WoT Fic: Shades of Grey

[Posbi]

Originally Posted by Valiran

The Mythbusters made a cannon from a LOG, and most cannons from the Napoleonic wars were made of bronze. Cannons should be easy to make once you have the supplies for it.

Oh, believe me, there is nothing more I'd like to do than blasting some arrogant Shaido with a dozen batteries of 24 pdrs. Point is, I try to keep this character driven, which - given what I have mapped out - is already hard enough. I'm not certain if I can do it if I introduce a complete game changer like firearms.

[Posbi]

Playing around a bit with alternate destinies in the upcoming "Otherworld"-chapter. Not in any way final, proof-read or complete!

The world flickered.

An eerie twilight filled a cavern full of ruins deep beneath the Mountains of Mist. He was a withering husk, his eyes wide open and yet covered with dust, his skin old and yellow like parchment, his body frail and thin. He was not dead – and yet did not live. There was just the glow that called his name, the orb that was all he ever wanted, all his desires, all his dreams, all his fate. When the pale light emitting from it finally failed, flickered, the echoes of thoughts flashed through his longing mind, of a man that had once been him, of a city he had found underground, of a past clouded in oblivion. Lungs that had barely breathed for years sucked in stale air for one last time before the orb absorbed the rest of his mind in its struggle to remain active.

Flicker.

Lyara died in childbirth when their second child, Zandea, saw the light of the world. He struggled to bring food onto the table of their little house at the edge of Grevesbridge, farming after a fashion, soon with the help of his firstborn, Jerran. His keen mind, however, soon made the Village Council ask him to help them write their letters or advise them in legal affairs. He never really felt at home there, but as the years passed by and his hair grew grayer, his little shack grew and became better, with solid furniture and a stone hearth that kept the whole house warm. The year he was elected Mayor armies from across the Aryth Ocean invaded, claiming to be the heirs of Arthur Hawkwing. There was talk of battles that Arad Doman and Tarabon had lost, and that the invaders used strange creatures and even had Aes Sedai on leashes. He bowed to them when they passed through Grevesbridge, and never saw them again. He remarried the day his daughter turned ten, and even though it were not her children, his new wife got along well with them. His son Jerran married the blacksmith's daughter at Bel Tine and built his own house. Tarmion was already grey and stricken with old age when the news reached Grevesbridge that the Trolloc Wars had re-erupted, and the new masters were being swept away. He took sick that winter, and was burried next to his first wife before the new spring came.

Flicker.

Zath laughed, and so did Tarmion as they drank to their successful hunt for the bounty on the head of a brigand and murderer who had plagued Lugard. Whitecloaks stormed the tavern, and both men lunged for their weapons. Zath was a deadly whirlwind, and after six years devoted to a life financed by his skills with a sword, Tarmion was no pushover either. He killed three Whitecloaks before two blades dug deep into his own chest.

Flicker.

He lay in a dark alley in Katar, diyng, his skull broken, a knife in his chest. Zath went back to look for him, but the city guard was already there, with the fraudster and his aides accusing him of the murder of Tarmion.

Flicker.

Caemlyn burned on his orders, and so did its Queen in her palace, Elayne Trakand, a petulant girl who had had the gall to claim the thrones of Andor and Cairhien after his agents had killed the weakling Galldrian. The Hunters, his silver-masked elite guard, stood silently around him as he watched the great city being put to the torch while above him the banner of his power, the banner of the black griffin flew in the wind. Long rows of refugees marched out of the city, their meager belongings packed on carts or on their backs, all under the watchful eyes of his men and the men the King of Ghealdan, his loyal vassal, had sent. The smallfolk had not done anything to him. It was not their fault that their leaders had conspired against him when he had approached them with open arms and a message of peace. Hence he let them go. Those responsible and the ones fighting for them, however, felt the wrath of the man who already called himself High King.

At the crossroads at Four Kings he had smashed Andor's and Cairhien's united forces, at Carysford his heavy cavalry had encircled Gareth Bryne's remaining men. They lined the Caemlyn Road now, all sixthousand of them, crucified, a signal to enemies at home and abroad. Time and again good intentions had been met with treachery, and the High King of Alvadindoalcor (The Barrier Against the Night) no longer had the patience or good will to be lenient. Nations did not survive by setting examples for others. Nations survived by making examples of others. He knew a better man than him would have done better. He had searched that man, searched that boy, only to find out he after years of searching while he marshalled his powers that the man who once was supposed to become the Dragon Reborn froze to death as a newborn child on the slopes of Dragonmount. He was his own second best choice. Alvadindoalcor was a necessity, not a dream, a nation forged from all lands south of Braem Wood and east of the Mountains of Mist, except Tear.
„What I have to do could be spread to three men's lifetimes and still keep them up day and night,“ he used to joke, but behind his grim face sorrows kept him awake for long nights. In the West, the heirs of Arthur Hawkwing had just landed, as he had forseen. It was this eerie ability to know things that bound people closer to him, that inspired his troops with almost slavish loyalty. It was because he had abolished servitude and made all people under his rule caballein, free men, governed by a set of laws he had codified that his army marched from victory to victory.

In his new capital, the greatest and most modern fortress the world had ever seen since the Breaking of the World, ten thousand men worked in the steel mills and foundries that made the tools that allowed his people and his soldiers to succeed. The vadin'nor, his cannoneers, had more than two thousand field pieces in their arsenal, up to ninety-pounders that could smash ten foot strong walls from six miles away. He sent envoys to Tar Valon to propose and alliance. He sent more to the borderlands, promising to come to their assistance when all would be in peril.

He was fortyfive when the last Seanchan ship left for their home, humbled and beaten. He was the most powerful man since Arthur Hawkwing himself. Siuan Sanche tried to control him, as sly as any Aes Sedai. She failed, and was replaced by a Red. When the Dark One's banners marched out from the Blight, the Black Griffin marched to face them, and behind him marched half a million men.

The day before the decisive battle, High King Tarmion Genda died from poison.

Flicker.

Tell me what you think of the idea!

[Valiran]

Originally Posted by Posbi

Playing around a bit with alternate destinies in the upcoming "Otherworld"-chapter. Not in any way final, proof-read or complete!
Tell me what you think of the idea!

Oh that is good! Except it's Artur Hawkwing, not Arthur.

[Posbi]

Originally Posted by Valiran

Oh that is good! Except it's Artur Hawkwing, not Arthur.

Thank you, I honestly would not have noticed! It's just so close an hommage to the Pendragon that I instinctively wrote Arthur.

And now for a little update.

I had a mini story-arc in mind, designed originally for two chapters roughly of ten pages each. However, I've now reached page 7 of the first chapter and have only used up about a quarter of that chapter's storyboard. Yes, I am an outliner. With the story approaching 80,000 words, that's the only bloody way to make some sense of it.

To cut a long story short, at least the first chapter of that arc will most likely end up being as large as Chapter 12, meaning it will take me longer to write than I had anticipated. In good faith I am aiming for a publishing date late in April.

That having been said, it's your turn now.
This story has had 2,000+ views, so I assume I have a handful of loyal lurkers and commenters. So while I try to make the best of my notes, what are your ideas and/or wishes?

• Which character should get more exposition and "screen time"?
• What would you like to see happen?
• Which POVs would you like to see?
• What else can you think of?

I'm open to your ideas and suggestions. Let me hear what you think, and if you are lucky, I may even be able to build it into the outmapped story.

Thanks for reading.

- Posbi

[Murazor]

Originally Posted by Posbi

Which character should get more exposition and "screen time"?

I was happy to see a few of the first tier secoundary characters getting screentime without their presence changing canon. Some more cameos of this kind would be appreciated, definitely.

What would you like to see happen?

As far as like goes... Tarmion starts looking for Cadsuane (who is supposed to live somewhere in Ghealdan and is less of a headcase than most Aes Sedai), because he wants to be gentled but doesn't dare to come within a thousand miles of Tar Valon, lest the Reds get trigger-happy.

Which POVs would you like to see?

I'm looking forward to Tarmion's POV after his awakening as a channeler. Just in case the voices in his head weren't enough to freak him out, he can now look forward to six-seven years of tainted saidin.

[Valiran]

Originally Posted by Murazor

As far as like goes... Tarmion starts looking for Cadsuane (who is supposed to live somewhere in Ghealdan and is less of a headcase than most Aes Sedai), because he wants to be gentled but doesn't dare to come within a thousand miles of Tar Valon, lest the Reds get trigger-happy.

She was headcase enough from my POV, and since being severed makes people suicidal I doubt he's actually going to go looking for an Aes Sedai. They'd probably haul him off to Tar Valon and never let him out of the tower again, given what he knows.

As for what I'd like, maybe you could have him pick up something in a marketplace marked with the ancient Aes Sedai seal, and later find out that because of it, he is immune to the one power. This could be a useful plot device later on, a group of Reds try to capture him which triggers a "Jason Bourne" reflex, killing them all with his bare hands.

Red Aes Sedai vs. Kung Fu Master immune to the One Power = CMOA Material

[Posbi]

Originally Posted by Murazor

I was happy to see a few of the first tier secoundary characters getting screentime without their presence changing canon. Some more cameos of this kind would be appreciated, definitely.

There will definately be some of those, including some of the primary characters by, say, 996 N.E.

As far as like goes... Tarmion starts looking for Cadsuane (who is supposed to live somewhere in Ghealdan and is less of a headcase than most Aes Sedai), because he wants to be gentled but doesn't dare to come within a thousand miles of Tar Valon, lest the Reds get trigger-happy.
...
I'm looking forward to Tarmion's POV after his awakening as a channeler. Just in case the voices in his head weren't enough to freak him out, he can now look forward to six-seven years of tainted saidin.

Just so much for now: Tarmion will channel, at least on one already partly written occasion which I've internally dubbed a "synchronicity event" (that's not the chapter name, btw; that'd be "xx. Evil Be Thou My Good"). I originally was very hesitant with regards to Tarmion and the One Power, having settled down somewhere at a pseudo-state where he himself could not channel, but Caraan Tureed could, but to be honest that always had the taste of a "deus ex machina" to me. Now with the idea of the stilling, that - combined with some other heavy impacts - might actually work quite well as a catalyst for the future development of the story. Can't promise I'll use Cadsuane or that storyline, though.

I doubt he's actually going to go looking for an Aes Sedai. They'd probably haul him off to Tar Valon and never let him out of the tower again, given what he knows.

That, and there's the problem with Zath.

As for what I'd like, maybe you could have him pick up something in a marketplace marked with the ancient Aes Sedai seal, and later find out that because of it, he is immune to the one power. This could be a useful plot device later on, a group of Reds try to capture him which triggers a "Jason Bourne" reflex, killing them all with his bare hands.

Amusing.

1st edit: Bring it on, people!

2nd edit: Is there any indication other than "northern Ghealdan" about Cadsuane's whereabouts? I consulted the WoT Encyclopedia and the prominent chapters of the books, but I haven't found any more direct clues.

[Valiran]

Originally Posted by Posbi

1st edit: Bring it on, people!

If you don't want to use cannons, there's always the Hwacha, the Confederate Rocket, and the good ol' Macross Missile Massacre.

[Posbi]

Sorry for the lack of updates but the last month has been rather busy for me, and the upcoming weeks don't look much better. I'll try to get the next chapter up sometime next week, but I won't promise anything.

Anyway, I've decided to go with the "get gentled by Cadsuane" idea once it has happened, so here's a short look at how their first meeting will turn out. Needless to say, Cadsuane is her rash self, and Tarmion, having gone through some seriously emotionally damaging events shortly before, is not in the mood for that.

Cadsuane only had time to gasp before she felt herself lifted from the ground and thrown against her house's door with a thwack that strained every sinew in her body to the point of breaking and sent flashes of pain through her back and her head. Dully, she thought she could feel a wet spot on the back of her head, beneath the bun held by her angreals. She tried to move, her surprise fading and being replaced by hot anger, and reached for saidar - and found nothing. For a moment she felt herself overwhelmed by fear and anger. Struggling, she tried to reach out again. Saidar was there, she could feel it, but it eluded her, like a fish one tried to catch barehanded.

His face was a gaunt, pale mask, a grimace of raging fury and cold hatred alike, his yes shining to her like angry furnaces. His right arm pointed at her, his hand twisted like a claw. The other hand pointed towards Toumas, not bothering to even look into her warder's direction. Cadsuane shifted her head as much as the tight weave of air and spirit the man had woven around her permitted. Toumas was a man past his sixtieth nameday, a grizzled fighter, all sinews and muscles. It spoker for him that he had been able to draw his sword from his scabbard, little good it had done him. He stood, frozen in the middle of his stride, his blade held above his head in both hands. Thick pearls of sweat trickled down his wide-eyed face, his lips moved silently, and it seemed as if all his four limbs were slowly being drawn apart, inch by inch.

"Stop! It!" she rasped as forceful as she could.
Surprise flashed over the man's face. She could see how he was fighting for control. Now it was him on whose forehead trickling sweat appeared. Slowly, almost carefully he lowered his hands, and Cadsuane could feel the confines of his weaves losening. The almost animalic rage vanished from his eyes and was replaced by something she would have mistaken for shock if it had not been for a slight note of satisfaction mixed in it.
"Forgive me," he rasped in a voice as hoarse as her's. "As you can see, I do have reasons to bother you." He took a deep breath, and she could feel how the severed ties to saidar grew back together again.
"I am here so you can still me."

