The water felt bright and cold against her face, as Nike scrubbed the half-dried, tacky blood from her cheek and hair. She had never been healed with lyrium before, and Morrigan was right- it was quite thorough. She didn't have the crawling feeling over her scalp and neck as she got with edevas, and there was no lingering tenderness when she touched her temple.
The cut on her head was not the only thing to have healed, either. The lingering ache in her back from her wound in Ostagar, which returned frequently to niggle her, had completely gone.
"Cullen, I understand that you have been through much-"
Wynne and the others were behind her, where the young man was trapped in some kind of field. They had made it to the top of the Tower, to Irving's own quarters, only to find one young Templar and several dead ones. They appeared to have been trapped in a magical field of some kind- by the boy's furious ramblings and his apparent belief that they were hallucinations- it had been for quite some time.
"No. No. Do not try and placate me!" the boy said furiously. As Nike turned away from the font and looked back toward them, she could see the anger reddening his face, and the tears that gleamed in his eyes. She supposed 'boy' was doing him a disservice, but if he was a day older than she or Alistair, she'd eat Far Song.
"I am not trying to-"
"Stop!" He bellowed, pointing a finger at Wynne, then at Morrigan who lingered nearby with an air of impatience and amusement. "I can't trust you! Wynne, I'm sorry, but I can't trust either of you! I won't listen to a word you are saying about-"
"Would you listen to me?" Nike asked, dabbing a palm lightly against her damp cheek as she walked over. His eyes fixed on her, miserable and hot and angry and afraid.
"How do I know that they haven't bewitched you?" he asked. Morrigan let out an exasperated laugh.
"There will be no convincing him," she warned Nike. "T'would not help to waste breath."
"What can we expect up there?" Nike asked him instead. "In the…what did you call it Wynne?"
"The Harrowing Chamber," she said, looking at the spiraling set of stairs nearby that lead upward still further.
"In the Harrowing Chamber," she echoed with a nod.
"You can expect death," he said. "Uldred has been up there for days now, with Irving and many of the mages. He's a maleficar, turning them into abominations. Every few hours another three or four come wandering down into the rest of the tower. There can't be five left."
"Is that possible?" Nike asked Wynne. "For a blood mage to turn other mages into abominations? I thought someone had to willingly let the demon in, in order for that to happen?"
"It is more complicated than that, but you are not incorrect," Wynne said. "However, there are ways to get someone to agree to most anything. If they have been torturing them, starving them, confusing them…they may allow themselves to be taken by demons simply out of desperation to make such treatment end."
"You can't trust anyone that is up there," Cullen said. "You have to kill all of them. We cannot risk a single abomination getting out of the Tower! These two as well. No mage in these walls can be trusted!"
"That is not going to happen," Nike said. "Right now, I trust Wynne and Morrigan whole Ages more than I trust you. And without the First Enchanter the Templars will Annul this entire Tower."
"Good! That's what needs to be done!" he said, then wiped a miserable hand over his face. Nike tried not to think too harshly of him. He'd been trapped in there, with his dead companions, for Maker only knew how long. He'd had no food nor water in all that time, more likely than not- and was further tortured by being able to clearly see the bubbling font Nike had just washed her face in. He was at the end of his endurance.
"I don't agree," she said to him, then looked at Wynne, Morrigan, and Alistair. "So just up those stairs we have Uldred, an unknown number of his cohorts, an unknown number of abominations, and possibly the First Enchanter and a few others still alive and themselves. I am not prepared to just go up and kill everyone out of fear. What are we looking at? Are we in danger of being enthralled again?"
"There is that danger," Wynne said. "There is also the unique danger that Uldred and his maleficarum pose to you and Alistair in particular."
"What is that?" Nike asked, but it was Alistair who answered.
"There is a type of blood magic that can control us," he said. "Control the very blood in our veins."
"That is correct," Wynne said, as Nike stared at him. "It is complicated to do, prohibitively so when the target is another mage, but those without magic such as yourselves are susceptible."
"Well that's a treat! So if we go up there not only can we be enthralled by a demon again, but the blood mages may be able to turn Alistair and I into puppets?"
Alistair grinned a little. "Not to mention they can set us on fire with their hands or even use a good old-fashioned sword against us."
"Sounds like you've got this in hand then, would you like to go up alone?" Nike asked him.
"Maker, no."
