Foolish child, Bair had said, your pattern is obvious.
That was what Mesaana wanted her to do. The two Black sisters were bait.
Egwene jumped into the room, but put her back to the wall. She emptied her mind, waiting, tense.
Mesaana appeared as she had before. That swirling black cloth was impressive, but it was also foolish. It took thought to maintain. Egwene stared into the woman’s surprised eyes and saw the weaves the woman had prepared.
Those will not hit me, Egwene thought, confident. The White Tower was hers. Mesaana and her minions had invaded, killing Nicola, Shevan and Carlinya.
Weaves shot forward, but they bent around Egwene. In a moment Egwene was wearing the clothing of a Wise One. White blouse, brown skirt, shawl on her shoulders. She imagined a spear in her hand, an Aiel spear, and she threw it with a precise motion.
The spear pierced the weaves of Fire and Air, blasting them away, then hit something thick. A wall of Air before Mesaana. Egwene refused to allow it. That wall didn’t belong here. It did not exist.
The spear stopped slowing and shot forward, taking Mesaana in the neck. The woman’s eyes opened wide and she slumped backward, blood spurting from the wound. The black strips swirling around her vanished completely, as did the dress. So it had been a weave. Mesaana’s darkened face turned into that of…
Katerine? Egwene frowned. Mesaana had been Katerine all along? But she’d been Black, and fled the Tower. She hadn’t remained, and that meant—
No, Egwene thought, I’ve been had. She’s a—
At that moment, Egwene felt something snap around her neck. Something cold and metallic, something familiar and terrifying. The Source fled her in a moment, for she was no longer authorized to hold it.
She spun in terror. A woman with chin-length dark hair and deep blue eyes stood beside her. She did not look very imposing, but she was very strong in the Power. And her wrist held a bracelet, connected by a leash to the band around Egwene’s neck.
An a’dam.
“Excellent,” Mesaana said. “Such unruly children you are.” She clicked her tongue in disapproval. In a moment, she shifted somewhere else, taking Egwene with her. A chamber with no windows, looking as if it were cut directly from stone. There wasn’t even a doorway.
Alviarin waited here, wearing a dress of white and red. The woman immediately knelt before Mesaana, though she spared a satisfied glance for Egwene.
Egwene barely noticed. She stood, stiff, a tide of panicked thoughts flooding her mind. She was trapped again! She could not stand it. She would die before she allowed this to happen. Images flashed in her head. Trapped in a room, unable to move more than a few feet without being overcome by the a’dam. Treated like an animal, a creeping sense that she would eventually break, would eventually become exactly what they wanted her to be.
Oh, Light. She could not suffer this again. Not this.
“Tell those above to withdraw,” Mesaana was saying to Alviarin, her voice calm. Egwene barely registered the words. “Fools they are, and their showing here was pathetic. Punishments will be administered.”
This was how Moghedien had been captured by Nynaeve and Elayne. She was kept captive, forced to do as they demanded. Egwene would suffer the same! Indeed, Mesaana would probably use Compulsion on her. The White Tower would be fully in the hands of the Forsaken.
The emotions welled up. Egwene found herself clawing at the collar, which got a look of amusement from Mesaana as Alviarin vanished to relay her order.
This could not be happening. It was a nightmare. A—
You are Aes Sedai. A quiet piece of her whispered the words, yet for all their softness, they were strong. And they were deep within her. The voice was deeper than the terror and fear.
“Now,” Mesaana said. “We will speak of the dreamspike. Where might I find it?”
An Aes Sedai is calmness, an Aes Sedai is control, regardless of the situation. Egwene lowered her hands from the collar. She had not gone through the testing, and she had not planned to. But if she had, what if she had been forced to face a situation like this? Would she have broken? Proven herself unworthy of the mantle she claimed to carry?
“Not speaking, I see,” Mesaana said. “Well, that can be changed. These a’dam. Such lovely devices. Semirhage was so delightfully wonderful in bringing them to my attention, even if she did so accidentally. Pity she died before I could place one on her neck.”
Pain shot through Egwene’s body, like fire beneath her skin. Her eyes watered from it.
But she had suffered pain before, and laughed while being beaten. She had been captive before, in the White Tower itself, and captivity had not stopped her.
But this is different! The larger part of her was terrified. This is the a’dam! I cannot withstand it!
An Aes Sedai must, the quiet piece of her replied. An Aes Sedai can suffer all things, for only then can she be truly a servant of all.
“Now,” Mesaana said. “Tell me where you have hidden the device.”
Egwene controlled her fear. It was not easy. Light, but it was hard! But she did it. Her face became calm. She defied the a’dam by not giving it power over her.
Mesaana hesitated, frowning. She shook the leash, and more pain flooded Egwene.
She made it vanish. “It occurs to me, Mesaana,” Egwene said calmly, “that Moghedien made a mistake. She accepted the a’dam.”
“What are you—”
“In this place, an a’dam is as meaningless as the weaves it prevents,” Egwene said. “It is only a piece of metal. And it only will stop you if you accept that it will.” The a’dam unlocked and fell free of her neck.
