Chapter Four: Duty and Light
At the same time as Loghain spoke to Rillian, Rylock and Harith received their notices of censure. Rylock was neither surprised nor afraid - she was angry. For the Grand Cleric to call both Knight Commanders away from Redcliffe with the Circle in residence was a security risk. This was why she summoned all her men except Carroll - guarding Rillian - to the Templar quarters in Mother Hannah's Chantry.
Lady Isolde looked up as she strode in. The Arlessa was praying - as she always did at this hour. Rylock thought it commendable - but she might have wished for more privacy, especially as Lady Isolde's son had just been confirmed as a mage apprentice.
No matter.
Rylock addressed the gathering, ramrod straight, staring quietly out into the sea of familiar faces. More familiar than any comrades she had known in Kirkwall. There she had worked mainly with Meredith, and later - after her friend was promoted to Knight-Commander - alone. After months campaigning against the darkspawn, she knew these men even in identical armour, wearing faceless helms. Somehow their individuality showed up most starkly when all other differences were removed. Cullen always stood with barely-leashed tension - achingly familiar after Rylock's own experience with Blood Magic - Irminric always reminded her strangely of Rillian: standing with head cocked as though listening for music only he could hear. Rocald moved with the peculiarly solid grace of a man who has won more barroom brawls than other Templars have had shaves.
"Brothers in the Maker's service - I have called this emergency chapter to inform you that Knight Commander Harith and I have been called to Denerim to explain our decision to march against the darkspawn - "
There was a babble of protesting voices. Rylock tried not to feel touched but did not quite succeed. She held up a hand for silence.
"I have faith the Maker shall judge us rightly, and that justice shall be served. But while we are away it is imperative that security measures are followed to the letter. It will take until spring for Sulcher's Pass to be clear enough to allow passage to Haven - and this even before we can set up base camp. The Circle will continue to be based at Redcliffe for at least the next three months. Mother Hannah is in charge of all supplies and the spiritual needs of both Templars and mages - security is another matter."
Rylock had thought hard about whom to appoint. The truth was that none of her surviving men were qualified. They were all either junior Templars or Sergeants. And already it was proving difficult to maintain the same standards they held in the Tower. In the Tower, the mage children had been segregated - there were no Mundane children for them to mix with. Here, there were plenty. Wynne had called this a good thing:
"If mundane and mage children can play together the world may learn not to fear us."
Teach the world not to fear fire and it will get burned…
And yet - the mage children were not fire. This was not like Rylock's experiences as a mage-hunter, in which every mage was already a confirmed apostate, maleficar, abomination or demon. Rylock found it difficult to articulate how it felt when she came into contact - not exactly fear or apprehension. More, the sense of something that could endanger. Fire - but only in potential. And nothing so easy as her nervousness of Rillian's microscope. This was potential danger carried in the innocent bodies of thinking, feeling people. She shook her head, and once again cursed Greagoir for tying this assignment like an albatross around her neck.
She had already realized that segregation here was simply not practical. The only way was to rely on the instructors - Wynne, and the newly-promoted Keili and Petra - to watch both sets of children like hawks. Which Wynne did with every appearance of being in the seventh circle of the Golden City. Rylock kept expecting something to go wrong - but so far nothing had.
The person Rylock kept coming back to in her mind was Sergeant Rocald. Of all her men, this man who had lived his entire life at Redcliffe was best-placed to watch for escape attempts. But her thoughts kept coming back to those words: unfit for the Tower.
In the end, she asked Rocald to stay behind, dismissed the rest, and spoke to him privately.
"Sergeant: your service during the attack on Redcliffe, the darkspawn campaign, and afterwards has been exemplary. And you know the Castle and village grounds like no other. There is no-one I would rather trust with security here - but I must also trust you to tell me whether you can do so in good honour. If not, I will be glad for your honesty and think no less highly of you."
The plain, blunt features went scarlet - worked convulsively. He struggled for several attempts before replying. "Do you think I could harm children who are the ages my children would have been? Never. There's only one to blame for what happened - and that one is hiding behind the Wardens' skirts. Or: ours." He leaned heavily on the last word: burned it with accusation. When he continued, his voice was almost a croon: "On your order, I do nothing against the Blood Mage so long as he helps Rillian. Should he ever leave her service…" The sibilant whisper was a soft exhalation of yearning. "I dream of his death. It will be slow. My dead will hear him coming."
