The First Age

[[This is an older thread in Arikan's timeline. It takes place prior to meeting up with Nythadri and Talin Sedai in Respite and Resolve. There were other characters in this but I only have the scenes with Arikan and Byron. They're the best ones anyway. *grin. I'll switch back and forth to show pov since that handsome hulk of flesh Byron isn't going to post it himself.

To set the stage. It's underground in the mountains of mist. Lythia has captured Arikan and left him in a hole and Byron is on his way to extract information about the shadow under the guise of a Questioner.]]





Byron just shook his head tiredly at both the pretty-boy Warder and emotional Aes Sedai and carried his bundle of supplies into a side chamber to change. It seemed likely the Aes Sedai would be a chore to work for, and there was little doubt that Blake would always be judging and condemning Byron for his actions to come and past. The pair were perfectly suited to each other. Situations like this were exactly why he never worked with anyone that knew him from the Tower. It made things unnecessarily difficult. How would the pair act towards him once this was over?

It would take some time for Byron to change from the unassuming farmer's garb into that of an Inquisitor. It wasn't some simple matter of changing clothes after all, other efforts had to be made. From within the chest came various items, ranging from a small mirror with stand as well as other odds and ends lifted from the Questioner's tent.

By the light of a lamp, Byron's hair was carefully thinned with a pair of tweezers, then liberally oiled and washed and oiled again. He would look as though his hair was thinning naturally, and would be a darker shade thanks to the oil. Time was spent for painstaking grooming; Inquisitors had a tendency of being very self-important individuals, and the Children were always overly interested in their own appearance.

When Byron did finally emerge again, he wore the chain and white of an Inquisitor of the Light, sword belted and an expensive leather satchel tucked under one arm. As they might have noticed with the role of Jarrick, the changes weren't simply in appearance. The way he carried himself had changed, mannerisms were different. It wasn't perfect; yet again he had been forced to adopt an identity with little time to prepare, but he was confident it would suffice for the task at hand.

His gaze flicked between the Aes Sedai and her Warder briefly. A Inquisitor in such a situation would be full to the brim with disdain for the pair; a witch and her dog, parading about as servants and protectors while digging their claws into the minds of kinds and queens. Puppet masters, the lot of them, taking skilled men as slaves through whatever dark machinations they weave with the taint of the Power. Naturally, Byron didn't believe a word of that but he kept such unpleasant thoughts near the surface to colour his expression, his tone. The added practice to get himself into character would be helpful, after all.

"Well. Let us be on with this charade then. Inquisitor Jeorune. We shall have to collaborate at soon, and decide how it is an Aes Sedai could convince an Inquisitor to work with her." He waved with a hint of impatience for them to lead the way. An Inquisitor, a real one of course, in such a situation, would have little interest in having either of these short-term allies at his back, no matter how closely he would have to work with them. Of course, knowing that he was protected by the Light, if Blake would be so inclined as to push the matter, Jeorune was man enough to let such an insult slip and have the dog at his back.

The walk to the prisoner's hole was otherwise in silence, and when they arrived Inquisitor Jeorune entered alone, curious to finally meet this fell Dreadlord with whom he would be spending so much time over the following weeks. No man, no matter how strong of mind, could withstand the attentions of an Inquisitor for long; it was a simple matter of the weakness of the human mind. But one so far fallen? It would be an opportunity to learn so much of the Shadow's methods.



His domain, Tel'Aran'Rhiod, was elusive. Among the remaining masters of old, the majority trembled in their fear of its magnificence with but a few competent within that glorious abyss. Old though he was, he was not a relic of the Second Age; a Master though? Well. He did not tremble.

He tracked the Stalkers of the Dream. He watched the Unseen Eyes. He fashioned the warp of the Dream's Pattern to his will. He penetrated the Layers of the Gap of Infinity. First among men of this Age, he explored other Tel'Aran'Rhiods and each of their Gaps. If these deeds a master made, perhaps he was worthy of the title.

He would think upon these things in the dark hours to come. Now, he jerked awake with the shocked rasp of one uncontrollably caught in another's Nightmare. Reality's relief was slow to dawn. A boring pain flashed his side, but there was no wound to accompany it. Only the pinprick of a blood spot, not the hilt of a dagger. His dagger. It had been with his own blade Elsae stabbed. So why when wounds taken in the Dream transcended into the physical was he left with barely a scratch?

A Master of the Dream World? Yes. Yet that wine cellar was not completely in Tel'Aran'Rhiod. Neither was the corpse lying within or the girl responsible for its dissection completely a part of it. A portal inside perhaps? A wormhole between? How had she managed to take him there? Why was he helpless to watch what unfolded through the mask of his own eyes?

He pulled himself up to sit. Waiting against the slime slicking the wall. Soon, calm evolved into the irony of coincidence when the corpse from The Dream walked in. His brows rose. One of the Hand? Interesting.

"Welcome." The greeting scorned a cold smiled. What an amusing turn of events.




The Inquisitor seemed unperturbed by the boy's arrogance. Such displays were common in the beginning, but that would change in time. The boy would learn humility and courtesy in the coming days. The Inquisitor's responding smile was faint, much like a father yet again unsurprised by some foolish act of his favourite son. The sort of smile that promised punishment and hinted more at a sense of disappointment in the child's attempts to hide his guilt rather then the actual wrong committed.

He set the leather satchel aside for the moment, the movement carefully planned to draw the boy's attention to the package. There could be little doubt of what was contained within, but the boy would become intimately familiar with each tool there in. Then he turned to regard the boy again, arms folded lightly across his chest, the only sound the faint clatter of chain and leather. This was no Dreadlord to be feared, this was just another fool that had taken to the wrong path. This one had no power anymore, no allies waiting in the wings. He was a wounded, wild dog, once the alpha of a pack perhaps but now naught but a ready meal should his old pack mates find him.

When the Inquisitor finally spoke, his tone was even and almost friendly, although it never quite touched his eyes. "Greetings, child. You shall refer to me as Inquisitor. You, are child. Once you learn matters, I might deign to let you have my name. Perhaps one day, you will earn a name too, but how long that takes is up to you." He turned then, a few deft flicks and tugs of gloved fingers releasing the intricate knot that held the satchel shut, and the lid was flipped open, a brief flash of various tools neatly arranged to the inside flap, and surely more waiting within.

"Know child, that not even one as sullied and abused as yourself are so far gone that the Light will not embrace you, should you prove yourself deserving. Unlike some of my brethren, I do not relish in what I will do to you, nor will I shirk away. It is the end goal we desire, you and I, although you do not admit that to yourself yet. For you know fear, under all that arrogance and hatred." He undid the clasp holding his cape in place and deftly spun it from his shoulders, folding it over in what would seem a long practised manner until it was a neat bundle to be set atop the satchel and opened flap, just enough space to accommodate the cape without it getting sullied with the squalid cell.

"Understand that I desire your redemption. Desire it so much that I would deign to work in the company a witch of the Tower." There was a touch of distaste at that; even the witches could seek redemption in the eyes of the Creator; the Wheel weaved as it willed, and their presence was an unfortunate necessity until after the Last Battle. As long as fools like this boy sided with that abomination, even the Children's glory and honour would not be enough at that fateful day, Creator bless and forgive him for so rogue a thought. "Now. Boy. Know that this witch has been coddling you. That shall change now. You will earn such things as you prove yourself to me, boy."

It was a simple matter to strip the already spartan quarters of what few belongings the Aes Sedai had allowed him; to her credit, they weren't much. The chamber pot was left for now, but washbasin and blankets were calmly stripped away. The boy would have to earn to have such things back. Clothes would be taken as well, and the bed space would eventually be naught but rough straw. The least comfortable of blankets, ones too small to be used in any but the fetal position, would be found. Only one, for now of course. And dirty straw. The boy would have to earn better, or learn to keep what he had clean. All the more to rob him of sleep and comfort, not that the Inquisitor intended to allow him much of either anyways.

His approach would go far beyond simply physical torture. The boy would be broken down in every way imaginable. There were far more effective ways to break an arrogant man's mind then with a knife to his skin. Far worse abuses would be brought to bear on this one. The Inquisitor would take his time, searching out and crushing every inkling of resistance or self confidence the boy had until nothing remained but a child ready to be brought back to the Light. A child with a willing mind, full of all those secrets he and the witch wanted.

Byron had learned much as a boy about how to ruin a man. Take away what they loved. Beatings and verbal abuse, lies and misdirections. Master Dekar had taught Byron much in those early weeks with the caravan. The unnamed street urchin's 'fathers' had done things that kept boys twice the urchin's age in check as willing servants, ones too afraid or twisted to run away or seek help. It had been a strange road that saw Byron to the Tower, and many terrible things had been learned along that path that would be put to use on the arrogant boy infront of him now. Tinctures and potions would be mixed into the boy's foods to rob him of sleep, wrack him with delusions and nightmares, pains and discomforts. It was all a very careful game to be played so as not to shatter the mind too quickly nor ruin the body and cause death. Between his life long knowledge and the books of the real Inquisitor Jeorune, even a would-be Dreadlord would surely stand little chance over time.

"The rules are simple. Speak only when I address you. Ask permission to speak when I address you. You will address me only as Inquisitor. You will do anything you are told. You will only act when told. There shall be daily routines, and you shall do these without complaint or hesitation as you are told. You will make no excuse and tell no lie." He set the removed items by the door, and turned to face him again, "Now. Strip, boy. You do not deserve clothes, as you are but a tool of an abomination. As you return to the Light, as you regain your humanity, you will earn the right to clothes."



Arikan held his arms aloft. A child welcoming the father home from a day in the fields.  "Strip?  Why, do you see something you like?"

He relaxed, laughing that he should entertain the notion, fully aware just which tier among the world's grand players he was ranked. And it was far above so tired and anorexic a man.

"What are you Hand?" Mercilessly spitting the Children's guttural name for their Questioners. He satiated his own desire by providing an answer. "Compared to the majesty that is my Master?  What can you do to break me? When I have broken others with a more elegant tool than yours?" Memory of the formless Father distorted his superior voice into the shrill screech of a soul ignited in the Lake of Fire; one bleeding even now that the magnificence of saidin was denied.

"You've short work, Hand.  I freely admit my allegiance." He stared proud as one who encountered one of his own; a headsman to the grave digger. They were cut from the same cloth, the Hand and him. "When i've groveled under Shai'tan's weight and choked on the firesands at the Pit of Dhoom tell me why I should waste one of my immense thoughts on your demands.” He smirked.

"If you want me stripped, come do it yourself."  Or he could try, he tired of talking about it.

"The rules are simple, boy. Speak only when I speak to you." Inquisitor Jeorune struck swiftly, one gloved fist flying into the boy's nose. The strike was forceful but seemingly without rage or anger; it was a naturally ensuing reaction to a breaking of one of the rules. The blow was at a downwards angle, meant to break the nose without the risk of sending the bone back into the brain. It certainly wouldn't due to kill the boy their very first day together. "Ask permission to speak when I address you." Another blow just as quick as the first while the boy was still reeling, a sudden swat against the throat to rob the boy of breath.

While the boy was distracted, Inquisitor Jeorune produced a knife and closed, grabbing at the collar of the boy's shirt and slicing at the fabric before beginning to violently tear it away. Each tug and sudden push meant to keep the boy off balance and deny opportunities for cheap blows, although it would take a heavy fist to cause much discomfort through the coat of heavy chainmail and under-padding Inquisitor Jeorune habitually wore.

"You will do everything you are told." Any subsequent struggles or resistance on the boy's part were meant with further brutal but carefully planned acts. At the very first hint of struggle, Inquisitor Jeorune extracted further disorientation and injury. Practised hands latched onto the boy's arm, forcing it awkwardly in the socket. One swift punch to the upper arm and there was the discomforting sound of the limb popping out of the joint where it would naturally and preferably rest. Then he proceeded to strip the boy naked, cutting away clothes with swift but skilled swipes of the blade.

He had no illusions that physical pain alone would mean much to the boy. They were tools of cruder men. Pain alone would gain no grounds. Embarrassment, disrespect, destruction of self image and believed positions of power. These were the tools that would wear the boy down. Pain alone was a tool for the inexperienced and arrogant, as sadly were many of the Hand of the Light.

Byron, somewhere beneath the thoughts and actions of the Inquisitor Jeorune, was quite interested in the situation. He hadn't had much time to peruse the dead Inquisitor's notes, but he had learned much in the 'arts' of...negotiation...while in the employ of Master Dekan as boy. This first session had been a bit rushed, but only out of necessity. He would have a few hours after this to peruse those books, and get some rest such that he could stay on his toes for their next session. This...Dread Lord Arikan fellow would be most interesting to work with. Byron had never had reason to apply the amount of attention to anyone before that he would wager would be needed with this man. Much would be learned in the following weeks, both of himself and of the limits of one so high-and-mighty as shared the room with him.



The Hand would find his was not so easy a hide to conquer. Not while he fed on the deepest troughs of innate infuriation to fight back. Summoned strength was fast to fade though. Teeth-gritting grunts pelted loud, first blow by blow then sheer force of arm to arm; but while the Hand was armored, it was hardly full plate and mail, and intimately familiar with the layout, Arikan exploited known soft spots during their little display. He knew the clock ticked on these efforts however, but to subdue was not his foremost ambition. Like the majority of his life's work, he craved sabotage as the dying craved water and every fiber of his thread spun the will to continue seeking it. Just one good blow to stun him would do. Enough to run. That’s all he needed.

But he was hardly at his best, and the Inquisitor broke the defense first. The sudden shock of a shoved out shoulder began the end of it. The transformation of this resistance away from a physical contest Arikan knew now was impossible to win and toward an alternate strategy altogether. Evade and escape. He grew desperate. Likely what resulted next was not the vanquished prisoner the Hand was hoping to carve from their little entanglement. Hardly dropped forever slumped on hands and knees to pant at this Light-cursed stagnant air. It took some minutes, but soon the glaze of welled-up pressure blurred his sight and a flood of warmth drained down his throat, and his thoughts fuzzed. From the ground, Arikan lifted his face just enough to graciously gift a spray of that half-coagulated bolus of blood in order to decorate the Hand's unfathomably boring tabard. After all, it was an hideously uncreative uniform. Arikan hated them from the very beginning. And it was likely the first the Inquisitor’s was so decorated. Questioners ran from the mere scent of a battle. The cowards.

Out of a thousand darkfriends who might crawl out of whatever begrimed hole of muck and vile they foolishly called life, their superior walking this earth with the mortal name of Arikan might find but one with promise. One out of a thousand to potentially climb from their groveling, miserable world filled with the sole purpose of serving those powers who actually will be at the top of that soon-unfurled scroll of future kings. Stripped to a sheen of feverish sweat, defiant to the end, one such man of coming dominion finally pushed to his feet and sized up his companion. He was no mere darkfriend, but something else entirely. Something greater. He overcame the daze of pain by sheer force of will. The river dripping off his chin wasn’t a bother, his hand came away bloody when he checked his mouth; the Inquisitor’s blows were hardly enough to bother a soft-cheeked eunuch let alone the lord of darker armies. The Hand should be proud; his fist could make a eunuch squeak.

He stretched forth an unsettling, red-lipped smile to praise such valiant efforts.
"Congratulations, Hand. You’ve managed to strike me when few have ever came close.”

