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

Interlude XXXV - Dilemmas Moral and Otherwise Part II

Mazrim Taim stalked back into the Hall, the scowl on his face ensuring that no one tried to speak to him. Not that many people there would have wanted to anyway. It seemed that his time there was almost up. Demandred's orders had been clear, he had a few days to look for the right opportunity, but if it did not present itself he was to act anyway. If he was a softer man he would have shivered at the thought of the punishments Demandred would inflict for failure.

He scowled harder. Why had the Light forsaken him the way it had? He just wanted to be strong enough to survive, not to be forced to choose between naive fools who had no idea how to even use their strength and outright evil. He cast a contemptuous look at a group of laughing initiates. They would learn, sooner or later. Probably sooner. The world was not a bright or happy place, it would betray them, chew them up and spit them out. The same way it had him.

What did he really want? He could not answer that question, not even in the privacy of his own head because he did not know. Did he want to rule over a world dominated by the Shadow? Not particularly, but he would rather do that than die, particularly at Demandred's hands. Did he want to be aes sedai, serve under, or even with, Taija and Tel? Not in the slightest.

With a growl of frustration he turned towards Noruan's rooms. He should at least say goodbye to the man before he did anything.

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Noruan sat, staring at the wall, as Nynaeve sedai muttered to herself. He hated having to sit here while she or Damer experimented on him, it was just yet another reminder of what he had lost, of the gaping hole inside him. He knew it was pointless to try to heal it, everyone knew that. However, there was little point in telling her to stop, he had nothing better to do other than sit there and wait to die, he might as well let her indulge herself. He wasn't sure he was brave enough to tell her no anyway.

He wasn't sure how long he'd put up with her poking when his door slammed open and Mazrim stalked in, looking even more thunderously moody than usual. It still made his heart skip a beat when he saw him. The only person he truly believed cared about him now, it would be hard to just keep on disappointing him.

Nynaeve sedai's eyebrows rose at Mazrim's rude entrance. As soon as their eyes met he gave a shallow bow. "My apologies, I had not realised Noruan was busy."

Mazrim turned to leave, but stopped when Nynaeve sedai called out, "wait! I was just about done anyway, I'll leave you in peace. Thank you Noruan." She gave him a small bow before gathering her skirts and headed for the door.

Mazrim hesitated and then, to Noruan's relief, didn't follow after her. Instead he advanced further into the room before collapsing bonelessly onto the bed, his customary scowl etched even deeper than usual onto his face as he stared at the ceiling for long seconds.

Noruan was about to say something, anything to break the silence when Mazrim spoke. "Do you ever wonder why life treats us so poorly? You know, when the white Tower gentles a man, they say that that the Creator has turned his eyes from them for channeling. I often wonder whether that was true."

Noruan winced at the memory that brought, uncontrollable shivers running through him. Hard faced aes sedai staring down at him, that tearing feeling.

Mazrim didn't seem to notice. "Everything we do, the world acts against us. We seek peace and we are rewarded with suffering. Even when we try to avoid it, the Wheel drags us back onto the path of disaster."

He needed to stop shivering, Mazrim despised weakness and the last thing Noruan wanted was for him to stop visiting. He couldn't though, more and more memories, the joy of saidin, those aes sedai, death all around him.

"You try to be a better person and the world spits it back into your face. In the end all that matters is strength and even then you find that that is not enough."

There was clearly something bothering Mazrim, this was not at all normal for him. Noruan tried again to force himself to calm down. "Y y you're the strongest person I know Mazrim."

That got him a short, cold laugh. "If only you knew Noruan, if only you knew."

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"… and then he was just ready to go again."

Egwene reminded herself not to look too wide-eyed at Nynaeve's story. "Well… It seems that married life is agreeing with you." What in the Light had happened to the woman? She was normally so prudish and now she was just boastful. Was having a husband truly that exciting? To be honest, she didn't really want to hear it at all, but the woman seemed desperate to tell people.

"Hello girls, what's up?" Egwene saw Nynaeve wince out of the corner of her eye as Taija seemed to appear from nowhere. Perhaps this would be an opportunity to get Nynaeve to shut up about Lan's prowess.

"Oh Nynaeve was just telling me about what she and Lan had been getting up to. Apparently she's been having all kinds of creative adventures, being married is letting her do things that would make a tavern girl blush!"

Egwene happily ignored the utterly betrayed look in Nynaeve's eyes as Taija suddenly looked interested. "Oh really? How fascinating, what sort of things?"

Nynaeve looked like she might wilt for a second, but then she gathered herself, some of her pride returning. "Well, there was this one thing he does that I don't think anyone else knows how to…" Egwene tuned out the boastful repetition, instead watching Taija nod, her eyes widening.

"Gosh. Well I'm glad you're having fun. Lan must be very creative. What do young people get up to these days, eh Egwene?"

