Xavier was not afraid. No, he was not afraid at all - he was terrified.

As much as Aes Sedai tried to conceal the true nature of the Raising Ceremony, as much as the Three arches were shrouded in mystery to a Novice, there were still rumors. It was impossible to deny the evidence that SOMETHING of soul shaking proportions occurred. Every Accepted newly raised wore the signs of it, walked with a not quite concealed pain in their eyes. With some, it would fade quickly, with others - and here Xavier thought of Arcena - the effects of the Arches could linger for years. Nevertheless, with everyone, no matter how quickly they recovered, there was at least a brief period afterwards where they wore the effects of what they had been through like open wounds.

Beyond that, it was not unheard of for Accepted to attempt to prepare Novices they particularly liked a bit better for the ceremony. Xavier had never head of anyone telling someone the whole truth, but the bits and pieces that would emerge were still alarming. He knew that it would involve facing something within himself, he knew the experience would be alarmingly real. For an instant, when Jacen Sedai had first come for him, told him he was to be raised, Xavier had considered asking the ceremony to be delayed. He knew it was possible to turn down one's Arches several times and still stay in the Tower. Why shouldn't he?

In the end, it was because he had never really run from anything, and he wasn't going to start now. Arrick had taught him that in the end, you had to face what you fear, no, you had to embrace your fears. They would pass through you and beyond you, and when they were gone, you would be stronger and better for it.

Xavier had never managed to do so on his own, maybe now, with his Arches, he could finally make Arrick proud.

"Novices are given three chances at this," Jacen said. "You may refuse twice to enter, but at the third refusal, you will be sent away from the Tower forever."

Xavier had made his decision already. "I will go on," he replied, proud of how little tremble was betrayed in his voice.

"Good. Now I will tell you two things no man hears until he stands where you do. Once you begin you must go on to the end. Refuse at any point and you will put out of the Tower just as if you had refused to begin for the third time. Second. To seek, to strive, is to know danger. Some have entered and never come out. When the ter'angreal was allowed to grow quiet, they - were - not - there. And they were never seen again. If you will survive, you must be steadfast. Falter, fail and..." Jacen Sedai did not speak the remaining sentence, he did not have to. "This is your last chance. Refuse now, and it counts only as the first. You may still try twice more. If you accept now, there is no turning back. It is no shame to refuse, many cannot do it their first times. Choose."

He could turn it down. He really could. He wasn't so unhappy as a Novice that he was eager to move on. But...he was a Male Channeler, his time was finite. "I am as ready as I ever can be, Aes Sedai." Xavier said firmly.

"Then prepare yourself," Jacen said.

With a startled blush Xavier remembered this was done in the nude. He quickly undressed, folding his clothes with more care then was probably necessary, considering that he would never wear them again, regardless of the outcome.

He watched and listened, feeling strangely detached, as the ceremony took place. There were several other Aes Sedai present, three seated around the Arches, one standing near three silver Chalices. This one spoke, his words ritual, "Whom do you bring with you, Brother?"

"One who comes as a candidate for Acceptance," Jacen replied.

"Is he ready?"

"He is ready to leave behind what he was, and, passing through his fears to gain Acceptance."

"Does he know his fears?"

"He has never faced them, but now is willing."

"Then let him face his fears."

Then Jacen turned to him, "The first time is for what was. The way back will come but once. Be steadfast."

The Arch was right before him now, glowing brilliantly. Xavier took a breath like a man about to plunge into river, and stepped forward into the light.

The mirror broke.

The young man stood reflected in it's shards, fighting anger and a brief, inexplicable sense of disorientation. Then, as quick as it had come, the feelings faded. He was Xavier Kerwin. He was in his room at a well to do Inn in Caemlyn, and he had just had a very bad day.

"This job," he muttered aloud, "was supposed to be easy."

Which, he had to admit, should have been the first indication of something seriously wrong. His work was usually medium difficult to hard, and every single time he took a job that promised to be easy there was some sort of unbelievable complication.

The term unbelievable might be a little strained at the moment.

It was the most infuriating piece of luck Xavier had ever encountered. The job had looked so simple - simply steal a certain little figurine in the possession of on Lord and give it to the Lady who had employed him. The figurine in question had been in her family for generations, she had shown him proof, and the Lord in question had obtained it under circumstances that were highly dubious at best.

