Kaelyn was praying. Again. Safiya had never found the priestess's behaviour more irritating and less logical. There they were, in the land of the dead, sitting beside the Wall of the Faithless – the structure that had started this whole mess. The screams of the souls tortured there split the still, grey air of the City of Judgement, and, although they had been waiting there for hours, Safiya had not succeeded in ignoring them.
Beside Safiya lay a half-elf, pale and emaciated. Her chest still rose and fell, although it was barely perceptible; Safiya was holding her hand (it felt like a bunch of frozen twigs in hers) as much for comfort as to monitor her pulse. The Red Wizard looked down at the face of her friend – the best friend she'd ever had. "I refuse to believe you'll be beaten now," she said conversationally, as though the woman could hear her, as though she was not fighting for her very life and soul. "You've fought this damned Hunger too long to let it win now, Tarva. Besides, Gann would never forgive you."
Gann. The hagspawn they'd pulled out of a jail cell – irreverent, impossibly vain, an incorrigible flirt – who'd followed Tarva first to win his freedom, then out of curiosity, even fascination with their stoic leader, and finally, for love. Love that Tarva had come, gradually, to return. Safiya had watched it all, with a mixture of amusement, alarm and eventually approval. She could still remember the shy smile on Tarva's face (and the half-elf very rarely unbent so far as to smile) that morning, the newfound love burning in her eyes when she looked at Gann, and the wonder in his.
Safiya shook her bald, tattooed head restlessly. It was too sharp a contrast to the horrible emptiness on his face when Tarva had fallen, the despair as he'd called her name, before he'd crashed down beside her. She hoped that he fought at Tarva's side, as they had fought together in dreams before. "You take care of her," Safiya murmured. "Or I will Disintegrate you."
Safiya raised her eyes from their still faces. Nothing she could do for them, except keep vigil.
"Mithtreth?" her familiar asked, his clay wings creating a small, stillborn breeze. "Kaji wonders why they sleep?"
"To win her soul back from the Hunger," Safiya answered absently. I hope, she did not add; the homunculus would not understand anyway. She had constructed him for company, not for brains.
A low rumble behind her, a waft of warmth and bear, was Okku. "Safiya," the bear-god said, "you worry too much."
"You've told me that before, old bear," she said, as he lowered his head and nosed affectionately at Tarva's hair. He'd been fonder of her than Safiya could have ever expected a king of spirits to be of a spirit-eater. Then she cursed herself for thinking in the past tense.
"She is not dead," he said, a dark silhouette against the glowing blue light of his spirit army. "I would not be here with my kin if I did not believe that she will triumph."
Safiya just nodded. There was, really, nothing to say.
It wasn't stopping Kaelyn, of course. The cleric was still praying, beseeching her god to help. Ridiculous. She prayed to Ilmater as she sat in the City of Judgement, the very stronghold of the god of the dead, the god whom she'd abandoned. If Ilmater were inclined to help, he would have done so earlier, as Tarva's goddess, Chauntea, had.
Nothing to do but wait, and so she waited, trying to block out the screams and concentrate only on Tarva's faint, irregular heartbeat. She had almost managed it when the pulse leapt beneath her fingers, beating strong and glad.
Safiya closed her eyes, a tremulous smile of relief curving her lips. That had to be a good sign.
When she opened her eyes again, there was a man looking at her. It was the eyes she saw first, dark and filled with love. She knew him – with every part of her somewhat fractured soul, she knew him. "Akachi," Safiya said softly, barely aware of Kaelyn's awe-struck echo as she rose to her feet.
"Nefris," he answered, calling her by her first, her oldest name. So many times her name had fallen from his lips in those same yearning tones – long ago, when he had been a living man and she had been a whole woman. "Safiya," he added then, smiling in acknowledgement of who and what she had become.
A flare of silver light, and Kelemvor, the god of the dead, appeared, Chauntea beside him. The weight of his presence lay only lightly on them now. The masked face turned to face Akachi, and the deep voice was gentle, almost compassionate. "Are you ready? False soul, tortured at Myrkul's whims, your rest awaits you."
Akachi nodded slowly. "This time, my love, it is really goodbye. Think of me."
