As usual all speech in italics is in the Old Tongue
Chapter XXXVII - Unpleasant Discoveries Part II
Taija was talking with Rand when Mat burst into the room without even knocking, looking thoroughly disheveled. "T Taija sedai," he panted, holding onto the doorframe, "it is Elayne, she has need of you."
He was clearly a bit of a mess and Taija ignored the odd look Rand gave him. "Calm down Mat, what's wrong?" He'd been avoiding her since the Stone had fallen, pretty successfully. She suspected Elayne had been helping him do it, although she hadn't quite worked out how. Much as Taija wanted to spend time with someone who could speak her language, she didn't want to force herself on the boy and it had been kind of amusing half-heartedly trying to catch them out.
"Elayne, she is hurt, badly. She needs you."
Fuck. She sprang to her feet. "Where is she? What happened?"
"The room with the ter'angreal, the doorway…" He trailed off as he saw the anger on her face, but Taija was already spinning a gateway, stepping through it, thankful that the wards she'd put up only prevented Traveling in and out of the Stone.
As Taija stepped through the gateway she spun air and fire into a bright ball of light to illuminate the room and immediately saw Elayne in a crumpled heap beside the twisted redstone doorway. Her hands were pressed over her abdomen and there was a lot of blood. Too much blood. Fuck.
Rand and Mat had followed her through the gateway and she allowed it to close before opening another to just outside Moiraine's quarters. "Rand, fetch Moiraine now! Drag her if you have to. I'll keep the gateway open." She paused for a moment, the girl was hardly experienced, but it might help. She had a real talent after all, "then fetch Nynaeve." Taija opened a second gateway, "go!"
Rand, Light bless him, leapt through the first gateway without questioning her and she turned back to Elayne tying both gateways off. The girl seemed to be fading in and out of consciousness, her eyes glassy. There really was a lot of blood. It was lucky she wasn't squeamish.
"Get your arse over here right now," Taija snapped at Mat. "I'm going to need your help." She shrugged off her coat and held it up in a web of air before using another web to rapidly slice it into strips. As she worked she asked him, "What the fuck happened here?"
Taija ignored his wince at the rapid Power-aided disassembly of her coat. "I uhh… I had heard about the doorway from… from a book…"
She could already tell he was lying about that, Elayne probably told him. "I'm going to try to heal her, hold these." Taija handed him the strips of cloth that were all that remained of her coat, it was a nice coat too, and put her hands onto Elayne's, feeling the warm, slippery blood coating them. She formed a web for battlefield healing and poured every ounce of saidar that she could channel into it, a huge amount of the Power with her angreal. As the web sank into her, Elayne sat up with a gasp and then flopped back again. Taija thought she might look slightly less pale, but she was still bleeding.
Mat looked like he wanted to run away, but she wasn't having that. "I'm going to hold her up, you need to wrap the cloth around her tightly, we need pressure to stop the bleeding so that she can survive until Moiraine or Nynaeve gets here." Not for the first time in her life Taija cursed her lack of talent with healing. She didn't know why she'd never been able to heal effectively, it was just a web to be analysed like any other, but it was what it was.
Mat nodded as Taija gently lifted Elayne, using saidar to avoid moving her any more than she had to. The puddle of blood on the floor around her was alarmingly large. What in the Light did she ask the Aelfinn? Stupid, foolish girl!
After a brief flurry of work there was nothing more the two of them could do other than wait. So, placing her now blood covered hand on Elayne's Taija fixed Mat with her best stare, "you were telling me what happened?"
He shifted uncomfortably. "It was Lord Gaebril. You know what I told her and who he is. She couldn't bear thinking about it, she needed to do something, but she knew you were right and she couldn't just go and remove him herself. I told her about the doorway." Taija sighed internally, it was kind of sweet that he was trying to protect her, but if Elayne survived this she was going to be furious with both of them. "We agreed that we would go through together, but we planned the questions, we are not fools. We knew the rules!"
"So she asked about Lord Gaebril?"
"No, we agreed, she would ask about how to help her mother and not mention Lord Gaebril, that way the question would avoid the Shadow." He seemed desperate to convince her, despite the evidence lying in front of them.
