"Shattered Dreams" by Imrryr

Chapter 4 of 5

...

Midday...

...

"Tamlen!"

That was Merrill's voice. Once they had found the cave, they spent a long time searching around the opening for any sign of their clan mate, but there was nothing, absolutely nothing.

And it had been three days...

She could feel the cold wind at her back. Air went rushing into that damned hole in the ground like it was being pulled in by some unnatural force. And though she wracked her mind for the memory, she couldn't remember it doing that before when Tamlen had been here with her.

Disturbingly, there were fresh tracks in the mud leading out of the cave. She searched for ones that might belong to her friend, but the large tracks obscured everything... and whatever species they had belonged to, they certainly weren't Dalish.

Fenarel was crouching beside her. He had insisted on coming along, and while Lyna would've liked additional time alone with Merrill, even in that dank cave, she had to admit that it wouldn't hurt to have the expert hunter alongside them. Especially if who or whatever made these footprints decided to return.

"I've never seen tracks like these before," he said, brow furrowed.

'Oh, that's just great,' she thought. If Fenarel of all people couldn't identify a print, well, that didn't exactly fill her with confidence about what they were about to face.

Lyna shook her head as she continued staring into the abyss before her. She could hear the sounds of rustling grass announcing Merrill's return, but strangely there was nothing else besides the wind. All of them had noticed that. There were no birds, no crickets, no signs of life of any kind. Even the nearby plants appeared to be dying.

It was all very unsettling.

But there was something... something on the very edge of perception. Something more than just the faint howl of the wind. Something akin to distant whispering. She tilted her head to try to hear it better but it was no use.

"Lyna?"

The elf blinked. Merrill and Fenarel had odd expressions on their faces. How long had they been staring? "Don't you hear that?" she asked.

It was Fenarel who spoke, "Hear what?"

Lyna closed her eyes and shook her head. The whispering was gone. Had she imagined it?

Merrill spoke next, "Are you okay?"

'Not really,' she thought. There was a sinking feeling in her chest that just wouldn't go away. If she didn't know better, she'd call it fear. It was humiliating. She tried to brush it off, "Why do you ask?"

"You do look a little pale, now that Merrill's mentioned it," Fenarel said.

"It's nothing," she muttered as she stepped forward, "Come on. Let's get this over with." 'Fly straight and do not waver,' she repeated in her mind as she entered the abyss. 'Tamlen needs us.'

...

"So, these are the ruins? They're not very pretty, are they?"

Lyna cracked a smile, the first one since leaving camp. The disturbed air in this underground structure seemed just a little less oppressive with Merrill in it. Fenaral kept several paces behind, guarding their backs while the two of them searched for any sign of Tamlen. "It could use more natural light, I think," Lyna said. "And a few less giant spiders..."

Around them the magical braziers and torches still burned, though it had been days since she had last been here. Had they really been burning since the days of Arlathan?

Merrill's constant presence kept her mind off the strange, unsettling feelings she'd been having lately; but the elf had been right. She had seen in the light outside just how unusually pale her skin was, and she felt a fatigue that had nothing to do with a lack of sleep.

She felt exhausted, and not a little bit ill. Maybe she would talk to a healer when this was over...

"I've seen places like this before," Merrill was saying, "I'm pretty sure this is human... possibly Tevinter, I'm not really sure. But look," she pointed to a large pot lying shattered on the floor, "that's elven... and so are these designs carved onto the walls."

Lyna frowned. So this place really was a mix of human and elven. The idea disturbed her. There were no ancient stories about humans and elves living together in peace... certainly not in such a place as this one with its horrible stench of death.

Then a sound came from some other room, an evil laughter echoing down the hallways. She could tell from Merrill's tensed posture that she had heard it too. Lyna silently thanked the creators that she hadn't gone insane - at least not yet.

"Darkspawn!" Fenarel shouted. There was no time to ask him how he knew that. They were already here. An instant later, she heard the sound of a bow being drawn back and then an arrow let loose before she had even unsheathed her knives.

