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The night was abnormally dark for the season. The darkness was also joined by a piercing cold, and it seemed the unusual weather was a harbinger of destruction. A piercing wind cut across the Caralain Grass and blew across to a massive and foreboding tower, rising high into the sky. It was midnight black, like a dark scarred fist thrusting into the sky. The only light in the area came from the Tower, or rather its occupants. The scars on the tower were new, and they also came from its occupants.
A flash of eerie blue light cut across the darkness, and in response another yellow light flashed. In fact, wonders and horrors of nature were flying around the tower. Lightning fell from the clearest sky, casting a strange light that illuminated everything with gray and white. Blasts of fire flew around the great courtyard. The earth roiled around the fountain, throwing the water out at odd angles. A section of the great wall that surrounded the compound cracked under the strain, and then shattered when a long stream of fire hit it.
Logain felt the wind mess up his hair and brush against the streaks of blood lining his handsome face. It was contorted at the moment in a snarl, and his hand was flung out. A roiling sheet of fire shot out from his hand, but it was mixed with weaves of Air. It split into dozens of sharp beams and crashed against the destroyed courtyard. The Battle for the Black Tower had started only several hours ago, but it had quickly degenerated into chaos. The courtyard itself, where Logain was fighting, was a ruined mass of behemoth blocks of stone. Many had been tossed about, broken, or hit inadvertently during the fighting.
He had found more honest men in the Black Tower than he had thought, and yet had found the corruption to be far deeper than he could have imagined. Taim was at the center of a conspiracy, and it did seem he was dedicated to destroying Rand. His followers weren't many, maybe a hundred total, but they were some of the most powerful Asha'man and the best Dedicated in the Tower. Logain had the trust and loyalty of hundreds of channellers, but they were almost all Dedicated or Soldiers. The full Asha'man under his immediate command numbered only ten, and he couldn't guess how many had died in the fighting. He would have had nearly forty if Rand hadn't been funneling them to Ebou Dar to prepare for the Seanchan invasion there.
Logain was holding his hands out, weaving Earth and Fire intricately in equal quantities, when he saw Mazrim Taim briefly. It was only a flash of light from a channeller's Fire Lance, but he was sure he had seen Taim running across the courtyard. He turned his hands onto the courtyard and channeled. Massive clumps of bright flame curled from his hands, hurtling into the darkness and impacting against the courtyard. Rock and stone flew and melted as he moved his hands across the courtyard. The roils of thick fire followed his hands slowly and reluctantly, like a gel. Taim's shield was hit heavily by the fire, and it threw him off to the side.
Logain had doubled the width of the beam when he was sure he saw the former M'Hael of the Asha'man, and it had engulfed two of Taim's traitors. The thick gel of fire submerged the two Asha'man, rolling around them and burning their bodies away. One tried to scream or yell, but the gel-like creations of the weave plunged down his throat and began burning him from the inside out. Logain dropped the weave rapidly and mixed Air with a small bit of Earth.
A Stone Wind was the result of his small trick, and it slammed into the gates of the court even as another of Taim's men stepped in. He flung a hasty shield up, which blocked most of it, but the small portion that did hit him most certainly broke his arm. Even with a glancing blow, Stone Wind could hurt. The small bits of Earth hardened the Air and made it rock solid, but it still moved as fast as a wind could. The injured man leapt back out of the gate, but he threw out a hasty weave of balefire before he jumped around the side.
The balefire was badly made and aimed, and it dug deep into the rocks before extinguishing. It was a pitiful thing, really, barely the width of a banner staff, and it burned itself out quickly. The strange inverse coloring of the stone didn't register much in Logain's mind, as he was busy when it happened. Half a dozen of Taim's Asha'man had made a dedicated attack on Logain's location, and he and ten Dedicated were struggling to shrug it off. Logain had five weaves working at the same time, and three of them were the sharp blades of Spirit that were used to cut others weaves apart.
It was an unthinking process to Logain, but controlling the other two weaves was not. They were both complex and hard to handle, and both were racing toward Taim's men. The first one was hastily blocked and partially cut, but the second one sliced through an Asha'man. His body began to fall in on itself, and the increased pressure was eventually released when his body flung itself out. The resulting mess was particularly nasty, and the remaining five began to fall back.
He flinched when a deafening clap sounded, and a large statue of a man holding the world in his hands began to fall. The statue was so large Logain couldn't believe he hadn't noticed it before. He briefly wondered why Taim was spending so much effort on the interior decorations of the complex, but then he had to jump out of the statue's way. It crashed into the courtyard, adding to the extensive collection of rubble around the man battle arena.