Taija shook her head, "trying to play word games with the Aelfinn doesn't end well." She glanced down at Elayne, her stomach twisting, please let her survive this. "She's lucky to…" Taija trailed off, not wanting to finish. "What did you ask Mat?"
He shook his head vigorously, "nothing they threw me out immediately." Another obvious lie, but before Taija could call him on it Moiraine and Rand burst into the room only for Rand to run out again through the second gateway.
Moiraine was all business, practically shoving Taija and Mat aside, the Power lighting up around her as she drew through her angreal. She placed her hands on Elayne's head and a storm of saidar flowed out of her. Spirit, water and air flowing together in an incredibly powerful healing weave.
Elayne seemed to shudder violently and Taija could see the wound visibly knitting over, but still seeping blood.
After a second Moiraine slumped taking her hands off Elayne. "I have done what I can, but I fear it may not be enough. She has lost a lot of blood and the internal damage is extensive."
"I hope that…" She was cut off by Rand returning, this time with Nynaeve. Thank the Creator he found her quickly.
She glanced around and saw the three of them kneeling around Elayne. "Light what has that fool girl done now?"
Despite her words she didn't hesitate to kneel down by Elayne muttering angrily to herself. A second later the light of saidar sprang up around her and a far more complicated five element healing web appeared up in a storm of light around the girl. Taija had no idea how Nynaeve had worked that out, she didn't think anyone in this time had taught her, she certainly hadn't. Taija had known Nynaeve had a talent for healing, but this was clearly proper healing like she'd expect from a restorer, not the crude webs better suited for battlefield first-aid that Moiraine and other 'modern' aes sedai used.
When the light of saidar faded from around Nynaeve Elayne looked much better, some colour returning to her cheeks.
"Will she be alright?" Taija was dreading the answer, if she'd been punished by the Aelfinn then a simple stabbing was unlikely to be all that was involved. She looked down at the poor girl, trying not to bite her lip nervously.
Moiraine just looked to Nynaeve who looked uncomfortable and upset. "She'll live, but… It's odd, I'd thought the injuries were random, but everything has healed adequately except for her womb. I don't think there's anything I can do about that."
Taija winced, "so she can't have children?"
Nynaeve shook her head and Taija's heart went out to Elayne, previous anger extinguished in painful sympathy. Even Moiraine looked perturbed, although she was probably just thinking about how this would impact on Andoran politics or something cold blooded like that.
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Even with the Power to heal her it took a couple of days for Elayne to be well enough to get out of bed. Taija's anger at her stupidity was long gone. She was just a teenager and teenagers did stupid things Also it wasn't like she hadn't suffered enough for her actions. Taija couldn't deny that she'd done plenty of stupid things under stress, without even having the excuse of age. It did distress her though, things were bad enough during the War, but people seemed to be expected to grow up so terribly young in this time.
Taija spent more time than she really should have going to see Elayne given her other responsibilities. She was clearly horrifically upset, understandably so, and underlying it all was a strand of guilt and fear when she saw Taija.
More than once Taija found herself rubbing her back while she clung onto her tearfully mumbling about how sorry she was into her chest. "I'm sorry Taija sedai, I should have listened to you, but I needed to know."
"It's alright Elayne, I'm sorry that it happened. But you'll be ok, you're a strong young lady. Lord Gaebril will get his comeuppance, I promise you." Taija made the promise to herself too. Whether he was who she thought or not, she'd make sure of that, even if no one else would.
Elayne did of course tell her what questions she'd asked, but she was completely stumped by the answer that the Aelfinn gave her, until Taija pointed out that Rand, Mat and Perrin were three ta'veren so maybe it was them.
Elayne's eye brightened up a bit. "Oh! Mat told me…" Just as quickly she clammed up completely, "never mind, but I am sure it's Perrin."
Now that was a mystery for Taija, even with Mat doing his best to avoid her, Perrin was the one of the three that she knew the least well. If she was honest with herself, she found him rather boring. He always seemed to be brooding in the background rather than doing anything that caught her interest. Kind of a typical teenager actually.
Taija stopped herself before she got caught up in speculation. The boy's secrets were his to keep and she didn't want to push Elayne to break a confidence. "So you think Perrin needs to be the one to save your mother?"