More will come when I get to it.

Again, ideas and criticism are welcome.

[Valiran]

Originally Posted by Posbi

Sorry for the lack of updates but the last month has been rather busy for me, and the upcoming weeks don't look much better. I'll try to get the next chapter up sometime next week, but I won't promise anything.

Anyway, I've decided to go with the "get gentled by Cadsuane" idea once it has happened, so here's a short look at how their first meeting will turn out. Needless to say, Cadsuane is her rash self, and Tarmion, having gone through some seriously emotionally damaging events shortly before, is not in the mood for that.More will come when I get to it.

Again, ideas and criticism are welcome.

Good snippet! And don't worry, real life takes precedence over writing fanfiction.

[Posbi]

Part One of the Three-Parter excursion into Otherworld.

13. 1 Otherworld

He awoke to the sound of moans and the stench of vomit in the shadow of what looked like a tall pillar. Besides him, people lay toppled over each other, their eyes still closed but their bodies already stirring. Their waggons and animals were also here - where ever here was - scattered all over what he now realized was an artificial hollow. There were also neighs racked with pain, and subdued pleas for help, but he was too dazed and the situation too alien and chaotic to let him put a direction to these sounds.
Tarmion tried to push himself up with his back against the pillar. His leg gave in, courtesy of the old arrow wound he had suffered at their first siege. Steadying himself, he tried to make sense of what had just happened. Zath had lost his mask and was looking around uneasily, trying to get a measure of the situation they were in. Marisa was there too, emptying her stomach, something that reminded him of the queasy feeling in his own guts. Watching somebody vomit was hardly the most romantic view, but seeing her there and apparently in one piece filled him with a sense of great relief.

His eyes darted around, looking for other familiar faces. Aryman stood on the hollow's ridge, resting on a long spear in, looking alerted, but - in truth - more surprised than concerned. Mellen cradled his wife Gella, and for an instant fear overcame him that the friendly woman was dead before he saw that she alive and sobbing in her husband's arms. Marek was wandering about with glassy eyes, muttering about where he had left his hat - the hat he had on his head. Azral lay on his back at the bottom of the pillar, both arms strechted out. His eyes were closed, and even from afar Tarmion could see his hands and fingers were burned to a crisp red. He hurried over to the old farmer and fell to his knees besides him. His chest was heaving softly, and with faint sighs he kept breathing, but he nothing Tarmion did seemed to rouse him from his sleep. Cursing, he looked up, at the pillar.

Only now did he realize that it was not a natural stone pillar. In the middle of the hollow stood a gray stone cylinder, every bit of three spans high and a full pace thick, covered with hundreds, perhaps thousands, of deeply incised diagrams and markings in some language he did not recognize. It was leaning to one side by almost half a span, as if it had casually been nudged by a giant and never been restored. White stone paved the bottom of the hollow, as level as a floor, polished so smooth it almost glistened beneath all the dust and earth that had burried a quarter of it. Broad, high steps rose to the rim in concentric rings of different coloured stone. Unlike the floor of the hollow, those had long since turned blind, with wind and weather having beaten at the mosaics until only a few spots remained where the original colours shone through. The rest of the steps was raw stone, worked with great craftsmanship apparent even after all the time that must have had passed since the monument had been built.

Despite the state of disrepair the place had obviously fallen into Tarmion could feel it was a place of great power. The stone gave him goosebumps on his bared arms and caused Caraan Tureed to cackle maniacally only inches from the barreers away he had built around him in his mind. He worriedly looked back at the unconscious man at his feet.
"You!" he grabbed a man wandering about and shook him from his daze. "Get me Enija," he ordered him to fetch the woman whose specialities where herbs and ointments and salves against injuries and illnesses. "I want a roll call!" he added more forcefully, loud enough for all in the hollow to hear. "And get those bloody waggons and horses back upright!"

Forcing himself to action, he climbed up the high steps, past toppled waggons and low bushes whose seeds had found cracks in the stone underground. Up close the colours of the steps seemed even more faded, with only bits and parts still shining in their original tones. Tarmion stopped besides Aryman, breathing heavily and sweating beneath his woolen cloak and tunic. A frown seemed to be chiselled into the Taraboner's features, and it took Tarmion only a quick glance to realize why that was.

"Doesn't look like Altara," he said hesitantly after having taken in as much of the picture lay out before them as he could.
"Doesn't look like winter either," Aryman added dryly.
Which was true enough. Had he first thought the warmth came from the stress and the side-effects of whatever had happened to them, he now had to change his position. There was no snow. In fact, the way these lands looked he found it hard to believe that it snowed there at all. And it all looked somehow paler than it should be.

They were on the peak of a tall hill, the highest hill for miles, or so it seemed. The landscape was rolling, with more and higher hills than what they were used to, and it continued to their south where Altara's great central forest should have been. There was no Jehennah Road and no villages. In fact, there was no sign of human civilization at all: no fields, no houses, not even the faint pillars of smoke which signaled fireplaces or hearths on which people prepared their meals. Fir trees, a common sight for northern Altara, were nowhere to be seen. Instead of those, knee-high yellow grass covered most of the land, with groves of tall trees with green leaves growing along small streams and seemingly a thousand ponds interspersed between them. There was no clear path, not even so much as a foot trail to be seen. Worse, those streams and ponds would make traversing these lands a tedious business. But contemplation about that would have to wait.

There was a commotion in the hollow as people tried to help each other, searching for their belongings and loved ones, trying to right the waggons among wounded horses. Some waggons completely lacked their draught animals, but there were tracks of hooves leading out of the hollow. Whatever had brought them all here had most likely frightened the animals or turned them mad enough to make them flee.

And in the middle of all of it, there was Marisa, her red hair standing out like a lit torch in the darkness. He wanted to hold her, be there just for her to ease her sorrows and fear, but here, right now, he knew he needed to be the leader first, not the lover.
"Duty weighs harder than stones," he muttered darkly.
Aryman raised an eyebrow at that, but said nothing. The swordmaster remained remarkably calm.

Tarmion moved back into the hollow, far enough to still tower above the rest of them and be seen by all.
"Calm down!" he yelled. "Everybody, calm down!" he formed a funnel with both hands.
That brought about the wanted effect. Slowly, hesitantly, people turned towards him, lowering their voices.

"I know we are all scared, and we are all distraught by what just happened. You don't know what it was, and neither do I. But we have to remain rational. We have to think before we act." He cleared his throat and pointed to the ridge behind him. "The Whitecloaks are gone. But it's not they who have vanished, it's us. Where ever we are, I can assure you, it is not Altara anymore," that drew concerned murmurs until Mellen, despite looking just as distraught as the rest of them all, his arm wrapped around his wife, barked a gruff "Silence!" and restored some sense of order.

"The most important thing right now is that we keep a level head. Mellen will pick a dozen guards to be placed around the hollow," he notioned towards the burly middle-aged man. "For the rest of all of us, we will help the healers, tend the wounded and get our gear back into order. I know we can do this, because I know you people are the best and most resilient lot I have ever known." He looked into the sky where a sun not quite as pale as a winter sun stood almost in its zenith. "An hour from now I want all wounded to be accounted for. I want to know who is here, and who is alive and well. Now, let's get things done!" he commanded, and to his surprise the crowd beneath him started to move.

That hour practically flew by, and its end brought both, good and bad news. Most of the waggons were salvageable, and there were still enough horses so that all of them could be drawn, but the number of dead and missing came as a greater shock than he had anticipated. Of the more than twohundred that had set up camp near Tallan, only onehundred and forty-six were still alive and with them. Most had either fallen before they had reached the hilltop back at the other place, or had been left behind by what ever phenomenon had taken here.

'Only it was no phenomenon,' a voice whispered in his head, and Caraan Tureed chuckled in amusement. 'It was Azral channeling, and you know that. You could even see it,' the voice teased him. 'Now why might that be...,' it trailed off, chuckling, only to be replaced by the voice of the dead channeler. Surprisingly, it sounded sincere and almost worried this time.
[Travelling by using portal stones is no mundane feat], there was strong reproach in his voice. [The One Power could have burned you petulant children all to cinders, dabbling into things you have no idea off. Like letting a ten year old get his hands on the console of a sho-wing], he scoffed. [Blasted you to pieces and turned you inside out]! he yelled maniacally, directly followed by a tormented moan. [Seaina, what have I done!?], he cried out and fell silent again.

A channeller in their midst, he thought and frowned. Tarmion would not be able to keep that a secret forever, not here, not after what had happened. People would start to speculate, and it was only a matter of time until some would reach the right conclusions. And then what? Male channellers were as bad as the Dark One himself in most people's eyes. And once they found out, it was just a small step to accuse Tarmion of complicity. Would they still follow him, obey him after that?

[Focus!], a chorus of voices driven by the howl of a thousand trapped souls ripped him out of his contemplations. Tarmion blinked, both at his surroundings and at the fact that for the first time his little inner asylum had spoken as one – and in his support.
Taking a deep breath, he marched back into the hollow, somehow trying to look confident. He focussed his thoughts on the one other thing he held dear above all else – Marisa. The red-haired woman sat besides her father on the bed of Enija's waggon where the herbs' woman treated Azral with a sceptical frown frozen on her features. Marisa's eyes were red from crying, and even now there were tears, silent tears, running down her cheeks. He took her hand into his and put an arm around her.

„I came as fast as I could,“ he murmured. „I'm sorry that I left you alone with all this,“ Tarmion apologized, but she just threw herself into his arms, and all he could do was cradle her like a small child.
„He still hasn't opened his eyes,“ she sobbed, pressing her head against his chest. „His hands are burned, but Enija says there is nothing else she can see. He's not wounded, but he just doesn't wake up. And he just lies there like made of stone. Light, we can't even move his arms, so stiff are they,“ she blurted out, shaking.
„He'll get better soon again,“ Tarmion tried to sound reassuring while he tried to softly kiss away her tears. „He's gone through so much, Light, we've gone through so much together! It takes more than that to harm your father. He's like a gnarled old oak: he used to look better, but burn me if he isn't tough,“ the joke was weak, but still managed to make her giggle, if only for a moment.

[Or maybe he's burned himself out]. Caraan Tureed sounded disinterested, but gave his comments nonetheless. [That's what happens to those who wield more of the One Power than they should]. Angrily, Tarmion brushed the thought and the voice aside and confined it to the back of his mind. Azral being burned out, that was not an alternative he was willing to consider. Whatever he had done, it had been achieved by wielding the One Power. Without that, they were doomed to remain here – where ever here was.

„I don't want to go,“ Tarmion whispered, „but the others also need me.“
Marisa kissed him fiercely, longingly, holding him tightly, but he softly wound himself out of her embrace, brushing the last of her tears away with his thumb. „I'll be by your side as often as I can,“ he promised, then slid back into the turmoil.

Azral's waggon stood straight, almost untouched on the third step from the bottom. Tarmion crawled inside and changed his clothes. When he stepped out again, the heavy wool and thick cloak had gone, and instead he wore his full armour and weapons over strong grey tunics. Clad like this, he waited for the reports from his closest companions.

A dozen or so had died here, in that hollow, squashed beneath toppling waggons weighing ten hundredweights or more, trampled to death by horses going haywire. Of the rest, almost everybody had suffered bruises and cuts, some even broken bones. There was nothing left to do for them here. They burried their dead in simple unmarked graves outside the hollow after they had pushed and pulled their waggons out with combined efforts.

When they were done, Tarmion spoke to them once more.
"Back home, we were moving east. And for now, we will keep moving east," he commanded and swung himself into the saddle of his dapple grey stallion. „Pack up, and keep your guard up.“ East was as good as any other direction. And maybe they would find some answers there.

xxxxx

Travelling cross country turned out to be not quite as hard as he had feared it would. The ground was dry and firm, and the many streams they had to cross were often smaller than two paces in width. Still, claiming it was easy would have been a lie. The landscape was a lot more rolling than he had first assumed, and driving their heavy waggons up and down the slopes of hill after hill exhausted men and animals alike. And it was warm, with temperatures easily comparable to those found in Saven, the sixth month of the year. At least with the constant streams and ponds they would not die of thirst anytime soon.

Tarmion had made it his task to test the waters they filled their waterskins with. In the end, it was him who was responsible for the situation they were in, so it was also his responsibility to keep his people safe. But the wells he had drunken from tasted just the way they should.

If it was not for that strange paleness that clung to everything, this place - while looking different - was no less alive than the one they had come from. Everything seemed to be a bit too washed out to look normal, with the leaves on the trees being just an ounce too wan in their shades of green, the sky looking a tad bit too misty for the clear early summer day that it actually was and the sun, while sending warm rays down on them, appearing more like the pale yellow disk above wintery Altara. Yet aside from these strange colours, the place was basically brimming with life. Bees and butterflies buzzed over fields of wild flowers, flies and waterspiders and frogs and even small fish lived in the many streams and ponds, and the songs of a thousand birds nesting in the many groves found the way to their ears.

