Fanfic:Cora's Great Stair
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The Yellow Ajah
Despite her reluctance to submit herself to what she knew must follow once she reached the top, Cora was eager to succeed in the tests. It was with some shock that she realized she recognised the first location in which she found herself.
It's the hillside from my Arches! she thought...I wonder if the boy will be here again...
And sure enough, just as she had encountered played out before, in her raising-within-a-raising, Cora saw the mother running over to her.
Cora smiled. "I know," she could not resist replying. Oh, this was going to be easy...But it did make her realise how far she had come since her previous raising. Then, she had been worried, not knowing how to begin to Heal the boy. Now, she knelt down beside him and placed a hand on his head. With a few words of reassurance to his mother, she Delved him. A broken leg, and some other general bruising and scratches. Nothing she had not encountered in the Healing class.
Cora wove a mat of Air intertwined with Water and Spirit, as she had been shown, and wrapped it around the boy's leg. The simple circular Healing weave she had been shown in an earlier lesson sufficed to take care of the other minor injuries.
That was it, then..done...Cora was suddenly tempted to inflict a little pain on the boy, just for fun..But told herself firmly what a bad idea that would be here. She did not even know how this thing worked...It might take it as a failure to Heal...No, better to do as expected of her here.
She smiled up at the mother and reassured her again, as the world around her faded back to the staircase.
The Green Ajah
Oh, she remembered this one too...Cora blushed at how badly she had performed, considering what she knew now.
Again, the Lord approached her. And as before, the lone Trolloc which had managed to overwhelm the defences and sneak into the cellars to lie in wait for the Lord, loomed up behind him.
This time, Cora span to face it, anticipating the attack she knew it was about to make, reaching out her hands to hold onto it as it raised its club.
"Sorry...It's me or you... and this matters to me." She told the bemused half-beast, this one dog-featured, before dealing with it as she would her toy. A wide grin spread across the Trollocs canine mouth, gums pulled back to reveal sharp protruding teeth...A grin which became a howl, as the web of Spirit and strands of Fire found their targets and increased in intensity. Oh, the brain of this thing was far less sophisticated than that of a human, to be sure...But the centers she was familiar with were still in similar locations. Writhing in agony yet still looking bizarrely happy, the Trolloc dropped to the floor , gave a last barking cry, and died.
I bet no-one tried that before in here, she thought with a satisfied smile, before running off up the cellar stair, followed y many another stair, to survey the rest of the battle from the crenellations atop the tallest tower.
Gaining that prominence, =Cora was stunned despite herself at the vision before her. As far as the eye could see, were arrayed hordes of Trollocs, all being driven in semi-disciplined ranks towards the Tower by the tall eyeless figures striding along in the rear. Figures so familiar to her, even at this distance, from the one who had visited her last night.
How could she fight this? How could she make herself want to ? It was beautiful, that sea of churning flesh slowly advancing on the terrified occupants of this Keep...Though she had never imagined there could be so many, and so organised! Surely it was not really like that, surely this was just a trick, a game...Well if so, then it would not matter than she destroyed them. Otherwise...Cora blinked. She still was only half-convinced of the reality of the Great Lord and His forces, so why should she feel such a loyalty, such a reluctance to destroy this army when it would clearly serve her own purposes to do so? That made no sense at all!
Still, she told herself, none of this was real, even though it seemed very real right now. She just had to remember it was only a test...
Smiling again, Cora stepped to the edge of the battlements, looking out over the stone crenellations. What could she do? Why, of course, she should use her strongest Power, Air. But which weave? She had learned several in the Intermediate Battleweaves class which might suffice. She was tempted to unleash a hurricane. but the memories of how drained it had left her to control it, how close she had come to burning herself out in the attempt, ruled out that option. She had to do something which would not strain her too much, in case further tests required a greater effort later.
Ah..Cora recalled the first lesson, how the bloodlust had hit her for the first time, and she had longed to see her classmates lying torn and bleeding under the weave of tiny sharp strands of Air. She was not sure how well that would work on leather and Trolloc hide, but it would be so satisfying if it did, finally to see the results of that weave...
Cora began her preparations, pulling out she many tiny strands of razor-sharp Air she needed, swirling them around. The vortex she was forming was like a smaller version of the Hurricane in itself, but with the addition of those lethally thin strands of sharpened Air.
