Chapter 13 - How to Train Your Aes Sedai

  

  When Taija stepped through the door into the audience chamber she had to force herself to breath steadily through her nervousness. This was probably going to be one of the most important conversations she'd have in this time.

  She'd instantly taken in the other occupants of the room. It looked like four Aes Sedai and Lan. The women certainly had that calmly arrogant composure that she was coming to associate with her modern namesakes. One, sitting on a large chair, a throne really, at the back of the room must be the Amyrlin. Siuan Sanche, that was her name. It was a little surprising that she didn't have a third name actually, given how important Taija presumed she was.

  Obviously Moiraine was there too, a faint smile on her face, accompanied by a very tall and slim copper-skinned woman and another slightly sour-faced woman in a red dress with elaborate honey-coloured braids.

  The Amyrlin looked over to Taija, her face showing no expression. She was a dark-skinned woman with black hair, wearing a stole with seven colours on it. The ajahs maybe? Her voice was hard, someone used to being obeyed. "Leane, Liandrin, thank you, you may leave us."

  The sour-faced woman looked like she wanted to protest, but after meeting the Amyrlin's eyes she stayed silent and they both curtsied deeply before withdrawing with a murmured "Mother". Taija gave them small bows as they left, which just resulted in hard looks from them. Presumably they expected her to curtsy.

  At the same time as the other Aes Sedai were leaving, Moiraine glided over to stand next to the Amyrlin, so close they were almost touching, while Lan stood silently at the side of the room.

  As soon as the door closed behind Leane and Liandrin the light of saidar sprang up around both Moiraine and the Amyrlin, the glows blurring together from proximity.

  When the two women embraced saidar Taija tensed, opening herself fully to the Power. Moiraine quickly interjected, sensing her sudden discomfort if not her drawing on the Power. "My apologies Taija, we wish to make sure we are not overheard." Moiraine drew lightly on the Power and spun a ward against sound.

  Taija's initial irritation at Moiraine's dropping of her title vanished at the sight of the web. It wasn't bad work, Taija could admit, quite different to how she'd have done it though. Could it be improved? Perhaps a tweak to the spirit matrices in the anterior knots? That might eke a bit more efficiency out of it, but it was certainly serviceable.

  When Moiraine had tied off her web, the Amyrlin leant forward on her almost-throne, dark eyes capturing Taija's. Both her and Moiraine still held the Power, which seemed unnecessary. Then again so did Taija even if they didn't know that.

  The Amyrlin's hard tone broke her out of her musing. "So, child, what are we to do with you?"

  A flash of anger shot through Taija and she almost without thinking she responded with a shallow bow. Calibrated for what she would have delivered to a mildly incompetent mayor of a small city during the War. "Siuan. It's a pleasure to meet you. I hope we can work together for our mutual benefit."

  The Amyrlin's eyes narrowed, it seemed she'd understood the bow, and her voice cracked out across the room. "The correct form of address is 'mother', child."

  Taija could recognise a power game when she saw it. If she allowed this woman to walk all over her now it would never stop. Anyway she'd had worse in some of the grant pitches she'd done. She kept her own voice mild though, she wasn't looking for conflict, just respect. "And the correct form of address for me is Aes Sedai or Taija Sedai." She pronounced the words subtly differently to how people in this time did. "I suppose I would also accept Professor Kosola. What I am not, is a child. I'm probably older than you and my mother has been dead for over three thousand years." That wasn't something she wanted to think about… Why had she said that?

  The Amyrlin leant back in her chair turning her head towards Moiraine with a small frown. "And you said she was meek as a well-fed roundfish…." Her attention landed on Taija once again. "Very well, Taija Sedai. I see that you do have some spine. We are navigating the Fingers with nothing more than a candle to guide us and there are lionfish in the water so there is no space for weakness."

  Taija blinked, left speechless as she tried to decipher the Amyrlin's metaphors. Was it an issue with her understanding of the language? Or was the Amyrlin just odd? Her train of thought was quickly yanked back on track as the Amyrlin kept talking. "Moiraine has explained your circumstances to me and I expect that we will be able to do something. However, this is a sensitive time for me and the White Tower, I am taking a risk just by seeing you, particularly without my entourage. If the other Aes Sedai knew who you were, they would react poorly. As Moiraine has told you, Tower law punishes harshly anybody who falsely claims to be Ses Dedai."