Ravens and hawks wheeled in the cloudless sky in the search for carrion or prey, and there were other, stranger birds, almost twice as large as the biggest eagle he had ever seen. Only those had blue feathers, and long, pointy red beaks and a high-pitched, heart-piercing cry. And birds where hardly the only animals. Wild cattle grazed in herds off the tall, yellow grass, lean beasts with brown and yellow and almost white hides lead by tall bulls with massive, wound horns. Rabbits were a common sight, slender brown-furred animals living in dens beneath the steppe, so common indeed that they became a steady ingredient of their diet. And there were other animals, deer with almost red hides and long, straight and pointy horns who could run as fast as a falcon could fly.And there were predators. A pack of two dozen wolves shadowed them curiously, almost like an escort, for several miles before the pack leader turned their attention to a herd of grazing deer. Tall cats with black fur that reminded them of mountain cats sometimes lived in the groves, sporting razor-sharp teeth and claws.

And then there were the bear-frogs.
Marek had called them that, and while everybody agreed it was a stupid name, nobody could come up with a better description of what they were. A beast as tall as a large bear, but with the physique of a frog, thick grey-green hides and a tough beak were teeth and maw should be, it had attacked them blindly on the second day of their march east. The grotesque creature had thrown half their horses in a frenzy, and as if that had not been worse enough it had taken six men attacking it to hold it back, and no matter how much they stabbed and slashed at it, the thing just refused to die.
It was Arianna who put an end to it by putting an arrow right into its middle eye in a masterful shot. And yes, the bear-frog had three eyes, which pretty much put the lid on its grotesque appearance. After they had encountered that one, they had returned to fortifying their camps for the night and lighting fires around it. If someone lived here, they would notice the Companions like this, but that was a risk Tarmion was willing to take. It was preferable to meet someone from an easily defendable position, preferable especially to having some freakish beast sneak into the camp and kill their horses or, the Light forbid, their people.

Arianna, when she could pry herself from Zath, scouted ahead as part of Yurion's experienced group of outriders who kept a keen watch after the first bear-frog had caught them off guard. Mellen had returned to his old role and kept the people occupied when they made camp, as did Aryman. Tarmion spent the time he had for himself with Marisa, who sat at her father's side. Azral Tane was still unconscious, but at least he had eased up a bit. Enija, their herbal woman, had expressed careful confidence that he might soon wake up again while she had changed the bandages around his hands. She avoided looking at them when she wrapped new linnen drenched in ointments around them.

She knows, Tarmion realized. Light, she knows. He could see how tense she was, but he could do nothing to ease her. A man who could channel. Who of them would not be afraid? And for how long would that secret still be safe? Enija probably could be reasoned with, but there were others. Marek had become rather quiet and reclusive, and Zath had observed that the foppish pickpocket steered as clear of the waggon Azral rested on as he possibly could. And could the youth be reasoned with? And if not, how far was he willing to go to keep their secret?
Burn me, he cursed. Burn me! He needed Azral. They needed Azral, if they wanted to get back home from this place.
[Sometimes, telling the truth is the hardest thing to do], Caraan Tureed mused.
Yes, and sometimes the truth will get you killed, Tarmion responded caustically.

xxxxx

The trek came to an unexpected halt on their fifth day. The first waggons had just climbed a wide ridge when it became apparent that where ever they were, it was undeniably different from the place they had come from. Counting the distance they had crossed during the past days and taking the hill in northern Altara as their start, Mellen had calculated that by now they should come close to the shores of the River Manetherendrelle - this far south, a massive stream easily two or threehundred paces wide and far too deep to be crossed.

Instead of the flowing floods of the river named after the old and long forgotten kingdom, a chain of snow-peaked mountains cut through the lands to the east and south of them.
"Next time we take the straight way again," Aryman muttered sourly. "Following the streams between the hills may be easier on the horses, but if we had taken some of those heights we wouldn't be standing in front of the mountains now like a bunch of bloody woolheads. Burn me!"
The lands in front of them declined into a wide valley, measuring easily five or six miles from the peak of the ridge to the start of the rocky hills and the mountains behind them, soaring into a sky covered with clouds all around the higher peaks. More plants were growing here, and the further east the valley declined, the fresher and greener they became, almost reaching a point were the colours seemed so full they made one forget one was not home. However, it did not reach the mountains. Like a black barreer, deep and silent a lake wound itself between them and the peaks that fed it with icy waters. As far as their eyes could see the lake cut them off from the mountains to the east.

Aryman frowned and drove his horse closer to the lake in a gallop. Tarmion gave his dapple grey the spurs and hurried after him. After half a mile the Taraboner stopped his mount and frowned again, his forehead almost wrinkled so much that it reached over his eyebrows. With a scream Tarmion brought his horse to a halt directly besides the swordmaster.
"Blood and ashes, what is it with you?" he cursed angrily.
Aryman did not react at first but kept peering at the lake. Something caught his eye, and he motioned to Tarmion.
"There, look."
He followed Aryman's outstrechted arm, and then he saw it. Something was reflecting from the lake. Something tall.

They rode as close as the marshlands allowed them to and stopped on a small mound only a hundred paces away from the lake's shore. Along its whole length it was surrounded by tall reeds in which, by the sound of it, every kind of bird nested. The waggons remained at a safe distance on firmer ground.

The reflection on the lake's surface had been white as snow, or ice, on the black floods.
A dozen white towers ending in jagged tops, shining like polished ivory, breached the still surface a good mile into the dark floods. Tarmion could not make out from which kind of material they were made, but they seemed to be untouched by the forces of wind and weather and time. The distance distorted the relations, but they had to have been truly massive constructions in their prime. He could see the dark holes of frameless windows, like a thousand empty eyes in a bleached skull, and if his eyes did not betray him, not a single bird came near the ruins or even nested in them. They were a truly dead place.

"Now we do at least know there are other people here," Tarmion tried to sound lightheartedly.
"Or were." Without a second look Aryman turned his horse around and returned to the waggons.

xxxxx

With their path blocked, Tarmion lead their trek northwards along the lake's shore. From time to time they glimpsed other ruins reaching out of the depths, but the further north they marched the fewer of them appeared, until the waters lay untouched and dark again. Dominated by low bushes, lush grass and small groves of close-standing trees, the valley almost made them forget they were in a strange and foreign place. For hours they crossed thin streams and grassy plains cooped-up between low mounds until the lands to their west widened, the ridge receeding back into the downs and the yellow grass plains they had come to know.

The pale sun stood above the hills in the west in a deep, misty orange when harsh bellows, cracking like whips tore through the ambient noise of the wildlife and nature and sent all birds in the vicinity soar up into the sky in alarmed swarms. From one moment to the other grazing horned deer jumped into a panicked sprint, away from the source of the harsh sounds. Again the bellows shrilled, and from behind the receeding ridge five large, greyish-green figures stormed towards them.

"Bear-frogs!" Mellen cried out, and like one all heads in the trek turned to where his hand had pointed.

Arrows arched into the sky, ten, twenty of them, but even those that found their targets made little impression on the charging beasts, piercing their thick hides and doing nothing but enraging them further. He remembered the first bear-frog had looked almost comically when it had moved, waddling like a duck, but their was nothing funny now as five of them came closer in long, firm-footed leaps. They crossed the long distance horrifyingly fast.

Arianna jumped from her horse in an elegant, fluent motion. In one flowing movement the tall, silver-haired woman drew an arrow to her cheek, took aim with her eyes firmly fixed on the lead bear-frog - and in an almost straight line, like a thunderbolt, the shaft sunk deep into the beast's central eye, felling the creature without so much as a sound. Yurion had also heaved himself on top of a waggon and taken aim. There was no use in taking their horses to the fight as the strange beasts drove the animals mad. It took the experienced hunter two arrows to kill another creature, then they were upon them.

Snarling, bellowing and snapping with their hard beaks faster than anyone could have imagined from their bumbling appearance the remaining three beasts attacked men and animals alike with no distinction. As large as, no, even taller than great bears, they threw themselves against the spears and swords and axes of the companions. Tarmion saw the fear in his men's eyes, fear that he felt himself. It was one thing, fighting other men for gold and silver, but fighting nightmarish monsters he thought could just as well have come directly from the Blight was something completely different. Still, he drew his sword, had to draw his sword, and threw himself into the fray.

They were freakishly fast. He barely evaded one's claws as it ramped and barked out its hate-filled bellow, rolling over his own shoulder. In the motion he grabbed his double-bladed sword in both hands, pushed himself forward forcefully and drove the weapon into another beast's belly, down to its hilt. It was a form Zath had taught him, an ambitious maneuver he had called "The Sun's Own Shadow". Gravely wounded, the creature roared and flailed with its dangerous, but short forelegs, clawing at Tarmion. Having sheathed his blade in the enemy, Tarmion hurled himself aside, drew his long hunting knife and stabbed it deep into the same beast's hind legs where the sinews ought to be. With a shrill shriek, the bear-frog tumbled and collapsed, and its roaring bellows were replaced by increasingly pain-filled yelps when the Companions had surrounded it. A dozen men hacked and slashed at the monstrosity until it no longer moved.

Zath danced between the remaining two, his daggers with their greenish tinge easily, almost effortlessly cutting deep through thick hides, bones and brawny flesh. The halfman drew the beasts' attention to himself so that the others had it easier with their bows and spears. Tarmion had wanted to continue to attack himself, but found himself silently watching his oldest friend, realizing probably for the first time just how dangerous the man could be. He had survived servitude and the torturous grooming at Shayol Gul, had fought the creatures of the Blight just as well as the best defenders of the Borderlands. Zath Talaka with his two deadly daggers forged in foul rituals in the depths of Thakan'dar against one of those beasts probably would have been a fair fight. The way it was, he darted around between the grey-greenish beasts, dodging their blows almost casually, cutting deep wounds which together with the constant attacks by the companions who by now had fully surrounded them wore the bear-frogs down until Yurion could safely put arrows through their skulls.

Still breathing heavily, Tarmion overlooked the men and realized to his surprise and relief that none had been seriously injured. He pulled his horse past the corpses. The animal still shied away from the beasts, a reaction he had all the sympathy in the world for.
"We can't stay here," he announced hoarsely. "The light know what kind of beasts the carcasses will attract, so I want everybody back in their saddles now. Let's get some miles between us and them before we make camp for the night. Move it!"
Aryman drove his horse next to him. The Taraboner sat in the saddle, cleaning his heron-mark sword with a piece of cloth on his lap.
"You're getting a hang of this," he mused with a hint of approval. "They need this kind of leadership. You cannot see it, but they are on the edge."
"And so am I," Tarmion snapped, instantly regretting it. "Forgive me, Aryman," he muttered and pressed his lips together until they turned into almost bloodless lines. "I have to keep them safe. I just have to."
The swordmaster broke the silence and grabbed something from his saddlebags.
"I thought you might want to see this," he unravelled a piece of metal from some cloth.

It was a spear tip made from cast iron, roughly worked and twisted at the tip. There was no rust on it - and it was not one of their's.

xxxxx

Day 7 After the Transition - The First Week of Saban in the Westlands
There had been no further attacks like that one, a fact people attributed to his orders of doubling the guards at night and having Yurion's outriders scout further ahead. Tempers had calmed down a bit, too, something Tarmion was in truth more happy about than the lack of attacks. For two days, their trek rattled north and north-east, always along the shores of the deep, almost black lake against the shadows of the eastern mountains. The water had the cold of the high mountains in it, but it tasted fresh and invigorating. The winds coming from the mountains also eased the unfamiliar heat. He had kept the news about the spear tip to his closest circle. While everybody had seemed relieved that apparently there were other people here with them – Zath had dismissed the idea that it was something forged for trollocs as "too primitive, and lacking cruelty" -, not knowing who they were and where they were just added further variables to an already too confusing equation.

If there was one thing they had learned the hard way, it was that people were the greatest predators of all, and it was just by now that the Companions slowly started to realize the extent of loss they had suffered. There had only been so much he could do to keep people's hands and minds occupied with more pressing matters, but seven days after they had been thrown to this place the daze and awe of their voyage and the new lands was wearing off. Sixty of their friends had died. Some families had been wiped out, others were mourning the loss of a brother, a father, a child. It was not easy for anyone, but it made them all close their ranks even more. Tarmion could see it in their eyes, their determined and angry faces when they practiced under Aryman's watchful eyes.

And it made him lean even closer to Marisa. The strong-willed red-haired woman was one of two people in the world he felt he could really talk with, someone who saw behind the mask of Tarmion, the leader, and saw Tarmion, the man, and liked what she saw. She scolded him when he did things she thought to be stupid or dangerous, and he missed every moment she was not by his side. Tarmion had never been a too emotional man, but he loved her with all his heart. Her presence made him put aside his sorrows, if just for the few hours they spent together.

But they were not gone.
The late afternoon hours of the seventh day dawned when the lands to their north and west began to change. The differences were so small they did not even notice at first, as the slopes of low hills rose and fell to the north they way they had done before, and ducks quacked in the belt of reeds around the dark lake to their east while herons stalked from one long and thin leg to another in the shallow waters, hunting for fish. Only be chance did they realize that a low ridge they had climbed was in fact, no ridge, but a path overgrown with sometimes thigh-high grass, wide enough to drive a waggon on. It lead along the lake for a mile or so before moving to higher ground.

