It's a little strange to be out on the road again. It's shocking how fast Marian got used to regular baths and food she doesn't have to cook or clean up after. To tell the truth, Castle Redcliffe's spoiled her. The freedom is nice, though, and the wind on her face and the spring sun shining down on her warm her from the inside out.
There are refugees heading west with them. Most of them are packed well and tight, ready for a long journey to Orlais or further, fleeing the Blight as best they can; but some have no more than the clothes on their backs. Marian glances at Alistair to find him looking at her already. He tilts his head at the refugees with his mouth tight. Marian nods. They have to at least look over the refugees they pass for the signs of the taint, and Marian knows that, but it doesn't make it any easier.
It's lucky for them, in a morbid sort of way, that the symptoms of the taint are so immediate and impossible to hide. First the eyes grow a lining, silver like a mirror, that reflects light like a cat's. Black lesions spread from the point of infection out to the extremities and back again, following the heartsblood. The flesh rots out from underneath the skin, their skin shrinking and stretching over their bones, growing emaciated even as they speak of the hunger that's too strong to shake. Some people talk about a singing or a music that no one else can hear, one that grows stronger and stronger as the sickness progresses. She knows that tune. It sings in her blood even now.
Whenever they meet refugees, Leliana and Wynne speak to them, offering assistance, while Marian and Alistair look each of them over for the lesions. So far they've been lucky. Marian doesn't want to think about what's going to happen when they find someone with the taint and they have to reveal themselves for who they are. She's trying not to, anyway.
The Imperial Highway takes them south for a few hours until they reach an intersection with a small road that leads further south into the western reaches of the Hinterlands. The highway turns north here. From afar, they can see what looks like a small camp and a number of people arguing. As they get closer, though, Morrigan casually mentions that it looks like some of them have weapons.
Marian glances at Alistair. Morrigan's got the best eyes of any of them. Without a word, they pick up their pace.
When they get there, the bandit leader tries to intimidate them into handing over whatever's in Bodahn's wagon. Maker's breath, there's only four of them? Marian rolls her eyes and lets Alistair and Cú answer for her; she'd rather check on the others, who are obviously refugees.
The rest of her companions trickle in, one after the other, Bodahn and the wagon last of all; he'd held back when it looked like a fight, keeping himself and Sandal out of the fray, just the way he ought. She nods at him. He salutes her with the reins, but then he's swinging out of the wagon, moving through the refugees, checking with the rest of her friends to see who needs help.
Marian smiles.
She turns to check on Alistair and Cú, but they're long since done with their task. None of the bandits seem to be dead, though, which is a nice surprise. They're unconscious on the ground. One is bleeding from the forehead and another is missing a rather large section of the leg of his breeches, but those are the only signs of violence.
"I wanted to stop for lunch anyway," Alistair says to her with a grin.
Marian opens her mouth to tease, but her stomach decides to join the conversation, rumbling loud enough that he can hear. Alistair laughs.
Disgruntled, Marian swings around and collars Bodahn to see what kind of lunch they can produce for this many people.
They eat that lunch with the refugees. It's only awkward once, when one of the women asks with a suspicious air what such a motley group of well-armed people are doing on the road. Leliana is quick with a story, as always, painting Bodahn as a wealthy merchant and the rest as his hired mercenaries to deliver wool and elfroot to Orzammar.
Marian pulls that woman aside when they're done to ask if she and her group would be willing to march the bandits back to Redcliffe. It's only a few hours back along the highway, after all, and it's almost certain to be clear – they'd just come down that road. The woman's not exactly thrilled with the idea, but eventually Marian scores a point when she mentions Teagan. He's well-known and well-liked in his bannorn. Marian thinks that the woman and her friends must have lived somewhere near Rainesfere.
"He'll help you," Marian says, coaxing her as best she knows how. It's not safe out on the road anymore. If Teagan can persuade them to stay in Redcliffe, that's for the best. "I know he will. He's that kind of man."
The woman agrees then, and rounds up the others with no more than a few well-chosen words. Marian seems to have picked the right person to talk to. Sten and Alistair tie the bandits into a line with a coil of rope Marian finds amongst the things they've looted from other people. From the looks of their camp, they've been here no more than a few days, not enough time to intercept too many people. They certainly hadn't been here last week when they came through from Haven.
"Take what you can carry," Marian says to the woman, and backs away, right into the signpost that marks the intersection. Instinctively she turns and catches it, as if it were a person she'd bumped into, and then rolls her eyes at herself.
She looks up at the signs.
Linhurst 2
Honnleath 3
Old Applebury 7
Marian frowns at the signpost. Honnleath means something to her. Something... Oh! Marian goes over to Bodahn's wagon and digs amongst her personal things, taking a moment to stroke the box that holds Alistair's rose, and finds the golem control rod at the bottom. She'd never gotten around to looking up the symbols etched into it. Some of them are so familiar, though...
