[Originally posted on as Barid Bel Medar @ 1 September 1999]

[This was written with the aid of Alanna Sedai, al'Thor, The Amyrlin Seat, Autumnflame, Ben-T Gaidin, Blademaster, Lanfear, Lanfir, Mordeth, Selinthia Avenchesca, Serafelle Sedai]

Gaidar means, in the Old Tongue, Sisters of Battle. The term results from the Aes Sedai's name to warders - Gaidin, Brothers of Battle. The firsts who began to use that title were the Aes Sedai who were sent by Elaida's order to the Black Tower, to destroy it, and were bonded instead, the only option the Asha'man had, considering the Dragon Reborn's orders, forbidding the Asha'man to harm Aes Sedai.

A saying among the warders in the Black Tower says: "When a man names his warder Gaidar, it's time to walk around lightly." The Asha'man despise the very word with passion that is bested only by their loathing to the need to put their warders in a danger of any kind. From an Asha'man's lips, that title is a curse.

The biggest gap between the White Tower and the Black Tower is that in the White Tower the bond can be platonic. That the bond in the Black Tower was planned to be of any use only between husbands and wives had cause more troubles to the Asha'man than anything else could have ever made.

Especially after The Days of the Black Guardians, when the Gaidar decided that it mustn't be allowed to the Asha'man to escape bonding them without proper punishment. The actions taken those days mustn't disappear from the pages of history. To take, for example, Rhodri's and Memara's story...

The History of the Black Tower, volume I
By Elmindreda al'Thor
The Court of the Sun
The Forth Age

Dyelin, high seat of house Taravin, stood on the highest tower in the Lion Palace, her eyes were directed to the north. She wore a thick fur coat over thick woolen dress, silk or velvet were no help in this cold, the coat reached below her knees, yet she still shivered, in midnight the air was almost as cold as ice. The skies, for a change, were clear. Dyelin stared north, watching, waiting, fearing. Watch for the Black Tower, Dyelin, the Queen Elayne ordered, there might be... troubles heading toward us from this direction, and soon.

And so she watched, she came here every night, in the last four days, since the child, she had seen born, was gone with the Dragon Reborn not a day after she was crowned. She came to watch, there was nothing more she could do, but she watched still. Elayne didn't explain herself, but no explainations were needed. The new Queen of Andor feared the Asha'man going mad, and soon. The reason was unknown to Dyelin, but she believed, no one could know better than Elayne.

It was hard to decide if the woman truly loved the Dragon Reborn or simply sacrificed her own happiness for Andor. Whatever the reason for Elayne had for actions, Dyelin couldn't afford herself to ignore the warning.

Then, she noticed... something, a movement that caught her eye, but she saw nothing. She squinted hard, trying to figure out what caught her attention.

The skies burned! And night became day! Not daring blinking, although her eyes ached from the sudden burst of light, it was like watching a fireworks display, if someone could afford buying every last firework in the world.

Trails of fire in every color possible lighten the night, and lightning stroked down from clear, cold black sky.

Dyelin hugged herself, and suddenly the cold became harder, sharper. She tasted old fear and a new one; the Asha'man had gone mad, she couldn't let herself doubt it, couldn't let herself hope. Maybe all the Asha'man had gone mad at the same time.

And, for Caemlyn, for Andor, and maybe for the entire world, all hope was lost.

Mierin hadn't left his side since the moment he opened his eyes. Narishma found it soothing, he couldn't make himself forget those visions. They touched his worst fears, fears he had hidden even from himself, until the Dark One forced them to face the worst their mind could create.

The other had felt the same; he saw too many hollowed stares. Mierin insisted on holding his hand in hers whenever it was possible, and even when it wasn't. The only reason they were still here, in a hall about a mile away from the room where they all cleansed saidin was that they needed the others' presence, even without talking, it was comforting to know that the others were here, that there was some protection against those nightmares.

He couldn't touch saidin if his life depended on it, or even Mierin's. And the others looked just as he felt, cloths damped with sweat, some with blood. Narishma felt no open wounds in Mierin, only a mass of small bruises.

They would have to heal on their own. The same as his bruises and cuts, not a single man or a woman in the room seemed capable of even feeling the source. The only reason none of them collapsed until now was fear, turning their stomach slowly. Fear that in their sleep the nightmares would return. Despite his tiredness Narishma was ready to give up sleep entirely.

He took another deep sip from the cup he was holding, it looked, and tasted like mud mixed with water. An Aiel drink called ousqui, that was the reason why this room was where they gathered. A big barrel of ousqui stood in the corner, and half of it was empty already. Narishma looked at the room, it was one of the two or three dozens great halls the Lord Dragon created when they used the One Power, in one of the few times both side of the Power were used since the Breaking of the World, to bore those caves inside the Dragonmount. The rock pattern was the only way to define between the rooms; this hall was just like the rest of the countless rooms that were created, only far bigger, capable of containing hundreds or thousands of people easily. This hall, however, had no windows, like most of the rooms they have created, and unlike all the other halls. Narishma preferred it that way, those windows were nothing but holes in the rock, and the halls were cold enough to freeze a man's blood, now. This place was still undone, and it would require time and effort to smooth the rough edges of this place. Staring down, he traced with his eyes the black and white rocky stone floor.

The hall gave the feeling of being empty despite being populated by Aes Sedai, Asha'man, the Dragon Reborn and two of the Forsakens who betrayed the Dark One. All gathered inside a hollow mountain that could contain the entire population of Arafel. They all drunk silently, the strongest drink that they could find here, in the Dragonmount, few miles only from the White Tower. Drinking in order to forget. Saidin is clean! Yet the only thought that flashed in his mind was fear from sleep, fear from the memories.

What would I have felt without Mierin? He wondered for a moment, he doubted if there was anything that could send so much fear into him as much as losing Mierin.

He sat down tiredly near one of the walls. He could only barely feel saidin, touching the power was impossible. And his and Mierin's rooms were more than three miles from here, that is, if he could even find his way in this mass of corridors. Mierin, of course, seated herself next to him, still refusing to let go of him. He was more than grateful that she did it by her own. He needed to know that he was alive, needed to know that she was alive. And the bond simply wasn't enough. Not to mention the comfort he drew simply by touching her.

He blinked, that was all; he certainly had no intention of sleeping. Not any time soon, despite his tiredness. Yet cleaning saidin seemed an easier task than simply opening his eyes. He blinked, and hours passed between the moment he closed his eyes and opened them.

He had an arm wrapped around the sleeping Mierin, he didn't remember putting it there; she must have been the one who put his arm there. He stared at her for a moment, trying to push down emotions he never felt before and never wished to feel. I love her, he thought, wondering. The bond was responsible to this, responsible to tie his emotions to this woman that so far gave him nothing but trouble and bitterness and anger. She wore black and silver, she made no comment when she changed her clothings, but he knew it was him who was responsible for this. Silver hair hanging down, covering his shoulder, as easily as long as his own hair. And he loved her! He wanted to wake her up and tell her this. Whatever the reason for this emotion, it was as real as any he had ever felt.

And only then he remembered.

He felt the tearing inside him; it was a pain stronger than any he could imagine.

And, in the back of his head, Mierin... extinguished. There was no blood in their room when he reached it, panting, and only a short message explaining that she'd gained her freedom, and needed nothing more. A message thanking him for freeing her from her obsession to Lews Therin! It had taken three men to stop him, and had anyone been in the depths of the Dragonmount, thousands would have died in his wrath.

Mierin had returned to be Lanfear, and if she was free from her obsession, he was captive in one of his own. In the space of few days, so short, he gained and lost more than he deserved, more than he could ever have. And nothing save saidin was left for him.

He gained his strength rapidly, reaching his limit faster than he should have; he danced with death more times than he could remember, could care.

But somehow, he always escaped, unharmed. And then she appeared, hair molten silver and eyes deep blue, leading an army big enough to wipe humanity. Men died in an all but endless battle, and he found himself leading small bandits of men twice his age, skimming around the shadow army, led by the woman he loved.

He became dangerous, to himself, to others, he knew he was more than half mad, but couldn't make himself care. Mierin, Lanfear, hunted his dreams, despite the strongest shields he wove. Shielding didn't help when it was your own mind that guided the dreams. The battles continued, and they never seemed to win, the shadow army was half its original size when the last seal broke. And the time of the Last Battle arrived.

Rand had to be in the Pit of Doom, and he was appointed as the leader of the army, a bitter, angry, man that never slept enough. "She might hesitate for just long enough for you to strike, Narishma." He was told, "You can't allow yourself to fail."

And he met her on the battlefield; he was strong, very strong. Not much below Rand al'Thor himself. As the two armies clashed against each other all his eyes could see was a black and silver figure, in the middle of the army of his enemies, an army twice the size of his own. Led by the woman he loved. And they won; yet the price was Mierin's life, she did hesitate, for the shortest instance, upon killing him, and he killed her despite the dock of tears that hindered his sight.

They won that battle; the shadow army broke after their leader's death. And the Last Battle was also won, but he never slept more than a full hour again. Could never close his eyes without seeing her in the moment of dying. Until the end, both of them believed he couldn't, wouldn't, do it. Yet he did, and he could never forgive himself for this.

Narishma shied away, too afraid to touch her, too afraid of might happen. What he was so afraid of, loving her? He found no use in trying to hide his emotions from himself, a side affect of the bond, or maybe it was the other way around. He neither knew nor cared. His hands closed to fists. And he rose carefully from the floor, cautious not to wake Mierin.

He shivered, frightened, the nightmares chased him into the sleep, drinking helped not a bit. Strangely, his head didn't hurt; he heard that this was how it was supposed to feel after getting drunk.

"You'll," A woman's voice said, making him jump, Elayne's warder smiled at him for a moment before frowning at her Aes Sedai. Leaning on Rand al'Thor, together with Aviendha. There were signs of fear there too, and even in the Lord Dragon's face. What can frighten the Dragon Reborn? He wondered, and then he thought better, deciding that he had no wish to know.

They were all sleeping, he was the first to wake, and moans broke the silence all too often. "You all will, but why?" He heard steel in her voice, "What happened, you all began to scream, I hadn't seen such thing since..." She cut off sharply, as if she was about to say something she shouldn't.

"Fear," He answer, failing to clear his voice from emotions, "We were protected from the Dark One, or so we thought, but he... spoke to us, searched within our mind, our souls, to discover the worst fears and show them to us."

She muttered a word in the Old Tongue, not a word he knew, he reminded himself to ask Mierin what the meaning was, it sound very much like a curse, reserved for special occasion only.

He was glancing at Mierin again. He had to make sure she was still here. He shivered, visibly; the memory of the dream hadn't left him. "You've nothing to worry about," Min said, giving him a start, he hadn't seen her, standing motionlessly near one of the walls. "She is still there." He stared at her sharply.

"Have you seen something, Min?" He needed to know it for sure. The dream, the nightmare, would never let him sleep again if he wouldn't know, one way or another. And Min's talent was... a solution.

"Nothing you will find..." She paused for a heartbeat before continuing, and the smallest smile possible shown on her lips, "worthy of knowing, Narishma." Yes, she was certainly grinning at herself, whatever it was that amused her so much, Narishma didn't like it. "One warning, though, Jahar Narishma." Min added; he stared at her, keeping his eyes on her face, ever since the betrayer Dashiva almost lost a hand looking at her, Narishma kept his eyes to himself. No matter that the Dragon's lover - warder, wife - dressed in cloths that fit her like a second skin. It was only wise, after all, he had enough trouble with al'Thor already, the man was more jealous than a Saldean woman! Which took something!

"Yes?" He inquired.

"Never let yourself be alone with a woman, Narishma." Her smile widen, from the edge of his eye he could see Birgitte - what mother would give her daughter such a name? Yet, the woman certainly seemed to be trying to be worthy of the name - beginning to smile too. "You wouldn't like it, she is very jealous woman." He snorted as he bent to heave Mierin in his arms and walked to the door, he didn't know this room well enough to open a gateway for Traveling. "She shouldn't be sleeping on the floor." That was all the explanation he suggested. She said nothing he didn't know already.

"Enjoy yourself," Min muttered, his back was turned to her, but he could hear the grin in her voice.

"Both of you," Birgitte added, amusingly. And Min began to laugh.

Women!

Darian's first thought was that he must be mistaken; the second was that he had gone mad. Saidin poured into him, sweet as life, as corrupted as death. The silver pin shaped as a sword lying in his hand, the very first of those who came from the Two Rivers to be a Dedicated. But he couldn't ignore this feeling, saidin became... slippery, hard to hold, and the taint wasn't as vile as he had almost gotten used to.

"Shadow consume my soul!" The M'Hael whispered slowly, he felt it too! Slowly the M'Hael sat down on a comfortable chair. At the M'Hael's study, where he had been called to be raised to Dedicated. Everything gave the sense of heavy grace. Unlike almost everything in the Black Tower, the room wasn't full with mismatch of furnishing taken from the Light alone knows where. And the chairs and table were made of fine, dark carved wood.

"What is it, M'Hael?" Darian asked, too afraid to hope.

The question brought the M'Hael's attention to him, "Get out," The man hissed, eyes flaring with anger. "Get out!" That was the first time anyone saw the M'Hael losing control the slightest. Darian was more than happy to obey, by the man's face; he was ready to kill him! "The fool had done it," He heard the M'Hael growling behind him, and then the sound of the sound of glass breaking. "That goat faced horse kisser has done it! Burn him!" Closing the door behind him, Darian all but ran out of the small wooden building. Just as he heard something heavy, maybe the big dark table, being smashed against a wall, and the entire wooden building trembled.

Outside, not one man moved, all seemed frozen, even the newest soldiers, all felt the same, he was not mad. "Light," He heard someone saying, and caught Balir's face, the young man held a sword in his hand, but he didn't seem aware of it. "It's fading! The taint it fading!"

He saw hope on more than one face, and expectation and longings. But on some faces, mostly Asha'man and Dedicated, he saw the unmistakable expression he saw on the M'Hael's face. Disbelief mixed with horror.

And now I can finally die, Lews Therin said, his voice full of longing, as soon as Rand let go of saidin,a heartbeat only after he finished reweaving the shield over the sa'angreals and the last two seals. Now I can truly die. My deeds erased, my debt is paid, Rand al'Thor. It was the very first time Lews Therin had named him. You'll do well, I believe. And may the Light have its mercy upon you. Goodbye, Rand al'Thor, goodbye forever. Maybe we will meet again, in another lifetime, or in death. I will be there, at the end. He fell quiet for a moment, and the whisper came, Ilyena, always and forever my heart. May the Light forgive me, but I've not forgotten, nor forgiven myself. Your soul shall lay in the mercy of the Light, Ilyena Therin Dalisar, and peace guard your dreams in the eternal sleep of the dead. It had the sound of a formal greeting, and so much pain that it tore something inside his heart.

And then the man was gone, Rand could feel him disappearing, fading, and he stood, panting, trying to fight down the enormous weave of memories that was spawned into his head.

His mother fixing his collar when he went to study, to be an Aes Sedai, with him claiming that he had no need of such services anymore. He remembered how she laughed at him and did it anyway, saying that he would never be too old for her.

The face of the first girl he had kissed, and then Mierin, he had so many memories of her... so many that he loathed and loved. And Ilyena, always Ilyena, her smiles, and the way she moved, her laugh and how the light reflected in her eyes every time she kissed him.

And saidin, that was always there, pure and strong and deadly. Thousands of friends, enemies that he counted in millions, endless duties, and responsibility he never asked nor wanted. I'm the First of Servants, the Lord of Morning, the Prince of Dawn, the Dragon, and every title is like a huge mountain on my shoulder. I always try to swim to the surface, always being dragged back by those duties, and I'm only strong enough for quick breaths, only enough to survive. Never enough to truly live. He remembered the time he said as much to Ilyena, remembered her reply so clearly it brought tear into his eyes. He remembered all the books he had wrote, friends that became enemies. Enemies that became friends, schemes in dimensions no Aes Sedai who was born in this age or even Cairhienins skilled in Daes Daimar could even begin to understand.

The intrigues inside the Hall of Servant, and the nightmare of ruling the entire world with that constant fear he would fail, sooner or later. All the details, all the responsibility, that endless fear the first time Ilyena gave birth, a daughter, so like her mother that he fell in love in the little baby instantly.

He remembered killing her in his madness, killing every last one of the beautiful children he and Ilyena created together.

So many memories, half a millennia of memories, a man that had seen everything, done everything one could imagine, and much one couldn't. Too many memories to hold, they lied clustered in his mind, sometimes popping up for he reason he did not know. Hope and fear, love and hate. Old friends and new enemies, battles and passion, love and hate. The closest that he could ever reach to another human being, one that wasn't that much different from the way he himself was, or would be. He could see Lews Therin in himself, and himself in Lews Therin, and no line bordered them this time. And finally, three thousands years after he'd killed himself, Lews Therin could die, and rest.

Those were the memories Rand woke with, and the pain in his side, and a nightmare where he had lost everyone he had ever loved, again. And again, and again! Endless circle he could break only by swearing himself to the dark, so he kill them again and again, and the pain nearly killed him each time.

"Light!" He breathed, "Oh, Light!" He almost reached for saidin, almost, but even after the sleep, he was exhausted. And he didn't want the void holding off his emotions, not now. He pushed Elayne gently aside, she leaned against him, and there were signs of tears on her face. Crying in her sleep, no doubt, he felt like crying himself, but he doubted if he could cry. She didn't wake up when he rose; he leaned her against the wall and stepped back, nearly tripping on Aviendha.

He needed to clear his head, to rest, he grinned despite himself; he came to this place, to his grave, the place where he was born, because even he could acknowledge Min's claims that he was working himself too hard. Did Elayne thought he had no ears, when she walked around and mumbled about what the Great, all-knowing Lord Dragon, as Elayne put it, consider as vacation.

"Rand!" Min hurried to him, "I was beginning to fear that you'll sleep all day long." He closed his hands around her, hugging her hard. Birgitte smiled at him above Min's head, and turned her back to him. He glared at her; there was no need to be... discreet. Not when you were so obvious doing it.

He examined her face, she must have slept too, all signs of tiredness were gone from her face, he shouldn't have depended on her strength, but he had no choice. He shouldn't have done so many things. It was no time to regret abandoning his plan half way carrying it out. He had no choice there either. But the risk was horrifying, he didn't had time to consider them at the time, he and Lews Therin had became almost one for that time, no thought existing, only the power existed, and they struggled to push the taint back into it's source. Had he had time for consideration, not even he would have dared such a plan, but he hadn't. And so he ripped open yet another bore into the Dark One's prison, and sent the caged taint into the Dark One's prison. Pushing it through the hole he created. He tore apart the prison he created for the taint inside the Dark One's prison, with his flows sending back to him a sense of filth viler than the taint. He tore the prison the taint was caged in, and used the piece he shredded to seal the Dark One's prison up again. The Dark One's prison was whole again, he tried to strengthen the prison, make it harder. So it could endure the Dark One's pressure on it, he failed. He truly hoped that his actions didn't drastically weaken the Dark One's prison, but he had no such illusions. "How long I've slept?" He asked Min.

"About five or six hours, I think," She answered as he traced the line of a long, shallow cut on her cheek with one finger and looked at her in anguish. The seal that had exploded was broken to small pieces; the largest piece was the size of a human's pupil, if that; and the explosion launched those pieces like arrows from a strong bow. It was only a bit more than an inch from her left eye. "If you dare blaming yourself for this scratch too, Rand al'Thor," Min whispered to him, full of anger and frustration, "I think that I'll put a dagger in you." A knife appeared in her hand, the one who wasn't hugging him hard. "I'll not have you being so arrogant anymore."

He gaped at her, "Arrogant? I feel guilty because my actions have harmed you!"

"What else can it be," She told him seriously, "You'll never harm me, and I know it as well as you do! Do you think you can control the Wheel of Time? Do you think that you, all by yourself, weave the pattern?" She tapped on his chest with the dagger's hilt, none too gently.

"Of course not, Min. I don't see how - " He began to protest, but she was only pausing to take a breath.

"You don't? Really? Then why under the Light you blame yourself whenever something goes wrong! You're only human, Dragon Reborn or no Dragon Reborn. You can't do anything by yourself, and I thought you're smart enough to understand it by yourself! How much pride do you have, Rand al'Thor, to think that this is your fault." She tapped on his chest again, harder. And touched the cut on her face for a moment. She took a step back, shaking with anger, glaring at him. "I'd just about enough of this!" His mouth worked wordlessly, his eyes open wide. He had never seen her like this; he could accept it from Aviendha, that was something she would say, but not Min!

The sound of hands being clapped gave both of them a start, they forgot completely that any one was in the room save them. Scanning the room, he noticed that there was no one awake beside him, Min, and Birgitte, who clapped her hands. "It was about time someonewould put you in your place," She stop for a heartbeat, no doubt meaning to continue, he glared at her, as hard as he could, and she thought better, she still smiled, though.

He looked at both women for a moment and signed, "Maybe you're right, Min. Maybe! But I can't change who I am." He raked a hand through his hair in confusion.

"No, I don't think you can." Birgitte agreed, "You are different from Lews Therin, Rand al'Thor. And at the same time, you're very much the same." He shook his head in denial, he didn't want to think about it, not now, when memories of a life he didn't live rose by everything he saw or heard or felt or smelled.

"Rand," Min said suddenly, worried, and he realized that he was standing, staring at the air, fumbling for memories. They laid there in disorder, memories were... cut in half, connected in ways he didn't understood. Why remembering Mierin was connected to remembering a man's face, tall and dark with angry eyes, he never seemed to think about the woman without seeing that man in his mind, but he couldn't remember who he was.

He stared at the two women; the only two other people awake in the room save him. He could trust them, completely. He knew it as well as he knew his duty, he wasn't sure anymore in his name. "I've... holes in my memories, not my own, memories I've acquired from Lews Therin. Strange gaps, in memories that are not my own."

"Acquired from Lews Therin?" Birgitte asked sharply, "How under the Light could you acquire anything from Lews Therin. He is dead!"

"Didn't Elayne told you?" He asked, surprised, he doubted if Elayne hid anything from Birgitte. In a few sentences, trying to be as short as possible, he explained her about Lews Therin talking to him; he didn't like talking about it.

"How far can you remember, what is the earliest memory you've?" Asked paled face Birgitte. "How far your memories reach?"

It took him a long moment to answer, "The oldest memory I've is when Lews Therin was a child," Birgitte still looked pale, but she exhaled with relief.

"You'll remember everything, given time." She said, and before he could say anything, she added, "I won't, can not, answer any of your question, Lews Therin. Ask me none. I can't tell you how I know this, I've broken too many of the laws already."

He stared at her, she looked like a lioness protecting her cubs, he could get his answers, one way or the other, yet he owed her too much, "So be it," He said, inclining his head in acceptance. "I don't like it though," Birgitte looked at him in indignation.

"Where are Nynaeve and Lan?" He asked, "And Narishma and Mierin?" Those four were the only ones he didn't see.

"Lan thought that Nynaeve deserved a better place to rest than the floor. So he dragged her to bed when she began to fall asleep. Narishma woke about half an hour ago, and took Mierin to bed also." Min answered, a small smile on her lips, he didn't want her to smile so, not now; she was beautiful as it was. When Min smiled, she could make the sun look pale. "I don't think Mierin is going to sleep for long."

Rand snorted shortly, Min, unlike Aviendha or Elayne, accepted Mierin's bond to him, and that he passed it to Narishma, with so much ease he suspected a viewing, although she denied it. "You don't know Mierin," He said with a tiny smile, Min was just what he needed, to make him forget everything that troubled him. With her, even with others around, he could be Rand al'Thor, a sheepherder from the Two Rivers, not the Dragon Reborn, or the car'a'carn. Or the King of Illian, or any other bloody title he might be carrying. He glanced at Elayne and Aviendha, sleeping dreamlessly, if they would have dreamed, they would have relived one of the nightmares the Dark One sent, and he would have felt that. "Lan and Narishma were right," He murmured, "This floor in no place for sleeping." Min groaned in agreement.

Birgitte stared at him, her eyes old, "I suggest you will not touch saidin, not for now, at least, you've drunk quite a bit of ousqui. Not to mention that you've no idea what touching saidin, cleaned, will do to you." She paused, looking at him worriedly. And he nodded, he already thought of it, which was why he wasn't full of saidin at the very moment.

"I know, I've no intention risking myself drowning in the source, not until I'll have enough time to... gather my will." Strong willpower was required to mute the need for saidin, but without the taint... He doubt if he had strong enough will to resist the urge to pull more of the power when he find saidin clean. And to be a little drunk would do no help. He had to let memories of the battle with the Dark One fade first, even with the horrors, the power flowed in him in amount he didn't dreamed about. So much power, so much sweetness he nearly drowned in it. It frightened him, saidin was addicting, even with the taint. How strongthe pulling would be now that it's clean. Despite the fight for survival and the Dark One's distant whispers, without the taint saidin was so pure, so... wonderful, beautiful, that he wanted to scream his joy into the skies, to let it echo from one side of the world to another. He muted those thoughts quickly, duty is heavier than a mountain. He reminded himself, if he would let himself think along those lines, he might be temped to take a hold on the male figure that lay in a room a mile above him. With the strongest shields he could weave guarding it, closing the ter'angreals that would allow him to use the strongest male sa'angreal every created, closing his way to sure destruction.

He looked at the two sleeping warders and considered his options, he couldn't let himself touch saidin, not any time soon, he feared. Not unless he knew he wouldn't lose control on the power, or draw too much of it. This mountain was a constant reminder to what might happen when the power escape his control.

But still, he reached out for saidin, wove and tied flows Air as quickly as he could. Elayne and Aviendha floated in the air four feet above the ground, and even that brief touch of saidin left him with burning desire for more. It took all his will to release the power, and he drew as little as he could. The power left him, slowly, and he exhaled in relief and regret. Min looked at him, with eyes so soft that he thought she might begin to cry. "There was... no sickness in you this time, Rand." She said, "I couldn't feel the taint." She smiled at him; her beaming at him had its full affect. He had hard time breathing.

"You'll not go mad, Rand. You'll not die." She laughed, and relief and freedom drowned every other emotion in her. "Do you hear me, Rand al'Thor? You are not going to go mad! And I will skin you myself if you'll let yourself die." Then, she rose on her tiptoes and gave his a short, joyful, kiss.

Selandhra of the Karande Daryne didn't look at the ten Seia Doon encased in nothing and seethed, barely aware of the group of Far Dareis Mai fanned out around her. If those men must go mad, then they could in the least have killed the Seia Doon instead of humiliating warriors so, catching them as easily as she would have catched a goat. And that the men were Seia Doon meant nothing; she had seen men of every society wrapped with invisible chain, and Far Dareis Mai, as well. Her eyes were directed up, into the skies, that burned in color impossible and that were full of fire and lightning and monsters made of clouds and lights; and, more than anything else, beauty. A cloud capture her eyes, shaped as a dragon attacking. "Those men have incurred much toh in doing this," she heard her first-sister growl softly, bringing her back to the ground.

"They do not follow ji'e'toh," Selandhra sharply reminded Talend, then paused thoughtfully. "But you are correct. There must be a way in which we can pay them for humiliating all the Aiels like this."

"Maiden's Kiss, of course," Talend said after a moment of thought, snapping her fingers joyfully, a wicked smile blooming on her face. "They are still men, able to channel or not. And wetlanders to boot, they do not know the game."

A smile spread on Selandhra's face, as well as those of the other Maidens. "First sister, sometimes you amaze me," she said, feeling the smile widening.

"We should not do it now, though. I want to have Miralen with us" Talend added, Miralen were her first-sister, and Selandhra's, of course, "There is time yet, and so far they have harmed no one."

"Save our pride," Selandhra murmured, but she nodded as the Maidens dispersed.

I must do sentry duty," Talend said. "May you always find shade and water, first-sister."

"And you, first sister," Selandhra replied. She turned and headed back to her room, not looking back at the still-frozen Aiel. There was nothing she could do about them. Her first-sister was right; the Asha'man had not harmed anybody that she had heard of. She doubted that they would let their prisoners starve.

The next morning she had barely come out of the palace, holding spears and buckler as always, when she saw another one of those men the wetlanders called Asha'man striding by, grinning widely and juggling two or three dozen colored lights. A young man goggling fire like any gleeman, by his looks, maybe a year younger than her and two or three younger than Talend. Miralen should like him; he seemed the type of man that always got her into troubles. He was tall and dark hair and eyes, and with a light in his eyes that clearly gave him away as a lecher.

A group of Maidens, including her first-sisters, was heading for him, unfazed by the strange display the wetlander man was putting on. Their intent was obvious to Selandhra. Grinning in anticipation, she headed over to join them.

The wetlander man stopped in his tracks as the Far Dareis Mai fanned out and blocked his way, looking at him challengingly. Irana stepped forward and said something. Selandhra was still too far away to hear what the Maiden said, but she knew what was being said.

As Selandhra neared them, she heard the wetlander say, "I'm always ready for a little game. Maiden's Kiss, it's called?" The wetlander's grin widened even further and he stopped juggling the colored balls of light. They hung in the air for a moment and then winked out. The moment they were gone, a ring of sharp steel pressed against his throat. Pleased anticipation changed into not so pleased surprise, and Selandhra laughed quietlyas she placed one of her own spears against the man's neck.

He arrogantly raised an eyebrow at Selandhra and grinned confidently. "You'll pay for this," he said with a slight nod. Slight, because he couldn't have made more of a motion without shaving his neck closer than he would have liked. And he dared to make threats!

"What are the rules of this... game?" He sounded... sober, as if he had been drunk until now, and was now shaken to full awareness.

"If you kiss well enough, we will ease the spears a little," Selandhra replied with an evil grin. The man's smile widened. "If you do not kiss well, we push the spears closer. For some reason, that seems to encourage men to kiss better." She saw a flash of emotion and indecision pass across his face, and then some decision was arrived at. Really, these wetlanders were so obvious!

The smile didn't fade. "That won't be a problem," the black clad man murmured, "as long as you are first." His dark eyes locked with hers, as he couldn't bring his hands up far enough to point.

"You are quite arrogant, are you not?" she said, amused and slightly irritated, but she moved to be the first.

He laughed. "I'm certainly not Maiden! It's you who have too much pride. But this can be taken care of." He tilted his head, as if considering something, then nodded."Yes, this can easily be taken care of."

Miralen giggled, "Selandhra is not that easily satisfied, wetlander. I think we'll have to shave you by the time we'll be through." She told the wetlander.

"I wouldn't have bet on that," The man muttered, "I'm about to cheat." Miralen laugher died; instead she glared at him. Did he lack honor; planning to cheat in a game the way he just say he would? And how could he cheat?

Selandhra sighed in exasperation. Wetlanders never seemed to talk sense. She leaned forward, and kissed the wetlander on the lips, it was quite hard, since he didn't stop smiling, Miralen was right, they would have to... She experienced pure bliss. It was indescribable. It felt like every joy she had ever felt in her entire life, tasted like the very first drop water after not drinking for days. The world dissolved around her and she lost herself in the feeling, unaware of the fact that her spears and buckler had clattered to the floor and that she had melted into the wetlander's arms.

After an eternity that last only a moment - she couldn't decide how long it had been - the kiss ended and she came back to reality. Opening her eyes, she gazed into the wetlander's dark eyes and said the first words that came to mind. "What... what was... that?"

Out of her range of vision, she heard Talend laugh. "Obviously he tried harder for you than for any other woman in his life!"

"You could say so," the man agreed cheerfully, and the spears that were held to his throat disappeared, leaving only dust in the maiden's hands. He didn't release his hold on Selandhra when he took a step back. "I believe that this was good enough," he told Talend, who was still staring at her empty hands in amazement. Only then did Selandhra become aware of... something in the back of her mind. Emotions, they seemed... strange, out of place.... They were not her own! The realization shocked her. Those emotions were coming from the wetlander! She could clearly see each emotion flitting across his face, exactly as she felt them in her mind.

Outraged, she pushed the wetlander away with all her strength, causing him to trip and fall. "What have you done?" she shouted at him, infuriated, snatching up one of her spears from the floor. It was hard, her knees wanted to give way.

Taking the two steps between him and her, she placed her spear against his throat, not at all playful this time, forcing him to stay down. A trickle of blood welled up from the point of the spear, and she became aware of a painful sensation in her throat. Involuntarily reaching up, she felt her throat... but there was nothing. The pain came from the wetlander. "What have you done?" she cried again, outraged.

The wetlander grinned insolently and pushed her spear away as he rose. "Do not attempt to attack me again," he said. Selandhra suddenly felt her will to do so melt away like water pouring over sand. She was still furious, yet she couldn't direct that anger at him violently. In her mind, she knew this was not natural... but she could not fight it. She would not attack him now, however much she wished to be able to in the deep, hidden parts of her mind. She simply couldn't gather the will to do so; her body had no wish to do so.

"What did you do?" she said again, not quite as fiercely as before.

"I bonded you," he replied simply. "I think you'd make a fine Warder."

Selandhra exchanged stunned looks with her first-sisters. Bonded? Bonded, the same way Aes Sedai and Warders are? I am... bonded to this wetlander? How dares he! "Wetlander, you have made a foolish mistake," Talend said warningly. "I did not wish to hurt you, but if it is necessary...." Miralen had veiled herself and tightened her hold on the spears. She always had vile temper.

"If you hurt me, you hurt her as well," the wetlander replied smugly. "Didn't you know that?" He raised an eyebrow in mock surprised; she could feel his bloody smugness! "Whatever the bondholder feels, the Warder feels, and the other way around as well. If I die, she will likely to die, as well, or worse." He looked hunted for a moment, and she felt fear in him, it was gone in a flash, expression and emotion both, as he continued: "Or so we believe. Of course, no one has been willing to test it." He laughed suddenly, as if he said something funny. Wetlander humor! Selandhra thought disgustedly.

Looking at her, he added, "I don't even know your name. I am Taval Griellin. And your name is?"

"I am Selandhra of the Karande sept of the Daryne Aiel." Why had she answered him? She should give him nothing!

"Well, Selandhra of the Karande sept of the Daryne Aiel, I hope we will get along, because if we don't, then it's unhappy business for all," he said, smiling cheerfully. She wanted to punch him. He had no right to be so self-satisfied with himself.

Selandhra was torn inside. She still wanted to kill him for doing this to her, but much of her shied away from even thinking of this. Another part of her wanted to only do as he ask, obey his every word. The worst thing was, she knew which part would dominate. The part that wanted to obey and follow him, like a milk-hearted wetlander woman. She could already feel it tugging at her, but she still hated him for doing this!

She looked at him with agony in her eyes, and then at her first-sister, then did what she had never done since joining the maidens. She broke down and wept.

Narishma didn't like carrying Mierin through those seemingly endless corridors. Or, to be rather exact, he liked it, far too much to be healthy. What a man can do when he falls in love with a woman, and he knows she loves him, but also know that those two feeling were forced on their hearts? She was half asleep when she put her arms around his neck and murmured his name softly; her tone made his heart miss a beat.

"I would never let you go, Narishma." She mumbled against his chest, "I warn you now, I can't let you walk away, and I won't. If you're mine, you are mine completely. Mind and body and soul and heart, all mine, completely, no way back. I want your heart, Narishma, fully, to be mines alone, forever. I'll not have anything else!" All this was delivered with her eyes close and fingernails trailing the back of his neck. She even sounded sleepy, as if she didn't woke fully yet. She yawned and returned to sleep, her head against his chest, so soft he feared she might break if he would let her go. And... and... and he didn't know whatever he wanted to hug her till she would beg mercy or throw her on the floor and leave her there.

Reaching the doors to his quarters saved him from making that decision. He looked in awe at his rooms, black and white and silver, he doubted if he wanted to know how she decorated this place so fast, when he lived in those rooms for more than a week and hadn't done anything to personalize his own home save putting his cloths in the wardrobe. The entrance to their rooms were breathtaking by itself, a round table stood in one of the corners of the huge room, fit for dozen diners, made of black wood, it was polished to such perfection that it reflected the light. The chairs that were neatly arranged near the table were a priceless artwork in white and silver, the smooth, flowing lines, of the white wood - he couldn't recognize what kind of tree the chair was made from, the same as with the table's wood - with silver threads, shaped like braids in complex design on the back of each chair.

A picture, dozen feet high, twenty wide, was hanged few paces from the table, of a city that could have never exist, with towers too thin to support their own weight reaching out for the skies and strange shapes floatingbetween the towers. A huge ball hanged, unsupported, in the air. And black fire leashed out of it. He asked Mierin about it, she named the picture "Guilt", and said she was the one who made it. But refuse to give him any farther explaination, and he had no intention to push her too strongly when she clearly didn't want to talk about it.

It was very detailed picture; you could see people in the streets, staring at horror at the ball that burned in that black fire. Yet, despite the size of the picture, it covered only half the length of the wall it was on. He had no need for so much space, - and that was the entrance only - but now he was glad of it, Mierin was the one who needed the space, and he was glad of it. Glad of her, for her, because of her, he couldn't decide what was stronger. She brought so much beauty and joy into his life.

Another table lay on the other side of the room, this time white and gold, exactly the size for two people to share an intimate dinner after a long day. He shake his head, he would have to wait for a long time before such things would be possible, at least if he didn't want the dinner in his face. He moved away from what seemed like cascade of water colored in red and yellow and green and blue and purple, frozen at a single moment in time.

His boots made no sound over nearly black carpet with slashes of silver and white. It should have looked ridiculous. A room that held almost no colors. Only white and silver and black, yet the picture, and the statue of flowing water made the difference. They gave the impression that anything more would be too much.

He took the left door, the door to her bedroom, and he was thankful to her for this, he doubt if he could remain sane, sharing the same bedroom. Laying her gently on the bed, he stared at her; he couldn't leave her to sleep in her cloths. And at the same time, he couldn't make himself undress her. Not if he wanted to avoid tangling the situation even further, as hard to believe that was. Man found himself tangled in the strangest troubles, married.

When he brought her to their room the first time, a simple flow of Fire did the trick; she hated the red and black dress. But he liked the dress she was wearing. She chose it because he said she would look good in black.

Sighing tiredly, he turned her over, so she lay on her back, and began to open the buttons of the dress. "It feels nice, Narishma." Mierin mumbled, face pressed against a pillow. "Why did you wait so long?"

He stared at her for a long moment, his hands stopped moving. "Because," He answered, continue unbuttoning her black dress, his hands shock, hard. "Whatever you feel for me is being resulted by the bond. Everything you feel for me is a result of the bond. And I've some pride left in me." He finished unbuttoning her dress and took a step back; there were limits to the best self-control. "Can you go on from here?" He asked, prayed.

She turned her head to him, "I doubt it," She answered; she wasn't talking about her dress. "I doesn't have pride, not enough to stop me from seducing you." He gaped at her, women weren't suppose to talk like that, "whatever the source of my emotions, they are real enough for me." She didn't sound sleepy anymore. "Now, could you take the dress off the rest of the way off?" Her words were to be considered, certainly. The dress was folded neatly as soon as he could do it, with him trying to ignore what he saw, and felt. She didn't joke about seducing him.

"Here," He muttered, "Now you can sleep. We can talk later, when you're not half drunk." Or I am. He began to exit the room when Mierin's call stopped him.

"Don't leave, mia'da'covale'asha'man!" He didn't recognize the word, "I know I'm not beautiful anymore, nor even pretty," Didn't she had eyes? She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen in his life. She gave him no chance of speaking, protesting, "but I think you owe me that much, I can't have you leave me. I can't be left alone again!" She needed him, and nothing else mattered more than her need. It might have been the bond, or the result of the feeling the bond had awaken inside him, be the reason as it might be, he could leave her as easily as stop breathing.

The tableau was deathly still, the silence broken only by the faint sobs of Selandhra. The silence did not last long, though; Miralen of the Bloody Rocks Miagoma, Seladhra's first sister, drew her veil across her face in a swift motion and advanced upon Taval Griellin, completely undaunted by the fact that she had no spears in hand.

"No!" Teland said sharply, moving in front of Miralen and cutting her off from the wetlander. "Anything you do to him will also be felt by Selandhra."

"That is true," Teland heard her first-sister say. Glancing at Selandhra, Teland saw that her first-sister had wiped away her tears and looked perfectly well, if a trifle shaken. "I have already experienced it, with the spear. It would serve no purpose to kill him."

The wetlander laughed abruptly, more a bark than a laugh, and eyed the three of them in a way that made Teland want to slap him. "If you could kill me."

"I would not gamble on that, had I been in your place." Miralen growled ominously, but at last she unveiled herself.