Elayne nodded firmly, "it is the only answer that makes sense with what the Aelfinn said."
"Fine," Taija shrugged. I can make him a gateway to Caemlyn if that's what he wants. "You're not recovered enough," she added before Elayne could protest.
A day later she was spinning a gateway for Perrin and the Ogier Loial to just outside Caemlyn, wishing them the best of luck. Elayne was oddly reluctant to discuss what he'd be doing with Taija, but she supposed that was her prerogative. Taija was just left wondering what in the Light Perrin had to do with wolves. While he was quite hairy, he didn't look like one at all.
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Once Elayne was sufficiently recovered Taija kept herself occupied teaching her and Nynaeve and talking with Rand. During her time with the girls she found that she was missing Egwene. She really had grown fond of her and Taija could feel her absence. She'd promised herself that she'd leave the girl to forge her own path for a while, however difficult it might be to let her go at her young age, but Taija decided that if she hadn't heard anything from Egwene after a couple of months she was going to go and check on her, Dedicated hostility to outsiders or not.
Now that Rand was also ruling a kingdom he seemed even more stressed and worried. It wasn't really surprising. Taija did her best to offer him what comfort she could, but her best guesses at medieval politics were more than lacking. She knew he was also getting advice from Moiraine and Elayne and she had no doubt theirs was much more useful.
As a result Taija put more effort into talking to him about philosophy, ethics and what it meant to be an aes sedai. At least those were things that she could talk knowledgeably about and which were valuable for a young channeler to learn.
However, it was only a couple of days after she'd helped Perrin on Elayne's mission that Rand started asking unexpected questions. Questions which completely changed things for Taija.
It all started fairly innocuously. "Taija, I was wondering, what exactly is it that you did before the War of Power?"
She blinked, surprised at the question. No one had actually asked her that before, not even Aleksi. It was more than a bit sad really, well over a hundred years of work relegated to irrelevance. She sniffed and tried to move on from the thought. "I…" Taija realised it was actually quite hard to explain to someone from this time. "I was a physicist." Her tone was a little lost, her eyes distant. It was difficult to describe how much she missed it, so many years spent fighting when really she wanted to be in her office or in a lab researching, discovering.
Rand gave her a blank look so Taija tried to elaborate. "I studied the way the world worked at a fundamental level, the forces and tiniest parts that bind it together and make the Wheel turn."
Rand looked at her like she'd just confirmed a suspicion he had. "So you used the One Power in your studies and looked at how it worked?"
Taija shrugged a bit awkwardly, there were too many memories, "sure I suppose so. That was part of it."
He nodded to himself, "but there was no taint on saidin in your time?"
"Well no, of course not." Taija was wondering where he was going with it. Since her conversation with Moiraine she'd given a bit more thought to the apparent taint on saidin, but she hadn't had much time for it. Perhaps that had been a mistake. After a moment Taija focused her eyes on his, "Rand, can you describe the taint for me? All I've heard is that male channelers go mad, but I haven't seen much to support that being anything more than prejudice. Moiraine was going on about it too and I suppose she should know."
He looked surprised at that. "Taija… the taint is real. I feel it every time I channel." Rand seemed to close in on himself a bit. "It's like a foul slick of filth on pure saidin and every time I seize the Power I'm bathing in it." His eyes were widening with remembered disgust. "The filth just covers me, it fills every pore and I want to vomit. But I can't, I just want to channel more saidin even while I'm covered in its foulness." He seemed surprised he'd said that much.
Taija was surprised too. Surprised and shocked. "Rand…" Her voice was soft. "Why didn't you tell me before?"
He looked embarrassed, "well you never asked."
"Maybe I should have." Her mind was drawn inevitably back to her conversation with Moiraine. The woman's deadly seriousness about Aleksi's fate and her own refusal to even consider it. Taija let out a hiss of exasperation. This was unacceptable.
"Is everything alright? Are you alright?" Rand eventually spoke up after she'd been lost in thought for a while. He really was a sweet boy.
"Mmm? Yes. I'm fine." Taija didn't want to, but she was going to have to do it. "I need to understand this better. We need to find Nynaeve or Elayne." Before Rand could protest she'd spun a gateway to their apartments and was stepping through it urging him after her. "Come on Rand!"
