Dawn and Reincarnation Part 6

Dawn was rather happy when they managed to go the entire day without hearing any trolloc horns or seeing any sign of the creatures, of course that introduced the worry about where they’d went but there wasn’t all that much they could do about an army of shadowspawn right now unless she wanted to try hit and run tactics. She absently warmed her hands over the small fire as she watched Moiraine show Egwene and Nynaeve several new weaves. “Thom, do you know anything about the Ways?”

Thom looked away from Mat’s juggling and looked at Dawn. “They were created by the male Aes Sedai during the breaking as a gift for the Ogier sheltering them so that the ogier could travel between the steddings without having to risk traveling. A thousand years ago they started growing dark and by several hundred years ago, the ogier refused to use them anymore because of the Black Wind, a monster born of the taint and madness, why?”

“The trollocs managed to get into the Two Rivers without being seen and I had a dream about a waygate in the mountains. Do you know of any other magical ways of getting around?”

Thom scratched his chin in thought. “There are legends of flying machines and strange craft but other than the Ways the only thing that springs to mind are portal stones which were supposed to allow travel to strange worlds.”

Moiraine turned and studied Thom. “You’re a well informed gleeman.”

“I like stories,” Thom replied, knowing that just about everything he knew about the portal stones came from a manuscript in the royal library in Caemlyn.

“Strange worlds?” Dawn asked, wondering if they were like the world of dreams or more like Wonderland. ‘I really need to find Alice’s mirror.’ She frowned as she realized she couldn’t remember where the book had vanished to. She vaguely remembered sitting in a strange chair that rocked and reading the book when her hands were tiny but she couldn’t remember the book being in the house or the inn which was weird as they wouldn’t have sold it and she wasn’t sure where else she would have encountered it.

Moiraine turned to look at Dawn. “They were used to travel to other worlds, places that might have been. They take a great deal of the Power to use, enough that there are only a bare handful of sisters in the current age that could use them without burning themselves out.”

“They sound interesting,” Dawn replied, wondering what the world would have been like if Manetheren hadn’t fallen or if the breaking hadn’t happened. “You could learn a lot depending on the world, imagine a world where the breaking never happened or where the Tower split or any number of interesting worlds.”

“There are probably an equal number of terrible worlds,” Moiraine argued. “Aes Sedai have vanished and never returned while studying the stones, either because they found a better world, died horribly because the world they traveled to couldn’t support life or because they didn’t know how to get back.”

Mat caught the rocks he was juggling. “That sounds less than useful.”

“I’m hoping my ability to read ter’angreal will let me figure out a safe way to use them but I’m not holding my breath,” Dawn explained, wondering if her key would let her know where the symbols went.

“How long do you think it will take before you can duplicate the necklace?” Mat asked as he glanced at Moiraine.

Dawn looked over at the necklace Tara was studying. “No clue, I’m still trying to figure out how they altered the gold.”

Mat frowned as he glanced between Tara and the necklace she was working on. “What does that matter?”

“It’s like making a bow, just because every knife cut is perfect doesn’t mean you’ll end up with a decent bow if the wood is shit.” Dawn glanced over at Thom. “Or like an instrument, if your base material is off, it changes the tone.”

“In other words, the weaves might depend on the base material?” Perrin asked, seeing the logic or at least concern considering the quality and type of metal mattered a great deal for blacksmithing.

“It’s certainly a possibility. I don’t exactly have an instruction manual.”

“Sisters have been burned out studying ter’angreal,” Moiraine pointed out.

“In other words, it’s more like fireworks than making a bow?” Mat asked a touch sarcastically.

“Pretty much,” Dawn replied with amusement as she remembered the one and only time he’d tried cutting open one of the smaller fireworks the town had purchased. “I can figure out the weaves for recreating the necklace’s effect and adjusting the material, I’m just not sure how everything fits together yet.”

“You’ll have them done before we get to Tar Valon, right?” Mat asked hopefully.

“With any luck I’ll have them done tonight but I’d rather not rush things when we’re unlikely to run into hostile Aes Sedai before we get to Tar Valon.”

Moiraine cut in, “Given a choice, I’d prefer to have the necklaces before we reach Caemlyn, Elaida Sedai might cause problems.”

“Who is that?” Egwene asked warily, curious why another Aes Sedai would want to cause Moiraine issues.

Thom scowled as he thought about Elaida Sedai. “A particularly bothersome Aes Sedai of the red ajah that is determined to be a pain in everyone’s ass.”

