- Oaths, Three:
The oaths taken by an Accepted on being
raised to Aes Sedai. Spoken while holding the Oath Road,
a ter'angreal that makes oaths binding. They are: (1) To
speak no word that is not true. (2) To make no weapon
with which one man may kill another. (3) Never to use the
One Power as a weapon except against Shadowspawn, or in
the last extreme of defense of her own life, or that of
her Warder or another Aes Sedai. The second oath was the
first adopted after the War of the Shadow. The first oath,
while held to the letter, is often circumvented by
careful speaking. It is believed that the last two are
inviolable.
- Ogier (OH-gehr):
(1) A non-human race, characterized
by great height (ten feet is average for adult males),
broad, almost snout-like noses, and long tufted ears.
They live in areas called stedding. Their separation from
these stedding after the Breaking of the World (a time
called the Exile by Ogier) resulted in what is called the
Longing; an Ogier who is too long out of the stedding
sickens and dies. They rarely leave their stedding and
typically have little contact with humankind. Knowledge
of them among humans is sparse, and many believe Ogier to
be only legends.. Although they are thought to be a
pacific people and extremely slow to anger, some old
stories say they fought alongside humans in the Trolloc
Wars, and call them implacable enemies. By and large,
they are extremely fond of knowledge, and their books and
stories often contain information lost to humans. A
typical Ogier life span is at least three to four times
that of a human. (2) Any individual of that nonhuman race.
See also Breaking of the World; stedding, Treesinger
- Old Tongue:
The language spoken during the Age of
Legends. It is generally expected that nobles and the
educated will have learned to speak it, but most know
only a few words. Translation is often difficult, as it
is a language capable of many subtly different meanings.
See also Age of Legends.
- One Power, The:
The power drawn from the True Source.
The vast majority of people are completely unable to
learn to channel the One Power. A very small number can
be taught to channel, and an even tinier number have the
ability inborn. For those few there is no need to be
taught; they will touch the True Source and channel the
Power whether they want to or not, perhaps without even
realizing what they are doing. This inborn ability
usually manifests itself in late adolescence or early
adulthood. If control is not taught, or self-learned (extremely
difficult, with a success rate of only one in four, death
is certain. Since the time of Madness, no man has been
able to channel the Power without eventually going
completely, horribly mad; and then, even if he has
learned some control, dying from a wasting sickness which
causes the sufferer to rot alive-a sickness caused, as is
the madness, by the Dark One's taint on saidin.
For a woman the death that comes without control of the
Power is less horrible, but it is death just the same.
Aes Sedai search for girls with the inborn ability as
much to save their lives as to increase Aes Sedai numbers,
and for men with it in order to stop the terrible things
they inevitably do with the Power in their madness. See
also channel; Time of Madness; True Source. See also
Breaking of the World; stedding.
- Ordeith (OHR-deeth):
In the Old Tongue, "Wormwood."
Name taken by a man who advises the Lord Captain
Commander of the Children of Light.
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