feelings slip through his cheerful mask. He was clearly a tormented man.
Aleksi got to his feet. "A quick round, me with my staff you with your sword?"
Tel jumped, refocusing on Aleksi and giving him a smile. All signs of his previous mien gone. "Of course, just something light though. Lan's so good it's exhausting."
"Absolutely." Aleksi grabbed his staff and strode out into the ring. They both bowed to each other, at least there was no tension there.
Aleksi made the first move, leaping forward sweeping the tip of his staff towards Tel's head, before reversing the swing to attack his legs with the other end. Tel effortlessly leant out of the way before forcing Aleksi back with a flurry of blows. "Nice, but you'll have to be sneakier than that Aleksi!"
"You did ask me to go easy on you didn't you?"
"Ha!" Tel's sword flickered out, lightning fast, probing for openings in his defences.
As they settled into rhythm, circling, maneuvering and exchanging blows with each other, Aleksi sighed internally. Tel had proven he was trustworthy, he was probably the third most important single person to the forces of the Light and he made Taija happy after everything she'd gone through. Did usefulness absolve someone of their sins? Could good actions wash away someone's past? He ducked under a blow and jabbed out with his staff, hooking it behind one of Tel's ankles and nearly taking him off his feet.
"Oh very good!" Tel backed off and then seemed to somehow slide past Aleksi's whirling staff, slipping into his space and hooking an ankle with his foot before pushing him to the ground.
With a grunt Aleksi took Tel's extended hand and hauled himself back to his feet. "I still don't understand how you can move so fast."
"Decades upon decades of practice. Something for you to look forward to."
"Huh. I suppose I can." Tel was tolerated, but everyone who knew his secret kept their distance from him. He could see the pain it caused the man, but he could also see that Tel was never going to utter a word of complaint, even as it ground him down. Was forgiveness even possible? A normal life? Even if people did forgive him, did that mean they had to welcome him?
It was a conundrum. Ultimately he was no philosopher, leave that to people better suited for it. If Tel was doing his best, and he was, then that was a start. More importantly, he made Taija smile every day. If she had decided that Tel deserved to be not just tolerated, but welcomed, then maybe that should be enough for him too. He'd leave the moral conundrums to people who actually enjoyed them.
"So, Tel, how exactly did you start with learning the sword? I thought your time was meant to be peaceful with no fighting at all until the Bore?"
Perhaps he could learn something he could use for revenge on Taija too. He owed her for Melinn, in both senses of the word. Helping Taija's lover and finding some way to get back at her at the same time would be perfect.
Forgiveness of past transgressions, what a singularly poignant plot point. As a man whose faith is particularly important to him, with family members who have committed rather grievous crimes, that is a question frequently on my mind, and is likely why I have no problem feeling empathy for Tel.
That's why I always root for him.
That's why I always root for him.
Interlude XXXV - Dilemmas Moral and Otherwise Part II
As usual all speech in italics is in the Old Tongue.
Interlude XXXV - Dilemmas Moral and Otherwise Part II
Mazrim Taim stalked back into the Hall, the scowl on his face ensuring that no one tried to speak to him. Not that many people there would have wanted to anyway. It seemed that his time there was almost up. Demandred's orders had been clear, he had a few days to look for the right opportunity, but if it did not present itself he was to act anyway. If he was a softer man he would have shivered at the thought of the punishments Demandred would inflict for failure.
He scowled harder. Why had the Light forsaken him the way it had? He just wanted to be strong enough to survive, not to be forced to choose between naive fools who had no idea how to even use their strength and outright evil. He cast a contemptuous look at a group of laughing initiates. They would learn, sooner or later. Probably sooner. The world was not a bright or happy place, it would betray them, chew them up and spit them out. The same way it had him.
What did he really want? He could not answer that question, not even in the privacy of his own head because he did not know. Did he want to rule over a world dominated by the Shadow? Not particularly, but he would rather do that than die, particularly at Demandred's hands. Did he want to be aes sedai, serve under, or even with, Taija and Tel? Not in the slightest.
With a growl of frustration he turned towards Noruan's rooms. He should at least say goodbye to the man before he did anything.
======
Noruan sat, staring at the wall, as Nynaeve sedai muttered to herself. He hated having to sit here while she or Damer experimented on him, it was just yet another reminder of what he had lost, of the gaping hole inside him. He knew it was pointless to try to heal it, everyone knew that. However, there was little point in telling her to stop, he had nothing better to do other than sit there and wait to die, he might as well let her indulge herself. He wasn't sure he was brave enough to tell her no anyway.
He wasn't sure how long he'd put up with her poking when his door slammed open and Mazrim stalked in, looking even more thunderously moody than usual. It still made his heart skip a beat when he saw him. The only person he truly believed cared about him now, it would be hard to just keep on disappointing him.
Nynaeve sedai's eyebrows rose at Mazrim's rude entrance. As soon as their eyes met he gave a shallow bow. "My apologies, I had not realised Noruan was busy."
Mazrim turned to leave, but stopped when Nynaeve sedai called out, "wait! I was just about done anyway, I'll leave you in peace. Thank you Noruan." She gave him a small bow before gathering her skirts and headed for the door.
Mazrim hesitated and then, to Noruan's relief, didn't follow after her. Instead he advanced further into the room before collapsing bonelessly onto the bed, his customary scowl etched even deeper than usual onto his face as he stared at the ceiling for long seconds.
Noruan was about to say something, anything to break the silence when Mazrim spoke. "Do you ever wonder why life treats us so poorly? You know, when the white Tower gentles a man, they say that that the Creator has turned his eyes from them for channeling. I often wonder whether that was true."
