The council was originally to be held on a low porch outside the main body of the house, but had been moved to a low terrace in one of the garden plots surrounding the house; High Lady Suroth's retinue was too large to be easily accomodated at the original site and she had absolutely refused to move on the issue of her attendants. Rightfully so; it would have been a great disgrace to her, and a great loss of sei'taer, if she had been forced to disquantity her train. Still, Keille thought as she took her place behind High Lady Suroth's seat, in full armor and her face-guard lowered, with Briande on her left, this Elrond of the Others did not look pleased. His storm-gray eyes rested on the crowd of people behind Suroth with a distant sort of chill; Keille found herself wondering how Suroth had managed to convince this Other to let her retain such a sizeable train.

Slowly she ran her eyes over the assembled. Keille and Briande were there for High Lady Suroth among her bodyguards, along with several of the so'jhin, also armed, though purely for show, and her Captain of the Ground Forces, Maekel Etari. Her two Supreme Der'Morat'To'raken also stood behind her chair, as did her Supreme Der'Morat'Grolm, Torm, Corlm, and Lopar. Her Supreme Der'Sul'dam was also present, Eilei Katrell, a round, motherly-looking woman with features assembled into an expression of uncharacteristic sternness; the oldest and most powerful of the damane, Alivia, knelt at her feet, with the silver leash that bound damane to sul'dam coiled beside her. Keille had seen the Others giving her strange looks since the moment the pair had appeared. There were more than one kind of Others, something Keille had not expected. There were the tall, thin Others that Keille knew a little—Briande was one of them; they had been filtering into Seanchan for the last thousand years or so—but there were also short Others, with long beards, carrying axes, and one other Other—it was all so confusing. She nudged Briande and hissed into her ear, "What are the short Others called?"

"Dwarves," Briande responded in an undertone. "The unarmed one is a hobbit."

Hobbit. Strange word—of course, they were strange people. There were also humans, she saw. All men. Did these people not have marath'damane? Did they have or need no sul'dam to keep them bound? She would have to remember to ask Briande when she had more time, and Briande had more time, to answer at length. The human called Aragorn seemed to be the leader of the human delegation, but another of the humans had already crossed him publicly; Keille had been shocked, beyond shocked—how could he weather such disrespect without becoming sei'mosiev? She had waited for him to control his inferior, but no such thing had happened; Keille had concluded that he must not be very powerful, if he tolerated such disrespect.

Briande was strangely silent, had been since they had taken their places behind High Lady Suroth's chair; Keille could not see much of her expression behind her mandible-like face guard, but she looked unusually tense and pensive. Her eyes in the shadow of her helmet spent most of their time roaming the faces of the tall, thin Others, fixing in particular on the Other Elrond. It was odd, Keille couldn't explain it, but Briande seemed—nervous, almost, as if she were afraid of him, or of what he might do. She was being especially formal and distant, as if she were hoping to blend into the background of High Lady Suroth's retinue; Keille tried to help her by mirroring Briande's stance and motions as much as she could, attempting to draw eyes away from her der'morat'raken.

Now the Other Elrond gestured to the weaponless short Other—hobbit—Keille reminded herself. "Frodo," he commanded sternly. "Bring forth the ring."

The ring. Keille watched with interest as the short little Other with curly hair swallowed, reached into his shirt, and brought forth an entirely unremarkable-looking circle of gold on a chain. He advanced, looking nervous, and laid it reluctantly on a table in the middle of the group. Keille noticed that his fingers lingered on it, as if he were reluctant to put it down.

At his producing this unremarkable object, the Others assembled broke out into hushed whispers and awed gazes; in particular, the man who had crossed Aragorn before seemed fascinated with it. Indeed, the entire tenor of the assemblage seemed to change; as Keille watched, this unprepossessing ring seemed to be the focus of a good deal of fascinated, enraptured stares. There was something almost disturbing in the quality of the attention being accorded to the ring; she could only compare it to the look she had seen a sul'dam too long from handling an a'dam accord a damane. It was not a comparison she found comforting; indeed this strange attention that this ring seemed to be eliciting from the gathering of Others and humans was more than a little eerie. Even the more so since Keille could see no reason for it. What was in this small circle of gold to elicit such fascinated and enrapt attention from the entire gathering? She risked sneaking a quick look around the Seanchan delegation to see if it were hypnotizing them in the same way, and found that it did not seem to be; the Seanchan looked curious, of course, and mildly interested, but lacked that concerning look of fascination that she beheld in this delegation from Middle-Earth.