“She’s also the queen’s advisor,” Moiraine admitted. “And likely to pay far more attention to anyone in my presence than I’d like.”

“In other words, she’ll try to force us into joining the Tower if she sees us?” Dawn asked with annoyance.

“Most likely, either through intimidation or by manufacturing crimes that will be ‘forgiven’ if you join the Tower. In other words, you should be on guard once we get there.”

“Fun,” Mat grumbled, hoping she’d ignore the rest of them.

“Best of luck with convincing Dawn to do anything she doesn’t want,” Rand said as he walked over, feeling worn out from sparing with Lan.

Dawn stuck her tongue out at her brother then turned her attention toward Tara. “Any ideas?”

“A couple,” Tara replied as she set the necklace down. “I think we’re overthinking it.”

“What do you mean?” Moiraine asked, curious what Tara was thinking.

“We’ve seen a number of different angreal and you said there were a number of dream ter’angreal that looked nothing alike, that implies a certain amount of artistic choice. They could have made it a bracer or a bracelet or a statue or much of anything but they chose a bracelet linked to rings, maybe it’s a question of amount of material but that strikes me as a personal choice. If I was designing a set for combat, I’d certainly pick something I wouldn’t lose.”

“Like a bracelet ring set with a lock.” Mat frowned slightly as he looked at the long gold necklace. “A long necklace someone could grab wouldn’t be my first choice.”

“If you’re close enough to grab it and she hasn’t killed you yet, she’s probably already taken a couple hits to her head,” Dawn pointed out.

Tara reached over and scratched Giles between the ears. “It’s just a theory.”

“In that case, we’ll have to run some tests,” Dawn said as she pulled a couple silver coins out of her belt pouch and created a mold for a spiral armband out of hardened air. She set the coins on top of the pattern then used a thread of fire to melt them. She smiled as the silver slowly flowed into the mold. “If the weave works, we’ll know the material doesn’t matter. If it doesn’t, that means I screwed up and we’ll have to try again.”

“Let’s hope that nothing goes drastically wrong,” Moiraine said as she turned her attention back to Egwene. “Back to work.”

“Sorry,” Egwene replied as she went back to weaving the threads of air Moiraine had shared.

0o0o0

Dawn shivered as she jumped out of her nightmare of Taren Ferry being slaughtered by trollocs and into the world of dreams. She took a breath as she glanced around the clearing trying to figure out where she was. She shivered as she saw the open waygate. “That can’t be good.” She pulled herself the rest of the way into the world of dreams then walked behind the waygate which was pretty much the only cover for several hundred yards then dropped back into the real world. She scowled as the creepy oily nastiness she associated with shadowspawn washed over her.

Dawn winced as several trollocs shouted something in their beastial language and charged toward her. She reached through her sa’angreal and pulled in Power then wove cabal thick threads of fire and swept then across the gathered trollocs. She almost dropped the weave in surprise when the first trolloc touched was cut in half.

The fade jumped through shadows when he felt a significant amount of the Power coming his way. He drew his sword as he ran toward the channeler’s back, knowing that he needed to kill her before she killed him and ruined his mission.

Dawn twisted as she sensed magic behind her. She reached out and wove the threads of fire and air floating in his vision then smiled as a head sized ball of light formed, banishing the shadows around the fade. She quickly tied the threads for the ball of light so that it would last an hour then reached out and grabbed the fade with threads of air and pulled him off his feet. “Stay!”

Dawn used another thread of air to rip the fade’s sword out of his hand then pinned his arms to his body with threads of air. She tied the threads then turned her attention to the trollocs trying to flee. “This is my land!” she shouted as she stalked toward the group of trollocs, testing out various weaves as they came to her. Some of the trollocs exploded, some of them died when the ground exploded below their feet and a group of them died when lightning struck out of a cloudless sky and liquified their internal organs. ‘Fuck that’s nasty, I need to test my bracelets.’

Dawn quickly reached out and bound half a dozen of the scattered trollocs one after another, tying off the weaves so that she didn’t have to maintain them. She gestured and lashed out with a razor sharp thread of air, cutting through the last of the trollocs she hadn’t tied up. She turned and walked back to the fade. “Why did you come to my land?”

The fade focused on Dawn. “You’re too late Aes Sedai, Taren Ferry is already burning. You can’t stop us, more will come and we’ll burn everything.”

