by Kali » Tue Jun 29, 2021 10:46 pm
Chapter One
Sidona
Night had well and truly fallen by the time Kali arrived in Maradon. Lamplighters hustled to and fro among the streets, ensuring that no dark shadow lingered in the city for a Myrddraal to exploit. She pushed back the cowl of her own sable mantle. A crisp, icy breeze cut through her face and her hair as soon as she did. Winters in Saldaea were brutal affairs. Why do the world be so bloody cold up north? Sometimes, on the coldest nights, the trees would freeze from inside out and burst with a loud explosion not dissimilar to an Illuminator’s display. A trick of concentration kept her from shivering, but she felt the ice seep into her bones all the same.
Fortunately, it was a clear night, which allowed her to walk the streets without bringing attention to her by weaving a source of light or holding a lantern. Her walking staff of simple yew wood made a tap-tap sound on the dry cobblestones. She found her way quite easily from Merchant street to Main Street, though she had to take something of a roundabout path. Maradon’s streets were designed in such a way as to be easily blocked off, forcing an invading enemy to slog through various twists and turns in the outer reaches of the city before they could reach the Coramora Palace. Warehouses and merchants lay to the sothern part of the city, wedged between the palace and the southern gate.
Kali reached the wooden doors of a large and plain warehouse and quietly pushed her way inside. The interior was quite expansive, and filled with piles and piles of boxes and wooden crates. It must clearly be a depot used by many regional merchants. Indeed, during the day, there would likely be dealers and farriers and peddlers hustling back and forth. By night, however, there were far fewer eyes. But there was always a coachman in the bay.
“Hello, Dexter,” Kali announced, as she approached a nondescript man of middle years who leaned up against the door of an elegant but unmarked carriage.
Dexter the coachman looked up and peered at Kali. “Peace be upon you, mistress.” He knuckled his forehead with a fist. His eye caught hers. Clearly he recognized her, but Kali knew he wouldn’t mention her name, or at least the name she’d given him. Dexter dealt in discretion. “The usual?” He stood and began to make his way to an exceptionally large crate.
“I think not,” she replied. I ought to dissuade him from the notion of anything being the 'usual.'“Do you be seeing my friend lately?”
Dexter stopped, his hand resting upon the front of the crate. “Oh, the mistress [REDACTED]?” Kali motioned for him to continue. “She left the palace about three days gone, by...” he pointed to the still-closed crate. “Hasn’t been back this way yet.”
Kali frowned. That must be why her letter had been returned to her rooms undelivered. Kali’s contact was clearly no longer in the palace, and likely not even in Maradon any longer. “Did this person say anything to you?”
“Come now, Mistress,” the coachman replied, spreading his empty hands as his lip turned to a wry grin. “Whatever would become of my reputation?”
“Oh, but Dexter, you know very well this do be a friend,” Kali said. And she reached into her cloak and produced a purse, which she tossed him.
Dexter snatched it out of the air and tested its weight with a heft of his palm. His grin widened. “A good friend, I see.” He rubbed his beard with his free hand as the other disappeared the purse into his belt. “Hm. It seems I recall her asking if there was a coach that could provide service to Sidona about. I told her someone at the stables could probably saddle her a horse.” He snorted. “Coach service. To Sidona. They wouldn’t know what to do with a coach if it rolled into town.”
Kali nodded. “I do be thanking you. May the light illuminate you.” She turned to leave without another word.
So. The Eyes and Ears had gone to Sidona. That must be the location of the girl who could channel. How troubling that the contact had not returned yet. The village was hardly half a day’s ride from Maradon. Something must have beset her. She made her way back to Merchant Street, to find the stables herself. While Traveling could get her there in the blink of an eye, it would be a shame had something unfortunate befallen the Eyes and Ears along the way without Kali even bothering to look. So a horse it would be, then.
The road wound around to the north, past the central square. Was it her imagination, or were some of the lanterns out? Kali slowed her walk. She reached out to Saidar, and embraced the Source. The sweet flow of Saidar filled her. The bitter cold upon her face became even more apparent, pricking her skin like tiny daggers. She stopped, listening intently. Her own heartbeat echoed in her ears. Now she could smell the stable nearby. But what was that other smell? It reminded her of crushed nuts gone bad.
Crunch.
A bit of gravel ground beneath the toe of a boot. Not Kali’s boot.
