Chapter One – Encounter Two
Varric shifted in the chair, running his hands over the leather binding of the book in his lap. How many days had the guards dragged him back to that same room to sit amidst the deserted ruins of his dearest friend's old life? The days all bled into each other so completely, and the Seeker kept her schedule so erratic that he doubted he could even count them.
The Seeker: Cassandra Pentaghast.
Maker, how he wished he'd never heard that name. If all Seekers possessed natures so fundamentally relentless, he couldn't blame the Templars for telling them where to stick their orders.
He chuckled at that … stick their orders … he'd have to remember to write that one down if he survived. His laugh drew glares from the guards, but he paid them no more attention than it took to make sure they didn't reach for their swords. Then the door opened, and she stormed through. Bowed legs turned her swinging, controlled gait into a duck walk―something she probably would have skewered him for saying―and the hairy eyeball on her chest glared at him, rife with judgment. He shuddered; it practically screamed, 'Andraste died for your worthless backside, so shape up.' Unlike the guards, the Seeker's hand never left her sword.
"So where were we?" she asked. A purely rhetorical question.
Varric made a show of thinking about the answer. "You were looming over me menacingly while I assured you that even if I knew where Hawke was, the Golden City will be restored and the Maker returned before I told you." He sighed when she merely glared at him. Apparently Seekers had their sense of humour removed during their training. "Fine. We'd finally made it back from the deep roads, and Cullen had just taken Bethany away to the Gallows."
Varric closed his eyes for a moment, allowing the story to form inside his mind. The truth had never been his strong suit―well, the entire, unfettered truth, anyway. Exaggeration was good for the soul … present circumstances excepted. Seeker Pentaghast's tolerance for exaggeration ranked just south of her sense of humour.
"Yes, the Champion's sister … a lifelong apostate, taken away against her will to live in the Circle." The Seeker strode over to glare down at him.
Varric settled into the chair and looked up. "Yes, but if you think you can blame all the insanity of the world on Hawke losing Bethany, you're howling at the new moon, Seeker."
"Am I?" She sliced the air with one hand and shook her head. "Everything makes perfect sense with that piece in place. Especially considering the fact that two of her other companions … the Dalish elf, Merrill, and that warden, Anders, were apostates as well."
Varric growled softly low in his throat, the last name setting fire to his guts like tinder. "Don't talk to me about Anders. Damn maps." He shook his head as the puzzle pieces aligned in his mind's eye. Everything built step by step upon that moment where he'd recovered Hawke's stolen purse and suggested a partnership. No maps, no Anders.
'Everything happens for a reason, Varric,' Hawke had told him the last night they'd sat in those very chairs warming themselves by a very similar fire. 'I like to think we've mitigated at least some of the destruction and death over the years.'
"We thought they all came from Ferelden together, but this … " The Seeker's voice rose, excitement colouring the words a bright shade of maniacal. "... this makes much more sense. Her father hunted, trying to protect her sister … . What stronger motive can someone possess than protecting their family?" She paced to the table and back, her steps hurried, her entire body inclined forward.
Varric forced his body to stay loose as he lifted a hand to cut her off. He couldn't let her bolt straight through to the part where his head ended up separated from his neck. "You're building your bridge out of all the wrong stones. So much happened in those years … so many people and factions all losing their minds around us," he said. Some days it felt like they couldn't run fast enough … a new crisis rearing its head before they managed to beat the last one to death.
"Then what are you leaving out?" One eyebrow arched, daring him to lie to her.
For a moment, he considered taking her up on it, but then he shrugged. The truth came with its own matched set of insane, unbelievable, and heartbroken. Lies might be easier for her to swallow. The truth. Hmmm … it was a novel idea. Well, he supposed the day had to come.
"What have I left out?" He looked down, running his hands over the binding once more. "Everything from the moment Knight Captain Cullen took Bethany away to when the entire city lost its mind."
The Seeker leaned a hip against the table. "Then start filling in that blank."
