Chapter Thirty-Seven

"It's good to see you on your feet again."

Shepard stepped aside and motioned for Anders to enter the apartment. "It was a close shave," she replied dryly. "My kidneys were fine, but I almost succumbed to boredom."

The healer looked even more haggard than usual, and Shepard felt a pang of sympathy. "I'm sorry about the qunari incident," she said quietly. "If I'd have known that was going to happen, I would have sent you and Sebastian on alone, or tried to figure out a way to sneak us in to the city."

Anders waved this aside. "I'm the one who should apologize. I shouldn't have… It wasn't right, knocking you out with a sleep spell without your consent." He paused. "What the blazes was so important to the Arishok that he felt he had to abduct you while you were unconscious?"

Shepard's eyes shifted down and to the side. "It's… complicated."

The healer inclined his head curiously. "The elf thought they might be holding you hostage for your technology."

This seemed to surprise the Spectre. "Holding me hostage… for my tech? God, no." Her mouth twisted with grim humor. "No, it's way more complicated than that."

Anders quirked an eyebrow. "Speaking of which, you do know there's a qunari down in the courtyard, perfecting his impersonation of garden statuary?"

Shepard bit off a quarian curse and crossed to the single window in the apartment, which overlooked the courtyard. Sure enough, one of the antaam stood with an attitude that was the very antithesis of nonchalance or subtlety, eyes fixed on the doorway to the building.

"I do not need this," Shepard muttered as she turned away from the window.

"Ah," said Anders, with a faint grimace. "So you didn't know."

"No." Shepard's tone was icy.

"Ah," he repeated. He shifted uncomfortably. "Not to make your life more difficult, but I really need your help, Shepard." There was a note of pleading in his voice.

"What's wrong?"

The healer's expression turned bitter. "You remember, before we left for Cumberland, I was telling you about something going on in the Gallows; about fully-Harrowed mages being turned Tranquil?"

Shepard's face became flinty. "Yes," she said. "Did you find out more?"

"Yes," Anders replied shortly. "There's a templar by the name of Ser Alrik. He's proposing something he calls the 'Tranquil Solution' - nothing less than performing the Rite of Tranquility on every mage in Thedas!" He paced nervously. "I need to break into the Gallows and find evidence of this Tranquil Solution. With it, I can force the Grand Cleric off her bloody fence, make her abandon this pose of neutrality."

As he spoke, Anders saw Shepard's body stiffen, while her eyes lit with a fierce fire. When he finished, she replied in voice that was chilling in its intensity.

"How can I help?"

Anders sagged with relief, but quickly straightened himself. "It will be dangerous," he warned. "There is a secret passage that leads under the harbor. I know it from my work with…" he stopped himself. "Anyway, if we're caught, it will certainly mean imprisonment for you, if they don't kill you outright."

Shepard just stared at him with those burning eyes. Then she said, with that same quiet intensity, "A couple hundred years ago, a government on Earth staged the genocide of millions of people. They called it the 'Final Solution', and it amounted to slavery and murder. And that wasn't the first, or last, government-sponsored genocide either, I'm sad to say. This Alrik may not be plotting to kill your people outright, Anders, but what he's proposing still amounts to genocide. I'll help you."

"Thank you, Shepard. I… this is…" The mage floundered with gratitude.

Shepard shook her head. "When do you want to do this?"

Anders collected himself again. "The sooner the better," he answered. "Tonight? I'd like Hawke to come as well. She'll help. This affects her, too. Her sister Bethany's in the Circle."

Shepard nodded. "While you're tracking down Hawke, I'm going to go deal with the oversized garden gnome out there in the courtyard. If we're going to be sneaking into the Gallows, I can't have him following me around like an overgrown puppy."

Anders shot her a sympathetic look. "Meet me at my clinic tonight, then. We'll leave from there."

Shepard marched up to the huge qunari with a flinty look on her face.