The words gelled in his throat, and he coughed up blood. So once again he livened the Hand's tabard with an additional spew of color to clear the airway for further conversation. No permission requested. Droplets littered the floor between them.

"After our little dance your Lord Inquisitor will likely give you the promotion himself. After all the first knot is hardest to earn, and the cloth under your sun and hook is depressingly bare." Apparently the Aes Sedai's 'witchcraft' was limited to conjuring none but the lowest rank of Questioners. Apparently as well, Arikan was familiar with Children badges of rank. Gold stars and knots: such a revelation should spark a corroding thought or two. He’d walked among them for better part of a decade, but even then he hated Questioners.

After the spit, Arikan stumbled to the cot. Once eased onto its edge, he all too-knowingly interlaced fingers together and slipped the palms over one bare knee. There he pulled with a final draw of energy to suction the shoulder back into place. In his youth, Healing among the friends of the dark was not so common as it is now, and once slipped early on, a shoulder had a nasty habit of gliding in and out of the socket. He’d done this before. Unfortunately, going back was about as pleasurable as forcing out; that is, near to intolerable; as demonstrated by the muted grunt and twisted grimace accompanying that tell-tale sound of skeletal self-inhalation.

Heavily tired, but more comfortable at least, he flexed a few fingers gingerly. The blood flowed back where it belong, and a groan rattled his chest as the pain subsided. He went on,
“I suggest you leave out the part where you send the Aes Sedai in ahead to do all the work, though. I certainly appreciate the need to shield, poison, and starve me first, but they may not understand how taxing your job is, one on one like this." He gestured with the other arm, obviously, for the Hand's mighty accomplishments with grandiose sarcasm at his own bare stomach on down, everything barely beginning to hollow from time in captivity. He was duly naked now, though not by his own hand.
"But how quickly you obey, lad." Face bloodied, body bruised, and shoulder wounded over the defiance, but it was not his own hands that cut away those strips of cloth. The inquisitor wanted him stripped. So he did it himself. The beating was worth it.

It was a crossing of rare threads that he should encounter one with the promise to be great. The thread before him now was no such, however. It was a string of sackcloth yearning instead to have been spun of golden yarn.
"I am impressed. For an Aes Sedai puppet, that wasn't bad. Show me another trick." Perhaps, if he were further impressed, he would let the man sit at his feet like a proper dog. Where it belonged.

The blood spatter on his uniform earned no reaction from Inquisitor Jeorune. Such things were of no consequence, and he was not a man ruled by emotions. This was but a childish display of resistance. Even the boy's words and displays of knowledge and would-be wit were of much the same; crude attempts at intimidation and slander to try and weaken the Inquisitor's resolve. It was met with a calm shake of the head as he stepped back, letting the boy sort himself out.

The boy's questions and statements went unanswered; they were unworthy of it. And, after all, a blatant disregard of the simple rules laid out already. Further punishment would be required, naturally. The poor boy even seemed to think he was in charge; another common enough display of childish bravado; pitiful attempts at holding some sense of power. The boy would learn over the coming days, and hopefully was not so thick-headed as to warrant excessive punishment. The Inquisitor wished to break the boy's resolve, not shatter the mind. A broken mind would taint anything that could be gleaned from the boy, which was contrary to the needs of the Light. And the Witch, of course.

Inquisitor Jeorune turned away from the child and returned to the table, letting the boy sputter and spin his yarns for the moment. The bag was neatly packed for the moment; there was nothing within of use for the time being, unless the child particularly warranted more barbaric practices. When he turned back, he offered a smile akin to that given to a child caught misbehaving, although his eyes were far too cold for it to be comforting, and spoke with the air of a spoiled child, "I know you are, but what am I?” A child's rebuke that likely spanned the Ages since only the Creator knew when.

Then he returned to his usual cold tones, "You insist on acting as a child. You cannot follow simple rules, boy. No discipline.” Working alone was going to make the task of breaking the boy challenging; the child was arrogant and as cocky as a prize rooster. There were going to be many changes to the boy's life style in the coming weeks, and none for the better.



Disgust flashed his eyes. Followed by lip-curling disappointment.

This was the best the Aes Sedai could conjure? A smiling man child of an unranked Hand? It spoke to her stupidity, and amplified the ire that one so beneath him now had him in chains. 

He could wait this out. Endure whatever device mankind crafted to inflict the most exquisite of pain. Because mankind's contraptions were eclipsed by the mere memory of the Great Lord's glorious pressure. Ripping the soul to a thousand pieces, burning the carcass only to be crafted anew, left to pant with face in the ash. That was pain. That was torture. And the memory of it filled his eyes with a drowning, obsessed adoration. The glory of it was eternal. 

This mortal Hand was an infant wailing tender lungs soon to be smothered to silence by its father's palms. A man who could endure whatever pain the infant could inflict would only laugh and ask him to try again. If only to remind him of the truth: that someday the torturer would enjoy the comprehensive repayment for the kindnesses this man would share.  Arikan could endure anything the Hand could imagine because he’d already endured something far worse; and, Tel'aran'rhiod waited. Doubtful the Hand would allow an Aes Sedai to shield his dreams. They would soon see. A puzzle, how formed this unusual alliances between the fervency of hateful youth and Tar Valon's witchcraft. He stared at it. Stared at the Hand. Knowing he would win in the end.



Inquisitor Jeorune was done talking with the child for the moment. The boy would have this chance to rest, and was wise to take it without further confrontation, a likely to be rare glimmer of common sense in the child. Inquisitor Jeorune had no expectations of it being repeated often without proper encouragement. His things were gathered and packed with careful attention to the task, as if taking count of every item to be in it's proper place, and then the satchel was tucked neatly under arm with his cloak still neatly folded. He turned and left the room without giving the boy further notice, and moved out to the corridor beyond, mind racing and chasing tidbits of half-forgotten memories. Things were needed, and he had to trace back many a year to remember the names and faces of those that might be able to provide what he sought.

Illian. Master Dekan had travelled there often, and had brought young Byron along for some of his business trips. Some misguided, unrealized desire to have the young Andoran lad take the reigns of the business some day, perhaps, showing him the ropes so to speak. By the time he came into view of Nicole, his decision was made. Another trip through one of those wonderful Gates was in order; he'd not be getting much sleep this night either, but it was necessary for the task at hand.

He still carried himself in the guise of Inquisitor Jeorune, not missing a beat as he strolled past her. He would not risk the chance that the child might over hear, however unlikely it were for echoes to carry to the boy's hole. The blood stains on the pristine white of the cloth were a stark contrast that still bore no source of anger for the apparently unflappable Inquisitor, and Nichole's presence was met with hardly a brief glance and dismissal.

Normally, Byron would be more willing to drop a guise when it was unneeded, but having had to adopt it so suddenly he needed all the practice he could get. Organizing his thoughts just right, the mannerisms and reactions were a challenge even with weeks of practice, and this was perhaps the most challenging role to date. To try and trick a Dreadlord was no easy task...although truthfully, he doubted they were as infallible as the stories might paint. They were, after all, human. Humans too weak of soul to resist the lure of the Dark One. Sad, really.

Byron of course meant no ill will to Nicole, but the Inquisitor Jeorune would be distant and cold. She was an acquaintance of a Witch, after all and so not to be trusted. Then he was past her and towards the room where the faint hint of Lythia's and Blake's voices came. Although Inquisitor Jeorune would have strolled in unannounced, Byron opted to check himself at the doorway and gain their attention by clearing his throat. "I must go to Illian. For the night."

And then he turned and headed for the room he had first used to get changed. The uniform of Inquisitor was carefully hung. He had plenty of experience with getting out blood stains, even from so pristine a white fabric, and added those items he would need to his mental shopping list. They would be far easier to come by. In short order, he was wearing the simple farmer's clothes he had first arrived in; they would be glaring out of style for Illian, but he was going there as Byron, not some simple Ghealdanian farmer after all. This would be a night of skulking in the muck that he grew up in.


When next he emerged he wore the clothes of a farmer but was certainly not the same man. Finally a hint of a Warder's training shown through. He didn't dally or offer up much by way of explanations; he knew full well he was going to end up leaving a few bodies cooling in the night air and didn't wish to leave any hint of it on Lythia's mind. She was committed to her plans, and something so minor likely wouldn't hinder her stride, but better that she simply didn't know if it could be avoided. A simple trip, to get some supplies to assist him in the task of breaking the boy. Even no longer wearing the guise of the Inquisitor, he still refused to the boy as such.

The trip was quick and simple, arrangements made for pick up later, and he was off into the night shadowed streets at a purposeful gait. The usual haunts were visited, likely candidates approached and questioned. There was no time for bribes or subtlety, and it was only the Creator's will that Byron found a suitably loose tongue attached to a mind that knew what he needed. Only two men lay cooling in back alleys in the harbour district.

His course took him to the head office of a shipping guild, a company that dealt in the larger sorts of contracts for ferrying of goods. Lights shown in the sprawling warehouse's second floor rooms, and Byron let himself in with all the grace and skill of a killer on the hunt. The few guards posted didn't need to die by his hand, after all. Luckily for most, the insides were mostly empty at so late an hour, and soon enough Byron waltzed into the office he sought. An older man, bulging at the middle and wearing a most gaudy wig to hide his balding, liver spotted scalp sat puffing a pipe wile brokering some shadowy deal with a younger man.

Byron recognized the old fat man from his youth; an old contact and supplier of Master Dekan. Not to be trusted, and with less than pleasant tastes in regards to the bedroom. Byron had been tasked once to help clean up after the fellow's mess...not the disposal of the body, but the actual cleaning of the blood. He'd been much too young to be expected to drag a dead woman's body down to the water line, after all.

The fat man's contact was dead before he could even turn in his chair, and the fat man rose in, surprisingly, fiery indignation rather than the cowardice and self-preservation Byron had expected. This fellow had risen in the games, apparently. Enough to expect these sorts of things not to happen to one of his stature.

Byron's questions were short and to the point, and the fat man was given no chance to call for help or bluster and boast. Byron's knife in his gut spoke strongly against any attempts to struggle. The explanation was simple enough; he was in a hurry, no time to dawdle, and no need for anyone else to die in that room. So, the fat man spilled the beans, pointed Byron towards a ship in the harbour, who's captain was known to smuggle such things as Byron sought from distant Shara. And the fat man was dead a moment later. He only lingered long enough to lift the coin purses of the two men, and a moment’s lament that he couldn’t turn the office over properly; who knew what else of use was hidden away there.

He was gone again without notice, back into the city's dark streets. There were people about, making it just that much easier for him to make his way around without drawing unwanted attention. Just another person heading somewhere; his odd style didn't stand out so much in the harbour district either, although he was clearly a foreigner.

He had forgotten how much he hated the city; the mud, the reek of it. And this had been Malaika's first taste of freedom. It was pleasantly surprising that she had made it to the safety of the Tower at all. She'd have been a prize catch for some of the flesh dealer's that lurked the slums. If her life had turned that way, had she been lucky, she might have ended up sold up from the mud-wenches hovels to some higher-class establishment. Assuming whomever scooped her up was smart enough to know how much could be made selling her, at least.

He found his way to the dock easily enough, and was even so lucky as to find a harbour master still at work overseeing the unloading of supplies from a ship. An innocent man, as far as their type went, corrupt and open to bribes but likely with no blood on his hands at least. A few coins changed palms, and Byron was pointed to a sleek, well-appointed merchants vessel moored off the docks a ways.

Two hours since he had entered Illian, he was on a small dingy, acquired through theft, a few hundred yards off the moored merchant ship. There were no signs of men on deck, although there were a few lights from portholes below; most of the crew were ashore, enjoying their hard earned pay, but it was on good authority the captain slept aboard rather then taking rooms ashore. A simple matter of lashing the little dingy to the anchor, and he was aboard through the classic approach of climbing the anchor.

Only one man stood watch on deck, half asleep and twice as much drunk. He was dispatched easily enough. Then Byron was skulking the ship, off to the Captain's quarters. There were sounds of other crew aboard, the unlucky few who pulled that night's duties, although they were below decks and hard at a game of dice from what he could hear. The Captain's quarters were right about where one could expect, and Byron let himself in as quietly as he could.

The room was sparsely lit, only a single storm lantern on a low tinder, and the Captain sound asleep. Byron shut the door and locked it, then was on the Captain, a knife to the man's throat. This fellow responded more akin to how he would have expected the fat man. Terror, confusion, yells and sputtering and fluster, but Byron silenced him with a quick prick of the knife against throat and a whispered threat of violence. Hopefully, he hadn't been so loud that the crew aboard might have heard.

This round of questioning was a bit harder to work out of the fellow; the man was a fool, offering bribes and deals, but Byron got what he was after with minimal fuss. Not quite the answer he wanted though...the Captain had had the very thing Byron was searching for, but had already sold it. A bit more coaxing got the answer of the who's and where's and what not. Of course, he couldn't leave the Captain alive to send warning as soon as Byron left, nor could he risk simply rendering the cowardly fool unconscious in risk that the crew might check on him. He was still cleaning the knife when there was a loud knock on the door and a report that the crewman on watch was missing.

When whomever on the other side found the door locked, and had no response from the Captain, there was the sound of keys jingling. Byron crossed to the door while tiredly rubbing his eyes, not wanting to play this little game. Time was wasting, after all. When the door was opened, the poor Second was met with a knife to the throat that silenced him quickly. Unfortunately, he was not alone in the hall.

As the Second slumped to the floor, Byron was left staring at a young lad, hardly more then fifteen, holding a lantern and staring down at the dead second's body, thoroughly dumbstruck with the turn of events. This was turning to a most unpleasant evening. Byron was just readying to crack the boy over the skull when the child managed the most shrill of boyish screeches of alarm, cut short by Byron's blow but still more then enough to alert the remaining crew aboard.

As one might expect from some common tavern hall tale, the lantern the lad held dropped and smashed, and flames and oil licked the walls and floor. Three more men lay dead on in the corridors before Byron had returned to his little dingy, rowing away from the merchant vessel as what remaining crew tried to fight the flames that were spreading rapidly through the ship. By the time he reached the land, the fire was just becoming visible as a reddish glow in the portholes. Minutes later a crowd was gathering, but he was already gone.

The Hand made a show of every movement.  An amateurish show.  His sole audience member made no effort to hide watching.  He wanted the Hand to know he was not ignorant of what the greasy whitecloak carted around.  Scissors to cut.  Clippers to snap.  Rods for plunging.  Blades for shredding.  Steel, iron, needle, hooks and rings and chains. Oh it would be unpleasant, Arikan wasn’t so naive to know it would be anything else. But he could endure anything for a short while, and all he needed was a single flutter of the eyelids. To sleep and enter this man’s dreams now that he was known to him.  The anticipation would see him through the worst of it because something far more terrible was waiting in the Hand’s nightmares.

The Hand's showmanship, his precision in folding the cloak, his patience in unpacking his supplies, together they spoke to his depravity; even the unranked of Hands were not without their usefulness. He had heard enough for himself during his stint as Jeremel Nessad, Under Lieutenant for the Children of the Light. Oh he had no interest in assisting the questioners, but on occasion he would walk by one of their tents. The pathetic pleading and cries of the one inside fell on deaf ears. Unfortunately, while the Dreadlord recognized the meaning that it was now his turn, the fear had little effect. Betraying the Great Lord of the Dark was not an issue of motivation.  It was one of physics; an impossibility of nature. There were some secrets he simply could not speak. Though he knew the Questioner would not believe that story even if he attempted to explain it. Therefore, endurance was the need. Just long enough to sleep and then oh how the tables would turn.

