The Future

Another day had come and all but spent itself, the sun was sinking behind the Shining Walls as Sadrok returned once more to the reflection pools. Delann Sedai had instructed him to try sleep deprivation to see if that would help break his Bar, so after supper, Sadrok had returned to the male novices well to bathe and then left again as most of his peers were getting ready to turn in for the night. This far into the summer, the sun rose early and fell late. He intended to make use of the hours between, instead of just sitting around in his room with nothing to do. Complete and utter boredom wasn’t really his thing, so he’d come back to the Reflection Gardens to continue trying to puzzle this all out. So far, nothing any of the Asha’man, Accepted, Aes Sedai, or Gaidin had tried had had much affect on his Bar, and he wasn’t the only one beginning to get frustrated.

A number of times now he’d been asked to repeat the same thing someone else had tried already, and saying that he’d tried that once or twice before usually resulted in one of his few trips to the Mistress of Novices office, so he’d learned to keep his mouth shut and do it anyway, even though he knew it wouldn’t work. Just like asking him to deprive himself of any decent sleep for a week, hoping the exhaustion would break his bar. To keep his mind sharp through the night, Sadrok found a thin stick of the appropriate length and began practicing the sword forms he’d learned so many years ago, beginning with the basics and working through each form until he did it to his satisfaction before moving on to the next. If someone found him practicing sword forms with the stick and he got in trouble – well.. at least then the other novices wouldn’t give him such a hard time about never getting in trouble, yes?

The first time through the forms, he practiced them two-handed, moving fluidly from one to the next, buried in the Void and picturing an opponent before him in his mind’s eye. Every strike he made was blocked or parried, and then he would parry a strike from his invisible foe, moving through the forms and all but dancing through the gardens, only paying enough mind to his surroundings to make sure he didn’t trample any of the plants or trip over anything. He had managed to work up a decent sweat by the time he broke a short section off of the stick so he could hold it in one hand and still have the proper length. He then began working through the forms again, doing each one twice with the sword in either hand as he practiced. When he was finally done, he hardly needed to catch his breath – all the running he had been doing in the mornings had at least kept him in shape.

Working the forms had always helped him to clear his mind in the past – and now was no different. Still wrapped in the void, his thoughts were now neatly ordered and concise as he tried to work out not what his bar was, but what had caused it – something only a few of the Gaidin and Asha’man he had spoken to had tried to help him with so far. Taking a seat on one of the benches near a fountain, he held the stick with one end grounded on the stone before him, looking down at the distorted reflection of the night sky in the water of the fountain. It felt good to have been able to practice the forms again, even though he knew he would probably be in trouble with Candance Sedai if anyone had seen or heard him out here. He looked forward to the day he would be able to do so again. He promised himself that that would not be until after he had attained the Shawl, though, and even then he might decide one day to leave that part of his past behind. There was never any way to tell what the future held, after all. It occurred to him then, that while he had been practicing the forms, any time he ran through Lightning of Three Prongs, for a moment he was able to sense Saidin over his shoulder. But.. why?