Chapter 14
"Those born with magic are at a terrible disadvantage, for demons can always rob them of their self. The evil is not the mage, but the loss of the mage, the loss of the mage's self, and the suffering that inevitably follows."
—from the writings of the Seer of Kont-aar, 8:41 Blessed
Anders
When Merrill appeared in Anders' clinic just after sunrise, he took immediate notice. Merrill never visited down here unless she was accompanying Marian or Isabela. Neither Marian nor Isabela were in sight, nor would they be meeting Merrill here, for Marian and Sebastian had gone to Starkhaven, and Isabela had taken them on her ship.
Anders couldn't fathom why Merrill would visit him of her own accord, unless she needed healing. "Are you hurt?" he asked. Merrill often got lost in Kirkwall, and while she could defend herself quite well, if she'd been attacked with templars nearby, or Maker forbid, by templars, she would be left defenseless. Either there would be a smite, or she wouldn't be able to risk using magic, and she—
If templars have harmed her, they will pay with their lives.
What's this? Since when are you defensive of Merrill?
She is a blood mage, yet you have said she is our friend. Is it not just to come to the aid of a friend?
It… is. I just never thought you'd see my point.
Templars cannot be allowed to harm any mage.
I know. I've been telling you that for years.
"Anders?" said Merrill. "You went quiet."
He shook himself. "Sorry. I was…"
"Arguing with Justice?"
"Somewhat. He was concerned that you'd been harmed."
Her eyebrows lifted a little in surprise, but she didn't question it. "I'm not hurt, if you're worried about that." She wrung her hands together, belying her uncertainty when her eyes held such determination. "I know that you and Justice have had… problems, lately. And I know that Justice has a lot of problems with me, but he's still Justice, isn't he? And you're still Anders?"
Are we?
Vengeance has not yet gained enough power to subdue Justice.
"We're still ourselves, as much as we can be," Anders said out loud. He wasn't entirely convinced, but it was enough.
"I need your help. Both of you. It has to be both."
Anders set aside the poultices he'd been putting together, and gave Merrill his full attention. "What's going on?"
She quirked her head to the side for a moment as she tried to recall something. "What's the expression Varric uses? I have bright news and I have dark news."
"You mean good news and bad news."
She smiled at the clarification. "Yes, that! I have those."
"And what's the good?" Anders didn't want to hear the bad. Neither did Justice, even though they both knew they'd have to.
"I'm done with blood magic," said Merrill. "I don't need it anymore. I learned it to fix the eluvian, and I'm nearly done, and nothing I need to do now requires it. When Líadan was here, I showed her how far I'd gotten with the eluvian. We talked about… other things first, then—"
"She told you she thinks Ava is a mage, didn't she?" He softened his tone when Merrill looked alarmed. "She told me while we were traveling to the Warden prison."
Merrill looked at once both elated and sad. "She did. From the story she told me later, I'm not sure there's a way around it. Were we still with the clan, and Ava one of the People, this would be a very happy thing. But then I think, if Ava's father hadn't been human, if he'd been some elf in the clan, maybe she wouldn't have been a mage at all. Just Dalish, no magic. I don't know. It's so hard to see it as a curse when you've grown up believing it a gift." She glanced down at her hands, inspecting them as she called magic forth to see it blaze along her fingers. Then she let it wink out and looked up at Anders. "It'll be hard, won't it, if she does?"
Before Justice could get a single word in, Anders summoned all his will and shoved him down. Do not take over. You already ruined helping Líadan while talking to her. Let me at least help her through her clanmate.
A rumble of discontent from Justice went through Anders, but Justice did not push back.
"It will," Anders said. "Once she's discovered, they will have some difficult choices."
"I wish I could help."
"So do I." And no matter where they were, there wasn't anything either of them could do to help. It was a dark road their friends would face, and their inability to help would make it a lonely trip. Anders straightened to lift the foreboding he felt, and then hunted for another topic.
You interrupted her explanation about the eluvian. I would like to hear it.
"You said you'd spoken to her about something else?" Anders asked Merrill, before Justice decided to ask for him.
"Oh! Yes, I did. Líadan told me that she'd gone back to the cave where she'd originally found the eluvian with Tamlen. Years ago, not recently. Just after the Blight, while they were searching for someone. There had been statues, she said. Statues of Falon'Din and Dirthamen on either side of the eluvian, placed like guardians."
Anders stared at Merrill for a moment, surprised at how much they had in common, and equally as surprised that he hadn't noticed it before. "I was there. I mean, I was there with her and the others. She talked about a bereskarn—a blighted bear—and how it was significant. I don't remember how it was, but I remember she'd explained."
"Bears are beloved to Dirthamen. One being there, even blighted, was a sign that Dirthamen's statue was supposed to be there, instead of the Tevinter ones." She smiled brightly. "All I need to do now is get statues of them and set them up like she said. I can't think of anything else to do. It's rebuilt, otherwise."
Though Líadan had provided the last clues, Anders wondered how she would've responded to seeing the actual thing completed. She'd stepped into the cavern with such caution, and meticulously kept herself from touching even the empty frame. While Anders had noticed that she hadn't, he hadn't brought it up. Malcolm had mentioned it to Líadan as they'd left the cavern, in that way of his he had with her that got her talking and soothed her at the same time. It had been remarkable to see, even back then, and had only grown stronger since.
This was before.
Before what?
Before me.
Yes.
Before Vengeance.
Before Vengeance.
