The Grey Tower

Jerid Walker Asha'man Starlight filled the Garden glade by the lake, motes of bluish light dancing in the air as if they were astral bodies drawn to the earth and captured in that one space.

A dozen paces from the lake’s edges, the Asha’man sat quietly on in chair set in a circle of seats, his gold-green eyes sparkling in the ethereal splendor. His youthful face was calm ... a man no older than perhaps thirty-two, with only a few grey hairs.

Saidin coursed through him, an edgy balance of fire and ice. It wasn’t needed to preserve the weave around him -- it had since long been tied off -- but more to feel the calm breeze that brushed the faint mist of water off the lake and into his presence, to hear the nightbirds singing, the scent of jasmine in the air ...

The few occasions when he could hold the True Source without feeling too ill ...

It was also the first time that Jerid Walker Asha’man went unhooded. Most had speculated what the Indigo Asha’man looked like since his return five months ago. Even servants who were in attendance during the few meetings between him and the Captain-General did not see him unhooded -- they were all dismissed to let the two channelers of simple pleasures serve themselves tea.

The look was of a man who was untouched by time -- the same man who had vanished 15 years ago and reemerged into the Tower, escorted by a young drin and a few soldiers. Most channelers aged slowly, yes, but at an age with Miahala Sedai, or so rumors go, the man was likely to show time’s grasp, as old as 50 by some counts.

But he remained untouched, a curse and gift granted to him by the Portal Stones. Long ago, Jerid’s mind had been split asunder, his soul merged with another ... reality of himself. In the process, he’d become inexorably tied to those Portal Stones.

It was a fitting irony, considering Walker Manor, the ancestral home, had been built on and around a Portal Stone hollow. That object, that hollow, was all that remained of the ancient seat, other than ruins of what was destroyed more than a decade ago.

In the months since his return, Jerid had found peace long deprived of him for 15 years. His he reconnected with his wife and Warder, with old friends, had spoken with his son and with a daughter that he had long hidden from.

And he had accepted the inevitability that his end was near. After two centuries Jerid Walker and the past perception he would go on ... for lifetimes ... until now. But it was fair. For nine years he had witnessed other worlds ... other lifetimes thanks to one Portal Stone. He had walked realities absent of life, worlds so alien that it could not conceive with what occurred here ... witnessed the lives that would have been and in part experienced them.

Jerid Walker lacked the Talen some of his fellow Indigo had with Portal Stones, but his past interaction and ... a curse had melded him to them in such a way he could not understand.

And when he had finally returned to this world, the only regret in his life had been ... not living in this world. Fifteen years had passed, one of them cloistered in an Ogier sanctuary to find some peace.

Fifteen years lost with Lysira, with their son ... years in which he could have defended Walker Manor, years he could have gotten to know his daughter ...

The motes flashed for a brief second, bright green ... the Indigo’s lips smirked.

She had received the invite.

The weave was as much a Ward as anything else. A very special one tuned over time to specific people.
Liana Calin Gaidin Liana watched quietly, hand on the hilt of her sword. The small red-haired Gaidin had been called to watch by her father’s request ... a rare occasion given it was Lysira Gaidin who watched over the Asha’man’s presence most days and nights.

The only exception was that Cade Walker was visiting on a rare state visit and the Lord of Camden Corelle had requested dinner with his mother alone. Liana had spoken with her older brother that day ... and could respect his reasons for the meeting.

Likewise, at that moment mother and son dined, Liana watched over her father just inside the field of stars. Her eyes picked up every moment but it did not detract from the awe she felt about such a wonder.

At one moment she stiffened, hearing the soft footfalls that neared. The stars flashed green even as the Gaidin’s sword was half-drawn.

And she immediately relaxed her grip, the blade slipping back into its scabbard when the middle-aged woman in a cloak stepped into the small glade. Her mouth curved into a smile.

