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An Odd Incident The town of Cin Tiane was not used to visitors other than rough farmers and the occasional merchant. Scholars did not often pass through the town. Scholars were not even tolerated, under normal circumstances, in their town. True, those of the upper class were schooled, but even among them, a display of education like this one would be looked down on. It was different in other places, of course. In Cairhien, this would have been nearly normal. But here... The woman was accompanied by an elderly, but strong man. Obviously not her husband. She requested two rooms, not one. Her manservant? Maybe, but she didn't seem rich. Otherwise, why would she stay with them? They were far from a hostel, but they certainly weren't the best inn in these parts. Still, she had three different books with her, at least as far as they had seen, and the manservant seemed to read, too. Aside from her, there were few readers in Vincent Fox's "Thunder Tavern". The woman did not seem to be bothered by their normal crowd, with their songs and their demands, with their drinking and eating and simply living to excess, something that kept her clothed and housed. Twenty years old, and nearly a mirror image of the father she never met, Talia A'Roihan stood at the bar with the food they requested. If asked, she would say that her intelligence came from the mother she hadn't seen since she was eight years old, even if she knew that that was almost certainly false. She had few memories of the pretty, dark haired woman, but grand displays of intelligence were not among them. In fact, due to how easily she was convinced to sell her only child to the people who schooled her and then turned her over to a man who nearly ended her life, perhaps not even common sense could be attributed to the woman. Not even simple kindess or compassion, really. She was pretty, though, like her mother, and far better at manipulating the men into doing what she needed to buy her way from place to place. She was so good, in fact, that there was only one man that she could not bend to her will. He sat in the corner, flipping cards onto the table with the graceful ease of someone who was absolutely sure that he would not be caught cheating. His face was sharp - too sharp - some of her friends said, but she merely thought that it reflected the mind behind it. It was like hers, wasted in a place like this. His fingers were long, like the fingers of a musician - Asmodean, she always joked, must have had fingers like his. But his musical skills were only used to draw women to him and to earn a few coins when they could not be stolen. Those were the fingers of a born doctor, of a street-trained alchemist and surgeon who first learned to stitch by practicing on himself after beatings in his youth. He was the reason the scar that wound around her eye wasn't much wider. Well, to tell the truth and shame the Dark One, he was the reason she wasn't missing the eye that Marcus Ytenzin so casually tried to cut out of her for running away. In finding her lying outside of town, he saved her life, gave her a place to stay, and charged her for bleeding on his favorite coat. Now, after buying her first dress as a free woman, he liked to come in and watch his investment, he said. But she wasn't fooled. Despite the hard, carefully chosen words, he was there to be sure it didn't happen again. And he was a comfort to her, strangely enough. With a flirtacious smile for the woman's manservant (even if he was far too old!), she brought their food, glancing down at the book on the table. A History of Manetheren. Manetheren? Wasn't that gone? Where would one get a book like that? The woman glanced up at her when she placed her wineglass on the table, revealing two sharp - very sharp - eyes. Oh, and she hadn't seemed like she was paying attention! " Thank you, child.", she said, casually waving her away. Still, though, her eyes followed Talia while she brought the drinks to Ivahn's table. " Looks like you have an admirer, Tal.", he joked, and motioned toward the woman, " If I weren't so inebriated, I would swear she was Aes Sedai. Maybe she'll whisk you away to the Tower." They all laughed, at that. " Oh, yes, Ivahn. And next I could be the advisor to the Queen of Andor!" " I wouldn't be surprised at that. I wouldn't be surprised at all." " Aes Sedai...", the drunken man beside him mumbled. " What you will think of to get out of losing to me!" " I wouldn't be so sure of that, friend.", her savior murmured, and dropped his cards on the table. His companion nearly choked with surprise. " But you can't... You cheated me!" The gold was suddenly gone from the table, and something else glinted... Metal. He was very good with a blade. But she was better with words. Her hands were on the companion's shoulders in an instant. " Now, now, friend, cheating? No, he wouldn't do that. Maybe he would be kind enough to buy you a drink, and you could try to win it back." She made a face when he exhaled. He'd had too many drinks already. " Maybe two, even." And there it was again, that feeling. That feeling of perfect peace, like she was in the very center of his mind, like she could just nudge him in the right direction, away from violence... The woman's eyes were on her again, she was sure of it, but she didn't care. Would he be convinced? It didn't matter. Behind them, glass crashed to the ground, and chairs screeched over rough wood, leaving marks that would have to be worked out. People were rushing back, and then she was rushing forward. Vincent Fox was a very portly, very ignorant, very greedy, but rather gentle man. He was more than happy to give her a room while she finished recovering, and did not steal from her any more than he needed to to keep up appearances. He was as close to a friend as she had here, beside Ivahn, and now... He was lying over the bar, his face in a pool of someone's spilled ale. And his breathing... There was something wrong with him! When things got crazy, she was taught that she could react in two ways and survive. Either she could take charge or she could play the helpless girl and use others to get her away from the situation. Either way required absolute serenity, and a quick, clear mind. These times, she felt like she was alone in the room, and that the others were merely illusions. Not even solid enough to get in her way, really, she thought, not feeling the large man she pushed aside to get to Vincent. She walked a fine line during those times, on the very edge of some great, frightening chasm that contained... She didn't know, exactly. Panic, she thought then, but soon... Very soon, she would know what the frightening material at the bottom of that chasm was, and it wasn't panic, but something real. Something tangible. And now, it seemed to leap out at her. A great wave of it seemed to engulf her. Strange, that panic could feel so reassuring... Ivahn was at her side in an instant, the slight drunkeness gone from his mind as if shoved aside alone with his cheated companion. He had his head on his chest, just listening... " It's not right... A storm, of some sort, in his heart, but I can't get to it, there. Talia, get some water, but he's..." She hardly heard him. She hardly saw him, or the strange woman who came to them with her manservant. She knew what was wrong with him, but it could be helped! Maybe not by Ivahn, but she could almost see the problem. She could almost touch it... She closed her eyes against the sight of this man dying, and... Then his eyes were open, and blinking, and he was mumbling for them to get off of him. Ivahn had no trouble doing so. He leapt back in shock, knocking over even more of the glasses in the process. The manservant frowned, but his lady merely nodded, those sharp eyes returning to Talia. " Talia, child, get off of me! I'm getting wet, and... What am I doing here, anyway?" He pushed away, and fell to the floor, weakly. " By the Light, Talia... I thought he was..." Ivahn was still in shock. Of course he didn't know how to deal with it. He was so little often shocked by anything. Her voice seemed to come from far away. " He should go to bed, shouldn't he? Look at him, he can hardly stand..." She didn't fight when the woman took her arm and guided her into the back room, where Vincent counted his money. " You're right, child. He should go to bed. He'll be weak, and ravenous, for days, but he won't die. Rest easy." Her manservant closed the door behind him, leaving her, even in her daze, wishing that she had a knife with her. Most likely, Ivahn wasn't even sure what had happened, yet. " What?" " Child, that was very good, and very dangerous." The woman turned to her manservant. " She'll have to be taught to have a lighter touch. The man will ache for a long time after such rough treatment, but I think she'll do well, if she can control herself." The manservant only nodded. " Who are you?" " Child, I am Neslyn Aes Sedai, of the Brown Ajah. And you... You are coming with me." A week later she was on her way to the Tower, still not sure how she had landed herself in the middle of this odd incident. |
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