"It is not so hopeless as all of that," Wynne said, and moved over toward the door that led into the First Enchanter's small library. "Irving keeps all of the oldest and most dangerous tomes in here. There is one in particular, a Litany, that I have seen before. With it I may be able to provide a shield against both demons and blood magic. Let me see…"
Nike and the other two followed her into room. It was fairly small, but every inch of the wall seemed crammed with books and scrolls, stacks lining the floor as well and cluttering a small desk. As Wynne began to search, Nike looked around out of curiosity.
"I wonder if this is what Niall mentioned," she said to Morrigan as the mage lingered near, scanning intently over the spines of the books as if examining a child's scalp for lice. "He said he'd found information about the Dreamer in some books the First Enchanter had kept aside."
"I am quite curious to hear more about this Dreamer," Morrigan said. She was still holding the mage staff they'd found, her fingertips drumming on it almost idly. "I know there used to be some mages who could tap into the Fade and retain their lucidity. I believe they used to be called such, but the magic has been lost for over an Age."
"Niall said much the same," Nike said, resisting the urge to let her fingers play over the spines of the books. "But the Dreamer he took me to was different than these. He said some people thought they might actually be the Maker."
Now Morrigan looked at Nike with a bemused expression. "You do not fall under such a delusion, do you?"
"No," Nike told her. "I don't know what the Dreamer was- a slumbering mage, a lost spirit of some kind, but…I don't know that I'm prepared to believe they were the Maker."
Morrigan made a soft humming sound under her breath, returning to scan the books. Wynne had pulled one down from a towering stack and was paging through it, and Nike was nearly about to go over to her and see if it was the one that she was seeking, when Morrigan spoke again.
"My mother has a book," she said. Nike looked over at her again, confused a little. During the time she'd spent recovering in Flemeth's hut, she'd seen quite a few books- most stacked as randomly and haphazardly as these appeared to be.
Morrigan's eyes stayed on the spines of those lining the shelves, almost drinking them in, as she continued. "It contains all her magic, her spells. I was forbidden to touch it. Once, when I became too curious to resist, I dared put a finger on it. She beat me so badly I could scarce sit for a fortnight, and had to sleep upon my belly. Do not apologize."
This last was said just as Nike was opening her mouth to say that she was sorry, and Morrigan interrupted her. "I know you wish only to offer sympathies but my mother does not deserve you apologizing on her behalf or for the things she has wrought. They are her responsibility alone, and I will hear no more pity for them."
"I don't pity you, Morrigan," Nike said softly, and the edge in Morrigan's eyes faded a little.
"I know you do not," she said in return. She looked a little distant, a glum sort of brooding reluctance in her face. She didn't look at Nike as she continued. "One day I shall read that book. I shall know all her secrets. Everything she desired to hide from me."
Nike's brows knit in thought, and she was roused from it again only when Wynne headed back toward them. "I have found it," she said.
"Great," Nike said, straightening and following her out into the main chamber again. "So what's the plan?"
"I will read from the Litany the moment we approach the door to the Harrowing Chamber. So long as I can do so without pause, they shall not be able to enthrall nor to control using blood magic."
"Is it too much to hope it'll stop all their magic?" Alistair asked.
"Unfortunately yes," she said. "And of course it will not stop any mundane weapon if they choose to wield such, either."
"We shall have the element of surprise," Morrigan said. "Is there a window in this Harrowing Chamber?"
"No windows," Wynne said. "But there is an open chimney at the top of the chamber, to allow smoke to escape. It is about the size of a dinner plate."
"Large enough for my purposes then."
"What are you thinking, Morrigan?" Nike asked.
"There is a window here," Morrigan said, gesturing to the wall near the water font. "My raven form should be large enough to pass through both it and the chimney in that chamber. The moment that you enter the room and Wynne begins to read, I shall drop down upon them from above through the chimney. If we act quickly enough, they will have little to no time to mount an effective defense against us."
"That's risky," Alistair said to her.
"Concerned about my welfare, Alistair?" she asked, and he looked at her with an almost wounded expression, but tried to cover it with humor.
"I'm more concerned about the smell of singed feathers," he said. "That stink never comes out."
"I don't like it either," Nike said, and when Morrigan lifted her eyebrows she said, "I mean the necessity of this plan. But I can't think of a better one. Unless we can get Cullen out of his prison?"
