Impossible Things Before Breakfast
Or, Through the hole in the floor, and what Cadash found there.
Based on the Codex entry "A Different Darkspawn?"
"Not the same thing a bit!" said the Hatter. "You might just as well say that 'I see what I eat' is the same thing as 'I eat what I see!'"
- Lewis Carroll
This was a place of nightmares. She was a Carta smuggler, damn it. Used to nasty places and nastier people. Not nasty Deep Roads. Stuffed in her coat, her hands shook like a herd of brontos was fixing to charge.
New smuggler route, Andraste's ass. When she found Edric Cadash, she was wringing her coz's nug-shit neck. After she found her way out of here. If...
Her wrist throbbed, and her head hurt worse than the week after a poxy whorehouse. Cracked her face against something on the way down, most likely—there was blood, but not enough to get in her eyes.
When the tunnel floor fell out from under her and she somersaulted into darkness only to land on something soft, she thanked the Stone she scarce believed in. A tunnel black as sin, squishy things under her, but she wasn't dead.
She couldn't believe her luck that the pitch-dark had a bit of light at the end. How far down did mining tunnels become Deep Roads? Orzammar wouldn't have boots this far east. The Carta wouldn't have a base this far from merchants. Legion of the Dead then, or even Grey Wardens. Neither would kill her on sight…hopefully.
The dwarf rolled to her feet and groaned as a cleaver seemed to split her skull. Shit. Hopefully she hadn't bruised her little brain. Her neck felt sticky all the way to her hair, probably from whatever she landed on. Wet clay, or some epic pile of deepstalker shit.
Wincing into the light, she took another step and gagged. If she'd had any food in her it would've been on her boots. The smell. Fouler than shit and corpses and tanneries. That's when she saw it, curled in a corner, ribs jutting up and out of its skin like broken cockroach legs. Her stomach dropped into a cold pit.
Darkspawn.
Shitshitshitshitshit!
She hadn't seen many, and never a live one, but her heart crawled into her throat all the same. Why just one? Those fuckers never traveled alone. And this one…she'd seen a man's chest after a maul was done with it. A maul hadn't done this. It looked like someone had grabbed each of its ribs and ripped them through its sides.
She couldn't see anything behind her. It didn't much matter where she went, but going forward would get her somewhere. She couldn't get any more lost.
Fighting darkspawn though, that was an Orzammar thing, not a Carta thing. Something niggled in her dizzy mind about darkspawn and ladies. Fuck, this was why she stuck to the surface.
She'd been up all night and ready to fall into a rock-hard sleep hours ago, before the tumble, so maybe that smoothed her nerves. It was easier to breathe as she took the tunnel to a wider chamber, this one lit brighter. It was…
What. The. Fuck. What in Andraste's Maker-fucked cunt is—
"I did not expect a visitor. Are you alone?"
The slow, withered voice came from a darkspawn. One of those witchy ones with the funny hats. Emissary. A talking darkspawn. With a funny hat. And a mask. The emissary stood behind a table, an old dwarven table, lacquer chipped away, lit by a hanging sconce. Chasind-sized hurlocks and another emissary sat around it. At the masked darkspawn's voice, the hurlock closest to her stood too, and the other emissary clanked and hunched halfway.
Her throat was wriggling, her breath hitching, her head swimming. She was probably about to collapse in laughing hysterics. The darkspawn's head tilted, spidery hands clasped in front of him. No staff.
"I asked if you were alone." The darkspawn said it like she was simple. "Shake your head if you cannot speak."
"Yes." The squeak would've made her blush any other time.
Looking up at his covered eyes was too weird. She looked at the table instead. It was covered in cups and saucers, dainty as flowers, rimmed in purple lazurite. A handful of bigger dishes too, enameled in—the mad giggles almost started again—enameled in stones she'd swear were knockoffs if the owner wasn't a viscount or higher. Even the bloody candlesticks were silverite.
The emissary seemed to loosen. With a human or dwarf she'd call it relaxing.
"You were not invited, but we have an empty seat. A guest had to be removed for contrary behavior."
She thought of the butchered creature back in the hall. Darkspawn were nasty bastards, but that one had its ribs twisted around like an Orlesian art show. There way another tunnel, past the table and darkspawn, just as dark as the one behind her. Darkspawn...she couldn't imagine them needing light to navigate pitch-black Deep Roads. She did. If—if she got around them, she'd just as likely fall down a hole twice as deep. No fucking way did she feel safe here, but no one was reaching for blades. Rocks grinded into her temples at a steady pulse. It hurt to think. It hurt to stand.