As it happened Nynaeve was away, but she easily found Elayne who was in her room with Mat. As soon as Taija and Rand turned up he made his excuses and left, but that was fine she didn't need him for this.
Taija wasn't interested in Elayne's irritation at being bothered, all she cared about right now was the taint, so she just ignored it. "Elayne, I need to make a link and I need to be guiding the flows," linking was bad enough without having someone else leading the link, but in this case Taija was telling the truth, she needed to be the one feeling this. "Do you know how to link?"
Her question was aimed at Rand and unsurprisingly he didn't. Taija stifled a frustrated sigh at the way it was slowing her down and start to explain.
Eventually she thought he had it and she formed the link, starting with Elayne and then adding Rand afterwards to ensure that she stayed in control throughout. Taija did her best to ignore the sensations she felt from them and just focused on the Power.
As soon as Rand was in the link she drew on saidin through him.
It had been a while, the last man she linked with was Tel… Even then he would have to lead when it was just the two of them.
Saidin felt just as Taija remembered, raging, violent, needing to be dominated. Except for the oily slick of filth on top of it. What the fuck?! Rand's description underplayed how disgusting it felt. Drastically. How could he be channeling this foulness on a daily basis?! How was he not screaming or vomiting every time he channeled?
Taija didn't even notice herself shudder, she was exploring the feeling of the taint, the way it interacted with saidin, swirling across the webs and sliding into, through Rand. It was vile. It was fascinating. Perhaps if she manipulated the flows just so…
Eventually Taija noticed the other two were getting twitchy, she wasn't sure how long it had been, she'd been so focused. With a mumbled apology Taija released the Power and fled. She needed to think.
Over the next couple of days, beyond teaching the girls, that was close to all she did.
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Taija was fast asleep, dreaming. She was eating noodles in a hole in the wall place in Jalanda that did a wonderfully spicy combination of pork and peppers when she remembered she had exams the next day and she hadn't even started revising. Taija panicked. She wasn't ready! She was going to fail and disappoint everyone!
She jolted into wakefulness, gasping for a few seconds as she tried to work out where she was. Were those bells? Why were they ringing? There was nothing to celebrate was there? What about her exam?
It took her far too long to come awake properly and realise that they were alarm bells. When she did adrenaline surged through her, a jolt of energy helping Taija to throw herself out of bed and scramble for at least the outer layers of her clothing and some boots.
Now she could feel the filth that was shadowspawn somewhere nearby and there was shouting coming from outside her room.
Taija was still pulling on her left boot when, with a loud crash, her door was broken in and the bestial form of a trolloc leapt through the gap already raising an axe to swing at her.
She didn't need to think. Saidar flowed through her and a web of air smashed the trolloc through a tapestry and into the stone wall behind it with a sickening crunch. Another two were already following it though and Taija could hear screams from outside.
Her mind was cold, analytical like it always was in combat. There was no time for emotion, no time for the worries about the taint that had been plaguing her every waking moment she spoke to Rand. Again she spun air, a wall of it, blasting the two trollocs, along with the remains of her door, back into the corridor outside.
The path clear, Taija stepped out after them into frozen chaos. It seemed that her attackers' exit caused a brief distraction. Before the fighting, murdering and pillaging could resume she was channeling.
She couldn't afford to let any of them get close to her, a trolloc's spear could kill her just as dead as balefire. Taija spun saidar and the trollocs closest to her simply exploded. A myrddraal further down the corridor hissed a command and more howling trollocs charged, a poor servant was cut down as she tried to get out of their way.
The myrddraal shouldn't have drawn Taija's attention. A simple web of fire turned it into a guttering torch. The trollocs charge descended into a bloody mess as she forced webs of air down the corridor, razor sharp discs of spinning away from her.
Taija's instincts shouted a warning and she whirled to face the other direction. Lightning fast she caught a spear in mid-air, no more than a metre from her. For a brief moment the trolloc looked confused and then it died like the others.
She needed to find the others, probably Rand. This clearly wasn't targeted at her or they would have made a better try. Rand on the other hand…
Taija broke into a brisk uneven walk, her missing boot made it uncomfortable but there was no time to go back. She didn't run. It was too dangerous to run somewhere like this, she could find herself right in the middle of a group of trollocs or myrddraal before she could do anything about it.
