Chapter 8 "A New Web"
The Black Tower of Althoran housed all of the Brothers in its upper reaches and all of the Dedicated and male novices lived on the lower levels. The Father had his apartments near the top of the Black, just as the Mother had hers atop the White. The matching, opposite, towers rose so high above Althoran that only the sharpest eyes could make out the Bridge of Compromise that stretched from Black to White or from White to Black, depending on your perspective, connecting the drawing rooms of Mother and Father. The bridge started, at its bases, the same color as the tower it adjoined, then blended seamlessly to grey in the middle: a symbol, both of the compromise between Aes Sedai and Asha'man that formed the Servants of All as they were now, and of the compromises that would be necessary along the way to keep the Servants whole. At ground level the building that both towers grew out of, called the Common, held all the offices and libraries and kitchens and storerooms and dining halls and everything else that was a part of the Towers that was not exclusive to either the Sisters or the Brothers. A large dining hall for Servants was placed equidistant from each of the Towers on the eastern side of the Common, there was a dining hall for male novices and one for Dedicated in the Black and another each for female novices and Accepted in the White. The entire structure, if seen from above, was the ancient Servant's Seal with the Black Tower rising out of the Father's Fang and the White from the Mother's Flame.
Somewhere between novice and Father were Prosht's rooms. He was not going to waste time climbing to his room and returning to the traveling ground, so he caught a Jenn man, clad in his cadin'sor, on his way to the open courtyard that was reserved for Traveling. He asked the Aiel man to deliver a few things to his rooms for him and barely waited long enough to return the man's bow before hurrying on. He was sorry for being even almost rude to the Aiel man, of course the tall pale-eyed man did not show any sign that he had been affronted, nor would he, but Prosht always made sure to be more than courteous to the Jenn, he felt that the Brothers and Sisters should set the example for novices and Pledged. Pledged, whether they be boys and Dedicated or girls and Accepted, were usually one extreme or the other. They were pillars of virtuousness and propriety, or they were rebellious and headstrong beyond believing. Prosht was in the habit of neither encouraging nor reprimanding the Pledged, they were no longer novices after all, he merely set the example that he thought best and allowed them to decide to follow it or not. Luckily his rushing of the Aiel was done in private since there was no one else walking in the hallway. Every year the Towers received a few Aiel who had decided to leave clan and sept to enter the service of the Servants of All. At the age of ten years the Aiel taught their children the Dragon's Truth. After learning that their forbearers had betrayed the Servants of old by being faithless some Aiel decided to return to the task that had been left behind. They dropped their spears, wrapped themselves in the Way of the Leaf, and made for the Towers. Every boy and man that arrived dropped to their knees before the first Servant they found and said "I am ashamed of my fathers, my people have toh." As for the women and the girls they were ashamed of their mothers but agreed about the toh of the Aiel. They came at all ages from ten-year-old children to greatmothers and greatfathers past seventy and none were turned away. Regardless of clan or sept or society these were the Jenn Aiel, the True Aiel. Prosht didn't know what the rest of the Aiel felt about the Jenn, but the Jenn seemed sad for the "Lost Ones".
He had to stop himself from running. Servants did not run along the corridors of the Towers, Servants were in command of themselves. Prosht did not know why he felt this sense of urgency; after all, it was like to be weeks, or even months before he could get Wyland Ibarra to return with him to Althoran. He did feel it though. He didn't notice the carvings or crystal or wall hangings or anything else from the Chamber of the Light to the travelling ground. After he registered his trip with the Dedicated assigned to keeping the Travel Book for the week, he wasted no time in stepping out onto the Leaving Yard and danced that exhilarating dance that came when he seized the One Power. He quickly spun a gateway to the clearing in the Fifth that he and his Brothers had used to meet with each other during their search. He stepped across leagues and rivers and when both feet were firmly in the Fifthland, he released his gateway. Turning in the direction of Ni'Baras Stand Prosht adjusted his pack and started out.
