The three men gathered on the terrace where Elrond had stood yesterday, overlooking the entrance of the Ever Victorious Army. Not one of them spoke.
They stood instead, not facing each other, staring out over the once-green fields that had surrounded the house—fields now covered with the gray and brown and bronze tents of the Seanchan. A column of pikemen marched past, their polearms over their shoulders, then a company of morat'corlm. Morat'torm rode by in that strange painted armor, seated on the backs of those even stranger, three-eyed, bronze-scaled cats, talking and joking amiably with one another. Two sul'dam strolled by in idle conversation with each other, their leashed damane walking ahead of them; a raken-rider passing by called out, "That you, Seta? Taking the damane for a walk?" The call echoed in the evening air.
"Of course. You have to exercise your damane or else they get bored, you know," the sul'dam replied with calm assurance. "Damane like going for walks-don't you, Rili?" she asked, addressing her damane with gentle warmth.
"Oh, yes, Mistress!" Rili responded eagerly, and the sul'dam and the raken-rider passed each other by in shadows as the afternoon deepened toward twilight. In the background, the banners of the Nine Moons waved over High Lady Suroth's tent, indicating that she was in residence; as a formation of raken passed above it, a single raken suddenly broke out of their double lines and went plunging sharply straight down toward the tent, pulling up mere feet from the highest banner. Elrond did not need to look to guess the raken-riders were the same two he had seen—Celebrian—disciplining the night before.
The Man of the Dunedain, the Elflord, and the Wizard were silent, watching the scene that spread out before them—a scene that was so alien, so outside their sensibilities, that they scarcely knew what to make of it. The sounds, the sights were like nothing they had seen before. New things, in this land where everything was ancient.
Still, they watched, as the light declined toward evening. They watched the soldiers passing, the exotics, the damane and their sul'dam. They looked outward, at the scene before them, and not inward. The three could not bear to look inward. For as alien as the sights before them were, it was nothing to what they had seen earlier that day.
Isengard. Gone. It had happened so—incredibly—fast, with such brutal quickness, efficiency, and speed. Isengard, which had stood for centuries—gone. Saruman, who had walked the earth as long as Mithrandir had, gone in the space of a day. It did not seem real.
Mithrandir spoke after a time, his voice old and rasping, barely able to be heard.
"They say it's on to Mordor next."
The noise of the Seanchan encampment drifted in on the evening breeze.
For a moment longer, the three of them stood there, watching. Perhaps they should have spoken, yet in the end, what was there to say? That the Seanchan had displayed power beyond that which they had dreamed possible? That they had eliminated a thousand-year-old threat in the space of a morning?
At last, they stirred; it was Elrond who broke the silence between them. He had been strangely unsettled, Aragorn realized dimly, since the Council yesterday, lacking his usual Elven calm, and now as he spoke, he seemed deeply troubled. "They will not succeed against Mordor. They—they cannot succeed against Mordor."
"Can they not?" asked Aragorn distantly, without turning from the vista in front of him; he barely knew he had spoken at all, and could not have sworn to what he said.
Elrond did not respond. Perhaps he had no answer.
After another long moment, Mithrandir turned and left. Elrond paused a moment, almost spoke, then broke off, shaking his head. He turned as well, and went away into the depths of what remained of his home. Only Aragorn remained, standing silently on the terrace, looking out below him. In the distance, against the darkening sky, suddenly patterns of light began to dance, a shifting interplay of shimmering colors that blended and merged and fused on the backdrop of the low cloud-cover, many times more beautiful and elaborate than the most intricate fireworks he had seen. The Sky Lights, he remembered distantly, something that Suroth had said—it was a talent of the damane, she had asserted. The idea that the terrible damane could be responsible for something like that-
He almost missed the step behind him.
"Boromir."
"It is I."
The Man of Minas Tirith came up onto the stone pavilion, moving to stand beside Aragorn to look out over the Seanchan encampment as well. There was a curious tension in his stride, a barely-suppressed excitement that Aragorn noticed, clinging to his form; a strange light that shone in his face and eyes. He wrapped his hands around the stone rail almost eagerly, leaning forward as if he wished he were down among the Seanchan walking the pathways below, and looked out—not at Aragorn, but at the Sky Lights above them.
"The Seanchan," he said softly, reverently.
Aragorn turned to look at him; a flash of insight struck him.
"Were you there, today?" he asked Boromir.
