Dawn and Reincarnation Part 29 (Patreon)

“How did you end up with one of the only competent witches?” Nazar asked in a whisper as he used the glass ter’angreal Dawn had loaned him to watch Moiraine weave a ward across a decent sized gap in the crumbling wall.

Lan kept his attention focused on the ruins of Aridhol as he replied, “She tossed me in a lake.”

“You were being stubborn,” Moiraine replied as she finished the inverting and tying off the weave so the Forsaken wouldn’t notice it or at least she hoped they wouldn’t notice. Normally she wouldn’t have left a ward where anyone could stumble into it but no one in their right mind ever went to Shadar Logoth without a very good reason and cleansing the source would likely destroy the entire city if Mat’s memories were accurate.

“That I believe,” Nazar said, thinking about Lan’s father or at least the version he’d known. He turned his attention toward where Eldrin Cauthon was warding a large gap with a hair thin thread of spirit. “If we weren’t trying to kill the Forsaken, I’d say her ward was too good considering it’s supposed to be just barely noticeable.”

Eldrin connected her thread of spirit to her inverted trap which was set to explode if the thread of spirit was tampered with then tied it off and stepped back. “One way or another, that should delay anyone that finds it. With any luck, they’ll assume we can’t invert weaves until it’s too late.”

Moiraine was fairly sure they’d learn fast but they might be able to get a few of the Forsaken before they figured it out. “In that case, we should move to the next spot.” She started walking toward the hill where Rand and Ethan were getting ready to start cleansing the source. “Feel free to string lines anywhere you want.”

“Understood,” Eldrin replied as she went to work, stringing various types of weaves as the group made their way toward the hill. Half of the wards were inverted so they couldn’t be seen and half of them were just well hidden. “We might have to put out a forest fire when we’re done but anyone that walks through here is going to have a bad day.”

“Dealing with fire is easy enough with saidin,” Nazar said as he stepped around some fallen rubble. “You should probably trap some of the rubble to explode if anyone gets too close.”

“Fire and Earth aren’t my best affinities,” Moiraine admitted, wanting to save most of her strength for the fight.

“I’ll take care of it,” Eldrin said as she worked on turning several of the fallen stones into proximity traps that would explode if a channeler walked by in the next eight or nine hours. She was fairly sure cleansing the source could destroy the area and the traps but there was no point leaving potentially dangerous traps lying around when it was easy to set a time limit.

“Are you planning on channeling during the fight?” Moiraine asked as she glanced at Nazar.

“Not unless things go completely pear shaped,” Nazar assured her. “I handed out the angreal Dawn loaned me in case we have to fight but we have plenty of girls willing to kill anyone that comes to stop us so I think we’ll be fine.”

“Let us hope that proves to be the case,” Moiraine said as she watched Eldrin. ‘Siuan is going to start cursing when she sees how strong the girls are and realizes they have no interest in joining the Tower.’

“That should do it,” Eldrin said as she backed away from the rocks she’d set to explode if anything got too close. “I should be good for another two or three dozen traps.”

“How about turning a patch of the ground into quicksand and setting some explosive stones under the sand?” Nazar asked, happy that Moiraine was at least reasonable about fighting her enemies unlike most of the idiotic Aes Sedai that Dawn and Willow had rescued.

“Or you could just dig the holes and over the area with an inverted Mirror of Mists,” Moiraine mused, getting into the spirit of things.

Nazar laughed, glad they had plenty of time to set everything up before the Forsaken came to complain.

0o0o0

Asmodean pulled his attention off the ruined domes and towers of Shadar Logoth and focused on Xander. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

Xander studied the musician’s expression, it was a strange mix of fear and excitement. ‘I guess it’s not every day that you take a swing at a god.’ He was really hoping the Forsaken’s magical oaths kept him from screwing them over. “Mainline the power of a dark god that might kill me or worse? Not even remotely but I’m unwilling to leave the bastard alive if we have a chance to kill him.”

“In that case, we might as well get started,” Willow said more cheerfully than she felt. She was just glad that the dreamspike was already in place which should keep Asmodean from just fleeing with Dawn’s sa’angreal and Callandor. She glanced at her father. “Flip the coin.”