Varric let out a deep, long-suffering sigh. "The Deep Roads made us all a great deal of money. Hawke bought the Amell estate and moved her mother out of Lowtown. She took care of Bethany the best she could, considering that as someone with significant skill at causing chaos and death, Knight Commander Meredith wouldn't let her through the Gallows' inner gate. However, thanks to the assistance Hawke provided in hunting down the missing Templar recruits, Cullen could be persuaded to take notes and small packages back and forth … as long as he was able to inspect them."
Varric shrugged. "Life settled down into a new sort of desperate normal. With the Deep Roads expedition going the way it did, Bethany ending up in the circle, and the general state of unrest in the city, none of us gave Javaris Tintop a second thought. The qunari, well everyone in the city was worried enough about the qunari to give them second, third, and fourth thoughts. As far as any of us knew, they just sat there in their compound. Food went in, nothing came out. The city avoided the place, practically wearing a path in the street from coming down the stairs from Lowtown and edging around the right hand wall."
"And Hawke? She sympathized with that qunari mage, helped him escape the city. What did she think of the qunari remaining after so long?" The Seeker pulled out a chair, swinging it around to straddle it.
Varric frowned and closed his eyes, one hand lifting to rub his brow, his thoughts directed to Hawke. 'This is where things get sticky, old friend. I hope you'll forgive me … or at least not smack me around too hard when I get home.' Dropping the hand, he opened the book. "The qunari fascinated Hawke. She admired their discipline and their sense of order, but most of all, I think they posed a mystery." He let out a dry chuckle. "Hawke never could resist a mystery."
A vague whisper of unease traced cold fingers down Hawke's spine. She hesitated at the base of the staircase from Lowtown, a gaze long used to suspicion brushing over the dock's scattered denizens. Nothing amidst the rusted iron, dirty stone, and downtrodden faces stood out to account for her twitchiness. She chalked it up to the dread provoked by her destination.
She glanced toward the qunari compound, but then a sylph laden with spices and heady florals slipped past, riding the salt breeze out of the wharf master's courtyard. Her eyes drifted partway closed as the scent curled under her nose, caressing her like an affectionate cat. Well, that confirmed the rumours of an argosy newly arrived from Antiva.
Hawke's mother and their servant, Orana, would dress for the markets and race from the house the moment she arrived home with word … providing Bodahn or Varric didn't tell them first, of course. In that case, she'd arrive home to a lot of empty, echoing rooms. She let out a long sigh. She missed the strains of melody following her little songbird through the house. Gamlen's hovel hadn't seemed nearly so dreary when the sun rose to the sound of Bethany singing as she prepared for the day. Despite the new, soft bed and luxurious sheets, the mansion felt cold and empty without that sweet music.
In that face of that hollowness, and how much worse it must be for Leandra, what were a few coins sacrificed to see her mother busy and content? If they have ginger and cloves, Leandra may even bake Bethany's favourite cookies.
Hawke swallowed the sour lump of regret and guilt that grabbed hold of the back of her throat and shook her head. No. The Maker Himself would stand in her kitchen baking Bethany's spice cookies, the Void spilling into the streets of Kirkwall, before Hawke spoke to the Arishok with her eyes raining tears, voice cracking.
Another waft of spice and perfume pulled her back, allowing her to shove those thoughts from her mind. Leandra and Orana needed more than spices and herbs for their experiments. Perhaps she'd grab Varric and head up the Sundermount. A day's hunting and gathering would give her avid cooks a broader palette with which to paint.
She took a deep breath. All that food … she'd need help eating it. The perfect excuse to invite Fenris over. She packed down the fluttering in her belly thinking about Fenris provoked, also not wanting to stand before the Arishok giggling like a love-addled teenager.
A harsh cough from off to her left drew her attention back to her purpose. She met the qunari guard's eyes and squared her shoulders, lifting her chin a little. The qunari respected silent, modest strength. She took a deep, steadying breath, flashing back to her father's voice telling her that true strength didn't need to boast or prove itself. The scars across the back of her neck twinged, pulling her hand up to rub them. Of course, under the Qun, her independent, brilliant father would have suffered beneath shackle and collar. Qunari mages did not live well.