Just then, another tall, green skinned creature appeared from a side room. It looked down on her, sniffing the air with raspy breaths before letting out a deep, bass laugh. Lyna felt a rising anger she couldn't explain. Maybe she blamed this thing for Tamlen's likely death. Maybe it was the unexplainable feeling that it knew something that she didn't. 'Dammit!' she thought. 'Why were these things here, and where was Tamlen?!'

The undead creatures she had seen before were horrible, but these... these were so much worse. She'd heard stories about the darkspawn, but nothing Hahren Paivel ever said had prepared her for the real thing. The way their skin hung on their scarred faces, their rotted jagged teeth, their filth encrusted armor -

Then the wind picked up. And gods, Lyna thought, they smelled even worse than they looked.

Whatever it was, she hated the thing more than she ever hated anything before. It didn't belong in this world.

Letting out a battle cry, Lyna lunged forward with her knives, determined to keep the foul thing as far away from Merrill as possible. Unfortunately, the damned creature was no mindless zombie. It blocked her attacks and with unnatural strength sent her hard to the floor with a strike from the butt of its rusty sword.

Quickly, Lyna rolled out of the way of another strike but found herself badly dazed. Her heart pounded in her ears. How was she supposed to stop this damned thing?

Just as she was about to jump to her feet, a bright light filled the room and someone screamed. To Lyna's shock, it was the darkspawn. She watched in horrified fascination as it burned to death before her very eyes.

Small sandaled feet quickly approached and she blearily looked up to see Merrill offering her a hand.

She had never fought alongside a mage before and she found that she had no words to describe her awe. Magic was something rarely seen, even in a Dalish camp with two mages; Keepers and their apprentices seldom practiced the old art in public. If she ever sparred with Merrill she'd surely lose.

Merrill ducked her head in a sort of half bow when Lyna thanked her. "Oh, you're bleeding!" she said. Wiping her hands clean on the green scarf around her neck, she gently rubbed a finger over the cut on Lyna's face. For a second, the huntress forgot where she was. All her worries faded as she looked into those endless green eyes as the woman sealed the wound. 'So very beautiful,' she thought.

A loud cough sent them both recoiling from each other they'd just received an electric shock. It was Fenarel, and his expression was very amused. Lyna finally noticed the two dead darkspawn behind him, each felled with an arrow to the eye. He nodded in their direction, "When you're ready," he said.

"Oh, um... yes," Lyna said a little breathlessly. "I think it's this way." She pointed down the long highway behind her. The giant holes punched through the cobwebs told of something having been through there recently. It was also the direction the still blowing breeze was moving in.

"You're sure?" he asked.

Lyna nodded. "Pretty sure," she replied, scratching at her temple. "Though, we may have had to backtrack a few times."

Merrill looked up at her with hopeful eyes. "You're remembering more?"

The huntress smiled as she sheathed her knives. "Bits and pieces." Some of those bits had been disturbing her thoughts ever since she'd returned to this place, and it wasn't just the distant voices she could swear she still heard. No, in her mind she saw things too: black indistinct creatures against a background of fire... another much larger, more disturbing silhouette that looked strangely elven, yet had the body of... something else... she'd didn't know what. Where could she have possibly seen such a thing? Surely, not in this place buried just a few feet under the forest floor?

Merrill rubbed a hand along the stone walls as they walked. "This architecture is strange. It's definitely of human origin... but what would Elven statues be doing here? And, of course, nothing explains the monsters."

Lyna couldn't help but smile back at her. Despite the darkness, the cobwebs and the dead things strewn about on the floor, Merrill took in every detail with an almost child-like sense of wonder. As the three of them continued through the near maze of corridors, the huntress kept an eye on her lover. The sight of Merrill so enraptured made everything bearable. She was a like a candle in the dark.

"This place is amazing," she drawled, "but it feels like it's been... tainted by something."

Lyna nodded. She could feel it too. No matter how horrible the shems were, surely they wouldn't build something as foul as this place on purpose. But what had happened here?