"What the hell are you still doing here, Sten?"

The dark eyes flickered down to her. "My duty," he replied, in a deep bass rumble. His voice was moderately accented - the only of the qunari she had met to speak with one.

"What is he thinking?" Shepard muttered, scowling.

The sten said nothing.

Shepard folded her arms on her chest. "What exactly are your orders, Sten?

"That is not your concern, basra."

"The hell it's not," Shepard huffed. She pulled herself into full commander mode, straightening her shoulders and hips and assuming parade rest, chin up. Her voice hardened. "I asked you for your orders, soldier."

The dark eyes searched hers and wisely decided not to go there. "You require supervision," he rumbled.

"Supervision?" One dark eyebrow lifted incredulously. "The Arishok believes I require supervision?"

The sten did not answer. To him, the question was clearly rhetorical.

"Look, Sten…" Shepard tried for a diplomatic approach. "I understand that the Arishok has some concerns about the safety of my recent actions. However, as you can see," she indicated with a gesture her fully armored, armed body, "I am well-equipped to deal with any problems that arise. Please thank him for his concern, and let him know I will check in with him regularly, if it will alleviate any worry on his part."

"Qunari do not worry," said the sten. "It…"

"Has no purpose," Shepard finished. "Yes. I fully agree. So, if you don't mind…" she waved a hand toward the stairwell out of the alienage.

The sten crossed his arms, but showed no signs of moving from his place under the vhenadahl.

"Go," she said, making little shooing motions. "Go on. Give the Arishok my thanks and tell him to mind his own business."

"I do not take orders from you, basra," growled the sten.

Shepard tilted her head to look up into the branches of the stately tree. "You're right, of course," she acknowledged, after a moment. "Forget I said anything."

The sten did not reply, but his thousand-yard expression said, I already have.

Shepard turned on her heel and returned to the door of her building, shaking her head as she stepped through it.

She loitered inside until one of her neighbors came down the stairs, starting slightly at the sight of Shepard, fully armored, lurking beside the door. She gave the elven woman a reassuring smile, and, as the woman cautiously edged around her and opened the door, activated her cloak, slipping out behind the elf and ghosting across the courtyard and up the stairs with a single backwards glance at the stoic figure supervising a whole lot of nothing at all.

Shepard took refuge in Varric's suite at the Hanged Man. The company was pleasant, even if the beer was not.

"I need to talk to those three little bastards," she told the dwarf as they relaxed over a pint of Corff's… well, it might have been his finest, but it was truly piss poor.

"Which three little bastards?" Varric asked. He'd just gotten the best of a tricky negotiation, and was feeling pleased with himself and with life itself. In fact, he felt like telling a story.

"Gavin and his buddies, the interchangeable Nils and Adan."

Varric gave Shepard his full attention, his head tilting slightly. "Something wrong, Starkiller?"

Shepard blinked. "Wrong? God, no. Although you could have warned me yesterday."

"And ruin the surprise?" the dwarf scoffed. "Never."

"It was… perfect," Shepard's eyes were dreamy for a moment, and then hardened. "At least, as close to perfect as you could expect from Kirkwall."

"Pique."

"Yes."

"Well, it is Kirkwall."

"I wanted to thank them,"said Shepard. "Although," her gaze focused sharply on the dwarf, "I expect you had something to do with it."

"They've started two new projects, and there are three more lined up," Varric admitted sheepishly. "I misjudged your insanity, Starkiller. There's a distinct possibility that you'll end up making House Tethras a fortune."

Shepard smiled smugly. "Told you," she said with satisfaction. Her brow furrowed and she tipped her head. "But if the Three Stooges are already up to their ears - or past them -" she added with unnecessary nastiness, "with work, how did you convince them to finish my job?"

Varric leaned back in his chair, lifting his mug of ale, and smiled easily. "Money, Starkiller. Money… and guilt. Two things we dwarves are good at."

