A: Women certainly can be wolfbrothers, though the term would be wolfsisters. A wolfbrother or wolfsister reborn in another age would only be a wolfbrother or wolfsister again if that were possible in that Age. The ability to speak with wolves doesn't exist in every Age. In the "current" Age, it is a fairly new thing, appearing not too long ago. There are tales of it, sometimes just vague stories of people who supposedly "can talk to animals," without necessarily mentioning wolves, but remember that Elyas's ability was taken, at least by some Aes Sedai, as a sign that he was linked to the Shadow.

A: First off, Dreadlords was the name given to men and women who could channel and sided with the Shadow in the Trolloc Wars. Yes, the women were called Dreadlords, too. They might have liked to call themselves "the Chosen," like the Forsaken, but feared to. The real Forsaken might not have appreciated it when they returned, as prophecies of the Shadow foretold would happen. Some of the Dreadlords had authority and responsibility equivalent to that of the Forsaken in the War of the Shadow, however. They ran the Shadow's side of the Trolloc Wars, though without the inherent ability to command the Myrddraal that the Forsaken possess, meaning they had to negotiate with them. Overall command at the beginning was in another's hands.Forsaken was the name given to Aes Sedai who went over to the Shadow in the War of the Shadow at the end of the Age of Legends, though of course, they called themselves the Chosen, and despite the tales of the "current"Age, there were many more than a few of them. Since they occupied all sorts of levels, you might say that many were equivalent to some of the lesser Dreadlords, but it would be incorrect to call them so. At the time, they were all Forsaken?or Chosen?from the greatest to the least.Some of those Forsaken the Dark One killed were every bit as highranking as the thirteen who were remembered, and who you might say constituted a large part of the Dark One's General Staff at the time of the sealing. With the Forsaken, where treachery and backstabbing were an acceptable way of getting ahead, the turnover in the upper ranks was fairly high, though Ishamael, Demandred, Lanfear, Graendal, Semirhage, and later Sammael, were always at the top end of the pyramid. They were very skilled at personal survival, politically and physically.In large part the thirteen were remembered because they were trapped at Shayol Ghul, and so their names became part of that story, though it turned out that details of them, stories of them, survived widespread knowledge of the tale of the actual sealing itself. Just that they had been sealed away. Other Forsaken were left behind, so to speak, free but in a world that was rapidly sliding down the tube. The men eventually went mad and died from the same taint that killed off the other male Aes Sedai. They had no access to the Dark One's protective filters. The women died, too, though from age or in battle or from natural disasters created by insane male AesSedai or from diseases that could no longer be controlled because civilization itself had been destroyed and access to those who were skilled in Healing was all but gone. And soon after their deaths, their names were forgotten, except for what might possibly be discovered in some ancient manuscript fragment that survived the Breaking. A bleak story of people who deserved no better, and not worth telling in any detail.

A: I wouldn't really care to have tea with any of them. In the first place, since I created them, I know exactly what they would say in response to any given question or comment, word for word, which would make for boring conversation. In the second place, I've put these people through some fairly rough paces. If one of them showed up and wanted to have tea with me, I think I'd sneak out the back door and leave town for a while. No joking there; oh, no, not at all.

A: The evil power in Padan Fain has neither decreased nor increased, nor has that in the dagger. The corruption in him was partly caused by the taint on Shadar Logoth, but it didn't constitute a real connection to the city. Remember that it was because he was PadanFain, the Hound of the Shadow, that he was able to leave Shadar Logoth in his new condition after he merged with/absorbed Mordeth. (By the way, any other artifacts that might be lying around from Shadar Logoth would have the same longterm corrupting effect as the dagger. Fortunately, or unfortunately, any such thing would need to be metal or stone. The wood and fabric had decayed. It wouldn't have been pleasant to get a splinter from, say, a chair from Shadar Logoth.)The destruction of Shadar Logoth has not driven Fain any more insane. I'm not certain he'd be able to function at all if he were any madder than he already is. But being insane doesn't make him any less dangerous, only less predictable. He no longer responds to situations or events in any sort of sane, logical manner. His abiding concerns are hatred of Rand al'Thor (and to a lesser degree Mat and Perrin) because he blames them for what the Dark One did to him in order to turn him into the Shadow's Hound, and hatred for the Dark One because of what the Dark One did to him. He goes after Rand because Rand is the easiest target in his mind, but if he can take a swipe at the Dark One or the Dark One's minions in some way that he felt would cause real harm, he'd leap at it.

A: To the channeler, the flows seem to originate in his or her very immediate vicinity, not to emanate from themselves, although to another channeler, those flows do seem to be emanating from the channeler. The latter is the actual case, as the One Power is passing through the channeler, one of the reasons for individual limits on how much of the Power a particular person can handle. (And you have seen characters react as if to a blow from having a flow snapped or cut.) A channeler sees the flows as colored very faintly, according to which of the Five Powers is involved (red = Fire, Blue = Water, green = Earth, yellow = Air, white = Spirit), although the "feel" of the flows are also different to a channeler, so that a channeler can tell one from another without actually seeing them. (That is how someone can tell that somebody else has channeled, say, Fire and Earth, in their vicinity without seeing the flows.) It isn't a physical feel; you might almost as well say that they have different flavors. They appear to be smooth and nearly transparent, tinged with color.