There was little to glimpse of the world beyond this hole, but he noted the shadows playing under torchlight, the wafting of stagnant air flushing skin, and the composition of the escape.  Stone, but crafted stone.  Dug and tunneled in intelligent design.  This was no random cavern.  It was a chamber.  Even the very room he was in was a mystery. It seemed of the size to be used for storage, but the walls and floor were weeping stone. A deep cellar?  A mine, perhaps? Certainly not a cell, not in the conventional sense of a truer dungeon. The knowledge would play an important factor when the opportunity for escape presented itself.  He would wait for it.  Patience was not the Hand's monopoly alone, and he could ask questions of his own.

The door swung shut, heavy latches held it secure. He knew their worth, having tested its strength many times; and he was left with the sound of fading footsteps until the weight of solitude settled upon the space. Lightless as a shadowman's first womb and just as cramped. They left him to wallow in the yawning abyss, but Arikan hardly feared the dark. That was his domain. His kingdom. He laid upon his pallet like a lord of the manor. Convincingly unashamed of his nakedness, even if the skin twitched. His face throbbed. Nose plugged up and he had to breathe through his mouth.

The isolation from the light brought with it freedom from distraction. To think, cool and systematically peer into the darkness. He thought of the Aes Sedai in the dream, quizzically methodical in her work and final defiance. A fascinating and interesting girl, poisonous as unfermented tripe he guessed, but upon long recovery, she might become something of infinite potential. Especially if she possessed the untapped skill he suspected waited within. Surprising, perhaps, but her fearless face was more unsettling an enigma than the delicate Hand and his toys. He had to discover her identity, and he would, but only after a chance for sleep. He needed the respite of strength for what was to come.

A soul yearning for unconscious release, dreams came soon after, sickeningly addicted he was to such an exhibitionistic pursuit of fog and shadows.  Outlines of men blackened by the foreground of a molten hot pyre appeared. Mourning fortified upon their cemented faces.  A man who learned to channel swiftly and rose to authority easily accepted the mighty gift now pinned to his throat with an accepting bow and heartfelt pride.  The forest of vacancy spread the shadow from that relatively recent scenic memory to another soon after.  A gathering of cloaked shapes, all attendants masked across the face with cloaked anonymity.  A summons in a great hall to commune with their master.  Merchants, warriors, commoners, and nobles from every nation flanked his sides.  Here and there the glimmer of a golden serpent ring.  A red masked man, tall and dark haired, accompanied by an honor guard of shadowman flanking before each of them in turn. The welling of the One Power told Arikan he spoke under the shelter of a ward, relaying orders. It was a small bubble of anticipation that welled up within.  Instructions came, and Arikan was the ever-pliant servant.  His jaw clenched in his sleep, sounds of grinding teeth chalking the air otherwise silent but for ever deepening breaths of the helpless troubled.  The dream faded to the next.

He was draped in white and tarnished with enough blood to shame the Hand's sprayed on decoration.  A serpent ring pulled from a limp hand.  He was Dimas again, the curly-haired High Lord who frequented the inner Stone of Tear, said to sit and stare at the object of his country's shameful prophecy waiting for the man who would conquer it. It could be him. Should be him that wielded callandor. More opaque images cloaked in the blizzard of a thin thread connecting two ages in the Pattern followed.  Feelings stronger than images twisted his sleep.  Mayhem, destruction, collapse, panic.  A man unhinged by the invention of war turning now to advance it, honing the skills of murder and torture with the Power's new divine wrath.

The affliction of dreams was the cost to pay for the gathering of enough strength to stir from powerless endurance of the mind's outlets to regain control.  Soon after, he drank in the glory of Tel'aran'rhiod's diffuse light and stretched comfortable amid the sea of stars billowing endlessly around him for his captors.  They were not asleep, but there were others he might visit instead.

Every city was flooded with spies.  Tar Valon was not special in this regard.  A capital of women thinking they write the policy to dictate the world through the invention of their original machinations, putting forth their faces of purity and servitude with their white flagstones and glimmering glass spires.  Standing in one such untarnished square, a man might easily pass a dozen in the trade of information.  A piece of trash wedged into a grate might be trash, or it might be a sign.  A man's corner stance might be the act of turning it into a privy or it could be a cover.  At least, in duller cities such behavior was common: trash in gutters and pissing in corners.  In such a city as this, the traders were cleverer, the signs subtler. 

One such spy, pulled in the night against his will, found himself shaking. They were in an empty penthouse lined with windows that gave perspective to their height and sarcastic view of the White Tower beyond.  Empty but for a masked man seated cross-legged in the shadows of a deeply set chair.  In this summons, Arikan was slick-haired as he was fond of styling and clean shaven.  Heavily clothed in silk and red embroidery, lace plummeted from his wrists, fine sheepskin shoes wrapped feet, and together he was every inch a nobleman.  He tapped a cane against the top-crossed knee in boredom and spoke down to the kneeling, whimpering Domani courier practically salivating with fear. Arikan's disguised figure sipped upon a goblet he only tasted because he willed himself to, but the truer entertainment was prodding Graham’s soul with the shredding manipulation of the Dream. Here, Arikan could pull a man apart and he not die. Here he could induce panic with a thought. Toying with the darkfriend was indeed entertaining, but practicality ruled him in the end. He finalized his orders.

"Find the girl.  Aes Sedai or not.  I want to know everything about the one called Elsae.  When I come for you next and you disappoint me, Graham you will not wake." The quiet words flooded in Graham's ears with the shrill of the mind-twisting nature of a Dreammaster's manipulation and left the boy to quiver in his bed when upon finally released to the real world.  The darkfriend would not find sleep again the remainder of the night, nor for several nights thereafter. His fear was justified.

Tel'aran'rhiod. The place in the pattern where every possibility of the Wheel converged upon one layer or another.  A place connected by all souls but only a few may enter at will.  A place where thoughts made reality.  Occasionally, a powerful channeler, further connected to the Pattern by the depth of their well into the Source, may enter and stay for some length.  His own well of the Source likely enhanced this ability, finely cultivating his dominion over the dichotomy between real and unreal.  The dream is unreal.  The self is real.  He stretched forth his reality, the self, seeking the gaidin dreamwalker of recent compulsion but instead discovered a sudden new presence vortexing the unreality of the Dream.  He found it; found her.  Hidden and spying. 

Unmoved from the chair, legs crossed and relaxed, the goblet dissipated from his grasp. He toiled with her meager force with a will that might have shattered the lesser minded. She sought to escape, but he held her dream, transfixed, a soul torn between the reality their weaving of the Pattern called the waking world and the unreality of the Dreamworld's glorious assemblage. A slow pleasure pulled his lips soon after, and he stood victoriously. She came into view then simply because he willed her to. Turning to face her young, lovely face, she flushed pink with shock and the satisfying twinge of fear. She looked different, but Arikan recognized her as sure as he recognized himself.  He stretched forth a welcoming greeting, "Hello, Corele,” and shifted to approach.






He reached the docks shortly before the crowds began to arrive to view the burning ship. A city so reliant on trade, especially by sea, was quick to respond to a vessel burning in the middle of the harbour; should she sink, it would be expensive to have the wreck removed. Letting it sit on the bottom simply wasn't a viable option; such things could make for future problems, such as heavily laden vessels breaking their hulls on the wreck. So long boats were launched with plenty of oresmen, ready to latch onto the ship and haul her past the break waters or to run her onto the ground.

He slipped through the crowd without drawing attention, and soon was onto the streets and alleys making his way towards the finer parts of the city. It had been quite some time since he'd been so far south, but certain details never really changed. Such as which family's owned which manors. With a name and some simple confirmation from the dearly departed ship captain, Byron's path was set. A few simple stops along the way saw a few clothes lines missing, their burdens laying in the streets and alleys. Lengths of line were neatly tied together, and a metal bracket, serving as a lantern mount, was quickly pried free, his trusty nail bent to the point of uselessness and casually discarded in the process.

The bracket attached to the line, he was all set to finish his errands for the evening. He had his shopping list in mind as a small manor came into view. Lights shone through many of the windows even at so late an hour, the muffled sounds of music hinting that there was quite the little soiree within. Yet another unpleasant detail. Again, he was being rushed to do things in a way that was far too dangerous. It was sloppy, rushed, and was leaving far too many loose ends...but, if things went well, he wouldn't have to worry too much about trying to flee the city and shake search parties and bounty hunters between Illian and Tar Valon. All he had to do was reach the meeting place.

Hidden in the shadows for a few minutes to allow a patrol of the city guard to pass, then he was up and over. The make shift grappling hook served him well, and soon enough he was dropping within the manor grounds, coiling the rope neatly. Two House guards waltzed past, and Byron ducked into the shadows of a gaudy statue, surveying the grounds within with a practiced eye. Mind racing, picking up on the little details; movement in windows, already piecing together the layout of the house, or at least the outer rooms of the building on the one side he could see. Banners and railings and balconies.

Once the coast was clear, it didn't take him long to work his way across the grounds to the building, and mere minutes later he was on a second floor balcony, far higher in such a ridiculous building...they had a tendency of being taller so far south, to catch the cool winds off the sea. Slipping inside he made his way to the nearest privy and waited in a chamber across from it. Again he was delayed, ducking behind various expensive stands and statues along the hall to avoid guests and servants. But, luckily for him, no signs of guards within the building. What few that were inside, most likely, were standing in parade armours in the main guest areas looking good.

Patience was a virtue Byron had in abundance, and it paid off. A man, a fair match to his own dimensions, appeared in the corridor and bound for the privy, his clothes in a bit of disarray, likely from unmentionable activities in some hidden away place. Somewhere without its own washroom, since he'd opted to use the one Byron had under watch. Byron had barely managed to subdue the fellow and tuck him into the small storage room before others entered the corridor.

More minutes past, and then Byron strolled out of the chamber calmly adjusting his collar and cuffs. The choice of dress was about as restrictive as he would have expected, and it was just a hint large in the belly, but that was easily remedied with a bit of wire from one of his pockets to help hem and tie off some of the excess fabric. A careful eye would see the poor quality of tailoring, but so late in the evening that wouldn't be much of a problem. The man was neatly stuffed into a near-empty barrel of powdered soap, of which Byron now had a pouch full to clean his uniform later. A convenient scrub brush was tucked away as well. He had even been so kind as to leave the fellow alive, as he didn't plan on spending long in the manor.


No longer looking the part of a Ghealdanean farmer, Byron could more easily roam the corridors, even stopping occasionally to speak with other guests when needed to lessen suspicions. This was the most time consuming part, and almost tense in his mind. He was running out of time, having spent so much of the night chasing leads and gleaning information. Soon though, he found his way to the corridor outside a private sitting room, where one guard in uncomfortable looking parade dress and armour stood watch over a closed door. The man seemed less than pleased with his task, but did an admirable job of hiding it.

From behind the door, heard as Byron did a somewhat staggering walk past, seeming to be more than a bit jovially tipsy, Byron over-heard the sounds of Noble-youth enjoying themselves far more raucously then such a soiree would find appropriate. If what he was looking for was anywhere in that manor, it would be with them. So, he continued past, leaving the guard standing in the hallway none the wiser of what Byron had in mind. Out of sight and into another chamber.

From the ledge of the window, he scaled up to the next balcony, and a risky leap across to a balcony above the room he was after. The line he had used to scale the wall, minus the make shift grappling hook, was produced from within his shirt, where it had been helping him seem a proper fit for the clothes he had acquired. Tied to the balcony and glad the windows behind him were both dark and curtained, he lowered himself down just enough to peer into the room below.

Once certain it was the chamber he was searching for, and a moment’s consideration for the time and how long he had until it was time to leave, he went to work preparing his distraction. Again, on such short notice he hadn’t much to work with, but after deftly forcing the lock on the balcony doors, crossing through a lavish guest bedroom, and into the hall, he had already decided on what it would be.

He moved through a few different rooms with an empty chamber pot, draining the oil from the lamps and lanterns in the empty guest rooms. A candlestick sans candle, wrapped in some torn curtain, was used to spread oil along inner wooden walls and more was pooled on beds or furniture through the three rooms. Small amounts, just enough to get the fire started and it would spread on its own.

Truthfully, he was never a fan of big showy displays. The sort of work he got up to, showy displays were entirely against the point. But, sometimes, there really was no way around it. So, he returned to the balcony, fixed the line and gave it a few tugs. A lean over the railing to judge the distance, a moment's thought over the layout of the room below. He delayed briefly, slicing a strip out of the expensive curtains to wrap around his face and setting his dress coat aside for the moment; he didn't actually care if they saw what he looked like, but if he was going to play the role of some showy unprofessional, he might as well look the part right?

The room below was host to eight young noble-borns, some of Illian's social elite's 'other children.' Not the eldest of any family, the ones that were most likely to be married off for power and wealth and the like, with no real responsibilities. They wiled their evenings away with games and excess. Such groups existed everywhere and in every social class, but the rich always had the most exotic of entertainment.

Expensive wines and treats spiked with various herbs and fungi, dulling the mind or bringing hallucinations. One final peak into the room and then he was ready, leaping off the balcony above and hanging tight to his make-shift rope. He swung down and in through the window of the room he sought, glass shattering across the few closest unfortunates. He hit the ground in a roll and came to his feet charging the door even as the guests let out surprised screams or yelps of pain.

The guard outside was a quick one, surprisingly, but only managed to get the door open a few inches before Byron’s full weight slammed into it, smashing the heavy wood into the face of the guard on the other side and sending the armoured man sprawling into the hall hard. The door slammed shut loudly, and Byron dropped a dagger to the floor, two quick kicks jamming it under the door to wedge it shut. It wouldn’t hold for long, but it would buy him an extra minute or two.

And then he circled on the crowd, letting out a disgusted grunt as one of the flippant whelps came at him in a drunken rage. Hands were slapped away and the tip of Byron’s thumb jabbed into the lad’s right eye, careful not to destroy the organ. The boy yelled in pain, and Byron’s fist planted into the lad’s crotch, then a leg swept behind the boy’s as he pitched forwards. A quick hip check against the doubled over boy’s shoulder sent the noble-born to the floor with a wheezed gasp where he remained curled into a ball and sobbing pitifully.

Surprisingly enough, two more came at him in quick succession. One was met with a platter off the nearest table, pastries and sweets and a heavy silver tray throwing the boy off balance long enough for Byron to deal with the other. A swift side step and he grabbed the boy’s collar and sleeve, legs spread wide and angled for good purchase as he spun at the hips, tossing the boy into a high backed chair and expensive looking table. Then Byron stepped to the other, who had just recovered from the offending platter to find the palm of Byron’s hand boxing his ear, then both hands fisted together to hammer into the lad’s shoulder, spinning him to the ground.

By then, the remaining youths were screaming in terror and calling for parents or guards, and all were silenced when Byron barked a threat and produced a knife against the throat of what he was hoping was the group’s host, judging by the thread of gold and silver crest stitched on the lad’s coat. His demands were quick and simple, and he only had to cut the boy once to get what he wanted. Pointed to a armoire in the corner, the doors open to reveal bottles of expensive liquors and jars of powders and liquids.

Jackpot.

