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

Interlude XXXIII - A Quick Look at the Forsaken

The Competent Forsaken Duo

Demandred and Semirhage both wore black as a matter of course, but he suspected that if that had not been the case then for this meeting in the Unseen World they would have worn it anyway.

"So… Mesaana?" Semirhage sounded as glum as he had ever heard her.

"Yes, it seems that Taija Kosola and Sammael, although I should really call him Tel Janin now, got her. "

"Them and the others they brought forward from our time." Semirhage sounded almost defiant.

"I still think you are being paranoid there, it was a bluff."

"You say that, Mesaana said that, but now Mesaana is dead."

"You do make a point." Demandred sighed to himself. He was not a man who was prone to fondness or emotion, but he had liked Mesaana as much as he had liked any of the Chosen. He could not say he would miss her, she was competition after all, but things somehow still seemed… less without her. "Do you know how she died?"

"I believe so. I visited the White Tower when I learnt of her death. It had a hole drilled through it and the Black Ajah believe she was the target. From talking to some of this time's so-called aes sedai it seems that the Tower was attacked by Lews Therin and probably Taija Kosola and they were surprised Mesaana did not smash them with the sa'angreal she had."

"Ah," their eyes met, they could both work out what had happened, but he said it out loud to be sure. "So she lit herself up with a sa'angreal and Tel Janin had placed a team with Callandor on the nearby mountain?"

"That would be my guess." Semirhage nodded.

"Well… That is why you do not send someone with no military experience against a professional. She had many skills, but she was not a fighter."

"And her sa'angreal?"

Semirhage shrugged. "Gone. Unfortunately."

He was not totally sure he believed that, he would need to watch her more carefully. Demandred hesitated. "What did you do with the half-trained children left in the Tower?"

"Oh I gathered them up, they will be useful and leaving them in the Tower is just asking for this new Hall to destroy them at their leisure. Mesaana hardly needs them anymore after all."

"Mmm sensible. Now, do we retaliate against their so-called Hall?"

Semirhage immediately shook her head. "They will be expecting it and they will have defences. I have no doubt that you can bring a substantial amount of firepower to bear, but I also learnt that they emptied the angreal and sa'angreal stores at the Tower. Do you have the resources to beat multiple female sa'angreal and Callandor?"

Allies as they were, he was not going to give her any more information than she needed on his resources. "A tough nut to crack certainly. Neither of us is prone to sentimentality, Mesaana's foolishness was her own, we will not take any unnecessary risks and I think a direct attack would be too much of a risk. I do, however, have one asset in the Hall. There are two truly indispensable people in the Hall. Perhaps it is time to give Taim some new orders."

Death and spiders

Moridin sat back in his chair, steepling his fingers. Saa flowing across his eyes. Everything was happening as he intended. Soon, soon he would be able to end the pattern. He just needed to ensure that young al'Thor made the right choice when it came to it. The boy would need to be just broken enough.

=====

Moghedien sighed to herself as the 'initiate of the hall' eagerly told her about the latest gossip. Apparently Taija Kosola and Tel Janin had resumed their relationship. As if that had not happened long ago. Sometimes she was not sure what was even the point of speaking to some of these darkfriends. Knowledge was power, but in some cases only barely.

Love and Pleasure

Lanfear, although she was not allowed to call herself that anymore, stalked through the Unseen World, hunting. Lews had betrayed her, Taija was out of her reach, Tel Janin had cheated his way into victory. It simply was not fair!

She would show them, she would show them all. She had gone to speak to Aginor, or Osan'gar as he was now known, with some ideas and he had practically laughed her out of the hole that he called his laboratory. She was the greatest scientist alive, whatever he said!

Moghedien had been easy enough to bribe for the location of this so-called Hall of Servants yet everywhere she went dreams were warded. She knew some of these dreams must belong to Taija's new initiates, but warded, every single one was warded! She had tried to follow some of Taija's new aes sedai, but again their dreams were warded!

She had even remembered the boys that had been with young Lews before he declared himself. The big bearded one's dreams were… different, she could access them, but some instinct told her it would be the kind of mistake she would only make once. The other one… Warded. Again! No doubt another thing to lay at Taija's sanctimonious little feet.

Where had it all gone wrong? She had had love with Lews, Taija had been her friend. A slightly irritating young friend, like a poorly trained puppy, but nevertheless someone she was genuinely fond of. Then they had betrayed her, like everybody else.

Lews she might give another chance to, if he begged her. She did believe in love after all. The rest of them, she would leave screaming for the mercy of death. She certainly would not be repeating her mistake of letting Taija go. Lanfear did not often make mistakes, but truly that had been one. Oh the misery it had caused Taija had been utterly delicious, but in a flash the fucking woman seemed to have somehow re-seduced Tel Janin and turned him back into a weakling of a sanctimonious prick.

She honestly could not even work out what the man saw in her. He had been a world-famous professional athlete, who could have almost anyone he wanted, one of the strongest of the Chosen. Then he went for Taija, an overly earnest, mousy-looking academic. Madness! If she did not know that Taija was far too much of a goody-two shoes for it, she would think the girl had compelled him.

With a growl she stepped out of the Unseen World, she would just have to continue to work against them until Lews saw the truth.

Just Vibing

Graendal lay back in her bath and smiled to herself. Everything was going simply perfectly. She had much of the west sewn up and eating out of her hands, her collection of pets was growing apace and another of the competition had just died.

With trembling hands young Lina scraped a pumice stone along her bare arm. She truly was enjoyable. Graendal had considered erasing her mind as she almost always did with her pets, but she felt she owed the former leash holder a special experience. So she, alone among them, was allowed to remember, allowed to know what was happening to her. Then, sometimes, not every day, but just intermittently enough to keep her wondering, Graendal would remove something from her mind. A memory, a sensation, it did not matter what. What mattered was that she knew what she had lost and that at any moment Graendal might choose to take more, that one day in the distant future she would be just like any of Graendal's other pets, joyously and unknowingly serving her.

Simping for Science

Osan'gar spun spirit, water and earth into the construct he had been making, watching it twitch awkwardly in front of him. No, that was not quite right. He would need to adapt the web a bit, but he'd get this.

His mind went back to Lanfear's visit to him. He didn't know what happened to the woman. She had had such a talent before the Bore, but then she had allowed one failure to destroy her love for science. It had been bad for her career of course, but her complete abdication of any interest in pushing the bounds of human knowledge was an embarrassment.

When she'd come to him yesterday wanting to collaborate, it hadn't been a difficult decision to send her on her way. The woman was not interested in furthering human knowledge, she was only interested in bringing down her perceived rival. As if there was any equivalence between her and Taija Kosola. Ironic that she had said he was obsessed with the woman when Lanfear was the one who seemed to be centering her life around bringing her down.