Dragon Age: Wars of the Wolf

Mythal's sanctuary

Sorry for the slow updates, and thanks as always for faves, reviews and simply reading.

This is one of those "transition" chapters that I'm not so excited about; however I find it hard to lump it with something else... I hope it won't be too boring.

"Diane? Where are you?"

Diane raised her eyes to the dull, grey clouds, but the pale disk of the sun was nowhere to be seen, so that she had no idea of the time of the day. She must have fallen asleep while she and Philippe played on the castle grounds.

"I'm here, Mother."

Diane hurried to rise from the deep, cool grass, and dusted her dress as best she could – the governess, Miss Lanterneau, would no doubt lecture her for hours if she appeared before Mother in soiled straw- sprinkled attire.

"Diane?"

Oddly enough, Mother's voice didn't come from the castle; rather, it came from the far end of the garden, a little way behind the well-trimmed labyrinth where she had fallen asleep.

"I'm coming, Mother."

Diane started down the alley, walking at as brisk a pace as her robes allowed. It did no good to keep Mother waiting, as every elf and servant in the Chateau knew well enough. Mother may be a lovely, refined woman, but she had, as she once overheard Miss Lanterneau confide to the master-at-arms, "a bit of a temper."

Diane emerged from the labyrinth and stopped, hesitating. The garden seemed to have shrunk, or maybe the outlying woods had stealthily infringed on the Pelletiers' estate, so that she now stood at the edge of a vast expanse of grey, gnarled trees that rocked gently in the hazy afternoon light. A short distance beyond the edge of the woods, she could faintly make out the shape of the kennels where Father kept his hunting hounds.

"Diane!"

Mother's voice echoed from the kennels' direction. Diane wavered at the edge of the woods. She wasn't supposed to venture into the woods; then again, the woods weren't supposed to even be here. This was all wrong, and Diane started praying. The words came hesitantly at first, then faster as the Light Bearer's credo cleared her mind, all but blocking out the bleak sky and the twisted, groping tree limbs.

Mother's laughter boomed through the forest, except that it wasn't Mother's voice at all: the sound was low and rumbling like thunder from a distant storm. Diane prayed faster as the kennels started to swell like a carcass under the sun, the wooden planks of the walls snapping one by one with little dry explosions. Something, dark and very, very big, strained to emerge from the rumble; Diane had a brief vision of rusty fangs, of a snout opening onto the Void, and as she uttered the final syllable of the Credo, she snapped free from the Fade. Opening her eyes, Diane found herself staring at a dark, concerned face.

"Are you all right, Sister?"

"Yes. It was but a sleepy spell, Brother Umbra."

The Umbra nodded. It had been a little over two days since the Devourer's hordes – the barely living, metal-fanged beasts that were His priests, His vanguards and His victims- had swarmed the Light Bearers' camp, and between their relentless attacks and the dark presence in the Fade, the Reigning Divine's followers were nearly dying from exhaustion. That they could hold on for so long, Diane knew, was a sure sign of the Maker's love and support.

Diane rose from her seat to survey her surroundings. She stood in a vast, circular underground chamber, decorated with vivid bas-reliefs of sharks, whales and unknown marine reptiles. Through the fog of fatigue, Diane vaguely wondered why the forgotten architects of this land-locked sanctuary would elect to decorate their walls with blasted fish. Diane banished the idle thought with a frown. She had to remain focused on the situation at hand.

The barricades erected by the Light Bearers to bar the sanctuary's entrance stood fast, for the moment. Diane knew that it was only a matter of time before the Devourer's accursed vanguards clawed through. Even through the barricades and the never-ending, almost subliminal song of the Essence, Diane could hear the creatures' incessant singing and the scraping sound of claws on stone as they shuffled around.

Even so, the creatures' claws and fangs paled before the threat of their Master. Thanks to the spirits grafted to her flesh, Diane felt the damage that the vanguards' presence kept inflicting onto the Veil. The barrier between the worlds was thinning fast, much faster than the Light Bearers' prophets had predicted; soon, it seemed, the Devourer would not need His whelp's body to pass into the lands of the living. It was a terrifying departure from the prophecies, perhaps brought about by the slaying of Urthemiel by the Wolf Born.