“Heads we make the attempt, tails we don’t,” Mat said as he flipped a silver mark into the air and let it fall to the ground. “Heads.”

Asmodean pushed his doubts to the back of his mind about the plan and reached through the bracelet sa’angreal that should help keep him sane then reached through Callandor and touched his connection to the Great Lord, quickly pulling a sliver of his tainted power before The Great Lord could realize he should close the connection. He laughed as he pulled on his god’s power, letting a torrent of the deliciously sweet power rush into him.

Xander would have expected to feel pain or at least discomfort as the stream of dark fire jumped from Asmodean’s hands and splashed across his chest but in truth he felt nothing more than a touch of warmth and a bit of a sugar rush as he absorbed the god’s power. “Keep it up.”

Asmodean kept an iron tight grip on The Great Lord’s power as he increased the amount of power he was pouring into the young man, more than a little surprised that he wasn’t bursting into flames or turning into sludge. He wasn’t sure how long it would take to drain The Great Lord’s massive well of twisted power but he knew that stopping before his old master was completely crippled or dead would result in a fate worse than death.

Willow took a step back as the torrent of flames and power poured into Xander. ‘At least he’s not dead or screaming.’

“If this doesn’t work, the Dark One is going to send everything he has at us,” Mat muttered as he watched Xander’s expression, looking for signs of pain or madness.

“Best of luck,” Willow replied sarcastically. ‘I’d be more worried about his servants if I didn’t have wards and my ter’angreal.’

“It’s not like we wouldn’t have ended up on the top of his list anyways.” Xander wiggled the fingers of his right hand in the stream of dark magic, wishing he’d had his new ability to absorb magic when he’d stepped in front of Willow on Kingman’s Bluff. ‘At least this is less terrifying than dealing with Glory.’

0o0o0

Mesaana shivered as the forest was rocked by an explosion followed almost immediately by several dozen lightning bolts striking the same place and lighting up the forest in front of her. It was hard to judge exactly how far in front of her the lightning strikes were coming from but she was guessing less than a mile which was far too close for comfort. ‘Someone must have tripped a ward and they have at least twenty channelers with them that can call down lightning at range, great. Then again, maybe one of the others is dead.’

She scowled as a branch hit her in the leg hard enough to draw blood as she made her way down a game trail in the general direction of the massive torrent of saidar she could feel in the distance, which was sadly in the same direction as the lightning. She paused as she noticed a barely visible thread of spirit stretched across the path cleverly concealed by shadows and a vine. ‘Nice try but not good enough,’ she thought as she started to reach out to cut the thread of spirit. ‘On second thought, someone taught them how to use a dreamspike, they probably have something that detects channeling.’

Mesaana carefully circled around the warded section of the path then continued her cautious march forward the source of the massive torrent of saidar twisting in the sky in a complex weave that made her more than a little nervous. Thankfully the weave was complicated enough that she doubted the channeler using the Choedan Kal could spare the attention or power to swat her like an insect. She shivered as she rounded a bush and saw Semirhage’s top half sprawled on the path, her legs completely missing and her eyes staring sightlessly at the sky. “What in the blazes killed her?”

“I wouldn’t get any closer if I were you,” Aginor suggested from where he was leaning up against a tree watching the path.

“Why not?” Mesaana asked as she turned to look at the ancient corpse like channeler.

“Because Balthamel walked over there to gloat, something turned him into salsa,” Aginor explained warily, fairly sure whoever the hell was trying to kill them had more training than they should.

“I can’t sense anything,” Mesaana replied as she studied the ground near Semirage’s fallen body.

“Which probably means it’s completely safe,” Aginor said sarcastically as he tossed a branch into the area and it vanished with less than pleasant crunching and grinding noises. “Of course I’ve been wrong before.”

Mesaana shivered, wondering which of her fellow Forsaken were teaching the wilders things they shouldn’t know. “We have a truce until our current mission is accomplished, correct?”

“Of course,” Aginor replied as he carefully made his way back to the path. Normally he wouldn’t give her promise any value but they’d all been alerted to the upcoming attempt to cleanse the source by The Great Lord so they could stop it which meant infighting could wait until later, even if he wanted the source cleansed as it would give him more freedom. “Lead the way.”

“What happens if they’re using saidin?” Mesaana asked sarcastically.

