The men at my back had been reduced to squabbling, frightened children. Only two remained - Ser Martin and the apprentice boy from the chantry. Martin himself seemed more frightened than the boy. Wrought with steely conviction, I could see the courage and life shining in the boy's eyes. A shame he might not live to see the next winter, though I would not stop him. He must learn the dangers of their kind if he would survive the duties of a templar.
"Cullen, is it?" I asked the boy once we left the shrieking crowds at the gate. As I stepped over the bridge a disturbing quiet settled in around us. Early-morning fog leveled with our eyes and obscured the road ahead. The boy, now absent of the crowd's protection and confidence of his captain, regarded the foggy abyss with uncertainty.
"Yes, ser…" he murmured while shrugging his weapon belt closer. The helmet was too large for his head, and tilted to nearly obscure the his eyes almost as much as the mop of unruly red hair peeking from beneath.
"How old are you, boy?" I ordered of him. I wanted to keep the lad talking, and to prevent him from scaring as the others had. Martin shot a wary, sidelong glance at me that told of the sensation creeping up his skin as well. Evil lurked in this decrepit maze of shacks and alleyways. Cullen glanced about him in a fit of nervousness when a far-off cry echoed from a indistinct direction. "Boy," I repeated, louder.
He jumped and turned his attention back to me. "N-Nineteen, ser," he stumbled over his words. My eyes jumped to the fog as a louder cry sounded, then rapid footsteps. My sword was drawn then lowered as a terrified elf streaked past then disappeared over the foggy bridge to the gate. Martin looked uneasy.
As we stepped down onto the dirt street of the Alienage, a familiar, old-sick feeling settled in my stomach. Only six months had passed since her death, yet I still felt the sting of it as if it were days before. The wound was entirely too fresh to so soon be treading upon these blood-stained grounds. And stained they were.
I stopped in my path to observe the bloody mark splattered in the dirt. The air hung thick with death and evil. Pressure sunk in around us and suddenly my legs felt like iron. I could sense her.
She was still here.
Greagoir….
Instantly I bristled and drew my sword, though both the boy and Martin looked surprised. I turned around in a circle while awaiting my ghost to spring into action. When no creature emerged from the fog to attack us, I hesitantly released my grip on the weapon and placed it back in the sheath.
"Commander?" Martin asked after a nervous pause.
"Be on your guard," I muttered to them both. The boy straightened up and tried to steady his sword, which nearly reached the length of his body.
My skin prickled in that old aggravation as we drew closer to the source of the shadows. Cold whispers strung at my back, too quiet to make out from an unsettling, new sound filling the air. A dull thrum had replaced the silence. As we walked further down the street, it grew to a loud hiss until I could feel the ground beneath me shaking under its call. I stopped at the door of the orphanage.
A sudden sickness filled my belly, that of a knowing fear that had slowly crept up my bones since Denerim had sent word to the Circle. Though my mind had screamed against me to choose otherwise, I had heeded a dying mother's words and left the child, alone and unsupervised, in the pit of a wolves' den. Standing before the ominous door of the orphanage, I knew then the horrible mistake I had made in letting a mage-child live.
"It's here…." I murmured, though as the words left my mouth the door burst open and was torn off the hinges. Martin was knocked over by the force of the blast, though the boy Cullen jumped out of the way before it could sweep him up too. Bracing my body, I raised a weapon-clad hand to the heated darkness and shouted for the demon to show itself.
All too quickly did the wind die and howling stop. Though the thrumming remained, I no longer felt anchored to the ground. After helping Martin to his feet, I turned back to the shadowed doorway and prepared myself.
"Now is your chance to leave, boy," I turned to Cullen. "If you wish to keep your life, then go back now to your chantry where it is safe." I would not have the blood of another innocent child on my hands, and Maker help me I wanted to save him from this gruesome fate if I could. Martin seemed to understand the precipice of this horror, and swallowed a hard lump in his throat before drawing his sword.
At first, I thought the lad would heed my words and run back to the gate where he could retreat to his captain. After a brief expression of hesitation, he clenched his jaw and readied his weapon as best he could.
