As usual all speech in italics is in the Old Tongue.
Chapter LIV - A Bad Way to Die
Lord Agelmar studied the two proclamations that had made their slow way from Tar Valon. The world was turning to madness. The boy, young Lord Rand, was the Dragon Reborn and acknowledged as such and Taija Kosola was a darkfriend. Both seemed unbelievable.
Aes sedai could not lie though, that was a fact, but they could make the truth stand up and dance to their tune. So did that mean that Elaida truly believed those things to be true? Or had she simply ordered someone to make the proclamation in her name. Would her oaths prevent that?
It was no surprise that the White Tower would wish to deal with the Dragon Reborn, an event so momentous would not be something they would be willing to leave in the hands of others. However, it was extremely unsubtle by the standards of the aes sedai. That kind of arrogance was likely to alienate rulers around the world. Ultimately it mattered little to the Borderlands. They would do what they had always done, protect the world from the Blight while the southerners had their squabbles. If al'Thor came to them they would deal with him as appropriate and until then they would continue with their duty.
Ironically, given the significance of the Dragon being Reborn, the proclamation about Taija bothered him rather more. The Shadow's schemes were myriad and could be incredibly complex and opaque. However, he had seen the woman obliterate thousands of shadowspawn at great risk to her own life. That was not the action of a darkfriend.
Also if the Shadow had such a powerful channeler on their side, certainly more powerful than any single aes sedai he had ever encountered, they would surely have better uses for her than obliterating one of their own armies before disappearing.
No, the more likely explanation was that she had incurred the wrath of the White Tower because she was claiming to be aes sedai when she was not. That had been fairly obvious from the first moment that he had met her. He could not say that he cared overly. She had done a great service to Shienar while the White Tower had sat on its hands. While he would not put himself in open opposition to the Tower, that would be madness, he would not be acting against her either. Well, not unless she showed that she was in fact a darkfriend.
Although that being said, the behaviour of the former Amyrlin, Siuan Sanche, with her had been odd. Taija had fled the Keep on the Amyrlin's arrival, as he would expect from a false aes sedai. The Amyrlin had certainly had enough aes sedai with her to bring the woman under control, if she so desired. However, while she had fled the Keep she had remained in Fal Dara. It was very strange. His informers had been able to work out that Taija had met with the Amyrlin, Moiraine, Liandrin and Leane at one point. Liandrin had then vanished and there were some odd marks in places on the walls of the room they had used. Then Taija had left in secret, but with what was apparently the Amyrlin's belssing and certainly no consequences for claiming to be aes sedai. He was not sure what conclusions to take from that. He certainly could not ask any of the aes sedai.
Perhaps it was time to have a talk with his uncle about Elaida.
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The morning after her discovery Taija made a point to seek Rand out first thing, even before her run. To her surprise she found Nynaeve with him and Edram. Both of them were looking quite uncomfortable as Nynaeve fussed around them. It must be her efforts with the madness. She hadn't mentioned any success over the last few weeks, but it was good to see that she was still trying. She really was quite the talented healer, it was especially impressive given Taija had barely been able to teach her anything about the subject.
It was also convenient that Taija had both Rand and Edram there together. With a big smile she greeted them. "Rand, Edram! I think I've got it, mostly." When they looked a little confused she elaborated. "The taint! I've worked out how to cleanse it. Probably anyway."
Edram jumped to his feet in excitement, like before Taija thought he was about to hug her, but Rand put his hand on Edram's arm and he settled back. Still Rand was smiling too though. "That's wonderful news! What have you done? What do we need to do?" He didn't look as surprised as Taija had expected. Nynaeve or Aleksi must have told him, not fair, they were stealing her thunder!
"It's actually surprisingly simple in the end." That was a slight exaggeration, but it was far easier than the other solutions she'd been working on. "I've made a web that destroys the taint, all you need to do is channel saidin into it."
"It's not simple." Nynaeve interjected. "I saw the web, I think I might be able to spin it with some practice, I'm not sure any other woman here could."
"It can be refined and simplified." Taija brushed her off. "The important thing is, the taint is finite, which means destroying it is possible. That horrible woman Savriti gave me enough information that I'm sure of it!"
Edram's lips turned down, "are you sure about that? This time's… scholars are not very knowledgeable about these kinds of things."
Taija gave him a long stare, she really needed to look into that man. Surely Rand and Aleksi had learnt enough from him by now. "I'm sure. She quoted some research from the Breaking which referenced things like four dimensional space-time, light years and the 13th dimensional barrier." She carefully watched his face for any reaction to her words, but he gave her none. "I doubt many people from my time could come up with that from nothing, let alone one of today's scholars. So the taint is finite and that means it can be cleansed."
"Fantastic! You've done amazingly well." Rand seemed irritated at Edram too, quickly speaking before Edram could. "So what do you need from me, Edram and Aleksi? Whatever it is we'll do it."
"Just saidin being channeled. It's easy… except for one thing. There's a lot of taint. It would take lifetimes of constant channeling for the three of you and we don't have lifetimes. We need sa'angreal, powerful ones for both sides of the Power. How strong is Callandor Rand? How many times your normal strength do you think you can channel with it?"
