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TWO RIVERS [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.] [The Station Chief of the Two Rivers Darkfriends Society enters. She is covered with a thick, hairy coat that shows very little of the flesh beneath.] ISHAMAEL: Welcome! How fares the great work in the Two Rivers? 2R: Very well, Great Lord! Would you believe they are STILL doing fifty percent of their exporting in the form of tabacc? ISHAMAEL (snickering): No chance their Wisdoms will ever realize there's a correlation between smoking and lung cancer? 2R: None at all, Great Lord. The occasional wilders (if they doesn't die first) generally don't understand their own channeling abilities well enough to probe a victim's lungs that way and find out what's wrong! As a matter of fact, only one of the current Wisdoms can channel at all, and only then when she's angry at a patient for being sick! She doesn't even know what she's doing! ISHAMAEL: Well, she'll obviously never be any threat to my plans. We can forget about her. If only I could introduce the manufacture of nicotine so they could soak their tabacc leaves in it . . . their sales would go way up and their addicted customers would die off way faster! Anything that weakens the human race in preparation for Tarmon Gai'don is a good idea, in theory . . . but nicotine isn't found in large quantities in nature, and thus mass production of the substance would require teaching those mortals a LOT more about chemical engineering than they have any right to know! No, keeping them down at Zero Technological Progress has worked beautifully for three millennia, and this would be a bad time to change it. 2R: Meanwhile, no Aes Sedai has set in the Two Rivers area (as near as I can tell) for over 2000 years, ever since the fall of Manetheren. So they have no idea that there is so much power left in the Old Blood. ISHAMAEL: Yes, I imagine the Aes Sedai are a bit nervous about the idea of going there, because if one did go, and if she was asked "Why have we never seen your kind around here before?", she would have to dodge the question like crazy to avoid saying, "Because after an Amyrlin Seat betrayed your ancestors during the Trolloc Wars and did not send the reinforcements she should have sent by treaty, resulting in the destruction of Manetheren as a nation, it's been kind of awkward and we prefer to pretend the whole thing never happened." 2R: I have a list of young men who were all born within the right general timeframe. When Padan Fain comes down next spring, he can investigate them in more detail. People don't tell me much, you understand, so I just get to eavesdrop occasionally. ISHAMAEL (looking sympathetic): I understand the burdens you have to bear with, in your present circumstances. But don't worry, Beidomon old chap, as soon as the Great Lord of the Dark is free, I will personally petition him to transfer you into a more appropriate body. Perhaps that of the Dragon after we evict the current occupant! It's a real drag, the thing the Pattern selected for you to be reincarnated within! 2R: Just because I helped open the Bore and end an age of peace and joy, is THAT any reason to treat me like this? Those people were getting stagnant! Just look at all the progress they made in developing exciting new kinds of weaves (such as balefire) and ter'angreal (such as shocklances) when they realized it was NECESSARY! Think of it as Evolution in Action! Survival of the Fittest! The strong survived, the weaker failed to adapt and perished! And then I get killed by some malcontent who didn't fight fair, and wake up in THIS form! [Stamps a hoof in frustration]. ISHAMAEL: Er, right. Look, 'Bela', why don't you just step outside where I have some nice hot oat mash (with lots of sugar) waiting for you, while I wait for the Seanchan Station Chief to fall asleep so I can summon HER for a progress report? [NOTE: All right, all right, I couldn't resist! If you're wondering why I picked on Bela, I can only refer you to my "Bela's Role?" post, HERE. Also: for those of you who, like me, can easily get obsessed over inconsistencies in the Wot plotline - you're right. If Ishamael already had trusted Darkfriends as permanent residents in the Rivers area, he wouldn't have had to keep sending Padan Fain back every year to investigate things for him. But I had to find a way to present the idea that the tobacco industry, in ANY Age, is obviously a tool of the Dark One! So I took a few liberties with the facts in order to present my idealistic argument more clearly! A very time-honored tradition, I might add - invent "evidence" to support your argument!] |