Rylock, caught between her own shame at having helped Rillian coddle Jowan, and her own memories of Erimond, saw that the Arlessa - eavesdropping shamelessly - had gone quite white.
Why? They were all agreed she had done nothing wrong beyond attempting to have her mage son home-schooled and that the boy himself was innocent of his mother's foolishness and all the evils that had followed. Rillian, Alistair, Harith - even Jowan himself - had all confirmed that the Blood Mage was responsible for everything. Connor had been taken into the Circle like any other apprentice, and no-one blamed him. What could make Isolde fear Rocald's words?
But the ways of that woman were a mystery that Rylock had no desire to explore. The blunt, plain-speaking Sergeant had made her question her own decision to spare Jowan. Not because she wished for vengeance. She still remembered Meredith's hard-won wisdom: "Death is never Justice". Meredith had embraced the philosophy that it was better to let a proven murderer escape, once his power had been spent, than to take one's eye off the danger that might still be prevented. It had, for Rylock, been saving: had prevented her becoming consumed by the need to hunt Erimond and made her focus instead on protecting others - on stopping future tragedies before they occurred. When she and Meredith had caught up to the Blood Mages too late they had killed them swiftly and painlessly - yes, even the one who had used his own children in his experiments, or the one who had trapped the spirit of the woman he had "loved" inside her own animate corpse. Painlessly - because they were not like the creatures they fought, they were not vigilantes, they were Kirkwall's defenders not its judges.
At least - not until Meredith had judged the Viscount to be unworthy of his office. Rylock still remembered the words - delivered with bags of confidence and Meredith's own lambent charm - that had convinced her: "Funny how that nest of inbred schemers and plotters in Hightown always think they know best for those that toil below. Leave them to the mercy of the maleficarum that stalk the streets? The nobles can afford private protection!" And Rylock had agreed that it was unthinkable for Viscount Threnhold to remove his people's only protection from the things they had seen. Indeed, Rylock could manage only cursory prayers for Threnhold's soul after his death of illness two years later. Her concern had been for the changes in her friend.
They had spent years searching for the source of Kirkwall's magical plague - with the death of Hybris, they had thought they'd found it. When the corruption continued, it had been Rylock's belief that they had simply not found the true source - that somewhere outside Kirkwall lay the lodestone. Meredith had disagreed. "We have both suffered at the hands of demons - but yours came from outside the place you considered safe. I know that the worst dangers come from within." In her eyes had shone the razor image of memory - and she had made Rylock see what she saw: the demon wearing her sister's face like a defiled mask. And worst of all the real eyes of the little girl behind it, howling in manic terror, begging to be let out. Worldly power had allowed Meredith to concentrate exclusively on watching the mages already within the Gallows: desperate to save them from themselves.
In the end, she was hardly able to take her eyes off them.
But Rylock shut off that train of thought with a click. She had argued that Templars were not meant to hold worldly power - and in the end she had left. With Meredith's full consent, because she was as sick of listening to the arguments as Rylock was of making them. None of that was relevant.
What troubled Rylock was that, while Ser Otto believed in redemption, Rillian was indeed a believer in old-school justice. Rylock cared for the young woman far more than she should, but even Rillian did wrong things. Rillian had told her exactly what she had done to Vaughan before she killed him.
Why would Rillian - of all people - grant mercy to a human Blood Mage who had terrorized a helpless village - summoned demons and walking corpses - cut the ears off the castle's Elven servants before making them dance like foul puppets for his amusement? It was not because Rillian needed Jowan. Rillian had been clear that what she was doing was medicine, not magic.
It didn't make sense.
Unless…A doubt surfaced in Rylock's mind. She imagined it squirming, feeding like the larval forms of demons that lived in the minds of Blood Mages like sealed plague bacilli, waiting to hatch from the bodies of their hosts.
Rylock tasted bile.
She had not been able to watch Jowan all the time. There had been at least one occasion when he had taken Rillian's blood when Rylock was not there - and Ser Otto would not have been able to see whether the entire sample was given back. And now Rillian spoke of traveling to Tevinter.
What better destination for a Blood Mage? And what better way to get there than to travel unmolested, with a guardian who thought it all her own idea?
