Sa’angreal were like angreal, allowing an Aes Sedai to channel more of the Power than she safely could unaided, but far more powerful than angreal, and rare. Ter’angreal were something different. Existing in greater numbers than either angreal or sa’angreal, though still not common, they used the One Power rather than helping to channel it, and no one truly understood them. Many would work only for someone who could channel, needing the actual channeling of the Power, while others did what they did for anyone. Where all the angreal and sa’angreal Egwene had ever heard of were small, ter’angreal could seemingly be any size. Each had apparently been made for a specific purpose by those Aes Sedai of three thousand years ago, to do a certain thing, and Aes Sedai since had died trying to learn what; died, or had the ability to channel burned out of them. There were sisters of the Brown Ajah who had made ter’angreal their life’s study.

Some were in use, if likely not for the purposes they had been made. The stout white rod that the Accepted held while taking the Three Oaths on being raised to Aes Sedai was a ter’angreal, binding them to the oaths as surely as if they had been bred in the bone. Another ter’angreal was the site of the final test before a novice was raised to the Accepted. There were others, including many no one could make work at all, and many others that seemed to have no practical use.

Why did they take things no one knows how to use? Egwene wondered. Or maybe the Black Ajah does know. That possibility made her stomach churn. That might be as bad as sa’angreal in Darkfriend hands.

“Theft,” the Amyrlin went on in tones as cold as her eyes, “was the least of what they did. Three sisters died that night, as well as two Warders, seven guards, and nine of the servants. Murder, done to hide their thieving and their flight. It may not be proof that they were—Black Ajah”—the words grated from her mouth—“but I cannot believe otherwise. When there are fish heads and blood in the water, you don’t need to see the silverpike to know they are there.”

“Then why are we being treated as criminals?” Nynaeve demanded. “We were tricked by a woman of the—of the Black Ajah. That should be enough to clear us of any wrongdoing.”