Author: alkin
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I own nothing, it all belongs to the great RJ, and I am only a humble minnow playing in his pond.
Summary: What might have happened after Renna and Seta were collared in Falme.
(reposted thanks to eating my formatting. Anyone know why they do that?)
Justice
Justice?
What is justice? Where is the justice in this? I have done nothing wrong. I have always worked my hardest, never shirked my duties or betrayed my word. What have I done to deserve this?
Beside me Seta stirs, finally pulling her hands away from her eyes. They are blurred with tears, puddles of blue. At any other time I would have been amazed – Seta, always so happy and cheerful, crying? – but I can barely even think of it now. My whole attention, my world, is riveted on the few fingerlengths of silver that encircle my throat. Collar. A'dam. I am intimately familiar with it; I just never thought I would be learning it from this end.
Some dim corner of my mind reflects that I am very calm, considering.
Seta has taken hold of her collar again, and I feel the horrifying impulse, trained and unconscious, to reprimand her. Yuelin, der'sul'dam who trained us both, her Eastern accent distinctive; the Leashed One should not be allowed to touch her own collar. It is a bad habit. Often observed in cases where the damane is having trouble settling.
No. This cannot be happening. There must have been some mistake. Tuli had studied with the Aes Sedai before she was leashed. Clearly there is a way they are taught to inflict pain without leaving marks. Fear bubbles in my middle and I fight it down. Impatiently I raise my own hands to the collar, I must report Tuli missing, send out a search for she and the other two marath'damane. The collar is cool and smooth against my fingers. Finding the pressure-points on either side of the leash is automatic and easy. I press, preparing to twist.
My yelp of pain fills the tiny kennel. I snatch my hands to my breast, cradling them. It feels like…like…no, that cannot be it, clearly the marath'damane have spun some clever web to make me think I cannot open the collar. Or perhaps on the collar itself. I do not know. I never trained in the completion of a'dam-makers, dull-eyed, pampered creatures. I don't understand how the leash works, only that it does. How long is this weave going to sit for? If someone comes in, if someone sees us…
A cry of pain beside me. Seta. Her hands have twisted into curled fists. Her gaze meets mine, and I see the panic I am trying to fight back reflected in the blue of her eyes. How were the marath'damane able to spin without us seeing? I have worn the leash for over ten years, I am able to see when they spin…
All sul'dam can do it! All, after a while wearing the bracelet! It doesn't mean anything, it is normal, they weren't speaking the truth, they couldn't have been!
Seta is weeping again. I itch to slap her. We do not have time for hysterics, we have to find a way to undo what the marath'damane have done, before someone comes in to check on Tuli.
What I refuse to admit to myself is the gnawing dread in my own belly. If I start weeping, I fear I won't be able to stop. And then where will we be?
"Seta." I say, "Seta, calm down. We have to think."
She looks up at me. I did not realise I had risen to my feet. The scene is jarring. I, in the red-and-blue of a sul'dam, standing over a kneeling, weeping woman in grey. Save for the collar around my own neck it could have been any one of a hundred memories.
I stoop to touch Seta's own collar. Even before I touch it, though, my hands tingle with anticipated pain. Already some part of me believes I will not be able to open it. That part is right. Not a moment after my fingers have settled on the pressure points, fire licks along my fingers, up my arms, cramping and knotting the muscles as it goes. I grit my teeth to hold back a howl, and it is a near thing.
I sink back to the floor, arms wrapped around myself, and the pain slowly subsides. My mind is racing, spinning, too fast for me to think clearly. Wild thoughts, pleading, begging, raging, threatening. Who? The Creator? The collar?
It was the marath'damane. It had to be. That wild story they told must have been a taunt, some sort of revenge. I have taken the tests, failed them every time until my twenty-fifth year, and so has every sul'dam I know. There has got to be some other reason why the collar thinks me damane. Perhaps it is broken; Tuli channeled alone, sometimes, before I broke her of the habit, so perhaps she did something to her own collar, the one I now wear. That has got to be it.
Seta has crumbled again. A sound that might be laughter or sobbing is coming from her throat, and tears leak from the hands she has clasped over her eyes. A part of me feels sympathy at the pathetic sight, but only for a brief moment. I can feel my own control starting to slip. Damane kennels do not lock. Anyone could come in, to this kennel especially. Everyone is curious about Tuli, one of the most talented and promising damane we have found.
"Stop snivelling, Seta!" I snap. "You are a grown woman. Act like it. I need your brains, not your tears."
I do not mean to be so harsh, but I am beginning to feel very afraid. And it is true. Seta is far cleverer than I, and I am almost sure she has trained in completing a'dam-makers. Of the two of us, she is far more likely to work out what has gone wrong with the collars.
I am less certain that she can fix it. After all, neither of us can channel.
Anxiety has made me sharp, and I regret it. Seta only weeps harder. Cursing inwardly, but calm on the outside, I kneel and embrace her, trying to soothe away her tears. Again I am struck by the horrible familiarity of the scene. Aside from the fact that there is no channeling ability to be felt, the woman in my arms could be any homesick damane. I begin to feel ill.
