4.
The knot on Alistair's head throbbed. He had never actually been warned of the wallop those mage staffs could pack when used as makeshift cudgels, probably because a mage wasn't supposed to utilize their expensive and delicate instrument of spellcraft like an angry dwarf in a bar fight. He had to admire the girl's resolve, though. He certainly hadn't thought that soft voice and look of lambent sorrow betokened a stern and resounding swing aside his cranium.
She'd limped off as fast as her gimp leg could carry her while he staggered back, dazed, and he had elected to gather close his dignity and his supplies and take his time heading back to Lothering rather than pelt off after her all helter-skelter and risk reopening that gut wound. He was still rather suspicious of the magical heal, and he knew she would return to Lothering. Where else was she going to stock up on supplies? She had to at least stop by the general store before limping bravely off into the apostate sun.
And in his professional opinion, she was precisely that. Only apostate. Not maleficar. An important distinction to him and Cullen only, perhaps.
Lothering squatted on the horizon, an ungainly bundle of brown and gray against the soaring blue sky. During the last Blight, the darkspawn had taken it apart stick by stick, and it had never really recovered. A backwater then, it was now little more than a token Chantry around a mess of reclaimed swampland and rickety houses. If his boots didn't go up to the knee, he'd have lost at least one in the sucking churned mud of the town's paths.
The streets were curiously bereft of people, though here and there a curtain flicked quickly open and then closed. More curious than that, there were no Templars about, not even in front of the Chantry.
Alistair frowned at that as he passed by, troubled by the implications of such a lack. Very few things would occupy the attention of an entire garrison of Templars. An abomination nearby might, but Alistair was certain he would have been warned of such a thing before he left the abbey. Jacinta, while certainly a matter of concern, would not clear a Chantry of its complement of men, not without a history of the direst maleficarish deeds behind her. And the town was so damned quiet, like someone huddled and hopeless by the side of a road.
Only the tavern was open, and even that was all but empty, save for a dedicated career drunk slumping at his bar stool, a few gossips near the fireplace, and a young lutenist perched atop one of the tables. She glanced up from her instrument at Alistair's approach with a smile of welcome. Even from a distance, her eyes were a distinct and piercing blue.
"Hello, Templar," she said pleasantly. "Are you not out with the rest of the men? Or have you all returned?"
"I wish I could tell you," Alistair replied with a clanking shrug. "I'm not actually from the local Chantry. I'm afraid I haven't a clue what's happening in this town. I was hoping someone could fill me in, but Lothering seems half-abandoned. What's befallen this place?"
"Well, of course I am new in town as well," said the young woman. A gentle Orlesian accent, just now apparent, gave her words a lilting cadence. "I am only passing through, but I understand there was some commotion on a farmhold nearby. Some monstrous creature slayed a family, from gray-haired elder to suckling babe, and the villagers were advised to keep indoors until further notice."
"An abomination?" Alistair asked, startled.
The woman shrugged, an elegant motion. "I cannot say. Your Templars are a close-mouthed lot. Either way, they have been gone much of the day, and should be back soon, considering the news out of the capital."
"What news?"
"Well, King Maric is dead," she said, and paused in her strumming to fine-tune her instrument while Alistair's stomach fell to his feet and flopped there. "They say it was his own son who killed him, Prince Cailan; killed him, and ran. While I am sorry for the royal family to be so torn, it is a good time for a Bard to be in Ferelden, so I shall stay a while till this tale comes to its end. Teyrn Loghain moves to be regent in his daughter's name, and they say that Cailan's absence convicts him as surely as a bloodied knife, for why would he run, were he not guilty?"
"What?"
One of the drunks slobbering on his own arm nearby jumped, and gave Alistair a bleary, suspicious glare. Alistair ignored it as he pulled out a chair backwards and sat down in it with all the grace of a deactivated golem. He had met Cailan once, when they were both children, he still at Castle Redcliffe, Cailan blissfully unaware of anything besides the presence of an armory on the premises. He remembered Cailan as a goofy and excitable boy without an ounce of malice in him. Patricide? Cailan?
"No. It's not possible," he said firmly, sitting up straight and lifting his head to meet the Bard's keen eyes.
"Is it not?" she inquired, her brows tilting up. "In my country it certainly would be."
"This isn't Orlais!" Alistair exploded. "King Maric has been an excellent king to our people, and there is no reason at all why Prince Cailan would have done such a thing. Is there any proof?"
"Who is to say? I have not examined any of it myself, of course," the young Bard said. "But they say Princess Anora, who is passing fond of her husband, has declared against him publicly, and so there must be something to it indeed."
"Yeah, sure, something vile. It's wretched and it's a lie. I don't believe it, not for a second."
