Chapter 7 - The Truth

  

  Aleksi stopped in mid rant, confusion painted across his face. "Uhh who are you?" Anger replaced confusion, "what are you doing in Taija's room?!" Before Taija could say anything he shoved his way in, almost knocking her over with his larger frame, looking around it with wild eyes.

  "Where's Taija? What have you done with her?!" He grabbed the front of her dress and shoved her against the wall.

  Taija barely restrained herself from flinging him across the room with the Power. That hurt! It was frightening being manhandled by someone his size, even when she could channel and it had not been a good night.

  "What are you doing?" She snapped, "I am Taija, have you gone mad?! Let go of me now!"

  A moment later realisation hit and she wanted to kick herself. She'd forgotten to undo the web of illusion. With a thought the knot came undone and her appearance shimmered as the illusion dissolved around her. At the same time she discretely pushed the door closed with a flow of air.

  Aleksi stood there, mouth open in disbelief. He was still clutching the front of Taija's dress, although it now felt less like a threat and more like he needed it for support.

  "Sit Aleksi." Taija gave him a gentle push and despite their difference in size he staggered back into the bed before half falling onto it, still staring wide eyed at her.

  Absently Taija rolled her shoulders, being slammed into the wall had hurt, on top of what Elaida had done… She sighed deeply. "Well… I'd been planning to talk about this with you before, but this really isn't how I saw it happening. Let me think…"

  Aleksi finally regained his voice. "Y you you're an Aes Sedai? H h how? W w what?"

  Taija sighed again. "It's not so simple. I'll do my best to explain. All that I can ask is that you let me finish and then I'll answer all of your questions as well as I can. I promise, no lies, just the truth."

  Taking a moment to think, Taija grimaced to herself, she had a great deal of obligation to Aleksi after everything. "Firstly Aleksi, I owe you an apology from the bottom of my heart." She bent into a deep, formal bow looking at the floor after she spoke. "I haven't been completely honest with you and it's a poor repayment for everything you've done for me."

  When she straightened it was with a wince, she really did feel battered. Aleksi opened his mouth to speak and Taija held up a hand to stop him. "Please, let me finish first. This is going to be hard enough as it is."

  Aleksi subsided so Taija continued. "Firstly, yes I am an Aes Sedai. However, I don't think I'm really the same as the Aes Sedai you know. Until I met you, I'd never heard of the White Tower or Tar Valon. I'm not sure I'm from your world at all."

  "To my shame, I lied to you about not remembering things from my past. I don't know exactly how I ended up in your field, but I do remember everything until then. I grew up in… I suppose you'd call it a paradise. My world was buildings of glass that reached the sky, cities that made Caemlyn look like a village, beautiful nature at our feet. Ordinary people traveling across the world in a day just for a festival. No hunger, no disease. Everything you could want supplied by…" she struggled to find an appropriate word, "clever devices and the One Power. Aes sedai working together and among the people for the common good. You know, the words Aes Sedai mean "servant of all" in my language."

  Taija's voice was wistful as she thought back to the times before the Collapse. "Those were the good times. Then it all went wrong. I was a… scholar learning about the way the world worked and some other scholars, Beidomon and Mierin, did… Well it's hard to explain but after that the Dark One started to touch the world."

  "People started to commit crimes, evil slowly spread across the world. Life was still good, I was succeeding at my work, people respected me and I became well known for my work. However, around me the world was gradually falling apart. Violence, rape, robbery, cheating, lying they were all growing."

  "I was living in my own bubble. Writing, debating and learning, none of it really touched me except as a faint worry when my friends talked about the wider world. That all came to an end when… when the Shadow finally struck. They'd been biding their time, hiding in the darkness undermining everything that was good in the world for decades and when they attacked we weren't ready. Most of us had no idea what was happening."

