FIRST LOVE

Sereina surveyed the room critically as the innkeeper, a bald, round little man by the name of Paol Kreigin, shuffled out, bowing and scraping his way down the stairs. She pushed the door to, with a flow of Saidar, and scowled around her, smoothing her plain, but fine, brown silk skirts. Kreigin had gushed and spluttered about having an Aes Sedai in the village for Bel Tine, a memorable occasion indeed, he had titled her arrival.

The star-struck and stammering innkeeper had given her the best room in the inn, overlooking the turquoise vistas of the open sea. It was a glorious view, but Sereina was far too intellectual to notice, or appreciate, the view as far as aesthetics went. Beauty and other such metaphysical subjects were for the Whites to ponder in their pointless philosophies. She was interested in facts, not theories. It would be interesting to learn how these people lived, at least, though she wished she did not have to endure the constant worship of these fools. Worship could be quite pleasing at times, and the human mind’s thirst for hero-worship was a fascinating thing, but not when she was trying to study the people around her in their everyday lives.

Sereina Silande had one of the keenest minds in the Brown Ajah, and the head of that Ajah believed her to be in Essenia studying the use of herbs by country healing-women. The head of her true Ajah had sent her here to learn all she could of the country folk of Essenia’s coast, to discover their weaknesses, and to learn the best method of turning as many of them as possible to the service of her Great Lord and Master. She was also running an experiment, of her own devising, that neither Ajah had any notion of. Just how easy would it be for one woman to destroy a community? Oh yes, Paol Kreigin, she thought with a malicious grin, it is indeed a memorable occasion. And she was going to make sure not one of the fools in this backwater hamlet would ever forget Sereina Silande.

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The spring festival of Bel Tine was Alysja’s favourite time of the year, and this year it would be even better than ever, with a gleeman and an Aes Sedai in the village! The only downside of the Aes Sedai being there was that Alysja’s mother planned to send her back to Tar Valon with the woman when she left.

On her thirteenth naming day, every al’Jedinn girl traveled to the White Tower for testing, and every time she came home unchanged, without the Great Serpent ring on her finger. But mistress al’Jedinn was still hopeful. Alysja was the last of her daughters, and she was unlikely to bear any more, as the eldest was twenty-five now, with two sons of her own, so this girl was her last hope. Light, Alysja did not want to disappoint her mother, but she did not want to leave Essenia either.

She gazed down at the polished red stone in her hands and sighed. “Light, Janrik,” she murmured softly, “what am I going to do without you?” Women sometimes stayed in the Tower for twenty years before they were raised Aes Sedai and allowed to leave! What would she do for twenty years? She would come back to Essenia, Aes Sedai and ready to be married, and Janrik would be thirty-five, with children of his own. Twenty years could change a person, and she could not expect him to wait for her. But she had always known she would marry Janrik as soon as she was old enough. Always.

“What are you doing out here on your own, when everyone else is rushing to ready themselves for Bel Tine?” a familiar voice sounded from the corner of the inn. Alysja turned and smiled brightly, an expression that changed her pale, serious face from merely pretty to beautiful. Janrik returned the smile, and her heart fluttered madly in her chest at the sight of those dark, midnight blue eyes. She kept her face calm though, well, as calm as a girl just before Bel Tine could be expected to look.

He noticed the stone in her hands and smiled, “I brought you something for that,” he grinned, holding up a length of brown leather, cut for a bootlace, “Here, let me put it on you.” Alysja held her auburn curls out of the way as he slipped the leather through the hole he had drilled in the stone for just this purpose and tied it around her neck. It settled coolly against her skin as she let her hair fall back over her shoulders and Janrik smiled at her.

“There. Now you can keep me close to your heart, even when you’re in Tar Valon.” He blushed saying it, but she did not care. Light, how could she have ever thought he would forget her? She flung her arms around his neck and raised herself on tiptoe to brush his cheek with a kiss, and had to suppress a giggle when he blushed and scrubbed a hand through his short, black hair, unable to meet her eyes.

“Well,” she grinned mischievously, “We had better get back, or people will start to wonder what we are doing behind the inn,” she really did laugh when he blushed a third time; he was so easy to embarrass, and so sweet when he was, “It’s all right, Janrik, I’m just teasing you!” She grabbed his hand and pulled him away from the inn, out to the green and the fishing jetties by the beautiful, glittering sea. It seemed set with sapphires that morning, and edged in gold as the sun glowed hotly in a clear sky. No rain for Bel Tine; her mother had told her, as a child, that the Creator had banned rain from this festival, and today she could almost believe it. The Creator himself was smiling on this day. Nothing could spoil Bel Tine.

