Involuntary Recruitment (Attn.: Elessar)

[Guest Faile1987]

Obligation. Forming your character. Discipline. Obedience. All those were essentials, some called them even virtues of the Black Tower. You were obliged to obey those above you in rank as they were only intent on forming your character by tasks or lessons they rendered to you, strengthening yourself physically and maybe mentally if you were lucky, yet enforcing a certain discipline as well as you were expected to hold back your own will, doing what you were told, always and without any complaints, no matter what the circumstances.

 

What you wanted, dreaded or worried about wasn´t important in the daily routine of the Black Tower. What counted was why they were here. That they had no other chance but comply to the rules forced on them if they wanted to have the faintest glimmer of a hope to learn to deal with the corrupting torrent of Saidin inside them, slowly driving them into madness, wasting them about to cause a premature death while making them rot alive.

 

No one of them wanted that. Everyone was abhorred by the mere thought of what awaited those who failed to adjust themselves to the teachings of the Black Tower or those who never had been fortunate enough to come under their tutelage.

 

All that went through Ged´s head on a rather fine Cairhienin day as he walked through the busy streets of said city. Having undertaken the long and laborious travel from the Black Tower up to Cairhien for exactly that reason he just pondered over, to comply to his duties put to him by his mentor in the person of Covai Seriba, one-time Storm Leader of the Black Tower, by some considered a rather odd and unusual teacher, Ged still was aware of what he was to do.

 

Carrying a rather large and heavy bundle after having fetched the sword Covai had had made by a rather peculiar Cairhienin blacksmith, a figure that Ged had deemed much too lean and unmuscular to forge weapons, yet looking at the fine work the man had produced, realization dawned on him that once again outward appearances might be the means deceiving you more than anything else. So far he had even kept his vow to see to getting that sword over to his rightful owner as soon as possible, yet sweat running down his temples as the air of that late summer day heated up rather quickly, Ged thought maybe a little tarry in one of the numerous inns lining the streets crammed and packed with hawkers crying their goods, wool merchants bargaining for live sheep, the smells of freshly-made cakes filling his nostrils, Ged decided to take a break before he would go back to the stables to get the black gelding he had named Cloud for a reason beyond his comprehension as he had never seen a horse less looking like a cloud before.

 

Enterng the inn, he nearly was pleased to find it much less full than he had expected at this time of the day and walking over to the counter, he ordered a mug of ale and some bread and cheese he intended to take with him for the long way back to the Black Tower. As he waited though, not only relief about no one recognizing the black coat with the silver sword pin neatly buttoned over the rest of his night black clothes filled him – the last thing that he needed was getting in trouble because someone recognized a male chaneller in him – but there was something else. Something that caught his attention. Something coming closer. Familiar yet alien at once. Something very close.

[Zygorn]

It was his last day. The last day of his life... at least, the life he had known. It was all over now. His family had decided he had to go, to get away from Maerone, to protect his family. To protect his family, he had to abandon them. At least they hadn't tried to kill him...

 

Elessar always had been alone. Not by choice, he just seemed to work best alone usually, as most people disliked working with him, and he was too shy to work too hard at a friend. And so, he'd lived alone. Well, he had his family and all, his mother and father, but to be honest, he always felt alone. Their love, if they had any for him, was never felt by the boy.

 

And so, he packed his meager belongings and began to prepare to visit the inn for a last few goodbyes to his acquaintances. Off on an adventure, he'd say. He couldn't shame his family by saying he was a male who could touch the power, who could be corrupted by that vile taint, and made an insane weapon that would annihilate life. A destroyer, not a creator. No... he could not do that to his family.

 

As he left, he felt a cool breeze on his hot skin... wait. Hot skin? His skin was always cool, especially in this weather... an unchracteristically cool day for summer. He frowned, worried as he made his way to say his goodbyes.

 

As he walked, he began to grow far warmer, almost feverish as he walked. Beads of sweat forming on his foreheard, he wiped them away as his skin began to feel flushed. However, he couldn't go home now... for all he knew, the taint was taking hold of him. He would not let the taint turn him against his family.

 

And so he drudged on...

[Guest Faile1987]

Paranoia. Light, he was seeing things where there was nothing! Not only strange voices, like subconscious thoughts let alone those dreams haunting him, but that as well now? Would it never stop? Just leave him alone? No. Ged was beyond hope for that already. He had gone too far. Saidin was spreading its taint through him, madness and corruption having seeped too deep into him. He just had become like the others at the Black Tower. Inevitably addicted to the sweetness and evil of the One Power rushing through him. Had developed a much too strong dependence on the Power to just stay away from it.

