Chapter Fourteen: Blood Writing
Pale rain shimmered through the long blue dusk, lit by the full Moon of Wintermarch. The day was Wintersend, which, during Rillian's childhood, had been a happy family holiday. Denerim's elves had gathered at Birdcage Walk on the Shambles to trade, laugh, and arrange marriages. The humans – from Minrathous to Ostwick to Orlais and Fereldan – celebrated differently: with tourneys, contests at the Proving Grounds, gatherings for theatre and Chantry services. Once, the day had been called "Urthalis" and dedicated to Urthemiel – the Old God of Beauty. Even further back, the Ancient Elves had used another name – one only Clan Lavellan remembered now.
Clan Lavellan had chosen to spend the winter at their hunting grounds in the Planasene Forest – west and south of the Vinmarks. Rillian and Merrill had been sent to gather fuel: a task that Keeper Deshanna insisted they were not too good for. Merrill being a mage and Rillian a Warden researcher had not changed Deshanna's opinion. She insisted they muck in alongside everyone else. Rillian had left Jowan in her laboratory and accepted with a sigh. As a teenager, she had thrilled to Pol's stories of the Dalish - the fierce elves who had never surrendered to the shems and who hunted both animals and men. But she had quickly discovered her yearning was theoretical. When actually made to slog through muck and scale rocks she hated it and wished she were back indoors, reading and dreaming. Nor had her skills with the bow improved: Shianni was still calling her Cloudkiller.
Yet: some racial memory did call from the ancient past. Once, her father had brought home a wooden crate which he had covered with moss and garnished with twigs and flowers so as to make a representation of Arlathan Forest. It was the first beauty she had ever known. As long as she lived her imagination of Arlathan would contain something of her father's toy garden. Rillian was a strict Andrastian but her feelings towards Arlathan contained elements her religion ought to have contained and did not. It contained no trace of belief and imposed no duties, yet she felt something very like adoration, a self-abandonment to something that claimed this simply by being what it was. The ruins of a palace lived within her dreams, and she felt keenly the difference between its stony and fiery sublimity and the green, leafy and elusive forests of the Dalish. These had grown to cover the ruins, but they remained.
During her time with Clan Lavellan Rillian had learned the names of the Dalish gods and goddesses. She felt drawn to Mythal, who had been born from the sea and was the goddess of motherhood and justice, but she knew she had no right. Andraste and Mythal had both been mothers, and thanks to the taint it was the one thing she would never do, never have. And, of course, Clan Lavellan warned her about the Dread Wolf. Rillian smiled crookedly, remembering a play she had written as a teenager. Her version of Fen'Harel had not been merely malicious. He was against the Elven gods because they forced mortals to worship them. The main contrast in her play was between the sad wisdom of Fen'Harel and the brutal orthodoxy of Elgar'nan. Elgar'nan was always complaining Fen'Harel did not sufficiently respect him, to which Fen'Harel replied "I pay respect to wisdom not to strength". Looking back, she could see that Fen'Harel had been a representation of herself and Elgar'nan a representation of their shem overlords. She had shown the play to Shianni who had warned her darkly against falling for the wrong man.
Suddenly, Rillian and Merrill heard a noise in the distance. The two women stopped to listen, chilled by the night wind. Overheard the stars were starting to come out. They heard the wind in the spruce trees and the river under the ice. And then, far away towards the southern coastline, where a pale-yellow light was the water reflecting the moon, they heard the voice again. A large, menacing animal. Rillian and Merrill tried to walk slowly, watching the thickets carefully and looking closely for tracks. These were not easy to find on bare, frozen earth and crusty snow.
Soon, the forest was silent. No birds called. No breeze stirred the stark branches. Rillian and Merril made their way to the ground seep where water oozed to the surface; not strong enough to create an actual spring, but sufficient to make mud. The big cat's prints were huge. Rillian's skin crawled. The women whispered the danger's name in chorus while Ravenous crowded close to Rillian, Hackles up, the mabari growled into the deep-shadowed forest. Beyond the wet ground, perhaps thirty feet away, was a rock formation. Recalling Cale's lessons on how to read tracks – Shianni had picked these up far quicker – Rillian read how their stalker tested the footing, then leapt to the rocks. It was as if the creature had deliberately walked through the mud, to be sure its presence was noted, then shown off its strength by leaping to the rocks.
Merrill moved forward, spear-staff in hand. Wild, wide eyes searched the lowering dark. She hurried round the corner of the rock formation and froze at the sight of the crouched, snarling thing facing her and Rillian.
The tigress raised her striped-mask face to test the scent of the prey. She snarled in silent grimace, then twitched her tail. Her head was extended, low to the ground. Bent legs tucked in tight to the body. They pistoned slowly, almost delicately. Then the tigress lurched forward perhaps a third of her body length, and Ravenous' attacking growl rose to a scream of rage.
Ravenous bolted at the airborne tigress. The impetus knocked the predator off-course. Merrill fired a bolt of lightning from her staff as Ravenous fastened his teeth in the tigress' throat. Rillian saw the fixed, slitted eyes and red, wet maw as a series of stills, burned into her mind.
