'What matters most is how well you walk through fire.'
(Charles Bukowski).
Song is Disturbed: The Sound of Silence
Leliana began singing the Litany and this freed Rylock from her mortal paralysis. Her muscles fired up, allowing for near-complete dissolution of consciousness into animal work. Corypheus had drawn on the lifeforce of Divine Justinia to heal himself but when Lambert caught the orb – and vanished – he was distracted enough for her to finish the job. It took great strength and terrible desire to take a creature's head off in a single blow, and she had both. The darkspawn Magister crumpled like a marionette with its strings cut. The stink of darkspawn blood was staggering. Her salivary glands clamped and there was a surge of nausea.
Leliana was rallying people to fight Corypheus' Wardens. Knight Captain Evangeline was doing what a Templar was trained for – facing the most powerful mage and countering his spells with a Holy Smite (which was really, so Sweeney had explained to Rylock, a low-level version of the mage spell 'Mana Clash'). Now that Leliana was singing, her Litany protected them all from the insidious effects of Blood Magic. Reliant on conventional spells, the Warden mages were powerful – but no match for the combined strength of the mages and Templars at the Conclave.
In the midst of her own battle - after Corypheus she had taken on the next Warden mage who rushed her – Rylock was dimly aware of Lambert's husband gulping a vial of lyrium then vanishing himself. She had no time to concern herself with what Fenris might be doing; she was dissolved into thrust, parry, thrust and finish.
There was a low whine – as of machinery – and the world became strangely undulant. Reality and identity trembled like a leaf. In the nacreous haze, she had a vision of her own death like a lone grave in an empty landscape. She walked towards the cold stone. The world was shattered glass, spinning into the void. Total transparency took over. A maze of windows reflected universes like fields of stars, hung with an ugly fluorescent moon. The inert air had a mausoleum smell, like the Grand Necropolis in Nevrarra.
Rylock stared upward into vast, unknowable spaces, tiny sparks of memories flickering like seeds of lightning, like wild birds pecking…
...The boy, Aneirin, blood powering his Mind Blast – eyes desperate and terrified –the red stroke of her sword...
…Thomas Amell, face screwed up in an agonized attempt to recall something that slipped from his grasp. He had fought to regain his lost faculties with the hopeless tenacity of the damned…
…'What matters most is how well you walk through fire'...
…The play of light upon Wynne's soft skin; the hunter's glitter in Loghain's eyes as he moved between them…
The world dissolved, its colours bleeding together like a painting left in rain.
Light.
She didn't want to get closer to it but there was nothing else she could do. She had unfinished business. She had felt the dark sacrament – the tantalizing freedom from her own flesh and blood – its crassness repelled her but she slid back inside it. Ellen meant 'light', but Rylock meant 'duty.' She chose the latter. She recognized her name and suddenly there was the gravity of being dragged back into the dark heart of flesh. Ellen Rylock Trevelyan.
The distant rumble swelled, turned the air to an ocean of dust. Fragments of ceiling fell. Darkness shattered around them, hatching fear like dragonlings. Matter, raped and rearranged, murmured its trauma in the song of her cells.
One result of Rylock's background was she had acquired the skill, on waking, of lying perfectly still until she had rediscovered her surroundings. Her senses returned. Nervous trembles ached in her legs and the floor was vibrating fractionally with a low roar, as if from a dragon deep underground. Her hand twitched and her eyelids flickered open. The Conclave crowded in at her with light and noise and shadow. Amid the hysterical chaos, the flutter of mage robes and Templar armour in brilliant light, Sweeney and Ines were kneeling over her. For a mad moment she felt like a child waking from nightmare to the faces of concerned parents. The Knight Commander took over.
"How long?"
"You were only unconscious a few moments. You were at the centre of the blast – everyone else survived. Corypheus and his Wardens are dead."
The Divine too – I saw her eyes make the last shift.
"Lambert and Fenris are missing. But...outside...you need to look."
The words were a warning. Rylock shuddered.
"On it."
The Knight Commander rallied her troops with the precision of long practice. The mother unconsciously checked on Keilli - alive, with First Enchanter Vivienne and the other mages of 'Equal Rites' - before leading them out of the Conclave.
Cold as starlight, the mountain air enfolded her. Questions like - since I was unconscious Seeker Leliana had better cast the Litany: I could be a spirit who only thinks it is Rylock – would have to wait.
The wounded sky loomed over Haven, revealed the frailty of the mortal gesture against the Void. The luminous arc of the Breach was a neon light set to pulsation of green and purple. She and Sweeney stared at each other for a long moment in the poison-candy-coloured light.
There was a fibre like glass, or monofilament, which Sweeney had explained had the ability to resonate light particles and sound waves. A single thread towered to the light of the Golden City, as if spun by a giant spider. Rylock's brain interpreted it as a ladder, coming down from the heavens. There were two men – light and dark – and behind them was a glowing being that might have been Andraste, might have been the Divine. She told them to leave and they descended.
They were on the mountainside, Lambert unconscious in Fenris' arms, his left hand glowing a poison green. The Door above them was still open. Other beings were pouring through.
The fear demon had a huge insect head and black multifaceted eyes and the compact surgical apparatus of a spider's mouthparts. The ommatidia reflected the fractured light like a hall of mirrors. The huge wasp – or great carnivorous fly – sank its merciless oral machinery into a young soldier's neck.
"Templars - on me!" Rylock shouted - and rushed the creature.
The demon looked as if it intended harm to mortals, but not as if it had much choice about it. The devouring compound eyes whispered, 'the deepest nourishment – something like love.' The Andrastean in Rylock whispered, 'Evil has to be chosen.' The pragmatic Templar scoffed. 'Hunger looks a lot like evil to the person on the wrong end of the cutlery.'
Rylock saw the seam in the skin – crosswise to the oesophagus – split cleanly, like withered lips parting. The eight limbs were thin, bristling with black chitinous hairs and barbs. Behind it loomed the dark multi-lensed planets, lit by a fluorescent moon.
In the midst of the chaos – the Templars of Haven doing what Templars are made for – fulfilling their purpose as they fought and died against the demons pouring out of the Breach – the battle mages and the one hundred soldiers brought by King Cousland joined them. The king was fighting alongside his men and suddenly the Right Hand of the Divine approached, alongside Seeker Cullen Rutherford and Varric Tethras.
Cassandra looked shocked – Rylock had seen that same white, blind look on the faces of men who had lost a comrade in battle – and was being comforted by Seeker Leliana. Then she rallied – a soldier as well as a Chantry guardsman – and began to organize the clerics who were neither Templars nor mages nor soldiers of Ferelden. Cullen fought beside her and Varric gave them supporting fire. Fenris laid Lambert down very gently then joined the dwarf, knowing the best defense was offence. Their weapons were not magical but may as well have been – the power was beyond anything Rylock had seen. Varric was firing devastating explosives and Fenris was firing blue lightning.