Kali spun, whirling her staff before her, seeing for the first time the hooded figure as it lunged toward her. Her staff made contact with something, and she caught the glint of steel fly down away from her. The wood rang against the bare blade, shattering the silence of the still night.
Kali’s attacker – a man with his hood drawn about his head, wearing little more than dirty rags for clothing, snarled with a face full of crooked teeth. “Kali!” He yelled. “You will die before your time!”
He drew back the knife to lunge at her again, but Kali wove massive flows of Air and struck him a massive blow. The man was knocked clear off of his feet and went sprawling across the plaza like a rag doll tossed by a petulant child. He scrambled to his feet, knife in hand again, but she wrapped his arms and legs in Air, trapping him him mid-stride, his knife raised awkwardly just to the side of his head. Struggle as he could against the bonds, he could not break free.
Kali approached him and lifted his chin with the butt of her staff. “Who sent you?” she asked. Fortune prick me, how did he know my name?
Instead of replying, the man stretched out his head – and licked the blade of his dagger. He began to make a choking sound, mouth wide open, and his body started quivering. Within moments it was over, and he slumped, eyes bulging, tongue swollen and blue.
Kali frowned and examined the blade. It was coated with a whitish powder where the man had not licked it. She carefully sniffed it. Yes, this was where the odor of crushed nuts gone bad had come from. Her knowledge of herbs was far from comprehensive, but powdered peach pit was easy to identify, by its effects if nothing else. Clearly this man had feared revealing his masters more than he feared death.
She took the man’s purse off the still-suspended corpse and upended it on the street, spilling a handful of coppers along with a lockpick and an empty glass vial. Nothing to identify him. Blast it. She released the flows of air but was already moving past the square when she heard it fall to the ground. She would have the stable hands alert the guards to the presence of the body, but for now there was no more time to waste.
* * *
Sunlight was just breaking over the eastern Saldaean plains when Sidona came into sight. The small village, built atop a small bluff, was surrounded by a wooden palisade ringed with sharpened wooden stakes. Farmers grew ice peppers across rolling lands outside the gates, or at least they did during times when the land was not blanketed with a foot of snow. To the south lay farms, and eventually the town of Irinjivar. To the north lay bare trees that had yet to fall into the Blight.
Kali rode up the approach to the wooden gate and signaled the guards for entrance. As she did she began to take notice of rotting timbers and broken stakes along the wall. In one section a bit of hill had eroded out from under the wall. Sidona had certainly seen better days. At least the capital had sent them some extra protection. She drew back her sable hood and signaled to a Saldaean cavalry commander. “Peace, commander,” she called out.
The man saluted her. “Peace. You honor us, Aes Sedai,” he replied, and quickly ordered the gates open for her to pass.
Kali rode her horse through the open gates and made her way for the village square. She flagged down the captain of the town watch, a wiry man with a few days’ growth of gray, stubbly beard on him. “Pardon me. Did this person ever come through here?” she asked, giving a description of her contact.
The captain scratched his whiskers. “Bout two weeks ago, I reckon. Stuck around for a day and left. ‘Aven’t seen 'em around since.”
Kali nodded and thanked the captain. So the eyes and ears never made it back to Sidona after making their initial report. Kali had seen no signs of any struggle between here and Maradon. She reached the unfortunate conclusion that her contact had likely been waylaid inside Maradon itself, and now belonged to the streets. Unless they had run off, of course. But there was nothing she could do about it either way, now. She muttered a quick prayer for her lost contact.
“You here to see the masters?” the captain asked.
Kali shook her head. To her, working with the Sidona master blade crafters butted up too closely against the Second Oath, to make no weapon for one man to kill another, for her liking. Also, she’d hardly know which end of the blade to hold. “Your herbalist, please.” The manifestation of channeling could take many forms, but there were always symptoms that followed. Unexplained chills or fevers. Fits of giddiness or sudden loss of inhibition. And others. The herbalist would have been summoned had something of the sort happened to the girl.
“Sorry, Aes Sedai,” he replied, as he took off his helmet and peered out to the open field to the south. “Took off awhile ago, looking at the ground all close like. Said he needed to find a moonflower, whatever that is. Probably halfway to Irinjivar by now.”
Well, that was unfortunate. “The Wheel do be weaving as it wills,” she muttered. Her stomach grumbled, reminding her she hadn’t eaten since the prior night. “What about provisions?”