  The Amyrlin held up a hand to stall Taija's protest. "I do not say that you were not Aes Sedai in the Age of Legends. Merely that under Tower law you are not now. However, you have my word that I am not seeking to have you punished for impersonation of an Aes Sedai. Doing so would hardly be conducive to a good relationship now, would it?"

  Taija let herself relax slightly. Perhaps she would be able to work with this woman. She nodded and smiled. "Obviously I don't want conflict with this time's Aes Sedai. My goal is to serve the Light however I best can. I've seen enough of what the Shadow can do when the forces of the Light are divided."

  Taija paused to think for a moment before continuing. "I think we can offer much to each other. We both have knowledge that the other needs. I could just stay here and kill trollocs, it wouldn't be the worst life, but I want, no need, to better understand the world that I now live in. From your side I'm sure I know things that would be useful to you, the White Tower and society in general. Ultimately, we all walk in the Light and have the same aims for the world."

  Taija fervently hoped that was true. She wouldn't want to rely on it until she knew the Amyrlin much better. However, Moiraine seemed to trust her and, while Moiraine clearly had her own agenda, Taija did think that ultimately she was one of the good guys even if she might choose a different path to her.

  Siuan offered Taija a small smile. "I am glad you say so Taija Sedai. When you are hunting silverpike in the dark it is always better to work together." What in the Light were silverpike? Siuan nodded to Moiraine who reached into a chest beside the throne to pull out a rolled up scroll or maybe it was just paper, Taija wasn't quite sure. Was there a difference?

  "As a start for what I certainly hope will be a beneficial way forward, this may be interesting to you."

  "What is it? Taija was intrigued, already going over to see as Moiraine unrolled the paper on a desk, weighing down the edges to stop it from rolling itself up again before stepping back to give Taija room.

  "This is one of the better maps that I have seen of the known world." Siuan's voice washed over Taija as she leant over it, focusing on the details, tracing a finger along a mountain range without quite touching the paper. "You may be able to find some link to the Age of Legends, perhaps we can relate it back to your time." Already fascinated, Taija barely felt the flash of irritation that came with them calling her time the Age of Legends.

  It was at that moment of distraction that Taija felt saidar surge behind her. A thick flow of air grabbed her, throwing her sideways across the room with sickening speed. At the same time a terrifyingly powerful web of spirit hammered at her own connection to the Power.

  The world seemed to slow around Taija, everything sensed in pinpoint clarity as she drew hard on the Power, holding it against the shield that threatened to batter through the flood of saidar.

  She almost channeled spirit and fire, razor sharp, to slice through the web and stopped herself at the last moment. She couldn't risk hitting the wrong thing. There was no time to think. She split her flows.

  A sloppily formed overpowered wall of air with spikes for added lethality blasted towards the Amyrlin and Moiraine. At the same time a soft cushion of air started to form between her and the wall that she was heading towards all too fast.

  Taija did her best to shift in mid-air to lessen the impact.

  Thump! She hit the wall, her momentum only slightly slowed by the partly formed web.

  The air was driven from Taija's lungs and her webs vanished. For a moment her grip on saidar wavered, pain shooting through her as she fell to the floor. That was all the opportunity the Amyrlin and Moiraine needed. Their shield smashed through Taija's connection to saidar, slamming into place and cutting her off from the Power.

  Before she could even groan and stagger to her feet she was yanked up by flows of air pinning her arms painfully tight against her already bruising body.

  They must have been linked. It was hard to think through the fog suffusing her brain after her impact with the wall, but it was the only thing that made sense. Light her back hurt! Moiraine could match her with her angreal and the Amyrlin's strength was similar to Moiraine's. Alone neither of them could have forced a shield on Taija while she held the Power, even disoriented as she was. That had to have been why they'd stood so close to each other, to hide the visual effect of the link.

  Taija got a few seconds to recover her breath, pain already pulsing in her back as Moiraine and the Amyrlin shared small, satisfied smiles with each other, breathing visible sighs of relief. In the background Lan had his sword to Aleksi's throat. How could they…? What were they…? Was her arm broken? Or just in pain? Had she hit her head?

  As Taija pulled herself together mentally, white hot fury erupted inside her.

  "What the fuck are you doing?" Keeping her temper was a forgotten ambition as was their 'Common Tongue'. "You just attacked me! You could have killed me! Is this what I get from every so-called Aes Sedai in this fucking time?"

  Taija's shouting pulled their attention back onto her and the Amyrlin answered, her voice as cold and hard as ice. "Did you really think you could get away with this? A silverpike trying to hide amount the whitefish?"

