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Chapter Text

He was walking barefoot on soft grass, sunshine warming his face. It was quiet, save for the birds singing and leaves rustling high above, a stream gurgling somewhere in the distance.

He squinted up into the canopy, watching the sun peek through the thin layer of leaves again and again. For the first time in a long, long while, he was alone. Nobody asking him for direction, no strategizing, no fighting. 

Then, the sound of laughter rang in the distance. He recognized that voice! His Ilyena was here! He started running, faster and faster, until he was nearly flying through the forest towards the sound of her voice.

The back of his neck prickled with the familiar sensation of being watched, and he abruptly skidded to a stop. He stood still, grasping Saidin and holding a sword of fire up in a defensive stance. The sky darkened, and it would've been comically ominous, was it not for the heavy, invisible gaze that fell on him from above. 

For a short eternity, nothing happened. 

Then, a great pressure started bearing down on the world, and white hot pain seared throughout his entire body. He fell to the ground, the earth groaning and shaking underneath him. The world was screeching, the pain rose to a crescendo, a horribly loud crack echoed- and reality fragmented into a thousand glittering pieces before his very eyes.

When Ishamael entered his dream shard, designed as his personal office, his eyes immediately drifted to the bed standing innocuously in the corner of the room. Even when matching in style and color with the other furniture, it looked out of place. But that was not what had drawn his eye.

There was a man laying in the bed. There had been for some time now. A couple days ago, he had finally taken the first step of his plan to turn Lews Therin to the shadow. He had given this matter much thought: it was truly of upmost importance that Lews' mind, body, and soul remained fully intact and functional. A high bar to reach, which was why he had considered this plan very carefully. 

There was a limited amount of time he had to work with until Lews' little Aes Sedai dragged him back to his body, so he had to work fast. Two weeks at most, one and a half at least. He spend the last three days observing Lews' tries to heal his own consciousness, watched him painstakingly pull the pieces of himself back together, and then shattering it to watch it happen again. Now, it was time for the second step. 

He walked over to the bed, sitting down next to his old friend. His body was completely motionless, not even simulating breathing like most people did in Tel'aran'rhiod. He rested his hand on Lews' cheek, gently stroking his thumb underneath his eye. His skin felt cold and smooth, still untouched by age despite the grey streaking his hair.

Ishamael had noticed something interesting early in his observation of Lews' healing. There were small gaps in his consciousness that took Lews longer to heal than the rest. At first, he was worried that he had irreversibly destroyed parts of his mind, but it seemed more like those were already previously existing weak spots, memories and parts of Lews not as closely guarded. So, as his first experiment, he would weave the Great Lord's influence into one of the weak spots. Then, if the influence healed into Lews' consciousness correctly, he'd repeat the process, and, if necessary, he would shatter his mind again, until he could be sure that Lews was fully turned.

Obviously this wasn't his preferred way to turn him, he would rather just have Lews understand why this was necessary, but it was better than the third way. Recently, due to Aginor's and Semirhage's restless research on turning Aes Sedai to the shadow, there had been a scientific breakthrough. A full circle could, with the help of myrddraals, forcefully turn any Aes Sedai. He had spoken with some of those turned Aes Sedai. They were imitations of themselves, twisted and corrupted, lacking in creativity and initiative, their being frozen in their last free moment. 

It wouldn't do Lews justice. He was so much more than what he would be if he was forcefully turned.

He closed his eyes and focused, slipping into the space that Lews' soul occupied. It was a useful ability he had gained when destroying Lews' wards with the True Power; a link between their souls had sparked into existence. At the start it had been unsettling as it felt like his soul was constantly touching Lews', but allowed him to monitor his healing and entering this space. It was an interesting phenomenon that required more thorough examination, but alas, he had no time to spare.

He stared at Lews' soul, a brightly glowing mess of shards in different sizes and colors he could not name in the loose form of a sphere. He watched as the shards connected and melded into each other slowly. It was very unlike his own soul, that had taken on something vaguely resembling his body's shape. Carefully, he prodded at the pieces until he found what he was looking for. A small, dimly glowing shard floating in the dark, at the surface of the sphere. He picked it up, and upon closer inspection he saw that it contained a memory of Mierin. From what he could see and feel from it, they were standing on a beach. Judging by their faces, it must've been at the end of their disastrous relationship. Mierin was smiling tightly at Lews, who was scowling, presumably at being forced to walk on sand. 

