Their group reached the base of the mountain just after the sun had cleared the horizon-line of the Waking Sea.
Barely morning, Isabela thought, and the day was already ruined. It was one thing to be woken up in the middle of the night by Hawke's panicking manservant. It was another thing entirely to have the reason be because Merrill had decided to do something stupid.
Being forced to watch Hawke hobble the last mile and a half had done nothing for her temper.
The stubborn fool wouldn't let any of them help him walk, and he ignored all of their petitions to turn back. He was behaving in the same preoccupied manner he had the night his mother died. The difference was that this time his body couldn't keep up with his impulse to push forward.
The only slight bit of aid Hawke would accept were Anders' spells of restoration. He didn't seem to mind if the other mage tried to treat him so long as he didn't have to stop moving.
The healer clipped silently at the Champion's heels with a dogged expression on his face, and fed a near-constant stream of curative magic at the injured man's back.
By the time they reached the start of the Sundermount trail, Hawke was at least standing upright. It was a welcome improvement, but pitiful, considering the strength of healing Anders was usually capable of.
Both mages refused to say a word about how Hawke had been hurt, and Isabela suspected that meant it had to do with the demon he'd brought back with him from the Deep Roads. It was the most sensible explanation for why he and Anders were both acting so subdued.
She could tell Fenris assumed the same thing, because the lyrium-scarred elf had not said a word to any of them the entire journey. He marched with his sword in his hands, glaring at the back of Hawke's neck as if he were deciding the exact angle at which he wanted to sever it.
As a precaution, she too kept her fingertips on the hilts of her own blades-ready to fend off the lyrium-scarred elf if he tried to murder Hawke without a defensible reason.
All in all, it had been a horrible fifteen minutes of daylight, and it only got worse when they came upon the old Dalish campground.
It was not abandoned, like Hawke had implied it would be.
Instead, the site was in an uproar. Elvish hunters were shouting at each other and arming themselves. Children were crying while their parents scrambled around them, hastily cramming belongings into bags and carts.
"What are they all still doing here?" Anders frowned, coming to stand near Hawke's shoulder.
"I don't know," Hawke growled. "Clans never stay in one place this long."
Isabela started to ask if they should cut around another way, but she didn't get the words out before they were spotted. All of the chaos in the moment prior magnified tenfold—except for that now the cries were aimed at them.
"This is his fault!" someone bellowed, pointing at Hawke. "He encouraged her!"
"What are you going to do to stop her!?"
"Kill her!"
"We're all cursed! She's cursed us! Now we're all going to die!"
Isabela could only make sense of fragments of the screaming, but the words that did get through were enough. This was related to Merrill, and demons and blood magic. It was also probably connected to that Fade-blasted mirror.
The pirate remembered teasing Merrill about the artifact the first day the elf had brought it home. She should have put her foot through it then, and been done with this whole mess. If she had, maybe a lot of things would have happened differently….
Hawke was deaf to all the shouting, and shouldered his way through the growing mob.
The crowd would have gotten violent at his behavior if the mage were anybody else. But the unnatural glint in his eye was enough to keep them all from getting close enough to actually impede him.
Hawke did halt, however, when the grey-haired Dalish Keeper emerged from a fold in the swarm.
The old woman's face was drawn, and she clutched both hands in front of her breast, cradling something small.
"Where is Merrill?" he asked her, stuck on a single tract in his mind.
The old Keeper frowned at him, and held out the delicate object she was carrying for him to see. "I found this beside my bed this morning…"
Isabela craned her neck around his shoulder, trying to steal a peek at what the elderly elf held. Bitter, she recognized the item to be the carved wooden deer she'd seen Hawke give Merrill as a present way back when.
The man's gaze lingered on the white wood. His expression was grim as the Dalish Keeper challenged him, "I was hoping you could tell me."
...
Merrill made her way down the uneven steps slowly.
The dark cavern had not changed at all from the way she remembered it, still making her skin prickle beneath her clothes.
No fire was lit at the altar that waited for her at the foot of the path, but the great golden figure atop it was somehow illuminated in the darkness.
The idol seemed to produce it own energy; filling the space around it with an alluring sort of glow. She felt drawn to its aura, but she knew the danger of that feeling, and so did not allow her feet to close the distance to the shrine as quickly as they would have liked.
The Veil was thin all throughout the tunnels and tombs of Sundermount; but this forgotten den—right at the mountain's peak—was perhaps the most fragile point in all of Kirkwall. It felt that if she wasn't careful, one misplaced step could send her tumbling directly into her dreams.
As she drew closer to it, the mysterious idol seemed to shine brighter. Static buzzed in the air around her shoulders. Unwonted, her heartbeat began to race, and she paused, taking several deep breaths to keep from being overwhelmed. She'd come this far, and refused to be daunted now.
"You can do this," she whispered, letting the mantra hang in the silence for a moment before moving the last few paces to stand in the statue's light.
"H-Hello?" she mumbled.