A little larger...More Air...The vortex span in the sky before her, faster and faster now, as she continued to feed it with Air.
She would not attempt the full scale Hurricane, but this little twisting spiral of flying shards of pain would do well enough, she hoped.
Now!
The forces below mounted an abrupt surge forwards, and Cora allowed her Air weave to descend.
Instantly, the air was filled with shouts and screams...and not a few bellows, grunts and screeches. The trollocs seemed driven into a frenzy by the whirling storm of glass thin slivers of Air, spinning and slapping at themselves, and each other. The weave might not cause directly, such decimation as it would have to a human horde, but it certainly served to disrupt the organization of the troops.
From behind those now haphazard lines, Cora could make out still, the figures of the Myrdraal, battling to restore order by sheer force of will. Actually, seen from a distance, they are quite magnificent creatures, Cora thought Not like the one in my bedchamber at all...
Regardless of her opinion of them however, they did pose a distinct problem to her now. In this scenario, they were the enemy. Well , could different factions not have such creature at their command? Of course...Oh, yes, now that was what she called a plan!
Really, though seeing and hearing the attack upon the trolloc hordes had been quite satisfying, Cora's style lent itself more to subterfuge and misdirection than to outright frontal assault.
Thus she mused now on what form to take. She did not dare impersonate anyone directly, for fear that in the storyline of this place, she might inadvertently pick the very one who had sent the forces below. No, it would have to be more general, which was riskier, but at the same time simpler to produce for visibility at this scale.
First, a large cloud appeared over the battlefield. From within the cloud, swirling fire and flashes of lightening. All Cora needed, she hoped, was to make this Illusion look sufficiently impressive...
A voice boomed out, her magnification weave altered to lower the pitch of her voice, make it more masculine. The Myrdraal, she guessed, would be more likely to listen to that.
"Fools! Imbeciles! Baha!" Cora was not sure if that was plural as well as singular, but she hoped it would work.
"What do you think you are doing here? Six years it has taken me to infiltrate this place, six long years to make it safely mine, and you appear at my gates in anger? Who sent you, and who directs this rabble? I will know the names, and they will pay! I swear in the Great Lord's name I will have vengeance for this day..."
Cora was running out of impressive and genuine-sounding talk, but there was no need to worry. The Myrdraal, very quickly deciding where their best interests lay, were beating a hasty retreat. They had been sent here to capture a fortress of the Light- being tricked into playing the disposable pieces in a battle between the Chosen, with no clear idea of who was fighting whom, was not in their job description for today.
Without their commanding officers, the trollocs were in instant disarray. Those who were smart left the field quickly. Those of a lesser intellect, milled around uncertainly, until Cora's Air vortex decided the matter for them, either harrying them from the field, or passing directly over them. Even trolloc hide could not withstand for long, the flaying effect of those tiny strands of Air, and Cora at last was satisfied to see how well the weave actually worked, as trolloc skin peeled back, and trolloc flesh shredded, until the trolloc in question eventually died in a bloody, screaming mess of bone and tissue.
The battle won, Cora found herself back on the step before she could even turn around to see if the Lord had followed her to the battlements, and tell him of the victory she had procured for him.
The Blue Ajah
Weaklings, Cora thought. Despite that she was aspiring to the Blue, she could never see herself voluntarily wanting to free such children, unless they could convince her they were worth it. It was up to them to fight for themselves, show her they meant more to themselves than this...Then she would help them. Or unless of course, the Innkeeper chose to attempt to add Cora to the collection, or similarly upset her, giving her a personal motive for revenge.
Still, it appeared that here, that free these serving wenches was what she must do. She recalled the Keeper telling her long ago, that she must explain her attitude to the weak before Revelin could understand why she wanted to be a Blue, and pass her on that question in her class...Which had originally had nothing to do with being Blue, but a lot to do with weakness and strength.
To Cora, it was simple, the strong deserved to rule. Those unfit to rule, logically were there to serve. Here, though, she must pretend to accept the views of the Light, which apparently advocated succoring every needy person regardless of merit, until one's own resources were exhausted on the undeserving, and one crawled in the gutter oneself.
