The Wheel of Time Companion

by Robert Jordan

  Redwing’s call: There was danger coming from the south.

  Winterfinch’s call: There were Shadowspawn in the pass.

  Birgitte Silverbow. A Hero of the Horn. Over many lives she wore many names, among them Teadra, Maerion, Joana and Jethari Moondancer. About 5'6" tall, she wore heeled boots that made her three inches taller. Her golden hair hung in a thick braid to her waist, almost the way women wore it in the Two Rivers, but more intricately woven. Between lives, Birgitte resided in Tel’aran’rhiod; she violated the precepts and spoke with Elayne, Nynaeve and Perrin in efforts to help them. She saved Nynaeve during an altercation with Moghedien, and Moghedien forced her out into the waking world. To save her life, Elayne bonded her as her Warder. She had some memories of previous lives; in addition to a life during the founding of the White Tower (the earliest she could recall clearly), Birgitte remembered a time during the forming of the Compact of the Ten Nations, two between that founding and the Trolloc Wars, two during the Trolloc Wars, two between the Trolloc Wars and the rise of Artur Hawkwing, one during the Rise of Artur Hawkwing, two during the War of the Hundred Years, and one about five hundred years before Moghedien cast her out of Tel’aran’rhiod. She recalled occasional fragments from the Breaking of the World and the War of the Shadow, along with earlier lives, but only occasional fragments. As time progressed, her memories of the distant past faded.

  Her lover through many lives was Gaidal Cain, another Hero of the Horn; she was terrified that she would forget him.

  While traveling with Luca’s show, Birgitte performed as an archer, shooting arrows that just missed Nynaeve. She went to Salidar with Elayne and Nynaeve, and on to Ebou Dar. While there, Mat recognized Birgitte as the Hero of the Horn, and the two became friends.

  After the Seanchan attacked the Kin’s farm, Birgitte accompanied Elayne to Caemlyn; when they arrived, Elayne named her Lady Birgitte Trahelion and Captain-General of the Queen’s Guards. She and Dyelin did not get on well together. Birgitte rode a rangy gray gelding called Arrow. Birgitte coordinated troops and Sea Folk Windfinders to save Elayne after she had been kidnapped by the Black Ajah. During the Last Battle, she was killed by Doilin Mellar, whom she killed in turn once she appeared as a Hero of the Horn, saving Elayne’s life.

  Birlen Pena. An Aes Sedai revealed as Black Ajah in Verin’s notebook. She escaped from the White Tower before she was discovered.

  biteme. A small, almost invisible biting insect. Its bite was very sharp, like the stab of a needle. A warm-weather pest, it flew around the face.

  bittern. A musical instrument that could have six, nine or twelve strings, and was held flat on the knees and played by plucking or strumming.

  Black Ajah. A covert organization within the White Tower composed of sisters who gave their allegiance to the Dark One. The Black Ajah was about the same size as the Red Ajah, i.e., over two hundred members. They renounced the oaths sworn on the Oath Rod, and replaced them with three others (see Black Oaths). The Black Ajah had a cell organization of threes, called hearts; most members typically knew only two other members plus one outside their heart.

  The Black Ajah’s ruling body was called the Supreme Council, composed of thirteen sisters not all known to one another. The top woman knew all the other twelve, but the others did not know her name, except those who were of her own heart. The Council wore hoods when they met. They seldom met, though it was they personally who carried out the punishments of other Black sisters, and of others of the Council if necessary, to preserve anonymity. They also handled induction into the Black, and frequently handled the questioning of a sister or important personage. Every member of the Supreme Council knew the names of some of the sisters below her, with enough overlap that no one death, or even several, could knock out knowledge of those who belonged. Only the head of the Black Ajah knew the names of all of the sisters in the Ajah; part of her being raised was for each member of the Council to give her the names of all those that she knew.