It wasn't long before Taija came across a squad of Defenders of the Stone, a few dead trollocs at their feet, looking around themselves fearfully. Their sergeant gave her a disapproving look, "get back to your rooms and hide woman!"
Taija supposed she didn't look like much, wearing one boot, half dressed in men's clothing with her hair all over the place. Stupid of him though. She ignored his command and snapped, "follow me, we go to aid the Lord Dragon." It felt odd referring to Rand that way.
He looked like he was going to ignore her, which would be a pity. She could do with some people to watch her back, but she didn't have time to argue. Then a group of trollocs came charging out of a side corridor. Even as the Defenders were trying to reorient themselves and get their spears between them and the trollocs Taija was spinning webs of water, fire and spirit. Each trolloc they touched exploded like they'd swallowed a grenade. In a matter of seconds they were all dead.
The sergeant's face paled and he immediately dropped to one knee, "my apologies aes sedai, I did not realise…"
Impatiently she cut him off, "it's fine, now either follow or don't!"
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Like the others Nynaeve had woken up to the sound of the alarm bells. The first thing she'd done was check on Elayne. The poor girl had hardly left her room other than for lessons and she needed to make sure that she wasn't in danger.
Fortunately Elayne had been wide awake too, already dressed by the time Nynaeve reached her. That was when they'd heard the screams, shouting and grunts and roars. Words hadn't been needed they'd been moving immediately, saidar flooding through both of them.
They'd been fighting for a while, helping groups of Defenders and Aiel while they tried to make their way towards Rand's apartments.
A group of trollocs came into view ahead of her, clashing in a melee with some Defenders of the Stone, easily pushing them back.
Nynaeve channeled, spinning a web of air between the thrusting trolloc spears and the Defenders' shields. At the same time Elayne spun a gateway, stepping through it to bombard the trollocs with fire from behind.
In seconds the trollocs were dead and the wool-headed soldiers were staring at them like cows waiting to be milked. "Well come on then," she snapped. "The Stone won't defend itself."
That seemed to break them out of their reverie and with a series of bows and "yes aes sedais" they pulled themselves together.
It was all typical of soldiers really, running around thinking with the hair on their chests and then letting themselves get all worked up when they faced something really frightening.
More trollocs came running, with a pair of myrddraal among them and Nynaeve spun fire, air and spirit cutting them apart in conjunction with Elayne's own web. The soldiers were barely having to do any work at all, not that they were complaining. No point asking a man to do a woman's work.
They rounded a corner into a huge chamber to see more shadowspawn, a larger group with several myrddraal leading it. Nynaeve started to spin a web of fire when Elayne grabbed her arm and pointed, "wait there's a man there!"
She wanted to snap at the fool girl for slowing her down, but Elayne was right. Standing with his back to them facing the shadowspawn was a lone man. What in the Light was he doing? She didn't want to accidentally kill him! "Run you fool!" She shouted as loudly as she could and he whirled to face them, turning his back on the trollocs, the idiot.
He was as tall as some of the Aiel, wearing a tight shirt with short sleeves that emphasised his well muscled body. He appeared to have shaved his head other than a short, neatly kept beard and moustache. He also wore what seemed to be shaded glass over his eyes, although Nynaeve couldn't think of any reason why he would do that. How could he even see properly? Why were the shadowspawn leaving rather than attacking him?
When his eyes settled on Nynaeve and Elayne his eyebrows briefly rose behind those odd lenses and then his forehead furrowed into a scowl. A second later something hammered at her connection to saidar. The man was channeling!
Nynaeve spun fire and spirit to slice his web, flailing a little at the unseen contest. There was momentary resistance and then the attempted shield vanished. She had a moment to glance at Elayne and then they were both sprinting apart, creating distance between themselves. She could only hope the soldiers with them weren't stupid enough to try to join this fight.
She spun earth and fire sending a web into the stone floor beneath his feet at the same time as sending a dramatic fireball rocketing towards him, a touch of air in the web making it look far bigger and more threatening. She could feel Elayne channeling to her right too, flashing light connecting her to the man.
Her heart sank as he seemed more irritated than concerned and both their webs were sliced before they could reach him.