The Innkeeper was at her table, watching over the girl who was bringing her food, and a tempting thought came to Cora. A rather amusing thought, which would certainly enliven this task. Though of course...Cora bit her lip. She remembered those voices from without the Stair when she had been here in a way before, trapped in the raising-within-a-raising. Or was it that the voices were outside the raising she had actually be taking part in? She was not sure. Either way, how was she to know that what passed here, would not be observed? And yet it was so simple, the way she envisioned... No!
Cora felt torn, between what came naturally to her, and how the Tower thought she should behave. Ugh, at least once all this is over, I can be free of it all again soon...I just need to go to...She pulled her thoughts back, as if even they could be overheard.
So, without taking the simple route which would have left this Innkeeper crawling at the feet of his erstwhile serving girls and promising to cherish them forever, if that was what it took to please Cora...Without that, then what was she to do? Cora was temporarily at a loss.
The answer came to her as the man straightened up again after filling her glass of water himself. Putting on her best Aes Sedai manner, she informed the man,
"One of your neighbours has apparently reported strange occurrences in your Inn. I am here to investigate, and to test your girls. I suspect one of them may be able to channel."
By the way the man spluttered, Cora surmised he was not best pleased with the idea.
"Should this be the case, you will be recompensed for the loss of their labour, of course." She continued, at the same time just happening to pull out a bulging purse from her belt. He would be recompensed indeed, there was no lie there, but not at all in the way he would imagine.
"Oh...And how much do I owe you for the meal?" She added as if this were an unrelated afterthought, spilling a pile of gold across the table top. The man would see she had the finances to keep what he imagined was her word...
The purse was of course more Illusion...Cora had arrived here with nothing, after all.
The man nodded, reluctant to risk losing one of his girls, and to be involved in any way with the Aes Sedai, but at the same time his eyes did not leave that Illusory purse.
Having eaten, Cora made it clear she required somewhere private to test the girls. She was ushered into a small back room, dirty and cramped, which apparently was where the girls spent their days when not serving the customers. Nights, they told her, they slept above the barn, in the loft, the Inn rooms being reserved for paying customers.
To Cora's surprise, two of the girls, including the one she had first seen, did actually have the ability to learn, but of course there was not really one there who could already channel. The Innkeeper did not need to know this, however.
Asking one of the girls for a small empty sack, Cora reworked the Illusion of the money pouch, giving it some basic substance. She did the same with a stack of small stones, weaving around them the image of the gold coins she had created earlier, and tying off the weaves. This way, although she had not tried it before, she hoped that the Illusion might last a little while once she was gone...
She told the girls quietly that she would be back soon, and left the small, cramped room once more.
"Amazing..." she proclaimed, shaking her had as she walked back to see the Innkeeper again..."Truly amazing...I have never seen anything like this! Do you realise, that of all the girls you have here, every one of them I can take straight to the Tower with me now? There is not one among them who cannot channel!" No, there are many, you foolish man!
She laid the fat, fake purse out across the counter beside which the man stood. His face was red, and he looked like he wished to object, but Cora's cool look stopped him in his tracks.
"I will recompense you for them all...And I will require horses for all of us also. I hardly expected to return to the Tower with such a group. Do you have horses for so many?"
She tossed the coin across the counter, smiling at the man as if she expected him to be eager to assist her.
Horses procured, and provisions for each for several days ride, Cora left the Inn rather hastily, with the girls in tow. Once away from the place, she told them that she would send them on ahead, as she still had work to complete, and gave them instructions on reaching the Tower. The ones who could not channel, she assured would still be able to find a place among the Tower servants if necessary, and told them that it would be a far less harsh servitude than they had been accustomed to up until now. She wrote out a note for the girls to carry back to the Tower with them, and waved them off on their way.
Doubling back, and hoping she could complete her plan before the Stair decided she had done enough, Cora found the Inn once more, and just for goon measure to complete the ruin of the Innkeeper, set a thin thread of Fire to the hay in the now-empty barn...(Horses and girls both having been safely removed from the place). Recompense indeed...and he will not find other girls to treat so, for he will struggle to keep the Inn at all, now
As the blaze began, and the Innkeeper, who had just discovered the subterfuge with the payment, came huffing and panting out of the Inn to apprehend the culprit, Cora felt the word fading around her, and found herself back on the Stair. She looked around, enjoying the contrast and the darkness, and feeling rather pleased with her solution to the previous scenario.
