As usual all speech in italics is in the Old Tongue.
Chapter LVI - A Song of Ice and Balefire Part II
As Mat hurried off Taija turned the other way. She'd untied the web concealing her channeling and was holding enough saidar that every woman in the palace and probably across the city too should be able to sense it. It went against every instinct she had, but if she was going to survive this she needed Rahvin's pet aes sedai to find her before he did.
He was certainly going to be looking, she had no doubt about that. She'd made a very noisy and destructive entrance to the palace, because she wanted his attention. If he was doing anything to Elayne he'd certainly be more than distracted from that now. The man wasn't going to be willing to tolerate someone coming and wrecking what he thought was his, let alone a woman.
Taija spun an inverted web over herself and her form blurred, seeming to blend into the background. It wasn't perfect, especially with the way it flickered whenever she moved, but it might give her an extra second or two to strike. Now to hunt.
She also spun another web over her boots, the sound of her footsteps suddenly fading away. Finally, she moderated her draw on saidar, reducing it to around what Moiraine could handle unaided. She'd still be blindingly obvious to any nearby aes sedai and there was no need to give everything away.
Keeping close to the walls Taija started to stalk, feeling very conscious of the way she'd be glowing to any woman who could channel. She had to do it though, she wanted the aes sedai to come to her, while staying invisible to Rahvin.
Occasional servants ran past her in a panic, barely sparing a glance in her direction, if they even saw her. Still, she wasn't sure there was enough chaos going on in the palace. She needed Rahvin absolutely furious and distracted. A web of air noisily blew a window out and then Taija sent a huge, inverted fireball arcing through it, up and over into what she thought were the stables where it detonated with a roar. In seconds there was a raging fire burning there. Hopefully that would help encourage any innocents out of the palace too, although she doubted there were many left anyway with Morgase gone and Rahvin in charge. She certainly hoped that was the case.
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Tel lay sprawled out on a blanket, a cup of steaming tea beside him. He hadn't been in such a good mood in… It must be ten years. Taija, not his Taija, not anymore, but still Taija had cracked it. He couldn't be entirely sure what Rand had meant when he said there might be a way, but if he had to guess it would be the access keys. A miracle they had even survived. The boy had gone off somewhere, being extremely secretive about it, sensible of him to be so close-lipped really. Either way, that beautiful, beautiful woman was every bit the genius he'd always known she was. If Tel was wrong and Rand didn't have the access keys then she'd find another way. He was certain of it.
He needed to be more careful though. He'd nearly given himself away twice now. At this point he'd probably survive her finding out, for what that was worth, but the pain it would cause her… He couldn't do that to Taija, not again. Even if it didn't break her, she needed to move on, to find someone better than him.
It was just so hard sometimes. Seeing the way that everyone here treated her, she wasn't made for this time. The only people who seemed to really like her were basically children and the girls idolised her rather than looking at her as a proper person. It didn't help that she hadn't had the cultural training he'd had, at least one thing to thank the Shadow for. Still, it had been a relief that she actually seemed to have found a proper friend in Amys. It was funny to think that these insane Dedicated's wise ones were the people she got on best with.
To be fair, Aleksi was good for her too. There was a young man with his head screwed on right. Thank the Creator Taija had found him. Or he'd found her. Whichever way round it was.
Rand's increasing paranoia was concerning, as were the flashes of Lews Therin coming through. It was ironic really, he smiled wryly. He'd spent so many years hating Lews Therin more than anything and yet, now he could barely muster more than dislike. They'd been friends once of course. Sort of anyway. As for Rand, they had a surprising amount in common given he was a 20 year old farmboy. In a different world, with a different start, maybe they could have been friends. For now, he could respect him and that was enough.
It didn't matter anyway. He'd given up on glory that day, when he'd put himself at Rand's mercy. Despite Rand's paranoia it at least seemed like the man had decided to trust him, to a point. That was one thing he'd earnt. Taking a myddraal's sword for the the boy… Tel Janin of old might have done it for Lews Therin, probably not though, Sammael wouldn't have done that for anyone.
Maybe there might even be a future for him. In the unlikely event that he survived all of this anyway. Nothing special of course, but he could disappear. Get his scar healed, shave off his beard and retire into obscurity somewhere Taija would never find him. Start a farm and raise chickens, he winced at the memory of their last truly happy conversation.
It was more than he deserved, more than he was likely to get, but maybe he'd earnt himself a tiny ray of hope.
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Lemyla al'Maim watched the odd blur sidle into the hall. She might not have seen it if not for the way that the outline of a woman glowed brightly with saidar within it. The foolish woman thought she was hidden, but she'd find out the truth, oh yes she would.
