l
Fenris woke again in a foul mood, snippy and impatient. His dreams had been different from usual, normally he dreamed of being hunted, and then turning on the hunters. Sometimes he dreamed of the days he had spent in the jungles on Seheron with the Fog Warriors, whose faces still haunted his sleep. Last night he had dreamed of being nowhere in particular, all was calm and peaceful, and when all was calm and peaceful he always expected them to go wrong at any moment, but the dream had continued in a peaceful monotony that had eaten at him as the night dragged on. He was accustomed to his dreams being what many would characterize as nightmares, but Fenris always welcomed the battle, when he fought he always knew where he stood and there was a certain amount of control in his expectations. The unwavering peace of the previous nights dreaming had wound him up tighter than a coiled spring in a dwarven mechanism as the night wore on. The ever-present tension caused by expectation had made him look for non-existent shadows, waiting for an ambush that never came. The restlessness followed him into his waking life, the abandoned mansion despite its many rooms, feeling small and confined, the air stale and hot.
He paced out on the upper balcony, the one that overlooked the inner courtyard of the house he lived in, debating where he should go to work the restlessness out of his muscles. He wasn't in the habit of going off visiting but he found himself willing to venture out that day. His acquaintances in Hightown were limited to Hawke and Aveline, the former could be difficult to pin down even on a good day, and the latter was already busy for the next three days on a training mission with her newest batch of recruits. Isabella was already off looking for whatever it was that she needed to keep her old associate off her back, so she wasn't likely to provide any sort of distraction or amusement, Varric was up to his dwarven eyebrows in some sort of strange family dispute so it was even odds whether he might be in the Hanged Man for company that day.
:I suppose I should check on the witch, just to make sure she hasn't backslid and started conjuring up demons,: he thought.
Then he blinked, and frowned. Since when did he go out of his way to spend time with a mage when he didn't absolutely have to? Never, that's when. And yet, the thought had slipped into his mind without his conscious approval of it. It had seemed perfectly natural when he'd thought of it, go check on Merrill and see how she was faring after that spell she'd fired off. He had to take the other mage's word for the fact that it was a difficult and powerful spell, but the concern and solicitude for her had been unthinking, instinctual... and completely against his character and everything he stood for.
:She's bewitched me,: he decided firmly.
That was the obvious, no, the only answer for it. She had to have done some kind of blood-mage trickery the the day before and that was why his lyrium markings had reacted so strongly.
:And it also explains the strange dreams,: he added to himself. :Blood Mages are the only ones who can dreamwalk...:
Though from all he had overheard (and observed for himself) from his former Master, blood magic used dreamwalking to place a victims mind in thrall, but the caster had to be present within the dream to take control and Merrill had not featured anywhere in it.
:And my markings feel fine this morning,: he thought to himself, loathe to be even-handed when he could simply blame magic for whatever was wrong.
The lyrium in his skin was always at a low-level irritation, like a soft scratch on his skin, easily ignored but often distracting nonetheless. Yesterday the markings had throbbed and ached the whole trip back to the place he slept. His whole body had felt like a slight burn along the lines, except for the ones on his chin, which had continued to feel just fine where the salve had treated them. The previous evening he had been very tempted to take the stuff and smear it over top all of his markings. Native caution and a deep suspicion for witchy items like magical salves, had held him back (plus the memory of the terrible itching on even the small place where Anders had smeared his demon-salve that time) had made him use only a very small amount on a small area and see how that worked. If he had no reaction to it by morning he would consider it safe to use, in judicious amounts. One could never be too careful with magic.
:I don't feel enthralled.:
As bodyguard to his former master he had been around those who had been enthralled, and he was familiar with the symptms of someone who had been dreamwalked upon and whose mind and will were under the power of a blood mage. There was none of the mindless need to please, the overwhelming want to do anything and everything to gain even the slightest bit of their masters approval. Fenris tried to mentally picture Merrill in the role of a heart-eating blood magister of the first order, commanding slaves about and forcing people to do her bidding, and reluctantly found the idea to be preposterous. Reluctantly. Unless there had been an extremely strange side effect to the spell she'd cast last night that had radically altered her personality, Fenris had a hard time picturing Merrill, as she was, in the role of an enthralling demon-queen who dreamwalked and tried to bend people to her will.
:She might have what it takes to conjure the unholy and to deal with demons, but she can't even keep the rats out of her pantry,: he snorted to himself.
And when they did get in and eat her food, she congratulated them on working so hard that they must deserve it. Not exactly a prime example of the sort of self-serving arrogance that so characterized the magisters he was familiar with, if he were honest.
If she had continued down the path of Blood Magic, then yes, the demons and the dreamwalking and all of it would have been her inevitable destiny, for there were none who were proof against the lure of power, but despite what he'd said to her when they'd investigated Hadriana's slavepen, she was quite a long ways off from it. She left out milk for lost kittens and puppies, and talked to plants to encourage them to grow, liked to gaze at clouds on a sunny day and find ones shaped like cute fuzzy animals, She was a devout vegetarian, and despite outright scorn and derision heaped upon her at times, she almost never had a harsh word to say to anyone. That wasn't to say she couldn't be stubborn, because she could.