Nynaeve preened, failing to see the obvious trap in her pride. "Well we even…"

Taija interrupted her. "Yes, that's very cute. You know we had a book in my time all about this sort of thing, I once went through the whole thing over the course of a couple of months." She looked distant as she often did when she talked about the past. "Maybe I should try to rewrite it? Anyway there was one thing that I think you'd like…" Egwene listened wide eyed as Taija descended into absolute filth and Nynaeve slowly tried to curl into a ball while her eyes darted frantically, looking for a way to escape.

Hopefully the bloody woman would shut up about Lan after this. Still, some of the ideas were interesting. Hadn't Rand just returned Galad and Gawyn to Caemlyn?

=========

Bennae tutted to herself as Egwene looked over the weave she had just produced with a critical eye. "Not bad Bennae, but you still need to work on the precision of your flows." The light of saidar brightened around her and she wove a fine net of spirit. "The exercise I found helped me most was to make a simple net and then try to reduce the amount of Power I put into each individual flow. Doing that again and again helped, but ultimately it was just a matter of practice." Advice given the girl moved on to the next aspirant.

Bennae suppressed the irritation that ran through her at being corrected by a girl who had not even been able to channel two years ago. Fortunately she was good at concealing her feelings. She had made a decision and she would follow through on it. The fact that Egwene clearly could weave with more precision than her did not help her mood, but it did help her to accept the situation. She was still aes sedai, of course, but she could accept her temporarily reduced status for now, in the knowledge that if she really wanted to she could walk away at any time and continue to call herself aes sedai.

Anyway, there were benefits. She felt decades younger already, the ageless look had faded from her face within a couple of days, but what was more interesting was what had replaced it. She now looked like a woman comfortably into her middle years, rather than someone staring their impending death of old age in the eye. That alone was worth all number of sacrifices.

Shortly afterwards Egwene dismissed the class and they filed away. Bennae followed after them. While the other aspirants were friendly, it was a polite, distant friendliness. They had not forgotten that she was aes sedai, Tower aes sedai at that, and they did not truly treat her as one of them. It was probably a good thing, she was most likely three or four times the age of the next oldest. Still, it did make life a little less interesting.

With the completion of the class her own timetable for the day was finished, which was fortunate as she had plans for the evening. Tel was ever such a lonely man, behind the facade he put up. Quite vulnerable to a sympathetic ear. It was fascinating to see the weaknesses in a former Forsaken's personality. Since Taija was off doing the Creator knew what that evening it gave her an opportunity to further her own plans.

That was why that evening Bennae found herself stepping through Tel's gateway into Caemlyn and making her way into a well kept inn with him. To think, drinking with one of the Forsaken!

She still had not decided whether she approved of him or not. Of course Taija, the Light blasted woman, had circumvented her careful plans in that regard by taking matters into her own hands. There was nothing to be done about that. One thing she had quickly learnt about Taija, once she was not bound by the need to pretend to be someone else, was that she would largely do what she wanted and seemed to sub-consciously expect the rest of the world to work around it.

Bennae clinked her goblet against Tel's and took a sip of her ale. It was not bad, not bad at all. There was a reason she had chosen this place. Tel in turn took a long pull of his own. "So did you hear about what Naelia said to the Illianer lord on the most recent mission there?"

"No?" He leant in slightly, "but I'm sure you're going to tell me."

The man was an inveterate gossip, not so far off Taija when she was feeling sufficiently relaxed. Bennae did wonder whether it was something common to their time, or just a characteristic that they shared.

"Well there is a young lord there who she has caught the eye of. When he expressed his interest in her, very romantically might I add, she informed him that she hoped he did not think she was impressed by his title and that real men earnt their position and she looked forward to hearing why he thought he was worthy beyond having fancy parents the next time she visited." Sometimes she worried about the ideas Taija was putting in these people's heads.

"Oh Light. Children."

"Indeed." She allowed herself to share a smile with him before taking another drink. At least he was entertaining company and should she decide he was unworthy of Taija, well it would make things easier if he trusted her.

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Empress Fortuona Athaem Devi Paendrag smiled to herself as the high lord retreated backwards from the throne room. The damage wrought by the marath'damane had almost been the downfall of the Empire, but it now stood united once more. The rebel lords had been put down. The last of her siblings was no longer among the living and the Empire stood united once more. Just as importantly, it could never happen again. Now everyone of any importance was subjected to a slicing weave by a damane on a regular basis, by order of the Crystal Throne. There would be no more hidden marath'damane walking among them.

It was time to turn her mind back to the Return. The Empire needed a cause to unite it after all. This time though… there would be no slow, dangerous crossing of the sea. No, the damane Lina, before her unfortunate disappearance, had given the Empire a great gift.

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Egwene focused on need once more. This summer was unnatural. If it continued for much longer half the world would die from drought. There must be a solution.

The world moved around her. A city, interesting. Canals, architecture she didn't recognise. Unless… It did look rather like the descriptions she'd heard of Ebou Dar. She focused on need again and the world shifted. A run down street.

One more time, she was inside a decrepit room, chests full of objects around her. One last time. Her hand descended onto a chest, opening it to reveal an ornate bowl. A ter'angreal. It must be. She would need to go outside, to try to memorise the location and check that this was in fact Ebou Dar, then she would let Taija know what she'd found.