There's always such a lot of fuss about Halloween at this time of year, but here in the UK it is closely followed by Bonfire Night. Remember, remember the 5th of November, gunpowder, treason and plot. With this in mind, I've written a Fawkes-Night-influenced story. I hope you enjoy it!
Love and hugs to all my readers, both old and new. Karen xx
-oOo-
Smuggling such an unusual, volatile and bulky commodity into Orzammar wasn't easy, even for one of such power and influence. There could be no bribes, no blind eyes turned. Anyone who set eyes on the shipment must die, and quickly, before a single word could be passed to another. Eventually, however, it was done. In a long-overlooked cavern below the Assembly, six innocuous-looking barrels huddled together, their shadows streaming out long and wavering in the light of the single torch, held at a careful distance by their new owner. Pale blue eyes gleamed with cunning and triumph in the same weak torchlight. Many favours had been pulled in to achieve this, and a solemn vow made that there would be no attempt to decipher the recipe.
Stamped onto the side of each barrel was the symbol of the Qun.
-oOo-
"Atrast vala, Paragon. I hope you slept well?" The greeting from his brother's First, Vartag Gavorn, was respectful as ever, even while his flat black eyes sought for any weakness which may be exploited. A servant pulled out a chair for Duran to sit, and began to dish up breakfast from the various covered platters.
"Perfectly well, I thank you." Duran offered Vartag a bland smile and turned his attention to the woman crumbling bread at the foot of the table. "And you, Rica? No need to ask if you are well, the bloom in your cheeks tells its own tale." In fact, she was deathly pale and started slightly at being addressed. "I hear that young Endrin began his weapons training yesterday. How pleased he must be!"
The mention of her son settled Rica a little and she was able to answer him with a certain amount of composure. However, her description of Endrin's triumphs with a wooden training sword was cut short by the entrance of a member of the King's personal guard.
"Atrast vala, Paragon." The greeting was accompanied by a bow for Duran and a nod of recognition for his companions at breakfast. "I apologise for interrupting your meal, but King Bhelen requests your presence on a matter of the utmost urgency."
-oOo-
When Duran had first returned to his homeland, as a Grey Warden seeking aid, none of his surface companions had understood why he would put his treacherous brother on the throne. Alistair in particular, weak-minded idiot that he was, had been horrified.
But… but… he tried to have you killed, he got you exiled. How can you support him after that?
How does one explain to a surfacer that vengeance is not a dish one serves hot? Especially Alistair, whose thirst for revenge had ultimately proved so all-encompassing that he had thrown away everything rather than see Loghain made useful.
To Duran it was perfectly simple. The fact that his brother had plotted against him – and such a beautiful little plot it had been; Duran had no hesitation in admitting his admiration of Bhelen's subtle ingenuity – this fact was as nothing compared to the cold reality that Bhelen was an Aeducan. Why anyone in their right mind would believe that he'd put Harrowmont on the throne of Orzammar while an Aeducan lived was beyond him.
And so the two brothers had smiled and clasped hands, and two pairs of cold blue eyes had masked their true thoughts. Later, when Duran was affirmed Paragon and returned to Orzammar once more, they had done so again. Nothing, Bhelen declared, could make him happier than to see his brother home again. But behind the smiles, Duran had seen the frustrated fury. To be King, just as a long line of Aeducan ancestors had been, was one thing. To be Paragon… only one other Aeducan had achieved it and his name sang louder in the Memories than any King. Duran had beaten Bhelen, despite everything.
It was with this thought prominent in his mind that Duran entered the King's private quarters to find Bhelen pacing in agitated fashion. Something must have really got his knickers in a twist – as the surfacers were fond of saying – to make him show such lack of restraint before his blood rival.
"Duran, thank the Ancestors you're here!"
-oOo-
He hated making such a show of weakness before his brother, but needs must. Bhelen seized Duran's hands, his own trembling just slightly with nerves. "The moment I heard, I sent for you. If it's true then it's a disaster for Orzammar, for all of us." He released his brother, conscious of his scrutiny and turned to plant a hand against the wall, his head bowed.
"Tell me, brother." Duran's voice was deep, reassuring, moving in close behind where Bhelen still stood with bowed head. "We'll fix it, whatever it is."
"There's been a sighting, only at a distance, but… Duran, it was directly beneath us, beneath the Assembly Chamber itself, separated by only a thin wall." Bhelen allowed a thread of panic to enter his voice, got his face under total control and turned to face Duran. "The scout wasn't certain, he'd never seen one, only heard descriptions from the stories of your exploits." He made no effort to prevent the sour note from creeping in – Duran would expect it and be suspicious if it wasn't there – but it twisted in his gut nonetheless. Duran the big hero, the Paragon; the brother who should have died under the axe rather than being thrown into the Deep Roads to be scooped up by that Stone-damned Warden. "A broodmother, Duran, practically within Orzammar! Nothing could be worse. You're the only one who'll know for sure, the only one who has experience of those horrors."
Duran frowned, his face twisting in distaste. "A broodmother? Surely not. How could one get so close?"
"I have no idea. She escaped, perhaps? Tried to return home and changed along the way?" It was possible, if not plausible and enough to make the former Warden nod slowly. "Brother, perhaps the scout is wrong, but we can't risk it. Such a monster, popping out the 'spawn in ever-increasing numbers… we'd be overrun in no time, just like Kal-Sharok and all the other cities."
"Of course." Duran was all brisk business, the decision made. "I'll need a hand-picked team."
