Chapter 9

Vir Dirthara

"This is starting to become annoying," Merrill sighed, breaking off the channeling of magical energy into the inactive eluvian and stepping away from the unresponsive mirror. "I feel like I'm on the right path and the key is somewhere close within my reach, and yet it continues to elude me."

"Perhaps a small break is in order?" Bethany suggested, together with Riona sitting on a large slab of an overturned stone pillar nearby as they watched their friend work, Cole occasionally appearing nearby as if to check on them, disappearing just as quickly.

"Perhaps it is, at that," Merrill nodded reluctantly, walking up to the two sisters and gratefully accepting the flask of water Riona held out for her. "I just need to refocus my thoughts," she said, perching down on a smaller boulder nearby.

"So, Merrill… I couldn't stop myself from browsing your research notes for a bit," Bethany confessed a while later. "I hope that's alright with you?"

"It's why I left them out there in the open," the elf winked at her. "Find anything interesting?"

"How about everything?" Bethany chuckled. "But I wanted to ask you about one specific thing." Merrill peered at her curiously, urging her former lover to continue. "Xebenkeck and her ilk. I found that entry to be particularly fascinating, and yet it didn't tell me as much as I would have liked. I know that she whisked you from Kirkwall through the eluvian, so you must know more about her than you put down in the journal."

"I have some theories that I have not committed to the parchment, that is true," Merrill admitted.

"I've always wondered if there's a connection between the Forgotten Ones and the Forbidden Ones," Riona remarked. "It almost felt as if they're one and the same?"

"It's hard to say," Merrill scrunched up her face as she pondered upon her reply. "Perhaps there is some overlap there? I mean, the Evanuris fought many distinct groups of challengers over the lengthy period of their tyrannical rule over the People. You don't really think that the Forbidden Ones or the Forgotten Ones would call themselves that, right? It's the way they've been branded by the victors of those conflicts. Perhaps the Forbidden Ones were just an offshoot, a splinter group of the Forgotten Ones? I don't know."

"Your translation implied that the Forbidden Ones did something…" Bethany suggested. "I'm not sure what it is that they did, though. Cast aside their form? Fled to where the Earth could not reach? What does that even mean?"

"I'm not sure… I can only offer wild theories," Merrill shrugged. "Do you remember the legend about Andruil's madness?" Bethany nodded quickly at that. "She entered a place called the Void which slowly twisted her sanity. I believe that might be where the Forbidden Ones fled. I still don't know what this Void is, but… it almost appears as if Fade is not the only source from which one gifted with magic can draw great power from. The Void seems to offer something similar, but perhaps at a greater cost? In any case, we no longer know how to draw from the Void, and that is probably for the best… but it seems as if these Forbidden Ones somehow learned how to harness the power of the Void."

"Scary," Bethany muttered, shuddering a little. "Probably not related to our situation, though."

"Not really," Merrill smiled at her. "It's worth remembering, however, that the Forbidden Ones are not bound by anything, and could be influencing the events of Thedas with us being none the wiser."

"Do we know anything about their goals or motivations?" Riona wondered.

"I certainly don't," Merrill shrugged. "Another thing… for a long time I thought that when Xebenkeck dragged me through the Crossroads and then used Morrigan's blood to enter that strange city-realm, I was certain that she had entered the Arlathan of old. I'm still ashamed when I remember how sorely I was tempted to finish off Morrigan and follow Xebenkeck there. But now… now I'm certain that it would have been a very bad idea to follow her. I believe that Xebenkeck was seeking for a way to return to the Void."

"So, this Void could be accessible from somewhere in the Crossroads?" Bethany mused, looking around the strange realm of floating islands, her head starting to spin a little when her gaze lingered too long upon the tiny shapes of the qunari, scurrying around on the surface of the upside-down island.

"Perhaps, but I'm not exactly eager to find out," Merrill shrugged, getting up to her feet again and approaching the eluvian with a determined look on her face. And indeed, not even a few minutes later, Merrill's persistence paid off as the surface of the eluvian began to shimmer and it once again became active to be used. "There… I knew I was close," the elf nodded in satisfaction.

"Where did you say this eluvian was leading, Merrill?" Riona asked as together with Bethany they also got up to their feet and approached the activated mirror, ready to take the next step in their strange adventure.

