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. Anyway, it brings us one step closer to a conclusion of the first book, and the plot will thicken.

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 barreer: 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.