PART I
-The Winds of Autumn-
Solena
Maker, make me not a mage. Please. Let it be a long and terrible dream.
She knew nothing of the Harrowing. Mages were not allowed to speak of it and if they did, they were not heard from again. Solena would not let herself think on it for too long. Preoccupying herself with the world's injustices would not help her today.
Her firm resolve, for all it was worth, made it no easier for her to climb the grand staircase to the Tower's topmost level. Her mind screamed at her to turn back and run as fast as her legs could carry her, as little sense as that made. Where would she go if she could leave, she wondered. To the half-remembered mother who did not miss her? To the father she never knew? Not bloody likely. To the far reaches of the map, she decided. To the mountains of the Anderfels, to the white beaches of Rivain. Sand between your fingers, her mind chanted. Salt water in your hair. What would that feel like, Solena? How would the world feel, if only you could live in it?
Her breathing leveled out, and she realized she had come to a halt on the stairs. She could feel the cold sweat of her palms through the fabric of her robes as she rubbed them furiously against her thighs. Cullen, sensing her pause, stopped and looked back, his hard brow furrowing, as it did often, before softening at the sight of her.
"Solena…" he spoke, before reaching out and awkwardly grazing her arm with his glittering armored hand. The ghost of its sharp metal edges pierced her skin and she startled from him. He frowned, and offered her no further comfort. A fleeting thought told her that perhaps he did not know how.
Her eyes rose from the flaming sword on his breastplate to his face. She nodded sharply—not at him—before picking up her deep blue skirts and continuing her trudge up the winding stairwell.
The vaulted stained-glass ceiling of the Tower loomed over the room, filtering moonlight of purple and blue which shone down upon the heads of the gathered Tower officials and the stone floor beneath them. When they saw her at the top of the stairs the air shifted and the soft murmurs turned to silence, and each man and woman appeared as though they looked upon a ghost. First Enchanter Irving was who she laid her eyes on. His sympathetic smile, visible amidst his large grey beard, stretched his wrinkled skin. Irving's kind gesture ultimately meant little however, with Knight Commander Greagoir standing immediately to his right, a scowl pulling at his face and his hand tightly gripping the pummel of his sword. Three more templars were lined up next to him. Cullen—who wore a strange look on his face, as though he were unsure whether to go to her or his brethren—made a fourth when he joined the congregation. There was a third mage present, but she remained in the back, out of sight and in the shadows cast by the large concrete arches lining the glass—an Enchanter that Irving had likely asked to observe the event.
Her mind cursed her foolishness in this moment. She had told herself that this was a time to be brave. She had determined to leave the little blonde girl with wild hair and bare feet that once ran the rounded halls of the Tower to cower under the bed sheets this morning, along with her silly young heart. A heart that promised flight and freedom and joy. Joy. She would have no joy in this world, not unless she made it. Not unless she cobbled it together, like a castle in the sand, from unfortunate circumstance and books on library shelves. Her salvation would not come from any handsome knight. The only knights she knew were the ones that kept her here; kept her tame and docile. And it was knights—not monsters under the bed—that she would have to fear for the rest of her days.
Cullen had not spoken a word to her, outside of the blunt command to come with him as he had stood at her bedside around midnight. She did not know that today would be the worst day of her life. Though, when she had felt the young Templar's hand gripping her shoulder through her groggy slumber, she knew, and dread overwhelmed her and stale bile formed in the back of her throat—but she could not cry in front of Cullen. So she did not.
"Welcome, Apprentice." Irving offered another plastered smile, and she did not have the energy to respond in kind.
Greagoir, the most vile man she knew, took a few steps in her direction and considered her, his chest puffing out as he looked down through hooded eyes. His booming voice addressed the room.
"'Magic exists to serve man," he declared in Andraste's name, "and never to rule over him'. Thus spoke our lady and prophet as she cast down the Tevinter Imperium—ruled by mages who had brought the world to the edge of ruin. It is from her we learn that magic is both a gift and a curse: a mighty tool that can fell nations, but one whose use attracts the demons of the Fade, who prey upon mages and seek to use them as a gateway into this world."
As he spoke, Solena finally took notice of the small pool, shaped like a stone birdbath, at the room's center. She studied it curiously. A soft blue glow emanated from it like smoke from a fire, and a light, almost inaudible hum seemed to travel the distance from the pool all the way to her ear. She knew the mineral inside the pool and knew it well, but had never seen it in such great quantity.