Teland put a comforting arm on her first-sister's shoulder and glared fiercely at the wetlander who called himself Taval Griellin. "You may have a claim on my first-sister, but less than the claim the Far Dareis Mai, her sept, clan, the Aiel, and I and Miralen do. Do not presume that you can take her away and involve her in whatever plots you may be in."

Disgust crossed the man's face, "I'm no Aes Sedai!" He said, losing the grin for the first time. He face went grim, and he glared at her. "Sent the rest of the maidens away, Selandhra. We need to talk." Selandhra's hands flashed in hand talk, and all the maidens save Miralen and Teland left.

"I'm not about to leave you with that... Asha'man." Miralen said, and Teland nodded in agreement.

"I'm no Asha'man," Taval Griellin said, touching the side of his collar, it was empty, on the other side there was a silver pin shaped as a sword. "Only a Dedicated, for now."

Teland snorted, "That mattered nothing, as long as Selandhra has the bond to you, we'll remain with her. To protect her." Her words caused a sigh from Taval Griellin.

"The idea of spending the rest of my life with you near is enough to make any man sick," Taval Griellin said with a sharp voice. "Do you really need them?" He asked Selandhra, and for a moment, Teland feared that Selandhra would say that she has no need of them.

"Of course I do, you numbskull son of a toad!" She snapped at the dark man, "They are my first-sisters!"

"Fine," Taval Griellin rose his hands in the air and let them drop, "Gather every Far Dareis Mai you can find and bring her along with us, I don't care!"

"Why would I want to do any such thing, Taval Griellin?" Selandhra asked, "What make you think I would want to take the rest of the maidens with us? And for that matter, what make you that we are going anywhere. If I've to put up with you in my head, I would do so, as a reminder of my foolishness. But I've no intentions of going with you anywhere, nor with any other wetlander, but especially with you!"

"No sense of humor either," Taval Griellin murmured to himself, making both Talend and Miralen stare at him. Selandhra laughed almost at anything, sometimes she even laughed to wetlanders' jokes! She had more sense of humor than any three other women that Teland knew. The man tilted his head to one side and clapped his hands few times, "That was a nice speech, but there might be a problem here, you see, Selandhra, I've every intention to take you with me. If I've to take those... flea bags along if you insist it, but you will come with me." Teland veiled herself silently; Miralen was already veiled. After a moment of hesitation, Selandhra veiled herself too; ready to kill, they faced him.

"Tell me, would you try to kill me, unveiled?" Taval Griellin asked, seemingly unaffected by the danger they radiated.

"Of course not! Don't you know anything?" Selandhra snapped at him scornfully.

"Not quite," Taval Griellin said quietly to Selandhra, eying her in a way that made Teland's hand itch for her dagger, "But I've every intention to learn." Selandhra growled wordlessly.

The black veils were torn to shreds and pulled away from them by something they could neither see nor fight. "Now are you ready to come with me?" Taval Griellin said; sounding slightly amused. "Or would I have to carry you all the way to the Black Tower?" Teland began to understand why Selandhra cried.

"There is no crime unworthy to save a warder's life, nor an action may left untaken. Life and soul, heart and mind, we belong to each other, never calm without those who lies in the back of our heads. From now to the end of time, until last breath is taken, many are one. One is many. As high as the price will be, in gold or silver, a waterfall to make her laugh or our very soul, we shall pay it. For there is nothing more important for the Guardians than the Sisters of Battle they had taken. And anything shall be forgiven, as long as Gaidar's life was the cause. For there is nothing to equal the Gaidar, and may nothing ever be."

This quote, taken from "The Black Tower's Code", the set of rules and regulations that the Asha'man follow, sum everything one could say about the Asha'man and their warders.

Asha'man are capable of doing everything if there is the slightest danger to their warders. In one example, I witnessed the heights an Asha'man's flagitiousness can reach, once his warder is in threat.

Several questioners that once belonged to the Children of the Light had captured one of Jonan's warders, Delir, close to three months after the Last Battle. None of them survived the incident. Jonan Marley is well known, of course, due to his actions in Tarmon Gai'don, and he had the reputation of a man with icy blood. Never it had been recorded that he showed the slightest sign of temper. Nor that he had any sadistic nature. I can witness myself that Jonan never turned to violence unless he had to, but there is nothing more atrocious than an Asha'man with his warder in danger.

I've seen what left from those questioners, despite all my years as an Aes Sedai, and the recent horror we've all experienced in the Last Battle, I've never seen a sight more terrifying than that place. I have no wish to see such a thing in my life again.

The Two Towers
Runea Marley and Somara Miliard
The Black Tower
The Forth Age
 

Mierin awoke shivering all over her body, despite the feeling of Narishma's body, fully clothed, pressed to hers and the thick blankets on the bed. The bed? She distantly remembered him carrying her. It felt good, feeling him so close to her. It felt good to know he was still with her. The memories were still dancing in her mind, chilling her to the bone. Memories of the worst fears possible, the worst she had knew in her life.

She tried to push the memories back, but failed, and her mind listed them all to her, with her shivering and fighting back tears and screams.

Narishma had never become a true Asha'man; he went over to the shadow and handed her to Moridin, to die or worse. And the Naeb'lis trapped her again in a cour'souvra and handed the Mindtrap to Narishma, to be held by a bond and a Mindtrap both.

All She could hear was Narishma and Moridin laughing. Laughing when she tried to kill herself and was stopped without even one of them making a move. Stopped by the bond, the bond that had became a prison worse than any Mindtrap could ever be. They watched amused how she tried to die, and how all her attempts failed. She broke down and cried: "I love you," not knowing if she meant Lews Therin or the man who took the bond after him, the man who gave her to the shadow.

The man she had started to love. And the feeling of loving a man belonged to the shadow made her so sick inside she wanted to die, forever. Despite being of the shadow in the past herself, now, the idea horrified her, sicken her, and Narishma watched her all the time, constantly amused.

Narishma kept her, as a lover. And she was destined to live, to live forever, in love with a man that made her want to throw up. To live forever, never free, never with a chanceof being free. Narishma gave her orders, and she was obeyed, gladly. But some distant part of her never stopped screaming, screamed forever, never free, without a chance of happiness. Screaming to the end of time.

There were others, of course, as worse or more, and she did cried for those.

Narishma became an Asha'man, and was loyal to the Light as Lews Therin himself, and he was beautiful and sweet to her, giddy and intensely overjoyed because saidin was cleansed. He went off partying with his fellows Asha'man, and she watched him go with a smile. Let him have fun, she thought. Until she felt him close and she heard him in the bedroom late at night, all of a sudden, laughing and talking to someone. He had opened a gateway to the bedroom directly. Jealously aroused, she rushed to his room and saw him kissing a woman, a golden haired, beautiful woman... her worst nightmare coming true.

As she channeled to set full light in the room, readied herself to kill this woman, to kill the man who betrayed her, she recognized the woman in Narishma's arm, where only she may be! The woman was almost naked, her clothes lay carelessly on the ground, and Narishma pressed her tightly to his own body. Mierin," He said seriously, not bothered at all that she had caught him and Ilyena bare to their toes, "I would like you to meet my second warder, Ilyena." Saidar left her slowly.

"You!" she screamed after the shock subside, agonized, angry beyond control, embraced saidar again to kill this woman for once and for all... and then she felt suddenly the urge to do it slip away. She glared at Narishma, and he smiled and said: "The bond wouldn't let you do any harm another warder of mine, Mierin." There was no mockery in his voice, and somehow it made it worst.

The hate and the fury still bubbled inside of her, but she couldn't make herself kill the woman. And all this time Ilyena gazed her with laughing deep blue eyes, and silent message in them,"He'll love me more than you, Mierin. I won again.... For the second time, your man is now mine!" And she knew it was true... Ilyena had won again, but this time, she wouldn't be left behind, Narishma meant to keep her, and Ilyena. And she couldn't make up her mind with what was worse.

Mierin turned around in bed, clutching Narishma's shoulders. He awoke with a jerk, his eyes in deep shock. "Tell me you love me, Jahar Narishma!" She insisted, she had to hear the words or she would go insane. She had!

His eyes softened, so big to his face, full of emotion, "Of course I do, Mierin. And always will." He hugged her, hard. His voice cloud with emotions,"I'll never let you go. Didn't you know that? You're my wife, forever!"

That is what I hoped, but I had to be sure." she sighed, suppressing her memories, trying to enjoy the moment. Knowing that those nightmares were as near impossibility as they could be helped not a bit.

"What time is it?" Narishma asked after a while.

"I've no idea." She told him, "I think we've slept for at least a day."

Narishma nodded, "I must go now, " He said, and moved as if to rise, but all in all, it took a very long time before they got out of bed. And Mierin discovered that her newfound shyness was easily forgotten.

Balir walked through the streets, washing in pure joy, Asha'man trailing along all around him, saidin filling them to the point where pain and life were one and the same. Every last one of the Asha'man was shouting and laughing as hard as they could. He looked back at them, and laughed even more, men able to channel, once doomed to go mad from the taint but now... "Cleaned! Free!" He shouted in joy, free from the taint, free from the dark one's touch on saidin and experiencing, for the first time ever, saidin, pure and untainted. Saidin flowed in him, and skies above were lightening in green fire, and then red, and with every other color imaginable.

He looked about him, the Andorans stared at them in shock, even fear, he laughed and ran on, let them fear what they will, he was holding saidin and nothing else mattered. Nothing! Save that sweet flow of life. He lost all sense of time, only that he still held saidin, and that the dream didn't end.

He saw a child the age of five staring at him, and wove Fire and Air, a ball of blue cold fire appeared in front of the small boy, and he laughed as the boy touched it gingerly. Tying the weave, he laughed harder. Looking at the skies, he saw a dragon floating, the size of a big house, made of fire and air, much the same as the ball he made for the little child. He wove the flows to increase the size of the creature. Other dragons appeared in the air, and other creatures too. Men's face, and women's, pictures made of fire and air that danced in the air to the Asha'man's will. A Trolloc the size of a house gnarled in the skies, only to die by a storm of purple lightnings.

It was a game, pure and simple, and he joined it gladly, his creation was Taim's face, he didn't used fire and air, instead, he took a cloud from the sky, forming it the way he wanted. But he lengthened the nose, and widened the cheekbones; the hair became longer. Teeth sharper and longer, a monster made of cloud, walking on air alone, shouting soundlessly.

But the game bored him soon enough, and he let his weave dissolved. Other took his place, all this power cried out to be used, and the Asha'man were eager to do so.

He heard someone moaning nearby, and turned a corner to see a girl, less than fifteen, that apparently tried to get a better view of the display in the sky. She fell to the ground from one of the roofs. Bending knee over the girl, Balir Delved. Searching for the hurts. Three ribs broken, and the girl's left leg crushed, without Healing, there would be no other option but cut it off.

Yet Balir had Healing, and now he wove the complex weaves. The girl looked at him, gasping and panting, men's healing felt as if you were burning, "You can channel!' That was an accusation. "Why did you help me? My mother said all the Asha'man are mad and evil!"

Balir laughed as he help the boy to his feet, "Tell your mother she is wrong, girl." He said, and watched the girl fleeing away with a smile. Then he raised his hand and sent three fire balls, green and yellow and burning red after the girl; to follow her for few days, certainly something to attract the boys' attention. He thought, amused. And laughed, without the slightest bit of self-control again. Life was too good not to savor it.

Turning back, he ran straight into a group of women, those Aielwomen, maidens the spear. He laughed hysterically, saidin filled him, magnifying ever sense and experience, a few women could be just what he needed right now. The women stopped and stared at him, laughing hysterically in the streets of Andor, his fellow Asha'man could be heard everywhere, doing everything they could dream of in celebration of this wondrous event. For some reason, the street emptied as soon as he entered it, he couldn't understand why.

The women in front, the leader, so he guessed, signaled to the women behind her in maiden's hand talk and all but five ran off. The remaining five surrounded him, spears in hands, face veiled, "He's gone mad, they've all gone mad " he heard one of them say.

He turned to her and laughed "No..." he began but nearly collapsed laughing before he could get the rest out. Even being mad seemed funny. Suddenly the maidens attacked, each one a blur, striking at him, trying to take him down. He had been thought two dozens and more ways to stop such attack, with or without saidin. All deadly, spears nearly touch his skin when he finally channeled, a simple weave, harmless, yet effective in stopping their annoying attack. He looked at them all again, each one frozen in mid strike and smiled harder.

"Good evening, Ladies. If you excuse me, I'll be off, you'll be free in an hour or three." And raced away around a corner. With so much of saidin, he savored every heartbeat of life so strong that it became painful.

He ran for what seemed like minutes. Yet, judging by the sun, it must have been hours, before he came in contact with another group of maidens. He prepared the weave he had used on the other women and was about to launch it when one of the women shouted, "Wait! We will not harm you! We wish to invite you to join a game". The Asha'man raised his eyebrows, curious.

"A game," he said, "what kind of game." He wouldn't mind to play a new game.

The women who had spoken looked at the other women and nodded, "It is named Maidens Kiss," she said with a smile. He smile widen, it sounded fun.

"Then let us begin this game, Maiden's Kiss." Spear made a necklace around his neck, nearly breaking the skin. And amusement died. "The rules of the game are very simple, they had to be, for a man to understand them." A woman explained as he readied flows of Air to hold off the spears. "We kiss you, if the kiss is satisfactory we ease up the pressure on our spears". The Asha'man smirked, this game didn't sound very challenging, yet he didn't release his flows, he could easily have more than a few scars from the previous encounter with the maidens of the spear. The woman continued "However, if the kiss displeases us, we increase the pressure on our spears, a bit of incentive to try harder next time".

Before he had a chance to say anything one of the maidens kissed him full on the lips, he gasped, still holding saidin, the kiss seemed to go on for an age, each detail, each sense enhanced. He readied flows of saidin, unconsciously, too busy kissing the maiden to know what he was doing. Too busy feeling the kiss to think coherently. And the weave he had been preparing lashed out and attached itself to the women, she moaned into his mouth and soften against him, smiling uncontrollably. Another of the women smirked as she pushed the maiden that he just... kissed,away from him, another pair of far derais mai had to hold her up. "Selan has always been easily pleased, let us see how good you are with one more experienced" She lowered her spear and kissed him, and again the flows of saidin readied themselves and woven without his mind have any saying in the matter. He had never kissed a girl with saidin flowing in him, never felt a kiss so clear, so... pure and full of life. With saidin sharpening his senses, a kiss felt like a dream never ending.

Her reaction was almost identical to the other maiden, soft and yielding. And when the kiss ended she simply dropped her spear on the ground and sat next to it, apparently he had satisfied her enough to put her out of the game. She sat down on the ground and suddenly jumped up, rubbing her palms, there had been a sharp rock where she had sat down. The Asha'man winced as if he felt her pain in himself. Only when he started rubbing his own palm to soothe the pain did he began to realize what he had done.

The realization cleared his obscure mind. He had bonded two women, without their consent. He lost his hold on saidin, the shock too much for him to bear. It shook him off the joy saidin set inside him.

What would he do, he couldn't break the Bond, and even if he would find a way, doing so would probably kill the warder, and him as well. He sighed, the euphoria of the day lost on him now, there would have to explanations made back at the Black Tower. And none he looked forward, forming the coldness that were needed for saidin he sent himself to the True Source, half afraid what he might find. Afraid that the taint returned, that the vile feeling would turn his stomach and sank into his very soul. Saidin waited, as clean and pure as he picture in his dreams alone.

He doubt if the maidens would let him take two of their numbers, and had no wish to give any explanation whatsoever, he wove air, and set the flows to fade in an hour. And, ignoring the maidens' protests, lift the two maidens he had kissed - his bloody warders, the Light burn his soul, still dazed of his kiss - with flows of air, and opened a gateway for skimming back to the Black Tower.

The pair danced, the man wore nothing but dark gray breech that fit him like a second skin, and soft leather boots. The woman wore cadin'sor in gray and brown and green. The pair danced, and they danced to the music of the clash of metal against metal, as sword met short spear, or the sound of the sword hitting leather buckler.

Elayne watched them with amazement; joy reached her through the bond, overpowering, overwhelming, and strong enough even to mute the pain in Rand's side. She have seen the warders training, and heard Aviendha talking with longing about her days as a maiden, but she could hardly believe her own eyes when she watched them dance together. Elayne recalled that once Aviendha said that there was only one dance she was ready to dance with a man. And Rand had more skill in the dance of battle than any she had ever met. Save maybe Lan. "She is very good," She said quietly, she didn't want to disturb the pair; although she doubted that anything could do that. For some reason, Rand and Aviendha enjoyed taunting and shouting and fighting each other as much as they enjoyed kissing, she would slapped Rand until he got his head straight and have rings in his ears until the Wheel of Time would turn a spoke if he would ever behave her the same as he did with Aviendha.

But Aviendha accepted it without a blink and replayed ten times as much as she got. It was a mystery to Elayne, but that was how it was. "She is more than simply very good." Min said, "I think that only Sulin bests her, and not many are equal."

Birgitte nodded, "Indeed, she served at least five years as a maiden, and she carries not a single scar, that mark her as either a great warrior or a great coward." Elayne tensed at the insult to her near sister, Birgitte looked at her, lips curled in amusement, "Just look at her, Elayne. I doubt if she understand that fear is more than just a ward." Min laughed softly to that, a hand touching her stomach.

"Which one is better?" She asked; she had little knowledge about such matters. Yet it seemed as if it was Aviendha that attacked most of the time, with Rand deflecting the thrusts as easily as a child chasing away a cat. Their speed kept increasing as the circled each other, none showed any sign of tiredness, nor that they had any trouble continuing in the battle forever, never mind that their movement became a blur more often than not. Aviendha suggested this... amusement, when it became clear that Rand was ready to explode if he would have something to do to drive thought about saidin, cleaned, from his mind. He feared drawing too much, and rightfully. He said that even the thought of how saidin felt, clean, was dangerous; it was more than simply the pull of the One Power. Rand knew to be careful, but he seemed to have little control on himself now.

Birgitte's eyes were intent on the pair, at least some of Rand's joy had to do with the fight, "They hadn't touched their limits yet, Elayne. And it may take hours for such a battle to settle." She fell silent for a heartbeat, "Yet there are no levels of skill in battlefield, Elayne. There are only those who survived, and those who hadn't. And even the best can die in battle." Would Rand die too? And in what battle would he die?

No, there was no question whatever or not Rand would die or not. There was only the question of when, and how. Blinking away tears unshed, Elayne grimaced; tears are for after, woman. Maybe, if she would repeat it to herself enough times she would begin to believe it. Maybe.

Min laid a comporting hand on her shoulder, "Don't lose hope, Elayne. That is the one thing we can't allow ourselves." Min understood her; they were standing on the same spot, in love with a man that was doom to die. And despite everything, Min managed a twisted smile that held little mirth in it.

Birgitte nodded, feeling her emotions, guessing her thoughts, "Noting is lost until the battle is done and the crows feed, Elayne." Min grunted sourly.

"Thank you," Elayne laughed, "That was cheerful," but it was, in a way. Birgitte knew her well.

"I meant it," Birgitte said, serious now, "Min's... condition is not the end of the world." the last was deliver in a whisper, there had to keep some secrets from Rand now, to save his life. "It's often the other way around."

"I don't know what I would do if I'd to choose between Rand and the world," Min whispered slowly, "I dare not reach a decision, it would be a betrayal either way." Elayne growled in frustration; it was too close to her own thought. It wasn't fair!

Her eyes returned to Rand, he was perfect, absolutely perfect. And he was hers, never mind that she had to share him. The only defects in him were that old, horrible, half healed wound in his side, and that scar that crossed it, both of them full of evil and painful. She couldn't understand how he could live so normally, when his side throbbed as if stabbed anew with every breath he took.

If he could ignore pain so strong that it made her want to cry for him every time she let herself feel it, she certainly could push back the pain she felt, even for a little while. Love is two-thirds joy and one-third sorrow, she recalled Lini saying once, where did the old woman gained such a stock of saying? Lini never seemed to be wrong, and she always had a saying or two handy.

Yet Elayne knew that no pain of the body, not even Rand's half healed wounds, could be as strong as the pain she would feel, losing Rand.

Dorindha, of the Smoke Water Miagoma, smiled as she fondled her belt knife. There was word from the spear-sisters of some fine amusement. One of those black-coated wetlanders had fallen for a Maiden and offered to play Maiden's Kiss. Dorindha was glad she had sharpened all her steel today. In the last two days the city was in chaos, and the skies were a marvel. It would be good to put one of those Asha'man down a peg of three.

The Far Dareis Mai had gathered around a fountain in the middle of a dusty square just outside the Old City. Only a few of Narys's close kin and near-sisters stood around the black-coated man. As Narys's second sister, she was to be one of those who played the game. Slipping through the crowd of watchers, she stood beside her second sister. "This should be entertaining." She told Narys, rumors began to spread in the city, strange rumors, disturbing. Maidens disappeared, in numbers too big to be ignored.

And the numbers of the Asha'man in the street seemed to be reduced too, yet no bodies were found. Maidens playing maiden's kiss with Asha'man vanished, to be more exact. But the danger made it all more amusing. And if something strange happened when you kissed a man that could channel, Dorindha was certainly willing to try it. Narys seemed eager too.

Narys was the older of the two. She had the rugged features of their father, the sept chief, and the deep-set gray eyes of her mother, the Wise One. Dorindha resembled her roof-mistress mother, with her more delicate features, fine blonde hair and eyes that resembled the blue Waste sky. The two had been close growing up, despite the ten years between them. Dorindha had wanted to be Far Dareis Mai ever since seeing Narys wedded to the spear. Being spear-sisters was even better than being second-sisters and they had often spoken of saying the words that would make them first-sisters as well.

Dorindha studied the man furthered. He was tall, compared to other wetlanders and powerfully built. With dark hair and dark, almost black eyes. Both the Sword and Dragon gleamed from his coat collar. It had something to do with rank, as far as she understood. Not much was known about the Black Tower. He was barely a man, Dorindha estimated that the Asha'man was not much above her own age, seventeen. "What is his name?" She asked her second sister.

Narys snorted, "He is Jarn Merril. He keeps asking to be called Jarn though."

Dorindha nodded. Wetlanders did like to be called by only half their name. It was an intimacy she wondered at occasionally. She nearly started at the sound of her sister banging on her leather buckler; then blushed with shame. No one had noticed her jump like a rabbit, but it was just one more reminder she was newly wedded to her spear.

At the sound of the spear on buckler, Narys's kin moved around Jarn Merril in a circle. He showed no fear, just calm arrogance. It would be a joy to bring this wetlander down a peg or three, or more.

As one, the Maidens placed their spears at his throat. The man still did not flinch away; in fact, he seemed amused. "What come next?" He asked, curiously, not at all bothered that the spears might shave him if he would take a breath too deep.

"This," Narys was the first to put down her spear and step over to the man clad in black. He smiled in anticipation, then leaned down and gave her a chaste peck on the lips. The watching Maidens hollered and pounded their spears on their bucklers. With a grim amusement, Dorindha moved her spear a fraction closer to his neck.

Then a leathery Maiden called Shaen took her turn. Jarn Merril tried a bit harder this time, but was still rewarded only with a tighter ring of steel around his neck.

Around the circle it went, with no Maiden being pleased with the results. The wetlander seemed eased even when the blades nicked his flesh, in fact, he only grinned wider to himself, was this how madmen were?

Finally it was Dorindha's turn. She stepped up to the man and grinned at her spear-sisters. "Surely you can do better," She told him, "I'd better kisses from my brothers."

Jarn Merril looked very intently into her eyes, where a spark of grim amusement danced. "You wouldn't like it if I would try harder," He told her, "believe me, you wouldn't like it at all."

"Do you kiss that bad?" She mocked him; he looked insulted. "Or does the spears bother you?" He glanced down at the speared and then at her, taking her face gently in both hands, he delicately brushed his lips against hers.

She nearly smiled when her teasing succeeded. But then she shuddered as something raked through her entire body. She was melting in his arms. No, she was flying above the clouds. Stronger than the first time she had drunk too much ousqui. It felt like the first taste of food after days of hunger. She felt like falling and flying together, a sweeter sensation than she had ever known before. It became stronger, almost too much to bear, and stronger still, and then... it died. And she collapsed against the wetlander, nearly sobbing. The spears were taken away from him, she was distantly aware of amazed whispered between her spear-sisters.

Dorindha knew her spear-sisters must be wondering what was going on, but she was aware only of Jarn Merril, excruciately aware of him. She knew he had a slight cut on his thumb. She could feel amusement and something very close to shock in the back of her head."What...what have you done to me?" she panted. "Take it away! Take yourself away!"

"I'm sorry, my dear. I don't know how." he paused, looking confused. "I think I shouldn't have done that."

She punched him hard, below the ribs. And nearly doubled over gasping in pain that wasn't hers. "What have you done?" she demanded. Her spear-sisters hadn't moved, but the mood had changed from festive to dangerous. More than one hand twitched to a black vile.

"I have taken you as a warder, very much like an Aes Sedai and her Warder. You are my Warder now." The man stared at her; arrogance disappeared from him for few moments. "I did gave you a fair warning, though." he grinned at her; arrogant again, then reeled as she gave him a full armed slap across the face. Dorindha clutched her jaw hard, it felt almost identical, his pain, her own. How could she fight him, when it hurt her as well?

"Undo whatever you did!" She commanded in a quiet tone. Her spear sisters spread behind her silently, veiled, ready to kill.

"I'm sorry, girl. I don't think there is a way." Something flashed on his face; he was trying to be sneaky! When his face was a clear mirror of his emotions and thoughts. "There is much honor in being a Warder. Even Aes Sedai have become Warders to Asha'man"

"Wetlanders' honor!" she spat. "I want none of it! You will take me to your leader now! Someone must know how to break this bloody thing."

"As you wish, girl." He shrugged; he didn't seem to care much. He was again unworried. "But I do not think the M'Hael can help you. Or that he would want to." The last was supposed to be to his ears alone, apparently.

"And don't call me girl!" She commanded him, "I've a name!"

"Yet I don't know him." Jarn Merril said calmly. Did nothing break through that shield of tranquilness?

"Dorindha," She told him, what would happen if she put a knife in his belly? "Dorindha, of the Smoke Water Miagoma Aiels." Turning her eyes to Narys, she said, "Spread the word, don't let any maidens get near this... filth, or any of his kind," Jarn Merrill threw his head back and laughed. Glaring at him, she added, "I'll be back as soon as I'll be freed."

A gateway opened above the fountain, with a stone platform within its inky darkness. Jarn Merril stepped onto the edge of it; then held out a hand to Dorindha. "This is the best I can do at the moment, my dear. Come along." Glaring at him, she scorned his hand and climbed into the gateway herself. This fool wetlander would pay for what he had done to her!

As the gateway closed Jarn Merril turn his eyes to Narys: "Don't expect her any timesoon."

"The Dragon Reborn trusted few and little. Yet there were those who gained his full trust. His wives, Elayne, Aviendha and myself, Min. Birgitte, Elayne's warder, his general, Davram Bashere, the few friends he had left, Nynaeve and al'Lan Mandragoran, Matrim Cauthon and Perrin Aybara. Yet Dragon Reborn trusts others too, for a single reason. The dozen Aes Sedai that had sworn to him and came with him into the Dragonmount, to cleanse saidin. Verin Mathwin, Brown ajah, Alanna Mosvani, Green ajah, Merana Ambrey, Gray ajah, Rafela Cindal, Blue ajah, Faeldrin Harella, Green ajah, Bera Harkin, Green ajah, Kiruna Nachiman, Green ajah. Elza Penfell, Green ajah, Nesume Bihara, Brown ajah, Sarene Nemdahl, White ajah, Beldeine Nyram, Green ajah, Erian Boroleos, Green ajah.

Logain, Leane, Toviene and Halima Albar, Eben Hopwil, Narishma and Mierin Jahar, Flinn Damer, Valir Nensen and Arlen Nalaam.

All those who were with him inside the Dragonmount when saidin was cleansed. That event created a loyal group, none that have lived what we've lived could be disloyal to the Light.

Cleansing saidin gained the Dragon the complete loyalty of large number of the Asha'man, although it's important not to underestimate the actions of Logain Albar in this direction. However, this move also cost dearly to the Dragon Reborn. About one third of the Asha'man vanished that day, and for a long time, none knew their fate. Another result of the day was Nemesis. The woman, at the time named Ilyena, appeared about two day after the cleansing, when we were all celebrating; and caused a commotion that nearly destroyed everything the Dragon Reborn ever built. Her actions were certainly to be suspected, from the very beginning, when she...

The History of the Black Tower, volume III
By Elmindreda al'Thor
The Court of the Sun
The Forth Age

How many women can truly say that they don't know whatever they had been with a man before or not? Mierin wondered when they arrived in the hall where they had been drinking ousqui in order to forget, she found Nynaeve, Flinn, Eben, Lan, Elayne and Birgitte already there. Birgitte made her remember something, tugged her memories, but shecouldn't really remember what it was. They had been invited, Eben appearing for a moment in their room, looking highly amused at their expressions, to tell them the Lord Dragon means to celebrate the cleansing if he had to use the power to make us all smile, as the Asha'man put it.

They were drinking warm herb wine, and offered her and Narishma to join with a smile. Cleansing saidin had created a kinship between them and a sort of trust nobody and nothing would ever break. Mierin noticed how bad Elayne, Flinn and Nynaeve looked. Elayne's face was still dark, her eyes red, she must have cried, for a long time.

"Have you already tried to touch saidin, Narishma?" Flinn asked quietly. They all have seen the most terrible things, too. She shivered, and Narishma's hand found hers, comforting her.

Narishma shook his head, letting those little bells in his hair tingle. "Not yet. At first I did not have the strength, and now I do not have the courage. I remember how it felt when you putted all of the taint in the prison, Flinn, and it felt so... vivid, so ecstatic, vigorous, snappy, that I am afraid I will loose myself in it once I reach for it. That I will not be able to stop myself from drawing too much."

Flinn nodded in agreement. "I feared the same. I wonder if the Lord Dragon - " His words trailed off when Logain entered the room, as silent as death despite his size. And Leane, Toviene and Halima on his just after him.

Lews Therin and Min and Aviendha entered the room together only few heartbeats later. Min's face lost their constant grin.

Few minutes later, the rest arrived, fourteen women that had sworn fealty to the Dragon Reborn. Of free will, apparently, not something hard to believe, with Lews Therin. And two more Asha'man, that seemed to be incapable of releasing their grins. They seemed to split their face from one end to another.

Narishma smiled suddenly, a grin as wide as on the face of the two Asha'man that just entered; Mierin didn't remember their names. "Beldeine wouldn't like it." He murmured to her ears alone, "No, she wouldn't like it one bit of it!" He stared at one of the Aes Sedai, and held her more tightly. A beautiful Aes Sedai, but Narishma only grinned at her, ignoring the glare the Aes Sedai sent to her, and felt amused and relief at the same time, she would have to talk with that... Aes Sedai ... later.

They sat down together in a common silence, until Lews Therin broke it with few words, "saidin is cleansed." Somehow nobody had the energy to laugh or to cheer.

"Have you reached for it already, my Lord Dragon?" Flinn asked.

Lews Therin shocked his head miserably, "Once, for the barest heartbeat, and it's pulling nearly killed me. I wanted to be together with others when I try again. To be stopped if I loose all control."

"I fear that too," Narishma said from his spot next to her, still holding her hand. His hand was warm; it felt comfortably, natural. It belonged there.

"And me too," Logain added. And the other Asha'man echoed him.

"We used to have lessons in keeping ourselves from drawing too much," Nynaeve said quietly. "But this was parallel in our learning of the True Source on itself. I don't know what would happen if you, who are already experienced in reaching saidin, would experience it without the taint."

"It's too bloody sweet, Nynaeve," Lews Therin said, "I thought about everything, but not this. I never considered the power itself as the greatest risk."

"Maybe we could not stop ourselves," Flinn said somberly. "Maybe we would burn ourselves out. Sweet irony, I assume. To survive the Cleansing only to die from not being able to stop drawing too much of saidin."

"Tell that to the Dark One," Mierin heard Halima saying quietly, "He would enjoy the joke, I died once, I've no intention of dying again."

Mierin felt Narishma's emotions in the back of her head, uneasiness, slight fear, and patted his hand. "We could make a link," she offered. "We could back you off when you are drawing too much. And you can't draw too much in a link. Of course, you men will be the ones in charge, but I think the link would be able to protect you."

She saw the glow of saidar around Elayne and Aviendha appear at the same moment and then it surrounded every other woman in the room save Min and Birgitte. Elayne sighed, "I thought I was so tired that I could never embrace it again. So tired for the rest of my life. Forever unable."

Nynaeve smiled warmly, despite looking like she had slept in her cloths, "I think we've all experienced this. We have all been very, very afraid."

"Fear is what you feel when someone try to stick a dagger through your heart, girl." Halima said acidly, "Fear is what you feel in the storm of battle or on the point of losing control of saidin. What that was, all those things you felt, was pure horror being poured into you, your mind created the visions to fit to that." Mierin could live without the explanation.

She noticed how the woman clutched her skirts tightly. Bravery is not shown by not feeling fear; bravery is when you fight fear down. It was a common saying among the soldiers in the army of the Light, back in the War of Shadow. After today, she knew, none of them would ever say a thing about those nightmares created by the creature she set free and served. She opened herself for the One Power and linked herself with Narishma, with the rest, allowed the flood fill them until the joy of life reached the border of pain.

"What shall we do?" Elayne asked breathlessly, her eyes blurred with a dock of tears. They were tears of joy. She felt the male half inside her, and the men were frozen. And the devastating feeling of joy weren't her feelings. They resulted from the men, and from the link. So much power cried out to be used, had to be used.

Mierin looked at her bondholder. Narishma's face was beaming with joy, with such an expression of ecstasy that she would never forget it. This must be the happiest moment of your life, my bondholder; she thought and couldn't help a smile.

Later, she could never recall who was it that led the circle, maybe it was passed around, and it wasn't truly important; they all led it, in truth. The weaving was complex, and beautiful in it's own way, filling the air around them, Earth and Fire and Spirit.

The floor under their feet began to change, until it had become what they wanted... they stood on a huge form. A circle of black and white, divided by a sinuous line, the walls, the ceiling, were the shining gray, almost silver, three shades from the hair her new body had, the only beautiful thing in her new body.

"Under this sign he will conquer," she heard someone whisper, she did not know who spoke, the Aiel girl, Aviendha, most probably, not a hint left of her hate to the woman.

"The first combining of the male and female part of the One Power in three thousands years that had no created by need and duty." she recognized Elayne's voice. "And we make the ancient symbol for the Aes Sedai. It had to mean something!"

"It does." Min said, "It does." She sounded certain.

"No weapon shall be raise in this room," Lews Therin's voice echoed in the big room. "Nor any violence allowed to enter. And no evil may enter. For as long as this mountain abide." As he spoke, the words appeared, golden against silver gray, on the wall opposing the doors. Then the link faded. The power leaving them, yet the sense of together wasn't gone.

Mierin felt Narishma flooding with emotions he could not control and gave in to the terrible desire to hug him.

Halima clapped her hands, emerald green eyes shining with victory. "Today," She pointed at the symbol marked on the floor, "they name it the ancient symbol of Aes Sedai. Few remember the name it bore when the Hall of Servants still stood." She turned her eyes to Lews Therin, "Name this room Balance, Lews Therin. For the Balance of the Light you took as your banner."

Lews Therin inclined his head in acceptance, "It will be so, then." He said quietly, "The name fit."

"Now that it's done," Halima said cheerfully, "Let's celebrate!" A bottle of ousqui floated in the air toward her and she laughed. "We made it, people. We cleansed saidin!" Her smile widened, "Let's just hope this new age will be even slightly more interesting than the Age of Legends." And this time, they all cheered. They made it. Female or male, in this age and the one he was born in, Eval Ramman remained the same.

For a little while, while she was drinking and celebrating with the people she cooperated with, she could forget the painful memories and the fears. For a little while, she was truly happy. The happiness lasted far less than she hoped.

Lews Therin suddenly gave a start, as if someone pinched him bottom, Min, who leaned on him, drinking a bottle filled with wine, not ousqui stumbled and nearly fell, she held herself barely erect when she scrambled up, "What happened?" She asked, anger and worry in her voice. Somehow, she didn't spill a drop from her bottle. She wouldn't have pinched his bottom, wouldn't she? Not with the rest of them here, surely.

"I felt... something." Lews Therin said, "It felt like a fade's stare." They all stared at him unbelievingly. "Well, I did!" He said, and then his eyes locked on the doors, that opened silently. To reveal a very familiar woman, they all looked at the newcomer.

"I found you," the woman whispered. "At last, I've found you." Lews Therin's cup made a strange sound as it smashed in his hands, sending blood, ousqui and shattered glasses to the floor, Lews Therin didn't seemed to notice.

Mierin recognized her before any other save Lews Therin. That golden hair and those blue eyes, that accursed face... Ilyena! It can't be! Light, let it be anyone but her! She screamed in the depths of her mind, while Lews Therin whispered that hated name. "Ilyena!" With shock thickening his voice.

The woman collapsed to the sound of her name, like a chopped down tree, and fell to the floor. And no one made a move, nor dare breathing. Yet Mierin felt tears in her eyes. She could push the memories away. But this wasn't a dream, she pinched herself twice already, it didn't help, the worst she could think off had became true. And she had no idea what she was about to do.

Asha'man's kisses, Unbreakable promises. - A common saying between the warders in the Black Tower.

It takes a fool or a woman in love to kiss an Asha'man. And the two are one and the same. - A saying in the White Tower.

The worst an Asha'man can do is to steal a kiss. - The Dragon Reborn, private conversations with the M'Hael.

The most important law in the Black Tower states that, "In order for a man to truly be an Asha'man, he needs the Sword, the Dragon, and a wife." Bonding changes the Asha'man, matures them. Calming them down, an Asha'man with a warder cannot ignore his wife, nor can disregard duty.

"An Asha'man must never forget that he's a part of the world. And mustn't be allowed to forget the meaning of the title he's carrying." - The Dragon Reborn, a speech before the Council of the Black Tower.

So far, no Aes Sedai had been fully ready to accept the Black Tower's view of warders, unless bonded. And no single Asha'man had been able to accept the idea of warders not taking part in every area of the Aes Sedai's life. That is, despite some of them that had been taken warders to Aes Sedai.

Despite using the same words, and few common attributes, there is little that resemblance between the Asha'man's bond and Aes Sedai's one. The weave used in the Black Tower to bond was originally developed to do just what his name implies, to prevent the Asha'man's wives from running away, and the bond, of course, stand in the very heart of every Asha'man existence, and hence, in the very heart of the Black Tower itself.

The History of the Black Tower, volume IV
By Elmindreda al'Thor
The Court of the Sun
The Forth Age

"Have you heard what happened, Amelin?" Lyandra Anshar blasted into Amelin's rooms, her hair was hanging lose and her green silk dress more than a bit wrinkled. She always looked like this, even moments after wearing a new dress.

Amelin looked up from the book she was reading, smiling at her friend, "Nice to see you, Lyan. What should I have heard?"

Her friend fell down on Amelin's bed and laughed. "Oh, you and your reading! When are you going to take a look at the real world?" She grabbed the book from Amelin's hand and read the title. "Reason and unreason, by Herid Fel. Philosophy, Amelin, you?"

Amelin stood up from her bed, smoothed her blue dress and asked impatiently: "Why don't you just tell me what happened?" If Lyandra was the very symbol of chaos, Amelin was always neat. Lyandra said once that she can stumble head over heals the entire length of the dirtiest heal one can find, and she would stand up with not a wrinkle in her dress. Amelin took it as the compliment it was.

"Oh, yes." Lyandra chuckled charmingly. Her blond, nearly white, curls danced on her shoulders when she shook her head. "I almost forgot... Well, the Asha'man have gone mad. They are raiding the city."

"What?" Amelin exclaimed. "But I thought they were in Cairhien." So rumors placed them, together with the Dragon Reborn, Lyandra was the best source for rumors and gossip in Caemlyn Amelin had ever met. A week ago Lyandra claimed that the Dragon Reborn had gone mad or died, ruining Cairhien entirely, the city, not the country. People couldn't keep their mouth shut near Lyandra, or so it seemed.

"Well, they aren't, and they are all over the city. Didn't you hear the noises from outside?" Lyandra rolled on her back, and looked at Amelin from a tilted position. She took a long breath and continued: "Anyways, my sister said it wasn't that bad, because when they are kissed, the madness will vanish. And they aren't killing everyone, just laughing and shouting and... haven't you even looked outside your window last night? The skies burned!"

