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

Chapter CXXXVIII - Stairway to Heaven

Taija's feeling that something was wrong continued to grow as she presented her stolen ID to the nervous woman manning the metal detector. It isn't just her nervousness, the whole city had a certain nervous atmosphere to it. Also there were too many police around and not enough other people. The square had been bustling when she'd first arrived and this government building should have had more staff and visitors, surely. That was why she wase barely paying attention to the woman in front of her, instead frantically scanning for any sign of danger.

Taija saw at least one grenade arcing towards her as someone threw it from behind a desk. She was already spinning the moment it left the man's hand, splitting her flows. Air around all of her, ward against sound, light filter in front of her face.

=====

Arho gripped his rifle, his knuckles white under his gloves. When he'd gotten the call he'd hardly believed his ears. Of course he'd heard the guns firing earlier, but that happened occasionally, although admittedly rarely. Most exiles had the sense not to test Paral's mercy. Now though…

The briefing had been all too short. The Watchers had called for every special weapons team that could reach the City Hall in a reasonable time. There hadn't been many, although more than he'd expected. Channelers, inside Paral. It was madness.

Of course they discovered the cursed wretches every now and again. Good citizens would come forward if they found they could channel, accept their exile and be rewarded for it. However there were always some that tried to hide their filthy curse. To keep living under the benevolent guidance of the Chief Secretary, enjoying the only safe place on the planet while gnawing away at its foundations. He'd only encountered one personally. The Watchers had found the man. They always found them, but in the privacy of his own head he could admit they'd slipped up with that one, given him time for his curse to grow stronger. Arho could still remember the smell of Panu's burning body after the man had somehow conjured fire at him.

They'd shot him, more than once in fact. That was the traitor's poor luck. By failing to hand himself in he'd condemned himself to being exiled without the gifts of Paral that would make his survival more likely. By fighting back, he'd ensured he'd be dropped off outside the Dead Zone with two gunshot wounds, hastily bandaged. They said it was hard to survive in the Wastelands, it must be impossible with those kind of injuries. Arho had no doubt the man had perished. His family might have survived, they were uninjured. However, they too had been deprived of the supplies they'd normally have received, a just punishment for their treason against Paral in covering up his curse, so he doubted it.

With an effort Arho drew his thoughts away from Panu's fate and back towards his current situation. A powerful channeler, inside Paral's walls, maybe more than one. It was unclear how they got there, or even which of them were the channelers, but what was clear was that they were dangerous, had had time to hone their curse and now were ready to use it to bring down the city so that their kind could take over once more. Come and take away the freedom and prosperity that Paralans had enjoyed while the outside world died. It was a frightening thought. He hadn't been accepted into the Watchers' Protection Division, not yet anyway. They might eat experienced channelers for breakfast after all of their training and the time they spent honing their edge, hunting through the Wastelands, but he wasn't one of them. Still, maybe if he proved himself here, it would help his application. Being on a Kill Team was certainly a guaranteed way to get your pick of the marriage licenses.

The radio crackled in his ear, "we go in 3, 2, 1…"

The moment the countdown finished Arho was following his sergeant as the man kicked open a door to the City Hall's lobby, gun at his shoulder. His headphones and goggles automatically suppressed the light and sound from the grenades' detonations and he lined up his gun on one of the intruders, squeezing the trigger. It kicked against his shoulder, bang on target. His bullets joining the other teams', almost instantly crossing the space between them and the targets. A series of thumps and bits of metal were falling out of the air.

An explosion to his left, he glanced out of the side of his eye as fire bloomed into the air. He pulled the trigger again, sending another burst downrange. Wet thumps, more explosions and only a second or two later an inexorable force ripped his rifle from his hands crumpling it in mid-air.

Arho immediately went for his pistol only to find that he couldn't move anything below his neck. However hard he strained, he found himself pushing against an immovable wall. His head was still free, but everything else was stuck. He was at the channeler's mercy! He forced himself to stay calm, he was a potential Protection Division member, not an inexperienced boy. He wouldn't mustn't give in to panic. Mustn't start screaming at the idea of being at a channeler's mercy.

Quickly he looked to his left and right then fixed his eyes firmly back in front. The sight of channelers, channelers who had him captive was still better than the torn apart remains of his team mates. Five full teams, all dead. How?!

"What happened? Report? Have you…" in a sudden movement his helmet and headset was torn from his head and floated over to the channelers. His eyes were drawn to the tall red headed man, he seemed to be their leader based on the way he stood, a bit older than the other man and far more confident in his body language. Was he already mad? Madder than the rest of them anyway?

Arho's eyes widened further as they all spoke to each other in a strange language, one he'd never heard. Were they actually natives of the Wastelands, not even exiles? How was that possible? At least exiles would have some idea about Paral, a Wasteland barbarian would have known nothing. Could never have reached the centre of the city. It was a pity he'd never had the chance to learn any of the Wasteland languages, although there'd never seemed to be much reason to bother. It wasn't like he'd want to talk to one of those barbarians even if he did meet one.