They decided to follow it.
"Yurion, scout ahead, but try not to be seen. We do not know what awaits us, and I have no desire to stumble into a wolf's den," he told the grizzled, gaunt hunter.
The trek had not even reached the first peak across which the hardly visible track ran when Yurion and another of the scouts returned, riding hard and stopping their horses harshly right in front of the lead waggon. The hunter looked visibly taken aback.
"We met a man hardly a mile to the north-east from here. Well, we did not truly meet him," Yurion frowned. "We were gallopping up the next hill, and when we reached the hilltop he was hardly a hundred spans away from us. A farmer, though most likely one of the poorer bastards, possibly in servitude, by the looks of it," he spat out, showing what he thought of that concept.
"Had two cows on a leash," the other man, a fair-skinned, heavily muscled Domani named Makal Zaibac who wore his shoulder-long black hair in dozens of plaits added. "Skinny things, easily a foot or so smaller than every cow I've ever seen. Let go of them the moment he saw us."
Yurion Stormcrow nodded and scratched his balding head.
"Threw away his staff, too. The poor fellow got eyes like saucers and began to scream and run away as fast as those short legs carried him. Blood and bloody ashes, we didn't even do anything!" he muttered. "We stopped at once and just stood there, and that fellow looks at us as if he's seen the flaming Dark One himself, or at least one of the Forsaken!"
"I'd have hoped for a better first contact with these people," Tarmion frowned. "No doubt he's run home as fast as he could, and if my experience is any good he'll be whipping everybody else into a frenzy, for what reason ever. Fine," he said in a voice that signaled it was anything but fine, "let's get moving again. We'll try to stay clear of those people for now until we can make a choice of when and where to meet them on our terms. Last thing we need is to jump into the fire blindfolded."

They had indeed arrived at what seemed to be the outskirts of civilization, as the farther north and east they traveleld, the more common became the sight of meadows with the small cattle Yurion and Makal had spotted before, and ploughed fields and farm houses covered with roofs in which grass grew. Just as with the first instance they had met a living soul, the people herding the cattle and tending the fields fled in horror, and the few villages they passed by sat quiet and behind closed gates on hilltops that were easy to defend. Their trek passed them by in safe distances on those narrow, dusty roads that crossed the lands here ever more frequently.

Nothing had happened so far, but the frown on Tarmion's face had deepened during the past days, and everybody else also seemed to feel the weight of uncertainty pressing down on them. For all they knew, they might just be walking into a trap.

xxxxx

Aryman looked to the low, round hilltop to their north and frowned while Tarmion and the rest brought their horses to a halt besides the Taraboner. Two men knelt atop the peak, long spears in their hands, the midday sun mirroring in their polished helmets. They had first appeared in the morning as a group of maybe twenty armed men on foot and had been shadowing their every move ever since. The grayhaired swordmaster blinked, his eyes searching along the fields and hedges along their northern flank, and his frown deepened.
"They could be hiding an army behind that ridge," he muttered sourly, his hand unconsciously reaching for the hilt of his sword.
"The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills," Mellen shrugged and drew his dagger, cleaning the gaps between his teeth with the point.
"That's a load of flaming crap," Tarmion snapped, more harshly than he had intended to. "We make our own fortunes. If we fell for that kind of fatalistic clap-trap we might just as well lay down and wait for all our ends," he said through clenched teeth, shaking his head. "No, the only ones to determine our fates are we ourselves. I thought the last year was proof enough of that," he added with a dry smile.
"Not to interrupt you two in your philosophical discourses," Zath stated as level and dry as none other could even hope to, "but there is an awful lot of smoke rising behind that hill," he pointed to the north-east.

Tarmion realized he was right. They had been so embroiled in their concerns about the men that followed them that he had not even noticed the smell in the air. Besides that, he had started to worry about their supply situation. Travelling across the cultivated lands of a foreign people, there was no way to feed them all just by hunting. They were getting further away from the rich hunting grounds of the first days now with every hour. Which only left them looting and stealing, alternatives he sought to avoid as long as humanly possible. The Companions were the foreigners here, the guests, and he knew that besmirching that guest right would lead them past a point of no return, and quite literally so.

"Very well. Yurion, Zath, you three: with me! Let's take a look!" he commanded and clapped his spurs to his horse. The mare leaped forward, closely follwed by the other horses, drawing a cloud of dust behind them. Tarmion recognized with grim satisfaction that the two sentries also had leaped to their feet and now tried to keep up with them in a safe distance, to no avail. Not for the first time did he wonder who in his right mind would send out scouts on foot to follow a mounted company like their's, but the thought passed as fast as it had come when he felt the wind in his face and left all sounds but the clatter of hooves behind him. He loved the cold air, and he loved the loneliness he experienced during the seldom times he spurred his horse to a sprint. They allowed his thoughts to wander free, putting aside the pressures of responsibility and leadership, if only for a short time.

Yurion's horse overtook him, the man's eyes narrowed down to slits against the wind, his leather-bound grey and black hair flapping in the rhythm of his mount's movements. He stopped his horse fifty paces ahead of them, on top of the ridge, and silently staring - at the walled city behind the ridge, and the massive red tower in its center.

[Posbi]

Allright, here's the deal: I won't be able to update this during the coming month due to a) a three-week trip to the USA starting next friday and b) term papers after that.

What will be featured during the coming (final) chapters of this first story will be: massive bloodshed, actual Aes Sedai involvement, possibly a Cadsuane appearence, definately a Lanfear appearance.

After that, Book II will follow, working title so far: "Dances the Shadow".

[Gogolu]

Have fun on the Trip and good luck with a research paper.

[Posbi]

Sorry, wrote myself into a bit of a artistic corner with the impression of a big and tense stand-off at the end of the last chapter that just did not work out for me even though I tried several approaches. Hence, a small jump ahead in time. It brings me one step closer to the conclusion of this book. The plot will thicken again in the coming/remaining chapters.


13.2 The Red Tower

After days and weeks in the wilderness and nothing but the silence of the land to accompany themselves the first few days in the strange and isolated city had been surprinsingly hard on all of them. There were just so many people living within its boundaries that the level of noise and human interaction seemed hardly bearable. That they had been the centre of attention - and in many ways still were - had not made things easier.

That most certainly was the strangest thing. He had never been one to truly need too much human company. Light, in fact he coped rather well with loneliness, and silence. It enabled him to concentrate, to think. Especially these days, where he had to suffer the involuntary company within his mind. It was not just Caraan Tureed. True, that one was the worst of it, but the rest was just as unpredictable as the weather: the low moans, the whispers just out of his reach, the feeling of your every move being watched, weighed, judged. Having accepted them as a part of himself had only made it marginally easier to live with them.

However, there was no way to escape them, not here, not anywhere, and the guards standing at the entrances to their quarters were only one reason why not. When they had arrived at the city gates twelve days ago the atmosphere had been frightened and hostile with neither side truly knowing what to make of the situation. And something he had no thought of, and for which he still called himself a fool, had considerably complicated matters, at least at the beginning. The townsfolk did not speak their language. Why anybody, including himself, could have assumed them to speak the common tongue was beyond Tarmion now, but it just had not been a matter anyone had wasted a thought on. They had had to cope with their losses and their new situation first, and when they had come across humans here things had simply moved ahead too fast.

It was a form of the Old Tongue they spoke here, something which put the Grey Companions at a great disadvantage, for one who spoke could rather easily decipher a language being born from it but not the other way around! And precisely because it was so close, it was so difficult, for one automatically fell back into the speech one knew. The intricacies of grammar and the quite natural deviations that simply occurred to every tongue over time made communicating with their hosts a tricky business. Blood and ashes, he still thanked the Creator that had been handled without any bloodshed!

Forty men with spears and high, conical helmets polished to mirror the sun had walked out from behind the city walls to meet them, and once those had by some miracle been convinced that the hundred and fifty men and women and children were indeed just that and not a force of demons mounted on strange beasts a stumbling conversation had commenced. Aryman had lead the talks with the stocky man leading the other warriors after the first sentences had been exchanged in vain, for he at least could claim to have had some resemblance of education in the Old Tongue. It had been audible to even the untrained ear how the conversation became more smooth, and how both sides apparently began to relax.

The City of the High Guardians it was called, a name spoken with pride and reverence by all the townsfolk, rich and poor alike, for it was the High Guardians who protected them against the Darkness and the dangers of the hostile world beyond their thick and high walls. Tarmion had been surprised that none of those guardians had been there when they had been admitted into the city, or later, when they had been given housing and food. He had asked the leader of the city watch who had parlayed with them as much, but Cpatain Erran had only calmly – and quite surprised – responded that “matters mundane do not affect the sitters in the Tower, for their task is it to save the world.” Inquiries with other locals had always ended in the same polite, but to them quite cryptic answers.

Still, the Grey Companions were free to move within the city boundaries, even though they stuck out like a sore thumb, for more than one reason. Most the time, a man of the Watch accompanied them when they did so, to serve as an interpreter, and to watch over them and tell their every move to Captain Erran. At least, that was what Tarmion, Zath and Aryman had agreed they would have done under the same circumstances in the man’s stead.

There were three roads leading out Red banners showing a golden snake eating its own tail fluttered in the cool breeze coming down from the mountains and across the dark expanses of the lake every morning. They hung from poles on each of the stout towers encircling the city, and five larger ones straightened majestically from tall pillars on each of the outer five points of the tower in the centre of it. There was something familiar about the picture, but with all the strangeness around him he found no way to nail it down.

Today, he had decided to go into the city together with Yurion and Zath, but when they tried to leave their quarters a delegation of the inhabitants was there and blocked the road.

“The High Guardians demand to speak with you,” an officer of the Watch informed them in an heavy accent and with hardly hidden surprise over the news in his voice.

The information came as a bit of surprise for them, too, for they had no exactly put on their feastday clothes. Still, the man in charge made it quite clear that the faster one followed the orders of the Guardians, the better one was.

The passers-by shied away from their horses. The townsfolk, and apparently nobody else either were not familiar with horses and had mistaken the Grey Companions for some kind of demons when their scouts had first shadowed them on their way along the lake’s shore. Yurion had been furious with his men, but more so with himself that he had not noticed their were being tracked themselves.
Most of their own animals were coldbloods, tall and incredibly strong breeds well-suited for hard labour and drawing wagons, and their erect heads towered more than two hands above even the taller city dwellers they passed. Women drew their children from the paved streets when the clatter of hooves announced the arrival of the visitors. All in all, the City of the High Guardians seemed… unpolished to them, and that was not because of the paleness. In fact, they seemed to notice the curious side effect of being in another world less with every day, for the human mind always found ways and means to adapt to the challenges thrown its way. No, the buildings appeared cruder to him, less well made than even the simpler ones in towns like Roonheart or Katar, and the tools he saw in use were crude iron, and sometimes even bronze. He saw no windows made from glass, or painted pottery the likes which were the stable of even the poorer folk back in the south and the southwest of where they had come from.

In and between, there always was one empty house or another. Zath had noticed that as well and asked the officer leading them through the streets.
“We had a really bad winter,” was all he got out of him, but the fact spoke magnitudes of the harsh realm these people were doomed to live in.

Abruptly, the road widened and lead them onto a wide square that was dominated by the Tower of the High Guardians. In truth, the pale red building was not really a tower but a five-sided pyramid, with seven levels rising into the pale sky as high as two hundred paces. The red rock glittered as if it had been laced with silver interspersed with black as the only openings on the lowest level besides the massive doors covered in hammered copper were small slits high in the walls, only large enough for a man to shoot an arrow through. A large stair, wide enough at its feet to have two hundred men ascend side by side lead towards the gates twenty feet above. In the morning sun, each level of the tower glistened in a different colour. One was green, another almost white, and there were other colours, too, which he could not see for he was already too close to the walls.

Zath besides him hesitated.
“What is it?” Tarmion asked in a hushed voice.
“I don’t know,” the halfman admitted warily, “but something about this place makes me itch. It’s like I know something but it just doesn’t want to get to the surface. Be careful!” he hissed, his eyes taking in all that was around them.

Whatever it was, they were in no shape to face it if it meant them harm. Zath only had his daggers, Tarmion himself only wore a hunting knife on his belt, and Yurion had left his bow and blades back at their camp. They and their escort reached the top of the stairs which by then had narrowed to a width of less than ten paces. Tall doors made of copper turned green by the weather and the forces of time opened, and Tarmion braced himself for what danger would come out of them.

Faint, soft steps echoed off a marble floor, and from the twilight within the pyramid emerged a woman hardly taller than five feet, wearing a robe of wool and silk in a dozen shades of brown. Her hair was curled in tones of brown and grey, and her face had something motherly in it, but coupled with a sense of serene authority and ageless beauty. She wore a shawl with fringes in many colours.
“May the Light shine upon you all,” she intoned in a bright, youthful voice betraying her elderly looks. “I am a sister of the order of the High Guardians. You may call me Nolwenna Sedai.”

xxxxx

They had walked inside after she had looked them over quickly. High pillars held a rounded ceiling, and in the centre of the entry hall stood a two-tiered stairwell leading up into the heights of the seven platforms of the tower. An eerie twilight that seemed to come from nowhere put just enough light into the tall rooms they passed through to make everything in them barely visible, enough at least to not stumble over one others’ feet.