The Bard looked impressed with his fervor. "Did you know them, to be so certain?"
"I — no. No, I didn't," said Alistair, and glanced down at the scarring on the table.
"I'm sorry," said the Bard gently, with such sincere regret that Alistair raised his head to scrutinize her face for some trace of mockery. "And in all this talk, I have not asked your name. Please forgive my lack of manners. I am called Leliana. And yourself?"
"Alistair."
Leliana's eyes went wide, and she set aside her instrument on the bench along with any pretense of fussing with it further, leaning forward intently. "If you are Alistair, then you must come with me now."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Now. Please," she added urgently.
Before he quite knew what was happening, he found that she had led him briskly to a small guest room on the second floor, where she shut the door and locked it, then waited a moment with her ear to the door before straightening to face him. Candles flickered in their sconces, lit in early anticipation of the night by some conscientious servant. He stared at Leliana, feeling hulking and stupid in his tons of useless armor. "What is this about?"
The Bard drew herself up straight. "There is another piece of news from the capital," she said.
"And? You had to draw me into this spiderwebbed little room to discuss it?"
She crossed her arms, tilting her head at a challenging angle. "You are the bastard son of the King, are you not?"
For the second time that day he was left gaping. "I — what — I —"
Her eyes held no triumph, only a cool certainty. "The word is out. Teyrn Loghain is searching for the Templar Alistair, who has been exiled from the Order of the Templars due to abrogation of his sacred duties, under suspicion of assisting in the disappearance of his half-brother the Prince."
"I can't even spell abrogation, let alone commit it," Alistair sputtered.
"Your own Revered Mother has signed the order of expulsion." Leliana's voice was not so soft now, the accented flow of her words relentless. "There is a bounty on your head. Your life is as forfeit as that of a maleficar should a good Templar come across you."
"As that of a — I met Cailan once in my life! Precisely when and how was I supposed to have spirited him out of Denerim?" Alistair protested.
Leliana shrugged, not unkindly. "You were set up. That much is clear. What will you do now?"
"Does it matter?" Alistair glanced at the dirty window, so crusted over with grime and the elements that one could scarcely make out the setting sun. "No wonder the Revered Mother sent me alone. I'd wager the Knight-Commander didn't know I was gone until I was halfway to Lothering. Crafty old bird," and the laugh he'd intended came out choked.
"Forgive me if I overstep my bounds," Leliana said softly, "but in Orlais, the situation you find yourself in is not new. The advice I would offer you is simple, based on my own experience." There was a heavy pause, as though she waited for him to say yea or nay. He said nothing, the world throbbing around him. "You are a Templar, and your Order is not taught to wield lies, but the truth. You must seek this truth, and bring it to the capital, and confront this Teyrn Loghain with it."
"Oh! Jolly good then, that ought to be simple enough. Give me a quick minute, I'll have it all sorted by breakfast tomorrow." Alistair's mouth tightened.
"I did not say it was simple. I said it was what you must do."
"And what is it to you exactly? Why should I trust you?"
"Well," she murmured, "I suppose there is no reason." The uneven light of the dying sun seemed to touch her with halting reverence even through the filmy window. "But where there are great deeds or great mysteries afoot, it is only appropriate that a Bard be there as well, no? To record them, of course."
"Or run about killing the protagonists and otherwise interfering with the plot. I've heard of Bards, you know." He meant to fix the young woman with a thunderous glare, but her smile curved up sweetly at him.
"I am honored you have heard of my colleagues, and if you have heard the least of the rumors about us, I do understand your mistrust." She brushed her dark red hair out of her eyes, her long sleeve falling back a little bit to reveal a delicate white wrist. "But I promise you, I am in Ferelden on my own, and not on anyone's behalf. And I do not think it is fair, what they have done to you, and I would like to help you, if you would have me. I would like the adventure. And I would like to help set something right."
"You're bloody mad," Alistair muttered.
Leliana laughed. "There are worse things, no?"
"You want to come along with a Chantry fugitive on the run from a murderous plot that's already killed the king and possibly his only heir, on a mission to figure out what the bleeding hell is going on in the capital so it can be set to rights before I get my throat unceremoniously slit in a dungeon somewhere, all the while dodging Templars and bounty hunters and whoever else likes the sound of coin in their purse?"
"When you put it that way, it does sound a little mad," the Bard allowed. "But that is why it is exciting, too, I think!"
"Riiiight," drawled Alistair, "exciting. Well — I assume you can fight?"
"It is the very first thing we learn in Bard school," Leliana promised him.
