Thirty-six
Cain awoke.
As his eyes opened, he could see the familiar cell underground in Penitence.
The room was not cloaked in red.
He lifted his hands, looking at his fingers and arms that were ringed with white light. His legs too, and his torso, had a slight glow, a shimmer that was slowly fading from view.
The stiffness, the pain, the creeping madness that had gripped his entire body were no longer there. Instead, he could only feel the tingle running through him, an ancient power. It filled him like lyrium, but the feeling was altogether foreign, some strength he had never felt before in his life.
"Live well, brother."
The words came through his mind, a whisper across his consciousness. It was a woman's voice, but not Anya's, not one he had ever heard before. But he knew it, somehow. He swore he knew it.
Cain looked up and around the room. It was clearly the cell. But he could swear that he had just been somewhere else, a different prison, trapped and tormented. But then he had been freed. He had been rescued. It had been…
Anya stirred on the ground next to him, waking from sleep. Her face was pained, her hands moving to her left shoulder as she rolled onto her back, she groaned and opened her eyes slightly.
"Anya!" Cain said. He remembered. It was not a dream. It was the Fade. Anya had been there. She had pierced the Fade, to find him and rescue him.
"Cain…" she said weakly. "You're OK."
"Yes," he said, touching himself just to make sure he wasn't dreaming. Raphael had jammed the metal funnel down his throat. He had poured vial after vial of red lyrium down. Cain had felt the poisoned lyrium taking control, the insanity creeping into his mind, the wracking pain as the parasite leached his blood and corrupted his body. He felt none of that now. "Anya, you're hurt."
He leaned forward to examine the shoulder she was holding. Her clothes were not torn, as he moved aside the cloth of the robe just a bit, there were no bruises, no cuts, no signs of any injury. But Anya's face was drawn, she looked as if she had been awake for days without sleep or water.
"I'll survive," Anya said with a weak smile. "As long as you do."
"What happened? How-"
His questioned were cut short as the stones trembled, the walls shaking and quaking. The muffled explosion outside reverberated through the prison. "What is going on?"
"Sylanni came," Anya said. "She called the darkspawn here, to fight the Red Sun."
"Sylanni? Where is she now? And where is Dominic?"
"She went to kill Raphael," Anya said. "Dominic," she glanced around the room before looking back to Cain. "He was supposed to be here, guarding the door."
Cain turned his head. The door was shut, but Dominic was nowhere in the room. Duty was propped up against the wall, along with Anya's staff. The door of the cell was open. He reached down, lifting Anya to her feet, slinging her arm around his shoulder as he helped her walk. She groaned with discomfort, her feet stumbling over one another to walk. "We need to get out of here," he said as he lifted Duty and buckled the belt of the scabbard across his chest. He handed Anya her staff and she took it in both hands, leaning heavily upon it. "I have to find Sylanni. If she failed to kill Raphael, I-"
The door of the prison swung open and Cain tore the sword from his scabbard, stepping in front of Anya to protect her from the intruder.
Through the door came a short elf, carrying a body in her arms. She moved slowly, her body strained, multiple wounds still dripping fresh blood. Slung across her arms was the teen.
Dominic's face was still, his arms and legs hanging limply in her grasp.
"No…" Cain said, sheathing Duty as he stepped forward to help her. He lifted Dominic from Sylanni's arms and the elf collapsed to the ground, her hand cradling a deep wound in her left flank. "Dominic," said in disbelief, his voice cracking. "Dominic, what happened to you?"
The young soldier did not answer. He had a deep, bloodied piercing wound in his gut. Another large, wide slash had sheared his armor. He was covered in blood. His flesh was cold and limp.
"He gave his life, for mine," Sylanni said, her face as blank and unchanging as ever. But her voice was filled with sorrow and regret and she did not take her gaze away from the soldier, even as Cain laid him down upon the floor. "I wish it had not been this way."
Cain had wanted him to stay. Dominic had argued, fiercely, to come. This was an outcome he had seen, one Dominic had embraced as a possibility. He should not have been here. He was too young, too inexperienced.
Cain's fingers rolled into a fist, frustrated at his own lenience. Another young man, another companion, another friend, dead.
