Semirhage
What We Know of Semirhage
name: Nemene Damendar Boann
occupation: healer
Nemene was considered unusually tall with dark eyes. She possessed a remerkable calm and grace. She was considered one of the best healers of her time, and it was believed that she could heal any injury.
But no one truly realized that Nemene Damendar Boann was a sadist; she exacted great torture and cruelty on her patients, inflicting intense pain while healing their wounds.
She held several field commands during the war. She governed several conquered territories, but her rule was often marked by such violence and cruelty that none of the other Chosen could every equal.
She awakened from the Bore with the other Chosen, but her location is currently unknown.
The Chosen Speak
[LoC: Prologue, The First Message, 56]
Not even Demandred dared suggest to Semirhage's face that she wore black fso often because Lanfear wore white.
Semirhage took delight in cruelty, a pure pleasure in givin anguish...
[She] stood taller than most men, though so perfectly proportioned that you did not realize it until she stood over you, looking down.
--Mesaana
[LoC: 6, Threads Woven of Shadow, 138]
Those three [Demandred, Mesaana and Semirhage] had worked together since before the War of Power. On the surface, at least. She was sure they had plotted against one another as assiduously as any of the Chosen, but whether Mesaana undercut Semirhage or Semirhage Demandred, she had never yet found a crack between them into which a wedge could be driven.
--Graendal
[LoC: 6, Threads Woven in Shadow, 139]
She had been one herself, a true Aes Sedai, not an ignorent fool like the simpleton hanging before her. She had been known, famed, whisked to every corner of the world for her ability to mend an injury, to bring people back from the brink when everyone else said there was nothing more to be done. And a delegation from the Hall of the Servants had offered her a choice that was no choice: to be bound never to know her pleasures again, and with that binding be able to see the end of life approach; or else to be severed, and cast out as Aes Sedai. They had expected her to accept binding; that was the rational, proper thing to do, and they were rational, proper men and women. They never expected her to flee. She had been one of the first to go to Shayol Ghul.
It had been jealousy, the jealousy of those who could not do what she could. Had anyone she pulled back from death's grasp ever said they would rather have died than suffer the little extra she exacted? And the others? There were always those who deserved to suffer. What matter that she enjoyed giving them their deserts? The Hall and its hypocritical whining about legalities and rights. She had deserved the right to do as she did; she had earned the right. She had been more valuable to the world than all those together who entertained her with their screams. And in jealousy and spite the Hall had tried to pull her down!
Well, some of them had fallen into her hands during the war. Given time she could break the strongest man, the proudest woman, mold them exactly as she wanted them to be. The process might be slower than Compulsion, but it was infinitely more enjoyable, and she did not think even Graendal could undo what she did. Compulsion could be unraveled. But her patients... On their knees they had begged to give their souls to the Shadow, and had served obediently until they died. E
--Semirhage
Updated 06/28/99