"Over there," Merrill pointed towards a reasonably large floating island to their left, featuring a relatively intact section of the Shattered Library. "Don't worry," she smiled at the two sisters. "It should be safe. Mostly. I hope." And with that she submerged into the eluvian's surface, leaving the others with no other choice than to follow.

Once Bethany and Riona regained their senses following the short eluvian jump, they found themselves in a large hall in the shape of a perfect square, countless torn and singed parchments strewn about the place whichever way they looked. In the middle of the hall, there stood a single decorative tree statue the kind of which were common throughout the Crossroads, it's perfectly spherical leafage glowing with the soft green of Veilfire. In one corner of the hall, between the bookshelves, there stood a glowing and active eluvian, while another such mirror was located up a short flight of stairs directly ahead of them. Bethany noted with curiosity that most of the bookshelves in this part of the library had been emptied, and Merrill quickly moved to explain, having picked up on the other woman's questioning stare.

"It was me who removed the books, Bethany," the elf spoke up. "I took them back to the other part of the library where I had set up my study."

"Oh, I see," Bethany smiled at the elf. "Anyway, there doesn't seem to be anything that could help us here, Merrill. Do we have to use one of the other eluvians?" she asked.

"Yes," Merrill nodded, leading them towards the mirror that was up a flight of stairs. "We'll start with this one. Just be careful when you emerge on the other side. Take your time to regain your senses before you start wandering around. There's a reason I've named that place the Sundered Hall."

"Sounds safe," Riona rolled her eyes, following Merrill through yet another eluvian and making sure to follow the elf's advice, that after arriving on the other side they immediately acknowledged as a sound one. The threesome had emerged in some sort of a heavily fortified tower with thick walls, but it was fractured right through the middle and a single careless step could easily send one plummeting into nothingness.

"This way," Merrill said, pointing towards an archway to their left, then taking a sharp turn right to hug the wall as they carefully maneuvered themselves along the narrow ledge, hearts beating rapidly as all as one they tried not to look down into the mists obscuring the height of the fall. A few yards ahead, there was an opening in the wall that finally allowed them to escape the narrow and dangerous ledge, bringing them to a collapsed stairway leading upwards. Merrill quickly and gracefully scaled the fallen rubble, then helping Riona and Bethany climb the steps, reaching out with her arms and pulling the two sisters up the final and steepest part of the scramble.

After a fair bit of climbing, the small group eventually reached the top floor of the tower, a large and open space that was just as badly showered with splintered rubble as the rest of this part of the library. Between the few still standing walls, Bethany could just about make out the glow of yet another eluvian on the other side of the tower, and Merrill set towards it in a determined step, leaving the Hawke sisters to once again follow in her wake, stopping when they came upon a large tiled square in front of the eluvian and a qunari corpse resting a few feet away from the magical mirror, the shock trooper bearing no visible physical injury, but a horrified expression marred the usually emotionless face of a qunari soldier, almost as if to imply that he had died from fear.

"No visible wounds, which only leaves one explanation… magic," Riona concluded, looking at Merrill. "Is Solas here, helping us?"

"It would appear like that," Merrill admitted. "I… would have hoped for him to do more to stop the qunari from despoiling this place. Perhaps even stop them from entering it altogether."

"Perhaps Solas isn't all powerful, Merrill," Bethany spoke softly, though the look that the elf gave her in return almost suggested as if she thought that Bethany had lost her mind.

"Anyway, I guess it's time for more eluvian jumping?" Riona asked, pointing at the next active mirror, about to approach it when the reddish golden-glowing shape of the Archivist spirit suddenly materialized before them, addressing them in a kind, helpful voice.

"Welcome, and listen to the last words of those who walked this place," the fragment of the sundered Archivist spirit spoke. "How could the Dread Wolf cast a Veil between the world that wakes and the world that dreams? The Evanuris will send people! They will save us! When have you last heard from the gods? When the Veil came down, they went silent! What is this Veil? What has Fen'Harel done?"

"What?" Bethany and Riona both exclaimed at once as the words spoken by the Archivist slowly began to sink in. "That's impossible!" Riona almost shouted, shaking her head. "You can't just… create the Veil! It has always been there!"