“Eh, there’s a grocer over yonder,” the captain replied. “It’s been a hard winter, but the poor girl running it might have something for you.”
She followed the soldier’s gesture until her eyes settled on a ramshackle storefront. It had once been brightly painted yellow and green, but now the building’s façade was a mottled mess of chips and flakes that would make a Yellow sister want to try to lay a remove contagion weave over the whole thing. Still, she’d seen worse.
Kali dismounted – thankfully – and unashamedly worked a gloved hand against her stiff back. She tested the first wooden step before the shop. It groaned under protest but held. The second and third seemed much less trustworthy, so she planted her staff in the joint between the first two steps and pushed against it to reach the landing with a single stride. The dilapidated wooden door creaked on rusty hinges but otherwise pulled free when she tested the latch.
There was very little light inside. Tiny beams of sunlight cut across the interior but left everything outside its pathway in darkness. Kali sniffed the air; from the smell, perhaps it was a blessing to not be able to see much. A thick layer of dust permeated the air. Dust and worn clothing and something more fetid. Probably rats. Or their leavings, anyway.
Kali embraced Saidar and quickly wove Air and Fire, tying off the knot and releasing as soon as it was done. A sphere of light sprang into existence before her, floating just to her left. Immediately her suspicions were confirmed. Half-broken shelves lined the interior of the store, some piled with various goods and wares, some with what might have once been wares or food. Trails of small dark balls lay across several of the surfaces.
“Eek!” yelled a high-pitched voice. Something thudded against the wooden counter before her, sending a cloud of dust billowing into the air. “Oof! Sorry! Be right there!”
A figure backed out from behind the counter clutching an armful various things. Now in full light, Kali took full note of the person – the girl. A young woman, perhaps sixteen, with a prominent hooked nose. Her dark hair had been roughly cut to shoulder length and had errant locks sticking straight up and to both sides. A crown of sweat had formed across her forehead that made streaks of dirt and dust down the sides of her face.
“Whew!” said the girl, as she unceremoniously dumped her armful onto the counter. “Welcome! What can I get ya?” She started to rummage through the pile. “Got some rations here...” she sniffed them... "nope, not those ones...how about a water skin?” She pulled out a leathered skin that had been gnawed through on one side. “Er. Half price! Turn it upside down and use it as a funnel!”
Kali grimaced despite herself. “You could get yourself a bath, child,” she replied. “What do be going on here? Who do be in charge?”
The girl wrinkled her nose and squinted at the light ball. “You talk funny,” the girl answered. “And that’s a funny looking light. There’s something funny about you.” She found some thread and started stitching together the gnarled water skin. “It’s my store. I’m in charge.”
This girl was in charge? An answer that begat more questions. “How did you be coming to own your own store?”
The girl grimaced as she poked her finger. She set down the water skin and put her finger in her mouth. “Well, it was my ma and my pa’s. Trollocs got them last winter.” The girl sighed and wiped her grimy forehead with an even grimier palm. “I know things aren’t looking all that great right now but I’ll learn. I was just sick for a bit, you see.”
How did the village council allow this to go on? They just left her to run her family store like this? Sick? Anger flared beneath an expressionless face. “Come here a moment, girl,” Kali commanded. Nicely. Mostly. Best delve her for any trace of lingering infirmity. She embraced Saidar again.
The girl came around from behind the counter and approached Kali until she was within arm’s reach. “Are you – you’re Aes Sedai, aren’t you?” she asked.
And that’s when Kali felt it. An unmistakable pulse of warmth that flickered between them. It was so strong that it was hard to believe she had missed it in the first place. The sensation was nearly impossible to describe to one that had not experienced it. Like if light was a sound that could hum and vibrate as the string of a lute, but beyond the range of hearing. This was the girl she was looking for.
“Oh, child,” Kali whispered. “You might feel an odd sensation but I promise it do no be harming you.” She laid her hand upon the girl’s head, ignoring how dirty she was, and sent weaves of Saidar through the girl’s body. The girl shivered a bit but otherwise held her ground. Aside from a bad case of head lice, which – she altered the weave just so – were now fleeing as if their lives depended on abandoning their host, the child was healthy.
The child at Kali. “Wow, that was weird. Was that the Power?”
Kali nodded. “Aye, child. During the Age of Legends, there did be wondrous things done when men and women wove the One Power together, and put it to service of the whole world. Now, of course, only women do be able to use it safely. But while so much do be lost today...”