Just a simple job. Xavier could have done it in his sleep. Up until the point the Aes Sedai had become involved, the statue had vanished without him ever going near it. Somehow the Queen's Guard had ended up in the mix, and Xavier had barely gotten out of there without being recognized by his former Mentor, Arrick.

There were definitely problems with working in Caemlyn. The Queen's Guard was by necessity a force of law and order, and Xavier wasn't - a fact with Arrick knew. If Arrick had seen him, he surely would have put two and two together and gotten four.

Xavier sighed, found a brush in the corner, and began sweeping up the shards of the mirror. He would have to pay for that now. "Why," he said from between clenched teeth, "couldn't this have been what it seemed?"

As he turned to walk away from the little pile of reflections, he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. Without thought Xavier flung himself flat, cursing as the bolt of an arrow slammed into the wall behind where his head had been a second ago. Xavier was on his feet a scare second later, a slender throwing knife pulled from his boot and thrown out the open window to where he had glimpsed the movement of his assailant. A soft cry of pain rewarded him, and he surged to the window just in time to see the other figure stumbling away, clutching his arm in pain.

"Blood and Bloody Flaming Ashes," Xavier whispered hoarsely. He'd missed, worse luck.

Then he glanced down the street and fell to cursing a second time. A company of the Queen's Guard was heading for his Inn, with a familiar face at their head.

It COULD just be a coincidence. Or the Lady he had worked for could have implicated him, assuming that since the figuring had vanished he had stolen it, and since he hadn't given it to her he'd taken it for himself.....

"Never," he whispered through clenched teeth as he bolted for the door, "never ever again will I take an "easy job.""

The hallway was deserted and he ran, not for the stairs leading to the common room below, but to another, empty room at the end of the Inn, away from the street. From below came the sounds of shouted voices, commotion. Xavier darted into the unused room, closed the door, and opened the window. There was a small ledge running along the base of this floor, and a little farther down the building a few stones had come loose, natural hand holds to the roof. For a moment, Xavier eyed the narrow ledge, the crumbling stone, and the street below.

Sounds of pounding footsteps from the hall outside decided him, and he leveraged outside. The ledge was narrower then he's thought and he nearly fell twice, managing to remained balanced only by pressing himself close against the rough stone and inching along. It seemed to take forever to get to the handholds. All this, he thought miserably, for something I didn't even steal.

The handholds were crumbling and twice he nearly fell, saving himself somehow. His head hurt by the time he got to the roof and his stomach was churning uncontrollably.

When he finally made it to the roof for a second he wanted nothing more then to lay there. But Arrick would sooner or later work out where he must be, so Xavier had to move.

He dragged himself to his feet, ignoring bruises and abrasions. Wind whipped around his face, tearing at his clothes and hair - a storm was moving in, just his luck.

He ran along the roof, building up speed. When he'd first come to this Inn he'd done some preliminary scouting and knew which buildings would be the best route. As he came to the edge he sent a quick prayer to the Creator - no building had roofs comfortably close to this Inn, and while this building was the closest, it wasn't nearly close enough for comfort....

Xavier took a deep breath, focused every inch of his soul on getting across the gap, and leaped.

For a long, horrible instant he knew he wasn't going to make it, but he refused to accept that. Without conscious thought he tried to propel himself across the gape, and somehow, it almost seemed to be working....his fall stretched out, still a fall, but impossibly long. Then the roof loomed close and he flung out his arms, catching the edge and clinging to it. Shaking, he pulled himself onto the roof.

Xavier looked back, scarcely believing he had made the leap. It almost felt like something had propelled him. Incredibly lucky.

As he turned away to go to the next, shorter leap, he realized two shocking things. One was that his leap had been made against the wind.

The second was that he was not alone on this roof.

Before him, blocking his pathway to anywhere besides in Inn, was a rather plain, uninteresting man. He was dressed casually and seemed, and his shoulder was bleeding slightly.

Xavier instantly cursed himself for a fool, realizing belatedly that the roof he had jumped onto was the building where the man who had shot at him had been located.

"Foolish," the man pronounced, "to have avoided your death earlier then placed yourself squarely in my hands now." The man glanced to the Inn behind them, where Queen's Guardsmen were tearing things to pieces in their search. "You would have been wiser to stay there. They might not have killed you...but I surely shall."

Xavier's eyes darted around the roof and his mind worked quickly, desperately seeking a way out. The advancing clouds and brisk winds gave it a twighlit, surreal appearance. "What," he finally asked despairingly, "what do you want?"

