PART TWO: APOSTATE'S GAMBLE
Chapter Thirteen: Enemies Among Us
AN: another dark chapter (because it is impossible to write about Danarius without being disturbing). Aftermath of abuse, issues of consent, references to rape etc. I also wish to point out (hopefully this goes without saying but you never know) that the opinions expressed on these subjects are those of the characters, not necessarily my own.
A buzz of excited speculation ran like water through the ground floor of the Blooming Rose. A gaggle of women (Katriela, Sabina and Viveka) and men (Jethan – Lambert's friend, rival and partner-in-crime – and Adriano, an older man whose delicate features and clean, sharp jawline seemed sculpted from pale marble) were draped around Quintus' bar, pressing farewell drinks into Lambert's hands.
"Lucky little bitch," Katriela sighed, "all of four months and he's earned enough to buy into Bartrand's expedition."
Sabina waved a hand dismissively, hennaed curls swaying in time to the movement, "Oh, he got lucky at Danarius' estate. Whether that luck will last in the Deep Roads is another matter..."
"Bite your tongue," suggested Adriano pleasantly, "I'm sure our lad will return quite the hardened adventurer."
Lambert said nothing, sipping a glass that was cloying as treacle, and stung the inside of his mouth where Danarius had bitten through the strand of flesh under his tongue. Since leaving the mansion – to stash what he had stolen from the estate in various hiding places throughout Lowtown and then to clean up at the Rose before heading home - everything had gone unreal and strange. The world shimmered and blurred around him like a painting left in rain. By the fifth glass, the pain of cuts and bruises, the dull ache of internal bleeding and the rasp along his nerves – as though his skin had been scrubbed with wire brush – had morphed into a dreamlike haze. He seemed to float above it, tethered by tenuous strands anchoring him to earth. He was tempted – for just a moment – to give them a sharp pull; soar away like the kite he and Carver had played with as children.
He looked down, horrified to find the floor misting and blurring.
Get a grip, Lambert. Never let anyone see you cry.
He looked up, tried his best to manoeuvre his throbbing collection of bruises into a louche pose, and gave an insouciant grin.
"Mustn't keep Varric waiting." He slipped an arm around Viveka's bony shoulders, breathed in her perfume and dropped a light kiss onto her powdered cheek. It had been Viveka who had given him Danarius as a client and - seeing as he had now made enough for the Deep Roads expedition plus to keep his mother safe and well for a year - he was grateful. Then he slipped upstairs, tossing back farewells and banter as he went.
Only when safely within the walls of his own chamber – a luxury only the best of Madame Lusine's people could afford - did Lambert's posture slip. He stood, swaying gently, and pressed the tips of his fingers against the inside of his mouth. The tissue there had swollen: thumb and index finger exploded two charges of pain which sent a white flash through his head and swung the room. He dropped to his knees over the chamberpot, retching soundlessly. Bile and alcohol, sour and hot. He grabbed for the whiskey beside the bed and swirled it around his mouth, then spat. He straightened up slowly, drew in a painful breath, and shuffled to the full-length mirror along one wall.
He was shocked by his own reflection. His short black hair was matted and lank with sweat. The right side of his face along the jaw appeared to be smeared with purple ink, but when he touched it he discovered that this was the trailing edge of a bruise that mottled the entire skin of his neck. Where it wasn't bruised or smeared with dirt, his skin was grey and grainy, as if he had been suffering through a long and difficult illness. His right eye was fiery, no white visible, just the dark iris and the darker pupil floating in an elliptical pool of blood. Both the bloodied eye and the clear gazed back at him with a haunted expression that was so unnerving he turned away in confusion. He didn't know himself like this.
It had seemed too good to be true: an offer of ten gold sovereigns for one night. Experience had warned him: when something seems too good to be true, it usually is - but being ten sovereigns short of the required amount for Bartrand's expedition had persuaded him to ignore his gut. An older man, with the soft hands of an accountant and eyes so pale they reflected the room around them rather than possessing any colour of their own, Danarius had not seemed extraordinary. So ordinary, in fact, that Lambert had not objected as he was tied and gagged, considering this just the game the noble had paid ten sovereigns for. By the time he had realised his mistake – realised Danarius was a Blood Mage who wanted all nine pints – it was too late.
It had become clear to Lambert, as the corpse-pale eyes had devoured him, that this wasn't about pleasure – that the sexual sadism had been a preliminary to the real banquet. Throughout this aperitif, Danarius had continued to talk to him, to insist on Lambert's personhood. He had wanted Lambert to see that he was doing these things to him, the young man that he was, until Lambert's suffering as a person took the mage to the lower level of being, at which point the heavy, blind blood dream had played itself out.
With his consciousness floating above the red-brown pulses, Lambert had struggled to concentrate on the words, to keep his mind above the fire blown into him...
"My father was a lout. Beauty and refinement were blank as stone walls to him. When he came into possession of Castellum Tenebris he spent years debauching its beauties. The result of his debaucheries was that he had me. I value beauty – I have spent years pushing the boundaries of what magic and lyrium can do. The result of my experimentation is my little wolf, Fenris. Once Fenris had affection for me. I remember it fondly. Then the lad betrayed me – fled to Kirkwall. That is not easy to do. Castellum Tenebris overlooks the Nocen Sea. It is only accessible through a single bridge, well-defended by archers. But Fenris and I were on Seheron island, in the Boeric Ocean, and I was distracted. You see why I am here. You see why I need blood for my ritual. Oh, Kirkwall has many like you - people who will not even be missed - and you are even a fledgling mage. Mage blood is most efficacious when summoning allies."
Danarius' voice had woven a kind of spell. Lambert's pain, ebbing and flowing like black water, had receded in importance.
I hope he gets away from you...
And then, just as the descent into the place beneath words had summoned the demons – just as they crawled out of the Fade like spiders from eggs – Danarius' little wolf had come for his master.
Lambert was unable to see much of the fight. A lyrium ghost, a shadow, a storm of silverite – the howls of agony as the demons were fragmented. Danarius called his human guards – the blue wraith cut them down too.
"Where is the coward, Danarius? Run away so soon?"
For one horrible moment Lambert feared Danarius' would-be assassin was just going to leave him there: a meal served on a silver platter for the magister to return. But the killer cut his bonds and removed the gag. Fenris had dark skin and his silver-white hair was shockingly brilliant, like sunshine on snow. His predatory green eyes were not looking at Lambert – they were scanning the chamber in a strange mixture of hunger and absence.
Until Lambert, without thinking, gathered the last of his mana and sent a wave of healing through himself: sweet and cool, like a dappled pond. It wasn't much – he was no Anders – just enough that he could walk away from this hideous mess. The relief was almost an agony in itself; he stifled a sob. Later, when he was alone.
Fenris looked at him then – with rage and disgust.
"If you are also a mage, how did you end up tied like a market hog, ready to be consumed?" The voice was a deep baritone, and ugly with contempt.
"Because I'm an idiot." That seemed to cover it pretty well.
"Tell me, then: what manner of mage are you?"
