Chapter Eight: Bookkeeping

Avernus had broken into a completely unexpected bout of laughter. Anders had pouted at this response to his question and, after he, Eliante, and Nathaniel held off the demonic presence as the ancient Warden sealed the gashes in the Fade, had retreated to the citadel's rather impressive library to sulk and/or brood. It was there that Eliante found him later that afternoon.

"Nathaniel and Levi went out to look for the horses," she said by way of announcing her arrival, wrinkling her nose at the stench of neglect and resulting mildew as she surveyed the collection of slowly rotting tomes. "The wagon seems mostly intact; I thought Levi was going to stay on his knees, thanking the Maker and praising Andraste, for the remainder of the entire Dragon Age when he saw that his wares and profits were safe."

"Well, bully for Levi," Anders grumbled, his long nose nearly grazing the page as he scanned a page of cramped notes. "I can't believe that old weasel shut me down like that. Hardly let me get a word out."

"The answer was pretty plain," Eliante pointed out, coming closer to the table the apostate leaned over in his studies. "If a criminal could get himself out of being Conscripted, you'd have Templars and guard-captains all over arguing for the right to get their charges out of Grey Warden recruitment and straightaway onto the gallows. It seems like protection as much as anything to me."

"I'm not a criminal," he replied crossly, slamming shut the ancient journal.

"But you were Conscripted. You didn't volunteer."

"Oh, I volunteered," was the disarmingly cheery reply. "Anything to get out of that damned Circle. It was that charming bastard of a knight-commander that made dear old Duncan have to invoke the Rite."

Eliante huffed a heavy sigh. "You're not making any sense now. Did you want to be a Grey Warden or not?"

"Well, here's the thing and I really hate to admit it because it goes completely against the whole 'I'm not a criminal' argument –even though I'm not a criminal, let's make that clear." Anders took a deep breath. "I was in a cell when Duncan encountered me. Not my favored living conditions; while most people seem to enjoy being kicked in the face to wake up in the morning, I'm just choosy. But you can see why I'd want to get out."

"Why were you in a cell?" Eliante asked, eyes narrowing slightly.

"Last summer marked my…" He paused, counting on his fingers and then abandoning the tally with a shake of his head. "Well, let's just say that they really ought to give me a bit more credit for my sixth escape attempt. Which I suppose they did by locking me up altogether."

"And Duncan 'encountered' you in this cell."

"You can thank my dear old schoolmate Niall for that. I thought that the only thing in that tower that gave a rat's arse for me was the resident mouser… although now that I think about it, Mr. Wiggums never did like to share his meals. Anyway, Niall seemed to have a drop of humanity –or maybe a twisted, sadistic sense of irony –in him and dropped a hint of my plight to Duncan, who asked the favor of looking over the mages in solitary confinement as potential recruits. Pretty shrewd move on his part; he ended up getting two for one. Although, now that I've jumped ship, he's just about broken even."

"What was the other one doing down there?" she asked, curiosity piqued.

Anders shrugged. "Mordred? Don't really know. He was getting 'escorted' into the happy haven as Duncan was leading me out. Some to-do about an escape attempt; ha, somebody besides me trying for a chance at freedom! Although I'm not quite sure it was Mordred trying to get out; he was a strange fellow but he always seemed rather… complacent with the way things were and he wasn't very chatty on the short sojourn we shared with Duncan. Duncan had to Conscript him too; that pansy-ass Greagoir was even redder in the face about that than he was about me. Bottom line: no idea where he's gotten to, but here I am."

"Here you are," Eliante agreed. "But you're still not answering. Did you want to be a warden or not?"

"Why does it have to be either or?" Anders huffed. "When I first came to the Circle, apprentices chatted up the Grey Wardens like it was some kind of grandiose personal diplomatic immunity from the Templars and everyone else. Turns out that if the Circle of Magi is a menagerie, the Grey Wardens are like a traveling circus; no one is free, not even the mages. Once you're Conscripted or –Maker help you –you've volunteered, you're in it for the rest of your sorry life, come hell or high-water. You think I'm really the type to trade one stagnant cage even for a migrant one?"

"Some people would consider that an improvement."