“Then I’ll warn you,” Aginor lied as he picked up several rocks and tossed them further down the path, seeing if they set anything off. He’d rather not get ripped apart or blasted by lightning which meant taking things as slow as possible or at least taking reasonable precautions as delaying too long would likely result in punishment and his body was aged to the point that only The Great Lord’s favor was keeping him alive.

Mesaana scowled as she walked around the brambles, not trusting the main path on account of the various traps she could see scattered around every few paces. She stumbled slightly as she tripped on a tree root. “Why couldn’t they do this somewhere civilized?”

Aginor opened his mouth to answer and felt a stab of agony run through his chest as he started coughing up blood.

Moira smirked as she used her angreal to shield Mesaana while the woman was distracted.

“Parley?” Aginor asked between coughing fits, wondering why his body was suddenly falling apart on him when he’d been fine a few minutes ago.

“Of course, we’re willing to discuss the terms of your surrender,” Moira said cheerfully as Marin al'Vere used an angreal to slam a shield down on Aginor, taking advantage of his failing health and cutting off his access to the Power.

Aginor stared in disbelief, wondering how many people the woman had in her circle to be able to cut him off from the source while he was holding it. “What do,” he coughed, “you want?”

Moira gestured toward the bound and gagged Whitecloak that Ethan had happily supplied. “I’d like to offer you a new body in exchange for helping us improve our knowledge of shaping.”

“That’s impossible without The Great Lord’s help,” Mesaana sneered.

Aginor managed to stop coughing, mostly by sheer force of will. “Shaping?”

“Creating monsters and altering people in interesting ways, from what I hear you have a talent for it, I’m curious if we can learn anything from you.”

“Just like that?” Aginor asked, feeling his strength fade, despite his best efforts to stay conscious and mobile, his body was failing him.

“Just like that,” Moira said as she hauled the bound and gagged Whitecloak over and dropped copy of the body swapping ter’angreal that Dawn had created into the Whitecloak’s hand then moved it with a tread of air over to touch Aginor’s withered forehead.

Aginor blinked as he found himself remarkably pain free for the first time since he’d woken up mostly dead from a three thousand year nightmare. He stared at his old body’s withered flesh as the Whitecloak coughed once then died.

Moira gestured and floated the ring off Aginor’s finger and smiled coldly at Mesaana as she slipped the ring back in her belt pouch.

Marin grabbed her belt knife and cut Aginor free as she didn’t see a point in carrying him when they could make him walk. They’d only carried the Whitecloak bound and gagged because they’d wanted him to stay quiet and not injure himself.

“What are you planning on doing with Mesaana?” Aginor asked after pulling his gag off after getting a nod from the wilder. ‘No point and trying anything stupid when they’d proven able to capture him, at least until he knew more about their abilities.’

Moira smiled at Mesaana. “We’re going to stick a leash on her and ask questions, any time she lies, we’re going to let Semirhage have her for a day.”

“You think she’ll work for you?” Mesaana asked in disbelief.

“As you know, Semirhage loves causing pain more than just about anything.” Moira wasn’t particularly bothered about learning from the Forsaken for a few years or even decades before they executed them, knowledge was knowledge after all.

Marin wasn’t particularly happy about learning from the Forsaken but killing the best source weaves they had access to because they were criminals wasn’t the best idea either.

“Fine, I’ll answer your questions,” Mesanna promised, planning on escaping as soon as possible and torturing the woman to death when she got the chance.

“Great, in that case, let me heal the poison I added to the thorn branch that hit your ankle so you won’t drop dead after screaming your lungs out in horrible agony for an hour or two,” Moira said cheerfully as she wove a healing weave to pull the poison out of Mesaana’s blood, mostly because she wanted to keep her alive until they’d extracted everything they could.

Mesaana glared as she glanced back and forth between Aginor and Moira. “Once I escape, I’m going to kill you.” She turned to look at Marin. “I can teach you move than she ever could, if you help me, I’ll reward you.”

“I’d rather learn from Semirhage, at least she has talent,” Marin al’Vere said, thinking about Mat’s notes on each of the Forsaken’s personality. “Well, outside of working with the weather.”

