Healic was awake before the sun rose. Taim didn't let the men sleep long. He came into their quarters yelling.
"UP!" he yelled. "MORNING!"
Healic leapt out of his bed and looked to see what the others were doing. The others were reaching to their drunk and taking out their black coats. Healic leaned down to his and opened it. There were five black coats and a sword with a black sheath. Healic glanced around and saw everyone else dressing in their black coats and swords so Healic followed suit. He buttoned up his coat quickly and strapped on his sword as Taim came around inspecting everyone. When he passed Healic he stared in his eyes. Taim's eyes seemed to burn through to his soul. Taim moved on and soon gave his orders.
"Damer! I want you have five others to start channeling more boulders! Torval, oversee the clearing of trees. Eben! Practice weaving Air and Fire with some of the others. The four new ones, with me."
The men moved like machines, they ran to different places around the Tower with three men at their head. Healic guessed that they must be Damer, Torval, and Eben. There were many more men than the forty the farmhouse could hold. Healic guessed there must be other buildings or tents that he hadn't seen yet. He and the other three who had arrived yesterday hurried over to the fireplace where Taim was standing. They took seats and began to listen to Taim speak.
"First off," he began. "I'm going to tell you why you are here. You are here to learn to use the male half of the One Power, saidin, as a weapon. When you are done with your training you will be used as a weapon for the Dragon Reborn when Tarmon Gai'don comes. My job is to make you into those weapons. Before I can do that you need to understand the One Power and how to embrace saidin.
"There are five ways to use saidin," Taim continued. "Five different elements that you can manipulate to your will. They are Earth, Air, Fire, Water and Spirit. By mastering saidin you can do things are simple as using Earth to create a boulder to things as complex as using Earth and Spirit to Travel hundreds of miles in an instant. But before you can even imagine using these powers you need to embrace saidin. You need to do that as soon as possible."
This was too much for one of the men. He stood up. "You're mad Taim!" he yelled. "Why would any of us want to use saidin? If you want to go insane then do it but you're not taking me with you!"
"Are you quite finished?" asked Taim, rather annoyed and unflustered.
"Well…" the man stammered. "Yes."
Suddenly the man fell over, unconscious.
"What did you just do?" asked a surprised and slightly horrified Healic.
"Here at the Black Tower," explained Taim. "Whenever you step out of line you receive a hard discipline. You are to be warriors, not coddled like schoolboys.
"Now as I was saying," continued Taim. "You are to embrace saidin as soon as you can. Once you can embrace saidin you'll be able to channel the five powers. The problem with channeling saidin is that the taint on it drives any man insane, eventually. But here you will be safe from re-breaking the world.
"Now, actually embracing saidin is difficult. Very difficult."
Healic was confused. He had heard people talk about Aes Sedia learning to channel and it seemed like all they had to do was "lay back" and "open up'. Of course all people ever got after that was that it was like sex for women. He decided to speak up. He figured that if he was to be a soldier, which he was still not happy or excited about, he wanted a few things answered. The man who had been "clubbed" woke up and sullenly took a seat.
"Why is it so hard to embrace saidin?" asked Healic. "The Aes Sedia seems to embrace their half of The One Power easily enough."
Taim chuckled softly, making a near smile. "That's because saidar is very, very different from saidin. Embracing saidar, from what I've heard, is like tasting sweet honey. Embracing saidin is like holding onto an avalanche of molten ice and freezing fire; and that's without the slick film of filth on the surface.
"Now," continued Taim. "You are to embrace saidin as fast as you can. And today I will teach you to do that. The first thing you have to do is the same thing you did when I tested you. You must put yourself in a blank void. Push everything away, everything from the way your clothing is rubbing your skin, from the heat beating down from the sun. When you reach this void you should be able to sense something, like a light just out of sight. You have to reach this light; once you do it is then a simple matter of holding onto saidin and holding off the insanity the taint brings on. Now begin."
