Marian glances down the long hallway, past the fire and her friends, to the door at the end. "You found it?" she asks him, incredulous.
It's not that she doubts him, exactly... Well, it's exactly like that, actually. She doesn't believe the thing ever existed in the first place, or if it did, it's been lost to time and the indifference of a whole continent of peoples who are more interested in killing each other than preserving history.
But Brother Genitivi believes, and believes so fervently that he lights up the air around him like a brand. She can see it on his face, in his eyes, in the way he can't stop himself from looking down the hall, like all his dreams are just out of his reach.
She's starting to feel cruel for setting camp directly next to the door, where he can't see anything of what lays beyond their fire.
"Through pure luck, if I'm being honest," he says, remembered surprise and humor in his voice. "I had always assumed that the temple that housed the Urn would be lost to time and abandoned. Completely by accident, I came across a document unrelated to anything I was working on that mentioned a village called Haven. I'd been studying for years, you see, and I'd narrowed down the temple's location to this range of mountains. It became clear to me that the village would be near the temple."
"But how did you know that?" Marian asks, her brow furrowing.
"I charted Havard's journey so many times, and so many ways, that I started to see it in my sleep," Genitivi says. He starts to push himself into a sitting position and winces. "Curse these ribs!" he swears explosively.
"You're going to get us both in trouble," Marian warns him, but she helps him sit up against the wall anyway, sacrificing her pack of soft things to support his back.
"Ah, that's better," he says, settling against the wall with a sigh. "Thank you, young lady. Now, where was I?"
"Harvard's journey," Marian says absently, setting down her mortar. Does she have any distillation agent left? Does she have what she needs to make more? She rifles through her bag of potion ingredients and thanks anyone who happens to be listening when her hand closes on the glass jar that holds what she needs.
"Yes," Genitivi says, settling in against the wall. "I charted his path many times, over the Imperial Highways or through uninhabited territories, but every time, it led me here, to the Frostbacks. Our own stories tell us the same; there's even a formation just to the north that we call Havard's Steps. And if one entertains the notion that those stories must have been based on something true, then they form a natural starting place for the search."
It's not logic, not exactly. Nor is it sense. On the other hand, Marian has to admit that it's quite a lot of circumstantial evidence to disregard. "And so you were looking for a village in this area?" she asks.
Genitivi nods. "According to our legends, Havard met quite a few of the other disciples on his journey home. He led them somewhere, and they would have needed a place to live." He smiles with gentle, wry humor. "I was actually looking for an abandoned place. When I read that there were people in this village, it was a shock to me, let me tell you."
"What made them capture you?" Marian asks curiously.
"I mentioned my search for the Urn when I got here. That was probably it." He shrugs. "After that, it was never mentioned again."
They hadn't tried to capture Marian and her friends, though; no, they'd proceeded straight to attempted murder. Maybe she just has that effect on people.
"But what is going on here? They killed those poor knights just because they were asking questions," Marian says. "Eirik said... " She pauses, trying to remember his exact words. "He spoke of a woman," she says eventually. "The Risen Lady. And she was sacred."
"They call themselves the Disciples of Andraste," Genitivi says, snorting a little in scorn. "They are very, very devoted. One could say fanatically so."
"The Disciples of Andraste?" Marian repeats.
"They must be here to protect the Urn... " Genitivi goes on, lost in thought. Either he's missed her comment or ignored it. "But they speak of Andraste as though... as though She were still alive."
"That's impossible," Marian says, trying to dismiss the sense of unease that's growing in her stomach. "Isn't it?"
Genitivi meets her eyes. He's not sure, she realizes, and the idea of it sends a shock through her. "I'm old enough to know that anything is possible, child," he says, but it's hesitant, unsure of his ground. He's not dismissed the idea out of hand, which would be her inclination – does that mean there might be something to it?
Surely not.
Right?
They speak of other things after that. It takes very little prodding to get Genitivi to tell stories from his journeys while she finishes the poultices, and Marian listens, fascinated, as he brings the necropolises of Nevarra to life, tall and brooding and gruesome with mummified corpses. He's been everywhere from the wet swamplands of Rivain, where the peoples there follow their seers and the Qun in equal parts, to the harsh, bleak steppes of the Anderfels, whose people have dedicated themselves so fervently to the worship of Andraste and the Maker that they carved her likeness into the Merdaine for her continued glory, and everywhere in between.
