Hawke: Spellcraft *success impossible* : (12 + 9 = 21 vs. DC: 99)

The sultry summer heat was much less oppressive outside the city, and a cool, playful wind kept them company as they climbed Sundermount. It tugged at the short, black curls of Hawke's hair, and had already flipped up Isabela's abbreviated skirt twice – which, as Varric had remarked the first time, was no great feat.

"You were named Leandra for your mother," Isabela said, with a wise little nod.

Hawke sighed. "After – what, three years? – you're still on about this?"

"Come on, Hawke, you can't expect us to just let a mystery like this lie uninvestigated." Varric threw his hands up in the air. "How do you think that'd sound – 'oh, yes, I travelled with this relentless do-gooder of a mage for years.' 'Really? What was her name?' 'Ummm... well, I never found out.' Yes, that will carry conviction."

"Then make something up," Hawke told him.

Fenris was participating this round, it seemed. "Is it Marian?"

"You'll never guess," Hawke told them. "But, no, it isn't."

"Is it Bernard?" Merrill asked. "I bet it's Bernard."

There was that moment of silence that often accompanied Merrill's statements as everyone tried to fit their heads around the Dalish's peculiar breed of illogic, and the inevitable sigh as everyone simultaneously remembered that it was impossible. "It's not Bernard, Merrill."

"Oh, is it Tamlen, then? I'd like it to be Tamlen."

"Kitten, why are you guessing men's names?"

"Because Hawke said we'd never guess, so I thought maybe a man's name, because we wouldn't think of that -" Merrill furrowed her brow. "But then, I did, so of course it isn't –"

Hawke shook her head ruefully.

"Oh, look!" Merrill said, and knelt beside the shrub, stroking its wide, graceful leaves and sniffing appreciatively the scarlet blooms. "That's the embrium we were looking for."

"Hooray," Varric said without any enthusiasm whatsoever. "Celebrate with me, Broody – we found a vegetable."

"A herb, technically," Hawke said, and flashed a grin at Fenris, who was not noticeably celebrating.

Isabela was still on the name-guessing thing, apparently. "Oooh, is it Bianca?"

Hawke rolled her eyes. "It is not. I'll tell you this much: currently, Merrill's the closest."

"Oh," the elf said. "Is it Varric?"

"Daisy-"

Hawke felt it first as a subtle unease, like a hair being drawn across the inside of her skull. She glanced around, trying to spot the problem as the feeling intensified.

Fenris was watching her. "Hawke, what is it?"

"I'm not sur- oh, Maker's balls." She reached for her bladed staff, as Merrill carefully laid down the embrium blossoms and stood. She'd felt it too. "Something's happening to the Veil. Something big."

Instantly Isabela had her daggers in hand, Fenris his sword, and Varric was patting Bianca's stock. "Prepare for visitors, then?" the dwarf asked, in a tone that suggested that he already knew the answer.

Hawke flinched as the Fade roared in her mind like a wounded beast. "Like you've never seen before."

"Right. Too late to run away?"

"And how would that sound in your stories, Varric?" Hawke forced the words out against the pounding in her head as the Veil rippled and deformed -

"Bit tricky to tell stories if you're dead."

- and tore. Like a painted backdrop, the Sundermount path ahead of them ripped apart and another reality burst through. The eerie, indirect radiance of the Fade, greenish and yellowy, spilled out over them, and Fenris cursed in venomous, hard-edge Arcanum.

Through the rift, Hawke could see dry, thorny plants, a pile of milking stools balanced on top of a ladle. In the sky, the Black City loomed, looking, as always, as though it was about to fall on her head. But there were no demons pouring through. She had never seen the Fade so peaceful.

"This is trouble 'like we've never seen before'?" Isabela asked, straightening from her combat-ready crouch. "Oooh, Hawke, I'm terrified."

"Shut up, Isabela," Hawke said automatically. "Look, this doesn't make sense."

Merrill prodded at the very edge of the tear with her staff; it rippled away like smoke. "It is a bit unusual," the elf said. "Do you think we should close it?"

"If there's some secret Dalish technique for that, by all means go ahead."

She blinked. "There isn't, but I thought you might know how. You're terribly clever, Hawke."

A black, wavering shadow appeared on the path; an instant later, a scarlet and silver shape tumbled through the rift, which sealed itself behind them, and landed in a clang of metal on the ground.

"What in the V-"

"See, I knew you could do it, Hawke!"

