Thank you all for reading! Particular thanks to suilven for her lightning fast betaing! FYI, this story is going to an every two weeks posting schedule for the rest of the year, at least.
Thule had only barely restrained himself from sending Morrigan out through the Temple and back into the Wilds alone. He doubted she would have gone, anyway, but at least getting in her face and letting her know he wasn't going to take any more of her lies and half-truths might have felt good.
Instead, he followed Lilias, who had found the central tree in the courtyard and was circling it, looking for markings.
"Ooh, the venadahl," Merrill said excitedly, joining her friend. They found a set of markings etched into the tree, and she frowned at them. "I don't think I recognize all of this."
Morrigan pushed herself between the other two women. "Let me look."
"Does it say anything about this Well of Sorrows?" Thule asked.
Solas didn't appear to even have looked at the tree, but he spoke up anyway. "Atish'all vir abelasan. It means 'enter the path of the Well of Sorrows.'"
Thule glanced at the elf over his shoulder, rather surprised Solas had spoken. He had been remarkably quiet so far this whole trip.
"There is something here about knowledge. Respectful … or possibly pure." Morrigan peered more closely at the carving in the bark. "Shiven, shivennen … No. I cannot be certain. Nonetheless, that it mentions the Well at all is a good omen." She narrowed her eyes, studying the tree. "Supplicants to Mythal would have first paid obeisance here. Perhaps if we follow their path, it may aid our entry."
Cassandra spoke up, sharply. "Following a ritual to appease elven gods? Long-dead or no, I don't like it."
"You would say as much," Morrigan replied dismissively.
She wasn't entirely wrong; Cassandra was Chantry through and through.
"Perhaps you wish to turn back?" Morrigan added, her cool glance at Cassandra a challenge.
"Surely there are more forthright ways to enter, which do not demand that we profess beliefs we do not own."
"And your precious Chantry does not demand such empty promises from those who beg at its doors?"
Thule got in between the two of them before they came to blows. "Enough! Cassandra, we will give our due respect to those who built this Temple. Morrigan, that respect has limits."
Neither of them was pleased with his intervention, naturally, but they quieted, which was what he had been after.
They scattered, investigating the courtyard. Thule was anxious not to miss anything that could tell them more about the Well, even if it meant delaying slightly. A delay now could save them time later. He and Merrill found a wall carving hidden beneath layers of vines, and he stepped back while she studied it, her fingers reverently hovering just above the marks in the wood.
"The Temple of Mythal. Constructed in an age when this was elven land," she whispered. "The stories say they called Mythal a goddess of justice, coming here to request her wisdom and her judgment on their disputes. But they had to prove their worth, first."
"A demanding goddess."
Varric joined them in time to hear the last of the conversation. "Justice is demanding, Stones. True justice requires the whole story, even if you don't want to tell it all."
"Silence has reigned here for time beyond memory," Solas said sharply, as if he would have them all revert to such silence.
"It can reign here again, as soon as we prevent Corypheus from gaining anything inside that could make him stronger. Or, at least, his mage general," Thule added. He was disappointed that today was not going to be the day they finished Corypheus off, since he and his dragon were still outside the Temple … but he was equally relieved not to be fighting Corypheus today, which significantly improved all their chances of living to see tomorrow.
He followed Merrill to a statue of a wolf. It was a rather charming statue, actually, Thule thought, studying it. The wolf appeared to have a sense of humor.
But Merrill was staring at it, perplexed.
"Something wrong?" he asked.
"This is the Dread Wolf, Inquisitor. Fen'Harel. He … he tricked the gods into sealing themselves away in the Beyond for all time. This statue has no place in the Temple of Mythal. It shouldn't be here."
"'Tis true," Morrigan agreed, joining her, the two of them standing side by side as they studied the statue. "This is as blasphemous as painting Andraste naked in the Chantry."
Privately, Thule couldn't see why that was so blasphemous—Andraste had been married to the Maker, after all, surely they had shared a marital bed. But he followed the line of reasoning anyway, and wasn't interested. "I'm sure if an ancient elf was here, there would be a perfectly good explanation," he said impatiently. "Does it say anything about the Well?"
"No. But, Inquisitor, I refuse to believe we cannot tease out the reason behind this mystery."
"For all your 'knowledge,' Lady Morrigan," Solas said, his tone making clear in just how little respect he held that purported knowledge, "you cannot resist giving legend the weight of history. The wise do not mistake one for the other."
He had her there, and Morrigan knew it. She bristled. "Pray tell, what meaning does our elven 'expert' sense lurking behind this, then?" she challenged him.
Thule was interested in that answer, as curious as Morrigan to see what Solas would say.
Solas disappointed them both, turning away with a shrug. "None we can discern by staring at it. Come, Merrill."
With a final puzzled glance of her own at the statue, Merrill went with him. She whispered a question to him as they walked away, which Solas answered with a single decisive shake of the head.
"He's right," Thule said. "We've spent enough time here. Come on. You can do your ritual, if you insist."
Morrigan looked superior and not a little arrogant, going through the motions, but the doors did open, and without a finger laid on them.
When the doors opened, the Inquisitor stalked on ahead with Cassandra. Even his hair looked angry, Alistair reflected. "You really have a way with people, you know that?" he said to Morrigan.
She raised an eyebrow. "'Tis always thus—when a man is in a temper, it must be a woman's fault."
Alistair started to reply to that arrant ridiculousness, but Varric's chuckle stopped him. "Much as I like to see you put your foot in your mouth, Your Royal Highness, that argument is so lost already it won't even be entertaining to watch."
He wasn't wrong, and Alistair had other things he wanted to discuss with Morrigan anyway. "That looked like the power of the Blight Corypheus used. Do you think it can be?"