Marian finds Alistair in the confusion, her eyes going straight to him like she already knew where he was. He's helping a woman load up. "Do you remember that merchant?" Marian says to him.
He answers without really paying attention, distracted as he is by his own hands fastening two bedrolls onto the woman's pack. "Do you mean the woman in the merchant's camp at Denerim? I've never talked to anyone who's heard of chevre des cremiers before."
Marian eyes Alistair. "No? What's – " She shakes her head. She's never met anyone who likes cheese the way other people savor fine wines. "Never mind. No, I mean the one who gave us this." She holds out the golem rod for Alistair.
When he's finally done and the woman thanks him and moves away, Alistair turns, takes one look at the rod and groans. "You don't think that thing's actually for a golem, do you?"
"No," Marian has to admit. "I don't, not really." She slides a glance at Alistair from beneath her lashes, grinning conspiratorially. "But what if it is?"
It requires little more than the mental image of a seven-foot golem crushing their enemies to get Alistair to agree to a side trip. Marian sends Sten back with the refugees to keep an eye on the bandits, who keep threatening to escape and take their revenge in the most melodramatic, ridiculous sort of way she can imagine. Zevran is going with her, if only to give Wynne a break from comments about her bosom, and Morrigan would rather do anything than be stuck in a camp with Leliana and Wynne. Marian doesn't blame her. Those two, working together – the idea terrifies her a little, too.
The road leading south isn't paved, like the highway; it's only hard-packed dirt, wide enough for a horse or two people walking abreast. It's still a bit damp from the raging storm. It's about an hour to the smaller road leading to Honnleath, and then ten minutes or so before they spot the village, a little group of houses tucked into the rolling hills that grow to the west into the Frostbacks. There are a few farms beyond. It's an old village, built to last in stone and timber.
There are no signs of life, though. There's nobody in the fields, no smoke from cooking fires, no children playing or pets. Something feels wrong. As they come closer, Marian finds herself slowing, looking at everything with wary eyes.
"Watch, now," Zevran murmurs. He's got a blade out already, without her noticing. It's a wonder that makes her feel safer.
"So it's not just me?" Marian asks. All the while, the vague sense of something wrong creeps into her guts and makes a nest there. It's stronger, too, and something smells foul, rotten, though she can't figure out where it's coming from.
"Darkspawn," Alistair says succinctly. "They just crop up everywhere, don't they?" He's got his shield out now, his hand on the handle of his sword. Marian sighs.
"All right," she says. "Let's go."
It's a small pack that greets them, and it only takes a moment to get back into the flow of battle. She freezes one rock-solid and electrocutes two more, and by the time she's finished the battle is already done. They glance amongst themselves, wondering if that was it, but the sick feeling in her mind doesn't subside with the darkspawns' death the way it should have.
There's another pack picking over decomposing bodies in the main square; there are more of the darkspawn here in terms of pure numbers, but that doesn't work out in their favor. The darkspawn get in each others' way more than anything. Marian and Morrigan stay well in the rear to deal out the death magics that Morrigan specializes in and the elemental attacks that are her preferred weapons, while Alistair attacks them head-on and Zevran circles around to the rear.
When they're all dead, Marian checks the human bodies for any signs of life, even though she knows it's futile. But maybe...
She'd known better, of course, if only from the smell; but it's still a blow when each and every body is cold to the touch. Some have been partially eaten. They've been dead a while, long enough that they're decomposing before her eyes. The darkspawn have been here for days.
When she rejoins the others, she's worried, angry, heartsick, and oddly resigned to the death, to the destruction and horror of what they've found here. There's nothing they could have done to save this village, not realistically, but that doesn't help how she feels.
There's more to the village up the hill, and more darkspawn, including a huge, tall, powerful Alpha and too many archers for Marian's comfort. She isolates the Alpha with a force field first of all, slaps a crushing prison around one of the genlocks, and sets to work with grim determination. She concentrates on the archers, who seem to think they're safe at range. They're mistaken. A few of them are isolated, and so she can drop a chain lightning and move on, but the nearer ones are too close to Cú and Zevran to risk what she'd done to Jory.
Marian kills a fourth squat archer with lightning. She looks up to check on her friends in time to see the Alpha shake off her force field. It roars, swinging its huge axe at Alistair; he takes the blow square against his shield, but the sheer force of it knocks him off his feet onto his back.
"Alistair!" Marian cries, her heart in her throat. She freezes the Alpha, or tries to, but it's simply too big to freeze solid like she does the littler ones. It's covered in a fine layer of frost instead that seems to hinder its movements, but it's got Alistair square in its sights, murder in its beady, inhuman eyes.