"I was," Boromir said, and smiled out into the night. "Captain of the Ground Forces Maekel Etari gave me a spot on the line with a company of pikemen." Suddenly he smashed his fist into the rail. "Did you see the destruction of Isengard?" he asked, turning to face Aragorn sharply.
"I saw."
"And next it's on to Mordor," Boromir continued, his eyes shining. "Captain Etari said as much. When we reach Mordor—" He broke off there, as if overcome with emotion, and clenched his fist again. Aragorn swallowed down unease.
"Boromir—"
Boromir did not hear him. "Maekel Etari told me they were strong," he continued, his eyes bright in the many-hued, reflected glow from the clouds. "I did not realize how strong. He is right. They are right. Mordor will not be able to stand against them."
Aragorn was silent, looking out over the encampment.
"Think-!" Boromir insisted. "Finally, the end for which we Men of Gondor have worked for centuries—the destruction of Mordor—will come to pass! And afterward—" He paused, looking out over the encampment.
"Afterward?" Aragorn asked to be saying something.
"Who knows. Maekel Etari said—" Boromir broke off. It was as if he were considering something that he hesitated to speak. "Captain of the Ground Forces Etari said that—that Seanchan could always use 'straight thinkers.' They're going to be going the other way soon, crossing the Aryth Ocean. After Mordor is gone—"
At this Aragorn could no longer contain himself. "You're not thinking of going with them?" he demanded, shocked, turning abruptly toward Boromir.
"Why not?" Boromir rounded toward him too quickly. "Why shouldn't I go back with the Seanchan? Just to see what this place is like if for no other reason! The Seanchan—"
"The Seanchan are arrogant and—"
"It's not arrogance! They can do what they say. They succeeded in destroying Isengard in one day where those of us in Middle-Earth had not been able to succeed—"
"Because we had not tried to succeed—"
"Because we knew we could not succeed!" Boromir almost shouted at him. The two of them stared at each other in sudden, abrupt silence, Boromir breathing hard with the force of his emotions. "No, the Seanchan are strong," he continued after a moment. "They are strong! So strong…. They will succeed. They will. They will do what Gondor could not do—they will overthrow Mordor—defeat Sauron-"
"And what kind of a world will it be after they have done so?" Aragorn demanded. "What world will the Seanchan leave us? They know nothing of this place, Boromir—nothing of our history, our peoples, our ways—they see the world only through their own eyes and do not even seek to look at it through others—"
Boromir shrugged impatiently. "Does it matter? They will be going back. They said so themselves—they will be returning to Seanchan to go the other way, to prepare for the Corenne, whatever that might be—"
"You believe them when they say that?" Aragorn asked, stunned. "Look! Look at this—" He swept one hand wide to take in all of Rivendell—the blocks of tent stretching off into the distance, the ditch lined with stakes surrounding the encampment, the newly erected message towers where raken-riders swept in and out at all hours of the day. "Does this look like they will be returning afterward? Does this look like nothing more than an encampment to you?"
"Who knows?" was Boromir's sullen response. "I only know what I heard Maekel Etari, Captain of the Ground Forces, reply in response to my question. He said that the Ever Victorious Army only came here in response to a—a Foretelling by one of the Empress's soe'feia Truth-speakers, indicating a disaster to come. He said that this land is to be a proving-ground for the Ever Victorious Army. He said that the real battle is to come across the Aryth Ocean, on the other side of Seanchan, 'when they bring the name of Paendrag back to Paendrag's home' and every Seanchan soldier knows it. They have no interest in this land at all, save as exactly that—a proving ground, and once they are done here, then they will return."
Aragorn shook his head and turned away, unable to articulate his feelings. After a moment he turned back. "Very well. Say that the Seanchan do leave. Then what? What then?"
"How do you mean?"
"What kind of world will they leave behind them? A world in which—"
"A world in which Saruman and Sauron no longer exist, and that can only be be for the better!" Boromir insisted.
"How? Will the Shadow be dead then? What of the One Ring? The Orcs? Will the Seanchan destroy them all? If not, will they defend us from them—"
Boromir snorted. "I think that we are perfectly capable of defending ourselves against Orcs—"
"Maybe against a united force of Orcs that stays within its confines, but against Orcish hordes, wandering leaderless throughout Middle-Earth? At least, with Sauron they are all contained, not free to wander throughout the land wreaking destruction—"
"Oh, so it is better for them to be united into a single fighting force that can easily be wielded to destroy us? Because—"
"Enough!" Aragorn cut Boromir off with a sharply upraised hand; he recognized that the debate had descended into pointless bickering. He turned away again, staring out over the grounds of Rivendell—Rivendell Garrison, High Lady Suroth had called it. Those words chilled him as he recalled them. "Boromir," he said after a time, quietly, "these Seanchan frighten me."