As he speaks, first Leliana comes, drawn by the tales Genitivi spins of distant lands and the strange customs of those who live there, and then Alistair sits down opposite them and gives every appearance of listening. He's watching Marian, though, watching her with a funny little smile on his face that makes her flush and look away.
It's time for her to go meditate with Wynne, in any case, but as she gets up, she casts a regretful glance back at her spot between Genitivi and Leliana.
When she passes Alistair, she puts her hand on his shoulder, ostensibly to keep her balance as she bends her steps around him, but she knows that she just wants to touch him, the way she does all the time. When Marian looks down at him, his mouth is curved in a sly little smile that says he knows it, too.
She tucks that smile away in her heart to keep and joins Wynne, sitting cross-legged on the ground. She doesn't need any instructions, not after ten years of the Circle, and she submerges herself in her mind with ease.
Her mental landscape has always been a blaze of wildfire, with roaring flames and simmering embers, and it alarmed her teachers until they realized just how strong her affinity for the elements was. Her memories are here, all of them, even the very first ones, far off in the distance.
She doesn't fear the fire. It's hers, after all.
Scattered here and there are mounds of dirt, but they're covering something, something that flickers with red heat. Those are the things she's buried, and the things she needs to sort through.
The first barrow, the nearest and the largest, is only a few steps away. Marian kneels and cracks it open with a sharp blow –
Her father's face, his hands around her throat, the missing chair in her mother's kitchen. She will never see him again and he will never know what happened to her, she will never know if he would be proud of her or what he might teach her. My magic serves what is best in me, he says, crouching in front of her, his face very serious. Do you understand what that means?
Marian takes her hand from the fire, suddenly feeling very old and very tired. She'd known, of course; her cursory examination earlier had told her what lies here. But the grief is stronger than she thought.
There are old adages that say only time can heal grief, and in the meanwhile she can only bear the weight as well as she can. She can survive this. She can.
Marian lays out on her bedroll and folds her hands over her stomach, staring at the ceiling. She'll sleep eventually, and in the meantime, she occupies herself with reciting potion ingredients and catalysts. She's up to felandaris before something nudges her foot.
She pushes herself up onto her elbow to look down her body. She'd deliberately laid out her things between the rest of camp and the hallway, because Cú was bound to sleep on her feet and he's their best alarm. But Alistair is laying out his bedroll even beyond hers, between her and the corridor.
"What are you doing?" she hisses.
The look he gives her tells her quite clearly that she's asked a stupid question. "Sleeping," he says. "What are you doing?"
It would be ridiculous to make a fuss when he's already laid out his bedpad, but still she thinks about it before reluctantly giving up and laying back down. "Kicking you in the head when you least expect it," she says under her breath.
"Sleep well," is his cheerful response as he lays down.
Git, she grumbles to herself, but she surprises herself by dropping off immediately into deep, restful sleep.
She wakes before the rest, and instead of getting up, she stares at the ceiling and thinks hard. They have to make a decision today. Genitivi should be strong enough to leave for Redcliffe today. They can turn around and march right back down that path and they probably should.
But somehow in the last twenty-four hours, between arriving at Haven and now, she'd lost a bit of her certainty that Andraste's Urn is a fantasy. These people, this place... they're such a mystery. Marian has a million questions, which is much as usual, but what if the answer to every one of them is the Urn? And after all, they're here. What's the harm in taking an hour to check what lays beyond the door at the end of the hall? Of course, with their luck, the whole cult will be waiting for them.
Marian chews on her lip, deliberating. Cú is draped over her legs, snoring like his life depends on it, but she can hear someone stirring behind her. She needs to make up her mind, and quickly.
She can't make their choices for them, Marian decides in the end. It'll be up to each of them if they want to come with her. Someone will have to keep the entrance clear, and she's hopeful that she can persuade Genitivi to stay here in the camp while they check out what's down the other end. Wynne will undoubtedly elect to stay with him, if only to make sure he doesn't break the other leg. Cú will come with her, of course, and Alistair, who seems as attached to her as... well, as she is to him. Leliana is so devout that she won't pass up this chance to see the Lady's final resting place. That's as far as she can predict.