Yet, Diane's faith did not falter. She knew, beyond a doubt, that the Wolf Born was coming; the little elven apostate's blood must draw her irresistibly to what waited in these ancient chambers. As soon as the Wolf Born would reach the Essence, the Light Bearers would perform the Ritual, and even the Devourer would be powerless to stop the Maker's Coming.

Looking at her Light Bearers, Diane felt her heart swell with pride and gratitude. Too few of the holy warriors were left, but those that still stood wore their wounds like badges of honor. Together, they had held the very hosts of the Void at bay, and Maker willing, they would live to see His holy reign come to Thedas.

Diane's lips part silently, forming the words of a forgotten language.

"Theros An'eth:

Nal' Lissen Daur Fen'Harel Elvh'Elai Sha'skahel"

In the Deep it lies,

Wrought to destroy Fen'Harel: the Great Weapon of the Gods.

Those were the words of Archon Cestus' prophecy, spoken ages before Andraste brought the Maker's love to Tevinter. Those words had formed the basis for what began as a group of magisters researching the Devourer's lore, and later, through forced conversion and greater illumination, for what would become the Maker's chosen: the Light Bearers, those who would bring about the ultimate battle with Evil and purge all sin from Thedas.

From the corner of her ear, Diane caught a furtive sound coming from the pool in the smaller inner sanctum, beyond the chamber's sculpted walls. The Essence was moving subtly, reacting perhaps to the ancient invocation. But then Diane heard a commotion by the sealed entrance; the familiar, unholy pulse of magic filled the air, and she knew what it was that the Essence was reacting to. The remaining Light Bearers clenched their weapons with stiff, weary fingers.

"The time has come," Diane murmured, and the barricade exploded in myriad molten fragments, burning and maiming all who were not quick or fortunate enough to jump out of the way. Coughing amidst an expanding cloud of smoke and dust, Diane saw a dozen armored shapes jump above the smoking rubble, pouring into the chamber and engaging her Light Bearers.

The Wolf Born had come, and she wasn't alone.

Leliana strode through the ruin of the Templar camp, her eyes barely registering the horrors that had unfolded here. Human remains were strewn all about, along with what was left of horses and whatever animals were unlucky enough to partake of the Templars' demise. Here and there, the horribly deformed carcass of one of the Dread Wolf's servants could be seen, but they were few and far between, a testament to the swiftness and brutality of the attack. In places, so much blood had been spilled that the desert sand had turned to thick mud, now blackened and hardened by the terrible cold that poured down from the livid sky.

The truly horrible thing about this massacre was that Leliana didn't care. Leliana wished she would cry, or be sick, or at least feel something at the sight of the mindless butchery. She did not. Perhaps she had seen too many atrocities during the fall of Denerim, and part of her had died in that desecrated Chantry – or perhaps it was in Orlais, when Marjolaine had thrown her to the dogs. Or perhaps it was all a result of the visions, a homely and terrible price to pay for partaking of the elven gods' power and madness.

Leliana did not care. Ever since she had accepted Flemeth's offer, nothing had truly felt real: neither the corpses, nor the living men and women of the Orlesian army who trod, pale but determined, over the bodies of those they had once set about to slay. Zevran, Toast and Flemeth seemed hardly more than faint shadows projected over the living, moving screen of her conscience. Only Nyx seemed material, her presence terribly solid through the mists of time and distance, although Leliana sometimes wondered if she wasn't simply a slightly altered reflection; a shorter, wilder facet of her own self.

The entrance to the tunnels was fairly hard to miss, surrounded as it was by a mound of shredded bodies. The Warden and her escort paused to light torches; Nyx briefly held Leliana's hand, staring quizzically into the bard's eyes.

"Are you going to be all right?" Nyx asked in a low voice.

There was so much that Leliana could have said; encouragement, promises of undying love. Leliana had once taken pride in her talent with words; once, she had even foolishly penned a few sentences that she would tell her friend, lover and leader before they would ride into battle against the Archdemon's hordes.

You are my dearest friend and my love; you lit my path through darkness and I will stand with you, to whatever end.

Hollow words; for Nyx was darkness, and the Chantry sister of yore was all but lost. Now Leliana stood at the edge of a precipice, and she was not afraid anymore. If anything, she was at peace.