Then Anders joined her – leading his contingent of rebel mages. Rylock had to squash the instinctive urge to turn on them. The Templar in her read them as the enemy. The Andrastean still wondered if Anders had had something to do with the war crime in Kirkwall's Chantry. Then she saw Wynne – standing beside the dark-haired Spirit Healer who had to be her son – and was ashamed of herself.
...Viscount Natheniel Howe swears not. Howe is a liar, but Cullen, Ruvenna, Paxley and Keran say the same. It was Meredith, not Anders, no matter how I wish things were different...
Memories of Templar Rolan and his twenty men – Fereldans she had fought beside during the Fifth Blight – crowded her mind like persistent ghosts. When you fought beside someone you knew him even in identical armour and helm – each had had a particular way of walking, a habit, a laugh. Rolan had been a diehard – the things he had seen had hardened him beyond seeing mages as people – but he had been loyal and a good soldier. Young Waylon had been so keen to prove himself, to do right by her.
She had opened Lambert's letter to his cousin – read his description of the 'possessed but not an abomination' mage who could only be Anders – and sent them to arrest the...man? She would not have considered asking her father to enter the Fade and test the claim – he had done so for Connor but you could not ask another person to do that – she would have sentenced Anders to a year in Aeonar. She had always been told that was long enough to prove or disprove possession – the Veil was very thin there. But Anders had killed Rolan and his men in a way that could not have been human. Voice heavy with grief, the former Knight-Captain Cullen had told her, 'They were nothing but a slop of blood and flesh and splintered bone'.
She reminded herself they were in the Golden City – past pain – but the question remained: was Anders an abomination or not?
She did not know which prospect frightened her more: that they had a hidden abomination in their midst (who looked human and was being trusted to heal the injured) or that he was not. In which case the deaths of Rolan, Waylon and the others would be on her conscience.
If Anders were not an abomination he would still be a murderer but...memories of her own year in Aeonar were an open wound. His action could be construed as self-defense. He had obviously summoned a demon (only a demon could have killed them that way) but - considering they were knee-deep in demons this very moment – she would have to ally with him.
She could feel the disapproval of her dead. Rolan, Waylon and the others gathered like a raw-eyed mob, judging her.
It was clear from the unrepentant amber eyes that Anders was thinking much the same. The mage had the gall to whisper, "You've got your sword of mercy stuck so firmly up your arse you could cut me with your tongue – but I'll take you over these Fade demons."
Only the presence of the demons kept Rylock from reacting. It was going to take all her self-control to work with Anders without killing him – and then only in the belief the Maker was testing her. Whether or not she passed the trial remained to be seen.
Rylock would not have laid bets on herself.
After the first wave was beaten back – with still no way for either magic or Templar powers to close the Breach – Rylock found herself dealing with an even more suspicious ally.
It was a clear night, the mountainside a good facsimile of a desert, with motes of matter wheeling in gulfs of black space. The hour was a kind of drowning, an immersion in breathless waiting men.
The bald Elven man was clearly a mage, in the plain homespun clothes of an apostate on the run rather than a Dalish Keeper. He did not have Vallaslin, as all adult Dalish did, but she could tell he had never set foot in a Circle. Not a runaway, then – an apostate, as Lambert Hawke had been. Anders was tending Lambert, with Fenris standing over the healer as if poised to strike him. Hawke had still not regained consciousness.
From the manner and carriage of this man she would have read him as a hedge mage but not from the eyes. There was something in the alert competence of the look that chilled Rylock.
"I am from Halamshiral and have been fleeing Red Templars."
The soft voice exerted a kind of gravity, causing the mind to fall into his mode of thought. It was like physical toil to formulate an idea alien to him. It took great effort, but Rylock said,
"The Red Templar attack was months ago. Why did you not come to Haven then?"
The mage gave a secret, sad smile. "There were things I had to do first. But, you are right – I am not here because I need you to shelter me. I am here because you need me to save the life of the man with the Anchor and use it to close the Breach. I theorize the same magic that caused the sky to open also placed the Mark upon his hand."
Rylock had never believed the peasant superstition that said a red sky at night meant good weather for farming while a red sky in the morning meant rain; but now she found herself feeling as if the sky itself were split in anguish over the Divine's death. Could Lambert Hawke really heal the Breach? Could this hedge mage heal Lambert?
"How do you know Corypheus' Orb is called the 'Anchor'?"
"The Orb is Elven. Its magic was stolen by Corypheus just as Tevinter raped the magic of ancient Elvhenan. He is immortal."
"Immortal? Then – he will rise again just like an Archdemon? Using the body of another darkspawn?"
"Not a darkspawn. A Warden mage. You think you got them all because you killed the ones you saw at the Conclave. You do not know how many were hidden in the crowd."
Chilled, Rylock recognized the truth.
"We will end Corypheus as we ended Urthemiel during the Fifth Blight," she said flatly, "What I need to know is: what did he intend to happen with the Orb? If the spirit inhabiting the Divine – I know it was a spirit; her soul had moved on – had not knocked the Orb from his hand - if Lambert had not caught it – what would have happened?"
"Corypheus would have used the Anchor to tear down the Veil and make himself master of the Golden City. As the Magisters Sidereal tried before. Even now, there is a tear in the fabric of existence. Fadespace is leaking into reality and the two cannot live together. Entropy and the lack of it will pass into each other in waves light-years long, and time will run forward, backward, every which way. No mortal being can survive. The only beings who will live are the Fade spirits – who will once more taste reality. That is the reason they possess mages – because it is the only life they can know. Soon, that will not be necessary for them."
Again, Rylock wondered: had this man spoken with his voice or had his eyes answered; cold black stars above the desolation of his words. Rylock might have been speaking to herself, so simple and direct was her assent, but she could not for her life deny what he had said.
"What is your name?"
He smiled as if at some private joke. "My name is Solas, if there are to be introductions."
Rylock did the impossible. She tore herself loose from him. She felt as powerless to move as though she were a Fade spirit. But with the same furious determined contrariness as her mother, she did move.
"I will discuss this with my advisors."
Rylock's 'advisors' were her parents. She found Ines and Sweeney and told them everything.
Despite his scholarly dignity, Sweeney's age lent him a wild-old-wicked-man quality – the crusty, careless age of genius – vital and bookish and humane. He turned to her enquiringly, the freckling of age around the deep orbits of his eyes gathered into a frown.
"If we do this, this man – this 'Solas' - will use us for his own design. Might not the cure be worse than the disease?"