He paused. "And maybe just a bit of intimidation."

Shepard chuckled. "You're incorrigible, Manliness."

Varric accepted the compliment with a nod, his smile widening. "That reminds me of a story…"

"So what's our plan?" Shepard asked later that evening, after she and Hawke and Anders had exchanged the usual pleasantries.

"Plan?" replied Anders. "We go in, find Ser Alrik's quarters, and search for evidence of this Tranquil Solution."

"Yes," said Shepard, "but how to you intend to go about it? Do you know where his quarters are? Do you have a floorplan of the Gallows? How far is it from this tunnel of yours to his quarters? What kind of security is in place?"

Hawke gave her a look. "It's a prison filled with templars," she said. "I think that answers that question."

"Not necessarily," Shepard argued. "The fact that it was originally built as a prison might mean that the templars rely on the physical properties of the place to deter escapes rather than heavy guard patrols."

Anders was giving her a slack-jawed stare. "Is any of that really necessary?" he asked.

Shepard frowned. "You mean you don't know," she said flatly.

"The tunnel comes out in one of the sub-basements," Anders said. "There are rarely any people at all in the sub-levels, save for the occasional Tranquil fetching something from the root cellars. Templars don't have much to do with actual work - you know, cooking, cleaning, those menial jobs that keep a place running - that's left to the Tranquil and the novices."

"Okay, so we can expect little resistance until we get… where? The barracks? Would this Alrik be bunking with the - I don't know… enlisted?… templars, or is he some kind of officer?"

"He is a high ranking templar," Anders admitted. "But I don't know if he has his own quarters. I do know which wing the templars are housed in, though. We can search room by room until we find what we're looking for."

While Hawke nodded at this, Shepard only stared. "That's the plan?"

"Do you have a better suggestion?" Anders retorted.

Shepard rubbed an eyebrow. "Maybe if I had a floorplan, and a better idea of how Alrik spent his day," she sighed. "But otherwise… no."

"Room by room search it is," said Hawke. She looked almost cheerful at the prospect.

All those rooms to search for carelessly unguarded valuables… Hawke's idea of heaven.

Shepard gave herself a mental kick. And since when do you ignore a wall safe or a weapons locker, Shepard? Let alone a tech's toolkit or a medi-gel dispenser…

Yeah, well, I used to be a petty criminal, too. Old habits die hard. And some you never bother to lose.

The entrance to the tunnel under the harbor was off a narrow sewer channel a few levels below Anders' clinic. The first part of the passage wasn't bad - they were not yet under the harbor waters, and there was an occasional light well to the surface. But as they climbed further and further down, the air became heavier, often choked with smoke from one of the widely scattered torches that lit their way.

"If this passage is so secret, how come there's lit torches? Who lights them?" Shepard wondered quietly.

"Carta mostly, I'll bet," answered Hawke. "They've got to have a discreet way of bringing in their product."

"Product?"

"Lyrium," said Anders. "Smuggled from Orzammar."

Shepard frowned. "If the mages have a way to smuggle in lyrium, they also have a way to smuggle themselves out."

"Oh," agreed Hawke, "I'm sure the mage underground makes plenty of use of this passage." She shot a sly glance at the mage, "Right, Anders? But the lyrium isn't for the mages - it's for the templars."

"The templars? Didn't you say that lyrium was dangerous to non-mages?" Shepard directed the question to the healer.

"It's addictive, and it causes irreparable damage to the mind," Anders replied. "Older templars are so lyrium-addled from years of use that they have to be shipped off to special sanctuaries."

"So why do they take it?" Shepard demanded. "There has to be some benefit to it."

Anders shrugged. "The templars say it's to allow them to use their skills to resist magic. But the King of Ferelden was once a templar, and he says that lyrium isn't necessary - although he allows that it might make those abilities stronger. He thinks it's just a way for the Chantry to maintain control."

Shepard stopped in her tracks. "You're friends with the ruler of another country and yet you live here in Kirkwall's sewers?"