Then his introspection was broken, the smallest of the women came up to him. She had to look up to meet his eyes. She didn't look like much really, if she wasn't a channeler he'd break her like a twig. As it was…

"Why did you try to kill us?" Her Common Tongue was oddly accented, the intonations and rhythm all wrong. The words were smooth though, it didn't match with what he'd heard about the Wastelanders, who mangled civilised language if they could speak it at all. Had the Watchers failed in their duties? They must have to some degree for these people to even be here. Not that he would ever be stupid enough to voice that thought out loud.

She was toying with his radio headset as she spoke, perhaps bemused by the knowledge it represented. Wastelanders had no conception of science after all. "I do not speak to cursed channelers." He spat only to see his spittle hit an invisible wall in front of her.

"I'm not sure why you sound so put upon, you and your colleagues are the ones that tried to kill us without any warning. I really just want to speak to whoever's in charge." Arho goggled at her, was she mad?! They'd just killed nearly twenty of his comrades. They'd violated the sanctity of Paral, channeled inside the City Hall. It must be the madness, the hunger for power that infected every channeler.

"If you surrender, you'll be exiled from the city, but we'll allow you to live." He addressed his words to their leader, ignoring the mad woman in front of him. It was a lie of course. No one who'd done what they had would be allowed to leave Paral alive, the city's mercy only went so far.

The man blinked, paused and replied in horribly accented Common Tongue, "Honourless one, you speak Taija sedai."

It took Arho a moment to parse that before he realised that the woman in front of him was claiming to be an aes sedai. Both ludicrous and terrifying that anyone would be insane enough to want to call themselves that. He wondered which traitor had taught her about the term, presumably the same one that had taught her the Common Tongue.

"Thank you Jaer." She looked him over in a decidedly rude manner. If she were a proper Paralan woman she'd never have dared show such contempt. "Let's cut to the chase, I want to speak to your," she hesitated, "Chief Secretary. You're going to tell me where to find him."

Where were the reinforcements? Half the Watchers and City Police should have been descending on the City Hall. He forced defiance into his voice. "Torture me if you will witch, it will not work. I will never betray Paral or the Chief Secretary to you." Internally he had his doubts. Certainly any suspect they handed over to the Watchers talked very quickly.

"No, are you sure about that?" Fire suddenly sprung up in the air in front of him, started to move towards his face. He could feel the heat radiating off it and tried to pull his head away as much as the binding around him allowed.

"I'll never talk!" He didn't want to be burnt!

The fire vanished as suddenly as it had appeared and the woman grimaced. "Alright, I suppose I'll find him myself." Relief shot through Arho's veins, it made no sense that she'd stopped, but maybe he wouldn't be forced into talking after all. Then the doors behind the channelers exploded.

Glass, rubble and fire slammed into an invisible barrier behind them, followed by the crack of bullets. The woman in front of him winced slightly, but only glanced behind her. That look seemed to be unnecessary, the others were already moving. Taking cover and staring behind them. Arho couldn't see anything happening with his limited view, but more explosions blasted out and he was sure he heard screams.

======

Taija frowned as the others smoothly started to demolish whoever was outside. This wasn't how she'd wanted things to end up, there were going to be a lot of dead Paralans.

She glanced at the dead police around her, there already were a fair few. But then she hadn't come here looking for a fight, they were the ones that had repeatedly tried to kill her, almost did kill Egwene. As if she, one of the last living citizens of her time, didn't have the right to visit one of the Great Cities! She could see why this place was known as the Land of Madmen. It was probably a mistake even coming here, but she'd needed to know. Since she'd first heard the name of the city it had been almost overwhelming, impossible to resist. How could she turn away from the possibility of some part of her time surviving?! She still needed to know, what had happened to Paral. There was clearly so much wrong with the place, but it was still very obviously the descendant of the city she knew, not very well admittedly. She'd never had much reason to go there.

Right. She couldn't just stand around having a duel with the local police or army or whatever they were. Sooner or later one of the group would mess up and get shot or they'd wreck half the city. She needed to find out what had happened here and make sure they weren't not going to be a problem for her and then she needed to get back to what people in this time might tentatively call civilisation and get on with saving the world.

This building seems to be important to them, some of the signs mentioned the office of the Chief Secretary. Taija had no idea whether he'd actually be in the building or not, but she might as well have a look. Then, if she couldn't find him she'd just have to go and raid a library or something. If libraries weren't another thing these people had given up from their history.

Taija turned to the others just as something larger crashed into the barrier of air, making it shudder. Was that an armour piercing shell? Time to go. She supposed there was no point forcing the others to speak her language anymore. "Right, let's go. Faeve, Jaer, Jahar guard our backs. Egwene and I will watch the front. We're going to be heading upwards."

With those words Taija headed deeper into the building. She'd find the stairs and then she'd start climbing. It would probably suck, even if she was lazy and used gateways to get to the top of each flight, but she wasn't stupid enough to use the lifts in an enemy building.