"What are we going to do, Renna?" she sobs.
"We're going to get these collars off," I tell her. "And then we're going to walk away from this kennel, and forget this never happened."
"The collars aren't going to come off, you foolish woman!" she cries. She is wailing now. "No damane in a thousand years has managed it. Why should we?"
"We are not damane." I tell her.
It takes long minutes for Seta to compose herself. Even after her tears have stopped, her breathing is ragged, and she is trembling. Her cheek is pressed against my neck, and the skin is cold. I can tell that she holds to composure by a thread, so I try to work quickly, ask her about the collars, how they are made, what Tuli might have done to this one.
"Nothing." she tells me, her eyes clear and terrible. "Don't you see? They are working as they are meant to work. We are marath'damane."
We argue after that, I shouting as loudly as I dare, she responding in furious whispers. I cannot believe that she has accepted the obvious lies from the marath'damane. If sul'dam could channel, someone would have noticed, in the thousand years that we have used the collar. We work alongside damane every day, and damane can always tell. It is so ridiculous it hardly bears thinking about.
Seta smiles a bitter, crooked smile. "Whether we can channel or not," she says, "The collar is holding is. We might be the most useless damane in the kennels, but we'll still be here."
"In grey." She adds, smoothing the dress she now wears.
It feels like a full-scale war is taking place in my belly. Damane. Images fly across my mind – damane smiling and truckling for a pat on the head or a friendly word; damane, silent and with eyes downcast, bubbling inside with frustration and anger; damane with tear-streaked faces, pleading or begging or just weeping in sheer misery.
Property. Covale. Less than human. I do not feel less than human.
Yuelin's voice again; the new damane can take some considerable time to realise she is not a person any more. Careful, consistent training must reinforce this concept.
Will it make any difference if I know that I am being trained?
Renna seems to be accepting the reality of the situation. She has slumped down, leaning against the wall. There is little enough space for it. The kennel is small for one, never mind two.
My hands are resting on my collar again. I do not intend to open it. I tell myself firmly, trying to keep my mind blank. I am just holding, learning how it feels.
Like here, where the leash joins the collar. It feels so seamless. The sides are rounded, so that they do not chafe at the neck. I begin, determinedly, to play a tune through my own head. My mind is blank. I am not thinking of anything. There is just the music, the coolness of the collar underneath my hands. I begin to pulse my fingertips in time with the tune. Pulse, and tug. Just the music. Pulse and tug. Pulse and tug. Squeeze–
I cannot stop an agonised cry. I had known, intellectually, that the more a damane fights with her collar, the worse the pain becomes, but I had never thought to experience it. It feels like needles are stabbing into my fingers, knives being drawn up my arms. I taste desperation at the back of my throat, knowing that it will turn to bile soon enough, and the pain will leave me huddled in a ball on the floor.
Hysteria explodes in me again, and I collapse to the floor, my sobs wracking my whole body, and tears blinding my eyes. I know I should control myself, but I cannot, any more than I can stop breathing. I do not have Renna's courage; fear is ravaging at my innards. Someone will come soon. Renna is well-known, she will be recognised at once, to say nothing of the dress she still wears. And the fact that two of us are leashed together in a kennel for one, and its rightful occupant is missing. And then?
It is not unheard of for a sul'dam to fail the tests, if she is found early. But even this has precedent. This does not. We might never be able to channel a single spark, but the collar can hold us, and that makes us damane. There will be no mercy.
You will see firsthand the life you have given to others: the short marath'damane who had looked so like Surine, speaking in that nasal accent they all had. Only we are not at home, where we would be sent far away from anyone who had ever known us. We will remain, leashed, grey-clad, to be stared at by those we once completed, and trained by those we once called friends. I squeeze my eyes shut, and now the tears are more than just fear. I do not know how I will bear the shame of it. The whispers.
We will lose our names first. Sometimes damane are allowed to keep them, as an indulgence, but not us. Our very existence will frighten the other sul'dam, and it is we who will suffer that fear. Then we will start being trained. How we speak, how we walk and move and act, even how we think, will be chipped and sanded with the chisels of the a'dam and the switch.
I already know exactly how a damane is meant to behave. And somehow, I do not think that will help me in the slightest.
In the end, a few months, perhaps years, we will not even recognise ourselves. Life will have shrunk to the four walls of the kennel, the leash, the sul'dam; we will forget that life was ever any other way. Like rocks dragged down a stream, washing into the sea as humble smooth-sided pebbles. I have seen it, again and again.
In the end, it is always the same.
Speculatively I eye the scattered shards from the broken pitcher. I reach for one pale piece, pick it up. It is cool and heavy in my hand. I test the edge with my thumb. It is sharp.
As soon as I have the thought, my hand seizes up with a cramp painful enough to make the collar-punishment seem trivial. Fire sears me, from fingertips to shoulder, muscles clenching in spasms without my volition, tearing an agonised scream from my throat. It is unbearable! The ceramic slips from my fingers, falling to the floor where it bounces, rattles, and finally settles with a dull clunk.