Noruan winced at the memory that brought, uncontrollable shivers running through him. Hard faced aes sedai staring down at him, that tearing feeling.
Mazrim didn't seem to notice. "Everything we do, the world acts against us. We seek peace and we are rewarded with suffering. Even when we try to avoid it, the Wheel drags us back onto the path of disaster."
He needed to stop shivering, Mazrim despised weakness and the last thing Noruan wanted was for him to stop visiting. He couldn't though, more and more memories, the joy of saidin, those aes sedai, death all around him.
"You try to be a better person and the world spits it back into your face. In the end all that matters is strength and even then you find that that is not enough."
There was clearly something bothering Mazrim, this was not at all normal for him. Noruan tried again to force himself to calm down. "Y y you're the strongest person I know Mazrim."
That got him a short, cold laugh. "If only you knew Noruan, if only you knew."
=========
"… and then he was just ready to go again."
Egwene reminded herself not to look too wide-eyed at Nynaeve's story. "Well… It seems that married life is agreeing with you." What in the Light had happened to the woman? She was normally so prudish and now she was just boastful. Was having a husband truly that exciting? To be honest, she didn't really want to hear it at all, but the woman seemed desperate to tell people.
"Hello girls, what's up?" Egwene saw Nynaeve wince out of the corner of her eye as Taija seemed to appear from nowhere. Perhaps this would be an opportunity to get Nynaeve to shut up about Lan's prowess.
"Oh Nynaeve was just telling me about what she and Lan had been getting up to. Apparently she's been having all kinds of creative adventures, being married is letting her do things that would make a tavern girl blush!"
Egwene happily ignored the utterly betrayed look in Nynaeve's eyes as Taija suddenly looked interested. "Oh really? How fascinating, what sort of things?"
Nynaeve looked like she might wilt for a second, but then she gathered herself, some of her pride returning. "Well, there was this one thing he does that I don't think anyone else knows how to…" Egwene tuned out the boastful repetition, instead watching Taija nod, her eyes widening.
"Gosh. Well I'm glad you're having fun. Lan must be very creative. What do young people get up to these days, eh Egwene?"
Nynaeve preened, failing to see the obvious trap in her pride. "Well we even…"
Taija interrupted her. "Yes, that's very cute. You know we had a book in my time all about this sort of thing, I once went through the whole thing over the course of a couple of months." She looked distant as she often did when she talked about the past. "Maybe I should try to rewrite it? Anyway there was one thing that I think you'd like…" Egwene listened wide eyed as Taija descended into absolute filth and Nynaeve slowly tried to curl into a ball while her eyes darted frantically, looking for a way to escape.
Hopefully the bloody woman would shut up about Lan after this. Still, some of the ideas were interesting. Hadn't Rand just returned Galad and Gawyn to Caemlyn?
=========
Bennae tutted to herself as Egwene looked over the weave she had just produced with a critical eye. "Not bad Bennae, but you still need to work on the precision of your flows." The light of saidar brightened around her and she wove a fine net of spirit. "The exercise I found helped me most was to make a simple net and then try to reduce the amount of Power I put into each individual flow. Doing that again and again helped, but ultimately it was just a matter of practice." Advice given the girl moved on to the next aspirant.
Bennae suppressed the irritation that ran through her at being corrected by a girl who had not even been able to channel two years ago. Fortunately she was good at concealing her feelings. She had made a decision and she would follow through on it. The fact that Egwene clearly could weave with more precision than her did not help her mood, but it did help her to accept the situation. She was still aes sedai, of course, but she could accept her temporarily reduced status for now, in the knowledge that if she really wanted to she could walk away at any time and continue to call herself aes sedai.
Anyway, there were benefits. She felt decades younger already, the ageless look had faded from her face within a couple of days, but what was more interesting was what had replaced it. She now looked like a woman comfortably into her middle years, rather than someone staring their impending death of old age in the eye. That alone was worth all number of sacrifices.
Shortly afterwards Egwene dismissed the class and they filed away. Bennae followed after them. While the other aspirants were friendly, it was a polite, distant friendliness. They had not forgotten that she was aes sedai, Tower aes sedai at that, and they did not truly treat her as one of them. It was probably a good thing, she was most likely three or four times the age of the next oldest. Still, it did make life a little less interesting.
With the completion of the class her own timetable for the day was finished, which was fortunate as she had plans for the evening. Tel was ever such a lonely man, behind the facade he put up. Quite vulnerable to a sympathetic ear. It was fascinating to see the weaknesses in a former Forsaken's personality. Since Taija was off doing the Creator knew what that evening it gave her an opportunity to further her own plans.
That was why that evening Bennae found herself stepping through Tel's gateway into Caemlyn and making her way into a well kept inn with him. To think, drinking with one of the Forsaken!
She still had not decided whether she approved of him or not. Of course Taija, the Light blasted woman, had circumvented her careful plans in that regard by taking matters into her own hands. There was nothing to be done about that. One thing she had quickly learnt about Taija, once she was not bound by the need to pretend to be someone else, was that she would largely do what she wanted and seemed to sub-consciously expect the rest of the world to work around it.
Bennae clinked her goblet against Tel's and took a sip of her ale. It was not bad, not bad at all. There was a reason she had chosen this place. Tel in turn took a long pull of his own. "So did you hear about what Naelia said to the Illianer lord on the most recent mission there?"
"No?" He leant in slightly, "but I'm sure you're going to tell me."