The Indigo Ajah
From one Inn to another! Cora thought, And unless I miss my guess, what is here, is close enough to what I pretended was happening at the other place! How bizarre! Still, she figured it would make for an easy task, if all she had to do was take the boy out of there...
Silently she followed the boy back to his home, which lay across the paved square from the Inn. The paved square, by the looks of it, was in fact the only paved area in the village...And the house to which Cora was lead, looked as if it had been built some time ago, when the place had had ambitions of growth, paved its market square and rebuilt its major houses... Before sinking back into obscurity again. The house, in short, was a large town house, neighbored by similar buildings around the square, all surreally planted into what was otherwise a small, sleepy farming village.
The clothes of the young man, and indeed the rest of the villagers, did not suit those buildings, Cora thought absently, as she followed the lad through the newly repainted door into his home and up the stairs. And up the stairs. And up the stairs.
The brother, she realised, whether by preference or by design, in order to keep him away from others, was inhabiting the topmost attic of the property. The lad escorting her left her at the doorway to the attic room, with a quiet,
"He's in there! Just...Be careful, and help him, please?"
Cora stepped into the room.
An even younger man was seated by the window staring out over the square.
"Come to take me away, have you? Or kill me? Or.." The boy did not turn round to speak, and his voice sounded not so much bitter as weary...or maybe a combination of the two. It was the way he trailed off that interested Cora. If he had been about to say what one might expect, then he was what she had thought, and he knew what he was.
"Or what?" She enquired softly. "If you think that, then you mistake me."
Now, the boy turned around. He did indeed look younger than his brother, with short dark hair, and a freckled face.
"What then? Come to take me away and lock me up somewhere? I'm mad, you know. I must be, they all say I am. Perhaps you shouldn't come too close..." But the laugh he gave at that did not sound unbalanced, just betrayed by the world, she thought.
"I will come where I please," she replied, approaching the lad. "And I will go when I please...And if you wish to come with me when I leave, that is up to you. I would strongly advise it, however. You are not going mad, whatever you may have been told. You may, however, die if you remain here. But that is entirely your choice."
She stepped up next to the boy, ignoring his gaze and instead looking out of the small attic window.
"What happened here? "she asked, changing the subject. "It looks like this place was prosperous once, or on its way to being so...What happened?
"Oh...You'd have to ask the old folk about that. Been this way as long as I can remember. Da said something about...the wrong sort of people getting in control of the village, way back. I don't know any more of it than that."
For a second the boy's face looked normal, she thought, as they chatted of inconsequential things, rather than filled with all the misconceptions he had been taught about what he could do and what that meant.
Suddenly, Cora found herself relating to him. Suddenly, he was more than just a means to an end. He was like her, only he hadn't just been taught he was evil like she had, he had probably been taught that he was bound to go mad and help break the world again.
She flicked a smile sideways at him. "I know what it's like, you know. I had to keep quiet at home about what I could do, because otherwise the rest of the village would have killed me. One day I'll go back and change things, but then...then I had to leave. My sister, you see. I couldn't risk them hurting my sister too, thinking she was like me."
The boy visibly paled.
"You don't think...My brother...Is he in danger because of me? I know the villagers hate me, but I never thought...How could I not have thought of that? Oh, Light, I've been so selfish, hiding up here alone and leaving him to take care of everything, and brave the other villagers too!
The boy was striding round the room now, throwing things higgledy-piggledy into a sack.
"I'm coming with you. Even if you are lying, though they say you can't do that, even if you are lying and they lock me up when I get there, it's better than subjecting my brother to any more! He's looked after me since I was small...since Ma died...While Da was out working ...And I repay him by bringing trouble down on the house like this."
Cora smiled approvingly at the boy, and together they stepped out of the attic room.
As Cora stepped though the doorway, the room faded.
The Brown Ajah
"Who is it?"
The voice seemed cracked with age, even through the sturdy rough plank door of the ramshackle hut.
"My name is Cora..." Cora began...She hesitated, confused. She had been about to say Cora Sedai, but obviously that was not right yet... was it...? She was beginning to feel like she had been climbing these steps for too long.
"My name is Cora, and I have come from the Grey Tower...May I come in please?" Obviously, she thought, I could simply knock down the door, ransack the house for documents and put the old man to my questioning, if obtaining this information is vital...but I must operate by the rules, and therefore will take ten times longer, of course.