If Rylock were to quietly dispatch Jowan when Rillian was not looking it would be a betrayal of Rillian's trust. But if she did not, she risked having Rillian manipulated into going to a land ruled by magisters, and, once there, bound and sold to a man like Erimond for his amusement. Or…for the Architect's knowledge. The missing puzzle piece in creating the perfect plague to unleash on Thedas.
As Rylock - lost in thought - strode from the Chantry, the guard at the door executed a perfect salute that went completely unnoticed.
The castle courtyard was slick with slushy snow, stained the purple of squashed grapes by the evening light. Rylock's feet in their sabatons slithered like pigs in slop: she was aware of Wynne's amused smirk but unable to respond. Balance alone demanded near-total concentration: there was none left over for Templar posturing.
"How dare the Grand Cleric condemn you for defending Ferelden!" Wynne blurted in righteous indignation.
"Are there no secrets in this castle? We only just got the Notices!"
"The father of the young lad who enchants armour is in touch with a Denerim trader named Brosca. He heard it from a man named Slim Couldry, who has connections in Denerim palace…"
Rylock threw her gauntleted hands up. "Stop! It's bad enough knowing we have no security without hearing how every lyrium smuggler and fence is shouting our business."
"The only one shouting is you. You don't seem to feel Bodahn is so dangerous to you when purchasing supplies for the Haven expedition."
Rylock opened her mouth to explain the connection between trading and Templar secrets, but despaired of penetrating the logic involved. Instead, she mumbled an assurance and entered the castle, trying to avoid the appearance of slinking.
Wynne adroitly kept pace with her. In trying to avoid her, Rylock came to a clumsy halt in the castle's library, surrounded by mages in the process of arranging tomes recovered from the ruin of Kinloch Hold. Putting up a hand to forestall the babble of questions, she inadvertently hit Wynne with her gauntlet. Further nonplussed, she grabbed Wynne's shoulder to aid the healer's balance, forgetting her own. Staggering, practically embracing Wynne, Rylock lost whatever composure she had left. Leaping back as though Wynne had burned her, she slammed into the wall behind.
Rylock disliked sympathy. Hearing it chopped up by repressed laughter was almost unbearable. When Ines choked out: "What brings you to the library?" she answered with a curt dignity that almost set off another round of laughter.
Then Sweeney and Ines were standing shoulder to shoulder - as they often did - and Sweeney was saying:
"I'm going to travel with you to Denerim and give the Grand Cleric a piece of my mind!"
"Now, wait a minute -"
"Young woman: you may think that only you and Knight Commander Harith deserve the blame - or credit - for leading the Templars and mages against the darkspawn, now that Knight Commanders Greagoir and Tavish are dead and beyond their reach - but the fact is that Irving and the rest of us Senior Enchanters made the decision quite of our own accord. That being the case - "
Rylock considered that a moment. It was true that in seeking to draw all the blame onto themselves, she and Harith were in effect saying that the mages were Templar puppets - incapable of their own choices, their own heroism. As she owed the victory at the Western Gate - and her life - to Sweeney and Ines, that was unworthy. But what would the point be in taking the Senior Enchanters to Denerim? The Grand Cleric had not summoned them, and would not listen to anything they had to say. Unable to quite articulate her thoughts, she fell back on the refuge of the Templar Rule:
"It says in Paragraph 12, line 14 that: "under no circumstances should a mage presume to defend or uphold the actions of a Templar. To do so would be to encourage fraternization and - ahem!" she cleared her throat and carefully did not look in Wynne's direction, "the Order cannot allow that. All Templar actions are judged according to the Rule."
"Oh really? Well, for your information, young woman, I do remember that - and I remember something else as well. The Chant states that all men are works of the Maker's hands and any are expected to come to the aid of those in trouble. You are in trouble - so I shall come to your aid."
A stifled squeak of laughter from a mage child of around ten years, who was gathered in a circle with her friends around one corner of the bookcase.
Rylock cleared her throat. "Your knowledge of the Chant is - noted. But the argument also works in reverse. For Eruditions 7 states: "let no servant of the Maker follow what is most beneficial for himself, but rather what is best for another". It might be - ahem! - beneficial to me to have a mage argue my case before the Grand Cleric, but it would certainly not be best for you."
Ha! That's got you! Thought all Templars had their brains ruined by lyrium, didn't you?