"This one sits," growled the Hurlock who'd stood, gesturing at the empty seat next to him. Not a proper dining seat. An armchair. Something she'd see in a study, plush even, if not for the dark splotches on the arms.
"Um."
Manners. That's what Ma always insisted. "As a last resort they're always too little too late. But as a first…" She sighed, weathered and drained. "I could point out all the bones who wouldn't have died if they'd treated me and mine with a bit of courtesy." It only took so many slaps across the mouth to get that. Ma was four years in the ground, a Carta dowager of the surface, paid proper respect when the Orzammar wench fell. If she had returned to the Stone or special rocks or whatever, hopefully she'd guide her whelp's rash tongue.
She took the offered seat, nearly bursting out of it when the hurlock shoved it against the table. It sandwiched her knees between cushion and stone. Nerves writhed in her throat. Swallowing helped a little.
"Thank you, sers. I am…" The proper word wriggled like a school of fish, so many to pick, all hard to snatch. "…so pleased, to sit at your table. I apologize for…" Gate-crashing? Stumbling in? That lacked a refining touch. "…Arriving uninvited." Maybe the word didn't matter so much as the courtesy behind it.
"It is a minor intrusion. Thank you for staying," her host said graciously.
The growling hurlock took his seat too, pawing at the little teacup. His face looked…earnest.
Tea. Tea with nug-fucking darkspawn. Her lips and fingers had gone half-numb.
"Messere—" That was an ass-kissing title, wasn't it? "—I'm sorry but I don't know your name." Manners. Was she taking long enough to say the important shit?
Her host nodded. Bowed more like it, long neck dipping and everything. No one had ever greeted her like that. "My apologies. I am the Architect. Beside you is the Messenger, also from the surface."
He extended a sinewy, disturbingly graceful arm at the hurlock beside her, who made little bubbling clicks with his horrid teeth.
"So very grateful the Father remembers me," the creature bashfully gargled.
Something like a smile tugged at the Architect's corpse-pale mouth. "I hold few with more regard. You helped convinced the Warden-Commander of our cause."
Warden-Who? Last she heard the Wardens killed darkspawn—at least before they disappeared. They didn't snuggle in for tea together. Unless this Blight business was a mighty fine racket. Then the masked faced turned to her, and she saw no sense in lying.
"I'm Cara Cadash," she offered.
He repeated it back to her, slowly, like he'd never heard the pithy joys of alliteration. Cara, short for Carat. Her Papa wanted to give her a name worthy of jewels, but never noticed her pumpkin-colored hair. He died, but she lived on as a root vegetable. At least it taught her to use the stick first, the carrot hardly ever. Unless it was a towering darkspawn and his scaly posse.
That's when the other emissary…tea party-goer…looked her straight in the eye, teeth bared. "You embrace this madness?" His head rolled toward the stone ceiling. "Toth, your priest begs you, deliver me!"
The beast looked feckin' nuts. Green eyes flashed like Fade-touched veridium in the candlelight. Rough black streaks forked up his neck, making her think of those fancy brands the Dalish wore, but half as delicate. They pulled at his glass-sharp cheeks, making him smile even if his eyes hadn't smiled in a thousand years. His? Darkspawn didn't have he's and she's, but she couldn't help it. Even if he and this Architect seemed to wear dresses.
A shushing sound from the Architect. "Calm yourself. Your memories will be slow to return. Mine I think are damaged beyond repair." Those spider-hands grazed the emissary's cheek, earning bared teeth and trembling restraint. The Architect looked at her, hand slipping to massage the creature's neck. "You must pardon the Virger. He is…also newly returned."
Cara couldn't help but stare, as much as everything taught her staring too long was bad for all involved. The Virger hadn't hands so much as talons, which screeched against the table. Eyes squeezed shut, shoulders twitching. The hurlock to his right scowled like he was ready to crack his ribs.
That was when her host glided—really, he barely bobbled—to the little fire beside the table, where a tea pot hung above the flames. She squinted closer, some sense bleeding back into her aching head. That teapot wasn't gold—why the fuck would it be on a fire if it was?—but something like it. Volcanic aurum. Goldish color, didn't melt. She'd sell a tooth for a chunk of it. Who the fuck used that for a teapot? A rich motherfucker. Or a feckin' dangerous scavenger.
The Architect delicately circled the table, pouring tea into the fancy china cups. Not that she was any raging fan of tea, unless it had Edric's mushrooms, but it was steaming so adorably in her dainty cup. She wasn't sure if she wanted to smash it or treasure it.
Her host retook the center seat. Suddenly half a dozen beady eyes rolled onto her and her stomach flopped.
