With a snap, she closed the book she'd been reading. There was a painting – a photograph, he had called it – of a man on the cover. He was stunningly handsome, with a hooked nose and jet black hair. She had some questions. She always had.
"Elan?" she began, then froze when she realised what she'd said. What she'd called him. She had started thinking of him as Elan instead of Ishamael a few weeks ago, for reasons unclear to her. She wasn't sure why, but she had a feeling he would not like it. She awaited the explosion, half-expecting his eyes to burst into flames like they used to.
He simply turned his head toward her, looking expectant and mildly inquisitive. When she didn't say anything, he prompted her softly. "Yes?"
"I…" she began again, her voice coming out as a croak. She cleared her throat. "I've just finished this biography about Dem… about Barid Bel Medar. The one written by Cassia Terrid Allman?" She had almost called him Demandred, but Elan always referred to the other Forsaken by their former names, although he usually used only their first names, something that had been considered offensive, or rude at the very least, during the Age of Legends. Demandred was an exception in that regard. She assumed that Elan had more respect for him than for the others. Oddly enough, he usually granted the Kinslayer the same courtesy.
"That's the only one there is." He closed his own book, looking interested now. "What about it?"
"There's something I don't quite understand. You said that Barid Bel went over to the Shadow because he was jealous of Lews Therin, because he envied him and resented him for being the most acclaimed man of the Age." He nodded. "But I've read both his biography and Lews Therin's…"
"Lews Therin's was actually an autobiography. Not quite the same thing," he cut in.
"Right. But how could Barid Bel be jealous of Lews Therin? I can't pretend to understand half the things either of them accomplished, but it seems to me that Barid Bel did at least as well as Lews Therin. Didn't he?" She was understating a little. She hadn't understood a quarter of all those accomplishments; the technical details were far beyond her comprehension.
"They both achieved great things, even by the standards of our Age. From my point of view, Barid Bel's discoveries largely overshadowed that of Lews Therin's, but the Dragon had something Barid Bel didn't." He paused, considering. "In the end, it all came to this: he was simply more likable. He was obsessed by fame, and spurred by the knowledge that people liked him, admired him. He dedicated a major part of his time promoting his works and socialising, making sure all the right people had heard about his latest discoveries and publications. Barid Bel never bothered with these trifles. The only thing he cared about was making progress. He was always learning, always advancing. As a result, he rarely made a public appearance. He was a quite capable speaker, and he gladly gave lectures at the University, but he simply never took time to appear at mere social events. That's how Lews Therin became the most acclaimed man of the Age. He was so genial, he made people laugh so easily. Barid Bel didn't have that particular skill, although he used to have a sense of humour, back in those days." He paused once more. His gaze had drifted off; he was clearly lost in the past.
"But why was the other man never mentioned in his rival's biography? I thought they were supposed to be arch-nemeses or something." She'd read that somewhere, in another book, a much more recent publication, written by some scholar from the White Tower. A Brown, most likely.
"You do know that channelers lived to be hundreds of years in those days." She nodded. She still couldn't quite take it in, but she knew. "They could hardly spend all that time actively competing against each other. In any case, it only became apparent when Barid Bel betrayed the Light, and I don't think Lews Therin ever truly thought of him as a rival. This enmity was Barid Bel's creation. But you want to know why he hated Lews Therin, I suppose?"
She nodded again. "I just can't fathom how you could possibly hate someone with such burning passion that you'd decide to join the Shadow. It doesn't make any sense, unless you used to be very close to them and something happened to change that."
"Such a smart little pet." He would never stop calling her that, would he? "They practically grew up together," he went on. "Both their families had estates in the same area. They had no siblings and their parents still had active careers. They must have been like brothers in their youth." He shrugged lightly. "Barid Bel never mentioned those early days, not even to me. I'm just building on what I've heard, and what I know. They both passed the test for channelers at an early age and were accepted at the Collam Daan a year before anyone else usually was. They were top of their class, as you'd expect, graduating with the highest honours. They were famous before they'd even accomplished anything of import. I used to teach at the Collam Daan, did you know that?"
She grinned at him. "Of course. I read your biography, too. One of them, anyway."
"They were always challenging each other, competing in every contest, both trying to achieve the best grades. It was all good-natured at the time. They usually ended up in a tie anyway. But soon after they graduated, a position opened to become the new professor in some obscure subject I won't bother to describe to you. It happened to be one of Barid Bel's favourite subjects, one in which he excelled, and he applied right away."
"But Lews Therin wanted to compete for that as well and ended up obtaining the position somehow," she finished for him.
He nodded gravely. "I'd never seen Barid Bel so furious. He was usually very quiet, and always in control. Lews Therin was the hot-tempered one. They almost came to blows over this, but I broke them apart before anyone got injured. Barid Bel left without another word, and no one saw him again for the next sixty years."
"Sixty years? There was nothing about that in his biography!" she exclaimed.