There was dead silence in the library. Everyone seemed to be holding their breath. Sweeney had a glint in his eye, but Rylock wasn't sure what it meant.
"It is funny," he ground out, sounding as though he were spitting every word, "How Templars always know what is best for mages."
"It is funny," Rylock retorted, "How mages always know what is best for the people of Thedas. You take the Libertarian position, do you not? For humanitarian reasons. I have heard you argue that the benefits of healing and defensive magic in war and peace outweigh the risk of magic going awry, through mistakes or malice. Since you saved the Western Gate with magic - since being healed by Wynne - I have seen first-hand the good it can do. But the Libertarians never ask the opinion of those least able to defend themselves when things go wrong."
Sweeney narrowed a steely pair of eyes. Rylock peered into his wrinkled face - dry, white and dusty, like a piece of chalk or a bowl of flour. Senile Sweeney, the younger mages and Templars called him. This was not, in fact, fair. Sweeney might be extremely short-sighted but his reputation for forgetfulness stemmed largely from the habit of apprentices to blame him for everything that was misplaced or questionable about what they were doing. Whenever a mage child was caught doing something suspect, their standard response was always to say they were there at the behest of Senior Enchanter Sweeney, whose own love of mischief could be counted on not to contradict them. Rylock could see that the mind behind the clouded cataracts was clear and sharp as rock crystal.
"So," he said at last, very slowly and very, very quietly, "We have an orator among us. We have a master of argument. How impressive. And tell me - my young Andraste - you are so learned in the art of philosophy - tell me: what are the conclusions of the Rhetorica Ad Herrenium? What are the three types of causes that a speaker might address? What are the six steps of argumentation? What are the five parts of rhetoric? Can you tell me this? Hmm?"
Oh, very funny. Very amusing. "No, ser mage."
"No? But surely you must know the rhetorical discipline known as dispositio?"
"Not personally."
A titter from the mage children. Sweeney stood up.
"Then it's time you were introduced!" He stopped at the bookshelves. "Petra, I have need of a book. The Rhetorica Ad Herrenium, by Tullius. Can you get it for me, dear?"
Bemused, shaking her head, Petra dragged over a little footstool. She handed the book to Sweeney, who staggered slightly under its weight. It looked big as a castle keep, and just as impenetrable. The spine made a noise like bone snapping when Sweeney parted the middle pages as Andraste had parted the Tevinter straights.
"Now, if I remember correctly…I think it's in Part Two…Ah, yes. Here we are." Sweeney shoved the book at Rylock, who caught it with a startled "ooof" and held it as gingerly as she had looked into Rillian's microscope.
The size of it! The weight of it! All those thousands and thousands of words…
"Read it, please, Knight Commander. Out loud - for the benefit of my old eyes."
"Um… An introduction is faulty if it can be applied as well to a number of causes; that is called a banal introduction. Again, an introduction which the adversary can use no less well is faulty, and that is called a common introduction. That introduction, again, is faulty which the opponent can turn to his own use against you. And again that is faulty which has been composed in too laboured a style, or is too long; and that which does not appear to have grown out of the cause itself in such a way to have an intimate connection with the Statement of Facts; and, finally, that which fails to make the hearer well-disposed or receptive or attentive."
There. Happy? I hope that was enjoyable for you. Because I didn't understand a word of it.
"Dispositio is the arrangement of the arguments in an oration," Sweeney declared, "Can you give me an example of the kind of cause you are defending to the Grand Cleric?"
"Um, well, no…"
"No? Well, in that case, I suggest that you refrain from practicing the noble arts of rhetoric and dialectic until you have mastered their fundamentals." Sweeney tapped the book with his index finger. "The Chant says: "What man is there who can comprehend the wisdom by which the Maker knows all things?" You should live by those holy words - and remember: "Even a fool, when she holds her peace, is counted wise."
Meaning I should shut my mouth? Is that it? Well, why didn't you just say so? Instead of making me jump through fancy mage hoops?
"Young woman: are you listening? There is another book I would like you to read. A very wonderful book written by a convert of Andraste during unjust imprisonment. Petra, dear - can you swap this book for the Consolatio Philosophiae, please?"
Petra breathed a long-suffering sigh, and climbed onto the footstool like one scaling Temple Mountain.
