Dawn and Reincarnation Part 15

William resisted the urge to snort as the guards quickly glanced around the king’s chambers, barely even bothering to put any effort into their quick check. He was fairly sure he could have found half a dozen places to hide even without his fancloth cloak and disguise weave that made him completely invisible in the king’s shadowy chambers..

“All clear,” one of the guards announced then stepped back out of the room so a delicate looking man with receding, dark wavy hair and a tragically long nose could walk into the room. 

William studied the man’s garish purple silk outfit, wondering idly if the man knew it made him look like a grape. He waited for the guard to close the door then wove a weave over the room that would keep the king’s screams from being heard by the guards or anyone else that wasn’t in the room with them. He tied off the weave then wove a bar of air across the door and tied it off so the king wouldn’t be able to escape. “Ailron Rovere Lukan…” he trailed off as the king started shrieking.

“Guards! Help! Guards!” the king shouted as he bolted for the door then shrieked when something grabbed him, lifted him up and dragged him to his chair. “Light save me!” he shouted as a bodiless head moved out of the shadows. “Please don’t kill me! I’ll do anything!”

‘Lan would have already come up with a hundred ways to kill me,’ William thought as he studied the waste of space he’d bound with threads of air to the chair. “My name is Yorick Bonecrusher.”

“Light save me!” the king shrieked frantically as he realized he was trapped in a room with a false dragon.

“I believe that can be arranged,” William replied with a smirk, fairly sure that the man would have claimed whatever it took to save his skin.

“What?!” the king blurted, realizing there might be a chance he was going to live out the night.

“As you might have heard, I can channel, that presents a bit of a problem in the fact that the White Tower is going to come for me eventually. Thankfully you’ve made it illegal for anyone from the Tower to come here which means they’ll have to be more discreet than usual but that won’t stop them from sending people to capture me which is where you come in.”

“What do you want?” Ailron asked warily.

“Just a few simple changes,” William said with a smirk, knowing that the changes were anything but simple and might very well see the man dethroned. “First, I want you to send a letter to the White Tower about me and that you’re dealing with it.”

Ailron shivered slightly, wondering if he knew that he’d already sent the Tower a letter or rather made sure to feed the information to one of the Tower’s informants. “That might delay them a couple of weeks but they’ll eventually send people to capture you.”

William carefully wove a weave of compulsion and touched the king’s mind. It wasn’t strong enough to turn him into a slave or damage his mind but it was more than enough to get the king to agree to a mostly reasonable plan when the alternative was most likely death. “That depends on how we sell things.”

“What do you mean?” the king asked hoping that the insane channeler wasn’t going to kill him.

“The Tower is going to want official permission before they come take care of your problem, that gives me a couple months to sort things out as long as I don’t leave Amadicia, something I have no intention of doing at present.” William smirked as he pulled Pedron Niall’s head from the bag he’d tied to his belt. “I was planning on sticking his head on a pike but I can always do that later.”

Ailron stared at Pedron’s severed head, shock fading into a sense of grim satisfaction as he studied the head and realized that the man that had been the real power in his country for as long as he could remember was dead. “What about the rest of the Children’s leadership?” he asked eagerly.

“Quite dead,” William replied as he put the severed head on the table, making sure it was facing Ailron as a not so subtle reminder that he wasn’t afraid to kill people to get what he wanted. “As are the questioners.”

“What do you want with me?”

“You’re the king, you can do fun things like banish the Children of Light on pain of death.”

“They have far too many supporters for that to work, I’d be dead within a year at most.”

“Only if you don’t deal with their supporters first.” William gestured at the severed head on the table. “This was a good start but I won’t be happy until they’re all dead or banished to the Blight for the Trollocs to eat.”

“It would take years to hunt all of their supporters down,” Ailron argued, fairly sure it would be impossible.

“That’s why we’re not going to hunt them down, we’re going to let them come to us. I have a number of ex-whitecloaks that are more than happy to wander around recruiting all of the loyal fanatics and murderers they can find to take back the Fortress of Light. Once I’ve destroyed their army of fanatics or turned them to my cause, you can banish the remains of the Children of the Light from your country without fear.”

The king shook his head. “Even assuming your plan works, how are you going to deal with the Tower?”

William laughed, trying to sound a little unhinged. “I’m not. I’m planning on faking my death as soon as the Children of Light are destroyed. I’m not the Dragon Reborn.”

“You’re not?” Ailron asked, rather relieved that the man wasn’t completely crazy.

“Of course not, I’m just a man that wants the Children of the Light destroyed because they’re murderers and they killed my sister,” he lied.