Amelin raised an eyebrow. "I was at my library, Lyandra. Are you sure you're not telling a fairy tale or something? Insane men that can channel... that have to mean another Breaking of the World." The idea frightened her so much that she shivered. Lyandra just shrugged, she couldn't accept the idea of worrying about the tomorrow; she lived the moment with endless energy and passion.

"No! No, it's true!" Within a heartbeat Lyandra stood next to her and took her at her wrist. "Come and take a look outside, in the city. They are everywhere! And I heard that some of them are really handsome and cute."

"And it should be our duty as nobility of Caemlyn that we take their madness away, isn't it?" Amelin felt how a grin appeared on her face. The idea was certainly interesting, most of Lyandra's were.

Lyandra's blue eyes were sparkling. "Oh yes. Our duty and pleasure." She giggled shortly and then all but pulled Amelin with her, out of her rooms, out of the house, to the streets. It did not take Amelin long to run along with her friend, trying to find one of those cute Asha'man. It was two hours to sunset, and Amelin wondered how she could have missed last night's events, the library had no windows, but still, the noise was shocking, creature made of fire fought in the skies, and the skies themselves seemed uncertain if to remain blue, so many colors were there that her eyes began to ache when she tried to see them all in once, instead she concentrated on each one at its turn, a red Trolloc gnash his teeth in the skies, and then it held a flower in those huge hands, the last place she would have expected to see such tender thing. The Trolloc turned pink, and the flower grew rapidly, then there were a dozen of them, and a hundred, and then a thousand or more, red and blue and white and purple and yellow, and a huge one, twice the size of the Lion Palace, dominated the skies in its black.

Lightning stroked from clear skies where clouds shaped into human forms fought each other with hate marked on their face, most of them females, large number of them unclothed. A storm of green lightning hit the Lion Palace, and she watched fearfully, expecting the ancient building to fall apart, each lightning was the as wide as the oak that had been planted in her house's garden by the Ogiers, before the Trollocs war. But the palace only shined greenly for a few moments, not one stone falling. A firewall a mile wide appeared in the skies, formed itself into a hawk and flew above the city, its call surged in their ears. "It would have worth it, to live in the Breaking, just to see that!" Lyandra exclaimed. "I don't think I will ever get tired of that. It's... beauty."

"Indeed," Was all Amelin could say, and that was to say the least, taking her eyes from the skies was hard, but she turned her eyes to the street they were standing in, even Lyandra, who saw all that last night and as she came to her house, stood with her mouth gaping like some country girl that never saw a place that had never seen any place bigger than her village. But watching people's reactions always fascinated her, the streets weren't empty, as she half expected to find. But full of people, she saw many that stared at the skies in awe and fear, but they watched it still. And every store was open, a girl no more than seven run by them, holding a globe of green light the size of her head. Joy spread on her face. Silently she touched Lyandra's shoulder and pointed at half a dozen Aiels, in the cloths they all wore, no sense of fashion, they had. None of the Aiels moved a muscle, and their soft boots float at least a foot from the ground.

Lyandra nodded and then pointed at far more interesting sight, a short man, a Cairhienin, by his face, clad in black, the first she have seen wearing black today. Couple of maidens walked behind him, each at least a hand taller than he was, veiled. No wonder, Aiels and Cairhienins despite and scorned each other. The man turned his head to say something to them, maybe he was trying to calm them, but, if anything, it made them walk more rigidly. The three passed through the crowd like it wasn't there; it split before them, the three walked in a bubble of empty space.

"The only time I've seen people do that is with White Cloaks!" Lyandra said, and giggled, "I wonder what they would think about it?"

"The Asha'man or the Children of Light?" Amelin asked, "Their reaction would be the same, I assume, rage. And they will be even angrier knowing that the other side is just as angry for this. Neither would like the comparison." White Cloaks despite the very idea of the One Power. Claiming that Aes Sedai would ruin the world again, Amelin had no need to guess much about what they would have to say about the Asha'man.

"I think he's taken already, Amelin." Lyandra said, "We should find one that is not taken already."

"He was too short to be cute," Amelin noted, "And I don't think that channeling make a person cute, you do remember Elaida, don't you? She is as uncute person as I've seen."

"Elayne can channel," Lyandra said absently, "And I've heard she had got the Dragon Reborn to herself. Do you think she kissed him?"

"Oh, Light!" Amelin groaned, sometime Lyandra's ears caught too many rumors, and she enjoyed pretending she believed them all. "Let us just find an Asha'man and kiss him! I don't believe that particular rumor, even if the rest is true. Elayne has too much sense to get involve with the Dragon Reborn; mother met him and she said that he was the coldest and hardest man she had ever man she had ever met. Do you really believe that man is capable of love? Elayne isn't fool enough to believe him if he would tell him he loves her, he only wants to control Andor."

"There is other possibilities, Amelin." Lyandra said, her eyes searching the crowd for black clad man, "Elayne might have decided that it's her duty to do anything to save Andor. And if that means that she has to bed al'Thor, do you believe she wouldn't do that?" Despite her behavior, Lyandra was no fool. The thought was unpleasant; Amelin knew Elayne well, before she was sent to the White Tower, there was little the woman wouldn't do for Andor. The same went for her and Lyandra as well, as Amelin well knew. If, to save Andor, she had to bed with a Trolloc she would do so, and Lyandra too.

"I don't like this," She muttered loudly. Andor must come before everything else, dear. She remembered her mother's favorite saying. And, There is no need to like what you do when duty is the reason for your actions, Amelin; there is only the need to do what is required of you to do. Her father always said when she complained that her duties are extremely unpleasant. At the time, it was going to a dinner at the Lion Palace, not a week after she and Elayne had the most terrible fight possible. The lesson was well remembered, and Amelin knew that Lyandra had had almost the exact experiences. They didn't talk about it, an unpleasant subject to say the least, but no talking was needed, one day they would lead their houses, she would be High Seat of House Taravin, and Lyandra would be the High Seat of House Anshar. They didn't talking about it, no talks were needed.

"Neither do I, Elayne is our friend." Lyandra said somberly. "But there is nothing we can do about it now. You're taller than I am; can you see anything black? I want to find a cute one, Amelin. And think, we are going to kiss someone to sanity!"

"I don't think I've ever done that," Amelin told her dryly, "Most often, the result should be reversed." Kissing takes their madness away? Oh Light, I will never have such a good opportunity to kiss a man that can channel, Amelin thought, half amused, half serious. It would be the most exciting adventure in their life, although something in the logic that directed them was a bit obscure, to say the least. They could think of reasons why not kissing an Asha'man later, after they would kiss one, a cute one.

For one moment she thought about Mefil, the baker's boy, and the kisses in the darkness until her father, Lord Sheraen of House Taravin, found out, and chased the boy away. She had never seen Mefil after that but once, when his black eye and the bruises on his face were about to start healing. I am sure that father will understand this time... she told him then. Laughing, she followed her friend, who was just as enthralled as she was. It was Lyandra who taught her never to be worried about things she could do nothing about. And Mefil and her kissed when she was fifteen only. For some reason, stolen kisses were much more pleasant than other kisses.

It did take quite a long while before they found a cute one on a little square in one of the garden the Ogier created close to the palace wall. They have seen others too, five of them, but one was far too older for them, old enough to be their father and more, and other was simply... unattractive, not that he was ugly, just short of it, with mouth too wide to his face and nose far too small. The third was obviously drunk, and he hadn't washed lately, twenty feet away, they could clearly smell him. The forth was taken, a tall maiden stepping next to him, or being dragged by him, it was hard to decide. The fifth could have been cute, if he hadn't two black eyes and a woman dressed in Ebou Dari dress behind him.

They almost became frustrated from the attempts to find a cute, untaken, Asha'man when they found him. He was all alone, sitting at the edge of a marble fountain and played with the water. When he ran his hands through it, it bubbled up in shiny colored lights, floating in the air like soap balls - but these ones really shined like little lights. He laughed as he watched them, a happy laugh full of joy and love for life.

Lyandra and Amelin were hiding themselves behind a house. Once in a while one of them popped her head around the corner to take a look at him. "He doesn't seem insane to me," Lyandra whispered. "More... joyfully."

Amelin nodded as she watched the man in black. He was really cute; the stories were not exaggerated at all. His hair was dark brown, and the lines of his face were almost delicate, so friendly and nice in the light of the bubbles. He did not seem much older than she and Lyandra were. And he reminded her of Mefil. Mefil could enjoy the little things in life intensely; this Asha'man did the same. And the man looked like a country folk, even thought the breech and coat were made of black silk. The only decoration he had was a silver pin on his high collar.

Amelin liked him immediately. "Come on, Lyandra. Let's go talk to him."

Her friend hesitated for a moment. "Well... I don't know if-"

"Now come on! You were the one who told me about this in the first place!" Lyandra looked guilty.

"But what if he is really insane?" She protested.

"Does he look like it?" Amelin asked, staring at her friend with frustration, she could never do it without her Lyandra, it wouldn't be... right.

"Not really." Lyandra said hesitantly.

"Well, then!" Amelin grabbed Lyandra's wrist and pulled her with her just like Lyandra did with her not long ago. She approached the Asha'man firmly, but with every step she took the certainty vanished more. When she finally stood before him, she felt her hands trembling. What if he would kill her? Her mother would skin her alive if she would let herself die.

The Asha'man looked up from the light bubbles and looked at them. "Hello girls," he grinned. "How nice to see you. Are you going to keep me company tonight?"

Amelin felt her cheeks burn, but Lyandra laughed charmingly and let him pull her on the edge of the fountain. "Maybe we are. Tell me, how do you make those bubbles?"

He smiled and a yellow-golden bubble floated between their faces. And two emerald bubbles the size of her fist rose in the air to dance near Lyandra. Soft silvery bubble floated in Amelin's direction. "Weaves of Air and Water, a tiny bit of Fire. It is not that hard to do it. "He was a man that could channel, but Amelin couldn't be afraid of him, she touched the bubble lightly with one finger, slightly afraid it might bite her. It felt just like water, but it shined in silver light.

"You can truly channel saidin? And you aren't mad or anything worse?" Lyandra asked, unaffected by saidin being channeled so closely to her.

He laughed joyfully. Such a warm sound, Amelin thought. "No, I am not mad, and I will not be." Jumping to his feet, another bubble of water rose to join the dozen or so that already floated in the air, this was ten times the size of his head, nearly drying the entire pool; it shifted colors with every heartbeat. "Saidin is cleansed, girls, the taint will not corrupt us anymore."

The news had no affect on Lyandra, she just used the subject to flirt with him, and Amelin was observing him with big eyes. He was so cute. Somewhere, the information registered, her mother should know about it, later. After she would kiss him.

"And what are your names, if I may ask, girls?" He asked after a while. The huge bubble sank back into the pool, colors gone from it, Amelin took the silvery bubble in her hands; she wanted to keep it.

"I'm Lyandra, from House Anshar," Lyandra told him, looking at him in a way that set every man on fire. Lyandra was not that beautiful, she was just charming. And she knew how to use it.

"And I am Amelin from House Taravin."

The Asha'man grinned. "Nobles, the future plotters and rulers of Caemlyn?"

"I guess you could say that, although I think you mistake us for Cairhienin." Lyandra smiled in her sweetest way. Asha'man or not Asha'man, he was still a man.

Amelin decided she would take the next step. They always flirted that way. Lyandra was the flirter, but Amelin was always the one to be kissed first. And she was not any prettier than her friend. Maybe it was because she remained more mysterious than her friend. She laid her hand on his arm and said in a low, warm voice: "And what is your name?"

"Darian al'Falder. I am from the Two Rivers." His eyes were almost black, Amelin noticed. A woman could drown in them.

"Would you like to kiss me, Darian?" Amelin asked, and smiled faintly at him.

"How could I refuse such an attractive offer," Darian laughed, and before she could even take a breath, he pushed his lips firmly on hers and kissed her. The feeling was wonderful, she couldn't remember it being so terrific - her body trembled a bit, it felt like ecstasy, it was like exploding, like merging together with him, she was one with him, and it was so sweet, so sweet, so wonderful and beautiful... the ecstasy reached the edge of pain, crossed the edge, and exploded.

When he let her go, she felt tears in her eyes, and her whole mind and body seemed to be hassled. Panting, she sat on the edge of the fountain. For a moment simply gathering her strength.

As she splashed some water on her face, she could hear Lyandra say: "That must have been a good kiss. Can I have one, too?"

Amelin wanted to say no, you can't! But she did not have the energy. She had lost every last bit of control on her feelings and reality. Light, girl, stop this foolishness! He only kissed you! You can't count the number of times a boy kiss both of you. She spun around when she felt faintly the same feeling of ecstasy returning. Darian was kissing Lyandra passionately, and she felt something... doubling. She felt as if it was her that was kissing Lyandra.

These are his feelings, not mine! She realized. I feel what he feels! How is this possible?

When he let go of Lyandra, her friend suffered even worse than she did. She gazed at the man with glazed eyes, softly moaning. She nearly fell as she tried to seat next to her on the pool's edge. "What have you done?" she hissed at Darian, no longer thinking he was cute. "What have you done us?"

Darian stared at her in amazement, "I kissed you, just as you asked!" He said, "That was... not all." He gaped at nothing. And slowly he sat himself on the fountain near them, his face a mask of stunned shock.

Lyandra's eyes were dazed as she spook, "What more have you done save kissing us?" He used the Power! Amelin thought angrily, it wasn't fair; it was the best kiss she had ever had, and now she had no chance to get more. She didn't want to be kissed with the power.

A long silent came from him, broken only by heavy breathing; she was glad of that, he did tried. "I... I... took you as..." he stopped to swallow hard, his face a mask of disbelief. "As warders, the Light burns my soul! I took you as my warders!"

It wasn't until Min nearly fell to the floor that Narishma focused his attention on the Lord Dragon. He was busy staring at Mierin. And trying to ignore Beldeine's eyes, he had been told that he had disturbing stare. Beldeine could give snakes lessons in glaring. And the only time he stared back at her, Mierin felt... betrayed, although he couldn't understand why. It was Beldeine that chased him, not the other way around, and not even leaving her hanging above a pit a mile deep for four hours changed her mind. She didn't interested in him as a human being, he was simply an Asha'man, and she was eager to prove she wasn't afraid of Asha'man.

"I felt... something." Rand said, "It felt like a fade's stare." That was all the explanation he offered, and his eyes seemed to be searching for something, something that might attack him. "Well, I did!" He snapped at Elayne's direction, the woman looked at him with eyes wide with shock.

Mierin's hold on his wrist tightened, it tightened enough to leave a bruise. She was surprisingly strong for such small woman. "What happened - ?" He began to ask, and then he saw the woman. Very tall woman, with golden red hair the color of the sun in a clear day, her hair reached her waist and gather in one long braid. She was dressed in a ruffled green dress, in a style unfamiliar to him. Blue eyes scanned the room, until they laid on the Dragon Reborn. "I found you," the woman whispered. "At last, I've found you."

Narishma glanced at Elayne, he was right, the two women looked like sisters, except that Elayne had no sisters. Maybe a cousin, the woman that entered was only few years older than Elayne, but easily as beautiful.

The Dragon's reaction to the sight of the woman could be only described as deep shock. The cup he held in his hand, thick green glass, shattered. He didn't even seem to notice that he was hurt. "Ilyena!" He whispered, stunned.

As if the name was a sign, the woman collapsed. A horse, black as night and big enough to be a warhorse stepped through the door. No one moved when the animal snort and bent its head to push the woman on the floor, as if it was trying to wake her. How that woman reached here? And the horse, for that matter!

A short man in cloths in Cairhienin fashion rushed into the room, "Ilyena Sedai?" He said, kneeling near the unconsciousness woman, "Are you fine, Lady?"

Eben stared at him, and mouth silently a joke they shared, "Nothing should surprised you around the Dragon Reborn!"

"This is the first time I've seen any such thing!" Varil muttered, coming closer to him, nearly an hour after the woman entered the room and caused more commotion than a horde of raging Trollocs.

"You've not been around the Lord Dragon long enough," Narishma told him with a smile, Nynaeve, who still stood only because of Lan's support, held her stomach and glared at the black horse,bound with air. Nynaeve knew nothing about war-horses, apparently.

"Indeed," Varil agreed, "I begin to wonder whatever it was worth it, going to the Black Tower."

Narishma glanced at him, the man was full with saidin to bursting, as he himself was, and everything was worth it. He said as much, glaring at the man, when his attention was distracted.

"My Lord Dragon," Flinn said, making Rand's head turn. "She is waking." The Dragon Reborn's head turned; he was questioning the man that came with Ilyena. By his face, he was ready to skin the man if he would hesitate a heartbeat before answering. The man felt it, and talked as quickly as he could. No one save those gathered in the room knew about the Cleansing, and Rand was very... specific with the man.

The man, who claimed his name was Der Cal, stood rigid, trying to flinch away from flows of Air that held him as surely as any stonewall. He claims to know nothing whatsoever, only following the unconsciousness woman to here because she wanted him to.

Mierin divided her eyes between him and the woman on the floor. Anger and fear battling inside her, her eyes could bore holes in steel. She was that way since he had to order her not to try to kill Ilyena. He could understand the anger, yet not the fear. She loved Rand al'Thor no more; he knew it for a fact. What reason she had to fear. No, it went beyond fear, beyond anger, fury and horror, or something even stronger.

Mierin weren't the only one glaring, Min and Aviendha stared at Rand with eyes as sharp as knifes. Elayne hadn't taken her eyes from Ilyena for a heartbeat, and she was as pale as new snow.

Rand didn't seem aware of them, despite their bond to him. He was too busy questioning Der Cal, and sending guilty looks at the woman on the floor. "Ilyena," Rand said, kneeling beside the golden hair woman. His voice was pained. For some reason, Min, Aviendha and Elayne looked at if they were stabbed, straight in the stomach.

The woman's eyes opened slowly; she stared up at the man kneeling behind her, "Lews Therin?" There was question in her voice.

"I... I'm Lews Therin." Rand said, and something flashed in his eyes, it was all he had time to say before he was thrown away, smashing into a wall. The woman scrambled to her feet, Mierin's anger seemed to melt away, a shocked, yet pleased expression on her face. She moved toward him, forgetting her hostility to him.

"Why, Lews Therin?" The woman asked as she scrambled to her feet. Her voice quiet and deadly, a lightning strike, the size of a small tree, straight toward Rand. The man, still shocked, couldn't protect himself. Narishma wove Air and Fire, forming a shield; he saw other shields, felt his shield touching others, shields that he couldn't see.

"Don't hurt her!" Rand shouted as he rose to his feet. A shield surrounded him and the fair-hair woman, a weave Narishma never saw anything even slightly similar to. Hindering any from reaching them, whatever with the True Source or any other way, Narishma studied the weave closely; it seemed, very... handy.

The weave might have stopped them from interfering, but it hindered neither sight nor hearing. And Narishma cursed his lack of knowledge in the Old Tongue. He wasn't aware that the Lord Dragon had such control in the Old Tongue. All he could understand were few words here and there.

Ilyena's face seemed to be carved from a rock, if rock could be beautiful and angry at the same time. While Rand's face were still pale as he face her. Kinslayer was a word he recognized, and Dragon, and something about oaths given that had been broken, death was also a word that repeated more than once, along with betrayer and love. And what seemed like a list of names, that Ilyena delivered in a voice as flat and cold as death itself. And each name landed like a whip or Rand. Yet he seemed to become colder at the same time.

Ilyena did most of the talking; with Rand trying to put a word here and there, yet she didn't seemed ready to let him speak. Weaves of saidin moved constantly in the air, slashing at something her couldn't see, Ilyena's weaving; no doubt, trying to kill him.

It had to be stopped, somehow, the woman, Narishma could hardly believe that she was named Ilyena, after Lews Therin's long murdered wife. Or that she was that wife. But one thing was clear, she obviously didn't know Rand al'Thor well, or she would have chosen her ground more carefully. His eyes darkened quickly. But something else caught his attention before he could do anything about it; Mierin's face, they... beamed with joy. And she leaned against him, wrapping an arm around his waist as if she belonged there, which certainly she did, in any other moment but this. "What are you so happy about?" He demanded to know, but even in his anger. He still couldn't make himself push her away.

"Nearly four thousands years I've been waiting for this very moment, Jahar Narishma." She told him in a serene tone, yet she all but bouncing on her toes! She didn't look at him, she was too busy staring with obvious pleasure she didn't even bothered to hide. "It might have worth dying. You've no idea how much trouble I've passed to cause the slightest breach between those two. And now..." She simply nodded, nothing more was needed. Ilyena didn't sufficed herself with simply talking,

Flows of Air and Fire, woven just so, hit the air constantly, like sharp knifes hitting straight at their target. "How strong is she?" He asked quietly. And for the first time since the barrier around the Lord Dragon and Ilyena Sunhair was placed, he stared at the others gathered in the room. Rand's warders were pale, wives, though for some reason the man didn't bothered to tell them about this little trap hole in the bond. The only answer Rand was ready to give him was a distant murmur about men not putting their neck on the headsmen's block with of their own free will. It made no sense to Narishma. Save himself, he could hardly name a single of Asha'man that had openly admit to his warder that the bond held no difference than marriage. And the reasons were obscure at best.

"She is as strong as I'm," Mierin said slowly, her eyes focus on the two. He couldn't believe that he could love his wife more. Couldn't accept the idea of lying to her. Why the others did so?

Be the reason to that mysterious behavior as it might be, Rand's wives seemedto be on the edge. And he would wager his soul for a copper that Elayne and Aviendha held saidar, as strongly as they could, for that matter, by the itching of his forearms, every woman in the room did. And all the men were full of saidin to bursting. And even now, he had to fight the source, not only saidin trying to destroy him, a fight that only made him more aware to the life that poured into him with every heartbeat. He had to fight himself too, not to do something with the power. There was a gold mine about three miles below them; he could feel the gold calling him through the stone. He already began to plan the necklace, gold and silver, the silver could be find not twenty miles from him, the Dragonmount was a treasure of valuable metals. Golden roses and silver crests, with the ancient symbol of Aes Sedai in the middle. It would fit perfectly to Mierin's neck.

Narishma glared at nothing, it happened again, he had to put all his will into not using the power, it cried out to be use, so much of the power, every bit he could hold, and he hadn't gained his full strength yet, wilders were strong, very strong, among men, when the wilders had been hunted for three thousands years, the only men with the spark that were still born in this days were all among the strongest to come to the Black Tower.

According to Taim, the Aes Sedai culled out of the human race only the weakest among those who were born with the spark. The rest had time, time to do something with theirs fate. Most of them declared themselves as the Dragon Reborn. They didn't escape the madness, yet they left something behind, only memories sometimes. Yet sometimes, a child, with a promise inborn in him was left, for this generation or for a child a hundred years after the man who was his ancestor died.

But, despite touching his borders already, it wasn't enough, yet he had to keep it as this level alone. A bit more, and he would burn out. Strangely, it was the thought of might happen to Mierin that kept him from drawing too much. Without her, he might have been ready to burn out, just for the sheer joy of the power.

"Stop this, Narishma." Mierin said, not taking her eyes from Rand and Ilyena, or moderating her grin, for that matter. "It's dangerous." He snorted, as if he didn't know this.

"So is your expression," He told her, "And what would you gain by creating a rift between the two of them?" She turned to stared at him, no longer smiling.

"Sometimes, Narishma," She said coldly, slowly, "it's better to hold you tongue. In few words, you've ruined a moment I've been waiting ages for, literally."

"What do they say?" He inquired his warder, ignoring her anger.

"She didn't like dying," Mierin said absently, still glaring at him, she didn't seem aware of answering him, "And she didn't like him murdering their children and friends, back in the end of the War of Power. She listed every one of them for him." She shook her head slightly, confusion felt strongly in her, "She sound nothing like Ilyena that I knew." For some reason, the last was full of relief.

Elayne, Min and Aviendha grunted at the same moment, turning his attention to the tall man and the golden hair woman. The reason for the surprised gasps from Rand's warders was obvious, the man stood rigid, somehow looking even taller than he usually was. The shield that surrounded the two broke. And the Lord Dragon spat something in the Old Tongue, harsh and cold and hard and grim! He finished shouting, and stood for a moment, fists tight, breathing hard, then a gateway, leading to utter darkness open behind him, he strode through, none had chance to take any action whatsoever to stop him before the gateway close behind him.

The look on Mierin's face was of utter shock, "What did he said?" He asked softly, his voice just barely reaching her ears.

"I've married you, indeed, and loved you." She whispered, as thought she didn't believe what she was saying, Ilyena looked like she had just reached the bottom of a pit she was falling forever in. "There are no words strong enough to give you the smallest understanding of how I felt when it became clear to me thatit was I was the one who killed you! There is nothing I can say that would make you see how it's to live with such horror on my conscience! Yet, if I'll have to do the same again, knowing the price, I would! A thousand times again! And may the Light burn me for it!"

Tears shined on Ilyena face, and then the first sob came. Another followed, and another, until the woman collapsed on the floor, her face between her hands, sobbing helplessly, miserably, sobs that seemed to be torn from her very soul.

Narishma stared at the woman for a moment, his eyes turned to Valir and he nodded toward the woman sharply. He couldn't do anything for the woman himself; he couldn't even let himself be in the same room with Ilyena without Mierin's temper flaring at him. Valir nodded and moved. And Narishma moved his eyes throughout the room, Elayne, Min and Aviendha looked almost as bad as Ilyena was. Nynaeve stared at the scene; opened month, eyes wide, she clutched to Lan's hand like he was the last real thing in the world. Logain paid no attention to the crying woman, He was too busy arguing in low voices with Halima, the raven-hair woman face him coldly, and Narishma began to wonder whatever the man had as much problems taking care of Halima as he had with Mierin. Maybe he should ask the man for some advices. Of course, that the man had three warders didn't say anything to his favor. Only madman would take more than one, and any but a fool would choose carefully. Glancing over his shoulder to Mierin, he sighed inwardly. He was ready to admit he was a fool, but at least she wouldn't bore him. His eyes slide over to the Aes Sedai, save Beldeine, who still had her eyes on him, they were talking quietly among themselves. Varil took care for Ilyena, pulling her to her feet gently and talking to her in a soothing tone, and all that time holding the strongest shield he could weave between him and her. Varil was very careful, always.

"Eben," Narishma said, walking the small distance between him and the younger Asha'man, "Could you take care for the Aes Sedai? I think that this... party is over." Eben shot him a hard look; the man gained the dragon before he himself did.

"Beldeine is there," Eben noted finally, "Maybe I should let you do it, just to see what she will do to you. She didn't like it, when she heard about... Mierin."

"Since when do I care what Beldeine think, Eben? Or you do?" Narishma asked coldly. "If I'm lucky, she might develop interest in you." The man - despite his age, none of the Asha'man that had came to Domani well were boys anymore - laughed sourly.

"Light save me from that," He muttered, and turned to Aes Sedai, "and from all women as well." Eben added before he began moving. There were many stiff necks and hard eyes, yet the Aes Sedai left the room.

Before they were all outside the room, Narishma caught Beldeine's arm, "I'm already taken, Aes Sedai." He made his voice frosty and hard, not the easiest thing to do, when all he wanted to do was to laugh until he would cry, or to dance until he couldn't hold himself up. "Find yourself another prey to hunt." Without waiting for a replay, he turned back to Mierin. And all in all, Mierin's eyes met his, and even without the bond he could see jealously and fury and betrayal battling inside her. Light! And all he did was talking with Beldeine!

Leane tried to hide a yawn behind her hand as she entered the main room of the quarters she share with Logain, Toviene and Halima, the morning after they celebrated the cleansing of saidin. They have scattered not long after that woman entered. The last she had seen, the woman was still sobbing helplessly with Valir trying to soothe her. It was hard not to feel sorry for her; yet Leane had tried, with Nynaeve's help, for hours, to comport Elayne and Min and Aviendha.

The Dragon's three warders were not far from breaking into tears themselves. Elayne simply closed herself in a shield of cold arrogance, when anyone could see that she was the one who was hurt more than the two others. And Aviendha seemed to be willing to break anything she would lay her hands on, but especially the car'a'carn. Min was... she didn't seem to be fully there at all.

They have agreed at last, that Rand must return on his own accord, they couldn't go for him; it was something he had to solve himself. That was the stage Leane left.

She hoped the three would be fine, but she had others worries too, more important then the three's sadness. The Dragon Reborn must be in the Last Battle. The man couldn't let himself disappear so. She was still troubled by those thoughts as she examined the room; Logain sat on a carved wooden chair by the stone table in the center of the room, staring at the air just above the center of the table. A strange mix of wires that created the outline of a cube in red and green and blue wires hanged in the air, the cube was about size of a Trolloc's head, Logain's eyes focused on the cube. It turned around slowly, and inside the cube; Leane caught more flashes of color.

"It is just something to busy him," Halima said defensively, she sat on a chair opposing Logain, and held a spoon in one hand, she use it to point at the cube. "It wouldn't harm him, it would take him few hours at least to solve it, and it should keep him from troubles."

"What is this?" Leane said, taking a seat and sending a hand to grab the tray that lay, untouched, near Logain.

"That is my breakfast." Logain muttered.

"That was your breakfast," Halima grinned at him, then turned her eyes to Leane, "you might call it a riddle, it is... was used to practice the power." Today the woman wore a dress that didn't expose half as much as the woman usually seemed to enjoy exposing. Leane had the same discovery few weeks ago when she found out that every Domani dress vanished from her cloths chest. And at the time she surrounded hundreds of Aes Sedai, she thought Logain's jealously was sweat, although she made sure that he would understand how angry she was on him. And never mind that it was risking his life for something that foolish and not for being so jealous with her. And, just to prove a point, she made sure she would have new dresses just like the he took. "It gives him something to do, and there is little chance he can get into any trouble with this weave. He can't seem to control the desire to do something with the source."

Leane stare at the plate she stole from Logain, she had to go back to the White Tower soon, suddenly she wasn't as hungry as she had been before, she had others duties save being near Logain, as pleasant as it may be. Halima laid the bowl of stew she was eating on the table and stood, there was nothing left in it, and it wasn't a small bowl. "I would need you and Toviene today, Leane." She said as she walked toward Toviene's room. "I think it's time to build my network." There was an eager light in the woman's eyes.

"Let Toviene sleep as much as she wish," Logain said, not taking his eyes from the spinning cube, a riddle? Leane wondered, then pushed the thought away, she could ask Halima about it later.

"Why?" Halima stopped to challenge him, "I need her, and I doubt if she could be of much help while she is still snoring." Leane took a bowl filled stew, rabbit stew, by the smell, and leaned back in her chair to enjoy the show. Halima and Logain always fought each other, like two cats in a sack.

"You won't need her," Logain repeated calmly, "You're not going anywhere. Not unless I can keep an eye on you. And Toviene doesn't snore, you do." The fool didn't even looked at Halima.

Halima hissed, Leane wondered what it was that awoke the woman's anger; suddenly she looked taller than she really was, more dangerous. The bowl of stew that Leane held flew from her hands, just when she was about to take the first bite. Logain was too busy staring at Halima's riddle to notice the flying bowl. Yet he certainly noticed it when the bowl, filled with hot stew, crushed into his head. "I was eating that!" Leane exclaimed, holding an empty spoon. But she smiled despite her empty stomach.

"I will make you another," Halima said without taking her eyes from Logain. The cube stopped spinning, And Logain jump to his feet, his chair fell back, cursing he tried to clean himself of the stew, all this while glaring at Halima hard enough to pull down a horse twenty feet away from him. He seemed too angry and surprised to think reasonably. "What do you think about an Asha'man stew? I know an excellent recipe for a mule's brain." Halima took a step forward and raised her hand, delicate fingers tightening around something Leane couldn't see. Logain's eyes widen slightly, and he threw himself back, a well of fire springing from the floor, where he stood a moment ago, it linger there for a heartbeat, and died.

Leane stopped smiling, taunting Logain was fine, throwing tempers was fine too; trying to kill him wasn't. "Halima," She began, but the woman paid her no mind. Logain regained his balance when Halima made another step toward him; he was pulled to the air and floated three feet in the air, surprise gone from him, replaced by cold anger. As soon as the surprise was gone he was released, and somehow, he managed not to fall as he crushed into the floor.

"What gave you the idea that I need you to keep an eye on me?" Green eyes flaring and face twisted in fury, she still looked like any man's dream. Leane took back her seat, and grasped a piece of bread with some loaf, Halima wouldn't harm Logain, not too much, at least, and he deserved what he got. She couldn't explain for her life how she knew it. But she did. "What gave you the idea that you can keep an eye of me? Or that I will allow it?" Logain stood, face dark, anger becoming fury.

Halima reached out as if to touch him, thin streams of fire flaring from her fingers. Logain didn't move a muscle, but the flames stopped a foot from him, "That is enough, Halima." Logain said through clenched teeth, Leane could feel him trying to control his anger.

"No!" The woman said, and a flash of Light stronger than the sun blinded Leane, she embraced saidar blindly and wove a shield of Air around her, just to be on the safe side. "It's not enough, not until I will shove some sense into that load of rubbish you call a brain. And I don't care if I'd to use a hammer."

Logain done nothing Leane could see, but Halima's eyes widen, her jaw was set, and she stared at Logain in such a way that Leane doubt if a herd of horses could move her an inch from her decision. "What are you so afraid of, Logain?" Halima asked, her voice too mild. Leane wished she could see what the two did with saidin. All she saw was the two of them glaring at each other, and the air nearly humming with tense. "I can't run away, you made sure of that. I can't return to the shadow, I can't even want to do this." Logain growled wordlessly, "Is that too hard on you, darling?" Halima asked, voice pouring honey, "I can make it harder, honey."

"I can stand whatever you would throw at me," Logain said, "I've already proven you this in the White Tower, or have you forgotten that?"

"I was limited then," The woman replayed, "Some Aes Sedai might have suspected something was happening if I would have tried to kill you with the power, I would have to use few things that would have torn the very heart of Tar Valon. There was nothing I could do beyond trying to sever you."

Logain took a step forward, and another, it seemed to Leane that he had to fight something to do so. His movements slow, as if he was walking inside water. "Release saidin, woman." Logain commanded, shaking with fury.

"What is going on in here? I was trying to sleep." Toviene demanded, gliding into the room gracefully, her eyes were directed to Logain, Leane remembered Toveine from her novicehood, the woman's eyes seemed able to probe into one's very soul, exposing every sin and secret you wish to hide, it seemed to affect men especially.

"The children played," Leane answered in Logain's place, he was too busy taking deep breaths and staring at Halima as if he wished he could kill her. The woman simply crossed her hands below her breasts and grinned at him, never mind that the grin looked more like a show of perfect teeth. By her expression, Halima would be overjoyed to go for Logain throat with her teeth alone.

"Again?" Toviene asked, rising an eyebrow at Logain, "Can't the two of you, for a change, pass an hour without arguing." Toviene's voice was the same she used for a novice who broke a law, but here eyes rested on the overturned chair Logain sat on, with a broken bowl and what remain of a stew that smelled just like she loved it. The rest of the stew was spread on Logain's head and shoulders, near the chair there was a black circle two feet wide, with no doubt what caused it. Toviene gave her accusing look, what had she done, "And why couldn't you stop them?" The woman asked. "Before they would move from destroying furnishing to killingpeople."

Leane shrugged, "They are enjoying it too much, I didn't want to interrupt the game."

"Enjoying?" Logain said coldly.

"A game, Leane?" Halima shouted, "You think this is a game? A game would be to skin him alive, then healing him, only to skin him again, and doing so until he beg for mercy." Logain gave her a sharp look she didn't seemed to notice, Toviene swallowed nervously. "This is no game." Her attention passed to Logain, "I don't care what you think, you arrogant fool whose mother bedded with goats! I've a work to do, and I am about to do it! Toviene, change into something more suitable and eat something! I don't think I can't stand the company for a long time. Not without turning argues into battles." It was the first time that Leane notice that Toviene wore only her shift. Logain had the expression of a boy whose toy had just been taken away; he noticed it long before, no doubt. He seemed unaffected by Halima's words. Toviene blushed like three suns and hurried to her room, Halima's amused laugh chased her.

Halima looked at her dress; the most decent dress Leane saw her in, "The first thing I'm about to do is to visit a seamstress." She murmured to herself as she trotted toward her room.

"Work?" Logain snorted, "Seamstress!" Halima turned her head at him as he sank into a chair, "Women!" He muttered loudly, disgustfully. A strange expression crossed Halima face. Then she turned her back to him, just as the chair he was seating broke apart. He turned his head up, seating between the remaining of the chair, looked at the ceiling, and moaned loudly, desperately, "Why me, Light? Why me?"

Close to six Asha'man out of any ten that had reached the Black Tower before the Cleansing of saidin has at least one warder belonging to Far Derais Mai, the maidens of the spear, and often more. The reason for the large numbers of maidens serving as warders is quite simple:

Soon after the Cleansing, most Asha'man nearly went mad from joy, clouded mind and judgment, they had raided Caemlyn, then, the nearest city to the Black Tower. Nearly two thousands maidens were in the city at the time, unknown to anyone at the time was the fact that saidin had been Cleansed. And the Saldean soldiers that had guarded the city was gone together with the Dragon Reborn when he left to Illian, and remained in that country. And the Lion guard had only begun to re-assemble, as Elayne, the queen, ordered.

The only defense the city had were the Aiels Rand al'Thor had brought with him when he retook Caemlyn and Andor from Rahvin. There couldn't be a doubt that the Aiel assumed that the Asha'man, to the last boy in the Black Tower, had gone mad, yet they went against them. Had a single Asha'man wished so, nothing but charred ashes would have remained from the city. Yet not a single man or woman was that did not deserved it were hurt during the Days of the Black Guardian, as most people commonly name the event.

Despite several occurrences that caused a rift between the car'a'carn and Far Derais Mai, the maidens wish no harm for the Asha'man,who followed the same lead as they did. Yet they had no choice, when they thought they had all gone mad.

The Asha'man, at the time, were incapable of harming anyone and anything, too drunk from drawing saidin, finally cleansed, that all they've done when being attacked was simply to leave their attackers frozen for few hours, harming nothing save the Aiel's pride.

Yet the maidens found another way to distract the Asha'man's attention. There is a game among the maidens of the spear, called the maiden's kiss. The game involved a group of maidens, and a male victim. The maidens' spears are being held close to the man's throat and he's demanded to kiss every one of the maidens. It the man kisses well, they ease the spears a little; if he doesn't... then they push the spear a bit more, to encourage the man to kiss better.

Those of you who are aware of the Asha'man's bonding techniques would be instantly alert to the problem an Asha'man face, playing this game. Asha'man bond by kissing the woman they choose to be their warder, and the woman bonded feels as if every pleasure she'd felt in her life was summed into a single heartbeat, all the light of sun focused into a single moment, when the Asha'man weave the flows, and the woman is being bonded to him, forever.

One can easily argue how much the Asha'man were responsible of theirs action during that time, however, the results were the same. And nearly all of the Asha'man had one warder at least in the end of the Days of the Black Guardians, whatever they had one when the Days began or not. Most of the new warders were maidens, yet no all, Caemlyn was, and is, one of the great cities, and as such, people from all the lands came to the city, for many reasons. The rest of the warders taken at the end of the few days when the Asha'man ruled Caemlyn came mainly from Andor, yet a considerable number of them came from every land, from the Dragonwall to the Aryth Ocean.

Forcing a bond on a woman is considered an action beyond rape, in the Black Tower, and it was forgiven only twice in the Black Tower's history, when Aes Sedai, sent by Elaida, failed to form an attack on the Black Tower, all those Aes Sedai were captured and taken warders. The only second time that forced bonding was ignored was in the Days of the Black Guardians.

However, there can be no doubt that the warders eliminated every thought in the Asha'man's mind about the advantages of having a warder. There methods are worth to be remembered, if we take Hefal's actions...

The History of the Black Tower, volume X

By Elmindreda al'Thor

The Court of the Sun

The Forth Age

Lessa saw the black-coated man walking down the streets, slowly turning. He looked... Not drunk, but so happy that nothing else mattered to him. These Asha'man... They had come to Caemlyn for some reason two days ago, and all of them looked like this. At least that one wasn't throwing fire around or lifting things in the air or setting the skies alight, or any of the other impossibilities she had seen the last two days when the Asha'man seemed to be everywhere she looked for more than five heartbeats.

The Maidens guarded the town... But these Asha'man were too ripe a joke to resist. Her spear-sisters were back a street, playing Maiden's Kiss with one of the Asha'man they had talked into it. This, it seemed, was the only thing that calmed the Asha'man down a bit. For some strange reason, the Asha'man didn't behave at all like any other men she had seen playing Maiden's Kiss. They didn't seem to sober up until after they kissed a maiden or two. Usually that part came when the men had a necklace made of spears.