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Sereina frowned. She had had to concentrate hard to keep the scowl of disgust from her lips as that al’Jedinn woman rambled on about her twelve year old daughter for hours on end. She had continually prattled something about all the girls being thirteen at the Tower, or some such nonsense. Sereina had tuned out halfway through, and had agreed, only grudgingly, in the end to take this Alysja child back to Tar Valon with her in three days. If she could turn this girl to choose Black as her Ajah, when and if she was ever raised, the Great Lord would certainly be pleased. He always appreciated additions to their considerable ranks. Channeling women, especially those strong in the Power, could be endlessly useful in the upcoming battle His minions were planning against the Light.

A predatorial smile came to her lips as she noticed a group of young children milling about near the Green. They played noisily in the dust while their parents were baking or helping to raise the be-ribbonned pole in the centre of the grass that would be the centre of the Bel Tine festivities in two days time. Children were always the easiest to turn, and what better way to destroy Bel Tine for these fools than to turn their children to the Shadow? A red faced, flustered looking young woman, a girl of no more than seventeen, stood over the children, trying to keep them from getting in the way of the preparations, but she constantly cast her eyes wistfully towards a group of young men, who were joking with each other on the other side of the square. Sereina rubbed her hands together, twisting the Great Serpent ring on her finger, and stalked towards the children and their guardian, smoothing her features into a sympathetic smile.

“Would you like me to take your place for a time, child?” Sereina smiled, wearing vague friendliness like a mask. Most Brown sisters were frightfully obscure, but Sereina was as sharp as a blade, and only used vagueness as a pretense so that people would not suspect her true intelligence. The girl recognised her ageless face and squeaked, smoothing her skirts as she leaped to a semblance of attention.

“Oh no, Aes Sedai,” she gasped breathlessly, “A terribly kind offer, I’m sure, but I couldn’t possibly…”

Sereina smiled soothingly, but inside she was seething with impatience. Country girls, it seemed, were every bit as fluttery and excitable as city girls and Novices. She touched the girl’s arm lightly and forced her voice into coaxing gentleness, “It’s really no trouble, child,” she murmured, “I would relish a chance to sit in the sun and observe the preparations. You run along and enjoy yourself. I’m sure there is something much more…interesting you could be doing,” the suggestion was heavy in her voice, as she quirked an eyebrow at the girl. She did not look at the boys on the other side of the square so obviously that, as far as this girl was concerned, she may as well have pointed at them and shouted at the top of her voice. The girl flushed bright crimson and smoother her skirts again, unnecessarily, “Go on, my dear,” the Aes Sedai smiled, her vagueness quickly returning, and the girl sprang up a good foot in the air and ran across the square. In the opposite direction to the boys, Sereina noted with a soft laugh. Upsetting Novices and unnerving Accepted had always amused her at the Tower. Finally she turned her attention to the children.

A sandy haired boy of about five peered up at her, one hand shading his eyes from the sun, “Are you a gleeman?” he asked with a gap-toothed grin. A girl who looked to be seven rolled her eyes at him and shoved him in the arm so he nearly fell.

“Of course she’s not, goose-head. Gleemen are men.”

A girl with long reddish curls, the eldest child, by looks, in the little group of ten or so, stared up at Sereina with wide eyes, “She’s not a gleeman…she’s Aes Sedai!” At her words, all the children fell silent in their squabbling and stared at Sereina with awe in their young faces. The Aes Sedai smiled, and had to fight down surges of glee at their attention.

“Yes child,” she beamed at the red-haired girl, “I am Aes Sedai, but,” she turned her eyes to the blonde boy at her feet, “I can tell stories as well as any gleeman, if you would all like to hear.”

The boy nodded silently, and the red-head simply glowed at the praise she had received from a real live Aes Sedai. The children followed her a short distance from the green, out of hearing of the parents, and sat in a scattered group on the grass around a large, weathered tree stump where the woman took a seat.
“I am going to tell you a story,” Sereina began, her eyes glowing with excitement as she fixed each child with an eager gaze, “A story about a prince and a princess who were brother and sister, and very, very close friends…”

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Janrik and Alysja encountered Bryndha Kreigin coming out of the kitchen of the Fisherman’s Rest, her round face bright red and her big grey eyes brimming with tears. Alysja frowned concernedly at the older girl; even though Bryndha was a good four years older than she, they were closer than simply neighbors.