I feel like pieces of me are falling with it, cracking and splintering.
Renna watches it all with wide eyes. It only takes her a moment to put it all together, and for the first time I think that she may give in to tears herself. Panic and desperation steal onto her face, and I know that only courage is keeping her from collapse.
We move as one, reaching for each other. There isn't far to move; we were already within touching distance. Our hands go to each others necks, to the pressure-points at the collars, and at even the first touch the pain begins, burning like fire, like acid. Sweat-damp hands slip and fumble, or jerk away, racked by pain. We are both moaning now, trying to bite back the howls of pain that I know we both feel.
My stomach clenches, then twists, and vomit rushes out of my throat, over my tongue, past my lips, to spill down the front of the repulsive dress. It leaves a foul taste in my mouth. I feel sick and dizzy, shivery, and sway where I kneel. I cannot keep fighting with the collar, I can barely stay upright. I heave again and again, until nothing else will come out.
As soon as I am able to see straight again, I attack Renna's collar with redoubled fury. Her face is looking green. It is not unexpected when she adds her own reek to the stench in the room.
I am gripped by a mania. I stop thinking. All I am, all there is, is the thought that if I can just keep fighting, eventually the collar will slip up, or I will be fast enough to open it, and this nightmare will all be over. If only I keep trying. Dry heaves, worse than the wet, rack me, and pain beyond controlling. We are both howling now, and neither of us give a single thought to who it might bring. Again and again my hands return to Renna's collar, often managing to both squeeze and twist before the flames return to sear me. It has gone beyond hands. My whole body is in agony, to the tips of my toes.
But inevitably it reaches the point where even moving a limb towards the collar is causing agony to flare. My stomach is throbbing, my tongue thick with bile, and I can barely see for tears of pain. Renna is faring little better. We totter, both of us, on our knees, fall and curl into ourselves, still whimpering.
The collars have beaten us, and the mere thought of touching them again makes me shudder.
I can hear Seta weeping. I am not crying, myself. Not tears of fear or grief, anyway, though pain has made my eyes water. The collar is no longer cool. The rush of blood, flushing the skin with heat and panic, has warmed it. Odd, that, when I feel as though there is ice growing in my belly.
I see now why no damane has ever escaped the collar. Even the memory is enough to make me want to flinch. I had always thought I would be strong in the face of pain. Apparently not.
We will not be damane. I don't think Seta sees that yet. How could we be damane? We cannot channel. No, we are new, and threatening, a corruption from this new land, and all corruption is purified in one place. Here or in Seanchan; with the Seekers for Truth.
There mere thought nearly makes me gibber. I have never even entertained thoughts of disloyalty, never thought the Seekers would have reason to so much as question me. Now they will do much more than question.
They save the eyes for last, I've heard. So you can see everything they do.
Sitting up is painful. Seta is still sprawled on the floor. I wipe my mouth with my sleeve, but there is nothing I can do about the taste. I look at Seta again, wondering if I ought to rouse her, or just let her be. Perhaps there is yet some way to get out of this. The sul'dam, when she comes, will not be expecting two. I could stun her, jump from behind the door, grab her, force her to open the collar, hands around her throat.
And then what? Kill her? It would hardly be a greater crime than trying to escape the collar itself. And even if the Light shows mercy, and we succeed, we would dare not stay another hour in the kennels. Not anywhere where there are damane.
I touch Seta's shoulder, and she moves a little. Was she asleep? Sometimes a great shock or pain can leave you in a daze. Lucky for her if she was. I wish I could close my eyes, and when I opened them again I would be in the small, hard bed in that ratty inn that was the closest there was to the kennels.
I was good. I was the best, taking the most recalcitrant marath'damane and turning them into happy, obedient damane. Some said I was too harsh, but I have never had any complaints over my charges. Taken into the personal service of the High Lady Suroth herself, and there were whispers that I would be promoted to der'sul'dam within just a few years. Why be modest about it? I was what every sul'dam aspired to be. And all that, gone, thanks to this Shadow-cursed land, marath'damane running around unchecked, ruining lives! I squeeze my eyes closed. The hot, prickling sensation is one I have not felt since I was a child. Oh, to be a girl again, and have my mother here, her shoulder to cry on, her big, kind hands stroking through my hair.
Even my mother would turn from me, if she could see me now.
Seta stirs. Her eyes are red, lashes damp and scraggly, but her tears seem to have stopped. Perhaps she is in shock. I move closer to her, take her hands in my own. I pretend to be offering comfort, but the truth is, I need it as much as she. There has got to be some way out of this, some loophole we have overlooked, if only I can think of it.
Seta makes a sound that might have been a chuckle, if it hadn't come from a throat raw from howling and wet with tears.
"Who ever would have thought it would all end here?" she croaks. I feel a stirring of amusement, but it is drowned in sadness. I remember.