Ishamael frowned at seeing Mierin. They had grown apart since they both swore themselves to the Great Lord. Mierin, possessed with jealousy and greed, had become even more obsessed with power, so much so that all her attempts to turn Lews to the shadow had failed spectacularly. 

He didn't want to risk being sucked into the memory by looking too closely, so instead he quickly but gently infused it with the Great Lord's essence and let it go. It floated back towards the glowing mass slowly, and he watched it start to meld with a bigger fragment with anticipation. 

Ishamael was about to pick another memory to infuse, when suddenly the sphere convulsed, ruthlessly destroying the memory along with the Great Lord's essence. 

Well. This wouldn't do. He tried the process again, this time he used less essence, but the outcome was unchanged. He couldn't afford destroying more memories, and he didn't know if the continuous convulsing could permanently damage Lews- he needed another solution. There was still one more thing he could try before he had to turn to his last resort. It was risky, and didn't bear a high chance of success, but he would rather take the risk than let shadow spawn touch his soul. 

This time, he extracted small part of his own soul. It was a memory of when he first composed his theory. He had struggled to put his conviction of the inevitable into words, drafting countless pages that no one but him ever saw. He wouldn't miss the memory. It wasn't particularly important or special to him, and his conviction would not waver due to this tiny loss. He attached the fragment of his soul to one of the drifting shards with a miniscule amount of Saidin, and waited. 

The shard melded near seamlessly into Lews' soul, still distinctly different in shape and color, but not rejected. Ishamael stared for a long time, feeling the missing piece of himself set into place, until he was absolutely sure Lews was healing as he should. Carefully, he gave away one more memory to Lews, this one far more important; the first time he stood in front of the Great Lord and felt his indomitable presence. It was a necessary sacrifice that heightened his chance of success significantly.

He watched it meld into the sphere, and slipped back into his own body. When he opened his eyes, he was still sitting on the bed next to Lews. All that was left to do was wait and see. 

Chapter Text

It was dark, and everything hurt. 

Lews didn't know where he was, what was happening, or for how long it had already been this way.

He knew that he was in pain, and he knew that something was very wrong. Every time he came close to remembering why he was trapped in this eternal darkness, he was shattered to pieces again by something.

Not something. Someone. He was sure that someone was deliberately holding him here, even if he couldn't remember who. He could feel their soul pressed against his own, linking them together by an inexplicable bond. 

After what could've been minutes or days, he felt the air around him shift. The back of his neck prickled, and he knew he was being watched again, likely by whoever was holding him here.

His captor was here. It wasn't the first time they had visited him. He forgot that he even had a body, so he was startled when he felt the surface he laid on dip slightly to the side. He tried to focus on the feelings around him; something soft underneath him, he was probably laying on a mattress, the cold air around him, and the long strands of his hair falling into his eyes. The exercise gave him little more than a sense of déjà vu, and he remembered that he had already done this exact same thing many times before.

They were touching his face, stroking a thumb under his eye. Feeling a new sensation was a grounding experience, and he could almost remember the name of his captor, when he felt a tugging sensation on his soul. He felt it much more intensely than he felt the other touch, as if the sensation was amplified by a thousandfold. 

The tugging stopped just as abruptly as it had started, but it had left something behind. Lews felt a foul darkness emanating from it, something corrupt and dangerous he needed to destroy. He panicked, blindly scrambling and twisting around himself while trying to snuff out this spot of wrongness tainting his soul. The taint was destroyed along with a part of his soul and-

it hurt. The pain reverberated throughout his soul, spreading into his body.

He couldn't distract himself from the pain, locked in this tiny and infinite space he couldn't do anything-

The thumb resumed it's stroking under his eye (when had it stopped?) and the gentle gesture contrasted the pain and foulness they had just brought him so sharply that it made him nauseous. 

The pain hadn't even come close to ebbing away fully when he felt the tugging start again. 