Cora sighed, and painted a cheerful smile across her face, fully prepared to encounter a different version of a brainless, confused old man she had known back home in the village. He had insisted he was his daughter once, Cora recollected, and kept trying to give her fruit and toys...despite that to Cora, his daughter Maiga, who tended him, looked to be nearly as old as he was!
Stepping over the threshold at the creaking reply of,
"Come in, come in!" Cora thought to herself that this too should prove simple. The old man at least did not seem hostile, whatever else he was. As she looked around, she began to think he was definitely confused.
The room she entered was small, dimly lit and unexpectedly crammed with things. All sorts of things, some of which Cora did not even recognize. Others looked familiar, but their uses escaped her. Others again had uses, for instance the three washboards and ten copper pudding basins. Others were purely, she thought, ornamental, like the model of a mill and wheel made entirely out of small sticks of wood.
Who would spend the time to carve each stick of wood into such a precisely squared off shape, she wondered, rather than simply carving the whole from one large block? It made no sense to her...But then maybe this man was so old that time had lost meaning to him, and he could happily spend his days upon such pursuits.
With that thought, Cora sense eyes upon her back, and turned. Through a side-door hidden amongst the piles of everything, the old man had entered the room unknown to Cora, until that second.
"You are too late, you know," The old man began cheerfully, wheezing a little as he hobbled over to her, a curved pipe full of what going by the aroma was home-grown tabac hanging from one corner of his mouth..
"Yes, too late. They already came, you see. The other ones. You wanted my book, didn't you?"
Cora nodded numbly. Too late? But...
"Yes, yes, they took it yesterday...or was it last week?" The old man shook his head, and coughed slightly. "Time doesn't mean much up here...I lose track, you know...seems like only recently, they said the old man's son had sailed away..."
Cora blinked. She did not consider herself slow on the uptake usually, but what this man was saying if he was making any sense at all...No. He was just an old man rambling, there was no other possible explanation.
"Where did they take the book?" Cora asked slowly, carefully, loudly...
"I'm not deaf, and neither am I daft you know!" Retorted the old man almost petulantly. "I may lose track of time, but you try living through as much of it as I have!"
Curiosity getting the better of her, Cora allowed herself to be thrown off the subject of the book for now ,and asked the obvious question.
"Um..How many years have you lived though, then, if I may ask?"
The old man giggled. Yes, actually giggled like a Novice at Cora's question...though he did not answer it.
"Come with me, child. I can show you something more valuable than that book they took." And he hobbled off again, towards the side room from which he had previously emerged.
Cora was unsure, now. This was all getting too strange, was it a trap? She hesitated at the second, smaller door. "Um...who took the book?" she called in after the man, trying to forestall her entry into the even more dimly lit chamber.
"Oh, the other lot. The ones who have been around longer than you. Think they've been around forever...Of course that isn't quite right really, is it, girl? But you are the ones who don't judge men."
Again that little high pitched giggle, which sent shivers down Cora's spine. The old man was...not right somehow. Not just old...
"But come on, come on, I haven't got all day...Well, of course actually I have...You see girl what I have here is the next best thing to a time machine!"
Cora felt herself stepping forward into the room, thinking this whole thing was getting totally out of hand now. She should simply have robbed the place and stolen what she could to start with, as she had been thinking before.
And then she stopped, staring. In the middle of the room- well, she was not sure whether if was a bed, or some form of burial device. A box, certainly, large enough to hold a man.
"I made it," The man said proudly, as if he were a child showing her a painting. "When all the trouble started, I made it. I worked it out all by myself. It keeps me safe...I am safe, aren't I , see?"
Cora decided the man was completely insane, and silently ran through ways she could get out of here, and yet still ...still do something...Oh, Shadow, the place was getting to her, too, now!
"I am sure you are, " she said soothingly, "Now, if you could tell me where the people from the White..from the other Tower went...Then I can go after them, perhaps, if I am quick enough."
The man shook his head.
"Better than the book, this. Don't you want to try? A hundred years, maybe, I can set it for just a hundred years if you like...Course then I'll be left here, but that wont matter, I reckon I've lived long enough now. That's why I let them take the book, you know. My journal, my account of what I found in the world every time I woke up."
The old man suddenly seemed to be making sense. Which was more frightening in an odd way.
