Stone of Tear. The immense fortress guarding the city of Tear from which the High Lords ruled. The Stone looked like a mountain that extended from the river west through the city wall, with battlements and towers and flying banners. The Heart of the Stone was the central citadel. It was said to be the earliest fortress built after the Time of Madness, and said by some to have been built during the Time of Madness, made with the One Power soon after the Breaking of the World. It was besieged or attacked countless times, but never successfully until it fell in a single night to the Dragon Reborn and a few hundred Aiel, thus fulfilling the Prophecies of the Dragon.
The Stone was mentioned twice in the Prophecies: it was said that the Stone would never fall until the People of the Dragon came, and also that the Stone would never fall until the Dragon’s hand wielded the Sword That Cannot Be Touched, Callandor. Some believed that these Prophecies accounted for the antipathy of the High Lords to the One Power, and for the Tairen law that forbade channeling. Despite this antipathy, the Stone contained a collection of angreal and ter’angreal rivaling that stored in the White Tower, a collection which was gathered, some say, in an attempt to diminish the glare of possessing Callandor.
Stone Verge. The large open space surrounding the Stone of Tear on three sides.
Stoneboat. A Taren Ferry family name.
Stonebow, Yurian. See Yurian Stonebow
Stonebridge, Aeldene. See Aeldene Stonebridge
stones. A board game played with stones on a lined board. In the Age of Legends, it was known as no’ri; in a much later age, it was known as Go.
stones including gemstones. Stones and gemstones found in the world of The Wheel of Time were marble, golden Kandor marble, winter marble, white marble, heartstone (cuendillar), elstone, redstone, yellow and white opals, blue sapphires, black sapphires, yellow sapphires, yellow diamonds, carnelian, avatine, amber, pearls, firedrops, rubies, moonstone, catseye, sunstone, emeralds, garnets, amethyst, lapis and turquoise.
Stones River. A dry riverbed in the Aiel Waste and also the name of a sept of the Goshien Aiel.
Stormbringer. An old Sea Folk name for the Dark One; it was used by Birgitte.
Storn, River. A river flowing southwest through Murandy to Lugard, where it joined the River Reisendrelle.
Stout. Galad’s bay gelding, which he rode to his confrontation with Valda and afterward. Stout was killed when the Trollocs attacked the Whitecloaks on the Jehannah Road.
Stranded Goose, The. An inn of three broad stories in Ebou Dar. It had a female innkeeper, as was true of most of the inns in Ebou Dar. Setalle Anan, Elayne and Nynaeve stopped there, as Setalle was stopping at many inns while taking Elayne and Nynaeve to the Knitting Circle, to tell the other innkeepers about these two foolish girls.
Strang, Elise. See Elise Strang
Strangers’ Markets. The three markets open to foreigners in Far Madding.
Street Guard. The police force of Far Madding who patrolled the streets in groups of three. The Street Guard relied mainly on long cudgels, sword-breakers, quarterstaffs and catchpoles. They carried no blade longer than a belt knife. When the Street Guard arrested someone, the detainee was bound wrists-to-ankles and put into a sack, which was then slung from a pole carried on the shoulders of two men.
Street of Joy. A main thoroughfare in Far Madding. It was really two broad straight streets separated by a measured row of leafless gray-barked trees.
streith. A fabric that changed color with the wearer’s emotions and also changed from opaque to transparent mist. It was common in the Age of Legends; Graendal found a stash of it in a stasis-box.
strength in the One Power. Strength in the One Power varied greatly across individuals. Men strong in the Power were usually considerably stronger than women strong in the Power. This is not to say that some women were not stronger than some men, just that the general form ran the other way.
This strength was a matter of the sheer raw amount of the One Power that could be drawn. In kind, there was nothing a man could do with any part of the Power that a woman could not, and vice versa. There were, however, areas where women showed greater abilities and areas where men did. Additionally, of the Five Powers—Earth, Air (or Wind), Fire, Water and Spirit—women generally had the greatest strength and ability in Air and/or Water, while men generally had the greatest in Earth and/or Fire. That is to say, men were generally much more adept than women in weaving Fire and Earth; they were usually able to handle much more of these as well, which followed from their greater raw strength. Women were generally much more adept than men in weaving Air and Water; despite men’s greater raw strength, in these two areas women were in general stronger than men. Ability in Spirit was usually considered to be equally divided; there seemed to be no advantage, either male or female.
Women who could channel could sense the ability in one another and also sense their relative strengths. Among women, the eventual strength of a testee was determined in the first testing. It would take time for her to reach it—and indeed, if she did not work, it was possible that she would not reach it, because it was a potential—but the limits of her strength were known up front. No one ever surpassed the detected limit. Female strength usually—but not always—grew in a smooth progression, and often the stronger she would eventually become, the more quickly it grew. This was not a hard and fast rule, though. Forcing, which was forcing the woman to use more of the Power and do more, could bring on faster increases in strength, but it also ran the greatly increased risk of burnout or death. There were also frequent individual variations in this speed of growth. Hierarchy among Aes Sedai was based in part on relative strength.
Among men, there was no way of knowing how strong a beginner would become. It was not unusual for men to show as much raw strength at their first testing as a woman who had worked for some time, but there was no way to know how far he would go beyond that, if at all, or how long it would take him to reach his upper limit. Male strength levels usually, but not always, increased in spurts and plateaus, with the intensity and duration of the spurts, as well as the duration of the plateaus, generally uneven. Thus a man might test stronger than a woman only to see her pass him, then spurt to pass her, then have her pass him again because he reached a plateau; this could repeat a number of times until their full strengths were reached. Needless to say, as with women, a man who did not work hard would not go as far as he might otherwise, but in his case, no one would ever be sure that he had not reached his full potential.
Men usually took longer to reach their full strength than women did. Most women took about ten years to do so. It was very likely no coincidence that this was the same amount of time most novices took to be raised Accepted, although the correlation was not exact. Women sometimes reached their peak strength and remained novices because they had not learned enough or gained sufficient skill, while others were raised Accepted or even Aes Sedai while still short of that peak. It was learning and skill, not strength, that were the keys there. Again, this was not a hard and fast rule; some women took as long as fifteen years to achieve full strength, while a few managed it in as little as seven or eight. Most men took about fifteen years to reach peak strength. For both men and women, of course, the rate of increase in strength could be sped up dramatically by forcing, but this also entailed danger of burnout or death. Men were somewhat more resistant to the dangers of forcing than women, but not by a large amount.