"A naked one," Lambert quipped, then silently cursed the imp that had him saying the worst of things at the worst of times. He giggled nervously – an edge of hysteria trying to crawl up his throat – then awkwardly scrambled about the floor retrieving his clothes, wondering all the while when Fenris would lose his temper and behead him.
"What is it that you seek?"
A bath... "I'm trying to earn enough money to set my mother up for life. Then I plan to retire by the time I'm nineteen, lead a life of stylish debauchery and maybe write my memoirs."
Fenris didn't smile.
"Look: I'm grateful for what you did. You didn't have to untie me. If you choose to head straight to the Gallows and drop me in it I can't stop you. But if you don't, I promise I'll teach you the Litany of Adralla - which works for non-mages against Blood Magic and demons – and I'll help you hunt this bastard, for as long as it takes."
The green eyes flicked over Lambert, once, then away. "I assume Danarius left valuables behind. Take them, if you wish. I... need some air."
Lambert lurched drunkenly to the washbowl, peeled off the clothes that were stuck to his body by sweat and dried blood, and cleaned himself off. The perfumed water stung the places where flesh had split; between his legs snaked a dark stream of viscous blood. He had thought he had been standing straight all this time, but his reflection in the mirror showed him his new posture, shy under the right ribs. There was something wrong there – something that would have consequences. He didn't worry about it. Instead, he soaped himself gingerly, wincing and grunting. His imagination saw the bruises as the physical text of Danarius' will. When he touched himself, it felt like touching someone else's flesh.
He changed into soft velvet tunic, leather trousers and high boots, and straightened up with an effort that made him sweat. Carefully, he applied foundation and powder to neck and face, trowelling it on like magic velvet over the bruises. Make-up was always a risky prospect when heading home – his mother disapproved, and sometimes asked awkward questions. But Lambert was used to fielding those. Already, his mind was recasting Danarius as a comedy buffoon – a hapless Tevinter noble who had been exiled due to his lack of magical ability, and who paid exorbitant coin for a bard who could entertain him with stories of the homeland he missed. That's what Lambert was, to his mother – a musician who entertained old ladies and gentlemen – she was too innocent to question. The old bastard, Uncle Gamlen, was certainly not innocent – but had enough of his own secrets they had come to a wary truce. Lambert enjoyed the stories he told his mother – would have changed, if he could, his very memories. Perhaps, though, in his future memoir, he wouldn't just be a musician – perhaps he would be a mercenary, or a smuggler – a hardened adventurer, as Adriano had put it. Ideas flocked to meet him. By the time he had made up eyes - deep purple like wet roses – and paler, shell-like lips, he felt he had reappeared from behind the mask of some abused stranger. It lifted his spirits, and he managed a wink with his good eye. The other could always be blamed on an irritation. Last, he opened the little alcove in one wall, in which he had stashed the daggers that might have helped last night. Bard's Honour he had scavenged from Ostagar, and The Bodice Ripper had been a gift from Isabella. The darkly beautiful Pirate Queen had visited him several times. Lambert was always too much of a gentleman to charge her but accepted her gifts with grace.
Alright. Time to swag it out and head home. Now if I can just manage to avoid walking like a hobbled goat…
A Templar was waiting for him in the hall.
Shit! Fenris must've gone straight to them...
The Templar was a young man – only about Lambert's own age, though broad and muscled as Carver. He had close-cropped fair hair, the beginnings of a moustache, and hazel eyes that seemed curiously flat, with the fearsome, detached vigour that distinguishes those trained to violence.
"Is this him?" he asked Viveka. A sure, strong voice that might have commanded thousands across a battlefield.
If the Maker exists, he has a really odd sense of humour.
"Yes, messere, this is Lambert Hawke. He's Ferelden, like you, and a veteran of the Fifth Blight. If anyone can assist you with your enquiries, it would be him."
Shit shit shit – Viveka knows I never "assist Templars with their enquiries"! He had never spelled out the truth – that he was worried the magebane might wear off after a few hours, as sometimes happened with extreme physical exertion – had instead explained his late father had been an apostate, and it would have felt a betrayal to be whimpering and squirming beneath the Templar Order. Which was also true. But how to get out of this one? Templars get nasty when their desires are thwarted, and I need some credit in case Fenris does run to them...
He composed a charming smile.
"What is your wish, Serah...?"
"Cullen Rutherford, at your service."
Cullen Rutherford! They had served together in the Fifth Blight – Cullen fighting darkspawn and Lambert as a medic – and he had healed him at Ostagar. Lambert had used magic - giving Templars his best just as any other soldiers - but in the chaos this had gone unnoticed. He had heard the stories about Cullen. This was the Templar who had pressed the Brand to his cousin's forehead – rendering Thomas forever a sleepwalker – this was the Templar who had argued for the Rite of Annulment (every mage, including children). And the rumours Lambert had heard since leaving Ferelden spoke of Cullen shooting a fourteen-year-old in the back just for running home, and trying to behead two other apprentices.
Careful, Lambert. Be very, very careful...
"Could we...talk for a moment?"
"Of course, Serah. I am always happy to assist the noble Templar Order and my quarters are very...private."
"Um...could we perhaps talk outside? I will only take a moment of your time."
Up against the wall? Perhaps that's how Templar recruits do it? Good thing Idunna's been teaching Wilmod, Hugh and Keran some graces...
"Whatever you desire."
Lambert followed Cullen outside the Blooming Rose, into the grey, uncoloured paleness of stone walls and guttered lanterns. There wasn't much left of the night. Overhead hung a pitted disc like frosted glass. An almost-full moon, circled by stars glimmering between shadowy purple clouds. Lambert understood what Fenris had meant by "I need some air" - after the stuffy, perfumed, cloying treacle of indoors, the breath of breeze, the tang of salt and filth and tar and pitch, was very welcome. The skin of his arms rose to goosebumps. He turned to Cullen.
"Good. I can breathe here," the knight said. "I am sorry to bother you, Lambert, but I am very worried about one of my recruits. His name is Keran, and I know he visits the...uh...young ladies of this establishment frequently. I was hoping that someone would know where he went, but I am having no luck with my enquiries. Nobody here will speak to me because they are afraid Knight Commander Meredith will shut the place down for serving our recruits."
"And will you?"
"Maker, no! I don't approve of it, naturally, but there are worse crimes than dallying with women of questionable reputation."
Worse crimes? Like rendering mages Tranquil or like shooting children in the back?
"Ser Cullen – I wouldn't worry about Keran. He'll probably show up in a day or two with some questionable tattoos, that's all. Just teenage rebellion..."
"I just had to put down Ser Wilmod. He had been forced into possession against his will."
"What? That's impossible, for non-mages." Even for mages, so his father had assured him and Bethany, when they woke shivering and shaking after waking nightmares. "Those things can never hurt you unless you make them real. Never take anything they offer – never even give them the chance to speak - and they will forever remain just shadows, echoes, yearning for the life they can see but never touch." In other words, Lambert thought now, when a demon possessed a mage it was like what Danarius had done to him. It had been horrible, but could not be called rape because he had taken the ten sovereigns and allowed the mage to tie him up. What Cullen was talking about was like what Danarius had done to Fenris – a lifetime of abuse, with no choice at all, no chance to defend himself, because Fenris was an Elf and a non-mage in a land ruled by supremacist slavers.