"Not always," Merrill spoke up quietly, then letting out a sigh at the Archivist. "You silly spirit. That was my surprise to reveal. Now off with you," she waved her hand at the glowing shape and it drifted out of view at her command.

"Do you really want us to believe that what the spirit said is true?" Riona faced Merrill with a hard stare. "And you knew about it? When were you going to tell us, Merrill?"

"Oh, eventually," Merrill shrugged. "I just wanted to see if you could put it together on your own from all the clues that were left lying about."

"That's almost Solas-like in testing us," Bethany remarked. "You really are becoming more and more like him."

"He would find that a compliment, and so do I," Merrill replied. "Anyway, why is it so hard to believe that Fen'Harel could create the Veil? Remember the elven legend about the Dread Wolf sealing away the Creators and the Forgotten Ones. This is exactly how he did it, by creating the Veil that tore their connection to the Fade. Without it, they were powerless, left forever imprisoned in their holds that drew more heavily from the Fade than anything else in the Empire."

"So that's what happened with this place," Riona snapped her fingers as she looked around. "It was built of both Fade and the waking world, and the creation of the Veil sundered it?" Merrill nodded at that.

"That didn't happen just here, Ri," Bethany suddenly realized. "Do you remember what Abelas told us in the temple of Mythal, that the shemlen did not destroy the empire of Arlathan? No… the elves did it themselves, or rather Fen'Harel did it when he created the Veil. Their entire empire was built on their connection to the Fade-…"

"They probably wouldn't have even called it the Fade," Riona interrupted, the realization dawning upon her as well. "I mean, the Fade and the waking world would have been one and the same. What a wondrous world that would have been to live in…"

"I could not agree more," Merrill spoke with a wistful, faraway look on her face.

"I can imagine how difficult it would have been for Fen'Harel to do something like that," Bethany mused thoughtfully. "I mean, he might have succeeded at defeating the Creators and the Forgotten Ones, but at what cost? He not only brought down the elven civilization, he also denied them the connection with the Fade which made them what they were."

"He calls it his greatest mistake," Merrill noted, sadness evident in her voice.

"Does that mean he plans to somehow rectify it?" Bethany asked. "Has he tasked you and Solas to somehow help with that?"

"The Dread Wolf has always held the interests of the People closest to his heart, and in this our motivations are aligned," Merrill replied, a little evasively. "The Qunari invasion threatens everyone, elves included. Just think of how many elven servants would have perished in the explosion of the Winter Palace."

"I suppose that is true," Riona admitted, even if Bethany felt there was more to it than what Merrill had told them. Still, this was not a moment for more inquiries, especially when Merrill was already moving purposefully towards the next eluvian.

"I actually feel as if I need to sit down and take this all in before I'm ready to continue," Bethany muttered, but Merrill either did not or pretended not to hear her, entering the next eluvian without waiting on her and Riona. "But I guess there's no time. Onwards we go, yet again…" she sighed, together with her sister approaching the magical mirror.

"I know what you mean, Beth," Riona nodded in understanding. "I also feel as if my mind has been blown to pieces by this shocking revelation. And yet I can't stop myself from wanting to rush after Merrill… I mean, who knows what other surprises await us down this path? A part of me is dying to find out!"

"I just hope that we won't get hit by the old proverb of curiosity killing the cat," Bethany sighed, together with her sister entering the next eluvian hand in hand, blinking furiously once they emerged on the other side where they found themselves standing on a large balcony with an elegantly carved railing providing a view at another large and almost fully preserved library hall below, this one with many bookshelves overflowing with books.

"I have barely skimmed the surface of all the knowledge contained in this part of the library," Merrill commented as they walked along the stretching balcony. "Only some cataloguing of the tomes and subjects they pertained to, nothing much more than that. I didn't even have the time to bring them over to my study… or perhaps I actually shouldn't do that, I could just set up a new study right here, it seems comfortable enough," the elf mused, appearing excited. "After we have dealt with the qunari, of course."

"Did you find anything interesting?" Riona asked once they had descended the wide staircase from the balcony to the library hall itself. "As fascinating as that bit about Xebenkeck and the Forbidden Ones?"