With Logain distracted by the statue, Taim had chosen his time to strike. A bar of liquid fire, balefire, flung out from a dark corner. It was as thick as two arms, and it was well aimed. Logain saw it, though, and flung his own quickly weaved balefire at it. He jumped down behind a large stone. When the two weaves hit each other, Logain grew queasy. The entire color scheme of the courtyard changed, and he was disoriented badly. Still, he flung several weaves into the corner where the balefire came from. It exploded in a noisy shower of rocks, and several of them were smeared with blood.
***
Riln Tarinin ran through the hallways filled with rubble, keeping alert for any of Taim's men. He had fought at least a dozen today, and to his surprise he had actually won most of his fights. His teachers had said his strength in the Power was considerable, and the duels he had fought today had proved the fact in his mind. In fact, one of his former teachers, Telan Mohr, had fought him in the Great Hall and had lost. He still remembered the final moments, after Telan's balefire blast missed Riln and he had collapsed in exhaustion. He was on his knees when Riln brought a razor-sharp weave of Air down across his neck and ended his life. Riln shivered at the memory. He wouldn't enjoy carrying it through his life.
He felt a brush against his senses not a second too soon, and he collapsed to the floor. Quick reflexes were the only thing that saved you in battle, and he had pretty quick reflexes. He threw a heavy attack of the Power behind him, without aiming. Because he didn't aim, it was a relatively general attack. The walls and floor behind him became thinner and rolled inward, becoming muddy and weak. Any objects that remained solid, such as people, immediately sunk into the rock.
He dropped the weave, so that the person who had attacked him would be trapped. When he looked behind him, he saw a short man wearing a black cloak. He had a small stubble of a beard, and his eyes were shrunken and too small for his face. His mouth twisted, though Riln couldn't tell if it was fear or anger. Riln fingered his sword pin lightly, the pin that marked him as a Dedicated. He fired off a weave he had learned on his own, and a finger-thin bar of blue ice cut through the distance between them and stuck deep into the man's chest. He began convulsing as his blood froze through his veins.
The weave was especially painful because of what it did to the brain, and it was the massive floods of pain sensation that killed before the loss of blood. The man's face was twisted in frozen agony, and his body would have dropped if it hadn't been for his imprisonment in the stone. One of his hands was halfway sunken into the wall. Riln shook his head sadly and almost wept. This man's death would be in his memory, too, the last few moments of everyone's life he had taken were engraved in his mind. The memories were horrible. Riln shivered and hugged himself.
" Stop standing there, boy, and fight." The voice brought Riln back into the real world, and he whirled around as he saw a weave shoot by him. He turned around and found himself face to face with one of the most frightening men he had seen. The man was almost painfully tall, but he didn't really seem too high because his body was also massively wide. His face was a mass of scars, and burn marks crossed his loose shirt. His black cloak was torn and bloodied, and he carried five marks on his arm.
Riln knew what the marks meant. The small notches on his arm standed for how many full Asha'man he had killed in the battle. He had seen the marks before, on his own teacher's arm. Telan Mohr had only three marks on his arm, but he had only been fighting for less than twenty minutes. He had been one of the most powerful of Riln's teachers. But it hadn't matter when Riln had stood toe to toe against him in a merciless battle. The duel had ended like all Riln's others. Riln alive, his opponent dead.
He weaved three webs at once, two as decoys and one as a true attack. It was a special weave Riln had learned himself. It looked inconspicuous, and most if you didn't look carefully it felt like a thin weave of Air being thrown at you. Actually, his first decoy was the one that was actually Air. It didn't feel like that, either, but it split into hundreds of beams of Air that were only particles thick. The fineness of the shield required to hold the Air normally distracted people from the true assault, which was actually made of Spirit, Fire, and Earth.
The scarred man had actually earned his five kills, though, and did manage to block the complex weaves. He threw two balefire weaves in return, which was impressive. It was an expidenture of power to fire one, but two was much harder. Still, the bars of fire were easy enough to dodge, and he retorted with a use of finesse.
He created a very intricate, yet simplistic, weave. He kept weaving Air and Water together, creating a tight ball of the two Powers. He made it more intricate. And more. And more. The ball was growing tighter and tighter and larger and larger as he added more weaves to constrict and add upon the old ones. The ball was constantly fluctuating, because there was a strong element of water in it. Finally, he opened up a hole in it. A wave of Power flew out of the ball and raced across the corridor, only to be blocked and deflected. The ball, however, followed the wave and knocked the man heavily in the stomach. Riln reverted to primordial power and brute strength.