  Taija shuddered as she forced herself to remember things she'd tried very heard to forget. The start of the War had probably been the worst day of her life. She'd just give him a very brief summary, just so he understood. "I was working in Jalanda, I'd earnt my third name a few years before and life was good. It was a sunny afternoon, I'd been planning to go out with a friend for…" she switched briefly into her own language, "a pizza and ice cream, but first I had to finish my work for the day. I heard a commotion outside and when I looked out it was… like nothing I'd seen before. An army, no a horde, of men and women were running through the streets. Cheering and shouting they were shooting people when they saw them with bows and arrows, grabbing them and tearing them apart with their bare hands or when they saw women they they did worse…"

  She should stop. That was enough, but once she'd started the words just kept coming. "There were channelers with them too," Taija carefully didn't use the words 'Aes Sedai'. "I saw a man throwing fire at fleeing families, laughing as he burned a woman to ashes. A woman sweeping shards of broken glass through the air shredding everyone around her. It was madness. Horrifying madness." She shuddered at the memory clutching at the skirt of her dress.

  Why was she still talking?! "I remember I got up from my desk, like I was in a dream, staggered out into the corridors of the physics department. I heard screaming through a door, coming from one of the nearby offices. I had to go and see, Light help me I knew everyone there." Aleksi hadn't tried to interrupt her, just sitting there wide-eyed and horrified at her story, even if he looked a bit confused at the occasional slips into her own language.

  "Ilaria was dead, I could see her insides spread across the floor. We'd had breakfast together that morning. Shinju was halfway up the wall, he was pinned there with a table leg straight through his chest, but he was still moving. I was at his wedding… They couldn't even channel to protect themselves." Taija couldn't stand thinking about that day, but nevertheless once she'd started she just couldn't stop. The terrible images indelibly pressed into her memory.

  "Sarita was the one screaming, she was in the air held there by saidin. Belen, he was from another department, a chemist, was holding her there. I think he'd already severed her and was just just cutting bits off her one by one while he stood there and laughed. I… I think I screamed and he looked round and saw me standing there in the doorway. He didn't even hesitate, just cut her in half with a web of air and slammed me sideways into a wall so hard I blacked out. By the time I came to he'd shielded me, grabbed me and pushed me onto a desk with his hands round my throat. He was whispering things to me. Horrible things." Taija seemed to shrink around herself tears rolling down her cheeks.

  "I… I think he forgot that I was as strong as I was. I panicked and blew through his shield, I wasn't even thinking I just needed to get him away from me. I'd always been careful and precise, but I just let loose with fire and earth, one huge explosion that obliterated everything around me, including him, even as I opened a gateway under me and fell through it. I think I must have brought the whole building down, I don't know how many of my friends and colleagues I must have killed. Hopefully none, but Light help me I don't know, I just don't know. I needed to escape and I fled. I could have stayed and fought, I should have stayed and fought, I'd probably have died, but maybe it would have been better if I had."

  Taija could feel tears trickling down her cheeks. "That was the last day of the Collapse and the first day of the War."

  Aleksi placed a comforting hand on her shoulder, surprise overridden by horror on his face and Taija continued on with her story, telling him as well as she could about how ancient, obsolete knowledge was repurposed towards war. Learning to fight with her partner, years fighting for the Light, battling the Shadow's forces. Leaving her life as a scholar behind, sacrificing her passions and throwing herself into defending her world, her very way of life.

  Eventually, she finished, telling him about her last battle. How she'd desperately fled an opponent who outmatched her, maybe one of the Forsaken, reached Antero and then found herself in his world. How she wasn't sure whether she was in a different time or a completely different world.

  As she reached the end of that battle she gave Aleksi another low, formal bow, apologising once more for lying to him.

  After she finished, completely drained from talking about things that she'd done her best to forget, there was a long silence. Aleksi was almost visibly chewing things over as he processed her story. As promised he'd kept silent, but that kind of revelation couldn't simply be shrugged off.

  Eventually he came to a conclusion. "Well… That… That was not what I was expecting. I can't say that I'm happy that you lied to me. I suspected you weren't telling me the whole truth, but not something like this. If I told the folk back home about this they'd think I'd learnt to channel and gone crazy. But by the Light I do believe you, no one would invent a story so mad!"