She had left, though. She wanted to find out what they were doing here and why... And it wasn't likely she would get answers any time soon from the one she left behind, he was too busy kissing. Glancing back, she saw Arolin drop spears and bucklers and wrapping her arms around the Asha'man, the spears around his throat were taken away completely. By the look on Arolin's face, he earned it completely.

She softly walked up behind the black-clad man. Somehow, though, he heard her before she came anywhere close. He had sharp ears. He was alone, as well, and would make a good one to question... But he still wore that ridiculous smile on his face that all Asha'man seemed to wear. Well, she could help him with that.

"Tell me, then. Have you ever played Maiden's Kiss?" It wouldn't be properly done, without any of her sisters, but she just wanted to humble him a bit. At his confused look, she smiled, again. It was always more fun with wetlanders, they didn't knew the game. "I'll show you..." Her spear point touched lightly against his throat. "Now... You kiss me. If it's well enough done, I'll ease off... If not...you'll not need to shave today." Burn the man! His smile widened as she spoke.

She would show him... She put a bit more pressure on the spear-point, and leaned forward to kiss him. But as their lips met... something happened, strange, exotic, feelings, emotions. Like the first time she saw a river, so much water she could hardly believe they all could even exist. It felt like... the first time she tasted an apple. So sweat that she could hardly swallow it, full of water and red as blood. It was everything she liked in the world, smells, tastes, and sights. Every memory of joy and happiness in her life returned to give her some more pleasure. It was... indescribable.

Eldan leaned back, as the spear was removed from his throat. He could still feel saidin, clean at last, rushing through him. He could also feel the woman in front of him, now. The flows he had woven in that moment were of Bonding, and there was no way to release them... He didn't intend to take a warder, but even if he would found a way to break the Bond... he didn't want to do so. The joy of saidin swept him along, and all lesser considerations were lost. She would be more than a fine warder.

"What is your name, fair lady?" He looked at the Far Derais Mai in front of him. She stared at him for a moment, still lost in the feeling, and then narrowed her eyes at him. "I am Lessa, of the Red Ford hold. Who are you, and why are you asking?" She shocked her head as if to shake something from her face.

He smiled, feeling her emotions, guessing her thoughts. He had never had a warder, nor needed one... But she would do well, if any woman could. It felt... strange, to have someone so close to him, and at the same time, it felt right. As if he wasn't truly whole until now, and didn't know what he lacked. "My name is Eldan Delvar. And it wouldn't disappear if you shake your head," He smiled wider, he couldn't control it, saidin was so sweat he almost cried, "You are my Warder, Lessa. And nothing can change that."

She stared at him in shock; he could feel the emotion echoing through the bond. Then, his head rang from her slap. He was just glad she hadn't used her spear, though she gripped it like she wanted to. "I am not..." Her voice dripped with scorn, "...your Warder. And I will not be one, either."

"Can you not feel it?" He gave a gentle tug with saidin to the bond, and she gasped. "We are already bonded, and there is nothing that can be done about that." Almost before he had finished speaking, the spear flashed at his throat. But he still held saidin, and before it reached the target, both it and his Warder were wrapped in flows of Air.

"If I die, so will you." He growled at her. "So there is nothing to be gained from that. You are not harmed, nor will you be." He didn't drop his smile, still feeling the sweetness of saidin untainted.

"You will have nothing of me, if I must kill us both." She spat at his feet.

"Very well then..." He frowned, and stepped backwards. "If you would have it that way." He turned his back on her, and began walking down the street. He grinned as he released the flow that held her. She was still bonded; she could not escape that. All he did was giving her some space to breath, and that was only an illusion. Few things had almost immediate affect on the bond, she would find her way to him; he knew that for sure.

He walked slowly through the streets, drifting at random, sometimes going the game in the skies, channeling just because he could and it was fun. Then, as he passed in front of a corner, a strong hand grabbed him, and pulled him into the dim light of an alley.

It was Lessa; he knew she was following him for the last half an hour. "What have you done? Why can I feel you in my head? Why can I not leave you?" Her words were hissed out. And by her eyes, she was ready to pull a dagger at him.

He stared at her, forcing down a grin, it was saidin; how could a man stop grinning with saidin inside him? With the power being so sweat and clean and wonderful, he couldn't release the smile for his life. "I told you, you are already bonded, and that can not be undone."

She frowned at him. "If I must..." She straightened, to look him in the eyes. She was very tall for a woman, maybe an inch alone shorter than he was. "...I will accept this, then, because there is nothing else I can do." She cut him off as he began to smile wider. "And if you try to take advantage of this, you will find that not all women are as weak as Wetlanders' women you know. There is plenty I can do, short of killing you."

He wasn't about to be intimidated by her words, "As a Warder, that is all I ask..." He extended a hand to her. "If you would come with me?" She glared at him, and stalked forward, out into the street. He could feel... Almost pride coming from her. He grinned, again. She would do well, indeed.

"Absolutely not!" The replay made him blink. "As I said, I accept the bond if I must, a lesson to teach me that there are reasons for laws and customs, but I'll not follow you like a wetlander woman, a dog chasing its master."

"I doubt if you can compare any warder to a dog, but you've a point there," He noted, "I think that I -" He stopped as the surged of fury, having the bond to warn him as she tried to stab him with the shaft of the spear, she was smart enough not to use the blade. All his training was worth the time putted into them. He skimmed back smoothly, moving a leg behind her left foot and tripping her. She tried to stop her fall as he caught her, her back against his chest, his arms locking her hands; she was strong, very strong, yet he was stronger. He gave her a quick kiss on the back of her head, just above that tail of red hair she had.

"I'll leave you for yourself now, Lessa." He said, feeling her becoming rigid,"But I will return to have my claim on you." Releasing her, he stepped back from her, and wove gateway for skimming. He was gone before she could regain the control on herself.

"If I will feel you within a hundred mile from me, you loutish mound of decaying Trolloc's leavings," Halima said frostily, "you will gravely regret it. I neither need nor want your... assistance, so stay away from me, I've no need in an unattractive load of second-hand sheep barf." How could a woman so beautiful own a mouth so vile? But of course, Logain reminded himself, she wasn't really a woman, or she hadn't been. She was certainly a woman now. Of course, she got mad if he tried treating her as a woman, and furious had he dare suggesting that she wasn't a woman.

He looked at her innocently, so he hoped, "What made you think that I would try to join you, dear?" Curses would have little affects on her, but honey names had much more affect on her, and it amused him to no end.

He could feel her control on her temper wavering, and when she regained her composure again, her lips curled back in disgust, "I know you, and it has not been a pleasant experiment."

Logain took hold in saidin and turned his attention to the riddle Halima presented him, it required both speed and delicacy; he could do either, but not both. The cube began to spin; fire and air creating the outline of the cube, seven flows of earth and water were tied inside the cube. The purpose of the game was to untie all the flows without crossing streams with the cube's flows once.

Halima tied the flows as strongly as she could, apparently, and untying wasn't something to be done roughly. He stopped counting the numbers of time he failed, but Halima was right, it was more than useful to gain skill in the power. "Didn't your mother tell you not to lie, honey?" He asked softly, words were his only weapon against her, and he was about to use them if it would kill them both. "You enjoyed... meeting me very much." He growled inwardly as he failed again. And tried again, he would continue until he would get it, or collapse, whatever comes first.

"My mother also told me to go in the Light, you recalcitrant brainless son of a nauseating pureed stable sweepings! Does it seem like I've ever listen to her." She was flushed, but not entirely of anger. He tensed as she took hold of saidin, but she didn't attack him, not directly, at least. He stared helplessly as her flows moved passed through the cube's wires, she untied all seven flows without once the spinning flows who created the outlines of a cube even getting near her flows. "You should practice more," She told him, half amused over his frustration, the other half still furious. She set the riddle again, and tied it up. "When you're done, try solving this," She told him, a pyramid appearing next to the cube, "the rules are the same, but the spinning is faster." And there were two dozens flows. Amusement won fury in the back of his head, and she bared her teeth at him in a wide grin. Could it be done? He wondered, staring at the pyramid.

That was what he remembered from her after she was gone with Leane and Toviene through the gateway. Her first destination was somewhere in Arafel, but she moved away from there in less than an hour.

He could have traced her, of course, but he believed her threats, there was much a woman can do to make a man's life miserable. And he had no wish for Halima to begin researching this field of being a woman. He would have to use the bond to force his will upon her, if needed, he would do so, but Logain disliked very much the need to force his will on her.

Again he tried to work out the riddle, and again he failed, reaching only five untied weaves before his flows touched the surrounding cube. With a curse, he rewove the flows he just untied and began it anew. He had the strange feeling that Halima was standing behind his shoulder and laughing to his attempts. He even looked back, unnerved, but there was no one there. He stared at the door that led into the corridors of the Dragonmount, he was ready to swear that it was close before, and no one opened it.

Shrugging, he rose to close the door, and sat back to continue his effort solving this... riddle.

An hour later he stared at the cube and felt a grin spreading on his face, he had finally manage to do it. Saidin flows in him like the sweetest river, molten life. Before, frustration hindered some of the joy of the power. Now, there was nothing to make him forget the sheer joy of the power. It was so... sweet and pure and full of life and so strong he nearly drowned in it.

That was the reason Halima gave him that riddle to solve. He didn't even looked at the second riddle, it would take weeks of training before he would manage to solve it, and he could remain in those rooms no longer. For some reason it felt slightly... wrong.

From the first time he channeled, when the mayor of his village caught his daughter and him in the barn, to the day saidin was cleansed, saidin was a two-edged blade. Pure ecstasy and pure evil, he never thought it's possible to have the first without the second, but now he had it, and he nearly shock from the feeling.

He opened a gateway, to the Black Tower; he wanted to know how the Asha'man reacted to the cleansing. There would be much feasting; he was ready to bet. And he was more than willing to join the party.

As the sun rose above the distant peaks of the Lion Palace's towers, a wind blew through the streets, stirring the dust and dirt of the day before. The shopkeepers opened their doors, and venders set up their stalls. As some early shoppers meander the streets, a few voices cried their wares. The crowd slowly thickened, people began to shove and push to purchase the first fresh fruits and vegetables of the year. After nearly four days of chaos, the city became quiet, people stared at the skies worriedly, covered by dark clouds, no longer shaped by saidin into every from imaginable. Fire no longer thrust in the air in columns hundred feet tall and ten feet wide. The skies held no longer visions to stare in awe. Lightning no longer flashed in the skies, in every color wished by the Asha'man.

The chaos ended, so it seemed, and the peace returned to Caemlyn. But even as the crowd pressed to get closer to the stalls of wares, people were shying from the few darkly dressed men that marched through the milling throng. The black-coated Asha'man walked through the crowd as if it were not there. Deeply wrapped in calm self-assurance, they radiate death and danger with every catlike move. Their madness were gone, apparently, there was not a single grin on those hard face. The people of Caemlyn couldn't decide what they rather had. The number of Asha'man in the streets was no way near to what it way as the beginning of those days.

But almost every grim faced Asha'man was followed by one or two women, most of them dressed in the drab brown and gray and green clothes, to suited for the wastelands beyond the spine of the world. Grey and blue and green eyes stared down any who dared to smile. Hands hovering, ready to don veils at the slightest chuckle, these women watched for anyone who would dare to attack the black clad man in front of her. Fewer were those who wore dresses, whatever from wool or silk or velvet.

Few in the crowd understood this strange pairing. That so many of the Aielwomen, who called themselves Far Dareis Mai, would follow those men who could channel, without the men doing nothing to stop them was beyond belief. Nor the reason why the other women, those who did not belonged to the maidens of the spears, followed the Asha'man, some in anger, some with reluctant clear on their face, but most walked with a mix of desperation and fury.

Many of the women glared as hard at the back of the Asha'man they've followed as to the people in the crowd. The people of Caemlyn could not figure out if it the women set themselves to watch the men of he Black Tower, or the Asha'man set to watch the women, they guarded each other, that was clear by their expressions, and all of those pairs or threes, and, in rare cases, fours, stayed within five steps from one another.

None dared to stare openly, for pain and humiliation awaited any who gave more than casual notice. The Asha'man were grim as death, and the last few days they have shown their might, in displays no illuminator could ever copy. All that with the tainted half of the One Power, even the Aiels were careful to hold their stares until after they had passed, but there were stares still. Only the Asha'man and the women who walked with them knew the entire story.

One of them were Lashid, red hair and blue eyes, she stared at the man that strode easily two steps in front of her. The crowd opened up for the black clad man, And Kidar Sharden deserve the blacks! Lashid thought furiously, he is nothing but a d'tsang!

And he held her life and fate in his hands! It was so unfair she wanted to scream. Kidar Sharden had explained her, in great details, what he had done to her. Among the maidens, there were few insults worse than to tell a woman that she would put her soul for a bridal wreath to lie at a man's feet. By Kidar Sharden's explanation, that was exactly what had been done to her.

And there was nothing she could do about it!

He forced her to come with, if one can call a simple request forcing. But she had no other choice but to follow. Saidin was clean, so the man claimed. And she was to be his warder, with no way back, and all that because she played maiden kiss!

No doubt the man thought that he might get more kisses from her! She would greet him with steel!

There were no parties in the Black Tower.

Logain sat stunned; he lost his hold of saidin along the story Kimali delivered in a hard voice. His eyes returned again and again to the women who were gathered in the room, Aielwomen, most of them, who stood or sat on the floor, face rigid and eyes hard.

He saw two girls that couldn't have been more than seventeen, both of them clad in silk, talking quietly between themselves, the tall one held a dagger in her hand, but Logain doubt if she truly knew how to use it.

A woman dressed as tavern maid cried softly near them. The maidens were the only ones not showing anger or fear or desperation. "And there are more in the city!" Sora Grady joined Kimali and glared at him. "Not many of the men returned, but every one who did returned with a warder!" Rand sent Sora's husband somewhere; she didn't really know the details. But she was worried about him, "If that man will take another warder..." Sora knew more about the bond than most other warders, being among the firsts to be bond, she knew there would be absolutely nothing she could do about it. Logain glanced at the women, he counted thirty six, and Kimali said that twenty one Asha'man returned to the Black Tower, before telling him again how it all started, when the Asha'man felt the taint fading.

"Where are the men?" He asked Sora, cutting off Kimali, the woman came to the Black Tower following her younger brother, and she was close to sobbing when she described how he returned with two of those Aiel animals, as she put it.

"They are in the training area," Sora said, and he nodded curtly before turning his back to her to search the men, he might strangle them all when he would reach them.

The traps set all across the Dragonmount were removed before the cleansing, they would have gotten on the way. And Logain doubt if anyone had the time to re-weave them.

The Black Tower was about to be moved, and burn Taim for not being here!

It was four hours past midnight when Miribai Aflet set one fragile sea green glass on the counter and filled it carefully with liquid. Despite her caution, some of the clear stuff sloshed over the side, and the heavy, crude voice shouted in her ear again. "Careful, wench, every drop costs more than you're worth. "Her hands shook as she set the bottle back down, wondering how she could get rid of him. The great ham-fist snatched the glass, and the girl wondered why the delicate stem didn't snap in half under the pressure of the thick, ugly fingers.

The wide-faced, piggy-eyed customer seemed to sense the gist of her thoughts, and he snarled wordlessly at Miribai. She backed up, looking around for someone, anyone to help her; but no one was there... He reached out one ugly paw and caught hold of her collar, despite her efforts to avoid him; he gave her a shake that rattled her teeth. As she was beginning to panic, he tossed her away. Somehow she managed to break her fall, but half the skin on her palms was scraped; her knee hurt where she'd landed too hard. A big, boisterous laugh rang out above her somewhere, and she shivered, hearing the footsteps made by those massive, horrid feet. The door slammed shut behind him.

Unsteadily getting to her feet, Miribai used one corner of the bar for support, hoping that he wouldn't come back again. Of course, she knew better than that; he always came, each night, just before dawn, at the same time, and she couldn't turn him away. He was a customer, after all, she thought with a trace of bitterness. And Mistress Ataulf would skin her alive if she didn't serve him. Even though he tried to hurt her often when he was drunk, which was almost always. Mistress Ataulf refused to close the tavern even when the Asha'man raid the city and the skies were never truly dark, people comes to tavern no matter what, and in times of trouble there are good many who would like to drown their troubles drinking. Nothing is worth losing so much money!

The glass was on the counter, somehow intact, though empty, along with the few coins he'd set there before. She picked them up and put them away, and the glass she brought back into the kitchen. On her way out, she caught a glimpse of her own face in the mirror; there were circles under her eyes now that had never been there before, and her dark hair was disheveled from the fall she'd taken. Dark, harried-looking eyes set in a too-pale face flashed in the mirror for a moment before she moved on.

Locking the doors was easily done, and so was finishing the clean up. The one man left in the bar were dozing quietly, facedown on the table; she didn't think he'd bother going up to his rooms, despite having paid extravagantly for them. So she shook him gently and helped him up; he leaned on her heavily as she got him up the steps and eventually closed the door behind him. The next day, all he remembered was the face of an angel floating in his drunken haze, but that man would never find out whom she'd been.

Back downstairs; she gave the Common Room one last glance-over to be sure everything was as it should be.

The door slammed open, and accompanied by a sharp wind, a man stepped through. Without really looking at him, Miribai said, "We're closed."

"I don't care." The man sound drunk, he certainly smelled so.

At that, she did look up, and found herself gazing at too gleeful face, swarthy-skinned and black-eyed. He was young, and his eyes were the only pretty character in his face.

His eyes were the single redeeming feature of his face, but they were too joyous, too happy; the expression on his face terrified her more than anything the grimness of a customer before had done. He grinned at her and she shivered. "I don't care. Tell me, what do you have to drink in a place like this?"

"Ale," she answered hoarsely. "But we're closed. Please... please leave." He shook his head and advanced closer; her breath was coming faster now, the closer he got, the more fear she felt. Running would be fatal mistake, she knew.

"No. I'm not going to leave, pretty girl. Find me something, will you? It's been... a long day. I'm thirsty." She flew behind the bar; perhaps if she obeyed his wishes he would leave. How had he opened the door? She thought she'd locked it... How could she have forgotten? She glanced at the man, no way to know what colors his cloths were, he looked as if he bath in mud, and by his smell he drunk far too much to be healthy.

"Ale?" she inquired fearfully, and he nodded, still smiling rakishly. That smile was unnerving, and so were the eyes, too black and gleaming for comfort. Miribai poured the glass for him; hands shaking, she spilled even more than she had for the other. But this one didn't care... Suddenly she thought that he wouldn't care about anything, right now, and that scared her too...

He drank it in one swallow, and the smile never left his face. "Now, please leave," she said again, and again he shook his head.

"No, milady, I'll not leave till I've had another. Tell me your name, or I'll not leave at all."

Uneasily she poured another glassful, and began to mop up a bar that was already clean. "I'm not a lady... I'm Miribai. Miribai Aflet."

Another single gulp and it was gone. He tossed a few coins onto the damp wood, and one fell, turning on the ground for a moment before she picked it up. "A lovely name for a lovely girl, I'm Sethos Merik."

She put the money away and took the glass. Squelching her rising fear of the stranger in the dirty coat, she told him, "Good. You know my name, you had two drinks, now leave, please..."

"I fear I cannot," he replied gravely, but the mocking grin never changed. "I am captivated by your beauty."

"That... That's ridiculous. I shall have to call the men to have you thrown out, if you do not leave immediately!" Now her nerves were really on edge; there were no men around to call, in reality. She was never more aware of that in her life.

"Go ahead and try," advised Sethos calmly, and toyed with his red-tinted glass. Miribai threw down her rag and quickly moved around the bar, thinking only to get away and be safe...

He snatched her wrists as she went past, and her skirts slid along the floor as she struggled to get away. It was no use; he was far stronger than she was. "Stop," he ordered her calmly, and she looked up into the too-black eyes. Against her will she obeyed, too fearful to do anything but obey. She stared helplessly at her captor; Sethos still smiled merrily. Half hypnotized, Miribai couldn't move away, even when he released her arms and held her chin in one hand; she shivered with his touch. Maybe he wouldn't kill her if she would do nothing to provoke him.

The girl shook like a leaf, but that didn't seem to bother him. He leaned forward and pulled gently at her; she moved according to his wishes, leaning into him as he did thesame. Anything would be better than him killing her in his wrath.

Then he kissed her.

He kissed her, and it was like nothing she'd ever experienced before. It was like being burned alive. It was like being ripped apart. It was all the light in the world focused into a single moment of time. Every stolen moment of freedom she ever had in her life. It was like dying and being rebirth, love and hate, fire and ice, all at once, in a terrible, tyrannical pulse. It was everything and nothing in the same time, joy and sadness and tears and laugher. Everything surging in her, her entire mind opened to... something, she had no name to it.

Her hands grasped Sethos' dirty shirt desperately, as she tried to keep from falling. Gently he clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle her shriek; it was so effective that she could hardly hear it herself. As Sethos took his hand away, a low moan escaped her lips, but no one could have heard it even had they been in the next room.

Miribai collapsed and he caught her, holding her to him tenderly. "There now, that wasn't so bad, was it?" he cooed into her ear.

Finally she caught her breath. "What... What have you done?" she asked in a whisper, and realized that she could feel... He was there, in her head, somehow. That was the thing her mind opened to! Him! Miribai was aware of him, and he... was there, where no other had any right to be! In her head, where she could dream about freedom all for herself, the only place she was free!

"You're my Warder now. Hush; don't cry... Everything is going to be just fine..." He held her to him considerately as she began to weep. The tears fell like rain, and did not stop when the sun came.

It was late afternoon when Miribai awoke at last. She was long used to getting up at that time, and despite the fact that she had gone to bed later than usual, she still woke up then, in her own somewhat dilapidated double bed. The only difference was that someone else was in it beside her. Smelly someone.

She jumped nearly out of her skin when she saw him, even though she had smelled, and felt, he was there before she'd looked. He had taken his coat off as well as his boots; they were lying on the floor. Apparently he was still wearing the rest of his clothes... She was fully clothed too, and when she thought about it, she vaguely remembered him carrying her up the stairs and into her room, with her mumbling directions through the tears. And she remembered the kiss that had linked them.

A slight throbbing in her head was probably what had awakened her, she thought, and knew that it was his headache and not her own. If hers headache was annoying, his would be much worse when he woke up... All she could see of him was the back of a curly black-haired head; the rest was hidden beneath the blankets. Miribai was glad of that.

But just as she was thinking that, he stirred, both in her head and in the bed, and sat up, facing away. Sethos stood up wearily; shoulders hunched slightly, and came around to her side of the bed without looking at her. A tear slid languidly down her face as he turned and faced her. He looked older this morning, and tired; before, he'd seemed younger than she, but now he looked the same age as she did - though she'd begun to look older than she was. He looked older in the sun light, older, but not prettier, unfortunately.

Another tear mirrored the fall of the first; his hands reached out to her, and he drew her up to stand before him.

His face was grave and sorrowful; she noticed for the first time that his eyes were kind, rather than madly glinting, as they had been the night before. "I'm sorry," said Sethos mournfully; Miribai turned away, wishing he would let go of her hands so that she could cover her face with them.

Instead, taking a deep breath, she turned back to him and asked the first thing she wanted to know. "Why?" her voice broke, and pain flashed across his face suddenly.

"I don't know," he replied in anguished tones."There is no reason I can give you save that I was drunk. And that cannot stand for an excuse, not for what I've done to you. If it helps anything, I couldn't regret it more."

Her eyes pleaded, and she asked the second thing. "Can it be undone?"

"Even trying would almost certainly kill you." Now his gaze was determined and earnest. "I'm not going to let that happen."

"Please..." she begged, and more tears fled down her pallid cheeks, to follow in the paths of the first.

"I can't!" The admission seemed to have been wrung from his innermost soul, and she knew that he was speaking the truth. One of his hands dropped hers and came up to brush the tears from her face. "Miribai... please..." She looked back up at him, and tried to stop crying; it was more difficult than she'd thought it would be. "I need you," he told her almost inaudibly, and wrapped her in his arms.

She pushed him away, and he tripped on the bed, "Yet I had enough for more than a single lifetime with men that smell of ale and mud and dirt!" She shouted at him, he stole from her the last pieces of freedom she managed to keep. He deserved the worse she could think off. She bent down to take one of his boots and threw it at his face. "Get out! Get out of my room! Get out of my life! Get out of my head!"

He evaded the thrown boot with amazing flexibility. She took the other one and held it, "Out!"

"Miribai..." He began, but she had enough of that.

"OUT!" She screamed at him, outraged.

He was out almost immediately, "I will be back, Miribai." He told her seriously. "I can do nothing about it, I fear. I'll be back." She threw the boot at him, yet it hit the closing door only. He was out, coatless and bootless, and she was more than glad about it!

"Your mother was a hypocritical cauliflower who was so ugly her fellow villagers had to keep her on the stables, under a pile of hay, so the horses wouldn't run away." Halima said sweetly, in the Old Tongue,to the seamstress as the three of them approached the short, pale hair woman. Leane gaped at the black hair woman, Toviene only stare.

"Pardon, Lady," The seamstress said with a small bow, "I do not have any knowledge in the Old Tongue."

"Never mind that," Halima said, motioning gracefully with her hand, "I was admiring your store."

"Thanks you Lady," The seamstress beamed at her, "How may I help you? I'm Donevan Kelir."

"I'm Halima Sedai," Halima said, "Those are Leane Sedai and Toviene Sedai." She pointed at them, each in her turn. Toviene glared at the woman's back.

"Do you've any idea what are the punishments for pretending to be Aes Sedai, Halima?" She said coldly, in the Old Tongue, Halima proved a moment ago that the seamstress didn't know the Old Tongue.

Halima turned her head at her with a grin that could have set any man's heart racing. "But I am Aes Sedai, Toviene. It's you who have no right for that title."

The seamstress eyes were slightly afraid, but no doubt that she felt honored. In Arafel, as in all the borderlands, Aes Sedai was not something to be feared of, the other way around, in fact. "What may I do for you, Aes Sedai?" The woman might have doubt Halima's claim, hadn't she been there with her, neither Halima nor Leane had the look of Aes Sedai. But she did, and everyone knew that no Aes Sedai would let any woman escape falsely claiming to be Aes Sedai.

"I need everything!" Halima said, her eyes seemed to be searching something, "I've lost all my wardrobe's content, and I would like to fill it anew." She raised a hand to stop the seamstress from talking, "Money, of course, wouldn't be a problem. A thousands gold coins should suffice, isn't it?"

The seamstress face became red; it was ten time the price she would have asked had Halima wanted all her cloths from silk and velvet. "Aes Sedai, I mean no disrespect," The seamstress began nervously, "But this is five times the price I..." Toviene smiled inwardly, the woman might be honest, but no fool.

Again Halima stopped her, "It would hardly cover your expenses, mistress Kelir." She said calmly, "I've some... special demands of you."

Donevan face paled, "I don't know whatever I can do anything special, Aes Sedai. Certainly not for an Aes Sedai."

"Silence," Halima muttered, moving forward to take a half made dress, black velvet and laces all over. "Do you have silk in the same color? I don't very fond of velvet?"

"Of course, Aes Sedai." Bemused Donevan said slowly, "I've every color of silk, every lord and lady in Arafel buy their cloths from me, but, as I said, I'm not sure I'm capable of making anything that would fit Aes Sedai's taste, especially if you want something special."

Her words had no affect on Halima. She stood frozen, her head titled to one side, listening to something else. "I need nothing that you can't make for me, girl." She said absently, the seamstress stiffened, she was at least fifty, and Halima looked nothing more than twenty-five if that. . "Do you've a piece of paper, dear?' Halima asked, she nodded to herself in satisfaction suddenly, and a smile appeared on her face. "Cats! That should do it, of course, I should have thought about it before!" She whispered, almost beyond Toviene's hearing.

"Cats?" The seamstress asked, handing Halima a piece of paper, a bottle of ink and a pen. She sat down on a chair with the expression of a woman that couldn't be surprised more than she already had.

"Yes! Cats! You've a bunch of them nearby, and only one of them is adult, by the sound. How old are they?"

By the sound, Toviene wondered, Dovevan's face held only distant surprise, of course Aes Sedai would know everything, and of course that she would know about her cats, and that only one of them was adult. It seemed that what surprise the seamstress more than anything was that Halima didn't know the cats' age. "They were born a week ago, Aes Sedai." She answered. Halima stared at the pen with the same expression she stared at Logain, a mix of deep distaste and forced acceptance.

"Good, that is very good. I would like to have them too." Halima murmured in satisfaction, Dovevan's hands clutched her skirt tightly as the pen rose into the air without a hand touching it. It dipped in the inkbottle and scribed hastily on the paper. From where she was standing, Toviene couldn't see what Halima was writing. Leaneleaned against a wall and watched Halima and the seamstress with a wide grin, the woman made a joke of everything.

"The cats?" The seamstress asked incredibly.

"Yes! The cats, the young ones, not their mother," Halima said impatiently, "What else am I talking about?"

"Well, of course, Aes Sedai." The seamstress seemed to be ready to flee in horror, "I was worry who might take them, those are not the best times, you know. With that strange summer we'd and how it broke so abruptly. I feared that I might have to drown them, I can't have half a dozen of cats running around here, simply impossible, it took me almost a month to teach -"

"That is perfect," Halima said, "but I've other places to go today," In the same tone of voice, and in the Old Tongue, she said, "What would happened to us if Logain dies?"

Leane lost her grin, and Toviene felt her stomach sinking. It wasn't something she enjoyed thinking about. Despite what Logain had done to her, and because of that, she loved him. Love that had been forced on her, but love nonetheless, it had been long since she last felt that emotion, but she knew her heart well enough to admit her own feeling, even to herself alone.

"I asked him about it," Leane said slowly, "Each time he evaded the subject with enough skill to be mistaken for a Cairhienin. If to judge by the bond we Aes Sedai use, we would be dying corpses, living only to avende his death, without caring whatever we'll survive the task or not."

For ten heartbeats, Halima froze completely, her face unreadable mask, "And still you agreed to be his warder? He asked you to be his warder, and you agreed?" Incredibility was so heavy in Halima's voice that Leane laughed.

"I asked him to be my warder first, and I could hardly expect a man to do anything I wasn't ready to do." She replayed.

Halima raised an eyebrow, "For some reason, as long as I was a man, that is exactly what women expect me to do." Toviene opened her mouth, and closed it without saying a word, what could a woman tell to a woman that was a man? It was... peculiar, to say the least. She wondered how Logain handled it, considering her and Leane's suspicions about the bond; it must be twice as hard for him as it was to her to accept Halima. And ten times harder for Halima herself.

"Aes Sedai," Donevan said hesitantly, "I beg pardon, but, as I said, I've no knowledge in the Old Tongue."

"Never mind that," Halima said, "As I was saying, I need something special of you. I've enough with dresses. I need a full set of man's cloth, to my size, of course." The seamstress seemed to be relived to hear what Halima's special desires were. Toviene would have given much to know what the woman expect Halima to demand from her. "As I said, the money is not a problem. And I've two more wishes of you, dear." Halima continued, handing her the piece of paper that she asked few moments ago. "Have this embroider on every coat and shirt you're going to make for me."

The woman smiled, that was a well known ground for her. "Of course," She beamed at Halima, "But are you sure you would like man's cloths? It would be such a shame to put a body like yours in a man's cloths. I can make a lovely dress for, to make any man stare."

Toviene notice Leane wincing, it didn't took much to flare Halima's temper. "That is what I'm trying to avoid." The woman said, then she glanced down at herself and muttered something in the Old Tongue Toviene very much wished she didn't understood. The thing didn't sound probable, and until now, Toviene thought it impossible. "I fear that nothing could do much in that direction, this body is build to please men's eyes." And more, Toviene thought, but she had no wish to direct the woman's anger at her.

"As you say, Aes Sedai." Had Halima would have said she wanted man's cloths to fly, the seamstress would have accept it without a singe blink, no doubt.

"How much people you've?" Halima asked, facing the seating seamstress with stern pace.

"People?" The seamstress stared at Halima, beyond surprise after less than half an hour with the woman in her store. "Arafel has -"

"I meant," Halima cut her off with a voice that could have froze the Aryth ocean in a hot day, "how many people you've that are working for you? As seamstresses!"

"I've twenty girls that work for me, Aes Sedai." The woman said fearfully, Halima was clearly angry. "I will set five of them on your cloths, Aes Sedai. As soon as we're through the measurements, will you be here next week?"

"I said I've two demands of you, Donevan Kelir." Halima said sweetly, "As soon as the measurements will be done, I expect you to set every girl you've on my cloths, and fetch a needle for yourself as well. I'll have those cloths ten hours from now."

Ignoring entirely from protesting Donevan, Halima turned her head to them, "I expect the... measurements to take a while," She said, with deep distaste. "In the meantime, go outside and fetch me every kitty you can find, none of them may be old enough to open its eyes." Again, she used the Old Tongue.

"What are you going to do with cats?" Leane asked incredibly.

"I meant to live forever," Halima said absently. She lay one hand against the seamstress mouth, "Shush, we are trying to talk." She told her, in the same tone of voice Toviene would have used to school a novice. The seamstress eyes went wide with shock and indignation. But she was too fearful to do anything but obeying. Halima seemed to have no problems switching from the Old Tongue to Common, "Now, it seems that I'll have to die trying." A sad grin appeared on her face and was gone. "I died once," The shiver was almost invisible. "I've no intention of dying again, not so soon. And certainly not because I've let a man kiss me."

Toviene raised an eyebrow, "You let him; you were complaining that he bruised you when he tried both jumping you and kissing you at the same time." Halima's face took an interesting shade of pink.

"Never mind that," She said hastily, "I don't meant to die. That is the important thing! And if Logain dies..." She let her voice fade; Toviene was ready to give much to know the exact reason.

"You don't have to sound so practical about it!" Leane said, just short of a shout. "The man loves you!"

Halima let the hand she laid on the seamstress' mouth drop as she pointed sharply at herself, "Have you ever looked at me? Every man above fifteen falls in love with me on sight! Had I bothered paying any attention whatsoever to that I would have done nothing all day long but lying on back!"

Leane straighten her back, glaring down at the shorter woman, "Not that kind of love!" Leane shouted at her, "And you know it as well as I do!"

"At least, not only that kind of love." Toviene added, a little more calmly the Leane, but not much, was the woman blind as well as deaf to what happened in the back of her head?

Halima snorted, but said nothing for a moment, she seemed to be thinking, "Aes Sedai," Donevan almost begged, "Can we start the measurements? The sooner I could start the sooner I could finish," And get rid of mad Aes Sedai for good. But the last haven't said, although it was clear by her face.

"Go outside and find me some cats!" Halima ordered, releasing them with a graceful motion, "And remember, none of them must be old enough to open its eyes!"

"Cats!" Leane grumbled as the walked down the street, "I once was the Keeper of Chronicles! And now I'm being sent to fetch cats for that... infantile container of noxious..." She stopped; Leane wasn't half as good with curses as Halima was.

"Ideas?" Toviene suggested, "I'm sure she wouldn't have sent us to find cats if she hadn't had some use of them. Good use." Leane grumbled something about Trollocs and Halima that Toviene pretended not to hear. "She don't want Logain to die, somehow she will use the cats to help Logain survive. And that must be good."

"What is she going to do with cats a week old?" Leane asked, "Throw them at an attacking trollocs and expect it to stop to eat it while she run away?"

Toviene shrugged, "Maybe, but in the meantime, try stop sulking." She continued walking, leaving Leane behind her, glaring hard at her back, easily ignored.

"I want half the money," was the first thing Mistress Ataulf said to her as Miribai went downstairs from her room, after crying for more than half an hour in her room. Crying because the last scraps of freedom were finally taken from her. It took her nearly an hour to fix her appearance so she could leave her room with no evidence of last night's... events, although horrors would have been better to describe what the man did to her.

"What money?" Miribai asked; it would be for the best to pretend that last night never happened. She would take it an hour by hour; that was what she did when her mother died.

"I saw the man coming out of your room today, girl." Mistress Ataulf said sharply, "Don't play games with me! I told you when I got you to work here, if you take men to your room in my tavern, you give me half the money, now give it!" She held out a big, fat hand, and gave Miribai one of those stares that always made her shrink and swallow in terror.

Today, the glare had no affect on her; she was too tired and hopeless to let it touch her. With all her strength, she slapped Mistress Ataulf on her face and turned her back to the frozen women. "Come back here, you rotten wench!" The shout came just when Miribai opened the door. Miribai ignored it. She was too busy staring at the man who leaned just outside the building.

"I told you to go away," Since he left her he found time to take a bath, and changed his cloths. Black silk that nearly shined in the sun, it made her even more aware of her simple wool dress, or to that she left everything she had in the world in her room, and that she had no intentions whatsoever to return there.

"And I told you that I would never be able to do so, Miribai." He replayed calmly, "What ties us together affect me almost instantly. It would take a while for the affects to be felt on you. But that would happen, and when it does, you would need me as much as I need you."

"Is that an ultimatum?" Miribai asked, and began to walk away from him. She had no idea where she was heading to, Away from him, away from the tavern she had worked for five years in.

"I can give you none," Sethos said as he joined her. "Never."

"How sweet of you," She said acidly, "If you were that way yesterday, we wouldn't have this trouble at all!"

Guilt! Strong and sharp and burning inside him, "That was the first time I ever got really drunk, Miribai." He grimaced, "Considering the results, I think I will avoid being drunk ever again."

She slapped him, hard! She felt the pain in the back of her head, raged, she hardly noticed that, "Do you've any idea how many times I've heard men saying the same to women! Do you know how many times I've seen it being broken? Go away and let me live my own life."

"You can't!" He insisted. He caught her hand in his when she tried to slap him again, a strange feeling, feeling her hand both through the bond and as she always did, strange, and not unpleasant.

"I've been taking care of myself since I was six years old!" She shouted at him, not caring at all that people stared at her. "I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself!"

"Like you did last night?" He asked softly. He was no prettier in sun light, even cleaned. His eyes were the only think that saved him from being ugly. Even drunk there were big and soft and warm. Sober, they could make him, slightly, attractive, to the right woman, whom she was not, despite his claims.

"Last night," she said coldly, "I was facing a drunk man that can channel, I would know what to do next time I will encounter your kind."

"If you say so," He smiled.

She continued walking away from him; she needn't to glace back to know he was right behind her back. "I told you to go," She said without turning her head back to him.

"I rarely do what I'm being told to do." Sethos said, a foot behind her. "You might have noticed that."

"What do you want from me?" She exclaimed, turning back to face him. She had to dance back a few steps as to not to fall on him.

"Everything," He said, one finger tracing her cheekbone. She jerk back from his touch, but he only smiled, sadly, she thought. "Mind and soul and heart and body, Miribai." He said, very slowly, "I want it all. You've my heart tied to you, along with my soul. I can hardly stop thinking of you." His grin spread wider, "All is left now is to you to accept it before you can have my body as well." Did men think of nothing else?

People turned to stare at the pretty woman with wool dress that, in the middle of the street, slapped, with all her might, to an Asha'man that could easily pick her up with one hand.

Hand burning in pain, and a cheek that burned in the back of her mind, Miribai turned her back firmly to the disgusting man, and walked gracefully away from him. This time, he hadn't tried to follow.

"Seven hundreds twenty six!" Toviene said coldly, more shouted than said, in fact, "We've gathered seven hundreds twenty six kitties for you! And none of them with its eyes open! Do you've any idea how much time it took us? How much effort? Cats never attack Aes Sedai! Not unless there is Aes Sedai fool enough to try to takes the kitties away! Seven hundreds twenty six, and you say it's not enough."

Halima ignoredToviene entirely; she was staring admirably at the small creature she held gently in her hand. It fit perfectly into her palm, with nearly golden fur, it looked a little like an angry dog, since the ears almost didn't exist at the moment. "This would be perfect, Toviene." She whispered in awe. Leane stared at the woman, then at the small fur-covered creature. She could see nothing to define it from the Seven hundreds twenty-five other furry creatures that were spread all over Halima's room, bed and furnishers.

"And what were you doing, Halima?" Leane asked, seven hours of searching for small, furry, creatures that seemed to be made of little else save claws and teeth, and the woman simply disappeared in the air. When they returned to Dovevan's store, the terrified woman told them that after the measurements were done, Halima stepped through a big hole that opened in the air. Luckily, Toviene was just strong enough to make a useful gateway. You swore you wouldn't grave your lost strength any more, woman! You've saidar, however weakly, and it's far more than you could ever wished to have.