A paw swatted Merril flat. Her staff went spinning. The tigress shook off Ravenous and soared into a fluidly beautiful leap. Merril screamed.
Rillian stepped in front of Merrill, grabbed the fallen staff and jabbed its crystal into the muddy earth, while the metal point waited for the approaching fury.
The world exploded into a tornado of weight, screams, roars.
When Rillian woke, she was looking past a watchful, recumbent Ravenous to see Deshanna. The elderly Keeper said, "No blood carriers were severed. Everything's sewn. You'll heal well. Rest."
Merrill stood beside her. A livid bruise covered the right side of her face and her right shoulder was bandaged. She said, "The staff. You saved my life."
Rillian said, "It was dying when it leapt. Your lightning bolt hit it."
"You didn't know that. You finished it. Saved me. When we – the Dalish – kill our first predator, we gain the blood-writing. We become adults. You are already an adult, of course – but you have earned the right to the Vallaslin now."
Startled, Rillian glanced at Deshanna. Deshanna nodded slowly and said,
"We are performing the ceremony for three of our young men who became adults during the journey from Ferelden. It will be tonight – the Moon of Waking is sacred to the Dalish – so you will not have long to prepare. But you have earned the right, and must think about who you wish to guide you. I have taught you something of our gods."
Rillian went silent. The pattern Shianni had chosen – the winged vines – was deeply precious to her. It represented their family, their community, their Vhenadahl. Nelaros had carved the pattern into his engagement ring, which she would keep forever. Their wedding ring she had only possessed during her Fade dream at the Broken Circle. When Rylock had woken her, it had vanished like smoke. One day...
Yet, Rillian's dreams had changed since the days of her girlhood. After Urthemiel – after casting the Litany to hold the dragon - her dreams were of a new order. No narrative, no familiar faces, just forces – as if giant colours and musical notes drenched or tore her. A colossal wave at her back – a wall of sickening oil a mile high – advanced towards her. Its shadow crept towards the silver ocean of lyrium in front. She always turned and faced it, though she knew it must annihilate her when it crashed. But it never crashed at all. It engulfed her and forced her to bear its weight.
The taint, she thought now, came from the Void, while the ocean of lyrium came from the Golden City. Her Andrastian beliefs and the Dalish teachings were not so different. Andraste was a mother who had brought justice to the slaves ruled by the Tevinter Imperium. Mythal, goddess of motherhood and justice, had come from the ocean. Rillian could see it in her mind – the silver song of liquid starlight, cascading from the Waters of the Fade into veins of lyrium that flowed through the mountains at the Temple of Sacred Ashes. Veins of lyrium like silver streams – or the branches of a tree.
"I know who guides me," she told Deshanna softly, "And I am ready."
That night the full Moon of Wintermarch – the Dalish Moon of Waking – glowed huge and pink. It lit the sky like flames. The Dalish meandered to a small meadow surrounded by birches, where short thick grass and berry bushes formed a campsite. Halla used this place for grazing.
Rillian stopped at the lodge given to her and her Wardens, where she had set up her laboratory. The lodge was big, with two smoke-holes instead of one. The walls were braced with the leg-bones of wolves, which in turn were braced with boulders and wound with spruce branches tied with strips of hide. Because they shrank when wet the wind didn't move the lodge and rain didn't make it leak. Instead, the water drew it tight. The lodge was so strong that people, or any amount of snow, could stand on it without breaking it, and so thick the weather came in only through the smoke-holes. Inside, she had arranged pine tables in an L-shape and The Luggage in one corner. All her equipment – glass beakers, petri dishes containing samples, glass pipettes traded by Godwin at Kinloch Hold, vials of blood inherited from Avernus and the microscope the Architect had based on Remille's design – was laid out carefully. She was only just learning the properties of the herbs she had been given by Deshanna. Elfroot, embrium and red blossom were commonplace but there were others. She had explained she was not looking for prophylactics but for bactericides. Tulsi, fenugreek, pyrethrum, symphytum – she had no idea whether the darkspawn taint could be affected by herbs that worked on more ordinary blights, but it seemed a good place to start. She relied on Bodahn for more exotic herbs: papaya leaves from Seheron and penicillium from The Frostback Basin. She had planted seeds of the white blossom with the deep red centre found in the Korcari Wilds, which had healed Ravenous. It had not worked on people - Wynne and Ines had tried at Ostagar - but she had hope she could refine nature. Rillian sighed mournfully, thinking how pitifully small – how primitive - was this makeshift lab compared with the lab she had seen in the Architect's memory. Kul Baras - buried below Lake Calenhad - had been an underground lair that rivalled anything at Kinloch Hold.
Jowan was hunched in one corner reading a spellbook he had stolen from the Circle of Magi. Even now, researching forbidden things, she had to squash her instinctive flinch. Ser Otto was there, she reminded herself, and would make sure neither she nor Jowan did anything foolish. Ser Otto was wearing rough-hewn trousers and tunic. Though blind, he followed her movements unerringly. She sat down beside him.