"How can anything be worse than demons falling from the sky?"
She knew intellectually (Sweeney had explained it to her) that they were not really 'falling from the sky'. The Fade was not above them it was all around; the pages on the other side of the book. 'Each dipped in poison; nevermore, assured and cradled by the sun' as a Chantry poet had put it. Seeing the Breach above them – the demons descending – was the only way her human mind could comprehend it. Likewise, Lambert and Fenris had not really descended from the Golden City by a ladder – that was her own Chantry background providing the imagery.
At that thought, she wondered whether an Elf like Rillian – or a mageborn Elf like Researcher Minaeve – might see something different. She was too shy to ask.
It had always pleased Rylock that Divine Justinia had never spoken the Chantry rhetoric that Elves were 'flawed children of the Maker' - forbidden by their very nature from serving as priests or Templars. Rylock had never spoken out against the sermons propagated by Divine Beatrix III, Grand Cleric Elthina and others (a whipping was the very least she could have expected for such impertinence) but now regretted her own cowardice. She knew – had seen – there were Elves far more suited to these roles than she. She shook the thought away like a mabari shakes off water. Later, when there was time.
She was past suspecting 'Solas' - that seemed inevitable by this point; his arrival was too convenient – and though this bald Elven man bore little resemblance to Rillian's chilling description of Fen'Harel she knew disguising appearance was something many mages could do.
Nonetheless, there were two truths: she could only kill him, not torture the truth out of him as Meredith had ordered Alrik do to Lambert. And – right now – Solas was the only one who had a plan to close the Breach. The fact he had also – she was certain – had something to do with its cause could wait for another day.
"We will close the Breach then deal with the disease."
Fenris would not leave his husband. He hated that he could not help him – and both loved and hated Anders for being the one to keep Lambert alive – continually pouring mana into his battered system. Two other mage healers – Fenris had fought beside Wynne and Rhys at Andoral's Reach – came and added their powers. The three mages formed a gestalt. Still, Lambert did not wake.
Then a smooth-skulled Elven mage of indeterminate age joined them. Fenris told himself he was imagining it: the bone-deep, cellular recognition. The old blood taste of shame.
"Allow me to help him."
The Haven Chantry – still a haven, despite the horror - winked out. Instead, from the spangled endless stars outside, meanings shone. The syllables had a tinge of mage superiority, an aura of vast power taken for granted. Overlaying that were musk-and-amber subtleties. Hidden within was an obscure threat; the intimation the man's body could change, at will, into more predatory ligaments.
"How?" Fenris growled.
The mage smiled with maddening superiority. "There is no time to explain. But the Anchor will kill him unless I contain its power. These healers are shemlen – they do not have the ability."
"Fenris," Anders said, "He's right. I can feel it. No matter how much mana we pour into him, they are raindrops in an ocean. We need to deal with this Mark."
Under the glamour of a powerful Rift Mage Solas exuded a cold, hard smell of certainty. The subliminal awareness of who and what he was existed as a second heartbeat still a long way beneath Fenris' own.
"If he dies, so do you." Fenris' words to the other Elf were naked threat. The mage did not seem concerned.
"If he dies so do we all."
Behind Lambert's eyelids hung retinal afterfires of the Fade's beauty. When his mind's eye tired of that he remembered his past. To the time he and Carver had shared a room and secrets. He pictured Carver back home after a shift at the quay, laughing and ranting over some petty injustice; a crusader with no shield but a determination he couldn't even see.
...Later that night, Lambert shared an anecdote of the ranting Chantry brother he always went out of his way to avoid.
"That POS!" Carver exclaimed, "Why didn't you use magic to slay him on the spot?!"
Lambert did not want to admit he could barely light a candle with magic. For all their father was teaching him, he still felt his talented younger sister was the only mage child in the family. Not wanting to admit this to his brother, he triumphantly recalled a phrase of their mother's:
"I simply looked at him as becomes a Hawke, and that was more bitter than death" ...
Back home in Starkhaven Lambert had just finished winterizing his baby fig trees. He was getting a nice forest going: three aspen, six adult figs, three baby figs, a catalpa, two sun-crisp apples and a magnolia. One of his trees was cercis siliquastrum which looked like an explosion of violets and, according to legend, was the tree General Maferath had hung himself from in remorse for having betrayed Andraste.
That wasn't as scary as another tree he had heard of - the manchineel - which grew in Tevinter climes and was apparently so lethal that if you so much as stood under it during rain you would be poisoned. Anders had told him about that. Apparently the tree looked much the same as many others. That story had been a warning.
He remembered a silver trout gliding through the ice blue Minanter River. He remembered music and laughter. He remembered lovemaking. Fenris' kiss of farewell had been clear and melancholy as the violets in Lothering, but his touch had brightened it to morning. Electricity and light and music had combined in their plangent chords.
"Come home."
There had been another time like that. The dark mass of his own fears had reared jagged as a reef waiting to tear the heart out of him.
Why couldn't he remember?
He would remember. His head thundered with the effort.
A gelid spider had held him down, injected a proboscis that pumped him full of poison, fingered every thought, every feeling, every memory.
Alrik.
…'We have to decide how much we will let them have taken from us'.
'Everything. Everything. Everything. I didn't 'let' him take it. He just took it.'
'He couldn't make you an abomination. As a mage, only you could do that. You chose not to'...
Fenris had been right, The horror of those memories belonged mostly to someone else now, to the person he had been before Seeker training. And somehow the journey to the Fade cancelled out the bitter mould-taste of shame the Templar had cultured inside him.
Fenris had stood at the top of a high tower, had reached out his hand. The light had been green – as underwater - or their hideout in the swamps of Llomerryn Island. Lambert had followed.
At the top, there had been a figure of light. Lambert had been drowning in light and it had a message. Compassion. Love. Acceptance. The beauty was light which spanned the Fade or spun inside water droplets. Beauty was communication; each mote of light had a nuance of meaning and each meaning had a colour. Each colour held a chime.
Then there had been a rainbow of stronger colours and he could have wept for the strident spectrum that came to disturb the pastel gavotte of the shining figure. But a thousand pullulating messages tugged at him.
"Go."
The whole world was green and it hurt. Frighteningly, the whole fabric of his being was distorted by the luminous Mark on his left hand and lightnings of pain seared every nerve in his body. Even the weight of agony in his head was the green of nausea. He had an intimation the pain was caused by the Mark forcing his body to do something it was not designed for. But there was also love. Fenris' touch was ashine with love.
Lambert remembered Fenris had drunk the lyirum vial. His brands were fierce. He was in pain too.
"I'll make you some Fenris' Friend."
