Chapter XCV - Judgment Day

Some days after the trial Taija was walking through the grounds of the Hall. Justice had been done, everyone was smiling at the outcome and it felt like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders now that it was over.

Groups of initiates practised their channeling and Taija gave them a friendly, but critical look as she passed, dispensing encouraging smiles as needed. They returned them with vacant smiles of their own. She saw Helena talking to Jaer, Taija couldn't see his face, but Helena looked empty eyed. She must have been struggling with what happened to Eben. Taija should go and talk to her, try to cheer her up.

She turned towards them, but suddenly Tel came bouncing up next to her, grabbing her hand. "There's something I want to show you. You'll love it! Come on!"

He tugged on Taija's hand, pulling her away from them. After a moment she let him lead her quickly towards one of the storage buildings. "What's in there? Why the hurry?" Taija laughed as she followed.

They passed Irena who smiled and waved at them, nothing changing in her eyes as she did so.

"It's a surprise," he gave Taija a big grin and opened the door. After you sweetheart."

Taija returned his grin and stepped inside. There was no light and it was hard to see, so she reached for saidar to spin her own but she ran straight into a wall. She was shielded. Why? How? Taija turned round to ask Tel as he spun his own light. "Don't worry, you'll see. Soon we can be sure we'll be together forever." His smile and his eyes were so full of love, it made her heart melt.

"Look!" He gestured behind Taija, now that there was light she'd be able to see. Taija turned back round and they were there. Myrddraal and initiates, all mirroring Tel's happy smile.

His hand landed on her shoulder, giving it a squeeze as she started to count them. 8,9 ,10,11, 12…

"We'll be together forever sweetheart."

13.

With a shriek Taija sat up in bed, gasping for breath and grabbing at saidar, drawing as much of it as she could. A moment later Tel stirred next to her, opening his eyes and blearily asking, "what's wrong?"

It took a moment for Taija's mind to catch up, to force herself to say, "nothing, sorry. It was just a bad dream. Don't worry about it, go back to sleep."

She wasn't sure he even fully woke up, he mumbled something and draped a comforting arm over her but already seemed to be fast asleep.

Taija lay there in the dark for some time afterwards trying to force her muscles to relax and calm her racing heart enough to get back to sleep.

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Helena clutched onto her coat fighting to keep her temper under control. She wanted to embrace saidar and wipe the smug look off Jennet's face. She wanted to beat her until she cried for mercy and then beat her some more.

"So you killed Galina sedai without any attempt at warning her and without being attacked yourself?"

Eben looked like a wreck, just like he had ever since… she refused to think about it. She had some ideas for how to help him, but that was for after the trial. "She had shielded Rand sedai, she attacked first."

"Did you know it was her?"

"She was an aes sedai, she was looking at him and Bennae sedai was clearly hostile to her."

"So you did not know it was her?"

"I…"

"You started the battle with an unprovoked attack on Galina sedai."

"I didn't…"

At that point Taija sedai interrupted. "Jennet sedai, had Galina shielded Rand?"

"I do not know, I was not there," came the smooth response.

Taija sedai sighed. "Bennae sedai, you were there."

"Yes she had."

Taija sedai nodded and sat back, meeting Jennet's eyes. "Very well. Continue."

Jennet continued to harangue Eben for a bit longer before informing the room she had no further questions. At least none of the judges seemed impressed. Taija and Aleksi sedai looked furious while Cadsuane sedai was as impassive as ever, although Helena was sure she saw a slight tightening around the woman's eyes.

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Mazrim Taim watched Rhin questioning another of the aes sedai. The man was a rather better advocate than channeler and Taim had to admit to a certain amount of pleasure as he skewered the aes sedai, pinning them down into straight answers. Not that it would make any difference of course.

"Had Galina shielded the Lord Dragon?"

"Galina sedai." The aes sedai emphasised the title.

Rhin just gave a very slightly bow. "As you wish, had Galina sedai shielded the Lord Dragon?"

"Yes."

"Had he given any provocation to her?"

"Yes he had."

"Let me be more precise. Had he given any provocation beyond being present, a male channeler and calling himself an aes sedai."

"No."

"Were you aware of Galina sedai's plans for the Lord Dragon?"

"We were not exactly close, she did not share her secrets with me."

Rhin smiled. "Of course, but that is not what I asked. Were you aware that she planned to take him prisoner and take him to Tar Valon by force."

"Yes. However that is not the point. The Dragon must be tamed, before he can go mad and break the world again."

"Mmm, do you not believe that the taint has been cleansed from saidin?"

"I do not."