The man was an inveterate gossip, not so far off Taija when she was feeling sufficiently relaxed. Bennae did wonder whether it was something common to their time, or just a characteristic that they shared.
"Well there is a young lord there who she has caught the eye of. When he expressed his interest in her, very romantically might I add, she informed him that she hoped he did not think she was impressed by his title and that real men earnt their position and she looked forward to hearing why he thought he was worthy beyond having fancy parents the next time she visited." Sometimes she worried about the ideas Taija was putting in these people's heads.
"Oh Light. Children."
"Indeed." She allowed herself to share a smile with him before taking another drink. At least he was entertaining company and should she decide he was unworthy of Taija, well it would make things easier if he trusted her.
========
Empress Fortuona Athaem Devi Paendrag smiled to herself as the high lord retreated backwards from the throne room. The damage wrought by the marath'damane had almost been the downfall of the Empire, but it now stood united once more. The rebel lords had been put down. The last of her siblings was no longer among the living and the Empire stood united once more. Just as importantly, it could never happen again. Now everyone of any importance was subjected to a slicing weave by a damane on a regular basis, by order of the Crystal Throne. There would be no more hidden marath'damane walking among them.
It was time to turn her mind back to the Return. The Empire needed a cause to unite it after all. This time though… there would be no slow, dangerous crossing of the sea. No, the damane Lina, before her unfortunate disappearance, had given the Empire a great gift.
========
Egwene focused on need once more. This summer was unnatural. If it continued for much longer half the world would die from drought. There must be a solution.
The world moved around her. A city, interesting. Canals, architecture she didn't recognise. Unless… It did look rather like the descriptions she'd heard of Ebou Dar. She focused on need again and the world shifted. A run down street.
One more time, she was inside a decrepit room, chests full of objects around her. One last time. Her hand descended onto a chest, opening it to reveal an ornate bowl. A ter'angreal. It must be. She would need to go outside, to try to memorise the location and check that this was in fact Ebou Dar, then she would let Taija know what she'd found.
Interlude XXXV - Dilemmas Moral and Otherwise Part II
Mazrim Taim stalked back into the Hall, the scowl on his face ensuring that no one tried to speak to him. Not that many people there would have wanted to anyway. It seemed that his time there was almost up. Demandred's orders had been clear, he had a few days to look for the right opportunity, but if it did not present itself he was to act anyway. If he was a softer man he would have shivered at the thought of the punishments Demandred would inflict for failure.
He scowled harder. Why had the Light forsaken him the way it had? He just wanted to be strong enough to survive, not to be forced to choose between naive fools who had no idea how to even use their strength and outright evil. He cast a contemptuous look at a group of laughing initiates. They would learn, sooner or later. Probably sooner. The world was not a bright or happy place, it would betray them, chew them up and spit them out. The same way it had him.
What did he really want? He could not answer that question, not even in the privacy of his own head because he did not know. Did he want to rule over a world dominated by the Shadow? Not particularly, but he would rather do that than die, particularly at Demandred's hands. Did he want to be aes sedai, serve under, or even with, Taija and Tel? Not in the slightest.
With a growl of frustration he turned towards Noruan's rooms. He should at least say goodbye to the man before he did anything.
======
Noruan sat, staring at the wall, as Nynaeve sedai muttered to herself. He hated having to sit here while she or Damer experimented on him, it was just yet another reminder of what he had lost, of the gaping hole inside him. He knew it was pointless to try to heal it, everyone knew that. However, there was little point in telling her to stop, he had nothing better to do other than sit there and wait to die, he might as well let her indulge herself. He wasn't sure he was brave enough to tell her no anyway.
He wasn't sure how long he'd put up with her poking when his door slammed open and Mazrim stalked in, looking even more thunderously moody than usual. It still made his heart skip a beat when he saw him. The only person he truly believed cared about him now, it would be hard to just keep on disappointing him.
Nynaeve sedai's eyebrows rose at Mazrim's rude entrance. As soon as their eyes met he gave a shallow bow. "My apologies, I had not realised Noruan was busy."
Mazrim turned to leave, but stopped when Nynaeve sedai called out, "wait! I was just about done anyway, I'll leave you in peace. Thank you Noruan." She gave him a small bow before gathering her skirts and headed for the door.
Mazrim hesitated and then, to Noruan's relief, didn't follow after her. Instead he advanced further into the room before collapsing bonelessly onto the bed, his customary scowl etched even deeper than usual onto his face as he stared at the ceiling for long seconds.
Noruan was about to say something, anything to break the silence when Mazrim spoke. "Do you ever wonder why life treats us so poorly? You know, when the white Tower gentles a man, they say that that the Creator has turned his eyes from them for channeling. I often wonder whether that was true."
Noruan winced at the memory that brought, uncontrollable shivers running through him. Hard faced aes sedai staring down at him, that tearing feeling.
Mazrim didn't seem to notice. "Everything we do, the world acts against us. We seek peace and we are rewarded with suffering. Even when we try to avoid it, the Wheel drags us back onto the path of disaster."
He needed to stop shivering, Mazrim despised weakness and the last thing Noruan wanted was for him to stop visiting. He couldn't though, more and more memories, the joy of saidin, those aes sedai, death all around him.
"You try to be a better person and the world spits it back into your face. In the end all that matters is strength and even then you find that that is not enough."
There was clearly something bothering Mazrim, this was not at all normal for him. Noruan tried again to force himself to calm down. "Y y you're the strongest person I know Mazrim."
That got him a short, cold laugh. "If only you knew Noruan, if only you knew."
=========
"… and then he was just ready to go again."
