As usual all speech in italics is in the Old Tongue.
Chapter XV - Old Friends
Taija woke with a start, something was wrong! Sitting up she looked around herself, blinking in tired confusion at what she saw. Her surroundings had changed.
Where before she was under the half-buried stone, sheltering in the lee of a hill, she was now on flat ground, next to a fully exposed stone towering six metres above her.
Instead of dense grass punctuated by trees she now saw an altered landscape, everything seemed to be pale and motionless, the occasional tree looking vaguely scorched.
Even more worrying, in place of a party of armoured Shienaran soldiers, there was only Rand, Hurin and Loial along with their horses. No Aleksi either. Fuck.
It only took a moment for Taija to realise what had happened as the fog of sleep cleared from her mind. The how was a bigger question. This shouldn't have been possible.
She ignored the sound of Hurin begging 'Lord' Rand to explain what was happening and Loial's rumbling voice saying he thought he recognised the stone.
How could this have happened? Taija embraced saidar and reached out to run her hands over the stone, completely, unnaturally smooth other than the symbols carved into it. After a minute her temper got the better of her and she snapped at the others, "will you be quiet! I'm trying to work out how we got here and whether I can get us back."
They shut up instantly. At least there were some benefits to everyone being afraid of aes sedai in this time. Then Hurin hesitantly asked, "how do you think we got here Tai… uh Lady Alisa?"
"Give me a minute of peace and I'll try to find out."
Taija knelt in front of the stone, she'd have preferred to have sat cross-legged, but this time's clothing conventions really didn't facilitate that for women. Spinning saidar she formed a complex web of spirit and laid it just so onto the correct symbols on the stone.
"So this is a trans-dimensional breach actuator," her voice had unconsciously taken on a lecturing tone, decades of teaching experience showing. "It allows travel between alternate realities. Places where different choices were made where what might have been actually is. I suppose you could call them mirror worlds as they're a kind of a reflection of our world"
Diagnostic indicators sprung up in front of her, a bright screen of colours and symbols projected into the air by the One Power to gasps from the others. Taija could see the webs behind the colours, comforting saidar mixed with invisible saidin, but all they would see was a flat plane of strange colours and symbols.
"Why we're here specifically… That's more of a mystery. Only a channeler should be able to activate one of these and it certainly wasn't me." It would take a powerful one too, using on of these took far more strength than just Traveling. Taija shifted her web slightly and the projection changed to show historic activations. "Mmm. So, according to this, the last activation was during the night due to," she stopped herself just before she said saidin. "Due to a malfunction. An error in the device. I think the one in our world has been damaged quite badly."
She wasn't even lying. Although how in the Light Rand had done that by accident she didn't know. It took a lot of strength to activate one of these things and as far as she'd been able to gather with some gentle questioning he'd only been channeling for weeks or months.
Taija shifted the web slightly again and looked at the symbols projected in front of her before shaking her head slowly. "Normally I could take us right back to our world - see here's the symbol for Earth, our world." She pointed at a particular symbol. "However, here I think the damage to our world's stone is bad enough that we'd most likely die trying." She was trying hard not to think about how close she came to dying in her sleep. Transported by an untrained boy in an accidental activation of a badly damaged trans-dimensional breach actuator. Fuck.
All three of her companions had paled at her words, but probably for different reasons.
"So we're stuck here and there's nothing we can do?" Asked Rand.
"Well I could take us to a different stone, but without knowing where it is, we could find ourselves underwater, in a volcano or trying to access another damaged one. So I think it's probably a last resort. We'd have a better chance if we can find another stone here so that we know where it is in our world and I can use it more safely than the last time." Taija gave Rand a significant look and from his twitch she thought he got the message.
Rand nodded. "I see. So where can we find another stone?" Taija shrugged, so he turned to Loial, "have you read anything about where else one might be?"
Loial shook his giant head sadly, "I don't remember anything Rand, I've only seen portal stones mentioned in passing, never in any detail." So that was what they called them now.