"He's also a Gray Warden," Anders shrugged. "And my association with him was only through Edana Cousland, the Hero of Ferelden. She was the commander of all the Wardens in Ferelden, and she's the one who recruited me." He grimaced. "Returning to Ferelden means returning to the Wardens, whichever way you look at it. I prefer the sewers."

They pressed on through the not-so-secret tunnel, whose walls became damper and covered with slime and fungus. At odd intervals they passed strange stone boxes that emitted a low humming noise.

"Air exchangers," explained Anders. "And no," he said to Shepard as she scanned one of them with her omni-tool, "I have no idea how they work. Just that the dwarf who invented them was made a Paragon for his efforts. You see a lot of them in some parts of the Deep Roads."*

Twice, they came across small bands of heavily armed and armored dwarfs who attacked them on sight, further reinforcing Hawke's hypothesis, and finally proving it beyond rational doubt when they came across several crates of refined lyrium, packed in straw to protect it.

"How much is this worth?" asked Shepard, cautiously lifting a vial.

"A lot of money," said Anders, waiting nervously at the exit to the little cave. "Come on. We don't have time to waste."

Hawke gave Shepard a half roll of her eyes and dusted her gloved fingers off, resuming point. Shepard was glad that the healer had insisted on Hawke's presence - the rogue had found and disarmed several traps in this section of the tunnel - and happily let the redhead take the lead.

"We're getting close now," Anders told them in a low voice. "See those stairs? That means we're coming out from under the harbor."

Hawke," he added, "there will be passages that branch off soon. I'll let you know which way to go."

"Where to the other passages go?" Hawke asked curiously.

Anders shrugged, although the rogue couldn't see the gesture. "Who knows. Most probably don't go anywhere. There's a pretty extensive cave system down here, but we're still on an island. A hundred yards in any direction but down, and you're in the harbor."

"Let's hope that nobody takes it into their head to do a little digging, then," Hawke said lightly.

"Don't," answered the mage, his voice tight. As they drew closer to the Gallows, Anders was becoming increasingly edgy. Shepard supposed she couldn't blame him, but she began to keep a closer eye on him, in case she needed to intervene. She remembered, with all too-vivid clarity, having to talk Jack down as the Normandy's shuttle approached the Telton facility on Pragia.

As Anders had warned, they soon started to see openings to other tunnels here and there on their ascent. Some were barely bigger than fissures in the rock, and others were wider than the main passage they followed. Without Anders' terse directions, the women would have quickly become lost.

"Stay to the left up here, Hawke," Anders warned as they topped yet another flight of steps. "The ledge is unstable."

Hawke nodded her understanding, hugging the rock wall and testing her footing carefully. Suddenly, she stopped, raising a hand to halt the others.

"Has the passage given way?" Anders demanded, creeping close to Hawke's side.

"No," Hawke replied quietly, over her shoulder. "I heard something."

As they stilled, straining their ears, the frightened voice of a young woman came from an opening in the passage ahead.

"No, please! I haven't done anything wrong!"

Another voice answered; older, male, and with an oily tone Shepard instantly recognized as belonging to a greasy bastard. She'd heard it all too often in her days in the Reds.

"That's a lie," it said smoothly. "What do we do to mages who lie?"

Both Shepard and Anders stiffened at that, and Shepard reached forward to tap Hawke on the shoulder and give her the hand signal for forward. The three shuffled along the wall as quickly as they dared.

"I just wanted to see my mum," the girl's voice quavered, catching on a sob. "No one ever told her where they were taking me."

Anders froze. A pale blue aura lit his features. He dropped his head, fists clenching at his sides. "No," he whispered, "No, this is their place." He sounded as if he were pleading with someone. "We cannot…"

"Focus, Anders," Shepard told him, her voice soft but full of authority.

The glow faded. Shepard gave his shoulder a squeeze.