Anders missed everything from before. He missed traveling with his friends, with other Wardens, having idle chats as they rode, prying out the mysteries of relationships, or catching each other up on people they'd known before they'd become Wardens. One time had been when Malcolm accidentally told him about Ser Carroll, all because of a joke about the Queen of Antiva. Anders and the other mages had played many pranks on him and he'd never turned them in, nor had he threatened or harmed any of them. Addled as he was, he'd been all right. And now, Anders realized, between the years and the lyrium and whatever else, Ser Carroll was probably dead.
He was a templar.
He was a good man. Terrible templar, but that's part of what made him good. Not everything is as black and white as you see it. Sure, he was a templar, but he'd never hurt a fly. He did get fussy about the rules, but he followed them well enough in spirit that he never hurt anyone, nor did the thought occur to him. That was even after all those times we pranked him. Honestly, he should've gotten a medal for his restraint.
He was still a templar.
And Merrill was a blood mage, and yet here she stands, our friend.
Reformed. She is reformed and our friend. Was Ser Carroll a friend?
No, not really. Templars can't exactly be our friends.
Just so.
And so Anders missed his old life even more. He missed his friends, and after the last time he'd been able to see them, memories were likely all he had left. Yet, even then, he clearly remembered that while Líadan had been perfectly fine with the hopelessly shattered eluvian in Cadash thaig, she'd been skittish around the one in the Brecilian Forest.
He brought himself out of his memories and to the present with Merrill. "I'm surprised she told you," he said to her. "She's never really liked that particular eluvian, to put it lightly."
"I know." Merrill's sadness returned, clashing with her incongruously bright outlook for a blood mage. Former blood mage. "She told me she felt guilty about Ava—that she'd had a child with the Gift, but the child wasn't one of the People. Her way of making up for it was to help me."
While Anders had known about the guilt, he hadn't realized how pervasive it was. It'd been six years since Ava had been born. Six years for Líadan to grow past lessons instilled in her during her youth, yet she hadn't escaped, not after all that time. "Is it that bad?"
"Worse for her, I think. You've met her grandfather. If the Dalish wanted any magical line to continue, it would be his. You've seen what he can do. For the People to lose that… that's the guilt she's fighting."
The Keeper's command of the Fade approaches that of a spirit. A child of his line must not be allowed to be taken by the Chantry.
She won't. They'll make sure of it.
They are mortals. They cannot account for all possibilities, nor can they stop them. Not while the Chantry exists.
They'll manage.
Justice's desire to protect the mages fueled his outrage over their treatment, and he surfaced past Anders' efforts to stop him.
"What will the child's caretakers do?"
Merrill appeared slightly cross, but only for a moment before she offered a small smile. "Hello, Justice. If you're here as a friend, you're welcome to stay."
"You said you are no longer a blood mage. Is this true?"
Maker, Justice, you can be an ass. She asks if you're a friend, and you respond by calling her a liar?
I did not call her a liar. I merely seek to verify the truth.
Pretty much the same.
"I believe so," said Merrill, who didn't seem to take offense at the question. Most likely, she'd expected it. "I mean, if we're ever in trouble and we can't be saved otherwise, I might use it. But only in self-defense or to defend my friends. Family. My first clan, the Mahariel, and my clan here in Kirkwall. I won't let any of them—any of you—die if I can help it."
"That is a noble aspiration. An acceptable compromise. I will see to it that it is never necessary."
If you think you can do that, go right ahead. Now, could I have my body back, please?
Justice relinquished control and stepped into the background of Anders' mind. Anders shook himself and then focused on Merrill. "So that was your good news, obviously. You'll be safer. Everyone will be safer."
She nodded. "I know. But to be really safe, and for me to be able to finish the eluvian, I need to deal with the spirit. I don't dare complete it before the spirit is killed. I promised Líadan I wouldn't."
"I take it that's the bad news." After all, it was never good news when it came to battling demons. Anders added more poultices to the pile, and then began to go over what potions they would need.
"I can't imagine it would be good."
"No, not really." He started to gather up some of the finished poultices. If they were going to fight a demon, they'd need them. Then ran his fingers over the potions lined up on the shelves.
"Lyrium," said Merrill. "We'll probably need that."
"Pick out whatever else you think we'll need."
When she didn't reply, he glanced over. She looked up at him, down at herself, and then pointedly up at the shelves.
He laughed, but it was a friendly laugh. "I'm sorry. I forget how tall I am. And how not-tall you are."
Her eyes went wide in surprise. "How could you forget how small I am compared to you?"
"I don't know, really." He shrugged. "I suppose it's the way you act, especially when you're using your magic. You stop being a small elf and seem larger, more in control and confident, as if you're doing what you were born to do."
"Because I am. Magic is part of me. Part of who I am. Using it feels… comfortable? I'm not sure I can find the right word. But you're a mage, so it's likely you understand."
"I do." And he did. It was something every mage shared, the natural extension of the self that their magic was. Unless their magic was there with them, a steady companion to call upon, it didn't feel right. Even Líadan, who usually only grudgingly used what magic she possessed, had admitted to feeling strange what it wasn't at least there in the background. "All right," he said out loud, "point out the potions we'll need and I'll get them from the shelf. And while you do that, tell me more about this plan of yours. For instance, who else will be going, because I don't think just the two of us can handle a pride demon."
She pointed at various draughts as she relayed what steps she'd put in place before coming down to visit him. "I asked Aveline and Varric, and they've agreed. I didn't think Fenris would be appropriate, not for this, not while Hawke's away. I did think about asking Carver, but I can't get in touch with him at the Gallows. Varric tried, but he said his contacts have gone quiet. So it's just us, but I'm not really sure about Varric and Aveline." Her hand briefly covered her mouth. "Oh! That sounded bad. What I mean is if something goes wrong, I'm not sure they'll be able to do what needs to be done."