  "Thank you." Taija's voice was no more than a nervous murmur.

  "I think the Creator must have meant for this to happen. There must be a purpose to you being here. Elena always said the Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills." Aleksi hesitated. "Look, I've always dreamed of leaving Ramshorn and now here I am on an adventure with an Aes Sedai for a friend. Maybe they'll sing songs about us! Either way, I'm here for you and I'll support you in any way I can, but on one condition. You have to promise, no more lies!"

  With a relieved laugh Taija promised that without any hesitation.

  It was a huge relief to at least have been able to tell someone about what had happened to her. In her world she'd had friends, a lover, colleagues and a cause. A support network that kept her sane. However, here she found her self isolated from everything familiar and trying to function in total secrecy. It just wasn't sustainable.

  After all of her revelations Aleksi convinced her that they both needed a drink of something stronger than water. Despite her emotional and physical exhaustion Taija agreed and so they headed down to the inn's common room.

  Over a cup of wine they talked more in low tones and Taija explained what she'd been up to in Camelyn. Aleksi spat his wine across the table when she told him how she'd effectively kidnapped an aes sedai from Morgase's palace.

  When Taija explained how she'd left the woman to walk back to the city he'd laughed and at the same time been horrified at himself for laughing.

  After a couple of drinks Taija felt able to articulate her fears to Aleksi. "When we were on our way to Caemlyn you said some very… negative things about Aes Sedai. But now you seem to be very relaxed about what I just told you. Why?"

  Aleksi thought for a second, the blur of alcohol in his eyes. "I suppose… You're different. I know you as a person. Every story of Aes Sedai says that they're practically legendary, aloof people. You're one of the more down to earth people I know. Lies aside." He gave her a sideways look. "Based on the stories at least, you're not really a proper Aes Sedai."

  Taija wasn't sure whether to be amused or offended, but Aleksi continued on relentlessly. "Regardless, your story is more like something from a hero of the Horn of Valere, it's not something that makes any sense but it's just very different from stories of aes sedai."

  He gave her a reassuring smile. It was sweet, but she felt a bit bad needing reassurance from someone who was a fraction of her age. Nevertheless, it helped.

  Aleksi was a perceptive man and despite Taija's best efforts at holding herself together he inevitably noticed the wistful, distant look in Taija's eyes whenever she talked about things from her world.

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  Eventually he suggested that she tried telling him names of some of the most important places and people from her world. Perhaps he'd recognise some of them and be able to help her work out where she was, whether she was even in her own world.

  Perhaps fueled by alcohol, Taija started to enthusiastically list places, cities, people. Adanza and Jalanda were the most important cities for her, but they got no reaction. Paaran Disen, the world's greatest city, was the same. People who'd been important to her life like Tel Janin, Antero Bashiros, Saela Lemoith and Gemymis Norera received a similarly blank face. So did some of the villains of her world such as Mierin Eronaile and Elan Morin.

  However, when Taija mentioned Lews Therin Telamon it provoked more of a reaction.

  With an excited gasp Aleksi said, "yes! I know that name. He was the Dragon, the Kinslayer who broke the world. I don't know much more than that, but they say he'll be reborn again to fight the Dark One and break the world once more!"

  That was confusing, Taija knew that people had started calling him the Dragon, but him being reborn? It sounded like superstition. Of course people were reborn through the Ages, but without memories or abilities it was… for lack of a better word, meaningless.

  As for breaking the world, again that was ridiculous. He was a pompous man, absolutely full of himself, no question, but he was a loyal servant of the Light, a great Aes Sedai. More superstition perhaps? However, it was more evidence of some kind of link between this world and her own.

  "They say that about Lews Therin?" Taija looked awkwardly at the floor. "That doesn't sound like him… He was a bit of an arse when I spoke to him," that was the alcohol talking, "but he was a good man. Why would he do something like that?"