Sylanni grimaced as she pulled another bottle from her belt, spilling the contents onto her side and fumbling inside her packs for a bandage. She had carried Dominic back before tending to her many wounds. "The Seeker is dead," Sylanni said as she poured a bottle of clear liquid into the large wound at her side. "The mage is also dead. Her barrier exploded and threw me across the chamber. When I regained myself, she was slumped over, dead."
Sylanni looked at Anya, who only nodded, too tired and weak to say anything.
"There are others here," Sylanni said. "Besides the darkspawn. The explosions are magic. I heard horns and shouting that is neither beast nor monster. I assume it is your Inquisition."
Sylanni wrapped a bandage around her waist, tying the gauze roughly at her side with another grimace at the pressure. "The fortress is empty. Everyone is below fighting. I would not recommend going below now. There is a chamber inside the volcano, not far from here. It will be safer passage," she said. "I can show you the way."
Sylanni stood back up. Cain couldn't even understand how she was still walking as the white bandage began to stain with red-black blood. She had another large gash across her thigh and several other smaller wounds. Her battle against Raphael must have been brutal. If Sylanni looked this bad, he didn't want to imagine what the Seeker looked like.
"Let's go, before anything else can go wrong," Cain said as he looked at Dominic again. There was no smile upon his lips, but he almost looked at peace.
He helped Sylanni to her feet. Her armor was in tatters and he once again noticed the many scars on her face, cuts from years past of blades and claws that marred her hard, flat features. There were new cuts, new slashes that would heal, new stroke in the grisly painting of her face. But the fire-red lines of her Dalish tattoo were still the more vivid. Her usually steely eyes were now filled with equal parts sadness and triumph.
Sylanni hobbled across the room, embracing Anya, who Cain now realized was crying too as she looked at Dominic's corpse upon the floor. Sylanni whispered something to her, something Cain could not hear, and Anya nodded, then turned her face away. They wrapped their arms around each other, leaning heavily on Anya's staff and began to move toward the doorway leading deeper into the mountain.
Cain bent, lifting Dominic again. The teen felt so light, so tall and scrawny, weightless despite the remains of the Templar armor he wore. Cain turned, walking quickly toward the others.
"WHERE ARE YOU GOING, CAIN WYGARD?"
It was a booming voice, thunderous, distorted though as if a crowd of people were all screaming at the same time. There was a rumbling to the ground, a crashing of metal behind him. He turned his head.
A lumbering juggernaut slammed through the opposite door, grotesque red lyrium crystals bulging from human flesh. The narrow stone stairway crumbled as the monster crashed through, oversized body smashing and slashing through the rock, bursting down the rough-cut stairs.
In the center of the red lyrium, the form of a man was being eaten alive by the crystals that were growing before Cain's eyes.
Raphael du Valen.
The red lyrium was growing right before his eyes, crystals creep up and down his arms and legs, lengthening, smaller crystals popping up around them. His skin moved as if there were creatures crawling under it, a large tumor swelling at his right shoulder, shifting and moving.
His throat had been cut, but where his blood had flowed out there was now a beard of red crystals jutting from his neck. Lyrium had clogged the wound. There were red crystals also jutting from a hole in his chest, shooting out at jagged angles.
But at his heart, there was a hole where red lyrium did not grow. Instead, there was a shining white Chantry sunburst, blazing, burning through flesh. The red lyrium wrapped around it, but could not consume it. Where the crystals had cut his armor, Cain could see flesh marred with hundreds of overlapping scars, carefully drawn lines painted into the flesh.
The tumor at his shoulder burst, red lyrium exploding out of it. The pus, blood and red lyrium slop splattered across the walls and ceiling and beginning to expand as the lyrium quickly consumed the organic matter. The bloody, raw flesh upon his shoulder quickly glazed over with a new, glassy red sheen. Raphael roared as the bursting bubble rocked his body, his eyes filled with red light and red light spilling from his open maw. Cain could not help but remember Knight Commander Meredith, how she had been consumed by the red lyrium just moments before her death.
"Impossible," Sylanni said. She and Anya had come back to his side, each of the women standing just behind him, the elf to his left, the mage to his right. "He was dead. I severed his heart and cut his throat."
The hulking juggernaut roared, part Raphael's scream, part wailing shriek, part thunder. Raphael's head turned, his neck twisting at odd angles. His right arm had been completely consumed by the red lyrium, the limb now a long, jagged crystal that looked as sharp as any sword.