“And you are the one the guards call ‘The Maskman’,” Nolwenna stopped on the steps, her piercing green eyes seeming to watch right through Zath’s dark cherrywood mask. “If you have been wounded, my sisters and I most certainly could take a look at your injuries and heal them,” she shrugged and touched Zath’s arm. The halfman instinctively tried to yank it back as if he was faced with a poisonous snake, but the motherly woman’s grip was firm enough. For a moment, both of them seemed to contemplate their next move, then, as suddenly as she had grabbed him Nolwenna Sedai withdrew her hand again. “It would be the least to do in exchange for what will be asked of your people.” With a sigh she turned her head around and continued her climb of the wide central stairwell.

Tarmion only then realized he had held his breath from the very moment the Aes Sedai – light, Aes Sedai! – had started to address his best friend, and let go of the air in his lungs in a long hiss. He was a half myrddraal, and even though he had made his choice in favour of his human side the dark blood was treacherous.

“I don’t think she knows!” Zath whispered, his voice full of disbelief and astonishment. “When she touched me I felt…nothing?” The halfman still had both his hands tight around the hilts of his Thrakandar-made daggers, and Tarmion saw the muscles straining beneath the garments and the grey hood.

“Hurry up!” the elderly Aes Sedai called from a dozen steps above them. “It’s never been a good idea to let the Mother Guardian wait,” she explained irritated. Without checking if they followed her she hurried up the stairs with light-footed steps, leaving Zath and Yurion and Tarmion no other choice than to catch up to her lest they got lost inside the massive, dimly lit building.
She lead them up wide stairs that seemed to change colour with the stones around them, along narrow balconies, through wide halls and past what seemed like hundreds of long shelves full of books and parchments. Corridors only lit by oil lamps were replaced by halls and wide rooms where light shone through intricate glass windows and where lamps spent light and warmth even though there was no flame burning in them. More than once they met other women – no, he corrected himself – other Aes Sedai on their way. Making them out as such was not quite as easy as he had imagined it would be. For one, they all seemed to wear whatever they liked to wear, and each and every shawl looked the same no matter where Tarmion and his friends were lead in the maze-like tower. Another point was that not all seemed to have the ageless qualities of their guide, Nolwenna.

When she finally lead them up a flat stair made from all the colours they had seen before, Tarmion doubted even a seasoned trackers like Yurion would have found his way out of the labyrinth they had journeyed through. Intricate frescos on both sides of the stair showed an epic story told on more than thirty paces of wall. All three of them were unfamiliar with the lore of this world, but to understand the tale told there they did not have to be knowledgeable in it. It was the story of the breaking of the world.

Men and women fought a great darkness that sent beasts and twisted men and those whose hearts had been consumed by the desire for power against them. The world was sheathed in thunder and flame, and scores of people died while whole cities were burned to the ground by armies and wielders of the power. Then, when all seemed lost, a man, taller than the others, lead a desperate strike against a dark mountain under the northern stars, and sealed it shut, killing his most powerful adversaries in the process. The great darkness dissipated, and the world breathed freedom and peace once more.

But they had all been deceived. In the last moments of its defeat, the great darkness had poised the source of its enemies’ power and drove them mad. So terrible was their madness that they turned the world upside down. Whole continents burned while deep cracks swallowed lands and cities and the tribes of man. The sun in the skies changed as well, but was soon clouded by the dust the fires threw into the air. A long darkness laid over the world, a winter of snow and ice and ash, and the numbers of man dwindled until only the smallest group was still alive when the first rays of sunlight pierced the sky again after years had passed.

The lands of yore were gone, as was the great darkness for the clouded peak that had been its lair lay beneath the floods of the great northern sea, but the long night had brought forward new dangers, so the survivors of the global holocaust set out to build a home behind strong walls, and they were lead by the women they began to call the High Guardians, for it was them who fended off the night and healed the weak. And lo, a tower was build for them, from where they watched the race of man…

The haze lifted from his eyes, and Tarmion realized he still stood in the middle of the wide stair, with Yurion and Zath at his side. Both looked as puzzled as he did, frozen in the middle of their stride.

Nolwenna turned around with an impatient look on her face that rapidly changed to consternation and then to a thoughtful understanding.
“Ah, well, I forgot about that,” she mused more to herself than to anybody else. “I’ve been here to often to even notice it by now. Either way, you three hurry! I don’t like repeating myself, and you all should have enough sense in you understand the honour that is being bestowed upon you.” She looked them over doubtfully and sighed, still talking mainly to herself. “Well, maybe not. You are outlanders, after all.”

“You know we can hear you, woman?” Yurion stated sourly.

“Apparently not, or you would try to keep up with me,” Nolwenna quipped without turning to him or slowing her pace. “Come, the Mother Guardian waits!”

xxxxx

“You want us to do what?” Yurion looked at the tall woman incredulously.

Tarmion wished the man would keep his temper down. While the demand was outlandish to them, there was a certain amount of courtesy one simply ought to show towards this place’s version of the Amyrlin Seat. Because that was de facto what the title of Mother Guardian amounted to.

“I understand that it may sound awkward to you as you are strangers to these lands and to our customs, but we mean you no harm and we will not force us upon you. Yet, what I have come to know about you, you ‘Grey Companions’ sell your services for coin, is that correct?”
Her voice was serene but with a touch of steel in it. The Mother Guardian was a beautiful woman, even though here and now Tarmion was not certain whether her beauty was due to her power and authority or just natural. Tall and with smooth black hair and a neck that made him think of a swan she appeared to be younger than Nolwenna Sedai by at least a decade, but looks could be deceiving.

“’tis so, Mother,” Tarmion responded, his head bowing respectfully. The Mother Guardian was not alone in her large chamber. Six other Aes Sedai were with her and watched them very intently. They all wore the same shawls. If there were still different Ajahs here, neither Tarmion nor Zath had found a way to discern them. They were of different ages and different heights and weights, some appearing plump and homely, others tall and slender, again other smaller and more feminine in their build.

“Then think of it as a deal. ‘I scratch your back, and you scratch mine’,” she smiled, but her smile did little to hide her worries. “That way, we can both get what we want, to nobody’s disadvantage.”

“I don’t understand why someone with so much knowledge as you undeniable have has to draw on some stranded travellers like us,” Yurion muttered petulantly, but kept his voice down this time.

Instead of being angry her response was soaked with a deep sadness.
“So much has been lost, master hunter. It takes all our time and power to just preserve what knowledge we have in our libraries and try to help the people, and we have hardly any time to examine all the artefacts of old that our predecessors have gathered here. It pains my heart to know that the absolution of many of our problems might rest within the tools of old, and that I simply do not have the forces to find that out. But to answer your question,” she furrowed her brows and now looked a lot more serious than just a second ago, “yes, most likely we know the things we ask you to train our people. But we know them from books and scrolls, and not from practice. Could you mend a broken bone and cure the red fever just from reading about it in a tome, master hunter? Then why do you presume we could instruct our folk to smelt clean steel, to make tools that last and weapons that will allow us to survive the grolm and the other beasts of this blasted world?”

Tarmion looked to his two companions.
“I see no peril in helping these people,” he stated cautiously and held up a hand to stave of Yurion’s protests. “We will teach your people, for a time. We will also give you some of our horses so you can breed them as mounts and draught animals for the farmers outside the city walls,” he focussed on the High Guardian. Tarmion believed that for at least a moment he could see gratitude in her dark eyes before she regained her composure. Not that the Aes Sedai here were like the ones in the stories. Despite the great reverence the townsfolk had for them, they, as women, had an air of normality about them he believed he would not find around ‘their’ Aes Sedai.
“I must also insist that you will respect the decisions my people will make for themselves. Many will think it indecent to participate in the Feast of Rejuvenation, and even if one of our women would do so, we do not plan to stay here that long a time,” he explained, then added a belated “Mother”.

The Aes Sedai discussed his demand among themselves in hushed voices. Zath’s ears itched, but upon an inquiring look from Tarmion he only shook his head ever so slightly. In his head, Caraan Tureed was roaring, but he kept the mad voices at bay. After a while, the women settled back into their chairs, and the Mother Guardian addressed them again.

“I agree on your conditions, Tarmion Genda. Those who wish it shall take part in the Feast of Rejuvenation, and your people will teach us all the skills we deem necessary. In exchange, we will help you with your quest to find a way home. Rozenn,” she nodded towards a gaunt, grey-haired woman in a dark red robe, “is our Keeper of the Script. She and her disciples will aid you in the library. Your people are free to enter the Tower, but only ten of them at a time. And if the Wheel wills it, we may all find the answers to our questions, together.”

xxxxx

Nolwenna lead them back down through the maze of the Tower of the High Guardians after it was all said and done. To Tarmion, the motherly Aes Sedai seemed like someone off whose shoulders a large weight had fallen. Before, she had looked close to what he had imagined an Aes Sedai would look and act like, commanding in tone and presence and somewhat aloof from the rest of them. But now she appeared almost… elated. There were still some questions that lay on his mind, but even though he had just talked to what was the Amyrlin Seat, he felt a strange inhibition to talking to one of the Guardians without being requested to do so.
“Why was the Mother Guardian so insistent on having us take part in the Feast of Rejuvenation, Nolwenna Sedai?” he asked the older woman after having gathered his courage.

If she considered his question insolent she did not show it. She seemed to weigh her words for some moments before she finally gave him an answer.
“Normally, it would be a great honour, for the Feast of Rejuvenation is a day where we forget all our worries and just enjoy life in all its pleasures and facets, and take the children that spring from it as a gift of the Creator,” she explained. “But last winter was hard, and our numbers have dwindled. Too many have perished, and the Mother fears we will all perish if we let our blood be weakened any further. I cannot presume to know what the Mother thinks, but I believe she has great hopes in you people. Your knowledge and your presence may very well save us all,” she said silently, and Tarmion knew that she meant it.


That night, his dreams were livid and disturbing again, more so than they had been during the past weeks in these strange lands. Marisa was in his dreams, unconscious and bleeding, and no matter what he did, he could not wake her. Even though he knew it was nothing but a dream the sight frightened him to his bones. Zath appeared to him, his hand holding that of Arianna, and both of them were wearing masks of silver. “We are going to hunt,” both said, and vanished again. Azral was there, in a room twenty paces wide, held by white marble pillars. He looked into a black orb the size of a man’s skull, and he did so with clear, keen eyes. Blue flames danced around his gloved hands, and he seemed surprised to see Tarmion. The vision flickered, and he found himself standing on mound overlooking a wide plain. Down below a woman was wandering through the yellow grass. He wished he could see her better, and space seemed to bend as he changed places in an instant, looking down on her from not even twenty paces away. Her sight made his mouth go dry, for she was the most beautiful lady he had ever seen, her skin as fair as snow, her hair as black as the deepest night, her body and face as if made by the greatest sculptor that ever had lived. White robes she wore, and silver jewellery in the shape of moon and stars. And yet, she seemed distraught to him, as if she was searching a way and not finding it, as if she was far away from home. There was a throbbing pain in his temples. Inside the dream, inside his head, Caraan Tureed was breaking down the barriers Tarmion had erected around him, pushing himself to the front. ‘Kill her!’ he screamed. ‘I must kill her!’ Tarmion moaned. The woman turned to him, not seeming surprised in the least for even the brink of a second. His eyes met hers, and it was as if these black orbs watched right into the deepest corners of his soul. Ice filled him. He wanted to scream. It crawled through his veins, to his heart…

Gasping for breath, he awoke. Marisa uneasily moved in her sleep, her closed lids twitching from a nightmare of her own. He still felt a sting in his chest – and the gaze of eyes of the White Lady.


Regarding the language barrier: According to the Wheel of Time Wiki, modern dialects have evolved from the Old Tongue (some would say, degenerated), such that a farmer who hears a word of the Old Tongue will think that it sounds familiar, and such that any native speaker of the Old Tongue can decipher the New.

As you have undoubtedly noticed, the effects of viewing over distances and travelling as present in "The Great Hunt" are not apparent in these chapters. As Lanfear stated to Loial there, different worlds may have different effects, and some may have none at all besides the 'paleness'.

The Breaking of the World in "Otherworld" was a far more massive and traumatic event than the one we are constantly reminded of in the books' setting. While the Dark One's backlash scarred the world and destroyed a global civilization, it still left enough of a technology- and population-base for the surviving generations to flourish once the immediate shock and post-apocalyptic horrors had been mastered. And while the Breaking of the World signaled the end of an utopian age, nothing in the books conveys a sense of absolute dread of it other than in rather theoretic terms.

