Content warning: This interlude includes Graendal with all that entails (slavery, nudity, compulsion, but no explicit sexual activity).
As usual all speech in italics is in the Old Tongue.
Interlude XII - Are We The Bad Guys?
Tel finished changing out of his ruined clothes into clean ones of equally fine cut and make. He was sore and aching in various places and if he hadn't run a cleansing web over himself he'd smell faintly of smoke. However, his body's aches and pains were nothing compared to the anger burning inside him. Beaten off by a bunch of children. What was wrong with him? He was the Destroyer of Hope!
He needed to get his head back in the game. He had plans that needed to be pushed forward, things to do. If he kept letting himself be distracted he'd be easy meat for the rest of the Chosen. They could sense weakness and they wouldn't hesitate to turn on him, any more than he wouldn't hesitate to turn on them. Well, most of them anyway.
He began the web for a gateway, altering it slightly to send the polite chime that warned anyone at the other end that he was coming. After a suitable pause the gateway opened and he stepped through.
In an instant he was in an expansive atrium, sunlight shining down onto marble columns and gushing fountains while stunningly attractive, completely naked men and women cavorted around him.
With long practice he ignored them, focusing his attention on the full-figured woman in front of him. Again he ignored the way her dress clung to her curves, showing more than it concealed, instead looking straight into her eyes.
"Graendal," he nodded to her.
She smiled widely, "Sammael, how lovely to see you, to what do I owe the pleasure? A drink?" She gestured and a naked girl who couldn't have been far out of her teens immediately hurried over to offer him a glass of wine.
He glanced at the girl before dismissing her from his mind. "No, thank you."
"Oh Sammael, you should relax more," Graendal laughed. She shot a glance to her left and a handsome young man scrambled to get on his hands and knees while another knelt beside him holding a cup of wine up as if he was praying to her. They certainly both thought of her as a goddess.
Graendal settled down onto her human chair and gave Sammael a smile that would make lesser men go weak at the knees. "Since you don't want to take the time for small talk, tell me, what is it you want Sammael?"
Sammael ignored the slaves, they weren't important. "I have a proposal for you." Graendal leant forward, interested, and not at all coincidentally exposed yet more of her expansive cleavage to him. Typical. "I have plans that will elevate us in the Great Lord's regard and secure our positions as first among the Chosen."
"Go on," Graendal was polite as ever, her voice smooth, encouraging.
"I want to kill Lews Therin, Ishamael is losing his grip, wasting time trying to turn him. We both know the Great Lord's interests will be better served by having him dead. For that I need your help." He hated having to admit that he couldn't do something alone.
Graendal raised a perfectly manicured eyebrow shifting on her living chair to get more comfortable, before clasping her hands in her lap and looking straight into his eyes. "Are you sure you're not letting your judgment be clouded by your hate for the man?"
"No!" Sammael scowled and moderated his tone, "you know perfectly well how I feel about Lews Therin, you also know I'm nothing like Demandred, I don't let my emotions rule me."
"Mmm, no of course not." Graendal reached out and took her glass from the hands of her slave before sipping from it. "So what does this have to do with me?"
Sammael knew she was trying to needle him, she always liked to provoke people to say more than they meant to. "Lews Therin has found himself allies, allies who'll be significant opponents of the Great Lord themselves one day." He met Graendal's eyes, intensity burning in his voice. "They cannot be allowed to survive and neither can he, but alone I'm out matched by weight of numbers," he didn't try to hide the grimace at that admission. "However, together we could overwhelm them with ease, removing what are potentially the greatest opponents of the Shadow at a single stroke, or possibly compelling them to our side. We would reduce the other Chosen to insignificance in the face of our victory."
"Hmm," Graendal glanced at one of her performing slaves and the girl hurried over to prostrate herself in front of her before starting to massage her ankles and calves while staring adoringly up at her. "I can see the appeal of what you propose, but there are significant risks. Have you considered…"
Graendal was cut off by the entrance of a finely dressed, man with grey streaked through the brown of his thick beard and hair. A beautiful, young, pale-skinned brunette trailing behind him clutching nervously at the sides of her elegantly tailored, silk dress. Graendal looked over to them a flash of annoyance passing across her face before she smiled and clapped her hands together in apparent delight.