“You’re going to tell me everything I want to know…” Dawn trailed off as threads appeared over the fade’s head that she was fairly sure would help get him to talk. She wove the threads into the fade. “Who sent you,” she asked coldly, hoping her new weave did what she thought it did.

“Aginor sent us to destroy everything in the Two Rivers so the Dragon would have no home to return to,” the fade explained, the words pouring forth from his mouth despite the voice in the back of his head screaming for him to stop.

“How do you open the waygates?” Dawn asked, hoping there was a way to close the waygates.

“There is an Avendesora leaf that you have to move to open the gate, putting it back closes the gate,” the fade admitted.

“How do you shadow step?” Dawn asked as she walked over to examine the open waygate to see if she could find the right leaf to close the gate. ‘You’d think they would have done a better job warding these. Then again, they lasted two thousand years without any real problems.’ 

“We just do,” the fade replied.

“Where do you get your tainted blades?” Dawn asked, curious where the shadow got their cursed weapons.

“They’re made in Thakan'dar, on the slopes of Shayol Ghul,” the fade replied dully as the words were forced from his lips.

“How?” Dawn asked, curious if it was something she could adapt or if it was completely horrible.

“By shadow forgers, they dip the blades in the tainted river that comes out of Shayol Ghul then use human souls to complete the blade.”

“Shadow forgers?” Dawn asked, having never heard of them.

“They’re constructs but they aren’t truly alive.”

“Are there stashes of ter’angreal in the blight?”

“Ba'alzamon probably has some in his fortress,” the fade replied.

‘Yeah, that’s less than useful,’ Dawn thought with a shiver. “How long has Aginor been active? Are any of the rest of the Forsaken free?” she asked warily, trying not to panic at the idea of the Forsaken being free to run around the world.

The fade twitched before the answers came out of his mouth, “Ishamael has been free for years. Balthamel and Aginor’s escape is more recent.”

“Where are they hiding?” Dawn demanded, wanting to know where she should avoid and trying not to think about Ishamael running around free.

“Ba'alzamon has a fortress somewhere in the Blight but I don’t know where,” the fade admitted with a shiver. “I don’t know where the other two are.”

“That’s annoying.” Dawn reached out and touched the stone that made up the waygate. “Oh, that’s how you work.” She ran her hands over the Avendesora leaf on the inside of the waygate and smirked as it turned into a real leaf in her hand. “Let’s see if this works.” She put the leaf on the outside of the door and stepped out of the way with a smile as it started swinging shut. “That should make it harder for your side to bring troops into the Two Rivers.”

“Nothing you do will stop the Dark Lord or Ba'alzamon,” the fade argued.

“Everything can die,” Dawn assured the fade as she walked over to the closest trolloc she’d bound with air. She pulled her bracelet off her wrist that should protect her from lightning then put it on the struggling trolloc’s wrist, ignoring whatever it was shouting at her in its language, probably some version of I’m going to eat you.

She walked back twenty feet then reached out with the Power and called down lightning on the trolloc wearing her bracelet. She was rather pleased to see the trolloc was unharmed by the lightning strike other than his fur standing up straight. ‘Excellent.’ She used a thread of air to reclaim her bracelet then slipped it back on her wrist.

Dawn ignored the shouts and insults from the trollocs as she spent the next ten minutes testing her collection of knock off magical items by sticking them on the trollocs and calling down lightning or tossing balls of fire at them. She was a bit annoyed that a couple of her copies were far less effective than she would have liked but at least the experience gave her practice reading ter’angreal. She was just glad that she’d tested the silver armbands that should have blocked her weaves because they had an upper limit that was a bit lower than she liked.

Dawn returned her ter’angreal to her bags then wove a line of balefire through the trollocs as she didn’t want them reporting anything about her testing ter’angreal to the Dark One. She walked back over to the fade and touched his cloak with a finger. “Interesting, not sure why I’d want a cloak the wind doesn’t bother but interesting.”

“The Dark Lord will destroy you,” the fade hissed.

Dawn wove threads of spirit into the fade, curious what she could learn. It didn’t take long before she realized that the only reason the creature was breathing was because of the tainted energy running through it. “How many channelers work for the Dark One?”

“Several hundred,” the fade admitted reluctantly.

Dawn stared at the fade in disbelief. “Several hundred? Do you have any names?”

“No,” the fade replied, never bothering to learn any of them.

“How do the darkfriends get their orders?” Dawn asked.

The fade shivered. “Ba'alzamon tells them in their dreams.”

