"This is a TERRIBLE idea," the dwarf said.

The mage shrugged. "This is the way she wants to do it. We have learned to trust her instincts on these matters."

"Am I to fight in here?" the golem grumbled. "Not much room to maneuver, is there? And far too many flesh creatures and their slippery fluids."

The dwarf looked up, waaaay up, at the golem. "Can't handle it, Chip?"

The enormous rock creature loomed over the annoyingly talkative dwarf. "It can call me Shale, short fleshy thing. And of course not – I mean only that the elder mage becomes very cross with me when I make a mess."

Wynne, examining the common room of the Hanged Man with interest, glanced at the golem over her shoulder. "I thought we agreed that you would wait outside?"

"Must I? It's so much more entertaining to watch the fleshy ones choke on their beverages when they see me." Shale noted the frightened faces in the bar with some relish, and sighed. "Oh, all right. I suppose I will wait in the alley. This had better be an exciting match, dwarf."

With crashing steps the golem turned and noisily wedged itself back through the doorway, splintering the frame on one side.

"So much for the element of surprise," Varric muttered.

He could already see the elf emerging from the back rooms, an only semi-clothed Isabela trailing behind him.

"What in the world was that?" Fenris questioned Varric as he approached with long strides. Wynne turned her back and pretended to contemplate the bar.

"The rock pile? That's a golem, and we gotta catch it. Come on." Varric started towards the door.

Fenris looked after him quizzically, and then, sighing, prepared to follow. "I shall return in a few minutes, Isabela."

"All right, go and play. I'll be getting our refreshments."

Isabela strode to the bar. She hadn't bothered to retie her bodice or put on her boots. Which meant the eyes of every man in the room followed her.

"Corff, more of my usual. And give us the real stuff this time."

She turned her back on the bar and drummed her bare toes against the wood. She could see some appeal now in this not-wearing-shoes thing. The splinters were a problem, but…

"Hey," she said, tilting her head and studying Wynne. "Don't I know you?"

Wynne's cool grey eyes looked her up and down. "Perhaps you were wearing more clothes when last we met?"

Before Isabela could reply, a loud crash issued from outside, and both women raced to the door.

Outside, an impressively large and jagged chunk of stone had detonated against the side of the Hanged Man, after narrowly missing its target.

Despite her failure to splatter her fleshy opponent, Shale appeared to be delighted.

"It… sparkles! From head to toe!" the golem exclaimed.

Fenris had activated his lyrium brands for the attack, and he circled the golem with supernatural speed. His sword, clearly, would be useless against the solid bulk of the creature, and rapidly he considered alternate strategies.

Easily the golem extracted another hunk of paved road and threw it at him, which the elf easily dodged.

"Marvelous!" Shale watched the brands blur as the elf moved rapidly around her. "Oh, this will be fun!"

The golem would be considerably less delighted with what Fenris did with those markings now. Of course the creature had no heart to remove, so the elf did the next-best thing — he strategically selected a hunk of stone from the creature's leg and plucked it out with his phasing abilities.

With a sound of rockfall the leg caved inwards, suddenly rendering it considerably shorter than the other leg. Despite waving enormous arms for balance, Shale tipped over onto the ground with an enormous crash.

"It has broken me!" Shale wailed. "How is this possible? I'll crush its head for this, pretty or not!"

"You can try," the elf said, backing away. "And I can continue removing bits of you in the meantime."

"That's enough, Broody!" Varric ran over, waving his arms excitedly. "Damn, that was fast! I thought it'd take you at least half an hour to figure out how to bring that thing down!"

Fenris whirled on him. "You planned this?"

"No, we did." Wynne had already appeared at the Hanged Man's entrance, and approached slowly. Fenris's defensive stance quickly took in the unfamiliar mage.

Isabela gestured from the doorway behind the white-haired mage. "It's all right! I remember this lot, we met in Denerim. Yes, the golem too."

Wynne set down her staff and raised her arms in a reassuring manner. "We meant no real harm. We only wished to see what you are made of. So to speak."

Shale sat up and eagerly examined Fenris's markings, which still blazed with their eerie blue light.

"So it is true! An elf with lyrium flesh!"

"And leaping in and out of the Fade in combat," the mage added thoughtfully. "Very interesting indeed."

The elf's eyes darted between the four of them, growing increasingly incensed. "One of you explain yourselves, or I—"

Varric broke in, "will get stabby. We know. It was just a little test, elf. And it wasn'tmyideasopleasedon'tkillme."

Fenris pointed at the elderly mage. "If you indeed control this creature, make it stop… oogling me."

"Shale is under noone's control - she is a conscious being, a free golem. And she is very interested in your lyrium. She once spent many years in the caverns of the dwarves, where lyrium is mined."