She started forward. The shape that had fallen out of the Fade turned out to be two people. The first was an unconscious woman, her head shaved bald and all sorts of designs – rather like the tattoos the Dalish liked - traced over it in black ink. Despite them, she was lovely, her skin faintly golden, her features small and perfect. She wore red robes of a strange cut; they looked a little like mage robes, and there was a plain staff strapped to her back, but Hawke could sense no magic at all about her. She clutched an ugly little clay gargoyle to her chest.

An urgent cry came from the second one, encased in the heaviest-looking armour Hawke had ever seen. "Can!" it sounded like; Hawke crouched down beside her. "Can," she repeated, and Hawke had rarely heard such anguish in a voice. "S'rree."

Hawke would not have been herself if she could hear such pain and not attempt to heal it. "It's all right," she told the woman, whose dark eyes were wild. "Calm down."

"Can!" she insisted, and weakly tried to rise, but she could not even prop herself up on her elbow before she passed out.

"Well," Hawke said, a monosyllable of blank confusion.

"Well indeed," Varric agreed. "What have we got here?"

Hawke looked more closely at the second, smaller woman. A weird weapon strapped to her back that resembled nothing so much as a farmer's scythe; heavy armour; pale skin, the pointed ears of an elf, but without the characteristic high-bridged nose; hair black, although the sunlight made it look almost blue. Unlike the first woman, she did seem Fade-touched – but in a strange way that didn't make any sense. She looked like a skeleton covered in skin. Hawke had seen refugees on the verge of starvation in Darktown who had more flesh on their bones.

Hawke extended her magic. The first woman, the bald one – she was just unconscious and would stir soon. The second one, the elf... "She should be dead," Hawke whispered. "A body just can't survive this."

She hadn't noticed the others joining her about the strangers – Merrill and Isabela giggling over the bald woman, Varric standing and making mental notes, and Fenris crouched down at her side, frowning over the elf as though he found her personally offensive. "I have a theory, Hawke, if you care to hear it."

"Of course," Hawke said, as she gently insinuated her magic into the woman's body, looking for wounds or damage that she could heal, since she could not do anything about the starvation.

"Only once have I heard of people physically in the Fade."

"The Tevinter magisters who invaded the Golden City," Hawke finished his thought. "You think they are experimenting with it again?"

"It is possible," Fenris said, and indicated the woman in red. "We have a mage. We have a woman who appears to be an elf, who was supporting the mage when they came out of the Fade and has been starved to the point where only blood magic could be keeping her alive."

Hawke shook her head. "You can't nourish a person on magic alone."

"No," Fenris said, "but with enough blood magic, you can keep them in pain and unable to die. I have seen it done in Tevinter."

She winced. The idea, the imagery, was too strong. "I don't think so, Fenris. The one in red isn't even a mage. Even Varric has more of a connection to the Fade."

"Heard that," the dwarf commented.

"Tranquil?" Fenris suggested.

Hawke thought it over. "Possibly. It still makes no sense. And the elf has something, though... I'm not sure what, but it feels a little familiar." She sighed. "What do we do with them? Are they a threat, do you think?"

"Not the skinny one," Varric said. "A good sneeze and she'd snap in half. The other one isn't armed and we outnumber her. I say wake her up and let's have a chat."

"Do let's," Isabela purred. "I want to know how far those tattoos go."

"I've never met a human with vallaslin before," Merrill added.

Hawke turned her head; Fenris was still frowning, but he nodded. "Well, here goes," she said. The woman was already beginning to come to; Hawke hurried the process along with a small jolt of her magic.

The woman in red blinked brown eyes, dark as Hawke's own but decidedly almond-shaped, and slowly sat up. She looked at Varric, who'd cocked Bianca, and Isabela with her daggers, and held up her hands peaceably. This, naturally, caused the clay statuette she'd been clasping to tumble free. She looked down at it and gasped. "Gaji!" She gathered it up again, looking down at it as if heartbroken. "Gaji, I- Gum bag!"

Hawke and Fenris exchanged a look. Well, allowing for a truly barbarous accent, she was at least intelligible. 'Gaji' – or perhaps 'Kaji' –'come back'.

She made a few gestures, repeating some soft syllables Hawke couldn't hear, then her hands dropped. "My majig... Tarva!" the woman cried out as her head turned and she saw the other woman. She started to shift towards the elf, then seemed to remember Varric and Isabela. "Please, disrecard any prejudices you may have acainst my gind – I won't do anything but cheg on my friend."

Hawke nodded.

"Friend?" Fenris said, as if unconvinced. "Not a magister, then."