“Aunt Mia!” she whispered. The words escaped unbidden from a woman the Aes Sedai likely barely knew beyond an occasional trainee assigned to her detail. Liana had grown up on stories of Miahala Sedai, had kept track of her history in the Tower ... and on occasion interacted with her little boy while on protection detail in the Tower’s school care.

She launched at the Aes Sedai ... and into a fierce hug. And then she peeled herself away with a fierce flush.

“Apologies, Miahala Sedai,” she said meekly. “It’s just I haven’t seen you in ... I’m Asha’man Jerid’s daughter, Liana Miahala Siobahn Calin, sworn sword to Lord Cade Walker by request of Lady Calyndra nee Sohyn Walker and her Wader.” She blushed again. “But you know that ... and that I was on watch over your son’s class .. Iain is such a wonderful boy ... “

She launched into another hug, as tight and as brief and she smiled. “With your blessing ... I would have tea with the aunt my father has told me so much about ... just you, just ... my aunt, not the legend everyone has woven around her, just the woman who inspired a little girl to become a Gaidin.”

If there was one sincere wish in her life beyond knowing her mother and father ... it was this.

‘Liana ... “ her father’s voice called. The Gaidin blushed again. “Apologies, Aes Sedai ... “
Jerid Walker Jerid heard the approach footfalls of the Aes Sedai even as the motes flashed green briefly again ... before forming a faint silver-purple hue. He held up a bottle in greeting without even turning.

“I created this weave when I was a soldier,” he said simply. “I believe Daimenin challenged me to do something creative ... something outside my Talents ...”

The Asha’man smiled even as Miahala approached within his field of vision. “It evolved since then. This is the only illusion I’ve ever been able to create, and the only effective Ward to warn of others ... “

His free hand offered a seat to his right, toward a seat that offered a slightly better look of the lake ahead ... and the moon above and the reflection of the star motes dancing among them.

“She adores you,” Jerid murmured, casting his gold-green eyes at Miahala. “My daughter was raised up on stories about a dead mother, an absentee father ... and you as just who you are.”

His eyes glittered with admiration as he spoke. “And it’s just you ... not the Aes Sedai I rode out with as a Dedicated in a small party, who I trusted my power to when it came to the Dreadlord who wore her husband’s face, but the woman who risked all for her son’s safety ... the woman who later came to the aid of a worried newly minted Master of Soldiers as a fellow parent when his whole family was at risk in the Caralain .... the woman who above all else served as Amyrlin Seat but remembered who she represented.”

He popped open the bottle and poured generous amounts into two glasses. He offered one to Miahala -- only after taking a sip from each glass for those invisible eyes watching -- and smiled bittersweetly.

“Brandy of an Ebou Dari recipe with subtle hints of Saldaea conformed to Andoran tastes,” he murmured. “Made and distilled in Walker manor lands ... and the last bottle ever made before its fall.”

He took a sip ... and then took a deep smell of the drink before he released saidin. The field of stars about them still danced, this time pulsing between green and a deep purple.

“To us,” he said, raising his glass in a toast. “To the last of who came before and bore witness and protection over this great place.”

He smiled. “How are you, old friend?”

For the most part, being assaulted was to be considered a bad thing... There are, however, exceptions to every rule. Sometimes, one could be downright assaulted with a hug. In those cases, it is not a bad thing but something to be cherished. Miahala, as a being that some said knew everything (although she didn't), wasn't entirely unfamiliar with the girl now squeezing her.

Young woman, of course, but it was hard to not think of her as a girl when the warder was so slight--nearly two hands shorter than the Aes Sedai. Mia even still thought of Lysira as a 'girl' much of the time, after all.

When they pulled apart, she took the young Gaidin's chin in her hand for an appraising, motherly look. "Liana Miahala?" she repeated with an amused but tender smile. "To protect Lord Cade? For such a wide, wide world and such a large, populous Tower, this place is awfully small, is it not?" She chuckled and dropped her hand.

"You may have tea with me any time, dear," she said. "And just as me, but also perhaps with Iain depending on when you're free." She tilted her head toward the clearing and seats and lights. "For now, I have business with the old man," she whispered, then winked before striding gracefully away.