Suroth was speaking now, from where she sat enthroned in state. "This is the ter'angreal you spoke of?" she asked, the soothing slurring tones of the Seanchan voice falling gently on Keille's ears.

Elrond of the Others looked at her, his brows drawing together in what Keille thought was probably faint irritation. "I do not know this word ter'angreal," he replied. "This is the One Ring. In the Second Age, this Ring was forged by the Enemy in the Cracks of Doom, to enable him to gain control of the other Rings of Power, and thereby to enslave the people of Middle-Earth. It was only at great cost that he was defeated," the Other said, his gray eyes darkening for a moment as if in memory. "The Ring should have been destroyed then, but for the weakness of Men," he continued, the faintest trace of bitterness entering his tone. "For Isildur kept the ring for his own, until it betrayed him and slipped from his finger, exposing him to the sight of his enemies and destroying him. And so the Bane survived to threaten the world—what are you doing?"

The Other's voice sharpened precipitously with alarm as High Lady Suroth rose from her chair. Calmly she reached out and took the ring from its resting place on the table.

A collective gasp sounded in the air as she raised it to eye level, and one of the delegates—he looked human, but was not clad like the others, dressed instead in gray—rose to his own feet in alarm. "Return the Ring at once!" he ordered, his voice sharp with some unnamed emotion. "You know not what you do—"

Suroth took no note of this collective alarm, turning the ring over in her hands and examining it. After a moment, she turned and handed it to the Supreme Der'Sul'dam, who drew the damane to her feet with a brisk tug on the leash and accepted the ring. "Der'Sul'dam Katrell, what do you make of this?" High Lady Suroth asked calmly.

Eilei Katrell frowned, peering down at it in her hand, and then drew the damane Alivia near her. Keille noticed the rest of the delegates were almost silent as they watched this, as if they were afraid to make a sound. Many of them were wearing an expression of open shock, as if watching someone doing something incredibly foolish such as stick their hand in a lopar's mouth. The man who had crossed Aragorn—Boromir, Keille thought—was staring at the Seanchan as if he had just seen a stone grow wings; she saw shock on his face and something else—something she could not be sure of.

Katrell held the ring out to her damane to inspect. "Alivia," she said, enunciating precisely. "What is it, Alivia? Can you tell? What is it?"

The damane's own brows drew together as she examined the ring. After a moment, with an expression of puzzlement, she looked up at the woman who held her leash. "I cannot say, Mistress Katrell. If it is a ter'angreal, it is unlike any I have seen before. It—" here she and the sul'dam both frowned, and Keille guessed that she was channeling "—it does not react to any of the Five Powers."

Eilei shrugged and handed the ring back to Suroth. "My damane has never seen anything like it before," she told the High Lady. "Neither have I, in truth. I do not know what it could be. It is almost as if—as if it does not use saidar at all-"

She broke off abruptly, her face paling as she thought through the implications, but it was too late. As one, the entire Seanchan cohort went still. For if this ter'angreal did not use saidar…..then it must use….

Keille felt her blood run cold within her. Suroth actually sucked in her breath, paling at least three shades herself. The ring actually fell from her nerveless fingers and she took three rapid steps back in shock before recollecting herself. The rest of the Seanchan flinched back as well, collectively; Keille stepped back herself in fear. Because if the ring did not use saidar, then it must use tainted saidin. Suroth was surreptitiously scrubbing her hand against her leg, Keille saw. Eilei snorted.

"There is nothing to fear, High Lady Suroth," the der'sul'dam said in a dry, flat voice. "The taint is locked in the ter'angreal in cases such as these; it cannot harm you unless you use it. And it might not be able to harm a woman at all, depending."

Whatever Suroth might have said was effaced by a cry from the little Other who had produced the ring; he darted forward under the stern gaze of the High Lady and scooped it up from the floor, cradling it protectively. He glared back at her with such anger that several of the so'jhin shifted their stance; and indeed, Keille herself hissed in shock.

"Don't do that!" he shouted at her. "The ring is—is not to be toyed with in that way—" Suroth's eyes widened in disbelief—Keille was shocked too; nobody except perhaps a soe'feia Truthspeaker could address one of the High Blood in such a fashion—and she stepped forward half a pace without seeming to realize what she was doing; the little Other suddenly recollected himself, swallowed, and retreated before her.

