Inquisitor

By ElementalsAdvocate

Disclaimer: Anything Dragon Age belongs to Bioware, not me.

Chapter 4: How to Make Friends and Influence People, Part 1

Cassandra and her prisoner strode up the muddy track, snow and frozen ground making the going treacherous. Above their heads, the Breach vomited green clods of Fade material which burst like raindrops upon the earth, spattering fire which refused to go out despite the contrary weather. Along the road, more soldiers took cover under any kind of cover they could find, eyes wide and wary for the next ball of bile to strike.

Suddenly, the Breach screamed and quivered, throwing a veritable spray of burning material into the surrounding mountainsides. Simultaneously, Tamworth, the prisoner, Cassandra sternly reminded herself, collapsed, writhing as green flames and sparks erupted from the Mark on his hand.

"The pulses are coming faster now." Cassandra pulled the prisoner back to his feet. "The larger the Breach grows, the more rifts appear, the more demons we face."

"How did I survive the blast?" Tamworth gasped as he painfully started walking again.

"They said you… stepped out of a rift, and then fell unconscious. They say a woman was in the rift behind you. No one knows who she was. Everything farther in the valley was laid waste, including the Temple of Sacred Ashes."

The prisoner gaped at her, his expression one of seemingly genuine astonishment. "The camps!"

"Gone," Cassandra snarled as they walked out onto another bridge which crossed the stream before the road headed up the mountain again. "The shock from the blast set off avalanches in the mountains above. What wasn't destroyed by fire was buried under tons of ice and snow. What remains, you shall see for your-"

"Look out!"

With a thunderous crash a particularly large fireball smashed into the guard point on the other side of the bridge. Over the screams of hapless soldiers and civilians burning alive, Cassandra heard rather than felt the stone buckled under her feet as green fire blazed before her eyes. The bridge collapsed, spilling Cassandra and her prisoner into the frozen stream below.

The Seeker dragged herself to her feet in spite of the bruises which screamed down her side from connecting with broken stone from the bridge above, and out of the corner of her eye spotted the prisoner also rising, slipping slightly on the ice beneath his feet. Fortunately, the unseasonably cold weather generated by the Breach had caused the stream to freeze solid.

Another fireball thundered out of the sky towards them, clipping the bank of the stream before impacting on what would have been a secluded inlet. Only instead of spattering and burning out, this ball turned inward, the green flames erupting from a center of blackness which bubbled like swamp gas from the bottom of a bog.

But what emerged from that black well was far worse than anything found at the bottom of a swamp. Hunchbacked, long-armed, ebon skin with the texture of rotting meat, and a single glowing white orb of an eye at the end of a prognostic neck, the demon stretched as if embracing the new world it had entered.

"What is that?"

"Shade," Cassandra snapped, drawing her sword. "Stay behind me!"

The Seeker had faced two forms of Shade's in her life time, greater and lesser. This one appeared to be one of the lesser shades, but that didn't mean the creature was any less dangerous. Shades were patient and persistent, sapping the minds of the living until they worked up enough strength to strike. Fortunately, they weren't very intelligent or cunning.

"In Andraste's name!"

Cassandra met the demon head on, getting under the reach of its long arms and driving the tip of her sword deep into the fleshy length of its neck. The shade warbled, trying to tear at its attacker with clawed hands, but Cassandra had left her silverite shield strapped across her back, and the demons claws did nothing. If she could just-

"For Ostwick and the Anvil!"

Cassandra snatched a swift glance over her shoulder. Standing on the ice was the prisoner, with sword and shield, trading blows with another shade!

Where did he get those weapons?

But Cassandra couldn't waste time on it. With a vicious upward thrust, she forced her shade back, ripping the sword back and forth to almost sever the creatures head from its shoulders. Black liquid gushed from the wound which burst into grey steam upon striking the ground to be whipped away by the wind like smoke. Still the shade fought, whistling and warbling like a kettle on the boil until with a final savage wrench, Cassandra severed the creatures head from its shoulders. The pieces of the shade, its consciousness shattered, its power broken, scattered into motes of glowing ash on the wind. The Fade fire, which had burned through the whole interlude, shivered and went out without a sound, leaving only the mournful call of the wind.

