Consorting with Enemies

[Jay Carpenter]

Jai

She drew boldly near, and Jai swallowed, surprised that she had actually approached. Not just surprised, but his heart quickened a little more nervous than he expected himself to be. Even more so when she unabashedly ran her hands up and down his stomach. "Are you Aes Sedai? It must have slipped my mind," he started to tease in return, already beginning to wonder how the hooks and strings of that dress held itself together.

This was it, he thought. Wanting to blaze every second into his mind. Everything he’d wanted for months all within reach. Her. This moment. And it should have been enough, he tried to convince himself. Enough to carry on. However, she possessed the ability to read him like a bloody book, and the expression on his face silently pleaded with her to not take this away from him. He swore he’d not leave her to deal with the mess of life alone, but that was before he knew a bloody Forsaken was after them.

When the knock came, they both nearly jumped. Talk of Forsaken and martyrdom pulled shadows out of thin air, and the room was already dim. He almost seized the One Power on instinct until Nythadri reminded them both of her previous missive. Her warning echoed repeatedly in his thoughts; thoughts that she claimed to read with a glance, which was probably true. But buried in that warning were questions he could not ask with others present. So he painfully stepped away from her presence to turn his back on the commotion, fastening his pants into something more secure as he did, or at least, arranging himself to be less obscene. As much as one could be without a bloody shirt on. And she was Aes Sedai.

Why wasn’t she more concerned about the Forsaken? Nythadri could hide her thoughts behind a wall of ice, but Jai could tell there was something far darker that bothered her. Probably the fall of her Amyrlin, he assumed, or witnessing a gory murder for the second time in her life. Jai remembered the sickness that clenched his stomach after walking his first few battlefields. A nineteen year old Dedicated who until then hadn’t even contemplated where their dinner roast came from let alone all the awful ways a man could die took a while to numb himself to the sight. All of that must have bothered her to the core as it would any sane person, and she’d mentioned wanting to feel clean more than once. So that must be it, he concluded; she weathered the worst, but it unsettled her, and for that he was powerless to fix other than to wait while the servants poured fresh water in the basin. Least he could do was get out of the way. It was then that he remembered all the ink on his hands. It wouldn’t wash as easily as blood. Black still rimmed his nails like dirt. The side of his writing hand was full on black to the wrist, and while he had no memory of when he’d taken to the work he must have produced, he intuitively knew why.

He must have been calculating or deciphering something. Something big to account for what must amount to two or three pots worth of ink; more than he could do in his head. He would claw his way through his own brain if he thought it would dig out an answer, but he knew it was a futile plan. Compulsion. From a Forsaken. And under that spell he’d done unspeakable things; things so bad that Nythadri witnessed and elected to not to give them power with speech. He swallowed. Pinched his eyes shut. Rubbed his neck and scrubbed his hair. Luckily, his back remained turned. It was why he’d gone where he had, out of the way. So they wouldn’t see the demon stirring.

On the same breath as issued warnings of Forsaken Nythadri declared the stranger in their midst just as dangerous. When he woke as himself, he was shielded. Nythadri affirmed as much. It wasn’t you. You were shielded. This man, this nobleman held the shield himself, and he must be more powerful than even the M’Hael to fend off both of them simultaneously as Jai imagined they must have dueled. Light. Former M’Hael. Someone so dangerous to not even accept food or wine from the man.

The conclusion for why was so terrifying that he turned sharply back around, epiphany writ all over his face. The servants had shuffled out by then, and Nythadri was absorbed in a letter, which hopefully meant she didn’t see his hands ball themselves up to fists to keep from gripping a sword hilt that wasn’t there nor behold all the blood drain from his face.

So he started to pace.