They did. They did. His voice ached with the naked honesty that only fear could bring to it; Aragorn knew that, and did not care enough to hide it. They frightened him because they were so strong, because they seemed so heedless—because they were strong enough to be that heedless. And different—so different he could barely comprehend them.
Because they brought change, and no known history, to a land where so much was dependent on history.
And without knowing their history, how could he hope to predict their future? He could not. It was unknowable, as unknowable as they were themselves.
He said it again, "They frighten me."
Boromir looked at him. Their eyes met.
The man of Gondor replied coolly, "They don't frighten me." And with those words, Boromir turned and was gone.
How long Aragorn remained alone on that terrace, the last of the Dunedain did not know; he sat, still, and stared out into the rapidly lowering night. Images from that day and yesterday flickered through his mind; the awful battle, the destruction of Isengard, the council scene—while the weird and shifting Sky Lights played over all.
What finally made him turn was a half-heard rustle behind him; it was low, almost at the edge of hearing, but his Ranger reflexes took over and he had turned ever so slightly into a defensive stance, dropping one hand on his sword hilt, before he knew what had happened.
Behind him were the hobbits.
Frodo, Samwise, Merry and Pippin in a body; he recognized them at once and straightened. He released his sword with a trace of guilt as he realized he had not thought about them since the council yesterday, and not much the day before; the Seanchan—these strange, strange Seanchan—had taken so much of his time and attention that he had not much to spare for anything else. It was due to that guilt that he spoke gentler than he might have. "Yes? What is it?" he asked.
"Aragorn, please, you have to help us."
It was Frodo who spoke first as well it might have been. As Aragorn looked at the little hobbit more closely, he saw that Frodo was in deep distress; though he appeared physically unharmed, he was pale and sweating and his blue eyes were wide in his face. The other hobbits clustered around him were watching him with strange expressions of mingled dread and something that looked like relief; Aragorn could not tell.
"What's wrong?" he asked gravely, struck by the urgency in the young hobbit's tone.
"It's—it's that sul'dam, Eilei Katrell," Frodo said now, stepping forward, and even before he continued his sentence, Aragorn guessed what he was going to say from the distress in his voice. The little hobbit raised his eyes to Aragorn's face, and he could see the blind panic in them. "You have to help us, Aragorn—we—there's nobody else to turn to—she—"
"What did she do?" Aragorn demanded though he knew the answer.
Frodo broke off and covered his face with his hands; it was Samwise who stepped forward now to take over for his master. "Took the ring, sir," he said, and even through Aragorn's rising shock he heard Samwise's tone of voice was strangely flat. "That Seanchan woman with a pack of those others like her, each one of them leading those chained slave-women came upon us. They—"
"They demanded the surrender of the Ring!" cried Pippin, starting up. "They claimed that under the laws of the—of the Crystal Throne of Seanchan, that they were entitled to take possession of all—of all ter'angreal, and when Master Frodo said that we didn't have any ter'angreal, that we didn't even know what ter'angreal was, she just smiled and said it was the Ring that he carried around his neck—"
"She demanded possession of the Ring?" Aragorn replied, stunned; he did not believe it, though he knew he should.
"She did, sir," Merry affirmed, "and when Master Frodo would not give it to her—"
"She took it," Frodo finished, looking up in obvious distress, staring at Aragorn desperately. "She did something—I don't know what—the air around me suddenly became as hard as stone and I could not move, and she just reached out and—she took it. She lifted the Ring from around my neck and just—You have to help me get it back," he implored. "You have to help me get my—the—Ring back- "
"What did she think she was going to do with it?" Aragorn demanded incredulously, stunned more by the Seanchan's audacity than by the actual deed. "What on earth did she think she was going to do with it?"
"She'll keep it for herself, I'm sure," Frodo replied bitterly. "She doesn't believe it has any power, you know she doesn't, and she certainly will see no need to destroy it—"
"Now, Master Frodo," Sam interrupted cautiously, "that's not necessarily entirely true. She did say she intended to destroy it, and maybe—well, I know that she shouldn't have taken it in that way, but I will say I'm glad to be rid of it, and if that Seanchan der'whatsis can actually do what she says—"
Aragorn cut them both off. "Never mind. Where is she now?" he demanded.
