Marian gathers up her companions, makes doubly sure they're all right, and then leads them back up the cliff path. Someone has cleared away the bodies, but the skeleton pieces are still laying scattered on the ground. She'd wondered a little if they'd vanish in the sunlight, but there they are.
She turns away from them, spotting Teagan on the other side of the clearing, staring out over the lake at Redcliffe Castle. She feels awful, leaden and gritty and sweaty from their long night, and she's in no hurry to find out what new thing they must do.
Except she is. Fuck.
Marian sighs and moves closer, deliberately making noise.
"Odd, how quiet the castle looks from here," Teagan says, and Marian thinks that he must have grown up there, from the wistful way he speaks of it. "You would think there was nobody inside at all."
Marian raises her eyebrows. "Isn't Arl Eamon in there? And his wife, and the servants?" She hasn't forgotten her promise to the smith, and she intends to keep it.
"Presumably," Teagan says, turning. "That's why I wanted to speak to you. I had a plan... to enter the castle after the village was secure. There is a secret passage here, in the mill, accessible only to my family." He gestures to the mill – as if she could miss it!
"If you have a way in, why didn't you use it in the first place?" Marian demands.
He frowns at her. "I could not leave the villagers – Maker's breath!" Teagan breaks off abruptly, looking over her shoulder in shock. Marian half-turns to look at the path to the cliff, and she's already got her hand on her staff – more skeletons? – but there's nothing there except a woman running toward them, a woman who wears the same kind of rich clothing Teagan wears. Alistair groans, so quietly that she almost doesn't hear him.
The woman stops beside Marian, panting, focused so hard on Teagan that Marian thinks she doesn't even know that the rest of them exist. "Teagan," she says, panting. Her accent is Orlesian, which Marian would say was strange to find in Ferelden's heartland, but Leliana is here too. "Thank the Maker you yet live."
"Isolde!" Teagan says, still shocked. "You're alive!" He shakes his head, stepping forward, appealing. "What happened?"
So this is Arlessa Isolde, ruiner of Alistair's childhood? She's very pretty, Marian thinks, looking her up and down. Despite her run down the path, she is very neat and impeccably clean, with clothes just so and not a hair out of place. She reminds Marian of a porcelain doll.
Next to her, Marian is a sweaty, dirty, smelly mess who's been up fighting all night. But what else is new?
Isolde shakes her head. "I do not have much time to explain," she says, a little wild. "I slipped away as soon as I saw that the battle was over, and I do not have much time." She draws herself up to her full height, which is slightly shorter than Marian, and speaks with authority. "I need you to return to the castle with me, Teagan. Alone."
"That's a wonderful idea," Marian says, and it only surprises her a little that it comes out like Morrigan, sarcastic and snide. "Why don't we all go?" She turns to her other side to check with Alistair, but he offers her nothing more than a quickly raised eyebrow. She turns back to Isolde with a smile that doesn't reach her eyes.
Isolde frowns at Marian. "Who is this woman, Teagan?" she asks, turning a simple question into something distinctly unkind.
Alistair comes to her rescue."You remember me, Lady Isolde, don't you?" He sounds mostly like she feels, but with an added layer of seeing someone he clearly never wanted to see again, despite the excuses he made for Isolde when he told Marian his story.
Marian moves out of the way when Isolde glances over, and then quickly looks back in the most obvious double-take she's ever seen. "Alistair?" she asks, clearly incredulous, a frown making its way onto her face. "Of all the... why are you here?"
Marian bristles at the clear displeasure aimed at Alistair – he's worth twelve of her. "We're Grey Wardens," she says through clenched teeth.
"I owe them my life, Isolde," Teagan puts in, trying to deflect the conversation.
"Pardon me," Isolde says, looking from her to Alistair to Teagan with growing uncertainty on her face. "I would exchange pleasantries, but considering the circumstances..."