“In other words it’s personal,” Ailron mused as he mentally went over Yorick’s plan, fairly sure that playing along would be safer than refusing as the man had already demonstrated the ability to reach him in his private chambers without trouble and had no hesitation about killing people. “I’m sure we can work something out.”

“Great, let’s go over the letter that you’re going to send to the Tower then I’ll let you get some sleep.”

0o0o0

Dawn glanced away from the interesting silver cat shaped belt buckle she was studying as she heard footsteps. She glanced between the two Aes Sedai, mentally noting that the green haired young woman with the purple shawl and pink dress looked like she’d just been caught with her hand in the cookie jar while the older looking dark haired woman with grey at her temples and a white shawl draped over her shoulders looked rather annoyed. “Yes?”

The woman in the white shawl glanced between Dawn and Willow then focused on Dawn. “The Amyrlin wants to see you.”

“No thanks, I’m just about done then I have to be getting back home,” Dawn replied, fairly sure that woman wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

“It wasn’t a request child,” the White sister snapped.

Dawn raised her eyebrows. “I have permission to see what I can duplicate.”

“Permission that shouldn’t have been given and has been revoked which means you need to come with us,” the Aes Sedai said smugly.

Willow frowned as she read the woman’s surface thoughts and realized that the Amyrlin was just looking for an excuse to force Dawn to join the Tower, apparently they were willing to break or at least bend the law a fair amount in order to pick up someone with the ability to copy ter’angreal. ‘Great, I’m starting to think Dad is right about Aes Sedai.’

Dawn took a last look at the ter'angreal buckle on the counter that she was hoping she could duplicate for her eventual soldiers then headed for the door. “In that case, I’m done here.”

Willow kept her mouth shut as they walked down the hallway until they reached the stairs that led back toward the portal. “I think this is our stop.”

“What are you talking about?” the White sister asked snidely. “We’re not there yet.”

“No but this is the way back to the portal which mean this is your last chance to do the honorable thing and let us leave without a fight.” 

“I’m going to have to insist.”

“Okay, no worries,” Willow said as she reached out and shielded the Aes Sedai with the white shawl then tied her to the wall with threads of air. “We can play that game.”

“What did you do?!” the White sister snapped as she found herself stuck to the wall and shielded despite the fact that she couldn’t see or sense anything.

“Magic,” Dawn replied with amusement as she headed down the stairs, wanting to get back to the island so she didn’t have to deal with stupid Aes Sedai.

The White Sister glared at the green haired Aes Sedai. “Get me out of this Moria or I’ll see you birched!”

“I’ve wanted to say this for years, go fuck yourself.” Moria laughed as she turned and walked down the stairs, knowing that she’d treasure the look of shock and disbelief on Vylin’s face for years considering she was one of the sisters that had been involved in her nightmarish test for the shawl.

Willow gagged the White sister then tied off the threads so they’d break apart in an hour then followed the green haired woman down the stairs. ‘At least we got the chance to study a bunch of ter’angreal before they decided to pull stupid shit.’

Moria had to clamp down on the urge to shiver as she walked around the corner and saw half a dozen women with red shawls and two with green shawls ‘guarding’ the portal. “Shit!”

Elaida smirked as she turned and saw Moira with two strangers. “Moria, the Amyrlin wants to talk to your guest.”

Dawn scowled as she spotted Elaida or at least a woman that looked exactly like her. “I’m afraid I have other plans and things to do.”

Willow blinked as she read the group’s surface thoughts and realized they’d sent two dozen Reds through the portal to ‘forcibly’ recruit the wilders. “Shit, they sent a team through the portal.”

Dawn glared at the group of eight Aes Sedai. “Why the bloody ashes would they do that?”

Willow pulled deeper on her sa’angreal as she started preparing shields for the eight women as she explained, “Ishara mentioned how strong some of the girls were, the leader of the Reds got greedy.”

Dawn scowled at the eight Aes Sedai that were blocking the portal. “You have fifteen seconds to get out of my way then I’m going to have to insist.”

“You think you can beat all of us?” Elaida asked scornfully.

“Yes!” Willow slammed a shield down on each of the six Red sisters, leaving the two Greens for Dawn as she wanted to make sure she could actually get everyone.

Dawn pulled power through her bracelet angreal and slammed a shield on both of the shocked Green sisters cutting them off from the source. “Now if you’ll excuse me, we’ll be going now…” she trailed off as Nela a’Caar came flying out of the portal and landed in a heap, a bit dazed but more or less uninjured. “What the hell?”