Egwene reminded herself not to look too wide-eyed at Nynaeve's story. "Well… It seems that married life is agreeing with you." What in the Light had happened to the woman? She was normally so prudish and now she was just boastful. Was having a husband truly that exciting? To be honest, she didn't really want to hear it at all, but the woman seemed desperate to tell people.
"Hello girls, what's up?" Egwene saw Nynaeve wince out of the corner of her eye as Taija seemed to appear from nowhere. Perhaps this would be an opportunity to get Nynaeve to shut up about Lan's prowess.
"Oh Nynaeve was just telling me about what she and Lan had been getting up to. Apparently she's been having all kinds of creative adventures, being married is letting her do things that would make a tavern girl blush!"
Egwene happily ignored the utterly betrayed look in Nynaeve's eyes as Taija suddenly looked interested. "Oh really? How fascinating, what sort of things?"
Nynaeve looked like she might wilt for a second, but then she gathered herself, some of her pride returning. "Well, there was this one thing he does that I don't think anyone else knows how to…" Egwene tuned out the boastful repetition, instead watching Taija nod, her eyes widening.
"Gosh. Well I'm glad you're having fun. Lan must be very creative. What do young people get up to these days, eh Egwene?"
Nynaeve preened, failing to see the obvious trap in her pride. "Well we even…"
Taija interrupted her. "Yes, that's very cute. You know we had a book in my time all about this sort of thing, I once went through the whole thing over the course of a couple of months." She looked distant as she often did when she talked about the past. "Maybe I should try to rewrite it? Anyway there was one thing that I think you'd like…" Egwene listened wide eyed as Taija descended into absolute filth and Nynaeve slowly tried to curl into a ball while her eyes darted frantically, looking for a way to escape.
Hopefully the bloody woman would shut up about Lan after this. Still, some of the ideas were interesting. Hadn't Rand just returned Galad and Gawyn to Caemlyn?
=========
Bennae tutted to herself as Egwene looked over the weave she had just produced with a critical eye. "Not bad Bennae, but you still need to work on the precision of your flows." The light of saidar brightened around her and she wove a fine net of spirit. "The exercise I found helped me most was to make a simple net and then try to reduce the amount of Power I put into each individual flow. Doing that again and again helped, but ultimately it was just a matter of practice." Advice given the girl moved on to the next aspirant.
Bennae suppressed the irritation that ran through her at being corrected by a girl who had not even been able to channel two years ago. Fortunately she was good at concealing her feelings. She had made a decision and she would follow through on it. The fact that Egwene clearly could weave with more precision than her did not help her mood, but it did help her to accept the situation. She was still aes sedai, of course, but she could accept her temporarily reduced status for now, in the knowledge that if she really wanted to she could walk away at any time and continue to call herself aes sedai.
Anyway, there were benefits. She felt decades younger already, the ageless look had faded from her face within a couple of days, but what was more interesting was what had replaced it. She now looked like a woman comfortably into her middle years, rather than someone staring their impending death of old age in the eye. That alone was worth all number of sacrifices.
Shortly afterwards Egwene dismissed the class and they filed away. Bennae followed after them. While the other aspirants were friendly, it was a polite, distant friendliness. They had not forgotten that she was aes sedai, Tower aes sedai at that, and they did not truly treat her as one of them. It was probably a good thing, she was most likely three or four times the age of the next oldest. Still, it did make life a little less interesting.
With the completion of the class her own timetable for the day was finished, which was fortunate as she had plans for the evening. Tel was ever such a lonely man, behind the facade he put up. Quite vulnerable to a sympathetic ear. It was fascinating to see the weaknesses in a former Forsaken's personality. Since Taija was off doing the Creator knew what that evening it gave her an opportunity to further her own plans.
That was why that evening Bennae found herself stepping through Tel's gateway into Caemlyn and making her way into a well kept inn with him. To think, drinking with one of the Forsaken!
She still had not decided whether she approved of him or not. Of course Taija, the Light blasted woman, had circumvented her careful plans in that regard by taking matters into her own hands. There was nothing to be done about that. One thing she had quickly learnt about Taija, once she was not bound by the need to pretend to be someone else, was that she would largely do what she wanted and seemed to sub-consciously expect the rest of the world to work around it.
Bennae clinked her goblet against Tel's and took a sip of her ale. It was not bad, not bad at all. There was a reason she had chosen this place. Tel in turn took a long pull of his own. "So did you hear about what Naelia said to the Illianer lord on the most recent mission there?"
"No?" He leant in slightly, "but I'm sure you're going to tell me."
The man was an inveterate gossip, not so far off Taija when she was feeling sufficiently relaxed. Bennae did wonder whether it was something common to their time, or just a characteristic that they shared.
"Well there is a young lord there who she has caught the eye of. When he expressed his interest in her, very romantically might I add, she informed him that she hoped he did not think she was impressed by his title and that real men earnt their position and she looked forward to hearing why he thought he was worthy beyond having fancy parents the next time she visited." Sometimes she worried about the ideas Taija was putting in these people's heads.
"Oh Light. Children."
"Indeed." She allowed herself to share a smile with him before taking another drink. At least he was entertaining company and should she decide he was unworthy of Taija, well it would make things easier if he trusted her.
========
Empress Fortuona Athaem Devi Paendrag smiled to herself as the high lord retreated backwards from the throne room. The damage wrought by the marath'damane had almost been the downfall of the Empire, but it now stood united once more. The rebel lords had been put down. The last of her siblings was no longer among the living and the Empire stood united once more. Just as importantly, it could never happen again. Now everyone of any importance was subjected to a slicing weave by a damane on a regular basis, by order of the Crystal Throne. There would be no more hidden marath'damane walking among them.