 

AS if staying away had ever worked for even one of them. No. Staying away from the One Power was as impossible as walking up to the moon. Staying away, remaining abstinent was death even fasster and maybe even more tormenting than letting the urge come through and submitting to it. Ged sighed without really noticing it. What good was the outcome of it all in the end?

 

Sometimes he really caught himself playing with the thought of just killing himself and having it over with. Yet that would be too easy. He wouldn´t go the easy way there. Didn´t deserve it after all. Voices nd hallucinations or no, he would hold on to his oaths. He would make good for at least some that he had done. He would offer help to whoever came across his way and needed it. If they let him he would. He ddn´t mind dying too much. But his ordeal hadn´t come to an end yet. Not this time.

[Zygorn]

... and as he drudged, his condition worsened. He became slowly more and more damp, sweating badly for this time of day. His pack growing heavier, he sighed, panting. He hoped he could get a god rest at the tavern before he collapsed.

 

After a grueling twenty minutes, Elessar opened the door to the Tavern. He went to the bar to ask for a "soft" drink, something to cool him off, when he collapsed with a grunt to the floor, groaning as the world went black.

[Guest Faile1987]

Nearly entirely succumbing to the bleakness of his thoughts, Ged hadn´t even noticed that his face was resting in his hands, remaining propped up on his elbows on the wooden table as he nearly drifted off into the sleep of someone exhausted from a long travel and too many half-nights of being jerked awake again and again by his ever-returning nightmares. Still, mostly he didn´t even need to close his eyes for the images returning, the smell of black smoke biting in his nostrils, agonized voices clamouring to be spared. And yet he had spared no one. Sleeping or waking what he had done would follow him, haunt him. Everyone had his own ghosts. Ged had eleven of them. Eleven people, all more or less innocent, whose life he had ended in a mad rampage to avenge his father. A revenge that hadn´t even cost him his innocence and hope for salvation and rebirth, but moreover his own mother having died by his hands. There was no excuse for that. An accident was not a word sufficient to express the damage he had done. Irrevocable evil that would be redeemed by him as long as there was some breath remaining in his lungs and even beyond. There was no redemption strong enough to make good for the sins he had done and yet he still wandered on this earth…

 

A loud crash suddenly jerked him back into present, abandoning those remorseful thoughts. A chair topling over, the figure of a young man falling and collapsing on the floor with a dry groan, his mug containing some light liquid bursting on the planks, content spillin on the floor, matting his sweaty hair even further.

 

Ged didn´t even bother to think or worry about what was going on here before he was at the boy´s side, checking on what was wrong with him, that could have caused this breakdown resulting in an excited uproar in the inn with people shouting and running around, frantic like a lot of chicken on the sight of a fox intruding.

 

All of that touched Ged only on the surface though as he didn´t even bother concealing his true nature of a male channeller anymore. Afraid of people´s reaction on that or not, his urge to help that boy, his urge to help anyone that might need and was willing to accept it, outweighed his concern for himself by far and so he had already spun the weave of Delving, something he had picked up during one of his intermediate lessons and had let it seep into the limp body lying on the floor lifeless and unmoving.

 

Had he been thinking clearly, Ged wouldn´t even have needed to delve him to recognize what his breakdown had caused, to recognize that this boy had been the very reason for his awkward feeling from before, the feeling that only a male channeller noticing another one of his kind coming close. As it was now, Ged registered fever burning inside the young Cairhienin before him, threatening to consume him and burn him to a tinder if he remained without treatment. Not everyone did survive the wasting fever that followed a male channeller´s first contact with Saidin after all.

 

That very thought sticking in his mind, Ged didn´t even bother to pick the boy up and lay him down somewhere more comfortable than the floor of an inn in Maerone, but without hesitation gathered all his mind and strength in the One Power to try another weave he had only seen until now though he had experienced its effect on his own person rather often, too often to be fond of it, yet knowing well how much it could do. Healing wasn´t an easy weave at all though and Ged was very well aware of the fact that basically only Asha´man were allowed to practise it and that for good reason as ryou could easily cause as much damage as you intended to heal.

 

So he was almost surprised as the complicated pattern he knew he would have to use here formed under his action, looking the exact copy of those Healing weaves he had seen before. Applying it to the boy lying in front of him by gently putting his fingers to his feverish temples, Ged suddenly felt what Healing meant for the Healed one as well as for the Healed by first hand experience. It was the best and simultaneously the worst feeling that had ever shot through his body with the exception of the constant torment of the taint raging in his veins when he felt the unconscious body under him jerk and convulse when his own heart felt like being clenched with an icy iron fist, slowly draining his own life force and spirits of him in the same rate as they slowly seemed to return to the boy in his hands.