Years of exposure to red lyrium had been held at bay by his resistance as a Seeker, the corruption dormant in his body for so long. As his life sputtered, the resistance fallen, the red lyrium had seized its opportunity, claiming his blood. The lyrium rushed through him, years of waiting, biding. The man did not live, but the lyrium lived through him, the parasite controlling the host.
Anya lifted her staff, ready to fight, but Cain turned his head slightly to the side. "No," he said. "You're both too weak to fight." He turned his head left. "Sylanni, can you take Dominic?"
The elf looked as if she wanted to protest, but she winced, and nodded. She knew as well as he did that she could barely stand, much less fight. "I shall do what I can."
Cain transferred the young man's body to her arms. "Make for the surface," he said. "Don't come back for me, whatever happens."
Anya did not move and Cain turned to her as he pulled Duty from the scabbard with his left hand. His right hand touched her upper arm. "It's OK, Anya," he said. An unusual confidence swelled through him. The hulking brute stood before them. But he did not fear it.
"You've done your part. This is my fight now."
He leaned forward and kissed her cheek and her posture relaxed. She slumped, planting the staff on the ground and once more leaning heavily on it. She tried to smile, but there was so much sadness upon her face that she could not manage to lift the corners of her mouth. "Be careful, Cain."
Crystals were protruding from under the Seeker's skull, like a crown of red thorns upon his head, trickling down and growing through the sides of his face.
Cain grinned as the two women departed, taking a step forward to Raphael. The juggernaut roared again, bending forward, spraying slather that splashed upon the ground, burning and crystallizing upon the stone floor before Cain's feet.
"Alright Dagna, time to see what your rune can do," Cain thought as he pushed his power into the sword, the pale light jumping into being, wreathing the blade. His muscles felt loose, strong, his body rejuvenated as if he had had a good night's sleep. Perhaps who should have been afraid or nervous staring down the juggernaut, but his blood was pumping, filling him with a battle-high.
The rapid transformation was horrific, the red lyrium swallowing the remains of the man alive. What was left of Raphael's body twisted and warped, flesh bulging and shifting, tendons and bones snapping as the red lyrium rearranged his parts to his liking. The man's face was dead, nothing but red light shining from behind his eyes.
"You have corrupted this world for long enough!" Cain shouted, not really sure if he was yelling at the man or the lyrium. Now, the monster before him was both, but neither. "You'll get no mercy from me!"
Raphael's head twisted, the legs now coated in crystals. It stomped down on the ground, sending a tremor through the floor. His neck bent at a right angle, the mouth opening with red light pouring out of it. "YOU WILL PERISH!"
The juggernaut raised its left arm, still looking somewhat like a human arm, the dead fingers twisting, the pale blue light springing around them. The Seeker power flowed, just as it had done in the main hall during their arrival.
"BURN!"
Cain's arms crossed across his body defensively and he winced in expectation.
Except this time, Cain did not burn.
He looked at the light, recalling the agonizing pain as the lyrium inside him went aflame. His body had been crippled, unable to move, fire coursing through his veins. But now, nothing.
Cain hadn't realized it before then, but he didn't feel the longing, calling, begging hole within himself. He did not feel the power or madness of the red lyrium. But he also did not feel the longing, distant humming of the blue lyrium either. For the first time in years, he felt whole.
He reached inside himself, feeling the familiar rush of the Templar power within him, but not the lyrium that had always accompanied it.
Cain planted his foot against the ground, calling up the power, letting the anti-magic flare around him. White fire surrounded his body, flames surrounding him as the holy power coursed through him. It felt so strong, stronger that before, but he called it forth with ease, the flowing power coming with little thought or exertion.
"WHY AREN'T YOU BURNING!" the juggernaut boomed, dropping its arm. It raised its other arm, the wickedly sharp red lyrium sword screeching as it grazed across the floor, leaving a cut in the stone. It stamped its bulbous leg down again, bellowing. "I WILL DESTROY YOU!"
Despite his better judgment, Cain charged.
The juggernaut swung the blade at him as he approached and Cain caught it upon Duty, the sword holding true. The rune and his power combined were enough to hold back the blow, although the force nearly wrenched the blade from his hands. He shoved it back, slashing, the blade shattering crystal like glass as it connected with the arm. Cain raised the blade again, but was hit from behind, a strong bludgeon across his back that sent him flying through the air, crashing hard into the wall.
