9.21 Dragon
The Hive, the Senate, Minrathous
The Senate was, like all of Minrathous, old and worn. Exactly how old the buildings were was a matter of heated and dull debate amongst the Imperium's historians. All agreed that the institution was ancient, having been founded almost immediately upon the first humans' arrival in the land now named Thedas, but the genesis of the actual buildings was harder to place.
This was due in equal measure the nature of the buildings themselves, and to the nature of historians. It has often been said that history is written by the winner. While this is undoubtedly true, the vital and defining caveat is, sadly, much less renowned; that is, that the overall winner in question is in fact the winning historian, not, as might be suspected, the battle scarred chief or general. The furious and dry exchanges of volumes, books and articles that ultimately decide the victor need not be too closely examined. In the capital there were but two juggernauts worthy of consideration: Magister Octavio Aenacchi Sobel Apollo and the less grand, but infinitely more popular, Nevina Alessia.
The Senate was made up of a series of three concentric buildings, the outer circle being the most recently built. According to Apollo, the outer building was erected after the South's Exalted March on the North during the Black Age, and was designed to show the world the might of the Imperium, even after a long and gruesome siege that had cost the lives of hundreds of Tevinters and their slaves. Alessia, more romantic and blood thirsty (and with a better grasp of how to sell books than her honourable opponent) argued that the city's inhabitants had, during the last few brutal weeks of the war, given in to their hunger and desperation and turned to cannibalism, killing and eating their slaves by the dozen.
Whether there was any truth in this was impossible to say, but the fact that the large and ornate building was constructed casted doubt on the tale. After all, it was almost certainly not the hands of Imperial citizens that laid the marble stones that the lavish building was made of. Great pillars, slender and pale as angels' fingers, reach thirty feet high, supporting cornices and frescos designed with reliefs of the many achievements of the Imperium.
Again with the canny eye of the true historian, Alessia had included a lengthy and spurious tale about the carvings of the reliefs. Surprisingly, magic is rarely used in the creation of art, being seen more as a tool or weapon that a medium of expression or creation. However, according to the sensationalist scholar, one of the reliefs was indeed carved using fire. The artist - perhaps wisely - has never been named. Why exactly he, or, indeed, she, would have decided to use their Ability for such a task is not commented on, and even Alessia's few academic supporters seem at a lost to explain the inclusion of the story in her history of the Senate. However, amongst her core readership the image of a Magister who would use their Ability to create something beautiful had proven to be both extremely popular and enduring, as with all fairy tales.
The middle buildings were of less interest to either author, being built by consent rather than in defiance or blood, and housing for the most part the administrative offices of the Senate. Apollo gives over a few pages to their description (built in the characteristically blocky style of the Glory Age, with some good examples of the masonry of the time). Alessia writes barely a paragraph, focusing only on the wishing well located in the courtyard dividing the centre and inner buildings. Apparently a Magister, having fallen in love with a poor man's daughter and unable to bear the shame, had killed the maiden in fit of guilt and lust by freezing the blood solid in her veins. Immediately distraught, he had taken her body and thrown it and himself down the well. Alessia recounts this tale as explanation for the unusual pinkish quality of the water. Apollo, with atypical brevity, suggests a rusted iron pipe somewhere inaccessible to the slaves.
Finally there was the oldest, central structure, named by Alessia The Hive. Taking however the least dramatic and infinitely more reliable of both scholars as a guide, Magister Apollo argued convincingly in his seminal work, Politeia, that The Hive had begun life as a Hall of Faces. It was not difficult to see the basis of his thesis. The Hive was a twisting labyrinth of long, low hallways and small chambers, each lit by rich, white candles that always burnt clean. No sunlight ever crept into The Hive, and it was always cool and dry, even during the hottest months of the burning Imperium summers. Most of the space was given over to the state's vast fortune in arts and antiquities, as the dry, chill air preserved the delicate objects. It was also where the darkest dungeons were kept – not the city goals, reserved for petty murderers and rapists, escaped slaves and turncoats, but rather for those Magisters that sought to overthrown the Archon or, occasionally, the Divine. It was rare these days that any such coup was attempted, but hard lessons are well learnt and the inner sanctum of the Senate was the sole place in the whole of the Tevinter Imperium in which magic could not be practiced.