By the time the guards managed to force the door open, Byron was already on the third floor setting the rooms ablaze, with a satchel full of all sorts of interesting things tucked under arm. Panic spread and the guards on the grounds rushed into the house to evacuate guests and family that had no idea what was going on above. As they rushed in, Byron made his way out in the confusion, once more finely dressed in his acquired costume and he vanished into the night amongst outraged social elite.

Near sunrise, when the Gateway was opened to bring him back to wherever that cave was secreted away, the view of Illian sported two columns of thick black smoke. One from the harbor, where efforts to extract the burning ship were still ongoing; out of desperation the wreck had been crashed onto the rock of the breakwater. It was easier to tear the remains apart there then to try and scour it off the bottom of the bay. And closer, in a rather influential neighbourhood, a manor was aflame.

Dressed in the outfit of an Illian influential, he tucked the satchel under his arm and waltzed through, offering Lythia an apologetic nod as he moved from the outskirts of Illian to some dank, dark cave. One night, nine dead by his own knife, and who knew how many others from two fires. And a satchel full of expensive ‘medicines’ and of course the soap and scrub brush. He still had some laundry to do. And of course a few hours sleep.

Indeed, Corele could no longer channel as his shields found no grappling. Not that he needed to shield her to halt the flows of her channeling, but he did enjoy the gasp of surprise when the lesser-dreamers believed they were barred from the Source. A disappointment for sure, but now that he knew she lived, he could find her again. He stood there a few moments longer after she awoke. Her own admission explained the news of her replacement as Keeper of the Chronicles, but the thought was his partial dismissal.  Her presence was a small threat, but not completely unworthy of attention.  More to the point, he owed her a debt and would be more than happy to encounter her again in the Dream to extract it. Thus twice she had taken him by surprise. It had been Corele Sedai that unraveled the pocket he used to transport shadowspawn safely through the dream. When he entered the White Tower grounds, there was no army at his back to conquer it. He faced a line of defenders alone because of her. However, she was as unreachable as Graham, now: awake. She wouldn’t surprise him a third time.

The quiet of Tel’aran’rhiod settled, and with the subsequent emptiness followed regret.  She, by virtue of her affiliation, was an enemy.  Without enemies, there was nothing to conquer; without conquest, there was no purpose.  The others were unreachable, Dreamshielded; allies years dead, basking in the Great Lord's grave.  Taskless, purposeless, stewing in the vacuity of this sickening wasteland, his plummeting mood veiled the very light of The Dream itself.  Anticipating what yet was to come. He could endure it, he reaffirmed, but the purpose eluded him.

That need, to serve, to find meaning, drove this next decision as harrowing the consequences would be.  One by one, as layers of privacy slipped involuntarily away, a menace approached.  It found an abdicated servant self-stripped of all masks, begging for forgiveness, straining for any task, accepting of any punishment - so long as it served their Great Father of the Dark and returned significance to this life. 

But a word seethed his brain. Failure.  The word filled his mind, but he couldn’t tell if the voice was that of his own doubts or the whispering taunt of one of the Chosen. He strained to hear more, if only to know he wasn’t abandoned. Suffering more in the absence of punishment than the torment might have inflicted. When it became clear that nothing further was coming, withdrawal from the dreamworld for a into fitful sleep followed.   




Disciplined, but no less regretful, was that final step from the tranquility of authority within Tel'aran'rhiod into the turbulence of defenseless sleep.  He bristled with a constant hum of tension throughout those hours while lingering on that outer edge of consciousness - waiting to react to something external: the inevitable assault that'd spark an instant return to full faculty: the light creeping close or the door swinging open. But nothing happened.

The utter quiet was shattered by a sharp draw of breath between clenched teeth.  A wince for disturbing the recently dislocated shoulder, still tender, onto which he’d rolled accidentally.  He sat up suddenly, clutched the arm against his chest and realized he had indeed slept, then; and deeply enough to move unconsciously: a descent farer into oblivion than he intended but the body apparently required. 

The space was dark beyond the absence of light.  The darkness was heavy, impenetrable, stifling.  Control, he remembered, and closed his eyes to meditate on the discipline of vacancy; for without control, all was lost.  The darkness was external, he remembered, not the sanctity rapturing his mind from within; a physicality of the world, not the omniscient terror descending from the Great Lord’s attention.  When they reopened, they drank in the ardent darkness hovering around the direction of the door.  There was no source of light filtering around the edges, none to break the black.  An advantage, perhaps, as any approach of light served as sentry.  A clarification needed to remember where and who he was and accept the possibility of something emerging from darkness.  He remained faithful.

Composure allowed him to evaluate the shield again. A constant companion.  Afterward, he swept aside the warmth of the One Power burning beyond reach and stretched, careful during the climb to his feet in order to avoid aggravating one of the Hand's lingering gifts.  Of which there were an unusual abundance for such a tired old man.  He checked the damage on himself, but curled up a lip of disgust not for the injuries, but for the crust of grime dressing his skin.  His face was coated in grease and unkempt growth: a measure of how much time passed in captivity.  His hair pasted to his scalp under the weight of its own oil, the repulsive substance now clinging to his fingers curled into fists at his side.  He meditated on control, but the globe of vacancy cracked under the strain.  The darkness be damned.  Perhaps the renewal of having slept intensified the need to move.  Perhaps the recognition that this sacrifice purchased nothing of value buckled his resolve.  More likely it was the judgment of worthlessness pounding his memory from Tel’aran’rhiod’s encounter with the dark figure; bereft of alliance because he was not worth the effort of salvation, but his faith was not in one man – he did not bathe in Lake of Fire for Demandred, but for the Lord of the Evening himself.  A master whose ways men could not comprehend and for whom he would not leave this world until service was fulfilled, but the taunts whispered a harrowing chill down his spine.  If the time for accomplishment was over, was it time to die? 

And control shattered. He lashed out.  Flipped the sleeping cot first then hurled a waste bucket at the door.  Scent saturated the air, but he missed no step crossing the mess underfoot.  The bucket clattered and rolled away, and he moved on. Grip finding purchase on anything in the room. The Hand, the miserable, Light-cursed Questioner will have no table on which to display his pretty toys now.  Sacrificing the shoulder’s recovery, Arikan thrashed it upon the impenetrable floor with a defiant roar.  Over and over again. He beat the floor with whatever he could grab. Until the joists splintered with the pounding and dead wood snapped their spindly legs like bones. 

The door was not thick enough to buffer such an assault, if anyone stood guard at all; if he was worthy of being guarded. They didn’t seem to worry about him now that he was denied the One Power. He roared again and slammed the broken pieces against the floor, the wall, anything. Once the anger was spent, he was panting when his back slid down whatever grime coated these unnatural walls. The remnants of damaged furniture jabbed his flesh where he sat like a nest of wooden spikes, and the scent of spilt waste flared his nostrils as he leaned his head on the wall. It coated the soles of his feet. He could feel the mush of his own shit smeared on his legs. There was nothing left to do but cursed waiting. More dark-blasted waiting. Or shove aside the shards burrowing into his thighs where he sat.  The table broke under little effort, he thought, tossing aside a palm sized piece.  The wood was old then, or poorly made, disintegrating beyond a valuable antique.  Feeling around, mostly to swipe away what was beneath him, his hands found purchase upon a sharper stake, ran one finger along its wood shaved edge. It pricked the skin to blood, and he set it thoughtfully aside. He started to paw around for larger pieces.

His knees paid the price, crawling through the wreck scattered about the floor. More shit smeared but eventually his hands found a prize.  One of the table legs was intact, three nails still embedded in the end like some spiked mace. He smiled to himself in the dark.

It was only a matter of time, then, and Arikan waited near the door with repurposed patience. Tuned attentively toward the noise of approach and prepared to greet whomever arrived with one good swing at eye level.  The corridor, glimpsed when his guest departed, was too confined for a sword – the only blade of size to shatter the shaft of the improvised weapon in his hands – not that he would allow for the time to raise such a cumbersome defense.  The Aes Sedai would be a fool to return so soon, interrupting any progress her pet Questioner might have made.  He doubted the girl would make an appearance, but that was assuming a great deal of intelligence on her part.  In case he overestimated her wisdom, her calling was always preceded by the annoying prickle of a woman’s channeling, he would sense either of their approaches. No, for once, he hoped it was the Hand that returned. Arikan would gladly receive the guest into this little domicile.

The weapon was lightweight; two or three blows were likely all it would bear before splitting under the strain.  Aes Sedai or her dug up Questioner, flush as he was in shadow, he doubted the mace would make contact with either.  Spikes buried in their faces were an appealing image, but surprise was the point.  The state he was in mandated a fast confrontation.  Between the arm and the girl’s poison clogging his veins, he would be useful for only a few moments, but he could not allow them a chance to defend. Besides, Questioners were notoriously incompetent in an actual fight.  Let him come.




Neither Byron nor Inquisitor Jeorune were fool enough to walk into a prisoner's room with his arms full. The view of the room was all too amusing. The boy had already succumbed to a temper tantrum it seemed; frustration and impatience was eating at the boy far faster than Byron could have hoped. It was possible that it was some foolish act, of course...but that seemed unlikely. No, this was an honest loss of temper. The boy was pampered, spoiled rotten. Far too used to being in control, and rotting away in a dark, dank cell was getting to the boy.

He scanned the room briefly, and drew no site of the boy. Unsurprising; the room was not well built to serve as a cell, and with the mess on the floor, the boy might well have been huddling in one of the cleaner corners. Punishments for the mess coursed through Inquisitor Jeorune's mind as he moved to step through the door way. What came next almost managed to take Byron by surprise.

When adopting a new identity, there was weeks of preparation needed. Mannerisms, reflexive movements, beliefs, philosophy and speech and more. History, friends and families and things known. There was much work to go into a proper disguise. But Byron had not been allowed the time to prepare properly. He was working with incomplete pieces, leaning on similar personalities gained in past tasks. The real Inquisitor Jeorune had fancied himself as a bit of a swordsman. The man had been good, but a far cry from a blade master. When attacked, the Inquisitor would resort to his sword.

When Byron was attacked, he resorted to anything and everything to win. Stepping into the door way to find a table leg swinging for his face, Byron brought his arm up to catch the approaching club, the thick wooden shaft meeting forearm and shoulder near evenly to distribute the blow, although the nails bit and gouged at his forearm painfully where two found their way through the thick links of chainmail and padding. One blow was all Byron was going to allow.

Inquisitor Jeorune would surely had been struck far more resoundingly and would have staggered away from the door and the attacker, hoping to find more space to work in the hallway. Byron pressed the attack right back against the boy, stepping in even as the club was readied for another strike. His right hand flashed forwards, two tensed knuckles digging into the boy's sore shoulder. He hoped to move quickly enough to toss the boy off balance, to grapple a leg and send the boy sprawling to the filthy floor, but the boy was no stranger to a fight.

The two grappled, and the boy managed to force Byron out to the corridor, probably the boy's first steps outside his cell since he had been captured. Byron had an unfair advantage both in experience in bar room brawls and in over all strength, more a matter of living conditions then any lacking capabilities of the boy. Being trapped in a cell and poor diet made it hard to keep one's strength up.

The two struggled briefly, Byron forced into the wall opposite the doorway. Again, Inquisitor Jeorune would surely have succumbed to the struggle. Byron ducked another strike, aided by the heavy chainmail and cushy padding below. The boy was nothing to scoff at in a scuffle, a steady rain of blows, but the boy had surely been hoping to bring the Inquisitor down quickly, without a prolonged struggle. Fatigue came on sooner then it might have when the boy had been in better health, and the tide quickly changed.

One of the boy's blows were too slow, and Byron was quick to capitalize, dropping his defence and pressing the attack again. His wounded left arm snapped out in a chopping blow against the boy's sore shoulder, pushing the boy back a step to catch his breath. Byron followed him, right hand snapping forwards in a strike, the flat of his palm meeting the boy's chin, twisting the boy's head aside and up. Another left, low against the ribs to bunch up the boy's middle, then another knuckle-led jab to the sternum. Another right handed palm strike to the skull, sending the boy back another couple of steps. The boy was tough; able to keep his feet and even able to manage some degree of defence. It was an admirable display, all things considered.

He faked a blow for the boy's head, and the boy managed to bring his arms up in defence. Byron stepped in, driving one foot down onto the boy's own foot, then rammed him with his shoulder to send him to the ground back through the doorway of the cell. With the boy's foot pinned beneath Byron's weight, the boy's knee and ankle would be twisted painfully. Then a swift kick at the fallen boy's tail bone; Byron was not so uncouth as to go for the crotch, but a good blow to the tail bone with the Inquisitor's reinforced boots could be just as painful, and would hopefully take the last of the fight out of the boy.

Inquisitor Jeorune would not be pleased; Byron of course could fully understand the motivation behind it; this would be the boy's last best chance to escape on his own. With an Inquisitor to work his trade, the boy would not be in any shape to try again once things got into full swing. It had been a gamble, but a wise one at least.

With the boy on the ground, Inquisitor Jeorune stopped the attack and stepped back, casually pulling up his wounded forearm to get an eye for how bad it was. Nothing terrible; some nasty cuts, and bleeding. Of course, he wouldn't be able to ask Lythia to Heal it. But, it was nothing he wouldn't be able to tend to. "A gamble, boy. You seem intent on losing.” His tone was vaguely disappointed; as a father might be in a son who had done poorly at his chores, and it was a struggle to keep himself from panting. Each breath was slow and deliberate.

He withdrew the club for a second blow without time for a moment of satisfaction that it found a mark.  But rather than withdraw to regroup, the Hand flashed into the offensive, faster than Arikan could reorganize his thoughts. The Hand made him drop the would-be weapon, and its advantage, but he rushed forward in response to press the fight outside, toward escape and better footing. The floor behind was still slick.

They struggled. The Hand foresaw and defended his blows with inexplicable foresight, but the taste of fresh air surged the energy to push harder through his veins, but with every step he forced the Hand to take backward, the Child's uniform became increasingly difficult to penetrate, and upward hooks toward his jaw were limited to his one good arm. Arikan's endurance was waning faster than even he anticipated, and his pace quickly slowed.

The Hand's patience needed to only last seconds, and he exploited the moment Arikan left himself open to attack. The second blow to the unstable shoulder flashed his eyes, froze every muscle solid and he stumbled. It forced him to cede ground as payment. He expected the Child to take the opening to draw his sword and put this fight to a swift end.  It’s what Arikan would have done. Assuming he wasn’t exposing himself as a channeler. Close quarters though they were, against a weaponless opponent, the swordsman was the sure victor when he blocked the only exit.  Instead, the Hand closed, bladeless. It was all Arikan could do to keep up a steady defense.  His efforts badly blunted where the Hand made contact. They fought like swine in a barroom brawl not like soldiers on the field.  He diverted concentration to keep his feet long enough to look for another opening, needing it to come fast.  Because he was spent.

The first dazing blow to the head sent him reeling backward. It opened more distance between them.  More ground ceded. He was nearly back to the cell by then.  Forfeiting the space won earlier in the initial surprise doubled the effort to gain it back. He roared a response, unwilling to lose this chance at escape, but he saw the second aim toward his head late, and raised his forearms to awkwardly parry it. The Hand flashed a fake and everything spun.

He hit the ground hard, and a pinned ankle blinded the effort to brace his fall.  The compromised joint after a century of abuse popped under the wrenching strain, then swung freely, but the pressure in the knee above was near unbearable.  Where ankles flopped, knees resisted. He struggled for a position to relieve the twist, but an iron-toed kick took out the remaining fight.  The weight left his foot. Dizzied and beaten, he struggled to roll over.  The grimace on his face clearly defined the loss, and nothing moved except to curl up on himself. Soon, his gaze pierced to the figure looming above.