Cheeeenk. The Architect pushed a pink jar to her, its gold spoon chittering against the porcelain, sunk neck-deep in sugar.
A clinking rattle and he set a little spouted cup near her too. Um…milk? The cup was covered, but what else was it supposed to be? Blood?
"Have you an opinion on preparing tea?" His voice was like ancient, frayed silk. None of the creatures touched theirs. The Architect's head tilted again in cool curiosity. "The human lands never appear to agree. Strange…unfortunate…when one can test the most efficient method."
"Are you testing me?" Tested at a tea party. Of all the things she'd tell her grand-kiddies.
"I watch."
The cut across her forehead wasn't dripping, but the sting was catching up to the ache. She massaged her temples. Obviously she'd pashed her head open falling through the old mining tunnel, her little brain was swelling inside her skull, and she was seeing shit crazier than that time with the mushrooms.
Manners you lowborn bitch. Ma could crack sense into her across the grave.
"Sorry—my pardons—messere. I've never learned much about tea. What's the proper way?"
She had that feeling like in the Carta, when her rash tongue led her astray and half a dozen fair-weather friends gawped quietly and struck her off their acquaintances. This time it was those hurlock brutes. But a part of her thought they didn't know nothing about tea or people. Folks didn't ask shit like that if some part of them didn't want to talk about it. Darkspawn…not people.
As she thought, he reached for her tea.
"Water only need be at the proper temperature to catalyze the best flavor." A raspy sigh, and his lithe long fingers pushed and plucked softly enough a cutpurse would blush. "The base must be pure, before it is accented."
She was too nervy to catch quite what he did, but the resulting cup was a pleasant gold-brown. His hurlocks were bobbing their heads along…must've been her dizzy head, but it made her think of guards who'd heard their boss's war stories twelve-dozen times.
Offered the dainty cup of darkspawn tea, Cara wondered if she was about to be puking up blood. The tea party-goers though, with a dozen rows of teeth between them, made her think better of getting finicky now.
She took a small sip.
It was…nice. Warm, herbal…whatever other majestic wonders it was supposed to be. But just like that one Marcher lord with his lyrium connections and the profoundly grave way he offered her wine from his vineyard, she didn't care to fuck this up.
"I've never had tea so fine."
If he heard her false enthusiasm, maybe he didn't care on account of her courtesy. A flurry around her then, of hurlocks grappling for milk and sugar like drunk Carta after fried nug-skins. The table earned a few more gouges.
One of them growled "Meat!" and the others chorused like toothy bullfrogs. The presiding host plucked a stormheart-inlaid lid from a serving dish. Beneath were…
Cara nearly sputtered. Pretty-fours? Canapés? Something like that. Those Orlesian sandwich bites.
The scramble ratcheted up. Above it all, she heard the Architect sigh. The Messenger suddenly offered one in his scabbed paw.
"You try." The paw came closer. "Sweetmeats."
You've probably sucked on worse.
Her herky-jerky smile was still a smile, a nicer one than the Hurlock with the maw of serrated gnashers. She plopped the whatever-the-fuck-it-was into her mouth. Too big to swallow. Trying to keep her tongue far away, she bit down. Nug? Some light meaty texture, undercooked, wrapped in what she'd swear was elfroot. Andraste's tits, she'd need to smoke a field of it after this.
"Delicious," she offered.
"Profane!" the Virger howled, stone chipping under his claws, making the hurlocks grouse and fidget. Cara wriggled back in her seat as much as she could. The deranged emissary continued to rave. "Empty thrones and empty gods…I refuse to believe! Toth I will not falter! Punish me for pride but I beg you, give me back my m—"
"Hush." The Architect's bone-white fingers wrapped under the darkspawn's throat, tightening, until the beast went limp.
With careless distaste that would make the Carta bosses jealous, he let the Virger flop onto the table, wheezing and snuffling. The Architect's fingers soon returned to kneading his nape, but his cadaver-face turned to her.
"I believe the Imperium respected the dwarven empire for its ingenuity. Answer me if you can, what would your hierophants do if they woke and could not remember who they were, or their purpose?
Hiero-what-the-fucks? Maybe he meant deshyrs or Shapers. Not people she caroused with. And yet, waking up with scraggly memories—Cara Cadash knew a thing or two about that. It wasn't so rare she woke up next to a warm stranger, trying to piece together who they were and how many drinks got her here, or if this was the poor fuck the Carta was going to break if gold didn't change hands.
Well I'd…hmm. If the stranger looked merry or ridiculously pretty, she'd probably wake them up with her…Not what he's asking.