“Bitch,” Nela muttered as she pushed herself off the tile floor and got to her feet. “You might want to hurry if you don’t want things to turn bloody.”

Dawn scowled as the two green sisters ‘bravely’ or foolishly jumped through the portal. “Shit, there goes the shields.”

Willow quickly tied the shields off as the Reds dashed toward the portal, hoping they weren’t all that great at breaking shields. “You did that on purpose.”

“Ten seconds,” Dawn said as she ran toward the portal. She ignored the various weaves the enraged Aes Sedai tossed her way as she walked through the battle shielding anyone with an ageless face that she didn’t recognize and wasn’t fighting alongside someone without the ageless look. 

“Surrender!” Ethan shouted as he worked on slicing through the weaves the Red sisters were tossing his way, more than a little annoyed about the Red sisters that had decided to put be stupid on their list of things to do.

Willow sent Moria and Nela through then stepped out of the portal, not noticing the portal close behind her as she started shielding the various Aes Sedai.

“Enough!” Dawn shouted as she used her angreal to pull in a torrent of power, split the threads a dozen ways then slam a shield on the last dozen Red sisters that were trying to retreat toward the deactivated ring.

Willow quickly used threads of air to shackle the Aes Sedai, less than pleased about the mess they’d caused. “What do you want to do with them?”

Dawn took a breath and let it out slowly as she glanced around the courtyard, thankfully she couldn’t see any dead bodies or anything which was the only reason the Aes Sedai weren’t dust in the wind or worse. “Find some of the girls that have sul’dam training and make some a’dam, these idiots earned it.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Willow agreed reluctantly, less than happy about the idea of having a’dam around but not sure how to deal with thirty some prisoners that could channel if they didn’t use the a’dam. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to track down Moiraine and let her deal with the Aes Sedai before I do something drastic,” Dawn complained as she headed toward the ter’angreal benches to see if she could find something that would let her find Moiraine and the rest of the group.

“Best of luck,” Willow replied as she headed toward group of bound Aes Sedai to see if she could figure out how the Red sisters had turned a recruitment mission into the clusterfuck they’d walked into.

0o0o0

Rand grinned as he heard a long whistle from behind them and Giles took off running. “That would be Dawn.”

“I’m still not sure how she gets it that loud and deep,” Mat complained good naturedly as he lightly pulled on the reins to signal his horse to stop.

“Lots of practice,” Rand replied as he lightly pulled on his horse’s reins to get him to stop then glanced back at where he could see Dawn about a hundred paces behind them. “We might as well let her catch up.”

Thom glanced at the sky then looked over at Moiraine. “It would give us a chance to eat and rest the horses.”

“He’s right,” Lan agreed, not wanting to push the horses when they didn’t need to.

“That would be nice,” Tara commented as she slowed her own horse, still not quite used to riding every day.

“A quick stop,” Moiraine agreed as she slowed her horse to a stop so she could dismount.

“Hopefully she has news from Taren Ferry,” Nynaeve grumbled as she stopped her horse then dismounted after glancing at Lan.

“That would be nice,” Egwene agreed as she dismounted Bela, happy to be back on her feet after being in the saddle most of the day.

“Any idea how she found us?” Perrin asked, curious how Dawn had tracked them down.

“Several, none of them all that likely,” Moiraine replied absently as she watched Dawn ride toward them. 

“I’m guessing she used a ter’angreal,” Mat said, fairly sure she’d used the scrying bowl from the Ebou Dari stash.

“That would be a trick,” Thom mused.

Moiraine watched Dawn ride up on her pony sized dog. “You have news?”

“I have news,” Dawn agreed as she dismounted then scratched Giles between his ears. “Some of it is even good news.”

“What’s wrong?” Mat asked warily, rather familiar with Dawn’s ‘I’m more than a little annoyed but trying to hide it expression’ as he’d seen it a lot over the years, typically directed at Tuon.

“Present company excluded,” Dawn glanced at Moiraine, “I’m starting to hate Aes Sedai.”

“What happened?” Moiraine asked, curious where Dawn had run into Aes Sedai.

“Elaida Sedai is a bitch and the Red Ajah is filled with bloody idiots or at least the version of them I found were bloody idiots,” Dawn complained.

Thom raised his eyebrows. “Where did you run into Elaida?”

“In Caemlyn when I was recruiting the princess.”

“You recruited a princess?” Tara asked, wondering if she’d get a chance to meet an actual princess.

“Yeah, she’s tucked away on the island, ready to learn magic,” Dawn said smugly.