It was time to turn her mind back to the Return. The Empire needed a cause to unite it after all. This time though… there would be no slow, dangerous crossing of the sea. No, the damane Lina, before her unfortunate disappearance, had given the Empire a great gift.
========
Egwene focused on need once more. This summer was unnatural. If it continued for much longer half the world would die from drought. There must be a solution.
The world moved around her. A city, interesting. Canals, architecture she didn't recognise. Unless… It did look rather like the descriptions she'd heard of Ebou Dar. She focused on need again and the world shifted. A run down street.
One more time, she was inside a decrepit room, chests full of objects around her. One last time. Her hand descended onto a chest, opening it to reveal an ornate bowl. A ter'angreal. It must be. She would need to go outside, to try to memorise the location and check that this was in fact Ebou Dar, then she would let Taija know what she'd found.
Or possibly just go "you know what, just go ahead you all cheat by literally having fate on your side anyway."
Chapter CIII - I Believe in Miracles
As usual all speech in italics is in the Old Tongue.
Chapter CIII - I Believe in Miracles
"So you think you've found a solution to the weather in the Unseen World?" Taija had known that there was something wrong with it, but with everything else on her mind she'd hardly had the mental attention to devote to looking for a solution. It was a relief that Egwene had gone off and taken the initiative. Yet another confirmation that she'd been right to promote her to aes sedai.
Egwene nodded. "I think it must be a ter'angreal of some kind, it looks like a large, glass bowl."
"Mmm. Perhaps a weather control ter'angreal? I don't think the ones from my time looked like that, but who knows. What I don't understand is how a single ter'angreal can change the weather for the whole planet. It took… Quite a lot." It was frustrating how little Taija could remember about the way her time dealt with weather control. Circles and ter'angreal certainly, each for a small region, but not what they actually looked like or how they worked. People sometimes seemed to believe she should know everything about her time, as if they could all be nobles, blacksmiths, seamstresses and farmers at the same time.
Egwene shrugged, "it's what the Unseen World led me to, so there must be a way."
"Yes, people now do seem to be a bit more skilled at manipulating weather." That had certainly been a surprise, not that it had stopped Taija from stealing their methods as soon as she saw them. "Perhaps it was made after I 'left' or it would work better with modern day weather-working skills."
"That would make sense, although it wasn't obvious how to use it just from looking at it."
"Well let's not get ahead of ourselves. Do you think you can find it in the real world?"
"I hope so," Egwene looked a bit unsure, "definitely with a bit of searching."
"Right, good. I think you should go to Ebou Dar then. Maybe with Elayne as well. She's been keen to get away from here recently."
Egwene nodded at that. "Of course, you probably can't spare any more than the two of us from the Hall's aes sedai, but we're enough to deal with most problems and will make a decent embassy to the Ebou Dari."
"Exactly. You can take angreals from our store for it too, that'll be enough to give anyone a nasty shock." They both shared a small smirk. "Make sure to keep them disguised though."
"Of course, thank you."
"No, thank you. I'd go myself, but…" Taija gestured vaguely around herself. "If you need help for whatever reason, then we'll be ready to intervene here too. Just come running and we can have twenty or thirty channelers in Ebou Dar in minutes. Now, back-up… If Elayne goes then Mat will go too and he's handy in a fight. You should probably have at least a couple of men from the Hall as well. Jaer's an aspirant now and very reliable as well as being able to fight. Take him. Have a think about whether you want any other aspirants and I'll think about it too. At least one decent healer. It would be good to get some proper outreach work done while you're out there."
It was funny to think of Egwene as the girl who'd tried to clumsily blackmail her in the White Tower so little time ago, when now Taija saw a young woman who she know she could rely on to be sensible, skilled and smart.
========
One thing that Taija had decided on after all of the excitement with the White Tower was that she needed to be putting more effort into developing the Hall and its initiates. They were progressing well. Frighteningly fast in some cases actually. She suppose it was in part because her, Tel and the rest were constantly pushing, but also people from the modern day were just more mature. They knew that they were in a war with the Shadow and, in many cases, that if they failed in the Hall then they had little to go back to. It wasn't the comfortable, almost luxurious world of her own training. It meant the initiates weren't relaxing or goofing off anywhere near as much as Taija would have expected, which was good. Still, there was more she could do.
Taija had a few ideas that she was going to be implementing over the next few weeks. Some larger exercises for one thing. She'd also been thinking about some of the things that she didn't have much talent in, but which could be tested for. Cuendillar, Ter'angreal, among other things. There were enough of them in the Hall that there must have been some interesting things going on that she hadn't spotted.
========
Taija was pulled away from the class she was teaching on inverting webs by the sound of a commotion nearby. She tried to ignore it, but it just seemed to be getting louder. In the end with an irritated growl Taija told the aspirants she'd be right back and headed off to investigate. A bit of boisterousness was one thing, but this commotion was too much. Of course her class trailed after her, because obviously.
Taija quickly came across a crowd of initiates excitedly shouting to each other. "What's going on? Quieten down!" Only the ones nearest to her even heard her. After a moment Taija spun a web to amplify her voice. "What's going on? Stop this racket!" Her voice boomed out and was rapidly followed by silence.
They made way for her as she moved to the centre of the crowd. There Taija saw Eben and Noruan both standing there, tears shining in their eyes, slightly embarrassed aspirants and initiates stood awkwardly around them.
"What's going on?" Taija asked again, moderating her voice. If they'd been doing something to those poor boys, there were going to be problems.