  "What in the Creator's name are you talking about? Fuck your fish!" With a supreme effort of will Taija got her rage under control as she goggled at the Amyrlin. Fear was bubbling up under the rage, but she wasn't going to show it. "I don't know why you've attacked me like this. Utterly without provocation, but whatever your reasons you're wrong!"

  Moiraine shook her head, giving Taija a flat eyed gaze. "Did you really believe I would not notice your interest in Rand? Did you truly think that you could corrupt the Dragon Reborn under our very noses, turn him to the Shadow, while dancing around us with your ridiculous stories? If not for the need to protect Rand from the other aes sedai, we would have had a full circle of thirteen to take you within an hour of the Amyrlin's arrival."

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  Taija was struggling to catch up with whatever excuse for thought processes was going on in their heads. What even was a Dragon Reborn? "Wait, wait, you think I'm a darkfriend?" Anger surged up again, threatening to overwhelm her tenuous control over her temper. "You don't understand what you're saying, or how wrong you…"

  The Amyrlin cut her off contemptuously. "Much as I think we could learn from a more… detailed conversation," her hard look left Taija under little illusion about what would be involved in that, "we cannot afford for you to reveal young al'Thor's secret." She glanced at Moiraine and then the light of saidar brightened around them as she drew harder on the Power and began to spin a web. "May the Creator forgive you. May you make better choices in the next turning of the Wheel."

  Panic spiked in Taija. It couldn't end now! Not like this! Frantically she screamed in her own language, "activate contingency three!" Instantly one of the inverted wards she'd carefully spun around the audience chamber a couple of nights before triggered.

  The inverted flows came together in a blinding flash of light and a blizzard of razor-sharp flows of fire and spirit shot across the chamber, slicing apart every web within its walls in an explosion of saidar.

  The web of air holding Taija in place vanished. As did the shield, along with the tied off webs changing her appearance and concealing her ability to channel.

  In the back of her mind Taija noticed the Amyrlin wincing as the cut flows snapped back into her, confirming she was the one leading the circle.

  It didn't matter, Taija was already channeling, drawing as hard as she could on the Power. She needed to act while they were distracted. Together they were too strong.

  Fire erupted around both Moiraine and the Amyrlin, the air almost instantly going from nothing to white hot. Taija could feel the Amyrlin frantically trying to counter the overpowered flows she was feeding into the web. However, at the same time she was already whipping an inverted flow of air around from the right barely above floor level and throwing half-hearted shields at both Moiraine and the Amyrlin.

  The Amyrlin dumped air and water into a thick web to push the fire away from the two of them. Inefficient, ideal, she needed to draw a huge portion of the Power available to her to do it, all while blocking Taija's webs of spirit with her own. The Amyrlin started to spin her own flows to attack Taija, slow. Too slow. Less than a second after Taija had started to spin saidar her whip of air took both the other women's feet out from under them.

  Before they'd even hit the floor Taija was spinning more webs. Inverted fire, earth, spirit and air surrounded the Amyrlin's head blocking all light and sound. Another web of air, trivially simple, froze Lan and Aleksi in place off to her side.

  For a second the Amyrlin flailed with the Power. Before she had time to try to cut the flows blinding her, Taija had already dived to the side out of her potential line of fire and yanked her hard sideways into Moiraine with air.

  The two women collided painfully, losing their focus enough that the light of saidar briefly winked out around them. In that moment Taija struck, two hard webs of pure spirit slamming into place, barely controlling her anger enough not to put a razor sharp edge onto them. She could always sever the women later.

  A moment more and she was lifting the two Aes Sedai on flows of air and pushing them forcefully against the wall in front of her.

  Taija realised she must look demented, standing in front of them. Holding them there while blazing with the light of saidar, disheveled and already bruising from her impact with the wall.

  Her chest was heaving as she gasped for breath. Partly because she was still somewhat winded from the way she'd been slammed into the wall and partly from the sheer rage that was roaring through her. Sparing a glance back to make sure Aleksi was alright, beyond being frozen in place with a furious looking Lan, Taija turned her attention back to the two women in front of her.

  How dare they?! She'd gone to them, with open hands, told them the truth and they'd tried to kill her! Perhaps worse, they'd accused her of being a darkfriend! With blood pounding in her ears, she was almost overwhelmingly tempted to simply kill them, grab Aleksi and disappear to somewhere else in this Light-forsaken time.

