[pfsb] investigations and explorations

[blue_ajah]

Two days after Moiraine brought Wei Wuxian's talismans back to Twin Peaks, after she has taken the time necessary to review all of her notes as well as the histories she has been collecting, she calls Dale Cooper, who is still in Olympia, now, rather than Seattle.

All things considered, the conversation could have gone much, much worse.

She is well aware that they are going to have a much longer discussion after he returns in a few weeks, but he had agreed not to ask her to wait. She, in turn, had agreed, as before, not to go to Glastonbury Grove alone, or at night. She also agrees not to approach the pool closer than necessary to place the talismans, or to test it with her own weaving - not at present, anyway.

Hawk had been her next call.

A few days later, after he has had time to consider and to consult with the Bookhouse Boys, Hawk knocks on her apartment door and agrees to her request.

* * * * * * *
When Moiraine returns to Milliways, she leaves a sealed note with Bar, addressed to Wei Wuxian.

Master Wei--

I made the trial of your talismans according to your instructions. When I activated the one at the northernmost point, glowing red energy swept inward from the circle in a wave focused on the pool at its center.

The pool absorbed it all. It vanished into the depths without a ripple, and without a trace.

Nothing else has happened. Yet.

--Moiraine Sedai

That task completed, she settles at her preferred table with tea and begins sketching something in a notebook.

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[blue_ajah]

The glow around her has not faded while she held saidar after releasing the gateway. Moiraine inclines her head, and silver threads of spirit, shot through with a latticed weave of water, form themselves around them both in a pliable, veritable fortress.

She ties the weaves and leaves them in place, then allows the corona of light around her to fade.

[we_bring_hell]

Harrow sips the tea, her throat suddenly dry.

"More than ten thousand years ago,"she begins. "Before Resurrection. On the third planet of the star now called Dominicus. The human race grew and prospered. This was the age of the ten billion, when humanity outgrew it's ancestral home and spread outward. Their home world became the first of nine Houses, across the planets of the system."

"And then they grew further, to the myraid stars, to colony worlds. But Dominicus remained the seat of Empire."

[blue_ajah]

The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend....

She nods, listening, carefully comparing the description that Harrow lays before them to other worlds and other planets that she is familiar with.

[we_bring_hell]

"Then tragedy struck," she says. "Enemies from the colony worlds used a weapon that snuffed out Dominicus. All the planets of the system were stripped of life."

This is the easy part; history. Dogma.

"But on the First House was the man who would become God. The titanic thanergetic bloom of ten billion souls awakened in him necromantic power beyond compare."

"He restored the star, and the other eight Houses, and their populations. But the First House remained a grave. And there he gathered his disciples, one from each House."

"Seven became Lyctors. And one... Anastasia... became the first Tombkeeper of the Ninth House, the Reverend Mother of the Black Vestals. My ancestor."

[blue_ajah]

For a moment, she thinks of the crew of Serenity, of Malcolm Reynolds and River Tam, and of Earth-that-Was--

--but as Harrow describes the mechanism by which thanergy took rise over thalergy, by which necromantic power became ascendant, dark eyes suddenly narrow with intent focus.

She says nothing, but nods again, in response to Harrow's mention of her ancestor, silently urging her to continue.

[we_bring_hell]

"There was a being. Something God could put down once but not twice. Something so feared that... That he set it in a Tomb in the Ninth, under spells to keep it between life and death."

"That he established the Black Vestals and the line of Tombkeepers, that there would always be voices to pray that the rock be not rolled away; what slept would remain sleeping, insensate."

"And a myriad passed. The Ninth House remained small, always waning, until in the nine thousand, nine hundred and eighty second year of our Lord, only two necromancers remained to guard the tomb. Hundreds of nuns and priests and lay dedicats, but all ancient, and none of them adepts."

"Only the Reverend Mother and Reverend Father. And in all of Drearburh, only two hundred children to be the next generation."

She pauses now to steel herself. It's easier if she thinks of it as history. As nothing to do with her.

[blue_ajah]

"A very long time," she murmurs. "And a very heavy charge to bear."

[we_bring_hell]

"I have told you," she says carefully, "of the arrival of Gideon Nav. Two hundred and first. I will pass over it."

"The Reverend Mother and Father could not concieve a viable fetus. They were both necromancers and that makes it... Difficult." Despite her best intentions she begins to fidget, hands restless.

"They conceived a necromantic ritual to ensure they... kindled. And that the child would be a necromancer, a once in a generation genius who could save the House and the line of Tombkeepers."

"A... ritual," she falters.

[blue_ajah]

"A difficult one, I must presume," the Aes Sedai says.

The expression on the ageless face is still, and her tone composed, but her dark eyes remain clear and focused on Harrow.

[we_bring_hell]

"In 9982 there were two hundred children on the Ninth House. In 9983 there were two. Gideon Nav and... and the Reverend Daughter."

"They used a gas," she says faintly, colorlessly. "Wei Wuxian saw it on me the moment we met. The traces of two hundred souls."

[blue_ajah]

She is silent for some time.

"They sacrificed a generation to ensure your birth," she says, finally. "Because they believed none of the others would do, I must presume."

And Wei Wuxian had seen it. She makes note of that, and sets it aside.

