Latitia would have liked to let Vesta cry as long as she needed to, but she couldn't stop looking around and behind them, checking the shadows. When Vesta's shaking lessened to trembling and she forced herself to take a few steady breaths, Latitia said softly, "I'm sorry, but... I need to bring you with me. I think the vent does go to the surface, but the reason I think that is because I found a dead spider. I think they must set their nets near the opening, and catch stuff that wanders in."
"Spiders," Vesta said flatly.
"Yeah. Spiders."
"Fine." Vesta levered herself upright, grimacing and flushed with embarrassment. "I hear spiders bite you from behind, inject a poison that makes you sleep. There are worse ways to die."
Latitia shuddered, imagining jaws piercing back of her neck, poison shooting through her veins. "I did not need to hear that."
She slung Vesta's arm around her shoulders and helped her to her feet, and they started off. There were a few awkward moments until the two of them managed to coordinate their steps, and then the only barrier was the slope of the tunnel itself.
It leveled out every hundred yards or so – Latitia wondered idly whether that was so, if an engineer slipped and started rolling down the slope, he didn't just keep going until he shot out the end and into the lava – and at first they were perfect for stopping to rest. But Vesta was tiring with worrying ease, and soon Latitia's calves and knees burned with the effort of keeping them both from sliding backwards whenever Vesta stopped and hung on her shoulder, breathing in short, labored gasps.
"Oh," Vesta said after one of these breaks. "That's a big spider."
They were back to the dead one she'd seen. It felt like it had taken years to travel that short distance. The desiccated body was lying on one of those level spots, and Latitia crouched and let Vesta down to the ground to rest. She knelt beside the body and prodded it tentatively; it rocked a little on its domed back and she flinched away from it, then laughed nervously at herself. Its chitinous armor was covered in fine hairs, sharp like wire, and its pincers gleamed.
"Come on," Latitia said, and reached for Vesta's arm.
She shook her head. "Why are you doing this?"
"We need to get you to the surface!"
"Why? It'll just be a cold, barren mountain, I'm sure of it. Nothing but sky over my head, nothing but primitive humans to help me – if I'm lucky. More than likely there won't be anyone." Vesta dropped her eyes to the dark stain down her side and her trouser leg.
Latitia didn't know what to say. She wasn't sure why she was so determined to reach the surface, especially not know that Vesta had pointed out the futility of it. She just...
"So am I supposed to just sit here?" she demanded.
Vesta shrugged miserably, just a tired motion with one hand. "I don't know. I'm sorry. I'm just so tired." She pressed her eyes shut tight, but a tear squeezed out anyway and ran down her cheek. "I just want to sleep."
"You can sleep when we're out," Latitia said. "Someplace clean and safe and, if we can manage it, beautiful. Not here, in a dead tunnel beside a spider corpse."
Vesta nodded and allowed herself to be helped to her feet. Latitia pulled Vesta's right arm over her shoulder and gripped her hand when she started to slip off, wrapping her other arm around Vesta's waist, and again she asked herself what in sod-all she was doing.
Climbing the rest of that tunnel was possibly the hardest thing she'd ever done. Ancient cobwebs drifted ghostlike past their faces, making her sneeze and shudder at their clinging touch. Shadows cast by curtains of dust and clumps of debris seemed to move with sinister intent, and every moment she expected silent death to descend upon them from above... but it seemed that either the spiders were gone, or the ancestors had chosen to show favor to a brand and an exile.
Increasing debris, dead leaves and lichen began to clog the tunnel as the air grew more humid and cool. She had to stop to wrap Vesta's other arm around her shoulders and bend forward to take her weight across her back and hips; that was the only way she could move the bigger woman, one shaky step at a time. For a while, Vesta whimpered every time Latitia stumbled or shifted her grip. Then she stopped complaining, and that was worse. Vesta's blood was chill on her back.
And then, right about when Latitia was starting to think she had made an awful mistake, she blinked her tired eyes and realized that there was light, actual light, strangely white and glinting down from above. She took an eager step forward, and her foot caught in sticky thread of fresh silk stretched across the tunnel floor, thick as a rope.
Dread filled her body, numbing her limbs and fogging her brain, making her freeze like a trapped animal waiting for death. Slowly, gracefully, shapes that had been mere lumps of dust or hanging moss on the ceiling moved and unfolded; first one, then two, then a half-dozen alien faces turned toward her, each bearing four glittering emerald eyes and a set of shining pincers, precise and sharp as syringes.