For a wonder, she took the question seriously, considering her response. "We two, we have seen a true Archdemon rage. Corypheus is no Archdemon. But the manner of his rising looked very like that of a Blighted creature seeking the taint nearest him." For a moment, her face blackened with anger, and Alistair remembered what she and Leliana had told him about the ritual Morrigan had wanted to attempt during the Blight. He was glad she hadn't succeeded—but he wasn't, at the same time. Then again, if Leyden were alive, what would she be like now? Certainly not like what his dreams had painted.
"So how did he get the power to do … whatever that was?" Varric asked.
"Send his soul into a Blighted body. And I don't know," Alistair said. "And I don't know if the answer would help. Knowing he can do it—that helps, some, at least."
"Now we know why he didn't die before," Lilias said from behind them. He turned, wanting to comfort her, and saw that there was no need—there was a martial light in her eyes that said she was just waiting for another chance at Corypheus. She was beautiful.
"We must focus upon the Well," Morrigan insisted. "If Corypheus obtains it, any chance of success may be lost."
Alistair didn't bother to point out that Morrigan claimed not to know what the Well was. He raised his voice, looking over his shoulder at Solas, who walked with Merrill and Lilias. "Solas, what can you tell us about these elves here?"
Morrigan spoke before Solas could respond. "I would imagine them a group of Dalish separated from their brethren. Cultists. Fanatic in their desire to keep humans away."
Solas shrugged. "It is as good a tale as any."
"Those don't look like any Dalish I know," Merrill objected. "What if they are truly the guardians of the temple, descended from the ancients, having resided here since before the fall of Arlathan?" Her eyes were shining with wonder, and Solas gave her an affectionate look.
"That is another good tale," he said to her, gently.
"I would imagine that to be unlikely," Morrigan objected, "but … if true, the implications are astounding."
The greedy look on her face reminded Alistair of when Leyden had found that black grimoire for her. It made him uneasy.
"How would that even be possible?" Cassandra objected.
Solas smiled. "With magic, anything is possible."
They had entered a large room—vast, cavernous, filled with green light filtering down through cracks in the ceiling high above and the vines that covered them. Ahead were Corypheus's troops, a line of mages who were working to open a hole in the floor.
Corypheus's mage general stood watching the Inquisitor's team approach, seeming remarkably unconcerned. She detailed several of her mages to deal with them.
Alistair and Thule and the others were a formidable force, seasoned fighters all, powerful and highly trained, but the mages had numbers, and magic, and only Alistair could counteract it—and his skills in that area were more rusty than he liked to admit.
So it took them longer than they would have hoped to get through the line of mages, and by the time they had done so, Corypheus's mage general was gone, vanished through the crack she and her fellows had made in the floor.
Thule rushed to it, stopping on the edge, his arms windmilling. "If we hurry, we can catch them!" he called back to the rest of them.
Morrigan stepped in front of him. "Hold! Think a moment. While they rush ahead, we should walk the petitioner's path, as before."
"An army fights and dies for us outisde! The longer we tarry, the more soldiers we lose outside. Inquisition soldiers. Good soldiers," Cassandra said. "Let us jump down and be done with this place!"
Solas sighed. "In this case, I must agree with the witch. This is ancient ground, deserving of our respect."
Alistair nodded. "I don't like to go along with Morrigan, either, but I've rarely known her to be wrong about these things."
"Why, thank you, Alistair."
Merrill added her encouragement for the petitioner's path as well.
Lilias shook her head. "We have to go. We can't let more lives be lost appeasing magic we don't even know is there—not when we could catch Corypheus's people."
"Please, Inquisitor. We cannot find the Well of Sorrows unprepared," Morrigan entreated.
"We aren't supposed to be unprepared!" Thule roared. "You demanded to be brought along, Morrigan, so that you could use your fabulous expertise, but you didn't even know what he was here for. Or you were lying all along. Either way, I don't trust you! I don't trust you. You're out for yourself, for some reasons of your own—you don't care about Corypheus or the Inquisition. if we stop them before they get to the Well, we don't need to know anything about it at all!"
None of them had ever seen him lose his temper, and everyone but Morrigan moved a little away from the Inquisitor, giving him space.
"If we reach the Well before they do, their plan is ended," she said, appearing to be oblivious to his anger.
"Why would we do that, Morrigan? I'm not here for the Well," he said, his voice low and dangerously, deceptively soft. "I don't care about the Well. I care about stopping Corypheus. You may care about the Well, but what you care about means less to me at the moment than a pile of bronto shit."
She opened her mouth to speak, and he moved closer to her.
"Go ahead. Tell me about ancient powers and legends and mythical creatures. I dare you. You barely know what the Well of Sorrows is—I'm not about to take your word on anything further."
"And if I told you that I read more in the first chamber than I revealed?"
"I would strongly consider strangling you where you stand."
"I would not attempt it, if I were you, Inquisitor."
"Then don't try to pretend to more knowledge than you have—or admit to having willfully practiced a deception on me."
Alistair considered stepping between them, but seeing Morrigan facing off against someone who could hold her at a standstill, if not force her to back down, was too delicious to disrupt.
Thule looked at her for a moment longer, then turned to the others. "I'm going through the hole. You can come with me or not, as you choose." And he leaped.
"At last," Cassandra said in relief, and followed him, Varric and Lilias close on their heels.
Alistair looked at Merrill, who looked genuinely grieved. Her eyes were on Solas, who was clearly angry, and undecided what to do about it. Morrigan looked absolutely outraged, and Alistair grinned at her. "Didn't have things all your own way this time, did you?"
"I wish with all my heart I truly could turn you into a toad. I would spit you and roast you for supper."
His grin widened, and he followed the others. Shortly after, Merrill appeared below, then Solas, and finally Morrigan, trailing far behind, ostentatiously refusing to be of any help.