“Other than the fortress is there anything hidden in the Blight that I need to know about?” Dawn asked, hoping that the fade knew something she could use.

“There is a city of friends of the dark in the Blight near Shayol Ghul.”

“There is a city in the Blight?” Dawn asked in disbelief, not sure how you’d keep the twisted plants from killing everyone or grow enough food to keep people alive.

“It was created by Ba'alzamon two thousand years ago.”

“How come it hasn’t been swallowed by the Blight?” Dawn asked.

“Channelers burn the surrounding plants and twisted animals that aren’t intelligent enough to stay away.”

Dawn frowned as she thought of the logistical nightmares that would be involved with keeping a city functioning in the Blight. “Great, where did the Shadow find enough channelers?”

“The Aiel send their men to die, we capture then and turn them to our service,” the fade explained.

“Turn them, how?”

The fade struggled against the compulsion for a couple seconds before explaining, “Thirteen myrddraal and thirteen channelers can forcibly turn someone to the Shadow.”

Dawn shivered as she realized they were all at risk if they got captured. ‘No wonder we can’t win.’ She frowned as she realized it couldn’t be that easy. If they could just twist people to the dark like that, they would have won during the War of Power. “If it’s that easy, why haven’t you turned all of the Aes Sedai to the Shadow?”

“The process causes a loss of creativity and the capacity for compassion which would be noticed.”

“In other words, the process causes them to go insane.” Dawn wasn’t sure if that made her feel better or worse. “Is there any way to reverse the process?”

“Not that I know of,” the fade said almost smugly.

Dawn scowled at the fade. “How many shadowspawn are attacking Taren Ferry?”

“Two fists of trollocs and two fades, they’ll march south once they’re finished destroying everything.”

“In that case, I’d better hurry.” Dawn hit the fade with a string of balefire then let the weave drop. ‘No point warning the Dark One that I’m coming for his minions.’ She slipped into the dream world then jumped south of Taren Ferry. “Hopefully he was lying,” she grumbled as she drew her sword. She slipped back into the real world then sighed as she saw the flames and black smoke coming off some of the buildings. She glared at the small army of trollocs standing between her and the people left in the city. She activated her shadow ring as she charged toward the army of trollocs.

She reached through her sa’angreal and let the Power fill her as she ran toward the army of monsters, sure the folk from Taren Ferry were a bit sketchy but they didn’t deserve to be wiped out and cooked by trollocs. She wove cable thick threads together then shouted, "For the Two Rivers!” the weave causing her voice to shake the heavens and blow out the eardrums of half of the trollocs in front of her. She gestured and caused the ground to the right of the road to explode, ripping through a dozen trollocs and injuring another twenty as large flaming rocks tore through the monsters on that side of the road.

Dawn reached out and sent several bolts of lightning into the horde of trollocs then lashed out with a razor sharp thread of air that sliced through two dozen trollocs then gleefully started tossing fireballs into the groups of trollocs as she charged the horde. “Die!” She frowned slightly as one of the balls of condensed fire half vaporized a fade and a dozen trollocs, causing a third of the remaining trollocs to fall over dead. ‘Yeah, that’s a fucked up ability.’

She cut her way through several rather confused trollocs then lashed out with razor sharp threads of air when she spotted a trolloc carrying a woman in a nightgown out of one of the buildings. Dawn reached out with threads of air and wove a dome of solid air over the woman as another trolloc changed direction toward the woman. ‘Idiots.’ She left a small hole at the top of the dome then tied off the weave so that she didn’t have to maintain it. “For the Two Rivers!”

Dawn dropped the weave for her voice down to threads so that she could shout without causing people’s ears to explode as she moved closer toward the line a group of half dressed villagers was trying to maintain in an alley between two stone buildings. ‘They should have run for the river.’ She reached out and cut down the group of trollocs with a cable of air that were attacking the villagers then turned her attention toward the fade in the village green ripping through a group of townsfolk with a mix of short swords and staffs that were trying to hold it off while people escaped toward the river. “Die!” she reached out with the Power and pulled down half a dozen lightning bolts on the fade, lighting up the night sky and shaking the heavens with thunder.

Dawn sighed in relief as remaining trollocs fell over and died. “Stay away from the fades, they’re dead. They just don’t want to admit it!” She sighed as she looked at the burning buildings, she had a feeling she was going to be bone tired by the time she finished healing everyone that needed it and putting out the fires.