"Some people," he stressed, "wouldn't understand. Being able to go from one place to another isn't enough, not for me. A pirate I had the pleasure of meeting once put it rather perfectly after hearing my sorry tale: it's not about movement. It's about choices being made for you."

Eliante's eyebrows rose. "A pirate? In Ferelden?"

He waved his hand dismissively. "She was doing some job on Lake Calenhad, I don't know the particulars. Picked me up after I tried to swim to shore from the Tower dock. Much less exciting than I've made it out to be. Point is that I've had done with people making up their mind on my behalf. Mages aren't criminals. We shouldn't be treated like them when we're not."

"Mages are dangerous," she pointed out. "You saw what Avernus did all those years ago; you even called him a blood mage and 'unnatural.' You can't completely condemn the world for taking caution."

"Men are dangerous," he countered, "and women too. Arl Howe killed your family. That was bad, no arguments otherwise here. He was a bad, bad man who did bad, bad things. But would you have all men locked away in stuffy little towers in the middle of lakes on the off-chance they might break in the head and kill their best friend and his family? Or take Nathaniel: if there were more Howes, they'd lock them all up to protect everyone else just because of something one of them did!"

"A thrilling analogy," said a dry voice from somewhere behind Eliante. Soaked with rainwater, Nathaniel dropped the saddlebags he had presumably retrieved from the wagon onto the ground and pushed his dark hair from his face. "But the comparison between my family and mages is simply idiotic. I'm not about to transform into an abomination simply for being a Howe."

"I didn't claim it was perfect…" Anders muttered.

"Being a Howe also doesn't permit me control over your thoughts."

"Kind of missing my point, aren't you?"

"I am not fond of over-simplifications–"

"If I might interrupt," Eliante quickly interjected, "has anyone seen Avernus since we repaired the Veil?"

"I think repairing the Veil exhausted him for the time being," answered Anders, stacking the books on the desk. "Last I saw, he was heading back to his tower. I can't believe that, given a choice of residences, he'd choose to stick to living in yet another tower."

"And would you just have him go on living there?" questioned Nathaniel. "What do you propose we do with him?"

Eliante looked over at him, surprised. "Why do we have to do anything with him?"

"Yeah," said Anders, looking at Nathaniel too, "why should we do anything to him? He's just been minding his own business up here, free of the Circle, doing his own thing, leaving everyone else alone."

"I suppose you can say he's been minding his own business," said Nathaniel, "if you ignore the tears in the Fade and the armies of walking dead."

"You saw the demons that showed up when he started to seal the Fade," pointed out Eliante. "He barely got out of there alive even with our help."

"Or it was all just a show," said Nathaniel with a shrug. "A man who has been so focused on keeping himself breathing for so long is hardly interested in letting himself get killed by the first set of blades that manage to make it past the undead."

"Or maybe he's exactly what he seems to be," snapped Eliante, glaring. "He's not proud of what he did for Sophia; couldn't you see that? Can't you ever take anything at face value?"

"Can you," he asked, "after what happened at Highever?"

"If I might interrupt," said Anders quickly as Eliante's face blazed crimson in anger, "Avernus didn't do anything for Sophia that wasn't in self-defense."

"You both are seeing what he wants you to see," Nathaniel stressed. "How can you be sure that he isn't just some more-appealing version of that reanimated corpse who tried to strike a bargain with us earlier?"

"Do you know that beyond a reasonable doubt?" Eliante asked, eyes narrowed. "Would you condemn an innocent man on the off-chance he's gotten himself possessed, willingly or not?"

"The Templars would," Anders muttered.

"Well, maybe the Templars have some reason to. If you had seen what I saw in Kirkwall–"

"Well, we didn't," Eliante retorted, trembling with fury. "And this isn't Kirkwall. And don't you ever try to school me about what happened at Highever again."

"No," he agreed. "It's not Kirkwall. Whether or not you let Highever happen again remains to be seen." And with that, he stepped back through the library doorway and disappeared into the darkness of the hallway.

"Brrrr," said Anders, shivering dramatically at Nathaniel's exit. "Can I have his coat? There's no way he needs it, snow or no snow, with that attitude."

"His attitude?" repeated Eliante, burying her hands beneath her elbows and leaning over the table, still shaking with anger.

