H geocities.com /area51/rampart/8732/shael.htm oocities.com/area51/rampart/8732/shael.htm .delayed x G\J ` U OK text/html w5 U b.H Fri, 24 Apr 1998 22:24:49 GMT Mozilla/4.5 (compatible; HTTrack 3.0x; Windows 98) en, * F\J U
Shael Grennor
Shael Grennor
Retired Gleeman
Shael Grennor was born in Tar Valon, within the White Tower itself.
His mother, a lowly chambermaid, fell in love with a handsome young man
training to be a Warder. Unfortunately, while she experienced deep and
lasting feelings for the young man in question, he considered her no more
than a convenience, easily cast aside for a new lover as soon as it turned
out that her belly was growing.
The very moment that young Shael was born, his father was Bonded by
a Green Sister, bound for distant and interesting places. His mother never
heard from her young man again, and was heartbroken over the loss.
As his mother was emotionally diswrought, most of the care for the young
child fell on other domestics of the Tower, who did their best to raise
a fine young man. Unfortunately, as Shael aged, he had more and more run-ins
with Aes Sedai, who never ceased to point out to him that he was allowed
to live in the Tower by dint of their `charity.' Also, they made it clear
to him that his poor mother was not likely to recover from her mental and
emotional distress any time soon, and that' he would soon have to work
in the Tower to keep both of them fed and cared for. When they pointed
these things out, they omitted to take into consideration that Shael was
already working to earn his own food...
At the age of twelve, Shael's mother passed away, finally drained by
her great loss, and the young man left the Tower. Some of the Aes
Sedai tried to track him down as he left without leaving finances to deal
with his mother's remains, but the boy was nowhere to be found; he had
taken up an apprenticeship with an old gleeman passing through town, and
had already left Tar Valon. During the following seventy years, strange
rumours drifted back to Tar Valon through the eyes-and-ears; rumours of
a gleeman, perpetually clothed in black under his cape, who went into the
strangest, most distant places and always returned with fresh knowledge
and stories. Rumours of a man who did not worship the Creator but
also refused to have anything to do with the Dark One. He seemed to worship
Someone Else, as a very few in the world did.
A man accused several times of channeling, yet could not be gentled
even when apprehended by Red Sisters, who finally declared that he was
in no way capable of touching saidin.
A man becoming steadily more wealthy and shrouded in mistery...
Now, in his life's twilight years, Shael Grennor has returned to Tar
Valon with a mission. None of the Aes Sedai know what this mission is,
but they have noticed an old man in a gleeman's cape over black walking
their Tower, a man who speaks quite kindly with the servants and with people
on the street. Ostensibly a gleeman, yet singing songs that few have ever
heard. He has claimed to have retired as a gleeman, since he is so wealthy
that he can afford a permanent - if dilapidated - residence inside the
city, but he entertains strange company.
And some Aes Sedai have, when strange things occur around Shael Grennor,
declared that they felt something like channeling, except it was different,
and it made their skin crawl. They felt as if the Power itself were moving,
and testing the boundaries of their control...
None yet knows Shael Grennor's objectives but he and a very few others.
But it is obvious that he still loathes the Aes Sedai just as much as when
he was growing up amongst them, and the sentiment is widely returned.
Who shall say what this one man may do in Tar Valon?
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