For the moment, they merely stared at her, deciding whether she was worth the effort. Vesta was dead weight on her back. She couldn't hope to fight them, here in their nest. Maybe she could just throw herself headfirst down the tunnel and slide to the bottom on her sodding face, it'd be better than waiting for one of these monstrous insects to get around to killing her...
When Sketch found the cave, his arms were already full of herbs, tubers and the delightful gleanings of a field of wild strawberries. He might not have noticed it, except his passage startled a young rabbit. It leaped away into a hanging curtain of ferns and tree roots; instinctively, he reached out with his magic and found the creature's warmth, its furred body hot with the beating of its heart as it tried to flee.
He felt a pang of pity for the animal, the soft-heartedness that made him attempt to be vegetarian every few years. But, as ever, his need overwhelmed his emotion and he clenched a fist, violently sucking the body heat out of the rabbit and trying not to think about soft brown eyes and a twitching nose. Elven apostates don't get to decide what to eat any more than they decide where to live; whenever he grew comfortable enough to think about things like ethical food choices, some Templar would sense the thinning of the Veil around him, or some human peasants would decide they were sick of elves, and he would have to move on.
His longest-lasting relationship had been with the Bards, who saw the usefulness of a free mage, especially a spirit healer with enough power to defend himself with fire and ice. All that had gone wrong two years ago, when Marjorlaine changed sides in the middle of a job in Ferelden and threw him, Leliana, and their dwarven muscle Tug into a particularly nasty dungeon. Poor old Tug. The burley fighter had grinned and called out out taunts, determined to keep the torturers away from Sketch as long as he could. Sketch still had nightmares about the sounds the hideous tools had made, and rescue had come too late for him to do anything to save his friend. No amount of power can bring a man back from the dead.
After that he'd gone west with the vague intention of crossing the Frostbacks and eventually making his way back to Orlais, feeling stupid and sentimental for carrying Tug's axe with him. But he was tired of running, and when he'd stumbled across the abandoned trapper's cabin in an idyllic hidden valley he'd dropped his bags and given up on the world.
He'd been there long enough to get the hang of living in the mountains. Long enough to turn the ramshackle cabin into a home. Long enough to get lonely.
Sketch laid down his basket and pushed through the ferns to retrieve his dinner, and with a startled "Whoa!" almost fell face-first down the stone slope that opened up before him. Only some quick thinking saved him from an undignified and possibly fatal tumble as he froze the mud at his feet solid, causing it to grip his boots tightly for long enough that he could catch his balance. Several seconds later, his own whoa floated back to him as an echo from somewhere impossibly deep in the earth.
There was only one possible explanation for a smooth, flawlessly engineered tunnel into a mountain. And if this really was one of the fabled lost entrances to the Deep Roads, then that might mean...
"Lyrium," he whispered. What he could do with a little lyrium. The last winter had nearly killed him – with lyrium, he could warm himself for days if necessary, if he was lost in a blizzard or had to travel down to the shepherds' village for supplies. Sketch left the tunnel behind, picked up his basket, and started walking back to his cabin. Everyone knew there were darkspawn in the Deep Roads, and he needed to be careful.
He returned the following morning with his old fighting robes on and a generous supply of water and rabbit jerky. He conjured a magelight and, leaning on his staff for balance, carefully made his way down the musty tunnel. His eyes were on the ground, searching for footprints, alert for any evidence of darkspawn, and the fangs in the back of his neck were a total surprise. Fire burst from his hands even as shadows crowded into his vision, and he heard an insectile scream before the numbing venom reached his brain and he knew no more.
…
A vague impression of softness and warmth filtered slowly into his consciousness, and for a while he thought he was lying in a luxurious bed cocooned in blankets, and sighed with contentment. Then his nose started to itch and he tried to move a hand to scratch it, and he couldn't, because he wasn't cocooned in blankets, he was just cocooned, and then the panic took him.
Only for a moment, though, before he managed to bring himself back under control. A mage can't afford to panic for long or he might, for example, set his clothes on fire. Or explode.