However, this Elrond of the Others came to the little Other's defense, looking thunderous—and more than that, Keille thought; he looked the way that the der'morat in charge of her training had looked when she caught Keille learning to shift upside down in her raken straps; he looked at her as if he were seeing someone so amazingly stupid and foolhardy that it was scarcely to be believed. "Frodo is right," Elrond said in a stern and terrible voice, looking angrily at High Lady Suroth. "This is the One Ring, an artifact of great and dark power. You should not have done that," he warned her darkly. "The Ring is too great for any who dare possess it, mortal, Elf, Dwarf, or even hobbit in the end. You must never, never seek to touch it again lest it catch your mind and ensnare you as it did Isildur—"

"I felt nothing," High Lady Suroth said calmly, looking back at this Other in an unimpressed manner. As his face froze, she turned to look at Eilei. "Der'Sul'dam Katrell, did you detect any unusual sensations when you handled the ter'angreal?"

"I did not, High Lady Suroth," Eilei replied, "and neither did my damane Alivia. If it is a ter'angreal with an effect on the mind—as is the Crystal Throne itself—perhaps it has no effect on women," she suggested, looking past Suroth's shoulder at this Elrond of the Others; the Other's face was still frozen, and he was staring at her with a look that Keille could best describe as disbelief. "Such a thing is not unknown when it comes to objects created with the One Power, particularly if this ter'angreal operates through use of saidin. It may be," she continued, "that the ter'angreal was held before by male channelers, and that it functions to somehow increase the actions of the taint on the male's mind. Fragments left over from the beginning of the Breaking of the World mention the creation of a sa'angreal that had that unfortunate side-effect on male channelers, making it in effect too dangerous to be used unless certain unspecified precautions were taken. This may be the reason that High Lady Suroth and I felt nothing."

Keille nudged her partner Briande as Eilei was speaking. "Maybe that's why," she whispered up at her, "but it's got to be something, because did you see the looks on all their faces when that little Other brought it out? That was certainly creepy—Briande?" she hissed, realizing that her friend was not answering. "Briande? Briande?"

Briande did not answer, did not even look at her. Through the face guard of her helmet, Keille could discern enough to see what her expression was, and a chill ran down her spine as she saw it. Keille followed the line of her gaze. A cold sensation of dread spread over her as she realized that her friend was watching the ring where it hung from the little Other's fingers, watching it with a look of fixed intensity the likes of which Keille had not seen in her before. What is this thing? she wondered desperately. How can it catch the minds of these Others—how can it catch the mind of Briande? Why don't I feel it? Is there something wrong with me? With all of us Seanchan? Briande is female, so it can't be what Katrell suggested— Moving surreptitiously, she kicked her friend in the shins.

"Briande!" she hissed in an undertone. With a start, her friend returned to herself.

"Keille?" she replied in a whisper. "What—"

"Never mind. Just watch."

Eilei had ended her scholarly digression; the Other Elrond looked almost shaken, as well as did the gray-clad human man who stood beside him. The two of them turned and exchanged a long glance. After a moment, the Other came to himself as well. "Whatever the reason may be," he asserted strongly, "do not attempt to handle the ring again. It must not be treated in so cavalier a fashion—" and here, Keille could have sworn that she was hearing hints of some other, deeper bitterness buried beneath the surface anger in the Other's voice. "Do not underestimate its power," he warned again, "lest you find that it has snared you unawares."

"On the contrary," Eilei responded calmly, looking now past the Other and at the strange little Other. "You are the one who should be careful, little one," she warned him. "If that ter'angreal uses saidin, then it will be hazardous to any who uses it. There is more than a chance, there is a probability, that with each use, the residue of the taint upon saidin will be left within your body. In time, this residue will drive you mad, and cause your body to waste away. You should not use this ring ever again, and even now it may be too late."

The little Other now looked very frightened, she observed, and confused, looking from Eilei to Elrond as if he did not know what to believe. Keille felt for him. She did not like anything to do with the One Power, although one of her sisters had gone for a sul'dam, and if it had to do with saidin it was ten times worse. What man would ever want to channel? she mused to herself. Or to have anything to do with channeling, knowing the fate that awaits them?