  "What?! You knew the Dragon?" If Aleksi had been drinking Taija was pretty sure he'd have spat out his drink. "How? I don't understand…" Aleksi took a big swig of beer.

  He was the second person who'd recognised Lews Therin's name, even if no one else's had rung a bell. That must mean something.

  Then a thought occurred to Taija. Perhaps she should try some of the Forsakens' names on him.

  Many of them he didn't recognise, but Lanfear and Ishamael horrified Aleksi. When he heard those he recited what was clearly a saying in his world.

  "The Dark One and all of the Forsaken are bound in Shayol Ghul, beyond the Great Blight, bound by the Creator at the moment of Creation, bound until the end of time."

  For some reason he didn't look very comforted when Taija acerbically replied, "Well that can't be right since I've met them."

  Eventually exhaustion and alcohol caught up with Taija and she retreated to her room, slightly tipsy. Her head was whirling with the thoughts triggered by her conversation with Aleksi. Thinking about everything she missed from her own world was bad enough, but him recognising both Lews Therin and some of the Forsaken strongly suggested that she was actually in her own world, but some time in the future.

  That would make sense with a stasis box, after all they weren't used for traveling between worlds, but effectively for traveling through time, in a manner of speaking anyway. Taija had studied the portal stones and the theories around parallel worlds and she still couldn't completely discount the possibility that she was actually in a parallel world and not her own, but it was looking less and less likely.

  Despite the alcohol, it took her a while to fall asleep as her mind kept picking over what might have gone wrong in her world for it to end up like this place.

  =====

  The next morning Taija's head felt a lot clearer and she was more able to consider her situation. The first thing that she realised was that she needed to get away from Caemlyn.

  After her encounter with Elaida the whole city would be hunting for her. She was confident that she wouldn't be found by any mundane means given that Elaida had never seen her actual face. However, she didn't know what other tools Elaida had at her disposal.

  Over breakfast Taija explained this to Aleksi and he agreed with her logic. She'd been thinking about where else she might go and her best guess was that she might have better prospects in the Borderlands. She'd read a bit about them in the palace library and ultimately she needed some purpose to her life. Killing shadowspawn would hardly hurt with that and she also needed allies in this world, or time. Ultimately it seemed much more likely that she'd find them somewhere where she could actually help people, rather than in a prosperous, by local standards anyway, peaceful city like Caemlyn.

  There was probably time to plan her moves given how unlikely it was that Elaida could find her quickly, but it was clear that Taija's time in Caemlyn was limited.

  ========

  Over the next two days Taija started getting ready for their move. Come nightfall she masked herself in illusion once again, this time being careful to invert every web and conceal her own ability to channel before raiding a series of smaller palaces.

  It was child's play to use delving webs to find precious metals and then making off with a small 'tax' from each palace's vaults. While her conscience pricked at her, Taija told herself that those people could afford it and she was only stealing out of necessity.

  Of course Taija knew that when reports of mysterious thefts filtered back to Elaida she'd immediately be the prime suspect and people might put in place countermeasures, so she carried all of the thefts out in the same night.

  The next day she enacted her plan to haul her and Aleksi out of peasanthood.

  First came a battered, but well kept, store where they bought better quality woolen outfits with silver pennies. An hour later they emerged, prosperous artisans rather than penniless peasants.

  Next came a better shop, smart but subdued. Taija emerged from that with a dress of finer cloth, top quality wool, and several sets of clothing for Aleksi, all paid for with silver marks. They became a prosperous merchant and her trusted retainer.

  Finally they visited a fine tailor's in the Inner City. There Taija explained that they needed traveling clothes of excellent quality and quickly too as they'd been called away on duty for her House.

  Gold changed hands and the tailor promised suitable attire for the next day. At the last tailor's Taija didn't buy anything for Aleksi as he'd said that, at least in Andor, his way of speaking meant he'd look out of place in overly fine clothes. While it hadn't made a huge amount of sense to her that that would be such a big issue, she trusted his judgment, particularly on any cultural points relating to his world.