"Which are?" Marian says, tilting her head. If Isolde must be prompted to answer their questions, then that's what Marian will do.
"Please, Lady Isolde," Alistair adds, out of patience. "We had no idea anyone was even alive in the castle."
Isolde wrings her hands. "I know you need answers, but I don't – " She glances at the castle in the distance, and that seems to make her more nervous. "I don't know what is safe to tell." She looks from Teagan to Marian, dismissing Alistair and the rest of her companions. The silence which greets her seems to disconcert her, but she reluctantly continues. "There is a terrible evil within the castle. The dead waken and hunt the living. The mage responsible was caught, but still it continues." Isolde is obviously afraid now, glancing back at the castle intermittently. "And I think Connor is going mad. We have survived, but he won't flee the castle. He has seen so much death!" Isolde is nearly begging at this point. "You must help him, Teagan! You are his uncle. You could reason with him. I do not know what else to do!"
Connor must be her son, then. Quite against her will she feels a wave of sympathy for Isolde.
"What about Arl Eamon? Is he still alive?" Alistair asks, tense.
Isolde nods. "He is being kept alive so far, thank the Maker."
"Kept alive?" Marian seizes on her choice of word.
"Kept alive by what?" Teagan asks, more to the point.
Isolde looks at the castle again. When she looks back, she is so clearly picking her words that Marian knows she's hiding something. "Something the mage unleashed," Isolde says slowly. "It allows us to live, I do not know why, but the others – it's killed so many, turned their bodies into walking nightmares!"
Something the mage unleashed, Isolde said. There's not a lot that could be other than a demon, which cannot touch the living world in its natural form; so there's an abomination in the castle sending hordes of undead at the village every night.
And yet it leaves Eamon, Isolde, and their son alive. What is wrong with this picture?
"It allowed me to come for you, Teagan, because I begged, because I said Connor needed help," Isolde says. Her anguish when she speaks of what must be her son is a living thing, throbbing in her voice.
Marian wants to help, she does, but... "Lady Isolde," she says gently. "If we're to be of any use, we need to know everything."
The poorly hidden shock in Isolde's eyes confirms that her suspicions are at least warranted. "I – I beg your pardon," Isolde says, manners warring with indignation. "That's a rather impertinent accusation."
"But you're not denying it?" Marian asks.
"I came for help," Isolde says, turning to appeal to Teagan. "What more do you want from me? Please, I do not have much time – what if it thinks I am betraying it? It could kill Connor!" She's really, truly crying now, wiping the tears off her cheek as fast as they fall.
Marian feels heartless, but she also knows that she's supposed to. Abominations are nothing to take for granted, and she needs every scrap of information she can get –
Assuming she can trust that information, that is. She has not forgotten that one of the prime uses of blood magic is mind control.
Marian sighs. "Lady Isolde – "
Isolde keeps going, talking right over her like she's not even there. "Teagan, please, come back with me – must I beg?" The plea could melt stone.
Teagan squares his shoulders. "The king is dead, and we need my brother now more than ever. I will return to the castle with you, Isolde," he says, his eyes flicking over to Marian and Alistair as he does. Marian raises her eyebrow, inviting him to elaborate, but he looks back at Isolde instead.
Isolde seizes his hands. "Bless you, Teagan. Thank you."
Teagan smiles a little, pats her hand, and then lets her go. "Isolde, can you excuse us for a moment?" he asks.
Isolde looks at him, then at Marian and at Alistair before she works up a smile. "Of course," she says. "I will wait by the bridge." The smile fades from her face, and she glances at the castle again. "But please do not take too long."
Isolde leaves them, walking quickly back up the path to the bridge. When she's out of earshot, Teagan turns to them and speaks very quickly indeed. "Here's what I propose: I go in with Isolde and you enter the castle using the secret passage. My signet ring unlocks the door. Perhaps I will distract whatever evil is inside and increase your chances of getting in unnoticed."
