A Pyrrhic Victory

As luck would have it, Theon was the last boy to provide an introduction.  This didn’t make things too much more uncomfortable, but he still chided himself for looking around like a Light-blinded fool.  As intelligent as he was, his time in the White Tower had thoroughly rattled him.  True, not all of the witches were quite as despicable as he’d initially believed – but they were still witches!  They’d broken the world, for Light’s sake.  And at this rate, even if the histories that the Tower taught were true, it seemed to him that they were well on their way to breaking the world again.

Seeing the faces of the blackcoats – those taint-riddled weapons-that-walked – the logical, rational part of him could not help but think that these witches had made a terrible mistake. 

The emotional, self-preserving part of him did not agree.  But Theon couldn’t very well trust that part anymore.  He’d become far too fond of saidin, and though he loathed himself for that fondness, he could not deny that suicide was preferable to gentling.  Just thinking about gentling made him sick – so much that he shuddered at the thought.  The strange action earned him some peculiar looks from the other boys and girls, but none addressed it.  The current discussion was more important.

One of the most wonderful things about Theon’s mind was its effortless ability to multitask.  No matter where it wandered, he maintained an extraordinary degree of self-awareness.  He could recite or transcribe, verbatim, anything that he’d read or heard – even when he was being introspective.  He recalled events, quotes and dates that reached as far back as his fifth Bel Tine and fuzzier memories still. Even as he walked into the room, he needed no more than a glance-over to obtain an exact headcount. 

But once nervous, he did human things; he looked around to see if there were other speakers, stammered instead of speaking clearly, and shuddered at stray thoughts. 

When asked about whether or not there was water, he nodded absently.  Then there was the spine-tingling, skin-crawling sensation of saidar, overwhelming him.  Unlike some of the other students, Theon gave a start before he was pelted with rain.  The water itself was almost relaxing.  He breathed deep, closing his eyes as some of the other giggled or shrieked, startled or tickled by turn.

It wasn’t until he felt a prevailing sense of menace begin to radiate from the blackcoat that his eyes shifted.  Did the other boys not feel it?  Saidin was so much louder than saidar, so much more baleful.  Like crackling thunder, like rumbling earth – natural, and yet naturally yearning to destroy.  When the heat flash poured over him, he found himself scrubbing his arms, as if he’d somehow hoped to dry wash those errant threads away.

Better to have stayed wet, he thought sourly, his eyes guarded.  He hoped that the Asha’man could not read his mind.  He still wasn’t sure about Aes Sedai.

He watched blankly as Yarren moved through the room with an easy grace, balancing two buckets of water over his shoulders and mumbling about slave labor.  A few of the novices giggled, but Theon remained silent, his expression betraying his discomfort.  He tried to keep his shoulders square as he watched the Aes Sedai, but it was easy to see that his nerves were running.  Some of the other boys might have grown accustomed to that stomach-wrenching, skin-crawling sensation – but this close, saidar made his heart race. 

Still, the witch’s performance was breathtaking.  The water shifted and moved so freely, and it sculpted itself into a ball as if by its own free will.

Soon enough, the two of them were moving into separate groups, but the natural segregation between boys and girls seemed to lend itself to such an arrangement.  He shuffled about carefully, quietly excusing himself when he had to maneuver around others, an act made somewhat difficult by his reliance on the cane.  A few novices gave him sympathetic looks, but he tried to act as if he didn’t notice them. 

Suddenly there was an explosion of crackling thunder, of Power that only other men could feel, popping off within the crowd of boys like illuminator’s fireworks.  As Theon swept his eyes across the room, he suddenly realized that he could tell, if fuzzily, the differences in Power.  The Asha’man was by far the greatest of them, but by his estimate, it seemed Sadrok had taken the lead among the novices. 

How utterly unfair, he mused.  That boy takes to the practice yard more often than any other novice in this room, and he’sthe strongest?

The blackcoat looked at him expectantly, and Theon flushed. 

“I can’t seize the Source.”  He declared.  “Er, well, that is to say I have a bar.  Or a block.  Whatever you call it.”

“And that is…?” Asked the man in black.

“I can’t channel unless I’m ashamed.”  He replied.  “Embarrassed, I suppose.”

“Give it a try.”  The man answered.  “If you can’t seize it, I’ll work with you when you’re ready.”