Give ear to my prayer, oh Maker, and hide not thyself from my supplication. Don't tell me I'm expected to read this monster! It's even bigger than the first. I'd rather be hit over the head with it.
Sweeney's tone held a kind of secret satisfaction. "I'm going to let you carry it on your way to Denerim, and perhaps it will help you understand the weight of the Chantry's history. Because there are many things you have yet to learn, Knight Commander and Andraste's Right Arm. Many, many things. Despite what you may believe."
Is that so? Well, there's one thing I have learned, in twenty years on the Chantry's front lines, and that's how to recognize an arrogant mage when I see one.
And I'm looking at one right now.
Wynne was standing beside a little gaggle of apprentices. Full mage robes hid their feet, drawn hoods enclosed all but the bright, excited faces. The tiny figures wore soft indoor slippers. In their wake, the thick iron-banded doors and stone-slab floor seemed suddenly coarse and ugly. They looked up when Arlessa Isolde and Arl Eamon approached with Connor: the two half-dragging the obviously reluctant boy.
"It's only for a little while, darling," Isolde was saying, "I must speak at the Landsmeet - bear witness to Father's miracle. No-one will be able to say our bloodline is cursed after evidence of such divine favour. You must stay here - with the other apprentices - and be very good. Senior Enchanter Wynne will look after you."
"The snow's heavy. You'll get all wet. And what if I get sick again? Wynne wouldn't know what to do if I got really sick."
"Oh - that poor little boy," Wynne murmured, "If only the fool woman hadn't tried to shield him from the Circle he'd know not to be afraid of us."
Connor went on. "What if the wind blew over a tree? And somebody got hurt? You'd just have to come right back here, wouldn't you?"
Patiently, Isolde explained and soothed. Ines muttered to Wynne: "He's going to drive me crazy. She can't convince him we won't hurt him. Sometimes it's a great temptation to prove him correct: put him across my knee and beat some sense into him."
Wynne was reproachful. Ines snorted. "Still and all: I can't entirely blame her for wanting to keep her own child. You and I both know…well, never mind. Bad enough when the child is a mage and needs training: when the child isn't a mage I call what the Chantry does kidnapping…"
On her way out of the library, Rylock overheard the last, and stopped. She strode towards the Senior Enchanters, armour clanking, making them see the Knight Commander.
"This conversation is unacceptable," she said curtly.
A strange, taut expression pinched Ines' normally blunt, pragmatic features. She said, tightly:
"You are a Chantry Child. I heard you describe yourself to Keili as "a child of mages". I remember when you first came to the Tower, as a recruit. That would make you thirty-nine. Rylock: Duty. A name off the Chantry's list for foundlings. If you had been raised by mage parents you might have known another. The Chantry had no right to…"
Stunned and irritated by these extremely personal comments - from one of her own charges! - the Knight Commander counted to ten, slowly. She reminded herself that, mage or no, Ines was her elder by a generation - and had saved her life.
Oddly, Rylock did have another name. The Templar who had brought her to the Chantry had passed it on. It had always annoyed Mother Leanna and rather pleased Rylock that her first name was Ellen: Light. Puzzled her, too. Surely apostates would have named her something like Morgana. Or Lilith. Rylock blushed slightly to recall a treasured childhood image of herself, grown tall and strong, atoning for parents whom she had always pictured with horns and tails. No maleficarum were ever that impressive - her insistence that they should be had been a perverse form of pride. It was embarrassing to revisit the follies of her youth.
Embarrassment and irritation made her curt. She snapped: "Are you suggesting the mages had a "right" to keep me - the way a person has a right to a kidney or a limb? Children are a privilege, not a right. I belong to the Maker and to the Chantry: by fate and by choice." And I belong to myself…
Now, where had that come from? Pride again - it is so hard to live up to the example of Andraste…
Startled, chagrined, Rylock watched as an inexplicable fury stormed across Ines' face. The heretofore pragmatic herbalist appeared on the verge of some explosive outburst. For a moment, the two of them stood frozen, Rylock knowing instinctively that Ines was fighting a terrible energy inside herself. She did not wish to move for fear of causing that force to break free - being forced to Smite a person who had saved her life would be…regrettable. Finally, stiff-legged, back arched like an angry cat, Ines walked towards the door. Passing Rylock without looking at her, she said: "The right to love you, perhaps. Excuse me."
