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

Chapter XCVI - A Time of Vengeance

Taija watched as the severed aes sedai stumbled through the gateway to Siuan's village under the eyes of several of her aes sedai. She hadn't been at all happy with the verdict, although there wasn't much she could do to complain with Cadsuane having agreed to it.

Siuan had given Taija a truly dirty look when she'd suggested that she take the severed aes sedai. As far as Taija could tell, she and others from her faction had an almost visceral reaction to them, but clearly she'd felt she had no choice because she'd made only perfunctory protests. Taija was going to have to do something nice for her to make up for this. At least if she didn't want to sour the detente that had grown between the two of them. She'd have to think about what. For now there were more urgent things to worry about.

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That evening Taija looked over the assignments for the upcoming operation, carefully checking that everything was as it should be. It was. Almost everything. She hovered over the list of Dedicated warriors who'd be guarding Aleksi and the others and then with a grin she scratched out one of the names and replaced it with Melinn's. His awkward obliviousness about her interest in him was a constant source of amusement and she wasn't above making sure that the Dedicated maiden was assigned to the places he'd be as often as possible. It would be good for him to get laid anyway, so in a way she was doing this for his own good.

Job done Taija spun a gateway to Tel's room, sounding the chime that politely let him know she was coming. Time for, what did Elayne say Mat called it…? A dance and a cuddle?

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The next day saw Taija riding into Tar Valon, Rand and Tel at her side. Obviously all of them had various inverted webs on them changing their appearance and concealing their abilities. She'd thought she'd escaped having to ride horses once she was able to work openly, but such was life. For today they were just going to install themselves in an inn, it was tomorrow that things would get interesting.

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At sunrise the three of them met in an alley behind the inn. Disguised this time as servants in the livery of the White Tower, they all had things to carry so they looked busy. Underneath the illusions the three of them were dressed in faded colours, their faces covered other than their eyes. Taija had thought about bringing more people, but frankly none of the aspirants in the Hall were fast enough or good enough fighters. Jaer might be a good fighter, but he wasn't strong enough to spin gateways. At least not yet and Taija couldn't risk him getting separated and stuck. As for the girls and Aleksi, she was already putting too many eggs in one basket. There needed to be some real aes sedai left alive if this all went wrong.

It was easy enough to get into the Tower, they just walked in like so many other servants. Who would dare try to break into the greatest channeling organisation in the world after all? Taija would rather have done this at night, but it might have been harder to just walk in and without the equipment from her time, the chaos of night fighting could work against them as easily as it could work for them.

When they reached the main courtyard Taija and Tel split from Rand with a muttered "good luck." He headed towards the Tower proper, they headed downwards, taking a wide ramp into the extensive underground sections. Taija hadn't seen many people at this early hour of the morning, but what she did see contributed to a general miasma of wrongness that hung over the Tower. Servants scurried around with their heads down. The couple of aes sedai that went by had dead looks in their eyes. Taija hadn't doubted what Bennae had told her, but being there was very much bringing it to life.

In her head she was counting down the time as they went deeper into the bowels of the Hall. Bennae gave her very precise directions and all she could do was hope that she got them right. While they walked Taija tentatively extended ultra-fine flows of spirit in front of her, probing for any ward that she might accidentally trip. She was going to need to time this carefully.

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Rand worked his way into the Tower and started climbing what felt like endless stairs. Unlike Taija and Tel he didn't have any particular destination in mind, beyond getting to the core of the Tower, but he too was mentally counting down the seconds.

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Aleksi sat on the mountainside, Callandor under a web of illusion next to him. It was odd being dressed in drab, browns and greens, but he had to admit that Taija and Tel had had a point about it blending in. He could hardly see a lot of the others around him. Of course he could still feel Melinn there, watching. Why did she always seem to be assigned to whatever he was doing? He'd made discrete enquiries and the Aiel didn't ask for particular jobs in the Hall, it was all organised by Clarin, a more senior maiden, apparently at random.

Melinn saw him watching and flashed him a grin, he returned an awkwardly nervous smile and quickly looked away to where Nynaeve was staring into the distance, her eyes fixed on Tar Valon and the shape of the White Tower thrusting up from it. If he was any judge of the way her lips were silently moving, she was counting down in her head. A slight haze in the air in front of her suggested she'd spun a web to magnify the view too.

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Rand bowed and stepped to the side as two aes sedai glided past him. He supposed it was probably time, a few seconds early, but here were targets of opportunity. He drew fully on saidin, mastering its raging torrent through his angreal and struck. A single web of air, earth and fire gripped both and slammed them into the wall with a concussive boom that shook the whole Tower. He didn't bother to look at what was left of them, he was already moving, spinning and tying off a couple of inverted webs over the spot he'd been in. The next person to go through there holding saidar would have a very bad day.

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Taija's flows of spirit met something, a ward of some kind. Inverted saidar most likely. She held a hand up to stop Tel. Tehy must be getting close. It was complex, without realising it she started chewing on her bottom lip as she felt it out with feather-light touches of the Power.