Once again, he failed.  After about a minute of other boys watching him with mixed expressions, he claimed a perch in a corner somewhere, letting his head fall into his hands.  He didn’t watch as the Asha’man demonstrated, because without grasping saidin, it would have been a fruitless endeavor.  No, he needed to take hold of it somehow.  He needed…

He needed to make himself ashamed.

He decided to start by closing his eyes, relaxing into his body bit-by-bit, as if to work his mind into a dreamlike state.  Tristan had taught him to do this as part of a therapeutic exercise; Light knew what it was good for.  He began by feeling his toes, and as always, realized that he only had one foot.  Frustration wracked him, and anger was quick to follow.  What would he have given for two full legs?

First his toes, then his knees – the aching stump of his leg, yes, that was a good source of shame.  How many times had he tripped over himself?  Fingers, hands, wrists…how did it make him feel, knowing that no matter how quick his wrists became, he would never be a practiced swordsman?  He couldn’t even practice with them; he’d become a laughing stock in seconds.  Ears, eyebrows, jawline, throat.  He was so short that people often mistook him for Carhienin, so boyish that he rarely ever had to shave.  He fanned the flame, feeding it his negative emotions until he became empty.

I’m flawed in so many ways, he thought sadly, stoking the fires within, opening up the pit in his belly.  Poisoned by my own mind.  Broken, blocked and useless. 

He thought the words over and over again, like a mantra.  He thought of his leg, of the heart-wrenching moment of his amputation.  He could still taste the stale leather that they’d forced him to bite down on.  Sometimes he could still feel the cold edge of the steel clamp, shearing into his flesh, snapping the bone so violently that he thought he would never feel such anguish again.  Such was the curse of his perfect memory: no matter what he remembered, he could never be whole.   

Broken, blocked, useless.    

With one last, deep breath, the ecstasy of saidin filled the pit in his belly.  He tried to affect as if he felt neither pain, nor pleasure, but there was far too much of both.  Sudden pride threatened to crack his slipshod void, and suddenly he realized that he would lose saidin if he could not keep his shame.  He would need to trick himself, somehow – to provoke perpetual self-disgust. 

To bring true shame.

It seemed as if another man struggled to get to his feet, leaning heavily on his cane.  As that man limped toward the nearest group, the Asha’man nodded in approval, drawing near.  He drew close to Sadrok, watching the other boy as his grasp on saidin began to slip…

Hesitantly, he imagined that saidin was a woman, and he a depraved man, commanding her to lay with him.  He imagined himself, taking what was not his to take; what was hers by natural right.  And because of the exhilaration that was the Power, he found himself relishing it.  The agony, her piercing screams and scratching nails.  The ecstasy, seizing something no man should ever have.  More than anything on earth, it sickened him.

But it served. 

“I’m going to do another demonstration.”  Said the blackcoat, making his way over.  “Pay close attention.  Water is tricky to master, and I don’t expect any of you to get it on the first try.” 

It was strange, seeing the weaves form with a mind that could finally comprehend their meaning.  He’d watched Asha’man Feryl do something similar to fill a wineskin – pulling water from the air – but the circumstances had been extenuating.  Here, much of the water had already been provided.  In theory, it should be easy work.  In practice, it looked quite complicated.

“Now.”  Said the Asha’man.  "Try again."

When it was his turn, he stretched his hand out toward the bucket of water, breathing out as took hold of the raging torrent, and tugged.  It was like pulling energy through a siphon, converting it from something raw and pure into something different.  Threads of cerulean blue unraveled easily, as if from an unseen spool, and suddenly some of the boys were looking at him blankly. 

The thread spun freely, and the energy began to thrash wildly within him as he channeled.  He reveled in it, consigned to hopeless perversion as he forced the pattern to his will.  The thread swirled as it plunged into the water, and suddenly he could feel the water, just as sure as he could feel the toes on his foot.  Breathing in, hands still, he commanded the water to rise, canting his head curiously as it drew upward in an oblong shape, sloppy by comparison.  His mouth curled into a disappointed frown – what had the Asha’man done again?  Oh, yes.  Loop, swoop and pull…

The globe hovered before them, self-supported in a perfect sphere. 

“Could be beginner’s luck.”  Said one of the novices.

He looked up to Sadrok as if requesting his opinion, but the Void preventing him from displaying too much emotion.

“Maybe.”  He hedged.  “It came out pretty easily for me.  Oh, sorry.  Here.”

The sphere of water descended into the bucket with a plunk, but Theon kept hold of the Power.  He couldn’t afford to release it, because he might not get it back.  Light help him, he didn’t want to release it. 

And that was the worst part.