She speaks to each of them in turn over the morning meal, and the only surprise is that Morrigan wishes to come with her. Marian suspects that Morrigan is simply so bored that even something as foolish and ridiculous as an ancient Andrastian temple sounds more interesting than sitting around and waiting for interminable hours.
The only sticking point is Brother Genitivi. He won't stay where it's relatively safe, and Marian doesn't have the heart to deny him when he says, nearly begging, "This has been my life's work! To have come this far only to turn back... I couldn't bear it. Please."
Marian sighs heavily. "You will stay far, far behind us," she informs him. "If we tell you to go back, you will, no questions asked."
He agrees with relief and with humor. He's standing better, Marian notes with a critical eye; maybe he wasn't as badly hurt as Wynne thought.
The same key opens the door at the end of the hall, and they walk out into a huge, long hall, unearthly with mist. It's frozen over with the kind of clear ice that reflects ambient light into a haze that illuminates the room with a strange glow. The ceiling arches far above; whoever had built this place had carved it straight out of the mountain, and had used every inch of the room provided.
"Maker's breath, look at it all," Alistair says, sounding genuinely impressed. He's looking at the ceiling, too. "Think that goes all the way up?"
"Who knows?" Marian says, looking up at the majesty of it all. "But I'd love to find out."
"What I would give to have seen this hall in all its splendor, as it was meant to be..." Genitivi says behind her. She turns to find him taking in everything, with the kind of wide-eyed interest that she so empathizes with. "Still, sweep away the ice and the snow, and traces of beauty remain."
"They must have spent years building it all," Marian says, looking at everything, the huge expanse of hall, the columns, the doorways on either side that lead further into the mountain. She has no idea how long it would have taken, but the sheer scale of it – she can't imagine anything less than lifetimes spent in building this homage.
The long walls are half-hidden behind frost and piled snow, but Marian drifts closer, drawn to the intriguing hint of carvings laid into the wall. She brushes snow away to reveal an ancient, worn relief sculpture of ranked Tevinter soldiers, so many of them that the wall seems filled with their tiny figures. Their opponents are likewise hidden under snow, and she's reaching out to brush it away too before she pauses, her hand in mid-air.
This isn't why she's here. Blast it.
She lets her hand drop and turns back to the others, but she's not the only one distracted. "These carvings were created just after Andraste's death," Genitivi says, a muted thread of excitement in his voice. "They may reveal things about Her life that we do not yet know."
"But we can't stay, much as we might wish to," Marian reminds him.
Genitivi looks around once more, his eyes lingering on each statue, each sculpture, the scenes worked into each column, and shakes his head. "It will take weeks just to make a start," he says, almost to himself. Then he turns to her. "Leave me here," he says. "I need more time to study these things."
Marian regards him for a moment, unsure, but then she looks at Wynne, who nods at her reassuringly. Wynne will stay with him. Sten and Zevran are just down the hall, keeping their backs free. He'll be safe enough.
"All right," Marian agrees. "Be careful."
They leave him there, in Wynne's company, and when Marian glances back at him over her shoulder he's already thousands of years away, studying the relief sculpture like it'll get away if he doesn't. She should have known he'd be impatient to get started, she thinks with a smile.
"Oh!" she says aloud as a thought strikes her. She brushes away Leliana's concern and jogs back to Genitivi, digging in her pack. "Here," she says, holding out Genitivi's research notebook. "We found this in Denerim. You're probably going to want it."
Pleasure breaks over his face, but as he takes the book, his brows come down in confusion. "Where did you find this?"
"At your house, in Denerim," Marian says, a little puzzled. Where else? But that reminds her – and how horrible of her to forget. "I should probably tell you about Weylon."
And she does, sparing him nothing. Genitivi sags against the wall for support, suddenly looking very old indeed. "Ah, poor Weylon..." He looks down at the little notebook in his hands, smoothing his hand over the cover, and sighs. "I should never have dragged you into this. Maker take you into His hands, my boy."
Grief is an old friend. So is guilt. Marian knows them well. There's nothing she can say or do to help this hurt, so she turns to leave him to his thoughts and his privacy, but his hand grips her shoulder before she can leave.
When she turns, Genitivi's holding the notebook out to her. "Take this," he says. "Please. It may help you later."