The hallway in front of Riln filled with fire, tons of fire. In fact, Riln couldn't breath as the mass of fire burned all the air. The only places for air to come into the hallway were from the thin slits beneath the doors, and it wasn't enough. The doors blew open, and the heavy stone blocks flew across the hallway. Even as Riln saw the scarred man begin to burn, one of the doors hit him and flung him toward the fire.
He cut the weave in panic, decimating the flows. The scarred man now had as many burns as he did scars, and his clothes were almost all ash. Riln crashed into him, and almost screamed when he saw some of the man's flesh fall away. Still, the dead flesh provided a good shock absorber, and Riln got up shakily. The scarred man was dead. Riln sighed and ran down the corridor.
***
Several Soldiers were running down the hall. Jaran Mohr glanced at them from his tight hiding space. His father had taught him to be absolutely loyal to the M'Hael, and he was going to honor his father's wishes. The M'Hael had been betrayed, his father had told him, and we must protect him from the traitors. In fact, those traitors were almost four fifths of the Tower. Jaran had gotten more practice with the Power and used more weaves than he had ever before in his life. He was seriously exhausted, and his brown hair dripped with sweat.
He was supposed to be one of the most powerful students in the school. His father was one of the head teachers of the Asha'man, one of the first Asha'man altogether. His own Power was supposedly indomitable. Yet, he had let his father die. He had seen that traitor, one of his father's best students, use that weave of Air to end his father's life. Yet he couldn't do anything about it. He burned with shame inside. Of course, he tried to let little of this show to the man who was currently hiding with him.
Legih Hal was a grim man, though his father had counted him as a friend. He was also one of those few who were still loyal to the M'Hael, and he was also a fullly trained Asha'man. Jaran Mohr felt the place on his collar where the dragon pin was absent. He had planned to earn that pin in the next month, but he believed if events went well in the Tower today he could have the dragon pin on his collar by tomorrow. Unless, of course, the loyal Asha'man who fought with Taim lost. He dismissed the thought immediately. Right would win out over wrong, and the men under the traitor Logain was lose. Jaran would see to the man's death himself, if the M'Hael didn't.
Legih looked at Jaran and motioned to the group of Soldiers. Jaran had seen all the men who had rallied to the M'Hael; these weren't among those faces. Legih nodded, and Jaran almost gaped at him in astonishment. Both of them were severely exhausted and they had been channeling non-stop for at least four hours. He wanted to attack those Soldiers? The group numbered six. It was impossible. Still, Jaran had to follow the orders of Legih. He nodded, and the two burst out from the small cramped room.
The traitors were surprised, but Jaran gave them no time to recover. Half a dozen weaves launched from Jaran's hands, and two of them penetrated the Soldiers' defenses and killed two of them. This, in turn, weakened the shield further and Legih let loose a bar of balefire into the crowd. It killed. The remaining three Soldiers fought a rapid retreating action while running back down the corridor. Jaran thought about the use of balefire, but decided not to. The lectures of balefire had been very serious, and the consequences were unacceptable to him.
Killing Asha'man with balefire, while efficient, wrecked chaos on the Pattern. Channellers were more important in the Pattern than normal people, and the massive deaths during the fighting in the Tower was heavily effecting the outcome of the world. It was even worse that many of the Asha'man were using balefire and ripping crucial threads out of the Wheel of Time. Jaran sighed at the thought. He needed to find his father's killer. That was all that mattered.
Riln Tarinan.
***
Logain gathered his forces around him. He had nearly thirty channellers around him, but he didn't believe it was enough. He could see some of the faces among them, men who had come with him. Taen and Hoed, both trustworthy and high in the Power, were among them. They were both filled to the bursting with saidin and Logain could understand their anxiety. He, too, was filled as far as he could go. As he looked out at the Black Tower, an explosion ripped across it. A large section of wall fell, and the area around the hole was blackened and melting. A body fell from the hole, and it looked to be one of Taim's men. A man named Legih.
Out of the hole jumped one of the young Dedicated, a boy named Riln. Logain could feel his power, and it was impressive. He was very close to Logain's power, and he probably still had some growing to do. He spread a cushion of Air across the courtyard, and landed safely. He quickly joined Logain and his company.
" What's going on?"
***
Riln asked the question bluntly. " What's going on?" The last fight had taken a lot out of him, and he was near exhaustion and collapse. He wanted to hear encouragement. He wanted to hear advice. He wanted to hear it was all over. He needed to hear something. The man, Legih, was a powerful man. Still, he had met his fate accordingly. The boy with Legih, though, he was even more dangerous.