The golem continued to stare at Fenris. "It sings to me," she said, and it was unclear if she was referring to past or present.

"They are very impressive," Wynne said. "Exactly as advertised."

"They are a torment," Fenris said stiffly, backing away from the approaching mage. "But they can be useful from time to time."

"A beautiful gift!" Shale gestured animatedly. "A marvelous enhancement for a flesh creature. Why, you are nearly a golem!"

"I am an elf, monster!" he sputtered. "Not a... talking rock!"

"It is… offended to be compared to a golem? Then I take back my compliment. It is merely another annoying fleshy creature."

Fenris scowls at her. "I am NOT an IT!" he spat.

Shale looked to Wynne, annoyed. "It is hearing this?"

"We have talked about this, remember?" she reminded the golem. "We flesh creatures don't much enjoy being referred to as 'it'. And particularly an elf from Tevinter would find it highly insulting. You may want to apologize."

If Shale had eyebrows, certainly one of them would be raised. "Apologize? Bah. It cannot recognize its own beauty. That is it's problem."

"I think you hurt her feelings, elf," Varric said to Fenris, who was still glaring at all of them with some degree of alarm.

Wynne moved to the golem's side. She took up the stone that Fenris had discarded on the ground, and pressed it to Shale's leg. "My healing magic is meant to knit flesh, but I think I can put this back together."

"You know these… persons?" Fenris glowered at Varric.

"Friend of a friend, you might say. And yes, I did advise them against this approach. But give them a chance, elf. They have a job opportunity you might be interested in."

"An audition, then? Pah. An apostate, and her enchanted pet rock. I am mystified that you thought I would be willing to work with them."

"I didn't recommend you to them, if that's what you think. They came looking for you specifically. I guess they heard all about you in Tevinter—"

Before Varric even finished saying the word, Fenris had raised his sword and was preparing to charge. Another imperial magister!

Wynne, having finished repairing Shale's leg, looked up at him calmly. "We were visiting Tevinter. We are not from the Imperium."

"A tourist then? Did you enjoy seeing a place where mages have absolute power? I do not like mages," he enunciated the last carefully. "My answer to any question you have to ask is no."

"I suppose that's understandable, considering."

Her kindly voice was even more irritating than her magic.

"Who told you about me?" he asked accusingly. This mage and golem seemed to know a great deal about him and that was troubling. Why should anyone in the Imperium still be interested in him, now that his master was dead?

Shale spoke up. "It is famous, of course! Many tales of it are told in Tevinter."

Fenris was feeling very tired. "Does he… she… refer to - does she mean me?"

Wynne stood again, smoothing her robes. "Oh yes. You were not aware? There has been quite a stir. Ah, here she is now. Have you seen enough then?"

"Quite," a low, feminine voice sounded from behind Fenris.

He turned and saw approaching another elf, dressed in what appeared to be imperial armor. A thin scar crossed her face, visible even at a distance. Strapped to her back were two full-sized blades.

Could she be… another escaped slave? He had never met another former slave in his travels. He had met Orana, but that was different. He had inadvertently freed her by killing her Mistress, she had not left of her own volition. This battle-hardened woman could have. It had never occurred to him to want such a thing, but the prospect of speaking to another runaway was exciting. Questions began to flood his mind.

The notion was immediately quashed, however, as she introduced herself.

"I am Warden Commander Jendra Tabris. Pleased to meet you." She did not smile or offer a hand. All-business, this one.

Ah. The Hero of Fereldan. The Warden was an elf; Fenris had heard this much, but seeing her was startling just the same. She was shorter and darker-skinned than Fenris, with black hair knotted behind her head and narrow violet eyes that gave her a permanently skeptical expression. She might have been beautiful when she was young. Now, in her middle age, she was more coolly impressive than anything else.

"I would introduce myself, but I suspect you already know my name."

"I do. You are Fenris, the fugitive from Tevinter. I apologize for the rudeness. I wanted to observe you first. There is so much rumor and conjecture, and I take very little on faith."

"Can we take this inside?" Varric interrupted. "If we're at the hanging-around-and-talking portion of the evening I'd just as well do it sitting down with a mug in my hand."

While the dwarf and the Rivaini were working on corralling Shale into Varric's suite rather than terrorizing the patrons of the Hanged Man, Fenris and the Warden sat across from each other at the great table. Wynne sat beside the Warden, and the two of them exchanged complicated looks which spoke to a long history together.

"Danarius," the Warden began. "You killed him, correct?"

Straight to the point, then.

"Yes. Alas that I could only kill him once."

"And his apprentice as well?"

"Yes. And I enjoyed it thoroughly. Does that trouble you?"