:Up until yesterday, she had a stubborn streak about that mirror and the blood magic about a mile wide,: he thought. :It's good that she is seeing sense finally, but that thing is still trouble.:
Ah-ha! So that's what was making him so restless! He wasn't interested in visiting Merrill, he wanted to check on her demon-mirror. Now that he knew how dangerous it was, and Merrill was finally coming to her senses, there wouldn't be any objection to a little help in destroying the thing for good.
:And if I'm going to go tracking down demons, it were wise to bring a brother of the chantry with me, I suppose,: he thought, vague plan forming in his mind.
He altered his steps and loped off across Hightown to the nearer destination of the Chantry. Maybe Hawke was not the only one who could gather a party and go in search of demons to slay. He found Brother Sebastion, for once not knelt in prayer. Instead the chantry brother was actually in conversation with Hawke who was shadowed by Anders (an apostate in the chantry was a strange sight, to be sure). The two rogues were conversing with the mage and Sebastion brightened at seeing Fenris approach.
"You can ask him," Anders said with a shrug. "I don't know what's happened to suddenly change her mind about it, I can only be grateful that she has changed her mind before it's too late."
So Anders had told Hawke about Merrill's sudden shift in direction already. That was good, Fenris wasn't interested in relating tales.
"Maybe she fell in love with our grumpy elf, eh?" Hawke suggested roguishly, nudging Anders with his elbow.
"I doubt it's as simple as that, and what exactly would she have to fall in love with him about?" Anders scoffed, and Fenris scowled in his direction for the insulting implication.
"The way he always insults her at every opportunity?"anders went on, ignoring Fenris' dirty look. "Or perhaps the dulcet and loving tones with which he calls her "witch" and other less savory things any chance he gets just leaves her captivated?"
Fenris was surprised to discover a very tiny pang when the abomination bluntly pointed out his own behavior to him. It wasn't that he outright disliked Merrill, exactly, he disliked mages in general and blood mages he rather hated with a fiery passion.
:Which rather begs the question of what I should make of her now, if she no longer follows the dark path,: he thought.
"That's neither here nor there at the moment," he said out loud, answering both his own internal question and the abominations observations.
"And you say the magisters never take any responsibility for how they behave," the abomination shot back sharply.
Fenris scowled at him and opened his mouth to reply in kind, because he felt another little pang as Anders' words again hit rather too close to the mark for his own comfort.
"So we're headed to the alienage then," Sebastion said, clearly intent on interrupting the incipient argument between Fenris and the erstwhile healing mage.
"Yeah, I think so," Hawke concurred. "I have to see this miracle transformation for myself."
With Hawke in the lead, and himself, Anders and Sebastion following, they walked the distance down the great steps from Hightown to Lowtown and the alienage carved into the old mining pits where slaves had once quarried rock to built the roads of the Tevinter Imperium long ago before the Free Marches had been, well, free. Along the way his companions questioned him closely about the spell that the elvhen mage had cast. Anders in particular had seemed very impressed by it. Sebastion had seemed to be of two minds about it; his faith said that the only taint-clearing holiness that existed in the world was by the grace of the Maker, conveyed by His Bride through the sanctified vessels of Her Servants. The idea that any mage could draw a few lines on the floor and create holy ground by her will alone seemed very close to blasphemy to the devout prince. On the other hand, he seemed very interested in the way Merrill had subjected herself to spiritual immolation via holy fire, likening it to many fine examples among the Saints of the Chantry.
They arrived at Merrill's little place in the alienage and were unpleasantly surprised to find the place unlocked and empty. A quick scan of the room showed a note folded to catch attention and securely weighted so it wouldn't fall on the floor. Hawke read it out loud for the benefit of the one person in the room who could not read. She'd left that morning and taken the eluvian with her to go back to Sundermount, she wasn't sure when she would be back.
"That "so sorry, I'm not certain when I'll be back, please water my plants" sounds more to me like she's not certain if she'll be back at all," Anders remarked after the note was read.
The other three exchanged the same troubled look.
"Well, nothing for it lads," Hawke said firmly. "Grab your gear and hop to, we're off to Sundermount. No telling what sort of trouble she's got herself into this time."
"Feh!" Fenris snorted in derision at the statement. "I can tell you precisely what sort of trouble she's got herself into, it involves demons. And magic. And probably more demons."
Anders rolled his eyes at Fenris' tone but, it must be noted, did not disagree with the assessment. The three of them didn't delay for much longer than it took to ask around the alienage about what time the young mage had left and discovered she'd hired a donkey cart for the day to take a large, heavy object that had been wrapped in a sheet somewhere out of the city. Armed and ready they set out to the elvhen camp at teh base of the Sundermount, if they paced it on the double they'd get there before dark, hopefull in enough time to stop the little idiot from doing something stupid. Fenris didn't hold out much hope for that.