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

Chapter LXV - The Forsaken Awaken

Taija didn't know how long she'd been channeling for, but the world was an agonising mixture of ecstasy and pain. Enough saidin and saidar were hurtling through her to crack the planet in half. She was drowning and flying amidst the torrents of both halves of the Power. Mixed in with the Power was the disgusting oily miasma of the taint, washing past her, bathing her in floods of nauseating filth.

Above it all, an island of tranquility in the chaos, Taija's conscious mind was holding the flows steady. Her taint-destruction web wavered and she tweaked it, adding a bit more spirit to the lateral binding system. Everything was holding, for now.

=======

When Demandred felt it he cursed to himself, he could stay and finish, but that carried significant risks with it. The displeasure of the Great Lord for one. Missing out on his opportunity to end Lews Therin once and for all another. With a muttered apology he climbed off Shendla, already reaching for his clothes. No time even for a wash.

Of course Lews Therin would be spoiling this for him too. Fortunately now would be an excellent opportunity to put an end to that man. Shendla was clearly annoyed, but that was not surprising, so was he.

All the more annoying was that Mesaana had told them they would have longer, at least three more weeks, but it was no matter. The preparations might not be what they could have been, but they would do. He would go and deal with this, but before he did…

He turned to Shendla, "I have heard the call, sooner than expected, so I must leave immediately. Gather the Freed and be ready. I have no time to wait, but I will return for them if necessary."

He did not stop to listen to her response, he knew he could rely on her.

=======

Siuan picked her way through the trees, trying to keep as quiet as possible in her stout shoes. The 12 women behind her glowing with saidar, a hammer that the White Tower would wield against any of the Forsaken foolish enough to show their faces today. The ultimate hammer women could bring to bear. No one could stand against a full circle.

========

Osan'gar took a swig from the bottle of wine by the table, before examining it with bleary eyes. Why was it so empty? After a moment he threw it aside. He had another somewhere, but… his experiment needed to be finished! He plunged his hands back into the trolloc corpse, he would overcome his barbaric lack of a laboratory, the research needed to be done! With a mind like his and the Power as his tool, experimentation was still possible. Even in these lesser times.

A minute later he looked up from the trolloc corpse he was elbow deep in. Why were there always interruptions?! It took him a moment to process what he was feeling through the alcoholic haze.

No! Yes! He had told those idiots they weren't taking her seriously enough and now she was actually doing it!

With a sigh he channeled the blood and viscera off his arms and rolled his sleeves back down over them, the experiment could wait. He had to admit, he was more than a little jealous of Taija Kosola, because of course this would be her idea, not that farmboy's. There she was, doing something that even the best of their time had failed at, probably the greatest scientific achievement of her field. Ever. While he was stuck here playing at being a witch-doctor.

He turned to leave his wards so he could Travel to wherever it was and nearly fell over. That wasn't good, perhaps he shouldn't have drunk quite as much he did. Coffee? Did they even have coffee in this time? He needed to sober up fast. He needed to see this. It was going to be… momentous.

======

Semirhage felt the beacon of light blooming in her awareness and glanced over at Tuon. This was going to be difficult. She could not just walk out of the audience chamber, not now. Well she could, no one here could actually stop her, but not if she wanted to keep the position she had worked so hard to achieve in the Seanchan Empire.

Schooling her face into impassivity she started to spin a small inverted web into Tuon. It could not be anything too obvious or quick or she risked discovery. The investigations after the chocolate thefts had come close to uncovering her at times and suspicions were still high. If she ever found out who was behind those… Well she had a special plan for them.

It would be slow, but Tuon's stomach would gradually get worse and worse until even her admittedly impressive self-control was overcome. Hopefully that would bring things to an early finish and allow Semirhage to make the discreet exit that she needed to.

=======

Demandred emerged from his inverted gateway over ten kilometres from the beacon of Power. He immediately spun a web over his eyes to protect them from the blinding light. However, nothing could subdue the sheer all encompassing sound of it, reverberating right through his bones. Through his shadowed vision he surveyed the future battlefield, just in time to see a series of towering columns of flame erupt from the forest below. It seemed he had been the second to arrive.

Based on where the flows were coming from, Lews Therin and presumably Taija Kosola, were on the top of a cliff, with the sea at their backs. A blinding ball of light behind them was spewing steam into the sky at an alarming rate. That must be whatever mechanism she had come up with. Demandred scowled, he hated to admit it, but it seemed Mesaana had been right about her. Impressive. Not that it would help her now.

Still, he would need to be cautious. If they had Sammael, or he supposed he should call him Tel Janin now, ridiculous, helping them then they would no doubt have planned out their defences.