"She's where we were, sir, on the north terrace, her and her strange chained women," Sam answered, "but if you—"
"Thank you, Sam. You did the right thing, Frodo, by telling me of this," he confided to Frodo, who simply nodded miserably. "You stay here. I'll go and retrieve this Ring."
The stairs to the North Terrace were many; Aragorn took them at a run. There was no doubt in his mind what had happened: the Seanchan der'sul'dam had been caught by the Ring and had taken it in that fashion. These Seanchan, he thought grimly, must be very susceptible to the lure of power, for her to be caught so quickly, and without having touched the Ring at all. And the idea of the Enemy being able to control, through the Ring, the sort of power that the Seanchan had displayed today- The though spurred him on to greater speed. What he could do against the damane, he did not know, but he knew he had to try.
He crested the final stair step and stumbled at once to a halt, staring at the scene before him. Eilei Katrell looked up and greeted him with a smile.
"Welcome—you are Aragorn, are you not? You are just in time to bear witness to the destruction of this menace."
The Ring lay on a small round table, in the exact center of the stone flooring of the terrace. Nobody was touching it, he saw, not even Eilei Katrell. Instead, around it stood a circle of the chained women—damane and sul'dam, he thought distantly, the damane in front and the sul'dam behind. He disregarded it and accused her, "You took the Ring from Frodo—"
"I did indeed," she said calmly. "The Ring is a ter'angreal, and under Seanchan law—"
"—all ter'angreal are the property of the Crystal Throne," he finished for her bitterly.
"Indeed."
"You had no right to it," he continued angrily. "He did not give it to you willingly, he—"
"Of course he did not," she said, and then he was astonished to see her sigh and lower her head. "Such is often the way with ter'angreal that have an effect on the mind. Even though the holder knows that the object is harmful he or she cannot let go of it. Even if it is their death they cannot. They cannot." She sighed again. "I regret that it had to be done that way," she said sincerely, "but the ter'angreal had gripped his mind. No lasting harm should come to him," she added, almost as if she were reassuring him. "He was indeed greatly distressed; but the pain caused him by separation from the ter'angreal should diminish with time and there should be no long-lasting physical effects; he did not, from what I understand, hold it that long. He may even come to understand in time that it was for the best; his friends seemed at least half-minded that way. Even if they did not, though, come, Aragorn." She looked up at him. "I can see in your face that you know he had no business with that ring. It was too much for him, and you know it too."
Aragorn looked away, cursing. He did know it, and had; but paradoxically, the fact that it was too much for him made Frodo the only person who could carry it. Aragorn had known that the burden of the Ring was his to accept, but that knowledge froze him. How did he dare to accept it, knowing what could happen if he did? What could happen if the Ring turned him and he fell under the Enemy's sway? The Nazgul had been Men once too, before the gift of the Nine. No, he had thought, the Ring was not meant for his hand, nor the hand of any man's.
But it was not in a man's hand that it now rested. It was on a small stone table in the middle of a terrace, surrounded by women who meant to be its destruction.
"Do you actually think you can destroy it?" he said now, his words just shy of scorn.
"We do not think we can," spoke one of the other women now. "We know that we can."
"You know nothing," he said bitterly.
Eilei raised an eyebrow. "We know a great deal. More than you might think," she said. "Do you see these damane here?" She did not wait for his nod, which was as well; it was not forthcoming. Aragorn watched her stonily. "The damane we have gathered in this place are damane who have very good strength in Earth and are skilled in working with metals. They have been examining this ter'angreal since it was taken, looking at the flows of Earth that make it up. They have examined the weaving of the flows, how they are bound and how they are joined, and we are almost ready to begin unpicking the weave."
Aragorn stared at her. Her words washed over him, more words that he did not understand—flows of Earth, unpicking the weave, these things had nothing to do with the One Ring. How she could be so blind, he did not know. He said as much.
"Do you think it will be that easy? Do you think these things you think of have anything to do with the One Ring?" he demanded. "This is a Ring of Power—it is the Ring of Power, forged by the Enemy in guile and treachery for the purpose of bringing the other Rings under his control, and through the other Rings the peoples of Middle-Earth, and you don't understand this! Have you not heard?" He recited, achingly, desperate to make her see,
"Three Rings for the Elven-Kings under the sky
Seven for the Dwarf-Lords in their halls of stone
Nine for mortal Men, doomed to die
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the land of Mordor where the Shadows lie
One Ring to rule them all, one ring to find them
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the land of Mordor where the Shadows lie."