Only girls, at the beginning of our training, whispering by night of what we would achieve. I was going to be famous, I remember, der'sul'dam to a great Lord or Lady – perhaps even higher, to the Imperial Family itself, though I had whispered this almost heretical dream inaudibly. Seta had gasped, but what girl can resist the forbidden? We giggled over it, nervously, and hoped that no one else ever heard.
Seta said she wanted to be rich. It was why she was so eager to be part of the Corenne, that she would get her share of the taking-gold, use it to set herself up in a business. She never spoke of her true dream, but I saw much even then, the way she would peer through her lashes at the Lords and Ladies; She wanted to be raised to the Blood. An impossible dream for a mere sul'dam, but she burned with it.
Even more impossible now. I move to touch the collar, but stop the movement almost as soon as it begins. The memory of pain is too fresh yet.
I look at Seta. Her face is familiar to me as my own, after all these years. I wonder if we will ever see each other again, after today. I think not.
Madness, and chaos. The streets bubbling with soldiers and sul'dam and damane, called by horn and bell to defend the Corenne; the High Lord Turak, Light preserve his soul, killed by persons unknown. Rebellion.
I am rushing up the steep, narrow stairs of the kennels, to the top floor, where there still might be some good damane left. I feel a great sense of foreboding. The death of the High Lord Turak, commander of the Forerunners, is the worst possible omen for the Corenne, and the battle I rush to is one that we cannot afford to lose. We will not lose, of course, not the Ever Victorious Army; but many damane had nightmares last night.
I do not have a particular damane in mind; by now they all know better than to cross me. Spying the last kennel, though, I wonder if Tuli is still there. She is too valuable to risk in the fighting, and if some fool hothead has taken her out I am going to have to track the pair of them down and return her. Unlikely, with Renna hovering around the girl like a cat around her kitten, but you never know. I reach the door and push it open, hard. It rebounds off a body.
The first thing I notice is the smell. Stench, rather, of vomit. For a moment I think that Tuli has tried something foolish again, and resolve to speak to Renna about it; she is too lenient with the girl. Mine would never even dare.
And then I see…what? Renna, and a damane, a yellow-haired girl that I don't recognise. Where is Tuli?
Only I look closer, and feel my eyes open as widely as they can go.
The damane froze when I pushed open the door, and then pressed her face to the ground as though I were one of the Blood itself. It isn't at her that I am looking at, though; it is Renna. Her red-and-blue dress is stained with vomit, and she is wearing…wearing a collar. On her neck.
For long moments I just gape, trying to make sense of what I am seeing. Renna stares at me with eyes that belong on a hunted beast. And she is wearing a collar. My eyes fix on it. Yes, definitely an a'dam, the bracelet hanging on the same peg as the damane's, leash snaking across the floor, tangling with the other. I am utterly unable to comprehend what I am seeing.
Wild thoughts pass through my mind, then; perhaps it is some sort of sickening perversion, leashing oneself, and anger follows that, fury that anyone could take advantage of a damane in that fashion. Even as I think it, though, I know I am wrong; Renna is too ambitious to risk herself, even if she had been clever enough to fool the der'sul'dam for this long.
Can it be…?
She looks at me. The damane is still cowering.
"Alwhin." Renna licks her lips. "Alwhin, come here, there is something wrong with this collar."
I stare at her.
"Hurry, Alwhin." Her voice is scratchy. I am familiar with that sound. She has been screaming. "Tuli has escaped, and there are other marath'damane as well."
I walk forward as though dreaming, reach out to touch the collar around her neck. It is real. Really there. I look up into her face, and see her trying to hide stark terror.
I simply cannot believe this.
I move to take the bracelet, but the damane is in my way. I shove at her wordlessly to get her to move, and she does, shuffling backwards, her face still pressed to the floor. I care nothing for this odd behaviour.
"Alwhin!" Renna tries to grab my arm as it reaches for the bracelet. "There isn't time for this! We have to send out parties! Did you not hear me say that there were two marath'damane?"
"I heard." My voice is soft. Firmly I push Renna's hand away, and she lets me. Her face crumples.
I complete her. Her emotions and sensations join my own, terror and nausea and misery and desperation, knots of pain still throbbing in her hands and arms. She tried to open the collar herself, then. And failed.
This cannot be real.
Her scream is real, when I try to cause her the sensation of a hot coal against her breast. She flails at the sticky dress she is wearing, scrabbling. The damane flinches as well. I rid Renna of the pain, and she slumps, tumbling to the floor like a puppet with its strings cut. Now she feels pure horror. I suppose that makes two of us.
Renna, damane. How can it be possible?
I hang the bracelet back up, not wanting to have her in my head for a single instant longer. She is not weeping, which is ironic, because I feel as though I will. I never liked her much, she was not a friend, but…marath'damane? How could she have borne the bracelet for so long, worked alongside sul'dam and damane every day, and not been found years before this? I simply do not understand. Can it all have been a horrible mistake?
I shake my head to try and clear it. Renna might be the oldest marath'damane ever to be found, but the collar is holding her, and that's how it will stay. For now I don't have time to goggle. Every damane who can channel a spark is needed now.