Healic did as he was told. He searched for the Void his father had taught him about and he blocked out everything. He reached deeper and deeper into the Void until he noticed what Taim said he would. There was a light, a very faint light but the longer he sensed it the brighter it became. Finally he reached for it… and missed. Healic tried again and again and kept missing it by an inch, if you could measure distance in the Void. But he didn't give up, he kept grasping for saidin and finally, after what felt like hours, he grabbed it.
Taim was right, it was like an avalanche of freezing fire and molten ice. But it was so good that he didn't want to give it up, it felt so sweet and pure but right there with it was the taint. It disgusted him; it made him want to vomit. It was like a man dying of thirst being given a glass of water with oil on the surface. But the sweetness of it made the taint worth it, almost. He held onto saidin for a while and kept drawing more and more in. Soon though he felt as though the pleasure and ecstasy was slowly turning to pain and let go, somewhat reluctantly, of saidin. With the Void gone he was able to understand what was going on around him. Taim was peering at him with as close to as a smile as he believed Taim was ever going to get.
"Very good," he said. Healic didn't know if it was praise or not but he felt rather proud of himself. At least he wasn't insane yet, but he did realize why men did. The taint was… he couldn't think of any word to properly describe it except for dirty, or filthy. He wondered if the insanity came because it was from the Dark One or because the men felt filthy themselves. "Did you all see that?" asked Taim. "This one, what was your name again? Hearic was it?"
"Healic." he corrected.
"Healic," Taim went on. "Did it. He held saidin and a good amount of it too. Tell us how you did that."
"Um…" started Healic. "I did exactly what you said to do Taim. I put myself in the Void and tried to find the light."
"Could you teach others how to do it?" asked Taim, raising an eyebrow.
"I don't know, if you want me to I'll try."
"Good," said Taim. Again Healic didn't know if that was meant to be praise or not. "Do so. Since you've touched saidin once you should be able to sense when another does. I'll be back in one hour and I expect each one of you to be able to embrace the Source."
Taim turned on his heel and left the barn and went out to the field. Healic turned to the four others and swallowed. He didn't have a clue in the Light how he was supposed to teach them something he did by accident.
"Well," he said, crossing and uncrossing his arms nervously. "They way I found saidin was by accident but I did find the Void. But I didn't do it by pushing out everything else I felt. I concentrated on a small flame like Taim made when he tested us. I forced myself to find it, that's the only way I can describe it." Healic searched for the Void again and grasped at saidin again. He still had trouble grabbing it but it seemed easier than the first time. The torrent of freezing fire and molten ice struck him with the same ecstasy as before, and as before the oily taint crashed into him. The sweetness of saidin made the taint worth it. He kept drawing on it, more and more until he felt the pain again and held it. He held saidin and watched the others. Healic was surprised how much easier it was to see when he held saidin. The colors were sharper and he notice little things. The individual laces of the thread in the wool, the knots of wood in the chair and the barn and he could hear the men outside. He heard Taim yelling commands, something about Earth and Fire, wielding them while making a shield of Air at the same time. Nonsense to him; he turned back to the others and saw the on of them had grasped saidin and Taim was right, Healic could tell. There was a bit of a glow about him, two of the others were flickering in the glow, grasping saidin if only for an instant and losing it but soon after they were both holding it and not long after so was the last. Healic released saidin, sad to let the Source go but glad to be rid of the taint. He was at a loss for what to say to them so he calmly took a seat until Taim came back. When he did he stood in front of them for a moment until he snapped.
"Well?" he shouted.
Instantly, almost, Healic grabbed saidin and let the sweetness ad filth fill him as much as he could hold. He felt the other four fill themselves with saidin also. He stared at Taim waiting for what would come next. After a while Taim nodded and spoke.