"That is what this Ring is," he said intensely, desperately, trying to drive the words into her brain by force of will as he stared at her. "This is not some Seanchan ter—ter—ter'angreal," he said, stumbling over the unfamiliar word; he still did not know what it meant, though it did not matter. "This is a weapon, a terrible, awful weapon created by a dark hand for the purpose of destroying and enslaving the peoples of Middle-Earth, it is the most powerful and terrifying creation in the history of Arda! You don't—"
"I don't see how it matters," Eilei said, shrugging. Several of the other sul'dam behind her nodded and voiced their assent. "Whether it was made a hundred thousand years ago or yesterday; whether it was made by one hand or many, for the purposes of good or ill, is of no importance for our purpose. For our purpose, why it was made doesn't matter, only how. It is made up of flows of Earth twined with Air and Spirit, and as such, it is fully within our power to unravel. Had we tried this, instead of balefire, the ring would already have been destroyed."
"No," he protested but weakly. "No. You don't know—what it can do—"
"And you do not know what we can do. You may watch, if you wish."
Eilei turned from the barbarian man who watched back to her company of damane. He had pled strongly, but in the end in vain; Eilei knew what she was doing. She had been studying ter'angreal since before she had been made full sul'dam.
She gave the word to her sul'dam, and they in turn commanded their damane, gently or harshly as their nature warranted. The damane embraced saidar. Alivia too, her favored damane, embraced it; she felt the sharp, sweet bliss that pierced Alivia's heart at its touch, through the bracelet. That was what the a'dam did, among other things; it allowed the sul'dam to know what the damane felt.
Sometimes she thought she could almost see the glow of saidar around her damane when they were holding it, although that, of course, was impossible. She had been tested, not just with bracelet and damane but with collar and sul'dam, every year until she had reached her twenty-fifth birthday, and had passed by failing every time; it was known that damane could often be found passing for sul'dam, so sul'dam, especially young ones, were carefully monitored. No, she knew she was no damane, and would never know the touch of saidar. Sometimes, though, in the depths of her heart, she had wondered what it must be like to feel it for herself, rather than at second hand, and had even—privately, very privately, and no more than once or twice in her whole life—yearned for the sensation. Such yearnings of course she would confide to no one.
She spoke again. "Sul'dam, have your damane begin to unpick the weaves."
"Yes, der'sul'dam!" the assembled company responded.
There was nothing dramatic to see as they began this task; simply twenty damane staring at the ter'angreal, each with her sul'dam staring at her. This unpicking of the weave had the potential to be a dangerous task; should a damane drop one of the strands of the One Power at which she was tugging, the results were unpredictable, and might be harmful—which was why Eilei had taken the precaution of having them perform it outside, at a distance from the house and in a place that could be easily shielded, should it become necessary. As she thought of the danger, she turned to the barbarian male who stood beside her, watching as if he could not take his eyes from the Ring, and told him, "You might want to stand back a little way; this is not an easy thing to do, and may even be harmful."
"It will not succeed," he said desperately, and repeated, "You don't understand what you're dealing with here."
"Neither do you," she pointed out as Alivia tugged at the strands with the delicacy of someone handling live and venomous snakes. She was beginning to feel strain; Eilei could sense it through the bracelet. She asked, "Alivia, are you well?"
"Yes, der'sul'dam, it is simply….this weave is more complex than it looked at first. It is a little difficult."
Eilei said nothing more. As difficult as it might have been, this could not be stopped once it had been started; she could do nothing to aid her damane, only watch. It was the paradox of the sul'dam; they were the most powerful women in the Empire, always excepting, of course, the Empress and her family (may she live forever), yet their power did not reside in themselves and could not be used by them. Only by the damane whom they had learned to control.
The barbarian man said nothing, watching the damane and their sul'dam as they stared at the ring. Eilei watched as well, looking at the gleaming circle of metal before her. She felt if she stared hard enough that she could almost see the flows, glistening strands of Earth and Air and Spirit; Earth for the metal body of the ring, Air and Spirit for its effects on the mind. Air, Water and Spirit were the powers used in Compulsion. Compulsion, at least, was known here, she mused, as her thoughts turned to the channeling man that High Lady Suroth had executed. Such a strange land….they knew how to do things, but not, it seemed, what they were doing….Earth and Air were natural opposites; yet, when opposites were forced to join in unison, works of great power could be created—was it not so with saidar and saidin? But these were idle thoughts; her mind wandered as her damane worked.
