Chapter 12

It felt like he had never really left. The stone walls still emanated cold, still made everything look dreary and depressing. The quiet halls echoed with nothing but the sounds of soft footsteps, the rustling of robes as they hit the floor, and the hushed whispers of apprentices. The gruff and commanding voices of the Templars, their clunky armor, and heavy footsteps intruded onto the quiet, studious stillness of the mages every once in a while. Their overbearing manner was almost akin to heresy to the perceived serenity of the world of the Circle of Magi.

Tristan found himself feeling amused; amused that he should once again find himself in the tower. He had left it once, only to return to save it from ruin. After that, he thought he would never have to come back again. But here he was again. As he entered the main entranceway, Ariane and Loki following behind, a Templar quickly halted him. Tristan sighed. Templars… they always got in his way.

"Welcome to Ferelden's Circle of Magi," the Templar greeted them, surprisingly friendly. "I see you have a Dalish elf with you."

Ah, there it was, the true nature of the Templars. Trust nobody.

"Is that a problem?" Ariane glared at the Templar, offended by his manner.

"Ariane can be trusted." Tristan quickly cut in. Still, it did nothing to mollify Ariane.

"What is that supposed to mean? Most Dalish are common thieves?" she blurted out furiously.

"As you say," the Templar replied, unperturbed by Ariane's anger. Instead, he chose to ignore her. Turning to Tristan, he continued. "The Circle is glad to have you as a guest. As you can see, things are much changed from when you were last here."

Tristan certainly didn't remember this Templar, but then again, there were so many, coming and going all the time. And with their large helmets, more like cauldrons Tristan had liked to tease behind their backs, one wasn't always sure which Templar they were talking with. "And you are?" he asked the Templar.

"My name is Hadley. I lead the Templars in the knight-commander's absence."

"Oh? Where is Greagoir?" Tristan asked curiously.

"He's off at some meeting, in the Free Marches or some place or another." Hadley explained, boredom written all over his face.

Well, at least he didn't have to exchange words with Greagoir. The man was easy enough to get along with, but still, he was a Templar. Tristan got to the point of the matter. "I need to go to the library."

"If you're looking for a book, you can start in the index section. The rest of the circle is off limits to you." Hadley waved them off. "Oh, mind the dog. Good day to you."

As Tristan took his leave of Hadley, Ariane muttered something under her breath. She was clearly still annoyed with Hadley.

"Don't let it bother you. The Templars are always jerks. It must be in their code of conduct." Tristan tried to lighten her mood. It seemed to work as Ariane cracked a slight smile.

As they made their way down the hallway, Tristan noticed a familiar figure standing in the corner by a Templar. "Sandal?"

Sandal looked up at Tristan and with a big smile on his face asked, "enchantment?"

"What are you doing in the tower?" Tristan asked Sandal, surprised to see the young dwarf there. Remembering that Sandal rarely said anything other than "enchantment", Tristan turned to the Templar standing by him.

"The Tranquil are evaluating Sandal's enchanting abilities," the Templar explained nonchalantly.

"And where's Bodahn?"

"Bodahn? Oh, the father. He's in Redcliffe, as far as I know," the Templar shrugged, looking bored.

"Right, anyway, nice seeing you again Sandal." Tristan smiled at Sandal, who did the same. He continued on his way to the library.

"I didn't know people of the stone could do magic." Ariane mused aloud.

"They don't. He's just really good at enchantment, which is something else entirely. Dwarves are great at that sort of thing." Tristan replied.

Making their way into the library, Ariane gazed wondrously at the massive amount of books piled high on shelves standing right up to the ceiling. "Look at all these books, I've never seen so many."

"Books and studying were definitely not high up on my list of favorite things of the Circle." Tristan remarked as he too, gazed at the sheer number of books. They were neat and orderly this time, not like the last time he was here, when the Circle had been overrun by abominations. However were they going to find what they were looking for?

"What was on your list of favorite things?" Ariane asked as she contemplated the same question as Tristan.

Tristan shrugged. "Well, the food was good."

As they made their way to the index section, a number of apprentices stared at them curiously. Ariane watched them all, wary of them it seemed. "This place is like a tomb," she whispered as she nudged closer to Tristan. Loki whined at their side.