It was Eben that answered, no sadness at all in his voice despite the tears, just joy. "She did it! She actually did it!"
"Did what?"
"Healed us!" Words appeared in the air, spelling out his name. A basic exercise, but…
"Oh Light she actually did it!" Taija felt a grin growing on her face, suddenly all the noise seemed more than understandable, she wanted to join in. "That's incredible! I'm so happy for both of you! We'll need to celebrate, this… This is incredible." In her time Nynaeve would have deserved a third name for rediscovering proper healing. If fourth names were a thing she'd have deserved one for this. Light even Damer as her assistant might get a third name too for something that big. It was almost unbelievable. There'd need to be a celebration. It was huge news. Whatever twist of the pattern delivered Nynaeve into Taija's hands she could only thank the Creator for it.
=========
It didn't take Taija long to find Nynaeve and Damer, they'd hidden themselves away in her office. Presumably to escape all the congratulations. Well tough luck to them, she was going to see them anyway.
Taija knocked on the door and then went in. "Nynaeve, you're incredible! I thought it was impossible, I was wrong. I'm just… speechless. No one figured anything out like that in my time, in thousands of years."
Nynaeve actually blusheed, it was the first time Taija had seen her do that. Well other than when she was being wound up about Lan. Nynaeve normally put up such a front. Even when Taija had rescued her from the Seanchan she'd managed to start trying to give orders. "Damer helped a lot actually. Really. I think if I hadn't done it he would have managed a day or two later, it was a team effort."
"Of course, Damer, everything I said to Nynaeve applies to you too." Taija hesitated and gave them both a low, deep bow of utmost respect. "The world is blessed by your presence."
They both managed to look more embarrassed. Taija needed to pull herself together and get over her amazement. "Alright, I'll stop praising you. For now. We'll still need to make a big thing of this, you deserve it and it'll be good for the Hall. We're going to need to celebrate and for the two of you… If it was my time you'd get third names for something like this. You see when someone did something sufficiently impressive they were awarded an additional name as a mark of honour, I suppose sort of like being made a lord or something, but without any money or power to go with it. Anyway if you want…"
Nynaeve interrupted her. "I've lived my life with two names and I'm perfectly happy with them thank you very much." A moment later she seemed to realise she might have been rude. "Of course, I thank you for the honour, but I'm not from your time so it doesn't really mean the same."
"Alright, that's fine, that makes sense." Taija was too happy to be offended. Damer?"
He just shrugged. "What Nynaeve said really, but thank you."
"Alright, no worries."
Nynaeve gave Taija a bit of a look. "I never really worked out why you always emphasised 'Miranen' before. Why didn't you tell us?"
It was Taija's turn to look a bit awkward. "Well it would have been very immodest to do that…"
"What did you get your third name for anyway then?" Taija could tell Nynaeve was trying to turn the conversation back on her out of embarrassment, but she'd let her do it this once.
=========
Eben and Helena burst into Taija's office, practically arm in arm, laughing happily and then saw her face and immediately sobered up, taking a step apart before giving her a low bow. "Taija sedai, you wanted to see us?"
Taija sat behind her desk, with Tel stood at her shoulder, and looked at Eben and Helena over steepled fingers. "Well Helena, I can only hope that you can apply your stubbornness to something more appropriate in future. While what you did to Eben is and was wrong, you've taken your punishment and it did undeniably help him to survive. Given that…" Taija needed to be reasonable she reminded herself, they were just kids. "Now that Eben is healed you can release his bond and we can move on from this sorry episode."
Taija had allowed Helena to return to classes and just do punishment duties during her free time after the first couple of weeks when it became clear she really was helping Eben and her temper had subsided a bit, but she'd still spent every free moment digging pointless holes. As had he really.
Helena hesitated, surely she wasn't going to argue?! Then, before she could speak, Eben looked at her, put his hand on her shoulder and she gasped, her eyes widening and then staring into his. Wait… Oh Light. He didn't…
"I can almost hear your thoughts…" Helena's voice trailed off. "Light it's incredible."
Taija buried her face in her hands. He did. For fuck's sake. She couldn't deal with this… This sheer stupidity. What the fuck was wrong with these people? While she was gathering her thoughts they were just staring lovingly into each other's eyes. For fuck's sake.
Eventually Taija managed to speak. "I… I don't really know what to say to the two of you at this point. You're both idiots." At least that pulled them away from each other. "But you know what, fuck it. Fine. You both want this, that much is clear. If I'm going to punish you until you stop being idiots you'll be digging holes for the rest of your lives and I don't have the patience for that. Eben, you insist you're an adult, I'm not sure I believe you, but whatever, fuck it. Helena, your punishment is over. Eben, I'm happy you're better. You'll both write an essay on informed consent and submit it to Tel sedai for assessment," Taija ignored Tel's betrayed look, "now just… both of you get out of my sight."
After they'd fled Tel gave her a smile, "they really are very cute though."
He was right, but Taija still gave him an unimpressed look. "You're not helping."
He just grinned. "You know Helena should really be an aspirant by now. She's clearly good enough and then at least she'd be allowed to be bonded."
Taija sighed. "I know, but… You know what? Fine. Let's promote her. Then let's send them with Egwene and Elayne to Ebou Dar. The girls can look after their education for a while and I won't need to think about them until they're back, by which point I might not want to strangle them anymore. There, perfect solution."
"Your wisdom is an inspiration to us all."
"Shut up Tel." She scowled fondly at him. "Speaking of promotions though, should we be starting to think about aes sedai."