The woman knelt beside the elf, and checked her pulse. She sighed with relief – it seemed genuine to Hawke – to find one. Then she looked up at Hawke and Fenris. "There should be three of us. Where is can?"

Hawke blinked. "I beg your pardon?" Then she remembered how urgently the other woman had said the same word.

" 'Beg'," the bald woman repeated to herself. "Not 'bec'. I see." She spoke slowly, enunciating very carefully. "There should have been a man with Tarva and me. Ca-Gann. C-Grey hair, purple sgin. Skin. Have you seen him?"

"No," Hawke said, as gently as she could.

The woman blinked. "Oh, by all the Nine Hells – he was ahead of me! I..." her voice trailed off as she stared at the still face of the unconscious elf, and the little clay gargoyle that lay on the grass.

"Who are you? How did you come physically through the Fade? What are you doing here?"

"Ah... my name is Safiya. I am a Red Wizard of Thay – but don't be alarmed. Unless you have hurt my friends, I mean you no harm."

"What's a Red Wizard of Thay when it's at home?" Isabela asked, using a dagger to clean under her fingernails.

"And why do you have vallaslin?" Merrill joined in.

Safiya stared at them all rather helplessly. "I am so g-confused. You haven't heard of my order? We have a terrible reputation all across Faerûn."

"I haven't heard of Faerûn either," Hawke told her.

"Then where in the Nine Hells am I?"

"I don't know where the Nine Hells are," Hawke told her, "but you are on Sundermount, near Kirkwall in the Free Marches. Thedas," she added, as Safiya kept shaking her head in bewilderment. Hawke sighed. "Okay, I can tell this is going to take a while to sort out, and sitting on a mountainside where the Veil is thin and behaving very oddly isn't a great place to do it." He heard that faint grumble beside her that meant Fenris thought she was being far too trusting – as usual – and Varric was shaking his head to give the same warning.

"I didn't follow most of that," the bald woman said, "but I agree. You seem to be a spellcaster of some kind - are you a clerig? Can you heal Tarva? Even a Crate- sorry, Greater Restoration would help."

Hawke shook her head as she tried to decipher this. "I am a mage, yes," she said, "and I specialise in healing, but there's nothing I can do for your friend – Tarva, you said? – and what do clerics have to do with it?"

"Right," Safiya said, picking up the ugly clay doll, her fingers caressing the curve of the head gently. "Never mind, then. Can you wake her up? I hate to do it – she won't be – well, she needs the rest – but I g-can't imagine getting her down a mountain like this."

"It is a simple matter," Fenris interjected, rather surprising Hawke, "as long as one does not attempt to carry her armour as well. I can carry her, if someone is prepared to drag the armour."

"You're awfully quick to suggest undressing her," Isabela said slyly. "I didn't know half-dead elves were your style, sweet thing."

Hawke ignored the pang of jealousy that had noted the exact same thing. It wasn't really her business, after all... and he was only doing it because he was still thinking of her as a victim of Tevinter blood magic.

"I'll help you," Safiya said. "I've helped her out of it more than once."

"Oh, really?" Isabela leered. "I appreciate a woman who knows her way –"

Hawke snapped at her to shut up as Fenris and Safiya bent to tend to Tarva's armour and Merrill picked up the little gargoyle. It wasn't as long as she'd expected before they had the armour pieces off, and Hawke flinched a bit. It was one thing to feel, magically, that the woman had practically starved to death, and another still to see all the damage that the full plate had hidden; the armour padding merely highlighted the emaciation. It made Safiya look rather sick. "I had no idea it had cotton – gotten – so bad. She never said anything..."

With a grunt, Fenris hoisted the unconscious woman across his narrow shoulders; Hawke picked up the scythe-like weapon; Varric and Safiya made a bundle of the armour, using the breastplate as a sort of sledge for the rest of it, taking a rope each; Merrill had the clay statue in one hand and the embrium they'd come to get in the first place in the other; and Isabela was being her usual, helpful self – which was to say, she wasn't being actively obstructive - and they set off down the mountain.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Hawke and her little group stopped to exchange pleasantries with the clan of wild elves – well, Safiya had to assume that's what they were, although like the other elves, they looked subtly wrong to her eyes – and she could have screamed. For the first time since that unfortunate incident in the Skein, the Red Wizard found herself wishing for Kaelyn. A half-competent cleric could have healed Tarva almost instantly – but if this world had none?