Mia walked into the clearing and took the empty seat, smiling at Jerid as she settled back. She took the glass when it was offered and raised it in the toast. "To us," she said. "To them. To those who will follow and hopefully learn by our victories as well as our failures and do more and do better than we could ever have dreamed." She smiled as she sipped, then looked around the light-filled space.

"I am well," she finally said as she looked back. "Although Ravak seems content to put me into fits of frustration and worry on a regular basis...but, well, what fun is a man who doesn't? Iain is growing tall and quickly so. Smart enough to worry me, at that." Everything else was Tower matters that anyone in the Tower would know of, mostly.

She tilted her head. "And you? I know of why you've finally returned home, so I ask not that...but are you enjoying your time with your wife?" Mia smirked slightly. "She's been a different woman in these recent days."

Liana Gaidin Liana beamed up at the matronly Aes Sedai, her dark green eyes dancing with a mix of humor and respect for the older woman.

“Indeed a small place,” she replied quietly with a wry smile. She nodded beyond to the sitting Asha’man. “But so worth the taunts just before seeing the looks on those boys on their backs at the end of a spar when I was a trainee ...”

When Miahala Sedai agreed to tea sometime and the inclination toward her main purpose, Liana nodded quietly and stepped back with a respectful bow before her fancloak blended her in with the surrounding trees and shrubbery.
Jerid Walker The Indigo’s lips curved in an upward smile at his old friend’s return toast, however faint and fleeting. The smile remained in his gold-green eyes.

“For they are our future, our hopes and the best of us,” he echoed. It was little secret that Jerid Walker saw the best of himself in his children -- some might have inherited his stubborn streak and or embraced passion, but in his entire life as a parent he’d seen his children defend the Light -- and remain free of that precarious ledge he had to walk between Light and Shadow.

Your gift to them, Walker, he thought.

Miahala’s mention of her young son brought another smile to Jerid’s lips. In the few moments he shared with his daughter, Liana had regaled him with tales of the young boy’s antics. But light, if the boy was growing fast and already too smart ...

“Best keep him away from the Kitchens while the Mistress is away,” he said with a grin before sipping his whiskey. “Else the Tower may find itself without sweets and the entire Tower at the mercy of a bitter experience heaped onto their meals after that woman begins her hunt.”

Even the long-lived former First Seeker knew best to keep a wide berth of the Mistress of Kitchens when she was even in the best of moods.

Miahala’s next question brought another, more pleasant smile to his lips. Jerid’s eyes flashed, once more betraying the youthful face.

“Yes,” he said, addressing both her question and her observation at once. His eyes grew distant for but a few heartbeats. “I can remember every moment in my life with clarity ... but none sharper or vividly than with her.”

His eyes shifted toward Miahala and he murmured, “In two hundred years, there was only one other who evoked such a quality.” He looked briefly back in the direction of his daughter, a near spitting image of Sienna Calin, her mother and his now-dead Warder.

“For almost ten years, I walked an untold number of worlds and watched other lives -- other possibilities unfold. Some were mere echoes, ‘what-ifs’ that were so foggy one could just breathe and they would vanish; others were so tangible that they ached as I witnessed them, and it was those ones that brought me back,” he said. “More to the point, it was my Lysira who brought me back here -- home.”

Miahala sipped her drink, leaning back into her chair like it was something of a throne mixed with a seat at a cottage table, both of which she utterly belonged to be sitting in and just as comfortable in knowing it to be true. She smiled as she listened, her eyes seemingly unblinking in their active focus on him.

Of course, she was never unaware of all that was around her. It was a peculiar skill she had honed over the years.

"They say that home is never truly four walls nor a piece of land. It is the people in whose hearts we live and those who we wish to have live in ours. Your home is where she is. She only happened to be here." She lifted her glass again in a toast, but this one was without words. It was simply an acknowledgement of a lesson they had both learned.

