There Can Only Be One
Warden Alistair awoke with a pounding headache. In fact, his entire body ached. He looked around the small room he was in. He'd been put on a bed. Thankfully, someone had removed the dirty and dented armor he "inherited" from Cailan — the armor they found after they had returned to Ostagar. A pretty nice set of chainmail and plate was on a nearby armor stand. Alistair hoped it would fit. Walking out in his linen nightshirt and smallclothes wouldn't be his first choice.
He was none the wiser about what happened to the Archdemon. Alistair mumbled, "We must have won. Don't think the Archdemon would have made me this comfortable."
It seemed to Alistair that they must have put him in a room in Fort Drakon until he came to. It was a nice room. Nice bed, bookshelves, chest, water basin.
Where was everyone?
He remembered that he and Kallian had argued. She said that she would let him make the killing blow on the Archdemon. He thought he'd won the argument ... but he was still alive ... presumably.
"Damn it, Kallian," Alistair croaked to himself as he rubbed the large bump on the back of his head. "You took the killing blow, didn't you." Tears came to his eyes. He should have known she would do something like that after Riordan had died. "I wanted you to live."
He spotted a pitcher of water and a glass nearby and drank almost half of the pitcher. His throat was parched.
A nice Grey Warden shield was leaning against the bedside table, but Maric's dragonbone sword was missing. He guessed that Kallian must have used it to make the final blow. Nicely symbolic. He'd have to make sure to hang it somewhere in the palace. A pretty good replacement sword was in a weapons rack next to the bed.
After splashing water on his face and drying it as best he could — leaving the towel filthy — he donned the perfectly fitted armor. That was a surprise. Then, he hooked the helm on his belt, picked up the sword and shield and opened the door. It resisted at first, but then whooshed open like it was letting in a gush of outside air ... to a hallway that he didn't recognize, but then they had been in kind of a hurry to get to the roof. Or, maybe this was the palace? No dead darkspawn here. The room was nice ... but king-nice? He shrugged, thinking, How would I know king-nice?
He could hear talking down the hall to the right, so he tried that direction first. The hall ended with a large, ornate pair of doors. He saw a dwarf talking to a Templar on one side of the door before the Templar stuffed something under his tabard and left. A group of horned people were on the other side. They were grey-skinned and as large as Sten, so he guessed they were Qunari … but Sten didn't have horns. That was a bit of a shock. Did the Qunari arrive to escort Sten back to Seheron already? He gave the Qunari woman a brief nod and kept walking.
He was the king, after all. He could damn well walk wherever he wanted.
It looked like the Qunari was going to stop him when, all of a sudden, sounds of a struggle were heard beyond the double doors. Alistair got his tingly warning that darkspawn were around. They heard a woman cry out, "Someone help me!" Alistair ran for the doors, along with the dwarf and the Qunari.
He threw open the doors to a horrible sight! A woman in what looked like fancy Grand Cleric robes was being suspended in a misty cloud. Blood magic? And, there were Grey Wardens with strange glowing red eyes holding her suspended! "What's going on here?!" Alistair cried while he readied a Smite.
The intrusion of Alistair, the dwarf, the Qunari … and a Dalish from behind some boxes … distracted a rather tall darkspawn emissary holding an orb. It seemed to be absorbing the swirling mist from the air. There were a couple of other men in robes in the room also. Mages? The holy woman knocked the orb out of the emissary's hand and it rolled toward Alistair and the others. The action stopped the spell and interrupted his Smite.
"Vints here?!" the Qunari cried. "Valo-kas, to me!"
The dwarf shouldered her way to the orb. "Sod that. Hey! Grab that thing!"
"Creators! The dwarf's right!" the Dalish said. "Grab that orb!"
"Run while you can!" the holy woman yelled. "Warn them!"
Alistair, the Qunari female who seemed to be the Qunari leader, the dwarf and the Dalish reached down and touched the orb at the same time. Green lightning tendrils wrapped around the hands of all four of them who touched it.
The darkspawn emissary said, "We have intruders and they shattered the anchor. The orb is useless. Leave it. Alexius, I hope you fixed that transportation glitch from earlier. Open the portal. The spell is about to backfire."
The one named Alexius opened a weird purple portal. It was like someone took a portrait of the area and ripped it open. The emissary, the mages and this Alexius stepped through and were gone in an instant. The wardens just stood there like statues.
The painful, searing, green-tinged lightning snaked up the human, Qunari, Dalish and dwarf arms. "Great," Alistair said through clenched teeth. "Survive an Archdemon only to die from weird lightning."
The other three glared at him like he must be insane. But, they didn't get to respond because the world exploded.