Fenris actually laughed – a joyous, rollicking laugh that came from the center of his being. "You escape from the Fade – with a magical brand on your palm – and that's all you've got to say?!"
"It's true though. You could use it. Maybe...maybe I should take it too..."
"You will need to use the Mark first," came an alien voice, "to close the Breach."
Lambert, Fenris, Anders, Dorian, and the Elven mage – whose name was Solas – followed the map Leliana had sketched for them, through the hidden exit behind the apse into Temple Mountain. Temple Mountain now housed the Circle of Ferelden – the explosion had caused damage, but to classrooms, potion rooms, Templar quarters. As the mages did not actually live inside the Circle – Rylock had received permission from both Divine Justinia and King Cousland to let them live normal lives in the town of Haven so it was a school rather than a prison – the only casualties had been the Divine and the warriors now at the forward camp.
"What did happen?" he asked Solas. Lambert instinctively trusted him. He felt - could only feel - Solas was wisdom itself; the centre of their hope and key to their salvation.
"The Breach is a rift in the fabric of reality caused by the actions of this Corypheus. It is not the only such rift but it is the largest. It grows larger with each passing hour. Every time the rift grows your Mark spreads – and it is killing you."
Lambert's heart moved with despairing assent to this. He saw though the reflection in a hall mirror that they had almost reached the top of the Circle and were not far from the summit. Had he been returned from the Fade simply to do this?
Fenris' look for him said the Fade itself would do well to avoid troubling Lambert.
"What must I do?"
"The Mark is the key to stopping this but there isn't much time."
The air was still breathable – the non-magical ventilation system designed by Thomas Amell was damaged but working well enough. Lambert was still out of breath by the time they reached the summit. Gravity stifled him, hammered his blood. Not like the weightlessness of the Fade.
"I'll do what I can. Whatever it takes."
Out on the frozen night mountainside of the Temple of Sacred Ashes the tears became diamonds on his lashes; blurred his vision to rainwashed irises' light. The short winter day had died in bloody shadows. There were rocks with spiderwebs of light and what looked like arteries. The dust in the air was like poisoned rain that shone against the starry black of the sky. It was being fed by the hungry glow of red lyrium crystals. Lambert recognized it; the malignity a punch in the gut. Fear dappled through him, streaked with the infinitely slow dance of red lyrium droplets falling on his skin. Only his husband had been in the Deep Roads with him, so he asked Fenris,
"What is it doing here?"
Fenris shook his head. "Unknown." He turned to the others, "It's evil. Don't touch it."
Anders looked at him in disbelief. "We're mages, Fenris. We can all sense that."
Fenris rolled his eyes ever so slightly. Lambert's husband and his former partner sniping as usual. Anders' new love – the handsome Tevinter Altus named Dorian – watched with a kind of bemused tolerance.
"The taint spread by Corypheus could have corrupted the veins of lyrium in the mountain."
"Like the Red Templars," Lambert breathed, sickened.
Echoes of the Fade bled into the world like memories.
Now is the hour of our victory. Keep the sacrifice still.
The Knight Commander approached him.
"You're here! Thank the Maker."
Lambert was not used to hearing such words from a Templar. He tried not to feel smug. Rylock and her Templars – King Cousland and the Ferelden soldiers – Vivienne and the Haven mages – Leliana, Wynne and the rebel mages and Seeker Cassandra and the Orlesian clerics – were holding the line. And with Cassandra was...
"Varric!"
Varric enveloped him in a tight hug. Carver was his younger brother and Varric his older brother. Lambert felt stronger for it, less alone. Then, as Varric pulled back, Lambert remembered something that turned his blood to ice.
"Varric - if you are here – that means those two..." his mind filled in several undesirable epithets before deciding on politeness and going with, "Seekers - got you. They found you in Qarinus and took you..." The words came out of his mouth stillborn. Memories of Alrik writhed on the cold stone. A mental storm twisted his mind like lightning through cumulus.
"Varric - if they interrogated you – I'll kill them."
"Hush. If you can call 'stabbing a book in order to make a point' an interrogation, then it was – but she isn't very good at it. Cullen was not present."
No – nor with Alrik. But he enabled him...Lambert was vaguely surprised by the bitterness he still felt. Bitterness was drowned by unbearable relief. Varric might lie when he chose - but he was not lying now.
"Did they force you to be here?"
"No, Sparky. I'm here because the world is drowning in demons – and Bianca is excited." He meant the crossbow, not the woman. Varric had left his wife in Qarinus. On the run from both Carta and her family, Magister Tilani's protection was the only safety. It still hadn't been enough to stop Cassandra.
Someone help me!
Move it! On your feet, soldier.
The past voices of Lambert and Fenris bled into the present. For a moment, he was not sure if he was hearing them in his mind – until Cassandra looked at him.
Go. Run while you can. Warn them.
"Most Holy called out to you..." the Right Hand gasped.
"Divine Justinia died before Lambert caught the Orb," Rylock told her flatly. "What took her place was a spirit. A spirit who helped us...but we don't know its true motives."
Lambert could have wished Rylock a thousand miles away. Being thought of as a man blessed by the Divine was safer than being thought of as a mage who had drawn a spirit.
"It was Grace," he whispered. Lambert had been taught by his father to lie when he had to but he was not lying now. He recognized its truth even as he said it. "The spirit who touched my mind at the end of my Seeker training."
He was vaguely satisfied to see Cassandra look at him reproachfully, as though it were indecent to reveal the secrecies of their training to non-initiates.
"Grace is not a spirit I have ever encountered," she said stiffly, "For the rest of us it is a Spirit of Faith."
Rylock was looking thoughtful. Then – Lambert could not have said why – she looked penetratingly at Wynne. Wynne met her eyes with an inscrutable, mysterious smile.
Rylock looked away first. "Stand ready!"
Before the luminous rift, a filthy shape raised its arms in a gesture of triumph. The enormous Pride demon reduced the world to a waste of dark and silence; a starlit ruin where the alien and unimaginable was awakening to its new dominion. Its legs were leaden; it rocked its shoulders like a swimmer fighting to make its passage through gravity's dense medium. At the same time, the body's crudity of movement did not quite obscure a subtle, incessant experimentation.
Lambert found himself weightless too. The Mark was the only part of himself he clearly felt – and it was a reptile tongue; a crematory flame. The Anchor tugged at his hand with its own sharp appetite. Lambert felt entirely Rillian's lab technician now; knew the precise movements he would make, swiftly and without error.
"Now!"
The demon roared. It rang back to Lambert in a thundering descant whose baseline was so deep it vibrated each organ of his body. The angle of the Pride demon's body obscured the sun-opalled spike of the rift behind it. Its head shone with a pale iridescence above the spidery body. In the moonlight, its great eyes seemed to brim with sight, each one a cosmos. Lambert remembered his time on the sea, with Isabella, the tiny relentless lives of coral in an acre of archipelago.