"I will," Safiya answered, and then he was gone. It felt like a huge weight had struck the back of her brain, a weight of memories and thoughts and personalities that were hers and not-hers...
At her feet, Tarva and Gann were stirring, turning to each other as blindly and instinctively as flowers turned to the sun. Kaelyn hovered over them, pouring out a million question that Tarva ignored as she blinked slowly. Safiya turned, helping the half-elf to her feet and then hugging her fiercely, as Chauntea smiled at them and drew Gann off to one side. He didn't go without a longing look back at Tarva.
"We saw Akachi," Tarva told Safiya quietly. "He's free, now. Whole."
"I know," the Red Wizard answered. "We saw him too."
Tarva's eyes, large and blue as midnight, searched hers carefully. "And are you-?"
"I'll be all right," she said. Eventually. After the shock had settled and she worked out who exactly she was now. "It... wasn't easy."
"I believe you," Tarva said, turning to watch Chauntea and Gann returning. There was a rather dazed look on the hagspawn's handsome face, and he appeared to be muttering something; Safiya squinted at his lips and thought she made out 'ten?'.
Okku nosed at Tarva's legs, and the half-elf scratched the thick, rainbowy fur behind his ears. "All's well, little one!" he rumbled joyously. "I was right to trust you."
"Indeed," Kaelyn agreed, her voice as soft and serene as always. "But I still would like to know-"
Perhaps Kelemvor knew what his erstwhile priestess would have asked, for he spoke firmly. "Akachi has gone to his proper rest at last, among the False souls of old. You have ended his torment, Tarva El-Auri; you have done what gods thought beyond their power."
"Perhaps it was beyond our power," Chauntea said, her smile warm and full of quiet happiness, "but I knew you could end the Hunger. With a little help."
"More than usual, Lady," Tarva said.
"Oh, yes," the goddess admitted. "Child, Myrkul wrought far more when he created that curse than even he knew. Even in resistance to the Hunger, you ended a god; what you could have become if you had embraced it instead..." She shook her silver head. "We all agreed it was better to help you as much as we were allowed."
"We did not anticipate the chaos you willingly sowed in my grey city," Kelemvor said gravely. "For that, there must be judgement." Chauntea murmured his name, as plea or rebuke. "Your Crusade was born of the hatred of a dead god, the desperation of a Faithless soul, and the betrayal of my lost Doomguide –" Kaelyn visibly quailed a little at that barb, "and the good you have done redeems much..." Kelemvor's voice was even and emotionless as he added, "but not everything."
Chauntea gazed at her worshipper, leaf-green eyes sorrowful. "Daughter, I am sorry."
"I knew there would be a price," Tarva said softly, overriding the protest Gann would have voiced. "I have told you that I am willing to pay it."
The death-god's mask was still a moment longer, then turned. "Lord Okku of Rashemen. You are a god in your own right, even if you are much less than I am. I have little authority over you, and none at all when you are acting in defence of your land and your kin. Take your army and go home; I can lay no punishment upon you."
Okku snarled softly at the dismissal. "You will not touch her, two-legger b-" and then disappeared in a blur of silver light as Kelemvor sent him and his army back to Rashemen, where they belonged.
Tarva was very still, her face white, impassive and fixed on Kelemvor, although Safiya knew she would have wanted to farewell the irascible old bear. The Red Wizard clutched her familiar tighter against her chest, and Kaji squeaked a protest.
"Kaelyn the Dove," Kelemvor said, and the cleric raised her head, her wings flexing. "Your guilt is great. You abandoned my service to pursue the Crusade, a vain attempt to tear down the Wall of the Faithless. When these others would have chosen to defend my grey city, you forced them to fight in your cause. Is there anything you wish to say in your defence?"
"The Wall is unjust, my lord. It must be demolished."
Kelemvor sighed, a sound that recalled the humanity he had shed long ago. "As I thought. Kaelyn, Ilmater has left your fate in my hands. You will enter my service once again, and perhaps, this time, you may come to understand better."
"No-" Kaelyn cried out, but then the silver light swallowed her. When it died, she was gone.
"And good riddance," Safiya muttered.
"Tarva El-Auri," the god of death addressed their leader. "My judgement is decided. Is it still your will to take all of it upon yourself?"