He was scared. He, the Lord of the Morning, the Dragon, Lews Therin Telamon, was scared! He feared the pain, the loneliness and the darkness. He knew who he was, and he knew that he had not been scared in a long time, but he did not know who was torturing him, or why. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't remember his friends or family, for their faces and names were shrouded.

The foulness stained his soul once more, and he frantically destroyed it, tearing up a tiny part of his soul in the process. 

Excruciating pain was all he was for an impossibly long time. He was waiting for the next small tug, the next stain of darkness. 

This time when the tugging came he had braced himself against the foulness, but none came. Instead, he suddenly was somewhere else. 

The pain faded into the background, and he was a spectator, sitting in someone else's head, watching from behind their eyes. 

They- Elan, his mind corrected as he caught a glimpse of pale fingers decorated with rings, was sitting at a desk in a dimly lit room. He was probably reliving a memory that didn't belong to him, but to Elan. Was Elan the one that tortured him? Was it his soul that rested next to Lews' own?

Said man was staring down at the loose papers wildly strewn all across the desk's wooden surface while quietly muttering to himself, "all wrong.. not good enough..." 

Lews looked over the nearest paper, which had a long rant about his theory and the concept of infinity related the Wheel written on it in neat handwriting. He barely skimmed over the content before Elan's erratic emotions and mumbling distracted him. 

Desperation, anger and a heavy sense of understanding were coiled tightly in Elan's head, hidden beneath an overshadowing exhaustion. "How do I make them understand?!" Elan hissed, running his hands through his hair. Driven by frustration Elan abruptly stood, sweeping the papers from his table in one fell swoop and stormed out onto the balcony. Leaving the stuffy room behind and feeling the cool air calmed both, and Lews took the opportunity to collect his thoughts.

He could feel the conviction Elan had in his theory, and now that his memories were coming back to him faster and faster, he remembered Elan's last speech before he swore himself to the shadow. He'd said that the victory of the Dark One, and with that the destruction of the world, was inevitable, and that it was pointless to fight against it.

He had been doubtful of the theory when he first heard it. He did not know what goal the Dark One actually had, or what the Dark One actually was. He'd read through the files containing Beidomon's description but those were only rough guesses, at best. A Powerful and conscious being, that corrupted humans with empty promises of power. How could Elan know what it's actual goal was or that it would inevitably win? It could as well just lose an infinite number of times. 

They were at an impasse were they were both so convinced of their own opinion that arguing was completely pointless. Was showing him this memory supposed to convince him? All he felt for Elan was pity. 

The scene changed, and Elan was walking down a dark, winding tunnel. He-and Elan, for that matter-could barely see. The air was heavy, a dark and hostile presence lurking in the depths of the mountain. Not just a dark presence, the Dark One himself, as he picked from Elan's mind. Lews waited with equal fear and anticipation, echoed by Elan's own feelings. He'd been at the Bore right after the Sharom exploded, but hadn't gotten close to the prison itself yet. 

Stalagmites and Stalactites sprouted from the ceiling and floor, long and wickedly sharp, but Elan walked past them with a determined stride. The tunnel stopped high above the ground of a gigantic circular chamber. The path continued on a few meters before falling away, hanging precariously above a churning sea of lava. There was no visible manifestation of the Dark Lord, but his presence was omnipresent here. A horrible foulness that spread through every crack and crevice of the cave, unfathomable amounts energy crackling in the air. 

Elan stepped forward slowly, the dreadful attention of the Shadow focused solely on him. Impossible ecstasy and agony washed over them both, and he could feel Elan's awe, his conviction burning brighter with every step he took. 

A booming disembodied voice started to speak directly into Elan's head, but Lews was cast back into the dark before the first word was fully uttered.

Chapter Text

Lews woke up slowly to his whole body hurting and aching. The bedsheets he laid on felt rough and overstimulating against his skin, and he sluggishly sat up and opened his eyes to an unfamiliar room. When he tried to remember how he got there only a vague impression of darkness and fear surfaced in his mind. 

The room looked like it was haphazardly molded out of a mountain with it's weird angles and curvatures, columns growing out of the floor in no particular order. An ordinary wooden desk with chairs stood at the far end of the room. One wall opened up in a row of arches to a grey balcony, the tumultuous sky laying beyond it; grey, black, red and orange hued clouds chased each other across the sky at an impossible speed. He must be in Tel'aran'rhiod.