Kali opened up her palm and sent a thread of Fire into it. A flame leaped into the air. “In Tar Valon, in the White Tower, there do be women like myself who still swear to put this power to the service of the world, and we do be still able to accomplish many great things.”
The flame winked out and reappeared. Again and again it flickered. Kali regarded the girl’s dark eyes. Not a hint of fear in them. Wonder and determination.
“And sometimes,” Kali continued, as the flame continued to flicker, “we do be finding young women with the spark themselves, and we teach them to become like us.”
The girl’s eyes were fixed on the flame in Kali’s palm. She inhaled deeply. “Do you...do you think I could learn how to do that?”
The flame winked out, then flickered feebly back into existence for one brief moment.
Kali withdrew her palm. “Why, child, you just did.”
* * *
It had not taken much more than that for Kali to convince the girl to depart with her. Leaving behind the grocer appeared to be more of a relief than anything. After some inquiry, Kali learned the store had run up significant debts, but that the creditors, who also happened to belong to the village council, had refused to assume responsibility for the store or the girl in exchange for canceling said debt. A few sharp words and icy stares from an Aes Sedai explaining what was going to happen were enough to get them to agree to a much more amicable arrangement that freed the girl of her obligations.
The girl hoisted a backpack onto her shoulders. “Are you sure they’ll be okay here without me?”
“I do be certain,” Kali replied. “Now it do be time to focus on your own learning and your own studies. Life at the White Tower do be hard, but be having every confidence in your ability to handle it.” She chuckled. “Perhaps before too many years pass you may come back here as an Aes Sedai yourself.”
The girl took one last look at the dilapidated shop and nodded. “Okay, I’m ready. But how far is it? I’m not very good at riding a horse.”
"Horses?" Filled with Saidar, Kali extended her hand. A vertical slash of light cut across the road and widened into a gateway. “oh, do no be worrying about that. How we go, we do no be needing horses.”
One child found. But there were still many leagues to go before she slept.
To Be Continued
[b]Chapter One
Sidona
[/b]
Night had well and truly fallen by the time Kali arrived in Maradon. Lamplighters hustled to and fro among the streets, ensuring that no dark shadow lingered in the city for a Myrddraal to exploit. She pushed back the cowl of her own sable mantle. A crisp, icy breeze cut through her face and her hair as soon as she did. Winters in Saldaea were brutal affairs. [i]Why do the world be so bloody cold up north?[/i] Sometimes, on the coldest nights, the trees would freeze from inside out and burst with a loud explosion not dissimilar to an Illuminator’s display. A trick of concentration kept her from shivering, but she felt the ice seep into her bones all the same.
Fortunately, it was a clear night, which allowed her to walk the streets without bringing attention to her by weaving a source of light or holding a lantern. Her walking staff of simple yew wood made a [i]tap-tap[/i] sound on the dry cobblestones. She found her way quite easily from Merchant street to Main Street, though she had to take something of a roundabout path. Maradon’s streets were designed in such a way as to be easily blocked off, forcing an invading enemy to slog through various twists and turns in the outer reaches of the city before they could reach the Coramora Palace. Warehouses and merchants lay to the sothern part of the city, wedged between the palace and the southern gate.
Kali reached the wooden doors of a large and plain warehouse and quietly pushed her way inside. The interior was quite expansive, and filled with piles and piles of boxes and wooden crates. It must clearly be a depot used by many regional merchants. Indeed, during the day, there would likely be dealers and farriers and peddlers hustling back and forth. By night, however, there were far fewer eyes. But there was always a coachman in the bay.
“Hello, Dexter,” Kali announced, as she approached a nondescript man of middle years who leaned up against the door of an elegant but unmarked carriage.
Dexter the coachman looked up and peered at Kali. “Peace be upon you, mistress.” He knuckled his forehead with a fist. His eye caught hers. Clearly he recognized her, but Kali knew he wouldn’t mention her name, or at least the name she’d given him. Dexter dealt in discretion. “The usual?” He stood and began to make his way to an exceptionally large crate.
“I think not,” she replied. [i]I ought to dissuade him from the notion of anything being the 'usual.'[/i]“Do you be seeing my friend lately?”
Dexter stopped, his hand resting upon the front of the crate. “Oh, the mistress [REDACTED]?” Kali motioned for him to continue. “She left the palace about three days gone, by...” he pointed to the still-closed crate. “Hasn’t been back this way yet.”