A: No, I don't ever feel overwhelmed by The Wheel of Time. I do sometimes feel that I set out on a 15K run and found that I had somehow been entered in the marathon, but I'm enjoying the run and hoping to make a good time over the distance. I believe I've been doing all right so far. (For those who think I've been slow, I've had well over six thousand pages in The Wheel of Time published over a thirteen year span, which in smaller books of a more usual size would come out at 15 to 18 novels, hardly a slow pace for thirteen years.) And no, none of the ideas for the WoT have been put aside for the next series of books. That one has been forming in my head for...Lord, it must be ten years, now. Maybe longer. I've lost count. All of the characters and situations in that series will be distinct to that series and that very different world. When I think of something for those books, I tuck it away in my notes and compartmentalize like the very devil.

A: Healing was probably the most respected single Talent in the Age of Legends, in part because it eased suffering (disease had been all been eradicated, but injuries still occurred) and in part because high levels of ability in that Talent were much more rare than high levels in most other Talents.

A: The gholam?singular and plural are the same?were created, not bred. Supposedly their creation involved making them so that they would be obedient to the Chosen, whoever they might be at any given time. This was an attempt at copying something that had turned up in Myrddraal, which seem incapable of disobeying one of the Chosen, possibly because of the use of the True Power in creation of the Trollocs, the parent stock of the Myrddraal. Even Aginor, who created the Trollocs, and thus indirectly the Myrddraal, was uncertain about the actual cause. (Becoming one of the Forsaken involves receiving a mark from the Dark One in return for your oaths; this mark is invisible and cannot be sensed by another human being, even another of the Forsaken, but it can be by certain nonhuman creatures, including Myrddraal and draghkar among others. This may play a part in the Myrddraal's obedience but doesn't explain it completely.) This element in gholam has some flaws, however, as we have seen in a small measure. In any case, if I were you, I wouldn't try giving orders to a gholam unless I were one of the Forsaken.

A: He'll turn up again. He hasn't reappeared earlier because the part he had to play was a sidelight to the main story. You should be able to glean some of what he was doing, what effect he and the news he brought was having, from the news that came out of the Borderlands in the books following The Dragon Reborn, though.

A: Yes, other Ajahs also have secret weaves, though a few of those secrets are actually known to more than one Ajah, each of which believes that it alone knows. That's always the problem with secrets, isn't it? You can never really be sure that somebody else doesn't know too. I could share, but if I told you, then I'd have to kill you. I may yet use one or more Ajah secret weaves in the books, so I'm afraid the answer here is RAFO.

A: There are many more stedding in Seanchan than there are in the part of the world where the story is taking place, and that is why the Seanchan Ogier don't suffer from the Longing. Because there are so many more stedding, they were able to find them more easily even during the Breaking and therefore never had the very extended separation that Ogier on this side of the Aryth Ocean had, though they seldom were able to settle in one for very long until the Breaking ended.

A: No, I haven't given you enough information to solve the murders of Adeleas and Ispan, but they will be solved in Knife of Dreams. How's that for a hint?

A: That's the big question for the Forsaken, isn't it. Can they trust the Dark One? You're right; he isn't very trustworthy or loyal. Greed leads people to believe strange things, to excuse the most abhorrent behavior on their partsjust check out the nightly news for confirmationand at the root, that is what motivates the Forsaken and, in truth, most Darkfriends. Greed for power, greed for immortality. That makes them believe, because they want to believe. So will he grant these things? Maybe. After all, he gains more willing followers, more eager followers, if he is seen to give rewards. But will he care whether he has any followers at all in a world where he is allpowerful? Flip a coin and check which way the wind is blowing. Maybe you can find the answer there.

A: The Illuminators were completely ruthless in protecting their secret. And they put about tales such as that exposure to air could sometimes makes the substances inside fireworks explode without fire, and even more violently than fire did, in order to discourage close examination. Then there is the fact that there hasn't been a single three thousand year climb from barbarism and disaster, but three roughly one thousand climbs, from the Breaking of the World, from the near total destruction of the Trolloc Wars, which either destroyed or doomed every nation then existing, and from the devastation of the War of the Hundred Years. As an historical note, fireworks were used in China for roughly a thousand years before someone decided to use gunpowder as a weapon. As a matter of desperation, they dropped large firecrackers on the heads of soldiers climbing siege ladders. And by the evidence I've seen, gunpowder wasn't used as a weapon again for several hundred more years after that. I can see the view. All right, they held off the assault, but firecrackers? Firecrackers?

