Thank you for reading! Another week off next week while my kids are on break, and then we're back on schedule. I appreciate your patience!
The Iron Bull woke in the morning to find Morvoren getting dressed, in quick, almost violent motions that said as loudly as any words that she was still upset. So had the fact that she hadn't come to bed until very late at night, late enough that she had probably assumed he was already asleep.
"Come on," she said brusquely when she saw that his eye was open. "We've got to go back through the eluvian today. Hopefully we can find out what's going on and get this whole mess settled."
He didn't bother to point out how unlikely that was. Instead, he got out of bed and pulled on his pants—and he didn't make a production out of how little time it took him to get dressed, either. He had been on the receiving end of these no-nonsense all-business moods before, albeit rarely, and he knew enough to keep his mouth firmly shut.
Vivienne had begged off for today, and so Dorian and Cole joined them at the mirror. Morvoren looked at it, hesitating, but there was nothing else to do and she was well aware of that fact. "All right. Let's do this." And she stepped through.
On the other side, once the confusion of finding himself in some place that wasn't had cleared, the Iron Bull saw a group of Qunari in the distance, racing toward another mirror. Without thinking, he called out to them. "Hey! Ben'abas toh hass'ost?" None of them even turned around, which didn't surprise him much. To have gotten a reaction, he should have insulted them, not asked the most basic question possible—"why have you come here across the sea?" If they'd wanted him to know that, they would have made the answer plain already. The others were looking at him, though, and he shrugged. "Guess they didn't feel like talking."
Morvoren squinted into the distance. "I don't think that path was there before."
"The rocks didn't move themselves. They found a way to make a path." Cole looked troubled.
"What's up, kid? Seems like there's more to the path-making in this place than meets the eye."
The spirit didn't respond. He started walking down the path in the direction the Qunari had gone, and the rest of them followed him.
The mirror the Qunari had gone through led them into the Deep Roads, of all places. "What the fuck?" the Iron Bull murmured to himself, looking around. His people were not meant for the Deep Roads. Underground, where you were too tall for everything and you never knew what was about to fall on your horns, was not Qunari. But the others had unmistakably come here.
Cole was touching the wall, lightly, as if he was listening. "Songs screaming far away," he said. "It wants to wake up, but can't remember how." He looked around at the rest of them, frowning. "No one should be here."
Morvoren patted him on the shoulder. "We'll find the Qunari and make sure they get that message," she assured him. "And in the meantime, we'll see what they're up to. It's a win-win."
"Then who loses?" Cole asked, confused.
"Hopefully no one."
They stopped on a ledge and looked out over the Qunari's operation. Of all things, they were mining, and in truly vast quantities. "This is … really, really big," Morvoren said.
"Yeah, my people don't do small. But why? What do they want with all this?"
No one had an answer for him, and Morvoren continued on across paths strewn with rubble, picking her way carefully.
"All this mess is going to ruin my robes," Dorian grumbled. "You owe me new ones."
"I'll put it on my tab, right next to all the new boots Varric insists I owe him."
"Great. I'll never get to the top of that list."
They went through a doorway and down a flight of stairs and found themselves in the pitch dark.
Cole drew in a startled breath. "It's singing where no one can hear. But I can hear. Can I help?"
"Maybe. Don't get lost, though," Morvoren told him.
"Something isn't right here," Dorian muttered. "Dwarven buildings are lit by molten rock. That doesn't just go out."
"You think someone turned out the lights on purpose?"
"Well, I can't see what use it is to have everything so dark, but it's the only explanation that makes sense. But really, how desperate must the Qunari be to work in these conditions?"
"We have workers who don't care about their conditions," the Iron Bull pointed out. "That's what they're bred for, and if not bred, drugged." He didn't need light to see the look Dorian gave him.
"You have such a charming little culture."
"Hey. Slaves and blood magic, remember?"
"And brain-washing is better?"
"I never said it was better. I just said both of our cultures have things to be ashamed of."
Dorian was silent, and then he said, "Good point."
Near them, the Iron Bull saw the green light flare in Morvoren's hand, and he heard the little moan of pain she could no longer hide. He found himself gritting his own teeth and clenching his own hand in sympathy with her, in a desire to be able to do something to take her pain away. But he couldn't, and her spasm passed, but the green light remained.