She rested her glass in her lap, held in one hand as she idly traced part of the rim with her finger. It was as close to an unconscious, unmeasured gesture as she was capable of. "It is good to see you again, for however long we may have." She was, of course, aware of the timing of his return. "You should meet Iain soon. You'll think him the embodiment of every mischief maker who came before him."

x“Home ...” the word escaped Jerid’s lips as he hid behind the glass of brandy. His gold-green eyes grew distant as he sipped and lowered the glass.

A soft, melancholy smile twisted his mouth and his gaze was misty. “A funny word, home,” he murmured, looking at Miahala. She was right, something he acknowledged with but a glance.

Lys was his home — where she went, he went. In what time remained on this mortal coil, he was bound to her, would never stray too far from her side short of a very necessary need on either of their parts.

“But what is home for this old Indigo?” he asked honestly. “Ebou Dar was my home for most of childhood and teenage years before ... before I lost Erin because of the Seanchan ... and then the Tower ... and then the discovery of my true heritage as a son of House Walker and then ...”

Ebou Dar was but a distant memory now held by the Seanchan Empire. His Rahad was gone, an echo of a memory he could only visit in dreams.

House Walker was gone, except what remained at Camden Corelle. Walker Manor in the Caralain was nothing more than a hollow ruin, destroyed by an unknown enemy more than a decade ago. What information Jerid had received came from those channelers who had helped civilians escape and from those few soldiers who had helped in the retreat whilst the Indigo’s own son Sojin Majere had led one final charge to defend those fleeing ... and of Sojin no one knew the former Gaidin’s fate.

But Jerid had long ago accepted some things were beyond his ability to prevent -- especially when he had been absent from this very world.

He raised his glass in response to Mia’s toast. “Home,” he said, “is here for now.”

Subtle meaning lurked behind his casual words. Lys and he were still discussing it ... but home might take on a different look soon, one of roads and tents, inns and modest homes.

And the subject changed to children and Jerid smiled, his gold-green eyes brightening ever so slightly.

“So I’ve heard from Liana,” he said with a grin. “Described him in such a way that I couldn’t help but think of a certain past Amyrlin Seat who would up and travel without a second thought or notice to the Hall ... and leaving her First Seeker to shout over and browbeat several flaming Sitters in the process that accosted him in the corridors.”

His eyes sparkled and he grinned. “I would love to meet him ... maybe even introduce him to a niece...” he used the term liberally ... “Calisye do’Rai. She’s the daughter of Alanshir Asha’man of the Grey and Alyse Payete, of your Ajah, both good friends. Smart, very persistent.”



His grin deepened as if acknowledging he had enjoyed such an activity. The Indigo had to acknowledge there had been some benefit in his close friendship and loyalty to Miahala in those days -- don’t act indignant when the most powerful woman in the Westlands up and left and then demand answers from the presumed watchdog.

Miahala Sha’hal was not nor ever had been Amora en’Damier.

Amora had been the embodiment of what an Amyrlin Seat was in theory and soul -- unmovable, unyielding, a strong practitioner of the Game of Houses. Kind, wise, merciful and merciless, devoted to the Tower and building its strength toward the Final Battle. And Jerid served. Unquestionably. As her sword, as her shadow. He had loved the woman as friend and something more, unspoken.

But it was a loyalty forged in part due to an oath to her granddaughter. Liana en’Damier held a closer place in his heart than most, in part as a dear friend and in part as something he saw once in his first daughter. His oath extended to the Amyrlin Seat he grew to love and protect.

Miahala never needed such protection. Miahala had been his oldest living friend by the time the Hall raised her. If anything, he’d argue his disagreements -- in private -- over decisions she might have made but deferred to her final word as the Flame.

What’s more, when Miahala sensed her time had come, she yielded the seat to another. Amora might not have done that until the bitter end.

And so she deserved the truth.

“Lysira and I may be leaving here, old friend,” he murmured. “Nothing has been set ... but life is short for me and the years I have left would be spent living this world.”