"Normally we only worry that mages will fall victim to possession. But I have heard of Blood Mages – or demons in solid form – who could summon others into unwilling hosts."
Blood Mages. Lambert remembered how the descent into the place beneath words had transformed Danarius' aristocratic countenance into something no likeness could ever reproduce. He flinched from the memory, eyes slinking around the courtyard that seemed suddenly full of shadows. Cullen saw the flinch, and said,
"You do know something!"
"I don't know if it relates to Keran. I do know there is a Tevinter magister called Danarius in Kirkwall, and that he uses young men who will never be missed in Blood Magic rituals. He's trying to recapture an escaped slave – a brave man named Fenris who is the sole reason I survived last night. I'll sketch you the layout of his mansion. If I help you with your Blood Mage, please help me and Fenris against ours."
"They are all "my Blood Mages" – I am a Templar, and that is what we do." Cullen's voice was stark with a purity of outrage Lambert had never before heard. Lambert had expected to see his lip curl in contempt – the distaste of a knight for a soiled bit of street meat who had been too stupid and too greedy to turn down a handful of sovereigns - a fly who had wandered willingly into the spider's web. "I still have nightmares of Uldred's depravities." Lambert heard in that clean, sombre confession both an offer of solidarity and a warning. Like Fenris, this man would never trust mages, never see them as people. When he met the hazel eyes, he felt he was looking at glass that had been hurled against stone and shattered.
"I will see what I can find out about Keran. How will I contact you?"
"The Gallows, of course. I am usually on duty and I... don't sleep much."
The Gallows, Lambert thought, and shuddered. Hopefully Keran really is just gambling and getting stupid tattoos...
Cullen bade him farewell and turned away with the trace of a heel-click. Lambert went back indoors. He had not told Cullen everything, of course – it would have been bad form to reveal all three men had been regular customers of "Idunna the Exotic Wonder from the East". As her quarters were just across the corridor from his, his first step wouldn't be difficult.
"Idunna?" Lambert knocked softly, apologetically. At this time of morning, Lusine's people were usually sleeping off the effects of a heavy night.
"Come in, dear."
She wasn't sleeping. A beautiful, poised woman sat elegantly on her bed, as if entertaining the Viscount himself. Her opalescent eyes drew Lambert in – eyes nearly as pale as Danarius' had been, full of shifting ambiguities. Lambert found himself thinking of the magical creatures that lived below the surface of Lake Calenhad. Here one minute and gone the next, they made the mind distrust the eye.
"I heard Danarius can be...difficult. Well done for going there – and for getting out again. If you have injuries...I can help you."
She appeared to Lambert as both wonderfully kind – more gentle than his own mother – and the most beautiful woman he had ever seen – even more glorious than Sister Leliana.
Keran...
"Thank you," he said softly, "I just have one question first – if you don't mind?"
"I don't mind, dear. Anything for you."
"I've just had a Templar here – Cullen, from Ferelden. He wants to know about three recruits: Keran, Wilmod and Hugh. I know they are your regulars – and I applaud their good taste – so...I was hoping...you might know something?"
"Hmmm - let me think. No, those names don't seem familiar."
Lambert found himself thinking that he really should go easy on this lovely creature.
"You must remember them. I saw Hugh visit you last night, as I was heading to Danarius."
Idunna rose, so smoothly she almost seemed to drift into the new position. She stepped forward. Her pupils made him think of fractured mirrors. Without meaning to, Lambert found himself humming a tune – the Litany of Adralla Rillian had taught him, before they faced Corypheus.
"Just do one thing for me, darling. Draw your blade and bring it gently across your throat."
He lay in scorching bonds below Darktown. Lay like a living mummy – a soul encoffined in its paralyzed, tormented flesh – with his most private memories splayed like a map before the eyes of his tormentors.
"I think not."
"How did you...oh, shit!"
Idunna dropped to her knees. "Spare me, messere!"
"How did you do that?"
"Blood and desire, in equal measure. An art I learned from...elsewhere. Please don't kill me."
"Tell me everything. Now."
"Tarohne put me here. To send biddable Templar recruits to the Sanctuary. Three Spear Alley, in the Undercity. I enchanted Wilmod and Keran weeks ago. But after they left these walls, I know not what came of them. Please, let me live. It's not my fault. It was all Tarohne's idea."
"Tarohne?"
"She put me up to this. She said we can recreate the Tevinter Imperium. That mages can rule again, not serve. She said the Templars cannot hold us if we stand up and fight."
"This base of yours – how many other mages are there? Any other defences?
"People go in and out all the time. Sometimes a handful, sometimes more. There are traps. Magical traps. There's a hidden switch at the front – it turns them off. That's all I know."
The Templars are coming for you...
Lambert had the sense not to warn her beforehand. He smiled and gave her a courtly bow, gentleman to lady. "Thank you for your help, you have been most kind."
Outside, he took the stairs two at a time, thinking furiously. Perhaps his vision of Keran was a true image, imparted by Idunna as she slid into his mind like an insect's stinger. A voice that sounded remarkably like the chittering little demons that haunted his nightmares said, "If Keran's been there weeks he's probably a lost cause. You could send Cullen a letter warning them about Idunna – that will protect future victims..." His entire body was a screaming mass of pain and he just wanted to sleep for a week.
What would it be like, he wondered, to lie blind amid the darkness and the chokedamp and yet see one's friends – see their faces for the enemy so that they too could be dragged down to the same hell? With no chance, no choice, but to have every thought and feeling and memory violated, while a demon wore your body like a costume to amuse evil?
The Gallows, he thought, in resignation. At least now I'm not a victim, like a maiden in one of Varric's stories, always getting into some jackpot and having to be rescued...
He did a creditable impression of his usual strut as he left the Blooming Rose. The look on Madame Lusine's face – mouth pursed tighter than a cat's arse and gimlet eyes following him with hatred – was almost worth the trip to the Gallows. Almost.
The pale bulk of the Gallows loomed before him. The high stone walls were just beginning to lighten, as dawn spread a rose-and-gold sheen over everything. Lambert might have found it beautiful, had there not been Templar guardsmen prowling the walls, with crossbows trained on him. He thought of poor young Jerren – the lad Cullen had shot just for running away – and shuddered. Could he actually be about to walk inside of his own free will? Apparently so.
Mmmmm. That wonderful smell of the Gallows. Caustic soda and herbs and bleach. Not a single dog turd anywhere. Not a whiff of urine. No chokedamp, no smoking weed, no rotting rubbish. Nothing but scrubbed stone floors and cobweb free corners as far as the eye can see. I'd almost forgotten what cleanliness looked like. Of course, the Templars themselves don't smell quite so attractive...
Ironically, both Lambert and Carver had been named after Templars. Ser Lambert van Reeves had argued mages should be self-governing (apparently time in Tevinter had changed his mind, and now he was a really hardcore Seeker) and Ser Maurevar Carver had helped Malcolm escape the Circle.