As she passed an array of desks Taija made a mental note of the large index on the wall behind them. The Chief Secretary's offices took up several floors at the top, just above the Internal Security Directorate. Of course they'd be at the top. She really hoped that it wasn't just his support staff. Well, she'd find out soon enough.

=====

It was a slog going up the stairs of Paral's city hall. Even with all of the exercise that Taija did it made her legs burn. Unfortunately visibility was so restricted that there was no point in making short distance hops by gateway, she'd just use up channeling endurance to save a couple of seconds each time. Skyscrapers where she couldn't use lifts or gateways really were a terrible idea.

None of the others complained, they're all fit too, but Taija could see they weren't enjoying it. Well, except Jaer, who never showed whether or not he was enjoying something on his face. For a brief moment Taija was distracted by the thought of whether he was just as utterly expressionless in bed with Egwene. As she climbed she counted the floors. 35, 36, 37… the sign in the lobby suggested there were 55 floors and the top few were occupied by the Chief Secretary's offices. It was a huge chore. In hindsight maybe she should have just Traveled to the top of the building and then forced her way in, but then that would have left her vulnerable to attack from above.

It didn't help that she was tense the whole time, expecting an ambush of some kind. If it had been her, she'd have had someone rolling grenades down the stairs, or maybe gas. She was ready for either, because she had a paranoid mind, but there was nothing. Just stair after interminable stair. Boring green fire doors at each floor, all closed of course. Had they evacuated the building? Was this all pointless? She was relying on them not being willing to destroy their own main government building for a chance at killing her, otherwise they might just bombard it into rubble.

======

Eventually Taija reached the 55th floor. It turned out that the stairs went further up than that, but past that point they looked a lot like they were just for maintenance access, so hopefully she was at her destination.

After taking a moment to catch her breath Taija turned to the others, "Be ready for anything, defend yourselves, but don't attack unless I do. I want to try to at least speak peacefully with these people."

They all nodded at her and she looked the doors out from the stairwell over. They looked rather more solidly built than the ones on the lower floors. Hopefully they weren't locked. Taija reached out to push the handle down and then hesitated. A quick application of the Power and there was a strong barrier of air in front of her, then she pushed the door handle down with another web. To her shock the door swung open, clearly unlocked and not mined. What a pleasant surprise.

Carefully Taija stepped through it into what seemed to be a waiting area. Unlike much of what she'd seen in Paral it was actually somewhat tastefully decorated. Minimalistic in style, but comfortable looking with a few chairs and tables. The walls were mostly cream, but with Paral's motif repeated across them. It could probably do with some actual art or something though.

There were a couple of open doors leading to corridors on each side, but the obvious destination was the grand doorway ahead of her. The doors were closed, but made of finely carved wood and Paral's crest sat proudly above them.

There was still no sign of any people, so Taija very much doubted she wase going to find anyone in there, let alone this Chief Secretary, but at that point she didn't care all that much. She'd at least have a look at his office. Maybe he'd have some books she could steal or something.

With another web of air Taija pushed open the double doors and stepped through. Her eyes widened as she entered the office, although calling it an office was perhaps ungenerous. It was huge, somewhat bigger than the whole apartment she'd lived in before she met Tel. At the back a huge pane of glass covered one side, giving an expansive view over the city. The walls were wood paneled and decorated with paintings of various scenes that Taija assumed were from Paral. Dominating the room was a more than substantial desk made of a shining, dark wood. As she'd expected there was no sign of life.

"Egwene, Jahar, guard the door. Faeve, Jaer, spin barriers of air around the rest of the room." Taija paused, "Around the floors and ceilings too, they might come through those. I'm going to have a look through this Chief Secretary's things before we move on."

She headed over to the desk and started flicking through a pile of papers. Crop production, boring. Policy proposal on a dock upgrade, boring. Performance reports for members of the City Council, boring. Exile orders for social agitators, she blanched, since when was criticism of the government a crime?

Taija was reading through that one in more detail with mounting disquiet, how did they know so much about what's going on in people's lives, when with a crackling sound the large screen on the wall facing the desk came to life. Faeve yelped and nearly obliterated it before she let her web fade. Even Taija jumped.

=======

Moridin watched as al'Thor rode out from Caemlyn's walls, towards the edge of the impressively extensive anti-Traveling wards that criss-crossed the city. Everything was going according to plan, the boy had taken the bait. He would make the right decisions when it came to the Last Battle and Moridin would finally be able to enjoy peace. There would be a couple of minions awaiting al'Thor at the site of his father's death. Entirely disposable ones of course, just enough to further the boy's rage and convince him that he had sprung the trap. After all, Moridin most certainly did not want him dead. He needed to be there, to face the Dark One at the end.

Moridin got up from his seat and turned towards what was now known as the Dragon's Palace, a thoroughly third rate structure in his opinion. With al'Thor safely away and unable to intervene he could continue with the next step of his plan. Demandred would call it shaping the battlefield, except that Moridin's battlefield had little to do with armies. No, his battlefield was the Dragon's psyche.