"I always thought so myself." Tristan replied. He found the index and began searching through it. He wasn't sure what to look for. He made a note of a few sections to search through. Then, he made his way over to one section of the library and began pulling books out. Ariane and Loki followed him.

"Maybe it would go faster if we split up?" Tristan suggested. They passed a duo of mages, who stared back at them. Their words were loud enough to comprehend.

"An elf!" one of them pointed at Ariane. "I hear they cut out your eyes for staring at their tattoos!"

"Where'd you hear that?" the other asked.

"I read it somewhere."

"You believe everything you read?"

"Better to be safe than sorry."

Ariane shook her head. "No, I'd rather stay by you. These ignorant mages would be safer that way because right now I am tempted…" she clutched at her sword hilt.

Tristan chuckled. "Pay them no heed. Like you said, they are ignorant, having seen nothing but the Circle their whole lives." A piece of paper fell out of one of the books he was clutching. He bent down to pick it up and unfolded it. It was a sheet of notes, written by an apprentice. Some scribbles in the margins revealed a sketch of Templars being eaten by a tiger, with the words "Ser-Pounce-a-Lot" under the tiger. Tristan burst out laughing. The apprentices looked at him with annoyance.

"What is it?" Ariane whispered.

"Nothing," he replied. It was only proof of Anders having lived at the Circle. He wished that he had known Anders when he was at the Circle. They certainly would have had a lot of fun. He wondered how Anders was handling the management of the Keep and the Wardens. He wondered how they were all doing. They were fine, he had no doubt. There were, after all, no major problems to deal with anymore.

Having exhausted the search in that section, Tristan moved on to the next section he had marked down. He found an old book called "A Catalogue of Elven Relics" and pulled it out. It was very dusty. Instead of blowing the dust off of it he bent down over Loki and rubbed it over him, the dust catching on Loki's coat. Loki whined. "Sorry boy." Tristan said. Loki wandered away to a table and shook the dust off there. The apprentices sitting there cursed and sneezed. Meanwhile, Tristan opened up the book. The writing was alien to him.

"I recognize the character on this page!" Ariane said, grabbing the book out of Tristan's hands. "I think it makes up part of the word 'Eluvian'!"

"Is this elvish?" Tristan asked her.

"I… think so. The script is strange, but it must be. This is a library isn't it? Perhaps another book could help us translate this."

They moved on to another section of the library. After searching through various shelves, Tristan finally found one that could help them. "Translating Elven Languages. This should help," he remarked as he strolled over to a table and dropped both books onto it, sighing. "Though it will take a while to translate everything."

Loki followed over, drooling a little bit on the floor.

"Woah, who let a dog in here? And what are you doing? Be careful!" cried out one of the mages behind Tristan.

Annoyed, and a little impatient now, Tristan turned his head around to speak to the mage. "You're in my light," he gruffly replied.

The mage, suddenly nervous as he took in the sight of Tristan and Ariane, took a step back. "You… look… er… like you could probably squash me like a gnat, but I can't just sit by while you mishandle innocent tomes! You're bending the book too much! It'll crack the spine and cause the pages to fall out!"

"Look, I'm in the middle of something important." Tristan glared at the mage.

"Wait… I know you. You're… the Grey Warden mage. The hero!" the mage realized. However, instead of the usual look of wonder this realization usually caused people, the mage bunched his brow together in disapproval. "This is even worse. Didn't they teach you proper care of antique volumes in the first year? Maker! People save the country and suddenly they think they can abuse priceless books all willy-nilly."

Ariane looked to Tristan in surprise. So, she hadn't realized that he was the hero. A shame, really, he rather liked being just another Grey Warden. He sighed in impatience and clutched his head. He could feel another headache coming on. "Did I mention already that I am in the middle of something important?"

"Hmm…" the mage walked over to the other side of the table and glanced at what Tristan was reading. "Browsing the chapter on the Eluvians? No one's actually found one, you know."

"You know what Eluvian is?" Ariane asked the mage.

"Its old elvish for 'seeing glass', mirror," the mage replied, rather smugly.

"What else do you know about this?" Tristan demanded of the mage. Maybe this smartass would be useful to them. Maybe he could save them a lot of time and effort.

