"It would almost be a mercy to Still her," Allerria said.
"That is not something we can tell the father," Romanda exclaimed to other yellow sister, "she will survive no better than a full sister if permanently cut from the source."
"She will not face that fate sooner than any full sister," Kirin Melway adjusted the seven color stole across her shoulders. She had been quiet and contemplative in the way of a Brown until that moment, as if lost in her own thoughts and unaware of the two yellow sisters talking to her. "I will have to check the histories to see if any other child so young has ever been brought to the Tower already so far along touching the one power."
"In the case of this child, it is an illness," Allerria sighed, "to be touching saidar in these earliest years of her life has permanently damaged the woman she will become. The girl sits as mute as a stump until she is touched, and then she screams as if she were in the cook pot of a Trolloc and writhes as if boiling oil were poured down her back. She becomes quiet only when left alone again. She sits like a post and allows saidar to rage through her when it will."
"It may be," Romanda added, "that she is already able to channel to a degree. Even if she is not material for a full sister, she cannot be allowed to leave the care of Aes Sedai until she is in full control of her strength. And, it chills me to think what she might be able to do with the power already. What if she has another of those tantrums... while embracing saidar?"
Allerria supplied uneasily, "She will be very strong -maybe on the order of Cadsuane Malaidhrin. She is six years old and has survived touching the source long enough to be able to embrace it without guidance. Her personality is not formed enough in its understanding of the world for her to be able block herself the way many wilders do. Saidar is breath and blood to her."
"It seems there is no choice but for us to train her," Kirin said. "Here is what we shall do. You two will take her into the care of the Yellow Ajah. Place her directly with someone trustworthy who has experience with problems of the mind and who will easily fill the role of her mother. This sister will have a long term duty to nurse her toward health."
"Mother, might I suggest the child be sent to a farm until she is a little older?" Romanda asked. "She is too delicate to be subjected to the attention when news of her existence spreads. Sisters from all the Ajahs will be fighting over her when they learn that someone her age might be able to channel. The way she was brought in, news has probably spread already. And if there's some channeling accident, an explosion or a fire, better on a farm than here in the middle of Tar Valon."
"I agree, daughter," Kirin nodded, "We should keep news of this child quiet and move her out of Tar Valon. She must receive enough training that her life will no longer be in jeopardy prior to subjecting her to the usual stresses here in the tower."
"Training and seclusion will never be enough. She is permanently ruined," Allerria insisted, "the impact touching saidar has on girls twice her age, three times her age, is irreversible. Not one of us can imagine surviving without the power, but she... for her there will never have been a time before it. Where other girls her age spend their days playing with dolls and tied to their mothers' apron strings, she has had her soul blasted clean by saidar. It is a horrible curse. That she has not drawn too deeply already is a miracle by the hand of the creator... If not Stilling her, she should at least be shielded for her own protection. A child her age has not the maturity to survive what she faces."
The Amyrlin, known for her cautious, ever-thoughtful equanimity, regarded both of the Yellow sisters for a long moment. She could be steel when necessary, or pliant as water, though not without regard for where she jumped. Perhaps that was one reason a Brown had been raised to the Seat. Her soft-spoken manner sometimes made her appear weak before the Hall, but somehow she always managed to get her way. "She has not managed to burn herself out yet. There is a gleeman's story I hear tell; some time ago, in Baerlon, a tavern keeper had a son who would sit in the bar room night after night watching performers play. A child of six or eight. He would sit and watch without ever speaking, not playing with toy swords or rough-housing as other boys his age might. The entire tavern staff thought the boy stupid and forever joked behind the tavern keeper's back. 'His wits are paste,' they would laugh, 'lose a game of stones to a mule,' and so on. One night, when a dulcimer player and singer were between songs on a break, the boy climbed on stage, picked up a dulcimer hammer and began to play. The first song he played was one that would take years to learn, and sheet music besides, but he played it for memory. The story goes that he played the entire night through, no song twice, and so beautifully that the roughest miner wept into his wine. It is said that he could play any instrument he touched as a master might the first time he touched it. That boy was Thefgang Mazerat. Everyone knows the legendary musician spent his whole life playing to courts and causing Kings and Queens -even Amyrlin Seats- to weep with emotion."
Romanda's mouth thinned. She was not certain she agreed with the implication, "What are you suggesting."
"Allerria invoked Cadsuane's name as a comparison for this almost six year old girl. Cadsuane! The strongest Aes Sedai in centuries," Kirin chuckled. "Rather than pondering how best to shield her and hide her away as an abomination, we should be working to put her in contact with her gift. Most girls don't begin to touch saidar until they are on their way to becoming adult women; there must be a reason why this one has begun that journey so many years shy even of her first flowering. I cannot believe the creator would permit such a rape of soul without there being a very good reason."