"Well, that's over."

Cassandra's sword was up and pointed at the prisoner before he finished speaking. Apparently, he had finished with his shade and had come over to- To help? To harm? Doesn't matter. "Drop your weapon. Now!"

Expressions flickered across the prisoner's face as he stared at the Seeker; shock, incredulity, exasperation. "We're about to go into a demon-infested valley and you want me to- Ugh!" He growled, shook his head and sighed. "Alright, have it your way."

"Wait!"

The word was out of Cassandra's mouth before she realized what she was saying. About to drop his blade, the prisoner waited, face expectant.

Cassandra snarled at herself, the prisoner's implacable logic was…logical. It made her want to hit something.

"You are right." Cassandra ground out, reluctantly sheathing her sword. "I cannot protect you, and I cannot expect you to be defenseless." She turned away, wanting the interlude to be over, but a memory from her time in Kirkwall forced her to turn back, "I should remember that you agreed to come willingly." Like Varric. Damn that dwarf.

The prisoner, Ser Trevelyan, Cassandra allowed, said nothing; just scrutinizing her with those uncanny grey eyes. But then he simply nodded his head and sheathed his blade. "I'll follow your lead, Seeker."

With the bridge taken out, Cassandra and Trevelyan were forced to follow the stream in order to get back to the road. Demons wandered across the landscape, and engagements were inevitable. Three more shades and four wraiths, weak but malevolent demons that spat blobs of Fade muck from a distance, were added to their tally before the pair found a flight of stone steps which lead back to the road.

"We're getting close to the rift," Cassandra called out as they climbed another flight of steps leading up to a small group of out buildings which once had held grain for the Temple. "You can hear the fighting."

"Who's fighting?" Trevelyan panted, leaning against the stony bank on their right and clutching his side. In the last fight, he had been shoved hard by a shade against an ornamental stone pillar. Though his armor hadn't been breached, he most certainly had bruises beneath the leather.

"You'll see soon." The Temple of Sacred Ashes was built onto the side of a mountain, and with only one main road leading to the Temple, buildings had been constructed wherever there was flat ground adjacent the track. Now, those hamlets had become natural rally points for the troops. If they were going to hold the valley against the demons coming from the Breach, they needed to hold those buildings. "We must help them. Here," Cassandra dug into her belt and pulled out a small leather flask. "Drink this."

She jerked the cork out of the top, and the heady scent of elfroot spilled out before she passed the flask over. Nodding his thanks, Trevelyan took a swift pull before making to hand it back, but Cassandra refused. "You will likely need that again. I have more. Come, quickly now!"

They turned a corner at an outcropping of stone and ran into a melee. Soldiers wielding axes and swords were locked in a fight for their lives. Shades bubbled up from black and green pools in the ground, while wraiths seemed to appear out of thin air, spitting green death in every direction. And in the air over their heads-

"The rift!" Cassandra screamed into the cold grey air, and hurled herself into the fray. "Onwards! For the Most Holy! Onwards!"

Tam had only moments before he jumped into the melee, but the heart of the rift reminded him of nothing so much as a conifer of shiny green crystal, surrounded by a translucent fog that roiled and coiled upon itself as if in a dance with the combatants below.

To the left, a knot of soldiers had formed around a slim figure in bulky traveler's clothes that wielded a staff with alarming skill, hurling bolts of ice over the heads of the soldiers into the ranks of demons surrounding them. A mage! Meanwhile, over on the right a stout blond figure crouched atop a pile of rubble, clutching a strange contraption to his chest, launching arrows with speed and precision into the demons, every shot accompanied by a loud clank.

Then he and Cassandra were in among the demons, and all thought of the rift above and the other combatants around him was driven from his mind.

Their previous fights together had forced Tam and Cassandra to work as a team. Now, that teamwork blazed in the battle. When Tam struck at a shade, Cassandra guarded his back, warding off the globs of wraith bolts. When Cassandra looked about to crumble under an assault, Tam leapt in, driving the demons back. Together, Tam and the Seeker drove through to the rift.

"Now!" Cassandra shouted, cleaving the arm from a shade that got too close, "Use the Mark!"

"How?" Tam bellowed back. "No one mentioned to me how I'm supposed to-"

"Here!"