After a bright green flash ... instead of dying, Alistair awoke in what he guessed was the sodding Fade, the one place he swore he never wanted to go to again. The magic explosion must have blown him there. He picked himself up and looked around. When he looked into the "sky", he saw the Black City. That confirmed he was in the Fade, as Wynne had explained.
It was certainly not the Maker's Side.
He hoped.
The others in the room were nowhere to be found and the orb was gone. His left hand still crackled with lightning, though … and there was a round green glow in the center of his left palm. It hurt … a lot.
Someone who sort of looked like a greenish ghost of that Chantry holy woman called out and beckoned to him from atop a long, steep flight of stairs. That's when he heard that he had company. He saw a stream of giant spiders catching up to him.
Had to be giant spiders, he thought to himself.
He climbed, crawled … dragged himself to the top of the stairs. The woman motioned to a green, swirling portal and said, "Go!"
Must be the green part of the Fade. He didn't even know if she was real, so he reluctantly stepped through and fell out into another nightmare. There were dead people everywhere, singed and burned bodies were frozen in horrendous positions.
He thought he'd just gone to another part of the Fade … until he saw several swords threatening him. "Another one!" someone shouted. Something horrible must have gone down here. Alistair began to despair that this was all that was left of Denerim.
He surrendered his sword and shield and went where they told him to go.
Meanwhile…
A different Alistair suddenly found himself in the world without color again. He had been pulled here through that weird purple portal in Cadash Thaig — looked like someone took a painting of the area and ripped it in half. He was able to stand and walk right through the now ghostly swords and angry people holding them. Unlike before, everyone had stopped moving … as if they were frozen in time. The Nevarran's sword wasn't moving and a look of anger was fixed upon her face.
"So, the invisible powers decided that you shouldn't be here, after all. Like I told you before, you are dead here." The voice this time wasn't from Urthemiel. It came from behind him … but he recognized it. It was the voice of the woman he'd heard in the Denerim palace bedroom so long ago … Flemeth. After failing to save Maric from the machinations of Flemeth and Aurelian Titus in his adopted Ferelden, he wasn't inclined to be friendly. He did kill Yavana, after all.
"I was home?" he whispered, more to himself than to Flemeth as he looked back at the static ghostly scene.
She stepped around to face him. The woman in the red armor morphed into a tall, beautiful elf. Different, and yet, still much akin to the way Urthemiel looked right after he made the killing blow on the Archdemon. Alistair refused to give Flemeth the satisfaction of being surprised. This was still Flemeth, no matter how much she prettied herself up. He'd learned a lot about her over the years in his adopted Ferelden. None of it merited any respect or consideration on his part.
"Something that you did stopped time, didn't it." Alistair pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes. "What have you done now?" He knew his glare matched his distaste.
"I am not your enemy. I did nothing to bring you there," she said as she nodded to the still scene of the Nevarran and her soldiers. "I suspect meddling in transportation magic by Tevinter inadvertently opened that portal you were drawn through as they were leaving here. Powerful magic that even the elves wouldn't attempt." She lowered her voice. "May they be lost in the Void."
Then, anger flashed in her face. "And, as I told you before, I did what I had to do!"
The elf paced a bit. Alistair felt smug that he'd riled her up enough to do that. "Just like I told Yavana just before I ran her through: all you witches do is manipulate and lie.'"
She glared at him. "That was a different situation. A different timestream that required a different response. I suppose you did well enough there to tie it all up. I guess the powers decided that there was no need for you to die in the Deep Roads." She shrugged. "Or, maybe you did die there. Regardless, that timestream will go on without you."
Alistair wanted nothing more than to do to Flemeth what he had done to Yavana, but he was unarmed. She noticed he reached for a sword that wasn't there.
She pursed her lips and faced the ghostly scene of soldiers now holding their weapons on an empty space where Alistair once sat. "I wonder what is going to happen here now. I really have no idea, but … " The Flemeth elf continued to speak, but Alistair could no longer hear her. He ceased to care what the witch said.
A bright light to his left caught his attention. At the edge of the light were Duncan and Cailan.
Duncan smiled and said, "Yes, Alistair, you're home."
And, Cailan beckoned to him. "Join us, brother."
Alistair smiled at them, feeling relieved and at peace … and went to the Maker's Side.
And then, there was only one Alistair ... in a Ferelden very, very different from his own.
…
AN: Okay, I thought I'd start up WHWH again and play around with Alistair through the Inquisition … sort of. ;) I hope you enjoy my flight of insanity!
Judy and Superstar Kid, thanks for your very kind words at the end of Alistair Hawke. I hope you'll be able to join me through this timestream as we return back to original … only, this time with a different Alistair. :)
