Edwyn Malekin

Edwyn Malekin
Information
Gender	Male
Occupation	Asha'man of the Brown Ajah
Affiliation	The Grey Tower
Nationality	Andoran

Edwyn Malekin is an Andoran Brown Oathsworn Asha'man of the Grey Tower.

Description

Edwyn Malekin is a tall, thin man with long black hair, and dark, perhaps black eyes on his pale, fairly chiselled visage. Usually, he wears equally dark clothing and is known to have a black cloak and walking stick.

A feature about the man that particularly stands out are his thin-boned scholarly hands; how they seem to have been crafted to mold and sculpt subtle forces.

Indeed, after training extensively with Tel'aran'rhiod and relearning the ancient secrets of his past, Edwyn has become one of the Grey Tower's most potent and skillful Dreamwalkers. His use of the One Power also reflects this -- preferring to still use less direct tactics in attack and defense.

Ultimately, subtlety is perhaps the best way to describe Edwyn. On the other hand, it can also be taken as shyness to many other people. Perhaps it is both. When he wants to be, the Brown's youthful seeming face can be as docile as a child's, but his sharp eyes take in everything that they see. This man can also be very charismatic and strong when he wants to be; his thin body deceptive for weakness.

Edwyn Malekin is many things - but he is not weak.

Biography

The world after the Breaking has always been a harsh one for most people. Yet one can argue that it has been no way more crueler than with the life of Edwyn Malekin.

Many things have happened to this former travelling scholar, not all of them particularly easy nor pleasant. Born in the outskirts of Andor, closer to the Black Hills than its more civilized centre, Edwyn Malekin once lived there with his parents and his younger brother Vaeric.

His family operated the local mercantile, bringing in products from all across the country -- including books. It was a family business, many of generations owned starting from a great-grandfather who left his fellow Tua'athan, spent time in the Andoran Royal Army to feed his family and retired to make the mercantile. Although Edwyn didn't really know much about his much distant heritage at the time, his father, a natural born storyteller, told him stories about the Travelling People and sang his family many songs.

The advantage to having a mercantile, for Edwyn, was the fact that they gained books. In fact, after Edwyn taught himself how to read, he spent most of his time, along side his brother, reading stories about the Age of Legends and other kinds of history. They also learned how to do other things . . . things they took for granted, yet kept secret from the "grown-ups." Being natural born channelers, it was after they heard about a man lynched by Whitecloaks that they really kept their powers a secret. They continued to experiment in private from old texts they found.

Yet the first tragedy in Edwyn's life was not discovering that he could touch saidin, a gift of life and death. It was when his father went off to fight in the Aiel War that Edwyn truly learned pain. His father hugged both his boys and with a strange light in his eyes, he left to fight for his country. He never returned. It was a moment that would never leave Edwyn for the rest of his life.

To make things worse, when the Andorans told them that his father died, Edwyn's mother got sick and her health gardually deteriorated over time. Both Edwyn and Vaeric took care of her as best they could, still trying to maintain the mercantile, but after suffering a debilitating stroke, their mother finally passed on.

Edwyn also saw Vaeric was beginning to show symptoms of the taint. They ended up selling the mercantile and creating a bookstore where Edwyn collected any old texts that he could -- trying to find a tidbit of information from the Age of Legends that might save them both.

However, despite Edwyn's care, Vaeric continued to worsen and Edwyn was becoming desperate -- wanting someway to save his only sibling, the only family he had left.

One night, the Aes Sedai of the Red Ajah came for them when Vaeric's madness was becoming very obvious to the villagers. Realizing that he could not help his brother anymore, Edwyn was approached by a woman who claimed to be former Aes Sedai - a woman who knew about Vaeric's channeling skills and said that she had a cure for the taint.

Edwyn agreed to having this "renegade Aes Sedai" aid them, but his desperation had clouded his judgment. They were both betrayed as someone burned down their bookstore -- giving the Reds the opportunity to capture them in the pandomonium that ensued.

The Red sisters 'gentled' his brother and began to torture him maliciously - eventually killing him. The sisters would have done the same to him if not for the fact that most of the thirteen were concentrating their efforts on Vaeric.

Edwyn managed to use his Power to escape them and he went into hiding for a very long time. It was this time as a fugitive and a condemned man that he learned bitterness and vengeance. He did not hate only the Red Ajah for what they had done to his brother, but the Dark One as well for tainting the power that should have been their natural birthright.

Edwyn Malekin went from town to town and although any chance at an ordinary, sedentary life had been more or less ruined, he studied with whatever scholars he could find, learning what he could. Knowledge was power and he wanted that power to gain revenge on those who betrayed him.

At one point, after trying to help some runaway male and female channelers in Cairhien, using his connections there to give them safe passage, he found himself betrayed again by a cabal of channeling Darkfriends and Myrrdraal led by a mysterious personage named Shaidar'm'hael.

Nonetheless, Edwyn escaped that incident, trapping the other's mind in Tel'aran'rhiod with his burgeoning Dreamwalker skills -- skills he did not know about at the time.

Then, one day, he felt something as he drew on 'saidin.' Pure and unadulterated power . . . the rank layers of the taint were gone!

At that point, he felt a combination of pleasure and pain -pleasure for having his birthright purified, pain for having it come too late for his brother as he watched him go mad. He also heard rumours of a Grey Tower for both men and women who could channel.

Edwyn has spent many years at the Tower, learning slowly and carefully how to feel like belonging somewhere again. He met Aleatha Fondir (then Mercia Teardrop) when they were both Soldier and Novice respectively -- forming a long-lasting bond.

However, tragedy struck yet again as Edwyn went into a cataonic state after researching the Ghost in Stilled Red legend as an Asha'man. Later, he discovered that he was the reincarnation of a male Aes Sedai named Fihn Jaerim Keldain -- a master dreamwalker from the Age of Legends. He also found out that the taint had infected his thread in the Pattern and created Al'Mera'din'Cal'Mordero - 'the Brotherless Red Death.' It had possessed not only his former incarnations, but also himself -- influencing him to still and torture the Red sisters that killed his brother.

Aleatha and others managed to save Edwyn from that ordeal --- to the point of having Aleatha Bond him as her Warder. Yet, after realizing what he had done, he had been prepared to die rather than let the Ghost loose in the world again. Even after the incident, Edwyn had many psychological wounds, unresolved anger and sheer guilt over what he had done. Nonetheless, he did survive and by accepting and attempting to reconcile the fact that he was Fihn Jaerim Keldain from long ago and the Ghost, his Block had been broken -- allowing him to use the One Power more overtly than ever before.

As well as Aleatha, he has another companion to guide him through his existence. Her name is Some'reshta (or 'Resha'), a Nym taken from a seedling in a stasis box that Aleatha found in a hidden cavern in the Black Hills. Her influence with growing things is a positive force on the Brown as he recovers.

Now realizing he is both paradoxically ancient and young, Asha'man and male Aes Sedai, dark and light, Edwyn still struggles with all of life's lessons through study and his role as a Sitter in the Hall. Although opening up more, he is still mysterious and engimatic a figure to deal with as he had been more -- more often in the Tower library than not. Only time will tell if he will ever truly change.

Career History

• Soldier
• Dedicated
• Asha'man of the Brown Ajah
• Sitter of the Brown Ajah