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Power

by John Biles

Part One of a Three Part Story
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     They were coming.  For days, he had led his little band of followers 
through the mountains, fleeing the men who pursued them.  They had 
climbed out of the foothills and were now slowly traversing the trails 
that wound through the high peaks, normally used only by prospectors and 
the occassional hunter.  

     The men who pursued them were relentless.  They would not stop, not 
until they had captured or killed him and all his followers.  Not that he 
wanted followers.  In one way or another, he had saved them all from the 
white clad men who followed them.  The first three had been accused of 
being darkfriends...all they had done was to jostle a few whitecloaks in 
a crowd by accident.  After that, they were after him too.  Finally, they 
had had to flee into the mountains, but even that wasn't enough.

     Jon turned to him.  "Mai says this is a box canyon...we've got to 
back up and find another way out."

     "What, NOW she recognizes it?"  he snapped.  Stupid would-be guide.  
The woman had already gotten them lost three times.

     Mai came forward.  "I'm sorry..."  She hesitated, then went on.  "I 
thought this was the canyon with the three big rocks...but there's only 
two.  This one dead ends in half a mile."

     He took a deep breath.  I shouldn't snap at them.  They're depending 
on me...I just wish I knew what I was doing..."I shouldn't have yelled at 
you.  Just get us out of here."

     Nearby, the oldest of the band, a grizzled old man with a bald head 
and a thick grey mustache turned and smiled at him.  "Don't worry.  
You've done a good job so far."  

     You should be the one in charge, Alain, not me, he thought.  You're 
at least twice my age.  I may fight better than you now...but that's only 
because you're getting old.  He smiled at his thought.  Respect for my 
elders...that's new.  Well, I never had elders worth respecting before...
At least I have one other person here besides me who knows how to fight.

     The group followed Mai's directions, heading for a way up the side 
of the canyon.  Unfortunately, it was too late.  The white cloaks had 
already cut them off.  There was no way out but the grave it appeared.

      Despair washed over them like a wave.  Every eye turned to stare at 
him, a man with short brown hair, less than twenty years old, clad in 
stolen clothing that never quite fit right.  They were counting on him 
because he had saved them from death before, against the odds.  Somehow 
he would find the solution, they hoped.  

      There was no solution.  There's too many of them to fight.  I can't 
take fifty men with swords...it's not like the fights I had when I was a 
kid.  He laughed bitterly for a moment.  A kid.  That was less than a 
year ago.  If only...If only...He choked off the thought.  There was no 
time for regrets.

      At that very moment, he could sense the only possible solution, 
floating out of reach, just beyond his ability to grasp it.  The power.  
The One Power.  He had seen it, heard stories of it...even wielded it.  
Yet, it would not come at his command...he couldn't even be sure what had 
happened had been the power.  Still, he had heard stories, 
whispers...what he sometimes sensed now had to be the Power.  Floating 
off to one side, taunting him with its proximity.  If he could wield it, 
he could show them...

      He tried to grab it with his mind and it slid between his fingers, 
somehow getting farther away, without actually moving...not that it was 
exactly in a given place in the first place.  Do something!  he shouted 
at it!  We're all going to die!  I don't want to die!  I don't want them 
to die!  The power ignored him, and sat there, existing, taunting him 
with its lack of activity.

      He wondered for a moment if the Aes Sedai always had this much 
trouble with the power.  They made it look so easy...she made it look so 
easy.  He remembered again the woman he had tried to forget.  His fiancee...
Her image came to mind as he had last seen her, before she vanished, they 
all vanished, leaving him behind in a land not his.  They stood outside 
of Tarabon, near one of those great pillars, carved with strange runes.  
Her red hair glowed in the sunset, flowing freely.  She had undone her 
usual braid, which had surprised him, but then everything about her 
always seemed to surprise him.  The dress had been a surprise too.  Green 
silk from Arad Doman.  While she had never been modest, she had always 
resisted wearing dresses, but she seemed comfortable in this one.  Her 
months in the tower must have changed her, he thought.  Most people grew 
harder edged, but she seemed to have softened.  He still wasn't sure how 
she had gotten out of the tower so fast, but then, he wasn't sure how the 
tower really worked either.  

     If she was here, she'd just blast that canyon side to ash and bring 
it down on their heads...Suddenly, he felt the power.  While he was 
distracted, it had snuck up on him...or something.  He had the power!  
Now I'll just...it was at that moment that he realized he didn't ahve the 
power...it had him.

     Pain rushed through his body as the entire male half of the Source 
tried to empty itself through him.  He was a vessel for surging energy, 
energy no one could see or feel but him.  The dam that had protected him 
from the power was down and now the waters were rushing through, widing 
the hole.  Soon, the dam would shatter completely and it would scour him 
away, erasing him, or maybe worse yet, leaving him to live, but only a 
shell of what he had been.  I've screwed up again, he thought.  I'm 
clumsy and ugly and I can't do anything right.  I can't save these 
people, can't control the power...I'm doomed.