"I told you, Leane." Halima said impatiently, "I needed to set up a network, you can just dream it, you've to make one."

"I've set up a network of my own, Halima." Leane said, forcing patient into her voice. "No one can dream a network, a network you dream about remains a dream."

Halima gave her a peculiar look, "I tend to forget how much knowledge you... Aes Sedai lost." She said softly, in almost a whisper. "Suffice to say that I already had a network of eye and ears ready. I never trusted Friends of the Dark to be very good spies. A man or a woman that are ready to give information to the shadow knowingly aren't to be trusted."

Leane raised an eyebrow, "And what exactly did you do?"

Halima threw her head back and laughed, "I never claimed I'm to be trusted, Leane. Never!"

Toviene sniffed, "Tell us something new."

Halima shrugged, "No one knows where the borderlands' rulers are, from Shienar to Saldea, the kings and queens simply disappeared from the face of earth."

"Where did you heard that?" Leane said, her own network had reported nothing of the like.

"Few servants that couldn't keep their mouths close at the sight of me." Halima said with a slight grimace. "As it is, I've convinced few men the last six hours that we've an affair. They would do practically anything for me." She grimaced fiercely, "If Logain wouldn't have forbade me to use Compellation, it would have been much easier."

"You, above all," Toviene said sharply, "shouldn't be so eager to use Compellation. Logain's bond ties us to him through Compellation! We're forced to do what he wishes us to do because he Compel us to do so! And you speak of using against others?"

"I'm not so sure that the bond is based of Compellation," Halima said quietly, fondling the little creature in her arms, "The weave is as complex as anything I've learn in the Academy, I'm surprised that the Asha'man managed to come up with something as sophisticated. But still, it's wrong, unsafe to use. And will probably kill any man if he would try to use it. It doesn't make sense!"

"Have you tried to ask Logain?" Leane said.

"Bah!" Halima growled, and added something in the Old Tongue, Trolloc's mating ceremonies, if Leane got it right. Logain wouldn't be pleased to find his name there. "Prying answers from the Dark One is easier than from this man!"

Toviene laughed suddenly, two sets of eyes focusing on her, "Before we would begin to discuss men, why wouldn't you decide what you're going to do with seven hundreds twenty six kitties? They would be hungry soon, and they could starve very easily."

Halima blinked, for a moment, she looked startled, then three or four dozens of small kitties rose from to bed, and into the floor, carried by saidin, the male half of the True Source, woven by a woman.

Halima sat on the space she had freed and stared at the kitty she held, then, in a very low voice, she began cursing. The vilest curses Leane have ever heard. The Old Tongue gave Halima large freedom when expressing her ideas; and the woman stressed the language's borders.

Not surprisingly, the word that repeated more times than any other was Logain's name.

Relin trembled inside as she held the handle to the door of The Drunken Bull, a tavern the sort she had been warned again and again not to come near to. She had never been allowed before even to consider enterring such a place. It was, as her nanny put it. A place unsuitable for a young lady, or any woman at all, at least not the kind of women that work on their feet instead of their back. She was seventeen, Light! Dimor was in her name day party, she should have known her age, but she still thought the girl in her charge was too young to understand her words. She was twelve no longer! "Don't you like to know what kind of women work on their back?" She whispered to Shoni, her friend since they both were in the cradle.

"I'm not that sure that I would like to meet a woman that is..." Shoni hesitated, flushed and finished in a whisper, "working on her back, Relin."

"Nonsense, Shoni," Relin said in confident she didn't really felt, her curiosity put her in trouble before, and would put her to trouble in the future, she was sure. So there was no reason why she would get in trouble now. "Can you imagine yourself another time where we can be free before we both will have gray hair?"

"That is why I'm worried, Relin." Shoni said, she was always the cautious one, while she was the one who got the pair of them in troubles. "What if one of those men is in here? It looks like a place they would enjoy of." Not much chance of that, unfortunately, the men seemed to vanish slowly from the city, one by one, there were no more displays in the skies, and hardly any evident whatsoever to the tainted male half of the True Source being used.

"I always wanted to see a man that could channel." Relin said cheerfully, opening the door, "We weren't allowed to see Logain." Their parents protected them in a shell that resembled too much to a dungeon. Shoni heard about the Asha'man coming into Caemlyn accidentally, when she entered a room with her parents discussing the subject, and she was sent to her room like a child when they saw her. That attitude made Relin want to scream, and Shoni, although much more calm in her reaction, was just as annoyed by this treatment. Did their parents truly think that their daughters were complete idiots? Foolish enough not to understand what the grand display in the skies were?

Until today, the biggest adventure she had in her life was when a boy stole a kiss when Dimor wasn't looking. Shoni was caught kissing a boy in a dark corner in a garden, and Relin envied her to this day for that adventure. Even though she and Shoni were parted for a whole month, it was worth it. Both she and Shoni cried when they rejoined. None ever felt quite right without the other.

"They aren't just men, Relin. They can channel, and I don't want to be near one of them when he would go mad, or see one of them rotting." Shoni stated the last with a glare and a stubbornly held her head. "If you want to see men, we can go elsewhere, and pretend they can channel."

"I fear you don't have any luck here," A man emerged from the shadows, his voice amused to no end, obviously he listen to the entire conversation. Shoni jumped and breathed too quickly, her hand clutching a belt knife that Shoni's parents made sure that could hardly harm a piece of bread even if Shoni would use all her strength.

"We... we... have money for you if you want it." Shoni said in trembling voice, "Just... just don't hurt us." Relin stood frozen, looking at the dark figure in fear. That was what came from her wish for adventures. They were about to robbed, and only robbed, if they were lucky.

"I fear you run out of all the luck you had," The man said again as he stepped out of the shadows, yet, somehow, he seemed to carry some of the shadows with him. "I'm not after money, and I fear that I'm neither mad nor rotting." He made a perfect bow, "Although I fear I might start raving soon, staring at your collective beauty." Relin laughed weakly, her mind screaming warnings, the man wore black; she was desperately hoping that Shoni wouldn't make the connection. But her childhood friend was too busy staring admirably at the man. Anger well up in her, she had been forced to admit that there was more than enough to in that man. The only common physical character between her and Shoni was their height, too tall to be pretty, as Dimor mourned often. Yet the man was a full head higher then the any of them. He had dark long hair that reached his shoulder and was tied back with a wide leather cord, she couldn't be sure about the color of his eyes... yet assumed they were deep brown. He was too perfect to be real, one of the biggest man she'dever seen. And no doubt strong enough to lift her up in the air with one hand, or to break her neck with one twist of those huge hands.

He was too... too... himself to let him stay near her any moment more than necessary, the kind of man she loathed at site. The kind of man her parents would think as perfect for her husband. Someone that could tame your wild nature, she had to stay away from him or else she would try doing something unforgivable to him. "If you excuse us," She said to him, as politely as she could, "we would like to go inside the inn, it's cold here."

"It's, isn't it?" He said, sounding slightly surprised, his cloths were light, and he couldn't have unnoticed the cold, maybe he was too poor to allow himself other cloths, maybe he wasn't an Asha'man, and maybe, just maybe, she could control that sudden urge to giggle hysterically. Common sense, rusty after no being used for so long, advised her to leave with Shoni, that still stared at the black clad man as if she never seen a man before in her life. And never mind that she had been dragged to dark corners in her own house to be kiss by a man six years older than her.

She tried to open the door when he put his palm on it, stopping her with the door open just enough she could see safety, yet not reach it. "I think that this is the first time anyone named The Drunken Bull an inn," Said, amused, then his tone became serious, "I fear I can not allow you to enter here." He said quietly, "This is no place for the like of you."

"Enough!" Relin exclaimed, that Shoni was still looking at him like he was a candy, and as if Shoni was half way to starve set her fury higher than it have ever been before. "I've heard enough lectures to suffice for a dozen life times. I'm tired and sick of what I can and can't do. I'd enough of my parents telling me to do, I'm seventeen years old and I'm - "

"Foolish enough to risk that pretty neck of yours for a stolen adventure." The man said darkly, "You should have listened to your mother, girl." He moved forward suddenly, and somehow, lifted her to his shoulders as if she weighted no more than a feather. "Come!" He ordered Shoni; "I've other things to do than take care of two lost puppies."

"Let me down this instance!" She shouted at him, and added a few words from her small vocabulary of the words she wasn't supposed to know, had Dimor would have heard her she might be switched! But she would have kiss Dimor, the old witch, and accept any punishment whatsoever gladly just to be back in her bed. How many times she had been warned? Now she passed the limit, and, Light burns her, she had taken Shoni with her. And the man might kill them, or worse, and it was all her fault!

Yet she wasn't about to give up, not as long as there is the smallest chance of escaping. Kicking with her feet done no good, neither hitting his back with her fists. She screamed, as loudly as she could. The men inside the tavern must have heard her, why none of them came to check what was going on.

"Put that thing down!" She heard the man ordering Shoni; "You might kill a small mice with it, but nothing beyond it!"

"Let Relin down!" Shoni said, her voice shaking, clearly she was panicked, but she didn't run away, it made Relin proud of her. And, at the same time, endlessly frustrated with the bloody woman.

"You, too, have the common sense of a goat?" The man asked, and Relin had to close her mouth tightly to avoid throwing up as she was tangled like a sack as the man lift screaming Shoni on his other shoulder, He hadn't took his left hand from around her waist, it set her in her place as well as any steel chain would have, the knife, if such thing deserve the name, laid on the floor. Relin saw it as the man began walking away from The Drunken Bull, where no one bothered to see why a woman was screaming in the middle of the night.

"What are you going to do to us?" Shoni whispered fearfully, after it became clearly that trying to get away would help nothing.

"What I'm going to do to you," The man grumbled in a deep voice, "Is to take you somewhere when I can explain you what almost happened to you tonight. And I'm going to make sure that this lecture would remain in your mind, even if I've to make sure you would seat lightly for the rest of your life."

It wasn't half as bad as Relin imagine herself it would be. But it was still unacceptable. The man seemed to be unaffected completely by her struggles, or Shoni's, if anything, she suspected he was amused!

She no longer recognized the part of the city they were in and that sent chill into her heart, they was totally depended on his mercy, Shoni's face took a green color long ago. And Relin's stomach felt just the same, she was so sick that she clanged to the man, I don't know even his name! She thought furiously, closing her eyes helped, but only a little.

"This place I know well enough for Traveling," the man grumbled loudly to himself. She shoved fingernails into his coat and shirt, trying to hurt him somehow. Shoni moaned loudly, she seemed ready to lose the content of her stomach on the man's back. "Here," The man said, and tried to settled them both on the ground at the same time, which only managed to bump her against Shoni. She was too sick in her stomach to even notice him, falling to her knees, she threw up everything she since she was nine years old, or so it felt. She heard Shoni doing the same near her, with the man whose name she didn't know kneeling near her, talking softly.

When she rose to her feet, he offered her a handkerchief to wipe her mouth. Shoni was seated on a low stone bench, and she was pushed beside Shoni. "Why did you have to make this to us," Shoni asked, holding her stomach hard, she seemed to trying fight the urge to sick up again. "And why did you carried us for so long, that hurt." Shoni's admiration to the man was completely gone; no doubt they both would have bruises, which should teach me to listen to mom and pop. She thought sadly. There were tears in Shoni's eyes.

"Because, you wool headed idiots," He said, nearly shouting, "Had you entered that place the way you are, dressed in silk and staring big eyes at everything. You would have been lucky if they would have slit your throat first and then rape you, if you wouldn't have been so lucky, that could have been the other way around!" He stared at them and signed tiredly, "Do you understand what I'm talking about," he asked, obviously expecting a negative answer.

"Of course we do!" Shoni, sweat Shoni, that never threw a tantrum in her life, shouted at him. All Relin could do was seat down and wonder how her brilliant plan would have ended. She felt sick, and not for the voyage on the man's shoulder anymore. "What I want to do is what gave you the right to haul us the way you did half way around the city! Like we were nothing more than two bags of loaf!"

"If we would have stayed there few more minutes, we would have been attacked," the man said coldly, "and I don't think I would have love to kill them, not today, at least. And, in case you haven't noticed, I carried you for quarter of a mile only!" He turned his back toward them, and began to pace the length of the yard he brought them to; it was small, and smelly! With only that bench to decorate it, houses that seemed too old to keep standing surrounding it. Relin rose to her feet, they felt like water, "Let us go," She said quietly, because she thought she might begin crying any moment, "I... thank you for... saving us, but now I want to go home."

"And who is going to guard you after I'll put you in your beds?" The man said, turning to face her, looming above her in the darkness of night. "The way I see it, you will skim tomorrow's night to another place, twice as dangerous!"

"Listen to me, you goat faced horse kisser," Relin hissed at him, "I'm not about to let you go half a mile from my bed, not to mention anything to put me in it! All I want you is to leave us alone! Are you too stupid to understand it?"

"No, but you're too naive to be true," His laugh made her grit her teeth. "But I think I might have a solution for you."

He stood five feet away from her, but he crossed the space in a single heartbeat, and grasped her head in his hand, titling her eyes to meet his. He didn't hurt her, but she couldn't move her head a hair width. And then, he kissed her, actually kissed her.

She could have counted the times she had been kissed on two hands with much room to spare, and all those times were only when Dimor was away. Both her and Shoni's parents were rich merchants, and they over guarded their daughters. Neither hers nor Shoni's parents, who, like their children,practically grew together, were born rich, but they gained wealth and power, and, by the small snatches of stories she could pry from her parents, and what Shoni heard while eavesdropping, the path to wealth wasn't neither paved neither smooth.

But they have every intention to make sure that their daughters would lack nothing, save freedom. They meant to make sure that they wouldn't have to go through what they'd to in their own youth, and didn't understand that they created something, that, in Relin's and Shoni's eyes, was far worse.

The man kissed her, and all thought fled as warmth flowed into her from his lips, sweet warmth, that filled her to bursting. She was a butterfly flying over a flower field, enjoying the warmth of the sun, a hawk searching for a prey, but also flying for the sheer joy of flying, an oak near river, old enough to see Arthur Hawkwing, listening to the birds' talk. It was like... like something she never felt or dreamed about before.

All those dreams of what she thought as pleasuring couldn't compare to this. It was... it ended, just as she was about to decide what it was. Leaving her gasping for air and weak knees, she clutched to him, the man without name, clutched to him hard. She could think coherently, only that he was there, and... that was all that was important to her, somehow, for some reason, even thought she loathed him.

"Don't worry, pretty girl," She heard him saying, but it wasn't directed to her, who was he talking with? Was there anyone here? Shoni? The name had some meaning to her; it had to. "Your turn would come soon too." The man said, and suddenly she felt like crying and laughing in the same time.

Stepping through the gateway, Logain showed no sign that the Cleansing of saidin had any affect on him whatsoever. Rage burn pleasure away, he seized control on himself with iron fist. One slip, and the Light alone know what he might do. Halima could feel it, as clearly as she could feel her own emotions. Carefully she set the gorgeous creature she held aside. The man simply disappeared for two days, without a word coming from him, and he was on the edge throughout those two days constantly. She wasn't worried about him, of course; in fact, she fell in love twice the last two days with Logain gone.

The first she fell in love with was the little kitty that lay on her bed, either sleeping or eating most of the time. She had done so before, of course, but always under others' supervision. It took her longer then she expected, manipulating it, but once she finished with the general design, it went quickly, she finished more than half of the kitties already.

She had some talent in those areas, but she pushed her limits here. And, of course, she had to avoid killing the little creatures, which was why she used infants, their endurance to the kind of manipulation she was using was amazing. But still, if lucky, she could finish with seven or eight kitties per hour. With Seven hundreds twenty-six kitties to work on, and only a day and a half to work with, she pushed it and finished nearly three hundreds. She kept that little golden kitty for herself, the rest where stored in Logain's room. And Leane and Toviene's eyes glared at her every time their eyes laid on her. None like to... baby seat a bunch of small, smelly ugly creatures, as Toviene put it. Especially since Halima came up with a way to feed the kitties, she was just glad they obeyed, the kitties were important. Although she wanted to make it a surprise, to everyone, which was why she had told the two as near nothing as she could.

As she walked to the door, to find out what the man was scheming now, not because she missed him, she savored her new love. She had no idea how much she missed breach until she had them again. She burned every dress in her wardrobe to ashes, just to make a point for Logain. Some men, and him included, for sure, apparently had very strange ideas about women's proper place. If Logain would dare saying a single word about her clothing, she would set his hair on fire!

He traveled to the main rooms of their quarters, he felt like he wanted to strangle something. Halima watched aghast, nearly seventy five women passed through the gate, most of the women in dresses cried,the others, those who wore breach and coats much like her own, but in gray and brown and green instead of the darkest black possible, stood rigid, moving as if every movement caused them endless pains. They glared at anyone, anything, for some reason, large numbers of the glares were directed at her, most women were jealous of her. It often amused her to no end, not now.

"Do you collect them in groups now, Logain?" Halima asked acidly, staring at the woman that followed. He ignored her; she had to thank the bond for that, had anyone else dared taunting him at the moment...

"Toviene, Leane take care or all of the women. Halima, I need you with me." He ordered, tying the weave of the gateway at the same time. Halima grimaced; she hated being ignored more than she hated being a woman.

He didn't look back, the sight of the women was probably more than enough to break his self control at the moment, if what she understood what he was feeling. He was on the corridors of the Dragonmount before she could make more than three steps to follow him.

"Have you sat on a sharp thorn, Logain Albar?" Halima said sardonically, she had to run to catch up with him. "What has set you aflame like that, you son of mule?" She put a hand on his arm and stopped him, "I've no intention of going anywhere unless you begin to speak." She said seriously, clear green eyes glaring at him.

"Apparently," He said through clenched teeth, "The Asha'man has no more self control than any sheep I've met."

"Oh," She rose an eyebrow and grinned, "That surprised you. You don't seem to have much the last few days." His glare slide right past her, after facing Shaidar Haran's glare, it only widened her grin. "What have they done to anger you?" She titled her head to one side, "I can think of several things that I would have done had I had a reason to celebrate." She glanced down at herself, "That is, if I weren't in this... body." The last came out as a whisper; she hoped he didn't hear her. Logain shake his head slightly, he didn't like to be reminded who, and what, she was. Neither did she, for that matter. "It doesn't matter anymore, isn't it?" Halima muttered with a twisted grin, "At least not with anything I'm ready to do. What have they done?" What he would have done had he been in her place? The thought made her grin.

"Every last one of them abandoned the Black Tower and went to Caemlyn." He said, by his face, he would like very much to have one of the Asha'man in front of him, to punch him in the nose, or strangle him. "They gave the citizen every reason to believe they all gone mad!"

Halima shrugged, "You weren't very coherent lately, Logain." She reminded him, just in case he didn't know it himself.

"The last couple of days are a reason to doubt my sanity," she thought she heard him whispering.

"They would calm down sooner or later, the same as you did. It's no reason to be that much angry." Silently she cursed him and his curiosity, a woman channeling saidin; that was something he couldn't believe, and when she tried to kill him... Killing her - if he could, they were almost equal in strength - was impossible. So he taken her as a warder instead, and all her troubles began.

"You're doing it in purpose, doesn't you?" He questioned in a tight voice. She enjoyed taunting him, bringing him to the edge. So far she counted three dozens times when she was sure only the bond stopped him from trying to kill her.

She stared at him with surprise; big emerald eyes staring at him in a way that she knew that was making him want to strangle her. She had absolute control on her face, now, at least, inside his head; all the man would feel would be only amusement and slight regret. "What are you talking about?" She asked, any judge would have convicted her, no human being could be that innocent. She practiced that expression long ago; it worked as well when she was a woman as it did when she was a man.

"Never mind," He muttered, raking a hand through his hair. She couldn't recall when she last felt him asleep, he couldn't sleep, at first, when saidin raging in him, so pure that it brought tears to him eyes. And nothing in the world could make him lose the One Power; a dream that he never let himself believe in became true. And now he had to face the not so pleasant results. "They didn't suffice in leaving the Black Tower, they seemed to lost all control of themselves. I don't think that they harmed anyone, not intentionally, at least, but as far as I've seen, every man or women in Caemlyn is in terror. And that is not the worst of it." In a whispered he thought she wasn't hearing he added, "Burn Far Derais Mai! And burn every woman along with them!"

"Oh?" Halima said with a grin when he stop in a junction between two corridors and tried to remember which one would lead him to his destination. This place was deliberately created as a maze. "Where are you going anyway?"

"To find Rand bloody al'Thor! Where else!" He said as he took the left turn, "He need to know about it, someone has to take control over the Asha'man, and Taim simply disappeared, if we have any luck, the man couldn't control saidin when he felt it clean at last and died. But Taim isn't the kind of man to make us such a favor."

"Why don't you try to calm down, Logain?" Halima suggest, her voice dropping honey and acid at the same time. "This corridor will take you nowhere, Lews Therin's rooms are that way." She walked into the right corridor, ignoring his curses.

Following her, he asked, "Did he return?" The last he had seem the Dragon Reborn, he fled from a woman who claims to be Ilyena, his long dead wife. Halima wasn't so sure about the woman's identity. Something was... wrong in her, she knew, but she couldn't say what it was. But death changed you in many ways, some of them greater than you could imagine.

"I don't think so," She said absently, "Why not you?"

"Why not I what?" He asked, his temper boiling.

"You said that someone has to take control over the Asha'man, why not you?" He nearly tripped his own feet to her words.

"The Light save me from that!" He called, startled. "The only time I was in command was when I led my army, and I only did that because I'd to save my throat. It was the only way to avoid the Aes Sedai." And even that failed, at the end, he shivered at the memories. She could identify with him. "It was enough for a dozen life times."

Halima took a turn in another level crossing, not slowing for a heartbeat, "Why? What happened?"

He deliberately misinterpret her question, she would pry the information out of him, sooner or later. "Every last man who knew how the weave, and had the strength to do so had taken a warder, or more than one!" Halima sucked in a breath with a hiss, yet she said not a word. "Now do you understand what I'm angry about?" He nearly cut off his tongue trying to swallow the words.

"I understand perfectly well," Halima said emotionlessly, and Logain fell silent, as her temper nearly escaped her control again.

"You know, Logain," She said pleasantly as they came closer to Lews Therin's rooms. "You're a true, rare example of unattractive loaf of musty foot fungus." He stopped on his track, staring at her back in amazement.

"What did I did this time?" He asked, he truly didn't understand.

One frustration Halima clearly remembered from the days she was still a man, she hadn't turned her head to him as she continued walking. "If you don't know, Logain bloody Ablar," She said, using her sweetest voice. "I'm not about to tell you."

His pained groaned sounded like music to her ears.

He emerged from the shadows that hided him, black on black, he was nearly invisible as he came near the woman, lying with her eyes closed on the pallet spread on the floor. Despite having her eyes close and her breathing even, she was awake, something the man knew even before he kneel by her side. "How did you pass the guards?" Hate was easily found in the voice and in her too. Hate and bitterness and half a dozen of other emotions she couldn't name. All focusing around the man kneeling near her pallet, she held a long dagger hidden beneath the blankets, and was more than ready enough to use it.

"You know what I'm, Lessa. The guards didn't even saw me." He whispered to her, did he think that if he would whisper the rest of the maiden wouldn't wake? They knew he was coming. Asha'man arrived all day long, very often with grim faces, to take their warders, the truth about what the Asha'man did upon kissing had became common knowledge far too late.

Lessa could understand it; her... situation was too humiliating to speak about, not to anyone. The silence was understood, no one could ever imagine that there would be so many Asha'man would take warders among the maidens. "You sent me flowers!" She accused him. Still with her back turned on him and eyes closed.

"I did," Surprise was strong in his voice, "What is wrong with that?"

"Barbarian!" Lessa muttered. "You don't even understand what you've done!"

"I send a bunch of roses to my warder," Eldan Delvar said slowly, "Why are you so annoyed?"

She rose to a seating position, hugging her knees to her chest, and looked at him, "Among us, it's the woman, or women, that ask a man to marry them." Wetlander had it the other way around; they were truly barbarians.

"I know, I spend the last day at the palace library, searching for anything about the Aiels." He said softly; then rose an eyebrow, "Are you intend to ask me to marry you? If so, I would gladly accept - " She tried to punched him, hard, straight on his nose. He moved his head quickly, and she hit only air. The strength of the blow sent her fumbling into him.

A spear hit a buckler, and the maidens lying in the pallets all over the room rose. They have all the warning the needed. "Light, woman!" Eldan exclaimed as she fell against him. "I understand strange customs, but it's quite impossible for you to rape me!"

Hissing with indignation, she tried to hit him in the ribs, and was rewarded by something lifting her up in the air. "I had enough!" Eldan growled, rising to his feet, only to find that he was facing dozen maidens,fully clothed and armed, all veiled.

"You can't have me," Lessa said calmly, forcing panic down, Light, she was three feet in the air, held by nothing. "If you try, they will stop you."

He glanced at her, with a grin that made her want to shiver. "You're forgetting who I'm." He said calmly, then returned his eyes to the maidens, "How it will be?" He asked calmly, not showing the slightest sign of fear, he didn't feltfear, only amusement and confidant. She would gladly kick his bottom, hard. "One by one or all of you together?"

Arolin snorted, they were friends since they had wedded the spears, often considering of saying the vows that would make them into first sisters. She had been taken warder too, although her Asha'man was yet due to come, Arolin didn't doubt he would come. "We follow ji'e'toh, wetlander."

"How lovely," Eldan said slowly, "unfortunately, I don't." He smiled harder, saying that.

Anger and fear battled inside her to no end. She couldn't seat down for her life. Rand was away, very far away. Strange how quickly she learned to trust the bond. The same bond that was now full of pain and sorrow and shock. "How you can be so calm?" Aviendha burst, she could hide her emotions no more. "Rand al'Thor had run away, and that... woman is sharing this hold with us!" At least Elayne showed some signs of nervousness, as light as they might be. The golden hair woman sat slump on a chair, chewing her bottom lip and arranging skirts already neatly spread. Birgitte sat next to her, talking to her Aes Sedai with a soothing tone, Aviendha wanted to explode!

Min raised her head from the book she was reading, staring at her, she carefully marked the place she was reading and closed the book, and rose to her feet. Standing, she was a full head shorter than her, yet somehow, it seemed like it was the other way around. "What am I suppose to do, Aviendha?" She asked, "What can I do? We agreed that we mustn't go to Rand, not now, not the way he's. That will be the worst thing to do now; you were the one suggesting that we shouldn't come to Rand. You said that he needs a time to calm down. That he have to have time to think. Then what can I do?" Min squeezed her eyes hard and trembled, "Don't you think I'm as worried as you are? I feel his pain, enough sorrow to drown him completely. The only thing I can do is wait, what else do you expect me to do?"

"I'm sorry," Aviendha muttered weakly. She didn'tmean to make her near-sister cry. "It's just that - " There could be no excuses, in ji'e'toh, being among wetlanders for so long seemed to affect her more greatly than she thought. "I have toh, near-sister." She began to say, when the doors to the room slammed open, giving her a start, Logain stride through as if he had every right to be here, in their rooms.

"I need the Lord Dragon," He said coldly, his face could be used as an anvil, cold and expressionless and hard. "Where is he?" Aviendha saw Halima passing through, eyes burning with green fire as she glared at Logain. The woman knew her manners, at least.

"Rand is not here." Elayne said frostily, rising from her chair, "as you can see for yourself,whatever it is that you need him for, surely it can-"

Logain took three long strides, looming over Elayne. Embracing saidar, Aviendha unsheathed her belt dagger, the Light of saidar surrounded Elayne as well. And from the edge of her eyes she saw that Min had a knife in each hand, Birgitte pulled a long knife seemingly from nowhere. "Listen to me, girl." Logain said, ignoring Elayne hissed breath, "As we speak, you've more than four hundreds Asha'man ravaging your capital, I don't have time for moods or games. Not from you, nor the Lord Dragon bloody Reborn, where is he?" The Light of saidar slowly faded from Elayne.

"What... What did you said?" She asked weakly, both hands pressed to her stomach.

Logain stared at her for a moment and took a step back, "What I said," his voice much more pleasant than before, "was that the Asha'man are all around Caemlyn, and that I need Rand. Nothing was damaged that I could see."

"He didn't said that no one was damaged," Halima said acidly, Logain half turned at her, but she continued despite the warning glance he gave her. "Apparently, Asha'man enjoy collecting women. I would be surprise if any woman from fifteen to fifty would remain in Caemlyn after they are done."

Elayne didn't even turn her eyes to the black hair woman, "What is she talking about, Logain Ablar?" Her voice demanded an answer.

"Some of the Asha'man decided to play tricks," Logain said with a disgusted expression, "All I know for now is that Far Derais Mai are more foolish than any Trolloc."

"What does the Maidens have to do with the Asha'man?" Aviendha asked, fingers tightening around the dagger she still held.

"It would takes too long to explain, Aviendha." Logain said curtly, "There should be four or five dozens of them in my rooms, you could speak with them, I'm sure they would be more than glad to talk with you. I, on the other hand, has a stubborn man with a stone head to take care of." Min gave a weak laugh to his choice words. It was all too true.

"I will take you to him," Elayne announced, eyes burning, "I will - "

"You will do nothing," Halima said, "You are the last one Lews Therin would like to see." Elayne took a deep breath; she looked like she had just been slapped. "The three of you are the last he would like to see, next to Ilyena." A frown crossed the woman face, "Of course, there were other women in Lews Therin's life. Do you want the list?" The daggers disappeared from Min hands, and she sat down stiffly, touching her stomach lightly for a heartbeat.

"That is enough!" Logain snapped at Halima, his tone only hardened when his attention returned to Elayne, "Open a gateway to him, use the bond to guide you, put it half a mile from him, I don't want to startle him."

"I know how to weave a gateway," Elayne said in icy voice.

Halima opened her mouth, but before she could say anything, Logain turned at her, and she closed her mouth hastily. The Light of saidar surrounded Elayne as she wove Traveling, Halima passed through, by Elayne's expression; she was more than ready to close the gateway on the woman. As soon as the gateway closed, Elayne wove another, this time, into the Lion Palace.

As the gateway close, Min took her book back with hands that trembled visibly, "I hate her!" She muttered loudly.

"Why?" Aviendha said quietly, sniffing the air, recognizing the odor that hanged in the air. "She said nothing but the truth." The words hung in the air, as vile as the odor that came from the gateway, the smell of the Blight.

Eldan simply took her along with him, ignoring her shouts and curses. She was being carried by something she didn't see, hanging five feet from the ground. "Do you mind, now, tell me what annoyed you so much you gathered your friends to guard you from me?" Eldan Delvar asked as she floated through the gateway.

She kept her mouth shut stubbornly.

"All I did was sending you flowers, Lessa." He continued as if her silence hadn't bothered him one bit. "It's hardly a reason to be angry. And I don't understand how marriage has to do with... me sending flowers to you."

"Among us," She told him frostily, unable to move a muscle beneath her neck, "It's the woman's place to decide whatever or not she wish to be married to a man. A man can imply that he would see such offer honorable and would accept it." He still stare at her as if he understood nothing, "One of those way is the man send flowers to the woman. Implying he would like her to ask," She wished she had a dagger in her hand. The man had the goal to smile.

"So you're angry because you think I want you to marry you, or because I act as if I do but has no wish to do so?" She stared at him for a moment, trying to understand what he meant. Men never talked sense.

"You arrogant heathen cake of infected lizard snot!" She shouted at him, it was all she could do. Given half a chance she would have go for him with her hands alone. But he gave her none. "I don't want you, not in my head, not in my life, nowhere!"

"Tsk, Lessa." The man said softly, "Weren't you've been thought that you shouldn't lie?"

"I do not lie!" She snapped at him.

"Then why do I feel the lie on your tongue?" Eldan Delvar asked.

As far as she could see, they were in some sort of windowless corridor, no doubt lighten by the One Power. She had been lowered to the ground, until her boots touched the ground; she had no idea how welcoming a stone floor could feel. "Where have you brought me?" And in the same breath, "Take me back!"

"After all the trouble I took to bring you here, I don't think so," He replayed, "Maybe some time later, when you would tame that temper of yours." It was foolish of him to release her. She jumped at him, too furious to remember any of her training, pulling him to the ground. She still tried to hit him when, half way to the floor he twisted, speed impossible. His arms embraced her, and when they both landed on the cold floor, it was his body that sheltered her. She felt the air whooshing out of his lung as she fell on him.

For a long moment, she laid on him, then she rose, she felt his pain, his back and shoulder, mainly. But his head too, his eyes were closed, his breath quick. She knew he wasn't awake.

"Burn you, Eldan Delvar!" She muttered; she wanted to kick him, hard. But this would have to wait. She tried to lift him. She was strong, but he seemed to weight twice her own weight. She gave it up quickly and caught his wrists, "First thing, Eldan Delvar," She told the unconscious man that she dragged forward, where he was heading, she hoped there would someone there to help him. Head injuries were dangerous, and she knew only what every maiden knew about healing. "You're going to start eating less." She took three more steps before she understood what she was saying. She stopped with a foot still in the air. When did I decide to stay with him?

The surrounding around them was full of life, trees bushes, grass, everything, the heat was overwhelming. Despite the new winter in the world, the Blight was always warm, and every life in the blight was dangerous. The rotten feeling inside them, a smell that wasn't exactly a smell, a sense of something wrong, made them both recalls the taint. "I don't like this place," Logain muttered loudly. He had been in the Blight once, and the memory still made him want to vomit. All around him, he could feel the Dark One's wrongness; that was the best name to what he felt. As if the taint returned.

Halima groaned miserably. She was full of saidin, Logain doubt if he would ever get used to his warder, the prettiest woman he'd ever seen, small and tender and with a tongue to fit a venomous snake. Could he ever get used to see a woman holding saidin? He pushed it away, and continued walking, Halima wove fire, a simple enough weave, she always choose the simplest weaves possible, and it didn't matter that she also used weaves that were of the most complex he had ever seen, when it was possible, she was simple. It was faster and more efficient, so she claimed. Logain wondered whatever she knew how much this particular attitude in her thought him about her.

Everything a hundred feet from them was burned to ashes, his boots made strange sounds, walking on ashes. The Shadowspawns fled, the trees burned. Logain kept one eye on her, the second on the skies, Darghakar weren't the only flying creatures in the Blight, as he knew well.

"Tell me about yourself," Halima said suddenly, making him freeze.

"Why?" He inquired, "So you can use it against me?"

"Not today," She said softly, her eyes never rested, and she walked in the same flowing move he saw so often at warriors at battle, ready to turn and fight at the slightest sound. "Not here, never here." She was afraid. The Blight was the Dark One's kingdom, and she made it clear that she didn't expected to live long, betraying the Dark One.

He had every intention to prove her wrong. They had betted it, her suggestion, not his. It was too... morbid for his taste. But the price was worth it, in his eyes, and she laughed at him, saying that she wouldn't be able to demand her price if she would win.

As long as she could laugh, he couldn't worry too much. The moment laugher died, so did the person, and he knew it well enough from himself.

"Of all the places in the world!" Halima muttered loudly, "That irresponsible bunch of rancid braised pus had to choose this place!" Logain put a hand on her right shoulder, pulling her to a stop. Her weaves changed instantly. She raised a barrier around them, not stopping cursing. He learned more about the Shadowspawns' mating process than he had ever wished to know. For a moment he wondered what part Lews Therin took in the curse. It sounded... equally unpleasantfor both male and female

"If you will stop before you'll make me vomit," He said before she reached the parts he believe worse than what she said already, "why are you so angry?" A moment later, he added, "Is this how it's really... is with the Trollocs, and the others?"

"I hate this place!" She shouted at him, "Hate this place more than anything else in the world save the Pit of Doom. And I would sooner walk into the Pit of Doom than there." She pointed north, where he could see the now-familiar yellow glow, stronger than the sun.

"Why under the - ?" He dropped the question quickly, "You can return to the Dragonmount if you like, Halima. I can take care of him on my own."

"You wouldn't be able to take care of ice melting in a summer day, Logain!" She screamed at him, she weave fire, a ring made of saidin, of fire wall a mile in height appeared in a circle a fifty feet around them, even from that distance, Logain could feel the warmth of the fire. It began to spread quickly, in three heartbeats, it was already two hundreds feet away, he channeled at three hundreds, fire and air to cut her flow, it took effort, with something the size she was weaving. It fade completely at four hundreds feet. The way she stared at him... she was breathing quickly, with saidin inside, he could here her pulse racing. Not of effort, it was too much emotion that made her tremble so, and horror was the strongest.

She shrugged off his hand and continued walking, no longer channeling, but she had readied some of the nastiest weaves he had ever seen, "You don't know Lews Therin enough to do any good." She said with a hard voice.

"And you do?" He asked, striding next to her.

"Learning Lews Therin was a surviving skill in the War of Power, Logain Albar." She said scornfully to him, he didn't mind, for now, anger pushed terror aside, he rather have her angry, at him or at someone else - not that she seemed angry at anything but him, not that he saw – than her have afraid. "And survival was something I took lightly one time only!" She shivered visibly, he wondered, in the most cold, distant part of his mind, the one that he hated and respected at the same time, if she knew that she now stepped closer to him. She gave him a grin that held some mirth in it, "Lanfear used to give us advance lessons in understanding Lews Therin."

He stared at her, it was sometimes hard to know whatever she was joking or not, she had a... peculiar sense of humor, to say the least. "It was a joke, isn't it?"

"Men!" She growled, and then sent both hands to her mouth and guilty expression appeared on her face, the same expression of a girl with a hand in the cookies' jar with her mother just stepping into the kitchen. "I hate women!" She said, her voice hard and her eyes burning, "I hate them almost as much as I hate this place."

"Maybe it's not my place to mention it," Logain said, trying to push down a grin and knowing very well she felt his desire to smile, "But you are a woman!"

"Why do you think I hate them?" She grumbled loudly, smoothing black, shining coat. He blinked at her, it was the first time he noticed that she didn't wore a dress. He stared at her before, didn't look. It was quite easy, staring at her, although dangerous, she had a tendency to throw tempers when she noticed his eyes on her. And Halima's... tempers were quite a bit more than he could handle safely. She never actually tried to kill him, not since that time in the White Tower. When they fought now, her flows lacked the final strength that would make them dangerous. "I liked women," Halima continued, "Once! When I didn't have to be one!"

"Does being a woman is that bad?" Logain asked; Halima was the only one that could truly answer such a question.

"Go with me into the Pit of Doom," Halima said angrily; "The Dark One will surely give you this body in exchange to an oath of fealty to him." Logain thought that there couldn't be a doubt that Halima was the only one in the world that could sound disgusted, talking about the body she had. One found it hard being disgusted from a body that was as near perfection as possible. Of course, her tongue needed to be cleaned, but Logain thought that cleansing saidin would be easier than cleaning Halima's tongue. And he had no intentions trying. "Of course," She said, almost cheerfully, "I would like to have yours in exchange." The way she eyed him made him shift his shoulders uncomfortably. It was nothing like the way women looked at him since he was... fifteen? No, it was sixteen. Keep boasts to others, you can be truthful with yourself, at least. The familiar greediness was there, but something else, she looked at him as if he was a cloth she was trying to decide whatever it was worthy enough to wear.

"Don't joke about such matters, Halima." He told her, trying to ease his discomfort.

"I wasn't joking," She told him absently, she was too busy staring at him in a way he found extremely uncomfortable. Then she shrugged, "I assume I'll have to take you to Tal'aran'rhiod and show you."

"That is not exactly what I've in mind when I think of being in you." He told her, smiling as she became redder than the sun.

Facing him, she drew saidin to the point where he could feel the pressure on her, where a bit more would be deadly. "If you think that I will allow you to force yourself on me, or that you've any hope to succeed in that, you are -"

"I've never forced myself on a woman before," He told her, his voice ice, his mind fiery fury. "I have no intentions to start with my warders." He stared at her, looking down from his height. "But, unfortunately, no doubt, as you see it, you've a body that stepped right out of any man's dreams." He ignored the fury that began bubbling in her, fear exist no longer, that was the important thing. "Putting yourself in a man's cloths done nothing to hide it, the other way around, if anything. You would have to put a sack on you, a big one, to hide your body. Then you'll have to do something with your voice, and your smell. Maybe then you'll be able to avoid being noticed by a blind man in a dark room, but I wouldn't have bet on that."

She looked at him for few long moments, "Smell?" she inquired finally.

"Yes!" He replayed, resuming his walking, leaving her behind, he knew she would follow.

"Smell?" By Halima's tone you might have thought he was suggesting she would eat a Trolloc, he had to do that once, or starve. Ever since, he decided that starving would be better. She held her hand near her nose and then trotted to catch him, he caught her hand an inch from his face. "There is nothing wrong the way I smell!"

