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

Chapter CI - An Unpleasant Awakening

With Cadsuane's possessions returned to her Taija headed back to Tel who was guarding Verin. "We can decide what to do with her later, just… keep an eye on her." She really wasn't sure what to do with an apparent defector from the Black Ajah. She supposed with the binding rod it had been easy enough to establish her honesty. Punishing her for what she did to infiltrate them would be the height of hypocrisy, it wasn't something Taija would even seriously consider, but Verin was probably at some risk now. Revenge attacks from darkfriends, possibly angry Tower sedai. Something to think about. "I need to go and speak to Siuan."

"What, by yourself? What if they…"

"Yes," Taija's voice was firm, "by myself. I'll need to move fast and only speak to her, I want to actually get this lot, not have them slip away because they got some warning."

"So you're just going to waltz in through all of their defences?"

There was no need for him to sound so sceptical. "Yep, that's the plan."

Tel just sighed. He should definitely have more confidence in her abilities. "It'll be fine Tel, if I do get caught you can come and be manly and rescue me." He sighed again a put upon look on his face. Fine. Taija huffed to herself and turned to leave. There'd be no need for rescues. Obviously.

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It was a hot night. One of a very long stretch. Taija was sure it should have been well into autumn by then? It couldn't be natural.

Taija found herself making her way towards Siuan's village, inverted tendrils of spirit spread ahead of her to check for any unexpected wards. She'd spun a couple of extra webs over herself. One of illusion that was a kind of discount invisibility. It didn't actually make her invisible, especially if she was moving, but it made her blend in with the background in an impossible way, turning her into a vaguely visible blur. Another dampened any sound she made. The rest was all her own skill. She wasn't an elite scout, but she could be pretty quiet when she wanted to be. Misspent years trying to sneak up on Tel maybe.

It was surprisingly easy to pick her way through the woods to Siuan's village. As soon as she reached the edge Taija spun saidar and her appearance rippled, its blur replaced with that of an elderly serving lady carrying a bundle of clothing. The streets were almost empty due to the late hour and anyway, no one really looked at servants.

From there it was easy enough to find the house she knew Siuan lived in. Obviously it would be warded and it was also guarded properly. A pair of soldiers stood at the door and Taija would have been surprised if there weren't more patrolling around. There'd be no ducking her head and just walking in there.

However, Siuan's house had a small, walled off garden at the back. When no one was around Taija ducked into the dark gap between two buildings, respinning the light distortion web around herself and made her way there. Another quick web made steps of air and she climbed them to carefully poke her head just over the wall. There was no one in the garden, but there was a simple ward that would go off if a human crossed the wall. Visible to Taija and to any other woman who could channel, she could trace its workings easily enough. The key thing was it was tied off, that meant no live feedback. Easy. Taija couldn't imagine Siuan would be having aes sedai holding live wards all night, that would have been beyond paranoid.

Still, there was no point underestimating these people, she felt out with probes of inverted spirit and, yes, there. A smaller inverted ward that she was fairly sure would trigger if there were any changes to the visible ward. Clever. If she'd just bent her way through the first ward she'd probably have triggered that one.

Still, easy enough to deal with. After a little more checking for more wards Taija felt her way around the inverted ward's connections to the visible one. A real master could probably replace the inputs, she wasn't that, so instead she decided to just unravel the inverted ward. A deft bit of work and it came undone in a fading mist of flows. This was far easier than the White Tower. As she'd expected. The aes sedai would have had centuries to refine their wards there and it was pretty obvious they'd been added to by one of the Forsaken, presumably the now dead one.

With the inverted ward gone and the anti-intruder ward both relatively simple and un-inverted it was easy enough to keep it stable while opening a hole in it for her to climb through.

Taija dropped to the ground inside the garden and hesitated, looking around her for any reaction to the faint noise. When nothing happened she smiled to herself and made her way closer. Windows were open due to the unseasonal heat and she could hear movement inside. Presumably they were confident that the wards around the garden and the guards would keep anyone from getting inside.

She reached up to climb through a window and then her instincts screamed, pulling her attention behind her. Taija dived under a blow and spun air, wrapping a guard in it as fast as thought. After a moment to allow her frantic heartbeat to slow and her hands to stop trembling she reached up and hauled herself through the window.