     A voice spoke in her mind.  I knew you'd give up, you clumsy, 
uncute...A familiar anger flared deep within his mind.  He had been 
taunted so many times.  Told he was ugly, clumsy, couldn't fight, weak.  
Told he was trying to do things he shouldn't, that he couldn't.  That's 
not your place, they told him.  You can't do that.  Don't even try.  He 
had refused to listen, but when you hear things over and over, they live 
on in your head.  So do your responses.  His response was rage.

     Power haunted his dreams.  All his life, he had feared being 
powerless.  He had lost his mother when he was only five and there had 
been nothing he could do about it.  Crying out to the heavens above, he'd 
begged to be taken if she might live.  Heaven was silent.

     Since that day, there had been a core of anger in him, an anger 
nothing ever soothed for long.  He was torn between his rage at her loss 
and his desire to be a peaceful, loving person like her.  It poisoned his 
waking moments with bursts of rage against his lack of power, against the 
strong, against those who abused their power, who by their strength 
reminded him he had no power.  

     It grew now, a firey torrent in his mind, blanking out the pain, 
wiping away the power from his consciousness.  The power could be 
mastered.  Others had done it.  He had fought his father tooth and nail to 
learn to fight when his siblings had not been allowed to.  He had become 
the best in his town, too.  That had changed...there were a lot of people 
better than him now, but that didn't mean he was worthless.  

      The power rushed at him again.  It sought to dominate, to control, 
to destroy.  That was its way.  It was not mean or evil, it simply was 
the essence of control, the desire to overcome.  All it knew was 
dominance or submission, and all its masters had to win their position on 
top every time they called on it.  He was ready now for it, and he 
refused to submit.

      It sought to scour him to ash, but he would not burn.  It tried to 
crush him, but he would not be broken.  It tried to blow him away, but he 
would not move.  He locked his mind around it and struck back with his 
anger, binding it with the power within himself.  He had gone beyond 
rage, into the calm at the heart of the hurricane of his anger.  By 
turning his anger outward, he mastered it, and now he did the same for 
the power.

      Proceeding entirely by instinct, he hurled the power at the 
canyonside.  He could feel it rushing through him, taste the bitter oil 
of the Dark One's taint on it, smell the sweat of those around him.  He 
heard the cries and the distant explosion as the canyon wall ripped 
apart, spraying gravel and collapsing upon the white cloaks.  He saw them 
die, buried beneath tons of gravel and asphyxiating on a giant dust cloud 
raised by the cliff side's destruction.

     Dimly, he sensed the horror of what he had done, but for now, he 
didn't care.  Those around him stared at him in wonder and fear.  He 
could hear their beating hearts, smell their fear, see the mixture of 
hope and terror he had aroused in them.  

     The dust cleared.  The Whitecloaks were dead.  He let go of his 
rage, let go of the power.  It left him, and he felt sorry to see it go.  
Drained emotionally and mentally, he fainted.

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     He awoke in a cave, dreams of what had happened still echoing 
through his head.  I killed them.  All of them.  They were only doing 
what they thought was right and I murdered them!  There had to have been 
something else I could have done, he thought.  Guilt washed through him.  

     A hand gently touched his shoulder.  It was Lori, another of the few 
women in his band.  She had been a ...lady of the evening once.  Now she 
was just another refugee.  She smiled, the dim light glinting off her 
bronzed skin.  "Well, most of us are still here.  Tom and Hari and Rikard 
all left, for fear of what you had done...but the rest of us decided we 
don't care."

      "That...I didn't mean to...I mean..."  Three gone.  Seventeen 
left.  What are we going to do about food out here?  At least we can 
scrounge some more weapons now...The whitecloaks will bring an army when 
they find out...if they find out.  And the power...I may not live long 
enough to get killed by the whitecloaks.  Assuming I stay sane.  He 
sighed and stood up.  "Was anyone hurt?"

      "No, everyone is fine.  My lord destroyed only his enemies."  Her 
voice had changed, he noticed.  There was...something...a more courtly 
tone...wait...my lord?

     "I'm not a lord.  I'm just a...just a normal person like you."  No, 
I'm not that normal, he thought...if you knew...who I really was...you'd 
probably think I was some kind of freak.  If any of you knew.  He thanked 
the heavens that at least his curse had stopped, though this was not how 
he would have wanted to stay forever.  Or where...stranded in a place not 
his own, a body that wasn't quite right.  Still, there was nothing he 
could do but try to survive.  Try to lead those who followed him to 
safety.  If there was any safety.