“She’s a healer and knows little outside her area,” Mesaana lied, knowing that Semirhage was actually rather skilled at everything she had a talent for.

“I’ll make sure to tell her that you said that,” Aginor said, finding a certain amount of dark amusement about getting captured. ‘If nothing else, I’m not in constant pain anymore.’

Mesaana shivered as she thought about Semirhage cutting loose and torturing her, it wasn’t a pleasant thought. 

‘Poison and monster creation, this should be interesting,’ Aginor mused as the Aes Sedai placed a leash around Mesaana’s neck. “That’s a good look for you.”

“I’m going to enjoy killing you when I get the chance,” Mesaana snarled.

Aginor was fairly sure he had enough useful weaves to keep himself from being executed for a few years. 

Moira gestured toward a side trail, “Start walking, we left a boat at the river.”

“Better than staying here,” Aginor agreed.

0o0o0

Demandred stepped around the bend and stopped when he saw a red haired young lady standing in the middle of the path holding a purple blade that was at least a couple of inches taller than he was. “Let me guess, you think you can stop me?”

“That’s the plan,” Dawn replied cheerfully.

“Fine,” Demandred replied as he drew his sword and advanced on the idiot someone sent to delay him.

Dawn smiled as she easily blocked his opening slash and the follow up. “Sorry, you’ll have to do better than that.”

Demandred picked up the pace, curious how long the child would last.

Dawn gleefully countered his slashes and stabs, mixing in the occasional punch when she had the opportunity if only to annoy him. She could see the cracks in his calm facade when she increased her speed and he realized the strength of her blows was steadily increasing. “Are you sure you’re a blademaster?”

Demandred redoubled his effort, managing to gain a little ground before she almost gleefully stepped up her pace and pushed him back. “Die!” he snapped as he drew in saidin and tried to burn her to ash, he lurched as he felt the foul oily taint on the source much to his shock.

Dawn held her hand out and absorbed the fire. “Boring.” She slammed her blade into his power-wrought sword, sending it flying into a tree from the force of her strike and his surprise from how ineffective his ‘sneak’ attack was and the lingering nausea from the taint. “I was expecting more. I don’t suppose you want to try again?” She scowled as his balefire came unraveled as it washed over her.

“Impossible!” he snapped as he grabbed a large rock with flows of Air and tossed it at her, doing his best to ignore the taint.

Dawn stepped to the side then reached out and slashed his thread using Air and Fire then reached out and shielded him, her shield expanding and cutting him off from the source despite the fact that he was holding almost as much as he could safely hold. “You should have stuck to sword fighting, you might have had a chance,” she lied, knowing that it was almost impossible to win an actual sword fight if your opponent couldn’t be cut by your sword.

“Shields don’t stretch!” he shrieked, surprised that she had a large enough circle behind her to cut him off from the source as he hadn’t felt anyone channeling when he’d fought her and he hadn’t seen anyone hiding which meant that she obviously had a sa’angreal to match his strength.

Dawn split her focus and bound his arms in place then tied the threads of hardened air off to hold him in place. “Normally, I’d just cut off your head and be done with it, but you have a talent for balefire which means you need to die permanently. Any last words?”

“Who are you really?” Demandred demanded as he desperately tossed his strength against the girl’s shield, trying to escape.

“Dawn Marie al’Thor, Queen of the Emerald Isle, brother of the reincarnation of Lews Therin. How does it feel to be beaten by his little sister?” Dawn watched his expression shift from a stern sort of blankness to an expression of twisted rage. “It wasn’t Lews Therin’s fault that you never measured up, it was yours.”

“He stole my glory!” Demandred snapped.

“Best of luck in the next life.” Dawn raised her hand and tagged him with a pencil thin stream of balefire, wishing she had another way to permanently kill him without ripping holes in the pattern but he was one of the Forsaken that absolutely needed to die because of his talent for balefire, at least according to Mat though part of that might have been how effective he was on a battlefield.

Dawn adjusted her green stone ring and smiled when she sensed someone a quarter of a mile to her left trying to deal with the traps one of the girls left. ‘If you’re not cheating, you’re not trying.’ She took off running toward her next target, figuring anyone channeling that far away from any of the bases was an enemy. If not, they’d probably need help getting through the minefield they’d left.

0o0o0