Zevran appears behind the Alpha as if by magic, melting into view like fog, and stabs the Alpha in the back, angling his dagger between two ribs and right into its heart with a practiced kind of precision. The Alpha roars again, this time in pain, but somehow it's still on its fucking feet. Slowed as it is by her frost, by the heartsblood that pours from the dagger still lodged in its back, it takes one implacable step toward Alistair. He's struggling to his feet, but he's off-balance, an easy target. Marian pulls hard on the Fade, spilling magic into her hand, but it's not going to be enough, it's not fast enough, she's going to be too late –
And then Cú makes an impossible leap, plowing into the Alpha from the side, knocking it over in its turn. It rolls onto its back to face its new attacker, and then it makes a queer groaning sound as Zevran's dagger drives deeper into its heart and out through the front of its body. Cú growls into its face, but it's already dead.
Marian wipes her face with a shaky hand and turns to throw lightning from her hand at one of the archers she's yet to deal with. Morrigan's holding two of the short, squat ones with a clever combination of sleep and horror spells. Zevran casually leans over and stabs them each in the head.
Alistair knocks the last hurlock over and cuts its throat. Marian looks around to find a new target, but there aren't any more. The darkspawn are all dead.
Cú's escaped without injury, but Zevran had gotten caught between one of the hurlocks and the archers, and he has an arrow lodged just under his shoulder blade and a long, thin gash on his thigh where he hadn't dodged quickly enough. Marian cleans him up quickly, watching Alistair check Morrigan for wounds out of the corner of her eye. She wants to get her hands on Alistair to make sure he's all right, but he's right there and looking fine, and Zevran needs help.
She yanks out the arrow first of all. It hasn't gone more than an eighth of an inch into his skin, judging from the blood left on the head, and she tosses it aside. Zevran hadn't gotten much darkspawn blood on him – he says, with a grin, that he's too pretty to befoul that way – and it's good that she doesn't have to clean him up too much before she lays the healing spells on his skin. She does have to work her finger into the tiny hole the arrow ripped in his leathers to get to his skin, though, which is more intimate than she wanted to be with Zevran. So, too, is laying her hand on his bare thigh to heal the gash.
"Ahhh," Zevran says, a long, luxurious sigh as she heals his leg. She'd take it for the relief of being without pain, but then he looks up at her with a long, lazy smile and bedroom eyes. Marian smacks him upside the head and stalks off, though she notices Alistair turning away with a poorly-hidden smile on his face.
He can't be too badly hurt if he's smiling like that.
When she reaches the top of the hill and she can finally see the clearing, she stops dead. There's another square around which houses are arranged all in rows and a green space in the center in which a huge, stone golem stands frozen like a statue, its fists raised, silently roaring its frustration at the heavens.
Huh. She wouldn't have laid any odds on there actually being a golem here.
She approaches it curiously. It's a little shorter than she expected from what she's read, and none of her books mentioned that the glowing lyrium lines that wend their way over and around it tease the eye and capture the mind. They're runes, of a strange and angular sort. The corners are crisp and pointed, the straight lines perfectly straight, the curves regular and symmetrical. Marian circles it, examining it from every angle. How is this done? How are they animated? The dwarves work lyrium with a facility that the other races will never be able to emulate. She can see that here in every line, in every curve, in every cunning, perfect join. They must have lost the secret of this, or else they'd have an army of golems in the Deep Roads and they'd have a kingdom, not just one city.
There are crystals embedded in the golem's surface, blue ones that are scattered over its shoulders like stars. She touches one and the coolness of it, a coolness not born of nature, surprises her.
She kicks over an empty basket as she moves around the golem, looking down to see a few scattered seeds spill out of it. Birdseed, maybe? But what's it doing here?
The rest have finally joined her when she circles back in front of the frozen golem.
"'Twould appear it is defunct," Morrigan says thoughtfully. "Though there may be a way to revive it yet."
Marian pulls out the rod the merchant had given her and weighs it in her hand. This is supposed to control the golem, but she doesn't know how to use it. Hopefully it won't wake up and try to crush them all.
"Dulef gar," she says, the command the merchant passed to her sitting uncomfortably on her tongue.
Nothing happens.
Marian waits a long moment, in case she's just being impatient, and then tries again and gets the same result. Damn it. Something's wrong, or broken or just plain old, and she doesn't know enough to decide whether it's her or the rod or the golem.
Marian turns to her friends and shrugs, trying to conceal her disappointment. "It was worth a try."
"And now that you have tried and failed, may we not move on?" Morrigan asks, her eyebrows raised expectantly.