She might have shared some of these things with the barbarian man who stood by her side, simply to pass the time, but a glance at his face and she guessed he would probably not appreciate it; his features were drawn and tense, and his lips moved in what looked like silent prayer as he stared at the ring and the circle of sul'dam and damane. You don't know what you do, he seemed to be saying, over and over again; Eilei shrugged internally. Perhaps—just perhaps—he was not entirely wrong, but at the same time, he did not know what the sul'dam and damane could do. The ring was beginning to glow faintly now as the damane tore at the fibers of its being, giving off a faint light; were it sentient, she guessed, it would be screaming.
The first tinge of unease came to her through her damane, forewarning her. "Alivia?" she asked, looking sharply at the Leashed One.
Nor was she the only one, she saw; sul'dam were shifting, fidgeting, turning their attention on the women at the other end of their leashes, asking if they were right or well. Eilei asked again. "Alivia, is something wrong?"
She knew by the strained expression her damane turned to her that something was indeed wrong, and was swift enough to guess what it was. "Mistress, it is the damane Riete," Alivia said, her voice quick with fear, and indicated the woman across the circle with a gesture; Riete, a little brown-haired damane with a heart-shaped face and wide blue eyes, was pale and sweating with stress. Her sul'dam, Sumi Bitrou, was looking at her with alarm that was rapidly deepening into something close to open panic.
"The damane Riete?" she repeated, looking at Alivia with concern.
"Yes, Mistress. She—Riete—" Alivia swallowed and looked back at the ring. Eilei muttered a curse.
"Sumi. What is wrong?"
Sumi, a plump, red-haired sul'dam, answered, her pale complexion paling still further. "Der'sul'dam, Riete—she cannot hold onto the thread she has drawn. Not for much longer."
"What?"
She noticed peripherally that the barbarian man had started up from his silent contemplations and was watching them closely—though he did not and could not know precisely what was transpiring, there was enough alarm in Sumi's voice to attract attention—but she spared him not a thought. "Sul'dam Bitrou, you must force her to—"
"It will do no good, Der'sul'dam," Sumi replied anxiously. "You—the weave was a great deal more complex than we had thought at first. The threads are deeply intertwined and have grown slick very, very quickly." And indeed, Eilei had only to look at Alivia, to turn her attention to the knot of sensations in her head that spoke Alivia's name, to know the truth of this.
"What are you saying?" Eilei demanded sharply. Fear brushed her heart. She pushed it back and down into a confined space where it could be controlled; she could not allow it to interfere with her now.
She knew what Sumi was going to say though; she knew it by the look on her face, and she could tell, from the sharp, quick movements and tense air of the other sul'dam that they knew as well. A mistake to use Riete, the words were going through her head, so distantly that she barely knew they were there. A mistake. Too young, too inexperienced. Her great strength in Earth cannot make up for that—
It was Riete who answered her question, and at a less urgent time the damane's boldness would have stunned her; now, she barely noticed. "Der'sul'dam Katrell," Riete said, her face white as a sheet, sweat running down its sides, "my most abject apologies, but I am going to drop the weave."
Der'sul'dam Katrell's voice hardened. She responded at once. Aragorn, watching, who did not know what dropping the weave meant, nevertheless grasped instantly that it was a matter of great consequence by the electric air that swept the room at this statement. Something has gone wrong, he realized with inward dread and a sick sense of both despair and foreknowledge. I knew it, I knew these Seanchan were asking for trouble-
"Hands," the der'sul'dam said sharply, cutting off his thoughts. "How many damane besides Riete are holding threads at this moment?"
Four of the approximately twenty sul'dam in the room raised their unbraceleted hands, Aragorn saw; even at such a desperate moment the damane did not speak for themselves. Katrell's chalky complexion paled still further, but she set her shoulders and nodded.
"Tuli, Gita, Miren, and Denna. Could be worse. Sul'dam Li, Chou, Arra and Songi, have your damane extract their threads at this moment. Soonest!" Riete watched, he saw, pale and sweating, her lip bleeding from where she was biting it. Her sul'dam, Bitrou, was no less pale; she reached out and stroked the head of her damane in what was probably meant to be a gesture of reassurance.
"Already done, Der'Sul'dam," one of the other sul'dam said, a tall but fragile-looking woman with long blonde ringlets. The other three chorused their agreements.
"What is going on?" Aragorn demanded, turning to Der'Sul'dam Katrell. "Is there some danger?"