"Maybe?" Merrill shrugged uncertainly as they walked on. "I remember setting aside one of these tomes as potentially very important," she pointed at a nearby table between the bookshelves, stacks of books placed upon it, each one of the books having a small note added to it, meticulously describing the general topic the tome was covering. "In the days of the ancient Arlathan, every elf was what we would these days call a Dreamer."

"Like Solas," Riona nodded. "And the boy we helped in Kirkwall. Feynriel, wasn't his name?"

"That it was," Bethany smiled. "Anyway, you were saying, Merrill?"

"The Dreamers of Arlathan had explored nearly the entire realm of the Fade, but… not quite everything," Merrill explained. "There are supposedly some regions of the Fade where the Dreamers could not thread… and this book offered instruction on how to reach these deepest regions of the Fade."

"Could those parts of the Fade be this Void, perhaps?" Riona asked.

"It's not impossible, I suppose," Merrill shrugged. "Anyway, if Xebenkeck and her ilk lurk in these deepest parts of the Fade, I'm not so eager to go there, at least not on my own," she said, smiling minutely as her gaze lingered on Bethany, leaving the younger of the siblings wondering whether it had been an invitation for a particularly dangerous adventure together.

"I don't know why anyone would care to go there," Riona shook her head, echoing Bethany's thoughts, but the younger of the siblings decided against voicing her opinion aloud, sensing that Merrill might disagree.

"Power, knowledge, or quite possibly both," Merrill said, then walking up to one of the tables with stacks of books and picking up something that was instantly recognized by both Hawke sisters, a small carved ironwood figurine depicting a howling wolf, identical to the one they had used to repair the bridge to Fen'Harel's sanctuary in the mountain valley. "Can't believe I was using this for paperweight," the elven mage laughed, looking fondly at the figurine.

"But where would we use it?" Bethany asked. "I haven't seen any pedestals with open slots where to insert it… for whatever purpose."

"I haven't seen it either, Beth, but I can make a good guess on where to find something that will match the figurine," Merrill smiled at her. "But to do that, we need to backtrack and then take the other eluvian from the entrance hall."

At Merrill's suggestion, the mage trio made their way back to the perfectly square-shaped hall from earlier and then wasted no time to access the eluvian they had not yet explored, the one that stood in the corner of the entrance hall, between a pair of empty bookshelves. The eluvian jump swiftly brought them to a small floating island nearby, a badly decimated once elegant tower rising atop of the island, not much left of it now. One of the strange decorative trees stood at the base of the tower, surrounded by statues of kneeling elven supplicants, each one of them bearing a Veilfire brazier. Just past this silent ceremony, they could see the remains of a collapsed stairway, providing a challenging path to the upper levels of the tower where they apparently had to go if Merrill's decisive march towards the broken stairway was any indication.

Merrill was far better at scaling the fallen rocks and climbing the collapsed stairs than her human companions, but at least the elven mage stopped now and then to wait and extend a helping hand to the heavily breathing Hawke sisters, making sure they were not left way behind. After a final bit of steep climbing which had ended with Bethany brushing particularly tightly against Merrill after the elven mage had helped her on this last part of the journey, the three of them finally reached the top to come upon a shorter intact staircase with railings on both sides to protect the unwary from falling into nothingness, another active eluvian at the top of the stairs. Still, before they could approach the eluvian and use it, another fragment of the red glowing Archivist spirit drifted into view, blocking their path and causing Merrill to sigh in frustration.

"Welcome. Welcome. Listen to the last words of those who lived past the Fall," the spirit intoned in a saddened voice. "If we get out of here, I will end Fen'Harel! After he held back the sky to imprison the gods, the Dread Wolf disappeared. Lies! We must tear down the Veil! The cities, the pathways… without magic, they're crumbling! You're wasting your time! Fen'Harel's Veil has turned our empire to ruins," the Archivist recounted remnants of vicious arguments between the ancient elves, shocked beyond imaginable by suddenly being stripped from everything they had come to rely on, from something that made up the very core of what they were, their identities.

"Oh, do go away, silly spirit," Merrill glared at the Archivist after it had finished its monologue and began to fade away.

"Well, we already knew all of that," Riona shrugged. "Or could have imagined it from the earlier revelation about the nature of the Veil. I'm guessing that the ancient elves never truly recovered from this sudden shock." Merrill shook her head sadly at that.