He was panting like they'd fought for an hour, while the Hand seemed unfazed but for checking his wounded forearm.  Meaningless whether the Hand was gauntleted or not, Arikan's concern for his ribs and face would be no less if he had been similarly armored.  Taking a beating while not but in his own skin, his concern was exponentially increased. He spat blood on the ground. Even if he fought his way upright again, the leg likely could not bear his weight.  Let alone carry him far. Their fight was done. The chance gone.

He didn't answer the taunt right away, needing a few moments to regain the composure to speak. Or perhaps regain the actual air to form words.  Instead he considered the snowy cloak sitting disheveled on the Questioner's shoulders, a stronger man than he'd anticipated, followed by the blade sitting quiet in the Child's scabbard unused.

His voice strained for air, "I don't remember Amador training Children like that.” An accusation, then thought little more of it.  The comment displayed the doubt their struggle sparked in his mind.  He may be the one on his back, but discipline with hope inspired perseverance exploited by lesser men sustained by discipline alone.  For the wise, every victory, no matter how institutional, was still victory. And he know knew something about his interrogator the man likely hoped to keep hidden. He was good in a fight, which meant despite his current profession, he hadn’t always been a spineless Questioner. He was something else once. Arikan would find out what it was. He always did.




Byron had recognized that the fight would do irreparable harm to his disguise. No Hand of the Light would be so experienced in such a scuffle. They would have no need to; they never had to work alone, always had a few Children around if things got rough. But, he was quick witted; had to be to have made it as long as he had, and as the boy looked to catch his breath and Inquisitor Jeorune inspected his wound, Byron's mind raced to piece together a plausible story. It was all so painfully shallow though; hadn't the weeks of preparation and drill he preferred.

This would likely be the boy's last attempt at escape along such an avenue; however long the boy had been kept in this cage, coupled now with injured joints and limbs, would leave the boy too weakened physically to try again, and both Byron and the Inquisitor had no interest in letting the boy recover. For a fancy-pants Channeller, the boy had proven far too well versed in fisticuffs for Byron to be eager to try it again with the boy at his peak.

So the boy's words were met with that same disappointed, almost fatherly, smile as the Inquisitor stepped into the room past the fallen boy. He'd swat hands away with whatever force was needed to grab the boy by the hair and pull him deeper into the room, along the mess on the floor. He wouldn't drag if it wasn't needed, as long as the boy cooperated and shuffled a bit, it wouldn't be so painful an experience. And if the boy struggled, well a swift boot to the ribs would likely see an end to that.

Inquisitor Jeorune had no need to defend himself against the boy's words. In fact, the boy was in the wrong for speaking at all; it had been one of the rules that the Inquisitor had put after all. The boy did not have the right to speak unless asked to. But, no further punishment was needed at the moment; being dragged across the floor like the misbehaving child he was was enough for now; let the boy relish in the mess of chamber bot and wood chips that marred the cell floor for now. Like rubbing a dog's nose in the mess it had made, to teach it the lesson not to do so again.

"The rules are simple. Speak only when I address you. Ask permission to speak when I address you. You will address me only as Inquisitor. You will do anything you are told. You will only act when told. There shall be daily routines, and you shall do these without complaint or hesitation as you are told. You will make no excuse and tell no lie.” He let the boy go next to the harsh pallet that served as his bed, then turned to walk back towards the door, and stepped out briefly, leaving the door open as he did as if to tempt the boy to try such foolishness again.

He was only gone a moment, however. Just out in the hallway was the boy's meal. Porridge, now a on the cold side, but still edible. With it came a simple clay cup of water, and a heel of bread. Not moldy nor any more stale then what he had to eat. He carried these items back into the room and eyed the boy a moment. "Temper tantrums accomplish nothing, boy. They are a waste of energy fit only to children or the most pompous and shallow of palace brats. I would think you would not wish to be mistaken as either. You shall eat, or you shall waste away and die. And it is a terrible way to go, I assure you. And if you cast the food aside, I shall leave you here to stew in your mess like some lowly street urchin.”

He would not give the boy the food until the boy had agreed to eat. It would be a foolish display to turn it down; there would be no finer fare coming for some time, and it was in the boy's best interests to keep his strength up. Without strength of body, the mind would begin to falter and grow feeble. And the mind was all the boy had left to defend himself with. Of course, the concoction was carefully mixed into both water and porridge, added after the boiling and carefully mixed in to help disguise the taste. He was unsure if it were too much or even not enough; but an exact balance would be figured out in the days to come.





Upon being grabbed, Arikan rallied a valiant show of defense, if only to prove endless uncooperation with the Hand's maltreatment.  A stomp to the distended ankle would have put the resistance to a quick end, but the wind kicked from his lungs accomplished the job just as ruthlessly. When he was dropped off altogether unguarded along the wall, his scalp throbbed. Chunks of hair fell worryingly from the Hand’s grip, but he was far more concerned with the shoulder and ankle. He rolled off both, and glared through the grimace twisting his face. The Hand walked out unconcerned for the wide open door. That burned the most, but Arikan was left to deal with the broad meridian of damages he'd sustained without need for supervision. There was no chance he’d run for it. Not at that exact moment. 

He lay, eyes closed. Forcing himself to contain what felt like wild dogs gnawing on his bones.  The small of his back felt as though a spike was hammered into his spine.  White streaks coursed to the fingertips, fists he shook opened and closed to discharge the lightning.  Soon, calmer winds washed his mind. Shallow breaths steadied his lungs, working to not flare the ribs too badly. It left him with the slow throb of aftermath and the worser wound of hurt pride.  Sounds of the Hand's exit and return explained itself by carrying forth scents of a meal for his prisoner.  Arikan opened his eyes, cold and grey as corpse flesh.  The emergent moment seemed to have passed. He struggled just to sit up.

Disappointment dripped from the Whitecloak as sure as did the blood from his arm.  A satisfied smirk countered it by digging beyond the superficial to a stronger sense of survivability.  Endurance was a virtue akin to patience, but both were easy to lose when compromised.  He needed to maintain a reign on that emotion tight as skin if he were to recognize the exploitation attempts yet to come.  If there were any such; Questioners were brutality and gore incarnate, a trade that required little in the ways of original intelligence. He expected knives and needles, not taunts and manipulation. Not from someone with the intelligence of a rock.

“Every man has the capacity for evil, especially your kind,” he explained absently, testing the bonds of his voice, still strained and parched; but the comment was a merciful characteristic in himself to be so considerate.  Thoughtfully, he contemplated the minuscule history of one such flake in the storm of this world as was standing above him now.  Children of the Light were less than the wholesome, purebred stallions they positioned themselves to be, but this one fought too well, hinted at too much forethought, and controlled his emotions rather smoothly to be the average Child.  Out of what den did the Children originally find him? And how did Lythia find this creature? Arikan’s study was cold. And it gave him something to think about besides the fire inside.

He leaned his shit-tainted, bloodied scalp against the wall. The Hand had dragged him back through the mess made by his own fury, torchlight only now revealing the squalor. Full buckets require copious production on his part and dehydration leadened his muscles down under their own weight, but what amount was spilled across the floor flared his nostrils with its putrid concentration. He could feel it on his skin. Mixed with the taste of sweat and blood, he feared never being clean again as long as he lived. 

Eventually, Arikan found a voice again. It seethed a disgust he didn’t bother to contain, but his voice was raw and raspy. He’d barely drank, his lips were chapped and the broken nose was still swollen.
“What virtues possess you, Hand?  To be considered so worthy of the honor that is attempting to break me.  Whatever it is you are here to get.  I assure you, you will leave frustrated every time,” he gasped for air between words, struggling to speak but clearly determined to fling insults in return. “You serve no purpose, except to serve the whims of your betters.  When you finally balk the courage to slit my throat and your day of rest follows, you will tuck your wreck of a life into some corner of the world having proven your futile existence.  Then spend the rest of your days twisting questions mad through your mind as to what else could you have done to keep victorious glory slipping like knives through your fingers.  And only silence will answer you.  A gaunt stare in the mirror back from the pathetic wreck of man you are.  A feeble bag of bones draped by translucent flesh… I abhor every moment I am in your presence." 

The cool oration suddenly hastened in its tone as frustration leaned him forward.  It was clear he will not be following the 'rules'.  He seethed through clenched teeth an accent-laden demand, "And will yeh be repeatin’ that same inviscid speech every. bloody. fucking. time?!!” he spat a wad of blood on the floor after raising his voice, realizing he’d slipped into the low-class accent of his birth. It was coarse and common, and far from the bearing of a graceful ruler. His teeth grit tight. He hated that accent. That losing the tight grip of control meant something.

He paused to regroup himself. Although mastering such slips into baser language long ago, he regained vocal composure quickly. Swallowed it back where it belonged, and control forced his words into their practiced place. Palace brat, yes..  And eyed the plateware, "Let's say for a moment you were me and I were you,” his tone returned to neutrality after the disturbance revealed a momentary lapse back into imperialist Tairen sounds. "I would make more efficient use of my time, suffering you to more elegant attentions than what you are capable to demonstrate for me so far." 

The room was his evidence.  He paused, collegially, for the student whose mind would be bogged down by the processing of such higher thoughts. "If I were you and you were me, you would be the fool who refuses to eat.  And I would be the one thinking myself clever as to position such minimal sustenance for rewarding behavior." 
His voice grew hoarser with thirst and strain, a rather proletary sound, but the patronization was not rendered insincere by the sounds of long-suffering.  In fact, perhaps the opposite.  His head swirled with exhaustion.  He leaned the back of his head appreciatively against the wall, and adjusted his ankle to take the weight off the heel, but so long as he remained motionless, the words continued to come.

"I would also be the one unaccustomed to carrying out actual tasks myself as I have grown soft relying on reaping the rewards of others' sweat to compensate for my lack of original abilities.  The Aes Sedai I used to find you and for whom I now drool upon her feet to start my work.  The shield to render you closer to the world of mere mortals that I might not strain while grasping so high above me.  And finally the poison to work its charms on you while I crawl out of this lair to lick my wounds and mend my padding for the next round.  A sweet life I have fought to win myself, is it not?  Complete with a filthy outcast of a woman.  A leech unfit for the river of refuse out of which she climbed, but a woman no less.  How is the dear girl?  Sleeping well?" 

It took recognizing her signature in tel'aran'rhiod to realize the woman whose presence he'd come to know of late was one in the same.  "You realize you are serving not one but two Aes Sedai, yes?  Child of the Light?" 

A dire smile pasted itself a cold mask across Arikan's defiance.  "I'm sorry, I could go on, but for your sake, I shall be clear.  I have no intention of starving myself, but know this, I know what you’re doing, and it won’t work on me.” Two quick bends of his fingers and the food was delivered without having to get up.  As it should be.

The drink disappeared first.  A man may survive two or three weeks without a bite, but lacking fluids drained most men of life in two days.  The bread he pinched through the chalky bowl of slop, and the captured moisture was coveted. He licked his fingers, filthy with blood and refuse as they were. The rest he drained straight from the bowl.  Deplorable, yes, but he didn’t care.

The Hand left him alone after that, tending his wounds and contemplating the power wielded over him. There were no days to measure the passage of time in the darkness that followed.  Only the count of slow, steady breaths.  For the longest time, he lay in thought.  At first going over an exhaustive list of contacts once more.  Then considering whether the mark he left upon that warder in the dreamworld would accomplish its purpose: the confrontation between one Green to another, thereby removing dear Lythia from the list of obstacles standing between him and escape; gaining a major advantage if successful. 

The only measure of time was the flood of light leaking from the doorway every time the Hand returned to check on him.  The first, Arikan did not deign to look the man's way but rather simply continue to stare upward in the calm position in which he lay.  The second revealed he'd moved.  This time to sit as he had before: leaning against the wall with arms folded across bent knees.  He lifted his face, hollow of thought but for vacant concentration on something unseen when the light shone in, but all he noted was a cloaked outline backlit by the flames in the corridor beyond.  The third, he was unmoved from the seated position as found during the last check-in, but this time when the light tumbled into the periphery, he turned his face deeper into the crook of his arms, clumped his hair into his fists, and avoided peering into the brightness altogether.

The boy simply could not seem to follow rules. The temper tantrums did not help the boys reputation any. The boy seemed to feel he was something special, something important and bound for greatness. Yet the state of his cell, the crass displays were those of a spoiled child and a broken mind. The boy was insane, lost to delusions of grandeur. That the those delusions hadn't yet wilted despite the boy's situation was another sign of the delusions that fueled the boy's tarnished, cracked mind.

The boy's words were rather calming to Byron's mind, at least briefly. That the boy still thought him to be a Hand of the Light, even if a rather unorthodox one. Baring any future problems, the belief would only grow stronger as Byron's grasp of the mind of this Inquisitor Jeorune deepened. Of course, there was always that chance that the boy were playing the same game as Byron. He would have to continue to watch for signs of such.

To Inquisitor Jeorune, the boy's words also fell on deaf ears. The Inquisitor had some inklings of the relationship between the witch Lythia and the Nicole girl. It was a stretch of Byron's own assumptions and something he would have to work on with Nicole. Corele. Whichever she preferred these days. Should it ever be necessary that they both be in the same cell as the boy, or should she ever be found in a situation she had to deal with the boy in his absence, he would have to develop a report with her that she had something to work with that would mirror the Inquisitor and Byron.

The boy's questions did prompt a few interesting lines of thought in Byron's mind to help explain the existence of a man such as Inquisitor Jeorune. Why would he be amongst the Hand of the Light. An answer formed quickly, and would take some time to fill out. There were reasons he preferred to have time before adopting a role; to research and prepare and practice, and thus avoid such annoying little situations as this.

So Inquisitor Jeorune left the boy's cell with the tray and bowls. Least the boy throw another tantrum and break those too. The cell was shut and locked, leaving the boy alone in the dark once more, to let the concoction mixed into the food and water take its effect. He did not stray far from the cell for some hours; checking on the boy twice during that time to be certain the concoction had taken the right effect. And after the second check up, he departed.

He eventually found his way back to the room that Corele had settled into for the time being. He dropped the act of Inquisitor Jeorune, too tired by that point to really bother organizing his thoughts into the right directions, and worked at removing his pristine white tabard, careful not to stain it any on the by now dry blood staining the sleeve of the tunic beneath. "Well...this, dear woman, has been a very long week. But, it is finally safe to get some sleep. I do not know about you, but I feel I could sleep a fortnight or more.”




Byron sat through Corele’s tending of his arm without much comment; he was too exhausted. It was a nice change of pace; having competent help for something like this. He made a point of working alone, so those few times he did end up with something that needed stitching or salves, he tended them himself or found a discreet wisdom or healer to tend it if the situation allowed. Again, there were reasons why he preferred to do these sorts of things on his own schedule. Time to prepare, time to think and plan and plot. He just shook his head ruefully as the wound was tended.

And once that was done, it was the uniform's turn. It needed to be cleaned, washed free of the blood, stitched neatly and hung to dry. The boy would have to be punished should he manage to stain the Inquisitor's uniform a third time. Another hour was lost to that alone; making sure every trace of blood was gone, and that the stitching was tight and proper, that the damage would be nearly unnoticeable. Why did the Children insist on wearing white? So much trouble.

