Preceded by Gates of Life Chapter 3: Blood Magic


Chapter 4: Deception

"As bizarre as it is to find myself asking this, what do we know about killing dragons?" Blair asked.

Morrigan spoke up. "I believe I probably have the most knowledge of dragons passed on from one who knows first-hand. Does anyone else know anything about dragons that was not received from books or legends?"

"Flemeth, I assume," Blair said dryly. "Go ahead. The most I've heard is reports of dragons laying waste to villages, nothing about killing them."

"What I know is limited. While myths tell of dragons with breath that corrodes armor or drains life force, most dragons breathe fire. They are horrendously strong, but because they are so large cannot turn rapidly, which gives us an advantage as we are more nimble. They do have the ability to strike out at multiple attackers at once, though, with their forelimbs and tail. And the wind from a flap of their wings can knock you sprawling."

"I suppose it's too much to hope for some tale of a fatal weakness," Blair asked. "Can anyone else add anything?"

"We have some ointments that are said to protect against heat, but I don't know how well they would work against a dragon's breath," Leliana said. "They will let you hold a firebrand in your hand without much pain."

"So are we all going to ride off to battle and be killed by this thing?" asked Alistair. "We are the only two Gray Wardens in Ferelden, if we fall here the Archdemon's darkspawn will overrun the country."

"Yes, if we do decide to fight it we will have to split up. Alistair, you will not be fighting it in any case. I don't doubt your bravery, but we cannot put both Gray Wardens into the fight. If we cannot get past this dragon we cannot retrieve the Urn, and we cannot heal the Arl. If we are unable to heal the Arl you may still have a chance to discredit Loghain since you are King Maric's son."

"Who would believe that without the Arl to back me up?"

"You think they would be more likely to side against Teyrn Loghain, hero of Ferelden, with an elven mage?"

Alistair laughed bitterly. "No, I suppose not."

"Then that is settled. If we do fight it I will go, because I can't ask you to fight an enemy I won't face myself. Morrigan, I would like you to come as well, and Sten and Zevran."

"Well, this is a dubious honor," Zevran said wryly.

"Is that a refusal?" Blair asked sharply.

Zevran hesitated. He had promised to serve Blair, though in the past he would have assumed such promises had an unwritten "until you send me to battle dragons" clause. But he had expected to be asked to go into danger, and had already done so many times.

Besides, if Zevran refused to go into battle with Blair just because of the risk, that made his word meaningless. Zevran had lied to and deceived many people in his life, but he had never betrayed a friend–at least not purposefully, and his failure in Rinna's case was his greatest shame. He was surprised to find that Blair had become a friend at some point on the road to Denerim and back. He and Blair had faced darkspawn together, and each saved the other's life, and he enjoyed talking to the mage. When Zevran joined the party his vow had merely been a way to avoid dying in the dirt, but at some point it had become real.

"No," he said finally. "If you will fight the dragon, I will fight with you."

"A dragon," said Morrigan. "How could I deny the chance to kill a dragon? If you insist upon this insanity, well, I will accompany you."

"I will do it," Sten said in his usual stolid tone. Blair gave him a noncommittal look. Sten had challenged Blair over their coming to Haven, saying it was a waste of time, and Blair had made him back down. At the time Zevran had been worried it might come to a fight, but in retrospect the sight of the elf facing down a giant twice his size was more than a little funny.

Blair stood. "We will need more lyrium. We will travel to the Circle of Magi tomorrow, then return to fight the dragon."

The group dispersed, some to their tents, Leliana to gather firewood, and Morrigan to cook supper. At Morrigan's request, Blair picked up the bucket and headed to the stream to get some water, and Zevran followed him quietly on an impulse. They had gone out of earshot of the camp before Zevran called his name. Blair spun around, startled, then relaxed.

"You're liable to get electrocuted sneaking up on mages like that."

"I wanted to get you alone," Zevran replied.

"Unrequited love, so sad!" Blair laughed.

Normally Zevran would have gone along with the teasing, but not today. "Actually I wanted to talk about something important."

Blair sobered. "I assume blood magic? I would think that you would understand."

"I'm not opposed to it. But I do want to know how you got it. I know your Harrowing story, I also know it was a lie."