The breath had nearly been knocked from his lungs by the force of the blow and he turned around, just in time to slip aside as the red blade thrust forward. The point pierced deep into the stone and veins of red lyrium corruption instantly began spreading through the cracks of the broken wall.
Cain slammed Duty down, shearing the end of the blade off in a strong stroke. The crystals broke, the arm recoiling, new crystal immediately growing over the shattered stub, regenerating the arm.
Raphael's left arm had transformed, now a large swinging cudgel. The juggernaut whipped it around and Cain rolled forward, under the slow, powerful strike as it smashed the wall behind him to pieces as if it were made of wood. He cut right, landing a deep gash in the other arm and he charged forward, pushing toward the fleshy remains of Raphael still in the middle of the armor of crystal.
Its torso began to glow as he approached, large crystals jutting out of the chest and then firing off like arrows toward Cain. He swung Duty, deflecting one as he twisted, but two more punctured his breastplate, the crystals striking as hard and as deep as crossbow bolts. He could feel the steel bending, the ringmail underneath just barely catching and stopping the missiles before they could puncture his flesh.. Cain staggered backward from the force as the right arm, still repairing itself, swatted him aside like a fly.
Cain skidded across the floor toward the jail cell, pain shooting through his left shoulder where the blow had sheared his pauldron and cut the rings below.
The juggernaut lumbered forward, its heavy steps shaking the room.
Cain rolled, shoving himself to his feet again and bringing his sword up just in time to catch the red lyrium blade once more. He held it as the juggernaut's body grew, forcing, pressing the blade down. Cain's arms began to buckle under the pressure and he flared the anti-magic harder, drawing upon the arcane strength to bolster him.
For a third time, the cudgel struck him, a powerful punch that lifted him off his feet, tossing him backward across the room. He bounced on the ground and doubled over. Cain held his hand across his gut, sharp pains shooting through him.
Another spray of red lyrium arrows shot out and all Cain had time to do was turn his head and bring up his arm to cover his face as the razor-sharp crystals punched through his armor, biting into his flesh. He could feel hot pain stabbing in his chest.
He lifted his head, hearing the whoosh of air as the cudgel back-handed him, knocking him aside to the right, into the bars of the jail cell where he had been kept for days. His back struck the hard metal, the wind forcing out of his lung as he slid to the ground, his chest gasping for breath.
The juggernaut turned, lumbering, raising the large sword up. Cain weakly hoisted Duty before him, but he knew he did not have the strength to defend the incoming blow.
An explosion of fire hit the arm, sticky clumps of flame spilling across the juggernaut. Small balls of lightning snapped across its chest, breaking upon the impenetrable red lyrium armor with no effect. The juggernaut stumbled backward a step, another burning flask breaking upon it body.
The juggernaut roared, body crouching down and arms covering the human host at its core as more lightning sprayed across it. Sylanni and Anya hadn't heeded his order. He was thankful for it.
Cain's chest heaved, air filling his lungs once again. His body ached, he could feel several red lyrium crystals stuck in his right flank, but he ignored the pain. He grabbed the metal bar behind him to help pull himself up.
As his hand made contact with the bar, the red lyrium runes upon them flickered and sputtered, fading to darkness. The red energy sapped from the inset crystal, spiraling like smoke around his right arm.
Cain looked quizzically at it, feeling the strength of the red lyrium coursing through his right arm much as it had before when the sludge had filled his body. But he did not feel the madness, the rage, the sickness from it. It did not sink inside him. It did not sicken him as it had before.
He quickly reached, grabbing one of the crystals jutting from his breastplate, wrapping his right hand around it tightly. The crystal glowed, the light sapping out of it, being pulled into his fingers and up his hand. The crystal, devoid of light and life, turned to grey, cloudy glass. His fingers tightened and the crystal crumbled into dust in his hand.
Cain could remember the swirling madness, a violent storm that howled around. The red lyrium attacked, trying to penetrate him, trying to claim him. He resisted, pain and agony shooting arcing through his body, the fury of an ancient, corrupted power trying to break him. Then it had all cleared and he had fallen.