He smiled and sipped his drink again. “Nyoma told me that ... initial prognosis of a year has changed to five years. She said my recent channeling forced whatever illness to re-adapt ... forced what ill effects I suffered after channeling out of my system ... “ His eyes drew in a haunted look. “Nyoma said whatever connection I had with Pattern that came with the illness may fade and I will return to what I once was.”

Lysira knew. He’d informed her. He’d informed Miahala of a similar situation so many years ago -- free of the Pattern, one face, cursed to go on as he was short of death or sudden illness ... never to be rewoven. Nyoma had given him a half and half chance -- one of five years or one that he would resume his past “normality.”

“I pray for the five years,” he murmured. “Five years of happiness and a small blessing my future self might meet Lysira again.”

He shook his head then and smiled as he looked at Miahala.

“Enough of wishful thinking. You speak of your son, but I want to know also of his father,” he said with a curious smile. “The Ravak Darrow I knew of was a capable Gaidin. How was it that he came to win the heart of the great Miahala?”

To hear that the pair may leave to find better ways to spend his remaining time together did not surprise Miahala in the least, and if they did leave, she wished them well. The pair deserved it. Lysira, practically Mia's daughter, deserved it. She loved that girl like one of her own and thus wished the same for her as any other of the Green's children.

The question, however, made her laugh and roll her eyes at the same time.

"You know us stubborn borderlanders," she said almost flippantly as she lifted her glass and took a sip. "He has now served as Master of Arms and earned herons on his blades, so I feel no undue pride to say he's now beyond a capable Gaidin." She smiled, then it softened and she shrugged slightly. "How do these things ever happen? They just do.

"And you know me, old friend. I lead with my head and my heart in equal turns. Four husbands, a lover beside, six children... This Aes Sedai earned plenty of side-eyes in her earlier years for following that path, but I believe that it has served me well so I will continue to follow it until I am woven back into the Pattern...and stay there this time."

She chuckled again. The Aes Sedai that rose from the dead... No small number of waves made at that one, naturally, but it had been years now and she hadn't succumbed to some latent insanity or buried compulsion, so she had to figure she was in the clear.

"Where do you think you will go?" she asked after a moment.

Jerid smiled quietly as Miahala spoke. His eyes held a deeper understanding more than anything else.

How do these things ever indeed take effect?

Over two centuries, the Indigo had forgotten what that meant. He remembered every face, every feeling, every moment he shared with those he loved, yes, but ...

Miahala had always been a different creature than Jerid Walker could ever have been. In many ways they were similar, soldiers, creatures of devote loyalty, servants of the Tower and the Light, loyal to those they loved and protected.

The difference, in Jerid’s mind, was that Miahala had limits, though few. Jerid did not. Where Caden Ives did not ever deserve his infamous nickname, the Indigo had. The Demon of Ebou Dar was a real creature, a manifestation of Jerid Walker that existed long after his first love had been slain by a Seanchan agent Jerid had trusted ...

“Aye, I know you, dear friend ... “ he murmured, leaving the unanswered question of whether she truly knew him. But that was a stupid question to ask himself or anyone. Miahala knew who he was better than most save perhaps Lysira.

Much of Miahala’s life had been recorded, whether by written word or oral history, but Jerid’s life remained fragmented. Few like him had so ... divisive a history in Tower’s history. Segments of his own life went unrecorded because he hid well ... and because the world thought him dead.

“I lost count myself ...” he murmured. It wasn’t a competitive statement, merely a reflection. In many ways, he admired Miahala’s objectivity when it came to love. Few Greens shared her ... modesty wasn’t a word, but it was the only word his mind could ascribe to it.

He wanted to expand on that, but a look from Miahala was enough to know that ... she knew. His life had not been perfect and there had been children born both before and after his marriage to Lysira.

Miahala had borne witness to his use of the Healing weave to ‘explode’ those who killed his own family members so shortly after his ascension to Master of Soldiers. As Amyrlin Seat, she had likely been privy to the fact he wove balefire to save Lysira, his wife and her adopted daughter, from a Dedicate’s assault.

