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Taim was not in a good mood. He did not like having thirteen Fades in the Black Tower, no matter that they were supposedly under his command, no matter that he needed them to carry out the task assigned to him. He had wanted to argue when Moridin had set this particular task before him — not that he wouldn’t do it, simply to… have it done somewhere else. The Black Tower was being reduced to a manufacturing plant for unwilling Dreadlords, and that did not sit well with Taim. Of course, the process was much easier to supervise when it was happening right under his nose. It made sense. It would have been difficult to argue his case should he have decided to try. He could imagine the bemused look in the ancient, blue eyes, he could all but hear the Nae’blis’ voice — “Really, Mazrim?” — and that had made him decide to skip that particular conversation.
Didn’t mean he had to like it.
On top of that, Logain was still on the loose. Taim had all but promised Moridin that he could handle Logain — and he still had no doubts that he could, not really. But he would have felt more at ease with the knowledge that Logain was securely locked away and awaiting his turn to be… Turned… rather than out there doing Light only knew what at al’Thor’s command. If al’Thor trusted him enough to keep him around, he might eventually heed Logain’s warnings regarding Taim himself. In fact Taim was almost surprised al’Thor hadn’t showed up to investigate, yet; there was no way Logain wasn’t doing everything within his power to convince him to get rid of Taim.
To get rid of me. A ghost of a humourless, hollow smile twitched the corners of his mouth. He is welcome to try.
The not-quite-a-smile froze on his face when he reached his rooms — someone was already there. His eyes fell first on the shards of broken glass on the carpet, then his nose picked up the scent of wine. He did not seize saidin although his instincts were screaming at him to prepare to defend himself. He looked at the intruder, who was lounging on the couch, eyes half closed, seemingly uncaring of the wine stains on his white shirt. He didn’t appear to have noticed Taim, but Taim wouldn’t count on that.
He closed the door behind him and approached Moridin slowly, halting at several paces away from the couch. “Is there perhaps a reason for the mess?” he asked casually.
Moridin finally looked at him. The saa were a constant black stream across the blue of his eyes, giving him a deranged look. “I am surrounded by idiots.” The words were calm enough, sounding almost bored, but the way his hand twitched on the armrest, as if to clench into a fist, and shadows seemed to crowd in on all sides, spoke a different story.
“Is that so?” Taim replied, affecting only mild interest. Some other time he might have pointed out that he didn’t appreciate being called an idiot, and hopefully diffused the situation with dry humour. That was not going to work now, however. He felt a stab of fear as Moridin’s eyes narrowed dangerously. He was suddenly acutely aware that he was treading on thin ice — but the worst thing he could do now was to show that he felt intimidated. He shoved his fear aside and took a step closer. “That’s obviously a great reason to come here and break things,” he said. “Any specific idiots you’re referring to?”
As soon as the words left his mouth, Taim could see that he had miscalculated. The lights in the room seemed to go out. His last conscious thought was that he had finally gone too far. Then, the world exploded in pain.
The next thing he knew was silence, and a faint sense of surprise at finding that he was still alive. He couldn’t have said how much time had elapsed. He couldn’t muster the energy to wonder. The silence felt deafening. A horrifying thought — he wasn’t actually deaf, was he? But no, he could hear the sound of his own breathing, slightly ragged and uneven. His throat felt raw. He must have been screaming. He spared a thought to the wards that soundproofed his quarters; he had never been more glad of the habit of keeping those up.
Everything hurt.
He pried his eyes open; there was not much he could see from his current view point on the floor, but the idea of moving was not attractive in the least. He couldn’t tell if Moridin was still there. That, he decided after a while of staring blankly at the foot of the table in front of his face, was probably reason enough to make the effort to get up and find out. He pushed himself up to a sitting position — it took him a while to make the mental connection between the sharp stinging sensation on his palms and the broken glass that littered the floor. He leaned his head against the edge of the table and inspected his hands with a half-hearted grimace. Blood welled from the cuts and dribbled down to the carpet.
He needed a drink.
With that incentive, he forced his reluctant body to co-operate and stood up. Not a good idea; the floor seemed to lurch under his feet and black spots swam across his vision. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to battle the dizziness, but it was no good. Then Moridin’s arms closed around him and, miraculously, the world around him steadied a bit. He sagged against the Forsaken and let himself be led to the couch.
“I’m sorry,” Moridin said quietly.
Taim wasn’t sure what he had expected but this was not it. “You must teach me that weave,” he said. Speaking hurt and his voice was hoarse. “It’s… rather more effective… than the one Demandred uses.”
“I apologised, Taim,” Moridin said sharply, but there was no threat in his voice. “That is not something I do often.”
“Precisely,” Taim replied, aiming at a wry tone but not entirely sure he succeeded. He wanted to lie down — he wanted to curl up in a ball and never move again — but vanity and pride decreed otherwise, at least while the Nae’blis was present, and he settled for trying to sit very still. “Can you blame me for not knowing how to react?”
That earned him a chuckle. “I suppose not,” Moridin conceded. Silence. Then he went on, “I can’t teach you that weave. Not yet at least. It requires not saidin but True Power.”