He blinked at her; she wasn't a fool, why didn't she understand. "That is what I've been saying, Halima. There is nothing wrong in your smell, save the small fact that you smell like you've just stepped outside a bed after an extremely pleasant night." He had more to say, but he pushed it too far already.

"Burn you, Logain Albar!" She hissed at him, "Burn you to the Pit of Doom!" Saidin spin around her; flows of air and fire and just the tiniest touch of spirit, the flows lingered in the air for a moment, then they were gone, and so was Halima.

"My Queen," Dyelin hurried to the girl that was her queen on weak knees. She came as soon as summoned, and would have come if she had direct orders not to. She was grateful to catch the new queen just before the girl entered the Grand Hall, it would serve nothing now, to have the queen's temper rage. "Where have you been?" She asked in an accusing tone, "The city had been attacked by those Dragon's men! And the Queen was fooling around with the Dragon Reborn!"

Elayne stiffened visibly, Dyelin couldn't care less; the last few days were simply too much for her. "I was not fooling around with Rand!" Elayne said quietly, her voice strong and proud, the very image of the Queen of Andor.

"I don't care what you were doing with him!" Dyelin cried, "For all I care you could be playing stones with him or bedding him ever since the two of you were gone! Do you have any idea what happened here since you were gone?"

"I came as soon as I could, Dyelin." Elayne stated, "I'd... other duties save ruling Andor. Some of them are as important to me as Andor is."

"Then you've no right to be a Queen," Dyelin said without hesitation. "Have you forgotten all what you mother thought you? A queen places her country before anything else!" Dyelin looked at the girl that she was so fond of, once, before her own daughter gone like mist in a hot day and the city was ravaged by hordes of madmen that could channel.

"That is enough," A woman in boy's cloths, dark and short and as regal as Elayne stepped to face her, "You've no right to speak to her like this." Min, Dyelin recalled her name. Reene Harfor had her loyalties to Andor. And with Morgase dead and Elayne gone, she was the best eye-and-ear in the Lion Palace that Dyelin ever had. Of course, with Elayne returning, Reene's loyalty was to her. There would be no more so very useful reports from the woman who run the Lion Palace. A very interesting tidbit Reene had passed her was that apparently; Min and the Lord Dragon were lovers. Idly Dyelin wondered whatever Elayne had any knowledge about that, and what she thought about it.

"I have every right, girl." Dyelin told the woman sharply, "Since our Queen decided I should rule here in her absence, I would like to know why she was absence at the most critical moment to Andor in the last hundred years!"

"Leave her alone, Min." Elayne order, "We'll discuss the reason for my absence later, Dyelin, at length. Now, I want to know exactly what happened."

Dyelin took hold on herself, barely, "It began six days ago, Elayne." She said, "I was watching, as you instructed, when... chaos seemed to begin in the Black Tower. It's more than three miles away, but the night became day, and... I think that the Black Tower must have been burned to ashes, there was enough fire there to match the sun." Dyelin took a deep breath, that wasn't the end of it, not even the beginning. "The morning after, there were Asha'man all over the city."

Elayne became pale, "How many...?" Her voice trailed off, she seemed incapable of voicing her question. "How many did we lost?"

"About a thousand, more or less," It surprised her that her voice wasn't trembling, it should have, it surprised her she wasn't wailing. "All women. None of the bodies were founded." She blinked hastily, making her voice sound normal, sane. "Lerad, she seemed to be leading the maidens of the spear," She noticed that the third woman, an Aiel, with red hair and green eyes, Aviendha, nodded. According to Reene, there was no doubt that woman was the Dragon's lover until she disappeared one night, few days later, Min showed up. The Dragon was certainly a man; the only thing that didn't fit was why the three was ready to put up with that horrible treatment from a man that was no better than any lecher Dyelin met. A lecher with a good taste, maybe, all three women where more than beautiful, but Dyelin saw little difference between the Dragon's action and Gabriel's. It also give her enough proves that Elayne had no love for the Dragon Reborn. Both males and females of house Tarkand were known to be extremely jealous for the one they loved. She saw not the tiniest bit of jealously between the three women. "Lerad says that the women weren't killed, she refused to tell me what had been done with them, only that it's not much better than dying."

"Maidens had strange way looking at life, Dyelin." Birgitte said; Elayne's warder was shorter than the queen, but not a bit less beautiful. Dyelin had no idea what happened between the warder and the Dragon; she hoped to keep it that way. "I wouldn't have worried too much about it."

"Amelin is gone too," Dyelin said softly, "And Lyandra too." Amelin was her daughter, and she wouldn't have been the slightest worried about her had Lyandra hadn't been missing too, since they were six years old, none of them ever got to trouble on their on.

Elayne put a hand on her shoulder, "They are both fine, Dyelin." Her eyes were burning fury, but her voice was soft. She and Amelin and Lyandra were very good friends, before she went for the White Tower. "I believe I know what happened to them, and they should be as protected as possible. They wouldn't be safer in their beds." Elayne stepped forward, and pushed the Grand Hall's doors open. "I still meant to skin Rand for this, though." She said as the huge doors began to open.

"What was done to my daughter?" Dyelin demanded. But it was already too late. Elayne took one glance at the Grand Hall and turned to her.

The Queen's face was mix of shock and fury beyond limits. "Who did that?"

A cold part of Dyelin mind noted that Morgase done well, teaching the girl how to be a queen. The rest of her mind wanted to wail.

 

Shortly after being bonded to Logain, Halima reached a decision. She doubted if she would last long, not when she betrayed the Shadow. Since death was expected soon, Halima never hindered herself from saying, or doing, exactly what she wanted.

She continued doing so even after the Last Battle. Her philosophy can be summed into one sentence:

"As long as I'm alive, I'm about to enjoy it."

Logain is very much loved by the Asha'man, and half the reason for that are his warders. There was never an Asha'man turned down, asking help from the M'Hael or his warders. Logain complain is often, saying that: "The only thing impossible in the Black Tower is half a chance to get a good night sleep."

Despite his words, Logain is known to always listen to Asha'man in need. Halima, on the other hand, is known to tell a man exactly what he did wrong, and how he should solve his problem. Often enough, her advices are quite forward, more often, they aren't very pleasant to the Asha'man requiring help. Most of the time, she is right. But she never feared admitting she was wrong.

Strangely, she is loved for that even more. Not so surprising, most of those asking help from Halima are those who encountered troubles with women, whatever they are the Asha'man's warders or not. Halima, without a doubt, is the only person in the world, maybe the only ever, capable of understanding both points of view.

On some cases, her unique understanding was more than valuable. For example, soon after the Cleansing of saidin, when the Dragon Reborn...

The History of the Black Tower, volume II

By Elmindreda al'Thor

The Court of the Sun

The Forth Age

"I don't like it," Logain said to the - could he call it a man? He very much doubted it - that walked near him. The man Tall and blonde hair, with pale green eyes, more than handsome, with the Dark One itself dancing in his eyes.

"So?" The man shrugged, "I don't like you very much either."

"Halima," Logain signed, "Undo whatever it's that you did. I don't like this... show."

"The name, Logain, is Eval Ramman." The man said lightly, a smile appearing on his face.

"It would do you no good, you know. You can hold this weave till you will die, but it doesn't hinder the bond, nor does it change the fact that you are a woman, no matter how you look." Logain tried to make his voice reasonable. He truly hoped he succeeded, he hate to see Halima like this.

She laughed as the flows around her melt and gone. "If only you could see your face, Logain." He grimaced at her, but it only made her laugh harder.

For some time, they walked in silence, and fear increased in Halima's mind. Elayne made a mistake, weaving that gateway, Logain estimated, they were at least a mile from that glow only he seem to see. And they walked for half a mile already. Considering Elayne's temper, and Halima's words, he wouldn't have been surprised to find out that she did that on purpose.

Halima began to curse under her breath, her thoughts no doubt following his. He heard Elayne's name and a word he didn't recognize in the Old Tongue. The last few days, Halima expanded considerably his vocabulary on the dirtier parts of the Old Tongue, a very useful language, for cursing,at least.

"What is wrong?" He asked, trying to push worry aside, she would only become angrier, knowing that he was worry about her.

"I don't like this place! What do you think is wrong?" She glared at him like he dragged her here, what was only half true. "Tell me about yourself!" She ordered, "It might help if I listen to someone with the intelligence above average mice." She glanced at him again, and added: "Even if not that much beyond."

"What do you want to know?" Logain asked; if she wanted to here about him, she would have it. He doubt if she would like most of what she would hear.

"Start with the day you began to channel and continue from there," She told him, "Everything before would probably deadly boring." She grinned, as if she just said something funny, and it was funnier because he didn't understand.

"If you say so," He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to remember, for a very long time, he pushed those memories away. Still, they weren't parts of him he could safely ignore. "I was... seventeen, I think. I'm not very sure," He ignored her scornful snort, and continued, "She was the Mayor's daughter," He could feel her stiffening; she opened her mouth and closed it with a stubborn look. Anger was clear, it was easy, making her angry, and she forgot being afraid any time she was even slightly upset. "As I said, I was seventeen, and her father caught us in the barn." Halima chuckled softly; he loved the sound of her voice.

"What have you done?" She asked, whatever she felt, she felt with all her heart, with no place to other emotion, curiosity swallowed everything else in her, she would pry the information out of him if he would refuse to give it to her, not that he had any intention refusing.

"I did nothing." He told her, "All I knew is that her father was coming, shouting like a horde of angry cows, and then I was in another place."

She said a word he didn't recognized in the Old Tongue, it didn't sound like a curse: "You've never been able to remember how you did it, haven't you?" She didn't wait to his nod, "No one have, no one ever!" He stared at her, and she rose her eyes to him, "Carry on, what are you waiting for?"

"As I was saying, before you interrupted me, I was suddenly elsewhere, Saldea, as I discovered later, with my skin alone. And it was winter!" He added at her laugh. She ignored him, "Considering the Saldean women's reputation, and my condition, you can draw conclusions yourself about the way I got new cloths." He stole them, but she had no need to know that. He had heard the rumors about Saldean women; he had no wish to spend the rest of his life in Saldea. She grimaced at him for a moment, then her face cleared, even if it was for a heartbeat only.

They stepped out of the burned area Halima created, and the woman wove fire with much more fiercely than she did before. "That is quite enough!" She said.

"Jealous?" He inquired, and prayed silently. The only answer he got was an arrogant sniff.

He didn't speak a word as they came closer and closer to the glowing light ahead of them. As they were two hundred feet from the glow, walking down a small hill, Halima grunted, there was another hill just ahead of them, and the glow he doubt if Halima could see.

"That tree..." Halima whispered, all Logain could see was few spikes of a tall tree, he thought it must be an oak, yet there were no oaks in the Blight. She began to run suddenly, leaving him gaping at her back. The fool woman didn't even kept her hold on saidin!

"Wait, you obsequious sheep!" He shouted after her, then, muttering few more chosen words, he began to run after her. She was very fast, catching up with her; he gripped her arm and pulled her to a full stop.

She didn't try to pull her arm out of his hand; she simply stopped, staring. Logain held saidin to the point where exultation became pain. He could hear her heart beating, air being suck into her lungs. His hands touched the fabric of her coat; the finest silk money could buy. Still rough compare to her skin. He shake his head, sending those thoughts away, it was all too easy to fall into that special trap with saidin, especially now, when the sweetness of saidin was overwhelming.

"What is wrong?" He asked; making his voice soft was hard, very hard. He doubted if she noticed him, her eyes were glazed, with terror. Of all things! He could see no reason for that feeling. No shadowspawn survived a mile from here; Halima already took care of that. And he saw nothing to cause such fright in the tree she was looking at.

She paid him no mind; she walked as if in a dream, completely unaware of her surrounding. In the Blight, that could be fatal. "Someshta!" It was half a whisper, half a shout. She began to shake; Logain saw tears in her eyes. Enough was enough, and burn her for refusing to tell him what was wrong!

"There is nothing to be afraid of, Halima." He whispered to her hair, wrapping his arms around her and placing her head against his shoulder.

"You don't understand," She told him, sobbing, her voice utterly broken, "No one can!"

He raised a barrier of saidin around them, as strong as he could make, and held her until her tears ran out. Part of him was glad of the tears, they would release much within her, she didn't talk about it, maybe didn't even think about it, but he knew what one result of the bond must be. She was no longer the woman she was, the bond changed as little as possible, but with Halima, that meant much. No longer the woman she was, she couldn't accept her actions in the past. Couldn't accept being of the dark. The struggled inside her, even if went beneath the level of her awareness, weakened her, crying, even for another reason entirely; would help. Logain knew that of personal experience, although he much rather not think about those horrible times when the One Power was unreachable to him. Tears often helped, here, they might be the only way for her to heal.

And so all Logain did for his warder was holding her to him, while she cried. Hug her tightly while she cried like a broken heart child. Hold her while she clutched to him and hope that she draw some comfort of his presence. Hold her and cursed wordlessly because there was nothing he could do to help her. Hold her until her tears would run out.

"I... I don't usually do this," She said finally, eyes red and voice shaky. "I don't think I cried since I was a child."

"Then it was a very good, considering your lack of practice." He told her, she didn't step away from him, he was right; crying made it easier. And he was arrogant, selfish aardvark. Whatever aardvark was, a word in the Old Tongue not even Leane and Toviene seem to understand. Halima called him aardvark once; he deserved every curse she ever voiced and more. There were more important things to think about now, much more important than her in his arms. "Could you tell me now why you're so afraid?"

Tears washed fear, for a while yet, at least. "That tree," She whispered into his chest, the bond had its advantages; "his name is Someshta." He could feel her taking a deep breath, trying to calm herself, she failed, and he hugged her harder. "He killed me," her voice savage and fearful and angry at the same time.

"The tree?" Logain asked incredibly.

"Yes, the tree." She didn't shout that, and that make him more worry of her than he would have had she shouted and throw tantrums. "The last of the Nym, named in this age the Green Man." She began to cry once more, no longer sobs that shock her from head to toe, but silent tears that slide down beautiful face. Tears of grief stronger than one could, or should, have felt.

He considered the situation for a moment, "I'll take you... to the Dragonmount," for a moment there, he wanted to say home. "Rand can wait for a little while."

"No!" It was weak sound, but an order still, "I can handle it. I know I can."

Be that as it may be, he still didn't let her move beyond arm reach. She walked straight to the tree, an oak that seemed to be there since the beginning of time. Logain saw the residue of flows of saidin, a ward to defend that tree, but a ward that seemed to be created by a child the first time touching saidin, and another weave that were tied strongly, much stronger, much more focus, much more efficient. Rand's weaving, the later, at least, he had no idea who might have woven the first ward. "And so we meet again," Halima whispered, stretching trembling hand to touch the trunk. "The Light alone knows how much I hate you." There was a spark of emotions within her, anger, with others, that emotion would have been called burning fury, with Halima, it was mild anger. Crying emptied her of all emotions; it often did, for men and women both. "I can destroy it, now. I always wanted to, I could never come here, before, I was too... afraid." Halima said slowly, her eyes focusing on him, "That ward would never stop me, it will take a moment of two only to finish it. Then I might have some peace." He had the uncomfortable feeling that she was saying it more than to herself alone, it sound very much as if she was begging him to allow her this.

Logain sighed, he truly hated doing it, "Do as you please, Halima." He told her, "If you think that destroying this tree will help you sleep better, then burn the tree, or rip it apart." It wasn't a matter of using the power, not exactly, but the bond gave him some tools to control her. Now he used one, it was hard, very hard. He fought to keep the sweat out of his face; fought harder to control his doing, keep it strong enough to her to feel it, keep it weak enough she wouldn't know the source of it.

Somehow, he knew, it was very important moment.

"They appeared seemingly from no where, though the rumors of their presence in the city had been rampaging for some time by the time they appeared in the Palace." Dyelin told Elayne. The woman stared at the mess in the Grand Hall with wide eyes. Most would've, at first glance, and at the second and at the tenth. "The guards did not see them as they entered the palace, and even when noticed, they could not be removed."

Dyelin shivered at the memory, the black coated men, Asha'man, skipped about in a curiously child-like manner, glee written all over their faces, and could not be caught. Like dust in the wind, they slipped right the hands of any who tried to grasp them. Arrows seemed to divert from them, and no one got close enough to run them through with a sword. "They were not striking back. No, they seemed oblivious to all save their own demonstrated bliss. It was simply that the arrows and daggers that sped through the air towards them seemed to, inevitably, fall short." Dyelin didn't like remembering what happened next, Amelin was gone soon after that, with no one to keep an eye on her in the chaos that ruled in the Lion Palace. She and Sheraen, her husband, were too busy to notice that their daughter and her childhood friend were gone until it was too late.

Bright ribbons of color were left behind all over the Lion Palace: brilliant blood red, metallic and shimmering silver, rich royal purple, golden glimmering yellow, midnight sky blue, and so many others. Sparks lit the air, heatless fire, trailing on those same ribbons. Images still formed in the air, half fantasies and dreams, long after the men were gone.

The Asha'man burst into rooms, the ribbons of color on following them. Shattering priceless furniture, while the men, unaware of the damage they caused, laughed in joy, eyes beaming in ecstasy and madness. When, at last, they entered the Grand Hall, they traipsed about, blissfully tossing aside those soldiers that pursued them, almost unaware of their presence. The soldiers where simply pushed aside, by strength above any human capability, sliding down limply, alive and unharmed, but dazed. Yells echoed through the room, twining into the Asha'man's brilliant laughter, child-like in its intensity, seductive in its adult richness. They remained in the palace for the space of four or five hours only, but it was more than enough.

The Grand Hall was where most of the damage was done.

"I see," Elayne said with a voice that held no emotion whatsoever. Dyelin glanced as the Grand Hall, fury rising in her despite that she saw it before. The Lion Throne flouted ten feet in the air, overturned, in its place on the dais there was... something, red and blue and gray, constantly changing shapes if not colors. That wasn't all, looking up; Dyelin almost winced as she saw the mustaches and beards on the ancient queens.

"The Light burns my soul!" A male voice whisper in awe, "I almost sorry that I missed this," A tall young man, clad in black, with two pins on his collar, his hair done in Arafelian style, and accent to match.

"Oh, Jahar Narishma?" Elayne said in a frozen voice. "What are you doing here?"

"Leane, Logain's... warder, told me to come here. She thought you might need help, and she needed me to take her here beside." The man said, apparently unaffected by Elayne's voice. He had very disturbing set of eyes, Dyelin had the feeling they saw right into her skull. "By what I've seen so far, I alone wouldn't suffice." The Lion Throne began to turn, it still flouted in the air, but at least it flouted with legs down and seat up. The... thing that shined where the Lion Throne should have been winked out, and the throne settled down on the dais.

"I want the head of the Asha'man who did it, Narishma." Elayne said, her voice utterly normal. "Then I would like to have his hide, I would have him entirely, piece by piece."

The man shrugged, "It might happen to be just a little difficult, Elayne." He said, by his voice, the two knew each other. "At least three dozens were involved in it, there are too many difference in the style to be much less." One by one, beards and mustaches were gone from the faces of queen hundreds of years old.

"Then I would like all their heads, and the rest too." Elayne lost her composure in a flash; the man was thrown to the air and flouted three feet above the ground. "Do you hear me? I want them, and I want them dead!"

"For some reason," Aviendha said coolly, "I don't think Rand would favor that." Her eyes traveled around the room, "But they did encouraged much toh to you, Elayne. It would serve nothing, killing them without having them paying for their deeds will serve no cause." Min nodded seriously, did none save her saw the impossibility of Elayne's words?

"While you decide what you would like to do with them," The man said patiently, not at all intimidated by the fact that he was flouting in the air. "I would like to be on the ground while I untie the flows."

"Do you know what happened to my daughter?" Dyelin asked; no one else seemed ready to tell her, making her voice polite was the hardest thing she ever did in her life.

"Your daughter?" The man titled his hand to one side, "Who is she? And why do you think I would know what happened to her?"

"Her name is Amelin Taravin," Dyelin said, blocking worries and anger, she could surrender to them later, after she will strangle her daughter. "And she was gone, along with more than a thousand women from the city, while the Asha'man raved in the streets."

"Oh," The man landed on the ground suddenly, his face troubled, "There might be a small problem here." He told her, Elayne made a move as if to hash him, but Dyelin glare at her hard enough to make her reconsider. Nothing will stop her from her daughter.

"What is that little problem of yours?" Dyelin asked, no longer bothering to control her voice.

"Your daughter is now..." The man glanced at the four women that stood near her, and seemed to think again about the words he was about to say, "She is with an Asha'man, his warder, most likely." He told her, not a sign of mockery on his face. Elayne patted her shoulder, trying to look comforting thought her face was still fixed in a grimace.

"It's not that bad," The man said, "And you've no need to worry about her safety, her Asha'man will guard her life with his own."

No one tried to stop her as she walked to the man, a good thing, she would have murdered anyone who would have placed himself in her way. Her husband and daughter excluded; of course, anybody seemed trying to stop her, when she slapped the man's face, hard.

Logain signed, she could feel distaste strongly in him, "Do as you please, Halima." He told her, "If you think that destroying this tree will help you sleep better, then burn the tree, or rip it apart." Halima touched the tree again, lying spread hand on its trunk. The Light alone knew how much she hated it.

The Light alone, She shocked her head, cursing Logain and the bond wordlessly. Something happened to her, soon after Logain took her as his warder, a change in the way she thought, act, behaved. Balthamel died here, she tried hard not to see the skeletal hand that was half revealed under the tree's roots.

She felt very strange, in any other place, she would have said that someone had just walked over her grave. Now, it was she, the one who walked on her own grave, only it wasn't her grave, it was his grave, Balthamel's grave. She very much wanted to cry, her head leaned on the surface of the tree's trunk. The tree that killed her, but somehow, she felt better, much better. She didn't glance at Logain, but she would have bet her very soul, her very life, that he was responsible for that. "I do hate you, Someshta." She told the tree, her voice unsteady, "You began all of this," She made sure Logain could barely hear her, even with saidin in him. "You killed me once, and now I'm to die again." Irritation and fear stroke through Logain and gone, "Whatever it's by the hands of the Dragon Reborn or one of the Shadow's slaves. Sooner or later, it's you who will have the last laugh." She patted the trunk slowly, mind trembling, she felt almost lightheaded. Knowing that Logain was doing it, whatever it was, helped. She stared at the tree for a moment, she had the disturbing feeling it stared right back at her. "I meant to laugh as long as I live, Someshta." She told her killer, her voice now too low even for Logain to hear. "And as long as I live, as short as that may be, I meant to be who I am." No more games, no more hiding.

"Logain," She began to say, turning away from the tree, "I want you - " Something fell from the tree, and she threw herself to the left, grasped saidin, and channeled, all in the same instance.

An acorn hanged in the air, small acorn, had it fell on her, it might have mess her hair a bit, but that was all the harm it could do. She began laughing, she couldn't stopped herself as she rose to her feet, her entire body shaking with laugher. "As much as I enjoy to hear you laughing," Logain said wryly after a while, a long while: "I think that we should reach Rand, and I doubt if he would appreciate you laughing about as we try to convince him to go back." But his words, and his tone, only made her laugh harder.

"Hysterical!" Logain muttered loudly, and added a decidedly unpleasant curse, she was suddenly aware of him raising her head to meet his eyes. She saw, from the edge of her eye, his raised hand as if he meant to slap her.

The slap never landed. Instead, he bent his head to kiss her.

That certainly caught her attention, every shred of it, and muted every wish to laugh.

"Why?" She asked when she finally managed to break the kiss if not his hold on her. She had no need to explain her question any further.

"Slapping you is near impossible," He said, shrugging, "and kissing would have the same affect with - "

She didn't let him finish, "Please bury... this, Logain." She told him, looking at him with eyes that shined with tears, and pointed at the half buried skeleton, "He hadn't had anything decent in his life. I think Balthamel deserve a decent grave at least." She sent a hand to catch the acorn; still flouting in the air on the flows she wove. Then she turned her back to them, tree and man and the skeleton of the man she once was, and began to pace quickly toward the Eye of the World.

He sat on the cold stone floor, cross legs, on the bottom of the stairs, there was a small room there, enough so the echoes will vibrate through him. Asmodean would have love the place, he thought. As it was, the music washed through him, inside him, yet it didn't touch him, nothing seemed able to touch him. But the music flows from the flute he made, saidin used by him to create something, instead of ruining it, music completely unheard in this age, the music drawn from memories of a long dead madman, but the skill at the flute, at least, was his.

Memories danced in his head along with the music, golden hair and blue eyes, dancing with him, laughing, kissing. None of those memories he deserved. Blue eyes, dead, empty, staring accusingly at him. Golden hair spread over the floor, the group shaking, as if not even the stone could bear his touch.

Blue eyes, live, full of anger and fury and grief, staring accusingly at him, so long after his deeds done. Traps! The voice echoed in his mind, the same as the music echoed inside the room, bouncing from one room to the other, over and over and over, strengthening with every bounce. There is no escape the traps you weave for yourself, he remembered Lews Therin saying once. And also, only a greater power can break a power, and then you're trapped again, trapped forever so you can never die. He said it out loud, tasting the words.

The music hadn't pause, he used saidin to play the flute, faster than any human could ever be, bringing the music to new levels of beauty. It was emotionless, though, emotionless like the void that surrounded him.

Emotionless like Ilyena's eyes, an age ago, heartbeats after he killed her.

She didn't glanced at the symbol imprintedhigh on the arched opening that led into the small building, the last that remained of her own age. The acorn was safely in her pocket. The walls around her were made of glowing bricks, but time did much to destroy even what was created with the One Power. Many of the bricks were dark; many others glistened weakly, on the point of becoming dark. The result was twilight, casting deep shadows, with just enough light for her to see, not enough to uncover secrets long hidden.

Leniredal Morelile Chamog, her mind called, the first she had killed, long before the War of Power, long before she even joined the shadow. And there was Honek Feral, and then... her memory was perfect, always. She remembered names, books, events, songs, anything, in absolute perfection. Now, her mind brought up every sin she ever did, every man or woman she tortured, raped or killed. She could sum them up, but there was no point in numbers, as she knew well, ten millions or twenty millions, the moment you began counting, it lost the quality of it, lost what make sin hard to bear. Only it was never hard to bear before, only now, after Logain had bonded her. After the bond change who she was, and what she was.

The changes were deep, and strong, and left the surface all but unharmed.

There was a flight of stairs, leading down, and music that made her freeze in her place for a long time.

Halima walked down the stairs to the sound of The March of Death, the first stair brought to her memory every rage and tantrum she threw in her life. The second brought the victims, a line with no end, numbers that were meaningless, but the sorrow tore her heart to pieces. On the third stair she replayed every murder she ever did or caused, since waking and before, in this body and the one before. She still recalled all her sins in the forth and the fifth stairs, and in the tenth as well, even though it hardly took her any time, searching her vast memory. There were empty holes there, death erased some of her memory, as did the long sleep in the Pit of Doom, trapped just beneath the surface of the seal, the Wheel of Time affected the body, but not the mind. Even now, she shivered uncontrolled, remembering that time.

Halima stepped down the stairs that led to the very heart of the Eye of the World, the sounds of the March of Death dancing around her, tears sliding along her cheeks without her even being aware of it. An endless list being read in her mind, and each name was branded on her heart. Murders, rapes, tortures, corpses in numbers that shook her now never disturbed her one little bit before. It did now, more than she thought she could bear.

Lews Therin sat on the bottom stair, a flute dancing in the air, no hand touched it, but it produced The March of Death in tones sadder than Halima thought possible. "Why here?" She asked, her voice heavy with the tears. "Why here?"

"This is where it all began, Eval Ramman, where I took the first steps on the path that led me to the cleansing, to - " He cut off abruptly, she didn't care, for him, it was the beginning, for her, it was only the end.

"It's very disappointing for you, I know." She told the man as she sat next to him, smiling softly at the breach she wore, and moping tears from her face at the same time. She never thought that a pair of breach could be a reason to be overjoyed. He barely glanced at her, the flute continued to play, and the tones saddened. Logain came near, she could feel him.

"What should I be disappointed about?" Lews Therin asked sharply suddenly, his eyes were focused on the flute.

"Ilyena," Halima answered without a heartbeat of hesitation, she preferred herself to defend herself, but she knew where the conversation had to take them. "It's always disappointing to see a job not well done." The flute fell to the ground, and she rose to pick it up, a fine flute, although she hardly knew anything about flutes, it reminded her the old times, "She should have stayed dead, of course, that way, it would have been much more comfortable to you. Those... girls of yours wouldn't be angry of you, for a start. You wouldn't have to explain Ilyena why you've killed her, your children. There was no need to decide what you'll do with Ilyena. Will you take her, too, as a warder? I've reasons to believe that the other three will have something to say about that, not to mention Ilyena. You can't, of course, simply send your warders away," That was almost a complete sum of all what she understood from the weave she remembered, it was complex beyond belief, and, by everything she knew, fatal. Anyone using that weave would die instantly. She noted herself asking Logain about it. She did twice before, yet he seemed to have a talent in evading questions he had no wish to answer.

"It could have been worse," Logain said suddenly, giving her a start, she forget paying attention to the bond, now he walked down the stairs, a big, dark, man. Almost too big to be real, everything in him was huge, even his presence. She could easily see him leading an army, he was much like Lews Therin in this, both men could capture the attention of any in the room simply by enterring it.

Lews Therin stood suddenly, and distanced himself from her and Logain, "How?" He demanded to know, "How can it be worse, when it's already the worst possible? Tell me, Logain Albar, how?"

"Look at me and then you'll understand," Halima growled at him, "How much you've loved to have Ilyena in a man's body?" Standing, she stretched herself to every inch of her height, which wasn't much, "Six feet tall, full of muscles and as ugly as a new born Trolloc!" She understood suddenly that she was glaring, but not at Lews Therin, at Logain, who stared at her with amazement in his eyes, feeling hurt. The man bloody well deserved it.

Logain brushed her as he moved closer to Lews Therin, one hand slide over her cheek; he somehow made it seem accidental. "You shouldn't be crying," He whispered to her before turning his face to Lews Therin. He walked toward the taller man until they was only a foot between them. "You're very arrogant, Rand al'Thor." He said softly, "Hiding here, sulking, while the world out there need you." Lews Therin was a little higher then Logain, with Logain being noticeably bigger.

Lews Therin always reminded her of the great cats, strength hidden under smooth fur, speed covered with laziness. She wondered idly what would happened to her own cats, they wouldn't need much care in a day or so, she wanted to see Lews Therin's face, and Logain's, seeing what she had made.

Lews Therin resembled the great cats, lean and tall and fast. He even walked like a cat, without making any sound, and he was deadlier than any cat could ever be, her cats included. Logain, on the other hand, reminded her bears; she often typed people that way, by what they reminded her, often, it make sense, as often, it didn't.

She tapped with one finger on her lips, yes, a bear would fit, those huge bears that extinct in the Breaking. Twelve feet tall and nearly invulnerable, Logain gave the same impression as they once did, as if he was strong enough to support the world with one hand, too big to be real. And still, despite his height, he was neither clumsy nor slow. She was attacked by one of those bears once, as she was by Logain, both nearly killed her, of course, the bear lost at the end, unlike Logain.

"Leave me," The command was delivered with such strength behind her that Halima froze, she could do the same; it was a matter of self-confidence, nothing more. And the Light knows that Lews Therin never lacked that, she didn't like this being used against her. It was almost compulation, orders that went below consciousness.

"It would do no good, trying to talk with him," Logain said to her, ignoring the man he stood next to. She threw the flute at him, Logain caught it with one hand; he didn't even have the manners to make it look hard.

"He's holding too much inside," Halima said, then she smiled, "I know just the right thing for him to do."

"I'm here," Lews Therin said coldly, "just in case you've not noticed it."

"I noticed, Lews Therin," She told him, walking toward him. "Believe me, I noticed." Nothing showed on Logain face, but fury burned him from the inside, it made her want to laugh. She stooped less than a foot from Lews Therin. Fury became stronger in Logain, and jealously, for some reason. She shrugged it off, she could think about it later. With all her strength, and with saidin to her aid, she stroke with a fist at Lews Therin's jaw. It came to him as a complete surprise, with no time to defend himself or evade the fist. Had she wasn't using saidin it wouldn't have matter. There was nothing she could do to harm him with the strength of her body alone. She did use saidin, however, and he flew upward, reaching nearly ten feet above the ground, before he fell back. Logain caught him, as easily as if Lews Therin weights nothing. Both jealously and fury were gone, anger was visible, with amusement and relief.

"Why?" Logain asked as he laid the other man on the floor. Halima was grateful that Lews Therin lost his consciousness; she didn't want to do that again. "Why?" Logain asked again, she didn't bother answering him, her hand hurt; she puffed on it, even the touch on air against her bruised knuckles hurt.

She glared at Logain, and then at Lews Therin, it was their fault. She might have to think for a while to come up with the exact how, but it was their fault. "He need to release much within himself, and he wouldn't have come with us to where he need to go." And as long as they were talking about releasing what one felt, she kicked the man on the floor, twice, before Logain stopped her. "I can't tell you for how long I wanted to do this." She told Logain; before she let her head lie on his shoulder and eased her body. She nearly fell before he caught her.

"Are you mad?" Logain asked sharply.

She began laughing suddenly, a throaty sound that still made her want to seek the woman who made it; it seemed like nothing she could produce. "Probably, Logain." She told him, "Now, pick him up while I make the gateway, you don't know this place well enough." She knew this place like she knew no other. She also knew the place she was going to, the closest thing in this age to what she used to call home.

Two falcons soared in the skies, wheeling and playing in the blue and gray light of a dawn not yet woken. Samira watched them through the open window, the only room that she had seen with windows on, the others she had seen had with anything resembling windows had big gaps in the walls, and were nearly frozen. Devon was far away, and she could imagine that she was all alone in the world.

For a moment she wondered what Devon was doing. It had been almost five days since she last saw him, and not a word came from him, not that she cared, of course. She never left her rooms since she had been brought to Dragonmount. Until few hours ago, she found this room after she got lost, when hunger became too strong to ignore, she didn't care much were she was, and the beauty shown through the window was amazing. So she stayed. Being inside the fabled mountain could rouse little interest even in her. Devon might have thought that it would be safer to have her here, within the hollow heart of Dragonmount. She felt him coming near three hours ago, but he didn't try to search her, or to talk to her as he tried before. Maybe he had gone mad, the way he suddenly began to laugh and smile and then disappeared through one of those gateways.

It didn't matter. Nothing did.

It was so peaceful now; early in the morning with the double windows open so the sweet breezes could caress her face. Dragonmount, the monument of Lews Therin Kinslayer's love and agony for an Aes Sedai named Ilyena. Sometimes she wondered whether it was irony that had made Rand al'Thor choose this as a hiding place, so the Asha'man had told her, a dark man that seemed to be too big to be real, when he brought her to this place. Samira thought he might have tried to calm her down.

Tar Valon glimmered in the distance, a pale blur not so far away. She had spent many years of her life there, most of them happy ones. She had been lucky; even in the splitting of the Tower, not much had changed in her life. Happy memories, yet there seemed little urgency. The Tower, her duty, and indeed the world outside seemed so irrelevant now.

The falcons drew up with showy screams, and as one they plummeted down, dark bolts on swift wings. She soon saw the cause of it, a lone eagle in the sky, drifting lazily.

How she had loved the idea of flight as a child! It was a passion that had survived even adulthood, that time when most tender fragile things such as dreams die in unmarked graves. Things that flew fascinated her, and sometimes she bought caged birds just to set them free, to watch them spring like arrows from a bow out of captivity and into the sky. It had taught her one thing: flight was freedom. As children, she and Sarad had often argued about what happened when a person died. Of course, they waited for the Wheel to birth them into the world again, but where did they go in the meantime? They had had a theory.... she recalled, a child's dream, but...

The eagle called once. Twice. It was taking slow, graceful circles, just a little above the level of her window. It seemed to her that it was waiting, calling her, and watching her with Sarad's golden eyes. Each bird was the soul of a person waiting to be woven into the Pattern again, and as birds they flew free, even the Friends of the Dark, who took flight on midnight wings to give their vision to their master.

Some birds mate for life. Some, like the eagle, the goose, the falcon, the stork and the swan, are never parted. To be together forever, or at least until the Wheel of Time turned a spoke once more. The eagle looked at her with familiar gold - brown eyes. It seemed to her that she saw it smile.

"Wait for me, Sarad! I'm coming." This was a good day to test her theory of flight, but in order to fly, she knew, one must first fall.

"The last time I entered such a place, I lost six months." Logain said, setting Lews Therin on a table, the man still hadn't waken, and show no sign he was about to wake soon. Halima's fist still hurt. She would have kicked the man again, or hit him few times with saidin, he felt like he was made of stone.

"Oh, what happened?" Halima wondered idly. She glanced at the room, filthy and smelly, the floor was covered with rotten hay, stained with drinks and blood. The bar was in one side, shaky and old and unpleasant to look at. "Jelon," She called the man that once owned The Light's End, the name still amused her.

"I woke in the Blight, with a crazy idea about reaching to the Pit of Doom and killing the Dark One." Logain grimaced, "And with the worse headache possible."

"Yes, lady?" Jelon came quickly; she didn't use saidin on him; only fear and money tied him to her, as tightly as she was tied to Logain or more. Jelon didn't seem the slightest surprise to see her with Logain, or that Logain held Lews Therin like a baby, as if the big man weighted nothing. What she was sure he noted was her laugh.

"I thought I told you to take a bath," She comment, even in her standards, he was too dirty and smelly and full of fleas and ticks to get in touch with.

"I did, Lady! Last week!"

Halima sighed inward, "Since when getting wet in a rain mean bath?" She asked Jelon, she liked the man. "Give us the strongest drink you have, not the one with the mice in it, I warn you, and then jump into the sea."

"Yes, Lady." Jelon's face took a grave expression.

"And I don't want to hear how much you're attached to that... thing on your back, put something else, the Light knows I pay you enough to buy a noble's cloths." She added.

"Yes, Lady." Jelon sighed heavily, "I will do as you please."

"You pay him," Logain inquired softly, very softly, "Why? He's nothing but a sack of flees that smell like a three days dead rotten Trolloc."

"Two days," She corrected him. Unfortunately, smells were memorized too, "Not three days." She ignored his eyes, it was easy to do, as she found out; maybe she should practice that. The Light's End was full of its usual... customers, all men; few women dare enter such places. Halima heard that death was the best thing a woman could find here, of personal experience, she rather have anything else. Anything! There were more scars visible here than in any room full with old soldiers. And not one here save Lews Therin or Logain she would have trusted not to sell his own mother if he would find the price appropriated. She gave them all a wide grin; the affect was visible. She was, so far, unharmed only because of Logain, towering near her. Those men simply wait for a chance to rape her; she waited for that eagerly. She had to hold her temper for far too long.

She took a chair that didn't look like it would collapse under her weight, as light as she was, now. And turned it so her back would be turned to the wall. Lews Therin lay on the nearest table. Logain sat very close to her, he was cautious not to turn his back at the men too. Steel whispered against leather as his pulled out his sword and laid it on the table, easily visible. Halima stuck an elbow in his ribs, "Don't ruin everything!" She told him.

"You want to be raped?" He raised an eyebrow and looked arrogant. "If so, you wouldn't have to come here, you could have simply told me."

She put her hand on his throat very gently, "Logain," She whispered at his ear, "Keep those thoughts for yourself." Then, just to make a point, she bite his ear, hard, and moved away as fast she could, avoiding his startle jump.

"Blood and Ashes!" He shouted, rising to his feet in one quick motion, sending the rocky table to the floor, "Light, woman! Can't you, just once, let go of me?" He turned his head to the other men in the room; the word tavern didn't fit this place. "Do any of you want her? I'm willing to sell her in a very reasonable price." Taking back his seat, one hand clutching his ear and staring at her with victory in his eyes, "I lie, of course," He said to her ears alone. Bending to lift the table back to its original position. "I'm not going to be reasonable with anyone, you will be sold for quite a price, I expect."

"Logain," She told him sweetly, Lews Therin moaned weakly, she ignored the man, "Have you ever been plunged, head first, into a wall?"

"Twice," He told her, smiling widely, thinking he said the last word.

"You want it to happen a third time?" She meant to say more, but stopped short as Jelon came near, holding a tray with seven huge tankards full with liquid. "Drink something," she told Logain when Jelon set the tray on their table. "And you, go take a bath!" Jelon sighed, but she knew he would do as she ordered. "But first, Jelon," She told the man, who stopped and beamed at her, "Put a tankard down this man's throat, gently, I want him to survive it." Jelon nodded quickly, anything to delay the bath was fine by him.