The discussion about the Ring dragged on after that and Keille found her mind wandering; her feet were beginning to hurt and her ceremonial painted armor—armor that she never ever wore while on raken-back, for it would be far too heavy for poor Iraumu to carry—was not only weighing down on her, but it was hot and she was bored. Her attention wandered in and out, although from time to time she would focus in on Briande, to see how her partner was doing. The little Other who had held the ring had laid it, even more reluctantly, back down on the table, and his eyes kept wandering back to it; Keille saw that her friend Briande's eyes did the same, as did the gazes of the other Others gathered around the table. The more Keille saw of that strange circlet of gold and its effect on those whose land it was a part of, the less she liked it. And why should it affect Briande that way? Briande is Seanchan now. She kicked Briande in the shins whenever she noticed that Briande was staring at the ring too intently.

Keille came back to herself with a start when the man who had challenged Aragorn earlier—Boromir, she thought his name was—asserted insistently, "I say that we take this ring and use it against the Enemy!"

"Do not be a fool," the Other Elrond reproved him sternly. "This ring was made by the Enemy and cannot be used against him; any attempt to do so will surely end in failure."

"Why?" Boromir demanded, turning to face the whole assemblage of delegates now, Seanchan and Other alike. "Why can it not be used against him? It is an object of power, and surely we can find a way to use that power for our own benefit! We should take it and use it to bring us victory—"

"Isildur thought so," the gray-clad human said now, rising to his feet. "Isildur thought in the same fashion. Would you have your fate be his?"

Boromir looked at the hard, unified gazes of the Other Elrond, and the apparent human Gandalf, then he shook his head in desperate denial. "It need not be!" Boromir insisted. "Might it not be that the very workings of Fate itself has placed the ring into our grasp to be our final hope? We—we have aid now! High Lady Suroth," he said, turning to the Seanchan woman. "Can these Seanchan not help us? High Lady Suroth, what say you to my plan?" he appealed to her, seeing that his words fell on deaf ears among those of his own people.

Keille turned her attention to High Lady Suroth where she had returned to her seat. Suroth raised one eyebrow, then looked at her Der'Sul'dam. "Der'Sul'dam Katrell, you command the army in all things having to do with the One Power, what say you? May this ring safely be used against this Enemy?"

"No," Eilei said at once, coming forward a step now. "The ring does not use saidar, therefore it must use tainted saidin. In this instance the Other Elrond and this Gandalf are correct. Not only can the ring not be used against the enemy, it should not be used at all. Whoever uses it will most likely do nothing but expose themselves to the taint upon saidin, and condemn themselves to die of the same insanity and rot that afflicts men who can channel." Keille saw confused glances thrown among the Others of Middle-Earth at this, and wondered at it. Do they not know of the taint upon saidin? How is that possible? Surely the Breaking of the World must have affected even here…. "Even if they do not accumulate the taint within themselves, all the works that come from it might be warped, in the same fashion as the Ways were warped by the action of the taint. No, High Lady Suroth, this ter'angreal is not safe to use," she concluded with a slight bow in the direction of the Blood.

"I must say I concur with my Supreme Der'Sul'dam in this instance," Suroth said calmly. "The fact that this artifact uses the tainted male source of the One Power is enough to convince me that it must not be used. There is no known way to heal or undo the damage caused by the taint. It is simply not safe." She spoke those final words with the finality of a death sentence, and Keille saw frustration leap in the human man's eyes.

"Then what is to be done with this ring, if we are too craven to use it?" he demanded angrily.

Suroth shrugged, and lifted her eyes to gaze inquiringly at the Others. Keille followed her look to this Elrond of the Others. He closed his eyes, bowing his head for a moment, then sighed.

"There is only one thing to be done with this ring," he said at length. "And that undertaking will be difficult indeed. What must be done with it is what Isildur originally attempted to do, but was prevented. The ring must be destroyed."

He said no more, but remained with his eyes closed, as if gathering the strength to say what came next. However, he never got the chance. "I concur." High Lady Suroth broke in now, her voice cool, her face as always expressionless. Elrond of the Others and Gandalf both turned to look at her in surprise; Suroth did not seem to notice. "This ter'angreal is too dangerous an artifact to be let running around loose. Furthermore, the loss of an object that uses tainted saidin is always something to be sought, if possible. And since it must be destroyed—Der'Sul'dam?"