Anders stopped fiddling with the potions so he could face her. "If the spirit wins, it would be disastrous. You know this. You're too powerful. Combine your power with a pride demon's strength, and you'd be a menace to all the Free Marches." He wished he were embellishing, but he wasn't.
Merrill fidgeted. "I know. And if it happens, Justice will recognize it the soonest. If the spirit possesses me, I need Justice to strike me down. Before…" Her voice drifted into a terrified whisper. "Before I could hurt anyone."
I will do this. It is just.
I don't want to kill Merrill. I don't want to see her die. Not when she's come this far.
Then we must do what we can to help her prevail over the demon.
Anders didn't disagree.
Meanwhile, Merrill had started pacing. "There's no one else I can trust to do it quickly enough. And I don't want to go into this alone. You've always been a compassionate healer, and I'd like that Anders to come with me, in case it's the last time I'm me."
Beyond the healing she and the rest of them would need from fighting a pride demon, Anders could see the pain lurking in her eyes. It was pain every mage faced—the dark fear of losing everything they were. He could help her with this, even if it was just his presence. Líadan would want him to. Probably command him to, if she could. He owed her recompense for how he'd acted during their trip to the Warden prison. Maybe helping Merrill would bring back some of the trust Líadan used to have in him, in Anders the healer.
I will not interfere with your healing. It is necessary.
"I can do that," Anders said to Merrill. "Do you know exactly where you can reach the demon on Thedas and not in the Fade?" He hoped it wasn't the place he believed it to be.
"The spirit is sealed in a cave near the top of Sundermount."
Of course it was.
More than one demon resides in the statue.
I know.
Great care must be taken in freeing the pride demon, or others will escape and possess whomever they can, mage or no.
I know.
If the worst happens, you may require my assistance.
I know. Let it go, for now. Until we can't.
Justice grumbled, but let the matter rest.
"When do you plan on going?" Anders asked.
"You wouldn't, by any chance, have any plans for today, would you?"
He sighed. "I figured."
As it turned out, Merrill had asked Varric and Aveline the day before, and they showed up at the clinic as Anders finished packing the necessary potions and poultices. With Varric telling stories, they headed for Sundermount in better spirits than Anders had expected. He agreed with the sentiment, though. Considering what possibilities awaited them on the mountaintop, they were better off seizing what cheerfulness they could.
Before things could get too cheerful, Justice kindly reminded Anders that they'd never gotten an answer about what Ava's situation would end up being if she were a mage. Justice then informed Anders that if he did not ask, he would take over and ask for them. Not for the first time, Anders wished the spirit he'd taken in wasn't so pushy.
"Merrill," he said in the next break between Varric's stories, "you never said what Malcolm and Líadan will do if Ava's a mage."
"Their daughter's a mage?" asked Aveline. "That's the first I've heard of it."
Anders shot a glare at her. "And it should be the last. She might not even be one. There were just suspicions."
Before Aveline could reply and the conversation quickly devolve into another argument between Anders and Aveline, Merrill said, "Isabela invited them to become part of the crew on her ship. She wants to take Ava on as an apprentice!"
Anders stared at her for a moment.
"Rivaini has some of the best ideas," said Varric. "She should write more friend-fiction, I say. Even if Princeling and Princess don't go the pirate route, Rivaini could make a fortune from writing a story about if they had."
"All right," said Anders, "let's say they don't take up Isabela on her offer of piracy. Which, by the way, is the most likely outcome—not becoming pirates. What will they really do?"
Merrill took more than a few steps as she went over her reply, and then kept her eyes on the trail in front of her as she answered. "They'll go to the Dalish, I think. Keeper Marethari would allow them to stay for as long as they needed while they looked for another clan. But I don't think they'd stay with the Mahariel for too long. The clan has changed too much, and it's too dangerous to stay on Sundermount for an extended amount of time. In the end, they'll likely travel with the Ra'asiel. They'll just have to find them. Keeper Lanaya would be a good teacher, as would her First, Oisín."
"They would teach a human so willingly?" asked Aveline.
"Those of the Ra'asiel clan would, yes. They're more open than most clans. Quite the opposite of the Suriel, actually."
"The Suriel?"
"Sorry!" Merrill gave Aveline an apologetic look—Merrill was astoundingly good at them. "I keep forgetting you weren't there when Ava was born, or after, because you were cleaning up the city. Líadan's grandfather came to help. He's the Keeper of the Suriel."
"Why wouldn't they go to his clan, then? They're his family. He should be taking them in."
Anders thought the same, as did Justice, but the Dalish views were quite different from their own.
"They aren't Dalish," said Merrill. "Well, Malcolm and the children aren't. Líadan still is, but she isn't going anywhere without the others. The Suriel clan is the most reclusive of the clans. They rarely come into contact with humans and do most of their trading through the dwarves. It was… a very big deal for Emrys to come into Kirkwall like he did."
"He was obligated to. He had to help his granddaughter."
Sometimes, Anders realized, Aveline's outlook was more black and white than even what Justice saw.
"It's… complicated," said Merrill.
"But this other Keeper will agree to be the child's teacher?"
Merrill clapped her hands together. "Oh, yes! Lanaya would love to, I think. She'll be very good at it."
The Dalish Keepers have proven to be strong mages, both of power and will.
I agree.
"They'd better be able to keep the magic a secret, if she's got it," Aveline said. "Otherwise, the Chantry will come down hard on Ferelden."
Varric gave her an exaggerated look of shock. "Why, Aveline, did I just hear you advocate for someone to skirt the law?"
"I skirt the law all the time when I'm with you, Varric. And it's not civil law we're talking about, here. It's Chantry law. My first husband was the templar. I am not. So long as the girl has teachers and learns to control her magic, there's no reason for interference unless she becomes a danger."