“Bryndha? Whatever happenned?”

“Yes,” Janrik frowned, “Weren’t you watching you young ones in the square last I saw you?”

“I…I was,” Bryndha sniffed, dabbing at her nose with a lace-edged handkerchief – Bryndha was a lovely girl, but she did put on airs just because her father was the only innkeeper in the village, “But the…Aes Sedai came and took over.”

“Whatever is wrong with that?” Alysja laughed good naturedly, “She got you out of a beast of a job!”

“Yes, but she…She treated me like a child! Or some brazen flipskirt in a tavern,” she always protested heartily that her father’s establishment was an inn, and not a rowdy tavern, “Sending me off to giggle like a girl at the boys. I was doing a good job, and she chased me off like I was nobody!”

Alysja slipped a comforting arm around the older girl’s shoulders and smiled soothingly, “I’m sure she didn’t mean to upset you, Bryndha…”

“Excuse me please, Alysja,” the girl suddenly broke away from her comfornt and eyed Janrik coolly, “I have work to do, unlike some!” And with that, she turned back into the inn and disappeared!

“Well!”

“Never mind her, Alysja,” Janrik touched her arm, and she turned to be met with the sight of those beautiful eyes, like pools of night. Light, she could have drowned in his eyes and been happy doing it, “you know what Brydha’s like. You must see the Green, I think the gleeman was setting up there this morning. You can’t go a whole Bel Tine without seeing the gleeman perform!”

“Yes,” she smiled warmly, “And I want to get a look at this Sereina Sedai too. I want to know how I will turn out after the White Tower has done with me.”

Janrik’s grin faded, “I wish you didn’t have to go so soon.”

“I know,” she sighed, then touched the leather cord around her neck, “but I shall always have you close to my heart, Janrik, you know that.”
“I know,” he smiled sadly, and did something she had never expected from the sweet, shy farm-boy who always blushed when she smiled at him. He bent down and lightly brushed her mouth with his lips. Now it was her turn to blush, “And you will always be in mine,” he finished softly, brushing a reddish curl out of her tear-filled eyes. Light, she thought, fighting back anguished tears, how could she ever leave him?

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“The princess was a very good girl, and she accepted the Great Lord’s offer to protect her forever, but the prince was rude and bad, and he spat on the Great Lord and ran away,” Sereina smiled down on her captive audience, all staring up at her in shock and horror at the bad prince’s refusal of the Great Lord’s kind offer. She was dancing inside, for all her Aes Sedai serenity. These infants were as good as hers.

“The Great Lord was very sad that the prince had been so ungrateful, but he knew that rudeness cannot go unpunished. Just like your mother would punish you if you took the last honey-cake without asking, so the Great Lord had to punish the prince for his bad manners.

“And so he followed the prince as he ran, and chased him half way to the edge of the world and back, until the prince found himself standing at the edge of the Pit of Dhoom, with the Great Lord behind him and no way to turn back.”

“What did the Great Lord do?” a black-haired boy asked, awestruck by the tale.

“Why, he pushed the prince in of course!” the Aes Sedai replied, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, “A boy who is so foolish and is rude to his betters must be prepared to accept the consequences!”

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Alysja and Janrik crossed the square arm-in-arm, and for once the boy did not care who saw him. She smiled at the glorious day around them, and the pole with its ribbons going up in the centre of the Green. She was still too young to dance the ribbons at Bel Tine, but she would not be jealous when Janrik was asked to dance by one of the older girls. In a few years time, she would ask him to dance at Bel Tine herself, and she knew he would still be there, waiting for her.

“I don’t see Sereina Sedai,” Janrik frowned at the Green. A few minutes back, Bryndha had been watching the children just at the edge of the square, but now the young ones, and their Aes Sedai guardian, were nowhere to be seen.

“No, there they are,” Alysja smiled, pointing to the tiny group in the distance, gathered around the Aes Sedai with her back to the Green, listening spellbound as she spoke to them. She was too far off for the words to carry as Alysja and Janrik reached the Green, but it must be something enthralling by the way the children were gazing in awe at the woman.

As they neared Sereina Sedai and her little congregation, however, Janrik frowned, and Alysja’s eyes widened in horrified shock.
“And so none of you will be like the naughty, naughty prince who forsook the Great Lord’s kindness, will you?” the woman asked her audience. They just stared as she went on, “You must all pledge your obedience to Him, and promise that you will not be so rude as the prince was, or you shall all be cast into the Pit of Dhoom where the bad little boy met his fate.”