"You're finally awake," a familiar voice said next to him. Memories of darkness and torture came crashing back into him at full force, and he whipped his head around to stare at the man while simultaneously scrambling out of the bed to get distance between him and Elan. His body screamed at the effort.

He had a thousand questions but started with the most pressing one, "what did you do to me?!"

Elan cocked his head to the side, watching him curiously, "why are you so upset? I only gave you a chance to choose the right side to fight for."

"I'd never abandon the light," he shot back, shock turning into irritation. They've argued about this a dozen times already. "I will never kneel before the Shadow, and witnessing your memories will not sway me." 

Elan narrowed his eyes, slowly walking around the bed towards him. Lews stubbornly refused to give up ground, straightening his posture instead. "You should be careful. This is the last chance you get to change your mind," the forsaken said. They stood face to face now, separated by only a few inches.

"I would never swear myself to the shadow in a thousand lives. I would rather die, then to bend the knee like you fools have" he spoke the words in a deliberately low and steady voice, watching the anger build rapidly in Elan's eyes with all the satisfaction of getting under his enemy's skin. Lews paused as a cruel grin spread across the man's face.

"No, you will not die. You will serve," Elan said, and then everything happened in a blur.

Lews, not wanting to find out what how exactly Elan planned to achieve that, tried to wrestle the control of the dream shard from him as quickly as possible while at the same time he felt an invisible force start to yank him backwards. His attempt of trying to take over the dream shard was so violently struck down by Elan that he felt his already existing headache redoubling right as his back slammed into one of the stone columns and gravity forced him down onto his knees, doubling over with blinding pain and nausea.

He had never possessed a talent for dreamwalking, but he had never been this weak in Tel'aran'rhiod before. "Elan.. what did you do to me?" He gasped out in horror, slowly and painfully straightening up again to meet his eyes. Lews knew that Elan had been corrupted by the shadow long ago, but he could not reconcile the madman crouching before him with his old friend at all. 

"This works better than I had anticipated," he said smugly in lieu of an answer, the previous anger ebbing away to give way to satisfaction and, if Lews wasn't reading him wrong, slight bewilderment. This, in turn, made his own anger surge, scorching away the fear and horror with white-hot rage, but when he tried to verbalize his fury, no words left his mouth. Then he tried to stand up, but he could not move his legs, and his arms were made immobile by his palms sticking to where they rested on his thighs.

Elan just gave a small condescending smile at Lews attempts to free himself, stood up and shrugged, "I'm sure you'll figure out what happened soon enough. As much as I like to see you kneel, I have more important things to do than watch you struggle." With that, Elan opened a gateway and stepped through it, leaving Lews alone in the dream shard. He gritted his teeth. No wonder that he didn't stand a chance. Elan had been in Tel'aran'rhiod physically.

He tried to take over the dream shard again, but it didn't seem to work anymore than it did last time. Except now he wasn't violently stopped: It was more like trying to catch smoke. He wasn't as informed about dream shards as he would have liked to be, so he didn't know what the difference it made if the dream shard's creator was present or not. He vowed to correct this mistake as soon as he escaped.

He spend the rest of the time he had alone trying to free himself to no avail. This place didn't follow the same laws as Tel'aran'rhiod did, so simply imagining himself being free or standing on the other side of the room didn't do anything. He wasn't shielded, but couldn't channel anyway due to his own exhaustion. Trying to wake up did just as little as everything else he tried.

He was sure that he wasn't here physically, but he also couldn't remember how he got here. The simplest and most likeliest answer was that he had been forcefully brought here, but he didn't know if it was possible for Elan to break his wards, or the consequences of said action. It hadn't been researched properly, so all he knew was that it severely damaged the victims consciousness. 

After what couldn't have been more than a few hours, Elan returned, bringing at least a dozen women and a dozen humanoid shadow spawn with him. They filled the room, coming to stand in a wide circle around him. He looked them over, picking out some faces he recognized; at least half of the women were former Aes Sedai. Traitors, he thought with contempt. The shadow spawn were deathly pale and faceless, their pitch black cloaks swaying in an non-existent breeze.