Indignity flared up within Anders at the comment. "Not all mages are dangerous."
"I realize that. Even you've proven to be less dangerous than I once believed." Aveline shot him a look that was more tired than judgmental. "I'd thought you'd have gone out in a blaze, taking many people with you, but you haven't. You've impressed me."
"Well," said Anders, trying to sound lighthearted and ending up sounding more bitter than he felt, "the day is young."
Now she looked annoyed. "That was a compliment, you ass."
He sighed. "No, it wasn't." She might've meant it as one, a very honest expression of how she viewed him, but the condemnation was still there. Just smaller.
After an uncomfortable quiet, Varric took up his stories again.
The Mahariel clan's hunters glowered at them as they entered the Dalish camp, but it didn't bother Anders. They glowered every time, and he'd become inured to it. What did bother him was the deep sense of wrongness he felt as soon as they stepped foot beyond the hunters. It didn't help that he couldn't see the Keeper. Usually, she could be found at the clan's communal fire, or within the camp, speaking with various people. But he couldn't see her, not over any of the elves' heads. He was honestly shocked that she hadn't been waiting for them. Keepers were like that, with the knowing of things they shouldn't.
"Where's the Keeper?" he whispered to Merrill.
"Maybe she's in her aravel. Someone would've told her we were coming—the hunters on patrol would have seen us as we approached and sent someone to tell her. If she wanted to see us, or me, really, she'd have come out of her aravel. But she hasn't. And if she doesn't want to speak with me, I'll not bother her." She stopped and surveyed the camp. "We'll go see Master Ilen before we head up. I'd like to know how he feels."
Anders had always felt more comfortable around Ilen. He was more open and friendly than many of the Dalish, and had even approved of Malcolm. From what Líadan had told him, Ilen had even encouraged Malcolm to assist with the bow he'd given her to ask her to bond. If anyone would cooperate, it would be Ilen.
Except, when they asked, they discovered that he had finally changed, too.
"No, I'll not carve any statues for you, nor will I let you take any of the extras, either," Ilen told Merrill.
So much for Ilen's openness. To Anders, he almost seemed a different person, the warmth practically gone from his eyes, leaving Anders feeling unsettled. Justice felt the same.
Merrill stared at Ilen like he was an impostor.
The elf before them was a stranger, a stranger who answered in sentences meant to cut and jab while wearing the once warm and open face of a friend. "The eluvian has stolen lives by taking young souls from this clan. I won't help it steal more. Neither should you."
Anders knew, as anyone did, that you couldn't go home again. But with the Mahariel, what once had been home had been wrecked and razed.
Merrill's eyes widened slightly, unable to hide her surprise. "Líadan said you'd be able to help me."
Ilen pursed his lips, as if Merrill's declaration had given him pause. Then he shook his head. "If she were here to tell me herself, perhaps I would. One of the lives stolen would have returned to us. If that happens, if she is here at your side the next time you ask, I will help you."
Her shoulders slumping just a little, Merrill strode away and toward the head of the trail up Sundermount without asking Ilen again. She hadn't taken more than a few steps up the trail before she straightened her shoulders. "We'll deal with the spirit first, and then I'll invoke vir sulevanan. They might not see the future in the eluvian, but I do, and I will help them see."
"I thought you said Master Ilen was friendly." Aveline slung on her shield and loosened her sword in its scabbard.
Anders saw it a wise course, since they'd never managed a trip up Sundermount without opposition from Fade creatures. Well, except that one time when he'd gone up and met Justice. He took out his stave, just in case.
"He… was." Merrill had taken out her own staff and was using it as a walking stick. "He and the rest of the clan, they haven't been quite themselves in a while. Líadan's said the same. It's why she won't visit them, not anymore. It has to be Sundermount, being so close for so long." She frowned up at the peak of the mountain that was perpetually shrouded in dark, swirling clouds. "It bothers me that they're still here. They should have moved on ages ago."
"Have you asked why?" asked Aveline.
"I have and so has Líadan. Even Keeper Emrys asked when he was here years ago. All Keeper Marethari will say is that the clan still has business here, and they'll leave when it's time."
"So, not much of an answer at all," said Varric.
"No. Not really."
"You'd think a mountain filled with creepy Fade beasties would convince anyone to leave. Maker, who thought putting a demon in a cave here was a good idea in the first place?"
Merrill raised an eyebrow. "And where would you have put it?"
"Farther away from Kirkwall, that's for sure."
"Kirkwall didn't exist when this demon was bound. It happened during the terrible battle here, when the last of Elvhenan fought Tevinter."
Varric paused just long enough to give Merrill a disbelieving look. "Are you shitting me?"
As much as Varric seemed shocked, Merrill seemed truly puzzled. "No? I thought you knew all the stories."
"Hahren Paivel neglected to tell me that one."
She sighed. "I can see why he didn't. The horrors unleashed during that battle wasn't one of our proudest moments. "
"History can't only be happy stories, Daisy. Without the sad ones, the happy ones have less meaning."
"You'll make this one a happy one, won't you?"
"We'll have to make sure it doesn't end with us murdering you on some mountainside. It's a little hard to make that one sound good."
"I'll say," said Aveline.
Then it was quiet again, and on Sundermount, it made one's skin itch. A vague discomfort that couldn't be assuaged, and it let the mind wander to the frightening possibilities lurking on the mountain. Even Justice wasn't unaffected, and from the body language from the rest of the group, Anders knew they weren't alone.
Aveline resumed her questioning of Merrill. "If something goes wrong, what should we be prepared for?"
