Merrill took a deep breath and closed her eyes, reaching for the deep pool of calm within herself, that special place inside her mind and soul that felt of fire and water and wind and earth. She'd found that most people who were not mages thought that mages just drew on the power of the Fade like it was a thing, as dead as stone and just as utilitarian. They thought pulling power from the Fade was like pouring a glass of water. To Merrill and to other mages, using magic was an intimate process.

Those who were not mages thought that mana was like a reservoir within them that just held power the same way a cup held water. The truth was quite different. The raw magic of the Fade was part of everything, as inseparable from the wide world as the soul was inseparable from the body. Most ordinary folk were only actively a part of the Fade when they dreamed, and even then their ability to be one with the true nature of the universal energy was very limited. A mage was able to perceive more of that energy, like an extra sense, and their bodies were able to accept more of it into them. Rather... their spirits were attuned to it to a greater extent. Like a tuning fork next to a harp-string, mages resonated with the raw magic of the Fade and thier ability to resonate with it channeled power from it. So mana was not so much a "reservoir" as it was a measurement of a mages ability to channel magic from the Fade through thier bodies and bring it into the physical world. Their oneness with the wild magic of the Fade enabled them to work their will upon the nature of the reality around them.

Merrill mentally shook her head at herself as she noted the terrible state of her channels and of the resonance pool within her. Her channels were clogged thick on all sides with dark energies, looking less like the rivers of pure flowing energies she was accustomed to, and more like a Darktown sewer. They were filled with "sludge" and the energies of magic flowed sluggishly. The pool within her was also choked with foul energy, spiraling slowly and with a great many conflicting currents within it instead of the neat, clean swirl that Merrill had been accustomed to.

:When was the last time I did a thorough cleaning in here?!: she wondered in dismay. :Look at this mess! It's...:

Oh it was much worse than she'd thought. She could feel the tendrils of demon-taint wrapping themselves in and around her channels like the vines of a strangler fig growing into the cracks and crevices of its host tree, intent of sapping and eventually supplanting its host. She was in danger, grave danger, and if she had continued it would have been far, far worse.

:Be that as it may, I'm here now,: she told herself. :It's time to get to work.:

Merrill seized the power through her prime meridian, the easiest and most direct access through to the Fade, and also the one with the lest amount of magical taint. The demon had been leaving that one alone and concentrating on sinking its magic into her lesser channels, the ones she didn't use as often, the ones she wouldn't be as likely to notice since she was skimping on her cleansing exercises. She pulled power into herself, resonating fully with the great song of the Fade and opening herself to the wild magic. The feeling of being open to the Fade was indescribable, her body throbbed as though she stood next to a great signal-drum and her soul flowed outwards around her as her awareness expanded. When she opened her eyes the physical world was washed out to a blurry grey of lesser importance while the fade-overlay was painted in tiny motes of opalescent light, like stars with light-smear tails dancing in and out of everything, the stone, the air, the trees all were connected.

She drew in another breath taking in more energy from the Fade, resonating more in tune to it, then released her breath pushing out her own spiritual power, boosted by the energy she'd taken in and made her own into the air around her. It surrounded her physical shell in a halo of swirling colored light. The motes of energy nearby began to resonate in time to her own, her will subsuming them. Merrill took another breath, taking in more raw energy directly from the Fade and subsuming that energy to her will, then pushing it out into the world around her. The fabric of reality began to shift ever so slightly as her aura surrounded more of the drifting motes that were woven into every facet of the physical world.

It was not a fact that mages went out of their way to advertize, but the staffs that so characterized their power were really nothing more than convenient tools and not the absolute necessities that everyone seemed to think. It was easier to focus magic within their tips as it gave the casting mage a single point of focus on, rather like a glass magnifying lens could focus in sunlight on a single burning point. It was also easier to use a staff since the tip of it was farther away from their bodies and thus safer and easier to focus on. A talented mage could, with practice and concentration, focus power on their hands, though working magic that close to ones body and within the field of ones aura was considered generally inadvisable unless one really knew what they were doing.

:The Ancient Elves didn't use tools for magic,: Merrill reminded herself.

For the Ancients, magic was as much a part of them as their ability to breathe. Their bodies and spirits were never truly out of tune with the Fade, it was said. Keeper Marethari had taught her some few of the ancient tricks, a series of forms, physical movements that when combined with the correct breathing and concentration stoked the fires of magic within and increased ones ability to draw from the Fade. The movements smoothed and stimulated the energies within to enable a mage to maximize the amount of power they could bend to their will.

:What is that phrase Hawke uses? Ah... kicking it old school.:

She sank her weight into the starting position her center of gravity lowered, and started the slow, sweeping opening movements to the form, called in ancient elvhen the reeling silk energy. It was a pattern of graceful push-pull actions in which movement originated and flowed back into the dan'tien. Energy up from the ground, spiraling through her channels (not as smoothly as she was accustomed to!) flowing through her central pool out through the gentle circling movements of her hands as though she were reeling a large, delicate strand of silk onto them, then pushing back out into the world around her. The stronger her spiritual density became as she added more raw power from the fade, the more the natural magic of the surrounding world was attracted to it, the more she subsumed to her will. She settled the energy she had gathered and the work began in earnest.