Then Hurin spoke up. "Lord Rand! I can still sense the trail. It's faint, kind of faded like everything else here, but the darkfriends, I think they came through here, so maybe they can lead us to the way out!"
Rand grinned and clapped Hurin on the shoulder. "Excellent! Good work Hurin, lead on!"
Taija had her doubts, it sounded more like a reflection of her own world. However, she didn't really know how Hurin's power worked and, more importantly, it wasn't like she had a better idea.
They rode along the darkfriends' trail, crossing the odd land. Everything at the edge of Taija's vision seemed to be slightly distorted and it was giving her a headache. At one point Loial stopped and tree-sung himself a quarterstaff from one of the burnt looking trees. Hurin also seemed to be worried by the faintness of the trail, but Rand reassured him. It was odd seeing a teenager helping a grizzled veteran feel better like that.
When darkness fell, Taija and her little party made camp and she spun her normal, inverted protective wards around herself and the camp, also warding Rand against intrusions to his dreams as she had the night before.
Sleep came only with difficulty. Taija had been to parallel worlds through these 'portal stones', not a bad name actually. However, never for this long. She'd always been more interested in the mechanisms than in empty worlds on the other side and now she was cursing that lack of interest.
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The next day as they rode they reached a huge spire, which turned out to be covered in trolloc script. Taija was repulsed by the thing, but was a little bemused the fear it triggered in the others until she found out that in her world it was apparently a monument to victory over the trollocs. Disturbing. She exactly hadn't been relaxed before, but she needed to be even more on her guard if this world was dominated by shadowspawn. Not that they'd seen a single thing move in nearly two days of travel.
However, it wasn't long after that that they heard a woman's scream from up ahead. Before Taija could stop him, Rand spurred his horse towards the sound. She chased after him, along with Hurin and Loial, to see a dark-haired woman dressed in white and silver fending off a huge three-eyed monster with a stick. Even at that distance there was something about her…
Before Taija could shout anything to Rand he drew his bow and sent an arrow into the creature. This didn't seem to do much to it, but it turned away from the woman and charged towards Rand instead.
While the mens' attention was grabbed by the charging beast, Taija's stayed on the woman. Worst case she could fry the monster before it got too close and she absently prepared an inverted web of fire and air to do just that.
However, as soon as the monster turned towards Rand the woman seemed to relax completely. The incongruity with her earlier scream and frantic fighting was jarring. She turned to watch the creature charge Rand and calmly called out that to kill a 'grolm' one must hit it in the eye.
The moment Taija saw her face, heard her voice, her heart missed a beat, an icy spear of terror stabbing through it. The terror was followed almost instantly by overwhelming wave of hate. Unconsciously she started to form an inverted web of all five elements before sanity reasserted itself and instead she frantically checked the inverted webs concealing her ability to channel and that she was holding saidar. Thank the Light she'd been making a habit of spinning them each morning.
It took Taija a minute to get her breath under control and stop shivering as she sat there on her horse, drawing on saidar as deeply as she could, to the point where prickles of pain could be felt in her temples.
By then the woman had ridden over to Rand and introduced herself as Selene before getting off her horse and kneeling in front of him with an apparently heartfelt declaration of, "I am yours, Rand al'Thor!" What in the Light was her game here?
As Rand introduced Hurin and Loial to her, Taija could see that they were all instantly smitten with the woman. How did she do it? Rand was a teenager, it was hardly surprising. Hurin though, he was middle aged, he should know better and Loial wasn't even the same species. Argh!
She'd never worried too much about her looks, but Mierin always used to be one of the few people that could make her feel self-conscious about them. Even when Taija had thought they were friends.
After a moment Taija forced herself to ride up too, hoping that Mierin would mistake any fear on her face for worry about that creature, the grolm she'd called it.
"Oh, this is Lady Alisa." Rand introduced Taija without much interest and she thanked the Creator he remembered not to use her actual name.
