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BLACK AJAH [SETTING: Ishamael's office as Acting CEO of the Darkfriends, in the absence of the Chairman of the Board, Mister Great Lord of the Dark himself! (His friends call him "Great Lord" for short). Or at least, this is the T'A'R manifestation of that office, since Ishy is still bound in the flesh for the time being.] [Wrapped up soundly in her Basic Black outfit (reflecting how she thinks of herself, of course), the current Head of the Black Ajah (hereafter called BA) has just been dragged into his office by the force of his will.] ISHAMAEL: No need to go down flat on your belly! Merely kneeling and touching your head to the floor will suffice! Tell me, how fares the Great Work in the White Tower? BA: Very well, Master! The Three Oaths are still considered inviolate! The First Oath is particularly useful to us, since it makes our fellow Aes Sedai (and all other educated persons) assume that anything we say MUST be true, even if they don't understand how! ISHAMAEL (snickering): I swear, the First Oath was the BEST idea I ever had! Bind those witches to speak no word that is not true, which makes the occasional torture of an Aes Sedai much more satisfying because you don't need to reinvent the lie detector to see if she's really telling the truth after you apparently crack her, then set my followers FREE of that Oath without anybody realizing such a thing is possible, and now Black Ajah can lie their heads off and never a suspicion of it in the minds of 99.99 percent of the populace! Sometimes I'm so clever I amaze myself! BA: Yes, Great Lord. Also, whenever a Black sister is lecturing the novices and Accepted, she stresses the importance of practicing the haughty sniff, the silent stare, the veiled threat, and other ways of insulting or intimidating people. The cover story is that this makes people RESPECT Aes Sedai more than they would if we treated them like social equals! ISHAMAEL (nodding): Good, good . . . perish the thought that the Aes Sedai should ever master even the BARE ESSENTIALS of how to Win Friends and Influence People, as opposed to bullying them! And how is the White Tower's Recruiting Program been doing lately? BA (surprised): Recruiting Program? What Recruiting Program? ISHAMAEL: That's what I like to hear! So they still wait for girls who might be capable of learning to channel to just spontaneously show up on their doorstep at Tar Valon? On the theory that if they don't travel to Tar Valon, they aren't worth the trouble of training? BA: Yep. ISHAMAEL: And I suppose OCCASIONALLY a Sister traveling in another nation might test a few girls to see if they had the capacity to learn, but odds are she'll walk right past the ones who could and never know it. Needle in a haystack and all that sort of rot . . . unlike the situation in the Seanchan Empire where I made sure they found every last sul'dam or damane in existence by checking every girl EVERY year . . . BA (blankly): Seanchan? Where's that? ISHAMAEL (waving a hand in the air): Nowhere that need concern you just now! By the way, the Tower still refuses to accept anyone as a novice above a certain age, don't they? BA: Yes, Great Lord. The age of 18, usually, with minor exceptions for the occasional wilder who started channeling on her own. ISHY: I'm not too worried about those. Three quarters of them die of it, anyway. And some of those who don't probably never go within a thousand miles of the Tower if they can help it . . . the important thing is that if the Tower fails to sense a girl has the spark in her teenage years, they lose all interest in when she's older! I wonder how many thousands of women in their twenties and thirties and forties and so forth COULD have learned to channel, given a chance? Well, the Seanchan will clear THAT question up for me . . . BA (determined not to ask about this Seanchan business this time): Also, Great Lord, I feel I should mention the Kin. They sweep up nearly all women who CAN channel but are rejected by the Tower in the end for lack of strength (in the Power, or in sheer determination). ISHAMAEL (contemptuously): Nonsense! Any activity against the Kin might cause them to reinitiate contact with the White Tower, and I prefer possible enemies to stay divided! Besides, there can't be more than one or two hundred of them, or thereabouts. BA (trying to remember the exact number of rejected channelers who were cast out of the Tower within, say, the last 200 years): Great Lord, are you SURE it's that few? I think - ISHAMAEL (firmly): That will be ALL, Alviarin! Now get out of here, I have an appointment with the Two Rivers Station Chief! [He gestures and she is gone, back to her own body in Tar Valon] [COMMENTS - to make my life easier, I am avoiding the question of whether or not these Darkfriends think Ishamael is the Dark One himself. Assume, if you like, that Ishy blurs their memories of these conversations so that they won't grow suspicious of who he is or isn't] |