Inquisitor
By ElementalsAdvocate
Disclaimer: Everything Dragon Age belongs to Bioware, not me.
Chapter 2: A Light in the Sky
"Tell me why we shouldn't kill you now!"
That was the warrior, growling right beside his ear. Tam flinched away reflexively, gritting his teeth to contain the yelp that had threatened to leap out of his throat like a nug from its burrow.
"The Conclave is destroyed. Everyone who attended is dead. Except for you." The warrior circled Tam, shaking her hand loosely from the wrist as she was trying to pin down some elusive point, while the spy circled in a counterpoint to the Seeker.
Tam could only stare at the Seeker in horrified shock. The Conclave! His memory was suddenly flooding back, as if the very word had jarred it loose from the tenterhooks of his headache.
In 9:37 Dragon,, the Chantry cathedral in Kirkwall was destroyed by a rogue apostate, and that heinous act of terrorism ignited the rising tensions between the Templar Order and the Mages of the Circle into a bloody civil conflict that raged across southern Thedas for nearly four years. Many innocents had been caught in the cross-fire, and it looked like all the nations of the south would drown in blood, steel, and mage-fire.
Finally, Divine Justinia V, head of the Andrastian faith and leader of the Chantry in Val Royeaux, called for a cessation to the violence. Somehow, the Devine managed to convince the leaders of the vying factions to come to a meeting at the Temple of Sacred Ashes in the Frostback Mountains the following spring to settle the dispute. This meeting, called the Conclave, was heralded as the gathering of the Age, and everyone who was anyone was expected to be there.
House Trevelyan, as one of the premiere noble families in the Teyrnir of Ostwick, had sent a large delegation of their own, which included several important Chantry officials from Ostwick. One of Tam's uncles on his mother's side, a Templar Knight-Captain, and several cousins, who were younger initiates of the order, had also elected to come. A great-aunt, a Senior Enchanter of the Ostwick Circle of Magi, had also come to act as Trevelyan House's voice among the Mages. And the whole riotous bunch had been led by his uncle and mentor, Ser Teagan Trevelyan, Champion of Ostwick and three-time winner of the Grand Melee.
And… they're all dead?! How…? Why…?
The warrior's face twisted with rage at Tam's stunned silence. "Explain this," the woman snarled again, reaching down and dragging the offending limb up in front of their eyes, when as if on cue, the limb erupted in another shower of sparks and green flame before promptly flaring out again.
The small jolt of pain which had accompanied the strange burst cleared Tam's head like smelling salts, enough to gasp out a ragged "I can't."
"What do you mean you can't?" It was almost a wail.
"I don't know what that is! Or how it got there."
"You're lying!" The Seeker seized Tam by the collar, eyes wide, lips pulled back from gritted teeth as if in preparation of biting him.
Luckily, the slender woman in the chainmail interceded, calmly dragging the Seeker off Tam with a familiarity in her manner that hinted that this was probably not the first time she had had to pull the Seeker away from an object of rage. The spy spoke for the first time since entering Tam's cell: low, melodic, with an accent he couldn't place, but firm. "We need him, Cassandra."
That statement got Tam's full attention. So, the Seeker's name is Cassandra. And," need me" for what, may I ask?
"I don't understand," Tam said, slowly, clearly, fiercely enunciating each syllable to emphasize his anger, his demand for more information.
"Do you remember what happened? How this began?" the spy asked, turning to Tam, taking over the interrogation while her partner recovered her composure.
Tam thought back, trying to find something to start with. He remembered…
Starring down from the balustrade of the Temple, Tam took in the valley stretched out below him, cupped between the flanks of granite peaks still covered in snow. His eyes sketched the mountains contours, contemplated the setting sun with its vibrant shades of red, orange, gold, pink and violet. However, his eyes were inevitably drawn the valley floor, and the hundreds of tents, carts, and all the paraphernalia of a moving city, or at least several small towns, if you recognized the groupings.
The camps of the Mages were on the northern side of the valley, scattered across the snow in seemingly random groups. Grand tents made of rich fabrics were erected next to make-shift shelters of coarse sack-cloth and pine boughs.
