The Grey Tower

Elia curled up on her bed, slowly unplaiting her hair in preparation for sleep. It wasn't long beyond the third bell after Low, and the next two hours were meant for personal studies and homework. The elder Darrow just wanted to rest. Mirin Sedai's personal tutelage was more strenuous than she had expected, as was Zae Sedai's. Between the Blue and the Indigo, Elia felt she had little time for anything else that was extra-curricular. That Ravak was out of the Tower didn't help; she sometimes used his office for a refuge, but some broad-shouldered southerner had taken over. She wasn't even sure where her brother's huskies were now.

Elia slipped the ring off of her left hand, and held it up in front of her face. The Great Serpent ring. The mark of an Aes Sedai, or an Accepted in her case. It was plain gold, with the snake biting its own tail making an unbroken loop. She had seen plenty of rings like this, on the fingers of many women. But it was one woman's ring - her own ring, in a possible future - that made her wonder. In her last Arch, she had been the Mistress of Novices for the Grey Tower, and she had created a ter'angreal that could save someone from the three Arches. Of course, she didn't recall how she had made that ter'angreal, although all five parts of the One Power were required in using it.

She embraced saidar, no longer curtailed by the rules of a novice. Above her, she spun out different weaves in different shapes, some simple and some more complex. Since her first demonstration using the One Power in the Grey Tower, Elia had never made a terrible mistake, even when she was unsure what it was she was doing. In all likelihood, it was because she was careful. She had a clear mastery over Air, followed closely by Spirit. Using Earth drained her quickly, and she could barely use more than a trickle of it without getting a pounding headache. Fire was a bit better, but not by much. Her teeth grinded. She needed all five parts of the Power if she was going to save anyone. That was worth more than a few headaches.

Elia pushed herself up, her hair draping down over her shift. Ring in hand, she moved to her desk and lit the nearest candle with a flow of Fire. She placed the Great Serpent ring down flat. She stared at it, long and hard, thinking about what she needed to do. "You have a talent, girl," she repeated in the Indigo sister's exact tones. Much use if I don't know what I'm doing.

She started with Air and Spirit. What does the Arches do? It displaced people into memories or mirror images of things that could be or could have been. Did it have anything to do with Tel'aran'rhiod? There were ways to enter Tel'aran'rhiod, 'in the flesh' as the texts put it. Elia dug up what little she remembered, and began to loop Air and Spirit around her ring. Should have learnt about Travelling; that would have helped. A hole in reality between places had to have some bearing on a hole between worlds. Fine threads of yellow and silver glistened around the ring like exquisite metalcraft. With a twisting off, the weave was absorbed into the ring. At the same time, all of the energy she had a moment before seemed to be sucked out of her. Raising a hand, she stifled a yawn as she let go of saidar. She willed herself into her bed, and sleep consumed her quickly.
----- The following day ended similarly to the last, two hours later after an hour with Zae Sedai. Elia had assumed, incorrectly apparently, that it would be a perfect opportunity to ask about ter'angreal. But the Indigo Aes Sedai had other ideas, which involved a thoroughly dry visit to the Vaults in the illustrious company of Gervan Asha'man. The most interesting thing about the man was his Warder, an Atha'an Miere. So instead of asking about how to make a connection between two ter'angreal, like her brother's inkwell and quill, she was left to catalogue items. "And no using the One Power. The Light alone knows what damage that could cause!" A thorough waste of time.

Elia yawned, too tired to even lift up a hand. She had been thinking about this next step all day. Yellow strands of Air formed a lattice with Fire and Water. It looked a lot like the Delving weave, in a way. Air and Fire became the warp, with Air and Water as the weft. The patchwork of saidar descended over the ring, and it rattled against the table as the conflux of Air and Fire stirred and heated it. With a soundless flash, saidar was drawn into the ring. When the afterimage faded, the ring seemed to glow softly. She watched it even as her eyelids drooped. The glow slowly faded. Finally, Elia hauled herself into bed, and the peace of sleep came upon her immediately.
----- In the morning, Elia woke, sprawled sideways across her bed. An dull yet persistent ache in the side of her neck said that she had slept all night without the benefit of a pillow. Uncomfortable though it was, the beautiful Accepted pushed herself to a sitting position, staring sleepy-eyed at the desk. Her ring now rested in the desk, half submerged into its surface.

Using her nails, she fished it out. The ring had burnt a deep groove into the table, and the ring... The ring itself had turned matt ochre. There was none of the shine of gold, just plain orangey-brownness. Elia knew that objects took on a different property when they were transmuted into ter'angreal, but she had no idea what this change inferred. And it did not look like her ring from the Arches.

"All five powers," she mumbled as she placed the ring on the table, and started brushing her tangled hair. In the Arches, she had used a weave of all five powers on the ter'angreal, and presumably the ring itself would need to the finished off with Earth. She didn't know enough, but could a ter'angreal be changed again? She finished her fifty strokes with the brush, and started the work of plaiting it. Something simple for today. There was no Mirin or Zae to distract her this evening, and if she could dodge a class or two by seeming doing something in the Warder Yard, she could save her energy. "And a stop by the Infirmary to deal with the impending headaches."
----- The third bell past Low. Elia pushed open her door, dropped her books on her bed, and sunk into her chair. How did she forget that Ravak was off somewhere? Ferran Gaidin had not found it so amusing, her barging into his office - Ravak's office - without knocking. Nor the fact he was disciplining some Ji'dar. Now she had some understanding of what being a trainee in the Warder Yards was like, and she regretted being in banded white a little less. At least she hadn't been made to carry rocks from one end of the yards to the other. Dressed in white and carrying rocks... even if she wasn't Aiel, she understood the implication, and she would not be caught dead looking like a gai'shain. She shuddered as the thought physically repulsed her.

She slipped the ochre Great Serpent off, pulling out some notes scrunched into her belt. A brief trip to the Library had helped her get what she hoped was the last part of this... whatever. A ter'angreal that could maybe do something to the Arches. At the very least, she would have something to show Zae Sedai next week. Elia opened herself to saidar, picturing herself as a golden rose opening to the sun. Also along her belt was a small pouch, that she fingered open. Inside was a small glass vial, filled with a dark brown, viscous liquid. "That will clear away any headache child, but the flavour is quite... pungent." Popping the topper off, she gargled at the foul stench that assaulted her Power-enhanced senses. "Peace." Pushing the vial closed, she moved it to the far end of the table, as far away as it could be.

Laying out the notes and with the ring sitting in its groove, she channelled according to the instructions laid out before her. A core of Spirit and Earth was enveloped by a thick shell of Fire and Air, further coated by a layering of Water. Light shone not just from the glow of saidar but from the molten sphere that hovered above the desk. Sweat began to pour off of her as she held onto the flows. The outer surface of Water began to change, its shimmering surface solidifying. Just before the crust had completed stilled, she lifted the ring into the centre of the sphere with a gust of Air. The orb froze, the heat stopping abruptly. Then-

Blackness surrounded everything, and there was a high-pitched whining noise in the Accepted's head. She blinked, then blinked again, black subsiding to grey, then subsiding again into candlelight. The force of the weave had knocked her clean across the room. Touching the back of her hair, her hand came away red and sticky. Fortunately before she had the chance to open her mouth, her door flung open, another Accepted coming to kneel down beside her. Before too long there were more white dresses, then a couple of coloured forms, then all of the white dresses were away. Hands hauled her up and directed her towards the Infirmary. It was all quite a bit of a blur, and blackness once more engulfed Elia Darrow.