Inquisitor
By ElementalsAdvocate
Chapter 1: Shards of Ice, Shards of Memory
When Tam woke up, the first thing he experienced was cold, a biting cold that flickered across his skin like fire. The second thing he experienced was pain, an all-over kind of pain that shackled his limbs and sucked at this resolve to move. The third thing he experienced was a hard, unyielding surface pressed against his face.
One out of the three wasn't usually something to worry about. Two out of three was a little concerning. Three out of three however fell squarely in the territory of not-good-at-all.
Slowly, Tam cracked open one eye. Darkness, dimness, and vague shapes revolved across his cracked vision, swapping in and out, rippling and compressing in a nauseating flow. Tam hurriedly shut his eye, and kept it shut until his stomach settled.
Skull injury, as Adan would put it. Possibly a concussion, but I probably wouldn't have woken up at all if I had a concussion. Now, what about the rest of me?
Carefully, Tam unfolded his mind from the fetal ball it had assumed and set about mentally cataloguing a list of injuries. Lying on my front. Torso, cold but still moving. Breathing is a little difficult. Cracked and possibly broken ribs. Left arm, numb, right arm, same. Legs feel fine except my right knee which feels like someone hit it with a sledgehammer.
Now, could he move and try to find out anything else without passing out? Only one way to find out. Tam shifted his weight, clenching his teeth against the sudden onslaught of pain, and rolled over.
It was not a smart move.
He gasped, holding onto the scream that threatened to rip out of his lungs like a ballista bolt by sheer force of will. Okay, make that definitely broken ribs, and both knees taken out with a sledgehammer. Still, the fact that he was feeling this much pain meant he was definitely alive. And if he could just work past the pins and needles erupting along the length of his arm, it was possible there would be a regenerating draught tucked into his belt.
Contrary to popular knowledge, regenerating potions do not actually "cure" or "heal" injuries. They simply reinforce the body's natural healing processes. As such, they are tremendous when dealing with flesh wounds, helpful with most other ailments, but damned unhelpful with broken bones, and they do not cut out the pain of recovery in the slightest. That is why, when Tam finally managed to bring the small leather pouch to his lips, yanked out the stopper and downed the contents, the pain doubled, tripled, and then quadrupled.
This time, he didn't fight the scream or the convulsions that forced his eyes open and wracked through his body like an avalanche down a mountainside. He gnashed his teeth, biting on the inside of cheek hard enough to draw blood. All he could do was howl, and pray that he would lose consciousness before he lost his sanity.
Just before he got his wish, Tam's rolling eyes focused on his left hand, and the livid green brand that glowed and sparked like the heart of a storm. Just as it had six months ago, when he had first awakened on that terrible, abortive day in the shadow of the Temple of Sacred Ashes, when all the world went mad.
He had awakened in darkness then too….
Six months before…
Green, shifting shadows and mist, clouding his mind and his vision. A single, shining figure upon a promontory above him. Chittering, many-legged shadows behind him. Laboured breaths, a shining hand outstretched to-
Tamworth Trevelyan snapped into wakefulness, his body convulsing as lightning seemed to run up and down his left arm. He half-rose from the narrow cot he had been lying upon, but tipped over, choking on his own dried saliva and crashing to the stone floor. His mind reeled. His vision was blurred. He tried to extend his arms to support himself, but found them manacled to a steel bar which kept his hands bound and separated by over a foot-and-a-half of unyielding metal.
"He's awake. Inform the Hands of the Divine."
Tam felt rough hands seize him by the arms before being hauled to his feet and frog-marched across ringing flagstones. He heard rusty hinges squeal and the sound of a heavy wooden door creak open. Multiple hobnailed boots cracked on the floor around him. Through half-lidded eyes, Tam made out the forms of six heavily armed and armored figures surrounding him: two dragging him along by the arms and two more ahead and behind respectively.
Another squeal of hinges, and the group marched into a large cell illuminated by the lights of fitfully burning torches. Tam was forcibly deposited on his knees in the center of the room, his ankles swiftly manacled to rings set into the floor, the two men who had carried him pulling out Chantry sun-burst medallions and kissing them loudly as they backed away and out the door, slamming it closed behind them. The four remaining guards retreated to the boundaries of the room, drawing their swords, all eyes on… him?
They're afraid. Of me?
Tam tried to think back, to realize what he might have done to prompt such a response, and drew a blank. Nothing, in the murky, slightly thumping mess that was his consciousness at the moment, was there to indicate what he might of done, who he might have done it with, where he was now, when he had arrived, or even how he got there. He remembered nothing, except-
Tam opened his mouth, to demand some answers, when suddenly his left hand erupted in green flames!
He gasped, jerking back as bolts of pain raced up the length of his arm and sparks flew from his fingers, but then as suddenly as they had appeared, the flames vanished. Tam squinted past the aftershocks of pain thrumming through his body, holding his hand as far away from him as he could while trying to study it in the feeble light. His hand seemed normal, no scars or wounds, but as Tam twisted his wrist to get a better look at his palm, sparks and flame erupted again!
Braced against the pain, Tam made out a band of solid green… light, for want of a better word, running across his palm from the webbing between his thumb and fore finger to the palm's outer edge. And again, as suddenly as it had appeared the light, flames and sparks vanished again.
"Alright. What in the name of Andraste's sacred ashes just happened?" Tam voiced aloud.
The guards shifted, but stubbornly kept their silence.
Disciplined. That's good, considering what just happened.
The cell door opened again. Tam barely made out a long corridor on the other side, but then his view was blocked by a pair of feminine figures entering the cell.
The first woman had the manner and dress of a professional soldier, black hair cut short except for a Navaraan warrior's braid that circled the crown of her head, and a thin but deep scar that ran from her jawline to the middle of her cheek on the left side. At a glance, Tam could tell her armor was well fitted and solidly practical, and she moved as one with the longsword sheathed at her side and the shield slung across her shoulders. But it was the tabard she wore that seized his attention: A single wide open eye, with the sunburst of the Chantry radiating out from behind it in white on a field of sable. It was the sign of the Seekers of Truth, the Chantry's personal investigator's, answering only to the Devine herself.
Tam, my boy, you have really stepped in it this time.
The second woman was just as impressive as the first, though less demonstratively so. Slim, she nevertheless projected a sense of disciplined power, wearing a hood of lavender that left her face in shadow, but failed to hide her bright red hair beneath the cowl. Her body was covered in a fine chainmail vest that fell almost to her knees, split from the hips to allow extra flexibility. Her arms were bare of any form of armor except the heavy lavender cloth of her outfit.
Not a soldier then. A spy, perhaps?
The warrior circled the room, while the spy stepped into the light coming from a grate in the ceiling to stare into Tam's face, not saying a word. Tam studied her in turn, then noticed something peculiar. A large medallion or pendant of silverite hung at the base of the woman's throat, just below her high collar which hid the skin of her neck completely. It also showed the eye and sunburst of the Seekers of Truth, but as Tam looked more closely, he could clearly see a sword, thrusting downward through the center of the symbol behind the eye, its blade appearing again from the lower edge of the eye, and its point resting at the rim of the pendant.
That's surprising. Does she represent some sect among the Seekers? Perhaps she's a different kind of Seeker, a spy master, or maybe an assassin! What's going on?
"Tell me why we shouldn't kill you now."
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