It wasn't the main hall, but was still richly decorated. Priceless paintings and sculptures dotted the walls, frescoes adorned the gilded ceiling. It would be a fitting place to bring her to heel.
It was disgusting actually, the way this woman had been ruining the Great Master's day. Especially when he'd just found himself a beautiful, new pet to play with. Well she and the two other sisters would put the woman in her place. She was strong based on the glow around her, but not that strong, especially when Lemyla had her little statuette of a weeping woman in her belt pouch.
"Ah, you must be the troublesome girl that has been making all this racket." She drew on saidar through her angreal. "You are hardly pretty enough to become one of the Great Master's pets, but I will still present you to him, trussed up like a little birdie. Perhaps you will please him for a short while." The idea that someone else might please him distressed her, but at least she knew this one would be discarded quickly. The Great Master liked them better looking than that.
She wove spirit into a shield and threw it at the woman, only to jerk a moment later as the threads were cut and snapped back into her. To her sides she heard a pair of thumps. A horrified glance to her left showed her Somola's bottom half in a spreading pool of blood, then she was flying through the air.
She had not even seen the woman weave anything!? Was she like the Great Master's new… Her thoughts ended when she hit the wall with a crunch.
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Light Taija hated Rahvin! She could only hope those women were actually Black Ajah and not just compelled slaves. Either way they'd had no idea how to fight.
Still, now that they were dealt with she needed to find Rahvin. Surely he must have been looking for her by now. He couldn't just be ignoring what she was doing to his palace. Taija fed some more power into the inverted web she'd spread across the clouds above her and kept going through the palace. After a moment she reapplied the inverted web to conceal her channeling for good measure.
A group of guards ran past her without seeing her in her camouflaged state, luckily for them. Taija was really starting to worry, the sick feeling growing in her stomach, that Rahvin had taken Elayne somewhere else and she was in the wrong place.
Then she saw him. It was only a flash of movement through windows on the other side of a courtyard, but she was sure it was Rahvin. That shaved head, the tight black shirt and the determined run. She was also sure he hadn't seen her.
His channeling might be crude, but he was far too powerful for her not to take seriously. In an instant Taija had judged his speed and direction. Almost without thought she spun balefire, pouring every ounce of saidar that she could draw through her angreal into it.
Liquid fire sprang forth from her carving straight through the wall on her side of the courtyard and through that on the other side too. Taija swept it down and across before immediately releasing the web and sprinting through a gateway to the sound of masonry crashing to the ground around her.
Taija emerged behind where she thought Rahvin should be to see him staggering out from the shattered remains of the corridor he'd been in.
Fuck. No time for regrets. She was already spinning frantically. Balefire, weaker now that she didn't need to blast through two walls to hit him. More. Fire erupted around him and she opened a gateway to her side, throwing razors of air through it at his back.
Rahvin dived out of the way of her balefire, not even hitting the ground before he spun an impenetrable sphere around himself, Taija's fire and air washing over it. Too easy. It might work well against someone less experienced or in a friendly spar, but she wasn't interested in a fight. She wanted Rahvin dead.
In a fraction of a second Taija seized the sphere in a web of air and swung it hard into the rubble. Nothing would touch him, but he could still be disoriented. Another web set the very air on fire around the sphere, blinding him and ensuring he couldn't safely release it. She followed through with a beam of balefire that would punch straight through it. There was a reason she didn't use that sphere in combat.
Suddenly fire erupted around Taija and she was frantically slicing webs, backpedalling. Her webs around Rahvin dropping away as she focused all of her attention on her unseen attacker. She hadn't felt anything. Saidin? Inverted saidar? In a flash she went through the possibilities in her mind. Demandred, Ishamael, Te… Sammael, no she don't think it was him. It could be Lanfear or Semirhage, she doubted any of the other women could invert webs in combat that effectively. Maybe Graendal.
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A sweating Dedicated skidded to a halt in front of him and Tel looked up from his contemplation, cup in hand. "Is something wrong?"
"I see you Edram." The man gasped the words out. "Taija sedai has ordered me to pass on the following message." He paused and started to recite. "Rahvin has taken Elayne to Caemlyn. Taija sedai has gone after them, no time to wait. Bring help!"
The cup fell from Tel's hands, spilling its contents onto the ground. He was already up, springing to his feet with the grace of a professional athlete and grabbing his sword. Shit he didn't know where Rand was. The aes sedai would just slow him down, there'd be too many questions with those women. "The Chief of Chiefs has left the Golden Bowl, the aes sedai are with the wise ones pass the message on to them. I'm going after her!"