Tam suddenly felt his shield wrest from his grasp and his left hand seized in a grip of steel. In a fleeting moment he saw the mage, bald head, pointed ears, teeth bared, nostrils flared, eyes blazing with battle-fire and a terrible focus.

"Quickly, before more come through!" Shouting, the mage dragged Tams hand up and plunged it into the rift!

To Tam, it was like have his hand cut to the bone and shoved in a vat of ice water at the same time. Pain ripped through his arm, thunder crashed in his head. The rift screamed and squealed, wind howled. Tam felt something pressing against his mind, felt an almost unbearable pressure against his very soul until, with a savage shout, he pushed back!

He felt something tear, and suddenly-

- it was as if he was standing in front of an open door, feeling the wind rush past him into his home, his mind, his world. For a moment, Tam thought he sensed the presence of another mind, guiding the edge of a door into his hand. Not knowing what he was doing, Tam gave a mighty shove, putting all of his will behind that slender edge, pressing against the wind, slamming it shut-

There was an implosion of air, and Tam staggered backwards, fighting for balance as before him, the rift, no longer a conifer of green stone and glowing crystal, but a nebulous nugget of light, collapsed in upon its self, disappearing in a spray of sun-bursts.

Fighting to catch his breath, Tam clutched at his head, blinking past the spots bouncing across his vision and trying to focus on something, anything other than the sound of waves currently crashing back and forth between his ears. Sweeping past patches of light and dark on the ground, Tam finally focused on a trio of brown tree-trunks, which resolved into a pair of worn, brown leather boots, attached to legs covered in grey woolen trousers, and the base of heavy wooden staff.

Bringing his eyes up in tandem with his improving equilibrium, Tam identified a broad leather belt, festooned with pouches, over a heavy green leather vest, open across the chest to display a strange fetish, the black stained jaw of some animal. All of this over a long-necked grey woolen sweater.

Tam suddenly recognized the face of the person starring concernedly back at him. It was the elf who had shoved his hand into the rift, the elf with the terrible eyes. But the face was different now. Before, Tam had stared into the face of a wolf, wild and untamed, fierce and focused. Now it was the pedantic face of a scholar, calmly satisfied that something had gone to his satisfaction, wearing an expression as calm as a mill pond, as if he wasn't standing upon a field of slaughter but within the sanctity of a library giving a lecture.

"What did you do?" Tam stared warily at the elf. Most people were wary of mages, if they had any sense. Personal experience with elven mages had made Tam even more wary.

"I, "the baritone voice was all scholarly correction "did nothing. The credit is yours."

"You mean this?" Tam raised his hand, the green brand dimming slowly until it disappeared again.

"Whatever magic opened the Breach in the sky also placed that mark upon your hand." The elf nodded sagely at the appendage in question. "I theorized the mark might be able to close the rifts that have opened in the Breach's wake – and it seems I was correct."

"Meaning it could also close the Breach itself," Cassandra interjected, stepping forward to join the conversation.

"Possibly," the mage allowed, but his face twisted with concern as he said it. He turned back to Tam, "It seems you hold the key to our salvation."

"Good to know!" Tam turned to look in the direction of the shout. Short, stout, beardless, and sporting the loudest coat outside of Orlais, the dwarf who had been firing arrows from atop the rubble pile strode up, adjusting a leather glove as he did so in an elegant display of panache. "Here I thought we'd be ass-deep in demons forever."

He smirked up at Tam, a crooked nose setting the counterpoint between two twinkling blue eyes. "Varric Tethras: Rogue, storyteller, and occasionally-"Varric threw a wink at Cassandra, "unwelcome tagalong."

Tam smirked back. He couldn't help it. There was something about the dwarf that seemed to incite laughter and put you at your ease. "Are you with the Chantry, or…"

The question elicited a bark of laughter from the elf mage, "Was that a serious question?"

"Technically I'm a prisoner. Just like you." Varric fastidiously examined the cuffs of his coat, pointedly not looking up.

Cassandra's eye's narrowed. "I brought you here to tell your story to the Divine. Clearly, that is no longer necessary."

"Yet, here I am." Varric spread his arms expansively, as if to welcome to entire world to look upon his glory, and his luxurious crop of golden chest hair, "Lucky for you, considering current events."