Riln had been fighting Legih for a few minutes when the boy had joined Legih's side. Evenly matched in the Power with Riln, he had nearly tipped the balances. However, Riln had used a small trick and thrown him away. Then he had melted the stone under Legih's feet. When the molten stone was covering the man's nose and mouth, he had hardened it again. The man had suffocated to death, trashing as much as possible with his body wrapped in stone. The boy had run back, and tried to get him out.
When he couldn't, the boy had just blown the Tower open. It was unusual, the amount of Power he used for the task. It was too odd. The boy was obviously powerful, but he was demented in some way. Riln was sure of it. Riln thought back to Logain.
" We believe Taim will try a last ditch assault. He's lost a lot of men, and he's gathering the remains. Forty at most, I think." Logain's honest response was appreciated by Riln, but he forgot what he was about to say when he detected channeling.
Thirty men in black coats were standing opposite Logain's rally in the courtyard, led by Taim. It was really the first time Riln had gotten a Power reading of him, and Logain, and he was surprised. The two great leaders weren't that far above him. And while Logain looked like a good and honest man, Taim looked like the exact opposite.
The black cloak seemed to merge with and eat at Taim, covering him and engulfing him. His dark face and hooked nose were his distinctive features. His eyes, not really remarkable save for the power in them, glared across the courtyard. Then all hell broke loose and the air burned.
***
Logain whirled around and pivoted as a bar of balefire cut across his former location. A second too late, and he would have been dead. He couldn't think about it too much, though, because he had to concentrate on his own weaves. He was, like all the others, near exhaustion. Even the healers among the Asha'man were tiring from the constant wounds they had to Heal and tend to. He fired off half a dozen weaves in rapid succession, followed by a bar of balefire.
Taim deflected most of the attacks, though some went past him to cut into his own men behind him. Taim and Logain's fight was now the center of the battle between the sixty Asha'man, and it was probably the key event. Only Taim's monumental stubbornness was keeping those Asha'man in the battle, and Logain knew that it was up to him to kill Taim. He continued fighting.
Riln was embroiled in a battle of his own, with the boy who he had fought earlier. They were definitely matched in the Power, but for once Riln was afraid. The boy was mad, absolutely mad. He put his full strength behind every blow, and sometimes more than his full strength. It was pure insanity. Riln could tell he was at the thin edge of the blade, where he drew so much that he began to feel pain. One step to the wrong side, and the boy would cut himself off from the True Source forever. And that was a death as certain as balefire.
Riln dodged and attacked again, working desperately. The two Dedicated were fighting and defending so fast that none of their weaves even materialized; they were all cut to ribbons of Power before they became visible. It was the most exhilirating and terrifying fight Riln had ever been in. And he might lose.
Logain finally gave in to exhaustion. It was only a split second, but it was enough. The small blow that passed his guard was a flow of Air. It hit his chest squarely, knocking him on his back in the rubble. He felt like giving up. He couldn't take it. It was too much. Taim grinned with finality and satisfaction. Logain sighed.
Riln saw his perfect opportunity for an attack. The boy had gone all-out again, and had even neglected to create a shield. This was Riln's time. But he also saw Logain falter, and he saw him fall on his back. Logain was the key factor, the life of the Asha'man, and he was vastly more important that Riln.
Riln quickly weaved balefire, but instead of aiming for the boy's heart, he fired at Mazrim Taim. The arm thick bar of white fire took Taim in the head and vaporized his entire body, burning his thread out of the Pattern. Logain groaned and jumped up quickly. He smiled at Riln. Riln smiled back, and felt a crushing blow hit his chest.
***
Logain and two Asha'man let loose their weaves at the same time, and the combined assault was to much for the crazed boy to take. His body was flung against the wall of the Tower with a sickening crunch, and his blood tainted the black stone more than Taim could have. Logain ran over to the boy who had saved his life, the young Riln, and saw that he was still breathing.
Logain picked the small teenager off of the ground, and delved deep into his ability to combine Spirit, Air, and Water into Healing. The weaves penetrated into the boy's body, and he began to breath again. Logain laughed with joy, as the sun began to rise and the he realized the battle was over. The Black Tower has been redeemed.
He laughed and laughed, and the Asha'man surrounding him bowed and put their hands to their chests. The boy stood up slowly, and took his position at Logain's side.
***
And on that day, the Black Tower received a new leader, a just leader, a noble leader. And his name would be written as the first M'Hael, and Mazrim Taim's name would be defiled and cursed across the world. On that day, all the Asha'man swore a new oath to the Black Tower and the Dragon Reborn, and promised to defend what was right and just in the world. On that day, the Asha'man were more than weapons. They were saviors. Their leader was Logain Ablar. And the boy who stood at Logain's side, who would be immortalized with him, was Riln Tarinan, one of the greatest Asha'man of the Third Age.
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