"Positively icy," he replied. "And that was a low blow on his part."

"I know," she said, sinking into a moth-eaten chair. "I know," she said again, leaning to brace her forehead against the edge of the table in front of her. "Every time I started to think we're on better footing," she said to the dusty floor, "he does something and we're catapulted back to where we were that night at Highever."

"You pick at him," Anders said offhandedly. "It's not just him; you… well, you just poke at him. A lot. Sorry," he added that last sentiment after a pause.

"How could he not have known?" she asked, more to herself than to Anders. "He shows up claiming that his father's men aren't delayed but says he doesn't know anything else. How can that be? He's not stupid and he always obeyed his father, even when we were children. How could he not have known?"

"Well, if he's such a suspect, why keep him around? You just give him a better angle to stab you in the back with, if that is what he's after."

She looked up, bracing her chin on the table's edge. "Because I can count on one hand the number of living people that I'm certain don't wish me dead," she answered. "And Nathaniel Howe has kept me alive enough times that I can't afford to write him off that very, very, very short list. So whatever his motives are, he's not trying to kill me. And my chances of survival right now are better with him than without."

"Well, that's practical bookkeeping if I ever saw it," said the apostate mage with a quick, perhaps forced laugh; Eliante couldn't tell. "Pretty and pragmatic is just about right. But do you really think it's the best solution to lock up all the Howes in a tower because one of them lost his head?"

"Are you really taking his side after what he just said to me?"

"I'm not taking any sides!" Anders said quickly. "I just believe that everyone deserves an equal chance, no matter what happened to them that they couldn't control: Avernus, mages, Howes, even you. You heard what they were saying on the gallows about your family but that shouldn't condemn you along with everyone else."

"There's a difference," Eliante retorted. "Everything they said on those gallows about my parents was a lie; Rendon Howe did commit a massacre."

"Alright, alright!" Anders threw up his hands in defeat. "I'm just saying… Wait, no, forget it. I'll just let you continue on with your madcap quest for vengeance and I'll just find a place free of corpses and mold to rest my head."

She watched him leave and wondered what he had stopped himself from saying to her. But she supposed that for the moment, it didn't matter. To distract herself, she crossed the library, gazing around her at the massive chamber. The fading afternoon sunlight filtering through the tall glass windows, splashing elongated illuminated patterns across the stone floor, the tables, and the books that had been left scattered across the polished wood desks, some closed, some open as though awaiting their scholars to return to them at any moment. She reached for a tattered quill feather, its nib buried in a crystal inkwell, its contents a swirled blue-black darkness that refused to release the pen: the ink had dried up long ago.

The library seemed to hover around her as though suspended in the moment before the Grey Wardens had realized that the king's troops were marching on their fortress. She imagined the panic, the adrenaline that had called for even the most bookish wardens to rise from their journals, notes, and tomes and take up arms against the wave that they must have known would overwhelm them, that they must have known would consume them, that they must have known they would lose against. Or had they harbored some foolish hope that their cause for justice would prevail? She wondered what they would give, what any of them would give, to return to that moment and rethink their choice now that they knew there was only defeat awaiting them beyond the library's doors. Would they choose otherwise, given the chance?

Or would they choose to go back for other motives than rescinding their choice? Maybe they would return to that instant in time only to relive the moment before calamity struck, savor the last point in time when they were at peace, when they were calm, when they were happy, when they could fool themselves into believing they could win. The moment where, if they could not change the course of their fate, they could at least make that moment count: accept their father's mandate for them without giving lip, wear the old-fashioned jewelry to please their mother, not mock their sister-in-law for giving their brother a ribbon to wear about his wrist when he went off to war, relented and listened when someone had said "Please."

She couldn't look back. There was too much distance to cover in front of her.

She found a catalogue of maps lying upon on the desk under the window. The map of Highever lands that it was turned to was too faded to read properly, so she turned the page of the atlas and came across a depiction of northern Ferelden and an accompanying chart on the page opposite labeled in a cramped hand: "Deep Roads entrances in Highever, Amaranthine, and surrounding territories."