Sammael took a step to the side as the man hustled up to Graendal, he had eyes only for her and he suspected that the man would have just walked through him if he hadn't moved. Normally he'd have considered burning the man to ashes for the insult, but today the ever present anger didn't flare. It just seemed… unnecessary. Trivial perhaps.
Reaching the nude slave massaging Graendals legs the man immediately knelt, his knees hitting the floor with a thump. "My lady, I have come as you requested and I have brought my daughter and heir. As I told you, her beauty is spoken of widely." He didn't seem to see the slaves cavorting around the room, his eyes were completely fixated on Graendal. His daughter however did. She was staring wide eyed at her surroundings, confusion warring with awkward disgust and fear.
Tel shifted uncomfortably, he'd seen this play out before. Graendal had her predilections, he knew that well enough.
"Father, what's going on, what are we doing here?" She was refusing to give in to her fear, a brave one then, but he could hear the tremor in her voice.
Graendal rose from her human chair, "you have done well Lord Ponin." She eyed the girl, her gaze roving up and down, eyes coldly analytical before she smiled beatifically. "Yes you did not exaggerate at all. Your daughter is a beauty, she will do well."
"Thank you my lady!" Lord Ponin sounded delighted to have pleased her, ecstatic even.
"What are you talking about? Father? What is wrong with you?" The girl looked like she was about to try to run, not that that would do her much good. Tel could see the rising panic in her body language. She tried to shake her father's shoulder and he roughly brushed her off without taking his eyes off Graendal. "What have you done to my father?!"
Graendal just smiled lazily, looking down at her, a predatory gleam in her eyes. Despite being no taller than the girl she somehow seemed to loom over her. "Oh I would not worry about him my dear girl, he has served me well. Just as you will." The way she looked around the room at her slaves said everything. Tel could see that she was relishing this. Was she putting on a display just for his benefit? Surely not, she knew he was made of sterner stuff than that. Wastefully distasteful as he found it, this was nothing he hadn't seen before.
The girl was backing away from Graendal, retreating from her father too. Her eyes franticly looking for anything that might help until they settled on Tel. The only other person in the room wearing clothes, the only one who wasn't gazing adoringly at Graendal.
"Sir, please, help me! I don't know what she's done to my father, I think she must be an aes sedai. Please!" Tel could see the desperate hope in her face as she begged, but she must know that he wasn't going to do anything to save her.
The goosebumps on his skin hadn't gone away since he arrived, but Tel could still identify the exact moment Graendal placed her web on the girl. The sharpness in her deep brown eyes suddenly faded. Her gaze on him became unfocused as terror, hope, alertness even life dimmed in them.
He grimaced, Graendal's methods were crude, wasteful.
The girl looked away from him, towards Graendal now, tension leaving her body.
Tel tried very hard not to think of Taija's companions, a similar age to this girl. So full of passion, working together to fight him, just as it should be. Loyal, competent servants of the Light. The way they were so relaxed when he arrived, able to share hopes and dreams before he'd descended on them. He absolutely did not think about how another pair of dark brown eyes would look as life faded from them to be replaced by perverse worship. He was Sammael, greatest of the Chosen, not some weakling who couldn't make the choices that needed to be made!
The girl stumbled to her knees in front of Graendal, mumbling words of adoration, her eyes shining with nothing but empty devotion for the woman in front of her while her father looked benevolently on, a vacant smile on his face.
Graendal seemed to have forgotten Tel was there, smiling happily down at her newest slave. "Wonderful, simply wonderful. You will start off serving me food and drink and I shall then consider how best to employ you. Now strip, take that dress to be disposed of and go to the kitchens."
Long forgotten sensations were welling up inside Tel as the girl hurried to disrobe, previous awkwardness and fear entirely forgotten. Was this really what he had sworn himself to? He'd seen it or things like it happen so many times before though. Sacrifices needed to be made for victory, he knew that. Yet some things were… He did what he had to do and that was that.