"We need to make sure we've cleared out the darkspawn first," Alistair points out.
And so they go building to building, checking attics and outhouses and cellars for darkspawn. Secretly Marian's hoping for a survivor or two, too, but they don't find anything except fighting and blood and death until they start to explore one of the cellars. It's bigger than most, three or four distinct rooms, with brewery and arcane equipment, a library that Marian wants to look at more closely, and even a tiny chapel. There's a whole pack of darkspawn here, too, though they're easier to put down than the ones up above.
The cellar leads them deeper underground and further away from the main square, but they have to keep on, because even Marian can feel the darkspawn that lay ahead. The nausea is almost physical now. When they mount the stairs ahead of them and reach the top, she can finally see why.
There's not just a largish pack of darkspawn here, like she'd assumed; they have one of the darkspawn that wields magic, the kind Alistair told her was called an emissary.
She remembers meeting one of them in the Korcari Wilds, and what it had taken out of her to kill it.
The darkspawn haven't noticed them yet. They're trying to get through an odd, shimmering field of magic that blocks off part of the cellar and the humans who are hiding behind it. There are only five or six of the humans. The village is big enough to have supported upwards of a hundred people. The darkspawn can't have gotten them all... can they?
There are so many darkspawn here, more than in the rest of the cellar combined. It's a long, drawn-out battle that only turns their way when Alistair uses his templar talents to clear the area of the thin, wicked glyphs the emissary lays down in thickets. Zevran goes down on the stairs where he's trying to keep a handful of darkspawn away from the rest. It's a foolish move, but it does help, keeping the darkspawn from flanking them entirely.
Marian gets Zevran back on his feet, but the battle's already over by the time she's done. She leans on her staff, scrubbing at her eyes with the back of her hand. Maker, she's tired. This is a lot of fighting to do in one day, and she's under no illusions that they're done, and after that, they have to burn the darkspawn bodies and do their best to make sure there's no blood left in the village. And that's saying nothing of helping the few survivors who are even now staring at them through the force field with such hope that it breaks Marian's heart.
She'd quite like to look around this room a little afterward, though; this is no hedge witch's back room. This is dedicated to serious research. There are pictures of Kinloch Hold on the walls, three of them, the only art she's yet seen. This is a Circle mage's laboratory, and a well-stocked one, too. Perhaps too well-stocked, Marian thinks, eyeing a dead fish pinned to a board. She makes a face. Gruesome.
She approaches the odd magical barrier cautiously. She's never seen anything like this, and it's hard to tell what it might be able to do if she gets too close. One of the men has control over it, though, and dismisses it in order to let Marian and the others inside. The other survivors flee when it comes down, even the one who looked so badly injured, but the first man stays, looking between them anxiously.
She shows him the control rod when he asks what they're doing here. He sneers and tells her the story of the golem, how it's been left there for thirty years after killing a man.
If it's uncontrollable, then this is a wasted trip. She doesn't need a mindless killing machine. She has Cú.
He needs something from her, of course. He asks her to fetch his daughter from the depths of what he says is his father's laboratory. She agrees readily, without thought; if there are magical defenses down there as he says, she'll stand a better chance of disarming them than this man, who is no mage at all. The barrier must be keyed to him in some way...
Marian shakes her head. Later.
She looks at the narrow doorway to the rest of the lab and elects to leave Zevran behind. She's going, of course, and she may need Morrigan's help; and since Alistair's apparently been practicing his templar skills, she may need him, too. Cú's anxious underground, and she'd rather have him close by where she can keep him calm.
He'd probably just follow her down, anyway.
As soon as they step into the next room they're ambushed by demons. Marian and Morrigan do most of the damage while Alistair holds them off, and it's here that she finds the mage's journal. His name had been Wilhelm, which is unfamiliar to her; he writes of the defenses, of his laboratory and his studies, of the golem acting strangely, and of the demon he has trapped below.
Of course there's a demon. Of course.
He writes that it's a tricky demon, too. There aren't many of those; they're usually too single-minded in their purpose to think of elaborate mind games. Desire demons are the exception to that.
Marian closes her eyes. Great.
There's no sign of a child here anywhere, so they press further into the cellar. It's less of a structure here and more of a passage into the rock, rough-hewn walls showing tool marks and thick wooden posts holding up the ceiling. Eventually they come to another barrier, one that allows their passage, and they pass into a huge room with a high platform at the entrance and a strange fire apparatus set into the main floor.
The girl's here, though, so Marian holds out her hand and offers to take her back to her father. But the girl's got this cat that she won't leave behind. Marian tells her, not without some impatience, to pick it up and bring it with her, but then Cú growls, and...
And the cat stretches long and languorous, fore and aft, and says, "I would not suggest leaving in such hostile company anyhow, Amalia."