Sometimes when he walked Prosht liked to whistle songs to pass time and liven his spirit, this time though, he did not feel like whistling. The silence that he exuded seemed to infect the forest. He didn't hear any birds singing their songs, he startled no game. The forest, and then the road, seemed to feel his mood; and both were content to foster his brooding. He kept his eyes open and scanned the roadside as he walked, but nothing disturbed the tree line nor the hedgerow, which left his mind ample room to wander. He had been worried about a particular passage of the prophecies that he had studied before he led his companions in search of the soldier those few weeks ago. He worried for Wyland.
"A son of the wolf and the falcon,
Bound to the Wheel and reborn of blood.
He will trade field for field for field for field.
In his wisdom we will shelter, by his fury be forged.
A father of woe and of heartache.
A triple sacrifice to scourge his heart.
Once the lost; for the legacy he will leave.
Once his heart; for the world's awakening.
Once the innocent; for Light's slim hope."
He was certain that the prophecy spoke of Wyland; Father Caldon had convinced him of that before they even knew his real name. There were a number of prophecies that were becoming relevant to their current age and Andor's young Hammer had marked himself in more ways than one. Prosht was worried about the 'triple sacrifice to scourge his heart'. He did not like to think that one man would have to have his heart scourged for the rest of the world to know hope. He didn't like it for the man in question, and he liked it no more for what it implied for the world. Dark times seemed to be rolling toward them, with hidden dangers and unknown paths. The world had fought a few wars in the time since the Last Battle of Rand al'Thor. But the biggest of those had been when the Aiel had broken the Seanchan Empire more than two thousand years past. The nations of the world were not prepared for what was coming. An army of men hacking and slicing away at another army of men was bad enough, but mankind was in for a shock when they had to stand face to snout against the evil that was reawakened in the north; contending physically with someone that was trying to kill you was more and enough for any man. But they would now be asked to struggle with their worst nightmares trying to kill them. Prosht shivered. His Brother, Baggin, had used one of the ter'angreal stored in the Black storerooms to bring the images of shadowspawn to life. He had studied as much of the old texts as he could find and reviewed all the paintings and tapestries available, and then he had called a meeting Sealed to the Light.
DDDDDDDDDD
"Mother and Father, Sisters and Brothers, for those of you who I have not yet made acquaintance with, I am Servant of All Baggin Frodus. I have called this assembly for all Servants, but closed to all others, because I want to show you what I believe we will be facing in the battle to come." Baggin was a short man, slight of frame and light of complexion. His light brown hair matched the color of his eyes, and his face was more suited for laughing than for the serious cast it took now. "I have taken time to study the appearance of the shadowspawn that came to destroy the world in ages past. I would like to prepare the Servants, in some small way, for what we may soon have to battle."
Baggin turned away from the twelve hundred strong assembled Servants and lifted a crystal sphere, slightly bigger than his fist, from a pedestal that had been placed in the center of the Hall's floor. "This ter'angreal creates real images from the channeler's mind. Men and women both can use it. Now I will use it to show you all what you will see when face to face with trollocs, myrddraal, and draghkar. First I will concentrate on trollocs. This is the most difficult demonstration because of the immense size of trollocs and the number of images I will display simultaneously. As you all know, trollocs took many forms. Man twisted with goats, or bears, or eagles, or various other beasts." Baggin grew silent then and a look of deep thought overtook him. Suddenly a line of three creatures…appeared…in front of Baggin. The things were massive, Baggins' head barely cleared the waistline of the monsters, they were atrocious! All hair and snarls and feathers and claws and matted fur and beaks and hooves. The sheer foulness of what was before them caused the Sister sitting next to Prosht to faint. Prosht caught her and with his right arm held her upright. Quick as thought he reached out, seized saidin, and Healed her; she shouldn't miss the rest of this demonstration, Prosht was sure that tomorrow or the next day she may be glad that she was able to faint here surrounded by Servants, instead of in the field surrounded by trollocs.
"Thank you Brother. Forgive me," Her pale features returned almost to their normal pallor as she blushed, "I was not prepared for the size of those things…nor…their…wrongness?"