Tel had immediately taken position next to her, eyes scanning to make sure no one could sneak up on her while she was working. Taija gently probed the ward, looking for cracks, ways to get her own flows into it so that she can unravel it. There. She slipped a thin flow of spirit in. Then another in a different place and another and another. Slowly Taija slid them around, utterly focused. If she could find the knot holding it together…

It took another minute or so of concentration, luckily not many people seemed to come down that corridor, but she found it. Now, if she could just get her hooks into the web. Taija shaped spirit carefully and bound it around the knot before gently flexing into it. For a second the knot wavered, seeming to fade and then it suddenly burst under her pressure. Shit.

Nothing happened, but that doesn't mean anything. Taija looked at Tel, "I think I fucked that, we need to move."

He gave her a sharp nod, already accelerating. They both respun disguises. Taking on the appearance of aes sedai Bennae said should be in the Tower. It might make people hesitate for a moment.

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Mesaana had gotten up from her reading when she felt the Tower shake. An earthquake perhaps? She was wondering whether she should go and investigate when, with a clamour of bells in her head, her alarm wards went off. Someone was trying to get to the storerooms and, based on the tone of the bells she could hear, had brought down the wards rather than being caught in them.

The Hall. It had to be. A strike force of true aes sedai? She still wasn't sure she believed what Semirhage had said after the cleansing, but if it was… Lightbringers in the Tower? That wasn't something she wanted to play with. Taija Kosola would be bad enough, but she could take her. Those… Nope.

Well, except for the fact that the idiots had decided to attack her right here in her centre of Power. With a web of air she pulled open the door to her room and started to bark commands to the two turned aes sedai waiting outside it. She needed information and she needed to mobilise the Tower against these people. At least enough to slow them down until she could intervene.

As the two aes sedai scurried off she allowed herself a little smile. Perhaps she could rid the world of this infestation of Second Age do-gooders, if that was what they really were, once and for all. She carefully unspun the inverted web on her desk and then slid open one of the drawers. After a brief moment of contemplation she pulled out a fluted white wand, about the length of her forearm. In fact, this would be far too easy.

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Elaida sat at her desk rubbing at her eyes. She had barely slept at all. When Reiko missed their meeting last night she had almost panicked. There were no doubt innocent reasons why she might not have come, but deep down she knew the truth. Reiko had been taken. That meant that sooner or later she would talk. That was no judgment on poor Reiko, just a statement of fact. Sooner or later everyone broke. When she did, Elaida's joke of a reign would be over, to be replaced by another empty eyed puppet, this one wearing her body. The question was what to do. She would no doubt be stopped if she tried to leave, she could not take on the entire Tower by herself, but Light-damn her she was not going to just sit there and wait quietly to go into the night. Should she try and escape and find Siuan? Should she go to rescue Reiko? What about Erinea?

These thoughts kept on playing over and over in her head circling back and forth until they were broken when someone started to hammer on her door. This was it. Her stomach twisted. They had come for her. They would not find her easy prey though. She embraced saidar and palmed a dagger.

"Enter!"

Her composure was almost broken when two young men flung themselves into her office, quickly closing the door behind them.

"Galad, Gawyn, what in the Light are you doing here?" Heart sinking she realised she had forgotten about them, failed in another duty, leaving these two to become hostages for the Shadow.

"Mother… Elaida, we are here to get you out of the Tower." Galad spoke. "There is something deeply wrong with this place, treachery and the Sh…"

Elaida briefly considered telling them they did not know what they were talking about, denying the presence of the Shadow or calling them out on using her name. Bringing them back under her control. Then she cursed herself for a fool. Old habits died hard. "Thank you." She stood, sheathing the dagger in her belt. "We must be careful, almost every hand is turned against us. However, before we leave we must find Reiko and rescue her." She was not sure how, but she was not going to abandon her to that horrific fate.

"No! We need to get out while we can! There is no time!"

Suddenly the Tower shook around them and both boys blanched she gave them a thin smile. "I am the Amyrlin seat and you will do as I command. We do not leave anybody behind. If anyone tries to stop us, aes sedai or not, you have my permission, no, my orders to kill them." Perhaps old habits died harder than she had thought.

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Even in the depths of the Tower Taija felt it shake. That would be Rand. Time to get a move on. She heard a group of Tower guard coming running up the corridor behind her, armour clanking.

When she turned to face them they drew to a halt and the leader slowly bowed. "My apologies aes sedai, but the Amyrlin's orders are that all sisters are to return to the surface level, we will…"

Taija didn't have time for an argument with him. She spun saidar and the corridor erupted into fire.

As they broke into a jog Tel gave her a wry look. "Little bit harsh don't you think?"

"It was a boring conversation anyway."

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Erinea wove saidar lightning fast, fire, air and water flinging Denora into the wall hard enough to crack her skull and setting her on fire at the same time. They weren't going to take her! Reiko had already disappeared, she was not going to be taken too! She would rather die!