It had to be a different world – she'd studied enough of Faerûn's maps and never seen any of the names Hawke had mentioned, and the woman hadn't recognised the Nine Hells either. Besides, this was to be exile, according to Kelemvor. It made sense, of a kind.

Exile, not death, she reminded herself, and hoped she had it right. If he had wanted them dead, he could have simply seen to it. Safiya had to make herself believe it, that Tarva would survive even without proper aid, that Gann was not dead – next to her concerns for her friends, mourning the loss of her magic and of Kaji seemed selfish.

They both hurt, though. She had constructed Kaji out of twigs and clay herself, shaped and taught and loved him for years, her familiar, her pet, her friend. Her mother (it was still the easiest way to think of her) had been a cold, distant woman; Master Djafi, her first friend, had needed to keep his distance for fear of the usual Red Wizard politics taking note of his vulnerability; all she had truly had was Kaji and her studies of magic. The Weave, her source of power, did not exist here; she had no magic, and Kaji, who depended on the Weave for his animation, for his life – Kaji was dead.

She moved closer to the tall, white-haired elf who was carrying Tarva, who seemed no happier with the words passing between Hawke and the wild elves than Safiya felt. He shot a look at her, his green eyes (curiously round, as were the other elves'; a definite genetic type) warning her to keep her distance. "What's your name?" Safiya asked.

"I am called Fenris," he said; his voice was deep and rough, and it sounded as though he was growling at her.

Curious name – it reminded her of Fenrir, a wolf-spirit of unsurpassed power and viciousness that Gann had mentioned once, and who had been, she thought, among Okku's spirit army – and curious phrasing, too. He hadn't claimed it was his name, and that was just the sort of hair-splitting Safiya could normally spend hours mulling over, but then Hawke concluded her little chat and they started off.

She listened carefully to the group, who fell as easily into banter as she and the others had, making note of their quicker speech and thin-accented Common. The little tattooed elf was Merrill; she moved in the darts and flutters of a bird, and appeared to have the brains of one as well. The dwarf (beardless and less hearty than any Safiya had met before) was Varric, and she was not going to like him. He had already nicknamed her 'Baldy'; not that Safiya was sensitive about her lack of hair –she preferred it – but it was rather missing the point. Fenris was the taciturn elf with the white tattoos, and he did not like her. She wasn't sure why, but didn't care much. Hawke seemed friendly enough, and Safiya wouldn't have minded a few hours of technical discussion with her about the world they'd been sent to and its magic. Then there was the half-dressed woman –

"Sweetness," the woman purred, and slipped an arm about her waist. "You look so deep in thought, so forlorn. Can't I cheer you up?"

"Removing your arm would make for a good beginning," Safiya told her. She could handle this sort of thing with more grace, usually, but between Tarva, Gann and Kaji – even Akachi – she had no patience left. "You may remove it from my waist, or I will remove it from your shoulder." There was a chuckle behind her – Varric's, Safiya thought, but wasn't sure.

"Ooh, sounds rough," the woman said, but did as she was told. "I do like rough. Tell me, sweetness, where else do you shave?"

"I can turn you into a small pile of libidinous dust. Geep this up, and I will." Last time Safiya had attempted a bluff like that, it had gone terribly.

She pouted. "Well, if you change your mind, you let me know. Ask for Isabela at the Hanged Man."

"That would be the local festhall, I take it," she said.

"Leave Baldy alone, Rivaini," Varric said peaceably. "I get the feeling she's had a hard day."

"You have no idea," Safiya said, and left it at that, for they were approaching the city gates.

"Hawke," a red-headed guard with freckles and a square jaw greeted the mage, and nodded at Safiya, the pile of armour, and Fenris's limp burden. "What kind of trouble are you bringing into my city this time?"

"Nothing you can't handle, Aveline," Hawke said affectionately.

"Of course," she agreed, "but that's not exactly an answer to my question, Hawke."

"Well, this is Safiya and her friend Tarva. I'll tell you all the rest of it later – my place, once you get off-duty?"

"Wouldn't miss it for the world."

Fenris re-settled Tarva over his shoulders. She showed no signs of coming around, Safiya noticed, and tried not to worry. "Are we going to the abomination's clinic?"

That was two words Safiya didn't think really went together. Abominations were left-over magical beasts, living weapons forged in the beginning of the world. She couldn't imagine – didn't really want to – one of them capable of running anything that could be called a 'clinic'. More thoughts to distract herself.

"No," Hawke said, as she led them through the wide, clean streets of the city, sweltering in a humid summer heat. "I doubt Anders can do anything magically for her that I can't. Her best chance is rest and regular small meals, and between the estate and Bodahn, I'm better set up for that sort of thing."