"Pleased to meet you, Master Varric. That's a nice, um… crossbow you have there."

"Ah." If it had been possible, sunlight would have blazed from Varric's smile as he turned slightly to show off the contraption slung across his shoulder. "Isn't she? Bianca and I have been through a lot together."

"You named your crossbow Bianca?" Tam was incredulous. Comparing "Bianca" to an ordinary crossbow was like comparing a trebuchet to a slingshot. What they did was simple in concept, but it was obvious to the eye, considering how they did it was miles apart. It was nearly as long as Varric was tall, made out of wood and metal, and obviously complex. Though given Varric's apparent familiarity with "Bianca" complexity wasn't a problem for the dwarf.

"Of course." Varric said it as if the reasoning for naming "Bianca" was obvious, "And she'll be great company in the valley."

"Absolutely not." Cassandra barged in, eyes flashing. "Your help is appreciated, Varric, but…"

"Have you been in the valley lately Seeker?" Varric interrupted her flow with an almost practiced ease. "Your soldiers aren't in control anymore. You need me."

He smiled winningly up at Cassandra, a woman who could, by right, have removed his head simply for annoying her, much less contradict her. Cassandra settled for growling with disgust and storming off.

"My name is Solas," said the elf, stepping forward to address Tam again, "if there are to be introductions. I am pleased to see you still live."

"He means, "I kept that mark from killing you while you slept."" Varric drawled.

"Then, I owe you my thanks Solas. I am Ser Tamworth Trevelyan, youngest son of Bann Charles Trevelyan of Ostwick. My friends call me Tam, and so may you." Tam bowed from the waist, falling back on military formality, acknowledging a debt owed. "You seem to know a great deal about it all," he said, indicating his hand.

"Solas is an apostate, well versed in such matters." Cassandra cut in. Her temper apparently cooled, the Seeker kicked aside a pile of snow to retrieve a couple of crossbow bolts before handing them over to Varric, who nodded his thanks.

"Technically all mages are now apostates, Cassandra." Solas said mildly before turning back to Tam. "My travels have allowed me to learn much of the Fade, far beyond the experience of any Circle mage. I came to offer whatever help I can give with the Breach. If it is not closed, we are all doomed, regardless of origin."

"And what will you do once this is over?"

Solas shrugged, "One hopes those in power will remember who helped, and who did not. Cassandra," the mage addressed the Seeker, "you should know: the magic involved here is unlike any I have seen. Your prisoner is no mage. Indeed," Solas glanced at Tam, his face inscrutable, "I find difficult to imagine any mage having such power."

"Understood." The Seeker nodded, accepting the information, her expression and tone withdrawn. "Come. We must get to the forward camp quickly." She turned and strode away, heading for a break in the shattered walls surrounding them.

Tam shot an incredulous glance at Solas. "She thought I might have been a mage?"

Solas tilted his head quizzically, "Hardly a surprising conclusion, considering recent events."

"It just seems the sort of thing a Seeker would know."

Solas raised one eyebrow in admonishment, "Indeed. It may surprise you to know, but the Lady Cassandra would be the first to tell you that the Seekers are not all-knowing. Just as not all mages are fanatics waiting to blow up sacred buildings, nor are all suspects in suspicious events to be presumed guilty. Keep that in mind." With that cutting turn of phrase, the elf turned and trudged off after Cassandra.

The wind picked up again, bringing the crisp taste of fresh snow. Tam looked around. The soldiers who had been fighting were leaving, retreating back down the valley towards Haven. The Breach rumbled overhead, and the Mark throbbed in sympathy. All around was a sense of prickling anticipation.

"Well," Varric looked up at Tam, shrugging his shoulders with an air of resigned whimsy and smiling, "Bianca's excited."

End of Chapter 4

Authors Notes: So, we have been introduced to the enigmatic Solas and everybody's favorite dwarf, Varric Tethras. I pray that I can do them justice in the chapters to come.

To ropertfree72: Thank you for your review. Yes, this story is going a bit slowly, but I'm still trying to find my feet with the characters. Once I get through this first arc, I promise that things will start to speed up.

Once again, read, review, and enjoy!