"I am pleased to meet you Lady Selene, even in such difficult circumstances." Taija forced a smile, focusing very hard on trying to imitate Rand's accent and sound as vapid as possible. "It is good to see another face in this strange place."
'Selene' politely but uninterestedly returned Taija's greeting, before turning her attention back to Rand. As soon as she did, Taija breathed a guilty sigh of relief and moved away to let them talk. She didn't seem to want to hurt Rand right now, so let him deal with her!
Listening to their conversation from a couple of metres behind, Taija quickly found out that 'Selene' was from Cairhien and was out riding when she took a nap, only to wake up in this place and be attacked by the monster. What a load of shit.
Rand was already promising to see her home, practically eating out of her hand and Hurin eagerly told her all about the hunt for the Horn of Valere. Did neither of them have the slightest hint of survival instincts?! To be fair, even Rand was unimpressed by Hurin saying that, asking 'Selene' not to say anything about it, which of course she promised readily. What was a promise to someone who'd break it without even thinking about it?
It wasn't long before they were all riding again, continuing along the darkfriends' trail. Taija made sure to hang back a bit, she wasn't sure she could manage to exchange more words with Mierin than she already had without giving herself away and that would mean death. She just needed to wait for the right opportunity…
'Selene' was telling Rand all about what a great man he'd be, big, beautiful eyes shining up at him and Taija sourly noted that at least he was a bit uncomfortable with that.
She knew she wasn't playing her role as well as she should, keeping back and not joining in the conversation. However, she could only hope that Mierin thought she was sulking at the attention the men were giving her. It was the sort of thing Mierin would think. She'd complained about the way most women were around her before, back in the day. It was probably just a roundabout way of boasting.
'Selene' seemed to be trying to persuade Rand to leave the darkfriends' trail and go to another trans-dimensional breach actuator, although like Loial she called it a portal stone, as if she didn't know any better. Ridiculous. Rand, to his credit, was resisting and insisting on his mission. Taija might have been mildly impressed, if she wasn't deep inside her own head, frantically making plans and discarding them just as fast.
Mierin wasn't even subtle, explaining why the word was so washed out and going over mirror world theory with Rand, Loial listening in rapturously beside them. Apparently she'd read a book on it… Rand was naive, but surely he wasn't that naive?!
One thing that quickly became clear was that 'Selene' was desperately trying to seduce Rand. Taija couldn't work out what on earth she was expecting from this until a thought occurred to her. Surely Mierin didn't buy into this whole Dragon Reborn thing too?!
It was so stunningly pathetic that it actually broke through the terror she was feeling and she had to stifle a crazed giggle. As if crashing his wedding and swearing her soul to the Dark One, committing countless atrocities, wasn't enough! When Mierin found herself in a world completely unprepared for her she was was devoting her time to seducing a teenage farmboy that she thought was her ex-boyfriend reborn!
Taija was pulled away from her slightly demented thought processes by Rand firmly insisting that they would not be going to the 'portal stone' to the East that 'Selene' had suggested.
A minute later Taija heard the coughing sound of more of the monsters that were attacking 'Selene'. Suspicious timing, although of course none of the men even noticed.
Five of the creatures came running toward them as 'Selene' gasped theatrically, before informing Rand it was a pack of grolm. She wasn't even a good actor!
Taija could see that Rand wanted to run, but 'Selene' told him that once grolm had a trail, they would never leave it, so with a shout he galloped to a low hill, the rest of them following. Taija could see the grolm coming closer with weird jump-leaps that seemed to cover too much ground. If she hadn't been terrified out of her skin, she'd have been desperate to sit down and study how they did that. As it was, she resisted the urge to blast them with lightning, instead watching 'Selene' out of the corner of her eye.
Next to the woman Taija saw Rand dismount, take his huge bow off his back, string it and draw. He loosed an arrow, followed by another and another and another in quick succession. Five arrows streaked out, each one hitting a grolm dead in the eye.