 

Healing takes as much strength from the Healer as it does from the Healed. Ged didn´t remember who exactly had told him this, but the truth of it now struck him with a full blow as he felt like suddenly about to fall over himself, whereas he had only got to experience the feeling from the other side of the weave, of the Healed one before.

 

Letting the web in his hands dissipate slowly after having made sure that the fire inside the other one´s body had died down for sure, Ged noticed his own body being drenched in sweat as he sagged against the plump wooden leg of a table next to him, head bowed in exhaustion as he leaned there, glad for the support holding him up as he waited for the boy to wake, not even paying any attention to the screams and accusation screeching somethng about a male channeller and madness and death in their midst around him. He was just too exhausted to care anymore…

[Zygorn]

A soft groan would come from the boy Ged had healed. This boy was slowly waking, confused and feeling extremely weak. He wanted to sleep. But he had to get away from Maerone, so as not to shame his parents.

 

And so he sat up, looking about himself, wondering what he was doing on the floor, and why his hair was wet, and why his drink was on the floor.

 

"Wha-?" he groaned softly as he looked around, and noticed a man leaning against a table leg.

[Guest Faile1987]

Light, he was tired! Sleep, a word like a promise of rest and relaxation, a means to get over and forget what he had just done, what was just happening and had left him in the state he currently was in. Drenched in cold sweat and heaving for breath as he was right now, Ged only eventually recalled what had happened here and had rendered him to having to clutch the wooden table leg for support to keep his body from slumping on the floor.

 

Taking a deep raspy breath, wheezing for air to fill his lungs, Ged finally managed to lift his head ,that seemed to suddenly have gone heavy enough to feel leadend like the rest of his limbs and looked at the boy outstreched on the wooden planks of the inn, still unmoving, but eyes finally fluttering open. Healing.Yes. That´s what he had just done. That´s what had brought this one back from the wasting fever, the sickness of having been exposed to the full extend of the taint infestering Saidin for the first time.

 

As the boy lifted his head to abruptly sit up only to fall down nearly splat on the ground again, realization of what he had just done dawned on Ged. "Light, we...", trying to talk he suddenly noticed how hoarse and raspy he sounded, trying to swallow to work moisture back into his mouth while hearing people around him shout and shuffle feet and pull back furniture, shouts of "Madness" and "Channeller" and more obsence things coming through to his hearing.

 

Ged knew they had to hurry and with an urgent, but still as calm as possible a tone he ushered the boy, unsteady hand reaching for his to pull him up even tough he himself could barely stand, let alone walk. "Come on boy", he said, his voice now sounding at least a bit more understandable. "We have to get out of here. Come with me and hurry." They had no time to spare indeed. The world knew what the people of Maerone would do to a loose male channeller and weakened and every muscle inside his body clamouring for some rest or not, Ged didn´t intend to try them.

 

"Where´s your horse boy?", he finally asked staggering at the boy´s side. "We have to get away from here, quick!"

[Zygorn]

Elessar was still dazed as he took the other's hand, who appeared to be nearly his age, perhaps a bit older.

 

"Come on boy"

 

"Wha-?... you're my age, you bloody..." He staggered as he tried to pull away from the other, exhausted. Groaning, he turned to the other.

 

"We have to get out of here. Come with me and hurry."

 

"I dun e'en know 'oo you are...." He mumbled, being pulled away. As they came outside, the other man began belting questions at him.

 

"Where´s your horse boy? We have to get away from here, quick!"

 

"'Orse? I dun 'ave a 'orse..." He mumbled, looking confusedly at the other man.

[Guest Faile1987]

Grasping the boy´s arm, Ged hurried out of the inn without further delay, the angry rumble behind him enough to know that if they wanted to save their hides they should get out of Maerone as fast as possible and he wouldn´t let anything, not even his own body keep himself from that.

 

Stumbling the two of them half hurried, half staggered through the still crammed streets of the small Cairhienin city, Ged more draggin than guiding the boy along with him, shrouding himself deeply into the void to block out anything that might hinder him, regardless to the knowledge that his body wouldn´t stand that treatment long enough and was likely to just collapse before he had reached the stables he knew he had left Cloud in.

 

Sighing in a mix of resignation and exhaustion, Ged nodded curtly as he identified the incoherent almost undiscernable babble of the boy as him saying that he had no horse and that he apparently was more confused than anything else about what just was happening, yet neither of them had the time nor the strength to talk much now. They had to get away, had to reach the Black Tower before falling over. Somehow.