The pattern she had chalked onto the floor and dusted in a powder of lyrium she had collected from some of the deposits that she had found on her adventures with Hawke were designed to bolster her spell. The movements of the form were direct physical echoes of the patterns of the spell so it was written in both the physical world and enacted in the magical world. When she used her body to connect the twin realities during the spell it would temporarily build a contained bridge between them, like a controlled channel with her body as the conduit. The tricky part would come when she had to step within the spell.

:The only way to close the spell and seal the tear is to bring the collected power back into itself, then ground and center it,: she reminded herself, steeling herself for the dangerous and very very painful part of the ritual that was yet to come. :It's also the only way to clean my channels quickly a decisively before that demon has a chance to try to wield its influence and make it a real struggle for dominance. I don't have time to waste on picking a fight with it when the true battle will be yet to come.:

She moved in the flowing graceful patterns, forcing her thoughts to remain absolutely focused and her spirit as calm as a tranquil pond. There was no room for fear or second-guessing, she must become the magic, become the spell, and not loose herself. Anything less than complete commitment and complete confidence was to loose, and that was unthinkable. She felt the air around her grow thick and heavy as the power she gathered accreted into a great cloud surrounding her. She wasn't sure if ordinary folk like Fenris or Hawke could see it, but to Merrill it looked as though she were surrounded by brilliant sparks of white light that had long tails of ever-shifting misty fire trailing out behind them like silk being moved in water and they flowed around her, mimicking the patterns of the movements, dancing in slow time to the movements of her form. She shaped them, she willed them, and they were one.

First Form; sun rises softly, sings the wind, flowering lily, rain on the pond, straight sword, dragonfly flies from the surface of the water, mist swirls deftly, sun sets softly. Second Form; sun rises softly, flowing river bends the reed, snake strikes palm out, snake strikes palm in, storm wind rages down, monkey delivers fruit, tall tree sways in the breeze, sun sets softly.

The First and Second forms set the patterns that the energy was to flow through using her body as the conduit. The true pivot of the spell however was the single pattern within the gap between the Second and Third Forms. That was the point during which the caster threw wide the gates inside their own body and took in the greatest amount of energy they possibly could acting as a conduit and letting the pure, raw magic of the Fade into the world pushing it into the pattern already inscribed. The lyrium on the floor took much of the brunt of it, the flowing patterns of energy the caster wove took the rest (theoretically anyway) and the spell was completed by the Third and Fourth Forms, which were nothing more than repetitions of the First and Second Forms, except that the caster was using their own body as the focus, directing the raw magic loosed into the circle.

No room for doubt, no thought for the next moment, all that existed was this. Merrill straightened then sank her weight, resting her palms together on her breast, her eyes closed in gentle serenity, she reached within, unlocking that place inside herself where Self and Fade were kept subtly separate, then throwing open wide the sluice gate and letting the torrent of magic rush through her.

Her channels burned with a cold so intense it was like fire. Raw power rushed through her with the wild torrent of a river in spring flood, just as powerful and just as uncontrolled. Her channels tried to snap and break away but Merrill gritted her teeth and hung on with an iron control, willing the power into the patterns she had inscribed in will and lyrium. She felt her spirit expand and expand until her skin was stretched tight. A shell of flesh was never meant to contain such power and it pushed, demanding more than she had to give. She clamped down on it, pushing back, forcing it to obey her command. It was eternity in an instant when Merrill judged she'd reached the limit of what her fragile shell could endure and fought the doorway within in her closed by inches. The raw magic fought her, but she was mistress within her circle, and she would not loose to it. The force was beaten back, narrowing to a channel then a stream, then a trickle and at last she shut and locked the gate, sealing away the raw Fade.

The raw magic of the Fade hung in the air about her, turning it thick and heavy, like a palpable wight pressing in on her body. Her limbs felt made of lead but she forced herself to begin the Third Form. Every single movement was a struggle, for the wild magic did not wish to flow obediently into the channels she had prepared for it. It struggled and kicked like a wild thing, demanding to be free, trying to force its way out, but Merrill gathered it to her and held it, though her body ached and burned, though she felt weary to the marrow of her bones.

The Third Form finished, the Fourth swiftly followed suit as she fought the very air around her for one more breath, one more movement, gravity weighing in and crushing her. At the final Sun Sets Softly there was no time to savor her victory. The magic that she had woven with her will and her body along the complex, flowing knotwork lines she'd worked into the floor lifted up into the air, spiraling about her in flowing knotworks lines and patterns of light. The power then gathered inward into a single point directly above the center of the inner circle. It looked like the very light of the heavens opened up, shining through in a beautiful glow. A nimbus of misty fire gathered in a cicle around the cloud and then... a torrent of white lightning struck, a pillar of light crashing down not in the crackling streaks of lightning but in a brilliant torrent like a raging river in flood. Starfire. The earth thumped and thrummed where it hit and a cold-hot wind rushed out. The patterns inscribed on the walls and floors and ceiling flared white and all was bathed in fiery luminance.

Now came the truly difficult part. Merrill bowed her head and said a quick prayer to Mythal to preserve her then faced forward and stepped over the line and into the fire.