"Well it has been around for a long time. Have you heard Bennae sedai and Cadsuane sedai state it has been cleansed?"

"Yes I have."

"Yet you do not believe them?"

"They could be mistaken."

"It seems odd that you would choose to disbelieve them like that."

She did not respond and he let that linger for a few seconds before continuing.

"Anyway, I wanted to ask you about the severing of Eben and Noruan. Did you believe that they were a danger to you or to anyone else at that point?"

"Of course I did."

"Let me rephrase that. Did you believe that they would be able to do any harm while shielded."

"No, but…"

"How many aes sedai would you typically use to keep a man shielded?"

"Six."

"Is that a minimum or just custom?"

"It is the minimum we would feel safe with."

"Very well, how many aes sedai survived the initial conflict?"

"It depends on…"

"Was it more than 18?"

"Yes."

How many aes sedai would you typically take to shield a powerful false dragon and bring them back to Tar Valon?"

"It is difficult to say, it would depend on…"

"How many aes sedai were there in Logain's escort?"

"Twelve."

"Did more than thirty six aes sedai survive the initial confrontation?"

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Questioning yet another of these horrible women, Rhin decided he would take a risk. He had been taught that he should never ask a question he did not already know the answer to and here he was going to ask one where he did not. However, given the arrogance of these aes sedai, he was still confident that they would continue to dig their own graves.

"With everything you know now, if you thought you could succeed at gentling Eben and Noruan and successfully force the Lord Dragon to the White Tower without retaliation from the Hall, would you do it?"

"That is not relevant to my actions."

"Answer the question please."

Jennet stood, "the question has nothing to do with what Mayam sedai is on trial for."

Rhin glanced back at the judges with a questioning look. They looked at each other and then, to his mild surprise it was Cadsuane sedai that spoke. "Answer the question Mayam."

"Of course I would not do anything to harm the Light."

Rhin sighed. These aes sedai were too used to getting away with obfuscation. They still seemed to struggle with the fact that their evasions would not be permitted here. "I do not want to know what you would do to serve the Light, answer the question please."

After a long moment she looked down. "Yes I would."

It really did make things easier when your defendants were physically incapable of lying.

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Cadsuane sighed internally as Rhin continued to question the idiots that called themselves her sisters. She had had to give a number of promises to Taija before an agreement was reached for her to sit on this panel. She was not exactly happy to be there in the first place, but in the end she was hardly aligned with either of Elaida or Siuan these days.

The most important thing was that she could maintain her position in Rand's confidence and keep reasonable relationships with both Siuan and Taija's factions. Agreeing to act as a judge would help fulfil that and she could also work to mitigate the impact on the White Tower too. There was no doubt about the guilt of these sisters, that much was clear, so she would feel no difficulty in finding them guilty. However, where she hoped to make a difference was in the sentencing. Hopefully she would be able to keep these fools in one piece despite their best efforts to put a noose around their own necks.

At this point, however, she was starting to doubt herself. These women were beyond delusional, they ignored what she had told them before the trial, refused to learn from the utterly casual, yet brutal, defeat that Taija and Tel had inflicted on them and their compatriots and were utterly convinced of their own righteousness. It was not even that she might not be able to restrain Taija or Aleksi from harsh punishment, it was that she was starting to think the women deserved it. Not being able to lie was a real problem for them, but their lack of flexibility made it all the worse.

Rhin asked another of them the same question. "With everything you know now, if you thought you could succeed at gentling Eben and Noruan and successfully force the Lord Dragon to the White Tower, would you do it?"

"Yes I would." Cadsuane wanted to groan at the woman's idiocy. Had she learnt nothing from this? If obtuse stupidity attracted the death penalty she would surely deserve it. Honestly it might be better if she just took Sashelle's approach and refused to answer questions and that was hardly a road to success.

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It took three more days to get through the testimony and questioning for all of the captured aes sedai, but eventually it came to a conclusion and Taija, Aleksi and Cadsuane withdrew to another room to confer.

None of them looked happy. Frankly it had been a huge waste of Taija's time given how obvious the outcome was. She could have been doing more important things, but justice had to be done and it had to be seen to be done. Maybe next time she just wouldn't take any prisoners.

"So…?"

Cadsuane spoke first. "I am not happy with your claiming the right to try aes sedai without any legal basis." Before Taija could say anything she held up a hand and kept talking, "but as we agreed, I accept that the Hall has the right to take action against people who attack it. I do not like it, but I do not think that I can honestly say that any of them are innocent of most of the charges. If it was under Tower law they would all be guilty, unquestionably. Even where they have not directly taken part, they were part of the group, acting together. The exception to that is conspiring to sabotage the forces of the Light and aid the Shadow. There is no evidence that that was their goal, they seem to honestly believe that what they did was the morally correct course." She paused, "regardless of their guilt I believe there are some things you should take into consideration."