The Templars on the other hand were easy to make out. They had taken over the southern side of the valley, and their tents were arranged in ridged ranks and columns, the regalia of the order clear to see, and small patrols treading the boundaries of the camp were easily discerned from the temple.
Finally, packed precariously between temporarily quiescent factions, were representatives from every nation, city, and organization in southern Thedas were there. Flags showing the double dogs of Farelden, the Lion of Orlais, the skull and crown of Nevarra, Antiva's proud-masted ship and the dragon of Tevinter were all in evidence. Even the far off Anderfels had sent a small delegation, the sign of the sword and flame flapping proudly over their tents. The heraldry of dozens of noble houses was also in evidence, grouped around the flags of their respective nations.
The merchants were all over the place, the rationale being if someone wanted to fight, then that somebody was probably going to want a hot meal and a drink soon after, and it was best to be the one with the product in order to be the first to get the gold. Occasionally, Tam could hear the bellow and cry of a hawker selling their wares among the forest of tents and shelters. Various guilds had also sent representatives, though the Dwarven Merchant's Guild had yet to arrive.
All in all, it was a mess. A big one, and Tam could only wonder at how Devine Justinia could possibly try and extricate her way among so many competing agendas.
"If someone decided to start a fight now, they could probably behead half of Thedas before anyone could even think of saying "stop"."
Tam turned around to find the speaker was his uncle Teagan. The aging champion stepped beside Tam, looking down into the valley and swigging from a steaming mug of mulled cider, a thin trickle of liquid spilling out of the corner of this mouth to run down his massive grey and black beard. Teagan was a big man, despite the natural ravages of time having taken their toll. Broad shoulders were covered in a heavy fur lined cloak, showing off his standard of a black ram on a field of red. Beneath the cloak, Teagan wore thick woolens in Trevelyan House's white and grey with bronze highlights, in a bid to ward off the chill. Spring had technically arrived two weeks ago, but here in the heights at the southern end of the Frostbacks, winter clung on tenaciously.
"What do you think lad?"
"I think you're probably right Uncle. But then again, anyone who tried to start a fight in this confined space would likely be dead in minutes as well. Mutual self-destruction gains nothing."
Teagan grunted sourly. "Tell that to the madman who blew up the chantry in Kirkwall. Mark my words lad, nothing scares a master strategist so much as a fool, for a fool will walk where sane men fear to tread. Speaking of which…?"
"The Devine's personal guard has already combed this place from top to bottom. There's no chance of a repeat of Kirkwall."
"So says the student to the master." Teagan sighed in resignation before draining his mug. "Well, we can only pray that the Maker sees fit to spare us from another tragedy. Not that he ever has."
"Don't let Aunt Careful hear you say that."
"I'm a blasphemous old ram nephew. She knows that well enough by now. And besides, she's all the way in Val Royeaux, acting as her husband's spine from the chantry confessional. And don't quote me on that."
"Of course not, Uncle."
… And after that, he and Teagan had adjourned to their rooms for the night, and then…. And then…
Nothing.
Absolutely nothing! He couldn't remember anything, from the moment he had laid down to sleep that night to the moment he had woken up in the cell. Except…
A staircase of black stone, leading up into a smoky green sky, frantic feet ringing and breath stinging in his lungs…
"I remember running," Tam said slowly, trying desperately to tug at that strand of memory without snapping the line.
"Things were chasing me," giant, eight-legged, snarling, hissing things!
"And then..." glowing, golden, a flame in the darkness, silhouette bright against that terrible sky, "a woman?"
"A woman?" The spy drew back, neck arching like a swan's, eyebrows rising, though whether in surprise or skepticism Tam couldn't tell.
"She reached out to me, but then…" The strand of memory snapped, and Tam allowed his head to fall forward in defeat. "Everything else is just… gone."
He heard the Seeker, Cassandra, step in front of him to speak softly to the red-head spy. He didn't have enough in him to care.
It was- it had been Ser Teagan's dictum: A man's mind was sacred. Passion, fury, rage, fear, despair, anger, envy, pride, all were allowable in small doses, but in their extremes were nothing but demons, and demons killed without mercy or cause. When a man's mind was overcome on the battlefield, that man became a demon, a killer without reason or conscience, that man was a danger to everyone.
That man was killed without question.