Its eyes flash purple. A chill of terror crawls up her spine; Marian knows she's found the demon, and that nothing is going to go the way she wants it to.
"Nothing you say will convince Amalia to go with you," the cat says to Marian, its huge eyes fixed on her face. Its pupils are flared huge in the bright, harsh light of the torches and the fire behind it, like black pools of the Void that threaten to suck her in and down into the deep. "She loves only me now."
"Let her go," Marian says. It's not a request. It comes out a little shakier than she'd like.
The cat-demon laughs, though it's bitter. "I? I cannot. I have done nothing to her. How could I? The mage made sure of that. I cannot leave this chamber." Its eyes slide past Marian then, behind her to the doorway – no, to the strange magical barrier that parted like water for Marian and her friends. The mage wasn't quite as stupid as she'd assumed, then, though this is still the stupidest idea anyone's ever had in the history of Ferelden. "No, Amalia found me. After decades of isolation, her company is... welcome."
Marian looks at the child – at Amalia – and searches her face for any sign that she understands anything of what's going on. Even a child can't think that talking cats are normal. But Amalia's off in her own little world, the kind children drop into so easily, where anything is possible and talking animals are the least of what might happen to a clever girl looking for an adventure. She won't be any help unless she can somehow throw off the simple charms the demon has thrown over her soul.
The cat lifts a paw, examining it intently before attacking it with its tongue. "It seems we are at an impasse."
If Marian can get it to attack her, the shock of it ought to break the light hold the demon has over the girl's mind. She's fought a few desire demons by now, and all of them prefer to stand well in the rear while they direct attacks by human puppets or other, lesser demons at its command.
She daren't look over her shoulder to see if Alistair and Morrigan are with her, but she doesn't have to. She knows her friends are ready for anything, which is the only saving grace of their current run of bad luck.
"Let me propose... a compromise of sorts," the cat says, watching her with calculated, feline interest. The way its eyes light purple at the most random of intervals is slightly nauseating and also too fascinating for Marian's comfort. "Release me, mortal, and let me have the girl. Let us return to her father and leave this place forever."
Everything in Marian revolts at the idea. "No," she says, her voice horrified. "No, absolutely not. I'll kill you first."
"No!" Amalia cries. "Kitty!" She picks up the cat, hugging it to her chest before Marian can do more than take a step forward to stop her. She's backing away from Marian like she's the one who's the danger.
Oh, no.
Cú starts to growl, the low snarl that means he's on the ready. He senses the building threat before she can.
The cat's eyes light from within, glowing brighter and brighter until Marian has to look away or be blinded. It's so angry – too angry. "You will not take the child from me. She shall be mine, forever!" It turns its head to look Amalia in the eyes.
Only then does the girl realize what kind of danger she's in – only then, when it's too late. The horror in her eyes, the tiny, helpless gasp that she makes as the demon takes control, will haunt Marian's nightmares for a long time.
Alistair tries to purge the room of magic, but the demon is already inside Amalia, in physical control of her body. She looks up from her hands and she... She just smiles. It's sickening to see the triumph on her face, on Amalia's face, in every line of her small body.
Amalia throws her arms wide in exultation, and in summoning. Magic comes to her call, changing her physical form into something she's more comfortable with, like it's nothing, like she's pulling on a change of clothes.
The demon – for there's nothing left of Amalia, not anymore – stretches a little. "Ahhh," it says, a sweet, seductive moan, like someone sinking into a comfortable chair after a long, hard day.
Marian's got her staff out and a spell on her tongue long before she knows what she means to do. It's a shock to realize that she's got her dagger out, too, clenched in her hand so tightly her knuckles are white. It's not safe to get so close to demons, but Maker, she'd like to stab it right in the demon's smug, smirking face –
The demon summons more of its kind, four more fire demons that crawl out of the ground like undead crawling out of their graves, and gratefully Marian gives herself to the battle so she doesn't have to think anymore.
It's a sickeningly easy battle. The demon's been trapped so long that her spells are slow and clumsy. It only gets one good hit in on them before Alistair cuts its head off. She should have killed the cat the instant it spoke, the instant she realized what it was. Maybe then Amalia would still be alive.
Unlike most demons, its body doesn't disappear when it dies, though Marian waits for a long, long time, hoping it will with every breath she takes.
"Warden," Morrigan murmurs, probably to remind her that they have other things to do than stand there and navel-gaze. Morrigan sees no reason to mourn. Marian closes her eyes, opening them again when Alistair nudges her. They're right that this isn't the time. She just... She needs a second.
That poor, poor girl. She'd been so scared when she finally realized that something was wrong. She'd never had a chance, not really. Maker take you to his side. Please.
