~O~

Chapter Eleven: Carcer

Rebeka shivered as a cold drop of water splashed against the back of her neck. She gazed uneasily up at the cracked ceiling of the cramped stone tunnel. Not far above her was the glacial water of Lake Calenhad…and the roof was leaking. Claustrophobia kept trying to sink its claws into her.

The tunnel ahead was dark. They had only brought one torch with them from the mill, and that torch was currently in Morrigan's bone-pale hand. Elissa and Alistair walked on either side of her, swords at the ready. Every once in a while, the tunnel would suddenly twist, or the Qunari would move just the right way, to block the light completely from Rebeka's view. In those moments, the panting of the mabari by her side was the only thing that she could sense. That, and the constantly dripping ceiling. And the faint ringing sound that came, unfaltering, from the minds around her…

A pattering of quick steps sounded from ahead of them and Elissa and Alistair raised their swords. Red hair flashed in the torchlight. "Peace, friends, it is only me," Leliana whispered. "Be careful. There are some…creatures, up ahead." She seemed to melt away into the shadows.

Elissa shot a glance at Alistair and nodded grimly. Morrigan fell back without a word, letting the warriors lead the way into a small, dank corridor. Torchlight flickered from the walls and Rebeka sighed with relief. No more of that cramped darkness. Gurgling howls and clanking met her ears before she was able to get a good look—but even one glance turned out to be more than she needed. Elissa and Alistair had already dismembered the pair of walking skeletons by the time Rebeka realized what was happening.

"P-p-please, help me," a weak voice rasped from inside the cell.

Rebeka would know that thin, mousy voice anywhere.

"Jowan?" His name ripped from her mouth before she could think, and she was rushing forwards without a single thought to the bemused looks Alistair and Elissa were shooting her. Her first instinct as her hands wrapped around the cold iron bars was to reach through and hug her friend, but her joy turned to anger and frustration as the memory of the night she'd fled the tower surfaced. Suddenly, she found herself wishing that her hands were wrapped around his neck instead of the chilly iron.

"Rebeka?" His voice was as meek and nervous as ever, which Rebeka found absurdly surprising. Somehow she had expected him to be more fearsome, or more sinister, or something. He was almost disappointingly unchanged. Scraggly, bruised, paper thin…there was no one less cut out for being a blood mage than Jowan, to look at him. And yet, here they were.

"What in the Void are you doing here? Escaped the Tower to land in some Arl's dungeon? Was your little blood magic stunt only a one-time deal?" She heard soft gasps behind her, but her attention and roiling fury was focused entirely upon Jowan's terrified doe eyes. His face had gone completely white at the sight of her and now his mouth was opening and closing stupidly, like a fish slowly dying in a Redcliffe fisherman's net.

Alistair broke the brief silence with a curse. "Blood mage? You can't be serious." Rebeka shot a scornful glance back at him. His face was turning a blotchy red in the torchlight. "The penalty for blood magic is death," he said, turning to Elissa. Leliana was nodding along.

"Oh shut up, templar," Rebeka hissed. That got a chuckle from Morrigan, and another chuckle, deeper and darker and infinitely more sinister, from the empty air. That chuckle sent a lightning bolt of fear lancing through the storm of anger, confusion, and homesickness that had been roiling inside Rebeka. No emotion, she commanded herself, slamming a lid on her uncontrolled feelings. She wrenched away from the bars and stalked a few steps towards the darkness. She needed to get a grip.

She could feel their eyes on her, but she could also feel his eyes, when by rights he should have no hold over her during her waking hours. This isn't how this works, she wanted to wail. She should have been safe here!

"Beka? Please, help…I swear, I'm not a blood mage, I've given it up! Don't let them hurt me, please, Beka, please…" Rebeka shook her head and clutched her arms to herself. He had been her only friend for years, and his voice pulled at her heart dangerously. She would not look back.

Chainmail clinked. Elissa's voice rose softly, "We need to know what's happened in the castle, Jowan. Until then, we can't decide anything. Was this your doing?"

Had he started to sob, or was his voice breaking from fear? Rebeka tried to ignore it, tried to focus on mastering herself so that her demon would not rush in to fill the cracks. The Veil was too weak here. Even as she tried to fight Pride, she could feel another touch on her mind, the same one that had split her head with headaches the day before. It was all too much.

Slowly, Elissa pried the story from Jowan, and it brought Rebeka relief she shouldn't have felt. Jowan was a man uniquely gifted with failure, beginning at the Circle and continuing ever since. After escaping the Tower, he had failed to escape manipulation at the hands of the agents of Teryn Loghain, then failed to teach the Arl's young son how to control his magic, and finally failed to convince Arlessa Isolde that he was innocent of the horrors that had befallen the castle. Ironically, yet all to the good for the wayward mage, he had also failed to be killed when braver men had perished at the hands of Connor's walking dead, leaving him here, shivering and fearful, in his cell in Eamon's dungeons.