"Boss, your hand's doing that thing again," he pointed out.
"No kidding," she snapped, clearly not over her displeasure with him. "On the bright side," she added in a different tone, "maybe the Anchor can make itself useful down here." She held it up, and its light reflected off the walls. "Handy trick. Wish I'd had it in the Deep Roads on the Coast."
"You and me both," Dorian said, moving up next to her and wrapping an arm around her waist. His support she would accept today, and the Iron Bull tried not to be jealous of or threatened by her dear friend.
They moved on ahead, through doorways and chipped away-cave entrances, the rubble shifting under their feet. The Iron Bull flinched at a low-hanging stalactite, grunting with annoyance. "I keep feeling like I'm gonna bang my horns on this crap." He had lost a chunk off the left one in the fight with the Titan, far down below the Deep Roads several years ago; he would prefer not to lose any more.
"Bull, are you at all concerned about fighting your people?" Dorian asked him.
"Not my people. Not anymore. This is my people." He gestured to the mage, and the spirit, and the red-head with the glowing hand. "And whatever those people are doing, I'm ready to stop." It wasn't quite that simple, and he was fairly sure they all knew it, but … it was that simple, too, and he was fairly sure they all knew that as well. He grinned at Dorian. "No need to worry—unless we run into Venatori."
Dorian rolled his eyes and turned his back ostentatiously—but the Iron Bull knew Dorian detested the Venatori as much as it was possible for a person to detest his own countrymen, so the gibe only stung him a bit.
Ahead of them, Morvoren held up a hand. "There's someone up ahead. I think … I think he's human."
"The Qunari do have their converts," the Iron Bull reminded her. "Be careful."
"Of course," she said dismissively, but she was already moving purposefully toward the circle of light of the campfire ahead.
The man at the fire scrambled back toward the shadows as he saw them approaching, then stopped, staring at Morvoren. "Stay back! … Wait. Your hand. Are—are you the Inquisitor?"
"Former Inquisitor," she snapped. "And maybe I should be asking the questions, since it's rather odd to find a human down in the Deep Roads at all, let alone surrounded by Qunari."
The man came toward her, lowering his voice. "Look, we don't have much time. Please … what the Viddasala is doing—you have to stop her."
The Iron Bull moved closer to the man, certain that he must have heard wrong. "The Viddasala? That's a high-ranking Ben-Hassrath. She specializes in magic—finding, studying, stopping."
"Not anymore." The man hesitated. "No, I really don't care whether you serve Fen'Harel or not. Someone has to stop her."
"That's not the first time I've been accused of being in league with Fen'Harel. Why do the Qunari think that?" Morvoren asked.
He shrugged. "I don't know. The Viddasala says it, and whatever she says, the rest of the Qunari accept as fact. There have been agents of Fen'Harel all over the Crossroads, causing trouble. Sabotage, making spirits attack us … You never know where they'll come from or what they'll do. I guess we all just assumed the Inquisition was part of that, that you came here because Fen'Harel told you to."
"You keep saying 'we'. Who are you exactly?" Dorian asked.
"The name's Jerran. Ser Jerran, in fact. I was a Templar in Kirkwall, until … well, until I joined the Qun." He shuddered. "Kirkwall was … madness. Chaos. The Qunari were like the eye of a storm. Calm. Something you could anchor yourself to. I thought … I stand for order and discipline, protecting the innocent from magic. When Meredith went mad, I thought I could find that order and discipline here, but this plan … it's as mad as Meredith ever was."
"What do you mean? What's changed? Is the Viddasala no longer doing her job?" the Iron Bull asked. A rogue Viddasala was no joke. That was a lot of intelligence and a lot of power to have loose and uncontrolled.
"It's almost a complete reversal, actually. This place … it's a lyrium mining and processing center."
"What do the Qunari need with lyrium?" Dorian asked.
"For … have you ever heard of saarebas?" Jarren looked up at the Iron Bull. "Of course you have."
"'Dangerous thing,'" the Iron Bull translated. "The Qunari word for mage."
"Dangerous thing," Dorian repeated. "I am, aren't I?"
"Yes, of course. Very dangerous." Morvoren patted him on the arm.