"Ladyhawke won't mind an extra house guest or two?" Varric asked.

"Mother's used to it," Hawke smiled. "I've been bringing home sick kittens and crippled birds for nursing since I was four. All right by you, Safiya?"

It took her a moment to understand that the woman was offering her a place to stay while she got Tarva back to health – as off-handedly as she might have offered Safiya a scrap of food she didn't want. Her instincts were to distrust kindnesses so freely offered, to look for a trap... but there was no doubt that the woman meant it for whatever reason, and Tarva needed it.

"Thank you," Safiya said. "If there's anything I can do..."

"I want to hear the full story," Hawke said.

"I gan- sorry, can – do that." Safiya sighed. "But I don't think you'll believe it."

"Better and better, Baldy. Are there dragons in it?"

"No."

"Such a shame," the dwarf said. "Aveline's off just before dusk, right? I've got some loose ends to tie up, but I'll bring Blondie up to speed and come up through the Darktown entrance. He still has the key, right?"

"Unless he's lost it," Hawke said. "You never know."

"True. Daisy, Rivaini?"

"Somebody has to help with the armour, Varric, it looks awfully heavy," Merrill said.

"I'll come with you," Isabela answered. "I could do with a drink and maybe a sailor before we get into it. So to speak."

"Isabela..." Hawke groaned.

"Oh, did I miss something?" Merrill chirped. "Something dirty?"

"Kitten, never change." The swarthy woman darted a grin at them – and winked at Safiya – before she and Varric took off.

"We're not far," Hawke reassured them, adjusting Tarva's scythe as they climbed a flight of stairs. "What is this, anyway?"

"That's Tarva's weapon – surely you have scythes here?"

"Farmer's tools, yes, but ... this is a weapon?"

"Big cutting blade on a stick?" Things couldn't be that different here. "Of course it's a weapon."

"Anything can be a weapon, if you need one badly enough," Fenris said.

"Even a duck?" Merrill asked eagerly. "A fluffy piece of wool? What about a butterfly?"

Fenris just growled.

"We're here," Hawke announced cheerfully, and opened a wooden door, set into the ubiquitous white stone of the city. The wall was covered in vines, and a crest of two stylised birds – hawks, Safiya supposed – hung beside the door.

It took an instant for her eyes to adjust to the interior – not that it was dim, but the city was glaring. "You've had luck on your travels, messere?" a deep voice asked.

"Of both varieties, as usual," Hawke told him. "Safiya, this is Bodahn, my manservant. Don't know what I'd do without him." Safiya nodded politely to the dwarf, who was openly gawking. "This is his son, Sandal."

The younger dwarf turned watery blue eyes up to her and said hesitantly, "Hello."

Something not quite right, there, Safiya thought, but Hawke was leading them on through the wide, spacious mansion. "The library's in there –" she pointed, and Safiya determined instantly that she would get better acquainted with that room sooner rather than later. Books held everything, and there was a lot she needed to know – like how to find Gann. "- Mother and I are up the stairs there, but come this way. Kitchen," Hawke pointed out another room. "There are several bedrooms here – technically they're for the servants, but they're warmer than mine in winter. Bodahn and Sandal share that one, and I'd like to put Tarva right next to the kitchen. Choose any of the others you like-"

"I'll stay with her," Safiya interrupted.

"Even better," Hawke said, smiling her approval. "In here, Fenris," she said, and held the door for him. With a grunt, he slung her down onto the bed.

"Thank you," Safiya told him, with somewhat awkward sincerity, realising Merrill had disappeared as she struggled to dump the armour in a corner of the cosy little room.

He shifted from one foot to another, apparently unsure how to take this.

Hawke leant the scythe beside a handy wall, and touched Tarva's forehead with two fingers that glowed faintly blue. "She's gone deep," Hawke muttered, almost to herself. "If she's not coming around by the time the others get here, I'll have to force her up. Not ideal." There was a whoop from outside the room, accompanied by a creak, and Hawke raised her head. "Merrill-! If she and Sandal are swinging on the chandelier again – look, Safiya, I've got to go deal with this and talk to Mother – I'll be back soon. Make yourself at home, and talk to your friend. It may help bring her up to consciousness." Another whoop, this one considerably higher in pitch. "Maker's hairy arse, they'll have the house down in a minute!"

She scurried out, as Safiya perched herself at the edge of the bed, and Fenris trailed behind her. The elf paused in the doorway. "Are you a mage?"