"What is it?" Logain asked slowly, "It smell like the inside of a Trolloc." Lews Therin sounded as if he was being strangled to death; Jelon did his job well. He showed her the empty tankard with a smile that revealed black and yellow teeth, where he had them. Only half the tankard was spilled on Lews Therin, the other went down his throat.

"Very good, Jelon, now, a bath, I would like to be able to breath near you." Jelon wasn't offended, only mournful as he walked outside the tavern. "You don't drink it for the smell of it, Logain!" She told Logain, taking a small sip, trying hard not to cough herself to death. Her new body didn't know how to handle such things, she truly hope it would learn, she meant to keep drinking.

"You drink it because it's the easiest way to die?" Logain asked, "Or because the morning after even you would like to die."

"Be quiet," She muttered, Lews Therin moaned again, "Put him in a chair and make him drink one of those. "

"Are you absolutely sure it wouldn't kill him?" Logain teased her, but he did as she asked.

Lews Therin only began to wake when Logain put a tankard in his hand and ordered him to drink it. Halima winced as she watched the man drinking. He coughed for half a minute after the first sip, but he continued drinking. Slowly his eyes focused on her. "Never even consider doing such thing to me again, Halima Albar." He told her slowly, one hand rubbing his jaw, the other holding the tankard. Logain's face took an interesting color, something between green and burning red.

"My name is not Albar." She told the red hair man scornfully, trying hard to hold her temper, the man was already half drunk, Lews Therin didn't drunk much; Rand al'Thor followed him, apparently. He had at least half a tankard in him already, and the man was already half way emptying his second tankard, he had to be drunk. What they drunk didn't seem to have a name, but it was bloody strong.

"You hadn't told her yet?" Lews Therin asked Logain between coughs. "You're Halima Albar, and there is Leane Albar, and Toviene Albar, and there would be more Albars, soon. Much more, I would expect." He took another huge sip and coughed for some time, "A lot of little Albars," He continued after some time, Logain face were certainly green. He felt sick, if the Lord Dragon was right, he would feel much more... uncomfortable very soon. "Have you impregnate any of them by now?" Lews Therin asked.

Logain silently took a tankard, looked at it for a moment, and then he set it back down. "To the best of my knowledge, I didn't. Halima wasn't ready to participate." Logain answered quietly. He stretched a hand to put on the opening of her tankard. "You can drink it, Halima." He advised her, "But don't expect me not to make acid comments tomorrow's morning when I'll have to hold your head above the washbasin while you threw up everything you ever ate in your life." Glaring at him, she lowered her head and tried to bite him, his hand was gone like mist. "Do you have some flavor for human's flesh, Halima?" Logain asked, then he began to smile, "Or is it my flesh only you seem so eager to taste." Calm, Halima reminded herself as she rose, calm, she reminded herself again when she took the tankard near her and threw it at Logain, holding his head with saidin, the flows thorn apart a moment too late. Halima winced at his pain. He didn't curse, a reason to worry, he just looked at her, dripping... unnamed drink and...

"Keep your tongue clean," Halima told him, Lews Therin clapped his hand, and some other men as well.

"Hot temper as always," Lews Therin said, "And your taste at choosing places to enjoy at hadn't changed a bit, hadn't it? Where are we, for that matter? This place reminded me of Kiloner Deris." Halima smiled, remembering the tavern with the worst reputation in the world, they were much the same, in truth.

"Tear," Logain answered, he didn't wipe his face, just looked at her. "A tavern named The Light's End, if you can believe it."

"Oh, I can, easily." Lews Therin replayed, setting down an empty tankard and taking another, "Eval Ramman always like places that smelled worse than a battle field in a hot day." Halima winced at the name she once had. She stared at her tankard in amazement; too much of it was gone. She sat it carefully outside, she believed Logain, and he seemed to have a sharp tongue at need.

"You still like them, I see." Lews Therin told her.

"I see no reason to change that," Halima told the man slowly. Calm, you idiot, stay calm!

"I see;" Logain said, "More than one." He stretched a hand as if to touch her, she bared her teeth at him. And he snatched his hand back. Lews Therin laughed.

Halima put her face between her hands, elbows leaned on the table, and wondered silently how did she reached here. "You wanted to live forever," Lews Therin said suddenly, giving her a start, she thought she had better control on herself than to voice her thoughts.

Logain took a tankard, by his expression; he meant to drown the conversation in the drink.

"Considering that you led the Light," Halima told him, "it was much safer among the Shadow."

"Safer!" Lews Therin roared, "How could it be safer in a place where the easiest way to achieve a higher rank is to kill those above you."

Halima lost all hold on her temper, "With your battle tactics?" She shouted at the man, "Your idea of winning a battle is to gamble against all odds."

Lews Therin stared at her, giving her his pull attention, a disturbing thing; he seemed to be able to read her mind. "And I won!"

"How many time even ta'veren can win, playing against the rules of probability?" She was furious, "At the end, it was only a matter of time before you would have lost. We stopped you and your army, Demandred and Bel'al were already invading our territories, it was a matter of time alone, and yours run out!"

"And at the end, I won still!" Lews Therin hissed, "No battle I commanded was lost!"

"There is a difference between not losing in battles and winning battles!" She shouted at him, "What about Paran Desen?"

"What about Paran Desen?" The man roared, Logain emptied half a tankard in one huge swallow, he didn't coughed once, and he raised the tankard to take another, "I won the bloody battle!"

"And how, you risked the entire world because of you being arrogant! What would have happened had Ishmael chose to stand and fight instead of fleeing? What would have happened had you lost? I'm fully aware that you're arrogant enough to think you'll survive anything, but you couldn't let your pride affect you while your gambling with the Dark One! Not when the world is on the stake!"

"Paran Desen in the spring, do you remember anything more beautiful?" Lews Therin sighed into his tankard.

"I rather had the Sharon," Halima said, "There was much... fun there." Logain looked sick. "I think I liked the Academy most, however."

"It was a beautiful place as well," Lews Therin agreed, "Although I don't doubt that your reasons differ than mine. You left only few hearts unbroken by the time you finished the academy." Logain's face became just the slightest green, and he felt sick, and miserable. For some reason, it made her smile, widely. "Those were good times, the good old days." Lews Therin sighed again, "I missed them."

"The good old boring times!" She corrected him, "The strongest of us could hope for nearly one thousands years lifespan. And the strongest Aes Sedai are often the most qualified, what were we supposed to do with our life, when we reached everything we ever dreamed or wanted in the age of hundred or less? What left for us but endless years with tomorrow all but identical of yesterday." Logain stopped looking sick, he gaped at her.

"Bored?" He inquired in a voice that held all the disbelief in the world, "You could reach the age one thousands years, and you claims that you were bored?" Logain's eyes took a far off look. "I never hoped to reach thirty," He said in a voice that sounded like none of his own. Halima blinked at him, if she would ignoring the Slowing, he was about forty.

"How old are you?" She inquired softly.

"Me?" He looked at her for a moment, she had the feeling he was seeing through her, "I'm twenty-seven."

"You didn't age nicely, Logain." Lews Therin grinned, "With a bit of luck, when you reach one hundred, you will look like she did, at three thousands." Rotten body; a tongue that fell off from her mouth when she first tried to talk, after they have climbed up the path of broken daggers that led from the Pit of Doom; she remembered looking at hands with horror, able to see, through gaps in the flesh her own bones. Eyes week with age, body nearly collapsing under its own weight, muscles that once were powerful became water. Trapped near the surface, the Wheel of Time passing slowly affected her body. The oldest creatures alive stepped outside Shayol Ghul; they also looked so.

"It's not a matter to joke about, Lews Therin, or should I remind you of Mierin's doings?" Halima asked coldly, Lews Therin groaned sourly, "Do you remember your wedding? It was a wonderful display of emotion, I think Asmodean wrote a song about it, not very good song; but no song can be good with a name such as: ‘The trio's wedding.' Not to mention Ilyena and Mierin's reactions to each other. They nearly toppled the entire building, and you stepped between them, like the fool you've always been. You made each think you support the other, Ilyena refused to marry you after that. I still don't know how you convinced her in the end. Something to do with this thing called love, I assume. But it was certainly worth the visit, it was nice of you inviting me, I don't think I ever thank you about it. If I remember correctly I laughed myself till I'd sour mouth for a week."

She stopped to take a breath when Logain spoke: "Have you never been in love?"

"Of course I did!" She replayed, "You want the names? I can give you every last one of them?"

Logain grimaced, fists tightening for a moment, then he forced himself to calmness, "How long did it often last?"

Halima shrugged and smiled at him, "Most often, until I undressed her, in rare cases, until she undressed me." She replayed, Lews Therin began to laugh, and she didn't hide her wide grin at Logain's expression.

She was aware of commotion behind her for quite some time now, luckily, she raised her eyes just in time. "Darkfriends!" That came as a hiss, from more than one men, Halima didn't doubt a heartbeat that there were darkfriends among the men gathered in the room, of law rank, most probably, but they would try to kill her still, to make sure they wouldn't be uncovered. The rest were as bad as any darkfriend.

A man almost as big as Logain stepped forward, the leader, he had a short sword in hand, or maybe a long dagger. It wasn't a nice weapon, "We know what to do with darkfriends! Especially you!" The man stared at her and licked his lips in expectation, Logain made as if to rise, sending his hand to his sword, face like a thunderstorm.

"I will take care of that," Halima said, rising with a grace she was well aware of, the only reason for wonder was why they weren't attacked before, the claim they are darkfriend was only an excuse, their cloths were far finer than any those men saw on anyone save nobility. She gave the men's leader her widest smile while she wove Air. He was picked up in the air, and crushed, hard, into the wall opposing her, the wall shock for a few moments, but it held. Halima grimaced; the man rose into the air and plunged against the wall twice more, until the wall broke and the man flew through it.

Nodding in satisfaction to herself, she took back her seat. Jelon stepped through the door, looking at the broken wall, then at her, agonized. He was wet all over; he was very... literal man. The room was empty beside Jelon, Logain, Lews Therin and herself. As soon as it was clear that the One Power was being used, the room emptied. That was the fastest retreat Halima saw in her life, and that included the battles in the War of Power.

"You still had a tendency to destroy whatever anger you," Lews Therin comment calmly, Two tankards stood near him, empty, and another was held in his hand, he obviously meant to get himself drunk, he should have been already drunk, but save loosing his tongue a little, the drink seems to have little affect on him. It was clear evidence to his state; the mind could overcome the body, for short periods of time only, as she knew better than any other, for now, his... grief held back the affects of the drink. Halima had no wish to be him, tomorrow morning. "I'm surprised that Logain survived you."

"Did I?" Logain said, sheathing his sword and seating in his chair, he glanced at the wall few times, the man left a hole seven feet wide and five high. Jelon checked the damage with sad eyes, sending every now and then angry glances at her. He said nothing, of course. The man might be smelling, and not the brightest in the world, to say the least. But he survived in this tavern for years, which took something. Still, she knew she could trust him with her life, her gold and her promise were more than was need to acquire his loyalty. "I'm not so certain I would, it had only been a week." Halima laughed to that, and Logain grinned at her.

"Wouldn't he be even slightly angry about you ruining this...?" Lews Therin seemed to be searching for a fitting word, not that there were many, to describe The Light's End.

"I own this place, he wouldn't." She told the man before he found the right word.

Logain snorted, "A farm in the Blight would be a better place to spend your money at, Halima."

"I like this place," She replayed to him, if he thought that he could make her change her mind about owning this place he was gravely mistaken.

"There is no place like home, isn't it?" Lews Therin said, Halima winced, looking at him. He began his forth tankard, the last that remained, and his voice was too slow, to say he was drunk would be an understatement. "You always liked that kind of places, and now you own one. Do you mean to make a career out of this? And how under the Light have you gotten ownership of such a place? I can hardly imagine the owners selling it to you."

"Jelon understood, in the end," She told Lews Therin, "I offered him more money that he saw in his life, and told him that I would turn all his gold to water if he would think of betraying me, I'm still paying him to run this place. It's not a place I would like to see ruin."

Logain chuckled, looking at the hole she created, "You don't want it ruin but you still ruin it yourself."

She ignored her bondholder, "What are you going to do with Ilyena?" Now that he drunk so much, it seemed that he was capable to face the fact that the wife he killed returned from her grave, after time so long.

"I don't know," Lews Therin replayed slowly; trying to be logical even thought he emptied three tankards already, and most of the forth one, not to mention that tankard she ordered down his throat. "The Light burn me, I don't know."

"I think you have other things to worry about, more important than Ilyena," Logain said, she glanced at his tankard, three quarters emptied, she was horrified to see that more than half of her tankard was gone. Logain would have his acid comments tomorrow morning, for sure. "The Asha'man took the cleansing a bit too well, I sent them to the Dragonmount to calm down, but they seemed to have taken warders without the women's concept." He didn't look at her and had the goal to sound angry with the Asha'man! "More so, I expect Elayne to be angry enough to try to skin you, the Asha'man... messed a bit the Lion Palace."

"What!" Even drunk, Lews Therin managed to pull himself up in speed near impossible, keeping himself erect, however, seemed beyond him. And he crushed down to the floor as fast as he went up.

"Do you mean to help me up?" He demanded from the floor, "There is something wrong in the floor! It wouldn't hold still under my feet!" Halima laughed as Logain helped the man to his feet.

More than anything else, the warders hold the Black Tower together; every Asha'man knows that he can trust his warder in the hands of any other Asha'man. Any Asha'man would do close to anything to defend any Gaidar, knowing that in his turn, his warder would be protected.

Mortal enemies are ready to die for each other's warders, while they wouldn't blink at seeing the other dying.

The History of the Black Tower, volume XIV
By Elmindreda al'Thor
The Court of the Sun
The Forth Age

It was like being drunk. Like the rush after drinking a whole skin of wine or a jug of good brandy, saidin leapt and tingled each time he touched it, gave him a thrill not unlike being in bed with a pretty, willing girl.

He laughed, the knife scar wound that ran down his left cheek pulling a little, the result of a tavern brawltwo days ago. How good that had felt after the months in the Black Tower! Just using his fists and his old skills again and none of saidin even though it felt like liquid lightning flowing in him, pure and scalding in his grip. Some of the men had been so overjoyed they had spent nights making displays in the sky that rivaled any Illuminator's fireworks. They couldn't get enough of saidin's unadulterated feel, often channeling until they were exhausted, until they were so close to burning up they had to let go. Logain was said to warn everyone that all were to channel no more than four hours a day, till everyone got used to it to ensure that none would burn themselves out like overused candles.

Devon found the thought amusing, Light, is there anything not amusing, with saidin clean? His laugh echoed crazily off the rocky walls and ceiling, and he brought himself up short. Had he waited till saidin was cleansed to go mad? That caused him to laugh harder.

In a way, it felt good to be in Dragonmount. The word was, the Lord Dragon was planning a celebration like none other in the history of the world, and what better cause for a celebration? The only thing he could have done without was the loud argument and cursing that never ceased between the two behind, where Rhodri was trying to persuade his Warder to walk instead of digging her heels in like a mule. Though he could hardly have called Memara a mule. Memara of the Four Springs sept, that was all he got from her name, there was a long line of titles afterward, from which he remembered only the word "Taardad".

At least an inch taller than the six feet, dark haired Rhodri, she was all long limbs, flame colored hair and hard, resentful eyes. Devon felt personally that the only thing that kept Memara from sticking a knife between Rhodri's ribs was the bond. As it was, when she'd discovered what had happened, she'd given him a beautiful black eye.

He grinned. Being newly raised Dedicateds, neither he nor Rhodri had not traveled off the Black Tower much, and had not much experience with Aiel, particularly Aiel women.

A holiday in Caemlyn, it had been, a holiday that had exceeded all his expectations, though trouble might come as the price of it later. Caemlyn had been full of Aiel, it seemed, and little else by way of protection. It was strange. Last night, the forth and last in that endless celebration,he and Rhodri had been on the rooftops, admiring the moon and doing handstands after finishing a skin of wine. Alone one moment, then surrounded by threatening forms bearing spears the next.

Rhodri had been in the middle of a handstand, and a foot sweeping him off his hands had him flat on his back before he could yell, a spear-point or two under his chin. Thrilling to the clean fire of saidin, Devon himself had found it only too easy to cloak himself in shadows and slip some distance away. He didn't doubt Rhodri could take care for himself, he had felt Rhodri being full of saidin, seen him preparing defensive weaves in an instant, but then one of the shadowy figures had spoken in the husky, caressing voice that only few fortunate women were born with.

"What do you do sneaking about rooftops in the dead of the night?"

"I might ask the same of you," Rhodri had answered easily. "What under the Lighta woman doing on the roofs at night?"

The figures had glanced at each other, and in the moonlight Devon had seen the black veils drawn over their faces. "We are all women," another had said. "You wetlander men have strange manners and ideas."

"If you're referring to my less-than-courteous greeting, it was because I was and am in a supine position. Permit me to rise and I'll show you a bow that wouldn't be out of place in the Lion Palace." Rhodri had made to rise, but the first figure tensed, not shifting her spear.

"Was that a joke, wetlander?" a third asked suspiciously, "Where is your friend? It's not often wetlanders manage to avoid us."

"Any man, wetlander or no, who's mad enough to voluntarily wear the color of the d'tsang could be foolish enough to do anything," the first one replied grimly.

Rhodri had grinned. "He probably fell off the roof at the shock of seeing your collective beauty," he'd said with outrageous confidence. Rhodri was always a lecher. But this was no place for smart words,and Devon had half-expected to have to save him from having his throat slit, but amazingly, the second one, who seemed to be the leader, had laughed with that purring, throaty voice of hers. "Ease your spears. This one would like to play Maiden's Kiss, I think."

A ripple of laughter arouse to his word, eager laugher. Women were strange!

She even helped Rhodri to his feet as they unveiled, though features had been shadowed in the moonlight. He had watched Rhodri grin insolently, brushing off his coat. "What's this kissing game? This is a little unexpected, but I'll do my best on such a short notice." Devon had thought they'd laugh themselves to fits.

And suddenly the laughter cut off and Rhodri's neck was surrounded by spear-points in a tight ring. No hangman's noose could have been more uncomfortable.

"This," the second woman said, a hint of a grin in her tone, "is Maiden's Kiss. It might be strange to a wetlander man, so let me explain the rules." She did so very well indeed. Devon had almost given himself away by snorting his laughter, but the necklace of points Rhodri had been wearing had been very real indeed.

"Memara, you claim the first. Tell us if he is all smoke and no fire." A woman said, and chuckles from all around as Memara, the one with the pretty voice,hesitated slightly, then stepped forward and took hold of her spear near the haft, leaning in as gracefully as a leopard. He had hardly been able to believe it when he saw Rhodri readying the weaves. Devon found that he was regretting he didn't stop the man. On second thought, Rhodri would have thanks him.

But as it was, as soon as the maiden learned what Rhodri had done, they barely made it out of there without harming any of the Aielwomen.

Now, as he walked through one of Dragonmount's many smooth tunnels, he wanted to chuckle at the thought of what the others would say, or the M'Hael, for that matter. He felt Rhodri was already beginning to regret his hasty actions.

A little way down, past two branching passages, and down a flight of steps. If his instructions were right, that should get him to the great mess-hall, which was also to serve as an Assembly Hall when the Black Tower would finally establish itself here, so Toviene told him, shouted at him, to be rather exact. She didn't like Rhodri's actions. He couldn't wait to see the reactions of the other men when Rhodri walked in with his prize.

Pale light streamed in through the great, arched entrance, and he quickened his pace, a grin spreading over his face... he stopped in his tracks.

The great chamber, hollowed out of solid rock with the strength of saidin, was impressive enough in itself, especially now that saidin was lightening it... Polished benches, chairs and table filled the vast floor with its maroon, gold and blue carpeting, and tall windows as high as a man would let in ample sunlight once the sun rose. Paintings and huge hangings adorned the rock walls that had not been there before, but none of these caused his stare. Men wearing black were scattered about the place, but it was not them he gaped at either. It was the women. There must be at least thousand of them; with less than half that number black clad men.

A while back they had bonded Aes Sedai, and some men had wives or sisters or daughters in the Tower, but that could not account for the number of women in here now! He shook his head, wondering if he was hallucinating or man. Apparently not, there they were, women of all sizes and shapes, most young, all pretty in this way or that. A good many wore cadin'sor! Other maidens, Apparently, he winced at their sight.

He heard Rhodri's boots scuff to a halt behind him, as he and Memara fell into stunned silence that soon broke into a shocked gasp. He saw golden heads, dark heads and red locks. Some wore the skirts of maids, tavern maids, servants, and merchants. There was a fair scattering of silk and linen and velvets and laces, and even one or two women that weren't maidens in breeches! He even saw one whose dark skin and earrings clearly named her A'than Miere, even though she stood in a dress of Andorran cut... Andorran cut. His heart sank into his stomach, and he closed his eyes for a moment in desperation, Rhodri wasn't the only one fell into that trap.

They glared at him, at the other men, at everything. He hadn't felt this much tension at the same place since Domani Well. Some had reddened eyes, others were crying. The scene looked very familiar... as familiar as the Aes Sedai tents at the Black Tower, save that the men were still bouncy and buoyed and keyed up, despite the negative emotions raging through the bond.

Speaking of that, he should go to see Samira. Tentatively, half afraid of what he would feel, he reached to the pocket of emotions and sensations in his head that were hers. All he found was quiet calm, contentment, almost as if she was daydreaming. The first thing he had done when Traveling here was checking on her, but he doubt if she even noticed him. The relief he felt was palpable. "By the Light!" Rhodri was saying.

"Is it custom for you Asha'man to go around collecting women as if they were no more than coins or horses?" Memara said acidly behind him. Rhodri took her veil, a wise move, but she seemed ready to break the custom.

Hastily, Devon ducked his head and made his way through the crowd. Many of the men called or waved to him. "What, hunting wasn't good?" Othar Miran called, smiling for all he was worth. Light, the Mayiener was surrounded by three women!

"You blinded son of a monkey-trainer, your mother have fathered you with the goat she used to milked." a pretty girl with tilted dark eyes - was she Saldean - was cursing at Tiran Frecha who stared at her with pale eyes, there was a spark of amusement in Tiran's eyes, and the girl certainly saw it.

"Go away! Go away! Go away! Go away!" The scream seemed full of frustration more than anything else, nerves stretched to a breaking point, but the sound still made him start and ready flows of saidin, coming unexpectedly as it did from a pale, freckled girl in a stained Taraboner dress who would have reached up to no more than his chest and must weigh half his weight at best, she clutched her head with both hands. Her shouts seemed directed to Geral Telik, who tried to sooth her with little success.

"My mother always said that men had no more brains than an ox," a Far Dareis Mai with cropped pale hair, almost white was saying scornfully to a beleaguered Alir Fedon, who had both dragon and sword on his collar.

"And more hot air than a pot full of steam," her companion said, narrowing pale blue eyes at her Asha'man.

"Give us back our weapons," a third said almost on top of them, the angry flush in her cheeks almost matching the color of her hair. Was the man mad? Taking three maidens as warders was the most foolish act Devon could think about?

Rhodri couldn't handle with the one he had.

"My mother would kill me!" a Cairhienin girl seemed to be wailing over and over again, and for some reason, Devon found himself laughing, desperately laughing. It was either this or crying. He saw Jonan seating on the floor near one of the walls, the man looked like he wanted to die. Even with saidin pure! He began to inch his way toward his friend, the crowd made it hard, and his ears seemed to explode from the noise, mostly female voices, angry and afraid and desperate.

"Let me go..."

"What right have you..."

"Barbarians! Bandits! Despoilers of the innocent...."

"Spawn of a hog and Trolloc ..."

"It's not my fault!"

"What have I ever done to you to make you do this to me?"

"You wetlander fool! Are you idiot enough to..."

"You will have to get used to it! You son of sheep! I've no intention to change what I'm. Certainly not for you!"

"The Light blind you!"

"There's no place..."

"I refuse even to consider it..."

"I shouldn't have left the Black Hills..."

"Get rid of this amusement, I will not have you laughing at me!"

"There is no way..."

"Do you have any idea who I am?"

"In the name of the Creator!"

"What have your mother laid with, you... you..."

So many shouts and screams and sounds that his ears seemed to explode, yet he refuse to let go of his hold in saidin. "What in the Light is going on here?" He shouted, to be heard over the crowd's noise.

Jonan started, jerking out of his seeming reverie on the floor. "What?" He had a long cut on his face, from the right ear to his mouth

Devon cast a harassed look around. "Are you blind, man? What is this?"

"You didn't take Warders in Caemlyn?" Jonan asked morosely. "Every man seems to have had at least one."

"You don't have one."

"I do," Jonan said sadly, rubbing the cut on his face, "and I regret it as much as I can. Why in the name of the Light do you expect me to want to take another, with Runea on my hands already? But I did it anyway," Jonan Marley snapped irritably. "I could pound his nose to the back of his skull for him, so help me!"

"Whose?" The man wouldn't have taken a man as his warder, wouldn't he?

"Moran! Who else? The time Runea's spending with Moran is too much by my estimation. Or by any other." Jonan eyes scan the crowd, but Devon saw no woman the man's eyes laid on.

"Who had you take?" He asked Jonan, who jerked as if stabbed to the question.

"Delir," The man said, pointing with his chin at the dark skinned Sea Folk woman. "I think I thought it might be fun, and, for a change, Runea would be the one to be jealous." The man groaned, "Delir don't really like me, not one bit. And I can't say I blame her." Jonan glanced at him, "Was it Samira's fault you took no second warder? You missed not a thing, believe me." Again he touched his face, and winced, muttering a silent curse.

Devon opened his mouth, and then shut it. Jonan had a point. Perhaps Samira was the reason why bonding another had not been on his mind when it had occurred to almost every other man who joined the Black Tower. "The M'Hael isn't going to like this."

"The M'Hael isn't here anymore. He ran off with about one third of our number, the disloyal bastards." Jonan snort, angrily.

"What - !" He snapped his mouth shut just in time.

"You've really had your head in the clouds, haven't you? Taim's turned, my boy. Some say to the Shadow, some say to his own glory. Some even say he's gone mad, though I think we're not that lucky. Half of those who made it to the level of Asha'man went with him. Dashiva, Gedwyn and Rochaid were probably under Taim as well when they attacked The Lord Dragon." Jonan seemed to loose all his uneasiness, and by his eyes, he was swallowed by huge weave of fury.

"But we thought they'd gone mad..." Devon protested.

"That was the official story. Do you believe everything you hear? I thought Murandians were more suspicious than that."

"I'm still Lugarder enough to challenge you to a duel with daggers if you keep this up." Devon touched the hilt of his dagger instinctively.

Jonan laughed at last, and eyed the scar on his cheek. "Was that how you got that mark? Pretty impressive."

Devon shoved his hands into his pockets, itching to loose the high Andorran collar of his coat. The heat did not touch him, but he didn't like the way the damned thing closed around his throat. A collar to chain a raving dog that you didn't killed because it was useful getting rid of the rats for you. "Well, things don't look too bad. Who's the new M'hael? Or is the Lord Dragon finally going to lead us himself?"

"He's too busy, you know it. We're not sure yet, though some of the older Asha'man are already arguing the point." Jonan smiled unpleasantly, "Can you picture yourself Alir as the M'Hael?" He barked a laugh, "I'm not sure he hadn't gone mad already."

Devon stared at him, "Alir? The next few years, he will have to watch his back. The man had taken three, and they are not very happy about it."

"Neither does Delir," Jonan muttered, and Devon's eyes focused on the Sea Folk woman, then on Jonan's face.

"She gave you that beauty mark?" He asked, leaning on the wall and grinning.

"Who else?" Jonan demanded, "You've seen me fighting, do you think I would have let any do this unless I was sure she wouldn't hurt me. The bond won't let me hurt her, but vise versa isn't true. Burn Canler soul!" Jonan had known the man that discovered the bond, Devon didn't, and no one knew what happened to Devon's wife, the first warder for an Asha'man ever.

"How did you take her?" Devon asked, it seemed like a story worth telling.

"Maiden's kiss!" Jonan snort in disgust, "Far Derais Mai found out that this seemed to be the only thing that has any affect on us. No wonder, when we take warder by kiss. And those goose brains here not belonging to the maidens have decided to follow them! Delir actually thought I would fade in a cloud of smoke if she will kiss me." So this was why so many had taken. Devon chuckled wryly at the picture Jonan described.

"And the maidens didn't understood what was happening?" He asked incredibly. Rhodri explained it in details, just before Memara punched him straight in the eye.

"Apparently not," Jonan signed, "Or some did, and the rumor didn't spread fast enough. The rumors about kissing did spread fast."

Devon let it drop; he could question Memara later, if she wouldn't strangle Rhodri by that time. "Who has the best chance to be M'Hael? I don't think I would like Alir as M'Hael, or Mefod. And I'm sure they both want to be M'Hael."

"Ambitious bastards." Jonan murmured silently, "No one knows, it depend on the Dragon Reborn's decision. And as far as I know, he had gone with Logain somewhere, and both he and Logain are rumored to have three warders each now, so you can guess why they ran away."

Devon's sigh was full of envy, "Impossible! The bond doesn't allow you to run away from your warder, Jonan, or the other way around. And Logain would run of nothing, and I doubt the Lord Dragon would run of anything!"

"True enough,." Jonan agreed cheerfully, "We'll find out, eventually. Aren't you going to see Samira?"

He nodded. "It's strange, you know. She's very quiet of late. I feel almost nothing. It is... disturbing."

"Wish that I had your luck. Runea cries herself to sleep every night, and the first few days I had to drag out the shredded bedding and replace it with new every morning. Moran couldn't do it, of course. " Jonan rubbed the back of his neck unhappily. "It's almost enough to overwhelm even the joy of saidin. You're going to see her now? I'll come with you, I need to go away before Delir would found out that she still has a dagger or a dozen on her."

Moving out of the hall and its din, they stalked swiftly down the passages together, two tall men garbed all in black like menacing shadows. "She's thinking again, or dreaming. I don't know which." He said slowly, touching her knot of emotion in the back of his head again. "She's happy, a little excited."

"What's there to get excited about? It can't be the view, I took a look on her for you some time ago, there is only one window and it opens out right onto the River Erinin, where she can long for her beloved White Tower all day long..." Jonan muttered, then they both stopped short, looked at each other as the realization dawned on them, and broke into a run.

He had never felt such a jolt of panic in his life, scuffed boots slipping on the smoother bits, going so fast that he almost slammed Jonan into a wall one time when they couldn't turn fast enough. A little more... Light! She was laughing! The oak door loomed ahead of him. Not lessening his speed, he turned his shoulder and slammed into it, breaking the lock and crashing it back into the wall, never once thinking of saidin, despite being full with it to bursting and more.

The sky was glorious, streaked with hues of pink, gold and pale, pale blue. The room was cold, because the double windows had been thrown open as if to embrace the rising sun, here, beyond the windows there was nothing, a mile's fall. Against this fierce, natural glory was silhouetted the form of a woman, who stood on the outer sill with head thrown back and both arms raised, as if preparing to take flight.

"SAMIRA! Noooo!" She did not even turn a hair, but raised herself delicately on the tips of her toes.... and leapt. An eagle shrieked in the skies somewhere above.

For the life of him he could not have said how he made it in time. One moment he was standing there, all the horror bleeding through, and the next he had slammed into the sill, feeling the pain rise and encircle his ribs, but it did not matter. His arm was almost being pulled out of its socket, for he had hold of a handful of her gown. The fabric was ripping loudly, and then weaves of saidin were wrapped around her. Jonan's weaving; he was too frightened to keep his hold on the power.

"Blood and Ashes!" Jonan's voice barely registered in his mind. She was screaming, screaming and twisting and clawing as if trying to scratch her way out of the weave that held her. He had never such emotions ever in his life; boiling rage, dying panic, relief, almost hysterical laughter. He lifted her up to the window, and it took both him and Jonan to bring her in, even bound as she was. She nearly died!

The bond was full of trembling frustration, fear and anger, an anger to match his, and a sorrow that was new, and as bottomless as the Pit of Doom of the Aryth Ocean. A sense of loss, as though the thing she loved most in the world had been ripped away. Despite his anger and fury, he flinched, jerking mentally away from the coil of her torrential emotions and thoughts that occupied the space where only the empty blankness had once been.

Jonan loosed the flows that bound her as he slammed the windows shut, and none too soon, for she sprang up and pounded at the panes, till he caught her, pinning her arms to her sides. Instantly she brought her foot down on his toes, thin leather slippers on boots, it did not bother him much. What bothered him was when she kicked him in the shin. "Samira, stop it!"

She was arrested in the act of raising her fist. "Sit down!" he ordered, fury nearly overwhelming him.

She sat down obediently in a nearby chair; her eyes flashing hatred, red flags of color in her usually cool cheeks. Tears trickled down her face as she fought uselessly against herself. The Bond forced compliance; adjusted as it was to control her.

"Why couldn't you just let me fall?" her voice was choked with the fullness of her anger. "Was it too much to ask for death, to be let to fly free as so many others have been? What difference would it make to you, with one less Aes Sedai to worry about?" She would have spat if she could.

Devon felt as if she had slapped him across the face. Jonan took one look and turned his back on them, looking out the window. He wished the man would say something, anything. He needed some help here! He needed... He was on her side and clutching her face hard, pulling her to her feet. He was hurting her, he knew it, the bond shouldn't have allowed it; the bond shouldn't have allowed it to her to kill herself either. "You will do no such thing again, Samira Sedai! You'll not even consider such escape! Is that clear?" His voice raked, he thought he might kill her, he never felt so much anger in his life. His hands left her, not by his own free will, and she nearly fell. The bond allowed only that much, only so he could order her not to die, he saw his fingerprints on her face and felt sick. He settled her down and knelt by her side, ignoring Jonan entirely.

"Why would you say that? Have I ever been cruel to you?" She jerked away from his hand, and he curled his fingers in frustration, he knew he deserved as much. "I have tried my best to protect you, to comfort you, but you never let me near! I could never hate you, ever; surely you must know that. The way it is, you are like another half of me, body,mind and soul."

"Half of you!" She said with wild hazel eyes and utter contempt. "You ask me if you have been cruel, you who murdered my Sarad!" She stood suddenly, and faced him, she suddenly looked like those Aes Sedai from the Legends he had heard as a child, strong enough to bring the entire mountain on his head. Powerful enough to make the Dark One himself dodge aside and seat quietly until she would decide what to do with him.

Her Sarad? Was he one of her Warders? With the emotion it engendered..."He was... your lover ?" No matter what his position, it still felt awkward using that word with an Aes Sedai.

Judging from her expression it was as if he had called her much worse. "Beside being my warder, he was my twin brother! You've no idea what it's to be half of something! You could never know!" She began crying, tears leaving mark on her cheeks.

"A Twin!" Devon heard himself echoed by Jonan, shock in both voices. "But... that's impossible! None of the men we... we took looked anything like you."

"How could you know what he looked like when you took him from the back?" she said venomously, still crying. "At least Riadl and Machrin had the honor of a warrior's death."

He thought desperately back, and then stopped. "That man? He had gray hair!" She had no rejoinder to that, but she flushed.

Even before Jonan's warning hand touched his sleeve he understood. By the Light, how old was she? Her honey-colored hair had no gray in it, and her ageless face could have put her anywhere from sixteen to sixty, but he had the horrid suspicion that she might be beyond that. With his mere twenty summers, he felt like a child compared to his Warder. His Warder, Light helps him! There was another word he could have used, one that some of the men were fond of using, but he shrank from that. Yes, she was beautiful with her small, heart-shaped face with its aureole of honey braids beaded with blue-and-white porcelain beads and those green-flecked hazel eyes, but she hated him. And for some reason, that hurt. The man he killed, Sarad, was at least sixty, if not more, and it was known that warders aged quite slowly. Her twin brother, he had not even thought about the possibility that the Aes Sedai version of the bond being that platonic.

"Samira, I'm sorry, but I cannot undo what has been done." He hesitated. "If I could turn back time, believe me that I would never hurt you or any of yours." She was silent, but there was something in the bond that he could not define. Regret? At least the emptiness was gone. What was it that Toveine had said,if she could feel she would heal? A small spark of hope; but a bright one, an idea sparked in him. "Will you come with me, Samira? I need your help." This time the sensation was recognizable: surprise. She allowed him to take her arm, but showed no awareness of his touch either as he led her from the room, exchanging a glance with the puzzled Jonan.

Logain was in the Lion Palace only twice before, the first time was when he had been taken to Tar Valon to be gentled, and his mind jerked away from that time. The second time was yesterday, when he finally convinced himself that there were too few Asha'man in the city to do any serious damage and ordered Balir to gathered all the Asha'man he found and send them directly to the Dragonmount. Then he had to travel back to the Black Tower, and spend hours arguing with Sora and Kimali, when finally he arrived to the Dragonmount, it was already after nearly three days of not sleeping. Now a yawn ripped apart his mouth. The small fact that Halima and the man he had to carry were singing in the Old Tongue - he was certain was the song was filthiest Halima knew - helped not a bit.

If the frighten servant was telling the truth, Elayne should be in the Grand Hall. This place held too many bad memories for him to be comfortable, the Grand Hall especially. Two men in red and white stood erect near the huge doors that led into the Grand Hall, they made no move to stop him, they saw who he was holding, and now they stared at the Dragon Reborn with eyes so wide that they might fall off to the floor any moment.

"Open the doors!" His order was complied almost immediately, with the men moving slowly, not taking their eyes from Rand.

Elayne was in the Grand Hall, together with seven or eight others save Min and Aviendha and Birgitte. "Here he is," He told the Queen of Andor as he walked to the dais and set the Lord Dragon on the stairs leading to the Lion Throne. "He's yours, do whatever you want with him." At least the man stopped singing.

Elayne was very pale when she first put an eye on Rand, now, her cheek burned with anger. "Do you have any idea what your Asha'man did to the city?" She demanded coldly, stepping down to her bondholder, her husband, although Logain doubt if she knew that.

"Why don't you seat down and tell me?" Rand suggested cheerfully. His eyes slide to the nobles that stood nearby, staring at him with eyes as wide as the guards'. "Pardon me for not rising," He apologize sweetly, "It seem that I have some disagreements with the floor, it tend to move under my feet and throw me flat on my face whenever I try to rise."

"You're drunk!" Elayne exclaimed, in a voice that held all the disbelief in the world.

"Am I?" Rand asked him. "I don't think so, all I did was drinking just that much." His hands spread as far as they would go, and he stared at them in confusion. Logain doubt if the man could remember the existence of saidin, he should have seen the flows of Air Halima wove.

"Oh," Aviendha and Min joined Elayne, "And you expect not to be drunk, after drinking that much?"

"The last time he smelled so," Min murmured audibly, "He didn't take a bath for four days!"

Halima laughed to that, attracting everyone's eyes, not that the men's eyes weren't on her already. In those black coat and breech that showed her body so well, any man would. "Did he kept you in bed that long?" Halima asked, Min's face became red, "Or was it the other way around?" Logain noted with interest that all Rand's warders became as red as the sun.

"Halima," Logain growled silently, she told him that she decided to say whatever she wanted to say, and do whatever she wants to do. She did just that now, and he was about to get in troubles. She fell silent, but she still felt, and looked, very amused.

He turned his eyes to Elayne, "I don't think that there can be a single Asha'man in the city, but I've troops of Asha'man searching for them until they would be convinced that none stayed. I expect that by now they are already where they should be." Rand didn't want the knowledge of the Dragonmount to become public knowledge.

"And what about the women?" Elayne demanded, "I want them back, the Asha'man you may keep." Halima chuckled softly.

"The women are with their Asha'man, Elayne." He told her, "And they are there to stay."

"Impossible!" A woman with golden hair, much like Elayne, stepped to face him, a finger stabbing him just below the chest. "I will have my daughter back! And if I've to kill the Asha'man that take her as his warder with my bare hands!" Somehow she made it sound worse than murder, an Asha'man bonding her daughter, not her killing her daughter's Asha'man with her hands alone, which was quite impossible. On the other hand, by her face, she was ready to try.

"You can try that," He told her, "There is an extremely small chance of you succeeding, and you will end up with two corpses, not one." Halima sucked air into her lungs, and he cursed himself silently, she might as well believe that, there were worse things than the truth, but not many, at least not in his eyes.

Another woman joined them, shorter than that angry mother who gaped at him, with hair that seemed only few shades from white, "Both my and Dyelin's daughters are gone," She explained silently, clearly she was as frightened as this Dyelin, but she controlled her anger better. "We fear that they might have suffered the same fate as many other women had, since they were gone in the same time you Asha'man... were in the city. Can you confirm or deny that?"