It was a stunning display of archery. Everyone else looked equally impressed, even 'Selene' and Hurin said he'd never seen anything like it. Clearly Rand had some hidden depths for such a young man.
The moment of peace didn't last long though as the coughs of more grolm came echoing in the distance.
"Can you kill a hundred grolm with that thing?" There was a hint of sarcasm in 'Selene's' tone and she certainly didn't sound impressed anymore. She wasn't even being subtle, why was Rand being so stupid?! Surely teenage hormones weren't that bad!
'Selene' and Rand seemed to be squaring up for an argument and Taija slowly started to put together an inverted web behind her. However, Rand suddenly wheeled his horse to the East without another word and kicked his heels in, quickly followed by her.
A minute later, they were all galloping towards the 'portal stone' she'd been trying to persuade Rand to go to. Taija was thinking about trying to hit Mierin while they were on the move, but she just couldn't focus well enough through the effort of staying on her galloping horse. She couldn't take the risk, she was only going to get one shot and she needed to make it count, there was just too much risk of missing. Of course that woman looked as beautiful and relaxed on horseback as she did everywhere else, Light only knew where she'd learn to ride. Probably as a young girl at pony club or something similarly sickeningly sweet.
It wasn't long before they reined their horses in by a spotless trans-dimensional breach actuator, which Selene told Rand he must use. Of course he didn't see the blatant manipulation there or question how on earth she could get there or even know so much about the things. However, Taija did bless him, or at least the teenage hormones demanding he save the day, for not looking at her and asking her to do it instead.
At that point Taija was seriously considering just letting them go without her. A quick gateway and she'd be gone. Open, dive through and close. Grab Aleksi and go and find something less deadly to do. The chances of Mierin chasing after an unknown aes sedai when she had 'Lews Therin' at her mercy seemed minimal, she didn't know who Taija was after all.
Taija's options were narrowing second by second. She really didn't want to die under Mierin's tender mercies. She also didn't want to end her life smeared across several dimensions because a farmboy was using ancient technology with no idea what he was doing. It was actually stunning that Mierin was willing to risk it herself. Was she completely insane?!
Two things kept Taija from simply fleeing. She hadn't become an aes sedai, fought her way through the War of Power to leave innocents in the hands of one of the Forsakena dn she liked Rand Light damn her. Also, there was no way on earth that she would let Mierin have what she wanted without a fight. She'd rather die. So Taija kept her tight smile plastered across her face and prepared herself for death as Rand put his hands on the trans-dimensional breach actuator.
There was a quick flicker and to Taija's surprise she was still alive. Unfortunately so was Mierin.
Rand quickly gestured forward and pushed his horse into an efficient trot. Mierin of course rode up next to him, flattering the boy with honeyed compliments about how remarkable it was that he brought all of them over, even the horses.
To be fair to Rand, it was actually incredibly impressive that he'd done that. How did he even have the strength, let alone the skill? If Taija had any room in her head to think about how stupid it had been to let him try, she'd be hyperventilating.
For a second it looked like Rand might try to kiss 'Selene', but then he pulled back and told her not to talk about the portal stone anymore. Taija could practically feel her irritation before she smiled sweetly and agreed. It wasn't long before they ended with her giving another explanation of mirror worlds and their interaction with time, which all the men listened to far more enthusiastically than anyone ever listened to Taija talking about these kinds of things.
However, they were all distracted. Slowly, carefully, Taija changed her direction, so that it seemed like she was just dropping behind slightly. Saidar flowed through her, deep and powerful, as much as she could draw. She'd never been gladder that she'd taken the time to place a web over herself concealing that fact.
Taija's mind was serenity within the torrent of saidar flowing through her. Burning hate and gibbering fear both ruthlessly suppressed as weaknesses that would only get her killed. With excruciating caution, showing nothing on her face, she started to build a complex, inverted web of all give elements, coming together in intricate patterns around a solid core of fire and spirit.