"There is no place to run," the demon told him - a dry chitinous whisper that used clicks and slotting noises as its consonants - 'Not in time. Not in space."
The creature's mouthparts were a black and green bouquet of rasps and pliers. In Lambert's stomach he felt an antlike crawliness. He remembered Alrik. He remembered the maggots he had found as a child, with horror, in the belly of a dead hawk. The cracked stone all around them were gravestones against the sky.
The demon tilted its head like a praying mantis. It made a low pneumatic concoction. Lambert realized the being was laughing. The laughter carried the sound of the locking tomb.
"We do not run," Fenris said – and though he was facing the demon his words were for Lambert.
You are my husband and you are my oppo – like we said in the Blight. And we will never surrender.
Fenris opened fire with the Bolter he had designed, using Anders' formula for blackpowder and his own lyrium brands. The creature took the bullets as its own, absorbed them. Moisture bathed its face – whether it was sweating or crying Lambert did not know. It charged Fenris – who drew Lethandralis. Dorian was providing him support – the necromancer's spells danced through the broken crown; the demon's vitality paled even as Fenris swung Lethandralis in an arc of rainbow death.
"More coming through the rift!"
The King led his men against the army of lesser demons. He tore through the chaos like a living flame; organizing, directing, fighting. Soon the twisted bodies were bulldozed multitudes of corpses; cracked bones and foul rags lying in a galactic wheel of carnage.
Lambert used the Anchor to channel a magic he had never had the power to cast on his own. It was a Force spell - a defiance of gravity. Reflexes honed in poledancing met magic and he smote the creature with Encore. It was a clumsy enough blow, but at the same time Rylock, Cassandra and Evangeline hit it with a combined Holy Smite (Lambert got his Shield up just in time) and the demon rocked backwards.
Vivienne hit is with an Ice Blast and the creature slowed…slowed... stopped. It looked like a mannequin reflected in a frozen mirror. Varric loaded Bianca with grenades and the firepower shattered the glass.
Solas took Lambert's left hand - a gesture as paternal as Malcolm teaching his son - and aimed the Mark at the Breach.
"Now!"
Lambert did not have to ask what to do. The Mark did it for him. What sprang from his hand was a slender green filament of light, more than whip-fast. It seemed to want to close the wounded sky. As Anders had taught him in the clinic - as Wynne before him during the Fifth Blight - he was a healer, and this a suture.
It took everything he had. He saw his straining fingers lift the bright tool of surgery, thought with an insane smile of the Maker and Andraste on the ceiling of Lothering Chantry and then - with a scientist's fine control – began the stitching.
He saw only the beginning of its closing and then – with a blaze like a nova of light – the world thinned out to a white nullity.
Fenris' hand in his. The smell of warmth, the metallic rain of the lyrium brands, and – below that – an elusive masculine tang like leather or salt or wild sage.
Sheets hospital-white.
His lute next to the bed and his favourite book on the shelves. Fenris had actually brought The Tale of Despereaux! The book based on the story Malcolm Hawke had told his children, written and illustrated by Lambert in the days he was teaching Fenris to read. Even now Fenris was reading at the level of De Re Militari he still treasured it. Had suggested 'Despereaux' as Lambert's nom de plume while they were hiding from Templars, Magisters, Weisshaupt and just about everyone. Wraith and Despereaux – the two mysterious allies who had helped Prince Sebastian retake his throne.
It was a small hut. He wondered if he were in Lothering – if he had introduced his husband to his father yet...
"Hawke."
The baritone voice was the finest, bravest, most wonderful of sounds.
"Fen," he croaked.
Scarred hands very very gently lifted his head, held a glass of water to his lips. The thirst was surprising, after spending so long in the Fade and surviving on lyrium the way the Ancient Elvhen did In Uthenera. It tasted like ice in summer; snow in a desert.
When he was strong enough to raise his head he looked around him. The world coalesced like the waking world after a long dream. They were not alone. Anders was also there. The healer had helped Fenris look after him – just as he had pieced Lambert back together after Alrik.
As if he were remembering this also, Anders remarked, "Poor man's getting a lot of practice looking at you lying in the dirt."
"Is it gone?" Lambert rasped. It was not clear from the question whether he meant the Mark or the Breach but Fenris understood him.
"It's a scar. No more demons are coming through. The Mark is stable. It's been like this for three days."
Three days. Poor Fen...
Anders told him, "Fenris hasn't left your side. You owe him. No one ever got care like that."
"I love you."
Lambert didn't have to look at Fenris to know he was embarrassed. Fenris stammered something about checking the window. Lambert smothered delight at the way the back of his neck glowed. He sat up groggily.
"What does this mean?"
Anders was dry. "It means the two ladies who wiped the Divine's backside – I don't know whether she used her Right or Left Hand – along with the Knight Commander with the Sword of Mercy stuck up hers – want to see you in the Chantry. Oh, and the King of Ferelden! You're moving in exalted circles now. Let's just hope this new Orlesian organization – I believe they're calling it the 'Inquisition' - doesn't declare an Exalted March."
"Knight Commander Rylock has spoken about declaring an Exalted March on the darkspawn, not the mages," Fenris argued.
"That's not what the two ladies of the cloth are saying. Closing the Breach – stopping Corypheus – yes; but they're also talking about 'restoring order.' What do you think that might mean for your husband?"
"Lambert has the backing of Prince Sebastian of Starkhaven!"
"Who takes his orders from whoever is elected Divine. Rylock...I would have thought the same, except I heard her at the Conclave. She chose to protect the Haven mages instead of answering to the Chantry – which in practice means answering to King Cousland instead of the new Divine. Ha – Rylock as a reformer – I bet she hates it! Even so, she'd still insist Lambert live at Haven, not free in Starkhaven. King Cousland protects the Ferelden mages – but he still insists they don't leave Haven without permission. Is that what you want for your marriage? The Free Mages won at Andoral's Reach – we are the only organization that fights for mage freedom – we will not give that up!"
"Is it really freedom, or is it being a tool of your lover's father? The Tevinter Magister."
"Don't you dare accuse Dorian! Fiona, yes – I know she is a tool of these 'Venatori.' Dorian is not. He has defied his father in every way possible. You couldn't understand."
"No," said Fenris drily, "I had a sire – because Magister Danarius was breeding for strength. That doesn't mean I have to take Dorian's story at face value. Even if it's true now, how do you know it isn't just a phase – that in a few more years he'll do what his father commands?"
"'Just a phase'? You should be ashamed of yourself!"