  =====

  When Taija returned from the tailor's a day later, her transformation into minor nobility was complete - Taija the peasant was gone and the Lady Taija had arrived. Not that she'd used her real name with any of the purchases. There was no reason to tempt fate.

  Aleksi had also insisted on the purchase of a trio of horses and saddlebags, despite Taija's insistence that they could just Travel. She wasn't exactly keen on the animals, but she had to admit he was probably right.

  Finally, Taija also bought a map of the world, or at least of the bit of it that the people here were familiar with. With that she could find her way towards her destination in the Borderlands.

  Storing everything had been a bit tricky, but eventually Taija ended up hiring a room and stable space at a much nicer inn, using her persona as a member of the nobility. Coming from a time where there was no such thing as nobility, it felt distinctly odd having an innkeeper bowing and scraping before her, but needs must.

  That evening Taija felt things were ready and she was able to Travel back to the original inn from her new room, after changing into more appropriately downmarket clothing of course, to collect Aleksi.

  He was initially terrified to step through the gateway that Taija spun, but after she demonstrated how it worked herself by stepping back and forth through the hole in the air he agreed to follow her. Of course, once they were through, she took the time to give him a basic safety talk about gateways, before demonstrating their danger in a graphic manner by spinning one to open so that it sliced straight through the blade of a knife she held in her hand.

  =====

  With their reinvention complete, Taija decided that they'd leave the next morning.

  That evening they settled down for dinner in the common room of their original dingy inn, intending to disappear to the more expensive inn to sleep afterwards, leaving Taija's old identity to vanish.

  Taija looked up from her rather mediocre bowl of soup when conversation in the common room stilled. It took her a moment to work out the reason, there was a trio of palace guards in their colourful armour being greeted by the worried looking innkeeper.

  Her instincts were screaming at her that something wasn't right, so she extended a small, inverted web of spirit and air towards the group to let her eavesdrop on them. With disorienting suddenness it was as if Taija was standing in the middle of their conversation, their voices as clear as day.

  "… green eyes and curly, red hair?" Was that…? It sounded like he was describing her illusion from Morgase's palace.

  Taija could see the innkeeper shaking his head, but she still reached over to Aleksi, putting her hand on his arm to get his attention before urgently flicking her eyes up to the ceiling and their rooms.

  Luckily Aleksi got the message and they both scraped their chairs back and stood, before turning to head for the stairs. At the same time Taija heard the guard say they were looking for a 'Taija'. A glance told her that this time the innkeeper was nodding and pointing their way, they needed to get moving!

  "Run!" Taija urged Aleksi past her and up the stairs while she turned to face the guards from the bottom step. Several lethal webs flashed through her mind, but she didn't want to hurt anyone here. The guards were just doing their jobs and the other patrons of the inn weren't involved at all.

  So, with Aleksi thumping up the stairs behind her Taija spun a web of solid air around her ears, blocking all sound. Then, with a silent apology to her victims, she spun a simple clump of fire, air and spirit in front of her, subtly different to the one she'd used in the palace library with Elaida.

  Screwing her eyes shut, Taija pulled on a strand of spirit in the web. Even through her eyelids she could see the blinding flash of light and feel the crash of sound from the detonation thump through her body.

  When Taija opened her eyes and let the webs over her ears dissolve, the common room was completely intact. The same couldn't be said for its occupants, who were on the floor moaning with pain, temporarily blind and deaf. They'd be fine in a few minutes.

  "Send my regards to Elaida." Taija muttered the words before realising no one could hear her. Well it had sounded good in her head. She turned to hurry up the stairs.

  A couple of minutes later she and Aleksi had collected their remaining possessions and were stepping through a gateway to Taija's much larger, nicer room in their new inn.