At least he took that more seriously, pausing for a second to think. "Actually you may have a point. At least one or two of the men are there in terms of skill and others are getting close."
"Same for the women. Philosophically…"
Tel barked a laugh. "I'd never have thought you'd be able to get a load of peasants and teenagers to sit and listen to you pontificate on politics and philosophy, but it seems miracles do happen."
He just laughed at Taija's annoyed growl until it turned into laughter of her own. "Fine, you have a point."
"Apparently the secret is to beat people up in front of them."
"Ha! I do sometimes wonder whether there's something wrong with people from this time. I'm sure that's not how things used to work."
Chapter CIII - I Believe in Miracles
"So you think you've found a solution to the weather in the Unseen World?" Taija had known that there was something wrong with it, but with everything else on her mind she'd hardly had the mental attention to devote to looking for a solution. It was a relief that Egwene had gone off and taken the initiative. Yet another confirmation that she'd been right to promote her to aes sedai.
Egwene nodded. "I think it must be a ter'angreal of some kind, it looks like a large, glass bowl."
"Mmm. Perhaps a weather control ter'angreal? I don't think the ones from my time looked like that, but who knows. What I don't understand is how a single ter'angreal can change the weather for the whole planet. It took… Quite a lot." It was frustrating how little Taija could remember about the way her time dealt with weather control. Circles and ter'angreal certainly, each for a small region, but not what they actually looked like or how they worked. People sometimes seemed to believe she should know everything about her time, as if they could all be nobles, blacksmiths, seamstresses and farmers at the same time.
Egwene shrugged, "it's what the Unseen World led me to, so there must be a way."
"Yes, people now do seem to be a bit more skilled at manipulating weather." That had certainly been a surprise, not that it had stopped Taija from stealing their methods as soon as she saw them. "Perhaps it was made after I 'left' or it would work better with modern day weather-working skills."
"That would make sense, although it wasn't obvious how to use it just from looking at it."
"Well let's not get ahead of ourselves. Do you think you can find it in the real world?"
"I hope so," Egwene looked a bit unsure, "definitely with a bit of searching."
"Right, good. I think you should go to Ebou Dar then. Maybe with Elayne as well. She's been keen to get away from here recently."
Egwene nodded at that. "Of course, you probably can't spare any more than the two of us from the Hall's aes sedai, but we're enough to deal with most problems and will make a decent embassy to the Ebou Dari."
"Exactly. You can take angreals from our store for it too, that'll be enough to give anyone a nasty shock." They both shared a small smirk. "Make sure to keep them disguised though."
"Of course, thank you."
"No, thank you. I'd go myself, but…" Taija gestured vaguely around herself. "If you need help for whatever reason, then we'll be ready to intervene here too. Just come running and we can have twenty or thirty channelers in Ebou Dar in minutes. Now, back-up… If Elayne goes then Mat will go too and he's handy in a fight. You should probably have at least a couple of men from the Hall as well. Jaer's an aspirant now and very reliable as well as being able to fight. Take him. Have a think about whether you want any other aspirants and I'll think about it too. At least one decent healer. It would be good to get some proper outreach work done while you're out there."
It was funny to think of Egwene as the girl who'd tried to clumsily blackmail her in the White Tower so little time ago, when now Taija saw a young woman who she know she could rely on to be sensible, skilled and smart.
========
One thing that Taija had decided on after all of the excitement with the White Tower was that she needed to be putting more effort into developing the Hall and its initiates. They were progressing well. Frighteningly fast in some cases actually. She suppose it was in part because her, Tel and the rest were constantly pushing, but also people from the modern day were just more mature. They knew that they were in a war with the Shadow and, in many cases, that if they failed in the Hall then they had little to go back to. It wasn't the comfortable, almost luxurious world of her own training. It meant the initiates weren't relaxing or goofing off anywhere near as much as Taija would have expected, which was good. Still, there was more she could do.
Taija had a few ideas that she was going to be implementing over the next few weeks. Some larger exercises for one thing. She'd also been thinking about some of the things that she didn't have much talent in, but which could be tested for. Cuendillar, Ter'angreal, among other things. There were enough of them in the Hall that there must have been some interesting things going on that she hadn't spotted.
========
Taija was pulled away from the class she was teaching on inverting webs by the sound of a commotion nearby. She tried to ignore it, but it just seemed to be getting louder. In the end with an irritated growl Taija told the aspirants she'd be right back and headed off to investigate. A bit of boisterousness was one thing, but this commotion was too much. Of course her class trailed after her, because obviously.
Taija quickly came across a crowd of initiates excitedly shouting to each other. "What's going on? Quieten down!" Only the ones nearest to her even heard her. After a moment Taija spun a web to amplify her voice. "What's going on? Stop this racket!" Her voice boomed out and was rapidly followed by silence.
They made way for her as she moved to the centre of the crowd. There Taija saw Eben and Noruan both standing there, tears shining in their eyes, slightly embarrassed aspirants and initiates stood awkwardly around them.
"What's going on?" Taija asked again, moderating her voice. If they'd been doing something to those poor boys, there were going to be problems.
It was Eben that answered, no sadness at all in his voice despite the tears, just joy. "She did it! She actually did it!"
"Did what?"
"Healed us!" Words appeared in the air, spelling out his name. A basic exercise, but…
"Oh Light she actually did it!" Taija felt a grin growing on her face, suddenly all the noise seemed more than understandable, she wanted to join in. "That's incredible! I'm so happy for both of you! We'll need to celebrate, this… This is incredible." In her time Nynaeve would have deserved a third name for rediscovering proper healing. If fourth names were a thing she'd have deserved one for this. Light even Damer as her assistant might get a third name too for something that big. It was almost unbelievable. There'd need to be a celebration. It was huge news. Whatever twist of the pattern delivered Nynaeve into Taija's hands she could only thank the Creator for it.