Choane cursed under her breath, filth that Erinea had never heard from an aes sedai before. Suddenly the woman was weaving, splitting her threads and battering at Erinea. She was forced back, not running, but definitely retreating as she wove her own attacks trying to find a hole in Choane's defences. This wasn't a fight she was going to win, Choane was far stronger than she was, but she needed to try.

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Nynaeve's mental countdown came to an end and she drew a deep breath. It was time. From this distance the Tower looked as peaceful as ever, but she suspected it was anything but that on the inside. If it hadn't been stirred up like an ant heap already, what she was about to do certainly would deal with that.

She focused her mind and drew fully on the men in her circle, particularly on Aleksi and Callandor. She didn't want to use saidar for this, that might be detectable to people in the Tower. However, with over thirty men's strength, and more importantly Callandor, she hardly needed any saidar. A glance behind her told her that the web of illusion was still concealing what would otherwise be a blinding glow from the sa'angreal.

While she could hide the physical glow, with that much saidin flowing through her, inverting the webs or trying to conceal the draw from anyone who could sense the Power was pointless, essentially impossible. That was why she was using saidin, unless she was very unlucky there would be no one in the White Tower able to detect what she was doing.

She laid out a web of spirit over the distant city, feeling out the extensive anti-Traveling wards covering it and the Tower. No need for subtlety, she didn't care if anyone felt what she was doing. This was just a matter of speed and strength. Then, with a thought, she clenched that web of spirit into a fist, just like she'd practised with Taija. There was so much saidin flowing through her web that even the hugely thick flows making up the wards were like gossamer before her will. She felt them shatter. Now anyone could Travel in and out of the Tower.

There was no time to think about that though. She'd already drastically reduced the amount of Power she was drawing and was spinning an inverted gateway, camouflaged aspirants and Aiel hustling through it in a maneuver they'd practised for days. As Taija had said, she couldn't rely on no one knowing where she'd struck from when she'd essentially lit a beacon of saidin. So now it was time to move before any counter-strike could find her.

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As the Tower shook around him again, Logain looked slowly up from his seat in the gardens. He could have sworn he could vaguely feel saidin being channeled, a huge amount. Something that should have been impossible, especially here. Light he missed it, even with the filth of the taint.

He looked over at the novice who was nervously watching him. She had no idea that he'd managed to obtain a knife recently, that he'd been keeping it close. When he was alone he'd sometimes just hold it in his hands and look at it, thinking that maybe this was the way out he'd been looking for. He had one big reason to be thinking about the embrace of death of course, but the more he saw of the Tower, the more appealing it became, even ignoring the empty hole torn out of him by the aes sedai. He was an educated man, but that did not mean he knew much of the ways of the aes sedai. Those were not shared with outsiders. However, one thing had become clear. Since that booming voice and shouted accusations about Elaida and the Forsaken had rung out across the Tower something had gone badly wrong. He could sense it. More and more aes sedai with something cold and dead behind their eyes. Puppets going on with their lives as normal. If he was not already a dead man it would have terrified him.

Suddenly an explosion blasted through the entrance to the garden, barely deflected around a shield and an aes sedai came staggering backwards into the open space. He did not recognise her, but her assailant was familiar. A coldly confident woman, Choane Gorys of the Grey Ajah. He recognised her for two reasons. She had been in the circle that had gentled him when he first came to Tar Valon and because she had that empty alien feeling in her eyes. The same feeling that so many of the aes sedai now had. He had had no love for the woman, but there was something deeply wrong with her now. Behind her stalked her warder, sword in hand, circling to get close to the other aes sedai.

Logain could see Choane was the stronger as she advanced, confidently battering away attacks and flinging weaves at her opponent. The novice stood there stricken in terror and of course everyone ignored him, a half-dead irrelevance.

The other aes sedai glanced at the novice, barely deflecting a fireball and screamed, "Run Lorase you idiot! She's Black Ajah!"

Had she just said that out loud? An aes sedai admitting… Choane just laughed and suddenly the transfixed novice folded in two, blood welling from a huge gash across her stomach.

Logain realised he was not going to be allowed to leave this garden alive, not after seeing that. Perhaps that was for the best. At least he would get to see an aes sedai die. One or the other. Sadly probably not Choane, her unnamed opponent was clearly on her last legs.

They were drifting closer to him, a dead man already forgotten.

No. He had never wanted this fate, who would, but he also did not want to simply fade into the night and be forgotten. They had said he was forsaken by the Light when they gentled him, but he had never forsaken it in return. No!

With a burst of speed he hadn't thought he was capable of anymore he heaved himself from his seat, flung himself at Choane, his little hidden knife dropping out of his sleeve into his hand. In a flash he was on her, his much larger body carrying hers to the ground, stabbing frantically.

He barely heard her warder's scream of rage, did not even see the man's sword flash towards him.