"I can't speak for every dwarf. I'd be very nice and hope someone helped me remember. I wouldn't want to be, um, poorly-mannered just for waking up groggy." She thought a moment more. No harm in that…it made you look sincere. "If I forgot what I was supposed to be doing, I'd figure it wasn't very important."
Or figure if no one was kicking down my door it couldn't have been that bad a fuck-up. Or it was such a massive fuck-up someone way higher in the Carta was getting broken for it.
The Architect nodded. The hurlocks seemed to be growing testier that the Messenger had swiped the last sweetmeats.
"I thank you for your answer." He said it politely enough, but Cara got the feeling she'd said nothing useful.
A crackly, rattling sound and she realized the Virger was cackling at the Architect. Or crying. Up 'til a few minutes ago she hadn't thought darkspawn did either. Or talk, or wear funny hats, or have tea parties. Though…looking closer, trying hard not to stare, it seemed less a hat than a really fucked-up head.
The cackle continued, the Virger's grinning cheeks making him look like a corpse that had sat up and merrily terrified a funeral.
"You remember less than me and I hate you for it!"
He yanked—Cara finally saw one wrist was manacled to the table. Andraste's tits, she'd never chain someone up by one little hand. Hands could break into as many pieces as needed to wriggle free, if pain wasn't persuasive.
The emissary's taloned hand ripped free with half its skin and at least one dislocated digit. The hurlocks chittered and howled, at least one teacup bounced right off the table.
Finally, a party she recognized.
The Architect sighed, and the hurlock to his left pulled out a crossbow.
Choom!
A thwack, a squeal, and a flopping body. The Virger missed the backway out and crashed into the wall. China quaked as scabby paws pounded the table in approval.
"Perhaps when he mends he will be more amenable to discourse."
Judging by his guests, that wasn't happening. The Messenger was carefully pouring more milk into his tea—covertly, no doubt averse to disrespecting 'efficient method.' Every other beast had gone back to grousing for meat. Growling, and looking at her with smiles that had more teeth by the moment, too many to begin with.
Her stomach went a little more hollow. No one survived in the Carta without a sense for deals going sour. Sweetmeats.
Fuckfuckfuck. Few called her sweet, but these folks didn't seem the dwelling-on-details types.
The tunnel past the tea party was dark, maybe filled with more uninvited guests. Attractive next to this slavering crowd. She set down her tea, the clatter on the saucer too loud for her pounding head. Her wrist was pulsing up to her elbow now, purpling at the sides.
"Ah, messere." She couldn't stand, so she sat as tall as she could. "Thank you very much for the tea, but I'll surely be late for my engagement if I dally any longer. If you will please excuse me."
Manners weren't just about respect, Ma always said. Manners were a way to buy time. Enough time to feel her knives were all there, and twist her weight so she could probably squirm free if she had to. Even piss-drunk she'd never think she could take them, but she wasn't getting blindsided like that Virger loony.
The Architect seemed to snap out of some good think, or whatever darkspawn did when they stared off into space. She couldn't see his eyes, but the masked bits turned in her direction. A small sigh.
Shit. Maybe she was always meant to be the second course. Now this darkspawn bastard would sadly tell her she couldn't leave. Fair was fair—she took her seat, sipped her tea. Still, Cara was a Cadash, she wasn't going down without a—
"You will not reach the surface on your own." She got the feeling he was finally gauging his guests' growing…festivity. "The Messenger will escort you."
Oh. Well then.
The hurlock made a few garbled mutterings as he stood—Cara wasn't sure if the Messenger was annoyed or pleased to do his bidding. Whichever, he hauled her heavy chair back. Before she could slide off, two scaly hands plopped her onto the floor. Her head wasn't doing so well though, so this hopping around made the room sway and her stomach pitch.
Why am I being served tea by a talking darkspawn? If a darkspawn could be deflated, this Architect looked it. A bit like a Carta boss when an apprentice fucked up. Or a table of apprentices…ones who had less love for tea than she did, and much more hunger for meat.
So she let the Messenger lead her around the table of slavering hyenas, stepping over the wheezing emissary. The dark tunnel was her way out, if this wasn't some elaborate game that would end in her splattered over the tunnel walls and served as the next appetizer.
"Lady Cadash," the Architect said, tone indifferent, "It would be best if you did not return here."
She mumbled back a probably-proper farewell. It was hard to think straight between a dozen fixed eyes, a throbbing head, and a stomach sloshing with Maker-damned tea.
The tunnel had barely enough light she didn't trip over her own feet. Then it forked. The Architect's comment made more sense. As she drifted closer to the right fork, a heavy hand dropped onto her shoulder and tugged. It careened her right into him. He didn't let her fall.
"Not there. She has not woken."