In the latter, Jerid had accepted physical and political punishment from Amora without whispers of what had occurred. Lys had been pregnant at the time and it was the occasion in a million where it showed an Indigo Asha’man could summon balefire, however weak.


His mind drew close to to a certain fact: The Tower as a whole knew he was dying. Only a few currently knew of his most recent prognosis, Miahala included.

His fear was that if the Hall as a whole knew, he’d be ‘encouraged” to resume a post in the Hall, within his own Ajah. Or be used by either.

“Far beyond the Hall’s reach,” he murmured to Miahala’s question. It was instinct more than thought. “I will love this place with my last breath and will come when those I care for call or need aid, but I will not rekindle that which has been dealt with. All the Dreadlords, Black Ajah or Darkfriends that hunted me or my family are dead or gone and the Seanchan that attacked in the forest months ago ... they are the last."

The Indigo smiled then and set his glass aside.

“Perhaps Camden Corelle for a time, to spend time with our son, our grandchildren,” he murmured. “After that, perhaps the ruins of the Caralain or even Stedding Tsofan or Madan...and then wherever Lysira desires.”

Whatever shadows might listen knew enough about one thing: Camden Corelle was protected, whether by a handful of channelers and Warders who resided within who called the place home and from the Aes Sedai wife of the small city’s lord or by the simple fact the township lay with the Tower’s area of influence.

“I would think that Lys might enjoy some peace and quiet,” he murmured. “And very few would know where we would be heading.”

Miahala smiled sadly as her own thoughts drifted off. She thought about the time in her life when Caden and herself had done the same. For a time, they had found that peace and quiet. It had been nice. But duty had driven them back. Back to this place that ended up claiming both their lives...

...and only giving one back.

"I believe she will," Mia agreed simply, keeping all her many, many thoughts and most of her feelings well and truly to herself. She was ever inscrutable, when she chose to be. And there were few she chose not to be when she was around them. Jerid was an old friend and privy to more than most, but still. Mia was Mia.

After a moment and another sip of her drink, she continued, "It's been an age since I saw your son. I hear things, of course, but from you now. How is Cade?"

Jerid’s gold-green eyes studied the Captain-General quietly, lazily. There were few things that could escape him, fewer things still that proved hard to pry into.

Miahala was the exception, both by whom she was and by his own personal choice. The formidable matron let people into her life as she saw fit, and could at will cast them back out.

She was mercurial, unpredictable -- and foremost his oldest living and dearest friend.

What secrets she kept were hers and hers alone. She’d died for this Tower and dragged back into the world of the living — that alone earned her the right to privacy.

Besides, her question provided him the opportunity to speak proudly of his son.

“He’s happy,” he smiled as reached for his glass, pouring more of the liquor into it. He took a healthy sip, his smile never fading.

“Happier than I ever was when I was a High Seat and lord,” the Indigo added more quietly. “I was not surprised when he wed a Brown Aes Sedai — a Brown who shows a flair for governance.”

Cade, for what years Jerid had known his son, had always been a studious young man. Shy when he met his son for the first time in so many years apart, Caden Walker had grown into a fine and judicious lord who showed more care for the people of Camden Corelle than most nobles outside the Borderlands.

“I’ve five grandchildren,” he murmured. “Sons and daughters they provided life for ... and ‘retired’ channelers and their Warders to safeguard the town.”

If an army were to attack from the east, Camden Corelle would be the first line of defense.

“If there is any justice in this world, my son will live happily and die well, surrounded by loved ones after leaving a powerful legacy that will endure for generations,” Jerid murmured.

Miahala listened to him speak of his son and grandchildren therein, and she felt the kinship in the warmth of those words. They shared that trait most strongly: love for their children. She as a mother, of course. They were different in how they acted upon it, but the intensity of the feeling was the same.

Looking at her glass, she saw the final sip and held it up toward him. She echoed her earlier toast. Her voice was soft, almost bittersweet in its affection. "To them."