Merrill shrugged. "I'm not entirely sure. When a mage becomes an abomination, they warp and change before your eyes. But I've never seen a mage turn entirely. If they're fighting a spirit, they'll go back and forth. Themselves one instant, then looking like an abomination the next, then back to themselves. So you can't strike too soon, but you can't wait too long, either."
"So you have no idea when we should do something if it goes wrong?"
"That's why Anders is here. Justice will see it first."
"Oh, that's reassuring."
Merrill frowned over her shoulder. "Justice is all right, Aveline. It's Vengeance who isn't."
"Then how about we encourage Justice?" said Varric. Then he grimaced. "That was a little more existential than I intended."
"I've seen one, Aveline," said Anders. "And, no, I wasn't looking in a mirror at the time."
"I didn't say that."
"You thought it. Or something like it." He would have, in her position. While he might have sounded like he blamed her, he didn't, not really. Yet, he didn't bother explaining, instead leaving it where it precipitously stood.
Aveline let out a sigh. "When did you see one, Anders?"
"A few months after I became a Warden, in Ferelden." Then he told the others what had happened to Velanna, how the Chantry's dogged insistence on performing a Harrowing on a non-mage had ended with Velanna's death. She'd been put into an impossible situation, and that had taken away any chance she'd had to come to terms with what'd happened to her before. Exiled from her clan, finding her niece killed by a templar in order to keep the darkspawn from getting her, and then having to kill her own sister when she'd become a ghoul. She'd been proud and powerful, but was no less vulnerable to strong emotion than anyone else. If she'd been given a chance to heal, she would have been fine. "Instead," he said as he finished up the story, "we lost a good mage who would've made a pretty good Warden. She just wasn't given a fair chance." He roused himself from the melancholy of the memory. "So, Merrill's right. Look for a change in features that stays for more than an instant. It's easier to see when you aren't in the middle of a fight, but you can still catch it, even then."
From the despondent look in Merrill's eyes, it was clear she hadn't entirely taken in the details of Velanna's death the last time Anders had told the story. "Was… was as she given the Dalish funeral rites? Was she buried as one of the People?"
"As much as we could. With her body being mostly one of an abomination, we had to burn it so it couldn't be possessed again. But then we took her ashes and buried her next to where her niece had been buried." He struggled to remember the entire rite. "With a cedar branch, oaken staff, and the sapling, I believe."
"That was nice of you. Thank you."
"It was the least we could do. Even though she turned, she did save one of the other Wardens."
Then they were quiet again as they continued, the memories and dread too strong to push aside with conversation. Merrill insisted on stopping at the altar to Mythal, offering a prayer before they went onward. Even as they headed right for the cave Anders was well familiar with, even as they headed for the room at the end of the cave, he kept that it wouldn't be the same room. That it wouldn't be the same statue. That it would be different and easy and not the trouble he believed it would be. Then they were in the last room, in the same room lined with mocking, grinning skulls, and it was the same statue.
But the horror didn't take him until he saw the statue smashed and scattered across the ancient stone floor. And, in the midst of the destruction, stood Keeper Marethari.
Shit.
The demons have been set free.
Shit.
One still lurks. It may have taken the Keeper.
Shit.
You seem to have lost every word except one.
I can't think of any others that apply.
I can. Injustice.
"Something is terribly wrong," Merrill said as she stared at Marethari. "Keeper, what have you done?"
The demon is taking the Keeper. She will turn soon if she does not fight it.
I thought Keepers were smarter than that.
As did I.
"The demon's plan was always for you to complete the mirror," Marethari said to Merrill, not looking at anyone else in the cave, as if they didn't exist. Perhaps, to her, they didn't. "It would have been a doorway out of its prison and into our world. You would have been its first victim."
Merrill's chin quivered as Marethari spoke.
Marethari regarded Merrill with the desolation of lost hope. "I couldn't let that happen, da'len."
Aveline's eyes kept sweeping the room, searching for the danger they all knew was there, but they couldn't see. Then she looked directly at Marethari. "Please tell me you destroyed it."
Marethari still did not look at anyone except Merrill. "The demon hasn't been destroyed. Not yet. It's still here. I couldn't fight it in the Beyond while it was trapped, and I couldn't banish it without making it stronger."
"No," Merrill said in a hushed, pleading voice. "Please tell me you didn't. Please."
"I made myself its prison. Kill me, and it dies, too. Then you will finally be safe. You will take my place as Keeper. You will bring the Mahariel off this mountain and to the forests where they once dwelled in peace."
They, not we. She isn't the Keeper much, if at all. I think the demon is saying the words Marethari wanted to say, the words that made Marethari accept the deal.
Yes. It would seem so.
"You can't ask—no!" Merrill held her stave in front of her with one hand, and the other hand open next to it, yet no magic ran through either of them. Faced with the nightmare of being asked to kill Marethari, the equivalent of her own mother, her magic went unused. "I won't do this!"
Anders gritted his teeth at the injustice. No one should have to do such a thing. Not voluntarily, and not forced. Never.
Marethari closed her eyes for a moment before regarding Merrill once more. "You always knew your blood magic had a price, da'len. I have chosen to pay it for you."
Merrill's jaw flexed as she tried to stop the quivering of her chin, but the shine in her eyes belied the tears she fought.
To Anders, what Marethari had done was unjust. It was Merrill's choice when it came to paying for her blood magic, and she'd already made the choice. If the Keeper had believed in her, she would have let Merrill stay on her own path.
He kept that thought to himself, because expressing it wouldn't help.
Aveline had no such compunction to soften words. "Bullshit. Your choices are your own, and no one else's."
For once, Anders completely agreed with Aveline.