"High Lady!" Eilei responded with a smart crispness. She gave a sharp tug on the a'dam leash, drawing the damane Alivia to her feet, and advanced three paces, the well-trained damane taking five to end up ahead of and slightly to the left of her mistress. Eilei's green eyes sought those of the Others near the ring. "Stand clear," she ordered sharply.

"What are you—" Gandalf began, but did not get a chance to finish the sentence, as Suroth interrupted. "Der'Sul'dam, at will!"

"Yes, High Lady!" Eilei responded sharply. "Damane Alivia! Balefire!"

Quickly, those near the ring stepped back; not a moment too soon, as the damane raised her hands. Keille's skin crawled in anticipation; she knew of the powers of the damane—her own sister had gone for a sul'dam—but it always unsettled her to see those eerie powers in action.

"Stop!" Gandalf cried now, perhaps beginning to understand. "You don't know what—"

A white-hot bar of fire leapt from the damane's hands, crackling as it drew a connecting line between the damane and the ring and table upon which it sat. The table flashed white, then black, then vanished into non-existence. At the same moment a horrible wrenching sensation twisted the area, as if reality were trying to shift itself sideways. Keille staggered, and she saw the short Other who had held the ring collapse to the ground.

The ring hit the earth beneath the table and paving stones, a perfect circle in which tall grass and flowers now grew, and was not harmed.

"What was that?" Keille heard herself asking in the rising uproar of tumult, both from the Seanchan delegation and the delegation of others; nobody heeded her, or she would have been very sei'mosiev to speak out of turn like this. "It must be cuendillar,but cuendillar doesn't do that—"

"It is not destroyed?" High Lady Suroth asked over the din. "Der'Sul'dam!"

"Damane Alivia!" Eilei called, yanking the leash hard. "Again! Stronger!"

"No, wait!" the Other Elrond shouted, stretching out a hand.

The resultant concussion, Keille noticed, almost threw him to the ground—it did throw her to the ground briefly, as the damane let loose with a thread of balefire twice as thick as she had used before. It seared its way across her sight, brighter than the sun, and as it touched the ring it seemed as if the world had tipped itself up on end and everything was sliding off the side. Alivia herself reeled, and it was only the tug on the leash by the sul'dam that kept her straight. The grass disappeared from around the ring, as well as the paving stones for about a foot in every direction. In the center of the patch of bare earth, the ring gleamed dully.

If there had been an uproar before there was pandemonium now, as the Others all spoke on top of each other, demanding that the Seanchan tell them what it was that had been done, shouting about the safety of the ring, wanting to know what that wrenching effect had been. The Seanchan delegation matched them noise for noise, as they all broke their decorum to crowd forward enough to see the ring.

"Impossible!" hissed Suroth when she caught sight of it. "It still exists?"

"But what can stand up to balefire?" demanded Maekel Etari, stepping forward.

Suroth turned back to Eilei. "Der'Sul'dam!"

"Yes, High Lady! Damane Alivia! Full strength!"

A skein of balefire as thick around as Keille's waist launched from the hands of the damane to intercept the ring. There was a flash, black against white, as it touched, and reality stretched, as thin and weak as altjar cloth. Images came to Keille in flashes—the damane, eyes narrowed to slits to shield her from the brilliance of the fire in her hands, the shaft of balefire itself, so bright that it burned when she looked at it, the ring, which was glowing on its own in reaction to the balefire, the high sound of wailing coming from somewhere she could not identify, most likely the little Other who had held the ring she thought later; a whining hum in her ears that set her teeth on edge, her own breath, rushing into and out of her lungs, Briande, with one hand flung up to shield her face. She was seeing double, triple, quadruple, as everything split and mirrored itself four, five, a dozen times into infinity….

Then there was a snap as everything returned to normal.

"STOP!"

The shout came from this Elrond of the Others, Keille saw, picking herself up off the ground; he had moved swiftly to position himself between Alivia and the ring. He looked nothing less than absolutely furious, Keille saw, and along with fury, she saw raw fear in his face. He was almost trembling with the mixture of anger and fear, and Keille watched with interest; she had never seen one of the Others in such a state before, had not even known that they could become this undone. He stared at Suroth, fighting to control himself; behind him, Keille saw the little Other who had carried the ring on his knees with his hands pressed to either side of his head.

After a long, tense moment of struggle, the other Other demanded of Suroth, his voice trembling with fury, "Have you taken leave of your senses? What did you think you were doing?!"