Kali frowned. That must be why her letter had been returned to her rooms undelivered. Kali’s contact was clearly no longer in the palace, and likely not even in Maradon any longer. “Did this person say anything to you?”
“Come now, Mistress,” the coachman replied, spreading his empty hands as his lip turned to a wry grin. “Whatever would become of my reputation?”
“Oh, but Dexter, you know very well this do be a friend,” Kali said. And she reached into her cloak and produced a purse, which she tossed him.
Dexter snatched it out of the air and tested its weight with a heft of his palm. His grin widened. “A good friend, I see.” He rubbed his beard with his free hand as the other disappeared the purse into his belt. “Hm. It seems I recall her asking if there was a coach that could provide service to Sidona about. I told her someone at the stables could probably saddle her a horse.” He snorted. “Coach service. [i]To Sidona[/i]. They wouldn’t know what to do with a coach if it rolled into town.”
Kali nodded. “I do be thanking you. May the light illuminate you.” She turned to leave without another word.
So. The Eyes and Ears had gone to Sidona. That must be the location of the girl who could channel. How troubling that the contact had not returned yet. The village was hardly half a day’s ride from Maradon.[i] Something[/i] must have beset her. She made her way back to Merchant Street, to find the stables herself. While Traveling could get her there in the blink of an eye, it would be a shame had something unfortunate befallen the Eyes and Ears along the way without Kali even bothering to look. So a horse it would be, then.
The road wound around to the north, past the central square. Was it her imagination, or were some of the lanterns out? Kali slowed her walk. She reached out to Saidar, and embraced the Source. The sweet flow of Saidar filled her. The bitter cold upon her face became even more apparent, pricking her skin like tiny daggers. She stopped, listening intently. Her own heartbeat echoed in her ears. Now she could smell the stable nearby. But what was that [i]other[/i] smell? It reminded her of crushed nuts gone bad.
[i]
Crunch.
[/i]
A bit of gravel ground beneath the toe of a boot. Not Kali’s boot.
Kali spun, whirling her staff before her, seeing for the first time the hooded figure as it lunged toward her. Her staff made contact with something, and she caught the glint of steel fly down away from her. The wood rang against the bare blade, shattering the silence of the still night.
Kali’s attacker – a man with his hood drawn about his head, wearing little more than dirty rags for clothing, snarled with a face full of crooked teeth. “Kali!” He yelled. “You will die before your time!”
He drew back the knife to lunge at her again, but Kali wove massive flows of Air and struck him a massive blow. The man was knocked clear off of his feet and went sprawling across the plaza like a rag doll tossed by a petulant child. He scrambled to his feet, knife in hand again, but she wrapped his arms and legs in Air, trapping him him mid-stride, his knife raised awkwardly just to the side of his head. Struggle as he could against the bonds, he could not break free.
Kali approached him and lifted his chin with the butt of her staff. “Who sent you?” she asked. [i]Fortune prick me, how did he know my name?[/i]
Instead of replying, the man stretched out his head – and[i] licked[/i] the blade of his dagger. He began to make a choking sound, mouth wide open, and his body started quivering. Within moments it was over, and he slumped, eyes bulging, tongue swollen and blue.
Kali frowned and examined the blade. It was coated with a whitish powder where the man had not licked it. She carefully sniffed it. Yes, this was where the odor of crushed nuts gone bad had come from. Her knowledge of herbs was far from comprehensive, but powdered peach pit was easy to identify, by its effects if nothing else. Clearly this man had feared revealing his masters more than he feared death.
She took the man’s purse off the still-suspended corpse and upended it on the street, spilling a handful of coppers along with a lockpick and an empty glass vial. Nothing to identify him. [i]Blast it. [/i]She released the flows of air but was already moving past the square when she heard it fall to the ground. She would have the stable hands alert the guards to the presence of the body, but for now there was no more time to waste.
[b]* * *[/b]
Sunlight was just breaking over the eastern Saldaean plains when Sidona came into sight. The small village, built atop a small bluff, was surrounded by a wooden palisade ringed with sharpened wooden stakes. Farmers grew ice peppers across rolling lands outside the gates, or at least they did during times when the land was not blanketed with a foot of snow. To the south lay farms, and eventually the town of Irinjivar. To the north lay bare trees that had yet to fall into the Blight.