Someone had taken a pen to the page and marked all over, including a roughly sketched circle at the originally unmarked coordinates of Soldier's Peak. Eliante assumed the additions were from the occasion upon which Soldier's Peak's site had been chosen. But what was more interesting was the carefully labeled entry point to the dwarven-constructed underground at Drake's Fall and, to the east, just south of the coast…

"Vigil's Keep," she said aloud and then glanced over her shoulder, paranoid that someone had born witness to her revelation. But the library was empty save for herself. Quickly, she tore the map in question free of its binding, ignoring the imagined admonishments at her mistreatment of a book that her deceased tutor Aldous would have unleashed upon her.

She reminded herself that Aldous was only deceased because of the actions of Vigil's Keep's lord, the same as everyone else she had cared for at Highever Castle, and her resolve hardened.


His talents had lent themselves more to the career of assassin than soldier but Nathaniel Howe had never before put them toward the profession they most favored. In contrast, his choice of attire did not cater to the chilly mountain air that the open bridge exposed its travelers to as they crossed the space between the citadel proper and the attached tower; he could only be grateful that the snow lining the cliffs and bluffs around the fortress was merely persistent snowpack as opposed to freshly fallen flakes. Still, the temperature dropped with the sun in the west and Nathaniel found himself shivering as his bare hands, tingling with the chill, wrapped around one of the wrought-iron handles of the massive double-doors to the tower's interior and pulled it open. The rust screamed with the effort; so much for subtlety.

The opening chamber was empty but he could mark the hallmarks of a recent vacancy: the drapes had been pulled shut and, although threadbare, dust had not been allowed to linger in their folds. The vials strewn across a dining table that had been repurposed for alchemy were polished, their contents uncongealed and twinkling jewel-tones in the gold of the sunset that peeked through the gaps between curtain and window-frame. He pressed his thumb against a half-melted taper and found the wax to be soft. The old Warden mage had not fled through some concealed passage immediately upon retreating to the tower as Nathaniel had suspected; he had lingered in these chambers and had only vacated them within the last half-hour at most.

He stepped up to one of the bookcases lining the chamber's walls; he had thought that the library within the main citadel had been impressive, but this little chamber held enough tomes and charts and journals to rival its worth in knowledge. Stacks upon stacks… Nathaniel had never been a bookish sort but he had appreciated secrets from an early age…

"The accumulated research of Grey Warden mages throughout the centuries," said Avernus's voice from behind him. "Elaborated heavily upon by myself throughout the years. As one can imagine, I had to find something with which to occupy my vastly expanded and quite solitary lifetime."

"The demons didn't make for decent company?" Nathaniel asked, not turning around to face the ancient mage only because he had found Avernus's decrepit reflection in a scrying glass hung upon the wall adjacent to the bookcase.

"They left me to my own devices and I left them to theirs," Avernus admitted. "They didn't know quite what to make of me, otherwise I would have joined my fellow Wardens long ago. Blood magic comes from demons; they could counter every bit of lore I possessed or could find in these tomes. But the darkspawn taint, that is alien to them. And it had power."

"And you expect me to believe that Grey Wardens are therefore immune to demonic possession? That's a laugh."

"Not quite a laugh," he remarked wryly in return, "but it would be me claiming knowledge I do not possess myself. And that is something I do not wish to do. Might I ask a question?"

"What makes you think you can't?"

"Your blatant hostility," was the bald reply. "What else? And where exactly that hostility stems from, I wonder."

"Your blatant regard for forbidden magic," was the dry response. "What else?"

Avernus laughed quietly. "Ah. That. Blood magic is forbidden by the Maker himself; did the Maker himself tell you that? Well, I'll tell you one thing: short-sighted men have forbidden my research, not any god. I don't understand why so-called 'enlightened' people should limit themselves so with such an argument."

"Because it's a sound argument."

"It's a stale one, boy. Magic pulls from elements of the Maker-created world; if an elementalist pulls from fire and water and a force mage from sheer energy, why cannot a blood mage pull from life itself?"

"Demons," was Nathaniel's staunch response. "Fire and water don't try and make deals to try and take over the mortal coil."

"Some mages don't accept deals," said Avernus mildly, "or some outwit them. You have such little faith in free-thinking individuals it would seem."