=========
It didn't take Taija long to find Nynaeve and Damer, they'd hidden themselves away in her office. Presumably to escape all the congratulations. Well tough luck to them, she was going to see them anyway.
Taija knocked on the door and then went in. "Nynaeve, you're incredible! I thought it was impossible, I was wrong. I'm just… speechless. No one figured anything out like that in my time, in thousands of years."
Nynaeve actually blusheed, it was the first time Taija had seen her do that. Well other than when she was being wound up about Lan. Nynaeve normally put up such a front. Even when Taija had rescued her from the Seanchan she'd managed to start trying to give orders. "Damer helped a lot actually. Really. I think if I hadn't done it he would have managed a day or two later, it was a team effort."
"Of course, Damer, everything I said to Nynaeve applies to you too." Taija hesitated and gave them both a low, deep bow of utmost respect. "The world is blessed by your presence."
They both managed to look more embarrassed. Taija needed to pull herself together and get over her amazement. "Alright, I'll stop praising you. For now. We'll still need to make a big thing of this, you deserve it and it'll be good for the Hall. We're going to need to celebrate and for the two of you… If it was my time you'd get third names for something like this. You see when someone did something sufficiently impressive they were awarded an additional name as a mark of honour, I suppose sort of like being made a lord or something, but without any money or power to go with it. Anyway if you want…"
Nynaeve interrupted her. "I've lived my life with two names and I'm perfectly happy with them thank you very much." A moment later she seemed to realise she might have been rude. "Of course, I thank you for the honour, but I'm not from your time so it doesn't really mean the same."
"Alright, that's fine, that makes sense." Taija was too happy to be offended. Damer?"
He just shrugged. "What Nynaeve said really, but thank you."
"Alright, no worries."
Nynaeve gave Taija a bit of a look. "I never really worked out why you always emphasised 'Miranen' before. Why didn't you tell us?"
It was Taija's turn to look a bit awkward. "Well it would have been very immodest to do that…"
"What did you get your third name for anyway then?" Taija could tell Nynaeve was trying to turn the conversation back on her out of embarrassment, but she'd let her do it this once.
=========
Eben and Helena burst into Taija's office, practically arm in arm, laughing happily and then saw her face and immediately sobered up, taking a step apart before giving her a low bow. "Taija sedai, you wanted to see us?"
Taija sat behind her desk, with Tel stood at her shoulder, and looked at Eben and Helena over steepled fingers. "Well Helena, I can only hope that you can apply your stubbornness to something more appropriate in future. While what you did to Eben is and was wrong, you've taken your punishment and it did undeniably help him to survive. Given that…" Taija needed to be reasonable she reminded herself, they were just kids. "Now that Eben is healed you can release his bond and we can move on from this sorry episode."
Taija had allowed Helena to return to classes and just do punishment duties during her free time after the first couple of weeks when it became clear she really was helping Eben and her temper had subsided a bit, but she'd still spent every free moment digging pointless holes. As had he really.
Helena hesitated, surely she wasn't going to argue?! Then, before she could speak, Eben looked at her, put his hand on her shoulder and she gasped, her eyes widening and then staring into his. Wait… Oh Light. He didn't…
"I can almost hear your thoughts…" Helena's voice trailed off. "Light it's incredible."
Taija buried her face in her hands. He did. For fuck's sake. She couldn't deal with this… This sheer stupidity. What the fuck was wrong with these people? While she was gathering her thoughts they were just staring lovingly into each other's eyes. For fuck's sake.
Eventually Taija managed to speak. "I… I don't really know what to say to the two of you at this point. You're both idiots." At least that pulled them away from each other. "But you know what, fuck it. Fine. You both want this, that much is clear. If I'm going to punish you until you stop being idiots you'll be digging holes for the rest of your lives and I don't have the patience for that. Eben, you insist you're an adult, I'm not sure I believe you, but whatever, fuck it. Helena, your punishment is over. Eben, I'm happy you're better. You'll both write an essay on informed consent and submit it to Tel sedai for assessment," Taija ignored Tel's betrayed look, "now just… both of you get out of my sight."
After they'd fled Tel gave her a smile, "they really are very cute though."
He was right, but Taija still gave him an unimpressed look. "You're not helping."
He just grinned. "You know Helena should really be an aspirant by now. She's clearly good enough and then at least she'd be allowed to be bonded."
Taija sighed. "I know, but… You know what? Fine. Let's promote her. Then let's send them with Egwene and Elayne to Ebou Dar. The girls can look after their education for a while and I won't need to think about them until they're back, by which point I might not want to strangle them anymore. There, perfect solution."
"Your wisdom is an inspiration to us all."
"Shut up Tel." She scowled fondly at him. "Speaking of promotions though, should we be starting to think about aes sedai."
At least he took that more seriously, pausing for a second to think. "Actually you may have a point. At least one or two of the men are there in terms of skill and others are getting close."
"Same for the women. Philosophically…"
Tel barked a laugh. "I'd never have thought you'd be able to get a load of peasants and teenagers to sit and listen to you pontificate on politics and philosophy, but it seems miracles do happen."
He just laughed at Taija's annoyed growl until it turned into laughter of her own. "Fine, you have a point."
"Apparently the secret is to beat people up in front of them."
"Ha! I do sometimes wonder whether there's something wrong with people from this time. I'm sure that's not how things used to work."