"Eluvian isn't just any mirror, it's a special kind. When the Imperium sacked Arlathan, they took these mirrors and tried to unlock their power. But all they could use them for was communication, over long distances."

What would Morrigan want with one of those? "There must be something else," he prodded the mage.

"Well… no one's ever seen a mirror like this. They could be something the Tevinters cooked up, for all we know." The mage shrugged. Ariane, however, looked very thoughtful.

"Hmmm…. My people crossed paths with another Dalish clan not too long ago. Two of their young hunters encountered a strange mirror in some ruins. One disappeared; the other became deathly ill. They never found the one, and the other died. They left Ferelden, and traveled north to forget their sorrows. At least, that is what was told to us." Ariane explained.

"What about the mirror?" Tristan asked.

"Shattered. Destroyed." Ariane replied.

The mage gasped out loud, horrified at the notion of an ancient relic being destroyed. "Why?"

"It was… corrupted by the darkspawn, beyond hope of recovery. They did it to protect others." Ariane replied, a little defensively.

"Even broken, it could be used to find the others." The mage's excitement showed on his face. "No, don't get ahead of yourself, Finn, you have to be sure."

"What? What do you know?" Ariane demanded of him.

"This is so exciting! We have to get to the repository. Hadley has the key." The mage, Finn, Tristan supposed he was called, since that was what he had referred to himself, in the third person, a moment ago, looked at Tristan expectantly. Well, this Finn seemed to know a lot about Eluvian. It wouldn't hurt to indulge the guy, he supposed. Tristan arose from his seat and bid Finn lead the way.

Back at the entranceway, Finn ran over to Hadley, excited and out of breath. Tristan, Ariane, and Loki followed.

"Hadley! Just the man I was looking for." Finn exclaimed.

"Not looking very hard, were you? I'm always here." Hadley retorted. He seemed a bit annoyed by Finn. Perhaps this wasn't such a good idea, Tristan found himself thinking. Maybe Finn was… not right in the head. Who else gets this excited over… relics?

Finn chuckled. "Good one. So I… eh… need to go into the repository."

"No." Hadley firmly replied.

"No? Why not? I'm not some drooling apprentice." Finn looked offended.

"It's because of me, isn't it?" Ariane piped in. Maker, Tristan thought to himself, would Ariane assume that every time something didn't go their way? Elves, they were so… frustrating sometimes. His head began to throb painfully.

"No." Hadley replied. "The sentinels have been behaving erratically, so the repository is locked for everyone's safety."

"Oh." Finn looked terribly disappointed. "Well then…er… sorry for bothering you."

"You're giving up, just like that?" Tristan chastised Finn. The mage had piqued his curiousity. He was not leaving the tower without finding out more about the Eluvian.

"Well, look at the way he's staring at me." Finn defended himself. Hadley was glaring at Finn, but it was more of an annoyed look of impatience then one of impending violence.

Tristan turned to Hadley. "Just give us the key. I can look after myself."

Hadley sighed, but handed over the key anyway. "Very well, it's your necks. But before you go, what's so important down there?"

"The statue." Finn replied. "It knows things about Tevinter, and I need to speak to it."

Hadley shook his head. He never understood this mage. Talking to statues, imagine that! What a nutcase. "All right. Be careful, and keep the mess to a minimum."

Ariane obviously thought the same thing that Hadley did. "Talking to inanimate objects is a sign of insanity."

"Not if it talks back." Finn replied.

"You think it talks?" she asked him, incredulously.

"You'll see."

The four of them made their way into the dark and dreary basements of the mage tower. It was even more bleak and depressing down here than upstairs. Ariane shivered at the eeriness of it all. The stone walls seemed to close in on her, the cobwebs catching at her hair and her eyes. She couldn't wait to get out of here.

Tristan had a sense of déjà vu. It was these very basements that had set him on his path to becoming a hero. He had come with Jowan and Jowan's girl, Lily, down here to search for Jowan's phylactery. They were going to break it and Jowan and Lily, a chantry girl, were going to escape. Tristan had had a moment where he thought of breaking his own and fleeing with them. But he had just passed the Harrowing. He hadn't wanted to let the First Enchanter down. That was what ended up happening anyway, as they were caught on the way up. Jowan was a blood mage. He had managed to escape, leaving his girl and Tristan behind to face the consequences. If Duncan hadn't been at the tower, then Tristan would have… well he had been there and Tristan had become a Grey Warden.