"It was our agreement that the ring had to be destroyed," Suroth responded calmly. "Or did I misunderstand you? I assumed that balefire—"

Elrond of the Others cut her off, his voice still tight with anger. "I know not this balefire, but if you had stopped to listen, you would have known that this ring cannot be destroyed in such a fashion! If you—" He stopped himself with an effort, and continued, speaking in very precise, clipped sentences as if to a child or one not intelligent enough to understand. "This ring, the One Ring, may only be destroyed where it was created. In the land of Mordor, in the fires of the Cracks of Doom. What you just tried—" He stopped himself again and gestured sharply. "This meeting is adjourned. We will reconvene tomorrow to discuss this at greater length."

High Lady Suroth lifted her shoulders in a shrug. "As you wish," she said calmly; she rose from her seat and with a gesture to her retinue, turned to depart.


Insane. These Seanchan are insane.

As this High Lady Suroth led her sizeable retinue from the courtyard, her composure utterly unaffected, Elrond clenched his fists in an attempt to control himself, to fight down the tide of fury and fear mixed that roiled through him.

They are insane. There is no other explanation. Insane.

What had been that bar of white fire unleashed by the strange chained woman at the One Ring? What had they done, or tried to do? Whatever it was, it had utterly destroyed not just the table the ring had been sitting on, but the very stones of the courtyard in all directions around it, and that—effect—that had been produced. That they would dare—would dare— And how—how—had the High Lady been able to handle it without being touched by it? Even he felt the pull of the Ring as Frodo had laid it on the table, he, and he knew its history, its dangers; felt the call of the Ring to his own ring of power, Vilya, and was able to resist it only through a supreme effort of will. And High Lady Suroth—and more, the two chained women—the entire Seanchan delegation—had been utterly unaffected. Unaffected by the Ring that reflected gold in even Aragorn's eyes.

No, he realized as these insane Seanchan filed slowly from the courtyard, they had not been all unaffected; there had been one among the Seanchan delegation—tall, and paired with a much shorter Seanchan—who had seemed to feel the pull. How he knew, he could not be sure, as he had never been able to see her expression behind the mandibles of that one's insectile helmet. But the Seanchan had seemed to react to it, somehow. She—somehow, again, he was sure it was she; these Seanchan let their women fight alongside their men—seemed somehow familiar to him. His eyes fixed on that soldier, unseeing, as he pondered.

Underneath the roiling anger caused by these Seanchan's unparalleled arrogance—all Men were arrogant, he had known this for a long, long time, but High Lady Suroth was in a class by herself—there was a deep vein of fear. Because these Seanchan were insane. Worse, they were arrogant in their insanity. They knew nothing of the One Ring, nothing of its power, its history, its forging at the hands of the Enemy to bring the Rings of the other peoples under his sway, and yet knowing nothing they came here and presumed to control it. They fence it in with words like ter'angreal and saidin—words which I have never heard in all my life, if they even have meaning, he thought bitterly, and then presume they understand it. That they understand it enough to destroy it. And to destroy it—

-they unleashed an art the likes of which he had never seen before.

That white-hot bar of fire. What had been—

Not even during the first War of the Ring had he ever seen anything like that. Not even the Enemy Sauron—

The Ring. What had happened when it touched the ring?

He was dimly aware of Mithrandir standing beside him, seeming as deeply shaken as he was; he dimly heard the Ringbearer whimpering in the background—the assault on the Ring must have affected him too; Elrond knew well the way in which the Rings bound themselves to their bearers—yet Elrond had no thought to spare for them. No thought to spare for anything but what had just happened.

Who are these Seanchan? They come from across the Sea—they come with arts and creatures which are unknown to us—

-from across the Sea.

That was a thought which Elrond had been deliberately avoiding since the moment the first of the strange flying creatures had come diving onto his front lawn, bearing messages and an offer; yet it kept slyly surfacing at the back of his thoughts. These Seanchan came from across the Sea. The time of his people in Middle-Earth was drawing to an end. Soon they were to return across the Sea, to Valinor, the Undying Lands. Yet the Seanchan—

Again, he annihilated that thought. He would deal with that later. He would deal with that when he had time, space to breathe, to think. When the war with the Enemy was not so imminent.

Yet who are these Seanchan?