"Alright, that's enough," Lambert snapped, "Fenris: you're speaking of Anders' partner, who has fought beside us when he didn't have to – risked everything. Anders: no one insults my husband in my hearing."
"I said more than I should," Fenris admitted grudgingly, "You should know Lambert is my priority. Since that – of necessity – means the rights of Southern mages, I am your ally."
Anders nodded curtly.
"Shall we go, then?" Lambert asked them, "I mean, I don't know Cassandra – and I'll never forgive her for taking Varric prisoner – but I trust Leliana. She told me once she seeks a better world for Elves and mages – for all the Maker's children. I believe in her."
Anders and Fenris exchanged cynical smiles.
The Haven community were burying their dead. The funeral of Divine Justinia was yet to take place. Grand Cleric Iona had insisted it happen in Orlais; Cassandra and Leliana had argued there was no holier place than the Temple of Sacred Ashes.
The Chantry narthex was empty as a tomb. Normally after battle it would have been a hospital filled with patients; now the soldiers had both Anders and Wynne the healing had happened within days. The pews were gone and there had been no services. Only Brother Rocald conducting the funerals against the dark grandeur of the Frostback Mountains.
Haven's citizens were hunched within their homes, not quite daring to believe the threat was over. The mage children were being looked after by Petra. The adult mages – including Rylock's own daughter – were warriors now, formed into the unit 'Equal Rites.' And – for now – the Rebel Mages led by Anders were choosing to remain. How long would depend on the outcome of this meeting.
She passed the sweat and serge-scented confessional (contrition in Fereldan; absolution in Tevene) and knew she must see Brother Rocald. His soul would reach out, hover over her, see – through flesh and bone and blood – and understand what they were up against. When confessing her sins the knowledge surrounded him in a coronal glow: this is a war. Are you the dog for the fight or not? It was a war in which he patently delighted; she remembered the eye-flash and the wolfish grin as he saved a young soldier from death. He had riled the Magisters Sidereal by returning the boy's soul to his body. It was a war which allowed for joy in battle.
Pale candles burned in the transept and apse; the arched ceiling contained a space of violet shadow. An ornate black iron grille ran the length of the floor. There was still the statue of Andraste at the stake; flames frozen in time and wrists held out like broken stems.
She walked through the apse into the war room – where Seeker Cassandra was with her supporter, Seeker Cullen. Seeker Leliana stood beside the wife of Prince Sebastian Vael. Princess Josephine Montilyet-Vael had been trained by Leliana – in what, Rylock refused to guess – and was now acting as their scribe. King Channon Cousland sat with alert secretiveness, watching everything and saying nothing. And – unbelievably – Chancellor Roderick had somehow wrangled an invitation. He claimed to be representing the Orlesian Chantry. Since Cassandra and Leliana could produce a writ from the late Divine – which even Roderick had admitted was no forgery – she was not exactly sure who he was representing. Grand Cleric Iona? Iona had left as soon as the roads were passable to return to her powerbase in Orlais. She had the ear of Grand Duke Gaspard.
Vivienne had remained, but was with her troops, so the only mage representative would be Anders – who would doubtless accompany Lambert and Fenris. Lambert was a Seeker with the power to close the Breach – she fervently hoped he would prove loyal to his mentor, Leliana. No doubt Anders would be talking him into using his unique power as a bargaining chip for the Rebel Mages.
No matter how much Rylock wished for Leliana to cast the Litany – which would tell them exactly which mages were hidden abominations – there was pragmatically no point when the balance of power was so even. Besides, the legal term Sweeney often used - 'innocent until proven guilty' - kept weighing on her conscience. Until Anders – or any mage – actually committed a crime, it would be unjust to test them for possession as a precaution.
The question of whether Anders' killing of Rolan and the others had been murder or self-defense scratched at her brain like a cat sharpening its claws.
Lambert was a Seeker – thus immune to possession – but both she and Lambert had been unconscious. He could not be possessed, but they both might have died and been replaced by spirits who had copied their memories. Spirits which believed themselves human. Rylock refused to flinch.
There is no place I dare not look.
She resolved to ask Leliana to test her. Lambert would be given the choice – she could not command him.
Leliana was saying to Cassandra, "How can we fulfill Most Holy's last wishes: we have no numbers, no leaders, and now – no Chantry support?"
"But we have no choice."
Dryly, the King said, "Of course you have a choice. Haven is part of Ferelden – the Breach has opened in my country – therefore my soldiers and I will defend it. You can join me – or not."
"This threat transcends borders!" Cassandra snapped.
"Indeed. Which is why Empress Celene and Grand Duke Gaspard would be well-advised to stop their senseless civil war and unite to close the rifts over Orlais."
"We must be united – under one banner."
"Whose?" the king asked with deceptive mildness.
Rylock sighed. She had no patience for politics, whichever side was playing it. But a Templar – even a Knight Commander – was used to keeping her opinions behind a wall of silence in the presence of her betters. The little dry running commentary at the back of her mind was the only rebellion she managed.
Rylock had to admit – and hated to admit – that the choice she had made at the Conclave still stood. She was defender of Haven before she was servant of Divine Justinia. Therefore she owed loyalty to King Cousland before she owed loyalty to Cassandra and Leliana. The Andrastean in her hated it - but so it was. And Leliana and Cassandra knew it.
As if reading her mind, Leliana asked her, "Knight Commander Rylock, we have fought together before - against those creatures who boiled up from the Black City. You are already in command of the Last Loyal Templars of Thedas. Would you consider becoming Commander of the Inquisition's forces?"
That was clever, Rylock knew – Leliana was using the honeyed words rather than the Chantry whip. If Rylock accepted the offer she would essentially be affirming her support of the Inquisition. Josephine...Charter...Argent...Leliana spinning her web of women across the world. Rylock did not want to be added to the collection.
Cassandra was more straightforward. "Leliana," she said sharply, "The Knight Commander has made her allegiance plain – King Cousland before Divine Justinia. You told me her words at the Conclave. I would suggest...Commander Cullen."
The former Templar started, blushed, and looked at Cassandra as if not sure he deserved the honour. Finally, he bowed deeply in acceptance.
Before Leliana could entrap her further Rylock inclined her head. "Yes - Commander Cullen as leader of the Inquisition's forces and I as leader of the Templars. Equal allies in the fight against Corypheus and the Breach."
Leliana frowned slowly, unusually delicate – the expression of someone noting but choosing to ignore a regrettable descent into bad taste. "As you wish, Knight Commander. Commander Cullen – congratulations on your appointment."
There were footsteps – men's voices – then Lambert, Fenris and Anders were in the room. Lambert had not changed much from the young medic who had served during the Fifth Blight. Still the epicene glamour, the lapis lazuli eyes and halo of black hair, the tantalizing look of knowing something you didn't. The smile like sunshine.