"I know," Marian says in the end, so softly she's not sure they heard her. Fire pours from her hands to immolate the demon's body. She can't let Amalia's father see what happened here. He never needs to know this. It's not important. And if that's her guilt talking... She doesn't care.
More demons attack them on the way out, but Marian cuts through them like a honed knife in a guilty, heartsick rage. Amalia's father guesses that something has happened as soon as she comes back without his daughter, but for a moment, she's so, so tempted to tell him that your father killed your daughter with his pet demon.
She doesn't, of course. But she wants to.
Every word dull and cold, he gives her the way of activating the golem and leaves. Marian watches him go. In a way, she envies him. She can't even really let herself feel everything that lives inside her; she has to keep that thin sliver of cool, rational will, the thing that is a watch on the rest of her mind so a demon doesn't slip in the way it almost had at Haven.
There's nothing she can do for him except silently wish him good fortune.
Marian eyes the golem's still form with distaste. She's not sure this is a good idea, not if the thing killed its previous owner, and her previous enthusiasm has been... somewhat dampened by events.
"I don't know about this," she says out loud.
"Agreed," Alistair says. He's looking at the golem with uncertain consideration, like he's looking for its weak spots, but Marian also thinks he's not used to interacting with anything taller than he is. The golem towers over Alistair by a good six inches. Marian's craning her neck uncomfortably just to look at its face. "It shouldn't hurt to at least wake it up, though, not if you have the control rod, right?"
"Its previous owner also possessed the control rod," Morrigan points out, delighting a little too much in picking apart Alistair's logic. "The golem seemed content enough to crush him."
Marian brings the words of the enchanter's journal to mind, rereading the passage she'd only skimmed. "Wilhelm thought that the demon might be influencing the golem," Marian says. "He was going to deactivate it before he dealt with the demon, just in case."
"If that's true, then we shouldn't have anything to worry about, right?" Alistair says hopefully.
Zevran laughs. "That is a very large if, my friend."
"I'm doing it," Marian says flatly. "Back up a bit in case it tries to squash me." She'd meant it as a joke, but it falls flat, maybe because she's sort of hoping it does. She could use something to work out her emotions on.
Her friends back away, though Alistair doesn't go far; she can feel him staring at the back of her neck. Sometimes she wishes he wouldn't worry so much.
"Dulen harn," she says carefully, control rod in hand.
Immediately a thin, white fog begins to pour out of the cracks and crevices in the golem's body, flowing like water down to the ground and disappearing into the earth. Its head moves first with a sharp, sudden crack that makes Marian jump. Slowly its head comes down to face her, grinding and grating against its body, against the collar that passes for its neck. Its arms come loose with an explosive snap and the rest of its body follows. It twists at the waist and bends its knees, each movement accompanied by the low grating sounds of rock on rock that Marian is coming to realize are all that allow it to move in the first place. The golem isn't one whole creature of rock, it's many smaller rocks somehow conjoined.
Is it magic? Marian wonders, fascinated, greedily watching the golem move. Or is it lyrium? Dwarves can replicate many things with cunning lyrium crafting, but this?
When it's finished testing all of its joints, it looks at her, examining Marian with glowing white eyes just the way Marian is watching it. She wouldn't have expected the absence of a pupil to disconcert her, but it does. It's so hard to tell exactly what the golem is looking at.
And then it sighs, with very real emotion, which is not what Marian was expecting. "I knew that the day would come when someone would find the control rod."
She wasn't expecting it to speak, either. The way it speaks, though... It's got a grating, harsh, flat affect, not so human as to unsettle her and not so alien that it scares her. It hovers somewhere between those two extremes, slightly disconcerting, slightly alien, altogether unnerving.
It looks Marian up and down again before adding, "And of course it is another mage. That is what it is, yes? Yes. Just my luck."
There's a very real personality there, another thing Marian wasn't expecting. The control rod is very heavy in her hand now. She's uncomfortable with the idea of commanding something that might be self-aware enough to resent being controlled. This is looking like one more thing they should have passed by.
Though then they wouldn't have known about the darkspawn raid. Damn. There's no way to know how far the darkspawn have spread, not without more Grey Wardens. It's the whole point of their order. Loghain's done exactly right if he wants to ensure that Ferelden falls to the horde. Then it'll free to swarm Orlais with the freshly converted population of Ferelden swelling its numbers. Maybe this is all some grand scheme of Loghain's to repay Orlais for fifty-eight years of brutal occupation.
Their only choice is to get the support that they need, as fast as they can. And for that they need all the help they can get. That's why they're here, after all. Only this isn't the silent walking machine Marian had pictured. This is something uncomfortably like a person.