The woman was preaching the words of the Dark One to little children! Alysja had to fight down the bile that rose in her throat – that was disgusting, telling little children to follow the Dark One. Sereina Sedai was a bloody Darkfriend! Janrik hissed furiously by her side, and stiffened as he recognised his sister, Miishna, among the captivated children.

“Janrik, don’t,” she hissed in his ear, lest the woman should hear their approach, “We should go and get someone who can overpower her. There’s nothing we can do, Janrik!”

“Now,” the Aes Sedai said, making Alysja jump, “You must all repeat after me. I do solemnly pledge…”

“No, Alysja!” he pulled free of her grip on his arm with surprising force; “there’s no time! If I don’t stop her she’s going to sell my sister’s soul to the bloody Dark One, along with all the rest of them!” and before Alysja could stop him, Janrik stormed into the middle of the children and scooped his sister up of the ground.

She scowled at him and struggled as the Aes Sedai leaped to her feet with a face like thunderheads, “Janrik! Let go! I have to promise or I’ll be thrown into the…”

“No you don’t, Miish,” Janrik growled, fixing Sereina Sedai with a glare that almost matched the one she was aiming at him, “We’re leaving now,” he looked at all the children fiercely, “We all are. Quickly now.”

Sereina smiled coldly as she embraced the True Source and prepared the nastiest surprise she could think of for this insolent boy. None of these fools would ever forget Sereina Silande, “I don’t think that’s a good idea, boy.”

And with those words, she channeled, and hurled Janrik six feet into the air and ten feet back, against a huge tree. Miishna flew out of his arms and fell, screaming on the ground. Her screams, and those of the other children as they fled towards the Green, did not nearly equal those of Alysja, however, as she ran at the Aes Sedai’s back. The woman had not yet seen her, as she lifted her skirts above the dust and stalked towards the spot where Janrik lay at the foot of the tree, completely motionless. With a wordless shriek of fury, for Miishna and the children, but especially for Janrik, she hurled herself into the Black sister and sent Sereina Sedai sprawling onto the grass beneath her. The woman hurled Alysja away with a blast of the Power and leaped to her feet, scowling down at her.

“Do not meddle in things you cannot change, girl,” she spat on Alysja and turned away, towards Janrik, “I shall deal with you later,” and she stalked on towards the inert figure beneath the tree.

Alysja tried struggling to her feet, but she could not move. Some Aes Sedai trick had her pinned to the ground by air made solid, and she could not move more than her head from the position the Aes Sedai had left her prostrated in. She panicked, struggling vainly against the barrier that held her back from saving Janrik, and tears welled up uncontrollably in her eyes as she saw Sereina standing over the unconscious boy with a sadistic smile.

At a gesture from the Black sister, Janrik’s eyes shot open and he gasped in pain as unseen forces raised him in the air and bent his back the way no human was meant to be folded, with his ankles pressed against the back of his head. He screamed against a gag of air that held his mouth open, and tears of agony rolled down his face as the Aes Sedai’s channelling forced him to bend still further, and a tremendous crack spoke of his spine shattering under the pressure.

Alysja screamed, and tears poured down her cheeks as Sereina let the limp body fall to the ground and thrash about in spasmodic torment like a fish on the end of a line. Alysja clenched her eyes shut and screamed and screamed until she tasted blood. She had to get out of this, had to stop this witch from torturing Janrik. It was not a matter of wanting to, or feeling obliged to, she HAD to. If this helplessness went on for a moment more, she would die as surely as Janrik would, and not just from Sereina Sedai’s tortures.

Suddenly, time seemed to slow as a beautiful, golden light welled up in the back of her mind. In desperation, Alysja reached out to it and let it fill her with life, strength, an unbelievable vitality that she had never imagined before. With a feeling of the very air shattering around her, the invisible barrier vanished, and Sereina’s head whipped around from the torture she was inflicting on Janrik, to stare in shocked horror at the girl she had bound with Air struggling to her feet. But she did not have time to wonder what had happened.

In a heartbeat, the girl was right in front of her, and a delicate fist was connecting with her jaw with a strength behind it that sent her reeling. Another punch slammed into the other side of the Black sister’s head, and a full armed slap that made stars dance before her eyes.