"This is why the Harrowing exists," Irving spoke to her. "The ritual will send you into the Fade, where a demon awaits. You face it armed only with your will."
Calm, she told herself. Calm. What more have you ever wanted, except to see the Fade for what it truly was?
She turned to Irving, to see into his kind eyes and know that he was sincere. To her, she knew, he would never lie. She nodded slightly and wordlessly.
"The trial is a secret out of necessity, child. You will go through with it and succeed as I have—as countless others have. Once you pass, your test will end, and you shall be back here with us, safe and sound." Irving reassured her with a hand on her shoulder, and if she spoke to him she knew she was like to cry, so it seemed she could only nod stupidly once more in response. "Keep your wits about you, and remember that the Fade is a realm of dreams and illusions. The spirits may rule it, but your own will is all that is real. Take heart in that."
"The apprentice must go through her Harrowing on her own, First Enchanter," Greagoir spat.
At once, and despite the sick feeling in her stomach, Solena removed herself from between the two men and strode towards the pool. As she drew closer to it she could feel her magic surge with each step until she touched the pool's surface and the sensation in her body reached a glorious height, the likes of which she had never felt before, and very suddenly she was in the Tower no longer.
Young boys and girls visited the Fade every night to spar with heroes of legend, dance with fairies and fly upon dragons. Grown men visited it to woo buxom women they could never hope to touch in the physical world, and make sweet love upon a bed of clouds. Women visited to transport themselves to a life of scandalous romance and material abundance that they would never live to see in the small farming villages they grew up in. And still some nights it would be terrible nightmares that plagued the dreamers of Thedas and ripped them from whatever silly fantasy they had conjured up for themselves. Come morning, they would remember almost none of it.
Mages were different, or so she understood. Mages remember, and see, and feel. For them, the Fade is a wonder—a joy to explore, to experience, and a power to draw from. But she knew none of that.
Since she was small she had known her connection with the Fade to be wrong. At least, that's what the other children had made abundantly clear. When they had blabbed to her instructor about Solena's violent, vivid, repeated nightmares, the woman had given her a haunted stare that Solena was sure she could never hope to erase from memory. She would not have been able to keep the secret for much longer, as it turned out. At the age of ten she had begun to wake up in the dead of night screaming at a rate of three times each week.
She had been labelled so quickly as being different from her peers that she remembered afterwards hoping, for only a brief, perfect while, that there had been some terrible mistake—that she was not a mage after all, and that she could go home. The notion was a stupid one.
Whatever Fade that was—the one which gave Solena her never-ending dreams, day and night, of the family she barely knew, the life she never led, and the stone-faced soldiers that pried her away screaming and sobbing every time—the Fade so full of raw, painful emotion that had once scarred her so greatly—that Fade was not this Fade.
Her studies had told her that entering the Fade in this way made for a world of infinite possibility. But it was a rare thing—as only with copious amounts of lyrium was it ever possible. It was the only fantasy she had ever allowed herself as a woman grown, that maybe, one day, her nightmares would stop, and she would see the Fade as such all the time. It had always been clear to her that the only world in which she would ever be allowed happiness was not the one she was born into.
The landscape before her was something new—something foreign. And wondrous. The air felt still and cold but her breath was not visible. She was surrounded by icy brown tundra, which molded itself into impossible organic-looking shapes. Everything before her felt like a blind man's hasty interpretation of reality. A lamppost that seemed to remain still while suspended in midair flickered into various states of light and darkness, casting light and shadow not only on the ground but in the forest-toned sky above her as well. She sat in the middle of a four-pillared structure of which the pillars seemed to be broken to pieces, but the rubble held together in its original form all the same. Solena crushed her knees to her chest and shivered, adjusting to the dry cold. Out of the corner of her eye, a small brown kitchen mouse scurried from one pillar to the next, but she paid it little mind. The object of her gaze was The City.
The Black City was visible and equidistant from every point in the Fade—and it was Mother Sybill who had taught her that, no mage. No matter where you stood, you could always see it above you: a hulking black mass to remain there and remind humanity of its most terrible sin. Such things were inescapable, it seemed. Even in the world of dreams.
"Someone else thrown to the wolves…"
The voice had come from the air. Solena raised her head and glanced in her immediate area. When she saw nothing, she rose and spun in search of the noise's source.
"Ha! As fresh and unprepared as ever."
"Who's there?" she demanded, her brow furrowing. But as soon as she asked her question, she answered it herself. The sound had come from the ground, where the mouse now sat.