But Merrill carried none of the anger the others did. They were angry on her behalf, while Merrill despaired on her Keeper's behalf. When Merrill tried to summon the anger she should've had, it fell flat once she spoke. "If there was a price to pay, I should have paid it. You had no right to interfere."
For one moment, the person behind Marethari's eyes was the Keeper again. "Dareth shiral."
Then she was gone.
The demon has surfaced. I must strike it down.
Before Anders could object, Justice surged up and forward, taking over. The light of his righteousness, his need to protect those whom he now named friends, nearly blinded Anders with its brightness. The other mortals in the cave flinched from the Fade light as it filled the cavern.
Justice struck as the first changes appeared. He lifted the barely forming pride demon into the air, enshrouding it in a glowing blue light that held it fast. Then he raised his hand and the shards of the shattered statue were raised with it, lazily spinning as Justice spun his hand, until they surrounded the demon. Another movement from his hand had shards crackling with the same blue energy imprisoning the demon. Justice closed his fist, sharply bringing the shards in, nearly reassembling them as the statue had once been. Except there was a demon in the way, and the brutal rush of the shards coming together pulverized the demon's physical form.
The shards fell away, pinging harmlessly onto the stone floor. The pride demon crumpled and faded, and then it was Marethari's body dropping toward the ground. Justice caught her with the same magic that had taken the demon. Yet, the magic that had been so terrible before gentled, and Justice lowered her to the ground with his utmost care and respect. From the outer reaches of his own mind—a healer's mind—Anders heard the shallowness in Marethari's breathing. She wouldn't be long for this world.
As Justice stepped back from Marethari's prone form, the others stared at him.
Aveline held his gaze for a long, measuring look, and then nodded. "You put down a pride demon quickly. I knew Justice had gotten strong, but I didn't know he was that strong."
"You should've seen him take out the magister," said Varric, yet even his lightheartedness sounded forced. "That pride demon was nothing."
A flicker of doubt passed through Aveline's eyes. Her fingers twitched for her sword, but she did not draw it.
It was enough a warning for Justice to take note. "The fight is not entirely over."
Merrill had fallen to her knees next to Marethari so she could hear the weak whispers of her Keeper.
"You've beaten it, da'len. You are so much stronger than I imagined. I'm proud of you, and the clan will be, too. Let's leave this awful place. The clan should hear of your triumph." They were the words Merrill would want to hear, were they true, but Marethari's sentences lacked their usual soothing cadence. Anders and Justice could hear its absence, which meant Merrill would easily be able to tell.
It did nothing to lessen the agony of Merrill's choice. Her hands fisted at her sides. "Keeper, I—"
"The demon will rise again if we do not kill its host," said Justice.
You could have let her finish her sentence.
The danger is too great to dally much longer.
Merrill called her magic, her hands glowing, but with a slight shake in her fingers. Then she took a thready breath and set herself, the quiver gone from her chin, and the shaking with it.
"I will do this for you," said Justice, echoing Anders' thoughts from earlier.
"No," said Merrill. "She is my Keeper. I have to do it."
Trapped in Justice's control, Anders fought down the urge to kill the demon for Merrill just so he could take away the pain. He didn't want to influence Justice any further, not while Justice believed it unfair for Merrill to have to do it herself.
Despite Merrill's request, Justice stepped forward, having added Anders' pleas to his own.
Aveline flung her arm in front of him, her shield pressing just hard enough on Justice's chest to say she was serious, and brought him to a halt. "No," Aveline said at Justice's outraged look. "This is her choice. She's already had one taken away. You have no right to take this one. None of us do."
"Ir abelas, Keeper," said Merrill. Then her magic surged. With it, a root burst from the ground under Marethari, piercing her heart. A dark miasma rose from her body and drifted through the cave.
Justice staggered backward and Anders tried to help him regain their footing, though he felt no less unbalanced, himself. Their individual, separate reservoirs of power mixed momentarily, and then almost felt like they surged. Just as quickly, they regained their equilibrium, and focused on Merrill.
As the root Merrill summoned retreated into the ground, the resolution that had filled her before vanished. Her hand hovered over Marethari, as if she wanted to touch her, maybe shake her, just to try to find a reason. "Why?" she asked. "I didn't want this! I never wanted this!" The anger of betrayal blew itself out, and she was left with a plea. "Why couldn't you believe in me?"
Merrill would never have an answer, not from the person who needed to give it.
Varric tried. "Love makes people do strange things, Daisy."
"This never should have happened," Merrill said, whether to them or to Marethari, they couldn't know. Then Merrill bent closer, reached out, and gently placed her hand on Marethari's head. "This never should have happened." She closed her eyes, drawing will as she did a breath. Then she said a prayer over her Keeper. "O Falon'Din, lethanavir—friend to the dead: guide her feet, calm her soul, lead her to her rest."
When she stood up, she swayed, and then regained her footing. "I should go to the clan. They need to know." She took one last look at Marethari. "They need to come… take care of her."
The weight of the Keeper's death pressed down on all of them, quieting their hike down the mountain. Merrill stopped briefly at Mythal's altar and stared at the blue flame resting on it. If she prayed, she did not do so out loud. When she turned around to face the others again, her determination had returned, and her outward sadness banished.
As the group walked through the ancient elven burial ground, Justice became distracted by singing he heard from the lyrium. He'd always been easily distracted by the song he insisted he heard from it, but for some reason, he was extraordinarily so today.
The mountain is built from it. Its soil is dusted with it. I cannot help but hear.
Lyrium has a surprising application for killing broodmothers. Apply the right amount of flame to a smashed lyrium potion flask, and as Sandal would say, boom!