Marian shakes her head. "You can't. You should know: the thing she's talking about is probably an abomination. You are not equipped to handle an abomination." She looks over at Alistair, her brows drawn together in concern. "I'm not entirely sure we are."
"And yet I don't believe either of us has a choice," Teagan points out, and she looks back. "Your business with Eamon is obviously important, and I cannot and will not leave my brother in there. We're going to have to go in eventually."
"Without Arl Eamon, we'll never get the support of the Landsmeet," Alistair points out.
Marian sighs, rubbing her neck, and nods.
"If you can get the castle gates open, Ser Perth and the knights can enter and help," Teagan says. "I don't think there's anyone else who is up to the task." He holds out his hand for hers, and when she gives it to him, he turns her hand over and presses his signet ring into her palm and closes her hand around it. "There is a trap door in the mill. This will unlock it."
The ring is very cold in her hand, and the edges dig into her skin.
Teagan raises his head. His eyes bore into her, more serious than ever. "Whatever you do, Eamon is the priority," he says. "Isolde, me, anyone else... we're expendable."
"I don't believe that," Marian says at once. She can't. If she starts to think that way – She just can't, that's all.
Teagan smiles. "The Maker smiled on me indeed when He sent you to Redcliffe. Farewell... and good luck." He releases her hand and bows to her, and then he strides off to the path where Isolde waits.
"We're just going to let him go with that woman?" Leliana says behind her, appalled. Marian turns around to face her companions, and they're all staring at her like she's the one making the decisions. It's unnerving. "It seems so dangerous!"
"A foolish plan," Sten agrees critically.
"And yet it is the plan," Marian says, gesturing at Teagan's retreating form. He's too far away to call back, and too stubborn to change his mind at a word. "So we'd better do our part."
The windmill is unlocked and tiny inside; it takes a bit of searching to find the trapdoor, covered in hay, and then even longer to find the place in which the ring will fit. It's a small recess on the side of one of the stones. Marian presses the ring in, which does nothing; she turns it to the right, and then to the left, and that's when she hears a click followed by something heavy falling away.
"That sounds like it worked," she says, sitting back on her heels. "Leliana, would you take point?"
"Gladly," Leliana says, and lifts the trapdoor. There's an old wooden staircase that leads down into a tunnel of smooth, grey stone. It's very dark and very quiet and a little damp; they must be right under the lake, Marian thinks, fascinated. How old is this tunnel? She sparks her little wisp light and sends it up, over their heads, to examine the stones there. They're not wet. How deep underground are they?
"There's a door," Leliana whispers. Marian sends her light up so that Leliana can see the lock she needs to pick, but it only takes her a moment. She cracks the door open and listens. "Someone is being attacked," Leliana says after a minute. She glances up at Marian for permission, but Marian's already got her staff in hand; Leliana shoves the door open bodily and she's first through, followed by Alistair and Marian.
More fucking skeletons, Marian thinks in a fury, reaching for fire. There's only three of them, and with five people and a very determined mabari, they're put down in under a minute. It's satisfying.
But Leliana said someone was being attacked, she thinks, looking around. They're in a slightly larger hallway now, and there are doors on each side. It looks like a dungeon, actually, disused and decrepit.
"Hello?" someone says from inside one of the cells from her left. "Is there someone out there?"
She'd know that voice anywhere.
Instantly she's furious, seething with rage, and she stomps over to the cell door, not bothering to put her staff away.
Jowan stares at her through the cell bars. "Marian," he manages after a minute.
"You," she says, nearly spits it out. "I let you go, and this is what you do with it?"
"You're angry," Jowan says with a huge sigh. "Considering... well, I'm not surprised. You have a right to be, after everything I've done."
Marian laughs bitterly. "So you just admit it? From blood mage to abomination, murder, necromancy, and you just stand there and 'you have a right to be'?" Her imitation is cruel, if accurate, and Jowan winces.