"It isn't right that they do this, the Templars. Not to you, me, anyone."
"To you?" Solena questioned, "You're a talking rat."
The mouse scoffed. "And you think you're really here? In that body? You look like that because you think you do. I only look like this because you think I do."
Solena observed her arms and legs. In truth, her own body seemed as real as everything else in the Fade—which was to say, not at all. It had the same pale yellow hue and the same eerie, inexplicable wrongness that everything from the lamppost to the mouse before her shared. Though her limbs were physically her own she could not recognize them as such. The mouse sighed.
"It's not your fault. You're in the same boat I was, aren't you? A pawn in a much larger game none of us can hope to understand." the mouse pondered.
In a flash of bright yellow light, the mouse she had seen a moment before was now a man, with a thin mop of blonde hair and a long, crooked nose, dressed in rags. He was balding on the top of his head and had a nasty brown wart on his right nostril. It was an awful face. She wondered who this man had been—a soul clearly now lost to time and history in this never-ending expulsion of abstract thought. He threw open his arms and smiled a crooked-toothed smile.
"Allow me to welcome you to the Fade. You can call me…well, Mouse." He shrugged loosely.
"Not your real name, I take it?"
"Ah, well, I can't really remember anything from…before…" he seemed suddenly very lost in his own mind, but he slowly regained his composure. "The Templars kill you if you take too long, you see. They figure you failed, and they don't want something…getting out."
She knew time passed slowly in the Fade. She did not know by how much. She had a sudden, overwhelming urge to get underway.
"That's what they did to me, I think," he continued, "I have no body to reclaim. And you don't have much time before you end up the same."
Solena pushed past him. "That's not going to happen."
He shuffled behind her on the path. "You're wrong to think you know everything! There is so much, still, that evades you. I know more than you of the danger ahead!"
She pivoted towards him and cocked her head. "And what's that?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.
"There's something here, contained, just waiting for an apprentice like you. You have to face the creature—a demon—and resist it, if you can. That's your way out."
"I was told to expect as much."
"Those men will tell you just enough to mislead you. What's one more dead mage? A safer world, if you ask them. Take anyone at their word, and you're a fool."
She bit her lip, taking a moment to gnaw on the dry flesh there in hesitant contemplation. Though she soon turned her head and continued down her path. "You don't need to worry about me." She said to the man behind her. He laughed a long, hearty laugh.
"My dear, you're the only thing in the world I need worry about!" he shouted after her. She stopped in her tracks.
She shut her eyes tight and considered his words. She found them…strange. He was beside her in a flash.
"I'll follow, if that's alright. My chance was long ago, but you…you're more cunning than I ever was. You may succeed where I failed."
He quickly transformed back into the kitchen mouse, and scurried alongside her as she walked through forests of upside-down trees set ablaze, and hopped across large chunks of rock that formed a floating path. Should she step off one, she wasn't even sure where she should fall to, or if she would fall at all. The latter scared her more. She soon stepped off into a clearing of what seemed to have the pattern of brown cobblestone, but was a part of the ground just as the grass was and had not been placed there by any man.
On a hill a few yards ahead of her there was a small fire burning, and a bright white translucent figure that moved between two impossibly shaped trees that were surrounded by the most wonderful flowers she had ever seen, and even more besides that floated mid-air around the fire. Marigolds, she recalled. That must be what they were. Her eyes lit up and she found her feet moving faster than before. As she neared the fire, the figure turned, and she could see that it wore the plate of a templar. She halted.
"Another thrown into the flames and left to burn, I see. I've waited for you, though." He spoke with a roaring voice that echoed as though he were shouting in a deep cave. She tried to speak, but words could not seem to form from her lips at the sight of him. He was beautiful, and bright—so bright that she could hardly see him. "This is a cowardly test. Better you were pitted against another mage, to prove your mettle with skill and strength of mind. You'd win that fight. Instead, you've been sent unarmed against an unknown demon. No soul is prepared for that." Perhaps this was a spirit of valor, she thought. But a strange one, at that.
"It is templars that force the Harrowing," she reminded him, gesturing to his plate.
"Aye, that it is. You are not the first to face such twisted trials and unfavorable odds. Nor shall you be the last, I suspect. I see a great battle in your future against a powerful creature of the Fade. Let it be known, no matter what comes, I wish you victory. And afterwards, peace." His response made her curious. He spoke earnestly, full-heartedly—as if he knew her.
"Thank you," she told him.