"You see, I go to sleep, in there, every time I feel like maybe I'm not going to be too safe. Wake up a while later and take another look around, until things get too much again. you probably wouldn't understand, nowadays...and you're a woman anyway. Some tried to hide in the Steddings, I knew that was never going to work, they would never stay there. I chose to hide in the future, until I found a world that was clean again!"
Cora was staring at the old man with her mouth open now. Was he simply old and senile, or could some of this bizarre story actually be true? Had he actually found a way to live with insanity, without destroying himself or the world around him, by freezing himself in this box whenever he felt like he was losing control? And somehow negate any other physical effects, simply by not staying around anywhen long enough?
"But it's over now. I can live here, now. I don't need the box anymore, or my book. I'm happy to stay here for whatever time I have left."
Still, Cora stared, trying to work out what she should do.
"Oh...I nearly forgot...I made a copy you know, of my book. Can't let that other lot have everything, can we? It's on the mantelpiece, over there...Under those maps...You can take them too, if you like.
Cora reached out for the maps, almost knocking over a candlestick in the process, and extracted both several ancient-looking maps and the book from the precarious stack.
"I thank you...The Tower thanks you.." she muttered, not sure what else to say, as the room began to fade around her once more. I wonder if this could actually happen in the real world? Cora mused, and if such a box could exist? In a way it reminds me of Tali's box...
Cora blinked, and looked round. She was back on the staircase once more.
The Grey Ajah
Cora considered carefully. Whichever place the group was tried in, the other side would be convinced the trial had not been fair. The obvious solution was for the trial to be held somewhere else. Why not the Tower itself? Cora wondered. There was, after all, the Hall of Justice- could that not be used as a suitable venue? But how to get them both to accept the compromise? Ah...
Cora smiled to herself. In order to force acceptance, one offers something worse as an alternative.
On the advice of the Grey Sister as to how to contact both parties, Cora inscribed a letter to each. Basically the letters were the same, fairly blunt and to the point for political missive of this sort, with minor differences of course between the two in names and places.
"It is with regret that I must inform you that the Grey Tower has decided against your application in this matter. It will be impractical and unjust to try the accused party in the manner you suggest, and we cannot condone this taking place.
We strongly advise that you consider the following suggestions.
One, that the party be released on their own recognaisance and returned to Cairhien, their land of origin, there to be tried by a jury of their peers.
(The other copy of course directed at this point that the group be tried in Andor)
Two, that the party be sent to the Grey Tower, to be tried here in the Hall of Justice, with all due consideration of both sides of this issue, so that a satisfactory resolution may be found for all concerned.
We would appreciate it if we could be informed as soon as possible, with regard to which of these solutions is more amenable to yourselves.
In the Light,
Cora Calle, Grey Tower.
Ugh...Cora shuddered. How she hated having to sign off like that, but unfortunately in this instance it was necessary.
As she finished the note and handed it to the Grey, the world began to fade.
Cora waited, expecting to find herself standing back on the Stairs once more...
But instead found herself in the same room in which the Grey had spoke to her before, familiar and yet strange. One of the pictures painted by her sister hung on the wall. Could this be Cora's room? But it was so large, and so well furnished, at least in comparison with her current quarters...Current quarters? Confused, she shook her head and looked up as a knock came upon the door.
Opening the door, she saw the Grey again.
"Andor have agreed to your proposal, yes?" She told Cora without preamble, proffering a sheaf of fine quality paper with a large seal affixed to the top sheet.
"And they lay out how they will bring the prisoners here, and ask for accommodation for their guards, and so on. But the Cairhienin General, he is not so easily placated, yes?"
She wafted a second sheaf of paper, bearing an equally impressive seal, which she had been carrying in her other hand. The braids in her hair tinkled and chimed as before, as she gesticulated with the two sets of paperwork.
"He wants to send his own men to escort the party here, and I do not know that the Andorrans will accept that, yes?"
Neither side wishes to lose face by my compromise, Cora thought, so the Cairhienin General argues for an escort, and the Andorrans will refuse...
She nodded, and finding some blank paper in a drawer of the large desk, took up the pen resting by the inkwell, which was inset into the top of that desk.
Quickly, she wrote a few lines, and handed the paper back to the Grey, who read them, smiled, and withdrew.
Now, the world began to fade again, and the room grew hazy, almost sparkling, as Cora thought of what she had just written.