He had made an arrangement with Mesaana and Semirhage of course. When this happened, they would work together if possible. They had agreed a meeting point, the question was how to find it. 12 kilometres from wherever the event took place and at a 70 degree angle from north…

After a moment he spun another inverted gateway and stepped through it. He would not wait forever, but for something like this it would be better to work together.

=======

On the island of Tremalking Anaiya stood looking worriedly at the gigantic hand sticking out of the ground, the ball in its palm glowing with a brightness beyond any natural light. She had not been expecting to be sent here, after steeling herself to fight the Forsaken toe to toe, but Taija had insisted, saying that this might be just as important as battling the worst the Shadow could throw at them and there were so few people she could be entirely confident were not darkfriends.

She would have said the woman was insanely paranoid if not for Sheriam. That had been the worst shock of her life. Not to mention then finding out that Taija had stilled her, without a trial. If Sheriam's guilt had not been so blindingly obvious… She had not seen Siuan lose her temper like that before and had not expected Taija to scream right back at her. The woman was normally so mild.

Anyway, if she was honest with herself, it was a relief not to have to be there fighting the Forsaken.

One of the women in her circle called her name and she looked back at the stone hand and its ball. Was that? Yes, the grass around it was starting to blacken and she could feel the heat. It was time to begin.

With a deep breath Anaiya drew on saidar through the link with the 12 other aes sedai and pulled water from the sea, carrying it up and over them in an arc to spray onto the statue.

She had not understood half of what Taija had said about the statue, but she could at least understand that she needed to keep it cool. Hopefully Maigan was doing the same in Cairhien.

=======

Mesaana looked up from her book with a jerk. "Fuck!" She spat the word. It was too soon. They'd told her four weeks, not four days. With a twisting of her stomach she realised. She'd been played! Some of these so-called aes sedai were going to die for that.

That would come later though. While her preparations were not where she would have liked them to be, she could still take some time to make sure that she wasn't just jumping in dick first like some of her 'colleagues' might.

=======

Edarra stalked through the Wetlander forest. It was a strange place to be, everything so lush and wet. However today was a day of much strangeness. The wise ones were going into battle, with the Power no less.

Amys had come to her saying the Car'a'carn needed her help, telling her about this Taija Kosola's project. The wise ones could hardly fail to answer that call. Both for the Car'a'carn and for their ancient toh to the aes sedai.

So that was why she found herself in this strange environment, so far from the Threefold Land. The aes sedai had taught her and the other wise ones how to link, a valuable gift and now she stood at the head of a group of them, 13 in total and they stalked the shadowsouled. It was enough to make a Maiden quail, but what would be would be. All had to wake from the dream one day.

======

Moridin sat back in his armchair, steepling his fingers together. So it had begun. He would be intrigued to see how the Chosen performed in this fight.

======

Aran'gar winked at the finely dressed man in the common room of the inn and bit her bottom lip. When the Great Lord had first returned her to life she'd thought it was the most horrifically cruel joke He could have played on her. Now though, well she was seeing some of the benefits.

She leant forward, giving the man a view down her low-cut top and a sultry smile. Then she felt it. Her head jerked up, flirtatiousness forgotten. Before she knew it, she was already on her feet, heading for her room.

The idiot man decided to follow her, taking it for some kind of invitation. So be it. As soon as he came in after her she shut the door and channeled. The gateway opened straight through him, leaving her to step through his bisected remains.

=======

Moghedien was walking through Caemlyn's Inner City when she felt it. A quiver of fear ran through her. Surely they weren't starting now? She'd informed the Chosen that it was coming, but this was too soon. Why hadn't her spies told her? The rest were not going to be happy with her, not at all.

=======

Lanfear looked with a snarl, he'd done it. The final betrayal! Handing the Choedan Kal to Taija, letting her loose with them. How did she do it? Such mediocre talent, a complete lack of good sense, mediocre looks, at best! Yet she had one of the most famous men of their Age fawning at her feet, professional success wildly beyond her ability, loyal followers. It was the most sickening example of undeserved success she could think of, almost as infuriating as that milksop Ilyena!

With a growl Lanfear kicked away the servant who had been filing her toenails and grabbed her shoes. He had had his chance, she was going to kill Taija and then make Tel Janin and Lews Therin eat her corpse. Unless of course she could think of something worse before she got to her.

=======

Graendal had just started to relax in her bath. Two of her pets, naked and beautiful assisted her. One rubbing her scalp with his fingers, the other gently scraping a rough pumice across her skin. One had to take time for life's little pleasures. Ever since she had seen the truth she had made sure she had plenty of that time.