  Another hour later their bill there was settled, their horses loaded and saddled and they were both heading out of the city, webs of illusion changing their faces. Taija hadn't wanted to Travel straight from the inn, people might make the connection if she just disappeared from there too, so it was the slow way out for them at first. No one was interested in a noblewoman and her retainer riding out of the city.

  After an hour or so of trotting along Taija had decided she hated horses. She was sore all over and felt vaguely sick from the motion. They had to be far enough from Caemlyn now. Whether they were or not, she'd had enough.

  There was no one around, so with a gesture she dismounted, followed by Aleksi, and led the horses off the road. Once they were out of sight of it, sheltered in a copse of trees Taija pulled out the map she'd bought, spinning a ball of light to help them see in the dim light filtering through the branches.

  She'd been thinking about where to go and, with some discussion with Aleksi, had decided on Shienar out of the Borderland nations for no better reason than she liked the name and Aleksi hadn't objected. The nearest real city to the Blight seemed to be Fal Dara and so Taija had decided that that would be her target.

  Unfortunately she couldn't just open a gateway to there. She didn't know her destination at all, or her starting point well enough; however, with a bit of work she was hopeful that she wouldn't have to spend too long sitting on a horse.

  She'd have to see how accurate her map really was…

  Taija took a moment to do some mental calculations and then opened a large gateway to the void between worlds. Beckoning Aleksi after her, she led her horse onto the platform she'd formed in the darkness on the other side of the gateway. As soon as they were both through, the gateway closed and the platform started to move.

  She'd start with a jump of 1,000 kilometres at a 30 degree angle from North and see where she could go from there.

  =====

  It turned out that trying to triangulate her way across a sparsely inhabited medieval continent by skimming while using a hand drawn map was not a very efficient way to get somewhere. It still beat horses, no question, but after several days of skimming, walking, sleeping and more skimming Taija and Aleksi were both exhausted.

  Taija therefore greeted the sight of the walls of Fal Dara with almost ecstatic relief. She'd been starting to wonder whether they'd ever get there.

  The guards at on the gate gave her and Aleksi hard looks when they arrived, it was already clear that the city was as much a fortress as a settlement, but the Lady Taija was granted entry without any real problems.

  Finding a nice inn didn't take too long and with Taija's purloined funds they were soon able to get some much needed rest. The bathhouse was a particular pleasure. Hot water and cleanliness were something Taija sorely missed after their travels. Of course she could clean herself with the Power, but it wasn't really the same. Aleksi on the other hand seemed less keen on the baths, calling them improper, although she wasn't totally sure why.

  The next day Taija was ready to face the world once again and explore the city. She quickly realised that there were only two subjects of conversation for its citizens. The first was the arrival of an aes sedai a day or two ago. Apparently this was a significant event.

  Initially Taija thought they might be talking about her, but that was just silly given they'd have no way of knowing, which meant that there must be another. Interestingly the people of Fal Dara spoke about aes sedai with respect and awe rather than the fear and suspicion she'd heard from the Andorans.

  However, the main thing people were talking about was the huge horde of trollocs that was expected to descend upon the city. Hundreds of thousands of them. Apparently Fal Dara's ruler, one Lord Agelmar, had ridden out with most of his forces to stop the horde somewhere called Tarwin's Gap.

  There was a lot of bravado about the upcoming battle, but reading between the lines Taija recognised something she'd seen far too often during the War of Power - these people thought he'd gone there to die and that the trollocs would be at the city walls soon enough. Many of them were kind enough to advise her to leave, just in case of course, even if they themselves planned to stay to defend their homes.

  It didn't take Taija long to realise that she needed to do something to help. She was still tired, but she'd had a good night to recover and she couldn't just stand aside and allow shadowspawn to slaughter innocents, let alone overrun an entire city.

  She might not be an army killer on the level of someone like Ida Sauna armed with a sa'angreal, but she wasn't the terrified, inexperienced scientist that she had been at the start of the War. She could still make a difference, she just needed to decide the best way to do it.

  Should she try to find this other aes sedai and work with them? Or should she go directly to help the army? She needed to think.