...

It was some time before they came across anything of interest. Some of the rooms held ancient scrolls and books, but unfortunately, nearly all of them were unreadable, and the ones that looked more promising were so brittle that Merrill was afraid to even touch them lest they crumble into dust.

But eventually they came across something more substantial, an ancient statue of Falon'Din that seemed strangely familiar.

Merrill smiled at it as she inspected its exaggerated form closely. "It doesn't look much like your carvings, does it?"

Lyna grunted. Every piece of Elven history was a treasure, but she wasn't sure she liked the look of these statues so much. They were too stylized for her liking, too detached from the real world. Though, of course, she had never seen a god before.

"Find anything?" Fenarel asked. His tone betrayed a slight annoyance at their constant stopping and examining of artifacts.

"Just this statue," Merrill said. "We can come back for it later. We have to find Tamlen - or what's left of him. I can't imagine he's still alive with those creatures about."

The huntress swallowed involuntarily.

Wind continued to blow through these halls, and if anything it was louder than before. There was something familiar about this hallway. "This way, I think," she mumbled as she continued down it until confronted by a blue light to her right that did not come from any magical brazier. Lyna stopped dead in her tracks and her heart felt like it was going to burst out of her chest.

Footfalls quickly approached her. "Lyna?" It was Merrill's voice. "What is -" Turning her head, the First finally caught sight of what the huntress was looking at.

Suddenly, it all came rushing back to to her. There was that mirror, that's what they had found before everything went black and Tamlen disappeared. The air was roiling around it now, rushing into it somehow.

Unbelievably, Fenarel's voice sounded almost frightened, "What is that thing?" he asked.

"I -" Lyna stopped... she had no idea.

Without a word, Merrill was already making her way into the room.

Fenarel was quick to volunteer to watch the hall. He seemed to frown slightly as he watched Merrill fearlessly approach the mirror and began closely examining one of the statues flanking it. "Keep an eye on her," he added. "You know how she gets."

Lyna nodded. She understood the humor in his tone. When confronted by ancient elven artifacts Merrill could easily forget the world around her existed, but she didn't laugh this time. Exhaling deeply, she steeled herself and tried her best to walk confidently into the room, keeping one eye on the mirror at all times. She didn't know why, but she didn't like it.

Now Merrill was sitting on one of the steps leading up to the flat, wind attracting surface, closely examining the writing at the base of the statues.

The other elf stood several yards away from that thing in the center of the room. She would let Merrill investigate, but there was something wrong with that whatever it was, she just knew it. The whispers returned louder than before, but neither Merrill nor Fenarel seemed to be aware of it.

In frustration, she clenched her fists. 'Go away,' she thought, but the sounds wouldn't listen. In fact, they seemed to laugh in response. It reminded her of the way the darkspawn had laughed at her. Why did it laugh? Because it felt she was weak? Or was it something else?

She looked around the room for something to distract her and then recoiled in horror. On the floor, near the wall, lay Tamlen's sword, and not too far away was his bow. She stepped back. No Dalish would be without their weapons. How would he have defended himself against the monsters they had just killed?

Still, there was no other sign of him in this room. Her heart-rate steadied a bit. Maybe he really was lost in the woods...

Meanwhile, Merrill only had eyes for that mirror. "I don't think this is Tevinter at all. These statues certainly are, but the mirror... look at this writing around the edge," she said, gesturing at Lyna to come. She was too absorbed in what she was doing to know that Lyna had her back pressed firmly against the crumbling stone wall. "It's Elvish, I'm sure of it -"

Merrill didn't see the way the mirror suddenly flickered. A distant frenzied scream cut through Lyna's mind like a knife. She grabbed her head as a sharp flash of pain wracked her body and sent her stumbling, her hand just catching a hanging root in time to stop her fall. Thankfully, Merrill hadn't seen that either. "Bend, but never break," she whispered to herself. It was the Vir Bor'assan, the Way of the Bow. She didn't know what was wrong with her, but it didn't matter. She had to be strong. She had to stand up.