A curious use for such a beautiful substance.
Power thrummed through Anders and Justice at the thought, but it wasn't from either of them. Anders ignored it, not wanting to give into fear.
Yes, well. We were desperate. It got the job done.
I pray you will not use lyrium in such a way again.
No plans for it. I prefer its usual applications. Also, maybe you should let me take over my body now, if the lyrium is calling you with that much strength.
Justice returned control to Anders.
At the bottom of the trail, just beyond where the first of the clan's aravels stood, Fenarel and the other hunters waited for them. Anders felt like he should have known, because it was always Fenarel. Always the leader, always the angriest and willing to say so. Anders had watched as both Líadan and Merrill dealt with him, Justice insisting the hunter should have been put in his place long ago. But that was Fenarel; they'd come to expect angry confrontations from him. What truly worried Anders was that the other hunters stood with him. Hunters Anders had seen often enough to easily recognize their faces and know them by name. Over time, even their glares had become familiar.
Yet, now they ignored him. They ignored him and Varric and Aveline. Their glares rested solely on Merrill, just as Marethari's gaze had only been on her former First.
"Where's the Keeper?" Fenarel practically threw his arm in a gesture toward the mountain. "She went up this morning, saying she'd come down once she'd seen you. Where is she?"
Merrill deflated in the face of Fenarel's accusation. "The Keeper, she…" She looked away, as if searching for a way to tell them that wouldn't hurt. But there wasn't one to be had. Her voice cracked when she had to say it. "She's dead."
"The Keeper loved you, you know," said Fenarel, his eyes not showing any of the pain Anders had expected.
Alarm began to run through him, and for some reason, he was glad he'd kept his stave out to use while hiking down Sundermount.
Fenarel's glare darkened. "She loved you more than the clan, and you turned on her."
"I didn't! I'd never—I'm sorry! I never wanted this. If I could have saved her… if I could have died instead, I would have."
Their judgment upon her is wrong. This must be righted.
Before Anders could caution Justice to tread lightly, Justice shoved him back and spoke his mind. "Your Keeper turned into an abomination. There was no choice except to kill the demon within her."
"There would be no demon," Fenarel practically snarled at Merrill, "if not for this little flat-eared bitch."
Elves don't believe in demons. To them, they're all spirits. I don't understand.
The rest of the clan crowded behind the hunters. From there, they followed Fenarel's lead and shouted their own invectives, each one running straight into another, a barrage of arrows that landed every mark.
"You've left us with no Keeper!"
"Everything you touch turns to ash!"
"Traitor! May the Dread Wolf hunt you for the rest of your days!"
"You've destroyed our clan!"
"You brought this curse on us!"
"Look what you've done!"
"We've suffered enough because of you," Fenarel said as he drew his sword. Behind him, around him, the rest of the clan took up their own weapons. "We'll not let you poison anything else."
Then real arrows were nocked, real bows were drawn, and one was let go, the arrow shot directly at Merrill. Only Aveline's quick reflexes kept Merrill from taking the arrow in her chest. It slammed into Aveline's shield and stayed there, causing Aveline to curse.
Anders didn't hear it. The clan's actions summoned Vengeance, and he leapt out to defend her. To defend all of them. No one hurt his friends. No one, not even family. As Justice had come to understand this, so had Vengeance. And he tore the clan members apart.
Anders yelled, but he could do nothing to stop Vengeance. Even Justice shouted along with him for Vengeance to staunch the flow of blood. He also went unheeded. Their pleas joined with others, from the non-hunters in the clan, from Aveline and Varric and a desperately horrified Merrill.
Vengeance refused to cede to them as he violently and thoroughly eliminated all he perceived a threat.
It took the combined efforts and wills of both Anders and Justice to overcome Vengeance, and only just barely did they wrench control from him. But by the time Anders took over, it was too late. While the others in their small party done their best to incapacitate instead of kill when they could, Vengeance had sought blood for blood, and blood he'd had.
There was no one of the clan left alive, not even the children.
Anders had known these people. They were family to more than one friend of his, and now they were dead, the majority by his hands. His choices. His magic.
His throat hurt from Vengeance's shouting, leaving his voice raspy. "I'm sorry," he said.
Except sorry really didn't cover mass murder.
Maybe magic was a curse. Maybe merging with Justice had been a bad idea.
Merrill stood in the middle of what had once been a Dalish camp. Her clan's camp. "They're all gone. Gone, forever. All this time, I thought I could help them, save them."
Varric stood behind Merrill, looking as hopeless as the rest of them felt. There wasn't much anyone could say to someone who'd lost their entire clan. "They weren't listening to reason," he said. "Maker, they weren't listening at all."
"Everything I did, I did for them, and they chose to destroy themselves in order to escape my help."
The responsibility for their deaths rested with him, Anders believed. No, he knew. "There was nothing you could have done, Merrill. Not with them, and not with… not with Vengeance."
Her breath hitched, the first readable sign of tears she'd shown since the cave. "I have to bury them all. They deserve their rites." Her voice trembled, a mage who had not trembled in the face of a pride demon, of all the dangers they'd faced with her, trembled. For the first time since Anders had known her, he saw she was truly frightened.
"You're afraid," Anders said when she didn't move. "What makes you afraid?"
Her reply was as meek as a child frightened by a nightmare. "That there will be no one left to do the same for me."
The healer in him wanted to heal that pain. To take it from her so she wouldn't suffer more than she had. But, he didn't know how, and he suspected no one did. "I would like to help," he said after a moment. "I have to—I have to do something." To atone. To make up for it, anything, something. But nothing could replace the lives Vengeance had taken, the bonds to kin and clan that Vengeance had ripped from Anders' friends.