"Afterwards, let's do this first."

Taija looked at Aleksi and he shrugged. "I agree, with a couple of exceptions. I think Turanna can't be guilty of severing Eben and Noruan. She's a deeply obnoxious woman, but she did actively refuse to take part. The rest of them can burn as far as I'm concerned, they were part of it even if they didn't spin the web, but it would be unjust to punish her for that." Taija slowly nodded at that and Cadsuane actually looked a little surprised. "As for torture of the Dragon Reborn, several of them didn't take part in the beatings, so I'm not sure it would be fair to find them guilty, even if they were part of the group and didn't try to stop it. That seems to have been outside the overall mission of the group, unlike the rest of it."

"Mmm. I suppose you're right about Turanna." Taija had been leaning the same way on her. The woman was exactly the kind of aes sedai she hated and seemed to be obsessed with legalisms to the point of madness, but she did protest against it. "As for torturing the Dragon Reborn, well I'm not sure I agree Aleksi, they were still part of the group, but ultimately I want this to be fair and above any criticism, so I can live with leaving that out since it wasn't part of their overall mission. For the ones who weren't involved." Taija took a breath. "So we're agreed, other than the few exceptions we've discussed, they're guilty of all charges other than conspiring to sabotage the forces of the Light?" She was tempted to press harder for that last charge, she was fairly sure that one would have stuck during the War and would have ended with them being lined up against a wall and shot. However, Tel had advised her not to push it because they didn't want the defendants being able to muddy the waters by claiming to have been led astray by the Black Ajah. Although in hindsight Taija doubted that any of them would have had the mental flexibility to make that argument.

After the other two had agreed, Taija continued. "So onto sentencing."

Aleksi immediately spoke up, his face hard. "Hang them. All of them."

"That would be idiotic, there are a number of factors that you should be considering, I shall…"

Aleksi angrily cut Cadsuane off. "Have you seen Eben and Noruan? What they did to them?"

"Aleksi, let Cadsuane speak. We'll all have our say." Frankly Taija was on Aleksi's side, those women could have doomed the whole world far too easily, but Cadsuane had behaved impeccably throughout this affair. As far as Taija was concerned she'd earnt a lot of credit for dealing with this so fairly and honestly and she had the right to be heard.

"Thank you Taija. As I was saying…"

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A day later the entire Hall was assembled and Taija was sat back on the podium with Cadsuane and Aleksi on each side of her. Rows of black coated initiates stared at the captured Tower aes sedai, some blank faced, others angry or hateful. Behind them the banner of the aes sedai hung, dominating the backdrop and a wooden post stood off to the side. Taija looked the prisoners over. It had taken a while to hash the matter out and come to an agreement, but eventually Cadsuane had accepted it, although Taija was sure she wasn't happy about it.

Once everyone was lined up Taija stood and spun a web to amplify her voice before looking over the captured aes sedai. There wasn't even a hint of sympathy in her eyes. They'd made their bed and now they could lie in it. The prisoners stared back at her defiantly, unyielding.

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Mazrim Taim scowled. It had been somewhat enjoyable watching the aes sedai being skewered at their trial. If the man was not so pompously self-righteous he would have liked to buy Rhin a drink after that. As it was, well he would still keep an eye on him. He had performed a service for the men of the world.

Still, the fun was over, now was the time to see how the politics had worked out. What dirty deals had been done to once again excuse the suffering of male channelers at the hands of the White Tower.

Taija began to speak. "Sashelle Anderly, you have been found guilty of severing without justification of two members of the Hall of Servants, assault on the Dragon Reborn inflicting bodily harm, torture of the Dragon Reborn, kidnapping of the Dragon Reborn, two initiates of the Hall and an aes sedai of the White Tower and assault on three initiates of the Hall. You have been found innocent of conspiring to sabotage the forces of the Light and aid the Shadow."

Hardly a surprise. Taija and the Hall might be soft and weak, but letting them off would be writing the Hall's suicide note. What would it be? Given to Siuan Sanche's care for 'punishment'? That seemed the most likely outcome. They would strengthen her faction of the White Tower while suffering a symbolic slap on the wrist.

"This is a travesty! How dare…" The aes sedai's voice suddenly vanished as someone presumably wove air to silence her.

"For your crimes this court sentences you to severing and twenty strokes of the cane."