"Inform the General, that the Tower will as a matter of common courtesy, be sending its own escorts to assist and safeguard the conveyance of the prisoners. A similar Tower escort will also be provided to the General's own traveling party, assuming he wishes to attend the trial, in which case he will of course be accommodated and entertained within the Tower in a manner befitting his status. Unless of course the General fears that the abilities of a Tower escort, of Aes Sedai and Warders, would not be sufficient to the task of protecting either party?"
A veiled threat, just, a subtle reminder of what the members of the Tower could actually do...Along with a means for the General to agree to her proposals without losing face.
And obviously, since Cora now stood upon the Stairs once more, her solution had finally been sufficient to the task.
The White Ajah
Illianer, obviously, Cora thought, as the woman spoke. Why did everyone in these tests suddenly have accents? She had followed the Taraboner in the last one, but was struggling a bit to make out the sense of the White's words here. Though maybe that was simply because of the question itself.
No, Cora thought suddenly, of course I understand her! Have I not known her for years, and lived among her people? She frowned , wrinkling her brows. How odd...
Cora smiled reassuringly at her old friend. "I'm surprised you have not worked this one out yourself...It is the sort of tangle you always used to like to argue out with me, sitting by the fire together after even the servants had gone to bed... Do you remember?"
Still puzzled and trying to fit that memory, which she clearly had, into everything else she knew of her life, Cora continued...
"But then, maybe you wish to have such a debate with me now? Oh, but you know my views..."
Cora took a plain but serviceable seat. This time the room was not hers but one furnished in the lightest, most austere of styles. Clearly she was in the White Halls for this interview, then, though how she had arrived there she had no idea.
She poured tea from an equally plain white tea set- no Sea folk porcelain here- and gestured to her old friend to sit with her.
Once the woman was seated, and a fresh herbal tea made for the pair of them, Cora continued,
"You should know by now, I detest such thinking as that which lays all responsibility with the Wheel. I believe all should take responsibility for their own actions, and if those actions have consequences, why then the consequences must be suffered, without seeking to avoid blame by claiming the inevitability of the action.
"To me, it is that sort of thinking which is at the root of so many of the problems in the world today. If everyone asked themselves, 'what can I do about this situation?' before grumbling and complaining about the place in life the Wheel has woven for them, then this world would be a much more pleasant and constructive place in which to live!"
Cora shrugged slightly, aware that even now, when she stepped onto such a topic, her eyes were flashing and her hands were griping the handle of the teacup as if to shatter it. A good thing it was such a plain sturdy cup after all!
Anticipating and avoiding an accident, should she continue so, Cora carefully placed the teacup down on a small woven mat atop the plainly carved blackwood occasional table beside her.
The white of the china set against the simple black of the table, she found a pleasant contrast.
"Yes, old friend..." she carried on, laying her hands back into her lap and looking up to meet the gaze of her friend's eyes, peering out from within that wizened face. Cora's own face, she somehow knew without necessity for a mirror, bore no such signs of aging, even though she remembered long years with this woman.
"Yes, you know my views. And you must know then, that I will advise you, that trying to find elbow room within the framework of the world as spun by the Wheel, a purely deterministic vision, I find a rather tedious and pointless pursuit. Why not, like me, reject the concept of the Wheel in it's entirety, refuse to be bound by such an outdated idea? "
She sighed then.
"But I suppose you are right...the courts could never be persuaded to think my way on this, not this side of ..of Tarmon Gai'don!"
I almost stumbled then...Did I not learn that lesson long ago? Cora chided herself... before frowning again as a part of her insisted that no, actually it had not been that long really.
"Very well. Here is my solution, if one must work within this ridiculous framework! " Cora answered after a short pause. She picked up her tea again carefully and took a sip before replying. The tea was cooling a little now, and the face of distaste she pulled must surely have been down to that, and not to her abhorrence for having to think within this paradigm... at least perhaps to her watching friend.
"Tell the man, that yes, the Wheel willed for him to commit this act. The Wheel also willed for the courts to be established to prosecute those who committed such acts. If his act is to be held the responsibility of the Wheel, then so too is his punishment. He should not then be suing the courts for clemency, but the Wheel itself! He cannot have this both ways. Either he and the court are responsible for their own actions, or neither are!"