Fully awake now, he sensed a familiar presence nearby: his spirit of healing. He could see the last of the shimmering green glow of the lifeward it had placed on him as the glyph slowly faded. A cool, gentle hand seemed to stroke his soul, and then the presence began to drift away. Sketch closed his eyes (not that it made any difference in the darkness) and said a prayer of thanks to his spirit. He thought he could feel its amusement at his gratitude; the spirits often had strange senses of humor, if they had any at all, and his spirit's was stranger than most.
Okay. First things first. He was completely and totally immobilized, unable even to move his fingers, and that was a serious problem because all his useful spells needed gestures to form. He could breath, more or less. A lingering light-headedness and dull pain in his neck made him suspect the spiders had already had their first meal of his blood, and then wrapped up the leftovers for tomorrow's lunch. It would have been nice if the spirit had stuck around a little longer, but he had strength enough for some magic and he was awake, which was a significant improvement.
He tried warming the air around his body, thinking perhaps the silk would dry and shrink away, but if anything it grew tighter and soon he had to dismiss the heat before he cooked himself. Panic threatened again as the silk constricted his breathing, and unformed magic sparked dangerously around his hands before he clamped down on it – if he lit this silk on fire, he might burn his face off. He began carefully, carefully growing a sharp ice crystal up from the damp floor, gritting his teeth with the effort of maintaining it...
The crystal dissolved with a splash when he was distracted by the scuff of a boot on stone. Was someone coming? By the Maker, what were the odds? His thought was confirmed as whoever it was shuffled with painful slowness down the corridor. He couldn't tell how far away they were, with the silk muffling his ears; with a cold wash of fear, he realized they must be walking right into the spiders' trap.
No sooner had the thought occurred to him than he felt a faint tug at the silk and heard the newcomer's sudden sharp intake of breath. They'd stepped on the silken alarm cord. He waited in dread for a scream, but when the moment passed in silence, he realized the spiders must be sleepy and slow after their meal, like a snake – spiders didn't eat much, did they? A whole elf, that was a Satinalia feast to such creatures.
Urgently, he called out from within his fuzzy prison, "Cut me loose! If you want to live, cut me free, I need my hands-"
A thud as something heavy was dropped, and a blade sliced through the silk, his robes, and drew blood from the skin beneath in the stranger's desperation. Another swipe, vertical this time, and with a heave Sketch burst his hands free of the sticky mass, fingers glowing white-hot and ready even as spiders scuttled down the tunnel walls, chittering with anger.
"Get down!" he shouted, and then he couldn't hold back the magic any longer, all the pain and fear and frustration roaring out through his hands into a furious column of flame. Wind whipped at his hair as the fire devoured the air in the tunnel, it hurt to breath, and spiders were roasting and popping like chestnuts and then it was over and he slumped weakly to the floor, gasping for breath.
For a minute the only sounds were Sketch's ragged breathing and the quiet sizzle of spiders. But he knew the feeling of mana drain, having been in so many scuffles over the course of his long career of staying alive, and he wasn't worried. Soon enough he felt the magic seeping into him again, his body soaking it up from the Fade like a sponge, and he sat up and looked for his savior.
A skinny and rather scorched young woman lay huddled over an unmoving body, shaking and coughing. Suddenly worried that he might have hurt her or, Maker forbid, killed the one who lay so still, he asked, "Are you all right? You can get up now, the spiders are dead. I didn't hurt you, did I?"
She flinched at the sound of his voice, then sat up, looking around at the blackened walls and burnt threads of silk. "Oh," she said, "Well, I guess that's that, then."
"What's wrong with your friend?" Sketch asked. He could have found out himself, but he didn't want to spend the energy in case he needed it for healing.
"Sword in the gut."
"That'll do it."
"Yeah, it will." She bent over the woman on the ground and touched her face, then put a finger to her throat for a pulse. She must have found one, because she sat back and looked at him for the first time. "I don't suppose you have any, I don't know, bandages or anything?" she said hopelessly.
"If you give me another minute to rest, I'll see what I can do," he said with an encouraging smile. She looked so tired, even more worn-out than him, and it was a little late to pretend he wasn't a mage. He held out a hand. "Hi, I'm Sketch. I'm a spirit healer. Promise not to tell anyone?"
She frowned at his hand as though unsure what to do with it, and the roundness of her face and her slightly odd proportions, a little broader in the shoulder than a normal woman her size, finally told him what he really should have guessed. He grinned and crossed his arms over his chest instead, giving her a short bow like Tug had once demonstrated.