Merrill looked up at him and studied deeply within his eyes. It was a measuring look Anders had encountered from Keepers, and now Merrill had found her own ability to do so. She directed it at him, into him, almost to his soul. Then she said, "Yes, you can help."
He asked how, as did Aveline and Varric. Merrill directed them to find cedar branches and sticks of oak to use as staves, and then asked Justice to come forth to dig the graves. With Justice's power, the expansive ditch was dug in hours rather than the days it would have taken mortals. Next came moving the bodies, Merrill helping with roots she could summon, and Justice with his ability to easily lift things, no matter what the weight. After Merrill gently placed a cedar branch in the arms of each body, followed by a stick of oak and a handful of soil, Justice pushed a wave of dirt over the open grave. A fist of solid air from Justice tamped down the soil over it. They did this, over and over, until the meadow resembled a farmer's newly-sown field.
Then Justice withdrew into his own regret, giving control back to Anders.
At first, Anders was afraid there wouldn't be enough saplings. Then he discovered a magical ability of Merrill's that he'd never known—she did still possess an affinity for creation. She found the tiniest of shoots, the smallest of seeds, one or the other planted over each member of her clan. Then she grew them. Grew them enough to stand against wind and rain, to stand as memorials to her family, the bare field having become a tiny forest.
If Merrill, a former blood mage, could still perform creation magic, there was hope for her. Perhaps, Anders thought, there was more hope for her than there was for him.
"We… we shouldn't return, after we leave," Merrill said. "Spirits will possess the trees when they become tall enough. The sylvans will attack anyone who dares trespass on their graves."
Pieces and parts of the Mahariel clan's existence remained scattered throughout their camp. Bows, blankets, carvings, clothes that had been hung to dry, baskets, food. A drum that Varric tripped over. Feathers from arrow fletchings blew into Aveline's face. Merrill walked over to Master Ilen's aravel, where the craftsman had stood that very morning, and now he was gone, his wares strewn on the ground. Anders came across a small carved wooden halla and pocketed it, thinking of Ava and the halla Líadan had said she'd taken a liking to. Merrill came out of Ilen's aravel carrying two statues and her eyes brimming with tears.
"Here's what I needed," she said, sounding far stronger than she looked. Then she set the statues down and glanced over at another aravel. "There's one more thing I need help with. In that aravel over there are the statues of the Creators the Dalish typically set around their camps. For some reason, my clan never did when they got here. I suppose we'll never know why, but… I'd like to put them around the grove where their saplings are, if that's all right?"
"It's all right," said Aveline.
Together, they set up the statues. Only in death had the Mahariel brought out the Creators to watch over them.
In Kirkwall, none of them wanted to leave Merrill alone. "I'll stay with Daisy," said Varric. "I live the closest, anyway. If I can, I'll get her to the Hanged Man. If not, I'll make sure the hahren here knows she'll need someone to look in on her. It's hard, losing family." And Varric would know, having lost his brother earlier that year.
Anders left for Darktown, and was surprised to find that Aveline remained at his side. His puzzlement must have shown, because she said, "The templars have grown a lot bolder as of late. Some would even say ballsy. I know you'll be fine in Darktown, but I'm unsure of the same for Lowtown."
"I'm a Grey Warden. They aren't just going to snatch me off the street."
She said nothing for a moment, allowing their steady footsteps to speak. Then she said, "The day will come when the templars of the Gallows will ignore the fact that you're a Warden. They'll see mage and nothing else, and will drag you in."
He frowned, fighting Justice's surge within him. "That would be a bloody day."
"Yes, it would. I would like to avoid it, like I wish we could have with Merrill's clan today. But I'm not sure how it could have been. It was almost like they were all possessed."
"Maybe they were. The Keeper had smashed the statue. The demons held inside would have escaped en masse, not just the one pride demon. They could've found hosts in the clan. If a demon is already on this side of the Veil, any host, even if not a mage, is better than none. Or perhaps they'd even escaped long before today, and that was the reason the clan was becoming so strange."
"Tell the other Wardens what happened. Merrill might not be able to for a long while yet, and Líadan should know sooner. They were her family, too."
"I will. She'll blame me. With both know it. Maker, I blame me. It'll take a little time for me to accept what happened… what I allowed to happen. It's not a good feeling, you know. It's like you're trapped in your own body, seeing out your eyes, while someone else moves you like a puppet. And you're trying to scream, to move a single muscle, but there's no escape. Until you look down at the blood on your hands—"
"Enough." Aveline gave him a hard look until she was convinced he'd stopped. "You're here now. You came back when the threat was over. That's what matters."
"Are you going to kill me? Since Marian isn't here to do it."
She shook her head, a single, sharp movement done with such finality that Anders' objections went silent. "No. You were provoked. Had Justice not appeared, they would have killed us all. We couldn't have taken on an entire Dalish clan and lived."
"If you say so."
"I do say so." They had stopped outside the entrance to Darktown. "I'll have to leave you here, Anders. I need to file a report about the clan being gone. Watch yourself." Then she strode off, headed for the stairs leading to Hightown.
Unsure what Aveline's warning meant, Anders descended to his clinic, wanting the safety of its familiarity. When he got there, he washed up again, and then stared vaguely at the shelves of potions and poultices and other implements a healer would use. The last trait he'd clung to had been his ability as a healer, his role of a healer. He'd taken solace in the fact that his hands could fix people, cure people, could repair what had been torn or sickened, bruised or broken. The hands that had once helped bring life onto Thedas, or kept the flame of a life alive on Thedas, had extinguished so many. They weren't his hands, not anymore.
No healer would do what he had done that day.