Snow fell from a green sky, and both looked up to watch it. Suddenly, they stood knee-deep in the stuff, and the sun set around them. Inexplicably, tears fell from her eyes.
"Shed no more tears," the figure said. "We two will meet again."
"When?" she asked desperately, as he faded from her.
"I'm sorry," said the wind, and he was gone—the snow and the sunset with him.
"An odd fellow, that one," said Mouse from her side, far below her.
They continued walking.
As they moved further and further, an eerie whistle of wind could be heard, even though she could feel none on her skin, and the Fade seemed to turn darker and more foreboding, even though the sky remained the same bright shade of green. Around her she saw ancient ruins threatening to fade out of existence as they lost opacity, and piles of massacred bodies as tall as trees overcame them. She heard wolves howling in the distance—prowling at the fringes of the Fade—and the sounds of a violent battle that was nowhere in sight. Decaying toadstools of an abnormally large size surrounded her as though they were a forest of their own, and eventually another, smaller clearing came into view, and a sleeping bear lay in the center. She inched closer as quietly as possible.
"Be cautious…" Mouse whispered, "There is another spirit here who may help us…I believe him honorable, though I do not think he is as benevolent as the last…"
But as she drew closer the bear awakened anyway…and it was no bear. As she approached she saw its claws were the size of its paw, its eyes were bloodshot, and its fur was matted and decayed and torn away so as to see bloody flesh poking out across its entire body. When it spoke, its voice seemed as though it were coming from all directions, surrounding her and making her feel as small as her companion.
"Hmm…" it chuckled malevolently from where it relaxed on the ground, "so you are the mortal being hunted? And the small one…is he to be a snack for me?"
"I don't like this," Mouse spoke, transforming again into a man. "I take it back. He's not going to help us. We should go."
The beast slowly rose and stretched its front legs as it let out a yawn which sounded vaguely like a growl. "Oh, no matter," it spoke, "The creature will find you eventually, and perhaps…perhaps there will even be scraps left." The beast's mouth stretched into a wide grin which showed off a full set of yellow teeth as sharp as blades imbedded into crimson gums.
She had a thought—a vague, fleeting one, and against her better judgement, she decided to act on it. "Why wait for scraps?" she challenged. "Come and get me now."
Mouse let out a nervous yelp, but the beast only furrowed its brow, and after a passing moment, yawned again. "You'll only…run away. I'll not waste time with a chase, not even…for a meal." It settled back down in its resting position again, and at once she knew she was speaking to a demon of sloth.
"Begone," it commanded, "Surely you have better things to do. You are a fly in the ointment, and I tire of you already. You have lost your battle before it has even begun, girl."
She took a step closer to him, and Mouse squealed again. "I need help defeating the demon. If you aid me, I'll leave you in peace."
"You are a mage," the bear yawned. "For all that is worth. Go. Use your wiles. You do not need my help.
"Not me. Mouse." She explained.
"What?" Mouse squeaked.
"Whatever…do you mean?" the demon drawled.
"Teach Mouse to take on your form. To be like you. He could help me, instead of just standing there, miserable." She jabbed, persistent in her efforts. She only had so much time, true. But time wouldn't matter if the demon killed her as soon as she confronted it.
"Like me?" Sloth asked. "Ah…I suppose. Mice are not intelligent enough to think for themselves; forge their own identities. And besides, Mouse, you let go of your corporeal form years ago."
"I…I don't…" Mouse garbled.
"Ah… perhaps he doesn't wish to learn. Perhaps that is for the best. Teaching is so…exhausting."
"If you want me gone, teach him." She repeated once more.
"Fine. But…while you're here…we might as well…make it interesting. Answer these riddles three, and I will teach your small friend. Fail, and I will devour you both. The choice…is yours."
She internally groaned, but agreed. Perhaps making a deal with the demon was not her brightest moment, but she needed what help she could muster.
"My…first riddle, is this:
I have seas with no water, coasts with no sand,
Towns without people, and mountains without land.
What am I?"
She answered promptly. He grumbled. "Hm…correct. Let's move on. The second:
"While you live, we cannot part,
I live inside you, locked forever in your heart.
What am I?"
She responded once more. He sighed. "Yes, very well. One more try, shall we?
Often will I spin a tale, never will I charge a fee.
I'll amuse you an entire eve, but, alas, you won't remember me.
What am I?"