Fenris looked like what he was: a warrior who had survived the unimaginable and was now protecting others.
Anders looked older, sadder, wiser than the rebellious mage she had met at Ostagar - but the anger had hardened rather than faded and the amber eyes were sparks of defiance.
When Lambert saw Princess Josephine – his ruler – he bowed low as an Orlesian gentleman would. She bid him rise and greeted him with charm and grace, straightening a golden gown that was already perfectly in place. Rylock was not a master at judging character, but she could tell there was genuine loyalty there – even affection.
Lambert bowed to Leliana as he would have to the Divine – a gesture Rylock read as both genuine and calculated. His mentor had his loyalty – that was the genuine part – but the action was also a signal to everyone in the room. Lambert was treating Leliana as Justinia's successor. Rylock did not have to look at him to sense Anders' annoyance. The leader of the Rebel Mages was seeing his hope the man with the Anchor would offer his aid in exchange for mage freedom slipping away. Lambert would do it anyway, because it was right.
"Your Majesty," he greeted the king. King Channon Cousland returned the greeting gracefully. Rylock knew kings had ways of disguising their true motives, but from everything she had heard of Channon he seemed a believing man – unlike Viscount Natheniel Howe he would not have expected to be greeted before the Divine's successor. She wondered if he minded that Lambert was currently a citizen of Starkhaven, having fought for Ferelden. As if in answer to the thought, the king said,
"I am pleased to see that, having discharged your duty to Ferelden with such skill and vigour – you saved my man-at-arms, for which I will always be grateful – you are serving your new Lord with equal loyalty."
Leliana addressed Lambert. "This is the Divine's directive," (and it was not clear from the tone whether she was referring to Justinia or herself), "rebuild the Inquisition of old. Find those who will stand against the chaos."
"We must act now," Cassandra told him – her voice a contralto accompaniment to Leliana's soprano - "with you at our side."
Anders snapped, "You are trying to start a Holy War."
"We are already at war. Lambert is already involved. Its Mark is upon him. As to whether the war is holy...that depends on what we discover." She turned back to the mage-Seeker. "Will you help us?"
"Yes," said Lambert – clearly assuming they were all 'us'. He turned to Anders with a crooked grin, "And the Rebel Mages?"
"We will help the Inquisition and Ferelden – as equal partners. When the Breach is ended and Corypheus destroyed we will return to Andoral's Reach. Any Divine who wants to restore the Circles will find us as hard to take as van Reeves did. You and your husband will be welcome to take shelter with us – because you certainly won't be able to count on your new allies. Once the Chantry is restored they will do what they have always done – what Justinia admitted the Chantry has always done – use us as weapons in battle then lock us back in Circles."
"You dare speak Most Holy's name!" Cassandra shouted. The woman had a temper – Rylock had noticed before.
She had not known until then Cassandra had loved and honoured Divine Justinia. The woman had served the previous Divine for twenty years so her service could have been to the office rather than the woman. But it was clear now Justinia had also had her personal loyalty. Her belief. Rylock felt a pang of empathy for her – Most Holy had ordered Cassandra to pursue Varric and she had not returned in time – she must have been wondering whether her presence at the Conclave could have made a difference.
It was clear Leliana – who had been at the Conclave - was carrying the same burden. Leliana had fought beside Rillian during the Fifth Blight, the very first (apart from the Marsh Witch) to pledge loyalty. She had encountered darkspawn emissaries. It was clear she was now blaming herself for having failed to notice Corypheus. She was pale, drawn, determined - and every line of her body told Rylock she was grieving.
Leliana, though, was far too professional to let her anger show. Having fought beside Anders, she was probably inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt, but even if she had not she would not have given him the satisfaction of a reaction.
It didn't stop Anders. "Senior Enchanter Regalyan could confirm it," he said snidely. "He and his fellow mages helped you become the 'Hero of Orlais' – yet you did nothing when Divine Beatrix locked them all back in Circles! Like chess pieces after the Game. That's exactly what you'll do to Lambert - 'restore order' - you said it yourself."
At the mention of Regalyan's name, Cassandra had gone deathly pale – as Rylock herself might have done if someone had brought up Wynne. At the memory, she scoffed at herself. Just because you committed a sin with a mage – and it was a sin: even if you hadn't taken vows, you were a Templar and thus had power over a mage – doesn't mean Cassandra did. Stop judging others by your own standards.
Seeing that Cassandra wouldn't - or couldn't - respond, Anders turned back to Lambert with an air of triumph. "The offer of sanctuary is open."
It was not, Rylock thought, the most auspicious beginning of a movement. She thought of her friend Rillian with a sad little smile. No doubt the Hero of Ferelden could tell me something about that. Rillian had made it work anyway.
Rylock hoped it was not weakness to feel comforted.
After the War Room meeting, Lambert and his husband retired to the wooden cabin they had been given. The bed where he had lain was scarcely big enough for one but they had slept in worse places. Two mugs – Lambert's cocoa and Fenris' hot, sweet tea were on an upturned wooden crate. There was a tiny bookshelf and – Lambert did not know why – an open birdcage belonging to the previous owner.
Their fireplace was a muted glow, the sticks looking like insects trapped in amber. The window was of glass – rare in the rest of Ferelden but mages could make it easily – and looked out onto the village of Haven. The scent of honeysuckle trellised just below the open window mingled with the room's odours of old wood and lavender.
The firelights in the village winked out one by one. Only the warm glow of Flissa's tavern – like a Fade's Eve pumpkin – and the green and purple lights of Adan's shop (the alchemist normally charged visitors for his potions but now he wasn't charging anyone) remained.
There was pine and silver birch; the distant river glowed like tinsel in the moonlight. The rocks on either side concertinaed in a series of narrow coves and jagged inlets. The ground was shingle and stone and even a day of full shine left them cold. The onyx water reflected the stars like a black mirror.
The rocks went steeply up on the side facing the village. One lone wooden building was an outlier. It was backed by a hill of coniferous woodland and sat facing the water at the end of a deep valley. This place had special significance for Enchanter Adan, who had stored some valuable research.
Varric – always keen to look after Lambert – had warned him some people who had fought at the Breach – who had seen Grace send him and Fenris back to reality - were saying the spirit was Andraste. Were calling him, 'The Herald of Andraste'.
"Be careful, Sparky – when people put you on a pedestal they love to tear you off."
Lambert smiled privately. If his return to the Fade made him Andraste then what did it make the finest, bravest, most wonderful man who had rescued him? Was Fenris Shartan? Who among his companions was Maferath? No matter how many times Rylock would impatiently correct them people were people. They needed to believe in something – needed to belief this was more than a cosmic accident.