Merrill still wasn't paying her the least bit of attention. When she looked up again, Lyna was horrified to see how the elf had ascended the steps and was now holding her hand up to the mirror's surface, looking at it as if it were something beautiful to be admired.

Lyna couldn't explain the sudden pang of jealousy she felt, but it was there all the same.

The green glow of some kind of earth magic came from the First's outstretched hand, but the mirror grew increasingly disturbed. Something passed quickly through Lyna's mind: an image of Tamlen in front of this very same mirror, holding his hand to the surface in that very same way.

"No!" she cried out. "Merrill! Stay away from it!"

Merrill whirled around, surprised by the tone of Lyna's voice. At the sight of the elf's panic stricken expression, Merrill turned back and gasped at what she saw. The mirror's surface had grown blood red. Her eyes darted across its surface in utter fascination. Again, she raised her hand...

Lyna heard pounding footsteps as Fenarel entered the room. She repeated Merrill's name more calmly but this time the other woman didn't return her gaze. "Just let me look," she said.

"Can you feel that?" Tamlen had asked. " I think it knows we're here. I just need to take a closer look..."

"Tamlen, wait!"

"Just let me look."

The disturbing, alien sounds from the mirror grew in volume. There were voices, definitely voices of some kind... Fenarel stood stock still, his mouth hanging open. In desperation, Lyna's eyes darted across the room. Finding Tamlen's discarded sword again, she swept it off the floor and threw it at the mirror with every last ounce of her strength.

With a blinding flash and an ear-splitting shriek, the ancient artifact shattered into a hundred pieces.

Lyna reeled. that oppressive feeling of wrongness lifted from the air the instant she broke the cursed thing. The world felt right again, but why did she suddenly feel so sick? She grabbed her stomach as sharp stings of pain shot through it, traveled up her spine and into her head. She screamed.

When she regained her senses, Merrill was looking around in a half-daze, apparently baffled by the destruction, her mouth hanging open in disbelief. When she could finally find the words she was looking for, what she said made Mahariel cower, "How could you, Lyna?! How could you just destroy it like that? We didn't even know what it was!"

The proud huntress struggled not to cry right then and there. It was like something out of her worst nightmares. "Couldn't you feel it?" she shouted back, her voice breaking, "The mirror was tainted!"

Merrill's eyes flashed with never before seen anger. "That mirror belonged to our people!"

Again, more shots of pain traveled through her body sending Lyna stumbling backwards onto the floor, she felt like she was going to be sick. Desperately, she begged her friend as she clutched her heaving stomach. There was a physical pain she couldn't begin to describe, but it was dwarfed by what she felt when she looked into her lover's outraged eyes. "Merrill, please..."

The angry expression faded instantly. "Lyna," she gasped, "You don't look so good..."

"I want to go home," she said as the two elves gathered around her. The world began to grow dark, and before her horrified eyes she saw ugly, purple bruises appear on her pale skin, just like those she had seen on that bear monster a few days before.

The expression in her eyes stopped both Merrill and Fenarel in their tracks. Tears fell from Lyna's cheeks. She was absolutely terrified. "Please," she repeated. "I want to go home."

Three days later...

...

"There is nothing more I can do for her, da'len. I've tried everything within my power, yet the corruption remains..."

The young apprentice paced back and forth on the wooden floor of the Keeper's aravel. "If only she hadn't destroyed the mirror, maybe I could've found some way to cure her..."

"I know of no way to remove the corruption from the fragment you've shown me, and I could extract nothing from the books you brought back. There was nothing you could've done."

Merrill hung her head.

"It is the same taint I felt on that darkspawn corpse the hunters brought to me. You were lucky it did not infect you too. There is no defense against it. No cure that we know of."

"Nothing at all?"

Marethari seemed to think for a moment. "No. The Grey Wardens might know -"

The First's expression brightened, she'd heard stories of the wardens, though she didn't understand how they could possibly help. "Where can we find one?"

The Keeper shook her head. "I would not know where to look. The closest wardens are likely to be in the Deep Roads."