"Suffered?" Logain wondered for a moment, "Whatever happened, Lady," He promised the woman, "Your daughter hadn't suffered, not by the hands of any Asha'man. That I can assure you." Halima muttered something loudly, in the Old Tongue. Rand laughed to that, everyone else sent horrified glanced at Halima.

"Still, we want to know." The woman insisted, "Those are our daughters, surely even you can understand that -" She stopped with her mouth open, realizing what he just said.

Halima moved suddenly, lying a hand over the woman's shoulder, "I've no doubt that you're right, he isloathsome, bad tempered, flea-bitten, and most of the time he smell like petrified skunk waste. That is, not to mention that his brain seemed to be filled with nothing but donkey gonads. I seriously doubt if he can understand how to do anything but drink all day and pick at his nose all night." Logain glared at her for all he was worth, fury burning through tiredness. Rand clapped his hands and added some words in the Old Tongue that sounded approving. Everyone ignore him, a hard thing usually, but now he laid slump on the stairs, looking sick and nothing like the horrifying Dragon Reborn. "I, on the other hand, might be able to provide you some help."

Both Dyelin and the other woman focused their eyes on Halima, "Where are our daughters?" They both asked in the same time.

"Where are the fathers?" Logain asked Elayne.

"Tearing down half the city searching for Amelin and Lyandra." She replayed. "If they are harmed, Logain Albar, I will have that Asha'man's hide."

"They aren't, not if they have been taken warders, but what make you think that they had?" Logain questioned, "There are thousands dangers in a city the size of Caemlyn. Any could have killed them!"

"Not in Caemlyn!" Elayne protested, "Maybe in other great cities, but not in my city."

Logain sighed, "It is a surprise me to see you're that naive, Elayne." He told the woman slowly, Min was watching him carefully, and he tried hard to avoid the flare around Rand al'Thor, a ta'veren shining stronger than the sun.

"What are you talking about?" Aviendha asked him, Elayne seemed to lose all ability to speak. He doubt if any had called her naive, ever.

Logain rose an eyebrow, the Aielwoman, at least, should be aware of the dangers. "There is a tavern, named the drunken bull," He told the three women, "A woman enterring that tavern would wish she was dead in a few minutes, and a man would be killed for the boots on feet." Elayne looked sick.

"I will make sure it would be ruined!" She vowed.

Logain shocked his head, "Then another will be open, and that was only an example, there are several streets in Caemlyn a man or a woman walking alone would likely wish to die very soon. And The Drunken Bull is not the only tavern of the kind, only the worst. The Lion Guard helped, before it was disassembled, but without it... You should thank the Asha'man for that, at least. Several of them tried to attack a warder. They were... taken care of." Save stepping into the Pit of Doom, Logain could think of nothing more dangerous than attacking an Asha'man's warder. Sticking a hand into a viper nest would be safer.

A strange sound attracted his attention, Rand leaned on the dais weakly and tried to stand, no one made a move to help him, the smell might have to do with it. And Logain noted that Elayne tried hard not to breathe through her nose with him near her, not only Rand.

Failing to stand, Rand turned his head to one side and done one thing that could have not happened in this room before. Elayne stared at him, Logain saw tears in her eyes as the man that held her bond vomited on the dais that led to her throne.

Halima looked at Rand and laughed so hard she could hardly stand.

The minute he left the hall, she scrubbed at her skin as if it burned. In a way, it had, and it shamed her to the bone. She would not feel anything at his touch! No! Better to die than that. She did not have time to think on it long. Devon's request was clear, and he left only so he could find her sisters, for the time being, one Aes Sedai would have to suffice.

"Aes Sedai?" said a pretty, plump girl with huge blue eyes in a face surrounded by brown ringlets. She was Andorran, and in a minute she had crossed the room and taken hold of Samira's sleeve, which was in a way a measure of her desperation. Questions poured out as more girls and women approached. Why were they here? Were these men already mad? Why were they being held captive? Were they really bonded, or was it all only a cruel joke? Was the Dragon Reborn angry at the folk of Andor? Was he dead? Were the Asha'man going to break the world again? When could they go home? Could she break the bond?

"I do not have all the answers, but I have a few. You are safe, for now, and the men don't intend to harm you. That you have been bonded, however, is a sadly inarguable fact," she said grimly. Devon had long, delicate hands, and a swift way of moving that was pleasing to the eye, burn him! The cries of distress that rose snapped her out of her thoughts.

"What can the Car'a'carn have thought, to let us be dishonored so?" demanded one Maiden, shocked enough to acquire comfort words from an Aes Sedai, of course, the Maiden would have never put it that way. But it the truth, whatever the Maidens would like to admit it or not.

"I believe the Lord Dragon does not know, yet, and that most Asha'man, for the moment, unable to control themselves, one of the results of saidin being finally cleaned." The babble rose again tenfold at this. From the edge of her eyes she saw Toviene, talking with a woman that was more than a head taller than her. And Runea too, with Moran on her side, as always, she thought she caught Jonan's angry face, talking with a Sea Folk girl that couldn't have been more than eighteen, she held a bare dagger in each of her hands and seemed quite eager to use it. Other Aes Sedai appeared, trying to calm the women, Devon was right about that. The Asha'man left the room slowly, and the tense in the room had almost gone with their absence. She didn't saw a single black clad man in the last half an hour at least, but still the women constantly stared over their shoulders, as if they couldn't feel that their Asha'man were far away,a mile or so, she estimated, this mountain was huge, and it seemed that it was entirely filled with caves and rooms, big enough to contain three or four dozens cities the size of Tar Valon.

She moved away, out of the center of the group as they talked animatedly to each other, the barriers of race and politics and social standing forgotten in the necessity of the situation. Feeling as tired as if a hundred years weighed on her, Samira spotted a girl on the fringes of the group who stood oddly enough on the side, arms folded, face calm.

She approached her. "Good morning." The tall, black-haired girl said nothing, merely looked down, but it was not out of rudeness. Her large gray eyes were full of sorrow, something that touched Samira herself. "Who are you?"

A moment passed before the girl answered. "Ildan, Aes Sedai. A good morn to you."

"Where did they take you from?"

The girl's mouth twisted a little, but her bearing was admirable. "They took me in Andor, from an inn we were staying in, but I be from Illian. He," she jerked her head to a slender, red-haired boy not more than three years older than her who was at the other side of the Hall, several Asha'man stood there, but they stepped no closer to their warders. They seemed to talk urgently with one another. The man Ildan was staring at seemed to listen intentionally,but his gaze returned to her at regular intervals with an almost doting possessiveness. "He did want a dance. It all seemed to in good fun, but the next thing I knew was that my knees did want to give way, and he dragged me through a hole in the air. I did not realize he was an Asha'man." Did Devon take a warder in Caemlyn as well, a second warder?

"No Asha'man, my girl. A mere dedicated." Samira replied, she found herself staring at the crowd, searching for a woman who might be Devon's second warder. It shouldn't have bothered her, but it did.

"Whatever they do call them. This black-coats are the Dark One's own creatures," the girl said vehemently, yet her eyes strayed to her Dedicated, and when their gazes met by accident she tossed her head and turned back.

"They were merely suffering the effects of saidin after the cleansing." Samira did not want to defend them, but the words had surprised her a little. "It can't have been that bad."

The girl's laugh was ironic. "That bad, Aes Sedai? Meaning no disrespect, but they did leave Andor in chaos. All the women who were there shall remember those nights. Some will weep, and some will carry bad dreams of it to the grave. Can you imagine how we did feel, we who knew almost nothing of the Black Tower, save that our fathers and brothers were all for throwing them out, if not for the Lord Dragon's Orders and the absence of a Queen in Andor. Rumors said that the men were going mad, that they had killed the Queen Morgase, or that they were Darkfriends to the last one."

"Do you believe them capable of such things? Do you believe them mad?"

The gray eyes moved uneasily. "I do no be a judge of such things, Aes Sedai, but I do know that it was four nights of fear for us women. They should no be allowed to raid a city and take us from our families and parents. What are we if not free people? We do no be toys for them to take as they will and discard as they please. And the Aielwomen were kind, they were strong and brave where most did cower, but they, too were taken. If the Aiel cannot stand up to them, who can?" The girl had lovely voice, warm and throaty, Samira noted, and a brilliant mind.

"Child, your spirit is admirable, and your words strike true, but tell me; do you, in your heart of hearts, truly hate your Bondholder?" Samira refused to think what her answer would be, had she been asked such question.

No answer to that for long moments, then the girl bowed her head in shame. "No, I cannot, Aes Sedai. How did you know?" She had no choice but to answer, Samira knew, and the First Oath left her no other choice but the truth.

"I know because I cannot hate mine." Ildan's head jerked up, and Samira could not help smiling a little. The first since Sarad died. "You are right, we may not be able to stand up to them, but we can make them realize that we are not so easily vanquished. Did you know, child; that you can Channel? You've the spark, and you'll begin channeling in few months at most, if you've not already?" The shock expression on Ildan's face gave her all the answer she needed, " No? Well, I do not have much to occupy my time here; you shall be as good a student as any. And in the meantime, we can teach those Justice's Defenders few lessons about women."

"I want to die," Rand groaned, just before he let his head fall into the washbasin, for a long moment he considered simply letting it stays there. He raised his head back to the air and sucked air into hungry lungs. Cold, nearly frozen water, slide down his body. And he winced at the pain of those frozen water touching the wounds in his side, the old wound he gotten from Ishmael in Falme, and the new one, a cut from a dagger taken from Shadar Logot. The water doubled the pain in his side, and did nothing to help the pain in his head.

"You deserve that, you know." Today, Min held no pity in her heart for him. Today, he had little pity on himself. Slowly he drugged himself to the bed and threw himself into it, closing his eyes and wishing for death. "What made you go drinking, I never thought you'll drown your trouble in a skin of wine."

"Min," He begged, "Do you mind speaking just a bit less loudly? Do you mind feel less loudly?" His head felt like it was spited into two, and every sound made him more aware of the pain.

"No!" It was nearly a shout, he opened one eye to look at her, she was seating on the far side of the bed, clad in pale red breach and coat, more beautiful than any goddess human imagination ever created.

Half opened window sent rays of light that hurt his eyes like knifes, but one of those rays of light bathed Min in light. She looked a little like she was burning; so beautiful he wanted to cry. "You're cruel!" He whispered hoarsely, she was cruel enough to make him want to wail.

"I am the one being cruel?" Her voice went higher, the pain in his head seemed to double and then double again. "You left without even bothering to let us know where, you were gone for two full days, the Asha'man ravaged Caemlyn and Andor, and you're gone. Logain had to go fetch you, and he said you refused to come until he drunk you! That is, without mentioning the small fact that you wife appeared in the Dragonmount, or that she tried to kill you!"

"Ilyena," Rand whispered, then the rest of what Min said registered in his mind, he jerk upward, seating in the bed and trying hard stop wishing his head would fall off his body, "What did you said about the Asha'man?" He nearly shouted, and he caught his head between his hands, falling back on his back. "I'm about to die!" He told Min, she snorted carelessly and glared at him.

"I doubt it," A new voice said, loudly. Aviendha ignored his groans as she sat next to him, "Nynaeve made it, she says it would help you."

"Maybe it is a poison," Rand said hopefully, "I wouldn't mind that now." Aviendha snorted, a mirror image of Min.

"Drink that," It was almost a shout, and it sent tendrils of pain into his mind, like huge worms that crushed his thoughts aside and ate his head from the inside.

"Semirhage can take lessons from you," He muttered, quietly, as she put the cap to his lips. "You can teach her what being cruel means." Aviendha smile tightened just a bit, and she poured the entire cup into his throat, it taste like Trolloc's saliva, like carp pus, the most vile thing that ever passed his tongue, including the taint. The smell cringed his nose. Aviendha held his head with one strong hand and pour every drop into his throat; he felt it going down, every inch of it.

A long time later he pushed the cap from his lips and tried to mutter few chosen curses. All he could do was coughing. "You would have been more merciful had you poisoned me!" He accused, Min watched them, cross legs, with open interest.

"Probably," Aviendha agreed cheerfully, the bloody woman enjoyed this, and she could feel his emotions! "But now you feel better," Somehow, it sounded like a question, even thought she could feel his physical state as well as with her own body.

"I would feel much better if I have a kiss," He told her, making Min laugh.

"He must feel better," She told Aviendha, "If he can think about kisses."

"Indeed," Aviendha agreed, but she made no move to kiss him.

Grimacing slightly, he looked at Min, "What did you said about the Asha'man?" She told him, in details. And he sat up in his bed, Aviendha had to lean a hand on his back to keep him from falling back, fury almost burned the pain away. "How did I got here?" He asked, Min's story ended with him singing in the Lion Palace, a most lecherous song; Apparently. He remembered nothing from the moment Halima took the flute in her hands. Anything after that moment simply gone of his memory. This was their room in the Dragonmount, he thought, his memory was... fuzzy, to say the least.

"We took you here, I and Aviendha. Elayne stayed in Andor. She said that as soon as you wake, she expect you to hand her your hide." Min told him, Aviendha muttered curses about his size. When he commented that it was the first time his size bothered her, she punched him just below the ribs.

"Had she asked a few moments ago," Rand said weakly; trying to breathe hurt, "I would have gladly given it to her, now, unfortunately, I have other things to do than please her." Aviendha muttered something he wasn't suppose to hear, he grinned at her, and dance back as he felt fury nearly overwhelming her.

He turned to the door and focused all his being at reaching at the door without falling flat on his face. "Where are you going, Rand al'Thor?" Aviendha asked sharply.

"To talk with those sleazy, flea-bitten, abusive men who dare call themselves Asha'man." He answered, pulling the curses straight from Lews Therin's memories.

"Don't you think it might be wiser to get dress first?" Rand looked down at himself, and did what he hadn't done in what seemed eternity, blushed.

Some of the Aes Sedai that became warders to Asha'man has warders of their own. And the hate between any Aes Sedai's warders and the Asha'man she is bonded to is often on the edge of being fatal.

Both sides agree on only one thing, the Aes Sedai must survive. For the Aes Sedai's warders, it's a matter of survival, if the Aes Sedai dies; most probably they would, too. For the Aes Sedai's Asha'man, it's much more...

The History of the Black Tower, volume XIV

By Elmindreda al'Thor

The Court of the Sun

The Forth Age

The Aes Sedai sighed heavily as she fell into the chair, taking the first moment of rest in what seemed like ages. She did her best to ignore the crowd around her, at least thousand women, all speaking, shouting, crying at one. It had been only a few days now since she had been bonded; yet it seemed like years. She

lay back tiredly, pondering the events that had befallen her.

She was in the last troop of Aes Sedai caught and taken warders, by that time, the Asha'man developed a routine. Fifteen of them appeared, seemingly of nowhere, and loudly stated that if any made a move the warders would die. They were all shielded, and there was nothing to do but to surrender. Giliar Dolenid grinded her teeth hard, she was of the Green ajah, the battle ajah, and she had to surrender to save her sisters' warders. At least she had taken none as of now.

It was partly her over-confidence, and partly ignorance that had made her so unprepared for what happened next. What happened was worse, or best; it differed according to whom you were talking with. Giliar found it humiliating, she still haven't found a man to fit her demands so she could have him as her warder. Now she was a warder, and she obeyed, she had no other option but obeying, but that she obeyed humiliated her still.

What humiliated more was after the man broke the kiss, she fainted! Like a child never being kissed before! She was bloody Aes Sedai, and she fainted!

Upon awakening, she had opened her eyes to find herself on a bed in what seemed like an inn room. An Asha'man, the same one from before, was staring down at her curiously. She was still shielded. Cringing in utter horror, she had composed herself and sat up. Trying to stare up at him intimidating, she had been begun to say: "What - !" when she was rudely interrupted by his coolvoice.

"I have bonded you, you are my warder now." Just those few words... so obvious, so simple, yet it had come to her as a mighty blow, she had flinched visibly.

Taking a deep breath, she had nodded at him and started to rise. Once on her feet, face to face with him, she had calmly - or as calmly as she could manage, asked him one question. "How?"

Motioning for her to sit back down, he had calmly, emotionlessly unfolded his tale, not leaving any room for questions, ignoring her comments and shocked gasps. When he left, she had been silent. What was there to say? There had been so much, all of it shocking.

Now that she looked back at it, she felt confusion, loss, anger, all muddled up into one. He had no right to do what he did! And now saidin was clean! The Red ajah had no reason to exist anymore. And the reason she was sent to the Black Tower exist no more as well.

And more important than everything, she was a warder to an Asha'man that could have thought Elaida few things about being arrogant. She didn't doubt his explanation; he didn't lie to her, for a reason unknown, she was certain of that. She was not about to have to live the rest of her life with a man that arrogant! And it would be the rest of her life, or his, Apparently, no way to break the bond, and he only laughed when she asked him to let her go.

Taking a deep breath, she slowly tried to piece her thoughts together, doing her best to ignore the other set of emotions inside her head. He asked her to use Aes Sedai's reputation to calm all those girls and women the other Asha'man had gathered, and she obeyed! His name was Tolir Ganjad, cold eyes and mirthless smile, and she was trapped, trapped as surely as she would have been if she were bound with chains.

It was five hours after he woke, when he finally was dressed up and ready to go. He asked Aviendha to go take Sorilea and Amys from Cairhien, if the secrecy of this place already vanished... he never like doing only half a thing. And now he had few grand ideas for this mountain.

"I would need your help, Aviendha." He told the red hair woman, "I think I would need both Sorilea and Amys to calm the maidens down even a little bit. Fetch them for me, will you?"

"Shade of my heart," She stared at him, as if she never saw him before, "I thought you already learned, not even the car'a'carn command the Wise Ones."

He only stared at her for a moment, then: "Tell them that I order them to be here as soon as they can, Aviendha! Tell them that I said it, the car'a'carn they follow." Aviendha shake her head, but he didn't let her finish, "Tell them also that when I order something, they will obey."

"Are you mad?" Min asked, stunned. "Sorilea would have Aviendha's head for breakfast, and yours for lunch!"

He ignored Min's comment and looked at Aviendha, "Tell them what I said, Aviendha." He said quietly, softly.

"No!" Aviendha clutched his hair tightly and pulled his head a little down, so he stared eye-to-eye with her. "There is nothing you can say to them that would make them more resentful to do anything you will beg them to do later. Even the car'a'carn is not a wetlander king!"

"Really?" He released his hair and put a hand under her chin, "But I am a bloody wetlander king. And I expect the Wise Ones to obey when I order, one army can not be led by more than one commander, that is a sure way to lose a battle. And it's a bloody war we are in now!" He had enough of the Wise Ones and their version of ji'e'toh; he had enough with trying to understand women! More than all, he had enough of trying to figure out Ilyena's doing, according to Min, she was still sleeping, with a little luck, she would sleep until after the Last Battle, for once, somebody else could take care of his problems, the Light knew he had too many of them to be taken care all by himself.

"If you put it this way," Aviendha hesitated for a moment, then she nodded, "I will tell them that, but don't expect that they will answer orders from you or any man!"

"One more thing, Aviendha." He told her, she already began to weave a gateway, small one, nothing like the one she made so long ago, taking him into a snow blizzard and making him chase her half way around the world. "Tell them that The First of Servants still keep the oaths to the Jhen Sedai, ask them if they keep their vows too." She looked at him with obvious surprise; he truly hoped she didn't understood what he was talking about. The Servants of Peace, Jhen Sedai, those of the Aiels that could channel were named so. If even the smallest scrap of the threat survived in the Wise Ones' memories, then it would bind them as it did in the War of Power, bind them to him like little else could.

He shacked the memory away, and looked at Min, she sat on a chair, watching him watching her. "I would need your help too," Something very close to panic sparked in her eyes.

"Only as long as it has nothing to do to Cadsuane," She threatened, "Aviendha may have enough courage to face Sorilea down, I don't."

He grimaced; he hadn't thought about Cadsuane for a long time, very long time, if fact, he tried to push her from his mind. "It has nothing to do with Cadsuane, Min. Elayne should be here now, too. There would be many Andorran girls out there, unless I missed my guess, and she is their queen, she need to be here."

"If would be easier to face down Cadsuane and Sorilea both that take Elayne from Andor now." Min told him, but she rose from her chair to give him a short hug. "You're going to take care of the Asha'man, and the warders? I have been outside few times," her eyes lost that ever-existing laugher that shined in them, "What they did is horrible,Rand, they should escape without being punished."

"They won't," He vowed to her, to himself, "If there was a way to break the bond safely..." He shocked his head; ifs only get in the way, clear the field and get ready to work without wishing for what cannot be. He remembered himself saying that once, long before the Dark One was freed from his prison. "First, I have to wake Logain." Rand murmured as he wove the flows of a gateway.

"I think I like him," Min said, "You still plan for him to be the next M'Hael?" He nodded at her direction, his mind off, he told her and Aviendha about his plans, the little he already had set in mind. "It might be a problem, Rand. Logain hate power, with passion to match yours." She blushed suddenly, "I meant your hate to being the Dragon Reborn, Rand." She said hastily, "Not to - " She seemed unable to continue.

He laughed softly as he planted a small kiss on her nose, and another one on her lips. He still grinned when the gateway closed behind her. He wove a gateway to Logain's rooms. He needed the man now, and burn the man's uneasiness with power. There was not a soul Rand knew that were capable of running the Black Tower for him, not any he trusted, anyway.

The door to his left was Logain's, he knew. He opened the door, it was unlocked, fortunately, not that locks could stop him. The sight of the room made him freeze him. There were cats everywhere! Thousands of them, in every shape and size and color, he saw a huge one, almost twice the size of any normal cat he had ever seen, and others that were half the size of his fist.

He caught a glimpse of a gray cloth and brushed cats aside as he reached to kneel by the woman's body. The cats ate some of it, Apparently, but he saw the death wound immediately; a hole the size of his fist, it passed right where the woman's heart should have been, a ball of fire, most probably. Turning the woman on her back, he fought down anger, whoever killed that woman would pay for his deeds.

For a very long time he stared at the woman's face, eyes. It wasn't like always, when he memorized faces to be remembered, to remind him the priced already paid. It was stunned shock that held him in his place. The woman's eyes were dead; they were dead before that hole in her chest was burned. A Gray Woman, a female soulless. Rare creature, Rand mused, and not one I would expect to see here.

Someone, a darkfriend or one of the Forsakens, most probably, opened a gateway into the mountain and let that woman skim inside, there might be more than one, Halima was this soulless' target, there was no other choice. But Mierin was in this mountain as well. He began to move and stopped when that huge cat jumped to block his way. Rubbing its body against his leg. Rand kneel to caress the creature's fur. A beautiful creature, almost golden, with green eyes that stared at him without blinking, if another soulless attacked Mierin, either she was already dead or she survived. Rand had no idea what he would rather have.

Rising and pushing the big cat aside, Rand made it slowly to the door. Leaving the body to the cats. He had no place in his heart to pity those who were of the shadow.

Samira kept herself near the girl from Illian, Ildan, when silence spread through the hall, weaves of it, spreading fast, as women and girls fell silent in what seemed like awe or fear or both. She stared at the opening to the hall, where five people stood, Toviene she recognized immediately, and the same as Logain, he told her his name when he brought her here, it hardly seemed to matter her, then. She had never seen a man that big, or with those eyes. She had no idea what she would have done had it been Logain who took her as warder, instead of her sweet Devon, who - !

He had killed Sarad! The shout echoed in her mind. Yet she couldn't thanks the Light enough that it was Devon and not Logain that her life was tied to.

She felt pity for Toviene, the woman looked just as she always did, but her eyes returned to Logain in regular intervals, and, even as far as she was, Samira shivered at what was clear in the woman's eyes. Is it so with all of us? Samira couldn't help wondering. The men that were at the door - the Asha'man that Ildan stared at so very often and his friends - were gone.

The entrance to the hall was fifteen feet wide and twice as much as tall. Yet the man who stood next to Logain, easily as tall as him if not more, seemed to feel the entire entrance.

His eyes, Samira decided, were what made him so... impassive. His gaze swept over the hall, and he seemed to meet every woman's eyes, one by one. "The Car'a'carn!" She had heard many of the Aielwomen whispering, half in anger, half in hope.

She heard many others whispering, "The Dragon Reborn!" mostly in terror. She kept her mouth shut, there was no hope for her, not from this direction, not from a man whose eyes met her for a moment only, yet it took all her Aes Sedai serenity to keep her from trembling. Ildan took a step closer to her, "Is he going to kill us all?" She asked fearfully.

"I don't think so," Samira said, "It would turn every Asha'man against him for sure, so I believe." She could have done very well without the last three words, yet the First Oath required them.

Soon, no one made a move, all frozen under blue-gray stare, Samira remembered the time when Sarad had hidden a snake in her bed, expecting her to scream, but she caught it just behind its head and stared into the creature's eyes, fascinated.

The Dragon Reborn had the same eyes, cold, hard, without the smallest drop of mercy, or any emotion at all. She doubted not a heartbeat that the man would have executed every last one of them, if he could see the slightest use in their death.

She had no idea how much time she stood there, trapped, like any other woman in the room, in that snakelike stare. Her feet ached, but she dare not moving. It was bad enough that he simply stared in her direction, she want to do nothing to attract his full attention. Only now Samira truly looked at the other two figures, females, one was in red and white dress, and she carried herself with an undiminished grace, tall and fair hair and eyes. The other had dark hair, and she wore man's cloths in pale red. Not even the presence of the Dragon Reborn could diminish those two women's presence. Something in them caught the eye, Samira decided, although she couldn't say what exactly.

Finally, the Dragon Reborn spoke, his voice full of disgust and scorn. He said a single word, and turned: "Asha'man!" He didn't shout it, but in the silence of the hall, it was possible to hear a pin falling. Logain touched Toviene's shoulder for a heartbeat saying something to her, and then followed the man who carried the title he once claimed to.

Asha'man, Justice's Defenders, that was the meaning of the title those men that could channel took upon themselves. And as the men began to walk away from them, Samira began fearing for Devon's life. And, looking around her, she saw expressions very much like her own. Despite their wish, none of the women gathered here - however they've been bonded - could truly wish her Asha'man to die.

And the worse of it, Samira knew they could do nothing about it!

Rand didn't run, but wasn't far from it. Logain had to stretch his legs to keep the man's pace. "I think it might be best if you will wait for a time until you're calm again, My Lord Dragon." He tried, not for the first time. "At the moment, you're in no shape to..."

"They will hear me out, Logain." The Dragon's voice was as cold as grave, and frightening in its quietness. "And they will hear me out now. Not after I'm calmed down a bit. There is no way I'll ever calm down after this! What were they thinking! The fools!"

"I doubt if they were of any control on themselves whatsoever. No more than you had." Logain noted, but it felt like hitting his head in stonewall. The man refused to listen to reasons. And he had other reasons to worry about, save the man's anger. Considering the way he had been awakened by, with a skin of the vilest drink he had in his life being shoved into his throat, he could hardly blame himself for the fury he felt. But the fury wasn't directed to the man he strode by, all the anger in the world was direct at himself.

"Have you seen them there, all of them?" Rand's voice held the barest touch of pain, so Logain thought. By his face, you would have never known. "Far Derais Mai belongs to me!" He growled, "My society, the way Aiel see it. My people, my responsibility, and I let them all down." Did I let Halima down ? Logain wondered, and Leane and Toviene as well? What bloody happened last night that caused him to wake in Halima's bed? He still couldn't remember! Beside Halima, he had much more horrifying things to think about, like Rand's bloody intention to make him M'Hael. So far, nothing made the man move a step from his decision.

"There was nothing you could do about it," Logain said, "At the time it had all began you couldn't fight an angry cat. And saidin was impossible to touch, not only for you, for all the rest of us, or have you forgotten? It took us nearly two days of rest just to be able to touch it." He sent himself to saidin, the cold fury of the male half of the True Source helping him clear his head; unfortunately, it also made him very aware of his tongue, and the vile taste that still remained on her, worse than the taint. That thing helped with his headache, but Logain half thought he would rather have the headache than the taste.

"I can never forget what happen," the Dragon's voice was dark, cloud in shadows only the man knew. And Logain closed his fist tightly around his sword hilt, knuckles white. He has his own shadows to fight, Leane's face, staring upward despite her lying on her stomach, dead, her neck broken by his own hands, hunted him, and others, as worse and worst. "To the maidens, what my Asha'man did is worse than death!" Logain understood none of it, how could Rand be a member of a society reserved for women only? And why would the maiden resent so much being a warder?

Of course, his own anger on the Asha'man was only slightly weaker than the Dragon's, yet his reasons couldn't differ more than the Dragon's. Third of our number gone! And the rest lost every bit of self-control they ever had! That is, not to mention their taking warders without sufficient reason, a part of his mind named himself hypocrite, yet he had good, strong reason for taking Toviene and Halima, even if it was curiosity as much as the desire to live that led him to bond Halima.

He assembled the Asha'man in a room big enough to contain twice their number, near two hundreds and fifty men, as far as he could tell, he had no time to count them. And every last one of them had at least one warder. Most of the warders taken in Caemlyn, those who hadn't took a warder in Caemlyn, less than a hundred, already had one, or more. The only ones who hadn't took warders were the newest soldiers, ignorant to the weave or too weak to weave it. They were also those who were mostly affected by the Cleansing.

Logain blinked tiredly, he had far less sleep than he deserved. He had to find a way around that hangman's noose, being M'Hael wouldn't be that much far from death to him. Rand only snorted when he suggested Halima.

"I agree with you that they did wrong," Logain tried one last time to soothe the Dragon's temper, as they came closer to the room when he had gathered the Asha'man. "Yet I wouldn't suggest you to..." Maybe with his temper smooth his would reconsider his foolish and hasty decision.

"Wrong!" Rand came to a halt, so abruptly that Logain took three steps before realizing that the other man was behind him, staring at him as if he never saw such sight in his life. "Wrong? Have they killed them all, it would have been better, the way the maiden see it."

"Not all the warders are maidens, Rand al'Thor." Logain said, his voice icy fire. "Or have you forgotten this? What about the rest of them?"

"I forgot nothing," Rand said, and resume his trotting, "What about them, then? Their families, love ones? Husbands maybe? What can you tell a man that his wife had been taken warder? That she is now belongs to another? Love another? And not of her free will at all?" There was an edge in the man's voice, making Logain ready some weaves to shield anything the man might throw in his wrath.

"None of the women the Asha'man took is married." Logain said, that was his very first thought, and the first thing he made sure of. "None of them weremarried, at least." The only law Taim stated that Logain supported wholeheartedly. Although none, as far as Logain heard, was foolish enough to pass it to the warders. There wasn't much difference between the warder bond and marriage anyway, but women tend to make a great fuss about such things. And there were enough troubles with the warders as it was. He would have bet his last cooper that there would be much more in the coming future. Noneof the Asha'man saw any reason to disturb the warders with such news.

"That is the entire problem, isn't it?" Rand said, "The bond goes too deep, Logain. We have no right to shake them so off their lives. No right to do any of this." And that came from a man that, even if it was for the space of few days only, held four warders. "They have done wrong enough, Logain, more than I'm ready to have. And the Light be my witness, I'm going to make them pay!" Logain nodded curtly, and wondered what were his chances at running away with Halima, Leane and Toviene in the middle of the night. Few and little, he suspected gravely. And he could have never left without his warders.

Toviene couldn't believe how much she enjoyed taking care for all those women, it was the greatest responsibility she had in twenty years, save attacking the Black Tower, of course, and that hadn't gone very well.

This, however, was a field she knew more than well enough, "Runea, Giliar, Lemai," She ordered, despite everything that happened; the rest of the Aes Sedai still obeyed her. "We need to have those women fed, and find them a proper place to sleep." Before, with only the women Logain brought, they handled that quite well, Flinn took care of that, Traveling into the Sun Palace and taking enough food from there, it would help nothing now, not even a palace could feed a thousands more people along side with those it had to feed regularly.

Lemai nodded, "As far from the men as possible, I suggest." She said, her voice still heavy with that Taraboner accent even after all those years in the White Tower.

"No," Toviene showed the shock on her sisters' face, "Do you think we would be allowed to distance those women from the... Asha'man?"

Runea snorted, "We're Aes Sedai, the Light help us all, what does it matter what those men think?"

Toviene stared at her for a long moment; did losing one of her gaidin affect the woman's mind? "For how long would you jump if Jonan would say 'a toad'?" She inquired softly, Runea blushed like a sun, and glared at her in a way that made Toviene want to slap her, the first lesson one were thought in the White Tower was that a woman didn't fought saidar, you've to surrender to the power before you could control the power. The woman seemed to forget all she had been thought.

"I don't like it!" Lemai exclaimed softly. "It's bad enough that we were bonded, all of us. But now we have to obey those men."

"Show me another choice and I will have it!" Toviene told the Taraboner woman. "Until then, keep your mouth shut. Unless you have some suggestion about how we are going to find enough food to make sure none would starve." Where they were about to find enough food to feed nearly a thousand years.

"Boil the Asha'man!" Giliar said venomously, she barely had a day to get used to being a warder before saidin was cleansed.

Toviene smiled at her, the woman just solved half their problems, "I think I know how we can make the food, the only problem is where we can get the needed commodities."

"There is enough food in here to feed an army," Elayne said suddenly, stepping from the crowd, her white and red dress and regal expression distinguishing her from the crowd of horrified women. "Rand took care of that first thing, so I understand, although it was hardly used, I understand it became quite a custom here, to travel to the Sun Palace's kitchen in Cairhien and take a tray loaded of food."

"Very good, child." Lemai said, her voice warm; "You are quite brilliant, and very strong in the power, when you will be an Aes Se - ."

"Call me child once more, Lemai, and I make you wish you were stilled." Elayne said with voice made of ice, "I'm Aes Sedai, and there is only one women stronger than me."

"You're nothing but an Accepted!" Giliar growled, "When we return to the Tower, I personally make you wish you never claimed to have the shawl."

"Are you blind, woman?" Elayne asked scornfully, "You will never be allowed near the White Tower without your Asha'man on your heels, and you would have to thank the man for saving you from being courted for betraying everything the White Tower ever stood for!"

"Politic is fine when your stomach is full," Toviene put in, "You might have ate, Elayne. But there are thousand other women here who hadn't, most of them are Andorrans, your country. I suggest you would find me an Asha'man and lead us to those food storerooms."

With a glare at Giliar, Elayne motioned them to follow her, somehow making it seemed like she weren't being ordered. "Why do you need an Asha'man for?" Elayne asked her softly, there was no hostility between them, and Toviene didn't thought there could ever be. The Cleansing of saidin created a sort of tie between them, all those who were in the room when the Dark One attacked, she might dislike Elayne, or disapprove her action, but she would trust her to death.

"I'm about to teach him how to make a stew," Toviene said, with every last bit of Aes Sedai's serenity she could master.

Elayne looked at her for a long moment, and then, in a voice that was as near inaudibly as possible, the Queen of Andor began giggling.

The black door - made of stone, like most of this light forsaken place - swung on silent hinges on a flow of Air. And Logain followed the Dragon Reborn, a titled he claimed once, to the room where every Asha'man he could find gathered.

More than half the men were less than twenty five, most of the missing were above that age, so Devon heard, yet none of those gathered here could be called a boy. Most of them were smiling, talking enthusiastically between themselves.

Devon was at Dumai's Well; he knew well enough that he would never be able to totally forget what he had seen that day. Not for as long as he lived. He also knew that such sights and worse were due to come, and he could accept it; even look forward to it, to have it over and done with. If that wasn't enough to make a boy into a man, nothing would.

The men that talked fell quite, laugher died, under cold gray stare, and a matching black. The Dragon Reborn and Logain, a fearsome pair, in Devon's eyes, walked side by side into the room. And none could miss the hard expressions. Or the amount of saidin each man held. Logain held almost as much as the Dragon did, and the tall, red hair, man held enough to destroy this mountain and everything a hundred miles away, enough to create the Dragonmount, the place they were standing on, a mountain so high that it disappeared halfway in the clouds.

And there was no sign on the ecstasy Devon felt, holding saidin and not feeling the taint sheering its way into him. He had heard that there was a celebration planned, a party for the glory of saidin. Like most rumors, it was certainly false. The two men stopped few feet from the door; Logain was a big man, tall and wide, seemingly strong enough to fight a Trolloc with his bare hands. And he carried himself with a grace that seemed unnatural to a man so huge.

There was something in him, an air of sort, which demanded full attention. Devon knew Logain, trained under him, and he thought the man liked him. Yet now he saw another man, the man that led an army to conquer Gehaldan and made the earth swallow cities that opposed him. Logain eyes, as sharp and hard as they were, couldn't match the Dragon Reborn's eyes.

Cold gray stare, it was full of power. Power that had nothing to do with strength in saidin, a very tall man, Devon noticed, taller than Logain by an inch or two, with a way of moving that reminded Devon of a cat. Both men stood together, and it was more than simply standing a step from one another. "You call yourself Asha'man." It was a harsh whisper, it held so much emotion that Devon's eyes began to search for a hiding place. Yet, in the same time, it was emotionless. "I've given you this name, yet you have forgotten its meaning, so soon. Guardians of What is Right," A snake's hiss, that voice, threatening, looming, frightening. Full of scorn, "Do you have any idea what have you done?" Those gray eyes moved slowly across the room, sending chill into Devon's spine.

He didn't even try to meet those eyes, the Lord Dragon was on the edge, and it seemed he searched for a reason to leash out. "You've the self control of a lecherous goat!" Logain said into the silence, "And no more sense than a mule." His voice, too, was icy cold, and his eyes, not much less than the Dragon Reborn's eyes, bore holes into them.

"Half!" The Lord Dragon continued, he didn't raise his voice, but it came like a whip, "Half of the women here belong to Far Derais Mai! More than four hundred! Maidens of the Spears live for the battle; most of them would rather die than give up the spear. And, by their laws, a woman who had married can no longer belong to the spear." The Dragon Reborn took a deep breath, fury burned in his eyes and saidin filled him. By the look on his face, he was ready to kill them all.

"There is a saying among the Maidens of the Spear," Logain said softly, the softness of a blade being drew from its scabbard. "'You may belong to no man, nor may any man belong to you, nor any child. The spear is your lover, your child, and your life.'" The red hair man seemed incapable of speaking, attempting to control his temper, tension hung in the air heavily. Save the Dragon and the man that once claimed that title, no one dared moving, or talking.

"Now you understand what you have done?" The Dragon seemed ready to explode. "Under no circumstance you'll let your warders know anything about the law Taim issued regarding warders." Something crossed the man's face, gone in a flash, deep distaste. "This law will sustain, however. On this point, there is no argument between Taim and me. Yet, under no circumstance you will let your warders know the truth." Devon thought that nothing could make the man's eyes harder, sharper, he was mistaken. "If there was a way to break the bond, I vow, I would have tear it apart, and you along with it! Unfortunately, that is impossible." Devon tensed; nothing would make him give up Samira! Nothing!

And let the Dragon Reborn burn for it! All around him, he saw similar reactions. He heard Rhodri muttering a curse, and Jonan had a hand on his sword hilt. As if he saw nothing, the man continued, "There is no need to tell you to take care for the warders you have taken. You've no other choice, but remember this, Asha'man." From his mouth, it sounded like a curse, so full of scorn. "You've turned the Bond into a weapon, and every weapon has two sides. Beware of it when it will strike back at you."

The two men stared at the crowd, matching expressions on their face. Save their height, they looked nothing like one another, and yet they managed to look very much the same, mirroring each other. "You might have heard already," The Dragon said finally, "About large number of the Asha'man that had simply disappeared, including Taim. So far, no one seems to know what happened with them." Cold light burned in Logain eyes, matching the Dragon's. Few liked the M'Hael. Logain hated him wholeheartedly, and he made no secret of it. Which was either a show of stupid bravado or carelessness that amazed Devon. "As of now, Logain will lead you."

Logain face had a pained expression for a moment, so Devon thought, but that was impossible. Jonan inhaled slowly near him, "A wise choice," Jonan muttered, almost beyond Devon's hearing.

"I trust him with you." The Dragon continued, Logain sighed heavily as the Dragon turned and left, Devon studied the way he moved for a moment, it seemed that the man had no bones in his body!

"What am I going to do with you?" Logain asked suddenly, "You're supposed to be soldiers, weapons forged to fight the Dark One. I'd better soldiers when I was six years old and played with dolls!" Cold shout, that was the only way to describe Logain's voice. "Find yourselves rooms and make sure your warders know where to go. Then report here, you've exactly two hours, move! Anyone a minute late would regret it!"