Cullen was, as he had told Lambert he would be, on duty, looking as though he had been born with a sword for a spine. Two other Templars flanked him: an older brown-haired man and a young fair-haired woman. All three turned as if in unison, making him think of a clockwork toy his father had built when Lambert was little.
"Lambert: I did not expect you would have news for us so soon."
"Ser Cullen: Keran is being held prisoner in a Blood Mage coven in Darktown. Three Spear Alley, in the Undercity. Another prostitute named Idunna enchanted them. The aim is, as you said, to implant them with demons then send them back as abominations."
The older knight scoffed. "Ser Cullen, you can't possibly take this seriously. This is clearly a spiteful tiff between two of Madame Lusine's people. What did Idunna do to offend you, lad? Did one of your favourite clients announce a preference for her?"
"Make fun of me all you want, Ser Templar. If you don't come with me right now Keran is going to be dissolved and remade. You won't like the results."
Cullen did not laugh. He made his decision instantaneously, like a pair of scissors snipping away alternatives. He gathered every Templar in the courtyard and sent a message to Knight Commander Meredith. Lambert was just breathing a sigh of relief, assuming his duty was done, when a sudden thought occurred to him.
"Ser Cullen: can you and your men cast the Litany of Adralla?"
"No..." Cullen said slowly, reluctantly. "The Litany was written by a Tevinter magister – Knight Commander Meredith does not think it proper for our recruits to learn such arts, and I agree with her."
"Use your brains, man!" Lambert shouted, so shocked and angry he forgot for one moment he was talking to a man who could Brand or kill him with impunity. He might have been shouting at Carver, in one of his brother's particularly annoying phases. "The coven is going to shove your scruples down your throat, then open your stomach to pull them back out!"
"Lambert: how is it that you can cast the Litany?" Cullen asked slowly, dangerously. "From whom did you learn it?"
"The Litany can be cast by non-mages - by anyone who can carry a tune, in fact. I learned from the Hero of Ferelden when we journeyed together."
"A likely story," scoffed the older knight.
"Lambert," Cullen said, "If you believe the Litany will help us then I ask you to accompany us. We will protect you from harm, of course."
"Ser: I'm here to fight apostates, not babysit every spiteful little fancy-piece who has a tiff with a rival tart."
"Ser Paxley: you are here to obey my orders," ground out Cullen.
"I am here to save Keran," said the young woman, "And I will work with anyone who shares the same goal." She gave Lambert a smile, which he returned.
"Thank you, Ruvenna," Cullen said, "Men: to me!"
Lambert heard the stamp stamp of booted feet as they prepared to move out. Too many men in the same armour, all thinking the same way...he thought, with a complex inward shudder. Then an unwanted memory flickered at the edges of his vision like dark, winged creatures; like droplets of congealing blood: of himself, scrabbling naked on all fours in Danarius' mansion, trying to find his clothes...
"Ser: at least make sure you bring a change of clothes. So Keran can walk out of there as a Templar."
Cullen nodded briefly, as if at something he understood, and snapped his fingers.
The Templars set off down streets that became progressively narrower and darker. They didn't stop at Lowtown – continued East until Lambert smelled the first sting of chokedamp. Throughout the march, he was aware of eyes watching him from the shadows: the people of the night who hid from armed men, their survival from moment to moment a tenuous uncertainty. His people - who would now think him a grass, a snitch, an informant... Yet another reason the Deep Roads Expedition was so important.
Darktown was, by first appearances, derelict and destitute, but Lambert knew its souls were there. Jethan had once described it as a step up from the Elven Alienage – but at least the Alienage wasn't polluted with chokedamp, which covered the streets in toxic fog.
Darktown was once a mine controlled by the Tevinter Imperium, and now the tunnels had become a refuge for those fleeing something; whether Ferelden refugees who had fled the Blight, or mages fleeing the Gallows, or slaves fleeing the Imperium. The Undercity was home to the diseased, the insane, the Carta and even the dead – unwanted corpses were often discarded by murderers and lazy undertakers.
Lambert was grimly amused to hear the armed men huffing and cursing. Did you think all apostates live in mansions like Danarius? Perhaps that explains why your men are so bad at catching us... He coughed discreetly: the chokedamp created a poisonous mist. The tunnel walls were damp, slick, and coated with phosphorescent lichen. The sewer was a maze, but he felt carefully for the entrance Idunna had told him about. Locked, of course.
Cullen took out a pack of thieves' tools – a trifle sheepishly. He was even more sheepish when the lock remained obstinately shut.
"I guess you'll never make a good burglar," Lambert whispered.
"How can you joke about it!" Cullen hissed.
"Let me try."
Lambert took the tools and began to work: slowly, methodically. He wasn't particularly skilled, but Sister Leliana's lessons had not all been in music. He bit his lip in concentration. "This is a tough one...I'm not sure that...hang on – got it!"
The lock clicked open.
It occurred to Lambert that, as he was the only one who knew about the lever that disarmed the traps - assuming Idunna hadn't played him – he should probably go first. Quickly, before he had a chance to talk himself out of it, he entered the mineshaft and dropped into darkness.
He landed softly, on a surprisingly comfortable floor. Whatever he had been expecting of a den of Blood Mages, it wasn't this. The Templars followed him – a lot less quietly – and they all found themselves in a carpeted room, with a wooden table in one corner and an oak chest in another. The room was deserted. A door was set into the wall opposite. The lever was exactly where Idunna had said it would be – he pulled it, and heard clanking and grinding from a distance. Whoever was waiting behind that door would have heard it too.
"Get behind us, Lambert," Cullen ordered, and Lambert did not need telling twice.
The door burst open.
They faced three men dressed in the cowled robes of Tevinter mages. They looked...almost human, yet there was something not quite right. Their arms were a little too long and thin, their jaws a little too wide. Lambert thought of fish, of sharks, of the creatures that lived beneath Lake Calenhad. He smelled the wrongness like smoke.
The roiling blue power of the Templars curled through the cavern, but didn't touch them. They cast from their veins, and Lambert suddenly saw a bizarre layer of colour, like ribbons of blood: an oily, squirming red light that flared, crackled, groped for... He knew, without needing to think about it, that this was the same power that would have made him slit his own throat. They were going to move the bodies of the Templars like marionettes, and make them start fighting each other...
Because Lambert didn't have mana – he had taken magebane just before heading to the Gallows – he showed as no more than an unimportant insect to the abominations. The Templars were their foe. He could only hope the surprise of the Litany would ensnare them before they changed that opinion.
He began to sing: a wailing harmony whose melodic lines and strings of dissonances resolved into a consonant chord. Slowly, tentatively at first, he scattered atonal spatters of notes, wry accidentals that melded subtly into rich-textured resolutions. Resolution became suspense in a deceptive cadence. Delicate chromatics descended in spirals, downwards into fierce intensity. The three sets of alien eyes – cloudy amber and cold – fell on him but did not challenge. His singing grew surer and more complex: a silver rain that chimed like an orchestra, with an eerie command behind it. The tone flickered gradually from tumult to tranquillity. The aggregate root formed a net – the abominations immured like insects in amber. A silver mesh through which the dark spaces of Blood Magic were squeezed into strange fragments, alive but in locked rooms. Then the deep heavy bass notes surrounded them, absorbed them, as though they were crushing the listeners.
