As usual all speech in italics is in the Old Tongue.

Interlude XVIII - Taija's Testing

Nearly 3,200 years ago.

It was Taija's third annual testing. As with her first and second, she joined the long line of girls in the playground after morning classes. The line snaked all the way around the glass walls of the science block and into the looming brick of the school's main hall. Approximately seventy girls in each year group, six year groups of girls to be tested. It made for a long line. However, Adanza Jara Vinaixa High School was not a school that aes sedai sent their children to, so it was rare to find even one girl with the ability to channel from that line and she would probably be one of the older girls with the ability to learn. Nevertheless the Government required that every child be tested.

Taija stood there under the hot summer sun slowly shuffling forward, eagle eyed teachers patrolling, watching for any misbehaviour. Of course she was giggling nervously with her friends about what would happen if any of them was found to have the Talent. How their lives would change and what amazing things they'd do. She didn't really think any of them would, but it was fun imagining.

"I'll become an explorer, finding ruins, dodging traps and unearthing relics from the First Age, they'll have exhibits named after me in the World History Museum in Paaran Disen," Taija asserted. Sounding as certain as she always had at that age. Paraan Disen felt a long way away, almost unattainably glamourous, but she knew she'd do it, if only she could channel.

"No you won't, you'll just want to sit somewhere and read for six hundred years!" Alisa ignored Taija's immediate protest and spoke over her. "I'll be a restorer and heal you from the terrible papercuts you'll get on your 'adventures'."

The whole group erupted into giggles, half-stifled at a look from one of the patrolling teachers while Taija crossed her arms grumpily at the unfairness of it. Poela took the momentary quiet as an opportunity to weigh in, "I want to make ter'angreal, it would be amazing, changing people's lives and being an artist all at the same time."

The girls all nodded at that one. That one was believable and would be pretty cool. Not as cool as exploring First Age ruins though.

The boys had their own line, parallel to the girls'. While the girls and boys did most things together, obviously, the Power was different, everyone knew that. The boys would go in in groups of twenty or so, to stare at a ball of light made with saidin while a channeler felt for a resonance. They'd repeat the test every year into their mid twenties.

When Taija wasn't chattering away with her friends she was watching Gorim, waiting in the boys' line. He was scruffy, but achingly hot, eventually in hindsight Taija would think he'd probably deliberately made himself look unkempt to impress his peers. He certainly wasn't a very good student either way, not like she was. Still there was something about the way he held himself, his confident, cocky grin, that kept her looking back at him whenever she thought she could get away with it.

That time he caught Taija looking, catching her eye and flashing her a smug smile that left her flushing and doing her best to pretend she'd never looked. She was so young back then. Only fifteen at the time. The girls' testing started at thirteen, earlier than the boys' and also ended earlier than the boys'. Just another oddity of the way the Power worked.

Of course at fifteen, despite their collective bravado, none of the girls expected to be picked out. It wasn't unheard of, but very rare to show the Talent quite that young. Particularly for someone from their little corner of Adanza. Still, the Hall of the Servants was clear. It would be intolerable for even a tiny number of children to be endangered because they had not been found soon enough and so every girl in the world had had the honour of being tested every year from age twelve or thirteen and every boy from sixteen. In the vanishingly unlikely event of someone with the spark starting to channel before that, well doctors kept their eyes open for channeling sickness.

Really all of them were just happy to get the afternoon off classes. The annual testing had always been something of an event for each school, but the main thing from their perspective wasn't the pompous speeches by local dignitaries before the testing began or the half-hearted exhortations from their teachers. It was the early finish. After Taija had been through the testing she was going to go to her favourite cafe with a couple of her friends and drink iced tea together.

The line slowly shuffled forward as each girl was nodded into the hall. Unlike the boys' line which moved in jerks as groups went in, Taija's progress was relatively smooth.

Eventually Taija reached the front and went through the wide doors into the hall, nervously smoothing her skirt as she stepped inside. She was pointed to one of three booths, curtained off to hide what went on inside, by a dumpy, friendly-looking middle aged woman she didn't recognise. The curtain was solid black other than the symbol of the aes sedai in the middle of it, a full half metre across.

Taija tried to look composed as she pulled the curtain aside, like she imagined an aes sedai would. On the inside she was bubbling withs suppressed nervousness. Of course she was! While she didn't expected anything to come of it, this test or another one like it could determine the rest of her life. Her mother was a very weak channeler, she'd never even tried to become aes sedai. Her father on the other hand couldn't touch the Power. On paper that made Taija a weak prospect, barely better chances than someone born to two non-channelers. However, in her school's rather limited pool she knew that the gossip had her down as one of the better prospects because of her mother.

Inside the booth a bored looking, elderly woman was sat at a plain desk with a tablet propped up in front of her. She wore the black, high-collared, formal coat of an aes sedai, but unadorned by anything other than the sinuously divided circle on a red square.

Taija gave her a deep, respectful bow upon entering. "Aes sedai." She hadn't met many aes sedai in her short life, but like every child she'd been taught the proper modes of polite behaviour.

At Taija's age she would only be tested for the spark. The boys' test also detected those with the ability to learn, but for the girls it was different. Testing for the spark required no more than a glance, but more effort was needed to find if a girl could learn, so testing for that would only start from age 18.

"Hmm." The aes sedai glanced at her tablet, "you are Taija Kosola?"

"Yes aes sedai." She tried not to let her voice quiver. The aes sedai looked at her briefly, her sharp, blue eyes feeling like like she could look straight through Taija to her soul.

"Very good, thank you." After her momentary look she made a notation on the tablet, out of Taija's sight. "You may go."

Taija quickly hurried out on wobbly legs. They wouldn't tell her the result of the test on the spot, even though the aes sedai would have known one way or the other as soon as she had looked at her.

Taija knew though. Somehow, as soon as the aes sedai's eyes had fallen on her she'd known that her parents would be called into the school tomorrow and that her life would change forever.