She shoved her shoulders back and lengthened her stride. Despite her burning curiosity about the city's guests from the north, she hadn't set foot inside the compound since Javaris Tintop and his parade of black-powder delusions. Sometimes she slowed as she passed on her night patrols and listened as the men sat around fires, talking and laughing, secure in their fellowship behind the locked gates. She listened and wondered what they spoke of, the great mystery of the Qun prickling at her like nettles.
Mysteries never sat well with her. Normally, she attacked those she found, poking and tugging at them until they gave up their secrets. The Arishok … well, she figured that poking and tugging at the Arishok wouldn't end well. And so, unable to bring herself to invade the his space, Hawke spent the years reading whatever she could find about qunari, even sending messages back and forth with several scholars, all of whom agreed the only true way to know the Qun was immersion.
She stopped in front of the guard and looked up, meeting his disinterested gaze. "I believe the Arishok is expecting me?"
He nodded and gave the gate a shove, swinging it just wide enough for her to pass through. Vague warnings that bordered on threats had greeted her previous visits, but apparently being invited brought those to a halt. He remained silent as she brushed by.
Hawke jogged up the stairs past scattered qunari warriors. Some gathered in small groups, talking in voices too low for her to make out; others stood alone, silent sentinels as chiseled and solid as statues. As her eyes travelled over the well defined torso of an Ashaad, she felt her cheeks heat. How many times before the deep roads had she and Isabela embarrassed Bethany and Merrill by joking about suddenly developing convenient clumsiness around Tal Vashoth?
'Ooops, sorry about that. Didn't mean to grope your chest, completely, absolutely by accident. Oops, oh goodness, was that your backside? My apologies. That was very― Oh no! Clumsy me.'
She smiled at the memory of the two young women burning bright red, Merrill taking them far too seriously while Songbird thumped Hawke with an elbow, her eyes sparkling even as she pretended to glower.
Biting her lip to stifle that memory as well, Hawke hurried up the stairs toward the large bench and the even larger man seated on it. Hawke couldn't be considered tiny or delicate by any stretch of the imagination, but the Arishok made her feel like a weak-kneed fawn standing next to a bear. She stopped at the bottom stair, bowed her head in a sharp but respectful nod, and waited for him to speak.
"Serah Hawke." The Arishok leaned forward, forearms on his thighs. "The last time you stood there, you responded to the dwarf's manipulations with a small amount of honour." He straightened, the thunderstorm moving over his broad features and the tone of his voice making his words sound like a veiled insult or challenge. He lifted his head, pulling it back on his neck. "Since, you have risen in station and influence." Again, his tone seemed to challenge her, but to what? To prove that she owed her change in circumstance to worthiness rather than bas vices? She doubted that he considered raiding the treasures of the deep roads a worthy endeavour.
Looking around her, she took in the austere and primitive, but well-ordered conditions inside the walls. For the qunari, nothing had changed since her last visit. Most of the men lived in makeshift tents, the viddathari in the innermost ones. About the only thing that had changed was the number of converts, particularly elves. She frowned. Years seemed a very long time for ships to arrive. How did they feed themselves? How had they survived for so long in that square of stone and mortar? Did most of them even leave the compound? How were they all not losing their minds?
She cracked her neck, pushing away the questions and turned back to meet his dark, eerie stare. Why had he called her there? Surely it hadn't been to catch up on years of conversation. "Arishok. Viscount Dumar said that you requested my presence."
He pushed off his knees and stood, descending the stairs to stand within arm's reach, forcing her to crane her head back to meet the open assessment in his stare. Even without standing three steps higher than she, he towered over her―the great bear poised to crush her into the stone. Despite the nervous energy fluttering in her stomach, nothing in his expression provoked real fear. She knew his rigid sense of honour prevented him from harming her without cause, and as far as she knew, she'd done nothing to give him cause.
He met her thoughtful scrutiny for a couple of seconds before asking, "You do not fear coming here alone?"
An interesting question. She frowned and looked around, a shrug denying her nerves. "Respectfully, Arishok, if being in the company of men with large swords increases my safety ... I'm now in the safest part of town."