"Allman's work focuses on his achievements. At his request, his early years were not to be mentioned. He was always very private. Anyway, that was when he gathered the material for his first books. He travelled around the world, to forgotten ruins and abandoned vestiges of past civilisations. He spent time with locals in the remotest parts of the earth, learned their language, their customs. He came back a different person. He then spent a decade writing and publishing books, all acclaimed works. But Lews Therin was already a renowned author, and his publications sold like hot cakes. Barid Bel's books never quite matched his old friend's in terms of critical acclaim or sales. Although he did have a much better style. Have you read anything by him?" he asked her.
"I… tried," she admitted. She'd opened some of Demandred's books, but never made it past the first chapters. She simply couldn't make sense of them; they were too complex for her, too technical. She'd decided he was either a genius or a madman – or both; the two didn't seem mutually exclusive – much like Elan himself.
"Barid Bel used to write poetry as well, you know," Elan went on, startling her out of her thoughts. Poetry, written by Demandred? What a strange concept. Elan smiled, correctly interpreting the slight frown on her face. "He was quite good, actually." His gaze had taken on that distant look once more. He gave himself a small shake. "I think I managed to salvage some of his poems. I'll try to find them. It's nothing like his other books, or mine. It's perfectly intelligible, I assure you." He gave her a small grin. So he knew she'd found his own publications… and failed to read them. He hadn't even been there! The man was so irritating sometimes.
She decided to put the conversation back on tracks. "What happened afterward? Something else must have happened to make him hate Lews Therin so much. It can't have been only about that position he didn't get."
"Of course not. But it wasn't any specific event. Rather, there were several small occurrences that accumulated and culminated when Lews Therin was put in charge of the armies of the Light, when it was clear that Barid Bel would have made a much better choice."
"Maybe it wasn't obvious at the time. Besides, Lews Therin was hardly incapable, wasn't he?" she asked.
"It should have been obvious. If not for all his connections, Lews Therin wouldn't have made it so high." He snorted. "If not for all his connections, he wouldn't have gone very far at all."
"What about Ilyena?" she wanted to know.
Elan looked at her, frowning. "What about her?"
"She was Lews Therin's wife and the most beautiful woman in the world." Everyone who'd ever written about Ilyena Sunhair seemed to agree on that point. "Didn't that trigger Barid Bel in some way? Wasn't he jealous of him? I should think a woman would be a good reason to hate someone so passionately."
Elan laughed, startling her once more. "Ilyena. She was beautiful, I suppose, although I don't know whether or not she was the most beautiful woman in the world. I never paid much attention to such trivial matters." He looked at her, smiling thoughtfully. "Besides, they say beauty is in the eye of the beholder." She met his eyes, frowning, wondering where that particular comment had come from. He didn't clarify his thought, instead continuing his story. "She was also quite clever, incredibly kind, patient and a wonderful hostess besides. But for all that, I always thought her a bit… dull. She seemed to live through her husband, rarely voiced any original ideas. She could gossip and converse about a wide array of subjects, but most of them were trivial. Politics, fashion, oenology… She loved to talk about children and education. That was her choice of career, if you didn't know already." She shook her head. She hadn't known; in fact, she knew almost nothing of the golden-haired woman. As far as she was concerned, Ilyena was only famous for having been killed by Lews Therin, along with her entire family. "Barid Bel," Elan went on, "like most men at the time, certainly found her to his taste. He courted for a while, as I remember, but gave up the chase after a while, I'm not sure why."
"You'd think he would do the exact opposite, though, wouldn't you?" she said. "As payback for stealing that position years ago. He could have taken her for himself just to spite Lews Therin."
Elan nodded. "He could have. I suppose it wouldn't have been too hard for him. He could be quite charming when he wanted to be." He shrugged. "And yet he didn't."
"He didn't seem particularly resentful. When did that change?" she wondered.
"I told you, it was an accumulation of several instances spread over the course of centuries, a build-up of small frustrations topped by bitter scorn. He kept it all inside for a long time, and it festered there, until he couldn't take it anymore. When he arrived at our camp, the first thing I asked him was the reason for his abrupt volte-face. He told me the last drop had been hearing Lews Therin telling his officers that without Barid Bel, he couldn't have done any of it. 'Let him try and achieve anything of worth now,' he said to me."
"Did you take him to Shayol Ghul yourself?" she asked.
"No. I was rather busy, you see, leading the Great Lord's forces against those of the Light," he said wryly. That was the first time he'd ever answered a question that involved the Shadow directly. "I asked Kamarile to take him there with all haste, and they were back before the day was over. I had him lead his own army the very next morning. He bested Lews Therin in the field, winning us the first great victory in almost a year."
"Did it make him feel any better?" she asked curiously.
He frowned at her. "An odd question. I don't think anyone ever joined the Shadow to 'feel better', pet. He only wanted to best Lews Therin, to crush him. Everything else was irrelevant to him."
"That's nice," she said, her voice dripping sarcasm. "And if he had, what then? If that was his whole reason for joining your side, what would have happened after he had destroyed him?"
Elan shrugged. "I don't know. Does it matter? You really do ask the most bizarre and immaterial questions." On that note, he turned his attention back to his book.
Shaking her head, she approached the bookshelf, placing back Barid Bel Medar's biography where it belonged.