"He was a monster and an idiot," the Warden stated matter-of-factly. "And so was she. Yes, I heard a great deal about them during my time in Tevinter. He paraded you before the entire Imperium, and then you disappeared. It was really quite embarrassing for him. He made such a fuss over traveling to the Free Marches to personally retrieve you, and when he did not return… well..."

The elf looked increasingly interested. "Well?"

"Well. There was speculation and rumors aplenty until the Archon himself had to confirm that Magister Danarius had perished. He didn't say how, of course - they don't want to admit one of his own former slaves did the deed. Which made everything worse, rumor-wise. There were all sorts of stories."

"What kind of stories?"

Wynne cut in, smiling mischievously. "One might imagine you were ten feet tall and breathing fire."

"The Magisters one and all were terribly upset that the fool had gotten himself killed by one of his own slaves. The very notion of that makes their kind tremble, especially as word spread among the elves…"

Fenris suddenly glared at the floor. "I imagine they began killing the strong ones, then," he guessed bitterly. "To prevent an uprising."

"Yes." The Warden studied him carefully. "They did."

"But there is some happier news," Wynne prodded, with a gentle smile.

"Once Danarius was officially dead, all of his property — including his slaves — was transferred to his heir. Except the original heir, one Hadriana, was ALSO mysteriously killed, so the estate went to the magister's cousin —"

"Lucius," Fenris named him icily. He had no pleasant memories of THAT mage, either.

"Correct. Except," Jendra smirked, "he didn't get to enjoy it very long."

Just the slightest smile now on the elf's face. "Indeed?"

"Seems his newly-inherited slaves murdered him. Strangled him in his sleep and hid the body. It took some time to discover the crime, and by then the manor had been ransacked and all its inhabitants disappeared."

Now Fenris looked confused. "How in the world did they manage that? I did not escape from the heart of the capital city, only from an outlying village!"

Now, suddenly, there was a twinkle in the Warden's eyes. "They may have had some aid from a party of Fereldans."

A thoroughly uncharacteristic smile crept across his face. "This is… magnificent news."

"I thought you'd like that. The elves are in Orlais, temporarily, although I'm not sure where they will end up." The Warden sighed, her face darkening. "This is the problem of our age. What can I promise them now, after all the effort of escaping the Imperium? A life of poverty? Eeking out an existence in an Alienage? Subsisting with the wandering Dalish? There is so little for us even when we are free."

"It is better than what they had. I know it for a fact."

"You know," she said cannily, swirling a glass of wine in her hand, "there is enough unrest brewing that you could easily take over Danarius's estate yourself. They might make you a magister. It's unprecedented, but they are nothing if not practical. Have you any interest in returning to Minrathous?"

"Fasta Vas, surely you are joking," he answered immediately. "The magisters are the lowest scum of Thedas, and I do not want their ill-gotten treasure. If I have my way I would never set foot within the Imperium again."

"I see." Jendra set down her glass of wine and folded her hands in front of her. "I will be frank with you. I come from the alienage in Denerim, where a number of my cousins were sold to the Imperium by the Regent Logain before I cut off his head. At least a hundred were taken.

"I tracked their whereabouts to Minrathous. With the help of Wynne, and others sympathetic to our cause, we hoped to bring them back. It did not go well. Many died. Some of them were… broken. Too frightened and defeated to endure any attempt at rescue. Others I was unable to locate. I was able only to retrieve a few."

She paused for a moment.

"I think it would be possible to… purchase more, and bring them back to Denerim that way, if I could find a patron willing to help. I have not been successful so far, but I continue to search for a way to rescue them all."

"But that isn't why I wanted to meet you. My concern is that there's no place for us to offer the elves of the Imperium when they leave. And no place for elves anywhere that they could truly govern themselves. You, lyrium elf, have been inspirational for the slaves of the Imperium. The very idea that one of their own could do as you have done is a light of hope in a very dark place. And could be that for many more than that. You not only escaped and killed your odious captor, you live freely in the City of Chains as a companion to the Champion. Not in an alienage, or with the Dalish, but as your own man."

"You are truly impressive in battle, and I believe you are bright. My people - our people - they will listen to you. You could be exactly what I need to command my troops."

Fenris regarded her skeptically. Surely she had better options. She was a Grey Warden, and the Hero of Fereldan, and would probably have her pick of soldiers to choose from.

"You commanded the armies against the Blight, did you not? What would you need me for?"

"I am no strategist, not in battle at least. My skills lie in gathering talented people helping them do what they do best, and convincing them to do it for us. I have need of a General. I have a feeling that you are just the person for the job."

"I'm afraid I must decline. I am no leader of men."

"Oh, but that's the other thing." The Warden grins fiercely. "It will not be a command of men. I am building an army of elves."

Fenris's distinctive dark eyebrows raised in surprise.

"And I'm afraid," she went on, "I won't be taking no for an answer."

Somehow, he suspected she wouldn't.