 

Finally they managed to get through to the stables. A few muttered words and some extra coin to the eager hand of the stableboy granted them a quick depart without any questions and even some assistance to hurl up the boy into the saddle in front of him, before Ged scampered up awkwardly, clammy drained fingers raising Cloud´s rains and ushering him forward only to the motion of his unfeeling thighs and his hollow voice that only had enough time to utter "To the Black Tower", before everything started to swim and to fade in front of his eyes. Even if he had known how to make a gateway, Ged wouldn´t have found the strength inside him to even take hold of Saidin. In fact he was fortunate enough to make the horse move fast enough to get them out of town that already was transforming into a boiling kettle short before overflowing.

 

He didn´t even manage to thank the Light for him staying conscious long enough to get out of that town far enough to be out of reach before he finally passed out, limp hands holding the reins only hoping that Cloud knew the way back to his stables as well as Ged thought as he hadn´t the means to guide the way anymore, sagging against the back of the boy sitting in front of him weakly, somehow managing to stay in the saddle...

[Zygorn]

Elessar mumbled in protested as he was yanked all over town.

 

"Why is everyone yelling?" He grumbled questioningly before they got into the stables.

 

"Oi.. hello Fredrick..." He managed to say before being hoisted onto a horse, followed by the stranger as they began to ride off. He yawned a bit, and felt himself drifting. He jerked, girpping the horse's mane and righting himself, still drowsy now that the threat faded. He was so bloody tired. Flaming heat... what happened.

 

Elessar remained awake enough to remain upright, and to keep the stranger from falling, but he had no idea what was going on. He gently shook the other man, drowsily trying to rouse him as the horse continued meandering off.

 

"Bloody 'ell... wha's happenin'?" he muttered in frustration.

[Guest Faile1987]

Dimly he noticed someone shaking him, a ripple on the surface of his consciousness, yet it didn´t seem to go deep enough to make Ged realize what was really going on or what was the actual purpose of his being her, let alone what had caused his present more than deranged state. The only thing he noticed was himself slowly starting to slide off Cloud´s back, faintly being aware of someone holding him upright before his senses completely abandoned him...

 

**********

 

He didn´t know when it was that sunlight seemed to tickle him awake, only that when he opened his eyes, the stinging bright light of the sun standing in its zenit making him blink irritably, already the silhouette of the farmhouse came clearly into view, maybe ten minutes away in the pace Cloud was still setting.

 

"But Light, I can´t...How...How long have I been...been asleep?", he asked th boy who now was sitting behind him in the saddle - he somehow recalled that it had been the other way round what...days ago? Light! How long had he been unconscious?.

 

So, the other one must have picked him up again and finally Cloud had found his way to his home stable as well, Ged realized before they stopped at the yard and he finally found himself able to dismount on his own, being able to stand upright now, only a quick glance in the water trough Cloud was eagerly drinking from making a frown appear on his face as he noticed how pale and haggard he looked, a deranged appearance that would please the Asha´man, much less the Storm Leader who they were just about to meet very little.

 

Well, he had to go through this now, even though he already dreaded the questions he would have to face, even a Dedicated was not yet supposed to use such a complex weave as Healing, and yet he had done it, just like that. Light, he would have to bear a lecture about that - if he was lucky.

 

"Well...welcome to the Black Tower", he said only a bit shakily as he gestured towards the Farmhouse. "Now that we´ve finally made it at last, let´s get you signed in..."

[Zygorn]

Elessar could hardly remember what had happened the past few days... Blurs of the horse wandering as he tried to hold the other up in various landscapes, replacing the stranger who hauled him away from his home without his belongings to Light knows where, he sighed.

 

Then the other woke up, and got off his horse. Elessar himself was rather drowsy still, having tried to remain awake while the other was asleep, little good it would do him...

 

"Well...welcome to the Black Tower, now that we´ve finally made it at last, let´s get you signed in..."

 

"Wai-Wha?" he blurted, blinking. "Signed in? Black Tower? I was headed to Cairhien... where am I?!" Elessar asked excitedly, his voice a bit louder than it needed to be, and a bit agitated at his new location.

[Guest Faile1987]

Noticing the confusion underlayed with fear plain on the other one´s face, Ged suddenly felt himself strangely reminded of his own initiation to the Black Tower. Well, he had come out of his own account, in some way at least, but still the behaviour of Elessar right now very strongly resembled the state he had been in, yet he guessed he had known a bit more about what was going on and about what was awaiting him behind that heavy mahogani door they were standing in front of now, waiting to be permitted to enter.