They passed through the opening into a wide chamber. Before them were five fully-armored templars, advancing on a girl of about sixteen, wearing mage robes. She was cowering against the rock.

"So," said the voice they had heard before. It belonged to an older, broad-shouldered templar with a bald head but a lush goatee. "You admit your attempted escape?" His lips curved in an almost playful smile. "You know what happens to mage girls who don't toe the line around here, don't you?"

Shepard reached over her shoulder and unclipped Garrus. Her hands were already unfolding the powerful rifle as she brought it into position. To her left, Anders unhitched his staff from his back, and to his left Hawke loosened her daggers.

The girl sank to her knees, trembling in fear. "Please, no!" she whimpered. "Don't make me Tranquil. I'll do anything!"

"That's right," said the templar pleasantly, taking another step forward. "Once you're Tranquil, you'll do anything I ask."

"The Chantry frowns on templars that take personal advantage of their charges," Hawke said with a disapproving, mocking note in her voice.

The group of templars whirled around, two of them reaching for their swords.

"Step away from the girl," Shepard warned, lining up a shot on the bald forehead.

"Who's this?" the templar said, taking a single step toward them. He did not sound worried, merely irritated at the interruption.

There was a tiny gasp from Anders, and then the healer strode forward, face once again limned in a flickering blue glow.

"You fiends will never touch a mage again," he growled, his voice deeper, more resonant than Shepard had ever heard it. He swung his staff in both hands, a crackle of frost erupting from it and scattering the armored templars.

Shepard cursed as the bald templar dodged with the rest, and cursed again when one of the others closed on her, chopping at her with his sword.

She fell back, holstering Garrus on her back again, and caught the next clumsy swing with her omni-blade. Her palms itched for a pistol more than ever before, and she curled the fingers of her right hand into a fist, smashing it against the side of the templar's square helmet, which rang soundly.

As the man staggered back, Shepard ducked low, caught his sword arm in her right hand and pivoted him toward her, driving her omni-blade into his armpit.

She straightened and shoved him off the blade, only to catch the edge of another sword on her backplate. She lashed out with a boot, connecting with the bottom of her attacker's cuirass and knocking the wind out of him.

He recovered quickly, shuffling back a few steps to take himself out of her immediate range, and readied his greatsword for an overhand blow. Shepard rolled on an angle, coming up on the templar's flank. He pivoted awkwardly to meet her, only just dropping his greatsword to parry the omni-blade.

"Shepard," shouted Hawke, trying to fight her way to another set of steps, "archers!"

Shepard glanced up the steps to see another three templars on a ledge above them, firing down into the melee. She swore yet again, and dropped back, grabbing the corpse of the dead templar and heaving it at his comrade, tripping him up momentarily.

With a brush of her fingers, Shepard armed an incendiary blast. "Hawke," she shouted back, "incoming on your two!"

The burning plasma hit the archers. There was a scream as one caught fire, and shouts and cries of pain as the the others' steel armor superheated.

"You will pay for that, mage," snarled the bald templar, raising one hand and gesturing broadly. There was a cry of rage from Anders, as the blue glow around him died and he dropped to his knees.

Shepard smiled ferally. "Wrong," she said, overloading her 'tool. "Dead wrong." She thrust with her full body weight, the omni-blade sinking through the templar's armor like it was paper and the overloaded 'tool discharging a blue-white arc of electricity along the blade and into the templar's body. He went rigid and convulsed, blue eyes rolling back in his head as his heart stuttered and stopped.

"Ser Alrik!" gasped the remaining templar, his helmet giving his voice a weird, breathy quality.

Shepard and Hawke both advanced on him, and he swung his sword in low arcs to keep them at bay. Shepard feinted to the left, drawing the man's attention for a fatal moment, as Hawke slipped past his guard to drive her daggers between helm and cuirass.

"Did he say what I thought he said?" asked Hawke incredulously as she wiped her daggers clean. "Is that really Alrik?"