As Taija slid into the room she heard a cough outside it and froze. Nothing more happened, but that had told her enough. She was going to have to deal with at least one more guard. Oh well.

Taija crept up to the door and grasped the handle with saidar, other webs poised for completion. A deep breath and then she pulled it open. Two guards. Before they could do more than start to turn shed already spun a ward against eavesdropping around them and then air to bind them. They didn't have time to make any noise, even if anyone could have heard through her ward, before she'd dragged the back into the reception room. Terrified eyes stared at her from frozen bodies and she mouthed an apology, although really there wasn't much point as all they'd see was a shapeless blur. Taija quickly pulled the other guard in through the window too.

Another web and they were all asleep, it was probably kinder to them. Taija tied off the webs around them so that they'd dissolve in about two hours and then put them in a corner with an illusion over them so they wouldn't be found without a proper search.

Then it was time for Siuan's room, assuming there weren't any other guards. Taija glided out of the reception room, shutting the door behind her and headed up the stairs, her appearance rippling again to be replaced by Anaiya's. The question was, which one would be Siuan's bedroom? Fortunately it wasn't too difficult to work out. Only one room glowed with wards. There was also only one room with an aes sedai sitting sleepily outside it. Oops. Taija's assessment of Siuan's paranoia went up a notch.

She didn't recognise the aes sedai, but it didn't really matter. Taija had her shielded and bound in air before she could even realise what was happening. Taija supposed she could store the woman in Siuan's room while they talked.

With that she sat down and started to study Siuan's wards. Reflecting the fact that people needed to be going in and out of her room all the time, they weren't overly complicated and Taija didn't think there was anything lethal in there. There were some tricky mixtures of inverted webs among the visible ones, but all in all not overly difficult.

Really what she'd normally do was just rip the wards down, ignore the alarms, kill everyone inside and then run away, but that was hardly appropriate here. She was trying to be helpful. So she sat down and started picking away at the wards.

After a few minutes Taija was getting frustrated. She could bring them down, no question, but she was struggling to get through them or unravel them without setting off alarms, which isn't what she wanted.

Another few minutes and Taija was going from frustrated to just bored and irritated. Perhaps instead if she just cut the wards off from any outside warning? It didn't matter so much if Siuan knew she was coming in… It was slightly less dramatic than having her wake up with Taija sitting on her bed, but then that might be a bit much anyway. Tel had once told her that when she got over enthusiastic about things she could come off a bit serial killer. She'd sulked for the rest of the day, but to be fair, he'd had a point. Hiding under Nadyel's bed for over five hours had been a bit excessive.

Fine. It was easy enough to follow the bits of the two wards that went away from Siuan's room. Those Taija smoothly unraveled, they were pretty simple. For the rest… She started by spinning her own larger ward against eavesdropping, laying it just outside Siuan's wards. With that done Taija drew fully on her angreal, readied a web of air and then reached out with spirit.

She crushed the wards and yanked open the door at the same time. A quick step and she was through pulling the shielded aes sedai guard behind her, even as bells sounded in Siuan's bedroom. Taija was already spinning saidar, shielding Siuan and tying her up in air. A bit of probing with spirit and a couple of seconds later she was able to stop the bells too. Taija quickly shut the door behind her, leaving her faced with an utterly furious looking Siuan frozen in her bed.

Taija took a moment to spin a couple more webs around the other aes sedai to make sure she couldn't hear or speak, making them visible for once so Siuan knew what she was doing. "Siuan, I'm really sorry, but we need to talk and I couldn't let anyone else know I was here."

Siuan's eyes bulged wider and Taija realised she'd better release her. Then she also realised she was still under her web of illusion. Ooops. She untied it. "It's me. Taija." She added the last part even though it probably wasn't necessary, Siuan knew what she looked like. "I'm going to let you go now, I just didn't want you to lash out at me." With those words Taija released the air and shield. Trying to ignore the sinking feeling in her stomach that was saying she might have been over enthusiastic in the way she'd done this.

"What in the Light do you…?!" Siuan quivered as she brought herself back under control. When she spoke again her voice is flat. "I take it that this is important, even you would not be mad enough to do something like this if it was not. So fine, I shall pull my nets in. Tell me and then I will decide whether you are leaving here alive or not."

She must really be angry if she was threatening Taija's life. Not that she was in any position to follow through, but Taija would let her have that one, she have been just as furious if someone did this to her.