Rylock watched her go. Even she could not fail to perceive the grief behind the anger. Clues had swirled from her in a welter as confusing as the fall of autumn leaves. Finally, Rylock concluded that the real subject of her emotion must be Wynne. Ines had been midwife at the birth of Wynne's child. The child taken from Wynne and brought to the Chantry some twenty-eight years earlier. Of course, Ines would remember that - and blame Rylock for what she considered to be Templar heartlessness. The more Rylock thought about it, the more convinced she became. Ines and Wynne did not often see eye to eye - but Ines must have some feeling for her fellow healer in this matter. Rylock supposed her comment might have been tactless, and was sorry - but it would do no good to apologize. You can't mend it; best end it. The matter of Jowan was more important.
Sweeney had joined Ines. Just before Rylock turned away, she saw her put her hand in front of her eyes and her head on his shoulder. Embarrassed to have witnessed something so private, Rylock quickly turned away, left them to each other's tender mercy. Clutching the Maker-damned book the old mage had given her as though it were a package of explosives, she headed upstairs to her quarters.
That night, Rylock burned the midnight oil. One small candle flickered and shivered across the yellow richness of old parchment. The words wavered in her vision. She grasped the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger and absently attempted to flex the stick-like fingers of her right hand. Sounds of life in the castle courtyard drifted through slitted windows…along with noises from the Great Hall below, which now housed the Harrowed mages. Bodahn's familiar hawker's cry mingled with Enchanter Godwin's excruciating rendition of The Warden Slays The Hurlock General…
This is ridiculous: I've faced Blood Mages and demons and darkspawn, yet I've been completely unmanned by that old mage's book. If it wasn't for the Consolatio Philosophiae I'd be sound asleep. But I'm not going to let old Sweeney get the better of me. I'm going to learn this text off by heart, if I have to kill myself doing it.
Wordlessly, Rylock struggled to wrap her brain around unfamiliar concepts - or unfamiliar ways of looking at things she had always taken for granted. She wrestled them as though wresting an angel - was flung down, surrendered - looked up, to find not an enemy but a lover. It was only another way of looking at the story of Andraste, after all…
What's that noise? A knock on the door - at this time of night?
Rylock padded to the door on bare feet, having doffed her armour in favour of plain tunic and trousers. The figure was a dim form in long skirts, holding a flickering candle. A face bent over the candleflame: high-cheekboned, arch, with blazing lyrium-blue eyes.
"Wynne?"
"I'm sorry to disturb you at this hour. I'm bringing you news you're not going to like, but I have to talk to you about it. Or Loghain."
The mention of that name - coupled with Wynne's presence in her quarters in the middle of the night - burst through Rylock's overworked brain in a flood of mortification. She remembered the deaths of Ser Tavish and so many others by the Drakon River - and the dream of life that had followed…
Pull yourself together. You flatter yourself if you think Wynne is here for such a reason. This is to do with the Circle - it's only your own guilty conscience that's the matter with you. For shame!
Very properly, Rylock made a stiff gesture, inviting Wynne inside. With exquisite formality, she intoned: "Senior Enchanter Wynne. How may I help you?"
Wynne's voice confused Rylock. It was soft, heavy with an urgency that gave it several nuances of intrigue. "I've heard things from Denerim. From Bodahn and others. Did you know there are twenty Orlesian ships sitting off Amaranthine coast? Did you know there's a representative from the Empress at Denerim palace - a Lady Marjolaine Reveur? And did you know that, while the good Grand Cleric Leanna is chomping at the bit to accuse you and Harith of disobedience to the Chantry, there's also Grand Cleric Iona waiting to accuse Loghain?"
Rylock considered this. "I don't see the connection. Of course the Orlesian Grand Cleric is here to accuse Loghain: he is guilty. Guilty of selling Ferelden citizens into Tevinter slavery - of conspiring with Blood Mages. These things are known - and warrant the Chantry's Justice. Loghain knows this."