It took Taim a moment to process that and then his eyes widened as people around him gasped.

"Sentence to be carried out immediately." He could not see her channel, but he knew the moment Taija struck as the aes sedai suddenly collapsed only to be quickly pulled to her feet and tied to a post. One of the Aiel came out holding a long cane made of some flexible wood. A moment later it was whistling through the air and impacting on the aes sedai's back with a crack, making her jerk and writhe, her mouth open with a silent scream.

That had been… quick, almost brutal. Taim was not at all disturbed by the crack of the cane descending onto the woman's back, but he had to admit, the casual ease with which Taija had stilled her… That was something more. Then he realised she had already moved on.

"Mayam Colona, you have been found guilty of severing without justification of two members of the Hall of Servants, assault on the Dragon Reborn inflicting bodily harm, kidnapping of the Dragon Reborn, two initiates of the Hall and an aes sedai of the White Tower and assault on three initiates of the Hall. You have been found innocent of torture of the Dragon Reborn and conspiring to sabotage the forces of the Light and aid the Shadow. For your crimes this court sentences you to severing."

A moment later she jerked and went limp. The other aes sedai jerked with her in a sympathetic movement, some of them had started to weep quietly. This was… unexpected. Satisfying. Perhaps Taija's promise that no more men would be persecuted by the White Tower had actually meant something.

She was already moving on. With disturbing speed and efficiency, the cane still striking Sashelle off to the side. He was not sure whether to be impressed or horrified by the way the small woman, normally so soft looking, was just methodically severing enough aes sedai to overthrow a king without showing the slightest expression.

=========

As Taija severed another aes sedai, allowing her webs to be visible for all to see, Helena started to feel ill. She was pleased that justice was being done, of course she was, but this… It was horrible. They deserved it, but she couldn't be happy about it. How could Taija just do that again and again? Mayam had always been kind to her in the Tower and now...

One of the aes sedai with surviving warders was offered the opportunity to release their bonds before she was severed. In a hard voice Taija explained her options, "if you keep the bond then severing you will kill them as surely as if you'd died. They haven't yet been tried and are unlikely to be found guilty of any capital offences, so I've no wish to see them dead, but if you refuse then I'll carry out the sentence regardless."

She wasn't sure she liked this side of Taija, but then she thought about Eben, looked over to where he sat watching, a small smile on his face, the first one she'd seen since he was severed and her heart hardened. Actually they deserved everything they got. She leaned forward, she was going to watch and she was going to remember. The Hall protected its own.

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Rhin nodded to himself as each of the aes sedai was severed. He had done a good job as an advocate, if he did say so himself, in possibly the most important trial he had taken part in. Frankly, he thought Taija was being overly lenient in just severing them. Taking the Lord Dragon as a monarch, which he effectively was, their actions against him would have been enough by themselves to have had them executed in every nation he knew. As for what they did to Eben and Noruan, that was unforgiveable. He was not a cruel man, no sadist, but he would not deny being pleased that they would suffer in the same way as his comrades.

Taija continued to work her way through the list. "Turanna Norill, you have been found guilty of assault on the Dragon Reborn inflicting bodily harm, kidnapping of the Dragon Reborn, two initiates of the Hall and an aes sedai of the White Tower and assault on three initiates of the Hall. You have been found innocent of severing without justification of two members of the Hall of Servants, torture of the Dragon Reborn and conspiring to sabotage the forces of the Light and aid the Shadow. For your crimes this court sentences you to five years of penal servitude. The Borderlands always need more defenders. You and your sisters could have lost us the Last Battle in an instant, if you will make appropriate promises you will be allowed to make up for your crimes by serving with defenders of the Borderlands to fight the Shadow. It will be discussed later."

Personally he would have included her with the rest, but given she had protested against the severing, he supposed she did deserve some leniency, however obnoxious her reasoning.

=========

As Taija forced her razor sharp web of spirit onto the last of the prisoners, some of the tension left her body. That had not been a pleasant thing to have to do. She wasn't sorry, she didn't regret it, but there was no way on earth she could enjoy it. Still, some measure of justice had been obtained for Eben and Noruan.

Taija took a moment to survey the crowd as the last of the aes sedai was half led, half carried away. "Initiates of the Hall, remember this day. We do not seek conflict, we seek to help people and we serve the Light. However, never forget that kindness, gentleness is not weakness. We stand together, we support, protect and defend each other as we do the innocent around the world and if someone chooses to attack one of us then they attack all of us. We remember our friends and we also remember our enemies. Now, back to your classes, the Last Battle is coming and time is wasting."