His retaliation was like a hammer blow. Nynaeve briefly tried to meet it head on with a barrier of saidar, but it was brushed aside like it wasn't even there leaving her desperately throwing herself out of its path. That had been stupid of her, Taija had taught her better than that!
Now the blasted man was smiling, "typical women, but not to worry, you'll know your places soon enough." He had the same clipped accent that Taija had. If only she was here.
Nynaeve scrambled to her feet spinning webs as she went, razor sharp air, a fireball, an overpowered shield to block his connection to saidin. At the same time Elayne used the distraction to open a gateway and send a shrieking, spinning blade of air through it behind the man.
That wiped the smugness off his face, fortunately, as Nynaeve was franticly trying to fend off his monstrously overpowered webs. Taija never hit them with anything this strong! How powerful was this man?! He dived to the floor at the last second to avoid Elayne's web and it gave both women time to spin new gateways and relocate.
Not a moment too soon as both their previous positions disappeared in white-hot fire. "Stay still you bitches so I can put you in your places!"
Even while she was fighting for her life Nynaeve wasn't sure what female dogs had to do with anything. A sweeping blade of air at foot level combined with what Taija called a blossom of fire and Elayne was bombarding him with spikes of frozen air and water.
Their webs didn't even seem to be bothering him, instincts Taija had drilled into Nynaeve screamed and she Traveled across the chamber to see her previous location explode into rubble. Elayne was on the backfoot and she redoubled her own attack to take pressure off her.
Another gateway and then a stream of fireballs through it. The man whirled to face her and suddenly she was under a relentless attack. Elayne tried to intervene and was swatted aside staggering under an unseen blow.
Nynaeve was fully on the defensive, channeling as much of saidar as she could, pain stabbing at her temples, frantically slicing and deflecting webs she couldn't see. Thank the Light for Taija's infuriating habit of inverting her webs. At least this wasn't completely outside her experience. Although she still had no idea how the woman could do it so fast.
The backwash of a fireball singed her face, chips of rock from an explosion in the floor cut at her and then suddenly the pressure ended.
Nynaeve didn't try to work out why, she'd already opened a gateway across the chamber and stepped through it ready to attack once more. She sent a fireball at the man even as she realised another woman had come into the chamber.
She wore a simple, green, silk dress and had her iron-grey hair tied up in a bun with various ornaments dangling from it above an ageless face. More importantly the light of saidar surrounded her, very brightly in fact, far more than Nynaeve could hold. A veritable storm of webs lit up the air between them as the newcomer bombarded the man with saidar.
He seemed taken aback for a second and then spat, webs falling apart or splashing against unseen barriers around him. "You're not even a looker, unlike the other two."
He seemed to focus on the woman for a second and then staggered, surprise painted across his face. "What the fuck!" Nynaeve thought she recognised one of the expressions Taija often used when she was annoyed. Elayne refused to tell her what it meant, which was confirmation enough as far as she was concerned.
She had already caught Elayne's eye and they both opened gateways splitting their flows to attack from their own positions and through the gateways, although Nynaeve could see the strain on Elayne's face from channeling so much of saidar.
The man was on the backfoot now, most of his focus seemed to be on the other woman, yet nothing seemed to be happening around her, all of her webs seemed to be directed purely into the offensive on him.
He was staggering back, barely able to deflect or block the webs coming at him from five sides. He must have been incredibly strong based on the amount of saidar the woman was channeling.
Suddenly the man snarled something Nynaeve only understood one or two words. "Fuck this! Come at me without a paralis net and you'll see how things end." A blinding light exploded outwards with a wall of sound and by the time she'd reoriented herself he'd gone, presumably fleeing.
She took a step to run after him, they couldn't just let a darkfriend like that, probably one of the Forsaken, go and then stopped herself. He'd been too strong for her and Elayne and this new woman didn't look like one to run anywhere.
Instead she turned to face the woman, Elayne joining her. She knew they didn't look their best, even ignoring that they'd just leapt out of bed. They were both panting, singed and bloody in places from the fight. The woman on the other hand looked completely unruffled, everything about her immaculately placed.
As Nynaeve looked her up and down, noting her ageless face, she gave them her own appraising look, seeing to weigh them up with a single hard-eyed glance. "Ah, you must be the runaways."