"Not now," the der'sul'dam said harshly. She turned back to Riete and Bitrou. "Sul'dam Bitrou, damane Riete, I am sorry," she said quietly.
The damane was weeping but the sul'dam smiled bravely. "It's all right, Der'Sul'dam," she said with a hollow confidence. "I'll stay with the damane—"
"You have no choice; you must or she cannot channel to hold the thread," the der'sul'dam said.
"I know. I'd do it anyway. She's a good damane, Riete is," Sumi said, forcing another smile. "Maybe it will be all right."
"I hope so," Katrell responded with feeling. "For both your sakes. How much longer?"
"Maybe a minute or two," Sumi responded.
"All right. The rest of you—Down the stairs, now! You too, barbarian," she commanded, bringing her damane to her feet with a single jerk on the leash. "Get as far away as you can—down the stairs and around the corner should be all right." Katrell was moving as she spoke, and the rest of the sul'dam were not slow to follow suit, dragging their damane behind them; the assembled group surged to the top of the terrace steps. "Once there, duck to the ground and stay there until I give the all-clear—"
"Shield of Air?" one of the sul'dam asked.
"Yes, but quickly; I want no damane to be holding the Source when Riete drops the thread."
"What's going on?" Aragorn demanded again, cold with fear as Eilei shoved him toward the door. "What's happening—"
"Riete's about to drop the thread," Eilei explained in a hard, quick undertone; sul'dam and damane were pouring over the lip of the terrace stairs already and Eilei drew him after them, speaking in short, clear words made shorter by urgency. "When you unpick a weave, the threads of power are hard to hold, but you must; if you drop one before it's all the way out, the weave will collapse into a new form at random. Sometimes, if you are lucky, the new form is harmless; a flash of light, a puff of wind, a mild heat or cold—" They were hurrying down the stairs now, jostled on all sides by sul'dam who were dragging the damane after them, urging them on, exhorting them to move faster; Eilei's words were broken and chopped by the hurried rhythm of her feet on the steps. "If you are not lucky—I saw a palace leveled that way once, and ten damane burned out. We had to put them down. The more intricate the weave, the greater the effects—I should never have picked Riete for this, she's too young, but she's our second strongest in Earth and I thought it wouldn't matter—" She broke off and raised her voice to shout to the rest of the company. "Thirty seconds! There's the corner! As soon as you get around it, remember, to the ground! Damane in front, sul'dam behind! Protect your sul'dam, damane—while you're joined, your sul'dam is your life; if she dies, you die at the same instant!"
"You Seanchan are insane!" Aragorn almost shouted at her. "You meddle with things you do not understand—" He himself had understood little of what she had said except that she had seen a palace destroyed, but righteous anger surged in him like the tide. "Elrond told you the Ring could not be destroyed in any but the fires of Mount Doom! The Enemy—Sauron will extract a terrible vengeance—" His words broke off, choked by his anger, his dread and his stunned disbelief at Seanchan recklessness.
"Has nothing to do with your Enemy, superstitious barbarian," Eilei panted. "Your failure to understand us won't make it so either. It's my fault. If I hadn't chosen Riete—but I thought she could handle it—All right! Around the corner, Shield and drop!" she shouted as they came off the end of the stairs. Most of the sul'dam and damane were already around the corner at that time, but Aragorn stopped, possessed by a mad impulse. He turned and looked back, up the stairs, to where Riete and Sumi could be seen as silhouetted shapes at the top of the terrace. In the fraction of the second that he watched before Eilei yanked him to the ground, he clearly—clearly—saw Sumi reach, put her hands to Riete's neck, and come away with the collar. Freeing her. He had just time to note this before a shimmering layer fell into place between him and the sul'dam and damane he watched; he recognized the effect from the battle that morning as a Shielding effect, and knew that the damane had woven a shield around the terrace. Then hands grabbed him from behind—Eilei's hands, most likely—and he was pulled to the ground.
"Stay down!"
He ducked to the ground as the explosion came.
He did not hear it; the Shield of Air blocked sound. Nor did he see it right away; his head was down. But he felt it, a deep shuddering that ran through the ground and up his knees, and when he ventured to raise his head and peer around the corner, he saw the area behind the Shield—the area that had been the north terrace-was a roiling mass of black smoke and red-orange flames. The rest of the damane and their sul'dam were raising their heads after the first moment had passed, staring in awe at the fire contained and crushed back on itself by the shield with which the damane had surrounded the terrace. It looked strange; the top of the terrace was a black column of roiling smoke, and yet around it the sky was the twilight purple of evening, the dusk birds twittered and sang, the stars looked on from above. Except for the shuddering that had come at the moment of explosion, there was no sign to tell in the outer world that anything out of the ordinary had happened.