Kali rode up the approach to the wooden gate and signaled the guards for entrance. As she did she began to take notice of rotting timbers and broken stakes along the wall. In one section a bit of hill had eroded out from under the wall. Sidona had certainly seen better days. At least the capital had sent them some extra protection. She drew back her sable hood and signaled to a Saldaean cavalry commander. “Peace, commander,” she called out.
The man saluted her. “Peace. You honor us, Aes Sedai,” he replied, and quickly ordered the gates open for her to pass.
Kali rode her horse through the open gates and made her way for the village square. She flagged down the captain of the town watch, a wiry man with a few days’ growth of gray, stubbly beard on him. “Pardon me. Did this person ever come through here?” she asked, giving a description of her contact.
The captain scratched his whiskers. “Bout two weeks ago, I reckon. Stuck around for a day and left. ‘Aven’t seen 'em around since.”
Kali nodded and thanked the captain. So the eyes and ears never made it back to Sidona after making their initial report. Kali had seen no signs of any struggle between here and Maradon. She reached the unfortunate conclusion that her contact had likely been waylaid inside Maradon itself, and now belonged to the streets. Unless they had run off, of course. But there was nothing she could do about it either way, now. She muttered a quick prayer for her lost contact.
“You here to see the masters?” the captain asked.
Kali shook her head. To her, working with the Sidona master blade crafters butted up too closely against the Second Oath, to make no weapon for one man to kill another, for her liking. Also, she’d hardly know which end of the blade to hold. “Your herbalist, please.” The manifestation of channeling could take many forms, but there were always symptoms that followed. Unexplained chills or fevers. Fits of giddiness or sudden loss of inhibition. And others. The herbalist would have been summoned had something of the sort happened to the girl.
“Sorry, Aes Sedai,” he replied, as he took off his helmet and peered out to the open field to the south. “Took off awhile ago, looking at the ground all close like. Said he needed to find a moonflower, whatever that is. Probably halfway to Irinjivar by now.”
Well, that was unfortunate. “The Wheel do be weaving as it wills,” she muttered. Her stomach grumbled, reminding her she hadn’t eaten since the prior night. “What about provisions?”
“Eh, there’s a grocer over yonder,” the captain replied. “It’s been a hard winter, but the poor girl running it might have something for you.”
She followed the soldier’s gesture until her eyes settled on a ramshackle storefront. It had once been brightly painted yellow and green, but now the building’s façade was a mottled mess of chips and flakes that would make a Yellow sister want to try to lay a remove contagion weave over the whole thing. Still, she’d seen worse.
Kali dismounted – thankfully – and unashamedly worked a gloved hand against her stiff back. She tested the first wooden step before the shop. It groaned under protest but held. The second and third seemed much less trustworthy, so she planted her staff in the joint between the first two steps and pushed against it to reach the landing with a single stride. The dilapidated wooden door creaked on rusty hinges but otherwise pulled free when she tested the latch.
There was very little light inside. Tiny beams of sunlight cut across the interior but left everything outside its pathway in darkness. Kali sniffed the air; from the smell, perhaps it was a blessing to not be able to see much. A thick layer of dust permeated the air. Dust and worn clothing and something more fetid. Probably rats. Or their leavings, anyway.
Kali embraced[i] Saidar[/i] and quickly wove Air and Fire, tying off the knot and releasing as soon as it was done. A sphere of light sprang into existence before her, floating just to her left. Immediately her suspicions were confirmed. Half-broken shelves lined the interior of the store, some piled with various goods and wares, some with what might have once been wares or food. Trails of small dark balls lay across several of the surfaces.
[b]“Eek!”[/b] yelled a high-pitched voice. Something thudded against the wooden counter before her, sending a cloud of dust billowing into the air. “Oof! Sorry! Be right there!”
A figure backed out from behind the counter clutching an armful various things. Now in full light, Kali took full note of the person – the girl. A young woman, perhaps sixteen, with a prominent hooked nose. Her dark hair had been roughly cut to shoulder length and had errant locks sticking straight up and to both sides. A crown of sweat had formed across her forehead that made streaks of dirt and dust down the sides of her face.
“Whew!” said the girl, as she unceremoniously dumped her armful onto the counter. “Welcome! What can I get ya?” She started to rummage through the pile. “Got some rations here...” she sniffed them... "nope, not those ones...how about a water skin?” She pulled out a leathered skin that had been gnawed through on one side. “Er. Half price! Turn it upside down and use it as a funnel!”
