Note: The character Dirk's real name is Kye. So either appellation refers to him.

Disclaimer: All profits to RJ, the man, the Legend.

Chapter 23: Loyalties

"This be it," he said simply. They were stood a good way up the side of Dragonmount itself. If Kea looked over her shoulder she could see the rivers and the isle of Tar Valon gleaming like a jewel dangling on a sparkling necklace. The White Tower rose from its very centre seeming to point an accusing finger at her, a finger of warning and caution. What she did here, what she was doing, would change things forever.

She could see the flows and she began to act. Few things are quicker than a shouted warning. A look is quicker than a shout and a thought is quicker than a look. Weaving the Power took only a thought and sometimes even less than that for Kea who had grown up with it. Still the urgency of her Warder's fear screamed at her through the bond with such vehemence and speed she was able to pull back from weaving before she targeted it.

"Do not Aes Sedai! I cannot see the flows but I know Nevir Sedai set traps around them. She did know full well what that the Black Ajah would fear the Eye, she feared them finding this place. So it do seem a simple weave, but a much more cunning one is hidden within it. She says it is impossible to make weaves invisible so you need to hide them inside others. I only hope you can discover her trick without killing yourself. She did not ever tell me in case I was tortured into revealing the information."

Dirk shrugged and then laughed bitterly. "I would not have understood even if she had tried to explain."

Kea could see the weaves now lots of earth, layered with water and sealed in a simple globe of fire and air. It seemed a simple enough matter to pop that bubble and then pull the object to the surface. The weaves of earth and water seemed simply to work as a barrier against erosion. But with her Warder's warning in mind she looked deeper. She did so carefully, as she would when she read the roots of some ancient crafted pot or building. There it was she thought, after almost fifteen minutes of searching. It was the tiniest trickle of spirit, hidden within the guards against erosion. It was in reality a trigger and one that would cause the weaves to collapse as if they had been picked apart. The resulting explosion while not enough to level the mighty Dragonmount would certainly dispose of any would-be thieves.

Dirk just watched on not able to see what Kea was doing but able to feel her immense concentration, her elation and then her determination. His pulse quickened along with hers as she carefully unpicked the infinitesimal weave of spirit, disarming the trap. He could not follow what she was doing but he knew from the feelings in the bond that if they were going to die it was going to be any second. However as she straightened her back she smiled and bid him with a wave of her hand, to behold her success.

It rose out of the ground like an air tight box might rise to the top of a lake after it had been thrown in. It seemed to rise and bobble atop liquid-like ground. Then the ground returned to a state of solidity and it was there, exactly as he had left it.

"Careful, there is a mundane trap as well, to catch out those who might be a little too clever with the Power."

Bending low over the box's catch he removed the pin-latch by pushing it away from the box and then sliding it free without any part of it touching the lock. Then stepping behind the box he motioned Kea to follow him, he opened the chest. Blade like darts sprang from the box where they would have struck anyone peering into it full in the face.

"You took no chances did you?" asked Kea.

"No we did not," replied Dirk.

"I will pick up the Eye from within the box; she may have left a final defence."

"I can't see any weaves," disagreed Kea.

"Just because she told me that such a thing as an invisible weave was impossible does not mean it was. Indeed it does not even mean that she herself was not capable. An Aes Sedai keeps her own counsel in such matters. You will wait until it is clearly safe."

He moved around the box and reached within it. From the depths of the wooden container he pulled out the odd visor shaped ter'angreal. She knew what it was from reading Kye's Roots: First through his key, then his sword and finally his cloak. She knew it but at the same time knew nothing about it. Why had they in the Age of Legends made such a thing? How was it used? What would it show? And how? So much of what she hoped to do rested on this object and really she knew nothing of how to use to do what she desired.

"So," she inquired as he handed it to her. "This is it?"

"Yes" he replied simply.

It was a fairly simple visor of metal. Like a U letter in shape but made to fit over a person's eyes with each end of the U resting on an ear. In the curved edge a line of blue quartz like stone which presumably was what one looked through. It was a single eye, an eye of loyalty.

"How does it work?" she asked. They were already leaving down the mountainside. The attack previously had shown they were not safe here. They needed to get within the Tower. Still considering what they carried that might well be less safe than here. Rather the Shadowspawn that you can see than the Black Ajah you cannot. But then again, with this ter'angreal, maybe they could see them?

"I am not sure. Nevir believed many ter'angreal worked without channelling in the Age of Legends. She thought this was one of them. However after we obtained it she reasoned that it did need a… what did be the word… a power-source. Apparently in the Age of Legends they could generate the Power more easily or store it or something."

As the journey continued Kea concentrated on learning how to activate the Visor. The fact was, Dirk, or Kye as he was now, never spoke, unless she asked him something or he believed them in danger. That situation really lent itself to this kind of solitary study. The Eye reacted to different flows she directed against it. But it wasn't till she put it on and directed saidar into it rather than against it that she had any real success.

It was Spirit that did the trick. As the flows worked their way into and through the visor, it seemed to store and concentrate them in the quartz so that she was looking through the flows of saidar. With only her Warder to look at she looked at him. He was alight, as if a flame. Lines and bonds crossed over him and surrounded him. One was covered with golden specks and as she concentrated intrigued she saw that within the swirls of power and colour they were stylised bees. She saw red and green lines around him and within them she could feel and sense his loyalty to her. As she dwelt on them she became sucked into their details. She forgot the outside world and her footing on the downward slope of the treacherous mountain. Instead her world was now the words of oaths he had made to her.

Words from their first meeting, "I will not leave you. Now can you just trust me? I trust you." The time his friend had come and wanted to kill her an invader, "I won't let you kill her. It would not be right."