  Fortunately the decision was taken out of Taija's hands when the door burst open behind her and Liandrin and Leane charged into the room only to stop, completely stunned by what they saw. Of course, the ward against sound…

  Taija was about to speak, but the Amyrlin shouted before she could. "Help us! She's Lanfear!"

  Taija nearly lost her hold on saidar in shock at that and where her rage was a blazing fire before, it was a nuclear inferno now. How dare she! The things that Mierin Eronaile had done to…

  She sensed Leane forming a web of her own, something of fire, air and spirit and prepared herself to cut the flows and strike back. Fighting two of these women while holding the shields on Moiraine and the Amyrlin would be a challenge.

  Then with no warning Liandrin channeled.

  However, her webs weren't directed at Taija. Instead Leane was caught utterly flat footed, barely fending off a burst of fire before being knocked down by a fist of air, the glow of saidar winking out from around her.

  It seemed like the whole room was frozen for a second. All Taija could hear was her own heart pounding in her ears as she felt her rage swirling under the serene flow of saidar. Then Liandrin turned to her, giving a deep curtsy. "Great mistress Lanfear, it is an honour to serve one of the Chosen."

  It took Taija a moment to really process what Liandrin had said and then her vision went white with fury. "How. Dare. You. You fucking bitch, do you know what that woman did to me?! To my family?!"

  As Taija screamed at the blonde Aes Sedai she channeled almost instinctively, every spare ounce of the Power available to her, thick, overpowered flows of air connecting the two of them almost instantly.

  Liandrin barely had time to realise what was happening before she was slammed to the ground with bone-breaking force, dragged along the floor, brutally fast, straight into a wall and then whipped back, along the floor into the other wall and back again. By the time Taija got herself back under control, most of Liandrin was a smear of blood and viscera along the wooden floorboards and stone wall.

  Taija was left panting, her shoulders heaving and her mind in turmoil, waiting for anyone else to burst into the room. Apart from a groan from Leane on the floor, which prompted Taija to shield her too before she could recover, there was just a stunned silence.

  There was nothing Taija wanted more at that moment than to just open a gateway to the Blight and kill trollocs for the next month or so, but she knew that wouldn't be a helpful response to the situation. As her rage cooled into cold anger, rational thought processes reasserted themselves.

  Perhaps it was time for a more open conversation with the Amyrlin and Moiraine. All cards on the table, but from a position of dominance. Clearly the only language these so-called Aes Sedai really understood was force.

  Taija turned to face them, still breathing heavily. "Maybe before you accuse me of being a darkfriend you should make sure you have a bit more evidence than your own paranoid delusions. It might also help if you cleared up your own organisation first. Fucking so-called Aes Sedai." She practically spat the last few words.

  With an effort of will Taija got herself fully under control. Abusing them in her language wasn't going to be helpful, even if it was cathartic. She turned towards Aleksi and Lan and released the part of the web holding Aleksi. As soon as he was free he stumbled back, wide eyed, glancing between Taija, the bloody gore on the floor and Lan while looking like he wanted to throw up, but he kept his silence. Probably wise. After a moment Taija decided Lan could stay in place for now.

  Taija turned her attention back to the women. Much as she hated to admit it, their actions combined with Liandrin's reaction were good evidence that they weren't darkfriends. "Can we perhaps have a civilised conversation now? I'm going to keep you shielded, I'm not feeling very trusting, but I'll let you down." She followed her own words by releasing her webs of air and gently lowering them to the ground.

  Taija could see that they were both still in a state of shock. She suspected that there weren't many things that could phase either Moiraine or the Amyrlin, but here and now their composure was completely gone.

  It was the Amyrlin who gathered herself and spoke first, choosing her words carefully and slowly. "Very well Taija Sedai." There was no hesitation around the honorific. "I believe we may have done you an injustice. Sometimes even the best fisherman casts his nets in the wrong pool."

  She exchanged a glance with Moiraine who needed shakily and continued. "You have our sincere apologies Taija Sedai. I had my reasons for believing you were a friend of the dark and I still believe my reasoning was sound, you did not… help yourself." She ignored the growing frown on Taija's face. "However, as is regrettably often the case, I did not have all the information I needed and it is clear that I came to the wrong conclusion."

  The tension slowly went out of the room as the three of them talked. Aleksi moved to stand scowling behind Taija, hand on the dagger at his belt, but the effect was ruined slightly by the way he desperately tried to avoid looking at Liandrin's remains. After an almost pleading request from Moiraine Taija even released Lan, although she kept an eye on him ready to bind him again if he so much as took a step towards her and Aleksi.