Mesaana glanced at it as it dropped to the ground with a metallic ring. Her face grew still, then cold as she looked up at Egwene. Impressively, she did not panic. She folded her arms, eyes impassive. “So, you have practiced here.”
Egwene met her gaze.
“You are still a child,” Mesaana said. “You think that you can best me? I have walked in Tel’aran’rhiod longer than you can imagine. You are what, twenty years old?”
“I am the Amyrlin,” Egwene said.
“An Amyrlin to children.”
“An Amyrlin to a Tower that has stood for thousands of years,” Egwene said. “Thousands of years of trouble and chaos. Yet most of your life, you lived in a time of peace, not strife. Curious, that you should think yourself so strong when much of your life was so easy.”
“Easy?” Mesaana said. “You know nothing.”
Neither broke her gaze. Egwene felt something press against her, as it had before. Mesaana’s will, demanding her subservience, her supplication. An attempt to use Tel’aran’rhiod to change the very way that Egwene thought.
Mesaana was strong. But strength in this place was a matter of perspective. Mesaana’s will pressed against her. But Egwene had defeated the a’dam. She could resist this.
“You will bend,” Mesaana said quietly.
“You are mistaken,” Egwene replied, voice tense. “This is not about me. Egwene al’Vere is a child. But the Amyrlin is not. I may be young, but the Seat is ancient.”
Neither woman looked away. Egwene began to push back, to demand that Mesaana bow before her, before the Amyrlin. The air began to feel heavy around them, and when Egwene breathed it in, it seemed thick somehow.
“Age is irrelevant,” Egwene said. “To an extent, even experience is irrelevant. This place is about what a person is. The Amyrlin is the White Tower, and the White Tower will not bend. It defies you, Mesaana, and your lies.”
Two women. Gazes matched. Egwene stopped breathing. She did not need to breathe. All was focused on Mesaana. Sweat trickled down Egwene’s temples, every muscle in her body tense as she pushed back against Mesaana’s will.
And Egwene knew that this woman, this creature, was an insignificant insect shoving against an enormous mountain. That mountain would not move. Indeed, shove against it too hard, and…
Something snapped, softly, in the room.
Egwene breathed in with a gasp as the air returned to normal. Mesaana dropped like a doll made of strips of cloth. She hit the ground with her eyes still open, and a little bit of spittle dribbled from the corner of her mouth.
Egwene sat down, dazed, breathing in and out in gasps. She looked to the side, where the a’dam lay discarded. It vanished. Then she looked back at Mesaana, who lay in a heap. Her chest was still rising and lowering, but she stared with sightless eyes.
Egwene lay for a long moment recovering before standing and embracing the Source. She wove lines of Air to lift the unresponsive Forsaken, then shifted both herself and the woman back to the upper floors of the Tower.
Women turned toward her with a start. The hallway here was strewn with rubble, but everyone Egwene saw was one of hers. The Wise Ones, spinning on her. Nynaeve picking through some rubble. Siuan and Leane, the latter bearing several blackened cuts on her face, but looking strong.
“Mother,” Siuan said with relief. “We had feared…”
“Who is that?” Melaine asked, walking up to Mesaana, hanging limply in the weaves of Air and staring at the ground. The woman cooed suddenly, like a child, eyes watching a bit of burning fire on the remnants of a tapestry.
“It is her,” Egwene said, tired. “Mesaana.”
Melaine turned to Egwene, eyes wide with surprise.
“Light!” Leane exclaimed. “What have you done?”
“I have seen this before,” Bair said, inspecting the woman. “Sammana, a Wise One Dreamer from my youth. She encountered something in the dream that broke her mind.” She hesitated. “She spent the rest of her days in the waking world drooling, and needing her linen changed. She never spoke again, at least nothing more than the words of a babe who can barely walk.”
“Perhaps it is time to stop thinking of you as an apprentice, Egwene al’Vere,” Amys said.
Nynaeve stood with hands on hips, looking impressed but still clinging to the Source. Her braid was full length again in the dream. “The others have gone,” she said.
“Mesaana ordered them to flee,” Egwene said.
“They couldn’t have gone far,” Siuan said. “That dome is still there.”
“Yes,” Bair said. “But it is time for this battle to end. The enemy has been defeated. We will speak again, Egwene al’Vere.”
Egwene nodded. “I agree on both points. Bair, Amys, Melaine, thank you for your much-needed aid. You have gained much ji in this, and I am in your debt.”
Melaine eyed the Forsaken as Egwene sent herself out of the dream. “I believe it is us, and the world itself, who are in your debt, Egwene al’Vere.”
The others nodded, and as Egwene faded from Tel’aran’rhiod, she heard Bair muttering, “Such a shame she didn’t return to us.”
Perrin ran through crowds of terrified people, in a burning city. Tar Valon. Aflame! The very stones burned, the sky a deep red. The ground trembled, like a wounded buck kicking as a leopard bled its neck. Perrin stumbled as a chasm opened before him, flames blazing upward, singeing the hairs on his arms.
People screamed as some fell into the terrible rift, burning away into nothing. Bodies suddenly littered the ground. To his right, a beautiful building with arched windows began to melt, the rock turning liquid, lava bleeding from between stones and out of openings.