Rand paused to think. "Maybe somewhere between 100 and 200 times, it's hard to tell with that amount of the Power."
A moment's mental maths gave Taija the answer. "That's… a lot." A bit of an understatement. "But not enough I think. Especially given Cadsuane said it magnifies the effects of the taint on the user. We could make a start, no doubt, but it would probably drive you mad long before we were done."
Perhaps if she could get a group of strong men working in shifts. Eight hours a day, for a year. Five hundred of them, not much need to do more than a couple of shifts across the whole year. Did they even have a year? Would Callandor survive that kind of constant use? There were design limits for most sa'angreal. If she'd been there during the Breaking with tens of thousands of still-sane men at her disposal it would have been relatively trivial… Taija started considering how to turn untrained men into Power sources. If she could put them into a circle and constantly channel… No! That was the sort of thing Mierin or one of these 'modern' aes sedai would do! Taija wrenched her thoughts back on track.
"No. We need something stronger. A female sa'angreal too. I can work on improving my web, but I don't think it'll be anywhere near strong enough to take that much saidin unassisted. The strongest male sa'angreal I know of is Sarkanen, I think it might be a little stronger than Callandor, but I've got no idea if that survived. As for female ones, we may need to raid the White Tower. That won't be easy, but I'm fairly sure they must have at least one or two sa'angreal stashed in there. I can start on the planning…"
Rand cut her off by raising his hand, sounding excited. "Thank you from the bottom of my heart for everything you've done, the end of the horror that is the taint is in sight and you'll be remembered for it, but let's not get ahead of ourselves too soon. Let me think about how to get enough power. I may have an idea." He shot a glance at Edram. "Let's talk about it tomorrow."
Edram's eyes widened. "You don't mean you found the acc…" At a look from Rand his mouth clamped shut.
"We'll talk about this tomorrow." His tone brooked no disagreement. Then his face brightened. "Now Taija, tell me about this Savriti. From what Nynaeve's said she sounds like an absolute nightmare of a woman."
Taija was self-aware enough to realise that Aleksi was probably sick of hearing from her about how fucking irritating Savriti was. So she was delighted to have an opportunity to moan about that particular 'modern' aes sedai to a new audience. It really was a good day!
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Later in the day Taija found herself stalking to the mouth of the canyon, her good mood fading as she looked out for Elayne and Mat. Elayne had missed a lesson and after the first hour Taija had ended up dismissing Egwene and Nynaeve early in frustration, all so she could come here to she didn't even know what. She wasn't sure if she should be worried or angry.
She certainly wouldn't accept a lack of punctuality from an apprentice, however much she might like them. Especially if they'd been off canoodling with their boyfriend. On the other hand, Elayne was normally very punctual, especially after the first time Taija punished her for lateness.
Assuming she was alright, she could go and sort grains of rice or something for a day as punishment. Taija certainly wasn't going to have her time wasted by her.
Taija was debating whether she should turn back into the canyon in disgust or start Traveling around the desert to look for Elayne when she saw a figure running towards her, or at least the canyon, at a full sprint. It looked like one of the Dedicated and the spark of worry got that little bit brighter.
With a thought Taija spun a gateway and stepped out in front of the Dedicated. He came skidding to a halt yanking his veil across his face and grabbing for a spear. Then fortunately a moment later he recognised her and hastily pulled the veil down again.
"I see you Taija sedai." Impressively he was only breathing heavily, despite the run. "My apologies, but I must get word back to the Golden Bowl, someone has attacked two of the wetlanders. At least one of them is dead."
Taija's blood turned to ice. "Which two? Where?"
"I do not know wetlanders aes sedai, my apologies, but I must inform the guards of this." He moved forward, intending to go past her.
Fuck! Taija stuck out an arm to block him and fortunately, despite towering over her, he seemed to be unwilling to try to push past her. "You will show me where, right now." Her tone allowed for no argument.
The man hesitated and Taija considered tying him in air, despite the rudeness of an unprovoked assault with the Power, then he bowed. "As you command aes sedai. It was that way, around 1,500 spans."
Perhaps three kilometres then. Taija channeled and the air split open in front of her. "Come with me."
The Dedicated man followed her through the gateway, reluctant but showing no fear beyond that. "Not here aes sedai, I would guess another 500 spans in that direction."
Taija didn't answer, was that something in the distance where he pointed? Again she channeled and stepped through the gateway and immediately had to stifle a gasp.
Someone had clearly fought with the Power. Blackened patches of dirt had fused into glass and there was a large, ragged scar torn through the ground. A pair of horses that she vaguely recognised lay dead, albeit mostly intact, but the worst was Mat, what was left of him, lying there in a patch of dirt that was darkened with blood, far too much blood. Blood covered his torso too and Taija's stomach lurched as she saw two legs, two arms tossed aside across the dirt.
Did they torture him first or do it after?! She hoped he didn't suffer, but the dead would need to wait. Where was Elayne?!
Horror warred with rage inside her before both faded to a dull murmur at the back of her mind underneath ice cold focus. Whoever did this was going to die.