Senji's Story III: "The Wheel of Time"
The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Second Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose above the blue and silver domes of the Collan Daan. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings or endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time.
South blew the wind, south until it reached the valley of the river
Sammensatinat, where the hot air coming off the river and the precipitous geography conspired to turn it towards the east. South and east over prime farmland, wherein the Aiel sang with the Ogier and the Nym walked to encourage the crops to grow. South and east until it came to the city of Tzora, often called the second greatest city in the world. When it reached the outskirts of the city it divided into streams, split by eddies and buildings, some rising to the platform from which the sho-wings were taking off, some descending into the tunnels that honeycombed the underside of the city, and some passing between the soaring buildings, through the trefoil-leafed chora trees, along the roads filled with jo-cars and pedestrians. One such stream blew down a little used passageway and rose at the end, heated by light reflecting off the glass of a large building, passing on its way the window through which Lews Therin Telamon gazed absently.
Lews Therin sighed. His report was almost finished, and when it was he would be able to go off duty and spend a couple of hours at swords down at the gym, but yet.... He had the feeling that the hardest part was yet to come. Perhaps that was why he had left it to last, perhaps because he thought that it would be a more difficult problem than any he had dealt with so far.
Still, he thought, no use being maudlin. Back to the problem at hand - the report.
"Resume dictation with a new paragraph", he addressed the automenuensis device. "Lastly there have been a number of unexplained incidents recently for which we have no reasonable explanation. All of them bear the hallmarks of someone finding the ability to channel, yet Aes Sedai of both sexes were in the area on at least two occasions and they detected nothing out of the ordinary. None of the incidents themselves were particularly serious; a small fire started in an empty warehouse in the industrial sector, the disappearance of a couple of loaves of bread while the baker looked on - she had accused us of playing tricks, so I paid for her inconvenience and said I'd look into it - a few merchants sure that they hadn't really intended to sell their goods at half the cost price, that sort of thing. End paragraph".
"It is the fact that we cannot appear to detect the use of the One Power in these cases, either when the incidents happen - or any flow-residues later, that worries me. Also, in the usual course of events we would have no difficulty tracking down the citizens involved, but we have absolutely no leads on them at all - apart from the fact that all of the incidents have occurred in the Marine Quarter. End paragraph".
"These incidents have all been consigned to a new file, and no further action will be taken on them until more evidence accrues. Explicit mode", he finished, the last directed at the machine taking the dictation, "end the report in the usual way, print in triplicate and let me read it over and sign it before dispatching".
An hour later Lews Therin was practicing the forms, his mind filtering out the distractions of those around him. Heron Wading in the Rushes seguing into Eagle Diving through to A Penguin Rises Above the Waves, with its strange flick at the end, which can only be followed by The Rise of the Phoenix - and was halfway through the last when Duram Laddel Cham jumped off the balcony above and landed in front of him with the grace of a heron-blade swordsman, swordsticks in the opening position of Raging Bull.
The two of them sparred for a while, their fluid dancelike motions almost evenly matched - Duram slightly faster, but he needed to be as his opponent was exhibiting a wider knowledge of the forms. Lews Therin ended the bout with the traditional lowering of the sticks to request a rest period, and they moved to the seating area at the side, where they could talk and observe others hard at work exercising.
"So, do you have any leads on your mysterious case yet?" asked Duram. "No, nothing much yet - I expect that we may have to go to some kind of complete surveillance net, and you know what the Hall will think of that."
"Well, I think we could push it through in this case, after all the law is quite... Oh, do pay attention," he said, giving Lews Therin a sharp nudge in the ribs to distract him from the lithe young woman doing gymnastics on the bars at the end of the room.
"Yeah," was the response, "do you think we ought to have one of our female colleagues test her? She surely can't be doing all that unaided, can she?"
"Even if she can't it wouldn't be worth it. No-one with any significant ability gets past the test upon confirmation of citizenship. Back to the floor?"
And with that they returned to the forms, all thought of the mysteries of the day gone from their minds.
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