      He staggered out of the cave into the sunlight.  Everyone was 
huddled around a fire eating breakfast.  It was cold, but the sun was 
beautiful.  Far off, a single bird sang.  Mai sat off to one side, sewing 
something.  It was white, a banner made from sewn together...white 
cloaks.  He coughed at the thought of where they had come from.  Her 
thread was yellow.  She was sewing some sort of long sinuous golden 
creature onto the banner.  "What is it, Mai?"

      She smiled.  "I hope I'm doing it right.  It's a banner for you, my 
lord."

      "I can see that..."  He ignored the my lord for now.  "But of what?"

      "What else?  A dragon.  All hail Kaneda, the Lord Dragon!"

      A cry rang up around the camp.  But I'm not the Dragon, he started 
to say.  I'm just a lost refugee...This isn't even my world.  I'm not 
even supposed to be a guy...But he knew they wouldn't listen.  It 
wouldn't do any good.  Sometimes you have to fight, and sometimes...you 
should just save your strength.  This would take all the strength he had.

      A faint breeze began to blow, ruffling Kaneda's blue-black hair.  
It was cut short now, and had been for months now.  Already, those days 
seemed so far away.  His old life was starting to fade in his memory, he 
realized.  His old life was dead, unless somehow they found him.  Why 
haven't they come back for me?  Doesn't anyone care...

      The nightmare that sometimes plagued his thoughts rose up to bite 
him.  Maybe they're all dead...maybe that thing that brought us all here 
malfunctioned and killed them all but me...Maybe I'm really dying and 
just dreaming all this.  Why did that idiot have to come here in the 
first place!  Just because my sister wanted him to get rid of those damn 
cursed rings...No, he couldn't just drop them in the ocean or something, 
he had to go find a way to go get lost in another UNIVERSE!!!!!

      Kaneda felt a hand on his shoulder.  It was Corwin.  "Are you okay, 
Lord Dragon?  You look troubled."  Corwin was an Amadician teamster.  His 
sister, Alya, was a herbalist and healer who the whitecloaks had accused 
of being Aes Sedai for some stupid reason.  He was tall with dark hair 
and a broad frame.  Kaneda had saved his sister from being burnt, and 
Corwin would probably hurl himself off a cliff if 'the Lord Dragon' 
asked him to do so.

     "Just feeling...Missing my family."  It's been three months I've 
been stranded here.  Father is probably crying his eyes out right 
now...bawling like a small child.  If he's alive...he must be dead...they 
must all be dead.  They'd come looking for me...It's not like they don't 
know where they left me...  "I don't know if they're alive or dead."

     "So what comes next, Kaneda?"  Alain asked.  "We can probably stay 
here a while, but sooner or later, the whitecloaks are going to come 
looking for their missing troops."

     "We move deeper into the mountains and find somewhere we can 
survive the winter.  We'll build shelters, gather food, and wait for 
spring.  We all need rest."  And I need time to figure out what I'm going 
to do...

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Author's afterword or...WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?

This vignette is inspired by some events in the roleplaying we did at 
AnimeMush during 1995.  This included a TinyPlot where ...

1.  We all suffered at lot due to some magical rings that enabled the 
wearer of one to control the wearer of the other (Inspired by the 
Seanchan bracelets from WOT)

2.  Nabiki put Ranma in charge of disposing of them.  Ranma went to CAFAM 
and bought a dimension hopper so he could go throw them into Mount Doom 
(He read Tolkein :))

3.  The D-hopper was harder to use than he anticipated, so he ended up 
stranded in the WOT world when the batteries went out :)

4.  Ranma ended up in the White Tower as a novice :)  (Chi abilities 
translated to one power use...)

5.   Everyone came looking for him and found him in Tanchico (Months 
after his arrival there...the WOT world moved at a much faster time flow 
than the Nerima world.)  Ranma had been sent with Nynaeve and the others 
on the mission that led them to Tanchico.  Moghedien ended up getting 
clobbered Ranma 1/2 style and the group tried to take Ranma back...but...

6.  Earlier in Amush TPs, Akane and Ukyou had both been cursed (by 
different things) to change Gender like Ranma....Akane was splashed right 
as the group left...The end result was Akane got split in half and her 
male aspect stayed in the Wot world while her female aspect came home.  

7.  This vignette is set before the group figured out what was wrong and 
came back to rescue her..him :)  

Currently, I'm working on Part Three of this.

     
     


John Walter Biles :  MA-History, Ph.D Wannabe at U. Kansas         
ranma@falcon.cc.ukans.edu      bailesu@komodo.hacks.arizona.edu  
http://www.hacks.arizona.edu/~bailesu/falcon.html 
http://www.dhp.com/~wraven/john/index.html
"It's good to kill the King."  "I still think the Saxons should have 
put a higher price on our heads.  I'm more valuable than 25 librum."
--Frequent quotes from our PENDRAGON sessions.