Nathaniel let out a harsh laugh. "I watched plenty of men complacently follow their mad leader in committing the slaughter of innocents not a month ago; I should say I have reason to have doubts."

"Doubts are not terrible things. They lead to questions. Questions lead to understanding. I take it that this 'slaughter of innocents' is the reason why a Howe and a Cousland are mucking about in an ancient fortress with an apostate and a merchant."

"You would be correct," replied Nathaniel, not sounding happy about it.

"Politics?"

"Again, correct," he said, even less pleased.

"Nobles," said Avernus, waving his hand dismissively. "Now that was where blood magic was useful."

Now that made Nathaniel turn around. "You practiced blood magic on the nobles," he said flatly, not a question but a statement.

The ancient mage shrugged. "Of course we did. To nudge people, to keep our secret safe. What else would you have had us do?"

"Played fair," Nathaniel snarled. "I'm feeling less and less sympathetic to you and your 'noble cause' all the time."

"We used to resources at our disposal, just as the king used his armies to intimidate those that might have lent us aid. All's fair."

"I'm sure your victims would agree," was the sarcastic retort. "Didn't their families notice when their loved ones started behaving uncharacteristically?"

"Did your 'mad man's soldiers?"

The question gave Nathaniel pause. His shoulders slowly relaxed, curling forward in unspoken shame. "No," he finally answered, "and neither did his family. Not even his own son."

Avernus simply watched. "I see," he remarked. "So the Howes turned on the Couslands. I wondered how many centuries that would take to transpire."

"So you saw it coming," said Nathaniel bitterly. "How useful was that?"

"It was many years in the making, but I suppose it took an objective eye to piece it together. I take it you disagreed with your father's actions."

"That would explain why I'm running about with the Cousland heir on her aimless quest to raise a rebellion." Nathaniel sighed heavily. "My father has gone mad, yes, whether it stems from ambition or…"

"…or something more sinister," Avernus finished smoothly. "I see."

"And could it be that?" Nathaniel asked, something almost desperate in his voice. "Could it be something else toying between his ears at the employ of another noble or the Orlesians maybe or…? Could it be magic that has driven him mad?"

"There are many causes for madness," replied the ancient mage, "but there could also be less insane reasons that are behind your father's actions. I am no Templar, not some bumbling fool in armor pretending to be familiar with such things. Besides, you're no child. You can make your own judgment."

"I never said I couldn't," retorted the young noble curtly.

Avernus answered with a smile bordering on a smirk. "There are few that would admit such deficiencies."

"I know little of magic. There are no mages amongst the Howes."

"And yet you were so quick to condemn me as though you knew better."

"I know that what you are is unnatural."

"And that is for you to judge?"

"It should be for the Grey Wardens to choose," Nathaniel decided, "wherever they are."

Avernus's smile turned wholly into a smirk. "Well, then I look forward to seeing my fellow Wardens. Whenever they make the time to seek me out in this lonely place."

"But I have a condition," he said firmly.

"I am eager to hear it."

"No more demons."

"For someone who is neither Templar nor Circle mage, you have a strong bias against the concept, don't you?"

"I have a strong aversion against the reality," Nathaniel told him. "Besides, what were the Grey Wardens doing, fostering blood mages in their ranks?"

"You act as though the Circle isn't swarming with them already. I believe that one day the Chantry and the Templars will have a very shocking revelation as to the truth of how their perfect little system works. As for the Grey Wardens…" He smiled sardonically. "Well, it is said that we accept aid against the darkspawn wherever it is offered."

Nathaniel snorted in derision. "How vaguely put. Clever."

"Indeed," Avernus's smile widened slightly.

"But not from politics."

"If only that were the truth," the ancient mage observed ruefully. "Alas, it is not so."

"Someone should do something about that," muttered Nathaniel, turning toward the door. "It's not right."

"You may find that what's 'right' rarely gets the job done," were Avernus's parting words as the young noble left the tower.


Some dialogue purloined from Awakenings and the Soldier's Peak DLC. Avernus and the Wardens using blood magic on the nobles is apparently a canon fact. It mildly surprised me, and I had the same reaction as Nathaniel: sympathy decreasing rapidly.

As always, thank you so much to my reviewers. You all are the best. :)