"And raised you to your perceived destiny."

[we_bring_hell]

Harrowhark stares at her hands; the table; the teacup. Anywhere but Moiraine.

"It had to be a necromancer," she says quietly.

"I know the reputation necromancy has in other worlds, so I must be clear. What they did was a crime. The child... was a crime. If the other Houses knew, they would have destroyed the Ninth from orbit."

[blue_ajah]

"The ritual was a crime," she corrects, cool but clear. "The child was the result. The difference is an essential nuance. That said, I see why you hold this secret so close, that the others in your world not know."

She draws a single breath.

"You know my oaths. I will not attempt to evade with words, or to justify. To drain the life from the children in this way was wrong."

[we_bring_hell]

"I know that," she sputters, shocked out of her attempt at distance. "There is nothing -- were I everything they had raised me to be; be I raised as Lyctors and restore the Ninth; nothing I do will ever set it right."

"And as it happens, I failed them," she adds, in a barely audible voice.

[blue_ajah]

"I did not doubt that you knew it," the Aes Sedai tells her. "Nor were you the one who caused it. What I wonder--"

Among other things.

"--is why they did not send for help, if the need was so desperate and the tomb's guardianship so essential."

"But what do you mean that you failed them?"

[we_bring_hell]

"Because... because not everyone among the Houses agree the Ninth should exist. They do not see our guardianship as essential," she says. "Many believe we have crossed into heresy; worshipping our charge rather than praying for her containment."

She exhales, trying to gather her composure back. It was easier when it was 'the Reverend Daughter.'

"I was raised in the knowledge of what had been done, and in the vital secrecy, and in the tremendous need for it to be... repaid. When I was small I used to pray, The Tomb I will serve for the rest of my days, and then see me buried in two hundred graves. My aunts taught it to me."

"I tormented Gideon Nav. It was my only solace. I hated her for living, for reminding me of what was lost. For being free to dodge responsibility and play with swords while I learned to make the dead walk before my own legs were trustworthy. For--I don't know. I was a child. I hated her because she was there. I hated myself for being alive and I thought someone should share the opinion. I don't know."

She tries to pour more tea, and she can't. Her hands are shaking. She curses herself internally; cuts the nerves to her hand and moves the bones manually, her mind a diamond, her motions a model of precision. "She won many of our fights at first--she is so much bigger--but as I got older my tricks got dirtier. As I got older, though, I took less and less pleasure in it. My shame grew every day."

"I was ten years old and the bloody victor of another fight when I decided to commit---blasphemy."

She sips the tea, and her throat lurches convulsively; refuses it, as it refused to shape a different word than blasphemy.

[blue_ajah]

She makes herself listen past the words to the desperation at the heart of the Ninth House, leading to something unthinkable in service of their cause.

Ten thousand years. More than one Age. She knows how easily history forgot; knows what happened when the Collam Daan did the unthinkable and opened the Bore, having forgotten what lay beyond it.

What they did was wrong, was horror, but she can still see what brought them to it.

She can also see the brutal impact left on the two children who survived, each in different ways.

None of this shows on her face, not yet. She watches Harrow’s hand shake, realizes the younger woman has exerted incredible control, and thus does not take the cup from her to pour, instead respecting her pride.

“What happened?”

Quiet, but clear. If Harrow means to speak of this, she will hear it all.

[we_bring_hell]

She forces the tea past the lump in her throat; forces four words the other way.

"I entered the tomb."





"It should have been impossible," she whispers. "But so was I. I was..." She's smiles faintly, with awful bitterness. "A genius."

[blue_ajah]

She feels herself grow cold, and knows that the color has drained from her face, that her dark eyes are wide now with shock.

“What happened?”

[we_bring_hell]

"Nothing," she says. Her faint, awful smile has not changed. "Except I saw her. I just looked upon her and I left."

"God's great victory, and His inevitable defeat, that dreadful someday. The thing that my parents thought was worth the terrible price of me."

She meets Moiraine's dark eyes with her own, black holes cut in space. "God's victory and defeat was a girl. No older than I am now. Chained to a rock. Holding a sword. Surrounded by ice."

[blue_ajah]

She is silent for several seconds.

“This may seem an odd question,” Moiraine says, finally. “But what did the sword look like?”

[we_bring_hell]

She blinks, entirely nonplussed. "I am not an expert on swords," she says, bewildered. "Large. Rather like the two-hander Gideon favors, but incongrous, because she wasn't as... large."

[blue_ajah]

“It was but a thought,” she murmurs.

“You left, then. Have you ever returned? When you were older?”

[we_bring_hell]

"No," she says slowly. "But... she has. Been with me. In times when I was desperately lonely."

She looks down. "Perhaps I was only mad. But if I was not... she was kind. I do not understand how she can be..." She shakes her tight-shorn head, not looking up. "Perhaps I am everything the Ninth is feared to be. Heretic. Shadow cultist."

"That is why my parents..."

She trails off; her stiff-backed recitation of history, dispassionate and controlled, has deserted her entirely.

[blue_ajah]

There are many questions she will likely need to ask, she thinks, in the wake of that particular revelation. Moiraine does not let her alarm show by so much as the flicker of an eyelash.

But first—

“Your parents?” she prompts, not unkindly.