It was half statement, half question. As if she wasn't sure that the words she used were sufficient. He understood. "No cares Sister, under the Light I almost became sick myself." Prosht stopped talking and returned his attention to the floor of the hall as Baggin resumed.
"To the best of my knowledge and ability this is truly what trollocs look like. They are immense, as you can see, towering over even the tallest of men. These are only a few incarnations of the abominations that have been recorded and hinted at: a goat trolloc, a vulture trolloc, and a bear trolloc. With so many at once it becomes difficult to imitate the movements of life, so Mother and Father, if you will allow, I will now release the goat and bear to focus on the vulture." He looked up toward the dais that raised the Ahmyrlin Seat, Mother and Father seated side by side upon it, slightly above floor level. The Compassion and the Fury both stood behind and slightly to the side. Mother Maradath studied the bear-headed trolloc for a moment then nodded her assent.
As soon as the other two trollocs dissolved into nothingness, the remaining trolloc began walking in a circle around the Servant puppeteer. The vulture's head craned and twitched as it walked, moving the eyes on the sides of its face to point at what it was looking at. The beak was shaped like any other vulture that Prosht had ever seen, but it was so large, scaled up to fit the massive trolloc body, that it looked able to snap a man's arm, or perhaps even a leg. The human anatomy started at the base of the neck; thick hairy arms, massive chest covered with tattered bits of black leather and black mail, led down to feathered legs and huge, talon-tipped birds feet. The right hand carried a battleaxe raised high, which it swung in huge powerful arcs from time to time. Then the thing opened its beak and let loose some jerking, guttural, screeching, cry. "That is not the warning cry of an animal: it is the language of the trolloc. They are not smart, but are smart enough to have a language and follow orders. They are not brave, but are brave enough when the odds are in their favor or they have something they fear worse than death urging them on." The trolloc disappeared then. "Something they fear worse than death…something like…a myrddraal." Baggin had been studying for months and practicing with that ter'angreal for even longer preparing for today, Prosht could tell that it was not only a class: Baggin was putting on a show.
The thing that appeared before Baggin this time was much smaller; the size of a tall man of average musculature. At first Prosht could only see the back of the thing. He didn't think it looked all that bad. He had grown up listening to the same tales-o-naught that every other child had: The Dragon battling the Dark One in the sky to decide the fate of the world, trollocs eating babies, the Wolf King who married a falcon, Mat Cauthon - the general who won the hand of an empress in a card game, and a hundred others, including myrddraal. Myrddraal, Fades, Lurks. They seemed to have as many names as there were nations that fought against them. They inspired terror, or they were terror made flesh, or they fed on terror. They had no eyes, or their eyes glowed blood red, or their eyes killed on sight. They rode on shadows, or maybe they were shadows, no they were just called the Shadow's shadows. Nobody outside the Servants of All truly knew much about Fades or trollocs or the Shadow at all. Even amongst the Servants what some knew could fill lakes and others would be hard-pressed to overflow a thimble. This creature appeared no bigger than a man and from the little he could see. Its skin looked pale and waxy, but other than that it did not hold a candle to the trollocs that had made his Sister next to him faint.
Then the myrddraal turned and faced him. That face had no eyes. It had cruelly jagged teeth inside a pale thin-lipped mouth, the smooth skin that existed where eyes should have been gave Prosht chills down his spine. For a moment he was sure the thing was looking straight at him, looking at him with an eyeless gaze. The feeling he got when he was sure the thing was looking at him was eerie. He did not like myrddraal. In a deep, visceral, bone jarring way. Today was the first time he had ever seen a Fade, and he hated them with every fiber of his being.