"Believe it or not, as you like!" Blair retorted.

"I am going to fight a dragon at your request, do you not think I deserve the truth? I will not tell the others. Was it the demon who had Connor? Is he not free?" Blair gave him a pained look and he knew he had the truth of it. "So the demon lives." This placed Blair's sudden decision to free Jowan in a new light. A crisis of conscience, perhaps?

Blair dropped the bucket on the ground and rubbed his temples. "Yes, but it has left Connor. I got that much. I tried to get more, but. . ." He swallowed. "It retains the contract, and may return."

Zevran stared in disbelief. "Will return, you mean. And his mother dead to save him from this."

"I didn't mean for it to happen that way!"

"I would credit you with a level of manipulative genius worthy of a Crow master, to convince a mother to sacrifice herself for her son only for you to trade his soul for your benefit, but since you did it accidentally–I'm not sure what to think."

"Maker help me, I meant to save him. I tried to persuade the demon to disavow the contract, but it would not give me that in addition to blood magic."

"I must confess this all comes as a surprise to me. I would have expected you to just kill it. What could drive you to such a calculated decision?"

"It was not calculated!"

Zevran waved the objection away. "Use whatever words you like. You weighed his interests and your interests in the balance, and your interests were more compelling. What shifted the balance?"

Blair said hesitantly, "You saw Jowan. I knew him in the Circle Tower. He studied blood magic without my knowledge. The Templars found out about it and the First Enchanter agreed to make him Tranquil. Jowan was able to use blood magic to stop them as they tried to arrest him and escape the Tower. He was never more than a barely competent apprentice before. That kind of power would help immensely in fighting the Blight."

Zevran found himself getting irritated. That speech would fit better coming from Wynne's lips. "Are you truly that self-deceived? You did it for yourself. I understand the desire for power, but to trade another's liberty and then lie to yourself about it is repugnant."

Blair curled his lip. "You want to talk about self-deception? You seem well-versed in that, with your pretended indifference to the fates of those you've killed."

Zevran crossed his arms. "If that is so, then I lie to myself about how hard-hearted I am, while you lie to yourself about how selfless you are. Which is the worse deception?"

Blair turned his back and was silent for a moment, staring at the ground. "You are right. I did it for myself. In the Tower . . . we were always watched. Templars patrolled the Tower at all hours, watching us and listening to us talk. Sometimes they would come into the library or into our rooms and take the apprentices' books and notes, and read them to make sure we weren't studying anything unauthorized that might be dangerous. You might expect the mages to object to this, but most said they had to do it and were protecting us from ourselves.

"Those that they thought might be dangerous, maybe with dangerous interests or weak-willed, they would take away and make Tranquil. The rest of us had to go through the Harrowing, where they drop an apprentice barely coming into their power into the Fade and summon a demon to attempt to possess them. If they fail to defeat the demon, or just take too long in waking, the Templars kill them. I did not know what the Harrowing actually was until I was Harrowed, but I did know that some apprentices went to the Harrowing and were never seen again. No one talked much about it."

He turned and approached Zevran a few steps. "So of course I took the first chance I had to escape the Tower. I did not find until after the Joining that being a Gray Warden means I will die prematurely even if the darkspawn do not succeed in killing me. But if I had known, I would still have traded the cage of the Circle for the cage of the Wardens, and now that I am out of the Circle I will use whatever means I can to make sure no one ever has that type of power over me again."

Zevran couldn't help thinking of a different kind of cage, the cell he had been locked in as a child, surrounded by the weeping of frightened and injured children. Blair's prison may have been less horrific, but it was still a prison, and he felt an unexpected kinship with the elven mage.

"I do regret it though. I was too hasty. A mage willing to make a deal with a demon will always find one, and I should not have made someone else pay the price. I wish every day I could go back, find some way–" He looked away and bit his lip.

Zevran didn't make any conscious decision, but crossed to him and embraced the mage. Blair stiffened, but then relaxed against him. Zevran found himself wondering, what do I do now? In other circumstances he knew quite well the moves of the dance. But this was an unfamiliar pattern.

He was saved from confusion by Morrigan's mocking voice. "I see I am interrupting. If you're not going to bring the water, hand me the bucket and I will get it myself."