"Lord, it is."
"Well, it's not mine," Gann asserted, Tarva's hand clasped firmly in his. "You have suffered more than enough, my love. I believe it's my turn."
"Gann, no-"
Safiya coughed. "As touching as all this self-sacrificial chatter is, you are both missing the point. Gann, do you really think Tarva would be happy without you? Besides, this was always my mess to clean up." She stepped forward, set her hand to her hips, fixed her eyes on Kelemvor's mask. "Send them home," she demanded.
"I told you," Chauntea interjected quietly.
"You did," Kelemvor admitted. "Tarva El-Auri. Gannayev-of-Dreams. Safiya. There are laws you have broken, and for those laws, there must be payment."
"We do know that part," Safiya told him. "We were listening."
Behind him, the goddess made a small sound that might have been laughter.
"All three of you will be exiled," Kelemvor said.
"Wait-" Chauntea cried, but the silver light of the god's magic – well, if that was the correct term for it (Safiya had never cared for anything other than her own arcane arts, and now was not really the best time to be debating semantics) – flared about them and took them away.
Just a flash, and the three of them were standing outside the grey City of Judgement, the screams of the Wall of the Faithless a faint, uneasy sound in the distance. "Well," Safiya muttered, "that could have gone better."
"Exiled to where, I wonder?" Tarva said, looking about her. The grey Fugue Plane, land of the dead, stretched into the distance.
"Does it matter?" Gann drew Tarva to him, rested his forehead against hers. "As long as we are together, I fear nothing."
"Than you are braver than I," she answered, her hands coming up to thread through his silver hair.
"Not to interrupt..." Safiya said, although of course she did, "but one, we should probably attempt to leave the Fugue Plane sooner rather than later, regardless of where we end up, and two, you are making me feel rather awkward."
"Awkward, fair wizardess? Or left out?" Lips puckered, Gann made a grab for her, which Safiya evaded.
"Awkward," she said firmly, although Gann's good humour was cheering. "As I cannot cast Plane Shift, I suggest we pick a direction."
"Away from the Wall," Tarva said, and began walking.
The screaming faded quickly, leaving them no way to tell how much time passed in the grey changelessness of the Fugue Plane. Safiya thought they had been walking for a while, but she felt no hunger. Nor was she tired from all the fighting they had done earlier, leading Kaelyn's doomed Crusade – as though physical limits simply did not apply.
She mentioned this thought to them, hugging Kaji against her chest – after a moment, the homunculus wriggled free.
"A side-effect of the Fugue Plane, I think," Tarva said, pressed close to Gann, as if to reassure herself that she was free of the curse, that she could touch him without desiring to consume his soul. "But really, isn't that more your field of study?"
"Nobody's really studied the Fugue Plane in much depth," Safiya told her. "Something about death as an entry requirement puts scholars off, particularly without a cleric's support to pull you back afterwards."
"And I thought the Red Wizards were such serious – Gann, what is it?" Tarva stopped and turned to face her hagspawn. He looked just as usual as far as Safiya could tell – green eyes, shaggy silvery hair, purplish skin – but he was staring rather oddly into the distance.
"Dreaming," he muttered. "Near. I've never felt anything like it, not even the Coven." He shook his head and changed direction, pulling Tarva along with him. Her free hand reached into her heavy plate armour and pulled out a small round stone – the Hag's Eye, Safiya saw. Just in case.
"Gann, are you certain abou-"
Safiya had never seen him completely ignore Tarva before.
He was almost running now, racing towards some border or object only he could sense; Tarva keeping up easily and no longer asking for an explanation it seemed he would not give; Safiya running along behind – Red Wizard robes were not constructed for this sort of thing.
Only an instant behind them, she saw Gann crumple. She saw Tarva fall to her knees. She saw the light change.
Then she knew nothing at all.
Author's note: To Dragon Age readers, this is the ending of Mask of the Betrayer. All the relevant points will turn up again. Rest assured that Hawke and the gang will show up in the first chapter. Readers of All it Takes will have noticed several small differences from that story's ending (as well as several great galumphing ones). Rest assured that they were all intentional, even the ones I didn't notice.