He was running almost before he'd finished speaking, accelerating to a dead sprint. She had an angreal, she could take Rahvin, but the man wasn't stupid, disgusting as he was. There'd be a trap and she'd probably just blasted her way straight into it. He couldn't let her die again. He might be a dead man walking, but she still had a future.
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The palace shook around Taija. Whoever was attacking her was monstrously powerful. They might not be able to match her with her angreal, but certainly they had more power at their disposal than she did without it.
She spun a gateway and sprinted through it, throwing fire behind her. As she emerged in the corridor on the other side of the courtyard she was already spinning, as many webs of air, water and fire as she could handle, straight into the sky. she'd been preparing it for this and her preparation was rewarded. The black clouds above her exploded into light as a storm of lightning hurtled down on the area she'd just been in. The palace roof shattered under the bolts of lightning, tiles and stonework flying everywhere while she walked the storm of explosions along the building, leaving only rubble behind.
Of course Taija was still moving. Never stay in one place for long, a mantra that had been drilled into her through hard experience. The area behind her exploded into white hot fire and she had to spin a wall of air behind her to block the chunks of melted stone blasted away from it. Taija retaliated, letting the lightning fade and spinning a pair of blossoms of fire at where she thought the Forsaken might be. At the same time she was already changing position, stepping through a gateway to the palace's main hall.
Had Mat found Elayne yet? She had no way of knowing, all she could do was keep fighting. Rahvin didn't play well with others, hopefully she could take each of them separately. Taija paused for a moment to catch her breath and then chose a corridor to jog down.
Half a minute later, a stunningly beautiful woman came running in the other direction, her over-exposed chest bouncing with her movement in a way that looked extremely uncomfortable. In fact she looked like what Taija thought Rahvin probably fantasised about at night. Well, except for the furious look on her face. He wouldn't like that.
Taija couldn't feel the woman holding the Power, but she wasn't stupid, she was clearly not a servant. There was nothing stopping the Forsaken from changing their appearance and Taija knew there was another of them around. Without breaking her stride or changing her facial expression she spun fire and air, split into several webs to burn the woman to a crisp and slice the remains apart.
Taija wasn't at all surprised when her webs came apart, severed flows snapping back into her. Which of the Forsaken could it be though? Stone exploded around Taija and bounced off a barrier of air. In moments she was grappling with the woman's own webs, slicing and defecting. They felt wrong. Saidin, not inverted saidar.
None of the Forsaken were transsexual, so why would one of them disguise themselves as a woman? It must be another Rahvin thing. Fuck she hated that man.
Taija couldn't let this become a drawn out fight. She was in a corridor, that meant limited room to maneuver. She spun balefire and the woman dived to the side away from the blinding beam of golden light, but Taija swung it down after her, another Forsaken down!
Only she had to release the web to defend herself when the wall exploded to her side. She was slightly too slow in bringing up a barrier of air and had to ignore the sharp stabbing of pain as a shard of rock slashed across her arm.
Rahvin had found her. His face was set in a snarling rictus of rage, but she was already diving aside into a roll, painful on the hard ground, when a beam of balefire speared through the space she'd occupied a moment ago.
Taija spun a gateway back to the courtyard, simulatneously sending lightning hurtling down from the sky to where she was before. The retaliation was immediate, several huge fireballs descending from the sky and more lightning, this time crashing down on her.
Taija ran. Deflecting the lightning and extinguishing the closest fireball, she ripped a huge flagstone from the ground and threw it back at where she'd been, spinning fire and earth into it in mid-air so that it exploded on impact, demolishing another chunk of the palace.
A moment later she had to skid to a halt and change directions to avoid a wild beam of balefire. At least it told her where one of them was and she spun a blossom of fire. With a jolt the flows snapped back into her.
She needed cover! Taija sliced a web and opened a gateway to send burning hot fire through at the Forsaken. Then, suddenly, she was flying through the air. She tucked into a ball and spun air in front of her, cushioning her impact with a wall, but it still hurt leaving her sprawled on the floor.
As she scrambled to her feet Taija realised her arm was slick with blood from where the shard of stone had cut it. She couldn't afford to lose more.
She spun a small web of fire, drawing it over her arm and cauterising the wound with a hiss of pain. Hopefully Nynaeve could heal it properly. If she survived this.
No time to stop, she was already spinning a gateway and changing location. Had Mat had long enough yet? Where were Rand and the others? She couldn't fight two of the Forsaken. Not like this.