Disclaimer: The Wheel of Time belongs to Robert Jordan, this is just a short story set 1,500 years or so earlier than his books. I used ideas and places from the Wheel of time, and even some names but some of the translations are mine.

If you could review this chapter and voice any opinions and ideas on anything that could be improved I would be immensely grateful. This is my first Fanfic and I'm quite nervous about what poeple might think. Please be truthful. Oh, and I could probably use some pointers on my disclaimers next time . . . new guy, remember?

When the Red Ajar came

They came for him in the night, rapping him in flows of Air, cutting off his Link. He strained against the shield, harder and harder, feeling around the edges, the places where he felt softness. Seven points in the shield keeping him from the raging inferno that was Saidin. Somehow he knew that unless those points hardened, he was doomed.

One of the nine women looked down at him, an expression of hate and disgust on her ageless face. Her hair was long, to her waist and braided from her temples to the back of her head to form a single large braid hanging down to her waist. The style of her hair named her Rhamdasharan and her red shawl as an Aes Sedai of the Red Ajar, those sworn to hunt down men who can channel and bring them to the Tower to be severed from the True Source. The thought of being cut off from the source sent him into hysterics and he fought against the webs holding him and against the shield between him and Saidin.

"Filthy vermin!" one of the Aes Sedai said. "To think that this one actually believed he could elude us forever astounds me."

Jed stopped struggling for a moment, gathering his strength. He twisted his head, looking around him. There were seven sisters of the Red Ajar standing around him; he shivered, feeling the Goosebumps on his arms that had always been so useful before when the Aes Sedai came for him. The tall oak trees around him rustled in the light breeze, and to Jed, it felt as if they were leaning towards him as if to free him from his captors. He felt his strength return and with it came the Oneness. He imagined the flame and fed his emotions into it one-by-one, until only a void remained. There in the void he felt the light that was Saidin calling to him and he yearned for its Power. Suddenly he threw himself at the shield, pounding it, smashing against it, bending it inward. He focused on the first point and poured his anger and desperation to reach the source into it, filling it with his rage. The shield wavered; suddenly the first point disappeared and one of the women collapsed to the ground.

The Aes Sedai gave a start, the Rhamdasharan standing over him looking over her shoulder at the one he had incapacitated.

"Alaria, do something! He came too close to breaking the shield that time," said another of the women, darting fearful looks in his direction.

The Rhamdasharan turned and smirked at him. Suddenly everything went black and Jed felt an enormous pressure smash into his temple. The last thing he heard as he fell into darkness was the scornful laughter of the woman who had called him vermin and the gasps of relief from the six women maintaining his shield.

Jed woke to the sound of hoof beats and the rocking motion of the cart he was lying in. Slowly he opened his eyes, careful not to make any sudden movements and hoping that the Reds thought him still asleep. He was lying at the foot of the cart, which looked new and sturdy, probably recently commandeered by the Sisters from some poor trader. The cart was being drawn by Jed's horse, Freedom; he still remembered the day he had named the horse five years before when he had stolen her from a Warder he had killed. To his left were four women on horses, wearing long cloaks over their silk riding gowns. Jed chuckled under his breath. On his right were another five women; four of them were wearing red shawls and the one remaining was wearing a green shawl draped over the shoulders of her cloak. One of the women on the right side of the cart was drooped over her saddle and looked to be unconscious. The others seemed to be trying to pretend that she didn't exist so there was no need for Jed to wonder what had happened to the Red Sister who had collapsed when he had tried to escape.

Carefully, he felt around the shield. Six points met him, all soft. Quietly he sighed; of course, they wouldn't be taking any chances with him now. He knew why there were only six women holding his shield and not eight. The Red Sister he had incapacitated Light-knows how many nights before, for he did not know how long he had slept, had been severed from Saidar while the other two, most likely Alaria and the Green Sister, would be reserving their strength for the next time he tried to escape. He had hoped not to do it, but he had known for a long time that if a woman held his shield without tying off the web and he managed to break the shield then he risked slicing through her Link to the source as well.

Saidin and Saidar work together and against each other to turn the Wheel of Time; they could be used together but can never mix. When he had crushed her Link to the shield holding him prisoner he had, for the smallest moment, been able to touch the source and that flare of Power had sliced straight through her connection to Saidar.

The sound of voices brought Jed out of his deliberations and he focused on what the two Aes Sedai were saying.

"We should Gentle him right here Alaria," said one of the women to the right of the cart. Jed stiffened slightly at the thought of being severed here, but then he relaxed. By Tower Law they couldn't; they would be punished severely for severing him without a Trial in the White Tower. He recognised the voice as the one who had called him vermin the night he was captured.

"No, Katerine," Alaria replied. "He will be escorted to the Tower where he will be tried and judged before the Hall of the Tower, as is the law."

"But he Stilled Namelle, Alaria! Stilled her!" Katerine replied with horror in her voice. "He must be punished." Jed turned his head an inch to the right and opened his eyes a crack so as to see what this Katerine looked like.

She had long black hair and blue eyes set in a pale face. She was not especially beautiful but she could have been if she did not look as though she were always sneering. Jed decided that she would be trouble. Something about her made him more unease than he would otherwise have been for any Aes Sedai, even Reds. There was a shadowed look in her eyes, as if she had spent a week in the Great Blight fighting Trollocs.

