Part Three

It was like being squeezed through a funnel with a bright light at the other end, and then flattened and chopped to infinitesimal pieces. They remained like that for a timeless second before being hastily thrown back together again. Going back through to the other side took them past a prism of colors, a whirling schism of shapes and sounds. It was hard to tell if their legs gave out or if they were thrown to the ground below them when they arrived.

Long colorful silk streamers lay heaped on the ground around them, and the sounds and smells of a festival followed along. The chorus of women singing stopped moments after Thom lifted his head.

This was surely not the uninhabited lands outside the Tower of Ghenji, nor any other place he'd ever seen. He and Moiraine both were at the foot of some kind of dias. A half circle of standing women stared down at them with tattooed faces.

Moiraine moaned, both hands now clutching her head near her temples. The tattooed women's eyes, already wide with shock, bulged as they swung their heads to look directly at the Blue. Some of them hastily took a step back away from her.

Another woman knelt there as well, dressed differently then the other women and lacking any tattoos. She was almost nose to nose with Thom. Her eyes were wide as well, though with what seemed like adoration instead of fear. White blossoms lay scattered around this woman, with more in a bowl next to her.

Thom got to his feet, helping Moiraine up alongside him. They were in some sort of roofed pavilion surrounded by several hundred other people, at least.

The tattooed women backed further away from them. One with a curved knife in her hand whispered, "It is no use. It cannot be shielded."

Thom addressed them urgently, "She needs your help. She's been wounded."

Moiraine let out a startling cry, pushing Thom roughly to the ground by her feet with a force he would not have considered possible from such a small woman. White light ripped through the roof of the pavilion and down to her and everything nearby. Thom threw an arm over his face as a fierce rushing sound like a tempest raging followed.

He'd heard of women taking in too much of the Power, knew that the bolt from the heavens would destroy her and everything else near. There was no way to protect her. With what he considered his last thought Thom wished that she would be saved.

Strangely, even seconds later he did not feel dead. He lowered his arm carefully, musing to himself that he still could very likely be a ghost by this point. Except - his eyes hurt like a bloody hot awl had been shoved at them and his knee felt like there was an uncomfortable pebble underneath. Moiraine too, still standing next to him, seemed a bit too dirty and unkempt to be a spirit of the dead. She was panting for air, and leaning against the statue behind them.

There was a small noise, like a mouse being stepped on. Thom looked toward the source of the sound to discover the woman who had been kneeling with them before. The petals still lay in precisely the same spots around her form. Everything else past her was ash. The building was gone, even the streamers on the ground must have been converted to dust - and the hundreds of people, they all seemed to be dust too. Something Moiraine must have done had to have protected them. There was no way any of them should have survived what she'd...well, what had happened.

He decide to ignore the woman lying prostrate for the moment in favor of the one he'd gone through all the trouble for in the first place. His knees both felt a bit stiff as he stood, and the thought of the hundreds of people now intermingled with the building blowing away in the gentle breeze of this fine day made him a little dizzy. Moiraine gave him a sidelong look, still attempting to recover her breath.

"I told you to leave me," as Moiraine spoke the only other survivor squeaked a little louder, followed by a thunk of what may have been her forehead hitting the ground, "I told you I could not control Saidar."

The woman still managed to look like a Queen before her assembly even covered with soot. He frowned slightly. The thought of what had happened was truly staggering. And they had lived through it, hopefully unharmed.

"Not in so many words you didn't," The gentleness of his tone softened his words somewhat, "And I wouldn't have left you, Moiraine, regardless of what you said. Did you burn yourself out?"

Moiraine shook her head slightly, then looked past him out into the scene beyond. She stared for a long moment before pulling her gaze back toward him. Her mouth opened as if to speak, but the other woman below suddenly burst forth a profusion of senseless words, "I am far too lowly a creature to be allowed to bask in Your Effervescent Light. Your splendor is like the sun and stars. The gift of Your presence overshadows the night itself, Most Holy Slayer of the Worthy Ones."