He stared at her for a few more heartbeats then returned to his seat. For a moment, she thought she had seen a little softening of the usual disdain that creased the flesh around his eyes. But when he sat, facing her once more, the inscrutable mask of disapproval and distaste remained firmly fixed in place.
"I offer a courtesy, Hawke. Someone has stolen what he believes is the formula for gaatlok." The Arishok's voice rumbled deep in his throat, adding an extra layer of gravity to his words. "You will want to hunt him."
Hawke let out a long, resigned breath. "Javaris." Her stare narrowed as she registered the conditional words in the middle sentence. She tilted her head as if to hear him more clearly. "What he believes is gaatlok? What did he actually steal?"
"Saar-gamek, a poison gas." His words dropped like boulders into deep water, taking her gut with them.
"Poison gas," she repeated, the words bitter and leaden on her tongue. Of all the people in the Maker's wide creation who shouldn't be allowed in the same province as poison gas, Javaris Tintop stood at the head of the line. Twenty questions wrestled for position in her head, tangling with nightmarish visions of the death and destruction the dwarf could bring down on the city. After beating her way through the mess, she cleared a wide enough path to find the most important.
"How did he manage to steal something so deadly from you?" she asked, the question as much wonder as actually asking for an explanation. Something was missing from the equation. "He's not a criminal mastermind by any measure."
"We allowed it." The Arishok leaned forward, wrists on his knees. His head and one hand tilted in tandem. That simple gesture of explanation set fire to the last of Hawke's nerves, anger flaring up from their ashes. He just allowed someone to steal poison gas? His voice broke through her ire. "Would a simple 'no' dissuade someone determined to possess the gaatlok? Or would he seek to obtain it by other means?" he continued.
An annoyed hiss escaped between Hawke's teeth before she could clamp her lips shut on it. "One of the least mentally gifted life forms in Thedas has the formula for poison gas, and thinks it's something he wants to manufacture in huge quantities?" She let her exasperation bleed into her gaze, reining it in when the Arishok stiffened in response.
He sat back, huge and menacing. For a moment, his expression seemed pleased, almost gloating, as if glad to be able to throw another example of the depravity of her world in her face. "A courtesy, Hawke. You will want to hunt him."
His apparent pleasure in having successfully put hundreds of lives at risk, broke down the last of her restraint. Enough people tugged and clawed at the frayed edges of the damned city already without the qunari adding their talons into the mix.
"So, you just left it lying around? Stupidity doesn't need an invitation." She planted her hands on her hips and let her head drop between raised shoulders. Tremulous fingers clung to her temper, wrestling its slippery, ever-changing form.
"We did not make it easy." His voice tumbled down on her like boulders. She looked up without lifting her head. "Three qunari died defending it. Enough to impart a sense of worth." Again with the head tilt, but that time she only saw arrogance and disdain.
That admission sent her reeling. She'd been called there to deal with a nightmare that just kept escalating. The formula had been guarded, and yet they allowed Javaris to get away with it? "You sent three of your people to their deaths just to ensure that he believed it was real enough to manufacture?" What in the name of the Maker? That made no sense.
Perhaps they felt their sacrifice important. Why would qunari lay down their lives? Why would the Arishok ask it of them? Were their lives so cheap to him?
Hawke pressed the heel of her hand against the pulse throbbing at her temples as she tried to bring all the shards of information swirling around her head into a cohesive whole. No, the Arishok did not spend his people's lives recklessly. Why would qunari lay down their lives? Because the Qun demanded it or for the good of their people. She nodded and let her hand fall back to her side. There had to be something larger going on. She just needed to stay cool and figure it out.
More easily thought than executed. Her heart raced and her brain imagined every horrible possible outcome of the gas. Was the entire world just determined to tear itself apart?
The Arishok's expression never changed, but she swore that amusement continued to simmer beneath that dark, steady stare when she finally got herself under control and looked up. He tilted his head a little. Challenging her? "Does it not make more sense to bait the thief into a trap than to allow him to take you by surprise?"