"Otherworld" got hit a lot worse. As there were no Ogier and no steddings, and therefore no retreats for men who wielded the power, most of them became mad a lot sooner, and the destructive effects of their madness accumulated rather than being stretched out over years. The destructions were widespread enough to cause a shift in the planet's axis, completely mauled the continents and the ecospheres and killed off 99 in 100 humans. Right now, there are probably 100,000 people spread all over the globe, and after 3,000 years civilization is just trying to blossom again, and its struggling hard at it. There are only few enclaves like the City of the High Guardians; most of the human population will live in neolithic or bronze-age settlements that are reclusive enough to be easily defended against all natural threats and are - by their very cautious nature – non-expansionist entities.

The only great asset "Otherworld" can claim is the fact that the Blight does not exist, and that there are no darkfriends left, with Shayol Gul being a peak in an ocean which has not been crossed in three millenia. The destruction at the „Breaking of the World“ was complete enough to wipe out beasts of the Dark One, and the thirteen Forsaken were killed in a massive battle with this plane's incarnation of Lews Therin Telamon and his Hundred Companions. Thus the Dark One there rests safely sealed beneath the icy floods of the Northern Ocean. As for the dreams, I will reveal what is up with them during the next chapter.

[Gogolu]

Very nice.

[Posbi]

Next part either later this evening or tomorrow, concluding the Otherworld mini-arc.

[Posbi]

Meh, I'd feel dissatisfied with myself if I didn't post something tonight, so here is, for all intents in purposes, the first half of what I promised.

13. 3 The White Lady

Day 52 After the Transition - The Third Week of Aine in the Westlands

A procession danced through the streets while flower petals were raining down from the night sky. Everywhere, people were laughing and dancing and drinking and kissing. It seemed as all the gloom that had lay on the city for these past weeks had vanished with the last breezes of cold air from the eastern mountains. Summer had finally arrived in the lands of the High Guardians, and the Red Tower shone in the light of the milky pale stars above. Lo and behold, the Feast of Rejuvenation had come, and the children of the Creator celebrated that they were alive and gifted with the feature of love and compassion. And lust.

Entangled in a close embrace, Tarmion and Marisa danced through the streets. It was as if the hardships of the past months were forgotten. He had never been a good dancer, but the woman with the fiery red hair lead his steps, and he lost himself in her eyes. For the first time since that winter night in northern Altara he felt his sorrows slip away, and forgotten were the nights of restless sleep. He gently pulled her closer and passionately kissed her. Giggling like teenagers, he let her nibble on his earlobe while he caressed her neck and back. It did not matter that they were in public, for it was the Feast of Rejuvenation, and people were doing a lot more there that night.

Soon, the sounds of flutes and lyres and song and laughter had begun to mix with those of love-making, for the Feast of Rejuvenation celebrated not only the fertility of the land, but more so that of the Creators’ greatest achievement, his children. Tarmion had left it to everybody themselves to decide what to do. He knew what he wanted, and all that he wanted, all who he wanted was there with him. The one who mattered. The one he loved and wanted to be with. Pulling her with him into a more sparsely lit side street she cooed as his hands ran through her thick curly hair. After kissing her fervently once more, she rested her head against his shoulders. For a few moments they stood there in silence, looking at each other and looking at the stars above. Taken by the magic of the moment, he tilted his head towards her.

“Marisa,” he whispered in her ears while stroking her hair, “when we are home again… will you marry me?” He was surprised he had said that, but with every moment since these words had left his mouth he felt more and more that this was what he truly desired. Looking down at her, he saw her eyes glitter with moisture in the starlight, but a wide smile crossed her cheeks.

“Yes,” she murmured, “I will. I love you.” Her hand wandered under his shirt, and she pulled him deeper into the into the side street. “And right now, I want you.”


A Few Days Later

The Red Tower had been and remained a maze even to a tracker as experienced and confident as Arianna Malaidhrin. Curiosity had lead her there several times, for there was so much to be found in the massive building. Known to few, her curiosity extended to books and knowledge of the days of yore, and for her the seven platforms in their seven colours offered more than just the chance of the knowledge of a way home. Her sun-tanned face made her look not that dissimilar from the townsfolk, but her height clearly set her apart, for she was six feet tall. With her long and smooth blond, almost white hair bound into a rough braid, she strode through the seemingly endless corridors and halls of the tower. From time to time she met a Guardian, or one of the many servants of the tower, but compared to the size of it all, the place felt devoid of people. Running up a set of stairs, then along a balcony, back down a winding hallway she suddenly found herself standing in a large hall illuminated by the light coming from a great crystal hanging like a chandelier from the ceiling in the centre. Beneath it stood a strangely twisted sandstone pillar.

Curiously, she began to circle the artefact. Looking at it gave her a queasy feeling in her stomach, for no matter from what place she did watch it the top of the pillar always seemed to twist into a different direction. Stepping closer, she first realized how tall it really was. Easily fifteen paces high, it did not by far reach the crystal above it.

‘That room must fill the height of a complete platform!’ she realized in astonishment. She reached out to touch the smooth-looking surface of the pillar in front of her, but about a foot away from it the air seemed to thicken. Irritated, she pushed her arm in harder, yet when her fingertips touched the artefact, a spark seemed to jump from it into her. In vain she tried to pull her hand back as liquid fire began to sear through her veins. She screamed in pain. Her limbs went into spasms, paralyzing her while the white fire from within the pillar continued to feed from her. Slowly, ever so slowly, the pain faded and her eyes regained focus. There were no burn marks on her, her body was unscathed. Instead, a pleasant warmth grew in her, and she imagined she could now see how flows of fire, of light were oozing from the pillar towards her.

“That is enough, child,” she heard a gentle voice and was pulled back, her fingers suddenly loosing touch with the twisted pillar. Like in trance, she turned towards the voice and found herself face to face with an elderly Guardian whose expression seemed to combine both compassion and worry. “Did you feel the fire, see the flow?” the Guardian, her name was Nolwenna, Arianna remembered, asked her.

Still overwhelmed by the experience, she did not immediately respond but gave the pillar a longing look.

“Ah, I take that as a ‘yes’, child. I remember I was much the same the time I was tested. Though, I of course did it under the observation of a dozen of my sisters,” she added.

“Tested?” Arianna asked, trying to clear the haze round her mind, regretting that the warmth no also was gone.

“Of course, child. To see if I truly had the spark in me, the spark that lights the light,” she smiled. “Only then could I be accepted into the tower and begin my training.”

The revelation dawned on Arianna and she moaned in disbelief and yes, horror.
“You mean I can use the one power?” she almost squealed. All the longing was gone, and all the remained was fear. “That I am Aes Sedai?”

Nolwenna frowned.
“That is a very old name that has not been spoken in these halls for a long time, child. In any way, there is no reason to look so horrified, child. Given your apparent age, you must have already passed through the most dire stages those that can channel experience. You can call yourself lucky,” she explained, “for there are many that die and burn themselves out without the guidance of a Guardian.”

“But I have never channelled before!” she protested.

“Can you be so certain of that?” she inquired with a raised eyebrow. “Have there never been occasions where things worked, worked in your favour even though you knew they simply should not have? A fall were you landed strangely soft even though you should have broken your bones? An arrow that hit a deer even though you knew it should have missed?” Nolwenna smirked, a motion that made her look doubly motherly. “Child, the one power is seldom accompanied by thunder, flash and flame. Now, start breathing again and sit down,” she commanded. “I know how consuming this experience is, so heed my words.”

The Guardian lead her by the arm to a niche were cushioned chairs stood hidden. Flames lit in the oil lamps on the walls, and she gently stroked Arianna’s hair.
“If this was a normal case, there would be no question whether or not you would come to the tower to receive your training,” she sighed. “But with you, there are special circumstances.” She scowled and shook her head. “No, I am not pleased with that, but I shall be damned if I let a young woman like you run off unprepared.”
Arianna looked up to her, afraid.
“Now, don’t look like that, child. I’m not a rabbit, and you are not a snake. You are free to go with your people, but if you are not a complete woolhead, you will come here every day to let me teach you.”

“You mean, you will not keep me here?” she quipped, then blushed and lowered her eyes for Nolwenna was looking at her as if she was a particularly stupid child that had been caught with her hands in the honey pot.

“Of course not,” she sniffed. “Though I presume I could. Now, don’t tense again, child! Even though this will require a different approach, I will teach you, and you will listen. The only thing worse than an oblivious channeler is a deliberately unskilled one.” With both arms the Guardian pulled Arianna back on her feet. “And the honing of your skills, child, begins tomorrow at dawn.”

xxxxx

People were still dancing and singing in the streets even though the festivities had been going on for the better part of the past week. Music played on both, known instruments and such the Grey Companions had never seen before, echoed off the stout walls of the city’s walls and houses. Most of the lavish and unbound activities had ebbed off, for the song and feasting had consumed most people’s strength a long time ago, but the most livid scenes were still fresh in Aryman’s mind.

The closest thing he knew that could compare to the Feast of Rejuvenation was Cairhien during the Feast of Lights. During that two day celebration, all social barriers did fall, and any man might kiss any woman, and any woman might kiss any man. Nobles and commoners alike were out in the streets in various states of undress and drunkenness, and all in all it was one huge pit of debauchery and wild sexual encounters.

For as modest as the townsfolk had been all the rest of the time, this past week had been …as far away from modest as even he could imagine – and Aryman had seen quite a lot in his time! Come midnight of the first day of their new month – for the Grey Companions still followed the Farede Calendar of the Westlands – it all had started, but after the first few days of excessive celebrations most of the Companions had settled back down to their usual menial routines, even though many of the apprentices they had were less than attentive and still smelled off the sour wine people drank here in quantities that astonished even Aryman, who, after all, very well remembered his own former drinking habits. Still, he could not suppress a mischievous smile of his own. Seven days ought to be enough for everybody!

It seemed most of the other Companions agreed with him on that, even though he had not illusions that especially many of the younger men had a hard time letting go of the thought of the women in the streets outside their quarters. Thus were the ways of youth. Not that he had any reason to preach abstinence, for he had also enjoyed the first few days. Later on he had found out that most local women here took herbs to increase the chance of conception. Not that he did mind that. He most certainly had sired a couple of bastards all over the Westlands during his wilder days.

In the square in the middle of their quarters those men who were not teaching and working with the townsfolk were practicing their skills with blade and axe and shield, and the clatter of the blunt practice swords against each other filled the air with the ringing tunes of clashing steel. At the centre he found Tarmion and Zath. The masked man had pit their leader against the silver-haired Arianna Malaidhrin, a young woman easily as tall as he himself, and watched the two of them fight. The man with the auburn beard had the upper hand against her as he was more familiar with a blade and had scores of practice hours to fall back on, but it seemed the fierce woman did well on her own. The Taraboner had watched them battle often during the past weeks, and she was catching up fast – and she was good.

Out of the tail of his eyes he saw Marisa appearing on the edge of the fighting grounds. She seemed distraught to him as she made her way around the pairs of fighting men towards Tarmion.

“What is it?” the younger man inquired when he saw her coming, pearls of sweat glistening on his forehead.

“It’s father,” her hair was a mess, and she looked tired and alarmed. “I cannot find him! I’ve looked everywhere inside our quarters, but he’s vanished!”

Aryman saw the deepening frown on the captain of the Grey Companions’ face. Azral on the loose never was a good thing. The old coot was not truly mad, yet, but there was more than a good chance he’s simply do things without losing a single thought about the repercussions. He liked the gnarled farmer, but the thought of a male user of the power still petrified him, even after all those months.
“Let’s waste no time, then.” He grabbed the practice swords from Tarmion and Arianna and started banging them against each other while demanding everybody’s attention from the top of his lungs, demanding to know if anybody had seen Azral Tane.

“Well, he went with the High Guardians,” Padran explained, obviously not understanding their concern. “What is it? Is there a problem?” He had been with them since the village of Crickhollowe on the border to Ghealdan, almost a whole year, and had shown great proficiency with spear and sword and shield. “Didn’t they tell you?”

“The Guardians?!” Tarmion audibly sucked his breath in.

“Aye, they were asking around for a man that fit his description. You know, missing fingers and such,” he added with a shrug. “Light, should I rather have been impolite around them?” he asked incredulously. “It’s not like it’s a great secret that they are bloody Aes Sedai!” People moaned at the reference to the women of Tar Valon.

“Blood and bloody ashes!” Aryman cursed, his knuckles whitening around the hilts of his heron-marked sword and his long dagger. People had endured and experienced so much, but even mentioning anything related to the power had the chance of getting the most irrational of answers. Which made this all the more severe a matter.

Tarmion pursed his lips.
“How many of them have come to ‘accompany’ him?” he asked through clenched teeth.

“Why does that matter?” Padran raised an eyebrow and shrugged. “It’s not like I keep track of…”

“How many?!” Tarmion snapped, the anger in his voice taking Padran aback and silencing the chatter on the square. Suddenly realizing this was no trivial matter to the man he followed, Padran thought it best to be as courteous as possible.

“Forgive me, Master Genda, a handful maybe, or half a dozen. I did not truly take notice of them when…”

Tarmion did not bother to listen to him after he had heard the number. He did not know how he got that knowledge – maybe Caraan Tureed had whispered it to hi in his troubled sleep – but six Aes Sedai were enough to completely block a male channeler from the source, and there was only one reason they had come to get Azral Tane, the man who in everything but name was his father-in-law: to still him.