Elan leaned against the table, giving a halfhearted wave with his hand. "Begin," he said in a commanding tone Lews had never heard him use outside the Hall of Servants, and he immediately felt the goosebumps rise on his skin in response to the dark friends drawing Saidar. 

One of the woman that he thought he recognizes from somewhere reaches out a hand, and he flinched away, pressing his back flat to the stone behind him. She looked at him with a blend of bewilderment and fascination on her face, and touched her hand to his forehead. He struggled and thrashed, trying to free himself or dislodge her hand somehow.

As pain ripped through him he felt like he was back in that darkness. They were tearing at his soul in what he assumed was an attempt to turn him to the shadow against his will, so he held onto his faith as strongly as he could, shielding it from their foul hands grasping in the dark.

At some point he had passed out, and when he woke up again he was laying on the cold floor, feeling like he had been repeatedly taken apart and put back together, both mentally and physically.

The dark friends and pale creatures had left, leaving him alone with Elan again. He was standing, with his back turned to Lews, before a fireplace across the room he hadn't noticed before, and he was glad for it. The stones decorating it looked like the faces of wailing men and women; shifting and twisting in place. It was a grotesque sight. 

This was his chance. He didn't have a weapon but if he could hurt Elan enough to loose control of the dream shard he could escape.

He ignored his body's protests and got up quietly, stifling a pained groan. Keeping his steps soundless he crept up behind Elan at a snails pace. He lunged at him just in the second that the forsaken turned around, Elan's eyes widening in shock. They crashed to the ground in a heap of limps, rolling around until Lews got on top of Elan with his hands around his throat and started chocking him with all he had, at which point Elan seemed to remember that they were in his dream shard and Lews was flung back against the column.

Elan was obviously enraged, but his anger was tightly coiled and hidden beneath an expressionless face; only his eyes showed his burning rage. Lews head was swimming with adrenaline: He was betting his life on a forsaken's unwillingness to kill him.

"So it didn't work," Elan said, jaw clenching and massaging the red and purple handprints on his neck. That cruel smile crept back onto his face, "no matter. We will just have to try again."

True to his word, he had tried turning Lews with shadow friends and Myrddraals thirteen more times. His frustration had steadily built with each failed attempt. Nothing seemed to work: replacing the channelers with stronger ones didn't help, and even when he tried using only male channelers and trying it himself it didn't make a difference. 

Lews must either have some sort of protection against it or was the first incorruptible human to be discovered so far. 

Two weeks were almost up, and he couldn't risk Lews getting his body back while holding faith for the wrong side. He sighed and pulled up the dagger from it's sheath, the one that he had carried with him for exactly this purpose.

Lews knelt on the floor, still and unresponsive. The sight had grown old and tasteless, and it was an unfamiliar sight of his old friend. He had never seen Lews look so defeated before. At first he had fought and struggled, still proud despite being virtually helpless. He had fought against the turning, but after the fourth round he had given that up. Nonetheless, his faith was impossible to sway, much to Ishamael's chagrin.

He knelt down before Lews, and pressed the dagger against his chest, right over his heart. He rested his hand on Lews' shoulder, his face mere inches from his friends' vacent expression.

Slowly applying more pressure, he watched the sharp tip disappear beneath the fabric of Lews shirt and sink into his body. Blood seeped into Lews' shirt from around it, but the man remained unresponsive. 

He regretted having to kill him, and held the irrational hope that another way to showed itself in those last moments. 

"You have one last chance, Lews Therin. Swear yourself to the Great Lord now or die," he said, commanded, really, but Lews remained silent. "Then so be it."

He braced himself- Lews may not deserve a quick death, but Ishamael could be merciful. He tightened his grip on the dagger, leaned his weight forward so that his lips nearly brushed against Lews cheek, and pushed the blade in deeper- and then Lews was gone. As if he had vanished into thin air, he had completely disappeared from the dream shard.

He lost his balance and slightly fell forward onto his hands, one still clenched around the bloody dagger, and then he started laughing. Oh, how cruel the Wheel could be!