Kali grimaced despite herself. “You could get yourself a bath, child,” she replied. “What do be going on here? Who do be in charge?”
The girl wrinkled her nose and squinted at the light ball. “You talk funny,” the girl answered. “And that’s a funny looking light. There’s something funny about you.” She found some thread and started stitching together the gnarled water skin. “It’s my store. I’m in charge.”
This girl was in charge? An answer that begat more questions. “How did you be coming to own your own store?”
The girl grimaced as she poked her finger. She set down the water skin and put her finger in her mouth. “Well, it was my ma and my pa’s. Trollocs got them last winter.” The girl sighed and wiped her grimy forehead with an even grimier palm. “I know things aren’t looking all that great right now but I’ll learn. I was just sick for a bit, you see.”
How did the village council allow this to go on? They just left her to run her family store like this? Sick? Anger flared beneath an expressionless face. “Come here a moment, girl,” Kali commanded. Nicely. Mostly. Best delve her for any trace of lingering infirmity. She embraced [i]Saidar[/i] again.
The girl came around from behind the counter and approached Kali until she was within arm’s reach. “Are you – you’re Aes Sedai, aren’t you?” she asked.
And that’s when Kali felt it. An unmistakable pulse of warmth that flickered between them. It was so strong that it was hard to believe she had missed it in the first place. The sensation was nearly impossible to describe to one that had not experienced it. Like if light was a sound that could hum and vibrate as the string of a lute, but beyond the range of hearing. [i] This [/i]was the girl she was looking for.
“Oh, child,” Kali whispered. “You might feel an odd sensation but I promise it do no be harming you.” She laid her hand upon the girl’s head, ignoring how dirty she was, and sent weaves of Saidar through the girl’s body. The girl shivered a bit but otherwise held her ground. Aside from a bad case of head lice, which – she altered the weave just so – were now fleeing as if their lives depended on abandoning their host, the child was healthy.
The child at Kali. “Wow, that was weird. Was that the Power?”
Kali nodded. “Aye, child. During the Age of Legends, there did be wondrous things done when men and women wove the One Power together, and put it to service of the whole world. Now, of course, only women do be able to use it safely. But while so much do be lost today...”
Kali opened up her palm and sent a thread of Fire into it. A flame leaped into the air. “In Tar Valon, in the White Tower, there do be women like myself who still swear to put this power to the service of the world, and we do be still able to accomplish many great things.”
The flame winked out and reappeared. Again and again it flickered. Kali regarded the girl’s dark eyes. Not a hint of fear in them. Wonder and determination.
“And sometimes,” Kali continued, as the flame continued to flicker, “we do be finding young women with the spark themselves, and we teach them to become like us.”
The girl’s eyes were fixed on the flame in Kali’s palm. She inhaled deeply. “Do you...do you think I could learn how to do that?”
The flame winked out, then flickered feebly back into existence for one brief moment.
Kali withdrew her palm. “Why, child, you just did.”
[b] * * *
[/b]
It had not taken much more than that for Kali to convince the girl to depart with her. Leaving behind the grocer appeared to be more of a relief than anything. After some inquiry, Kali learned the store had run up significant debts, but that the creditors, who also happened to belong to the village council, had [i]refused[/i] to assume responsibility for the store or the girl in exchange for canceling said debt. A few sharp words and icy stares from an Aes Sedai explaining what was going to happen were enough to get them to agree to a much more amicable arrangement that freed the girl of her obligations.
The girl hoisted a backpack onto her shoulders. “Are you sure they’ll be okay here without me?”
“I do be certain,” Kali replied. “Now it do be time to focus on your own learning and your own studies. Life at the White Tower do be hard, but be having every confidence in your ability to handle it.” She chuckled. “Perhaps before too many years pass you may come back here as an Aes Sedai yourself.”
The girl took one last look at the dilapidated shop and nodded. “Okay, I’m ready. But how far is it? I’m not very good at riding a horse.”
"Horses?" Filled with [i]Saidar,[/i] Kali extended her hand. A vertical slash of light cut across the road and widened into a gateway. “oh, do no be worrying about that. How we go, we do no be needing horses.”
One child found. But there were still many leagues to go before she slept.
[b]To Be Continued[/b]