"Take whoever you want. Name them and they shall be ready to go within the hour." Expendable, whoever they were. Nothing was as important as this.
The moment Duran was out the door, Bhelen sent a message to Steward Bandalor, calling the deshyrs into a session of the Assembly. The pretext was a trade decision that affected every House, important enough to have them all scurrying to attend, sufficiently non-vital that Bhelen had been able to hold it back for several days awaiting the right moment.
So many plans he had on hold, so many obstacles littering his path. With the Assembly blown to smithereens and the Paragon blamed, Bhelen would finally have a free hand. He spent the next hour checking and re-checking everything, mentally rehearsing the moment when he would dash out with a belated warning, the sorrowful speech he would make as the deshyrs were consigned to the Stone. Certainly their heirs would expect to rebuild the Assembly, take up their positions within it, but for several years it would be chaos. There would be plenty of time for a strong King to reshape Orzammar according to his own vision.
These pleasant thoughts were scattered by the unexpected arrival of Rica, his concubine, his love, the mother of his son. Bhelen was shocked by her appearance; her usually well-dressed red hair was dishevelled, her eyes wide with terror.
"My lord Bhelen!" Rica practically fell into his arms; he could feel the trembling of her limbs. "My king, you have to stop him, please!"
"What? Stop who? My sweet, tell me, what troubles you?"
"Your brother, he's-" A storm of sobs shook her, and she pressed her face to his chest. "He's taken Endrin- I tried to stop him, but-" She looked up at him then, green eyes wide. "He was insane, laughing. He said he wouldn't be your fool twice. He said to tell you that if you wanted your son, you'd find him over a barrel. Bhelen, I don't understand what he meant. What have you done?"
Endrin. My only son. His thoughts echoed her words. What have I done? Thirty seconds later, Bhelen was out the door and shouting for his guards.
-oOo-
The bickering and bitching of the deshyrs reached them even through the closed doors of the Assembly, rising sharply in volume as the guards on the door admitted them. The dark-haired man, his pale blue gaze sweeping over the assembled nobles, his arm tucked comfortingly around the weeping red-head by his side.
"Paragon Duran!" Steward Bandalor hurried to greet him, as the arguments tailed off into mutters. "Your presence honours us. Please, take up your position in the Assembly; with your… guest, of course."
Duran seized Bandalor's arm, his grip tight enough to make the old man wince. "End the session, Steward. End it now and get the deshyrs out of here." His deep voice filled the chamber, reaching easily to even the most distant inhabitant. "The King seeks to dissolve the Assembly by treacherous means; even now he goes to light the fuse of enough Qunari powder to blow this chamber up to the surface lands! I've sent troops to arrest him, but there's no guarantee they will reach him in time. Get to safety. Now!"
-oOo-
He didn't blame Rica; a Prince's power and an Aeducan's blood were the most important things in the world. Duran understood that, better than anyone. The seed in her belly had been Aeducan, but an outcast's seed would not save her from Dust Town. For that she needed a Prince, and had seized gratefully upon Bhelen's patronage. When Duran had returned a Warden, she had offered to go with him but he had refused. It was better that his son grow up an Aeducan and one day take the throne, than live as a Warden's brat.
Now, with Bhelen caught red-handed, executed for his crimes, and his body thrown into the Deep Roads for the vermin to devour – no reprieve in the Deep Roads for him – Duran accepted the throne from the grateful Assembly and declared that he would adopt his brother's son Endrin and name him as his heir. His brother's former concubine, Rica, would be taken into his household in all honour, in recognition of her loyalty to Orzammar in revealing Bhelen's dastardly plot.
-oOo-
The dark shape was impossibly tall and broad by the standards of the dwarva, and even by those of surface men. It subjected the barrels to a careful inspection in solemn silence before standing upright again and speaking in familiar, gravelly tones.
"The seals are unbroken."
Duran nodded. "As promised." It hadn't been easy; several dwarven alchemists would have killed for the chance to analyse the contents of those barrels, but the Crown had insisted – Orzammar didn't need war with the Qunari, and war it would undoubtedly be unless those barrels were returned intact.
Sten inclined his head. "Yes, Ka'dan. As promised."
"Thank you, Sten. I know that without your word to back mine, your masters would never have permitted this loan."
"This is true."
Bhelen had been allowed to believe that his promises and bribes had secured the blackpowder he needed for his plot. If he'd known the Qunari better, if he'd known them at all, then he would have realised the impossibility of such a thing.
-oOo-
Once again, a Paragon King Aeducan ruled in Orzammar, and the dwarven nation rejoiced.
And, on the same night every year, an effigy was paraded around the Commons to be reviled by the populace. Four and a half feet tall, and stuffed with sawdust and rags to make it as broad and solid as a man of Orzammar; it was mounted on an rough-hewn iron chair and carried by four strong men. All of the dwarva - nobles, craftsmen and even brands – lined the Commons to pelt it with rotten refuse, and watch as it was hurled from its 'throne' into the Deep Roads. And all the while the children danced and sang:
Recall, recall, on the fifth of Firstfall,
blackpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason
why blackpowder treason
should ever be forgot.
When Duran finally accepted his Calling and stepped into the Deep Roads - with the approving roar of his people ringing in his ears, and the last sight of Endrin's pride-filled face still before his eyes - he found quite a pile of them. The older ones were rotten to the touch, and even the most recent had been ripped open, their innards taken by deepstalkers for their nests. But strands of yellow wool clung to every stuffed head and blue bead eyes seemed to flash hatred in the light of his torch.
It cheered Duran up immensely.
-oOo-