Oaths define us. They are what we stand for. People judge us by the fact we stand by our oaths. These were words that echoed in his subconscious, words of his previous Aes Sedai. They applied to the oaths he had sworn to her. She remembered well when he had been prepared to fight a whole Seanchan patrol and probably die to avoid swearing an oath he would not keep. She had saved his life or he would have died for that loyalty to his homeland.

Then things that had happened much more recently a scrap of paper with some scribbled lines. 'No matter the cost! I trust you with my mind and my heart. My life before yours!' and then the words he had said as he became her Warder. "Others have my allegiance in part, Illian, Nevir Sedai, the Light itself, but I am sworn and bonded to you and you alone in full, Aes Sedai. I am your sword and your shield."

All that bonded into the lines of oaths and loyalty that bound him. She saw a haggard greyish line and realised that was what was left of his bond to Nevir Sedai, as harmful as it was enduring. Then she realised the source of the brightness a thin line that encircled him from head to foot of blindingly white light. It might have been fire but pure and clean. It was his loyalty and his oaths made under the Light and too the Light. So engrossed was she now that she barely felt herself fall. All she noticed was he was no longer in her view. The scrapes and bumps as her body fell down the mountainside were almost an annoyance from some other world rather than happening to her right now.

She felt herself tugged harshly to a dead stop. Dirk was above her holding her by shoulders of her dress. Swiftly he linked his arms under her shoulders and pulled her back onto a more secure part of the mountainside. The visor had slipped from her eyes but she was still caught in the colours, images, words and detail of it all.

"Truly we were nothing to the Aes Sedai of the Age of Legends" she breathed. "You will not believe what this can do." He only nodded in reply and busied himself tending a cut through a slash in the arm of her dress. It was minor, indeed so engrossed was she still that all the bruising she had sustained seemed of minute importance.

"I saw it all, every oath you ever made: Your loyalty to the Tower, to Nevir, to Illian, even to me." She finished the sentence almost in a whisper. "With this we can simply look and expose Black Ajah. Nevir was right; this is an incredibly potent weapon against them. No wonder they feared her and killed her for possessing it."

"As they will fear and try to kill you" said Kye. "Understand this I do not intend to lose another Aes Sedai. It should have killed me last time. It certainly will this time."

She looked over at him and caught his gaze directly for a moment. She realised that when she looked at him again that line of dark promise would be within his loyalty to her. She had not looked for it but it was there. Every oath and every loyalty it seemed could be misused and could cause harm, not just that of loyalty to the Dark One.

They reached the river and entered the boats with the Eye of Loyalty hidden within Kea's clothes. It would not do even for the ignorant to remark even accidentally to a darkfriend that such a strange item was headed for the White Tower. The boat set off once more heading for the half of the river not covered by the heart stone chain formed by Egwene Sedai, the now captive, rebel Amyrlin Seat. But things had changed they noticed. As the boat got to the more narrow area between the chain and the bank a large rock was hurled into the water and came within striking distance of the boat itself.

The Aes Sedai could not attack the ships as they would risk causing death to none Shadowspawn, but the armies of Garath Bryne had no such compunction. Some odd fixed contraptions had been set up and they were hurling large stones into the water in this narrow stretch. With the concentration of boats required to use this because of the harbour chains and the siege even without much ability to aim these would cause severe difficulty. Each ship sunk would cause obstacles for future boats making the entire journey more hazardous. It seemed the rebels were losing patience with the siege and had decided to step up their efforts.

Kea did not even think. She was in danger and so was her Warder. Lightning was formed and in a moment it rained down blowing the contraptions to splinters. Seconds later she realised in horror that the men who had been operating them were surely dead as well. It was just natural to defend herself she had not thought of the consequences of hurling the Power at them. On the deck the crew were looking at her with greatly varying expressions. Some showed open horror at as Aes Sedai openly using the Power as a weapon, though hopefully her banded dress would make sure they knew she operated without the oaths. Others gave her dark and gruff nods as if to say they deserved it and thanks for saving our lives. A variety of chuckles and scowls followed her as she made her way out from under their eyes, praising and accusing, and got below deck.

Her Warder followed her like a shadow. She did not need to turn to know he was there. But she was concerned for a second that she had not felt anything through the bond. She turned and looked at him. "I…" she began. But she had to stop firstly because she did not know how to explain or excuse what she had done and secondly because he plainly needed no explanation. She thought back to their first meeting when she had killed the Seanchan soldiers she held immobile with the Power and how Dirk had objected and argued that the Power wasn't for that. How she had changed. Now she truly believed she could be an Aes Sedai, a true servant to the people of the land. Use her amazing gift of touching Saidar to change hundreds and thousands of lives and best of all to fight evil wherever and whenever she found it. But he it seemed had changed to. There was no change in his expression or emotion. A slight flicker when they had come under attack and then back to normal when she had delt with it. Well not quite normal, there had been a flash of… satisfaction, as she had callously killed those men.

"Kye when we arrive in Tar Valon we will need a plan. We need to test the Eye. The Ajah of the Light know we went to get this ter'angreal and will want control of it as full Sisters."

"Tell them no. We can test it first on Revoir to see what the Oaths look like through it and then once we see a likely suspect through it take them and test them using the Oath Rod as you have all done before. Once we have that proof we proceed and take the lot. Once they see your success in battle they will stop trying to take your weapons. I know it has happened to me many times."

Cold impersonal facts. He was right. He held her and her abilities in great esteem. He certainly believed she was the one needed to defeat the Black Ajah, but she no longer seemed to be his friend. She was no longer something more and for that reason she felt tears well up inside her. Luckily a life as a damane teaches you not to show what you do not wish to. Even better, training in the Tower had built on those abilities and so when Kea wept it was soundless and dry. He was utterly loyal to her but he did not love her. She was no longer sure that he even liked her.