Rebeka had heard Elissa's voice growing increasingly hard as she questioned the wayward mage and knew that an ultimatum was coming. Moments later, Elissa stepped back and said, "You are as responsible for this catastrophe as Connor or the Arlessa, Jowan, so I'm offering you a choice. You can come with us right now, fight with us, and set the situation to rights. Once we are done fighting and the castle is safe, you will face Arl Eamon's judgment and accept it, whatever it might be. Or, you can choose to stay, and I will have Sten strike off the lock and Alistair will deliver the sentence you deserve right now, as an admitted blood mage."

Rebeka was forced to turn and meet Jowan's eyes at that. Come with us, you bumbling idiot, she beseeched him with wide blue eyes. She could feel Pride and the other demon crowding close, feeding on the thin trickle of fear she felt for her friend. His eyes were darting back and forth in terror. Come on!

"I-I-I'll come with you, of course I will," he finally stammered. Rebeka didn't wait for Sten to unsheathe his greatsword, she simply magicked a stone from the side of the tunnel to smash the lock and yanked the door open. "I swear to you, I just want to make everything right," he was gushing at anyone who cared to listen as he stepped out of the cell. That turned out to be no one, as Elissa and Alistair led the group up the stairs at a run.

Rebeka eyed Jowan grimly. "You had better do something amazing, Jowan, because once we rescue the Arl I can guarantee he won't be happy." She didn't wait for him to respond as she fell into step behind Morrigan.

The following two hours were a bloody mess as they cleared the castle room by room. The walking skeletons never seemed to end, and each one held a demon that pounded against Rebeka's consciousness. Pride's touch seemed to recede as Rebeka fell into the clear-headed rhythm she only felt when fighting, but the other demon was never far. More than once, she heard the other members of Elissa's group curse as a shambling skeleton dressed in a child's clothes or the roughspun dress of a young woman came running at them, screaming. They all sustained wounds from the dirty, close quarters fighting. Alistair's forearm dripped blood through his mail where a possessed mabari had bitten him, and Elissa's cheek bled from three gashes where a skeleton had clawed her. Morrigan's side was decorated with myriad tiny cuts where a shade had burst through a door so forcefully that the wood had seemed to explode into flying splinters. Rebeka herself was caught in the collarbone by a skeleton that leaped from behind her with a cleaver. It had meant to slice her throat with the knife, but the mage had twisted in time to deflect the cut and thrust a lightning bolt into the dead cook that fried the demon from the body.

By the time they all emerged from the last cellar, bruised and bloody, the light had begun to fade towards sunset. The main courtyard was empty of skeletons… or so it seemed for a moment, until a corpse dressed in heavy plate, with eyes that glowed a demonic red, stepped from behind a wagon holding a six foot long greatsword.

"Revenant," Rebeka gasped. Elissa's eyes grew wide.

"The knights… our reinforcements…"

The portcullis was down, however, and there was no time. The revenant was already upon them. Rebeka unleashed a stream of lightning at the monster and flinched as she heard the sound of crossbows thrumming. Somehow there were more skeletons, these ones dressed as guards. A shout drew her ear, and she glanced at Elissa, who was waving towards the gate as she dodged the revenant's massive blows. Rebeka followed her gaze and a spike of relief shot through her as she saw… She grabbed Jowan, heedless of the sticky blood that flowed from a gash on his upper arm, and thrust him towards the gate, yelling, "Get it open!"

When the knights rushed through, their battle cries were the sweetest sound Rebeka had heard all day. She thrust both mind and mana into her final lightning strike and felt the demon rip from the revenant's body at the same time that she heard the dead flesh crackling from the heat. She dropped to one knee as a wave of exhaustion hit her.

A mailed glove slid into her vision. Rebeka grasped the hand and allowed it to pull her back to her feet. She met Alistair's guarded hazel eyes for an instant as he said, "We've still got work to do." In that, they were in agreement. Elissa was already gathering the knights together with her own band of fighters. "We can't know for sure what is happening in that hall, Ser Perth," she was saying slowly, pain thrumming in her voice. Her helm dangled from one hand, dented beyond usefulness by a blow from the revenant's sword. Rebeka directed a stream of rejuvenating energy at the Warden, stopping only when the dazed look faded from her eyes. She finally nodded and turned to the assembled fighters.

"We must be prepared for anything when we enter the hall," Elissa said, running a hand through her sweat-matted red hair. "Two of you knights are staying to guard the entrance to the hall while the rest of us go inside. It could be that Bann Teagan has managed to buy us a parley, so no one attacks until I signal. Is that clear?"

Elissa did not wait for an answer. She was halfway up the steps before the knights could even assemble, though their own group was alert and on edge from the grueling dungeon fighting and stayed right on her heels. Alistair wore an especially grim and worried expression, but the others could have been made of stone for all the emotion they showed. Rebeka's own mask was slipping towards a grimace of pain as the pounding in her head increased. Whatever demon was controlling the castle was most certainly inside that hall, and it did not want visitors.

Please review!