But finally, the work was done. The boy was not sleeping, and Byron was finally able to find some rest. And when morning came, he awoke with all the temperance and discipline of a Tower trained Warder. He might have been poorly suited to the task of protecting an Aes Sedai on some grand battlefield as Warders were known for in stories and ballads, but he had still gleaned quite the menagerie of skills from the training. A well tuned internal clock amongst them.

Of course, as much as he did awake with the crack of dawn (or there abouts, seeing as he couldn't actually tell the time for being in a cave with no view of the sky), he only stayed awake long enough to check on the boy again, then returned to sleep. A few more hours, to help shake off the grogginess of so many days awake. When next he awoke it was to the distant smell of Corele preparing breakfast. Which was about as effective at shaking the last dredge of exhaustion away as the extra few hours of sleep had managed.

Roused, he dressed and made his way to the scent of food. He discussed briefly with Corele, filling her in on some of Inquisitor Jeorune's mannerisms and personality. In part, such that should she cross paths with the boy, she could have something to work with, but it also helped him better come to grips with the few details he had to work with. But eventually, it was time to check on the boy.

When he returned to the boy's cell, he set a bucket of water and a rough bristled brush down at the door. The boy would begin his chores. Cleaning his cell first and foremost; now denied of sleep, the boy would likely fall in the filth he had spread. Even a healthy man would in time. He raised a lantern, casting the light about the cell and watching the boy in silence for a moment. The first dose had surely been too strong; the boy was near unresponsive when he had first entered.

The lantern was hung from the corner of the door, and he stepped deeper into the room such that the boy could actually see him, rather then just a dark silhouette. "Do not shy from the Light, boy. Even one such as you can still find forgiveness. Now, it is time for your morning chores. You shall clean this cell. If you do not, you shall fall ill from your own filth.”





Forgiveness. 

Forgiveness from what?  And whom?  The Creator?  Forgiveness was a paradox.  A righteous entity sanctifying the carnal deeds of the unjust: a shroud of iniquities every man wore.  Creator included.  The Creator was apathy incarnate.  So complete his job when he turned his back on his creation it was a wonder the world did not demonize him rather than the Great Lord.  They should. 

The light crept in.  Despite his best efforts to block it out, it plucked at the corners of his eyes and clawed its way through his lids.  His hair was longer now, but what was once a sweeping billow of dark silk was now clumped in strands still too short to divert the glare.  He eventually glanced between the oil-clogged fibers staggered across his forehead and gazed flatly at the Hand, piercing the shadow of annoyance gnawing away at his patience to do so.

Yet as he lifted his face, testing the fiery pool of light, he winced at what he found.  The lamp, small as it was, seared his eyes as though staring into the sun.  How dreadful the pallor he must appear, sunken against the shadows.  He was losing what he was, and could feel it by the moment.  Therein festered the real pain of this existence.  The Hand's presence meant little so far, except as a wound to his dignity; being subjected to someone so inept.  The constant recognition of people lacking capacity for the barest of intelligence was exhausting. 

"You.  Are.  Completely.  Incompetent.”  He spoke slowly, High accent hovering on each syllable, lips rich with a Tairen Councilman's svelte diction.  Encouraged by the success of speaking and holding his accent no less, and growing accustom to what shrank his pupils to pins, leaving a pair of silvery sickles to finish proving his point, he carried on. 
"The Source protects me from taking ill.  I don't even remember what it's like to be sick." The sound of disgust filled the cell.  Annoyed at having to explain the ways of ascension to those left behind.  The Aes Sedai apparently found Amador's supreme-most moron to not know that.  "Try another threat when you think of one."  He said idly, then resumed his previous position, head down, hiding from the burning light.

"Besides if you wanted me to prance around as your chambermaid, you shouldn't have split my ankle you idiot.”  He spoke with the annoyance of being on his last nerve, but he didn’t need to look at the ankle to know how rotund it must appear. The injury was large with fluid now, and throbbing even as it lay unmoving.  Such ignorance was astounding.  Forethought: a skill children should master, but yet most never acquired. Oh he could walk if it meant a chance to escape, but scrubbing the floor was not exactly a proper motivation to try.

Whatever it was the Questioner gave him must be wearing off.  His thoughts were connecting again.  In the wasteland of black time that was this existence, earlier attempts to speak left only the pathetic sound of incoherent mumbles in his ear.  If this was morning, he hadn't slept, that was clear now, but thankfully the disturbing sensations crawling across his skin this long night were slowing. 

"Shouldn't you be digging out your toys by now?  The nail beds first, perhaps?  Or will you go straight for the delicates?" 




Again, while Byron might have made a comment about just who was at fault over the boy's injuries, or might have bantered the particulars of the situation, Inquisitor Jeorune saw no need or point in such a conversation. The boy was at fault after all. The boy had tried to escape, had attacked the Inquisitor, and surely deserved more punishment. But that would come later. Instead, he stepped up to the boy and stared down at him.

The boy was a pitiful sight; filth aside, the boy's limbs were atrophying from lack of exercise and a poor diet. Not nearly as pronounced as it should have been, considering the apparent length of time the boy had been trapped within the small cell, but still evident. The bruises and swelling from the injuries sustained during the past few days were also taking their toll. But, at least the boy had survived the night. Byron greatly disliked having to work on such short notice with things he was not familiar. He prided himself on being knowledgeable of the poisons and herbs with which he worked. Had he the time, he would have tested the concoction he had fed to the boy on someone of lesser import; perhaps a heartless approach in the eyes of some, but far more efficient then risking the death of one's target.

"I had thought, boy, that you had more pride than this. You wish then to wallow in your own filth?” He eyed the boy's ankle a moment then just shook his head dryly and stepped away, turning his back on the boy to return to the hallway a moment to gather a bucket of water and scrub brush, some other odds and ends the boy would need to clean the cell. "You are no better then the witch. Relying on the Source for protection and power. Do you expect an ally to come and save you? I wonder what they would do, should one of them find you in this state. I imagine it would not be pleasant for you, would it? No, I suspect they would only seek you out to see you ended, boy.”

"This whole time you have sat here, rotting away in this cell, and none have come to your rescue. What ever power you once held is long gone isn't it? Just a pitiful shadow of a boy, rotting away forgotten and abandoned." He shook his head, finding the entire situation pitiful. Byron would never have waited so long in a cell. He would have escaped, or have ended his own life by now. In such a situation, the boy was nothing more then a loose end; a dangerous source of information for his enemies. No one could last forever, and it was seeming likely now that no one would trouble themselves with trying to rescue the boy.

"You whine and mewl like a child. Sulk and throw temper tantrums. You show your true colours." He squatted down a moment, picking through the remnants of the table, tossing a few bits of wood aside until he found two of suitable length. A dagger was produced, whittling the bits of age-dried wood till they could serve as splints for the boy's hurt ankle. Rags would serve as bindings and padding for the simple splint, and the pieces were casually dropped at the boy's side. He would either splint his own ankle, or he would not. The bone would heal eventually, but it was up to boy if he wished to be able to walk properly when it did heal.

He would have to find a new table for the room, although clearly it could not be left within the cell with the boy. Inquisitor Jeorune suspected the boy would smash and destroy anything he could out of childish spite, as some foolish display of resistance. Byron of course just wished he had more time to work with. These things were slow affairs; time consuming, leaving little room in one's schedule for other tasks. Not exactly his preferred sort of activity. He turned to watch the boy, curious as to whether he would be smart enough to bind his ankle.





The shelf of his emotions was narrowing.  Non-dispersed by a suctioning when in a moment of stillness before crashed forward from the pressure all of a sudden.  The flat, pliable topography was a personality of memory now, and the Hand was making use of it; Arikan rubbed his eyes.  Containing as he did, the fury balling his fists.  The sockets burned with fatigue.  Red with raw physical stress, and rimmed by folds at the corners never present before. 

He found himself staring, motionless and undesiring to see, but unable to shove aside now, the dregs of miserable inadequacies pointed out to him that was this nest.  But unlike the folds of safety harboring the young in their vulnerable years, the nest was the precursor to harder coffins.  Lined with decay already. 

He glanced at the things the Hand carried in, and disgust turned his stomach. Un unacceptable concept to fathom. Cleaning after himself was a sign of subjugation.  Solely because the Hand wished him to follow an order.  He rubbed his eyes again, harder, angry at the physical boundaries locking him in a poisoned shell, while yet careful to not touch the tissues behind the lids with dirt-tainted fingertips.  He would never be clean again, he feared, nor would he know the feel of soaped skin, the breath of fresh wind.

Baited with his own inadequacies, a quiet warning slipped his lips. Warning the Hand to stop. "Don’t,” he seethed, seeking the Hand's eyes to define the seriousness of the threat.  But the Hand ignored it.  Ignored his gaze, and turned away.  Arikan had no choice but to stare at the back of his head. He couldn’t follow through. So he chose respond more fully.  "If I were to be ended, my Great Lord has but to wish it.”  Though softly spoken, verbalizing such truths gave him confidence.  A connection he could sense to this day dangled his thread to the Pattern, vulnerable to the master's touch should He so desire.  The faintest stroke by such a hand and it would willingly dissolve.  A precipice of which he was aware every breathing moment, as far back as he could remember.  That steady beam of purpose: it was faint, but distinct, from that of the Source, but always there.  A counterpart to it, really; another majestic pulse in which to delight.  A gift to protect from the taint at first, now, a welcome, but terrible companion.  His best friend as a child.  The only beloved he truly needed to please. 

He was not ended.  Therefore must be useful to the Great Lord.  Let the Chosen rot in the beds they made themselves.  New Chosen would someday rise. He intended to be foremost among them. He just needed to figure out a way back to the heights.

The Hand stood there, watching with a scowl for a reaction.  They met each other's gaze that time, each waiting to see who would act first and held until Arikan threw his hand defiantly across the splints and dragged them close enough to put to good use.  He had to dig deep through the muddled waters of foggy memory for the last time his hands bound such an operation.  He made no effort to swallow the sounds that came with it; too tired and uncaring that the Hand witness the discomfort.  One such as he would not be moved either way.  It would be torture to compress the fluid and bend the joint through unnatural folds; likely the Hand already intended to do as much anyway.  Better it be done by his own decision. Through grunts and stifled cries, tired hands bound the injury as best he could, tied the rag in place. 

The supplies across the floor jaded his nerves, clawing at his chest, pounding, trying to tell him to defer longer, but his logic was faded, the deductions unclear.  From the bucket and brushes at the Hand's feet, across stone and fragmented wood, to the pallet on which he sat, the floor stank the senses and stuck to the flesh.  Everything within the faint world of limited lamplight was bare and reeking, weeping as though impregnated with tears.  Moving around would give him something to do.  A task on which to focus his disheveled thoughts.  While yet the threat of growing weakness urged him to take up any assignment of physical resistance, he eventually thrust the bandaged leg to one side and took up the chore.

Questioners worked in blood and pain. They sought to break a man in body and mind quickly. It was a rare man indeed who could last more than a few days under their brutal attentions. Most often, either the mind or the body failed in the process, leaving either a hollow shell or a dead man. And most often, even should one submit and do as the Questioner wished, the answer was still death. Just a quicker one.

But Byron despised such tactics. It was rare he had to practice such things of course, but when he did, he sought information, not forced confessions. Pain and blood would get him answers swiftly, surely, but more often it was more a matter of the target of his attentions trying to give him whatever they thought he wanted. Information would be inflated or entirely false. No, far better to wear the mind down and trick them into wanting to help him. It was a longer process; days became weeks usually. Start small, with simple tasks and admissions. And each time the bearer of the information he sought conceded on some small task or piece of information, the next would become easier.

Do not make yourself a monster; but rather a disappointed father figure or possible friend. Punishments would, of course, be brutal, yet the punisher should seem displeased with having to give them. Rewards should be simple things; nicer food, a clean blanket, a chance to clean oneself. Things that the target needed to stay healthy anyways, but seeded in a manner to seem a wonderful reward. The target could not survive the treatment on gruel alone, curling up naked and dirty every night, but if maintaining the target's health through 'rewards' obscured the truth and made the target work harder to earn more of the 'rewards.' A tedious process and investment of time.

"Have you ever thought that this is simply your punishment for failing the Dark One, boy? That perhaps you have fallen so far that you are no longer worthy of his attention at all? That perhaps there is no plans for you to return to the fold at all. The Dark One is not known for being forgiving." He did not say it to be spiteful, but to encourage thought on the matter. To discreetly weaken resolve, to plant seeds of doubt were simply hopeful side effects.

He did not treat the boy's acceptance of the task of binding his ankle and cleaning the room as any sort of victory. They were both a necessary task, and there was no one else to do it. The room was all the boy had any sort of control over, and was the one at fault for the mess to begin with. But of course, it was just the first of what would hopefully be many steps in wearing the boy's resistance away and shaking him of whatever terrible indoctrination or philosophies that had led him down so dark a path. As the boy would work, Inquisitor Jeorune would bring in a fresh bucket of water to replace the first when it became too soiled to be of use.

Another, empty bucket was provided to collect bits of wood or waste that could be easily removed from the floor, to save the water buckets from becoming soiled too quickly. He did nothing else to help, however. Simply provided the tools needed to do the job properly. If the boy kept his manners, he might even be provided with some soap to help alleviate the smell that clung to the room even before the mess had been made.




The knots of disuse clogging every joint began to work themselves out.  Not the relief of a much needed stretch after a long stint in one position, but close enough.  The first despised touch of the brush to his grasp was like the discovery of a newfound brick, for he held it beneath his study and contemplated the weapon it might become in his hands.  The handle was solid, and if overturned, and taken to the temple, could daze a man… if not drop him to his knees.  The bucket likewise.  Small, but reinforced.  Either in creative and experienced hands, both were useful tools. 

He held it as such, limbs as heavy as his face, and dared the Hand to meet his eyes.  Wanted him to know what possibilities cloaked his thoughts for he would not begin the work until finding satisfaction with the acknowledgement: in that he could, but chose not, to confront him a second time.  In the end, the Questioner maintained the upper hand, and Arikan knew his fate would leave him in worse shape than he already was.  Pick your battle ground, as the saying went and he needed time to recuperate.  While no man had the luxury to choose his every battle, selecting the time and place for the contest won many an overwhelmed foe a sizable advantage.

It felt blisteringly good to move, and he went through the first bucket of water without acknowledgement for its replacement.  Blood returned to his hands unlike it had when they'd taken their fury out on the table.  He must have appeared quite the fool. Buck-skinned naked, hallow, bruised and swollen and slimed with mud and shit scrubbing the floor on hands and knees like a Blight-damned slave. The dislocated shoulder he babied at the beginning, but even that side eventually transitioned to plucking up splinters of worthless wood some time later.  The monotony of productivity seemed to move him on, and memory of stern rejection dulled as order and cleanliness grew.  His roots, after all thrived on organization, the common vein living throughout every charge, task, and order his hands fulfilled.  The key to Arikan’s abundant success the last two-hundred years. 

Shaken from the focus on the task at hand, both the external chore and the internal drive toward physical work, had the questions ceased with the first, Arikan might have responded an unhesitant ’yes.’  But the subsequent ones drove too far to the point, and chased the admission away beyond silent reaction into analytical consideration.  Instead he answered only with the sounds of harsher bristles scraping across stone and did not look up. The floor became his kingdom.