Her business done, Graendal turned her attention back to Tel, "I do apologise for the distraction, but you know how it is, there is always business to be done." She seemed to have forgotten the bearded father kneeling in front of her, not that he objected in his delight at being so close to her. "Now back to your suggestion. The honest answer is, it seems like a risk. Now I am not saying no. We have worked together ever so well since the first time I brought you to Shayol Ghul," she gave him an almost fond smile, "I know that you do not jump precipitously into action and I am inclined to put my trust in that, but like you I am cautious. I will need time to consider it further. These half-trained children can wait a week. I shall have my answer for you then."
Did he even want this? Was she like this even back then? For some reason the idea of unleashing this… woman on anything felt far less appealing than it had when he first arrived. Was revenge really so important that he could subject someone to her simply for having had the bravery and ability to fight him? "Thank you Graendal, I'll return for your answer in a week." Tel gave her a shallow bow, forcing the words out.
Graendal clapped her hands together, "well, now that that is settled, are you sure I cannot persuade you to join me for a drink? Conversation here is always a little dull," she laughed and glanced across the exposed flesh of her devoted slaves. "You do know how I like to reminisce about the good old days and there are so few of us left."
Tel shook his head immediately. "I have too much that I need to get on with, but thank you for your kind hospitality." The polite words were ashes in his mouth. "One week." He channeled and stepped through a gateway back to Illian without another word.
======
As soon as Sammael was gone the smile vanished from Graendal's face. There was something going on with the man. He was absolutely not himself. If she did not know any better she would think he was in the early stages of a breakdown.
Of course he projected his usual cold certainty, hard eyes and aggressive body language. Standard for the man. So much tension and so many useful buttons and levers to press if you knew what to look for.
She could remember all those years ago, the culmination of months of careful work when he had finally agreed to turn to the Shadow. In hindsight it had been almost laughably easy. A broken man standing on the precipice, just waiting for someone who could understand what he was thinking and feeling and then give him a small nudge. Really they had been kindred spirits, both dedicated in their own ways before being failed by those around them, allowing them to forge their own paths to greatness.
The Chosen were always on guard around her for compulsion, checking their servants for her webs and protecting themselves. Yet they always seemed to forget that she had earned her third name for her understanding of the human psyche and if you knew how to repair something then you also knew how to break it. They really were all fools, seeing the obvious, crude tools and neglecting to look for the subtle and invisible. The Power was not everything.
As for Sammael, well it was obvious what was bothering him. That girl he had been involved with. The Great Lord only knew how she had survived, that was certainly an unpleasant shock. She was not even sure what had attracted Sammael to her. Perhaps he just liked mild women that would just do as he told them, she supposed it would fit with him. He did so hate anyone questioning him.
Regardless, one day Taija would make a fascinating addition to Graendal's collection. Admittedly she did not meet Graendal's normal aesthetic standards, but that did not mean Graendal would not make an exception for someone like her. The last true aes sedai, perhaps as a footrest, it would be delightful. She allowed herself a little shiver of pleasure.
Sammael though, well he was clearly going to be off his game for at least a little while.
Graendal briefly considered taking advantage of that, removing him from the competition while he was distracted, but then dismissed the idea. It would be easy, a few words in Ishamael's ear, a stealthy strike in the night. But she had no doubt that he would pull himself together soon enough, if there was one thread that ran deeply through Sammael's psyche it was his sense of certainty and that would not be swayed, not after he had gone so far. He'd continue to come up with justifications for everything he had done because he'd never be able to accept anything else.
Anyway, she was actually fond of the man. Well as fond as she could be of any of the Chosen. He really was one of her greatest works, the culmination of years of subtle conversions of flawed men and women of the Light. When she became nae'blis there would be a place for him too. Under her obviously.
Perhaps she should help him get back to normal sooner. It would be simple enough to remove Taija and return matters to the status quo. But no, that also carried with it significant risks. Not least that he might try to take revenge on whoever he blamed for it. She had put some thought into whether she could frame another of the Chosen, but for now the idea would go on the back burner. Better to let him think think he was the one dictating events.
As for Sammael's proposal that they disobey Ishamael and work together to eliminate Lews Therin and his companions, well if he was thinking normally he would never have suggested it. Whatever she said, she had no intention of doing anything to help him with that.
She would do as she always did, watch and wait from the sidelines as she maneuvered the rest of them around the board like the unwitting fools that they were.