"Do I have to spell it out for you? I think the Orlesian Chantry and the Empress are in league. I think Loghain is their first target - but if he somehow avoids giving the Chantry a pretext for an Exalted March they'll find another. Or - a way to weaken Ferelden. Consider that the proposal drawn up by Revered Mother Hannah to move the Circle to the Temple of the Ashes relies upon recognition of the Temple as a Holy Site. Otherwise the standard procedure when a Tower is too badly damaged to sustain that nation's Circle is to relocate the mages to other Circles. You and Harith are in trouble not because you fought darkspawn but because you fought alongside Ferelden's army. That means the Orlesians have got to wonder whether the Crown could use you to do so again. It's what Loghain tried before, with Uldred. Relocate us to Orlais and it removes that threat - or turns it against Ferelden. The only witnesses to the Gauntlet are myself, Rillian, Sister Leliana and Alistair. The only witnesses to Eamon's healing are you, Harith, Isolde, Rillian and Alistair. Rillian and Alistair are under jurisdiction of the Wardens - I am a mere mage, and as such my word doesn't count for anything - poor Eamon is not in his right mind, and Isolde is…a woman who tried to shield her mage son. You and Harith are the only two who would otherwise be trusted. Tell me you don't see a connection?"
"And what about Seeker Leliana? She is trustworthy - and trusted."
"Indeed. Which is why I fear she may also be in great danger. Did you know she's already in Denerim - based at the Chantry there?"
"Wynne: these conjectures are unfounded. You have not even met the Orlesian Grand Cleric. Neither of us has any idea why she is here. I will fight to defend Seeker Leliana - or anyone - from treachery. But I must fight against what is known, not what is suspected."
Rylock's thoughts were murky, guilty. In Jowan's case, she was perfectly willing to consider a pre-emptive strike.
The very mildness of Wynne's tone rattled Rylock. "I stood against Uldred when he brought Loghain's offer of military service in exchange for greater freedom. I did it because I knew the man who betrayed King Cailan would employ any kinds of magic in his fight for what he believed to be right: which may or may not have been right, but no man can know that. And because I knew that Uldred would use any kind of magic in his fight for freedom. To be used as catapults - or archers - or healers - that kind of war magic is clean, if killing can ever be said to be clean. But the uses to which Loghain would put magic - Uldred's, or Jowan's, or Caladrius' - would be dirty. And so they were. That danger is always present, even in wars that are named "just". And for mages, combat always risks the soul even more than it risks our lives: in extremis, we have access to options the rest of the world doesn't, with no way to close the box once opened."
Wynne's face was pale, drawn, her eyes full of some knowledge Rylock could not guess at. She went on: "I know that we are of one mind in this. But what you don't sufficiently realize is that the Chantry are just as capable of using mages - or Templars - in the wrong ways. You and I both lived through Remille's rebellion - you know that there were as many Templars playing politics as mages. No, I have not met Grand Cleric Iona: but I do know she was Revered Mother of Montsimmard at the time. Do you honestly believe she could have seen no evil; spoken none?"
The talk of those dark sails sitting off the coastline suddenly exploded in Rylock's brain in a series of hitherto unmade connections. Meredith had been absolutely sincere in her arguments for defying Threnhold's attempts to remove the Order from Kirkwall. But hadn't the whole problem begun with a squabble over shipping rights?
Grand Cleric Elthina used Meredith for politics too - why did I never see this before? And if I had, would it have made a difference? I don't know: I only wish I could have saved Meredith as she saved me…
Rylock dragged her damaged hands over the tired skin of her face, feeling the worry lines rearrange themselves.
"Wynne," she said, "Even if this were all true: what other option do I have than to return to Denerim and bear honest witness to what I have seen and done? I do not tell lies. I don't understand what you are asking of me: what exactly is it you think I can do to prevent what you fear?"
"Rather than be used by the generals of one side, or the other, might we not simply…withdraw?"
Slowly, dangerously, Rylock stood up, grinding the force of her gaze into Wynne's. Wynne paled at the dispassionate threat she saw in Rylock's face, but did not back down.
"I am not saying turn apostate. I am saying: secede from national politics - your Templars and the Circle, together."
"I heard you and Ines talking about children. I know that you gave more than I can understand to save the Circle's children from Uldred. Is this really about being conscientious objectors - or merely about staying together with the people you love?"
Unexpectedly, Wynne's porcelain-smooth demeanor cracked, like a fissure in a vase.
"Merely?" she choked out. "I heard what you said to Ines! If we do not have the "right" to care for our own children, do we not even have the right to care for the children we have made our own? Or must the Chantry steal everything that makes us worth more than the stone we walk upon!"