Alaria sighed as the other Red Sisters murmured agreement. She closed her eyes and spoke quietly through her teeth. "Very well, punish him; but do not gentle him or leave any visible marks. I want him in reasonable health for when we reach the Tower."

Jed squeezed his eyes shut and prayed to the Creator that his chance would come soon. Why, oh why had he not masked his ability to channel and inverted his webs the night of the attack.

"Salarme, you are the most accomplished Healer among us. I want you to Heal him every night and every morning, but only enough that there will be no bruises. He must feel the pain of what he has done to Namelle Sedai." Alaria nodded her head in satisfaction and turned back to the path ahead, while Katerine smiled with anticipation.

She turned to Jed and suddenly he felt Goosebumps on his arms at the same time as dozens of invisible whips lashed at his body. He cried out in pain and assumed the Oneness, where the pain seemed to be that of another's. Katerine had smirked when he first cried out and so had a few of the other women, but her smile disappeared when his cries stopped. Jed had learned an important lesson the first time he had been captured by Aes Sedai; showing defiance will only encourage his captors to try harder, submission will only show them that they are getting to him, but showing no emotion at all...? That will unsettle them. The first time he had been captured he had retreated deep into the void, so deep in fact that he had not even felt the webs of Air beating him over and over. The Red Ajar did like to beat their prisoners, whether they fought back or not.

So Jed retreated deeper into the Void, all the while staring Katerine in the eyes. She must have noticed the increasingly neutral look in his eyes, because she increased the speed and strength of the beating. Soon Jed could see a fine sheen of sweat on her face and an uneasy cast to her eyes; they could not seem to break away from his own eyes as they stared at one another. Suddenly Jed heard a shout of alarm, but he continued staring into Katerine's face, ignoring the cries from the other Sisters. There was only him and Katerine, and the fear in her eyes as his bore into them. From far away he heard a voice shout out:

"Stop Katerine, you're going to kill him!" Alaria screamed. "Stop now!"

Katerine suddenly broke away from his gaze, spinning to stare wide-eyed at Alaria. Jed turned his stare on Alaria also and as the beatings stopped, he instinctively released the Void. Suddenly he could feel pain, blinding agony across every square-inch of his body. He did not even have time to blink before the world faded around him and he fell gratefully into blackness.

Jed woke to the sound of quiet voices and the crackling of a fire. When he opened his eyes he was greeted by the sight of six figures sitting at various positions around a small opening in the trees. In the distance he could see the road through the tall trunks of the trees. There was another figure five paces away from him; the other Sisters avoided the figure as they moved around the camp. Jed guessed that this was the woman he had severed. He felt a pang of guilt as he gazed at her shuddering form and heard her quiet moans.

The pain from his beating had disappeared except for an ache in his legs. He guessed that they didn't want him running far if he managed to get away from the group because his legs felt as if he'd been running all day already. He wasn't bound in any way that he could tell but he was sure that there were shields around the camp to stop him from getting away, or at least a couple of wards to warn the Sisters if he tried to escape. Salarme obviously hadn't fully healed him, just as Alaria had ordered. Slowly he sat up, groaning when his muscles protested. Movement in the clearing suddenly ceased as all eyes turned to him as he sat there.

"What?" he said to his silent audience. "You did not really believe that I would go quietly did you?"

One of the women sniffed, a few of the others giving him dirty looks and glancing uneasily at Namelle who had stopped crying and was staring at him with anger and despair in her features. Again he felt his heart lurch with pity, and a fair amount of fear. 'This is my fate' he thought as he gazed at her. 'No; I will not give in.'

There was a small cauldron hanging in the air over the fire, bubbling slowly. Jed could smell the scent of rabbit and his stomach growled loudly. One of the women looked over at him and whispered something to Alaria who nodded. The Aes Sedai took a fair-sized bowl from a pack and filled it with stew from the cauldron before standing and bringing it to Jed. She knelt down in front of him and gave him the bowl along with a small iron spoon for him to eat with. He looked at her gratefully before attacking the meal with a vengeance.

The Aes Sedai was young, he noticed. He examined her closely while he was eating and took note of the green shawl wrapped around her shoulders. So, she was the Green Sister who had joined the hunt for him in the last village. He looked at her face and his eyes widened slightly. This one was very young; she did not yet have the ageless face of those who trained in the White Tower and neither had she yet perfected the Aes Sedai way of hiding their emotions behind cold features. She was nervous and slightly afraid, he could tell that much though she hid it well. She could not be past her twenty-fifth year, even if she had begun to slow. She must have been in the Borderlands searching for a potential Warder.

"You should not speak to Aes Sedai in that manner, boy, especially not to aggravate them," the woman said once he had finished the stew. Jed laughed quietly, though not enough that she did not hear it.

"Do you think I jest with you, child? Twice now the Reds have knocked you unconscious. Do you even know how long it has been since your capture?" She glared at him, red flushing her cheeks with anger. She was very attractive, beautiful even, with long auburn hair that fell in waves down her back and over her shoulders, ivory skin and deep green eyes. She was also tall, almost as tall as him, with full lips and a generous bosom, nice hips and legs that seemed to go all the way up.

"What is your name Al'sieta Sedai?" Jed asked her.