They watched in silence. It was obvious that neither Sumi nor Riete could be alive in that; yet still the company stood, moment by moment, watching as the smoke wafted down, clearing; the terrace began to be visible through the cloud.
At last with a gesture, Eilei called, "Shield of Air! Drop it!"
The air shimmered again, and then the smoke began to drift away, freed from its confines. Aragorn caught the scent of burning and his eyes stung and watered as the smoke reached him. The sul'dam as well, perhaps; their eyes looked overbright to him.
"Sumi could not still be alive," one of them said quietly.
"No. Nor Riete," Eilei concurred, her face grave. "She was a good damane. She will be missed. Air! Channel Air, and get rid of some of that smoke."
Aragorn did not know what Eilei meant by that command, but he soon saw the effects; the smoke, spreading out across the night, began suddenly to rise as if caught in a chimney, thin gray strands dancing and threading together against the purpling dusk as they climbed high into the sky. The sul'dam and damane watched without speaking as the pillar of smoke ascended and the top of the terrace cleard. Eilei waited a moment, then said, "Come on. Carefully; do not draw upon saidar once at the top of the terrace. We have no idea what lingering effects might remain."
Slowly, pair by pair, the damane and their sul'dam ascended the stairs to the North Terrace. There was no talking. The faces of the sul'dam were all downcast and grave; those of the damane, worried. The damane stayed close to their mistresses, and preceded them, as well they might. If the sul'dam died, the damane died as well.
The top of the North Terrace was a very small wasteland. The cool, carved marble stones were cracked and blackened, stained with soot and ash; the little table on which the Ring had rested was no more. Fragments and chips of stone lay scattered across the top of the terrace, attesting to the table's remains. Of the damane and the sul'dam, nothing remained but two mounds of ash, along with a shining silver collar and bracelet; Eilei Katrell prodded it with a foot and then bent to pick it up. "Riete's a'dam. She was a good damane."
Aragorn said nothing; he had bent to the debris in the exact center of the terrace and was sorting through the ash, stone chips and wreckage, his face set in grim lines. He knew what he was looking for. Not even an explosion such as that could have damaged the Ring, the One Ring, of this he was sure; and if these Seanchan thought otherwise, they were in for a surprise.
Or not.
A sul'dam knelt beside him, folding her blue-and-red skirts beneath her knees, while her damane hung back at the edge of the leash. She spoke not a word to him, bending to her task with a visage no less stern than his own, until she turned over a sizeable chunk of stone carved in the shape of a cracked, delicate leaf and came away with something.
"This is it."
A circle, a bent and twisted circle no thicker than the width of yarn or twine, and the color of gray ash or soot. Eilei came and knelt beside the sul'dam, looking at her damane.
"Alivia?"
The damane frowned a moment, then glanced at her mistress and shook her head. "Nothing."
Gently, Eilei reached out and took it from the other sul'dam's hand. She held it delicately between thumb and forefinger, and then placed it in her palm and offered it to Aragorn. Dreamlike, he took it; it felt as fragile and brittle as a dry twig in his fingers, and when he squeezed it, what had once been metal fell into ash before his eyes.
"It….is destroyed," he said, unable to believe it. "It is destroyed. The One Ring—" he still could not believe it, though he saw it with his own eyes "—is destroyed. It—"
Eilei bowed her head for a moment, closing her eyes. "Worth the cost," she murmured, her voice part assertion, part fervent prayer.
"More," added the other sul'dam, that same fervent tone in her voice; but Aragorn could almost hear the words that followed, or infer them from the stony, alien stares the company of sul'dam turned in his direction. More than worth the cost. This had better have been more than worth the cost. He heard, but he could not answer, as he stared at the pile of loose gray ash that until a few moments ago had been the biggest threat that Middle-Earth had faced. And as he sat so, amid a blackened, broken terrace, surrounded by Seanchan sul'dam and damane, as the sounds of the Seanchan camp drifted around them on the breeze—as he sat there, and contemplated the Seanchan destruction of Isengard, the Seanchan execution of Saruman, and the upcoming expedition against Mordor, he found himself thinking the same thing, though for very different reason.
Was this worth the cost?
He realized that he could not answer.