"Stay here." I tell Renna, unnecessarily. "I'll be back for you later. Someone has killed the High Lord Turak. An army is rumoured to be approaching. Every damane is needed." And I reach for the second bracelet on the peg.
Renna and the damane both shout "No!" at the same moment, as I put on the second bracelet. Again terror and desperation bloom in my mind, accompanied by fading cramp-pains and nausea. So. The damane has been trying to get herself free as well? I begin to fervently wish I had never set foot on this level of the kennels.
The damane looks up for the first time, and I grunt as though hit in the stomach, wondering if this is some sort of nightmare. Blue eyed and sharp faced, Renna's closest friend Seta stares up at me, her tearstained face stark white. I stare back, gaping is disbelief. Two? Two sul'dam bound by their own collars? And why under the Light is Seta wearing that? I snap the bracelet off my wrist, sickened at the intimacy. I cannot look away from Seta, grey-clad and collared. The image is jarring, like a man in a dress, or a servant with shaved head.
"You will explain this." I demand. There is a quaver in my voice. I know with utter certainty that I do not wish to hear this story; yet I must.
And they explain. Seta tells me of the marath'damane, the same ones who escaped on the day we collared Tuli,
right here in the town, missed by every patrol
How they captured her, put her in the grey of a damane, and walked with audacious boldness right into the kennels themselves
not one sul'dam or damane noticed their strength
And she tells me what they said, about sul'dam; that we are women who can learn how to channel, and that is why the collar will hold us as securely as it holds a damane.
no it can't be true
I am silent for several long moments. My head is reeling, though I do not permit any of my turmoil to show on my face. The other two look sick. Well might they; they were respected and honoured yesterday, are little more than da'covale today.
I do not think they have considered the wider implications of this horrific revelation, however.
Shortly after I passed the final tests for sul'dam, I visited Seandar, the greatest city in the world. There are spires that reach into the skies, walls of pristine stone yards upon yards thick; in the richer quarters the very ground is inlaid with glittering, iridescent stone. The buildings are such that you can fling rocks and pitch at them for a day and a night, and barely even scratch them.
The wealth of all Seanchan flows into Seandar; gold and silver and iron, raw and minted; crops grown on the richest land; silks and spices from the hottest and most exotic corners of the Empire. And nearly all of it, at some point or another, involves damane. Leashed Ones. Their power directed to the good and glory of the Empire and the Empress, may she live forever, and controlled by we the sul'dam, the Holders of the Leash.
Without us, the damane cannot be used. Without damane the power of the Empire, the Crystal Throne, is as insubstantial as mist, just men and swords, like lesser lands the world over. If all sul'dam are really marath'damane, then they must be leashed. But who will look after the Leashed Ones then? Who will direct their power?
I realise that I am sitting on the narrow bed; my knees feel unsteady. Renna and Seta are looking nervously at me. What am I going to do now? Uncollar the pair of them, and hope they never find themselves within fifty feet of a damane ever again? Leave them here until someone else comes looking for Tuli? The weight of responsibility is like lead on my shoulders. My choice could reverberate down the generations and the centuries. How am I, a simple sul'dam, meant to make a choice like this?
I breathe out, heavily. "Has anyone else seen you? Damane, da'covale, local, anyone?"
Renna shakes her head vehemently. "Only the marath'damane."
Seta is slower. "They walked me through the streets. I kept my face hidden, I'm sure no one saw me… Even is Kerrin is recaptured, she didn't see me…leashed."
I grimace briefly at that, but though the escape of two marath'damane in one day would normally be feeding gossip for months, it barely even seems significant, now. I come to a decision, the best possible under the circumstances.
"Come with me." It makes my skin crawl, but I link again to Seta. Light, but I have lain with men and not been so close to them as this. It's one thing with damane, but with a woman my equal…a woman once my equal…I wish I could rip the bracelet off, and run to the nearest river to bathe. I feel ill.
"Where are we going?" she bleats.
I let a switch land across her hips. She jumps, and yelps. "Be quiet." I snap at her. How easy it is to fall into old habits. I peer carefully out of the kennel, looking both ways. There is not a sound. Everyone is away fighting, likely. I wish I were; I would rather be facing a grolm with my belt knife than be here.
Not all the kennels are occupied. I silently pray to the Light that we don't find any more marath'damane in the next couple of days, and hurry Seta to an oddly-shaped nook that was never properly fitted into a kennel. The only space for a bed would have blocked the door. It is too small for one, never mind two, but no one is going to enter it, and that's all that matters now.
The room is bare, and I bite back a curse when I see that there are no pegs. I shove Seta's bracelet into her own hands and mutter to her to be quiet. Then I run back to fetch Renna. It takes several long moments before I can settle my stomach enough to clasp that bracelet around my wrist; the dress of a sul'dam and the collar of a damane. It is obscene. I feel sick.
She balks at leaving the kennel leashed, but I only have to glare at her for her to acquiesce, pale. None know better than the sul'dam what the bracelet can do, I think, and feel my stomach roil. We see no one, as I had prayed, and soon the pair of them are standing awkwardly in the tiny kennel.