Fenris had agreed with Varric, eyes ashine with the shy protectiveness so much a part of him he couldn't even see it; it was just a condition of the universe, like gravity or stars or rain. Lambert knew they were right but…the man who had always been the darling of his parents enjoyed the attention. Could not help but experience it as the casual exercise of a birthright.
Then he remembered the Maker was harsher than his father had been. According to Grand Cleric Iona and the former Grand Cleric Elthina the Maker hated mages. Divine Justinia had only ascended the Sunburst Throne when Lambert was a man - after he had already fought in the Fifth Blight. The Chantry had called the Blights punishment for the sins of mages – had forbidden Rylock from joining the war effort (Rylock had disobeyed the order and taken the punishment). Lambert's childhood in Starkhaven and teens in Tantervale - his first love informing on him - the night in Lothering Chanty when he and Carver had blamed the Maker for their father's death...all these things had made an impression. Deeper than he had realized.
Lambert convinced himself he could hear - in the trees' susurrations, in the chuckle of the water, in the soft clamour of the wind - the Maker's condemnation.
Magic exists to serve man and never to rule over him - you DARE to call yourself my Herald?
But the fear was displaced by a worse one: that where should have been the Maker's booming petulance – cold and hard as imagined hail - was instead a slab of silence the size of a planet.
Thedas and its most majestic generations: all mites called in by the universal treasury of death. All dissolved, reconcatenated, reborn in fruitless multitudes of briefly active waste. The healer in Lambert couldn't see that; that didn't make it untrue. The Chantry said they were wound up by the Maker instead - like toys, Anders had said once, after a long hard shift at the clinic. Was that any better? Either way we're for it.
Learn this lesson now, a voice said, I shan't teach it again. There is nothing. It means nothing. We are dust in space – the spark of life an accident – decay a necessity.
This intimation, of the night sky like an abandoned warehouse of stars – of Thedas a centre of potential oxidation capacity in an otherwise reducing universe - of the Anchor being a random ricochet - was a horror so unexpectedly huge he turned back to the conviction of the wrath of heaven with a kind of relief.
He turned from the window to look back at Fenris and could tell Fenris had a secret – something he was not sure he should tell him.
"Whatever it is, Fen, I'm equal to it. I'm not asking you this – I'm telling you something you already know." His look was one of steady entreaty – to return to collusion, to renew the silent vows, to recognize each other.
Fenris nodded. "Solas - he is not your friend. Nor even your ally – except for a brief moment when he can use you as part of his design. You don't have to understand me. I'm still trying to put the pieces together. Just promise me you will write to Rillian. She's hiding near Wycome. Apparently she has found a wealthy donor to fund her research. I think he is using her, as Erimond is using Fiona, and they doubtless come from the same place. Tell Rillian about Corypheus – and ask her about the ancient Elvhen – man? - who came through the Eluvian with Merrill."
"I will," Lambert promised, subdued.
"And," Fenris went on, "remember the thirteen of us who went to Red Bride's Grave have griffons – who are almost full-grown. If Corypheus can summon an Archdemon we won't be fighting it in Ortan Thaig. It will be airborne. We are going to need them."
"Use our babies?" Lambert breathed, horrified.
He missed their home and simpler times. Fenris had a bond with mabari – anything canine succumbed – but their three cats only tolerated him until their real father came back. Not so their griffons – the black griffon Fenris had named Dumat - 'smart enough not to talk' - had chosen him just as the little calico female – Ripples – had chosen Lambert. Lambert tended to treat Ripples as he treated Incognito, as his special baby – whereas Fenris treated Dumat as friend, oppo, brother-in-arms. They were bonded for life; partners and equals.
"They are griffons not cats," Fenris went on patiently, inexorably, "trying to keep a griffon safe would be as stifling as trying to keep a mabari safe."
"They are our children - the only children we will ever have."
"Yes. And children grow up. Children should be allowed to follow their own natures."
Lambert huffed. "When did you get so wise?"
Fenris smirked. "Come here and I'll show you 'wise'."
Lambert made two vials of 'Fenris' Friend' and slipped one to Fenris while linking hands.
"Bottoms up," he grinned.
The last time he had taken this stuff it had been while using himself as an experimental subject – to Fenris' fury. But now the potion worked on the Mark in the same way it worked on the lyrium brands. It dulled the pain and kept them from reacting with each other. They were solid, snug within their own warm flesh.
Lambert put his arms around Fenris and kissed him. There would never be a time for Lambert when feeling his husband's slow, steady heartbeat wouldn't palliate the certainty of death. He didn't know what to do with the feeling. He knew there was nothing to do with it. Just live in it and let the future happen.
'There is no Maker and His only commandment is we survive,' Zevran had told him once. 'By any means necessary. During the Blight Rillian saved me from myself. I shan't forget it again.'
Lambert looked at Fenris - an Andrastean with a faith like a solid oak. Like Shartan…that was necessary for a man who had escaped Tevinter with nothing, not even himself.
"Whatever happens, stay close to me, Fen,' he whispered, "I'm going to need you. You won't know why or how but I will."
Fenris looked at him penetratingly. "Is it bad?"
"Hurry up," Lambert answered. "Fast and hard. Please."
The inarticulate animal urgency came down like a guillotine. They grappled, sheared off, bled into each other, enjoyed the moments of unity.
Lambert saw his lover silvered in the moonlight - the steel erection and frost-limed muscles - the long deadly hands. He got an unmanning glimpse of his own capacity for worship; drew back from it as from the hungry Breach. Fenris saw that and said with his eyes: it's the same for me, don't you see?
That look turned out to be the crux - an instant of dissolution then down from the fulcrum moment.
Paradise.
A paradise Lambert could never remember. He got the ascent and the descent, never the zenith. Because it annihilated him. He was never there to experience it.
Fenris' tongue curled in martial or erotic triumph. Lambert came back to himself and licked, sucked, paused, looked into Fenris' eyes and knew they had been consecrated. Mark…brands…whatever…they were alone together against the world. He felt like a king, heart beating with fresh love for life and humbled by the possibilities. He nipped Fenris' neck with his teeth.
He looked into Fenris' eyes – ships of gold adrift on an emerald sea – and found they were both on the woollen rug that depicted a white-sailed schooner. He remembered The Siren's Call – the night he and Fenris had realized they were bonded for life.
Fenris' eyes took on an intensity that made them glass bright. He clamped his hands on Lambert at the bottom of his rib cage and rolled onto his back. Lambert laughed down at him, running trailing fingers across the welted scars on his torso.
He wasted a moment wondering if they would ever find their way to the bed that night.