Part of her screaming at her for her stupidity, Hawke climbed a stair closer. "I'm fighting to keep this city from ripping itself to pieces. I don't need another set of hands throwing bait to the wolves." She leaned toward him, her entire body sharp and jagged. Despite taking note of the way his men shifted forward, their hands moving toward their weapons, she remained focused on their leader. "I'm trying to prevent a war, Arishok, as much for your people as mine, and this … this isn't even negligence … it's criminal."
She felt, rather than saw two qunari close in on her from behind. She raised her hand toward the hilt of Jarvia's Shank. "I won't start anything," she said, keeping her voice low, "but I'll respond to being attacked. You asked me to come here and deal with this mess … a mess you allowed … ." Keeping her stare firmly locked on the Arishok's, she waited, pulling in long, calming breaths as her anger rattled the bars that kept it caged, bars that began to loosen.
The Arishok tilted his chin, backing his men off. If anything, his manner relaxed rather than building toward anger. "No matter how many stones you throw in its path, Serah Hawke, the tide will come in."
Hawke pulled back, startled enough by his tone that she let her arm drop. Holding that icy stare, she thought she saw something … just a flicker, but related to the slight softening from earlier. Philosophy? He wanted to follow those revelations with philosophical discussion of the inevitability of war?
"Then I'll build a dam." She straightened and clenched her teeth. Damn his stubbornness and his pride. Letting out a harsh blast of air, she cracked her neck, trying to shed her anger and return to the problem at hand. She and the Arishok could debate the inevitability of war until the Maker returned once Javaris wasn't poisoning the city.
"I'll track Javaris down. I'll stop him." She descended one stair and started to turn, but then stopped and glanced back. "If the tide is going to drown us all eventually, why am I here? Why warn us at all?"
The Arishok sat up, the heels of his hands braced against his thighs. "Sometimes one must pry apart a wall to find the adders within." Again, that slight softening of the lines around his eyes, almost like he was trying to tell her something. "Until the moon turns and the tide comes in, I will show respect to the most promising among you."
Respect? Was that what she'd seen? A piece fell into place in her head. Adders in the walls? Wait … had the stolen formula been a trap set for Javaris at all? Why else would the Arishok let the dwarf take it and then send for her? If he wanted to stop the dwarf, his own men could have done so at the time. If he wanted to sew chaos, he could have told the guards. Instead, he'd sent for her. A wide variety of Andrastian body parts and underclothing rumbled through her mind riding a string of curses that would have impressed even Varric.
"How dangerous is this gas?" she asked, refusing to turn back. She couldn't refuse to play his game, but she could take part reluctantly. However, the seething of the men around her ... their resentment at her attitude eased her anger a little. It told her a great deal about the situation and the Arishok. Still, she shrugged off their anger. Let them seethe. She didn't bow or bend because the wind howled.
"It is madness and then death. It drives those who breathe it into a rage that does not distinguish ally from enemy. The more deadly their skill, the more they kill before succumbing," he replied. A steady, calculating stare followed that admission, as if he was curious as to how she'd react.
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath before she muttered, "So, crazed grandmothers take out babies with a butcher knife before they die in agony?" She met his stare over her shoulder, not bothering to hide her disgust. Let him see. "I'm not sure I've ever heard anything more diabolical."
Would she sacrifice her city for the folly of a few? That had never been her way. She drew the lightning to spare others its wrath. Perhaps there was a greater plan.
Hawke muttered a curse and turned away, thumping down the last stair, her entire body suddenly exhausted. "I'll stop the idiot from killing us all. I hope you have a wonderful day." She'd dance to his tune because the voice in her mind, that steady guide that counted all of their lives more valuable than her own, would settle for nothing less.
She made two strides toward the gate, before that deep, gruff voice called after her, "Panahedan, Hawke. I do not hope that you die."
Hawke glanced back, startled out of her anger. "Be still my heart," she muttered under her breath. After a wry shake of her head and another pointed glare, she trotted across the compound and out the gate.
A-N: So, I've pulled this baby out of mothballs and am working on it. Would love to get the entire three game story told one of these days.