Renna is still wearing her belt knife. It being of no use to her I decide to have it solve the only serious problem. Sliding it out of its sheath, I drive it hard into the thin wooden wall, and swivel it a little, to make sure it is firmly stuck. It now serves as an unconventional, but acceptable, peg.
"I will return." I tell them.
"Where are you going?" Seta whispers.
I see no reason not to tell them. "The High Lady Suroth. She…this is a matter for the Blood."
They both pale. The High Lady is not known for her compassion. "We can all go." Renna suggests, a little desperately. "She knows me well. She will listen to me."
I stare at her, and she flushes, realising just how foolish her suggestion was. Two damane, whatever they were yesterday, filthy, untrained, speaking out of turn – the High Lady would have them whipped, and I alongside them!
I turn to leave, feeling like there is stone in my stomach. A weak sun shines though the tiny window; my footsteps disturb long-forgotten dust, making a grimy cloud. And…
At the edge of hearing, almost, like a bird in a distant tree, I hear a note, a hint of song. Golden laughter and silver tears, tickling at my skin, shivering through my bones. A bare moment it lasts, but that moment seems to stretch, into minutes, perhaps hours. And deep inside, beyond the rational and the logical, in defiance of everything I feel and know to be true, I know that Renna and Seta will be the least of the events that take place today.
I watch Elbar's head as he bows to me and retreats hastily from my presence. I have demanded constant updates on the chaos that is overtaking Falme, and Elbar, an ambitious under-commander, temporarily promoted due to his Commander's illness – Great Lord take the woman, falling ill at such a time! – is thinking to curry favour by being the one to relay the news. It might even work. His reports are concise and detailed, and he does not waste my time with his own analyses, unless bidden, something of which I approve. The thoughts of underlings can sometimes contain unexpected gems of wisdom, but in most matters they are too ignorant to understand the deep currents I swim in.
I shake my head, admonishing myself for untimely and irrelevant thoughts. A delicate path had just become a knife blade, and the slightest miscalculation – or none at all – could see me property, or dead. I have known from the beginning that the Corenne would be a place of opportunity, somewhere I can grow in power and influence. Of course, Turak is the voice of authority, the mouth of the Empress in these lands, but the High Lady Suroth Sabelle Melderath is of a family who well know how quickly the winds can change, and how to angle a sail to take best advantage of it. Blood and chaos and death wrack Falme, and I have every intention of being the one to bring it all under control. Under me.
Unfortunately, despite the best strategies of a mind which has studied warfare and tactics since childhood, the troops of the Corenne are losing.
Even Elbar has been unable to give a concrete reason for the appalling situation. The field officers who were previously advising me have all been dismissed, after they refused to stop babbling tales of legends and impossible happenings, but Elbar was little better, talking about 'unknown forces dispersed among the city', and 'the witchery of the local marath'damane', as though Falme has not been searched from basement to rooftop! It is deplorable! I have ordered every damane taken to the battle, even the cloud-callers and a'dam-makers, and to the Pit of Doom with any who protest that I do not have the authority!
The only ones who can be fighting them and winning are Aes Sedai – a plague on their vile name! – and if they actually manage to drive the Corenne back to their ships…well, my authority is young and new, and I might be able to lay it to another, perhaps even Turak if the rumours are garbled enough. But I might still end needing to open my own veins, and I do not want to do that. There is too much yet to be done.
None of my anxiety reaches my face, in a masking which I have been practising since long before my head was first shaved, but I permitmyself to signal to Gherina, the so'jhin who currently attends me. Coco is a drink for children, but I have never truly lost the taste for it, and I need something to calm my nerves. And there is something soothing about the fact that, though the world outside might be descending into madness, my servants still leap as quickly as ever. The coco is dark and sweet, and I begin to feel warmth spread through me again. The tension was turning my limbs to ice.
The sound of rushing footsteps, outside the formal Hall that I have chosen to work from today. I recognise the tread; Elbar has been in a dozen times already. His face is flushed and he is breathing hard, I note with a corner of my mind; it pleases me. Usually I would have him whipped for entering my presence in such a state, but at the moment I would have his head if he dared delay for more than a minute in coming to me with his report.
I flick my fingers at Gherina, so fast that they would have been incomprehensible if the woman hadn't already known what I wanted. There are advantages to having a perceptive so'jhin.
"Speak, Elbar." My Voice commands, even before Elbar has had time to fall properly into his obeisance.
"The front lines have fallen back to the Large Square, High Lady." He speaks quickly and emotionlessly. "The sul'dam attack with fury, but some force neutralises their effects. A whole fist is reported lost at the front lines, and half a fist in small uprisings throughout the city. We think the enemy commands from the north, but we have not been able to advance any patrols in that direction to confirm." He pauses to take a deep breath. "Fires have started on four of our Greatships, apparently without cause. It is not marath'damane, the sul'dam insist."