Moiraine stared at Dawn, wondering how that chain of events had happened.

Rand winced. “Please tell me you didn’t break the law.”

Dawn snorted. “Of course not, Caemlyn was fine, I even managed to get Elaida convicted of murder and banished from Caemlyn so that was nice, no the real problem-” she turned to look at Thom who looked like he’d swallowed his tongue. “Are you okay?”

Thom coughed. “How did you manage that?!”

“I talked to the queen. She was pretty reasonable all things considered.”

“Reasonable?” Thom mouthed, thinking about his last argument with her. 

“Is that where the Red Ajah comes into things?” Tara asked warily.

“No, I’d wrapped up everything then went back to my island. Willow had decided to recruit some members of the Purple Ajah and the Reds got a bit twitchy.”

“Purple Ajah?” Moiraine shook her head, feeling like she was missing half the story. “The Tower doesn’t have a Purple Ajah.”

“This world’s version doesn’t,” Dawn agreed. “Long story short because it’s rather cold out, the thirty Red sisters from another world decided that coming to my island to forcibly recruit the girls was a good idea and now we have thirty Red sisters that I’m seriously considering setting on fire or tossing into a random world and leaving them there, I need a second opinion.”

“I’m surprised they’re still alive,” Mat muttered, thinking about how much Willow and William disliked the Red Ajah.

“Mat!” Egwene complained. “Dawn wouldn’t actually set anyone on fire.”

“Why can’t you just send them back?” Rand asked, trying not to picture Dawn setting people on fire.

Dawn turned to look at her brother. “Because the ring doesn’t work that way, once the portal closes it doesn’t open to the same location again.” She turned to look at Moiraine. “So, can you help me deal with the Aes Sedai?”

“How would we get to the island?” Moiraine asked, wondering if Dawn had figured out a way to bring people with her to Tel'aran'rhiod.

“By gateway,” Dawn replied as she wove an inverted gateway, opening a path in front of her to a point twenty feet down the road.

“That’s disturbing but how does that help?” Rand asked as he glanced between the two holes in the world.

Moiraine stared at the gateway. “How did you do that without me being able to see it?”

“I inverted it while I was weaving it, it’s something a friend from the island showed me. On that note, I need to let everyone know that you don’t want to touch the edges of the gateway, they’re insanely sharp.”

“How sharp?” Lan asked in concern.

Dawn reached down and picked up a rock then lobbed it at the edge of the gateway.

“Ashes!” Perin exclaimed as he watched half the rock fall down to the left of the gateway and the other half of the rock fall through the gateway and land twenty feet away.

“Yeah, pretty much, don’t touch the edges.” Dawn turned to look at her brother. “As to your earlier question, you can make gateways to anywhere, the problem is that you need to know your starting location which means either waiting around a while or opening gates to somewhere you can see then opening a gateway from the other end of your gate.”

“In other words, you could take us directly to the Tower?” Egwene asked eagerly.

“I could but I’m not going to,” Dawn replied as she let the gateway collapse.

“Why not?” Nynaeve asked, not all that thrilled with the idea of weeks in the saddle when Dawn could just wave her hand and take them there.

“Because you can learn more from the women on the island than you could in the Tower and you wouldn’t have to sign your life away unlike with the Tower. Tell you what, spend a couple days on the island and if you don’t want to stay, I’ll drop you off in Caemlyn,” Dawn offered, knowing she could sell Nynaeve on avoiding the Tower which would help keep Egwene away from it which might keep her alive this time around.

”That seems fair,” Tara said, knowing that she’d be staying on the island with Dawn as she’d rather stay as far away from the Tower as she could.

“This island of yours sounds interesting,” Thom mused, knowing that it would be worth a story or three judging from what Dawn had already said.

“In that case, we might as well visit your island,” Moiraine agreed, looking forward to seeing what other secrets Dawn had uncovered.

‘If nothing else, it should throw people off our tracks,’ Lan thought as he glanced down the road, glad that no one was close enough to see.

Mat spoke up, “Count me in as long as the island has attractive women.”

“Agreed,” Tara agreed, happy about the idea of having a couple days to relax.

“I’m sure you can find a couple attractive girls.” Dawn smiled at Mat then opened a large inverted gateway to Taren Ferry near the shop where her door was. “No time like the present.”

Mat grinned as he led his horse through the gateway that was large enough for the entire group to ride through. He was looking forward to checking in with his friends, listening to their recent adventures and letting them know that he hadn’t abandoned them before he started working on putting an army together.