"What?! We are not…!"
The woman simply rolled over Elayne's protest, "be silent girl, there are more important things to deal with now. You may call me Cadsuane sedai. Now tell me, where is the Dragon, we must go to his aid immediately."
Nynaeve clenched her fists in her skirts. The woman spoke sense, but how dare she!
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For once Taija had been relieved to see Moiraine. Trying to fight alone in an enclosed space was a nightmare scenario for a channeler. A spear in the back would kill her just as dead as anyone else.
In fact her and Moiraine were working surprisingly well together. They hadn't spoken much, beyond agreeing that Taija would deal with threats further away and she would be the inner line of channeling defence. They were both benefiting from their angreals and the amount of saidar that they could wield between the two of them was huge. With Lan smoothly dispatching anything that came too close they were soon reaching the reception hall near Rand's apartments. A trail of dead shadowspawn and their victims behind them.
Taija entered the hall to a scene of chaos. Defenders of the Stone and Aiel fought in clusters surrounded by trollocs. She didn't spot anyone she knew, except for Rand. He was fighting with his sword, laying about him with impressive speed and skill, but that wasn't all. He must have been channeling as shadowspawn near him seemed to suddenly lose their footing or catch fire. Taija was somewhat impressed, his control seemed to have really improved since he took Callandor.
For a second it looked like he was about to be overwhelmed by a trio of myrddraal and then he opened a gateway that sliced straight through one of them and leapt through it to another part of the room. How in the Light had he gone in a matter of weeks from just about doing it with a sa'angreal to making gateways in the middle of combat?!
There was no more time for thought though, Taija and Moiraine were unleashing the Power on the hordes of trollocs and myrddraal, tearing through them life a knife through butter.
She was able to relieve clusters of Aiel and Defenders who came together to fight the shadowspawn, but there always seemed to be more. There must have been a limit to them though? Surely?
Trying to fight with the Power in close spaces like this really didn't play to Taija's strengths. Or any channeler's really.
Taija gestured to Moiraine and Lan and opened a gateway to what she thought was a bandstand on the far side of the hall. The three of them stepped through and she got a better vantage point on the room. That meant she could hit more shadowspawn. Unfortunately her more destructive webs risked killing people on her own side in this enclosed space, not least Rand himself. So Taija spun air and fire into explosive darts to be flung into whatever shadowspawn caught her attention. Splitting her flows as many ways as she could, Taija started to carve her way through the horde in a storm of fire and explosions. Beside her Moiraine seemed to have settled for flinging over-powered fireballs into larger concentrations of the beasts while Lan rapidly killed any that tried to climb up to them.
On the other side of the hall Taija saw Rand step out of a gateway into a cluster of Defenders, which included a tall, dark-haired man slicing his way through the trollocs with an impressive display of swordsmanship. She thought it was his new swordmaster, although she'd avoided speaking to the man, swords reminded her too much of Tel.
To give Rand some help and relieve the pressure on the group he was in Taija diverted some of the multitude of flows she was channeling into a razor sharp blade of air slicing through the air at neck level on the trollocs pressing them. A number fell, decapitated on the spot, but she realised she'd missed a couple of myrddraal, passing the blade over their heads. Sloppy. A moment later Moiraine incinerated them.
The shadowspawn in the hall were dying faster than they could receive reinforcements, but Taija had no doubt the Stone was teeming with the creatures. She might need to find the girls and fight her way out if it was as bad as it looked. The wards she'd set up would stop gateways that crossed their threshold, turning the place into a trap for any channeler in it.
Taija saw the swordmaster scream something at Rand. He froze for a second. She nearly shouted her own warning as a myrddraal lashed out for the opening Rand left, but lightning fast the swordmaster parried its blade and beat it back. A moment later Rand opened a gateway and vanished through it. She had no idea where to.
It wasn't long after that that she and the others killed the last of the trollocs and myrddraal in the hall, but Taija could still faintly hear the sounds of screams and roars echoing down the corridors. The Stone must be teeming with the monsters.
Wearily she steeled herself to go hunting when suddenly lightning seemed to crawl into the hall, from the direction of Rand's quarters. Taija couldn't feel anything from it, so it was probably saidin. It looked almost alive as it crabbed over the ceiling like it was questing, hunting for something.