"The prison should fall as soon as Uldred is dead," Wynne said. "With a few more mages and some concentration, we might be able to break him out but to do so would be difficult, and would have the side effect of alerting Uldred we are here. I agree with Morrigan. Our best hope is to hit them hard and fast before they know we are here."
"All right. Well, we gain absolutely nothing by waiting."
Nike and Morrigan went over to the window, Nike unlatching it and shifting it open. She was a bit surprised to see it was still daylight out there. Though it had only been a few hours since they'd arrived at the Tower, it felt as if months had gone by. Morrigan put her hand on the window frame, then looked at Nike.
Nike was on the verge of asking her to be careful, and then bit her tongue. Morrigan was a grown woman and a mage, she hardly needed someone clucking after her like a worried old goose all the time. She knew what was at stake. The entire plan didn't lend itself to 'careful', for any of them.
"I'll see you shortly," she said instead, and Morrigan gave her a half-smile that contained only a tenth of her usual cheek. Then she vanished, staff and all, and was gone in a flutter of wings.
In the end, Nike supposed it went about as well as it could have gone. When they burst in, Far Song already drawn to her ear, Uldred had been standing in the very center of the room with three others, directly beneath the open-air chimney. Two of the three with him were clear abominations, twisted and warped creatures standing nearly eight feet tall, roped with grotesque tangles of flesh. The third she saw for a moment as a worn, pale, exhausted human man with bruises lining the side of his face. He was all but sprawled at the bald human maleficar's feet.
Then that poor tortured man was gone, and a third abomination was rising up, its body stretching like clay as it did so.
Nike loosed as Alistair charged past her at a dead run, sword flashing in his hand. Her arrow took the newly born abomination in the neck and it stumbled and half-collapsed to its side, fumbling clumsily. Behind her she could hear Wynne all but shouting the Litany, calling out words Nike had no hope to understand as blue light flared and danced around the room.
A cluster of four- three men and a woman- were huddled near the far wall, trapped in the same blue prison of light that they had found Cullen in downstairs. Nike looked at them only long enough to assure herself they were trapped mages and not some of Uldred's lackeys, before she had another arrow up and ready to fly.
Alistair swung his sword, right at Uldred's face, but as surprised as the man was, he was quick to act. Half turning, his hand lighting up with green flames, he deflected the sword blow and sent Alistair crashing down to the ground.
Then a small form darted down through the chimney.
Morrigan was barely through the opening when her raven form vanished and seemed to burst apart. Hairy legs thrust Uldred and the abominations apart, sending them careening to the ground. Instantly the giant spider was upon one of the twisted demonic creatures, its stinger stabbing into it repeatedly.
Nike loosed another arrow, and it caught Uldred high in the shoulder as he lifted a hand toward Alistair again, green flames still writhing over his fingers. He shrieked as the arrow struck home and clutched at his arm, ice already beginning to spread over his robes. His eyes landed on Nike and she actually felt them like a chill force. If the man could have stricken her dead by that look alone, he would have.
His hand flung out, toward her this time, and she saw the swell of the fireball, and flung herself flat out of its path. As it roared past her head and set a tapestry ablaze, Alistair rose up again behind Uldred, his sword already swinging.
The maleficar never saw what hit him. The longsword swept through his neck and he was falling; body slumping to the floor in a wash of blood as his head tumbled away. Nike didn't bother getting all the way to her feet. Rising to her knee she swept Far Song up and speared an arrow through another abomination, as Morrigan bounded from her first victim to her next. A couple of more quick blows with Alistair's sword, and the last of the twisted horrors went still.
Nike got all the way up to her feet, looking around at the tapestry now consumed in flames up to the ceiling behind her, as Wynne hurried in. Dropping the Litany gently aside she rushed over to the others on the far side of the room, grasping hold of one and helping to steady him as he wobbled on his feet.
"Irving, are you all right?"
"Wynne? Is it really…yes, of course it is. And who…?"
Morrigan, back in her human form, turned to the tapestry and doused it with a couple of motions of her hand as Nike shouldered her bow, and headed over to Wynne to help.
"My name is Nike Cousland," she said, taking hold of the hand of one of the others and helping them up to their feet. "This is Alistair. We're-"
"The Grey Wardens, yes," the man leaning on Wynne said. He seemed to gather himself, straightened. "We are indebted to you for your help. Uldred-"
The sound of plate armor, heavy footsteps on the stairs. Nike turned just as Cullen slammed into the room, his own sword in hand and nothing but murder in his hollowed eyes.