"Not that!" Jowan says in horror. "I'm not – I didn't summon those things," he says, glaring at the skeleton corpses on the ground. "I'm not an abomination. But..." he trails off and sighs again. "But I did poison Arl Eamon. For all I know, he's already dead."
"You what?" Marian yelps. She closes her eyes and prays for patience, for forgiveness. Oh, Maker, she thinks miserably. Everything here is my fault.
"I know," Jowan says, hanging his head. "I – it was a terrible thing. But I swear I'm not behind the rest of it." He pushes up to the bars, hands wrapping around them as he stares at her through the iron, pleading. "Marian, I swear."
She can't believe him. But Maker, how she wants to.
"Listen," he says. "Think whatever you want of me. Do whatever you want to me, but please. What happened to Lily?"
Marian stares at him, taken aback. This is more like Jowan-her-friend than she'd believed possible. She'd assumed that Lily was just a part of his plan, that he'd been lying to her the way he'd lied to Marian, that she'd just been a pawn, but now he sounds – Could he really have cared for Lily that much?
Her assumptions are clashing uncomfortably with the evidence of her own eyes and ears. But there might be a way...
"Why do you care?" she asks him, keeping her voice hard and hostile. It's not hard.
Jowan's fingers tighten on the bars. "The thought that she might have paid for my crimes..." He shakes his head. "Do you know, or don't you?" he demands.
She watches his face. "You heard Greagoir, Jowan. They sent her to Aeonar."
He closes his eyes, presses them tight – she can see his eyelashes trembling – and doesn't speak for a long, long moment. "She must hate me now," he says eventually, choking on it. "What have I done?"
Marian fights with herself for what seems like an age before she swears viciously at herself, gives in, and puts away her staff. She's not going to kill him now. She's not sure she ever would have. She's sure now that he's not an abomination, as sure as she is of her own name – or names, as the case may be.
"They would have made me Tranquil," she says. It's more of an effort to keep the bitterness from her voice than she expected. That's where Greagoir had been heading, after all, before Duncan cut in. Or she could have been executed, of course, but why waste a mage? "But I suppose that doesn't matter to you."
"Of course it does," Jowan says, sounding almost angry. "How can you think that? But you're here, you're all right, and she's not." He eyes her uniform. "And you're a Grey Warden now, it seems."
"The Warden-Commander recruited me out from under Greagoir's nose," Marian says, almost numb.
She doesn't know what to say, or what to think, or do, and she and Jowan end up staring at each other for a long moment before he speaks again. "What happens now, then?"
"Now you tell me exactly what happened here," Marian says. "And every word had better be the truth." There's a threat in her voice that Jowan doesn't miss; he lets go of the bars and takes a step back, maybe to get away from her.
She's never spoken to him like this. Maybe she should have.
"I'm really not responsible for the killings and the creatures," Jowan says in a rush. "I was already locked in here when it began." Marian nods for him to continue, and he does. "Lady Isolde came down here with her men demanding that I reverse what I'd done. I thought she meant my poisoning of the arl." He looks away, like he can't face her. "That's the first I heard of the corpses. She thought I'd summoned a demon to torment her family and destroy Redcliffe."
His voice is climbing, the way it does when he feels victimized and blameless. It used to make Marian feel protective, but now it just gets her back up.
"She had me tortured," Jowan says in a low voice, staring at the wall behind her. "I couldn't... do anything, or say anything, that would have made her stop, but she wasn't satisfied with that. Eventually they left me to rot here." He laughs, sharp and self-loathing.
"She what?" Marian says, her voice sliding up an octave in shock. Jowan won't look at her. He doesn't look at all well, now that she really looks at him; he's got huge dark circles under his eyes, his right hand is swollen, and he's not moving well.
She grinds her teeth until it hurts. She and Isolde are going to have words. She's furious with Jowan but that doesn't mean she'll just let torture slide.