Its prey was revealed when a squad of trollocs charged into the hall. Before Taija could hit them with her own web the lightning lashed out from the ceiling spearing them from above, killing them instantly before continuing its probing spread.
Everyone was staring at the lightning open mouthed. Many of them with fear in their eyes. Taija realised her own mouth had dropped open too and she quickly closed it.
She could recognise what it was, a construct aimed at shadowspawn, but how the fuck was Rand doing it, if it was even him? The inefficiencies and Power requirements alone… The lightning was showing no signs of abating and Taija could only assume it was spreading through the whole stone. One person, even with a sa'angreal shouldn't have been able to do that. How powerful was he? How powerful was Callandor?
Taija was about to go looking for him when he staggered into the room, Callandor in his arms almost too bright to look at. His face was locked in a grim rictus and he was surrounded by storm clouds pumping out more of the lightning.
Taija breathed a sigh of relief as the cloud started to dissipate and Rand's face relaxed. Then he looked around the hall, taking in the piles of bodies, people and shadowspawn alike and rage suffused his face.
She heard him shout something and Callandor grew even brighter in his grip. A new construct seemed to be forming around him. Taija thought he'd already killed every shadowspawn in the Stone, possibly every single one in Tear. Light only know what he was thinking.
She could feel her hair literally standing on end, the very air in the room charging. It was madness, she wasn't going to let an untrained channeler with a sa'angreal kill her and everyone else around him. Taija spun a gateway and stepped through it beside him, dimly registering Moiraine had done the same.
"Rand, stop this madness!" Moiraine screamed and he whirled towards her anger in his eyes.
Taija's instincts were telling her to get as far away from him as possible, but she made herself grab his arm, the muscles wound up tight as steel under his shirt, "Rand, please! Think for a second, stop!"
Maybe her words got through to him or perhaps it was the way Moiraine stepped backwards her composure briefly replaced by terror, but the tension left Rand's body and the light from Callandor subsided. A second later it was just a crystal sword again and Rand staggered with sudden exhaustion.
Taija let out a deep sigh of relief and put a comforting hand on his shoulder, feeling his shoulders rise and fall with each gasping breath under it. "It's ok Rand, breathe," she muttered. That had been deeply disturbing, she was going to need to put some thought into it when everyone had calmed down.
Slowly the soldiers started to clap and cheer for the 'Lord Dragon' as they realised they were still alive and the trollocs have been defeated, probably not realising how close they had just come to Rand losing control and obliterating the Stone and them with it.
It was because of their hollering that Taija didn't hear anyone coming up behind her until Elayne's cry of "Taija!"
Rand seemed to be recovering his breath and had straightened up so Taija turned to face her with a smile. She'd just look silly trying to keep her hand on Rand's shoulder when he stood up straight anyway.
Elayne looked pleased to see Taija, but something was bothering her. Nynaeve looked tense as a coiled spring and there was a woman she didn't recognise with them. A woman with an ageless face, hard eyes and hair tied up in a grey bun adorned with jewelery that looked surprisingly fashionable for something from this time.
Inevitably Taija's attention was focused on her as she strode through the room, making a beeline for her, or more likely for Rand. She barely spared a glance for the bodies on the floor or the surviving soldiers and Dedicated. Yet her dark eyes seemed to take everything in. Taija could feel her strength in the Power, impressive for this time and well beyond Moiraine's, but not on her level.
She looked decidedly unimpressed when she stopped in front of Taija, the girls trailing behind her. She tutted loudly, "well this is quite the mess. You must be Rand al'Thor, well look me in the eyes when you speak to me boy, did you mother not teach you manners?" Before the speechless Rand could gather himself she'd moved on. "Moiraine," the woman received a nod in return that was so frosty Taija was surprised the room's temperature didn't drop and then the woman's eyes are on her. "And you must be Taija." Her tone said it all.
Taija had more than had enough by that point and she was absolutely not going to be sneered at by a 'modern' aes sedai. "That's Taija sedai to you." Her voice was sharp.
"Hmm," the woman dismissed her with a glance and turned back to Rand, "my name is Cadsuane Melaidhrin."
Taija could already tell she was going to be a problem.