In the South the Chantry controls mages and magic. Or specifically, it controls the mages with magic, an interesting double standard that, perhaps surprisingly, perhaps not, often goes uncommented on. The Templars, the soldiers of the White Divine, imbibe treated lyrium and foster a synthetic connection to the Fade which allows them some measure of the magic that flows naturally in the blood of those born with Ability. These Templars lead short and crippled lives, soon becoming desperately addicted to the syrupy blue concoction which, ultimately, ravages their minds and bodies. But for as long as they can stand, the church supplies their addiction, satisfying their cravings in return for the power it gives her soldiers to combat magic in any of its forms, including blood magic.
In the South they call it 'The Smite', a suitably deific and celestial name for something which serves only to separate the living from the original land of the Maker. The Smite was, irreligious irony aside, well named. A mage's power comes from an above average connection to the Fade, and their prowess is defined by their Ability – that is, the ability they have to shape and wield that connection into something manifest and tangible in the waking world. The Smite severs that connection, cutting off the Fade. For most full grown mages and apostates, those that have lived their entire lives with the song of the Fade always on the cusp of hearing, the sudden sensory deprivation is staggering, causing all but the strongest, or those who have not learnt how to rely on something other than their magic, to fall to their knees in agony, ready for the Templars to sweep them up and carry off to the nearest Circle Tower. The actual epistemology of the, for want of a better word, spell was unknown, lost to history, though as with all things in Thedas it was likely elven in origin. The circles in the South don't care to look too closely at what it is they are doing as long as it continues to serve their purpose, and in North it is in all places but The Hive expressly forbidden.
When Denarius had first brought Hadriana into The Hive she had screamed, thrown up and then fainted. But she had been coming here for weeks, and was able now to stand the oppressive silence of normalcy better than most, though less well than her idol, who had learnt many decades ago the dangers of relying solely on magic and as a result had felt very little distress upon first entering The Hive, and now felt none at all. She still paled when she entered, and had to sip slowly from a terracotta flask of mint infused tea in order to avoid vomiting, but she was now at least able to move unaided. An improvement Denarius was inordinately grateful for.
Hadriana hated it here, but she understood the sense in using The Hive as a meeting place. The whole building was barren of life. Once a tomb to the living, it was now a tomb to the culture of the Imperium, and those cultures that it had overthrown or colonised. The endless storerooms housed more treasures than it was possible to catalogue, and without a curator no one really knew what could be found in the chilly darkness. Those with Ability never ventured into the place, and even those without – the clerks and clerics and porters – stayed clear, perhaps picking up on the unease of the Magisters, perhaps fearing the ghosts of those prisoners that had died here, deep in the cellars below ground level, their magic torn from them, left to die of starvation or of the silence of the Fade. Only a handful of specially selected slaves really knew the long and winding corridors and antechambers, a vast maze that they scurries through gratefully, unguarded and unaccosted.
Hadriana leant back against the cold stone, trying to stop the sensation that the world was spinning around her. The dim light from the endlessly burning candles flickered across her eyelids in orange and amber spots, and she fought to concentrate on what Denarius was saying. They were in a storeroom, and Hadriana couldn't decide what was worse – the sickness or the giant, dead stone golem that was chained to the floor in the centre of the small space. She opted to keep her eyes closed, and focused on her breathing. In, out, in out.. one, two, three, four, five… she repeated again and again, and after a few moments she found she could make out what Denarius was saying above the incessant silence that flooded her mind.
"…to plan?"
Hadriana took a sip of her tea, and let the sweet, minty warmth fill her mouth and settle her stomach and nerves. "It is unfortunate that Egidius got in the way. I confess, lord, I cannot see how to approach the elf now. Callum will surely tell her it was her brother who attacked him."
Denarius frowned. Over the weeks of the summer he had grown to see the use in Hadriana, and even enjoy her company. She was extremely focused, and absolutely ruthless – qualities he admired in her, and intended to nurture when she joined his House. But there was no escaping the fact that she was, like most, only able to see the narrow view of what lay in front of her, and was blind to the vast and open peripheries of thought. Denarius had long ago given up trying to understand how the rest of the world could stand it, only seeing what was directly ahead of them, blinkered and blinded to what was so obvious to him. He had hoped that Leto might have been different, but even he had no grasp of the wider picture. But Denarius was pragmatic, and although it was again disappointing to realise he was alone his ability to see the whole of something, both Leto and Hadriana amused and delighted him, and he could forgive them their faults. He had waited nearly fifty decades to be where he was, and if he had to painstakingly explain the obvious then so be it.