Merrill blinked. 'The Deep Roads?' Their fastest runners would take weeks to reach even the entrances to them. Creators! How could this be happening? Everything was getting blurry for some reason. It was like a nightmare that she couldn't escape from. How could something like this happen to Lyna Mahariel? She was so brave, and strong and clever. How could she be destined to simply wither away?

"Da'len," the Keeper's voice seemed to be wavering.

She felt something running down her cheeks. 'Oh,' Merrill thought, finally realizing she was crying. It looked like maybe Marethari was crying too, but it was hard to be certain of anything past the tears in her own eyes. She knew she wasn't imagining the Keeper's hand on her back, however.

No word passed between them for a time as Merrill struggled to stop herself. "I'm sorry," she said eventually.

"Do not apologize, da'len."

The elf was still sniffling and wiping at her eyes every once and a while, "If I can't save her, what can I do?"

"Go to her," was all the Keeper said.

...

When she entered the tent, Merrill found Lyna sitting on her bedroll with her arms wrapped tightly around her knees and her face buried in them. Some of her carvings were scattered about her, but it didn't look like she had worked on them much. Only when Merrill called out her name did the huntress look up and regard her with sad, bloodshot eyes. It was obvious she had been crying too; her face was red and her hair was a complete mess, though Marethari's magic had at least removed those horrible bruises...

Merrill struggled to find her voice and when she finally did it cracked as she spoke, "I'm sorry... about what I said. I didn't mean it."

Lyna nodded but her attention returned to her knees. She looked completely miserable.

Cautiously, the First joined her on the bedroll, mimicking Lyna's position and scooting forward until their bare feet were touching. She struggled to think of something to say that wouldn't just make everything worse. "You were trying to protect me, so that what happened to Tamlen wouldn't happen to me. I understand that now." The rest went unsaid; whatever had happened to Tamlen was also happening to Lyna.

Another nod, but the elf still wouldn't meet her gaze.

Merrill leaned forward and found herself pleading with the girl, "Please," she said, "look at me."

Lyna finally did so, and maybe it was the light, but it seemed that her eyes had lost that fire Merrill was so used to seeing in them. The huntress looked exhausted... beyond exhausted, even. It was like a part of her was already gone. It was the most frightening thing Merrill had ever seen.

Lyna Mahariel was going to die and there was nothing anyone could do about it.

It was only when Lyna finally answered that she noticed how badly chapped the elf's lips were. Her voice sounded raw, like she hadn't spoken in months, "The Keeper can't help me..."

Merrill shook her head. "Maybe – maybe there's something I can do. I could go through the Keeper's books again. There must be something."

The faintest hint of a smile appeared on those lips. It was the first smile she had seen in days from a girl who until just last week was easily the most naturally cheerful person in the entire clan.

"I know you," she said. "You've looked through those books a hundred times already."

The First had to look away from those knowing eyes. It was all true. There was nothing to be done. Her heart sank in her chest. Tears were running down her face again, and to think, just a moment ago she had been so certain that there were no more tears left in her to cry...

Lyna shifted forward and wrapped her arms around the younger woman. The way she said her name made the First's heart ache even more.

Merrill latched onto the other girl as if to physically keep her here forever. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" She repeated the words over and over again with no idea of what she was even apologizing for. She wailed until she felt as exhausted as Lyna looked.

Eventually, the soothing sound of Mahariel's voice calmed her to the point where she was only sniffling again. She felt utterly useless, but for some inexplicable reason, Lyna didn't seem to think so. She was still petting her hair, calming her despite the fact that Merrill knew she should be the one comforting her. "Just stay with me," she asked softly.

Merrill hugged her tightly. "Together we are stronger than one," she said aloud. Lyna squeezed back.

End of Chapter 4

AN – Just one more chapter to go. Thanks again for the reviews, faves and alerts. They keep me motivated, even when it takes me ages to update :) I'm not sure how long it will be before the final chapter is done. Probably several weeks, to be honest :(