"Yes," Leliana said at last. "Thank you, my love. For everything."

More surprised than pleased, Nyx raised an eyebrow, but Leliana waved a hand, giving the signal of departure. With nary a whisper, the column of Orlesian men and women started the long, dark descent down what appeared to be an interminable ramp.

And all along the descent, Leliana walked through the mist of the visions.

The ritual starts.

Andruil knows the price. With her King fallen and her domains overran, the goddess will do anything to save her newborn child. As for Mythal, her reasons are mysterious, as usual; but the old Protector has always been fond of the elves, the fish and Thedas's many living beings, and she certainly doesn't wish her legacy to be a dead, frozen wasteland. Or it could be that she has further plans; one never knows with the goddess of magic. Mythal is as changing as the Moon herself; even her husband Elgar'Nan never understood her much.

And so Andruil and Mythal have worked together on a final spell, while the sea froze solid above the Protector's sanctuary and the Dread God through Mythal's wards one after the other, shaking the deeply buried sanctum in his all-consuming wrath.

Out of spider silk and moonbeams, cat's sighs and daydreams, the last goddesses have wrought chains softer than silk yet stronger than steel: a great bond, fit to hold even the Dread Wolf, providing that its anchor be strong enough. To make the Binding eternal, both Mythal and Andruil have expanded a great deal of divine Essence, but another, dearer price shall still be paid; for only the blood of the Sun God may nurture the Binding.

One by one, elves enter the sanctuary: male and female, young hunters and sorcerers, they form a circle around their divinities and wait, heads bent respectfully. A small blade in hand, Mythal swiftly carves runes into the tender skin of their cheeks and brows. The swirls and runes quickly heal, but they remain a reddish black, forming intricate patterns that mark their bearers as the people of the Wolf, priests and guardians.

Nodding sternly, Mythal hands the blade to Andruil. The goddess clenches her teeth and takes the enchanted blade to the infant in her lap, retracing the same swirling patterns that her mother traced on the elves. Without a word, Andruil hands the bawling babe to one of the newly consecrated priests, a young hunter who fought for the honor to be one of the gods' last servants. Mythal steps forward to address the congregated elves, laying out her commands in a clear, booming voice.

"Loyal servants of the gods, most renowned hunters and sorcerers, hear the will of Mythal Protector of the People, and of Andruil, Queen of the gods. Today, the Covenant between the elves and gods is broken and forged anew. The People are now free of our guidance, and deprived of our protection; but for your own sake, and for the sake of what used to be, you must keep the seed of the Sun God alive and hidden amidst your own children. The child is one of us, but he will not bear the Essence: let him live and propagate and die as one of your own, and let his brood celebrate the ritual."

Mythal hesitates. It is possible that in the end, the old goddess of magic may feel emotional, but Andruil doubts it. More likely, Mythal is pondering exactly how much of her plans she must hide from the newly appointed priesthood.

"Every few ages," Mythal finally says, "one will be born, in whom the blood of the gods will flow almost pure. You will know him or her as a hero or a monster, a peerless hunter and sorcerer, a creature of raw power and unhindered appetites. Beware of the Wolf Born, for the Dread One will attempt to claim them as His living body, and if He succeeds, all our sacrifices will be for naught. But for every Wolf Born, Mythal's spell will ensnare a Betrothed, whom the Wolf Born will seek, and lust for, and slay, and thus will the Binding be renewed. As for the Wolf Born, he or she should be slain after the sacrifice, out of mercy as much as necessity."

Oblivious to his grandmother's plans, the babe in the hunter's lap gazes calmly at Andruil. The light from the ritual braziers reflects with a silver sheen on clear, green eyes, and Andruil feels her claws extend in involuntary reaction. A minute later, the child is asleep, and Andruil relaxes as Mythal finishes explaining the intricacies of her rituals and spells. The Protector then gently guides the elven priests up a winding flight of stairs to her submerged stables, where trained sharks, their slender bodies harnessed with magic, are waiting to spirit them and Andruil's son away from the besieged sanctuary.

When Mythal steps back into the sanctum, there is a tiny dagger in her hand.

"It it time, daughter," the Protector says, her voice devoid of any hint of fear, anger, or affection.