Aryman knew as much. He grabbed the younger man by the arm and pulled him closer.
“Don’t be a fool!” he hissed. “Don’t run off on your own!” He raised his voice to address all of them.
“One of us has been taken, and most likely has been harmed!” he exclaimed, causing angry murmurs to spring up in the crowd. “Who is with me to demand our comrade back!?”

“Blood and ashes, Aryman, I like the old guy as much as the rest of you, but he is a male channeler Sooner or later this had to happen, and you know that,” Yurion Stormcrow scoffed. “Light, we should be grateful it’s getting taken care of by these people without them building a grudge against us. It’s not like bringing a male user of the power into a town would get you roses and kisses back home. If people had known what he is, half the places we went to would’ve driven us out with fire and steel!”

“Yes, and people that have been stilled lose the will to live!” Tarmion snapped, then gave Marisa a reassuring look. “We are not going to abandon him because he was born that way.”

“I had a cousin who was stilled when he was sixteen,” the people made way for Hoster to speak. The tall Roonheart man who used to laugh so much seemed very melancholic. “He did not live to see his seventeenth nameday. Just withered away, like that,” he snapped his fingers. “No matter what, that’s not a fate anybody should have to share,” he said darkly.

“All of you know who Azral Tane is, and what he is. You may prefer to ignore it, but he still is one of us, of the Grey Companions. We do not leave one of us behind. Our bonds have been forged in battle! Do you really want to abandon one of ours? Then who will guarantee you that you will not be the next, at the next occasion?” he turned to face the rest of them. “We are strong because we stand united. We are strong because we trust the man who has lead us through insurmountable odds and bought us out alive. Those of you who want to stand aside, what does that say about you?”

“Say what you will, but I will not risk my neck against some bloody Aes Sedai!” Marek Reen exclaimed, and there were more voices that agreed with him than Aryman liked.

“Why not?” a voice from back in the crowd yelled back. “After all that has happened, what’s the worst that could happen?” someone asked dryly.

“If we only pick the fights that do not count, that makes us nothing but cowards,” Zath stated coolly, and those who had objected lowered their eyes under his steady gaze. “Either we stand together, no matter the odds, or we may as well abandon the Companions here and now, for this is no brotherhood out of sheer convenience. So, unless you want to find another score of reasons why you want stand for a comrade of yours, I suggest you grab a weapon and march with me!”

There was a awkward silence, then feet first shuffled, and after that with increasing hurry men began to prepare themselves.

xxxxx

The wide square in front of the Red Tower was empty of townsfolk ever since the Companions had marched there and stood at the foot of the large stairs. So far, there had not been any bloodshed, but everybody knew it was just a matter of time. They had demanded to see Azral, but there had not been any answer. Well, for Tarmion no answer was an answer as well.
[I will make it rain]! Caraan Tureed howled excitedly. [Rain]! Without pause his voice changed to a low chuckle. [Soft and sweet and red their blood shall rain... traitorous whores]! Those last words sounded more bitter than angry, and apparently having said all he had wanted to say the dead channeler returned into the depths of Tarmion's mind.
Hesitantly, Tarmion gave the sign for the men to ascend the stairs to the pyramid’s entrance.

Halfway up, however, the two wings of the huge copper-plated gate opened, and out strode a delegation of twelve Guardians. From the colours of the bordures of the tower's platforms to their ageless faces and the rigid, obedience-instilling postures, these women irradiated power.
"Aes Sedai," Aryman muttered lowly as he slowly, almost casually withdrew his cloak from over his sword hilt.

And then, Marisa’s father strode out of the twilight of the Tower.
Azral Tane did not look as if harm had been done to him. In fact, the scrawny old fellow looked positively reinvigorated, with a straight back and an absent smile on his face. Content. Whole. The realization was like a slap in the face for Tarmion, and in the corner of his mind he thought he could hear Caraan laugh in bright amusement. Azral's smile was just too similar to the way he himself looked when he had been with Marisa: like a cat sitting in front of a pot of sweet cream.
"Oh, you've got to be bloody kiddin' me!" Aryman growled and slammed his sward back into its sheath, drawing surprised looks from the rest of the summoned Companions in front of the arched entrance. "The old coot got himself some sweet lovin’," he stated in a voice full of disbelief while shaking his head from side to side, then barked a short and relieved laughter.

xxxxx

[Gogolu]

It sounds more and more like Fallout of Wheel of Time.

[Posbi]

Thank you, Gogolu, for being the only soul to actually comment.

------

In his dreams the library was a different place. Corridors that were straight in the waking world here had strange twists that lead to places and platforms that seemed to hover in the nothingness until his brain gave his surroundings a shape, any shape. The lights were off, too. In the actual library of the Red Tower, one could always see enough to read, to find ancient tomes and decypher them, but in the world of his dreams twilight appeared to flow back and forth between the high shelves. He caught a glimpse of white in the distance and quickened his pace. She was here again, making this more than a normal dream. Where she walked strange things tended to happen, things that lasted over into the waking world. He passed by a shelf full of parchments and leather-bound books he remembered he had dug through with the help of one of the Guardians. They were often in these dreams, too, roaming the halls and corridors of this place. Some noticed him, others remained oblivious. This truly was a strange place.

Zath had appeared in his dreams again, too, as had others. He had talked with the halfman, and with Marisa. As it was, both had seen the White Lady repeatedly, if only from the distance. But Tarmion felt drawn to her, even though a voice in the depth of his heart whispered to him that with her staying away as far as possible was the best of choices. And yet, he followed her, even though Caraan cursed and howled and roamed restlessly in his mind, probing the barriers of shear will erected around him. And here, the barriers were always thin.

Even though they had dug through the archives day and night for weeks they had only unearthed fragments of old texts, and all they had achieved was to pinpoint the location of another portal stone. If the next week did not bring anything else forward, that would be where they would try their luck again, as little as it was.

The white figure vansihed behind a corner again, a flash of white silk and flowing black hair. He hurried after her, not really knowing why he did so. He ran after her, around the corner itself – and stumbled to a halt. It was as if he had walked through a doorway, for he found himself on the shore of a deep, black pond. It was night, with stars and a full moon standing high in the clear sky, mirroring on the still waters. Not far away, a grove of dark fir trees stood, and the grass he walked on felt as soft as a carpet.

And on a smooth rock besides the pond sat she.

“You are persistent,” she said without turning towards him. “Like sleepwalking inside a dream I have been, my mind numb and unguided, but your perseverance has changed that, Tarmion Genda.”

She turned her head, and upon seeing his expression, laughed softly. It was the voice of a woman in her prime, not that of a girl.

“There is little in Tel'aran'rhiod that remains outside my knowledge, especially here,” she looked towards the stars above. “You may call me Selene.”

His mouth was as dry as ash.
“It is a pleasure to meet you, Selene,” he managed to utter, feeling everything between stupid and afraid combined. Her silver jewellery glittered in the moonlight which threw shadows over her enticing appearance. She was as beautiful and as deadly as belladonna, and she knew it.

“Sit besides me,” she invited him, but it could just as well have been a command. Before he could even think about it, his legs obeyed her, and he sat down on the smoothed rock.

"Do you know the old story of the two giants, Mosk and Merk, who fought with fiery lances all around the world?" she asked him, and a flicker of surprise about the sudden change of topic appeared on his face for just the brink of a moment. "Ah, so it is still known in this day and age?"

He had heard the story dozens of times, told be gleemen just as well as by mothers and fathers to entertain their offspring.
"Why, yes, I know of it. A children's story. What of it?"

"Stories change over time. History becomes myth, becomes distorted for none no longer live who understand the facts, or even the concepts of what had happened. And after that, it becomes legend, and stares us into the eye in the form of lullabies and children's stories." She looked at him, and he could not help him but smile. "Mosk and Merk were giants, in a sense. They were the most powerful nations of the world, and for all the pain and suffering the War of Power brought, and for all the power Aies Sedai of that age wielded, it was miniscule to what Mosk and Merk unleashed in less than half an hour. They burned the whole world to cinders during a single morning, and nearly killed off what little of it had survived in the long dark that followed. Their craftsmen had made weapons that levelled every house in a hundred miles and burned every living soul in that space with fire as hot as the sun. They fought on land, in the air, on the sea - and beneath it. They even fought some battles between the stars before more had been destroyed and lost than they could have ever recovered. Those that were not killed outright died of a wasting sickness, and later of hunger, of cold, of diseases. Mosk and Merk's death, and with them the near extinction of all that lived drove the Wheel to the next age, an age where channeling was discovered. But today, it is a tale about two giants. Do you understand what I try to tell you?" she asked him intently.

"Yes, indeed I think I do,” he smiled. “Nothing is what it seems. This is not a normal dream. This world is not the true world. I am not a simple man. And you're not merely a breath taking, beautiful woman named Selene."

[Daughter of the Night], a voice like a fiery whip cracked through his mind. In her slumber, she walked the World of Dreams beneath the moon and stars. But old barriers were weakening...


Day 71 After the Transition - The Second Week of Adar in the Westlands

Their departure was celebrated with song and music, and the Guardians had actually travelled beyond the boundaries of their Tower to bid them all farewell. With them stayed four horses and as much knowledge as the men and women of the Grey Companions had been able to teach the townsfolk within the time they had had. When all the farewells had been said and all tears of those that were left behind forever been dried they set out eastwards, along the edge of the mountains on a hardly discernable path that once upon a time had been covered with gravel and even smoothed stones. The City of the High Guardians shrunk in the distance, until it was finally gone for they had travelled that far.

When the sun sunk behind the horizon in the west, they had covered good ground, Tarmion thought, but they all were tired. They had been given copies of an old map that showed the position of the portal stone they searched for, and with such a copy in his hands he fell into a restless sleep.

This time he did not have to search for her, for he opened his eyes standing on the waterfront of the deep, black pond he had seen her when he had slept the time before. Above, the moon and stars shone brightly.

She stepped out of the shadows between the dark trees, an ebony-haired dream in flowing white silk. Her eyes were focussed on him, and he could feel the fear inside him stir for her presence radiated power. And yet, he felt drawn to her.
“Fate leads us to this place again, Tarmion Genda.”

"I do not believe in fate, or prophecies for that matter. They are like a drover's scheme as in you never quite get what you've been promised," he dismissed the notion with a wink of his hand while his other hand kept throwing pebbles into the dark pond in front of him. The water ran to its edges in smooth, concentric rings, but it did not stir the grass there at all. “We are here because we both want it.”

"The fate of the world has been foretold in prophecy," she reminded him softly, like a patient teacher. Her mind seemed to be absent, wandering. Tarmion unfastened his cloak and placed it beside him, over the rock he was sitting on. With steps that made no sound she slid next to him. Even though he knew it was just a dream he thought he could smell her perfume as if she was sitting on the edge of his bed. It was enticing, clouding his mind, and with a conscious effort he had thought impossible in a dream he shifted his head to the other side. "You have heard of it," she continued. "The Karentheon Cycle."

Indeed, he had heard of it, and the thought of it involuntarily made his mouth go dry. The Dragon Reborn and the Second Breaking. Foolish thoughts, but powerful ones nonetheless. He firmly shook his head.
"Prophecies work, for one, because they are orchestrated efforts, be it by the White Tower, or be it by," he licked his lips, "darkfriends."

Her lips curled into an amused smile, and for the first time since she had appeared in his dreams there was an air of awareness to the expression in her eyes.

"They work out because puppet masters spend all their time and effort into prodding a thousand pawns on a giant playing field from one position to the other. And most above all, they work out because people have come to believe in them, not because they are matters of cause and effect," he snorted disdainfully. “They make things...," he frowned, searching for a word, "predictable."

"But whether or not they are true, people attribute certain things to them, and have become to believe that others follow just by themselves. The Stone of Tear. The People of the Dragon. More make believe than fact." She smiled at him, her voice soft and yet regal as that of a queen. "Like sheep, people are comforted by prophecies, even if they at first may be afraid of one phrase or another. They are a great spider web, a spider web woven from lies and half-truths, but they make them feel good.”

He took three pebbles into his hand and started to juggle, something that reassured him he was asleep and dreaming. Tarmion knew he could not juggle.
"Men will declare themselves The Dragon, will instil fear for the time they roam the world, but in the end, in their subconsciousness, the people know that because those imposters follow the prophecies, they will be beaten. Do you know why the Stone of Tear has never fallen? It's because people believe it cannot fall. It's because of the ridiculous associations they make."

"The Stone of Tear will never fall until the People of the Dragon come to the Stone," she murmured softly, her eyes looking into the clear sky where stars and a pale moon shone. "But you are not the Dragon Reborn, allein t'aes mera."

[No fate? No fate?!?], Caraan Tureed howled, banging against his barriers. It sounded as if a bronze bell was ringing, making his head din.
A dream, he thought. Just a bad dream. Instead of answering her he stared into the black water of the pond. He could feel her watching him.
"I make my own fate," he stated firmly and looked at her as defiantly as he dared.