The abominations snarled and attacked with normal magic – seeds of lightning split the murky air like knives through rags, like white birds pecking. But this was what Templars were good for. Almost dismissively, Cullen cast Dispel, and Paxley and Ruvenna finished them off.
"You were right," Cullen told Lambert, his breathing almost entirely normal. "You just protected us from...that filth. But you don't feel like a mage to me. I will inform Knight Commander Meredith that the Litany should be taught to recruits." He kicked the door fully open and they entered a large circular chamber dominated by a strange altar. A white-lipped woman who had to be Tarohne stood behind the altar and above her, hanging like a fly in a spider's web, was a naked young man. Her prey: Keran.
"How wonderful. More vessels for our experiments."
Lambert did not ask her why she had taken the recruits. After Danarius, he knew asking questions like "why" of a sadist was pointless. Sadists were like sickness: they took any victim they could find, they caused suffering because it was what they did. Nonetheless, it appeared Tarohne was interested in exposition:
"Demons can inhabit much more than mages and corpses. With assistance, they can control anyone I ask. Any Templar, any noble, any well-meaning meddler. If a few more Templars fall to the demons, we can seed chaos in their ranks. How many more abominations can they discover amongst their own before it drives the Knight Commander crazy? In days of old, the Tevinter Imperium spanned the known world. Demons were their allies...held in check by power and knowledge. With a wave of my hand I can do more than a Templar can achieve in a lifetime. Yet they command us? Absurd! We should be ruling them. We should rule you all!"
White attenuated fingers jabbed like points of vengeance. She was gathering power from Keran. Lambert saw the recruit's eyes flicker – his feeble, guttering awareness of the nameless violation being worked upon him. At her command, the lambent dark of the cavern split open. The alien luminescence of the Fade shone through the cracks. The eerie fever of light began to shudder and writhe. With mute, tortuous power and a multitudinous, scaly whispering, the demons wrenched their limbs into the waking world.
They were seamed husks, a blackened residue of flesh upon a skeleton of chalk. The eyes were no more than raisins in the shrivelled sockets, and the dehydrated lips stretched and snarled. Ridiculously, Lambert thought of an Elven myth his father had taught him: about a Tevinter nobleman whose dark deeds showed only in his portrait. Was it the portrait's fault it was hideous and damned? No, it was the man's. These demons were probably completely harmless in their own world: now they had been warped into shapes of horror by Tarohne. Shut up and cast the Litany - you have one job...
Lambert sang, and the Templars cast Smite, and the colliding currents turned the cavern into a kaleidoscope of silver and blue, like moonlight on water. A demon stumbled through the twin storms of lyrium and music. Lambert's mind balked, fragmented: he saw his attacker as a series of stills, each one larger than the one before. He struggled not to stop singing, fumbled to bring Bard's Honour and The Bodice Ripper into some semblance of defence. He felt himself halt suddenly, as something gripped his side – the demon's claws were so cold they burned. At the same time he drew Bard's Honour across the creature's throat. It came on howling - skeletal and skull-faced - but it died like any man.
After that, everything became unreal and strange. Lambert struggled to make sense of a world dissolved in delirium. It was like trying to build a stained-glass window with coloured water. Dimly, he was aware of Cullen stitching his injury, while Paxley and another Templar bound their own wounds and Ruvenna helped Keran. Someone had killed Tarohne – in death she appeared like any other woman, broken like a doll. He looked away. Somebody – it might have been Paxley – pressed a flask into his hands. He thought for a minute it was lyrium, and almost giggled at the thought of what would happen if he were to swig that stuff in front of a group of Templars. His mana would regenerate – he'd be able to heal himself - and then he'd end up in the Gallows faster than you could say "apostate". Or "apostitute" as Isabella had once memorably called him. But it wasn't lyrium - it was whiskey – and it was extremely welcome. He gulped it down, and felt the ice-drenched darkness recede slightly.
"Is it...is it over?" Keran's voice: impossibly weak, hurt, crushed, but still rational.
"Yes!" Ruvenna hugged her friend, almost weeping with joy.
"Oh, thank the Maker. I thought he had abandoned me."
Paxley's dour voice shattered the moment. "But is it only Keran? Or is it Keran plus one?"
Lambert was angry to see Cullen – who, of all people, should have had empathy for the young man – consider Keran in wary silence.
"What do you remember about how you got here?"
"I... I was with a lady. And then things got fuzzy. Nightmares, then. On fire for days, a demon laughing. The naked lady with her razor claws...in my chest. I'd wake and hear screams. Maybe my own? Those mages see the rest of us as ants to be crushed. They won't stop until they've destroyed the Chantry and the Templars forever."
Cullen's voice was hollow, impersonal and lethal as plague. "True. At any time, any mage could become a monster, from the lowest apprentice to the most seasoned Enchanter. Mages cannot be treated like people. They are not like you and me. They are weapons. They have the power to light a city on fire in a fit of pique. For now, Keran, unless it is proven you are free of demons, I must strip you of your commission immediately."
Only Ruvenna reacted with dismay. Lambert watched Keran's cold despair as the young man realized what had been done to him had changed those around him even more than it had changed him. He had the look of someone who wished he could turn back time: there, he had been surrounded by enemies. These were friends.
"Please, ser. I tried to resist. I never took anything they offered."
"Maker's balls – are all Templars such fools!" Lambert exploded. "Use sense. If Keran were an abomination, the Litany of Adralla would have affected him. It didn't, so he's not."
"I know Madame Lusine's people speak blasphemy as a native tongue, so I will excuse your lack of manners," Cullen said coldly. He went silent, considering. "Still, you have done much for us today. I will heed your counsel."
The effort of getting up as the Templars prepared to move out brought Lambert out in a cold sweat. Only grim determination kept him on his feet. The thought of trying to negotiate the trapdoor was a torment worthy of the most perverted mind - fortunately the chamber opened out into a series of storerooms that eventually led to stone steps. Once in Darktown, Cullen said,
"Come with us, and take as long as you need to recover. I will see you are properly rewarded. You have done the Order a great service and we will not forget it."
"Ser: I need to head home. Mother will be worried about me. I've been away for hours."
Lambert was aware of the slightly wistful looks of Cullen, Ruvenna and Keran: these young people probably also missed the comforts of home, but would be heading back to the grim and dour Gallows. Unconsciously, the knights stood a little closer together, as if to argue that camaraderie was more important than parents.
As the Templars headed away, Lambert felt a twinge of shame, because he knew he was going to make his mother wait a few hours longer. For one thing, he doubted he could actually make Lowtown in his present state – he had reached the limit of his endurance. For another, he yearned to see Anders one last time before the Deep Roads. He was sure Anders had seen – or heard rumours – he had gone to the Gallows, and Anders had once promised him that, if he took too long coming back, he would go looking for him. Now that Lambert had seen the Gallows, he didn't want Anders going anywhere near there. Anders' golden power - his radiance, his healing – seemed fragile as a candle the Gallows could snuff out.