"I am a mage," she says cautiously. "And so is Morrigan. Is that a bad thing?"
The golem turns its head to regard Morrigan; at least, Marian thinks that's what it's looking at. "Hmm. Another mage. Charming." Its sarcastic, dry tone leaves no doubt regarding its feelings about mages.
It looks around at the village, the darkspawn bodies, the rubble and wreckage from the darkspawn attack. "And I was just beginning to get used to the quiet, too. Tell me, are all the villagers dead?"
Somehow Marian thinks it wouldn't care if they were. She wonders that it bothered to ask at all, even with that indifferent tone. "No," she says. "Not all." She doesn't want to think about Amalia. She won't.
"I stood in this spot and watched the wretched little villagers scurry around me for, oh, I have no idea how long. Many, many years." It looks around again, this time at the little village green it stands in and the overturned basket of birdseed. "Familiarity breeds contempt, as they say, and after thirty years as a captive audience, I was as familiar with these villagers as one could possibly be."
And as contemptuous, of course. But Maker, thirty years of standing here and watching as the villagers lived out their lives? Thirty years of watching ordinary people go about their ordinary lives? Would she be able to keep hold of her sweetness of temper?
"Not that I wished their fate on them, of course, but it did make for a delightful change of pace," it adds off-handedly.
"Creepy," Alistair says, disturbed. It looks at him, and then down his body, pausing at his armor and the sword on its belt. It's assessing him. He shuts up.
It turns its eyes back to her with a satisfied little smirk and just... watches her. It does have some tiny movement in its face, after all; its eyes widen and narrow, the overhangs that echo eyebrows raise and lower, and its lips are surprisingly mobile. Its face looks like it's made to convey emotion, in fact, so its maker must have anticipated the need for conveying emotion. From there it follows that its maker knew it would have a personality and chained it to a control rod anyway.
Marian shivers. That's a train of logic she wishes she hadn't followed to its conclusion.
"Well, go on, then," it says impatiently. "Out with it. What is its command?"
"They told me you killed the last person who commanded you," Marian says, watching it for... anything, any kind of emotion that might tell her what it's thinking. She can't decide if she thinks it has complete control over its face or not. Either way, it should tell her something. "Did you?"
The golem tilts its head. "Did I?" It sounds like it couldn't care less. "I honestly don't remember. Perhaps it was after yet another time he called me 'golem'. 'Golem, fetch me that chair.' "Do be a good golem and squash that insipid bandit.' And let's not forget 'Golem, pick me up. I tire of walking.'" Bitterness is a living, breathing thing in every clench of its fists, every narrowed eye, every pithy and precisely picked word.
It raises a craggy overhang at her. "It... does have the control rod, doesn't it? I am awake, so it must..." It trails off thoughtfully.
Marian looks down at the control rod in her hand. "It's right here," she says, stating the obvious. She looks back up at the golem. "Is something wrong?"
Its eyes narrow. "I see the control rod, yet I feel..." You feel what? Marian wants to demand. She's more confused about the golem than she was when she woke it up. "Go on," it demands. "Order me to do something."
"All right," Marian says slowly. She points at the edge of the green, the further edge. "Go over there."
She's only half-expecting it to actually do it at this point, so it's not a complete surprise when the golem stays standing exactly where it is. "And... nothing?" it says, its eyes narrowed, like it's asking her. "I feel nothing. I feel no compulsion to carry out its command. I suppose this means the rod is... broken?"
She's taken half a step back toward the others before she gets hold of herself. The golem isn't threatening them. It's just... It's just very large, and very close, and Marian's imagination is very good; it's all too easy to imagine the pure, physical power at its command. Not the least of those powers is the way that it makes her feel small and frail and mortal.
Still, she's acting like a scared mouse.
"Are you sure?" she asks.
The look it bends on her is scathing. "It thinks I am unable to tell the difference?"
Put that way... Marian looks at the control rod in her hand. She could keep it for the purpose she'd originally intended for it, the symbols etched into the surface, or...
She offers the rod to the golem. "Do you want it, then?"
It shivers in distaste, its body making a delicate, almost musical grating sound as it moves. It's charming, actually, that something as huge and as menacing as the golem can make that kind of noise. "I wish never to lay eyes on it again," it tells her. "It may do anything it pleases with the thing."
All right, then. Marian shoves it into her pack. She'll do something with it... later. Much later. "What now?" she asks the golem. "You asked after the villagers – are you planning some sort of vengeance?"
"Don't be ridiculous," says the golem dismissively. "Though I wouldn't mind avenging myself on the birds... those evil birds and their foul droppings. I could crush them all!" It pauses, like it's really and truly thinking about going on a bird-killing spree, and Marian just stares at it.
Can golems go mad?