  The head of the Ajah traditionally was the most senior sister among the Supreme Council. Alviarin was the first to break this custom, because she was personally chosen by Ishamael in the aftermath of the male channeler pogrom, when the then head of the Ajah and maybe several other high-ranking members were killed and a number of others punished severely. Alviarin was pulled from a lower rank and placed right at the top in one leap.

  Communication was by letter-drop and the like, with certain methods of ensuring that the message was genuine. Orders were passed one way and any necessary reports the other by the same method, usually. There were various signs and signals by which a Black sister could identify herself to others if needed, but such would normally only be used on order, or perhaps in the most extreme emergency. Orders could be passed to sisters who were not known in the event of some disaster, such as the deaths of a large number of the Supreme Council, including the head. The slowest, and safest, way was to pass orders down the line; the interlinkage was such that three Black sisters who knew one another would each be known to a different member of the Council, and each had ways of passing messages through the unknown hands of sisters known to still other members of the Council. There were faster methods, but they were also riskier. For example: Every sister knew that certain signs placed in public areas of the Tower were a signal from the Supreme Council to leave the Tower immediately. Each sister knew a place to go in such circumstances, and knew that she would meet other Black sisters there, though probably sisters she didn’t know. No Black sister would think of telling even another Black where this place was; she would be severely punished if she did.

  Sometimes a sister could be summoned to a meeting with one or more hooded sisters to receive orders or to make a report. She never saw their faces, or heard their voices where she could recognize them. In truth, she could never know when summoned (or in many cases simply snatched and brought) to such a meeting whether she was there to be given orders or to be punished for an infraction.

  Discipline in the Black Ajah was harsh and unforgiving. A Black sister knew she would be punished severely for the smallest transgression, slip or failure, with no excuses or reasons accepted, and that the severity increased as the transgression did. The top penalty, death, was not unknown. She would probably be found dead in her bed or from some sort of accident, but the fact was that she would have been given plenty of time to scream before she died.

  The Black Ajah had some contact with the organized cells of Darkfriends in various nations, though they themselves were not part of the rather loose Darkfriend organization. It was a matter of some irritation to the sisters of the Black Ajah, especially those on the Supreme Council, that they had no control over these other Darkfriend groups and indeed ranked only equally with the men and women in those groups. At various times over the centuries, Black sisters attempted to seize control of all Darkfriends, and at various points they actually came close. But the other groups fought back fiercely, a good many Black sisters died of poison or a knife in the back and the attempts all failed. The last, some hundreds of years ago, was particularly humiliating for the Black sisters, as their representatives, including at least some of the Supreme Council, were forced to publicly (within the meeting) renounce any claims to command, to acknowledge that they were only the equals of the others, and to accept a reduction in their votes from five to one.

  Ishamael claimed to have founded/created the Black Ajah during the Trolloc Wars, at the very beginning of the conflict when he was spun out and began the wars. The Black Ajah claimed to have existed since the Age of Legends, and so they told its new sisters. Ishamael told the truth, however. There were certainly sisters who would have been Black had the Ajah existed during the period between the Breaking and the Trolloc Wars, and some of them did serve and worship the Dark One. Sisters who had gone over to the Shadow during the War of the Shadow survived into the Breaking, and like other sisters during the Breaking, they recruited women. A number of organizations formed, at odds with one another as much as wi
th anyone else, and some of these small organizations survived the Breaking. By the end of the Breaking, most of these small groups did not know of the others. Like the other Aes Sedai after the Breaking, these small groups were either swept up into the reorganization of the Aes Sedai or else wiped out. They remained unorganized, and as they learned of the existence of other groups, they opposed them. This sometimes included betrayal, although they frequently claimed to work together and sometimes even did. They were greatly facilitated by the fact that the oath against lying did not exist in the beginning. The adoption of the remaining oaths (i.e., against lying and against using the One Power as a weapon) greatly complicated matters for them. The fact that no one among the Aes Sedai believed that any such group or groups existed was all that allowed them to continue, in truth. Shortly before the Trolloc Wars, Ishamael appeared, though perhaps using another name. He was able to find those strongly pledged to the Dark One and forced them to combine into the Black Ajah. The name itself was a joke, to him. It was he who first used the Oath Rod to remove the Three Oaths, replacing them with three oaths of his own devising, both to bind the Black sisters and to ensure that they would not reveal themselves by living too long.