The smell was ranker that way anyway. She? Orzammar shit, not Carta shit.
Cara didn't care about what was in the ground besides lyrium. What else was underground? Darkspawn. Golems. Lava. Deepstalkers. Deshyrs.
Nope, she was perfectly happy on the surface.
She felt even surer when two giant scrabbly spiders lunged from the shadows. One got her dagger in its face, the other got half its legs ripped off by the Messenger. Somehow, a pair of mandibles still gnashed into her forearm.
Someone was joggling her poor head. She cracked open an eye so she could spit in his face, but hissed from the light and snapped it shut.
"Caaarrot…"
She forced both eyes open, blinking from the pain, but a smile tore across her mouth before she could help it.
"Where the fuck have you been?"
Edric crouched in front of her, all big blue eyes and rakish-sweet smile. Dressed for a fight too, with his boiled leather breastplate and a rolled collar around his throat. Maker, she'd fuck him if he wasn't her first cousin.
"That little scuffle between Leske and the Dasher?" He thumbed the cut across her forehead, making sure it had scabbed. "Turned into a small war. This was an ambush."
So Jagg and Lark were going to fuck her over the whole time. Shit. They were just old fuckers who'd been little pieces before the Blight, only to claw their way up in the chaos and pick their own little pieces.
Peeping around her, she sat against the mouth of a mine shaft, legs flopped over the tracks for a cart. Not the way she came in.
Cara demured. "Didn't see them."
He looked closer. "Then where'd the blood come from?"
"I fell through a hole."
Shit, is it so complicated? It was fuzzy for a splendid moment. Dwarves didn't dream, but she reckoned she'd seen some funny shit off Edric's mushrooms. This wasn't so different, then he had to go start slapping pieces together. Shrugging, she felt the crackly pull of blood-soaked tailoring.
Her soft, squishy landing was fortunate. Her head had been too dazed to think more than that. It was too dark to see blood, and too much darkspawn reek to smell it.
Sweetmeats. Aw shitshitshit. No wonder they were looking at her like the second round of canapés. Of course she'd had to go and eat one. Hopefully Jagg bits—he was a bigger bastard than Lark.
She managed another shrug, her arm twinging. "They probably found the hole first and I landed on them. It was dark and I've got no Stone sense. Help me up?"
Edric snorted and hauled her to her feet, but it was too fast and she groaned as she stumbled into him. Oh shit, she really was going to puke little bits of tea and Jagg—she clamped her mouth closed until her teeth squeaked. You didn't repay dashing rescues by barfing on their boots. Anyway, she'd rather burrow her face into his chest, block out the light, than piece together all that happened. It was still a bit foggy.
Then she caught sight of her arm.
Oh. The spot where the spider had bitten was wrapped in a small strip of stained red cloth, tied in an impeccable bow. No amount of nuzzling could stall her mind.
The bandage was tied around her arm by a darkspawn, who'd gruffled when she gasped. White-hot spider venom was bubbling around the bite, acid spiking through her veins
Now in the light, Cara wasn't dead, and her arm wasn't hacked off at the elbow. She hadn't seen, only felt, and knew only one decent not-magic way to get venom out. There were sharky little teethmarks under her bandage, where the Messenger had sucked out the worst of the poison. He'd carried her part of the way too, when it was too dark or painful to see much.
By the time Edric gave her a sip of water from his pack and boosted her onto his stocky little horse, Cara had written the day off as too fucked-up to dwell on. She sure as hell wasn't telling her coz.
Her head still throbbed, and this rescue on horseback just jolted more pins down her forehead.
"What next?" she mumbled into his back.
"The Divine's holding a peace talk at that Frostbacks temple place. Between the Templars and robes, lyrium will be flowing like milk."
Milk. That niggling from before returned.
"Just you?"
He sighed. "You're in rough shape. I'm taking you to get that head looked at."
"I'm fine."
A chuckle rumbled through him. He held up a hand and her neck strained to follow. "How many fingers am I holding?"
And with that, she finally heaved up that stupid tea and her bite or two of Jagg, right off the side of his horse. The little gelding jerked to a halt as Edric reined up.
"Oh Cara." His voice was part sympathy, more parts relief she hadn't splattered him.
She coughed and shuddered, scrabbling for his canteen to gargle out the bile-rot taste. It wasn't trying to count his damn wiggling fingers. They just dredged up more of Ma's old darkspawn stories. Stories about wriggling things, and why ladies had more to fear from darkspawn. It wasn't just the stories or the Messenger's warning. It was a question.
If the canapés came from the Carta, where had the darkspawn gotten the milk?
A question for a time half-past never.