Of course he'd thought of it.  Considering his ill fortune, analyzing the path that led him here was a massive labyrinth of possibilities.  The most recent flooded first.  His guard had been high at first, but successful evasion of retaliation eventually lowered it.  Perhaps leading to the current situation.  More than one of his officers were captured alive outside Tar Valon. Perhaps they gleaned more insight into his habits than he intended to reveal. Thus could explain the White Tower hounds finding his scent when others failed.  Lairona.  The Black Ajah lamb he'd sacrificed as a mastermind, both in Tel’aran’rhiod and the waking world of their allies, might have given her killers any number of insights into his weaknesses. Not that he revealed any to her, but never was there another soul, beyond the Great Lord, with such insight into his character.  He had bonded her, after all, to control her and know instantly if she should betray him.  One such killer was practically within arm's reach now.  Perhaps Corele pulled more strings than he'd thought possible for a dead woman.  Her presence now was no inconsequential accident.

He slammed the brush into the water, sloshing the surface up and over the rim carelessly.  The less likely options rushed unbidden through his mind.  The Chosen's unconcerned impatience driving a terrible, penetrating stake.  Unworthy even of exporting assassins to end him.  His knowledge was outdated.  Codes and locations beyond their schedules was changed multiple times over.  Anyone whom he might approach to rebuild the empire immediately tracked down and eliminated, solely for their allegiance to him.  A wise chore.  Take an emperor away from his subjects and he is but another man with an inflated title.  Arikan could hardly blame the intelligence in such an act, despite the endless string of frustrations he met in every emptied city. 

Of all the unlikely reasons to be here.  The quietest of doubts was a faint whisper.  Unavowed.  Uncredited. 
"If I were to be ended, He has but wish it," he repeated to himself as much as to the Hand.
 
The pledge was a poor reinforcement for the cracks in his concrete resolve. Soon after, finished with the chore, he sat back and inspected the outcome with the same scrutiny of excellence he demanded of any inferior's work.  No matter how minimal.  Satisfied, or perhaps simply done, he chucked the brush across the stone.  It skidded end over end toward where the Hand watched, until halted by its collision with a bucket.




Inquisitor Jeorune let silence reign for a time, letting the boy stew over the doubts his previous question had caused. He still hadn't decided if it were all an act on the part of the boy, or if he were indeed slipping. If it were an act, then this would take far longer than he hoped. And if the lad were slipping, was loosing some traces of confidence, then he had held out longer than could be expected. Considering how long the boy had been on the run, how far he had fallen, it was indeed quite the gradual decline.

As the boy finally collapsed back against the wall to survey the task, Inquisitor Jeorune moved the last of the buckets and the discarded brush back to the hallway and returning with the boy's breakfast. Similar to the boy's supper, it was simple and uninspiring. But it was food, and it would be filling. And more importantly, it was with a smaller dose than the last time. The tray was handed to the boy under the same terms as the previous time. The only addition was a single apple, the 'reward' for the morning's chores being done so well.

"I am curious, boy. Curious why you swore such fell oaths, why you sold yourself to the Dark One.” It would be the first step towards learning the secrets Lythia Sedai wished to know. By opening such a dialogue early in their time together, it would help blend and lead into the more direct questions that would come later, would make him more open to the topic as time went on. If approached too soon, the boy would either cast lies or simply clam up and rebuild his walls. Better to draw him out more slowly.

The boy was intelligent, and educated it seemed. That might have been more a result of the length of his life however, rather than the actual origins. The boy was a Channeler, and they were rather long lived. Plenty of time to find new skills and change one's beliefs. Had the boy been high born as his accent hinted? Tearan, it seemed, judging from the tone and inflections. There were few physical cues to place the boy, but again, the length of the boy's life might had washed those away. A perfectionist, judging from the quality of the cleaning. Or simply used to such menial tasks...which seemed unlikely. Again, a Channeler. The male ones seemed to use the One Power for every task possible.





A tray this time.  The same slop and bread as before, but Arikan immediately tipped the bowl to his lips, continued absence of flatware only vaguely perceived.  Warmth perfused every limb from the inside out, relieved a stomach of empty pain and soothed the innate worry of starvation for yet another agonizing day.  The drained bowl soon fell limply from his fingers, replaced by the apple afterward for agnostic study. As if he was trying to decide if it was real or a decoy.

The injection of food suddenly reminded his body of man's physical limitations as adrenaline leaked from every pore like blood, but the fruit-laden hand sank to his side half-eaten.  The back of his hair hit the weeping wall and he rested.  The light was no bother now, the taskmaster no distraction; to sleep; quickly becoming a necessity.  For a life leaping in and out of tel'aran'rhiod, nights his mind worked while his body lay vulnerable was an accustomed chore.  It should be easy to drift those gentle waters, but the Hand's dear questions churned them, and the waters turned to a shore lined with resentment.  His eyes opened, finding the grip on the unfinished apple tightening. The juice dripped between his fingers.

"Why?  You considering joining the club?” Amusement tugged one corner of his mouth moments before the apple obliterated the rest of a vacant smile.  The flavor was overwhelming, like biting into the morning dew. The core was perched between tainted fingers, but bites later he abandoned it in the bowl half consumed.  The fill of food after so long without conceived new pangs nearly as powerful as what the sustenance sought to relieve. He put a hand across his abdomen, holding back the bile threatening to bubble up. 

By then, however, the embers of apathy were stoked, and Arikan's guard was nearing the end of its shift.  A convoluted question, buried by the reign of centuries.  Why, indeed?  Disdain dripped away, and flat weariness replied, automatic.
"It made sense,” was his only response.

The crawl back to the pallet was an exhausting navigation through a newly descended fog.  Welts from their encounters loomed larger than they ought; the shoulder anchored on fraying ropes, the ankle throbbing indiscriminate.  He thought of the puncture in the Hand's arm, and gazed weakly in its direction.  Unknowing now how he'd managed the strength to forge a weapon at all, nor attack a fully armored Child, then manage to gain the brief ground he had.  Even with an opponent being only an Inquisitor. 

Eyes burning equally open and as they did closed, he stared thoughtlessly at the shadow-peppered ceiling.  Childhood was a burden. So long ago he barely remembered, but what he did know was for a mind constantly cloaked by wrongdoing, the unease was relieved the day a dark thread of purpose needled its way in.  The day he swore soul-crushing vows had been glorious. 
"I needed to,” he added. Explanation escaped unbidden, but no grimace followed: clemency was too luxurious a taxation at the moment.  The food swirled, and his skin twitched with hair-raising tension once more: driving the whip of insomnia for a second time.




The boy's initial quip was expected of course. A sign that boy still had his wits about him, however blunted by exhaustion and the concoction in his food he might be. The lethargic movement from leaning against to the wall to sprawling on the simple sleeping wasn't terribly worrying either. The boy was exhausted from lack of rest, extent of injuries, and more labour than he had likely done since being left to rot in this cell. Coupled with a fully belly, the lack of energy was to be expected. The reasons given, as short and detail lacking as they were, however, was somewhat surprising. Not that it showed on Inquisitor Jeorune's face.

Byron had dealt with a few Darkfriends in his time; he had asked most their reasons for swearing to the Dark One, and found them each and all to be fools for it. Power, wealth, excitement, even a bet once amongst village friends. Each and every one had been selfish or a fool, and had paid for it dearly. None had said things such things as that they had needed to do it. The boy whom had done so on a bet had been the closest; but in his case, it was more that he had been forced to the tasks after having sworn, not that he had needed to swear to begin with. He had had honest regrets, but his foolishness was condemning. The Creator forgives, but Byron had had a task to fulfill and the what information that idiot young man had was too important to relent.

Inquisitor Jeorune crossed to the abandoned tray, collecting it and moving it to the hallway. The lamp was checked briefly, to assure oil and wick would last, and returned to watching the boy, standing as not to be silhouetted by the light, to let the glow continue to reach the boy. "A need for power? A desire for glory? Did you wish to impress a girl with ill-begotten titles and lands that would so surely be yours for such dark oaths? I am hoping a more interesting truth from you boy.”





He tried to recall the first desire to impress a pretty face, but nothing came to mind. Surely it would have been near to the age of dark vows. The void was unsurprising, really, stoking such fires of dying memories across one's life was generally associated with holding such moments in high regards. No faces were worthy of the effort. The weeks surrounding the greatest moment of his life were painfully clear, however. A moment of resignation to never fade; the details etched in time with diamond-edge precision.

The cloaked silhouette stepped from the meager flame and Arikan threw a limp arm across his eyes. Taking some weight off the obscured heel became a priority next, although there was nothing against which to elevate the injury. Substandard splint aside, though babied as much as could be expected, the tingling toes below the sprain were fading expectantly into numbness. A pressure that would not relent until the swelling receded, unfortunately. Which might be days under proper care however many of those remained. He imagined sitting through an Inquisitor's legwork would be an exercise in endurance; an annoyance to abide at best for the most awkward of Questioners, a marathon to stomach for the more talented. He assumed this one was going to be the former. He had yet to even begin his interrogation.

Goading, yes, was the Hand's choice of replies, though unlikely in the way a Child of the Light intended. The comment rankled little, and Arikan exhaled in agreement. A fault line weakening the hardest of foundations were such contrite servants. When towers were constructed upon the backs of spineless servants, dynasties must remain vigilant. Rare was the find in another sworn servant willing to work selflessly as Arikan did for the Great Lord of the Dark. Pleasant was the promise of trusting an agreement to be carried out for the sake of greater goal without fear of alternative goals stumbling its well-planned execution.

Such allies were coveted, and it was such men Arikan fostered upon his steady rise to leadership; a grief on his part to find their holes in every city in which they remained, wise though the retribution was but none of them were as dedicated a servant as himself. Keep a coalition close; where power contained within a select, trusted few maintained reason to see you remain at the top. Maintaining authority was a philosophical horse to ride, not a cracked whip to keep the hoards away. Virtues the Chosen were lacking; excluding Nae’blis, perhaps. Such failings were likely why half of the Great Lord's ancients were corpses.

His tongue rolled lazily, arm across his eyes like a shield to the light. “Yeh not knowing yeh share of darksworn I’see.” The deterioration in his accent emerged, but perhaps his own ears were sensitive to a fault. It mattered little. The Hand was clearly not Tear-born. And Arikan was starting to care less bout keeping up the energy for haughty words.

Behind closed lids, consciousnesses receded for the moments following, but the steps toward the quieter parts of the mind fell as jagged crumbles. A disturbing warmth flushed otherwise clammy skin and his heart beat surer in his chest. Recognition arose.

Maddeningly alert, he shoved the hair from his forehead and glared, nearly ready to request they depart this infernal accelerando and get on with things. The bloody waiting was just as bad as the torture to come. “You are going to remain disappointed.”



Byron watched the boy closely. The boy was trying to favour his injuries; the work of cleaning the room had surely helped limber tired and tense muscles, a much needed bout of exercise to promote some small degree of health, but the stiffness of swelling and the pain of the injuries would always return. Perhaps in a day or two he would be so kind as to better splint the ankle, but for the moment he would let the boy stew in the reminders of his fallacies.

The slip in accent was certainly interesting; he had some doubts that the boy had originated from the lofty heights of nobility, and the Tearan gutter-trash he wavered towards sounded far more fitting. Of course, Byron had little belief that he was the only one about with a mind for accents, so while an interesting detail it was not used to build a complete picture just yet. Just another piece of the puzzle.

"So it was for petty gain then? I think, perhaps, I could have pictured you with a more lofty goal behind so poor a choice. Good intentions have led many a man astray when not paired with wisdom. Education, I have found, has little to do with it." The boy's reaction to the light was surely a side effect of the drugs, but being locked away in a dark cell for so long probably didn't help either. It was too bad the boy was such a risk; the whole dream walking thing made it too dangerous to 'reward' the boy with a brief walk out in fresh air and under the sky. No, the boy would remain trapped within this cell until Inquisitor Jeorune was through with him.






Sleep escaped a second day, and blind awake as a result, Arikan tensed, his every muscle twinged, poised to strike.  At nothing.  Something; anything.  Hairs spiked the back of his neck.  That same bloody crawling sensation across his skin. The food was spiked with something. That was obvious, though he wasn’t sure what it was. The infusion of energy was the reaction of an overwrought body. Fingers ceased rolling upon one another and drummed the floor instead, tapping fleshy thuds, unnaturally energetic.  His mind raced with clarity too fast to process any of it: drinking from a waterfall of sensations until it seemed the Hand was rattling his words where before was gently spoken. 

The hum of the hollow earth closed them in when the fetid air clogged a shriveled throat, but a pacific rustle of a cloak snapped him back, finding not but benign scrapes of plate across leather unsuited for the apprehension; and then, nothing.  A stretch of silence more horrifying than the demonic symphony before the emptiness descended.  A flood of sheer nothingness settled around them as though the world indeed fell from the rotting Pattern leaving behind this one hole which was soon to disintegrate as well; Arikan and the Questioner along with it.  He became lost to the overload of it all and pushed his palms into his eyes.  Hoping to ease the strain, any of it.

He barely recognized the Hand's speech for the question it was.  Spoken vibrations tapped against lax eardrums, the mind behind them dulled to lesser capacity than before.  He cringed at the deficits within, both able to recognize what prisoned him from controlling his own physical functions, heart racing, nerves tense, and sleep elusive, but yet remained unable to react as he should.  There was no escaping what coursed in your own veins, infused so soon after a meal, except to open them up and let what was within pour away. 

But such was never an option: suicide.  A haunting, phantasmic illusion to chase: an end he could not bring upon himself no matter how extreme the soul begged for its freedom.  There was only the will to serve, and death was a poor conduit to service. Even if he had a knife at the wrist, he was certain he’d never be able to draw it open. The Great Lord’s connection wouldn’t abide it.

Sheer effort wrung words from the compromised mind.  A tone depleted of its will to demonstrate the lofts of high born logic for the Hand's unjustified benefit and be as plain as possible.  What fraying threads were left to his command was born from the need to grasp the only variable left to control: resisting the Hand's fist-clenching provocation until the bitter end.  If it would only approach, he might be grateful.   

"Yeh pray to yer Creator, Hand?  D'you worship him?  How d'you know the one yeh call Creator is Light?  Because someone told yeh this is so?  What fatherly love has he bestowed upon you, hm?" 

"Who is you to say the quality of my intentions?  Astray from what do you so describe?  The Light?" Such inexplicable unintelligence. 

"Light and darkness, what either is these things but puppets we choose to animate?  To bow to the Light is to bow to its champion.  A terror, yes?  For one is not without the other, yes?  Do you bend knee to the Dragon?”  Of course not.

"The Great Lord I serve is majesty and power: a redemption to whom all mortals fall short, including your hero.  All men wallow blindly except those of us saved from the illusion of your Light.  I told you, to serve is my need, because a sort of sense, a peace, is what to serve is." An unfathomable delight; transient those fulfillment-wrought moments of peace remain, only to dissolve into the next ambitious cycle. 

"I am on the right side of the war.  For my intention is to see humanity's empty soul come to know my harmony.  Why should you dream to halt such a noble cause as this?”  A distant part of his conscience, a reflection of a reflection, sincerely wanted to know.