He could feel Anya's embrace around him, her arms, so warm and comforting as she caught him and held him up. But they had not be alone. There was someone else, something else, watching them. He could only see the figure, indistinct in the distance, white light shining so brightly he could not hold his gaze upon it.
The juggernaut roared, throwing spears of red lyrium across the room. The lightning ceased, Anya and Sylanni diving back through the narrow doorway.
Cain stepped before the monstrosity, Duty held low at his left side. He shuttered his Templar power, the red lyrium energy still hovering around his right arm as he stood before Raphael. He could feel a different power welling inside of him, something similar but distinct from the Templar talents he had learned and trained for years. He embraced it.
The juggernaut raised its great blade for an attack but Cain raised his right arm, spreading his fingers as he opened the door upon his new power. The juggernaut seized, and stopped, paralyzed. The red light of the crystals began to glow brightly and pulse, frozen at Cain's command. He tugged. The red began to sap from the crystals, the light swirling from the beast and coming to his palm, the red energy wrapping around his body, swirling and strengthening him.
The juggernaut roared, the crystal turning to cloudy grey as Cain stole its energy, draining the juggernaut of its lifeforce. The great beast sagged, the dead flesh of Raphael growing limp in the core as the surrounding crystals weakened.
The red lyrium surrounded Cain now, bends of electric rolling all over his body. But he was not sick. His emotions were his own, level and calm. Where once the closeness of red lyrium had made his cough and choke, the bitter poison filling his mouth with ash, now he did not feel any of it. He only felt the strength of it, ancient power coursing through him.
He pulled his right hand to the grip of Duty, hands clenched around the sword. He lifted it above his head, transferring the power into the blade, the red lyrium spiraling up around the steel, swirling until the blade glowed fiercely with red power.
He pulled the sword to his right side, wound up and swung.
The blade sheared through dull crystal, shattering stone and flesh and bone as the greatsword cleaved through the juggernaut. The red energy surrounding the sword cut sharper than any man-made edge as it cleaved Raphael. The air filled with smoke as the blade cut, crushing through the monster's left flank, driving through the still-human body of Raphael du Valen and slashing through the right side.
The sword exited the other side, a glowing red line painted through the middle of the lumbering giant. Cain looked, his sword still glowing as it came to rest at his left side.
The light grew fiercer, bursting like flame, consuming the remains of the juggernaut, the crystal igniting and burning away into smoke and ash. The juggernaut bellowed and flailed as it burned, the pure-red flames scorching both up and down from the wound, consuming crystal and flesh as the beast crumbled and smoldered away.
The white sun at Raphael's heart was engulfed in flame, the white lyrium melting and dripping down like paint spilled down a wall as the fire consumed him.
Cain watched, silent and sullen as the red fire consumed the last of Raphael's face, his jaw hanging limp and dead eyes rolling in his skull as black and red ash that fluttered away as it consumed what remained of the man.
In the end, nothing remained except smoke, ash and the puddle of boiling white lyrium on the ground before him.
Cain straightened back up, the monster defeated. He stared at the boiling white lyrium on the ground as the caustic substance burned and sizzled into the stone floor. He breathed a sigh of relief.
The red lyrium hummed on Duty, the energy still engulfing the sword. He lifted the blade, examining it. The energy was not infused into the steel, he could see it pulsing and bending along the exterior of the steel, running up and down the length of the greatsword.
The red began to creep lower, wrapping around the crossguard, slithering down the sword like a snake around a branch. The energy swirled down to the grip and Cain shifted his hand lower, moving it away from the lyrium energy.
Then it lurched, as quickly as an asp. The lyrium sparked on the sword in his hands, a violent pulse that shook his arms. The electric backfed up his arms, the red lyrium energy arcing across his arms, legs and chest once more. The bends snaked up his neck and his face.
The shining, intense power that had coursed through him moments before was gone, but the red lyrium remained.
The red lyrium locked around his body, electrifying him, scorching him with red hot bends. His muscles contracted, paralysis gripping him again. Duty fell from his grasp, the sword clanging on the stone floor below.
And it was happening again. The swirling, violent, tempest. The screaming madness. The agony of the red lyrium had returned.
He clenched his fists, trying to fight it.
But the lyrium clenched harder.
Cain threw his head back, screaming as the lyrium began to eat him alive once more.