Alistair eyed her narrowly. "There is no such thing as Bard school, is there?" The mind boggled. Alistair imagined neat little rows of fashionable Orlesian assassins taking studious notes in some cavernous classroom. What classes would they have, even? Confusion to the Enemy: Turnabout is Fair Play? Sin and Skullduggery For the Good of the Empire? How to Seductively Remove Thirty Layers of Haute Couture?
Leliana merely beamed at him. "I shall go get my instrument, and we can turn our backs on this quaint little mudhole, yes?"
"Yeah. You... you do that," Alistair said, wishing for the umpteenth time that he could sound firm and commanding, like a king's son, instead of befuddled and disoriented, like an octogenarian. "You should fetch your things. Well, not all of them, I know how you Orlesians are. Leave all the frilled petticoats and designer shoes and whatnot. I'll wait here for you, but don't take long."
"All right!" the young woman chirped, and she bounded decisively off, the wooden door creaking shut behind her.
Once he was alone in the room, Alistair took off a glove and plunged a hand into his pack, rummaging through the contents for a little phial he knew had to be there. He had not taken it since leaving the monastery, deliberately holding off until the urge to take it again grew to an almost irresistible mental clamor. The Templars' rations were absolute and without exception; those who used their lyrium up early in any given period were simply left to deal with the pain and disjointedness of withdrawal until they were next due a new phial.
Right now, shaking with revelation, he thought he could use the extra edge. So he tapped a modest amount of the powder out into his palm, clapped a hand to his mouth and swallowed the bitter stuff. It lacked the drama of Sister Euthalia's careful little pinch (not to mention her manicured little fingers holding the twinkling matter between them), but no matter...
The tiny room with its dusty candles was yanked abruptly from his sight like someone tearing back a curtain.
Two small figures chased each other in a glade, tiny graceful silhouettes shot through with sunset and shadow, verdure and darkness. Their laughter rang through the air, children's laughter, snorting little giggles and hoots of joy. He could not see their faces, the setting sun brought no light upon their features in that thick wood, and somewhere, in that lyrium-infused sixth sense, he felt a power move. It was a mortal power, of that he was sure, a dark and brooding power — a human mage of certain strength.
The shadow children came to a stop just as he sensed the mage, and their hands reached out for one another and clasped tight, but neither of them moved to flee, their little legs planted solidly amidst the fauna. A third figure emerged from the underbrush and stood before them, and this voice he did hear, clearly, the voice of that dark power, tired and a little confused. "What the — are you two Dalish?" he asked, sounding almost plaintive, as if this was all his day wanted now. "You know, you're awfully far from the camp. Oh, hells, if they think I've abducted you, their scouts alone will—"
One of the children ventured a short reply. Alistair heard only the sounds of the woods, a bear's heavy sigh as it nosed through rubble and leaves, the low screams and chuckles and trills of birds and beasts. "Me?" the young mage said, and sighed. "My name is Jowan."
The entire world seemed to wrench itself away, and Alistair found himself on the floor where he'd slumped beneath the window, his head spinning. He pressed a hand to his forehead and found it slick with sweat. His legs when he managed to get them to move were shaky beneath him, and he stood half-reeling by the window, gripping the windowsill in case his knees buckled.
Lyrium was not supposed to do whatever it was doing to him, damnit. It was supposed to hone the Templar talents, not feed him completely wacko visions every time he took the stuff. How was he supposed to do his work—
Ah. Right. He planted his feet farther apart and pushed the window up and open. The chilly night wind made his eyes water.
It was curious, how the Chantry and the Revered Mother thought they could break a vow for him, simply state that it no longer mattered as if by stating so, so mote it be. As if Alistair had not meant what he vowed at the time he vowed it. As if he had not taken the things he'd sworn seriously, though it was clear now that he had never been taken seriously in turn.
Yes, he'd hated the monastery. Ill-suited to a life of religious contemplation and devotion, Alistair had hated the discipline, the rule and rote, the rigid structures, the strictures, the scriptures. He'd hated every crease in the Revered Mother's face, every fold in her prayer shawl. But he had made a vow. However reluctantly, he had sworn himself to their service, and it was all gone, now, just like that, with the Revered Mother's crabby signature across some piece of paper Alistair hadn't even seen.
If it was true, they'd only kept him long enough to get him on lyrium before they made him go.
If it was true.
He swallowed hard against the bitterness that threatened to overtake him, and thought instead, looking out on the silent town, how night was kinder to Lothering than day, cloaking some of its poverty and ugliness in sympathetic shadow, lending it a black and sombre dignity. When the darkspawn had razed the village to its rickety foundations, had anyone tried to help? Or had the villagers huddled indoors, waiting for Templars who never came? Grey Wardens should have been there — but Lothering yet remained, and the Grey Wardens were no longer.