Safiya smiled mirthlessly. "Not here."

"I will be watching you," he said, and left.

It was rather like talking to Tarva – on a bad day, and on a subject she really didn't want to discuss. Safiya bent to make her friend a little more comfortable. "Come on," she murmured. "I have spent far too long watching you sleep. You owe me so many night watches, you and Gann, so wake up and collect them. Don't... don't leave me alone here..."

"Safiya?" Merrill said hesitantly from the doorway. "I'm sorry to interrupt you, but Hawke reminded me I was still looking after your statue and told me to come give it back. After she made me stop swinging on the chandelier." She advanced into the room, holding out poor Kaji like a peace offering. "I'm sorry," she added. "I didn't mean to eavesdrop – although I don't know why we say that, it'd be awfully noisy if I dropped a roof – do you miss your clan very much?"

"What clan?" Safiya asked, snatching Kaji out of her hands.

"Oh, I thought you were – I'm sorry. I've put my foot in it again, haven't I? It's your vallaslin," she said, and indicated the tattoos that lined her face. "I don't recognise the pattern and I thought you were from some clan like mine, even if you are human."

"Red Wizards shave their scalps and tattoo them for greater power," Safiya answered wearily. "And I don't really miss the Academy."

"Oh, I – I'm sorry. You just looked so sad. I thought- oh, hello Hawke!" the elf said as Hawke and an elegant older woman, grey-haired, approached.

"Mother, this is Safiya, and that's Tarva. They'll be staying with us, at least until Tarva's back on her feet."

"Maker's mercy," Hawke's mother – Leandra, Safiya remembered – muttered, peering at Tarva's skeletal frame. "The poor dear."

"Thank you for your hospitality, Mistress Hawke," Safiya said, dredging up the words from somewhere. "We won't be any trouble."

"Oh, don't worry about that," Leandra said. "The house is big – without my daughter's strays to fill it up, it would get depressing. You're welcome here." She patted Hawke on the shoulder. "Now I must go; I'm expected for dinner and a musical evening at the de Launcet's. Don't wait up for me."

"I won't," Hawke smiled. "But I may be up anyway; you'll need the moral support if Dulcie sings."

Leandra shuddered in a very ladylike way. "Don't tempt the Maker, dear."

-0-0-0-0-0-

Dusk fell suddenly on the city, and Hawke's friends came clattering into the estate with it. Their noise jolted Safiya from a sleep she didn't remember falling into. She shook her head, straightened herself up, and met Tarva's gaze. The dark blue eyes were fixed on her, and the rest of her gaunt face was utterly unreadable.

It was a trick Tarva had – only the very strongest of emotions ever registered on her face, and even those were usually only subtle changes. Safiya had envied her the knack, sometimes - she knew her own face was far too open for a Red Wizard's – often at the same time she wished fervently that she could guess what her friend was thinking.

"I just woke up," the half-elf said quietly. "Where are we, Safiya? And where is – what happened to – oh, gods, I remember –"

Her eyes widened and for an instant, a spasm of raw grief and guilt contorted her angular features. Then she turned her face away.

"We've left Faerûn entirely," Safiya told her as gently as possible. She was still so weak, and that look on her face... for Gann, it had to be. What had happened to him? "The world is Thedas; this city is Kirkwall. We are in the house of a healer-mage – although apparently not a cleric – named Hawke, who has volunteered to help until you've recovered. I am fine, but I have no magic – the Weave doesn't exist here, so I suppose the mages are sorcerers or warlocks, perhaps even clerics under a different name." She paused and held up the little clay statue. "Kaji is dead."

"Safiya. I'm sorry."

The Red Wizard shrugged – not to dismiss Tarva's sympathy, but because she didn't know how else to respond. "Tarva – where is Gann?"

"I don't know," her friend answered, her voice toneless as her face was empty. "Lost, gone perhaps. My fault."

"What in the Nine Hells happ-"

"Oh, good!" Hawke said, bursting in the doorway. "You're awake, Tarva - I was getting worried. Everyone's here, Safiya, and eager to hear this unbelievable story you've promised." And they all came crowding in – Fenris and Varric, Isabela and Aveline, Merrill and a blonde man (Anders?) Safiya hadn't seen before. Hawke sat herself cross-legged on the end of Tarva's bed. "In the immortal words of the Beloved King, 'begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end: then stop.' Don't leave anything out; we're all horribly curious."

Safiya glanced at Tarva, saw the tiny nod of her head, and took a deep breath.