She returned the gesture, keeping a wary eye on him. "I don't see why I would, seeing as you saved our lives. I'm Latitia, and my quiet friend here is Vesta. What were you doing in that... bag?"
He shuddered. "I thought I'd see if I could find some lyrium. I was so busy looking for darkspawn, I didn't notice the spider. It wrapped me up for safekeeping, I suppose. What brought you up here, if I may ask?"
She laughed nervously. "Economical spiders, great. I, uh, don't want to rush you, but there's a bit too much dying going on over here. We came to the surface to look for help."
Sketch smiled at her again. "You found it. I'm happy to help – remember which of us has been hanging out in a cocoon. I'm the one who owes you."
He pulled himself away from the rest of the sticky silk, grimacing at the way it clung to his hair and clothing. When he was free of it, he knelt beside the downed woman and took out the pair of small, sharp shears he normally kept for snipping herbs, then began cutting through the soaked bandages. They came away stiff and sticky with clotting blood and he tossed them aside for later incineration. Underneath, the ragged wound had been rather badly stitched together in what he recognized as emergency field dressing, the sort his old mercenary friends had called "gum and wire" for reasons he did not care to investigate. His hands moved automatically over the stitches, removing them one at a time, while he sang softly under his breath to call back the healing spirit.
It didn't come, and he ignored the suggestive voices of the demons who offered their aid instead – all you need is power, and I can give you power aplenty – instead mustering his own fire to burn away the vicious infection and stop the bleeding. A touch of ice made short work of the fever. He took a break from his spellwork, breathing hard, and reached out to brush the hair back from her face, meaning to check her eyes to see if she was nearer to consciousness.
Now, Sketch normally had no trouble being professional when working on a woman's body. There were wounds, and they needed fixing, and he didn't waste energy fussing over whether the body was male or female, acquaintance or close friend. But Vesta was beautiful in a way he'd never seen. None of the fragility typical of elven and human beauty, but all of the allure, with an underlying strength that defied her wounds. Unbidden, he remembered Tug's reminiscing about the women of Orzammar with "curves like a mountain range and hips you can hang onto if ya know what I'm talking about, eh, mage?"
Blushing, he turned quickly back to the wound and spread his hands over it, putting everything he had into calling the spirit once more. He poured strength into the song and felt it pierce the Veil, felt the spirit's coolness settle into his bones and its will gently push him aside. He watched from above and slightly to the left as the spirit's healing gushed from his hands and flesh knitted under his fingertips. Color returned to Vesta's skin as the spirit multiplied the blood in her body. When the wound was just a slight pink scar, Sketch focused his own will and knocked on the door of his own mind, telling the spirit it was time for it to go. There was the usual stomach-knotting fear as the spirit pretended not to hear him, teasing him that perhaps this time it had grown comfortable in his body and might keep it, and then it was gone and he slammed back into his own head with a sickening lurch.
"Are you all right? What happened?" Latitia asked, sitting up from where she'd fallen into a doze when she saw him sway and put a hand to the wall to steady himself.
"I'm fine. She will be, too, if cared for." He began scrambling out of his outer layer of robes as soon as he had his breath back. He wrapped the heavy fabric around Vesta's still-unconscious form, warmth being the main concern now that her wound was dealt with, propping her up against his shoulder to get the cloth underneath her. She felt soft and good under his arm, and when he was done, he found he didn't want to lay her back down again.
"Do we need to warm her? I can help," Latitia offered, and scooted across the tunnel floor to lean against Vesta's other side, putting her arms around the unconscious woman's waist.
"Right, yes," he said faintly. "Body heat is best. Good thinking."
"What now?" Latitia asked after a moment's silence. "You said she needs care."
"Oh – yes. Nothing too complicated. Rest, food, warmth. She will be tired for quite some time, I'm afraid. Her body has no strength left in reserve. How long was she carrying that wound?"
Latitia paused in thought. "A day?"
Sketch whistled through his teeth. "Impressive."
"Yeah." Another pause. "Sketch, I... Do you live around here?"
He nodded. "Not too far. I have a cabin. I was tired of getting chased out of my homes, and thought hiding in the mountains by myself might be safer." He saw her confusion and explained, "I'm in hiding. It's either this or imprisonment in a Tower."
