The Grey Tower

After his thinking and his planning, such as it was, Murdock should have felt satisfied that he was getting what he wanted. But he wasn’t. The tall man leaned back in his seat, unfolding his arms and giving the woman a careful look over. She had agreed to his terms, and for the most part he ought to have been happy with what she said, but he wasn’t. Maybe he had done too much, seen too much, to be happy now.

“I doubt we can be genuine friends after how much you hurt me Elia. That’s not what friends do. But we can be partners in our arts – I mean it when I say, I will do what the Oaths forbid you from doing yourself, at least until I am Raised. But friends? It takes more than panicky promises to earn my trust back. You’re going to have to prove it to me. And you’ll get your chance shortly.” Murdock would have liked an angreal but hey, if she couldn’t get him one, then she couldn’t. He would make do with the rest.

The Dedicated got to his feet, his stick gripped firmly in his hands. “Before we can go through with this, I have something I need to do. I can’t use the Oaths to guarantee the truth, but believe me when I say I am not leaving to see the Mistress of Novices. I simply need to guarantee that if you do something untoward, that I have... a backup.” That was as much as he was willing to share. “I won’t be long. As a sign of trust – and an offer of friendship – when I leave, I will undo your bindings and release your shield.” He limped on over to the door, still holding Saidin. When he turned, Giselle was sat on the stool he had vacated.

“I’ll keep an eye on her,” Giselle promised.

“You’re dead Giselle, you can’t do anything!” he told her irritably. He lifted his eyes to Elia, nodding his head just the once. As he did, he removed the Air keeping her in place, and the weave of Spirit keeping her shielded. Then he was out of the door, shutting it firmly and placing a weave of Air and Earth on the lock to keep it shut. No doubt Elia could break out of the door with Saidar, but that would only ask questions she couldn’t answer. Hopefully this small weave would go undetected until his return.

Off the man limped, and it didn’t take him long to return with what he needed. One was a letter he had written some time ago with his intentions. Below, he had scrawled down the outcome of his altercation with Elia, and what they had promised. A second slip of paper had the words he wanted Elia to read when she Compulsed him. Finally, the third and most important thing, was a fellow Dedicated Murdock had some prior dealings with. Dunseth was suitably cowed and knew better than to ignore Murdock’s requests, so he would be standing guard outside the room whilst Murdock went back in. When Murdock left, Dunseth would give him the pieces of paper but for now he remained to the side of the door, silent and waiting.

The question was, would Elia still be in the room now Murdock was on his way back?

Elia

This was the dangerous part, but Murdock liked to think he knew what he was doing. He was certainly not going to walk into a room with a woman who could cast Compulsion on him without having some safety measures prepared beforehand, after all. Seizing Saidin, the man unlocked Elia Sedai’s door and opened it wide, so the woman on the bed would see him talking to someone, but not who. Dunseth stood a few steps back, out of sight. “If you hear anything untoward, knock. If I don’t come to the door, head straight to the Mistress of Novices. Likewise, if I am not back in a quarter turn of the candle, you know what to do.” He nodded just the once, giving Dunseth a firm look. He won’t do anything outside of what I tell him to. His experience with Rending assured Murdock of this.

Into the room he returned, shutting the door and limping back towards Elia with a small smile. He still held Saidin, and he could feel a prickling along his arms. Ah, she was channelling. There was nothing he could do against an Aes Sedai holding the Power, he was fairly sure of that, but Murdock had his backup outside. This was a risk he had to take. “Elia, apologies for the delay.” He took a seat in his usual gingerly way, stretching his leg out. The action made something dig in his trouser pocket, and he took out a round disc with surprise. “Oh,” he looked down at it with a small smile, “I didn’t mean to take this with me. I suppose you wouldn’t care to part with this instead of an angreal? No? Alright.” He handed it over to the Indigo sister, he didn’t know what it did and really that wasn’t why he was here.

He took the piece of paper from his pocket and held that out for Elia next. “I have written down what I would like you to do to me with your Compulsion. After that, I will call us even, and as long as you keep my secret, I promise I will keep yours. I would swear on the Light, but I think we both know that the Light doesn’t shine on people like us, does it? Otherwise, why would my wife be dead?”

The piece of paper was written in Murdock’s simple, square hand. It read: You will not forget your wife, but you will put her memory to rest. You will move on with your life and grieve no more. Of course Murdock wasn’t the one here who could alter memories, so these instructions may or may not be effective, but he needed to try.

“I love you Giselle,” he said to her. She was sat next to Elia on the bed now, still watching him with a bemused expression, “but we both know this cannot continue. I need to be an Asha’man and take care of our daughters, and I can’t do this with you haunting me everywhere I go.” Determined, the man straightened up and released Saidin, putting himself completely at the Aes Sedai’s mercy. “I’m ready,” he told her firmly, his eyes bright and his expression determined.

Elia

This was the ultimate of trust exercises, made more incredibly silly by the fact that when it came down to it, Murdock didn't trust Elia. Oh, he knew in his heart that he did because of something she had done to him, but that was all the more reason to suspect her of foul play. Hopefully his precautions would prevent anything untoward happening, and he could move on with his life. A life where he didn't have to answer to any shadowy creatures beckoning him towards the dark with promises of bringing Giselle back to him...

There was an imperceptible shift in his mind, and his gaze unfocused. He was paying rapt attention to Elia's words and he felt them wash over him, around him, into him, sending shivers along the hairs of his arms and chest. He was being challenged, he realised dully, challenged to lessen the hold his dead wife had over him. His own words were being echoed back to him and supposedly settling into his core. Let it happen, a thought slid into being, just let it happen.

And forget his love for Giselle?

It's not about forgetting, it's about moving on.

But he would never move on, not until he had the revenge he wanted.

"You can have your revenge," Giselle promised him from next to Elia. Murdock didn't look her way, wasn't sure what he would see any more. His head ached dully. "You can still avenge me. The cloaked man and woman will help you. We will be together again, when we are both ready."

"I love you Giselle," Murdock murmured, but in his current state the words were more of a soft drone, a deep exhalation of air rather than any real words.

When he looked to Elia's side, his focus returning, Giselle was not there.

He had a headache. He hadn't felt like this before, not from Compulsion - he would have remembered the ceaseless throbbing behind his eyes, making his brain feel too large for his skull. "Thank you," he muttered, distracted. "For what you have done for me." He swallowed the lump in his throat, trying to assess how he felt, but all Murdock could feel was the headache, persistent and unwelcome.

"Where do we go from here?" It was a good question and Murdock had no immediate answer as he was looking for Giselle still, well looking for her whilst scrubbing his eyes. Light, he needed to lie down. Did he feel different, or did he just feel like he'd been awake too long? When the Far Madding man looked back to the little redheaded woman, he spoke with a somewhat light voice, as if he wasn't entirely present in the room any longer. He was concentrating on keeping himself level to the point where he was nowhere to be found. "From here, I think we are even. And my offer still stands. If you need someone to be dealt with, I will do it for you. As long as you don't use your control over me without my knowledge, we will have no more problems."

It did beg the question of who had controlled him in the first place if it was not Elia. But this didn't feel so pressing, when the urge to lie down and take a nap to sleep the headache away was ever present. "I need to go," he said, standing up slowly and taking his stick.

Elia