The man laughed. "Can you really not know? That little figurine you snatched for the Lady is a Ter'angreal of some importance, boy. We cautioned her against using outside resources for these things, but she ignored us." The man made a small, contemptuous sound. "She's paying for the trouble she's caused us..paying dearly. The Fades always need new blades."

Xavier's mind shuddered away from the implications of that. The man was right, he should have stayed behind. Arrick and the Queen's Guard might severely curtail his freedom, but anything was better then standing on an unprotected rooftop with nearly no weapons while a Darkfriend discussed the fate of other Darkfriends who had failed him. Life in Xavier's home village was better then this.

For a long second he really regretted leaving home.

"Listen," Xavier said urgently. "I don't have the bloody figurine. I never did. It vanished before I got to it."

"Certainly it did," the man said with a condescending smile. "Come now, young man. We know the Aes Sedai didn't take it - they've stirred up the entire palace to find it. You were contracted to steal the object, and if we don't have it and they don't have it..."

Xavier shook his head. "I went in after it today and it was already gone. I'm telling you, I don't have it. Search me if you like." A delaying tactic at best. This man would kill him regardless of if Xavier had it. But if Xavier could keep him talking long enough...

The man laughed, though, coldly. "Please. We are not idiots, you know. A man like yourself would hardly keep such a valuable thing upon himself. Now," the man said, "tell me where you have it hidden, or else-"

"I wouldn't make threats you can't keep," said a familiar and much welcome voice.

Arrick was standing beyond the man, a pair of Guardsmen with bows at his back, their arrows trained upon the Darkfriend. Arrick had his sword out of his sheath and was holding it in that businesslike manner that suggested he was about to do someone serious bodily harm.

Xavier sincerely hoped it wasn't him.

The man, however, turned halfway between Xavier and Arrick, only smiled. "Well, well. You have turned the tables. Or have you?"

There was movement behind Xavier, and he pivoted around, hand dipping into his coat to remove a knife. The gesture seemed ridiculous when the thing behind him proved to be the eyeless terror of a Fade.

Blood And Bloody Flaming Ashes, Xavier thought, almost reverently.

There were muffled yells from behind him, but Xavier had to ignore them, focusing on the creature before him. Xavier was fairly certain he had the advantage; they needed him alive until they found out where he'd hidden the figurine. So the Fade was forced to be careful in it's attack, a thing it was clearly unused to. It was moving too slowly, and before very long, Xavier managed to find an opening and use his knife to good advantage.

As the Fade collapsed, Xavier spun back around, ready to deal with anything. The Darkfriend he had first encountered had moved to one side, and he looked furious. Arrick was moving with the skill and grace of a born swordsman, neatly killing the last of three fades who had launched themselves upon him from behind. The other two Guardsmen were dead.

Xavier knew Arrick had been near Blademaster when he left him, but the older man had surely reached the level now. Three Fades had barely phased him.

"How....inconvinient," the Darkfriend murmured. He didn't seem alarmed so much as annoyed. Then he smiled.

A second later the fist of air slammed into Xavier, and he felt himself propelled backwards, towards the edge of the roof. He was not pushed over, instead he was trapped there, helpless, forced to watch as another first of air slammed into Arrick, only much, much harder...

Xavier struggled against the invisible fist, fighting not just with his body, but somehow, with his mind. He jerked and twisted and pushed somehow, and he could feel the pressure slowly, grudgingly releasing him. Then he was free and on his knees, even as Arrick continued to be pummeled around, all sounds he might have made in his pain muffled and silenced by the very air that assaulted him.

Xavier struggled to his feet, feeling dizzy and ill. But he had to help Arrick, had to save him...he wouldn't leave him again, not again....

The way back will come but once..

Xavier glanced to his left, off the roof, and saw, through the rising storm winds, the glowing of the Arch. No!

The way back....be steadfast...

No, I can't leave him again. Not like this! Not like this...

Be steadfast....

With tears in his eyes from more then illness and wind, Xavier leapt off the roof and into the Arch.

He stumbled out of the Arch, eyes wide but unseeing, shocked into disbelief by the power of what he'd seen, what he'd felt...

Water was poured over his head, and the litany recited as it always had been...

"You are washed clean of what sin you may have done, and of those done against you. You are washed clean of what crimes you may have committed, and of those committed against you. You come to us washed clean and pure, in heart and soul."