She was dumbfounded. Sereina had never had the need to fight with hands and feet before, as the release from her White Tower oaths had left her perfectly capable of using the One Power as a weapon, but now she was too dazed to even think of reaching for the Source. That first punch, the shock of feeling someone embrace Saidar, though only for a heartbeat, and turning around to find no one there but a twelve year old girl, had ripped the One Power right out of her grasp, and it had stayed there. She grunted as she suffered a kick to the shin, and a fist rammed into her stomach, doubling her over in pain. Where had this child learned to fight like that?

She staggered forwards, towards the child, although that had not been the original intention of the movement; somehow her sense of direction had been thrown right off. Suddenly Sereina was aware of being far too close, and the girl’s hand flying back for another attack. She braced herself for the blow, and saw nothing but darkness when the heel of Alysja’s palm slammed into her nose with such force she went flying backwards onto the grass, swallowed up by the ultimate Dark. She was going to meet with her Great Lord a lot sooner than she had anticipated.

Alysja stared at the blood on her palm as the Black sister fell back onto the dusty grass, a good three feet away from the spot where the girl’s hand had connected with her face. A trickle of blood ran from the corner of Sereina Sedai’s mouth as she lay motionless, her eyes wide open and staring. She would not be posing any threat in the near future. Alysja shuddered and turned away, finally coming back to what she was really still here for.

“Janrik,” she breathed, the tears that had vanished with sheer fury during the fight now welling up again, shamelessly. A shout came from the Green in the distance as the pole being erected was allowed to fall to the ground and a group of men came running at the warning from the children who had run what seemed like an Age ago. Alysja did not hear them. She fell to her knees by Janrik’s side and clasped one of his hands in both of hers, shaking her head slowly in disbelief. He could not be dead, she would not allow it.

She finally noticed his chest rising and falling, and heard the short, ragged, bubbling breaths that rattled from his lips. His beautiful, midnight eyes fluttered open and fixed immediately on Alysja’s face, bloodshot, but still Janrik’s wonderful eyes. The tears came again, tears of relief this time.

“Light, Janrik,” she sobbed, pressing the back of his hand to her cheek, “I thought I’d lost you.”

Then she realised how limp his hand was. He smiled weakly, but did not move his head to look at her, just his eyes. The eyes that suddenly filled with tears. Tears? She had never seen Janrik cry, never.

“Alysja, I…” he winced as he tried to move his head towards her, and abandoned the movement as he took quick, shallow breaths through gritted teeth. Half of his ribs seemed to be broken, like his spine, and every breath was agony, “You have to go to Tar Valon.”

“No!” she cried, incredulous, “I am not leaving you. We’ll get a Yellow sister down here in no time and you’ll be…”

“No, Alysja…” he sighed, and immediately wished he hadn’t, “You won’t get anyone in time. There is no way a Yellow sister can come from Tar Valon in two minutes. No way under the Light, you know that.”

“Two…Janrik don’t speak like that,” she hissed, “Please…you’ll be fine, I know it. If we can just…”

“Alysja, I’m…I’m dying.”

“No you’re not!” She cried, tears streaming down her cheeks, “Janrik Mahrtynne, I will not let you die on me. You can’t. You were going to come to Tar Valon and be my Warder! You have to! It’s the plan, we had everything worked out,” she was hysterical now, shaking and sobbing and shouting through her tears, “You…can…not…die!”

“No matter whether I die today or in a hundred years, Alsyja…”

“And in a hundred years it shall be!” she interrupted tearfully, angrily, “You are forbidden to die until you have grandchildren. Great grandchildren!”

“…I love you,” he finished with a sad smile. And with that, with his hand tightening spasmodically on hers, those beautiful eyes fluttered closed for the last time, and Janrik died. As the shouts of the approaching village men grew closer and louder, Alysja laid her head down on Janrik’s still chest and sobbed as if her heart would break, his hand still clutched in hers.

She cried as strong, comforting hands prised her away from the body and carried her back to the village, as her legs were too weak from shock to actually walk herself. When she was set down in her bed in her mother’s house, she did not sleep until long after it grew dark. She just lay there and stared at the full moon floating in the clear night sky outside her window and cried and cried and cried until her tears had complete dried up.

As the sun rose over the Green, on a clear, warm spring morning, she resolved that, in two days time, she would travel to Tar Valon as planned, though without Sereina Sedai as her guide. She would be Aes Sedai, and she would make her mother, and Janrik, proud of her. And she would never forget. She wiped the tears from her cheeks and gazed out at the tree where her first love, her Janrik, had died, and smiled weakly.

“I love you too, Janrik,” she whispered softly, pressing her palm against the window pane, then touching the crimson stone on it’s leather necklace, “And you will always be close to my heart.”