  Girls were watched for suitability from the day they entered the White Tower, although sometimes, though not very often, there was one who was known to be a Darkfriend before coming to the Tower. A novice or Accepted found to be acceptable was not recruited immediately, but watched further. The watching for recruits continued among Aes Sedai as well. When sufficient signs of suitability were seen, a testing period preceded any actual contact. If it was learned that a sister was trying to find the Black Ajah, the watch on her was increased. If she found nothing, the usual tests were arranged.

  If she located a trace, however, she was kidnapped and brought before the Supreme Council, who were hooded, as at all their meetings. She was shielded, stripped naked to increase her feelings of vulnerability, bound, and woke with a knife to each side of her throat and a mirror placed so that she could watch her life’s blood drain into a bowl should the cuts be made. She was then asked one question: Did she wish to join the Black Ajah? An answer of no, and the cuts were not made. Instead, she was put to the question with the use of the Power, drained of whatever she had learned about the Ajah and who she might have passed it to, then killed, either with the Power, so she could seem to have died naturally, or through an apparent accident. If the answer was yes, the Oath Rod was placed into her hands, and she was made to abjure the Three Oaths, a particularly painful process. Immediately following, the Black Ajah’s own three oaths were administered. All candidates were brought in the same way, even those who were known Darkfriends.

  Once the oaths were taken, a sister was a member of the Ajah, but she was still probationary, in a sense. She had sworn to obey orders, but she was told that she would be tested, and failure would be punished, perhaps with death, perhaps with worse. The tests consisted of orders—delivered anonymously, of course—which commanded her to do things which might have exposed her to danger, or to ridicule, or to an imposed penance. How she carried out these orders was observed closely. None of the tasks were vital, of course; they were assigned simply for testing purposes. Many of a Black sister’s chances at advancement were determined in that first year of testing.

  Verin, a member of the Black Ajah, gave Egwene a list of all the Black Ajah members just before she died.

  Black Cliffs. A sept of the Nakai Aiel.

  Black Eyes. One of the twelve warrior societies of the Aiel. They were also known as Seia Doon.

  Black Fever. A deadly epidemic that swept the land in the days of Artur Hawkwing, killing ten percent of the population.

  Black Hawk. The symbol of Shienar, a swooping black hawk on a field of yellow gold.

  Black Hills, the. A northwest-southeast range extending from the Caralain Grass to the Borderlands.

  Black Oaths. The three oaths sworn by members of the Black Ajah: 1) I shall obey all commands given by those placed above me in service to the Great Lord; 2) I shall prepare for the day of the Great Lord’s return; and 3) I shall hold close the secrets of the Black Ajah, unto the hour of my death.

  Black Rock. A sept of the Shaarad Aiel.

  Black Tower. A location two leagues south of Caemlyn where Asha’man were trained and lived. It began as a deserted farm, but under Mazrim Taim’s leadership it was being developed into a complex to rival the White Tower. The Power was being used to build a planned wall fifty feet high, thirty feet thick and eight miles in total length, enclosing an area of two miles by two miles. The top of the wall was to be wide enough behind the crenellations to act as a roadway. This wall was to be black and polished till it shone in the sun on both sides. There was to be a round one-hundred-foot-high tower at each of the four corners, and two flanking the main gate centered in each of the four sides. Between these tallest towers, spaced every one hundred paces, was to be a seventy-foot-high tower. Halfway between each of the lesser towers, a semicircular bastion was to bulge out from the wall. Construction was facilitated by the fact that some of the recruits had been masons in civilian life. It had not been completed at the time of the Last Battle.