"Hmm," it says while she's considering. "I suppose if I can't be commanded, this means... I have free will. It is simply... what should I do? I have no memories, beyond watching this village for so long. I have no purpose. I find myself at a bit of a loss." It turns glowing eyes back on Marian. "What about it?" it demands. "It must have awoken me for some reason, no? What did it intend to do with me?"
It feels very odd to be called it all the time.
"When I was thinking of you as just a powerful magical object, I thought... " Marian shakes her head. "But you're not an object. You're not at all what I expected." She shrugs. "I'm afraid I don't have any answers for you."
It stares at her, taken aback. "How... unexpected," it says slowly. "Yet refreshing." It looks around again, this time without the cynical amusement, the remote disdain. It truly seems like it's looking for a way forward. Or a way out. It hasn't moved from the place that it stood in for lo those many years, at the top of the slight rise in the green, though it obviously could. Why not? If Marian were stuck in one spot, in one position for years, moving even a pace away would be the first thing she'd do.
But thirty years is a long time. It must be... familiar. Maybe leaving that familiar place, that safe place, is harder than Marian thinks it should be. Maybe she shouldn't judge other people's emotional reactions when hers can be just as suspect.
Maybe it's a little strange to ascribe emotional reactions to a golem.
"I suppose I have two options, do I not?" it says. "Go with it, or... go elsewhere? I do not even know what lies beyond this village."
"What do you want to do?" Marian asks, prodding.
"I watched this village for so long, unable to move or act. My memories of anything before are... vague at best. So I have no idea what I want to do." It shakes its head. "I am glad to be mobile, is that not enough?"
No, Marian thinks, a little sadly. But far be it from her to tell it otherwise. She's honestly a little shocked that the golem is considering coming with her. Maybe it's a kind of imprinting, like in baby birds. It could also be that they're the only familiar things in the world right now and it doesn't want to be alone, lost and drifting in a sea of darkspawn.
How can she blame it? How can she trust it?
"You killed your former master," she points out. "How can we trust you?"
"I have no idea," it says. "How does it trust anything else without a control rod?"
Marian's struck dumb for the first time in a long while. She doesn't even know how to begin to answer that one. "I've no earthly idea," she says blankly.
"Hmm," it says, looking over her friends. "They haven't killed it yet. I consider this a good sign."
Marian herds the others into a tight circle to discuss, but no one has any objections except what Alistair puts best. "It could be dangerous," he says. "And large."
Zevran laughs. He's the only one who hasn't seemed bothered at all, by any of this. Marian imagines he's seen worse. "It is both of those things already."
"I'm going to ask it to come with us," Marian says, making up her mind. Alistair objects and she placates him with the truth – they need every ounce of help they can get, even the kinds that try to kill them first. He doesn't object after that, at least out loud, but she can tell that he's still wary. That's fair. So is she.
Marian lays out their mission, their fight against the Blight and the darkspawn and where they're going. It nods when she's finished. "I will follow it about, then... for now. I am called Shale, by the way."
Is that its name, or is it a descriptor? Marian wants quite badly to ask, but it feels rude, somehow. "I'm Marian," she says. She introduces the rest, even Cú, who barks once in greeting.
"Charmed, I'm sure," Shale says drily. "If we're quite finished?"
They are, at least with Shale, but there's much left to do. They collect the bodies of the villagers and the darkspawn in a huge pile away from the rest of the village, and while Morrigan goes around with Zevran to fire the darkspawn blood that's soaked into the soil, Marian focuses her will on lighting the pyre. She keeps the flames as high and hot as she possibly can, so hot that her face is tight and smarting from the heat and she's sweating.
When she's exhausted beyond belief and she's nothing left in her to feed the flames, she lets the fire die. There are only fragments of bones left. She doesn't know if that's enough to blight the land, but she's afraid that it might.
Alistair approaches her. He's tired, too. He and Shale moved most of the bodies, and he's been digging in the rubble ever since, looking for more bodies or any signs of the taint. "I can't do any more," she tells him before he can ask. "I'm sorry."
He glances at the bones and then dismisses them. "You've done enough," he says. He lifts his hand to brush her face, but his gloves are a mess of gore and dirt. He drops his hand with a sigh. "It's fine. They're no danger."
Marian closes her eyes. "I'm so tired," she tells him.
He chivvies her into putting one foot in front of the other, gets her down the hill and out of the village before she hears a rich, wet squelch. Marian stops and turns to find Shale standing by the corpse of a pigeon that's been crushed almost beyond recognition. After a moment of staring, it shrugs at her.
Oh no, Marian decides. She isn't touching that one, not with a ten-foot pole. She turns around and trudges away, the others behind her, starting the long walk back to the Imperial highway.