And then—

The soldier he was watching—somehow he could tell it was female, even through the shell of armor wrapped around her body—was taking her turn to leave, filing after the High Lady Suroth. Afterwards he was never able to recall what it was that had betrayed this warrior to him—but at that moment the vague air of familiarity snapped into place. Perhaps it was the way she was walking, the way she moved her arms that was so familiar, calling up memories five hundred years gone but as fresh and painful as salt in a raw wound, but at that moment he knew.

A cold sensation filled his chest, clutched at his heart. It could not be, he thought to himself distantly, desperately. It could not be, of course not, there was no way, and yet he was sure. A sort of hideous logic clutched at him even as the revelation surged over him. These Seanchan came from beyond the Sea. Celebrian has gone—beyond the Sea. This soldier—

He barely recognized his voice when he spoke. He had spoken without conscious volition; he did not know he had spoken until after the fact. His voice was trembling, shaking with disbelief, denial, as he called out to the soldier, "Celebrian?"

He was dimly aware of the sharp, shocked gazes of Mithrandir, Aragorn, the rest of the delegations of Middle-Earth, but they were in another world. All his attention was locked on this soldier, this soldier of these insane Seanchan whom he was somehow, crazily certain, was his wife.

And her reaction proved it. Oh, she did not turn and embrace him; she did not call out to him, did not even speak back. But she stumbled, jerked as if stung, at the moment he called out. Almost as if she had been expecting such an overture.

Unheeding of those around him, he started toward her, reaching out desperately. "Celebrian—I—"

But the soldier, if Celebrian it was—and of course it wasn't, couldn't be, yet he was somehow sure that it was—ignored him, and hurried from the square, her face averted.


As the Seanchan returned to their campsite, tension was running high.

"Der'Sul'dam Katrell," High Lady Suroth demanded, "what happened when you attempted to balefire the ter'angreal?" She was angry, and frightened as well; Keille could hear it beneath her usual mask of calm control. It must be a day for firsts, she mused; she had not known that the Others could become angry, and now she was seeing a High Lady in such a state. Suroth's anger frightened her, because if a Blooded Lady was showing this much distress….

"I do not know, High Lady," was Eilei's only answer. The der'sul'dam appeared shaken, no less so than her damane. "I have never seen anything that can resist balefire like that, except cuendillar…."

"Is it possible that the ter'angreal was made out of cuendillar?" High Lady Suroth had turned to Briande to answer this question, Keille saw.

Briande seemed somewhat distracted, then seemed to recall herself. "What? Oh….No, High Lady Suroth. Cuendillar is not known in these lands."

"Then how could it resist balefire?" Suroth demanded of her retinue again, looking at them all. "And furthermore, what was the wrenching sensation that came when the balefire touched the ter'angreal?"

Silence. Keille herself knew so little about the One Power and issues with it that she did not even try to answer. Suroth stopped in the middle of the camp lane, looking at her retinue, waiting. At last, it was Briande who spoke.

"High Lady Suroth, if I may?"

"By all means."

"This ring—this One Ring—" She paused again, as if bringing up memories a long time buried. "This One Ring is very vitally important to the structure of this land. I have heard—please, Der'Sul'dam, by all means, correct me if I am wrong—that balefire destroys something utterly, that it burns the object's thread out of the Pattern for once and for all, and that it causes this effect before the balefire touches the object. Is this not the case?" she asked, appealing to Eilei.

"Close enough," Eilei verified. "Furthermore, the stronger the balefire, the farther back in time the object's thread will be erased, and all consequences from the existence of that object will be undone. As you can gather, this can have a tremendous effect on the Pattern, and is why during the Great War of Power, at the end of the Age of Legends, both sides simply stopped using balefire. Whole cities were erased by the use of it, and the Pattern came close to unraveling completely. There was no sense to fighting to rule the world if the world itself would cease to exist."

"Then perhaps that is why balefire did not work on the ring, High Lady Suroth," Briande suggested. "The One Ring is extremely important to this land; in fact, it might be fair to say that the Ring is the thread that this land is woven around. If it were possible for an object itself to be ta'veren, this ring might be it. Since the ring is so vital to the fabric of this land, perhaps the Pattern itself acted to protect the ring and refused to allow it to be sacrificed. That might also explain the wrenching sensation experienced when the ring was balefired; the Pattern of this land was being twisted out of shape by the attempt to remove the thread of the ring."