Steady, even steps. Back and forth as though the path beneath his feet might crumble at any second and offer some sort of wild escape. But still, he paced. Couldn’t stop. Inky hands wringing upon themselves repeatedly. It was a nice room. Big. Or so he thought for where ever they were. No clues on those bland walls though. Generic stone, furniture, and no crests or symbols. Regardless, it was a spacious room. Two or three of his own could fit in here. In fact, now that he looked, he wondered precisely how many of his rectangular quarters in the Black Tower would squeeze into the chamber. It could be calculated, he mused, if he had precise measurements. When desperate he could step off the space, but it was a crude foot-length that left a bitter taste in his mouth for the estimation. He scanned for ideas, settling finally on the rug underfoot. It wasn’t fashionable and certainly not fine, but antique and muted. More interesting was that beneath the rug were stones. Nice squares cut to equal size. That’ll work.

He promptly set off to count the length and width of the space by stones. Except that there were wide swaths he could not see. For instance, he curiously stepped around a chair, lifting it aside to capture the number of stones beneath it. The rug itself was an enormous issue, too. He had to lift up the corner of it and furl it back upon itself to no shortage of disturbed dust that nearly made him sneeze, not to mention shifting a few pieces of furniture in the process, to keep the line going. Fifteen and a quarter across. Probably twice that in length.

Problem with counting the length was the bed. Like the rug, it was an antique, framed in a four-poster style with rails at the top to mount curtains presumably removed for the season. But the thing looked heavy. No way he could lift it aside. Channeling would do it easily enough, but frankly, he was tired and there wasn’t enough space to really place it once it was up in the air. So, on all fours he went, crawling, crawling under the bed. Which was when he encountered a new problem: darkness. That was readily enough solved with a little orb of light hovering above his shoulder like a buddy. The counting continued until he came across a surprised spider. It was an ugly little bastard. He’d seen nastier, of course. Hide behind a log in the jungles of Arad Doman for a few hours and you’ll make a whole mess of friends of them. Enough to count and name them all if there was enough time. But even those were nothing like the horrific things crawling beneath the vines of the Blight. He shivered and immediately put them out of mind. Still, the spider that he’d disturbed with his exploration was promptly turned into a tiny little mound of its insides in moments. No point telling Nythadri it was there. Might make for some nervous sleeping later.

The bedframe was larger than he anticipated from above. Or else shimmying further beneath it was more effort than he guessed. Because by the time he got to the wall, something unexpected caught his eye. He called out excitedly from beneath the mattress.

“Dru, come here! You wont believe this,” but nobody responded. So he tried a different tactic. “Zak. Zaaaaak! Zaaaaaaaaaaaaak!” he bellowed.

”What the blazes is it?” His oldest brother’s voice echoed in his mind.

“Someone laid the tiles in the wrong pattern. Guess that’s why they put the bed here!” he laughed, promptly completing the count.

”Get out from there this instant before father sees you.”

“Did you know there are 2,250 tiles on the floor of my room. A nice round number isn’t it? Tar Valon was designed so well! Kiserai ti wansho! Isn't that the right saying? See, I told you I wasn't flaking on the Old Tongue. You’re the oldest and your room is much larger than mine. I bet yours has twice as many tiles. Let’s go see if there are any errors under your bed.” He was practically giddy with mischief.

He crawled back out to discover with some measure of confusion that his bedroom wasn’t there at all. Neither was Zakar present nor was anything he recognized, until his gaze fell upon the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen in all his life.

“Wow,” he blinked like his heart might stop, but the longer he looked at her, the calmer he felt. 

“Nythadri?” he nodded like the answer was the most obvious thing in the world. “You look.. you look so beautiful.” A smile began to soften the confusion etched upon his mind.

What was he doing? Oh. He blinked and returned to study the floor, scratching at his forehead as he did. Numbers fell like rain through his mind until he was satisfied. Hands on his hips, he nodded with great approval. “You know that 3.425 of my room in the Tower would fit in here. Thats three and seventeen fortieths of a room. Nice and spacious. Don’t go under the bed,” he warned.

Task complete, his gaze roamed curiously up the walls. There were more stones holding them up, though placed in far less orderly a way, but there had to be a pattern to it somewhere.