"I am going to take part in tonight's ceremony. To gain my Vallaslin. I will always be Andrastian but...Deshanna won't teach a non-Dalish and...it doesn't mean I will be worshipping Mythal. It's just a ceremony to mark adulthood." She snorted. "I'm embarrassed to admit I'm nervous. Of the pain. Isn't that stupid? I've fought an Archdemon – I was willing to make the Ultimate Sacrifice – and now I'm scared of a few needles."
The blind eyes stared at the floor for a few moments. The burned skin glowed in the candlelight. A jaw peppered with coagulated blood from a dull razor. The waxy scalp frowned in either thoughtfulness or pain. Exhaustion stretched behind him in a wave. His argument with the Maker continued, Rillian saw. She wondered whether he would ever be able to justify what Mother Boann had suffered below Ishal. As if he read her mind, he looked up – for her sake, not his – and said,
"I used to think pain was the Maker's way of teaching us this world is not our home. After Ishal that strikes me as..." He stopped himself, squared his shoulders. It was obvious from the sudden shift in his posture he thought he had indulged himself undeservedly. Ashamed of himself. "I still think that, since both your Vallaslin and my lyrium withdrawal are going to hurt, the least we can do is suffer well. After Ishal, I know suffering is pointless and does no-one any good, but - as adults we have our pride."
"Do you have to stop taking lyrium? I can still make deals with the Carta, even when we go North. And – I've heard the Tethras brothers do a nice sideline in lyrium. I heard from Garn Brosca they supply half the Templars in Kirkwall...oh, sorry." She looked down and scuffled her feet. The problem with childhood friends is they make you forget you're an adult...
Ser Otto waved away her apology. "As you and Jowan might need someone with Templar powers, I had decided to continue. But it wouldn't go away, the thought that I should stop. I asked the Maker."
"And He told you to stop taking lyrium?"
Ser Otto smiled slowly – in pain, not amusement. "No," he said, "The Maker is silent. I have had no sense of His presence – of His existence – since you gave Boann the sword of mercy. So I made the decision without Him. What else is one to do?"
Rillian and Shianni walked together to the area set aside for the festivities. They stopped first by the firepits, where hunters turned whole animals on spits. Others slathered them with sauce. The dripping grease sizzled and spat on the fiery logs, filling the air with the tang of pork as well as the aromas of onions, peppers and so many herbs Rillian gave up her attempt to identify them. Prepared fish of every description filled dozens of wooden platters. Soups steamed in cauldrons. It was too early in the year for fresh vegetables but cooked-apple dishes glimmered further enticement.
By the firepits were young men – including Cale Mahariel, Shianni's husband. He wore the distinctive leathers of his own clan – as if to make clear he was journeying with Clan Lavellan but they were not his people.
The first piece by the impromptu orchestra started slowly. Even before hearing Shianni whisper the words of the song Rillian knew it was about the wanderings of the Dalish after the fall of Halamshiral. Stringed instruments and bone flutes gave the opening a soft, haunted quality. The singing started quietly, melding with the instruments, then pulled them to greater tempo. Men and women harmonized in chords that carried them from loss and weariness to fierce pride. Immediately after that, the drums leapt to a driving, demanding beat. They, too, had individual tones the drummers wove into a tapestry.
Shianni shook out her hair and began to dance. Rillian only gaped – feeling, as always, tall and gawky as a daddy-longlegs beside her cousin. But then Shianni pulled her forward and Rillian followed her, copying Shianni as best she could. They were joined by Merrill. The absence of loneliness softened Merrill's features and her joyful smile made them glow. Her hair rippled back and forth in undulating swells like a midnight sea. Other women joined them, even Deshanna. Shortly afterward what had seemed impossibly intricate was now simple and flowing, and Rillian let the rhythm claim her. Her last conscious emotion was a sort of giddy surprise at finding herself completely immersed in fellowship.
Keeper Deshanna Istimaethoriel Lavellan took Rillian's arm and drew her towards the fire. She joined the three young men who would become adults today. Suddenly there was no sound but the fire, and Rillian felt all eyes on her. She understood what Ser Otto had said about pride. She was not going to show fear or pain and have everyone agree City Elves – flat-ears – were soft. Almost gladly, she let Deshanna begin to trace the Vallaslin.
To make the Vallaslin, the leaves of the Woad plant had been harvested and dried, then mixed with water to create a thick, sticky paste. Deshanna followed the markings of Mythal as she used needles to put the blue stain under her skin. By the time she was making the third marking the first stung badly, and Rillian felt tears coming. She blinked them back and tried to think of something other than the pain. Her face pulsed with blood and the rhythm of her heart filled the universe.
"You are Rillian Tabris Lavellan: my granddaughter and my pupil."
Deshanna's eyes were silver-grey, her pupils black holes. They drew her in until it seemed she must flow, like light, towards their centre. Rillian saw a lyrium statue drowned in the Void and knew it was the seed of the curse. The tainted lyrium shone and swelled with unholy red light. Yet the malevolent red glow was also brilliant. The curse could reveal the secrets of the gods.
It was her fate to know them all.