"Callum is still in the infirmary?" Hadriana didn't reply. She knew that Denarius wasn't really asking her. "So you must go to him, not to the girl. Tell him that he will be given the opportunity to avenge himself and his Master."
"He won't do it; he's was terrified after the attack. It was disgusting. He soiled himself."
"He will. You just need to offer the right incentive. Vengeance will appease the Senate. But for him? He is proud, ambitious… Offer him the House. Explain to him that you and I shall marry. Yes. Explain that you and I had planned to marry, but now we are unable, due to the froideur caused by the attack. Our Houses need to be seen to settle the matter properly, otherwise any marriage between us will not be favoured by the Archon. Let him be your champion, and offer him the title of Egidius in return. It is yours to give, now. He will accept."
Hadriana's heart fluttered in her chest, and she risked opening her eyes to look at the man she loved. Hope danced across her face as she spoke, "Marry, my lord?"
"Yes, yes, of course. It will be more believable than your simply wanting to be my apprentice. You have inherited House Egidius and are only a few years from your own cap, why on earth would you give it up to be apprenticed again? Yes, marriage is the only plausible thing."
She closed her eyes again, and swallowed against the stinging tightness that enveloped her throat. "Yes, of course," she said through tight lips. "What about the elf?" she asked after a moment to collect herself. "She has power over him, and she knows nothing about her brother's involvement in this. How could she be convinced to let her lover walk to his death, without even the promise of her brother being returned to her?"
"She wouldn't want Leto back," Denarius said slowly, tapping his fingers against his lips as he thought. "She wants the same things as the boy. Power, wealth… freedom. No, she won't be difficult to convince, as long as the fact that Leto is involved is kept from her. And there we are in luck. The boy will see no incentive in explaining the fact that Leto is here, lest he is forced to explain why it is only Leto and not the entire clan."
"Very well, my lord. I will speak to him after the Senate hearing."
"Good, good. And I will speak to Leto, that will be more difficult, but not impossible."
They said their goodbyes, and Denarius left Hadriana. He would send a slave back for her, not wanting to risk being seen exiting The Hive with her. Hadriana sank to the floor and tried to settle herself. The flask was still warm in her hands, and she tried to concentrate on the sensation. After a moment her eyes drifted to the golem. At any other time she might have felt privileged to have seen it. Golems were extremely rare, even broken and dead like the one in front of her.
How wonderful to feel nothing, Hadriana mused. She stood gently, and padded across the clean floor to the stone giant. It almost looked like a man, but where a human face would have been soft and curved this one was hard and angular, though the stone was well carved and each plane was smooth and clean. Small crystals had been imbedded into the shoulders and across the chest, and they caught the light from the candles, causing tiny rainbows to dance and waver across the angled surface of the golem, and against her hands as she reach up to touch it.
Hadriana was confused. In many ways she was getting what she had always wanted it, and so she couldn't understand why she felt so dissatisfied. A little over a year ago she had travelled to the market square, giddy with excitement and ready to meet her apprentice. Egidius had been alive and ready to help her achieve her dreams. Denarius had stood aloof and magnificent, an object of desire and fear. And now? She didn't know. But it was too late to back away. She was committed to her present course, and she would see it through.
Hadriana rested her face against the golem's chest, her cheek pressed against one of the flat surfaces of stone. She was tired. The House had been in uproar when she had returned from the infirmary, and she had spent most of the night dealing with the aftermath of Egidius' death, and now she was about to face the entire Senate and the Archon. All for Denarius, a man who flushes every time he says the name of the elf. Hadriana hadn't noticed it at first, and doubted that anyone else ever would. But she had spent her life studying the man, longing for him and dreaming of him, and she saw it.
Maker, how she wished she was the one for him. It was so unfair. For a moment she wished she had killed the elf, Leto, when she had found him in the quarries. But then, she knew, she would have nothing. Wasn't it better to have a taste of the apple, even if you couldn't eat the whole thing?
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I don't comment very often (I find it distracting when I'm reading stories if there are author's notes every chapter) but maybe I should? So I just want to say thanks to everyone who is reading this and those who have reviewed; this is the first story I've ever written and it's really great to get feedback. I'm not sure how many of you are out there, but I'm delighted you've stuck with it and I hope you continue to enjoy the story. xxx