Room 99, Frozen Prior to Ch. 30

[we_bring_hell]

The room is spartan; sufficient to her needs. There is a single painting on the wall, painstakingly straight. It seems to be a mounted jigsaw puzzle of a tower at sunset. There is the faintest smell; some kind of organic ash, mixed with the oil of a mechanism. It's not unpleasant.

Her robe has somehow transitioned to the closet, and there's a skeleton on a stand in the corner; she recognizes the ribs. It grins at her familiarly. In the closet there are rows of long-sleeved shirts much like her usual habit, and some other shirts she frowns at. In a drawer there are trousers and spare niqabs and gloves and socks. Her journal is here on the desk.

This is all burying the lede: perpendicular to the white, crisp bed is a second one. There is also a set of free weights in one corner for some reason.

On the table by the bed is a device she only vaguely recognizes the function of, but it seems to be active. She presses the universal glyph for play. After listening to the strange yet familiar apocalyptic hymn, she lets the songs keep playing, but only the second one holds her interest.

She finds another CD in the drawer and puts it in; the first words send prickles up her spine; it's about running away and checking into a spartan room to hide from loss.

Half the words she hears mean nothing to her, but the other half pierce her through.

I write down good reasons to freeze to death
In my spiral ring notebook
But in the long tresses of your hair
I am a babbling brook

She plays it all the way through, and then again, and then again, and then again, and then she listens to the seventh song until she knows it word-perfect, even the words that are gibberish to her.

---

A new Milliways day finds Harrowhark at a table in the bar, studying her notes, black trousers and shirt and niqab. The key to room 99 is on the table before her, and she sings tunelessly under her breath, when that day is coming who can say, who can say. In Canaan House, time is frozen.

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[we_bring_hell]

In a completely different reality that may only exist inside her head, but then again maybe not, a very similar scene is playing out. Here, though, the ground beneath her is freezing cold, so cold it comes out the other side and burns through the thin fabric of her clothes.

She can hear water moving in a tide that should not exist. The woman kneeling over her has hair that hangs in wet leaden hanks, that may be blonde or brown or any color at all. Her upper lip is touched by a delicate cupid's bow. Her eyes burn with amber light.

for a moment you went where i can't follow, love whispers the Body.

"I'm sorry," Harrow says thickly, the blood-crusted veil sticking to her mouth and lower face, clutching to the icy hand in hers.

[blue_ajah]

She does not pull away from the younger woman's grip, but presses Harrow's hand between both of hers, as if to reassure.

"We may have reached too far for a first attempt," she says, a little wryly.

[we_bring_hell]

it's all right, whispers the Body. i'm proud of you

She leans close and presses a kiss to Harrow's forehead, passing straight through the niqab and frosting the blood-sweat on her brow. And then

Light. Real life, as dazzling after the anti-light of her hallucination as the blaze of Creation after a lifetime of Dominicus.

She reaches up and peels off the veil, revealing her sharp little face, sticky with blood. "I... what did you say?" she says dazedly.

[blue_ajah]

"I said," she repeats, still wry, "we may have reached too far for a first attempt. Lie still."

The Aes Sedai rises and glides across the room to the bathroom, where she obtains a clean washcloth and towel. She wets the first with warm water, then brings both back to Harrow and offers her the damp cloth.

"Your nose bled," she says, by way of explanation.

[we_bring_hell]

"Oh that's not so bad," she says faintly. "Just thanergetic feedback." She sticks a finger in her mouth, bites down on the fingertip of her glove and tugs it off. She touches her ear.

"No aneurysm." She takes the cloth and mops her face.

"Moiraine Sedai," she says, grinning gruesomely with blood on her teeth, "I have done alien magic. Alien, thalergenic magic. I have surpassed all my ancestors." She slumps back onto the pillow.

"And you... have done necromancy. Congratulations."

[blue_ajah]

"Do aneurysms happen to you often?" she asks, a little tartly.

The question is forgotten, however, in the wake of Harrow's observation. For a strangely dizzying second of shock, Moiraine thinks wildly of Verin's confession and of channeling through Callandor, linked with Nynaeve, and the force they had brushed against there, before she blinks back to the present moment.

"I suppose that I have, at that," she says, slowly. "It is certainly not something that I ever expected to do."

"And I shall offer you my congratulations as well."

[we_bring_hell]

"Not too often," she says. "But blood sweats and nosebleeds usually accompany any major work. I go through a lot of makeup."

She sounds younger and more informal than she ever has; almost giddy.

"It was astounding. I can't even begin to imagine how this might change what I know. Elemental thanergy. Magic beyond necromancy. Beyond..." She hesitates before saying it, but there is no Eighth House here. "Beyond God Himself."

[blue_ajah]

She offers the clean towel as well, then shifts to the side and sits on the floor instead of kneeling, her skirts pooling around her as she does.

"In my years of visiting this place, I have discovered that there is much to be learned from other worlds," she observes, decades of training keeping her composure in place despite the informality of her posture. "I am glad you are finding it so, as well."

Her tone is still wry, though, with more than a little bit of wonder in it.

[we_bring_hell]

"I want to try the others," she says. She wipes her face down, and amends, "Later, perhaps, but I do. Resomation. And... jhator, perhaps? Air is difficult."

"If I show you how we do notation," she says tentatively, "could you diagram the portal weave for me?"

[blue_ajah]

"Later," Moiraine says, very firmly.

"I can attempt to do so, but I will insist that you do not try it alone, at least at first. That weave is extremely dangerous if one loses control; it has been known to burn out poorly prepared women in the past."

[we_bring_hell]

"At present, I do not believe I can even originate elemental thanergetic weaves," she says. "But I will remember that warning."

Harrow has never, ever attempted incredibly dangerous magic that was beyond her!



(Because technically, it has never been beyond her.)

"And I shall accept that delay. A quiet afternoon of thaumocryptology sounds ideal, in fact. I would like to hear more about your Source, if you would favor me."

[blue_ajah]

Moiraine gives her an assessing look, then inclines her head in assent.

"I shall be glad to tell you."

A beat of silence.

"Once we have both moved from the floor, and perhaps secured a cup of tea."

[we_bring_hell]

She nods decisively. "I have been cultivating a taste for it." She does seem to visibly brace herself for a cup of tea.