When she responded, he appeared dismal. "Alas, you are…correct. Amazing, really. Perhaps you really don't need my help. But, you've won my challenge, and proven yourself an amusing distraction. Come here, Mouse. And listen carefully."
She sat leaning on the stem of a toadstool picking at her fingernails as Mouse learned in the clearing not but a few feet away. A small part of her dared to wonder if the Templars had killed her by now. Would she know? Would she feel it? A feeling in the pit of her gut hoped desperately that she would. Feeling something real in the Fade and knowing at once that it was over seemed wholly preferable to an eternity spent in aimlessness, like the mouse. But she heard heavy footsteps behind her and saw the form of Sloth approaching as she stood. It was Mouse's voice that emerged from him.
"He was right. This was almost too easy," Mouse said.
"Come on. Let's go."
They pushed through the edge of the toadstool forest quickly enough, and soon emerged into a ring of fire set upon volcanic ash.
"This is the home of the rage demon. It must be the one you were meant to confront."
The ground trembled and lava rose vertically from the circle's center, coalescing into the head of a beast. Solena stabilized herself on the shaking earth.
"Ah, someone has come to me at last." The voice was distorted and malevolent. The demon laughed, though it had no mouth that moved with it. "For eons I have roamed this tired land alone, waiting for the companionship of a mortal. So, this creature is your offering, Mouse?"
Solena's head darted to look at Mouse as she furrowed her brow.
"I'm not offering you anything! I don't have to help you anymore!" Mouse cried.
"And after all those wonderful meals we two have shared! Now suddenly the mouse has changed his mind!" the demon exclaimed.
"I'm not a mouse anymore. I don't need to bargain with you." Mouse retorted, more sure of himself this time.
"We shall see…" the demon lunged for her, and she jumped out of the way, channeling mana through her hands as soon as she was on her feet again. Mouse jumped for the throat of the demon, gnashing at it with his borrowed set of teeth.
She knew that a fight in the Fade shouldn't have to mirror one in the physical world. If she willed the demon dead, that will should make it so. And soon enough, it did. A powerful blast—more powerful than anything she had ever cast before—sent the demon tumbling to the ashen ground.
Mouse stood over the fallen demon and in another flash, transformed back into the ugly man. He turned to face her. "You did it—you actually did it! When you came, I hoped that maybe you might be able to—oh but I never dared hope that—"
She stormed over and grabbed him violently by the collar. He yelped in surprise.
"How many came before me? How many died because you?" she demanded.
"No, I—What? No, the others, they…they barely had a chance! It was part of the test, and they failed!" he choked. "The Templars, they set them up to fail! Like they tried with you—ow!"
She let him go, but held the point of her staff at his chest.
"Look, I regret my part in it, but you have shown me that there is hope! You are so much more than you know—more than they've told you that you were!"
"You've been tailing me this whole time, just waiting for your chance to use me."
"I—what? No, you—you don't understand, you don't nearly comprehend! You defeated a demon—willed it out of existence! You completed your test! A test that was, in no uncertain terms, rigged for you to fail. I can see…I can see it now! As clear as day that, with time, you will become a power with no equal! The world will shape before you. And maybe there is hope in that new world for someone as small and as…forgotten as me. If you…want to help. I think…I think there may, after all, be a way for me to leave here—for good! For me to step foot in the physical world, to get a foothold outside—I would be forever grateful. You just...you just need to want to let me in."
She glared at him. "The Harrowing is designed so that I shouldn't remain in the Fade after passing my test."
"Precisely. Which is why we need to— "
"I'm still here."
"Wh-what?"
"The demon of rage was never my test,"
"What are you talking—of course it was. What else could harm a—a mage of your caliber, Lena? You are unlike any I have— "
"You were."
Mouse was taken aback, but not for long. His lips curved upwards into a malicious, hungry grin.
"…you are a smart one." The voice changed, as did the air around them. Mouse began to tower over her as he had not before, and the grin he wore grew to fold over half his face, making him unrecognizable. His skin fell off in slimy, black, ashy layers and beneath was a different being entirely.
"Simple killing is a warrior's job," he boomed, louder than the valor spirit, even louder than Sloth. "The real dangers of this world are preconceptions, careless trust…pride."
In an instant, the light and the world around her disappeared, and Mouse had evaporated into smoke, and the smoke surrounded her and encompassed her form and would not allow her to breathe. She collapsed and choked on the air.
"Keep your wits about you, girl. True tests never end."
The smoke cleared, and it was over.
A/N:
I am rachelamberish on tumblr.
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