"That's what I heard," Shepard agreed, fingers darting over her 'tool's interface to bring up a diagnostic scanner.

She approached the terrified mage cautiously, hands out placatingly. "It's all right," she told the girl gently. "Nobody's going to hurt you."

The girl raised a tear-streaked face. "W-who are you?" she quavered. "Are you apostates?"

Out of the corner of her eye, Shepard saw Anders struggling to his feet, the blue glow flaring to life around him.

"My name's Shepard," Shepard told the girl. "Are you injured?" Moving slowly, she crouched, bringing her left arm up in front of her, and initiated a scan.

"They will die!" snarled Anders, casting about him like a wild thing. "I will have every last templar for these abuses!"

"The templars are gone," Hawke told him tartly. "You can stop glowing."

He surged forward, toward Shepard and the mage girl. His eyes were completely filled by the blue light, burning so incandescently that they shaded to pure white in their depths.

"Every one of them will feel justice's burn!"

The girl cried out and recoiled. "Get away from me, demon!" she wailed.

Anders bore down on the helpless mage. "I am no demon!" he roared. "Are you one of them, that you would call me such?"

"Justice!" Hawke's voice was sharp. "She's a mage. One of those you're trying to help!"

Shepard straightened up, rising between the raging healer and the young girl. "Anders, stand down," she ordered.

The thing that was Anders leaned forward, its face twisted in a sneer of contempt. "Justice answers to nobody," he declared, and raised his hand, drawing it back and charging it with magical fire.

The girl bowed her head and lifted her clasped hands imploringly. "Please, messere," she sobbed.

Shepard tensed to take the healer down, but he suddenly jerked back, stumbling, his hands clutching at his head. The blue glow pulsed and flared fitfully around him. "No!" he cried, in his normal tenor.

The light died, and the mage crumpled to the ground.

Shepard motioned for Hawke to come get the mage girl. "Go," she said quietly. "Get her out of here. I'll deal with Anders."

"That isn't Anders," Hawke said flatly, taking the girls arm and helping her to her feet. "It's Justice."

The rogue hurried the girl to the chamber's exit, and paused, glancing back at Shepard.

"Be careful."

Anders sat up with a start and a cry.

Shepard caught his arm. "It's okay," she said.

The healer began to shake like a leaf in a gale. "Maker," he whispered. "Maker, no." He turned anguished eyes on Shepard. "I almost… if you weren't here…"

"It's okay," Shepard repeated. "I was here." She eyed him speculatively. "What just happened?"

The healer's face was stark white, and his eyes were haunted and hollowed. "I… Justice…" he pulled out of her grasp and scrambled to his feet. "I… I need to get out of here."

Shepard caught him again before he'd gone three steps, gently but firmly pushing him against the rock wall. "Anders," she said sternly, "I want some answers."

"Let me go," he cried hoarsely, trying to pull away again, panic marring his features. "I need…"

"You need to talk to me," Shepard insisted.

The healer made a whimpering noise, and the next thing Shepard knew, she was on her ass, rubbing her throbbing jaw.

Holy fuck. Who taught him how to punch? A fucking krogan?

She sighed, and a flicker on her left wrist caught her eye. It was an error message, indicating that the scan had been interrupted.

Shepard frowned thoughtfully. She'd been scanning this whole time?

She picked herself up, and, since Hawke wasn't around to do the honors, quickly began searching the bodies of the fallen templars. She paid special attention to the bald corpse, and let out a low hum of satisfaction when she found a packet of letters under his armor. They were burn-spotted and the edges were singed, but as she opened the first one, she could see it was still legible. Very legible. Shepard tucked them carefully into her belt pouch, and looked down at the corpse with disgust.

"This world's a better place without you in it," she told the body. "How many of them did you have your way with, you bastard? How many did you make your personal slaves?" She kicked the carcass. "No more."

"No more."