Zevran stepped back, looking up the trail at Morrigan. They had been talking quietly, and Morrigan was too far away to have heard them. She continued down the trail to join them.

Blair picked up the bucket. "I was just about to get it. If you would like to go back to camp I will bring it in a minute."

"A minute? And Zevran, you brag of your endurance?"

Zevran saw Blair flush with embarrassment and felt annoyed at the witch. He was sure Blair would go straight back to camp and avoid him all evening now that she'd come along. "If you'd like a personal demonstration I am at your disposal," he said automatically, disguising his irritation.

"If I get to test your endurance by seeing how long you can hang by your thumbs, certainly."

"I'm sorry to have to disappoint you, but that's a little extreme even for me."

"Pity." He and Morrigan stood staring at each other. It appeared she was waiting for him to leave, but he was not going to leave until she did. Blair shrugged and turned to go to the stream.

"Blair," Morrigan called. He turned and waited. "Blood magic, I hear–full of surprises! Certainly you did not trade your soul. How did you get it?"

"I met a demon in the Harrowing at the Circle of Magi–and no, I did not trade my soul." Zevran took care that his face revealed nothing.

"Well, do not tell me if you do not desire to." Turning dismissively, she headed to camp.

Blair looked at Zevran and then turned wordlessly and headed to the stream. Zevran started to follow him but Blair said, "Please, I would like to be alone."

"Very well," Zevran said. "I will tell no one, you know this?"

"I do. Thank you." The other elf nodded and walked down the trail. Zevran turned and went back to camp.

Of course one more obstacle faced Blair that evening. When Zevran returned he found Wynne and Alistair standing off to the side, talking very seriously. Wynne looked angry. Zevran found himself feeling relieved that she specialized in defensive and healing magic.

Blair soon returned with the full bucket, which he deposited by the fire. He'd barely set it down before Wynne approached him. Wynne was the only person in the group that Blair seemed uncertain around. Zevran thought it was simply because she was a Circle mage, human, and a lot older than Blair, because Blair had told him he had not had much contact with Wynne while in the Tower. Now Zevran could tell from the look on his face that he would like to run or disappear, but he held his ground. Zevran moved closer to overhear what was heard, ostensibly to search through his pack for something. He noticed that activity around the entire camp had slowed, and everyone seemed to be half-watching the impending confrontation.

"I hear you are a blood mage," Wynne accused. She spoke loudly enough that Zevran was sure everyone in the camp had heard her.

"You heard correctly," Blair answered, not as loud, but in a steady voice.

"The Gray Wardens have a lax policy on maleficars."

"Yes, they seem to consider saving the lives of millions a higher priority than policing unconventional mages," Blair said, with something approaching his usual acerbity.

"Do you expect me to help you, when you are using demon magic?"

"No, I would expect you to leave the group. But I would hope that you would stay. You've saved the lives of all of us, and our odds of succeeding in destroying the Archdemon are higher with you along. Besides, I am going to fight a dragon and may soon be dead. If that happens, Alistair will need your help."

His voice softened and Zevran had to strain to hear him. "Wynne, you know that these things are not always as simple as they initially appear. My soul is my own, and I owe nothing to any demon. I am no abomination. Please, think it over before you leave us."

There was a pause. "Very well, I will stay until the battle with the dragon is concluded, but I make no promises beyond that point."

"Thank you, Wynne." As she headed back towards the campfire Blair gave Zevran a half-smile and went to his tent.

That night as Zevran kept watch he tried to sort out what he thought of Blair's deal with the demon. In a way he almost admired him, since what he'd done was devious enough to get any Crow's approval. Yet he was also disappointed. Blair clearly hadn't thought it through, which didn't impress him, and the fact that he'd left a child he claimed to have saved in the hands of a demon rankled. Such duplicity had been a matter of course in the Crows, but he had hoped he'd put that behind him. Yet what else could Blair do? No amount of regret could change the past, and letting the truth be known would just be suicide. Finally Zevran determined the situation wasn't enough to alienate him from the mage, but it was a reminder to keep his eyes open.


Followed by Gates of Life Chapter 5: Dragonslayers