Did I become a demon? Is that why I can't remember anything? Did I kill you, Uncle Teagan?
"Go to the forward camp, Leliana. I will take him to the rift."
Tam felt rather than saw Cassandra step close and bend down, stabbing a key into the lock on the manacles which bound his wrists, snapping them open with a quick spin.
"What… what did happen?"
The Seeker flicked her eyes up to stare into his own for an icy moment.
"It will be easier to show you."
After binding his hands together with cord and taking the chains from his feet, Tam followed Cassandra meekly down a long, dark corridor lined with cells and lit by more fitfully burning torches in wall sconces at regular intervals. Then, up a long, wide, straight staircase of more cut stone and up into a long hall, dark except the light filtering through the cracks in a massive pair of double doors at the far end.
"Open," was Cassandra's terse command, and the soldiers who had followed them from the cell rushed to push open the portal. Bright, wane sunlight spilled through the widening crack, and as Tam followed Cassandra through he had to shield his eyes from the brilliance which dazzled him and the blast of frigid air which accompanied it.
As his eyes adjusted to the daylight, Tam saw a collection of small cottages, buildings and tents, all inside a wooden palisade, and suddenly realized where he was. Haven! The collection of
As he took in the he heard a far-off rumble, like thunder or waves crashing against cliffs. Tam turned his head slightly to find the source of the sound, and beheld a sight that would remain with him to the end of his days.
High above the forbidding peaks that surrounded Haven, a giant… hole had appeared in the sky. Massive, angry grey cloud banks swirled around a nexus of green light, burning like a second sun in the sky. Something floated across the face of the green storm, and Tam realized that it was a titanic block of stone, one of several which hovered and spun beneath the light. A single great tendril like a coiling serpent, formed from clouds and green lightning, draped from the center of the maelstrom, connecting sky to the earth before it disappeared behind the bulk of the mountains.
"We call it "The Breach,"" Said Cassandra, never taking her eyes off the roiling mass. "It's a massive rift into the world of the demons that grows larger with each passing hour. It's not the only such rift," Cassandra turned back to Tam, her face empty of expression, "just the largest. All were caused by the explosion at the Conclave."
Tam gaped at her. "An explosion can do that?" Is this what happened at Kirkwall? No, someone probably would have mentioned a gigantic hole in the sky if it was there.
"This one did." The Seeker looked Tam square in the eye. "Unless we act, the Breach may grow until it swallows the world."
The swirling vortex hanging above their heads shuddered, spitting flares of lightning. Simultaneously, the pain in Tam's arm suddenly redoubled, the mark blazing bright as if in answer to The Breach's distress. The pain drove Tam to his knees, a scream ripping from his throat before the green fire died out. He clutched his hand reflexively to his chest, riding out the echoing waves of pain which racked his body.
"Each time the Breach expands, your Mark spreads… and it is killing you." Cassandra knelt in front of Tam, gesturing at his hand for emphasis. "It may be the key to stopping this, but there isn't much time."
Tam stared at the Seeker, askance, "You say it may be the key… to doing what?
"Closing the Breach. Whether that's possible is something we shall discover shortly. It is our only chance however. And yours."
Tam almost laughed at the less-than-subtle threat, "You still think I did this? To myself?"
"Not intentionally. Something clearly went wrong."
"And if I'm not responsible?" Tam snapped.
"Someone is," the Seeker stated coolly, "and you are our only suspect. You wish to prove your innocence? This is the only way."
Tam looked into the Seeker's eyes, trying to find some hint of deceit or malice, to discover if this was indeed all just a big, cruel joke. And found none, only a frank, resolute appraisal and an implacable determination to see a task done right.
Tam breathed deep, feeling suddenly as if he were standing upon the edge of precipice, and let it out. "I understand."
The Seeker's eyes widened slightly in surprise, "Then…?"
"I'll do what I can," Tam said simply, "Whatever it takes."
Wordless, the Seeker nodded, stood up and pulled Tam to his feet.
Together, they started walking.
Into the unknown.
Authors notes:
I would like to send a big "Thank You" to everyone who read my story this week. I'm posting this chapter a little early because I've got school starting next week. Please don't hesitate to post me with suggestions or corrections. Next week, it's on to the Breach.