As some of the shock of that changeling vision faded, Alistair became aware that the same lyrium-infused sense which had alerted him to the mage in those woods was alerting him of something — someone — now. Unlike that mage in the wood, this power pulsed quick and hot and familiar, as familiar as his breath in his lungs, his sword in his hands, and he thought for a moment how absurd it was, how this was not a Templar ability, how if Templars could sense mages there would surely be no need for those grotesque phylacteries —
But then he thought, Jacinta Surana was here, and if that sense of his was correct, she was coming up the stairs right now, and he didn't know if he should just stay in here until Leliana came back, or if he should say something to her, or if he should pursue her regardless of the Chantry's decree, although there was no point in keeping faith with the faithless and he'd gone and abrogated her, anyway — nor did he love them so well for what they'd done to him, either. His awareness that she was near had him on edge, certain he would see her if he but stepped from the room and turned his head.
Then came the knock on the door, and Leliana sailed in, a pack tossed over her shoulder with the neck of her lute poking out of it and a set of bow and arrows strapped to her back. For a brief and confusing moment, Alistair didn't recognize her — until he realized that she had changed from her beautiful embroidered robes to a practical set of light leather traveling armor, with sheaths at the waist for a set of small daggers. "Shall we get going?" Leliana queried. "I am eager to be off, and if we can go under cover of night, so much the better. Oh, and we shall have another companion who is fleeing the Chantry, if it is not too much trouble."
She gestured encouragingly towards the door as if for someone to take heart, and Jacinta reluctantly stepped inside the doorway. She looked much better, clean and well-rested, her robes mended and a hooded cape thrown over them. Though she'd pulled the hood up, disguising her elven ears and shadowing her tattooed face, her green eyes caught the candlelight, glinting like leaves in a haunted wood.
Her mouth dropped open when she saw Alistair, and she turned to Leliana immediately, color flushing her pale cheeks. "This is who you were talking about? Fleeing the Chantry? Leliana, he is the Chantry!"
"Not anymore," Alistair cut in shortly. "They expelled me. For abrogating my duties. I'm not turning you in anywhere, even if you are an apostate."
"You chose not to capture me?" Jacinta looked at Alistair in disbelief.
"It's a little more complicated than that." What a tremendous understatement. "Like it was with you."
"It's true," Leliana said entreatingly, looking between them both. "Alistair has no reason to love the Chantry after what they have done, Jacinta, and from what you have told me, you've never had one. Let's go — the Templars will return shortly, and we will want to be well rid of this place by then."
"Leliana, I need to hear it from them," Alistair said lowly. "If I'm well and truly exiled — I want to hear it from my brother Templars."
Surprise flickered on Leliana's open features, along with doubt. It was not that Alistair mistrusted the Bard — for all that her colleagues were infamous, she had done nothing more than pass the town gossip forward, and it all had the inevitable ring of truth. But Alistair would not be the first to break faith, not before he verified that faith had been broken with him.
Alistair had expected the mage girl to erupt in acrimonious protest, but to his surprise, Jacinta said somberly, "And if it's true?"
"Then I'll come find you and help you get where you want to go, and that's that," Alistair answered. He tried to sound factual and to-the-point. "Hopefully it's on my way. And if it's not true, then I'll — say I need more help, or some more Templars. Something. It'll buy you time."
"You would do that for a mage?" she asked, studying his face as though his soul were written across his nose.
"You said — you just wanted to be left in peace." The intensity of Jacinta's regard was unnerving, and Alistair fumbled in his pack for his helmet rather than confront her gaze directly. "I understand a little where you're coming from." He rarely wore the helmet, because he felt like a rat wearing a glamorous bucket when he did, but to ensure instant anonymity, there was nothing better. "If I wear this, they won't see my face. I have to ask. I have to be sure."
"I understand that." It was strange, this careful diplomatic dance he and the mage girl were doing, the measured allowances they gave one another. Not more than a day ago she'd stabbed him. "If you don't act with full knowledge — you'll regret it. I know I did." Jacinta glanced over to Leliana, who waited by the side of the door. "Well, Leliana, let's go on and get a head start. You're sure you can find us, Templar?"
"Please — just Alistair. And yes. I'm quite sure." Why that lyrium sense seemed to hone in on Jacinta like an imprinted mabari, Alistair didn't know, but he'd be able to find her, all right.
Jacinta nodded, once, with all the decisiveness Alistair'd ever wished he could muster. "Good luck," she said, and shouldered her pack. As the two women left, Alistair couldn't help but think what a neat little sidestep that parting phrase was — good luck either way, good luck being a Templar, good luck finding us, good luck with your life and best wishes with the truth.
He settled his glorified tin bucket over his head, rendering the world little more than a neat rectangle in the dark. What a lie the view from inside that thing was.