"You missed something very important in all of that, Ri," Bethany exclaimed, her eyes wide from a sudden realization. "Did you hear what the spirit said? Fen'Harel held back the sky to imprison the gods. Held back the sky! Tarasyl'an Te'las! The place where the sky was held back! Skyhold! Fen'Harel created the Veil in Skyhold!"

"Remarkable," Merrill gave her a warm smile, looking greatly impressed. "Still as intelligent as you are beautiful, Beth," she added brazenly in a way that made Bethany flush with sudden heat, taking her by surprise.

"Yes, umm… this just explains so much, doesn't it?" Bethany tried to recover quickly, noticing that Riona was eyeing her with a slight frown on her lips. "I thought there was a connection between Solas and Skyhold, and now we know there is one because Solas is an agent of Fen'Harel. He must have somehow manipulated the Inquisitor to lead us there. He must have silenced Sister Dorcas and removed the records from the secret library because they would have implicated his connection with Fen'Harel. And that massive hole under the very foundations of the fortress, result from some explosion many ages ago… that must have been the result from him creating the Veil, a release of tremendous magical energy!"

"Correct on all counts," Merrill nodded, clapping her hands approvingly. "Isn't it the most rewarding feeling in the world when pieces of the puzzle start to fall into their proper places, restoring the tapestry of truth? That is something that continuously drives me forward… and speaking of moving forward, shall we?" she asked, pointing at the eluvian in front of them and receiving two enthusiastic nods of the head in response.

The eluvian took them to another section of what appeared to be the same tower, just as broken and devastated as the rest of the once grand structure. After a short and challenging climb up another shattered staircase, the threesome arrived in a larger hall of which only two walls were left intact, the other two having collapsed under the sudden emergence of the Veil. Broken furniture, rubble from the collapsing walls as well as torn and scattered books covered the floor of the once majestic hall, its surviving walls covered with delicate elven frescoes, the first of their kind they had noticed in Vir Dirthara.

"There's something over here," Riona called out, pointing at an intact desk in the corner of the hall, while Merrill and Bethany were still stuck staring at the frescoes. "Did you come here to study, Merrill?" the older of the sisters asked, pointing at a collection of scattered notes on the desk, clearly not as old as the yellowed pages of the ancient tomes.

"I came here once or twice, but never to study," Merrill shook her head. "Those notes are not mine."

"Then they must belong to the qunari," Riona remarked, picking up the notes and staring at them, but failing to make any sense of them. "There are no words, only some algebraic formulae written down here, and I can't make any sense of that. I imagine neither of you two are particularly strong with the numbers, either," she looked at Bethany and Merrill, receiving two shakes of the head in response. "I thought so," she grumbled reluctantly.

"I can guess what they were researching, though," Merrill mused, tapping a thoughtful finger against her chin. "A way to sabotage the path to the inverted eluvian that leads to the upside-down island and what looks to be the center of their operations here. But we're going to repair the path… at least I hope we can."

"What's the plan, Merrill?" Bethany asked, smiling at the elven mage.

"That's the plan," Merrill replied, pointing upwards, the two Hawke sisters rearing their heads to notice a large stone statue of Fen'Harel looming on a balcony just above them, at the very top of this section of the tower. "One last bit of climbing and we should be able to get to the statue," the elven mage said, pointing at yet another rubble covered collapsed stairway to their left, circling around the larger hall and slowly sloping upwards to connect with the balcony above.

"This is just like the statue that hid the entrance deeper into Fen'Harel's sanctum in the mountain valley," Bethany remarked after they had braved the last bit of the decimated stairway and were now standing directly in front of the statue depicting a massive wolf with a somewhat smug, knowing look on its muzzle.

"Indeed, and this statue will also provide us with a path forward… I hope," Merrill said, approaching the statue and starting to look for a slot where to insert the small ironwood figurine, allowing herself a small cheer of victory upon finding it between the front paws of the stone wolf. "There we go," the elven mage grinned, slipping the figurine into the slot with an audible click. A few moments later, there was a loud and slightly alarming rumble somewhere in the distance.