"I really am sorry Siuan. It was absolutely vital that I got you this information as soon as possible and that no one knew I was speaking to you. I couldn't think of any other way that wouldn't set things off early." Siuan looked sceptical so Taija hurriedly continued. "It's about the Black Ajah."

Siuan's irritation faded, replaced by worry, but her voice is still flat. "I do not see why that makes it so important to pretend to make an assassination attempt on me."

That wasn't what she'd done! Although from Siuan's perspective… Anyway. "What's important is that I've managed to get a list of Black Ajah sisters, over 200 of them, although most of them are dead or not with you."

Siuan's eyes widened. "And you were worried that with the Oath Rod coming back they would either flee or attack? Of course. That would create the urgency." She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Fine. You had a good reason to be here. I accept that, just… Can you please not do that again."

Taija nodded. "If it helps I really am sorry, it was just necessary. Here's the list." She fumbled in a pocket and pulled out the hastily copied list of names.

"Thank you," Siuan took it and channeled a ball of light into the air before starting to read through it. Her eyes widening in places, she punctuated her study with occasional curses. When she looked up there was grim determination on her face. "Well most of these people are gone already, but some of them are about to have an even more unpleasant awakening than I had."

That made Taija smile, slightly guiltily. "There might be others of course, but there are so many on that list that it's hard to believe. Also you'll have the binding rod to check."

"Yes I will indeed. Thank you." The words actually sounded heartfelt.

"It's nothing, we both serve the Light. Do you want any help with the black sisters?"

Siuan paused and then shook her head. "No, thank you. The White Tower will clean up its own mess in this case. Would you be able to leave as discretely as you came?"

"It shouldn't be too difficult, especially if I can just walk out of the building disguised as a servant or guard." Taija thought for a second, "you'll need to say something to the sister here obviously, but there are also three guards asleep in the reception room with the big candlestick on the table."

Siuan gave her a deeply unimpressed look. "Thank you."

"One more thing, if you have a second?" She didn't deny it so Taija continued. "I also have Elaida in captivity."

"You have what?!"

"Elaida, when we raided the Tower she ended up coming back with Rand."

Siuan sighed. "I take it you will be insisting on stilling or executing her? I suppose it is not the end of the world since that is the sentence she would face here too."

"Mmm about that, not quite. We've tested her with the binding rod. She's an idiot, there's no question about that, but she honestly believed she was doing the right thing. She did order Rand's kidnapping, but not the rest, so while we have a claim on her, it ultimately doesn't have the driving force that it did for the others. We'd probably just send her to join Turanna for a few years. Given that, if you want her, she's yours. The only condition is that I'd want her to swear an oath not to attack me, Rand or the Hall."

"You do realise that under Tower law the penalty for falsely claiming to be the Amyrlin is stilling?"

Taija grimaced, "I can't believe I'm saying this, but this might be a time to think about whether you can see a way round that. Honestly, the woman was a fucking idiot, but I can actually see why she thought you were a darkfriend and needed to be removed. She's a strongish channeler," Taija ignored Siuan's scowl at that, "and has actually realised her errors. It seems a waste to get rid of someone who'll fight for the Light and her publicly supporting you might go some way to reuniting the White Tower."

"And what about Leane, Alric? Have you forgotten them?" The vehemence in Siuan's voice surprised Taija. She was normally far more composed.

"Of course I haven't! I liked Leane. Frankly I liked her better than you and I know Alric mattered to you. However, Elaida confirmed they died in the fighting, she didn't order their deaths." Did that make it different? Taija threw her hands up in the air. "Whatever, I don't really care what you do with her. If you do sever her I won't shed a tear, she's done more damage to the forces of the Light than half the Forsaken. I just wanted to put the idea out there since it might be good for the Light. Regardless of what you decide, you'll get her along with the binding rod."

"Fine. Fine. I am sorry, I should not have allowed myself to become emotional. I understand what you are saying and I will think on it."

"No, it's alright, I understand too. They were people you were close to. I'm not sure she'd have survived coming back to the Hall if it had been my friends. Like I said, she's all yours, take political advantage, or leave her body for the crows."

"Thank you. You have done a great service for the White Tower, I will not forget it." That seemed to be a dismissal, so Taija gave Siuan a polite bow.

"I'll see you in a couple of days." Now to find her way out again.