"Vesta's in exile, too," Latitia said, sitting up slightly. "She can't go back to Orzammar. She was framed for murder," she added defensively, as though daring him to accuse her friend of some guilt.
His heart leaped. Doing his best to sound casual, he said, "Well, I suppose you both could stay with me until she is strong enough to travel."
"I can't," Latitia said, sounding shocked. "I can't go on the surface, I'd never be allowed back into the city. I have a home, family in Orzammar."
"You can leave her with me," he assured her. "She'll be safe with me. I want to repay you, and anyway, a good healer doesn't like to leave a job unfinished. I don't mind caring for her while she recovers." I really don't mind. Really, really don't mind one bit. Quite aside from Vesta herself, he saw here an opportunity to repay Tug in some way. And she was an outcast, too; maybe they could be outcasts together.
"I..." She looked a little dubious, but at that moment Vesta moaned softly and her eyes flickered open. Latitia gave a cry of relief and said, grinning, "Hey! Welcome back! You will not believe what just happened. I'll give you a hint: Flaming spiders."
"Wha?" Vesta mumbled hoarsely. Sketch tensed as she looked over to see what she was leaning on, then slowly turned her head up to blink at him. "Who...?"
"This is Sketch," Latitia explained with enthusiasm that made him want to blush and shuffle his feet even though he was sitting down. "We wandered into a spider nest, and he was trapped, and I let him out and he filled the entire tunnel with fire and burned the spiders all up! And then he made your wound go away just by waving his hands at it! I've never seen anything like it!"
"Oh, good," Vesta said, a bit overwhelmed.
"How do you feel?"
"Weak. And hungry."
"Hunger is a good sign," Sketch said. "Unfortunately, food will have to wait until we get back to my house. The spiders pretty well befouled everything in my pack."
Vesta looked to Latitia, who grinned uncertainly, saying, "Sketch has a house near here. He says it's isolated and safe, and he offered to let you stay with him while you recover in return for my letting him out of the spiders' trap. Is that... okay with you?"
Vesta nodded, closing her eyes again, and Sketch let out a breath he hadn't known he was holding.
Latitia watched the healer try to pretend he wasn't thrilled at the chance to nurse a beautiful woman back to health. She'd seen what some men do to an incapacitated woman, things she wished she could forget, but Sketch had been so incredibly helpful. She wanted to believe that he was what he seemed to be: kind enough to heal Vesta, powerful enough to protect her, and lonely enough to care for her and maybe help her build a new home on the surface. There was an appealing boyishness to his soft brown hair and serious eyes, which suggested that, had life been kinder, he might have become a scholar.
"I think we should go," Sketch said then. "This isn't the most comfortable place for rehabilitation."
"Yeah, and I have to get going if I want to get to Orzammar before I drop dead of thirst." Latitia pushed herself to her feet. She watched Sketch tuck the blanket more snugly around Vesta, then heave her up into his arms with a grunt. "You got her? She's not too heavy?"
Sketch gave her a quick grin. "I'll be fine. I can stop and rest when I need to."
Vesta squirmed a little at the movement and opened her eyes again. "Are we going? Latitia, you aren't coming?"
"No," she said softly, giving the other woman's hand a squeeze. "I have to go home. Atrast tunsha, Vesta." She felt strangely reluctant to let her go, after everything she had done to get her here.
"Atrast tunsha. And thank you." Vesta smiled at her, a radiant smile that Latitia had never seen, free from pain.
"Farewell," Sketch said, turning to go. "Have a safe journey home!"
Latitia watched them go until the little light wisp was gone, then retrieved her own light with a sigh. Time to go home. Without her harvest of crabs, too, damn those greedy darkspawn. Then the light glinted on a curved pincer, and she grinned and knelt beside the body, pulling out her knife. Wasn't spider venom valuable? If nothing else, she was sure she could sell it to the Carta as a simple poison.
"Thanks to you, there'll be food on the table tonight after all," she told the spider, which didn't reply. When she had drained the last venom sac into her water bottle (which should probably be replaced after this) she stood and strode purposefully back down the tunnel, heading home.
The end of "The Exile," the first adventure in the deep roads. More to come later, when I'm ready for a break from my other stories.
Thank you so much for reading, favoriting, and especially reviewing! You make my day :) Special thanks as always to my unfailing beta, mille libri!