"But, Jowan, why did you do it?" Marian asks, lost. Eamon is nothing to him, so far as she knows, and it just doesn't make sense that he would come to Redcliffe and poison someone.
"Teryn Loghain promised to make things right with the Circle," he says, low and dull, turning away to pace a little in the confines of his cell. "He said the arl was a threat to Ferelden, that he needed to be dealt with."
"Loghain?" Marian repeats in disbelief. For some reason, this is the action of Loghain's that she can't understand. It's possible that he pulled out of Ostagar because they really were overwhelmed. It's possible that he blames the Grey Wardens – she and Alistair had missed the signal entirely and lit the beacon without checking the course of the battle. She'd wondered, in her darker moments, whether they were the reasons for Loghain's withdrawal. The bounty on their heads is almost reasonable, in that light. Berwick, the spy in Redcliffe's tavern, is not so easily explained, but it's not out of the question that Loghain is looking for Alistair in his home town.
But this? Arl Eamon is a hero, famous for fighting in the Orlesian wars, and for his sister, Queen Moira. He and Loghain are peers. To send Jowan here, Loghain would need a very good reason.
None of it makes any sense. She feels like she's missing the exact piece of the puzzle that would cause it to come into focus.
It's not likely that Jowan has that information, though.
Marian tilts her head, watching Jowan, who is slumped against the far wall and watching her in turn.
"I just wanted to come back," he says quietly. "This world out here, I don't understand it. And I missed you." Jowan tips his head back, letting it hit the wall and baring his throat. He sighs. "He abandoned me here, didn't he? Maker, I've made so many mistakes, disappointed so many people..."
His head comes back up; he pushes off the wall and catches himself in the act of reaching for her. "I never thought it would end like this," he says; he sounds so rough, stripped down to the bare, basic truth, to sorrow and regret. "I wish I could go back and fix it. I just want to make everything right again."
Marian laughs bitterly. "With blood magic?"
She almost regrets it when Jowan deflates, his shoulders rounding. He doesn't seem to know what to do with his hands, and every time he moves the right one, he winces. "I know," he says. "I dabbled... it seemed the only way for us to escape, the only way to avoid being made tranquil." Even now, that word brings shadows to his eyes. She understands those shadows all too well.
"All right," Marian says slowly, feeling it out as she goes. "Let's say I believe you. Why did Loghain hire you and not someone else?" Someone who actually knows what they're doing, she thinks but does not say.
"Arl Eamon and Lady Isolde have a son," Jowan says. "His name is Connor. He'd started to show the signs." He pauses meaningfully, watching Marian, and she nods. He must mean that Connor had started to spark. "Lady Isolde was terrified that the Circle of Magi would take him away for training."
"Connor's a mage? I can't believe it!" Alistair exclaims from just beside her. Her companions have been so quiet and so still during the conversation that she'd actually forgotten they were there, and the start that his words gives her is so great that she twitches away from him. Her heart is beating loud and quickly in her skull, and it takes a few breaths for it to fade away.
When she has her heart under control, Marian answers Alistair without looking over. "It's not uncommon. We still don't know what causes mages in the first place. It can be passed down, but there are many cases where there's no magical history in the family, or it's been many generations since the last mage."
"Isolde wanted an apostate, someone outside the Circle, to teach her son in secret so he could hide his talent," Jowan says, and laughs sharply when Marian covers her face with her hands in despair, swearing silently and viciously. "You're as quick as ever."
"What?" Alistair asks, looking from him to her. "Did I miss something?"
"As always," Morrigan says. She is leaning on the wall next to Jowan's door, and she is smirking. Alistair sneers in return, and she laughs. "A child learning his first magic is at great risk," she says. "With a little knowledge come many dangers, of which demons are only the best-known."
"Indeed," Jowan says, coming to the door and looking out at Morrigan, considering. "I hadn't got to much magic – he could barely cast a simple spell – but he could have inadvertently done something to tear open the Veil. Powerful spirits could definitely be responsible for all of this." He indicates the whole castle with a wave of his hand.