Anders' Clinic was close to Sanctuary. Like Madame Lusine's, it too was marked by a lantern outside, but while the lanterns outside the Blooming Rose were red as flame, pink as desire, the lantern here was smoky and golden. It was, as always, crammed to the rafters, with queues of patients stretching all the way to the sewage duct in the distance. Anders never charged, never claimed to be too tired, just worked for these strangers without asking for anything. He even put food out for stray cats while he went hungry. Lambert could see the scars he carried – as though he grasped a bunch of thorns – the idealism and the hope. It scared him, sometimes, because he could see that Anders had no safety stop, that he would pour out his own power until he was weightless and empty, so light he would simply soar up beyond the skyline like a bird. Anders needed something - someone – to anchor him to earth.
A ginger cat suddenly galloped to Lambert, claiming him with raucous purring and fierce rubs against his ankles that all but knocked him over.
"Ser Pounce-A-Lot!" Lambert cried joyously, and scooped up the cat, hugging him to his chest. The splintered, howling darkness seemed very far away. In a moment, he knew, Anders would learn of his presence – cat and mage shared a unique bond few would believe.
Lambert was prepared to wait however long it took but suddenly, impossibly, Anders was there. He faced Lambert and he seemed...different.
"I know what you have done. You were seen by half of Darktown leading those Templar bastards into Sanctuary! How could you?"
Lambert gasped in pain, wondering if this was how Keran had felt: surrounded by friends who stared at him in suspicion. He gently let Ser Pounce-A-Lot run to Anders, hoping the cat would calm him down.
"Do you know what Tarohne was doing in Sanctuary?" Please tell me you didn't know...
Anders didn't...exactly...answer the question. "Blood Magic, I assume?" he asked wearily. "Yes: I tell the Resolutionists resorting to Blood Magic only hurts our cause. I tell them summoning demons just proves the Chantry correct. But what you have done – running to the Templar Order and confirming the Knight Commander's most paranoid suspicions – is going to hurt all mages."
"I would cut my throat before I betrayed you, Anders. I thought you knew that."
Anders grasped both Lambert's shoulders. The intensity in those eyes pinned him like a butterfly to a board. "I know you would, Lambert," he said softly, "But, are you really that naïve? How do you think Meredith is going to react to what you just told her? Is she going to think: "I'd better deal with the mages who actually hurt others and leave the innocents alone"? Or will she stamp even harder on the ones already in the Gallows – make a few more of us Tranquil – snatch a few more mage children from their families?"
Lambert swallowed painfully. He was naïve - he hadn't thought that far ahead.
"I should have just left Keran to a fate worse than death? Collateral damage to our cause?"
"You should have come to me!" Anders roared.
Lambert didn't allow himself to wonder why that option had never occurred to him. An iron curtain came down in his mind, shutting off everything but the seams of roiling blue light that seeped through the cracks in Anders' handsome face. His eyes became blue within blue – conduit to an ocean of power – and even after magebane Lambert could feel the Veil shake.
He remembered the demons – the storms of lyrium and music – the pale eyes that drew him in until it seemed he must flow, like light, towards their soothing centre. The Litany struggled for life on his lips.
But if he cast it...if he even began...then he would be forced into irreversible conflict. Either he and Anders would fight...or he would have lost something precious. It was better not to know for sure. Safer if he never, ever asked.
Instead, he said flippantly, "Anders: you're starting to glow again."
"Right. And since I don't want to rip your head off I'd better stop." There was a sheepish note to Anders' voice, he hung his head as if ashamed, and the fierce light began to fade.
All at once, the series of afterimages settled around Lambert's vision like black crows; like a noose, tightening and tightening until only a thin circle of colour and light remained… Lambert squinted up into Anders' face, a pale-golden disc in the swimming dark.
He heard Anders' soft breath hiss between his teeth, and then the flesh-memory of it all suddenly hit him, like dark rain crawling beneath his skin. Blood...so much blood. Lambert could taste its oily bitterness like tarry raindrops. He groaned involuntarily, fighting the light-headedness brought on by delayed shock but unable to resist the soothing cloud of fluffy, dark warmth that wanted to fold over him like black cotton wool.
"I just need a minute...that's all...just to..."
Lambert woke on a thin, hard bed; barely more than stuffed sackcloth on a wooden pallet. He opened his eyes to oily orange light, with the smells of piss, blood, infected wounds, elfroot, and redblossom floating on the dank air. He didn't dare look too closely at the floor: rushes spattered with unspeakable detritus.
He tried to sit up…and realized at once that the combined injuries he had carried were gone, as if they had never been. Some cleansing fire had scoured the tawdriness and filth and horror, some bright wave had rushed through him so that his entire body felt like a spring morning after rain. Already the agony, which had swallowed him whole as an eclipse swallows the sun, seemed unreal to him, like a dream or a mirage.
He blinked, squinted down at his body, and realized he wasn't wearing the clothes he had arrived in. In their place was a baggy tunic and trousers that were just a little too big. They itched slightly and smelled of wet mabari.
Oh, shit! Anders had healed and changed him, which meant he had seen the injuries left by Danarius and... shit, this was embarrassing!
Lambert realized he was not the only patient. The Clinic was full of them, and Anders was healing them all. Lambert stared, his gaze picking out the worn feathers across Anders' shoulders, the bedraggled, moth-eaten edges of each thread on his robe. The sleeves were frayed too, though they'd been clumsily repaired. Everything about Anders was worn thin, as though the long days in this dark city were draining him, and yet he held himself together with sheer force of will. One stray curl of dark-blond hair – Anders' hair had more expression than other people's faces – hung down over his eye. Anders reached up a hand – long fingers smutted a little with soot – and swept it back.
His Uncle Gamlen was there – but not to see him. Gamlen was looking shifty and furtive - more so than usual – and was just in the process of doing up his trousers.
Anders sighed. "Don't come running to me the next time you pick up one of these diseases."
Lambert grimaced. Bad enough the dirty old bastard spent the money Lambert earned. Bad enough he still saw fit to patronize the Blooming Rose himself. But a few nights ago he had actually tried to claim a staff discount because a member of his family worked there! Still, he had to talk to him now, because he didn't know how long he'd been unconscious and was worried about his mother.
Gamlen was not in a helpful mood. "Yes, should have thought of Leandra before you left her alone for a night and a day."
"I hope you made something up."
Gamlen simply hummed a tuneless rendition of "King Meghren's Mabari" and shuffled off. Bastard!
Anders was watching him with a wistful smile. Lambert gained his feet - feeling like a new man - and padded over.
"Thank you," he breathed softly, "How do you..."
"I don't know. Only that I have the feeling of being…partly somewhere else. When I'm in the Fade I can see more…see the fabric of light and dark, like flame and its shadow, see the patches where injury or pain wears away the light. I pour light in – like filling a cup – and it pushes the shadow away."
