Morrigan stubbornly refuses to elaborate further, so I spend most of the morning lying on my bedroll and staring at the ceiling of my tent. Then I remember the big bag of stuff Alistair carried back from the Ostagar battlefield. That might be interesting to look through.

I find the empty bag near the lake next to the main camp; everything in it has been scrubbed clean and left to dry on a fallen tree. King Cailan's armour is very shiny. And very heavy, I discover just from picking up his helm. There's a big, gold-hilted sword next to the armour, that must be King Cailan's sword. And next to that, two funny-shaped daggers made with the same bright silver metal. They match, so I'm guessing these are Duncan's weapons. In the hilt of each dagger, there's a shiny gem sitting snugly in a little crest. Pretty. I reach out and run my hand over one of the gems.

Darkness and noise overwhelm me. There are soldiers and darkspawn everywhere. I've only seen a couple of darkspawn on the road, from a safe distance while Neria and Alistair took them down. Up close, they're even more terrifying. And the sounds, metal clanging, people screaming and choking, darkspawn snarling and screeching. I see a flash of familiar armour; King Cailan? I watch as an ogre picks him up like a ragdoll, and squeezes. King Cailan is impaled on its talons, and then dropped on the ground, unmoving.

I see a man charging at the ogre, leaping and digging both his sword and dagger into its chest. It falls with a roar, and I watch as, instead of pulling his weapons from the ogre's body, Duncan stumbles over to Cailan's body. He's bleeding heavily, too. Duncan gazes up, and I follow his gaze; fire at the top of the nearby tower. A whole new wave of darkspawn rushes in his direction, and I see one of the darkspawn at the front of the wave swing an axe at him. Then my vision goes completely white. I close my eyes on instinct, because it's too bright. When I open them, I'm back at the campsite, staring at Duncan's sword.

Maybe I should leave these things alone for the time being, I decide, hurrying back.

Neria and the gang show up sooner rather than later, looking exhausted. Morrigan marches straight to Neria, who hands her a tome. Morrigan claps her hands gleefully and accepts the book, hugging it to her chest. They must have been successful. Good for them, although I'm still curious about what Morrigan's mother did that made everyone want to kill her. I don't have to wait long for an explanation though, because Morrigan is in a very good mood at the moment and she begins to explain as soon as I approach.

Apparently, Morrigan's mother, Flemeth, is so old there are several legends about her, some of which are true. She made a deal a long time ago with a spirit, which made her not an abomination, but not exactly just human anymore either. The legends of Flemeth's daughters also existed long before Morrigan's lifetime, and recently, with Flemeth's old grimoire that Neria found in the Circle tower, she discovered that Flemeth would have a daughter when she got old and take over the daughter's body.

Morrigan obviously didn't want to be next, but she couldn't face Flemeth herself in case Flemeth decided to possess her right there and then. So, Neria, being the wonderful friend that she is, gathered everyone else, managed to kill Flemeth (Morrigan thinks she's probably not even dead, just sort of dormant now, for a while), and take Flemeth's current grimoire from their cottage in the Wilds. I don't really get it, but Morrigan's happy, which is a nice change, and she's no longer threatened with the possibility of being possessed by her own mother's spirit. All's well that ends well, I guess. Flemeth must have been a tough opponent, though, because its unanimously decided that we'll spend one more night here to recover our strength before heading to Denerim.

After dinner, I watch Alistair carefully pack Duncan and Cailan's belongings away in Bodahn's wagon.

"You know that ogre you fought when you went back to the battlefield, the one that came back to life?" I begin.

Alistair looks at me, curious. "The one that killed Duncan? What about it?"

"It didn't kill Duncan. It killed King Cailan, and Duncan saw it happen, so he killed the ogre. He was already injured when the next wave of darkspawn came, it was one of them who killed him. He saw the beacon you lit in the tower, too."

"How could you know that, da'len?" Neria asked; she must have overheard.

"I saw it, when I touched Duncan's sword." Mistaking their expressions for disapproval, I backtrack. "I know I shouldn't have been messing with the things you brought back from Ostagar, but I was bored and I didn't try to pick the sword up by the pointy end or anything, just the pretty stone on…the hilt…" I trail off.

Neria holds her hands up in a gesture of peace. "We're not angry with you, although you obviously know better than to touch things that aren't yours, but... I… has this happened before? You… seeing things that happened, when you weren't there?"

I think back. "The last time it happened was at the Circle, before the phylacteries were broken; someone handed mine to me, and I saw when it was made, like when they cut my hand. But that was my memory, except I was looking from the outside, like in a dream."

Neria nods. "And, before that?"

"Not since before I came to the Circle, but it happened a few times. Uncle Cyrion let me hold Mamae's ring one time, and when I did I saw her and Aunty Adaia talking together."

"I see. And you're alright? It didn't cause any pain or anything?"

"Nope."

"Well, that's good. I haven't heard of mages being able to do that before, but Wynne or Morrigan might know something."

Unfortunately, neither Wynne nor Morrigan had heard of visions like these happening before, but Morrigan guessed that it was perhaps an ability I randomly inherited from the Dalish, and Wynne agreed, as the Circle can be pretty restrictive about the knowledge they have of Dalish magic traditions.

We didn't really have the time to sit and ponder on my latest revelation, though, because we had things to do in Denerim, the 'jewel' of Ferelden (an overly generous nickname for the Denerim I know). Back on the road, again.