DDDDDDDDDD
The rest of the demonstration that day had registered, but seemed less important. He had watched Baggin run the Fade through a sword exercise that was supposed to show how it had serpent-like speed. Prosht didn't use a sword, and he cared little about how deadly the things were with steel. If it was close enough to cut him then he had already failed as a Servant of Battle. The flying draghkar had made quite an impression as well, swooping down at the assembled servants before climbing once again and repeating as it winged a circle around the Hall. Baggin had explained a lot about the flying shadowspawn, but for some reason neither the trollocs nor the draghkar earned the bone-deep, hot-blooded hatred that he felt the first time that imaginary myrddraal had fixed him with its eyeless stare. He had packed a few books about shadowspawn, especially myrddraal, when he had originally left the Towers for the Fifth, and he still had them in his pack now. He was engrossed with studying everything he could find about myrddraal. He wanted to know about their strengths, their weaknesses, abilities, and their shortcomings, wanted to know their desires, thought patterns, strategic abilities, fears, what they hated. He wanted to find out how to destroy them. Not as the individual monstrosities that they were. He wished to remove the insult that they were to the Creator from the face of the world. They should not exist.
These were the thoughts that tormented him from inside his mind as he entered Ni'Baras Stand. He paused before the inn and ran through a calming exercise in his mind. He imagined a flame in the darkness of the world; a flame surrounded by total black. He fed all of his emotions and thoughts and fears into the flame. He floated. He was the flame. With clarity of mind, on the verge of seizing the One Power, he entered the inn.
The common room was as he remembered it; a fire banked in the far wall, low tables surrounded by comfortable armchairs that had all seen more fortunate days, a slight haze of tabac smoke, and the fat innkeeper behind the counter.
"Master Turalde, it is good to see you again. Might I rent a room?"
The innkeeper looked up then from wiping the counter. Prosht sometimes wondered if innkeepers didn't spend their entire lives wiping counters and tables. He also wondered if that was so, how their arms weren't larger and their bellies smaller. "Master…ah…uhm…Prose! I would be glad to prepare a room, our finest now that the peddlers and merchants have all moved on." His face looked a little haggard; when last he had been here Trinl Turalde had been all smiles and joviality. "I must warn you though: Ni'Baras Stand has suffered since you left it last." The man reached under the counter and raised a flagon to his lips, tipping it up for a long moment, tossing it behind him into a sink, empty.
Prosht approached the counter and took a seat, setting his travel pack on the ground beside his stool. "I'll have an ale, and the news." He threw gold onto the counter.
Turalde looked at the gold but left it where it was as he poured. "I'm not usually one to talk of things like this to outsiders," Which seemed strange to Prosht since the last time he talked to the innkeeper the man had been almost eager to tell any tale that he thought could spark more business. "The only reason I'm going to tell you what I'm going to tell you is because Wyland seemed to know you, respect you even." The man turned his head, and all three of his chins, to each side then, assuring himself that no one else had come into the common room: that no one else was listening. "Last night Parn Alver went to Wyland's farm and found Wyland unconscious on the floor of his kitchen. His wife, Detra, was murdered, his daughters were murdered, and his son was on the short list for having been murdered himself. Jorle is alive, barely, and Wyland is upstairs; still unconscious." The fat man paused then, grabbed the gold coin off the counter and moved his eyes and chins again to check his surroundings, "Wyland was found with his hand on the dagger sticking out of his oldest daughter's chest, and she with a dagger of her own clasped in her hand."
The Servant's stomach tried to be sick; he did not allow it to be and moved from being the flame to dancing the dance with saidin. "Where is the boy?"
"What, Jorle? Never you mind him, the Wisdom is taking care of him upstairs. Marlie can be a trial, but if he's to be saved she'll be the one to do it."
Prosht fixed the man with a look that bided no argument, "Master Turalde I am a Servant of All, I serve the Light and I wield the One Power as you wield that washcloth. Do not trifle with me! Lead me to the Ibara boy, now." He had to save what he could of Wyland's family, and he could not wait for this fat innkeep to make up his mind. Wrapping the man in flows of air, he lifted him over the counter and placed him at the foot of the stairs. Turalde's eyed looked like they might pop right out of his head, "Lead on Master Turalde, and make haste."