Marian reaches out for it, but – it's his life's work, he'd said. She closes her fingers. "Something might happen to it," she says uncertainly. "Or we might not come back. I can't take that from you."
"The Temple was designed to protect the Urn from those who would steal it, or do harm to it." Genitivi shakes his head, takes her hand and puts the notebook in it, closing her hand around it. "You're going to need this."
And then he turns away. It's clear he won't take no for an answer. All she can do, therefore, is to keep it safe for him.
She turns away to her friends, who wait for her with varying degrees of impatience, and they walk into the Temple.
They check each side passage as they proceed up the hall, and every time they do there are villagers who attack them on sight. There's no reasoning with them, and even when they're subdued they fight like madmen to get back up, to rejoin the fray.
They leave a trail of bodies in their wake. It's an unfortunate metaphor for their lives recently.
There are many books and scrolls lying around, and Marian does her best to at least glance over all of them, not because she's perishing of curiosity – though of course she is, as always – but for some sign of what's going on here. Many of these books are copies of older manuscripts, so old that they'd probably rotted right out of their bindings while they were being copied.
But there's no convenient journal that says We who sacrifice all perfectly innocent travelers will live forever in Her name. The books are just as silent on that front as the villagers are.
One of the side passages holds a giant, thick four-legged creature with massive, wickedly sharp horns and a nasty temperament. It bowls her over, knocking her off her feet, before she catches it with a stunning spell and scrambles away as Leliana uses it for a pincushion.
"What in the Maker's name is that?" she gasps.
No one seems to know. Even Morrigan just shrugs.
There are traps back here, and other mages, too; their pace slows to a crawl, clearing one room after another filled with people who want nothing more than to kill them. As they penetrate deeper into the mountain, further into the Temple, the villagers attack with twisted wraiths, things Marian's only seen before at the demon invasion of the Circle. What is this place?
There's so much here that feels like it's just out of her understanding. There's a statue of Maferath in one place, and Hessarian in another; at least those she recognizes. But what is the thing with three fish heads and a rodent body? What is the statue of the thing with a flat head and wings portraying?
It's almost a relief when they find an opening into a rough cave. The stone beneath their feet is worn smooth in a path that's easy to follow. How many people must this have taken, over how many years? The caves open up after the first small tunnel. It's uncomfortable here in a way that hadn't bothered her in the temple; the rock over her head preoccupies an increasingly larger portion of her mind as they go deeper into the mountain. If that weight should suddenly take it into its head to fall –
Marian shivers, and tries not to touch anything.
There are dragonlings in this cave, far more than the lone few in the Circle. The villagers fight alongside them, like they've got common cause; can dragonlings be trained, like dogs? Perhaps if they're raised from the egg, but if that's so, where are they getting dragon eggs from?
The dragonlings get bigger, the villagers come in ever-increasing numbers, and Marian is desperately afraid that they're lost. But for all that, there's a growing wonder in her mind. Could the Urn be real? This Temple is old and huge and gorgeous, but it's also a secret. It's not raised to Andraste's glory, because if it were, it would be a public spectacle like the Grand Cathedral in Val Royeaux. This is a treasure box, complete with traps and defenders.
She doesn't know what to think.
They step into a cave bigger than the rest, where a huge, intimidating man demands that they stop. She's not inclined to listen, but finally there's someone who has something to say to her. She can work with that.
But he's hostile, demanding answers from her like this place isn't completely insane, and the bits of information he lets slip are...
They think Andraste was reincarnated as a dragon.
Marian lets go of any hope she has that they're going to find anything approaching sense or rationality here. She can accept that there might be a dragon somewhere up ahead; after all, the dragonlings had to come from somewhere. But the villagers have clearly spent too long breathing thin mountain air if this is the idea to which they've dedicated their lives.
Kolgrim and his men attack when she questions their beliefs – quite mildly, in fact, especially for her – and this is the closest fight by far. Kolgrim is monstrously enraged, berserk, and it's all Cú and Alistair can do just to hold him off. Morrigan shifts into a grossly huge, twisted spider form, but Leliana and Marian are cut off from the rest and when it's finally done, they're all bleeding and exhausted. Marian calls for a rest while she musters the strength to heal her friends, and then they go out of the cave into a little passage that leads up, and out, and into the cool midday sun.