"I hope it didn't cause some of the floating islands to fall into oblivion?" Riona looked at Merrill with a worried stare.

"No, don't worry, Riona," Merrill smiled. "It simply forced the path to the inverted eluvian to reassemble itself," the elven mage explained. "We now have a clear path to strike at the Viddasala and her qunari, so I suggest that we use it to surprise them before they have noticed our presence," she added, turning around to hurry back down the collapsed stairway, but running straight into the figure of Cole, the Spirit of Purpose having suddenly reappeared behind their backs.

"Caution," the pale-faced young man spoke grimly. "The qunari await you at the base of the tower. Do not charge blindly into an ambush. One of the horned giants is bathed in lightning."

"Saarebas," Riona and Bethany exclaimed as one, wincing in frustration.

"I will take care of it," Cole nodded with grim promise. "But there are ten others to deal with."

"Only ten? That's hardly a challenge," Merrill grinned predatorily and proceeded to nimbly jump down the collapsed stairway, but still retaining the patience and presence of mind to wait for the Hawke sisters to join her before rushing towards the eluvian that lead to the base of the tower where the qunari awaited them, their weapons drawn in a rather poorly disguised ambush.

The qunari spearmen began their attack as soon as they spotted the three mages starting to climb the collapsed stairway leading to the base of the tower, but their arcane barriers deflected the spears with ease. Arcs of lightning glistened between the fingers of the powerful Saarebas as he prepared to blast the opposition from their precarious positions on the collapsed stairway, but the qunari mage never managed to get his spell off, grunting and doubling up in pain as Cole materialized just behind the massive qunari, the former spy-assassin driving his daggers deep into the back of the Saarebas, fatally wounding the leader of the ambushers.

Taken by surprise, the qunari attackers lost their focus as they turned to attack Cole, leaving the three mages unmolested to scramble the last few yards of their path to the base of the stairway, jumping the last bit, the impact of their awkward landings absorbed by their arcane barriers. Considering Merrill's anger at the qunari defilement of her sanctuary, Bethany had expected the elf to launch into spellcasting as soon as her feet hit the floor, so she was surprised to see that her former lover instead gave her and Riona a wicked grin before casting any spells. "Can you bunch them up a bit for me?" she asked with a slightly frightening, but at the same time, almost primal and erotic hunger in her voice.

"Of course," Riona nodded, landing a pull of the Abyss spell amidst the qunari trying to attack the illusive Cole, but with no success as their spirit foe simply faded from view instead of sticking around to face overwhelming odds. With the qunari attackers inescapably pulled into a tight pack, now it was Bethany's turn to aim a cone of ice at the failing ambushers, freezing some of them solid and chilling the others so badly that they could barely move.

"Thank you," Merrill spoke with fierce concentration on her delicate face freed from vallaslin, drawing upon the energies of the Fade to forge a spell that appeared particularly complicated, summoning a ball of crackling green energy the same color as the Veilfire and the Anchor, the ball growing with every moment that it took to slowly float towards the trapped qunari ambushers. "I would advise you to duck," Merrill turned to grin wickedly at the two Hawke sisters, Riona and Bethany instantly throwing themselves to the ground, Merrill doing the same as the crackling ball of energy reached the qunari and then exploded with tremendous power, disintegrating everything within the sphere and sending the frozen qunari chunks from what was left outside the crackling orb flying in every which direction.

"There's something incredibly sexy about Merrill wielding such tremendous power," Riona whispered to her sister as they both watched the elf nimbly getting up to her feet and rushing off to examine the scene of carnage.

"Oh yes…" Bethany nodded with a dreamy look on her face, then catching herself and blushing as she averted her gaze, but Riona would have none of it, grabbing Bethany's shoulder and squeezing it to force her sister to face her stare.

"You be careful now, Beth," Riona gave her a stern glare. "I don't like where all this flirting could go. Remember yourself."

"Don't worry, I will remember myself," Bethany argued, though not with the conviction she herself would have liked.

"I hope for your own sake that you do, because I will keep watching," Riona warned her. "And I will not hesitate to step in if necessary."

"You won't have to, Ri," Bethany shook her head, trying to appear vehement. "There's nothing to worry about… I have everything under control," she added, but the look on Riona's face remained skeptical.