Jarren nodded. "Even as a Templar, I'd never seen anything like the power a saarebas can unleash. And now Viddasala is giving them lyrium. A lot of lyrium. It's part of something she calls 'Dragon's Breath'."
"That's a load of crap!" the Iron Bull exploded. "There's no way the Viddasala would let any saarebas within a thousand feet of lyrium."
"But she has! And there's more to it than that, but I couldn't find out what. The Qunari don't like it when you ask too many questions."
Well, that was true enough. But something about this guy felt wrong to the Iron Bull. He was too willing to spill his secrets, and what he had to say was … impossible. Unless it wasn't, in which case it was really damned scary. The Iron Bull would vastly have preferred impossible.
"Do you know why there are elven mirrors in the Deep Roads, or how the Qunari found them, or how they learned to use them?" Morvoren asked.
Jerran shook his head. "I wish I knew. Maybe the elves used to mine here, too. Maybe some Qunari stumbled across the mirrors? I can tell you that this place is close to … something like a lyrium spring. The more we mine, the more there seems to be."
"Qunari can't mine lyrium," the Iron Bull pointed out. "It kills anyone who tries, other than dwarves."
"I know. It killed the Qunari at first. But Qunari workers have a discipline only Tranquil can match."
And for much the same reason, the Iron Bull thought, but he kept that one to himself.
Jerran continued, "I guess they're quick learners, too, because they figured out how."
"And you? What are you doing down here?" Dorian asked.
"The Qunari wanted me to teach them everything I knew about lyrium." He looked around to see if everyone there understood why a Templar knew so much about lyrium, which of course they did, so he went on. "Where it comes from, everything it can do, how we put it to use … I knew enough from my time in the Order, or I thought I did, but … there's so much more to lyrium than we ever knew. The Qunari figured out more about it. I'm not sure how. Maybe they got to the Carta."
"And the name of the plan is 'Dragon's Breath'?" Dorian asked. He looked up at the Iron Bull. "Here I thought it was just you, with the fancy over-complicated translations, but apparently you come by it honestly."
The Iron Bull shrugged. 'Dragon's Breath' undoubtedly had some meaning that none of them were going to want to hear.
Jerran raised his eyebrows in response to Dorian's question. "You know that most dragon's breath destroys everything in its path, don't you?"
Morvoren turned around and smiled at the Iron Bull. They knew quite a few things about dragon's breath. He smiled back, relieved that she appeared to be putting aside last night's anger. A tension in his chest that he hadn't even been aware of eased, and he suddenly felt as though he could breathe much better.
"She said it would 'save the south,'" Jerran continued. "That can mean only one thing: an invasion."
And just like that, the free breathing was gone. No one wanted a Qunari invasion. No one.
"Look, this mine is the only source of lyrium the Qunari have. They're using gaatlok, the explosive powder in the round casks, to mine, so they don't have to touch the raw lyrium. If you get the primers from central supply, you can prime the gaatlok and detonate it. The mines will go up in flames."
Dorian looked around uneasily. "Once things start exploding, every Qunari down here will notice."
"Yes. They will," Cole spoke up unexpectedly. "Deepstalkers and cave-ins will help, but the others will come at the sign of trouble."
"Yeah. Exactly," Jerran agreed. He looked up at the Iron Bull again. "You've got to find the Viddasala and end this war before it begins."
The Iron Bull nodded, convinced at last that this guy was telling enough of the truth to be taken seriously.
"There's no telling how bad things will get when I destroy the mine," Morvoren said to Jerran. "You'd better get moving."
He looked around in fear, probably knowing as well as the Iron Bull did how hard it was to leave the Qun. "I will," he said. "Good luck, Inquisitor."
As Jerran disappeared the way they had come, Morvoren turned to the rest of them. There was a light in her blue eyes that the Iron Bull loved to see. His kadan was at her best when there was work to be done.
"Come on," she said. "We have a lyrium mine to ruin."
Dorian shook his head. "A Qunari invasion. Well, we've all known it was coming someday. At least, Tevinter has. I've lived with this threat all my life. If it escalates, it won't just be Tevinter fighting them. Maybe all of us together have a fighting chance."
None of them looked at the Iron Bull and he didn't offer his thoughts, because they were all pretty damned gloomy.
"Well, taking out this mine has to help, so let's do it." Morvoren led them into the dark, the glow of her hand lighting the way.