I feel myself pale, beyond any ability to repress it. The enemy is attacking the ships! That can only mean overwhelming confidence! You leave your enemy a way out, an escape route, unless you truly wish to know how hard the desperate fight – harder than for gold, or loyalty, or principles; knowing they are going to die, they draw on impossible strength and courage! Who was this enemy, who disregard the Ever Victorious Army to such an extent? What army, even with marath'damane, can stand up to a thousand fully-trained damane? Could obliterate such? It does not bear thinking about!
Possibilities fly through my brain. A full-frontal attack on this theoretical northern point, to kill the commanders and strangle the attack. Falling back to a more defensible position. Complete retreat. Setting a trap, drawing enemy troops into a pincer of damane. Using raken and to'raken to drop troops behind the enemy lines. There are cloud-callers in the field, so it ought to be possible to create a gale that blows right into the faces of the enemy; battles have been won on prevailing winds before. Pronged attacks, to break the enemy lines. Bladed attacks, coordinated and precise, attacking lines of enemies like a scythe chopping wheat. Sting attacks, with an enormous force attacking a small area all at once, and pulling back while the enemy still reels.
"The ships must be defended at all costs!" my voice is too shrill, and I make an effort to compose myself. Before this all began I would have relayed my words through Gherina, but there isn't time for that. Let Elbar think I do him honour, if it speeds his efforts.
"Take troops from anywhere but the front lines themselves to achieve this. As for the lines themselves, the losses are not great, for facing damane." Marath'damane, truthfully, but who has any experience fighting them? Best to put on the appearance of confidence. "I wish the enemy line broken, but pull back once this is achieved. There must be no mingling." It would be hard to keep that much control over the very front lines, but it is essential.
"Return the instant you have more news." The same command I have given him since this all began. So far, the news had not become any better.
He bows, forehead to floor, before leaving my presence at a run. Yes, Elbar is an officer to mark. Ambitious, certainly, but that reassures me; I do not trust competence without ambition. He might make a good commander. Horlin still shows no signs of recovering from her fever, and if the woman cannot be available when I need her, then she is of no use at all.
Long minutes pass, and when I move to take a sip of the coca it is cool, and sickly. A shift of my fingers alerts Gherina, who sends a da'covale to take the cup. I could have spoken, with none of the lowborn to hear my voice, but I find comfort in giving commands without speaking. It seems closer to the ideal of having every whim satisfied without communicating at all.
And then there was nothing but quiet. Frustrating, maddening, quiet. I pace back and forth: I can't help it, when there is no one here to see. Not even an hour since I heard the bells pealing across Falme, felt ice grow in my belly at the same time as anticipation tingled under my skin. The situation is spiralling out of control. I am no novice to battles; I have fought in the name of the Empress, may she live forever, more than once. None of those battles progressed anything like this Light-cursed one had. But battles have been won on longer odds. It is important to keep that in mind. I am the High Lady Suroth Sabelle Melderath, not some ignorant savage commanded by marath'damane, and probably still wearing animal skins. I will win this battle.
Footsteps again. I feel my stomach clench, acid trying to eat its way up my throat. What could Elbar be reporting, to be back so quickly? Surely he could barely have seen open sky again by now!
So wound up am I, in fact, that it takes a few moments to realise it isn't Elbar. The tread is lighter, without the clank of metal armour. It isn't a soft-slippered da'covale – you never hear them, if they are at all competent. And there is no reason for anyone else to be approaching my Hall. If it is a clerk come to bother me with something trivial, I will have him flayed!
The petitioner speaks to the guard, and is admitted. I am astonished, and infuriated, to see that it is a sul'dam. Every sul'dam has been ordered to find a damane and join the fight! Dragon take the fact that there are ten sul'dam for every damane – she needs to be there nevertheless! To see what the marath'damane do, to complete any damane whose sul'dam is killed. She had better have a good reason for this disobedience, or I will have her hung for treason before the battlefield grows cold!
I do not even consider speaking directly to the creature. Gherina relays my words, in the emotionless way that all so'jhin are trained to do; yet even without looking up – she'd never dare! – the sul'dam catches my mood, and bends herself to the floor, humble as a da'covale. Plucked eyes and severed tongue, if this is some ill-timed confession of some wrongdoing, the woman will regret it for the next tenyear!
"There had better be a good reason why you are not at the battlefield, Alwhin." I repress a surprised blink. I hadn't recognised the sul'dam, with her head bowed, but Gherina evidently had. Alwhin is in my own service, and I consider her competent. My tolerance for the interruption increases, fractionally.
"High Lady..." a pause. If the woman tries to stammer and hesitate through this whole audience, I will have her dismissed, and no matter that she is one of my better sul'dam. There was not time for this nonsense!
Only as Alwhin goes on, I begin to wish that she'd never plucked up the courage to speak. A knowledge so damning that it ought to have been struck out of the very air. From the third sentence, I feel the sickening fear of the Seekers; the very idea is a threat to the Imperial Throne. Entire families of the Blood have died for less that this.