"Good, you can all grasp it, which means we can start teaching you to channel sooner. Go get some breakfast and then I want you to go out to the forest line and tell the man there you are to learn to channel fire." Without another word Taim tuned back to the empty fireplace. Healic watched him for a moment, he saw the man hold saidin for an instant and the fireplace leapt to life. He waited to see if Taim was going to give an explanation but he didn't so he hurried on to breakfast.
Most of the other men were eating also, a few talked but most just chewed in silence. All of their food was so hot that steam was rising but Healic's and the four others were cold as bones. He hated cold food, especially cold eggs and ham. He forced them down but was compelled to ask one of the other men why his food was cold and the others was hot.
"Once you learn to channel fire expertly enough you'll be able to heat your food, you don't eat hot until you can channel fire well enough." he said. "But don't worry, Taim makes sure it's the first thing you learn when you can seize saidin."
"So we can heat our food?"
The man chuckled softly. "Not exactly. See fire is the most useful of the powers if you're being trained to be a weapon. Armies aren't going to stand up to you very long if you're hurling balls of fire at them."
"Can you do that?" asked Healic.
"The Leader tells me you are to be taught fire after breakfast." The man answered. "I am going to be teaching you. Trust me, when I'm through with you, you'll be able to topple the walls of Caemlyn." He laughed a hearty laugh upon seeing the shock and awe on Healic's face. "Don't worry, no one will be asking you to do that, exactly."
Healic finished his disgustingly cold breakfast and tried to relax for a moment but soon heard everyone else leave and, not wanting to seem lazy, he hurried after them. He soon caught up to his "friends" from Illian. Only one of them seemed unfazed enough to speak to him.
"You're Healic aren't you?" he asked. "You owned that carpenters shop in the Trade District."
"Yes," said Healic. "That was me."
"I always liked your work. You were the best woodcarver in our village." he said.
"What about you?" asked Healic. He looked up and saw that not far off there was a man holding his elbows and apparently waiting for them to show up so they could learn to channel Fire.
"I was a leatherworker, Shan's Leatherworking" he said. "My shop was down a few blocks and it was in one of less reputable areas of town but my work was top grade."
"Wish I had known," said Healic. "All my leather goods were junk."
The two laughed and soon they were in front of their instructor.
"The Leader tells me you are to be taught to channel Fire." he said "When we're through with you, you'll make armies tremble. Now to begin you need to grasp saidin and hold as much of it as you can." The man did this and Healic followed suit. He noticed that the man stopped drawing it in before Healic did and began to wonder why. He had never thought much about channeling but it made sense that not everyone was equal. He remembered Taim, the man who everyone else referred to as 'The Leader' he guessed, glowed a good deal brighter than some of the men. But Healic felt more power in himself than in this man, maybe he was just holding back but he was speaking again and Healic paid attention. "Once you have saidin in you, you have to force Fire out of you. You have to force the Power to work for you. You have to imagine with all your being that fire must be created, that fire must live. You have to tell yourself that you will hold a small ball of fire in your hand and you must tell yourself that so firmly that it has to happen."
To Healic this seemed to be fairly simple. He was being told to do, essentially, what he had to do when grasping saidin. He took a breath and grasped saidin, the relished in the warmth of saidin but the mire of the taint also seeped into his veins. While he was holding onto the avalanche of molten ice and frigid fire he glanced at the man who was to be teaching them and saw his eyes wide.
"What is it?" asked Healic.
"You have power." he said simply. "When you are trained… you will be powerful."
Healic had a desire to ask more but he would later, eventually he would talk to one of these men and get some questions answered. He pushed that out of his mind and began concentrating. He cupped his hands and shut his eyes seeing his hands in his mind's eye and concentrating. He imagined himself holding a ball of fire. He imagined himself with a ball of flame in his hands. He saw himself holding fire, wielding it, controlling it. After several moments of this he heard his trainer's voice.
"You're a fast learner Healic." He said. "Very fast." Healic could tell this was not praise; it was the man's tone. It was suspicion. Why?