As the four of them reached the lower chamber, the stone Sentinels came alive. They were vicious, running towards them attempting the only thing they were programmed to do – kill intruding mages. Tristan easily fought them off, using magic and his sword. Ariane took several powerful swings, knocking a few down. Finn, surprisingly, managed to stop a few also, though he complained of ruining his robes. Loki had no problems, though he did get knocked over once, but that sent him into a blood frenzy.

They made their way into the repository, the old Tevinter statue standing quietly among other relics of the past.

"The prison is breached. I see the encroaching darkness." The statue said. Ariane flinched in surprise. Loki barked uselessly at it.

"Wow, it does talk." Ariane stated.

"Hello?" Finn went up to the statue.

"The… shadow will consume all…"

Tristan remembered this statue. It had annoyed him the last time and it was annoying him now. "Oh, this statue," he muttered.

"A hunger, a cage, a yawning void… help me…" the statue cried out.

"Something is causing it distress." Finn suggested. "The tears in the Veil, most likely. The statue's useless until we mend the Veil."

So they travelled through the basements, fighting off the sentinels who had gone crazy. They found the tears in the Veil and mended them by slashing and hacking at them until they were no more. When they were exhausted and sure that they had fought off all the sentinels and mended all the Veils, they returned to the repository. The statue seemed to be normal again, if one could say that of a statue. Finn went up to it.

"I am the spirit of Eleni Zinovia, once consort and…" the statue began to say.

"Advisor to Archon Valerius, blah, blah, fall of the house. Yes, we've been through that." Finn interrupted, impatient now himself.

"Finn… greetings." The statue replied.

"I remember this statue." Tristan remarked.

"Oh yes… you were here, weren't you? With Jowan. Some of the apprentices now use his name to describe dangerous schemes with little chance of success. Technically a misnomer, since he made it out of the tower alive…" Finn rambled.

"The statue. Focus." Tristan said hastily.

"Oh, right. Back to the statue. It's hard to get answers out of it – requires parsing all the grandiose mumbo-jumbo." Finn explained. He turned back to the statue. "We know where a broken Eluvian lies. Can it still be used to find the others?"

"Scry. The broken glass, dagger-sharp, will be your key." The statue replied cryptically.

"I once studied scrying." Tristan mentioned. That had been no fun at all.

"We all did. I thought it pointless, myself." Finn replied.

"The lights of Arlathan will illuminate the scryer's path; just as the dwarves of Cad'halash helped the elves of Arlathan flee and hide from the Imperium."

"Can we trust this thing?" Tristan asked, not really comprehending the statue.

"It doesn't lie. Well, I don't think it can." Finn shrugged.

"She mentioned the children of the Stone. I had not realized the durgen'len once aided my people when they fled." Ariane said.

"Deep halls of Cad'halash… must mean a dwarven thaig." Finn deduced.

"Cadash Thaig? Impossible, it's not that old." Tristan said, having been there before. It was hard to believe it had been there at the time of Arlathan.

"So you know of it? Convenient." Finn replied. He turned back to the statue.

"Goodbye Finn. We will not speak again."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Finn worriedly asked. But the statue said nothing else. Tristan and Ariane left, Loki loping after them. Finn quickly followed them out of the basement.

Once they were out of the basement, Ariane confronted Finn.

"Now mage, tells us what's going on. No more smart talk."

"There are many Eluvians, linked together. Find one and you can find the others. But the one you know of is broken and corrupted. So we need to find something else to… amplify the magic." Finn explained.

"The lights of Arlathan?" Ariane asked him.

"Yes." Finn answered.

Tristan took this all in thoughtfully. So, Morrigan wanted one of these mirrors? What for? It was all very strange. Finn knew a lot of things. If only he could take the mage with him. Perhaps then, being the hero of Ferelden had its advantages. He would demand Hadley let Finn come with them. "Will you come with us, Finn?"

Surprised, but enthusiastic, Finn said what Tristan wanted to hear. "Ready to go when you are."