Rights…rights. It was a strange concept - and one Rylock had only ever heard mages speak of. Everywhere else in Thedas, people spoke of duty. Rillian's people spoke of duty to community. The Bannorn spoke of duty: the duty of lords to freeholders and vise-versa, a quid pro quo. Protection in exchange for service. The Qun spoke of duty. The Tevinter Imperium spoke of neither rights nor duty but only of power. Rylock had never realized before that what had drawn her to the Chantry like a moth to light was that it was the only organization in Thedas that even hinted at the concept of intrinsic rights: rights earned not through military service, nor bloodline, nor power, but purely by virtue of being the Maker's children.
It annoyed her to hear Wynne criticize the Chantry for falling below standards they alone had set.
Nonetheless: the Chantry had set those standards, and so must uphold them.
Rylock sat down again, the threat draining out of her. She steepled her fingers together, and spoke - slowly, carefully, considering the words as she went along. "I have always thought that I defended the innocent from maleficarum because it is the Maker's will. I did not realise that it was also because I believe in rights. I do not know exactly what our rights are, or should be - whether they should include children, or freedom, or peace, or happiness. I do know they must include owning our own bodies and souls: and that this is what Blood Magic threatens. Do you not see that for your plan to work our community must be hidden? Hidden from the outside world? At Ostagar, you cited the Dalish Clans as examples that such magical communities can work - and I agree: sometimes they can. I will cite the times they fail. Zathrian's Curse - Haven…and even among communities that have Templars: Remille's uprising, and Uldred's. All these tragedies have one thing in common: they were not stopped save by outside help. Even Greagoir's action of bolting the doors and sealing the demons inside would not have kept them out forever: do you imagine that demons cannot break down a door, or cross water? You are not even asking to form a mage-only community - I know that - but you are expecting me to guarantee that my Templars will do better than Greagoir's. It would be arrogant to assume that. You speak of rights - but expect me to gamble with the rights of our non-mage neighbours that such a community will turn out as it should. No matter the odds, I say the Maker does not play dice with lives and souls - and nor will I. You cannot have mage rights until you have universal rights. I will argue the truth at the Landsmeet - argue that Ferelden's Circle must remain in Ferelden - try to make almost any kind of mage-Templar community work: but it must be open to outside justice should internal justice fail."
Bitterly, Wynne said: "And where was outside justice for Thomas Amell? Perhaps we shall have that - in the Maker's time. But the Maker's time is not like the time of men. We may achieve a concept of universal rights someday - and laws that uphold them - but it will come too late for this Circle and its children. Goodnight, Rylock."
Rylock read terrible defeat in the stooped back, the lines of exhaustion and brittle age. At the Drakon River, she had known Wynne numinous, laughing, faintly shining in the moonlight like a living statue of Andraste. Now she had blasted forward several decades, like one of Dworkin's explosives shooting towards the sky, leaving only ashes behind. Her last look had been that of a tired old grandmother.
I did that to her. Me.
But the night at the Drakon River had happened out of time. With the souls of all the dead men floating on the air, they too had been spirit-like, as they would be in the Golden City. Not mage and Templar: just two women.
Here, on Thedas, the dangers of magic existed. Rylock had known in blood, body and soul just what she protected the people of Thedas from. To take chances with their safety based on personal feelings would be a terrible betrayal. To do it based on empathy for the Circle's plight - and Rylock might not be naturally empathetic but she too had known what it was to be utterly without power, all self-expression snatched away and the will of another crushed down on her - was less base, but still a betrayal.
Rylock. Duty. Duty to the servants of Redcliffe, the human sacrifices of Haven, the unfortunates who had wandered too close to Zathrien's Clan and been swallowed up by one old man's vengeance.
I never thought duty could taste so bitter.
AN: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, the United States Constitution of 1787 – I don't think Thedas has an equivalent (yet). After Maric's rebellion, Fereldan probably has something like the Magna Carta – but that would only defend the rights of human freeholders and say nothing about Elves or mages. In Orlais nobles have unlimited power over peasants and Elves. At the time of DA2, Chantry law is all they have. By the time of Inquisition (10 years later) I plan to have things change...
The Rhetorica Ad Herrenium was at one point thought to have been written by Cicero. The Consolatio Philosophiae was written by Boethius during a year-long imprisonment. Since the devs seem to have based Tevinter on Ancient Rome I thought the Circle mages might have such texts.