Inquisitor Jeorune frowned down at the boy and watched the boy seem to struggle with himself. Likely an effect of the drugs. The boy's tone and speech were of the Tearan gutters; he was beginning to accept the likelihood that the boy had started his days living on the streets. Thus, the desire to change one's fate and climb the social ladder was the plausible reason behind the boy swearing those foul oaths. To right the injustices put upon him as a boy, to cast down those that thought they were better then him, to have power and control, etc. Understandable reasons, but poorly executed.

"I do not pray to the Creator. Nor do I worship Him. He does not ask that of us.” He crossed the room slowly, moving in a calm stride much like an instructor before a class. "Nor do I worship the Dragon.” There was a hint of bitter resignation in the statement of that title. Inquisitor Jeorune, as well as most of the Children, had had to accept that the Dragon had been reborn. The Last Battle was drawing close, and there was simply no room to deny that fact.

"I choose to follow the Light, because while humans are petty and violent, and capable of terrible acts...as a whole, they are good and simple creatures. Capable of terrible things, but also capable of wonders. The armies of the Light are made of simple men seeking to protect families and loved ones. And the armies of the Shadow? Beasts and monsters, that feast on the flesh of man. You surely know of the Trolloc Wars. Of the atrocities committed by the forces of your...being of majesty and power, as you put it.” He moved towards the door, and lifted the lantern from where it hung.

"You may think your goals noble. But what of your fellows? What of your foul god's armies of Trollocs and monsters? The Forsaken, who seek to release those creatures in the cities and farmlands? The armies of the Light fight and die to protect their livelihoods. The armies of the Shadow fight for power and to feast.” He took a step into the hallway and glanced back at the boy, holding the lantern higher so the light could reach him in his bed of dirty straw. "If you behave yourself, you will be allowed to bathe tomorrow.”

Then he shut the door and walked away to give the boy some hours of rest. He would return repeatedly throughout the day and night, occasionally to feed the boy, each meal tainted with the drug. The questions of philosophy and belief would continue, each time seeking to poke holes into the boy's beliefs, to cast light onto the unpleasant realities the boy seemed unwilling to think on. He sought to undermine the boy's core self, and meanwhile make sure he was in good health of body before more physical attentions could be paid on the boy's body.

The trail of lamplight faded. The afterglow harsher in its absence now he'd grown used to its presence.  Weary lids darkened his view of the world, and he rested his face against his knees yet again.  Echoes of questions resounding.  Good and simple men?  A black and white fable smeared with gray. Nothing was so cut and dry. The trolloc wars comment made him smirk a laugh. Arikan commanded fifty thousand trollocs once. He lived the Trolloc Wars.

"The armies of the Light protects family and loved ones?” he balked.  "Tell me of your family and the ones you love, Inquisitor.”  He paused after the title leaked out, "If anyone loves you in return, perhaps I might believe this." 


He stood before a shallow pool of water in a court of algae-climbing stone.  The reflection of a man armored in overlapping plates, dressed in a ceremonial red cloak clasped to shoulder-rings, and belted with newly christened weapons stared back.  Somewhere beneath the surface of that reflection siphoned the only pure thing in this cursed land: the only source of water fit to drink.  This world of nothingness surrounding the stone oasis was fertile as freshly turned soil, but the crop was no grain for men to consume.  From such poisoned cracks sprang bulges of putrid flesh swarming with oily blood.  Fissures of souls in the shape of men, half alive, churned their beds as gardeners to their plots, breeding an army to send the most majestic of men weeping to their knees.  Or, the most majestic of women to their knees: begging for mercies he would not show them.  The women of Tar Valon would weep a thousand tears beneath the sweep of chaos to come.

A gauntleted fist closed secure around the hilt of a virgin sword.  The blade was once touched by those same soulless bodies working thakan'dar.  He would need to be careful cleaning it once war broke.  For soon the day would come it would taste its first blood, and its master intended to avoid falling to his own mortality from a mere scratch.



To sleep.  He lay without; remembering sporadically, reliving choice moments piercing his mental prison.  The Hand returned hour after hour, or perhaps day after day, although he'd left the promise of a bath 'tomorrow' ringing temptation in his ears.  He bore food and drink, and slowly something not quite strength nor quite relief perfused muscle again and washed the throb of wounds aside, but he had not the mind to follow nor care why.

Their discussions continued.  A surprising amount of philosophy came from the whitecloak: a begrudging title bestowed upon even an Inquisitor of the Light.  The background was there, he decided finally, having watched him enough.  The Hand was too steady-fingered, too fond of his gloves, too balanced in his stance to have jumped straight to the trade of a torturer without intervening training.  He must have been a soldier first. Inquisitor second.



"Lo and the Great Lord shall stretch forth His hand and claim what is His. And then shall the Lord of Evening come,” an enthralled voice read aloud.  His voice, but although hesitant, he could not stop just yet.  "And He shall take our eyes, for our souls shall bow before Him, and He shall take our skin, for our flesh shall serve Him, and He shall take our lips, for only Him will we praise.." 

He retreated from the tome, considered the fleshy shade of its leathery bindings. All too human was the grain. It whispered screams when he touched it first. Now, it was silent as the grave. Arikan looked away, briefly bowing before the gaze of the one that brought him here. 
"Great One, I am unworthy to read such words.”  His jaw clenched, and the dark armament that was their chosen leader regarded him. 

The Great One spoke in turn, then quoted the remaining words of prophecy from memory, intending his newly selected proxy to hear it all. His voice scratched the ears, and Arikan could not look upon him even then. He listened intently. Heart chasing after itself.
”We gather now for war. The end will soon begin, Arikan.  You know His promise. If you succeed, He will name you one of his Chosen to Rule the World. If you succeed… Let the lord of chaos rule." 

The dreadlord bowed with unquestioning obedience, "let the lord of chaos rule,” he repeated, and left moments afterward.



At some point, he shared some passages of that same prophecy with the Hand, unsure why even as he did.  Perhaps thinking to convince him the foolishness of men's blind allegiance to the Light, but he fell silent for long moments upon the Hand's cold comment in turn.  In its entirety, the prophecy mentioned new Dreadlords heralding the return of the Lord of the Grave, and never the Old nor whether their lips shall sing the same praises. He thought on it for a while, but the concept was too far beyond the shallow waters of his present mind to comprehend a conclusion.

This time, the Hand peered down a truer line of sight than he'd thought possible by calling the Great Ladies and Lords of old shortsighted as they conquered the foreign lands of this Age, intending through their conquest to strip the world of the life they intended to rule.  His response was a convoluted accent laboring over the burden of every syllable. Yet the basics of civilized speech remained in tact, unlike some lisp-laden, Illianer imbecile who could not form a mere sentence.  A drawn breath, and he righted himself.  "A ruler without an army rules nothing”. An acknowledgement, yes. Arikan was aware that ruling a dead world was antithetical to the purpose of ruling.

He smoothed his hair straight back from his face, disgusting curls falling away. He was never going to be clean again. Even when he escaped, broke the Hand’s neck with his bare hands, and tasted fresh air again, he knew he’d always feel this grime. He thought of the sea then. A distant line on the horizon from the city of Tear. Atop the Great Stone he once walked balustrades when the hours of staring at Callandor grew too frustrating to continue. He could barely remember it now. How long ago had that been? Eighty? A hundred years?

The food he swallowed was as bland as before, uncaring by then to hate the sustenance to which he'd become dependent.  The Hand he tolerated, comments returned in like kind, defending the justice of his glorious lord when the occasion called for it.  Throughout the sightlessness of insomnia by which he acted, moments of emotion frequently crossed his face.  Some blank or unaware until the moment ended with pinching the bridge of his nose in vague, headache-fouled annoyance.  Other times he seemed to stare a distant gaze toward the wall, expression washed anew with the clearest of all summoned memories, heart racing, lips parted so slightly were beset with far-off wonder. 

Finally, following yet another however many days it was deprived of sleep, straw rustled across stone and he looked up from where he lay, the Hand's figure floating the silence that'd come to settle between them this time, and those distant, wondrous moments were explained by a quiet admission. 

He was too indifferent to reach for the cleverer, insulting motivations of their previous chats than a man simply revealing shards of honest rationalization. Maybe he was simply feeling nostalgic. By then the haze was heavy, and the rot of weariness began to set its hold when at long last Arikan shared a purer sort of regret that the Hand, and all he represented, could exist without ever having known true and desperately needed attention, "We may speak with Him, did yeh know this?  In the Pit of Shayol Ghul, if a man's courage holds through to reach the cavern below.  He can be heard..,” of any detail though, Arikan would not describe no matter how firmly it was pressed.





Each visit seemed to grant another tiny piece to the very large puzzle the boy represented. Each such piece and glimmer of insight was noted and catalogued for ongoing reference, to allow it to be checked to previous admissions or comments when the opportunity presented itself. Naturally, Inquisitor Jeorune would never share those notes with a witch's servant, especially when knowing that 'servant' was a witch herself. But, seeing as Inquisitor Jeorune was rotting in a shallow grave, or a somewhat deeper one had his remains been found by his fellow whitecloaks, Byron was a bit more open with those notes, allowing Corele to look them over and to compare notes, so to speak.

Most interesting were the comments of the boy's experiences at that Light-forsaken mountain, or bits and pieces of the Darkfriend's prophecies. These were noted with extra care for every word used. Byron was no philosopher, and so refrained from allowing any of his own opinions to be noted down; that was the work of more learned mines then his. Again, it was a promising sign that the boy's resolve was weakening, and that he would soon be open to more direct questioning. Time was of the essence, and the concoction that was preventing the boy from sleeping had already proven itself worth the trouble of collecting it.

But it would not last forever, and Byron took what chances for rest he could, in preparation of the long nights that would come when he ran out of the herbs and had to rely on more traditional, hands-on means of keeping the boy awake. Hopefully, Lythia Sedai returned before then.

A bushel of fresh straw waited in the hallway; another 'reward' for good behaviour, although equally so it was a matter of the boy's health. With it might even come a blanket; one of coarse and itchy wool, and just a bit too short and narrow for a full grown man, but it was still something more then the boy had been afforded under Inquisitor Jeorune's care.

"I wonder, boy...how do you know it is truly the Father of Lies, and not one of the Forsaken? And how many of your kind are tricked to further the goals of one of the Forsaken or another, thinking they serve the Dark One? How could they know the difference?” He had little doubt that there would be a grand and manifest difference between the Forsaken and the Dark One, but how could one simple darkfriend know that difference? Surely the Forsaken, with their ancient knowledge of the One Power, could manage terribly convincing tricks to lead one astray, after all.






Time must have passed.  Meals arrived.  Though, he reflected, he was unsure how many despite the earlier resolution to keep track.  Everything blurred together.

There were moments of continued conversation, the revival of each he somehow participated in but could not quite remember what was said before or after. 

The throb to the ankle dulled, eventually allowing a careful walk along the wall.  They were infrequent, those acts of moving about, thus carried out only when ordered: to retrieve the fresh straw or fetch the blanket; the former strewn neatly around, the latter kept near.  He didn’t even remember when the Inquisitor gave him the blanket. Had it always been there?

Every time the door opened, light illuminated the lump of a man sitting in the same place against the wall.  Eventually the ill-fitting blanket turned into cloak that draped across his shoulders.  Every return of the light took longer to beckon him aware, until this most recent interruption cut off whatever seance occupied a sleepless mind.  He had to be directly addressed before looking up.

Footfalls beat acknowledged as the warning of far sounding drums.  A bowl shoved into his hands, the warmth of it spread to his lap.  He ate as the instinct of a mortal man would eat, automatic and careful, but incognizant of actual hunger.  Continuing only until he was told to stop. 

The blanket was no longer gathered to a cold chest.  It became something ornamental.  The face of it studied like an abstract thing.  The edge of it pinched like the threads were fibers of the imagination.  What was being asked slowly filtered the catatonia.  Something stirred in his gut, and his hands thrust forth suddenly, swinging from their perch on his knees and shoved back a dark swath of hair.  Strident laughter thundered forth, inappropriately sincere for the humorless situation. He could feel himself losing his grip. What was worse was he didn’t care.

His neck flopped back, weak beneath the skull screaming silent accolades to the gods overhead.  He laughed until it hurt.  Until thick tears glazed his eyes.  The offering was a whimsical farce: no god turned an ear to pits in the earth, and was all the more obscene for it.  Unfortunately, the Inquisitor was the only witness to such hilarity; a pure, echoed hysteria.  Convulsively musical.  The Child of the Light, more accurately, the only fleshy witness.  The demons circling a cocoon of safety around the brother they sensed would soon join them scattered with excitement, feeding happily upon the shrill nectar on which they suckled. It was so humorous because that was exactly what he did to the lesser friends of the dark. Impersonated something so evil and vile that he let their imaginations run away with them. It was a familiar ruse among the highest of them.

He eventually found the breath to answer, "Perhaps, yes.”  Many were fooled.  It was an easy hallucination to create.  Infinite illusions injecting terrors to the mind.  An easier insanity to prick at the senses when reality of tel'aran'rhiod was malleable to a dreammaster's craft.  Yet still reproduced by a select few in the waking world.

The laughter silenced.  The demons ceased their excited orchestra.  The alter in his mind went cold.  He regarded how the Hand lazed patient in his white shroud then snapped suddenly.  Throwing his head to his knees, hiding.  Panicked with memories of that fear, and there was no escaping it.  "Perhaps, but in-“he rubbed both temples, concentrating "-Shayol Ghul-“ he darkened, departing into focus.  Speech evasive, "-I do not think this is so." To channel in that sacred place was a thing forbidden.  The desire to try crushed beyond the bone and stripped from the soul.  He, the Heart of Darkness himself, read their thoughts.  He sensed the desire; smelled defiance.  Shayol Ghul was His domain, and there, He was lord. 





The boy's mind was seemingly starting to fracture and splinter from the days without sleep and unknown time in captivity, but at least the boy was proving easy to handle so far. He had been expecting the boy to have far more physical mood swings and paranoia, which would have created far more work on his part and slowed things down considerably. Another tiny sliver of information was given over, perhaps the most pertinent to the goal Lythia had set him to.

If she were to swear false oaths to hide in the enemy's camp, it would be all for naught if she were to be put under the Dark One's direct attentions. Surely, much as the Tower had the Oath Rod, the enemy had something similar? And there was always the risk that the Dark One could simply see through such a façade.

Inquisitor Jeorune folded his arms over his chest, staring down at the boy as he huddled and curled away from the light. "Many Darkfriends I have questioned claim to have seen that dread mountain. I doubt they were ever really there. A trick or illusion, a nightmare perhaps.”

He was probing; he had indeed questioned a few Darkfriends in his time; minor ones, whom had indeed sworn they had been to Shayol Ghul, but each had been so certain they had gone to sleep in their beds only to awaken there, then awaken again in their beds. So perhaps then it was some trick of the dreams, of Tel'aran'rhiod. If that were the case, then it would be that much harder for one to hide their allegiances, wouldn't it?

Byron couldn't help but wonder then, just how many of the Forsaken or their dread lords could Dreamwalk. Was it a common ability in the enemy's camp? Could they reach and influence anyone they wished? Most disturbing. But, surely if that were the case, then things would have been going much worse for the forces of the Light. So no...a rare thing, perhaps difficult to employ in such a fashion? Did proximity or personal knowledge of a person make it more powerful? Could they find the dreams of anyone in Creation, or only those they knew or had met? A whole new front to the war between Light and Dark, another front on which he was all but useless. And so, all the more reason to be of as much use as he could in what avenues he could influence.