When she felt it she gave an irritated sigh. She would have to go and fight, of course. But not yet, first she was going to finish enjoying this bath.

=======

"There." Cadsuane pointed. Moiraine poked her head over the rim of earth that Tel Janin, she gave a little shudder at the name, had insisted they surround themselves with and drew hard on the Power, both saidin and saidar.

Aleksi sat behind her, shielded by the rim of earth, cradling the blazing crystal sword in his lap while she pulled the torrent of filthy saidin from it, weaving it together with saidar from her and her angreal along with the twenty five other aes sedai in the link. Taija might be changing the world behind her, but Moiraine felt a certain sense of satisfaction in knowing that she was leading what was probably the largest circle to have been formed in thousands of years.

She sent the weave spiralling down into the forest, following Cadsuanes direction, dragging it along and bringing devastation to anything anywhere near it. For now she was pacing herself, still channeling gigantic amounts of the Power, but holding back. She was ready to use her circle to its full potential if she actually laid eyes on one of the Forsaken.

=======

Aran'gar Traveled to a spot around four or five kilometres from where she felt that ridiculous amount of Power being channeled. If only she could obtain the male access key… No, now wasn't the time for fantasies, she had some skulls to crack.

She barely had time to realise what was happening before a monstrously powerful web sent a roaring column of fire towering into the sky. That had been far too close! She was already running, cursing her new body as she struggled to reach a decent speed. Another whoomph and the next column of flame was closer to where she'd emerged. Closer to her.

A few seconds of frantic running took her out of the path of those explosions, but it was far too near a miss, leaving her panting with exhaustion and fear. They must have some way of detecting her webs. That was worrying, she should have been too far away for that. She'd need to be more careful.

Aran'gar started to pick her way towards that beacon of saidin, working her way uphill through the rumbling forest. She would be careful not to channel at all until she was much closer. If they were ready for her like that then surely they had other defences too.

=======

Demandred was getting tired of waiting. The other two were late, he'd been here at least an hour. He was loathe to try to do this by himself, but if he had to he would. There was no one in this Age that could stand against him after all.

He waited another few minutes and then stood with a decisive movement. Perhaps they were not coming, perhaps they had decided not to honour their arrangement or perhaps they were lost. He supposed he should at least give them a chance. The agreed signal had been a red flare.

He glanced over at the blinding light. He should be well out of range of any retaliation, but he had not survived as long as he had by taking foolish risks. With a moment's thought he spun an inverted gateway and stepped through to a hilltop a good couple of kilometres away from his original location.

Then, keeping the gateway open, he spun a web of air and fire through it, sending a shining red flare flying straight up. As soon as he completed the web he released his gateway. It was not a moment too soon. A few seconds after the flare shot into the sky a monstrously powerful web of saidin and, he assumed, saidar slammed into the ground where he'd been stood less than a minute before. White hot fire surrounding it for long seconds before dissipating to leave the ground fused into steaming glass.

Interesting, 12 kilometres was an impressive distance. Lews Therin must have given Callandor to Tel, he could not see any other way that kind of power could have been sent so far. He would have to be doubly careful. His abilities were unparalleled, but facing Tel with a sa'angreal was not a survivable event even for one such as himself.

The defenders clearly had some way to sense channeling closer to them too. He doubted it would detect inverted webs though. Demandred spun a gateway into the forest, no point going too close, there would be anti-Traveling wards. He stepped through and spun a couple of inverted webs of spirit that he knew would have no visible effects, drawing heavily on saidin. As soon as he had spun them he stepped back through the gateway, letting it close behind him and watching from his hilltop.

No explosions followed. It seemed he was right. There would be wards of course, if he knew Tel, and he did, then it would be artillery at longer range, then wards and traps and then troops as the last line of defence. Still, if he was careful the first two would be no barrier to him and he had no fear of Lews Therin's followers.

With a satisfied smirk Demandred spun the webs to conceal his channeling over himself and opened another inverted gateway.

======

Osan'gar settled down on a hilltop a safe distance from Taija Kosola's working after spinning darkened air over his eyes to protect them from the blinding light. He could only see the saidin being channeled of course, enough of it to crack the planet, but that did not change things.

This was history in the making, the greatest act of channeling since their own time, possibly the greatest ever. He had always respected her, a woman with ability beyond any of her peers. It was pity she could not have been lured to the Shadow, but ultimately they were both scientists and that was what mattered. He liked to think she would have understood him too.

He made himself comfortable, leaning back on a tree trunk as he watched. Just a bit longer while he sobered up...

How she had figured it out he did not know and probably never would, it was such a pity. There was so little intelligent conversation available nowadays. What he would not give for a conversation with her, professional to professional.