A: If I knew what the future held, I would make a fortune on the stock market, but my next works tentatively titled Infinity of Heaven will definitely be High Fantasy. At least, I think so. Others may disagree. That is the slippery difficulty with subgenres. Everybody has an opinion, and those sometimes differ. As a short not at all attempting to be allinclusive and in no particular order list of who writes High Fantasy in my opinion: Robin Hobb, Jacqueline Carey, Robert Holdstock, Tim Powers, Guy Gavriel Kay, George R.R. Martin, Tad Williams, J.V. Jones.... Wow, this list is getting long. But I'll add one more. When John M. Ford finishes Aspects he's let me read some excerpts I think you'll call it High Fantasy. Then again, he may disagree. There's that difficulty again.

A: This varies from country to country, along with the sizes and weights of the various coins, the reason that bankers and others such as Bran al'Vere use scales for comparing coins. The heaviest coins in weight of precious metal come from Andor and Tar Valon. For the coins of those two, the scale is very simple.Ten copper pennies = one silver penny.One hundred silver pennies = one silver mark.Ten silver marks = one silver crown.Ten silver crowns = one gold mark.Ten gold marks = one gold crown.As an example of other countries' currencies, the scale for Altara, where the weight of silver or gold in larger coins is less than that in Andor or Tar Valon, is this:Ten copper pennies = one silver penny.Twentyone silver pennies = one silver mark.Twenty silver marks = one silver crown.Twenty silver crowns = one gold mark.Twenty gold marks = one gold crown.

A: They are not in a mindless state of Compulsion. Their former personality is twisted, the darker elements that everyone has to some degree elevated while what might be called the good elements are largely suppressed. I don't mean things like courage, which is useful even to villains, but they are unlikely to be very charitable, for example, and forget any altruistic impulses. Call it being turned into a mirror image of yourself in many ways. It is very unlikely that a channeler forcibly turned to the Shadow could find a way back to the Light unaided. For one reason, by virtue of the twisting he or she had undergone, it is very unlikely that he or she would have any desire to do so.

A: Good question, though not all of the forces involved could use gateways. (Rafo! Rafo!) Think of the ability to Travel in terms of moving troops via aircraft, and you will begin to get the picture. Even with the largest possible circles, there are limits to the size of gateways and thus limits to the front along which you can move troops out through it, the numbers you can commit simultaneously. Of course, you can use multiple gateways, but each is still only so large and can admit only so many soldiers at a time. Socalled front lines were very fluid, but you couldn't fling your forces in anywhere without regard to what would be surrounding them or how you were going to resupply, reinforce or withdraw them. Although no one has shown it so far in the books, there are ways to interfere with the making of a gateway and ways to defend against interference so the battle would take place on many levels. Yes, any area you hold can be attacked by your enemy, and you can attack any area that he holds. (Part of the result was great destruction and a great falloff in the ability to produce high tech items. By the time the Bore was sealed, soldiers were already much, much more likely to ride horses and carry swords than to ride armored vehicles or aircraft and carry shocklances, which had all become very rare.) But holding an area is not impossible so long as you can successfully disrupt your opponent's attempts to make gateways into it. Even if he manages to get those first soldiers in, if you can disrupt his ability to reinforce, resupply or withdraw, it becomes another Dien Bien Phu for him. Of course, if you fail, then it becomes Gettysburg or Waterloo, a blood fight that will be decisive for somebody. At least until the next "decisive" battle is fought. Remember, that designation is always given after the fact, by historians."

A: The first example given has to be treated separately, I think. A sword woven of Air?or Fire or any other of the Five Powers?could be wielded by a nonchanneler if the weave had been tied off or the channeler maintained it. But that is a difficult way to acquire a sword and not really worth the effort unless there is great need for a sword and no other sword available. But in that case, why wouldn't the channeler simply handle things another way? To paraphrase Siuan Sanche, "It's simpler and easier just to use a steel sword."As to weaves being affected by other nonPower, natural occurrences, no, not directly. Though an earthquake knocking an Aes Sedai off her feet and bouncing her around might put a crimp on her channeling for a bit. The wind will not move a shield woven of Air, nor will any other natural event affect a weave UNLESS it does so by affecting the channeler first and thus disrupting his or her ability for whatever period of time. If the channeler is being swept away down rapids, this presents problems. Not necessarily insurmountable problems, but being tumbled head over heels, bounced off boulders and half drowned makes the necessary concentration not easy.

A: Beidomon was a male Aes Sedai, and a research genius, who believed that they were onto something great. The drilling of the Bore itself caused great damage, and Beidomon, Lanfear and others involved were blamed for that. Once it became clear what had actually happened, the opprobrium increased, and Beidomon sought obscurity, finally committing suicide when he was unable to achieve it. Everyone knew his name, and what he had done. He had nowhere to hide.As an aside, for those who think that Lanfear was in some way twisted against her will by being involved in drilling the Bore?I have heard the theory advanced?of all those involved in the project, she was the only major figure to go over to the Shadow. She was ripe for the Shadow's plucking long before the Bore was drilled.