  Inside the beginnings of the great wall were several settlements. There was a sort of large village or small town of stone and wooden structures with thatched roofs that varied considerably in size. Large, warehouse-like buildings quartered unmarried soldiers in dormitory chambers that slept twenty men each, one hundred men to a building, with room for more in the buildings already there and still more under construction. Smaller structures housed unmarried Dedicated in groups of ten, each with a private room. Houses of various sizes were available for both soldiers and Dedicated who were married and had their families with them, and there was a dormitory which housed the fifty-one bonded Aes Sedai who were part of the Black Tower expedition; this was a hastily built wooden structure, like a warehouse, with canvas partitions inside to make a small room for each sister, lining a long central corridor. This village had several central fountains for gathering water, supplied by windmills outside the village. Henre Haslin and the other armsmasters lived in this village, as did the unarmed combat and riding instructors. Some of those had families. Logain was the only full Asha’man to live there, in a well-built stone house like a small, single-story farmhouse. The Traitor’s Tree stood on the path from this village to the training grounds, far enough from the village that family members did not have to see it, but where every man headed for the training grounds did.

  A second village of wooden, thatched-roofed buildings held the workers and craftsfolk, most with their families, who did almost all of the actual construction inside the great wall. The stablefolk who took care of the horses also lived there, and the carters and wagon drivers who were sent out to buy food, charcoal, coal and all the others things that needed buying. There were also tailors to make uniforms for the Asha’man from cloth brought in from outside, and a goldsmith who made the Sword and Dragon pins. This village also had its own fountains, powered by windmills outside the village, and it had a tavern. It was well away from the village of Asha’man, about a mile. The stables for cart and wagon horses and the wagon yards were located there.

  Closer to the Asha’man village (half a mile or less) than to the other, and with the training grounds between it and the Asha’man village, was Taim’s small complex. Taim’s own dwelling was a combination of a small palace with a fortress, with thick granite walls and polished marble facings. It was about one hundred feet square, all of it faced with polished white marble, and two stories tall. The first story had neither windows nor doors. The second was surrounded by a colonnaded walk with a waist-high wall, and a taller, crenellated wall rose around the roof. Broad marble stairs stretched down from the colonnaded walk in front, and in front of the stairs was the black stone, called the Stone, where Taim stood to address the men; it had been moved from the old farm. In front of the Stone was a large open area, usually grassy, where the
men gathered to hear Taim. A little distance to one side of the Stone was a sort of bulletin board; this was wood, inside a shallow stone facing, about two feet deep, to give it a little shelter from the weather; this was where, among other things, deserters’ names were posted, as well as the names of men who went mad or were killed or burned out, and those killed elsewhere. All of the full Asha’man who were Taim’s cronies—that is, all but Logain—lived in this place with him.

  The training grounds were fairly extensive. Though in fact training could and did take place in many areas, training in armed and unarmed combat always took place on the training grounds, and much of riding training, too. The stables which held horses for the Asha’man were there, and also the archery butts. Morning Directives were usually given there, and the Creed recited. Windmills nearby pumped water for the stables.

  The Tower grounds also contained a prison camp, well hidden in the forest, where the survivors of the two hundred Tower Guards who accompanied the White Tower expedition to the Black Tower were held under close guard, like the Warders brought by those of the fifty Aes Sedai who were not Red and had one. Anyone who did not have business there was kept away. Secret dungeons were also located in the foundations of a building being built; there Taim used Myrddraal and channelers to Turn prisoners.

  Black Water. A sept of the Nakai Aiel.

  Black Wind, the. See Machin Shin

  Black Years, the. See Years of Silent Rage

  blackbile fever. A contagious disease.

  blacklance. A poisonous snake with black scales that could strike very quickly.

  Blacksmith, the. A constellation.

  blackthorn. A bush with beautiful white flowers amid long black thorns.

  blacktongue. A disease that killed sheep.

  blackwasp nettles. A plant that severely irritated the skin when touched. Nynaeve used the plant to brush against Moghedien as punishment in Tel’aran’rhiod after she had captured the Forsaken.