"I want to help," he confided once more, the vindication clear in his voice. Nodding, I turned back to the doorway and stepped over the threshold that breathed fire and whispers.
Though the door had been broken from its hinges, the moment we left the street way of the Alienage blackness filled in behind us and shut out the light. Martin turned to try and open it up again, but was met by a shapeless, solid form. I pulled him away and stepped forward into the shambled building.
Screams of children echoed in the distance of this demonic house, and for a moment I felt the unsettling fear creep into my heart. Memories of the tower massacre flashed briefly, then subsided when I forced myself to step forward.
"Do not be afraid," I told the boy, who had stopped dead in his tracks at the sound of wailing children. "It is a trick meant to dissuade and terrorize. Do not let your eyes be deceived." Though I spoke the words clearly, I could not help but doubt them when another scream wracked the distant shadows of the orphanage.
"There is a great evil here…" Martin muttered.
We continued in silence for some time, though the further we crept into the poisoned labyrinth the harder it was to look away from the carnage. The walls were lined in pulsing flesh and blood, and on the floor scattered the remains of mangled children and nurse-maids alike. Eyes were plucked from the skull, and faces torn from the bone.
Martin began to cough and heave from the overwhelming stink, though the boy remained silent. I looked back to them both from time to time, and found that the lad Cullen, rather than my templar, was the only one remaining calm. Though the boy's eyes were glassy with fear, he did not sway from the path I followed. Martin, however, grew steadily fearful of some unseen shadow stalking his footsteps.
As we rounded a corner I fell upon a brutal sight - a boy, not older than five, was strung up from the ceiling by chains. Fresh blood still dripped from his carcass, and it was in that moment that Martin stumbled against the open doorway and vomited on the floor.
Though it was a terrible sight, my fear was not for the horror that had taken these poor children, but for the new darkness that presented itself just past the hanging body in the other doorway.
Greagoir….
I strode towards the door with fervent purpose, unwary of the fact Martin no longer followed us. Cullen clung to my back out of fear and determination, leaving our third behind.
The air was thicker in this room, and the thrum quickly built to a loud pulse that shook my body. Ice swept through my veins and limbs once more submerged into an invisible muck that turned my body to stone.
"Commander, look!" his voice spoke of fear and incredulity at some offensive sight, though I could not focus. The ground beneath me shook and trembled by some unknown source. I could not keep myself steady. My body grew cold.
Half-dazed and staring through a blackening tunnel-vision, I turned to one of the worn iron cots that lined the room. In the very middle of a bloody mattress sat a child, her back to us. I could make out the dark of her hair and white of her skin, though nothing more. Without seeing her face I recognized the child.
Kaidasa…
The little girl was bent over something, and quietly wept. Cullen moved to help the girl, though I forcefully grabbed his arm and yanked him back.
"No," I ground out through a snarl, my eyes set upon her like a wolf. I knew this ruse well. I knew what she conjured - a fallacy of an innocent child, meant to beguile me once more into complacency. I would not fall for her trick twice.
"Show yourself, demon," I shouted at her. The child fell quiet, and for a moment I wondered if it was a mistake. A whispering breeze swept under our feet, then grew until a blast of wind nearly toppled us both. A bright, blinding light filled the room and rooted under the child's feet. She was lifted from the ground then, and a horrible shriek erupted from her small mouth.
Dear Greagoir…
You were a fool.
I opened my eyes to an impenetrable darkness. In the distance I heard the vague shout from the boy, though I could not see him. I staggered forward. A bloom of light appeared, and beneath I could see again the blood-stained floor. As I stepped closer I saw the outline of the child sitting again with her back to me and crying. My fear was abandoned - my sense of restraint and paranoia absent. All I could focus on was my concern over the child; a sudden swell of sympathy and affection for innocence.
As I knelt closer towards her, she turned to me with sightless white eyes and blood splatters over her mouth. In her small, feeble hands she held the remnants of what looked like a boy's head. The eyes had been removed, and the jaw dislocated. I stumbled back and fell over with a cry, my hand shielding my eyes as the light blinded me once more and I saw, again, the ghost of my nightmares appear.