  Eventually Leane woke up and the Amyrlin and Moiraine had to explain everything that had happened to her. Obviously she had the most to learn as they talked, but Taija found out a lot of worrying things herself.

  The worst shock was when Moiraine told her about the writing daubed on the dungeon wall during the trolloc attack. Lanfear… Taija shivered. She'd thought the Forsaken at least would have been dead for millennia. Unfortunately both Moiraine and the Amyrlin seemed very sure that they were not dead and at least some of them were free, although how they could be so certain she had no idea. Why had only the very worst aspects of her time survived?

  Taija also heard about the theft of the Horn of Valere for the first time. She'd never heard of the device and when they said it summoned heroes of old to fight she thought it sounded ridiculous. Of course neither of them had ever actually seen it used. In the end it hardly mattered though. It was clearly a ter'angreal of some kind and couldn't be allowed to remain in the hands of the Shadow.

  Moiraine and the Amyrlin also told Taija about the Dragon Reborn, Rand apparently, who was Lews Therin reincarnated and would save the world or break it again. Interestingly that had been a surprise to Leane too. She was told that there were prophecies and foretellings of this rebirth and, again, the women or at least Moiraine and the Amyrlin seemed very sure of it.

  Taija was rather more sceptical. Of course prophecies were real, but identifying the true from the false was difficult and every prophecy she'd ever heard of had been so obscure that it was only clear it had been fulfilled after the event. Pointless in other words.

  Regardless, as far as she was concerned, the whole calling Lews Therin the Dragon thing was more about propaganda than anything else. Young Rand certainly didn't seem anything like Lews Therin anyway, although to be fair the man must have been pushing 300 when Taija had met him for the first time, let alone when he died. Of course she kept her scepticism to herself, but really the idea was ridiculous. At least it explained why Moiraine had been so desperate to keep her away from someone she thought was essentially the saviour of the world.

  Taija was sure that Moiraine and the Amyrlin still weren't being completely open with her, but she could tolerate that. She wasn't telling them everything either and she didn't expect deep trust to spring out of nowhere. However, now that they all knew where the others stood, a working relationship should be possible.

  After a while Leane, who had mostly been staying quiet and listening, pointed out that even with her in on the secret and Liandrin dealt with more permanently, someone would want to speak to the Amyrlin soon enough and the conversation turned to what they should do next.

  "I will be returning to the Tower of course." At some point the Amyrlin's composed self-assurance had returned. "They will need to be carefully managed as ever and prepared for the Dragon. Moiraine and Leane will be accompanying me, along with young Egwene and Nynaeve. As for the boy himself, he and his friends will be leaving tomorrow to pursue the darkfriends who have the Horn of Valere, accompanied by a contingent of Shienaran soldiers. It cannot be allowed to fall into the hands of the Shadow."

  She nodded to herself and continued. "Taija Sedai I think it would be for the best if you were to accompany Rand. The White Tower would be a difficult place for you at present and Moiraine tells me you have developed a good relationship with the boy. Should the Forsaken try to snare him in their nets, you would also offer them a nasty shock when they try to haul him out of the water."

  The Amyrlin continued, "we will also need to consider what to do about Liandrin." Her mouth twisted at the bloodied smear and unrecognisable remains behind Taija. "She may have been… Black Ajah," Taija could see she struggled to say the words, "but nobody else knew that."

  "Except for any other members," Taija added, deliberately unhelpfully.

  "Yes, thank you, except for any other members. I shall have to come up with a story the sisters will accept. Perhaps that she believed she had found a darkfriend conspiracy and it was her end. I will think on it. As for her… remains…"

  The Amyrlin looked both concerned and disgusted, so with a small shrug Taija channeled. What was left of Liandrin was lifted into the air and compressed by flows of air. She then added fire, more and more fire until all that was left was a fine ash contained in a ball of air. At the same time she spun an overpowered stain-removing web through the floor and walls, letting it slowly work the blood out of them.

  Every other person in the room stared at her, eyes widening. Eventually Leane ventured to speak. "Do you have to hide many bodies Taija Sedai?"

  Taija felt her face heat at he question. "Uh no… Actually this web is used to remove stains in carpets and I thought it would probably work here."

  Leane just about manged a choked, "I see."

  Eventually the Amyrlin broke the uncomfortable silence. "So, what will you do next?" Taija could practically feel the effort it took her not to simply tell her what to do.