High Lady Suroth frowned at the Der'Morat'Raken. "That is impossible," she said at once, her voice the slightest bit unsteady. "The Pattern does not act in that fashion. It cannot act in that fashion. Ask any one of the Pattern-readers—"

"I am sorry, High Lady Suroth," Briande said humbly, "but that is the only explanation I can think of."

There was silence for a moment as the Seanchan thought; it was to Katrell that Suroth addressed her next question. "How do we destroy it, if it is to be destroyed?"

"Oh, it should be, High Lady, be not mistaken about that," spoke Eilei. "It does not use saidar, so therefore it must use saidin. As that is the case, all acts done with it must come to evil. I do not know how it may be destroyed as yet. Rest assured that I will discuss this problem with my sul'dam and if it can be done, we will find a way."

"See that you do," High Lady Suroth said sternly, regarding her der'sul'dam. "The Other Elrond did not seem to think that a channeller could perform such a feat."

Eilei smiled with cynical confidence up at Suroth. "The Other Elrond has never seen a sul'dam and damane in action. When we are complete, there is nothing in this world or any other that we cannot do." Here she turned and smiled at Alivia, who was walking as usual ahead and slightly to the left of her—making the way safe for her sul'dam. The silver lead between then almost dragged on the ground. Alivia looked back over her shoulder and smiled at her mistress as well. "I will discuss this problem with my sul'dam and we should have several possibilities by tomorrow."

"Should we attempt to get the ring from the little Other who holds it?" Maekel Etari spoke now, his voice gruff. "Remember, under the laws of Seanchan all ter'angreal are in reality the property of the Crystal Throne, whatever those holding them like to believe. I myself think it would be better for this ring to be in the hands of those who know what to do with it. Frankly, these Others all sound rather cowardly to me—no offense, Der'Morat—"

"None taken," Briande replied smoothly.

"By your leave, High Lady Suroth, but the idea of that human Boromir was the only brave idea to come out of the whole meeting and then he got shouted down by the others—"

"Indeed, Ground Captain Etari," Suroth replied, "but the Der'Sul'dam herself said that it should be destroyed."

"Oh, I know that, I'm not arguing that, but Der'Sul'dam Katrell's statement had sound reasoning behind it. Not one of these Others offered any sound reason why the ring should be destroyed, just a lot of vague maunderings about how during some war sometime the ring had been held by some evil one. Such a ter'angreal might be better off in the hands of those who are brave enough to deal with it."

Suroth frowned, pondering. At last she said, "No, not yet and not for the foreseeable future. These Others seem to have strange ideas concerning this ring. I fear they would not take kindly any attempt by us to commandeer it in the name of the Empress of the Nine Moons. Wait until we are sure we know how to destroy it and then we will attempt to get the little Other to cede it."

Captain of the Ground Forces Etari bowed his head. "As you say, so shall it be, High Lady Suroth."

Der'Sul'dam Katrell now tugged at her damane's leash. "By your leave, High Lady Suroth, I will take Alivia to the damane kennels now. She has had a trying afternoon and is unsettled; she needs to rest."

"Certainly, Der'Sul'dam." Suroth turned and looked at the others. "As for the rest of you, consider yourself dismissed until further notice."

All murmured their obeisances as the little group broke up.

"What was that strange Other calling to you for?" Keille asked Briande, unbuckling her helmet from her head and swinging it by its strap as the column behind High Lady Suroth dispersed to their various locations of camp.

"I don't know," Briande responded and pressed her lips together tightly, looking away.

"What name did he call you? Celebrian?" Keille continued, looking up at her friend with interest.

"I really couldn't say." Briande was wearing her that's-my-story-and-I'm-sticking-to-it expression that Keille had only seen on her face a few times before. The shorter human grinned.

"He's kind of cute for an Other. Why didn't you tell me you had a tragic affair in your background, Briande? I—"

Keille broke off as Briande whirled toward her as if stung. "I told you," she said in a deathly quiet voice, her face chill with seriousness, "I know nothing about him. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Briande," Keille replied in a subdued tone.

"I'm serious, Keille," Briande repeated, her pale eyes boring into her backrider. "Do you understand?"

Keille nodded, much chastened.

"Good. Now come. The Third Raken Flight is due back from a reconnaissance sweep. We should be there to meet them." She hastened down the lane between the tents—the green grass of the fields of this Rivendell already trodden to brown muck by many feet walking over it—and turned off toward the raken section of the encampment.