 

"Well, you know what you did", Ged stated almost flatly, "you have control over the One Power, the male half, Saidin, or at least you can channel it. You will need the teaching of the Black Tower and heed the advice and orders you are given to have a chance against the madness of the taint. This is the only way. I´d like to tell you different but that´s how it is. Either go mad or die or do what they tell you..."

 

Ged sighed, nearly hanging his head succumbing to his own frustration and helplessness. Yet the opening of the door in front of him distracted him well enough to shove Elessar through with a "Good luck and just tell him what he wants to know", before he left the new one to his fate, hoping the best for him and resuming to prevail over his own dark thoughts.

[Guest Dalinar]

Dalinar counted back from a hundred as the next recruit stepped into his office. He was the eleventh that had been brought in so far today - eleven in one day! - and Dalinar found himself wishing there had been about eight less of them. Another meant another for the Dragon's side. Another for the Light. But it also meant another mouth to feed, another back to find clothes and equipment for, and another head that needed shelter.

 

Keeping his impatience far from his features, Dalinar looked up at the new recruit from the seat behind his desk. He had, at least, donned the finely embroidered coat that bore the Dragon's mark on the sleeves to give his appearace a slighty more official bearing.

 

"So," Dalinar said leaning back in his chair, "I imagine you have a story to tell, though we don't push for details here at the Black Tower. Your past is your business, if you wish to keep it that way. Your future is our business though. Or perhaps you have questions, I never know how much recruits have been told before their feet are led to my doors..."

 

Dalinarius Traachanshield

M'Hael

(Apologies for the delay)

[Zygorn]

"Yes... Yes... I have a question... How did I get from Maerone's tavern to here? I was headed to Cairhien..." he muttered, after having been pushed inside, he stepped forward, with an air of submissive respect. He knew not what this man was like, but chances are he could kill Elessar before El could blink. And so, he did his best to remain polite.

 

"And... you can teach me to stave off the taint? To keep from killing those I care for?"

[Guest Dalinar]

Dalinar's smile was thin, though a hint of it managed to touch his grey eyes. Always the taint, always the blighted and foul corruption that the Dark One had laid against man for daring to attempt to best him.

 

"You will have better answers to your question on the taint once you come to find your place here at the Black Tower. Know simply this - the taint is unavoidable. Once touched, you cannot stop yourself from touching saidin again. And again. And again. And with it each time a little of the taint." Dalinar's gaze held that of the newcomer steadily.

 

"You cannot escape it. But you can fight it. Every day here at the Tower will be a struggle... for life. Here, you can make the best of what you have, and what you are. You can call it a gift, or a curse or whatever you like, but you can channel whether you like it or not."

 

"So," Dalinar's head cocked slightly to one side and his eyes grew distant for a moment, "Can we teach you to stave off the taint? Perhaps. Certainly we can recognise when it's effects can be denied no longer. And," The M'Hael's blank face came back into focus, "Will you be kept from killing those you care for?" He nodded once, shortly. "Most assuredly." His words were said with an air of finality that was left hanging in the air.

 

"So, have you channeled already then? Or did young Maevere only find the latent potential in you?"

 

 

 

Dalinarius Traachanshield

M'Hael

[Zygorn]

"I channeled... I suppose... my parents felt I was of the Taint, and though they loved me, they would not let me stay. I was going off on 'a grand adventure', and I was on my way to the tavern to say goodbye. When I got there, I ordered a drink, as I felt uncannily warm. Next theing I knew, I was on a horse, and the other man who brought me here was on the horse behind me... and then I was here..." he drifted off, then looked at the other man again. "Do I really have a choice?"

[Guest Dalinar]

"A choice?" This time Dalinar's chuckle was more genuine. "Everyone has a choice, it's a case of whether they can see all the paths set before them, that's all. You can choose whether to stay or go. Though I imagine the latter would have dire consequences, one way or another, so you might well not see that as a choice at all."

 

"The real choice, is what you will make of what has come to pass. For good or for ill, we can teach you to control your ability and focus it. You can choose to let it run rampant, and perhaps you will be the one to begin another Breaking. Oh, I know my words are harsh," Dalinar nodded to himself, "They are intended to be. Make no mistake, this is not a game. This is not a dream from which you will wake unscathed. This is life, and blood, and battle. Yours." Dalinar paused for a significant moment. "Your choice."

 

Dalinarius Traachanshield

M'Hael

[Zygorn]

"I have no desire to break anything. I don't want to hurt people, least of all innocents. You really present one choice... learn from you, or die and take down as much of the world as you can as you fall. That is no choice at all. I will learn, from whoever will teach me, I will do my best..."