"It must be a wonderful thing to have," Lambert said softly, "Like many more eyes inside you."
Anders smiled and said nothing.
"Do you want some help?"
Lambert volunteered at the clinic whenever he could, and had learned as much from Anders as he had from Wynne during the war. He worked for Anders during the day – for nothing beyond a tired smile – and for Madame Lusine during the night, for as much money as he could safely skim off the manipulative cow. He didn't sleep much, and nor did he spend nearly as much time at home as his mother demanded. The two worked in companionable silence until the clinic emptied for the night. Anders sighed and shut the door, bolting it and turning to face him.
"I'm sorry I got a bit weighty on you earlier."
Carefully, Lambert said, "You care about the fate of other mages – I like you for that."
The clinic was sour, warm, and smelled of the dark viridity of herbs. The lantern's dying light glowered and smouldered like a sulky little demon. Ser-Pounce-A-Lot played in the shadows like a little ginger tiger. He pounced at their feet then tore off and frisked back and rolled over, clearly imagining himself an apex predator. Anders made them both a drink – boiled water and some herbs – and as he passed Lambert the cup their hands met. Pale light suffused his fingertips, blossoming out like ephemeral flowers. It felt...odd...rippling through Lambert's flesh with a sensation halfway between liquid and light. He shivered - disappointed when Anders drew his hand away. Anders' eyes were lambent pools, abstracted. He shook his head, a soft gloss of puzzlement on his face, as if trying to explain – to himself, as well as Lambert.
"Growing up in the Circle, everything is about order and rules and the Templars. They tell you day and night that magic is a sin – a mark on your soul of the Maker's hatred. The apprentices...we found ways to make that bearable. Karl and I – he was my first. We could forget that, out in the world, we were nothing but Templar slaves. But the Templars didn't care that Karl was someone's son – someone's lover. When the Kirkwall Circle asked for mages skilled in thaumaturgy, Knight Commander Greagoir was going to send him away. The Blight intervened, and suddenly - after treating us like dangerous criminals - the Templars needed us. They dragged every Harrowed mage who had survived Uldred to provide firepower at Ostagar. Karl was killed by darkspawn, like so many others."
Inchoate images seethed across Lambert's vision. During Irving and Greagoir's last, desperate stand he had been working with Wynne as a battlefield healer – using what little magic he possessed, plus Chantry medicine learned from Sister Leliana – trying to keep everyone alive. He had caught glimpses of the battle: the Blizzards and firestorms, the smoke and stone, black lightning as the darkspawn boiled around the defenders. Afterwards, the wounded had been separated into the treatable and the damned. Karl's face, empty of all expression, eyes like marbles staring up into a future no longer his to claim...
"At least he was burned like the ancient Alamari chieftains, not rendered down and tossed into Lake Calenhad. It's funny – mages have to die in war to be treated like people."
"I'm sorry." It was such an inane, inadequate response.
"Well," Anders brightened determinedly, "The Blight was the seed of my eighth and final escape. Arl Nathaniel Howe asked for two volunteers to help him break out through Lothering Forest. The assassin, Zevran, and myself." He snickered. "Knight Commander Rylock was furious! Well, the plan worked – we blew up some darkspawn and saved the army..."
Thank you...
"Then Arl Nathaniel headed back to Amaranthine. He brought me and Zevran with him, and we ended up in a place called the Blackmarsh. The Veil is very thin there..."
Anders wove a story that might have been a myth, a warning – except Lambert realised Anders had really been there. He, Nathaniel and Zevran had become trapped in the Fade by a Pride Demon who carried the memories of a long-ago Baroness. This Blood Mage had drunk the blood of the village children in order to stay young and beautiful forever. The villagers had eventually risen up and burned her alive in her castle. She had cast a spell that trapped them all, doomed to endlessly repeat their battle. The three men had joined them, while their bodies slumbered in the real world. Lambert thought of stories his father had told them: of travellers getting lost in the Fade, and waking to find centuries had passed. Of princesses cursed to sleep a hundred years until they were awoken by true love (Bethany had liked that one). Anders' words wove a tapestry of pale light, of eerie luminescence, of roiling silver rain. The Waters of the Fade were pure lyrium, and sometimes flowed into the minds of dreamers. In the rock, these seams of lyrium were like veins of lightning.
On the side of the villagers had been a noble knight: a Fade Spirit of Justice.
"I wanted to side with the Baroness," Anders admitted sheepishly, "She was a Blood Mage, but she was also a woman who had been burned alive in her own home. I felt loyalty to my own kind should trump everything else. But Nathaniel said we should join Justice, and Zevran agreed with him. Well... we fought, and Nathaniel found a way to reverse the spell: he's so smart he really should've been born a Tevinter magister...oh, sorry..."
Lambert waved away the apology. He wasn't going to let memories of Danarius spoil the story.
"... The four of us woke in the real world. Nathaniel, Zevran, me...and the Spirit of Justice. He was in a bad way. You see, most spirits can't survive in the real world. They need a living host to keep them from disintegrating. Justice was...just wisps when I found him...tearing himself apart. But he still refused to try and possess me. He said demons did that, and he was no demon. I couldn't let him die: he didn't deserve that. I offered to be his host – only temporarily, until we could find a way to return him to the Fade."
"Were you scared?"
"Petrified. I remember thinking: what if, you know, what if it's a mistake? I kept thinking: then there'll be nothing left of me. Just him. Then, if he turns on me, it'll be like I'm dead."
And, yet, Anders had done it anyway – to save a spirit from a horrible fate. Was he a fool or a saint? A monster or an angel?
"We became friends. You might say we didn't know each other that long, but time passes differently in the Fade - or in one's own head. By the time we returned to Vigil's Keep, he knew everything there is to know about me, including the dreams I had in my mother's womb."
Sitting beside Anders, on the edge of one of the pallets, trying to silence his noisy heartbeat, Lambert understood he was being told everything. With pride and pity, tenderness, torment and guilt, he found himself thinking how handsome Anders was...he lost the thread, and fought with himself, and caught the drift again to find something gone past recall. Bewildering treasures were being poured into his hands while his mind wandered to the blinding trifle of his own desire. Knowing this, he concentrated hard, was caught up and raised high: Anders could transmit imagination the way Lambert could transmit lust. He dared to glance towards Anders, who was staring out into the shifting play of light and shadows. His face told truths no likeness would ever catch. At a time like this when, Lambert thought, even the Maker could scarcely have kept His hands off him, he could only worship.
"Nathaniel talked to us. Justice asked him why anyone would ever agree to be a host, and Nathaniel said, "For life. For love. Perhaps the two of you could do what one alone could not. If you gave instead of taking, I would consider you no demon."
Ser-Pounce-A-Lot chased madly around the clinic, tearing round and round like a possessed creature. He would spring up at them with sudden pounces and spring suddenly away. His green eyes gleamed like jewels and his tail swayed like a plume.
"After that, Justice said to me I had shown him an injustice greater than any he had ever faced. The treatment of mages by the Chantry. He offered to work with me: bring Justice to every mage child torn from his mother - every apprentice made Tranquil – everyone murdered during Rites of Annulment. I accepted. I thought I was helping my friend. He would have...died, I guess, if that even means anything. And he wanted to help me. He knew what mages have suffered."