Nodding curtly, Andruil takes the blade.

They met the first of the Vanguards about halfway down the ramp.

Incredibly enough, the creatures did not attack: they just crouched motionless, staring at the approaching Orlesian troops and chanting in their sinister, high-pitched voices. Following Nyx's whispered order, the soldiers trod gingerly past small bands of the twisted beings. As they progressed further down the tunnels, though, the vanguards' numbers grew, to the point that Nyx and her escort had to thread their way among them, careful not to touch the still, humming forms. After minutes, everyone in Nyx's entourage was covered in a thin film of sweat, and the descent seemed to last for hours, bringing their nerves close to breaking point.

Bad though the creatures' proximity was for humans and dwarves, it was exponentially worse for Nyx. She could feel the chant wrap around her mind like a cold hand, gently but insistently dragging her down into the murkier parts of her being: the part of her that wouldn't mind giving in to divinity, to the unimaginable power that was rightly hers, that could be hers if she only let the Dread God into this old, tired shell of a world, so that it could be eaten and forged anew… Time and again Nyx teetered on the verge of somnolence, and time and again she reached for Leliana's arm, finding passing comfort in the power that resided in her. Yet Leliana barely acknowledged the sorceress's distress, or even her presence: the bard seemed lost in a dream of her own.

"They're following us."

Zevran's whisper was intended for Nyx alone, but it seemed to cut through the creatures' chant like a thunderclap. Looking above her shoulder, Nyx saw that the Antivan was right: the half-living, metal-clawed beings filled the tunnel about thirty feet behind the soldiers. Their bare feet made almost no noise on the dusty floor, so that their advance seemed as silent and inexorable as a tide of thick oil.

"Yes," Nyx whispered back, "they're drawn here by their master."

"And you wouldn't happen to know why that is, hmm?"

"I have my theories, but I think we'll discover that soon enough."

Zevran shrugged. "Whatever you say, Warden. Just remember that we'll need an exit route later, all right?"

Nyx smirked, but said nothing.

After what seemed like days, Toast, who was leading the way, stopped with a muffled curse.

"We got a problem…"

About thirty feet to the front, the tunnel made a sharp curve and then was blocked by what appeared to be a heap of rocks and debris. As she drew nearer to the obstruction, Nyx saw that the floor before it was splattered with blood and strewn with gory remains, human and otherwise, most of them too badly damaged to be identified.

"Looks like your friends have barricaded themselves in here," Toast said, pointing to the makeshift barricade, "did a pretty decent job of it, too, considering."

"I think I know this place." Leliana's voice sounded dreamy in Nyx's ear, but the interruption seemed to have brought her out of her reverie. Nyx raised a doubtful eyebrow and saw the bard' cheeks turn a light pink, a sight that for some reason caused her stomach to knot painfully.

"I know this place," Leliana repeated with more assurance. "Andruil came here to prepare her last stand. She chose priests among the elves, to raise her son among them…" The bard's eyes widened in shock as the memories resurfaced. "Nyx, I think she and Mythal cast a spell… something about the Wolf Born and the Betrothed being reborn among Fen'Harel's descendants and sacrificed… again and again…"

"Did you see what happened next?" Nyx whispered, her voice hoarse with barely contained anger. This was hardly news; barely the confirmation that her destiny, and Leliana's, had been tampered with by long-dead gods and goddesses. But Nyx would see Thedas ablaze before she submitted to their diktat.

"I… No. Andruil's last moments elude me. Perhaps if you gave me a little time…"

"We don't have time!" Nyx hissed angrily; she had to make a prodigious effort not to seize the bard's shoulders and shake a sense of urgency into her. "What we need is to a way to beat Fen'Harel. What we need… Ah, forget it! I don't have time for this shit."

The sorceress turned to the Orlesian commander, who stood a few paces from the barricade trying not to shake too hard.

"Commander, have your men take cover behind the curve. When I give the signal, charge through the breach. Zev, prepare your little surprise."

Zevran bowed happily, but the commander raised an eyebrow in what constituted a bewildered expression among polite society. "The breach, Milady?" he bleated.

"Yeah, the breach. It's time to play fireworks," Nyx replied with a mischievous smile.

"You know," Toast groaned, "I really wish you wouldn't say that."