A tear in the Veil is not something to take lightly, nor is it something Marian can handle on her own.
"I'm such a fool," Jowan says bitterly, taking the bars in his hands again and gripping them tightly. "Arl Eamon's a good man. I wondered how he could be the threat Loghain said he was, but..." He trails off, shakes his head. "But I killed him anyway."
Marian turns it over in her mind, but in the end, she knows she can't keep this from him. "He's not dead. Not yet."
"Oh," Jowan says quietly, a relieved breath given sound. "Maker, Marian, you don't know what a relief that is."
She has an idea, though.
When he looks up, he's more the friend she knew than ever, determined and desperate both. "Help me fix this," he pleads. "I don't deserve your help, or your friendship, but we were friends once. If that ever meant anything – "
"I helped you once," Marian snarls. "Fool me twice."
"I know," Jowan says, guilty again. "Believe me, I can't stop thinking about it – about what I did to you, and I'm so, so sorry, Marian. I could apologize for the rest of my life and it wouldn't be enough." He takes a deep breath. "But you're not the only one I've hurt. Shouldn't I try to fix what I've broken?"
"He wishes to redeem himself," Leliana says gently. Marian turns around, to where she's standing against the other wall. There's something secret in her eyes. It reminds her that she doesn't know anything at all about the people she's traveling with, the people to whom she's entrusting her life. "Doesn't everyone deserve that chance?"
Sten frowns and crosses his arms across his chest. "Kill the mage. He cannot be trusted."
"I say this boy could still be of use to us," Morrigan puts in. "But if not, let him go. What use is he dead or imprisoned?"
Marian looks over at Alistair, who shakes his head. "He's your friend," he says, and she knows that he is as torn as she is, though surely not for the same reasons. "You know him best. It's your decision."
She turns around again and takes a long, long look at Jowan, at his familiar features and lanky, greasy hair, which tells her how long it's been since he had a proper bath; at his swollen right hand, at the Circle robes he wears as if he's a perfect right to them, at his slumped, rounded shoulders and terrible posture from reading too long into the night, bent over spellbooks with her.
"Leliana, can you open the door?" Marian asks, backing away to let her in.
Jowan frowns. "You're letting me out?"
"I am," Marian says, locking down her heart, two sizes too big and twice as likely to get her into trouble. Leliana picks the old lock quickly and swings open the cell door. She waits until Jowan nods and steps into the hallway, and then she points down the tunnel to the stairway and the mill. "And now I'm telling you to go."
Jowan stares at her. She drops her hand and sighs. "I mean it, Jowan. Run. Now."
"I can help," he pleads.
"I said go," Marian shouts, her sudden volume startling even to her. "Get out. I never want to see you again and if I do, I'll kill you."
Jowan backs away, his hands spread, but he pauses there before he bumps into Morrigan behind him. He searches her face, like maybe she's just teasing, or maybe she'll change her mind.
Joke's on him, then.
"Are you really suggesting just letting him go?" Alistair says dubiously in her ear. "He's a blood mage."
"I can't kill him," Marian replies, though she doesn't turn; she's speaking to Jowan as much as she is to Alistair. "I'm not leaving him down here for demon target practice, either, but I don't trust him at my back or by my side." Every word hammers at Jowan; he outright flinches when she says she doesn't trust him.
It's only the truth, but she knows that the truth can be the most dangerous weapon of all.
Alistair wordlessly murmurs assent and just like that, the stalemate is broken.
"I'll go, then," Jowan says, dropping his hands. "Marian..." She turns her head away; it's childish, but she doesn't care. Jowan sighs. "I'm sorry things ended this way. I hope I see you again one day. Under better circumstances." He turns and slowly starts down the tunnel, and she very carefully turns in the opposite direction and keeps her eyes fixed on the ground ahead of her.
It's time to move on.