"Do you?" she tilted her head to one side, musing. "Could you break the prophecies? Forge a destiny of your own into the pattern? Could you take the Stone of Tear?"
Lanfear, he thought, and to his surprise the name carried no dread at all – only a subdued longing he knew could never be fulfilled. He looked down on his hands that had stopped juggling. Without raising his head, he answered calmly, with a feeling of determination greater than any he had ever felt before.
"Yes, I could. For I do not play by the rules of their game. For I make my own rules. For I'm talking about logistics and strategy and preparation, while others talk about prophecy. There is no fortress that cannot be taken," he smirked.

“There is more to fate than prophecy,” the Daughter of the Night stated, tilting her black-haired head towards him. “Know this, Tarmion Genda: your own path is paved with sorrow, pain and grief.”
Smoothly she slid off the rock and onto her feet.
"You are not the one that will come, the one that will be mine," she mused, more to herself than to him. "But you are an intriguing man, Tarmion Genda." She walked to the other side of the pond, and where black and green trees had stood without blending a hollow with a portal stone appeared. “You have pulled me from my endless, blind journey through the world of dreams, and you know who I am,” she smiled as his shock must have been apparent, but there was steel behind that smile. “You are lost, but in a different way than me. I feel that the end of my slumber is near, that the days of Tarmon Gaidon are approaching. The portal stone will return you home,” she explained without turning to the looming chiselled rock behind her.

Tarmion could see the symbols clearly, as sharp as if he was standing besides her.

She absentmindedly ran her thumb over one of the larger symbols, a triangle standing on its point inside a circle. "It marks the way home, allein t'aes mera," she said, her voice sounding fainter, further away than before. “You are indebted to me, Tarmion Genda. Remember this the day I come to collect it.”

He did not look up to her, even though her very beauty drew him in like the scent of a flower draws the bees. Fear crawled like ice through his veins, leaving him sitting there, petrified, staring into the dark abyss that the pond under the moonlit sky had turned into.

"I walk in these dreams," she was moving away from him into the darkness that surrounded the pond, surrounded his own dream, slowly fading away, "but I feel the mist is slowly lifting. Will I remember that I dreamt?”

More than anything else, these words made him shiver.

xxxxx

On the seventh day of their journey their treck moved into a quiet marshland covered in yellow grass and brush. Small groups of crippled birch trees stood in the distance, and unlike the rollings lands they had travelled through along the edge of the great mountain chain, these lands here were devoid of the rich wildlife they had grown used to. Birds with feathers in subdued colours and scrawny brown rabbits seemed to be the only other living beings there.

The road, already existing more in their minds than under their feet, had ended half a day ago, and by now their wagons carefully crawled forward on the unsteady ground. The moist ground made for slippery marshing, and hidden ponds and holes were everywhere, just waiting for a wagon wheel to get stuck in. Off in the distance, unreachable for them because of the moor around them, ruines stuck out of birchtree groves and the moss- and grass-covered ground, remnants of the old world. Hardly a breez was blowing here, and it was as if the weather had no power in these strange farthings except for the encroaching twilight of the afternoon.

By late afternoon – it was hard to tell how late it truly was for the sky was clouded and the light continually dim - they had arrived at their destination. The pillar of the portal stone stood high and straight in a corrie, the coloured steps encircling it having faded to a dull grey of rough stone since long ago.

No words needed to be spoken. Everybody gathered as close to the stone as they could, the wagons and horses having been pulled as close into the hollow as possible. With a silent nod Tarmion motioned Azral to proceed. After a moment of anxious hesitation, the old channeler gave a start and placed both hands against the surface of the portal stone. As if by coincidence, Tarmion touched it too, forcing himself to concentrate on the triangle, the sign she had told him. Caraan Tureed howled inside his head, but this time it was more the howl of a blood hound excited about the prospect of the hunt instead of the indefinate screams of a mad mind. Tarmion did not know which was more terrifying.

Azral embraced saidin. Tarmion had no idea how he knew that, but he was certain of it. In fact, he thought he could feel the warmth and the staining of the male half of the power. It left a sick feeling in his stomach. Wind was gathering, howling into the corrie from all sides. He heard sobs in the voice of a child, and it took him a moment to realize that it was all in his head. His concentration wavering for just this moment, he felt the flow of saidin waver. Afraid to fail his comrades, and afraid of the consequences of what might happen if the male half was not channeled here as it had to, he forced himself to concentrate completely on the sign. Still, other pictures appeared in his mind, images of those he loved and cared about. Flicker. No, he had to concentrate on the sign. Flicker. The sign!

The world flickered.

An eerie twilight filled a cavern full of ruins deep beneath the Mountains of Mist. He was a withering husk, his eyes wide open and yet covered with dust, his skin old and yellow like parchment, his body frail and thin. He was not dead – and yet did not live. There was just the glow that called his name, the orb that was all he ever wanted, all his desires, all his dreams, all his fate. When the pale light emitting from it finally failed, flickered, the echoes of thoughts flashed through his longing mind, of a man that had once been him, of a city he had found underground, of a past clouded in oblivion. Lungs that had barely breathed for years sucked in stale air for one last time before the orb absorbed the rest of his mind in its struggle to remain active.

Flicker.

Lyara died in childbirth when their second child, Zandea, saw the light of the world. He struggled to bring food onto the table of their little house at the edge of Grevesbridge, farming after a fashion, with the help of his firstborn, Jerran. His keen mind, however, soon made the Village Council ask him to help them write their letters or advise them in legal affairs. He never really felt at home there, but as the years passed by and his hair grew greyer, his little shack grew and became better, with solid furniture and a stone hearth that kept the whole house warm. The year he was elected Mayor armies from across the Aryth Ocean invaded, claiming to be the heirs of Artur Hawkwing. There was talk of battles that Arad Doman and Tarabon had lost, and that the invaders used strange creatures and even had Aes Sedai on leashes. He bowed to them when they passed through Grevesbridge, and never saw them again. He remarried the day his daughter turned ten, and even though it were not her children, his new wife got along well with them. His son Jerran married the blacksmith's daughter at Bel Tine and built his own house. Tarmion was already grey and stricken with old age when the news reached Grevesbridge that the Trolloc Wars had re-erupted, and the new masters were being swept away. He took sick that winter, and was buried next to his first wife before the new spring came.

Flicker.

Zath laughed, and so did Tarmion as they drank to their successful hunt for the bounty on the head of a brigand and murderer who had plagued Lugard. Whitecloaks stormed the tavern, and both men lunged for their weapons. Zath was a deadly whirlwind, and after six years devoted to a life financed by his skills with a sword, Tarmion was no pushover either. He killed three Whitecloaks before two blades dug deep into his own chest.

Flicker.

He lay in a dark alley in Katar, dying, his skull broken, a knife in his chest. Zath went back to look for him, but the city guard was already there, with the fraudster and his aides accusing him of the murder of Tarmion.

Flicker.

Caemlyn burned on his orders, and so did its Queen in her palace, Elayne Trakand, a petulant girl who had had the gall to claim the thrones of Andor and Cairhien after his agents had killed the weakling Galldrian. The Hunters, his silver-masked elite guard, stood silently around him as he watched the great city being put to the torch while above him the banner of his power, the banner of the black griffin flew in the wind. Long rows of refugees marched out of the city, their meagre belongings packed on carts or on their backs, all under the watchful eyes of his men and the men the King of Ghealdan, his loyal vassal, had sent. The smallfolk had not done anything to him. It was not their fault that their leaders had conspired against him when he had approached them with open arms and a message of peace. Hence he let them go. Those responsible and the ones fighting for them, however, felt the wrath of the man who already called himself High King.

At the crossroads at Four Kings he had smashed Andor's and Cairhien's united forces, at Carysford his heavy cavalry had encircled Gareth Bryne's remaining men. They lined the Caemlyn Road now, all six thousand of them, crucified, a sign to enemies at home and abroad. Time and again good intentions had been met with treachery, and the High King of Alvadindoalcor no longer had the patience or good will to be lenient. Nations did not survive by setting examples for others. Nations survived by making examples of others. He knew a better man than him would have done better. He had searched that man, searched that boy, only to find out he after years of searching while he marshalled his powers that the man who once was supposed to become the Dragon Reborn froze to death as a newborn child on the slopes of Dragonmount. He was his own second best choice. Alvadindoalcor was a necessity, not a dream, a nation forged from all lands south of Braem Wood and east of the Mountains of Mist, except Tear.
„What I have to do could be spread to three men's lifetimes and still keep them up day and night,“ he used to joke, but behind his grim face sorrows kept him awake for long nights. In the West, the heirs of Artur Hawkwing had just landed, as he had foreseen. It was this eerie ability to know things that bound people closer to him, that inspired his troops with almost slavish loyalty. It was because he had abolished servitude and made all people under his rule caballein, free men, governed by a set of laws he had codified that his army marched from victory to victory.

In his new capital, the greatest and most modern fortress the world had ever seen since the Breaking of the World, ten thousand men worked in the steel mills and foundries that made the tools that allowed his people and his soldiers to succeed. The vadin'nor, his cannoneers, had more than two thousand field pieces in their arsenal, up to ninety-pounders that could smash ten foot strong walls from six miles away. He sent envoys to Tar Valon to propose an alliance. He sent more to the borderlands, promising to come to their assistance when all would be in peril.

He was forty-five when the last Seanchan ship left for their home, humbled and beaten. He was the most powerful man since Artur Hawkwing himself. Siuan Sanche tried to control him, as sly as any Aes Sedai. She failed, and was replaced by a Red. When the Dark One's banners marched out from the Blight, the Black Griffin marched to face them, and behind him marched an army half a million men strong.

The day before the decisive battle, High King Tarmion Genda died from poison.

Flicker.

He married Marisa and settled down with the money they had made. They had five children and lived in a farmstead overlooking the River Erinin, where they grew old together, and Tarmion never wielded a sword again. When he died, his children and two dozen grandchildren mourned their loss.

Flicker.

A rabid bear mauled Tarmion on the second day of his march through Darkwood, and he died, cold and alone beneath a roof of dark leaves.

Flicker.

He was a lord.

Flicker.

He was a beggar.

Flicker.

He fought shadowspawn in the Blight.

Flicker.

He submitted to the Seanchan.

Flicker.

He was murdered in his sleep.

Flicker.

He was a bandit.

Flicker.

He settled down a hundred times with a hundred different women, and had a thousand different children.

Flicker.

He was a soldier in the army of the Dragon Reborn.

Flicker.

He was bound and brought to Tar Valon.

Flicker.

He was a darkfriend.

Flicker.

He loved a queen.

Flicker.

He killed a queen.

Flicker. Flicker. Flicker. Flicker. Flicker. Flicker. Flicker.

Flicker... .


Thus is the Otherworld mini-arc concluded. Welcome back to Randland, were dreams do not last, and good does not necessarily come to good people… And yes, I know that canonically Lanfear’s slumber was dreamless. Still, this is and AU, so…


Glossary:

Alvadindoalcor - the Barrier Against the Night
caballein - free men
allein t'aes mera – man with no destiny

[divad]

his talk of prophecies isn't accurate, in the story the prophecy comes true in ways no one could arrange no groups of people across many generations often at cross purposes could possible accidentally arrange, futher more he having read the books should know that and that they rarely come out the way people expect

[Posbi]

Originally Posted by divad

his talk of prophecies isn't accurate, in the story the prophecy comes true in ways no one could arrange no groups of people across many generations often at cross purposes could possible accidentally arrange, futher more he having read the books should know that and that they rarely come out the way people expect

While this is undoubtedly true, there are two points here to consider: first, his knowledge of WoT lore by now is purely instinctive, as what ever personality he had pre-transition has pretty much been replaced by 'Tarmion Genda'; secondly, the idea here is not to discredit prophecy per se, but by doubting prophecy saying that he does not believe in some greater power guiding his fate.

[Gogolu]

Originally Posted by Posbi

Thank you, Gogolu, for being the only soul to actually comment.

There aren't many nonCrossover WoT stories I like.

This one is interesting.

Other one that I love is 'Wheel of Time fic, The name's Al'Thor...Rand Al'Thor.' that can be only found at:

http://z14.invisionfree.com/The_Fanf...howtopic=13066

It's built on the premise that Egwene died from the channeler's fever instead of lived, since Nynaeve wasn't there.

As consequences of that Rand leaves Two Rivers.

Adventurer Rand on Bond like plot.

[Posbi]

Originally Posted by Gogolu

There aren't many nonCrossover WoT stories I like.

This one is interesting.

Other one that I love is 'Wheel of Time fic, The name's Al'Thor...Rand Al'Thor.' that can be only found at:

http://z14.invisionfree.com/The_Fanf...howtopic=13066

It's built on the premise that Egwene died from the channeler's fever instead of lived, since Nynaeve wasn't there.

As consequences of that Rand leaves Two Rivers.

Adventurer Rand on Bond like plot.

Sounds intriguing, but you need to be a member to read it.

[Gogolu]

Originally Posted by Posbi

Sounds intriguing, but you need to be a member to read it.

Sadly yes but it is worth it to waste a bit time to make account.

[Posbi]

Hm, then I'll look into it. Heh, funny unrelated fact: one of the places I stayed at in the US was called... Two Rivers.