There was of course, Cora thought, the slight flaw in this, that if the man were clever enough he could then argue that his arguing the case was also the will of the Wheel, and so on indefinitely.
To forestall this, she added, "also, tell this man that the courts have found that it is the will of the Wheel that he be sentenced to 10 lashes before his death, for any and each further complaint he makes."
There, she thought, that settles that... It was not the answer she was supposed to have given, she was sure. But how could she in any honesty argue for the co-existence of free will and determination, when she sincerely believed that deterministic theory was one of the foulest lies ever to befall mankind?
And when even if by some remote chance, the Wheel actually turned out to exist...Then by corollary too did the opposition to it... In which case Cora was already pledged to the Wheel's destruction. Oh yes. And the courts would agree to her views indeed, then. After the Day of Return, of course.
Why did contemplation of the possibility always stir her so, when despite last night (Last night? But I was here last night!) she still fought to deny it all? She raised the teacup to her lips once more, but found it insubstantial. It melted from her fingers as she left the White Halls, to find herself once more upon the White Stair.
The Three Oaths
Cora stood, so reluctantly holding the smooth Oath Rod. Get me out of here, anything but this...Send that Myrdraal to me again and lock me in the room with it, but please, I don't want to have to do this...
But she knew it had to be done. Having come so far, there was no other way, and her lengthening hesitation would surely raise suspicion. All she could hope for was that the Myrdraal would indeed come for her again, if she had not imagined the entire event last night, and that she would not have to suffer this for too long.
Grasping the Rod, then, very conscious of the watching officials, and channeling a thin flow of Spirit into it, she began to read the Oaths.
"Under the Light... "
Oh, Great Lord, if you really exist, forgive me this...Understand it must be so, for now...
It felt like the words were warring with those she had spoken before..Oh, Shadow, it hurt before she had even begun...
"Under the Light, I swear as a member of the Grey Tower to speak no word that is untrue."
Cora shuddered noticeably as the first of the oaths tightened into her flesh, pressing against her skin as if she had just dived to the bottom of a deep well. Almost as bad, was the sense of wrongness, of betrayal...She could not tell if the sensation were physical or mental in origin, but it tore though her as if despite the pressure from without, she were being ripped open within
She bit her lip to keep from screaming aloud, sure that such a reaction would betray her.
"I swear by my life, and the lives of the ones I love...
Cora thought desperately, silently...The pain eased a little, although the pressure did not.
"Under the Light, I swear as a member of the Grey Tower to make no weapon with which one man may kill another."
No...please, no...The second oath pulled tighter than the first, and it was as if she could feel her flesh compressing, as if that well had suddenly become bottomless, and she was falling, falling, the pressure would never stop increasing...
And the searing pain struck her again...
... ..that I will dedicate my life to the Great Lord of the Dark, and serve him in all my capacity. I realize that my actions of today will cast a reaction and reflection into the future of the intangible tomorrow. Therefore I announce myself as the ruler of my own destiny and will place the responsibility to enrich my existence upon my own head... ...
Again, the pain eased, though the tightness could not be soothed.
I can't take much more of this, Cora thought, butI have to...and I have to do it without showing anything, either! How much more, she wondered, was it going to hurt her to undo these new Oaths, forged by the Rod as they were? But that was different...she longed for that...
Under the Light I swear as a member of the Grey Tower never to use the One Power as a weapon except against Shadowspawn, or in the last defence of my own life, that of my Warder, or that of another brother or sister of the Grey Tower.
Again the increased tightness, until it felt that her skin, flesh and even bones would be crushed. She fought to breathe, and gasped as the agony of betrayal hit her once more.
Oh, Great Lord, please, no, I would never willingly leave you...
I know I stand alone now, for there are no friends in the Shadow, merely likeminded. I hereby forsake the Light and those laws and morals it implied on me, for I am now a Servant of the Great Lord of the Dark."
Cora let out her breath again, and attempted to relax.
Stiffly, she raised her head, and leaned forward to place the Oath Rod backing place on the pedestal. To the observers she hoped her slow movements looked reverent...In reality they were merely necessitated by the tightness of the Oaths upon her body.
Oh, Shadow, get me out of this now...Enough, please...
But Cora knew she had the rest of the ceremony to perform, and her ostensible Ajah to meet, before she could do what she must, and Travel where she must, before she could remove these terrible restrictions and re-swear herself to her true cause.