She broke so abruptly from the darkness I was temporarily blinded, and turned away from the source to cover my eyes. When I looked back again, the child was turned to the ghostly white form of my Kaidasa. No longer was she plagued by the illness of a demon's possession or decay, but rather a perfect memory of the woman I had remembered. She glowed with the light of the moon and shone as brightly as the sun. I had to shield my eyes to look upon her, but once adjusted I felt no fear towards this woman - this creature.
She beckoned the child with open arms, and without a second thought the girl leapt to her feet and ran towards her. I reached out a hand to stop her, but was met by unnatural silence. My throat was shut. My body was frozen. The phantom woman looked at me, penetrating me with her hateful and accusing eyes. I had abandoned her daughter.
"N-No, how-" I whispered once she had relinquished her hold on my body. She embraced her daughter, and it was then the terrible theory came to me - her soul could not part to the Maker, and nor could it disappear into the Fade, for she was an abomination to both the clean and unnatural, and thus only one option remained. She was bound by a fading spirit to what life and memory still clung to the earth - her daughter. She was a phantom.
"Kaidasa, how-" I stopped, shaking my head in disbelief. It was a trick of a demon, knowing of my pain. It was using it against me, parading this child before me to inspire guilt and sympathy. I tensed and stood to my feet, but found I could not lift my sword. My heart was too heavy.
"Would you strike down a child, Greagoir?"
Though I knew to whose voice it belonged, it did not come from the ghostly body that echoed of Kaidasa. Instead, I looked down to the little girl with sightless eyes and hands glowing. They came from her mouth - spoken through her body as a medium for conversation. Her hair moved about her with the wind still drawn under my feet. I looked behind me - still pitch blackness. I could no longer hear the boy Cullen.
"Would you take all that is left of me?" she continued. I turned back to her with startled, blurry eyes. "Can you kill those that are innocent of your own crimes?" Though the words did not come from her mouth, my eyes never left the ghostly figure of my beloved - a woman I had struck down only six months earlier. A body I had held bleeding in my arms until she grew stiff and cold.
"N-No, I cannot…" I finally cried, falling to my knees. My heart tore back open as fresh as that night six years ago, and under the scrutiny of her gaze I wept. "I cannot do it, not now…"
I felt a cold hand under my chin, and raised up to look into the glowing eyes of my beloved Kaidasa, smiling at me as I always remembered. She placed a kiss on my head then, and turned back to the little girl standing in the middle of the room. Kneeling down, I witnessed her touch the forehead of the child. Every vein in the girl's body bloomed with light and lit up her flesh like the webbing of a spider. The sight unsettled me, though I did not move to stop her. As the light faded, so did the form of Kaidasa, and after a final whisper she disappeared completely and the child fell to the floor - limp.
The thrum left, as did the wind, and too suddenly did the boy's shouting come back into focus behind me. No longer was I surrounded by shadows, but instead the sobering remnants of a corpse-strewn room. The little girl lay at my feet, motionless. Innocent. I could hear Cullen's footsteps approaching.
Reaching down, I picked up the child in my arms and turned back just as Cullen reached me. He looked fearful, though unhurt. He hurriedly babbled on that Martin couldn't speak or stand up, and asked what had happened. I said nothing to the boy and turned to leave. His eyes followed the cradled bundle in my arms.
As we stepped through the open archway I swore I heard a whisper pass my ear. Heart thrashing and mind swimming, I followed both Cullen and Martin outside and back into the foggy morning light. It was only then I looked down to see the same scars embedded into the child's face that had tarnished the flesh of her mother. The wounds of blood magic.
"Who is she?" Cullen asked from my left, arm slung under Martin's body to hold up his weight. I glanced at him, stony and faceless, then turned back to the front as we came over the bridge.
"Isthalla," I told him. The name was a vile in my throat.
Daughter of Mahiel.
Blood of Kaidasa.
An abomination I cannot kill.