"What is it...like?"
"We are no longer two people. He's gone now. He's part of me. It's not like we can...have a conversation. I feel his thoughts as my own. Not even the greatest scholar could tell you where I end and he begins."
When Lambert realised how much he loved Anders it made Kirkwall's tunnels and caverns - the ferment of the mage rebellion, the city's amalgam of breath and lies, the secretive buildings and rushed-through spaces – seem frightening. At random moments he glimpsed Anders' profile, or a smudge of soot on his wrist, or heard his voice go low and soft with reminiscence – and he felt the pure, quietly breathing centre of his love like some small creature lost in an abandoned warehouse, dwarfed by planes and shadows. It filled him with dread.
"Justice is no demon. He is an ideal that men have striven to reach and never managed. If he disapproves of something, it is wrong. Just as demons prey on the deadly sins of mankind, there are good spirits who embody our virtues. Spirits of Compassion...Fortitude...Justice. They are the Maker's first children, and they have all but given up on us."
Despite Anders' hatred for the Chantry, it appeared he had imbibed their theological teachings: of good and evil spirits, of the cardinal virtues and the seven deadly sins. Malcolm Hawke had been subtler in his thinking:
"I think spirits and demons are just – forces – like sponges that absorb the virtues and vices of people. A Spirit of Justice is not an objective ideal of justice, but arises from the human yearning for it. What is justice to one person might be injustice to another – spirits are subjective manifestations."
Anders believed if Justice disapproved of something it was wrong by definition - but the spirit's concept of justice had come from Anders. The thing was circular, and reminded Lambert uncomfortably of a particularly fiery preacher he had tried to avoid in Lothering.
"Fade spirits don't have free will - they can only reflect what touches them. A Blood Mage will create a Pride Demon - a healer will create a Spirit of Compassion. These beings can help us, but they must always remain in the Fade. Because the moment a host says "yes" they have surrendered their free will – to a creature who has none. If we do that – surrender the power to say yes or no, even our ability to choose how we play the cards we are dealt – we lose everything. Then we are no longer the player – we are only the cards – and they fall randomly."
"Justice was far better for me than I have been for him. I guess I had... too much anger. Once he was inside me, he...changed. When I see Templars now - things that have always outraged me, but I could never do anything about – he comes out. And he is no longer my friend, Justice. He is a force of vengeance. And he has no grasp of mercy."
"Can Justice ever be separated from you?"
"I don't think so. The only way a spirit has ever been separated from a living host is by the host's death. The curse is of my own making. All I can do now is hope to control it."
Lambert's smile was raw with self-contempt. The benefit of his father's wisdom, and he had still been stupid enough to let a Blood Mage tie him up for ten sovereigns. Who was he to judge Anders' mistake? At least Anders had surrendered free will to help a being in need. Surely that ought to count for something?
Quietly, he said, "We can't always predict the outcome of our actions. We can only make them with a true heart."
Anders smiled playfully. "Kind, wise and beautiful. Are you sure you haven't made a deal with a demon yourself?"
Lambert swallowed heavily, unable to see beyond the amber eyes fixed on his: twin pools of trust and more-than-friendship.
He fought the urge to trust Anders as Anders had trusted him: to lay it all out in front of him - the Litany, the books he had found in Sanctuary, everything. The temptation to dive in to the lovely warm bath of sublimation and call it love was nearly irresistible. But that was a teenage fantasy. Cruel, even, to make Anders the arbiter of his and others' safety. Instead, he would have to love in a jigsaw of compromise and half-truth. He would have to keep the Litany secret – keep his powder dry, so-to-speak - so that if (when?) Anders lost control Lambert would be able to stop Justice. To let the safety of others depend on Anders' love and finding the right words to make him stop would be unconscionable. He was a man, now, and must never again surrender autonomy or responsibility.
On sudden impulse, Lambert grabbed the pouch full of jewels he had looted from Danarius' mansion and tossed the entire thing to Anders. Anders caught it cleanly, felt its weight, and his eyes went wide.
"For the clinic."
"I couldn't!"
"Ah, but I'll get the chance to loot the Deep Roads."
Anders burst out laughing, mingled horror and delight suffusing that beautiful grin. His moods were as brightly unpredictable as the iridescence of oil on water: never muddied with uncertainty, but as if they happened all at once.
Lambert took that image with him as he slipped outside, into the luminous dark. He thought of a song he had written back in Lothering, when he had dreamed of meeting "him." Lambert was attracted to both men and women, but he had always known he wanted a husband, not a wife.
...Where you go, I shall follow,
I'd rather die hard than live hollow...
He had torn it up at once, of course – afraid Carver would find it and take the piss. He knew it sounded at best sentimental and at worst simply pretentious. He also knew it was true. It resonated for him because it articulated love's terrifying promise: that it could expand to contain all imaginable grief.
Leaving Anders hurt like a knife to the gut, but he wanted to spend his last night in Kirkwall with family. He had raised the fifty sovereigns for the Deep Roads expedition and Carver had sent him a map of the Deep Roads. He was keeping it under wraps, of course - he didn't trust the dwarven brothers not to make off with both map and money and leave him behind. Bartrand was an oily salesman he wouldn't turn his back on. Varric was charming and fun – and all the more dangerous for that. Unlike his brother, he had taken Lambert seriously: believed his stories of serving Ferelden during the Fifth Blight and awakening Corypheus. It was what had prompted him to make Lambert an equal partner – provided he could find the money and map. Of course, they could betray him anyway – abandoning him in the Deep Roads would be worse than leaving him behind here – but he didn't have much of a choice. By now the Templars would have arrested Idunna. He had broken Madame Lusine's cardinal rule: what happens in the Blooming Rose stays in the Blooming Rose. In the unlikely event she let him keep working, his fellow courtesans would ensure his life was not worth living. Had he been alone, he would have journeyed north and tried to find Rillian – but leaving Leandra to the tender mercies of Gamlen was unthinkable.
Memories of Ostagar rose like ghosts. Worse was the one memory he dared not face: his sister's terrible death. Even now, whenever it tried to make a nest in his brain, he whispered "censored," and it was as if an iron curtain came down in his mind. He could remember her life – his laughing, kind, shy younger sister – and listen for hours when his mother needed to talk – but he could not remember her death. And the same creatures might be stalking the tunnels. Varric thinks the Deep Roads will be all but empty so soon after the Blight, but he's a surface dwarf, not a member of the Legion, so how would he know? Still, he found himself swept towards the expedition like flotsam on a rushing river. Madly – for no reason at all that he could see – Lambert found himself grinning. In danger from all sides, he should be terrified, but happiness was such an ephemeral thing, elusive... all he could do was grab hold of it like a lion and ride the danger to who knows where.
Lambert headed for his not-quite-home.
It's too late to turn back now.
AN: Darktown's details are from In Pursuit of Knowledge: The Travels of a Chantry Scholar, by Brother Genitivi.