Alwhin speaks faster and faster, and she does not bother to hold back her own thoughts. I find herself wishing, fervently, that the woman had tripped and broken her neck rushing here, and that the two abominations hidden in the kennels had quietly starved to death. It might be a coincidence, though if so, it was the worst of omens, in the midst of this hellish battle. But if it is not…if this was the first strand of a vast spiderweb…
Damane. Sul'dam. This was a web that could choke the Empire. I well know the opportunities to be found in disorder, but in such chaos, there can be no winners. If the Empire crumbles, I will topple with it. And this revelation could do that.
Alwhin is no longer talking. Gherina has seen my preoccupation, and motioned her to silence. A perceptive so'jhin, and a woman that I feel genuine fondness for. And she will have to die, along with every da'covale kneeling in the Hall, and every bodyguard. Along with Alwhin herself, and the two creatures leashed in the kennels. Where am I going to find someone who can carry out such tasks quickly and discreetly? No matter. One will be found, or I will wield the knife herself. Nothing can be permitted to spread this knowledge any further. Nothing.
I have been silent for many moments. I speak through Gherina, and this time it is through sheer practicality. My throat is so dry I do not think I can speak. Once I am reassured that Alwhin has told no one what she knows – the Great Lord be praised, that the woman had that much sense – I feel safe in dismissing her. I command her to the battlefield, hoping distantly that the woman might find her death there. It would solve one problem, at least.
Gherina and the other da'covale are going to be a problem. In truth, Gherina is the only one among them who has to die. The cupbearers can have their tongues cut out, and I own no base property that knows how to write. Gherina is regrettable, but necessary. How, though? I can command the woman to kill herself, and I know she will obey, but anything so obvious – even a suspicious death – will bring Seekers to her household, and that was the last thing I need. There are many natural-looking accidents which can be manufactured, but it won't take much to connect such an event to the muting of six cupbearers.
And that is only the lesser problem. Great Lord send that Alwhin die today, because killing a sul'dam is murder even for I, and eliminating the two damane will be even harder. Damane are almost never killed. Maimed, sometimes, but unless they are so weak as to be useless, they aren't killed. They don't get sick. They live hundreds of years, if the sul'dam are to be believed. Perhaps if I can manufacture an ambush...it made my skin crawl, to be close to the Aes Sedai, to have to work with the creature, but delicate Liandrin might have another use, if only I knew how to contact the cold-eyed little animal.
I find myself pacing again, still carrying the cup of coco. Reflexively I take a sip, and grimace. It tastes like ashes. Impatiently I hold it out, and a lithe young man leaps from his place to take it, running to the kitchens. He is sleekly muscled and comely, like all of my property. Had I the time or inclination for that sort of thing, I might take him to my bedchamber and relieve my frustrations that way. I certainly feel like digging my lacquered nails into his skin, clutching and scratching until red lines compete with the rosy blush of early bruises. But there has never been a worse time for such sport.
They will have to be killed before anyone notices them missing, I decide. It can be claimed that they were lost in the fighting; considering that we fight marath'damane, it will be understandable that we never find their bodies. Perhaps their heads can be left somewhere hear the front. But it must be done now. Sand is trickling through the hourglass. If another sul'dam should find them, and if she doesn't have the sense to come to me, if she fetches a der'sul'dam or tells her friends…the Empire could be in the most dire peril.
The battle outside is now nothing more than an afterthought. I did not think anything could have made it seem unimportant, but this has. It will crush me underfoot like an insect. The Empress herself, may she live forever, would likely not survive it.
The Empress.
My thoughts slow, then; slow and then become clear as cold crystal. It is an angle I never considered. But no one makes to the Heights who has not learned to look for the best advantage in every situation, and only the enormity of it had stopped it from occurring to me now. The Empress has every reason to want to keep this knowledge hidden, as much reason as I. More. And she has access to resources that I can't come close to matching. The Empress cannot commit a crime. She can order the death of Alwhin, the damane, my own servants, without any of the problems that would beset me.
This knowledge is like a burning coal, threatening to set fire to the tinder of the whole Empire. But knowledge is also power. The Empress Radhanan is far from a fool; she will do whatever is necessary to preserve order. That necessity might mean my death. Or it might mean my elevation. The Empress has sons. What better way to ensure loyalty? It is a height that I never dreamed I might attain, the right to shave my head completely, and grow all five fingernails long.
It is a gamble. It could see me dead, should she decide I myself am too dangerous to go on living. But if it pays off…put to her in the right way. Not blackmail, a hint of that would see me in the Tower of Ravens before the day's shadows lengthened; fear, earnestness, devotion and loyalty. Carefully sculpted words and hesitations. It can be done. Great Lord be praised, this is a heady opportunity, just as it is a deadly threat. And if anyone can use it properly, it is I, Suroth Sabelle Melderath.
And perhaps…perhaps I will not kill Alwhin and the other two after all. They could have uses I haven't thought of yet, and I dare not close off any options, not before I've had an opportunity to fully consider everything.
I look at my hands. They are trembling, just slightly. I am not sure if it is fear or excitement. Faintly, in the distance, I hear Elbar drawing near. I walk to the centre of my Hall, marshalling my thoughts.
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