She cleared her throat. "Can you hear me? I know you're there."
There was no sound except for the pulse of blood behind her ears, but she could feel the presence around of the Fade around her, and knew she was not alone.
"Answer me," she demanded.
Something like a breath rattled from the direction of the golden statue, and she felt the fine hairs rise on the back of her neck.
"I had near forgotten the sound of your voice, little elf…" came a whispered respond. The dry words rasped through the cavern, quiet as the crunch of leaves underfoot. "I had not dared to hope you might return to me after all this time. Have you reconsidered my offer?"
Merrill set her jaw, and tightened her grip on her staff. "Yes," she said. "I will free you; but first you must give me the power to fix the Eluvian, and I want you to tell me how to banish a demon too."
"…Banishing a demon, you say?" the voice responded after a long pause. "You mean… forcing it back to the Fade?"
"I mean forcing it out of a human host," she clarified. "And then back to the Fade."
"Hmm…" the voice breathed. "That is new. Why, I wonder, have you need of such a technique?"
She gulped. "Th-there's someone I need to save. He made a pact with a spirit; but it's become corrupted. I need to separate them now, before-before it's too late."
"Hmm…"
Merrill waited several endless seconds for the voice to say something more. When it did not, she grew agitated. "Can you help me or not?" she demanded.
"I can help you," the voice assured her. "I can certainly help you, little elf. In fact; I would do it for you, if you wished it. Once I am freed."
Merrill bit the inside of her cheek, fretful about how to respond. The spirit had said nearly the same thing years ago when she'd first found it, and spoken with it about the Eluvian.
She did not doubt that the spirit bound to the idol had the knowledge she needed, but she didn't trust it to aid her. Even if she gave into what it wanted, she'd have no way to hold the spirit to its promise. She had never been skilled at negotiations… and she knew the stakes would always be higher than normal when a spirit was involved. When they had come to this crossroads before, she'd deemed the deal too risky, and determined to find a safer course.
But she'd failed at that, and the longer she waited now, the worse Hawke's condition would become. ...Still, if she pushed too hard for what she wanted, would the spirit reject her entirely? If she lost this option, she really didn't know what she would be able to do to help.
Reaching up, she broke the stillness of the air by slapping her palms against her own cheeks. Calm down, she scolded herself. She forced all the panic out of her mind with a strong exhalation, and re-examined her and the spirit's situation.
The spirit trapped in the idol desired freedom, and needed help from someone of the physical world in order to obtain it. If that someone was not her, how many more years would the spirit need to wait before it encountered someone else atop this lonely peak?
"If I free you first," she said slowly, building her confidence with each statement, "I will have nothing to hold you to your end of the bargain."
She could hear the annoyance in the spirit's voice when it replied, "You will have my word."
"That's not enough," she told it. "I mean no disrespect, ma'ghilan, but I have seen spirits break their promises."
"'Demons' you mean; not Spirits," the voice chided. "There is a difference."
"I'd like to believe you," Merrill acknowledged. "But it is hard to know for sure if you are what you say. I have seen demons lie about their nature."
The voice went quiet again, and for a moment she was afraid she'd crossed a line. She was just starting to wonder if she should attempt to apologize when the spirit sighed, "You are taking advantage of my desperation, little elf. I have no alternative, so I will show you how to do what you have asked… To do so, you will need to join me here."
"'Here', where?" Merrill withdrew, skeptical at once. "In your prison?"
"No, little elf," the voice assured her, "in the Fade. My body may be bound to this vessel, but my cage does not blind my eyes, nor deafen my ears. This prison was built within the memories of the world. For an eternity, I have listened to these long forgotten secrets; and I have learned. If you will not free me first, then you must come to me. It is the only way I can show you what I know."
The spirit's explanation made sense. It was true that the Fade could make memories whole. It could turn an experience into an eternal livable moment. But a memory like that could could trap an unwitting dreamer just as easily as it could reveal an unknowable truth. She would have to be wary.
"Very well," she decided. "...but how will I reach you? There are no other mages or lyrium here."
"There is blood," the voice reminded her. "And with my presence so near, you shouldn't need very much…"
"Oh."
Merrill took another calming breath. She knew what the spirit meant for her to do.
If this was a mistake, she thought—drawing a small utility blade from its place on her belt—it was now too late for turning back.
In a smooth motion, she dragged the knifepoint across the flesh of her open palm. The steel was honed to the sharpest possible edge, but it still burned as it cut into her. The liquid that pooled behind the razor looked black in the idol's eerie light.
She tried to ignore her growing sense of foreboding, and tucked the blade away. Before she could indulge any other second thoughts, she pressed her torn hand against the chest of the golden statue. The metal was shockingly cold to her touch.
All around, her sense of the physical world began to buckle.
The cave blurred, and she felt like she was falling. Her mind sought unconsciousness, and she succumbed to the whim; hardly even feeling it as her knees hit the cavern floor.
Right before total darkness enveloped her, she could have sworn she heard someone call out her name.