The man scrabbled up the stairs on all fours. He righted himself on the second floor and ran down the hallway faster than Prosht would have believed possible. Halfway down the hall the man stopped and turned to his right, opening the door to a room, he rushed in with Prosht on his heels. "Marlie, this man…uh I mean there is a Serv…ah I mean Servant Prose wishes to see Jorle." As the grandmotherly woman looked up from the bedside Trin collapsed to the floor.
"Wisdom, I am a Servant of All, my name is Prosht. Please step aside so I might Heal this boy." Without really waiting for her response Prosht moved to the boy's side and delved him to find what needed to be done. Jorle Ibara lay on the bed white as a Sibernian goat. There was a sheen of sweat on his brow and a long, smooth gash across his throat. The flesh around the wound was red and angry with streaks of black running through. His hair was plastered back against his head. "What have you done for him thus far?"
"Master Prosht, I appreciate your concern, but you need to leave this room. I do not have the time or patience to play games with boys who want to pretend to glory."
Prosht looked back at her then, she was familiar. He had seen faces like hers all his life. She was capable, she was wise, and she knew these things. People did not disobey this woman. He couldn't afford to argue about abilities with her. She stood between him and the fireplace. Quickly and deftly he spun flows of air and fire creating a small inferno in the fireplace that died down into a small fire as he released the weaves and the logs continued to burn. As the woman's brown eyes turned back to him she simply nodded, grey locks streaming down her shoulders.
"I poulticed the cut with goatsweed and blackroot as soon as I saw him. Since then I have applied tincture of marestail and forced white tea and dreamsleep down his throat."
"You did well, now let me see what I can do." The gash across the boy's throat had nicked one of the veins in his throat, he had lost a lot of blood. The things the Wisdom had done had stabilized the boy. The things the Wisdom had done should have been lessoning the effects of the wound on his body and encouraging blood replacement: she knew what she was about. But something was wrong. He sent fire, earth, water, air, and spirit spinning into Jorle Ibara's body, deftly and quickly. He healed the wound and the fever and every minute malady he could find. He delved him again. Something was still wrong. Looking down Prosht saw that the redness and the black streaks had not lessened although the wound had closed as if it had never been. Prosht investigated the area. At the skin the foulness was bad enough, but inside the…whatever it was it felt evil, the evil was close to reaching the boy's brain and in the other direction close on his heart. Prosht didn't know what this evil infection was all about nor where it came from, but he was sure that Jorle would be lost if it was allowed to reach his head.
Water and earth passed right over the evil but spirit, air, and fire all sizzled and bounced back. He had never encountered anything like this. Still gently poking and nudging at the infection, he racked his mind for anything he had seen or read that might help. Something flashed into his memory, a technique, he could not remember where he had learned of it, but it was right. He knew it was, because it had to be. He spun spirit and air and fire into a tight web then used a web of earth and water to layer protection over the boy's flesh while leaving the filth of the infection exposed. He moved the spirit-air-fire web over the infection and let it settle down into the boy's throat. The evil inside the boy resisted the web, Prosht drew deeper and deeper of saidin increasing both the protection of his earth-and-water web and the violence of the fiery spirit net. Slowly, so slowly, the vile blackness that was seizing the boy's throat, and trying to spread, was yielding. He was not sure how much longer he could maintain the flows he was handling; he already held so much of the One Power that the sweetness was turning to pain. The infection was burning away before his web, but progress was agonizingly slow. Prosht felt sweat beginning to bead on his forehead. He wanted to ask the Wisdom for a seat, his legs were becoming shaky, but he feared breaking his concentration even that much.
Small points of light began dancing across his vision. Prosht knew that his strength was flagging and he began to regret his vain displays of power: perhaps he could have spared a little time and wasted less energy to get his point across. He could use a bit more endurance right now. He was finding out what it was like to take on a task with the Power that was more than he could handle. He began to feel faint; he tried to focus, to see if the infection was gone. His last conscious thought was that he must release the fiery spirit net before he let go of the protective one or he risked burning Jorle Ibara's throat out from between his head and his chest. As he blacked out he hoped that he had succeeded, at least, in not killing the boy himself.