Something about what the Nae’blis said registered as important, but Taim couldn’t concentrate enough to make the connection. “I’m not sure I should try asking again,” he said after another awkward silence, “but was there a reason you came here? I recall something about idiots, but I doubt you meant any of the ones here in the Black Tower, although I have my share of idiots…” And that was probably a good point to stop talking. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to gather his wits. He should probably just not talk again until he was certain he wasn’t going to say anything stupid or ramble on for half an hour once he started.
“Idiots, yes,” Moridin replied distractedly. “Graendal may have made her last mistake. I haven’t decided what to do with her, yet.” A pause. “And I came here,” he continued in a faintly amused tone, “because I thought seeing you might help rein in my… destructive tendencies.”
Seconds passed before Taim finally concluded that he had heard right. “And you thought it would work?” he ventured, carefully trying not to sound as disbelieving as he felt. He suspected he failed.
“It has before.”
The statement had the ring of a simple truth, not least because of the undertone of impatience with which it was uttered. And as Taim thought back to some of their encounters, the games of sha’rah before and after they had become — lovers still sounded wrong but he didn’t know a better word for it — he could recall a number of times when the Nae’blis had been visibly agitated and in a foul mood. And he had suspected, on occasion, that Moridin was using him to distract himself from the causes of said moods. But despite everything that he had seen during his acquaintance with the Forsaken, he had still failed to realise…
“Don’t feel obligated to come up with a witty response,” Moridin said after a while into the stunned silence. “It’s going to be difficult for a while longer. You should be fine in the morning.”
“Should be,” Taim repeated dully. That didn’t sound awfully reassuring.
“Should be,” Moridin said again, with the barest hint of contempt. “And you may want to keep in mind that I’m very rarely wrong about the effects of my own weaves.”
“Point taken,” Taim muttered. He wished Moridin would leave so he could crawl into bed and hopefully pass out, but one didn’t just tell the Nae’blis to leave. “So,” he ventured after a while, “is there anything specific I should do or say or… I don’t know, avoid saying, if this happens again? To avoid this happening again?” The silence turned chilly — or was he just shivering because of some bizarre after-effect of whatever Moridin had done? — but he figured that, under the circumstances, it was safe enough to press on for a bit more. “If I’m to act as your damage control I should know your… triggers.”
That provoked an irritable sigh, and Taim could hear the other man pacing, the broken glass getting crushed under his boots. “I wish you didn’t sound so much like—”
“Like Barid?” Taim suggested when Moridin cut off without finishing the sentence.
“Like Barid, yes.” Moridin’s voice was closer now but he sounded distracted, and then he took Taim’s head between his hands. “Mazrim, look at me.” Taim opened his eyes with some difficulty. It took more effort than he would have liked to focus his gaze on the face hovering before him. Moridin’s cool fingers on his temples felt good, but the frown or the sharp look in the blue eyes were far from reassuring. “I am sorry,” he said softly, and saa filled his eyes.
The next thing Taim knew he was lying in his bed. Only the fact that he was fully dressed — minus coat and boots — told him that he probably hadn’t planned on falling asleep. Through the gap between the heavy curtains he could see the grey light of early dawn outside the window. What had he been up to in the evening? Why did he feel like he had been channelling non-stop for twelve hours, instead of sleeping?
Memory was slow in returning, at first, but the realisation that he wasn’t alone helped considerably. Moridin was sitting on the edge of the bed, his back towards Taim. This was unexpected, to say the least. “You’re still here,” Taim said. He was almost surprised to find that he could speak. The pain was also gone — just like Moridin had said it would — as was the vertigo. The latter had been almost worse.
“And you should have slept for another hour or two, easily,” came the reply in a mildly annoyed voice.
“Have you made a habit of watching me sleep?” Taim asked wryly. “That’s more than a little creepy, you know.”
“Only when I’ve almost killed you and someone had to watch over you to make sure you keep breathing.”
…Oh. “I thought you said—”
“I know what I said!” Moridin snapped. “I’ve been known to… to be wrong, once or twice in my life.” He turned his head briefly to glance sideways at Taim. “You may not be irreplaceable but I would rather not lose you.”
Something in his tone set the alarms ringing in Taim’s mind. “Are you…” He hesitated. “Who are you talking to?” he asked, cautiously, so very cautiously. “Me or Barid?”
The silence lasted just a little bit too long. “You, Mazrim,” Moridin replied. Taim had the feeling that he was trying to convince himself. When the Forsaken continued, he sounded very far away, and Taim wasn’t sure he realised he was speaking out loud; “I lost Barid three thousand years ago.”
Taim wanted to say something — if he didn’t, Moridin would get up and leave any moment now — but for once in his life he had nothing, clever or less clever. So he sat up and, telling himself he was an idiot and that if this was the last mistake he ever did he bloody well deserved it, he put his arms around the Forsaken. Moridin inhaled sharply and his body went rigid… But then he relaxed into the embrace, leaning against Taim. Taim let his head rest against Moridin’s shoulder, more from sheer exhaustion than as a symbolic gesture, but regardless it felt like a balance shifting and he had no idea which way the scales had tipped.